War and Television

Cumings ( The Origins of the Korean War ) gets a good deal off his chest in this long-winded, rambling meditation on what he sees as television's distorted reporting of America's last three major wars. His text is heavy with ad hominem attacks that seem irrelevant to his theme: P. J. O'Rourke is guilty of ``stinking racism''; Patrick Buchanan and Accuracy in Media's Reed Irvine are ``schoolyard bullies with brains to match''; and Ronald Reagan is, predictably, ``an empty man.'' The author even finds time to ridicule the easy (not to mention passe) target of Deborah Norville. Cumings, a professor of Asian and international history at the University of Chicago, served as a consultant for the Thames Television/PBS series Korea: The Unknown War , and here he complains at tedious length that the producers didn't follow his expert advice. The only chapter worth reading is an account of Cumings's trip to North Korea to interview citizens about the 1950-53 war, of particular interest for his tolerant view of that brutally repressive state. Illustrations. (July)