‘AMERIKA’ TAKES FLAK FROM SOVIETS

ABC, criticized by American conservatives for airing the nuclear-war film “The Day After” in 1983, now is catching flak from Soviet officials for “Amerika,” a proposed drama about a gray, drab life in the United States 10 years after a bloodless Soviet takeover.

Soviet officials last month “expressed their unhappiness” with the proposed miniseries to Walter Rodgers, ABC News’ bureau chief in Moscow, according to ABC News Vice President David Burke, who spoke by phone Thursday from New York.

However, Burke added, “there was no specific threat” that ABC News coverage of the Soviet Union would be jeopardized if ABC produced and aired “Amerika.”

The complaints are thought to be part of a recent campaign by Soviet officials to combat what they feel is an effort to provoke anti-Soviet feelings through such entertainment ventures in the United States as “Rocky IV” and “Rambo: First Blood Part 2.”

The “Amerika” project, originally announced in June, 1984, has been delayed, pending a budget review, ABC Entertainment president Brandon Stoddard told reporters here Wednesday.

Stoddard said that Soviet criticism of such films as “Rocky” and “Rambo” and the proposed “Amerika” wouldn’t stop ABC from doing the program.

But he also said “we do not live in an insular world” and that “it is only responsible” that the complaints be “factored into” a decision on whether to proceed with the program’s production.

He said a decision on proceeding probably would come in a week.

The miniseries originally was planned to run 16 hours, but has since been reduced to 12 hours, and its original budget has been cut from a reported $40 million to $32 million.

Burke said Rodgers advised ABC News of the Soviet officials’ unhappiness with “Amerika,” and “I informed the network.” He said a decision on whether to proceed with the show would rest solely with ABC’s entertainment division.

He said he also instructed Rodgers to advise the unhappy Soviet officials that if they had any further complaints about “Amerika,” their embassy in Washington should forward them to ABC, Inc., in New York.

An ABC spokesman in Los Angeles said Thursday that while the Soviet embassy may have made its views known to the network, “I’m not aware of any contacts about that from the embassy to ABC.”

Stoddard has said that “Amerika” is not in any way a sequel to “The Day After,” a controversial depiction of the aftermath of a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union, as faced by survivors in a small Kansas town.

That high-rated 1983 film, which ABC maintained was non-political, got good reviews in the Soviet press. But Accuracy in Media, a conservative U.S. media watchdog group, criticized it as one-sided and said ABC, by airing it, unwittingly had disseminated Soviet propaganda.

The ABC spokesman, asked about those complaints and the more recent ones about “Amerika” from the Soviet Union, said, “We must be doing something right.”