Mikhail Gorbachev, Ted Turner, Henry Kissinger Assemble to Mark Disc Release of ‘Cold War’

NEW YORK — It was hard to imagine, watching Mikhail Gorbachev and Henry Kissinger arrive at the Paley Center for Media in New York April 29, that the two grandfatherly old men were once at the very epicenter of Cold War politics. Gorbachev, once head of the notorious KGB and the USSR’s final president, and Kissinger, Nixon’s Secretary of State, often credited with and blamed for U.S. involvement in Vietnam, were at the Center to support the May 8 Warner Home Video DVD release of Cold War ($68.92).

The series, which was produced by and broadcast on CNN in 1998, was the brainchild of Ted Turner. According to Sir Jeremy Isaacs, the series’ executive producer, Turner’s motivation was his concern that history would not do justice to what he saw as a seminal period of history during which the USSR and the United States both developed the ability to end life on earth.

“Ted Turner said to me, ‘our grandchildren will not understand what the Cold War was. It will be a paragraph in a history book,’” Isaacs recalled.

According to Isaacs, who also produced The World at War, another epic documentary series that exhaustively chronicles a specific period of history, the original plan for the series was that it would be 40 episodes long, one for each year of the era. The running time was eventually halved, but Turner ultimately added four additional episodes. According to Pat Mitchell, who served as co-executive producer of the series and is now CEO of the Paley Center, a museum of broadcast media, it is already used extensively at universities and libraries as a teaching tool and is one of the most requested titles by visitors to the Paley Center.

Gorbachev, who presided over the dismantling of the Soviet Union and who was interviewed at length and figures prominently in the series’ last four episodes, said through a translator that although he occasionally had questions about the filmmakers’ perspective, he was impressed with the program’s comprehensiveness, overall.

“To some extent, one viewpoint seems to prevail,” he said. “But the series is very informative. It draws a line under all those conflicts that brought us several times to the edge of the destruction of civilization.”

Both Turner and Isaacs said that the DVD release of the documentary, which is narrated by Kenneth Branagh, is a case of a film that was waiting for a format. Isaacs noted that to prepare to answer questions about the series, he recently watched it from beginning to end and was struck by its depth.

“Some of the episodes are so packed with information that you have to concentrate to really understand,” he said.

The ability of disc viewers to maneuver through the series at their own pace makes the experience of watching much more rewarding, he said.

“I’m proud to have come up with the idea for the series and proud that it was executed so well,” Turner said. “Of all the documentaries that I have produced, I am proudest of this one.”

Warner Home Video plans to market Cold War to universities and museums. But, according to Rosemary Markson, SVP of TV and special interest marketing at Warner Home Video, the company also will be reaching out to mass-market outlets.

To paraphrase one of your previous opening lines,

"Put on your thinking cap"

a.) The Soviet Union, which was the initiator of the Cold War after the end of World War II, COLLAPSED in 1991 after President Ronald Reagan directed that America's strategy would be to prevail in that conflict, not to accept Soviet control and influence over a great portion of the planet.

b.) All of Eastern Europe, plus the Baltic States, became FREE as Soviet control over their spheres of influence fell apart. Germany was reunited for one, even as you sneer at the Berlin Wall coming down. (Of course in your demented world, that was all part of a 'conspiracy'.)

c.) It was not the United States that was fragmented into individual nations after 1991, it was the now defunct Soviet Union.

What you have been vainly attempting to do is to suggest that due to far left-liberal (and yes, Communist) influence, that our governments (both state and federal) are all falling sway to a vast Communist conspiracy. There are no doubt Communists that would like to see that happen, but you give way too much credit to them, and not enough to the vast majority of Americans that are not about to be (literally) steamrollered as were those in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union (our adversary in the Cold War), America has held FIVE national elections, FIVE times we have gone to the polls to make our voices and our choices known. You however take the position that none of that matters, that America "lost" the Cold War, all because a bunch of bozos like Gorbachev, Turner and Kissinger are releasing a DVD about the subject.

I will be the first to agree that there is needed a top-to-bottom housecleaning of our federal (and many of our state) governments, institutional corruption and BOTH Democrat and Republican officials need to have their feet held to the fire and made to account for their actions, and for what has transpired under their watch, and that IS happening, We The People have not all been transformed into mindless sheep nor have we been seduced by Soviet propaganda into believing that one of our finest moments as a Nation, provoking and triggering the collapse of the largest Communist monolith on the planet, was all a facade.

YOU, by your insistent trumpeting of such a lie, do your ex-Soviet masters well.

Did you spend your formative years behind the Iron Curtain? I am attempting to understand your perspective. Conspiracy theories and political paranoia are characteristics of people who have suffered under totalitarianism.

I agree with your general assessment of the ascendancy of socialist thought in the the U.S. and around the world. Unlike you, however, I believe that this trend is in spite of the collapse of the Soviet Union, not because of it.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.