00:04:08:10 – 00:04:26:20
Dan LeFebvre
We have a few movies to talk about today, but before we do that, let’s start by flipping things around a little bit. Normally here on the podcast, we talk about things that filmmakers change from the true story. But I know you’ve been working to get your book called Not a Real Enemy About Your Father urban story told into a movie.

00:04:26:22 – 00:04:43:03
Dan LeFebvre
Of course, we can’t predict the future to know when or if that will happen soon, but let’s hope for the best and say it is turned into a movie. So what’s one key thing that you want to make sure the filmmakers don’t change from the true story in the film adaptation?

00:04:43:06 – 00:05:01:18
Robert Wolf
Well, hopefully all of it, of course. But, that’s the easy answer. My dad’s for escapes or what? For example, my dad was a four time escape artist, and he missed an escape, too. He was fortunate, and he sports enough to go to the wrong train station under communist Hungary. And everybody made that train got arrested, including his, medical school classmate.

00:05:01:18 – 00:05:08:07
Robert Wolf
So all of that. I’d like to be, as accurate as possible as, cinematography. Cinematography.

00:05:08:10 – 00:05:09:02
Dan LeFebvre
Cinematography.

00:05:09:04 – 00:05:29:27
Robert Wolf
Yeah, yeah, as close as possible. Color movie, color in color. Obviously, a lot of the older movies are black and white, like Schindler’s List, which I hope we talk about a little bit more. That movie I just saw the movie and a resonates very, very much so with the story that I’m that we’re telling here. And then his upbringing, you know, it doesn’t have to be a long part of his upbringing.

00:05:30:00 – 00:05:49:23
Robert Wolf
And if I could cast a movie, it’d be Tom Hanks playing my dad and Tom, or that Tom Hanks Tom cruise. Tom Hanks plays one of the nicer, guards in the labor camp, a forced labor camp. A lot of the movie should cover the forced labor camp, the beatings, getting urinated on, getting shot at by Russian planes, all that kind of thing.

00:05:49:23 – 00:06:09:12
Robert Wolf
So there’s a lot of content. And, you know, of course, we wanted as close as possible, but any good producer writer screenplay would, would switch it up a little. I just hope they keep the, you know, as they keep the fidelity as much as possible. I mean obviously you got to make changes to capture an audience and hopefully that would be the case.

00:06:09:16 – 00:06:29:04
Robert Wolf
And you know the other thing is some people say could be a feature film. Some people say a documentary docu drama series. I wouldn’t care as long as they did a good job with it. There’s 40 chapters in our book, so, you could. I don’t think it’d be a 40, 40, show series, but certainly 10 or 15 would be, you know, one season’s worth at least.

00:06:29:04 – 00:06:45:15
Robert Wolf
So it’s always up to the producer, or whoever gets a hold of, the story. The it’s not in a screen stand in a screenplay yet, but, I, I leave that to the I leave that to Hollywood or whatever, discovers whatever we’re doing here. And if they do so it’s a, it’s a wing and a prayer.

00:06:45:15 – 00:07:02:01
Robert Wolf
And I know it’s a such a long shot. It’s easier to get into medical school, which I’m a position. I’m a radiologist, recently retired. It’s easier to get into medical school than to sell a New York Times bestseller. A bigger story and a movie, as we well know, nobody knew Schindler was, you know, 20, 30 years ago and nobody knew who.

00:07:02:01 – 00:07:18:29
Robert Wolf
And Frank was way back in the day. And, the, Life is Beautiful story I never wanted I mean, I never even think about, Italy and the Holocaust until I saw that movie and both of them the second time. Both great movies. And we could talk about those details and how they resonate with what we’re doing.

00:07:19:01 – 00:07:29:01
Robert Wolf
And I’m glad I saw them after I wrote a book regarding the Holocaust and beforehand to what a what a different viewpoint or what a, what a difference that makes.

00:07:29:01 – 00:07:48:26
Dan LeFebvre
Certainly we’re going to we’re going to talk about those for sure. But as we shift into some of the movies that that have been made, there are a lot of movies that are set before and during World War Two. So what I’d love to do is to get your take on some of those and how they compare to your family’s experiences that you talk about in your book.

00:07:48:28 – 00:08:06:05
Dan LeFebvre
And the first movie that I’d like to start with is a classic film, The Sound of Music, and it tells the story of how life changes for the von Trapp family as Nazi Germany annexes Austria in 1938. And as we watch a movie like Sound of Music, it’s possible to see the warning signs when we watch the movie now.

00:08:06:05 – 00:08:26:00
Dan LeFebvre
But of course, anytime we’re watching a movie like that, we’re also looking at it through a historical lens because we already know what’s going to happen from history instead of being there in the moment. And correct me if I’m wrong, but Austria is like less than 100km from where your father grew up in Hungary, so he wasn’t that far from where the annexation unfolded.

00:08:26:03 – 00:08:30:24
Dan LeFebvre
What were things like in that region as Germany annexed Austria?

00:08:30:27 – 00:08:57:20
Robert Wolf
Well, as you know, the fact the rise of fascism almost simultaneously with the Great Depression, the Roaring 20s, were okay in Hungary and throughout the world. We think the war was over. Things were doing well. And meantime, of course, Hitler was it was a building, the military machine that he was, because Germany’s economy was, it was, that’s how they that’s that was their economy was the military, of course, 33 is where fascism was on a rise in 38, 1938.

00:08:57:20 – 00:09:17:28
Robert Wolf
And in Hungary, there were anti-Jewish laws were initiated. So you couldn’t on the radio, you could only go out at certain times. There was, no Jews or dog signs up, of course, Kristallnacht. If, I’m not mistaken, in Germany, Austria was 1938, a very big event. That’s where they started taking force.

00:09:17:28 – 00:09:39:06
Robert Wolf
Laborers, the men, the young men that were wealthy, they started to take them away to forced labor camps and, really didn’t affect Hungary. I mean, the anti-Jewish laws were there. So they were persecuted and shunned, if you will. But the the killings and the, the the the most of it didn’t really, happened in Hungary till 1943, 1944.

00:09:39:09 – 00:10:03:00
Robert Wolf
My dad ended up going to after his first forced labor camp in 1943 and October, and then his parents were taken away to Auschwitz, in 1944. So Poland got hit first, obviously in 1939, Kristallnacht before that, 1938. And then Hungary, a little bit later, what I’m told. And from when I’ve read Hungary had the fastest, the fastest pace of homicide, of genocide of any of them.

00:10:03:00 – 00:10:33:07
Robert Wolf
So, that includes Ukraine and Russia, which they were brutalized and the Polish, 1939 of the refugees went to Hungary. And, the Hungarian government sent the refugees back, unfortunately. And, and it really badly for them. And so this resonates with Poland, with the, with the Schindler idea too, because, a lot of similarities between that and what happened to Hungary, although we’re talking about 1941 versus 1943 and 1944, but it could be the same, the same idea that, you know, a little bit, a little bit different background, different scenario.

00:10:33:07 – 00:10:36:09
Robert Wolf
But, a lot of the common, a lot of common themes.

00:10:36:13 – 00:10:59:15
Dan LeFebvre
Since you mentioned it didn’t really touch Hungary, but it’s touching all these countries around. And I’ve, I’ve never visited Hungary, but I can imagine that the proximity isn’t that far. I mean, there’s borders, you know, it’s technically a different country, but there’s these atrocities that are happening. What was it like for your your father as a child and your your grandparents?

00:10:59:15 – 00:11:04:12
Dan LeFebvre
And when they’re, when they’re seeing, I mean, they had been seeing in the news what’s going on where they.

00:11:04:15 – 00:11:30:29
Robert Wolf
Well, what a great question. Well, you say seeing in the news, we realize that my dad in Hungary and his parents never own a car. They never owned a TV. You bring up a great point. Jews were not allowed to have radios. So. And so they had a radio. He, his dad had enough courage to hide a radio, and they would quietly listen to the BBC, during the uprise of the uprising, with a lot of hope and a lot of prayer that that it end soon and relevant to that.

00:11:31:01 – 00:11:50:08
Robert Wolf
During my dad’s first escape toward. They thought it was the end of Lord, they don’t get much news that the forced labor camp, but they’re in the middle of nowhere, about near the Austria Hungary border. And even though they escaped, the Jews first of four, which some are remarkable, they didn’t know whether to flee to Budapest or stay in Hungary or go to Austria because they didn’t know who’s going to win the war.

00:11:50:11 – 00:12:04:24
Robert Wolf
And, you know, the Nazis won the war and they end up in Austria. They’re dead men. And if there’s a chance in Hungary, not Hungary proper, but the West, turns out it’s not the West. It was Soviet Union. If they win the war, maybe they’re better off in Hungary. It turns out either way, you know, you’re a Jew.

00:12:04:24 – 00:12:28:23
Robert Wolf
You’re screwed. I mean, those men, only 5% of the forced labor survived, in the in that process, including my dad, because he was on the run and hiding at the time. He wasn’t the. The rest of them that survived were treated as prisoners of war. Unfortunately. So 5% of forced labor, they had death marches. And that’s why my my dad and his friend Frank decided to, escape the first time because they thought they were on a death march.

00:12:28:28 – 00:12:59:27
Robert Wolf
And nobody knows about death marches in Europe. They don’t. I mean, historians might know. We all know about Okinawa and, the Pacific, but not a lot of people know. So when they thought you weren’t useful anymore, they killed you. So. And that was true at the Danube, very end of the war. Unlike Schindler, where the guards just go home, I, I’d like to talk about that for a few minutes, too, but, it’s a fantasy that these people, because the, guardians were treated and my mom and dad said that, that, the the Arrow Cross, for example, was like a Hungarian Gestapo and the the White Terror or the Red

00:12:59:27 – 00:13:17:14
Robert Wolf
terror or the the Nazis. The communists, they didn’t treat if you felt like if you’re Jewish, you were still scared of whoever was in charge. And, the Hungarians, the police and the military treated the Jewish people worse than the Nazis themselves. And that’s another thing that resonates with some of these movies, too. Women versus men.

00:13:17:14 – 00:13:26:27
Robert Wolf
Women guards versus Benghazi, pets. A lot of the, you know, a lot of things, humiliation. There are a lot of compare, a lot of things to talk about that are that resonate, big time.

00:13:27:00 – 00:13:48:21
Dan LeFebvre
I love that you mentioned the the radio and the communications there, because that’s something that I think I kind of like what I mentioned before, you know, when we watch a movie, we’re looking at it with a historical lens. So we think of, oh yeah, you can get news from all around there. And in my question I ask, you know, seeing things, but there’s that there has to be that almost added level of fear.

00:13:48:21 – 00:14:06:13
Dan LeFebvre
I would imagine, of not knowing, like, you know, that there’s some bad things going on, but you don’t know the full extent of it. And you then there’s that fear of just not knowing, because then your mind would start to go make things up that, I mean, there were some horrible things, but I, I mean, and it’s something I have a hard time wrap my head around.

00:14:06:14 – 00:14:12:26
Dan LeFebvre
What, like put yourself in the historical context of what that must have been like. It had to have been just terrifying for your for your father.

00:14:12:28 – 00:14:31:13
Robert Wolf
Well, part of the reason. Yeah. No intervention for many, many years, after the war started, it, because the United States had the, for example, had the, had the, the duty to protect its own citizens. So getting involved with the war, it was, was tough communications. I couldn’t say it better. You know, the real cell phones there, no lawyers or no courtrooms.

00:14:31:15 – 00:14:50:23
Robert Wolf
The cops and the. And the military pointing guns. It. Yeah. And fortunately, in this country, we. That’s not happened yet. So there’s one thing. No communication, just the radio, which was illegal. It probably would’ve been shot and killed if they got caught with it. And, and forced labor camps out in the middle of nowhere, even less communication than we had a regular camp in the US growing up, you know?

00:14:50:23 – 00:15:11:04
Robert Wolf
So, word of mouth. So things got a little easier for the men? Not much. But as the their guards got bribed, dental treat, free dental treatments. But, yes, there was a dentist. Obvious, obvious threat to society, killed at Auschwitz and his mom as well. And Deb didn’t find out about two months afterwards. Another miracle, from an eyewitness.

00:15:11:06 – 00:15:29:04
Robert Wolf
And, that’s another point that, the witnesses besides no cell phones, no video, a lot of photographs taken, as we know, the Nazis took many, many photographs. So denying the Holocaust and even communist Hungary just. There’s no way you can’t sell that. But the witness, the witness was the next victim is how it turned out.

00:15:29:04 – 00:15:46:14
Robert Wolf
Like at the Danube walk and death marches. Or as we’ve seen, these mass burial, sites, in Ukraine for example, or in the concentration camps. So the witnesses were literally the next victim. So very, very hard to, to wrap my arms around that. And like you said, very hard to get information again.

00:15:46:20 – 00:16:07:03
Dan LeFebvre
I it’s it’s hard to wrap your head around, but but putting yourself in that context of what that must have been like, I, I love the like in your book when you’re when you’re telling that story, it, it it does a really good job of, of helping to put the, the reader in that place of what that must have been like in there.

00:16:07:07 – 00:16:23:18
Dan LeFebvre
And I’m curious because there are a lot of details of your, your father’s earlier life were those things that he that he told you specifically or were they things that you had to research after the fact? Or how did that part kind of come together for that story as you’re putting all these pieces together?

00:16:23:21 – 00:16:41:21
Robert Wolf
A little bit of both. I can’t imagine the boredom in living in quarters like that packed when with people or even hiding out in your own home, with, you know, yellow stars, yellow armbands, the anxiety, the depression, the fear. I can’t imagine that. And but like you say, you can feel it, like during my dad’s first escape.

00:16:41:21 – 00:17:00:02
Robert Wolf
So, Yeah, my dad. Mom wrote an autobiography. They wrote the his story, from World War one. The of World War one to the end of the Hungarian Revolution. So literally 1916, 19 1718 to the end of the Revolution, 1956. They wrote the story in the 1970s. They they wrote it as though it happened the previous day.

00:17:00:09 – 00:17:17:04
Robert Wolf
Sharp. Chris. And I turned into a biography many, many years later. Growing up, the first half of my life, not so much as I went to college and medical school at a career as a radiologist, family, all of that things. So I didn’t, but I did read the it went from paper and pencil to typewriter to computer to disk.

00:17:17:06 – 00:17:36:04
Robert Wolf
And, when it was a manuscript maybe 30 years ago, I read it once and didn’t think much of it and didn’t remember much except my dad’s first escape. But then when I reread it after my my dad passed and fortunately my mom, a historian friend, handed me the story on the disk, and I turned his autobiography to biography and, just doing that alone.

00:17:36:07 – 00:17:52:25
Robert Wolf
Long story short, I went back to radiology, and that brought me to the book. And, long story short, the stories were so amazing. At least 20 miracles in my dad’s life and hungry for escapes and 20 miracles. I couldn’t leave it on a computer. I couldn’t leave it on a disk. I wanted to share it with the world and,

00:17:52:27 – 00:18:07:18
Robert Wolf
And so I did. And that’s been my that’s been my charge. That’s been my mission the last 6 or 7 years. The book’s been out a little while now, but, that doesn’t stop me from trying to fight antisemitism. So, this is my main thing, the why I’m doing this, and, but, yeah, it’s my own little corner.

00:18:07:18 – 00:18:23:07
Robert Wolf
I need help with that, obviously, but, no, my my mom and dad, they did this as though they knew I would like if you know me, six years ago, and my mom was a Holocaust educator, by the way. My dad, too, but he was an ObGyn, by the way, deliver 10,000 babies in the Detroit area, which is so a form of redemption.

00:18:23:10 – 00:18:41:06
Robert Wolf
That’s the punch line. It doesn’t bring back 6 million and doesn’t beat back 50 million that died in World War two. But at least he brought some life back in jovial and jolly. No PTSD. My mom to they they educated. They were well-rounded people. And the stories like I said, they were crisp and and then they had a lot of friends in the unlike what’s going on in the world now.

00:18:41:06 – 00:19:00:00
Robert Wolf
They had a lot of friends where I grew up in Michigan and throughout the world, from continental Africa, Asia had Indian friends, a muslim, Christian, Jewish, fellow Holocaust survivors. They shared the stories and, and I, I bought into it. I got a little burnout from it. And then, I brought it back to life, at least in my own legacy towards my family.

00:19:00:00 – 00:19:15:00
Robert Wolf
So, I got this app, you know, Superman’s Kryptonite. You just sort of called out to me, you know? It’s summoned me back in me. So. And so I’m doing it, and I. I couldn’t leave this on a disc. I couldn’t leave it on computer. And so that’s why we’re sharing it. But, very well done by my mom and dad, you know.

00:19:15:00 – 00:19:16:09
Robert Wolf
So.

00:19:16:11 – 00:19:43:12
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, well, I’m glad that you are telling that story to to because the world does need to know. And the part that kind of made me think that was when you talking about the the photos and things like the Nazis and the Soviets took. But again, putting yourself in that perspective, a difference from watching a movie today versus versus being there when you like the people that took the photographs to document a lot of that, those wouldn’t be photographs that you’re parents and grandparents would have had access to because they were taken by the people doing a lot of it.

00:19:43:12 – 00:19:53:06
Dan LeFebvre
So it’s not something that they’re going to show. So I was very curious how that story then survives despite trying to be suppressed.

00:19:53:09 – 00:20:12:02
Robert Wolf
Yeah. No, you’re right. I mean, but very, very little, belongings left over, from my dad’s side of the family. My mom saved a lot of photographs, and somehow they were preserved, by my mom. So it was a little less harrowing. My mom was in hiding, you know, with her mom, grandma, uncle, grandfather who’s different, you know, on farms and sometimes in Budapest.

00:20:12:02 – 00:20:35:14
Robert Wolf
So she was able to preserve more things. And as a and she also was into genealogy. And I wish I followed it a little bit more, but I do at least have back to World War one. I can’t go back there beyond that. But no, it’s unimaginable. The fear that my mom must add in hiding to and and the fear my dad must have had every day competing and starving and and doing forced labor for hours from, you know, dawn to dusk.

00:20:35:16 – 00:20:52:07
Robert Wolf
Can’t. I can’t imagine it. So, the reality and also photographs. So the Nazis were they took a lot of photographs. They, they sent them home to their families, let them know what they’re doing. And I have a collection of about 18,000 photos on my phone, and some of them are exceptionally disturbing. The last guy surviving in Vilna.

00:20:52:09 – 00:21:18:00
Robert Wolf
They’re about to kill him, and he’s surrounded by, mostly Nazi, officers. And there’s a gun pointed aside, and he knows he’s next. Reminds a little Schindler to you, but he’s the last survivor. They’re a very disturbing photo. I haven’t shared it because they’ll probably kick me out of X and meta and LinkedIn. If I were, were to, the, you know, the burning synagogue is another one, the smashed in homes, the burning homes, one disturbing one.

00:21:18:05 – 00:21:40:09
Robert Wolf
Well, they’re marching off the Jewish people. And I’m thinking, well, who’s taken a picture of all of this and not helping? You know, and these people lived in fear, of course. Another, disturbing photo. I’ve got some from juror. My dad’s home town. Very, very few, very few available. Another one is Kristallnacht. Whether the business, the glass is all broken up and the lady’s walking by the business smiling, I mean, I.

00:21:40:10 – 00:22:00:02
Robert Wolf
How do you smile when she got what? Are you, Jewish? You’re not smiling. If you’re Christian, you smiling, then, Well, I, I guess I know what party you’re in. You’re in the Nazi party or the Christmas party are very sadistic. Some and Christians were afraid for their lives, too. So the ones that helped the Jewish people or the gays, you know, almost sexual, LGBTQ, disabled, they’re there to be loud.

00:22:00:02 – 00:22:15:03
Robert Wolf
It, including guys like Schindler and Raoul Wallenberg is another one that comes to mind. So a lot going on. I can’t imagine being so remote and, and, secluded from the truth, let alone the news.

00:22:15:06 – 00:22:50:28
Dan LeFebvre
If we shift back to the movies you mentioned life is beautiful, and that’s another movie I want to talk about. That one starts in 1939, just after the annexation of Austria. And it follows the story of how life changes around a Jewish man named Guido before and during the rise of fascism in Italy. And the movie, it starts off with everyday life, but one of the key differences between life is Beautiful and the Sound of Music that we talked about before is that Life Is Beautiful shows how life changes for the main character because he’s an Italian Jewish man, whereas the Von Trapp family in the sound of Music, they’re not so well.

00:22:50:28 – 00:23:12:22
Dan LeFebvre
I, I we see little signs here and there and Sound of Music. We can see the signs in life and beautiful. Life is beautiful. Those signs are clearly the rise of anti-Semitism. They’re going on in Italy now. In particular, there was a scene where Guido pretended to be an inspector of Rome teaching children in school how they are pure Aryan, the superior race.

00:23:12:25 – 00:23:34:00
Dan LeFebvre
He doesn’t have very comical way in the movie, similar to later in the movie, when Guido’s young son just reads a sign in business window that says no Jews or dogs, and Guido makes a joke about there’s just saying. There’s also a drug store nearby saying that I’m not going to let Chinese in with kangaroo. Right. And he’s making a joke out of out of this very serious situation.

00:23:34:03 – 00:23:49:21
Dan LeFebvre
And that storyline in like Life Is Beautiful is a fictional one. Guido is not a real person, but how old do you think life is beautiful? Did showing signs of anti-Semitism slowly growing in everyday life before the outbreak of World War two?

00:23:49:24 – 00:24:06:05
Robert Wolf
Great question. I mean, that’s an our answer, but fantastic movie. Beautifully done. The cinematography is outstanding. I’m glad you mentioned that scene, because to me, that’s the turning point in the movie. The better part of the first half of the movie is about It’s a Beautiful Life. It’s a wonder it’s not It’s a Wonderful Life.

00:24:06:05 – 00:24:27:20
Robert Wolf
That’s a different, fantastic movie, too. But life is beautiful there. He falls in love with this lady. He’s on the bicycle. It’s a lot of humor. I mean, a lot of humor in that movie. Even to the end. And, you know, it’s admirable how he hides the truth from his son throughout, but, yeah, that’s the turning point in the movies when he’s up there talking about the the perfect race or our rewards it.

00:24:27:27 – 00:24:45:01
Robert Wolf
And then the poor, his relatives horse getting painted, I think was green and purple. I forget the color. Maybe green. That’s good. And. Yeah. And and that’s the turning point there. And then all of a sudden, boom, they’re, they’re in prison and they’re going off to, to concentration camps, different some different things.

00:24:45:09 – 00:25:04:29
Robert Wolf
Some of the similarities with my, my parent, they don’t talk about women that much, but both that movie and similar, the, the women, the women guards, especially at Auschwitz and then in these concentration camps were to me more sadistic and more brutal to the prisoners than, than otherwise. Interestingly, a lot of Nazis, the people that were guarding them were the Germans, the Nazis.

00:25:04:29 – 00:25:22:27
Robert Wolf
So where were the Italians? That’s that’s a little bit different than Hungary, I think, because the Hungarians were the ones who keep an eye on the force. Laborers, and child, my dad’s parents were taken from their home. That was, that was a Nazi. Blue striped pajamas. Interesting. It’s a, you know, we don’t know what color stripes they have in general because black and white movie, but it’s blue stripes.

00:25:22:27 – 00:25:39:21
Robert Wolf
But we all know that, you know, outfits in other places, they were, red stripes. So that was, another thing that, that was those was a familiar, but, or different, I should say. I thought, one thing similar with the both of those movies is the language was a little fast for me. It’s in subtitles.

00:25:39:24 – 00:25:56:13
Robert Wolf
Well, I think they just talked a little bit faster. Was a little. Because, you know, we can read fast, but it just won’t have the pace or the how they talk. Maybe at the very beginning, speed it up because it makes the humor, the humor scenes a little more humorous, so to say, so to speak. But, yeah, they kind of slow that down a little bit, too.

00:25:56:15 – 00:26:12:21
Robert Wolf
What else are we? Yeah. I mean, that’s, just a fact. The met the end was unbelievable. The way the they say, do they want or try? They’re playing in a game to win a tank and they won. You know, the kid survives, but he doesn’t. The mom survives. Was a Dora. And, you know, of course you gets shot.

00:26:12:23 – 00:26:31:18
Robert Wolf
He gets shot for warning. The ladies, including his wife, as are being hauled away in a truck. So another thing that may not be realistic is the son and the father in the same bunk. Because the kids were separated, like in Auschwitz and other places, and like a and Schindler, you know, the kids are all the way, in bundles.

00:26:31:18 – 00:26:52:14
Robert Wolf
And boy, are the parents freaking. They’re all running towards the fences and trying to follow the trucks and talk about learned helplessness and senior kids being all the way to who knows where. So that part may not have been as realistic. But yeah, it was such a well-done movie. And, and I don’t know that much about the Italian history in, in World War Two, so that’s that.

00:26:52:14 – 00:27:11:10
Robert Wolf
But comparing what you to the other movie and to what I’ve read and done, and learned about pretty realistic, I mean, in their own way. Obviously not every concentration camps will be the same. Not a forced labor camps going to be the same. The different guards, different, food supply, who knows? Different amounts of sadism.

00:27:11:12 – 00:27:21:00
Robert Wolf
It’s people to take orders and people that delight in torturing others. And that’s so hard to put your arms around to. It’s just. I don’t know how people could be like that at all.

00:27:21:02 – 00:27:41:21
Dan LeFebvre
But you mentioned Schindler’s List, and whenever we think of movies that depict the Holocaust, that’s probably the first one that does come to mind. In that movie, we see what life is like in the Jewish ghetto. Of course, Schindler’s List depicts the ghetto in Krakow, Poland, but your grandparents were forced to move to another Nazi controlled Jewish ghetto in your Hungary.

00:27:41:23 – 00:27:44:15
Dan LeFebvre
I’m probably mispronouncing that, but.

00:27:44:18 – 00:27:49:18
Robert Wolf
My Hungarians not so. They never taught me, so I. It’s fine. That was their shooting around which.

00:27:49:20 – 00:27:57:21
Dan LeFebvre
But based on the research that you did for your book, were there similarities to what we see in Schindler’s List and in the ghetto there, and what your grandparents dealt with?

00:27:57:24 – 00:28:19:27
Robert Wolf
Many, many, many. First, I want to talk about, so many. I mean, unfortunately, the movie was in black and white, but the cinematography in that movie is unbelievable. Like I said, they talk a little fast, especially when they’re talking about people’s names a little fast for me, some of the conversation, but, amazing. Some overlap when when they’re taken to Auschwitz, we don’t know if it’s accidentally or if it’s on purpose.

00:28:20:04 – 00:28:37:05
Robert Wolf
And they put them in the chamber and they think that that’s it. The gas chamber and the relief showers. I can picture my mom, my my grandmother, in the in the gas chamber. And, of course, when they’re on trains, when I visit Holocaust museums, when I do book talks, book lectures, I can’t even go into the I.

00:28:37:05 – 00:29:01:10
Robert Wolf
It’s hard to even look in the train, let alone go in the train just because. Just because that imagery. So, so that resonates. The dramatic irony. I guess I can get that, in a minute, but, the random shooting. Okay, so dramatic irony. I’m going to mention the three things where I well, first of all, the turning point is when they’re horseback riding and they’re randomly shooting all the people in the ghetto, the people that stayed, the people that that tried to hide very, very sad scene.

00:29:01:10 – 00:29:18:21
Robert Wolf
Because every. And you know, another thing that’s not talked about is pets. You know, how many did the pets get left behind and the pets get killed. And we know in, life is beautiful. There’s a little kitten, is strolling around the, the clothes that were stolen. Another thing. And I’m going to go back to the dramatic irony, another thing that resonates.

00:29:18:24 – 00:29:35:21
Robert Wolf
With all of it is the stolen luggage. They bring your goods, leave them here, and they’ll come. They will arrive. Big deception. And when my dad’s parents were all to Auschwitz, it was to be they were going to go to forest or farm, plant flowers, trees. Do you know, do, work on the foliage? That’s what.

00:29:35:21 – 00:29:53:15
Robert Wolf
That’s how they were to see. And they end up going to Auschwitz. So. So three points of dramatic irony, not necessarily related to my, my dad, but one is actually. So when, the, engineer they’re building the they’re constructing the building and the engineer comes up to, I think it’s almond goes, I don’t know if I’m pronouncing or I’m on both.

00:29:53:15 – 00:30:09:27
Robert Wolf
He’s the I think he’s a lieutenant, but he’s the most sadistic guy around. And, she says to me now, the structure is not sound, and we need to do this and maybe even start again. And, what does he say? We are not going to argue with these people. And and then he asks the guy shooter, shooter.

00:30:09:27 – 00:30:28:01
Robert Wolf
And it’s one of the few scenes where somebody gets shot and it’s not him doing it. So amazingly enough. And then the irony is that he decides to he changes his mind and, and decides to, to take it down and start all over again. Another irony was, the the lady that comes to Schindler, I don’t know if that was Helen Hirsch.

00:30:28:04 – 00:30:50:13
Robert Wolf
Helen, her hair, shoes, how to pronounce it. I don’t know if it’s her or the other one, but she comes to Schindler and says, can you get my parents into this? Into the factory here? And he says, you know, he’s practically screaming at her, saying, no, I can’t save everybody this and that and that. And then the guy escapes from the camp and, and just, randomly shoots 25 guys and then just Clarkston.

00:30:50:13 – 00:31:23:23
Robert Wolf
If I’m pronouncing Sharon I love, they really did their best trying to do the correct pronunciation and I think an accurate job. But stern tells Schindler that, you know, 25 people died. So Schindler, goes out of his way to bring in, the lady’s parents, which is which is pretty cool, too. I mean, and, so the other irony and oh, that resonates with my dad in the forced labor camp where, an officer would get drunk and some, some little piece of malfeasance, like somebody chirping a word or or moving in the line, and the guy gets past and he’s,

00:31:23:25 – 00:31:40:18
Robert Wolf
And he’s got the he’s got the gun. And, you threatened to shoot every tense man, in his drunk, in his drunk, state, and, in the end, doesn’t. But imagine the fear. You know, you dad, it can seem like that. And everybody else counting 1 to 1 through ten, you know, every 10th man they’re going to kill.

00:31:40:20 – 00:31:58:01
Robert Wolf
And, And the guy does that, too. He’s got the whole line of the men, and he shoots the guy with the, with the, I don’t remember. It’s a gun shot. I think it was a, shotgun. And then they shoot him in the head and and that, like, that scene is so vivid. The way that was bleeding, it would’ve been even more so in color.

00:31:58:04 – 00:32:16:22
Robert Wolf
But the irony there is the same thing. Just like when he randomly shoots the 25 men and, also the one person, and then he says, who’s, you know, who’s next? And then the kid smart enough to step forward and said, you know, you who did this? Who’s the one who created the malfeasance? And the kid points at the dead guy and probably saved a lot of lives, just by doing that.

00:32:16:22 – 00:32:36:01
Robert Wolf
So that’s more irony. And then and, and comparable with my dad had to go through, you know, random threaten to be killed randomly and thank God, they, they didn’t carry that out. The other piece of irony, which is almost redemption itself, is when, the I think it was the rabbi, was one of the older men making the parts, and his productivity was on the low side that compared it.

00:32:36:01 – 00:32:52:17
Robert Wolf
You know, it took some a minute to make the part, which is where you got so few partially take him out to shoot him and his gun jams and, you know, his backup gun jams, and he gets a gun from his, mother, the fellow officers and or soldiers, I don’t remember. It was an officer. And that gun jams and there’s 15 or 20 clicks.

00:32:52:19 – 00:33:08:03
Robert Wolf
We shoot this guy, and the poor guy’s got his neck going down. He knows he’s going to die any second. It reminds me of that, the Vilna, the Vilna photograph. And then he ends up just sitting with the butt of the gun and and lets him live. Imagine going through that kind of trauma and not having PTSD.

00:33:08:05 – 00:33:23:13
Robert Wolf
It’s amazing. But the irony is, when they hang golf, they have a trouble date. They’ve got him by the rope, but they have trouble checking out those. The step stool underneath him, it takes some at least like a half a minute. They can’t do it in the guy. So that’s a little bit of redemption too. But, more dramatic irony.

00:33:23:13 – 00:33:42:17
Robert Wolf
So I it’s a fantastically bad movie. And and so, so similar in in his point, you know, the trains and the, or the, forced labor and, you know, we see forced labor, of course, in concentration camps to sometimes women, sometimes men. We don’t talk about much about forced labor in, with women in our story.

00:33:42:17 – 00:33:48:08
Robert Wolf
But lately I’ve been taught and enlightened about that part, that part of it as well.

00:33:48:10 – 00:34:06:19
Dan LeFebvre
Something that we don’t see in Schindler’s List much is, is how others in the city reacted to the ghetto being set up and the Nazis moving the Jews into it. How did the civilians in and around Europe react to the Jewish ghetto being established for when your your grandparents were there?

00:34:06:21 – 00:34:23:12
Robert Wolf
Well, once they were in the ghetto, they had no access to the outside world. They had limited food, limited medical supplies and my dad, being a dentist, brought what he had. But it wasn’t enough. And ultimately it was to carry him off to Auschwitz to kill them. Most of them immediately, unfortunately. So I don’t think they had much time to even think about it.

00:34:23:12 – 00:34:48:26
Robert Wolf
But during, I’ll say this, that, but they were shunned. No doubt it was hard to go out shopping without being, bullied or picked on or even mugged. We talk about that in the or the fear of it. And also when my, my dad and his friend Frank were out on leave or whatever it was in town, or in that they were on camp, for one thing they didn’t have, then my dad needed a haircut.

00:34:48:26 – 00:35:06:12
Robert Wolf
And if you remember that scene, the anti-Semitic barber. But, they had the yellow bands was ridiculous hats that they had to wear and yellow bit unarmed paramilitary. And yeah, a couple what beautiful women walk by and they, they, they won’t even look at them. And believe me, the matter, they’re dying to meet A and B with a a warm blooded girl.

00:35:06:12 – 00:35:26:18
Robert Wolf
And it just didn’t happen. You were shunned. So, in its learned helplessness. I mean, people feared for their lives, for sure. And, they did what they were told, and and it’s scary stuff. So, and then. Oh, that remind me of another scene where in Schindler, the young girl, is yelling out, Goodbye Jews, goodbye Jews!

00:35:26:18 – 00:35:44:17
Robert Wolf
And, it’s awful to see that, because I think it reminds me of, what we just talked about. The Christians turning on the Jews. It also reminds me of what’s going on in Gaza at the, these children are being educated to hate Jewish people, hate Israel, hate Americans. And it’s that’s got to stop. That really has to stop.

00:35:44:20 – 00:36:03:18
Dan LeFebvre
There is a scene in in Schindler’s List where we see the Nazis going in there clearing everyone out of the ghetto, to take them to the concentration camps. You talked a little bit about that in the movie. The camps they take them to first is off, and then later in the movie we see Auschwitz, which you mentioned, and we’ll talk about Auschwitz in a moment, because I know your grandparents were there.

00:36:03:18 – 00:36:22:07
Dan LeFebvre
But according to Schindler’s List, seeing the brutality of the Nazi soldiers during the liquidation of the ghetto, that’s what leads Liam Neeson’s version of Oskar Schindler to start working with one of his employees. You mentioned him earlier. Is Doc Stern, Ben Kingsley’s character, to hire more and more Jews to help save them from being murdered by the Nazis.

00:36:22:09 – 00:36:36:13
Dan LeFebvre
Were there any transformational points like this for the civilians in Darfur in Hungary, where they started to change their minds about what they’re seeing? But the brutality of the Nazis, like, we kind of start seeing it happening in Schindler’s List with Oskar Schindler.

00:36:36:16 – 00:36:52:09
Robert Wolf
Well, great point. You know, that’s the turning point of that movie. If I haven’t already mentioned, when they’re horseback riding. Yeah, they’re looking down at that. One thing that resonates, too, is, the humiliation, the the general, the the men, the rabbis, you know, religious with the pious ain’t undercutting it. And they’re cutting their hair and laughing.

00:36:52:15 – 00:37:11:18
Robert Wolf
So that kind of humiliation, was there so humiliation we don’t talk about, as much. I think the Aryans were. And Hungary gets mentioned later that they were bringing in Hungarians, to one of the camps late, later in the movie. And that was true later in time, during at least a couple of years later. But that humiliation really, really resonates.

00:37:11:18 – 00:37:30:24
Robert Wolf
Well, what else is it? Yeah. The marching, the other humiliation is that, Gough has his own personal woman slave that he ends up abusing y’all. She’s. She goes the food and probably sex. Well, there is there is a sex scene or two in there. And of course, at the end he beats her up and but she survives.

00:37:30:27 – 00:37:46:29
Robert Wolf
But he beats her up and it’s drunk or whatever. It’s the wine cellar. I basically remember that scene, but, humiliation is a big thing about it. So, and then, of course, starvation is another one thing that resonates people to didn’t have food to eat. There was no there was no trade. There was nothing coming in. So shunned is the best word.

00:37:46:29 – 00:38:08:15
Robert Wolf
And like we said before, the the witness, the witness was the next victim. I also remember, golf shooting randomly at people that were sitting down and taking a break. So, Oh, and know the dramatic irony. He has a kid cleaning out his bathtub, and he’s trying to put the saddle on his horse. I don’t know if it’s the same kid, but, the guy that the kid that can’t put the kettle on the horse properly.

00:38:08:17 – 00:38:25:12
Robert Wolf
It’s right after Schindler talks about power and the power of the power, if you can forgive. And he remembers that for a while. So he forgives the kid, for the for the saddle. But then when he screws up using the wrong material to clean his bathtub, he ends up shooting him. And, it’s just, What a sadistic guy.

00:38:25:12 – 00:38:40:24
Robert Wolf
I mean, I was a guy who deserved to be executed without, without trial. I mean, so many witnesses. So, Yeah, that whole process, of course, it’s never going to be the same at every camp, but what? People running around in fear that they might get shot or killed, or if they take a break, they’re going to get killed.

00:38:41:02 – 00:38:48:14
Robert Wolf
You can’t. It’s just, some furthermore that what people had to think in their minds and stay strong while they’re doing it.

00:38:48:17 – 00:39:11:18
Dan LeFebvre
That those, those types of things are, like you said, unfathomable. Like it’s I, it’s what I’m trying to unravel. A lot of this. But, you know, in our discussion here, but also there are just some things like we there’s only so much that we can do as we’re talking here in this conversation that just it’s not. It will never be enough.

00:39:11:18 – 00:39:20:03
Dan LeFebvre
I mean, there’s to to to tell the true story of it. I mean, it’s yeah, I’ve tried to have words, but yeah, I can’t even do that.

00:39:20:10 – 00:39:42:08
Robert Wolf
Well, it was talk about Christians. You know, if we had Hamas, we had Hamas tanks and armored armored cars, guns, tanks, then that horrible flag, you know, marched in the streets here and, and, Florida or where you’re from, Oklahoma. God bless, the heartland. We would be thinking different then, it would affect us more then we would have.

00:39:42:10 – 00:40:03:26
Robert Wolf
We’d have a lot more fear. Yeah, but it’s it’s patchy areas. It’s Canada, Australia, parts of the U.S anti-Semitic. So it’s not it’s not directly in our face. But that’s why I’m doing this is so that it doesn’t happen. I mean, that’s why, 99% of us are good people. 99% of us believe in work, family, occasional vacation, religion, and if possible, whatever the freedom to vote, freedom speech.

00:40:03:29 – 00:40:26:01
Robert Wolf
Is that 1% or less that the ruins are for everybody and not just Hamas, you know, Osama bin laden and Saddam Hussein? Hitler, Pol Pot, the list goes on and on. We can counteract with better names Jesus, Moses, Noah, MLK, Gandhi, that. So there’s a nice there’s a balance there. But, we’re still talking about hate and war rather than these other guys.

00:40:26:01 – 00:40:41:27
Robert Wolf
I mean, unless you’re a staunch Christian or Jewish or Muslim, I don’t think a lot I meant for this to happen. Where? I don’t know, I don’t know much about the Muslim religion, but I do have Muslim friends, and they’re peaceful, and, So what’s going. I mean, I can’t get my arms around it. And, the thing about this book.

00:40:42:01 – 00:40:59:15
Robert Wolf
Yeah. And the story is my parents knew that it would be necessary to share it because they didn’t think that the hate and the Jewish scapegoating issue would go away. And each year they’re right, 60, 80 on our years. And the disturbing part is people find different ways to maim and torture, punish, kill each other. And it’s really sad.

00:40:59:15 – 00:41:16:27
Robert Wolf
And I just I can’t feel it because as a radiologist, we’re into preservation of life. The beauty of the human body, the beauty of the anatomy, the cell and all this training to go through it. There’s no room for racism or prejudice in my field. But these people would just. They would think nothing about chopping your head off or killing somebody instantly.

00:41:17:00 – 00:41:37:07
Robert Wolf
No respect for human life. And I can’t wrap my my hands around that. It’s just not that. It’s not what I was built for. And so we educate, we try to spread the word. We do podcasts, we do, book talks, book presentations, TV interviews, in some cases radio. And, we get the point across while sharing good stories, amazing stories throughout.

00:41:37:07 – 00:42:05:13
Dan LeFebvre
A lot of if you go back to Schindler’s List throughout a lot of that movie, it it does recreate the I mentioned your passion and and Auschwitz and where there were hundreds of thousands of people that were murdered. And unfortunately, that number also includes your grandparents, which is a very moving story told in the book. I think a lot of people base their knowledge of concentration camps today on what we see in movies like Schindler’s List.

00:42:05:15 – 00:42:23:23
Dan LeFebvre
But I remember the story of like The Latrine. And in your book, we don’t ever see in the movie Schindler’s List at all. So there’s obviously other things there that we don’t we’re not going to see in the movie. But based on what you know of your grandparents experience, how well do you think Schindler’s List does capturing the horrors of Auschwitz?

00:42:23:26 – 00:42:44:19
Robert Wolf
I think it’s amazing. Like I said, the cinematography is amazing. The storyline and the brutality. We’ll go back to the women guards that were were tougher than one thing that resonates. So, I mean, I don’t like spoiling too meaning, but my my dad’s a miracle. And my dad found out what happened to his parents. An eyewitness who happened to survive Auschwitz and meet, meet up with him in his hometown of Jura.

00:42:44:19 – 00:43:06:28
Robert Wolf
I mean, all of those. That’s a miracle after miracle that that happened. But, Yeah, being in the train reminded me of, my my my grandmother, the grandparents I never met, but my grandmother, was an orphan, a little girl orphan. And they went straight to the chamber. So, and actually, when I did that, when I first did this project, turning it from autobiography to biography, I had to walk away from from the book.

00:43:06:28 – 00:43:25:24
Robert Wolf
I had to walk away from the story for at least a week, ten days, because it profoundly affected me. So, so. And, you know, I hate to say this, but fortunately, she didn’t have to it. Her life didn’t have to linger on for months, months at a time. And where you’re starving and you’re trapped and you were on your forced labor, and you don’t know when your last day is going to be, Schindler.

00:43:25:24 – 00:43:40:00
Robert Wolf
I think they capture all of that pretty well. I mean, everybody’s going to have a different story. But it didn’t go well. And then another thing that resonates is my my grandfather, who was a dentist who told the the, the intake people at the intake that he was a dentist was a doctor, and he might be useful.

00:43:40:06 – 00:43:55:27
Robert Wolf
So they assign him to cleaning latrines, and we don’t see that in Schindler. But we sure see all these kids hiding in Auschwitz, including the one that you get shut out by every other letter, every other kid. And then he’s up, he ends up diving into the feces and he hides in the latrine or whatever you want.

00:43:56:04 – 00:44:07:07
Robert Wolf
It’s disgusting. I mean, I can’t imagine what was the movie with the kid from India who does the same thing. He ends up diving into the, into the feces, and it just, the. Joe, remember that movie?

00:44:07:07 – 00:44:07:24
Dan LeFebvre
Yes.

00:44:07:29 – 00:44:10:07
Robert Wolf
And he’s on jeopardy or something like.

00:44:10:09 – 00:44:11:14
Dan LeFebvre
Slumdog Millionaire.

00:44:11:16 – 00:44:15:27
Robert Wolf
Yes. Very good. Thank you. I knew you were. No, you got a brilliant memory. I can.

00:44:15:27 – 00:44:17:01
Dan LeFebvre
Go on.

00:44:17:03 – 00:44:35:10
Robert Wolf
And that’s the. Yeah. That’s good. I mean, I need more people like you helped me with the message. This is why we’re doing this, too. But, talking about great movies and and a story that could be a movie. At least some people say that, so, so that resonate. Yeah. And then. So these were I went by at least my, my dad’s parents, didn’t have to endure all that.

00:44:35:12 – 00:44:51:20
Robert Wolf
I mean, if you’ve ever fasted just one day without food, it’s tough enough. I can’t imagine week after week, we would bury little food. And, you know, you’ve seen the pictures of the people that are skin and bones. Those that were lucky enough to survive. But, what a what a terrible life. They must have adapted and they had to live then.

00:44:51:22 – 00:44:56:13
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, it goes back to the words don’t really do it justice to to.

00:44:56:15 – 00:45:13:09
Robert Wolf
Not only that that personal. It’s the light. The light. So. So my dad’s father died probably of cholera week from the feces, you know. So that was, but there’s tuberculosis. There’s lice. My dad had a foot infection, when he was in, when he was forced labor camp, and he had lice a couple times. He had hepatitis.

00:45:13:09 – 00:45:30:10
Robert Wolf
He had a bad back. He had a lot going on. And then. And then recently talking about women in forced labor camps. There’s this guy in England, super nice and super dedicated to what we’re doing. He’s turning black and white photos into color photos, and he’s doing a good job, and he’s trying to get financial support for that.

00:45:30:12 – 00:45:48:13
Robert Wolf
But he did a, it was a short it was a short little documentary, maybe 2 or 3 minutes, maybe five, with conversion from black and white to color. And it was the forced labor. The women forced laborers from Hungary. And a lot of them had gangrene. They had gangrenous legs and gangrenous feet. And they actually, they depicted, what their skin look like.

00:45:48:13 – 00:46:12:14
Robert Wolf
And it’s brutal that. So, you know, you’d never think of gangrene. I mean, so a lot of health issues besides the starvation and lack of water to, of course, dehydration and, you know, electrolytes going to be off and, and, muscle mass goes and eventually you die because you’re, you’re malnourished. So I’m sure many, many people died from, I don’t know the exact numbers, but malnourishment, I’m sure, was not just getting shot or put in the gas chambers.

00:46:12:14 – 00:46:33:06
Robert Wolf
Just. Or other sickness, malnourishment, sickness. It’s just too much. It’s too much to think about. It’s 200. It is. And that need doesn’t need to happen. And it also resonates with Gaza. It with what’s the prisoners that are still there? I can’t imagine even if they released them today, the ones that are still alive, just talk about PTSD, talk about trying to overcome that kind of trauma, not knowing when your last day is.

00:46:33:06 – 00:46:38:03
Robert Wolf
Mostly that’s that’s the big thing, the wait and the boredom and, horror fun.

00:46:38:05 – 00:46:49:06
Dan LeFebvre
If we shift back to the movie, there’s, we’re talking about Schindler’s List, and that’s going to be the most popular movie about someone saving Jewish lives during the Holocaust. But it’s not the.

00:46:49:08 – 00:46:56:08
Robert Wolf
The Ten Commandments. Well, I gotta say, that’s a fantastic movie, too. But, I don’t mean. Sorry to interrupt. Yes.

00:46:56:09 – 00:47:01:15
Dan LeFebvre
No no no no no, that’s a that’s a classic a little bit outside the time frame that we’re talking about now.

00:47:01:15 – 00:47:07:18
Robert Wolf
And I’m kidding then Fiddler on the roof was another one. But it was a Rorschach. But, you know, that was a lot of anti-Semitism there too. But go ahead. I’m sorry.

00:47:07:18 – 00:47:41:02
Dan LeFebvre
I know you’re there’s another movie, called walking with the enemy about a Hungarian Jew named Ella Cohen, who he dresses up in an SS uniform to help rescue other Jews. Now, Ella Cohen is another fictional character, but he is based on a real person. Again, with with pronunciation. I believe it’s, Pincus Rosenbaum. He was disguised. He disguised himself in uniforms of the SS, the Hungarian Arrow Cross, which you mentioned earlier, the the Hungarian Lavant and the with the purpose of of saving, I believe hundreds of Jews.

00:47:41:04 – 00:47:51:15
Dan LeFebvre
During your research, did you come across other stories like Oskar Schindler or like Rosenbaum, of people who risked their lives to save the lives of others?

00:47:51:18 – 00:48:11:04
Robert Wolf
Raoul Wallenberg, my my, my dad and his friend Frank had those, passes, those forged papers. And he did, I don’t know, hundreds, thousands of them to help save people. Wallenberg was from Sweden, if I’m not mistaken. And I believe he was Jewish, but fantastic what he did. You going back to Schindler real quick is the way he laments.

00:48:11:04 – 00:48:26:23
Robert Wolf
You know this. Amongst all the murders he did no lamentation. You know. No. No sense of, of of, of mortality, no sense of, what’s the word I’m looking for? It just does. It doesn’t bother. And it doesn’t affect you.

00:48:26:25 – 00:48:29:21
Dan LeFebvre
No sense of decency. I mean, humanity, like Mr..

00:48:29:25 – 00:48:49:17
Robert Wolf
Schindler saving all these people. And he’s still got his car and he’s still got, like, enough jewelry or whatever. Yet on on him, he used his rings and he still your e remorse about. That’s the what I was and will remark you remorse is he elements about how he could have saved another eight or 10 or 12 Jewish people and and they had to console him because of that.

00:48:49:17 – 00:49:19:28
Robert Wolf
He cries, he breaks down. It’s a real it’s a real irony too. So, Yeah, but, but so he helps. So like Wallenberg, probably countless, Christian people, the Christians out, my dad, I mean, he wouldn’t survive without a lot of Christian help. Now, these aren’t famous stories, but being able to go to a casino, and hide in a casino, hide in a, a nunnery or, nursing home, with demented people and and, where else did he, his friend, hiding in a haberdashery and a hatbox, that kind of thing.

00:49:19:28 – 00:49:36:08
Robert Wolf
A lot of Christians help them. And then even after that, during communist Hungary, my my dad was getting, a few shekels sent, from Israel, from my mother’s mother and stepfather at this point, who was a Marky Mark in Israel, a consulate to Hungary. So they’d sneak them a few shekels, to, to this place in Budapest.

00:49:36:08 – 00:49:53:03
Robert Wolf
And my dad, it was a cloak and dagger story, the way my dad had to weave in and out of buildings to sneak to get that money, because he could have been in prison for that, too. So, a lot of people helped Jewish and Christian. Those that could a lot didn’t, again, fear for their lives. Not a lot of famous, well, here’s one actually.

00:49:53:03 – 00:50:14:15
Robert Wolf
Sorry. In communist Hungary, though, it’s not. My parents had an illegal Jewish wedding in 1953. My mom’s uncle, what? He sponsored that in his home. And like I say, it was illegal, and KGB was there, so, and my parents, when my parents, were on their honeymoon, the. He got arrested. He was a surgeon, chief of surgery in a Budapest hospital.

00:50:14:18 – 00:50:30:28
Robert Wolf
And they Waldemar for 13 months tortured him and, try to get him to confess to the to the murder. I think it was Wallenberg, if I’m not mistaken. So. And he wouldn’t he wouldn’t do it. And he was he came back a broken man, and obviously. And then they put him out in some rural clinic or something.

00:50:31:00 – 00:50:55:22
Robert Wolf
He ended up, ironically, in Sweden, where he had a successful career, and, solo daughter Susie, who was the last survivor in my book and just died in Jerusalem. Couple that soon after the attacks. 12 or 7. So she was comatose at the time and long standing on. And so as bad as that was, and it was great busier the year before, at least enough to know, about what was happening in Gaza and Israel.

00:50:55:22 – 00:51:22:01
Robert Wolf
So, all of them rest in peace. But yeah, so there’s famous and there’s not so famous in the autobiography. My dad mentions Mengele, that that is that Mengele greeted his father. But, the research that we this was a lot of research in our book, multiple people, historians, but, Berenbaum, Michael Berenbaum, who was one of the professors who wrote a tremendous, testimonial to other professors, did too.

00:51:22:02 – 00:51:38:06
Robert Wolf
They’re all good. But he mentions that don’t mix up where we’re talking about an Auschwitz because he had been there. He knows the history. And so we we took out Mengele. But, it may well be. And this is speculation that my dad’s father met Mengele, and he was the one that appealed since he was a doctor, too.

00:51:38:08 – 00:51:54:27
Robert Wolf
He was brutal himself, right? I mean, taking our feelings and using, humans as, for experiments and all that. But, if it was him or whoever it was, I guess I can’t call it nice, but got him a week’s worth. Two weeks worth of life, even though that week was miserable. So there are people that,

00:51:54:29 – 00:52:04:00
Robert Wolf
Yeah, the circles there are overlapping circles, for sure. And, as soon as we are done, I’ll probably think a couple more or two, but, you never know. And that’s a great question.

00:52:04:02 – 00:52:23:15
Dan LeFebvre
I think it’s great to know that. I mean, there are the famous one. Oskar Schindler obviously is famous, but he’s famous because of the movie and and the book and the as well. But he wasn’t doing it for fame. And there’s, you know, a lot of these stories, like you’re talking about the they’re not well known now, but that’s not why they were doing it.

00:52:23:15 – 00:52:54:21
Dan LeFebvre
They were doing it to help fellow humans. And I think that’s that in and of itself is a little bit of a light in, you know, in this dark time of history where there’s all this going on. But there are some people that will help. And I I’m happy to hear that. Yes, there were others that even though we might not know their names and whoever’s listening to this may not know their names, but they were still hoping because it was the right thing to do, not because they wanted to get their name, you know, a movie made about them.

00:52:54:26 – 00:53:00:16
Dan LeFebvre
So that we’d be talking about them on a podcast later. But, you know, it’s just the right thing to do.

00:53:00:18 – 00:53:20:26
Robert Wolf
Yeah. No, it’s it’s very palpable. And, you know, you really identify with Schindler and you always have the it’s another ironic thing. You have the swastika. Yeah. The little swastika on a super all the time. But it was, it was this guys, you know, that was it. But you’re right. He just did it out of, the love for human beings and and that that goes for Moses and that goes for Jesus and Gandhi and all these other former leaders.

00:53:20:26 – 00:53:35:03
Robert Wolf
And, of course they got some recognition, of course. But, and another one that comes to mind is Captain Khomeini. If you remember his, he’s the one who got them the forged papers. And, and I believe if I did my memory short, I’m going through my book again. You have to. Every so often. There’s never all the details.

00:53:35:11 – 00:53:54:17
Robert Wolf
But, he might have been Jewish, but since he was a big guy in the military, he had, privileges. So he helped my dad out to more than once, too. So that was another one. You may have been Christian, maybe Jewish, but, I’m glad that my parents didn’t know more famous people because. Or my grandparents, I should say, because, that to me, been more apt to be killed.

00:53:54:19 – 00:54:10:25
Robert Wolf
It didn’t matter anyway. But, if they lived in the out in the middle of nowhere, which Jer was, and it was a, pretty, very populated, industrial town. So, and that was it. They were they were in Transylvania first. And Albert. Julia, if I’m not pronouncing that right, might be I mean, if it was Spanish would be Albert.

00:54:10:27 – 00:54:42:04
Robert Wolf
Julia, I guess, or Julia it might be, but. Albert. Julia. So they they loved Mother Hungary, as do my parents. And, they decided to go back to George. So instead of living Transylvania. So. And that might have been an ill fated decision to my mom and dad. Love mother Hungary, too, by the way, and would have probably stayed if the Americans had taken over rather than the Soviets, because they had had enough with the two wars and, and and countless persecution, illegal weddings, torture, deaths and, deception.

00:54:42:04 – 00:54:58:18
Robert Wolf
You know, their, their colleagues and friends and fellow doctors were trying to get them to convert to the communist ideal. And my parents wouldn’t buy into that. And, and that state, the the Soviets, in their arrogance, called my dad not a real enemy. And that’s what they really were. They love Mother Hungary, but they weren’t going to stay.

00:54:58:21 – 00:55:13:17
Robert Wolf
My mom was a med school, by the way, to winning them. So. And dad was already in okay. And and he had to double down as a trauma surgeon during a revolution. So they’re both frontliners. And after that they said and they were closing the borders and people were leaving in droves. But they managed to get out.

00:55:13:21 – 00:55:19:13
Robert Wolf
That’s my dad’s fourth escape, which is they’re all harrowing, but, memorable for sure.

00:55:19:15 – 00:55:42:17
Dan LeFebvre
Right. Mentioning Hungary and, earlier I mentioned Ben Kingsley and Schindler’s List and that how that movie started in 1939. But Ben Kingsley is in another movie called walking with the enemy, and he plays another person that you mentioned, Regent Horthy, the Hungarian leader. That movie takes place in 1944, when the Germans finally occupy Hungary. And Regent Horthy doesn’t want to let the Nazis take the Jews.

00:55:42:17 – 00:55:58:02
Dan LeFebvre
So he’s trying to sign a deal with the Soviet Union to get the Nazis out of Hungary. But then in a group called Arrow Cross, which you had also mentioned earlier, takes control of Hungary up until the Red Army pushes the Nazis out of the during the siege of Budapest. This is all as far as the movie is concerned.

00:55:58:02 – 00:56:03:09
Dan LeFebvre
But what really happened with Hungarian, Polish artists during World War Two?

00:56:03:11 – 00:56:20:21
Robert Wolf
Oh well, that’s you. And you kind of said it yourself. I mean, you needed a guide. You needed it literally. So Horthy takes over after he was an admirable admiral in World War One. He takes over Hungary again. The Jews feel like he’s he’s not, friendly to the Jews, even though what if what you say is true, that might be the opposite.

00:56:20:21 – 00:56:23:24
Robert Wolf
But, kudos to him for for trying to prevent that.

00:56:23:26 – 00:56:26:25
Dan LeFebvre
Well, I was in the movie. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but that’s the way the movie presents.

00:56:26:25 – 00:56:40:06
Robert Wolf
Oh, yeah. Got to see the movie in and review the book and compare notes. There’s not a lot in the book about there’s a lot of history, but it’s it’s history light. I call it my coauthor, Janice. If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t be here. She’s a fantastic writer, but helped me turn the book and something really special.

00:56:40:06 – 00:56:56:26
Robert Wolf
But, if you were a junior school, they had the red chair. There’s a white chair. You know, you didn’t have communism. It was in then. They’re trying to say communism is no good. They’re beating up people. They’re going door to door. And then, of course, the rise of fascism, the Nazis entering, the, entering Hungary.

00:56:56:26 – 00:57:27:26
Robert Wolf
So the political climate then was you did what the Nazis said or you’re screwed. You know, that was Hungary trying to fight Germany. It was horse horses versus tanks, you know. How does that let me know how that goes for you. Right. And then, finally 1944 or 45, you Arrow cross, tremendously anti-Semitic. In my, I, maybe like a Gestapo or KGB type thing, they were worse to the Jews and they went out of their way opposite of Schindler, where, you know, the last day of the war and all the guards you only day, that’s all the guards.

00:57:27:26 – 00:57:42:24
Robert Wolf
And, in with the, prisoners, the laborers, and, he openly invites them to, to do what they want with them. Kill them or not. Or you can go home to your families, he says, and they all even go, well, that’s not what it was like in Hungary that at the end of the war, they went out of their way to kill as many Hungarians as they could.

00:57:42:27 – 00:58:07:09
Robert Wolf
And we all know about this. The Danube River, 21,000 Jewish people were shot to death, in cold blood, without their clothes on in the winter. December 43rd, January 44th. And, so that’s, it’s complete. Opposite of Schindler and it’s very set. So that’s the politics then. And of course, communism takes over. And, you know, we get the Stalin years and, and they wouldn’t go away.

00:58:07:09 – 00:58:25:20
Robert Wolf
And the irony is, like if the Americans had one or the West, the allies, then I probably wouldn’t be here. And I’d probably been born and raised in Hungary and maybe got lucky enough to go to med school. But they they left for the U.S., so. And then obviously, the Soviet, the Red Army and Soviet stayed on for forever and ever and ever.

00:58:25:23 – 00:58:45:13
Robert Wolf
Maybe now it’s a little bit of a democracy, but I don’t know much about recent Hungarian politics. But what I’ve seen and heard, the, Orban is, is Putin’s puppet. And, I could see him doing land for people. Deal, without dropping out. And let’s listen on. Jared’s never got a break for 80, 100 years, the most the majority of the 20th century was.

00:58:45:20 – 00:59:03:23
Robert Wolf
And the sad thing is, Hungarian Jews were. Well, if we’re going to flash, flash back to before World War one, 1890s, you know, the gay 90s and all that, Hungarian Jews and Jews in Europe were well treated. They were well respected. And and that boy that that climate turned, between world War one, World War two and and beyond with the Communist.

00:59:03:23 – 00:59:21:27
Robert Wolf
So, so Stalin dies in 53. That was good news. Hungarian, because he was really brutal, and I and Hungary in 56, they have their revolution. And, it goes badly for them. And then the hard liners became even more so because they were clamping down on the citizens. They didn’t want people to revolt.

00:59:21:27 – 00:59:37:12
Robert Wolf
And and they almost they didn’t almost win, but they almost got the Soviets out of there. And then just something changed about it. But instead of less, it became more with all the tanks coming in. And, that’s something that my dad said to the were that the men that were driving the tanks were from the Far East.

00:59:37:12 – 00:59:55:04
Robert Wolf
They were from, I don’t think it was Malaysia, maybe Burma. But they thought they were in Egypt. They thought they were in the Sinai, the Sinai War in 56. But they weren’t. They were. They were in Hungary fighting. So, that’s that was an interesting little tidbit. So it’s kind of like, oh, sorry, the North Koreans, you know, going to fight with the Russians kind of sounds like that, right?

00:59:55:04 – 01:00:01:08
Robert Wolf
They, they, you know, they recruit, they recruit people from other countries. Well, World War II was all about that, too.

01:00:01:08 – 01:00:26:05
Dan LeFebvre
But you you mentioned World War One and even before World War One, and that lead right into the last movie that I want to talk to you about, today’s, 1999 film, epic film called sunshine. I know up until now we’ve mostly talked about World War Two, but sunshine focuses on three generations of characters, all played by Ray finds across generations of a family called the Sun Shines, a, Hungarian Jewish family.

01:00:26:11 – 01:00:44:23
Dan LeFebvre
And the movie goes from the end of the 19th century with Hungarian nationalism through World War One, World War Two, and then into the Hungarian Revolution in 1956. And the first generation of the movie we see refines version of ignite, Sun and Shine. He wants to be a judge, but to do that he has to change his last name to something.

01:00:44:23 – 01:01:03:18
Dan LeFebvre
According to the movie is more Hungarian, so he changes it to show where there pressure even before the rise of fascism. Because in the movie this is happening, you know, before World War one and 19th century, was there pressure for Hungarians to hide their Jewish heritage?

01:01:03:20 – 01:01:18:12
Robert Wolf
Yeah. I’m thank you for reminding me of that movie, because I’ve heard of it recently and I didn’t remember the title. So if you don’t mind, please email me that, because that’s something that sounds like. But it’s totally, it’s encountered distinction too. Oh, he was in Schindler. I mean, that that kind of, that kind of wants to be a judge.

01:01:18:18 – 01:01:37:27
Robert Wolf
And he’s an excellent actor, don’t get me wrong. But, and so is the guy that played Schindler, you know, Liam, Liam Neeson, and we back to Ben Kingsley. But yeah, my dad’s parents converted. They converted to Christianity, reluctantly, but they did. And, it was so he could practice dentistry and hide his heritage. And my dad’s mother hated it, and.

01:01:37:27 – 01:01:55:00
Robert Wolf
But they did. So, and I’m sure a lot of other Hungarian Jews did. I mean, I’ve read about it and heard that other Hungarian used it in it, and of course, hiding certain valuables, hiding radios, hiding your religion. That was a part of your heritage. And it’s horrible thing. Now, they weren’t that religious, but for the Orthodox Jew either.

01:01:55:00 – 01:02:14:14
Robert Wolf
Good luck having that up. And, until they got to Auschwitz and you weren’t allowed to practice religion or do anything, they shaved off all your hair, humiliated you, killed you, clowns too. Not just the religious were clowns. But they were fortunate enough to convert back. My. I’m a mr. Cronenberg. My dad’s father’s, his cousin, just turns up.

01:02:14:14 – 01:02:30:21
Robert Wolf
I forget how the circumstances of how they meet, but he’s he’s wealthy, and he helps him open up a private practice, and they’re in their home and, lends the money or whatever. Maybe if ghost money and we don’t really talk about how it’s returned, if at all. But he has to convert. They have to convert back to Judaism.

01:02:30:21 – 01:02:45:13
Robert Wolf
And as soon as they get that news, my dad’s mom’s taking the cross off the wall. And, not that they didn’t like Christians because most of their friends were Christians, no doubt. Because they didn’t always share in with the Jewish people, especially the Orthodox. So, and so they converted back. So it was a big sacrifice for them.

01:02:45:18 – 01:03:02:19
Robert Wolf
I can’t imagine converting to Christianity. I love Christianity, I think it’s great religion and theory. I think, that Christians have had a hard time over the last, you know, thousand, 2000 years in certain cases. The Bible talks about the Spanish Inquisition. We talk about the Crusades. So all of that, both at both ends of it. Right.

01:03:02:19 – 01:03:23:06
Robert Wolf
And also Muslims and Jews as well, too. So, yeah, a lot of sacrifices they had to make, to finally get a life going, finally having my dad, who grows up, not wealthy, but, you know, upper middle, grows up as a spoiled kid, ironically ends up forced labor and gets through that. But, so the 20s were kind of easy on them.

01:03:23:09 – 01:03:37:02
Robert Wolf
But, in between where during, during certain times they had to convert at the either. And then of course, you couldn’t if you didn’t wear your yellow star or a yellow band. In my dad’s case, in the forced labor, you’d be punished or shot for sure. You’ll.

01:03:37:05 – 01:04:00:04
Dan LeFebvre
Well, you might have already answered my my next question on that one, because in sunshine, the next generation is very finds plays the same. He, he plays different characters in each generation. So in the first generation refines, character is ignites, and he’s trying to become a judge. And then the next generation, once the child grows up, they have a younger, you know, different actor playing the younger version, and he grows up.

01:04:00:04 – 01:04:18:27
Dan LeFebvre
And it’s also a great find, you know? But this time he’s Adam Shaw. And in Adam’s timeline, this is during World War two, and he has to convert. He converts to Roman Catholicism because Jews aren’t allowed to join the fencing club, which is what he wants to do. But then in the movie, obviously that doesn’t work. They find out about his Jewish ancestry.

01:04:18:27 – 01:04:31:29
Dan LeFebvre
And so you can’t just convert. It doesn’t doesn’t really work. So would it be with the movie’s concept there be correct that switching religions wouldn’t work as far as the brutality of the Nazis to escape that?

01:04:32:02 – 01:04:51:13
Robert Wolf
Probably not. I mean, I don’t even know how people know who’s Jewish and who is. And I mean, I have no idea what’s happened once the traumas, on the door. I mean, I, you know, I don’t know how they, how they could masterfully and systematically find them all and exterminate them. But, you bring up a good point, because my dad, my dad’s father, was Jewish.

01:04:51:13 – 01:05:13:02
Robert Wolf
He lost a government job as a dentist. They he had to be, first of all, let them do part time. And then they laid him off and they said, you know, no pension, no benefits. And then ultimately laid off. We talked about the sign. No Jews or dogs. That was out there in Hungary, too. So you weren’t allowed to fencing, you know, certain, bars, restaurants, places of worship, places of business.

01:05:13:02 – 01:05:27:14
Robert Wolf
So Jews weren’t allowed to go to. So and that same sign that we, we talk about in, life was beautiful and, also my dad was not allowed to be on the swim team because he was Jewish. And, my dad loved to swim. I was a pretty good swimmer in high school. I guess I got that from my dad.

01:05:27:14 – 01:05:44:23
Robert Wolf
I swam for four years, and, he did breaststroke, me butterfly and freestyle. But anyway, he had he was kicked off the swim team because he was Jewish. So, yeah, ramifications were there. And, very sad. And it’s too bad because his coach liked him and and his friends like them. And they were very sad for him, but there was nothing they could do,

01:05:44:25 – 01:06:02:03
Dan LeFebvre
Those sort of things. Again, it’s hard to wrap my head around because. So what does that have to do with swimming? Like it? Like you’re swimming in a pool in water. I mean, you’re competing in not to not to take away from how serious it can be for competitions and stuff, but it’s it’s still a sport and it’s similar.

01:06:02:03 – 01:06:21:02
Dan LeFebvre
We see the similar sort of thing in, in the movie with sunshine, except it’s fencing. He’s, you know, he’s fencing. He’s like, that’s part of the reason why he ends up he converts is because he’s like, this doesn’t really it doesn’t affect my how good I am at fencing and with my practicing. And I imagine a similar thing for, for swimming like it does, it doesn’t affect that.

01:06:21:02 – 01:06:29:17
Dan LeFebvre
And so it’s, it’s, it goes back to that concept of what as we’re talking about, it, there’s so much more that, you know, it’s just it’s hard to wrap your head around.

01:06:29:18 – 01:06:48:00
Robert Wolf
And so it’s awful now, you know, ironically, the Olympics came up in a recent podcast too, and y can every day be like the Olympics? Yeah. Why can’t we do peace negotiations and tear off negotiations in the hot tub, or over find a nice table with a tablecloth and, you know, nice silverware? The the Olympics, exemplifies that.

01:06:48:00 – 01:07:06:14
Robert Wolf
It’s the one time where for the 2 or 3 weeks that the all these countries get together, they compete, they put all the bibs, all the politics, all the disagreements off you know, back. They leave it on the field or behind them and they compete. And it’s great sportsmanship. And why can’t, why can’t our politicians, why can’t our leaders, do that?

01:07:06:14 – 01:07:24:14
Robert Wolf
I mean, it’s such a such a great lesson. So I love the Olympics, not only because I love sports, but also just that concept of, worldwide, a worldwide peace and, the amicable feeling that you got, and I just love it. I mean, third place, person congratulating the first on the gold medal winner, that kind of thing.

01:07:24:17 – 01:07:44:16
Robert Wolf
Arm in arm in arm, holding our flags. Just the fact, you know, we’re talking about kneeling and and, during, it’s not a big thing lightly, thank God. But kneeling or not respecting the national anthem, my mom and dad would spit in those people. They would be. How dare you? You know, we we were barely allowed to practice what we want in a free country.

01:07:44:16 – 01:08:04:15
Robert Wolf
How dare you do that in this country? And they would, think. I mean, they got to their dad, but they. I got the narrative experience, the the the people kneeling and and not respecting the flag, multi-millionaires, people that are privileged, privileged enough and talented enough, and marketable enough to to be in sports and make lots of money, be very popular.

01:08:04:15 – 01:08:24:06
Robert Wolf
And when they do that, it’s it just doesn’t hurt the snarling. And so those kind of things, that’s what we’re battling here. You know, we got to respect our country and our freedoms, and our luck and realize that what happened to my dad could happen to any one of us. Could be a bad neighbor. Bad local government, federal government, foreign government, natural disaster, bad business deal.

01:08:24:06 – 01:08:39:07
Robert Wolf
Whatever it is could happen to us where we’re on the run not knowing where your next meal is. So not only are we going to sleep, not not knowing if you’re going to get a job or where you will, and you still you’re still, you don’t know. You can’t meet people. You can’t be around people that that spot you and say, oh, there’s a Jew.

01:08:39:07 – 01:08:47:24
Robert Wolf
There’s, Because you hear that. So there’s we talk about the light at the end of the tunnel. Even during escapes, there was no such thing.

01:08:47:27 – 01:09:11:23
Dan LeFebvre
If we go back to sunshine, the last generation in that movie is Adam, son Ivan. And he survives World War two. But then he joins the communists because they seem to be the liberators of the brutality of the Nazis had inflicted in Hungary. But then, as the Hungarian Revolution breaks out in 1956, in the movie we see Ivan, he realizes the communists are brutal and corrupt also.

01:09:12:00 – 01:09:38:14
Dan LeFebvre
And then at the very end of that movie, Ivan learns from an old letter from his great grandfather, who was at the very beginning of the movie. It’s it’s a long movie. But he finds out that in this letter, it’s the goal is not to be accepted by others. And in this letter, as you reads it, Ivan then has the inspiration to change his name from shores back to sunshine to embrace his Jewish ancestry.

01:09:38:16 – 01:09:58:14
Dan LeFebvre
And like a lot of the movie characters that we’ve talked about today, the Shine is high. Family from the movie sunshine are fictional. They’re not real. But of course, the unimaginable hardships that they faced in the movie were real events that generations of of your family faced as well. So just like Ivan took lessons from his family’s past at the end of the movie and build a better life for himself.

01:09:58:14 – 01:10:09:04
Dan LeFebvre
As we kind of start to wrap up our discussion today, if you took a look at your family’s history, what’s one lesson that you’ve learned that people today can apply to create a better future?

01:10:09:06 – 01:10:26:04
Robert Wolf
I have to see that movie sunshine. It sounds. I mean, it sounds like they stole my stole my own story. Now, would you remind me? Because I do want to, but yeah, my, my mom’s uncle, Zoltan was she. He converted. He was a communist because he wanted to. He wanted to survive. And, my mom probably hated it, but he was.

01:10:26:04 – 01:10:43:18
Robert Wolf
It helped him. He was a he was a monkey in the government and in the economic the economic plan after World War two. And, I read some of the notes, those turned up and I it was really and I don’t mean to get off the subject, but it was really poignant and depressing actually saying, well, what what do we do with our, our Jews?

01:10:43:25 – 01:11:03:10
Robert Wolf
And they are mostly farms and factories. I’m not going to talk about military. I’m talking about the civilian Jews because they couldn’t work. They couldn’t be educated. Finally, they let my dad get into medical school, 10%, quota, which is 10% quota, which is amazing that he even got in. But, so but he was a communist, so he, you know, resonates really, really well with whatever.

01:11:03:10 – 01:11:23:24
Robert Wolf
My mom and dad wouldn’t buy into it as we already mentioned, that, like I said, this country is amazing. Accountability is an important. It’s an important message. Don’t point at people. It just, you know, after 911, we had Islamophobia. After the coronavirus epidemic. We had the Asian eight. Now tober seventh. That’s the Jewish people.

01:11:23:24 – 01:11:39:12
Robert Wolf
Well, what do I have to do with Gaza? And October 7th, I support Israel, I support peace, and, that that that unnecessary. You know, you’re wasting your time, with these protests, these kids in Colombia, you don’t know how good you have it. You know, I, I think people would tell the end of Harvard or Columbia or privilege.

01:11:39:12 – 01:12:03:24
Robert Wolf
They would be. And, people that are doing this and and protesting and calling for the death of Israel and America, it’s just there’s no room for it. Not for me, not for you, and not in this country. And so I identify with the peaceful people, try to get a handle around, at least. Finally, they’re curtailing funding for universities everywhere I could in there, I’d be showing them and and suing them and suing them and and doing more talks in the area.

01:12:03:24 – 01:12:20:28
Robert Wolf
I mean, believe me, that’s all I’m doing anyway, but we need to, appreciate what we have. Accountability. And if you’re bored with what you have, you got if you’re complaining, change vectors. If you don’t like your job, change jobs, work part time, write a book. Everybody’s got a story. Write a poem, write an opera. Go to the library.

01:12:20:28 – 01:12:37:28
Robert Wolf
Go to the museum. Spend more time with your family. Give back to the community. It’s not just about food, shelter, clothing. Unlike for my mom and dad and, all the victims, it’s all food, shelter and clothing. But for now, for us, I put a little more into your life, put a more pot, and, love your neighbor, you know, and I don’t I don’t mean to be corny.

01:12:37:28 – 01:12:57:02
Robert Wolf
Bring a neighbor some macaroons or whatever. Invite them for the Seder. Just get to know them better and embrace them. And things. And things. Well, it all starts. Leadership starts from within. You know, you’re not going to be a leader if you’re not a good person. If you’re not. And I don’t mean no Hitler leader because he just led by charisma and, and, all his, his garbage is, propaganda.

01:12:57:04 – 01:13:14:01
Robert Wolf
But, you can lead by example, and it’s never too late to do the right thing. There’s no substitute for experience. I got a lot of, you know, the trend is your friend, you can learn something from every case, as we say in radiology. But as now, I’ve been on both sides of the needle. You can learn something from every person you know.

01:13:14:01 – 01:13:30:13
Robert Wolf
You can learn from every situation. And don’t forget that, don’t be that. That dead shark swim in the water. Just keep on moving. And if you don’t like what you’re doing and don’t don’t watch and complain, do something else. Life is short here. It’s our only commodity. It’s. You know, time is. Our time is our only commodity.

01:13:30:13 – 01:13:41:24
Robert Wolf
It’s not gold or silver stocks, real estate. It’s time. So use it. Use it wisely. Like my dad used to say. Enjoy every moment. And now I understand why.

01:13:41:26 – 01:14:02:10
Dan LeFebvre
Yeah, I love that I love that, and that’s one thing as we’ve talked about you just looking back to some of the movies we talked about, the concept that I get is a lot of the things that led to like the atrocities Auschwitz that we talked about. It didn’t jump right to that. It was there were steps that they got there.

01:14:02:13 – 01:14:26:01
Dan LeFebvre
And although we’ve we talked mostly about historical events that took place around World War Two today, a lot of people have compared the current climate here in the United States as I’m recording this, similar to the rise of fascism that resulted in Nazi Germany. And I’m just curious, from your perspective, do you think there’s any truth to those comparisons, or is that kind of overblown just, extremism?

01:14:26:03 – 01:14:44:26
Robert Wolf
That’s such a great question. It’s hard to know. I hope not. That’s why there’s people like me trying to prevent that from happening. Call Congress, call you local government. What are you guys doing about anti-Semitism? I’m still doing it. I hate getting ghosted. That’s a big part of it being rejected. I don’t mind getting rejected like people that are apathetic, but too much apathy is going to be the danger to us.

01:14:44:26 – 01:15:04:25
Robert Wolf
And if the Jewish population doesn’t survive, you know, the LGBTQ, the criticize the Jewish and African-Americans, if you guys are next and and those those that glorify Hitler, you guys were next. You just don’t even realize it. So, now in some ways, yeah, in some countries worse than here. But even in America, in World War two, there was the rise of anti-Semitism.

01:15:04:25 – 01:15:23:16
Robert Wolf
And, fortunately not fascism. But until the guns are pointed at me, I feel relief. As long as the government and the local police are protecting us, then I feel safe. Whatever. If it starts to turn. And we talked about the your armored trucks and tanks going down the streets with the flags. If it ever comes to that, then I’d say, well, no, we’re doomed.

01:15:23:16 – 01:15:45:23
Robert Wolf
But, at least for the short term. But, hopefully that never happens. I can’t see that happening. But you never know. I mean, Australia and Canada, Europe, it’s still going on. So it’s up to the government, the people that are supposed to protect others. As Reagan said, that’s what government’s job is not to and not to, to to take from others or its or to use the people.

01:15:45:23 – 01:15:52:00
Robert Wolf
It’s, it’s I’m paraphrasing, but a government’s job is to protect us. Jewish. Christian doesn’t matter. Muslim.

01:15:52:03 – 01:15:58:26
Dan LeFebvre
We’re all human. We’re all. We’re all. What is it? The JFK quotes, we all share this planet together or something. Something along.

01:15:58:26 – 01:16:17:23
Robert Wolf
Those lines. Exactly. No. It’s true, it’s true. And we’re we’re getting beyond that. Why are the Soviets and the Americans get along in space stations and the moon or whatever, but they can’t get along and Mother Earth, right? I mean, so that’s, it’s another thing like the Olympics. Yeah. It doesn’t even make sense to me. And probably Antarctica and Greenland and everybody is going to set up whatever.

01:16:17:25 – 01:16:33:08
Robert Wolf
And that works for me. You know, it’s so how about annexing Canada? What about that kind of concept? I, you know, people are thinking out of the box lately and maybe I like it, maybe I don’t, but it’s worth a look because things have to change. Canada needs a security alternative to the US. On and on and on.

01:16:33:13 – 01:16:55:13
Robert Wolf
And maybe it’s good economically too, unless it’s come up. And I don’t know that it would be so complicated. And I know our resistance. The natives would be, Mexico. Maybe not so much, but that would be scary for me because I think it’s a it’s got it’s violent areas and etc.. But interestingly, a Jewish woman is the new president of Mexico, so and a Jewish lady is, is the new mayor of Beverly Hills.

01:16:55:13 – 01:17:15:18
Robert Wolf
So, that gives me hope. I think that’s great. I mean, I love California, and if it weren’t so expensive, I maybe I would live there instead of Florida. But, with who knows? And it’s one of the liberal for me, too. But, you know, it’s a great state and, many, many people. So it’s good to see that some people that are in leadership positions are going to be on the side of peace, not just because they’re Jewish.

01:17:15:18 – 01:17:29:03
Robert Wolf
That’s the side of peace. So they get it. They care. That’s another lesson. It’s good to care. It’s important to care if you, you’re doomed if you don’t. So whatever is your own life or the life of others? It’s important.

01:17:29:05 – 01:17:44:00
Dan LeFebvre
Well, thank you so much for coming on the show to chat about all these various movies. I know we’ve mentioned your book called Not a Real Enemy The True Story of the Hungarian Jewish Man’s Fight for freedom. We’ve mentioned a few times throughout our discussion today, but there’s so many things in the book that we didn’t even get a chance to talk about.

01:17:44:00 – 01:18:01:06
Dan LeFebvre
I’m going to add a link to it in the show notes, so anyone watching or listening to this right now can pick up their own copy. As I was reading your book, it really read like a movie and I can’t wait until it is turned into one. And since all movies have teasers and trailers before I let you go, can you share a teaser of your book for everyone watching this?

01:18:01:06 – 01:18:03:06
Dan LeFebvre
Now?

01:18:03:09 – 01:18:23:14
Robert Wolf
Wow. Yeah, yeah, from your mouth to God’s ears. Because, we we’ve been trying to clear some producers. Like I mentioned earlier, it’s a long shot, but a teaser. A man who escapes four times, I can’t imagine one escape. I mean, I’ve been reading books, guys escaping, and they’re not even Jewish. They’re. They’re prisoners of war from Poland or whatever, escaping from thousands of miles away.

01:18:23:16 – 01:18:40:12
Robert Wolf
And that’s like a one big, huge escape. But for escapes, 20 miracles in this book, like you as you know it. Or the way my dad got into medical school, cloak and dagger stories, arguing with armors and soldiers. That’s a scene I’d like to see, and winning the argument, but bluffing his way through it.

01:18:40:15 – 01:19:03:19
Robert Wolf
Of course, his first and last escape. But I think all of them would need to be included. Split second timing. The luck of God. What else? I mean, the fact that my dad was spoiled, but he was also beaten as a kid. It’s another interesting, interesting tidbit. Tidbit? So many, the way the table set, the way the way that you went from, being an upper middle says to starving and how life could change on a dime.

01:19:03:21 – 01:19:24:18
Robert Wolf
So many messages. Resilience, determination, hope, integrity, and ultimately redemption. So it’s it’s loaded. It’s packed with it’s history. It’s an adventure. It’s a biography. And, trials and tribulations. My dad and family and, must read and hopefully, more and more people read it. This is all I do is my charge is fighting anti-Semitism. You help me with that.

01:19:24:18 – 01:19:48:24
Robert Wolf
10% of my, I’m on socials across the board, so please, finally, Robert J. Wolfe, MD, or Google not relented me 10% of my proceeds henceforth and even when I’m gone and my trust are going to the Holocaust Museum in DC. So not only I’m educating in my own little corner, but I’m also contributing. And people that buy the book are contributing to education through the, to the mothership, as I call it, the U.S. Holocaust Museum in DC.

01:19:48:27 – 01:20:06:02
Robert Wolf
I’ve been fortunate enough to be there twice or two to the book signings. I could do that every day, educating kids and families about what’s going on now and then, genocide, etc.. So, it’s a must read. And, I hope that you do enjoy it and reach out to me. I do podcasts and and presentations programs.

01:20:06:02 – 01:20:09:03
Robert Wolf
Please help me fight antisemitism. Can’t do it alone.

01:20:09:05 – 01:20:16:27
Dan LeFebvre
I love education is is the key. Thank you so much for everything you do for educating. Thank you for for coming on the show. I really appreciate it.

01:20:17:00 – 01:20:24:22
Robert Wolf
Pleasure. I learned a lot today to.

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.

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 10th, 490 BCE. Marathon, Greece.

We’re kicking off this week with the movie 300: Rise of an Empire, and as soon as the opening credits are over, Lena Headey’s character, the wife of the Spartan King Leonidas from the first 300 movie.

Lena Headey’s character is Queen Gorgo, and to start Rise of an Empire, she’s addressing many of the Spartan soldiers who fought with her late husband. These soldiers are all carrying spears, shields, and, of course, the impressive physique of bare-chested six packs that we saw the Spartans have in the first 300 movie.

Sixteen Spartan soldiers surround Queen Gorgo as she addresses them, but there are more like 36 or 37 spears visible, suggesting even more soldiers behind those we can see as they hear their queen speak.

She tells them her husband, Leonidas, their king, and the brave 300 are dead.

As she continues to speak, she moves among the men showing even more soldiers beyond the numbers I just mentioned, but it’s nearly impossible to count them as the camera shifts angles. As the camera changes, though, we can see sails above Queen Gorgo’s head. We can hear the creaking of a wooden ship, which tells us they’re all on a ship.

She tells them it was King Darius who came to take our land ten years ago when youth still burned in our eyes. Ten years ago, this war began as all wars do: With a grievance.

Then, the movie takes us back to ten years earlier.

Mud is being kicked up by feet running in slow motion. The particles of mud and dirt flung high into the air just hanging as time moves at a snail’s pace. As we see more bare-chested men wearing helmets, blue robes on two men leading the charge to the right side of the screen, all with the round shields and weapons: Swords and spears.

Queen Gorgo’s voiceover continues, saying King Darius was annoyed by the notion of Greek freedom and has come to Greece to bring them under submission.

As thunder claps and lighting strikes, the camera changes yet again. Now we can see a vast mountainous landscape, on a dark and stormy night. In the foreground, numerous ships can be seen, some still in the waters, and other right along the shores. All of them have their sails put up, suggesting the ships are disembarking onto the beach beyond.

And on the beach beyond, tiny black dots can be seen. It’s nighttime so impossible to see all of them individually, but each dot is a soldier from one of the ships, giving the overall scene an enormous size. The beach they’re all on leads to a pathway between right mountains, right in the center of the movie’s frame, and in the distance are even more black dots: Greek soldiers charging at Darius’ men as soon as they arrive on the Greek shores.

Queen Gorgo’s voiceover confirms this as she says Darius made landfall at the field of Marathon with an invading force which outnumbered the Greek defenders 3-to-1.

Rain continues to pour down in slow motion as the camera zooms in on the same Greek soldiers we saw in slow motion earlier, this time they’re coming over the muddy horizon and charging directly toward the camera. A bolt of lighting and the loud thunderclap in the stormy sky behind the advancing soldiers suggests even the sky is angry.

She says at dawn the hopeless Athenians do the unthinkable: They attack.

We see King Darius turn around, looking in the direction of the Greek soldiers coming over the horizon. Other soldiers are taking off belongings from the ship. Sure, they’re all soldiers, too, but none of them are ready to fight.

And Queen Gorgo’s voiceover also confirms this, as she says the outnumbered Greeks attacked the weary Persians as soon as they landed after their month-long trip at sea gave them shaky legs. We see some of the Persian soldiers grab spears and swords in haste and start to face the approaching enemy.

Then, the camera cuts to the architect of this mad strategy: A little-known Athenian soldier named Themistokles. The camera focuses in on a single soldier as Gorgo says he gives the Persians a taste of Athenian shock combat.

Sullivan Stapleton is the actor who plays Themistokles in the movie.

The very stylized movie was still going in slow motion this whole time, but now as the Greek and Persian armies clash time speeds back up to normal pace as the sound of swords clanging, and the sound of two fighting armies can be heard against the thunder and rain.

It looks like a bloodbath.

The Persians are caught off guard, and the Greeks run right through most of them. Slicing his way through the Persians is Themistokles, who we can tell now was one of the soldiers wearing a blue robe. That conveniently makes him a lot easier to pick out among the two forces fighting each other in the rain and mud.

Shifting between real-time speed and slow motion, Themistokles fights his way to the shores and the Persian ships. Wasting no time, he runs right up one of the ship’s ramps, slashing and killing everyone on board.

The camera cuts to show King Darius in one of the ships just off shore. He’s watching the chaos unfold in front of him, clearly enraged at what he’s seeing. Back to Themistokles, and he jumps back onto the beach, leaving the ship he was on. There must be no one left to kill on that one.

He races along the beach, killing more and more Persians. An arrow slices at his arm. More arrows hit his shield. Throwing his sword to kill one of the archers, Themistokles charges at the other. Another arrow, this time he turns his head to let it glance off his helmet as he tackles and kills the archer.

Queen Gorgo’s voiceover has returned, saying all of this was for a crazy Greek experiment called democracy. A free Greece.

Slamming the archer to the ground, Themistokles seems to have reached the end of the beach, but he takes off his helmet to look out at the Persian ships still in the waters. On one of those ships is King Darius, still watching the slaughter in front of him. For a moment, Themistokles and King Darius stare directly at each other from across the water between them.

Finally, Darius turns away as if to say the Persians are about to leave—at least for now.

Queen Gorgo’s voiceover says through the chaos, a moment appeared. And Themistokles took advantage of that moment. We see him pick up the bow from the archer he just killed. Then, pulling back an arrow, he lets off one shot.

Back on the Persian ship, Darius has his back turned now and doesn’t notice the arrow coming toward him. But someone else on the ship does. Another man on the other side of the ship runs in slow motion as he screams, “Nooooooo!”

Queen Gorgo says this is the moment that will ring throughout the centuries and make Themistokles a legend.

The camera follows the arrow he shot as it flies across the water, aimed directly at King Darius. From the other side of the boat, the running man reaches Darius just in time the arrow hits him in the chest, knocking him backward into the other man’s arms. He glares at Themistokles with a burning hatred that tells you there will be vengeance.

Then, Queen Gorgo tells us who this other man is: Darius’ son, Xerxes.

She goes on to say that for all the praise that would be heaped upon Themistokles, he knew he made a mistake. Xerxes’ eyes had the stink of destiny about them. He knew he should’ve killed that boy.

But, instead, after delivering the fatal arrow to King Darius, we see Themistokles simply turn and walk away.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie 300: Rise of an Empire

As immersive as the fictional portrayal is, as we begin separating fact from fiction, let me start with a blanket statement that I’m sure you already know but it’s still worth saying: 300: Rise of an Empire is the sequel to 300, which itself was based on a comic book of the same name.

That’s why it shifts between slow motion and real-time speed, and gives unrealistic streams of blood flying around the scene as soldiers swing their swords.

Even once we separate ourselves from that side of things, another major caveat we have to keep in mind is that we’re talking about something that happened 2,514 years ago. Do we know if Themistokles and King Darius had a stare down across the water like we see in the movie? That’s not the kind of thing that gets documented so of course we don’t know for sure. But, I bet if you had to guess how realistic that sort of moment is, I bet you would come to the same conclusion that I would and guess that’s not very realistic at all, haha!

With those major caveats aside, there really was a major battle at Marathon between the Greeks and Persians that happened 2,514 years ago this week.

Lena Headey’s character, Queen Gorgo, really was King Leonidas I’s wife. He was, of course, famous for the Battle of Thermopylae that was told in the movie 300—which we looked at on episode 5 of Based on a True Story.

Another element of truth the movie shows correctly is the timeframe between the events. We hear Queen Gorgo talk about Leonidas and the 300 being dead, and also how it was ten years ago that Darius brought the fight to our shores at Marathon.

The legend of the 300 at Thermopylae happened in 480 BCE, while the Battle of Marathon was ten years earlier in 490 BCE.

But here’s where the movie takes some creative license, because even though the timeline means Queen Gorgo was alive during both battles, we don’t really know how involved she was with the army to travel with them on ships and telling the story of Marathon to soldiers like we see her doing in the beginning of the movie.

It’s certainly plausible. Especially because we do know she held a position of importance in Greek society at the time, not only because of her husband being king, but also because she was in her own right an intelligent woman. For example, a lot of what we know about her comes from an ancient Greek historian named Herodotus, and even though he didn’t write about women often, one story he told was how Gorgo helped decipher a hidden message warning the Greeks of a Persian invasion. That makes her one of the first female cryptanalysts in recorded history.

Back to the movie’s version of the Battle of Marathon, though, one of the things Gorgo mentions in her voiceover is that the Persians outnumbered the Greeks 3-to-1.

And that’s about right. Historical estimates put the Greeks at about 11,000 soldiers while the Persians had somewhere between 20,000 to 30,000 soldiers carried by 600 or so ships called triremes. So, of course, the movie uses the higher number to make the contrasts between forces seem even greater.

So, it is true that the Greeks here heavily outnumbered.

Did they attack as soon as the Persians landed in Greece to help overcome the mismatch in numbers?

No, they didn’t. That part of the movie is not true.

And now it’s time for the part of the true story that maybe you’ve heard before from a very different legend. After all, you’ve heard of the long distance run of 26.2 miles, or 42 kilometers, being called a marathon. As the legend goes, that’s the distance the Greek messenger Pheidippides ran from Marathon to Athens to inform them of the victory at Marathon. So, obviously that would’ve happened after the battle if he informed them of the Greek victory.

While that is the legend, according to Herodotus, that run actually happened before the battle…and he didn’t run from Marathon to Athens, but he ran the 150 miles, or 240 kilometers, from Athens to Sparta to ask for their help for the impending Persian invasion. Actually, that’s how we know it happened this week in history, because the historical records tell us the Spartans couldn’t march until after their holy day.

Oh, and as a fun little bit of trivia, as of this recording the world record holder for a marathon is Kelvin Kiptum from the 2023 Chicago Marathon where he had an average speed of about 13 mph, or 21 km/h. Of course, that’s a 26.2 mile marathon. It’s said that Pheidippides did his 150-mile run from Athens to Sparta in two days. That’s an average pace of 4.7 mph, or 7.5 km/h. A runner named Yiannis Kouros holds the ultramarathon record of 150 miles in 22 hours, 52 minutes, and 55 seconds in 1984. That’s an average pace of 6.6 mph, or about 10.6 km/h.

Meanwhile, I’d probably pass out from exhaustion way back by the starting line so I’m glad they sent Pheidippides instead of me haha!

Back to the Battle of Marathon, though, the reasons for the Greek’s ultimate victory is still something historians debate, but as with most things in history there’s not likely to be just one thing; there were a number of factors that went into the final Greek victory at Marathon.

But let’s start breaking it down by looking at something the movie doesn’t show: Their armor.

While the actors in the movie are obviously in such great shape they can use their six packs as armor, it’s probably not a surprise that the real Greek army actually wore more armor than we see in the movie.

At least, sort of.

Here’s where the true story really gets more complex than the fictional one from the movie, because the Greek army consisted of a lot of citizen-soldiers called hoplites. After all, ancient Greece wasn’t really unified into the country of Greece that we think of today. It was made up of city-states that banded together when they needed to fight off shared enemies like the Persians. That’s why you’ll find references to the Athenians, the Spartans, and so on…they’re all Greek, but they’re also independent city-states.

On top of that, because Greek hoplites were essentially civilians called into military service when needed they often weren’t trained well and they usually wore whatever armor they could afford.

“Usually” is the key word there, because the Greek general in charge of the force that went out to face the Persians at Marathon had all his men equipped as hoplites for what many say was the first time in Greek history.

Oh, that general’s name was Miltiades and he isn’t in the movie at all.

Even though the armor the Greek hoplites wore was quite different than the lack-of-armor we see in the movie, the Greek’s armor was a lot lighter than the Persian’s armor. That was a major tactical advantage, because that let the Greeks move a lot faster than the Persians.

So, even though the Greeks didn’t charge the Persians as soon as they landed on shore, they did charge at the Persians. That wasn’t a common fighting tactic back then, so it was unexpected by the Persians. But, of course, simply charging your enemy isn’t going to overcome 3-to-1 odds on its own like the movie shows.

Speaking of what the movie shows, in her voiceover, Lena Headey’s version of Queen Gorgo says the architect behind the Greek’s decision to run out to meet the Persians before they could establish a foothold is a soldier named Themistokles.

While Themistokles really was someone who fought at Marathon, the commander of the Greek armies was the general I mentioned before: Miltiades.

Other Greek generals weren’t sure if they should attack the Persians or wait for them to attack them at Athens. After all, then they’d have the benefit of defensive positions in the city to help them fight against overwhelming odds.

As fate would have it, the Greeks found out the Persian cavalry happened to be away from the Persian camp. He took advantage of that situation, and ordered the attack on the Persian infantry.

That made the odds a little more in the Greek’s favor with the 11,000 Greeks attacking about 15,000 Persian infantry. On top of that, since the Greeks were the ones attacking they had more control over where the battle would be fought and they chose to attack on a mountainous and marshy terrain. So, the movie is correct to show mountains and mud…that helped ensure the Persian cavalry wouldn’t hear about the attack and return to route the Greeks while they were fighting the Persian infantry.

Of course, the Greeks were still outnumbered by the Persian infantry alone. That brings us to yet another reason for the real reason the Greeks won at Marathon: Phalanxes.

Basically, with long spears and large, bronze shields, the Greeks packed together so tightly that the Persians couldn’t penetrate with their shorter swords. General Miltiades also employed a tactic that proved to help the Greek victory, too. As the battle raged on, the center of the Greek forces collapsed to allow Persians to advance. Then, the wings of the Greek forces would collapse into the center so all of a sudden the Persians would find themselves surrounded.

While we don’t know for sure exactly how long the battle lasted, most historians believe it only took a few hours for the Persians to be routed and flee back to their ships. In that time, estimates place about 6,500 Persians killed while fewer than 200 Greeks lost their lives in the battle.

What of King Darius himself?

The movie got that wrong, too.

Darius I did not die at the Battle of Marathon. In fact, most historians say he wasn’t even there. Two generals named Datis and Artaphernes led the Persian forces. So, the movie’s plot line of Darius’ son Xerxes wanting revenge for his father’s death isn’t what happened.

In the true story, Darius I dead four years after the battle from natural causes. That’s when his son Xerxes took the throne. He did continue fighting the Greeks leading to a second Persian invasion of Greece that culminated in the Battle of Thermopylae the legend of the 300. But that wasn’t revenge for his father’s death. That was continuing the expansion of the Persian Empire that many consider to be the first global empire in history.

Something else we hear Queen Gorgo’s voiceover talk about in the movie is the idea of a Greek experiment called democracy.

That’s actually true, the ancient Greeks are often credited with what was at the time a new system of governance that was radically different than the monarchies, oligarchies, and tyrannies of the time. More specifically, it was the Athenians who laid down the foundations around 508 BCE.

So, when we take a step back from the Battle of Marathon itself and look at the bigger picture, you can see why so many point to Marathon as being a single day in history that changed the course of history.

Many of the founding figures of Western philosophy such as Socrates to Plato, Aristotle, came from Greece in the years, decades, and centuries afterward. If the Persians had wiped out the Greeks at Marathon, it’s not hard to imagine us living in a very different world today.

If you want to see how the Battle of Marathon is portrayed on screen, hop into the show notes to find where 300: Rise of an Empire is streaming now!

September 11, 2001. Herndon, Virginia.

Just saying that date, I’m sure you can guess what our next event is…although the location might throw you off. The reason for that location is because seven minutes into the 2006 movie called United 93, there’s some text on the screen to tell us we’re at the National Air Traffic Control Center in Herndon, Virginia. The camera follows a man into a room filled with screens and people—it looks a lot like what you’d expect an air traffic control center to look like.

As the man walks into the room, there are some claps and we can hear someone saying, “Congratulations on the promotion, Ben!”

That’s how we know the man is Ben Sliney. Others continue to clap or offer a congratulatory handshake as he makes his way further into the room. He smiles, thanking them, says “good morning” and jokes that he’s glad everyone is awake.

Standing in front of a bank of monitors, Ben talks to some of the other guys about the current situation. One of them says there’s a small system in the southwest, nothing much too big. Another system moved off to the east, so we have clear skies. Ben replies to the weather report saying that’s good, it’ll be a good day on the east coast.

The other guy points to something on the monitor. They can all see what it is, but from the angle the camera is facing Ben Sliney, we can’t see the monitor. But we don’t really have to, because the guy explains that the President is going to be moving to Andrews, so we’ll have restrictions in place around that. Pretty much standard ops. Ben doesn’t take his eyes off the monitor as he nods his approval.

Then, he smiles, and thanks them for their reports. They go back to work while Ben moves onto another area of the room. He looks at the monitors. Everything seems to be pointing to just another day.

The true story behind that scene in the movie United 93

We’ll stop our movie here because, as you might imagine, the entire movie is centered around the same day—and also because I’ve already done a deep dive into this movie over on episode #113, so if you want to learn more about the whole movie that’ll be linked in the show notes.

For today, though, the movie is true that September 11^th, 2001, started off as just another normal day at the National Air Traffic Control Center. But, as I’m sure you already know, it was not just another day.

The movie was also correct to suggest the President traveling to Andrews, referring to Andrews Air Force Base just outside Washington, D.C., where then-President George W. Bush was flying in from Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska.

And the movie was also correct to show a reason for Ben Sliney to be congratulated when he entered the room that day. September 11, 2001, just happened to be Ben Sliney’s very first day as the FAA’s National Operations Manager.

While the scene I just described takes place in Virginia that’s just because that’s where the control center is based. Officially known as the Air Traffic Control System Command Center for the Federal Aviation Administration, but since the government loves its acronyms that’s the FAA’s ATCSCC.

What we didn’t talk about in this segment were the four planes hijacked that morning. American Airlines Flight 11 hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. United Airlines Flight 175 struck the South Tower of the World Trade Center. American Airlines Flight 77 hit the Pentagon in Washington D.C.

The fourth plane was a little different, though, because it didn’t hit the hijacker’s intended target.

After it was hijacked, United Airlines Flight 93 was headed toward Washington D.C. with an intended target of crashing into the U.S. Capitol building. But the passengers on United 93 revolted against the hijackers, and the plane crashed in a field near Stonycreek Township in Pennsylvania.

During the course of his first day as National Operations Manager for the FAA on September 11^th, 2001, Ben Sliney made the decision to land every plane in the air over the United States. That was the first time in U.S. history that’s ever happened.

Oh, and in the movie, Ben Sliney is played by…well, Ben Sliney. That’s right, the real person played himself in the movie.

Obviously, there’s a lot more to the true story, if you want to learn even more, queue up BOATS episode #113 linked in the show notes for as soon as you’re done watching the movie this week.

September 14, 1814. Baltimore, Maryland.

For our third event this week, we’ll pull a dramatization segment from a Smithsonian documentary.

The sky is gray and dreary. It almost looks like fog or some mist. In the foreground, a massive American flag riddled with holes is flapping in the wind.

The camera cuts to three men now. One of them is wearing a uniform, but he’s more in the background. The focus is on one of the two men not in military uniform—in particular, one of the men seems to be pacing around nervously as he’s looking off in the foggy, gray distance.

With a slightly different camera angle now, we can see the three men are standing on the deck of a ship. The pacing man is running his hand through his hair now, as he continues to look off frame.

The camera backs up to further away now, and we can see there are four ships. The closest one fires its cannons, followed by another blast from one of the ships further in the distance. Now the camera cuts back to the American flag flapping in the hazy sky.

The true story behind that scene in the movie A Star-Spangled Story

That short sequence comes from a documentary called A Star-Spangled Story: Battle for America, and event it’s showing is when Francis Scott Key got his inspiration for a poem called, “The Defence of Fort M’Henry” after seeing the flag on Saturday this week.

You probably know his poem by another name: “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Francis Scott Key is the guy who I mentioned pacing and running his hands through his hair in the movie. In the true story, Key was a lawyer who went to the British along with another man named Colonel John Stuart Skinner to ask for the release of Key’s friend who had been captured by the British in late August.

Key and Skinner took a ship out to the British fleet that was near the city of Baltimore, Maryland. While they successfully negotiated for the release of Key’s friend, a man named Dr. William Beanes, the timing wasn’t great because the British were just about to launch an attack on Baltimore.

So, Key, Skinner, and Beanes were forced to watch as the British unleashed a 25-hour long bombardment on the American soldiers at Fort McHenry. At dawn on September 14^th, Key saw the huge American flag flying over Fort McHenry and started writing the poem. He didn’t write it all that day, though.

He jotted down a few lines, then completed it a few days later after the three men, Key, Skinner, and Beanes, were released from the British fleet. Most people are only familiar with the first verse of the poem that would go on to become “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Francis Scott Key wrote four verses:

O! say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,

What so proudly we hail’d at the twilight’s last gleaming,

Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,

O’er the ramparts we watch’d, were so gallantly streaming?

And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,

Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there —

O! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave

O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,

Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,

What is that which the breeze o’er the towering steep,

As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?

Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,

In full glory reflected now shines on the stream —

‘Tis the star-spangled banner, O! long may it wave

O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore

That the havock of war and the battle’s confusion

A home and a country should leave us no more?

Their blood has wash’d out their foul foot-steps’ pollution,

No refuge could save the hireling and slave,

From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave;

And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave

O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.

O! thus be it ever when freemen shall stand

Between their lov’d home, and the war’s desolation,

Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the heav’n-rescued land

Praise the power that hath made and preserv’d us a nation!

Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,

And this be our motto — “In God is our trust!”

And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave

O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.

Key’s poem, “The Defence of Fort M’Henry,” was published almost immediately along a notation that it goes to the tune of a popular British song written by John Stafford Smith called “Anacreon in Heaven.”

That was the official song of a club of amateur musicians in London called the Anacreontic Society.

Together, the words from “The Defence of Fort M’Henry” along with the tune of “Anacreon in Heaven” combined to become “The Star-Spangled Banner,” which was an immediate hit in America. It wasn’t for over a hundred years, in 1931, that “The Star-Spangled Banner” was officially adopted as the national anthem of the United States.

So, now you know the phrase “by dawn’s early light” in “The Star-Spangled Banner” is talking about this week in history: The dawn of September 14^th, 1814.

If you want to learn more about the true story, check out the documentary from the Smithsonian called A Star-Spangled Story: Battle for America. We started our segment at about ten minutes in, but as you can tell from the title the whole thing is about the story of the song, so this is a good week to watch it all!

Historical birthdays from the movies

It’s time for the birthday segment, about historical figures from the movies that were born this week in history.

On September 12^th, Henry Hudson was born somewhere in England. Maybe in London, and maybe in the year 1525, but as you can probably guess a lot about his early years aren’t known for sure. He was an explorer who is best remembered through some of the discoveries he made: The Hudson River in New York, or Hudson Bay in Canada. While there haven’t been a lot of movies about him, probably because we know so little about his early years or even his disappearance in 1611, there was a movie in 1964 called The Last Voyage of Henry Hudson if you want to watch something about him.

On September 13^th, 1660, Daniel Defoe was born in London, England. He was a writer who is perhaps best known for the 1719 novel called Robinson Crusoe. He was played by Ian Hart in the 1997 movie about the novel, also called Robinson Crusoe.

On September 15^th, 1254, another explorer was born in Venice: Marco Polo. Although perhaps you best know him as the namesake of the swimming game version of tag, the real Marco Polo made his mark on history by traveling along the Silk Road in Asia in the 1200s and returned to Europe and publicized the great wealth and size of the Eastern empires such as China, the Mongol Empire, Persia, India, Japan, and many more. Until Marco Polo’s book about his travels around 1300, most of Europe didn’t know much about the Asian countries. Netflix had a series about him simply called Marco Polo that ran for two seasons where Marco Polo is played by Lorenzo Richelmy.

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

Today is the 19^th anniversary of the release of the supernatural horror film directed by Scott Derrickson that claims to be ‘based on a true story’ called The Exorcism of Emily Rose.

Set in the modern era of when the movie was released in the 2000s, the storyline revolves around the trial of Father Richard Moore. He’s played by Tom Wilkinson in the movie, and in the movie, Father Moore is a priest charged with negligent homicide following the death of a 19-year-old college student named Emily Rose.

As you might’ve guessed by the title of the movie, Emily died during an exorcism performed by Father Moore. According to the movie, she’s a devout Catholic college student who begins experiencing terrifying symptoms that she believes are signs of demonic possession. Her symptoms include severe seizures, hallucinations, and physical contortions. Despite medical intervention and a diagnosis of epilepsy, her condition deteriorates, leading her and her family to seek help from the church. Father Moore believes them and agrees to perform an exorcism.

In the movie, the exorcism itself is where we really get into the supernatural horror elements. Emily starts speaking in different languages, has unbelievable strength, and her body moves in unnatural ways. Despite Father Moore’s best efforts, the exorcism does not work, and Emily passes away in the process.

That leads us to the courtroom, where we see the trial of Father Moore after Emily’s death. On one side, you have the prosecution, which is led by Campbell Scott’s version of Ethan Thomas, insists Emily had a medical condition and Father Moore’s exorcism denied her the treatment she needed. For the defense, Laura Linney’s version of Erin Bruner, argues that Emily actually was possessed by a demon. She argues that it was the demon that killed Emily, not Father Moore.

The movie is an interesting clash of religious faith, science, and the law—you know, the kind of things everyone agrees about all the time.

And in the movie, even the jury can’t seem to agree. Their verdict is to declare Father Moore guilty, but also to ask Mary Beth Hart’s version of Judge Brewster to give Father Moore time served. Judge Brewster agrees, and Father Moore is allowed to go free despite the guilty verdict.

The true story behind The Exorcism of Emily Rose

Shifting to the fact-checking, let’s start with the most obvious of inaccuracies in the movie: The title.

Instead of The Exorcism of Emily Rose, a more historically accurate title for the movie would be “The Exorcisms of Anneliese Michel.”

That’s because the real person the movie is based on is a 23-year-old German student teacher named Anneliese Michel, and in the true story, Anneliese had 67 exorcisms before she died on July 1^st, 1976.

Which brings up another inaccuracy in the movie: The timeline.

The true story happened in the 1970s, while the movie makes it more contemporary to when it was released in the 2000s.

So, with all of that said, it’s probably not too much of a surprise for me to say this movie is stretching the term “based on a true story” to its limits. But, to play devil’s advocate to what I just said, that doesn’t mean the concept of the movie is completely fictional.

What I mean by that is if you look at the people, places, timeline, and the location of the movie, sure it’s made up. However, the basic gist of a woman having an exorcism that led to her death and the Catholic Priest involved being put on trial for her death…that is true.

Born in 1952, and raised in a devout Roman Catholic family, Anneliese Michel was a deeply religious woman. Her childhood wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, but all that changed in 1968 when, at the age of 16, Anneliese started having some severe convulsions.

Naturally, she went to a doctor first and before long she was diagnosed with epilepsy and depression. Once she was diagnosed, she started receiving treatments with little to no effect. Of course, even that isn’t all that uncommon…people can get misdiagnosed or have medical treatments that don’t help with whatever ails them.

For the deeply religious Anneliese, whatever ailed her started giving her some uncommon symptoms, though. She heard voices, and perhaps most terrifying of all, saw hallucinations that included demonic faces. Of course, when it comes to symptoms like that, it’s not like you can show other people the hallucinations you’re having, so that’s where those around Anneliese started to splinter into two different beliefs about what was happening to her.

On one side, you had the doctors and medical staff trying to help Anneliese through scientific methods while on the other side you had Anneliese and the Michel family. As the medical treatments failed to help, and Anneliese only grew worse, they started to believe more and more that this was beyond anything medical.

Or, in other words, I suppose you could say they lost faith in medicine and returned to their religious faith. So, they went to the Catholic Church to ask for help. At first, they were rejected. After all, the Catholic Church also tends to default to a medical explanation before jumping to a spiritual one.

And, as I alluded to before, Anneliese had been diagnosed by medical professionals with temporal lobe epilepsy, which has been known to cause many of the symptoms Anneliese had like the seizures and hallucinations.

Earlier, I mentioned Tom Wilkinson’s character in the movie, Father Moore. He’s not a real person for all the aforementioned reasons of time, place, people changes, etc. but Father Moore’s character in the movie is based on two Catholic priests named Father Ernst Alt and Father Wilhelm Renz.

Father Alt was the local priest for the Michel family, so he likely spent the most amount of time with Anneliese, and as such he was crucial in helping convince the Catholic Church to change their mind. Eventually, in September of 1975, Bishop Josef Stangl approved the exorcism under the condition that Father Alt and Father Renz adhere to strict secrecy about the whole matter.

On an average of a couple times a week from September of 1975 until June of 1976, Father Alt and Father Renz performed exorcisms on Anneliese. That’s why there were so many exorcisms performed on her. It wasn’t a one-and-done thing. And the movie is correct to suggest some of the things like speaking in multiple languages, abnormal bouts of strength, and strange contortions of her body.

While there’s no footage of the real exorcism of Anneliese publicly available that I could find to compare with what we see in the movie, I think it’s safe to say the movie does what movies love to do and exaggerate things a lot.

We know Catholic priests used the 1614 Rituale Romanum, because that’s basically the Catholic Church’s instruction manual for priests performing exorcisms. As the name implies, that’s from 1614, so I don’t think the exorcisms they actually performed were anything like what we see in the movie…although, again, I’ll have to play devil’s advocate to myself, because the Catholic Church updated that 84-page document for the first time in 1998.

So, from 1614 until 1998, the rite of exorcism remained the same. And since the movie takes a true story from the 1970s into the 2000s, I suppose they’d be using the updated version. And while my Latin is rusty to the point of non-existence, all my research suggests there wasn’t a lot changed. Just some minor things like updating descriptions of what Satan looks like since now the Church teaches Satan is a spirit without a body.

Unfortunately, even the exorcisms couldn’t help Anneliese.

In her final months, she stopped eating. She stopped drinking. In addition to everything else she was going through, Anneliese started to suffer from severe malnutrition. Then, on June 30^th, 1976, Father Renz performed yet another exorcism…one that would be her last.

Anneliese Michel died on July 1^st, 1976.

The movie is also correct to show a trial after her death. Father Alt and Father Renz were charged with negligent homicide just like we see Father Moore charged with in the movie. In a 1978 article from The Windsor Star newspaper, Father Alt said he never thought Anneliese was “dangerously ill.”  In the same article, Father Renz said he didn’t call a doctor because, “the exorcism ritual expressly states that clergymen should not burden themselves with medical matters.”

I’ll add a link to the article in the show notes if you want to read it, because it also talks about how the Michel family sued the five doctors who helped treat Anneliese because they drew up a report of her case—something the Michel family said was a violation of doctor-patient confidentiality.

In the end, the verdict in the true story was the same for the two priests as it is in the movie for Father Moore: Guilty. The sentencing was not the same as the movie, though, because in the true story the priests were sentenced to six months in prison, with three years of probation.

And now you know a little more about the true story behind The Exorcism of Emily Rose!

August 19th, 1692. Salem, Massachusetts.

For our first movie, we’re traveling back to the time of the Salem Witch Trials from The Crucible, that 1996 film with Daniel Day-Lewis and Winona Ryder. To find the event from this week in history in the film, we’ll need to start at about an hour and 50 minutes into the movie.

“Now, Mr. Proctor. Did you bind yourself to the devil’s service?”

Daniel Day-Lewis’s character, John Proctor, is standing there across from Paul Scofield’s character, Judge Thomas Danforth.

Judge Danforth tells John that he must write it down so they can put it on the church door as a good example to bring them to God.

There are two women in a cart behind Judge Danforth, but he’s not looking at them. He looks at John and Elizabeth Proctor standing in front of him. Danforth is only talking to John, though.

He asks the question again.

“Did you bind yourself to the devil’s service?”

John pauses for a moment. Then he offers his reply, “I did.”

Judge Danforth turns to the women in the cart now, saying there’s no point in keeping the conspiracy. Confess with him!

Elizabeth Lawrence’s version of Rebecca Nurse is tied to the cart behind Judge Danforth. She bursts out, “It is a lie!”

Judge Danforth asks if John Proctor saw anyone else with the devil—Rebecca Nurse, Mary Easty, Giles Corey, Martha Corey?

John says no, he did not.

Anyone?

John: No, I did not.

Others around Judge Danforth tell him to let John sign and be done with it!

A moment’s pause. Then, a quill is handed to John Proctor. He looks at a piece of paper…and signs his name.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie The Crucible

That’s just the start of the whole sequence that that continues on—but it’s showing something that happened this week in history when five people were hung in what we now know as the Salem Witch Trials.

Although the movie’s portrayal of events are highly dramatized, it is correct to show that John Proctor—Daniel Day-Lewis’ character—was someone who was killed by hanging this week in history on August 19^th, 1692.

He was one of 19 total people who were executed by hanging throughout the duration of the witch trials that took place between February of 1692 and May of 1693.

Almost all of the accusations were circumstantial at best, and nothing that would hold up in a court of law today. There are a lot of people who think the true motivation started off small and innocent before spreading into landowners realizing they could take advantage of it to legally take the land and possessions of their neighbors.

Is that what really happened? Well, I guess that’s something that keeps the Salem Witch Trials at the forefront of our curiosities because there are so many debates about the true causes and motivations behind what happened.

Regardless of any of the circumstantial evidence, the baseless accusations or the religious fever that gripped the region—at the end of the day, there were over 200 people accused of witchcraft. 30 were found guilty. 19 people were executed by hanging, five people died in jail as a result and one man, Giles Corey, was tortured to death by being pressed—the slow process of adding stones on top of him until he was killed.

This all happened in the United States thanks to religious people who were so set in their ways that they were okay with killing their own neighbors simply because someone accused them of witchcraft.

When, in reality, those accusations have been analyzed over the centuries and there have been numerous explanations—and no matter what outcome you believe, at the end of the day, everyone can agree that there was no valid reason for the hysteria to kill their neighbors.

If you want to see the event that happened this week in history, though, look in the show notes for links to where you can watch The Crucible as well as listen to our deep dive into the historical accuracy of that movie back on episode #143 of Based on a True Story.

August 21st, 1961. Nashville, Tennessee.

For our next movie, we’re in the 1985 biopic called Sweet Dreams to see how it portrays Patsy Cline recording her now-famous song called “Crazy” in the studio. At about an hour and 21 minutes into the movie, we’re in the recording studio with four men and one woman. Almost immediately, there’s an oddity as the woman is holding herself up with a crutch.

No one is playing their instruments, but we can hear music playing…it must be something playing over the speakers in the studio. She hobbles over to the pianist, who is busy jotting down some notes.

She rests her crutch on the piano as the man keeps singing the song in the background, “I’m crazy for feeling so blue…”

She waves to the guys in the sound booth to cut the song.

She shakes her head.

“I don’t care how many times you play that; I can’t sing this man’s song.”

One of the men in the sound booth replies that no one wants her to—take it away from him. The pianist closest to her reaffirms this. To hell with the demo, steal it!

Cigarette in hand, she shakes her head again. “How am I supposed to do this song?”

The man in the studio replies, “Just like you always do, Patsy—your way!”

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie Sweet Dreams

I’ll be the first to admit the movie’s version may not make a lot of sense without watching the rest of it, but that short segment is how 1985’s Sweet Dreams depicts when Patsy Cline recorded her now-famous song “Crazy” in the studio.

That man on the demo? Another singer who was famous in his own right: Willie Nelson.

Of course, at the time, Nelson wasn’t famous. Quite the opposite. According to Nelson’s autobiography, part of the idea that inspired him to write the song “Crazy” had to do with how he felt during a time of his life when he was trying to support his family with unstable work.

In the movie, while Jessica Lange’s version of Patsy Cline is recording the song we hear her talking to one of the men in the control room named Bradley.

He’s played by Jerry Haynes in the movie, and there is a level of historical accuracy there because Owen Bradley really was Patsy Cline’s producer. In fact, it was Bradley who suggested the song for Patsy Cline after he heard it from one of Willie Nelson’s friends and colleagues, another song writer named Hank Cochran.

He’s not in the movie at all, but then again neither is Willie Nelson.

Patsy Cline recorded her version of “Crazy” starting on August 24^th, 1961, and the recording process took about a month: It wrapped up on September 15^th. Then, it was released in October of the same year, and it was an immediate hit.

Since Patsy Cline had just released another hit single earlier in the year called “I Fall Into Pieces,” after “Crazy” was released to such success, Billboard named Patsy Cline their Favorite Female Country Artist of 1961.

If you want to watch the recording process as it’s portrayed in the movie, check out the 1985 biopic about Patsy Cline’s life called Sweet Dreams. The recording of “Crazy” starts at about an hour and 21 minutes into the film.

And if you want to dig into Patsy’s life and tragic death just two years after the recording of “Crazy”, we covered that movie back in episode #95 which you’ll find linked in the show notes.

August 24th, 79 CE. Italy.

Our third event comes from ancient history, and a ten-year-old movie that’s named after the city it takes place in: Pompeii. We’ll start about an hour and six minutes into the movie as two men are sword fighting in an arena. While this part of the movie doesn’t tell us who they are, we can tell from the actors that the two men are played by Sasha Roiz’s character, Proculus, and Kit Harington’s character, Milo.

The sword fighting intensifies and every so often we can hear the crowd cheering as one of the two men gets a hit in on the other.

The camera cuts to Kiefer Sutherland’s character, Corvus, as he’s watching…all of a sudden, the building starts to rumble. Corvus looks around, trying to figure out what’s going on.

In the arena, Proculus knocks Milo down to the ground before he realizes everything is shaking. The cheers of the crowd change into screams as people start looking around at each other. We can hear the sound of cracking, although there doesn’t seem to be any visual damage yet.

Oh wait, I spoke too soon.

The camera pans up from the ground level of the arena and we can see pieces of the whole building start to collapse into piles of dust and debris. People are fleeing for the exits. The camera keeps panning up and in the distance behind the arena is a massive mountain. At the top of the mountain, there’s a burst as scores of smoke and ash spew into the sky.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie Pompeii

Shifting to our fact-checking portion of the segment, it is true that Mount Vesuvius erupted on August 24^th in the year 79 CE.

Well, maybe.

And the movie’s version of the story isn’t anything like what happened. For example, the characters are fictional, so of course their storyline is going to be fictional. But, the true story is one that we still don’t know fully, so the movie isn’t really trying to be more than transporting us to Pompeii to see how things might have happened for people who were there.

Because the truth is that we don’t know exactly what it was like. After all, it was almost 2,000 years ago.

1,945 years, as of this recording in 2024.

With that said, although the movie’s timeline focuses on the eruption in 79 CE, that’s not really where the true story begins.

There was a massive earthquake about 16 years earlier, in 63 CE, that caused a lot of damage to many of the buildings near Vesuvius. Today, most scientists and historians believe the earthquake was a bit of a warning sign. But, it’s not likely the local residents knew it to be a warning sign of something worse to come, and Romans loved the beautiful views along the shores of the Bay of Naples that Pompeii provided.

By the time the year 79 CE rolled around, there was around 20,000 people who lived in Pompeii. And while it doesn’t get as much attention, there was another town nearby called Herculaneum.

As a fun little fact, Herculaneum was actually rediscovered before Pompeii—in 1709, while Pompeii was discovered decades later in 1748.

Herculaneum was a smaller town with only about 5,000 residents at the time of the eruption, but most believe it was a vacation town for Roman elites and, by extension, a wealthier town than Pompeii.

Perhaps that’s why we’ve heard of Pompeii more, because there were a lot less human remains found in Herculaneum than Pompeii. Is that simply because there were fewer people in Herculaneum? Maybe.

Or maybe it’s because, even today, most of Herculaneum has yet to be uncovered—you see, part of the city lies underneath the modern-day city of Ercolano.

Or maybe it’s because Herculaneum consisted of more Roman elites than Pompeii, so they were able to flee while leaving less fortunate people behind.

Those are all speculations that people have had over the centuries but, of course, they’re purely speculation.

What’s not speculation is that Vesuvius’ eruption killed about 16,000 people in the region, with 2,000 of them being in Pompeii. And I’m sure you’ve seen photos of Pompeii—the manner in which many people who were killed by the ash tells a unique story in history, even if the destruction of an erupting volcano is not.

I’ll add a link to some in the show notes for this episode if you want to see them.

Men, women, and children were preserved the way they were that day—clutching valuables or arms wrapped around their loved ones.

The way the ash preserved the city is almost as if it was frozen in time. Approximately 2,000 of Pompeii’s residents never left, only to be rediscovered in 1748.

But, since we’re talking about the movie, there is one vitally important thing the filmmakers got wrong that you should know whenever you watch it.

And, to be fair, it’s not their fault they got it wrong.

You see, for almost that entire time, historians believed the date of the eruption took place this week in history. That’s because one of the people who survived was Pliny the Younger. He was only 17 at the time of the eruption, and although the uncle he lived with, Pliny the Elder, was one of the people killed at Pompeii, Pliny the Younger would go on to be an author whose writings have given us a lot of knowledge about what Roman life was like back then.

So, when Pliny gave us the date of the eruption as being August 24^th and 25^th. Since there was no archaeological finds to dispute that, there was no reason to question it.

That was true for centuries throughout history even up through the time of the movie because it wasn’t until 2018 that an archaeological find at Pompeii changed all of that.

It was a date.

Someone found the date of October 17^th inscribed at Pompeii.

Even more archaeological evidence found in 2018 included some fruits still on branches from autumn-bearing fruits. Of course, the movie was released in 2014, so the filmmakers were still operating under the belief that the eruption of Mount Vesuvius took place this week in history.

So, that’s why I thought this would still be a great movie to cover this week because if nothing else, the 2014 movie Pompeii is just another great example of how we’re always learning new things about history every day.

Or, to quote Italy’s culture minister, Alberto Bonisoli, after the date in October was found, and the fruits from autumn seemed to back up the evidence that Pompeii was still around in the beginning of October, he said: “Today, with much humility, perhaps we will rewrite the history books because we date the eruption to the second half of October.”

August 5th, 1305. Scotland.

We’ll start with one of the most popular of those ‘based on a true story’ movies, Braveheart, to learn about an event in history that happened 719 years today: William Wallace’s capture. About two and a half hours into the movie, we see Mel Gibson’s version of William Wallace is riding a horse into a village. Besides the castle, which seems to be a small castle—but a castle nonetheless—the rest of the village seems to be made of wood houses with straw roofs. A few villagers are scattered around, going about their daily business.

Inside the castle, Angus Macfadyen’s version of Robert the Bruce is pacing on top of a table when Wallace’s presence is announced. Robert turns and hops off the table. Following him outside is Craig, who is played by John Kavanagh in the movie.

Outside, we see Wallace still on his horse, passing by the castle’s open gate. Robert and Craig start descending the stairs from the castle, and Robert raises his hand to greet him. Wallace responds with a wave.

Robert and Craig continue walking down the stairs as Wallace starts to get off his horse. Hopping to the ground, someone leads the horse away just as Robert and Craig reach the bottom of the castle stairs. Then, the music in the movie reaches a moment of pause…

In the castle courtyard, Robert and Wallace are walking toward each other. The young boy leading the horse looks away suspiciously. Wallace notices this and he looks to the side. Robert notices it, too, and he turns to look at Craig. For his part, Craig looks as if he’s about to signal someone with a slight nod.

Wallace’s head turns back to Robert who yells out, “No!”

Just then, a rush of armed soldiers tackle William Wallace, knocking him to the ground. At least five or six soldiers are hitting him with their wooden clubs, not to kill him but to beat him into submission. Robert rushes forward, trying to push the soldiers off. “You lied! You lied!”

The soldiers start beating him, too. Craig rushes in, pulling Robert aside. As he covers Robert the Bruce with his own body, Craig yells to the soldiers, “Bruce is not to be harmed, that’s the arrangement!”

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie Braveheart

That’s the movie’s depiction of how William Wallace was captured by the English near Glasgow on August 5th, 1305.

And right up front, I should say that there are a lot of details about how William Wallace was captured that we just don’t know. It was 1305 after all, so we’re not going to know the amount of detail we do of more recent events.

With that said, while it is true that William Wallace was betrayed, it’s pretty safe to say what we see happening in the movie is not how it happened at all. There’s a memorial in the suburb of Glasgow called Robroyston where Wallace was captured, the plaque on it gives us some clues about just how different the real thing was:

“This memorial erected 1900 AD by public subscription is to mark the site of the house in which the hero of Scotland was basely betrayed and captured about midnight on 5th August 1305 when alone with his faithful friend and co-patriot Kerlie who was slain.

Wallace’s heroic patriotism as conspicuous in his death as in his life within nine years of his betrayal the work of his life was crowned with victory and Scotland’s independence regained on the field of Bannockburn.”

So, it happened about midnight. Not daytime like in the movie. It says he was with his faithful friend who was killed. Not alone, like we see in the movie. Other sources suggest he was sleeping in a cottage when they captured him, not walking to meet with Robert the Bruce.

But, that doesn’t mean there wasn’t a castle involved.

As the story goes, a Scottish nobleman by the name of Sir John Menteith conspired to capture William Wallace in exchange for land and titles. After William Wallace was captured in the cottage, he was taken to Menteith’s Dumbarton Castle.

Actually, come to think of it, the real castle looks more like what you’d think of as a castle than the one in the movie does, haha! I’ll include a photo of that in the Discord community so you can see for yourself what Dumbarton Castle looks like.

But if you want to watch the event as it was shown in the movie Braveheart you’ll find the sequence starting at about two hours, 27 minutes, and 21 seconds into the movie. We covered that movie many years ago on the podcast, so you can find our Braveheart episode at basedonatruestorypodcast.com/45

August 7th, 1882. Blackberry Creek, Kentucky.

For our next event this week, we’ll switch to the small screen and head a few minutes into the second episode or History Channel’s TV series called Hatfield & McCoys.

We’re outside. A few patches of green grass can be seen on the ground, but mostly there are brown leaves covering the ground and a few trees that look like they’ve already dropped their leaves for the season.

There are a number of different booths, tables, and wagons all set up to make a sort of crude circle. Modest decorations of red, white, and blue are strung between the circle, and if you look closely as the camera moves between the people milling about the event, there are signs hung up on some of the posts.

Does that one say “Thacker?” It’s hard to read as the camera is focusing mostly on the people dancing behind the pole the sign is hanging on. The next one is a lot easier to see. It reads:

District 2 Justice of the Peace
Vote Shadrick Osborn

That explains the red, white, and blue. This is an election.

It also seems to be a shooting contest, as some of the guys are taking aim at targets nearby.

Oh, and it’s a drinking party, too. Lots of the guys are carrying glasses filled with beer, or whiskey—we can’t tell what it is, but it’s clearly some sort of alcohol. Probably not a good thing to mix with shooting.

As time passes, the shooting continues to heat up between the competitors.

Then, we can see Kevin Costner’s version of Anse Hatfield walking arm-in-arm with his wife, Sarah Parish’s version of Levicy Hatfield. They walk one way while walking the other direction is Bill Paxton’s version of Randall McCoy walks arm-in-arm with his wife, Mare Winningham’s version of Sally McCoy. They pass by each other without saying anything or looking at each other.

From each side of the clearing surrounding by the circle of booths, the people start heckling the other side. One side seems to be the Hatfields, making fun of Randall McCoy. The other side seems to be the McCoys, making fun of Anse Hatfield.

The words start to escalate into name-calling. One of the McCoys warns one of the Hatfields about what he’s said, and taking off his coat he charges to the center of the circle. Others throw down their liquor and before long there’s a confrontation in the middle of the circle.

One of the men, Damien O’Hare’s version of Ellison Hatfield, tries to diffuse the situation and get the men to break up. It seems to work, and the Hatfields start walking back…then one of the McCoys marches up and punches someone in the back of the head. He falls to the ground. When he gets up, there are more words. More punches. Ellison tries to break it up again. Before long, it seems to be Ellison punching off the drunken McCoys as they keep coming at him.

Other Hatfields are just sitting back, drinking, and watching the fight as if it’s some sort of entertainment. And for a while, Ellison seems to be doing a good job of holding them off. In the fight, he seems to break one of the McCoys’ arms.

It looks like that’s Michael Jibson’s version of Phamer McCoy.

While on the ground, Phamer pulls out a knife with his good arm. He jumps on Ellison, stabbing him. It happens so fast, the other Hatfields watching and drinking don’t seem to realize the fight has escalated into something deadly. Ellison manages to get the man off him.

Then, Phamer pulls out a pistol. He turns, points it at Ellison, and pulls the trigger.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the TV series Hatfields & McCoys

Now it’s time for my favorite part: The fact-checking segment for when one of the most infamous family feuds in American history escalated into bloodshed.

Now, this is one of those events in history where we simply do not know the entirety of the true story. What we do know has to come from those who were there and, as you can probably guess, not everyone who was there had the same story to tell.

For one, witness testimony is never to be relied upon. Plus, this was in the 1800s in rural Kentucky, so it’s not like everything was documented.

On top of all of that, it was a feud. So, of course, those on the Hatfields side would recount the things that happened to favor their side while those on the McCoys side would favor their own side of the story.

With that historical caveat out of the way, for the most part, the History Channel’s series does a decent job of showing how it might’ve happened.

The name we see on the poster that I mentioned earlier, Shadrick Osborn, really was a real person. But, he’s not really involved in the true story we’re talking about today at all.

August 7^th, 1882 was an election day for the area in Kentucky, and there was plenty of alcohol that factored into the escalation of a pre-existing disdain between the families. We don’t really know what the spark was that caused the violence to start. Some sources say it was because of how the Hatfields treated Roseanna McCoy—the sister of the McCoy brothers that started the violence in the series. So, it might’ve been similar to what we see in the series.

Regardless of how it started, though, we do know that the violence escalated when Ellison Hatfield was stabbed multiple times. Some sources say it might’ve been as many as 24 stab wounds.

We also see Ellison getting shot in the series, and while people there did say that happened, it probably didn’t happen while he was still standing up like we see in the series. After being stabbed, it’s more likely Ellison was on the ground when he was shot. He didn’t die right away, but there also wasn’t anything that could be done.

And as you can probably guess, there was retaliation from the Hatfields. It was led by Ellison’s brother, Anse—he’s played by Kevin Costner in the series. After local law enforcement was called, the McCoy brothers were arrested.

Conveniently enough, some of those law enforcement officers just happened to be Hatfields. So, it’s probably not too much of a surprise that Anse and some of his other family and friends were able to get the McCoy brothers out of the law’s custody before they made it to the closest jail.

After Ellison Hatfield succumbed to his wounds, Anse and his posse of vigilantes killed the McCoy brothers. Some sources say they fired over 50 bullets into the three McCoys.

And as you can probably guess, there was retaliation from the McCoys. And so, the feud between the Hatfields and McCoys turned into an especially bloody one this week in history.

If you want to watch this as it happened in the History Channel series, the segment we started today with is about five minutes into the second episode of 2012’s Hatfields & McCoys miniseries.

August 7th, 1974. New York City, New York.

I think I forgot to mention in the last segment that anniversary is on Wednesday this week. Well, that’s the same for our next event. In fact, Wednesday marks the 50th anniversary of an event that was the subject of the Robert Zemeckis movie called The Walk.

We’ll start about an hour and a half into the movie, as the camera is overlooking the city, giving us a beautiful view of the buildings below. The sun is just starting to rise in the distance. In the foreground, stretching from left to right across the frame is a wire of some sort. We can’t see what’s on either end, but the wire is in focus leaving the cityscape below to be slightly blurry.

Slowly, the camera pans to the right. As it does, we can see what the wire is connected to as a massive metal structure starts to fill up the frame. The camera stops as a foot enters the top of the frame. Wearing what looks like a black slip-on shoe of some sort, the foot reaches down until it steps onto the wire. We can also see at least one leg of what we can assume are black pants.

Then, the camera pans up the leg and back slightly.

Now we can see who the foot and leg belong to: Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s version of Philippe Petit.

Behind him, the structure we saw a moment ago is also easier to see. It’s the rooftop of a big building. At least it looks big, part of it seems to be obscured by the morning fog. Another man is standing up there with him. He’s handing Philippe what looks like a long, metal rod.

The camera cuts back to looking at his feet now. Except instead of looking at the structure where he’s at, the shot is looking from behind his feet, across the wire, to the other side.

So, now we can see on the right side of the frame is the structure that dialogue in the movie confirms is a building. One of Philippe’s feet is on the building. The other one is a step down, carefully placed on the wire. That wire stretches from the building Philippe is partially on, across a gap covered in fog and to a building on the other side of the frame—that building is also partially covered by the fog.

A few seconds pass, and the fog rolls by a little bit more, covering up whatever we could see on the other side. Now the wire just looks like it’s going into nothingness. The fog continues to grow, as Philippe’s inner monologue explains that the sounds of New York faded below him: All I could see was the wire.

A moment passes as Philippe surveys the scene in front of him.

And then, carefully, Phillipe takes his foot off the building and places it on the wire.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie The Walk

That depiction of Phillipe Petit walking the high wire stretched between the two World Trade Center buildings in New York City really did happen on August 7^th, 1974.

And not to spoil the ending of the movie, but he did make it across. I’m guessing you already knew that part of it is true, too, since they probably wouldn’t have made a movie about it if he hadn’t been successful.

To quote from Sony Pictures’ official summary posted over on IMDb, “Twelve people have walked on the moon, but only one man – Philippe Petit (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) – has ever, or will ever, walk in the immense void between the World Trade Center towers.”

The walk between the towers wasn’t some random event.

Walking between the towers was something Phillipe Petit wanted to do ever since he found out they were being built in 1968—well, technically, the construction for the towers began in 1967, but Petit found out about them in 1968.

In 1971, he walked between the two towers of the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. He got arrested for that since it’s illegal to do that. But, he got free and in 1973, he walked between pylons on the Sydney Harbour Bridge in Australia. Back in New York City, the two towers of the World Trade Center had their ribbon-cutting ceremony in April of 1973.

Then, in early 1974, Petit visited New York City. He also knew he’d have to compensate for both the wind as well as the towers moving, too. Standing 1,360 feet tall, the towers were designed to sway in the wind. So, he had a lot of preparation to do.

He took reconnaissance photos. He practiced on similar distances.

But, the walk itself was just part of it. They had to get the line secured. And they had to do it in a way that no one would know they’re doing it. After all, what he did was technically illegal.

In fact, many people have called his feat the ‘artistic crime of the century.’

The night before, on August 6^th, Petit and a few people helping him, snuck up to the south tower. Well, most of them.

A couple of the guys helping him went to the north tower. From there, they used a bow and arrow to shoot fishing line between the towers. Since it was dark and fishing line isn’t very easy to see to begin with, it took a while for Petit to find on the other side.

He even had to take off his clothes to feel around with more of his skin to find the line. Once they did, the steel wire was pulled between the towers and after much effort, finally secured.

The walk itself took place at about 7:15 AM local time on August 7^th, 1974.

It took about 45 minutes for Petit to span the distance between the towers. But, then again, he didn’t do it just once. All that work wasn’t for a single trip. He went back and forth eight times.

Oh, and to do some conversions, the towers are 1,360 feet tall so about 414 meters with a distance between them of 200 feet, so about 61 meters. Although I also found some sources saying Petit’s cable was 131 feet long, so about 40 meters, which could make sense that whoever measures the distance between the towers aren’t measuring for a cable connecting them, haha!

Just like we see in the movie, a crowd below gathered to see it happen. And as you can probably guess, police showed up on the other side to arrest Petit as soon as he stepped off the wire. He was released that afternoon—after a psych eval to make sure he was okay, of course. The only condition of his release was that he do a free performance in Central Park.

If you want to watch the event that happened this week in history, check out the 2015 movie called The Walk. The sequence we started our segment with today starts at about an hour, 28 minutes and 11 seconds into the movie.

August 8th, 1974. Washington DC.

I’ve got a quick fourth bonus event for you this week, and it comes about four minutes into the 2008 movie Frost/Nixon.

We’re looking over the shoulder of a man as he’s reviewing the papers on the desk in front of him. From somewhere off-screen, we can hear a man saying, “15 seconds, Mr. President.”

The camera cuts to…well, another camera. There are two red lights above the camera as the countdown continues.

“Five, four…”

We can see the President’s cufflinks in a closeup shot as he straightens the papers. They’re in his hands, now.

Then, he begins the speech.

“Good evening, this is the 37^th time I have addressed you from the office,” he says into the camera on the other side of the desk.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie Frost/Nixon

As I said, it’s a quick scene in the movie, but that’s how the 2008 movie called Frost/Nixon depicts an event that happened this week in history when, on August 8^th, 1974, President Richard Nixon announced to a live television audience that he would resign the Presidency effective the following day, making him the first president in the history of the United States to resign.

And that really is how Nixon started his speech that day, but in the movie we don’t see much of the speech before it cuts away. And I can understand why they decided to do that in the film—if for no other reason than the speech was about 15 minutes long.

That’s a lot to include in the movie, especially since the point of the movie is what happened after the speech and not the speech itself. But since they show how the speech began in the movie, let’s hear the first few minutes of the real speech…and then if you want to see the original television broadcast, I’ll include that over at basedonatruestorypodcast.com/338

Good evening.

This is the 37th time I have spoken to you from this office, where so many decisions have been made that shaped the history of this Nation. Each time I have done so to discuss with you some matter that I believe affected the national interest.

In all the decisions I have made in my public life, I have always tried to do what was best for the Nation. Throughout the long and difficult period of Watergate, I have felt it was my duty to persevere, to make every possible effort to complete the term of office to which you elected me.

In the past few days, however, it has become evident to me that I no longer have a strong enough political base in the Congress to justify continuing that effort. As long as there was such a base, I felt strongly that it was necessary to see the constitutional process through to its conclusion, that to do otherwise would be unfaithful to the spirit of that deliberately difficult process and a dangerously destabilizing precedent for the future.

But with the disappearance of that base, I now believe that the constitutional purpose has been served, and there is no longer a need for the process to be prolonged.

I would have preferred to carry through to the finish whatever the personal agony it would have involved, and my family unanimously urged me to do so. But the interest of the Nation must always come before any personal considerations.

From the discussions I have had with Congressional and other leaders, I have concluded that because of the Watergate matter I might not have the support of the Congress that I would consider necessary to back the very difficult decisions and carry out the duties of this office in the way the interests of the Nation would require.

I have never been a quitter. To leave office before my term is completed is abhorrent to every instinct in my body. But as President, I must put the interest of America first. America needs a full-time President and a full-time Congress, particularly at this time with problems we face at home and abroad.

To continue to fight through the months ahead for my personal vindication would almost totally absorb the time and attention of both the President and the Congress in a period when our entire focus should be on the great issues of peace abroad and prosperity without inflation at home.

Therefore, I shall resign the Presidency effective at noon tomorrow. Vice President Ford will be sworn in as President at that hour in this office.

And then Nixon continued the rest of the speech for a few more minutes. If you want to see the full speech, you can watch a clip of the original broadcast over at basedonatruestorypodcast.com/338

But that’s not the only thing from this week in history relevant to the true story.

The next day, at about noon on August 9^th, 1974, President Nixon officially stepped down and the office of the President was transferred to Vice President Gerald Ford who, then, became the 38^th President of the United States.

And then almost exactly a year later, on August 10^th, 1975—so also this week in history—David Frost bought the rights to an exclusive interview with former President Nixon. That’s the story told in the 2008 movie Frost/Nixon, so if you want to see the event that happened this week in history, the text on the screen saying it’s August 8^th, 1974, is at about four minutes and two seconds into the movie. And then the rest of the movie is about David Frost’s interview with Nixon.

And we covered that movie way back in the single digits—episode number four of Based on a True Story.

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 August 5^th, 1930, Neil Alden Armstrong was born in Wapakoneta, Ohio. And I probably butchered that pronunciation, so if you’re from Wapakoneta, or however you pronounce it, and you want to let us know, join the Based on a True Story Discord to share the correct pronunciation. But, Neil Armstrong was an astronaut best known as the first person to walk on the Moon. We learned all about that just last month during the anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission where we relied heavily on the way history was depicted in the 2018 biopic about his life called First Man. You can learn more about the historical accuracy of that movie over at http://basedonatruestorypodcast.com/144

On August 7^th, 1876, Margaretha Geertruida Zelle was born in Leeuwarden, Netherlands. She was better known as Mata Hari, which was her stage name as an exotic dancer and courtesan. Although, history perhaps best remembers her as a woman who was executed by a French firing squad after being convicted of being a spy for Germany during World War I. We dug into her story based on the movie about her life, which you can listen to at http://basedonatruestorypodcast.com/74

On August 10^th, 1874, Herbert Hoover was born in West Branch, Iowa. He was the 31^st President of the United States so it’s probably not too surprising that he’s been portrayed in a few different movies—if you’re looking for one to watch, I’d recommend The Day the Bubble Burst. Fair warning, it’s a highly fictional account about the stock market crash in 1929, but Hoover was played by actor Franklin Cover in the movie.

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

Time now for our segment about ‘based on a true story’ movies released this week in history.

We’re going back to the late 2000s for this one, for the comedy-drama film called Julie & Julia, which released 15 years ago, on August 7^th, 2009.

Directed by Nora Ephron, Julie & Julia intertwines the lives of two women who share a passion for cooking. It covers Julia Child’s early years in the culinary world and Julie Powell’s year-long blogging project.

The story begins with Julia Child (Meryl Streep) in the 1950s as she and her husband Paul (Stanley Tucci) move to Paris. Eager to find a purpose, Julia enrolls at Le Cordon Bleu, a prestigious culinary school. Despite facing skepticism and gender bias, she becomes determined to master French cooking. With her friends Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, Julia embarks on writing a French cookbook for American housewives. The process is long and challenging, but Julia’s perseverance pays off when the book, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” is finally published, revolutionizing American cuisine.

Parallel to Julia’s story is Julie Powell (Amy Adams), a government employee in New York City in 2002. Feeling unfulfilled in her job, Julie decides to cook all 524 recipes in Julia Child’s cookbook within a year and blogs about her experience. The blog quickly gains popularity, and Julie finds herself dealing with the pressures of her ambitious project while balancing her personal life with her supportive but sometimes frustrated husband, Eric (Chris Messina).

Throughout the film, the stories of Julia and Julie run in tandem, highlighting their respective challenges and triumphs. Julia’s journey shows her transformation into a culinary icon, while Julie’s journey depicts her struggle for self-fulfillment and recognition. The film culminates with Julie visiting a reconstruction of Julia’s kitchen at the Smithsonian Institution, paying homage to the woman who inspired her.

The movie ends on a poignant note, showing the impact both women had on each other’s lives, even though they never met.

And the movie is correct to show Julia Child’s reaction to Julie Powell’s blog. In the true story, Julia Child considered Powell’s blog more of a publicity stunt than a serious culinary endeavor. According to an article on The Cinemaholic, Julia Child’s exact words about Julie Powell was, “I don’t think she’s a serious cook.”

As you can probably imagine, when Julie Powell found out about this, she was crushed upon hearing her culinary idol’s disapproval.

The portrayal of Julia Child’s time at Le Cordon Bleu is also historically accurate. Julia Child was one of the few women studying at the prestigious culinary school in the 1950s. She faced significant challenges and skepticism from her male counterparts and some instructors, who doubted her capabilities. However, Child’s determination and passion for cooking shone through, and she excelled in her training, eventually co-authoring “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” with Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle.

Switching to how the movie shows Julie Powell’s blog project, it is true that her blog project was to cook all 524 recipes from Julia Child’s cookbook in one year. Powell started her blog in 2002, documenting her daily experiences and challenges of cooking in her tiny New York apartment kitchen. The blog quickly gained a large following, leading to a book deal and transforming Powell’s life. Her memoir called Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen became a bestseller and was used as a basis for the filmmakers.

But that doesn’t mean getting published was easy for Julie or Julia.

The film accurately portrays the long and arduous process Julia Child faced in getting her cookbook published. Julia and her co-authors spent several years perfecting the recipes and manuscript, and were rejected by publishers time and time again finally securing a deal with the publisher Alfred A. Knopf.

Julia’s book called Mastering the Art of French Cooking which published in 1961 was a significant milestone, marking the beginning of Julia’s impact on American culinary culture.

The depiction of Julie Powell’s life in New York City, including her job and her strained relationship with her husband, Eric, is accurate enough to get the gist across. It’s always a good idea to remember that dialogue in movies is often one of the most made-up things, so the general plot points around a strained relationship can be accurate even if the specific conversations that strain the relationship are made up for the movie, if that makes sense.

Although, it’s also a good idea to remember that this movie was based on Julie Powell’s memoir, so maybe some of those conversations were real, but there’s no way that I, the filmmakers, or anyone else who wasn’t there would be able to prove that. At least, for the parts about Julie. The filmmakers also the book that Julia Child co-wrote with her great nephew Alex Prud’homme called My Life in France. I’ll add links to both of those in the show notes, of course.

But, it is true that the real Julie Powell worked at the LMDC handling calls related to the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. For a bit of context, the LMDC, or Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, was formed in November of 2001 with the purpose of reconstructing lower Manhattan in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

She wasn’t happy at her job, so that’s a big reason why she threw herself into the blogging project as a creative escape.

If you want to watch how the movie portrays the relationship between Julie and Julia, hop into the show notes to find where you can watch it right now.

Dan LeFebvre  04:01

At the very beginning of the movie, there’s some texts that are quote here, it says, “The following is a true story. Or as true as it can be given that Dick Cheney is known as one of the most secretive leaders in history, but we did our f@*&! best.”

So with an opening like that, in the movie, I have to ask, if you were to give advice and overall letter grade for how well it did and telling the true story, what would it get?

William Cooper  04:25

I liked the movie. I think there’s a lot of nuggets of truth. But the overall grade would probably be a C, maybe C-.

Dan LeFebvre  04:35

For something like this, where it’s talking about specifically talking about how its secretive. We already know that governments are not the most forthcoming with things then that’s actually I was expecting a lot worse, to be honest.

William Cooper  04:48

Yeah, there were some errors that were quite extreme. But there were also a number of instances where I think they conveyed some important truths. and did so accurately. And so when you mix it all together, I don’t think it would be fair to say it’s an AF, because it wasn’t completely fictional by any means. So there’s a nice mix and somewhere right in the middle of the, of the continuum,

Dan LeFebvre  05:15

what the movie does start in 1963. And at that time, according to the movie, Dick Cheney, kind of seems to be a drunk who’s getting low C’s, D’s and F’s at Yale, and the movie points out, it’s a college that he’s really only able to get into because of his girlfriend, Lynn. So Lynn kind of gives Dick an ultimatum at the beginning of the movie, either straighten up and become someone or I’m leaving you. And then in the opening title sequence, we see footage of Daikon Lin getting married, and right afterwards, then it’s 1968. So we can see Dick Cheney in the congressional internship program in DC. So the overall impression that I get was that Lane was a very strong driver behind Dick Cheney, turning his life around and getting into politics. How well do you think the movie did setting up some of this stuff before the timeline of the movie itself for dictating?

William Cooper  06:07

I thought it was done well, from a theatrical perspective. I don’t know the intricacies of Dec and land and how that that phase of their life went. And I’m not sure if much of that’s in the public domain. I do know that lynne cheney was very much a partner to Dick throughout his career. She’s very intelligent in her own right and successful in her own right, and was certainly a driver for him and somebody focused on on his career. I think she valued his success quite a bit. So in that sense, I think he got it right. In terms of the the the true intricacy of how the couple was there in the 60s and exactly what Lynn said to Dec. I don’t want to overstate my knowledge. And I don’t know, I don’t know exactly how that went.

Dan LeFebvre  06:55

Right. And that makes sense. It kind of it sounds like to make sure I’m understanding it sounds like there were some nuggets of truth in there. But then the filmmakers probably had to fill in some of those intricate details and conversations, which makes sense that we’re not going to know all those intricacies of what was going on.

William Cooper  07:12

Absolutely. I think that filmmakers had nuggets of truth, they filled in blanks, and then they just manufactured their own nuggets as well. And that was the medley for the movie of those three elements.

Dan LeFebvre  07:27

In the movie, the first time we see Dick Cheney entering politics is working under Donald Rumsfeld in the administration of President Richard Nixon. Of course, that doesn’t really last too long because Nixon resigns after the whole Watergate scandal. But Cheney has gotten a taste of politics with this and it seems like he wants more so after that, we see Channing becoming the White House Chief of Staff for President Gerald Ford. While in that position, he opposes things like the undetectable Firearms Act to ban plastic guns that can evade metal detectors as well as voting nay on the Endangered Species Act, which it passed despite Cheney’s vote, according to the movie, but I was doing a little bit of research on it because it sounded like an important thing. And it says there’s only a few 100 I think nesting pairs of bald eagles were in existence in the 60s. And because of the bills passing, that was a big reason why they and other animals were able to be brought back from the brink of extinction. So the impression the reason I set all that up, the impression I got while I was watching the movie was, it seems like Cheney is voting on what could be considered some sensitive topics. But he must have had a strong belief in them. It seems like he has this strong belief. And then there’s this twist in the movie where there’s a scene where Cheney is asked Rumsfeld when he first starts he point blank as Rumsfeld what do we believe in? Then Rumsfeld just laughs at the question like it’s the silliest thing to ask. And so then I changed my perspective is like, Well, maybe it’s Dick Cheney doesn’t have any morals of his own. He’s pretty much just a yes man for whatever his boss wants. What do you think of the movies portrayal of Cheney, in his time with the Nixon and then Ford administrations?

William Cooper  09:06

I think the part of the movie that suggests Cheney has very strong convictions and personal views is accurate. I think the the scene where Rumsfeld suggests that they don’t really care about policy outcomes, and that way, was very false. Both Cheney and Rumsfeld, for better and for worse, depending if you agree with them on any given issue, have extremely strong convictions and beliefs. And that’s been a big driver of their entire careers, including Cheney’s I think he very strongly believes in all sorts of really big things. Now, he’s a politician, so he’s willing to sacrifice things to get other things done. He’s also never been President of the United States. So he has to be a lawyer, loyal soldier and in his administration’s at times, so I’m not saying that everything he’s ever said or done, has been consistent with his views. But I do think a really strong conservative worldview, both domestically and internationally, has driven his career and that he does believe in, in a lot of what he’s done and what he said. I think the same is true for Rumsfeld. Okay.

Dan LeFebvre  10:17

Okay. That is a different impression than what I get in the movie where it seems like they’re doing a lot of things just to I mean, they’re politicians, but it seems like they’re really letting that drive things more than their, their actual beliefs. And I guess that yeah, was that that line in a movie that really solidified that for me, it’s like, what do we believe in? Like, just tell me what to believe in? And I believe in that like, Okay, I

William Cooper  10:43

think they both that Cheney is studied history and you know, he’s a PhD candidate before he came in, and, and Lynn as well, I think they are very thorough, thoughtful beliefs. DIX, daughter, Liz Cheney. I think he’s showing that today in her politics, including, you know, the stance she’s taking against President Trump. Now, again, as politicians, you’re you always have to sacrifice you always have to say things in certain ways and to get things done, you know, in a legislative contest, you have to horse trade. So I don’t mean they never sacrificed in any given issue. But underlying it, I think there were very strong views was

Dan LeFebvre  11:25

with the movie be correct, then to suggest that a lot of Chinese early days in politics were under Rumsfeld as basically his mentor is kind of what it seems to be in the movie. Absolutely.

William Cooper  11:37

Rumsfeld hired him. The movie got that right. Congressional Relations for Rumsfeld in the Nixon administration, and then the to hit it off, you started what was going to be a multi decade, friendship and collaboration and politics. Cheney followed Rumsfeld to Ford, who Cheney knew she’d be Rumsfeld and Ford were friends when Rumsfeld and Ford were both in Congress. And then when Ford came into the presidency, he asked Rumsfeld to come back from NATO in Brussels and be his chief of staff. JT was Rumsfeld’s deputy. And then when Rumsfeld moved to the Department of Defense under Ford, Cheney stepped in as chief of staff. And you’re exactly right, those two very strong, long lasting relationship. And that’s what led Rumsfeld to come back as Secretary of Defense under George W. Bush.

Dan LeFebvre  12:26

You met mentioning bush there. we fast forward a few years in the movies timeline to when George HW Bush was the vice president under Ronald Reagan. There’s some scenes in the movie that I wanted to ask about, because we start to see Cheney trying to secure a new level of power for the presidency. And there’s a few times where that comes up. The The first is a meeting between Cheney and a lawyer named Antonin Scalia, where Cheney tries to find out if an American president can have as movie puts it, absolute executive authority. And there’s another time after a chat between Cheney and then Vice President George HW Bush, when Cheney tells his wife Lynn that he respects a lot of what Reagan has done, but no one has shown the world the true power of the American presidency. And that’s a quote from the movie. And the movie doesn’t call it this. It doesn’t use this terminology. But as I was watching that, I couldn’t help but think of a single word to describe what is like when a country has a leader that has absolute power. That’s a dictatorship. Do you think the movie was correct to imply that Dick Cheney was trying to find a way to give an American president unlimited power?

William Cooper  13:41

No, I think that was very inaccurate. I think the the range of debate about presidential power is very cabined. In in this country, even among conservatives and liberals and scholars, nobody, including Dick Cheney thinks the President, for example, should dominate the judicial branch and start ruling on disputes. Nobody thinks the president and conservatives particularly focus on this know, nobody thinks the president can legislate without having both houses of Congress passed legislation. Dictators do everything. They dictate the workings of government across the board. What Cheney was advocating was a very strong president, a very strong executive branch and the Constitution says that the executive power I’m paraphrasing, but it’s close to the the executive power is vested in a President of the United States. So it doesn’t say it’s vested in a President and his administration or president and her administrative bodies. It’s very clear that the President has all that authority in the Constitution. Now what Cheney and others William Barr I think is another Example of this that’s more recent. They’ve advocated for really expanding presidential powers. But nowhere in any argument whether it’s Cheney or bar, or Rumsfeld, or George W. Bush, or John, you, or any of these scholars and government officials, is an argument that the President should cover all of government the way a dictator would, that’s just not not on the table at all. Okay,

Dan LeFebvre  15:24

okay. Well, that’s that’s a good thing. I agree. Maybe for listeners who are not in the United States not familiar with the way politics works here, can you give a little more context around how the presidential power is now versus other people in power, like, for example, with Cheney in the movie, like, he’s not the president at this point, but he’s looking to gain power for the presidency. And then, as a little follow up to that, there’s also some scenes where we see, you know, as Cheney starting to go for vice presidency to get too far ahead of that movies timeline. But we start to see that he’s looking for some similar sorts of power for the vice presidency, which then implies that that position also doesn’t have as much power as maybe some others, or can you kind of clarify all of that for our listeners?

William Cooper  16:13

Yeah. One thing to keep in mind about Cheney is he had a very formative experience, he had very formative experiences that led to his views of executive power by the time he was vice president. So he saw Nixon, get impeachment proceedings against him and resign, he saw Ford have a really hard time taking the mantle there. And then in Congress, he was very heavily involved in the Iran Contra affair where Ronald Reagan was investigated by Congress. So so he had all the all of these experiences, in his view, right or wrong was that there was an imbalance and the President didn’t have enough power. And so he was trying to shift it back where it was supposed to be not, according to Cheney not expanded beyond where it should be. He was just trying to basically write the constitutional ship, if that makes sense. Now, the Vice President, how the vice president fits into this vice president does not have a lot of formal power. The Vice President is a constitutional officer certainly has a lot of authority. Compared to many other government actors, for example, the Vice President cast the deciding vote in the Senate, if there’s a tie. As we saw, in 2001, January 6, the vice president can be involved to varying degrees in electoral certification, things like that there’s arguments in that domain about what the right role is for the vice president. But in general, the Vice President’s authority is derivative from the President. So what what is the President delegate to the Vice President, and it can be enormous, as we saw with Cheney, it can be quite large, I think Joe Biden was a good example when he was Obama’s president. And it could also be very small and ministerial. And, and we’ve seen a number of vice presidents in that category as well. But in terms of the formal power from the Constitution, there’s nowhere near as much in the vice president as there isn’t the President, the authority really does come from the President. Okay.

Dan LeFebvre  18:24

Okay. So to feed that back is in relation to the movie, then Cheney was trying to add not well, add is the wrong word term, because as you were suggesting, you’re saying, you know, it’s not there, and it shouldn’t be there. But to get it back to where it was not only for the presidency, but also for the vice presidency as well.

William Cooper  18:43

I think what change? Yeah, I think that’s right. And the way I might phrase it would be Cheney was advocating for very strong executive power, there’s no question about that. And how he fit into that equation was the more power Cheney was arguing for that the presidents had have when George W. Bush was president. Therefore, in turn, the more power George W. Bush could delegate to him, If Bush chose to do so. Now, there’s a lot of disagreement among people and a lot of a lot of different versions of the relationship between Bush and Cheney. And I’ll caveat everything I say by Dick Cheney is a huge lightning rod in American politics to this day, very strong opinions about him. And just about everything I say your you could find very easily find people who would disagree and most of them would probably disagree you’ll find him much more extreme, you know, very, very, very good or very, very bad. I’m, I’m more in the middle with Cheney than than any extreme so I’ll just caveat the whole the whole show with that, that he’s very controversial. But one thing I was gonna say is the relationship between Bush and Cheney, I think very strongly was nowhere near as simple as a lot of people think a lot of people think in the movie, I think portrayed this way that Bush was, in some ways, almost following Cheney, even though Bush was president and Cheney had this incredible influence over him. There’s lots of examples that are established facts in the historical record that undercut that narrative to two of them. I’ll give you now one is Cheney pushed very hard for Bush to pardon Cheney’s Chief of Staff, Scooter Libby, who was convicted of a crime flowing from political events in Washington, DC. And Bush refused to do it. He didn’t he didn’t do it. It was a very strong rebuff of Cheney. And it’s also understood that Cheney was advocating very hard in the second term for the United States to do much more with Iran. terms of military action and activity, and Bush pushed back, you know, and rejected changes advice. So the idea that Bush would just do whatever Cheney said, is far too simple. Yeah,

Dan LeFebvre  21:17

and that’s, uh, I’m glad you brought that up. Because I did definitely get that sense. Where Bush was the newcomer to politics, I think, you know, we saw a scene where with it was HW Bush and with chaining, and then the younger Bush makes makes a scene at that at that party. And that was, you know, before he was running for president or anything like that. But then when that time came in the movie, I definitely got the sense. Okay, Cheney is the guy who’s been around the block, and he’s kind of gonna show this young Bush how to how to do politics, that kind of thing. Yeah,

William Cooper  21:50

I think there is some truth to that. I think Bush looked up to Cheney. I think Cheney was very influential, but the caricature in the movie, and in a lot of people’s minds, just this extreme version of of their dynamic, I don’t think is true. I will also add, I think Cheney was much more intelligent and knowledgeable about politics and government, then Bush, Bush wasn’t a complete novice, he was the governor of Texas. He, his father was president. But Cheney’s experience, you know, very deep in in Nixon and Ford administration’s a decade in Congress. And so I think, and then, you know, Secretary of Defense after that, so, so he was he was the senior figure in a lot of ways, but just not the caricature of the extreme version of that. The it’s quite an accurate, according

Dan LeFebvre  22:47

to the movie, one of the reasons why Cheney leaves politics and because he’s got all this experience going up, but then the impression is that okay, Cheney is going to be in line to be president. But then, in the movie, we see one of his daughters, Mary comes out as gay. And at that time, Channing being the White House Chief of Staff seems like it’s time for him to run, but be running as a Republican and having a lesbian daughter seems like something is not going to work for a Republican presidential candidate. So instead of putting his daughter through, what would happen if he ran for president, Cheney decides to leave politics, and he becomes the CEO of an oil services company called Halliburton. And then, in this part in the movie, this credits just start rolling and talk about how Cheney never entered politics again, you know, regularly ran the Iron Man, and things like that, obviously, obviously, a joke. But what’s the movie right, in showing the reason why Cheney left politics?

William Cooper  23:47

That’s a great question. I don’t I don’t know. And I’m not sure if the public domain is clear on that. It may be I know, what I do know is that Cheney certainly supported his daughter, and didn’t take positions contrary to, you know, her her views. And, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he made some decisions about what he was going to do in order to keep that respect for his daughter. And then Liz, of course, chose the different route. And they there was a some fallout there where Liz initially came out against lesbian rights, but then changed her mind. And, and, and my understanding is that that there was some dissension among the family as a result of that. So I don’t know all the nuances there. But it certainly would not surprise me. If, if that was a big part of the equation.

Dan LeFebvre  24:41

With with the move to Halliburton, then because the movie doesn’t show any of this. Can you fill in a little bit more context around detainees time as CEO of Halliburton? Yeah.

William Cooper  24:53

So he, he actually went to Halliburton after being the Secretary of Defense. So he was chief have staff quite a bit in the 70s, in when Carter beat four, that’s when he stopped being Chief of Staff and then he ran for Congress. It wasn’t until he was after Secretary of Defense under HW bush that he went to Halliburton. I think he went in 95. So it was a couple years after Clinton, beat Bush came into office. And it was, you know, really obvious sort of open example of the military industrial complex. I mean, he was the Secretary of Defense. A lot of people in those roles try to go into some unrelated area, so that they’re not accused of, of capitalizing on their government service. Donald Rumsfeld, for example, explained that he went into pharmaceuticals, because he didn’t want to go from Secretary of Defense to being some CEO of a company that would benefit from you know, the United States, foreign policies. Cheney swatted that aside, waltzed right in and, and right as CEO, and, you know, made a ton of money. And Halliburton that whole time was a big part of their business was, you know, military and oil and things of that nature. So he didn’t show any shame with taking that job and earning a lot of money.

Dan LeFebvre  26:19

In the movie, since we don’t really see any of that the assumption is that he’s basically just leaving politics. But it sounds like maybe he still had some sway in politics, even as CEO of Halliburton, at least, to the point to where he benefit from it monetarily?

William Cooper  26:38

I don’t know if he is I don’t I am not aware of anything in the public record that would suggest that he would influence policy in some sort of sinister way like he would go into, you know, the Bill Clinton’s administration and and try to argue to people that we should invade this country and hire Halliburton. I don’t think it was like that direct. But there were enormous things in motion already, some of which he set in motion. That that he and Halliburton profited from while he was there. No question about it. So. So I don’t think it was illegal. I’m not aware of any illegal activity or lobbying that was crossed any explicit Legal Lines. But there’s no question that, that he benefited from the very thing, a lot of the very same things that His fingerprints were all over from being Secretary of Defense. And that’s true. If you’re Secretary of Defense, for several years, the ripple effects in the pond from your service are going to last for four years. And if you jump right into a government contractor in that space, you’re going to be benefiting from decisions you made.

Dan LeFebvre  27:53

Yeah. And that’s something that I’ve always, I mean, not not just with the Secretary of Defense, but with any any political position of that we’re, when they leave, it’s like, not like, their decisions that they made. Stop right then and there. And so you know, they leave and then they, if they go to a company, like like Halliburton is CEO, and they’re benefiting from that. Okay, I could see how that would be a gray area, for sure. Yeah,

William Cooper  28:20

I personally, I don’t it’s it’s not illegal, you’re allowed to do it. My personal views is that it’s a mistake. And somebody who’s secretary of defense can get a lot of jobs. And they can make a lot of money in a lot of different ways. And I think it sends a better signal to society, and it’s more healthy for society to do something unrelated. That’s just my personal opinion.

Dan LeFebvre  28:42

What in the movie, Dick Cheney’s departure from politics doesn’t last long. We see that the former president George HW Bush, his son, George Bush, as we mentioned before, he calls up Cheney and asks him to join his ticket as the Vice President, but Cheney being the Vice President on the presidential ticket for for Bush, and according to the movie, Cheney agrees, but he also pushes to handle some of the more mundane jobs like military energy, foreign energy. Oh, and Cheney also tells bush that, you know, he’s not going he’s not going to basically deal with any of the anti gay messaging that is in Bush’s campaign. And Bush agrees to this, as long as Cheney is okay with the messaging being in the campaign to begin with. He seems to be okay with it. And so that’s how the movie shows Dick Cheney becoming the VP candidate with George W. Bush. And that messaging thing was kind of a throwback to what we were talking about earlier, where he talks about, you know, tell me what to believe. And I almost had this idea of well, at first he has this moral stance, and now he’s like, Well, okay, I’m, I’m okay with just pushing that to the side for this in this case, you know, running for vice president. Then the movie makes a point to mention there’s no medical records, no tax or corporate filings revealed nothing. Is that really what happened for Cheney joining the FBI? Presidential candidacy. My

William Cooper  30:02

understanding is that he did not turn over documents that were requested. He didn’t break the law and doing so but but he did depart from tradition. And as far as his daughter goes in the anti gay messaging, they must have just drawn that line and said, I’m not going to do it myself, but I’m okay. We’re okay. Participating in an administration. I think the the impulse behind that line drawing might be back to what we talked about the very beginning. I think the Chinese as a family are very, very strong beliefs. And they really care about making an impact. I mean, there’s Dick served and all of these roles, and Liz followed in his footsteps. And so I think, I think it may have been the case that there was a understanding that Cheney himself would not say anything that was anti gay, but if he could go in and be an influential vice president, they could get a lot of conservative objectives achieved that they wanted to, and that was a trade off that we’re willing to take.

Dan LeFebvre  31:10

Okay, okay. Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, if that’s especially talking about, as you were saying earlier, you know, being a politician, I mean, sometimes you have your own personal beliefs, but you’re gonna go with something else. Yeah. Something else.

William Cooper  31:23

If you’re already is not, you don’t it’s just not virtue you get to keep if you go and Paul and politic, and one of the one of the things I liked a lot about the movie is I think it did, dramatize and accentuate some of that, but it’s important to, to show that, you know, if you’re being hypocritical as a politician, you know, you should be criticized, even if there’s no way around it. And I think the movie served a good purpose. In some of that highlighting some of those hypocrisy ease.

Dan LeFebvre  31:54

Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I think we also see that with Bush as well, I know, he’s most mostly focused on on Cheney, but I couldn’t help but also get the sense that Bush was maybe inspired by Cheney, because we saw Cheney earlier with Rumsfeld. You know, as we talked about, you know, tell me what to believe in. And now, getting the movie was kind of pushing that bush is following Chinese leaving the bushes running for president and Chinese Vice President, but then I get the idea that bush also is like, Well, I’m gonna have this, you know, messaging against gay marriage in my campaign. But okay, it’s okay. If you kind of don’t agree with that. I’m just doing this to get the votes is the impression that I got was I was watching the movie. Is that a very fair impression to get? Or do you think that’s just the movie being the movie?

William Cooper  32:40

I think that’s a fair impression. That was mine to my I think, especially if you’re running for president, you have to have your constituencies. And Bush, probably the math was probably pretty clear that if Bush did not take that position, it would harm him at the polls. And so if you’re gonna run, you might as well try to win. Right. I mean, that’s sort of the whole point is to win the election and to get your constituents. I, again, personally, strongly disagree with that position of Bush’s but I do my sense is the same as yours, not something that he cared about deeply. But something he was really, it was really easy for him to get behind. Because Karl Rove and others were explaining to him how important it was.

Dan LeFebvre  33:25

Yeah, yeah. We’ll do what it takes to to get the vote. That’s politics. That’s

William Cooper  33:30

the game. Don’t play baseball. You don’t want to hit the ball. You know, don’t play politics. If you don’t want to, you know, cobbled together votes, however you need to. Yeah,

Dan LeFebvre  33:41

exactly. Speaking of votes, if we go back to the movie, it shows the election nights on November 7 2000. Everybody is waiting to find out the results between the two presidential candidates, Republican George W. Bush and then the Democrat Al Gore. And we see a few things happening that night in the movie I want to ask about the first is the vote tally itself. There’s controversy as Al Gore concedes the race. And then he rescinds his concession when the count in Florida seems to be very close. We also see Dick Cheney getting a $26 million exit package from Halliburton. The movie doesn’t say specifically what it is. But the impression again, that I get is this is a move that seems to be a company trying to cozy up with somebody who might be the future vice president. And then we also see Cheney having a heart attack that night. Can you fill in some historical details on how much of what we see happening movie on election night is actually accurate?

William Cooper  34:34

I looked into the heart attack. From what I saw from repeated sources, it was a few weeks later, so it wasn’t on election night. So not an outright fabrication or invention in the movie, but dramatizing things and that’s a nice example of how the movie does that moving things around. To make it more exciting, but not necessarily always creating everything out of whole cloth. The Halliburton package, my mind is Standing is was a legitimate package. The impropriety there, if there was any would have been him taking that job to begin with having been Secretary of Defense, which we talked about, not, not nothing illegal, but something that that a lot of people try to avoid. But if you’re a CEO of a company, and you do really well and your stock is vesting and and you have agreements in your contract with that company for a certain amount of money, taking that is not either something that’s illegal, or necessarily a sign of, of a company cozying up, I’m not aware of Halliburton paying him extra. My understanding is they paid him what he was owed. And so it was a big windfall, but I don’t think it was some sort of implicit bribe, or that they patted it in order to get, you know, get him to, you know, to curry favor with him, things of that nature. And then the election itself, of course, was very close. And I don’t know exactly what the various counts were on election night, but it was extremely close. And as we all know, at least those of us who lived through it or studied it dragged on for quite some time.

Dan LeFebvre  36:13

Yeah, I was gonna ask you about that. Because we do see in the movie, that boy from earlier, Antonin Scalia, he comes back as now he’s a member of the Supreme Court, and he helped stop the recount in votes in the state of Florida. For the younger generation, who might not remember the controversy of the 2000 election, can you give a little overview of what happened?

William Cooper  36:35

Yeah, so it was this long, drawn out scenario where the local courts in Florida were going up and down their judicial system and flopping around in their, their results and their rulings. And then the US Supreme Court would hear the case and send it back down and hear the case and send it back down. It was this big, huge circus, all to determine who is going to be President of the United States. The way it ultimately came down was in a five, four decision where the five justices on the Supreme Court are known as conservatives ruled in favor of Bush. And the four justices who were known to be liberals voted in favor of gore. And it was a very hard for the American people to take, right. I mean, if you’re, if you’re a Democrat, and you lose the presidency, and all the incredible influence and consequences that flow from that, because of a one person majority on a court, that’s supposed to be simply applying a law that’s very difficult to take. And I think a lot of the reverberations from Bush v. Gore, were still feeling a lot of the, you know, the anger over justice Cavanaugh confirmation, for example. Because what George W Bush was able to do as a point, he didn’t just win the presidency from the Supreme Court, he in turn, appointed John Roberts, and appointed Samuel Alito, to the court. And that whole series of events is just dramatically reshape the court and the legal system and our society as a whole. I mean, you can trace that back to Roe versus Wade, being overturned by one of George W. Bush’s appointee, Samuel Alito was incredibly controversial and hard for the country to take. But I will say on the other side, the Supreme Court was in a difficult position. Florida was not handling it, particularly well, they had to make a ruling, whatever ruling they made was going to inflame half the country or the other. But that’s how that played out. And the younger people today that aren’t familiar with all those facts, I think you’re still seeing consequences from them today and still well into the future is a very momentous decision.

Dan LeFebvre  38:44

The so what was the the initial cause to take it to the Supreme Court? Was it just that that Florida couldn’t figure out what the actual count was?

William Cooper  38:53

Well, there was lots of disagreements in Florida. And the appeal to the Supreme Court was the argument that Bush made, essentially was, and I’m not an expert in election law. And I have not studied this closely or recently. But my understanding is that in general, the argument was, this is just a mass. There’s no intelligible standard for determining, you know, what we’re going to do here. And that’s inconsistent with due process. And if you can’t, if you can’t find a solution that’s uniform. That makes sense. There’s a violation of due process. And that’s what the Conservatives went with. Now, a legal scholar who is immersed in that jurisprudence would do a much better job than I did explaining that. But the I think, to me, the most impactful part in the movie, certainly shows it is just five, four. And all of the things that people think when they see that right that even if it’s not True. They draw inferences of partisanship. The movie makes the thing about Antonin Scalia. Right? Cheney and Scalia knew each other for a long time. They were influential in each other’s careers. They had a strong relationship. They were intellectually aligned, you know, the movie gets into all of that. And then all of a sudden, Scalia, his vote was determined every justice on that court that voted in favor of Bush was a determinative vote, right? If they had changed, if any one of them would change their vote, it would have gone to Gore. So I think that that narrative is a little too simple. I think Scalia was on the court. He was appointed by Reagan, Cheney wasn’t in the Reagan administration. I think it’s coincidental that they’re finding themselves in the same orbit at a later time. But, but that sort of the inference was drawn by lots of people, because it was such a partisan decision.

Dan LeFebvre  41:00

I can see that and it sounds like the movie is doing something similar to what we were talking about with the the exit package from from Halliburton where, okay, this may be an actual thing people get that when they leave a company. That’s, that’s normal. But the way that the movie makes a point to have that be one of the one of the things that it focuses on happening at that time, it makes it seem like it is much more well, not coincidental, but not a coincidence of something, you know, purposely happening like Scalia coming back. And, you know, helping the guy that he knew before is when it kind of seems like he’s helping Cheney get the get the win.

William Cooper  41:37

I strongly agree. I think the movie does that repeatedly. In some ways, it’s hard not to do that with a movie when you’re condensing a 50 year career and an hour and a half. And it needs to be entertaining. And conspiracy theories are more exciting than random events that just happened to have some overlap. But I agree, I think the movie does that repeatedly. It makes for great theater. But it doesn’t capture reality. accurately.

Dan LeFebvre  42:09

Sure. Yeah. That makes sense. That’s movies in a nutshell.

William Cooper  42:15

Even documentaries can be very misleading.

Dan LeFebvre  42:17

Yeah, that’s that’s very that’s that’s true. I mean, they are our the editor, right? It’s very true. Well, if we do go back to the movie, we see, Dick Cheney is now the vice president. And he kind of seems to be all over the place. And I mean, that literally, he has offices in the House of Representatives, the Pentagon, the CIA, a couple offices in the Senate, the White House, of course. And if we’re to believe the movie, Cheney was everywhere, and in everything, in cluding, in anti tax group funded by the Koch Brothers, Big Oil, big tobacco, all these, you know, big names that we see in the in the conspiracies and things. And there’s a scene where he was helping to try to figure out how to do things like getting tax cuts for the rich, changing the term global warming to climate change, because it sounds nicer. And so this is kind of a two part question. First, was the movie correctly showing Dick Cheney’s involvement in a lot of areas of government beyond what seemed to be normal for a vice president? And then the second is kind of an extension of that, again, for those who aren’t familiar with what is normal for a vice president? Was this unique to Cheney, or was this unique for any American vice president? Or how do you think the movie did are portraying that?

William Cooper  43:33

I think the movie did a good job of highlighting that and making that point accentuating it. Cheney was extraordinarily influential as a vice president, I think his influence waned with time. Cheney, the the eighth year of Bush’s administration, I think was much less influential than the first year. One of those reasons for it, I think, very well may be although I don’t think George W. Bush has said this, but I think all of the problems with the Iraq War made Bush second guessed, change his judgment. Cheney was a huge Hawk for going into Iraq. And it didn’t go well. Bush conceded it didn’t go well. And I think that colored perhaps, Bush’s view, and made him less deferential and maybe even had some friction between the two as a result, Cheney was pushing to go into Iran, much more forcefully in Bush’s second term and Bush really, you know, rejected that, that initiative. But in general Cheney was very influential, even though it waned over time. I don’t think it was normal. I think it was. I think it was quite broad and unusually broad. He was very powerful. Again, derivative of buff it came from Bush’s delegating that authority and deferring to Cheney Um, and but that can be very powerful. If the president says you, you know, you run with this, you’re de facto the most powerful person on that subject. And Bush did that with Cheney, particularly in energy Cheney was, you know, coming from Halliburton who really understood energy markets, coming from Texas as well. But he did so in foreign policy. And he did so in other areas. The big tax break in the beginning of Bush’s first term, Cheney was huge driver behind that. Paulo Neil, the Treasury Secretary has a great book called The price of loyalty where he gives his perspective and is very uncharitable to Bush and Cheney, and he talks about how Cheney, you know, really was the driving force behind a lot of big ticket items. So I think the movie was consistent with that. inflated it a little dramatize it a little. But but but it is true, Cheney was very influential, especially in the beginning.

Dan LeFebvre  46:00

Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. And some of that kind of sounds like it goes back to what we were talking about earlier with just the way the movie makes it seem like Bush is following Cheney a little bit more than than the other way around, even though, you know, Bush is the President Cheney’s the Vice President, but because of their past, and the experience that Cheney has, the impression I got from the movie was okay, Cheney is kind of leading, leading the thing and a lot of stuff.

William Cooper  46:26

My sense, from what I’ve, what I’ve learned is that Bush was the boss, and he was deferential to Bush. Bush didn’t just sort of follow Cheney and do whatever he wanted. But Bush had a lot of respect for Cheney. He liked them, he trusted them. Cheney was much more interested in certain things than Bush was, Cheney was much more into policy than Bush. And so the result was that chaining was very powerful, even though Cheney wasn’t telling Bush what to do, or making the final judgment. And I think Bush would override Cheney, even from the beginning in certain areas. So Cheney was very powerful, but it wasn’t anything close to absolute.

Dan LeFebvre  47:12

We talked a little bit about some of the different column conspiracies, but some political elements going on. And about this point, in the movies timeline, there was a scene that stood out to me, it’s the only time in the movie where we see faces are blurred, and they bleep out names. Obviously, being movie, they’re all actors portraying the events, so they could have shown whatever they wanted to show, but the filmmakers chose to blur out the faces, and even Chinese dialog asking about how’s your business at blank? And bleeping out whatever the name of the company is? They reply, oh, good, are sock blank. And California has really been really blank since deregulation. It just kind of feeds back into this idea of there’s something more sinister going on here. Do we know anything is going on there? As far as what we seeing in the movie? I’m

William Cooper  48:01

quite confident that Enron okay, it’s changed speaking to the Enron leaders. And Ron is very famous for, among other things, manipulating the energy market in California and profiting immensely because of that. Cheney and Ken Lay, who’s the CEO of of Enron, we’re friends, I think Ken Lay was the maybe even the chairman of the Energy Commission that Cheney set up initially. And, and so that is pretty clearly in my view, an allusion to Enron.

Dan LeFebvre  48:35

Okay, and you had said Cheney was kind of in charge of all the energy stuff, so he would have been the one to go to in the US government for anything energy, right.

William Cooper  48:45

He was, from what I understand, he really wasn’t the lead in energy. Bush delegated that to him in a big way. He convened with business leaders, and constantly and there’s big fights over people getting that data, getting those that information and transcripts and minutes from the meetings. So who’s very immense, immersed in the energy industry with leaders, including Cadillac. So I think that’s what the movie is getting at. I’m not aware of any information, however, suggesting Cheney played a role in any of Enron’s illegalities. I think he had very favorable posture towards industry, in the NFL in the energy sphere. And so he was Cheney was pushing for regulations and legislation that Enron wanted. But I’m not I’m not aware of any instance where Cheney somehow contributed to the illegal apps that ultimately caused Enron to fall and its leaders to be prosecuted. It’s,

Dan LeFebvre  49:53

I can see, I can understand both sides of it. I understand. I mean, Cheney having this background and energy with Halliburton has experienced, so it makes sense that he would be in charge of that I can also see how it looks really suspicious that, you know, there’s these things that are going on that, you know, benefit these big energy companies and such. And then, of course, you know, with the downfall of Enron, it just becomes even more suspicious. You know, what, who was talking to who? So I can understand both sides of it. I guess that’s why politics is so sweet is

William Cooper  50:24

both sides have all this fodder for, for believing what they believe? It’s an interesting question, because you want to have your government officials have expertise. You don’t want them regulating industries, they don’t understand. And a lot of the the, most of the people that understand industries, understand them, because they’re in them. And so it is, it is hard, and it’s a fine line. But I agree that and the movie, I think rightfully highlights some of these sensitivities, when you have a Secretary of Defense who goes and runs a military company, and then you have a, you know, he comes back into government and is looking at the energy industry, which was a big part of that company as well. It raises red flags, and it’s far better to just separate yourself from that and not have those conflicts, even if it’s only the appearance of impropriety. Because that says distrust in the government. Yeah,

Dan LeFebvre  51:23

yeah, it definitely does. And the movie doesn’t really show any of this at all, because it really does focus mostly on Cheney, but was there any public perception of this public negativity or anything going on? Before? You know, things like Enron crashing and all of this, but just some of this back and forth? Or was it just assumed? Okay, that’s just how it goes. And everybody’s done it?

William Cooper  51:47

No, I think there was a lot of outcry about Cheney’s Energy Commission. Yeah, I think a lot of people were upset about it. Well,

Dan LeFebvre  51:54

if we go back to the movie, there is something that happens 911. And that kind of throws everybody off. Nobody expected that. In the movie, Secretary of State Colin Powell and the CIA, along with an international coalition, they topple the Taliban and take Afghanistan in a matter of weeks. But the movie shows that Dick Cheney wanted more. And that’s when we see Cheney, meeting with another attorney named John you about executive authority. The first legal opinion from you is to let the US government monitor every citizens phone calls, texts and emails without a warrant. He also went on to essentially make torture illegal thing they call it enhanced interrogation instead of torture. And in the movie, we see Cheney talking about how well it’s if the US is doing doing it, then it’s not torture, because the US doesn’t torture. So by definition, it can’t be torture, it’s enhanced interrogation. That sounds crazy to me. Of course, you know, no country in the history of the world has ever done anything until they do it. But did the Cheney really believed that it was okay to torture people just calling it by another name or some of these other things that we see going on with the surveillance and some of the things that happened in the post 911 world? Yeah,

William Cooper  53:13

there’s, this is another one where I don’t want to act as though I have a better understanding than I do. There’s extreme nuance in detail in the legal memos. John, he was also my professor at law school at Berkeley. And he’s a really nice, intelligent person, even if he there’s areas to disagree with him. But I think it’s definitely true that Cheney took a really strong view in this area. I think it’s also definitely true that you can’t get around anything by just naming it something else. That’s ridiculous. And even in areas where there’s reasonable minds can differ. Nobody would say, Well, if we call it enhanced interrogation, it’s no longer torture. What happened from what I can gather is, especially after 911, there was just incredible fear. I think that’s the right word, emanating from Bush and Cheney, and Rumsfeld all the way through government, impacting people like John, you and others. And the Jack Goldsmith, who came in and was the lead lawyer for the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department. After John, he was the deputy and after you and his, and the lead counsel left, Goldsmith came in, and he reversed a lot of it, or at least he tried to reverse a lot of that. And his view was that it was fear as well, that that they were they were so impacted by 911. That they were they were basically incapable of balancing interests in a rational way, from a legal perspective and also from an intelligence gathering perspective. On the other side, I think if you were to talk to Cheney Hear You. They they wouldn’t say, well, we just had a blank slate, but we called it enhanced interrogation. I think they would concede my senses. They would could see certain things work torture, right. If you were to, you know, chop somebody’s arm off, they would say, yeah, that’s torture if you were to, but I think their argument would be the measures we took. Were not. And they were justified, and they were proportionate. So that’s the I don’t think Yeah, so it’s not it’s not as extreme as the movie made it out to be. But it certainly was very aggressive and got a lot of pushback. And, and a lot of people disagreed with. There was even lawsuits surrounding the memos and things like that, which are very uncommon.

Dan LeFebvre  55:47

Okay. Yeah. In the movies, it was kind of a throwback to me. Earlier, when we talked about how I think it was when when Cheney was first working under Rumsfeld, you know, ask him about what he should believe in. And he says things like, Oh, we’re not we weren’t going to call it global warming anymore. We’re going to call it climate change, because that sounds nicer. It’s it’s not kind of sounds like a similar almost a marketing message, which, you know, politicians message of how do I phrase this? So it sounds not as bad as as what it is. And so that was the impression I got from the movie was That was another example of how politicians politicking and change it changing the names of something just to make it sound better. Yeah.

William Cooper  56:27

And lawyers do that, too. Even in courtrooms not not in the public square. And I think I think there was absolutely some of that. But again, I don’t think it was quite as extreme as it was portrayed and has been portrayed us, right? I think it the argument is not we can do anything. By simply renaming it. The argument is we weren’t doing things outside, there are things beyond enhanced interrogation that are torture. And we weren’t doing that. That would be the argument. You mentioned

Dan LeFebvre  57:01

this earlier. And we just touched on briefly, but I want to come back to it. Because in this timeline, this is the timeline in the movie, when we see Cheney and Rumsfeld really being behind the push to invade Iraq. There’s voiceover that says 70% of Americans believe Saddam Hussein was involved in 911. Then we find out intelligence on an associate of the Taliban, Abu Musab al Zaki, where he wasn’t that intelligence was not acted on, according to the movie. And so he starts causing carnage in Iraq by starting ISIS. Also, no one can find the weapons of mass destruction or WMDs, or nuclear programs going on in Iraq that were supposedly there. The movie suggests that Saddam Hussein and his sons, just like cocaine and American movies from the 1980s. And then another side of this that the movie points off with the Iraq Iraq invasion is similar to what we were kind of talking about a little bit earlier. But it seems like Halliburton had been receiving some no big contracts of sizable amounts for work in Iraq. So in the movie, this invasion of Iraq just really seems to be a dark spot on Cheney’s career kind of results in a quick demise of his political career, doesn’t mean we do a good job showing how that happened.

William Cooper  58:18

I think it’s true that Cheney’s career reputation took a huge hit because of the Iraq War, among a huge percentage of people with opinions about Dick Cheney, that was the nail in the coffin, no recovery, he’s a villain, he’s evil, and there’s no redemption possible. And I think, even among lots of people who aren’t, you know, strong zealots in any direction, and are more moderate, have to concede that I rack What did not go well, that Chinese statements about weapons of mass destruction proved to be wrong. I mean, Cheney was very clear and speeches before they attracted to them. So I’m just saying had weapons of mass destruction. He went, you know, far be Colin Powell, at least, you know, hedged his assertions at the United Nations were Cheney went right out with it. And it wasn’t true. We also live in a political space where no matter what you do, some of your loyal followers are going to still like you. Donald Trump is the ultimate example of that my opinion. And so there are a lot of people that still like and respect Cheney, but I definitely agree if you look at the totality of opinion, you know, Iraq was a huge hit for Cheney and it should be what it was a they didn’t have weapons of mass destruction, and in some ways, even more importantly, their objective of of turning Iraq into a well functioning democracy and getting there without too much carnage. was just wrong. It just they failed to do that. And Cheney was a leading advocate and bears a lot of responsibility. Okay,

Dan LeFebvre  1:00:08

okay. Yeah, I mean, each each of those could be an entire podcast series by itself. So we’re not digging into the details of, of the war in Iraq. But it sounds like from what you’re saying there that Cheney himself was a big driver behind the whole weapons of mass destruction thing. And so it would make sense then that the way the movie implies it is Cheney was the next one to be president until he left and went to Halliburton. And then now that he’s vice president, the impression is, okay, he’s probably going to be the next in line to be president. He has all this experience. And then all of this stuff happens with with Iraq and the weapons of mass destruction. And was Was he kind of the one to take be thrown under the bus or what sounds like if he was one actually saying a lot of it, then he was just held accountable for?

William Cooper  1:01:02

I think it was. I think he was held accountable. There’s no hiding his statements on weapons of mass destruction. He said, I think, years before the war, turned in a positive direction that the enemy was in their last throes. That was a famous quote that was quite wrong. He drove it, he advocated it, he owned it, and it didn’t go well. And there’s no escaping that. I think the movies, portrayal of Cheney has this great politician who was, you know, the next in line to be president was not right. I mean, Dick Cheney was a boring, bald, gray haired secretary of defense from Wyoming that nobody really knew much about. And the idea that his electoral prospects were bright. After Clinton took the Oval Office, I think is pretty far fetched. Run thought actually ran for president in 86, or 87, he announced his campaign for the ATA. election, and he couldn’t get any support. So these guys were very effective at being government actors, and Cheney, of course, in Wyoming was able to be a congressman. But I don’t think Cheney was ever going to be a standalone presidential candidate. And, of course, he didn’t. Ron Bush had two terms. Cheney did not run. In 2008. McCain did. And Cheney always said he did not have ambitions to be president. That was one of the reasons why a lot of people think Bush gave him so much authority because there wasn’t a rivalry there in a political sense. Cheney wasn’t trying to build his brand for a future run. So I don’t think the movie got that part. Right. But laying a lot of the blame for Iraq at Cheney’s feet and having that be a big part of his legacy. I think that’s spot on.

Dan LeFebvre  1:02:57

Something else I want to ask about that we see there with the invasion that I talked about was Halliburton is involvement. And so do we know if there’s any connection there? Again, this is another area where the movie just really implies that one of the reasons for Cheney pushing the invasion of Iraq has to do with their oil. And of course, Halliburton is an oil company. So the movie doesn’t specifically talk about this. But it’s not hard to put two and two together to make that sort of assumption. But as we talked about before, maybe there was some impropriety and what it looks like to go from government to, you know, an oil CEO, but nothing illegal. Nothing really that we know of his add another instance of that.

William Cooper  1:03:41

Yeah, I don’t think Cheney was advocating for war in Iraq in order to make more money for from his holdings and Halliburton, B. Chain, he’s got $50 million in Halliburton assets, I don’t think he was wanting to murder 1000s of people to get it to 60. That’s a pretty extreme charge. I do think oil was important, but I think Cheney and Rumsfeld and others look at oil as a really pivotal pivotal geostrategic asset. And, you know, allowing oil to be funneled to dictators and empower them in dramatic ways is against the United States interests, in a lot of respect. So I think oil is irrelevant, but it was kind of amateur, in my opinion, to a freshman in college sort of conspiracy theory to implicate, you know, to make the implication that Cheney was just trying to enrich himself by starting this huge war. I don’t think that’s true.

Dan LeFebvre  1:04:55

Near the end of the movie, Barack Obama is sworn in as the next US President. Cheney has another heart attack, something we’ve seen a few times throughout the movie. Also throughout the movie, it’s narrated by a guy named Kurt that we see here and there that I haven’t talked about yet. But these plot lines in the movie coincide. At the end, you see Kurtz out for a run, and then he’s hit by a car. He dies, and his heart is given to dictate. He says movie shows this after Obama’s sworn in happened in 2009. And then the movie says, Kurt’s heart will give Cheney another 10 years. And as of this recording, Dick Cheney is still alive. So it seems like it’s lasted for more than 10 years. Did Cheney have a heart transplant, like the movie talks about happening?

William Cooper  1:05:37

He did. He had a, got a donor, the donor, had the accident, he got the heart, his heart had basically failed, he had a pump, going just to keep him alive. And I think he was on the donor list for 20 months or something like that. He got the he got the heart. He’s still alive. As you know, noted, I believe it was 2012. When that happened, that’s my understanding. Not 2009. But it is it is true. And actually, Cheney, you know, he There’s a book out about his heart and his health experience. He’s had this incredible political career, but he’s also this medical marvel, where he had five heart attacks and his heart, you know, barely functioning at all. And then he got a transplant. He was 71 when he got the transplant, so quite old for that. And, and he’s still kicking, having

Dan LeFebvre  1:06:39

health conditions are always always terrible, but in being in politics in such a stressful situation, and having that many heart attacks. And that’s, that’s surprising.

William Cooper  1:06:52

Totally agree. It’s, yeah, it’s a stressful place to be and, you know, yeah, you, you wouldn’t think somebody with that background and with help with would stay in those roles. But

Dan LeFebvre  1:07:10

at the very end of the movie, there are three different screens of text with lots of numbers and statistics. So I won’t quote all of those. But in a nutshell, the gist of these suggests that 1000s of US soldiers and hundreds of 1000s of Iraqi civilians died in the war, and also mentioned the Halliburton stock rose 500%, after the invasion of Iraq. And then Coincidentally, the movie also talks about the communications from the Bush, Cheney White House on a private server seem to just disappear. So we don’t know what they actually talked about internally. And then lastly, it talks about the memos from John you about torture and warrantless surveillance, saying that they’re still there for any American president to use if they choose to do so? Did the movie do a good job summarizing these things at the end?

William Cooper  1:07:58

I think it goes too far. It consistent with with it c minus grade, it’s not terrible, out of spun out of complete wholecloth. But I think it goes quite a bit too far. Certainly the the human toll of the Iraq war was very significant. I, I, as noted, I don’t think motive, Cheney’s motivation was just to go from being worth 50 million to 60, whatever it may be. I don’t also don’t know if Halliburton stock went up as much as the suggestion was, like it did very well. But my guess is its revenues and profits were associated with lots of different things, not just the Iraq War, and that wasn’t 500% In one year or anything like that. But I don’t I don’t know the precise performance of the stock. So I think I think it goes a little bit too far, in terms of the secrecy, which ties in with the opening quote of the movie, which I thought was quite witty and entertaining. And then and then the missing documents. I think it’s it’s absolutely true that we don’t know, a lot. And I think that’s common. I mean, it’s not, you know, Richard Nixon taped himself. But most presidents don’t, and nobody’s taping all of the players in the administration at all times. The memos, the things that get put into writing are not going to be comprehensive. Most people writing really sensitive important memos are well aware that they’re going to be public one day, the laws, you know, the National Archives and the laws governing classified documents, make them public and there can be leaks in the fear of leaks, I think pervades Washington actors. So all of that’s fertile ground for people to do things that people don’t know about at the time and that the historical record never actually catch was up with. And Cheney is a good example. And he’s a type of operator, smart person who wants to get things done. He’s not as concerned with public knowledge, I think it’s likely that over time, more and more will come out. And also, there’ll be things that were happening that we’ll never know about.

Dan LeFebvre  1:10:19

Yeah. And it makes sense that politicians who have been playing the game of politics for decades, know a lot of those loopholes and when to say things and where not to say things and how not to document things and things like that, to, which I don’t think is unique to Cheney. I think that’s a pulp political thing. But you know, for the concept of this movie, I think that it makes sense but it also sounds like the movie is pulling in, like we talked about, you know, even with the previous things with the the war in Iraq and the the texts and such, it’s pulling in some of the kernels and then filling in some of the dots. Like it’s not necessarily this, this is unique to Cheney, but some of it could have happened.

William Cooper  1:11:04

Yes, good way to put it.

Dan LeFebvre  1:11:08

After the movie is over, there’s a post credit scene that I have to ask you about the scene. It’s a focus group of people who have watched the movie, the movie that we watched vice, and one of the guys in the focus group talks about how the movie has a liberal bias. Someone else in the group says the movie is just presenting facts, how is that a bias, then they get into a fight talking about Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump fight has nothing to do with the main character in the movie, or really the movie at all just showcases how divisive people have become around politics, though. There’s one thing I think people have a hard time believing the truth about. It’s politics. And I think that’s because everyone has their own version of what truth is, it’s being told in these echo chambers and social media and other places, where truth is something that they already know. And they refuse to accept any evidence that might contradict what they believe. So I have to ask, since we’ve been talking about a very political movie, do you think the filmmakers were biased in the way they presented the facts?

William Cooper  1:12:09

Well, let me step back a little bit. I mean, this the answer is yes. And I’ll elaborate. But I certainly I strongly agree that the current climate in the country and it’s been this way for a long time, but it seems to be getting worse, is very polarized, and it you share the same set of facts with different people, you’re gonna get unbelievably different interpretations. In my book, how America works and why it doesn’t. One of the main points of my overall thesis for why the country is not working right, is the extent of polarization. And the extent to which people are interpreting events through the lens that they come to those events with and interpreting facts through a biased lens. And it was definitely true and Bush was president. Definitely true when Obama was president. And in the Trump Biden era, it seems to be reaching, you know, ever greater heights. As far as this movie goes, I think the movie was biased. In some ways, in some ways, it was just sort of trying to be entertaining, and it’s a bias was to entertain. But I think it was too kind to Cheney in some ways. And also too harsh to Cheney, in some ways. So if it was, but it was, it was biased. You know, Cheney deserves a lot of criticism, particularly with Iraq. I mean, that was his defining initiative that was exponentially larger than anything else he did, at any point in his career, and inside or outside of government, and it was a disaster. And so that’s a, you know, somebody who really deserves a lot of criticism. But at the same time, it doesn’t mean he did it to line his pockets, doesn’t mean that he was an evil person. I mean, he made mis judgments. But his intentions, I think we’re, you know, hit Cheney is, above all out. A nationalist, I think he just, he only cares about the United States of America has his, he said numerous things to support that. And so he, you know, he’s not worried about casualties among Iraqis. He’s worried about protecting the United States. And there’s a lot to be critical about that perspective, in my view, if you think everything in life is equal, but it’s also the case that even under his own framework of trying to advance the United States interests, he really failed. And so the movie criticizes him in ways where maybe they shouldn’t or emphasizes things that are less important than others. But if it had a bias, and a pervading bias It was a good one for a movie. And that was to entertain.

Dan LeFebvre  1:15:03

Yeah, yeah. And that’s what movies are supposed to be is, is entertainment there. But I think you brought up a really good point of how I mean, with with when it comes to bias and specialists, specifically, political bias, it’s, it has become so divisive. And with, I’m trying to think of the right way to phrase this. Because it can be so, so divisive, but it’s good to have that. To hold people accountable, like, like with Cheney, like holding him accountable for when things are done wrong, because politicians, no matter how much you love them, no matter how much you hate them, they’re they will do some things, right. And they will do some things wrong. And I think it’s good to have whether, you know, a movie like this, or something that sparks some of these discussions of things like, Okay, I like this part. And but I don’t like this part. And that’s okay to have that discussion of what you like and what you don’t like, instead of just throwing it all out and being like, well, this person has this letter next to their name. So that’s, you know, who it’s going to be regardless of, of what it is. And I think that’s I don’t mean to get too quacks too political here. But, you know, I think that’s where a lot of things have have come in the past few years.

William Cooper  1:16:24

I totally agree. That’s well put, and I’m completely aligned with that.

Dan LeFebvre  1:16:31

While you did mention it there, at the end, there, you have a new book called how America works, and why it doesn’t make sure to put a link to that in the show notes for this episode for listeners to pick up their own copy. But can you share a sneak peek of your book for us? Yeah,

William Cooper  1:16:46

I think you did a nice job of of alluding to the polarization. So the book really focuses the first part of the book focuses on how America is supposed to work, the essential principles of our government, our society and separation of powers and free speech and what the current debates are, and also the historical trajectory of how we got here. And then the second part of the book focuses on how America is not working. And that the the main driver, there is the polarization. I think it’s a factor of social media echo chambers playing a major role. And then we also have some profound structural problems in our politics that exacerbate polarization, including a two party system. We’ve got two juggernauts and bitter rivalry as opposed to a more diverse set of views. The primary system favors zealots, as opposed to, you know, conscientious, more moderate people. Gerrymandering is a huge problem where it really disenfranchises lots of people, you can talk about not letting somebody vote at the polls, right. And maybe that happened several dozen times in a county or something. But gerrymandering condition franchise, hundreds of 1000s of people in one fell swoop even millions in the aggregate. So it’s a really huge problem. And when you add it all up, you see the the polarization and that polarization is leading to policy failures. I mean, it’s leading to our immigration policy or healthcare policy, even our economy not being run, as definitely as we would like to see it and our leaders not being as capable as they should be. I mean, in my view, Donald Trump was totally unfit for the job. And while Joe Biden is a reversion towards the mean, he’s not a reversion to the mean. I mean, he’s, he’s, well past his prime, and the President United States should be somebody who’s, you know, at the peak of their intellectual powers, we should be able to have somebody sort of in the top 1% of the population for managing the country. And we don’t have that. So the books very critical and but also offer some some solutions. But you, you touched on it, Dan, you know, a lot of what our problem is, is exactly what that the very last part of the movie shows, where people are just looking at the same set of facts and coming to totally different conclusion. And it’s hard to take that climate and turn it into good policy.

Dan LeFebvre  1:19:19

And then they’re not talking about it. Like I mean, people can have different opinions and that’s fine. But being okay with, it’s okay to not agree. And we’re agreeing to disagree, and that’s okay. But having that discussion, I think is a big,

William Cooper  1:19:33

big part of it. Totally agree. Yeah. Absolutely.

Dan LeFebvre  1:19:37

Well, thank you for coming on to have this discussion. And of course, I will include a link to your book in the show notes for this for anybody else who wants to pick that up and start the discussions of their own. Thanks again, so much for your time. Well,

William Cooper  1:19:49

Thank you, really appreciate you having me. It’s always a real fun time. So, thank you.

July 15th, 1815. Rochefort, France.

Our first movie this week is 2023’s Napoleon, and the event from this week in history starts at about two hours and 22 minutes in.

Before we hit play, let me take a moment to describe today’s opening scene in the movie.

It’s daytime. Overcast. 

The scene in the movie is focused on a huge wooden ship, although there’s another in the background as well. Both ships are docked along a long, cobblestone area that’s taking up most of the camera’s frame in the foreground. Imagine two ships docked in the harbor of a city in the year 1815, and you’re about there…haha!

Right in the center of the frame, layered on top of the large ship is text from the movie that gives us the date and location…similar to what we just heard at the beginning of the segment, although the movie says we’re in Plymouth in July of 1815, instead of giving us the day of the 15^th. But, that means this isn’t actually France we’re seeing, and I’ll explain that once we start fact-checking this, because the movie give us something else I haven’t mentioned yet, and that’s the name of the ship: HMS Bellerophon.

With a British flag on her stern, Bellerophon is moored in the bay, with sails all put away leaving the stereotypical lines of ropes connected to the three masts on Bellerophon. On the cobblestone in front of the large ship are a handful of British soldiers in red uniforms scattered along the cobblestone area.

As we hit play on the movie, the only movement to be seen is on the left side of the frame when we see beautiful white horses can be seen pulling a white carriage up to a ramp on the ship. Behind the carriage are two more soldiers on brown horses, along with what looks like three men on the carriage and four more sailors looking on from in front of the white horses.

After the establishing shot, the movie cuts to inside the ship, now, as we see a man walking into the ship. He’s taller, so he has to duck to get through the doorway without hitting his head. He’s holding his military hat in his right arm, and he’s wearing a blue cloak with a British uniform underneath.

He enters the ship from the right side of the movie’s frame, greeted immediately by a sailor in the center who is saluting at attention. Then, on the left side, we can see a row of sailors at attention.

Although we can’t see him yet, we can hear Joaquin Phoenix’s version of Napoleon Bonaparte speaking in the background. After a moment, the camera cuts to where Napoleon is at—and he’s having breakfast aboard the ship. As he’s eating, he’s continuing to talk and explain what sounds like some sort of military strategy. Another brief moment, and the movie shows us who he’s talking to. Lined up watching Napoleon eat are nine young British sailors…some of them are very young, and quite honestly, I’d be surprised if they’re teenagers yet. They’re eagerly soaking up the knowledge that Napoleon is sharing with them.

Just then, we can hear the man who just boarded the ship enter the room. As he does, we can see a little easier now that this is Rupert Everett’s character, the Duke of Wellington.

As Wellington enters, the young sailors clear the room to allow him to talk to Napoleon without anyone else there. Now, it’s just the two men: In his French uniform, Napoleon sitting at the small, wooden table with his breakfast on it. Standing in his British uniform is Wellington, who pulls up a chair and sits down across from Napoleon.

For a bit of a visual aid, the room is lit from the wall of windows across the stern of the ship that, since we’re inside, we can see on the right side of the camera frame. The wooden walls of the ship’s interior are a light, teal color, with an off-white ceiling and black and white checkered tiles on the floor.

As Wellington sits, he helps himself to what looks like some tea from the table. The British government won’t let Napoleon stay in England, Wellington tells him. Instead, Wellington informs Napoleon that he’ll be going into exile on an island called Saint Helena. He’ll be under the watchful eye of Governor Hudson Lowe and his family.

Napoleon gets a glass of water as Wellington continues to give him more details about Helena—it’s an island, but there’s not much on it. It’s a thousand miles from the mainland of Africa, so it’s out of the way. You’ll have time to reflect, Wellington continues.

Joaquin Phoenix’s version of Napoleon just looks ahead with a blank stare as he processes the news.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie Napoleon

Right away, I’ll be the first to admit that the scene I just described did not happen this week in history—because that scene didn’t happen at all…which is also why our opening date in the segment didn’t have to be entirely on point, but we’re talking about it anyway because that fictional scene I just described was very loosely based on something that did happen this week in history.

We just have to unravel some of the facts from fiction…which is pretty much the case for the entire 2023 Napoleon movie if you’ve listened to the deep dives we’ve done into that film.

But for this week’s event, let’s start with the most glaringly painful issue with that scene: The Duke of Wellington was not on HMS Bellerophon on July 15^th, 1815.

And if you think about it, the Duke of Wellington was in the British Army, not the Navy. And so, it’s probably not too much of a surprise that the real person who was on HMS Bellerophon with Napoleon that day was the captain of Bellerophon, a man named Frederick Lewis Maitland.

That tells why the scene is fictional, since it was someone else completely who was really there—Maitland instead of Wellington. But, then again, the real discussion wasn’t about Saint Helena, either.

And that’s the other major thing I wanted to bring up as being inaccurate with the movie’s scene is the topic of the discussion. It wasn’t about Napoleon being exiled to Saint Helena. He wasn’t informed of the exile until August, though, so not this week in history.

So, what really happened?

The true story also explains why I started the segment in Rochefort, France, while in the movie the text places Wellington and Napoleon on the ship in Plymouth—or Plymouth, England.

The reason for that is something the movie never talks about, they started in France but ended up in England.

So, let’s back up a few days to last week in history, July 10^th, 1815, because that’s when Napoleon’s entourage first arrived at Bellerophon. That’s what we see when the movie shows the carriage pulling up to the ship…although it wasn’t a carriage in the true story, it was another ship.

As the story goes, the British didn’t know about Napoleon’s plans to surrender. He was defeated at Waterloo on June 18^th, so a little under a month earlier. He’d been forced to abdicate the throne, though, so he wasn’t welcome back in France. So, that brings us to July 10^th, when a French ship with a flag of truce approached HMS Bellerophon while she was in the port of Rochefort.

That’s where Captain Maitland welcomed Napoleon aboard Bellerophon. If you want to learn more about that, Maitland actually wrote a book about it afterward called The Surrender of Napoleon, and since it’s hundreds of years old you can find it in the public domain. I’ll link to it in the show notes if you want to read it.

Initially, though, it wasn’t even Napoleon himself who approached Maitland. The first people aboard Bellerophon was a small delegation of two men sent with the announcement of Napoleon’s intention to surrender. One of those was the Comte de Las Cases, or Count of Cases, who wrote a book about the encounter later. That was a common thing, people writing books about their interaction with Napoleon, so of course it happened around the surrender, too.

Over the next few days, negotiations between the French and British continued until, on July 14^th, the Count of Cases came over to Bellerophon with General L’Allarand along with a letter from Napoleon himself indicating his desire to discuss surrender terms. That was in the morning, at about 7 o’clock, which is important to the story, because the Count of Cases returned to Bellerophon at about 12 hours later, at 7 o’clock in the evening with another letter—that one was from another French General, Count Bertrand, and told Maitland that Napoleon was prepared to surrender.

The logbook for HMS Bellerophon offers us the documentation of what happened the next day, July 15^th.

“At 7 a.m. the French frigate L’Epervier, having a flag of truce, anchored near us. At 11 a.m. the Emperor Napoleon came on board to claim the protection of the British flag.”

Of course, that’s the short entry you’d expect from a ship’s log, and not something from a movie—we don’t get the details from dialogue between two people like in the movie. But, as I mentioned before, it seems like everywhere Napoleon went, people wrote about their meeting with him, so as the story goes, Napoleon asked for transportation to North America. He was interested in living out the rest of his life in the United States. Maitland refused, in a move that many suggest might’ve been due to orders from his superiors.

The day after Napoleon surrendered, Maitland sailed Bellerophon with Napoleon on board from Rochefort, France, to Torbay, England. That was on July 16^th.

And that’s where he stayed, basically, until the British government could figure out what to do with him. But, news of Napoleon’s capture spread, so later in July the English moved Bellerophon to Plymouth to avoid the public eye.

The movie is correct to mention the name of Saint Helena. That’s a 47-square-mile-island—one of the most remote in the world, way out in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean. Oh, and 47 square miles converts to about 122 square kilometers.

To give you an idea of how remote, Saint Helena actually just started getting some tourism in 2017 thanks to a new installation: An airport.

Well, technically, the airport construction finished in 2015 and it opened in June of 2016, but the first commercial flights began on October 14^th, 2017.

That’s right, the first flights to and from Saint Helena were just a few years ago…and this is an island that was discovered by the Portuguese in 1502. It only took 515 years later for commercial flights.

As crazy as that sounds, not having an airport for so long makes sense when you know that Saint Helena is over 1,200 miles away from the closest land mass. That’s about 2,000 kilometers, so for a long time the only way you could get there was by ship. Which, of course, is how Napoleon got there, and being that remote is exactly why Saint Helena was chosen for him. After all, the British didn’t want to risk the chance of his escape—remember, Napoleon had escaped exile once before on Elba.

We learned earlier that Napoleon didn’t learn about Saint Helena aboard Bellerophon in July, that really happened in August, which is also when he transferred him from Bellerophon to another ship HMS Northumberland.

Then, along with a smaller escort ship called HMS Myrmidon, the British took their prisoner to Saint Helena. They left Plymouth on August 8^th and arrived in Saint Helena on October 14^th.

That’s all part of a story outside this week in history, though, so if you want to continue this part of the story, first go check out the 2023 Napoleon movie if you haven’t seen it yet. The scene from this week in history starts at about two hours and 22 minutes into the movie.

Or if you don’t mind the spoilers, you can jump right into the true story because I’ve talked to two different historians about the Napoleon movie.

I’d recommend checking out my chat with Alexander Mikaberidze first, because my chat with him was more focused on straight up separating fact from fiction…then for my chat with Louis Sarkozy, I had already talked with Alexander, so I was able to go deeper into different topics.

…and you can find both episodes with Alexander and Louis in one place over at basedonatruestorypodcast.com/napoleon

July 16th, 1969. Florida.

Our next movie is that classic film you think of first when you think of ‘based on a true story’ movies: Men in Black 3!

Haha! Okay, so, I kid—well, about the movie being the first one you think of as being a ‘based on a true story’ movie, but I’m not kidding about the fact that Men in Black 3 actually shows us something from history, and we’re actually going to wait on watching that movie together until tomorrow.

This’ll be something new for Based on a True Story, so let me explain.

Apollo 11 hit Range Zero on the countdown timer on July 16^th, 1969, at 13:32:00 GMT, or Greenwich Mean Time.

That means if you’re listening to this episode on the day it’s released: Tomorrow is the 55^th anniversary of the Apollo 11 launch.

Actually, I know I just used GMT, but they took off from Florida in the United States, so just for consistency and also because sometimes my brain has a hard time calculating my local time zone from GMT, I’ll use Eastern Time throughout this story—local time for the launch, so that’s 9:32 AM Eastern Time, 6:32 AM Pacific—and I’ve got a link in the show notes to help you convert to your local time if you want. I’ll also include a link to the show notes for a great e-Book from NASA that has all the time, too, if it’s easier for you.

What that means, though, is the countdown timer was already started on this day, July 15^th, in preparation for the launch tomorrow.

NASA started that yesterday, July 14^th at 5:00 PM Eastern/3 Pacific.

Well, yesterday in 1969, not 2024—you know what I mean, haha!

On July 15^th, they did a planned hold of the GET, or Ground Elapsed Time that NASA used to track the mission, at 12:00 PM Eastern. They planned for an 11-hour hold, and as expected, the countdown resumed 11-hours later at T-9 hours.

As a side note, you know how you hear T minus 9, 8, 7, so on for the countdown? When that hits zero, that means the GET is at Range Zero, or exactly 00:00:00, then from there the timer counts every second of the Apollo mission to keep track of what happened when.

So, let’s pretend we’re in Florida 55-years ago as the excitement around the Apollo 11 mission’s launch is taking hold. Right now, we’re in the midst of the countdown hold. The CBS broadcast that would end up showcasing Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon hasn’t quite started yet; it’s scheduled for 6:00 AM Eastern in the morning for a planned 9:32 AM Eastern launch.

Will the Apollo 11 mission launch on time?

Or will it be delayed by the evil alien named Boris the Animal and his plan to prevent the ArcNet from being deployed, killing anyone who tries!?

Okay, I’m sure you already know the answer to that.

But, I hope you’ll join me tomorrow anyway in a little minisode just to cover the true story of the Apollo 11 launch as it was shown in the movie Men in Black 3.

That episode will publish at exactly 55 years after the Range Zero GET countdown hit 00:00:00.

Or, in other words, since Boris the Animal’s plans are not based in reality and Apollo 11 did launch on the scheduled time: Wednesday, July 16^th, 2024, at 9:32 AM Eastern, 6:32 Pacific.

What goes up must come down, at least it’s supposed to when it comes to Space, and we know from history the GET’s final count for the Apollo 11 mission was 195 hours, 18 minutes, and 35 seconds.

Doing a little math on that: 195 hours into 24 hours per day is eight days with three hours leftover, so then the 18 minutes and 35 seconds. So, that means Apollo 11’s mission comes to a close eight days later, so next Wednesday, on July 24^th, we’ll complete this little minisode miniseries by how 2018’s First Man shows the Apollo 11 mission ending at 12:50 PM Eastern that day.

And we’ve got a couple other episodes between now and then, so maybe we’ll check-in from time to time, as well.

Okay, so that’s what we’re doing around Apollo 11’s launch starting tomorrow! But, that’s just one event from this week in history! Let’s queue up our next movie…it’ll be the animated movie Anastasia, so if you want to watch it along as I describe, queue up about four minutes into the movie, and we’ll hit play after the break!

July 17th, 1918. Yekaterinburg, Siberia.

Our next movie to watch this week is the animated cartoon from 1997 called Anastasia. About four minutes in, the movie places us in a dimly lit room with an eerie red glow. The architecture is reminiscent of an ancient castle or a wizard’s lair, with towering stone pillars intricately carved with arcane symbols and patterns.

At the heart of the scene stands a mesmerizing, fiery pillar of swirling red energy, that’s where the eerie red glow comes from in the room. This pillar seems to be the focal point of the chamber, radiating a sense of powerful, magical energy. The surrounding walls are lined with bookshelves, filled with ancient tomes and scrolls, hinting at a repository of forgotten knowledge and secrets.

To the left, a large globe sits atop a cluttered desk, alongside scattered books and parchment, suggesting ongoing studies or experiments. The right side of the image reveals a grand staircase leading to a lofted area, adding to the room’s sense of depth and mystery.

A lone figure, draped in a flowing red cloak, stands near the fiery pillar, their face obscured by shadows.

We hear some voiceover explaining what’s going on as more magical elements are swirling around angrily in the shot…almost like a tornado.

The voiceover says that Rasputin was consumed by his hatred of Nicholas and his family and sold his soul for the power to destroy them. Ah, that’s who the cloaked figure is near the pillar performing some sort of ritual. He’s getting sucked into the tornado, leaving only his skeletal bones behind. The cartoon skeleton is outlined in a glowing blue that contrasts against the red lighting.

Just then, a glass vial wrapped with what looks like a snake with a skull on top appears in the air. Inside the glass vial is some sort of a green magical element floating. The blue skeleton grabs it, and we can see it forming around the skeleton.

Then, we see the evil-looking Rasputin again, his face lit by the green magic. Under his breath, he mutters to the magical green element that it must, go and fulfill its dark purpose—to seal the fate of the czar and his family once and for all.

The green element oozes out of the glass vial as it leaves the room and to the streets outside. The voiceover says from that moment on, the spark of unhappiness across our country was fanned into a flame, and on the screen, we can see the little green magical elements doing something that seems to be spreading into people rioting, revolting, and tearing down statues.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie Anastasia

What the movie is setting up here is how Rasputin betrays and kills Czar Nicholas and his family, allowing only Anastasia to survive.

That is not at all historically accurate to what really happened. What is true is that the last Czar of Russia, Nicholas II, was killed along with his family in Yekaterinburg on July 17th, 1918.

Since the movie’s version of this event is highly fictional, let’s get a quick summary of what really happened.

To understand this, we have to realize that in mid-1918, the Great War was still raging. What we now call World War I. Of course, we know now that it ended in November of 1918, but in July of 1918, they didn’t know that for sure. What they did know was that things were going badly for Russia in the war.

They were one of the first countries to join the war in 1914, and almost right away the Russian armies were not doing well. They were being defeated so badly that Nicholas II decided to take personal control of them. His advisers didn’t like this idea, but he did it anyway, and for the next few years he spent most of his time away from the government running the military during the war.

That’s important to the story because of the other character we see in the movie: Rasputin. He was a real person, although he wasn’t necessarily the evil mastermind behind the demise of the Czar and his family.

That said, Rasputin was…well…there are a lot of questions around the real Rasputin. We do know he was a self-proclaimed holy man. He was a mystic. So, obviously, the cartoon movie takes those things to the extreme by making him some sort of a magician when in reality he was probably more of a religious figure—a prophet of sorts.

We do know he was a friend of Nicholas II and the rest of the imperial family, and he helped with the imperial family’s only son, Alexei, who was sick a lot due to hemophilia. So, Rasputin acted as a sort of religious healer for little Alexei which meant he was around quite a bit.

Meanwhile, when Nicholas II went away to lead the Russian army in World War I, as the months and years dragged on, Empress Alexandra relied more and more on Rasputin’s advice.

A lot of people in Russia didn’t like Rasputin and saw him as nothing more than a fake, a fraud, a charlatan. As his influence over the empire grew, so, too, did the unhappiness within the Russian public about how the Empress was allowing him to influence her decisions.

On top of that, Nicholas II was not doing a good job leading the Russian army in the war. They were suffering huge loss of life and the cost of the war weighed heavily on the economy. High inflation and lots of poverty became the norm in Russia.

So, the riots and unrest we see happening in the movie really did happen, but it wasn’t because of some magical power by Rasputin, but instead it was because the Russian people were fed up with the way the Czar was leading the country. The riots that broke out in February of 1917 were so bad that Nicholas II had no choice but to abdicate the throne—he did that on March 15th, 1917. That formally ended the monarchy in Russia that had been established back in 1721.

So, to back up with a little historical context: World War I is still going on. Russia is in the war. Meanwhile, back at home, Russians are without the monarchy that has led the country for hundreds of years. There was a provisional government in place, but that was overthrown by Vladimir Lenin’s Bolshevik party in the fall of 1917.

Meanwhile, Nicholas II and his family had already left the palace after Nicholas II abdicated, and they were placed under house arrest.

At this point, essentially Russia was entangled in a civil war on top of World War I still going on, too. For the purposes of our story today, though, Lenin, had to figure out what to do with the former monarch and his family. Well…we wouldn’t be talking about it if we didn’t already know what they decided to do.

What’s tricky about this part of the story, though, is that there has been a lot of conflicting reports and sources about exactly what happened. As they say, history is written by the winners, and in this case, much of the history that survived is written by those who made sure the Romanov family did not survive.

The gist of the story, though, is that out of fear of approaching anti-Bolshevik forces nearing where the Czar and his family were being held, Nicholas II and his family were woken up in the early morning hours of July 17th, 1918 and led to the basement of a house. It was for their own safety against the oncoming forces. At least, that’s how the story goes for what they were told. Instead, though, the entire family was executed in the basement.

Or was it? Did their youngest daughter, Anastasia, survive? Some say she did.

Because of what I just mentioned, this version of history being written by the winners, the true story of exactly what happened in that basement has been studied, debated, and researched by historians ever since.

If you want to watch the story, this week is a great one to watch the 1997 animated cartoon simply called Anastasia. The sequence we started this segment with is right at the beginning, at about four minutes into the movie. And if you want to learn more about the true story, we dug deeper into what really happened back in episode #94 of Based on a True Story, where we learned what is most likely the true story of what really happened to Anastasia.

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 July 18th, 1895, George Kelly Barnes was born in Memphis, Tennessee. Or, maybe not. To be honest, we don’t know exactly when he was born. Some sources say he was born on July 17, some say July 18, some say it was 1895, some say it was 1897, some say it was 1900. But, regardless, George Kelly Barnes was born sometime this week in history. He was perhaps best known by his nickname, “Machine Gun” Kelly. He was a prohibition-era gangster who robbed banks and became famous after kidnapping an Oklahoma oil man for ransom.

He was played by Charles Bronson in the 1958 biopic about his crimes simply called Machine-Gun Kelly.

Oh, and if you’re thinking of the musician who goes by the name Machine Gun Kelly, his real name is Colson Baker and according to my research it seems Baker got the nickname because his rapping style was shooting off fast, like a machine gun. So, perhaps the nickname for the musician is inspired by the gangster, but that’s where the relation ends.

On July 19th, 1860, Lizzie Andrew Borden was born in Fall River, Massachusetts. She’s best known for the axe murders of her father and stepmother, although she was officially acquitted of the crimes…Her story was told in the 2018 movie simply called Lizzie where Lizzie is played by Chloë Sevigny.

On July 20th, 356 BCE, Alexander III was born in Pella, Macedonia. Or, maybe it was the 21^st. Or maybe it wasn’t this week in history at all, and it was the 23^rd…as you might imagine, tracking birthdays back in 356 BCE wasn’t an exact science, but nevertheless, this was probably the birth week of the great the king of Macedonia known as Alexander the Great. He conquered much of the known world at the time, a story that was told in the 2004 film simply named Alexander with Colin Farrell playing the lead role. We covered that movie back in episode #157 of Based on a True Story.

Oh, and as a personal note, my mom’s birthday is also this week on July 19th, and I know she listens to the podcast so happy birthday, mom! I love you!

Onto our segment about ‘based on a true story’ movies released this week in history, can you believe this week marks the one-year anniversary of Barbieheimer?

That’s right, it was on July 21^st, 2023, that the Barbie movie and Oppenheimer both opened in theaters.

While Oppenheimer is obviously more of a historical movie than Barbie, if you saw Barbie then you’ll know that about an hour and 40 minutes into the movie, an older woman named Ruth reveals herself as the creator of Barbie.

In the movie, Ruth is played by Rhea Perlman, but the character of Ruth is for Ruth Handler, who really was the woman who created Barbie. But the real Ruth Handler passed away in 2002, so obviously she couldn’t be in the movie herself.

Originally, Ruth and her husband Elliot were interested in making furniture, which they did with a business partner named Harold Matson. During World War II, their furniture sales declined, and they tried making toy furniture instead. It worked! In fact, it worked so well, they shifted entirely and that’s how Mattel got into toy manufacturing.

Oh, and the name “Mattel” comes from mixing Harold Matson’s name—his nickname was “Matt” with Elliot Handler’s name. Matt-El. I guess they couldn’t get Ruth’s name in there.

Despite not having her name on the company, Ruth was very much involved in Mattel.

At the beginning of the movie, we hear Helen Mirren’s voiceover talking about girls playing with baby dolls and they could only play at being mother. On the screen we can see a bunch of little girls playing with baby dolls. Then comes Barbie, and in the movie we can see a huge version of Margot Robbie’s Barbie wearing a black-and-white striped bathing suit, towering over the little girls playing with the baby dolls.

Once we get past the fact that it’s a highly stylized interpretation of things, that’s actually not a bad version of how Ruth came up with the idea for the Barbie doll. It is true that in the 1950s, most little girls in the United States played with baby dolls as a way of preparing them to be mothers later in life. But, one day, Ruth saw her daughter and friends playing with rolls of paper they were pretending were them—and they were roleplaying being adults.

So, Ruth had an idea: What if we make a toy for girls to roleplay what it’s like to just be an adult woman? A mother, maybe, but there’s a lot more to what women can do than being a mother, so why not let little girls use their imaginations?

Where the movie stretches things a little bit with that introduction is that it gives the idea little girls only ever played with baby dolls—that there was no such thing as anything but a baby doll. Which simply isn’t true. In fact, when Ruth had first pitched the idea of the adult-looking doll for little girls, other executives at Mattel rejected the idea. Then, in 1956, when Ruth was on vacation in Europe with her family, she came across a doll called Bild Lilli. That was a German doll based on a comic strip character named Lilli. And the newspaper the comic appeared in? Bild. Hence the name of the doll, Bild Lilli.

You can find images of that doll online if you want to see what it looked like.

In the movie, Rhea Perlman’s version of Ruth tells Margot Robbie’s version of Barbie that she named Barbie after her daughter, Barbara.

And that’s true. Ruth Handler named the Barbie doll after her daughter, Barbara.

That brings us to another little tie-in to history from the movie because when Barbie first premiered to the world on March 9^th, 1959, she was wearing a black-and-white striped bathing suit. That’s the same bathing suit Margot Robbie’s version of Barbie is wearing in the movie when we see her for the first time in the introduction.

And just like the movie was a hit so, too, was the doll back in 1959. Barbies were flying off the shelf. I would highly recommend you look up a photo of the original 1959 Barbie doll and compare that to what the Bild Lilli dolls looked like? You can see just how much Ruth was inspired by the Bild Lilli dolls for Barbie.

In 1961, Ruth and Elliot introduced Barbie’s boyfriend, Ken.

While we see Ken in the Barbie movie, Ruth doesn’t talk to Ken so she doesn’t mention where his name came from…but, in truth, just like Barbie was named after Ruth’s daughter, Ken got his name from Ruth’s son, Kenneth.

Although it’s worth pointing out that Barbie and Ken only got their names. Everything else about Barbie and Ken, from how they look to their backstories, and so on, that’s not based on the real Barbara and Kenneth.

Oh, and as a fun little fact, Mattel actually bought out the rights to Bild Lilli in 1964 and instead sold Barbies in their place.

But, going back to an hour and 40 minutes into the Barbie movie, we have a few more historical elements to pull from dialogue in this scene.

The first is when Ruth tells Barbie, “Baby, I am Mattel. Until the IRS got to me but that’s another movie.”

But…actually, let’s skip this one because the movie circles back to it later, so we’ll do the same.

Another line of dialogue is a clever nod to the real Ruth Handler not being in the movie, because when the character of Ruth in the movie who, as I mentioned before, is played by Rhea Perlman…when she comes out and tells Barbie that, “I’m Ruth Handler, the creator of Barbie.”

Everyone around gasps and Will Ferrell’s character mentions her ghost keeps an office on the 17^th floor. I thought that was a smart bit of dialogue to allude to the fact that the real Ruth Handler is gone.

Then, our last bit of dialogue to examine is what Ruth says next. She says, “You guys, you think the lady who invented Barbie looks like Barbie? Ha! I’m a five-foot-nothing grandma with a double mastectomy and tax evasion issues.”

And all of that is based on truth, because the real Ruth Handler was all of those things. Well, I guess, I found sources that said she was actually 5’ 2”, but she was a grandma—I couldn’t find if Barbara has children, but Kenneth did. The double mastectomy mention is also based on reality because Ruth Handler was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1970, and then had a mastectomy. To add something the movie doesn’t mention, Ruth’s experience having the mastectomy led to her not being satisfied with the options for breast prosthesis available, so she invented her own.

But then that leads to the final mention in the movie’s dialogue: Tax evasion issues.

And this brings us back to a moment ago when I mentioned Ruth’s line, “Baby, I am Mattel. Until the IRS got to me but that’s another movie.”

I’m sure Ruth Handler’s life could be turned into a movie—although there’s not a biopic about her that I’m aware of.

But, the movie was correct to suggest that was the reason why Ruth left Mattel.

That happened in 1978, when they were indicted by a federal grand jury for conspiracy, mail fraud, and giving the SEC false financial statements. After pleading no contest, Ruth received a fine of $57,000, sentenced to 2,500 hours of community service—and she resigned from Mattel.

Oh, and her husband, and other executives, too, it’s not like Ruth was the only one affected by this. But the movie focuses on her more, so that’s why I was doing the same.

After she left Mattel, she focused on her prosthesis company for women—called Nearly Me—which she ran until she sold it in the 1990s and retired. Ruth Handler passed away on April 27^th, 2002, from complications during a surgery for her colon cancer.

So, that’s one half of the Barbieheimer that released one year ago.

The other movie, of course, is Oppenheimer, about the life of Julius Robert Oppenheimer.

Surprisingly, I haven’t covered that movie, and it probably could stand to have its own episode—let me know if you want that to happen—but for today, let’s cover a few of the movie’s major plot points, starting with probably the biggest thing you’ll think of when you think of Oppenheimer: The development of the atomic bomb.

According to the movie, another famous name was involved in that: Albert Einstein. There’s a scene about 54 minutes into the movie where Oppenheimer goes to Princeton to visit with Einstein to get his thoughts on whether or not an atomic explosion would destroy the world.

The movie is correct to show Oppenheimer and Einstein meeting—in fact, they had more than just one conversation. For a time, Oppenheimer and Einstein had offices just down the hall from each other, so who knows how many times they talked?

Unfortunately, those kind of conversations aren’t the kind that get documented, so what they specifically talked about—we don’t know. So, while the movie is correct to show Oppenheimer speaking with Einstein, the specifics of what they’re saying is all made up for the movie.

Speaking of the movie, can we take a step back from this movie for a moment? Because, did you realize we’re doing our own little Barbieheimer combination this week, talking about both movies…and since Oppenheimer was directed by Christopher Nolan, have you seen that other blockbuster movie of his: Inception?

Well, this is a bit of Oppenheimerception because not only did the Oppenheimer movie release this week in history, but one of the major plot points in the movie also really happened this week in history.

And since we’re not doing a full event from the Apollo 11 launch today, let’s make up for that pulling an event from this week in 1945 in the Oppenheimer movie that released this week in 2023.

July 16^th, 1945. Southern New Mexico.

We’re in a barren landscape stretching out as far as the eye can see. The ground is dry and dusty, with sparse vegetation dotting the desolate expanse. The sky above is overcast, and at the center of this image is the only sign of civilization, a solitary structure—it looks like an industrial rig or tower of some sort. Surrounding the tower, a few vehicles are scattered, connected by dirt roads that crisscross the otherwise empty terrain. These vehicles hint at human activity, but their small number emphasizes the remoteness of the location.

The movie cuts closer now, to the base of the rig, where an Army truck is unloading something big—something we can assume is a component of the bomb. They take it into a tent at the base of the tower. We also see Cillian Murphy’s version of J. Robert Oppenheimer figuring out calculations; how far people had to be away from the bomb’s test. For example, Oppenheimer determines that without high winds the radiation clouds should settle within two to three miles, so in theory anyone further than that should be safe.

Then we see what I’m guessing is the nuclear core being carefully placed in the large device they took off the truck and into the tent at the base of the tower. It seems to be a case of some sort, protecting the smaller core inside. Once inside, they seal it up and raise it by wires to the top of the tower.

But they don’t drop it right away. The movie has a lot of lead-up to the test that helps build tension, and I won’t describe it all here because it’s about ten minutes of movie runtime so that could be well over four or five times that to unpack it for our purposes, but eventually, at about an hour and 55 minutes into the movie, we hear the countdown: 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…

Any noise in the movie disappears.

What used to be nighttime looks like day as spectators donning welder’s glasses watching from a long distance away. There’s still no noise, just an unnaturally bright light as the movie shows people gazing in wonder. Huge plumes of fire rise into the dark sky. The movie mentioned something about 5:30, but the bright, orange ball of flame is a stark contrast against the pitch-black sky, so I’m guessing it’s 5:30 in the morning.

Then, the sound comes back with a roar. The violence of the explosion rips through scenes of different people at different times as they hear it where they’re at. After the bright light fades away, not much time passes before sunrise, and everyone starts to cheer the successful test.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie Oppenheimer

In the interest of being up front, the establishing scene that I described of them taking the device off the truck probably didn’t happen on July 16^th. That’s when the test happened, but even in the movie after they put the core in the casing there is some time that passes until the actual test.

That test is the event from this week in history, and if you’re not familiar with the Trinity Test, that was the first successful detonation of a nuclear weapon, marking the dawn of the atomic age.

In the true story they nicknamed what the movie shows as a silver device the “Gadget’s” core. The bomb itself didn’t have a name, really, so they just called it the “gadget.” So, that sequence of putting it in the device and raising it up the tower was just a few days earlier than the test on the 16^th.

To be more specific, it was on July 12^th that the core was taken to the test area. On the 13^th, the non-nuclear components were taken to the test site and assembled with the gadget’s core. For a bit of geographical context, the test site was located in a region called Tularosa Basin, the Trinity Test Site is located on White Sands Missile Range, about 230 miles away from the Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico where they built the device. That’s over 370 kilometers.

It’s now a National Park that’s usually closed to the public, but every so often they have open houses for the public. As of this recording, the next public open house is on October 19^th, 2024, so if you want to learn more about that check out the link in the show notes for the U.S. Army’s Trinity Test Site.

After a couple days of assembling the device, it armed and ready by the evening of the 15^th.

Oh, and something from the true story we don’t see in the movie, they had a pile of mattresses underneath the gadget as it hung over 100 feet from the tower. The idea was it’d break the fall if the cables snapped and the device fell to the ground…thankfully that didn’t happen, but I’m guessing the mattresses wouldn’t have saved the nuclear device had that happened.

Just like we see in the movie, at 5:29 AM on July 16^th, the Trinity Test was performed. And just like we see in the movie, it was a massive explosion of nuclear destruction.

But, the reason for going so far into the middle of nowhere was for safety. That’s what the movie is implying when it shows Oppenheimer trying to calculate the safe distances for people to observe.

And while that did happen, the calculations they came up with simply weren’t enough.

Some have estimated about 500,000 people lived within 150 miles of the nuclear detonation. Most weren’t informed of the test. They didn’t evacuate. But, they did see the bright flash. So they knew something was going on…but the U.S. government insisted the explosion they saw was an accident. Just some ammunition that blew up.

By the time the truth came out about what it was, it became so hard to prove deaths were a result of the test. Some have reported a spike in child deaths soon after it, though. And even though we’re talking about history, we’re not talking about ancient history…for example, a new group was started in 2005, with this purpose:

Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium

Seeking justice for the unknowing, unwilling and uncompensated, innocent victims of the July 16, 1945, Trinity test in South-Central New Mexico.

I pulled that quote from their website, and you can learn more about their work at trinitydownwinders.com. I’ll make sure to include in the show notes. And while you’re in there, if you want to watch Oppenheimer, Barbie, or any of the movies from this week in history, you’ll find where to watch them on streaming with the links in the show notes.

July 10, 1940. England.

The light sand is littered with military equipment. There’s an ammo can, a couple artillery guns and the legs of someone who we can assume is diseased. On top there is barbed wire, but the only thing that’s moving in the scene is the sporadic tufts of green grass sprouting out of the sand as it blows in the wind.

It’s a scene of abandonment.

As the camera pans slowly, we can see more abandoned vehicles. A burned-out car, a broken wagon, maybe what looks like a motorcycle lying on its side. Off in the distance, huge plumes of black smoke are rising as if the battle has left this deserted beach. It’s moved on.

While we see this on the screen, there’s voiceover in the movie that gives us a news report.

This is the BBC Home Service. Here is the news. In the House of Commons this afternoon, the Prime Minister, Mr. Churchill, said, ‘What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. The Battle of Britain is about to begin.’”

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie The Battle of Britain

That brief segment comes from the 1969 film called The Battle of Britain.

And while the movie doesn’t come right out to tell us when or where we are, it’s pretty clear the deserted beach we’re seeing is the beach at Dunkirk. The Miracle of Dunkirk was an evacuation that took place between May 26^th and June 4^th, 1940. Of course, what we’re seeing in the film is after that.

So, I’ll admit that I’m speculating a little bit about the timing of when this might be. This is another example of a movie that doesn’t really show the event that started the conflict, but we do know from history that it was this week in the year 1940 when the Battle of Britain officially began.

Well, at least, that’s when the British officially recognize the dates. Other historians might not agree with those dates.

The event that we don’t see in the movie to kick off the battle was when over a hundred German bombers and fighters attacked a British shipping convoy in the English Channel while about 70 other bombers attacked dockyards in South Wales. Those attacks were the start of what would end up being a series of bombing raids, and that’s why the date of July 10^th, 1940, is commonly referred to as the start of the Battle of Britain.

Just from the name of it, you might think this is a little different than the battles that take place in a specific city, near a river, or by some other geographical landmark. And you’d be right.

The Battle of Britain took place in the skies primarily over Great Britain’s airspace between the Royal Air Force and the German Luftwaffe.

We see the aftermath of the empty beaches at Dunkirk in the film, and after the Miracle at Dunkirk, France had fallen to Nazi Germany. That happened officially on June 22^nd, 1940 with an armistice between France and Germany. Then, the Nazis set their sights on Great Britain.

The English Channel posed a problem, though, because up until this point in the war the Nazis had massive success rolling through most of Western Europe with the blitzkrieg. Basically, that was swift attack using tanks on the ground supported by the Luftwaffe in the air.

So, for Germany to be able to defeat Great Britain, they’d have to get rid of the RAF first. If they could achieve air superiority, the Luftwaffe would be able to support an invasion of Great Britain.

It’s also important to point out that Hitler wanted to focus on the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front. So, he was really hoping by defeating the RAF that would force Great Britain to sue for peace and he wouldn’t have to pull away his tanks and ground forces that could be used on the Eastern Front.

Of course, that’s not the kind of information the Nazi leaders were going to tell their enemies, so we mostly know this sort of thing by looking at it through a historical lens.

What happened next was just under four months of hard fighting that ended up seeing both Britain and Germany suffering massive losses. Thousands of aircraft were lost, tens of thousands of lives lost…but, Britain held on long enough to hand Nazi Germany their first major defeat of World War II.

If you want to watch the event depicted on screen, check out the 1969 film simply called The Battle of Britain. The news report we started this segment with starts right at the beginning at about eight and a half minutes into the film.

July 11, 1804. Weehawken, New Jersey.

Our next movie is of a Broadway musical on a dark stage. A man and a woman are the only ones visible as the song begins. The woman is Phillipa Soo’s version of Eliza Hamilton while the man is Lin-Manuel Miranda’s version of her husband, Alexander Hamilton. She sings to him, asking him to come back to sleep. He replies he has an early meeting out of town. He assures her that he’ll be back before she knows he’s gone.

As the song continues, a host of backup singers join the stage to tell the story of what happens next. They share the information about what’s happening at the meeting he mentioned earlier.

The song is being sung by Leslie Odom Jr.’s version of Aaron Burr. And conveniently for us, Burr’s song shares the information of ten bulleted items. I’m not going to repeat the exact lyrics since they’re copyrighted, of course, but here’s a summary of the ten things we learn in the song.

1. They rode across the Hudson at dawn, along with his friend William P. Van Ness.
2. Hamilton arrived with his crew. There’s a mention of Nathaniel Pendleton and a doctor.
3. Hamilton examined the terrain, but most disputes ended with no one shooting.
4. Hamilton drew the first position and the doctor turned around so he could deny seeing anything.
5. This is all happening near the same place where Hamilton’s son died.
6. Hamilton examined the trigger on his gun.
7. Aaron Burr was not a good marksman.
8. Hamilton wore his glasses that morning, and Burr had a daughter.
9. Aim no higher than the eyes.
10. There’s not really anything for number ten other than there are ten paces before turning to shoot.

Here is where the show goes into a sort of slow motion. The bullet travels from one gun to the other. Life flashing before their eyes.

A few moments later, we find out the result of the duel: Alexander Hamilton shot into the sky. Aaron Burr did not. Alexander Hamilton is hit by the bullet from Burr’s gun.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie Hamilton

That sequence comes from the movie version on Disney+ of the popular Broadway musical Hamilton. Now, I know we haven’t really covered musicals here on Based on a True Story before…and if you do want to dig into the historical accuracy of the musical Hamilton in the future then let me know!

But for today, I thought we could cover at least this one scene in Hamilton.

Of course, in the true story, life is not a musical. We all know that.

But it is true that Alexander Hamilton was shot during a duel this week in history by the Vice President of the United States, Aaron Burr. Yes, he really was the Vice President at the time he killed Hamilton. The duel took place on July 11^th, 1804.

So, what of those ten things the musical mentions?

Let’s recap each of those. Before we do, though, just as a quick reminder, I’m not listing the actual lyrics for copyright purposes, but we’ll get the gist of what it’s saying so we can dig into their historical accuracy a little better.

Also, it’s worth pointing out that this duel wasn’t something officially documented. So, what we know of it comes from those who were there. With that said, let’s get to the list.

1. They rode across the Hudson at dawn, along with his friend William P. Van Ness.

It is true that at about 5:00 AM on July 11^th, 1804, Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton each left separate docks in Manhattan to travel across the Hudson River to Weehawken, New Jersey. Although the song kind of makes it sound like they traveled together, they actually took separate boats in an attempt to keep the duel a secret. They went to New Jersey because it was a little more lenient on prosecuting duels than New York was at the time.

The song is also correct to mention Van Ness. Mr. William Peter Van Ness was a federal judge and Aaron Burr’s second. In a duel, the second is a friend of one of the parties to help make sure the duel is done in an honorable way and to the rules of the duel.

2. Hamilton arrived with his crew. There’s a mention of Nathaniel Pendleton and a doctor.

The implication here is that Burr arrived first, followed by Hamilton and someone named Nathaniel Pendleton and an unnamed doctor. That is true, as well.

Aaron Burr and the men with him arrived to the dueling grounds at about 6:30 AM and started clearing some underbrush in preparation for the duel. Alexander Hamilton and the men with him made it there about half an hour later.

Nathaniel Pendleton was a district judge and served as Hamilton’s second in the duel. The doctor was Dr. David Hosack, a friend of Hamilton’s who, as his title suggests, was a medical doctor.

3. Hamilton examined the terrain, but most disputes ended with no one shooting.

This mostly seems like a throwaway line in the song, but I suppose it would make sense for both Hamilton and Burr to examine the terrain when they get there. Since we learned Hamilton got there after Burr and the men with Burr had started clearing underbrush, perhaps that’s what this is referring to.

While it might be a stretch to suggest that most duels end up with no one shooting, it is true that many duels end up without anyone being killed. By that, I’m referring to something the musical does touch on elsewhere: Deloping. That’s the practice of purposely missing or shooting into the ground to end the duel.

For example, Alexander Hamilton had been involved in more than a dozen duels, or “affairs of honor” as they were called. That includes at least one other with Aaron Burr. Burr himself said he dueled Hamilton twice before this one, so there are some conflicting stories there. But the point is that not every duel comes away with someone dying.

4. Hamilton drew the first position and the doctor turned around so he could deny seeing anything.

From here on out, the accounts of what happened get even more blurry and conflicted. With that said, though, as the story goes, the Burr and Hamilton’s seconds cast lots to determine who would get to pick their positions.

As a little side note, casting lots is kind of like flipping a coin or rolling dice. Hamilton’s second, Nathaniel Pendleton, won that so Hamilton got to pick first position. So, the song is correct there.

Did the doctor turn around so he could deny anything? That’s an oversimplification.

It’s very likely that the two seconds were the only others present other than Burr and Hamilton themselves, and both seconds turned their backs for the actual shots. That was another form of plausible deniability so no one could say they saw any shots being fired.

What we do know is that about a month later, Dr. David Hosack, wrote down that he didn’t only turn his back, but he wasn’t even right there for the duel. He was nearby, but he said he saw Hamilton and the two seconds disappear into the woods. A short while later, he heard two shots and came rushing to find Hamilton wounded.

So, if that’s all true, then that also helps us understand why there are so many conflicting accounts of exactly what happened.

5. This is all happening near the same place where Hamilton’s son died.

This is true. While we didn’t talk about this in the segment, earlier in the musical we see Alexander Hamilton’s son, Philip, get killed in a duel. That really did happen on November 23^rd, 1801, Philip challenged a lawyer named George Eacker to a duel after Eacker had given a speech opposing Alexander Hamilton. That duel took place not at the exact same dueling grounds, but it was also in New Jersey a few miles away.

6. Hamilton examined the trigger on his gun.

We don’t really know this for sure. Alexander Hamilton was in the Continental Army and, as we saw earlier in the musical, he had been General Washingon’s aide. But, even though he was in the army, that didn’t mean he had a lot of experience with weapons himself. Sure, he’d shot them, but was he good with them?

On top of that, if we consider that after the Revolutionary War came to an end in 1783, Hamilton’s career took a similar path as Washington’s as it went from the military into politics. So, it’s not likely that he had shot a gun since the War—over two decades before the duel.

The last little bit of evidence here that’s worth mentioning is that some sources have said the guns used in the duel were hidden until they arrived at the grounds. This was part of giving people plausible deniability.

Putting these two clues together, if they didn’t see the guns on the way there and Hamilton hadn’t shot a gun in decades—sure, it makes sense that he’d examine the gun when it was handed to him.

7. Aaron Burr was not a good marksman.

Like the last point, we just don’t know for sure. Like Hamilton, Aaron Burr had been in the Continental Army. Just like Hamilton, after the Revolutionary War ended, Burr went into politics.

With that said, though, there have been some historians who have said Aaron Burr had been practicing shooting at his home in New York City leading up to the duel. Does that mean he was a good shot? We don’t know for sure. But it is likely that he had shot a gun more recently than Hamilton.

8. Hamilton wore his glasses that morning, and Burr had a daughter.

Let’s start with the part we know for sure is true: Aaron Burr did have a daughter. In fact, Aaron Burr had at least eight children. The reason I say “at least” is because, well, to put it bluntly, Burr had two wives over the course of his life, but he was known to have children outside of marriage.

For example, it was just a few years ago, in 2018, that John Pierre Burr was officially recognized as Aaron Burr’s son for the first time by the Aaron Burr Association. He was one of two children Aaron Burr had with a servant from India who worked in his household.

What of the other part of this line, though, about Hamilton wearing his glasses?

That is most likely true, although as I mentioned earlier, the accounts we have from those who were there don’t always line up.

If he did have them on, though, it wasn’t necessarily the entire time. As the story goes, even though Hamilton had already told his second that he planned on deloping, when Hamilton and Burr stood facing each other, Hamilton asked for a moment to put his glasses on.

Why did he want to put his glasses on if he had planned on deloping, or purposely missing Aaron Burr? Well, as you already know, Hamilton was killed soon after this, so we’ll never really know for sure.

Let’s do the last couple lines together:

9. Aim no higher than the eyes.
10. There’s not really anything for number ten other than there are ten paces before turning to shoot.

These last few lines work well for the song, but they don’t add much to the true story.

And, in a way, that actually works for the true story because the least accurate thing we know about is what happened right at the end.

The reason for that is because the account told by Burr’s second and Hamilton’s second at the duel don’t line up—probably because of what we talked about before with them having their backs turned.

According to one version of the story, Hamilton fired first and just as he had said he would do, he deliberately missed Aaron Burr. When Burr heard the shot hit a tree behind him, he fired back. He didn’t know Hamilton had said he was going to deliberately miss, after all. His shot did not miss.

According to another version of the story, it was Aaron Burr who shot first and hit Hamilton. The shot hit Hamilton just above his right hip. He collapsed almost immediately and involuntarily dropped his gun, which caused it to fire.

Hamilton didn’t die right away, and according to his own version, he told the doctor later that his gun was still loaded. But there was a second shot, so that would seem to back up the idea that Hamilton didn’t purposely shoot and instead didn’t realize the gun had gone off as he collapsed.

No matter what actually happened, what we do know is the outcome.

Alexander Hamilton succumbed to his wound, passing away at about 2:00 PM the next day, July 12^th, 1804.

If you want to see how the duel that happened this week in history it depicted in the movie version of the musical, hop into the show notes for a link to where you can watch Hamilton right now, and you’ll find the song in our segment starting at about two hours and 21 minutes in.

July 14, 1789. France.

Something is being dipped into a molten hot furnace. It reminds me of the times when I learned about glass blowing as a child, but that was a long time ago. This looks like something very hot, though. The camera pans to a man who is controlling the stick in the furnace.

Then, the camera cuts to a castle. Someone yells, “Murderer!” and we can hear the sound of a crowd yelling.

Another cut and we seem to be in some sort of a makeshift hospital. An injured person is carried on a stretcher. Others saying, “May he rest in peace,” as if someone has passed away.

This initial chaos in the scenes are coming together a little bit more as we see some people talking about what’s going on.

One man says it’s not a crime to fight to defend yourselves.

A woman says they took 300 barrels of powder for their rifles.

Another man says that they’ll resist the King’s troops because Paris has stormed the Bastille and everyone around him cheers.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie One Nation, One King

That depiction comes from the 2018 movie called One Nation, One King.

As you can probably guess, this depiction isn’t great…but as it turns out there really are not very many good depictions of the storming of the Bastille that started the French Revolution.

But that is what happened this week in history on July 14^th, 1789 when revolutionary insurgents seized control of a fortress called the Bastille.

The movie doesn’t really mention any of this, but if we take a step back to get some historical context, a financial crisis in France resulted in a lot of conflicts. In May, unrest started to bubble up. In June, a group known as the National Assembly came to the forefront. Meanwhile, the French king, Louis XVI, had reorganized the people in charge of the finances and dismissed Jacques Necker, the finance minister. That was on July 11^th, 1789. When that happened, people were afraid that Louis would arrest members of the National Assembly.

While this unrest wasn’t new and it had been brewing for a while, when people overcame the Bastille—a political prison and fortress—that gave people the confidence they needed to continue to revolt against the monarchy that had ruled France for centuries.

If you want to watch the event as it’s depicted in the 2018 movie One Nation, One King, the day of July 14^th, 1789 starts at about three minutes into the film.

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 July 10^th, 1856, Nikola Tesla was born in the Austrian Empire—but is now Croatia. He was an engineer and inventor who worked with Thomas Edison for a while before striking out on his own. There was a movie about his life released in 2020 that was simply called Tesla and we covered the historical accuracy of that movie back on episode #201 of Based on a True Story with Tesla’s biographer Richard Munson.

On July 11^th, 1274, Robert the Bruce was born in Scotland. He’s been depicted in a few different movies, including the 1995 movie Braveheart where Angus Macfadyen portrayed Robert the Bruce. We covered that film years ago, way back on episode #45 of Based on a True Story.

On July 14^th, 1912, Woodrow Wilson Guthrie was born in Okemah, Oklahoma. He’s better known simply as Woody Guthrie, the folk singer whose music focused on songs of socialism and anti-fascism. His story was told in the 1976 movie Bound for Glory, and as a little peek behind the mic, since I live in Oklahoma, I’ve taken photos of some local artists who have been inspired by one of Woody Guthrie’s famous guitars…you see, in the mid-1940s as World War II was raging, Woody Guthrie wrote an anti-Hitler song that gained popularity with the United States’ Communist Party. As a part of that anti-fascist mentality, there’s a famous photo of Woody where he’s playing his guitar with a label on it saying, “This machine kills fascists.”

I’ll throw a link in the show notes if you want to see one of my photos of it.

Onto our segment about ‘based on a true story’ movies released this week in history, this week marks the 21^st anniversary of the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie: The Curse of the Black Pearl released on July 9^th, 2003.

And right away, I know what you’re thinking…that’s not “based on a true story!”

And you’re right…obviously.

But…pirates existed, so it’s obviously pulling some things from history. So, I had a chat with Colin Woodard, the author of the acclaimed book The Republic of Pirates to see how well the pirates in the Pirates franchise hold up to the real pirates of history.

And if you followed me on that, extra points to you! Haha!

Okay, here’s an excerpt from my chat with Colin about The Curse of the Black Pearl:

Dan LeFebvre  04:18

The first movie in the franchise is the Curse of the Black Pearl and it sets up one of the primary locations where a lot of the stories really throughout the entire franchise take place: Port Royal. Was port Royal a real place?

Colin Woodard  04:32

Port Royal was an important and rather body port in Jamaica. It was for a long time Jamaica’s primary port and therefore, in the whole English and later British you know, Americas that was the primary hub for their Caribbean operations. The empire of Jamaica that was sort of the headquarters of the British fleet, protecting their possessions in the West Indies and the largest presence for the English and British there. However, or where Disney has kind of taken a flight of fancy or taken advantage of, of flexible narratives in television. Port Royal had been largely destroyed by the time the pirate outbreak came out. There was a terror it was located on a peninsula jutting out into into the into a harbor, behind what what was what was Kingston which became the real fort for the Jamaica. And there was a terrible earthquake that essentially caused the sandy structure of the peninsula to collapse along with like half the town drowning many people and pretty much portrayal never recovered from that. And that would have occurred when the pirates who make up the real golden age pirate boom from which all of our mythology and pop cultural references to Pirates of the Caribbean comes from those those they would have been children at that time when fork oil was destroyed. It was sort of a legendary place not exactly of pirates, but of the buccaneer generation, who preceded them who weren’t in general pirates in the sense that they were outlaws from the perspective of their own governments. So the real piracy outbreak took place somewhere else, not in Port Royal.

Dan LeFebvre  06:11

Okay. Well, you mentioned the time there, I wanted to ask you about that, because the movie doesn’t really let us know what time period is this is taking place would have been the 1600s 1700s. One word that the pirates, the

Colin Woodard  06:25

pirate outbreak that that inspired all the pirates and fiction, and eventually, the Pirates of the Caribbean movies took place between 1714 and 1719 in the Caribbean. And then many of the pirates who survived moved on into Africa, and especially the Indian Ocean for sort of an epilogue time period. But the great pirate outbreak was sort of the early part of the 1700s and was hubbed. Not at Fort royal, but around Nassau in the Bahamas, which was their pirates nest. And there was sort of a key book after most of the pirates had been captured, but some of them were still alive. That was published in 17 2004, called the general history of the pirates spelled with a Y. And it was that book written by an author using a pseudonym, who was not Daniel Defoe, but rather somebody else was the book that really became a best seller at the time and 1724 on both sides of the Atlantic. And it set up all of the received myths and stories about the pirates, which become the grist for all of your our pirate legends and pirate pop culture. That was the book that, you know, Robert Louis Stevenson would later find when he wrote Treasure Island and kidnapped and thus ended up inspiring in a secondary sense, the early Disney films, the black and whites deal of Blackbeard and others, and then eventually the the more recent Pirates of the Caribbean series with Johnny Depp.

Dan LeFebvre  07:53

So it really just kind of started trailing off even further and further from that book, kind of just everybody kind of writing their own fiction and trailing off.

Colin Woodard  08:01

And that book was funny because it’s a combination of some passages are exactly correct and quoted almost verbatim from what at the time would have been sort of secret or privileged government documents the author was given access to and other parts, we can prove our complete flights of fantasy made up to the exciting and, and give good stories. And there’s other parts where we can’t prove it one way or another, because the the source documents will be missing. But you can make pretty good guesses after you kind of follow the pattern for a while. But that book, so that was 1724. Right. And that’s kind of the gives you a bookend because the moment where the mythology really kicks off is in 1724. After that big pirate outbreak and the pirates that are traced in that book, start legitimately enough with the sort of, you know, the the Avatar The precursor, an inspirational figure, for that generation of pirates, a man named Henry Avery, who committed a was the subject of a global manhunt in 1696 for depredations in the Indian Ocean and led him to come to Nassau to sell his to sell his ill gotten gains. But that’s the time period really. 6096 is the inspirational figure and then 1714 to 1719 1720 21. Outside the Caribbean was kind of the core of the era that the Pirates of the Caribbean movies are trying to replicate. They of course, are very fuzzy about exactly when it takes place. But the technology, the time and most of the references and what they’re talking about are events that would have taken place them.

Dan LeFebvre  09:30

Okay, okay, well go back to the first movie. At the very beginning of it. The character of Elizabeth’s one invokes parlay. She says, and I’ll quote from the movie, according to the code of the brethren set down by the pirates, Morgan and Bartholomew, you have to take me to your captain, and there’s a few things to unpack there was parlay a real thing was there, a pirate code and we’re Morgan and Bartholomew, real people.

Colin Woodard  09:53

I mean, a concept of parlay generally speaking existed in sort of the way warfare I was conducted in that era, you know, this was still in formal warfare, it was still that sort of gentlemanly time where you all wear proper uniforms assemble in a field and marched each other to be shot sort of thing. And people will come, you know, sit on the hillside and watch the battle for entertainment. But on you know, in that era, you’d wait you could wave a white handkerchief or flag and you know, march out with your flags and have a parlay have a discussion between the commanders or emissaries or the two forces to discuss, usually terms of surrender or something or other. So the general concept of the flag of truce and to parlay to talk and discuss existed, but I’ve seen no evidence that the pirates themselves practice parley. I’ve never heard any references of that happening, nor that there was any specific pilot parlaying in their specific ethical culture and codes of behavior. The pirates did have you know, ships, you know, contracts HIPPS codes of that everyone would agree to their sort of articles of agreement becoming pirates. The most famous one to survive was captured when the pirate Bartholomew Roberts was captured a bit later in the African theater. But it gives us an example of a full set of articles it doesn’t mention parley particularly, and other pirates, there’s lots of references in the real documents and such to a pirate code or the laws of the ship that seem to correspond more or less and map to the ones that Bartholomew Roberts was using. So in other words, there were these chips codes out there, but they don’t appear to you know, each ship would have had their own set of codes, they’re probably largely similar, but parley was not a major feature. Okay, and it

Dan LeFebvre  11:44

sounds like maybe that’s where they even got the name Bartholomew from even though i The impression I got from the movie was that the last name but it sounds like I mean, it still sounds piratey

Colin Woodard  11:54

so they’ve taken you know, Sir Henry Morgan’s name and thrown it out there. Henry Morgan was a you know, a privateer, you know, a generation or two earlier, he wasn’t really a pirate. It was a pirate from the perspective of the Spanish and the people who’s attacking but, you know, in in, he was so successful at what he was doing back then, that when he got back home, you know, the sovereign made him Sir Henry Morgan and made him Governor of Jamaica. He wasn’t an outlaw at all he was, did terrible things, but he was not a pirate. And then yes, Bartholomew Roberts appears to be where they borrowed the name Bartholomew, a pirate who probably was in the Caribbean theater as an ordinary pirate and sailor, and after the pirates were evicted from the Caribbean theater circa 1718 1719. He later emerges among the diaspora, the refugees, Pirates of the Caribbean. He emerges in Africa and the Indian Ocean theater is one of the most fearsome Pirates of the epilogue period as I think.

Dan LeFebvre  12:48

Okay, since it is in the title of the first movie, I want to ask about the Black Pearl as a ship, and according to the movie, there are two very fast ships the Navy ship is called the interceptor and it said to be the fastest ship, but then there’s the Black Pearl that gains on her and, of course, there seems to be some supernatural boost that the girl has in the movie, but for ships like we see in the movie, how fast are we talking? How fast would they go?

Colin Woodard  13:12

Oh, they’re pretty fast for age of sail. I mean, a frigate on I mean, it depends on the conditions you’re on right? Whether you’re sailing into the wind the winds behind you, you know, the points of sail How fast is the wind is your ship in good shape, but you know, a top speed of a warship, like a frigate, a pretty flexible one might be about 14 knots, you’re talking what 15 miles an hour sort of thing. And huge ship like, you know, man of a ship with a line with multiple decks of cannon that weren’t exactly designed to be flexible. They were designed for those gentlemanly battles, right, where you line up your ships and sail by and shoot at each other sort of floating fortresses they might make 12 knots in exactly the right conditions. Your typical merchant vessels you’re talking eight or nine knots or you know 10 miles an hour sort of thing sounds pretty slow guy know when you think about it in terms of, you know, the vessels with outboard motors, but that’s a pretty good clip for a large ship in that era. But yeah, you’re not moving at the speed of the 21st century for sure not to speed boats.

If you want to watch the movie that released this week in history and kicked off the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, there’s a link in the show notes for where you can watch 2003’s The Curse of the Black Pearl.

And if you want to hear what Colin has to say about the true story behind the rest of the Pirates movies, you’ll also find a link to BOATS episode #216 with Colin all about the whole Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.