Cakes and Ale

The death of Kirk Douglas this week sent me searching through scores of his movies to see which ones were streaming online. This morning I downloaded my favorite, Seven Days in May, and watched it over coffee on my tablet.

The 1964 film, based on the novel of the same name by Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II, was directed by John Frankenheimer and written by Rod Serling. It starred Burt Lancaster as a charismatic four-star general and Kirk Douglas as the Marine colonel who serves as the General’s loyal aide.

In both the book and the movie, President Jordan Lyman (Fredric March) has signed a disarmament treaty with the Soviet Union that would dismantle the nuclear arsenals on both sides. The treaty has alarmed the military industrial complex and right wing politicians who don’t trust the Russians, and the president’s public approval ratings have plummeted. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General James Matoon Scott (Lancaster), enlists the support of the Joint Chiefs to organize a secret exercise to overthrow the president. The plot is detected by Colonel “Jiggs” Casey (Douglas) who reports it to the President. For the next several days, the President and his aides work feverishly to gather proof of the plot so the President has sufficient grounds to fire the treasonous plotters.

It’s probably not a spoiler to report that in the end the coup is averted. Lancaster, March, and Douglas are superb, and so is the supporting cast: Ava Gardner, Martin Balsom, and Edmond O’Brien. There’s even a cameo appearance by the legendary John Houseman who plays a Navy admiral who refuses to support the coup. When I saw the movie in 1964, I thought Ava Gardner looked old. When I saw it again this morning, my view had changed dramatically. (What the hell was wrong with me, apart from being 18 at the time?)

President John F. Kennedy read the book in a single night in 1963, according to his friend Paul B. Faye, then under secretary of the Navy. Faye asked the president if he thought anything like the fictional coup could happen in real life.

“It’s possible,” Kennedy said, Faye reported in his biography of JFK. “It could happen in this country, but the conditions would have to be just right. If, for example, the country had a young President, and he had a Bay of Pigs, there would be a certain uneasiness. Maybe the military would do a little criticizing behind his back, but this would be written off as the usual military dissatisfaction with civilian control. Then if there were another Bay of Pigs, the reaction of the country would be, ‘Is he too young and inexperienced?’ The military would almost feel that it was their patriotic obligation to stand ready to preserve the integrity of the nation, and only God knows just what segment of democracy they would be defending if they overthrew the elected establishment.”

In real life the Air Force general who abhorred the president was Curtis E. LeMay who was furious when Kennedy refused to allow air support for the abortive Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961. But in real life there was no planned overthrow of the sitting president – unless you believe that is what happened on November 22, 1963.

When I re-watched the movie this morning, I found it more than a little disturbing. Here was a Cold War thriller that illuminated the times through which we boomers lived – times when the threat of nuclear war was constant, and when there was always a danger that the generals would push us to the brink.

What disturbed me was the film’s unintentional reminder of how much our times have changed.

In 1964, there was a possibility that the generals might be tempted by a weak president to thwart the Constitution and civilian authority.

In 2020 we have the opposite scenario: a wildly mercurial president who threatens belligerent nations with preemptive nuclear attacks while dismissing the horrified generals as “a bunch of dopes and babies.”

The Cold War may have been scary. But, in many respects, not as scary as the fourth year of the Trump administration.

As the Vietnam War heated up in 1965, concern was expressed about the inadequacy of combat training for Air Force GI’s. The USAF Chief of Staff ordered every Air Force base in the world to make sure all enlisted personnel were taught the basic skills of combat survival.

In England, where I served as a chaplain’s assistant at twin bases RAF Stations Bentwaters and Woodbridge, combat training consisted of two days in the conifers that lined the Bentwaters flightline. The trainer was a sergeant with a mean Claude Akins baritone who, according to rumors that seemed to fit his personality, had been a prolific sniper in Korea.

Our combat class consisted of clerk typists and cooks, mostly guys who had enlisted in the Air Force precisely to avoid combat. We had all qualified with firearms so the combat curriculum was limited to teaching us how to hide from the enemy, an exercise called “cover and concealment.”

The sergeant also decided typists and cooks should have some experience with grenades. Again, a rumor circulated that a GI under the sergeant’s control had once pulled the pin from the grenade and, in a moment of confusion, dropped the grenade at his feet and threw the pin. The sergeant was determined that we would all know how to throw grenades.

The problem was that there were no grenades in the arsenal at Bentwaters/Woodbridge. The sergeant was undeterred. During a break, he picked up a can of Coca-Cola and weighed it in his palm. The can was, he concluded, about the same weight as a grenade.

The next day the sergeant brought a six-pack of Coca-Cola cans to the training area.

“The main thing you need to do with a grenade,” the sergeant told us, “is to throw it as far away from you as possible, and then duck.”

For the next two hours we held a coke can in our hands and, following the sergeant’s coaching, threw it as far as we could into the woods.

Some how we managed to accomplish this without laughing, but as the day went on we were getting a little punchy – and sweaty. One of the trainees with moist palms fumbled his coke can and dropped it at his feet.

Immediately, another GI fell on the can.

“Run, run,” he shouted, “save yourselves.”

We froze in silence as we waited the sergeant’s reaction.

Finally he spoke in the familiar Claude Akins rumble.

“And you wonder how the United States never lost a war,” he said.

For the rest of my time in England, the veterans of this two-day combat training had special greeting whenever we encountered one another on the base.

“Coke Can!” we’d shout. And, as startled passers-by winced, we’d feign terror and cover our heads.

Last month the George W. Bush presidential library declassified a secret letter Bush received from Pope John Paul II in 2003.

The papal letter contains no surprises, according to Paul Moses, contributing editor to Commonweal magazine. The Pontiff strenuously objected to Bush’s plans to go to war against Iraq. Presciently, John Paul feared a U.S. intervention would destabilize the already volatile Middle East for years to come.

Moses reports that Cardinal Pio Laghi handed the letter to Bush and directly challenged the president’s rationale for war.

Moses writes: When Bush dominated the conversation, Laghi told him: “I did not come here only to listen, but also to ask you to listen.” When Bush claimed that al-Qaeda was training soldiers in Iraq, Laghi retorted, “Are you sure? Where is the evidence?”

Moses adds his own opinion about the exchange:

These would be good questions for Trump, too, as he makes misleading claims about the conflict with Iran. But it’s hard to imagine Trump having a lengthy, detailed conversation like the one Laghi and Bush had.

The Commonweal story raises other contemporary questions about the tendency of politicians and media to oversimplify complex issues.

The U.S. National Council of Churches (NCC) and the worldwide ecumenical community also opposed the war in Iraq. NCC General Secretary Bob Edgar led a delegation to Bagdad to show solidarity among U.S. and Iraqi religious leaders. The delegation met with Tariq Aziz, a nominal Christian who served as deputy prime minister in Saddam Hussein government.

After the Iraq War, Fox News and other right-wing media in the U.S. singled out Edgar for special disdain, not only because he was a liberal United Methodist minister but because he was a liberal Democrat and six-term Congressman from Pennsylvania.

When I was media relations specialist for the NCC (2004-2012), I fielded calls from talk-show producers who wanted Bob to come on their show. Conservative pundits dominated most of the conversation on Fox News and they knew Bob was a liberal voice with media experience who could hold his own in a spirited discussion. Bob rarely turned down these invitations because he thought the views of progressive Christians in the National Council of Churches should be heard. He wore a clerical collar on television so it would be obvious he was clergy. Despite that, to my chagrin, most news shows introduced him as a former Democrat congressman.

Bob enjoyed the give-and-take of television debates and usually did well. He was treated with respect by Joe Scarborough, who served in Congress with Bob, and he had vigorous but civilized exchanges with Sean Hannity and Lou Dobbs (who would address him as “doctor.”) I would cringe when Bob accepted invitations from Bill O’Reilly who usually sought a liberal straw man to shout at, but Bob usually made his point before he was dismissed. Once in a radio telephone interview Bob made O’Reilly so mad he screamed, “You liberals make me sick” and slammed the phone down.

Bob carried a list of talking points in his head and was at his best when a reporter would call his office for a quick interview. When he was scheduled to appear on national TV, Pat Pattillo, the NCC’s assistant general secretary for communication, and I would sit with Bob to discuss probable questions and suitable answers. Then Pat and I would go home to watch Bob on television, often trying to prompt him telepathically when an unexpected question arose.

One night Bob was a part of a panel that included Pat Buchanan, the former Nixon aide, conservative columnist, and erstwhile presidential candidate. Buchanan is a devout Catholic and when Pope John Paul died Buchanan began referring to him as “John Paul the Great.”

The discussion that night was the war on terror. I can’t remember what led up it, but Buchanan started criticizing Bob and other liberals for being soft on terrorism. With a sneer, Buchanan attacked those who had opposed the war in Iraq.

I squinted at the television screen as I sent Bob an urgent telepathic message:

“Tell him John Paul the Great opposed the war in Iraq!”

Bob already knew that, of course. But the panel discussion ended abruptly and the camera focused on Buchanan, smirking condescendingly. I shook my head, wondering if Bob had missed an opportunity for the perfect squelch.

But I wonder if Buchanan would have cared what John Paul thought of the war in Iraq, or any other war. Wars are always intensely nationalistic and in many ways personal events. Millions of people in the churches have sons, daughters, parents, and other relatives in uniform and in harms way. It’s easy to interpret opposition to war as opposition to the young people who get caught up in it. Church leaders who speak out against war do so at great political risk.

Catholics in the U.S. had mixed feelings about John Paul’s peace overtures.

Moses writes:

Others would try to reinterpret the plain meaning of what the pope and Vatican officials were saying, or argue that as a religious leader, John Paul lacked the competence to apply just-war principles in a specific case. “The questions raised to religious spokesmen are inescapable: On the basis of what expert knowledge do you advocate policy x against policy y?” the late Rev. Richard John Neuhaus wrote. “By what authority or by whose authority do you speak?”

The question has not gone away.

“Pope Francis will face such questions too, as he tries to calm tensions that once again threaten to worsen relations between Muslims and Christians—which he, like John Paul, has strived to mend,” Moses concludes. “He began with a statement after the Angelus prayer on January 5, warning, like a string of his predecessors, that ‘War brings only death and destruction.’ He added: ‘I call upon all parties to fan the flame of dialogue and self-control, and to banish the shadow of enmity.’”

Clearly, the dialogue taking place now on Fox News and in the White House is not subject to self-control. And no amount of telepathic messaging to our television screens will be enough to keep the shadows at bay.