The Spanish-American War: A Historic Review

Running Time: About four months, or about as long as it took Teddy Roosevelt to run up a hill after swimming from Florida to Cuba.

Setting: Cuba, 1898.

Concept (according to America): The Spanish blew up the S.S. Maine! The Spanish are tormenting Cubans! The Cubans want to join America! We need to have free trade with Cuba!

Concept (according to Cuba): Liberation! (After the war) So, Americans, (awkward pause) do you guys have anywhere else to be? No? You sure? It’s just, you know, we got stuff to do here, and, oh, okay, yeah I guess you can have some cereal.

Concept (according to Spain): Wait, what’s going on? A ship blew up? Why would we want to go to war with America? Wait! Cuba’s being attacked!? Shit!

Before the War: In 1881, President-elect Chester A. Arthur went on a shopping spree to celebrate winning the presidency. Over the next ten years, “city folk” began to outnumber “country folk.” Words like “dandy” went by the wayside as more men avoided physical labor, outdoor independence and military service. In 1893, historian Fredrick Jackson Turner declared the American frontier was settled and America had nothing else to do but enlarge preexisting cities and develop new concepts of America culture; and boy did we enlarge those cities. Then months later, Eugen Sandow became the first professional body builder, making a living entirely by posing and flexing in public. All these elements combined to emasculate American men. This 1870s-1890s generation of men had no war, grew up in cities, bought into and then criticized the booming consumer culture.

Plot: Nobody was as emasculated as Theodore Roosevelt who grew up with asthma, and home-schooled as a result. Defiantly, Roosevelt ran around in the wilderness as often as he could and became a man of seeming paradoxes. When Roosevelt went to Harvard for being a genius, he became a boxer. He was an author at any desk and an explorer anytime he was outside. Later he’d win a Nobel Peace Prize, but in 1897 he wanted to fight somebody. Somebody turned into Spain and as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Roosevelt pushed to war. When the S.S. Maine blew up, war was declared. Roosevelt resigned his office, went to Texas to corral a bunch of gunslingers, formed a volunteer regiment and attacked the Spanish in Cuba. The most notable battle was the charge up San Juan Hill, wherein Roosevelt abandoned his horse (because it got too tired) and led forces the rest of the barbed-wire-filled way.

After the War: Roosevelt became a national war hero and elected governor of every state, but he choose New York—to fight the political corruption. Go figure, the political bosses didn’t like him having free reign over New York and so put him on President McKinley’s re-election ticket, knowing that the Vice-President only has two duties. Go figure, again, McKinley is assassinated and coffee-addicted Roosevelt becomes the most powerful man in the nation. Roosevelt expands the Monroe Doctrine, essentially declaring America “the police of the Western hemisphere.”

Contemporary Controversy: America had half-a-dozen reasons to go to war with Spain, and none of them were really that good. The S.S. Maine, while patrolling the Gulf, blew up, killing 266 soldiers. Spain adamantly pled innocent immediately, but it was too late. The other reasons for war had been simmering for years. Stories of Spanish cruelty to the Cubans got front-page coverage. Americans called Cuba a Spanish colony, though Spain thought Cuba more as a province or territory. Lastly, though not least, Cuba was a gold mine for trading and sugar. Some modern historians also believe America had “empire-jealousy” at European powers for taking over large chunks of land in Africa and Asia. This is all to say that using more reasons for war doesn’t make the war more moral; just like how explaining a joke to someone who didn’t laugh won’t prove the joke funny.

Film Adaptation: Considering the cultural criticism and brisk brutality, this war is most like the film, “Fight Club.” In fact, Roosevelt just may have been Tyler Durden—exciting, loud, cool, tough and dangerous. He was always the biggest personality in the room and just the independently-minded leader America needed. Side note: Did you know they made a "Fight Club" video game?

I would've preferred a game about Theodore Roosevelt, but whatever.

Sub-Plot: The boom of “yellow journalism.” William Randolph Heart and Joseph Pulitzer became media mongrels and very competitive at exactly the wrong time (1895-1898). Circulation (money) was the goal. They both used scary headlines in huge print (often of minor news), made lavish use of pictures (sometimes altered), used pseudo-science, parades of interviews from self-described “experts,” and displayed dramatic sympathy with the ‘underdog’ against the system. While the origins of “24-hour-news” is evident, it is also important to note that the practice of “yellow journalism” did go away. There was/will be a fact-based, impersonal reaction to news reporting after people got/get of sick of info-tainment.

Racist Moment: The U.S. Army made strong use of the all-black regiments in Cuba, thinking since ‘they were all from Africa,’ the black troops would be naturally more comfortable dealing with tropical heat, malaria and yellow fever. Baffling Southern scientists, several troops contracted said diseases and died needlessly.

Glory Level: Oh, so glorious—at the time. I mean, the Civil War was always horrible for at least half the nation. And the Mexican-American War didn’t give us images and pride on such a scale. The Spanish War was a solid war against a solid evil and finished before the election season. Also, while nearly 3,000 American soldiers died from disease, only 345 American soldiers were killed in battle. So there’s that, too.

Influence Level: Pretty low. America didn’t fully liberate any of the land it won from the Spanish, nor did America allow any lands to join the union. America paid Spain for the land but their economy was crippled for decades. To this day, the Spanish still harbor some resentment about the war that absolutely blindsided them. It’s kind of like being friends with a guy after he drunkenly punched you at a party for dancing with his girl—and you had just shown up two minutes ago. So, yeah America, we were THAT guy. Lets try to hold it together next time.

Why “Atlas” Collapsed: Everyone Missed the Point

Originally published 5/22/11 on "TheMovieWatch.com":

Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged” finally hit the big screens last April 15th— a coy nod to America’s traditional tax day (though not actually the case in 2011). After five weeks, the film has sputtered to a box office haul of $4.5 million…crushed beneath a rumored $15-20 million production. Moreover, the film garnered a 13% rating on RottenTomatoes.com and achieved just enough publicity to likely get a couple of nominations in next year’s incessantly bland Razzie Awards. The apex of this cinematic thrashing came when producer John Aglialor despondently coined the film’s epitaph sound bite, saying, “Critics, you won.”

Films lose money all the time. I even once heard some ridiculous claim that “only one in ten films ever makes money.” Regardless, “Atlas Shrugged” strikes me as an anomaly. That is, why wasn’t this movie a hit? The novel has had at least a cult following since the 1950s and a film adaptation was attempted in the 1970s, and about every ten years since. With the Great Recession and, more importantly, the election of Barack Obama, the loudest conservatives in America resurrected the novel with the phrase “Going Galt”—a catchphrase as stirring, inspired and thought-provoking as only the most mediocre beer commercials could stammer. As was, the book still struggled to get financiers. Due to Hollywood liberalism? Not likely, not with the financial success of other so-called conservative films—a classification that I feel is ludicrous—such as, “Passion of the Christ,” “300,” “Chronicles of Narnia,” “Gran Torino” and others. Conservatism aside, author Rand has credibility with young people thanks to her intellectual chest-thumping in the oft-referenced “The Fountain,” but notably so in “Atlas Shrugged.” Young people like feeling unique; Middle America likes feeling validated; Hollywood likes turning ideological novels into (inane, 3-D) films.

So why the failure? Sure the movie has pointless CGI, seemingly regurgitated from some daytime SyFy original movie. And sure, the cinematography and acting resemble work complied by film school freshmen (present readers excluded, of course). But that’s all not enough. No, the real reason “Atlas Shrugged” failed is because everyone on every level drove a hundred miles past The Point, USA. And that is that “Atlas Shrugged” is a satire of Ayn Rand’s explicit ideology.

And the train comes to a screeching halt.

The entire story is based around the concept that corporations are pushed around by the U.S. federal government. Specifically, that America’s wealthy are not only vilified but that they are discriminated against and silenced. Continuing, each of the “successful” peoples are deserving of their wealth, undeniably due to some unexplainable Tony Stark-esque intelligence and/or Tony Stark-esque strength, looks and charm. Ayn Rand’s fictional world is not an exaggeration, but completely opposite to any situation America has ever seen.

“What are you talking about Nick,” I hear my Wonder Bread readers say, “Rich people are vilified in culture…look at Monty Burns in The Simpsons!” To which, I say, “Not really.” The nation is run by corporations, CEOs and boards of executives. The FEC, Congress, other government agencies and the private sector trade business-insiders like baseball cards. Even with this Great Recession and inflated accusations of socialism, bonus-pay outs and top tier salaries have skyrocketed—unlike so many NASA projects. But Ayn Rand couldn’t have predicted the future, could have she? Well, this is the humiliating part: she didn’t have to!

Trains—the primarily discussed industry in the movie/novel—were not that big of a deal in the 1950s, less so now. However, they really were a big deal in the 1890s. Also in the 1890s, wealthy capitalists bought political offices, outsourced labor, formed monopolies and prided themselves on their own nameless skills. And really, similar sentiments can be said in the 1920s, the 1840s, 1770s and you start to get the point. However, each of these periods are also marked by the somewhat forgotten philanthropy of the nation’s millionaires and billionaires. Indeed, even nowadays, several of the world’s richest are the most generous—in terms of raw dollar amount AND percentage of wealth. I don’t give a damn if they’re still rich, let’s see you give away half of your money.

This all comes back when John Galt and Rand’s other fictional industry titans fail to embody any self-inspired philanthropy—you know, like creating the world’s most profitable charity. Instead, the characters “go on strike.” Also note that the Pinkertons, the mafia and, recently, state governors have historically crushed this lone tactic wielded by organized labor. No, Ayn Rand’s wealthy citizens aren’t acting like John Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, David Packard, Bill Gates, Gordon Moore, Mark Zuckerberg, Oprah Winfrey, Warren Buffet and others. And it’s really not even entirely a question of morality. If you want more consumers for your goods, you have to make sure the consumers are healthy/alive enough to buy your goods. Oprah Winfrey can’t make any money if her audience is dying from preventable diseases. Indeed, there are plenty of selfish reasons to donate money. Ultimately though, intentions don’t even really matter, just the actions.

And so Rand wasn’t detailing the likely departure of America’s most ambitious industrialists, but rather demonstrating the inappropriate outrage of the middle class. People don’t see the entire suffering of one another and so with a common passing glance retirement and unemployment have enough similarities to frustrate the middle 68% of Americans who feel themselves as equally talented as their financial superiors, yet more determined/moral than welfare queens, runaway fathers, gang bangers, immigrants, hicks and other flippant nomenclatures.

Much has been made of the book’s 70-page monologue by the secretive John Galt, wherein he describes the plot of “Inception,” describes the incredible sandwich he ate earlier or otherwise laments the necessity of brevity. All too late I wonder if I should have read the entire Wikipedia article on the novel—as I couldn’t have been bothered to actually read Rand’s magna opus or watch more of the film than the 2 minute trailer. Before I start “Galt-ing” you to death, I would liked to point out that Rand’s/Galt’s supposedly persuasive (and almost certainly unchallenged) sermon about rational self-interest, individual rights and laissez faire capitalism is further evidence for my satirical reading. Gordon Gekko was inspirational in Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street.” Similarly, Lucifer himself is extremely charming and convincing in John Milton’s classic epic, “Paradise Lost.” Not only can a story’s villain be persuasive, but, frankly, they need to be. Bad influences wouldn’t be influences if they couldn’t change people. More times than not, though, the worst influences are just ourselves. For instance, I know I shouldn't have another beer…but then again, I like this toasty feeling and fear my dumb body will start sobering up.

Galt is convincing, sure…but so is Stephen Colbert. The question then becomes, what is he convincing you of? Because interpretation is in the eye of the beer holder. As a last point, I’d like to show you a picture of a beatnik.

Is...is that lady wearing a lamp shade on her head?

Sike! It’s not a beatnik, it’s Ayn Rand—scourge of the downtrodden, rustic and oppressed. Yeah, right. Rand was clearly a 1950s beatnik herself. If someone really thinks rich industrialists could, and deserve to, go on strike I want them to be wearing at least one—but preferably two—monocles…also holding at least one—but preferably two—glasses of brandy. No, Ayn Randy was scathingly sarcastic but on a current far below most people’s radar. The newly astute reader might now be asking themselves if I, writing this review-of-sorts, am being sarcastic. Truthfully, I don’t even know anymore. I just think Rand’s novel and the subsequent film would have fared better had each ended on a scene with one of the main characters turning towards the camera and giving the audience a sly wink.

But maybe that’s just me.

*wink*

The Bonus March: America Loses Its Mind

In 1918, World War I ended (it was also the year Paul Harvey was born!) The war cost the lives of 117,000 Americans--while not even half that many died watching “Benjamin Button”. In response to the very real sacrifice WWI veterans risked and endured, Congress passed the World War Adjusted Compensation Act of 1924—awarding the soldiers bonuses (pay plus interest) they could redeem in 1945. The plan was that soldiers would forget about the payment after 21 years or just die from natural causes. Worst case scenario, the children of the Congressmen would have to pay the billions of dollars out of their own federal budget. Go figure, the planned ‘worst case scenario’ wasn’t bad enough and on July 28, 1932, America lost its mind.

The Stock Market crashed in 1929, and while dramatic, only really affected the some 16% of households that had any money in stocks at all. More people were affected by the recently passed tariff laws, which shot the price of imported goods sky-high—meaning that Hungarian vodka was no longer the ‘go to’ for floor cleaner but now the monetary equal of Cristal. The idea was that American workers wouldn’t have to compete with the “cheap labor” over-seas—because those Europeans/Asians/Africans are so damned expendable (or something). In reality, this meant American manufactures had no international competition and could raise their prices. Big time. People couldn’t buy things. Other companies couldn’t buy things. Stores went bankrupt. Factories closed. And just like that, thousands of WWI veterans were jobless, still knowing the U.S. government owed them (rightfully, even) payment for fighting in that catastrophe 14 years ago.

In June of 1932, 17,000 to 20,000 jobless veterans gathered in Washington, D.C. to pressure Congress into granting the bonuses immediately. Many of the veterans brought their families with them because hey, kids gotta learn about the government and this was a few years before the advent of “Schoolhouse Rock.” This raised the population of the makeshift city to some 40,000—4 times the population that marched on Helm’s Deep. And when I say “makeshift” I mean they were making a city out of nothing. The “houses” were made out of metal and wood scraps, yet separated by “streets,” surrounded “sanitation facilities,” and were “guarded” by the men who took shifts protesting. Basically there is a lot of this that is simply unimaginable nowadays. That Tea Party Rally back in the fall doesn't cut it in terms of rugged, earnest, sacrifice and suffering.

As expected, the House passed the Bonus Bill (to pay the soldiers to get off the front lawn). Unexpectedly, in the Senate, the bill was CRUSHED. The protesters, baffled, realized they had no other plan. President Herbert Hoover became paranoid that these commoners were going to rise up against him with their newspaper shields and apple-core catapults. Maybe some of them actually had bindles. I don’t know. Anyway, 6 weeks after the bill failed to pass, Hoover told the D.C. police to move the veterans. The police did this, temporarily, by shooting (and killing) two of the veterans. At this, Hoover gasped and his monocle fell into his glass of brandy, breaking in two. Hoover then ordered the U.S. military to move out the veterans. The two regiments that moved in on the homeless were commanded by, and this is where it gets fun, Douglas MacArthur and George S. Patton.

Patton led the Calvary, including six armored tanks, through the D.C. streets to the unofficial campsite. Seeing the soldiers, trucks and tanks, the veterans cheered—for they, and this is true, thought the U.S. military was holding an impromptu parade of its own, in honor of the disrespected veterans. Within moments, the veterans (and their families) realized this was an unusually somber, nay terrifying, parade as the civilians were shot at with a rudimentary form of tear gas and threatened with bayonets. The protesters fled across the river and Hoover put his thumb and index finger on the bridge of his nose, knowing that, somehow, he was going to get blamed for this debacle. The president ordered the troops to pull back, apologized and everything went back to normal. NO WAIT! General MacArthur ignored the order and issued a new attack!

For the sake of contrast, this fight scene was really cool.

MacArthur was adamant from the earliest stages of the Bonus Protest that the leaders were communists and seeking to deplete the federal treasury for all it was worth. He knew that all of those poor people in the D.C. “Hoover-ville” were political radicals despite their three articulated, and actually written, rules of the shantytown: “No panhandling, no drinking, no radicalism.” Fervently against radicals, MacArthur had his troops torch the garbage shacks as fast as they could, killing two more men. Having bulldozed the shacks into rubble and burning the rubble into ashes and pissing on the ashes, MacArthur called it a day and let everybody go home…or at least get the hell out of town. All said, 1 woman suffered a miscarriage, 4 WWI veterans were killed, 135 people were arrested and over a thousand were injured.

In May of 1933, with the country now under President Franklin Roosevelt, the Bonus marchers came back. While Roosevelt opposed the Bonus marchers’ demands, he granted them legal use of land and provided food supplies. Solving some of his own problems, he also had Eleanor Roosevelt visit the campsite. Eleanor praised the veterans for being accommodating and civil—inspiring the adage, “Hoover sent the army, Roosevelt sent his wife.” In 1936 Congress passed a compensation act to coincide with Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corp (employing veterans for manual labor jobs, including, but not limited to, stealing grandkids’ noses).

In the immediate aftermath, the press wanted MacArthur’s head on a plate. MacArthur, though, would not so much as talk to them and so had a more diplomatic subordinate act as liaison between the press, investigation commissions, the White House and city police. The Army Major acting as liaison defended MacArthur’s insubordination saying the general was “too busy,” and “did not want to be bothered by people coming down and pretending to bring orders.” The idea that the U.S. President wouldn’t come to the frontlines, with at least two forms of valid I.D., to issue an order was too ridiculous for Old Mac. In the end, MacArthur was promoted—though not as high or fast as his diplomatic aide, Dwight Eisenhower.

To this day, the Bonus March stands as a unique public relations disaster, to the point of calling it a “public relations disaster” might be doing a disservice to the event and parties. Still, these moments, while a black eye on memories of heroes and the country, show the growth we’ve made as a society. Reciprocally, these moments, through modern similarities involving heroes and the country, show the growth yet to be made.

Caffeine and Beer: My Day at a History Conference

If you work at ####### and ask for a day off from work, you really get about 17 hours. Want Saturday off? Expect to work until 10 p.m. Friday and come into work 7 a.m. Sunday! Factor in two nights of sleep and boom: 33 hours turns into 17 real quick. And actually, I didn’t so much “go to bed” Friday night as I went “to a bar”—code phrase for going to a bar.

SIDE NOTE: I elbowed Bill Self out of my way at one of the bars; he thinks he can box me out? Yeah, right. Big time college coaches: 0. Me: 2 (the first point coming from when I daftly screamed, “Waddup!” to Pete Carroll in 2008).

Back at the night in question, I eventually drank myself happy and collapsed somewhere. Around 8 in the morning, my cell phone alarm clock went off but instead of hitting the ‘snooze’ button I hit the time-traveling button, which immediately sent me thirty minutes in the future. Damn. I hate it when that happens. Anyhow, I made it to the University of Kansas Student Union by 9 a.m. and so started my day at the Ninth Annual KU-MU History Conference.

The name of the get-together is a little deceiving, as it implies only the greatest student minds (available on that late-semester weekend) from KU and the University of Missouri were in attendance. In actually, there were students and professors from NU, OU, KSU, UI, UA, UNI, JCCC, St. Louis University and Fort Leavenworth. So yeah, it was the Ivy League of the Midwest; or at least schools from the Midwest.

For the entire morning, I watched presenters talk about military doctrines, the murder of Annie Mae, the Commerce Clause, Wilhelm Wassmuss, magician pirates, and John Locke. I might have made up one of those. As one can imagine, some of it was rather dry and few presenters dressed up in costumes and performed reenactments--an untapped reservoir of material I especially noted. Fortunately, there was a complimentary breakfast table that would have shamed Motel 6 and I had my fill, and then filled my pockets. Years ago, I was without a dollar in Los Angeles but crashed several banquets on the USC campus—at least stealing pastries and jelly packets before being chased off. I guess old habits die harder than Bruce Willis. In any case, lunch came around and I popped some caffeine pills. Remembering that the food pyramid recommends more than pill-form food, I called up my friend Mac and we got some food that is (now confirmed?) 88% all-beef.

For some reason, I’m still alive.

When Mac and I got back to the conference, the KU spring football game had started. Yeah, there are a lot of questions there; for example: “They play football in the spring?” and “KU plays football?” But back at the history conference, fewer people were getting tackled and the presentations were about to start. Knowing I was the first speaker scheduled after the lunch break, I made it to the room in the Union and started talking to the session’s moderator. As the whole conference was split between two separate rooms, I made sure to talk up my group (“Media in 20th Century America”) and aimlessly bash our rivals (“Miscellaneous Topics”) for the would-be audience still deciding on a location. I especially made sure to direct the most attractive audience members into the correct room…which then turned out to be the wrong room. Yeah, I was in the wrong room and had inadvertently done as much damage to my group’s audience size as possible. So Mac, my one-man entourage, laughed at me as I became less of a “Vince” and more of a “Turtle” and walked into the correct room to give my presentation.

My twenty speech on cowboy films from the 1960s went as well as it could, considering I had spent much of the lunch rewriting segments in my head, and later on the paper. Also, I was given my five-minute warning about one minute before I was expecting and decided to cut several more sections to finish before the Man at the Back of the Room started taping his watch. Assuming nobody had a cane to pull me away from the podium, I decided to do some voices for my lengthier quotes, including impressions of John Wayne and Nate Champion—a real-life rustler who inexplicably kept writing in his pocket book during a shoot-out that cost him his life. Actually, now that I think about it, there was a cane in the audience that people could have used to beat me, but it was held by a blind woman in the second row.

During the second and third presenter in my panel, the blind woman’s dog fell asleep, turned on his back, got his foot caught by the chair in front and slept with his crotch pointed right at me. Yeah, it was a guy dog. I tried to not let the guide dog’s crotch affect my answers during the Q&A session, but it was rather difficult.

“Did the depictions of Native Americans change throughout the 1960s?”

“I'm sorry, did dog crotch what?”

When the session was over, people dispersed into the hallway and some continued asking questions, though in three separate cases the question was some variation of, “Have you seen [X movie]?” Fortunately, being a former film production major, and current film nerd, has given me enough experience with that question when I have to answers in the negative and then take responses such as, “Really? I thought you were, like, a film nerd?” or “How have you not seen that film; it’s a classic” or “Oh, you’d really like it; it’s a lot like Tarantino’s stuff.”

By 5:30 p.m. the conference had wrapped up and several of the, more professional, historians agreed to meet up at 23rd Street Brewery—a place that sells burgers, beers and such for about twice as much as I can afford…so I went along. Again, after downing a couple more caffeine pills to fend off the duel harsh mistresses of Sobriety and Slumbriety.

At the bar-restaurant, I sat at a table of grad-students, Ph.D-students and professors—some of whom have been in history academia longer than I have been able to cleverly butcher the English language. Really, I was just overcome with a flashback of an 8th grade birthday party I went to years ago and had realized everyone sitting around the cake was in the gifted program. Speaking of which, it’s nearly ten years later and I still don’t know what being “gifted” is. It’s like some kind of elementary school Freemasons thing.

Anyhow, drinking with a bunch of history nerds was a lot of fun, even if (or especially because) several conversations came back to Hitler, sex or both. It wasn’t until later that night that I realized the History Channel is, in fact, probably run by a bunch of historians. Right now though, after giving a lecture and then engaging in (unfortunately rare) discussions with other historians with drinking problems or drinkers with history problems, I can’t help but feel teaching is not my place right now. Rather, I want to tell stories and hear stories—most of which are at least based on real events.

Ultimately, these revelations can not be acted upon in one night. Fortunately, thinking about “alternative life decisions” is exactly what part-time work shifts are for.

The Canadian Caper: The Best Movie Never Made (Part Two)

Previously on “The Canadian Caper: The Best Movie Never Made”:

6 Americans were hidden by the Canadian ambassador in Tehran during the 1980 hostage crisis. The CIA learned about this and decided to “go Hollywood.” Back to where we left off…

Before long, Tony Mendez of the CIA went to Los Angeles, met with his old friend John Chambers (makeup artist of “Planet of the Apes”) and they created a production company—a feat mimicked by every film student ever—called Studio Six Productions. They then dug up a script called “Lord of Light”--a sci-fi film requiring rugged landscapes and bazaars. Despite (or because?) having no real experience in film making, Mendez knew that the title sucked and so renamed it “Argo” before moving onto the actual rescue plan. To boost their credentials, they took out ads in “Variety,” lifted Hollywood matchbooks and threw a pre-production party. Given another couple weeks they probably would have created an IMDB page and edited a teaser using stock footage.

In late January of 1980, Mendez flew to Tehran after meeting with Iranian officials in Germany. He had health cards (remember, this is Canadian healthcare), driver's licenses, maple leaf pins, receipts from restaurants in Toronto and Montreal, the Studio Six business cards, a lens for the cinematographer and other documents for the “Canadians,” and Canadians, he was meeting up with in Iran. Amazingly, to keep from breaking international laws, the CIA did not create the Canadian passports but rather the Canadian parliament held a secret emergency session and voted to grant the six Americans “real fake” Canadian passports.

When Mendez arrived in Tehran, the Americans were dining with ambassadors from Denmark and New Zealand—essentially the only two European countries we can trust anymore. Just kidding, NZ. Anyhow, the six escapees were given their new, “pre-production,” personas as the writer, the transportation coordinator, the set designer, an associate producer, the director and the cameraman. Mendez was the Irish film producer (but really, he just wanted to use the accent). For two days, the seven of them worked on creating their characters and costumes. An Iranian staffer mock interrogated them. They wrote notes about the script. Discussed concept art and took pictures. The “director” made a silver medallion, displayed flamboyantly with his borrowed low-button shirt.

Around this time, back in Hollywood, the CIA agents operating the Studio Six offices anxiously waited to hear from headquarters while being bombarded with scripts, head shots and pitches from Hollywood insiders. Writers from “Variety” and “The Hollywood Reporter” published stories about the studio start up and its brave little endeavor (filming a feature in Iran, that is). CIA agents, knowing their company would disappear any day, were even taking meetings with writers and producers just to remain credible.

"Could you write a movie about how to kill Fidel Castro?"

Early one morning, the Americans in Iran made their way to the airport after nearly 80 days in confinement. It was important to leave early in the day because by mid-day, the airport would become chaotic and the Revolutionary Guard would just take over--kind of like the TSA with sub-machine guns. While waiting in the airport, the “associate producer” tried to look calm by reading the Iranian newspaper before being reminded that he was giving Hollywood producers too much credit. After hours likely more agonizing than the normal hours spent in an airport, the "Canadian film crew” boarded their plane and it took off.

After clearing Iranian airspace, the airplane’s bar was opened and everybody got Bloody Mary’s.

And that's how you (don't) make a movie.

The Canadian Caper: The Best Movie Never Made

Often movies are used to document/retell history for contemporary audiences. Almost as often, these stories are skewed or just flatly made up (I’m looking at you, “Fargo”!). However, once in a very strange while, real history is not changed in movies but rather real history is changed by movies. In November 1979, Iranians seized the United States embassy in Tehran. About three months later a covert Canadian/American rescue team smuggled six American diplomats back to the U.S. under the guise of a film crew. This is the story of The Canadian Caper.

On November 4th, Iranian protesters, fans of Ayatollah Khomeini and young people rather disappointed by President Jimmy Carter, climbed above and broke down the gates surrounding the American embassy complex in the capital city. Unfortunately, the protesters weren’t just concerned about the gates’ zoning regulations and they stormed several building—including taking fifty-some hostages. Five Americans (and more than a token Iranian employee) escaped and made their way to an employee’s apartment outside of the complex. At the apartment, they turned on the radio, bitched about Jefferson Airplane becoming Jefferson Starship and then discovered the U.S. military forces had abandoned the city.

Unlike every other time in history, America turned to England for help. The escapees’ plan was to run through the city to the British embassy; a plan marginally safer than flying to California by jumping off the tallest building. Even then, though, they’d be risking more potential hostages and indeed could not be on the road for more than five seconds before spotted by mobs and given the sort of trial mobs are known to give. For days the Americans scuttled from empty apartment to empty apartment (fortunately, nearly fifty-some apartments had recently opened up). Eventually, they gave up on getting to the English embassy and called an employee at the nearby Canadian embassy. They got permission to crash at his, and the ambassador's, place and found one other American who had previously been shacked up with a Swede.

For weeks, the six Americans never left the Canadians’ place. Reportedly, the large amount of beer temporarily distracted the de facto prisoners from feeling like actual prisoners. Also unlike the Iranians, the Canadians rarely threatened their American guests with execution but rather just had them repeatedly play Scrabble. Any escape or rescue planned seemed impossible as the hostage takers down the street promised executions if they saw anything unusual--and the Iranians were also pretty sure six Americans had escaped during the initial chaos. So the Canadian ambassador called the Canadian Prime Minister and they both agreed getting the Americans out of Tehran was safer than keeping them there. For harboring the Americans, the Canadian Ambassador (Ken Taylor) later received the Congressional Gold Medal, and never had to pay for his beer in America ever again.

This reward inspired many Irishmen to push Americans out of the path of speeding cars.

Now the CIA has gotten a bad rap in recent years, but some thirty years ago, they had their shit together. Well, kind of. Like today, they were running thousands of secret identities around the world. Unfortunately, they only had three in Iran at the time. More unfortunately, all three had been captured during the revolution, so maybe 'undercover' has different definitions to some people. Regardless, for a few weeks, to no avail, the CIA worked on this hostage situation—including at least one plan using a dead body in place of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi (who was the “emperor” of Iran). Frankly, there were probably several plans involving dead body doubles. Anyhow, word gets around that some Americans escaped the initial violence and are hiding out in Iran like disco-loving Anne Franks. So the CIA takes a break from trying to ‘punk’ Fidel Castro (read: exploding cigars) and decides to get these Americans out of Iran through the most obvious transport possible: the Mehrabad Airport. Other plans required swimming and/or bicycles.

But these plans take time, more time than secrets allow and pretty soon the 'Americans hiding in Tehran' became the Worst Kept Secret in the world of international intelligence. At least one newspaper had the story but didn't report it. Within the several plans formulated over two months one constant remained: the Americans would pose as legal visitors were going to have to appear oblivious to the political upheaval in the country. Anybody who knew anything wanted to be far away from Iran. So who can be a bunch of somebodies who know nothing? Why of course: Hollywood! It might have been a bit of a stretch, but the world is still round and it turns for money. A Hollywood production in Iran meant millions of dollars, not exactly chump change for the Iranian government. But being American was still too risky/impossible, so everybody was going to have to seem Canadian.

To be Continued…

(get over it, these people had to wait for 6 weeks).