John McAdams Part 2

[Albert Rossi]

I'm actually glad you brought that point up Tracy about the CIA losing its stigma.

That is a major them of my new book Reclaiming Parkland.


Its how this was done in the film world, through people like Tom Hanks. But also through the conscious and determined work of the Agency's man on the ground, their liaison to Movieland Chase Brandon. This man, who no one knows about, did more to rehab the Agency's image in culture after Stone's movie than anyone I know.

At the end of the book I do a lamentation over what our film and TV culture has become because of this.

I use Susan Sontag to do it. She stopped writing about films in 1995 after her famous article, "The Decay of Cinema" appeared in the NY Times.

IMO, she looks like she was right.

I really go after Hanks and Spielberg and our good old buddy at the MPAA who went there at LBJ's urging from the White House. After he urged his boss to help John Wayne on his pro-Vietnam War movie The Green Berets.

Oh boy. Another "Posthumous Assassination" exposé. Can't wait to read it. I personally have noted this glamourous CIA thing seeping into Hollywood and TV for years. Gone are the days of Three Days of the Condor. Back to Mission Impossible.

[Tracy Riddle]

It was really only a period between the early '70s and early '90s when the CIA was portrayed in a negative light in films. Remember Clint Eastwood's In the Line of Fire where the assassin is a former Agency operative and psycho still protected in their computers? I can't see that being made today.

The Pentagon has always courted Hollywood (especially since the 80s with Top Gun and crap like that). Again, the anti-military period in film was limited from about 1964 to somewhere in the late 80s, and a lot of those films were made outside the US. Check out 1965's The Bedford Incident if you get a chance.

[Albert Rossi]

It was really only a period between the early '70s and early '90s when the CIA was portrayed in a negative light in films. Remember Clint Eastwood's In the Line of Fire where the assassin is a former Agency operative and psycho still protected in their computers? I can't see that being made today.

The Pentagon has always courted Hollywood (especially since the 80s with Top Gun and crap like that). Again, the anti-military period in film was limited from about 1964 to somewhere in the late 80s, and a lot of those films were made outside the US. Check out 1965's The Bedford Incident if you get a chance.

Yes, Tracy, I think you're right about both things. Of course, Watergate, the pullout from Vietnam and the 1975 Rockefeller and Church hearings are what led to that dip in prestige, and the Gulf War was the picker-upper.

Funny you should mention the Bedford Incident; I just rewatched it recently. Widmark always plays the heavies. Even as prosecutor in Judgment at Nuremberg he still comes off as a heavy (even though he isn't), and is overshadowed by Max Schell (wow, what a performance). Interesting the films that came out in the wake of the Missile Crisis: Strangelove, Bedford, etc.

[Jim DiEugenio]

I didn't know that Magda. He has gone onto UFO's now and Roswell?

Wow, they must have really liked what he did in Hollywood then.

But as I say in the book, whatever side of the question you are on, you have to admit that he really turned things around for the CIA after Three Days of the Condor, JFK, Air America etc.

From about 1975, to about 1995, the CIA was depicted as negative in many films. BTW, that year 1995, is I think when Chase Brandon opened up his office, and when you read the stuff the guy did to reverse things, I mean he was worth his weight in gold. In fact, there was stuff I could not print because of a non disclosure clause lawsuit. But I will say this, Chase Brandon, in some cases, was actually writing whole scenes and sequences in movies. That is really kind of sick. I mean, this is artistic integrity?

But he left his office and took everything with him so there was nothing to try and get by FOIA. Then another guy came in for a year or two. But by then, the CIA influence in Hollywood was so ingrained and extensive that the film makers were coming to them on their own.

This is one reason why I have no respect for American films anymore. And I more or less say that at the end of the book.

I close with Newton Minow's great "vast wasteland" speech from 1961. I then add, and TV really wasn't that bad back then. I mean what would you call it today. Maybe the "vast shit pile?"

[Magda Hassan]

I didn't know that Magda. He has gone onto UFO's now and Roswell?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/a...rsary.html
http://chasebrandon.com/

[Jim DiEugenio]

WHat a busy beaver this guy was for them.

He did even more damage than I thought.

[Charles Drago]

Check out 1965's The Bedford Incident if you get a chance.

"If he fires one, I'll fire one."

"Fire One sir!"

Ahh, Quiffle ...

[Albert Rossi]

I close with Newton Minow's great "vast wasteland" speech from 1961. I then add, and TV really wasn't that bad back then. I mean what would you call it today. Maybe the "vast shit pile?"

I also believe Ed Murrow was saying similar things a couple of years earlier.

[Tracy Riddle]

The Twilight's Last Gleaming would never get made today.

[Jim DiEugenio]

Burt Lancaster was a really good guy.

I mean he did os many movies simply because he believed in them, no matter what the commercial prospects were.

I loved him in Local Hero. What a gem of a movie.

And you are right, its hard to imagine some of those movies he did, like say Seven Days in May, or Twilight's last Gleaming being made today.

The whole last part of my book is about this tremendously important issue. Which everyone ignores.

But its really a huge one. SOrt of like the elephant in the room.

JIM D