By Steven
Jonas, MD, MPH
Even
though the previews indicated that the movie “Bridges of Spies” was going to be
a rollicking good spy-exchange story, and even though I remember the “U-2
Incident” on which it is based pretty well, I had been planning not to see
it. I figured that it would be part of the gradual build-up underway in
this country of anti-Russian sentiment that has been going on in the context of
the current decline in U.S.-Russian relations. Many U.S. persons have a
very hazy knowledge of history and certainly some of them confuse modern-day
Russia with the Soviet Union.
Indeed,
I
noted in a previous column
that even a TV news correspondent, commenting on the recent Russian build-up in
Syria, twice referred to the country as the “Soviet Union” before, on the third
reference, naming it correctly. So, a historical drama that concerns the
U.S. and the U.S.S.R. could easily be confused by some viewers at least as
representing what is currently going on between the U.S. and Russia. (That
at its base, quite unlike the U.S./U.S.S.R. conflict, it is what I have termed a
“clash of capitalisms” is a matter that I
have dealt with elsewhere.)
But,
presently, Russia is increasingly described anywhere on a scale from “enemy” to
“dangerous rival” to “a nation sticking its nose in where it doesn’t
belong.” (Those references never seem to mention the U.S.’ 750 or so bases
around the world nor the U.S. policies that have stimulated violence throughout
the Muslim, especially Arab world. But that is another story).
Russian President Putin generally receives bad media coverage here. And
there seems to be a general build-up of “Russia-is-bad” reporting. And so,
I thought to myself “this one has to be nothing more than a revival of Cold War
propaganda, and I do not have to subject myself to that.”
(Click on the image to increase its size.)
Well. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I went to see the movie because my wife, who usually doesn’t like movies with such subjects, was intrigued by it. What a pleasant surprise of a film. First of all, there are the Spielberg settings. So authentic, whether in Brooklyn, Lower Manhattan, Berlin (East and West), or European cities standing in for Berlin. Then there is the acting, starring that grand actor-with-great-range, Tom Hanks. Terrific as an insurance lawyer — the movie doesn’t tell you that he was a counsel to the Office of Strategic Services during World War II (same name, but no relation to “Wild Bill” Donovan, the war-time commander of the O.S.S.), although it does mention that he was part of the prosecution team for the Nuremberg Trials — gradually drawn into becoming a spy-exchange negotiator. Then there is Mark Rylance, last seen here as King Henry VIII’s hatchet man (literally) Thomas Cromwell in the TV series based on the Wolf Hall novels. Whether or not the Soviet spy Rudolf Abel was actually as Rylance portrayed him, he certainly could have been. A superb job.
Most
important is the story and the way it is presented, focusing on Donovan, Abel,
Francis Gary Powers (the U-2 pilot whose plane was shot down by the Soviet air
defense system and who did not, contrary to orders, commit suicide before he
could be captured), and the process of the exchange. Although one knows,
even without having any familiarity with the real story, what the outcome is
going to be (what big budget film-maker is going to do a movie about a potential
spy exchange that fails) the film still keeps you on the edge of your
seat.
It
is interesting to note (at least it is for students of history like me) that
several very important political-historical elements/events were left
out. First it is made to appear that the spy plane flight by Francis Gary
Powers was the first or one of the first of its kind. Actually, the
program had been underway off and on for several years. The Soviets knew about
it but had no weapon that could reach the very high-flying U-2s until they had
the one that brought down Powers. Second, no mention was made of the
Four Power Summit Peace Conference between the United States, Great Britain,
France and the U.S.S.R. that was to have taken place in Paris in May,
1960.
That
Summit was intended by both sides to attempt to continue and broaden the first
post-World War II opening to “détente” between the Soviet Union and the Western
Powers that had been made by Vice-President Richard Nixon’s visit to the Soviet
Union in 1959 and the mutual national shows that took place that summer in New
York City and Moscow. (I was lucky enough to have attended the opening of
the U.S. show in Moscow and although not knowing it at the time, I was on the
other side of a wall in the U.S. model house when the famous “kitchen debate”
took place between Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.) The U-2 incident
took place just before the Summit was to start and that start quickly become its
end.
President
Dwight D. Eisenhower did take public responsibility for the very embarrassing
series of events. However, it is thought in some quarters that the CIA
spy-master Allen Dulles purposely arranged the Powers flight, without
Eisenhower’s knowledge of that specific one and its timing, with the hope that
it would be discovered or even brought down (and the U.S. knew that Soviet air
defenses were steadily improving) so that the Summit would be sabotaged.
Dulles,
along with his brother John Foster, who had been Eisenhower’s Secretary of State
until his death in 1959, from the end of the World War II had at the top of his
agenda the eventual destruction of the Soviet Union. Four Power peace
summits were not his cup of tea. And the “peaceful co-existence” that
Khrushchev was aiming for (as was John F. Kennedy before he was murdered — see
his not-so-famous “American University” speech of June, 1963) was viewed by the
likes of Allen Dulles as poison.
But
this movie did not require a full treatment of the history in order to make its
primary point, which was not, much to my surprise, to paint the Soviet Union in
a bad light. (The German Democratic Republic — East Germany — not so good,
but that’s another matter.) Rather, in my view it had two major points to
make. First, that in the 1950s and 60s in this country there were
honorable men, like James B. Donovan the real-life attorney portrayed by Tom
Hanks, who firmly believed in the Constitution and the rule of law, even for
foreign spies. (And Donovan’s law firm was what was called a “white shoe”
firm, generally conservative and generally Republican. But there were
plenty of Republicans in those days, like the ones who brought down the rabidly
red-baiting Senator Joe McCarthy, who the Tea Party/so-called “Freedom Caucus”
in the House of Representatives today would be calling
“Reds.”)
Second,
the movie makes a very John le Carre-like point. Secret service agents on
both sides are generally not nice people (unless, of course, they are Jimmy
Cagney in “13 Rue Madeline”). Spying corrupts (although the Russian spy,
“Rudolf Abel,” is portrayed as someone just doing his job), whether they are
“ours” or “theirs.” Neither the CIA guys, nor the KGB guys, nor the Stasi
(East German secret police) come across particularly well. And so while it
does have plenty of greater or lesser villains, on both sides, it does have one
hero, and that is a classic Honorable Man, James B. Donovan. He
fought the Nazis, and then, before he got involved in the spy-exchange drama, he
fought for the U.S. Constitution and the rights it, on paper at least, provides
for everyone within the borders of the United States. What a difference
between Republicans like Donovan and Republicans like Cheney and the ilk he has
so successfully fostered within his party.
ABOUT
THE AUTHOR
Senior
Editor, Politics,
Steven Jonas, MD, MPH is a Professor Emeritus of Preventive Medicine at Stony
Brook University (NY) and author/co-author/editor/co-
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