TV Programs Worth Watching for
Sun September 22 — Sat September 28

The anthrax spores sent last October in letters to media personalities 
and politicians in the US were a variety developed in the US (not, you will 
notice, in the Middle East). The revelation that they were in fact 
developed at the innocuously-named US Army Medical Research Institute for 
Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) in Frederick, Maryland, has focused media 
attention on the USA's own biological warfare program.

That, in turn, has re-focused attention on the mysterious death 40 years 
ago of CIA scientist Frank Olson, who worked at the Frederick establishment 
on secret biological weapons programs and brainwashing techniques for the 
United States Government.

His body has just been exhumed and an autopsy concluded that he was 
probably the victim of a violent crime. The official version was that he 
jumped through the closed window of a hotel while being guarded by a CIA 
agent. His son Eric believes he was murdered by agents because he wanted to 
leave the CIA.

His story is told in Cutting Edge: The Secret War: Bio-Weapons 
and the CIA (SBS 8.30pm Tuesday).

The US Army established its bio-war research base at Camp Detrick in 
Frederick as early as 1943. The base was established under the scientific 
guidance of Dr Ira Baldwin who invited Frank Olson to join him there. Olson 
became one of the first civilian scientists to be employed at Camp Detrick.

After the Second World War, the US took over the results of German 
experiments with biological agents on inmates of concentration camps in 
exchange for protecting the scientists responsible from prosecution. Olson 
became part of a unit that furthered this research.

One of the unit's "trials" involved releasing an anthrax-like material in 
San Francisco to chart "the possible results of a Soviet bio-weapon 
attack".

Olson then became involved in Operation Artichoke, a plan to use drugs, 
torture and brainwashing techniques to extract secrets and erase memory. 
Early experiments were conducted in a CIA base in Germany on prisoners of 
war or refugees from Eastern Europe who were suspected of being Soviet 
spies.

Later, such methods were used to "debrief" returning US POWs after the 
Korean War who had confessed to their Chinese or Korean captors to having 
used biological weapons.

(Although China produced abundant evidence at the time that the US was 
using "germ warfare", as it was called in those days, in Korea, it was so 
hushed up that even now this program does not actually acknowledge the 
fact. But former colleagues of Oldon's interviewed in the program imply in 
the heaviest possible terms that the US did indeed deploy biological 
weapons during the Korean War, so I suppose we're making progress.)

Olson it seems was horrified by what was happening. He wanted out and 
consequently was interrogated by the CIA himself. He was administered with 
LSD, and had an agent assigned to him at all times.

The official version of Olson's death does not tally with the results of 
the recent autopsy. As SBS notes, "The original autopsy was full of lies".

Of all the various Jane Austen adaptations for TV and film, the one that 
most accurately captures her tone and her concerns is Roger Michell's 1995 
version of Persuasion (ABC 10:55pm Tuesday). Made for British TV, it 
was considered good enough to release in theatres in the rest of the world, 
including Australia.

The script by Nick Dear is a splendid, succinct adaptation that conveys the 
atmosphere of the period (1814) and the mores of middle class society 
perfectly. We note simultaneously how dark the rooms are and how narrow and 
self centred the minds of so many of the characters.

But Jane Austen also peoples her books with other, more intelligent and 
humane characters, whom it is a pleasure to encounter. We warm to her 
sensible, good-hearted heroine, Anne Elliot, who is so looked down on by 
relations who are so much duller than herself.

Anne, played with a brilliantly stiff self-awareness by Amanda Root, has 
spent over seven years regretting being persuaded to reject the young 
Captain Wentworth's proposal (he had no fortune). Now she learns he has 
returned wealthy from a career as a privateer.

We empathise with Anne as she begins despite herself to rekindle her love 
affair with the reserved Captain Wentworth (Ciaran Hinds — excellent) but 
wonder, as she does, whether it is at all possible amidst such unfeeling 
relations.

The film's major set pieces — Anne's going to stay with her married sister 
(Sophie Thompson), the dramatic visit to Lyme Regis to look up an old 
friend of Captain Wentworth, and the stay in Bath — are all handled with 
deftness and imagination.

How much about her sister's way of life is conveyed in her brother-in-law's 
heartfelt sigh of "Oh, Anne". Excellent too is the way the script captures 
Jane Austen's personal regard for the navy (her brother was in it) during 
the walk along the breakwater at Lyme Regis.

I particularly like the masterly way the noisy procession of carnival 
performers in Bath is used to point up the very opposite emotional state of 
Anne and Captain Wentworth, the clearing of the street leaving them to each 
other.

Among the other programs this week that are worth watching, are the first 
episode in the new series of David Suzuki's The Nature Of Things 
(SBS 7.30pm Tuesdays).

Called Morphine On Trial, it recounts the case of a Canadian doctor, 
pain specialist Dr Frank Adams, who astonishingly has been "struck off" in 
Canada for using morphine to treat sufferers of chronic pain.

Also worth a look, if only to see how far religious bigotry and ignorance 
combined can go, is True Stories: Honour Among Men: The Killing Of Women 
In Pakistan (SBS 10:00pm Thursday).

It is the haunting story of 29-year-old mother of three, Zahida Perveen, 
whose husband, believing that she had brought dishonour on him by adultery, 
sadistically tortured, disfigured and blinded her.

Zahida survived and is one of the few women in Pakistan to successfully 
prosecute her attacker-husband.

Zahida is one of hundreds, or perhaps even thousands of Pakistani women who 
are victimised in the name of honour every year. Now a small band of 
Pakistani lawyers and activists is fighting the tide of oppression. For 
their efforts, many face resistance and scorn in their communities.