Redford well worth the interview

Press, 15 September 1976, Page 19

Redford well worth the interview

R

A. K. GRANT

Ihe interview ot Robert R'dford by Melvyn Bragg, shown on TV] on Monday night, was good, interesting television. Its subject was Redford's excellent film. "Al! the President's Men." to be shown soon m Christchurch. Redford showed himself t be more than just a pretty face; he presented himself in the interview a- pleasant, intelligent and w th clear ideas about wha’ he wants to do. It was interesting to rain that he made his f rst approaches to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. the two "Washingion Post" reporters who are the subjects of the ft m. at the nadir of their fortunes. just after Nixon’s re-election, when they were depressed and frightened. and most people thought they and the "Washington Post” were wrong. It was some way into 1973 before they were vindicated by Ron Ziegler's famous announcement that the White House's previous abuse of the “Washington Post” was now' “inoperative.” Th:* is not the place to

expand on the film, except to urge anybody in the least bit interested in the preservation of political democracy to go to see it. One portion of the Redford interview’ assumes particularly fascinating and alarming proportions. Redford recounted how shortly after the Watergate break-in he was talking to a group of senior political journalists who cynically assured him that although the break-in was tied to Nixon that fact was unlikely ever to be made public. And it probably never would have been without the initial impetus provided by the perseverance of two junior reporters. It was that aspect of the matter that attracted Redford to the idea of a film about Woodward and Bernstein long before Nixon’s downfall was assured, and he is entitled to congratulate himself on his own nose for a good story. Investigative journalism was also featured on TV}’ on Monday night, with a report on the channel's "World in Utter Chaos and Turmoil” series, on allegations that the Russian Embassy had managed to

plant a KGB operative on the committee of a Wellington primary school P.T.A. Suspicions that the new committee member might be a Russian were first aroused, according to Mrs Beverley Dumpbody, who was interviewed on the programme, when he began bringing along a samovar to meetings, rather than the more usual thermos, and took to playing a balalaika during the reading of the minutes of the previous meeting. “The fact that his name was Pushkin Lenin Tchaikovsky also made us a bit suspicious,” said Mrs Dumpybody. Later in the programme Tchaikovsky was interviewed by David Axle, the channel's crack interviewer in one of the most hard-hitting pieces of television journalism seen in this country. Axle began by fetching Tchaikovsky a fearful clout around the side of the head, followed by a haymaker to the stomach, followed by a lightning knee in the groin. Tchaikovsky' is now in Wellington Hospital, where his condition is said to be surly.