“Burning with a Deadly Heat”: NewsHour Coverage of the Hot Wars of the Cold War

¹ John J. O’Connor, “TV: The ‘MacNeil Report,’ a Sharp Point of View,” New York Times, November 11, 1975, 63.

² Robert MacNeil, The Right Place at the Right Time (Boston: Little, Brown, 1982), 287-89, 297-300; Jim Lehrer, A Bus of My Own (New York: G. Putnam’s Sons, 1992), 120-26, 131-33; “MacNeil Lehrer Report,” Cleveland Call and Post, January 3, 1976, 5A.

³ Marilynn Preston, “‘MacNeil/Lehrer’ Beats Networks to News,” Chicago Tribune, September 4, 1983, J5.

⁴ John Corry, “TV: ‘MacNeil/Lehrer’ in One-Hour Format,” New York Times, September 12, 1983, C22.

⁵ William Hoynes, Public Television for Sale: Media, the Market, and the Public Sphere (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994), 69; PBS NewsHour, Awards, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/awards.

⁶ John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of American National Security Policy during the Cold War, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 40.

⁷ “President Harry S. Truman’s Address Before a Joint Session of Congress,” The Avalon Project of Yale Law School. March 12, 1947, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/trudoc.asp.

⁸ John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War: A New History (New York: Penguin Press, 2005), 78.

⁹ Keith Nelson, The Making of Détente: Soviet-American Relations in the Shadow of Vietnam (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019), 90.

¹⁰ Nelson, Making of Détente, 92.

¹¹ Nelson, Making of Détente, 150

¹² Gaddis, The Cold War, 231.

¹³ Hal Brands, Latin America’s Cold War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012), 22.

¹⁴ Susan Mills, interview with Alyssa Knapp, Kate Mitchell, and Alan Gevinson (American Archive of Public Broadcasting), July 15, 2021.

¹⁵ Gaddis, The Cold War, 144.

¹⁶ Manuel Ennes Ferreira, “Angola: Conflict and Development, 1962-2002,” The Economics of Peace and Security Journal 1, no. 1 (January 2006), http://dx.doi.org/10.15355/epsj.1.1.25.

¹⁷ David Birmingham, A Short History of Modern Angola (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 68.

¹⁸ Michael G. Comerford, The Peaceful Face of Angola: Biography of a Peace Process (1991-2002) (Luanda, Angola: M. G. Comerford, 2005), 3, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/005223733.

¹⁹ “Angola,” The Robert MacNeil Report, WNET/13, December 19, 1975, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-507-vh5cc0w75k.

²⁰ Birmingham, Short History of Modern Angola, 70.

²¹ “Angola,” The Robert MacNeil Report.

²² Ferreira, “Angola.”

²³ “Angola,” The Robert MacNeil Report.

²⁴ “Angola: Should the U.S. Help?” MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, WNET/WETA & MacNeil/Lehrer Gannett Productions, January 30, 1986, https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip_507-wd3pv6c30t.

²⁵ Comerford, Peaceful Face of Angola, 5.

²⁶ Comerford, Peaceful Face of Angola, 5.

²⁷ Cold War: Good Guys, Bad Guys: 1967-1978, CNN, 1999.

²⁸ “Interview with Jeane Kirkpatrick,” The MacNeil/Lehrer Report, WNET & WETA, April 21, 1981, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-507-h41jh3dv78.

²⁹ Cold War: Good Guys, Bad Guys.

³⁰ “Namibia,” The MacNeil/Lehrer Report, WNET and WETA, April 14, 1978, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-507-pk06w97264.

³¹ Cold War: Good Guys, Bad Guys.

³² Comerford, Peaceful Face of Angola, 7.

³³ Comerford, Peaceful Face of Angola, 7.

³⁴ “Peace Agreement,” The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, WNET/WETA & MacNeil/Lehrer Productions, December 22, 1988, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-507-7940r9ms27.

³⁵ Birmingham, Short History of Modern Angola, 114, 122.

³⁶ Manuel Orozco, International Norms and Mobilization of Democracy: Nicaragua in the World (Aldershot, Hants, England; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2002), 3.

³⁷ Emily S. Rosenberg, Financial Missionaries to the World: The Politics and Culture of Dollar Diplomacy, 1900-1930 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003), 5.

³⁸ Encyclopedia Britannica Online, “Dollar Diplomacy," accessed July 22, 2021, https://www.britannica.com/event/Dollar-Diplomacy.

³⁹ “The Unrest in Nicaragua,” The MacNeil/Lehrer Report, WNET and WETA, February 10, 1978, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-507-pz51g0jr9d.

⁴⁰ Brands, Latin America’s Cold War, 29.

⁴¹ “The Unrest in Nicaragua,” The MacNeil/Lehrer Report.

⁴² “Nicaragua,” The MacNeil/Lehrer Report, WNET and WETA, August 28, 1978, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-507-t14th8cg1p.

⁴³ “Nicaragua,” The MacNeil/Lehrer Report, WNET and WETA, February 6, 1979, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-507-db7vm43k0m.

⁴⁴ Cold War: Backyard: 1954-1990, CNN, 1999.

⁴⁵ “Understanding the Iran-Contra Affairs,” Brown University, accessed July 9, 2021, https://www.brown.edu/Research/Understanding_the_Iran_Contra_Affair/n-contrasus.php. Many of those convicted either had their convictions overturned on technicalities or were pardoned by George H. W. Bush in the final days of his presidency.

⁴⁶ “News Maker,” The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, WNET/WETA & MacNeil/Lehrer Productions, February 28, 1990, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-507-zk55d8pd1h.

⁴⁷ “Daniel Ortega Tears Up All Pretence of Democracy in Nicaragua,” Economist, June 26, 2021, https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2021/06/26/daniel-ortega-tears-up-all-pretence-of-democracy-in-nicaragua.

⁴⁸ Thomas P. Anderson, Matanza: El Salvador’s Communist Revolt of 1932 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1971), 4, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000205762.

⁴⁹ José Angel Moroni Bracamonte and David E. Spencer, Strategy and Tactics of the Salvadoran FMLN Guerrillas: Last Battle of the Cold War, Blueprint for Future Conflicts (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1995), 3, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/002987459.

⁵⁰ “El Salvador Profile – Timeline,” BBC News, May 16, 2018, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-19402222.

⁵¹ Cold War: Backyard: 1954-1990, CNN, 1999.

⁵² Brands, Latin America’s Cold War, 191.

⁵³ El Salvador, Cover Up?” The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, May 24, 1984, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-507-hm52f7kh4q.

⁵⁴ Cold War: Backyard.

⁵⁵ Brands, Latin America’s Cold War, 191, 194.

⁵⁶ Cold War: Backyard.

⁵⁷ “El Salvador & the Soviets,” The MacNeil/Lehrer Report, WNET & WETA, February 25, 1981, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-507-hh6c24rg3z.

⁵⁸ Brands, Latin America’s Cold War, 201.

⁵⁹ “El Salvador & the Soviets,” The MacNeil/Lehrer Report.

⁶⁰ Brands, Latin America’s Cold War, 203.

⁶¹ “Post-El Salvador Elections,” The MacNeil/Lehrer Report, WNET & WETA, March 29, 1982, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-507-m03xs5k85h.

⁶² Eric Pace, “Jose Napoleon Duarte, Salvadoran Leader in Decade of War and Anguish, Dies at 64,” The New York Times, February 24, 1990, https://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/24/obituaries/jose-napoleon-duarte-salvadoran-leader-in-decade-of-war-and-anguish-dies-at-64.html.

⁶³ “Latin Command: Training Their Soldiers,” The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, January 8, 1986, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-507-vx05x2685p.

⁶⁴ Cold War: Backyard.

⁶⁵ “El Salvador Certification,” The MacNeil/Lehrer Report, WNET & WETA, February 2, 1982, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-507-086348h170.

⁶⁶ “El Salvador Certification III,” The MacNeil/Lehrer Report, WNET & WETA, January 21, 1983, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-507-bg2h708p5s.

⁶⁷ Brands, Latin America’s Cold War, 218.

⁶⁸ Elisabeth Wood, Insurgent Collective Action and Civil War in El Salvador (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 8.

⁶⁹ Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, Pub. L. No. 104-208, 110 Stat. 3009-546 (1996), https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-104publ208/pdf/PLAW-104publ208.pdf.

⁷⁰ Joseph J. Collins, Understanding War in Afghanistan (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 2011), 18-20, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/010591387.

⁷¹ Collins, Understanding War in Afghanistan, 19.

⁷² Collins, Understanding War in Afghanistan, 25.

⁷³ Cold War: Soldiers of God: 1975-1988, CNN, 1999.

⁷⁴ Cold War: Soldiers of God.

⁷⁵ Collins, Understanding War in Afghanistan, 26-28.

⁷⁶ “Afghanistan: War Continues,” The MacNeil/Lehrer Report.

⁷⁷ “Afghanistan: U.N./U.S.S.R. Impact,” The MacNeil/Lehrer Report, WNET and WETA, January 2, 1980, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-507-ht2g737s7b.

⁷⁸ “Afghanistan: U.N./U.S.S.R. Impact,” The MacNeil/Lehrer Report.

⁷⁹ Cold War: Soldiers of God.

⁸⁰ Collins, Understanding War in Afghanistan, 30.

⁸¹ “U.S. and Afghan Rebels,” The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, WNET/WETA and MacNeil-Lehrer – Gannett Productions, November 17, 1983, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-507-dv1cj8891w.

⁸² “Mass Atrocity Endings: Afghanistan: Soviet Invasion and Civil War,” World Peace Foundation, The Fletcher School, Tufts University, August 7, 2015, https://sites.tufts.edu/atrocityendings/2015/08/07/afghanistan-soviet-invasion-civil-war/.

⁸³ “U.S. and Afghan Rebels.” The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour.

⁸⁴ Collins, Understanding War in Afghanistan, 32.

⁸⁵ “Al-Qaeda’s Origins and Links,” BBC News, July 20, 2004, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1670089.stm.

⁸⁶ “Bergen: Bin Laden, CIA Links Hogwash,” CNN.com, September 6, 2006, http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/08/15/bergen.answers/index.html.

⁸⁷ “Profile: Gulbuddin Hekmatyar,” BBC News, March 23, 2010, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2701547.stm.

⁸⁸ “Mass Atrocity Endings: Afghanistan,” World Peace Foundation.