Dan LeFebvre  03:32

We’ll start today by looking at the movie’s depiction of the Cuban missile crisis from an overall perspective. So if you were to give 13 days a letter grade for its historical accuracy, what would it get?

 

Joshua Donohue  03:46

I would say Thirteen Days gets a solid B, and I’ll get a little bit more into why that is towards the end of it. So the pot, the film itself is based on a book called The Kennedy tapes by Ernest May and Philip Zeller count, not to be confused with the actual book Thirteen Days by Robert Kennedy, who was obviously, you know, the President’s brother and had a major, major role during the missile crisis. So the book itself consists of the actual recorded conversations which took place throughout the course of the missile crisis. Bruce Greenwood, the lead actor, let’s say the lead actor, but the really lead character of JFK, gives an impressive performance as the president. Stephen Culp plays his brother, Robert Kennedy. I was particularly struck by his performance. It’s not easier for actors, I’m sure, to nail that Boston accent the way he does in the film, but he really does a great job there. And of course, the really the film central character, really the primary character. Of course, Kevin Costner plays Ken O’Donnell, and he’s always been good to me. I’ve always liked his work playing historical figures, though great Elliot Ness and. Untouchables, which is a great film, plays Jim Garrison, and obviously a JFK related film. JFK in 1991 he portrays Ken O’Donnell in the film, who is JFK is what’s termed Special Assistant. And throughout the crisis, the decision making was made from the White House and there from unbeknownst to those who were present, there were hidden tape recorders capturing all the deliberations, word for word. So before becoming president, JFK had made use of a recording device called the dictaphone of mostly for dictating letters and notes. So in the summer of 1962 shortly before the crisis, he would ask Secret Service agent Robert bauck to place concealed recording devices in the Cabinet Room, the Oval Office, the study, the library and the mansion, and without explaining why, bauck basically obtained these 10 Burke reel to reel tape recorders, these high quality machines for the period, from the Army Signal Corps. And he had placed these machines in the basement of the west wing in the White House, in the room reserved for storing private presidential files. So he would also place another in the basement of the Executive Mansion. So the West Wing machines were connected by these different wired microphones into the cabinet room, two in the Oval Office, those in the Cabinet Room on the outside wall were placed behind drapes. I mean, they were they were everywhere, and they will be activated by a switch that the President would activate, which will be easily mistaken for sort of a buzzer to buzz somebody into a room. So of the microphones in the Oval Office, his was, you know, an actual knee hole in the President’s desk, and the other concealed in a coffee table across the room. So this is like CIA, you know, type stuff we’re talking here. Each could be turned on and off with a single, sort of inconspicuous button. So this book is a collection of the transcripts that were based upon the actual conversations in the Oval Office. So like the film itself, the book sort of forces it to stay well within the confines of historical accuracy, since, again, it’s verbatim in many scenes, and every single tense moment is captured during these high level negotiations. And the film also does a great job with representing the characters and their individual personalities. And there are many of very strong personalities, as we see in the film. So of course, Ken O’Donnell and what JFK does and when he forms his cabinet, when he becomes president in 1960 and really takes the office in 1961 Ken O’Donnell is a special assistant. He was a bombardier in World War Two. Flew 30 missions in B, seventeens over Europe, Dean Rusk, the Secretary of State, was a colonel in World War Two serving in the Burma theater. You have the chairman of the army Joint Chiefs, Maxwell Taylor. He was commanded in general of the 100 and first airborne in World War Two. He’s mentioned in Vander brothers, as well as earlier in the war with the 82nd Airborne Division. He was involved in Normandy landings, operation, market garden. And really, all of them share Kennedy’s vision on a global perspective on World War Two and the lessons learned from that. And that’s why he surrounds himself with these advisors. Kennedy, of course, the hero of PT 109 when his PT boats ran by the Japanese destroyer and saves a number of his crew in the process. And McGeorge Bundy, JFK, National Security Advisor, an aide to re ramble Admiral Kirk. He was aboard the USS Augusta during the D Day landings in June 6, 1944 and another character which will all come familiar with, Curtis LeMay, who was Strategic Air Command head during the 1950s he commanded the three Oh, fifth bombardment group, the third Air Division, the European Theater of Operations. Also served in China, India, Burma theater, and later, of course, put in charge of B 29 courses against the Japanese later in the war. So all of these different individuals had complex personalities, different tolerances, different attitudes. And Kennedy was faced with all of this at once and again, the lessons learned by all of them. Through World War Two, they had been through Munich, Pearl Harbor, the battles against the acts, of course, Hitler and the Japanese and of course, Mussolini, they’d been through the early years of the Cold War in the Berlin Blockade, the Berlin heirloom, the Iron Curtain containment, the Korean War, McCarthyism, Suez, Hungary, Sputnik, the nuclear test that began during the 1950s so you’re set. The stage for you know this, you know these negotiations over these 13 days, and you have the right people making these decisions, and some other individuals not making the correct decisions. And Kennedy is, again, faced with a lot of this, and again, he navigates this pretty effective.

 

Dan LeFebvre  10:20

Yeah, it’s, it’s something that I don’t think we think about a lot when it comes to movies, is in the historical context of things you mentioning. You know, a lot of these people that had World War Two experience, even, and we’re talking about the Cold War, which I think we think a lot of, like, Okay, that was right after World War Two and stuff. But you also don’t seem to, at least, when I’m watching movie like this, you know, you know that there’s tensions in the air, but you don’t even think about the tensions that were there before any of this, these events were even happening in the movie. And you’re thinking of all these World War Two vets and they had to have things in the back of their mind that don’t are never going to be mentioned in the movie.

 

Joshua Donohue  11:00

Yeah, that’s the that’s one of the motivations why Kennedy surrounds himself. And what’s, what’s termed, the Irish mafia. You have McNamara, McGeorge, Bundy, Ken O’Donnell, you have these are his closest people have been with him throughout his tenure. You know, in politics Following the Second World War. So he trusts his advisors. He he knows he’s going to get sound advice from them. And you know, they have obviously the country’s best interest part. So it’s, it’s pretty remarkable, and considering the fact that not only is Kennedy dealing with, you know, what seemingly could be, you know, an all out nuclear war with the Soviet Union. But he’s has to deal with all these clashing personalities. And also, to mention the fact that, and you see it in the film too, Kennedy’s dealing with some elements. And of course, he has a major back injury as a result of the PT 109 incident. And he also has Addison’s disease, which he has been suffering from, really, since his youth. And what you see some of those scenes where he’s kind of limbering, he’s kind of tense a little bit, and strains at certain points. So I like those little details in the film as well. Well,

 

Dan LeFebvre  12:15

if we go back to the movie and kind of how it sets up the Cuban Missile Crisis, I know we mentioned it. We kind of talked a little bit about it already, but the way the movie sets up the version of this version of history is there’s an American YouTube spy plane that’s taking photos over Cuba, and these pictures then get analyzed at the very beginning of the movie to reveal that they’re SS, four sandal missiles. And in a briefing with President Kennedy, we find out that these missiles are capable of striking cities as far as Washington, DC, in just under five minutes time. So basically, at a moment’s notice, the Soviet Union can kill movie mentions like 80 million Americans, and the missiles will be installed within 10 to 14 days, meaning that there’s this deadline that the Americans figuring out how to deal with this situation. Is that a pretty good explanation of why the Cuban Missile Crisis was such a major crisis?

 

Joshua Donohue  13:10

Yeah, it really was, because it’s exactly what you just said. They had such a narrow window of time to figure out what they were going to do, and they knew that they were dealing with much longer missiles than what had been, and I’ll get into that in the moment, but yeah, that’s really the focus throughout the crisis is and Maxwell Taylor was really the one that pushes the issue, Mr. President, we are running out of time. The window of opportunity is closing, and you can just feel the depression. It’s just you can cut it with a knife. But the opening sequences of the film are particularly striking and giving you the viewer a preview of what nuclear Armageddon would look like with the actual test footage of these nuclear explosions, missiles launching in mass. And again, it’s downright frightening Armageddon, again, this is what it would look like, and we would only have mere minutes to prepare, if anything, for that, especially when you think not only this, but how far the technology had come since the end of World War Two, how much more destructive these weapons had come in a very short period of time. It really makes the bombs of Nagasaki and Hiroshima look small. And during the first part of October, President Kennedy starts to receive intelligence of unceasing streams of Soviet military equipment now reaching Cuba. And the CIA informs him that Cuba was now operating the latest MIG miles, the MiG 21 which were capable also of carrying nuclear weapons and nuclear arms, armed air to surface missiles. So on October 9, a US Navy reconnaissance plane would bring back evidence. Defense of Soviet cargo ships carrying il 28 bombers, which were twin engine bombers with a range of about 750 miles. So these il 28 were known to carry nuclear conventional ordinance and were actually of an old design for being phased out of the Soviet Air Force. But these were not the offensive weapons which Kennedy had warned in his public statements of September 4 and September 13, he and his advisors agreed, as mcgeorge bundy would put it, the surface to surface missiles would be the quote, unquote, turning point. So the news about the IL 28 did really it did cause him to authorize u2 flights over Cuba for nearly a month, Director of Central Intelligence John McComb had pressed for such flights to take place, fearing that, on the other hand, Dean Rusk would say and others would say the u2 would eventually be detected or shot down as over the Soviet Union in 1960 recalling, of course, the downing of American YouTube pilot Francis Gary Powers during the last year of President Dwight David Eisenhower’s administration. That particular incident had been a severe setback to between Eisenhower and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. So the fallout over the u2 downing in 1960 resulted in canceling the Paris summit, and they were scheduled to discuss the ongoing situation in a divided Germany, the possible possibility of an arms control agreement or a test ban treaty and a relaxation of tensions between the superpowers but the Gary Powers incident basically nixes the summit, and the very first meeting following the discovery of the of the missiles on the ground in Cuba from YouTube spy plane, would take place on Tuesday, October 16, around 1150 in the morning.

 

Dan LeFebvre  16:59

Okay, that was going to be one of my other questions. You talking about why they even had spy planes, YouTube planes, flying over Cuba to begin with. The movie doesn’t even talk about that. It’s like they’re just, yeah, they’re just doing it routine, right? Yeah.

 

Joshua Donohue  17:14

So yeah, is the YouTube I’ll get more into in a moment. It was, it was an important tool, and we had known that, once it was developed and put into service, that you needed to get, obviously, before the age of satellites spy satellites, you needed to get aerial reconnaissance from much higher altitudes, out of the range of surface to air missiles. So during that time it was important to get that kind of reconnaissance.

 

Dan LeFebvre  17:44

Yeah, that makes that makes sense. That makes sense. Now in the movie, when they find out about the missiles that are in Cuba, it kind of lays out the options that President Kennedy is given by his advisors in the room. So there’s three main options. One, they can do a surgical air strike to take out the missiles themselves. Two, they can do a larger air strike against all of the air defenses there. This being a strike in Cuba. Or three, they can do a ground invasion of Cuba, or maybe a combination of them, you have an air strike first to take out the missiles. They talk about all those kind of things, too. And then the invasion into Cuba to avoid any more missiles being brought in. And then later in the movie, the advisors kind of play out how they think everything’s going to happen. First, JFK would demand the Soviets remove the missiles. They’re going to refuse, of course. So then JFK is going to order the airstrike, followed by the invasion, there’s going to be fighting, but the US probably won’t have trouble overwhelming the Soviet forces there in Cuba to deactivate the missiles, but then that’s going to trigger something else, as the Soviets are going to retaliate, most likely in Berlin, is what they say in the movie. And then when the Soviets attack Berlin, the US is going to be forced to honor treaties, and that’s gonna how to basically going to trigger out all out war. Is the movie accurately portraying the options and then the possible chain of events that Kennedy was debating at the start of the Cuban Missile Crisis? Yeah,

 

Joshua Donohue  19:13

it really was. They. They were laying up every option imaginable. And in the book The Kennedy tapes in each conversation is going over every single scenario, every single possibility, and even with the photographs that the YouTube spy plane brings back the next day, October 15, experts at the CIA’s National Photographic Intelligence Center The npic, were looking over these photos from the YouTube’s flight from the previous day, and now seeing images of these missiles that were much longer than standard surface to air missiles. They began to leak through the files, as you see in their film, to try and compare what the watch which version of these missiles they have, and as they’re going through them the. Came up with the perfect match in the form of these medium range ballistic missiles, as you mentioned, the SS for sandal family. So as far as their the first negotiations as what they’re going to do, what options are going to have, Berlin was at the center of, really, every major decision in some way, shape or form. In every hypothetical we do this, what are they going to do in Berlin? We do this, what are they going to do in Berlin? So the situation there at the time was as tense as it was really following the end of the Second World War, the Berlin Wall have gone up in 61 effectively dividing the city in two. And these early meetings between Kennedys and advisors would set the tone for a very high level discussion that was going to take place over the next 13 days. So author lundahl, who was the head of the npic, would pass the news to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, with the news then reaching Robert McNamara, he then reaches and meets with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and dozens of lower level officials. The group then reviews plans to conduct massive airstrikes against targets in Cuba with a larger scale invasion of Cuba by the sea. So McGeorge Bundy, who was the National Security Advisor, would find out about these developments, and he gets a cryptic response following the discovery of the SS for saying those things we’ve been worrying about, quote, unquote, as it looks like we’ve really got something now. So Kennedy, at the time, was returning from a trip from New York State and arrived in Washington later that evening. So Bundy doesn’t reveal the news to him until the next day, a decision actually, which Kennedy supports. Bundy thought that he was going to need a good night’s sleep over the next number of days and weeks, because they were going to be some tense times over the next number of days and weeks. So when Kennedy was informed of the news, he has Bundy secretly round up officials later on that morning, not to arouse any suspicion, Kennedy resumes his normal schedule, meeting with NASA astronaut Raleigh Shira, followed by an appointment with Kenny O’Donnell in his office. And O’Donnell later recalls, quote, unquote, you still think the bus about Cuba is unimportant, and Archie Kennedy says that, and O’Donnell responds, absolutely. The voters won’t give a damn about Cuba. So Little does he know, following Sidney gravy or Marshall and Marshall Carter’s description of the missiles to Kennedy’s and advisors that first meeting you see in the film, he has a conversation with McGeorge Bundy and Robert McNamara on the subject of the YouTube flights, he states his case that he recommends additional flights over Cuba, at which point the President calls on Dean Rusk. And in the film, Dean Rusk gives his thoughts on the unfolding crisis and makes a quote saying, if you permit the introduction of to a Soviet satellite nation in our hemisphere, the diplomatic consequences will be too terrible to contemplate. The Russians are trying to show the world that they can do whatever they want, whenever they want, and we’re powerless to stop them. So if they succeed, at which point Attorney General Robert Kennedy, who was of course, the younger brother of the President makes the quote, it’ll be like Munich all over again. And Rusk replies, Yes, the aggressor will become more aggressive, and the Soviets will be emboldened to push us even harder. And if you look in the film at that very moment, there’s a look that RFK looks up and sees his brother, and he looks back at him. It’s a little moment, but there was a deeper meaning there. Munich would capture an even deeper meaning for the Kennedys, especially for their father, Joseph Kennedy senior, played a role in the event. Munich wasn’t a single event, as one might suggest, but a series of events following the Munich conference with Adolf Hitler in 1938 in order to appease Nazi Germany, they’re taking the Sudetenland. So Joseph Kennedy was the ambassador to Britain under FDR administration, both in cables to the State Department and in speeches and interviews, Kennedy backs Britain’s appeasement policy to Germany, and continued to do so well into World War Two, arguing that Britain had the right to conciliate with Hitler in light of these harsh peace treaties imposed upon Germany at the end of the First World War. So Kennedy, Joe Kennedy labels himself as an appeaser and an isolationist, and JFK would long carry this burden of this legacy. So going back to the proceedings, McNamara then begins his assessment of the findings and outlines of court his course of action. Comes up with two propositions. One is to conduct an airstrike against the missile installations, and he wants to do. So prior to the approximate time that the missiles will become operational. And he further explains that they do become operational before any proposed airstrike, that there is no guarantee that all the missile sites will be eliminated, and the missiles now will have a radius of between 600 to 1000 miles from Cuba. His second proposition is that United States commits itself to an airstrike in Cuba will not only be directed the missile sites, but also the airfields and any potential other aircraft which would pose a threat, also striking potential nuclear storage sites. And he then points out that this will be a large scale strike which estimates Cuban losses of between a few 102 into the 1000s. So he then he outlines a plan of invasion of both air and sea, followed by the air strikes, or following the air structure to say, he then defers to Maxwell Taylor, and Taylor agrees that a surprise attack, outlining all of the above and hitting these missile installations. He reiterates that timing is everything, and the missiles need to be hit

 

Dan LeFebvre  26:05

before they become out. Wow, yeah, they really did have a lot of different plans, a lot of what is scenarios. It sounds like they were working through a lot of those. Yeah.

 

Joshua Donohue  26:16

I mean, because they really had to figure out what the Soviet Union was going to do in every possible way. If we do this, what are they going to do? If we do that and do this, what are they going to do? And there’s just that. What if, almost like a like a war game, like scenario playing out in the old office? So he is, his advisors have quite a bit of work to do, but they do have one thing on their side they don’t know. They realize they know something that the Russians don’t think the Americans know yet, and that’s obviously going to play on much later on, Bill, well, you

 

Dan LeFebvre  26:52

mentioned, you mentioned Munich, and I appreciate you kind of explaining what that was. There’s another few things that the movie mentions here and there, and it kind of assumes that we already know, while Kennedy and his advisors are considering the options, it mentioned that the Bay of Pigs. And then there’s a mention of ortsack, which the movie also points out is just Castro spelled backwards, as if they weren’t. Didn’t even really hide that operation name very well. But can you explain how some of these other things that the movie is mentioning fit into the overall picture. So

 

Joshua Donohue  27:22

by around mid October of 1962 the Cold War had intensified in unforeseen ways, and Cuba was a long, virtually held colony of the United States, and had effectively moved into the Soviet orbit. You have the revolution in 1959 with the overthrow the dictator Fulgencio Batista, the emergence, of course, of dictator Fidel Castro as the leading figure. Of course, Prime Minister. He’s hand in hand with Khrushchev, and they are forging ties again, which still exists in some way, shape or form today. So this emergence of a new communist regime, becoming the first in the Western Hemisphere is a big deal, especially, of course, for the United States, with geopolitical sort of context, and the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, which takes takes place on april of 1961 had only exacerbated tensions between Russia and us, and brought Cuba even closer ties to Russia. And Kennedy has a memorable quote. He was a terrific speaker, and we’ll get to the brains behind that and the true center of it. But he has a quote from after the defeat of the Bay of Pigs, who says, There’s an old saying that victory has 100 fathers, but defeat is an orphan. And I just always latched onto that quote, because even in the face of defeat and just the political disaster, from, you know, from the outside in and with the inside out, from his political advisors, from people who, at the time, didn’t think Kennedy was up to the task of this. He was too young. He doesn’t have the experience. He’s too cocky, he’s arrogant, He’s immature. He was getting all these things thrown at him. So the Bay of Pigs affair had many consequences, which would loom over the missile crisis again, it damaged Kennedy standing among many political circles and beyond, Cuban exiles never quite forgave him for his decision not to reinforce the invasion by air, no support from the Air Force or the Navy. And there’s a moment where you see Bundy and Taylor and the other chiefs talking to Dean Acheson about the Munich effect as they’re walking out in the hallway, and whether he’s up to the task of handling this and a crisis of his magnitude, more or less, and in varying degrees, also the common vert among senior military officers, particularly in the Air Force, the Navy, as well as the CIA’s clan. Estein service awareness. So more closely consequence related to the affair was the development of the inner circle of Kennedy’s advisors of the Animus against Castro, JFK and especially Bobby. Kennedy longed for some redeeming opportunity to get back for the failed Bay of Pigs. And this was also a time where Kennedy authorizes the development of Special Warfare operations, the Green Berets, the Navy SEALs, these groups meant to be deployed to hot spots all over the world at a moment’s notice. So Kennedy would organize a new set of covert operations against Astro called Operation mongoose, which was meant to destabilize the Castro regime by launching operations inside of Cuba to undermine his position and with the goal of removal of power. So some even looked to assassinate Castro under constant Badr by Bobby Kennedy the CIA came up with a number of what veteran Intelligence Officer Richard Helms term nutty schemes. And this explains that tense meeting that Bobby’s presiding over where you say, no, no, no, no, we need to come up with more options. And demanding to come up with more ideas. And McCone, the CIA director, calls out Bobby Kennedy, and says to him, Well, you really weren’t saying all these options when you’re at the CIA and with, you know, Al’s there telling you, okay, we got to get cast around and get rid of him now. So he has that movie, sits down and sort of throws his glasses down, and he just doesn’t even know what to say at that point. So Taylor gives him that surprise look, as you see in the film, sits down, you know, throws his glasses and kind of is just kind of exhausted at that point. So Maxwell Taylor then explains to him and the chiefs and concurs with McNamara’s assessment that the importance of destroying the missiles, because when they come operational, is important before they must prove a full scale invasion of Cuba eight days later, and also you start to hear the first chimings of suggesting a blockade or a quarantine of the island, which will, of course, be the primary strategy, which plays out,

 

Dan LeFebvre  32:10

yeah, and we’ll get we’ll get to that in a little bit. But in the movies timeline, you mentioned this briefly, and the Americans know about the missiles, but then when JFK meets with the Russian diplomat, he doesn’t let on how much the Americans actually know. And then we see that the Soviets just flat out deny there being missiles in Cuba. They insist that presence in Cuba is for defensive purposes only. Is it true that the Soviets were denying missiles in Cuba when the Americans knew that they had it, and we could see it well. In the movie, we can see them actually actively working on setting them up. Yeah,

 

Joshua Donohue  32:46

yeah, that’s absolutely true. And this really the decision, as I mentioned earlier, from the get go, was made to keep President Kennedy’s schedule as normal and routine as possible in order to prevent the media, excuse me, really to causing a public panic across the nation. So during that first meeting, Dean Rusk will bring up the issue with Kennedy’s meeting with Soviet Ambassador Andrei greeco’s request to see Kennedy on Thursday, October 18, Rusk quote to the president is, it may be some interest to know what he says, if he even says anything. So there is that idea of going into this meeting, do not let on at all that we know what’s going on there. We want to sort of play this as a chess game, as the really the Cold War, for the most part, is so Russ will also bring up another key issue, which will come into play later on, uh, during the later phases of the crisis. Maxwell Taylor brings it up on on a meeting in October 18. He suggests that there would be advantages in not disclosing American knowledge of the missiles in order to get promico to basically lie and keep up a pattern of denial. So Russ then suggests that Kennedy words it more in terms of a sort of deep disturbance about the provocation in Cuba, quote, unquote. And then adds that Ambassador to Brennan say that there weren’t any offensive weapons in Cuba, but even debris. And may not know either. So Robert Kennedy then brings up the subject of the United Nation, of the United States missiles in Turkey and JFK asked, How many are there? Are in George Bundy response, 15, plus nuclear aircraft and Turkey. And the issue of the Jupiter missiles, there will also be a major bargaining chip, which will come out through that throughout the proceedings. So the meeting between Kennedy and Foreign Minister Andre Gromyko takes place at 5pm on the 18th of October. The meeting lasts until about 7:15pm Gromyko emphasizes the need to settle the Berlin issue, and then repeats his promise the Soviets would do nothing before the November elections the United States. States warning that they could take possible steps at this point to bring the bring the Berlin problem to a conclusion, whatever that meant, and then describe the Western presence in Berlin as a sort of rotten truth that must be pulled out. So Gromyko then complains that the US threats against Cuba and the Soviet Union was only that the Soviets were only training the Cubans and use of defensive weapons, as you mentioned. So the Soviet delegation then responds by saying, Are you sure the President wants more of the policy of the Soviet Union always has and always will be directed at strengthening peace, the elimination of differences in relations between all countries, first of all, the relations between the USSR and the United States. And of course, the Soviet Union wants to have peace and friendship for all mankind. So in regards to the Cuban issue, it’s not been invented by the Soviet Union. It’s regards to the signing of the German peace treaty, a normalization of relations in West Berlin in regards to all other issues in two separate issues for each country, and the policy is peace, friendship and the removing of differences by peaceful means. So Kennedy then recalls his advisors back to the White House, and in another example of the Kennedy administration and their hopes of keeping up with business as usual under that guise, they do not hold the meeting in the West Wing of the White House, since that meeting would be taking place after hours. This was done out of fear that reporters would notice and suspect that something was off. So to the press and the public United States of it, as you said, the President was scheduled to fly to Cleveland on the 19th and then to Illinois for speeches and activities in Springfield and Chicago. You see the meeting with Mayor Daley there. And of course, in the film, Ken O’Donnell tells Pierre Salinger the President is going to have a cold the next day, and O’Donnell then is feeling the pressure from the press contact that you see as well, where he confronts him in the elevator and he rips the door open and basically backs him into a corner and says, you know, you’re not going to release that. No way. And there must have been that pressure in the media to, you know, keep basically, keep shut. Because if you you know, you know, made an enemy, and within the political circle in Kennedy’s administration, your career might be in jeopardy. I’m curious

 

Dan LeFebvre  37:24

about the element of speaking publicly about it, because that is something that as I was watching the movie, it seems like JFK and his inner circle are really debating what to do, which makes sense. You know, you have all these deliberations over what you’re going to do. But what was interesting to me is in the movie, it seems like he’s going to announce the decision he’s going to make publicly on TV and radio, and it almost seems to imply that the people who are closest to him that he’s been conferring with also don’t know about the decision he’s going to make until They see it publicly, as everybody else does, is it true that Kennedy made this decision and then revealed it publicly for the first time?

 

Joshua Donohue  38:08

Yeah, he what’s interesting about how he sort of, he’s almost absorbing everything. He’s not making concrete decisions on anything. He’s hearing arguments from one side and the other, and just back and forth, back and forth. The one particular scene as I mentioned, Curtis LeMay. And this actually takes place in the book. It’s recorded very and they really do a great job of it in the film, or JFK, and LeMay have that famous exchange where he meets with the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the 19th of October, and LeMay makes the quote, you’re in a pretty bad fix here, Mr. President. And then Kennedy does that slow turn. He goes, what’d you say? He goes, you’re in a pretty bad fix. And Kennedy responds, well, just in case you didn’t know you’re in it with me, that that actually did happen. So LeMay, his attitude was, you know that bomb them back to the Stone Age mentality, let’s attack them now. The Russians aren’t going to do anything. And Kennedy, and there’s that one scene where before that, where O’Donnell basically shields Kennedy from LeMay, it gives him that real stern look. So the decision to have the pre the TV announcement is a major deal, because at that point, this is really going to be where we have all of this information. We are going to let the world know about it. And this is where, again, things start to get pretty interesting, because when it comes to dictating cold war policy and how both the United States and the Soviet Union will return, respond and interpret to each other’s actions, the term blockade does imply, indeed an act of. War. And on the late evening of Thursday the 18th, he confers with McNamara, Gil Patrick Taylor, McGeorge Bundy and others his brother Ted Sorensen. And having the the awareness of what is going to happen, Kennedy will speak to the nation at 7:30pm on the 22nd of October 1962 so having long, long lived with the prospect and the knowledge of nuclear war and its unthinkable consequences, Americans reacted to Kennedy’s words with alarm, but not panic. Everywhere families were you see in the film stocking up on food, gasoline, other emergency supplies I was not around during this time. My father tells me about it. He remind me that the duck and cover days where American school children were subject to these nuclear drills, diving up to deaths in the classrooms in the event of an exchange, reservists were being prepared for call ups in homes and in bars, television watchers saw the footage of airplanes taking off, troop trains moving tanks from soldiers. So the atmosphere of pension was it was pervasive, and all through the night, analysts of the National Photographic interpretation center and elsewhere in the intelligence community actually anxiously await the scrutinized intelligence indicator of any Soviet military activity in response to Kennedy’s speech. Now, while they saw Soviet and Cuban forces being brought up to a higher state of readiness, they detected no real, apparent developments in the field preparing for any type of large scale move against Berlin, or, say, Turkey, for example. So the blockade is announced, and with it in place, the Russian vessels are now underway and under heavy surveillance by the US Navy, with their aerial and seaborn assets now gathering intelligence. So Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev had ordered his missile ship carrying vessels to turn around no more than 24 hours before the morning of October 23 and after Kennedy gives his nationwide announcement that the discovery of missiles in Cuba and the imposition of a quarantine around the island, according to Soviet documents and shipping records. Khrushchev only permits five ships already close to Cuba to proceed. So since these ships were only a few hours from sailing time to the closest Cuban port, there was little risk that they would be intercepted by warships. So you have the alexandrovsk carry nuclear warheads to Cuba, its escort ship, the element risks, which arrives in the port of La Isabella, adorned on the october 23 three other ships, the David north, the Dubno and the Nikolay, Soviet leader, ordered four submarines into The area with nuclear torpedoes to remain in the vicinity of the quarantine line. Ships and oil tankers carrying non military equipment were also authorized to head to Cuba. So the closest ships to the quarantine line the kimosk and the Gagarin, as McNamara points out, according to Bobby Kennedy, the US Navy makes contact with both ships at 1030 and 11am Washington time on the 24

 

Dan LeFebvre  43:28

Okay, so just because the movie does mention briefly that it’s a quarantine, but it can’t call it a blockade, because blockade would be an act of war, but everybody really knew what was going on? Would that be a fair interpretation at

 

Joshua Donohue  43:44

this point? And what’s the, what’s the thing too, that there’s the, there’s so much tension, and obviously you had the language barrier. So any sort of miscalculation, misstep, you know, any kind of action that may be perceived as an act of war. I mean, there are instances with the Russian summaries where one of the captains lost contact with his communique in Moscow and thought world war three was starting. Didn’t know what to do. One of his subordinates actually made him surface and say, Okay, we need to really think we really want to launch these missiles right now. That is a theme that plays out before the missile crisis and after. In the decades after that, there are so many times throughout the the course of the crisis where there are nuclear accidents, aircraft that are carrying nuclear weapons. They’re, you know, disintegrating in the sky. The nuclear weapons are being scattered all over the place. So we still can find today. I know there’s a, I think, a hydrogen bomb that’s still buried in the mud off the coast of Georgia some point there that was lost, I think by, I think a B 52 or B 47 so when talking about the I would say the most iconic quote from the Cuban Missile Crisis appears in a Saturday evening. Post retrospective in the weeks afterward, describing the confrontation between the blockade line between US warships and the missile carrying freighters. Rusk will say, on october 24 rival the eyeball, and I think the other fellow just blinked.

 

Dan LeFebvre  45:20

It’s just again, it’s his historically, it’s a different mindset of of times where it’s just things are so, I mean, they call it a crisis, for a reason, but just to think of how many times things can go wrong and and it starts. I mean, once it starts, it starts right? I mean, there’s,

 

Joshua Donohue  45:46

you know, Kennedy makes the the quotes that you know, there’s, there’s always gonna be some dumb bastard that doesn’t get the message or the or the order, and, and that’s so that’s true. You figure, um LeMay will be this type of person that the Joint Chiefs seem to have their own agenda, that they’re walking down the hallway saying, you know, these damn Kennedys, they don’t know what they’re doing. We need to do something fast before this gets out of control. So you’re trying to control people who want to do something completely the opposite of what you’re trying to do, and to maintain that posture and that discipline statesmanship, of negotiation, the art of negotiation, I would say, between the superpowers, is really born out of these 13 days. Because if you put Kennedy and Khrushchev side by side, they are polar opposites in every which way shape form, and to be able to go to find a middle ground is it would seem almost impossible, but this would obviously play out further as Kennedy makes their first major move. And I’ll sort of give it a little bit of a hint of what comes later on. It’s Ted Sorensen, and he is really the point man. He’s not really essential character in the film itself. You do see him here and there. You know he has some scenes where he interacts with Kennedy, but by all accounts, his role in the missile crisis was much more pronounced than it was in the film. So he’s actually the one that comes up with both versions of the speech, what quarantine blockades gonna look like, or what invasion and airstrikes gonna look like. And he has that great quote where he says, I couldn’t do the other one. I simply could not come up with it. And he was only able to do the speech that was only geared towards, okay, we’re gonna try and use most diplomatic way and peaceful way possible. You know, Sorensen couldn’t, couldn’t bring himself to come up with the worst version.

 

Dan LeFebvre  47:52

Well, earlier, we talked briefly about the Soviets denying the existence of missiles, and that topic comes back up after the speech, it’s JFK has made this public speech. So it’s it’s public what’s going on there. But in the UN, the ambassador Zorin from the Soviet Union tells the UN that the US is pushing the world to the brink of war, but they have no proof of the missiles that they claim are there. And then there’s all this tension from the American side because they think Adlai Stevenson, the American ambassador, isn’t going to be able to stand up to Zoran. And there’s all this extra tension that the movie adds there because of that. But then he does. He stands up to Zorin in the movie, and then he shows the photos of the missile and missiles in Cuba that prove to the UN that the Soviet Union is escalating the tensions, not the US. And the way that this plays out in the movie, it seems to catch the Soviets off guard, and then it almost seems to turn the pressure of the world’s nations that look like they were more on the US, because everybody thought the US was was doing this, and then it seems to shift it over to the Soviet Union. Was there really a pivotal moment like this that we see in the movie?

 

Joshua Donohue  49:04

Yeah. And another important scene is where you see President Kennedy talking, talking about the the delegation, the Organization of American States, that that was a particularly important bill. They he needed their support. Unilateral. He wanted unanimous. He makes it well known. I want a unanimous decision. He wants the entire support of the OAS. And this part is where the US has the Soviets really, more or less painted into a corner. Because even before this, we see another important scene the film, which does take place, it doesn’t happen in real life, where we see Ken O’Donnell speak to Commander William Ecker of the US Navy, where they had to see where they fly the two at the Crusader low level mission, the photo reconnaissance over the island. So Ecker was the commanding officer of photo reconnaissance of. Squad in 62 so because of the top secret nature of their mission, Eckers unit was ordered not to wear any insignia on the flight suit. Doesn’t even have his name tag on the on the top of his of his pockets. So interesting piece of trivia for the film. The actor who plays echo in the film is played by the late actor Christopher Lawford. So Lawford should sound familiar. He was the son of Peter Lawford of the Rat Pack. Of course, he was married to Patricia Pat Kennedy, who was JFK and RFK sister. So he’s the actual nephew of John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy. So the scene where we have Ecker and his wing may Lieutenant Bruce will Helmi take off on their RFA crusaders on october 23 1962 conducting the first low level reconnaissance flight over Cuba. As you see in the film, their aircraft take a series of photographs over one of the missile sites. So Ecker says the movie took some minor liberties about the truth of his mission. As you see, they fly over and the Cubans throw up a pretty heavy volume of fire. He takes a couple of shots sparrows. They were just sparrows, right? Yeah, those are sparrows. He goes, sorry, guys, this is the way it is, right. So, and there’s the scene where, and they there is some truth, where Ecker says the moment of his adventure was depicted pretty accurately in the film, his top secret debriefing, and the round table where He’s escorted immediately after he lands to go talk to LeMay, they didn’t even let him get out of the plane. They whisked him by limousine to the Pentagon room, to the tank, as it was called. Were recalling that Curtis LeMay, the head, of course, the of the former strategic of the head of the Strategic Air Command 1950s he was upset that, basically, the the Navy had upstaged the Air Force in obtaining these critical photos, and later, when Kennedy awards Ecker squadron with a Presidential Citation, LeMay was reported to be in the back of a limousine pouting and chopping on his cigar and refusing to participate. So that was that was what ecker’s version of it was, but that mission that takes place over Cuba was was significant at the end of the day, it gives Ambassador Ali Stevenson the photographs that he will use taken by Ecker at the United Nations as proof that the USSR has installed nuclear ballistic missiles in Cuba, and this would eventually turn opinion against the Soviet Union. So Edward Martin, who is the Secretary, Assistant Secretary of State of American Inter American Affairs, then seeks a resolution and support the Organization of American States. Adley Stevenson lays the matter before the UN Security Council, the ships of the naval quarantine line are now in place around Cuba. Soviet freighters bound for Cuba are now bringing supplies. Are now stopping dead of the motor, as you see in the film. But the oil tanker Bucharest continues towards Cuba, and in the evening, Robert Kennedy meets with Ambassador debride in the Soviet embassy. So talking about Adley Stevenson, he literally calls himself out as a coward in the beginning of the film. Remember, he kind of goes completely the opposite and says, Well, we should offer a deal to end the crisis. And Kennedy says, Oh no, there’s no way we can do that. So we later see him at a sort of political mixer where he talks to Ed O’Donnell and then later has a conversation about early in the evening and says, I basically call myself a coward in front of the whole room today. So from the outset, Stevenson really establishes himself as the most consequential and unacknowledged and unappreciated advisor. There were people simply saying, He’s not up to the past. We need to get somebody else there. Yeah, Bobby Kennedy on the phone saying, Okay, we’re gonna get ready to basically come out, take the cane and yank him off the stage and get somebody else up there to take over for him. So he had a reputation of preferring to concede rather than to confront. In the first days of the crisis, you know, he was worried that his man in New York wasn’t up to the test. And on Thursday, October 25 on the 10th day of the crisis, Stevenson showed that he had the stuff, more sterner stuff than JFK initially thought. And the former two time presidential candidate had effectively dressed down valerian Zorin, Soviet ambassador and UN Security Council meeting as the Americans watched on television, Stevenson listened passively. And that’s there’s that tension there. Come on. Come on. Add the Come on. And the Soviet Ambassador can continues to lace into the United States over and over again, and was finally his turn to speak to. He dispensed with the standard diplomatic niceties. He instead went immediately for the jugular. I want to say to you, Mr. Zoran, I do not have your town for obfuscation or distortion, confusing language and your double talk. I must confess to you that I’m glad I do not. And Stevenson went on to denounce the Russians for lying, treating Zorin in a way that Ambassador likened to the American prosecutor, brow beating a defendant. And then said, All right, sir, let me ask you one simple question, Ambassador, Zorin, do you deny that the USSR has placed medium, intermediate range missiles on the island of Cuba? Yes or no? Don’t wait for the translation, yes or no. So there’s that real, you know, instant there where the room, the room is watching. They cheer. They say, Yeah, way to go. Adley and said, you can answer yes or no. You’ve denied they exist. I want to understand you correctly. I prepared a way for my answer until hell freezes over, and it’s your decision. So with Zorin still continuing to refuse to answer, Stephen Stevenson and his aides then proceed to put up Eckers photos of the missiles in Cuba, the delegates in the room are also the Russians are saying, oh my goodness, what’s going on they, you know. And who knows that? They even are aware of it, you know. So that the Khrushchev would sort of hang a lot of his visors out to dry, not giving the whole picture what’s going on. So the mild mannered Stevenson had an enormous political and diplomatic victory The United States,

 

Dan LeFebvre  56:30

even just just the timing of it, you know, happening in the 60s. It’s not like, it’s not like Word would travel as fast as it does now, anyway. So you know, even if they weren’t hiding something, or that could just be the time it takes for things to travel, they might not have known.

 

Joshua Donohue  56:50

Yeah, I mean, like I said, that’s the thing that’s probably the most was, the most alarming is that we don’t live in an age like we do now, with you have everything the world that the palm of your hand, and you can communicate anywhere in the world, basically at a moment’s notice. There is still delays, and there’s that back and forth. We don’t know how the Russians are gonna interpret this, you know, this conversation, or this move, and vice versa. So there’s all these different what ifs and different scenarios. But I think Kennedy, really, this is the point where we start to see, okay, we might have a real solid plan here that’s going to actually work without, you know, World War Three breaking out. And I think that’s just the one of the key points is how Stevenson is just waiting. He’s waiting. He’s waiting, just letting them go through their whole diatribe about how we’re escalating tensions and we’re putting the world at risk of nuclear war, and then just here’s the evidence, here’s the proof, and we’re going to be doing this for a little bit. And I like how he defers to the other. I forget which leader it was, but I think it was one of the it was Panama. Oh yeah, yeah. It says, No, I give up all my time to the

 

Dan LeFebvre  58:07

ambassador. I yield my time back to the US. Okay,

 

Joshua Donohue  58:10

love that. I absolutely love it. I

 

Dan LeFebvre  58:12

was speaking of the communications and such. And in the movie, there’s something that kind of new and unexpected happens around this point, and movie only really mentions His name is John in the dialog. I looked at the casting. I think they were talking about John scali. He’s a ABC News correspondent. He arrives at the White House now in the movie, and he’s telling the President and his advisors that he has a source named Alexander foeman. And according to scali, this guy, foeman knows the Soviet Premier Khrushchev personally, so JFK tasks Ken O’Donnell to going to the FBI validating this story. He’s not able to find definitive proof in the few hours that he has everything’s under a time crunch here, but O’Donnell tells President Kennedy of a possible connection between foeman and Khrushchev from 1941 as war buddies. So that’s enough. Scali meets with fomen and tells him that the American government is open to guaranteeing that they will not invade Cuba in exchange for the missiles being dismantled. But then the two conditions that are that the UN has to is that the UN has to inspect the missiles, not just taking their word for it to prove that they’ve been dismantled. And then the deal has to be made in 48 hours. That’s the other part of the deal. And then soon after this, we see that, you know, a 10 page letter being sent from Khrushchev to Kennedy seems to be going around all of the official communication channels that’s going on behind the scenes here. And in that letter, he says that he’ll remove the missiles in exchange for the no invasion pledge. And so just have me curious about this communication going on behind the scenes. We’re talking about this communication going on in different time period. Did that sort of communication between Khrushchev and Kennedy actually happened the way we see in the

 

Joshua Donohue  59:58

movie? Yeah. Yeah. It did. And it’s interesting, because there’s this whole other dynamic. It’s the world Island streets of Washington, DC. It’s the world outside the White House and all the major decision making, walking to into a restaurant with with, you know, a Soviet diplomat. So journalists at the time lived for scoops being the first to break a major news story is the ticket to journalistic fortune and fame. And if you’re a journalist covering the biggest story of your lifetime and suddenly become a participant, do you tell the world what you’ve learned, or do you sit on it? So ABC News diplomatic correspondent John Sculley found himself in such a predicament on Friday the 26th of October 1962 on the 11th day. So scali got a call shortly after noon time from Alexander foeman. And foeman was officially a diplomatic counselor at the Soviet embassy in Washington. His real job, though, was a KGB station chief in Washington. So his given name was Alexander beckslaw, and he had to also also run Klaus Fuchs and the Rosenberg spy ring. So he wanted to have lunch with Scally, and he was just finishing a baloney sandwich. She was not inclined to eat anymore, but the urgency that he detected from Bowman’s voice persuaded him that food wasn’t the point of the phone call. So he agrees to meet at the occidental restaurant located just a few blocks from the White House. So scholarly immediately returns to his office at the State Department in the press room, and jots a memo, short memo summarizing what Foreman had told him he gave his the memo to Roger Hillsman, the director of the State Department, Bureau of Intelligence for research. Hillsman immediately recognized it as, as you know, something of significance. Then passes along to Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, and then the secretary turns it on to JFK and Robert McNamara. So Foreman’s offer to scali came now as JFK was becoming increasingly pessimistic about the direction of the crisis and where it was headed. So the Soviet ships carrying missile parts had turned back, but there were still missiles in Cuba. More would become operational every single day. So the morning of the X com meeting, he had told his advisors the missile would come not only if the United States invaded Cuba or offered to trade removal of the missiles of something that the Soviets wanted. Now, with Fauci overture, he now had a possible way out of the crisis. So after scali finishes his appearance on ABC News at Six o’clock pm network broadcast, he doesn’t mention anything about the lunch with fallen he was summoned to the State Department and ushered into Dean rusk’s office. Secretary pulled out a yellow sheet of legal sized paper out of his pocket and began reading the gist of the message. That was that scali should tell fomen that he had been of the highest officials of the state government the United States, that the administration saw possibilities in his offer. So scali immediately arranges to meet Fauci at the coffee shop at the Staller Hotel on Statler Hotel, I should say, half a block away from the Soviet embassy. He would pass along the message, and after being convinced that scarly was leveling him, foeman had picked up the 36 cab fare for two cups of coffee that they ordered, and then the cashier continued talking to a friend, rather than take the payment, the Soviet spy chief stopped a $5 bill on the counter and just disappeared. So it’s just like I said, there’s this whole underworld out there in Washington, DC probably still exists where there’s just, there’s negotiations going on behind the scenes, and as scholarly relays his message to fallen. The White House was now receiving a long and emotional letter from Nikita Khrushchev and confirming that the proposal of fallen that had floated in the first place to scholarly so the letter was delivered to the US Embassy in Moscow around 9:43am and that morning Washington time, it had taken more than 11 hours to translate the letter, and had the State Department brought it to the White House, and again, Khrushchev’s indignant defense of why the Soviet Union had sided with Cuba and Khrushchev then shifts gears and then actually puts an offer on a table. So Kennedy is an advisors infer, it really inferred from Khrushchev’s and Foreman’s letter and their overtures that the Soviets were making a coordinated effort at this point to extend an olive branch. In fact, foreman was really, you know, trying to initiate different developments and really hoping that this was going to break somehow. And. JFK and his advisors were becoming more hopeful that a political resolution, a peaceful resolution, was now possible. Cuban leader Fidel Castro was becoming increasingly convinced that a US innovation was imminent, and he had no intention of backing down from the imperialists without inflicting major pain in return. And then he sends a letter to Khrushchev, saying, we need to attack the United States right now, first strike. And however harsh or terrible, terrible solution, there would be no other. So Castro also orders human forces to fire on any US aircraft which will enter Cubans airspace, which we would see play out.

 

Dan LeFebvre  1:05:43

You have all the all of these things going on in the movie. Does make a good point. There was a, I don’t remember the exact line of dialog. There was something in there talking about how one of the advisors mentions to JFK how the Soviets lied about the missiles. So what about this letter? How do we know that this isn’t just another Rouge they’re trying to stall for time because, again, they’re, they know that they’re building these missiles, and they’re, you know, the time is until these are ready for launch. So maybe they are just stalling for time. Do we know now of ways that Kennedy was able to authenticate this letter and or was he just mostly working off faith that this was real? I

 

Joshua Donohue  1:06:17

think it was a little bit of both. I think by this point, you know, Kennedy was again at the point of frustration. I think we start to sort of see his line of thinking sort of said, okay, you know what? We might need to start considering that now that this window of time is closing, we’re not sure what’s going to happen. So this was a sort of glimmer of hope that I think Kennedy was really looking for at the end of the day, he, you know, he was just waiting for a any glimmer of UN even they pushed that issue throughout the film. And even Bobby Kennedy, as I mentioned earlier, they’re trying to push every single diplomatic solution available. And that this letter comes across in the course, you know, the relationship there with Khrushchev, and Khrushchev response back, we now can see that Kennedy is able to effectively reach out to Khrushchev. It’s almost as if you’re you’re dictating policy by doing things. So you know, by this move, you mean this, by doing that move, you mean that. So all of these, as I mentioned earlier, interpretation of things, any kind of miscalculation, everything was so just razor thin as far as the margin of error and the negotiations that were going on, as I mentioned, Castro’s telegram to Khrushchev. Kennedy knew nothing about this. And as as far as he could tell that Friday night, he now had a way out of the crisis that now served us interests. And what he would discover when he awoke the next morning was that the crisis would enter its most dangerous day, the 27th which was Black Saturday, and the decisions that he and Khrushchev made, more importantly, the events that neither men had anticipated more control, would determine whether the world would go to the brink, go go to war, over the over the nuclear break effect.

 

Dan LeFebvre  1:08:18

Wait, you mentioned Saturday, the 27th and that’s about where we’re at in the timeline of the movie. And as if things were already aren’t escalated tensions, they escalate once again when the Americans get confirmation that the Soviets have deployed what they call frogs, keyboard short range tactical nukes, and the belief is that there might be using this against an invasion force. They assume the US is going to invade Cuba, and so this is the defensive there. But meanwhile, we also see that the according to the movie, at least the Soviets, have stepped up their work on installing the missiles. The first few have become operational already, and then the rest are going to be done within 36 hours. So according to the movie, President Kennedy seems like there’s no other choice, so he orders the airstrike to take place on Monday morning, followed by the invasion. And that means they only have a few hours left if they hope to reach a diplomatic solution. Did Kennedy actually order the airstrike and invasion like we see in the movie?

 

Joshua Donohue  1:09:19

Yeah, as I said, you know, there was that other there was the one part that was, your Kennedy was okay. There’s a little bit of hope for a peaceful solution to this. But I can’t take my finger off the other option, which is, you know, committing to total release that on october 27 Kennedy would approve McNamara’s suggestion, calling into active duty 24 Air Reserve squadrons of troop carrier aircraft. These aircraft made it possible to airlift the first wave of the airborne invasion, considering about 34,800 paratroopers from Port Bragg and Fort Campbell, they will be followed by surface movement of the first Armored Division. 10 and elements of two infantry divisions designated for further reinforcement if necessary. So what was called out plan 314 or operations. Plan 314 calls for the deliberate and coordinated invasion of Cuba, with the Marines landing on eastern Cuba, or near Guantanamo, and the 18th Air Corps seizing airfields in and around Havana. And the amphibious phase of the operation will be controlled by headquarters second fleet, with joint task force 122, so once these initial landings would be completed, headquarters the 18th Air Corps and the would become a JTF driven Task Force Cuba to control all further operations from that point on, to really facilitate the expected popular uprising against Castro, a separate joint unconventional warfare task force in the Atlantic would deploy Special Forces and other elements into Cuba, as I mentioned, This was the era, of course, you know, they had the John F Kennedy Special Warfare school. Kennedy was really a firm believer in developing these, these elite units like we see, you know, the Green Berets, the seals and so on. So these units involved remained on high alert into November, and long after the public perception of the crisis had effectively disappeared. So this prolonged alert, like the prolonged preparation and prior to discovery of the missiles, indicates the seriousness which the administration had contemplated attacking Cuba. So in effect, the US Army had really prepared for a major war without mobilizing its reserve forces, an anomaly that was similar to the situation which would take place during the Vietnam War. So this high state of readiness was achieved at substantial cost, both in dollars in the long term, efficiency of services, the call for equipment and personnel to bring units into strength, had depleted the army school system, the army never received the authority to extend soldier enlistments or recall reservists, although McNamara ran such authority to both the Navy and the Marines on october 27 So overall, you know, we have the Kennedy would eventually start to sort of, you know, plan for the worst, but not quite rule out. You know, there still might be some hope, holding out hope that this quarantine, and you know this, this is going to work somehow. It’s already showing that it’s, it is that there are already Russian ships that are not really getting close to the quarantine line, turning around, and of course you’re going to get those. You’re going to still pass through, so there’s still very much the tensions that day. And then of course, we have what happens later on with the incident over Cuba with major Rudolph Anderson.

 

Dan LeFebvre  1:12:55

That leads right into the next question about about major Anderson, because in the movie, again, this is, this is on Saturday the 27th according to the movie, too, and that’s when the first casualty of the Cuban missile crisis occurs. Mention his name, major Anderson. He’s piloting a u2 spy plane at some 72,000 feet, according to the movie, when we see surface to air missiles getting launched, and he tries to evade them, but they end up hitting his plane and breaks up in the air. So if we were to believe the movie’s version of history, this is the first casualty that we see in the crisis. Is that true? Yeah,

 

Joshua Donohue  1:13:30

it is. And as I mentioned earlier, the YouTube spy plane was a major leap forward in terms of aerospace technology, the brainchild of Clarence Kelly Johnson of Lockheed, and the view two itself was meant to be avoided detection, avoided surface to air missiles, avoid any kind of defense capabilities whatsoever. So Rudolph Anderson does indeed become the first casualty of the crisis when his YouTube was shot down. Anderson was actually not scheduled to fly on this day, but he lobbied hard for the assignment when the mission was edited in schedule. So it was mission 3127 which was Anderson six, mission over Cuba as a part of Operation brass knob, which would be the most dangerous yet. And now what’s occurring is you have the Soviet essay to surface to air, missile operational, and now, seemingly war was going to be imminent in the SA two itself, which many pilots in Vienna during the Vietnam War, we’ll find out, is a deadly, deadly missile with, it’s basically like someone basically firing a telephone call at you that’s coming at you, you know, multiple times the speed of sound, and it’s it’s got a deadly, deadly range. So of course, as soon as the USA, after. You to approach Cuban airspace. It was detected and tracked by Soviet radars and assigned the designation target 33 so together with their commanders, operations nervously. Operators nervously monitor this aircraft as it progressed, crossing from the island from the northwest to a southeast axis and feeding all this real time information and reports to several surface to air missile sites that were now on full combat alert. So right from the start, the Soviets knew that the high flying intruder was neither innocent nor alone. Their work, in turn, was also being tracked by one of the United States Air Force’s RB 40 7h aircraft of the 55th wing, just also coordinating with the crew of the USS Oxford. So this was a multi surface ship airplane operation, not just this one u2 flying by itself. There’s a lot that goes into these missions. So just the presence of the u2 and the RB 40 7h did not escape. You know, the the tension of Soviet radar. So Anderson would steer his u2 over Guantanamo Bay After continuing to a war westerly direction. And the fact that will become crucial, what happened next? This would now bring him directly into the course of a Soviet unit equipped with a the SS c2 a Salish cruise missile deployed outside the village of Filipinas, and the fkr one missile were deployed with also 12 kiloton nuclear warheads meant to neutralize the US base of Guantanamo in case of an invasion. So because the missiles were moved into position during the night of October 26 and the 27th their presence could not have been relayed by earlier revealed, I should say, by earlier reconnaissance flights. So the fact that major Anderson overflew the area in question was arguably one of the main reasons why the Soviet commanders ordered their units to fire and shoot down his u2 so the u2 itself is because it was meant to fly at high altitude to avoid detection and missiles. The SA two was, was the perfect missile to bring the u2 down. If you see the u2 if you notice, pilots of the u2 are always wearing space suits. They are flying really at the edge of the atmosphere. And the u2 itself, with a long wingspan, was not an easy airplane to fly. It’s actually still in service today, but it’s as really bicycle landing. You have to have monitors driving their cars and trucks to monitor the u2 and talk to the pilots to make sure the wings don’t hit the ground. So it’s a tough plane to fly in every from takeoff to landing. So having flown over Guantanamo Anderson tries to fly in a northwesterly direction, and intending to fly over the island, he is constantly monitored. And of course, the missiles are sent up. And by all accounts, they say that A piece of shrapnel pierced the cockpit into Anderson’s flight suit, depressurizing it killed him instantly. And you know, the YouTube crashes there was actually the wreckage of that plane is still on display in certain parts of Cuba. What

 

Dan LeFebvre  1:18:17

was it like? The tensions like at that had to have been the highest point of the crisis, right?

 

Joshua Donohue  1:18:22

Yeah. I mean, you have Kennedy is really again, the invasion is on his mind. He has which could take place within 24 to 48 hours. Then you have Rudolph Anderson, you know, being down. And you have LeMay Maxwell, Taylor and others saying, we need to go to war right now, and you have the incident where the threat level is brought to DEFCON two, and Kennedy absolutely loose. He brings, you know, Bobby and Ken O’Donnell into the Oval Office. And it’s just completely, you know, he had a situation where we had a glimmer of hope for peace. And now this happens, and the pressure that must have mounted against Kennedy, and again, he must have been physically and mentally drained by the time this just happens. And of course, you have to now think there’s that scene where he looks out the window he sees, you know, Jackie and his kids out there playing with the other and they’re all thinking the same thing, this could be the end of the world, and the answer that they would be waiting for would come 24 hours later, that Sunday, the world will be pulled back from the brink of war With less than 24 hours to go before American airstrikes are set.

 

Dan LeFebvre  1:19:45

Wow, which is just one of those things of it’s you can hear it, but it’s still hard to wrap your head around just how close that was. Throughout the movie, there were a couple things that made me think maybe they’re doing it for Hollywood. Timing, because we see some, some military tests going on. It just the, it seems like the absolute worst time. There’s a hydrogen bomb detonation above Johnson island the South Pacific that we see happening. There’s a missile launch test at Vandenberg Air Force Base, and other tests that happened. Were there any other things outside of the crisis that that happened that just, I mean, had had to immediately increase tension. You see a missile launch. How do you know that that’s actually a test as opposed to just a launch, right? Yeah.

 

Joshua Donohue  1:20:27

So it just so happens. And just to make things even worse, you know, of course, nuclear tests have been going on since the end of the Second World War. Of course, Russia detonates their first atomic bomb in 1949 so since the end of World War Two, the United States and Russia had been conducting nuclear weapons tests with Russia. Of course, in 49 both nations engaged in an arms race with nuclear weapons stockpiles increasing into the hundreds and soon 1000s of nuclear bombs, whether tactical nukes, cruise missiles, multiple independent re entry vehicles, either launched from missile bases, aircraft or submarines. So you can basically miniaturize or maximize these weapons to great effect, as we see with the footage of the test flights and the preparedness flights and nuclear tests. So on August 30, 1961 Nikita Khrushchev announces to at the Soviet Union will break from the three year moratorium and resume nuclear testing. So two days later, they started an unprecedented series of atmospheric nuclear tests, including the detonation of a 50 megaton device. So subsequently, President Kennedy decides that the nation must resume atmospheric nuclear testing and approve what’s known as Operation dominant, which is the largest nuclear testing operation ever conducted. It takes place from april of 1962 all throughout the year, into the Cuban Missile Crisis and beyond that. So this was just, you know, everyday stuff, you know. Oh, yeah, you know, I know this is going on, but yeah, we’re just going to test, you know, fire a nuclear weapon. And beginning in april of 1962 um Dominic was a series of 36 nuclear tests, with the majority of these tests being 29 air drops by B 52 bombers. So three of the tests took place during the crisis. So these weapon development tests were went to evaluate the advanced designs and the labs that were cooking up for all these years and the moratorium and beyond. So the two tests of the operational weapon systems were conducted. The Polaris submarine basically launched ballistic missile and the anti submarine rocket. So during the crisis itself, the US will detonate a one point 1.59 megaton bomb called chama over Johnston Atoll on October 18. Checkmate is detonated over Johnston on the 20th the Soviet Union will detonate k3 on the 22nd at the height of the crisis, the US will detonate two more nuclear devices, bluegill, triple prime and calamity on the 26th and 27th of October, respectively. So the Soviets then respond with another detonation of k4 on the 28th and the megatons are going up and up into the hundreds at this point. So it’s almost as if both nations nuclear weapons were doing the talking in somewhat shape or form. Okay, you have this. Okay, we have this. And just this back and forth. So heeding to this wake up call, in the following months, both parties in alongside the United Kingdom continued negotiations on banning nuclear testing, and with the comprehensive banning of nuclear tests on the table, only a partial ban could be achieved, owing to the pressure from the military establishment on both sides. So the Newton, the 1963 partial Test Ban Treaty bans nuclear testing above ground, in the atmosphere and outer space and underwater, but not under, not underground, I should say, so you can almost make the argument that as a result of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and you know, the continued nuclear tests that were going on simultaneously, you had to back away and say, Okay, this, this could have really gone astray and a detonation here, oh, we’re going to war. So it could have been that easy to sort of make that miscalculation,

 

Dan LeFebvre  1:24:35

which throws another whole other bit of historical context to what you were talking about earlier, when talking about how you know, Kennedy had to continue with his normal schedule, and everybody has to continue with the normal schedule, because you don’t want the public to know yet. But part of that that public schedule is also doing these tests that might say, say some things you don’t want to say to the opponents. The other side, right? That just adds another whole other level of tension that we haven’t even talked about,

 

Joshua Donohue  1:25:04

that was there as if, as if, you know the whole situation with the missiles being, you know, the warheads being placed on on them, and the Russian submarines with their with nuclear weapons. Of course, the Americans there too, and still, obviously the downing of major Anderson’s YouTube, and then, of course, the detonation that takes place all throughout. It’s a miracle. It really, it really is and and even to go further beyond into the Cold War years, I remember there was a an instance in 1983 or a Soviet operator on a console detected the launch of nuclear missiles from the United States, and was just seconds away from launching. So is

 

Dan LeFebvre  1:25:47

that the war games movie? Wasn’t there a movie about that kind of thing? Yes, both. Matthew Broderick,

 

Joshua Donohue  1:25:52

yeah. So it’s, it’s like I said, there are the way things played out and the way that Kennedy’s just tactful decision making. And just to give him, you know, so much credit, you see in the film how much pressure he is under. And just, you know, again, the physical and mental toll you see, really, like towards the end of it had to have been considerable. And, you know, I guess if you really think about the end of the day. It also damages relations between Russia and Cuba that Castro wants to go to war. He wants to make the first strike. He wants Soviet backing behind him, and when the Russians begin pulling away, he’s saying, wait a minute, what would happen? We had this whole idea we could keep these missiles here and with the Bay of Pigs, and this could happen again. So it really cool. Our heads prevail, and thankfully for all of us, but that this takes place,

 

Dan LeFebvre  1:26:53

movie focus is mostly from the American side, so we don’t get a lot from the Soviet side. But you did mention earlier the the Jupiter missiles. And that’s that’s a part of it. We’ll get to kind of how the movie shows the whole thing coming to an end. But what were things like from the Soviet side? Because as I was watching the movie, I got the impression that, okay, one of the big reasons why the United States wants the missiles out of Cuba is because they can destroy so many people so quickly. But I also got the impression that the the United States is basically doing the same thing the Soviet Union with missiles in Turkey, that could pretty much kind of do the same thing that we’re seeing over here. So can you give us an overview of what things were like on the Soviet side that we don’t even see in

 

Joshua Donohue  1:27:37

the movie? So things were much different on the Soviet side, the Soviet Union reacted very differently. So for Americans, especially during World War Two, it’s for the Cuban Missile Crisis. It’s unique crisis, because for the first time in their history, they realized that we could be destroyed completely. We didn’t worry about this. During World War Two, we had oceans on either side of us. None of our cities were bombed. Our industries continued to produce the material and weapons we needed to win the war. So for the Soviet people, they had their own war experience. For them, it was no different. There was no panic in the streets of Moscow. Life went on as usual. They experienced threats many times throughout their history, going back, you know, to know, the times of the Mongolian invasions during the time of, you know, in the post Roman world, and in the early part of the Middle Ages, where you have Western Asia was a flurry of activity from outside context. You have the Vikings, the Magyars, the Germanic tribes and so on. You have the fast forward. You have the Russo Japanese war in 1905 President Theodore Roosevelt has to preside over the negotiations to end that conflict. Then you have World War One, where Russia is forced out of the war with the Treaty of Brest litovsk. And yeah, of course, the Russian Revolution of 1917 taking place. And then Stalin enters the picture. You have the great terror. You have the purges from 1936 to 38 then, of course, World War Two, for Nazi Germany breaks from Molotov Ribbentrop and invades the Soviet Union in 1941 with Operation Barbarossa. So the worst fighting of World War Two takes place in Russia. They suffer the highest amount of casualties in the war. Estimates between eight to 10 million soldiers and around 20 million civilian deaths. And Russia will account for about a third of all the losses in all of World War Two, which is staggering. So the Russians misconception was sort of their own reality, the enemy at the gate, the missiles at your borders, like anything, this is all a part of their historical experience. So Europeans had enemies the. States for all their time in history, American bases that surround now the Soviet Union and when Americans replaced missiles bases in Turkey and any other European country, it didn’t create any panic, because the obligation of the government was to deal with the opposite side. It was expected that they were going to take a firm stance on any sort of, you know, potential threat. So again, the Americans, we were lucky, and we enjoyed, you know, the isolation. And Americans were basically scared of everything as a nation. And I would compare, you know, the Americans at this time as a sort of a tiger that grows up in the zoo and then just released into the jungle, you know. So they really didn’t have any kind of conception. World War Two was distant. Pearl Harbor was off in the middle of Hawaii, didn’t touch the mainland. And, you know, with Russia again, it’s that constant threat that we’re going to be, you know, destroyed or conquered was, you know, was really their mindset,

 

Dan LeFebvre  1:31:01

okay, yeah, that makes, that makes a lot of sense as to why I was so treated so differently, for sure, yeah,

 

Joshua Donohue  1:31:09

different, different circumstances. And again, they had been, they’d ex, I would even say, you know, it’s still continuing, of course, with, you know, Russia and Ukraine being engaged in this war. You know, for years down, there’s no, no sign of it, you know, study, let’s say North Korean troops are going into the fight now. So, you know, they’re just a country that’s, you know, used to strife and conflict. They’re used to, you know, going out, whether it’s, you know, regaining territory from the old Soviet days, or you’re defending themselves from the Nazis, or, you know, whatever the conflict was, they’re just a nation that is used to having to defend itself at all costs.

 

Dan LeFebvre  1:31:51

Yeah, yeah, which is not something we’re so used to here and the young lanes of the United States is for sure. Well, at the end of the movie, we see Ken O’Donnell driving Bobby Kennedy to the Soviet embassy in the middle of the night. When they get there, there’s the smell. You can’t smell it in movie, of course, but there’s the smell of smoke and the dimension in the air because the Soviets are burning documents in anticipation of war. And we see Bobby Kennedy talking to the Soviet ambassador to Brennan. He tells the ambassador that the President is willing to accept the deal in Khrushchev’s first letter, in other words, in exchange for the Soviets removing the missiles in Cuba and submitting to the UN inspection to verify that it’s done, the US will publicly promise not to invade or help any other nation invade Cuba, and the US will also Remove we just mentioned those, the Jupiter missiles from Turkey. That’s part of the deal as well, although Kennedy says that they’ll have to do it privately about six months later. They don’t want to look like it’s happening right away, but they’ll have the answer by tomorrow, Sunday, according to the movie, and the answer comes. Khrushchev agrees. So the world is pulled back from the brink of war with less than 24 hours to go before the American air strikes are set to commence. How well does the movie do showing the way the Cuban missile crisis came to an end.

 

Joshua Donohue  1:33:11

So as Kennedy, as President Kennedy, suspected the missile crisis had turned a decisive corner, but it was not over the weeks of secret, often tense negotiations would follow until a complete Soviet and us understanding was made on November the 20th, so President Kennedy’s position remains sort of awkward through the last sort of days of October led to believe that the crisis was essentially over. Reporters expected that evidence they were gonna be seeing, evidence the missiles being pulled out of Cuba. So the government really had no such evidence, or, you know, to release. So Kennedy had really little to go on. Expect, really expect, except his own belief that Khrushchev was indeed being sincere, and that belief was reinforced by intelligence of both, as I mentioned before, Cuban and Chinese anger of what they see, what they saw was a regard of a Soviet betrayal that they had effect were, you know, pumping themselves up. We’re going to be with the ultimate counter to the United States. We’re the biggest superpower. We’re going to develop more nuclear missiles, and we’re going to be the big, tough leader of the Communist world. And of course, you have China going communist 1949 and of course, Cuba in 1959 as well. So there’s this mounting communist threat that’s existing abroad, and it would really take more intense negotiation and communication between Kennedy and Khrushchev on october 28 Khrushchev would send a private message to Kennedy again trying to nail. Down the deal on the withdrawal of the Jupiter missiles. So this is really a good sort of lesson in statecraft and statesmanship, and even brinksmanship, if you want to sort of term it that way, that the Cold War was was really overall marked by the series of events, by, you know, the, you have the Berlin crisis, and, you know, the Berlin Blockade, the Berlin airline, then the Berlin wall goes up. And there’s all these different phases of what, of course, we’re in well within the Soviet Zone of Occupation, you know, right face to face with the Russians, and it’s this divisiveness. And again, the criticism is level to Kennedy that he can’t handle it. And I think what this demonstrates is that his decision making was critical may have saved the world. I would say in many ways, he probably did, because you think about it, at any given day, say, one day you’re feeling this way, the next, you’re feeling this another way. And someone tells you this, and someone tells you this, and you thinking, okay, how am I going to formulate a reasonable conclusion? How am I going to make a sound decision here? And you got, you have guys like LeMay and Taylor and, you know, Rusk and McGeorge Bundy and McNamara, all of these guys are just, you know, and of course, your flesh and blood brother, Bobby is there right with you. And I was actually surprised to see and read how much of a role he had as the attorney general. He really, I would say, in many ways, didn’t get really a whole lot of credit for really the credit he deserves, because he was putting himself out there, wanting to go out and meet with, you know, the Soviet delegation, and try and nail down a solution. Because he really felt that, I think in a lot of ways, that the brothers both felt that they had to sort of make up for the legacy of their father in a lot of and again, there’s that, there again, that that Munich exchange, that look they have, and there’s, there’s the referencing to it, I think in a lot of ways, they, they want to reverse course and say, No, we’re not going to be appeasing. We want to try and find a diplomatic solution to this issue, because we don’t have any other choice. The other choice is the world goes to nuclear war and it’s all over. We’re not going to have tomorrow to think, oh, maybe we shouldn’t have made this decision. So Kennedy, again, I get his presidency was for the short time that it lasted. He did a lot of things, a lot of important things. And, you know, I was surprised to see towards the end and in the end of the crisis, some of the phone calls he makes are kind of surprised. And I’ll, I’ll sort of tell you about that

 

Dan LeFebvre  1:37:56

in a moment. Are you open to doing a what if question about that? Because I’m curious about that. As as I was watching the movie, I got the sense that JFK, Bobby Kennedy, and then, of course, Ken O’Donnell, and those are the kind of the three people who repeatedly seem to be pushing back against you mentioned some of the military leaders there, and in the movie, yeah, we see them pushing like, oh, we need to go to war. You know, we need to launch these airstrikes and do that. And of course, we know from history that JFK was assassinated about a year and a month later in november of 1963 so I can’t help but wonder, what if JFK had not been President? Maybe LBJ or, I guess anyone else really, that you could throw in there. But do you think the Cuban missile crisis would have ended differently if JFK was not President?

 

Joshua Donohue  1:38:42

That’s a great question, because I said, you know, everyone has different attitudes, tolerances, thresholds. Interestingly enough, although the film doesn’t show it, and it’s in the book The Kennedy tapes, and again, there’s the transcripts of the conversation Kennedy would leave the X com meeting on the 28th that Sunday, at 12, 8pm and he does this a couple of times prior, but he placed a call. He would place a call to former President Dwight Eisenhower. And Eisenhower, of course, knows all too well the complexities of the US Russia relationship, especially during the height of the Red Scare during his presidency. Of course, Sputnik takes place, you know, the YouTube and Francis Gary Powers. So Kennedy would brief Eisenhower on the results of the preliminary agreements between himself and Premier Nikita Khrushchev. Kennedy’s literal response to Eisenhower’s critique is one of agreement, and Eisenhower seems to agree with Kennedy’s decision making, which I’m sure had to be reassuring for the young president to get such affirmation from someone like Eisenhower, who was no stranger to making hard decisions, not only during those difficult, intense years of the Cold War During his presidency, but. But of course, as his exemplary leadership as supreme allied commander during World War Two. After he hangs up with Eisenhower, he then calls president, former president, Harry Truman, who was 78 years old at the time, and Truman also well versed in the art of cold war strategy, being really the first president to experience it at the end of the world after end of World War Two. He also expresses his relief and telling Kennedy, I’m pleased to death with the way those things turned out, quote, unquote, and like the Eisenhower call it was brief. So he’s almost looking for affirmation like validation. I would say like, you know, you like my predecessors, guys who make the right decisions. Here. After he hangs up with Truman, he then calls former President Herbert Hoover, who’s 88 years old at the time, Hoover is also pleased to hear the good news about the events, telling Kennedy this represents a good triumph for you. So I think this is a good example of the type of person that and the leader that Jonathan Gerald Kennedy was. He knew his history. He would quote, you know, in the film Sun Tzu the guns of August, he was well aware of what each of his predecessors had experienced during their respective presidencies. So to answer your question, I think if any one of Kennedy’s predecessors, even Richard Nixon, who was of course, Eisenhower’s vice president, ran against Kennedy in 1960 election, he understood the realities of the Cold War. He was a great statesman who knew the art of strategy and policy, negotiation and deal making. So it takes a great deal of diplomacy to deal with the complexities, such as the Cuban Missile Crisis. Lyndon Johnson, I’m not sure he, he, you know, again, he was vice president with Kennedy. He was in the room. I was surprised that he would when I was reading the book, he would kind of chime in here and there when, when only really asked Kennedy was really more focused on, on his his strategies. Lyndon Johnson was kind of like a, you know, a side, sort of sidebar, if you will. So as I mentioned earlier, the overwhelming consensus between a JFK advisors, between Robert McNamara and Ted Sorensen. Ashley will say that Ken O’Donnell was not the central figure throughout the crisis. So I looked even more into it and found out something interesting about the film. So Kevin O’Donnell, who is Ken O’Donnell’s son, who was a venture capitalist and actually would buy back controlling interest of the production company beacon pictures in 1999 he denied the influence on his father’s character or any portrayal of that. So there’s always that sort of speculation of whether his influence put Ken O’Donnell at the forefront, but from by all accounts and what McNamara and really and Rusk and others said that Ted Sorensen was really the guy. He was the point man. He was the one writing the speeches that Kennedy was going to tell the nation. So Sorenson was really the guy that doesn’t get didn’t get quite the credit that he deserves. Not so much Ken O’Donnell. Sadly enough, Ken O’Donnell would succumb to the effects of alcoholism even 1977 after Kennedy was assassinated in november of 1963 he joined with Robert Kennedy. They were very close, and when Robert was assassinated in June of 1968 he just couldn’t, couldn’t bear it. It was just too he had become, it just completely enmeshed in the Kennedy’s life into Camela. He was right there at the center of things, but it’s sadly, it doesn’t end well for him. So interesting is that he’s not really the focal point of the movie. That’s kind of why I gave it just a B, not really a b plus or an A, if maybe they would have put Ted Sorensen as the central guy. Maybe different story. But I think throughout the end of the day, it’s an important film in terms especially nowadays, where we’re talking about the escalation of tensions in the Middle East, of course, in Russia, in terms of the historical context, it’s the closest we’ve ever come to nuclear Armageddon and the lessons we learned from this crisis. In spite of our differences along ideological lines, political lines, etc, cooler heads can prevail. John F Kennedy had plenty of critics, critics during his President presidency, but I think he proved a lot of those doubters wrong with his. Handling of the crisis. So if we would have attacked Cuba, there was the likelihood that Russian personnel would have been killed as well, which would have easily spiraled out of control. And just an interesting note in with the film itself, Kevin Costner actually traveled to Cuba in 2001 to screen the film for Fidel Castro and and costume would say it was an experience of a lifetime, being able to sit a few feet away from Castro and seeing him relive these events as a young man. So I thought that was pretty interesting,

 

Dan LeFebvre  1:45:33

huh? Did he you mentioned how what he thought of it?

 

Joshua Donohue  1:45:39

He thought it was good, really. He didn’t like the film. Yeah. I mean, obviously he wasn’t portrayed in the film, but he agreed. And certain points disagree with some of the things that happened. But overall, I think in terms of the that particular thing that Costner did, which I thought was great, just, you’ll think about it. Oh, why would we do that? They’re communist, but this is how you break down the walls of division between nations. Is this is what we do here in the United States, and exposing people to the things, how we interpret things, that we can break down differences in spite of our different, you know, our beliefs and thinking this way, you think this way. So I think that was a nice little sort of postscript that I read about the film that Costner, you know, was was good enough to do that. I think it was a pretty pointed thing to sort of, you know, end the, you know, the legacy of the film with that because, you know, it’s because it’s important. I think the film does a great job on showing exactly the sequence of events in the league, for the most part, how they played out.

 

Dan LeFebvre  1:46:50

Yeah, and, I mean, it’s end of the day, it’s, it’s talking to other people. I mean, regardless of whether or not you agree with we agree with them. But I think that’s, it’s, it’s what happened in the movie too, that we saw with Khrushchev being like, Okay, we just got to send, let’s just talk to each other directly. Khrushchev and Kennedy talking to each other directly, I mean, through letters, but, you know, directly as you could in the 60s, right?

 

Joshua Donohue  1:47:11

Yeah. So, you know, it was the interesting thing about both leaders. Obviously, Kennedy would lose his life in Dallas in November of 63 and, you know, there’s, there’s always that speculation of the what, if, you know, what, what it would have would Vietnam would have happened? You know, Kennedy was, was talking about, you know, not really wanting to get involved there was already, we already committed. You know, troops there. There are operations going on there. So, of course, you know, LBJ then takes over. And then, the course really the worst of what had happened with the Cuban Missile Crisis in past and once Vietnam begins in 1965 that becomes the unfortunate legacy of not only Lyndon Johnson’s presidency, but in a lot of ways, His Kennedy’s old advisors, McNamara, being brought, probably the most prominent Johnson will keep Kennedy’s cat, even Robert Kennedy and they do not like each other whatsoever. That’s fairly well documented. So Nikita Khrushchev and I think in a lot of ways, the results of the Cuban Missile Crisis. For him, it weakens his position considerably, because, as I mentioned, this upsets the Cubans and upsets China. It’s for the first time that the US and the Soviet are right here and the Soviets back off, and that we hold firm with the blockade and removing the missiles, making the deal to make that happen. And this upsets many in the communists on the party lines, and the fall in 1964 that Peter Khrushchev will be forced from power, and that will in many ways. Many historians will say that the Cuban missile crisis will be one of the primary reasons why that happens, and that he basically loses power and influence, and you know, you have I believe it was two more leaders who come in. I think both of them die, and then Leonid Brezhnev comes in there.

 

Dan LeFebvre  1:49:12

Well, thankful that those what if scenarios did not turn out. Because as bad as they could have been, let’s put it that way, it could have been a lot worse.

 

Joshua Donohue  1:49:21

Yeah, it really could have been. I mean, especially a guy like LeMay. Lemay’s reputation, they used to call him Bombs away. LeMay, he he wanted more. And if you would have given him the green light, there would have been B 50 twos and every other asset, just leveling and laying waste. And you have that kind of commitment, that kind of attack take place again. You’re going to kill Russians on the ground. There are advisors there. Not they’re not just dropping the missiles off on the island, saying, okay, tell them the Cubans, you can put them together. Well, we’re going to go, no, they’re on the ground. They’re advising the technical data. They have to teach them. How do you. These missiles, how to load the warheads, and it’s a complicated process. And again, if you’re attacking the island with en masse like that, you’re going to have Russia cap. And that was even the concern in the Vietnam War, that we would, in a lot of ways, limit, limit strikes to the north, because there were Russians helping bring in surface to air missiles and other anti aircraft and different military technology into the region, and there was that concern, I think Lyndon Johnson said, God forbid one of our pilots drops a bomb on the smoke stack of a Russian freighter. We have a bigger problem on our head. Yeah,

 

Dan LeFebvre  1:50:35

you start that trigger of treaties that World War One, basically, yeah. Well, thank you so much for coming back on the show to chat through 13 days. And I know we’ve been talking about the 60s today, but if I recall we were last time we talked, you were working on an article about World War Two. But can you share a bit about what you’re working on now and where listeners can learn more about your

 

Joshua Donohue  1:50:57

work? Sure. So I mentioned last time I have a article about the attack, so a smaller aspect of the attack on crow harvest, the attack on the Marine Corps Base at Efra field on December 7, 1941 that is on the editor’s table hopefully be coming out in spring in World War Two magazine. And I mentioned to you earlier that I just come back from a recent trip to Gettysburg and a trip to the US Army heritage and Education Center in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, just got to into the early phases of two new projects and working on one about my uncle service in the Vietnam War. He was with H troop, 17th cavalry, the 198th Infantry Brigade, 23rd America division. That’s a mouthful. And my great grandfather, who was in World War Two, who fought with the 70th Infantry Division during way they got there just the end of the Battle of the Bulge and into the end of the into the surrender of Germany at the end of the Second World War. So I’m also working on a book that I’m collaborating with another author on. It’s going to be about more so aviation, and kind of getting into my love affair with aviation, who I grew up with and still love it, and how it’s pretty much impacted my life and military history and stuff. So a lot of good stuff coming up in the next couple

 

Dan LeFebvre  1:52:20

months, fantastic, and I’ll add links to those in the show notes. Thanks again. So much for your time, Josh.

 

Joshua Donohue  1:52:24

Thank you so much for having me on great to be here.

Dan LeFebvre  02:21

Before we look at some of the details in the movie, if you were to give Maria an overall letter grade for its historical accuracy, what would it get?

Sophia Lambton  02:31

I would give it a G. So it’s going off the scale of customary grades here.

Dan LeFebvre  02:38

Doesn’t even count as a traditional letter grade. The opening scene of the movie is Maria’s death, but it’s also how it ends. And then most of the movie itself is the final week of her life, and we get flashbacks of Maria’s earlier life here and there that will throughout the movie that we’ll talk about. But let’s start today by filling in some of the historical context, because since the movie is focusing on that final week of her life, we don’t really get a lot of who Maria Callas was. So for listeners who aren’t familiar with who Maria Callas was, can you feel in some more historical context that we don’t see up until the timeline of the movie starts,

Sophia Lambton  03:18

Maria Callas was a Greek American soprano. She was born to Greek parents in Manhattan on the second of December 1923 she had pretty negligent parents. They were quite first of all, they just didn’t love their daughters, especially the mother, Evangelia. But the father George was also not great. He He had trouble sustaining contact with his daughters through the years, and at one point, when callous and he actually did an interview together, he couldn’t remember he got the dates of both daughters birthdays wrong in public. In an interview, he was a pharmacist, they were not well off. When callous was 13 years old, Evangelia decided to take her and her sister, yanti, who was known in America as Jackie, and generally as Jackie to Athens, Marie Kals, began performing very, very early. She was actually, according to her cousin Mary annexy, she was actually singing whilst playing with a ball, even at the age of three, and by the age of five, she was parading around the living room with a with her other cousins, shawl singing the habanero, or just fitted Dan Yeah, from the opera mignon, which isn’t even that popular in opera. She actually began entering radio contests at the age of think it was 12 and, well, I’ll, I’ll share more on that later. But she had quite a difficult time during the war in Athens, not just the war that we know of, but also the Greek civil war between communists and allies of the British, which was actually bloodier in Athens than World War Two. She came back to New York in 19. 45 trying to make a career, and reunited with her father, whom she hadn’t seen in eight years. But that didn’t help her much, so she went to Rona in June 1947 and little by little, she both made a career, but she also met her husband, Giovanni Battista minigini, a man 28 years her senior, who was not at all attractive, but she was not really she didn’t have a big interest in men or romance, per se, so she did love him. He was a father figure to her, and she she saw him as a nurturing man. He also became her manager, but in his over greed, he actually inadvertently calls for a bad reputation, because he demanded too much from opera houses. Demanded too much pay from opera houses, you know, spread rumors about other soprano she would never have spread herself anyway. They began to have marital problems because he kept insisting she’s seeing more and more at a time when she was really having very severe vocal problems. And finally, I’ll get to this more detail later on. But finally, he admitted he had invested their money in forgeries as paintings. And she said, Well, I’d like to take over my own career. And he said, No, that’s not going to happen. And he left her. He left her coincidentally, truly, coincidentally, as a time when she was when they were both socializing with the Greek shipping magnate, Aristotle Onassis. And later on, later on, she began a relationship with Onassis that lasted for actually, it didn’t last much longer than eight and a half years. But throughout that time, having got I forgot to mention so she was building her career. Obviously, that what made her absolutely unparalleled was the fact that she could sculpt her voice. She could sculpt the tamper of her voice to really incarnate a character to the point that you sometimes don’t even recognize the voice. So you’re hearing a Japanese, 15 year old Japanese Geisha in the voice of a 3031, year old, a Greek American soprano who, by that point, was living in Italy, she took insane artistic risks that other singers generally do not take, because it’s it’s perilous for the voice, and her vocal decline is not exactly a mystery, but there were multiple factors going into it, various health problems, and that was the main plight of her life. Later on, actually, she she dumped Aristotle and asked us three months before he, quite famously, married Jacqueline Kennedy. During those three months after she dumped him, he kept trying to get her back, but she wouldn’t take his calls. He sent her bouquets. She you know, she just, she was actually traveling around the United States and Mexico, and was not answering his calls, but she did not know he was going to marry Jack Mackenzie, and was obviously hurt when he did later on. She knowing that she had this terrible vocal decline. I will have a mention that she never retired, and we’ll get to that point further on in the podcast, she never retired, so her career was never suspended or ended. But there were periods when she sang less because she was going through various health problems and that was impacting her voice. And she tried a film career. So she tried. She played the role of Medea in Pierpaolo pozzolini, Medea in 19 it was shot in 1969 came out in 1970 in the US. She tried being an opera director in Turin, where she and her tenor partner, Giuseppe DiStefano, who actually later, or actually around that time, in 1972 was already her lover, they tried staging Verdi’s events, but that didn’t fit her either. And she also tried giving master classes at the Julia School of New York series, master classes from October 71 to February 1972 which are all recorded and all on YouTube, and they’re tremendous fun. And this was later on, much later on. This inspired a play by Terence McNally called master class, which was on Broadway. It got Zoe Caldwell Tony, I believe it’s actually a very fictitious play, but the master classes themselves were fascinating. However, she found she didn’t really like teaching that much. She did have a big comeback tour with Giuseppe Miss Efrain from 73 to 74 when her voice was ready in a very, very bad way, and she considered many projects later on before Well, her health just kept getting worse, but also her voice just was not recoverable for various reasons. However, she was considering projects and practicing, rehearsing for projects up to her death. This film is apparently focusing on the last week of her life, but it’s very misleading even about that, because there have been various portrayals and perceptions of Mary camps being this terrible recluse at the end of her life. And yes, it is true that she did not go out as often she had. She was very, very unhappy, apart from the fact that Onassis, by that point, had died, because people tend to center her sadness on this, but also her dear friend, the film director, lucchinov. Ganti, who had staged her in opera, had also passed away not long after Onassis her dear friend Pier Paolo Pasolini, who had directed her only film, ROM role, had been brutally murdered at I don’t remember what age he was about. Her rating was about 5152 she had gone through various losses. She couldn’t understand why she couldn’t recover her voice. So it’s not just that, oh on US has died and then she didn’t eat the house. That’s absolutely not true. In the last week of her life, she met up with Princess Grace. So Grace Kelly, who had who then became Princess Grace, she had lunch with her and the conductor Franco manino, a longtime friend of hers, reminisced about the past. She was also going to meet with the French choreographer Maurice Baja to discuss a potential project, some kind of film about singing with him. She actually was on the phone with a woman I interviewed, Bettina Brentano, who was still only a kid then, I think, 18 years old, so just about an adult. And she told Bettina, they Betina told her. They told me often, because Bettina was going to undergo an appendectomy. But by the afternoon, Mary calles had died, and she was also planning, according to George Moore, the president of the Metropolitan Opera Association, she was planning to visit him in Sotogrande, Spain. So it is not the case that she alienated herself from everybody and shunned everybody and said, No, I’m not going to talk to anybody. The head’s true, but the ending of her life was very sad. It was obviously quite premature, because she died at 53 but she was still very determined to Pierce, persevere and to survive.

Dan LeFebvre  11:33

Wow, yeah, it seems sounds like she had so much more to her than obviously we see in the movie, because we don’t really see much of her actual life in in the movie, it just kind of focuses on the end there, but the talking about the strain that it had on her voice, and just just the performances and opera that taking chances like that, but then getting into acting and teaching and all these other things too, was that something that was uncommon at the time, that she was doing things and then just almost mentioning her husband pushing her to do that was, was she being pushed to do more and more things that were strenuous and putting even more strain on her?

Sophia Lambton  12:13

Well, that’s a really good question. Dan, actually, because her career became very young, she sang, she was, I told I mentioned everything radio conscious. I think 11 was the first one. She was 11 when she entered the first one. She made her she sang her first role at the age of 15. Later on, she would say, my mother pushed me. But we also know that she herself was a performance geek from a very young age. She was very determined to succeed. She would say, reflecting back on her teenage years that she would work, she would work toward performing because she went, she actually attended two conservatories, the National Conservatory in Athens and the Athens Conservatoire, but she didn’t graduate from either one because she didn’t attend the mandatory harmony classes, as she thought the teacher was bad and she failed to examine music history. But she was a geek when it came to performance, and she would work from 10am to 8pm every single day. And she would reflect, reflect on it, saying, but you know, you would ask, well, didn’t I want to go out? Well, no, I had no interest in going out. I that was what she was. She wanted to she would say, the poet speaks of the mind’s eye. There is the mind’s ear. There is so much you can do even without a piano. And she would talk about rehearsing operas in her head, just on the bus in Athens during the war. So she she pushed herself harder than anybody else. Now, in terms of her vocal strain, that’s the whole giant topic, whether she pushed herself so hard that she handed is a difficult question. Is also the subject of her weight loss, which could have had an effect, but primarily what caused vocal decline was damage to the stomach muscles, which ruined her support, the support of her vocal apparatus, because her vocal cords were always fine. And she went to various kind of doctors, laryngologists, lung doctors, you know, she went to see all the specialists. And it wasn’t her ailment, in terms of her vocal decline. That wasn’t anything, uh, visible. It wasn’t something you could identify and say, Oh, so this happened, but she did get uh, several hernias, including one which she said was in the diaphragm, which would have also, uh, apparently it pushes out through the diaphragm, and she said it, she herself said it damaged her stomach muscles in terms of, was she being pushed to do things her husband when they were together, she was at the peak of her career, really the peak of her career. We’re talking 5758 59 Yeah, he wanted her to do things she didn’t want to do. He also tried to get her to sing when she felt unwell, so when she had the flu or bronchitis, and she did push herself through that, but she was also pushing herself through that because the media was giving her an unfair reputation as a diva, which was partly because her husband was demanding higher salaries, kind of to her, not to her knowledge. So she kind of left him in charge of all that, and didn’t want to. Have much to do with also because she had various arguments with Opera House managers, because she wanted everything to be perfect, not for herself, but for the composers. She always used to say, I am a servant of the composers. She was very self Lovick. She never thought she was giving enough, but she herself wrote an article for a French newspaper called out with just the arts, basically in 1958 saying, I will not, I cannot stand by and see opera being treated in a shabby or second rate way. So it was never about making life easier for her. It was about making life, making the world of opera as best as it could be when her husband did, and we’ll get on to this later on, when her husband did want her to do projects that she didn’t want to do, like film, for instance, he wanted her to be in. She was offered the role, the leading lady role in Carl Foreman’s The Guns of Navarone. I think Carl Forman was produced with that which eventually starred Gregory Peck and Irene papas. She was offered the leading role in the German film called the Prima Donna. She was offered some kind of gig singing in a cabaret at Las Vegas, and that’s when she told her husband, no, this isn’t me. I sing opera. I don’t want to do some stuff. And she and she didn’t, in terms of the master classes and directing evasive Giuliani in Turin and starring in Medea, those were more. Those were her trying to find herself in other ventures, and she tried, she really committed to them, but she never felt quite at ease in any one of the three. But that’s a later callus that doesn’t have anything to do with her husband, because those ventures started in 1969 she split from her husband in 1959

Dan LeFebvre  16:38

if we go back to the movie, kind of throughout the movie we see a character named mandrax. He’s played by Cody Schmidt McKee, and he’s interviewing her throughout the movie. But it doesn’t really take long, as was watching the movie, to figure out that he’s not a real person. Mandrax is the name of a drug that she’s taking quite a lot. There’s a one scene in the movie where we see Maria’s Butler, frucci, oh, keeping tabs on how many she’s taking, and it seems like she’s taking at least four pills a day, along with some other medications. The movie doesn’t really talk about why she’s taking it and some of these other medications, so I thought maybe she was perhaps ill. You kind of talked a little bit about some of the vocal decline in that. But then there’s towards the end of the movie, not to get ahead of our timeline here, but begrudgingly, she gets some blood work done, and a doctor flat out tells her that she tries to sing the extra stress and medications that she’ll need to get through that will kill her. So can you unravel this whole mandrax thing that we see in the movie and how it played into if there was an illness that Maria had?

Sophia Lambton  17:36

Oh gosh. Well, first of all, she did not have any kind of substance abuse disorder at all. She was not addicted to pills. She did take a pills called mandrax to sleep. She had terrible insomnia problems. And on two occasions in her life, it is true that on two occasions in her life, she accidentally took too many so and it was hard to wake her up. So that was on the 17th of February, 74 when she was supposed to sing at Carnegie Hall, and four years, almost four years before that, on the 25th of May, 1970 but those were accidents caused by the fact that Maria Callas was, to be honest, quite an ignorant person when it came to anything except mutual sorry, music, music and culture at large. She her entire schooling. Her entire schooling, except for music, finished at the when she was 13 years old. Wow, she did not graduate high school. She went from her mother taking her from New York, from middle school to enlisting at a Conservatoire, being asked by her mother to lie and say she was 17, you know. And she also did not have close relationships with her parents. Her sister, that was a tricky relationship. So nobody. There was no guidance to say other than the fact that in those days, you know people, her generation typically do not know much about pharma, pharmacological things in general, you know tablets or anything else. But there was also no guidance to tell her about this. So there were two occasions when she took too many but she did not have a disorder. She was not addicted. She was not dependent on these tablets. It is true that in the last couple of years of her life, she really, really had problems sleeping, and she did ask her sister Jackie to send them from Greece because they were not on the market. But I don’t understand why that’s such a big deal when they were, for instance, they were, they were not on the market in Paris where she lived. That’s true, but they were on the US market until 1983 so we’re not talking about some forbidden, you know, forbidden, taboo drug. Here she was, however, yeah, so I will mention, also in the film, it’s, it’s completely fictional, because the doctor mentions her liver. And Marie Kellis did have many health problems. I never heard about anything wrong with her liver from her or anybody else. Ironically, I actually remember there’s at one point she says, Onassis liver is okay, but there was never anything about her liver. She had so many problems throughout her life. She was such an unwell woman for. First of all, and most of all, she had, or you could say, lethally, low blood pressure, because eventually she died of a heart attack, but was mostly spurred on by her blood pressure. But she pushed herself and pushed herself, and at one point in May 1965 performed Norma, which is one of the most difficult operas for any soprano, when her blood pressure was 70 over 50, so she would just push herself and push herself. She had had an underactive thyroid in her youth. She had eczema, she had acne, she she had such low blood pressure she could drink 10 espressos a day. She had allergies to antibiotics, which meant that when she in 1958 when she had she had an, I won’t say what it was, because it was an embarrassing for her. It would have been an embarrassing gastro, gastroin, gastrointestinal, yes, gastrointestinal thing that caused it made her have an operation. She couldn’t have painkillers after them because she was allergic to the painkillers. But she performed il Perata, which is one of Opera’s most difficult operas ever. The next day, when she got on a plane, her legs would be swollen in this film, at some point, Angelina Jolie’s character Maria, says her legs went purple. Don’t know where that came from. Her legs never went purple, but her legs would be swollen because her circulation wasn’t that great, which is what happens to people with low blood pressure. She would suffer from terrible migraines. She had allergies to various herbs, including garlic. She would have anemia in about 1970 I think she had cerebral anemia, which is a particular kind of anemia. She would be diagnosed with exhaustion at various points in her life. She had jaundice at various points in her life, and also at various points in her life, she got laryngitis, bronchitis, pharyngitis, trachetitis, which all disturbed her performances, because obviously they have an effect on your voice when she did finally die. This happened shortly after she had complained to her doctor that she felt pain on the left side of her back, which was obviously a precursor to a heart attack, but he he attributed it to flu and rheumatism. It is, however, also true that she had been diagnosed with dermatomyositis, which is an autoimmune disorder by a doctor called Mario Joker. So Marco jocovid. So I remember his name is Joko. That’s it. Marco Mario. Okay, sorry, I don’t remember for this moment that was an autoimmune disorder. And he then later speculated much, much later in about 2002 so decades after her death, he said maybe that caused a vocal decline, but the median prognosis for somebody with that disease is about 12 years, 12.3 years, for someone receiving treatment and her vocal decline. You can speculate when it began, but it was already very present. By 1957 she died in 1977 so I don’t think she had dermatomyositis, untreated and survived for 20 years, but that caused a violet tinge on her neck and wars on her hands. So she did have very many ailments, obviously. I mean, I say obviously, obviously. I’m not a doctor. She also didn’t have a post mortem, but she had a heart attack. She collapsed in front of you. Mentioned her button of filcho. She collapsed in front of him and her maid, Bruna, who was also fictionalized in this film, they were there when she died. She clapped. She had a heart attack. She died in terms of, was her singing killing her? I wouldn’t go that far for sure. And she was never told by any doctor, if you sing, you will die. She was, however, advised against singing because of her exhaustion at various points, and she often did it anywhere because she feared terribly. She feared being villainized by the media and being described as a diva who refuse to go on stage. Because, instead of saying no, I mean, I know the media have to exaggerate and have to have clickbait headlines. And Callis, by the way, understood that too, she would say, I know, you know, they have to fill their pages, and they have their job, and I have mine. But instead of saying, recalci goes on stage despite having blood pressure of 70, over 50 or, you know, despite being very ill, they, they would say every time she had to cancel or suspend a performance, Marie Council does again. She’s a diva. She’s unruly, uh, they were not interested in reporting on her health at all. Um, so, yeah, that’s, that’s a story that’s just a little bit of her medical history, correct

Dan LeFebvre  24:21

me if I’m wrong. But with that, and then what you’re talking about earlier, with with her husband kind of being almost like a manager for handling all the business side, but then also with her not having a lot of schooling and focusing more on just the creative would it be correct to say that she she trusted, say her husband or or others, for a lot of that diagnosis, and she was that really just focused on pushing herself creatively, and then whatever the consequences were, she not being a doctor herself, just kind of trusted whoever was giving her advice at the time, whether it be her husband or doctors or. Wherever that may be,

Sophia Lambton  25:00

I would say that’s pretty much correct. But, yeah, she was a workaholic, and she really ran herself ragged. But even in July 1957 when she was diagnosed with exhaustion, and the doctor said, you really should cancel the next performances of La sonambola, she didn’t. She didn’t. She had previously asked for four instead of five. And there was then a scandal, because the manager, I can’t remember, who was organizing it, didn’t understand that she was going to sing the fifth one. So instead of the media saying there was a mix up between her husband, her manager, and it was, it was a La Scala production, but it was performing in Edinburgh and saying that there was a mix up between my guinea husband and it wasn’t getting Getty. Someone else was organizing it anyway. Do you remember the the guy? The name of the guy organizing this round was an ambulance. The media said, Oh, there she is off again, canceling performance because she’s such a big celebrity, and she thinks she has, she thinks she’s entitled to, and of all of all adjectives, Maria Carlos was not at all entitled. On the contrary, she was. She could be quite self loathing, and she endlessly tore herself to pieces feeling she hadn’t given enough.

Dan LeFebvre  26:12

Yeah, yeah. But that passion that she, I mean, you don’t get to that level without loving what you’re doing. And she obviously loved it. And you’re saying, you know, the hours that she practiced even, even as a child to get there, I mean, and then being a workaholic, you’re just gonna run yourself to that, to your own detriment, even, I think we see that happen a lot with with a lot of people, yeah,

Sophia Lambton  26:34

yeah. I mean, rehearsals until 3am and then to continue, you know, a record that was only 40 minutes long. Took her 40 hours to record and add another for another record. She spent 12 hours on, no, sorry, she spent three hours recording 12 bars of an aria because she didn’t like the way it was coming out. Wow,

Dan LeFebvre  26:57

wow. Well, I have a feeling I might know the answer to this next one. But in the movie, mandrax is not the only hallucination that we see her having. We see orchestras and choruses in various places that she’s going, but then not you mentioned her sister. And near the end of the movie, she gets to her sister comes to visit, and she grasps onto her sister arm to see if she’s even really there. Do we know if Maria saw hallucinations, like we see happening in the movie?

Sophia Lambton  27:27

No, Maria did not see hallucinations, except for when she was four years old, shortly after she got knocked over by a car. She kind of dramatized this when I don’t know how well she remembered it, but she remembered it as I was in hospital for three weeks because I got knocked over by a car, and I saw in my head hallucinations about music, which were fascinating and stimulating. But I don’t know how much of that was true. That was adult Maria, remembering four year old Maria, but other other than when she was four years old, she never reported hallucinations. She did have insomnia, and she did wake up quite late by the last two years of her life or so, so typically waking up midday or one o’clock. But no, she did not suffer from hallucino. Because, what I mean, why would she have suffered from because she would, that’s the thing. It’s bizarre. Mandrax was prescribed primarily as at least for her, it was a sleeping pill, right? And she didn’t have a substance abuse disorder, but she took them to sleep. I don’t know how this movie continues. Can insinuate she was taking them four times a day when she wasn’t asleep for the full day. You know, she takes

Dan LeFebvre  28:29

it right before she goes out. You wouldn’t take a sleeping pill right before you’re going out.

Sophia Lambton  28:35

Oh, by the way, I also forgot to mention that she had glaucoma. She had to take eye drops every at one point is every half hour. Maybe later on, it was every hour, but yeah, she was also going blind for some reason. This, this movie which wants to be so dramatic and serious, doesn’t touch on that, but it makes up hallucinations when she actually was losing the ability to see. Having already been severely myopic her whole life, she was very short sighted when she was on stage, she couldn’t really see anything. But she preferred it that way, because that way she felt she was on her own world. So she wouldn’t put in contact lenses. At one point, she accidentally left them in. So she would wear contact lenses in the daytime, and at one point she actually lent she accidentally left them in a torsca in Paris in 1960 this would have probably been 1965 and then she told her friend, Michelle glords, who was produced at EMI France, the record company EMI France, which is now Warner Music, she told him, I was completely overturned. I saw my colleagues, I saw the props, I saw the audience members scratching their heads. I was she said I was literally overturned. And I was shocked. And you know, she was horrified, because she felt so exposed. Because, other than that, she would come on stage before every before, well, yeah, during rehearsal, she would create a mental map of all the props in her head, because she had to know where everything was not, so as not to bump into everything, bump into anything. At one point, actually, her friend Stelios galatapos, who’s a music critic. Who then actually wrote one of the, one of the better books about her, quite a quite a good book about her. Remembered she was playing Medea, and she lost the dagger, the dagger she was using to kill her children. She lost it at some point, and she had to feel for it. And the way she felt for it was remembering where that the sound of the metal falling had landed by ear. I mean, that’s

Dan LeFebvre  30:22

impressive. I mean, just being able to remember all of that for each performance, because I’m sure you know, the stages in around the world that she’s performing are going to be different every time, and I don’t have that kind of memory either, wow. Well, if we go back to the if we go back to the movie. You already talked about some of this, but the way that the movie shows her being forced to stop singing, she we don’t see it happening, but she visits this theater to privately practice. There’s only one guy there who’s playing piano for he’s never really named in the movie. By looking at the cast listing, it’s Steven ashfield’s character, Jeffrey Tate, and Maria tells him that her last performance was in Japan about four and a half years before the time of the movie, she got a hernia. Her legs turned purple as you talked about it not happening, and everything swelled up. We don’t see that happening, but then we do see a scene with Maria burning her theater dresses at her home in Milan, which movie seems to suggest was a symbolic gesture of marking the end of her career. How well does the movie do telling the end of her career, although, as you mentioned earlier, her career never really seemed to end. So I feel like I already answered that one.

Sophia Lambton  31:34

Yeah, it’s, this is all very mixed up, because it’s not based it’s it’s taken various elements out of context that have nothing to do with so there’s her vocal decline, and then there’s a whole costume burning thing. So it’s true that she burned her costumes, but it had nothing to do with her vocal decline, and it had nothing to do with the progression, or, on the contrary, the devolution of her career. So Rhea Callis had a very interesting career until 1953 until about the spring of 1953 she was a very, very heavy woman. I don’t know. Did you? Did you know this? Dan, so she was very, very overweight from about the age of 18, 1718, because she wasn’t an overweight teenager at all. Rather, she wasn’t overweight young teenager child. But she then gained a lot of weight, and so she was a very, very heavy woman. And then in about spring of 1953 she realized that she couldn’t carry on that way, because firstly, was just she found it, you know, she was not a very well woman in general, and she found logging around her weight difficult. And she also needed the chin for expression. She was singing the role of Medea in Florence in 1953 conducted by Leonard Bernstein, whom she had personally recruited, having heard him on the radio, and she needed the chin for expression, so she decided to lose weight, and she lost about 95 pounds in the span of 18 months. So that’s a lot, and that’s why there’s been a lot of deliberation. Did that affect her voice? That’s a whole other topic. But just going through her perspective of things when she was overweight, that was also very early on in her career, and she was starring in really tacky opera houses where, I mean, when she was in Sicily, in Palermo, I think it was, maybe it was a Catania, I don’t know, but when she was in Sicily, the opera house actually called her two hours before the performance to remind her she had a performance, and she was so she was outraged by the idea that she had to be reminded she would write to her husband. Can you believe it? This is how well organized they are that apparently their other singers don’t remember their singing tonight. So khaki opera houses, very cheap productions, including very cheap costume, she said, stank of sweat, insinuating that they hadn’t even been washed after their previous wear by the previous hanger. Yeah. The director Lucchino Visconti, who was is most more famous for his films the leopard and Death in Venice, was also an opera director because of her. He actually said, I staged opera for callous, not because of callous, he said for callous. And the first time he saw her was in Wagner’s Parsifal. And he said she was wearing something that looked like a bra and a pillbox hat on her head that kept falling on her nose as she sang. So this was a period of her career, very early on, when she was relegated to wearing tacky stuff. Eventually, she actually asked her husband, menegas mother to supply some costumes, and she would eventually bring some of her own costumes, because she did not like what she was being given when she burnt costumes. It was not the costume shown in this movie, at least, at least what they were implying. She burnt the costumes from what she knew as her overweight period, her tacky period, her I haven’t developed as an artist yet, period. And she talked about Efrain in a French interview in 1965 which is where they got this information from. She said. That the past that I didn’t like that is to say it was before the birth. My birth artistically. So once tastes change, the body changes, one changes artistically. And I’ve read the screenplay of this movie because it came out before the film itself. It was published a deadline, and in the screenplay, it said among it had tags on the costumes, and it included Anna Bolena by Don it SETI. She would never have burnt the Anna Bolena costume because that was a Latino Visconti reduction. That was a gorgeous dress, and she I mean, so this refers to costumes from a completely different era, costumes from a completely different part of her career, where she looked different, she felt different, and she also sang differently. So that’s a whole other topic. But in the early part of her career, she was not as tailored, and she would be over dramatic. She would do vulgar things with the voice, and then she she really wanted to to worship and honor the music, and she tried to doing she really wanted to devote us up to doing exactly what the score required, and not what she would call pyrotechnics. So not fireworks, not, you know, adding a high note just so the audience would be impressed. That’s the costume burning thing. In terms of her vocal decline, that’s a very different subject. So she noticed it as early as about August 1954 when she was recording Verdi’s La forsa del distino in Milan, and she later that night at beefy restaurant, which is the restaurant at La Scala. It’s since been renamed, but it was traditionally known as beefy. She asked the prana, Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, who was also the wife of EMI records producer Walter Lech, to touch her diaphragm, and she performed a high a. She said, Elizabeth, can you ask? Can you teach me how to perform this high a so it doesn’t wobble, because Walter, her husband, Walter, the EMI producer who was overseeing the record la Ford del distino, Walter says mine make him seasick. So even as early as that, when she had lost weight, well, shall we say, about a year that she started to lose she had started to lose weight about a year and a half before. So this was shortly after she lost weight. And that problem became more and more and more prevalent as she got older. But I’m saying older. I mean the first time, you know, in August 1954 this was a 30 year old woman. So she was not old, she wasn’t even middle aged. She was still very young. By january 19, sorry, by March 1959, she was really, really struggling. And the 10 of Ferruccio talevini, who sang with her on her second record of Lucia de Lama more, said she kept singing the same E flat and she kept cracking it when they were recording the the opera she was she tried and tried and she kept cracking the E flat, the top E flat, and she would soon start seeing less and less because of that. Simultaneously, she had been having problems with opera houses, partly on account of her husband, partly on account of the high standards she expected of them. And she had actually said, way back in September 58 she had said, in about a year’s time, I will probably retire, or at least I will sing a lot less because I don’t understand, I don’t understand the purpose of singing in conditions that are not, you know, conditions that are not optimal. She meant the various opera houses that she said wouldn’t, wouldn’t give her enough rehearsals, not just her, but wouldn’t give the company enough rehearsals. She specifically spoke of the met in New York, saying, I’m not the only one dissatisfied with the way they work. You know, for instance, not having enough rehearsals. For instance, introducing me to my baritone and La Traviata a few hours before we have to go on stage to perform it. Giuseppe de Stefano doesn’t sing there. Elizabeth Schwartzkopf doesn’t sing there, and Eileen Farrell doesn’t sing there. So, you know, I’m not the only one dissatisfied. It’s just that the media lights on to me. And then so she was having vocal promissory on 1959 that happened to coincide with the time when her husband left her and she later paired off with an asses. She also had sinusitis, which she said was very bad, because it was like she said, the pus dripped onto my vocal cords and blocked the sound chambers, and I felt like a deaf man who shouts because he can’t hear himself anymore. And she had several hernias, and one of them, she said she she had, well, she had an operation for the sinusitis in December, 1961 she had an operation for the hernia in january 1963 but then she got another hernia. At the same time, she was having terrible problems with blood pressure, because she felt so stressed that by this time when she would perform, her blood pressure would just tank hours before the performance. So at one point, as I mentioned earlier, she had to give a norma with a blood pressure of 70 over 50, and her friend Stella tapos said she could barely walk on stage, but she was going through it because she didn’t want media to say, callus abandons performance. Yeah. Yeah, no, it’s bizarre. It’s really bizarre because actually, even from a tabloid perspective, they could have said callous almost kills herself trying to sing, right? Callus almost faints. But instead of that, it was all about, oh, callus is being a diva. Or in that, you know, in that case, there was some dramatization of her fans in the audience that there were anti callous people or pro callus people, and it was all about their feud.

Sophia Lambton  40:25

But she quite soon realized, by 1964 she was saying that the first hernia, she said, it knocked me out so much I damaged the muscles of my abdomen, which naturally drained my strength and affected my singing apparatus, to which the abdomen and diaphragm are as much apart as the vocal cords. So she had hoped the operation would improve things. Immediately following her operation, in january 1963 she had a tape recorder, and she was listening to herself obsessively, but that didn’t improve things. On the contrary, she got another diaphragm. Sorry, another diaphragm. What? She got another hernia, which was in the diaphragm. She got another hernia, which was in the diaphragm. And by the time her concert tour, which took place, not in this movie, they said, four and a half years, or something, her last performance as part of her concert tour, which was her last performance ever, was in November 74 so it was only two years and 10 months before she died. It was not four and a half years. She was in terrible pain after that because she said, Probably I’m working my diaphragm more and better and it starts kicking. Also, after that performance, she had labyrinth, it’s which is an infection of a labyrinth in the inner ear. She said, I couldn’t stand straight or sit straight for 12 hours, or see or see for nearly 12 hours. So I don’t know why. In this film, they made up something about purple legs. Weird. Because, to be honest, even if they wanted to be ultra dramatic, they could have used this stuff. A lot of it isn’t new to my book, either. It’s it’s been out there for a while. This information,

Dan LeFebvre  42:03

I think it kind of tells a gives an idea of how accurate a movie is when in that in that case, like, she’s telling the story, we don’t even see it on screen. But even saying four and a half years, as opposed to a couple years, like, it’s so easy to change that dialog and make it just a little bit more accurate, but for some reason, they don’t do that. And I mean, unfortunately, there’s movies that do that.

Sophia Lambton  42:29

But bizarrely, in the screenplay, it talks about 19 June, 1959 and it says it introduced the husband, many Guinea, and it says in the screenplay, a man in his 40s, and by that time, he would have been 63, years old. Bizarre, quite bizarre. I don’t get it to say the least, yeah. Well, if

Dan LeFebvre  42:53

we circle back to like when she was telling that story, she was telling it to the Jeffrey Tate character. And there’s another thing I found interesting, because Maria in that specifically says he is not a repetitier. But correct me, if I’m wrong, he actually was, and you had an opportunity to interview him before he passed in 2017 so can you share a little bit more about the real Jeffrey Tate that we don’t get in the movie?

Sophia Lambton  43:19

Yeah, I was really surprised that a film about Marie cows would include a fictional Jeffrey Tate, because Jeffrey Tate worked with her for six weeks of all the collaborators with whom she worked, he worked with her perhaps the least even. I mean, even in her last years. I assume they did that, because first he was English, so they didn’t need to get a French person, you know, I mean, her main vocal, vocal coach then was Janine Rice, who is a lovely, lovely French lady who might my first interviewee, who’s also gone. Now she’s passed away, but I presume they didn’t want to use her, because that would have been a French woman speaking English with with a French accent, even though they spoke French in real life, because calla spoke French, Italian English on Italian, English on Greek. But Jeffrey Tate I in advance of this film, I listened to my interview of him again because I hadn’t in ages. I interviewed him in january 2014, he was a repetitor. He works for the Royal House here in London. He was recruited to work with her, even though Italian music and Italian opera in general wasn’t his specialty. He preferred German music so leader and and operas by Wagner. I think he also preferred Baroque music so callous his favorites of Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti and Verdi were not his specialty, but she was considering singing Cavalier rusticana at the Royal Opera House. Now this was in March 1976 it had nothing to do with the last week or even the last month or even the last year of her life. They only worked together for four to six weeks. He said he was very, very shy with her, and I have to say that when I saw his portrayal in this film, I felt really sorry, not just. For callous, who’s obviously being I don’t know what is going on, because that’s got nothing to do with her. But for Jeffrey Tate, this conductor, he later became a conductor for Jeffrey Tate, whose partner is still alive, as far as I know, and the bizarre realm in which Jeffrey Tate, who came as a very young, very shy, repertor, very scary, scared of this big, you know, big name of callous being portrayed as thomp, I would say, quite arrogant character. They did warm to each other, meaning, he felt free with her. So eventually he said I could treat her as any other normal singer. He I could say Maria, that was flat. Try that again. She was very determined to work hard. He called her extremely nice. Um, he they, he said they didn’t talk about because I deliberately listened to my truth him. They’d never talked about personal stuff. She’s, I mean, occasionally she might mention analysis, but she never said anything specific. And I, I really pushed him on this, you know, are you sure she didn’t say anything specifically on Onassis or Pasolini? You know? And he said, No, no, she we didn’t know each other long enough for that to even occur. We stopped mainly to the mezzo repertoire because her voice was in a really bad way then. And he said she was never harsh, never difficult. He called her again about five to six months after their initial collaboration, asking if she wanted to resume, and she said that she would be back in touch or probably later on. He said, When I called, when I ran her up again, she was extremely nice. So they, typically, they would only work together up in a theater, which was the teaser. Once a week she was allowed access to that theater because the manager, char Dan, had given her access, probably because she had contacts in EMI. Otherwise they worked in her apartment. But it wasn’t as dramatic as as it’s portrayed. And also I still find it weird that he was even, that even a fictional version of him was included in the film.

Dan LeFebvre  47:07

And the way you mentioned it, like they didn’t talk about personal stuff, but in the movie, the impression that I got, I don’t remember the exact line of dialog, but she meant mentioned something about about him, and immediately the Jeffrey Tate character knows who she’s talking about, which implies to me that they have this whole kind of personal connection and background like that she knows that, or he knows that she’s talking about Onassis and all you know, it’s like they start to get very personal very quickly in those discussions in the movie, which implies there’s this whole backstory that wasn’t there in real life. Um,

Sophia Lambton  47:41

well, it was only then so far as everybody who had heard of Marie callus by that point associated her with onas. But I do want to say because obviously I have seen the movie, and it’s definitely not the first instance of a portrayal of Marie callus as saying, oh, Onassis forbade me to sing. That is not only incorrect, but it’s kind of the opposite of the truth. Because when she first began, I would say her friendship with Manassas, because she wasn’t together with him for a while, primarily because, as I mentioned earlier, she really wasn’t interested in romance. She wasn’t a very sexual being. And that’s a whole other subject. But I mean, there are nine separate sources, including callous herself, who attest to the who say something suggests that, strongly suggestive of of the fact that she wasn’t really that much intersex. So when people portray the callous analysis relationship as this big affair, it’s not true. First of all, not because Marie Callis was such a good person. And, I mean, she was, she tried her best to be a good person. But I’m saying it’s not true primarily because she just, she wasn’t interested in that, in that kind of thing. I mean, you know, when she met Onassis, she she later would, remember, I was rather indifferent to him. She wasn’t looking to have an adult an adulterous affair. She wasn’t looking to leave her husband. And even though she and many were having difficulties, she actually what she tried to salvage that marriage. But anyway, going back to Onassis for the moment, he was working with her to try to get her some role at the Monte Carlo opera so she could sing there wherever she wanted. He eventually tried to found a Marie Callis television production company with his friend who Roberto Arias, who was the ambassador, the British ambassador to Panama, also the husband of ballerina Margo Fontaine. But for some reason he was good in finance. So that’s why NASA approached him, because Anas could see Carlos was going through terrible strain, both vocal strain, but also psychological strain as a result of the vocal strain, and he thought performing in a pre recorded environment would be less stressful for her, but she didn’t like that. She always preferred life stage. She didn’t really, she didn’t really like pre recorded anything that much. And Onassis also, it has been multiple times alleged that Onassis did not want her to star in a film of Tosca, but that’s actually the opposite. He was the one working harder than she was on that because she didn’t like the idea of starring in Tosca, but he communicated with Jack Warner of Warner Brothers, so I. Found a letter of him, of his to Jack Warner, that had actually not it’s never been published before, and he communicated with Spyro scurris, the chairman of 20th Century Fox, trying to incentivize callous to do a film of Tosca later on, when their relationship soured. That happened at a time when both he was having terrible bad luck in his business. So he had lost all his stocks in the associated de van de mer, which is this big, big conglomerate in Monaco, which is where he was mostly based. At least his business was based at the time thing. And also his airline, Olympic airways, was making terrible, terrible losses. And actually, council would remember to her friend Surya, who wrote a diary entry about this, he would she would say, he’s so nervous. He’s so frat he, she said, fragile, unstable man. I tell him go and see a doctor about your nerves. He says, It’s not the business of a doctor. And she would complain about that to her friend Leo Lerman as well. She would say, He’s so stubborn, I would tell him he needs to see a doctor because he’s so anxious. He has anxiety. He can’t say I have anxiety. So, you know, you had a situation where they’ve been together already for I mean, I think things were especially going bad, and by the spring of 67 so they’d been together for at least seven and a half, well, about seven years, depending on where you begin to count their relationship. But over seven years, and his career is in the pits, her career is in the pits, and obviously they’re very, very insecure, so she eventually dumped him, because they were tired of each other, and she herself remembered in reference to the relationship, familiarity breeds contempt. He did not forbid her from singing. But what I will admit is that after they split, as you know, three months later, he married Jacqueline Kennedy. She was very hurt, despite the fact that he had tried to call her many, many times, and she had not taken his calls. So I’m not sure how he had told her if she was blanking him all the time, but no, I understand she was hurt. Obviously she was blindsided by this, but she she used a lot of the performative energy she wasn’t using on stage because of her vocal decline, in very long rants about Onassis and some stuff about their arguments was true. Yeah, obviously they in their spots, they said some unpleasant things to each other, but other times she would say stuff like, here we only ever had his friends on the yacht, not my friends. And that was totally untrue, because she had had her best friend of a time, John nawatsu There, the conductor Herbert von Karajan, who actually said he was best friends with Onassis than callus and Onassis actually they had had a spat about Lucia dinamimore and Onassis had actually reconciled them after they hadn’t spoken to each other for a while, and Princess Grace had always been callous friend and Frank, as efrali Callis had friend had been on on the Christina, and so had the conductor, Josh Kretz, one of her favorite conductors, who had rehearsed with her there using the Steinway and Asus had had commissioned to withstand dump the Steinway piano that he had had commissions so the callous could practice on his yacht, withstanding the dump. And I spoke to his step niece, Marilena Patroni colas, who was about 16 the time when she was spending time on the Christina. And she remembered, generally, most people who knew callous of time remembered her practicing on the Christina. Both Marilena, his step niece, and also his and callous physiotherapist COVID espanidou, told me how much Onassis liked castaiva. Told me he liked Bucha. It is true that he wasn’t a big opera fan, but it is completely untrue to say he forbade me from singing because he didn’t do that. Why would he have done that? That’s crazy.

Dan LeFebvre  53:34

Yeah, mentioning him forbidding her to sing, that leads to another question that I have for you about something that’s portrayed in the movie, because in the movie there, it’s implying that her career is over, but she’s still trying to get it back into singing. There’s, I think, a line where she mentioned that her mother made her sing, and then Onassis forbade her to sing, and now she’s finally singing for herself so, but she also mentioned that she wasn’t going to perform for anybody. So the impression that I got just watching the movie was she still wanted to sing, because it was just so deeply ingrained into who she was that maybe she felt lost without being able to sing. Is it true that she was still trying to sing, even if it was not to ever perform on stage?

Sophia Lambton  54:19

Yeah, she sang all the time. And if there’s you know, I have tried resisting speculation about her vocal decline. I do want to resist speculation because, other than the fact that her stomach muscles were damaged, we can’t really say why that was, but I still think she worked too hard, if anything, for her. Have got her own health for the blood pressure that was really low. She herself said, when I’m alone with a score, that’s where I find my true self. But how can one bring paradise to Earth? That’s why I’m also obligated to live another life. So in terms of her mother making her sing, I did touch on that briefly earlier. Her, yes, it’s true. Her mother pushed her from a very from callus, very early years. But Carlos also pushed herself. And then once she was really completely, you know, enslaved to music, she pushed herself really, really, really hard. Late in her life, she did contribute herself a bit because she didn’t know what or whom to blame for her decline. So sometimes she would say, Oh, my mother made me sing. And at other times she would say, manegini made me sing. And you know, I guess you can say that was kind of true, but she was the one making her, making herself sing more than anybody else. So you can’t really attribute all of that to her mother or to maneu. And when she was with an Assa, she was singing less because of her vocal decline. And she there were times when she may have tried to convince herself that at least she had Onassis. And, you know, maybe she’s trying to see this other side of life and in love and relationships. But she was bored. She would she would get bored because, you know, late is 1970 after 1970 so she had left an asset in July 68 and in a 1970 interview, she says, what is there in life if you don’t work, you can only live on work by work, through work, without work. There are only a few sensations, and you can’t live off them. And it’s true, she was really having an identity crisis without the opportunity of performing. Yet she was considering engagements all the time. She was considering them all the time. She would get nervous so throughout all the years, and she was considering engagements, including in 1963 she was considering she was going to do Macbeth, but she didn’t. She was going to do Trevor Tory, but she didn’t. Sorry, Macbeth, I think she was going to do in 59 but she’d be at Macbeth was going to be 59 and then there’s a room about 63 she’s going to do Trevor Tory in 63 but she didn’t. I found correspondence between her and her manager signed a golden ski at the Victoria and Albert news. And Albert Museum here in London, which had bizarrely never been uncovered. Which is quite funny, because he was saying the Victoria Albert Museum is a quite major institution. And gorlinski really detailed what she was considering doing at various points. And there was so much that hadn’t been in the public eye, so she was considering an American tour in 1963 but she was so nervous that at first she’d say, Okay, let’s postpone it, because I’m not ready. And then it would be, well, I know we were going to start in New York with the tour, but can we start in Philadelphia or Washington? Because there’d be, there’ll be too much, but the nerves will be too much in New York, because there’ll be all this publicity in New York. So let’s start at a less, you know, less prestigious city, less visited city, and then eventually would get canceled. So if we actually go to her final performance in November 74 she did consider many things after that, because she stopped at that point. I mentioned she had LeBron. She had terrible pain from her hernia, and she she was diagnosed with labyrinth. It’s an infection of the inner ear. But her partner both actually at that point in life and in the concert tour, Giuseppe Di Stefano continued with the accompanist Robert Sutherland. They went on to perform in Australia. When she returned to Paris, she was going to do Tosca with him. She was planning it for a very long time, but eventually she sang the second act in front of her friend, the costume designer Umberto tirelli The teata del opera in Rome in May or June, 75 she saw he wasn’t very impressed, and she thought, I’m I’m not up for this. There was a rumor she was going to sing with the Pasadena Symphony Orchestra in LA in January, 76 and then in March 76 Jeffrey Tate visited her to practice for a potential Cavalier ruscana at the Royal Opera House. She never did. She was practicing with her vocal coach, Janine rice, the role of Charlotte in basnes vertell. She was hoping to do a recording of this opera she had never fully performed before. She recorded, it’s a letter Aria. It’s an air delet a letter ARIA for a compilation album. But she had never recorded the full opera Verde, and she really wanted to do that. She was working on that two days before her death, and her vocal coach, Janine Weiss, traveled to New York for some work, I think, with Herbert von carrion, carrying luggage full of scores, full of opera scores. And when she arrived at the airport, a porter took the luggage and said, Oh, you’ve got a really heavy suitcase. Are you in fashion? Because he thought maybe she was carrying fur coats, I guess, or something, or outfits. She said, No, I’m an opera you know, these are schools. And he said, Oh, did you know a very famous opera singer died today? And she was she said, No, who was that? And she and he said, Marie Callis and Janine rice learnt about the death of her friend and student from a porter at an airport. You know, people really shocked, because, as I mentioned earlier, yes, she was definitely less social than she hadn’t previously. She was definitely extremely dismal. And Jeffrey Tate did tell me that her attitude, although she he said he did want to precise. She didn’t run people down. She ran the whole world down. So she had that, you know, attitude of an older person. Everything’s changed. Nothing is good anymore. But she didn’t, she didn’t run people down. She didn’t say, oh, remember him. He was terrible. She didn’t do that. He said she had. She felt like a 79 or 80 year old woman. In how completely dispirited she felt, but she was in touch with various people up to the day of her death, so she did not close herself up away from everybody else. She was singing. She wanted to sing and but her most horrifying thing was how her voice just got worse and worse, despite her continuous attempts to improve it.

Dan LeFebvre  1:00:27

Yeah, yeah. Well, like you said, like the I think what’s life without work? I mean, I feel like that’s a any, anybody who is a workaholic, and you know, focus is so hard, and you have to do that, to get to the level that she was. But I think that’s it’s it’s normal to to do that, and then with on top of all the all these medical things that you know, she’s just still pushing herself, despite that, I can see how it can be very it’s got to be so disheartening, because you you remember the way you were, but your body just isn’t able to do that anymore, and so you just want to keep pushing harder and keep practicing and keep doing that. But it sounds like that was her body failing her in ways like that, even though she’s, you know, keep pushing. Yeah. Well, a moment ago, I mentioned with Maria feeling lost, but in the movie, there are some flashbacks that we get that give another indication that maybe there’s something else that makes her feel lost, beyond the ability to perform on stage. And specifically, there is a flashback that we see with a room with Maria, her sister and her mother. There’s two soldiers that enter the room wearing Nazi uniforms, Maria and her sister are forced to sing for the soldiers they pay her mother for that private performance. And in the movie, Maria mentions that’s where it all began. And I’m assuming that that’s talking about kind of her mother forcing her to sing, and that kind of career starting, there was that a moment where she started performing first.

Sophia Lambton  1:02:04

No, not at all, not at all. She started performing first when her mother entered her into radio contest back in New York, and she didn’t win any of them, but she got some kind of compensatory prize. I don’t think, I don’t think she actually said if it was second prize or third prize. She won a Bulava with wristwatch because Jack Benny. Do you know Jack Benny? Yeah, Jack Benny was one of the judges, right? Well, Jack Benny was in the judges, and he apparently voted for her, but, but not many of the others did. So he she won some kind of runner up prize, and she never forgot that Jack Benny had been partly responsible for her winning a bit of a wristwatch at a radio contest when she was 11 years old. But the first role she sang she sang at the age of 15, and that was Dan Tutsi Cana. That’s the same opera that she was hoping to sing when practicing with Jeffrey Tade in 1976 she made her professional debut on July 4, 1938 in a celebration of the American Independence Day in Athens. And she, back then, would have been 14, yeah. July 38 she was 14 Yeah. She signed her first professional contract with a National Theater the age of 16, and she was given just a swarm of chain for performances. By the age of 18, she was seeing Tosca in a professional production. So she spent the war earning, you can’t really call it money. She was pretty much earning food as a result of performance. She now evangelio was, it is true, she was a very unsympathetic, negligent woman. She wasn’t really much of a parent at all. Later on, she had various psychological problems. She wanted her daughters to get money any which way. That’s true, but she did not ask them to prostitute themselves at all. I mean, how could she even have what she did, what she would say? Well, you know, socialize with the soldiers, meaning, go get food, not not become I mean, obviously we’re looking at a very extreme context when a lot of people did things so they would never have done ordinarily for their own survival. But thankfully, callous did not have to sleep with anybody to get money or food. The only thing she ever mentioned about her mother trying to set her and Jackie up in that context was that her mother made her go out with a German soldier, and Carlos was so anguish, she started crying, and the German soldier took pity on her and gave her, I think, some spaghetti anyway, or some of some food. Other than that, I’d like to mention what she actually did do in the war, other than performing. And I mean, she really became a team player during wartime. I’m sure she was one before, but that really war time is obviously a very, very extreme, especially in Athens, first during World War Two, then during their civil war, she would hike for miles and miles, not hike, but walk rather. Maybe she did hike as well. I don’t know. I would imagine. Well, Athens is quite hilly, but anyway, what I mean is she would walk for. Miles and miles to get cabbage leaves and tomatoes for herself or her family for her colleagues, she would barter the complimentary opera ticket she had at the National Theater, both hers and her colleagues for food for herself and for the company. She persuaded some kind of anti Nazi to sign a food warrant for the company, because they were being paid in food, but they were being paid something like less than a meal a day. So she went through a very, very hard time, but she did not have any kind of childhood trauma from any kind of sexual abuse, thankfully, thankfully, because I think her childhood was hard enough. No, I I’m pretty sure she was a virgin up to, actually, when she met manygini, which would have been much later, when she was 20. I mean, I’m, I can’t for sure say when Cal’s lost a virginity, but she it wasn’t in Athens. And also, as I mentioned earlier, yeah, she wasn’t particularly interested in sex. And she was actually 18 years old, the first time she had she heard of how babies were born, meaning the first time she realized what reproduction is, as in, she found out because no one had told her. No one had told her. This is Athens wartime. There isn’t a TV. She’s not going to hear about stuff on the radio at that point, you know who’s going to tell her? She could only have learned on her own experience and had. The flirtation she had with men at that time didn’t really amount to much, so all three men who were in close proximity to her. There was a Greek businessman, tech is cigars. There’s a British soldier, Ray Morgan, and there was a doctor called elusive testus. He was more like a father figure. All three men commented, not to me, because they they died. I think all of them, maybe Ray Morgan is still alive, but they told the boba for Nicholas, but Salus the omidys, back in the late 90s, mid to late 90s, how she really didn’t have much interest in physical intimacy. She did she perform for the Germans? Well, she she performed for the Germans because the whole company was performing in front of the Germans. But she and Jackie never performed. I never, I don’t remember ever reading about her and Jackie singing together. Now, Jackie didn’t want to be an opera sing. That’s true. And to begin with, evangelio was trying to push Jackie into a career, but when Evan Jenny understood that Maria was the real singer, she kind of forgot all about Jackie’s abilities. Jackie, meanwhile, was doing perfectly fine, not perfectly fine. That’s badly put. Jackie was okay, relatively because she had hooked up with a guy called Milton empiricus, who really helped both Jackie and Maria and the whole family in terms of food provisions and supplies during the war. I don’t remember why, but he had some connections, so that helped so she didn’t have to go out and prostitute herself. And that’s that’s just a big fabrication that’s based on the fact that, yeah, at one point, Maria mentioned, my mother asked me to go out with a German Sultan, but not to, I don’t think even evangelio would have specified sleep with a German soldier. I don’t think she would have even said that. Um, so, I mean, there is an interesting moment from the period when the was the Greek, like, who was the Greek Air Force, or they were asked, yeah. Members of the Greek Air Force asked Evangelia and Jackie Henri, who all lived in the same apartment on petition Street, to hide two British members of the Air Force, John Atkinson and some man called Robert. And they did. And then at some point, when Italian soldiers barged in, they wanted to inspect the apartment, and in order to distract them, Maria sat down and played on the piano and started to sing to distract them from the search. So there were definitely really horrible moments. There were definitely close calls, but, and she did say, she did say they were very, very sad war years, and it was hard for her to talk to them, but she also said I was in no way harassed by the Germans. She said this in an interview to the German magazine de spigo in 1957 think 57 she said I was in no way harassed by the Germans, even though I had an American passport. And at another point she said, Well, it was hard, but hardship does one good. Now, of course, she went through very difficult times. She went through harder times during the civil war in Athens. Now, the Civil War was between homes. Get this wrong, the National Liberation Army, the National Liberation Front, sorry, the National Liberation Front and the Greek People’s Liberation Army. The National Liberation Front was a resistance group. The Greek People’s Liberation Army was a group of communists. So the Greek People’s Liberation Army were the communists known as the reds, the National Liberation Front, when they were known as the whites, and they were supported by the British, by the Allied Forces. She lived in the red zone, so the danger zone, and then she began work at the British headquarters, where she was in charge of distributing secret mail. And they were in the white zone, so she had to make this very dangerous journey every day to work to earn some money. Meanwhile, Jackie got a job translating film titles from Greek into English. I assume vice versa. So they were, they were very, very difficult years for them. But cars also continued performing. She sang Fidelio. Uh, in Greek. Isn’t Greek. I’m blanking here. It couldn’t have been in German, because she never sang in German. I’m pretty sure it was in Greek, um, and she sang Tosca. And at one point in July 43 she actually double booked herself, by accident. She had a concert, and then she had a Tosca. So she had, she sang arias from Han or Rossini and your son, Milan Chela, from Chile’s Adrian le COVID, at a theater on in the customers through she sang at the customers through theater. Then she ran through wartime Athens to clafuna square to enter as Tosca just in time for when Tosca enters opera. Boss, listening will know this, Mario, Mario, Mario. And she got there just in time. So not at the start of the opera, but at toss was entrance. So yes, they were very, very painful years. But I don’t think she suffered from childhood trauma from that. I think if anything, she felt obviously she was forever traumatized by the fact that her mother didn’t love her. That was horrible. And those problems persisted into her later life, she had troubles with her sister as well, and even her father let her down eventually. And this was all terrible, and that was why, you know, I mentioned at the start, I think, or earlier on, she married a man who was 28 years a senior. He was not attractive, he was quite overweight, he was bald. He didn’t like opera either. He actually fell asleep sitting at her studio recording of Norma in 1954 one of the most famous records ever, including her signature, Aria Casta Diva, which today, I think, is used, still used in the Jean Paul Gaultier ad and he fell asleep. But she needed a father figure, and in her pursuit of a career. Obviously, she had traveled, you know, she went from Athens back to New York and then to Italy. She didn’t know that many people. She didn’t have a best friend, her mother. She was still in touch with her mother when she came to Italy. She was still trying to, you know, trying to preserve that relationship, but she always had doubts about her mother’s love, and she marries this guy who ends up actually being terrible for her and terrible for her and terrible for her reputation

Dan LeFebvre  1:12:04

as well. Yeah. Well, speaking of her family, that we do see little bits and pieces with her family in the movie, with her mother, like I mentioned that flashback, we only really see her in the negative flashback. So the impression I get with Maria’s relationship with her mother was not a good one. I think there’s a line of dialog in the movie where she talks about remembering the day that she finally told her mother to off, but she’s still in contact with her sister, because we see her in the movie and then the only mention of her father. There’s a scene where she’s talking with JFK and her father, or JFK talks about the father she never had. Do you think the movie did a decent job portraying the relationship between Maria and her family.

Sophia Lambton  1:12:44

Well, first of all, I’d like to say that Maria Kellis would never tell anybody to f off, because she was a goody goody who actually couldn’t stand cursing. She couldn’t stand cursing. And when, when the director, Lucchino Visconti, would swear during the rehearsals, it turned her stomach, because that’s what Houseman menaghini said. And in this regard, I think this regard, I think he was, he was probably telling the truth. Also, Richard Burton mentioned in his diary how, because Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor were friends with her, she was at their place, and Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton and his niece Caroline, were playing Gin Rummy, uh, Elizabeth Taylor said at one point and callous was aghast. And according to Richard Burton, she said, Oh no, I’ve never heard such words. Never heard such things. And he and Elizabeth Taylor were very surprised that she was so surprised herself. So I really dislike that, because she would have hated that. And you know, there’s been a lot of Fictional portrayals of her, there’s been, there have been a lot of inaccurate biographies, but very few have actually portrayed her as being somebody who curses. Because everyone, not everyone, of course, not everyone. But very many people know that that was not the case. So with Evangelia, there are three, obviously. Do you have three members of her nuclear family? You have Evangelia, her mother? Oh, Evangelia was a very difficult person. It wasn’t clear in the movie at all why there was a discordance between them. Um, so Evangelia, obviously, as I’ve said, really wanted to milk callous, also Jackie, but more, most of all, callus, because she was the one with the talent. Financially. Evangelio was an entrepreneurial woman. She wanted her daughter to be making lots of money, and she wanted her share of that money. Um, money. So they had difficulties, because evangelio would say, Oh, I have no money. Give me money. Carlos would give her money. And then Carl would find $1,000 under her mattress, which, at the time was a really huge amount of money. In 1950 you know, massive amounts of money, really. And not only that, it wasn’t just that evangelio was kind of black beating her. So she’d say, I’m going to tell you a secret about your father, because obviously Evangelia and George have even separated one very acromis terms. She was saying nasty things about George. She eventually wrote such a horrible letter that callus didn’t even want to share it with her husband, many Guinea. This was in about October 1950 when callous would have been 26 Greeks. She didn’t even want to share with Nagini. It was obviously written in Greek, and many Gini didn’t speak Greek or English, so he had that Greek letter translated into a talent, and she was so hurt by the many Guinea she couldn’t even reply. And many Gini replied. He wrote an Italian took his own letter to a Greek translator, and he said the letter was malicious, vindictive and offensive cannot be written. Those things cannot be written by good mother. So basically, she would just make really she would say really horrible things. I think the only thing in the movie, I believe this was said that actually was accurate, was that evangelist did at one point say, I brought you into the world to sustain me and your sister, so to financially maintain me and your sister, she did say something along those lines. At one point, callus just could not suffer that relationship, so she broke off contact. But she did actually financially support Evangelii and her sister Jackie, on and off until her death, because the because Evangelia was didn’t want to work when she did try working out, I need to try various things. She was trying to use the callous name as much as possible to make money. She went on the balls talk show, I think, talking about how, what an in grade her daughter was, she told lies to the press. And at one point, Keller said, at one point, the government, the New York, I think, Department of, I don’t remember what taxation now can be taxation, the New York Department of something, contacted Maria and said, your mother, you know, don’t have any money, so she had to send money over. But that was really painful. It was really painful relationship, because she understood quite not too early on, but she understood she was not particularly loved. Um, neither was Jackie, really. But going on to George for the moment, the father, who I don’t think was her father, mentioned in this fictional movie at all

Dan LeFebvre  1:17:01

the only, the only mention that I that I not by name, but JFK mentions a father who wasn’t there because he has all these CIA agents that found out about Maria. But that’s the only mention that I I remember in the movie. Totally

Sophia Lambton  1:17:15

bizarre, because Maria counts banning you. Met him. Met John F Kennedy once, and that was at the Madison Square Garden birthday celebration. Met him once publicly. It’s just an entirely fictional thing in this film. JFK would never have spoken on a personal level to Maria, not on that level. At least they barely knew

Dan LeFebvre  1:17:32

it seems, truly seems par for the course for this movie so far to make up fictional things.

Sophia Lambton  1:17:35

Yeah, but the going this far, I didn’t understand. I thought maybe it was trying to be a tongue in cheek thing or something. But why on earth John of Kent? Why on earth John F Kennedy, who had to be, to be to put in Marley, had bigger fish to fry, as we say in the UK, than concerning himself with Murray Callis life. But anyway, George the father was more kind of indolent and not really bothering. So he cared on some level for the girls, but he took long business trips, and he actually openly said that he preferred it that way, because he could be away from their mother. As I mentioned, evangelist took Maria and Jackie to Athens when Maria was 13, she wouldn’t see George until she would be 21 back in New York, and she did sustain a relationship with him. He came to see her sing several times in January, 1959 he saw her sing. He came to see him epidurals at the epidurals festival in August 1960 so they were on good terms. But then eventually he got ill, and she was happy to she was happy to foot his medical bills. But at some point his next wife, he married, he remarried. He remarried, a woman called Alexandra, Papa John and her family started bothering Rhea for money. And then Rhea started hearing from other people that George was going around Athens saying his daughter, his famous singer, daughter, was supporting him. And that really, really hurt her. So she cut herself from that. She cut herself off from that as well. There was just a lot of pain. I’m not saying maybe, maybe she could have made more than effort with her father, but having heard an issue with him, myself for the high Garden Show for NBC, high garden show from 1957 when he gets growth his daughter’s birthday is wrong. I don’t think you know being, I don’t think being on very good terms with him when he was demanding money as well, reminding Maria of her mother when she thought she could trust him, she actually ended up saying he has betrayed me even, perhaps even worse than my mother, because I think she was accustomed to who her mother was, but she’d been on such good terms with her father for years, he’d come to her performances, and Now it turns out he’s also bitching about her to other people. She was really hurt by that. Jackie is a bit her sister Jackie, that relationship is a bit more nebulous in that. The thing is, she tried to make contact with her sister Jackie, but Jackie was kind of on Evangelii side. And, you know, but we need money, and you’re making money. It’s. So she did sustain contact with her at a time when she wasn’t in contact with Jackie, the last time she sorry the other way, at a time when she wasn’t in contact with her mother, evangelio, she was still in contact with Jackie, on and off. The last time she ever saw her sister Jackie was in september 1960 so it was a long time before her death. It was 17 years before death. It is not entirely certain if it was september 1960 or 1961 because Jackie herself mistakenly referred to callous performances of Norma and Medea at Epidaurus taking place in the same summer, when they took place in different summers, 60 and 61 so I don’t know if it was September 60 or September 61 but it was one of those years, 16 to 17 years before her death, that was the last time they met face to face. She later no before that, she had way before that, November 1950 she had written to her godfather. As for my sister, I’ve tried to do my best, but that has only brought me insults. I don’t know what exactly she meant by that, but obviously it was difficult with Jackie as well. And then I get a very poor impression of Jackie from her own book, which is very nasty in that there’s a lot of bitterness about, you know, I wanted to be a singer too. If my life had been different, I would have been a great singer, like callous two. Jackie couldn’t, could sing a little bit she, there’s a recording of her, maybe still on YouTube. She gave an interview to a Marie callous fan club that was recorded in 1992 on videotape, and it was on YouTube. I don’t know if it still is. It probably is so and that during that interview, she played a recording herself singing in her youth. She did not have a great voice. She was never going to make a great, great career as an opera singer. She might have, if she had wanted, she might have made a bit of money singing at various, you know, restaurant venues, but this was not the voice of a great singer, so she had a lot of resentment against Maria. They were back in touch. After they were back in they came back into contact when George, the father, died in December 1972 so this would have been four years, nine months before Council’s death. And then they were on and off in contact, on the phone a little bit, and it is true that callus asked her to send mandrax pills from Athens because they were no longer in the mark on the market in France because she needed them to sleep. But there was nothing as dramatic as portrayed in the film. They never did meet up anytime after 60 or 61

Dan LeFebvre  1:22:17

okay, I’m sensing a kind of a trend with a lot of Maria’s relationships between her mother, who is saying things, you know, you mentioned going on a talk show and saying things about her, her father, even her first husband, you know, the manager who was saying things, did she have somebody that she could rely on throughout her life at all? It seems like everybody’s almost using her and trying to get money out of her, or whatever their purposes are, and then slandering her behind her back. Yeah,

Sophia Lambton  1:22:49

you make a really good point. Unfortunately, that really feels like the case. I haven’t even mentioned her longtime best friend, Joanna lomazzi, who wrote a series of articles in 1961 for an Italian magazine called La setsimana income about callous private life. Now, these articles are very useful to me because they came from the period, and I think she wasn’t lying, but she was outing the private life of her best friend for money. Wait, you know which was which was terrible. And then she was very surprised that after that, callus wasn’t much in contact with her, although she did actually write to her several years later. Yeah, so on one hand, callus was very unfortunate when it came to a lot of people, that’s true, but she had some good friends. They were just not, they were not part of her closest, most intimate circle. I mean, she had a lot of good colleagues. When I was interviewing various people, they said such lovely things. Janine Rice was just amazing. She was such a dear, dear woman. When I interviewed Fabrizio Milano, who is still an opera director, he was the assistant to her when she and Giuseppe Stefano stage ver dive siciliani in Turin in 1970 three. At the end, after I interviewed, when I was leaving, he said, I really hope you write your book Sophia, because she was just such a wonderful woman and and I said, I know, I know. So she did have people who cared about her, but in terms of her closest relationships, yeah, yeah, she had bad luck. I will say, though, Onassis, in this regard, was by far the best person she had in her life. Because let me tell you about the things Onassis didn’t do analysis, didn’t love about her to the press at all, and at one point he actually said, because they had, they had a lawsuit against someone else who unfortunately let them down, rather the other way. Their dear friend panagivgoti sued them from a misunderstanding because he and Onassis had had bought Ray callus, a freighter, a ship called the artemision in 1965 and he and Anastas had an argument over how many shares he owned, versus Onassis owned, versus callous owned a. Eventually he sued, callous analysis, and then they and then, I always get confused about this, because, to be honest, is such a boring story. But anyway, there was they won, that lost, or they sued. No sorry, they had to sue him because he wasn’t handing over his shares. And it was afraid, and it was, it was a sorry story. Uh, but analysis during this lawsuit in in a London court said madam callus is not a vehicle for me to drive. She has her own brakes and her own brains. Uh, it’s very sad that it’s very sad that the media has portrayed him as believing the opposite. Um, he I mean, they stayed friends until the end. They did. They did not resume. It’s been what, it’s been quite widely reported, that they resume the romantic relationship after he married Jack and Kennedy. That is not true. He tried with her, but she wasn’t having it. As I mentioned before, she was not a very sexual woman. So I and also, by that time, you know, she was 40, so Okay, she wasn’t that old. She was 40. She was 44 when they split up. Okay, but as I mentioned, she wasn’t a very sexual woman. I don’t think she was going to have a sexual relationship with Manassas when he was married to Japanese I think she was tired of that relationship. I think she said it herself, many attributes contempt, and she did it also say to Stella Scott topless, uh, my relationship with NASA. So my affair with the NASA was, you know, did not end well, but my friendship with him was a great success. So they were much better when they were on the phone to each other. And, you know, these very independent individuals. I would also like to mention, because this never gets mentioned, they did not live together, which means that about half of the year they were kind of in a long distance relationship. So you’re talking about two individuals very focused on their careers. It’s quite a boring relationship, to be honest. And I say this as someone who I I’m also a novelist. I have a lifelong absolute fascination in relationships. I’ve made it my mission to seek out the most fascinating romantic relationships out there. This is not one of them at all. So I, when I went into my research years and years ago, I thought it was more interesting. No, no. Anyway, he they were in contact until his death, even though she was with Giuseppe Stefano. So he was quite Yeah, okay, it is true, he did cheat on her. He had various flings during the relationship, but she knew about that, and she also, in retrospect, talked about, okay, well, that was the way he was. She was, you know, she did not get broken by this. She was not broken by that. What others did is was far worse than anything Onassis did to her. There’s,

Dan LeFebvre  1:27:43

there’s a point in the movie where she kind of mentioned, I think it’s on when Onassis is on his deathbed, he calls her in and she talks about how when he married Jackie Kennedy, that he she wasn’t heartbroken, but she had her pride hurt. Do you think the movie did a good job portraying the relationship between Maria and Onassis.

Sophia Lambton  1:28:04

Well, I couldn’t I know, because any, any movie that alleges Onassis forbade her to sing is already completely overturning the representation of that relationship. Also any movie that has a fictional Maria Callas saying I did not want to go on the cruise because I knew, I knew what would happen. You know, in that melodramatic soap opera, soap opera kind of worse than Douglas Sirk, kind of tone, that isn’t what happened. Because, actually, she didn’t want to go because she didn’t want to go on the cruise. Her husband wanted them to go on the cruise because he thought they would make advantageous business contacts on the cruise. It was all about, oh, yeah, we need to meet. People need to network. I mean, I don’t think the term networking wasn’t used back then, but that would have that was what he would have said today. This was a time when he was making her sing, even though she was ill. And yeah, on that cruise in July to August, 59 Carl, Foreman producer, came and wanted to do, wanted her to do guns and Navarre, and she didn’t want to do it. A German producer came and want, no, I didn’t think a German producer came. But many Guinea was considering an offer from a German producer, producer for her to start as the leading lady in the Prima Donna, a German film that was going to be distributed by some big distributor called Gloria FinFET. Her fee would be 200 million lira, which is around $320,000 then, so about 303,300,000 today, or something, he would tell her land, land is what matters. And she did not agree with him at the same time, yes, Onassis was flirting with her. Of course he was flirting with her. She was beautiful one. She’s a beautiful woman. He liked women. We know that. Yeah, he liked women. I don’t think he had a big plan to seduce her, to be honest, because I don’t think he really was the kind who fell desperately in love like that, at least that quickly. I. Um, he was flirting with her me. Probably he was hoping that she would she and her husband would separate, but she had no idea. And um, eventually they disembarked that cruise on the 11th of August, 1959 for two weeks, she tried to assuage many Guinea’s resentment, because he was now saying, You’re cheating on me, or she wasn’t, and he, but he was primarily really angry. What has, what has spurred his anger about that which was untrue, what had, what had strengthened his suspicion was the fact that she was saying, I want to be my own manager. I want to manage my career after she had discovered he had invested primarily her money, because he was only her manager at this point. So she was making the earnings. You know, he was a manager. She was making the money. He had abandoned his own business, which was a brick making factory that had 12 plants across Italy. He had abandoned that. He was a family business. He had left it to his brothers. He had 11 brothers, and he had abandoned that. It was 11 brothers, 11 siblings. So I’d always get it up anyway. He was one of 12, one of 12 siblings. He’d left it to his brothers to become her manager, and now she was saying, I want to be my manager. He was really pissed off at this. Really pissed off. And furthermore, he didn’t remember. He didn’t speak English, he didn’t speak Greek, he didn’t speak French, and NASA spoke all of those languages, plus some others. He didn’t know what marinas was saying. He could tell that the other guests on the ship, including Churchill and his daughter and his granddaughter, were gossiping, saying, oh, counselor NASA, you know, really getting on? Well, that really enraged him, and eventually he started a rumor that they were having an affair, and he actually created a fake diary. He took letterheaded paper from their apartment in Milan and just wrote random dates on it in pen. And, you know, as though it could be a diary writing total untruths on it. And in July, 1960 CALS wrote a letter to her legal separation lawyer Augusto Calis calcini, which I found. I should also add, the reason why I say legal separation lawyer is because Italy did not have divorce at that time, divorce would be illegal in Italy until the end of 1970 In fact, one of the very first divorces granted. In fact, I believe the first divorce granted in Brescia, in the region of Brescia, was Maria Callas divorce finally, long after she had dumped Onassis, she finally could get divorced from many Guinea up to that point, they were legally separated, which means that the assets were divided between them. She would always say, Oh, he he went. She would put it differently, so I’m not exactly sure what the arrangement was, but in one letter, she’d say, mengini got half of my money, and another one, she’d say he got two thirds of my money. So he obviously got more than he was entitled to. But yeah, I was saying in a letter, 31st of July, 1960 she writes to her legal separation lawyer Augusto Carlos, or Augusto calzi cascalchini, saying, can you tell me again? His lawyer BME to tell him to put a muzzle on and stop lying to the press with that made up story about Onassis. She underlines, made up in Italian itstoria, invent data. And she underlines invent data, meaning he is telling the press on NASA and I have were having an affair. Now by that by that time, she and analysis were in a relationship, but they hadn’t been having an affair back then, which is why she’s saying Madoff story about analysis. She says, If he doesn’t, next time I meet with him, I will take a tape recorder to the meeting to get proof that he is lying. So, you know, talk about having nothing to hide in that regard, I think that the Cal Sanas relationship was primarily founded on two very strong individuals, self made individuals of Greek descent. I don’t think that was very important for Maria, because Maria had been born in America. She ended up dying in France, and actually her her primary language changed throughout the years. So, you know, it was typically English. But then I think she found Italian easier by the time she lived in Italy for a while, and then when she was in France, French really became her first language. So she did not really relate that closely to her Greek roots. She didn’t even speak Greek well until she had been living in Atlas for a while. So I don’t think Evangelion George even spoke Greek that much to her and Jackie when they were growing up in their early years. But Onassis really admired mariekes. He loved hearing about how she had, you know, walked for miles to get cabbage leaves and tomatoes for her colleagues in wartime. He himself was a very, very tenacious, strong man. He had freed his father from a Turkish prison. I think that the year, I think, yeah, 1923 the Henri cows, was born before she was born, Onassis was a 16 year old man, uh, bribing a Turkish official so he could sneak into the prison where his father was imprisoned because Turkey had captured Smyrna, which is where Onassis was born. Smyrna is now is near in Turkey, but back then, I presume it belonged to Paris or Cyprus. Sorry, my history is not great, but anyway, his father was in Turkish prison. And he snuck him out. He freed his sisters. I don’t remember the political details, but he was a very tenacious, strong man. Um, they didn’t marry because she, first of all, was married. This isn’t really mentioned enough. She was married now in March 1966 she went to the Greek Embassy in Paris because Greece had passed a law invalidating all marriages of Greek citizens from 1945 onwards, and that would make her a single woman, According to Greek law, but if she wanted to return to Italy to perform or even for a rehearsal or for a meeting with a friend, yep, so let’s say if she’d married Onassis, she would still be charged with bigamy in Italy. So she could have married Onassis and risk and never, never turned to Italy again. That would have been very difficult, considering most of her career had taken place there. And even though she was in having a vocal decline, she was come to Italy quite frequently. Her dressmaker, Biki, lived in Italy. A lot of her friends lived in Italy. And I, and I presume she wanted and she would perform there again, actually in her concert tour, but actually only in a pub, in private little performance, because she was so scared of the Italian press. Um, but she also, she did consider marrying him. They do consider marriage, but they would have arguments, and eventually she ended up saying, well actually, during the relationship, she told a journalist, once you’re married, the man takes you for granted, and I do not want to be told what to do. My own instincts and conviction, my own instinct and convictions tell me what I should or should not do. These convictions may be right or wrong, but they are mine, and I have the courage to stand up for what I believe. So, yeah, they didn’t marry but I think that’s good. I don’t think they would have been a good married couple.

Dan LeFebvre  1:36:48

Well, it sounds like too I mean, like you were saying, since a lot of it was long distance and they were both focused on their careers, that maybe marriage just didn’t make sense. But they could still have, I mean, if she saw him as a still a good friend, then, you know, that’s what was important to her.

Sophia Lambton  1:37:10

Yeah. I mean, they were lovers for sure, during Yeah, you know, I don’t, obviously, I can’t tell you the first time I slept together, I, I don’t have that information, but I imagine it would have been about the spring of 1960 knowing how slow and and also something that I hope listeners, I hope Khalistan to understand. When menage, he dumped her, she was shocked beyond belief. She had been with him for 12 years. He had been the only really close person a lot. He had defended her when things were tough with her mother, he had defended her before all prepper house managers that were tough, you know, it’s true, but he had actually managed to soil her reputation, willingly or not, as a result of trying to drive up publicity. So the callous ticket sales would be higher prices, so callous would get a higher salary, so he would get his own car, you know. But, um, she saw him as the only person in her life, bringing with the end, close person. She was utterly horrified, and she’s wrote on the same day. She wrote that letter to Augusto goddess. Can she in search for July 1960 wrote to Herbert Weinstock, I think, yeah, who was a music critic and a friend of hers, saying, I have been, I have spent the time licking my wounds, not caused by any third party, meaning, you know, it’s not to do with on assets. I have been heard meaning by my husband. And she would write about that a lot to friends. She told her friends a lot about that. But no, they were eventually, of course, eventually, they were lovers for a time, but she dumped him, and the Jacqueline Kennedy marriage was a business thing for him, which, in return, in turn, to Jacqueline Kennedy, assured protection, obviously, financial resources, privacy, because there was a Christine of those Onassis Island, Scorpios, which she needed. So that was a business deal, basically not, I don’t know if you can call it a business deal, but it was a quid pro quo arrangement that was not founded on love.

Dan LeFebvre  1:39:09

That makes sense. I think there’s a in the movie Onassis says something like, you find yourself not doing anything one day and you get married, or something like that. When he talks about Jackie, which implied to me that it was not not for love the way it seemed to be between Maria and Onassis, like they seemed like they actually cared about each other.

Sophia Lambton  1:39:29

Oh, yeah. No, I will. I will, however, admit that Onassis had considered this marriage to Jack and Kenny for a while, probably, probably as early as during his relationship with Marie cows, but she did help dump him first. Okay, so we don’t know what would have happened if they had stayed together. I doubt he would have married Jack and Kennedy one day if they had been in a relationship. Okay? He knew what he was doing. It was very I guess it was quite arranged, pre arranged. It were premeditated things. So that’s, you know, the movie. Quote sounds like something more random. It wasn’t random. He had to further his interests his stock. I’m not a specialist in narcissist stock. I wanted to know what all of this was from Rick House’s perspective. You know what happened to his stock? I don’t know or care particularly, but I do know that obviously that marriage was a shock to her. She was hurt by it. She didn’t learn about it from the newspapers, or at least that’s not what her hairdresser, Frederic somoli later told a reporter years after her death, he said he was with her when she first heard about it on the radio. I think she may have used the term newspapers more loosely to apply to the media, or she may have heard about the newspapers before the radio, and then just burst into tears hearing it again. I don’t know, but she was the middle of, she was preparing for a photo shoot with her stylist, Frederic simoli, in Paris, when she heard about it, and, yeah, she also obviously devastated, and obviously she was being humiliated publicly because she was, you know, this is she was not living in an Instagram time. Even if she had been, I doubt she had. I doubt she would have been the kind of celebrity to post on Instagram. So, you know, Ari and I partiston, I parted ways yesterday. This is not who Mary was. So people did not know that she had dumped him, except for her friends. In fact, actually written. Burton wrote it in his diary, and his diaries have been published, and other friends knew, but the public did not know. So of course, the headline was, and unfortunately, the headline still is on NASA’s dumps callous for Jap and kemby, which was not true.

Dan LeFebvre  1:41:35

It sounds like going back to some of the media and the way they portrayed her, with her performances and her health and things like that, they were going they, I think you said it best, not clickbait back then, but same sort of, you know, titles and things like that to try to gain readership and stuff like that. And unfortunately, it seems like that was not in favor of the truth for what actually happened.

Sophia Lambton  1:41:59

I also wanted to mention I wasn’t able to find out. I’m not sure if anyone actually knows, sure if she did visit him on his deathbed. The hospital in this movie is so weird, because I know what it’s supposed to be. It’s supposed to be the American Hospital in Noyes in Paris. And the hospital, as portrayed in this movie, it looks like some weird, fancy parking lot. I don’t know anything is very empty.

Dan LeFebvre  1:42:26

It does look like a parking garage.

Sophia Lambton  1:42:30

Yeah, bizarre. But anyway, I don’t know if they spoke to each other. When he was on his best deathbed. It was a huge risk for her to appear there, given that Jack and Kennedy was often there, the press were often there. I know she received reports about his condition from Vassar javezzi, who was a pianist with whom she was working at the time, on and off, and apparently ferocha, the butler. He didn’t remember having, I mean, I, I didn’t get to interview ferocho, because Fabio jedvozonia. He was a collective callous items who was on, who was in contact with filcher told me Firoz would not speak to anybody. Now, since then, firocha has actually published his own Little Book of Memories, but it’s very specific to his own relationship with callous. It’s not a biography of callous. It’s more this. These are things you would say to me, and you know, stuff like that. I don’t know if Fabio told me from ferocio that ferocio never mentioned driving her to the hospital to see on us. He was also her driver, her chauffeur. So I don’t know if she went that CNS. I do know that the last time they spoke, at least according to what she told stevios, Carlo topolos was quite a warm occasion. There was no bitterness there. Well, if we

Dan LeFebvre  1:43:45

go back to the movie, I found it interesting that the movie’s version of Maria Callas never listened to her own records. She says something about how it’s the records are too perfect. A song should never be perfect. It should be performed in that moment on stage. But then in the movie, during her final week, during the course of the movie, we see her listening to her own records, and even having her housemate Bruno recording her practicing so she can compare her voice to her earlier recordings. Is it true that Maria didn’t like to listen to her own recordings and then started to listening to them near the end of her life? That’s

Sophia Lambton  1:44:21

pretty much true, but not for the reasons the movie alleges. So first of all, Marie Carlos would never have found her recordings perfect ever. One of my favorite recordings of hers is manually score from september 1957 and she denied the release of it. She forbade the release of it because she thought it was so it was only released in 1959 um, whenever she had herself, she was she was always picking up on things she could have done better. There’s a really loving interview of hers with David Frost on the David Frost show on CBS from 1970 in which he plays her. I think it’s custom diva. It’s definitely from normo. It’s probably the custom diva um. From her first non recording from 1954 he asked, Well, did you sense mistakes? And that? She says, No, but it could have been better. That was always the case. But when she was at the peak of her career, I don’t think she particularly listened to recordings, but I will say she developed kind of an obsessive need to listen to them. When she started to lose her voice, or not started, but later on, by 1967 she was listening to recordings, definitely, maybe not six seven, but Peter Andre, who was who worked for Umi, remembering being, remembered being at her flat, at her apartment in early 1968 and she would play her recordings in front of people trying to figure out what was there, what had been lost. She especially was obsessed in her later years with her earlier recordings, trying to get back her early, more bestial, more out of control voice. But she was terribly self loathing. She said, in every artist, there’s a critic, there are always critics and creators. There’s the one who performs the instrument, the reflexes, and then there’s the other person in you who says, Well, that wasn’t good. That could have been better. So she taught herself to pieces, listening to recording. She would never have said anything was perfect, but yeah, she was listening to them, trying to get back something, trying to understand what she had been doing and what had gone

Dan LeFebvre  1:46:28

makes sense. Makes sense. Well, when we started our chat today, I mentioned the opening scene in the movie is also how it ends. So we’ll circle back to that. Now, as we start to wrap up our discussion and then the final scenes, we see Maria singing so loudly in her apartment that thanks to an open window, people are stopping in the streets to hear it then seems to sap the last ounce of energy that she has. Bruna and fruci went to go get groceries and take the dogs for the walk as well. They come back find her on the floor, even though it’s I’m assuming it’s not historically accurate, because that’s just not the way things happen in the real world. But I thought the movie’s ending was beautifully done. It had me in tears watching it, especially when the dogs come in, they start crying as they see her lying motionless on the floor. But how well did the movie do depicting the way that Maria Callas died?

Sophia Lambton  1:47:15

Well, obviously the moment about Maria Callas singing Republic, you know, the public coming that obviously didn’t happen. Rick House wouldn’t have sung like I mean, sometimes she did sing so loudly, practicing in her flat, the people or in a hotel room, for instance, that the neighbors heard. But not, not at that point when her voice was in tatters. She actually, by that point, she felt her voice was so bad she would, for instance, she would tell ferocho to leave the room when she practiced, all the doors would be closed and ferocious. Would remember that at one point she came out and saw him, said, What are you doing here? Because he wasn’t supposed to be there, you know, near the door, listening, kind of eavesdropping on her singing. She probably, you know, as I mentioned before, bro and chirocha was there when she died. It was quite a simple day. I don’t think. No, she didn’t have, she didn’t have occasion to sing, because she woke up at about 1pm um, prepared on some coffee and eggs. She went to go to go to the bathroom to get dressed. She had a sudden headache. I mentioned earlier she had been suffering from bad pain on her left side. A doctor had said it was flu and rheumatism, but she started having a heart attack. BRUNO offered her spoonfuls of coffee, while Firoz tried to call one of her doctors. Eventually, Fi called an ambulance. I’m not sure why he didn’t call an ambulance begin with, to be honest, but he was trying to reach one of her doctors, and and and she, and she died at about 2:15pm Paris time. Her poodles. She did have poodles. They were Jeddah and pixie. Pixie was smaller than her representation in this movie. Pixie was the white one. Jenna was the black one. I don’t know if they held when she died. They loved her very much. She tried to teach them to sing. There’s a recording of her trying to teach them to sing. And there, there’s a recording of them yapping, and she’s trying to get them to Yap melodically.

Dan LeFebvre  1:49:19

I’ve had dogs. I haven’t had poodles, but it would be a feat to try to get them to sing melodically.

Sophia Lambton  1:49:28

Yeah.

Dan LeFebvre  1:49:31

Something that Maria does mention throughout the movie is how she’s writing her autobiography, although we never see it published in the movie. There’s a line of dialog from her sister near the end, where she tells Maria not to write anything about her life, but if you do, be kind to yourself. And the impression I got from the movie was that she’s mostly hallucinating her life flashing before her eyes before the end. But did Maria Callas actually end up writing an autobiography?

Sophia Lambton  1:49:58

No, Maria clouds didn’t write an auto. Biography, but she was always interested in the idea of trying to set the record straight. The first time she did anything akin to that was when she she wrote a series of articles that were kind of her memoirs. So they were known as her memoirs for Oji magazine in Italy, using a ghost writer, Anita pensoti. So, so she kind of dictated to Anita pensoti That would have been in December 57 No, wait. No, no, December, 56 No, published in January 57 in six installments in orgy magazine in Italy. But she was considering an autobiography, as that is March 1960 when she wrote to her friend herb and Weinstock, the music critic. One day, rather soon, I will decide to write my book biography, but I need someone to make some research in Greece, of pictures, declarations, true in brackets and information that my memory can fail. You know how I’m precise in everything? At least I try my best to be later on. Should pick that up again. That the idea of a biography, an autobiography. But she was so funny. She said, I can’t talk about myself that would be lacking in modesty. So she started writing to her friends and colleagues. She wrote to the daughter of conductor Victor De Sabata, Eliana, who had been her friend in Milan, saying, Can you provide me some memories, because I don’t remember or something. And and wrote to dole Soria, who had worked she had founded Angel records together with her husband Dario. Maria would say there have been so many lies she told. In October 1971 she told Joan Crawford, who was kind of a cattle friend of hers, not not a close friend, but they were on Franny chance. She told Joan Crawford she was working on a biography. And she actually had the interest of an editor at Simon and Schuster in in New York, Peter schwed. And she continued writing. You know, she actually wrote to one of her old maids, meaning one of her former maids, not an old maid, but one of her former maids, Matilda sangioli, asking her again, can you supply some memories? Because I can’t talk about myself, I would be lacking in modesty. So there were there were discussions. She was always, you know, she wore her heart on her sleeve, and her letters are very expressive. They’re very expressive and they’re very open. So she would put for instance, I hope this letter makes sense because I was distracted listening to Wagner’s music on the turntable, and in another letter, in a letter to Irving colon and another music critic, she writes, PS, I hope this letter makes sense because I was interrupted 11 times whilst writing it, so she she really wore her heart on her sleeve. I I really hope that this this episode, and for those who are interested, my book dispels the idea that she was so mysterious, because actually, she really wasn’t mysterious. There have been many performing artists who are mysterious, who continue to be mysterious. Well, cast wasn’t particularly secretive, and she didn’t write hell to biography. She wasn’t a big writer. I don’t think she would have managed writing held a book. She would have found him boring. You know, talking about herself, she actually said in an interview, I don’t like talking about myself, I found me boring. I find me boring. So that wasn’t going to happen, but she did entertain the idea that

Dan LeFebvre  1:53:02

leads right into my final question for you, because you have a biography about Maria Callas in print, a centennial biography. I’ll make sure to add a link in the show notes for everyone to get their own copy right now to learn more about the RE real Maria Callas. But before I let you go, can you share one of your favorite stories that might surprise someone who has only seen the movie.

Sophia Lambton  1:53:23

Well, the first, first and foremost, what I want to tell someone who’s only seen the movie is that above and beyond all other false characterizations of Mary callous, above and beyond all other myths, I think what would have really gutted her was the idea that she could have been rude to a fan. She was never rude to a fan. I mean, all of the colleagues that were not, maybe not all, but the vast majority of people who worked with her talked about how generous and friendly she was. She was such a team player. I mean, she, she sent a message upon him. Kiku mufonio for a Royal Opera House audition. You know, she wrote to the opera house asking for an audition for her. She, when she was at Judah giving master classes, she got the Secretary, Lona Levant, basically she wrote, she sent a singer CB to Larry Kelly, who was a general manager of Dallas civic opera, even though the singer, Mario full score, was 13, nine years old. So you’d think the 39 year old could have done himself, but no, she’s doing it for him. But her public were like has her children, she would never have been rooted them, and she was in touch with her fans. At one point, a fan Dolores rivelino, who’d later become a chef, sneaked in, sneaked into her dressing room, as in kind of illicitly, and Maria offered her a swig from a big bottle of orange age she had been drinking. So she received fans in her dressing room at 3am and another example of how loving she was to her fans was during what was basically what I call the La Scala Cold War, which is when her husband, manegini kept I think it was his awkward, misguided way of getting a higher fee for his wife for her performances. He had spoken ill of the General Manager of La Scala, Antonio giangelli, to the press and giringhe never realized how much of this was coming from manegini and not from callus. So he was trying to get Marie callous to tell him her available dates for the fall. Look following seat in 1957 to 958, Oh, no. Sorry. No wait. No, no, sorry. 1958 to 959, and she would she would give him the dates, and he would say, but I can’t make decisions until I have your dates. And she would say, but here are my dates. And you’ll say, but I can’t make decisions I have this. It is such a silly exchange because it was dramatized in the press as this big few, but when you read the messages, it’s ridiculous. So was playing, or whether he was having some periodic illiteracy going on or something. But it ended badly, because eventually Marie Keller said, I cannot sustain this in genuine relationship, and she left La Scala, meaning she said, I’m no longer going to perform at La Scala. But before that, she was singing in Anna Bolena in april 1958 at La Scala. A month before she left the theater, things were really tense with giringelli. He would eventually, I don’t think it was this performance, but later on, oh, no, wait, I’m just trying to figure this out. No, no. Sorry. We’re not in April 58 we’re in May 58 she’s doing Pirata, her last performance at La Scala. For a long time, she’d return later on in polyuto. That would be in December 1960 but for now, she’s doing il Terada, Atlas column and gongue. It was so piss off at her. He had the big iron curtain, not just the red velvet curtain, but the Iron Curtain. Stage curtain fall down quite early after the performance, so she couldn’t get an ovation. She, you know, the audience couldn’t continue applauding. That was a signal, everybody must go home. And the fire marshal came out and said, you know, okay, clear the stage. Performance is over. And when Rhea came outside, there were all these fans who were huddled to say goodbye, and police officers, police officers, or I don’t know, security girls were there to restrain them. And she said, Leave them alone. These people are my friends. They are doing no harm, because that was her relationship with her public she had been banished from her dressing room. Usually, she would receive them in her dressing room, and sometimes stay up as late as 3am in the dressing room, signing autographs. But she had been kind of the feud had happened. She had left La Scala so during Kelly had ended the performance earlier, meaning they hadn’t given time for innovation or fan engagement, and she stood outside with them and stopped them from being banished by the strange guards who’ve been recruited to stand there.

Dan LeFebvre  1:57:35

Wow, yeah, that’s, I mean, that’s a very different, very Maria Callas than we see in the movie. So I really hope that everybody listening to this will pick up a copy of your book to learn more about the real Maria Callas. Thank you again. So much for your time, Sophia.

Sophia Lambton  1:57:50

Thank you so much, Dan.

Dan LeFebvre  03:46

We have a lot to cover today with five different Indiana Jones movies, but before we get started digging into some of the more historical details, something I like to do here is to take a step back and get an overall letter grade for the historical accuracy of a movie. Now we have multiple movies today, so I’d love to ask you, kind of a letter grade for each one. Let’s start with the first movie released in the franchise, what letter grade would you give Raiders of the Lost Ark based on its historical accuracy? Yeah,

 

Neil Laird  04:14

Let’s clarify that, because obviously not talking about the quality, the fun of the film, like a historical which is obviously two different things, just, you know, tricky, but sometimes I do go in concert. I would say, with Indiana Jones, I would give it a solid B, the first one.

 

Dan LeFebvre  04:28

And then how about the next film, Temple of Doom.

 

Neil Laird  04:30

Tempo of doom would have to be a D, D,

 

Dan LeFebvre  04:33

okay, so a bit of a drop there. And then the Last Crusade is the next that would be a, b, b, okay, so tune back.

 

Neil Laird  04:40

We’ll talk about C plus or B. It’s on the on the fridge. Okay,

 

Dan LeFebvre  04:43

okay. And then almost 20 years later, we got another Indiana Jones with 2000 eights Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. What grade does that one get?

 

Neil Laird  04:51

20 years to to work on that, and they come back with an F.

 

Dan LeFebvre  04:56

I had a feeling that would be another drop. Yeah. And then last, but certainly not least, the final film in the franchise. At least as of this recording, we’ll see if they change that to is 2023, style of destiny. What historical letter grade does that one get?

 

Neil Laird  05:10

I would say that’s a, probably c plus as well. Maybe, if I’m generous, I’ll give it a B. It’s up there with sort of Last Crusade and that one both have some interesting concepts. They sort of fudge a bit. So we get a details. We’ll talk about that dividing run. Okay,

 

Dan LeFebvre  05:24

okay, yeah. So we have a little bit of a roller coaster there. The whole franchise. Nice. All right, let’s start digging into each of the movies now, starting with 1980 ones, Raiders of the Lost Ark. It’s the first one that’s not the Indiana Jones and and then the rest are but according to the movie, The Lost Ark, and the title is the Ark of the Ark of the Covenant, and Indiana Jones explains the basic concept in a scene at the beginning of the film. In a nutshell, the Ark is where the Israelites held the 10 Commandments that were given to Moses on Mount Sinai from the book of Exodus. In the Christian Bible, it’s not just a historical artifact, though, according to the movie, because the story that they tell suggests that the Israelites used the power of God associated with the Ark to defeat their enemies. And since the movie is set in 1936 when the Nazis are rising to power, Hitler wants to find the Ark to basically make his armies invincible. And that’s how the movie kind of sets up the whole concept for why Indiana Jones is trying to find the ark for the United States government before the Nazis do, do we know if the Ark of the Covenant was a real historical artifact, and was it really something that Hitler looked for as the Nazis were rising to power?

 

Neil Laird  06:26

Well, it’s interesting that the reason I gave this one a B, is why there was no arc today. And of course, no one in contemporary times has seen it. It’s one of the most well documented of all the artifacts we talk about in this series, because it was in the Bible. It actually goes back to biblical days, unlike the rest of them, and they’re quite descriptive in what they talk about, how big it is, the cubits and where it was housed. And you know, the book of Exodus gets very, very particular on all the sordid engineering details. Doesn’t mean that it was a real thing, but it certainly means they believed in it. And if you follow the story through the other chapters of the Bible, they do talk about, once they get to the Holy Land, how it becomes this scourge and it’s stolen by the Philistines, and they’ll they all get attacked by plague and rats, so much that they give it back. And then the Israeli Israelites, when they take it home, someone dares to look at it, and they die. They get struck down by lightning, very close to melting. So clearly, I think the writers of raiders read their Bible and know the lore, and I think that’s why it’s so strong in terms of, if not historical, at least the history of the telling of the ark, you know, take away the fact that it existed or not, they did their research, and they really are writing to what the writers of the Bible, in the New Testament, and some of the other apocryphal authors wrote at the time. Now, what the other question whether Nazis looked for it. They were looking for everything at that point. You know, the Nazi who just chasing everything down, and a lot of it was because they do believe in the spirit, the supernatural, but they also wanted to get anything that gave them the up on on religion and obviously telling people they have something a lot of us propaganda. It wasn’t as they believe that they were going to carnage the force of Yahweh. It was to get the local population to say, look what we have. You know, it was, it was, it was as much telling you we’re giving you something as valuable as it was, trying to use it for nefarious purposes. But like, like, like, the other ones we talk about later, there’s no specific information saying they were looking for the ark. Particularly, they were looking for anything that they could exploit in the occult or in the biblical or in the spiritual in the Christian world to prop themselves up.

 

Dan LeFebvre  08:38

So make sure I’m understanding, it’s not as much that they were looking for it to lead their armies, necessarily, but almost like, as long as their armies, or whoever their followers were, believed that that had the power, it didn’t even matter if they actually had the power itself, like you see the lightning in the movie, right? The idea of that concept, as long as people believe then it sounds like that’s what the Nazis were going for. Yeah, they

 

Neil Laird  09:02

get part of it. Maybe not. Unlike the people wrote the Bible, whether those people wrote that believe that the Ark had these supernatural things. But if the you know, if, if to people who think that we are the ones who are housing it have those power, then where you’re going to listen to us as well. So it’s both ways. It may have been people already believed in, in the supernatural, in the occult aspect of it. But just as many were cynical people trying to manipulate the populace.

 

Dan LeFebvre  09:25

Another huge parks in Indiana Jones search for the arc in Raiders revolves around the lost city of Tanis. In the movie’s version of history, Tannis was buried by a huge Sandstorm back in like 980 BC, until Renee Belloc discovers Tannis, presumably just before the movie’s timeline, because the Nazis financed Bell excavation to find the Ark there at Tanis. Is there really a historical connection between the city of Tannis and the ark in a word, no,

 

Neil Laird  09:58

I admire the big Tannis now. Again, we talked about this up top. I’m an archeologist, or I am. I’m not an archeologist, but I do all these shows about them. So I’ve done tons of shows in Egypt. That’s my happy place. I probably shot maybe 2030, films there. I’ve been there a lot. I’ve been to Tannis a couple of times as well, but mostly not about, never about the arc. The Tannis is a real place. It’s up in the delta, which is north east of Alexandria, and it from the late period of Egypt. So it’s 19/20 dynasty on which mean anything to the layman, but it was, it was post King David in the holy period. But it wasn’t a place that was wiped off the face of the earth by a sandstorm. It basically just crumbled. When the Egyptian empire crumbled the late period. Late period was got ransacked by 600 BC by the Persians, and it kind of disappeared from history, mostly like lots of these ancient cities, not because it got lost, because it got dismantled, it got abused. People took the temples and reused them to make a donkey shed. You know, it just basically, it basically got repurposed. And it’s a fascinating city, because they did find one more quick aside, besides the King Tut tomb, which is the only known unleaded tomb in ancient Egypt. The other one was found in Tanis, but much later, a pharaoh co shoshank The second, and you find out the gold and all the all the mummies and all the trappings there, just like King Tut, but it’s a much poorer time in history. So it’s very interesting. People don’t know about it. You can see all this stuff when you go to the Cairo Museum. But it lost its luster because, because King Tut looms bigger, and also, ironically, it was found just before the rise of World War Two. So as soon as it was found, the Nazis swept in, and it never really got the press, and people couldn’t excavate it again, all that kind of stuff. So it just sort of slunk off into into oblivion. So it’s a long answer to say no, there’s, there’s no connection at all to the ark. There. It is a real town, and interesting enough too. Even before I went to Egypt, when I was watching this film as a kid, it never quite felt right. It feels like, you know, if you go to Egypt as a tourist or as a filmmaker, an archeologist, one thing you’ll quickly learn is it’s not the sand dunes. It’s not the soft sand that we think of in the Sahara. It’s a harder, darker, more well trodden land. So you don’t have you look at the Tannis in Raiders, it feels like it’s the rolling hills and up there, and there’s very few artifacts. You go to the modern tennis it’s big and flat and brown, and there’s no sands. There’s no dunes at all, because it doesn’t get that. It’s too close to the delta, little too marshy, so it doesn’t even feel like they’re real. They’re real. Tannis, again, does it matter to people who are watching on a Saturday afternoon with popcorn? No. And conversely, that’s a terrible representation of Cairo in that film. Cairo looks nothing like that. Cairo that had like a small town in Algeria or something. Really, that’s that question. I have to throw that in there. That is a poor representation of 1930s Cairo. No, I think that’s, I

 

Dan LeFebvre  13:04

mean, that’s a great point. That was something you already kind of mentioned with Tanis. But, you know, we see a lot of, a lot of archeology in the movie, and you just kind of get the sense that this is what Egyptian archeology looked like there. I know, granted, you know, in the 1930s but still, I think a lot of people are influenced by what you see in Raiders as This must be what it looks like there.

 

Neil Laird  13:27

And again, it’s more towards the more trained eye, having been to the site so often, I can feel when it’s, you know, it’s more romantic and more dramatic in the film than it does. Again, it’s flatter and more well trodden and not quite as pretty, not quite as exotic. Doesn’t look as well on film. There’s a lot of modern concrete tower blocks just out of view, you know, gas stations and stuff.

 

Dan LeFebvre  13:51

Now almost every movie is going to have some plot holes. I think one of the most popular ones that I know of from Raiders of Lost Ark has to do with just the idea that Indiana Jones himself really had no impact on the outcome of the film. The Nazis would have found the Ark and all died at the end from God’s power, from the Ark anyway. But since this is more kind of focusing on the history side of things, I have to ask, does Raiders have a major plot hole that really stood out to you from a historical perspective?

 

Neil Laird  14:18

I mean, that’s historical, I wouldn’t say not beyond them playing so fast and loose with the facts. I think to me, even as a kid, I remember this again, I’m in my today’s my 58th birthday, so I saw all these movies in the theater. So I remember seeing raiders and Temple of Doom, which we’ll talk to in a few minutes in the theater. And I remember thinking as a kid, a huge plot point then was, well, if Temple Of Doom is a prequel, and he discovers all this magic and all the supernatural stuff a year before Raider, why did he believe any of it when he’s in Raiders? Why isn’t such a bloody skeptic just last year, you watched a guy have his art ripped out and a bunch of gods and zombies attacking you and. You know, you forgot about all that. It’s a very plot point

 

Dan LeFebvre  15:03

that is a very good point that I didn’t even think about that, you know, because it is a prequel. And, yeah, no, that’s he forgot. You know, we just all had that happening to us all the time with

 

Neil Laird  15:17

the Ark and a couple birthdays and the taxes you forget about Yeah, he slept since

 

Dan LeFebvre  15:21

then, since you mentioned Temple of Doom. That is the next one. It came out in 1984 but it is a prequel. It happens the year prior to what we saw in Raiders. And so we’re not seeing Nazis anymore. This one is Indiana Jones looking for the Sankara stones, which, according to the movie, are powerful and sacred artifacts tied to the Hindu legend. Now, when they’re stolen from a village that triggers Indiana Jones to go searching for them, is there any truth to the legend of the Sakara stones that we see in movie? No,

 

Neil Laird  15:49

it’s totally fictional. I mean, in all of them, I think this is the the one that is the most sexualized. It’s not really based on anything. And even when we get to the crystal skulls and we talk about how dubious some of the facts are, there a lack thereof. At least it was based on something we could hold there were lingam stone Shiva. Lingam stones were very common. You see them any if you go to any Hindu temple, and they’re just sort of like, and I’m not a Hindu scholar, but I think they represent the sort of shapelessness of Earth and God and creation, the co creation stones, so that that was all totally fictionalized in terms of the diamond and all that totally fictionalized for the film, which I think is one of his biggest flaws, because it also doesn’t really have that gravitas. It doesn’t really make much sense. You don’t know what it does. It somehow it helps people control kids and enslave them, and then when you get them bad, they’re no longer slaves. It’s pretty murky in terms of what his power is as well. But no, it is totally fictional, and there’s nothing in terms of five stoves that have to be put together.

 

Dan LeFebvre  16:47

Okay, okay, yeah, that’s, I guess maybe it doesn’t have all that, like you were saying, building off the biblical lore and things that people already know as they’re watching this. And they might not know the details of it, but they know enough of it to know that, oh, Tannis, that’s a real place. I know that that’s a real place. I know the arc covenant is a was a thing. I don’t know what it does, but you know that that kind of thing, you can get that with this in cornerstones. Okay,

 

Neil Laird  17:11

yeah, it’s like, you know, again, I do archeology programs, like over 1000 hours of TV under shows. And I’ve done all the other stories multiple times. I’ve never done a lingam show. So it also shows you there’s really nothing there. There’s no rule there there, other than if you want to do a story about religion and about spirituality, but the idea of that having some sort of magical property, even people looking for it, he doesn’t, doesn’t really even have that, that holy grail quest where people are trying to find some classic stone. It’s just a total McMuffin. Okay,

 

Dan LeFebvre  17:44

okay. Well, speaking of searching, I have to ask Indiana Jones discovers the thuggee cult is behind all of this, and according to the movie, they’re a secret society who worship the Goddess Kali, which is where the Temple of Doom comes in, because that’s a temple for sacrificing humans to Kali. But the movie suggests that the thuggee cult was eradicated by the British in the 19th century when they colonized India. Is there a true story behind the thuggee cult that we see in the

 

Neil Laird  18:12

movie? There was a Thuggy called it’s really fascinating. It’s then I had not done a film on that, but I have read about it. And the thuggies were a real group of people that. But they were bandits. They were not so much a cult. That kind of came later, but basically between, I think, the 1800s and up until the British sort of came in and rough shot everyone. They were highway bandits, and they were known for strangling their victims, and they became quite notorious. And I do think there’s some there’s some truth to the fact that they were actually two serial killers, there’s one, I forget his name, who claimed to have killed 900 people before he was caught, which would make him the most notorious serial killer ever. And traditionally, they always did it through strangulation. And one of the theories is that there was some Hindu what’s the word prophecy? And a prophecy some sort of, some sort of law they wanted to follow where we never shed blood. You can kill, but never shed blood. You strangle somebody. There’s no blood. It’s one theory. But the British, when they did come in, the Raj they came in, they did eradicate them. And that’s when things get murky, because when it’s being written by the winners. You don’t know exactly how much they added. The British might have exaggerated. They may have made a religious cult and leaned into the Kali thing because they wanted to dismiss and denigrate the local religions. So while there might have been people who did follow those cults, some of them are also Muslim as well. So you can say they were all devotees of some cult at the end of the day, they were just really nasty highway bandits who would kill, would kill for anything. Okay,

 

Dan LeFebvre  19:49

okay, yeah, sounds like a lot of fictionalization in there, but maybe that’s where the filmmakers were hoping that that was the the nugget of truth that people would latch on to and recognize and. And

 

Neil Laird  20:00

then I’m glad they brought them up, because they’re pretty obscure. I don’t know if people listening to this in India would know more, but it’s not something you hear too much about here in the west. So I do admire that film, at least for going to India, which isn’t something we normally do in the West, and for talking about things like the sad years, because we don’t usually, you know, we usually do in the West. We usually stick in the West. So it’s great actually, they went a bit far afield. You know, biggest problem with that film is it’s of all of all the films. It’s the great white savior film. You know, it’s like poor town that has to bring the white guy over from Yale or ever to solve a problem they couldn’t possibly solve on their own. And if you look at it today, the racism and the way they dismiss the Indians, and wait, this one white guy and his shrill sidekicks, you know, save an entire nation, is really kind of hard to stomach. It makes it, it makes it a tough watch for me.

 

Dan LeFebvre  20:51

Yeah, no, that’s fair, yeah. And that’s something that I wonder how much of that is them going into the, well, of course, movies released in the 80s, so you’re going to have some of that too. But then also, going back to, they’re talking about British colonialism, and that whole element of it too, which has its own element, I’m sure, again, history written by the winners. But I’m sure there is a lot of that whole, uh, Savior, white savior coming in,

 

Neil Laird  21:19

yeah, when you’re talking about India and you’re a white man, you hit a minefield already. I mean, Islam as well. And, yeah, you know him shooting a bunch of, you know, sword dashing, you know, Muslims too, is just as much of that. But yet you have to go with that. You recognize that it’s obviously, it’s, you know, had to put that aside both of the time, and also that it’s an exotic, foreign adventure. So you have to create bad guys wherever you go. That one just seems the most egregious. However, I would say is a real quick side note. It’s the only one of the four films, the five films where he leaves the artifacts with the locals. Point of Western Museum. He doesn’t steal it and take it to, you know, New York or London. So that’s of that going for it. He saves the day, and he goes home,

 

Dan LeFebvre  22:04

yeah, yeah. And then he leaves the stones with the villagers to Yeah,

 

Neil Laird  22:07

he didn’t get them, you know, like you didn’t get the Holy Grail, because he can’t leave the cave or whatever. But the intention was to take it out of the country, right, in places, somewhere where, you know, you can make money for it. You know,

 

Dan LeFebvre  22:19

the famous line, this belongs in a museum like everything, and that’s

 

Neil Laird  22:23

the whole authority. You know, my archeology friends, they both are probably archeologists because of Indiana Jones, because he’s so exotic and sexy and fun. And they also recognize the great conflict there, where it’s like, he’s about going around the world and stealing and bringing it back. Yeah. Yeah,

 

Dan LeFebvre  22:41

that’s fair. Before we leave a temple of doom. Was there anything about the movies historical depictions that might surprise someone who has only seen movie and hasn’t dug into the true

 

Neil Laird  22:50

story? I think it’s less a cultural than its historical. I think there’s so little history in there that it’s really just, I think that the how the culture is sort of dismissed and marginalized, is the thing that that resonates with me today. You know, it’s all creative. It’s all totally fantasy. So in a way, it’s kind of hard to badmouth for taking something and beyond making the Lingams, you know, something else. They didn’t, they didn’t recreate history, because it was really little history there to

 

Dan LeFebvre  23:19

recreate fair point. All creative license.

 

Neil Laird  23:23

Hey, no one flew me over this there’s another thing here, right?

 

Dan LeFebvre  23:27

Well, if we go back to the movies, were to what is my personal favorite in the franchise 1989 Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. And the artifact that India is searching for this time is the holy grail, the cup said to have been used by Jesus at the Last Supper and then caught his blood at the crucifixion. The Last Crusade is set in 1938 and so the Nazis are back as the main villains, and they’re also searching for the Holy Grail and the eternal life that it provides for anyone who drinks from the cup. Is it true that the Nazis searched for the Holy Grail. It’s

 

Neil Laird  24:01

the same with the ark. They didn’t specifically said, let’s go find the Grail, but it was all part and parcel of them trying to harness the occult and the and the minds and spirits of the people in Germany and elsewhere. So it wouldn’t surprise me, because the ark and the Grail probably one of the reasons why they’re the two strongest one in the franchise is there. They are real artifacts. I’ve done more arc and Grail shows than any other. I just did one. I’m working on a History Channel show right now about both of them. They’re both of them. You know, this is the same story over and over again. You never get tired of those stories. But the Holy Grail is interesting. Unlike, I think that’s why it’s a c plus is that so much was added. The Grail itself a little more mundane. It never had any spiritual it never had any other dimension. The Holy Grail. It doesn’t even come from the Bible. There’s no mention in the Bible. It comes from the 12th century, the Arthurian legend and parcel and all that kind of stuff. And. And it was clearly created after the fact, and it was all about trying to find this magical cup. And the idea of eternal youth, internal life was something that was added much later. If you look at stuff from the time period, it would usually regenerate you, would give you almost absolution, but it wouldn’t keep you young forever. I think probably Wagner. Wagner did a an opera on parcel, which was world famous back in the day. And even in that one, which is all about the all about the fantastical, it was all about parcel basically becoming free of all his guilt and all you know that you’re basically the best confession ever. All sins are eradicated. That’s what the Grail did when you had it then. So the even the idea of the eternal life and all that, it was added by the screenwriters just for this film,

 

Dan LeFebvre  25:46

interest. Oh, it was added for this film. Or was that something that was like, maybe

 

Neil Laird  25:50

came before that? Maybe there might have been other lore that came later, but that was not the typical if you talk about like, we know the arc, everyone agrees York will melt you or kill you, or you wake up in boils. We just play with the facts a bit. If you look at the tradition of the Holy Grail, where and when that came up, just not a big thing, and it’s you might want to, you know, double check your facts afterwards. But as far as I know, that was the first time I ever heard of it being giving you eternal youth. I was

 

Dan LeFebvre  26:21

wondering if maybe it was like a translation thing, because over time, there’s so many different ways that people could translate regeneration, you know, maybe some might think it’s more spiritual or physical, or, you know, all of these things, and just using all of it

 

Neil Laird  26:34

very well beyond that, exactly. Yeah. And it kind of took elements of the fountain of youth and all that in there too, all the classic tropes we have of looking for something magical. So I think it kind of becomes literally a repository for whatever you want it to be. Well, you already

 

Dan LeFebvre  26:48

mentioned them earlier, and I want to talk about a little bit from from this one Indian Jones is searching for clues left by the Knights Templar, to eventually find it leads into the canyon of the crescent moon, and that’s where it turns out this one of the surviving members of the Knights, Templar, used the grill himself to gain eternal life, and he’s there guarding it. And at the end of the movie, the grill gets lost again as the cave collapses, because, as the knight explains, Andy, you can’t take it past the Great Seal. Now correct me, if I’m wrong, I believe they use the real life location of Petra in the country of Jordan for that part of the movie. But can you fill in some historical context around the connection of the Knights Templar and the Holy Grail?

 

Neil Laird  27:27

I’ve got so many Templar shows. People love the Templar. They are the ultimate Rorschach test of, you know, weird, MIDI, medieval, you know, magic. First of all, Petra is one of my most I love Petra some of my favorite sites in the world. I’ve been to 70 some countries, and I would say Petra is my top five places everyone should have on their bucket list. Now it’s funny, when you come down you see patches, that’s called the Treasury, and you come down a wadi, which is an empty riverbed, a dry riverbed, the first thing you see me turn a corner is the Treasury, where they shot the exterior. Now if you go in the interior, you’re greatly disappointed, because it was just a tune for a first century AD king, but at the same time as like Augustus in that period, and it’s just an unfinished room, the Sarcophagus is even gone. So you go in, looks like a parking garage, just nothing like the set. There’s no booby traps and all this kind of stuff that, yeah, yeah. Once you walk it’s like, oh, you know the old night and you know, where’s all the soaring temples and stuff? Nope, the outside is where you take your photos. But, but Petra is an amazing, amazing site. Now, the nice tempers faci because I’ve done so many shows, and every one of them is about what they found, what they didn’t find. The Grail was one of them. And the reason that they kind of become this sort of like go to for any lost artifact from the Holy Land is because there was a pilgrims that let people get from Jaffa, from the boat, from the shores of Israel, to the Holy Land, to Jerusalem, which is about an hour or two today by car. It’s probably a couple days there. They were pilgrims to do back and forth. It became very, very rich because of that, because of all the taxes, and they were given the prime real estate in Jerusalem, which is the Temple Mount, where the temple Solomon was, where the great rock is today, the Dome of the Rock, all that stuff. And the theory was they were sitting on all the stuff that was hidden during the temple days, including including the ark, which was sacked several times the Babylonians and sacked by the Romans. I think was a Babylonian one where they hit it disappeared in history back then. So one of the theories is, they took it, they spired it out. But again, none of this has any basis. In fact, I did a show, probably one of the worst shows I ever did, on the Knights Templar about saying they didn’t find the the Holy Grail, but they found the head of Christ. And a guy actually wrote a book and published it and said the head of Christ was spirited out by the Knights Templar into a chapel in Scotland called Rosslyn Chapel. There’s a wonderful, little weird temple outside of Edinburgh. Da Vinci Code takes place there. If you go there, it’s super, super weird. And he couldn’t even have all. These facts about where exactly it was hidden, in a secret chamber underneath the altar in Rosslyn Chapel. And that’s where you would find the head of Christ. And he sold this book on it. And so I was there years later. I mean, it was just one of my first shows I did back in the 90s, and I was there shooting one time, and I was very expensive. I remember to to get permits, so I pretend like I was a tourist. Rather than pay like, 10,000 pounds, I went in there just I got some really, really good, slow pans, far better than a tourist would get, you know, and find a custodian, the guy raking the Lees came out to me and says, What the hell are you really here for? You’re not just some holiday and and no one was around. It was late. I went inside, but I couldn’t shoot inside. It was illegal to shoot inside if you have a permit. And I told him, I said, Well, actually, I hear the head of Christ this year. He goes, Oh, is that what it is this week? Is that what that’s

 

Dan LeFebvre  30:51

what it is this week? Oh, yes.

 

Neil Laird  30:53

Oh, last week it was the ground. Okay. He goes, Okay, you turn your camera off. I will show you the head of Christ, but you can’t, and you cannot videotape it. And your sound guy was like, hiding out behind that tree trying to get good audio of me, actually shut it off. So the custodians into the place was closing. He took me in. He goes, Okay, your camera’s off, right? And he walked in. And it’s a weird looking chapel. It’s always festooned with all these strange carvings. And it’s really odd. And it was, it was made by descendants of the Templars. Some did actually escape to Edinburgh the 1300s 1400s so there is some cause that they there was some connection, however tenuous. But he took me behind the altar, and lo and behold, there was a door that went down there. It was stairs that went down there. And it was very dark. And okay, keep saying, okay, no camera, right? No camera. This is when I first filmed that kid in a candy store. I can’t believe I’m going to score so big on my third film for television or whatever. So he gets down there, and he gets his keys out, and there’s a big oak door and with a big, you know, brass knob, and he opens it up, because, like, you ready to see the head of Christ? Yes, sir, I am. And he opens it up, and there is a sink and a bucket and a mop. And he takes his rake and he sets it in the genital closet, and he closes it, he goes, there’s your head of Christ. That’s what the Knights Templar are. That’s a long way to say the nice tapper, everything you want them to be, and they’re nothing.

 

Dan LeFebvre  32:22

Okay, yeah, so you just don’t, just don’t look behind the door, exactly.

 

Neil Laird  32:25

Don’t look behind the door. Man behind the curtain. Wow. Very, very early on to question everything you know, as a TV producer, it’s easy. People are selling a book and someone says one stuff has a great idea in avariably, we’re always chasing. You don’t want to do the boring story that’s all registered. In fact, you want to do something as a sense of mystery, like Indiana Jones or whatever. And that’s what History Channel, geographic, BBC, other people I work for, that’s what they chase. But it’s up to the we producers to, kind of like, not get caught up in that, because the end of the day, you’ll be sort of disappointed in most cases. I mean, there’s night, but they’re the I mean, they, they, there’s somewhere else in Roslyn chapel, there’s a bunch of strange carvings that someone claimed is a map of the New World, and that’s where, that’s where the Templars took the Holy Grail. So it’s somewhere in Mexico or something. So again, you know, people are always looking for that answer. The Knights Templar is the first is a perfect it’s a perfect people to do that because they were mysterious. They’re on the Temple Mount, and they were totally massacred. They were wiped out. So, so they so the thinking was they had some hidden story that the King of France was trying to get, which is why it massacred them on Friday the 13th, by the way, which is why we have Friday the 13th. And I

 

Dan LeFebvre  33:36

know I’ve heard some conspiracies of like, were they actually all taken out, or did this go underground? Right? Throws up even more questions Scotland,

 

Neil Laird  33:44

because there are some, there are some Templar graves up in Edinburgh. So they did all the radical I mean, they didn’t happen to all be in Paris on that night to whatever, but it’s a big story. I love the nice stuff. They’re going to keep giving and giving and giving. But their their connection to the Holy Grail is as tenuous as the head of Christ,

 

Dan LeFebvre  34:01

yeah, well, at least, I mean, I’m curious then, because used to be, you know, the Knights Templar being just a popular thing that people love to hear about. Even today, you have the Knights Templar in the holy grail tied in Indiana Jones. What is the current train of thought? Are there still people that are searching for the Holy Grail today?

 

Neil Laird  34:18

Yeah, I think, I think if the Holy Grail is kind of come to by word for it. You know, you talk to a physicist, or you talk to a paleontologist, or use a holy grail as a thing you’re trying to find. So of course, if people looking for the real deal, again, it doesn’t exist. And if it existed, it was melted down or disappeared. It was just a cup. Oh, idea it’s only mentioned in passing in the Old Testament, or the New Testament is, you know, they drank there and then none of you and Joseph and marathon and all these kind of things that come after the fact. But the fact that a regular cup could survive this long is even less likely than the ark, because it probably wasn’t even venerated until much, much later. Yeah, no, that makes sense. I’m sure that somebody wasted their money looking for. And then probably said they found a cup somewhere, and like, you know, some church in Krakow, and they claim that one, but they’ll sell a book, but chances are, could be another janitor closet.

 

Dan LeFebvre  35:12

But as we finish up the last Crusader, is there any other historical aspects from the film that we haven’t talked about that you think would be a surprise to viewers? Well, one

 

Neil Laird  35:20

thing I learned, because I’ve shot there so many times, and I think it’s so ridiculous when I watched that film today, is you’d be going to the catacombs under Venice, and that’s where they find it. Venice is a friggin Island, two feet down, and you flood everything. There are no catacombs in Venice. It is sinking. Last thing you want to do is build a basement in Venice. That’s

 

Dan LeFebvre  35:42

a very good point that they just don’t seem to address in the movies. Move

 

Neil Laird  35:46

1. There’s some water down there. Is a bit leaky, but you know what the last thing you’re gonna do is build a basement in Venice.

 

Dan LeFebvre  35:54

So good point. It’s a very good point. Well, let’s fast forward about 19 years between the Last Crusade and the next movie the franchise 2008 Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. And there’s a scene in the beginning of the movie where we’re introduced to shy le, both character mutt, and he tells Indy that one of his old colleagues who helped raise mud, Professor Oxley, is down in Peru, and that’s where he found the Crystal Skull, to quote, mutt in the movie, it’s like that one guy that Mitchell has had his head kiss. He has mispronunciation trying to find it. That skull, the one that he found. And then Indy corrects him on the name goes on. Gives us a little bit more background on the Mitchell hedges skull. It’s Mesoamerican. There are multiple skulls in the world, according to Indiana Jones. And it’s interesting craftsmanship, but that’s about it. And then we find out, you know, mutts off to says, oxley’s off to akator, which is, kind of reminds me of the the throwback to Tanis, you know, that kind of like, oh, this is the location that we have to go to start. You know, according to this one, it’s a guitar is where the skull was found. And that sparks Andy’s interest. Akator goes by another name in the movie El Dorado, the City of Gold. So that’s kind of how the movie sets up. The reason for the storyline is them heading down to Peru to find Oxley to Crystal Skull and akator. Can you help us separate fact from fiction in the movies? Narrative?

 

Neil Laird  37:09

Well, there’s a lot more fiction. In fact here there was a Mitchell hedges, and he’s very interesting, and they say he might have been one of the prototypes for Indiana Jones, among others. He was a charlatan slash adventurer in the 30s, and he claimed to have found one of the crystal skulls in Belize. Actually, I forget the name of it. It’s an archeological site I’ve been to. It’s a Mayan site, a classic era Mayan site, which is down south, almost along the Guatemalan border, where it’s a small site, but it’s, but as you know, it’s, it’s got some really cool pyramids and things. But he claimed to have found it there and then with his daughter or something. And they just didn’t talk about it for a long time. But then later on, there was, there was some reveal. They actually bought it at Sotheby’s in like 1948 or something, somebody else. And there was no record whatsoever of crystal and there wouldn’t be, because the Mayans didn’t have crystal skulls. And all 13 of these skulls. I think there’s 13 of them in existence. They think they were all made by a French guy, and like the the just before the war, to sell, you know, crap, to Taurus, big artifacts and get them on Sotheby’s. And if you look at them now, and I’ve only seen one behind glass, I’ve never touched it, but you actually, actually see modern rotary modern machinery was it could for the Mayans and like the 1200s to build this out of corpse, it would have taken them, you know, 100 years or something, to polish it this way. There are actual traces of modern machinery, like diamond cutting devices. That’s

 

Dan LeFebvre  38:34

because the aliens gave it to them. Yeah, exactly, yeah. So, I

 

Neil Laird  38:38

mean, it’s, you know, exactly. I mean, this one above all of them. Not only I think it’s the worst film in terms of the story and the characters and all that stuff, but it’s the most ancient alias. Is the stuff that I’ve been trying to run away with all my career on television, the people I skewer in my books. I run writing books about a cheesy time traveling TV crew, there’s very much based on that kind of crew, whether everything’s a conspiracy and everything rubbish, you know, so there’s nothing there and and except for basing that on some snippets like El Dorado, you know, there were there wasn’t there. Obviously, people were looking for El Dorado. And a lot of Spanish conquistadors looking for El Dorado, of course, I never found it. Most of those were down south as well, in South South America, not in Mayan area. So they’re blending all that stuff together for some sort of like booga. Booga show, as we would call it, okay,

 

Dan LeFebvre  39:29

yeah, that was gonna be my next question, because we do the movie, does mention the Spanish conquistador Francisco, do Orlando, I think, who disappeared looking for El Dorado in 1546 so I’m assuming, was he a real person, or was it just kind of the concept of Spanish conquista. He

 

Neil Laird  39:45

was real. And actually, he’s known more famously for finding he sailed the beginning of the end of the Amazon. See, charted. Wow, okay, and this was a 15, mid 15, so forget the dates. And then he went back. Back, and then under a Portuguese flag, for some reason, he went back to start a colony. I think the Portuguese wanted to settle there on the mounts of the Amazon. And he was looking for El dorados. He went, anyone who went over to the New World was looking for El Dorado among other things as well. But mostly was about a benchmark, you know, a toehold for one of the governments who paid for the expedition. So they could what they ultimately did, so they could split the locals and get the land. Is exactly what happened. And he did not disappear. He died, and exactly what happened to him. Do you ever seen one of my favorite movies of all time? A year, Wrath of God. Do you know this film by Werner Herzog,

 

Dan LeFebvre  40:35

yes. I mean, I haven’t seen it in a long time, to get fantastic questions.

 

Neil Laird  40:39

It’s very much based on him among other people, but they took a lot of what happened to him, and he basically went. They got lost a second time. They lost ships. There was infighting. They got sick. He went off to find help and died along the way. His wife was left behind, kind of like in a geara. And some people did survive, but he just died. They say he went mad again agira, but there’s all well documented the time, and people did survive. And his idea then was not to look for the City of Gold, but to again, to create, you know, to put a Portuguese flag in the earth so they could exploit it.

 

Dan LeFebvre  41:23

Well, we’ve already talked about the Nazis search for artifacts in some of the other movies, but in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, that’s set in 1957 so at this time, the villains are the Soviets, and they’re looking for powers provided by the secrets of the Crystal Skull, which again, very similar to what we saw with the Nazis looking for artifacts before. But is it true that the Soviets were searching for supernatural artifacts, too? Not

 

Neil Laird  41:44

that I’m aware of. No, I think, I think they just, they swapped out Nazis the end of the time, you know, yeah, the Cold War next. But in the Iraqis or the Vietnamese, you know, it depends on when they made the film. I mean, as far as I know, they were not looking for that. I think, you know, the Soviets are just more interested in just real world domination, as opposed to, you know, finding some sort of magical stone somewhere. And they certainly probably wanted to ride roughshod over the locals as well and get those things done for themselves. They certainly got a lot of missiles over there. But as far as that, that’s all, that’s all, Bs, okay, okay. Well,

 

Dan LeFebvre  42:19

we talked very briefly about it, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask about the elephant in the room with the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. And that is the way it ends, because that’s when we find out the crystal skulls are the skeletons of interdimensional beings that we see this huge UFO taking a portal to some other dimension after they return the skull. And the movie makes the point that say that they’re not aliens from space, but they look a lot like the stereotypical aliens that we would expect to see. And that leads me into something I’m sure a lot of people watching right now are thinking a lot of the stuff in the movie that we see, from the crystal skulls to the Nazca Lines in Peru, are also talked about on the History Channel show Ancient Aliens, of course, which started, actually about a year after Kingdom of the Crystal Skull came out in 2008 I don’t know if there’s any connection between those two things, necessarily, but I have a two part question about this. First, based on your experience, do you believe there’s any truth to the concepts proposed in the movie that tie these ancient artifacts to UFOs? And secondly, from a kind of a more overall perspective, what’s the general consensus for people that you’ve interacted with over the course of your career on whether or not there’s a connection between these ancient artifacts like the Crystal Skull and even the Nazca Lines, things like that, and UFOs, the

 

Neil Laird  43:35

message there certainly is, yeah, it’s a lot you can talk about and active decode. There’s certainly so much of what I’ve done is sort of disputing a lot of that stuff. And, you know, Asian aliens did not invent the idea of the aliens. That goes back to chariot of the gods in the seven even before, I think, you know, it was, was this guy’s name, I forget his name, but German guy who carries the god, Oh, danikin, I think, yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, and all that stuff goes back to the idea that it couldn’t possibly have been humans that had did this. We had to have some help. The very first show that I made is my thesis film in school. So I was young and naive, but I was able to pull it off. Was about the restoration of the Great Sphinx, and I was and through a friend’s father, who was on the antiquities board in Egypt, I was able to go over there and actually climb the Sphinx and watch them restore it is amazing for a 23 year old kid. And one of the amazing, the reasons I got the access is because at the same time that I made that film as again, as a eventually, sort of Discovery Channel, but it just could be my thesis film at the time was because there’s a big, popular show that had just aired 1994 with Charlton Heston claimed the Sphinx was 10,000 years old. Guy named Robert shock and some other geologists claim that by water erosion on the Sphinx, they proved that it was not made by it was 10,000 years old, so that the pyramids were four and a half 1000 years of things. So therefore, they quickly jumped to saying it wasn’t the it wasn’t built by the Pharaonic people. It was built by an ancient alien race. Who Came down 6000 years before, built this thing, totally disappeared, and then a culture arose 3000 years later and totally mimicked it all based on one study of water erosion. And by looking at saying the water erosion proves that, you know, it would take 10 and a half 1000 years to do this. Yeah, they got Charlton Heston Moses himself to do a two hour NBC documenting on this became a big thing. And here I am a kid going over there, and these archeologists, Zahi awas and some of the people that run it, they were so incensed by this that even had a young kid like me come over and talk about us, they could have a voice. Why not? And in 20 minutes, they disputed it there by looking at the way this Sphinx is built as multiple layers of stone. The head is much stronger than the body of this thing, so it arose at a different rate. So the water erosion could have happened, but it happened when there was, you know, channels and things and wind and all these things. So basically, took one stud, one simple study, and they and they allow them to totally dispute and throw out hundreds of years of scholarly research by basically creating a question that he simply could not answer directly. Is the old adage, the lack of evidence is evidence, and that’s what all these bogus alien shows are based on. It’s kind of like you find one thing that we don’t have bedrock proof of, and therefore you can create a completely new narrative that totally dismisses the ingenuity the people who built it. It’s insulting. A lot of colonialism there too early on. Well, you know, the Egyptians, they couldn’t possibly do it. They need to have help, you know. So there’s so many, so much stuff going on there that is frustrating. And if people actually just broke down and looked at the bedrock reality, they can answer that stuff or find out there’s more stuff to disprove this then this one little idea that you have that totally rewrites it. Now that said, I don’t know if there’s aliens. I would think there are. It’s hard to imagine. We’re alone in the universe. That’s a different thing. This is the best we got. You know, surely someone’s done it better than us, hopefully. But again, to bring it down to why all these things had or been created by a foreign or a fight by aliens. It’s just it’s reductive, and it’s too easy, and it’s just it’s frustratingly simple. And you know, if you look, if you look at the archeology, our village don’t all have it, all right, archeologists are always chasing themselves around. And I’ve gone and archeologists have, you know, they’re they need to get thesis and get their doctorate too, and use other people with strime. And I’m not saying they have all the answers, but it’s very, very easy, like it’s, you know, it’s very convenient to use them as the villains, you know, if you look at the people like Graham Hancock and those people who are doing all those ooga booga shows now the new Nazis and the Soviets are archeologists. They are hiding facts from us. They are coveting information, and they’re not telling us. What we really know is this old Kennedy conspiracy all the way down, the conspiracy thing, the government is holding stuff from us, and the archeologists are part of the government. They’re funded by the universities, the elite towers, and so a lot of this going after the elites. And there’s great appeal for that. We see that in politics, and we see that in history and education. And, you know, the sinks being 10,000 years old or being built by aliens fits right into that narrative.

 

Dan LeFebvre  48:14

Yeah, and like you what you’re saying before about, you know, it’s very difficult to prove that, when you were saying that. It reminded me of, even, like, what you were talking about with, with the Holy Grail, it would be a cup. So how would we prove, and I mean, in the movie, course, and go back to Last Crusade in that one with the Holy Grail, it is a very simple cup. But the only way that they’re able to know that that’s the Grail is because it’s in this Grand Place. And you know that old Knight Templar there and stuff. And how, if we were to find it today, or if we were to find proof of that today, how would we even know that that is actually proof? Nobody’s ever going to open up that that closet for you, right, right? The aliens are going to open up that closet

 

Neil Laird  48:57

for you, to give you that No, exactly. Yeah. Who opened up clause and says, here’s your answer. And yeah, if you find a cup, you find the ark. There’s no There’s no telling. You know, the cup could be from anywhere, unless you have DNA of Jesus, Christ, and we have DNA that we can compare it to where his lips touched it, which we do not, never will, and we can’t prove that it was ever there. You can’t date that kind of stuff. You can do carbon dating on some stuff, but you can’t do it on petroglyphs and rock and things that are no longer have any carbon in it. So it’s very, very difficult to say. So that’s why the crystal skulls, for example, why they fooled people for so long? Because it’s the physical quartz and you can’t dig. Course, it’s only when people start looking at and seeing modern trappings. So because it’s easier to dispute that stuff. You know, there are always people looking for an ark I did an arc show years ago. Or some guy claims it a it’s in a cave in the Judean desert, and he has a video of him, but he, but he wasn’t allowed to go in there because the Israeli government wouldn’t let him. Very conveniently, there’s videotape that he shot through a little old, was all over. You can Google it afterwards. You. It was BS. I mean, they probably just built this out of cotton candy or something and put it in the dark. But since we couldn’t get there to break it down and see that, he bought this at it last year, then it always remains mystical evening stuff. I mean, I would love to know if there’s aliens. I would love to know how the pyramids and the Sphinx and all the places were built and what existed, but it’s just too easy to basically say that. You know this, this is the one Jesus wore these glasses. But you know, I can’t give them to you to prove it right now, because they have to go back to the shop. But trust me on

 

Dan LeFebvre  50:32

this. But trust me, yes, don’t look behind the door, but trust me, yes, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Well, the final movie in the franchise is 2023 Indiana Jones and the dial destiny. And again, in this one, the villains are the Nazis. But the movie is set in 1969 so it ties in Operation Paperclip, when the US government recruited former Nazi scientists. And in the movie, this Nazi scientist is led by Mads Mikkelsen character, Dr voller. His plan is to use an ancient Greek device that they call the antithetical to turn back time, because just like all the ancient artifacts that we see in Indiana Jones movies, this one has special powers, and this time, those powers are time. It’s the power to alter time. So Dr voller has this plan to use the antithekara to turn back time, to change history and restore the Nazi regime. Which parts of the movie storyline there are based on real history? Well,

 

Neil Laird  51:30

there is an anti get their device, so beginning and end of what’s true there? Okay, Athens Museum, and it’s, it doesn’t look quite as spectator day, because it’s flattened and it’s all made out of it’s all carbonized. So it’s all very kind of greenest in the bottom of sea. And it is a strange device, because it came from third century BC, and it is a machine, you know, it’s got gears and wheels, it’s all flattened like a pancake. But that is a real thing. And people, there have been many shows on that too, because people always been trying to suss out what it is. But you But in that, in that regard, we do have a janitor, janitor who’s opened the door, and it’s pretty clear now that what it was was a geared and Rose device that tracked the stars, that was solar, and each one was kind of able to tell the days and time to start the constellation. And it was probably in a wooden box that was carried around, and it went down on a ship that they found off the coast of roads, I think. But don’t quote me on that. So they do know that it was they can kind of see that they were charting certain days and certain festivals, and it kind of makes sense. But the fact that they made it is really amazing, because we did not think they had this technology. You know, three centuries before Christ. So it really is a very, very strange thing. But what I love about that one is, like the pyramids or anything else, it proves the ingenuity the people, not that they needed help from extraterrestrials. Greeks were a lot friggin smarter than we thought they were, and they created this thing long before we ever did. You know? So to me, that’s what I love about history. It’s like, Who are these people? What I love about ancient histories, my God, they did all this long before we came. We’re standing on the shoulders of giants. So you look at the device, and you think, Oh, my God. You know, these people were more clever than we give them credit for. Now, in terms of it wasn’t a time travel device. I wish it was my books that I read travel. And I love time travel. I love to go back there and see what it was like. But it was more simply about simply. It was about charting the stars in a very defined aspect. Name is charting them, and I’m probably dismissing it. It’s really more about looking at again all the religious aspects, and say, the festivals and all those kind of things and a lot of complexities are lost through time because we understand the nuances of what they were using these charts for, probably very accurate and why we only found one was a special. Was a prototype that was coming from roads to the mainland or wherever in sank. We don’t know, but it’s really hard to find in the Athens even got to go way in the back. It’s not nearly as impressive as like the frescoes that are that are on the Parthenon. It’s tucked way in the back, and it’s about this big, and it’s mobilissa small. So you really miss it, unless you’re looking for it, but it’s really what it represents more than it’s sheer beauty.

 

Dan LeFebvre  54:14

I like what you mentioned about how people then weren’t had this ingenuity that we often just don’t associate with people of ancient times, you know, like we’re the smartest the human race has ever been, and there’s never been anybody smarter than us. So therefore, they had to have had help in some way, because there’s no way that they could have done this. And I think

 

Neil Laird  54:35

it’d be more clever than us, you know, right? Primitive people living in Africa, of all places, you know, wherever it is, it’s kind of, yeah. I mean, there’s a lot of a lot of, a lot of ignorance there, and a lot of think that we are the best, and we’ve come across stuff the history that that we got to think that history is always, you know, increasing. We’re smarter now, but it’s cyclical, you know, smarter than that guy who, who, you know, brought up, got a paintbrush and Atlas, calcium. Even put his hand on the wall. We just learned a lot more things along the way, but, you know, they had it all sussed out as well. Yeah, yeah,

 

Dan LeFebvre  55:07

yeah. One thing in the dial destiny, mention of Operation Paperclip. I know that that was a real thing and but then obviously the time travel aspect isn’t necessarily true. But did we know if Nazi scientists who were recruited by the US government with Operation Paperclip, actually tried to restore the Nazi regime like we see happening in that movie?

 

Neil Laird  55:30

No, why would they? I mean, the Nazi regime was dead and dusted by that point. Why you want to bring back the most evil empire ever? You were lucky to get the hell out of Germany. Thank God you were smart and understood physics, or you would be in prison over there, you know, in Nuremberg as well. So I can’t imagine anybody want to go back to those

 

Dan LeFebvre  55:46

days, no real Dr voller, then, I

 

Neil Laird  55:48

guess it’s a good thing if you don’t want that bad settle down in suburban Ohio and disappear and not talk about their past they don’t want to relive.

 

Dan LeFebvre  55:56

It makes sense. It makes sense at the very end of dial destiny, the Nazis take Indy and his team hostage, and they use the Antikythera to go back in time using a world war two era bomber along with the fighter. But instead of going back to World War Two where they think they’re going to go, they’re actually taken all the way back to the year 212, BCE during the siege of Syracuse during the Second Punic War, the bomber gets hit by this large ballistic ball. It’s kind of cool to see, you know, the World War Two airplane. And then this ancient battle going on. The ancient Romans are fighting there, the other ones attacking Syracuse in the movie, and they immediately try to attack these, what they call them flying dragons, because they don’t know what they are as planes, right? The bomber crashes. We get to meet Archimedes, who tells Indy that he built the in ticket, Thera as a way of getting help for the siege. No matter what, it would always take people back to that time and place. And then Indy wants to stay there, because it’s something he studied his whole life. But his partner throughout the movie, Helena, knocks him out, and then we see him waking up back in present day. Didn’t get to stay there. I’m sure we could have an entire episode, just like all of these. We could have entire thing just about each one, this one being about the siege of Syracuse. But do you think the movie did a good job with this storyline of the battle Archimedes siege of Syracuse and all of that?

 

Neil Laird  57:13

I mean, I love the fact that they did it. I love that period, the Greco Roman period in ancient history. I just applaud them for doing that. They know it’s a fun ending. I was totally sucked into it. And again, it’s not something that we know well today. So it was fun to go back to, you know, the Punic Wars and see it. So again, you know, a plus for doing that, you know, did it look like that? It’s really kind of hard to know. I mean, there was a battle Syracuse in 1212, 12. Archimedes was there. He died there because they missed. They thought he was somebody else. They said, don’t kill Archimedes. The Romans wanted to use them. I love paper clip for their own devices. But someone didn’t recognize him, I guess, because he’d never YouTube channel, whatever, and he stabbed in the head. So I think, you know for what it was, yeah, it transported me back there. You know, these things are always, always, you know, you always want to see more of it. When you see all we saw is just that we didn’t we just see, like, maybe one room in the shore. I want to go English and Syracuse. Give me a two hour tour. You can’t get that, but for the little 10 minutes at the end, or whatever. Yeah, I thought I did a brilliant job of doing that. And I, you know, I love time travel, knowing it doesn’t exist. I think it’s great fun to seeing when worlds collide. So I had a lot of fun with that, and I didn’t roll my eyes. Okay,

 

Dan LeFebvre  58:22

okay, yeah, you mentioned wanting to go back and time yourself. And as I was watching this movie for the first time in theaters, I almost thought that the entire franchise would end with Indiana Jones living out the rest of his days in ancient history. I do like how they ended it, though, because he does end up back home with Marion and Salah and Helena there as well. But as we wrap up our discussion today, if you had to live out the rest of your days at any time and place in history, when and where would you choose? Oh, I

 

Neil Laird  58:49

mean, first of all, I would, I would love to add that device and go back there and save, you know, save the Library of Alexandria. There’s so many things that we could go back Pompeii before was destroying all the, all the, all the manuscripts there, I would take that device and just, you know, on the next series should be, you time traveling back there and getting artifacts when they’re still new and fresh. Yes, they’re not artifacts as much as objects. Again, stealing, because you’re taking something you’re screwing with time, you know, the ripples of them. You know, again, I write time travel, fiction. And they always realize, well, if I save somebody in Pompeii, what happens to their bloodline? Does it get wiped out? Or if I save this manuscript, it should have disappeared the ripple effect you’d ever know. But in terms of my own, I mean, there’s, I’ve been so many countries, and I’ve fallen in love with so many, but Egypt always had a special place for me. Egypt was a place I would go back to. I would go back to the pyramid age, or go back to the New Kingdom and see Rameses and what that was like, and King tus funeral walk through Thebes at his height. That’s that’s how I like to spend my Autumn here. So if you can work on that for me, if you know anybody, see what I

 

Dan LeFebvre  59:59

can do. Or no guarantees, but I’ll see, see what I can do. You mentioned wanting, wanting the device. If you were to oversee an Indiana Jones movie, what ancient artifact would indie be searching for in your movie?

 

Neil Laird  1:00:13

It’s a good question. I thought about, I mean, all the big ones, it’s hard to know. I mean, I again, if it wasn’t time travel, I it’s harder I got yet for me, I like to go back. I mean, one of the shows I did a show years ago on the copper scroll, which is fascinating, which exists. We know what the copper scroll is, but it’s a great story. It’s the only scroll found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Is made of copper. It’s a treasure map, and it was written by somebody in a hurry and built and buried in one of the kumrun caves, and it has all this kind of worlds. So we know oldest treasure map, and it goes to all this lost gold from the from the temple where they all took it, maybe including the ark. Now be fun to follow that we have the ark, but be kind of fun to actually see where those places are. I did a show where I went to them. And you know what used to be like a long tunnel into the ground is not like a car park in Tel Aviv. I got there a bit late.

 

Dan LeFebvre  1:01:09

That’s okay. Like, like the tunnels under Venice and in the Indiana Jones. Like, I mean,

 

Neil Laird  1:01:13

budgeted post. Love it your question, because it’s more again, more again, more time traveling, because we do have the artifact. But there’s something about that story I always love, because it’s a journey. And it’d be kind of fun to tell that story if you could somehow go to some places along the trail and introduce different places and different time periods.

 

Dan LeFebvre  1:01:35

Oh yeah, for sure. And also just the mere fact that it’s the only one made out of copper, it sets itself as being different, like, why is this one different? And then you start to get the easily, the supernatural or ancient alien aspect in there, or whatever,

 

Neil Laird  1:01:48

something somebody has to melt Exactly. Well,

 

Dan LeFebvre  1:01:54

we talked a lot about the real world influencing Indiana Jones movies, but throughout your career, have you seen it go the other way, where Indiana Jones movies have impacted people working in cities, in archeology. I

 

Neil Laird  1:02:05

don’t know how many people I see on my shoots that have, you know, fedoras on, and made them claim I had it before Indiana Jones. I was the original Indiana Jones, all right. And I talked to archeologists and Egyptologists and paleontologists the world over, and those films impacted and amazing. And if you see him as a kid, he can understand why, because they’re fun. They make it sexy and adventurous. Dude doesn’t want to be an adventurer going off, but they also, but it’s also one of those things you they also get killed at because the end of the day, he is a plunderer. The very opening scene of raiders, which is a brilliant I still think Raiders are the best film because it’s the freshest. It surprised me the most. And even going back and looking at it again, it still holds up. There’s not a bad frame in it, as long as you don’t look at the questionable archeology, because very far keen season where Peru and he’s stealing this golden idol, and he destroys all of his artifacts to do it. Here is this tomb no one has been to just because he wants to Nick this thing so he can take it back of the states that entire temple is destroyed. Same thing later on, when he and Marian are down there in the Well of Souls or whatever, and everything is destroyed because they had to go look around, you know, so archeologists recognize in all the films what was when I just watched last week, and it was probably Last Crusade. You know that the Petra place is all destroyed at the very end because it’d go poking around and being archeologists. So every time you destroy, that doesn’t come back, it doesn’t heal itself. Well, my archeologist friends recognize there’s an old adage in archeology anyway, that all archeology is destruction. You bring something up that’s been hidden for 3000 years in the sand, and it starts to rot. There was a one of the shows I was at, mainly the Sphinx shows, my earlier shows, and it was one of the most exciting moments, and also one of the most troubling moments, I reckon, what archeology does and doesn’t do. We were at the Sphinx. And there’s, there’s a series of tombs done. There was a sphinx. It was a pyramid show I did. And there’s a bunch of tombs they found that were the workers, the people that built the pyramids, and people in and they always assumed they were slaves, all out 10 commandments that they had no either, just dumped in the river, whatever. And here are these tombs, very modest tombs, beehive like tombs that were found. And they’re amazing. I don’t know if you can go to them today, because they’re so fragile, but I was there when archeologists was finding these tombs, and we were videotaping it for the show. And they opened up one of the tombs, again, just mud brick, and it’s a very modest tomb with a guy. He wasn’t mummified. He was in the fetal position. He was all skeleton, and to the very modest clay jars on either side of him that he went off into the next world with. Maybe it held his organs. They call him canopic jars. Or maybe was just taking his few modest possessions he had to the duo at the next world. But as we’re videotaping it, we get a cool shots, and then we pull back because we want to look. Some and talk about something. And we came back and got our camera in there again, both the jars had cracked the modern air, mixing with that bubble of air that hadn’t been touched in four and a half 1000 years. 10 minutes of modern air destroyed those two clay things just like that. Now these are, you know, we have so many of those. The Arc yacht, that upset because it wasn’t like King Tut’s gold or whatever. They were just pots and things like that. But it just shows you, archeology is destruction. So Indiana Jones is in there going through entire temples and watching them collapse. So we can get one little artifact at the end. That’s bad archeology. You would not get your PhD.

 

Dan LeFebvre  1:05:44

You just roll the stone away at the beginner Raiders. It’s fine. It’s perfectly fine, right?

 

Neil Laird  1:05:49

Yeah. Well,

 

Dan LeFebvre  1:05:50

you mentioned Raiders was your favorite film. Is it because of that opening sequence? Or is there a particular

 

Neil Laird  1:05:55

reason why unico openings? I just think that film every second is fresh, and it left to my mind and never quite captured. I do agree the Last Crusade came the closest, and it helped because of that great characters that had, particularly Henri, and it was fresh, and, you know, it was a great adventure, but they all sort of feel a bit samey. I enjoyed doubt Destiny more than I thought I would. I thought skull and Temple of Doom are terrible. I just can’t rewatch them again. They’re just, they just, you know, they’re just kind of ugly and stupid, and they didn’t the second one was kind of CO opted by 84 more enough to remember, that’s when the age of the franchise and the big budget for kids came out. And, you know, so that film was geared toward 12 year olds, and it just felt, you know, so just didn’t have this sense of wonder. Indiana Jones was just laugh out loud funny that even we did something outrageous, like the great chase scene underneath the car, he just laughed out loud by the time he was doing it, you know, jumping out of a plane on a raft in India. It’s just, I start to feel like you’re doing it just for the sake. So I like the films, not to say, I mean, then I think three of them I’d watch anytime, one three and the last one, I think they’re great fun. The other two, I just never warmed to. I keep trying to, but I could just never warm to them. And I think it’s because the sense of joy was somehow Doom is a dark film. It’s very grisly and ugly, and crystal. Skull is just trash, trash, it’s just in, like, an old episode of, I don’t know, I’m gonna remember a show from the 70s, probably four year time, I don’t know, called Cold chat. The nights. Remember this. You’re

 

Dan LeFebvre  1:07:29

not familiar with that one? No, it? They

 

Neil Laird  1:07:32

say that it, um, they only ran for a season, but it’s called classic. They say that it inspired The X Files, and it Darren McGavin, who was a middle the guy from father’s story, the father from A Christmas Story, and he’s in seersucking suit. He goes around Chicago, and every week he finds vampires and zombies and UFOs, and he dispatches them all in an hour, you know, because no one believes him, and he has to get on the wire. And he’s a reporter that never gets he was a lot of fun. It was a fun show because he was a lot of fun. And as a little kid, this is the mid 70s, you know, they were wonderfully fun to watch because they were scary and moss monsters in the sewer chasing around Chicago. He has to get a special thing to kill it, or whatever twig. But the special effects were so ropey. They had like, $6.50 you know. So they had a headless, headless motorcycle. Guy was 30. Was the the sleepy, hollow story, and all it was was a guy, you know, doing this, and it was just so you could tell they were desperate for ideas and desperate for cash, and they want to have fun, but they didn’t know what to do with it. That’s what Crystal Skull felt like. It felt like a cold check the nightstop episode, which is too much money thrown at it, but without the sense of humor, without the sense of at least cold check, knew what it was, you know, this just felt like something that was just sort of like, let’s just take the most outrageous thing we can, because we have to, and let’s, you know, throw some cash at it. And it didn’t work at the end of the day. I’m not sure exactly what he found at the end and why they left and what he learned. I mean, it was scratching my head at the end of that film, thinking, This isn’t archeology anymore. This is yeah, just Luca Bucha, yeah,

 

Dan LeFebvre  1:09:02

yeah. Well, yeah, it, it very It seemed different too, because it does well. For, for one, those are the only two that are really the Nazis. Are not villains. But also, in in Crystal Skull, it was almost like an X Files type ending like where you you’re left with more questions than answers, whereas, with the others, at least, you get a sense for Okay, they’re being stored in some museum or whatever. But the story is kind of wrapped up like you okay, he, he got it, or we found out that you can’t. You know the power of God through the Ark of the Covenant is you know something that you can’t control, right? But you still figured out what was happening, whereas, with

 

Neil Laird  1:09:45

all kind of a good wrap up, I mean, the ending, that last shot of raiders, is brilliant. There’s a cynical ending is so wonderful all of this, and it gets tucked away somewhere in DC and even, and then last kingdom is satisfying too, because, you know, you see the cup disappear and they. Can’t get it, but they know it exists. There’s something it feels conclusive about it, but you’re right, that one just feels like it’s just a it’s just a mess of just, you know, trying to dazzle us with, with, with, you know, oddities, and I don’t know, guys, what’s, you know, doing this?

 

Dan LeFebvre  1:10:19

Yes, for sure, for sure. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show to chat about the true story behind the Indiana Jones movies. It’s fitting that the franchise there kind of fits with a time traveling story, because, as we’ve talked about, kind of throughout, on top of all your experiences working on historical films yourself, you’ve also published your first novel recently called Prime Time Travelers, and I know you have a new one out that’s about Pompeii. So can you give listeners a peek into your book and where they can get a copy? Yeah,

 

Neil Laird  1:10:46

and they pretty much came out of exactly what we’re talking about. I’ve done 25 years of doing non fiction television where it’s all about buttoning it up and footnoting it. You work for National Geographic. Make sure you have six sources, you know, for everything. So after a while, I kind of got tired of looking at ancient, least ruins in the desert. I wanted to have some fun with the past, and their way to do that is section so I took a TV crew, very much like the ones I work with, and I have them time travel in the past. And the first one, they go back to the ancient Egyptian underworld, looking for a lost mummy and to win an Emmy. And that’s prime time travelers. And the second one, that’s in November is they go back with extra money, because it’s a big hit on TV at Pompeii, to go back to Pompeii and and it capture it in all its glory before it’s destroyed. And it gives me a chance to kind of play with my day job and my love of history, but also in a very playful kind of way, taking history and questioning what’s true it’s not going back in the past, even though it wasn’t like that at all. So it’s been a great fun to kind of dip into both wells and take the fiction and the non fiction and kind of blur them into escapist and they’re both on Amazon. Gillip and Neil Laird are prime time travelers or prime time Pompeii. You can find them on Amazon, Kindle, fantastic.

 

Dan LeFebvre  1:11:54

I’ll make sure to include links to those in the show notes. Thank you again. So much for your time. Neil,

 

Neil Laird  1:11:58

that was my pleasure. Thanks for having me, it was good fun.

Dan LeFebvre  05:00

I always like to kick off with a letter grade for historical accuracy, because I move we all know movies are not entirely accurate. They’re not documentaries, but Tora! Tora! Tora! is a little bit different in how it presents itself. So I’m going to start by quoting the text at the beginning of the movie. It says, The American Pacific Fleet was attacked and partially destroyed by Japan on Sunday morning, December 7, 1941 this attack led to the entering of the United States into World War Two. All of the events and characters depicted are true to historical fact. Now, that last line really stuck out to me, because most movies that I’ve covered here, they claim to be based on a true story, but that one’s saying all the events and characters are true to historical fact. And it seems I mean to me, it implies it’s basically a documentary. So I’m going to start off with a two part question, rather than just asking the letter grade one, are all the events and characters in Tora! Tora! Tora! true to historical fact? And if not, I’m guessing maybe we’ll continue with the episode. It’s not an A++++ for letter grade for historical accuracy. So what would it get?

Jon Parshall  06:03

That’s a great question. I think they get a very good grade overall. I do think that there are some characters in here that I have a suspicion are composite characters, right that, and we see that on a fairly frequent basis in movies, but yeah, overall, I would give it, I’d give it an A minus, nice, okay, yeah, a very strong grade. I think that this movie stands up very well, you know, given even despite the fact that it’s, you know, 40 some years, maybe almost 50 years old at this point, I can’t believe I’m even saying that. So, yeah, it gets a good, gets a good grade. There are some things, obviously, just, just given the nature of the special effects that they can use during this time. I mean, we’re using American aircraft carriers, post war aircraft carriers, to film a lot of these sequences. And so those are not necessarily, you know, they don’t look like a Japanese aircraft carrier all of the time that they do use models in the movie. Those are, those are very high quality.

Dan LeFebvre  07:08

At the beginning of the movie, we find out the reason for the Japanese attacking Pearl Harbor, as well as the reason why it’s such a surprise for the Americans. And from the Japanese perspective, the movie explains that they’re faced with an embargo of the raw materials that they need for their war in China. According to the movie, they basically have two choices, improve diplomatic relations with the US and withdraw from China, or find another source of raw materials in Indochina. And then a little later in the movie, we find out that the Japanese have set a deadline of October for the diplomatic solution of things. And then, from the American perspective, the movie sets up that even though the fleet has moved from San Diego to Pearl Harbor, the movie says that there’s not going to be an attack at Pearl Harbor, because a torpedo dropped will plunge to 75 feet, and Pearl Harbor is only 40 feet deep, so that’s not going to happen. But how well does the movie do setting up these two different sides of the story prior to the attack?

Jon Parshall  08:05

That’s all fairly well done, although I’d say that the American explanation of things is sort of overly simplistic. So let’s, let’s talk about that. Yeah, from the Japanese perspective, that’s right on the money. They’re involved in this war in China, the raw materials that are being cut off are American raw materials. We’ve basically, as a result of their move south into French Indochina, which is now Vietnam, the Americans put in place an embargo on the Japanese that cut off all of their scrap iron and steel exports. But most importantly, oil, and Japan has no domestic source of oil, and so at this point, you know the clock is running. Unless that oil embargo ends, you know they’re gonna run out of oil within, I don’t know, a couple of years, something like that, which doesn’t sound all that drastic, but if you’ve sunk as much blood and treasure into building up your navy in the inner your war, inter war years as the Japanese have, you’re now in a position where you got to use it or lose it, right? Because without oil, that Navy is useless. And so the clock is ticking, as far as the Japanese are concerned. And the only place that they can get oil, if they can’t get it from us. They’ve got to go down south to Borneo and Indonesia, because that’s where the oil is and Java and Borneo and those places. So, yeah, that’s, that’s what’s happening on on the Japanese side. They’ve either got to come to a diplomatic solution, or they’ve got to wage war in the South Pacific from the American side. Yeah, we move our battle fleet, the Pacific portion of our fleet. And understand, of course, you know as as being a two ocean country, we’ve got, our fleet is basically split in half, and the Atlantic units are all out there, and the Pacific units, traditionally are based in San Diego. We make the decision to move them out to Pearl Harbor. As a deterrent to let the Japanese know we’re serious about this. But the Yeah, the ability of the Japanese to attack our units at Pearl Harbor is still an ongoing source of controversy. I Yeah, the torpedo thing is one thing, Pearl Harbor is a relatively shallow harbor. Typically torpedoes, when you dump them in the water back in the day from an airplane would need, yes, 75 to 100 feet, it would dive down before it would come back up to running depth again. So that’s one thing, but more important, I think we did not understand at this point in time the level of sophistication that the Japanese carrier forces evolved to. We thought in our minds that, okay, maybe they would conduct a raid against us because we had done similar things during some of our exercises in the inner war years too, we had used our own carriers, like Lexington to attack Pearl Harbor. In our mind, a raid would be maybe one Japanese carrier, maybe two, and they’d launch 3040, 50 aircraft, and then they’d turn around and run right. What’s happened is starting in april 1941, the Japanese make this sort of conceptual leap to what would happen if we started using our carriers instead of in ones and twos. What if we took all the big flight decks in our Navy and put them together into one great, big carrier fleet, and so in April of 41 they make the decision to do that, and it’s one thing to issue an order and say, Okay, we’ll create this thing called, you know, the mobile fleet. It’s quite another to then work out all of the nuts and bolts of, how do you actually make that happen? You know, you got to figure out, how are these ships going to steam together? How when they launch aircraft, how many are they going to put up at a time once those aircraft are up in the air? Okay, now I’ve got these groups of aircraft from four of these carriers, later, six of these carriers. How are they going to operate in the air? Are we going to put them into one big, cohesive Strike Force? Are they still going to be commanded by the individual carrier captains, you know? So they’re all these nuts and bolts that have got to be worked out. And that’s all happening during the summer of 1941 as the Japanese are thinking in themselves, we may go to war. And if we do, Admiral Yamamoto, who’s the head of combined fleet, is like, we’re going to attack Pearl Harbor. So you can think of this almost in terms of like a disease. It’s like, this is cancer metastasizing, and the Japanese carrier force is a completely different animal in six months from April to like november of 1941 they bring on two brand spanking new carriers, the shokaku and the zuikaku. So now they got six carriers to play with. They work through all these administrative issues, and they come to the conclusion that what we’re going to do is we’re going to put up these great big groups of aircraft, 160 180 190 planes at a time, they’re going to be commanded by a single commander in the air. And now we’ve got the ability to not launch 30 planes, but you know, damn near 200 and come. And you know, I can now release these enormous pulses of combat air power, which can do strategically meaningful things on the battlefield. This is absolutely revolutionary. And the British Navy and the American Navy have not made that same leap. It’s kind of the same thing, you know, if you look at 911, if you talk to the average American on the street on September 12, 2001 and said, you know, can you weaponize commercial airliners and fly them into buildings in a coordinated fashion and turn them into terrorist weapons? Everybody be like, Well, yeah, that’s obvious, but it sure as hell wasn’t obvious two days before, right? And so the Japanese have made this leap, and the other navies have not. And so that, I think, just from a conceptual standpoint, that is why the Americans feel that they’re safe at Pearl Harbor. Because the Japanese, they we don’t understand their abilities, first of all, with their carriers, and also, the other thing I should mention is underway refueling. How do you actually get a force of carriers 3500 miles across the Pacific. We didn’t know that the Japanese had actually figured out how to use tankers to refuel those ships underway, and now they’ve got this capability where not only can they bring this great, big, powerful force, but they can refuel it and bring it off of Hawaii. So there’s a bunch of things going on there on the American side as to why we don’t have the sense of danger that we might well have had, you know, a little later on the war, when we understood what their carriers could actually do. Sorry, that’s kind of a long winded explanation, but there’s nuance there.

Dan LeFebvre  14:51

And I like the example that you gave of, you know, with 911 and how after something happens, then you know that that can be done that way. Thing. And. That leads right into something I want to ask about, that the movie shows with the the airfields on the island, that it really suggests in the movie that the Americans are just not expecting an attack. Because we see a scene where, I think it was General Walter short notices that the airplanes are spread out in standard procedure in case of an enemy air attack. But he’s like, there’s 130,000 Japanese on the island. Our biggest problem to worry about is sabotage. So the planes are then grouped together into airfields, and not to get too far ahead of the timeline like I implied to earlier, the result is not good, rows of airplanes just blowing up easily as they’re attacked from the air. And that seems like one of those miscues that it’s an obvious blunder after the fact, after we knew about it. But did that really happen?

Jon Parshall  15:44

Yeah, no, it really did. Okay. There’s a little nuance there. I know the guy who is, is the the greatest Pearl Harbor scholar in the world, and he says that it kind of varied from airfield to airfield. Is just how densely those aircraft were grouped together. But yes, broadly speaking, general short, who’s the army commander on Oahu, thinks that sabotage is the more serious threat, and so in order to make those planes more easily guardable, he congregates them into the middle of the airstrips so that he can put, you know, centuries around them to make sure that nobody can sneak up and try to blow these things up. Because, yes, we were very concerned. I forget what the percentage of the population on Oahu was first or second generation Japanese, but, you know, it’s 3040, 50% something like, there’s a lot of Japanese people there, but as it turns out, they were Americans, you know, and and there really was very, very little in the way of a fifth column or something like that. One

Dan LeFebvre  16:48

thing that we see throughout the movie is the American intelligence trying to figure out what the Japanese are up to. And there’s a mention of even how the Americans can decode the messages faster than the Japanese embassy in Washington. So they seem to be, at least in the movie, it seems like they’re almost know what’s going on in real time as things are being sent, as close as you can get in real time in 1941 I guess there’s in the intelligence circle, there’s mentions of things like the 12 Apostles, that the 12 people that are allowed to see the Japanese intercepts President of the United States, for example, although there was a time, I think, where the movie mentions there was like something found in the waste bin at the inner an intercept in the waste bin in the White House, or something like that. And so he’s taken off. He gets added up again. But overall, how well does the movie do showing the American code breaking capabilities and the intelligence and their impact on the events leading up to December 7,

Jon Parshall  17:38

right? Good question. Um, and, and I’m just going to put out right right away that I do not consider myself a scholar of the cryptographic side of this battle. I’m good enough to be dangerous, but I’m that’s not really my thing, but I can certainly paint some broad brush pictures of what’s going on here. Um, it is true that we had broken two different sets of Japanese codes. The first one that you alluded to is the diplomatic codes that are going back and forth between their embassies and their foreign minister back in Tokyo, a guy named Togo. So we can break that stuff. We’ve also recently broken the Japanese naval operations code, which is called Jn 25 and we’re reading some of that traffic as well at this time, the problem is that, yeah, on a good day, we can maybe decipher, I don’t know, 10, 20% of the code groups at any given message. The diplomatic stuff is better than that, but we’re really gated in terms of translation manpower. This is right before the war. Our military, all through the Depression, has been starved of people and resources and money, and we’re not out of war footing at this point. I was just reading a little bit more about this this morning. I mean, the army had maybe a half dozen good Japanese translators in its crypto unit. The Navy probably had a similar number. So you’re talking about a dozen people trying to evaluate the intelligence that’s coming through here. And, of course, there’s, it’s one thing to be able to decode the message. It’s another to be then able to translate that into English and then analyze Okay, well, what the heck does this mean? Right? So, yes, ex post facto, you know, fast forward to 1945 1946 by the end of the war, we have 1000s of translators working this stuff, and it’s being aided by IBM tabulation machines. We’re using, you know, machine aided methods to do this stuff. So by the end of the war, yeah, we are reading Japanese. These diplomatic traffic that’s going between their foreign ministry out to the embassy in Moscow. For instance, we’re reading that and translating that and turning it into English faster than the Japanese are doing it themselves. It’s really impressive. That is not where we are at September on October of 1941 so at the end of the war, they went back. Now we got all these analysts. Let’s go back and actually look at some of these messages that were floating around in September and October and November. Let’s decode those suckers. Now, what did they tell us? And you know, first of all, there’s 1000s of messages that you got to go through. Were there smoking guns in there? Yeah, there absolutely were. There was a message that was translated in 1946 that laid out the exact composition of nagumos carrier task force, you know, down, you know, ship by ship and yada yada yada. So, you know, if they had gotten lucky and gotten the right messages and gotten them translated by one of those six dudes. You know, we might have gotten the smoking gun. It might have fallen into our lap. The problem then, in in September and October at 41 is, yes, there are some clues out there. But how do you put the put them all together into a cohesive picture? Because the other thing that’s happening is that we’re getting a lot of we would call it false returns, but they were, they were actually, they were real returns. So let me expand the picture here. This movie is about Pearl Harbor. We focus on Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor, from the Japanese standpoint, is just one small component of their overall plan of campaign, which is aimed to the south. So, you know, as we’re looking at the Intel, we’re like, they could attack us in the Philippines. Maybe they’ll attack down in Malaya. Maybe they’re you going into the Central Pacific. The answer is yes, they’re going to attack in all of those places. Okay, so how do you then make sense of that and pull out the little kernels that might also point to the fact that maybe they’ve got an interest in Hawaii as well. Those pieces were there. But again, just given the deluge of different data points that are all pointing in different directions, it’s real easy ex post facto to come back and say, well, there’s this and this and this and there, therefore, clearly Pearl Harbor was in danger. It was not nearly as obvious at the time. Yeah,

Dan LeFebvre  22:29

I like what you mentioned, like, with the smoking gun, and as you were saying that, I was thinking referring back what you’re talking about with 911 or, like, how would you know that that’s actually the smoking gun, until you knew after the fact what they did to know that that was the smoking gun and not just some deterrent or propaganda or exactly some other message that you don’t know what it means,

Jon Parshall  22:49

right? That’s right, yeah, if you actually look at just a map of the opening moves of the Japanese offensive that they’re going to start unloading, you know, on December 7. I mean, there’s ships all over the place, because they are landing divisions in Malaya to go after the British and, you know, march down towards Singapore. They are doing initial moves out of the Palau’s, which are southeast of the Philippines, you know, down into the Central Pacific. And very quickly, they’re going to start putting troops into the Philippines as well. There’s a lot of transports moving around in the East China Sea, and it’s all got to happen by clockwork, because the Japanese don’t have enough troop transports. And so the transports, they’re going to take that initial Echelon down to Malaya, are then going to have to move back up north, go to Formosa, pick up more divisions there that are going to be used for the landings against the Philippines. You know, there’s just tons and tons of things going on here. It’s not all it. The movie makes it seem like, you know, you know what’s going on with Pearl Harbor. Where are the Japanese aircraft carriers? But you have to understand that there’s just tons of different stuff happening at the same time.

Dan LeFebvre  23:58

The world’s a much bigger picture. So it’s not being focused on the United States. Yeah, at one point in the movie we did see Colonel Bratton is kind of piecing together the intercepts because of a message from Tokyo that indicated that they wanted to conclude negotiations no later than November 29 so he’s convinced that the Japanese will attack on Sunday, November 30. Was there really a belief that that would be the date of the surprise attack? I

Jon Parshall  24:24

don’t have a definitive answer to that one. I was actually looking around for that on the basis of the those questions. And my sense is that this is another one of those sort of false positives that you’ve got clue A, B and C, that leads you to, you know, an indication that this could be the day. But this kind of stuff happens all the time. You know that you’ll get something that looks like it’s a smoking gun, and then nothing happens on that day. And now all of a sudden, all of the decision makers, you know, the admirals, are looking at you, Mr. Defense analyst, and like, well, what the heck. Robe, no. How many times has

Dan LeFebvre  25:01

the world, the end of the world been predicted over the right? Exactly,

Jon Parshall  25:05

exactly.

Dan LeFebvre  25:08

Yeah, yeah. Speaking of those messages from Japan, there is a plot line during the course of the film that talks about a quote, unquote, very long message in 14 parts that sent from Tokyo to the Japanese embassy in DC, and since, like we talked about, the Americans are intercepting everything. They’re able to read each part as they come in in the movie. But then Tokyo specifically doesn’t want to send the final part until the morning of December 7, so the 14th part of the message instructs their ambassadors to submit their reply to the US government on December 7 at precisely 1pm local time in Washington, DC. And then there’s a follow up message where they tell their embassy to, quote, unquote, destroy at once your cipher machine all codes and secret documents. And then, in a nutshell, that’s kind of seems to be the final confirmation about when the attack will take place. Of course, they still don’t know where it’s going to take place, but is the movie accurately portraying the storyline of the 14 part message?

Jon Parshall  26:10

Yeah, that’s that’s basically all correct. There was a 14 part message. It does not and we’re aware that this message is coming, and we know that, yes, the the 14th art needs to be delivered at at 1pm Washington time. The message starts getting transmiss admitted, and it doesn’t come over sequentially. It’s not real clean. It’s like parts five and nine were the first ones to be broadcast. You know, it’s just all over the place. And then there’s this big gap of the number of hours, and then, yeah, so everybody’s kind of waiting around for the for the 14th part to land. And from the Japanese standpoint, this was all kind of bungled. I mean, that what the Japanese wanted to do was be able to walk into our Secretary of War’s office with, you know, a declaration of war precisely at 1pm and then the attack on Pearl Harbor is going to go down like five minutes later. Okay? And they’re cutting things really fine, because, given the sensitivity of this message traffic, the Japanese embassy in Washington was ordered not to use a typist to actually, you know, type out all of the the message and put it into this document that’s going to be, you know, handed to our our guys. So the Japanese end up bungling. This is what it comes down to. And the attack ends up occurring before the message actually gets delivered.

Dan LeFebvre  27:47

Okay, that’s so I think the movie does kind of make a point of having this guy typing there on the key on the typewriter, trying to type things out. Take that jacket off a little bit too. Yeah, and go back to typing and just taking so long everybody else is just watching the clock on the wall to see climbing

Jon Parshall  28:03

the walls. Yeah, absolutely. It’s funny. I actually, I did a presentation, this was years ago down in New Orleans at the World War Two Museum down there on Pearl Harbor, and it was either the son or the grandson of one of those Japanese guys in the embassy was there to give a talk on that very episode, and he was still just infuriated that, basically, you know, the Foreign Ministry back in in Tokyo had set his dad up for failure here because they didn’t get this traffic out to him in a timely basis so he could do his job. It was, it was kind of a, kind of a foster clock on the on the part of the Japanese, I

Dan LeFebvre  28:48

guess they didn’t have the emails they can just schedule to send it. Say, one, two, yeah, a little bit different,

Jon Parshall  28:54

yeah, exactly, yeah. Just, you know, can we just queue this up in MailChimp and have it drop? Oh, come on, exactly. Yeah, that heard it happening. So,

Dan LeFebvre  29:03

yeah. Well, we’re about halfway through the timeline of the movie, and I want to ask about a rather it’s a brief scene in the movie, but it seems to be significant on a rather routine patrol. Least seems so in the movie, there’s a US Navy ship that notices a submarine’s Periscope just a stern of a navy tug seems to be trying to sneak into the net around Pearl Harbor. So the American ship fires on the submarine. And since the movie is focusing heavily on the planes from the characters or from the carriers, I should say that’s really one of the only times that we see submarines used by the Japanese in this movie. So can you feel this more historical context around how they fit into this overall strategy.

Jon Parshall  29:41

So the Japanese want to use five little mini subs that they are. They’re transporting them out on these mother subs. And they’ve got a little hatchway that you can get up into the bottom of the submarine. You’ve got a two man crew in each one of these things that are going to be launched. And the idea. Is that these five mini subs are going to sneak into Pearl Arbor at the same time that the aerial attack is going to go down and deliver their own torpedo attacks. They each carry two torpedoes against the American ships that are in there. Well, you know, things, things go awry. Let’s just put it that way. And and there’s still an ongoing controversy as to whether or not one of those submarines did manage to sneak into Pearl Harbor. There’s a photo that alleges to show, I don’t personally believe it myself, for reasons I won’t go into, but anyway, this incident that we’re depicting here absolutely did happen. So the USS Ward was an old four stacker destroyer, and oddly enough, so I live in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the ward was manned primarily by naval reservists from Minnesota and so, and she had a brand new captain. This guy had been in charge of the ship for like, less than 24 hours. And just as you say, you know, on the morning of the attack, about an hour and a half before this all goes down, lo and behold, the LORD cites the sub. Yeah, the sale of a sub at a periscope too. And, yeah, they end up taking two shots at it. And for years, the boys from St Paul claimed that they had drilled that sub, you know, put a hole right through the sale of that thing. Neat is neat. And nobody believed them. And it took, I forget, 5560, some years, before they finally found that submarine. And there was a hole in the base of the of the Codding tower, you know. And we still have the number four gun from the USS Ward sits out at the state capitol about seven miles that way. Wow. Yeah, it’s really cool. Wow. So, yeah, this incident happens. They sink this submarine, they kill its crew, and it sinks. And the Lord then sends a message up, you know, through the through the channel, saying we have attacked, and we believe sunk an enemy submarine off of the mouth of the harbor. And normally you would think that that would be sort of an attention getter. But what ends up happening is that it’s we’re at a peacetime setting, and the the people on the land based side of things are looking at the captain, the warden, like, this guy is wet behind the ears, man, this dude doesn’t know what he’s doing. And they’re a bunch of naval reservists. Like, yeah, okay, whatever you know. And so they, they ignore it, and it’s, it’s not really gonna sort of come into the consciousness of the base people, until the attack starts going down. It’s like a light bulb, yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s thing. Well, that leads to

Dan LeFebvre  33:04

that, kind of, like the good letter grade that you gave before his historical accuracy. Because I think there is even a mention of how this guy, oh, he’s green, he’s, you know, Captain green, he’s, he’s new. I want confirmation. I need confirmation. And kind of going through that

Jon Parshall  33:18

confirmation of a sub that you’ve already sunk you know, yeah, in the movie. And not to get

Dan LeFebvre  33:22

too far ahead of the timeline, the movie, in the movie, as as all the planes are going, I think that comes back. Is that enough confirmation for you? So I’m like,

Jon Parshall  33:28

yeah, exactly, exactly. Um, and, you know, there’s, there’s a question here. Okay, 630 you’ve got roughly 80 minutes or so before the attack is going to go down. What could the Americans actually have done with that amount of warning time? It would be very, very difficult to start getting the ships actually out of the harbor in that amount of time. I mean, a lot of cases, these ships are not at actions none of them are at action stations. A lot of their crews are ashore for shore leave. It’s Sunday morning, um, and just the physical act of firing up the boilers and raising steam takes a long time on a warship of that vintage. And so, you know, I don’t know that the ships would have been able to be moved Had there been coordinated communications between the army and the navy, though, among other things, you could have had a better air presence over the island as a result of that. I mean, 90 minutes is plenty of time for me to wake up a bunch of pilots at these airfields and get get planes up in the air, so that that could have materially change things. It sounds

Dan LeFebvre  34:41

like that’s another one of those elements that remembering that the US was not in the war, which I know, it’s something that everybody knows, but also it’s helpful to continuously remember that, because I think there’s a big difference between I think I just watched recently another classic, you know, the Battle of Britain, right? Where you have all these pilots that are just waiting for the call to go up, and so they go up in just a matter of minutes. And this is a little bit different for the guys who, you know, there’s no war going on. It’s technically peace. So it’s a little bit different. They’re not gonna, yeah, they could get up faster, but still, it’s not like, it’s not more time. And I think it’s always good to remember that that

Jon Parshall  35:20

and among other things, this is one of those sort of boring, you know, behind the scenes things that nobody thinks about. There was no joint Army Navy operations room for the defense of this island at this time. So there’s no easy way for a navy Skipper to send a report up to, you know, his superiors and then have that information be promulgated across to the army, who is in charge of the air defense of this island, to say, scramble your damn fighters. You know, there could be something coming in here. Something’s up. You know, at least be on higher alert, because we just sank a submarine out out in front of the entrance of the most important naval base in the Pacific. Speaking

Dan LeFebvre  36:01

of things that they hadn’t figured out at this point in the war, yet, there is a new piece of technology that the Americans get, according to the movie, to help detect intruders on the sea and in the air. And this new technology is called radar. On the morning of December 7, we see two guys manning the radar station at Opana point, and they detect two large pulses coming in, so they call it in. Lieutenant Tyler answers, and he says, Ah, don’t worry about it. They’re just the B seventeens coming in from the mainland. And then a little later in the movie, we actually see the B seventeens arriving. So they’re a real thing, but they’re also getting attacked by the Japanese planes. I love the quote from one of the pilots. It’s like, what a way to fly into a war, unarmed and out of gas. Can you take us through what actually happened with the radar and the B 17? That’s

Jon Parshall  36:47

all 100% legit. All of that happened, yeah? So yes, there’s a there’s a brand new experimental radar station up at Opana point. You can still drive by it today. And yeah, there were these two cats up there who were calibrating the radar set, and one of them was brand new. And so, you know, the more senior guy was kind of breaking this junior dude in. And, you know, here’s how you operate this particular radar set. And so, yeah, they see this understand too that at this time, that era of radar didn’t have the sort of the classic radar scope that we look at the where we’ve got this, you know, rotating thingy, and it’s plotting the azimuth. No, basically, these guys are looking at an oscilloscope and and what they’re seeing is that at this bearing, which is almost due north, we got this big old spike, something’s coming in from the north. And so, yes, they, these two cats, telephone down to Lieutenant Kermit Tyler. And I, actually, I met Kermit Tyler right before he died. I was, I was out at a symposium in Hawaii, and that poor guy, I mean, he’s, you know, he had to live with that particular set of events for the rest of his life, because he knows that there’s some B seventeens coming in, and he knows that, you know, they often approach, you know, kind of from the north, to do their their landing exercises. And he, you know, we got a big spike. It’s in that general neck of the woods. Yeah, that’s what he says. Don’t worry about it. And the other thing again, is that even if Kermit Tyler had raised Holy hell, once again, the fact that we do not have joint communications with Army and Navy, he didn’t have the ability to, you know, pick up the phone call Admiral Kimmel, for instance, and say, you know, there’s airplanes coming in. There was none of that sort of, what I want to say, operational communications infrastructure in place. You know, Kermit really had kind of his hands tied behind his back in terms of what he could do. But yeah, he becomes one of these sort of scapegoats that everybody knows about this incident, you know. And, yeah, it absolutely did happen, and Kerman had to live it, live with it, for the rest of his life.

Dan LeFebvre  39:05

It sounds almost like the scapegoat in the movie, at least the version of, you know, the Japanese typist trying to type things out really slowly and and all that kind of makes that out. And it almost sounds like it’s another version of that, you know, you’re, what can you do? I mean, even if you did get that notification, yeah, what would you do with it? What

Jon Parshall  39:26

would you do with it? Right? And this is, this is later than then. You know that that sinking of the submarine, where, you know the planes are getting close at this point, and you know, just given the speed of advance of that, of that air power that’s coming in, you know they’re going, yeah, the better part of 200 miles an hour. You know your your time to take actionable information and turn that into results on those airfields in terms of getting more fighter cover overhead is distinctly limited. And yeah, that window closed. Loses very quickly, and now it’s game on. The

Dan LeFebvre  40:02

movie doesn’t mention this, but I would imagine, especially too, because they changed the formations of the planes on the airfield, that would take a little bit longer for them to get up, I’m guessing, just to a little bit different than what would they would normally be. And so that would just add another they would have to know your even earlier for to make any sort of difference, right on that, right?

Jon Parshall  40:24

The other thing is, too, that the Japanese were taking very serious measures to make sure that they were going to really stomp on air power in the Hawaiian Islands. Again, in the course of the movie, we, of course, tend to fixate on what happens in the anchorage in Pearl Harbor itself. But if you look at a breakdown of the individual sorties that the Japanese, okay, I got this package of 180 planes coming in in the first wave. I got another 167 behind them in the second wave. If you look at what those 180 planes are supposed to be doing in that first way, half of them are airfield suppression, because the Japanese are terribly concerned that there are a lot of aircraft on Oahu, and we don’t want those airplanes coming up in the air, messing with our attack force, or, even worse, reaching out and touching our aircraft carriers. No, no, no, no. So a lot of those planes are devoted to shutting down every airfield on Oahu. Again, from from the American standpoint, a Japanese raid would be one or two carriers, right? And they would be probably focused on the anchorage exclusively the Japanese. This is an entirely different animal. We’re bringing 350 planes, and we’re not just going to attack the Anchorage. We’re gonna we’re gonna shut this whole island down, in terms of all the aircraft too. It’s an immensely sophisticated plan. You know, no, no other Navy in the world could do this at this point in time, the Japanese carrier force, Kido Butai, you know, is as revolutionary in its way as the German Panzer Division was at about the same time in terms of ground warfare, nobody else has this capability at this point. We couldn’t do this kind of attack until early 1944

42:17

Wow. Yeah,

Jon Parshall  42:18

it’s a really this is a distinctly capable beastie that the Japanese have unleashed on us. We just don’t understand what it can do anyway. I’m, I’m, I’m digressing here, but the point of the matter is that even if we had gotten a few more fighters up in the air, it doesn’t really matter. I don’t think in terms of the overall impact, because they’re bringing dozens and dozens of zero fighters down that are expressly tasked with just sweeping the skies clean of any fighters that they run into. The Zero is a better machine than most of the fighters that we am on the island, and at this time in the war, we don’t understand the capabilities of the zero as an airframe, and so we would be fighting it using the incorrect kind of tactics. At this point in time, our fighter pilots are taught you want to get into a dog fight. That’s how you shoot down an enemy plane. Here to tell you, you try flying a P 40 or, even worse, an old or P 36 which was a lot of the machines on this island. You try dog fighting that against the zero. You are dead. You get shot down like boom. They take you right out because the zero climbs faster, turns tighter. It’s just and they got really, really good pilots. So the net result is to say that even if Kermit had done his thing, even if, even if we had given the, you know, call out the hounds and we managed to get a few dozen more fighters up in the air, I don’t know that it necessarily has that big an impact on the outcome of the

Dan LeFebvre  43:41

attack? Yeah. No, that makes sense. And I like that. You mentioned the the zeros and not fighting against that made me ask, not associated with the movie at all. But was it who was the the general The Flying Tigers that were fighting overall in China? Yeah, did that? Did that help them at all to know, like strategy of fighting against zeros, or in that strategy that maybe not every all the pilots on Pearl would happen to to know that. But did that help at all

Jon Parshall  44:10

if they had listened to chenl? Yes, yes, because you’re absolutely right. We, you know, we had this unit in China that had been tangling with the zero for for a little while. And, yeah, we knew the characteristics of this plane, but chanal, really, you know, he’s, yes, he’s technically working for the for the US Army Air Corps. But he’s also kind of this, this rogue operator who’s out in China, and nobody believes the the Intel that’s coming out of there. It’s, going to take, you know, a good six months or so of actually tangling with this airplane and in the in the course of those early war campaigns, the zero gains this reputation is really being sort of a super fighter. You know, it’s not, but if you use the wrong tactic against it, the. The results are distinctly unpleasant, and so it really would not be until the Battle of Midway, a guy named Jimmy thatch came up with a new tactic. He’s like, Okay, well, we can’t out turn these suckers, but I’ve got this method of interweaving, you know, my airplanes, so that any approach that the the enemy fighter takes, they’re going to face the potential of a head on attack against one of my elements of fighters, that is, you know, maneuvering back and forth anyway. We eventually get a handle on how to fight the zero, but it takes a number of months, and honestly, a lot of dead fighter pilots along the way to realize that this is an extremely capable, nimble, dangerous airplane. Don’t dog fight it, or you will die.

Dan LeFebvre  45:42

If we go back to the movie, we’re about an hour and 47 minutes into the movie is when we hear it’s a long the movie. It is a long movie. It is a long movie almost two hours into it when we hear the title, Torah, Torah, Torah. And those are the code words according to the movie. Those are the chord words to be sent by the Japanese pilots if they’ve achieved the element of surprise. And we see it happening the movie. The planes are flying over the island. There’s no anti aircraft guns firing, no American fighters over the harbor. It seems to be a complete surprise. So the code words are sent, and then soon after that, we see the first shots being fired by the Japanese fighters. There’s three planes of strafing a submarine in the harbor that that’s the first shot that we see in in the movie. Moments later, it’s funny, there’s a band playing this the Star Spangled Banner as the flag is being raised on one of the decks of the ship. And then the Japanese start swarming, and they just rush through the song. They don’t just stop. They just rush through their song to finish it as they start to realize what’s happening. How did the movie do showing the moment of the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor itself?

Jon Parshall  46:40

I give them a, b, b plus on that. Okay, so the actual first attack on Oahu doesn’t happen at Pearl Harbor. It happens further north on the island at at Wheeler airfield. Oh, okay, yeah, and again, because they want to suppress, they being the Japanese, want to suppress the American air power on this island. Wheeler, which is, which is north, gets, Gets Plastered by dive bombers and strafing fighters and so that goes down about 10 minutes before the actual attack on the anchorage itself. Yeah, I think the first bomb that lands actually does land on Ford Island in the middle of the Anchorage. And then, yeah, there’s a lot of sort of hurry up kind of stuff going on, because you’re right then that that’s legit. You know, there were flags being raised, you know, it’s the beginning of the morning. It’s, yeah, oh, 800 you know, let’s get the get there, get our day on. And all of a sudden, yeah, you got these planes buzzing around the harbor. I’ll tell you what, when you stand today on the on the deck of the USS, Missouri, which is moored there in the harbor, basically at the point where the USS Oklahoma, which is one of the battleships that was sunk during the attack, you stand on the deck of the Missouri and you can look out over the water, and particularly up the length of the southeast lock, which goes up towards the submarine base. And that body of water, because it basically aimed right at Battleship Row, was the point of attack for a lot of the Japanese torpedo planes, they went right down the southeast lock as they’re heading towards Battleship Row, and then they sort of peeled off to hit, you know, Oklahoma, West Virginia, what have you. It is still to this day. It just brings shivers up my spine standing over that, you know, looking over that body water and imagining what it must have been like to be an American sailor on one of those ships, and watching these planes coming in on you and dropping their torpedoes, one, one at a time. There’s not a damn thing you can do about it. I mean, you’re just utterly helpless. You know, the guns are not manned. In many cases, the ready ammunition for the guns is locked up in lockers and you can’t find the keys. I mean, it was a hot mess. And again, just the the feeling of powerlessness, watching these puppies lining up on you and dropping these torpedoes, and, you know, in they come like these accusing fingers, you know, towards the side of your ship. Oh, man, this is not gonna be a good day.

Dan LeFebvre  49:23

It’s understandable, like, you’re not gonna know exactly what happened the moments. It’s not like there was footage, you know, security camera footage that we have of that attack moment. But I did like the way that the movie portrays different reactions by different people. Like, you know, one of the officers is just like, I’ll get that guy’s number, you know, I’m going to get him in trouble, right, for for flying, and then bomb drops. He’s like, wait a minute, what you know? And then you even have the officers off a ways from the harbor itself, and you can see things going off in the distance, right? And everybody’s just starting to recognize what’s going on. And it’s a it’s that moment that you. Yeah, I can imagine what it would be like.

Jon Parshall  50:01

Yeah, unimaginable. You know, how, how, unless they have been feeling trying to change their entire perceptual apparatus to, yeah, oh, my God, you know, because, obviously, there were a lot of guys in the Navy at this point who felt that there’s going to be a war, but not a lot of them thought that we’re going to be there the first casualties in that war. You know, that was not a thought that it occurred to many of these people in peacetime. Oahu at all. You know, it’s going to be this, poor clowns on the Philippines. We know they’re going to get invaded. You know, it’s going to be them, and it’s like no baby.

Dan LeFebvre  50:39

We talked earlier about the airfields and the moving the planes to avoid the sabotage. But then, as we see the attack happening in the movie, can see that the planes are trying. There’s some that are trying to get off the ground. They’re obviously outnumbered. There’s some that are blowing up before they can get off but then there’s two American pilots that manage to get off the ground. We see, I think I counted that they shot down three Japanese planes that we saw in the movie. But we don’t really see a lot about what happened to them. Can you fill in kind of the rest of the story around the American pilots who did manage to get off the ground during the attack?

Jon Parshall  51:11

And this is where you don’t get your good value for your money, because I’m, like, a big picture, you know, operations level dude. And I don’t know the the individual particulars. I can’t remember the names of the two guys. How’s that for lane? But yeah, the the bottom line is that there was a little, um, almost like a divert field. Wasn’t even a main airfield at all. It was like this little dirt airstrip up north on the coast. And these two guys, yeah, they pile into their into their Jeep, and they go racing up there. I don’t think he was a jeep. Actually, was like a civilian Studebaker or something, you know, because there’s a couple of P 40s sitting up at that strip that they know of. And they’re like, Yeah, let’s go. And so yeah, they they hop up there, they get in their planes, they get up and yes, they do shoot down two or three of those aircraft, you know. So yay team. I mean, those guys showed commendable initiative, and they did what they what they could do. And I would just like to stop it there and say that, of course, in one of the movies in the in the recent Pearl Harbor movie, of course, two of those cats then end up supposedly being pilots on the Doolittle mission, you know,

Dan LeFebvre  52:20

of course, which is the Americans had more than two pilots. What

Jon Parshall  52:26

I’m here to tell you that no fighter guy is gonna be like, Yeah, put me in a multi engine medium bomber that, you know, handles like a dump truck. Yeah, that is so the duty that I want. Yeah, it’s just absolute nonsense. Well,

Dan LeFebvre  52:41

was it Ben Affleck? He hands up coming Batman anyway. So you used to flying all that kind of thing. True. Good point.

Jon Parshall  52:49

Yeah. There you go. Yeah. But that, that incident did happen. They did shoot down a couple three the Japanese planes, and then kind of, you know, ran out of target. So I think one of them was forced down. I can’t again. I can’t remember the particulars. Well, maybe

Dan LeFebvre  53:04

this is a maybe, maybe you’ve already answered this kind of a hypothetical situation. But as I was watching the movie, I couldn’t help but think about what might have been different if maybe they hadn’t grouped all their planes together so that they had gotten easily destroyed. Maybe they could have more. Do you think that would have changed anything, or kind of what we were talking about earlier? They didn’t know much about the zeros and attacks, and it really wouldn’t have made much difference anyway. Yeah, I

Jon Parshall  53:25

mean, certainly it would have complicated things for the Japanese. But I think in the grand scheme of things, you know, I forget the exact number of zeros that they’re bringing down for the in the first wave, but it’s the better part of 50 or 60 zeros, and they’re, they’re gonna wipe out whatever aircraft we put up. Is my, is my guess. But we should not, we should not poo poo, the the value of time in this case, because even in the first wave attack, where the the Japanese basically had their way with us, because we were completely surprised in the Anchorage, at least, if you really get down in the weeds and grind the numbers on the casualties amongst the Japanese torpedo plane attackers, for instance, it’s clear that even within the space of 234, minutes that American anti aircraft fire was increasing dramatically. And there was a there was a destroyer moored in the southeast lock, a ship called the Bagley, and it had, you know, basically these torpedo planes that were running down the southeast lock, lining up the runs against battleship road were just parading past Bagley. And by the end of that series of runs, the Bagley bags several of those planes. And so you can sort of see the casualties of the Japanese were already starting to go up by the tail end of the first wave attack. And so if you posit that. Yeah, okay, somebody listens to Kermit Tyler. There’s a big bunch of unknown planes coming down on this island, even if we had so much as had 10 extra minutes to just get the ready usage ammunition for the anti aircraft, guns ready to go. And those ships were buttoned up. They couldn’t move. But if they’re at least in better watertight integrity, and they have more of the ready ammo that could have significantly increased Japanese casualties, as it is. You know, the first wave comes in. They do their thing. They destroy the Arizona, they sink the Oklahoma, the capsizer. And the first wave is just a nightmare for us. There’s the second wave that comes in that composed mostly of dive bombers. And if you look at the photography, the historical photography that is taken from some of these Japanese planes in the second wave, as they’re coming in, Holy Moses, there’s a lot of anti aircraft fire. They were very disagreeably surprised with how incredibly dense American hack Act was. So again, in a counterfactual vein, you know, even 10 or 15 extra minutes might not have done that much in terms of the damage that was inflicted against those vessels, but it could have done a lot in terms of the amount of damage we could do against the Japanese attacking force, makes

Dan LeFebvre  56:22

sense. Makes sense, yeah. And then it goes back to, I mean, it’s a what if we don’t looking at it after the fact, we don’t really know, yeah, but if we shift back to the movie while the attack is happening there at Pearl Harbor, the movie then goes to Washington, DC, and we see the Japanese ambassador Nomura arriving at Cordell Hull’s office to deliver their message as ordered by the 14th part. We kind of talked about that a little bit earlier. But even though they were told to deliver it at 1pm The movie shows it’s slow typist. This reason why they’re being late. We already talked about that. When they get there, Mr. Hall is on the phone with the President. Wants to confirm that the attack has happened before he receives the Japanese ambassador. When he does the ambassador hands him the paper, and, you know, he reads it, and this, this is the dialog that hull has in the movie. From that response, he says, I have never seen a document so crowded with infamous falsehoods and distortions on a scale so huge that I never imagined until today, that any government on this planet was capable of uttering them, and then no more words said, Nomura just gets up leaves the room with tail between his leg. I mean, obviously very hush, quiet, somber moment. Do you think the movie was successful in capturing the essence of the true story here, word

Jon Parshall  57:38

for word, that’s perfect. Wow, it’s perfect. And the the subtext there that we don’t get is Nomura and Hall are friends. They’d known each other for a long time, and Nomura, there’s some pathos there. Nomura was not aware that this attack was coming. He was he was legitimately sent to DC as a special envoy. And he was working earnestly and honestly to try to come to a diplomatic agreement, you know, between his two countries. And so he really, you know, he’s one of these guys that just really got set up, you know, because the militarists, of course, had made the decision long before that they wanted a war. And so, you know, here’s Nomura really doing his best to bring about a settlement. And yeah, he’s, he’s now the fall guy, and has to give this document to Paul, who he knows, and so, yeah, he he was personally crushed by the the attack and the results of of this war, you know, between these two countries. Because he’s, he’s been in the US a lot. He knows us. Wow,

Dan LeFebvre  58:56

that adds even more context to in the movie when he receives that final message, and he looks at the clock on the wall, and I think it says something like 11 o’clock in the morning or somewhere around there, and he’s expected to deliver this at 1pm in just a couple hours. So it seems like that’s just when, maybe that’s just when he’s finding out what actually is happening. It’s just kind of unraveling like, Yeah,

Jon Parshall  59:18

are you kidding me? Really, wow, yeah, exactly.

Dan LeFebvre  59:22

Yeah, that, yeah, again, that’s one of those things I can’t wrap my head around, like being in that moment realizing what’s happening and right? Or it’s already happened, really, and you have to be the one to break this news. It’s already happened. That’s right,

Jon Parshall  59:34

yeah, the machine is is operating here, and it is completely out of your control, and now you’re left to pick up the pieces and yet be the delivery boy for this thing that you did not want. I mean, understand, there are plenty of people in in the Japanese government who thought that a war against the US was going to be a disaster, and had been, have been working. As assiduously as they could. There’s, there’s a really interesting book written by a Japanese woman called 1941 road to infamy, and she talks about just how feckless the Japanese senior leadership was. And there were plenty of people in their leadership who understood that a war with us is not going to end well, but no one was willing to fall on their sword and actually stand up in some of these liaison meetings where they’re actually, you know, lurching towards war through the fall, and say, time out, guys, this is nuts. You know, we can’t do this. Everyone else is looking at everyone else and say, Oh, that guy falls on his sword. And the result is that the can just keeps getting kicked down the war, you know, down the road. And now the carriers have sailed, and Nomura, you know, is one of these cats, and he gets to pick up the pieces. And the Yeah, the ship has sailed. You know, we’re at war now. Oh, my God, not only

Dan LeFebvre  1:00:59

being at war, but also the manner in which it happens, like if him, if him, finding out that it’s already happened. I don’t know. The movie doesn’t really seem to imply, with no more knew that ahead of time or not, or if it was just hull that knew that the attack had, but you’re gonna find out. I mean, that’s just, yeah, it’s just your honor, your everything is just broken. Yeah,

Jon Parshall  1:01:21

that’s exactly right. Well, if

Dan LeFebvre  1:01:23

we go back to the attack at Pearl Harbor in the movie, it shows the Japanese planes returning to their characters, and focus has on one of the pilots, Lieutenant Commander Futura, who is shocked to find out that they’re not ordering another wave of attacks to destroy the American carriers, and they’re dry docks instead, the signal is for all the ships to head back to Japan as soon as the rest of the planes return, that’s right, the explanation in the movie is that they’ve achieved the mission that they were tasked with. Their task force is vital to the war effort that they’ve just started, and the war is just beginning. Yep. Now, as I understand it, this is the part of the movie that drives what we now know as the fuel tank myth, the idea that if the Japanese had launched another wave of attacks, they would have launched that wave of attacks against the repair facilities and fuel tanks around Pearl Harbor, right? And that would have essentially been the nail in the coffin, so to speak, for the American war effort. Yep. Can you unravel this true story behind the fuel tank myth that’s implied in the movie here? Oh

Jon Parshall  1:02:16

yeah. There’s so much to unpack. Wouldn’t even start, oh, yeah, where do we go? Fuchida is a very important guy. Fuchida was the attack leader for the mission. He was the air group commander on the Akagi. He was a very charismatic, intelligent man who wrote a number of books after the war. He survives the war. He converts to Christianity, becomes a Christian missionary, and he’s a technical advisor also on Tora, Tora, Tora, and he also spins some of the most pernicious myths and lies about this war that pertain to the Battle of Midway, that pertain to some of the early war operations out in places like India, the Indian Ocean, and they really pertain here at Pearl Harbor, that whole sequence of events. So we see fuchi to land on the Akagi, and just as you say, he gets out of his cockpit, he talks to his crew chief. Is like, Why aren’t the preparations for a third attack wave happening here. And the crew chief says, Well, we haven’t gotten any orders. Fuchida looks up to the bridge, and he sees his buddy, Minoru Genda. Genda is the air officer for first air fleet. He’s the real, you know, the visionary, the air power guy. He’s Admiral degunos, right hand man when it comes to air planning. And so fuchida and Genda share this sort of profound look, you know, and and Genda then turns around and has this argument with with Admiral Nagumo on the bridge that, you know, we can’t stop now. We’ve got to go back and attack the America, find the American carriers, attack their their fuel depots and repaired basins. And Nagumo says, somewhat rudely. You can hear this in Japanese chicao, which means it’s different, or you’re wrong. It’s really rude to actually say that in Japanese. It’s just it’s kind of like shut up. And Nagumo says, No, this is the war is just beginning. We have achieved the directives that we’ve been asked to achieve, which was to sink four American battleships. That’s not in the movie, but that we know that now, and so, you know, we have to preserve this force. And we’re turning around. We’re going home. That argument never happened, never happened. It’s all a concoction of fuchida. And Genda tells this. This in his own autobiography that was published after the war as well, where he becomes aware when Tora, Tora Tora comes out. Now, there’s this sort of kerfuffle that happens, you know, in the States and also in Japan. You know that, wow, there should have been a third attack wave. You know, none of that happened because the the Japanese nakuma, nakuma. Never wanted to do a third attack against against the harbor. And even if he had, he never would have targeted repair depots and fuel tanks and stuff like that. And here’s why. If you look at the actual target priorities that are handed down from Combined Fleet ie Yamamoto to Nagumo, this is what your target list is. Buddy. At the top of the list is land based air power. Right again, they’re very concerned about our aircraft that it’s aircraft carriers, battleships, cruisers, destroyers and other combatants, merchant ships, and only item number six do you get into harbor facilities. And we as Americans, we look at that, we’re like, Well, my God, why wouldn’t you go after logistics? And it’s like, well, because Japanese naval doctrine didn’t really think that Logistics was all that important. They’re focused on they’re focused on short term gains, because they know this war has got to be short in duration. If they can’t win this thing in a year or less, they’re they’re doomed, right? And the coin of the realm at this point in time, in terms of naval power, is the battleship. So really, what they’re trying to do is they’re trying to attack American morale we’re trying to and, yeah, we’re gonna sink a bunch of your battleships, and we don’t have that many, right? There’s only 15 or 16 in the total US inventory at this point in time. And so if you sink four or five of those, man, that’s tantamount to a national calamity there. So the goal is that they’re gonna bloody our Navy and make us basically say, you know, what the heck with this? We’re gonna go fight Germany, and we’ll let the Japanese have their, you know, their ill gotten gains in the Pacific. So it’s a total morale play. In that context, in that metal context, Are we really gonna throw in the towel because they blew up a bunch of our fuel tanks in Pearl Harbor. Oh, nobody, you know the American population. You, you, we’re, we’re the biggest oil exporter in the world at this point. You know, Texas floats on crude oil. Oh, they blew up some fuel tanks. You know, had bed. And it’s absolutely immaterial. And for the Japanese as well, their navy is oriented strictly around, what are we doing in terms of destroying enemy warships? If you’re not sinking anymore warships, you’re doing something wrong. So Logistics is just very much an afterthought. So it’s interesting, if you look at from cheetahs accounts, they interviewed him right after the war in October of 1945 and they asked him point blank in those interviews as part of the strategic bombing survey, they said, Why didn’t you guys go back and hit us again? Why didn’t you go after the fuel tanks? And his answer in October 1945 is, well, you know we had sunk, we knew we had sunk at least four of your battleships, which, you know, check the box in terms of what we were tasked to do. We didn’t know where your carriers were. That really was kind of worrisome. And, you know, at the end of the day, we thought we had fulfilled our mission. So we went home. Fast forward to 1963 when he’s giving interviews to Gordon praying, who’s the guy who wrote At Dawn We Slept, and was also a technical advisor for Torah. Torah Torah fuchida in 63 tells Gordon Prang. Oh, you know, when I was flying back from Pearl Harbor, I was mentally cataloging all of the shore facilities and, you know, fuel tanks and logistics stuff. So what fuchido wants you to believe is that I had this mental epiphany in the air where, you know, we’ve barely worked our way into item number three on the target list, but I know that if I just jump down to the bottom to item number six, that’s going to win the war for us, right? That’s the line he’s basically trying to sell us in this movie. It’s baloney. It’s all baloney. And I think what really happened is that interview in October of 1945 put the clue into Fujita head. They really thought the fuel tanks were kind of important. I wonder why that was. He’s a smart guy, a charismatic guy, and, lo and behold, you know, by 19 6318 years later, his narrative has turned around into a story that hands us Americans this, you know, the thing that we would expect to hear, and also makes fuchida out to be more intelligent and prescient than he actually was so but the bottom line is, because everybody has seen Tora, Tora, Tora, this whole fuel tank thing, and third attack wave is cemented in the collective American consciousness. Amount around this war and to this day, you know, even though I put empty articles out on it, and other people had to, you know, this whole notion of the fuel. Tank attack is still out there, because, of course, how many millions of people have seen Tora, Tora, Tora, as opposed to the, you know, the 10,000 folks, who’s, you know, read some nerd named Jon Parshall article on the fuel tank myth? Right? It’s, it’s an unequal contest, but that’s where we’re at.

Dan LeFebvre  1:10:17

Well, we’re trying to balance that out a little bit, maybe get a few more people to reach That’s right. It’s fascinating that you mentioned that though about the the Imperial Japanese Navy’s perspective on logistics, because you were just talking about earlier too, where the Americans didn’t think that the Japanese would be able to take this huge fleet and fuel them to get a get to where they did, and Japanese figured out how to do that, and so it would make sense then that okay, if we figured out how to do that, it’s only a matter of time before the Americans can too. So that’s probably why it’s not as important, like the ships are more important, just even from that perspective. I’m not a military strategist by any means, but I could, that makes sense to me.

Jon Parshall  1:10:57

Yeah, yeah. So again, yeah, it’s, it’s difficult to to put ourselves back in the heads of participants, you know what, 80 plus years removed, but that you’re exactly right. And there’s, there’s some arrogance on our part too. We also were very good at underwater fueling. We were the, you know, pioneers in the in that respect. And so we knew we could do it, and we were also, we also knew that we were better at it than the British. And so, you know, from our perspective, well, if, if the Brits can’t do it, there’s no way in hell the Japanese are able to do that kind of thing. So again, you know, we’ve got these kind of societal blinders on in terms of what their carrier force could actually do. And man, this is a real eye opener for us here on December 7.

Dan LeFebvre  1:11:43

Well, there’s another major thing that comes out of this movie, Torah Torah tour, that I want to ask you about at the very end of the movie, the line of dialog, and you already know what it is, but I’ll set it up for the listeners. It’s delivered by Admiral Yamamoto in the movie after he finds out about the whole blunder with the diplomats who failed to deliver their message on time. Here is the direct quote from Yamamoto in the movie. Quote. I had intended to deal a fatal blow to the American fleet by attacking Pearl Harbor immediately after Japan’s official declaration of war, but according to the American radio, Pearl Harbor was attacked 55 minutes before our ultimatum was delivered in Washington. I can’t imagine anything that would infuriate the Americans more. I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve. End quote, and that is how the movie ends. That last line is what we’ve I mean, it’s that’s really what people have done. But the beginning part sets up some of that context from the movie. So as we wrap up our discussion today, perhaps I’ve saved the biggest question for the end, how accurate is that Sleeping Giant quote from Yamamoto that we see in the movie?

Jon Parshall  1:12:51

Man, screenwriters really get, you know, they earn their money. That line is one of the most famous lines, I think, in almost any war movie, and there is absolutely zero written evidence that Yamamoto ever said it. So, yeah, there you go.

Dan LeFebvre  1:13:12

There’s it just knocked it down from that A plus plus plus plus plus plus all the way down to the today.

Jon Parshall  1:13:18

Yeah, good point. Actually, good point because, yeah, that I, there’s been a lot of speculation about that particular quote, and, you know, some of the nerds and I, you know, there aren’t that many biographies of Admiral Yamamoto. There’s only one that’s sort of the standard work that gets, gets quoted in in English. And yeah, if you, if you troll through a Gala’s biography of Yamamoto, you will not find that quote in there. He does say to several different people, there’s another sort of similar quote where he’s like, you know, if I, if I’m told to go to war against the Americans, I will run wild for the first, you know, six months to a year, but after that, I have no confidence of victory. That is a legitimate, legitimate quote. But, yeah,

Dan LeFebvre  1:14:06

I think the movie mentioned something like that briefly when I don’t remember it. Maybe it was Yamamoto, but early in the movie, was talking to Emperor’s like, how long can we survive a war? And he’s like, maybe a year after that, right? That kind of which, again,

Jon Parshall  1:14:18

you know, gets into this point that the Japanese go into this conflict understanding they’ve got to get it over with rapidly. You know? They’ve got to get us to the negotiating table as soon as possible. Which is why they’re trying to not only Pearl Harbor. There are two intended effects. As far as the Japanese are concerned. From a purely military standpoint, but they want to do is they want to knock the American battle fleet out of action so that it is not in a position to counter attack across the Central Pacific and go into the flank of all of their advances, which were heading south to grab the oil. Right? That’s, that’s the first thing you got to do, is cover your flag. But more important is we’ve got to crush America. American morale, so that they become so demoralized that they will be willing to come to the bargaining table. And from that standpoint, the way that they opened the war with what the American public perceived as being a dastardly sneak attack. You know that quote is right on the money. I mean, we were infuriated. And you know, you can say at that point, you know, the negotiated settlement Gambit is almost is dead on arrival at this point, because Roosevelt says in his address the following day to Congress, when he’s asking for a declaration of war, that the American people are going to win through to to complete an utter victory. Yeah, he’s almost spelling out the whole unconditional surrender thing that’s going to be absolutely clearly articulated starting in 1943 after the Casablanca conference. But from their very get go, he’s basically saying to the Japanese, we’re not negotiating with you guys. Yeah,

Dan LeFebvre  1:16:01

we tried that not happen again. You know,

Jon Parshall  1:16:04

this is what’s going to happen. We are going to dictate the terms of the end of this war we and only we and so, you know, buckle up because, because here we go. The other thing I would like to say before we wrap this up is that, you know, Pearl Harbor continues to be the source of conspiracy theories. You know that Roosevelt knew, Roosevelt, you know, deliberately got us into this war. And this is another aspect of of this battle that just won’t die. And again, there are clear analogs here between Pearl Harbor and 911, in that, I think we as Americans, being a very large, powerful country, just have difficulty wrapping our heads around when an undervalued, poor enemy somehow gets the drop on us, you know. And the truth of the matter is, of course, that nasty surprises are the or the currency of war. I mean, that’s that always happens, and sometimes even the poorer opponent out thinks you and we hate to admit that, right? So you look at 911, I had to be an inside job, you know, Earl harbor get the same thing just from a what do I want to say a simplicity standpoint, if you posit that FDR did want to get the us into a war against Japan, there were a lot easier ways of going about doing it than getting half of your battle fleet sunk and killing 2500 guys at Pearl Harbor, right? We knew that there were Japanese troop convoys at sea in, you know, the the China Sea, that was basically the waterway that runs between China and the Philippines. All you had to do, all you had to do was send one or two American destroyers out into those waterways from Manila and snoop around some of those Japanese troop convoys. I guarantee you the Japanese would have sunk those ships, and you’ve now got your Cass belly, okay, and you’ve killed 200 American boys, as opposed to 2500 and gotten rid of five battleships, two of them permanently. So I just think that the notion that FDR knew this was coming again, just given the hodgepodge of intelligence that we had, that’s nonsense. And furthermore, even if he had nefarious goals, there were much easier ways of accomplishing those nefarious goals than getting stomped on at Pearl Harbor.

Dan LeFebvre  1:18:47

Well before we do wrap up, there’s one, one thing I want to ask, because we talk about Torah. Torah. Torah today came out in 1970 We talked briefly about the other movie, Pearl Harbor, from 2001 31 years after this one that was still 23 years ago as we’re recording this in 2024 so I have a two part question for you. Do you think it’s time for another Pearl Harbor movie? And if so, let’s just say that they’re going to assume you hire you as the historical consultant. Yeah. How would you approach it differently? Yeah,

Jon Parshall  1:19:16

well, obviously the fuel tank myth is gonna go that’s got to invest a lot more in in CGI, right? I mean, really, what we, what I’d want to do is just have a better depiction of the attack sequences and a little bit more of the nuance around some of the, some of the traditional scapegoats, like Kermit Tyler, you know, let’s you know. But again, even within the context of Tora, Tora, Tora, which is a damn long movie, there’s always this difficulty in how do you convey nuance to an audience who only can really tolerate the introduction of so many characters and so. Many plot twists in the course of a two hour spiel. You know, it’s pretty tough to do.

Dan LeFebvre  1:20:04

It needs to be a series, is what you’re saying, Yeah, kinda,

Jon Parshall  1:20:08

you know, yeah. Turn it into a mini series that probably would, would, would go much better. Well,

Dan LeFebvre  1:20:14

thank you so much for coming on the show to separate fact from fiction. Movie. Torah, Torah, Torah. I guess I lied in the last question before I let you go. Actually, I have two more questions for you. The first is for listeners who have only seen the movie, I want to learn more about the true story. Where would you recommend they start? And then secondly, can you give us a peek into what you’re working on

Jon Parshall  1:20:31

now, you know, there’s a mountain of books on Pearl Harbor, and so I would say, you know, Walter Lords Day of Infamy remains very good from a narrative standpoint. I don’t have a copy of that up here. Gordon prangs, At Dawn We Slept. Still remains sort of a standard. You know, it’s pretty, pretty hefty, but if you want to get into it, that’s a good one. If you’re just going out to Hawaii and you’re going to tour Pearl Harbor, and you want a quick, much thinner, little trimmer, I would say, Mark stills Tora. Tora Tora. He’s using a lot of the latest research on the battle. He’s a really solid author. I recommend him highly if you’re interested in sort of the Japanese side of the battle. HP, Wilmots, Pearl Harbor. This is kind of harder to find, but he is working with a Japanese co author, a very fine naval historian, a guy named Arawa tomatsu, who’s really, really good. So this is a good one too, but in terms of the definitive multi volume series that is still in the process of being published, now, there’s this group effort by my friend Mike Wanger and some of his co authors who are using incredible photography from the battle. Mike does such good work in that regard, and he’s also really good with the Japanese sources. So this multi volume series that is coming out from Naval Institute Press, we’re still waiting for the volume that’s going to actually talk about the attack on the anchorage itself, but when it comes out, I think it’s going to be really wonderful, really definitive, because it really does dig into the Japanese sources. So yeah, Wenger, Bob Cressman and Jon divegilio, and also Sam Tanga is another, their fourth co author that they just roped into this project. These are tremendous in terms of what I’m doing. I have been working for the last 16 years on a new history of the year, 1942 basically talking about the entire war, Pacific Eastern Front, Mediterranean Battle of the Atlantic, the whole schmear, looking at how the Allies turned around their train wrecks during that year. Because the year starts out, it’s just a dumpster fire. You know, Pearl Harbor, calamity all across the Pacific, bad things happening in the eastern run. It’s just, it’s terrible. And yet, by the end of the year, with the battle of El Alamein, the landings in North Africa and torch our successes in Guadalcanal, and, of course, the counter attack around Stalingrad, that war has been turned on to an entirely new path. How did that happen? There’s a lot of stuff going on under the hood. So yeah, I will be publishing that book in the first quarter of 2026 and if you want to learn more about it, you can visit the website, at www 1942 book.com, and yep, sign up for the for the mailing list. I promise not to spam you, but give you occasional updates on how the book is progressing, but I’m looking forward to

Dan LeFebvre  1:23:35

getting it out. Fantastic. I’ll make sure to add a link to that in the show notes. Thank you again, so much for your time. Jon, appreciate it

Jon Parshall  1:23:40

Yeah, great to be here.

Dan LeFebvre  02:40

Our movie today is a little different than what we normally cover here on the podcast. But even though it doesn’t claim to be based on a true story, Casablanca is not only set during the historical backdrop of World War Two. It was also released during the war as well. So if you were to give Casablanca a letter grade for its historical accuracy overall, what would it

 

Bob LeMent  03:09

get? I think it was pretty I think it was pretty close. So I think I would give it somewhere around the B. I don’t want to say b minus but I’ll give it. I don’t want to do minuses or pluses, so let’s just do B, A,

 

Dan LeFebvre  03:21

B, okay. That’s good. That’s good. I mean, again, it is one of the things. I’m kind of surprised that it’s that high, being that it was released during the war as well. And we know that there’s a lot of propaganda films that get released and such like that. So I’m glad to hear that it was pretty, pretty close,

 

Bob LeMent  03:36

I think. So I think, yeah, there’s a lot of instances there where they were, you know, pretty close to what was happening and, and since it was on right, everything was happening at that time, it’s kind of interesting that that they would, you know, put all that out there and not try to spin it too much, one way or the other. So, plus, to be honest, the movie, in parts of the movie were extremely vague. So, so it’s accurate in the sense that I think that’s probably what the times were, right? So you didn’t want to, you didn’t want to go one way or the other too much, because you didn’t know it was going

 

Dan LeFebvre  04:11

to happen. That’s true. And I guess I didn’t think about it until just now too like, they also didn’t know a lot of that stuff. Like, we didn’t know a lot of what actually happened until after the war anyway, right? And so that’s another element to it, that, yeah, okay, yeah,

 

Bob LeMent  04:27

if you because they were, I mean, this was the whole story of Casa block is trying to get away from the war, right? So people are using this as a as a point of departure, more than a point of arrival and and trying to get away from all of the, you know, the madness of Europe at the time and, and so I think it is. It’s fairly accurate in that portrayal. Obviously, it was much more gruesome and horrible than its portrayal. Trade, but that’s Hollywood, right? So they’re not, they’re not going to show all well at the time. That’s Hollywood. Now, maybe they would be more gruesome. But back then, it was all very, you know, clean and, and you know, all, they’re running away and, but it’s not like, you know, people were tortured and on screen and so forth. So, yeah, which you know, I’m sure happened even in Casablanca. You

 

Dan LeFebvre  05:26

mentioned getting away from the war. And at the beginning of the movie, it explains the storyline of why this is taking place in Casablanca. Basically, it says that the outbreak of World War Two in Europe, the civilians are trying to escape the war by heading to America. And to do that, they need to get to Lisbon, Portugal. Some people could get there directly, but because of the war, the movie explains that not everyone could get to Lisbon directly, so they had to kind of take this roundabout path from Paris to Marseille, across the Mediterranean to Iran and Algeria, and then across the northern coast of Africa to Casablanca, which is in Morocco. And then from there, people would try to barter or buy an exit visa from Casablanca to go the 380 or 615 kilometers, as the crow flies to Lisbon to then ultimately get to America. Was that an actual path that people took to try to escape the war in Europe? I

 

Bob LeMent  06:16

believe so, yeah. So I think that was the that was a path. It’s kind of like a political end around, right? So you couldn’t just, you couldn’t just go, Hey, I’m in Paris, which is a major metropolitan city, you know, even then, right? And just, I’m gonna hop on a plane and go to America. That wasn’t gonna happen. And so they had to go someplace, to go someplace, to go someplace in order to get where they needed to go. And so, yeah, this was a weird little stop along the way, as it were, in order to get to America, because you couldn’t just go straight. You couldn’t go, I mean, you couldn’t fly to London, right? So there was no way out of the situation other than going through, you know, kind of these backwater places in order to avoid the political, you know, devastation. Maybe we’ll say that was going on at that time because of, because of the war and all the different things that were happening that. So, yeah, I think the interesting thing to me, for all, I mean, it’s very, you know, sugar coated for perspective from today and so forth. But, you know, at the time, I think it was, it was deemed fairly tough in its portrayal of things that were happening for the for the general public. So there were, you know, they had guns, and they were Nazis, and, you know, people were, were, you know, running for their lives, a lot of them. And it didn’t really broach the, you know, the elephant in the room, which was the Jewish persecution so much. These were just, you know, when we say run of the mill people, I don’t think that’s the right word to say, but they, they weren’t in the Holocaust aspect of things. They were, you know, kind of the, the folks who were the, you know, bystanders who got caught up in everything and so And obviously some of them were as we watched the movie, some of them were against the war against the Nazis and so forth. But it really didn’t talk about the Holocaust so much in that regard. Now, if you look into the movie as who was working on the movie. It talks a lot about the Holocaust, right? So there are people who worked on this movie who knew things were going on and wanted to betray that. You know, this was not a good situation, without being so overt as to say, you know that this was happening.

 

Dan LeFebvre  09:01

Can you give an example of what you mean by that? I’m

 

Bob LeMent  09:03

so curious. You’re just saying there was, there were people in the movie who have escaped the Nazis, and there are extras in the movie, and there are characters in the movie, there are actors in the movie, and there’s also in the movie, there are folks who were the Jewish faith, who knew things were going on and they were working on this, as you know, I don’t know, I can’t get into their heads. But as this was going on, you can’t help but think, yes, we need to expose these people as, as you know, not being good people and but in a kind of, you know, non overt way, right? This is a bad situation. They couldn’t talk about, you know, the Holocaust or anything, but they could talk about how bad the war is. And so I think that was also. You know, if you look, you know, kind of an underlying thing. I’m sure, if you were to ask any one of those folks who are working on it, that that would be, you know, a surreptitious goal of theirs is to, is to make light of the fact that this was happening, and you need to pay attention. Everybody is, this is you’re not going to be, you know, it’s going to get you as well. We’re just in the first line. So, yeah, yeah,

 

Dan LeFebvre  10:25

which, which kind of goes back to being released during the war. It’s it. I mean, now we think of it as a period piece, perhaps, but it was, it was that during that time, like it was going on right then. So it was a way of getting that message out. I didn’t think about that, that it would, yeah, it’s a, not a documentary, but it’s telling what’s going on right now, right?

 

Bob LeMent  10:46

Yeah, if you take into consideration another movie that was, you know, kind of during this time period as well, earlier than this time period, actually, by a little bit, but, you know, very much in tune with kind of the things that were going on The Great Dictator, Charlie Chaplin, there was no ambiguity that he says. Hitler is a horrible person. This one’s a little more ambiguous. But The Great Dictator, you know, it was shouting from the rafters, hey everybody, you know, this is not going to be good for anybody. So this was, oddly enough, you would think that that would have been later, but it was earlier than Casablanca. And Casablanca is kind of the, you know, let’s get everybody on board with this politically and move our, you know, things forward, our position forward, but not be, you know, too upsetting in the political situation. I think so. Well,

 

Dan LeFebvre  11:55

movie doesn’t really talk about dates very much, but there is one line of dialog that mentions it being December of 1941 of course, we know Pearl Harbor was attacked in December of 1941 that brought the United States into the war. The movie doesn’t even mention that at all. What it does mention is things like Free France and Vichy France, and in case of Casablanca, specifically, they call it unoccupied France. But can you fill in a little more historical context? Because we’re, you know, recording this long after World War Two, obviously. And again, this was released in 1942 so just after the timeline of the movie itself in December of 1941 so can you give us some more historical context that we don’t see in the movie, that the audiences would have known then about these fragmentations of France and the location there in Casablanca?

 

Bob LeMent  12:38

That’s a that’s a good and I wish I could give you, like, a really detailed thing, but I can’t. But off my what I can’t tell you is that, basically, you know, Nazi Germany occupied France, and there was a point in time where, you know, everything’s a mess. That’s where the French resistance comes into existence because they don’t want to be occupied and, and if you, if you remember, in the movie, they’re talking about these papers that are signed by Charles de Gaulle, right? So those are very, very valuable, right? Because this is at a point in in transition where the Nazis are invading in French the French government is kind of going along with it a bit in order to, kind of, you know, not everybody get killed, I guess, and and so that’s why they, when they mention that in the movie, that’s why it’s so important, because it’s, they still have some, I won’t say, power, but they have some influence over the situation at this point. And because, you know, not too long after this, Charles de Gaulle, you know, who cares if he signed anything, right? Because the Nazis can, you know, totally occupy everything and batten down the hatches in France is, is part of Germany, in essence, during the war at that time. So this is that weird political time where they’re trying to figure things out. And the interesting thing is is, I believe, not too far after this time is also when they were trying to get Britain to sign on to something and allowed the Nazis to occupy them as well. In effect, right? A political strategy without, without having to be a military strategy. But they were moving towards the military strategy. And said, Hey, if you want to just surrender, like France did, go right ahead. We’ll let you, and they’ll be part of Germany as well, right? And so this movie portrays a really interesting time where people could still move, you know, even though not freely, but move somewhat by this kind of political end around going through northern Africa. And so it really is, and I think maybe that might be part of the attraction for the movie for the age. Is as it were, is because it’s portraying a time that was so, you know, interesting now, in hindsight, at the time, probably so, you know, incredibly frightful of what was happening. And can you imagine, I mean, you and I live in the United States. Can you imagine if all of a sudden something happens like, well, you can’t go, you know, if we go into the man of the High Castle, you can’t go past the Rockies, because we’re occupied on this side by one group, and the other side across the Rockies says is the other group. So you can’t do, can’t do that. We can’t even fathom that. But this was happening to in Europe, and it was happening to these people, and it just historically, looking back at is like, how can you you know? How can you fathom that? How can we, you know, as a generation beyond all of this, a couple generations beyond our list. But how can you, you know, bring that into your mind, because we’ve never had to experience but here you can see it. I mean, albeit very, you know, light in its presentation, a lot of people get killed and whatnot, but it’s not gruesome. It really is an interesting movie for that. And I reason I brought this up because I recently watched it before I contacted you, in amazingly, a very well made movie, and it moves right. So if you think of 1942 you know, a lot of movies are. Nobody watches a lot of movies from that time period because they’re not very the pace is very, very slow, and this one actually has a pretty good pace, man, that doesn’t answer the other part of the question, but it’s very interesting to me that this movie was so well paced and so and you kind of buy it, you know, you’re into the the what happens to These characters, because it is kind of an interesting situation, and then the corruption, right? So, I mean, for all intents and purposes, Rick is a gangster. He’s he’s selling access, right? There were other people selling access as well, you know, you want to get out of here. Well, guess what? You know, I mean, he was a nice gangster, but gangster nonetheless.

 

Dan LeFebvre  17:30

Yeah. Well, that leads right into my next question, because I have a feeling I already know the answer to this, but a lot of movies change the names or make up characters completely. But I have to ask like Rick Blaine, Ilsa Lund, Victor Laszlo, are kind of the three main characters. And then there’s the local French prefect of the police, Captain Renault, and then the German military officer, major Strasser, is kind of, there’s the main characters in the movie. Are any of them based on real people?

 

Bob LeMent  17:57

It’s based off of a play I’m trying to remember the title off the top of my head here, everyone can meet, everyone can go to Rick’s place. I think I can’t remember the I don’t know if you’re familiar with that play. I’m blanking on it here for some reason. But I don’t think that any I think they’re kind of a conglomerate of people who are going through there. I mean, the French, you know, Jardin person there he was, you know, he was somebody, but I don’t think he was that person with that name. And he probably, he was a gangster as well, if you think about it, because he was playing with people’s lives. And, you know, you can leave, you can’t leave. Where’s the money, you know, all that kind of stuff. But I think they’re all kind of a conglomeration of things that happened during that time, rather than actual people of the time. So it’s not a true story in any way, other than it’s based on experiences. Everybody’s welcome at Rick’s place. I think that’s what it’s called. Okay,

 

Dan LeFebvre  19:05

okay, yeah, and that makes sense. I mean, a lot of movies just completely make up characters like that too, well.

 

Bob LeMent  19:13

Plus, there was a time where I don’t think that they really wanted to do that, to be honest with you. I mean, can you imagine if you were, you were, you’re still probably outed

 

Dan LeFebvre  19:24

by the Hollywood movie. It’s still going on. That’s true. That’s true. That’s very, very true. Yeah.

 

Bob LeMent  19:33

So like, Hey, I’m not. You don’t use my name. Hey, I’m I’m still trying to make money on this situation, exactly,

 

Dan LeFebvre  19:39

and especially for, you know, according to the movie Victor Laszlo, is part of the underground fighting against the Nazis. We never, we never really find out exactly what his role is. There was a point at line of dialog where he says something like, you know, I’m privileged to be one of the great leaders, or one of the leaders of a great movement. And then we see that major strass is trying to use, um. Safe pass, or he’s trying to get safe passage out of Casablanca, and major Strasser is trying to use that to bribe him into giving up the other leaders of the resistance across major European cities. So we get the idea that Laszlo knows, you know, is very well connected with the resistance. And then there’s another part in the movie where Strasser is speaking directly with Laszlo and tells him that he’s an escaped prisoner of the Third Reich, and that’s why Strasser is there in Casablanca, tasked with making sure that Laszlo stays in Casablanca and doesn’t leave. But as I was watching it, I was I couldn’t help but think, why wouldn’t Strasser just take Laszlo into custody the moment that he sees him? The movie seems to imply the reason for that is because Casablanca is in unoccupied France, like we talked about. But looking at this from a historical lens, did the Germans behave differently in unoccupied France as they did in occupied territories? Yeah,

 

Bob LeMent  20:49

I think so. So, you know, we don’t have the benefit of living through it, which I’m glad. But yeah, I mean, there was weird political alliances and weird political happenings all during World War Two, you know, as it as it kind of went built up, right? And so, yes, I would say that there. I mean, I don’t think that they were as nice as they are in this movie, right? You know, where, where they’re singing, they’re singing the German, I can’t even pronounce it, Dirac and Rhine. And then they start singing le Marseille, you know, over it. And it was kind of like, you know, a rivalry for football teams, or something like

 

Dan LeFebvre  21:33

a West Side Story,

 

Bob LeMent  21:35

right? You know that? I’m sure that didn’t go on, you know, and go over very well, but no there. I think there was a they held to the political agreements because they, you know, it’s, it’s much easier to like when friends surrenders, right? It’s much easier to take over a country that way than it is to bomb them and shoot them and and go through all the fighting. And so I think at this point in the game, the Nazis wanted to do that. So they were probably on, you know, for lack of a better term, their best behavior. And so then, yeah, so it kind of makes sense that, I also think that it’s more of a an amalgam, right? So I don’t know that they just did one on one, let’s watch people not get out of the country, kind of a situation. But I think it’s more, you know, looking at the trying to build that into the storyline, that was probably the easiest, easiest way to do that. I think that they had people stationed, and they would communicate and say so and so is going to be in your area. Keep an eye on them, kind of just like the just like the French Jordan was, was keeping an eye on everybody and trying to make his money and live, live the good life in Casablanca and so, yeah, but I don’t know that it was just they were chasing each other on but hey, maybe, maybe they did. But I I couldn’t imagine, but you’re right, but you mentioned, you know, he’s like part of something again, all very vague, all very vague. They didn’t say the resistance. They didn’t say that. We don’t even know why Rick is there. They never explain why he’s got all this set up, other than it’s obviously lucrative, but he obviously didn’t move in yesterday. He’s been there for a while, and he’s set up shop. And this, to me, it was kind of implied that he’d been there for quite some time, and he’s taken advantage of the situation, as opposed to, he moved there to do this particular, you know, work. I think he was doing a lot of other stuff, and this just happened to pop up, and he’s like, Yeah, let’s, let’s make some money on this new idea.

 

Dan LeFebvre  23:56

Like you said it as a gangster, it’s take advantage of the situation, good

 

Bob LeMent  23:59

money. These people want to get out of here. So yeah, I mean, obviously he’s got a heart of gold in the movie, because he does help help them escape, essentially. But yeah, I think so. And I think it’s all you know, kind of set up to be, not strictly historical, but somewhat historical,

 

Dan LeFebvre  24:26

yeah, yeah. No, that makes sense. And you mentioning Rick and kind of his backstory, we hear little bits and pieces throughout the movie. It’s, he’s born in New York City, so he’s an American. But then in 1935 it talks about how he ran guns in Ethiopia, and in 1936 he fought in Spain on the loyal side. But that’s as that’s as detailed as the movie gets. Do we know from history if there were things that happened in Ethiopia in 1935 and Spain in 1936 that the movie might be alluding to with Rick’s backstory? I

 

Bob LeMent  24:56

wish I knew the answer for you. I think that those things did happen, from my limited understanding on, on that aspect of things that those were, you know, they kind of star trekked it, you know what I mean. So they, they took real, cherry picked things out of history to put into his story. You know, like Efraim Cochrane, you know, he’s the person before him was, you know, Isaac Newton and all these real people. And then you get the Efraim Cochrane, and he breaks the warp barrier. But so if you’re familiar with that, sorry. And then, so, yeah, I think that those were actual things that happened. I took it that, I did not run that down necessarily. Sorry,

 

Dan LeFebvre  25:43

no, no, yeah, that makes sense, though. I mean, because, again, it’s alluding to there’s something vague there, kind of like with the resistance, or that that element and that they give it. One of the reasons it stood out to me was because it gave dates and places where most of the movie doesn’t really do that kind of stuff. And so, you know, the that they did that makes me think, yeah, kid, it must be something there that he was involved in. But then it again, alludes, since it mentioned December of 1941 like you had said, he’s already been there in Casablanca, and that was kind of the next thing that he was doing. And so he was doing things in other places, kind of behind the scenes. And then now he’s in in Casablanca. He’s been there, apparently, since after 1936 or at some point after that.

 

Bob LeMent  26:28

It’s kind of like a gun for hire, in a way, in the earlier stories. And now he’s older, and so this was the new venture that he took on because, you know, maybe he didn’t want to shoot people anymore, or at least not as many. We talked about him a little

 

Dan LeFebvre  26:45

bit, but I do want to ask a little bit more specifically about the relationship between Captain Renault and major Strasser in the movie, that’s the Renault is the French law enforcement. Strasser is the Nazi official, and again, Casablanca being in unoccupied France, but major Strasser is welcomed by Renault, and many of the locals in movie calls it unoccupied France. So it’s not occupied. I’m assuming that’s referring to, you know, not occupied by the Nazis, but then they’re still welcomed. What would the relationship have been like? Would the Nazis actually have been welcomed by local law enforcement? Did they kind of, do you think they foresaw what was going to happen, even though it wasn’t occupied by the Germans, but they’re like, Oh, we better appease them, because it’s coming. Or what do you think was happening there?

 

Bob LeMent  27:27

My guess would be that they’re, you know, obviously stuff’s happening. They’re seeing things and so forth, and, and just like Britain, you know, France was colonial, colonialist, right? And, and if, going forward in history, you know, part of the reason Vietnam became such a mess was because of colonialism, and that was French influenced. And so I think that they, you know, it’s again, it’s the times and the political thing. It’s, I don’t know that they would say welcomed as much as tolerated, more than likely. And so because what are you going to do? You don’t want them, you know, the the powers in Germany to say, Okay, well now we’re just going to take over this area, because it’d probably a pretty easy job. And obviously it was because they did take over most of North Africa by the time World War Two chugged along. That’s the whole Rommel aspect of things, and the Desert Fox and all that took over huge part of Africa for the for the Nazis. And so, you know, you, everybody’s playing it cool, right? So everything gets to happen and and they kind of just, they in the movie, they go into, you know, everybody falls into cronyism and, and, you know, being corrupt. And so, you know, the Germans money spends as well as the whoever else is coming through there, so you play both ends to get the money. So, yeah, I can imagine that that, you know, I don’t know that they would say open arms, but I think for sure, there was not any, you know, they’re like, Yeah, whatever, yeah, you can come in here and drink as well.

 

Dan LeFebvre  29:20

Yeah, yeah. I like the way you say that, that they, you know, they weren’t necessarily welcome, but they were tolerated. And the idea of, it sounds like they’re trying to survive, and, like, with Renault being that, you know, the the leader the law enforcement there, but also recognizing that he really doesn’t, I mean, if he does the wrong thing, like, I mean, they’re going to attack anyway, and, you know, so might as well just make the best of the situation that you have. He’s

 

Bob LeMent  29:45

corrupt, and so he’s trying to, you know, cash in. Because, I mean, guess what, he’s at the port of exit. So the going, it’s too tough. I’ve got these papers with Charles de Gaulle’s signature on them, and I. Will, you know, make my exit at the right time. And so it’s it. It really is, you know, even though, when you watch it, it’s not very it’s not like it is today, but it’s very corrupt situation. You know, in I think it’s portrayed in the film as palatable as corruption can be portrayed at the time period, you know, they’re not going to be, you know, overly terrible, you know, cutting off pinkies and whatnot. So, you know. But I think for the time period, this was, this was, you know, corruption at its best. You

 

Dan LeFebvre  30:40

mentioned the letters from De Gaulle, and you talked about that briefly before too, but that is that’s a core concept in the movie, that these letters of transit were signed by General de Gaulle, and they there’s also mentions of Captain Renault having exit visas that he’s signing, but they’re the letters of transit from De Gaulle are different because the movie specifically says that they cannot be rescinded or even questioned, which, of course, applies to me. Like, okay, well, of course, the only the people are going to want this are the ones that the Nazis would probably want to question. That’s right,

 

Bob LeMent  31:15

don’t question me, right? That that don’t want to have any, you know, they’re trying to skate right out of there without any kind of problems, whereas, you know, the other ones are like, maybe it’s going to work. Maybe it’s not going to work. So

 

Dan LeFebvre  31:31

is there any truth to the concept of those letters that we know

 

Bob LeMent  31:34

of, that we know of? I do believe that that is true, at least to a point, right? So that was, those were something that was available at the time, until, basically, De Gaulle stepped down and and so a lot of people got out via that mechanism, right? So that was, you know, you when you watch a lot of these movies, World War two movies and everything there’s with all these different things that are happening in corruption and everything this like Schindler’s List, right? So the list was there to save people because, well, they need to make ammunition, you know, munitions and so forth. And so Oscar Schindler was collecting people and saying that they were invaluable, and that would so I think all with all this corruption and everything going on that was, you know, the corruption on the good side of things, where it was helping people get out of the situation and, and, I mean, it’s happened since then in all kinds of different situations. And so, yeah, I believe so. And in the Now, as far as the the the officer, the French officer, have signed in those, I don’t know about that, that that may be part of the invention to show his corruptness. But I think when you’re when they’re invoking a real person, right? Charles de Gaulle and so forth. I think all that is factual to a point, obviously not, not forever, you know, I’m sure that he didn’t give it to those people or anything, but, you know, but the

 

Dan LeFebvre  33:16

concept of them being a thing, yeah? Which, again, goes back to something that I think is important to understand when watching this movie, is that it was released in 1942 during the war as well, and so the time period is very different than if we were to make a movie today of the same story we would we would know a lot more about The stuff going on behind the scenes and the but also, just like the political, the political side of it would be very different. I

 

Bob LeMent  33:47

think, I mean, we have a war going on over in the Ukraine, right? I don’t think that we know more than they knew

 

Dan LeFebvre  33:57

why. But I mean, like we would know more about what happened in Casablanca in World War Two, if the movie was made today, now, is what, yeah, but, but, because this was made during the war, they didn’t know a lot of the political mechanizations Behind the scenes that were going on. They just knew that there were these things that were going on, and so maybe that’s why they were so vague in a lot of it.

 

Bob LeMent  34:18

But they’re literally people in this movie, who took the route now there, yeah, so they knew, right? And they’re working on the movie. So I think the vagueness had more to do with the political climate probably than it had anything to do with giving away any secrets. Because they they talk, and there’s a, if you look on IMDb, they talk about when they did the whole, you know, singing thing, from the to the LE Marseille and everything, they were literally the people who were in the scene were crying because they had gone through this, you know, they had escaped. And now. Are, you know, in the film industry, and they’re trying to get by right during this time period, and they’re crying in this scene, because this is, this is so personal and and so, you know, I think I don’t know that they necessarily all the inside knowledge that they would have had made it into the movie. But, you know, there was known things. And just like The Great Dictator that was, they knew that stuff was happening, as far as the Holocaust was concerned, way back then, and that that Charlie Chaplin put into the movie, you know, insinuate, but it wasn’t totally proven. And, I mean, some people probably knew, but not everybody, and so they were, it’s a whole weird political climate that everybody was trying to navigate because that was so contentious, right? So you’re dealing with, you know, at this point, we call him a mad man, right in Hitler and the Nazi machine, and you’re trying to not get overly involved in in having everybody be killed in a war. And it was just massive. And so, you know, you say we were brought into the war after Pearl Harbor, right? And but we were involved in the war well before Pearl Harbor, because we were, yeah, we were supplying the British with all kinds of good stuff, because they were, at that point, they were the major power against the Nazis. And to this day, we’re supplying Ukraine with all sorts of good stuff in that skirmish. And so it’s not, you know, it’s not as if all this kind of just poof, you know, happened in a moment. So all this is, you know, ongoing. And I think that’s part of where you talk about Rick and his, his weird background and so forth, all all through history. This stuff doesn’t just happen overnight. Typically, it percolates and brews and and then things pop here and there, and then finally, it, you know, comes above the fray there, and everybody becomes aware of it. And so, yeah, I think that this was is like that. So we’re just emerging into the broader political ideologies that came out of all this. And at this point, when this was made, still not so sure where everybody’s at. I mean, people were taking meetings with Hitler from the United States all the way up until war was declared, right? And I’m talking, you know, known people. So it is weird. And I think the interesting thing about this movie is, is the ambiguity of all this, right? So it’s so ambiguous in parts that I think that that plays well to the politics that was happening, because they all had to get along still, but things were happening, but, you know, you didn’t, and people were obviously fleeing, but it wasn’t like it was a full blown situation, yet, kind of

 

Dan LeFebvre  38:30

like you’re saying before, just there are a lot of people that were tolerating each other and not not welcoming or but just a lot of toleration going on, even on the political side too. Yeah, it

 

Bob LeMent  38:39

was in and then you think of where it’s at in Morocco. I mean, it’s not Paris, right? Even in 1942 Morocco is not Paris. And so it really is not a major metropolitan, you know, forward thinking kind of place back then, and so all this is kind of, you know, a microcosm, terrible to say, the Gilligan’s Island of World War Two, right there in Casablanca.

 

Dan LeFebvre  39:15

Any other example? There? Nice, because,

 

Bob LeMent  39:17

because Gilligan’s Island was the microcosm of the rich and the poor and the working class and and everything. And that was how it was built, right? And so with the movie, that’s what they kind of built with this too, was, you know, you have people taking advantage. You have people who are trying to get away, and you have people who are just living there. And you have, you know, the waiters and so forth, that that the bar, who are, you know, just trying to to get through right in. And so it is. It is a microcosm for, I think the times

 

Dan LeFebvre  39:51

makes sense. You mentioned people kind of taking advantage. And other other than Rick, who we kind of had referred to before, there’s another guy named Ferrari, and he. Runs the big competitor to Rick’s, which is it called the Blue parrot. And according to the movie, he’s got a monopoly on the black market. At one point, talks about how buying and selling humans is the leading commodity in Casablanca. Was human trafficking a major issue in Casablanca during World War

 

Bob LeMent  40:17

Two. I hate to tell you this human trafficking still a major issue. Dan,

 

Dan LeFebvre  40:22

fair point,

 

Bob LeMent  40:25

yeah, I don’t know on, I don’t know what I would I would say that, chances are there was some of that going on. I don’t know to what extent, and so forth. It’s interesting that if you look at the two characters, you know, Rick looks very American, and then the the for our Ferrari guy looks he’s trying to acclimate. He’s wearing a fez. He doesn’t, he shouldn’t be wearing a fez. If you look at him, he’s, he’s got a suit on so forth. He’s wearing a fez. I mean, he’s trying to be a little more local, but he’s obviously not. He’s obviously, you know, American or British background so forth. As far as the human trafficking at the time, I That’s a good question. I wish I had a better answer for you. I would say that that unfortunately, it’s still an issue today. And so chances are, if that was the route that other people were taking, then that’s the route that they would take for that as well. The interesting thing that I found was that there was a lot of Jew Jewish people in Morocco, in that part of Northern Africa, and so then they, obviously, you know, wanted to leave because of what was happening, which, you know, I don’t know that it, it really dawned on me that’s a little bit of some research that I did. It was interesting to note that, because now, when we think about that, we don’t think of it as being particularly an area where a lot of Jewish people would be so that I found that interesting. Yeah,

 

Dan LeFebvre  42:14

were they? Was it something they kind of, they were trying to escape from Europe, or was it a community that was already there. Oh, okay, okay, see, I would have expected that. Okay, there, everybody’s fleeing Europe. And, yeah, you know what?

 

Bob LeMent  42:27

It was already part of the already part of the community. They would live there. And so, you know, this wasn’t something they moved there. I mean, obviously, I’m sure there’s a wave of people during that time period. But no talks about the them being, having a community there. I wonder if they

 

Dan LeFebvre  42:46

were involved in, think of like with Victor Laszlo and being part of the resistance, if then he connected to, you know, the local community, because they knew what was going on and helping people escape. It seems like it could be a logical connection.

 

Bob LeMent  42:58

It seems like it would be a good connector. But they don’t go into that too much with the movie at all. They don’t actually get into the, you know, genetic stuff that the Nazis were into for that time, too much in the movie. And again, I think that was just the political climate, you know, they didn’t want to to broach that throughout

 

Dan LeFebvre  43:25

the movie. It takes place just across a few days in the movie. But there was a flashback sequence with Rick and Ilsa in Paris, and that’s, there’s artillery in the distance can be heard. And then Rick mentioned, you know, the German 77th is about 35 miles away. And then there’s another scene reading newspaper and talk about how the Germans are going to be in Paris by Wednesday or Thursday at the least. How well do you think the movie did just explaining the German invasion of Paris from the perspective of citizens like Rick and Ilsa who were living there at the time,

 

Bob LeMent  43:52

I don’t think they did a very good job, really. Okay? I mean, they talk about that and everything, but it’s always at a distance, right? And so, you know, it’s, it’s as if, well, we’re above all this. So it’s just, you know, the unlucky people, or the poor people are getting bombed or whatever, because we’re here in this hotel and we’re doing fine, where we know it wasn’t like that, you know, it was whenever they took over Paris, then there was fighting and so forth. And, I mean, you know, it was indiscriminate, right? It was wherever the fighting was happening. It wasn’t like they said, well, we can’t go over by the Ritz because, you know, all the rich people are there. So I think they, you know, it was a light way to bring it into the script, I think, but not really, you know, if you watch, you know, other movies, like Saving Private Ryan so forth, and you see the bombed out buildings and people still living in them. I think that’s a little bit more realistic portrayal of how things happened, where, you know, fighting. Happens. There’s so much, you know, just ancillary destruction, and people who aren’t even involved in the war dying, and then their family has to carry on, and all they’ve got is what’s left. And so, yeah, it was very, you know, the whole movie is very light on the realism, I think, in that, in that aspect of things, yeah. And then also, you know, they never went to Paris, obviously, so because they couldn’t at that time.

 

Dan LeFebvre  45:35

Oh, the Germans you’re talking about, yeah, no, I

 

Bob LeMent  45:38

mean the movie, they didn’t. They were all in the studio in Hollywood.

 

Dan LeFebvre  45:41

Oh well, right, yeah. Oh yeah, that’s a good point. Yeah, yeah, that was a good point. I didn’t even think about that

 

Bob LeMent  45:48

Morocco. They weren’t anywhere they were. So the whole movie, and one of the aspects of the movie is, whenever they are at the airfield, and the we’re gonna get on the plane, and everything that was in that was indoors, because they couldn’t film outside during the war at night, because Hollywood itself was under alert, you know. So one of the things is the the plane is a model constructed, and they actually that one of the great stories trivia pieces from Casablanca is the plane is a model. And the people who, when they get you see them by the plane, they’re children in they’re dressed up as adults in order to get scale right, so to make the plane look bigger, because they could not film at an airfield, because the they were not allowed to have lights at night unless they were needed. So everything was dark because they were worried about invasion. And that’s and we can spin off into the Battle of Los Angeles, which is kind of a famous thing in and of itself, during that time period where something was in the sky and they shot the heck out of it, and no one knows. Yeah, I mean, they assume it’s a weather balloon or something. But, of course, but it, you know, that’s how high alert the West Coast of the United States was, at that time was, you know, there were people who, that was the Civil Defense, and they would sit out all night and watch the skies and so, yeah, which is something you

 

Dan LeFebvre  47:31

won’t even think about, watching the movie like that, that. I mean, especially watching the movie now. I mean, you think of, okay, it was, it was during the war. But you don’t think about little things like that, of even the production of the movie having to change because of the war that was still going on as they were, as they were filming it, yeah,

 

Bob LeMent  47:47

and, and so that that was, you know, since it’s all basically a studio movie, it’s all pretty much inside. I they didn’t, I don’t, I think, I think all that was inside, even the airplane thing, it was just in a big sound stage off in the distance and so forth, because you never really see the sky. It’s night. Yeah, it’s foggy, exactly, but, yeah, it’s interesting, like that. So, I mean, if you think about it, even they were under the threat because they were restricted, yeah, no, that makes sense. Shoots couldn’t do night. Shoots couldn’t do couldn’t go to Morocco, couldn’t hang on Casablanca, actually, you know, they just had to do it all from from the studio and, you know, relative safety, I think, at the time,

 

Dan LeFebvre  48:40

in the final scene at the airport, the airport, the way it all kind of ends, you have the Rick giving the letters of transit to Victor and Elsa so that they can take the last plane out of Casablanca. Rick stays behind. He ends up killing the Nazi major Strasser and so that the Germans won’t try to pursue the plane. But then, In a surprise move at the very end, Captain Renault doesn’t turn in Rick, but then he orders his police officers to go look for the other usual suspects. I think he says like he has normal people that they round up whenever there’s something wrong. And it seems obvious that that ruse isn’t going to last very long. So at the very end of the movie, you see Rick and Renault, kind of walking off in the distance, heading towards a Free French garrison in Brazzaville, which, again, was kind of something that seemed pretty significant that they would just mention Brazzaville. Was there any significance to that mention at the end

 

Bob LeMent  49:26

of the movie? I think that it was a safe haven still at that point as things were falling apart. But everything was like dominoes and so and it is interesting that that our French authority, you know, kind of turncoat. But you know, they kind of allude to his, you know, French patriotism, I suppose, in a way, it probably, you know, money was also a factor, because there, throughout the movie, the Germans are never portrayed. They’re not portrayed as super or they’re portrayed as negative, but they’re not portrayed as being in on the game. You know what? I mean, Rick and the blue parrot, they’re all in on the game. And then the Nazis are kind of there, but they’re ruining the game, as it were. And so, yeah, I think that’s also part of it. Yeah, he’s, he’s kind of a which way the wind blows, kind of guy in the whole movie, anyhow. And so I think that was part of that deal. But yeah, I think they were just heading the next, next free spot and on their way to, you know, whatever, wherever they had to go next as things were falling apart. Just

 

Dan LeFebvre  50:44

assume Casablanca. They’re done in Casablanca and head to wherever, wherever is safe next, right,

 

Bob LeMent  50:49

wherever or whatever that can make money, you know, because, you know, we started out saying that they’re, they’re corrupt, they’re, they’re gangsters of the period. And that’s, that’s how they had the flow with the, you know, go with where the money’s going to be. Whenever it gets to be no money. What’s the point of hanging out there? Yeah, but it’s weird that he, he let them go. But that was the whole thing that he knew her, and they, you know, kind of had some kind of a history and, and that was a little bit vague as well about their whole history, but, but he would, would make that move and not just take the flight himself. He could easily just went with her to, hey, let’s leave this other guy to be caught by the Nazis. But he, you know, but that’s not a happy ending. So,

 

Dan LeFebvre  51:44

yeah, I think they try to the impression I got was it’s way of him being selfless, because he loves her, and so it’s kind of, we’ll always have Paris, and you always get that line too, right? You wouldn’t have that otherwise,

 

Bob LeMent  51:58

yeah, well, at the time though, I mean, that would be that was a super hopeful thing to say, right? Always, Paris has fallen. Yeah, true. We’re, we are probably incredibly lucky that the Eiffel Tower wasn’t dismantled to make tanks. You know what I mean? So always have Paris in this movie is an incredibly hopeful statement, because I think about that, yeah, because it was all happening, and they’re like, oh, you know, we had, you know, metal rationing and and everything in the United States, let alone in Britain and in Germany and other parts of Europe, right? So, yeah, we’re so lucky that most of the architecture wasn’t just destroyed in order to support the war effort,

 

Dan LeFebvre  52:59

which it I mean, if not just taken apart, but also, like you mentioned, just that so many buildings bombed out in cities bombed out and things like that. You know that artillery and bullets don’t care where they fall, right,

 

Bob LeMent  53:11

exactly. And then they and they were, and they were rebuilt in some areas, right? And so, yeah, there’s a lot of things in Paris that are from before the war that are still there, thankfully, because of the way that it played out, and but it could have won anyway, and so yeah, we’ll always have Paris. Is, you know, an inspiring thing to say, right? Because they don’t know we may not have Paris, yeah, at that point, yeah. Who knows what’s going to happen to Paris? All up in the air? Yeah,

 

Dan LeFebvre  53:46

that’s true. That’s true. Well, at this point, Casablanca, it’s like over 80 years old, so I doubt they’re going to do a remake. But just for the fun of it, if you were directing a remake of this film today, what’s something that you would do differently?

 

Bob LeMent  54:00

That’s That’s a tough one, because this is one of those movies that you can’t touch, right? Citizen Kane. I’m gonna remake Citizen Kane instead of a sled, he’s gonna have a motorbike. It’s not gonna work. I think if they were to try to remake it today, just in the trends for, you know, things and so forth, it would be, I think it would be more of a chase movie than it is in here. Here it’s very much a drama, very much, you know, there’s, you know, stuff happening, romance, kind of in the drama and all these people involved, and it’s but I think it would be like there’s a movie called salt with that was a chase movie or something like that. It probably would be like that, rather than being a drama like it is now and more just. People talking because, you know, you wanted to be on the run and and see the route. I think they could probably get away with that. They probably wouldn’t be able to call it Casablanca. It would just be one of the stops along the way. But, yeah, I think that’s probably what would happen. And then you could still have, you know, your Rick and and and your Renault and so forth in there to help you get through and make the the tension with Strasser and so forth. But, yeah, it wouldn’t be the same. I don’t know. The thing is, a lot of these older movies, it’s hard to remake just because storytelling has changed in what people want to see is changed. And so to me, that’s what makes this movie so interesting, is the fact that it still holds up, even though tastes and what people want to see have drastically changed over time. So it’s, it’s interesting that they that people still can go back to this one and say, you know, this is pretty good. I liked it,

 

Dan LeFebvre  56:11

yeah. And it’s interesting because it has, I mean, movies have been influenced, obviously, like we talked about, a lot of the history behind the movie, but there’s actually, I looked at, there’s actually a big cafe in Morocco, because that’s been inspired by the film, and things like that. And then we talk about things like, you know, we’ll always have parish. And there’s lines like, here’s looking at you kid, what are some of the favorite ways that you think Casablanca has kind of transcended the screen to make an impact on the world today?

 

Bob LeMent  56:39

Well, it’s given us archetypes, right? So this is a movie that set in motion, archetypes that you still have in film today, your gangster, your good gangster, is Rick right and Ferrari the blue parrot guy, Sydney, Green Street, his look right you when you see a bad person in the movie, they look like that guy, that actor, Sidney Green Street, I was just talking we watched it for my son is doing a film class in college. And we watched it for that reason, originally. And then I happened upon you and, and I’m like, do you recognize this persona? And he’s like, Well, I go, Well, mad, Max Fury Road. There is Sydney Green Street, sitting in the car as the oil guy, right? And he’s in the new one Furiosa as well. I mean, obviously it’s the post apocalyptic version of him, but it looks like him and so he, he transcended the movie so much that you can see it repeated again and again. You know the look of this person and his demeanor, right? He’s he’s not, he’s proper, but he’s evil. And then even Renault, the two faced authority. You know, all of these things have gone on to be repeated throughout cinema history since this was done. Now, there may be some ahead of this that helped with that too, but you can pretty much put your finger on this one and say, Yeah, this archetype came from, from this place, and we’re still using it in movies today. You know, it’s it’s interesting that that can have so much impact. And I think part of that is because it’s been revered and everyone has seen it. And so then, as you you know, anyone who does a creative endeavor right gets bits and pieces from everywhere, and the more popular something is, the more those bits and pieces infiltrate into the creativity. And so it really is, it really is something to see that and and think, you know people, people nowadays won’t even know it if they haven’t had to watch it for whatever reason. I mean, I don’t think that people actively go out and seek this movie nowadays unless they’re in it for other reasons, right? And films,

 

Dan LeFebvre  59:26

yeah, or

 

Bob LeMent  59:27

something like that, but, but there, it’s been influencing things all along the way in. So, yeah, so influential. It’s just interesting. It’s very which

 

Dan LeFebvre  59:38

ties in two things that you had talked about a moment ago where one it would be really hard to do a remake of something like this, because there are so many influences that you just have to get everything just right in order to know

 

Bob LeMent  59:51

how you get away with people would be, I mean, you had the way, I think another generation or so, unfortunately, it’ll be like, Oh, I. Can’t remember the title, but somebody they did a comical version of Hamlet the and it’s so they were trying to redo Hamlet, but it ended up the best way to do it was as a farce, and Woody Allen did this as a farce, right, played against Sam. That’s the way you have to do it. So, you know, you have to, you have to do the forest before. And I don’t think they’ll ever come back around. There’s always probably going to be someone, even in Hollywood, who’s like, we can’t make a buck off of this one, you know,

 

Dan LeFebvre  1:00:39

yeah, but it’ll still stick around. Because, I mean, what other movies are there that have, like, you said, I mean, you said it still holds up, right? And made, like, 80 years ago, another generation from now, it’ll probably still hold up too. So, yeah, you know, how many movies can say that they do that? And that makes sense why there’s so many things based on it? Not

 

Bob LeMent  1:00:57

a lot. I mean, weird. The weird thing is, it kind of goes in, if you look back, it kind of goes in waves a little bit. I mean, because the other thing we’re getting, I watched Maltese Falcon last night because my son needed to watch it for this class. I’ll watch it with it nice and so. So, yeah, we watch both of these. And they’re both from that time period, right? And they both are now have have transcended that time period. I would say Maltese Falcon is this. Casablanca is way better than Maltese Falcon, as far as a movie goes, as far as pacing, as far as story, as far as you know, drawing you into it and so forth is way better. But they captured, they both captured the imagination of people into, you know, today and will into the future. Because it’s just kind of that weird. It just so the funny thing is, we talk about it and we’re like, Humphrey Bogart is not the best actor, right? He’s not even that good, really, if you think about it, he’s kind of a one trick pony, and he’s the same in Maltese Falcon as he is in this but it’s the combination of things, right? It’s the combination of the story and and how it plays out and so forth in the direction of the movie that really bring it above the fray. And so to me, it, you know, I would say Renault is the best actor in this movie. He’s funny, he’s interesting. He plays the part so well, I mean, Claude Rains plays him and, and you’re like, if I met this guy in a bar, he’d be that guy. It totally convincing. You know what? I mean, whereas Humphrey Bogart, you’re like, I don’t know, and, but it’s interesting how the kind of the second tier players were all better actors than the top people. But unfortunately, in in the history of popular things, that’s usually the case. You can name almost any movie in the primary actor is probably not the best actor in that movie. It’s the second tier people who are all so much better at their jobs. The first thing comes to Maya Seinfeld, and he that he’s a horrible actor, but but everybody else in that cast is so much better in in that’s why it worked, because if you if they were all, if they were all lesser than Jerry, we wouldn’t be talking about it.

 

Dan LeFebvre  1:03:50

Yeah, yeah. No, that’s fair. That’s that. I think about that, but that’s a good point. Yeah,

 

Bob LeMent  1:03:55

so, but that’s, I think the same thing here, but, but at the time, he was the star power, and people really liked him. He was, I guess, kind of not really in every man. I don’t think he was. He was kind of portrayed as kind of a tougher guy, kind of a situation, kind of like Harrison Ford, right? So I would compare Humphrey Bogart to Harrison Ford. Harrison Ford, not the best actor, honestly, he plays Harrison Ford, right? He’s Harrison Ford. Is the President. He’s Harrison Ford. Is Han Solo. He’s Harrison Ford. You know what I mean, there’s, he’s not going to be Daniel Day Lewis, and meld into it, into his you know, he’d become Abraham Lincoln or anything. He’s Harrison Ford, and I think that’s what Humphrey Bogart was for the time, and and he did a good job at that, really good job of that. But, you know, I think everybody else in the even the the waiters and and so forth, were all better actors overall. I

 

Dan LeFebvre  1:04:58

guess they call him. Supporting actors for a reason, they support the whole show

 

Bob LeMent  1:05:02

characters. Yeah, yeah.

 

Dan LeFebvre  1:05:06

Well, thank you so much for coming on to help us separate fact from fiction in Casablanca. Before I let you go, let’s shift gears away from the movie’s history and shift to your own. Can you share a little bit more about static radio for our

 

Bob LeMent  1:05:16

listeners? Oh sure, if you want. So, I co host a show called static radio. We’ve been doing it for 25 years. Audio on the internet, and basically each week we tell funny stories about things that typically happen to us. We record. We recorded last night. So my story last night was about how I had a great hamburger in Columbia, Missouri. So if you want to have a great hamburger in Columbia, you might listen, and it veers off from there, it is comedic, humorous, and there’s no direction, so you never know where it goes. We start with a story, and then the story takes a life of its own, and by the time we’re finished, we don’t even know where the end is until we get there. I hope I’m Hope I’m more of a Claude Rains than a Humphrey Bogart. But who knows?

 

Dan LeFebvre  1:06:10

I like that. Like that analogy. That’s great. Isn’t that what we all want and like, be a little more Claude Rains and Humphrey Bogart

 

Bob LeMent  1:06:20

Exactly?

 

Dan LeFebvre  1:06:24

Well. Thank you again. So much for your time.

 

Bob LeMent  1:06:27

Thanks for having me. This is great fun. I hope I did it justice.

Dan LeFebvre  03:18

Before we dig into some of the details of the movie, one thing I like to do is to take a step back and look at the movie from an overall perspective. So if you were to give Disney’s Miracle a letter grade for how accurately it captured the essence of the true story, what would it get?

 

Lou Vairo  03:34

1. When I saw it, and I waited until a few weeks ago to even see the movie. I never wanted to watch it because as I lived it. But I remember Patti Brooks, Herb’s wife, telling me it was excellent portrayal. And several of the players really liked the movie. And people that were there and I worked with their all saw it, and they thought it was very accurate and and where it was. I had to agree with them all now.

 

Dan LeFebvre  04:04

At the very beginning of the movie, it sets up the story. We see Kurt Russell’s version of Herb Brooks being chosen to coach Team USA in the 1980 Olympics. What really stood out to me about this in the movie was the timeline, because we see coach Brooks getting the job about eight months before the Olympics are to start, and it doesn’t really seem like a lot of time to recruit players. Recruit players, build a team expected to compete on an international level. So as I was watching that part of the movie, on one hand, we know movies tend to build extra drama and tension a lot of times, and on the other hand, it’s not like the Olympics really sneak up on anyone less than, you know, eight months or a year beforehand. So I couldn’t help but think that maybe this was an example of the movie trying to build up drama by making it seem like the 1980s US Olympic team was just assembled in eight months. How accurate is the movie’s portrayal of building the US hockey team just eight months before the 1980 Olympics started?

 

Lou Vairo  04:57

It was, it was accurate. You know, we haven’t we. They call the National Sports Festival, which the Olympic committee put together. So we brought in 80 players in July of 79 Colorado Springs, and we had four teams. And we’re able to, of course, it’s summer time, but we were able to fairly evaluate the players. And also an interesting thing was that it’s not like it was years ago when guys weren’t in any kind of shape in the summer. Kids today skate year round. They go to gyms. They go to different programs. So, you know, they’re pretty well committed to hockey by the age of 1718, they finally figured that’s the sport they want to concentrate on. So they’re year round, in pretty good shape. It was a great sports festival. It was at the Air Force Academy, with which is fantastic, and it was very helpful in the election process. Plus curd was a very active coach, and coached in the WCA, the Minnesota golfers. They were national champions, and he knows all the players. He knew most of the players from the different teams, so it was okay. Worked out, okay, the timeframe,

 

Dan LeFebvre  06:29

okay, yeah, we see that some in the movie. We see them in Colorado Springs, a little bit before the Olympics, a few months before, and now you were involved in scouting for the team, which we don’t really see a lot in the movie. According to the movie, it almost seems like Coach Brooks was the one to decide who made it onto the team. So as I was watching that, I again got the impression that the movie was maybe oversimplifying the process. Can you fill in some more context around your involvement in helping the 80 Olympic team come together?

 

Lou Vairo  06:57

Yes, her did make all the final decisions which he should make, but he has to answer it. If it’s a failure or a success, you’ve got that answers. He was very he wanted a skating team. He knew the ice surface would be larger. He wanted a good skating, technically sound hockey team. My role didn’t well. I got involved. I was friends with her because I coached junior hockey in Minnesota and brought a different style of hockey to the what’s now the USHL, and it was called the Midwest Junior League, and we were national champions, and we had a lot of college coaches, followers, the players watch us play, including her. So I got to know all these guys, and he got to know me, and he liked what we did at that time in Austin, Minnesota. He really liked it. And he come to practice sessions. He’d invite my team up on Monday nights. We’d go sometimes during the season, play against this JV Williams Arena in Minnesota on the, you know, on the college ground. And so I got to know him real well. He got to know me. I never heard of the guy, and he’d never heard of me. Why? Why would he before I came to Minnesota, and I only came here because of an old player where mine recommended me for the job, and lo and behold, they gave it to me. I didn’t like pursue. It was all accidental, really. But anyway, but her would expose and consult with his people. Great Thatcher. Greg was a great assistant coach, great communicator, perfect go between for herb and the players. Herb was a disciplinarian, demanding and tough, but fair and honest. Good, good coach, excellent coach, and my role came about. I was coaching the under 20 junior national team in 79 and December 79 our games were in Sweden. Both think they were in Sweden. Was it 79 or 80? I can’t even remember, but on the way overseas, Herb asked me if I would stop in Lake Placid. There was a four nation tournament, the beat teams, national beat Team of Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia was one country then, and Sweden. And my boss said that’d be fine, do it. So I did it. And I was in Lake Placid. First period. I was watching between seed Sweden and the USA. And Sweden was doing something that seemed to dis in their own end coming out that was disruptive to our players, and unusual they were sending a week. Side, Winger out high when we had the puck in their own end, and it caused the defenseman on that side to go back, and he cut across the ice, and the entity got nervous, he went back. And what Sweden did was they created a man of damage in their own end, four against three. And they always had an open man. They took theirs to and walk out of the zone. Killed off for check. And I noticed that, and I mentioned that to Bob Fleming, who was chairman of the Olympic team. He’s basically the guy that selected bird to coach it. And Bob was sitting a couple of seats away from me, and I was writing that down on a brief diagram I had with me. And he said, What do you write? Then I explained it, and he said, Can I have that? I said, Yeah, they’ll get me period entity and her came out from the dressing room where the benches were, and he said, Lou, come on down a minute. So I did. We said, explain to me what he saw. And I told him. He said, Okay, good, very good. And they made an adjustment. I suggested something. He liked a suggestion. Usually they knew it anyway, and it’s just reaffirmed. In fact, when you’re sitting above and looking down, you see a lot, not sometimes all the time, you can see more than the coach on the bench out of you making line changes. You’re walking back and forth. You can’t always be the entire surface of the rink, but as a eye in the sky, you can it’s a very good way to scout. So based on that, from that, he kept in touch with me during the season, when they would play exhibition games, I’d get called every once in a while at home, and he would ask me if I been following the team? I said yes. And then when I got back from the World Junior he asked me if anybody, have I seen, anybody that I thought could help the team? And I told him, yeah, I there’s a few players. I gave you some names, but he had made a commitment when they picked the 26 players in Colorado Springs, that he would honor it, that the team of 20 would come from that, and the players held them accountable. He wanted to make change, and I supported him on that. But the players, led by ruzione, did the right thing, and they said, No, that’s not the deal we put up with you for six months. We’re gonna you know we can win a medal. We can win the gold medal. Leave us alone. Just leave us together. He called me, told me, the next thing that happened in a meeting, I believe in Dallas, who were playing the Dallas team in the Central Hockey League doesn’t exist anymore, the central League for the Goodland. And anyway, I said, Well, that’s perfect. He hadn’t to be right. He says, Yeah, I know they are. And I said, not only are they right, They’ve now taken responsibility and accountability for their upcoming performance. That’s that’s great, and, and we, he honored that, and it was great, and it did work. So anyway, from all of those interactions, he said, would you, are you coming to the Olympics? I said, I am. I’m going to help. You know, I’m, I’m going to help with all the, all the things that have to be done at the Olympics. I’m going to be coming as an employee of USA Hockey. There were only four of us at time, and we were all there. So he came up with the idea, what if you sit upstairs and and we use a walkie talkie from the band to the bench to Craig, Patrick, and anything you say to Greg, and he can relate to me, and also you. I’m going to want you to come down after each period and meet with you every morning in the dressing room and go over the different teams and who the next team is we play, etc. And he said, our first game is against Sweden. So I thought about that. When he said that, I went to my boss, Hal Trumbull. I said, How have you selected a team host of Sweden when they come over before the Olympic games start, and they travel and play exhibition games. He said, No, not yet, but I’m working on that right now. Why did I told him? I said, I should be the team host. I can meet them at the airport, take them to the different venues, and watch all their practices. Gaines who get a guilt for the team. I know the coach, Tommy sandling, very well, and I loaded Peter, pokie Lindstrom, and Hal said, Very good. That’s excellent, a good idea. And I called her and told him. He said, perfect, do it. And I think that’s what I did. So there’s a great team, the Swedish team. I was with them for three weeks. I never saw them miss a pass, not in practical games. They were unbelievable. They might have been the most skilled, ethnically skilled team, better than anybody in all the basic fundamental, skating, passing, receiving, combination play. They were good. And they had great young players. They had deli Lindberg and gold. They had Max Maslin, they had Thomas Erickson, Thomas Johnson, many others. I mean, that was a that was a great team, and I think they won the brunsmetal, but we had to be pretty damn good. So anyway, that’s how that all came about, and it worked. You know, I don’t know how much I contributed, but I did my best. I think I did more to contribute. It helped me. I mean, these are good hockey men, Herb and Greg, Patrick. They know what this thing is, because it does help when you have another set of eyes. It just gives you more confidence into what you think you’re seeing. But the big thing is, you know about it.

 

Lou Vairo  16:33

We had every area covered. He didn’t know if it was legal or not, and Bob Fleming had gotten permission from some of those, some agency, I don’t know what they call it, that’s AA or something, that we could do that, but I don’t know if we had permission, or we even asked the International Ice Hockey Federation or Olympic Committee if you’re allowed to do it or not. Just did it. And so I think it was we just wanted to keep that quiet. I guess. I don’t know for sure. I don’t see anything legal or wrong with it, but who knows, and that’s really why. And then, besides that, it wasn’t me, it was that great team and in the in the coaching staff, and I feel bad sometimes that the goalie coach, Juarez strelo, never gets mentioned. He was outstanding, just outstanding with Jimmy Craig and janicek, and he was one of the great goalie coaches I’ve ever met anywhere in the world. And a good guy, funny guy, terrific man, and hen appreciated him, but to have, excuse me, worm was more in the background. But that’s how that went down. That’s how that all happened. And it was good, because after the first period, I came downstairs. I sat in a little box upstairs. Mondale came the Vice President to some games, and I walked into my box, and there was the Vice President, Mondale and Secret Service agents, and there was guys with guards rifles laying on the beams above us in this in case, in the Spania. Can you imagine that? And here I am sitting there with a walkie talkie watching the game. He was weird, and he was a real nice guy, the Vice President, very nice man. He I introduced myself. He asked me what I was doing. I told him, he introduced I knew who he was, introduced himself and all that it was. He was a pleasant guy, and from Minnesota, of course, he was a big arty fan, and that’s how that went down. I had one of the best views of that whole Olympics, and I will tell you this behind the scenes Stoke, I felt my best contribution was just being heard spread was after the first period of the Swedish game. One, one he was tasting downstairs. There was a outside the dressing room. There was a exit, and nobody kind of staircase, nobody used. And it was big glass windows overlooking the speed skating oval. And I would meet him in that little area. They had just the two of us. Nobody’s bothering us. Nobody can hear us. He’d lean back against the wall. He had his pencil and pad, and they take lift one foot and put it against the wall and stand there. And I’d stand in front. He would ask me, what’d you say? What do you think? Like that? But he was pacing this guy, and I he was very nervous. I said, What’s the matter? Oh, that Efraim Johansson meeting Tenny was his GM. They didn’t get along. Kenny was a great guy, and he loved her and but they were both alpha guys, and they would, they argue with each other about everything, and he said that schedule, we’re finished. We can’t play with this team. We’re exhausted. I say Easy. Easy. Calm down. You play in the best skating team in the tournament, the best technical team in the tournament. These guys are good. I told you, I spent three weeks with them. They’re good, but they’re beatable. We skating with them in the spirit. Well, we just got to go up a notch, and we’re well prepared. We’re playing good. We’re playing really well. He said, You think so? I said, Yes. And I said, Look her, let me be very blunt with you. I’m glad I did this, by the way. I said we got a chance to win a medal. I wasn’t sure coming in, I’m not talking gold medal. I’m just saying we get a chance to win a medal. We, we need to win this game. We this game is winnable, right, pal, and you’ve done a great job with this team. These kids are good, but we have a young team, and the Swedish team is far more seasoned that a lot of these guys are playing a lot of World Champions ships and international events, but you’ve done a great job. You’re a great coach. And stop worrying about Kenny, and he’s my friend. Remember that? So be careful what you say. Stop worrying about you’re a great coach, and you’ve done a great job. You can’t do more than you’ve done. Just believe in the team. They believe in you. I believe in you. And he looked at me like, stop general and let us forget look. And he said, You really mean it? I said, 100% now let’s go get them. And luckily we we got some breaks in the last minute. The Swedes could have easily created off the boards and out. We lose that game, but we end up with a great goal by Baker and Todd, which was a key guy and all that. And we did the tie. And after that, it was fantastic, the confidence level. And, you know, at the beginning, there were that many spectators. There wasn’t even a full house in a search game. You know, people didn’t believe in us, and a lot of the spectators were from foreign countries, like I was, I knew the Soviet team was in trouble, because I was downstairs right by the dressing room every day, and I could see the goings and comings, and I knew their Guys. Boris mojaro, the president of the Federation of your zoomed out blood. Second coach brought a new museum out. I knew all these guy, laundry, store, voice, tough, the General Secretary and I just either were nervous, because whenever that bus would pull in a practice or games, if the 500 people shouting, waving flags of humbling Czechoslovakia, Poland, Eastern European countries, Russians would be the Soviets, and they’d be shouting at the players as they got off, terrible words in some Russian language. They all studied Russian in school, and the Russians were not comfortable. They were never comfortable. They felt not bad, but very nervous. But why are these Americans treating us this way? Plus of us understand, I guess, and all that. It wasn’t good. It was for them. They were not a they were not a confident bunch that they normally are. I could see it, and that’s never been recorded, but that’s the truth. And there were a lot of the fans came to cheer against them, not cheer for anybody in particular. But then, when our thieves started winning, they were cheering for us, of course. And even if you walk down Main Street in lane classic, I saw Soul Man, I can tell by the way they dress their faces that I hear their language. I know where they were from, and that was a big thing in that tournament, and it affected the Soviet team, for sure. Well,

 

Dan LeFebvre  24:50

I want to ask about the Soviet team, because in the movie, it seems like everything’s from the perspective of Team USA, but we see bits and pieces here. There to learn that the Soviets have been dominant for like, 15 years. I think there’s even a bit of dialog in there that talks about how some of the players on the Soviet team even played together in 15 years. And that just seems like such a stark contrast to the way the movie sets up Team USA, where, you know, they pretty much just started playing together for the past few months. And they’re not professionals at all that come from colleges and such, and so it just seems like there’s this huge contrast that the movie is setting up between the Soviet team and the US team. Is that pretty accurate?

 

Lou Vairo  25:32

Yeah, my feeling is this, and I I’ve been a student of their hockey there. My main mentor teacher. Was a great Soviet coach. Anatoly Tarasov, great friend of mine that’s still very close to his entire family that’s left, and so I knew their hockey inside and out. In my lifetime, I’ve been to starting with the Soviet Union now Russia 25 times, and I deal every day, basically, even now, with Russian Russian guys, coaches, players. I talked to some of my best friends. I just wrote a book, and I didn’t write it to author. Wrote it, but I gave him the information and dedicating the book to my friend Yuri kamanos, who died a couple of years ago. He was great friend of mine. He played for the Central Army team and played the terrorist out and played with some of those guys. But anyway, it was a great team. It might have been the strongest Soviet team ever put together, you can make that argument, but they weren’t comfortable. That’s what I noticed. They just weren’t comfortable. And that can have an effect on human nature. You know, at our gene, one of the things I don’t like, the main miracle. I don’t like it at all. It was a great, cocky team. Those players were outstanding. They were in great shape, as good a shape as any of the Soviets who were in great shape and and we had two coaches, three with with the goalie coach, stralo, they’re as good as anybody in the world coaching hockey. They were terrific coaches, and our players were wonderful. If you look at the history of hockey in America, the sentiment, are you kidding me? Mark Johnson, he is a great hockey player. Mark paddlewood was a great hockey player. Neil Broughton called me my favorite old time player, great hockey player. Then you had Wells who had a specific job and heard used him perfectly as a defensive spinnerman. He was terrific guy. And then moving Dave Christian back to defense a month before the Olympic Games, was brilliant, and I credit Gordon Jimmy Christensen. There was a nickname he suggested to her to put David back on defense. He said, he said he’s a he’s a son of man. He said he’s anything. He’s a winger, defenseman. He can even play golf. Just trust him, put him on defense. He’ll get the bug out of his own. He can work it because he can stay Yeah, it ran Baker o’ Callahan and soder and Morrill. This was a wonderful team, and Jim Craig was an outstanding goalie, and he probably played the best 20 days or 18 days, whatever the tournament took of his life. I don’t think he ever played better before or since, and it’s a shame that either the outstanding goalie, but he really rose to the occasion. So it wasn’t a miracle to me. It was doable, but I had to play him 10 times. They probably win six, seven of the games the Soviets, but our team that day against them was great, and that’s all we had to beat. Break that one day against them. You only plays them once,

 

Dan LeFebvre  29:33

yeah. Well, I want to ask about that too, because in the movie we see before the Olympics, like I think it’s three days in the movie, we see the Soviet team playing Team USA as kind of a warm up game between them. So it doesn’t really count, but according to the movie, the Soviet Union comes away with a like a 10, three blowout victory against Team USA, and it really starts to add to the tension and drama in the movie. At least of you know, are we doing the right. And kind of questioning everything up to that point. Can you share what the atmosphere was like around Team USA when they lost that

 

Lou Vairo  30:07

that night or that game in Madison Square Garden? I was doubting advanced scouting, and I had gone to Montreal. I drove up to Montreal, and I watched two games up there, Czechoslovakia, because that was our second game after Sweden. The checks played. I can’t remember who, maybe Canada. I’m not sure. Then there was another game I watched. So I had gotten all my notes done, and there were no cell phones in those days, and I was driving back to Lake Placid from from Montreal. It’s only an hour’s drive, and that’s where I was going to check in at Lake Placid and be there for the Olympic Games. But I had no way of knowing what we did in New York against the Soviets in the exhibition game, and the next day, I was able to reach herb in New York. And then talk to him in his hotel, and he said it was, it was something Luke. I said, What was the score? And he told me, I think it was 10th grade. I said, Oh, how did we look to me? Did we do anything? Right? He said, Yes. He said, first of all, we were the kids were overwhelmed. I knew we were in trouble, because when the public announcer was introducing the Soviet players, our guys were banging their spit for them on the ice, applauding each player as they got introduced. These have got these are well known players. You know that our kids know of, and they were starstruck. Some intimidation there, yeah, yeah. But he said the thing that I liked was we could have played another game after that, our conditioning has really been good. These kids have worked their ass off for me, and they’re in they were in great shape, but I wasn’t too worried. I at least I knew we could stay with them. And I think the whole thing was overwhelming, you know, just overwhelmed us. The young kid Madison Square Garden, packed house, chanting, applause. You know. So he says, I think if we, when we play him again, we’ll be better. And then we were, and it was, it was interesting, you know, was fun to watch all these teams, but I told them, I had told them. I said, not the Soviet team is jittery. Hey, we, if we can ever get ahead of them, we can really cause them problems. Just they’ll, they’ll argue with each other. They fight with each other. You know, the people say, Oh, they’re so disciplined than that, but they’re human beings, and they argue with bicker, will blame each other and stuff. That’s no different than any other country, but you never see that, because they’re never behind. They’re always weak, you know? They’re always comfortable. And when they told tradyak, I think that was a horrible decision, and he could out blame gizmo for it, your Zopa won’t talk about it. I know him very well. He won’t. He won’t, even to this day, he doesn’t want to talk about us. Every time I see him, he’s still around. He’s 82 he’s great guy, great archetype. I’ll see him and with you know, saying no and greet and all that I say to him, like Placid, and he goes crazy. He makes the best waves without me. Oh, he goes crazy. He’s a real good guy.

 

Dan LeFebvre  33:56

That’s funny. Well, if we go back to the movies timeline, after the Olympics start, there are a number of games that the movie just shows very quickly before the big game, we see USA versus Sweden. Talked about a little bit about that. That turns out to be a tie game. And then there’s a seven three win over Czechoslovakia, five to one win against Norway, yeah,

 

Lou Vairo  34:17

but that was the most unbelievable game for me in the whole Olympics. That was a great Czechoslovakian team. Yeah, and the night before the game, I invited the three Czech coaches. They the last of the three just died six months ago. The head coach was Carl boot, and the assistants were Dr Lud Bucha and Stanislav medvesseri, three outstanding players, former national team players and great coaches and great guys, great hockey men. Carol good later on, became president of the Czechoslovakian Ice Hockey Federation before. Of the, you know, the split, and then they was president, I think, of the Czech Federation for a while so, and they, they have like buildings that they rent out different countries. They call it the US House, Swedish House, or the Italian house. Well, I knew some of the people at the Italian house, and they loved me. And I bring them some pens and some little banners USA, and they would feed me, and they bought their old food and chefs from Italy with them. So it was unbelievable. No, you can’t find a restaurant as good anywhere in the inland, outside of Italy, as good as this was, so they told me. I said, Can I ever bring a Chinese? They said, of course, you bring whoever you want. But I bought three Czech coaches because they were all friends of mine, and we had a great dinner and great night. I remember boot coach. I he couldn’t speak English. Taro good, but Bucha never said he could. But with Carl, good, I can converse with him well enough in German. We could speak in Germany to each other well enough. And the other guys, I speak in English because I don’t know a few, maybe a few words, check or Slovak, but not many. And ludie said, I watched your team practice this morning. Uh, it tracks too hard, in my opinion, coming off the game against Sweden, and now the players tomorrow. And I remember Stan Stanislav saying to me, you know, I said, is everything good with your team? He said, No, not exactly. We lost Ivan Linka Henri was the key to our power play, and we just haven’t gotten that resolved the way we’d like it. And we’re, quite frankly, we’re worried about discuss these escaping, you know, what do they call that when they run away from the country? Uh, whatever that term is, defecting. Is

 

Dan LeFebvre  37:15

that right? Defecting, the

 

Lou Vairo  37:18

fact, yeah, they’re worried about detecting, because they had a lot of I would see them their own Secret Service people traveling with those teams from the East countries, from the Soviet Union, etc. They had the credentials. And I would see them in the bowels of the arena, always outside the dressing room, watching every move of every every part of the personnel. So they, and I, like the goalie, I think it was crelik, I’m not sure Yuri krillet. He’s okay, but one of the goodest previous Czechoslovakian goalies, like called a Czech even zerilla. And I have to tell you, if I were you going to predict, I would say I would have predicted the checks to win, 535242, something like that. They were really good. I mean, they’re the only team that ever really eat the Soviets. During those the reign of success that the Soviets had, it was always Czechoslovakia to be the team that beat them and in the 72 stupa series between the greatest Canadian NHL players against the greatest Soviet players, which wasn’t really true, because how how Bobby, you are. They weren’t playing because they were injured or in the WHA and they weren’t allowed to play, which was stupid in the 72 series. And playing that 72 Soviet team, which did a great job sure won. It really surprised. Well, I’m not surprised they lost because of two great players, Phyllis Esposito and his brother Tony. I’ll say it now, and I’ve said it forever. It should be a statue in front of any ice rink in Canada, a bronze bachelor, Tony in goal and Phil scoring, those two brothers with Canada on their back and led the will willed them to that victory in 72 and so, you know, Czechoslovakia was a great team, And they were the world champions that year. In 72 they had beat the Soviet team that was played Canada and then the Canadian team on their way home after the 72 Summit Series, they played, and I believe they beat Czechoslovakia of three two in Prague. I. Believe that’s pretty accurate, something like that. So I was done when I saw us play like we did. We were flying, we were flying, and we beat him. We ran them out of the building Seventh Street. Then I knew we could win a short a medal, maybe the big one. And then the games against Romania, West Germany, Norway, I think that’s who we played. They were. They weren’t easy. You know, these countries can put 1520, good players together. They weren’t easy. They were, I mean, we won them all without being too nervous, but they weren’t easy, and then, then Finland, after we beat the Soviets, we had to beat Finland, and they had a goalie. Jorma volnan yom is the hall of fame goalkeeper in the international SRC Federation, Hall of Fame, one of the greats from Finland, the first of many great finish goalies. Yom is still coaches today. He’s probably close to 80 coaches in Italy now, and he helped develop the great finished goalkeeping program that’s produced all these great finish goalies the last 20 years or so. And I gotta tell you a little side story about Yom. I still was still in touch with each other. Yoma, do you remember the plane from Yaris Lovell that was going to St Petersburg at the opening of the KH Hill season of library years ago that took off and crashed and everybody died. He remember

 

Dan LeFebvre  41:48

that story, I remember, I remember the story, yeah, yeah.

 

Lou Vairo  41:52

And he was on that flight, Oh, wow. And they just announced. He told me the story, passing your seat belts. And his cell phone rang, and it was his president of the club. He was working for Yaroslavl, teaching goalies, and Mr. Yaakov called him, and he said, Are you in the air? He said, No, we’re getting ready to take off. He said, tell him to stop. And he did. He yelled out, don’t take off. You know, whatever. And what’s going on? It’s Mr. Yaka Levy. I have to get off the plane. We got two Junior goalies just came in. He wants me to work with them, so I’m not going to make the trip. And he got off. But finally got to the rink. The plane, he crashed. Wow. Imagine that. Wow. I

 

Dan LeFebvre  42:39

I couldn’t, I mean, I couldn’t imagine, I don’t know what my the thought process would be around that that’s, wow,

 

Lou Vairo  42:47

wasn’t meant to be. God intervened, I guess I don’t know. Yeah, and, and he still alive. Yeah and, and that was such a tragedy. And, boy, that they do a great job in the Aristotle every single home game, they honored them all the parish. It’s beautiful, and they did it. They still do it. It’s very nice, nice way to remember those poor people.

 

Dan LeFebvre  43:15

Well, you’re talking about the the Soviets, kind of feeling like they were never really behind and in the movie, we see the games from Team USA that you were you were talking about. But on the Soviet side, we don’t really see a lot of their games, but we find out that they basically blew out their competition. I think they they said they won all five of their games. Scored like 51 goals. No, they

 

Lou Vairo  43:36

murdered Japan. And a few teams had a very tough game against Finland and a very tough game against Canada. Okay, the key out of all this, I have to say the truth. You’re interviewing me. I’m going to tell you the truth. Yeah, no, that’s what we’re here for with I’m just glad we never played Canada for some reason during the pre Olympic trial. I mean, games exhibition schedule Canada was tough for us to beat. Okay, it is something that’s now, I think, overcome, but for a while, very psychological between just like blow boxing checks. Checks seem to always beat the slow box, but now it’s changing, and the checks are playing well, but it’s changing US and Canada. Canada had maybe a subconscious little advantage over the US, not that often. 1960 Olympics, under Coach Jack Riley, we beat Canada. Harry Sidon was claiming might have been captain of the Canadian team. And Canada was a, not an easy team to play against, and they almost beat the Soviets, you know, they gave them all they could handle and and Finland too. So we knew Finland was good, very. Very good, and I knew involved in was great. I told everybody said their goal is good. We gotta, we can’t raise shots. We gotta spoil when we shoot. This guy is good. He’s one of the best in the history of international hockey, one of the better goalies. So anyway, but her made that great each I was standing outside, but the lotto door was opened, and the typical Brooks beach, and very typical, he said, You know what we did the other day against the service, something like that will mean nothing if we don’t win today. This is, this is a game we have to win. What, believe me, you’ll take it to your grades. If we don’t, you’ll take it to your grades. That’s very powerful words, and I couldn’t describe it better. And, and, of course, we won. Mark Johnson was spectacular. Dover told it. These guys were good players.

 

Dan LeFebvre  46:05

The kind of climax of of the movie at the end is, is that big game we’ve kind of alluded to and talked about a little bit, but in the movie, the way it sets it up is because, because of the the game beforehand at Madison Square, where the US got beat. Now it’s, there’s all this tension here in the movie, of, are they going to be able to beat? This the Soviet team. And throughout the movie shows bits and pieces back and forth. They kind of going back and forth. There’s a lot of action that’s, that’s fun to watch. It doesn’t focus on a lot of specific details. But it’s, a movie, so it’s focused on just showing a lot of the action of the game itself. But then as time starts to tick away in towards the end of the game, the Soviets find themselves in a position that they’re not familiar with, being down four to three in a game. And we start to sense in the movie, something that you had kind of alluded to was the Soviets started to look like they were not very comfortable. Can you share what the experience was like for that game?

 

Lou Vairo  47:08

They were very uncomfortable and very, very nervous. And when they told all right, I don’t. I thought tradiac was, I always believed traded to be one of the greatest goalies that’s ever played the game. Really, physically hardest work you all got. He was a great goalie, only guy that ever could score. Two guys could score against him without much trouble, Bill Esposito and must love nedimansky used to score against him, but most people have a tough time with Ronnie Iceman. He’s intimidating. He’s so big and agile and quit you think he’s going to kill you. Well, he can go you want to go in and shoot on him. He charges out he said, Hey, I can tell you that I’m not exactly Sonia Henrik once, but anyway, pulling him to me, I think deflated team a little bit and broke their confidence like we depend on him. He’s our man and Mushkin, excellent goalie. People forget one year previous and the Challenge Cup at Madison Square Garden. It was best of three. He was tired of one game each the NHL all starts against the same Soviet team. He could have started moosekin In the game, which shocked everybody. Mooskin Shut him out, I think shit nothing, which is pretty impressive. And mooskin was a good goalie, but what I’m saying is I think it shook the team up, and Michael was the only he was a hard working guy, wonderful captain, a great leader for that team, but he was something else that he’s never gotten the credit he deserves. He’s a natural goal scorer. He can score a goal anywhere he ever played high schooler. He’s a goal scorer. He can bury the biscuit. And he scored a great goal against Moskin, who was a great goalie. Too great goal for the winning goal. How do you not? How do you not Where did the miracle? Where this was a great goal scorer, who scored a great goal? I want to see these kids get credit heard. And Craig Patrick did a great job, and Warren strelo The equipment managed many to try. Mean old team, Dr Nagi, all the guys, great guys, but the truth of the matter is they, they won a miracle team. They played the game of their lives against Soviets, and they played a a wonderful, wonderful Olympic competition. They were great. Just like our 60 team, they were great. We’ve had other teams that played well and great, but no, none of the other teams won the gold medal. These two teams did, and they should be eluded for their excellence.

 

Dan LeFebvre  50:35

Just a good, good team. Yeah, no, it’s

 

Lou Vairo  50:39

a great team. I coached a lot of those players, so myself on teams. I know how good they were, yeah, and they had said this, and I’ll say right, Daniel again, I don’t believe any other coach would have won, won the gold medal with that team, but books, he was just the right, perfect coach, perfect timing. I often told him. I said, if you were to coach in in 76 or 84 it wouldn’t be a legend. You’d be like me, a dummy. You wouldn’t have made a legend. I think it matters. Everything has to be right. Just go right for any team to win a gold medal in the Olympics, not just that we did. Everything has to go right. You got to get bounces. You got to be healthy, you got to it just has to work. Guys have to play at the top of their game for two weeks of their life. And this team did it, and I, I salute the coaches. They didn’t, they didn’t get in the way and mess it up and made it better. And Craig Patrick did a great job in his role, uh, supporting her all year long. It was Estrella you can coach Goldies, you know. So that’s my take on it. Anyway,

 

Dan LeFebvre  52:09

yeah. Well, I wanted to ask about the Soviets when they replaced their goalie, since the movie kind of focuses on the US side of things, not as much from the Soviet side. You mentioned that that kind of seemed to deflate the Soviets. But according to the movie it shows it seems to be like a morale boost for team USA. Was that kind of the point in the game where you felt, wow, we might actually win this thing.

 

Lou Vairo  52:35

Yeah. But you know what really when Mark Johnson scored at the end of the period, pinker was David’s Christian flipped the puck up in the air and thought side and mark the two defensemen, Billy tervulkin, on the Soviet side, and even trading at they kind of let up, and Mark was right between them, grabbed the puck and leaked out tradiac and scored. To me, that was, that’s what I said. Oh, we could win this. We got a shot. And, yeah, it was, there was tension still, and like, oh God, the last I liked Herb’s comment, the last 10 minutes of the game, he said, with the longest 10 minutes of my life. And I felt the same way. I mean, I just kept looking at the clock. Move, move, move. They put on a rush the course bar, I think, and maybe the post malfev was in there. Petra, a lama. They’re a great team. I I can comfortably say that. I think that might have been in greatest Soviet team I’ve ever seen, at least on paper. But they didn’t have a great tournament, and they still could think what they went to silver, and they they weren’t comfortable. Those people from the Eastern countries upset them. Yeah,

 

Dan LeFebvre  54:07

you were talking about that before, where they just they didn’t feel comfortable the whole time. But it’s

 

Lou Vairo  54:12

and I was outside their dressing room a lot, and I remember when they beat Canada or Finland. I can’t remember which team the game ended, and it was a such game for them. And as they were walking in, something I never saw coaches do before, but it’s, you know, we’re talking different cultures here too. Uh, Soviet culture was not the Canadian or the American culture, but he could not. Was standing outside the dressing room door, and as each player was coming in off the ice at the end of the game, he was greatly relieved. He would kiss each player on the lips. He would listen to do that, you know, part of their culture, men kissed men on. Lips, relatives and friends, you know, and as they came in, he would kiss him, and he would fold their shoulders, and he would say, bolshei, basiba. Great thanks. Many, many, great plants. Each player, they were so relieved they had won that game, though I knew they were bold enough. I felt it all along. I INAF times. I knew their culture, I knew their nervousness, and I kept saying and never in the position to win. Lucky. You know, they’re usually ahead by three four goals going into the third period. I’d like to see how they’re going to react when things are not going good, and that’s what we thought of it. You know, we

 

Dan LeFebvre  55:52

don’t see a lot from the Soviet side in in the movie, but the movie seems to imply, as I mentioned earlier, that they were kind of blowing out their opponents, but you mentioned that they weren’t necessarily so at the point at which the Soviets were playing the US. Do you think that kind of the the atmosphere of the games had changed overall?

 

Lou Vairo  56:13

Yeah, oh yeah. We were Oh. The building was now packed. Everybody waved flags. All the front runners showed up. They weren’t there at the beginning. They all showed up and in the streets, all these people. I mean, I had a USA jacket so and I I didn’t live in the Olympic Village. I lived outside of it because I wasn’t an official part of the team, and I’d walk the streets. I knew everybody from these different countries, because working with USA hocking is part of my job. And just walking around, they’d see USA jacket. People would come up to me, hug me, kiss me. Some women brought me flowers, and they would say with their accents, thank you. Thank you. Thank you America. It was so thrilled to see the Russians get beat and and I’d have a chance for the gold medal. It was, it was never talked about, never spoken about. But there’s people. They’re immigrants to our country, and here they were cheering for us against their role, people you know, against people they felt invaded them their country, and tell them hostage. So it was interesting.

 

Dan LeFebvre  57:36

There was a point in the movie. I don’t remember the specific dialog to it, but it becomes pretty obvious that there’s more than just the game itself. I mean, the movie doesn’t get into politics or anything like that, so we don’t focus on politics either. But there is a point where Kurt Russell’s version of coach Brooks says something like, we’re about to play the greatest team in the world. Can’t we just leave it at that? But it seems pretty obvious that there’s, there’s something else to Soviet Union playing the United States in the Olympics game. They’re going to have external impacts. Did that imply a lot of extra pressure to the team?

 

Lou Vairo  58:14

No, I’d say no. I think most of them didn’t care. Most of them, most people, young people like that. They just want to live their lives. And these kids were looking to become pros and or move on with their lights to the next stage, whatever that might be. I don’t, I don’t think so. No, I think that scrum probably, yeah, some, it probably excites me more than others, but most, no. And you know, I dealt with the Soviets a lot, and if you’re dealing with bureaucrats and you’re dealing with politicians, it’s never, wasn’t in any realm. But if you deal with the people, it is just the people. They’re no different than we are to be Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Italian, Irish, Swedish, and it doesn’t matter Argentinian. It doesn’t matter Canadian. All people basically want to do is live their lives. They want to have a job, decent job, raise their family, go to the beach for two weeks in the summer, have food on their table, follow their favorite sports teams, maybe have a doctor in Russia, in Russia, or some of the European countries outside of a big city, where they have a little garden and a place in the summer, a retreat to go to on weekends, that’s all people want. Really, average person, they don’t get deeply involved in the international politics of everything, and if you follow it. On the news. You know, as well as I do, the way it’s the news have deteriorated now it’s half the newscasts, nor more than half the newscasts are politically slanted, and you don’t even know if you’re getting honest reports from either side of the political spectrum. No, I don’t think politics. I think underneath the circus with Carter saying we’re not going to go to Russia for the Summer Olympics in this in the invasion of Afghanistan, yeah, they bothered. We took the same thing years later, and we got chased out just like, just like Soviet now we gotta, really gotta find, we gotta find politicians that look to create peace, not not not fighting, because General people, in general, are just people that the same everywhere. You just want to live, live their lives well, because

 

Dan LeFebvre  1:01:05

the movie focuses so much on that game against the Soviets, as you mentioned earlier, it wasn’t like Team USA was done. They had one more game against Finland, but the movie doesn’t really focus on that too much. So can you fill in some more details that we don’t see in the movie about the actual gold medal game for team USA against Finland.

 

Lou Vairo  1:01:24

Yeah, I can tell you that Herb was very concerned and worried that there’d be a letdown, and that’s why he made that great speech in the room. And I think we had very good leadership from luzioni and pakoda and these guys on the team, some of the team leaders of the team, Jimmy Craig was zoned in focus then, and Mark Johnson, you know, like I told you, history USA Hockey, I would put them in The top six, seven sentiment we ever had in our hockey to this day. You gotta have Johnson Pavlov, and they got the job done against a great goalie, Walton and from Finland and a good Finnish team. So we did great. We did great and and like I told you, we had the right coaches at the right time for the right team, and it was in the right place. You know, we won two gold medals in our history, in the Olympics, and one was in Squaw Valley, California, the other Lake Placid, and the silver and Salt Lake City on the when you play in the other countries, it’s a little tough. And I’ve been probably, I think I’ve been about six Olympics, so I have a seal for it. And we did great. Plus we were nervous. I didn’t want to. I kept saying to myself, let’s not blow it now we, you know, we cut but what I heard her words, you’ll take it forever to your grades. It got me fired up. I remember because normally I would leave in enough time to walk up a bunch of steps and get to my little booth. Anthony said that that was enough for me to hear. I ran up the steps. I was juiced. I was fired up. You know, those were perfect words for him to come up with,

 

Dan LeFebvre  1:03:37

yeah, and all ready to go and ready to bring it home and actually finish off and get the gold.

 

Lou Vairo  1:03:43

Well, what a release that was to do that. It was such a release. Oh, my God. It was so great. Really, was I cried?

 

Dan LeFebvre  1:03:53

Yeah, I could see it really emotional just letting

 

Lou Vairo  1:03:57

1. How much cry with this interview. A few times I get choked up. Those memories were great to see such joy on the faces of the players and the fan. It was great, and it’s important to this day because I still coach little kids off ice, training 910, year olds, and they all saw a miracle 150 times each, and they all know it. And I they always asked me about is, did this really help me coach Lou whatever? And I tell them, yeah, it’s all true, boys and a few girls, because we have girls now playing. And if you guys ever want to get to that position. You got to work as hard as those kids did, and that’s just as hard as smart. And we’re giving you stuff here to learn, and you got to practice it at home on your own also. And they get all fired up. They love it well,

 

Dan LeFebvre  1:04:55

then the movie ends after the the 1980 Olympics. But do. I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask you following up in 1984 Olympics after you know, Herb Brooks was not coaching team USA. That was you were the head coach of us hockey that year. Did you feel any pressure following the as the movie puts it, the miracle team from 1980

 

Lou Vairo  1:05:17

Yes. Let me tell you a little story that’s interesting. I wasn’t there was no pre ordained coach. I didn’t even want to do it. Nothing like that. What happened was nobody wanted to coach. I gave names. I wasn’t officially on the search committee, but I gave names to the search committees, and I can’t remember exactly. Art Berlin is dead now, but art told me how many five or six coaches they asked, I mean, well known names, Coach team, they all refused, different reasons, legitimate, you know, I can’t leave my college team first a year. I don’t want to do that. What other thing might have been? And Ron De Gregorio, art Berlin and Fayette tutter Was the President of the USA Hockey it was called a house, but I’m a Charity Association of the United States. They said to me, you’ve coached the junior national team. You were with her the Lake Placid. You’ve worked with Bob Johnson. You work with the best and you know, you know the European teams better than anybody we have, and you know, I’ll play a pool. Would you like to coach the team? And I said, No. I wasn’t afraid. I didn’t feel I earned it. And, yeah, I was still pretty young. I don’t know, 36 whatever. I said, No, and art is the one who convinced me. He said, Look, never get another chance. You do that. Anybody can coach anywhere, but the coaching Olympic team is special, and we need you. We need you. And Fayette Hutt was a favorite person of mine. He was a funny, little old guy, good guy, smart and everything, but also just a good guy. And he was always so nice to me. He said, Luke coach, Dean. So they interviewed me, and they interviewed Tim Taylor, and in the interview, I said, give it to Timmy, and he needs help. He’s more qualified than I am, and when they interview Timmy, he’s going to give it to Luke.

 

Dan LeFebvre  1:07:52

I’ll help, of course.

 

Lou Vairo  1:07:56

Finally, art Birdland wore me down, and I agreed to do it, and I have absolutely zero regrets. I’m really happy I did it. I had a great team, but of course, when I agreed, I had looked at the debt chart and I saw some of the players that we had. We’d have Bobby Carpenter, we’d have, let’s see Erickson, Brian Mullen, uh, Craig Ludwig, Phil Housley, Tom Barrasso, Johnny van beatrick. I was, I can’t remember all the names now, but pretty good plays. They all died. They didn’t want to wait a year and a half, whatever. Well, I don’t blame them? I didn’t blame them at all. They all died. Baracko died. He got kidnapped by the buffalo sabers during our training camp in Alaska. We were playing the Soviet wings, wings. They came up and they stole and slowed back on a private plane of Buffalo and signed them, and that year in one first gold star, I think, looking of the year of Desmond award. He’s 18 years old. He was a high school player and and I wish they would have said something to me. I wouldn’t have stopped them. I couldn’t have anyway, but I wouldn’t have liked Tom. He turned out to be a great goalie. And I had no problem with the goalies we had left. Mason and Baron were great. They were great. Loved them. But, I mean, it could have been different. Who knows if it would have been different? Aaron brought me another one up until five, six years ago. He was the all time leading scorer of the New Jersey double. These guys would have been on our 84 team, except they will sign and again, don’t blame them the least bit. Never told anything against them, but it would have been a little bit of a different team, and a spill was a great team as Joliot LaFontaine, Eddie oldchurch, David. So two of them, hna, Tommy Hirsch, the Fusco brothers. No, I was a great team. Terry Sampson, Gotti bukester, these guys could play. They could play. They could play better than I could coach. I’ll tell you that they could play. And they were very that was the youngest team ever. But I mean, Ally, afraid, I think, and old Chuck, he was guys. I think eight of our players could have played on the junior national team. There was a team, or very young team, and they went on, many of them, to great careers. Injuries caused problems for a few others. But I love that team, and my sadness with that team is we only lost, you know, how many games that we only lost two games in the Olympics? You could lose the Czechoslovakia and Canada, you know, in close games, that’s possible. And that wasn’t republic of this. And the Republic you didn’t play Panama and Guatemala. You know, you played great countries in hockey and out of our country. But those kids were so young. I had three kids in high school, three or four kids still taking high school classes, living with building families, and ice check the homework. You know, that’s the way it was. And of course, the expectations were tremendous, and our record was two wins, two losses, two ties. I could live with that. And the only reason I It upsets me is the world didn’t see what a good team this was. This was a good team. We beat a lot of NHL teams in preseason exhibition games, and you can’t do that. And we beat Soviet teams at exhibition games. You can’t do that if you weren’t good. You know the players weren’t good. Can’t happen.

 

Dan LeFebvre  1:12:03

Yeah, it makes sense. Great experience.

 

Lou Vairo  1:12:05

I’m glad I did it. Now I look back and I’m happy I did it,

 

Dan LeFebvre  1:12:12

yeah, yeah, no, that, I mean, that’s great. It’s funny, you’re didn’t want to do it, and the other guy didn’t want to do it. And it’s almost like a game of hot potato. Like, no, I don’t want it. You take it. But in

 

Lou Vairo  1:12:23

the end, it sounds like it was great. If you don’t win a gold medal, you’re a fan,

 

Dan LeFebvre  1:12:27

right? That’s why I was, yeah, I was, that was the impression that I got. It would be like, because you’re following up with a team that won the gold medal, it’s like, well, if what else can you do? There’s nowhere to go. But

 

Lou Vairo  1:12:39

down. I tell people, it’s the second greatest thing I ever did in my life, that I’m proud of, that I did it, and I’m glad I took the I wasn’t afraid to take the risk. I wanted our hockey to be great in America. That’s why I worked for USA Hockey. I seen it grow from nothing, something great that it is today. I was very proud of it, but yelled, there’s more important things than winning games. You know, I always say I got drafted in 66 to the army two years that’s the greatest achievement, personally, that I ever had, serving my country that I cherish as the most wonderful gift, then the hockey comes second, and of course, your family comes family and God comes before any time. That’s the way I look at life, simple.

 

Dan LeFebvre  1:13:38

Well, thank you for your service in the military. And thank you for coming on to chat about the movie miracle. I want to shift a little bit before I let you go to talk about your new autobiography, I’ll make sure to add a link to it in the show notes for this if anybody’s listening and wants to get a copy. But can you give listeners a little peek in your new book and maybe share one of your favorite stories from it the

 

Lou Vairo  1:14:00

most sweat I had was if Mike said, Lou, you gotta, we gotta have testimonials. I don’t even know what he meant. I thought I died. I said, What do you mean the testimonials? He said, call up some people you know, in hockey or players, sex players, and get them to spend that a few sentences about you, meaning me. I said, I can’t do that. I’m afraid to do it with some of God knows what they’ll list. So I, I went to people. I worked with Jay Riley, Jack Riley’s son. We worked together with national teams. Years ago, he sent the nice piece. Then when I you think I only destroyed hockey in America, I coached the national teams of Italy in Holland also. So I destroyed hockey in three countries, mice and so I called, I called, he has a big job. Up in column now with a former national team player. He wrote a nice thing in and and I asked Phil Housley, Soviet player, very close friend of mine, and guy, go back 40 years with Igor Ariana. Phil Esposito Christian, Chelios, just to name a few. Those are pretty big names. These are all Hall of Fame guys. And very nice thing. Jim Craig, the real beautiful things are very touchy to me, and I didn’t know they felt that way. And I was even afraid to ask them, God knows what they’d write, and Pat Lafon Payne wrote the forward for the book. It’s beautifully written. What he wrote, it’s very touching to me, emotional, and you don’t realize it, but you never think of yourself as making making a difference in anybody’s lives, but these guys claim I did, so it’s just humbling, and very humbling. I don’t like to talk about myself like that. So yeah, it’s going to be an interesting book and and I think a fun read if me and I’ll tell you something else. I can’t stand when I hear people say I’ve been misquoted or I’ve then, what’s the other word? It’s about what I shared. Shut up. I’ve never I’ve done a million interviews in my life that I’ve said some things later on, a few times, that I might have regret, I might have regrets for but I’ve never been misquoted. Period, what you say is what you say, and you can’t run away from it. You gotta deal with it. And you if you did something that you regret, then you can apologize. Can’t say I’ve been misquoted. You. Blame it on the reporter. That’s not right at all. So yeah, that’s a few thinking they’re probably gonna erase somebody. But I also I don’t care. I said them, and so I said, I’ll live with it. No, but I will. I’ll tell you one little story. It’s not in the book. I could write a book just on some of the things, little stories from different people. But this is funny. I had an 18 city tour in the United States in 79 that I organized because we didn’t have teams. Weren’t doing dry land training specific for Aki in those days. And the guy who had really thought of it officially was Anatoly Tara Soviet Union, and he coached Central Army team, and he was national team coach and assistant coach, or CO coach with akati chairmanship. So I invited Bolger to come. I had a good relationship with the Soviet Federation, and we worked it out. And Dr ladaslav Gorski, unfortunately, they’re all dead now. Worski was some Bratislava. He was the Slovak, but then it was Czechoslovak, and he did specific or vice training for goalkeepers of all ages. Karasad Did under 20, rather 15 years old and up pros and chernochev under 15, and we went to 18 cities. I had Charlie to check he’s alive. He lives in Greenwood Lake, New York. Charlie was originally from Czechoslovakia, Prague, and immigrated to the US. We met him as Brooklyn. I met him in Brooklyn at the rate, and we became friends, which we still are to stay. He was the interpreter for Gorski and the Russian the Soviets, and called then they sent led, she’s alive. He’s in his 80s, and Moscow, good guy. He was the interpreter so the two Soviet coaches, so we went all around. They did a great job. They didn’t make much money. We only charge $15 a head per coach come to the seminars. They absolutely was sensational, and they sold out everywhere, and it changed the fortunes of our hockey because 1000s of coach, I don’t know, hundreds or 1000s of coaches were, and lots of kids that we use this the examples in the workouts, learned something great and new that could help them. It influenced our hockey daytime was a great move, and we thought we were going to lose 10 grand, which was a lot of money then, and we made 10. Steam grand after I got permission to give those guys each a bonus for the great job they did. And so it was a win, win, win, win. I was the only one that lost. There was exhausted heal and carrying medicine balls and weights and ropes and rubber suspenders and all kinds of things on airlines around the country, and then there was a plane crash in Chicago when we were there, terrorists have refused to fly anymore. He said, Only if you have aerosol out. I said, Our next stop is Detroit. There’s no air flight flights from Chicago to Detroit, so I had a rest the van, and that’s how we did the last part of our trip, with van with me driving. And it worked out great. It worked out it worked out great. It was wonderful. But we’re in Niagara Falls, New York, and what I wanted to do in order to increase income, and also to include Canada, because we wanted to have a good working relationship the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association. Dennis McDonald was running it. Great guy. Did a great job. He helped me a lot. When I was starting out. We put him in border like Seattle, Hancock, Michigan, Duluth, Minnesota. Where else? Oh, Niagara Falls, New York, right across the river from Ontario. We were able to get a lot of Canadian coaches to come, which was great, and it made him work well. So well in Niagara Falls, and we had a day off. Was a beautiful June day. I said, guys, let’s go see the falls. So we went to the falls. Everybody was impressed. He said that Assaf, he was a very proud Soviet guy. And I said, you don’t think it’s nice. He said, Yes, it’s it’s very nice, but we have better water Forbes and so Henri, I said, it’s okay. That’s who he is, let him say. And I love it now we go to because I would get along great with them, but we’d argue once in a while. Then we went to the aquarium, which was great. You know, with 1000s and they could, they had an aquarium. They still have it. It’s above ground, and you could go down below. You could see the dolphins underwater, as well as on top. So we started out on top, and tarasa wanted to go down to sea, so we all went down, and we’re watching, and I see him make a comment to the interpreter, and both of them laughed at a laugh, but I walked over, I said, Look, what did Anatoly say? He said, Oh, nothing, not important. And of course, but outside, he told me. He said, uh, Lou, you’ll be insulted. I said, No, I won’t. But what did he say? He said, You American? These Americans amazed me. They have beautiful supermarkets, big buildings we’re seeing as we travel across the country. He said they have more mayonnaise than one supermarket to I can find now in all of Moscow combined. They can do everything. They can even teach fish to fulfill the most difficult tasks. Tell me, why can’t they teach their hockey players to make a three meter pass? And I found it was better going and ironically, very true, it was great.

 

Lou Vairo  1:24:02

This went on week and day after day, week after week. I mean, it was a the height of the Cold War. He was at one of my grandmother’s house. So all these guys for dinner in Brooklyn, this wonderful grandmother of my old Italian lady from Sicily, and she prepared an incredible meal. She was in her 80s that time. She lived to 103 and these guys so respectful and polite and appreciative to her. They just loved loved it that few years after, and it’s at the height of this Cold War. He’s sitting in a club you know, Alison in Brooklyn, eating spaghetti. And it was wild when I look back at wonderful memories every time I would see him anywhere we were in. The world. The first thing he would always say after greeting me, whoa, babushka, okay, grandmother, okay. And I put my thumbs up. It say yes. And he said whoa, very, very in English, he only knew like five words he’d say, very, very, very good spaghetti. And I told my grandmother, she’d get a big kick out of it and ask me how they were doing the last you know, good. You’re okay little wives. So yeah, that’s about it.

 

Dan LeFebvre  1:25:35

Thank you again. So much for your time, and I really appreciate it.

 

Lou Vairo  1:25:39

You’re welcome. You’re a pro. Thank you.

October 8, 1967. Bolivia.

To kick off this week’s events from the movies, we’ll go back to the 1969 film called Che! to find an event that happened 57 years ago on Tuesday this week.

About an hour and 21 minutes into the movie, we’re inside a room with a shirtless man’s body lying on a table. A group of men, some in suits and others in military uniforms, are crowded around. One of them points to a bullet wound on body, saying this was the fatal shot less than 24 hours ago.

The camera pans over to the corner of the room where we can see the man in the three-star beret breaking the fourth wall as he talks to the camera. I guess we can give him a name…that’s Albert Paulsen’s character, Captain Vasquez. He explains that the raid on Alto Saco was the beginning of the end for Guevara. Vasquez says they ambushed his rear guard in La Higueras and encircled him in the Churro Ravine.

We’re no longer in the room with the dead body, now, as the scene shifts to what Vasquez is explaining. Rebel soldiers are being shot at by the Rangers in rocks surrounding the ravine. It’s not just rifles, but the Rangers have mortars as well. One of the rebels is killed. Then another. They’re firing back, and some of the Rangers are shot, too.

The intense fighting continues for a few more moments until we can see Omar Sharif’s version of Che Guevara climbing to get out of the ravine. The rebel machine gun is captured, silencing most of the firing. Che and another man seem to be the only two left, and Che is obviously in a lot of pain.

The Rangers close in as the two rebel soldiers fire back from the cover of rocks. The other man is shot and killed. Che, too, is shot, although he’s not killed. Wounded, he lies back and the shooting stops. The Rangers stand up, walking slowly to where Che is lying on the ground.

Che is still breathing as Captain Vasquez reaches him. Pulling out a photo, Vasquez looks at it and then back down at Che. Then, over the radio, Vasquez announces: Puma to Lancer. Puma to Lancer. We’ve got Papa. Alive. Repeat, we’ve got Papa.

The true story behind that scene in the movie Che!

Transitioning into our fact-check of the 1969 film Che!, I’ll first point out that we did a deep dive into the full movie that I’ll link to in the show notes. For this week’s historical event, though, it got the basic gist correct even if it did change a lot of the details from the true story.

For example, remember the guy leading the Rangers in the movie? We talked about him earlier; he’s the guy with the three stars on his beret. The actor playing him Albert Paulsen, and in the movie it’s a character named Captain Vasquez.

In the true story, the leader of the Bolivian Army’s 2^nd Ranger Battalion was Gary Prado Salmón, who was later promoted to General and a national hero in Bolivia for Che’s capture.

The 2^nd Ranger Battalion was trained especially to target the guerilla fighters. While we didn’t cover it in our movie segment this week, a bit earlier in the film Captain Vasquez tells the camera that the CIA was not involved in any way.

Well, most sources that I found say that even though the 2^nd Rangers were from the Bolivian Army, they did get help from the CIA, as well training from the 8^th Special Forces Group from the U.S. Army. I’ll add a link to the show notes for this episode with a fascinating article by Marco Margaritoff over on the website All That’s Interesting that gives a nice overview of a man named Félix Rodríguez, who was the CIA agent tasked with helping in the capture of Che Guevara.

Something else the movie changes from the real story is the number of soldiers involved. In the movie, it looks like Captain Vasquez has maybe a dozen or so Rangers with him. Granted, they’re often among the rocks and moving around the terrain so it’s hard to track down an exact number.

With that said, though, the 2^nd Ranger Battalion had 650 soldiers in it and about 180 to 200 of them were involved in the capture of Che Guevara on October 8^th, 1967. So, there were a lot more soldiers involved than we see in the movie.

In the true story, the Rangers received word during the early morning hours of October 8^th of a little over a dozen men who had walked through a local farmer’s field the night before. They were going toward a canyon area nearby, so that’s where the Rangers went.

The movie was right to show mortars being used, though, as they used mortars and machine guns along with sections, or platoons, of soldiers set up at different areas in the canyon to help seal off the entrances and exits to the canyon while other soldiers in the Battalion closed in on their targets.

It was a tactic that worked, as before long the Rangers pushed back the guerrillas to where they had nowhere else to go. As for Che Guevara himself, somehow his rifle was destroyed—or at least, rendered unusable, and he was shot in the leg. It was in his right calf, so not a mortal wound but between that and not having a weapon, he was forced to surrender when the Rangers came upon him.

Although this, too, seems to have happened differently than what we see in the movie. I say that because in the movie we see the Captain Vasquez character look down at Che and pull a photo out of his pocket to verify that’s who it is. In the true story, though, one of the Rangers, a Sergeant, later told Che’s biographer that Che was the one to identify himself to them.

Either way, Che Guevara was captured on October 8^th, 1967. The next day, the President of Bolivia ordered Che be put to death. And so, on October 9^th, 1967, the revolutionary Che Guevara was executed at the age of 39.

As a last little side note, when the movie shows Che’s body, we can see a bullet wound in his chest that one of the bystanders mentions as being the fatal shot. Even though Che was executed, that sort of shot would still be accurate because according to some sources, it was the CIA agent Félix Rodríguez who suggested they don’t shoot Che in the head to make it obvious he was executed, but rather to shoot him in a way that would look like he’d been a casualty of a run-in with the Bolivian Army.

If you want to watch the event that happened this week in history, check out the 1969 movie called Che! That’s not to be confused with the 2008 two-part series from Steven Soderbergh that’s also called Che. While that’s another good one to watch this week, the movie we talked about today is the 1969 film with an exclamation point at the end: Che!

And don’t forget we’ve got a deep dive in the show notes that you can queue up right now to hear more about the true story of the entire movie!

 

October 9, 1919. Chicago, Illinois.

Our next historical event falls on Wednesday this week, and we’ll find a re-enactment of it at about an hour and 22 minutes into the movie called Eight Men Out.

Hitting play on the movie, and we’re at a baseball game.

The crowd seems to be getting ready for the game to start. On the mound for the Chicago White Sox is Lefty Williams. He’s played by James Read in the movie.

<whew> Williams exhales.

There’s text on the screen in the movie saying this is game #8.

Then, Williams winds and offers the first pitch. The batter swings, sending a fly ball into right field. We don’t see how far the ball goes, but what we can see is the reaction from many of the White Sox players who don’t seem happy. Williams returns to the mound with a stern look on his face. He looks into the batter’s box where another hitter steps to the plate.

The camera is just behind the catcher now. We can see Williams wind, and pitch. The batter swings, another hit.

Again, we don’t see where it goes, but we can see a baserunner make it to second base. That must be the guy who got the first hit. Two back-to-back hits, it seems.

In the crowd, Lefty Williams’ wife looks sad.

Back on the mound, Williams is ready for another hitter. He looks at the runner on second. The pitch. Way outside. The catcher has to reach to stop it, but he does. No runners advance. The next pitch.

The batter swings, and Williams’ head snaps around to watch what we can assume is a high fly ball to right field. Again, we can’t see how far it goes, but we can see the catcher throwing his mitt down as a runner crosses the plate to score. The crowd is jeering at Williams, who seems to be starting the game off on a rocky note.

But, the game goes on, and Williams settles in to face the next hitter.

The pitch.

Another high fly ball, this time to left field. It hits the outfield wall, and we can see another runner score as he crosses home plate. Again, the catcher throws his mitt to the ground in disgust. As he does, another runner crosses home plate. Three runs scored so far, and there’s a runner on second.

John Mahoney’s character, Kid Gleason, runs from the White Sox dugout. As he does, he yells, “James, you’re in!”

When he reaches the pitcher’s mound he takes the ball from Williams, ending his day.

The true story behind that scene in the movie Eight Men Out

That sequence comes from the 1988 movie directed by John Sayles called Eight Men Out. The event it’s depicting is the final game of the 16^th World Series, which happened this week in history on October 9^th, 1919.

The movie is historically accurate to show Lefty Williams starting that day for what was game eight of the Series. And it’s also correct to show him giving up a number of hits, but in the movie, it looks like all but one of the hits are going to right field—they weren’t all hit there, but then again, we don’t see where the ball goes in the movie. All we can see are the actor’s reactions to the hits, so maybe that’s nitpicking a little too much.

Here’s the true story.

The first hitter to face Lefty Williams in game eight of the 1919 World Series was the Cincinnati Reds’ second baseman, Morrie Rath. He popped out to start the game. The second hitter was the Reds first baseman Jake Daubert. He hit a single to center field. Next up was Heinie Groh, the third baseman. He smacked another single, this one to right field a lot like we see in the movie. It also allowed Daubert to advance from first to second, just like we see in the movie.

Next up for the Reds was their cleanup hitter, the center fielder Edd Roush. He smashed a double to right field, allowing Daubert to score and Groh moved to third base.

I couldn’t find anything in my research to suggest the White Sox catcher got so fed up by the pitcher Williams giving up these hits that he threw his mitt on the ground like we see happening in the movie. But the movie was correct to show that catcher for the White Sox being Ray Schalk. He’s played by Gordon Clapp in the movie.

The next batter for the Reds was their left fielder, Pat Duncan. He hit a double to left field, driving in Groh from third and Roush from second. At this point, the Reds were up 3-0 with one out in the first inning.

The White Sox manager had seen enough. Just like we see him doing in the movie, Kid Gleason took out his starter and put in the right-handed reliever Bill James.

To establish a bit of context that we don’t see in the movie, the 26-year-old Lefty Williams was the White Sox #2 starter. His real name, by the way, is Claude. “Lefty” was just a nickname. And yes, he was a left-handed pitcher.

In 1919, Lefty had a stellar record of 23 wins to 11 losses with an ERA of 2.64. That’s spread across 297 innings. In fact, Williams not only led the White Sox with 125 strikeouts, he led the majors that season with 40 games started and he tied the White Sox #1 starter, Eddie Cicotte, with five shutouts.

So, Williams had a fantastic season in 1919.

His playoff record wasn’t so great, as he went 0-3 giving up 12 earned runs across 16.1 innings pitched for an ERA of 6.61. And while we didn’t talk about what happened the night before the game, there are a lot of people who believe Lefty Williams was given an ultimatum.

What really happened is one of those moments behind closed doors that we’ll just never know for sure.

As the story goes, Williams was visited by an associate of the bookie and gambler who had offered cash to the White Sox players in exchange for them throwing games. That same story suggests this unnamed associate told Williams that either he purposely lose his next start or else his wife and child would pay the consequences.

And so, as we know from what happened publicly, Lefty Williams had a terrible game. He gave up three runs and couldn’t even get through the first inning before being pulled. The Reds would go on to win the game 10-5, and by extension, the World Series overall, five games to three.

The allegations of throwing the Series hit the White Sox almost immediately, earning the team the nickname “Black Sox” for the scandal. It also changed Major League Baseball as the owners gave over control to establish the position of the Commissioner of Baseball, a position that still exists today, in an attempt to give public trust in the sport again. It’d also end up with eight players from the White Sox being permanently banned from Major League Baseball—hence the title of the movie, Eight Men Out.

One of those players who was permanently banned was Lefty Williams.

So, if you’re feeling like a sports movie to watch this week, check out the 1988 film called Eight Men Out!

And if you want to learn more about the true story, after you watch the movie, we compared that with history back on episode #132 of Based on a True Story. Or, if you want to take a super deep dive, the entire second season of another fantastic podcast called Infamous America is dedicated to the Black Sox Scandal of 1919. You can find a link to that in the show notes for this episode.

 

October 12, 1492. The Bahamas.

From the baseball field in the last movie, to the Bahamas, our next movie is the 1992 movie called 1492: Conquest of Paradise. About 54 minutes into the movie, we’ll find this week’s event as we can see two large ships. There’s one in the foreground and another a little distance away, and they’re not moving at all. In fact, the night before in the movie, we saw the anchors land in the water.

Today, we’re seeing smaller boats departing the large ships and heading toward the land we can see in the distance. Lush, green trees and sandy beaches make this scene look like what you’d expect for sailors on ships in the 1400s to be making landfall on an island in the Caribbean.

Because of the camera angles in the movie, it’s hard to see exactly how many boats are leaving the larger ships but I counted at least five in a single frame. Each boat is filled with men, and each boat is carrying flags of orange, yellow, purple, and many bright colors.

The camera focuses on one of the men as he jumps off the boat into the water. The movie goes into slow motion, capturing the moment as he splashes into the waist-deep water. He continues to walk in slow motion, each footstep splashing into the water.

He falls to his knees just beyond the waves in a gesture of appreciation. The camera cuts to other men jumping off the boats now. Some are running onto the land, others are falling onto the sandy beach—overall, it’s a scene that makes it obvious they haven’t seen land for quite some time. Dry land is a welcome sight.

Then, the movie gives us the location and the date. Guanahani Island. 12^th of October 1492.

The man who was on his knees gets up now. He’s approached by a colorfully dressed man.

“Don Christopher,” he says, as he unravels a scroll. Christopher signs something on the scroll. Then he speaks, “By the grace of God, in the name of their gracious Majesties of Castilla and Aragon…”

He pauses for a moment to turn around to the men who are all lined up on the beach now.

“…by all the powers vested in me, I claim this island and name it San Salvador.”

Then, the camera backs up to show the line of men as they start walking inland.

The true story behind that scene in the movie 1942: Conquest of Paradise!

That is a sequence from the 1992 movie called 1492: Conquest of Paradise. The event it’s depicting is Christopher Columbus making his first landing after the long trip across the ocean from Europe.

That happened this week in history, on October 12^th, 1492, right away let’s clarify the ships themselves. In the sequence we talked about today, we could only see two ships at any one time in the movie. In the true story, Columbus sailed with three ships: Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria.

That we only saw two in the sequence we talked about today isn’t really a point against the movie for historical accuracy—we do see three ships at different points in the movie. It’s just the sequence for October 12^th doesn’t really show all three ships at one time.

With that said, there has been a lot of debate among historians about exactly where Columbus landed.

According to Columbus himself, it was on an island called Guanahani. That’s the name we see mentioned in the movie.

The name, Guanahani, is the Taino name for the island. Just like we see in the movie, Columbus named the island San Salvador upon his arrival. I’m not sure if he did it the moment he landed on the beach like we see in the movie, but then again, Columbus thought he landed in East Asia at first. He didn’t know he actually landed in a chain of islands we now know as the Bahamas.

The name he gave the island is derived from the Spanish “Isla San Salvador” or, in English, “Island of the Holy Savior.”

As a little side note, the name “Guanahani” means “Small Land in the Upper Waters” in the Taino language. The Taino language, in turn, used to be the most popular language in the Caribbean at the time of Columbus’ landing…but that language is extinct now. Also, in the 17^th century, the island was called Waitlings Island after an Englishman who landed there. In 1925, the island was officially renamed to San Salvador.

In 1971, Columbus Day became an officially recognized Federal holiday in the United States—but that recognition has changed in recent years. The observance of the holiday doesn’t always land on October 12^th, but at least now you know a little more about the history behind the event that happened this week in history.

If you want to dig further into the story, of course you can watch the movie called 1492: Conquest of Paradise.

Even that title is a bit controversial when you consider how Columbus landed on lands owned by people who already lived there and conquered them.

Remember when I mentioned the Taino language is extinct now? Well, that’s just one example of something lost to history since Columbus’ landing. There has been a lot of controversy over his and other colonists’ actions.

As a result, in 1992, Berkeley, California became the first city in the United States to celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day instead of Columbus Day. Cities like Austin, Seattle, and Philadelphia, or states like Maine, South Dakota, and Alaska, among many others have dropped Columbus Day in favor of Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Here in Oklahoma where I’m recording this from right now, many here celebrate Native American Day instead.

So, if you’re looking for something to watch this week, the movie we talked about in this segment is called 1492: Conquest of Paradise. The landing sequence happens at about 54 minutes into the movie. If you watch the movie, or even if you just want to dig deeper into the history, scroll back to episode #186 of Based on a True Story where we covered that movie and the true story behind it.

 

Historical birthdays from the movies

Let’s move onto our next segment now, where we learn about historical figures from the movies that were born this week in history.

On October 9^th, 1895, Eugene Bullard was born in Columbus, Georgia. He is considered to be the first African American military pilot to fly in combat. And even though he was born in the United States, he flew for the French during WWI—he was rejected by the U.S. military. He’s one of those historical figures that I wish there was a biopic about his life, but if you want to see a movie in his honor this week, then I’d recommend the 2012 movie called Red Tails. Now, right up front, I’ll let you know that movie is not about Eugene Bullard. It’s about the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II, but the filmmakers honored Bullard’s memory by having the commander in the movie be named Col. A.J. Bullard. He’s played by Terrence Howard in the movie.

On October 11, 1884, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was born in New York City, New York. She’s better known by her middle name: Eleanor Roosevelt, and as the First Lady of the United States during World War II while her husband, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, or just FDR as he’s called, was president. And yes, I did a double-check on that too…Eleanor Roosevelt’s maiden name was Roosevelt, and she married Franklin Roosevelt so both her maiden and married name was Roosevelt. Eleanor and Franklin were fifth cousins once removed. This week’s recommendation portraying Eleanor on screen is called The First Lady, the 2022 series from Showtime. Eleanor Roosevelt is played by Gillian Anderson.

On October 13^th, 1537, Jane Grey was born in Bradgate, England. At least, that’s the date often given for her birthdate—hers is one of those birthdays in history that we’re not 100% sure of. She’s often known as Lady Jane Grey, or sometimes as the Nine Days’ Queen, because she was Queen of England for only nine days. Her name earned more fame when Mark Twain used her as a character in his novel from 1882 called The Prince and the Pauper. So, most movie adaptations of that will have someone playing Lady Jane. My recommendation this week, though, is the 2022 series from Starz called Becoming Elizabeth. As you can tell from the title, it’s more about Queen Elizabeth I, but Lady Jane is played by Bella Ramsey in that series. So, if you’re a fan of The Last of Us, maybe you’ll enjoy seeing Bella star in another series.

 

‘Based on a True Story’ movie that released this week

This week’s movie premiere from history is the film directed by Paul Greengrass called Captain Phillips, which was released in the U.S. 11 years ago this week on October 11^th, 2013.

In the movie, Tom Hanks portrays the lead role of Captain Richard Phillips, who takes command of the cargo ship called the Maersk Alabama. Despite the name, the Maersk Alabama’s home port according to the movie is the Port of Salalah in Oman.

When he’s given orders to take the vessel to Mombasa, Kenya, that takes him past the Horn of Africa where there has been some known pirate activity. So, along with the help of the first officer, Michael Chernus’ version of Shane Murphy, as they get underway, they go through their security protocols.

That’s when they notice a couple small boats following their massive ship.

Fearing they’re pirates, Captain Phillips calls for aid from a nearby warship. Of course, there’s not really a warship, but the pirates don’t know that. And Captain Phillips knows the pirates don’t know that, but he also knows they’re listening to the radio, so he thinks maybe if they think the military is nearby that’ll scare them off.

And it sort of works. One of the two skiffs turns around, while the other loses power in the wake of the huge cargo ship.

But they’re not in the clear yet, because the next day, one of the skiffs filled with pirates returns to the chase. Since their boat is much smaller, it’s also faster, and before long the armed pirates manage to attach their ladder to the Maersk Alabama and climb aboard despite the best efforts of the cargo ship’s crew to stop them. Then, the pirates seize control of the ship at gunpoint, and very soon it becomes clear to Captain Phillips that the pirates intend to ransom off the crew and ship for the insurance money.

The leader of the pirates is a guy named Abduwali Muse, who is played by Barkhad Abdi in the movie.

Meanwhile, it doesn’t take long for the U.S. military to actually find out the Maersk Alabama has been taken over by the pirates. After all, they’re wanting the insurance money, so the pirates aren’t trying to hide the fact that they took over the ship. So, the U.S. Navy launches a destroyer called USS Bainbridge under the command of Frank Castellano. He’s played by Yul Vazquez in the movie.

Things descend into a fight between the mostly unarmed crew and very well-armed pirates aboard the cargo ship. I say “mostly” unarmed, because we do see things like the crew using a knife to try and hold Muse hostage and force all the pirates to leave in a lifeboat. But, they won’t do that unless Captain Phillips goes with them. Trying not to make matters worse, Phillips goes along with the pirates in exchange for them leaving the rest of the crew on the Maersk Alabama.

Meanwhile, on the lifeboat, the pirates beat and blindfold Captain Phillips in what has now become a kidnapping situation as well. We see Bainbridge enter the picture and try to get to a peaceful solution. As part of that process, they hook up the lifeboat to Bainbridge so it’s being towed by the destroyer while inviting the pirate leader, Muse, to Bainbridge to negotiate. He agrees, and in the movie, we also see SEAL Team Six from the U.S. Navy setting up snipers to try and take out the pirates.

Near the climax at the end of the movie, the U.S. Navy pulls off a perfectly timed maneuver that involves stopping their tow of the lifeboat to throw the pirates off balance just as three snipers from the destroyer take three simultaneous shots and kill three of the pirates at the exact same moment.

The movie ends with Muse being the only pirate left alive. He’s arrested and taken into custody as Captain Phillips is rescued from the lifeboat and treated for his injuries.

The true story behind Captain Phillips

Before we compare the true story with the movie, I do want to point out that we did a deep dive into the full movie back on episode #28 of Based on a True Story so I’ll link that in the show notes if you want to give that a listen as well.

For today’s purposes, though, let’s start with the overview of the people in the story.

The character Tom Hanks is playing in the movie, Captain Phillips, is a real person. As of this recording, he’s still alive. Actually, it’s his book that the movie is based on. That book is called A Captain’s Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALS, and Dangerous Days at Sea. I’ll throw a link to that in the show notes, too.

The pirate leader, Abduwali Muse, is also a real person who is also still alive as of this recording—he’s currently serving a 33-year prison sentence in Terre Haute, Indiana, which means unless something changes between now and then, Muse will be released in 2038, by which time he’ll be 48 years old.

That’s right, Muse was just 18 years old when all this happened in April of 2009. Or…maybe he was 19, but we’ll get to that in a moment.

Some of the other characters in the movie are real people, too, like USS Bainbridge’s Commander Frank Castellano, and some other more background crew in the movie are based on real people but with some fictionalization thrown in to help tell the story.

But, of course, there’s always more to the true story that we don’t see in the movie.

So, let’s go back to April 8^th, 2009, because that’s when our true story starts.

Maersk Alabama really is the name of the ship that was hijacked by pirates that day. The name comes from the Danish shipping company headquartered out of Copenhagen called Maersk. They’re a massive company who has been around since 1928, although it’s worth mentioning that Maersk Alabama was registered under a U.S. flag.

That’s because technically Maersk Alabama in 2009 was run by Maersk Line, a division of Maersk that’s based out of Norfolk, Virginia, in the United States. As a little side note, after the timeline of the movie, Maersk Alabama was sold to another company and renamed to MV Tygra. As of this recording, she’s still in operation on the seas.

While I didn’t notice the movie mentioning this, in the true story when she was hijacked that marked the first time a ship bearing the U.S. flag was seized by pirates since the 1800s.

With that said, though, the movie is correct to show the crew on Maersk Alabama preparing for a possible pirate attack because Maersk Alabama was actually the sixth ship to be attacked by pirates just that week! The other ships just weren’t bearing a U.S. flag, but everyone was aware of how dangerous the waters were.

The movie is correct to show that she was heading from Salalah, Oman, to Mombasa, Kenya. On board, she was carrying 401 containers of primarily food aid for refugees in countries like Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Somalia, etc.

Any training the crew had done prior turned into reality when the true story behind the movie began on April 8^th, 2009. Just like we see in the movie, that’s when four pirates attacked the ship armed with AK-47s. We learned that Muse was just 18 or 19 years old at the time of the attack, and that actually became an issue in the subsequent trial because at first there were questions about whether or not he could even be tried as an adult.

According to Robert Gates, who was the U.S. Secretary of Defense at the time, the four pirates were between 17 and 19 years old, although Muse’s own mother said he was only 16 at the time. At the time, some suggested perhaps she said that so Muse wouldn’t be tried as an adult, but regardless, for our purposes today it’s safe to say all the pirates who boarded Maersk Alabama that day were teenagers.

The movie is also correct to show the purpose for the pirates was to get the insurance money for Maersk Alabama. As we just learned, there were a lot of other ships captured at the time—actually, even the fishing vessel the pirates used as their own “mother ship,” so to speak, was one they hijacked. That was the FV Win Far 161, which was a 700-tonnes Taiwanese ship that Somali pirates captured on April 6^th, 2009, and then used to launch the smaller skiffs to hijack even more ships.

We don’t see any of that in the movie since it’s mostly focused on Maersk Alabama, but FV Win Far 161 was eventually released by pirates in early 2010.

Back to the true story aboard Maersk Alabama, though, after being boarded by the pirates, the ship’s Chief Engineer and First Assistant Engineer, Mike Perry and Matt Fisher, respectively, worked to remove steering and engine control from the bridge, and shut down the ship’s systems. In other words, the ship went dead in the water.

Just like we see in the movie, the pirates boarded the ship and went right to the bridge. That’s where they captured Captain Phillips along with other crew, and they also found out they weren’t able to control the ship thanks to what Perry and Fisher did down below. And as we just learned, the pirates were very young and they were not highly trained engineers like Perry and Fisher so couldn’t really do anything about it themselves without help from Maersk Alabama’s crew—which, obviously, they weren’t inclined to do!

Of course, that doesn’t mean the pirates didn’t try to convince the ship’s crew to get it going again. While they held Captain Phillips in the bridge, Muse went in search of the rest of the cargo ship’s crew to do exactly that. And as you can probably guess, that was something the pirates intended to do at gunpoint.

But here’s where the movie shows the Maersk Alabama crew start fighting back, because for all they knew the pirates were going to sail the ship back to Somalia if they got it moving again…and that wouldn’t bode well for them.

Before I mentioned Mike Perry, the Chief Engineer; he’s played by David Warshofsky in the movie. While I didn’t mention this earlier, while the pirates were boarding the ship and trying to figure out why the controls didn’t work in the bridge, the rest of the Maersk Alabama’s crew hid in a secure hold in the ship. Remember, they had prepared for a possible pirate attack, so kind of like you have a plan for where you’ll go in case of emergency—so did they.

Mike Perry, though, hid himself outside of the secure room. His plan was to try and capture one of the pirates so he could trade the pirate for Captain Phillips. Basically, a prisoner exchange. So, when Muse walked by looking for crew, Perry jumped him with a knife and managed to subdue the teenager. Then, they offered the exchange to the pirates in the bridge. The movie gets that pretty accurate, too, because the offer was for the pirates to get their leader back, Muse, as well as all the cash they had on the ship—there was $30,000 in the ship’s safe, and then they also offered the pirates the use of the Maersk Alabama’s lifeboat for them to get off the ship.

Keeping in mind, again, that the pirates were teenagers who no doubt were feeling a little overwhelmed and unable to move the massive ship, they agreed to the deal. So, the crew released Muse with the cash and expected the pirates to hold up their end of the bargain.

But, things didn’t go according to plan. Instead, the pirates took Captain Phillips into the 28-foot lifeboat with them. So, now, the four pirates are off the Maersk Alabama, but now it’s also a hostage situation.

In the movie, we see the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Bainbridge get called into the picture around this time, and that is true. But, in the true story, the USS Bainbridge was not the only U.S. Navy ship involved—because, as we learned earlier—the Maersk Alabama was also not the only ship that had been hijacked by Somali pirates recently. So, there was a U.S. Navy presence in the area. There was another frigate, USS Halyburton, who was sent to deal with the hostage situation alongside Bainbridge.

And something else we don’t see in the movie is that the pirates’ ships also started to converge on the situation. Remember when we talked about the Taiwanese fishing vessel the pirates used as a “mother ship” of sorts? Well, as the Navy arrived on scene, so, too, did about four other ships all under pirate control. On those four ships were the crew held hostage by the pirates, so over 50 hostages from countries around the world.

Since Maersk Alabama was the only U.S. ship hijacked, though, and Captain Phillips was the captain of said ship…that’s why the movie’s story focuses more on the U.S.-centric version of the story. Also, because it’s based on Captain Phillips’ book, of course.

So, if you recall, the pirates boarded Maersk Alabama on April 8^th. On April 9^th, the Bainbridge and Halyburton arrived on scene and stayed just outside of the range of fire from the pirates. Instead, they used UAVs to get intelligence on the lifeboat and the situation as a whole.

By the way, the lifeboat is a covered lifeboat. The movie shows it pretty well, but if you’re like me and you think of the Titanic lifeboats—well, this happened in 2009 and not 1912, so obviously the lifeboat is a little different haha! Before long, the Navy made contact with the lifeboat and started to try negotiating with the pirates for Captain Phillips’ release—as well as the 54 other hostages on the other pirate-held boats.

On April 10^th, another Navy ship, the Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Boxer arrived at the scene, and negotiations continued with the pirates. The next day, everything changed when the pirates fired on USS Halyburton. No one was hurt, and Halyburton didn’t shoot back—no doubt not wanting to make things worse. I mean, Halyburton isn’t the world’s largest military ship, but it’s still a 453-foot-long battle-ready military ship with an array of armaments that could easily take out the 28-foot lifeboat if they really wanted to.

With Captain Phillips still held hostage on the lifeboat, though, Halyburton held their fire.

We don’t really see this in the movie, but in the true story’s timeline, April 11^th was also when Maersk Alabama finally arrived in Mombasa, Kenya, with the rest of the ship’s crew who had gotten it back underway after the pirates made their escape in the lifeboat. The U.S. Navy was involved in that, too, and escorted Maersk Alabama the rest of the way to ensure no other pirates would try to capture her again.

Meanwhile, back in the hostage situation, when the pirates fired on Halyburton, the U.S. Navy’s position changed from attempting to negotiate a release, to arranging a rescue. To help with that, they managed to convince Muse to come aboard Bainbridge for the negotiations the following day, April 12^th.

And so, the end of the movie is quite accurate to the end of the true story.

With Muse aboard Bainbridge, three SEAL Team Six snipers coordinated to simultaneously shoot the remaining three pirates on the lifeboat at the same time. Then, the Navy swooped in to rescue Captain Phillips, and with no more hostage to negotiate, Muse was arrested aboard Bainbridge. They never did find the $30,000, although some conspiracies have arisen that perhaps members of the SEAL Team Six took it before anyone else noticed—that’s never been proven one way or the other, though.

After the situation was handled at sea, Muse was taken back to the United States where he stood trial. Despite what his mother said about him being 16, Muse himself said he was 18, so he was tried as an adult. A few weeks later, in May of 2009, Captain Phillips sold his story to be told in what would become both the 2010 memoir from Phillips as well as the 2013 Paul Greengrass-directed movie we’ve learned about today.

September 30th, 331 BCE. Persia.

We’ll start this week by going back into ancient history from the 2004 Alexander movie.

Just a few minutes into the beginning of the movie we’ll find an event from this week in history as the camera pans across the desert. There are a few clouds in the sky, but it’s hardly a blue sky—more of a hazy mix of gray and an orange that, along with the sand in front of us, makes for a very one-colored landscape.

There’s some text on the screen telling us we’re in Gaugamela, Persia. That’s in modern-day Iraqi Kurdistan.

As we see a man on a horse, another man’s voice is narrating the story. He says it was mad. 40,000 of us against hundreds of thousands of them under Darius. East and West had come together to decide the fate of the known world.

That night, the soldiers camp in the desert. Collin Ferrell’s version of Alexander the Great looks at the moon along with Jared Leto’s character, Hephaestion. He says the moon is a bad omen, to which Alexander says it’s a bad omen for Darius.

They go on, talking a bit more about the battle to come before Alexander goes to his tent while Hephaestion walks off.

The next day, the sun is bright in the sky. We see scores of soldiers marching. The camera cuts between Alexander offering up a cow as a sacrifice and the feet of scores of marching soldiers. Dust gets kicked up as they’re marching. Immediately above the soldiers, the sky is darkened with the lines of long spears carried by the soldiers.

After the sacrifice is made, Alexander jumps on his horse and the camera flies into the sky for an overhead view. Among the sand in the desert, the soldiers are too many to count. The lines of soldiers we can see quickly fade into the dust and sand being kicked up as the men are marching. The battle is about to begin.

The true story behind that scene in the movie Alexander

In the show notes I’ll have a link to the deep dive that we did back on episode #157 of Based on a True Story for the entire movie, but for this week’s event, I actually backed up a day to September 30^th because what we just watched in the movie are the events leading up to the Battle of Gaugamela that happened on October 1^st, 331 BCE when Alexander the Great defeated Darius III of Persia.

The movie’s mention of 40,000 men against hundreds of thousands is a generalization, but it’s close enough. In the true story, Alexander had 47,000 soldiers under his command while Darius had anywhere from 50,000 to over a million soldiers.

As you can imagine, that’s a huge discrepancy in the numbers. But I guess that’s something that can happen about an event that took place thousands of years ago.

And to be fair, most historians today dispute there being over a million soldiers—that comes from some ancient sources. For example, a Greek historian who lived at the time, Arrian, estimated 40,000 cavalry and 1,000,000 infantry for the Persians. Another ancient historian estimated 800,000 infantry and 200,000 cavalry. Another estimated just 1,000,000 troops without breaking them down into cavalry and infantry. Yet another said 45,000 cavalry and only 200,000 infantry.

Only.

200,000 is still a huge army for a battle. But, you get the point of how conflicting accounts make it difficult to know exactly how many were there. Generally, modern estimates range between 50,000 and 120,000 soldiers altogether for the Persians.

On the Greek side, most historians agree the army under the command of Alexander the Great was about 47,000. There seems to be less dispute about that, but anyway you look at it, the Greeks were outnumbered.

Perhaps that’s one reason why the battle is something we still talk about to this day.

Times were different in 331 BCE, and both Darius and Alexander themselves led the attack with their soldiers. After some intense fighting, the decisive blow took place when Alexander charged with a giant wedge of soldiers against the Persian infantry. They managed to weaken the Persian center where Darius was located.

Remember the name Arrian that I mentioned a moment ago? Arrian was a Greek historian who lived from around 86 to around 160 CE, so he wasn’t alive during 331 BCE when the battle was—but, of course, he was still closer to the events than we are today. Arrian’s book called The Anabasis of Alexander is one of the best sources we have about Alexander the Great.

Here’s a quote from Arrian about the turning point in the Battle of Gaugamela:

For a short time there ensued a hand-to-hand fight; but when the Macedonian cavalry, commanded by Alexander himself, pressed on vigorously, thrusting themselves against the Persians and striking their faces with their spears, and when the Macedonian phalanx in dense array and bristling with long pikes had also made an attack upon them, all things together appeared full of terror to Darius, who had already long been in a state of fear, so that he was the first to turn and flee.

By the end of October 1^st, Alexander won what many consider one of his finest and most decisive victories in the face of overwhelming odds. On the other side, the Persian King Darius III did manage to escape on horseback, but it was considered to be the beginning of the end for the First Persian Empire, which later fell completely to the Greeks and Alexander the Great.

 

October 1st, 1961. New York.

Our next event happened on Tuesday this week, and we’ll find it about an hour and 52 minutes into the made-for-TV movie called 61*.

We’re on a baseball field. The camera dollies down just behind home plate, so we can see a perfect angle of the batter, catcher, and umpire on the right side of the camera frame. On the left side, the pitcher stands on the mound. In the distance behind them is the crowd in the stands.

At the plate is number 9, and we can see from the uniform he’s on the New York Yankees. After a few moments, he gets into position in the batter’s box. The pitcher, wearing a Boston Red Sox away uniform, nods to the catcher the approval of the next pitch. Then, he winds, and throws.

The batter swings. We can hear the crack of the bat as the ball goes soaring into right field. The announcer is excited. It’s going back, back…the camera cuts to the crowd in the outfield looking up. The outfielder races to the fence, tracking the ball. He gets to the wall just in time to see the ball land a few rows into the stands.

And the crowd goes wild!

The true story behind that scene in the movie 61*

That short sequence in the movie is a depiction of Roger Maris hitting his 61^st home run of the 1961 season, breaking Babe Ruth’s record that he had set in 1927. We’ll learn more about that and the movie’s title in a moment, but before we do that, let’s do our fact-check of the movie because it is correct to show Maris hitting his 61^st homer off the Red Sox, but there’s more to the story that we don’t see there.

It was the final game of the 1961 season when the New York Yankees were playing their rivals, the Boston Red Sox. On the mound for the Red Sox was a rookie starter by the name of Tracy Stallard. Technically, Stallard had his major league debut the year prior in 1960, but he only had four appearances that year, so he qualified as a rookie in 1961.

That day, Stallard managed to get Roger Maris to pop out to left field during his first at bat. That was in the first inning. Maris came to bat again in the fourth. On a 2-0 pitch, Maris hit a fastball into the right field stands for his 61^st home run.

Oh, I mentioned the asterisk in the movie’s title of 61*. The reason for that is because in 1961, the American League expanded with the Los Angeles Angels and Washington Senators joining the league—the previous Washington Senators moved to Minneapolis after the 1960 season to become the Minnesota Twins. With more teams in the league, they decided to change the number of games played from 154 to 162. 1961 was the first year the American League did that, the National League didn’t follow with the 162-game season until the following year, 1962.

So, when Roger Maris was on his record-setting season in 1961, baseball was in the midst of a lot of changes. Not only the expanded number of games, but with new teams in the league that meant there were a lot of players in the majors who had just been called up from the minors.

In other words, a lot of people felt the teams were not quite as good as they had been just a year prior with 50 more players added to the league in the two brand-new expansion teams.

And, in a nutshell, that’s why the asterisk is on Maris’ record. Babe Ruth hit 60 home runs in 154 games. In 154 games of the 1961 season, Roger Maris had 59 home runs. It wasn’t until the final game of the 162-game season for Roger Maris to hit his 61^st home run. Since it took Maris more games to break the record, a lot of people questioned whether or not the record was a legitimate record.

More specifically, it was a New York sportswriter named Dick Young who suggested the asterisk. Officially, the Commissioner of Baseball removed any asterisk from Maris’ record in 1991, but whether or not there’s an asterisk is still something many people debate today, due in large part to the 1998 season. That’s when Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa both broke Maris’ record with Sosa hitting 66 home runs and McGwire hitting 70 home runs. That record would then be broken three years later when Barry Bonds hit 73 home runs in the 2001 season. None of those three players, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, and Barry Bonds, have been inducted into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame because of their alleged use of PEDs.

So, that started to bring up Maris’ record again because if he had the asterisk in his, should Sosa, McGwire and/or Bonds have one? For some baseball fans, the debate continues to this day.

As a little side note, it’s worth pointing out that Maris’ record of 61 home runs was still the most by a New York Yankee until Aaron Judge hit 62 in 2022.

If you want to watch the event that happened this week in history, though, check out the 2001 movie called 61*. Roger Maris’ at-bat with the 61^st home run starts at about an hour and 52 minutes into the movie.

Oh, and since I mentioned Babe Ruth, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that it was also this week in history when Babe Ruth’s called shot took place. That was on October 1^st, 1932.

The New York Yankees were playing the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field for game three of the World Series when things got to be pretty chippy on the field with players on both sides doing their fair share of name-calling. When Babe Ruth came to bat in the fifth inning, he made a gesture that looks like he was pointing to the center field bleachers. Then, sure enough, he hit a home run right to those center field bleachers.

Was he calling his shot? This is another thing that’s up for debate. Some people say that’s exactly what he was doing. Footage of the event that you can find online certainly looks like that could be what he’s doing. But, again, it’s footage from 1932 so not quite the high-definition footage we have today. Some say he wasn’t calling his shot but simply gesturing his bat toward fans or other players or something else.

Regardless of what you believe, no one can deny that Babe Ruth calling his shot is an event that has gone down in sports history, and it happened this week.

Oh, and to bring it back to movies, there is a scene about 11 minutes into the 1984 movie The Natural where a nicknamed “The Whammer” that’s supposed to be kind of like Babe Ruth called his shot in a contest between himself and the star of the movie, Robert Redford’s character, Roy Hobbs.

Of course, that happens in a contest at a fair and not the World Series. “The Whammer” may have been based on Babe Ruth, but he’s a fictional character. Just like Roy Hobbs is a fictional character. So, that scene may only be inspired by a true story, but it’s enough of a reason to watch The Natural if you’re looking for more baseball movies to watch this week!

The last baseball movie I’d recommend is a documentary, not a fictional movie. It’s called Say Hey, Willie Mays! from HBO and as you can probably guess it’s all about Willie Mays. I’m throwing that into the baseball recommendation this week because it was actually last week in history when Willie Mays made what we now know simply as “The Catch.”

That happened during game one of the World Series on September 29^th, 1954. With the score tied 2-2 in the 8^th inning, Vic Wertz of the Cleveland Indians hit a fly ball to deep center field. It traveled some 420 feet or so, that’s about 130 meters, before Willie Mays made an over-the-shoulder catch while sprinting from where he had been positioned in shallow center field. In a single motion, he caught the ball, spun around and threw the ball back to the infield preventing any runners from advancing. It was such an amazing play that it’s been regarded as one of the greatest plays in sports.

So, hop in the show notes for lots of great baseball movies from this week in history!

 

October 3, 1993. Mogadishu, Somalia.

Our third event falls on Thursday this week, and we’ll find it about 43 minutes into the movie called Black Hawk Down as we find ourselves in the middle of Mogadishu, Somalia. There’s dirt street lined with buildings on either side. Driving down the street is a line of American Humvees, each vehicle is equipped with a machine gun at the top and manned by a soldier in full uniform. As they move forward, people in the streets start running the opposite direction as the Humvees. Whatever is about to go down, these civilians don’t want to get involved and I don’t blame them.

The camera changes angles now and we’re transported to the helicopters flying over the city, offering air support to the Humvees below. It looks like there are four helicopters, each of them loaded full of American soldiers so much so they we can see them sitting partially hanging out the open doors on either side of the helicopters.

Down on the ground, we’re inside a local resident’s car now. He watches as the four helicopters touch down in a line on the street. As the helicopters touch down, the soldiers jump out with their weapons ready. Another helicopter touches down on the top of a nearby building, the soldiers inside hopping out to get an overhead view of the street.

Almost immediately, these soldiers open fire on armed men across the way on another building. The four helicopters lift back off, leaving the soldiers on the ground. Or, well, some on the rooftops, as I just mentioned, but you know what I mean—they’re not on the helicopters anymore.

The camera angle shows us the helicopters leaving and then behind them we can see three more larger helicopters arriving.

But we don’t see much more of that yet as the camera changes again, following some of the soldiers who are entering one of the buildings. Weapons hot, they open fire on people inside. We can’t even see who they are before the soldiers shoot them, although it looks like they’re carrying weapons.

Back outside, the three larger military helicopters are taking up a triangle sort of positioning around a single building. On that building is the word “Olympic.”

These helicopters don’t touch down, but instead, they’re hovering low to the ground as ropes are thrown out either side. By this point, the blades on the helicopters have kicked up so much dirt and dust from the streets below that the normally blue sky has a tint of orange to it as we see from ground level the American soldiers rappel from the ropes.

Back with the Humvees, that line stops now. It’s hard to tell where they’re located from what we’re seeing in the movie. Quickly the movie cuts to another scene of American soldiers kicking in a door. Inside, a bunch of men put their hands up at the sight of the soldiers pointing their rifles at them.

There is someone firing at the Americans, forcing them to take cover.

One of the soldiers from the Humvees looks around the corner to see a helicopter hovering in the street with more American soldiers rappelling down the ropes. So, I guess the Humvees must be just around the corner from the helicopters by the “Olympic” building.

The four smaller helicopters from earlier aren’t anywhere to be seen, and now the three larger helicopters are flying away, too. Except they’re not going far. We can hear what must be the pilots talking to each other, talking about how chalk’s on the ground, so now they’re going to go into a holding pattern to provide sniper cover from the air.

Down below, things are getting more intense as a truck filled with armed men shows up and begins firing back at the American soldiers on the ground. Among the machine gun and rifles, we can see some of the men running up the stairs to a rooftop carrying rocket-propelled grenades: RPGs.

Back inside one of the helicopters, a soldier sees the RPG coming right at them. The pilot manages to move the helicopter out of the way just in time. A soldier on the ropes who was rappelling to the ground loses his grip and falls to the ground—we can’t see him hit because there’s so much dirt being kicked up by the helicopters that he just falls into the abyss.

Another soldier hops out to help his fallen comrade. The soldier who fell isn’t moving. The Americans and Somalis continue shooting at each other. After a while, the action shifts and we can hear the soldiers talking about as it’s time for extraction. We can see some men who seem to be prisoners from one of the rooms the soldiers burst into being guarded as they walk back to where the helicopters pick them up.

The armed resistance is increasing, though, and we can see an armed man leading a couple others with RPGs. Finding a view from below, he instructs them to shoot at one of the helicopters. The Americans inside see the RPG, but not before the tail is hit. A burst of flame and smoke pours out of the tail as the helicopter starts spinning around. Inside, alarms are beeping. Back at the command post, we can see the man in charge of the American’s mission stand up as he watches a screen with the smoking helicopter.

“Wolcott’s bird is hit,” we can hear someone saying.

Down below the American soldiers look up in disbelief as the helicopter continues to spin out of control.

“Super six-one is going down,” we can hear one of the soldiers saying.

Inside the helicopter, the pilot yells at the other men to hold on. Alarms continue beeping as he tries to control the ‘copter. The spinning helicopter manages to make it to a clearing between buildings before it crashes in a huge plume of smoke and dirt.

The true story behind that scene in the movie Black Hawk Down

That sequence comes from the 2001 film directed by Ridley Scott called Black Hawk Down, and it depicts an event that really did happen this week in history when not one, but two Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters were shot down on October 3^rd, 1993, in what we now know as the Battle of Mogadishu.

Or, I guess, because of the movie and the book it’s based on it’s also often referred to simply as the “Black Hawk Down Incident.”

What we didn’t get to hear in the brief description leading up to the events of October 3^rd was the reason the American soldiers were there that day.

In a nutshell, Somalia had just had a military coup by a group called the Somali National Alliance, or SNA, led by a man named Mohamed Farrah Aidid. Soon after, the United Nations launched an operation to offer food and relief supplies to the country’s affected citizens. So, from an overall perspective, that’s why the American soldiers were there as a part of the United Nations’ mission.

The mission for that particular day, October 3^rd, 1993, was to try and capture some of the SNA’s senior leadership. If you recall, the movie shows a building with the word “Olympic” on it. That would be a point for the movie’s historical accuracy, because it is true that intel had placed some of Aidid’s leadership in a building near the Olympic Hotel.

The movie also got the timing right.

By 3:40 PM, the four helicopters we see at first in the movie arrived. The movie doesn’t say exactly what they are, but they’re Boeing MH-6 Little Bird light helicopters. Their purpose that day was to carry rockets and ammo while authorized to kill any SNA soldiers who shot at them.

Down below, the noise of the helicopters had alerted Somalis in the city of their presence. The Americans’ mission was all about speed and by 4:00 PM, the Delta Force commandos had completed their mission and successfully captured 24 of Aidid’s senior leadership.

“Laurie” was the code word given to let everyone know the prisoners were secured and it was time to go home.

And just like we see in the movie, that’s when everything went wrong for the Americans when an RPG hit one of the Black Hawk helicopters. That was at 4:20 PM, so not long after the prisoners were secured.

In the movie, we hear them talking about Super Six-One, which is true because that was the designation for the MH-60 Black Hawk helicopter that was shot down.

All of a sudden, the mission wasn’t just about getting out of there with the prisoners anymore. They had to rescue the soldiers in the downed helicopter. While most didn’t know it yet, both pilots had already been killed in the crash and a couple other soldiers were badly wounded. The remaining two soldiers inside set up to defend their ground until help came.

Oh, and one of those pilots was who we heard mentioned in the movie when they’re referring to “Wolcott’s bird.” That would be Chief Warrant Officer 3 Clifton Wolcott, one of the pilots of Super Six-One who was killed in the crash.

The line of Humvees we see in the movie were tasked with making their way to Super Six-One, while one of the smaller helicopters we saw in the movie, an MH-6 Little Bird, went to cover the crash site until the ground forces could get there.

But that posed a logistical problem because even though the helicopter crashed about 300 yards from the target building, the forces on the ground couldn’t see that. So, they asked for help from the helicopters still in the air and slowly made their way in the direction of the crash site.

Another Black Hawk designated Super Six-Eight was sent to the crash site. While the rescue team was rappelling from Super Six-Eight, that helicopter was also hit by an RPG. It didn’t crash, thankfully, but it was forced to return to base.

Another Black Hawk, Super Six-Four, went to the crash site to help both support the soldiers on the ground while also giving a visual indicator to the troops trying to find the crash site from below.

Things went from bad to worse when, at 4:40 PM, Super Six-Four was hit by an RPG, sending it crashing down into some buildings below.

There were now two crashed Black Hawk helicopters. It was the start of what would be a 15-hour rescue mission that would leave 80 American soldiers wounded, 18 American soldiers dead and an estimated 1,000 or more Somali fighters killed.

As you can tell, there’s a lot more to the story of what happened on October 3^rd and 4^th, so if you want to take a deep dive into the true story, scroll back to episode #105 of Based on a True Story where we covered the movie Black Hawk Down.

If you just want to watch the movie, of course, we started our segment about 43 minutes into the movie, but really, pretty much the entire movie takes place this week in history.

 

Historical birthdays from the movies

This week there are two historical birthdays on Wednesday!

Starting with Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg, who was born on October 2^nd, 1847, in the city of Posen in the Kingdom of Prussia—today that’s in Poland.

Paul von Hindenburg was remembered in history as the man who led the Imperial German Army during World War I and then became the President of Germany who proposed Adolf Hitler become the chancellor. Hindenburg remained the President until his death when Hitler dissolved the office of the president so that he could take those powers, too. Because of his association with World War I and Hitler, Von Hindenburg has been portrayed in a lot of movies and TV shows, but if you haven’t seen it yet then I’d recommend the two-part TV miniseries called Hitler: The Rise of Evil. In that series, Von Hindenburg is played by the great actor Peter O’Toole.

Or if you want something more focused on entertainment and not quite as historically accurate, Hindenburg is played by Rainer Bock in the 2017 Wonder Woman movie.

Also on October 2^nd but in the year 1869, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born in Porbandar, India. Better known as Mahatma Ghandi, he was born in British-controlled India and was a lawyer and activist who was influential in leading India toward a peaceful independence from British rule. Probably the most popular movie portraying Ghandi’s life is the 1982 film from Richard Attenborough simply called Ghandi where he was played by Ben Kingsley.

On October 5^th, 1902, Ray Kroc was born in Oak Park, Illinois. Ray was best known as the businessman who bought a fast-food company from the McDonald brothers in 1961 and turned it into the McDonald’s brand we all know today. That story was told in the 2016 movie called The Founder where Ray Kroc is played by Michael Keaton. We compared that movie with history back on episode #90 of Based on a True Story.

 

‘Based on a True Story’ movie that released this week

Tuesday this week marks the 14^th anniversary of David Fincher’s biographical drama about the founding of Facebook. In The Social Network, we follow Jesse Eisenberg’s character of Mark Zuckerberg as he’s a Harvard University student back in 2003.

According to the movie, he’s dumped by his girlfriend Erica Albright, played by Rooney Mara, and in response to the breakup he creates a website called “FaceMash.” That website basically lets Harvard students compare and rank the attractiveness of female students, and it’s an instant hit—so much so that it lands Zuckerberg in trouble with the university administration.

Inspired by the success of “FaceMash,” Zuckerberg decides to create a social networking site for Harvard students, which he calls “The Facebook.”

Meanwhile, we meet two other students named Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. The identical twins are both played by Armie Hammer in the movie, and they approach Zuckerberg with an idea for their social networking site, “Harvard Connection.” Zuckerberg agrees to help them but instead uses their concept as a foundation for his own project.

“The Facebook” quickly expands to other Ivy League schools and eventually spreads to universities across the country. Eduardo Saverin, played by Andrew Garfield, is Zuckerberg’s best friend and co-founder of Facebook. He serves as the company’s CFO, providing the initial funding for the venture. However, tensions arise between the two as the platform grows in popularity.

Sean Parker, portrayed by Justin Timberlake, enters the picture as the co-founder of Napster and becomes involved with Facebook. Parker convinces Zuckerberg to relocate the company to Silicon Valley and pursue aggressive expansion, leading to a rift between Zuckerberg and Saverin. Eventually, Saverin’s shares in the company are diluted, and he is effectively pushed out of the business.

The film is framed by two lawsuits filed against Zuckerberg. The first is from the Winklevoss twins, who claim that Zuckerberg stole their idea. The second is from Saverin, who sues Zuckerberg for diluting his shares in the company. These legal proceedings are interspersed with flashbacks to the creation and rise of Facebook.

As the lawsuits are settled, the film concludes with Zuckerberg alone, refreshing his Facebook page while awaiting a friend request acceptance from his ex-girlfriend Erica. The movie ends with text stating the outcomes of the lawsuits: the Winklevoss twins received a settlement of $65 million, and Saverin’s name was restored to the list of Facebook’s founders.

The true story behind The Social Network

So, that’s all from the movie’s version of events.

Shifting from the fiction and into the fact-checking, I’m sure you already know who Mark Zuckerberg is, and maybe you’ve heard of the Winklevoss twins. Erica Albright, Eduardo Saverin, Sean Parker…those are all real people, too, and the movie does a pretty good job of setting up who they are in the true story.

The movie is also correct to show Mark Zuckerberg setting up a website called “FaceMash” that was basically comparing two women side-by-side and letting users vote on which one was more attractive. While the movie doesn’t really focus on this, in the true story Mark Zuckerberg based his “FaceMash” website that he built in 2003 on a website from 2000 called “Hot or Not” that, well, is pretty self-explanatory on what it did.

While Tinder didn’t come around until 2012, a lot of people have compared that style of swiping left or right as the same as concept. Except, of course, Zuckerberg’s “FaceMash” website only included voting for women.

To get photos of students for his own website, Zuckerberg hacked into the Harvard student directories. Those directories were called “facebooks” – so you can get a sense of where the name came from. You can also get an idea for how happy students were when they found out their photos were on FaceMash without their permission. He launched FaceMash on October 28^th, 2003, and the movie is correct to show that almost immediately it was both very popular—and also something that Zuckerberg got into huge trouble over.

After all, he had used photos without permission and used them to objectify women without their consent. People considered it both a violation legal copyright infringement, as well as just being ethically immoral.

Zuckerberg managed to avoid getting expelled, and shut down FaceMash after just three days.

In the movie, we see the lesson Zuckerberg learned from this was to find a way to get people to give their photos and information for free. That’s where, according to the movie, the Winklevoss twins’ idea of “The Harvard Connection” comes in.

And that’s basically correct, because as Zuckerberg was facing the repercussions of FaceMash, enter the Winklevoss twins, Cameron and Tyler, along with another student named Divya Narendra. He’s played by Max Minghella in the movie.

And it is true that those three worked on a new networking website they called “The Harvard Connection” back in late 2002, and into 2003. When Zuckerberg’s whole FaceMash debacle made him a name on campus, Narendra and the Winklevoss twins asked Zuckerberg if he’d join their project as the lead developer for “The Harvard Connection.”

The idea they had for “The Harvard Connection” was basically to be a social networking platform online for Harvard students—with an eventual plan to grow beyond Harvard—it was eventually renamed “ConnectU.”

So, that’s how Mark Zuckerberg got involved in what was then The Harvard Connection. At the same time as he was helping them, he also recognized the idea of a social networking platform was the perfect way to get people to upload their information into his own platform—the next “FaceMash,” so to speak.

And so it was that, on February 4^th, 2004, Zuckerberg launched a new website he called “The Facebook” after Harvard’s internal directories. This time, though, he wasn’t hacking the directories to get information. He allowed users to upload their information to share with others. And so, the concept of what we know as Facebook now was born.

The Facebook started getting popular fast—and the movie is also correct to show that the Winklevoss twins and Narendra were not happy when they found out about Zuckerberg’s new website. After all, it was basically what they were wanting to do! On top of that, they also felt like Zuckerberg was slacking on developing their platform while working on his own competitor.

We see that in the movie, but to get a better understanding, it’s helpful to know the timeline of it all.

So, if you recall, it was at the end of October in 2003 that FaceMash was shut down. In November of 2003, Narendra and the Winklevoss twins asked Zuckerberg to help with their project. He agreed. Then, on February 4^th, 2004, Zuckerberg launched The Facebook on his own while still developing The Harvard Connection. It took a few months, but as The Facebook got more popular, around May of 2004, the rest of The Harvard Connection team found out about The Facebook.

Well, I guess technically by then they had rebranded from The Harvard Connection to ConnectU in the hopes of expanding beyond Harvard.

In September of 2004, ConnectU officially filed a lawsuit against Zuckerberg claiming he stole their ideas to start Facebook. In return, Facebook filed a lawsuit against ConnectU in 2005 claiming they stole Facebook’s web design for ConnectU.

As you can imagine, the lawsuits didn’t make either side happy for quite some time…until, in 2008, they finally agreed on a settlement that saw Facebook handing over about $20 million in cash as well as over a million Facebook shares—another $45 million or so in valuation at the time.

At the time of the settlement in 2008, Facebook was worth about $15 billion dollars, thanks in no small part to an October 2007 investment from Microsoft of about $240 million for 1.6% of Facebook.

Oh! And I didn’t even mention Justin Timberlake’s character, Sean Parker.

It is true that Sean Parker was the very first president of Facebook.

It’s also true that he’s the same guy who founded Napster, although the movie focuses more on Facebook so it doesn’t really tell that part of the story.

In a nutshell, the true story for Sean Parker’s involvement started years earlier back around the turn of the century in 1999 when Parker and his partner Shawn Fanning launched the file-sharing service they called Napster—named after Fanning’s high-school nickname. Both Parker and Fanning were still teenagers when they launched Napster, after all. And that gives you a little insight into Sean Parker, because he didn’t go to Harvard like Mark Zuckerberg did.

In fact, Sean Parker never went to any college. At 16, he won a tech fair by developing a web browser. That was back in 1995, and Netscape Navigator launched in 1994, so the idea of a web browser was still new at the time—and that win earned him an internship at a company called FreeLoader. That was the first company started by Mark Pincus, who you might know as the guy who started Zynga. You remember FarmVille and Words with Friends?

So, that’s who Sean Parker worked for throughout high school. As Sean said in an interview for Forbes, “I wasn’t going to school. I was technically in a co-op program but in truth was just going to work.”

He also said he made about $80,000 that year which, adjusted for inflation, is about the same as $150,000 today. So, his parents were okay with him not going to college.

And that’s what he was doing when he met Shawn Fanning on a dial-up bulletin board. Together, the two built and launched Napster in June of 1999. It gained popularity to help infuse them with some investment money, but they also started to run into legal troubles. That part of the story comes from the band Metallica. They had a song called “I Disappear” on the Mission Impossible 2 soundtrack that showed up on Napster before it was officially released.

In April of 2000, they officially filed a lawsuit against Napster, followed soon by other musicians like Dr. Dre as well as the RIAA overall.

The tricky part to all this, though, is the way Napster worked isn’t by hosting the files themselves. If you’re familiar with BitTorrent, that’s a technology that came out in the wake of Napster and works basically the same way. When you installed Napster, it’d scan your hard drive for any MP3 files—technically you could do more than just MP3s as Napster’s software evolved, but MP3s and music was its focus. So, it’d scan for MP3s and create an index of the files you had on your computer. Then, someone else could request that file and Napster would transfer it from your computer to theirs.

The concept is called peer-to-peer, and what that meant is that Napster didn’t actually store the files themselves. So, when they were hit with lawsuits to remove all the copyrighted files—they couldn’t really do that. Napster was forced to cease operations in 2001 and filed for bankruptcy in 2002.

Of course, as is often the case for tech companies, other companies buy up their assets and branding. So, as a little side note, if you look up Napster today—it still exists, or maybe it’s better to say it exists again, because it’s a completely legal streaming service now.

So, in 2002, Parker started up a new company called Plaxo. It was basically a souped-up address book in Microsoft Outlook, but at the time it was also a precursor to social networking. Parker was forced out of Plaxo by investors in 2004, so when he saw “The Facebook” as it was called then on his girlfriend’s computer while she was a student at Stanford and immediately saw the potential.

Thanks to Sean’s past with Napster, he had connections with investors and helped bring on Peter Thiel as one of the first outside investors for Facebook. If that name rings a bell, it’s because he co-founded PayPal alongside Elon Musk, which he was also the CEO of until they sold to eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002.

So, around 2004, Thiel was flush with cash and invested $500,000 for about 10.2% of the company. He sold all those shares in 2012 for about $1 billion, although he’s still on the board—actually, there’s a Wall Street Journal article from 2019 that I’ll link to in the show notes if you want to read about some of the controversy swirling around him and his pressuring of Facebook not to fact-check political ads.

And I’m sure you’ve seen the aftermath of those decisions as Mark Zuckerberg was called to testify before Congress in April of 2018 about Facebook’s role in the election.

September 24^th, 1780. New York.

At 36 minutes into the third season, episode 9 of AMC’s Turn: Washington’s Spies, we’ll find an event that happened exactly 244 years ago today during the American Revolutionary War.

Hitting play on the series, we’re in a wooded encampment of American soldiers. In the foreground is a cannon, with horses and a tent in the background. On the right side, everything is gathered around a rustic, wooden building. Off in the distance, behind the building, a uniformed officer in blue and white can be seen riding a horse into the encampment. Taking off his helmet, he tells one of the soldiers he’s looking for Colonel Jameson. They point him to the building. Handing the soldier his helmet, he walks to the building and enters.

Once inside, we can see another uniformed man sitting behind a desk. That must be Colonel Jameson, although there’s no one with that name cast in the series. But we can tell the man walking into the building who just entered the encampment is Seth Numrich’s character, Benjamin Tallmadge.

Tallmadge addresses Jameson inside the building, and we can see another man there playing a game of checkers across from the Colonel. The other man isn’t wearing a uniform at all, and when Tallmadge introduces himself as Major Benjamin Tallmadge from General Washington’s staff, the other man seems to noticeably shy away a bit.

Tallmadge tells the Colonel he was sent to find out what happened last night.

Now the three men are all facing each other, and Tallmadge makes no indication of recognizing the non-uniformed man. Colonel Jameson goes on, saying an enemy ship got a little rowdy, but she turned tail after a few shots. Oh, and this man was caught by some Skinners a few hours ago. They said he’s a spy, but he has a letter of pass from General Arnold that they couldn’t read.

Tallmadge looks directly at the other man, who we know from the actor is JJ Feild’s character, Major John Andre. He smiles at Tallmadge saying it was a simple misunderstanding. Tallmadge makes no indication of recognizing Andre.

“Yes, of course,” he says. Then, he asks Jameson for a word between just the two men, and they leave the building together. Once outside, Tallmadge asks Jameson to confirm Andre’s story. Then, Tallmadge asks Jameson if he had any shoes on. Jameson pauses for a moment.

No, he didn’t have any.

You didn’t think that was odd?

Then, turning to look at one of the Skinners standing there, Tallmadge continues to talk to Jameson.

“Or, you didn’t think it was odd that one of the Skinners is wearing a pair of royal officer’s boots?”

We can see one of the men standing there is wearing a nice pair of boots. Tallmadge asks what the man’s name is inside. Jameson thinks for a moment, then he says, “John Anderson.”

Tallmadge thinks for a moment, seemingly racking his brain for that name.

Then, Colonel Jameson continues to speak, saying that he should add that he did have plans for West Point on his person. But we didn’t think anything of it because they were in General Arnold’s handwriting. Tallmadge is in disbelief, “Wait a minute, what? And you just thought to tell me this now?”

Jameson stands a little taller now, “Of course not. It’s all in my report to General Arnold.”

Tallmadge pauses for a moment, as the realization starts to set in across his face before rushing away.

The true story behind this week’s event in the movie Turn: Washington’s Spies

Let’s start our fact-checking of this week’s event by clarifying the timeline, because the series doesn’t give us any indication of dates or anything. But, if I had to guess, I’d say this segment from the movie happened on September 24^th, 1780, because of a line in the series where Colonel Jameson talks about “John Anderson” being caught the night before.

And we know from history that the real Major John Andre was captured on September 23^rd, 1780—so, the night before the meeting we see in the series.

The TV show is correct to mention the name John Anderson, too, because that was the name John Andre used undercover. And it’s also correct to suggest Benjamin Tallmadge was involved as part of Washington’s Spies—as to borrow from the title of the series.

So, in the true story, Major General Benedict Arnold was in the inner circle for the Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, General George Washington. But, Arnold grew disillusioned with his position in the Army because, quite simply, he was going broke and the Continental Army wasn’t paying him what he felt he deserved. So, he offered to turn over the fort at West Point in exchange for about £20,000 and a position in the British Army. While it’s hard to convert British pounds of 1780 to today’s U.S. dollars, a rough ballpark would be about $42 million today.

After nearly a year of communicating in secret, Major Andre took a British ship called Vulture to meet face-to-face with General Arnold of the Continental Army. They met in the evening hours of September 21^st, 1780, and talked all night until the sun started to come up on September 22^nd. Even as the sun came up, Major Andre decided to keep the conversation with Arnold going, so instead of going back to Vulture, he and Arnold decided to go to a nearby house. It was owned by a man named Joshua Hett Smith at the time—he’s not in the TV series at all. Today, though, Smith’s house has another name: The Treason House. That’s thanks to the meeting between Andre and Arnold that took place there. At least, that was a nickname it had before it was demolished. I’ll throw a link in the show notes of a photo of what the house looked like in case you want to see.

So, at Smith’s house on September 22^nd is where Andre and Arnold continued their conversations. Meanwhile, though, the presence of a British ship on the river drew the gunfire of some Continental soldiers. That’s what the TV series is talking about when we hear Colonel Jameson telling Tallmadge about a ship that turned tail after a few shots.

They couldn’t have known it at the time, but that’s a nice little historical level of detail there because the ship they’re talking about is Vulture, which had delivered Andre to the meeting with Arnold and then once it shot at, Vulture was forced to retreat, leaving Andre stranded.

When it was finally time to leave, Arnold convinced Andre that he’d be safer going undercover on land instead of trying to sneak back to the British ship that was long gone by now.

So, that’s why we see Major John Andre in the series without a British uniform on—because he took it off to try and sneak past the American lines. He tried to do that in the early morning hours of September 23^rd, and I say “tried” for a reason. He was not successful.

If you remember from the TV series, Colonel Jameson tells Tallmadge that Andre had a passport from General Arnold that the Skinners couldn’t read.

The term “Skinners” we hear in the series are referring to slang term used in American-held territory for fighters loyal to the British Crown. That was a real term, but it’s how Colonel Jameson says the Skinners couldn’t read the pass that’s a change from what really happened.

In the true story, the men who captured John Andre were named John Paulding, David Williams, and Isaac Van Wart. Those were the three Americans who stopped Andre on the morning of September 23^rd, 1780. They didn’t have to read any passport from Andre, because he told them exactly who he was. You see, one of those men, John Paulding, just happened to be wearing a captured Hessian uniform.

Hessians were Germans who were serving in the British army.

So, Hessians were loyal to the British Crown. When Andre saw the Hessian uniform, he assumed the three men were British soldiers. He asked if they belonged to the “lower party” referring to the British camp to the south of them. They said they do, so John Andre told them he was a British officer who was on important business. It must’ve been quite a shock to Andre when the three men replied with, “We’re Americans” and arrested him.

Only then did Andre change his story, telling the men he was actually an American. That’s when he showed them the passport that General Arnold gave him, but again the men didn’t even need to read it like we see in the series because at that point they already were suspicious of this man.

Just like we see in the series, it is true that John Andre was taken to a nearby camp run by Lt. Colonel John Jameson. And Jameson had no idea of Andre’s true intentions, but he was aware of the passport from General Arnold. Of course, Jameson also had no idea of Arnold’s true intentions, either, so Jameson was going to send Andre directly to Arnold!

Very very similar to what we see happening in the TV show, Major Benjamin Tallmadge arrived at Jameson’s camp while Andre was there. He was suspicious of Andre, and instead of sending Andre to General Arnold, he convinced Jameson to send Andre and the letters from Arnold that Andre was carrying to General Washington.

As fate would have it, though, Jameson knew what all this implied. But he still wasn’t sure about Arnold’s guilt. And remember, as far as he’s concerned, General Arnold is still Colonel Jameson’s superior officer at this point—because, technically, he still was. If for any reason General Arnold was found not guilty, you can bet General Arnold’s retaliation would fall on Colonel Jameson.

So, Col. Jameson sent Andre to General Washington, and also sent a letter to General Arnold telling him of Andre’s arrest. That gave Arnold enough time to escape, which he did—also this week in history—on September 25^th, 1780.

And while John Andre’s capture and Benedict Arnold’s betrayal was a major moment during the American Revolution, of course, it’s just one small part of the overall story of the spy ring that’s told in AMC’s Turn: Washington’s Spies.

So, if you want to learn more about the true story, I’ve got a deep-dive episode all about Turn linked in the show notes—that’s episode #139 of Based on a True Story.

 

September 25^th, 1944. Arnhem, Netherlands.

Our next event happened on the 25^th, so Wednesday this week, and back during World War II. To see how it’s shown in the movies, we’re at about two hours and 42 minutes into the 1977 film A Bridge Too Far.

Picking up a piece of paper, Sean Connery’s character, Maj. Gen. Urquhart, reads it with an air of disgust in his voice. “Withdraw!?”

He turns around, speaking to no one in particular, although we can see some other soldiers in the background.

“Two days, they said, and we’ve been here nine,” he mutters under his breath as he paces across the floor. Again, in disgust, he mutters something about how you’d think we could accomplish one bloody mile. Then, General Urquhart’s demeanor seems to change slightly as he turns to another man in the room. As if finally accepting the piece of paper, he says they have their marching orders.

In the next shot, we see General Urquhart addressing his men. Referring to George Innes’ character, he says MacDonald will stay behind with the radio to give the Germans something to listen to while the rest of the men sneak away. On top of that, some of the medical staff have volunteered to stay behind with the wounded who are too bad to move. Those wounded will replace the men firing, to allow them to escape.

By the time the Germans find out what’s happening, we should all be safely across the river.

And then, under the cover of a rainy night, we see what looks like General Urquhart’s British soldiers making their escape. It’s so dark and the rain is heavy enough that it’s very difficult to see just how many there are, but we can see a line of soldiers all walking along a rope, using it like a guiding line. They stop when they can hear the sound of German voices over the rain.

After a moment, the voices seem to die down, and the line starts moving again. One of the soldiers turns to Urquhart and says something to the effect of how he’s finally starting to believe they’ll make it. And, in the next few scenes, there are more and more soldiers in the cover of night who are walking the same direction toward a large river. General Urquhart watches for a moment before getting into a small boat with a few other soldiers and making his way across the river, too.

The true story behind this week’s event in the movie A Bridge Too Far

That event we’re seeing is the end of the military operation known as Market Garden—a disastrous failure for the Allies during World War II that many historians believe prolonged the war instead of ending it early.

So, let’s start our fact-check with Sean Connery’s character, Major General Urquhart.

He was a real person, and he really was the man in charge of the 1^st Airborne Division for the Battle of Arnhem. That battle was just part of the overall Operation Market Garden, but the movie is correct to show Arnhem as being the last major part of the overall Market Garden that ended in the retreat of Allied forces.

In a nutshell, the way Operation Market Garden worked was the Allies dropped paratroopers at strategic locations just a few miles away from the bridges they were tasked with taking out. That’s why Sean Connery’s version of General Urquhart says something to the effect of going a “bloody mile” or something.

The airborne part of the operation commenced on September 17^th, 1944, and the plan was for the troops to hold the bridges until the land forces could meet them. That’s where the name comes from, because the “Market” part of the plan were the paratroopers, to be relieved by the “Garden” part of the operation—the ground troops.

If you remember, in the movie we hear Sean Connery’s version of General Urquhart mention how it was supposed to be two days, and it’s been nine.

Well, it is true that they were supposed to be relieved within 48 hours.

It’s also true that didn’t really go according to plan, though, because there were a lot more Germans in the area than the Allies anticipated. Somewhere around 100,000 Germans were in the area, compared to a little over 41,000 Allied troops. Of course, that’s for the overall operation, for the part of the true story we’re seeing in the movie with General Urquhart, there were about 10,000 of the British 1^st Airborne Division.

But, it’s still important to know the overall military operation, because all that fighting slowed down the reinforcements that were supposed to make it to them. The British paratroopers who had managed to make it to the bridge, there were only about 800 or so that made it to the bridge at Arnhem only to find themselves surrounded and alone. Despite that, and in spite of constant artillery bombardments and ground assaults from the Germans, the British held their positions for four days.

By the time the 21^st of September rolled around, the British at the bridge were being forced to surrender. The Germans continued their heavy assaults on the Allied troops. Still, they held out for a few more days. Finally, it was this week in history during the late-night hours of the 25^th or early morning hours of the 26^th that General Urquhart ordered a withdrawal.

So, that’s the scene in the movie A Bridge Too Far—the Battle of Arnhem, and also the bridge at Arnhem proved to be too much for the Allied troops. And although the scene from the movie we watched today made it hard to see how many soldiers managed to escape, only 2,000 of the 10,000 troops who were dropped managed to get out.

Oh, and just to clarify about the name of the movie. The name “A Bridge Too Far” comes from the book by Cornelius Ryan about Operation Market Garden. That’s the book the movie is based on, and the term “a bridge too far” is referring to the bridge at Arnhem where General Urquhart’s men were at, since it overstretched the Allies and led to the eventual withdrawal.

Would Operation Market Garden have been successful had they not tried to capture the one bridge at Arnhem? Despite that being something the book and movie title implies, in the true story, Operation Market Garden is debated among military historians to this day because as you might imagine, the true story is a lot more complicated.

But, if you want to watch the disastrous end of the operation that happened this week in history, hop in the show notes for where you can watch the movie A Bridge Too Far!

 

September 28^th, 1978. The Vatican.

At about two and a half hours into the film Godfather 3, we’ll find our next event from Saturday this week as two men dressed in black clergy robes walk down a dimly-lit hallway. The walls are a dark red color, with a huge painting in an ornate frame hanging on the wall, as well as fancy, old chairs and wooden furniture set along the wall. One of the two men is carrying a small tray with a saucer and cup.

As the movie plays, they walk down the marble-floored hallway and around the corner. After a pause, there’s a slight knock at the door. As the door opens, we can only hear someone saying, “Tea, Your Holiness? It will help you sleep” and the man with the steaming hot cup of tea on the saucer walks into the room.

The door closes behind him as the movie shifts to another scene of what looks like a mob hit as the character on the bed is smothered by two other men holding a pillow. Another cut in the movie, and we can see a sequence of even more dead men—apparently others taken out by the mob.

In the luxury box of a play, someone comes up to Al Pacino’s character, Michale Corleone, and whispers something in his ear. It must be something important, because he gets up and leaves with the man. In the dark hallway of the theater, we can hear what sounds like Andy Garcia’s version of Vincent Mancini telling Michael that their man inside the Vatican says something will happen to the Pope.

He’ll have a heart attack?

This is serious.

Michael says this Pope has powerful enemies, we might not be in time to save him. Then, they decide to go back into the play so no one notices them missing.

Back in the room we saw the man enter with the tea cup earlier, now it’s a nun knocking on the same door. She doesn’t wait very long for an answer before she opens the door herself, saying something as she walks into the room. There’s no reply, so she walks further into the room. On the nightstand, she picks up the saucer with what seems to be a now-empty teacup.

The nun is still trying to get the attention of whomever is lying on the bed.

The camera cuts to the man, smiling as if calmly sleeping in the bed. She nudges him. He doesn’t move. She nudges a little harder, making the reading glasses fall off his nose. He still doesn’t get up. The nun gasps, and rushes out of the room. We can hear the sound of the teacup shattering on the ground as she runs out of the room screaming, “The Holy Father is dead!”

The true story behind this week’s event in the movie Godfather III

Let’s kick off our fact-checking segment by stating the obvious: This is an example of a movie using a very real historical event as part of its fictional story. That real event is the death of Pope John Paul I.

And you guessed it, this week in history is when the real Pope John Paul I died.

Was he poisoned by a cup of tea like we see in the movie?

Well, that’s where the fictional part of the story comes into play…and not necessarily because the movie is wrong, but more that we just don’t know everything about the true story.

And here’s where this part of the story ventures into the land of conspiracies, because if you’ve ever done any research into the Catholic Church, you’ll know they’re not really known for being forthcoming with all the intricate details about how a Pope dies. Oh, sure, there’s the official version…but is that what really happened to Pope John Paul I?

Like any good conspiracy theory, let’s just lay out what we do know about the true story so you can decide what you believe.

We didn’t talk about this part of the movie, but if you’ve seen Godfather III, then you’ll know that earlier in the movie we see Pope John Paul I being elected to the papacy.

In the true story, that happened on August 26^th, 1978, and if you got the impression from the movie that perhaps he wasn’t 100% on board with the papacy, you’d be correct. We know this because of an interview that Father Diego Lorenzi did to honor the former pope. Lorenzi had worked with Pope John Paul I before he was Pope John Paul I, back when he was the Patriarch of Venice.

As a side note, his name before being Pope John Paul I was Albino Luciani. He picked Pope John Paul I because Pope Paul VI was his papal predecessor who had named him a cardinal, and the pope before that was Pope John XXIII, who had named him a bishop. So, that’s how he got the name.

So, anyway, as the true story goes, Luciani had said before going to the College of Cardinals where they vote for the pope, that if they voted for him—he would turn them down. But, in the end, he must’ve changed his mind…because when he was voted in, he said “yes” just like we see in the movie.

Well, I guess in the movie he says, “I accept,” but you know what I mean.

Pope John Paul I was only the Pope for 33 days, though.

He died on September 26^th, 1978. That falls on Thursday this week.

To say his death was a surprise is an understatement. He was the shortest-reigning pope since Pope Leo XI died of a cold just 27 days after being elected—back in the year 1605.

According to the official version of the story, Pope John Paul I died very similar to the way we see in the movie: Peacefully and in bed. The bedside lamp was still lit…and while the movie shows him smiling as if he’s just sleeping with a happy dream, we don’t really know if he had a smile on his face when he was found.

With that said, though, it is a little nod of the hat from the filmmakers to the real history because Pope John Paul I had the nickname “The Smiling Pope” because, well, he smiled a lot.

The official version of the true story is that Pope John Paul I most likely had a heart attack at some point during the night.

As you can imagine from such a short papacy, there are a lot of conspiracy theories surrounding his death. And one of them is very much in line with what we see in the Godfather III that it surrounded something to do with the Vatican Bank and maybe even the Mafia. Check out the show notes for a link to David Yallop’s 1984 book called In God’s Name where he lays out that conspiracy in more detail.

 

Historical birthdays from the movies

Time now for some birthdays from historical figures in the movies that were born this week in history.

On September 25^th, 1764, Fletcher Christian was born in Cumberland, England. He’s best known as the master’s mate on the Royal Navy ship HMS Bounty under the command of Lieutenant William Bligh. It was Christian who led the mutiny on the Bounty in 1789. That story has been told in multiple movies, including the 1962 movie simply called Mutiny on the Bounty where Fletcher Christian is played by Marlon Brando. And we did a deep dive into the historical accuracy of that movie back on episode #156 of Based on a True Story.

On September 26^th, 1888, Thomas Stearns Eliot was born in St. Louis, Missouri. He was better known as T.S. Eliot, who is now considered one of the 20^th century’s greatest poets. He was played by Willem Dafoe in the 1994 biopic about his early life called Tom & Viv.

On September 27^th, 1389, Cosimo di Giovanni de’ Medici was born in the Republic of Florence, in modern-day Italy. Cosimo was best known as the Italian banker whose immense riches allowed him to establish his family as one of the most powerful families during the Italian Renaissance. He was played by Richard Madden in the Netflix series simply called Medici.

 

‘Based on a True Story’ movie that released this week

This Sunday is the anniversary of the Denzel Washington movie called Remember the Titans! The movie was directed by Boaz Yakin and when it opened 24-years ago this week, it earned back almost everything it took to make the movie. With a budget of $30 million, Remember the Titans opened with about $21 million on its way to over $130 million worldwide.

Released in 2000 and set mostly in 1971, Remember the Titans gives us the “Based on a True Story” text about 45 seconds into the movie as it goes on to tell the tale of the T.C. Williams High School football team from Alexandria, Virginia. That football team goes by the Titans—hence the name of the movie.

According to the movie, T.C. Williams High School are newly integrating Black and white players, as well as coaches. That’s where Denzel Washington’s character, Herman Boone, comes into the movie as he’s appointed the head coach of the football team, replacing the former head coach Bill Yoast—he’s played by Will Patton in the movie.

And that’s where the first racial tensions arise in the movie, because Coach Yoast doesn’t appreciate being replaced. Then again, in the movie, Coach Boone doesn’t like that he’s been appointed the new head coach despite Coach Yoast having a fantastic career. He almost doesn’t accept the position, but he eventually does, and similarly Coach Yoast decides to stick around as Coach Boone’s defensive coordinator.

In the movie, we see Coach Boone taking the team to a rather rigorous training camp in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in an attempt to unite the team. Using the history of the Battle of Gettysburg to emphasize the importance of unity and overcoming racial divides, the team gradually begins to bond. The movie really focuses on two key players and team captains, Gerry Bertier, who is white, and Julius Campbell, who is Black, and as those two start to develop a close friendship so, too, does the rest of the team.

Gerry is played by Ryan Hurst while Wood Harris plays Julius Campbell in the movie.

When the team returns to Alexandria, there’s still the societal pressures and ongoing racial tensions they have to face. But the Titans go on to have an extraordinary season, remaining undefeated and eventually making it to the state championship—no thanks to a scheme by the school board to have Coach Yoast reinstated by having the refs make bad calls against the Titans. But, Coach Yoast is onto the scheme and calls out the ref in the middle of the game, so things go back to the Titan’s way once the refs go back to making fair calls.

As they’re celebrating their trip to the state championship, tragedy strikes when Gerry Bertier is driving his car when a truck side-swipes him, leaving him in the hospital for the big game. Despite this, the Titans still manage to win the state championship…and then, we find out at the very end that Gerry died ten years later, bringing everyone back together for his funeral.

The true story behind Remember the Titans

Shifting to the fact-checking segment, and let’s start with what is probably the biggest historical inaccuracy: Gerry Bertier was not in a car accident that left him handicapped before the state championship game.

With that said, though, it is true that he was in a car crash…but, it wasn’t like what we see in the movie.

In the true story, this was after Titans’ 1971 season when they had a banquet to honor Gerry. Afterward, he was driving some of his friends home in his mother’s new Camero when he lost control of the car, it crashed and resulted in Gerry being paralyzed.

Speaking of their 1971 season, the rest of the key plot points in the movie are basically correct.

T.C. Williams High School in the movie was a real place. That name comes from Thomas Chambliss Williams, who was a former superintendent of the school system from the 1930s to the 1960s. Today, it’s the Alexandria City High School.

During the movie’s timeline, though, T.C. Williams High School was pretty new, having first opened its doors in 1965. That same year, the city of Alexandria integrated all their schools, and T.C. Williams High School received all the 11^th and 12^th graders in the city.

So, the movie is correct to show the racial tensions and prejudices throughout the team, and the school overall. On the football field, though, the Titans had an amazing year. Earlier I mentioned Gerry Bertier, so he was a real person. So, too, was Julius Campbell.

In the true story, they were both team captains whose friendship helped bond the team despite the racial tensions outside. And on top of that, helped the Titans become simply a great team as well. After all, they had players from three different schools coming together at T.C. Williams for the first time that year.

And they ended up going 13-0, and not by a close margin. Gerry Bertier alone had 142 tackles and 42 sacks! What about Julius Campbell? He had 34 sacks of his own. That’s 76 sacks for just two players—in 13 games! So, it’s no wonder the Titans outscored their opponents 338-38.

Then, as we talked about before, Bertier’s car crash left him paralyzed. Oh, to give you a better idea of how the movie’s timeline compressed that part, the Titans’ final game in 1971 was on December 4^th. The car crash that left Bertier paralyzed was on December 11^th.

The movie skipping ahead to 1981 for his death is, sadly, also true.

Gerry Bertier was on his way home in Charlottesville, Virginia, when a car going the opposite way on the highway crossed the center lane and smashed into him. He died at the hospital later. Gerry Bertier was 27 years old.