AMERICAN HERITAGE ON TV: This fall and winter the History Channel will introduce a new program, American Heritage Presents Great Minds of American History , in which some of the nation’s most esteemed historians discuss crucial moments and movements in America’s past with the interviewer Roger Mudd. It will be shown on five evenings, beginning on September 25, with Stephen E. Ambrose on World War II and the postwar years, and ending in March. The other historians are: Gordon S. Wood, on the Revolutionary era, James M. McPherson, on the Civil War period, Richard White, on Westward expansion, and David McCullough, on the industrial age. Readers can direct e-mail to the editors at mail@americanheritage.com. My Father’s War Henry Steele Commager