NBC's Scud Stud Uncertain About Future After Last Week's Suspension

Arthur Kent, the Rome-based NBC correspondent who enjoyed brief popularity as the Scud Stud during the Persian Gulf War, returned to the United States this week, uncertain about his next move, but still plenty mad following his suspension without pay last week for refusing to go to Zagreb, Croatia.

He expressed disdain for his current assignment on "Dateline NBC" and vowed he would find "my own way" to cover the tragedy in war-torn Bosnia.

In Rome - where he had been locked out of his NBC offices by the network - Kent contended that the suspension amounted to a "termination of my contract. (NBC News president) Michael Gartner has fired me."

However, an NBC spokeswoman said the contract dispute is still very much up in the air. Peggy Hubble said, "As far as we're concerned, we're in the same situation; he's been suspended, the lawyers are talking and there's been no resolution."

Kent's attorney, Bruce St. J. Lilliston, confirmed that the situation is still unsettled. "As far as I know," he said, "the lawyers are still talking. There is a whole panoply of remedies available to him . . . if NBC chose to be conciliatory, it would be delightful. Arthur feels a great camaraderie toward NBC News."

Kent and his Rome producer, Joe Alicastro, were suspended last week after refusing an Aug. 5 assignment to Zagreb to cover the Aug. 8 arrival of a U.N. team inspecting detention camps. Alicastro "remains in limbo," Kent said.

The story of Kent's suspension surfaced last Thursday, the same day ABC News senior producer David Kaplan was shot and killed by a sniper in Sarajevo, Bosnia, some 200 miles from Zagreb.

Last week, Kent charged NBC News with "a disinformation campaign, putting out a story I had refused a reasonable and safe assignment to Zagreb. This is a lie. I was to go to Zagreb but certainly I and everybody on my team understood that we'd go on to the story in Sarajevo."

Kent said that on Aug. 4 his lawyers had sent NBC News a seven-page letter "detailing the deep and serious editorial, contractual and legal conflict that existed between the management team of NBC News and this reporter."

At that time, according to Kent, his lawyers set a seven-day deadline for dealing with the claims and that the letter "specifically states that during this time Kent is not going on hazardous missions; he doesn't trust you and you are in breach of contract."

Two days later, Kent claims, his lawyers extended the deadline at NBC's request (their management staff was in Barcelona) but that very night he was ordered by "the NBC News management team" to go to Zagreb. "It was a setup, a disgraceful, blatant technique to lure me into what they saw as a situation comprising breach of contract . . .

"I refused to fall for it," Kent said. "My decision was that the situation was unsafe and not only because there was a bayonet in my back - I was being pushed by incompetent personnel in the NBC management team and at the same time with no consultation. They were ordering me into a war zone while the clock is ticking on my contract . . ."

Hubble reiterated that "clearly, we have some disagreement about a lot of issues. There's been a progression of problems and obviously the Zagreb assignment is part of the larger, continuing dispute."

Kent said the original contract dispute began in January when top NBC News management approached him to become senior European correspondent, based in London. Two weeks later, he said, executive vice president Don Browne called him to say he was instead penciled in for the new prime-time show "Dateline NBC" and took the London offer off the table.

But instead, Kent claims, the NBC Entertainment division bosses in Burbank "wanted soft" for the Tuesday-at-10 time slot. "I appeared on the air three times in 14 weeks; they spiked a tough story on Afghanistan. . ."

Kent said yesterday that the matter could be settled if NBC apologizes to him and agrees to settle on the remaining four years in his contract. "I want them to clear my name one way or another," he concluded.