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Show Kennedy The Day After' raise real dilemmas Remembrance and horrow will be the special attractions on television this weekend. NBC will feature "Kennedy," a mini-series on John F. Kennedy timed for the 20th anniversary of his assassination in Dallas. Meanwhile, the ABC network plans to show "The Day After," a depiction of the effects of a nuclear explosion on an American city. (With the usual perversity of TV scheduling, the two ' programs have been slated opposite each other next Sunday Sun-day night. This, after all, is the November "sweeps" period when rating samples are taken.) ' "The Day After" is described as a chilling, graphic story about a nuclear explosion over wrence, Kansas. The program has taken on the proportions of a national . event or a national argument, if you will. Right-wing groups are highly suspicious of the film, coinciding coin-ciding as it does with placement of nuclear Cruise missiles in Europe. The frightening nature of the film, they contend, is overkill designed to prod Americans into looking at the nuclear problem with an attitudqof blind fear. The intent is to make them receptive to demagogic anti-nuke appeals. In addition, they claim, the film's story is subtley slanted to paint the U.S. as the bad guy who starts nuclear war. Disarmament groups disagree, as they prepare protests and seminars in conjunction with the movie. The horror is needed, they say, because the generations who have grown up with the atom bomb have become anesthetized to the nuclear threat. The issue must be reclaimed, they insist, from politicians who are preoccupied with abstract charts, calculations of throw-weight and warheads, and armchair speculations about the survivability of nuclear combat. Every sane person fears nuclear war, but "The Day After" Af-ter" presents each individual with an interesting question. Will our fear be an instrument to help us think or an excuse ex-cuse not to think? "Kennedy" is more like standard fare a mammoth, star-filled docu-drama. But the show, regardless of quality, stirs up haunting memories. Many people remember Kennedy's death 20 years ago as an End of Innocence. Until then, assassination was something some-thing only practiced by 19th-century anarchists. After that day in Dallas, it was back in vogue. Now any boy born in a log cabin can grow up to be shot by a fanatic. Kennedy himself gets mixed marks. Even his admirers would consider some of his policies (Vietnam) as too hawkish. But we've been scrambling for 20 years to recapture recap-ture the Idea of Kennedy the optimistic, firm commitment to principle. So why all this muttering in our beer about old ideals and fears of the future? It becomes relevant because we are on the eve of the 1984 presidential race. As the hoopla begins, some of us will plunge into campaign cam-paign activity. Others will try to research and understand the issues. People will argue in bars about the elections with half-informed zeal. (This will include those infuriating people who are ignorant of the facts but on target morally.) Other citizens will vote their instincts, for the candidate who projects honesty and a compassion for his constituents. And finally, some will sink into apathy, comforted by the Simon and Garfunkel line from "Mrs. Robinson": 'When it's time to choose, any way you look at it, you lose." Whatever position you adopt, now is a good time to ask, Are you comfortable and confident about it? Is this the way you want to feel about the questions of peace, injustice, maybe even survival in a nuclear world? TV viewers may choose not to watch "The Day After" or "Kennedy". But in real life, you can't escape problems by changing the channel. RB |