NETWORKS PUSHING A WATERGATE MESSAGE

Reflex actions speak louder than words.

TV news has weighed its language recently, carefully separating the present Iran arms mess from the 1973-74 Watergate scandal that toppled President Richard Nixon and sent some of his aides to jail. Few cheap shots, glib comparisons or easy labels.

But the cameras are their own message.

That message was Watergate when knee-jerking ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS, and cable’s CNN and C-SPAN, all opted for live coverage of Monday’s testimony by Secretary of State George P. Shultz and former National Security Adviser Robert C. McFarlane before the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Nearly every one showed up but Geraldo Rivera and MTV.

And only C-SPAN dropped out Tuesday when the committee heard--briefly--from recently resigned National Security Adviser John M. Poindexter and another key figure in the controversial Iran arms deal, the much-medaled Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, formerly on the National Security Council staff.

One or two live cameras at these hearings are a valuable civics lesson and public service. Five or six--bolstered by the lofty presence of those major eventers Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings--become a misleading symbol. They conveyed something epic, as if the fate of the President and nation were at stake a la those famous televised Watergate hearings.

Ultimately, they may be. But not this week, not in front of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. It is not investigative and is only one of many bodies that will be examining the diversion of Iran arms sales money to anti-Sandinista forces in Nicaragua.

This was merely the first nibble, and TV should have known it.

Americans who turned on their sets Monday and Tuesday and found their favorite programs preempted must have expected something cataclysmic to unfold. You could sense the Godzilla-like specter of Watergate.

Yet Monday produced nothing--that includes Shultz’s disclosure that was circumvented by the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon--to merit this live-TV extravaganza. And as predicted, Poindexter and North both invoked the Fifth Amendment on Tuesday.

Hence, the stage belonged mostly to posturing politicians on the committee.

Why the orgy of live cameras?

“It’s the Wategate reflex,” Daniel Schorr said by phone from Washington after Monday’s session. Now a correspondent for National Public Radio, Schorr was CBS News point man for the Senate Watergate Committee hearings, which were televised by PBS and also by the three commercial networks on an alternating basis.

Erik Barnouw called it “congressional television.”

Few will forget the string of witnesses, the John Dean revelations and a former Nixon assistant named Alexander P. Butterfield nervously mentioning something about some White House tapes.

“There’s only a whiff of deja vu so far,” Schorr said. “There’s no feeling of ‘Oh, boy, here we go again.’ You won’t get deja vu until after the first of the year (Congress reconvenes Jan. 6) when the Democratic Congress comes in.”

That’s when a Senate select committee will begin operating, and with powers possibly exceeding even those of the Senate Watergate committee headed by the late Sen. Sam J. Ervin Jr. Moreover, a special counsel is being appointed to probe the Iran affair.

“I love McFarlane’s somber sincerity,” said Schorr, sarcastically. “I couldn’t even understand what he was saying. He kept talking about context and things like that, and no one was putting any pressure on him. To get roughly the same situation as Watergate, you have to get people to be under pressure like John Dean was.”

Schorr does see a Watergate analogy in the Iran affair, though.

“There are two things. One is the ‘inoperative’ business (where Reagan and some of his aides have publicly contradicted themselves). They said a lot of things they now are not even claiming were true. The other thing is the way they are trying to cut the conflict off at a certain point just like Watergate: ‘It’s John Dean. No? Then I’ll give you John Mitchell.’ So now it’s Ollie North. Then they take it one level higher and keep it away from the White House. That is Watergate.”

CIA Director William J. Casey was scheduled to appear before the committee in closed session today. And if nothing else, these hearings have indeed offered an almost comic lesson in the way house committees operate and are sometimes manipulated by self-serving members for political gain.

“They’re trying to get their moment in the sun,” Schorr noted.

Trying and succeeding, with live TV on hand to assist them.

Most committee members seem intent on preceding their questions with a statement whose apparent purpose is to demonstrate great wisdom. Here was Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), beginning a question to McFarlane: “Actions in the real world are judged by their consequences and not the motivations that are behind them.” Yes, thank you, Tom.

“I have adult senior members here who want to do what they want to do and they do it,” committee Chairman Dante B. Fascell (D.-Fla.) observed, wearily Tuesday. He was referring to some committee members who insisted on addressing Poindexter even when it was obvious he would take “the Fifth” each time.

Later, everyone seemed determined to hang on to North’s Marine epaulets and applaud his alleged patriotism. “I feel a great deal of compassion,” Rep. Daniel Mica (D-Fla.) was compelled to tell America.

Several California committee members fell all over themselves. Rep. Robert Dornan, a Republican, celebrated North with a Rudyard Kipling quote. Rep. Mervyn Dymally, a Democrat, answered with a poem of his own. And Lantos announced to North: “I must say to you, I’m proud to be an American, as you are.” Yes, thank you, Tom.

All this was put in perspective Monday, though, when the microphone picked up Fascell explaining to a colleague his method of calling on the committee members out of order:

“Guys come in afterward. I’m just going down the list of guys who were here.” He made it sound like a meeting of the Moose Lodge.

This may be a tough time for the likes of Poindexter, North and others, but meanwhile Mica and his fellow sufferers on the committee shouldn’t worry too much. If tradition is served, better, richer times are ahead.

The stars of this painful saga will emerge only to be besieged with book and movie offers. You can bet that North’s book will be turned into a heroic movie by Sylvester Stallone and that “Ollie” I, II, III and IV will make both a fortune. Then years from now, when some future President gets into hot water, North and other Iran scandal figures will be interviewed about it on “Today” and the other morning shows.

Unless he’s already the host.