MOST TV viewers do not mind being misled during war if it means saving

lives, but not to keep up morale, according to research on television

and the Gulf war.

The survey, by the University of Leeds, found 64% thought British

broadcasters should give a false report, but reveal the truth after the

war was over.

Only 14% said a false report should not be given, but 17% said the lie

should kept secret even after the war. However, 66% said television

journalists should tell the truth about casualty figures even when asked

to report lower ones to keep up morale.

Only one-quarter said broadcasters should report the false figure and

reveal the truth later.

The study's author, Dr David Morrison, said: ''The public did wish to

be told the truth about events, even if that truth was negative. But if

there is a threat to British life then the principle is amended to

telling the truth later.''

Nearly 90% of viewers said they were satisfied with the television

coverage of the war.

The survey also found that BBC News emerged as television's version of

the quality press, while ITV's News At Ten was regarded as taking a more

popular press approach established.

It said both helped to promote the allied propaganda line, the BBC by

repeating the war's declared objective of liberating Kuwait, and ITV by

personalising the issue into a campaign against Saddam Hussein.

The report, Television and the Gulf War, was based on a survey of 1126

adults and 212 children carried out immediately after the war.

While the BBC's Nine O'clock News and Channel Four News seldom refered

to the Iraqi forces as Saddam Hussein's, the News at Ten, the American

CNN, and Sky TV showed the highest frequencies of attribution of armies

and weaponry -- ''Saddam's forces, Saddam's scud missiles'' -- to the

Iraqi leader.

In his report Dr Morrison states: ''The personalising of politics,

championed by Lord Northcliffe with the founding of the Daily Mail in

1896, is the hallmark of the popular press.

''ITV and CNN clearly fall into the camp of the popular press

tradition, and BBC1 and Channel Four News into the quality press

tradition.''

Dr Morrison's report also examined children's reaction to the war on

television. It found higher levels of anxiety among girls than boys, but

most were linked to feelings of helplessness rather than fear.

Children remembered pictures of captured British airmen being paraded

before the cameras and of oil slicks and dead sea birds, rather than

pictures of war dead, reinforcing the impression of helplessness in

front of events over which they had no control.

Dr Morrison said: ''My feeling is that it's the Blue Peter effect. We

have a generation of children brought up on social action education.

They have actually been brought up to think nervously about the world.''

A content analysis of Gulf war news items found only 3% included

scenes of human casualties.