Something of a side point, but I'm curious about how expensive this was for her to do.

In the 80s / 90s wouldn't a blank 3hr video be something like $5 or so (I'm guessing, as I recollect it was about £5 or so, and am expecting they'd be cheaper in the US as most things seemed to be then)

Given that 70k hrs would be around 23k 3hr cassettes, that would work out at maybe $115k. Seems a lot for an ex-Communist organiser to have ready to spend on a project like this (much as it has plenty of merit).