The Beginnings: Disney and the F.B.I.

The Beginnings: Disney and the F.B.I.

"Movies can and do have tremendous influence in shaping young lives in the realm of entertainment towards the ideals and objectives of normal adulthood." Walt Disney.

The F.B.I. files on Walt Disney begin from 1936 and continue until his death in 1966. The Disney file reveals a complex relationship between these two Cold War actors but is also informative of the process of cultural production taking place during the Cold War and how content becomes a plane upon which a struggle between competing visions of purpose is enacted.

The first reference hinting to Disney's relationship with the Bureau is in a memo dated December 16th, 1954 sent from the Special Agent in Charge (SAC) in the Los Angeles division to Director Hoover. The memo gives a brief summary of Disney's career and notes that Disney had volunteered the use of his studios to representatives of the Bureau. The memo goes on to conclude that Disney would be a valuable asset for the Bureau given his prominence within the entertainment industry and should be accepted as an official SAC Contact. All previous relations between Disney and the Bureau are blacked out in the memo, a pattern that is repeated throughout the Disney file.

Some have speculated that in fact Disney had been an informant for the F.B.I. during the war and that he had received a promotion in 1954 allowing him to operate his own network of informants. While it is difficult to prove such accusations given the current state of the evidence, it remains a probability that Disney had been an informant during the war, given the previous intersecting relationships between the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals (of which Disney played a role in), the Bureau and HUAC. Disney's official status as SAC-Contact was granted January 12, 1955.

Notwithstanding the granting of Contact status to Disney, the relationship with the Bureau in this early period was difficult. On January 20, 1956, a representative of Disney dropped by the Bureau office to discuss shooting a video about the F.B.I. for the ABC network. Despite approval by the local Los Angeles SAC, Hoover refused.
On February 6th, it was Disney's turn to decline a request from the Bureau: “Walt Disney [sentence blacked out] declined to furnish signed statements or appear before a security hearing board. On March 7th, SAC Malone visited Disney (his assigned contact in Los Angeles) at the latter's request. Disney again asked for cooperation from the Bureau on a special science exhibition at the Disneyland Amusement Park as well as shooting a video for the Mickey Mouse Club on the ABC network. One week later, Hoover again refused Disney's request in a letter, citing a busy schedule. On March 21st, a request was made, possibly by Hoover, for a background check on Disney. Arguably, this was the beginning of a change of heart on the part of the Bureau in their dealings with Disney.

The summary describes the Night of the Americas Gala, in which Disney was a guest, and that was hosted in 1943. The summary goes on to hint at a potential connection between Disney and Communism when the former helped sponsor a tribute to Cartoonist Art Young, an evening that also happened to be sponsored by the New Masses, a magazine that HUAC claimed was a Communist weekly.

The following year in 1957, an SAC met with Disney and proposed to the latter an idea for a show that would commemorate the twenty fifth anniversary of the FBI crime laboratory. Disney agreed. According to the March 4th memo, an aid to Disney described the motivations behind his acceptance of the project as largely altruistic: “Mr. Disney likes to do films of this type occasionally as a public service.” But this also came as welcomed news for Disney given that two months earlier, the Studios had signed a two year, nine million dollar contract with ABC Television for the production of three new series of programs. Despite a note subsequently written on the March 4th memo admonishing the SAC for going beyond his authority in initially approaching Disney, the Bureau reluctantly accepted to follow through on the project, “on condition that we had the chance to review the film before it is used.” The F.B.I. took great pains in ensuring their image was controlled; in 1954, at the urging of Hoover, Congress passed Public Law 670 giving the Bureau the ability to protect its name from unwarranted commercial exploitation.

Collaborating for America

Filming for the Mickey Mouse Club segments took place in April at the Bureau's Virginia office in Quantico and was done by Hugo Johnson of Walt Disney Productions. The storyline involved the young actor Dick Mertzger narrating a tour of the Bureau's Laboratory operations and even at one point meeting Hoover himself. This scenario was common to viewers of the Mickey Mouse Club, which regularly featured programs outlining professions for the impressionable audience. And for Disney, what could be more honorable than for young people to follow in Uncle Walt's footsteps and become an employee of the F.B.I.?

Disney kept his promise and sent the Bureau a copy of the unfinished film along with the completed script as envisioned by the producers. But in an October memo, despite positive reviews of the film, recommendations for changing a portion of the script were made: “It is recommended that a blind memorandum be sent to SAC [Malone] in Los Angeles” listing the suggested changes. The changes were relatively minor, given the Bureau's conclusion that the film was complimentary of its image, but nonetheless revealing. The Bureau, for example, explained that one purpose of the film was to get “across to youngsters the safe handling of guns.” But the Bureau also felt that the film should not be encouraging young children of Dirk's age to be handling loaded guns - “it is not considered appropriate” - and therefore demanded the deletion of the associated scene. It was a moot point given the film's repeated and deliberate references to the necessity of guns and indeed their glorification: in the first episode, with the young Dirk acting as Narrator, we are told that every agent learns to “shoot fast and straight” and later, the virtues of the Thompson submachine gun are explained.

The film, it must be noted, was very sucesssful in portraying the image of the F.B.I. in a positive light and its subject matter was well-trodden territory within the American cultural landscape; the romanticizing of the G-Men, especially as portrayed to children, went back to World war II. Children saw the FBI as a “grown-up kids gang” and started Junior G-Men Clubs across the country in reverence of them. One youngster wrote a letter to Hoover for help in starting a club: “We need guns, bombs, and other things to surprise the crooks,” he wrote.

The changes were accepted by Disney and the four completed film segments aired on the ABC network as part of the Mickey Mouse Club program in late January, 1958. While the F.B.I. did briefly threaten to cut off cooperation with the Disney Studios because they had not received a completed copy of the updated film on time - “Did we have a definite understanding to see the film before clearance?” - the relationship with Disney was quickly consummated and the project was a success. It seemed that Disney was Hoover's greatest triumph and the most admiring of all his children!
The FBI activity in regards to Disney is reduced in subsequent years. In 1959, the White House asks the FBI for a rush check on Disney in lieu of his proposed appointment to the Advisory Committee on the Arts. And in 1960, Hoover sends Disney an autographed copy of his book Masters of Deceit, to which Disney replied in a letter by thanking Hoover for “defending our way of life.”

In 1961, the Bureau's activity on Disney increased substantially. The Bureau had learned from a Daily Variety newspaper article that Disney recently hired a certain actor to play the role of an FBI agent in an upcoming movie “Moon Pilot,” a live-action comedy about the first American man shot into space; “Discreet inquiries” had been made to secure a copy of the script. A March 1st memo shows that Disney supposedly tried to contact the FBI to inform them of the new film project, sensing that their may be anxiety about the depiction of the G-man in his movie, but no meeting ever took place. Hoover himself was incensed about the way the G-man was portrayed in “Moon Pilot” after he read the script and demanded that the SAC meet with Disney to personally transmit the directors opposition to such representations; “Handle diplomatically,” Hoover reminded the Agent. While Disney did suggest that he was willing to replace the FBI character with one from another agency, he felt it would be inaccurate and unrealistic to do so given the storyline and urged Hoover to wait for a revised script. But Disney relented and replaced the G-man with a generic representation of a security officer. Hoover later questioned Disney's initial representations of the F.B.I. in Moon Pilot – “I am amazed Disney would do this” - and rationalized that Disney “had probably been infiltrated.”

The movie Moon Pilot was released in 1962. While Disney did make the changes requested by the Bureau, probably out of personal devotion to Hoover, the movie in hindsight has come to represent the difficulties inherent when the politics of government intersects with art. In examining a critics review of Moon Pilot at the time of its release, we get a picture of the Cold War dynamic between individual entertainers and government agencies, and more specifically, Disney's relationship to American culture at the time. One reviewer argues that the movie had political motives in that it represented “the bitter struggle between what obviously is the F.B.I. and the NASA security bureau...this is fairly broad comment on sacred cows.66” Disney, in his own mind, saw himself as the one man who had to act and critique the security lapses that were occurring during his time, always mindful of his own role (as he conceptualized it) in the larger Cold War conflict that was taking place. Disney never abandoned that great sense of patriotic duty that he felt towards others. “In fact,” the reviewer continues, “were the sources other than Disney's studio, howls from patriotic organizations would hardly be unexpected.”

Disney's position as mediator and authority figure in American culture had long since been established and this allowed him to play an expanded role in the politics of the time.

A Brief Biography of Henry Cabot Lodge

A Brief Biography of Henry Cabot Lodge

Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. was born in 1902 to a Boston Brahmin family of immense heritage and pride. Lodge was descended from many prominent families including a founder of the Federalist Party, George Cabot. Lodge’s grandfather was a Republican statesman and noted Historian. Lodge himself demonstrated his independence of mind early on. As senator of Massachusetts, he quit his position in 1944 (the only senator to do so since the Civil War era) to join the army and fight in Europe.

In 1953, as ambassador to the U.N. under Eisenhower, Lodge had knowingly contradicted State Department (herein referred to as DOS) orders and voted no on a key Korean resolution, prompting a quick response from the DOS, to which he wryly retorted: “I take note of the Department’s opinion.” In 1959, Lodge then had the opportunity to accompany the Soviet Leader on his trip to the United States. In a subsequent letter, Khrushchev thanked his host while jokingly referring to Lodge as his “tormentor and protector.”

And then again in 1960, when an American U2 spy plane was shot down over Soviet territory prompting an international crisis, Lodge displayed to a mesmerized crowd at the United Nations the actual U.S. embassy seal which supposedly had been bugged by the Soviets. In many ways then, it is this spirit of independence and strong sense of duty that later convinced Kennedy to look at Lodge as the ideal appointee for the South Vietnamese ambassadorship. But by the same token, as we shall see later, it is these same qualities, combined with the Kennedy administrations lack of leadership in Vietnam, that precluded any opportunity of controlling either the ambassador or the unfolding events.

Vietnam War: The August Memo

The August Memo

While the Diem coup in 1963 did not take place on the 25th as the CIA had warned, American ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge soon became deeply involved in the ongoing intrigue. In a memo to the Department of State, Lodge described a meeting that took place with a top Vietnamese general who intimated that “the U.S. has only to indicate to the generals that it would be happy to see Diem…go, and deed would be done.” Lodge then counseled the State Department to be patient: “Action on our part would seem to be shot in the dark…I believe we should bide our time.” In even considering giving the generals support for a coup, Lodge signaled a stark shift in U.S. policy at the Embassy level, dismissing the earlier approach of “graduated pressure” and strict support of Diem that was practiced by Nolting.

In response to Lodge, the State Department approved what became known as the “August memo,” a highly controversial shift in policy that elicited disagreements immediately after it was first drafted and denials years later. The memo, drafted August 24th, is quoted here extensively given its importance in narrowing the plane of possibilities and subsequent rhetoric, from tolerance of the Diem regime to a Coup as an only acceptable alternative:

"U.S. government cannot tolerate situation in which power lies in Nhu’s hands. Diem must be given chance to rid himself of Nhu and his coterie and replace them with best military and political personalities available. If, in spite of all your efforts, Diem remains obdurate and refuses, then we must face the possibility that Diem himself cannot be preserved…Concurrently with above, Ambassador and country team should urgently examine all possible alternative leadership and make detailed plans as to how we might bring about Diem’s replacement."

It did not take long before sharp disagreements erupted within the top echelons of the Kennedy administration, primarily from the military establishment. General Maxwell Taylor, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1962-1964), thought the memo did not give enough opportunity for Diem to reform, that the various departments did not have enough input into the writing of the memo and finally, that the memo reflected “the well-known compulsion of Hillsman (assistant Secretary of State) and Forrestal (member of the National Security Council) to depose Diem.” Indeed, this memo hinted at a schism that would exist throughout the Kennedy administration’s involvement in Vietnam: the State Department and other civilian officials on the one hand, with the Military leaders and the CIA on the other.

Lodge himself addressed the memo later by offering a partial repudiation of it. Writing in his memoir The Storm Has Many Eyes in 1973, Lodge referred to a 1967 Defense Department study which quoted the August memo, concluding that the U.S. had “variously authorized, sanctioned and encouraged” a coup. Lodge denied this, claiming that that memo had not been approved “at the highest levels” and that in any case, a subsequent memo on August 30 had in effect cancelled any previous instructions about launching a coup. Lodge did not specify in his memoir which memo he was making reference to. But surveying the documents from the day in mention, one can find no such repudiation; in fact, one memo dated August 29th sent to Lodge from the DOS specifically stated that the United States government would support a coup if it had a good chance of succeeding. Furthermore, there really was no doubt whether the memo had been approved “at the highest levels,” given that President Kennedy himself subsequently regretted having approved it to begin with.

The August memo, in retrospect, was a point of no return. While concretely, it could have been easily reversed by a simple pronouncement from the President (this would never be forthcoming in any event), it had done its damage by legitimizing a Coup as a possible course of action to be taken. The rhetoric of a Coup had now been introduced and it served to remove any remaining psychological barriers to its use. The irrevocable slide towards the events of November 1st began and Ambassador Lodge wasted no time.

Ronald Reagan: Biography of an Ideal

Ronald Reagan and Genocide: the Biography of an Ideal

Ronald Reagan has always been aware of the scourge of Genocide, notwithstanding his selective and politicized views. Certainly, Reagan was not a principled humanitarian, one who sought to objectively filter foreign policy through the lens of human rights. Rather, his views of human rights were highly inconsistent, depending largely on his ideological interpretations of the Cold War as they were represented in international relations. This helps to explain Reagan’s hands-off support of terrorism in Latin America and the direct sale of weapons to an acknowledged enemy of the state, Iran, as well as the invasion of Grenada and other international aggressions.

Nonetheless, Reagan was well aware of the scourge of genocide and it remained a part of his rhetoric throughout his years in office. On April 21, 1981, for example, Reagan issued proclamation 4838 creating a United States Holocaust Memorial Council. In his speech, Reagan also sought to remember the Armenian genocide that took place before the Nazi Holocaust and the Cambodian genocide afterwards. In fact, the Armenian community continues to hold Reagan in high esteem given it has long called for ratification.

But to grasp Reagan’s belief system and ideological constructions through which he filtered his public work as Governor and President, one has to discuss the life of Ronald Reagan as he experienced it, or as he saw it. Such a biographical approach highlights the consistent themes that dominated Reagan’s life and the extent to which they were in concord with the principles enshrined within the Genocide Convention.

Reagan throughout his years was concerned with the welfare of the average American. Entertaining others was a talent he discovered early on. But for Reagan, it always had a self-regenerative quality to it. Gary Wills discusses the rise of a new class of entertainers in post-war America, within which Reagan was exemplary, that responded to a demand by Americans for Escapism and the need to regain faith in the progress of History. This was the American renewal that Reagan had believed in and always sought out, a life-long political struggle to regain this idealized past – “it’s morning again” – a recapturing of the American spirit.

Whether it was “storytelling” during his days in the radio industry, or acting out scenes of courage and faith in Hollywood Western movies, or fulfilling his pledge to ratify the Genocide Convention, the infallible America as an example for all to follow was the Ideal that Reagan always kept close. There was no difference between Reagan’s goals as President and those that he had been striving for all his life; he was the constant motivational speaker. As Gary Wills reminds us, the “aim of the preacher's art is not demonstration but inspiration." Facts were not important for Reagan but the better tomorrow that is always in our grasp. When reporters asked Reagan about why he was so insistent about going to Bitburg despite the fierce opposition, he did not bother with just mere commemorations of “the liberation of Europe” but claimed to celebrate the entirety of “the rebirth of German freedom.” The Genocide Convention was finally ratified on November 4, 1988.