Jim DiEugenio spanks The Post

[James DiEugenio]

In the film, when Ellsberg is copying the Pentagon Papers, he actually says something like : And Johnson affirmed Kennedy's Vietnam policies.

That is another one that made me wince.

Because I really do not think that Spielberg and Hanks are sophisticated enough to know what a huge deception that is.

In that fine book Virtual JFK, edited by Jim Blight, he exposes this as being a deliberate trick by LBJ.  The idea was to say in public he was continuing Kennedy's policies but to deny that Kennedy was withdrawing at the time of his death.

 He even wanted McNamara to say that he really did not mean that stuff about NSAM 263!!  

As John Newman makes clear, Johnson had the real intel reports which showed America was losing.  What Kennedy was doing was using the rosy reports to build his withdrawal plan around.  Since we were winning, we can leave.  But LBJ told McNamara: how can we leave if we are losing.  Which shows just how divergent the two men were on Vietnam.  Kennedy never considered it a vital national interest, so he figured its not worth going to war for.  LBJ was a classic Cold Warrior just like Nixon, so we had to fight the commies there. Or the Red Menace would spread.

Like I said the PP has a section on the phased withdrawal Kennedy had planned.  To the end of his days, Bradlee never mentioned it.

Edited January 23, 2018 by James DiEugenio

[Thomas Graves]

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

Pages 378-81, of Destiny Betrayed, second edition, shows what I still think is the best evidence for Vietnam and Dulles being part of the JFK case.

If you think that Vietnam has nothing to do with it,  then this is superfluous.

But if its superfluous, why try and hijack the thread?

There are others here that really are superfluous like JFK's mythological "first marriage".

Thanks Cory, but I already analyzed this at length, it something that the phony Epstein started https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/the-abstract-reality-of-edward-epstein

As I said, TG knows next to nothing about New Orleans/Garrison, and it appears he knows even less about JFK and Vietnam.  

James,

With all due respect, I was just wondering if your fine review should be on this part of the Education Forum.

--  Tommy 

PS  Are we to believe, from Joe Pesci's script in "JFK," that even the assassin(s) who fired the shots at Kennedy didn't know who killed Kennedy?

Edited January 23, 2018 by Thomas Graves

[Pat Speer]

Re The Post...

The movie makes it quite clear that the Pentagon Papers story was an Ellsberg/NYT story, and that the Washington Post only jumped in when the Nixon Administration used the courts to stop the Times.

It also makes it quite clear that The Washington Post was an establishment paper, that was historically quite cozy with the government.

This, moreover, is the source of the drama.

1. Will The Post break from its past and help reveal something the government doesn't want revealed, even if revealing this could cost the Post's owners a fortune?

2. Will a widow used to lunching with the Washington elite turn her back on her friends and advisors and put her family's company at risk? To tell a story the government doesn't want told?

 

The ultimate answer, of course, is YES. Which is why the film was made. It celebrates both the importance of the fourth estate as a watchdog on the government, and the importance of WOMEN standing up against the good ole boy network in American life.

It's not about Vietnam. It's about Trump.

I saw it on its opening weekend. It received a standing ovation, for obvious reasons. Meryl Streep was fantastic, as usual. Hanks was very good. Spielberg was Spielberg, which is to say the film was designed to bring about a response, more than it was designed as a history lesson, and it brought about that response.

Many women in the audience left the showing with tears in their eyes.

P.S. The comparisons to JFK are actually quite appropriate. With JFK, Stone used the Garrison case as a stepping stone to make a point about the assassination. With The Post, Spielberg used the The Washington Post's role in the Pentagon Papers saga as a stepping stone to make a point about the importance of the press, and the importance of women.

Neither director was interested in making a documentary. And neither one did.

 

[Thomas Graves]

21 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

Re The Post...

The movie makes it quite clear that the Pentagon Papers story was an Ellsberg/NYT story, and that the Washington Post only jumped in when the Nixon Administration used the courts to stop the Times.

It also makes it quite clear that The Washington Post was an establishment paper, that was historically quite cozy with the government.

This, moreover, is the source of the drama.

1. Will The Post break from its past and help reveal something the government doesn't want revealed, even if revealing this could cost the Post's owners a fortune?

2. Will a widow used to lunching with the Washington elite turn her back on her friends and advisors and put her family's company at risk? To tell a story the government doesn't want told?

 

The ultimate answer, of course, is YES. Which is why the film was made. It celebrates both the importance of the fourth estate as a watchdog on the government, and the importance of WOMEN standing up against the good ole boy network in American life.

It's not about Vietnam. It's about Trump.

I saw it on its opening weekend. It received a standing ovation, for obvious reasons. Meryl Streep was fantastic, as usual. Hanks was very good. Spielberg was Spielberg, which is to say the film was designed to bring about a response, more than it was designed as a history lesson, and it brought about that response.

Many women in the audience left the showing with tears in their eyes.

P.S. The comparisons to JFK are actually quite appropriate. With JFK, Stone used the Garrison case as a stepping stone to make a point about the assassination. With The Post, Spielberg used the The Washington Post's role in the Pentagon Papers saga as a stepping stone to make a point about the importance of the press, and the importance of women.

Neither director was interested in making a documentary. And neither one did.

 

Excellent post, Pat.  (No pun intended.)

--  Tommy 

[James DiEugenio]

Pat:

You do not know the whole story and I don't expect you to.  But that was really kind of a cheap shot I think. Which explains why TG liked it.

In the original script of The Post by Liz Hannah, there is exactly one scene with Ellsberg.  That is the scene where Bagdikian goes up to Cambridge to get the PP.  In other words, there was virtually zero on the Ellsberg back story and what was to come for him.  In the latter aspect,  it resembles the present film.

That script was inspired by a stage play by Geoffrey Cowan. In a play you can obviously excuse not including the Ellsberg stuff.  Especially in an off Broadway production. Much harder to do in a 50 million dollar film.

When Jim Goodale, the general counsel of the Times, heard of the project he asked to see the script. He was shocked and outraged at what they had done.  It was ONLY AT THIS POINT that a new writer was brought in and the prologue was now added.  Without that, there would have been about zero worth of Ellsberg. The guy who faced  a 115 year sentence at he hands of Nixon and Mitchell.

Which proves my point about Hanks and Spielberg.  They are not historians.  They did not know and what makes it worse, they did not really care.  Whenever I write a critique I try to fill in some of the back story if I can.  If not then the review is just not worth every much.  Anybody can say: I liked it or I did not like it.  I see my job as informing the reader and hoping to elevate his knowledge and his taste.

And BTW, the points the film tries to sell about Graham's plight are as phony as the other parts. The investment bank which was backing her stock offering was Lazard Freres.  Maybe Pat did not know this but Lazard Freres was where her father started his career as a banker.  The idea they would pull out is a bit ludicrous, especially based on the clause the film uses about a natural disaster.   The idea she was going to be a felon, which endangered her TV stations is also ludicrous.  It was a civil case from the start. And the idea of collusion is just as silly.  It did not come up in any hearing. In fact, the Post fired their law firm the next year because they thought Bickel and Abrams were much better.  

As per her friends and advisors, Nixon and Bebe Rebozo had already tried to challenge the TV station she owned in Jacksonville.  I think she got the message that this was not her friend. And, as I note in the review, the whole McNamara thing is fabricated.  Never happened.  Which, I guess is Ok.

The whole thing about a Woman coming of age is, as I tried to show, just ridiculous. Graham backed the Vietnam War from the day LBJ began his escalation.  Actually before that since he charmed her into backing him before he started his escalation.  Afterwards, Graham took a pass on Iran Contra.  I know this for a fact since Bob Parry was at Newsweek at the time.  I exposed what the real reason behind the desire to print the PP was.  It was the rivalry with the NYT.  

Bradlee admitted this and I quote him.  Graham admitted this and I quote her.  Goodale told me the same thing.  But the film tries to sell us something else, which is phony.  If that is the kind of movie you like, then fine.  We have a difference of opinion about film criticism.

I saw the movie twice and no one stood up. There was a smattering of applause the first time. But I wonder if anyone would have done that if they knew the real facts of the PP, the Post and the making of the film.  And this leaves out the real hero of the whole ordeal which is Ellsberg. Which you would not get from this film. 

'

Edited January 23, 2018 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

I forgot to add, in the original script, there were no scenes about the NY Times either.

And in that original script, the writer had Graham making speech before the Supreme Court.

Yech.

Edited January 23, 2018 by James DiEugenio

[Ron Bulman]

7 hours ago, David G. Healy said:

what is "endlessly" fascinating is Lone Nut response to Oliver Stones movie, JFK. Nearly 30 years and the Marquette gang hasn't lost a step.

Bingo.

[Ron Bulman]

Thanks Jim, for the education, again.  I lived through, in High school, the Pentagon Papers but didn't pay attention.  Over the years I acquired a general understanding of them and their importance.  Never read any of the books on them.  The article illuminates my naivety.  

My son said Dad, you might be interested in this movie.  I thought Tom Hanks, Reclaiming Parkland, nah.  Maybe someday you too will understand a little better.

[Pat Speer]

Stories based on true stories are stories which make use of a few real people and incidents.

I don't expect Spielberg--or Stone for that matter--to tell us a story with the same attention to detail one might get from a documentary.

That's not how the art form works. Movies in general, and Hollywood films in particular, tell the story the film makers want to tell. Historical accuracy is secondary, or worse.

Argo, for example, won best picture even though the last third of it (the daring escape at the airport) was completely fabricated. It's clear someone thought well this is interesting but it's not a "movie" unless we have a daring escape. So voila, a daring escape was added. The same kind of thinking, no doubt, went into many of the choices Spielberg made with The Post. 

Now, do I wish film-makers were more interested in historical accuracy? Sure.

But that doesn't stop me from appreciating The Great Escape, The Sound of Music, and The Untouchables, or any of the hundreds of excellent movies "based on a true story." I mean, did a carriage really roll down the Odessa Steps, as presented in The Battleship Potemkin? I suspect not.

Let's not even talk about Shakespeare.

 

[Joe Bauer]

My wife and I are movie buffs, although she is much more film savvy, having seen thousands since she was a child.

My wife does not however, share my interest in the JFK case, nor the RFK and MLK ones, at all.

I dragged her to see Tom Hanks "Parkland" which I have mentioned before was torturous for her to sit through.

Two weeks ago I incurred a spinal trauma including fracturing one of my vertebras with 3 accompanying bulging discs. For this reason I didn't accompany my wife when she saw "The Post" this last weekend.

However, I always ask her what she thinks of the films she sees without me. I enjoy her reviews.

I like to compare hers to other reviewers such as our own SF Chronicle's Mick LaSalle.

My wife liked "The Post" from a standpoint of film structure, plot drives, pacing, editing. All of this built and led well to a high emotion connecting ending ( a Spielberg specialty? ) which elicited some applause from a 2/3rds full audience.

She didn't give any historical accuracy opinion regards the film. She isn't a student of the film's Washington Post/ PP real life event subject beyond what I would think the average college educated baby boomer would be and I think, like 90+% or more of every other person who sees this film. 

It's a very small percentage of Americans who know anything close to the research knowledge shared on this forum regards the PP and everything else JFK.

After reading all the response postings in this thread I know I am going to feel more comfortable with Jim DiEugenio's take on the film ( I know, I still haven't seen it ) for the reasons he states which I conclude are based on his deeper and stronger reference research into this area, especially how the main characters ( Graham and Bradley ) are portrayed and their true relationships with secret agencies, LBJ and JFK himself.

Establishment critics hammered and still hammer Oliver Stone's "JFK" for his supposed inaccuracies and embellished dramatic license which they claim makes the film more a myth than not.

But my assumption from what I have read here is that Spielberg does the same thing with "The Post." Especially in his portrayal of Katharine Graham and Ben Bradley as over-sized more courageous heroes  ( versus Daniel Ellsberg? ) than they were in true life.

Both Stone and Speilberg are excellent story writers. And they both know that to keep making money in films, you must present something clearly larger than life.

And as far as Spielberg wanting to highlight the importance and courage of women, where the heck is a film about a true iconic and even heroic American woman ( more famous and accomplished than Katherine Graham ) ... journalist Dorothy Kilgallen?

 A woman who "sacrificed her life" in middle age to reveal truths she felt we needed to know.

 

Edited January 23, 2018 by Joe Bauer

[Cory Santos]

When 13 days came out, which Costner utilized to make Kenneth O'Donnel appear as one of the central figures in the Cuban Missile Crisis,

Robert McNamara stated:

"For God's sakes, Kenny O'Donnell didn't have any role whatsoever in the missile crisis; he was a political appointment secretary to the President; that's absurd."

Film can be effectively utilized for propaganda because it appeals to our senses.

As an actor, I am frequently reminded by my acting coach that my body, language, movements, everything I do on stage must tell the audience what they should think and feel about the scene. 

So, I see the point about JFK and the comparison to this film.

 

Edited January 23, 2018 by Cory Santos

[Michael Walton]

9 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

You do not know the whole story and I don't expect you to.  But that was really kind of a cheap shot I think. Which explains why TG liked it.

Jim I remember  months ago before our  falling out when I  heard about this film and I  suggested  you write a review  of it. But after reading  Pat's  post I  don't  get the impression  at all that what he wrote was a cheap shot in reply to what you've  been posting  here.

I  applaud  you  for knowing  the backstory of the script and what really happened  with the  PP. But all scripted films take liberties  with the truth some  more  than  others.

Even Stone's films are often considered  metaphors for the larger meaning of  the  story. IMO his JFK film was one that needed to be told back then after years of whitewash. Wall Street's message was about greed and how it corrupts. And so on.

I  do agree with  you  about Bradlee. I  sometimes wonder if he was informing on his friend  JFK. But as Pat described it sounds like they weren't  trying to convey what really happened with the  PP. Does that mean Graham, Bradlee and the  rest were  beacons of honesty and truth? Most probably  not.

But if we want history lessons in film there are plenty of documentaries out there one good one  being Stone's Untold History of the US. But beware on the JFK segment because he's  pretty blunt about his faults as well as his good deeds. Which is entirely appropriate.

 

Edited January 23, 2018 by Michael Walton

[James DiEugenio]

Michael:

Being a film critic, and taking that job seriously, I am thoroughly aware of the issue of dramatic license in feature films.  I have dealt with it in other venues, I have read about it in books on criticism.   If you read my review you will see how i address this. Apparently, after Pat's sideswipe, some people did not.

Its one thing to use the record in an expansive form and to exaggerate things that have happened, and to fill in things for dramatic effect using information from different locales  for reasons of emotional effect or dramatic unity.  Or to push the envelope when things about a subject are not known. This is OK if you use things that are constant with what a character does elsewhere, without breaking the boundaries of his credibility, to create a dramatic truth about that person or the situation.  

What I objected to in The Post was that the film simply created situations that 1.) Never happened, and 2.) Could not have happened and 3.) Completely distorted the record.

If you did not read my review please look at it again. And please look at the footnotes.  I read a lot of source material and I interviewed two of the only attorneys who are still around who argued the case.  A critic is supposed to do this kind of thing so that he has a good background in order to make judgments about what the film makers have done with the original material.  Consider:

a.) The scene where Graham goes to visit McNamara at his home to question him with: "OMG how could you have done those things in Vietnam and mislead the public about them."  And it ends with McNamara literally screaming at her about not printing the PP because he knows Nixon will go after her.

I saw the film twice because I could barely believe this scene when I watched it the first time.  Why?  It did not happen,  it could not have happened,  it completely violates the record and it violently distorts the characters in the scene.  First, McNamara never discouraged anyone from publishing the PP.  In the twelve books I read on the subject I never saw any reference to him doing any such thing. And as I noted in that review, McNamara never interfered with their writing either.  Without him, there would have been no PP, and one reason he classified them Top Secret is because he did not want LBJ to find out about it.

Secondly, the idea that somehow Kay Graham was surprised by what was in the PP and wanted to verbally scold someone involved, this is utterly ludicrous.  Again, as I wrote, but Pat ignored, LBJ deliberately charmed her and let her know he planned on escalating the war BEFORE HE DID SO.  Therefore she had to know he was lying during the 1964 campaign when he said he would seek no wider war--meaning it would not go beyond what JFK had done: no combat troops, no Rolling Thunder.  Then once the colossal escalations of 1965 began, the Washington Post endorsed them all.  And when the Times criticized LBJ for civilian casualties, the Post criticized the Times as being comparable to commie literature! During a board meeting, when someone suggested withdrawing, Graham said, "You're so stupid."  Bradlee inserted a new lead reporter in Saigon who actually tried to back LBJ when LBJ said Tet was actually a failure and the USA won.  Does it get any worse than that? 

So please, show me how this scene is dramatically justified in any normal sense of the term?  It is not.  It is simply misleading the public in order to aggrandize the film's chosen protagonist into something she was never close to being.  At the same time it does that, it distorts, (lies is the more accurate term) what McNamara did in order to use him as her foil. 

b.) Take the scene where Bagdikian collects all the 19 other newspapers that have now printed the PP in a grocery bag and shows them to Bradlee. Bagdikian says words to the effect, I always wanted to be part of a rebellion. Bradlee takes the bag over to Graham's office and takes them out and lays them on her desk.  He says something like, look at what you started, and they celebrate jubilantly.

I thought this was the worst scene in the film.  In some ways even worse than example A. Again, I could find no instance in any book or other source that this happened.  But besides that, Bradlee and Graham had nothing to do with those other newspapers publishing the story.  As I wrote in my review, this was Ellsberg recopying the PP and sending them to other newspapers unsolicited.  And every time he did that, he buried himself a little further with John Mitchell and Nixon and gave them more cause to charge him with theft and conspiracy.  The indictment against Ellsberg was for a prison term of 115 years.  In other words, a life term.  The defense for him and Russo cost almost a million dollars of money they did not have. Stanley Sheinbaum, a famous philanthropist in LA, raised the money for their defense.  So again, what the film does is to bestow heroic qualities that never occurred and are not earned on their two protagonists, and it deprives the man who really was a hero of any credit for what he actually did.

As I noted in my review, the reason the Post wanted the PP was simply a matter of Bradlee's naked ambition. He always wanted to raise their profile to the level of the NYT.  But personal and professional ambition is not really something that is heroic. Its not something that you can sell to an unsuspecting audience. So Hanks and Spielberg took the easy way out--they fabricated things that never happened, and then transferred what Ellsberg had done to their two chosen protagonists in order to camouflage that fact.  And I said, they produced a Washington/Hollywood "feel good" movie that only makes people who do not understand the true facts feel good. Personally, I felt sorry for Ellsberg.  Even more the second time I saw the film.

If that is what you and Pat like in something as serious as the tale of the PP and the Vietnam War, fine.  Go ahead and feel good about what Spielberg and Hanks invented.  But that is not what Kennedys and King.com is about, and that is not what Bob Parry is about. The Vietnam War was probably the most tragic large-scale event in American history since the Civil War. It eventually took the lives of about four million people, both Americans and Vietnamese. With Bradlee and Graham cheerleading LBJ all the way.  At the trial of Ellsberg in LA, in testimony that went largely unreported, Arthur Schlesinger stated under oath that none of it would have happened, i. e. the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, the landing of combat troops at Da Nang, Rolling Thunder, if Kennedy had lived.  As LBJ once said, Kay Graham was worth 15 divisions to him in South Vietnam, because she fortified public opinion for him.  

If you and Pat want to paint that as heroic, then fine.  Personally, I will be damned before I join your club.

 

Edited January 23, 2018 by James DiEugenio

[Kirk Gallaway]

14 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Pat:

You do not know the whole story and I don't expect you to.  But that was really kind of a cheap shot I think. Which explains why TG liked it.

In the original script of The Post by Liz Hannah, there is exactly one scene with Ellsberg.  That is the scene where Bagdikian goes up to Cambridge to get the PP.  In other words, there was virtually zero on the Ellsberg back story and what was to come for him.  In the latter aspect,  it resembles the present film.

That script was inspired by a stage play by Geoffrey Cowan. In a play you can obviously excuse not including the Ellsberg stuff.  Especially in an off Broadway production. Much harder to do in a 50 million dollar film.

When Jim Goodale, the general counsel of the Times, heard of the project he asked to see the script. He was shocked and outraged at what they had done.  It was ONLY AT THIS POINT that a new writer was brought in and the prologue was now added.  Without that, there would have been about zero worth of Ellsberg. The guy who faced  a 115 year sentence at he hands of Nixon and Mitchell.

Which proves my point about Hanks and Spielberg.  They are not historians.  They did not know and what makes it worse, they did not really care.  Whenever I write a critique I try to fill in some of the back story if I can.  If not then the review is just not worth every much.  Anybody can say: I liked it or I did not like it.  I see my job as informing the reader and hoping to elevate his knowledge and his taste.

And BTW, the points the film tries to sell about Graham's plight are as phony as the other parts. The investment bank which was backing her stock offering was Lazard Freres.  Maybe Pat did not know this but Lazard Freres was where her father started his career as a banker.  The idea they would pull out is a bit ludicrous, especially based on the clause the film uses about a natural disaster.   The idea she was going to be a felon, which endangered her TV stations is also ludicrous.  It was a civil case from the start. And the idea of collusion is just as silly.  It did not come up in any hearing. In fact, the Post fired their law firm the next year because they thought Bickel and Abrams were much better.  

As per her friends and advisors, Nixon and Bebe Rebozo had already tried to challenge the TV station she owned in Jacksonville.  I think she got the message that this was not her friend. And, as I note in the review, the whole McNamara thing is fabricated.  Never happened.  Which, I guess is Ok.

The whole thing about a Woman coming of age is, as I tried to show, just ridiculous. Graham backed the Vietnam War from the day LBJ began his escalation.  Actually before that since he charmed her into backing him before he started his escalation.  Afterwards, Graham took a pass on Iran Contra.  I know this for a fact since Bob Parry was at Newsweek at the time.  I exposed what the real reason behind the desire to print the PP was.  It was the rivalry with the NYT.  

Bradlee admitted this and I quote him.  Graham admitted this and I quote her.  Goodale told me the same thing.  But the film tries to sell us something else, which is phony.  If that is the kind of movie you like, then fine.  We have a difference of opinion about film criticism.

I saw the movie twice and no one stood up. There was a smattering of applause the first time. But I wonder if anyone would have done that if they knew the real facts of the PP, the Post and the making of the film.  And this leaves out the real hero of the whole ordeal which is Ellsberg. Which you would not get from this film. 

'

 

2 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Michael:

Being a film critic, and taking that job seriously, I am thoroughly aware of the issue of dramatic license in feature films.  I have dealt with it in other venues, I have read about it in books on criticism.   If you read my review you will see how i address this. Apparently, after Pat's sideswipe, some people did not.

Its one thing to use the record in an expansive form and to exaggerate things that have happened, and to fill in things for dramatic effect using information from different locales  for reasons of emotional effect or dramatic unity.  Or to push the envelope when things about a subject are not known. This is OK if you use things that are constant with what a character does elsewhere, without breaking the boundaries of his credibility, to create a dramatic truth about that person or the situation.  

What I objected to in The Post was that the film simply created situations that 1.) Never happened, and 2.) Could not have happened and 3.) Completely distorted the record.

If you did not read my review please look at it again. And please look at the footnotes.  I read a lot of source material and I interviewed two of the only attorneys who are still around who argued the case.  A critic is supposed to do this kind of thing so that he has a good background in order to make judgments about what the film makers have done with the original material.  Consider:

a.) The scene where Graham goes to visit McNamara at his home to question him with: "OMG how could you have done those things in Vietnam and mislead the public about them."  And it ends with McNamara literally screaming at her about not printing the PP because he knows Nixon will go after her.

I saw the film twice because I could barely believe this scene when I watched it the first time.  Why?  It did not happen,  it could not have happened,  it completely violates the record and it violently distorts the characters in the scene.  First, McNamara never discouraged anyone from publishing the PP.  In the twelve books I read on the subject I never saw any reference to him doing any such thing. And as I noted in that review, McNamara never interfered with their writing either.  Without him, there would have been no PP, and one reason he classified them Top Secret is because he did not want LBJ to find out about it.

Secondly, the idea that somehow Kay Graham was surprised by what was in the PP and wanted to verbally scold someone involved, this is utterly ludicrous.  Again, as I wrote, but Pat ignored, LBJ deliberately charmed her and let her know he planned on escalating the war BEFORE HE DID SO.  Therefore she had to know he was lying during the 1964 campaign when he said he would seek no wider war--meaning it would not go beyond what JFK had done: no combat troops, no Rolling Thunder.  Then once the colossal escalations of 1965 began, the Washington Post endorsed them all.  And when the Times criticized LBJ for civilian casualties, the Post criticized the Times as being comparable to commie literature! During a board meeting, when someone suggested withdrawing, Graham said, "You're so stupid."  Bradlee inserted a new lead reporter in Saigon who actually tried to back LBJ when LBJ said Tet was actually a failure and the USA won.  Does it get any worse than that? 

So please, show me how this scene is dramatically justified in any normal sense of the term?  It is not.  It is simply misleading the public in order to aggrandize the film's chosen protagonist into something she was never close to being.  At the same time it does that, it distorts, (lies is the more accurate term) what McNamara did in order to use him as her foil. 

b.) Take the scene where Bagdikian collects all the 19 other newspapers that have now printed the PP in a grocery bag and shows them to Bradlee. Bagdikian says words to the effect, I always wanted to be part of a rebellion. Bradlee takes the bag over to Graham's office and takes them out and lays them on her desk.  He says something like, look at what you started, and they celebrate jubilantly.

I thought this was the worst scene in the film.  In some ways even worse than example A. Again, I could find no instance in any book or other source that this happened.  But besides that, Bradlee and Graham had nothing to do with those other newspapers publishing the story.  As I wrote in my review, this was Ellsberg recopying the PP and sending them to other newspapers unsolicited.  And every time he did that, he buried himself a little further with John Mitchell and Nixon and gave them more cause to charge him with theft and conspiracy.  The indictment against Ellsberg was for a prison term of 115 years.  In other words, a life term.  The defense for him and Russo cost almost a million dollars of money they did not have. Stanley Sheinbaum, a famous philanthropist in LA, raised the money for their defense.  So again, what the film does is to bestow heroic qualities that never occurred and are not earned on their two protagonists, and it deprives the man who really was a hero of any credit for what he actually did.

As I noted in my review, the reason the Post wanted the PP was simply a matter of Bradlee's naked ambition. He always wanted to raise their profile to the level of the NYT.  But personal and professional ambition is not really something that is heroic. Its not something that you can sell to an unsuspecting audience. So Hanks and Spielberg took the easy way out--they fabricated things that never happened, and then transferred what Ellsberg had done to their two chosen protagonists in order to camouflage that fact.  And I said, they produced a Washington/Hollywood "feel good" movie that only makes people who do not understand the true facts feel good. Personally, I felt sorry for Ellsberg.  Even more the second time I saw the film.

If that is what you and Pat like in something as serious as the tale of the PP and the Vietnam War, fine.  Go ahead and feel good about what Spielberg and Hanks invented.  But that is not what Kennedys and King.com is about, and that is not what Bob Parry is about. The Vietnam War was probably the most tragic large-scale event in American history since the Civil War. It eventually took the lives of about four million people, both Americans and Vietnamese. With Bradlee and Graham cheerleading LBJ all the way.  At the trial of Ellsberg in LA, in testimony that went largely unreported, Arthur Schlesinger stated under oath that none of it would have happened, i. e. the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, the landing of combat troops at Da Nang, Rolling Thunder, if Kennedy had lived.  As LBJ once said, Kay Graham was worth 15 divisions to him in South Vietnam, because she fortified public opinion for him.  

If you and Pat want to paint that as heroic, then fine.  Personally, I will be damned before I join your club.

 

"Jim Di Eugenio spanks the Post" By Jim Di Eugenio!

We're certainly reaching new levels of self promotion. I wonder if Jim got competitively inspired by the thread entitled "Rich Pope" . heh heh--- a joke.

Jim is the self appointed forum "Minister of Information" about the MSM. IMO, Some of it I like and contribute to, some leaves me scratching my head, most of it gets a bit obsessive and goes on too long. (like the above,--- I guess that's my critique) I remember his  criticism of "Viet Nam" was that it was a 10 part documentary that didn't focus on the role  of Dulles and Lansdale, as if he wasn't the least aware of the type of movies Ken Burns makes, or maybe he's not. A real criticism of that documentary is  that we weren't just innocent bystanders who stumbled into Viet Nam.

 

But this is a drama. I don't plan to see it in a theater, almost anything with Tom Hanks now is sort of a distraction for me. But I'll definitely catch it at home.

No they're not historians. Neither Stone nor Spielberg would argue that they're sacrificing historical accuracy for dramatic effect. The end of "Argo' is a perfect example, it's called storytelling! It's not a vehicle for  great indignity! It's a movie!  If some factual inaccuracy in the movie actually led the masses to revolt and cause great bloodshed for a false purpose, that would be one thing. But there's no clear and present danger. The story is 50 years old!

[James DiEugenio]

Kirk:

Thanks for ignoring all the information that I put out there and trying to demean what I did.  You are a real charmer.  And your generosity is boundless.

As per Argo, after I went through all of what I did, I was hoping that I would not have to say anymore about the issue of dramatic license.  But I guess I do.

The ending of Argo was done for just one reason, to add a Hitchcockian suspense coda to the film. Period.

The things i described in The Post, which you do not highlight in your effort to paint me as some kind of glory hound, deal with utterly false characterizations.  That  falsity demeans what Ellsberg did and makes ersatz heroes of Graham and Bradlee, who backed the entire four year buildup of LBJ.  That build up reversed JFK's policy in Vietnam and led to the death of four million people.  If you add what was to happen in Cambodia, its at least another million.  Does the embellished ending of Argo  cover up any loss of life?  Not that I know of: those people got out.  Its just the way they got out.

 LBJ asked Kay Graham to back him in his plan to escalate, and she and Bradlee did, no matter how bad things got. Even when that meant disguising the impact of the Tet offensive.

Those are facts.   And those disastrous policies ended up costing the lives of about five million people.  So, excuse me, but Argo does not compute. 

Edited January 23, 2018 by James DiEugenio