1. Richard O. Moore, "Public Television Programming and the Future: A Radical Approach," in Cater and Nyhan, eds., Future of Public Broadcasting .

2. James Armsey, interview with the author, New York, Nov. 17, 1984. Armsey asserted that he first suggested the endowment idea but that he dismissed it when he learned of the magnitude of White's request.

3. The "outside expert" brought in by the Ford Foundation to evaluate NET's program output was Charles Siepmann, one of the founders of the BBC, the author of the FCC's infamous "Blue Book" on broadcasters' public-service responsibilities, and the chairman of New York University's Communications Department.

4. "Instructions for Preparation of Grant Application Letter" is contained in a memorandum from James Armsey to John F. White and George Stoddard, June 24, 1963, NPBA.

5. Ford's request for "a plan and time schedule for the reorganization of NETRC" is contained in the memorandum from J. Armsey to White and Stoddard, June 24, 1963, NPBA.

6. NET's request for the Ford grant is in a letter from White and Stoddard to Henry T. Heald, July 19, 1963. Heald's response to Stoddard is a letter dated Aug. 29, 1963. Stoddard's thanks for Heald's "helpful letter" is tn a letter from Stoddard to Heald, Sept. 6, 1963, NPBA.

7. The National Association of Educational Broadcasters (NAEB) sought take-over responsibility for representing the stations' interests, but the stations insisted on autonomy as a condition of remaining in the Association. In February 1964, they formed the Educational Television Stations (ETS) division of the NAEB and immediately recruited C. Scott Fletcher as their "executive consultant." The ETS board was first chaired by Robert Schenkkan, general manager of KRLN, the Austin, Tex., public station.

8. The Denver Post is quoted in the Report to the Ford Foundation, 1967-68 , p. 9, NPBA.

9. Jack Gould, New York Times , quoted in NET: A Progress Report, 1967-68, NPBA.

10. The letter from Congress protesting the airing of Felix Greene's film on North Vietnam resulted from a request from Walter Judd, the former Minnesota congressman who figured prominently in the so-called China Lobby during the years when he and others were blaming communist influences in the State Department for the United States' "loss" of China. Judd, who also had not seen the film, asked his friends in Congress to sign the protest letter, arguing that the release of the Greene film was ill-timed "when American youth [were] giving their lives in a war against a ruthless enemy." Their quoted response is from Barnouw, The Image Empire , pp. 291-93.

11. Among the eighteen stations refusing to air Inside North Vietnam , the Milwaukee affiliate explained its position by saying the film's impact was "contrary to the best interests of our country, providing more fuel for the 'let's get out of it' movement at a time when national unity is needed." (Otto Schlaak, general manager of WTVS/Milwaukee, to William Kobin, quoted in an article by Edwin Bayley in Educational Broadcasting Review [June 1969].) Stations in Buffalo, Duluth, St. Louis, Tampa, and Pensacola and the Alabama and South Carolina networks also refused to air it. Bayley reports that KTCA (Minneapolis-St. Paul) carried the program but violated NET's "take it or leave it" rule by cutting out NET's introduction to the program then interrupting the show three times "to permit broadcast of a previously recorded interview with Vice President Humphrey, an analysis of propaganda by a local professor, and a diatribe by [Congressman Walter] Judd against Felix Greene, Ho Chi Minh and NET." Other reasons for the show's cancellation are contained in a memorandum to John F. White, et al., from Fritz Jauch, July 10, 1969, ''Survey of NET Program Usage by Affiliates During January, February, and March 1968" (in NET, Semi-Annual Report to the Ford Foundation , Jan.-June, 1969), NPBA.

12. White's statement about the positive response of the Committee on Foreign Affairs is contained in his letter to J. Day, Sept. 17, 1981, NPBA.

13. National Educational Television, Semi-Annual Report to the Ford Foundation , July-Dec. 1966, NPBA.

14. NET's goals in drama production are contained in National Educational Television Report of the Year 1964 (to Ford Foundation), Feb. 15, 1965, p. 19, NPBA.

15. Duke Ellington's opera, Queenie Pie , had its debut in September 1968 as a stage production under the aegis of Philadelphia's American Music Theater Festival. The quote about the Henze opera is from letter from C. W. Davis to J. Day, April 12, 1982, NPBA.

16. The purpose of Armsey's meeting with the NET staff was stated in a letter from Ford Foundation secretary Joseph M. McDaniel Jr. to White, Oct. 8, 1963, NPBA. For an account of this meeting, I have relied upon detailed notes taken by Edwin R. Bayley, NET's vice president (and a former newspaper reporter), contained in a memorandum from Bayley to White, June 15, 1963, and upon White's own notes of the meeting contained in a memorandum for the record, June 12, 1963, NPBA.

17. Armsey's consultant, Charles Siepmann, had his own "grand design" for public television, outlined in "Educational Television: Blueprint for a Network," one of the papers commissioned by the Foundation for its 1963 study of public television's future, NPBA.

18. White's delineation of "major problems" with the Ford Foundation is in his memorandum to Everett M. Case, Aug. 31, 1964, NPBA.

19. Newsweek , Mar. 27, 1967.