Television: Urgent

At one stroke, TV last week dramatically reflected the nation's urgent concern for its defense and its own urgent way of getting people to do things. On NBC's Today at 8:45 o'clock one morning, Dave Garroway waved a thick copy of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund report on U.S. defense (TIME, Jan. 13). During an interview with Nelson Rockefeller, he quoted some of it, urged viewers to read the 89-page report themselves, and offered to send out free copies from the Fund's "limited" supply. At week's end a Today camera showed Garroway waist-deep in letters and postcards. He was swamped with more than 200,000 requests for the report. The Rockefeller Fund, which had allotted only 10,000 to meet whatever requests Garroway might drum up, rushed into print to keep up with the still-growing TV demand.