MANIFEST MERCENARIES: MERCENARY NARRATIVES IN AMERICAN POPULAR CULTURE, 1850-1990
by Charity Fox
Bachelor of Arts, University of Pennsylvania, 2001 Master of Liberal Arts, University of Pennsylvania, 2004
A Dissertation submitted to
The Faculty of The Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
August 31, 2010
Dissertation directed by
Gayle Wald Professor of English
The Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University certifies that Charity Fox has passed the Final Examination for the degree of Doctor of
Philosophy as of August 3, 2010. This is the final and approved form of the dissertation.
MANIFEST MERCENARIES: MERCENARY NARRATIVES IN AMERICAN POPULAR CULTURE, 1850-1990
Charity Fox
Dissertation Research Committee:
Gayle Wald, Professor of English, Dissertation Director
Thomas Guglielmo, Associate Professor of American Studies, Committee Member
Antonio Lopez, Assistant Professor of English, Committee Member
ii
© Copyright 2010 Charity Fox All rights reserved
iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
As a scholar and a teacher, words are my stock in trade, but I find myself at a loss
of words adequate enough to express my thanks to those who have helped me throughout my time at GW. Researching and writing can be isolating and solitary affairs, but I have been deeply blessed by caring advisors, wonderful colleagues, and a loving and supportive family. These brief acknowledgements can only scratch the surface of my gratitude.
I benefited from working with a fantastic dissertation committee that challenged
and supported me. I always felt a sense of ownership and control over my project because
they encouraged me to find my own way through continuous questions and research.
Gayle Wald especially encouraged me to follow my interests and instincts, redirecting my
energies through perfect questions, and soothing anxieties with aplomb. She has provided
me with an outstanding model of collegiality, productivity, and insightful and efficient
feedback and mentoring. Tom Guglielmo and Tony Lopez have both shared their
enthusiasm for my project and its many possibilities from the beginning. Tom continues to
push me to be a better historian, encouraging me to make my literary tendencies ever more
interdisciplinary. And Tony introduced me to William Walker, a discovery that deeply
changed my understanding of American mercenaries and their long history within popular
culture. James Miller has been a wonderful department chair, full of genuine warmth and
incredibly helpful advice, and always bringing in a dose of reality beyond the microcosm of
graduate school in our conversations. Melinda Knight created the Graduate Writing
Preceptorship, the fellowship program that brought me to GW and supported my
development as a scholar and as a teacher. Melinda has been an incredibly devoted mentor
iv always willing to carve time out of her incredibly busy schedule to help me navigate all
things academia, and I am proud to also call her my friend.
I have been lucky to have truly wonderful colleagues in my American Studies and
Writing Preceptor cohorts. Laurie Lahey, Joan Fragaszy Troyano, Amber Wiley, and I
bonded from the beginning – thank you for “secret” happy hours where we could talk shop
but usually ended up talking about everything else. To my preceptor writing group –
Jennifer Cho, Clara Lewis, Jeannine Love, Anne Showalter, and Joan Fragaszy Troyano –
thank you. Thank you for reading everything that I wrote, no matter how early the draft or
how late the posting; for giving me your thoughtful feedback, incredible suggestions, and
unfaltering encouragement; for letting me know when it was ok to let go and move on to
the next step; for giving me a reason to leave the house during my writing year; and for
enduring every step of this long, hot summer of mercenaries with me. I’m looking forward
to working with you all for years to come.
To my parents, Allen and Merlene Fox, thank you for your unconditional love and
support. You’ve always fostered my intellectual curiosity, encouraged me to pursue my
dreams, and given me perspective on those dreams. Thank you for the daily affirmations –
I love it when a plan comes together too! Thank you to Amity Fox for being my sister and
friend, for keeping me informed on family matters, and for always bringing me back to
reality with a smile.
And thanks, finally, to Brian Boettger – thank you for your love and support; for keeping me grounded and laughing throughout the whole process; for believing that I could do this at every step of the way; for your endless patience and enthusiasm; and for being the best part of my life.
v ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION
MANIFEST MERCENARIES: MERCENARY NARRATIVES IN AMERICAN POPULAR CULTURE, 1850-1990
This dissertation examines American mercenary narratives in television series, novels, memoirs, and other mass-media cultural products to compose a literary and cultural history of American mercenaries in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Using literary, visual, and cultural analysis, I examine the cultural work performed in William Walker’s memoir The War in Nicaragua (1860); Richard Harding Davis’ mercenary romance novels
Soldiers of Fortune (1897) and Captain Macklin (1902); early Cold War television series
Soldiers of Fortune (1955-1957) and Have Gun, Will Travel (1957-1963), as well as Ernest
K. Gann’s novel Soldier of Fortune (1954) and film adaptation (1955); and late Cold War television series The A-Team (1983-1987) and Airwolf (1983-1986; 1987).
Mercenary narratives appear in popular discourse during times of contested social
changes and international interaction, roughly parallel to times of war, crises in white patriarchal masculinity, redefinitions of American Exceptionalism, and revisions of
Manifest Destiny. Within the fun, action, and romance that attract consumers, mass-media mercenary narratives communicate narratives of social control, order, and hierarchy. They offer a glimpse into historicized structures of feelings and understandings of the possible, thinkable, idealized, and heroic as presented from the assumed dominant point(s) of view, and provide a way to examine contemporary understandings of race, gender, and class relations constructed through a lens of benevolent dominance and control. Ritualistically consuming mass-media mercenary narratives creates collective prosthetic memories and
vi heuristics for understanding (fictional and factional) American mercenaries and private
military contractors.
As paramilitary patriots, these mercenaries believe in the American project – life,
liberty, pursuit of happiness, etc. – and project a benevolent, ambitious American spirit, but
they enforce these beliefs through violent means or threats of violence made from outside
the authority of the state apparatus. As a popular culture form, mercenary narratives provide a hegemonic and ritualistic guide for contemporary popular culture consumers traversing liminal periods. The American mercenary is always simultaneously a domestic and a transnational figure, one that enforces conservative understandings of acceptable race, gender, and class hierarchies in “other” and “foreign” spaces, such as other nations, borderlands, and liminal spaces within the United States where identities are flexible.
vii TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements iv
Abstract vi
Table of Contents viii
Chapter 1 1 Introduction: The Cultural Work of American Mercenary Narratives
Chapter 2 44 Manifest Roots: William Walker and The War in Nicaragua (1860)
Chapter 3 92 Answering the Call of War: Richard Harding Davis’ Mercenary Romances – Soldiers of Fortune (1897) and Captain Macklin (1902)
Chapter 4 144 Building the Frontier Empire: Mercenary Narratives in the Early Cold War – Soldier of Fortune (1954; 1955), Soldiers of Fortune (1955-1957), and Have Gun, Will Travel (1957-1963)
Chapter 5 198 At Home in the Battlefield: Mercenary Narratives in the Late Cold War – The A-Team (1983-1987) and Airwolf (1984-1986; 1987)
Epilogue 253
Bibliography 260
viii
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION: THE CULTURAL WORK OF AMERICAN MERCENARY NARRATIVES
When I tell people that I have been researching representations of mercenaries in
American popular culture, the next bit of conversation usually goes something like this:
“Mercenaries. You mean like Blackwater?” “Yes, some like Blackwater, but also fictional mercenaries that came before Blackwater, like Have Gun, Will Travel and The A-Team.” “Oh, that kind of mercenary. That reminds me of [insert name of favorite childhood television series, comic book, action figure, etc.] Are you talking about my favorite thing too?”
Aside from the constant and often impassioned suggestions for sources that absolutely must
be included in my research, the part of these conversations that stands out is the reaction,
“Oh, that kind of mercenary.” Mercenary contains an assumed negative understanding
about the kind of person or character so labeled, and it is often purposefully employed – or
avoided – for specific political and cultural reasons. In its most basic definition, the term
“mercenary” could potentially be applied to anyone who works for a living, but the negative connotations and political foregrounding of the term come out especially when it is applied to those whose jobs are distasteful, militaristic in nature, and morally or ethically ambiguous.
In this negative connotation, “mercenary” is strongly associated with medieval
warfare – large roaming bands of wild men, raping and pillaging, trading violence for
money, and pledging loyalty to those with the biggest purse strings until a higher fee comes
along. In the mid-twentieth century, mercenaries were involved in post-colonial wars and
1 coups d’etat throughout the Third World but rarely had any long-term impact or standing.
More recently, “mercenary” has been conflated with the designation of private
military/security contractor, the employees of private military companies that provide
training, support, and other “non-combat” services through large-scale classified
government contracts. Blackwater is only the most recently notorious of these private
military companies (PMCs), at least in the United States. In March 2004, four Blackwater
employees were ambushed in Fallujah, Iraq; dragged from their jeeps, they were killed by a
mob and their bodies were mutilated, burned, and hung from a bridge. The incident
sparked the First Battle of Fallujah and introduced into popular consciousness the large and
ambiguous role of civilian contractors in contemporary American warfare. Headlines in
U.S. media outlets alternated between identifying the casualties as civilians, security
contractors, civilian contractors, and other ambiguous labels that reflected the confusion
about what these men were doing in an active war zone and what role they were playing in
the war.1
Then, in September 2007, Blackwater employees again made international
headlines when they opened fire on Nisour Square in Bagdad, killing seventeen Iraqi civilians, including women and children. In response to the suspicious circumstances of these deaths in a crowded intersection, the Iraqi government tried to ban Blackwater
1 A very small sample of journalistic works that examine the Blackwater incident in Fallujah includes: John R. Ballard, Fighting for Fallujah: A New Dawn for Iraq (Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006); David Isenberg, Shadow Force: Private Security Contractors in Iraq (Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2009); Ahmad Mansur, Inside Fallujah: The Unembedded Story (Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press/Interlink Pub. Group, 2009); Robert Young Pelton, Licensed to Kill: Hired Guns in the War on Terror, 1st ed. (New York: Crown Publishers, 2006); Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, Revised Updated edition. (New York, NY: Nation Books, 2008); Suzanne Simons, Master of War: Blackwater USA's Erik Prince and the Business of War, 1st ed. (New York, NY: Harper, 2009); James A. Swanson, The Bush League of Nations: The Coalition of the Unwilling, The Bullied and the Bribed : The GOP's War on Iraq and America (James Swanson - CreateSpace Publishing, 2008); Dina Rasor, Robert Bauman, and Jonathan Alter, Betraying Our Troops: The Destructive Results of Privatizing War (New York, NY: Macmillan, 2008); “Frontline: Private Warriors,” June 21, 2005, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/warriors/.
2 contractors from operating in Iraq in late 2007, only to find that they did not have the
jurisdiction to do so, not under international law, U.S. law, or provisional law. Since 2007,
Blackwater has been embroiled in Senate hearings, indictments, and accusations of secret
assassination plots and retaliation against whistleblowers. As a company, Blackwater
changed its name to Xe in an attempt to escape its bad press and worsening corporate
image. However, “Blackwater” remains synonymous with excessive force, arrogance, and
a cowboys-shoot-first-and-ask-questions-never mentality.
Considering the excesses of Blackwater brings us back to the reaction, “Oh, that
kind of mercenary” I hear when I talk about my project. Inherent in this reaction is the
implication that there is some other “kind” of mercenary that is the exact opposite of
whatever Blackwater is associated with. “That kind of mercenary” is particularly well-
known, easily identified and categorized, and a popular source of favorite childhood memories. There is a deep contradiction between the historical “mercenary” as distasteful,
militaristic, and morally and ethically ambiguous and understandings of some “other” kind
of mercenaries from popular culture that are not only acceptable, but also downright heroic,
desirable, and even fundamentally American.
In Manifest Mercenaries, I examine narratives in American popular culture that
explore this benevolent, desirable kind of mercenary. This dissertation is the first study to examine mass-media mercenary narratives produced and consumed in American popular culture history through the lens of cultural studies. I explore the idealized “Americanness” that is performed in fictional mass-media mercenary narratives in order to understand the tensions between these positive representations and the un-Americanness of the general, negatively connoted “mercenary.” Using literary, visual, and cultural analysis, I examine
3 the cultural work performed by mercenary narratives in American popular culture. In
analyzing representations of mercenaries in American popular culture, I ask the following
questions: When and where have mercenary narratives appeared in popular American culture? How are American mercenaries represented in these historical moments? What cultural work are these mercenary narratives performing in their particular moment?
The American mercenary has been a popular narrative subject circulating
cyclically through mass-media forms since before the Civil War. The production and
consumption of mercenary narratives tends to spike during times of contested changes in
previously accepted social hierarchies – including racial, gendered, and class-based
hierarchies – roughly parallel to times of war and crises in white masculinity and
patriarchy. Mercenary narratives are narratives of benevolent social control. Within these narratives of control, the mercenary works as a guide through liminal periods of contested social change, demonstrating contemporary acceptable social hierarchies and relationships within and between race, gender, and class categories. In these moments, definitions of
American Exceptionalism are being renegotiated and different paths toward achieving
Manifest Destiny are being considered. While the general term “mercenary” might retain lingering negative connotations of providing violence for money, the American mercenary figures in these popular narratives are motivated as much by patriotic and ideological concerns as they are by money. As heroic, benevolent, and well-intentioned paramilitary patriots, their acceptance of payment for mercenary work is a testimony to being good capitalists, not traitors to any American causes.
4 MANIFEST MERCENARIES
The narratives that I examine in this project include: William Walker’s memoir The
War in Nicaragua (1860); Richard Harding Davis’ mercenary romance novels Soldiers of
Fortune (1897) and Captain Macklin (1902); early Cold War television series Soldiers of
Fortune (1955-1957) and Have Gun, Will Travel (1957-1963), as well as Ernest K. Gann’s
novel Soldier of Fortune (1954) and film adaptation (1955); and late Cold War television
series and novelizations of The A-Team (1983-1987) and Airwolf (1984-1986; 1987).
These sources do not represent the entirety of mercenary narratives available in American popular culture from 1850 to1990. Instead, I have chosen them to highlight certain historical moments where mercenary narratives spiked in popularity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These historical moments include the decades between the Mexican-
American War and the American Civil War; between the Spanish-American and
Philippine-American Wars; and the early and late phases of the Cold War.
In mercenary narratives, we can see a legacy of blending and struggling between
Enlightenment ways of “thinking” – relying on patriotism, nationalism, democracy, and
appeals for spreading civilization as motives for fighting – and the remnants of older,
absolutist ways of “doing.” While they played a prominent role in international relations in
the Middle Ages, real mercenaries were pushed out of practice by the rise of Enlightenment
governments and the nation-state system. Mercenaries were hired to support and represent
systems of monarchy and absolutism. Because of this, “mercenaries” are associated with
the dangerous, unstable, and unpredictable control that absolute power grants to leaders
who choose to exercise it, especially when compared to the compromises and dispersed
power that are hallmarks of democracy and limited governments. Within popular
5 American mercenary narratives, we can see the results of this blending and struggling between enlightenment and absolutism – kernels of absolutism and absolute control separated from the official state apparatus and framed in enlightened terms of benevolence, patriotism, and civilization.
From the 1850s through to post-Cold War discourses, the mercenary narrative draws on mythologies of Manifest Destiny and American Exceptionalism, the iconography of the frontier, and an ever-present threat of the foreign to the domestic in order to reify conservative, traditional social hierarchies based on race, gender, and class. I argue that in each of these historical moments, changes in social, political, and cultural norms presented challenges and threats to previously secure institutions and social hierarchies. Because of these challenges, popular understandings of American Exceptionalism and Manifest
Destiny were redefined to better fit new social structures and institutions. Because mercenary narratives are deeply intertwined with ideas of American Exceptionalism and
Manifest Destiny, they provide an excellent location for connecting and transitioning between old and new definitions, structures, and institutions.
Most scholars would agree that there has been a fairly consistent sense of American
Exceptionalism throughout American history. But all the while, Americans have debated reasons and strategies for sharing the “gifts” of American democracy and an American way of life with others. These debates can be understood under a broadly defined application of the term “Manifest Destiny.” Within academic circles, Manifest Destiny is primarily associated with the middle and late-nineteenth century. Broad assertions of the exceptional nature of America led to the idea that the United States had a Manifest Destiny, a God- given right and responsibility to spread the gifts of American Exceptionalism. This belief
6 under-girded expansionist policies advocating pushing into the western frontier in the mid-
nineteenth century and was the impetus for American imperial ventures around the turn of
the twentieth century.
I extend the term to popular discourse, debates, and sentiments expressed within the
Cold War and broaden the application of “Manifest Destiny” to include twentieth-century divisions and understandings about the United States’ role within larger world events.
Particular ideas about American Exceptionalism are confirmed and/or challenged in contested social changes throughout the Cold War, and new conceptions about what makes
America inherently exceptional (and whether it actually is) led to new, updated versions of
Manifest Destiny and debates about new paths for sharing the gifts of American
Exceptionalism.
Mercenary narratives are clearly linked to Manifest Destiny and American
Exceptionalism. They appear most prominently in popular culture during moments of
ambivalence and contradiction between supporting the American project writ large and
distrusting interference by state power. Each of the historical moments I address in this dissertation represents moments when state power was resisted and resented. In the 1850s,
the state was expanding territorially, but there were great concerns about the widespread
abolition of slavery. At the turn of the twentieth century, Americans debated the meaning
of imperial forays in the Caribbean and Pacific. In the early cold War, forced
desegregation, ambiguous police actions, and anti-communist hunts tempered pride in the
United States’ newly-gained status as a superpower. And in the aftermath of the failed
Vietnam War, rising neoconservative politics claimed that the government was the problem
7 at the same time that it continued to expand through an international arms race. Each of
these moments saw a corresponding spike in popular culture mercenary narratives.2
In these moments of prominence in American popular culture, fictional mercenary narratives depict idealized spheres of “benevolent” dominance and control and construction of hierarchical social order by independent white male individuals. In more literary and critical forms, mercenary narratives often focus on the dark, tragic, exploitative side of imperialism. However, in mass-media forms such as popular novels and television, mercenary narratives are very often fun, engaging, and entertaining. They incorporate a wide span of genre characteristics, particularly blending elements of action-adventure and romance genres with bits of chivalry, nobility, and idealism. Popular mercenary narratives are full of action, adventure, romance, intrigue, mystery, heroism, and sometimes even elements of the fantastic and weird. They are as likely to be light-hearted, comedic, and irreverent as they are serious, dramatic, or soap-operatic. Alternately featuring goofy comedy, gooey romance, harsh war, and tragic death – sometimes all in the same story – popular mercenary narratives appeal to a broad range of interests and demographics, making them a solid, reliable genre for adaptation in mass-media forms like television, film, and novels that need to appeal to wide audiences.
Within these narratives, the American mercenary figure is often the paragon of
rugged frontier individualism so prized throughout American cultural history. He is almost
2 This contrasts with historical moments such as the Great Depression, which was surely a great blow to conceptions of American Exceptionalism and a redefining of Manifest Destiny, but did not have a corresponding spike in production and consumption of mercenary narratives. During the Depression, “interference” by state power, such as the New Deal programs or the many jobs created by World War II, may have been welcomed as often as it was resisted, and cultural products often stressed gendered teamwork over the traditional rugged frontier gender roles advocated in mercenary narratives. For an exploration of Depression-era gendered teamwork, see: Barbara Melosh, Engendering Culture: Manhood and Womanhood in New Deal Public Art and Theater, New directions in American art (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991).
8 always a white, male, upper/middle class, self-made man – one who is resourceful, self- sufficient, and able to draw from a wide base of practical knowledge to solve myriad problems. This mercenary is not a gentleman of leisure, though, even if he has attained great wealth; instead, he pursues a life of good, hard work. He continues working on behalf of and with others, providing a connection with a broadly defined “working class” that spans the working-poor to the working-wealthy. Like any good frontiersman, this mercenary figure can work alone, but he often works with a small supporting team. Over the time period from 1850 to 1990, the racial and gender composition of that supporting team broadened and shifted according to contemporary social standards, but the white male mercenary is consistently maintained at the head of the team.
The American mercenary figures in popular mercenary narratives demonstrate a paramilitary patriotism. They believe in the American project – life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, etc – and project a benevolent, ambitious American spirit, but they enforce these beliefs through violent means or threats of violence made from outside the authority of the state apparatus. American mercenary figures work outside of official channels of authority, military, or law enforcement, avoiding bureaucracy and other inconveniences of democracy. This popular American mercenary figure is a far cry from the stereotypical marauding armies of medieval mercenaries. Instead of raping and pillaging the land and its inhabitants, this American mercenary is “taming” the land and its inhabitants, building a small private empire under his benevolent control. The mercenary is the absolute authority within his private empire or fiefdom, but he proves his Americanness and commitment to the American project by spreading civilization, spreading the gifts of American
9 Exceptionalism, and fulfilling his individual destiny in a way that also serves the nation’s
Manifest Destiny.
Studying popular mercenary narratives reveals a genre with a long history of cyclical resurfacing that also provides a snapshot of a popular cultural product within its particular historical moment. As a genre that resurfaces throughout American popular culture history, mercenary narratives in mass-media forms provide a glimpse into historicized structures of feelings and understandings of the possible, thinkable, idealized, and heroic as presented from the assumed dominant point(s) of view. In my analyses, I am trying to capture the “feel” of the novels, films, and television series and situate them within their historical contexts and structures of feeling.3 I use close readings of narratives to determine what type of mercenary narrative was popular in a particular moment, what characteristics and situations were deemed acceptable in that moment to appeal to the broad target audience of mass-media forms.
Within their contemporary moments, mercenary narratives illuminate particular paths that consumers can take to traverse liminal periods of social and cultural change.
Through novels and serialized narratives, these narratives provide a space for enacting and repeating cultural rituals throughout the transition period.4 At once an historical archive and a snapshot of particular moments, I argue that mercenary narratives and the genre
3 For more on Raymond Williams’ theories about “structures of feeling,” see also: Raymond Williams, Marxism and Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977); Raymond Williams, Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society, Flamingo ed., rev. and expanded. (London: Fontana Paperbacks, 1983); Raymond Williams, Television: Technology and Cultural Form (New York: Schocken Books, 1975); Raymond Williams, Resources of Hope: Culture, Democracy, Socialism (London: Verso, 1989). 4 For more on Victor Turner’s theories on ritual and liminality, see also: Victor Witter Turner, ed., Celebration, Studies in Festivity and Ritual (Washington, D.C: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1982); Victor Witter Turner, From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play, Performance studies series 1st v (New York City: Performing Arts Journal Publications, 1982); Victor Witter Turner and Edward M Bruner, eds., The Anthropology of Experience (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986); Victor Witter Turner, The Anthropology of Performance (New York: PAJ Publications, 1986); Victor Witter Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure, The Lewis Henry Morgan lectures 1966 (Chicago: Aldine Pub. Co, 1969).
10 demonstrate the evolution of acceptable social hierarchies regarding race, gender, and class
across different historical moments, while consistently involving narratives of control and
dominant-yet-benevolent reinforcement of hegemonic (re)definitions of American
Exceptionalism and Manifest Destiny.
Amidst the fun and action and romance that draw in audiences, mercenary
narratives also communicate narratives of social control, order, and hierarchy. In Manifest
Mercenaries, I argue that popular fictional mercenary narratives communicate engaging
cultural performances of hegemonic control to consumers of these narratives. They
entertain consumers while reifying a dominant-yet-benevolent standpoint on debates during
moments of contested social change. In general, narratives produced and circulated
through mass-media forms can provide a snapshot of content that was considered broadly
appealing, acceptable, and potentially profitable within a particular historical moment. As
a product of a longstanding genre produced in multiple historical moments, popular mercenary narratives provide a snapshot of what type of American mercenary is broadly acceptable and marketable within that particular moment. While some generic qualities of mercenary narratives are consistent across the vast social and cultural changes in American society from 1850 to 1990 – notably, a consistent emphasis on social hierarchy and leadership by white, benevolent, paternalistic mercenary figures – other qualities shift considerably. The mercenary’s relationships with racialized and gendered characters, the actions they perform, and the context and concerns of the mercenary narratives change as social and cultural values of what is popularly acceptable and profitably marketable change.
11 Popular mercenary narratives provide a lens through which we can examine
contemporary understandings of race, gender, and class relations and hierarchies from the
standpoint of the “threatened” dominant/hegemonic group. They emphasize understanding
race from a position of whiteness; understanding gender from a position of maleness; and
understanding class from the position of a (nearly mythical) self-made, upper-middle-class
man. While this may at first seem obvious (don’t we always see race, gender, and class
measured against a baseline of white, male, and economically successful?), mercenary
narratives in mass-media forms needed to appeal to a large audience and so could not
afford to offend audience blocs or offer a too-narrow ideological outlook. Performances of
acceptable and even idealized racial and gender roles needed to appeal to more than just
successful white males in order to be widely consumed and profitable mass-media
productions.
Mass-media products appeal to the masses through ideological incoherence – the
idea that mass-media forms aim for middle ground (culturally, politically, and socially)
while still offering a little something for everyone. Ideological incoherence opens
possibilities for dominant and subversive readings, alternate interpretations and
understandings, and windows for consumers of the mass-media forms to project their
thoughts, ideologies, and beliefs onto some point of view found within the film, novel, or
television show. The “cooler” the medium – meaning the more that consumers can
contribute to meaning making or interact with the medium on multiple sensory levels to
engage with it – the more ideologically incoherent it can be.5 Additionally, ideological
incoherence can become more prominent as a medium ages or settles. For example, there
5 For more on “hot” and “cool” media, see: Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964).
12 are more points of view and opportunities for alternative readings available in mercenary
television series produced in the 1980s – when broadcast television as a medium was
settled and as-yet unchallenged by cable – than there are in mercenary series produced in the 1950s, in the early days of the medium. Television as a medium is not as widely studied as film and literature, but the serialized narratives and ritualistic format of
television provides an interesting way to glimpse the ideologies, hegemonic and resistant
forces, and structures of feeling of a specific time period. With the television set ensconced
as a fixture in the home meant for entertainment and education, television networks and
programmers have to bridge an extensive and heterogeneous audience, pleasing liberals
and conservatives, old and young viewers, and even co-opting benign versions of
counterculture trends to create popular and profitable programming that appeals to the
broadest possible audience while offending the fewest number of consumers.
We can see both mass-media ideological incoherence and strict genre structures at
work in serialized mercenary narratives on network television. As mercenary narratives
shift to television, the structure of the genre retains particular purposes – hierarchy,
demonstrations of benevolent control – that act as an umbrella over textual inconsistencies,
similar to the way that the structure of a police procedural series can focus on shocking,
transgressive crimes and yet still ritualistically demonstrate the investigation, order, and
resolution of those transgressions within the larger criminal justice system. As a structured
genre series, the possible endings of individual episodes of mercenary series are often
predetermined; order will be restored, and the mercenary hero/protagonist will prevail.
Mercenary narratives are a bit like Shakespeare, in that by the end of the story, either
everyone is resolved satisfactorily or everyone is dead, so the exposition, climax, and
13 dénouement of the narrative become the pieces that offer flexibility of interpretations and
ideologies. It is the journey of episode that counts, more than the ending.
This is why I call contemporary consumption of mercenary narratives a cultural
ritual, particularly regarding serialized narratives on television during the Cold War.
Television programming can be full of resistant readings, hegemonic narratives, and other
productive contradictions. Additionally, the weekly format stretched over a number of
seasons means that the storylines and characters in a television show have the potential to grow (or stagnate) over a longer period of time than those of film and/or literature. There is room for subversive readings of these serialized narratives within the weekly ritual of a television series, but there is an umbrella of hegemony inherent in the mercenary genre.
Creating subversive readings of television narratives requires close, careful, committed
viewing, whereas consuming dominant readings requires much less work on the part of the media consumer. Mercenary narratives retain a heavy focus on generic patterns that reinforce the status quo. They reiterate faith in the American project and the power of the
American individual, but they also assert that social hierarchies and social order are inherently part of that American project.
As a popular culture form, mercenary narratives provided a hegemonic and
ritualistic guide for contemporary popular culture consumers who were traversing liminal
periods of redefining versions of American Exceptionalism and updating understandings of
Manifest Destiny through contested social, cultural, and structural changes. These
narratives present the American mercenary figure as always simultaneously a domestic and
a transnational figure, one that demonstrates contemporary, dominant understandings of
race, gender, and class hierarchies currently acceptable in American domestic society in
14 “other” and “foreign” spaces, such as other nations, borderlands, and liminal spaces within
the U.S. where identities can be flexible.
MANIFEST DESTINY AND AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM
In 1845, John L. O’Sullivan coined the term “Manifest Destiny,” writing of “our
manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence.”6 Ultimately,
Manifest Destiny was based on three ideas: “the special virtues of the American people and
their institutions; their mission to redeem and remake the world in the image of America;
and the American destiny under God to accomplish this sublime task. Under the aegis of virtue, mission, and destiny evolved a powerful nationalist mythology that was virtually impossible to oppose and, for many, almost without an alternative.”7 Since the 1840s,
Manifest Destiny has provided both an organizing worldview and an ultimate goal for
American society.
As the United States’ border reached both oceans, the conception of Manifest
Destiny as overspreading the continent disappeared after the Civil War until the 1890s,
when it was redefined as being more about spreading “civilization” and “uplift.” While
Manifest Destiny in the 1890s still meant territorial expansion and spreading American
Exceptionalism, there were different interpretations as to how that goal should be reached.
These different paths led to different views of where the country should go and how it
should get there, much like a variety of mission statements for a company might cause
infighting among employees. In this moment, popular mercenary narratives reflected
6 O’Sullivan quoted in Charles H. Brown, Agents of Manifest Destiny: The Lives and Times of the Filibusters (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980), 16. 7 William Earl Weeks, Building the Continental Empire: American Expansion from the Revolution to the Civil War, American Ways Series (Chicago, Ill: Ivan R. Dee, 1996), 61.
15 debates over how best to achieve a balanced American version of imperialism, different from the harshness of European imperialism.
I extend the term Manifest Destiny to the debates about the United States’ role as a superpower in twentieth century because this term indicates an understanding of a common social goal – declaring, proving, and spreading the gift(s) of American Exceptionalism – while also indicating that there is disagreement on how best to achieve that goal. In the
early Cold War, the United States was full of confidence after victory in World War II and
determined to help the countries most damaged in the war through increased American
production and power. Variously defined paths toward achieving Manifest Destiny and
sharing/spreading American Exceptionalism took the forms of the Marshall Plan, jazz tours
and exporting culture;8 sharing abundant consumer goods and innovative products;9 and expanding the working-middle class within the U.S. through New Deal social programs
8 For more on American Exceptionalism and exporting culture in the Cold War, see also: Penny M Von Eschen, Satchmo Blows up the World: Jazz Ambassadors Play the Cold War (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2004); Christina Klein, Cold War Orientalism: Asia in the Middlebrow Imagination, 1945-1961 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003); Michael C. C. Adams, The Best War Ever: America and World War II (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994); Paul S. Boyer, By the Bomb's Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994); Stephanie Coontz, The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap (New York, NY: BasicBooks, 1992); Kathy Lee Peiss, Hope in a Jar: The Making of America's Beauty Culture, 1st ed. (New York: Metropolitan Books, 1998); Kenneth D Rose, One Nation Underground: The Fallout Shelter in American Culture (New York: New York University Press, 2001); Robert B. Westbrook, Why We Fought: Forging American Obligations in World War II (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books, 2004). 9 For more on consumerism during the Cold War, see also: Lizabeth Cohen, A Consumer's Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America, 1st ed. (New York: Knopf, 2003); Gary S. Cross, An All-consuming Century: Why Commercialism Won in Modern America (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000); Victoria De Grazia, Irresistible Empire: America's Advance Through Twentieth-Century Europe (Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005); Elizabeth A Fones-Wolf, Selling Free Enterprise: The Business Assault on Labor and Liberalism, 1945-60, The history of communication (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994); Richard Wightman Fox and T. J. Jackson Lears, eds., The Culture of Consumption: Critical Essays in American History, 1880-1980, 1st ed. (New York: Pantheon Books, 1983); Thomas Frank, The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture, and the Rise of Hip Consumerism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997); Lawrence B Glickman, A Living Wage: American Workers and the Making of Consumer Society (Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell University Press, 1997); Viviana A. Rotman Zelizer, The Social Meaning of Money (New York: BasicBooks, 1994).
16 and the GI Bill (the biggest and most successful welfare program in U.S. history).10 The darker side of this included oppressive measures to inflict gender and racial conformity in order to prove a particular kind and level of “civilization” that others should desire and emulate,11 supporting unpopular rulers who were friendly to the U.S. to keep friends in power rather than lose countries to communism, and military actions fraught with ambiguity rather than decisive and heroic victory, such as the Korean War.12 Popular
10 For more on programs for veterans, see also: Paul Dickson and Thomas B Allen, The Bonus Army: An American Epic (New York: Walker & Co, 2004); Michael D. Gambone, Greatest Generation Comes Home: The Veteran In American Society (Texas A&M University Press, 2005); Suzanne Mettler, Soldiers to Citizens: The G.I. Bill and the Making of the Greatest Generation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); Robert Francis Saxe, Settling down: World War II Veterans' Challenge to the Postwar Consensus, 1st ed. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007); Wilbur J Scott, Vietnam Veterans Since the War: The Politics of PTSD, Agent Orange, and the National Memorial (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004); Aaron Glantz, The War Comes Home: Washington's Battle Against America's Veterans (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009). 11 For more on pressures of race and gender conformity around the long Cold War period, see also: Thomas Borstelmann, The Cold War and the Color Line: American Race Relations in the Global Arena (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2001); Mary L Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy, Politics and society in twentieth-century America (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 2000); Ruth Feldstein, Motherhood in Black and White: Race and Sex in American Liberalism, 1930-1965 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000); Robert L Griswold, Fatherhood in America: A History (New York: BasicBooks, 1993); Thomas A Guglielmo, White on Arrival: Italians, Race, Color, and Power in Chicago, 1890-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003); Judith Halberstam, Female Masculinity (Durham: Duke University Press, 1998); James Hunter Meriwether, Proudly We Can Be Africans: Black Americans and Africa, 1935-1961, The John Hope Franklin series in African American history and culture (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002); Peiss, Hope in a Jar: The Making of America's Beauty Culture; Tom Pendergast, Creating the Modern Man: American Magazines and Consumer Culture, 1900-1950 (Columbia, Mo: University of Missouri Press, 2000); Ruth Rosen, The World Split Open: How the Modern Women's Movement Changed America (New York: Viking, 2000); Ronald T. Takaki, Double Victory: A Multicultural History of America in World War II, 1st ed. (Boston: Little, Brown and Co, 2000); Penny M Von Eschen, Race Against Empire: Black Americans and Anticolonialism, 1937-1957 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997); Robert E. Weems, Desegregating the Dollar: African American Consumerism in the Twentieth Century (New York: New York University Press, 1998). 12 For more on covert support and ambiguous military actions, see also: Boyer, By the Bomb's Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age; John W. Dower, War Without Mercy (New York: Pantheon Books, 1986); Tom Engelhardt, The End of Victory Culture: Cold War America and the Disillusioning of a Generation, 2nd ed. (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1998); James William Gibson, Warrior Dreams: Paramilitary Culture in Post-Vietnam America, 1st ed. (New York: Hill and Wang, 1994); Melani McAlister, Epic Encounters: Culture, Media, and U.S. Interests in the Middle East, 1945-2000, American Crossroads (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001); Timothy Melley, Empire of Conspiracy: The Culture of Paranoia in Postwar America (Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell University Press, 2000); James William Gibson, The Perfect War: Technowar in Vietnam (Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1986); Andrew J Huebner, The Warrior Image: Soldiers in American Culture from the Second World War to the Vietnam Era (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008); Trevor B McCrisken,
17 mercenary narratives at this time presented a middle path blending sentimentalism and
containment to bridge the problems at home with the image that was being projected
abroad.
The 1960s and 1970s presented huge blows to mythologies of American
Exceptionalism. Fights for civil rights from racial groups and feminists exposed the
dissonance between lived experiences and the rhetoric of freedom, equality, and equal
access to achieving an American dream. Losing the Vietnam War despite tremendous
efforts exposed the myth of American military invincibility. In addition, in the 1970s the
world seemed to be turning toward the Soviet/communist side of the Cold War instead of
the American/democracy side. President Jimmy Carter’s “crisis of confidence” speech in
1979 identified a malaise in American culture and suggested that the United States accept past mistakes, get over them, and come up with a new way to get along with the rest of the world instead of trying to control it through military and other means.13 Carter’s crisis of
confidence speech opened up public debate for another redefinition of American
Exceptionalism and corresponding missions of Manifest Destiny. Was it really the United
States’ Manifest Destiny to be a cooperative player in world events? Or, should the United
States try to control world events through any means necessary?
Representing the opposite worldview, Ronald Reagan is credited with re-energizing
American belligerence in the Cold War and re-founding faith in American Exceptionalism,
American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam: US Foreign Policy Since 1974 (Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003); Scott, Vietnam Veterans Since the War. 13 For text and context of Carter’s speech, see also: Jimmy Carter, “American Rhetoric: Jimmy Carter -- "A Crisis of Confidence" (Audio, Video, Transcript),” American Rhetoric, n.d., http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jimmycartercrisisofconfidence.htm; PBS Video, “American Experience: Jimmy Carter,” People & Events: Carter's "Crisis of Confidence" Speech, n.d., http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/peopleevents/e_malaise.html; Miller Center, “Presidential Speech Archive - Miller Center of Public Affairs,” Presidential Speech Archive, n.d., http://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/speeches.
18 superiority, patriotism, and energy. Reagan offered a different mission statement than
Carter, a different path to maintain and achieve even greater heights of American
Exceptionalism. Instead of listening to reason, “growing up” as a country, and playing nice with the rest of the world, a defensive arrogance of super power emerged with Reagan’s neoconservative version of Manifest Destiny, a determination to reassert manliness and
control in world interactions. It was in this context that mercenary narratives, now
featuring Vietnam veterans building pseudo-families in the realm of the battlefield, again
became popular.
DEFINING “MERCENARY”
Because “mercenary” is such a fluid and widely (mis)applied term, a clarification is
in order before we proceed. In this project, I define a “mercenary” as a particular figure in
real/realist narratives who lives a paramilitary or post-military lifestyle, hires out
militaristic or potentially violent services for monetary or personal gain, and works entirely
outside of regular government or authoritative channels. The mercenary figures that I
examine are often veterans of the U.S. military with specialized military training – such as
former members of Special Forces, West Point graduates, or other elite groups – and that
military training is used in their daily life and work. These mercenary figures blend
elements of medieval romantic knighthood – absolute control over a tiny fiefdom ruled by
a strict code of honor and chivalry – with adherence to the larger American national project
of a common pursuit of life, liberty, happiness, and spreading the gifts of American
Exceptionalism through a shared sense of Manifest Destiny.
19 I focus on “realistic” portrayals of mercenaries in this project, whether in fiction or
non-fiction popular culture. There are numerous examples of “mercenary types” in science
fiction, comic books, fantasy, video games, and other genres, all of which will prove useful
in future studies expanding on the literary and cultural history of American mercenaries.
However, in this first project, I am most interested in the cross-pollination of fictional and non-fictional mercenary narratives in cultural memories; for this purpose, then, science fiction, comic book, and fantasy mercenaries can be easily dismissed as clearly separate from real or realistic representations.
Even within real/realist mercenary narratives, the mercenary occupies a nebulous
area, and is most easily differentiated from other, similar heroic figures in American culture
through a negative definition. While benevolent American mercenaries might share heroic
traits and narratives of control with super heroes, military/police heroes, private
investigators, cowboys, and vigilantes, they are not all the same. Mercenaries do not have
super powers, other than perhaps super-developed common sense. They are not acting
within the official state apparatus, a point that separates them from military heroes, police
heroes, and private investigators, all of whom are licensed by the state and usually work
with or in opposition to official police departments. Cowboys might be associated with
occasional gunfights, but they are not usually hired specifically to provide militaristic or
potentially violent services. And, vigilantes do not hire out their services, they hunt down
their enemies in response to a personal attack, killing and destroying in order to seek
revenge, right a personal wrong, or further a personal vendetta. So, while mercenaries can
also act as private investigators, cowboys, and vigilantes, not all private investigators,
cowboys, and vigilantes should be considered mercenaries.
20 A BRIEF HISTORY OF MERCENARIES
Non-fiction writings about mercenaries tend to focus either on one particular mercenary (such as a biography or memoir), groups of mercenaries involved in particular conflicts (such as a limited military history), or on general historical or contemporary trends. Academic and journalistic studies that examine broad, general trends, particularly those focusing on recent international trends of governments hiring private military contractors, include similar brief historical overviews of mercenary history. They trace a quick line through the history of Western civilization from mercenaries in the Middle Ages to post-Cold War private military companies. I include an expanded version of this standard history of mercenaries not only for background information but also to make clear how different is the cultural figure of the mercenary, that source of favorite childhood memories, when he appears in American popular culture.
In histories focused on western civilization, mercenaries are most often associated with roaming bands of warriors looting and pillaging their way through Europe in the
Middle Ages. They were a regular, though morally and ethically murky, part of warfare up until the nineteenth century. Until the rise of the modern nation-state system and its standard of organized, standing national militaries, “raising an army” had meant impressing poor amateurs into military service, hiring professional mercenaries to wage war, or both.
Influenced by distinct changes in political, intellectual, and social thought from the
Enlightenment and the rise of the modern nation-state system, there was a broad, international movement in the mid-nineteenth century to eliminate usage of mercenaries, as nation-states began shifting to armies composed of citizen-soldiers. Most scholars agree that mercenary armies were a flexible, efficient, and effective way to wage war in Europe
21 before the nineteenth century; though they were very expensive, mercenary armies were
easily raised and easily dispersed once the fight was over, eliminating the need to house,
train, maintain, and control individual soldiers. To shift to a more rigid standing army and
bureaucracy based on citizen-armies was actually a great risk.14
There are several factors usually used to explain why states chose to move from a
flexible, centuries-old system of mercenary warfare to a new system based on patriotism
and understandings about citizen-soldiers. Changing and modernizing material conditions, such as larger populations and new military technologies, created a systemic need for larger armies made of soldiers who wanted to serve their nation based on patriotic motivations.
As warfare and weaponry became more complex than hand-to-hand combat and blades,
soldiers needed more training, more care, and better reasons to make a long-term
commitment. These citizen-solders could be more independent and better trained than
random mercenaries, so would constitute a more reliable source of labor for war.15 The
Prussians’ early and successful adoption of a citizen army created a “path” for other states to follow, and their great successes influenced other nations to establish their own citizen- armies rather than seek out alternative paths of modernization.16
Widespread acceptance of Enlightenment ideas played a prominent role as well. As the relationship between citizen and state became weighted with interdependent responsibilities, the concept of neutrality in international law and the nation-state system was also developing and strengthening. Official proclamations of state neutrality could
14 For a detailed analysis of the shift away from mercenary use in the nineteenth century, see Sarah V. Percy, Mercenaries: The History of a Norm in International Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), chap. 4, 5. 15 Barry R. Posen, “Nationalism, the Mass Army, and Military Power,” International Security 18, no. 2 (Autumn 1993): 80-124. 16 Deborah D. Avant, The Market for Force: The Consequences of Privatizing Security (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
22 quickly become complicated if the states’ citizens were involved in a foreign war, and
citizens’ actions abroad could potentially draw the state into an unwanted conflict, because
the citizen was interrelated with the state. Therefore, maintaining international neutrality
required the state to take stronger control over their own citizens’ actions and refrain from
employing other states’ citizens in their military ventures.17
The Enlightenment and revolutionary fervors of the American and French
Revolutions helped spread changing ideas about relationships between states and citizens,
and nation states sought to define their interests and control their participation in conflicts
through imposing neutrality laws that applied to their citizenry and international standards
for neutrality. The United States was an active participant in this movement and enacted
neutrality laws well before those of European nations:
The neutrality laws of the United States are chiefly contained in the acts of June 5, 1794, and April 20, 1818. By these acts it is declared a misdemeanor for any citizen of the United States to accept or exercise a commission to serve a foreign state in war against any friendly state; or to enlist, or enter himself, or hire or retain another person to enlist, or to go beyond the jurisdiction of the United States to enlist, or with intent to be enlisted, into such foreign service; or to fit out or arm, or to increase or augment the force of any armed vessel, with the intent that such vessel shall be employed in the service of a power at war with a friendly state; or to begin, set on foot, or provide or prepare the means for, any military expedition or enterprise against the territory of any foreign state with whom the United States is at peace.18
Similar laws were enacted throughout Europe over the course of early nineteenth century,
codifying a growing social taboo around mercenaries into laws against using mercenary
forces or supporting citizens’ mercenary or private military actions.
17 Janice E. Thomson, Mercenaries, Pirates, and Sovereigns: State-Building and Extraterritorial Violence in Early Modern Europe (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1994). 18 George Breckenridge Davis and Gordon E. Sherman, The Elements of International Law (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1900), 434, http://books.google.com/books?id=LcoLAAAAYAAJ&printsec=titlepage&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&c ad=0.
23 In the newly “modern” nation-state system, relying on mercenaries became a sign
of national weakness. Normative concepts of state identity and power became tied to
citizen armies that would fight for appropriate normative motives, such as nationalism and
patriotism, not for mercenary motives like money.19 Relying on a mercenary army became
an indicator of the state’s inability to compete on the international stage. In order to be
known as an important, strong, stable, and powerful nation, states had to be able to inspire
and utilize patriotism and nationalism in their citizens, instill common belief in a “cause”
for warring, and control their citizens’ actions against other states through enforcing neutrality laws. These were factors included in meeting the standards of an Enlightened,
and therefore civilized, progressive, and model, nation state. These issues – patriotism,
nationalism, civilization – were built into the cultural memories of the American
Revolution and into the myth-making of the founding of the United States.
Within this confluence of Enlightenment, neutrality, and nation-state building,
mercenaries virtually disappeared from state-sponsored warfare from the nineteenth century until the 1960s. Mercenaries were always present in some form or another, in groups like the French Foreign Legion and the Gurkhas, but they were not widespread or problematic enough to prompt changes in international law. That is, until they became prominent and problematic players in conflicts in 1960s post-colonial Africa, particularly in civil war in the Congo, where prolific autobiographer and famous British mercenary “Mad”
Mike Hoare led a mercenary army of European forces aligned with “democracy” (i.e. continued European interests in Africa) against a force led by Che Guevara and supported by Cuba and “communist” forces. There were reports of mercenary activity throughout the
Third World during the Cold War, spurred in part by weakened states, coups, ex-soldiers
19 Percy, Mercenaries, 122.
24 and paramilitary fervor, and even outlets like Soldier of Fortune Magazine, which was
founded in the United States in 1976 and advertised “hot spots” where potential
mercenaries could find work. The United Nations has been debating mercenary use and
crafting international regulations since the 1949 Geneva Conventions, including the
International Convention Against the Recruitment, Use, Financing, and Training of
Mercenaries of 1989.20
After the “fall” of the Soviet Union and the technical end of the Cold War in 1989,
there was a scramble for international control. The arms race between the United States
and the Soviet Union had officially de-escalated, but the black market for arms and military
support grew, often flooded with surplus Cold War armaments. This politically unstable
international situation is usually cited by academics and journalists as the main reason for a
rise in private military companies (PMCs) in the 1990s and 2000s. Though the UN banned
hiring mercenaries after the conflicts in Africa in the 1960s, PMCs fit into a murky
loophole.21 They market their services as a form of training or “consulting,” and employees work in non-combat positions rather than filling the ranks of combat troops.
PMCs such as Sandline International and Blackwater, USA have provided security and military support to nation states and corporations around the globe. “Support” is the key
here – support roles are differentiated from combat roles, and the UN regulations ban hiring
20 Studies about mercenaries from international relations, political science, and legal studies scholars delve deeply into UN regulations and international law. To provide a brief background for this project, a very limited sample of UN attention to mercenaries includes: United Nations, International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries. A/RES/44/34., 1989, http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/44/a44r034.htm; United Nations, Report of the Ad Hoc Committee of the Drafting of an International Convention Against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries (New York: United Nations, n.d.), http://catalog.wrlc.org/cgi- bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=3589724; United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, The Impact of Mercenary Activities on the Right of Peoples to Self-Determination, Human rights fact sheet no. 28 (Geneva, Switzerland: Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2002). 21 United Nations, International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries. A/RES/44/34. Article 1 details the UN definition of a “mercenary.”
25 mercenaries to fill combat roles, engage in “hostilities,” and take part in armed conflict.
Still, military and warfare support activities traditionally controlled by the modern nation
state – such as food, laundry, mechanical, and barracks services or security, weapons, and
strategy training – are increasingly “outsourced” to these companies with little to no
national or international regulation, agreements, or protections such as those found in the
Geneva Convention. Despite the differentiation between support and combat, modern
warfare is not relegated to an isolated front line, so support positions – both jobs and
locations – can easily be engulfed by combat, armed conflict, and hostilities.
These companies have provided and continue to provide critical support to the
armed forces of the United States and other United Nations affiliates, operating in a wide
variety of “hot spots” (including Bosnia, Somalia, Afghanistan, and Iraq) amid mixed
reactions from citizens and government officials. Post-Cold War PMCs are frequently
hired by first-world nations to support and supplement military forces in both police actions and full-blown wars. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, PMCs even took on a role that would normally be filled by the U.S. National Guard: armed employees of Blackwater,
USA patrolled the streets of New Orleans, LA to protect private property and ensure order.
Most PMCs are populated with retired soldiers, often former members of the Special
Forces. PMCs pay their employees very well and offer a “civilian” job that utilizes the
specific skill set that soldiers learn in the military. However, PMC leaders and employees
acutely resist the term “mercenary” as a descriptor for the actions they are performing,
preferring instead to self-identify using euphemisms such as “security consultant” or
“civilian contractor” for legal and cultural reasons. Mercenaries, as defined in UN
resolutions, are still strictly prohibited by international law and subject to social taboos.
26 EXTENDING CONVERSATIONS ABOUT MERCENARIES
My study is the first broad examination of mass-market mercenary narratives from
a cultural studies and humanities perspective. The majority of nonfiction writing about
mercenaries and private military companies (PMCs) is fairly recent, reflecting the
perception that PMCs are a twenty-first century phenomenon. The vast majority of
conversation also tends to take place outside of humanities, following a divide between
scholarly works for academic audiences most interested in international relations and works
for trade audiences, written by investigative journalists or memoirists.
Scholarly writing on mercenaries is produced by academics in disciplinary fields
such as international relations, political science, legal studies, economics, and security
studies. For these scholars, the rise of covert operations and PMCs has been incorporated
into debates about issues of sovereignty, empire, international relations, and security
studies. They frequently focus on legal evolution of Enlightenment thought into an
international political system that relies on nation states maintaining balanced control over
their own means of war.22 On the journalistic/trade side, investigative journalists have
delved into the personalities, histories, agendas, and actions of PMCs and individual contractors. These popular accounts blend political agendas and a sensationalized, “ripped
22 Recent academic studies on mercenaries and private military companies and contractors include: Avant, The Market for Force; James Jay Carafano, Private Sector, Public Wars: Contractors in Combat-- Afghanistan, Iraq, and Future Conflicts (Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2008); Simon Chesterman and Chia Lehnardt, eds., From Mercenaries to Market: The Rise and Regulation of Private Military Companies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007); International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Making a Killing: The Business of War (Washington D.C: Public Integrity Books, 2003); Isenberg, Shadow Force; Christopher Kinsey, Corporate Soldiers and International Security: The Rise of Private Military Companies, Contemporary Security Studies (London: Routledge, 2006); Percy, Mercenaries; P. W. Singer, Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry, Updated ed. (Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell University Press, 2008); Thomson, Mercenaries, Pirates, and Sovereigns; Andrew Alexandra, Deane-Peter Baker, and Marina Caparini, eds., Private Military and Security Companies: Ethics, Policies and Civil-Military Relations (Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2008); Doug Brooks, Peacekeeping or Pillage?: Private Military Companies in Africa (Pretoria, South Africa: Africa Institute of South Africa, 2001).
27 from the headlines” approach with more traditional investigative journalism techniques.
They often blur lines between the factual accounts being communicated and the presentation styles of fictional accounts seen in television, literature, and film, a practice that obscures their participation in culturally constructed understandings of American mercenaries.23
In addition to scholarly and investigative studies, there is a rising market for memoirs of private military contractors/mercenaries. These memoirs are often marketed
along with war stories, military memoirs, and (occasionally) alternative military histories.24
23 Recent works by investigative journalists and/or written for a “trade” audience include: James Ashcroft, Making a Killing: The Explosive Story of a Hired Gun in Iraq (London: Virgin Books, 2006); Pratap Chatterjee, Halliburton's Army: How a Well-Connected Texas Oil Company Revolutionized the Way America Makes War (New York: Nation Books, 2009); James R Davis, Fortune's Warriors: Private Armies and the New World Order, 1st ed. (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 2002); Madelaine Drohan, Making a Killing: How and Why Corporations Use Armed Force to Do Business (Guilford, CT: Lyon's Press, 2004); Steve Fainaru, Big Boy Rules: America's Mercenaries Fighting in Iraq (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2008); Tony Geraghty, Soldiers of Fortune: A History of the Mercenary in Modern Warfare, 1st ed. (New York: Pegasus Books, 2009); Michael Lee Lanning, Mercenaries: Soldiers of Fortune, from Ancient Greece to Today's Private Military Companies (New York: Ballantine Books, 2005); Pelton, Licensed to Kill; Fred Rosen, Contract Warriors: How Mercenaries Changed History and the War on Terrorism (New York, NY: Penguin Group (USA), Inc, 2005); Scahill, Blackwater; Simons, Master of War; Frank R Villafaña, Cold War in the Congo: The Confrontation of Cuban Military Forces, 1960-1967 (New Brunswick, N.J: Transaction Publishers, 2009); Rolf Uesseler, Servants of War: Private Military Corporations and the Profit of Conflict (Brooklyn: Soft Skull Press, 2008); Al J. Venter, War Dog: Fighting Other People's Wars: The Modern Mercenary in Combat (Philadelphia, Pa: Casemate, 2008). 24 A short sampling of “mercenary memoirs” includes: John Banks, The Wages of War: The Life of a Modern Mercenary (London: Cooper, 1978); Russell Blair, Contractor Confessions: Tales from Iraq, 1st ed. (The Independent Texan Press, 2007); Jim Bolen, No Guts, No Glory: My Life as a Brawler, Soldier, Mercenary, Bounty Hunter, Bouncer, Bodyguard, Businessman and All-Around Nice Guy (Louisville, KY: Butler Books, 2008); Rick D. Cleland, Working for KBR in Iraq: An Exercise of Frustration (Charleston, SC: BookSurge Publishing, 2007); Bill Fawcett, MERCS: True Stories of Mercenaries in Action (New York, NY: Avon, 1999); John Geddes, Highway to Hell: Dispatches from a Mercenary in Iraq, 1st ed. (New York: Broadway Books, 2008); Mike Hoare, Congo Mercenary (London: Hale, 1967); Mike Hoare, The Road to Kalamata: A Congo Mercenary's Personal Memoir (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1989); Mike Hoare, Congo Warriors (London: Hale, 1991); Mike Hoare, The Seychelles Affair (Boulder, CO: Paladin Press, 2008); Philip Horniblow, Oil, Sand, & Politics: Memoirs of a Middle East Doctor, Mercenary, and Mountaineer (Kirby Stephen, Cumbria, UK: Hayloft Publishing, 2003); V. L. Koldobskii, Occupation?: Professional Killer (Moscow: Novosti Press Agency Pub. House, 1985); Rob Krott, Save the Last Bullet for Yourself: A Soldier of Fortune in the Balkans and Somalia (Havertown, PA: Casemate Publishers, 2008); Glenn Lane, Pushing the Envelope: The Story of A Hired Gun in Iraq (Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2008); John L. McClure, Soldier Without Fortune: True Firsthand Account of a Free-Lance Mercenary in Central America (New York, NY: Dell, 1987); Peter Mercer, Dirty Deeds Done Cheap (London: John Blake Publishing, 2009); Rob Patterson, From Vietnam to Timor: Misfit, Missionary or Mercenary (Loftus: Australian Military History Publications, 2006); Karl Penta, Have Gun Will Travel
28 Whereas many private military contractors eschew the term “mercenary,” the authors of these memoirs are likely to embrace the term “mercenary” and apply it to their own lives.
They use “mercenary” to emphasize the action, adventure, independence, masculinity, and a certain familiar thematic ambiance of “war is hell when you’re in the shit” associated with post-Vietnam war memoirs, with an additional “but at least I’m profiting and in control of myself” twist from being a mercenary. Though owners, employees, and clients of PMCs might shun any legal or cultural association with “mercenary” tendencies, those looking to sell narratives – particularly “true” narratives about adventure, war, control, and dominance – advertise their mercenary tendencies tenaciously and ostentatiously.
In exploring why contemporary journalists and academics conflate mercenaries and private security contractors in a negative way, international relations scholar Sarah Percy argues convincingly that there is an international cultural norm against mercenaries that stems from the Middle Ages. Using the same historical signposts that most journalists and scholars use to contextualize mercenaries, Percy argues that the norm against mercenaries has become so deeply ingrained that it has become puritanical, producing an automatic, knee-jerk reaction against “mercenaries” that does not reflect rational consideration of the pros and cons of using private security forces. We can see the impetus of this international norm within the current writings about mercenaries from academics and journalists mentioned above.
Aside from memoirs, the main current conversations about mercenaries are
happening between investigative journalists or between academics in fields like legal
(London: John Blake Publishing, 2003); Karl Penta and Mike Ridley, A Mercenary's Tale (London: John Blake Publishing, 2002); Jerry Puren, Mercenary Commander (Alberton, Republic of South Africa: Galago, 1986); Tim A. Smith, The Reluctant Mercenary (Brighton, UK: Book Guild Ltd, 2002); Wayne Thallon, Devil Incarnate: A Depraved Mercenary's Lifelong Swathe of Destruction (London: Mainstream Publishing, 2007).
29 studies, security studies, economics, political science, and international relations. These works generally conclude that contemporary private military companies threaten the very foundations of modern society, spelling certain doom for the nation-state system, international stability, and organizations of life as we currently know it. Outside of their particular target audiences, though, these journalistic and academic accounts do not seem to have sparked as much instantaneous, widespread outrage in the American public as the authors had hoped; they are more likely to produce ambivalence between supporting military ventures and condemning the outsourcing that makes them appear cheaper and more possible.
Nor do we see a knee-jerk reaction against mercenaries within popular discourse or narratives about mercenary figures in American popular culture – a section of culture that includes mercenary memoirs and well as fictional novels, films, television series, and other mass-media forms. In part this could be because the disciplinary approaches normally used to study mercenaries privilege quantitative, policy, or situational analysis over deep cultural, literary, or historical analysis. Historical background is provided, but it is background rather than historical analysis. These works focus on the history of mercenaries covered above, which means they study mercenary activities that have led to changes in international laws and norms, but they do not include the multitude of mercenary narratives circulating through cultural products and performances and reaching widespread audiences.
30 UNCOVERING THE CULTURAL MERCENARY
We can better understand this ambivalence toward mercenaries if we analyze the
fictional mercenary narratives that have contributed to Americans’ popular and collective
cultural memories of mercenaries since the 1850s. This dissertation brings humanities and
cultural studies into these ongoing conversations about mercenaries. On the social science
side of the mercenary conversations, the focus is on the doom and gloom that mercenaries
represent to democracy and the nation state, and anger at the apathy and inertia in changing
the systems of capitalism, warfare, and power that mercenaries and private military
companies are built on. By approaching this topic from the humanities, I am crafting a deeper understanding of why that inertia exists in American culture, and how the doom and gloom predictions contradict with (even minimal) popular culture and personal experiences with that other kind of mercenary figure.
I am also bringing the study of mercenaries into humanities from the realm of social
sciences. I am claiming the mercenary figure as an important entity within American
cultural and literary history, and naming it as a genre that recycles throughout American
popular culture history – one that exhibits both historical specificity as well as a sense of timelessness and continuing relevance. Genres are products of literary and cultural
formations and institutions just as writers and cultural producers are, and genres that
continually resurface in different historical moments are recycled for reasons that deserve to be explored from many different angles and disciplines.
Recently, cultural studies scholar Brady Harrison was the first to suggest that
“mercenary romance” narratives have played an important role in American imperialism.
Harrison’s Agent of Empire: William Walker and the Imperial Self in American Literature
31 is a detailed, extensive study of William Walker, an American filibuster who briefly
became President of Nicaragua in the 1850s, and revisions of William Walker’s story in
literature and film.25 Harrison finds that Walker’s story resurfaces generationally in
literature and film throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. With each literary
resurfacing, Harrison argues that elements of Walker’s story have been reinterpreted in
darker and darker “mercenary romances” that explore the depths of the imperial self. By
the time the late twentieth-century versions of Walker surface in literary works, Harrison
argues that: “The mercenary romance now promises the bleakest portraits of American
power and the most savage portrayals of the imperial self. It offers no hope, promising
only death. Imperialism, the form suggests, destroys ideals and takes an incredible toll on
not only its agents but particularly on its non-American victims.”26 Because Walker’s
story has a confident but unreliable narrator, a complex and disputed exposition of events,
and a tragic ending, it is a particularly useful precedent for the works that comment
extensively on the evils of imperialism examined in Agent of Empire.
Harrison focuses his study on works single author/auteur works such as Ernesto
Cardenal’s 1950 poems “Con Walker en Nicaragua,” Joan Didion’s 1977 novel Book of
Common Prayer, and Alex Cox’s 1987 film Walker – literary and artistic works arguably produced for particular ideological purposes or niche audiences. My project differs from
Harrison’s in that I am studying mercenary narratives created for mass-market popular
culture. I move beyond Harrison’s “literary” focus to examine mercenary narratives in
cultural products produced for consumption by a wide audience and beyond his revisions of
William Walker to study a broader American mercenary figure. Harrison and I overlap in
25 Brady Harrison, Agent of Empire: William Walker and the Imperial Self in American Literature (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2004). 26 Ibid., 177.
32 our sources for mercenary narratives in the nineteenth century – William Walker’s The War in Nicaragua and Richard Harding Davis’ Soldiers of Fortune and Captain Macklin – because these sources were produced for a wide readership, but we diverge significantly in our twentieth-century sources.
In my examination of twentieth-century sources, I study serialized mercenary
narratives produced for television as well as blockbuster novels and films. There are a
large number of authors/producers involved in making these narratives appealing to mass
audiences, and extreme positions are necessarily toned down to appeal to a wide audience.
In mass-market mercenary narratives, critiques of imperialism are not as strong, violence is
not as violent, and imperialism is not as tragic as those found in single author/auteur
cultural products. Without these extremes, mass-market mercenary narratives provide a
better resource to analyze what was generally acceptable, appealing, and popular about
mercenaries than auteur works constituted as protesting mercenaries and/or imperialism.
And, by examining popular mercenary narratives, we can better see the bigger picture: how the paramilitary patriotism of mercenaries offers consumers positive views on American
Exceptionalism and paths to Manifest Destiny.
I focus on the cultural roots of ambivalence toward mercenaries by using an
interdisciplinary American Studies approach. In American Studies, we analyze the work
done by cultural products (a wide range of “texts”). “Cultural work” is the role that a
cultural product plays in the larger material circumstances and ideology of a particular
historical moment. Cultural products are not consumed or produced in a vacuum; instead,
the purpose of the artist (or producer of the cultural product) combines with material
circumstances to determine the making of meaning and the intended effect(s) on the
33 audience. Although the producer’s intentions are often neither explicit nor definite, we can use various aspects of a given cultural product (such as framing, rhetoric, plot, characterization, tone, visuality, aurality, and historical, economic, and social context) to help us identify and define the cultural work being performed for the audience
(consumers). We make arguments about what we think the artist would like for the audience to understand or believe and why, as a result of consuming particular cultural products. We also analyze what the audience contributes to the making of meaning embedded within cultural representations. By turning a cultural and analytical lens on our own culture, we can better understand the roots of cultural ambivalence toward Americans acting as mercenaries.
CHAPTER OUTLINES
In the first part of Manifest Mercenaries, I examine nineteenth century single- author mercenary narratives produced for wide reading audiences. Chapter 2, “Manifest
Roots: William Walker and The War in Nicaragua (1860),” focuses on the story of
William Walker and his attempts to control his legacy through his memoir. In the 1850s,
Walker led a private army to military victory and was briefly President of Nicaragua before being pushed out of power by a coalition of Central American forces. Walker was briefly and intensely (in)famous in American popular culture but had no control over the way he was discussed in popular discourse. He wrote his memoir after being tried for treason in the United States and while plotting a return to Nicaragua to regain political and military control as President.
34 This chapter reads Walker’s memoir as a foundational mercenary narrative. In
response to expansionism, divisive debates about slavery, and fundamental changes in
racial and social order in the United States, Walker offered Nicaragua as a blank slate ripe
for policies of regeneration. He envisioned it to be a New American South where the
institution of slavery and white (American) male dominance would be accepted, promoted,
and celebrated. While he failed to build it in real life, Walker built a utopia of social
control and hierarchy in his memoir, linking a racialized separation of labor and capital to
American Exceptionalism and picturing his own private empire as a completion of his own
personal destiny as well as the nation’s Manifest Destiny.
Chapter 3, “Answering the Call of War: Richard Harding Davis’ Mercenary
Romances – Soldiers of Fortune (1897) and Captain Macklin (1902),” analyzes popular
mercenary romance novels from the turn of the twentieth century. Richard Harding Davis was a novelist, journalist, travel writer, and war correspondent, a strong advocate of U.S. expansion and imperialism, and a friend and proponent of Theodore Roosevelt. Robert
Clay, the main character of Soldiers of Fortune, is a hard-working, broadly educated, widely traveled engineer who demonstrates a heroic combination of ambition, self- perception, character, honor, superiority in battle, and a desire to leave a positive, physical
mark on the world (through safe and productive mines, railroads, and bridges) while
building his own private empire. In a mercenary romance written before the Spanish-
American War, Clay and his eventual bride epitomize the ideals of “the strenuous life” and
New Americanism of the Gilded Age. Written after the close of the Philippine-American
War, Captain Macklin’s main character Royal Macklin shares only some of Clay’s
honorable traits, primarily chivalry, while believing and acting as though he has the others.
35 Instead, Macklin is foolishly, gallantly in love with the action and the idea of war, an
obsession that he compares to the power of “drink.”
Davis’ novels show two paths for pursuing Manifest Destiny through imperial
ventures, based on the degree to which the individual’s goals are in service of the goals of
the nation. Soldiers of Fortune highlights the material good that mercenary figures can
accomplish when the individual mercenary is connected to the nation and embedded in
social relationships and responsibilities. Captain Macklin, on the other hand, highlights the addictive draw of war and the potential dangers when individual mercenaries isolate themselves from the nation and social relationships. Whereas Clay echoes the best and most honorable elements of American Exceptionalism, Macklin uses a façade of chivalry and high-flown rhetoric to mask his insecure need for conquest and his deep desire for control over others, highlighting the darker elements in pursuing individual over Manifest
Destiny.
In the second part of Manifest Mercenaries, I shift to serialized mercenary
narratives in the twentieth century found in popular novels, films, and television. Chapter
4, “Building the Frontier Empire: Mercenary Narratives in the Early Cold War – Soldier of
Fortune (1954; 1955), Soldiers of Fortune (1955-1957), and Have Gun, Will Travel (1957-
1963),” finds mercenary narratives spreading American Exceptionalism through exercising benevolent paternalism on the edges of civilization, in the exotic, dangerous frontier.
Mercenary figures at this time engaged in three types of relationships defined by location – homosocial relationships in the battlefield, heterosexual relationships in the domestic sphere, and paternal relationships that bridge the two locations. These mercenary figures span a range of class backgrounds, providing a range of ideal masculine performances for
36 different class levels. In this historical moment between Brown v. Board of Education and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, racial “issues” in mercenary narratives were shifted from relations between whites and blacks to relations between whites and Mexicans, Native
Americans, and Asians, all while emphasizing racial hierarchies based on tolerance and acquiescence.
Highlighting an ideal path to Manifest Destiny, Mass-market mercenary narratives of the 1950s projected metaphors for the U.S. imperial project in the early Cold War writ
small. They demonstrated independent white American men assisting others in exotic
lands, performing acts of helping that are not only easy for the Americans, but are also
potentially profitable. Together, these texts indicated a sense of confidence to be found within the safe paternalism of the mercenary figure, and a sense of national competence and organization in taking on uplifting missions that can be extrapolated to the cultural and political climate of the early Cold War.
Chapter 5, “At Home in the Battlefield: Mercenary Narratives in the Late Cold War
– The A-Team (1983-1987) and Airwolf (1984-1986; 1987),” finds that late Cold War
mercenary narratives were in conversation with the American “crisis of confidence” of the
1970s as well as the Reagan Revolution of the early 1980s. Mercenary figures balanced
isolation and rejection from society with a deep nationalistic patriotism, tempering blows to
American Exceptionalism with their faith in the longer American project. In the social
milieu of the early1980s, benevolent white male patriarchy faced a shrinking sphere of
influence for supremacy, power, and control over domestic concerns. In response,
mercenary figures retreated to the sphere of the homosocial battlefield writ large, shunning
the heterosexual domestic sphere. In a metaphor for ideal nation-building, they constructed
37 contained pseudo-families appropriate to the sphere of the battlefield by assembling multi-
faceted teams of men, desexed women, and racialized “children” organized in hierarchical paramilitary patterns.
These mercenary figures embody aspects of paramilitary patriotism to which
previous generations of mercenary narratives had merely gestured. The characters in these
narratives have been betrayed by their government on some level; they are haunted by that
betrayal, but they profess a deep patriotic love of their country and a deep sense of paternalistic responsibility to protect those who betrayed them. Their retreat to the battlefield sphere is temporary, supported by a sense of optimism, of regrouping and
preparing for a return to (benevolent) dominance and security; diminished benevolent
paternalistic power is depicted as a short-term problem. By narratively cleaning up the
leftover remnants of Vietnam and the various crises of confidence in the 1970s through a temporary retreat to the battlefield, mercenary narratives in the late Cold War demonstrated
new ways to prove masculinity, competency, and superiority in local and international
affairs, regain the spot at the top of social hierarchies, and reclaim a sense of American
Exceptionalism.
CONCLUSION
This dissertation explores mercenary narratives as a genre that surfaces in American
popular culture across multiple historical moments, including the contemporary period in
which I write. Mercenary narratives appear in popular discourse during times of contested
social change and international interaction, roughly parallel to targeted crises in white
masculinity and renegotiations of mission statements for America’s role in the world,
38 redefinitions of American Exceptionalism, and revisions of Manifest Destiny. Mercenary
figures can act as a guide for popular culture consumers through the liminal periods of
redefining American Exceptionalism and Manifest Destiny. These mercenary narratives
showcase white male paramilitary patriots exercising benevolent social control and
enforcing race, class, and gender hierarchies in welcomed, entertaining, and popular mass-
media forms. Reading and consuming these narratives opens up windows into historicized
structures of feelings, and the realms of the possible, thinkable, idealized, and heroic.
On a deeper level, this dissertation is an exploration of the ways that narratives
circulating in popular culture provide heuristics that encode acceptable cultural rituals and
cultural performances within their stories. I borrow this term from psychology, where
heuristics refer to the cognitive shortcuts humans use in learning, classifying information,
problem solving, and decision making.27 Throughout this dissertation, I examine how
popular culture narratives can provide similar shortcuts for learning about how cultures work, where to “place” the self and others within culture, and how consumers can use new information learned from popular culture narratives to classify new information into old, familiar narrative frames. Popular culture discourses become part of the social and cultural fabrics of personal and collective experience. Think of the power of the frequently uttered
phrase “I saw something about that on TV one time…” – a power that expresses a sense of
authority and familiarity as well a profound vagueness. Was that “something” part of a
news program? A documentary? A sit-com? A dramatic action-adventure?
As part of the fabric of lived experience, popular culture discourses blur fact and
fiction. They fictionalize the facts and factionalize the fictions. When the lines between
27 Basic introductory textbooks in psychology expand greatly on role and purposes of cognitive heuristics. For one example, see: Wayne Weiten, Psychology: Themes and Variations (Cengage Learning, 2008).
39 fact and fiction become so completely blurred, ritualistically consuming mass-media
fictional mercenary narratives becomes a form of participation that can begin to take on the
qualities of “personal” experiences, creating what cultural critic Alison Landsberg terms
“prosthetic cultural memories.” In Prosthetic Memory: The Transformation of American
Remembrance in the Age of Mass Culture, Landsberg argues that modernity and mass
culture make possible a new form of memory by allowing people to insert themselves into
larger historical narratives through their experiences with cultural products such as
museums and films. In this process, “the person does not simply apprehend a historical
narrative but takes on a more personal, deeply felt memory of a past event through which
he or she did not live. The resulting prosthetic memory has the ability to shape that
person’s subjectivity and politics.”28 Ritualistically consuming fictional mass-media
mercenary narratives helps to create prosthetic memories about (fictional and factional)
benevolent American mercenaries, creating heuristics for understanding American
mercenaries and private military contractors through popular culture discourses rather than
through thoughtful analysis or fact-finding.
Throughout this study, the mercenary figures and narratives examined demonstrate
changing notions of the state, the responsibilities of citizens, and understandings of
nationalism, patriotism, masculinity, and social hierarchies. Over the course of this
dissertation, I trace the transition of the mercenary narrative and its representations of paramilitary patriots in popular culture from the deadly serious reality of William Walker’s conquest of Nicaragua to the flippant entertainment provided by 1980s television mercenaries in The A-Team. William Walker was an extra-national figure interested only
28 Alison Landsberg, Prosthetic Memory: The Transformation of American Remembrance in the Age of Mass Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 2.
40 in building his own personal “American” empire, not in building the United States as either
a nation or a concept. He was also operating within pre-Civil War notions of the United
States as a nation, in that period when the “United States” was considered a plural entity
(“The United States are”) instead of a singular entity (“The United States is”). Walker was
a patriot only unto his own vision of a perfect nation – not a patriot in service of a vision of
the United States as a solidified nation. Even as an extra-national figure, though, Walker’s mercenary filibustering actions were not necessarily pitted against the United States as a nation-state, marking how far American mercenary narratives stray from the stereotypes of other “real” mercenary figures in coups d’etat and overthrowing various governing entities in exchange for money. Walker was intent on building his own private empire, yes, but his empire-building called not for destroying or replacing the United States, but for building a parallel (and in his mind, better) version of the United States.
When we shift our focus to fictional mercenary discourses and characters, we can
see representations of shifting compositions of hierarchies and institutions as well as
shifting relations between citizens and the state. While the fiction mercenaries in Richard
Harding Davis’ novels and in serialized Cold War television series are all acting outside of
official state authority and state sanctioning, those extra-state actions are explicitly or
implicitly supporting the contemporary projects of nation-building in which the United
States was engaged. Across these fictional narratives in the fin-de-siecle and twentieth
century, the elements of paramilitary patriotism in the mercenary narratives are
increasingly highlighted as understandings of American nationalism and patriotism become
both more clearly defined and more frequently challenged within popular culture. Whereas
Davis’ characters Robert Clay and Royal Macklin exhibit nascent and even ambivalent
41 displays of overt patriotism, the characters in The A-Team and Airwolf explicitly proclaim their love for the United States and overtly claim their deeply held convictions about the power of American nationalism, even after suffering deep betrayals at the hands of their beloved nation during the Vietnam War. As the genre matures, mercenary narratives showcase changes in acceptable race, class, and gender hierarchies as well as demonstrate shifting understandings of the relationships between citizen and nation.
After the end of the Cold War, the deadly serious realities of mercenary work surface in popular culture again because of the emergences of private military companies and contractors as international players in warfare and international relations. However, these representations of the deadly serious real mercenaries exist within popular cultures discourses simultaneously with representations of the flippant fictional mercenaries produced for entertainment and mass-media profit. This simultaneous circulation of serious and flippant makes the already complex mixture of personal and popular understandings of state, citizen, masculinity, and mercenary even more deeply convoluted and problematic.
Throughout these representations in popular and profitable American mercenary narratives, the benevolent mercenary figures’ actions clearly support the continuation of the state – and the continuing perfection of the state – but they do not advocate for the overthrows of the state. Notions of the state, citizen, masculinity, and hierarchy shift considerably across the time frame that I study in this dissertation. While the execution of narratives within the genre of American mercenary narratives and across the genre’s long history of resurfacing is flexible across these different historical moments and mass-media
42 forms, that very flexibility can mask the fact that this genre conveys narratives with deeply
conservative social messages.
As the genre matures, mercenary narratives become more strident in response to
shifting fields of control over gendered and racialized bodies – whether that control is
exercised or resisted within domestic society, international relations, or militarized,
individualized, or corporitized relations. These narratives explore the tension between the
“Americanness” performed by benevolent mercenary figures as well as the un-
Americanness of ideas and associations of the general historical mercenary. Studying the
mercenary figure and mercenary narratives allows us to study the intersections of
redefining mission statements for the United States, think about different versions of
manifest destiny and American Exceptionalism, and examine narratives demonstrating politics of control and politics of change in race, class, and gender roles in society. The
American mercenary is always simultaneously a domestic and a transnational figure, one that enforces traditional and conservative understandings of acceptable race, gender, and class hierarchies in “other” and “foreign” spaces, such as other nations, borderlands, and liminal spaces within the United States where identities are flexible.
43 CHAPTER 2
MANIFEST ROOTS: WILLIAM WALKER AND THE WAR IN NICARAGUA (1860)
It is safe to say that to members of the younger generation the name of William Walker conveys absolutely nothing. To them, as a name, "William Walker" awakens no pride of race or country. It certainly does not suggest poetry and adventure….And yet had this man with the plain name, the name that to-day means nothing, accomplished what he adventured, he would on this continent have solved the problem of slavery, have established an empire in Mexico and in Central America, and, incidentally, have brought us into war with all of Europe. That is all he would have accomplished. 1 - Richard Harding Davis, Real Soldiers of Fortune (1906)
His was the unpardonable sin of not succeeding, for which there is no mercy either from contemporaries or from the history which shall hereafter chronicle the present time. 2 – Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, September 29, 1860
Though he may not be a major figure in United States collective historical memory,
filibuster William Walker provides us with a solid foundation to study mercenary
narratives that circulate throughout U.S. popular culture history. In mid-nineteenth century
parlance, “filibusters” were “persons who, lacking either the explicit or implicit consent of
their own governments, planned, abetted, or participated in private military invasions or intended invasions of foreign nations or dependencies with which their own countries were at peace.”3 In the 1850s, Walker led a private military to victory in Nicaragua, briefly
1 Richard Harding Davis, Real Soldiers of Fortune (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1906), 147, http://books.google.com/books?id=W3wdAAAAMAAJ&dq=real+soldiers+of+fortune&printsec=frontcove r&source=bl&ots=sIIckQHivp&sig=gepF1xbjNIKUCjvQr5Zda6jplZc&hl=en&ei=GTMcSo- WFo3cM6b74JIP&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#PPA145,M1. 2 “The End of General Walker,” Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper (New York, NY), September 29, 1860, sec. pg. 288; Issue 253; col A. 3 Robert E May, “Manifest Destiny's Filibusters,” in Manifest Destiny and Empire: American Antebellum Expansionism, ed. Sam W Haynes and Christopher Morris, 1st ed. (College Station, Tex: Published for the University of Texas at Arlington by Texas A&M University Press, 1997), 148.
44 becoming President and enacting a series of “regenerating” laws before being pushed out of
power by a coalition of Central American military and private military forces supported by
American business interests. As the leader of a private military force, Walker blended his
individual, idealized vision of what America and Nicaragua could and should be with
surprisingly realpolitik machinations, creating an odd mix of idealistic rhetoric to (barely) cover his absolute ruthlessness.
Depending on the source and the historical moment, narratives about Walker have
depicted him alternately as an adventurer, a visionary, a man of God and destiny, a cold-
hearted conqueror, a psychopath, and a dangerous threat to national security and stability.
Walker was a famous person for a brief period of time – his exploits and decrees were
covered by newspapers; his rise to power was adapted for melodramas; huge crowds gathered to see him in New York and New Orleans; he was tried for and acquitted of
treason; and he returned to Central America repeatedly, seeking to regain his position of
power. In the short term of his historical moment, Walker’s common point of celebrity
provided a discursive space to work through the deep schisms in public opinions about
expansionism, slavery, and what the ideal American society should be, schisms that were
about to boil into the Civil War.
In longer historical terms of popular cultural understandings of American
mercenary figures, Walker’s narrative legacy has been profoundly shaped by his memoir,
The War in Nicaragua. Written after his trial for treason, Walker used his memoir to create
a complex, opaque narrative legacy detailing his actions, motivations, and intentions for his
planned republic. He used The War in Nicaragua to create an official “history” of his rise
to power in Nicaragua, and the memoir continues to be cited as the official record of events
45 by U.S. and Central American historians, providing an odd case where history was written by the loser rather than the victor of a war.
The story of William Walker provides us with an early historical moment to examine how American mercenary narratives are connected to ideologies of American
Exceptionalism, Manifest Destiny, expansionism, and white patriarchal control over racialized, gendered, and classed others. As Richard Harding Davis asserted in his 1906 non-fiction work Real Soldiers of Fortune, popular memories of William Walker passed rather quickly within the United States, eclipsed by the heroes and villains of the Civil War.
However, popular recognition and collective memories of Walker have remained bitterly strong in Nicaragua and Central America as a symbol of the real threats posed by the
United States’ expansionist policies. In the realm of fiction, Walker’s history and his memoir have resurfaced in a number of mercenary narratives. Scholar Brady Harrison has found that direct reinterpretations of Walker’s story and characteristics appear in American culture cyclically from the late 1890s to at least the late 1980s, surfacing primarily during moments of overt imperial actions by the United States. 4
4 For a detailed study of Walker’s many reincarnations in nineteenth and twentieth-century popular culture, see, Harrison, Agent of Empire. Harrison provides an invaluable close study of Walker’s cyclic appearances in American culture and literature. Harrison sees reinterpretations of Walker in the following cultural products (pg. 4-5): “These tales are demonstrably “about” the freebooter, and we can begin with Walker’s book, the first major recounting of his adventures: ⋅ 1860 William Walker, a memoir, The War in Nicaragua ⋅ 1871 Joaquin Miller, a narrative poem, “With Walker in Nicaragua” ⋅ 1875 Bret Harte, a short story, “Peter Schroeder” ⋅ 1887 Bret Harte, a romance, The Crusade of the Excelsior ⋅ 1897 Richard Harding Davis, a romance, Soldiers of Fortune ⋅ 1902 Richard Harding Davis, a romance, Captain Macklin ⋅ 1904 O. Henry, a novel, Cabbages and Kings ⋅ 1906 Joaquin Miller, a narrative poem, “Walker in Nicaragua” ⋅ 1922 Edgar Young, a short story, “William Walker, Filibuster” [appeared in Adventure Magazine according to footnote. CF] ⋅ 1926 Arthur D Howden Smith, a novel, A Manifest Destiny ⋅ 1932 Merritt Parmelee Allen, a “history” for boys, William Walker Filibuster
46 Walker’s narrative legacy can be (and has been) interpreted through both the lens of the hero’s success and the crackpot’s demise. Later fictional American mercenary figures might occupy one side of the hero/crackpot divide or even bridge the moral gap between them, but like Walker, they usually present a cause or a purpose other than money behind their fighting and private warring. By illustrating the complexity and the deep contradictions at the foundation of the mercenary figure in popular culture, the case of
William Walker shows us how the mercenary narrative became a flexible cultural performance.
Thought he failed to build it in real life, Walker built a utopia of social control and hierarchy in his memoir, linking a racialized separation of labor and capital to American
Exceptionalism, and picturing his absolute empire as a completion of his own personal destiny as well as the nation’s Manifest Destiny. Within his memoir, Walker privileged a higher calling over monetary gains as his main reason for conducting private military ventures. His version of “filibustering” relied on very particular interpretations of
American Exceptionalism, Manifest Destiny, nationalism, and a narrow version of what
⋅ 1950 Ernesto Cardenal, poems, “Con Walker en Nicaragua” ⋅ [Also a German novel from 1950: Alfred Neumann, Der Pakt, translated from the German as Look upon This Man or Strange Conquest, in footnote instead of list; probably not discussed in book because not an American work. CF] ⋅ 1955 Darwin Teilhet, a romance, The Lion’s Skin ⋅ 1964 Fritz Leiber, a Hugo Award-winning science fiction novel, The Wanderer ⋅ 1977 Joan Didion, a novel, A Book of Common Prayer ⋅ 1984 Robert Houston, a novel, The Nation Thief ⋅ 1987 Alex Cox, a film, Walker ⋅ 1996 Albert J. Guerard, a novel, The Hotel in the Jungle “To the list of tales in which Walker figures as the central character (or as one of the central characters), we can add a second list of works that do not present Walker as a character but nevertheless recount adventures that closely recall the freebooter or evoke the Tennessean as a historical touchstone: ⋅ 1950 Gore Vidal, a novel, Dark Green, Bright Red ⋅ 1981 Robert Stone, a novel, A Flag for Sunrise ⋅ 1985 Cormac McCarthy, a novel, Blood Meridian
47 type of civilization “America” should and could bring to other countries, not just on the money that could be made through such a venture. He sought to bring “civilization” to
Nicaragua well before “civilization” became the rallying cry of imperial proponents in the
1890s. William Walker had his own definition of what a perfect civilization should be, his
own philosophy and vision, and the audacity to try to make it come true.
This chapter reads Walker’s memoir as a foundational mercenary narrative, one that
responds to contemporary concerns as well as one that crafts a particular narrative legacy.
In response to expansionism, divisive debates about slavery, and fundamental changes in
racial and social order in the United States, Walker offered Nicaragua up to his readers as a
blank slate ripe for policies of regeneration, a New American South where the institutions
of slavery and white male dominance would be accepted, promoted, and celebrated.
Walker used his memoir to create a complex, opaque narrative legacy of his actions,
motivations, and intentions. William Walker’s case shows us that, even as faceless groups
of mercenaries had become taboo domestically and internationally, an individual mercenary figure with a compelling, appealing, and widely distributed story about success
– or an adaptation co-opting the successful pieces of that story – could still capture the imagination and adoration of an admiring American public.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
The years between 1848 and 1860 represent a volatile time in American and world
history. European and other Western nations were reorganizing and recovering from the
social and military Revolutions of 1848; the United States was expanding through military
and monetary means into territories that had recently been part of Mexico and British
48 Canada; and debates about slavery, expansion, and the general purpose and mission of the
United States were deepening into entrenched threats to national unity. The expansion
periods of the 1800s represent a contentious time when different groups were struggling to
define and shape understandings of the United States’ mission in domestic and global affairs. There was little argument with the idea that the United States was exceptional, a proverbial “city on a hill” lighting a path for other countries to follow and sharing the gifts of American Exceptionalism; but, there was much argument about how exactly those gifts should be “shared” with the rest of the world. The territorial expansions of the mid- nineteenth century created some of the most explosive debates in American history. These debates were partially resolved by the Civil War, which can be interpreted as a massive clash between ideologically different mission statements for the United States. Annexation of territories and westward expansion, whether as a result of revolution, war, filibustering, or monetary exchange, created conflicts in which these ideological differences became impossible to ignore. Within these events, technological revolutions like the telegraph and penny press created new means of dispersing information faster and more broadly than ever before and provided new public forums for discourse.
In Europe and other parts of the West, the year 1848 saw waves of unrest, revolution, and war stemming from a variety of social, political, ideological, and economic factors. The Revolutions of 1848 projected a general sense of restructuring society and government around ideas from the Enlightenment.5 Historian Timothy Mason Roberts
5 Enlightenment ideas in the Revolutions of 1848 included: social contract theories that emphasized the interdependency and interrelated-ness of citizens and states; nationalist theories that emphasized a sense of common unity based on geographic place and shared history and culture; and balance of power theories that emphasized the importance of neutrality, alliances, and balance between nation states to ensure their mutual continuance. The Revolutions of 1848 are a popular subject for historians. A very brief selection of texts for background reading includes: Michael Rapport, 1848, Year of Revolution (New York: Basic Books, 2009); Timothy Mason Roberts, Distant Revolutions: 1848 and the Challenge to American
49 argues that the unrest of European Revolutions of 1848 helped solidify the concept of
American Exceptionalism in the United States.6 American Exceptionalism has varying specific definitions that are bonded together by the idea that there is something different and exceptional about America when compared to other cultures and social systems. The contemporary, messy, bloody, destructive European Revolutions of 1848 were compared to the American Revolution seen through the historic (and mythic) lens of a pure, citizen- focused, and property-respecting American Revolution organized by a coherent group of founding fathers. Roberts argues that this comparison could have enhanced the perception of the United States as a “city on a hill,” both a beacon of light and as a progressive trend- setter for other nation states.
Many Americans then responded to evidence of Europeans’ failures by concluding not only that the American Revolution was exceptional, but also that, indeed, so was America at the mid-nineteenth century, on account of its revolutionary heritage and its apparent lack of problems in contrast to the social unrest that plagues Europe. In short, a Europe apparently unable to create peaceful republican society showed that post-revolutionary America had no problems to solve.7
These revolutionary European events seemed like bad copies of events from the American
past; within the well-functioning “original” version, the European Revolutions enhanced
the logic and reasoning of American Exceptionalism and its outgrowth, Manifest Destiny.
In 1845, writer John L. O’Sullivan coined the founding definition of Manifest
Destiny when “he wrote of ‘our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by
Providence’ and upheld the American claim to Oregon as being ‘by the right of our
Exceptionalism (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2009); Priscilla Smith Robertson, Revolutions of 1848, a Social History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952); Shelley Streeby, American Sensations: Class, Empire, and the Production of Popular Culture, American crossroads 9 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002). 6 Roberts, Distant Revolutions, 1. 7 Emphasis in original. Ibid., 15.
50 manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent.’”8 In its different
iterations, the term Manifest Destiny provides an organizing worldview and an ultimate
goal for society based on understandings of American Exceptionalism. The various
versions of Manifest Destiny share three main themes: “the special virtues of the American
people and their institutions; their mission to redeem and remake the world in the image of
America; and the American destiny under God to accomplish this sublime task. Under the aegis of virtue, mission, and destiny evolved a powerful nationalist mythology that was virtually impossible to oppose and, for many, almost without an alternative.”9 In the mid-
nineteenth century version of Manifest Destiny, there was agreement that the United States
should expand, but there were different interpretations as to how that goal should be
reached. These different paths led to different views of where the country should go and
how it should get there, much like a variety of mission statements within a company might
cause infighting.
In the 1840s, Texas, Mexico, California, and Oregon were hotly debated as
potential areas for annexing. These debates demonstrated the racial politics and divides
between the Northern and Southern states. For Manifest Destiny idealists, annexation was
the preferred path of expansion, rather than gaining control through war or purchasing land
from another state, because annexation indicated that resident citizens were freely choosing
to join in a social contract with the United States government, rather than having it forced
on them. Annexation did depend on who was involved in doing the “asking,” however;
Oregon and Texas were viewed as prime territories for annexation due to their large populations of white settlers. In contrast, annexing the whole of Mexico was not desirable
8 Brown, Agents of Manifest Destiny, 16. 9 Weeks, Building the Continental Empire, 61.
51 for Manifest Destiny advocates from the South, who wanted to extend citizenship and
rights to white settlers but not to mixed race or Native Indian populations. Definitions of
Manifest Destiny underscored the divides between the Northern and Southern worldviews, and these struggles became more about defining the mission statement of the country as a whole. Expansion put extraordinary pressure on either resolving the slavery question or quitting the experiment of the Union altogether; Congress labored over compromises to keep the balance of power equal between slave and non-slave states, but each new land
acquisition (or hint of one) deepened the trenches between pro- and anti-slavery factions.
The Mexican-American War began in 1846, after the United States annexed the
Republic of Texas in 1845, which Mexico claimed was a state in revolt rather than a free
republic. It ended with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo on February 2, 1848, which ceded
Mexican land between Texas and California to the United States and set the Rio Grande as
the U.S.-Mexico border. In terms of tools of Manifest Destiny, this action included facets
of war, conquest, annexation, and purchasing, as the Treaty included a large payment from
the United States to Mexico for the land that was acquired.
The Mexican-American War is often seen as training ground for the officers of the
Civil War, but it also made a large contribution to filibustering through the ranks of enlisted
men. The military ranks were mostly staffed by volunteers, who received training,
equipment, and transportation to the land eventually acquired in the treaty. As historian
Robert May explains: “[The] war’s end in 1848 created a pool of latent filibusters –
conquering soldiers accustomed to military campaigning who dreaded being mustered out
of the service (if they were volunteers) or being posted to routine peacetime assignments (if
52 they were regulars).”10 The additional draw of the Gold Rush in 1849 solidified California as a place for adventurers (especially those still seeking their fortune) with a proclivity for soldiering. With this deep pool of almost-rich, almost-soldiers, it is no wonder that Walker was drawn to San Francisco when developing his filibustering ventures, or that he found recruiting in California both easy and disappointing.
Within this changing and flexible mix of ideology, experience, and adventure, it
was becoming even easier to communicate and exchange ideas quickly over long distances.
Changes in communication technology and the mass media made the circulation of ideas
easier, cheaper, and more widely distributable. The electric telegraph was developed by the
1830s, and was widely used by the end of the 1840s, with attempts to run transatlantic
telegraph cables by the 1850s. Much like the radical changes in every day life that later
came from radio, television, and the internet, it is hard to overstate the revolutionary impact
that the telegraph had in terms of communication, understanding the world as a connected
place, or in terms of the modern, progressive expectations and hopes inspired by and pinned on this new technology.11
Because of the wide and revolutionary reach of the telegraph, the Mexican-
American War and the Revolutions of 1848 were reported on directly from the war front.
Reporters could update their newspapers directly and frequently; printing was cheaper and
faster; and the spread of discourse helped readers feel informed and connected to others they did not actually know.12 As historian Shelly Streeby argued, within the American
10 Robert E May, Manifest Destiny's Underworld: Filibustering in Antebellum America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 14. 11 Tom Standage, The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century's on-Line Pioneers (New York: Walker and Co, 1998). 12 Benedict R. O'G Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983).
53 mass media, sensationalism and sentimentalism permeated low- and middle-brow popular culture, including literature, “journalism, music, blackface minstrelsy… sensational melodrama… [and] the political cultures that were aligned with these popular forms.”13
The penny press, especially, made these connections between entertainment, news, and politics, as they often espoused a particular party line through heavy-handed editorializing and interpretation of the news.14
WILLIAM WALKER
It was within this complex mix of crumbling old institutions and new ideas, technologies, and discourses that William Walker sought his “destiny” in Nicaragua. Born in Tennessee in 1824, Walker had an unusually broad education, with training (if not much practice) in three major professional occupations. He completed a medical degree at the
University of Pennsylvania and a medical residency in Europe, sat for the bar and worked as a lawyer in Louisiana, and became a writer and newspaper editor in Louisiana and San
Francisco, all before deciding on filibustering as his life’s calling.15 Led by a deep belief
13 Streeby, American Sensations, 27. 14 Joshua Brown, Beyond the Lines: Pictorial Reporting, Everyday Life, and the Crisis of Gilded-Age America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002); May, Manifest Destiny's Underworld. 15 I have compiled this brief biography of Walker’s life using information from a number of biographies about him. For non-fiction explorations of William Walker’s biography, life, and times, see also: Brown, Agents of Manifest Destiny; Stephen Dando-Collins, Tycoon's War: How Cornelius Vanderbilt Invaded a Country to Overthrow America's Most Famous Military Adventurer (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2008); Davis, Real Soldiers of Fortune; Laurence Greene, The Filibuster; the Career of William Walker (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1937); Harrison, Agent of Empire; Sam W Haynes and Christopher Morris, eds., Manifest Destiny and Empire: American Antebellum Expansionism, 1st ed. (College Station, Tex: Published for the University of Texas at Arlington by Texas A&M University Press, 1997); May, “Manifest Destiny's Filibusters”; May, Manifest Destiny's Underworld; Frank Lawrence Owsley, Filibusters and Expansionists: Jeffersonian Manifest Destiny, 1800-1821 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1997); William Oscar Scroggs, Filibusters and Financiers; the Story of William Walker and His Associates (New York: The Macmillan company, 1916); Alejandro Bolaños Geyer, William Walker, The Gray-Eyed Man of Destiny (Lake Saint Louis Mo.: A. Bolaños-Geyer, 1988); Charles William Doubleday, Reminiscences of the "Filibuster" War in Nicaragua (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1886), http://www.archive.org/details/reminoffilibuste00doubrich; James Carson Jamison, With Walker in Nicaragua; Or, Reminiscences of an Officer of the American Phalanx (Columbia, MO: E. W. Stephens
54 that his destiny was to bring civilization and regeneration to some corner of the world,
Walker led private military invasions in Mexico, Nicaragua, and Central America. In his
opinion, Walker was invited to undertake these ventures by a local party. Though he arranged those invitations, he could nonetheless argue that his help was requested by, not forced upon, the locals.
Walker’s first filibustering venture was an attempt to liberate Lower (Baja)
California and Sonora from Mexico in October 1853 in an invasion he couched as a
venture to protect American settlers from Indian attacks. Walker and a small group of
"soldiers" sailed to La Paz and overran the fort there after a very brief attack. Walker
quickly released a written declaration appointing himself the President of Lower California
and the Republic of Sonora. With a small band of ill-trained and -equipped soldiers, he set
off into the Sonoran Desert to solidify control over the eastern part of his new “state.”
Walker was a strict disciplinarian, ordering several military executions for looting and
disobeying orders, but he was just as inexperienced as his men, particularly in military
strategy. They had expected to inspire resounding martial and material support from the
local peasantry as the new President and liberating force, but instead received nothing.
After wandering through the Sonoran Desert on the brink of starvation, hounded constantly
by the Mexican military and local Native American tribes, they eventually made a mad
dash across the border and surrendered to American authorities in May 1854. Even in
Publishing Company, 1909), http://www.archive.org/details/withwalkerinnic00jamigoog; Daniel Bedinger Lucas, Nicaragua: War of the Filibusters (Richmond: B. F. Johnson Pub. Co., 1896), http://www.archive.org/details/nicaraguawaroffi00lucarich; William Walker, The War in Nicaragua (New York: S.H. Goetzel and Company, 1860), http://books.google.com/books?id=bwcOAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=inauthor:%22William+W alker%22#PPR11,M1; Albert H. Z Carr, The World and William Walker, 1st ed. (New York: Harper & Row, 1963).
55 defeat, Walker claimed a victory for his ideals, though he did not actually possess the
land.
Quickly recovering from what most would consider a resounding physical, legal,
and moral defeat, Walker looked around for a better opportunity to fulfill his destiny, and
he found it in Nicaragua. Two parties, the Democrats and the Legitimists, had been
fighting and trading military and political control of Nicaragua since the 1830s. Walker
contacted the leaders of the Democrats and entered into a contract to provide them with
private military support in early 1855. In return for citizenship, a land grant, and autonomy
over the military, Walker led an army composed of his men and Nicaraguan natives to
victory over the Legitimist forces. Though he was offered the office of president after this
victory, Walker initially chose to become commander-in-chief of the armed forces, a
choice that made him a major player in the political workings of the country. Unsatisfied
with the native politicians’ conduct, though, Walker ordered executions and pushed for a
new election in which he was "elected" president of Nicaragua.
After a rather brilliant inauguration on July 12, 1856, Walker released a rapid
succession of decrees and new laws intended to expand the American element in Nicaragua
and reorder Nicaraguan society. He reinstituted slavery, which Nicaraguan law had banned
in 1828, and enacted a series of land registry laws and legal clauses that would make it easy for like-minded American colonists to emigrate, gain control of land, and secure political
power in Nicaragua. He had grand plans to create a New American South in fertile
Nicaragua and surrounding Central American states, a society based on racial hierarchy and
a racial division of capital and labor. However, Walker’s plans for utopia did not sit well
with his Nicaraguan sponsors or with other Central American heads of state. The war
56 between the Democrats and Legitimists may have ended, but Walker had to contend with a coalition of Nicaraguans, Costa Ricans, Hondurans, and Salvadorians, who were eventually aided by another group of Americans sponsored by Cornelius Vanderbilt.
For the international community, Nicaragua’s most precious asset was the Transit
Road, which was owned by American industrialist and shipping magnate Vanderbilt.
Before the Panama Canal was built, the Transit Company’s road, railroad, and port system
across Nicaragua was the easiest path of crossing between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
Vanderbilt had contracted with the previous Nicaraguan governments to own, use, and
protect this property, based on a steady commission to the Nicaraguan government. Upon
his inauguration, Walker broke the contract between Nicaragua and Vanderbilt, claiming
that the Transit Company owed the people of Nicaragua money in back commissions. By
alienating Vanderbilt immediately upon taking power, Walker created a powerful enemy
where he could have had a valuable friend.
In the course of this war, Walker’s forces fought through a bitter series of sieges
and battles, but soon fell to the coalition of Central American forces and Vanderbilt’s
private agents. Near the end, when his forces had to retreat from the capital city of
Granada, Walker ordered Colonel Charles Henningsen to raze and burn the city, as both a tactical maneuver to cover the retreat and as punishment for the Nicaraguan natives who
betrayed President Walker. Once their defeat was assured, Walker and his men surrendered to Captain Davis of the U.S. Navy in May 1857. They were repatriated to the
United States, where General Walker was greeted as a popular hero and as a celebrity by
throngs of spectators.
57 In 1857 and 1858, Walker’s movements and speeches were covered and reprinted
in newspapers across the country. Still claiming his title as President of Nicaragua, Walker
and his cohort began recruiting soldiers, arms, and money for a return trip to Nicaragua.
There was widespread excitement and anticipation in the United States for a triumphant
return, but Walker was also under investigation for violating U.S. neutrality laws. He was
arrested on November 10, 1857, but after posting bail, he evaded the U.S. Marshals and
slipped out of the country to return to Nicaragua. This much anticipated trip ended quickly,
however. Walker and his forces were unable to move inland because they were blocked by the Central American coalition forces. At the port, they were surrounded by the U.S. Navy
under Commodore Paulding. Walker negotiated terms of surrender with Paulding and was
back in New York on December 27, 1857, loudly protesting the interference of the U.S.
Navy on the grounds of his continuing sovereignty as President of Nicaragua.
Back in the United States again, Walker surrendered himself to the U.S. Marshals
to stand trial for breaking the Neutrality Laws of 1818. President Buchanan had come out
against Walker’s venture in December of 1857, and the Senate passed a resolution on
January 4, 1858 to investigate him. Acting as his own legal counsel, Walker stood trial in
New Orleans beginning May 31, 1858. The trial ended with a hung jury, with most of the
jury voting for acquittal. After the trial, Walker stayed under the government’s radar while
underground filibustering plans for a second return to Central America were progressing.
However, as Walker biographer William Scroggs put it, “During the period in which
Walker was compelled to remain quietly under the eye of the government he was not idle.
Thought forced to lay aside the sword, he found occasion to wield a mightier weapon, the
58 pen, in the use of which he had acquired skill while editing newspapers.”16 Walker wrote his memoir, The War in Nicaragua, during this time.
The United States government was pursuing filibusters and potential filibusters with increasing vigilance in an effort to ward off the international and domestic conflicts that filibustering was compounding. Amid rumors of more filibustering efforts,
Nicaraguans and Central Americans were dreading yet another return of William Walker.
Walker was “invited” back to Central America in the spring of 1860 by the Bay Islanders of Ruatan, a small island about to be transferred from British to Honduran rule, to assist them in their effort to break free from Honduras. Walker seized on the opportunity to be invited back to Central America and mustered a last-ditch effort to reclaim his title as
President of Nicaragua.
On this final trip, however, Walker and his pitiful, under-funded troops were stymied by the British Navy; retreating through the jungle, they were captured by
Honduran authorities. The British navy offered the protection of the British flag from the
Honduran government for all American citizens who wanted to claim it. The final details of this interaction are slightly in dispute among Walker’s biographers; Scroggs claims that the British simply turned Walker and his officer Rudler over to the Hondurans, but
Laurence Greene claims that Walker rejected the asylum the British Navy offered by claiming Nicaraguan, not American, citizenship: “[At the end, Walker] regained some of the arrogance he had lost in the three years of his futile striving: he said, when the officer listing names asked his: ‘I am William Walker, President of Nicaragua.’”17 Walker, defiantly clinging to the title that he felt was his destiny, maintained that he was the
16 Scroggs, Filibusters and Financiers, 380. 17 Greene, The Filibuster, 325.
59 President of and a citizen of Nicaragua, rejecting the asylum the British Navy offered to
those claiming American citizenship. He was executed by Honduran authorities on
September 12, 1860, at the age of 36.
FRAMING THE PRESENT: POPULAR NEWSPAPER COVERAGE OF WALKER
For a brief period of time, William Walker was an extraordinarily well-covered
persona in contemporary popular newspapers, achieving a mid-nineteenth century version
of fifteen minutes of fame, infamy, and media saturation. Historian Robert May writes, “It
should be little wonder that during Walker’s sojourn in New York City after his expulsion
from Central America, autograph seekers besought him ‘at every turn’ seeking his
signature. America’s mass media had converted Walker into one of the day’s most salient
public personalities.”18 His story was exciting and audacious, perfect fodder for the
sensationalist newspaper reporting styles of the partisan mass media. Although he could
not control all of the media outlets, as a trained lawyer, writer, and newspaper editor,
Walker excelled at recording, manipulating, and dispersing his story through the popular
media channels of his day. One of his first acts after gaining control in Nicaragua was to
establish a bilingual newspaper, El Nicaragüense, which included official government news, Walker’s decrees, and recruitment calls for American “soldiers” interested in joining
Walker’s force. El Nicaragüense was an effective propaganda and recruiting platform that circulated in both Nicaragua and in the United States; copies were distributed to port cities through the flow of traffic crossing the isthmus. Articles from El Nicaragüense were often reprinted directly in U.S. newspapers across the country, appearing in papers in New York,
18 May, Manifest Destiny's Underworld, 68.
60 Boston, San Francisco, Atlanta, Raleigh, and even in more obscure locales like Chillicothe,
OH. 19
In addition to the reprinted articles from El Nicaragüense, Walker himself became a popular subject for feature articles and editorials in domestic newspaper coverage.
Contemporary U.S. newspaper coverage and The War in Nicaragua are the most frequently cited primary sources used by those studying William Walker.20 While Walker controlled the content of El Nicaragüense and of his memoir, wider coverage in popular newspapers like Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper and Harper’s Weekly represents a source of widely circulating popular narratives about his ventures and character that he himself could not control.21 For the purposes of this study, a brief examination of some of the themes within the popular newspaper discourse will give us a framework for understanding some of Walker’s immediate concerns when writing his memoir.
Interestingly, news about Walker was included in a variety of places within the newspapers of popular presses. William Walker-related materials were published in the
19 The Associated Press was founded in 1846 and developed into the basic form of the modern AP by 1900. In this early period, it was experimenting with technology, organizational, and corporation structures. Even without an organized system of sharing and distributing news like the modern AP, “borrowing” liberally from other newspapers seemed to be common practice at the time, with the source paper often (but not always) credited, usually in a few introductory lines of text - as in, “Our friends at Newspaper X report the following.” The introductory text in articles reprinted directly from El Nicaragüense tended to stress the exotic and “true” nature of news coming directly from Nicaragua and from the official mouthpiece of Walker’s government. Connotations of plagiarism and bias in journalism and government newspapers were different in the mid-ninetieth century. 20 Scroggs’ 1912 biography of Walker is based primarily on an analysis of contemporary 1850s newspaper coverage. As one of the earliest academic studies of Walker, it is also widely cited by subsequent Walker scholars 21 In addition to writing a biography of Walker, Nicaraguan doctor, historian, and writer Alejandro Bolaños Geyer edited collections of contemporary newspaper coverage of Walker from Frank Leslie’s and Harper’s Weekly for official records of the war. Alejandro Bolaños Geyer, ed., La Guerra en Nicaragua según Harper's Weekly, Journal of Civilization, 1857-1860 / The War in Nicaragua as reported by Harper's Weekly, Journal of Civilization, 1857-1860., Coleccion Cultural Banco de America, Serie Fuentes Historicas no. 6B (Managua, Nicaragua: Fondo de Promoción Cultural Banco de América, 1976); Alejandro Bolaños Geyer, ed., La Guerra en Nicaragua según Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, 1855- 1857 / The War in Nicaragua as reported by Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, 1855-1857., Coleccion Cultural Banco de America Serie Fuentes Historicas no. 6A (Managua, Nicaragua: Fondo de Promoción Cultural, 1976).
61 shipping news and commerce sections; gossip-section discussions of society figures; internationally focused articles as both news of interest from around the world and as coverage of a foreign sovereign power; through direct reprints of his governmental decrees and actions; within coverage of legal briefs and courtroom transcripts; and, of course, opinions in the editorial section. This wide variety of coverage speaks to the varied and rather sudden importance of Walker’s ventures in Nicaragua to the domestic interests of
Americans. For a brief time, Walker controlled the area of the Transit Road, the landed portion of the shortest route between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, so his military movements and political strength greatly affected shipping and traveling speeds as well as security along the trip. At other times, Walker seems to be discussed almost like a new fad or a trendy gossip-and-entertainment item sweeping the nation, a sudden flush of celebrity- turned-notoriety within the slow build of mass culture that was beginning to take hold in the nineteenth century.
Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper provides a narrow piece of these popular discourses that we can use to understand the circulating narratives that Walker was writing against in his memoir, discourses that included characterizations of Walker’s masculinity and physical appearance, a contemporary understanding of “vigorousness,” and a shifting trajectory of support for his actions. Frank Leslie’s was an innovator in illustrated and pictorial newspapers, forming and solidifying the cultural ideal of an investigative artist- reporter who uses images to heighten the emotional impact of a news story.22 The paper’s early years corresponded roughly to Walker’s public rise and demise; it was founded in
1855, the same year Walker first went to Nicaragua, and by 1860 it had become the leading
22 Brown, Beyond the Lines.
62 outlet for “pictorial news” in the nation.23 In addition to including him in a mélange of
small news articles, Frank Leslie’s repeatedly used Walker as a feature draw, offering long
“exclusive” articles and promoting their newest technology in woodcarvings and
illustrations by depicting Walker’s exciting ventures. According to historian Josh Brown,
“What it may have lacked in depth of coverage Frank Leslie’s made up for in breadth: the engravings that appeared on the cover and alternating spreads of its sixteen quarto pages included enthusiastic depictions of William Walker’s marauding filibusters in Nicaragua and of the retributive actions of the Vigilance Committee in San Francisco… (with a decided bent, despite Frank Leslie’s claims to political neutrality, toward the
Democrats).”24 Reading Frank Leslie’s coverage of Walker in these early years is a little like reading a gossip or celebrity magazine; it seem determined to grab eyes, new viewers and readers, and market share with the newness of their technology and inside knowledge.
In most of its early coverage, the editorial voice at Frank Leslie’s supported Walker
vehemently and unconditionally, making explicit connections between Walker’s character
and mission in Nicaragua and appropriate and worthy interpretations of Manifest
Destiny.25 Feature coverage of Walker in Frank Leslie’s was strongest and most frequent in 1856-1857, when Walker was conquering and leading Nicaragua and upon his first return trip to the United States.26 However, there was a dip in coverage after Walker’s
23 Ibid., 31. 24 Ibid., 25. 25 The Frank Leslie’s feature articles focused on Walker are not labeled with a particular author, but are instead written seemingly from the editors’ or producers’ point of view, frequently using the royal “we.” I term this “the editorial voice” when discussing the opinions and positions taken in the articles from Frank Leslie’s. 26 “General Walker of New Granada,” Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper (New York, NY), January 5, 1856, sec. pg. 58; Issue 4; col A; “General Walker,” Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper (New York, NY), January 5, 1856, sec. pg 57; Issue 4; col A; “General Walker as a Political Mentor,” Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper (New York, NY), February 9, 1856, sec. Issue 9; col A; “General Walker's Entrance into Granada,” Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper (New York, NY), May 3, 1856, sec. Issue 21; col A;
63 first return trip to Central America and his subsequent trial for violating neutrality laws.
The editorial voice defends him from intervention from the U.S. Navy and government, but
opines about what might have been rather than offering unconditional support for Walker’s
continuing mission or trial.27 By the time Frank Leslie’s prints Walker’s obituary, the editorial voice has changed tone considerably, lamenting Walker’s “just” fate and declaring it had “no faith” in his last mission.28
The chronicle of Walker’s rise and fall in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper
began in January 1856 with a multiple-story spread featuring an “authentic portrait” of
Walker, biographical information and physical description of the General, and an anecdotal
story about Americans so eager to join Walker in Nicaragua that their ship evaded U.S.
Marshals while ecstatic onlookers cheered them on.29 The question “Who is William
Walker?” inspired numerous biographical sketches in contemporary newspapers. These
biographical articles tended to move quickly through the details of Walker’s education,
work history, and rise in Nicaragua, and include rather detailed physical descriptions,
sometimes lingering on descriptions of Walker’s small physical stature, preternatural calm,
high cheekbones, unnerving grey eyes and apparent “colorlessness,” and his soft but firm
“The brilliant victory gained by General Walker at Rivas redeems the stain brought on the American arms by the poltroonery of Schlessinger. (Editorial),” Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper (New York, NY), May 6, 1856, Saturday edition, sec. Issue 22; col A; “General Walker and Nicaragua (Editorial),” Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper (New York, NY), December 27, 1856, sec. pg. 54; Issue 55; col A; “Nicaragua and General Walker,” Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper (New York, NY), February 7, 1857, sec. pg. 157; Issue 61; col B; “General Walker Still Triumphant,” Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper (New York, NY), April 4, 1857, sec. pg. 270; Issue 270; col A; “General Walker Addressing the Citizens of New Orleans from the Portico of the St. Charles Hotel,” Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper (New York, NY), June 6, 1857, sec. pg. 3; Issue 79; col C; “A Visit to General Walker and Suite Early Reminiscence of Walker,” Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper (New York, NY), June 27, 1857, sec. pg. 56; Issue 82; col A; “A Visit to General Walker (concl.),” Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper (New York, NY), June 27, 1857, sec. pg 55; Issue 82; col A. 27 “The Capture of General Walker and His Force,” Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper (New York, NY), January 9, 1858, sec. pg. 1; Issue 110; col A. 28 “The End of General Walker.” 29 “General Walker”; “General Walker of New Granada.”
64 speaking voice. In the Frank Leslie’s feature “General Walker of New Granada,” a
woodcut portrait of Walker is accompanied with this brief physical description:
We remember distinctly the first time we saw him, and were attracted by his delicate person, pale freckled face, light blue eye, and thoughtful expression…. [Walker’s attempt to overtake Sonora] was a failure… but Walker displayed throughout the affair an indomitable energy, a firmness of purpose, and a gallant bearing, that established his reputation as possessed of the materials of a commander.30
This approach to Walker’s physical appearance is found across newspaper coverage. For example, this text introducing the public to William Walker from an article in The
Washington Star was widely reprinted:
From the above it may be seen that Walker is of respectable family, intelligent, well educated, a regularly trained physician, and a graduate of one of the best schools in America. He is, besides, a man of indomitable courage and perseverance. When a student in Philadelphia, strange as it may seem, he was remarkable for his diffident and ever taciturn manner and gentle disposition. In person, he is rather under than above the medium height, and was formerly of fair complexion, somewhat freckled face, with light hair, grey eyes, and high cheek bones.31
Other newspapers may have concentrated on Walker’s physical traits because visual
representations were not as widely circulated as written representations, but they also
pointedly remark on a certain image of white masculine paternalism. Within most of the
newspaper coverage, any questions about masculinity or manliness that might rise from descriptions of Walker’s slight physical nature are usually balanced with references to his courage and dauntless perseverance. These biographical sketches wonder at the ability of a small, possibly “soft” and effeminate man to take on the impossible tasks being reported.
This contrast is intended to impress readers with the contrast between his feminized,
30 “General Walker of New Granada.” 31 This text was reprinted verbatim in at least two other newspapers: “General Walker,” North American and United States Gazette (Philadelphia, PA), January 11, 1856, Friday edition, sec. Issue 19,604; col E; “Who General Walker is,” The Daily Scioto Gazette (Chillicothe, OH), January 28, 1856, Monday edition, sec. Issue 47; col A. Both articles reference the source material as coming from an article in The Washington Star.
65 unimpressive physical presence and Walker’s unshakeable audacity and confidence. In the
context of partisan newspapers such as Frank Leslie’s representing a “Southern gentleman” like Walker in this way, the focus on this gendered contrast could be extrapolated even further as a metaphor for the between soft, feminized appearance of antebellum Southern culture and economics and the widespread, masculinized, indomitable will to maintain the institution of slavery in the build up to the Civil War. Depending on the audience for a particular paper, detailed descriptions of the soft exterior and interior kernel of hardness represented in Walker could be chilling or thrilling.
The introductory feature on Walker in Frank Leslie’s ends with an interesting
framework for readers to use when interpreting future news about him:
Without approving of his military achievements, and objecting to his interference in the affairs of a state at peace with this country, the people of the Union can see in Gen. Walker's course that there are principles involved, that reach beyond the mere checks of diplomacy, and that humanity is concerned in redeeming Central America from the withering influence of decayed dynasties, and that the fairest portion of the world, the transit between two great oceans, the highway connecting our Atlantic and Pacific ports, must be in the hands of a vigorous race, and that American institutions, and American spirit, if not the American flag must wave over Central America.32
In this, the editors at Frank Leslie’s acknowledge that Walker may perhaps be breaking the
neutrality laws of the United States, but places Walker’s actions in terms of a just,
righteous, higher calling. There are “principles involved” that might very well be divine:
the exceptional American spirit, unique institutions, flag, and Walker’s own “vigorousness”
are all being brought to bear on this principled task. Where Walker’s (many) detractors
couched his exploits in terms of outlandish megalomania, stubbornness, and an inability to
understand the “reality” of a situation, the editorial voice at Frank Leslie’s espoused a
righteous, destiny-filled rhetoric, supporting Walker’s methods as the best applications of
32 “General Walker of New Granada.”
66 American Exceptionalism and Manifest Destiny.33 In this conception, the “decaying
dynasties” of Central America were unable to continue their “influence” over the precious
road connecting the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Securing access to the road fell under the
same principles as “redeeming humanity” – spreading the gifts of American
Exceptionalism by force if necessary.
The editorial voice at Frank Leslie’s continued to offer enthusiastic support during
Walker’s campaign while it was victorious. Walker’s early successes were described in the
May 1856 editorial: “The brilliant victory gained by General Walker at Rivas redeems the
stain brought on the American arms by the poltroonery of Schlessinger.”34 The May 1856
feature article “General Walker’s Entrance into Granada” featured two detailed woodcut
illustrations. The first illustration was labeled as a “remarkably correct” depiction of
Walker’s troops’ assault on the Convent of San Francisco in Granada; the second depicted
the filibusters “reposing after the battle in their quarters at the convent” for some well-
deserved “rest and jollification.”35 These features visually represent the sensational action
of battles and a sense of inevitable victory for Walker’s American forces. That Walker
later became President of Nicaragua presented an exciting but not surprising twist to the
sensational narrative of preordained victory set forth in these early articles.
However, as Walker’s fortunes turned in the war with neighboring states and coalition forces, the editorial voice at Frank Leslie’s shifts from predictions of predestined
victory to assertions of confidence in the face of dire circumstances. In “General Walker
33 Where Frank Leslie’s was full of gossipy praise for Walker, the high-brow, upscale pictorial newspaper Harper’s Weekly was not. Their different coverage reflected different editorial voices as well as different audience orientation, much like the different types of coverage that can be found between our contemporary issues of the gossipy The New York Post and the serious New York Times. 34 “The brilliant victory gained by General Walker at Rivas redeems the stain brought on the American arms by the poltroonery of Schlessinger. (Editorial).” 35 “General Walker's Entrance into Granada.”
67 and Nicaragua” in the December 27, 1856 issue, the editorial voice notes the bad turn that
Walker’s fortunes seem to be taking. Walker was cornered by the Central
American/Vanderbilt coalition forces, Col. Henningsen was under siege after razing
Granada, and the outcome for success looked bleak, but Frank Leslie’s editorial voice still has faith that Walker will succeed in his righteous venture.
We do not subscribe to the doctrine of hero-worship, but we have an abiding confidence in the genius and energy of General Walker to extricate himself from any disagreeable position in which his feeble allies, aided by fortuitous circumstances, may have placed him. Our columns will bear witness that, from the very first, we have warmly admired the character of General Walker, and cordially indorsed [sic] his policy. In our biographical sketch, which accompanied his portrait, we fully expressed our opinion of his marked and peculiar traits, and we have seen no reason to change the views then published. We know the man personally - have sat at the same editorial table with him - and reiterate the assertion that he is composed of just the sort of stuff of which true heroes are made. His ultimate success or defeat would not alter this conviction.36
Walker’s “marked and peculiar” traits – his soft manner belaying an internal hardness – are the source of this confidence. The acknowledgment that defeat was possible, but that
Walker had “just the sort of stuff” of true heroes recognizes that his audacious grasp for
Manifest Destiny alone was enough to make him a hero, even if he fell short of achieving it.
Supporting his attempts to spread American Exceptionalism, the blanket of support offered by the editorial voice at Frank Leslie’s peaked when Walker returned to the United
States the first time. The June 1857 issues of Frank Leslie’s included a multi-part feature titled “A Visit with General Walker” as well as articles about Walker’s enthusiastic reception in New Orleans, where “thousands and tens of thousands of people were present to receive him” when he arrived at his hotel.
36 “General Walker and Nicaragua (Editorial).”
68 Whatever may be the opinion of others, we look upon Walker as a hero, and a man who has been betrayed by the pusillanimity of our Government. We thank God that we have no sympathy with the whining of a large part of the Northern press over the morality of filibusterism, if Walker's attempt to regenerate Nicaragua comes under that denomination. We have not the remotest conception of the sentiment that makes men rejoice over the death or failure of their own countrymen, when brought in contact with the miserable, hybrid, wretched creatures that form the mass of the population of the Central American States. ... We know that the mass of the people of this country are right on this question, and we trust that … he will return to Nicaragua accompanied by an invincible army; and that his great idea of founding a free people and a free nation, where nothing now exists but anarchy and misrule, will be carried out.37
This excerpt captures the sense that Nicaragua, and indeed all of Central America, was a
“blank slate” empty of preexisting structure and ripe for regeneration, an idea that Walker
expounds upon in his memoir. There is also a claim that the majority of American opinion
– “the mass of the people” – supported Walker as a fellow American, whether legal or morally right, because of a developed sense of nationalism, a claim that both ignores the schisms in public thought that were deepening on the eve of the Civil War and assumes that all readers will agree with the opinions being expressed.
However, after Walker’s highly anticipated return trip to Nicaragua ended not with
triumph by an invincible army, but with arrest and repatriation by the U.S. Navy, the blanket support that the editorial voice at Frank Leslie’s had expressed for Walker began to
dim. In “The Capture of General Walker and his Force,” the editorial voice lambastes the
U.S. Navy in general, and Commodore Paulding in particular, for capturing Walker in
Punta Arenas and preventing him from going on and retaking Granada.38
It would seem that the chivalry of our navy had ceased to exist. More aristocratic in its organization than that of any monarchical country, all incentive for noble action is gone; the sailors and marines, by its fundamental laws, are hopelessly degraded; the officers (the old ones at least) are superannuated, anti-American, and essentially mere dependents upon the treasury of the United States, doing little or nothing in
37 “General Walker Addressing the Citizens of New Orleans from the Portico of the St. Charles Hotel.” 38 “The Capture of General Walker and His Force.”
69 return for their pay, and generally so conceited, that, like the geese on a farm, they believe that the entire Republic has been established and is kept up to produce food, clothing and ships for their use…. Gen. Walker [had] command of the river, and the moment he had received reinforcements, he would have marched in triumph to Granada, and have been received by the people of Nicaragua, with exultation as their deliverer and President. Com. Paulding not only defeated this just consummation of the perseverance and bravery of Walker, but refused to allow the General to send word to Col. Anderson [Walker’s second in command] of his capture!39
While clearly decrying the government’s actions, the editorial voice’s anger is focused on
frustration over the interrupted consummation of Walker’s plans rather than in voicing
support for Walker’s continuing mission. Unlike previous articles about Walker in Frank
Leslie’s, this one has a tone of frustration and petulance rather than admiration and hero
worship. The editorial voice focuses on the unfairness of the Government’s actions, like a child who has lost a rigged game might complain about a change in the rules. While steady through Walker’s first defeat in Central America, Walker is no longer a source of heroism for Frank Leslie’s editorial voice after his second defeat.
Walker’s reasons and motivations for his Nicaraguan ventures had been questioned
and co-opted repeatedly in popular newspaper coverage. Whereas Frank Leslie’s
Illustrated Newspaper supported Walker while he was successful, partisan newspapers on
the other end of the political spectrum, such as Harper’s Weekly, were more likely to cover
Walker critically.40 Whether the newspapers and popular media were for him or against
him, though, Walker had no control over the way he was being discussed within that
popular discourse. Writing his memoir was a way for Walker to set the record straight, tell
his side of the story, control the message he wanted to release to the public, and create a
narrative legacy for himself that was completely under his control.
39 Ibid. 40 Bolaños Geyer, La Guerra en Nicaragua según Harper's Weekly, Journal of Civilization, 1857-1860 / The War in Nicaragua as reported by Harper's Weekly, Journal of Civilization, 1857-1860.
70 (RE)FRAMING THE PRESENT: WALKER’S THE WAR IN NICARAGUA (1860)
Between the spring of 1858 and 1860, William Walker penned The War in
Nicaragua, a work that blends the genres of memoir, military history, and moral and legal
reasoning.41 Over the course of 431 pages, Walker reconstructs the political situation he
participated in while in Nicaragua, details his and the other filibusters’ role in the war, absolves himself of the criticisms of his detractors, and puts forth his plan for
“regenerating” Nicaragua and the rest of Central America through expanding and
implementing a particularly American way of life – chattel slavery and racial separation of
capitol and labor. Written in the United States after Walker was on trial in New Orleans for
violating neutrality laws, the memoir was published in the spring of 1860.42
Written from this embattled place, we can read Walker’s memoir as addressing two
distinct agendas related to telling “his side” of the story: combat any negative
contemporary popular discourse that he could not control, and create a lasting narrative
legacy for himself that was completely of his own fashioning. In the face of dwindling
public support after his second defeat in Central America and his forced repatriation by
Commodore Paulding, this memoir served as a way for Walker to tell his version of a
much-publicized story. In the short term, the memoir seems to exist primarily to provide a
long series of justifications for Walker’s actions, to blame others for his failures, and to
41 Because the heft of the evidence in the book comes from Walker’s memory, I use the term “memoir” to refer to The War in Nicaragua. For this project, it might be important to differentiate between a diary and a memoir. A “diary” is understood as an ongoing account of personal experiences, written at regular intervals and intended to be a private record that reaches a very limited audience. Diaries can provide important information for social and cultural histories, as they can illuminate daily life as experienced by the author. A “memoir,” on the other hand, is understood to be a retrospective account of personal experiences, written at one particular point in time, and written specifically for public consumption by either a broad or narrow audience not personally acquainted with the author. The difference in audience and motivation inscribe memoirs with a very different kind of agenda than diaries; interpreting and analyzing that agenda is an important part of understanding the role that Walker’s The War in Nicaragua plays in shaping contemporary public discourse and a lasting narrative legacy. 42 Scroggs, Filibusters and Financiers, 368.
71 project his confidence for future success in Nicaragua. In his long-term interests of
creating a narrative legacy, Walker places himself well within a larger project of Manifest
Destiny. He depicts himself as part of a movement of historical significance, creating a new American South, rather than at the head of a self-aggrandizing grasp for power.
Within the memoir, General Walker is a heroic public servant, one on the side of civilization, light, God, and due diligence, but still serving a higher cause, not aggressively grasping for personal power. His actions in Nicaragua were framed as supporting principles of expanding the gift of American Exceptionalism by spreading a Confederate way of life.
Walker uses a number of distancing techniques in the text that remove textual characteristics normally associated with personal memoirs. He writes The War in
Nicaragua almost entirely in third-person address, and he records events in tedious, minute chronological detail, with very little contextualization to help readers make sense of the larger narrative. Walker only directly speaks to the reader through first-person address in the final three pages of the text. While current scholarship on nineteenth-century memoirs does not explicitly address a divide between first and third-person address, this form seems to be as uncommon for memoirs in the 1850s as it is today.43 Other soldiers who wrote
memoirs of their time with Walker in Nicaragua used the more common first-person
address to tell their stories.44
43 In my conversations with scholars who focus on the nineteenth century, only Henry Adams’ The Education of Henry Adams came to mind as an example of a popular memoir written in third-person. For a broader take on memoirs and personal narratives in the nineteenth century, see Ann Fabian, The Unvarnished Truth: Personal Narratives in Nineteenth-Century America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000).. While Fabian does not explicitly discuss whether her sources use first or third person address, an analysis of quotations from her sources indicates that her sources tended toward first- person to convey the personal experiences and narratives of the authors. 44 Memoirs of soldiers from Walker’s ranks include: Doubleday, Reminiscences of the "Filibuster" War in Nicaragua; Jamison, With Walker in Nicaragua; Or, Reminiscences of an Officer of the American Phalanx.
72 The text opens with an overview of the conflict between the Legitimist and
Democratic forces in Nicaragua, so the third-person address does not stick out until
“Colonel Walker” is introduced as the solution to the Democrats’ woes: “The leader of the
[failed Lower California] expedition – William Walker, or, as he was then called, Col.
Walker – after returning to Upper California, resumed the occupation of editor of a daily paper….”45 What makes this third person address so jarring is that Walker’s book has a clear personal agenda, but this style of writing disallows the “personal” to seep through by
distancing the author, and reader, from the actions and intentions of “General Walker.” As
Walker biographer William Scroggs categorized the memoir:
The style is clear, terse, and direct, and the diction is pure. His treatment of both friend and foe is remarkably dispassionate, and his pen has betrayed very little of the emotion that he must have experienced as he sat and recounted the events of his rise and fall. The facts are recorded with scrupulous accuracy, and the greatest compliment that could be paid him on this score has come from hostile Central American historians, who while impugning his motives and condemning his acts accept his version of the actual events without question…. Few writers have succeeded in narrating a story in which they have played such a predominant part with so little revelation of their own personality. To the reader the author appears as the cold embodiment of an idea or purpose rather than as a being endowed with all the traits characteristic of human nature.46
This text universalizes one man’s worldview and perspective on the events in Nicaragua,
projecting his personal agenda through an impersonal, outwardly objective format.
Walker-the-Author is not an omniscient narrator; he does not ascribe thoughts, feelings, or
reasoning to any of the figures in the text. Instead, the narration tends toward the definitive
and requisite nature of a teleological history – actions happen because they were
All are told using first-person address. In addition, one of Walker’s top officers, Charles Frederick Henningsen, was a professional soldier/mercenary and a prolific memoirist; Henningsen also used first- person address when relaying his experiences in Russia, Spain, Belgium, and Eastern Europe, although he did not write about Nicaragua or his role in leading the destruction of Granada. 45 Walker, The War in Nicaragua, 24. 46 Scroggs, Filibusters and Financiers, 380.
73 predetermined, because they needed to happen for particular reasons of destiny rarely
spelled out in the text, not because of individual actions, feelings, situations, or context.
Constructing the text in third-person address gives The War in Nicaragua an authoritative
historical voice that is normally missing in a standard first-person memoir, where the use of
“I” and other personal pronouns reminds readers that authors of autobiographies are telling
one particular side of a story, not the entire story. Walker has crafted this authoritative
historical voice so well that the events in his memoir are used as the official record of
events in the War in Nicaragua for historians aligned with both sides of the conflict.47
Walker links the end of his first filibustering expedition in Lower California and
Sonora to the dire situation of the Nicaraguan Democrats; both reach critical turning points
(surrender in Sonora and the Nicaraguan decision to bring in outside help) in May 1854.48
At first, introducing “Colonel Walker” through his first failed filibustering attempt seems like a poor rhetorical choice, as though Walker “did not regard it as a very pleasant subject” but needed to acknowledge that it happened.49 However, a different way to read this introduction through the Sonora expedition is through the legal lens of precedent. This brief, positive portrayal of an early failure that set the stage for a greater success creates a
precedent for the reader to expect Walker to bounce back from any failure stronger than
before. It also gives Walker a chance to communicate his overall purpose and higher calling early on, setting the tone for interpreting all of his actions through the wider lens of destiny:
47 Walker’s The War in Nicaragua and popular newspaper coverage make up the main archival record of the events in Nicaragua. The memoir has a more detailed and more coherent version of events than the newspapers, and presents the entire story in one physical text, rather than spread throughout multiple issues. The memoir became the basis for early scholarly works on Walker. Later non-fiction works on Walker and Nicaragua cite The War in Nicaragua, newspapers, and previous works on Walker with equal frequency. 48 Walker, The War in Nicaragua, 18. 49 Scroggs, Filibusters and Financiers, 380.
74 [T]heir conduct in Lower California may be taken as the measure of their motives in the enterprise they undertook. Wheresoever they went they sought to establish justice and maintain order, and those among them who violated law were summarily punished…. The main fact for us to know is that those engaged in the Lower California expedition gave proof of their desire not to destroy, but to re- organized society wherever they went. They were all young men, and youth is apt to err in pulling down before it is ready to build up. But they were men, also, full of military fire and thirsting for military reputation; and the soldier’s instinct leads him to construct rather than to destroy…. They failed, however; whether through the actions of others more than of themselves, it imports not our present purpose to determine.50
This introduction to the means and motives of the Lower California expedition focuses on
the valuable experiences and lessons learned in the venture rather than on its ultimate
failure. For Walker’s purposes as an author, admitting the failure in Lower California while upholding the goals implies a sense of dedication and righteousness gives a coherent pattern to his own filibustering motives and decisions. He also disavows that the failure
was somehow the fault of the filibustering group itself, instead demurring that analysis to a
future time, another theme that continues throughout the memoir.
One would have to know the story of Walker’s venture in order to understand (and
persevere in reading) his account of it, as it often crosses into tedious and peevish detail.
Walker’s account of the military actions in Nicaragua are detailed enough to be
extraordinarily dry reading. His accounts of battle read much like the long lists of “who
begat whom” in biblical texts – many names, many details, technically presented in a
chronological order, but with little hope for reader comprehension or retention unless the
story is already familiar. These passages do little to glamorize war or add a sense of
adventure to the Nicaraguan venture; instead, they seem intended to tone down any
possibilities for adventure or romance in Walker’s war in Nicaragua. Additionally, Walker
barely mentions his inauguration, an event that biographer Laurence Greene painted as a
50 Walker, The War in Nicaragua, 22-4.
75 lavish ceremony representing the highest point of Walker’s life.51 Walker certainly avoids any direct mention of his fame, celebrity, or notoriety in the United States. Throughout The
War in Nicaragua, Walker studiously ignores the rich spectacle and potential awards that await successful imperialist adventurers, particularly those who manage to rule an entire country, opting instead to glorify a Puritanical lifestyle of self-denial and strict adherence to principles.
From Walker’s perspective, de-emphasizing the adventurousness to be had in
Nicaragua was quite advantageous. For one, a dry, un-adventurous tale would attract a different – and, Walker would argue, a better – “class” of comrades for his eventual return to Nicaragua. Walker seems to desperately crave a “sober” venture in Nicaragua – a gathering of like-minded (Southern) gentlemen who share his love of (racialized) order, hierarchy, self-denial, and self-discipline, willing to colonize Nicaragua and control political and economic affairs from the advantageous platform of the landed aristocracy.
But the penny press and the filibuster reputation promised tales of adventure and riches to be had in Nicaragua, drawing a very different sort of soldier to Walker’s ranks – primarily the hard-drinking, hard-fighting, failed Mexican-American War veteran and Gold Rush variety of “soldier.” Like a prohibitionist, Walker repeatedly laments the poor discipline and poor morale within his ranks caused when a bounty of liquor or the potential for looting was at hand. Walker tried to discourage this behavior through minor deterrents such as a ban on liquor as well as the major deterrent of death. Walker ordered frequent military executions for relatively minor offenses (at least, minor in the world of filibustering) such as looting or disobeying orders. Walker justified his penchant for ordering executions, saying, “A military execution is a good test of military discipline; for
51 Greene, The Filibuster, 209-214.
76 no duty is so repulsive to the soldier as that of taking life from the comrade who has shared
the perils and privations of his arduous service.”52 Walker tested his troops’ “military
discipline” frequently.
Scrubbing his legacy clean of tawdry adventure and romance also helped Walker
frame himself as a dutiful servant to a cause, rather than a rapacious conquistador or a romantically idealistic but ineffective visionary. In characterizing his own personal role in
the war in Nicaragua, Walker seems to go out of his way to depict himself as being a
humble servant to a cause, dutifully serving the Democrats who asked for his help to defeat
the Legitimists and restore order. Walker-the-Author is quick to detail how “General
Walker” deferred decisions (especially major ones) to others, especially his Nicaraguan
political superiors. As a “character” in The War in Nicaragua, General Walker is merely a
very good military leader playing the role that the Democrats asked him to play, and
playing it well – the opposite personality type from a stereotypical pushy, ambitious,
megalomaniacal filibuster. Walker-the-General emphasizes the role of “the Americans,” meaning the group as a whole led by him, over his own role, assigning copious credit to his
officers’ skill and dedication and their supposedly shared vision. The main gift that
Walker-the-Author ascribes to Walker-the-General seems to be his ability to rally the
morale of the troops by reminding them of their upright moral vision and their role in
regenerating Nicaragua in a quiet, imperturbable manner that instantly calms them and
strengthens their resolve.
This depiction of General Walker as a calm, moral, and inspiring servant of destiny
connects to Walker’s short-term and long-term goals for the memoir. In the short term, his
quiet manner, small stature, and constant harping on morality, which could be used to
52 Walker, The War in Nicaragua, 22.
77 signify a disparaging feminized identity in popular discourses, is transformed into a cool,
confident, and principled military prowess. Instead of harping at his troops, Walker depicts
himself as having an almost magical ability to calm their fears and prepare them to win in
battles against superior numbers. Walker-the-General is a “natural” leader, one whose
destiny is approved by higher powers, as evidenced in his mystical ability to calm and
impart courage into frightened soldiers. This “natural” and embedded leadership begins to
justify why Walker-the-Author’s vision should be enacted, and why his role could be one
of support and leadership, supporting the Democrats while still leading the military.
The issue of the treaty ending the war between Democratic and Legitimist forces
illustrates Walker’s approach to his role in the events. He claims that his role in the
negotiation was not as an empowered, authoritative player in the government, but instead
just as the highest ranking officer of the army, “it being understood that, in case a treaty
was agreed on, it should be sent to Leon [the center of the Democrats’ government] for
ratification.”53 After the treaty was ratified, Walker claims that:
The municipal authorities met and requested Walker to take the Presidency of the Republic. This he declined, suggesting, however, that if Corral [leader of the Democrats] were placed in the Executive, after proper terms were agreed on between the contending parties, he would undertake, as commander-in-chief, to maintain order within the State.”54
By refusing the offer of appointment as President, Walker depicts himself a bit like George
Washington after the American Revolution – a worthy general who is reluctant to assume power and authority over a new nation, but who eventually accepts that power when it is
thrust upon him by the overwhelming will of the people. The more cynical view of this, of
53 Ibid., 125. 54 Ibid., 119.
78 course, is that Walker knew enough about Nicaragua’s political history to retain control over the military as a way to maintain power and authority over the government.
The most important facet of this peace-making process, for Walker, was his participation in a religious ceremony to solidify the treaty. Walker uses the oath he made in this ceremony and its religious import as much of his later justification for continuing his war in Nicaragua. When he later found letters from Corral seeking help from other Central
American heads of state, Walker had him court-martialed and executed; when Walker determined that President Rivas and General Jerez had also violated the oath and treaty, he dissolved the government, citing his oath as the legal and moral justification for this action.
Walker had sworn, not only to observe the treaty himself, but to cause it to be observed. He remained the sole sponsor for Rivas [the capitol] before Nicaragua and before the world; and he would have deserved to be branded as a perjured man had he permitted [President Don Patricio] Rivas with impunity not merely to excite the passions of the people against the Americans, but to invite the foreign foe into the State with a view of expelling the naturalized soldiers.55
Rather than break his own oath to uphold the treaty, Walker called for new elections. The details of the election are very sparse in this otherwise excessively detailed memoir, with
Walker noting only that, “A large majority of the votes polled were for the general-in- chief.”56 Walker summarizes the pomp and circumstance of the election and inauguration in this typically anti-climatic, unadventurous, non-romanticized way: “Accordingly, on the appointed day, with due observances, both civil and religious, Walker took the oath of office on the Plaza of Granada, and was installed as Chief Executive of the Republic of
Nicaragua.”57 As the President, Walker was firmly and finally situated to begin regenerating Nicaragua, and begins making decrees to that effect.
55 Ibid., 227. 56 Ibid., 228. 57 Ibid.
79 At this point in The War in Nicaragua, Walker takes a textual detour from the
chronology of events to detail his views on slavery, civilization, and the potential role that
the colonization of Nicaragua could play in solving the “slavery question” that (in 1860)
was threatening to tear the United States apart. The placement of this detour within the
narrative of the memoir is interesting. Walker details his colonization and civilization plan
in Chapter 8, in the middle of the narrative, right after Walker-the-Author has briefly noted
the inauguration of General Walker as President of Nicaragua. Up until this point, Walker-
the-Author has been careful to phrase Walker-the-General’s actions and orders in terms of
what his superiors asked him to do, depicting “General Walker” as a dutiful servant of the
Democrats who refrains from taking power unless it is asked of or given to him. After the election, however, Walker-the-Author phrases the Walker-the-General’s decisions in terms
of helping “the people” of Nicaragua, using “the people” to refer to native Nicaraguans as
well as the naturalized Nicaraguans (i.e. the Americans Walker brought with him.)
Walker frames his entire involvement through the logic of colonialism. He sees his
role as one of stabilizing the political situation in Nicaragua in order to open it up for an
increasing “American element” through colonization and immigration. Walker claims this
is not only his own plan for Nicaragua, but also that of the politicians who initially brought
him to Nicaragua – to introduce “the white race” into Nicaragua and have the whites
reorganize Nicaraguan society.
The policy of the Walker government was, of course, the same as that of Rivas, so far as the introduction of the white race into Nicaragua was concerned…. Rivas and his cabinet felt that Nicaraguan society required reorganization; but they knew not how it was to be accomplished, nor would they have adopted the means necessary for the end even if the proper measures had been pointed out to them. Hence, when the reorganization, not merely of the State, but of the family and of labor, became necessary, another executive than Rivas was not a matter of choice.58
58 Ibid., 251.
80 Walker outlines his intention to reorganize Nicaragua’s institutions and political, social, and cultural structure according to gender, racial, and class hierarchies. Walker is careful to depict himself as a humble servant of Nicaragua, willing to do what is necessary in order to create a proper civilization, even if those actions are unpopular. In this case, Walker sees the path forward as a form of Americanization - the reinstitution of negro slavery and the implementation of a racialized social and economic hierarchy, as only path forward to
“regenerate” Nicaraguan society.
For Walker, negro slavery is the essential American institution, a fundamental part
of American society that makes it strongly American and not just a weak copy of European
society. Walker’s expression of American Exceptionalism is constructed around a white
landed aristocracy supported by the institution of negro slavery and codified racial
hierarchy. Citing a wide rage of literature, philosophy, and history that he interprets very
narrowly, Walker claims that a clear racial hierarchy married to a clear economic and
political hierarchy is the reason for peace, order, and prosperity in the American South, as
compared to the confusing mixture of race, labor, and capital causing problems in the
Northern United States and Europe. Instead of a “regeneration through violence”
argument, Walker insists on regeneration through hierarchy; his path to ultimate peace and prosperity literally requires a black (brown) and white division of labor and capital. He reacts against the Enlightenment ideals of equality by using the scientific, plain-spoken, rational language to construct a philosophic basis for a new-feudal utopia based on racial hierarchy and caste privilege.
Extending this neo-feudal metaphor, Walker seems to envision Nicaragua as a place
for Southern second sons to make their fame and fortune, functioning as a safety valve for
81 discontent for American Southerners much like colonial America functioned for
dissatisfied Europeans or the westward frontier functioned in American expansion. To
reconstruct Nicaragua, Walker asks white pro-slavery Americans to emigrate to Central
America, to remove themselves from the contentious debates in the Union in search of a new country rich in resources and decidedly amenable to slavery as the most civilized choice for organizing society.
In return for military service with Walker in Nicaragua, officers could become
naturalized Nicaraguan citizens immediately; and, thanks to Walker’s new systems of land ownership, officers could receive payment for their services in the form of land grants.
Nicaraguan citizenship was an important part of Walker’s argument. Obtaining citizenship
circumvented violations of U.S. neutrality laws, as naturalized citizens could legally fight
for their adopted country. Walker’s system of trading military risk for citizenship and land
ownership meant that American émigrés would be immediately connected to and vested in
maintaining Walker’s vision and decrees.
Walker’s early decrees were designed to reestablish a race- and education- based
hierarchy, including a new land registry and decrees that all government documents would
be in English and Spanish, but that either language could make a document “official.”
The difference of language between the members of the old society and that portion of the white race, necessarily dominant in the new, while it was a cause keeping the elements apart, afforded also a means of regulating the relations between the several races meeting on the same soil…. The decree concerning the use of the two languages tended to make the ownership of the lands of the State fall into the hands of those speaking English…. The general tendency of these several decrees was the same; they were intended to place a large proportion of the land of the country in the hands of the white race. The military force of the State might, for a time, secure the Americans in the government of the Republic, but in order that their possession of government might be permanent, it was requisite for them to hold the land.”59
59 Ibid., 252-4.
82 Walker’s plan designs a way for wealthy white Americans to form a landed aristocracy
within Nicaragua, transporting their slaves and institutions of antebellum life a little further south. By implementing laws and regulations familiar to the Americans/naturalized
Nicaraguans and completely alien to the native Nicaraguans, Walker set up a system to pay his soldiers through large grants of land.
Walker’s extended discussion of his vision for regenerating and civilizing
Nicaragua through racial hierarchy and slavery would have appealed to the most extreme
elements in the American Democratic party in the antebellum period. Earlier in his career,
Walker had published articles that were moderately abolitionist; his change in thinking about slavery has been viewed by later scholars as a disingenuous attempt to garner support in the United States and as a cynical ploy to reestablish power over Nicaragua. While that is a very probable cause, Walker’s military experiences may have contributed just as much to this change as his need for financial support.
Throughout his memoir, Walker emphasizes the need for a clear, well-
acknowledged, and completely unchallenged hierarchy within society in order to maintain
order, discipline, and separation, which will in turn maximize the productivity and
civilization of a nation. This desire for hierarchy could be the reason why military life and
military rule are so attractive to him. The chain of command and of respect within the
military is clearly spelled out and unlikely to change, and is even more stringent in a
pseudo-military organization than within a regularized, bureaucratized national military. In
the regular military, there are loops built into the chain of command that provide lower-
ranking members with alternative access to higher authorities. As a check-and-balance
system, this protects lower-ranking members from unreasonable superiors who emphasize
83 elements that prevent the successful completion of missions, such as commanding officers
who punish soldiers for minor violations of dress code on the battlefield. In pseudo or
paramilitary organizations, however, there is a greater emphasis on rank, hierarchy, and
order, and there is no alternative chain of command within a broad institutional framework.
Paramilitary operations do not provide much wiggle room for dissent with orders; they
require complete trust in the leaders, and leaders worthy of that complete trust. Walker
viewed military court-martials and executions as both just punishment and as a “good test
of military discipline.” The hierarchy and strict order of military life provided Walker with a legitimate and well-respected way to exercise his desire for absolute control over himself
– something that he did not have when he was working for others as a doctor, lawyer, or newspaper editor – as well as absolute control over the lives and actions of many, many others.
So while it may indeed have been a cynical ploy for Walker to change from being a
mild abolitionist to a strict advocate of slavery to garner immediate financial support, his
arguments for hierarchy and against equality easily fit into a paramilitary worldview that
emphasizes rules, rank, organization, and order. They also match up with ideas on
predetermination and destiny that permeate the memoir, that some people or groups are
special and more qualified to be in charge for the good of all. This goes beyond a broad
view of American Exceptionalism; rather, the exceptional ones, in Walker’s eyes, are the
educated, upper-caste whites. Walker advocates regenerating Nicaragua through absolute
control over racialized, gendered, and classed bodies through a strict caste system
dominated by whiteness, maleness, and American cultural power exercised through land
ownership and the power to make and enforce laws.
84 In his memoir, Walker takes great pains to convince his reader that his filibustering is inspired by a higher calling, not by the common “mercenary” motive of money. While this memoir is certainly directed at his critics or those who turned away from supporting him, Walker’ main purpose seems to be to present himself as a true believer in his cause.
By the end of the memoir, the reader who has persevered through the agonizing details, minute battle constructions, and wide berth of blame begins to understand the motives behind Walker’s obsession. At the end of his text, Walker finally addresses his audience directly:
Thus have I, during a leisure thrust on me against my will, tried to tell clearly and concisely the story of the rise, progress, and close, for a time, of the War in Nicaragua…. My main effort has been to trace as distinctly as I could the causes of the war, the manner in which it was waged, and the circumstances attending its conclusion…. That which you ignorantly call “filibusterism” is not the offspring of hasty passion or ill-regulated desire; it is the fruit of the sure, unerring instincts which act in accordance with laws as old as the creation.60
After over 400 pages of dry, passionless detail, this sudden turn to first/second person address is a shocking twist opening up Walker-the-Author’s combination of earnestness and bitterness. Throughout the memoir, Walker represents his ventures in Nicaragua as the fulfillment of a particular “mission statement” for the United States of America – or at least the Southern United States. He defines himself as an American, but he disagrees with the direction that the country is taking, namely, mixing races, eliminating slavery, and industrializing in the North. Nicaragua is Walker’s attempt to define and enact what he thinks “America” should be: a “democratic” republic with a race-based caste system that separates sources of capital and labor, ruled by an oligarchy of paternalistic, intelligent, visionary, like-minded, white landowners, with his vision of Manifest Destiny leading the way.
60 Ibid., 429-30.
85 He is but a blind reader of the past who has not learned that Providence fits its agents for great designs by trials, and sufferings, and persecutions…. In the very difficulties with which the Americans of Nicaragua have had to contend I see the presage of their triumph…. With us there can be no choice; honor and duty call on us to pursue the path we have entered, and we dare not be deaf to the appeal. By the bones of the mouldering dead at Masaya, at Rivas, and at Granada, I adjure you never to abandon the cause of Nicaragua. Let it be your waking and your sleeping thought to devise means for a return to the land whence we were unjustly brought. And, if we be but true to ourselves, all will yet end well.61
Walker’s own definition of Manifest Destiny is so powerful to him, and yet so contentious within the regular United States and the American public, that he needs to seek out a fresh country on which he can build this vision. This begins to explain his single-mindedness, the “requisite” nature of his imperialism, the weird blend of arrogance and humility in his straightforward and “honest” memoir, and his inability to give up the cause of Nicaragua when faced with defeat or death.
MANIFEST ROOTS
Walker penned The War in Nicaragua between his trial for violating neutrality laws and his third, and final, trip to Central America. Despite Walker’s contemporary fame and the nearly generational retelling or referencing of his story, he remains a liminal, largely forgotten figure in American history. While Central Americans continue to remember and revile him, his role in Nicaragua and desire to spread America’s imperial project have been nearly excised from stories of American expansion in U.S. memory.
The change in the editorial voice at Frank Leslie’s, one of the most vocal and avid
supporters of Walker’s ventures, reflects a trajectory of popular support that changed as
Walker’s story and levels of success changed. The shift in editorial voice is complete in
the obituary that Frank Leslie’s prints for William Walker. “The End of General Walker”
61 Ibid., 430-1.
86 was published in September 1860, before the details of the Honduran execution were fully
known back in the United States. The editorial voice laments Walker’s final expedition:
Walker sprung out of this and insensibly he began to lead, for he had a clear head, an imperturbable coolness and a fixed purpose from which no defeat could turn him aside. His was the unpardonable sin of not succeeding, for which there is no mercy either from contemporaries or from the history which shall hereafter chronicle the present time. Had he succeeded, who will doubt that he would have met with support from the ruling powers who connived at his departing expeditions, but left him to his fate when standing at bay, beleaguered by overwhelming numbers? Had he established his authority over Nicaragua, the huge Democratic paw would have considerately gathered him and it into its fold, but the arm which would hug the spoils was powerless to save the booty-less adventurer…. We had no faith in Walker's last expedition, neither in his purposes nor his material. His means were so inadequate to carry out any end, that we are fain to believe his judgment warped. His ambition must have unsettled his mind, for none but a madman would have rushed as he did into the very jaws of death with his eyes wide open.62
William Walker’s newspaper coverage demonstrates that an individual mercenary figure
with a compelling and appealing story could capture the imagination of the American
public, especially if it stayed in the realm of distant fantasy or possible fiction. Walker’s
story was most compelling when he was in Nicaragua. Once back in the United States,
pressing his case after failing twice, he became ever more “real,” and more tiresome, for
those who were not intimately connected to him.
Part of this forgetting of Walker was because the Civil War eclipsed memories of ventures into Central America, but part of it was also institutional. In his December 1860 address to Congress, President James Buchanan remarked obliquely on Walker’s passing, and the general passing of the filibuster movement:
I congratulate you upon the public sentiment which now exists against the crime of setting on foot military expeditions within the limits of the United States, to proceed from thence and make war upon the people of unoffending states with whom we are at peace. In this respect a happy change has been effected since the commencement of my administration. It surely ought to be the prayer of every Christian and patriot
62 “The End of General Walker.”
87 that such expeditions may never again receive countenance or depart from our shores.63
Buchanan praised the end of filibustering as the end of a threat to the real “patriots” of the
nation. The transgressive and subversive nature of filibustering violated neutrality laws and threatened the international reputation and the domestic tranquility of the Union,
undermining the power and reputation of the government. Filibusters were pushed aside
through both increased government vigilance and the Civil War, which opened plenty of
opportunities for soldiering without needing to leave the United States.
The passing of the filibuster movement eliminated an outlet for enacting these
transgressions and attempting to build a small private empire as part of a personal and
national Manifest Destiny, but an alternative outlet for those transgressive urges was soon
opened in the form of the fictional American mercenary figure. It took another generation
for Manifest Destiny to work its way back into domestic discourse; by the 1890s, ideas of
Manifest Destiny had been redefined as “spreading civilization” and had taken hold of
popular discourse. Walkeresque figures began to surface in popular literature, with authors
choosing particular traits and pieces of Walker’s story to build fictional stories around
familiar themes and events, splintering Walker into more easily digestible pieces.
In his study of Walker’s returns in literature, American Studies scholar Brady
Harrison argues that William Walker exemplifies a specific conception of an American
“imperial self” that resurfaces in literature and popular culture throughout the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries, highlighting moments of turmoil in or reconsideration of
America’s imperialist actions. In exploring why Walker’s story continually resurfaces just
to be forgotten again immediately, Harrison posits that Walker functions as a representative
63 Scroggs, Filibusters and Financiers, 395-6.
88 of Frederick Jameson’s “political unconscious;” in times of widespread imperial desires,
Walker “briefly reappears to say what most often remains unthinkable and unsayable; he then disappears just as quickly as the forces of containment and repression work to return imperial desires to obscurity.”64
Harrison focuses his study on revisions and recycled versions of William Walker’s
story, particularly in the genre of the mercenary romance in literary novels. He finds that
each generational reiteration of Walker becomes darker and more likely to reflect the worst
results of American imperialist desires and actions. Though parts of Walker’s story inspired the subgenre of the mercenary romance and a few early tales were filled with the rhetoric of uplifting and spreading civilization, the full version of Walker’s narrative is often forgotten because it does not uphold the ideas that the United States has always been a good neighbor. Walker’s full story is too harsh for sustained attention within American popular culture and popular memory; this harshness too easily overturns the preferred
American self-conception of benevolent, neighborly paternalism that is regularly reinforced through popular history and culture. Confronting this harshness induces yet another mass forgetting of Walker.
I agree with Harrison’s assessment that revisions of Walker specifically tend to
focus on the darkest aspects of imperialism to be found in the more general American
mercenary genre. Taken as a whole, Walker and his story are unpalatable; he is too
ethically murky, and there are far too many contradictions and different ways to read his
story for it to be compelling for a wide audience. Additionally, his narrative has a tragic
and inglorious ending, which predisposes the Walker story for highlighting the worst
inspirations and outcomes for American imperialism. However, as I have demonstrated,
64 Ibid., 192-3.
89 William Walker’s case shows us that the American public can love a mercenary figure when his story is compelling, fictional, and/or fantastical. As long as the mercenary figure is actually a successful “good” guy, he can be popular and accepted, and engaging with the mercenary narrative can provide a way to exorcise violent, trangressive, and/or revenge fantasies safely, without undermining the government or ideas of American
Exceptionalism. However, that popular acceptance fades away when the narrative turns ugly, when people actually die, or when the government officially comes out against the mercenary figure’s activities as illegal. If the American mercenary’s story becomes too real, too harsh, too ethically muddy, or the mercenary figure otherwise turns into a “loser,” then the safety of exorcising those transgressive, empire-building urges though the narrative comes into question.
Though Walker’s The War in Nicaragua was written to relay facts that “really” happened, Walker’s memoir filtered those events narrowly to argue for his version of a utopia that would spread what he felt were the specific gifts of American Exceptionalism and achieve a Manifest Destiny. He had a specific agenda at work in his memoir – clearing his name of the besmirchment of “filibustering’s” negative mercenary connation and communicating his plan for regenerating Nicaragua into a New American South. In
Walker’s utopia, the institutions of slavery and white American male dominance would be accepted, promoted, and celebrated. Though he failed to build it in real life, Walker’s memoir linked his utopia of social control and hierarchy to a narrative of audacious ambition and supreme confidence. His fictional construction of a private empire completed his own personal destiny and made a case for connecting one ambitious, principled mercenary figures destiny with the nation’s Manifest Destiny.
90 These threads of destiny, success, failure, possibility, and harshness that Walker wove into his utopia were taken up by Richard Harding Davis in his turn-of-the-century mercenary romances. Davis captured the best parts of Walker’s narrative legacy in his first mercenary romance, a bestselling novel. But, his follow-up attempt at a second blockbuster mercenary romance novel included the darker parts of Walker’s legacy, and it failed in comparison.
91 CHAPTER 3
ANSWERING THE CALL OF WAR: RICHARD HARDING DAVIS’ MERCENARY ROMANCES – SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE (1897) AND CAPTAIN MACKLIN (1902)
As it is with the individual, so it is with the nation. It is a base untruth to say that happy is the nation that has no history. Thrice happy is the nation that has a glorious history. Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.1 – Theodore Roosevelt, “The Strenuous Life” (1899)
As the nineteenth century turned to the twentieth, fictional mercenary narratives in
American popular culture reflected deepening imbrications between the individual and the nation by linking the choices, actions, and worldview of individual mercenary figures to the nation’s pursuit of Manifest Destiny. Richard Harding Davis, a novelist, journalist, travel writer, war correspondent, is credited with helping to create the genre of the mercenary romance.2 Davis’ mercenary novels form a bridge between the legacy left by Walker’s
narratives and twentieth-century popular American mercenary figures. This narrative
bridge connects the characteristics, motivations, and an extension of benevolent social
control of these mercenary figures within nineteenth and twentieth-century narratives
across different popular media forms. Davis’ novels Soldiers of Fortune and Captain
1 Theodore Roosevelt, The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses (New York, NY: The Century Co., 1905), 4, http://books.google.com/books?id=srUZAAAAYAAJ&ots=YMZxthGKS2&dq=theodore%20roosevelt%2 0strenuous%20life&pg=PP15#v=onepage&q&f=false. 2 Brady Harrison, Agent of Empire: William Walker and the Imperial Self in American Literature (Athens, Ga: University of Georgia Press, 2004). Harrison credits Bret Harte and Richard Harding Davis with creating the mercenary romance subgenre by using scraps of William Walker’s story to craft fictional tales. Harrison also credits Davis, as a better and more widely read writer than Harte, with creating a more readable, literary, and lasting format for mercenary romances.
92 Macklin weave together action and romance within a narrative that could potentially be
“ripped from the headlines” – a realism that draws on the narrative legacy of William
Walker as well as on Davis’ immersion in contemporary journalism and his experiences as a war correspondent embedded and personally familiar with prominent thinkers and influential public figures such as Theodore Roosevelt.
In his mercenary romance novels, Davis captured a particular way of seeing and understanding the world, and argued for the place that an individual mercenary figure can play in that worldview. Robert Clay, the main character of Soldiers of Fortune, is a hard- working, broadly educated, widely traveled soldier of fortune and civil engineer. Clay demonstrates a heroic combination of ambition, self-perception, character, honor, and superiority in battle. He is motivated by a desire to leave a positive, physical mark on the world through creating safe and productive mines, railroads, bridges, and other obvious indications of spreading civilization. Clay is reluctant to fight, preferring diplomacy and agreements to making war, but he is willing to defend himself, his property, and his ideals.
Concerned with their own well-being as well as the well-being of the nation – their own nation and the nation that they happen to be civilizing – Clay and his eventual bride Hope epitomize the utopic ideals of “the strenuous life” and New Americansim advocated by
Roosevelt and other turn-of-the-century imperial advocates.
In Captain Macklin, however, Davis explores the darker side of this worldview through Royal Macklin, a mercenary figure more concerned with immediate, selfish, individual goals than with larger national goals. Macklin shares only some of Clay’s honorable traits, primarily chivalry, but in his selfish worldview, he believes and acts as though he has the others. Instead, Macklin is foolishly, gallantly in love with the action
93 and the idea of war, an obsession that he compares to the power of “drink.” Whereas Clay strives for peace and is reluctant to fight, Macklin itches for fighting of all kinds; he is prickly and idealistic, quickly offended, and obsessed with the power and control inherent in soldiering.
Davis’ mercenary novels provide a metaphor for pursuing Manifest Destiny through imperial expansion at the turn of the century. Narratives advocating a particularly
American version of imperialism were important in differentiating the United States’ imperial actions from European forms of imperialism and colonialism. Read together,
Soldiers of Fortune and Captain Macklin delineate a fine line between the right and wrong way for private citizens – and, by extension, the whole nation – to assist in America’s imperial grab. In Davis’ novels, this line is defined by the attitude and outlook of the independent mercenary protagonist, based on the degree to which the individual mercenary’s goals are in service to the greater good or to his own selfish gains as well as the rhetoric and reasoning surrounding his actions.
Soldiers of Fortune highlights the material good that mercenary figures can accomplish when the individual mercenary is connected to the nation-building goals of spreading civilization, is active in appropriate social relationships, and recognizes his responsibilities. Captain Macklin, on the other hand, highlights the addictive draw of war and the potential dangers involved when individual mercenaries shun social responsibilities and isolate themselves from the nation and from appropriate social relationships. Davis’ novels show that it is easy to misstep on the fine line separating right and wrong imperialisms and become the anti-hero, an especially potent lesson from the Spanish-
American/Philippine-American Wars. Whereas Clay presents the best and most honorable
94 pieces of American Exceptionalism, Macklin uses a façade of chivalry and high-flown rhetoric to mask his insecure need for conquest and his deep desire for control over others, highlighting the darker elements in pursuing individual over Manifest Destiny.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Richard Harding Davis was born into a literary family in 1864. His mother, author and journalist Rebecca Harding Davis, is best remembered for her 1861 novella Life in the
Iron Mills, and his father, Lemuel Clarke, was a journalist and editor as well. Like many of
his powerful political contemporaries, Davis had a strong maternal figure and an apparently
lifelong obsession with identifying with expressions of manliness, wars, and spreading
civilization.3 As an intellectual, writer, and war correspondent, Davis was personally close to some of the leading advocates of imperial expansionism, Manifest Destiny, American
Exceptionalism, and the strenuous life. Davis was friends with Charles Dana Gibson, the
illustrator famous for creating “the Gibson girl,” an icon of New American femininity.
Gibson provided illustrations for Soldiers of Fortune and other books written by Davis; in
3 My work in this chapter will focus on critical readings of Davis’ novels as a bridge between William Walker and twentieth century mercenary narratives, not on his biography or experiences as a journalist, traveler, son of a crusading author, or friend of powerful men. For much more on Davis and his life and times, see also: Fairfax Davis Downey, Richard Harding Davis: His Day (New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1933); Alice Mulcahey Fleming, Reporters at War, 1st ed. (New York: Cowles Book Co, 1970); Gerald Langford, The Richard Harding Davis Years; a Biography of a Mother and Son, 1st ed. (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1961); Arthur Lubow, The Reporter Who Would Be King: A Biography of Richard Harding Davis (New York: Scribner, 1992); Gretchen Murphy, Hemispheric Imaginings: The Monroe Doctrine and Narratives of U.S. Empire (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005); Scott Compton Osborn, Richard Harding Davis (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1978); Henry Cole Quinby, Richard Harding Davis: A Bibliography; Being a Record of His Literary Life, of His Achievements as a Correspondent in Six Wars, and His Efforts in Behalf of the Allies in the Great War (New York: E. P. Dutton & Company, 1924); Karen Roggenkamp, Narrating the News: New Journalism and Literary Genre in Late Nineteenth-Century American Newspapers and Fiction (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 2005); John D Seelye, War Games: Richard Harding Davis and the New Imperialism (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2003); Evan Thomas, The War Lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, and the Rush to Empire, 1898, 1st ed. (New York: Little, Brown and Co, 2010); Marilyn C Wesley, Violent Adventure: Contemporary Fiction by American Men (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2003); Larzer Ziff, The American 1890s; Life and Times of a Lost Generation (New York: Viking Press, 1966); Richard Harding Davis, The Adventures and Letters of Richard Harding Davis (New York: Beekman Publishers, 1974).
95 fact, Davis was often credited with being the prototype model for “the Gibson man” – the
Gibson Girl’s companion – which marked him (literally) as the picture of New American manliness.
As a journalist, Davis was perhaps best known as a war correspondent, as he covered the Anglo-Boer wars and was “embedded” with Theodore Roosevelt’s Rough
Riders in Cuba. Davis popularized the Rough Riders’ exploits and reputation as well as
Roosevelt’s popular legend through his journalism. In addition to his work as a journalist,
Davis wrote travelogues such as The Congo and the Coast of Africa and Three Gringos in
Venezuela and Central America, as well as short stories, novels, and military histories.4 In
1906, he penned Real Soldiers of Fortune, a series of historical vignettes relaying the “true” stories of real mercenary figures such as William Walker, General Douglas McIver, and
(strangely enough) a young Winston Churchill.5 Davis’ expertise as a prominent journalist and traveler lent his novels a layer of “truthiness” that enhanced their vividness if not any actual facts within the fictional narratives.
The 1890s represent a turning point in American history in many ways. Scientific breakthroughs were adding to a cultural sense of progress, change, and brimming modernity, but were also challenging traditions and institutions. Railroads provided possibilities for faster travel, while telegraphs, telephones, and experiments with wireless
(radio) communications opened new possibilities for instant communication. Together, these technological progressions were collapsing previous notions of space and time. In addition to taking advantage of the increased speed of life through technology, many
4 Richard Harding Davis, Three gringos in Venezuela and Central America (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1896), http://www.archive.org/details/threegringosinv01davigoog; Richard Harding Davis, The Congo and coasts of Africa (New York, NY: C. Scribner's Sons, 1907), http://www.archive.org/details/congoandcoastsa01davigoog. 5 Davis, Real Soldiers of Fortune.
96 responded to these changes through increased spiritualism and dabbling with magic and the
occult, broadening understandings of religion and spirituality beyond religious institutions.6
In The Anarchy of Empire in the Making of U.S. Culture, Amy Kaplan interprets the mid-late nineteenth century wars between the U.S. and Mexico, Spain, Cuba, and the
Philippines as clearly imperial actions even in the absence of a deliberate traditional
(European) imperialist rhetoric. 7 Kaplan revises debates about America’s self-conception as a non-imperial and isolationist entity and adds depth to the imperial search for new frontiers. Kaplan argues that the line between “domestic” and “foreign” has always been murky, often indefinable except in relation to some “other,” and that defining divisions between domestic/private and foreign/public spheres has been a cornerstone of imperial and internationalist thought in building an American national identity since the end of the nineteenth century. The presence and binary representation of this anarchic empire and the quest for new frontiers greatly influenced the production and interpretation of cultural products that contributed to ideas about a “unified” American national identity.
Creating a unified sense of national identity was important in bringing a sense of
nationalism to the generations after the Civil War, as a strong national identity could resist threats to institutionalized structures of social control based on whiteness and masculinity.
Threats to white masculinity and control at this time included the closing of the frontier;8
6 For more about new ways of seeing the world that emerged in the late nineteenth century, see also: Jeffrey Sconce, Haunted Media: Electronic Presence from Telegraphy to Television, Console-ing passions (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000); Jonathan Crary, Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century, October books (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992); James W Cook, The Arts of Deception: Playing with Fraud in the Age of Barnum (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001); Robert W Rydell, Buffalo Bill in Bologna: The Americanization of the World, 1869-1922 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005); Ziff, The American 1890s; Life and Times of a Lost Generation. 7 Amy Kaplan, The Anarchy of Empire in the Making of U.S. Culture (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2002). 8 For more on the idea of the closing frontier, see also: Frederick Jackson Turner, The Frontier In American History (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1920),
97 early feminist movements;9 the nadir of race relations in the United States;10 threats from immigrants and other-than-white races;11 and an underlying fear that white men were
getting too soft, that the luxury of being on top of the social, political, economical, and
cultural pyramid was creating a new generation of lazy white men unfit and unwilling to
continue the battle to prove white supremacy.12
Charles Darwin’s theories of evolution were part of this reconsideration; understandings of evolution were applied to humans through theories of Social Darwinism, an outlook that posits that the fittest race would not only survive, but would rule the other, less fit races. Entrenched and institutionalized racial and national hierarchies were justified through scientific Social Darwinistic principles, but they also opened up constant challenges to racial hierarchies and competition between races. Unlike theories that argued
http://www.archive.org/details/frontierinameric010200mbp; Michael K Johnson, Black Masculinity and the Frontier Myth in American Literature, Literature of the American West v. 9 (Norman, Okla: University of Oklahoma Press, 2002); Richard Slotkin, Regeneration Through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600-1860, 1st ed. (Middletown, Conn: Wesleyan University Press, 1973). 9 For more on early feminist movements, see also: Margaret Mary Finnegan, Selling Suffrage: Consumer Culture & Votes for Women (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999); Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, Rereading Sex: Battles Over Sexual Knowledge and Suppression in Nineteenth-Century America (New York: Knopf, 2002). 10 For more on the post-bellum, pre-Harlem Reniassance era as the nadir of race relations, see also: Rayford Whittingham Logan, The Betrayal of the Negro, from Rutherford B. Hayes to Woodrow Wilson, 1st ed. (New York: Da Capo Press, 1997); Barbara McCaskill and Caroline Gebhard, eds., Post-Bellum, Pre- Harlem: African American Literature and Culture, 1877-1919 (New York: New York University Press, 2006); Ida B Wells-Barnett, Crusade for Justice; the Autobiography of Ida B. Wells (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970); Ida B Wells-Barnett, Southern Horrors and Other Writings: The Anti-Lynching Campaign of Ida B. Wells, 1892-1900, The Bedford series in history and culture (Boston: Bedford Books, 1997). 11 For more on contemporary threats from immigrants and challenges to whiteness, see also: Roger Daniels, Guarding the Golden Door: American Immigration Policy and Immigrants Since 1882, 1st ed. (New York: Hill and Wang, 2005); John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925, 2nd ed. (New York: Atheneum, 1974); Guglielmo, White on Arrival. 12 For more on the intersections of masculinity and whiteness, see also: Gail Bederman, Manliness & Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880-1917, Women in culture and society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995); George Chauncey, Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940 (New York: Basic Books, 1994); Kristin L Hoganson, Fighting for American Manhood: How Gender Politics Provoked the Spanish- American and Philippine-American Wars (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998); Alexander Saxton, The Rise and Fall of the White Republic: Class Politics and Mass Culture in Nineteenth-Century America (London: Verso, 2003).
98 leadership and dominance were granted to a specific culture by God, in the competitive
world of social Darwinism, the fittest race must constantly battle to survive. In order to
maintain the top spot in the hierarchy of the human race, the fittest race needed to set
standards and examples of civilization, win wars, and otherwise dominate other racial
groups.13
Evolutionary modes of thinking spread beyond the sciences as well. In his 1893
paper “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” Frederick Jackson Turner
argued that the United States’ history was made distinctly American through the presence
of a frontier, which was gradually tamed by waves of settlers and civilization evolving ever further – geographically, intellectually, and politically – from their European roots.14 For
Turner, the frontier was a crucible that forged Americans out of European descendents, as settlers needed to live within and tame the wildness of a frontier completely different from their cultural past. Turner distinguished between the waves of more independent, adventurous first-wave settlers who initially broke into frontier areas and waves of later settlers who brought new rules of civilization and authority, further taming the frontier.
Turner’s Frontier Thesis was progressive for its time and was based on evolutionary models of thinking; while it ignored contributions by non-whites, women, and immigrants to the American Frontier and to perceptions of Americanness, it significantly shaped
13 For more on Social Darwinism and iterations of evolutionary theory in social/cultural contexts, see also: Robert C Bannister, Social Darwinism: Science and Myth in Anglo-American Social Thought, American civilization (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1979); D. P Crook, Darwinism, War, and History: The Debate Over the Biology of War from the "Origin of Species" to the First World War (Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press, 1994); Peter Dickens, Social Darwinism: Linking Evolutionary Thought to Social Theory, Concepts in the social sciences (Buckingham [England]: Open University Press, 2000); Mike Hawkins, Social Darwinism in European and American Thought, 1860-1945: Nature as Model and Nature as Threat (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); Richard Hofstadter, Social Darwinism in American Thought, Rev. ed. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1955); Cynthia Eagle Russett, Darwin in America: The Intellectual Response, 1865-1912 (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1976). 14 Turner, The Frontier In American History, chap. 1.
99 intellectual understandings of the processes that differentiated white Americans from
Europeans. As long as Americans had a frontier, Turner postulated, they would continue to
evolve into a more independent, individualistic, democratic society. However, Turner’s
thesis gained popularity at the moment of the “closing” of the Western frontier in
continental America, as the 1890 census showed that the West was increasingly settled.
Under the evolutionary logic of the Frontier Thesis, new frontiers had to be sought
elsewhere in order to continue American progress, a rationalization that led to redefining
Manifest Destiny and the United States’ forays into empire building.
Theodore Roosevelt was one of many prominent politicians and intellectuals who
advocated an imperial push in order to continue American progress and keep the white race
invigorated, and, by implication, in charge.15 In his speech “The Strenuous Life,”
delivered at the Hamilton Club in Chicago in 1899, Roosevelt succinctly conveys this idea
of the problems of the historical moment as well as the solution – to reorient cultural values
and praise those living a hardworking, “strenuous” life:
I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph. A life of slothful ease, a life of that peace which springs merely from lack either of desire or of power to strive after great things, is as little worth of a nation as of an individual. I ask only that what every self-respecting American demands from himself and from his sons shall be demanded of the American nation as a whole…. As it is with the individual, so it is with the nation.16
Roosevelt takes the quintessential Protestant work ethic praised in American history and
culture to a more extreme level. Instead of performing hard work to prove one’s good
15 In addition to myriad autobiographies, biographies, and secondary studies on Theodore Roosevelt, see also: Roosevelt, The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses. 16 Ibid., 1, 4.
100 works and godliness to the local community, Roosevelt raises the stakes to an international
level. Americanness as a particular national identity and cohesive idea could be proved by
taking on the strenuous life. By collapsing the nation and the individual, Roosevelt argues
that the individual needs to constantly think about the national good as well as his own, that
one should pursue individual goods and destinies only in ways that will help build the
nation and the prominence of the (white) American race.
To achieve this individual and national building, Roosevelt advocated for separate
but complementary life roles for separate genders.
[A] healthy state can exist only when the men and women who make it up lead clean, vigorous, healthy lives; when the children are so trained that they shall endeavor, not to shirk difficulties, but to overcome them; not to seek ease, but to know how to wrest triumph from toil and risk. The man must be glad to do a man's work, to dare and endure and to labor; to keep himself, and to keep those dependent upon him. The woman must be the housewife, the helpmeet of the homemaker, the wise and fearless mother of many healthy children. In one of Daudet's powerful and melancholy books he speaks of “the fear of maternity, the haunting terror of the young wife of the present day.” When such words can be truthfully written of a nation, that nation is rotten to the heart's core. When men fear work or fear righteous war, when women fear motherhood, they tremble on the brink of doom; and well it is that they should vanish from the earth, where they are fit subjects for the scorn of all men and women who are themselves strong and brave and high- minded.17
For Roosevelt, these standards apply to white men and women, as persons of other races
would be classifies as “dependants” that the white man should “keep.” “Keep those
dependant upon him” can be read on different levels; in one meaning, it indicates the importance of providing necessary materials for a family (or for a nation) whose existence
depends on the man’s vigorous work and just returns as well as on the woman’s being a
“helpmeet.” But, read another way, it encourages continuing the conditions of dependence
of women, children, and other “lesser” races upon the elite white man for existence.
17 Ibid., 3-4.
101 Roosevelt’s separate work and separate roles for men and women divided the labor within
the social Darwinist race for domination.
As seen in Roosevelt and Turner, the battle for Darwinian survival of the fittest depended on vigorous men willing to fight and settle new lands as well as on vigorous women who would support these efforts and raise the next generation of vigorous men and women. In Fighting for American Manhood: How Gender Politics Provoked the Spanish-
American and Philippine-American Wars, Kristen Hoganson argues that the varied reasons usually given for American pursuit of the Spanish and Philippine wars – “economic ambitions, annexationist aspirations, strategic concerns, partisan posturing, humanitarian sympathy for the Cubans, desire to avenge the Maine, psychic crisis, and Darwinian and racial anxieties” – only converge when the gendered aspects of the rhetoric surrounding the wars are teased out.18 Because nineteenth-century views on divisions between public,
private, citizen, and subject relied heavily on a gendered division of labor and political
power, gender could serve as a cultural motive for economic, strategic justifications,
working as a “coalition-building political method that helped jingoists build a simpler,
visceral, broad appeal.”19 Gender provides a cornerstone for understanding the fascination
and power connecting manliness and political rhetoric in this time period.
Davis wrote widely within this historical moment of old traditions and institutions
colliding with new ways of thinking. Written in 1897 and 1902, respectively, Soldiers of
Fortune and Captain Macklin bookend the United States’ participation in the Spanish-
18 Kristin L Hoganson, Fighting for American Manhood: How Gender Politics Provoked the Spanish- American and Philippine-American Wars (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 7. 19 Ibid., 8.
102 American and Philippine-American Wars.20 Agitation to aid in the liberation of Cuba from
Spanish rule had been building in the United States for years and came to a head when the
U.S.S. Maine was sunk in the Havana harbor in February 1898. The United States declared war on Spain in April 1898, and fighting ensued in the Caribbean and the Pacific across multiple Spanish colonial territories. Spain and the United States ended the war with the signing of the Treaty of Paris in December 1898. Under the terms of the treaty, the United
States gained control of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. The Filipinos had been fighting for independence from Spain under Emilio Aguinaldo since 1896, and had been acting as undeclared allies with U.S. forces in their battles with Spain. After Spain traded the Philippines to the United States in the Treaty of Paris, the United States decided to keep the Philippines as a colony under the guise of providing a stepped program leading to their civilization and eventual independence, instead of supporting their homegrown movement for independence. The Filipinos shifted into guerilla warfare with the occupying
American troops, and the fighting on both sides was brutal, with mutual massacres, atrocities, torture, and extremely high casualty rates for civilians. The war was officially ended with the Philippine Organic Act of 1902, which stipulated the final steps for
20 The Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars have been widely addressed within academic and popular reading circles. A very small sample of recent scholarship includes: Virginia Marie Bouvier, Whose America?: The War of 1898 and the Battles to Define the Nation (Westport, Conn: Praeger, 2001); Stephen D Coats, Gathering at the Golden Gate: Mobilizing for War in the Philippines, 1898 (Fort Leavenworth, Kan: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2006); Fleming, Reporters at War; Jim Leeke, Manila and Santiago: The New Steel Navy in the Spanish-American War (Annapolis, Md: Naval Institute Press, 2009); James M McCaffrey, Inside the Spanish-American War: A History Based on First-Person Accounts (Jefferson, N.C: McFarland & Co, 2009); Paul T McCartney, Power and Progress: American National Identity, the War of 1898, and the Rise of American Imperialism (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2006); Murphy, Hemispheric Imaginings; Murray Polner and Thomas E Woods, eds., We Who Dared to Say No to War: American Antiwar Writing from 1812 to Now (New York: Basic Books, 2008); Thomas, The War Lovers; Brian McAllister Linn, The Philippine War, 1899-1902 (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2002); David J. Silbey, A War of Frontier and Empire: The Philippine- American War, 1899-1902, 1st ed. (Hill and Wang, 2008); Stuart Creighton Miller, Benevolent Assimilation: The American Conquest of the Philippines, 1899-1903 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984).
103 establishing an American-style legislature in the Philippines and declaring an end to
hostilities, although insurgent groups continued fighting for their own freedom for at least a
decade.
SOURCE SUMMARIES
Davis’ mercenary romance novels were published before the Spanish-American and after the Philippine-American Wars. Soldiers of Fortune, with its romantic subplot and
happy ending, was more popular than Captain Macklin. Though Davis felt that the
experimental Captain Macklin was the better literary product of the two, its challenging
protagonist and mixed messages made it less popular with readers.
Soldiers of Fortune (1897)
Published in the building imperialist fervor before the Spanish-American War,
Davis’ Soldiers of Fortune tells the story of Robert Clay, a young, handsome, brilliant civil engineer and sometime soldier of fortune who is hired by wealthy businessman Mr.
Langham to streamline and manage the Valencia Mining Company’s operations in the
(fictional) Central American country of Olancho. Mr. Langham has hired Clay to run his new operations in Olancho, secure the good will of the local government to keep the terms of concession highly profitable for the mine, and expedite all of the mine’s operations to achieve maximum efficiency from the (local and imported) laborers. Clay sells his expertise in civilizing and modernizing – through the destructive work of soldiering as well
as through the building-up work of engineering – but only to worthy bidders such as
Langham.
104 Mr. Langham has two daughters and a son: Alice, a stately, sophisticated, well- respected society woman verging on old-maid status; Ted, a Yale football star being
groomed for the family business; and Hope, the younger daughter who has not yet debuted
in polite society but is spunky, vivacious, adventurous, and interested in her father’s
business, politics, and other worldly, manly things. Clay is first introduced to readers as an
unknown cowboy at a society dinner with Alice. She assumes that he will be uneducated
and unfit for polite company, assumptions that Clay quickly dispels with his graceful
charm.21 Clay spreads the hallmarks of civilization in return for money and exotic
experiences as a civil engineer working for American companies in faraway places. He uses the money he makes as an engineer for hire to enjoy the finer points of European culture between jobs. This contrast – intelligent, hardworking, willing to labor and fight, but extremely gentlemanly, comfortable in fine clothing, knowledgeable about society’s rules, and more versed in the civilized world than most of New York’s society finest – is exciting and intriguing to Alice and to readers.
The story has two main veins: Clay’s romantic interests and life, and the political
climate of the mine’s operations in Olancho. Clay falls deeply and immediately in love
with Alice Langham upon meeting her, and he spends months in Olancho dreaming about her and preparing an appropriately stately environment for Alice, Mr. Langham, and Hope to live in when they come to visit Olancho. When the Langhams finally arrive, however,
Clay and Alice have a series of disjointed conversations, miscommunications, and
21 At this time, a “cowboy” was expected to be an uneducated bumpkin unable to conform to society. “Cowboy” had not yet reached its positive cultural connotations of the late twentieth century – that of the Marlboro man, a picture of American individualism and masculinity. Clay’s introduction as a “cowboy” and narrative transformation into a respected “engineer” over the course of the dinner party is significant as an early revisionary attempt to place the cowboy into the nostalgic and romantic context of the closing of the frontier, opening it up to new interpretations and understandings that evolve in later “cowboy” connotations of mercenary figures in twentieth and twenty-first century popular culture.
105 generally fail to live up to each others’ expectations of perfection. Clay finally sees Alice
for who (and what) she really is when she humiliates Hope, her lovely and very grown-up
younger sister, for attempting to attend a ball in Olancho even though she is not “out” in
New York society. Clay turns to Hope as a more true and compatible romantic match,
while Alice eventually settles for Reginald King, a rich society man who shares her sense
of propriety above all else. Clay and Hope seem ready to take on the world with their
vigorous, energized, New American outlook. As a couple, they embody the best possible
version of the strenuous life as it was understood at the turn of the century
The political side of Soldiers of Fortune is less in the foreground than the romantic plot, but the two become deeply intertwined over the course of the novel. Clay begins his overhaul of the Olancho mine by providing better working conditions for the laborers, a mixture of native Olanchins and imported Scotch-Irish and Negro Americans.
Implementing the same kinds of humane labor policies used to preempt unionization and promote happy toiling, Clay pays his laborers their wages on time; provides decent living quarters for free; limits the time the laborers are expected to work to provide them with rest and leisure time; offers bonuses for meeting ambitious goals and deadlines; and even arranges for trips into town for the laborers on their nights off.
Olancho is ruled by native Olanchin President Alvarez and his Spanish wife. Davis
characterizes their palace politics using language that recalls the rumors and animosity of
Revolutionary France toward Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette – a perfect storm for
revolution. When General Mendoza, the leader of the Olanchin military, sees the Olancho
mine’s profits skyrocketing under Clay’s care, he decides that neither the government nor
General Mendoza are getting a fair share of those profits. Mendoza tries to shake Clay
106 down for a bribe, only to be rebuffed absolutely. Instead, General Mendoza plans a coup to
overthrow President Alvarez at a military review, seize the government and the mine, and
dispose of the Americans and anyone else in his way. As the coup unfolds around them,
Clay and his assistants, Ted Langham and MacWilliams, save Madame Alvarez from the military putsch and squire her away to the coast, where Reginald King takes her out of the country and to safety in his yacht. Clay then assembles the loyal, protected laborers who depend on the Valencia Mining Company into a private army. They go to battle with
Mendoza’s political/military faction and quickly regain control of the capital.
Though he could take control of the government because he successfully led a counter-coup, Clay refuses offers to become the new President of Olancho and instead
hands governing power to General Rojas, a well-respected soldier loyal to the people,
beloved by all of the native Olanchins, and friendly to Langham’s mining operation. After
the battles are over, the mine is safe, and a new democracy friendly to the
American business interests has been secured, the Americans return to the U.S. Alice decides to return to the stiff society world of New York with Reginald King, and Clay and
Hope decide to get married and seek out new adventures together. As a self-made man,
Clay must work for a living, and the work that he does so well can include violence at times, but on the whole, Soldiers of Fortune presents Davis’ positive version of the strenuous life and an idealistic, benevolent mercenary lifestyle.
Captain Macklin (1902)
Davis published his follow-up mercenary romance in the same year that official
fighting ended in the Philippine-American War. Captain Macklin presents a darker, more
107 sardonic view of the elements of the strenuous life, particularly the pervasive, contagious romantic idealism that can draw men into an addiction with war. The protagonist, Royal
Macklin, is confident to the point of arrogance and obsessed with seeing and presenting himself to others as the apex of gallant, romantic knighthood. The novel is written in first- person address under the guise of being a first draft for a memoir – the title page indicates a subtitle: Captain Macklin: His Memoirs. The conceit of the novel is that Macklin, as a soldier of fortune, wants to keep his personal papers up to date because of the dangerous work he undertakes. If he dies in battle as a young soldier of fortune, his writings will establish his legacy; and if he lives to be an old man, then his writings will help him construct a complete account of his life. I use “conceit” specifically here, as Macklin assumes that not only will his story be worth telling, but that the exact details of his exploits will be so important as to be sought after by future generations. Throughout the novel, Macklin is childish, naive, immature, and at times thoroughly unlikable. But, he is also unwaveringly optimistic and, somehow, strangely magnetic. At key moments in the narrative, Macklin’s optimistic naivety manages to gloss over his bluster and more annoying characteristics.
Macklin’s parents separated when his Irish father joined the Confederate Army.
Fightin’ Macklin died a glorious death, of course, while leading a charge against Union
troops. His mother passed away when Macklin was very young, so he was raised by his
maternal grandfather, a hero of the Mexican-American War and other nineteenth-century
expansionist wars in the American West. From a young age, Macklin was fascinated with
the honor and glory of war stories and the prospect of becoming a renowned soldier in his
own right. Realizing that his grandson was determined to become a soldier, and that his
108 scholarly credentials were so far lacking that he would never be able to obtain his own
appointment, Macklin’s grandfather secured him a place at West Point through his military
connections with the President.
As he does in most of his interpersonal interactions, Macklin alienates more of his
classmates at West Point than he befriends. Macklin dislikes most of his classmates but
desperately wants to be liked and praised by them; he often takes to telling his classmates
all the ways that he was superior to them so that they would allot the correct amount of
praise to him. Macklin has one “real” friend, his cousin Beatrice, but even she is more of a
muse than a friend, a symbol of unreachable perfection and his romantic goal. While her
dialogue paints her as sort of a cross between Alice and Hope Langham from Soldiers of
Fortune – pert, pretty, well-educated and well-mannered, smart, and sincere – in his
monologues, Macklin depicts Beatrice as an ethereal paragon of sublime feminine
perfection, like a cross between Cleopatra, a legendary Arthurian queen, and Dante’s muse
Beatrice, who leads the Pilgrim through hell and into heaven in the Divine Comedy.
To combat his disappointment at his mysterious lack of popularity among his
classmates at West Point, Macklin begins picking fights with classmates who he thinks
have slighted him – which is nearly everyone – and flirting with girls to an embarrassing
extent, earning the nickname “Masher Macklin” from his peers. Macklin was a terrible
scholar at West Point. As a poor student, a big fighter, and a generally difficult and
arrogant presence, it is not surprising that he is dismissed from the academy when caught
violating curfew rules to go to a dance at the girls’ school across the way. His dismissal
from West Point meant that Macklin would never become a commissioned officer in the
U.S. Army, a death sentence for his lifelong dreams of soldiering.
109 When he arrives back at his late grandfather’s house in disgrace, Macklin confides
in his cousin Beatrice that he must be a solider. She suggests enlisting in the army and working his way up to an officer’s position. Macklin chafes violently at the mere mention of enlisting – he will be a soldier, yes, but he will be an officer, not a sad and pathetic enlisted man, commanded by his former classmates. His ego cannot abide soldiering if he
is not the one giving orders. Instead, he decides to find a fight somewhere and fight it.
Macklin uses a less-than-scientific approach to investigate these options: he pulls out his
school atlas, opens up the newspaper to the international section, and looks for a battle to
join. He finds a small article discussing a revolution in Honduras supported by a legion of
foreign fighters and decides to join them, packing a trunk and leaving immediately.
After a train and boat trip, Macklin arrives in Honduras, where the worldly U.S.
consul explains the “real” motivation behind the warring in Honduras – control over the
money made from the Isthmian Steamship Line, a transit company owned by the incredibly
wealthy Wall Street banker Joseph Fiske. The leader of the revolution, General Garcia, had
been President Garcia until he asked Fiske’s company for a larger share of profits from the
Isthmian Line. At that point, Fiske’s company men deposed Garcia and put President
Alvarez in his place. Garcia in turn hired the mercenary leader General Laguerre and his
legion of foreign fighters.22 When Macklin arrives at the Foreign Legion’s camp, he
pledges his loyalty to their (still unclear) cause and to Laguerre. In their first interaction,
Laguerre discovers that Macklin’s grandfather was a dear friend and comrade of his in the
Mexican-American War, a tie which cements Macklin’s place in his army and his esteem
and creates a pseudo-father/son bond between them.
22 In French, la guerre literally translates as “the war.”
110 General Laguerre grants Macklin a commission of Captain and appoints him as
adjutant of the legion, the chief administrative officer in charge of order and discipline.
Macklin revels in his position of power and straightens up the legion. As they prepare for battle, the troops often gather around General Laguerre at night, led by Macklin, and ask him to share his knowledge and experiences with them. This is couched in Macklin’s flowery and blustery language, of course, but the end impression for readers is a bunch of broken, lost boys gathering around a campfire with a grandfatherly figure, begging him to tell them stories of excitement, adventure, and success, and hoping to start a fight of their own soon.
In one of these late night chats, Laguerre laments to Macklin that he has spent his
whole life fighting for others only to be pushed aside after they gained power. After winning a few battles for General Garcia, Laguerre realizes that Garcia has set a trap that will defeat the foreign troops and prevent them from participating in the new government.
He decides that, this time, he will take over the country he is fighting for and keep it instead
of handing it over. Once they decided to fight for themselves instead of submitting to the
wishes of General Garcia, it is quite easy for the white men of the Foreign Legion to take
control of the government. In one day, the Foreign Legion takes the capital quickly and
without any real fighting. Laguerre is declared President of Honduras and Macklin
becomes Vice-President and a Cabinet Minister. Order is imposed and taken seriously;
Laguerre frees political prisoners and issues declarations of freedom, liberty, and lower
taxes in order to win over the native townspeople as well as the foreign businesses owners.
Soon enough, though, General Garcia and the deposed President Alvarez combine
their forces and stage yet another coup, aided by all of the natives in the capital. The palace
111 is overrun; the Foreign Legion is in shambles; and Laguerre, seemingly mortally wounded,
orders Macklin to lead the Foreign Legion in a desperate retreat. Through a fog of war,
Macklin leads his troops toward the coast to claim the protection of an American naval ship docking there, pursued on all sides by the native Hondurans that he thought had supported the rule of the Foreign Legion.
Macklin eventually makes his way to the American ship on the coast, where his
wounds and fever are treated, and then back to New York and his cousin Beatrice. After a
too-short interval of pampering from his aunt and cousin, Macklin is talked into finding a
position in the city so that he can settle down, be respectable, and have a “normal” life.
However, Macklin finds the very normality of that life to be chafing and confining. In a
last gasp for the excitement of the battlefield, Macklin sends a wire to General Laguerre’s
permanent address, asking if he was alive, well, and if he had any need for a soldier. Many
weeks later, at the very moment that Macklin decides to accept an inevitable and boring
life, he receives a cable from Laguerre with a new commission. Macklin’s potential life
choices are juxtaposed before him: Beatrice sitting quietly before the fire and the cable
from Laguerre – literally a call from The War offering him a return to the battlefield.
Macklin chooses to answer his first love, his love of being a soldier.
REVISING WALKER’S LEGACY
Davis draws on William Walker’s narrative legacy throughout his mercenary
romances. In his analysis of Walker’s cyclical resurfacing in American culture, Brady
Harrison points out the generic plot points that Soldiers of Fortune and Captain Macklin
share with Walker’s story: infighting between military and political factions in Central
112 American republics; rich natural resources and capital investment by American
businessmen (Vanderbilt, Langham, Fiske); questions about fair and proper commissions
being paid to the republics for said resources; coups upon coups upon coups; violent ends for interlopers; and declarations of freedom and policies in the name of “the people.”23
While there are many plot similarities between Walker and Davis’ nineteenth century
mercenary narratives, I will instead focus on the shared points of characterization between
Clay, Macklin, and Walker-the-General (the character represented in Walker’s memoir The
War in Nicaragua by Walker-the-Author). In Chapter 2, I claimed that Walker’s story was
unpalatable when conveyed as a whole because of the uncomfortable contradictions,
ambiguity, and rapid decline of the protagonist within Walker’s narrative. Davis’ novels
show how certain limited combinations of Walker’s characteristics can create a complete
hero that captures a utopic structure of feeling, while other combinations of characteristics
will create ambiguous and unappealing characters.
Of the two novels, Soldiers of Fortune is a more subtle revision of Walker’s legacy.
Clay shares some of Walker’s more admirable traits, such as his experience in multiple
professions and wide travels through the Unites States and Europe. Clay has an eclectic
background like Walker, but he never leaves the realm of rational, reasonable, clearly
understandable reasoning the way Walker does. Instead, he exhibits an interesting mix of small-scale and large-scale thinking driven by principle and profit. He has a free hand to run Langham’s mines however he wishes, but he is always aware that there is someone further up the chain of command. Clay is guided by a sense of accountability, whether that accountability is attributed to pleasing his client (Langham), enhancing national stability
23 For a deeper exploration of the generic similarities between the Walker narrative and Davis’ mercenary romances, see: Harrison, Agent of Empire, chap. 3 and 4.
113 (Olancho and/or the U.S.) or building his reputation and positive public opinion (including
the opinions of Alice and Hope, his laborers, and himself.) Clay’s sense of accountability
comes from being embedded in social, political, and workplace relationships that he values.
These relationships factor into Clay’s decisions, unlike Walker, who was isolated from others through his own doing and through the deaths of those close to him. Walker-the-
General exercised absolute power and did not have the same kind of checks on his behavior. By writing Clay as a mercenary figure with a conscience, Davis creates a good, productive, and socially embedded mercenary hero without any ambiguous connotations of being restless and power-hungry, like Walker.
Where Soldiers of Fortune is subtly drawing on Walker’s characteristics, Captain
Macklin draws distinctly on Walker’s legacy, beginning with the format of the novel. By writing in a first-person “memoir” style, Davis creates a fictionalized re-imagining of how
a work-in-progress version of The War in Nicaragua might have read. In Royal Macklin,
Davis creates a character that shares many of Walker’s darker tendencies – deep personal
insecurities, strict enforcement of militarism and military justice, and the desire to conquer,
control, and destroy – wrapped in a package of arrogant and prickly naiveté, a pretense of
supporting a fight for democratic freedom, and a stubborn optimism that refuses to see
anything but victory, even after defeat is assured.
What most clearly connects Macklin to Walker-the-General, though, are his
expressions of isolation and his pattern of decision making in a vacuum of social
responsibility. Macklin makes short-term decisions that have long-term effects without
thinking of those effects or considering the council proffered by those he claims to love
beyond all else. His initial decision to go to Honduras demonstrates this combination of
114 impulsivity and denial. Though Beatrice – who is much more practical, well-educated, and grounded than Macklin – points out that the Honduran revolution is probably a sham
controlled by business interests, not by the freedom fighters he hopes to join, Macklin summarily dismisses her insight and opinions. He does the same when confronted with
facts that do not fit his preferred worldview by the other passengers on his trip to Honduras
as well as in his interactions with Aiken, the worldly U.S. Consul in Honduras. Like
Walker, Macklin only allows the facts that fit into the way he wants his world to be to
become factors in his decision-making. This creates an isolation from the kinds of social,
political, and workplace relationships that keep Clay in a reasonable, rational, heroic state.
Royal Macklin is not the only character in Captain Macklin who recalls or rewrites
Walker-the-General’s positive and negative aspects. General Laguerre exhibits leadership
qualities similar to those claimed by Walker – a calming and encouraging effect on his
men, who are (mostly) loyal to him till their last breath. One of the soldiers in Laguerre’s army, Old Man Webster, purportedly even served as a member of Walker’s American
Phalanx. After Laguerre discovers General Garcia’s betrayal, Webster explicitly invokes
Walker and his legacy to convince Laguerre and the others that the Foreign Legion should take control of Honduras:
“But it [Central America] is cursed with the laziest of God’s creatures, and the men who rule them are the most corrupt and the most vicious…. They are a menace and an insult to civilization, and it is time that they stepped down and out, and made way for their betters, or that they were kicked out. One strong man, if he is an honest man, can conquer and hold Central America. William Walker was such a man. I was with him when he ruled the best part of this country for two years. He governed all Nicaragua with two hundred white men, and never before or since have the pueblo known such peace and justice and prosperity as Walker gave them.” …. Webster’s voice rose until it seemed to shake the palm-leaf roof. He was like a man possessed. He sprang up on the table, and from the height above us hurled his words at Laguerre. “We are not fighting for any half-breed now,” he
115 cried; “we are fighting for you. We know you. We believe in you. We mean to make you President, and we will not stop there. Our motto shall be Walker’s motto, ‘Five or none,’ and when we have taken this Republic we shall take the other four, and you will be President of the United States of Central America.” We had been standing open-eyed, open-mouthed, every nerve trembling, and at these words we shrieked and cheered, but Webster waved at us with an angry gesture and leaned toward Laguerre. “You will open this land,” he cried, “with roads and railways. You will feed the world with its coffee. You will cut the Nicaragua Canal. And you will found an empire – not the empire of slaves that Walker planned, but an empire of freed men, freed by you from their tyrants and from themselves. They tell me, General,” he cried, “that you have fought under thirteen flags. To-night, sir, you shall fight under your own!”24
William Walker is here explicitly held up as an example of the last “great” white man to
come to Central America without the intent to rape the land – as the industrialists and fruit
barons do – and the last one to give the populace “peace and justice and prosperity.” This is a forceful historical revision of the opinions of even Walker’s most admiring contemporaries; so forceful, in fact, that it verges into fanatical disassociation from reality – much like Walker’s memoir. The anger and violence of an invading mercenary army are
never far from the surface in Webster’s pep talk; though he inspires Macklin, Laguerre, and
the others, this angry praise is somewhere between ambivalent and horrifying. Webster’s
claims that Walker was honest and powerful, but misguided in his imagining of an “empire
of slaves,” are echoed in Davis’ 1906 vignette on Walker in Real Soldiers of Fortune. 25
However, the angry, demanding, and “possessed” delivery of this homily by Old Man
Webster undercuts the claims of Walker’s honest intentions and foreshadows Laguerre’s fall at the same time. That Laguerre’s forces are, ultimately, no more successful than
Walker’s forces adds to the ambiguity of Davis praising Walker, as Macklin and Laguerre
24 Richard Harding Davis, Captain Macklin: His Memoirs (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1902), 197- 199, http://www.archive.org/details/captainmacklinh01davigoog. 25 Davis, Real Soldiers of Fortune, chap. 5. Also quoted in the epigraph for Chapter 2.
116 live to fight another fight. Unlike Walker, though, Laguerre only tries to conquer Central
America once.
Clay and Macklin, then, are flip sides of the same coin – the hero and anti-hero. By
digging deeper in the texts, we can see how Davis constructed a utopic, heroic goal for
American-style imperialism in Clay, and then redefined the path to the goal through
constructing distopic, anti-heroic Macklin. As characters, they both reflect the same basic structures of feeling and understandings of the world. They both provide narratives of independent mercenary figures exercising social control covered through a rhetoric of benevolence, but Clay shows the “right” way to enforce social hierarchies – connecting the individual mercenary’s goals to the goals of larger groups – while Macklin shows the
“wrong” way – through selfish isolation and thoughtless fighting.
DAVIS’ NARRATIVES OF SOCIAL CONTROL
Davis’ novels portray a world of strict social and cultural hierarchy and constant
striving for domination. His texts also blend rhetorical appeals within narratives of social
control to privilege particular ways of striving through a thin veneer of benevolence.
Hatred, domination, fear, and death are barely under the surface in these narratives, but
there still is a shiny, attractive surface. The violence involved is at times almost palpable,
but all is cloaked in terms of romance and kindness – important rhetorical cues that attempt
to obscure the violence. Written for a popular audience, these novels show consumers how
to understand and practice the rhetorics of hierarchy through the dominant worldview being
presented. They lay out the language, the reasoning, and the worldview of the respective
protagonists representing newly appropriate and inappropriate ways to enforce social
117 hierarchies. By examining representations of idealized class, race, and gender
performances and hierarchies, we can tease out the structures of feeling that act as a
cultural bridge between the nineteenth century “real” character of William Walker and the
twentieth century mass media-friendly fictional mercenary characters beloved by
consumers.
Davis’ mercenary novels present narratives of benevolent social controllers
enforcing the new “appropriate” hierarchies. But the benevolence is rather thin at times.
Racial control is linked into military and political control, all in service of presenting a
racial hierarchy with white men at the top, and all enforced through violence at the drop of
a hat (or sword, or gunshot, or anytime the ruling elite turn their back and the natives make
a surprise attack.) Gender roles are enforced through different means in these narratives,
mostly through a separation of social access and division of labor based on gender.
Women are assigned to areas of the private or domestic sphere, while men work in the
public/foreign/non-domestic battlefield sphere. The creation of the all-male battlefield as a
homosocial public sphere is strong in both novels, but the push for a separate warrior class
is more strident in Captain Macklin.
In the 1890s, concerns about class, wealth, and hierarchy were at the forefront of
mercenary narratives. However, hierarchies of class and caste are not as easily controlled
by mercenary figures as are those of race and gender, because the mercenary figure is not at
the top of class and caste hierarchies. Davis’ novels suggest that mercenaries can work
their way up through class ranks, but not caste ranks. This glass ceiling does not bother the
mercenaries, though, because as proponents of the strenuous life, they would of course reject a life of leisure and ease even if they could have it. We will first examine this area
118 where the mercenary figure has little control, and then move to other hierarchies where the mercenary can exercise greater levels of enforcement.
Skipping Class, Rejecting Caste
Clay and Macklin are both on their way to being self-made men. Within their
respective narratives, they are still in the “self-making” stage of that process, but Clay is
closer to the precipice of the “self-made” phase than Macklin. Moving up the ranks of
class hierarchies is important to both of these mercenary figures, and their narratives show
different ways of approaching the task of skipping class and caste. Macklin skips military
rank by enlisting with Laguerre and the Foreign Legion rather than working his way up
through the ranks of the official U.S. Army, but his mercenary rank-and-caste gains do not
translate into “real-world” class changes. On the other side, Clay moves up class ranks
more slowly but also more permanently, nearing a step in caste as well by working hard,
performing excellently at every stage, and by developing personal relationships that draw
him further up.
I use both “class” and “caste” in this project because I mean to convey slightly
different things with the different terms. Within the world of mercenary narratives,
mercenary figures are always “working” class – whether they are working-poor, working-
middle, or even working-rich, they are still working constantly. This sets the mercenary
figures apart from upper-caste characters such as Misters Langham and Fiske, who were
modeled on captains of industry such as Cornelius Vanderbilt. Both Clay and Macklin can
move up in the ranks of class, because as mercenaries, they have control over their own
working lives, choices in the jobs that they choose to take on, and can earn sufficient
119 income to survive and perhaps even be comfortable (especially when working on the battlefield or in countries where the standard of living is significantly lower than that of the
U.S.) Both are eschewing the “trappings” of upper-caste lifestyles – rejecting the strict social rules and the particulars of having a well-appointed house and excessive finery – for a life full of change, spontaneity, and variation. But, even without this proactive rejection, neither one will be able to rise to a significantly higher caste. They will always be working men in a different caste from Langham, Fiske, or other industrialists in the upper caste.
Clay and Macklin can become working-rich instead of working-poor, but they will always be working. Davis’ mercenary narratives argue that the differences in working-class rank might be fuzzy and mutable, and climbing those ranks of class is possible for the mercenary willing to work hard and sacrifice. On the other hand, the lines that separate caste ranks are neither mutable nor desirable, so it does not matter that they are impossible for the working mercenary to climb. Additionally, this inability to skip castes is not necessarily a bad state of affairs, because the mercenary figure values his work as part of his choice to live a strenuous, productive, overtly masculine, and vigorous life.
Macklin envisions a long process of self-making after he is expelled from West
Point; being expelled ruptured his self-conception as well as the plan laid out for him to progress into adulthood. In response to his cries that he is meant only to be a soldier, not to take on some other lowly position, Beatrice suggests that Macklin enlist in the Army to continue as a soldier, but Macklin balks at this idea.
“You mean to enlist?” [Beatrice] asked. “To enlist? Not I!” I answered hotly. “If I’m not fit to be an officer now, I never shall be, at least not by that road. Do you know what it means? It’s the bitterest life a man can follow. He is neither the one thing nor the other. The enlisted men suspect him, and the officers may not speak with him. I know one officer who got his commission that way. He swears now he would rather have
120 served the time in jail. The officers at the post pointed him out to visitors, as the man who had failed at West Point, and who was working his way up from the ranks, and the men of his company thought that he thought, God help him, that he was too good for them, and made his life hell.”26
The differences in military rank between commissioned officers and enlisted members
represent a meticulously structured and rigorously enforced hierarchy. Even in the twenty-
first-century American military, members of the military who enlist can become non- commissioned officers (NCOs), but there are different paths for promotion, different opportunities for advancement, and different types of experience available to non- commissioned and commissioned officers. Additionally, NCOs can only reach a certain level of rank before topping out, and nearly all levels of NCO rank below those of commissioned officers.27
In a sense, then, Macklin’s concerns over enlisting are a bit justified, as he would
always be ranked below his former classmates as an NCO. By being expelled from West
Point, Macklin was simultaneously and automatically expelled from his intended place in
the military, the upper caste of the officer corps. However, his anticipation of a “life of
hell” – a life spent working his way through (class) ranks only to be thwarted by the
impossibility of reaching a higher caste – could be attributed at least as much to his
complete and utter lack of respect for his former classmates and his sense of absolute
superiority over them (the main source of his lack of popularity.)
Macklin’s solution to this problem – desiring to be an officer but deemed unworthy
of completing his West Point training – was to pursue soldiering through an alternative
path with less restrictive rules.
26 Davis, Captain Macklin, 41-42. 27 A longer discussion on commissioned and non-commissioned officer paths in the U.S. military takes place in Chapter 5 in the section “Ranking the Battlefield.”
121 I stood up and straightened my shoulders. “But perhaps there are other countries less difficult to please,” I said, “where I can lose myself and be forgotten, and where I can see service. After all, a soldier’s business is to fight, not to sit at a post all day or to do a clerk’s work at Washington.” Even as I spoke these chance words I seemed to feel the cloud of failure and disgrace passing from me. I saw vaguely a way to redeem myself, and, though I had spoken with bravado and at random, the words stuck in my mind, and my despondency fell from me like a heavy knapsack.28
Macklin found a paramilitary organization “less difficult to please” in General Laguerre’s
Foreign Legion, where he was automatically commissioned as a Captain upon joining. In their push through Honduras, Macklin also became a Vice President and a Cabinet
Minister, all impressive titles indeed – but none of the upper-caste prestige Macklin enjoyed while conquering Honduras followed him back to domesticated life in New York.
Since as a civilian Macklin is not wealthy enough to be a man of the leisured caste, he must work in order to keep up the family home, and, eventually, to support a wife and family.
Under pressure to find a job and “settle down,” he begins looking for a position in New
York City, disgusted with the idea that he, Captain Macklin, a former Vice President of
Honduras, is being forced to take an entry-level position as some company clerk.
They all seemed to agree that I had had my fling, and should, as they persisted in calling it, “settle down.” A most odious phrase.… [At] last I ceased arguing and allowed myself to be bullied into looking for a position.29 … Except for [Beatrice], what promise was there before me of reward or honor? I was no longer “an officer and a gentleman,” I was a copying clerk, “a model letter-writer.” I could foresee the end. I would become a nervous, knowing, smug-faced civilian. Instead of clean liquors, I would poison myself with cocktails and “quick-order” luncheons. I would carry a commuter's ticket. In time I might rise to the importance of calling the local conductors by their familiar names. “Bill, what was the matter with the 8.13 this morning?” From tomorrow forward I would be “our” Mr. Macklin, “Yours of even date received. Our Mr. Macklin will submit samples of goods desired.” “Mr.” Macklin! “Our” Mr. Macklin! Ye Gods!30
28 Davis, Captain Macklin, 43. 29 Ibid., 305. 30 Ibid., 320.
122 But before surrendering myself to the downtown business circles I made one last effort to remain free.31
Macklin’s final grasp for freedom was sending a cable to Laguerre asking if he had any
wars brewing: “Are you well? If going any more campaigns, please take me.”32 He has to
do some kind of work, because he will never belong to the leisured upper-caste, but
Macklin envisions a hellish life of unfulfilling and degrading clerk work as the only
alternative to his previously fulfilling and (personally) enriching mercenary work. He
prefers the mercenary work because, even though his rank-and-caste gains do not transfer into the civilian “real world” where Beatrice lives, at least he has a greater portion of control over himself and over others when working as a mercenary.
Davis presents both Clay and Macklin’s working-mercenary lifestyle as more
fulfilling and more self-controlled than the lifestyles of the upper-caste characters, even
when the friction between classes/castes becomes problematic. Clay frets over his class
standing and his process of self-making when courting Alice Langham, who is a bastion of upper-caste feminized society and rules. Davis emphasizes the difference in the Langham sisters’ roles through their names: Alice is usually referred to as Miss Langham, while
Hope is always referred to as Hope. The reader knows early on that Miss Langham belongs in an Edith Whartonesque novel of manners, pained silences, tragic misunderstandings, and missed opportunities caused by adherence to severely limiting upper-caste social roles and regulations. Even when first acknowledging their class disparity, and his sense of class inadequacy, to Miss Langham, Clay’s methods of self- making still seem superior to the experiences to be had under her Victorian social regulations:
31 Ibid., 305. 32 Ibid., 306.
123 “And then I’m what you call a self-made man; that is, I’ve never been to college. I’ve always had to educate myself, and whenever I did get a holiday it seemed to me that I ought to put it to the best advantage, and to spend it where civilization was the furthest advanced - advanced, at least, in years. When I settle down and become an expert, and demand large suns for just looking at the work other fellows have done, then I hope to live in New York, but until then I go where the art galleries are biggest and where they have got the science of enjoying themselves down to the very finest point.”33
Until he reaches a class point where he can settle down and become a highly paid expert – meaning, until his process of self-making becomes truly self-made – Clay intends to work hard and spend his spare time and money absorbing what the wide world has to teach him as a whole, rather than adhering to the society rules of one particular area.
During this process of self-making, Clay also desires that his hard work will be
adequately appreciated by his potential mate. When the Langham sisters visit his mines during their stay in Olancho, Alice quickly becomes bored and retires to the manager’s station, but Hope actively digs in to the tour with sincere delight. Clay is severely disappointed at Miss Langham’s lack of interest in his work.
Clay believed that Alice Langham's visit to the mines had opened his eyes fully to vast differences between them. He laughed and railed at himself for having dared to imagine that he was in a position to care for her. Confident as he was at times, and sure as he was of his ability in certain directions, he was uneasy and fearful when he matched himself against a man of gentle birth and gentle breeding… He believed that he would always lack the mysterious something which these others held by right of inheritance….34 [After the visit to the mines,] whenever [Miss Langham] showed him special favor, he hastily recalled to his mind her failure to sympathize in his work, and assured himself that if she could not interest herself in the engineer, he did not care to have her interested in the man. … But he determined that this one must sympathize with his work in the world, no matter how unpicturesque it might seem to her. His work was the best of him, he assured himself, and he would stand or fall with it.35
33 Richard Harding Davis, Soldiers of Fortune (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1897), 16-17, http://www.archive.org/details/soldiersfortune06davigoog. 34 Ibid., 142. 35 Ibid., 143.
124 In a long passage rationalizing his disappointment in Alice to himself, Clay builds his own
confidence in the power and importance of his work – to himself and to the world – as well as his determination that he will only love someone who loves his work. When Clay confronts Alice about her lackluster reaction to his work and his mines, she replies:
“I wasn't interested so much in what had been done, as I was in the man who had accomplished it.” Clay shrugged his shoulders impatiently, and looked across at Miss Langham with a troubled smile. “But that’s just what I don't want," he said. “Can’t you see? These mines and other mines like them are all I have in the world. They are my only excuse for having lived in it so long. I want to feel that I’ve done something outside of myself, and when you say that you like me personally, it’s as little satisfaction to me as it must be to a woman to be congratulated on her beauty, or on her fine voice. That is nothing she has done herself. I should like you to value what I have done, not what I happen to be.”36
This conversation represents an irreversible breaking point in Clay and Alice’s burgeoning
romance. It reveals their utter inability to agree on a class/caste worldview. Clay’s appeal
to reason could not have been made to a more unsympathetic jury; Miss Langham has
gladly received congratulations on her beauty her entire life (including recent and effusive
congratulations from Clay) – but she has no interest in doing something outside herself or
outside her caste. In return, she urges Clay to be more ambitious in the way that she views
power and ambition: “[I]t hurts me to see you wasting your time here over my father's
interests…. You could make yourself anything you chose. At home you would be your
party's leader in politics, or you could be a great general, or a great financier.”37 Despite
Clay’s efforts to know the Alice at the core of Miss Langham, he cannot talk her into
dropping the rules and regulations of her caste, and Alice will not let herself love Clay until
he has passed through his working phase, a “phase” that represents the core of his self.
36 Ibid., 145-146. 37 Ibid., 147.
125 “And though it means nothing to you,” he said, “and though as you say I am here as your father's employee, there are other places, perhaps, where I am better known. In Edinburgh or Berlin or Paris, if you were to ask the people of my own profession, they could tell you something of me. If I wished it, I could drop this active work tomorrow and continue as an adviser, as an expert, but I like the active part better. I like doing things myself. I don’t say, ‘I am a salaried servant of Mr. Langham’s;’ I put it differently. I say, ‘There are five mountains of iron. You are to take them up and transport them from South America to North America, where they will be turned into railroads and ironclads.’ That’s my way of looking at it. It’s better to bind a laurel to the plough than to call yourself hard names. It makes your work easier - almost noble. Cannot you see it that way, too?”38
Alas for Clay’s dreams of romance with Alice, Miss Langham cannot see things Clay’s way. However, Hope can and does agree with Clay’s worldview. Hope revels in Clay’s work, appreciating it deeply and simply, thrilled with Clay’s mastery over and manipulation of land, labor forces, and local politics. More importantly, for her entire life,
Hope has been resisting and rejecting the social caste rules that Alice clings to so tenaciously, opting instead to seek a genuine understanding of the world as a whole and the world where men live, including her father’s business, her brother’s football games, and
Clay’s mines, railroads, and medals of honor. Hope’s deep and sincere appreciation for his work dislodges Clay’s devoted appreciation for Miss Langham’s beauty, shifting his attention and love to the Langham sister who rejects the restrictions of caste in favor of the joys of succeeding through hard work.
Within the context of Davis’ novels, the mercenary figure does not have the ability to control or enforce the class or caste hierarchies he is presented with; while class can be changed, caste divisions will remain. In the absence of control, the mercenary figures instead are represented as opting out of the struggle for caste hierarchy by proactively rejecting the qualities of the caste that they cannot belong to. In rejecting the trappings of the upper caste, Davis’ mercenary novels construct a narrative about the immoral, ignoble,
38 Ibid., 151-152.
126 unmanly, and restrictive aspects of upper-caste life. It is a narrative about “fat cats” and
“honest labor” that soothes and justifies inequality using romantic rather than rational reasoning to support a proactive rejection, much like a child who claims not to want a toy he cannot have anyway. In the absence of control over class and caste hierarchies, though, the mercenary figure continues to ply his trade, often being paid by members of the upper caste, and puts energy into controlling and enforcing race and gender hierarchies, areas where the white mercenary figure occupies a higher rank in the accepted and demonstrated hierarchies.
A Thin Veneer of Racial Benevolence
There is a layer of benevolence in Davis’ novels that obscures racialized violence and supposedly proves the superiority of whiteness, but this cover layer is never very thick.
In Agent of Empire, Harrison points to the “metaphysics of Indian hating and the metaphysics of the African slave trade” as integral pieces of the American imperial push of the 1890s. 39 In his analysis of Davis’ representations of race relations, Harrison reads
Davis’ mercenary romances as “reveal[ing] that the racial violence of empire-building has always been about asserting white superiority,” reflecting both race hate and a fear of reprisal from Indian, African, and other “native” sources.40 As Harrison characterized it, though ruling whites like Davis claimed that they had little use for people of color, they could not stop talking about them.41
However, the ruling elite whites did have a great “use” for people of color – they need them to create a racial hierarchy. Just like a pyramid needs a large base to support its
39 Harrison, Agent of Empire, 116. 40 Ibid., 126. 41 Ibid., 116.
127 small top, social hierarchies depend on large proportions supporting a dwindling upper
level. Social Darwinism and the strenuous life require constant proving through constant
struggle; the top of the racial and social hierarchy was precarious in those views, so whites
needed to continuously prove their fitness through active domination, even while that
domination was justified in other ways. There can be a quick turn between benevolent rule
and racial violence in Davis’ mercenary novels. The turn is faster in Captain Macklin, and
the layering is thicker in Soldiers of Fortune, but both the benevolent rhetoric and the turn
demonstrate a particular way of understanding the world from the purported top of the racial hierarchy.
Macklin is condescending, dismissive, and patronizing to the generic and
unspecified “native Hondurans,” which is unsurprising, as that is his attitude to everyone
except Laguerre. He spends his short-lived time as Vice President of Honduras patrolling
the streets and keeping peace. In his time in Honduras, the natives are mostly below
Macklin’s view – invisible in the narrative except when he praises the progress of the
native soldiers within his regiment or when he comments on the quaintness of their
adorable lives. Otherwise, Macklin’s monologues during his time of political and military
control are full of the benevolent language of uplifting the natives and winning over the
foreign bankers and business community, who represent the “real” power players in
Honduras.
Macklin’s turn from benevolent rhetoric to exploding race hate and violence comes
when the counter-coup of the native Hondurans begins.
Within the week the natives had turned from us to the painted idols of their jungle, and the new gods toward whom they had wavered were to be sacrificed on the altars of the old.42
42 Davis, Captain Macklin, 275.
128 The smiles, the raised hats, the cheers were missing, and I had but turned my back on them when a voice shouted, “Viva Alvarez!” I swung in my saddle, and pulled out my sword. I thought it was only the bravado of some impudent fellow who needed a lesson. But it was a signal, for as I turned I saw the native guard spring like one man upon our sergeant and drive their bayonets into his throat. He went down with a dozen of the dwarf-like negroes stabbing and kicking at him, and the mob ran shrieking upon the door of the palace.43
Macklin had only to turn his back for an instant to be betrayed by dozens of “dwarf-like negroes.” Macklin leads his troops through a fog of war, retreating, running away, deeply betrayed and pursued on all sides by the native Hondurans whom he thought had been his
“friends.”
These friends now beset them like a pack of wolves. They hung upon their flanks and stabbed at them from the front and rear….44 Even the day after, I remembered it only as a bad dream, in which I saw innumerable, dark-skinned faces pressing upon me with open mouths, and white eyeballs; lit by gleams of lightning and flashes of powder….45 And then there was a pitchy blackness through which I kept striking at faces that sprang out of the storm, faces that when they were beaten down were replaced by other faces; drunken, savage, exulting.46
Sick, starving, wounded, and hunted by men, Macklin compares the Foreign Legion’s march to the Honduran coast to the experiences of antebellum slaves trying to escape in a pretty amazing act of appropriation: “I do not believe that slaves hunted through a swamp by blood-hounds have ever suffered more keenly than did the survivors of the Foreign
Legion.”47 Not only does Macklin appropriate the moral high ground of “victim” in a situation of men hunting men for sport, he also rewrites the idea of “suffering;” he and his men are able to evade the native “blood-hounds,” survive, and escape successfully despite their keen suffering.
43 Ibid., 263. 44 Ibid., 266. 45 Ibid., 271. 46 Ibid., 272. 47 Ibid., 277.
129 In Soldiers of Fortune, the turn from obscuring benevolent rhetoric to bald racial
violence is not as strong or as permanent. Take for instance the turn in describing General
Mendoza, the leader of the coup in Olancho, from neutral to “negro.” Mendoza is first
introduced only by his name when he comes to Clay’s camp and attempts to solicit a
payout from the Valencia Mining Company to preempt the coup he is planning. “[T]wo
men on horseback came suddenly out of the darkness and drew rein in the light from the
open door. The first was General Mendoza, the leader of the opposition in the Senate, and
the other, his orderly.”48 Throughout his conversation with Clay, Mendoza is described
sparingly as a “Spanish-American” with “white teeth” and wearing a “white duck” suit – a
rather neutral and fairly “white” introduction.49 Even in the context of Mendoza soliciting
a bribe and threatening to make war on his countrymen, Davis avoids words like “native”
or “peon” when characterizing Mendoza (as opposed to Clay’s “servant and cook” whom
he refers to as “that peon.”)50 As a man with political and social power, albeit local
Olanchan power, Mendoza is figured as a whitish man fairly high up in his country’s social
hierarchy.
However, Mendoza’s neutral-to-white characterization changes abruptly after the
coup, so abruptly in fact that, within the text, it takes a paragraph for readers to connect the
physical description that Davis gives with the character that it refers to:
[Ted] saw a tall man with a negro's face spring out of the first mass of soldiers and shout to them to follow him. Clay gave a yell of welcome and ran at him, calling upon him in Spanish to surrender. The negro stopped and stood at bay, glaring at Clay and at the circle of soldiers closing in around him. He raised his revolver and pointed it steadily. It was as though the man knew he had only a moment to live, and meant to do that one thing well in the short time left him.
48 Davis, Soldiers of Fortune, 51. 49 Ibid., 51-52. 50 Ibid., 51.
130 Clay sprang to one side and ran towards him, dodging to the right and left, but Mendoza followed his movements carefully with his revolver. It lasted but an instant. Then the Spaniard threw his arm suddenly across his face, drove the heel of his boot into the turf, and spinning about on it fell forward.51
Upon becoming an enemy to Clay and his men, rather than just the leader of the political opposition, Mendoza is suddenly characterized as having “a negro’s face.” No longer a friend or a compliant adversary, Mendoza loses his qualification of “Spanish-American” and descriptions of whiteness in the same moment that he loses his political, military, and social power. Upon his death, which removes him as a threat to Clay and the other white
Americans, Mendoza is once again referred to as “the Spaniard.”
In both novels, Davis uses “negro” as a descriptor for the mercenary figures’ mortal enemies. Whether these enemy forces begin as compliant natives (for Macklin) or as otherwise white(ish) political adversaries (for Clay), Davis switched to “negro” as a signal for the turn from benevolent rhetoric to racialized violence, a fascinating rhetorical twist during the legal and cultural nadir of racial relations between blacks and whites in the
United States.52 Furthermore, within Davis’ narratives, the mercenary figures are not
initiating this turn. Instead, they are merely reacting to violent resistance from the
Others(s) to the racial hierarchies that they are enforcing. Neither Clay nor Macklin begins
the racialized violence in their respective narratives, but they will protect themselves and
their interests against any armed native/negro resistance.
However, when the natives acquiesce to the demands of the American racial/social
hierarchy the mercenary is enforcing, the benevolent rhetoric covering the violence takes
on a thicker, more romantic tone. This racial and social mixture is illustrated in Soldiers of
51 Ibid., 344. 52 Rayford Whittingham Logan, The Betrayal of the Negro, from Rutherford B. Hayes to Woodrow Wilson, 1st ed. (New York: Da Capo Press, 1997).
131 Fortune when Clay, Hope, MacWilliams, and Ted Langham descend upon an Olanchin
family’s home in the middle of the night. The four had just squired the President’s wife out
of the capital, pursued by a bloodthirsty mob, and through the countryside on a midnight ride to reach Reginald King’s yacht and crew, where they narrowly defeated an ambush by
Mendoza’s men. With the President’s wife safe, the four headed back to the Langham
home in Olancho, a journey that took most of the night. In their escape carriage, Clay and
Hope finally acknowledge their love for each other, and their newly expressed love makes
them oblivious to their surroundings. Flush with the high of a day-long battle – and
suffering from at least one gunshot wound – Ted and MacWilliams decide to stop at the
next home they cross and demand that the residents provide them with food.
The carriage stopped, and there was a confusion of voices on the box-seat, and then a great barking of dogs, and they [Clay and Hope] beheld MacWilliams beating and kicking at the door of a hut. The door opened for an inch, and there was a long debate in Spanish, and finally the door was closed again, and a light appeared through the windows. A few minutes later a man and woman came out of the hut, shivering and yawning, and made a fire in the sun-baked oven at the side of the house. Hope and Clay remained seated in the carriage, and watched the flames springing up from the oily fagots, and the boys moving about with flaring torches of pine, pulling down bundles of fodder for the horses from the roof of the kitchen, while two sleepy girls disappeared toward a mountain stream, one carrying a jar on her shoulder, and the other lighting the way with a torch. 53
This part of the narrative is filtered through Hope’s point of view, which in this section is
clouded by the rush of new love and the romanticism of an intimate, moonlit drive soon
after facing down imminent death. Hope watches as Ted and MacWilliams wake an entire
family by beating and kicking on the door of their home. Readers do not know the details
of the “long debate” between the native homeowners and the American strangers, but the
end result is a native Olanchin family waking from slumber to wait on the four white
Americans, providing them with food, rest, and sustenance.
53 Davis, Soldiers of Fortune, 314-315.
132 That this scene demonstrates a casual performance of dominance and control over
the native populations is not surprising in and of itself. What stands out the most in this
passage, in the context of the narrative, is Hope’s interpretation and rationalization of the entire event.
Hope sat with her chin on her hand, watching the black figures passing between them and the fire, and standing above it with its light on their faces, shading their eyes from the heat with one hand, and stirring something in a smoking caldron with the other. Hope felt an overflowing sense of gratitude to these simple strangers for the trouble they were taking. She felt how good every one was, and how wonderfully kind and generous was the world that she lived in.54
Hope’s point of view is clouded by the first flush of new love, but throughout the narrative,
Hope is otherwise characterized as being perceptive and straightforward. This makes it
surprising that romance could so cloud her perception that Hope believes that these natives
were waiting on the Americans out of kindness, not out of fear of armed strangers invading
their home or obligation to colonial-type overseers who threaten retaliation against any
refusal of cooperation. Still, she has some unspoken recognition that the native family
should be compensated for their “generosity.”
“Please give me some money,” Hope said to Clay. “All the money you have,” she added, smiling at her assumption of authority over him, “and you, too, Ted.” The men emptied their pockets, and Hope poured the mass of silver into the hands of the women, who gazed at it uncomprehendingly. “Thank you for your trouble and your good supper," Hope said in Spanish, “and may no evil come to your house.” …. as they drove away, Hope waved her hand to them as she sank closer against Clay's shoulder. “The world is full of such kind and gentle souls," she said.55
Hope’s response to the native family’s submission to the Americans’ demands for racial
and social acquiescence can be extrapolated to the larger narrative of benevolent rhetoric
covering the racial violence of American imperial efforts. Hope rationalizes their invasion
54 Ibid., 315. 55 Davis, Captain Macklin, 319-320.
133 of the natives’ home through the idea that the family helped them because of kindness and
generousness, which frames the Americans as though they were guests invited to take their
fair share of the native’s resources, rather than home invaders offering acquiescence or violence. Hope offers them the money that the men just happened to have on hand, which implicitly argues that Americans, with their great wealth, would be able to compensate
poor native populations for their trouble easily and without need for forethought or
sacrifice. This recalls Roosevelt’s imploration to “keep the dependents” instead of creating
independence and self-sufficiency while spreading civilization to all corners of the earth.
As the homemaker-half of the ideal American couple showcasing the Strenuous Life,
Hope’s “assumption of authority” extends from her cute demand on her lover for money to
the Americans’ unthinking assumption of authority over the native family’s home, food,
and sense of security.56
Separate Genders, Separate Spheres
Davis’ mercenary narratives are at their heart action adventure stories that include
the romance of heterosexual courtship as well as the romance of human tragedy inherent in
war. Clay loves the constructive nature of his work, with its concrete material legacy of
civilization, and Macklin loves the darkly romantic destruction of his work, with his self-
perception of being a knight errant on an improbable quest for glory. The nature of their
love for their work helps to delineate different spheres of activity divided by gender and by
activity that fit into new perceptions of appropriate gender hierarchies showcased in Davis’
work. Much like the turn-of-the-century sources examined by Amy Kaplan and Kristen
56 For more on nineteenth-century views of “true womanhood”, see also: Barbara Welter, “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860,” American Quarterly 18, no. 2 (Summer 1966): 151-174.
134 Hoganson, Davis’ novels point to a divide between a public/foreign sphere deemed more
appropriate for displays of masculinity and a private/domestic sphere deemed more appropriate for displays of femininity.57 In Davis’ mercenary narratives, these spheres are
most closely associated with Macklin and his pursuit of a homosocial masculine battlefield and the restrictive, quiet, feminized New York home-and-society lives of Beatrice and
Alice Langham. However, in Hope and Clay, Davis also creates a separate sphere that exists in between this divide of public/foreign and private/domestic. I term this a
“strenuous sphere,” in which the New American couple present an idealized way of life that blends the definitions of foreign and domestic, while still dividing roles by gender.
In Captain Macklin’s distopic narrative, Davis creates a clear divide between men’s
and women’s worlds through Macklin’s point of view: “Women I respect and admire,
several of them, especially two of the young ladies at Miss Butler's Academy I have deeply
loved, but a soldier cannot devote himself both to a woman and to his country. As one of
our young professors said, ‘The flag is a jealous mistress.’”58 For Macklin, these worldly
girls he encounters in the public sphere are for the most part a distraction from his first
devotion; they are largely inconsequential and inappropriate, and dangerous as well. After
all, his association with those girls, his blending of the public battlefield sphere with
“public” girls, was the reason that Macklin was expelled from West Point. But, for
Macklin, private-sphere girls like Beatrice and his Aunt Mary are far too demanding. After
the novelty of his return from battle wears off and his stories lose their ability to captivate
them all evening, they require that he find a position, settle down, and acquiesce to their
57 Hoganson, Fighting for American Manhood; Kaplan, The Anarchy of Empire in the Making of U.S. Culture. 58 Davis, Captain Macklin, 3.
135 boring, quiet, domestic life. Giving in to their demands marks a painful breaking point for
Macklin:
I waited three restless weeks for an answer [from Laguerre about a new commission], and then, as no answer came, I put it all behind me, and hung my old, torn uniform where I would not see it, and hid the presentation-sword behind the eight-day clock in the library. Beatrice raised her eyes from her book and watched me. “Why?” she asked. “It hurts me,” I said. She put down her book, and for a long time looked at me without speaking. “I did not know you disliked it as much as that," she said. “I wonder if we are wrong. And yet,” she added, smiling, “it does not seem a great sacrifice; to have work to do, to live at home, and in such a dear, old home as this, near a big city, and with the river in front and the country all about you. It seems better than dying of wounds in a swamp, or of fever in a hospital.” “I haven’t complained. I’m taking my medicine,” I answered. “I know you all wouldn’t ask it of me, if you didn’t think it was for my good.”59
Acquiescing to Beatrice’s domestic demands “hurts” Macklin; he would much rather live in the all-male homosocial field of battle. In the all-male public sphere of the battlefield,
Macklin has only the manly responsibilities of an officer in war time: procuring food,
organizing camp, ordering around his men, and fighting battles. He eschews the domestic
responsibilities of a head-of-household, the pressures to maintain a steady position working
for others and the stifling nature of a home life where he is not constantly treated as a
special, wondrous guest.
The “demands” that Beatrice sets out – to have work to do, to live in a dear old
home, to not die alone in a swamp – do not seem like irrational demands to readers, but they seem impossibly awful for Macklin. The implication of this is that Macklin is part of a warrior class (even if his warring is mostly incompetent) that needs to be held apart from regular society. For Macklin, the private domestic sphere is simply intolerable and against his nature, desire, and abilities. The entirety of his “memoir” shows that Royal is neither a
59 Ibid., 306-307.
136 scholar nor a “people” person; he only gets joy from life through fighting and through constructing fantastical romantic scenarios in which he is the knight in shining armor. He is ambitious yet resists any sense of rootedness, and warring in a perpetual battlefield will allow him to exorcise his wanderlust and his ambition at the same time in an open manner.
The only fulfilling experience he has in Beatrice’s feminized domestic sphere is being welcomed and feted upon returning from battle, and Macklin decides that he can in fact have the best of both worlds.
Then, after [the next campaign with Laguerre], I really will come home. But not as an ex-soldier. This time I shall come home on furlough. I shall come home a real officer, and play the prodigal again to the two noblest and sweetest and best women in God's world. All women are good, but they are the best. All women are so good, that when one of them thinks one of us is worthy to marry her, she pays a compliment to our entire sex. But as they are all good and all beautiful, Beatrice being the best and most beautiful, I was right not to think of marrying only one of them. With the world full of good women, and with a fight always going on somewhere, I am very wise not to “settle down.” I know I shall be very happy.60
For Macklin, the domestic home and the homosocial battlefield have no overlap, and he sees no need to create an overlapping sphere. As a man and a mercenary, he can travel between them, but the players in each sphere will never meet. In the battlefield, he will be an officer in charge of men and their lives. When he returns to the domestic home, he will be feted by “good” women, staying long enough to reap the benefits of that love but not long enough to be expected to take on any responsibilities or provide for that domestic life.
For Macklin, the domestic sphere is a trap that will sap his very lifeblood with its stasis, burdens of responsibility, and overwhelming rootedness. Choosing the battlefield represents the ultimate expression of his social mobility and his power to choose his sphere of activity.
60 Ibid., 328.
137 Similarly, Soldiers of Fortune also shows a divide between overly rooted and social mobile spheres, but in Soldiers of Fortune, Davis does this primarily through heterosexual coupling rather than homosocial dividing. This is most clearly evident in the dénouement of the novel, as all of the main characters leave Olancho and head back to New York by ship. Davis juxtaposes the quiet, passive, and stagnant coupling of Alice Langham and
Reginald King with the busy, active, and strenuous coupling of Clay and Hope. As their ship pulls away, the captain asks if anyone would like to take a final farewell of Olancho:
Miss Langham and [Reginald] King looked up from their novels and smiled, and Miss Langham shook her head. “I’ve taken three final farewells of Olancho already,” she said….Do you want to go?” she asked. “I’m very comfortable, thank you,” King said, and returned to the consideration of his novel. But Clay and Hope arose at the captain’s suggestion with suspicious alacrity, and stepped out upon the empty deck, and into the encompassing darkness, with a little sigh of relief. Alice Langham looked after them somewhat wistfully and bit the edges of her book. … She assured herself that after all King understood her and she him, and that if they never rose to certain heights, they never sank below a high level of mutual esteem, and that perhaps was the best in the end.61
While Alice might be wistful for the passion and happiness that Hope and Clay have
together, Miss Langham and Reginald King are, after all, perfectly socially attuned to one
another and socially acceptable within the strictly regulated domestic sphere of New York
upper-caste society. Both are content to sit below decks, reading novels, following
unspoken rules about who to interact with on the ship and how to carry themselves. They are not passionate about anything; they are unconcerned with making money or changes in the world, creating anything, or any other real pursuits. Though she is young and physically lovely, Alice Langham represents old ways of doing things, old ways of thinking; she represents stiff, structured, unwritten rules that require limiting interactions
61 Davis, Soldiers of Fortune, 355-356.
138 with others not already deemed worthy and/or appropriate by some unknown social body.
Miss Langham and King are quiet and passive, and their world is stagnant, a stagnancy that implies that their kind is going to die out and fade away.
Clay and Hope take an entirely different approach to the journey. Once the captain
released them from the stuffy world of Alice and Reginald, Clay and Hope visit every
“level” of the ship. On their way up to the deck, they visit the cabin of the chief engineer;
have a drink with the ship’s captain; discuss plans that MacWilliams and Ted Langham are
concocting for a future in filibustering; and share a mutual silence with the night
watchman. This small journey upward to the deck shows their social mobility and their openness. Unlike Miss Langham and King, Clay and Hope are unconcerned with class,
station, and “level” and talk to everyone equally. They are not held by social conventions
or strict unknown rules of domestic society.
Instead, Clay and Hope operate in a “strenuous sphere,” a sphere that exists
between the stagnant heterosexual domestic sphere represented by Alice and King and the
strictly divided homosocial battlefield/domestic spheres in Captain Macklin. Together,
Clay and Hope provide a performative example of the New American couple, a lens of
constant vigor, energy, and sense of adventure. Scholars who write about conceptions of
Manifest Destiny argue that a sense of youthful vigor and energy was deemed to be
inherent in Manifest Destiny and imperative to maintain in order to avoid the stagnancy of
Europe and retain the rights and responsibilities of American Exceptionalism.62 Clay’s
ability to shift quickly from his deep love for Alice (a representative of outdated social
institutions) to deeply loving Hope (a representative of new, young, vigorous institutions)
62 Brown, Agents of Manifest Destiny; Greene, The Filibuster; Harrison, Agent of Empire; May, Manifest Destiny's Underworld; Scroggs, Filibusters and Financiers; Roberts, Distant Revolutions.
139 reflects his ability to rationally assess a situation and switch his loyalty to the youngest,
strongest, most logical, and winningest side, quite a helpful trait for a mercenary figure.
Additionally, Clay, as a man of somehow perfectly reconcilable discrepancies, needs a female companion of equal depth and intricacy. Alice Langham cannot be a match for Clay because she is too entrenched in upholding Victorian rules and outdated social institutions. Alice represents the old outdated social hierarchies that have been overrun by progress and social change; whereas Hope represents the newly acceptable social arrangements and hierarchy. Hope is natural where Alice is affected. Hope is interested in the work of the mine and the politics of Olancho, where Alice is disgusted by the dirt and taken aback by the thought of social turmoil. Though not many years separate them, Hope represents a new, fresh generation of women that understand men like Clay and embody complementary personalities. Whereas Alice wants Clay to exhibit more
“important” priorities and ambitions – such as running for political office in New York –
Hope agrees that leaving a tangible, positive impact, such as a bridge that brings civilization to a new corner of the world, is more important that adhering to dusty old society rules. Hope is ready and eager to accompany Clay on his adventures and support
his missions. Representing the heterosexual strenuous sphere, Clay and Hope are the
embodiment of the ideal couple Roosevelt spoke of in “The Strenuous Life.” Clay is “glad
to do a man’s work, to dare and to labor,” while Hope is glad to “be the housewife, the
helpmeet of the homemaker, [and] the wise and fearless mother of many healthy children,”
and she is willing to match Clay in being “strong and brave and high-minded.”63
63 Roosevelt, The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses, 3-4.
140 ANSWERING THE CALL OF WAR
When read together, Soldiers of Fortune and Captain Macklin reflect the deepening
imbrications between the individual and the nation by linking the choices, actions, and
worldviews of individual mercenary figures to the nation’s pursuit of Manifest Destiny.
Soldiers of Fortune presents a goal to strive for – a utopic, heroic view of the mercenary and his contributions to America and the world. Published five years later, Captain
Macklin presents a fine-tuning of the mercenary narrative, a what-not-to-do distopic version representing how not to achieve those goals of heroism and domination. Both Clay
and Macklin heed the call of war through paramilitary activity, but they hear that call
differently and they answer it through different versions of patriotism; Macklin’s emphasis is on the “paramilitary,” and Clay’s emphasis is on the “patriotism.”
Clay is a reluctant but brilliant fighter who succeeds at everything he attempts. He
has fought all over the world, including stints with the French Foreign Legion and under
British command in Egypt, but he never “left” the United States in his loyalty. His fighting
was part of a constructive push, taken on while learning his trade. During his time as a
soldier of fortune, Clay built the highest bridge in Peru and completed engineering projects
for multiple heads of state, and at times had to fight to protect his investment.64 Clay does not talk explicitly about loving his nation or working for the goals of his nation, but his methods of spreading civilization line up seamlessly with the idealized goals of the strenuous life advocated by national leaders. As a paramilitary patriot, Clay is always connected to something larger than himself, a push to spread civilization to all corners of
the earth. He is embedded in relationships and held accountable to his own high standards
as well as his obligations to others. He hears the call of war, but he answers it reluctantly,
64 Davis, Soldiers of Fortune, 175.
141 not because he is afraid of fighting, but because warring is inherently destructive and detracts from his main goal, which is leading by providing a constructive force for good
and bringing positive material change.
Macklin, on the other hand, seeks out the call of war. He is eager to fight and be
brave and blustery, but he is a stupid fighter with no sense of where his battles fit into the
larger world. As a student, Macklin was isolated from accountability, and his rejection of responsibility for his only surviving family, Beatrice and Aunt Mary, indicates that he wants to further that isolation, to separate himself from social consequences. Macklin goes paramilitary, but his sense of patriotism is funneled entirely into war-making and vengeful reputation-building, not constructive nation-making. Where Clay implies his deep devotion to an American way of life, Macklin explicitly discusses his sense of betrayal from his nation and his countrymen and his decisions to seek his (para)military glory outside of the U.S. Davis ends Macklin’s memoir with this passage:
In a year I certainly must come back, a foreign officer on leave, and I shall go to West Point and pay my respects to the Commandant. The men who saw me turned out will have to present arms to me, and the older men will say to the plebs, “That distinguished-looking officer with the French mustache, and the red ribbon of the Legion of Honor, is Captain Macklin. He was turned out of here. Now he's only a soldier of fortune. He belongs to no county.” But when the battalion is drawn up at retreat and the shadows stretch across the grass, I shall take up my stand once more on the old parade ground, with all the future Grants and Lees around me, and when the flag comes down, I shall raise my hand with theirs, and show them that I have a country, too, and that the flag we salute together is my flag still.65
While ostensibly Macklin is claiming that he can serve in the uniform of another country
but still retain his sense of American nationalism, the thrust of this final thought is the promise of returning to his site of disgrace in a form that requires his former peers to acknowledge his superiority. Captain Macklin highlights the addictive nature of war, the
65 Davis, Captain Macklin, 329.
142 draw of the power of control, and the satisfaction of demanding respect from those who
formerly denied it.
Richard Harding Davis’ turn-of-the-century mercenary novels provide a series of metaphors for individuals bent on pursuing Manifest Destiny through imperial expansion at the turn of the century. These novels demonstrate how easy it could be for those relying on
American Exceptionalism for success to misstep on the fine line between right and wrong
imperialism, how quickly the traits of the hero can also create the anti-hero, an especially
potent lesson from the Spanish-American/Philippine-American Wars. Davis’ novels also
provide a cultural bridge between the nineteenth-century “real” character of William
Walker and the twentieth-century mass-media mercenary characters so beloved by
consumers. Through Clay and Macklin, Davis reworks Walker’s ambiguities into
character forms that resonate with popular audiences – fracturing Walker into a light,
bright, hopeful, and helpful heroic form and a separate dark, violent, selfish, and possibly
delusional anti-heroic form. Generations later, Davis’ characterizations of American
mercenary figures echo in popular television series during the Cold War. While specific
manifestations of class, race, and gender hierarchies within the narratives change
drastically between the turn of the century and the Cold War, the mercenary protagonist
retains fundamental elements of social mobility. Ultimately, the mercenary has the ability
to bridge classes, social divisions, and spheres of activity that trap other, less mobile
Americans in strict institutional hierarchies.
143 CHAPTER 4
BUILDING THE FRONTIER EMPIRE: MERCENARY NARRATIVES IN THE EARLY COLD WAR – SOLDIER OF FORTUNE (1954; 1955), SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE (1955- 1957), AND HAVE GUN, WILL TRAVEL (1957-1963)
Hospitality towards strangers is a western virtue. If you gentlemen don’t seem fit to practice it, you’ll force me to use this gun.1 - Paladin, Have Gun, Will Travel, “The Singer” (1958)
In the first half of the twentieth century, mercenary narratives faded in comparison to the vigilantes, soldiers, private investigators, cowboys, and superheroes found throughout mass-media dime novels, pulp fiction novels and magazines, and in early films.
The next prominent spike in the production and consumption of mercenary narratives
through mass-media outlets came in the early stages of the Cold War.2 Scholars have suggested that issues of containment at home and abroad, concerns about national security and the safety of the domestic home, challenges and changes to racial policies, and
America’s international role in the post-World War II climate were paramount at this time.
Contemporary 1950s mercenary narratives addressed all of these issues through mass-
1 Spoken epigraph in opening titles of Have Gun, Will Travel Season 1, Episode 22, “The Singer.” “The Singer,” DVD, Have Gun, Will Travel (CBS, February 8, 1958), http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0597665/; Martin Grams and Les Rayburn, The Have Gun: Will Travel Companion, 1st ed. (Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing, 2000). 2 There are many instances of mercenary-like figures in popular narratives in the first half of the twentieth century, but the Cold War examples that I identify in the latter half of the twentieth century are prominent, profitable, and popular forms of mercenary narratives that fit the definition of a mercenary laid out in Chapter 1. Much more research is needed to determine exact reasons for the comparative lack of mercenary narratives in mass-media popular culture in the early twentieth century, but my current hypothesis is that the deeply conservative messages about benevolent social control and paramilitary patriotism inherent in the mercenary narrative may not have meshed well with avant-garde, modernist, progressive, and/or collectivist social and political movements circulating in early twentieth century popular discourse. As a corollary hypothesis, I also hypothesize that the combination of individual, personal, and national fear, containment, and new frontiers within Cold War popular discourse helped to re- energize a market for the control and paramilitary patriotism presented in mercenary narratives.
144 media forms such as broadcast network television series, popular fiction, and Hollywood blockbuster films, all popular media forms mediated to appeal to the widest possible
audiences.
Popular mercenary narratives of the early Cold War spread understandings of
American Exceptionalism from the post-WWII victory culture. These narratives depict
mercenaries exercising benevolent paternalism on the edges of civilization, in the exotic,
dangerous, liminal spaces of the frontier to bring democracy, social ordering, and happiness
to those they encounter. In 1950s mass-media narratives, the mercenary figure was always
simultaneously a domestic and a transnational figure, one that enforced contemporary
American domestic hierarchies of gender, class, and race relations in “other” and “foreign”
spaces, such as other nations, borderlands, and liminal spaces within the United States
where identities could be flexible. These fictional mercenary narratives reflected
contemporary concerns and structures of feelings about racial and gender hierarchies and
deep threats to traditional domestic spaces inherent in unpredictable world events. They
mapped domestic concerns about changing American cultural institutions – including
changes in social hierarchies and the United States’ proper role in world affairs – onto
individual mercenary figures working in faraway, frontier-like spaces, action-adventurers
cloaked in an ethical gloss of benevolent white paternalism.
Within this gloss, mass-media mercenary narratives showcased ideal performances of gender, class, and racial relations, particularly in the serialized narratives produced for the ritualized format of early broadcast television series. In these idealized social
performances, location affected the types of relationships the mercenary would engage in – homosocial male relationships while in the battlefield; heterosexual relationships only
145 while in the domestic sphere; and paternal relationships that could bridge the two locations.
Idealized masculine performance was tied to work, and these narratives showed mercenary
work being performed at a range of (working) class levels, from working-poor to working- rich. In this historical moment between Brown v. Board of Education and the Civil Rights
Act, depictions of ideal racial performances in mercenary narratives were shifted from relations between whites and blacks to relations between whites and Mexicans, Native
Americans, and Asians, all while emphasizing racial hierarchies based on tolerance and acquiescence.
These idealized performances and social hierarchies were often filtered through the
lens of which I term the “Frontier Empire.” The use of a “frontier” recalled a familiar and
flattering view of American history as a process of westward expansion differentiating
“Americanism” from “Europeanism” that blended the historical views of Frederick Jackson
Turner with projections of Theodore Roosevelt’s “strenuous life.”3 We can see this
Frontier Empire lens across the mercenary narratives produced in the early Cold War,
whether the narratives were set in the 1870s or the 1950s. In practice, using this lens
separated the United States’ efforts at empire building in the early Cold War from earlier
systems of European colonialism and empire by filtering them through mythical
components of Manifest Destiny, westward expansion and private enterprise.
Highlighting an ideal path to mid-twentieth century Manifest Destiny through the
Frontier Empire, mass-market mercenary narratives of the 1950s were metaphors for the
U.S. imperial project in the early Cold War writ small. They demonstrated independent white American men assisting others in exotic lands, performing acts of helping that are not
3 For more on Turner and Roosevelt, see Chapter 3. Turner, The Frontier In American History; Roosevelt, The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses.
146 only easy for these exceptional Americans, but are also potentially profitable. Together,
these texts indicated a sense of confidence to be found within the safe paternalism of the
mercenary figure, and a sense of national competence and organization in taking on
uplifting missions that can be extrapolated to the cultural and political climate of the early
Cold War.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
The texts examined in this chapter were produced between 1954 and 1963. I use
the phrases “early Cold War” and “1950s” to describe this historical moment, as relations
between the Soviet Union and the United States had ostensibly stabilized into Cold War
patterns of containment, and United States domestic politics had not yet been consumed
with the radical and social movements associated with “The Sixties.” This historical
moment is broadly post-war and encompasses the recovery from the victory of World War
II as well as the ambiguous outcome of the Korean War. Victory in World War II paved
the way for “The American Century,” confirming many beliefs about American
Exceptionalism. But, the fierce fighting and stalemate of the Korean War lent an
ambiguity to the means and ends of the Cold War superpower system.4 Within the United
States, the early Cold War was a time of great social upheaval masked by a veneer of
placid conformity and domestic containment. The G.I. Bill and other veterans’ programs
fundamentally altered traditional barriers to class and caste movement by providing
opportunities for higher education and vocational training, loans for homes and cars,
adequate health care, and preferential hiring practices that helped military veterans improve
4 For more on the paranoid and ambiguous aspects of the early Cold War, see also: Boyer, By the Bomb's Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age; Melley, Empire of Conspiracy: The Culture of Paranoia in Postwar America; Rose, One Nation Underground.
147 their standard of living.5 Because traditional gender roles were praised as the ideal goal in
a family-centered social structure, women who had worked successfully in blue-collar
industries during World War II were displaced by male veterans after the war. This forced
move back into the home contributed to the burgeoning second wave feminist movement,
which was marked especially by the publication of Betty Freidan’s The Feminine Mystique
in 1963.6 In the meantime, women and families were pushed to aspire to an American way of life that was defined by broad consumption of material goods, expressing themselves through purchasing and displaying their purchases.7
Between 1954 and 1963, some of the greatest changes in early Cold War social
institutions came in the social and legal challenges to institutionalized racism. The
mercenary narratives examined in this chapter were released between major historical
markers of the Civil Rights movement. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court decision in
Brown v. Board of Education forced the desegregation of schools, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited discrimination and codified desegregation in government, housing, schools, and other public areas. While discrimination and equality in private areas lagged
5 For more on the widespread and long-term effects of government programs for WWII veterans, see also: Gambone, Greatest Generation Comes Home; Mettler, Soldiers to Citizens; Saxe, Settling down; Mark D Van Ells, To Hear Only Thunder Again: America's World War II Veterans Come Home, Studies in modern American history (Lanham, Md: Lexington Books, 2001). 6 For more on early second wave feminism, see also: Feldstein, Motherhood in Black and White; Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (New York: Norton, 1963); Coontz, The Way We Never Were; Rosen, The World Split Open. 7 For more on consumerist culture in the early Cold War, see also: Cohen, A Consumer's Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America; Cross, An All-consuming Century: Why Commercialism Won in Modern America; Fones-Wolf, Selling Free Enterprise; Fox and Lears, The Culture of Consumption: Critical Essays in American History, 1880-1980; Roland Marchand, Creating the Corporate Soul: The Rise of Public Relations and Corporate Imagery in American Big Business (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998); Zelizer, The Social Meaning of Money; De Grazia, Irresistible Empire.
148 well behind, attitudes on racial relations that were deemed acceptable and politic to express
in public changed rapidly.8
In its basic propagandized form, the Cold War was an ideological struggle between
two ways of life – capitalist democracy and socialist communism – that manifest through
posturing and secondary conflicts, such as providing material and military support for
different sides in “police actions” and “little” undeclared wars rather than conducting full-
scale war. The first few years after the end of World War II marked shifting policies
between the United States and Soviet Union, but U.S. foreign policy had stabilized under
the idea of containment by the Korean War. As a guiding foreign policy, “containment”
held that the national security of the United States would not be threatened by the Soviet
Union as long as both superpowers retained power within separate spheres of influence and
the communist sphere of influence was contained to already-communist areas. If
communism spread beyond the already-communist sphere of influence, it might create a
“domino effect,” an exponential spreading of ideology that would threaten the American
way of life.
The Korean War was the United States’ first “police action” after the founding of
the United Nations. From 1950 to 1953, a civil war between North and South Koreans
became a “secondary” battleground for Cold War politics, as the United States and United
Nations aided democratic South Korea and the Soviet Union and China aided communist
North Korea. The Korean War ended without a clear victory for either side through an armistice that reinstated the border between the two states at the 38th parallel in 1953. In
8 For more on race relations in this moment, see also: Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights; Feldstein, Motherhood in Black and White; Meriwether, Proudly We Can Be Africans; Takaki, Double Victory: A Multicultural History of America in World War II; Von Eschen, Race Against Empire; Von Eschen, Satchmo Blows up the World; Weems, Desegregating the Dollar: African American Consumerism in the Twentieth Century.
149 1953, there were changes in political leadership on both sides – President Dwight
Eisenhower began his term, and Joseph Stalin died and was replaced by Nikita Khrushchev
– but Cold War tensions continued to ebb and flow. Other major Cold War crises came near the end of the time period explored in this chapter, after President John Kennedy began his term in 1961 – the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, the construction of the
Berlin Wall in 1961, and the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1963 – major crises that eventually led to the middle Cold War stages of détente.
In Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era, Elaine Tyler May
explores how the push toward domesticity and a focus on the private home during the early
Cold War was seen as a buffer to threats from changing social hierarchies and, especially,
to threats to national (domestic) security.9 May argues that security was the top priority for
Americans at this time, who were willing to enact a domestic(ated) version of containment
within the home to attain security for the family and ward off the dangers presented by the
outside world. Spheres of influence for men and women were delineated through strict
interpretations of traditional gender roles in a “wholehearted effort to create a home that
would fulfill virtually all its members’ personal needs…Within [the home’s] walls,
potentially dangerous social forces of the new age might be tamed, where they could
contribute to the secure and fulfilling life to which postwar women and men aspired.”10
More than simply a metaphor for domesticity in this moment, May argues that applying the
principles of containment to others, the home, and especially to the self contributed to a
blending of foreign and public policy, politics, and individual behavior within the personal
place of the home.
9 Elaine Tyler May, Homeward Bound: American Families In The Cold War Era, Second Edition. (New York: Basic Books, 1999). 10 Ibid., xxii, xxiv.
150 However, containment was not the only factor connecting personal and public
understandings in the early Cold War. In Cold War Orientalism: Asia in the Middlebrow
Imagination, 1945-1961, Christina Klein describes the United States’ Cold War focus as
framed as helping the larger decolonizing world.11 By focusing on cultural representations
of Asia that Americans produced while trying to grapple with a new (yet familiar) role of prominence in world affairs, Klein refocuses the standard discourse of Cold War away from containment as the only lens for understanding this time period.12 While policies of
containment emphasized fear, posturing, and domination as foreign and domestic policy,
Klein posits that containment of communism was complemented by a strategy of
“integration” composed of cultural and economic elements: “[C]ultural producers
imaginatively mapped a network of sentimental pathways between the United States and
Asia that paralleled and reinforced the more material pathways along which America’s economic, political, and military power flowed.”13 By placing sentimentalism and integration in the same conversations as containment, Klein reclaims sentimentalism from its nineteenth-century associations with abolition, progressivism, and its connotations of femininity.
Klein describes Cold War Orientalism as structure of feeling where small acts
performed in the United States become magnified when applied in a foreign area, such as
11 Christina Klein, Cold War Orientalism: Asia in the Middlebrow Imagination, 1945-1961 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003). 12 Klein and other Cold War revisionists often frame their work around Cold War traditionalists who argue that containment was the main thrust of Cold War domestic, foreign and social policy, such as: John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security Policy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982); Melvyn P. Leffler, A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1992); Ernest May, ed., American Cold War Strategy: Interpreting NSC 68 (Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martin’s Press, 1993); May, Homeward Bound; Jerry Sanders. Peddlers of Crisis: The Committee on the Present Danger and the Politics of Containment (Boston: South End Press, 1983) 13 Klein, Cold War Orientalism, 17.
151 “save the children” campaigns that claim giving pennies a day can make a transformative change in a child’s life in a Third World country. For Klein, sentimentalist thought
composes a structure of feeling that focuses on the “self-in-relation” to all else. When
interpreted through this self-centered lens of one’s importance to and within the
community, even small levels of participation in a community could be magnified by the
self-in-relation to constitute an “internationalist” mindset befitting a member of the new
First World. By identifying sentimentalism as a structure of feeling not limited to women,
Klein emphasizes its broader application beyond the limitations of female authority and
power often (condescendingly) put into the “sentimental” category. Instead, the structure,
paternalism, and gender roles inherent in sentimentalism become a way of thinking about
the odd combination of pity, arrogance, goodwill, and capitalism that characterizes Klein’s
integrationist Cold War.
Early Cold War mercenary narratives contain this same combination of condescension, compassion, and control – in essence, sentimentalist-style containment within the Frontier Empire. Klein’s concept of sentimentalist participation – seeing the self-in-relation as an active participant in worldwide events – is fundamental to the production of television narratives of mercenary adventure and their acceptance into the domestic, private sphere. Popular mercenary narratives pictured a middle road of sentimental containment as the best path toward achieving mid-twentieth century’s
Manifest Destiny. Within the structure of feeling of sentimental containment, television narratives that reflect and reify white American men making a living from assisting others in exotic lands reinforce narrative consumers’ interpretations that those “others” need to be
152 helped through their ignorance, helplessness, or backward ways, and that the act of helping is not only easy for the Americans, but also potentially profitable.
In Make Room for TV: Television and the Family Ideal in Postwar America, Lynn
Spigel argues that early television functioned as a part of a postwar “obsession with the reconstruction of family life and domestic ideals,” tensely constructing public representations of appropriate and acceptable gender and consumerist values within the lasting inertia of Victorian-era ideals of domesticity, leisure, and clear divides between the public and private (domestic) spheres.14 Consequently, television was a medium that was responsive to its audience and participated quite consciously in building and hardening its own discursive rules. “Television” – the entity incorporating the industry, individual series’ narratives, the material nature of a television set as new, bulky piece of necessary furniture, and its role as a pseudo-family member – was simultaneously shaping and being shaped by nascent discursive rules in a “dialogical relationship between communication technology and culture.”15 “Television” was not a didactic propaganda medium informing women, men, and children of their proper roles in society. Rather, as a consumer product,
Television and its associated industries were deeply enmeshed in marketing, capitalistic sciences, and the politicized consumer culture of the postwar era. Industrial processes, advertising loyalties, marketing strategies, and narrative structures participated in the debates over the television’s utopian/distopian nature.
As a cultural product for a diverse mass audience, “Television” relies on structures of ideological incoherence, incorporating a little something for everyone and leaving plenty of grey areas. Television programming creates possibilities for subversive readings while
14 Lynn Spigel, Make Room for TV: Television and the Family Ideal in Postwar America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 2. 15 Ibid.
153 gesturing toward a main or dominant reading that supports widely acceptable strains of thinking. In the 1950s, television characters were often bare sketches, and plotlines had not
quite settled into distinct generic patterns. For the audience, the narratives on this new
medium could be filled in extensively or sparsely, depending on the consumer’s desire to
put in a small effort and accept the narratives in a straightforward manner, or to put in a
larger effort and discover subversive readings. Television’s early narrative structures
enhanced and utilized elements of previously popular structures like vaudeville, comedy,
theatrical realism, and theatre-troop-style domestic narratives to blur and fuse public and
private spheres by displaying private moments in public and bringing the public world into the private sphere. 16
SOURCE SUMMARIES
To explore the mercenary figure in early Cold War popular culture, I will focus on three major narrative sources: Ernest Gann’s action-romance novel Soldier of Fortune
(1954) and its adapted feature film (1955); the (unrelated) syndicated television series
16 For more on television in the early Cold War moment, see also: Thomas Patrick Doherty, Cold War, Cool Medium: Television, McCarthyism, and American Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003); Susan J Douglas, Where the Girls Are: Growing up Female with the Mass Media, 1st ed. (New York: Times Books, 1994); Mary Beth Haralovich and Lauren Rabinovitz, eds., Television, History, and American Culture: Feminist Critical Essays, Console-ing passions (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999); Jeffrey Sconce, Haunted Media: Electronic Presence from Telegraphy to Television, Console-ing passions (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000); Lynn Spigel, Make Room for TV: Television and the Family Ideal in Postwar America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992); Ella Taylor, Prime-time Families: Television Culture in Postwar America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989); Cecelia Tichi, Electronic Hearth: Creating an American Television Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); Sasha Torres, Living Color: Race and Television in the United States, Console-ing passions (Durham: Duke University Press, 1998); Williams, Television; Raymond Williams, Raymond Williams on Television: Selected Writings (New York: Routledge, 1989); Marsha Francis Cassidy, What Women Watched: Daytime Television in the 1950s, 1st ed., Louann Atkins Temple women & culture series bk. 10 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005); Karal Ann Marling, As Seen on TV: The Visual Culture of Everyday Life in the 1950s (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994); McLuhan, Understanding Media; Sig Mickelson, The Decade That Shaped Television News: CBS in the 1950s (Westport, Conn: Prager, 1998); Janet Thumim, ed., Small Screens, Big Ideas: Television in the 1950s (London: I.B. Tauris, 2002).
154 Soldiers of Fortune (1955-57); and the popular CBS Western franchise Have Gun – Will
Travel, which spawned a television series (1957-1963), a radio show (1958-1960), novels,
comics, action figures, and more.17 These particular sources are marked as “mercenary”
both by their titles and by the actions of the main characters. “Soldier of Fortune” is a
common euphemism and synonym for mercenary that serves as an instant marker of both
“mercenary” and “adventure,” appearing frequently in the titles of unrelated mercenary
narratives.18 The phrase “Have Gun, Will Travel” is a more subtle rhetorical marker of the
mercenary trade that recalls the moniker “hired gun” and is also used frequently in
mercenary-related contexts.
Soldier of Fortune (1954; 1955)
Ernest Kellogg Gann was a popular novelist and screenwriter in the mid-twentieth
century. Gann wrote narratives that featured an ensemble cast of characters, each with a
separate and interesting story, assembled in a crisis or “moment of truth” situation. In the
crucible of these crises, the character’s “true nature” shines through variously constructed
social facades. Gann’s novels and films promote the idea that certain points in life are all-
consuming and all-changing – that there are hinge moments where true character, true
motivations, true love, and destiny all collide. Between 1947 and 1964, Gann wrote eight
17 Ernest Kellogg Gann, Soldier of Fortune (New York: W. Sloane Associates, 1954); Edward Dmytryk, Soldier of Fortune (1955) (Twentieth Century-Fox, 1955), http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048640/; “Soldiers of Fortune (1955-1957)” (Syndicated, 1955), http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047773/; “Have Gun - Will Travel (1957-1963),” n.d., http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050025/; “Have Gun Will Travel - Radio (1958- 1960),” n.d., Internet Archive, http://www.archive.org/details/HaveGunWillTravel_OldTimeRadio; Noel Loomis, Have Gun, Will Travel (New York: Dell Publishing Company, 1960); Barlow Meyers, Have Gun, Will Travel: Authorized Edition featuring PALADIN of the CBS Television Programs (Racine, WI: Whitman, 1959); Frank G. Robertson, A Man Called Paladin, Paperback. (New York: Macfadden-Bartell, 1964); Grams and Rayburn, The Have Gun: Will Travel Companion. 18 A very brief list of mercenary-related cultural products featuring the title “soldier(s) of fortune” includes: Davis, Soldiers of Fortune; Davis, Real Soldiers of Fortune; Geraghty, Soldiers of Fortune; Krott, Save the Last Bullet for Yourself; Lanning, Mercenaries; Diana Palmer, Soldiers Of Fortune (Romance Series) (Buffalo, NY: Silhouette (eHarlequin), 2000).
155 popular novels and quickly adapted them into screenplays for major Hollywood studio projects, where the ensemble nature of his stories allowed for a mix of high-profile star
involvement. The films created from Gann’s novels starred luminaries such as John
Wayne, Clark Gable, Rock Hudson, Joan Collins, Glenn Ford, and Jane Russell, to name a few, guaranteeing the box-office popularity of the films and building a market for his subsequent novels.19 As a novelist and a screenwriter, Gann adapted his 1954 novel
Soldier of Fortune closely for the 1955 film, which starred Clark Gable as Hank Lee and
Susan Hayward as Jane Hoyt.20
Soldier of Fortune tells the story of Jane Hoyt’s quest in Hong Kong to find her
husband Louis, a photojournalist who snuck in to Communist China and was imprisoned for allegedly taking photos of Chinese military installations. Jane quickly exhausts the official diplomatic channels available to her as an average American; the American consul cannot help her because the American government does not officially recognize the
Communist Chinese government, and the British colonial authorities in Hong Kong are
unwilling to risk their fragile symbiosis with China for an imprisoned American.
Frustrated by the complications of official diplomatic routes, Jane turns to unofficial channels. She meets a host of nefarious characters in Hong Kong – former U.S. military
pilots turned drunken con artists, high-end call girls, misogynistic bar owners – who all turn
19 This impressive list of actors could also be influenced by the contemporary practice of Hollywood studio contracts. Rather than free agency or private agents representing actors, studios signed actors to multiple- film contracts, placing them in projects as they liked. It is possible that Gann’s ensemble style of storytelling created a less demanding main character, especially in terms of the time necessary to shoot a film, thus allowing actors to “anchor” films with a smaller time commitment. Regardless of the reason, having such big stars in these films would draw in viewers. For a full list of Gann’s screenwriting credits, see: “Ernest K. Gann,” n.d., http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0304418/. 20 Gann, Soldier of Fortune; Dmytryk, Soldier of Fortune (1955). Because Gann wrote the screenplay adaptation for the film, there is very little deviation from the novel. The only significant change is that Marty Gates, a former U.S. military pilot turned alcoholic con man, is reimagined in the film as a Frenchman, Rene Chevalier; other than the name and accent, though, Marty and Rene represent the same character, with the same dialogue and diagetic means and ends.
156 out to be harmless “local flavor” instead of powerful underworld figures. Throughout this
search, Jane is continuously directed to Hank Lee as the only person who might be able to
help her find her husband. Lee is an American with extensive underworld connections in
Hong Kong; he is suspected by the British authorities of being a gangster but is lauded by others as a sainted benefactor.
Hank is more than just an American ex-pat living in Hong Kong. While serving in
the Navy during World War II, his ship exploded and he was reported as dead, missing in
action, or deserted. Since he never reported back to the U.S. Navy, Hank is literally a man without a country. As a powerful figure in Hong Kong, Hank has both the means and the motivation to help Jane, unlike the low-level diplomats and shady characters that she had
previously approached for help and information. Hank falls in love with Jane, imagining
her as the final (maternal) figure that will mark the completion of his family and personal
empire, and he vows to help her be happy. Hank quickly finds out where Louis is being
held and mounts a three-man rescue team, sneaking into China and breaking Louis out of
prison just before his imminent execution by the Chinese. Knowing that Louis intends to
continue his adventuring, and that Hank wants to settle down, return to the U.S., and build
a family, Jane amicably ends her marriage with Louis, freeing her to marry Hank and
allowing everyone to live happily ever after.
Gann’s Soldier of Fortune can readily be defined a mature mercenary romance, one
that brings action and adventure to the standard tenets of the romance genre and the
(romantic) Hollywood blockbuster movie event.21 While the relationship between Hank
21 Much like Robert Clay and Hope Langham in Richard Harding Davis’ mercenary romance Soldiers of Fortune, as a couple Hank Lee and Jane Hoyt fit the romantic genre profile that Janice Radway delineates in Reading the Romance, with the addition of elements of action-adventure to interest male readers/viewers as well. Regarding the “blockbuster Hollywood event,” the DVD edition of Soldiers of Fortune released
157 and Jane is at the center of the narrative, the interactions of these Americans with characters of other nationalities and races is an important periphery within the narrative.
Hank and Jane’s ability to work with and around British, French, and Portuguese colonial authorities, Chinese communists, and Hong Kong natives showcases areas of both
American competence and American naivety on the world stage at this time.
Soldiers of Fortune (1955-57)
The second major source of mercenary narratives for this chapter is the syndicated action-adventure television series Soldiers of Fortune (1955-1957).22 First-run syndicated television series like Soldiers of Fortune operate much like a free-agent television series.
Episodes are produced independently from the network studio system, sold to local or
regional stations individually or in packages, and played as desired to fill air time. First-run
syndication was common in the early days of television, when regional stations and
affiliates controlled more of their own programming. Because of its free-agency status,
episodes of Soldiers of Fortune could have aired at different times on different channels in
different episode order in different regional television markets.23 Though it was popular
by Twentieth Century Fox includes a film trailer that features Ernest Gann sitting at his writing desk, interspersed with scenes from the film. In this trailer, Gann tells potential film viewers how pleased he is with the work and the money that Twentieth Century Fox have invested in bringing his story to life. He emphasizes that the studio spared no expense in the production, filming on location in Hong Kong to best capture the authentically exotic location and feel of the story. Janice A Radway, Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984); Dmytryk, Soldier of Fortune (1955), Special Features. 22 “Soldiers of Fortune (1955-1957).” Though their titles are nearly identical, the television series Soldiers of Fortune is completely separate from Gann’s novel and film Soldier of Fortune and from Richard Harding Davis’ novel Soldiers of Fortune. 23 Information for each episode can be found in multiple online archives, but the original air dates and episode order can differ because of the show’s status as syndicated. Episode numbers and dates for this project are taken from industry website The Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com) as the most reliable of these sites. For competing detailed episode overviews, see: “Soldiers of Fortune Episodes - Season 1-2,” n.d., http://www.tv.com/soldiers-of- fortune/show/22793/episode.html?season=All&tag=list_header;paginator;All; “Soldiers of Fortune
158 and enjoyed by contemporary television consumers, Soldiers of Fortune’s legacy does not
include widespread merchandising of the characters; the series produced little tangible material culture that could be collected and maintained by individuals into the twenty-first
century. Like much of the programming of early television, its legacy in cultural memory
is more ephemeral than canonized, but no less important when examining contemporary
televisual discourse of the 1950s.24
The main characters in Soldiers of Fortune, Tim Kelly and Toubo Smith, are a hard
working male buddy-duo making their way through action-packed adventures every week.
Tim Kelly is the younger, more attractive, unofficial leader of the two; with his dark hair,
strong upper body, and chiseled face, the actor who plays Tim (John Russell) has the ideal
masculine “look” of an all-American superhero. Toubo Smith (Chick Chandler) is older
than Tim, more “average” in appearance, and displays a sense of humor and irony
indicative of his role in the duo as the important sidekick. Toubo is slightly more skeptical,
less trusting, and is more likely than Tim to both rely on stereotypes and to cast those stereotypes aside in response to offers of money. Overall, Tim and Toubo are presented as
equal partners in a team, always agreeable with each other’s plans and decisions. Their
relationship does not change or evolve, and there is very little character development over the course of the series, primarily because they are always already a seamless and steady team. Tim and Toubo take jobs when and where they can, with no real sense of an agenda, a beginning, or an end to their mercenary lifestyles. They jump from working as
Episodes,” n.d., http://www.tvguide.com/tvshows/soldiers-fortune/episodes/204487; “Soldiers of Fortune - Episode list (1955-1957),” n.d., http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047773/episodes. 24 Television studios produce DVD collections of television series in order of profitability, from recent success series to older series that have a nostalgic draw for consumer. Like most early television series with ephemeral cultural legacies, at the time of this study there is not yet an officially released DVD collection of episodes of Soldiers of Fortune. However, various television and film archives have individual episodes available for limited viewing, and unofficial DVD collections of Soldiers of Fortune episodes are available for sale through online auctions and distribution channels.
159 bodyguards for doctors in the deep jungle of Africa to building canals in Central America
to confronting voodoo practitioners in the swamps of Louisiana to saving a kidnapped boy
from his cruel and superstitious Arabian father. Tim and Toubo live a nomadic lifestyle,
drifting through life, spending their money soon after making it, and taking jobs as they
come up, without a plan for building a future and without any obvious overarching
purpose.
Soldiers of Fortune shares characteristics with the short stories found in pulp fiction magazines, transferring a legacy of action, adventure, fantasy, and masculinity from the cheap, mass-market pulps to the small screen. Pulp magazines featured low-brow, sensational fiction, including hardboiled detectives, tales of the weird, and action adventure stories, printed on inexpensive, pulpy newsprint paper with racy covers and illustrations.
The pulps offered a distinctly cheap, tawdry, and thoroughly entertaining alternative from the stories found in “slicks” (shiny, well-funded, middle- or high-brow literary magazines), and were quite popular in the early half of the twentieth century with readers interested in mass market short fiction. Pulp fiction magazines often constructed an idealized version of working-poor heroic masculinity – an independent loner with no mouths to feed, no responsibilities or personal relationships that impinged on his ability to earn and spend his wages as he pleased (unlike the targeted readers), power and control over his own workload
(especially in the hard boiled detective fictions), and an ability to get information or power over others through physical superiority or simple, “streetwise” trickery. 25
Drawing on this tradition, Soldiers of Fortune is much like a pulp fiction magazine come to television. Both feature characters that are somehow flat and rich at the same time,
25 For more on depictions of masculinity in interwar pulp fiction magazines, see: Charity Fox, “Heroic but Flawed: Hardboiled Detective Fictions and the Rehabilitation of American Masculinity in the Interwar Period” (MLA Capstone, University of Pennsylvania, 2004).
160 in that they operate on stereotypes and bravado, using caricatures as shorthand to quickly explain situations and plots to readers/viewers, but become involved in an enormously wide variety of adventures. In terms of narrative, Soldiers of Fortune combines easily digested one-dimensional characters with plot lines that blend mystery, fantasy, and exoticism in an action-adventure package, filmed on studio sets as well as in outdoor locations. Because the show was sold in syndication, the characters were familiar, straightforward, and easily knowable. There is no explanation for why Tim and Toubo have chosen this lifestyle, no discussion of their backgrounds, past, or future, but none of these explanations are necessary. Instead, Soldiers of Fortune is decidedly focused on the present and overcoming only the dangers or problems at hand, a perfect focus for a show with no overarching story lines. Viewers could rely on familiar stereotypes and rhetoric to understand the show, knowing within a few lines of dialogue how to characterize the heroes, the clients, and the villains. The primary focus of the series was showcasing the resourcefulness, comfort, knowledge, and superiority of these two white American males as they face a multitude of exotic, unusual situations, and their habit of leaving things better off when they move to the next job.
Have Gun, Will Travel (1957-1963)
Airing on CBS from 1957 to 1963, the television series Have Gun, Will Travel provided a pseudo-historical representation of a mercenary figure that was culturally relevant in the late 1950s – the Western outlaw. In addition to the television series’ popularity (it shared top ratings with Gunsmoke for its duration), Have Gun, Will Travel spread into other areas of popular culture as well. A radio show based on the series
161 produced 106 episodes between 1958 and 1960. Some of the radio episodes were
adaptations of television episodes, but most were stories written especially for the radio. In
the early days of television, it was not unusual for a successful radio show to be
“reworked” into a television show (as happened with popular radio shows Amos ‘N Andy
and Fibber McGee and Molly), but with Have Gun, Will Travel, the sequence worked in
reverse – it was a successful television show first, and then it was spun off as a radio show.
Have Gun, Will Travel produced a wealth of merchandise and lasting material culture; fans
could purchase Paladin action figures, costumes, and countless other collectables, including
a “travel kit” featuring a set of Paladin’s business cards and a stick-on Paladin
moustache.26 The closing theme song, Ballad of Paladin by Johnny Western, topped the music charts at least three times.27 There were also three novelizations of Have Gun, Will
Travel copyrighted by CBS Studios: Have Gun, Will Travel: Authorized Edition featuring
PALADIN of the CBS Television Programs for young adult readers written by Barlow
Meyers (1959); and two novels aimed at the adult reader, Noel Loomis’ Have Gun, Will
Travel (1960) and Frank Robertson’s A Man Called Paladin (1963 hardcover, 1964
paperback).28
The main character of Have Gun, Will Travel was Paladin (Richard Boone), a rich,
educated, cultured bachelor and West Point graduate who lives in the expensive Hotel
26 For an exhaustive overview of Have Gun, Will Travel, its production, merchandise, interviews, and episode summaries, see: Grams and Rayburn, The Have Gun: Will Travel Companion. 27 Grams and Rayburn, The Have Gun: Will Travel Companion, 48-56; Johnny Western, Ballad of Paladin, n.d., http://www.hgwt.com/ballad.wav. 28 Robertson’s book is a novelization that combines several Have Gun, Will Travel episodes. Meyers and Loomis’ novels are original stories featuring the character Paladin and endorsed by CBS. Loomis’ Have Gun, Will Travel features a filibuster storyline: Paladin goes searching for a missing man, only to be kidnapped and forced to participate in a filibustering expedition in Sonora and other parts of Northern Mexico, recalling William Walker implicitly and explicitly within the narrative. Paladin being Paladin, of course, he eventually thwarts the corrupt leadership of the filibustering crew, frees his kidnapped client, and manages to help the townspeople who were victimized by the revolutionary stirrings. Meyers, Have Gun, Will Travel; Loomis, Have Gun, Will Travel; Robertson, A Man Called Paladin.
162 Carlton in San Francisco. When in San Francisco, Paladin wears his clothes in the latest
style (brocade vests, tailored pants and jackets, frilly shirts, bow ties, top hats); his hair is curly and perfectly styled; and he enjoys the finest food, wine, accommodations, culture, and female company available to a man of means. However, this dandy is actually a tough character who hires himself out as a gunslinger and protector to a deserving few. On the job or on the trail, Paladin wears a non-descript all-black outfit, black cowboy hat, and a set of hand-tooled black holsters that feature his signature symbol, a silver knight chess piece.
Despite the symbolism of the all-black outfit and his outward appearance as an outlaw gunfighter, the viewer knows that Paladin is really a heroic good guy; he is an independent individual whose high moral and ethical standards override others’ biases, judgments, and/or actions. Even when Paladin does something that viewers might be surprised by, in short order his reasoning is explained and his superiority – in knowledge, strategy, patience, and love – is reinstated.
Paladin is the most prolific and fascinating of the mercenary figures in this time
period. His name is important here – paladin refers to the famed twelve knights of
Charlemagne romances, marking the character as “a knight renowned for heroism and
chivalry.”29 Throughout the television series and novelizations, Paladin occupies a series
of seemingly contradictory positions: he quotes Shakespeare, Plato, and Dante while
fighting with guns or fists; he has equal knowledge of opera, chemistry, and animal
husbandry; he enjoys a good bath but can survive in the desert for days without water; and
so on. In the Hotel Carlton, Paladin has both a sumptuous lifestyle and a staff on hand to
keep his small entrepreneurial business running seamlessly. He is assisted by Hey Boy, a
29 “Paladin,” in Oxford English Dictionary, n.d., http://dictionary.oed.com.proxygw.wrlc.org/cgi/entry/50169459?single=1&query_type=word&queryword= paladin&first=1&max_to_show=10.
163 Chinese bellhop who acts as the gatekeeper to his time and as his personal valet.30 Hey
Boy brings Paladin daily newspapers from all over the Western territory; if Paladin finds a
story of someone he thinks would benefit from his help, he clips their story out of the
newspaper and sends it to them in the mail with his business card, a picture of a knight
chess piece with the words “Have Gun – Will Travel. Wire Paladin, San Francisco.” This
business model emphasizes Paladin’s status; he is educated and reads broadly, making a
point of knowing what is going on in the world, and he is famous enough to be known by
only one name in a large frontier city.
The opening title sequence of Have Gun, Will Travel is stark, thrilling, and rewrites
earlier vivid visual media traditions. In the first season’s opening credits, the television
screen is filled with a steady close-up shot of a man’s torso in profile, dressed all in black,
with the camera tightly focused on a solitary silver knight chess piece fastened to a black
leather revolver holster on the man’s right hip. Booming horns and drums play the martial
opening theme song. The camera zooms out slightly, widening the shot, and the man
removes the revolver from the holster, slowly pulls the hammer back, and aims the cocked
gun directly at the camera. The shot is framed so that the viewer is looking directly down
the barrel of the pistol as the music pauses, and s/he hears Paladin’s (Richard Boone’s)
voice utter the signature “threatening” line of that particular episode, such as:
I’d like you to take a look at this gun. The balance is excellent, this trigger responds to a pressure of one ounce. This gun was handcrafted to my specifications – and I rarely draw it unless I mean to use it.31
I’ve seen you lie, cheat, steal, and try murder. You’ve tried everything but begging. Now get down on your knees and beg.32
30 Later in the series, Hey Boy is replace for a short time by his sister, Hey Girl, who also acted as Paladin’s personal assistant while Kam Tong (the actor portraying Hey Boy) was filming another role. 31 Grams and Rayburn, The Have Gun: Will Travel Companion, 209; “Three Bells to Perdido,” DVD, Have Gun, Will Travel (CBS, September 14, 1957), http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0597682/.
164
Hospitality towards strangers is a western virtue. If you gentlemen don’t seem fit to practice it, you’ll force me to use this gun. 33
After the narration, the hand on the screen uncocks the hammer of the revolver, shifting it
away from the viewer’s gaze, and deliberately shoves the revolver back into the man’s
holster. The music swells and the camera zooms in again on the silver knight chess piece
as the titles appear on screen: “Richard Boone in” … “Have Gun” … “Will Travel.”34
Visually, this opening sequence is reminiscent of the ending scene of the 1903
Edison film The Great Train Robbery. Considered to be the first “western” film, The Great
Train Robbery ends with a shot of one of the robbers aiming a gun and “shooting” at the
camera (and thus shooting at the audience.)35 While Have Gun, Will Travel draws on the
visual trope of the gun pointing at the camera/audience, though, instead of shooting at the
viewer, Paladin re-holsters his gun, removing the immediate threat even while the memory
of the threat remains. The tone of Boone’s voiceover is a combination of threat, restraint,
and (at times) fatherly concern, so the audio both mitigates and enhances the combination
of discomfort, excitement, and protection that a viewer might experience from visually
looking directly into a revolver barrel. By drawing on the visual tradition of the western
outlaw, but restraining rather than shooting at the consumer, the opening credits of Have
32 Grams and Rayburn, The Have Gun: Will Travel Companion, 211; “The Great Mojave Chase,” DVD, Have Gun, Will Travel (CBS, September 28, 1957), http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0597607/. 33 “The Singer”; Grams and Rayburn, The Have Gun: Will Travel Companion, 230. 34 This sequence is consistent for the first season, and the same basic elements appear in subsequent seasons, sometimes in a different order, and sometimes without any narration. Beginning in Season 2, the opening shot sometimes began with a full-body profile shot of Paladin, zooming in to his holster and gun as he performs a “fast draw” on the camera, aims the pistol at the camera during the narration (when there was narration), and deliberately reholsters. 35 Edwin S. Porter, The Great Train Robbery (Internet Archive) (Thomas Edison Production Company, 1903), http://www.archive.org/details/Europeanposte-theGreatTrainrobbery912; “The Great Train Robbery / Thomas A. Edison, Inc. ; producer, Edwin S. Porter. (Library of Congress),” n.d., http://memory.loc.gov/cgi- bin/query/r?ammem/papr:@filreq(@field(NUMBER+@band(edmp+2443s3))+@field(COLLID+edison)).
165 Gun, Will Travel position Paladin as a man who might be perceived as an outlaw but who
has the restraint and character of a benevolent, paternalistic hero.
LOVE AND DANGER IN THE DOMESTIC SPHERE
Within these mercenary narratives, idealized versions of masculinity are tied to
location, place, and the ability to distinguish between appropriate displays of love, whereas
idealized versions of femininity are tied to the ability to deal with changes and threats in the
domestic sphere and to hold down the home front in times of crisis. In early Cold War
mercenary narratives, the lens of The Frontier is used to filter archetypes of masculine and
feminine performance. These mercenary figures engaged in three major types of
relationships directly affected by location: homosocial, heterosexual, and paternal
relationships. Homosocial relationships – the brotherly camaraderie of the battlefield –
take place out in the dangers of the larger world. Heterosexual relationships take place
only in the realm of a settled domestic sphere. The widest category is paternal
relationships, which bridge the battlefield and the domestic sphere. The paternal mercenary
engages in the dangerous, external world in order to protect the stasis of the domestic
sphere, by educating and righting “troubled” domestic spaces and by fiercely protecting
families and private property.
Homosocial love in these mercenary narratives stems from a sense of brotherly
camaraderie and a willingness to risk one’s life for a friend. This is not to be confused with
displays of homosexual love; while it is possible to read all narratives subversively, the mercenary narratives in the early Cold War actively resist ambiguous representations of sexuality. Instead, when representing male-male relationships, these narratives draw
166 heavily on the idea of combat camaraderie, repeatedly showing how the heat of battle
dissolves otherwise insurmountable interpersonal difficulties and creates lifelong bonds of
brotherhood. For example, in Gann’s Soldier of Fortune, Hank Lee, Louis Hoyt, and the
British soldier Captain Merryweather form a cohesive and successful pseudo-military team
during the naval battle that ensues after Hank and Merryweather extract Louis from the
Chinese prison. Their ability to form a cohesive team is even more remarkable due to their
difficult interpersonal relations: Hank and Louis are serious romantic rivals; Hank
kidnapped Merryweather and forced him to come along on the mission; and Merryweather
faces possible sanctions from his command if he provides Louis and Hank aid that runs
counter to the orders of the British colonial governments Despite these serious
interpersonal difficulties, the heat of battle shifts their personal priorities and builds a bond
between the three men that dissolves their animosity to one another. The heat of battle
provides a crucible that focuses alliances, politics and morals from shades of grey into stark relief. These combat connections and assumptions of brotherly love connected mercenary narratives in the early Cold War to the close ties of veterans’ associations, which were gaining social and political power in the post-war era.36
The television series Soldiers of Fortune provides a multitude of examples of
mercenaries’ homosocial bonding and brotherhood of the battlefield. Tim and Toubo
display a partnership that mirrors that of police, private detective, or other procedural
partnerships. They provide unquestioned support for each other in the field, and make
mutual decisions about jobs, pay, entertainment, etc. Because Soldiers of Fortune takes place entirely in the exotic places beyond the domestic home, the only relationship that
36 For more on the social power of veterans’ associations, see: Suzanne Mettler, Soldiers to Citizens: The G.I. Bill and the Making of the Greatest Generation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).
167 matters in this diagetic world is Tim and Toubo’s homosocial bond. Their friendship and
continued mercenary partnership is the only cohesive theme in the series; without Tim and
Toubo, there is no Soldiers of Fortune. There are also no examples of heterosexual love for
the main characters in this series. To be fair, there are expressions of heterosexual lust and
deep “appreciation” for women shared between Tim and Toubo (signifying their
heterosexuality), but because the series takes place entirely outside of the domestic sphere,
Tim and Toubo have neither the time nor the stability to forge lasting (or even temporary)
heterosexual relationships.37 Instead, their interactions with women are fleeting
heterosexual encounters, part of the paid deal between the mercenaries and their employers
(such as protecting a female client), or would be better characterized as an expressions of protective paternal love.
Heterosexual love in the domestic home for mercenary figures at this time is best
represented in the relationship between Jane and Hank in Gann’s Soldier of Fortune, a relationship forged around a dangerous, exotic, pseudo-domestic sphere that promises to blossom once Jane and Hank return to the United States and create their own, safe, shared domestic home and nuclear family. Jane is first introduced to the “nefarious” gangster
Hank Lee in his home through an interaction with his adopted Chinese son, Billy. Billy is dressed to the nines in a child-sized cowboy outfit, complete with chaps, neckerchief, and toy pistols. He quizzes Jane about her personal experiences with Indians and stagecoaches,
dubious about whether she is “really American” if she has not encountered these things or
at least thought about them as carefully as he has.
37 For similar reasons, Paladin also avoids long-term domestic situations and expressions of long-term heterosexual love in Have Gun, Will Travel.
168 Somehow, in the middle of exotic Hong Kong, Jane is placed in a very “American”
domestic scene, as Hank rounds up his adopted (Asian) children and puts them to bed
before returning to dine with her. Both Jane and Hank immediately (and privately) begin
imagining her as part of this ongoing domestic scene, Jane in terms of her own desire to
settle down and have children, and Hank in terms of having finally found the last piece of
his personal empire – a woman worthy of helping him run it. Musing about Jane and his
efforts to legitimize his grey-market business dealings the next morning, Hank determines that:
The Empire, the beginning Lee Empire, lacked one very important element. It was like trying to sail without a mast and the lack had disturbed him for a long time. He needed a woman – not just any woman who would, with softness, or with concern for herself, weaken the pattern. Hank Lee needed a woman who was more than a decoration, although she must be attractive enough to win friends in the new social world which was about to come. She had to be a lady. She must also like kids because for the next several years Billy and Lucy [Hank’s adopted children] were going to need a mother. But most of all she must have courage, real nerve to stick with a man who intended to be more than a two-bit king. And he thought, “The only woman I have ever met who seems to have all of these things is another man’s wife. She will never be taken, as I might capture a junk [ship]. She has to be won.”38
In this passage, Hank vows to win over Jane’s affections so that she will complete his
empire and life. He also describes the archetypal ideal performance of femininity in early
Cold War mercenary narratives, the good frontier wife: brave, strong, pretty enough, equal
parts independent and interdependent, and willing to support her mate through the arduous
task of building a personal empire. In contrast, the bad frontier wife in these narratives is
whiny, overly ambitious, controlling, clingy, and self-centered (especially when it comes to
her own beauty or career). Both are better than the other option for feminine performance
in these mercenary narratives – the femme fatale – as the bad frontier wife can at least be
38 Gann, Soldier of Fortune, 134.
169 educated into acceptability, but the good frontier wife is apparently a limited commodity
that must be won over by the mercenary when he is ready to trade adventure for
domesticity.
Gann’s Soldier of Fortune shows Jane as the ideal frontier wife without a real foil
character to represent the bad frontier wife.39 In Have Gun, Will Travel, on the other hand,
Paladin confronts both good and bad archetypes of frontier wifery throughout the series,
usually teaching the bad frontier wife (and her overly compliant husband) how to transform
their domestic life through a better version of feminine performance. These interactions in
other couples’ affairs represent as the first strand of paternal love found in 1950s mercenary narratives, where the mercenary figure acts as an educator and enforcer of traditional gender roles within the domestic sphere. The episode “The Bostonian” from the first season of Have Gun, Will Travel shows Paladin educating a young married couple on acceptable frontier gender roles.40 Paladin’s client Henry married actress Gloria against his
family’s wishes, and the couple chose to start their married life in the West after being
ostracized by Henry’s wealthy Boston family. Henry unknowingly bought a ranch out
from under another man and is suffering the consequences of his blunder socially and
economically, as the other area ranchers are trying to run him out of town.
Paladin delivers hard truths to the young couple about the tough adjustments they
will need to make to survive in their new environment. While teaching Henry to shoot a
pistol, Paladin laments, “Before you came west the most violent thing you were involved in
39 Nearly all of the prominent female characters in Gann’s Soldier of Fortune share traits worthy of the “good” frontier wife, including Maxine, an American-educated Chinese woman. Hank supported Maxine’s family business during a rough economic patch, and Maxine is deeply in love with Hank, but she is still very friendly and helpful to Jane. Jane’s main advantage over Maxine, and the reason why they are not in competition for Hank’s love, is that Jane is white. Mercenary figures in this historical moment did not participate in interracial coupling for long term relationships, only for short-term dalliances. 40 “The Bostonian,” Have Gun, Will Travel (CBS, February 1, 1958), http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0597584/.
170 was a pillow fight in a Harvard dorm room. It’s a different world out here.” Henry needs to discover his inner rugged masculinity in order to survive in the frontier and provide material comfort and security for his home. Paladin also delivers an ultimatum to Gloria: she needs to stop being demanding and start being a supportive rancher’s wife, as ideal frontier femininity expected women to be exceedingly competent homemakers and homesteaders content with ruling their own domestic sphere. Gloria balks and leaves
Henry and their home, intending to travel back East alone. As she walks into town, though, she is confronted and frightened by a host of lecherous men, the clear message being that she is only safe when at home on the ranch or accompanied by her husband. After she sees her husband fight one of the other ranchers in a downtown showdown, Gloria runs to
Henry, crying with apologies and begging him to let her to return to the ranch.
There is a similar paternal resetting of domestic gender roles in the very next
episode of Have Gun, Will Travel, “The Singer.”41 Paladin is hired by a ranch hand whose
fiancée, Faye, married his boss while he was away. Faye is now surrounded by armed
guards, and the ranch hand wants to know if she left him willingly or if she was forced into
the marriage and is being held prisoner. Paladin makes his way through the guards on duty, only to find Faye working with a vocal coach. He quickly discerns that she is a gold-digger determined to use a series of men in whatever way necessary to establish herself as a famous opera singer. To lay bare the real situation to the variously duped members of the love triangle, Paladin offers Faye a private audition with the Italian “Opera Manager” of the San Francisco Opera. After her audition, Faye receives a withering critique of her vocal abilities in Italian, a critique delivered by Paladin, who is “translating” for his friend the “opera manager,” an Italian man who is actually Paladin’s barber. After debunking
41 “The Singer.”
171 Faye’s hopes for an illustrious career as an opera singer, Paladin’s “translation” recommends that she gives up her striving for a career and accept her station in life as a rancher’s wife.
Because Faye is such an unpleasant character in the story, Paladin’s combination of trickery and harshness seems like just desserts, not like an oppressive squashing of hopes and dreams. The unruly women in these episodes are portrayed as unpleasant, unlikable, spoiled, selfish women, interested in their own desires and careers rather than in having children or making their husbands happy. In addition, their husbands are portrayed as soft and unmanly. Resetting gender roles to frontiersman and wife presents a return to traditional “frontier” gender roles under strictly gendered spheres of influence that
Theodore Roosevelt advocated in “The Strenuous Life.” These frontier wife archetypes would have resonated with the cultural adjustments deemed necessary in the post-WWII era, as women were pushed out of the workplace in favor of returning veterans and encouraged to take control of their domestic realm, as well as the burgeoning second wave feminist movement. By teaching the young couples how to perform idealized gender roles in this space of the “new frontier,” paternal Paladin resets their domestic situations – both their marriages and their relationships with their surrounding community – by resetting their gender performances.
In addition to educating and righting others’ troubled domestic partnerships,
Paladin also exercises paternal love as fierce protector of families and personal domestic homes. Barlow Meyers’ 1959 novel Have Gun, Will Travel was aimed at a young adult reading market, most likely written for boys from the late elementary school to late junior high ages. The story follows Paladin on a months-long chase to recover his friend Jose
172 Rincon’s four-year-old daughter, who has been kidnapped by Jack Bell, the head of a vast
network of outlaw organizations.42 Throughout Paladin’s long search, this novel transfers
repressed concerns about safety and security in the early Cold War to the Old West in fairly
direct ways to its juvenile audience.
At the beginning of the novel, a dying messenger leaves word with Paladin that he is needed at Jose Rincon’s Rancho de los Ojos, a beautiful, secluded ranch separated geographically from trouble on all sides. On his journey to the ranch, Paladin remembers advising Jose that he was not as safe as he liked to think:
[T]he old days are gone, Jose. Cutthroats and outlaws are taking over. Life is no longer pleasant in California. It’s dangerous and rough. The Ojos lies too close to the road on which these men travel, too close to the railroad…. [O]ne man [on guard] is not enough. You think you could fight off anyone who invaded, or that if you couldn’t, all of you could escape on the half dozen horses your Juan ties to the rail each morning…. You live here on your ranch and you don’t know what is going on outside it. This is a perfect setup for a robber’s roost. When someone finds it, it will be too late for you. What of the señora? The little Manuela?43
In his flashback, Paladin remembers advising Jose against his tendency toward
isolationism, to instead take proactive actions to secure his ranch. It is easy to extend
Paladin’s critique of the security situation on the Ojos to that of the United States in the
early Cold War. The relative geographical isolation of the United States, shielded by
oceans and friendly allies, is similar to that of the Ojos, as is its description as a beautiful
place that would inspire jealously among threatening “cutthroats” and “outlaws” – terms
easily swapped for “Russians” and “communists.” But isolation will not protect safety of
the family, personal property, or ensure domestic tranquility; instead, constant surveillance
of the “outside” world is necessary to prevent threats from breaching the geographic and
42 The typesetting of the text within Meyers’ novel separates Spanish words from the main text through the use of italics and Anglicizes spellings of the Rincon’s names. So, señora and Ojos are always presented as señora and Ojos, and José is always written as Jose. 43 Meyers, Have Gun, Will Travel, 17-8.
173 ideological borders between the home and the outside. The Rincons’ is a truly domestic
experience – the house is dominated by women (Señora Rincon, Manuela, and their
housekeeper Big Hannah) and by womanly men like Jose. Jose not only refused to
participate in the “outside” world, he was also unable to help his men fight off Jack Bell’s
gang because he was taking a bath during the attack, a sign of vulnerability and perhaps a
little vanity. Paladin the paternal mercenary figure becomes the best leader and enforcer
for this type of safety concern, as his life is a bridge between the dangerous outside and the
tranquil inside.
These narratives featured mercenary figures controlling gendered spheres of
influence around the home, presenting location as a factor in determining acceptable gender
performances and hierarchies. Ideal masculine performances expected men to differentiate
between situated circumstances, whether at home, at work, or in dangerous situations, and
change their behavior and expressions of masculinity appropriately. Ideal feminine
performances expected women to be exceedingly competent homemakers and
homesteaders content with ruling their own domestic sphere yet also brave enough to leave
the domestic sphere and take radical action to ensure the security of the husband and
continuity of the domestic sphere when necessary. These concerns about appropriate
displays of love in appropriate locations reflect concerns in the post-war era about the many permutations of place – including the tenuous safety of the home and family in a post- nuclear world as well as fluctuating social and cultural cues that affect standards of etiquette, appropriateness, and knowing when it is “your place” to act.
174 CLASS AND MASCULINITY: A RANGE OF VETERAN HEROES
The mercenary figures in these narratives span a range of educational and
experiential backgrounds and provide a range of ideal masculine performances for different levels of class and caste. These mercenaries all display elements of the Horatio Alger myth
– hard work leading to rewards, carefully honed abilities, rugged individualism, and entrepreneurial bootstrappyness – with variations for masculine performance at different class levels. Tim Kelly and Toubo Smith of Soldiers of Fortune represent working-poor men of adventure; Hank Lee of Gann’s Soldier of Fortune represents a self-made working man on the cusp of jumping to the leisured upper caste; and Paladin of Have Gun, Will
Travel represents a highly educated upper-caste gentleman who could live a lavish lifestyle, but instead chooses to remain connected to hard-working men and live a “strenuous life” worthy of Theodore Roosevelt. These class depictions indicate that there is a range of
“ideal” white masculinity available to mercenaries in different levels of social classes. This range of class-based masculinity indicates that, even while one can theoretically change one’s social class through hard work and good luck, proper training and particular backgrounds actually are important in the “classless” United States. While differences in education and background (when known) affect the mercenaries’ levels of security in business in these representations, these differences do not necessarily affect their levels of success in business. In mercenary narratives, much of that education is attained through military service. In relation to military service – officer, grunt, or unknown – post-war class categories are demonstrated to be malleable, reflecting narrative recognition of the transformative effects and social changes made possible in the 1950s by the G.I. Bill and its
175 rhetorics of class upheaval and shortcuts to a middle-class lifestyle in the early years of the
Cold War.
Unlike most other mercenary characters in this study, Tim and Toubo’s background
and training are not eventually made clear in the course of the television series Soldiers of
Fortune, so viewers do not know exactly where or how they learned their “trade.” Most
other mercenary figures learned their survival skills through official military training of
some sort, and the episodes indicate that Tim and Toubo also served in the military as well.
As a team, they have more than a passing comfort with ships, jeeps, weapons, field
medicine, and other areas that indicate they may have backgrounds in low-level enlisted
military positions, such as privates in the infantry or seamen in the navy (or even one in
each branch). They know people in many ports, and often reminisce with these friends
about past battles and cooperation on missions. Tim and Toubo use basic military strategies
when planning their missions – misdirection, flanking maneuvers, and ambushes – but also
tend to rely primarily on their fists to solve conflicts, fighting like prizefighters or pulp
fiction heroes, both genres that draw on traditions of proud blue-collar heroes.
Good-hearted and resourceful, Tim and Toubo are able to get into and out of scrapes regularly while saving those on their side, but while they are competent at short- term strategic mission planning, they are uninterested in or incapable of the kind of long-
term planning that other mercenary figures regularly engage in. Rather, they work hard in
order to play hard, quickly spend all of their money on intangibles like food and
entertainment, and then look around for another job. If they were not successful in their
drifting adventures, Tim and Toubo might have been the kinds of follower-mercenaries that
would follow the visionary directions and long-term strategic planning of someone like
176 William Walker. Leader-mercenary figures like William Walker, Robert Clay, and even
Paladin have wide knowledge bases acquired through methodical formal study, and have multi-layered characterizations as a result of this personal development. Tim and Toubo are more limited in their characterization. Their personal development is not the point of the episodes of the series; instead, they operate as interesting but one-dimensional characters, so that the series can showcase the exotic corners of the world and a pulp-fiction style version of the people who populate those corners. Especially when compared to
Paladin in Have Gun, Will Travel, Tim and Toubo represent an idealized working-poor version of the American mercenary figure in the 1950s.
On the opposite side of the class spectrum from Tim and Toubo, Paladin contradictorily represents a member of the educated, elite upper-caste who displays with a very particular kind of independent, rugged masculinity that is embedded in the mythical
American West. Of the mercenary figures in narratives produced in the early Cold War,
Paladin is by far the most educated, possessing copious book smarts, street smarts, and expertise in tactical and military training. He quotes Shakespeare and Plato, loves opera, speaks a multitude of languages, employs detailed scientific knowledge, and is a master of chess and strategy, all attributes that pepper his interactions with others as well as his threats of and applications of force. Paladin knows when to use the pen and when to use the sword to finish a job.
Bits of Paladin’s back-story emerge in glimpses over the long diagetic world of the franchise, encompassing the television series, radio show, and novelizations. As a West
Point graduate, he was an officer for the Union in the Civil War but volunteered to work as a military spy in the Confederate officer corps. His actions in the war lead to his parents’
177 death, so he set off to wander the west and search for the man who killed his father, making
his way as a gambler.44 To pay off his gambling debts, Paladin is forced to hunt down a
gunslinger named Smoke, who is the protector of a town that Paladin’s debt holder wants
to exploit. Smoke captures the gambler and holds him prisoner while reeducating him
about priorities and providing protection for the unfortunate in the West. Before he dies,
Smoke bestows the name “Paladin” on him as an inspiration to continue protecting the
weak and innocent.45
Paladin’s expansive and varied education allows him to be “the man who figure[s]
all the angles” and strategizes like a chess master.46 He is educated and independently
wealthy, but instead of relying on those attributes to secure his social standing, Paladin
chooses to live a “strenuous life” like the kind Theodore Roosevelt praised, a vigorous
lifestyle that garners him a very different sort of social standing. In the wild and wooly
West, Paladin gets respect first for being a gunslinger, a respect based on his reputation for
success and character rather than on his education or inherited wealth. Unlike Tim and
Toubo in Soldiers of Fortune, Paladin represents a professional benevolent force. He has a
clear business plan to find clients in need, he advertises, and he offers his services in a
methodical and organized fashion. And, because Paladin is not desperate for money or
work, he can be choosy in accepting jobs. He is only forced into a job in severe
44 Robertson, A Man Called Paladin, 29-32. 45 Paladin’s ordeal with Smoke is told in the episode “Genesis” of the television and radio series, as well as in Robertson’s novelization. Within his origin story in the novelization, Robertson gives Paladin a birth name of Clay Alexander and provides details beyond those found in the “Genesis” episode. Like many franchises that branch out into novelizations that expand the diagetic world, some fans reject Robertson’s details. (The Star Wars universe, and fans’ many debates about varying diagetic legitimacy of stories penned by George Lucas or put into feature films vs. any number of spin-off novels or fan fictions comes to mind as an apt comparison.) “Genesis,” Have Gun - Will Travel (CBS, September 15, 1962), http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0597521/; “Internet Archive”; Robertson, A Man Called Paladin; Grams and Rayburn, The Have Gun: Will Travel Companion. 46 Meyers, Have Gun, Will Travel, 20.
178 circumstances, such as being threatened with death. Under normal circumstances, Paladin can choose when to work, who to work for, and which jobs are best suited to his talents and influence. Have Gun, Will Travel demonstrates the important role that education and an upper-class station can play in securitizing a business venture. With his superior knowledge, patience, education, and security, Paladin can choose to be a benevolent force without resorting to desperate measures to survive, to get ahead, or move up the social ladder. Paladin gets to choose to lead a strenuous life for his own personal development, whereas Tim, Toubo, and Hank Lee need to lead strenuous lives to survive.
Where Tim and Toubo best represent the working-poor mercenary, and Paladin represents the upper-caste working-wealthy mercenary, the trans-class character in this period is best represented by Hank Lee in Gann’s Soldier of Fortune. Hank represents an aspirational “pulled up by his own bootstraps” type of former-working-poor masculinity.
He had served on a minesweeping boat in the Pacific theatre during World War II that hit a mine and exploded. Hank was listed as missing in action and assumed dead. Instead, stranded by the blast, Hank swam to the nearest island in the Pacific, befriended the locals, built himself a boat out of spare materials he gathered on the island, and sailed it as far as he could. Hank repeated this cycle, always building a bigger, more elaborate boat at each island, until he made it to Hong Kong, where he built a shipping and commerce empire through the same sort of determined, step-by-step processes of hard work, hard business, and pushing limits. Hank preferred to “stay dead” in the eyes of the official U.S. government because, in the United States, he had been an uneducated gravel truck driver doomed by his caste and lack of educational opportunities to a life of continuous hard work with no reward. But, in Hong Kong, Hank was able to overcome his past caste through
179 hard work and collect a mass of rewards in return. Outside of the U.S., Hank was able to capitalize on both his racial privilege and his lack of a country affiliation; in Hong Kong,
he was white but not British, American, or European, so he was able to conduct business
(black market, grey market, and legitimate) with the Chinese and all of the other colonials
from a position of authority without incurring any diplomatic difficulties.
For Hank Lee, serving in the military during World War II was both disappointing and liberating; he was assigned to low-level jobs that matched his low level of education and experience when he joined the service, but through the accident he was abandoned in a position from which he was able to build an empire. However, all of Hank’s self-making actions happen outside of the diagetic reach of the novel; readers meet him when he has attained wealth and notoriety but not an adequate level of personal financial security. Gann puts readers inside Hank’s head to explore his insecurity and fear of “falling over the cliff:”
Say a man got to be forty-five and there was still nothing substantial under his feet? Who was winning – time or the man? He might have a house, a wife and some kids. That was something, but the chances were the job he had would just about make ends meet. And so for the next fifteen years he sort of skated along the edge of a cliff all the time wondering when he might fall over it. No wonder he was tired when he got to be sixty-five. 47
For Hank, falling off the “cliff” represents loss of security, control, autonomy, wealth, and
his ability to provide for his family. Despite his material success in Hong Kong, Hank
knows that that his success is fragile, as is his position as a man without a country. Not
only is he insecure in his success, Hank is, in many ways, obsessed with his legacy. He has
built an empire through sometimes questionable means, and he wants to complete the
empire and his legacy through forming a stable, secure, and wealthy family with Jane and
his adopted children so that his lifetime of labor has not been in vain.
47 Gann, Soldier of Fortune, 120-1.
180 Hank Lee’s version of ideal working-middle masculinity is to gather and fulfill
responsibilities, particularly in the form of taking on dependents and “strays,” as seen in his
history of adopting orphaned children, providing seed money for local entrepreneurs, and
generally building an empire that stems from his leadership and success. Hank’s
motivations for taking care of strays are obscured throughout the text, but cumulatively they leave the reader with a distinct impression that Hank is like a mercenary version of a hooker with a heart of gold. He sees himself as an underdog who was accidentally given a chance to make something great with his life, so he strives to give others the break he never received. In terms of his adopted family and his business dependents, Hank intentionally
takes on the burden of providing for and protecting dependents, a notion of male
responsibility that connects back to Theodore Roosevelt advocating “keeping dependents”
as well as to definitions of upwardly mobile middle-class masculinity in the mid-twentieth
century. However, gathering this array of dependents makes the risk of performing
mercenary work too high. Unlike Tim and Toubo, who can enjoy their present adventures
without consideration for dependents, the past, or the future, Hank is ready to move from
the single, dependent-free mercenary lifestyle to a more traditionally accepted upper
middle-class lifestyle, to shift from the homosocial battlefield in the wider world to the
heterosexual domestic sphere so that he can fulfill his responsibilities.
These mercenary narratives represent a range of white masculinity where one’s type
and level of work affects levels of security but not the need for hard, strenuous work, making an argument that riskier work assignments should be undertaken by younger men
or those without families or dependents, so that the riskier strenuous work does not
jeopardize the stability of the family. Throughout these narratives, men were encouraged
181 to get their adventuring out of the way and establish some sort of steady business before
settling down and taking on the responsibilities of families, dependents, and providing
security for the domestic sphere.
REPRESENTING RACE: TOLERANCE AND ACQUIESCENCE, HAND IN HAND
“Domestic” here of course has multiple meanings, including both the domestic place of the home and the domestic place of the nation. Produced between the landmark
events of Brown v. Board of Education and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, early Cold War
mercenary narratives reflected changes in the race relations of the national domestic. In
this time period, changes in racial institutions and hierarchies were more dramatic and contentious than changes in gender and class hierarchies. Unlike the direct address of idealized gender and class performance, however, mercenary narratives of the 1950s generally shift “race issues” and representations of ideal racial performances away from interactions between whites and blacks and toward interactions between whites and Asians,
Mexicans, Native Americans, or tribal Africans, blending together all of the “othered” racial groups, into a white/other racial dichotomy.
Racial performances in these mercenary narratives were also filtered through the
rugged lens of the frontier, espousing racial tolerance as a way to ensure economic and
social progress in expanding the national domestic. Promoting racial tolerance is key, but
representing cooperation within and acquiescence to a regulated racial hierarchy seems to
be the main point. No matter what his race, if the racially othered character that the
mercenary figure is dealing with is agreeable and cooperative, then he is tolerated as part of
182 the “team.” If the other character is not cooperative, or if he works to undermine the
mercenary’s good work, then he is part of the enemy to be defeated.
Action adventure mercenary narratives featured a relative variety of racially
marked characters because of the exotic locations of mercenary narratives. Tim and Toubo
work throughout the Third World, Hank Lee’s empire is in Hong Kong, and Paladin roams
the old Wild West, all of which predisposes the characters to regular contact with non-
whites. But, this was also reflective of the larger role that the rest of the world had in
American popular culture in the wake of World War II and in the early stages of the Cold
War. The locations of the narratives mandate interracial contact, particularly because the
narratives take place “over there” – in geographical and temporal locations – instead of
“over here” in a place associated with the domestic sphere. Throughout these
representations of mercenary figures in the late 1950s, the white main characters interact
with people of other races and other beliefs on a regular basis to solve their (clients’)
problems. Within these narratives, there is a simplified dichotomy between “good” and
“bad” performances of racial roles and racial tolerance – with the “good” characters being
the ones that agree with, support, and respect the mercenary figure, and the “bad” ones
being everyone else.
In these particular sources, this division between good and bad racial performance includes white and non-white characters, indicating that people of all races can perform their race (and the privileges of their race) in good or bad ways. At this moment, performing good whiteness included being tolerant of others’ differences, indulgent of their shortcomings, and humoring and educating their fears with a paternal touch. Bad performances of whiteness included being violent, murderous, or openly racist and
183 exclusionary toward non-whites. For non-whites, good performances of race included respecting the accepted racial and social hierarchy, being supportive of the dominant groups’ plan, attempting to assimilate (when in the U.S.), and being cooperative and helpful to the mercenary figure. Bad performances of non-whiteness included being unhelpful, manipulative, contrary, disrespectful, violent, murderous, or openly racist – either up or down the scale of racial hierarchy.
In general, the mercenary figure in early Cold War narratives is a white male between 30-50 who has seen the world, has worked side-by-side with people of other races, has friends who are racial minorities, eschews violence based on racial discrimination, and protects minorities from violence against them. His whiteness gives the mercenary figure social and political capital that grants him power and protective duties within a benevolent, tolerance-based racial hierarchy. This dichotomy promotes a dual vision of prejudice/rejection and tolerance/acceptance as the main points in the scale of judging racial performance. Assigning good and bad was malleable and flexible, in that not all whites were good, and not all non-whites were bad. As long as a particular character is supporting or working within the mercenary’s version of the current racial hierarchy structure, s/he is considered “good.” This version of defining self/other is particularly shaped by the political, social, and cultural climate of the early Cold War, in that the definitions do not necessarily depend on identifying with others based on visual signifiers of race or group affiliation, but instead depend more on identifying unknowable and intangible signs that indicate similar ways of thinking through discerning others’ ideas through their actions.
184 Any problems associated with race or racism in these mercenary narratives tend to deal with difficulties between whites and members of Asian, Mexican, or Native American groups rather than difficulties between European-American whites and African-American blacks. By projecting the good/bad racial performance divide onto non-black characters, these representations can obliquely reflect legal and cultural changes in black-white racial relations of the 1950s without getting involved in the actual politics of segregation.
Though technically staying “apolitical” by not commenting directly on desegregation and changes in legal and social systems, these mercenary narratives broadcast the ideal racial performance as knowing and accepting one’s place in a racial hierarchy. Dividing racial performances into good and bad categories thus worked as a mechanism of control and mediation, as a way to simultaneously temper violent outbursts and promote acquiescence to already-accepted hierarchies.
Of the three major narrative sources for this chapter, the characters Tim Kelly and
Toubo Smith had the highest concentration of interaction with black characters in Soldiers of Fortune. However, there was little to no interaction in the narratives between these two white American mercenaries and any black Americans. Instead, they interacted with black actors presented as African “natives” or as part of isolated Third World Creole communities. This focused the narratives on primitivized depictions of blacks in uncivilized and exotic places rather than in interactions between black and white
Americans.
In the episode “Walk Wide of Lions,” Tim and Toubo are hired to escort a doctor and a missionary into an African jungle to tend to their friend, an ailing tribal chieftain who
185 is being poisoned by his rivals.48 In this episode, the black actors are clothed in elaborate
tribal costumes, complete with loincloths, feathers, necklaces of animal teeth, and painted
faces. These costumes emphasize the exotic nature of these tribal “others,” but they are
overtly non-specific and not connected to a particular part of Africa or any particular group
of people. Instead, their non-specific costuming and primitive presentation contribute to a
blending of tribal cultures across time and place. Visually, the African tribal costumes in
this episode are quite similar to costumes seen on Native American characters in popular
Westerns in the 1950s – face paint, scant coverings of furs and feathers, bare male chests –
clothing associated with “natives” of all kinds from the late 1800s.
This visual conflation blends associations of Africa and Africans in the 1950s with
the “noble savage” myth that had long pervaded the Western genre and interpretations of
Native American tribes. Particularly after the turn of the century, once the neutralization or eradication of Native Americans’ people, territory, and culture seemed assured, Western genre pieces began to portray Native Americans with a nostalgia that assigned nearly mythic powers of tragic nobility to the “good,” compliant Indians – the “noble savages” – and depths of inhumanity to the “bad” Indians. Visually and narratively conflating
Africans in a contemporary, 1950s setting with the noble savage mythos creates a nostalgic and condescending interpretation. Despite over a hundred years of colonial rule and frequent contact with the rest of the world, these narratives argue that black/Africans are still essentially pre-modern, living in countries full of noble but nonetheless savage peoples. Even as Africa itself was becoming a site of pride and hope for black Americans,
48 “Walk Wide of Lions,” DVD, Soldiers of Fortune (Syndicated, May 14, 1955), http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0704488/.
186 popular mercenary narratives still showed the continent in desperate need of the science, assistance, and miracles of modern, western civilization.49
To maintain the ideological incoherence necessary for popular television to avoid
offending anyone, these mercenary television series generally transferred debates about
segregation within the United States and the need for racial tolerance and acquiescence on
all sides away from the hot topic of white/black relations to a more general version of
white/other relations, very often using Mexicans, Asians, or “natives” as a replacement for
black and white racial interactions involving segregation. Have Gun, Will Travel is
especially adept at this transference, as the time shift to the mythic Old West increases the
ideological dissonance and creates opportunities to read messages about racial tolerance
back into the “grand” mythic history of Westward expansion.
In Myers’ Have Gun, Will Travel children’s novel, Paladin sends the Rincon family
to a local hotel to recover after they were held hostage by Jack Bell’s gang. Paladin then
clashes with the owner of the hotel, who refused to lodge the Rincons because they were
Mexican:
Paladin interrupted. “Jose Rincon was no ordinary Mexican, in case it matters, and the card he carried matched this one, in case you noticed.” He laid the HAVE GUN, WILL TRAVEL card on the desk. The proprietor leaned to look at it, and his astonished gaze lifted to meet Paladin’s cold stare. His mouth opened and closed as he sought a way out of what had now become a troublesome situation. “But, sir – Mr. Paladin – that other card – “ “Read exactly like this one. Jose Rincon is a well-known rancher and he was in trouble. He had two injured women in that wagon. Do you remember – or did you notice?” “But – Well, you know how it is out here, Mr. Paladin. So many Mexicans, and – well, I just told him we didn’t take Mexicans. How did I know he had money to pay for the rooms?” The hotelkeeper spread apologetic hands, although, as he spoke, his eyes kept evading Paladin’s level stare.
49 Meriwether, Proudly We Can Be Africans; Von Eschen, Race Against Empire.
187 “Jose Rincon has paid for whatever he got for years. However, since you doubt him – ” Paladin pulled several gold pieces from his pocket and laid them on the counter. He leaned across the desk and made the proprietor look him in the eye. “Now send somebody out to find them. Fast!” As the man’s gaze fell stubbornly before his and he did not make a move to obey the order, Paladin let his hand slide off the desk and down his side. The man backed away, nodding almost violently. “Yes, sir, Mr. Paladin. Right away!”50
To overturn the hotelkeeper’s segregationist-style exclusion of the Rincons, Paladin appeals first to his sense of community (the Rincons being well-known and in trouble); then to his moral stance of humanity (in that injured women should probably be cared for); and even to his greed (with the multiple gold coins); but all to no avail. The only argument that works is a threat of violence – Paladin sliding his hand off the desk and reaching for the gun strapped to his hip.
This threat of violence succeeds in overturning the hotelkeeper’s racial prejudice where reasoning and bribery failed, and contains an interesting set of priorities for Myers’ young readers. The context of this narrative argues that race alone is no longer a sufficient reason for exclusion; the hotelkeeper’s refusal to house the Rincons simply because they are Mexican violates Paladin’s standards of community, humanity, and capitalism. If the
Rincons themselves had somehow violated those standards – say, through a bad reputation or an inability to pay – then the hotelkeeper might have had a defensible argument for refusing them. But, without a socially appropriate reason for his exclusionary practices, the hotelkeeper is subject to Paladin’s violence if he does not choose to comply by including and tolerating the Rincon family.
Additionally, this conversation about inclusion and exclusion is happening between two white men while the Rincons wait on the outskirts of town. For Meyers’ young
50 Meyers, Have Gun, Will Travel, 70-71.
188 readers, this implies that the hotelkeeper’s exclusionary practices will only really change in
response to pressure from within the accepted (white) social and power structures. If Jose
had made a fuss, the hotelkeeper may well have shot him for being threatening, and done
so with legal backing. But, because he acquiesced to the hotelkeeper’s rules in the heat of
the moment rather than trying to force him to accept the Mexican family as equals, Jose
was able to have Paladin fight his battle against exclusion for him. In effect, this children’s
book presents a white mercenary as the best equipped figure to change local racial policies
on behalf of his minority friend, because he already operates within established institutions
of power and authority.
Paladin’s relationship with Hey Boy, the Chinese bellhop at the Hotel Carlton,
provides another complicated, nuanced view on interpersonal racial relations and
performances at this time. Hey Boy speaks in pigeon English but has a mastery of
American social conventions that allows him to anticipate Paladin’s needs and desires, making him the perfect right-hand man. His name co-opts traditional condescending racialized language; referring to a grown man as “boy” is meant to demean, dehumanize, and depersonalize any interpersonal interactions, and shouting “hey boy” could be especially sensitive in this moment in the Civil Rights movement.
However, instead of being offended, Hey Boy embraces his name as a sign of pride
in his position and a term of endearment from Paladin. He corrects white patrons in the
Hotel Carlton who “mispronounce” his name by saying, “My name Hey Boy, not hey
you!” When a potential client pushes him aside roughly and barges into Paladin’s rooms,
Hey Boy explains his inability to completely control access to Paladin by saying, “I told
189 him not to bother you, but him no understand English.”51 These lines are played for laughs, but they can easily be read as Hey Boy accepting his place in the racial and social hierarchy of 1870s San Francisco and flourishing as a result. He has assimilated as best he can and accepted a low-level job. His job may not lead to a stable, professional career, but it does provide him with the means to take care of his family and make friends in places of
power and influence. Hey Boy provides needed services to powerful white men and courts
their favor, which allows him to secure their help with any problems that he might face due to his lower position in racial and economic hierarchies.
On his part, Paladin treats Hey Boy as a benefactor might treat a beloved ward, and
he often refers to Hey Boy as his friend. The complications in this friendship are especially
apparent in the episode “Hey Boy’s Revenge,” in which Paladin prevents Hey Boy from
taking revenge on the railroad foreman who killed his brother after he spoke out about poor
working conditions for his fellow Chinese railroad workers.52 Paladin only becomes aware
of the problem when Hey Boy stops showing up for work at the Hotel Carlton. Paladin is
sorely irritated by Hey Boy’s disappearance from the Carlton – but it is unclear whether he
is only concerned about his friend or whether he is also annoyed at having things be less
convenient for him. Either way, Paladin’s concern contrasts greatly with the nonchalance
of the white hotel clerk, who remarks that there are plenty of Chinese men who can take
Hey Boy’s place as a bellhop and is amazed that Paladin gives the matter a second thought.
But, while all the Chinese bellhops might be interchangeable for the clerk, Hey Boy is after
all Paladin’s friend, which makes him not as easy to replace as any “regular” bellhop.
51 “The Singer.” 52 “Hey Boy's Revenge,” DVD, Have Gun, Will Travel (CBS, April 12, 1958), http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0597527/.
190 Paladin goes into Chinatown to talk to Hey Boy’s relatives, and the viewer quickly
discovers that Paladin can speak Chinese fluently, and read it fairly fluently – he reads
letters from Hey Boy’s brother, Kim Shan, only needing help with the colloquial aspects
from his sister, Kim Li. Apparently Paladin has known all along that Hey Boy’s real name
is Kim Chan. He speaks it first to the Chinese merchant that he knows is related to Hey
Boy: “Where is Hey Boy, er, Kim Chan?” However, Paladin does not use Hey Boy’s
given name in other episodes, or even use it consistently throughout this episode. He uses
“Kim Chan” when speaking about Hey Boy to others, but he uses “Hey Boy” when
speaking to Hey Boy. It lends a weird dynamic to their relationship, as if the words “hey
boy” are used in place of a diminutive like “little buddy.”
Taken out of the usual context of condescending, racially based usage, Paladin’s
use of “hey boy” becomes an indication that Hey Boy is special to him and a valued friend,
an indication expressed through the endearing use of an otherwise demeaning name.
However, their friendship is not based on equality – it is based on acquiescence to Paladin’s
will. Paladin is willing to risk his life to protect Hey Boy, yes, but Paladin is always in
charge, and Hey Boy always follows Paladin’s wishes. This mirrors the kind of ideal
protector/protectorate status that early Cold War foreign policy seemed to be aiming for in
secondary military and diplomatic ventures under the policies of containment.
However useful it may have been to translate desegregation politics to a different time period in Have Gun, Will Travel, this time and race shifting is highly problematic. It
superimposes emerging cultural attitudes about race into the frontier model of history,
revising and smoothing over historical realities of racial and other conflicts in American
history. Reading Paladin’s attitudes on race, tolerance, and acquiescence as the standard
191 ideological stance ascribed white male authority figures in the 1870s frontier changes the
historical record, as it obscures the many historical instances of intolerance and violence
based on race in American history. In terms of cultural memories, this diagetic shifting
wipes the historical slate clean of the blemishes that give weight to complaints about
structural and institutionalized racism. Additionally, conflating black, Native American,
Asian, and Mexican characters in a white/other dichotomy obscures the complex histories
and contributions of all these groups in the story of western conquest, and ignores the fact
that black Americans also played a crucial role in ranching, military operations, and other
efforts to conquer the west. 53
Promoting racial tolerance is a key concept within these fictional mercenary
representations, but representing cooperation in and acquiescence to a regulated racial
hierarchy seems to be the main point. No matter what h/her race, if the racially othered
character that the mercenary figure is dealing with is agreeable and cooperative, then s/he is
tolerated as part of the “team.” If the other character is not cooperative, or if s/he works to
undermine the mercenary’s good work, then s/he is part of the enemy to be defeated. Also,
in this moment, good performances of race primarily dealt with outward interactions in
public places. These “good” racial performance in mercenary narratives only required
53 For explorations of the mythos of the American West and contributions by other racial, ethnic, and gender groups, see also: William Cronon, Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England, 1st ed. (New York: Hill and Wang, 1983); Patricia Nelson Limerick, The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West, 1st ed. (New York: Norton, 1987); Patricia Nelson Limerick, Clyde A Milner, and Charles E Rankin, eds., Trails: Toward a New Western History (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1991); Slotkin, Regeneration Through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600-1860; Richard White, "It's Your Misfortune and None of My Own": A History of the American West, 1st ed. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991); Johnson, Black Masculinity and the Frontier Myth in American Literature; William Loren Katz, The Black West: A Documentary and Pictorial History of the African American Role in the Westward Expansion of the United States (New York: Harlem Moon/Broadway Books, 2005); C. Robert Haywood, “No less a man: Blacks in Cow Town Dodge City, 1876-1886,” in Racial Encounters in the Multi-Cultural West, ed. Gordon Morris Bakken and Brenda Farrington (New York: Garland Publishing, 2001).
192 politeness, outward signals of respect, and other surface and etiquette changes rather than structural or institutional changes.
BUILDING THE FRONTIER EMPIRE
The mercenary figures in these narratives offer consumers a way to make sense of
American empire in the early Cold War through metaphors for American styles of imperialism. Mercenary figures in the early cold War are single white men with no responsibilities, building private, miniature empires in liminal, frontier-like places where rules for interaction have not yet solidified. This world of the early Cold War translates culturally into a series of frontiers, where Turner’s view of American history as a conquering a series of frontiers becomes a precedent that assures contemporary success in taming and living with the wildness of the “frontiers” of the early Cold War period. In
Gann’s Soldier of Fortune, Hank Lee operates a successful (if marginally legal) business empire in post-war Hong Kong, poised between the British Empire and newly Communist
China half a world away; in Soldiers of Fortune Tim and Toubo travel throughout Africa,
South America, and other exotic areas of the Third World; and in Have Gun, Will Travel,
Paladin sells his services in the “golden age” of the American West as a frontier. These mercenaries are like the first wave of settlers presented in Turner’s thesis, the early settlers who build a life in an uncivilized location and impose the order that they wish on the land and the people in it in order to pave the way for later settlers, particularly women and families.
By framing certain locations – Asia, Africa, South America, and the “uncivilized” portions of the United States – as a continuation of The Frontier, these narratives in the
193 1950s used methods of othering to work out definitions of domestic and foreign in both the
private and public spheres. These mercenary narratives brought the adventures and
exploits of privately funded do-gooders working in faraway, Third World locations directly
into the living room of the domestic sphere, forging sentimental connections between the
cultural consumers/viewers and the narratives and characters they consumed. In the 1950s,
the reinvigoration of The Frontier had other implications for issues of control over
locations and social hierarchies because of whiteness and maleness. Traditional institutions
and hierarchies were being redefined in line with a time when blacks and women could not
vote, knew their place, and did not question authority.
When this cultural lens is applied to popular mercenary narratives of the early Cold
War, the mercenary figure’s work can be characterized as part of an “entrepreneurial spirit”
lauded as one of the top qualities praised by free-market democracy. When viewing
mercenary narratives through the lens of entrepreneurialism, Hank Lee’s successful
business ventures in Hong Kong do not have to be entirely legal in Gann’s Soldier of
Fortune; in fact, by flaunting the laws imposed by both Communist China and the British
Empire, Lee’s connections in the black market and grey markets emphasize his (American)
distain for both Communism and old European styles of imperialism. Likewise, Tim and
Toubo in Soldiers of Fortune do not need to follow a master plan to be considered successful businessmen; even in their nomadic patterns, they are able to find continuous work and exercise their own independence as adventurers because of their entrepreneurial spirit. And Paladin’s dual lifestyle in Have Gun, Will Travel – riches and comfort in San
Francisco’s Hotel Carlton, hardtack and stoicism on the trail – is made possible by his
recognition that helping others through hard work can be very profitable. These
194 mercenaries are successful entrepreneurial businessmen, willing to risk working with unfamiliar people in far-flung places to build their own private empires, helping others while also helping themselves.
In fact, Hank Lee, Tim Kelly and Toubo Smith, and Paladin can all be viewed as metaphors for the United States’ early Cold War imperial project writ small. They represent a particular path to achieving a Manifest Destiny as a benevolent superpower, a middle path combining containment, sentimentalism, and American Exceptionalism.
Interestingly, none of these mercenary figures have a fully known “past.” They have narrative origin points, but large parts of their personal and professional histories are blank, and those histories have little to no bearing on the present. This opens them only to judgment of the good deeds and good intentions being performed in the present. If any negative details of the figures’ histories do surface, the good, positive actions that these mercenary figures perform in the “present” – the span of the viewers’ knowledge of the diagetic world of the mercenary figure – rewrite and reinterpret those historical details in a teleological fashion. While the mercenary figure may have done something wrong in the past, those past decisions and their presumed consequences helped shape the figure currently performing “good” acts. This is similar to the hegemonic erasure of “bad” parts of American history, a practice that rhetorically and symbolically remembers the United
States as a historically blank slate and as a place with only good histories of freedom and justice for all.
In another parallel with U.S. imperial practices on the symbolic and rhetorical level, mercenary figures exhibit great timing. They appear on the scene at the very moment when needed, usually when the locals can no longer handle the threats to their stability, and they
195 leave as soon as the mission is complete and stability or stasis has been reinstated. As a
metaphor for imperial practices, this style of interventionist help seems ideal. It sidesteps
the destructive practices and pitfalls of colonization, occupation, or domination in favor of short-term help intended to restore a certain level of stability. Interventionism allows the mercenaries (and metaphorically, Americans in general) to float above the petty squabbles that lead to instability, swooping in only to restore things to how they were before, while also laying groundwork for interdependence and tolerance on both sides. This interdependence also often opens channels of friendly trading partnerships, trading channels that can open up paths for private corporations to handle any long-term colonization (cultural or economic), instead of the American government.
In these early Cold War mercenary narratives, the mercenary figures enter into
business partnerships that create a personal stake in someone else’s fight for the mercenary
figure; the money, land, or other reward promised to the mercenary at the completion of the
mission becomes a piece of the mercenary’s personal property. Within American
interpretations of natural law, each citizen has a personal right to life, liberty, and property
(as the pursuit of happiness), and a natural obligation to protect those rights. Under this
interpretation, then, the mercenary figures are justified in committing acts of violence
because they are protecting their property, interests, and business relationships. In all three
cases, the mercenary figures in these representations privatize the application of violence
and domination through their good business instincts, each building his own piece of the
American Dream through sentimental and entrepreneurial methods in the Frontier Empire.
In the early Cold War period, mercenary narratives captured excitement about new
frontiers and fear over threats to the domestic, whether those threats came from foreign
196 sources or as changes within the wider domestic landscape. Many of the idealized performances depicted in mercenary narratives center around appropriate social interactions in times of social, cultural, and geographic change. These representations of appropriate race, class, and gendered behavior bifurcated along a dichotomy of good and bad, with very little room in between, as performing race and gender in good or bad ways affected one’s standing in social and power hierarchies. The mercenary figure educated and enforced good racial and gendered performances, using a combination of sentimental bonds, compassion, and threats of violence to enforce these hierarchies and to “right” any problems they encountered in the domestic and foreign spheres.
By the later stages of the Cold War, however, this focus on the superiority of the domestic sphere had shifted with generational structures of feeling and historical events.
The “little buddy” aspect of containment foreign policy never worked according to the ideal plan – not in Korea, and definitely not in Vietnam. Military, political, and ideological losses in Vietnam combined with a larger crisis in American Exceptionalism in the middle and late stages of the Cold War. Instead of arguing the superiority of American domestic life, popular mercenary narratives in the late Cold War turned away from a focus on the domestic sphere, because the benevolent white male mercenary figure had lost his
“unquestioned” spot at the top of social hierarchies. In response to this loss of power, mercenary narratives in the 1980s shifted to focus on superior technology and the quest for an all-male, victorious homosocial battlefield.
197 CHAPTER 5
AT HOME IN THE BATTLEFIELD: MERCENARY NARRATIVES IN THE LATE COLD WAR – THE A-TEAM (1983-1987) AND AIRWOLF (1984-1986; 1987)
“What I can’t understand is why you all aren’t just living in Switzerland where it’s safe for you.” “We aren’t living in Switzerland, Miss Allen, because we aren’t Swiss…. We’re Americans. We have a little problem now, but we’ll work our way out of it somehow, some year. In the meantime, we stick together and do what we know best. If we help you, we need to know you’ll protect us – not sell us out. It’s hard enough the way it is, without more trouble.”1 - Amy Allen and Hannibal Smith, The A-Team (1984)
The next spike in the mass-media production and consumption of fictional
mercenary narratives came in the 1980s. In the twenty years between Have Gun, Will
Travel and The A-Team, U.S. involvement in the Cold War became very “hot,” with destructive “police actions” in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. In addition, real mercenaries
reappeared as players on the international scene for the first time in a century. They operated sporadically in decolonizing and post-colonial regions of the Third World, drawing international, legal, and cultural attention.2 The first “trade journal” supposedly
dedicated to mercenary work, Soldier of Fortune Magazine, was founded in 1975 and
featured articles about weaponry, international conflicts, and a “Guns for Hire” classified
1 Charles Heath, The A-Team 1: Based on the Sensational NBC Television Series (New York: Dell Publishing Company, 1984), 108. 2 One of the most famous situations involving mercenary armies in the 1960s was in the Congo, where the civil war was fought with mercenary support on both sides. The “democratic” side was staffed mostly by Europeans and led by Mike Hoare, an Irish mercenary and prolific memoirist, and the “communist” side was staffed mostly by Cubans and led by Che Guevara. For more on mercenary activity in Africa in the 1960s-70s, see also: Wilfred G Burchett, The Whores of War: Mercenaries Today (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977); Hoare, Congo Mercenary; Hoare, The Road to Kalamata; Hoare, Congo Warriors; Villafaña, Cold War in the Congo.
198 advertisement section.3 Fictional mercenary narratives could be found during the middle
stages of the Cold War in popular culture niches, but they were usually in violent forms
produced for targeted (adult) audiences.4 However, by the 1980s, fictional mercenary
narratives produced for a broad audience again appeared in prime-time television series.
These mercenary narratives produced for mass-media outlets were scrubbed clean of the excessive violence, sex, torture, and death found in more specialized media forms.
The mercenary narratives produced for network television series in the late Cold
War dealt with very similar issues as those produced in the early Cold War, but the
reactions to these issues within the narratives are very different. There are still deep
concerns about safety and security amidst threats from the outside – threats of nuclear war,
the hardened ideological battle between the Soviet Union and the United States, maintaining and expanding spheres of influence – as well as changing institutions and social hierarchies at home. Mass-media mercenary narratives in the late stages of the Cold
War were in conversation with the American “crisis of confidence” of the 1970s as well as the Reagan Revolution of the early 1980s. The “crisis of confidence” was a widespread
American malaise stemming from the social changes and failures of the 1960s and 1970s.
Economic crises and recessions had erased the steadiness of working-poor and working- middle unemployment, and the embarrassing losses of the Vietnam War had called into question U.S. military supremacy, masculine fighting abilities, and the United States’ ability to provide protection for all of its “little buddies” within the purview of paternalistic
3 After some of the “Guns for Hire” classified advertisements led to actual contract killings and wrongful death lawsuits in the late 1980s, Soldier of Fortune Magazine stopped running classified ads for mercenary work. For more, see: Ben Green, The Soldier of Fortune Murders: A True Story of Obsessive Love and Murder-For-Hire (New York: Dell, 1992); Clifford L. Linedecker, Gun for Hire: The Soldier of Fortune Killings (New York: Avon Books (Mm), 1992). 4 For more on mercenary narratives as a subgenre of violent warrior narratives, see also “Stories from the New War”: James William Gibson, Warrior Dreams: Paramilitary Culture in Post-Vietnam America (New York: Hill and Wang, 1994), pt. I.
199 containment foreign policy. While the Civil Rights and feminist movements had made
important legal progress, cultural and social equality still lagged behind. Social hierarchies
based on race and gender were not as clearly defined as they had been in the early Cold
War, but lingering differences were pushed behind a race/gender blind rhetoric and long
legal battles for small victories. In the social milieu of the early1980s, benevolent white
male patriarchy faced a shrinking sphere of influence for supremacy, power, and control
over all of those concerns.
In contrast, the mercenary’s power and control over others increased in the sphere of the battlefield. In late Cold War narratives, mercenaries retreat to the homosocial
battlefield writ large, assigning the heterosexual domestic sphere as a location that the
mercenary will protect but not participate in. These mercenary figures live pseudo-military
lifestyles, never far from a mission or a fight. However, as it was in the early stage of the
Cold War, “the family” remains an important organizing social unit. In the 1950s, the
“family” was involved in a push for a domestic home built around the heterosexual family
unit as a path to security, and in the 1980s, this “contained” family unit and home life still
remained an ideal representation to fulfill individual and group needs. To bridge this gap
of shunning the heterosexual domestic sphere yet still pushing for security within a
contained family unit, late Cold War mercenary characters construct contained pseudo-
families appropriate to the sphere of the battlefield: multi-faceted teams of men, desexed
women, and racialized “children,” organized in hierarchical pseudo-military patterns. The
mercenary figures’ construction and maintenance of these battlefield pseudo-families acted
as a metaphor for nation-building in the late Cold War.
200 These characters embody aspects of paramilitary patriotism to which previous generations of mercenary narratives had merely gestured. The characters in these narratives have been betrayed by their government on some level; they are haunted by that betrayal, but they still profess a deep patriotic love of their country and a deep sense of paternalistic responsibility to protect those who betrayed them. Dealing with diminished benevolent paternalistic power is pictured as a short-term problem for the mercenary figures in these narratives. Within these narratives dealing with betrayal, isolation, and retreating to the battlefield sphere, there is also a strong sense of underlying optimism, of regrouping and preparing for a return to (benevolent) dominance and security. Instead of fussing over such “little problems,” the late Cold War mercenary focuses on extending paternalistic protection to his responsibilities.
Late Cold War mercenary narratives featured characters balancing isolation and rejection from society with a deep nationalistic patriotism, tempering blows to American
Exceptionalism with their faith in the longer American project. Debates about American
Exceptionalism and Manifest Destiny were far from over, especially in the newly expressed, embraced, and forcefully extended strength of the Reagan Revolution. These narratives metaphorically highlighted paths for recovery and American Exceptionalism for both “regular” (white male) Americans and the nation as a whole from the crisis of confidence. By narratively cleaning up the leftover remnants of Vietnam and the various crises of confidence in the 1970s through a temporary retreat to the battlefield, mercenary narratives in the late Cold War demonstrated new ways to prove masculinity, competency, and superiority in local and international affairs and regain the spot at the top of social hierarchies.
201 HISTORICAL CONTEXT
The texts examined in this chapter were produced between 1983 and 1987. They
reflect the growth of Cold War tensions in the 1980s as well as with the crises of
confidence and American Exceptionalism of the 1970s. After the scare of the Cuban
Missile Crisis in the 1960s, the Cold War had been in various stages of détente during the
1970s. With decolonization and non-alignment movements in the Third World, there were
not always two clearly opposed sides to the Cold War, an obfuscation that prompted the
U.S. and the U.S.S.R. to sign arms control treaties and agreements on halting nuclear
proliferation.
The faith of American Exceptionalism took a number of blows in the 1970s.5 The
energy crisis of 1973 laid bare an American dependence on oil from foreign-controlled areas, oil that could become instantly scarce at the whim of OPEC. President Nixon resigned in 1974 after his administration was disgraced in the Watergate scandal; his misconduct raised suspicion of government leaders in areas where there had been little doubt before. American involvement in the Vietnam War was a contentious and difficult issue at home and abroad. United States military forces backed out of Vietnam in disgrace after the Fall of Saigon in 1975, breaking promises and leaving behind allies. The domestic economy was in recession, with stagnant growth amid rampant inflation, or stagflation.
Within American society, feminist and civil rights activists vocally pushed for legal and
5 For more detailed histories of the 1970s and 1980s, see: John Ehrman, The Eighties: America in the Age of Reagan (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005); Bruce J. Schulman, The Seventies: The Great Shift in American Culture, Society, and Politics (New York: Free Press, 2001); Gilbert T. Sewall, The Eighties: A Reader (New York: Da Capo Press, 1998); Bruce J. Schulman and Julian E. Zelizer, eds., Rightward Bound: Making America Conservative in the 1970s (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2008); John Mack Faragher et al., Out of Many, TLC Volume II, Revised Printing, 4th ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2005), 30; Daniel Horowitz, Jimmy Carter and the Energy Crisis of the 1970s: The "Crisis of Confidence" Speech of July 15, 1979, 1st ed. (New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2004); Gil Troy, Morning in America: How Ronald Reagan Invented the 1980's (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 2007).
202 political enforcement of the Civil Right Act of 1964 and other codified anti-discrimination
laws. Each step toward equality under the law represented hard-fought legal and cultural
battles and hardened beliefs on all sides.
In July 1979, President Carter spoke directly to the sense of “malaise” in American
society.6 Carter explicitly asked Americans to recognize that the nation was undergoing a
“crisis of confidence” that was sowing discord, doubt, and affecting the unity of
Americans. He urged conservation and moderation instead of indulgent and conspicuous consumption as a way to weather the energy crisis and shore up national security and unity.
It was a difficult sell.
The détente phase of the cold War came to a close in 1979 as well, with overt and
covert hostilities resuming with actions such as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the
Iranian Revolution. The Iran Hostage Crisis that began in November 1979 seemed to be the
final nail in the coffin of American Exceptionalism; not only were Americans captured by
revolutionaries in the overthrow of the American-backed Shah, but the rescue mission
mounted by the U.S. military in early 1980 failed miserably. Military prowess seemed to
be gone, and expressing patriotism through mass consumption – dogmatic to civil religion
since the end of WWII – had been officially discouraged. Women and minorities were
changing social institutions at home, while Americans were in danger in many parts of the
world, and the Soviet Union appeared to be “winning” the Cold War.
The neoconservative reaction to this crisis of confidence was the Reagan
Revolution, a conservative turn in American politics that reflected both a shift in demographics in the U.S. (as whites and the wealthy moved to the suburbs, the south, and
6 For more on Carter’s “crisis of confidence” speech, see also: Carter, “Crisis of Confidence”; Horowitz, Jimmy Carter and the Energy Crisis of the 1970s; PBS Video, “American Experience: Jimmy Carter.”
203 the west, thus shifting political control away from previous strongholds of the urban north
and east) and a shift in political rhetoric that aimed to “get back” the power and dominance
of “real” Americans. Ronald Reagan’s election as president in 1980 marked the power of
the suburban demographic, the end of the Great Society with the collapse of New Deal political alliances, and a renewed commitment to hawkish foreign policy. Reagan and other neoconservatives pushed for an end to détente, labeling it a weak strategy of appeasing enemies. Instead, they advocated for a stronger, more militant stance and unilateral U.S. movement against small communist countries (particularly those in Latin
America). Reagan reversed previous rhetorical gestures of détente through his belligerent rhetorical attacks on the Soviet Union, labeling it an “evil empire” destined for the “ash heap of history.” Under Reagan, tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union were at the highest point they had been since the nuclear crises of the early 1960s.
Reagan and his supporters popularized the idea that big government was getting in
the way of private investment and private sector growth, so they concentrated on supply-
side trickle-down economics and tax cuts as the way out of the recession and malaise of the
1970s. Massive increases in defense and military spending and programs like the Strategic
Missile Defense (“Star Wars”) announced in 1983 added a newly urgent technological
arms race to growing Cold War tensions. Much of that increased military spending was
spent on supporting and pursuing “low-intensity conflicts” that, unlike full-scale conflicts
like the Vietnam War, used smaller numbers of highly trained military personnel, often
working secretively, such as in covert “black ops” situations.7
7 Examples of low-intensity conflicts under Reagan include: training and supplying counterinsurgencies and freedom fighters such as the mujahdeen fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan; Operation Urgent Fury – the invasion of Granada from October-December 1983; Operation El Dorado Canyon – the 1986 aerial bombing of Libya in response to an attack on a German nightclub; the Iran-Contra affair exposed in 1986 –
204 In popular culture of the 1980s, narratives about defeating the crisis of confidence and praising the militarism of the Reagan Revolution were often framed within the context of a crisis of (white) masculinity and a quest to reclaim lost power and status. James
William Gibson identified a mythic paramilitary warrior response found on the fringes of popular culture. In Warrior Dreams: Paramilitary Culture in Post-Vietnam America,
Gibson argues that perceptions of post-Vietnam social crises of race, sex, economics, and personal and national failure had severe consequences for white American men, whose cultural and imaginary responses constituted fantasies of a “New War.” In the New War fantasies, traditional “heroic American warriors of legend” could be “unleashed… [to] do what was necessary to win victory and thus affirm the fundamental truths of America’s virtue and martial prowess.”8 In response to crises of masculinity, New War cultural products provided narratives of psychological retreat to an archaic paramilitary warrior mythos as a way to fight and “right” all the wrongs that consumers of the products felt.
As a genre, these fantasies feature a violent male warrior isolated from interpersonal contact and deprived of love, stability, and family. Freed of any responsibility other than destroying the current (corrupt) world order, the warrior regresses to a state of infantile rage that enhances his ability to continue fighting without regard for anything outside his mission. Women of “all” types in New War fantasies – with “all” types being either mother/sister/virgin figures or sadistic femme fatales – cause weakness in the warrior and are quickly eliminated. Enemies are ideological others, with New War fantasies employing only a “diffuse” racism; “in the telling of the tale, it emerges that most
in which U.S. officials sold arms to Iran to try to free hostages in Lebanon, and funneled the money into supporting right-wing militia Contra’s attempts to overthrow communist leaders in Nicaragua; and others in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. 8 Gibson, Warrior Dreams, 27.
205 of the enemies are not white. Hence the heroes fight drug dealers [or other enemies] who
just happen to be black.”9 These New War fantasies were not packaged for wide consumption; their narratives provide extremely graphic and violent “ways of arguing about what is wrong with the modern world and what needs to be done to make society
well again,” which usually entails apocalyptic destruction of the world order.10
While much of Gibson’s New War fantasies stayed on the fringes of popular
culture, the gendered language that “softness” will lead to tragedy and unhappiness and
“hardness” will lead to strength and success pervaded more mainstream popular culture. In
Hard Bodies: Hollywood Masculinity in the Reagan Era, Susan Jeffords examines the
interconnections between political rhetoric and policies and popular culture depictions of
masculine, heroic, individualized white men.11 Jeffords notes the gendered language used
by Carter’s critics, who heaped all of the failures of the presidential administrations from
Kennedy to Ford on him in order to bolster Reagan’s rising sun. Carter’s critics
characterized him in feminized terms – soft, mushy, gentle, paralyzed (i.e. castrated),
wavering, uncertain – as opposed to the ideal masculinized presidential traits attributed to
Reagan – steely, strong, willful, aggressive, decisive, domineering. These hypermasculine
traits attributed to Reagan were embodied in the indestructible heroes of Hollywood action-
adventure films of the 1980s, including the Rambo, Rocky, Terminator, Die Hard, and
Indiana Jones franchises. Throughout their depictions of invincibility and resistance to injury, these popular culture products argued for “a rearticulation of masculine strength and
9 Emphasis added. Ibid., 72-73. 10 Gibson, Warrior Dreams: Paramilitary Culture in Post-Vietnam America, 13. 11 Susan Jeffords, Hard Bodies: Hollywood Masculinity in the Reagan Era (New Brunswick, N.J: Rutgers University Press, 1994).
206 power through internal, personal, and family-oriented values.”12 These Hollywood action- adventure films were R-rated, so had a somewhat limited target audience. But, as these
“hard body” products moved toward mainstream popular culture, they combined a watered- down version of New War warrior mythos within the context of domestic regimes and social values centered on fatherhood.13
We can see combinations of elements of New War fantasies, hard bodies, and family-oriented values in mercenary narratives in the mass-mediated, family-appropriate forms produced for network television series of the 1980s. By the 1980s, Television (the
entity encompassing the industry, programming, and television’s role in popular culture
and discourse) had matured considerably from its experimental first steps, becoming a consistent force in American culture.14 There were three major broadcast television networks in the 1980s – ABC, CBS, and NBC – that provided programming through a series of local affiliates.15 Within this state of the industry, the free broadcast prime-time
programming of the three major networks provided the main choices for television viewers
12 Ibid., 13. 13 Ibid. 14 For more on the evolution of television as an industry and as a cultural force, see also: Aniko Bodroghkozy, Groove Tube: Sixties Television and the Youth Rebellion, Console-ing passions (Durham [N.C.]: Duke University Press, 2001); Douglas, Where the Girls Are; Jane Feuer, Seeing Through the Eighties: Television and Reaganism, Console-ing passions (Durham: Duke University Press, 1995); Haralovich and Rabinovitz, Television, History, and American Culture; Marsha Kinder, Kids' Media Culture, Console-ing passions (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999); Elana Levine, Wallowing in Sex: The New Sexual Culture of 1970s American Television, Console-ing passions (Durham: Duke University Press, 2007); Anna McCarthy, Ambient Television: Visual Culture and Public Space, Console-ing passions (Durham [N.C.]: Duke University Press, 2001); Torres, Living Color; Williams, Television; Williams, Raymond Williams on Television; James L Baughman, Same Time, Same Station: Creating American Television, 1948-1961 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007); Dana A Heller, ed., The Great American Makeover: Television, History, Nation, 1st ed. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006); Helen Wheatley, ed., Re-Viewing Television History: Critical Issues in Television Historiography (London: I.B. Tauris, 2007); Derek Kompare, Rerun Nation: How Repeats Invented American Television (New York: Routledge, 2005). 15 The Fox Broadcasting Company did not launch their television network until 1986, and cable, which began in the 1970s as a subscription service for wider television choices, was just beginning to offer 24 hour programming and original programming in the early 1980s. For example, HBO first began offering 24 hour cable programming in late 1981.
207 in the early-mid 1980s. As prime-time series on major networks, The A-Team and Airwolf
represent two series out of a limited set of television viewing options – a wider and more
generically settled set of options than those available in the 1950s, but a much smaller set
of options than that presented in the plethora of niche series and boutique cable channels
offered through cable and satellite in the 2000s.16
In Seeing Through the Eighties: Television and Reaganism, Jane Feuer argues that
“television and Reaganism formed mutually reinforcing and interpenetrating imaginary
worlds,” as network television programming was full of programs “used [by audiences] to
avoid dealing with the economic and social realities of the times…[as well as] a
contradiction in Reaganite ideology … ‘a curious mix of populism and elitism.’”17 As a medium, television was more feminized, more domestically-oriented, and more ideologically incoherent than film in the 1980s. Feuer sees television in the 1980s as a postmodern art form, where “its postmodernity correlates to the development of the
Reaganite cultural formation, while its specific ‘artistic’ products can be viewed as symptomatic of that formation, yet at the same time critical of it… [a] ‘complicitous critique’ [that] now reemerges as a characteristic of certain forms of so-called neoconservative culture.”18 Feuer sees serial (melo)dramas like Dynasty and yuppie
16 For more on the growth of the cable industry and its effects on broadcast television networks, see also: Gary R Edgerton and Jeffrey P Jones, eds., The Essential HBO Reader, Essential readers in contemporary media and culture (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2008); Marc Leverette, Brian L Ott, and Cara Louise Buckley, eds., It's Not TV: Watching HBO in the Post-Television Era (New York: Routledge, 2008); Megan Gwynne Mullen, Television in the Multichannel Age: A Brief History of Cable Television (Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub, 2008); Patrick Parsons, Blue Skies: A History of Cable Television (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2008); Lynn Spigel and Jan Olsson, eds., Television After TV: Essays on a Medium in Transition, Console-ing passions (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004). 17 Emphasis in original. Jane Feuer, Seeing Through the Eighties: Television and Reaganism, Console-ing passions (Durham: Duke University Press, 1995), 12. 18 Ibid., 7.
208 spectacles like thirtysomething as offering complicitous cultural critique of Reaganism
through this curious mix of populism and elitism.
Recognizing the importance of melodrama and conspicuous consumption in 1980s
television programming adds interpretive nuance to understandings of action-adventure
mercenary narratives on television. The same melodramatic, soap-operatic qualities that
made Dynasty and thirtysomething popular pervaded action-adventure dramas as well. The
plot scenarios and twists of The A-Team and Airwolf are just as outrageous and
unbelievable as soap opera melodrama, especially when boiled down to a one-sentence plot
summary. Yet, somehow, the characters and narratives are no less compelling when
followed over the course of a long television season. This incorporation of absurdity into
the “realist” action-adventure series enhances the fictionality of the “imagined worlds” so
important to both television and Reaganism in the 1980s.
There were a number of action-adventure television programs in the 1980s with
characters that could potentially be seen as mercenary or “mercenary-light” figures. These
characters run a fluid gamut from private investigators,19 privately funded vigilantes or
investigators,20 superhero vigilantes,21 to government-issued espionage,22 all in addition to
a bevy of standard police procedural dramas. For the purposes of this chapter, I will focus
19 Examples of 1980s prime-time network television series featuring private investigators include: Hart to Hart; Magnum, P.I.; Simon and Simon; The Fall Guy; Remington Steele; Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer; Riptide; Crazy Like a Fox; The Equalizer; and Spenser: For Hire. Details for all series available through The Internet Movie Database at: www.imdb.com. 20 Examples of 1980s prime-time network television series featuring privately funded vigilante investigators include: Knight Rider; Hardcastle and McCormick; Matt Houston; MacGuyver; Stingray; J.J. Starbuck; and Knightwatch. Details for all series available through The Internet Movie Database at: www.imdb.com. 21 Examples of 1980s prime-time network television series featuring vigilantes or investigators with super- human powers include: The Greatest American Hero; The Incredible Hulk; Manimal; and Highway to Heaven. Details for all series available through The Internet Movie Database at: www.imdb.com. 22 Examples of 1980s prime-time network television series featuring government-sponsored espionage include: Scarecrow and Mrs. King; Cover Up; and Mission: Impossible. Details for all series available through The Internet Movie Database at: www.imdb.com.
209 on television series that featured characters explicitly identified as mercenaries.
Specifically, I focus on characters in realist narratives who are veterans with specialized military training and who trade potentially violent services for personal or monetary gain
while working entirely outside of regular government or authoritative channels.23
The television mercenary figure in this historical moment offers a combination of
serious, isolated, and alienated warrior figures in primarily homosocial, battlefield
situations where they are disadvantaged by the current (governmental) order. Their bodies
and their weapons – both the weapons they create and utilize as well as their ability to use
strategy and mental acuity as a weapon – are invincible, unstoppable, and hardened.
Within the homosocial warrior groups, overlapping layers of fatherhood and brotherhood
abound; and all of these missions take place in entertaining, compelling, and melodramatic narratives.
SOURCE SUMMARIES
The A-Team and Airwolf were produced by Universal Television, the television
branch of Universal Studios, and aired in prominent prime-time time slots on NBC and
CBS, respectively. The A-Team and Airwolf are both hour-long action-adventure dramas
23 The series Magnum, P.I., Simon and Simon, and Riptide could probably be considered “mercenary-light” programs, because they emphasize the characters’ status as veterans who trade (potentially violent) investigative and protection services for money. The strongest case for inclusion under the benevolent mercenary term could be made for Thomas Magnum on Magnum, P.I. However, the characters in these series are private investigators that are either implicitly or explicitly licensed by the government to conduct a private investigation business and, to varying degrees, who work with local police and government officials to solve cases. Similarly, Angus MacGuyver of MacGuyver might at first seem an ideal candidate for inclusion as a benevolent mercenary. However, that character is a trained scientist who gathers intelligence and a dedicated pacifist who avoids guns and weaponry, not a trained military operative who trades potentially violent services for personal gain.
210 featuring Vietnam veterans as the main characters.24 Both series had extended, overarching story arcs that provided the basic logic for the series’ narratives, but were mostly episodic in nature. Each episode had a self-contained story that followed a
“mission” arc: problem presentation, negotiation, preparation, mission execution, resolution. Interestingly, both series faltered in their ratings in their penultimate seasons, and both series turned to a resolution of the overarching story arc in the beginning of the final season in less-than-successful attempts to “reboot” the series’ narratives and regain audiences.
The A-Team (1983-1987)
The four main characters in The A-Team were members of an Army Special Forces unit during the Vietnam War. The voiceover in the show’s opening credits explains their special situation:
In 1972,25 a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire... The A-Team. 26
24 Magnum, P.I. (1980-1988) was the first television show to feature a Vietnam veteran as the main character in the show. Also popular was Simon and Simon (1981-1989), a show about private investigator duo composed of two brothers, one a Vietnam draftee and the other a college-educated anti-war protestor. I consider both Magnum, P.I. and Simon and Simon to be “mercenary-light” television series; with their private investigator and veteran themes, both series share common mercenary elements with The A-Team and Airwolf as well as shared elements with police procedurals and detective fictions in general. For more, see: “Magnum, P.I. (1980-1988),” DVD, Magnum, P.I. (Universal Television: CBS, n.d.), http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080240/; “Magnum P.I. - Hulu,” n.d., http://www.hulu.com/magnum-pi; “Simon & Simon (1981-1989),” DVD, Simon and Simon (Universal Television: CBS, n.d.), http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081930/; “Simon & Simon - Hulu,” n.d., http://www.hulu.com/simon-and- simon. 25 For the first season, the opening credits began with the phrase “Ten years ago,” which was replaced by “In 1972” for Seasons 2-4. Mirroring the changes to the overarching story arc in Season 5, the voiceover was eliminated in the final season and the theme music was “updated” with a more synthetic sound (electric drums, synthesizers, and a slightly New-Wave-ish take on the martial theme) that was trendy in popular music at the time. 26 All five seasons of The A-Team are available on DVD from Universal Studios. All episodes are also currently available on Hulu.com for free internet streaming: “The A-Team - Hulu,” Hulu.com, n.d., http://www.hulu.com/the-a-team.
211
The opening statement explains both the overarching story arc of the entire series and
provides a preview of the structure of the episodic stories – the members of the A-Team are talented, resourceful, helpful members of the Los Angeles underground community. They
use their specialized military training to help the downtrodden, and while they are
technically on the wrong side of a dispute with the government, they are innocent of
committing any real crimes.
The core members of the A-Team, in order of military rank, are: Colonel John
“Hannibal” Smith (George Peppard), the roguishly handsome, white-haired team leader whose outrageous strategic plans always somehow work out; Captain H.M. “Howling
Mad” Murdock (Dwight Schultz), a mild-to-moderately insane (but likely just brilliantly
manipulative) ace pilot who “cracked up” after his time in Vietnam and resides under lax
security in the Los Angeles Veterans Administration Psychiatric Hospital; Lieutenant
Templeton “Faceman” Peck (Dirk Benedict), the smooth, attractive, wily acquisitions
officer capable of obtaining any materials the team may need; and Sergeant Bosco “B.A”
“Bad Attitude” Baracus, (Mr. T) a brutally strong and somewhat child-like whiz with all
things mechanical.
While serving in Vietnam, Hannibal, Face, and B.A. were ordered on a secret
mission to rob the Bank of Hanoi in order to weaken the North Vietnamese defenses, but
their commanding officer was killed and their orders were destroyed while they were on
the mission. They were arrested by the U.S. military and accused of plotting the heist for
their own gain – hence “the crime they didn’t commit.” Hannibal (whose nickname clearly
connects him to the legendary military tactician of the ancient Punic wars) cannot be
contained in any prison. He breaks the team out of military prison, and they escape to the
212 underground world of Los Angeles, where they are constantly pursued by military police
led first by Colonel Lynch and then by Colonel Decker. They each make money as they
can individually and by working together as The A-Team. Throughout the first season and
early in the second season, the A-Team often worked with investigative reporter Amy
Allen (Melinda Culea), who protected their whereabouts from the MPs and touted their
heroism in her newspaper columns after missions had been completed. After the ruthless
Colonel Decker takes over the government’s search for the A-Team, Amy was written out
of the show with the reasoning that Decker would make it too dangerous for her to be
associated with the A-Team. After Amy Allen, most of the female characters in the series
were clients or incidental characters featured in only one episode.
The A-Team typifies the banality of the “hard body, New War” action-adventure
genre when mass-mediated for network television in the 1980s. The violence is almost cartoonish – cars flip wildly through the air from conveniently spaced obstacles, thousand of rounds of ammunition shot by “crack commandos” fail to produce any blood or kill anyone, and no one is ever seriously hurt or endangered on screen. The series’ adherence to strict genre plot lines and characters feeds a sense of generic repetition and tiredness as the series wears on. In a typical episode, the A-Team is approached by a client (often an older man and/or his young, attractive daughter or niece), who is having some sort of difficulty with the bad guys. Hannibal devises a plan to send a warning to the bad guys on behalf of the client. This warning upsets the bad guys, so they redouble their bad guy efforts, often cornering the members of the A-Team and placing them in a (not-so-) “inescapable” situation, such as locking them in a garage full of welding equipment and spare parts. After a “working” montage scene that combines close-up shots of hands working and battle
213 preparations set to The A-Team theme song, the members of the A-Team fight back against
the bad guys, subdue and chasten them, and restore the order that they promised to their
client. Somewhere in the episode was at least one car chase, some machine-gun fire,
displays of fisticuffs, numerous wisecracks, and over it all is the looming specter of the military police, which is always just one step behind the A-Team.
Over the course of five seasons, viewers and fans of The A-Team were inundated
with messages about the importance of teamwork, attention to hierarchy, and utilizing
specialized training for the greater good of the group. The generic pattern of the episodes
allows an almost weekly rehash of the A-Team’s ingenuity, resourcefulness, superiority
over their enemies, and ability to escape any sticky situation. The series had a fun,
adventurous feel to it – a combination of tense situations with predictable outcomes,
amusing and sometimes wacky dialogue (especially from crazy Murdock), and a sense that
the main characters balance extreme capability with a sort of likeable arrogance. The A-
Team usually took on local and small-time bad guys, such as organized crime, criminal
gangs, corrupt local power players, and general thugs, solving local problems. The series
was all carefully constructed to appeal to a wide audience and offend no one in particular.
Even with that careful construction for mass appeal, or perhaps because of it, the
high ratings for The A-Team fell by the fourth season. Season 4 was awash with cameo
appearances – including appearances by Rick James, Hulk Hogan, the game show Wheel
of Fortune, and Boy George of The Culture Club – but to no avail.27 To revive ratings and
audience interest, the series was naratively reworked for the fifth season. Season 5 began
27 A short list of cameos in Season 4 includes: Rick James – Episode 6 “The Heart of Rock and Roll”; Hulk Hogan –Episode 7 “Body Slam”; Wheel of Fortune – Episode 13 “Wheel of Fortune”; Boy George – Episode 16 “Cowboy George.” “The A-Team (1983-87) - Episode list,” IMDb.com, n.d., http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084967/episodes.
214 with a three-part episode in which Hannibal, Face, and B.A. were finally caught by the military police. They are put on trial for robbing the Bank of Hanoi and for murdering their commanding officer; subjected to falsified testimony from their enemies; convicted; sentenced to death; and executed by a military firing squad. With the help of Murdock and
newcomer Frankie Santana (Eddie Velez), some blank rifle shells, and some special pills,
Hannibal, Face, and B.A. survive the firing squad and escape by faking their deaths.
However, the capture, prosecution, and escape were all orchestrated by the secretive and
powerful General Hunt Stockwell (Robert Vaughn). In order to finally clear their names
and be free of government persecution, the A-Team agrees to perform a certain number of
suicide missions for Stockwell’s secret government agency. For the rest of Season 5, the
A-Team was transplanted to Northern Virginia, kept under close surveillance in a luxurious
resort-like safe house, and sent out on missions of Stockwell’s choosing. Murdock is suddenly declared “sane” and released from the VA hospital and moves to Virginia to be with the other members of the team.
The attempt to resolve and yet still continue the overarching story line changes the
feel of the show completely, a shift that was probably not intended by the production team.
Once the A-Team members’ independence is curtailed, their ingenuity becomes a
necessary trait exploited by Stockwell to get out of impossible, locked-door situations of international intrigue, rather than a celebration of the team’s creative problem-solving and unorthodox approaches in helping ordinary people who have run out of options against local thugs. In this final season, the A-Team becomes an unfortunate tool of an uncaring government that only seeks to use them until their usefulness (or their lives) is depleted.
215 Ratings dropped even further, and the series ended without a finale resolving the fate of the
A-Team.
Airwolf (1984-1986; 1987)
In the pilot episode of Airwolf, “Shadow of the Hawke,” Michael Coldsmith-Briggs
III, codename “Archangel” (Alex Cord), has lost control of the newest and most impressive piece of machinery ever developed by his super secret pseudo-governmental agency The
Firm: a state-of-the-art helicopter capable of super-sonic speed named Airwolf.28
Airwolf’s designer has absconded with the helicopter to Libya, where he is being fêted by
Muammar Gaddafi’s military elites in exchange for revealing the technology behind
Airwolf. Archangel must convince Stringfellow Hawke (Jan-Michael Vincent), a reclusive
Vietnam veteran and a phenomenal pilot, to complete another mission for The Firm –
sneak into Libya, steal Airwolf, and return it to Archangel and The Firm. With the help of
his best friend and father figure, Dominic Santini (Ernest Borgnine), String successfully
steals Airwolf and brings it back to the United States, but he does not return it to The Firm.
Instead, he hides it inside a mountain in the Valley of the Gods. Hawke refuses to deliver
Airwolf to The Firm until they find his brother St. John (pronounced in the Old English
form “sin-jin”), who has been a missing in action/prisoner of war in Vietnam for over a decade. Archangel and Hawke strike a deal – as long as String has Airwolf hidden, The
Firm agrees to look for St. John. String will in turn fly Airwolf on missions for The Firm, or else they will allow the full weight of the U.S. government to fall on Stringfellow
Hawke.
28 “Shadow of the Hawke: Part 1 and 2,” DVD, Airwolf (CBS, January 22, 1984), http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0507163/; “Airwolf - Hulu,” Hulu.com, n.d., http://www.hulu.com/airwolf.
216 Even from this first episode, viewers can sense the difference in the tone, narrative,
and characterization between Airwolf and The A-Team. Airwolf is a much more serious
show on all levels, and episodes featured more convoluted plot lines. The acting is
melodramatic instead of tongue-in-cheek; the episodic plot lines deal with high-stakes espionage, nuclear threats, attempted coups d’etat, and destructive scientific breakthroughs; and the overarching story line involves ransoming advanced military technology to a secret division of the United States’ intelligence agencies in exchange for information on one
POW/MIA soldier from Vietnam. Instead of car chases and fisticuffs, action scenes in
Airwolf consist of aerial dogfights between Airwolf and enemy fighters (particularly other souped-up helicopters or Russian-made MIG fighter jets). In practice, this means that
“action scenes” are edited pieces of aerial footage interspersed with shots from “inside the cockpit” – where the pilots sit nearly still in uniforms and full-face helmets among flashing plastic lights, switches, toggles, inscrutable controls and dials, and the latest computer screens combined in a static but apparently impressive display of “futuristic” 1980s technology. Given the leaps in technology between 1984 and 2010, these action sequences look quite dated, giving Airwolf the feel of a period piece.
The main character of Airwolf is Stringfellow Hawke. Alternately called String or
Hawke by other characters, he lives in a well-appointed log cabin on a lake in an extremely
remote area of the West – so remote that the only way to reach his home is by helicopter
(or maybe by horse.) His favorite pastime is to sit on the dock of his lake with Tet, his blue
tick hound, and play his Stradivarius cello, drawing in a bald eagle that fishes in the lake
with the music. He has original Impressionist paintings in his cabin (gifts from his
grandfather to his grandmother), and does not want for money. With his own land,
217 helicopter, family money, and desire for isolation after his time in Vietnam, String does not have a regular job. He survives on the fish he catches in the lake and on supplies brought to him by his best friend, Dominic Santini.
Dom is the opposite of String – loud, cheerful, opinionated, and always interacting with people. Practically family, Dom was String’s father’s best friend, and he has looked after String ever since his parents were killed in an accident. Dom is always laughing and telling inappropriate stories about the high jinks that he used to pull with String’s dad, often in an effort to boost String’s brooding and moody demeanor. Dom’s business, Santini Air, supplies helicopters, airplanes, and stunt pilots for private charter use, particularly for use in films and other Hollywood-type productions. When String works, it is as a stunt pilot helping out Dom with a job, or on a mission for Archangel and The Firm.
The Firm is a super-secret, black ops division of the intelligence branch of the U.S. government, the kind of operation that is hidden from Congress and possibly even from the president. It is run by a board of directors who meet in shadows and identify only by code names; Archangel is in charge of the section that developed Airwolf and manages Hawke as an asset. Archangel is always clothed in impeccably tailored, head-to-toe blindingly white suits with either a black or a white eye patch (covering an injury suffered when
Airwolf was first stolen). He is always assisted by a beautiful, extremely intelligent woman
– interchangeable females apparently drawn from a deep well of talent – who is also always in head-to-toe white. Archangel and Hawke have a friendly working relationship that develops across the first three seasons. String usually calls Archangel “Michael,” and by the end of Season 3, each has gone above and beyond a working duty to save the other from certain doom, indicating a sense of trust, respect, and friendship between them.
218 The producers of Airwolf introduced new elements in each season in an effort to
keep the series fresh and respond to declining ratings. In the second season, String and
Dom were joined by Caitlin O'Shannessy, a former Texas Highway Patrol helicopter pilot.
She becomes a junior member of both the Airwolf team and Dom’s charter business. In the
third season, String finds himself more often in dire straits and has to rely more heavily on
the other characters for resolution in the episodes. Additionally, he discovers that his brother St. John has an “Amerasian” son, a boy named Le that String decides to adopt, adding another layer of family to the cast.
By the end of Season 3 in 1986, though, CBS had lost interest in continuing the show. The actor who played Stringfellow Hawke, Jan-Michael Vincent, was fighting an increasingly difficult and obvious battle with alcoholism; the aerial dogfights that were the hallmark of the show caused huge budget overruns; and the ratings continued to slip, all of which made continuing the series untenable for the network. In an effort to create a quantity of episodes high enough to sell the series into syndication, Universal Television produced a fourth season for the USA network, using an entirely different cast, crew, location, and writers. Airwolf Season 4 is generally considered to be a completely separate series that continues the name and the same basic premise the original. Because of its shoestring budget, Season 4 was produced without any new aerial shots. Instead, “new” aerial battle scenes combined old and new footage; new cockpit scenes were filmed in a mock-up of Airwolf and edited into old stock footage of Airwolf and other aircraft flying, fighting, and exploding from the first three seasons.29
29 The use of stock footage is often very noticeable, especially when watching the episodes in close proximity with each other. For example, the exact same shot of Airwolf flying over the ocean is used in the final episode of Season 3, Episode 22, “Birds of Paradise” and in Season 4, Episode 1, “Blackjack.” This was probably not as noticeable when the episodes were separated by months, networks, and production
219 In the first episode of Season 4, “Blackjack,” Dom (played by an unnamed stunt double) and String are blown up in a helicopter explosion at Santini Air; Dom is killed and
String is seriously injured. Meanwhile, The Firm has located String’s brother St. John
(Barry Van Dyke) in a POW camp in North Vietnam, where he is being displayed as bait to inspire String to fly Airwolf over in a rescue mission, where Airwolf can be captured by the enemy. “The Firm” is now referred to as “The Company,” and new Company agent Jason
Locke (Anthony Sherwood) gathers pilot Major Mike Rivers (Geraint Wyn Davies) and
Dom’s niece, Jo Santini (Michele Scarabelli) into be his team, locates the Wolf’s Lair (the mountain fortress where String hid Airwolf), and extracts St. John from Vietnam.
Apparently perfectly healthy and of sound mind after 15 years in a POW camp, St. John takes over the task of flying missions for The Company while String recovers in an undisclosed location.
The changes in Season 4 resolve the overarching story line of Seasons 1-3, but,
much like the final season of The A-Team, this resolution probably should have ended the
series, not begun a new season. What internal logic existed in the diagetic universe of
Airwolf was thrown off completely by the series reboot. Combined with the underfunded
production and complete elimination of all of the original characters, Airwolf Season 4 is a
dreary, cheap, campy imitation of the first three seasons.
Enduring Popularity
The close readings in this chapter will focus on the seasons produced before the
series’ “reboots” and on the novelizations of those early episodes. However, though I will
companies, but for a DVD or online viewer, it is jarring, uncanny, and a little hilarious to see the same visual shots used over and over. It adds a ridiculous feel to otherwise overly serious situations.
220 not be discussing the ever-expanding fanfic universe or “reboot” seasons, it is worth noting
that there are strong communities of fans of both series. Both The A-Team and Airwolf can
claim enduring popularity into the twenty-first century. Both series franchises contained
novelizations of the television shows; there were six novels based on The A-Team written by Charles Heath released in the United States in 1984 (and ten novels by the same author were released in the United Kingdom).30 Five of these novels were based on episodes from
the first two seasons, and the sixth, Operation Desert Sun, was an original story based on the characters from the series. Likewise, there were two Airwolf novelizations written by
Ron Renauld released in the U.S, adapted from the first three episodes of the television series.31 All five seasons of The A-Team and the first three seasons of Airwolf have been released on DVD, and both series are available in their entirety through several online television viewing venues, including www.Hulu.com, which has active discussion boards on pages dedicated to both series. And, The A-Team franchise has been updated for the twenty-first century as an action-adventure feature film released in June 2010 and a series of comic book prequels detailing The A-Team’s time in Vietnam.
There are also a multitude of websites for devoted fans of both series, including
standard fan sites, episode logs, and series trivia, as well as a legion of fan fiction stories
produced by currently active fan fiction communities.32 Fanfic using the characters from
30 Heath, The A-Team; Charles Heath, The A-Team 2: Small But Deadly Wars (New York: Dell Publishing Company, 1984); Charles Heath, The A-Team 3: When You Comin' Back, Range Rider? (New York: Dell Publishing Company, 1984); Charles Heath, The A-Team 4: Old Scores to Settle (Dell Publishing Company, 1984); Charles Heath, The A-Team 5: Ten Percent of Trouble (New York: Dell Publishing Company, 1984); Charles Heath, The A-Team 6: Operation Desert Sun: The Untold Story (New York: Dell Publishing Company, 1984). 31 Ron Renauld, Airwolf (London: W.H. Allen, 1985); Ron Renauld, Airwolf: Trouble From Within (London: Target Books, 1985). 32 “A-Team Fan Fiction,” A-Team Fan Fiction, n.d., http://www.ateamfanfic.org/index.php; “A-Team FanFiction Archive - FanFiction.Net,” FanFiction.net, n.d., http://www.fanfiction.net/tv/A-Team/; “Airwolf FanFiction Archive - FanFiction.Net,” FanFiction.net, n.d., http://www.fanfiction.net/tv/Airwolf/;
221 The A-Team runs the gamut of slash fiction (homosexual erotic characterizations of the male/male relationships – usually pairing Hannibal/Face), crossover fiction (combining characters from The A-Team with characters from other popular 1980s television series, such as The Dukes of Hazzard), and stories that flesh out back stories, early missions, their time in Vietnam, etc. Fanfic communities and the layers of diagetic, “in-story” universes that they create are a large, complex, and sometimes very weird aspect of the enduring and very personal popularity of these television series for fans. Their depth and breadth speaks to the way that viewers and fans identify deeply with these characters, and do so for many years after the official series have ended. These fanfic communities are not always populated by nostalgic fans that miss the good old times of the 1980s; some fanfic author profiles indicate that the authors are currently in their teens and were introduced to the characters by watching the DVDs with their parents. These communities provide ongoing interaction with the characters, camaraderie, release, resolution, and sometimes closure, all based around these characters, their fictional worlds, and the paramilitary worldview of the homosocial battlefield and its pseudo-families represented within.
RANKING THE BATTLEFIELD
In late Cold War mass-media mercenary narratives, mercenary figures have temporarily retreated from the complications of the domestic sphere to the sphere of the battlefield while they work through their “little problem” of diminished benevolent paternalistic power. In the isolation of the battlefield, the power and authority of the white male mercenary figure is unquestioned. The paramilitary nature of this battlefield brings
“Airwolf Fan Fiction Stories,” Airwolf.tv, n.d., http://www.airwolf.tv/fanfic/setting.html; “Airwolf Forum - Index,” Airwolf Forum, n.d., http://forum.airwolf.tv/YaBB.pl.
222 military hierarchy to bear on everyday life. Paramilitary structuring provides clearly
articulated, understood, and respected hierarchy, division of labor, and separations of working and upper castes. Unlike mercenary narratives in other historical moments, these figures are not concerned with the processes of self-making or even with class or caste jumping. In the battlefield sphere, rank is respected instead of questioned or subverted.
While “class” is not a primary issue dealt with in mercenary narratives of the 1980s,
subtle and obvious markers of class and caste function as an indicator of the mercenary’s independence, his ability to isolate himself from society, and what level of work he is
eligible to perform. Working-poor mercenaries like those on The A-Team are more likely
to perform mercenary missions for working-poor and working-middle clients – low-level
mercenary work dealing with things like kidnappings or intimidation by local thugs. As a
team, they live from mission-paycheck to mission-paycheck.
Hustling for jobs to survive in the battlefield sphere, the members of the A-Team
retain the military hierarchy of their previous life in their interactions with each other and in
their missions. The three white characters (Colonel Hannibal Smith, Captain H.M.
Murdock, and Lieutenant Templeton Peck) have ranks of commissioned officers, while the black character (Sergeant B.A. Baracas) has the rank of a non-commissioned officer. The
U.S. Army’s current recruiting website explains the difference between officers and enlisted soldiers in the all-volunteer army as follows:
Well prepared and highly adaptable, Enlisted Soldiers are regarded for their sense of duty and the sacrifices they have made for their country. Much like employees at a company, Enlisted Soldiers perform specific job functions and have the knowledge that ensures the success of their unit's current mission within the Army…. Commissioned Officers are the managers, problem solvers, key influencers and planners who lead Enlisted Soldiers in all situations. They have the
223 skills, the training and the character needed to inspire and encourage others — the strength not just to follow but also to lead.33
In the post-Vietnam all-volunteer Army, commissioned officers have completed college
degrees either before joining the military or as part of their service, and are granted officer
standing as Second Lieutenant upon enlisting in the military.34 Non-commissioned officers
(NCOs), on the other hand, are not college graduates; they begin as privates in basic
training and rise through the ranks of enlisted men through promotion along a separate
promotion track from commissioned officers that tops out at the eighth level of
“sergeant.”35 This clear divide between enlisted soldiers and commissioned officers has the effect of separating service members into workforce and management roles within the military from the moment a service member joins the military. Promotions are always
possible, and enlisted soldiers can become non-commissioned officers, but NCOs will
always rank below commissioned officers and provide support rather than leadership.
With the high draft rates of the Vietnam War and the shift to an all-volunteer
military force after 1973, these distinctions in rank among the members of the A-Team may have been more widely familiar to viewing audiences in the early 1980s than they are in
33 For more detailed information on the difference between enlisted soldiers and officers in the U. S. Army, see: “Enlisted Soldiers & Officers,” GoArmy.com, n.d., http://www.goarmy.com/about/enlisted_soldiers_officers.jsp. 34 I use information about ranks and commissioned vs. non-commissioned officer within the structure of the U.S. Army, as The A-Team members were identified with that branch of the military. For more information on the promotion paths and becoming a commissioned officer, see: “Army Ranks & Insignia - Commissioned Officer,” GoArmy.com, n.d., http://www.goarmy.com/about/ranks_insignia_officer.jsp; “Four Paths to Becoming an Officer,” GoArmy.com, n.d., http://www.goarmy.com/careers/becoming_an_officer.jsp. 35 There are eight NCO levels that include “sergeant” in the name of the rank. If B.A. Baracus was a Sergeant, then he had to have been promoted at least five times since enlistment, as the lowest NCO rank of sergeant is five levels above the lowest rank of private. For more information, see the U.S. Army’s explanation of ranks and promotion for enlisted soldiers: “Army Ranks & Insignia - Enlisted,” GoArmy.com, n.d., http://www.goarmy.com/about/ranks_and_insignia.jsp.
224 2010.36 These differences in rank indicate a racial, educational, and socio-economic divide between the A-Team’s “crack commandos” at the most basic level. Their military rank reflects different levels of formal education for team members that divide along racial lines.
The separately tiered promotion systems within the military affects the skills they have learned and training they have had access to within the military, which in turn affects the types of jobs they are able to perform to earn a living after the military. From the earliest action of naming the characters, and thereby ranking them, the white, commissioned- officer characters – Hannibal, Murdock, and Face – are placed in management and leadership roles, while B.A. – as an NCO – is destined by his rank to always act in a supportive role on the team. This marks B.A. as part of the team, yes, but a subordinate part of the team with a lower level of education and fewer prospects for advancement than the other team members, both inside and outside of the military system.
The fact that the members of the A-Team retain their military ties, hierarchy and
roles even while on the run from the military police represents a stark difference between the very close attention to rank and hierarchy in the working-poor world of The A-Team
and the complete absence of markers of rank in the upper-class world of Airwolf. On the
other end of the caste spectrum is Stringfellow Hawke in Airwolf, an independently
wealthy man who occasionally works as a mercenary. Hawke trades his time not for a fee
that he uses to survive, but rather for a favor, to keep The Firm looking for his POW/MIA
brother St. John. String’s inherited family money allows him to live an independent, off-
the-grid, and isolated lifestyle. Much like Paladin in the early Cold War, String’s socioeconomic comfort ostensibly allows him the luxury of complete control over his
36 For more on the transition to an all-volunteer military after the Vietnam War, see: Beth Bailey, America's Army: Making the All-Volunteer Force, 1st ed. (Boston: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009).
225 involvement in missions. Unlike Paladin, though, String does not spend his time helping
the little people. When he does work, he performs mercenary work at the highest levels, working as a government contractor in high-stakes missions, diverting nuclear disasters,
preempting dictators and destructive Soviet-bloc plots to take over the world using cutting
edge technology and access to classified government secrets, all because he wants to, not
because he needs to.
Rank is effectively a non-issue in Airwolf. Viewers and readers have no clear
indication of String’s military rank throughout the series and novelizations; his military
past is vague but apparently brilliant, including as it does his ability to fly complex and cutting-edge prototype weapons like Airwolf. Instead of using a lingering connection to his military rank as an indicator of his status in the sphere of the battlefield, String’s caste status is conveyed in other ways, primarily by his ownership of very expensive things in his well-appointed, isolated cabin on his private lake.
For starters, a special brick enclosure had been made [in this cabin] for the Stradivarius, and after Hawke settled it into the niche, he flicked on an overhead lamp that highlighted the cello as if it were an exhibit at a museum. On the wall next to it was a framed sheet of parchment that contained original sheet music penned by Prokofiev; the same music that Hawke had been playing on the dock before the arrival of the helicopter. Elsewhere in the cavern-like interior of the cabin were other works of art, primarily paintings [by masters like Van Gogh, Renoir, and Seurat], sculptures, and a wall full of first edition books. It was a priceless collection, equal in value to the holdings of many museums and galleries, although few eyes were allowed to behold the treasures of Stringfellow Hawke. Each piece held for him a personal specialness, and he looked on the works more as intimate friends than investments or status symbols meant to influence whoever chanced to look upon them.37
There is a certain melancholy about having paintings, sculptures, and first edition books as
the “intimate friends” you spend time with in your private lair, indulging in ennui. It is a
decidedly un-working class attitude: collections are only “priceless” if you never need to
37 Renauld, Airwolf, 35.
226 price them or depend on them as investments. There is a strong connection here between
String’s settled family wealth and his ability to safeguard himself from unwanted intrusion and limit access to his person, his property, and his collection.
String’s ability to isolate himself extends to his methods of fighting. He is the pilot of a cutting-edge piece of military technology, a far cry from the bits of improvised weaponry that the A-Team members cobble together for their missions. Fighting from the inside of a helicopter cockpit, armed with missiles, machine guns, and computer equipment
is a privileged way to wage war, far removed the A-Team’s intimate, hand-to-hand combat
with bad guys armed only with the results of a desperate last-minute science project. This
difference indicates separations in the military workload and military experiences of
Vietnam that would be obvious to primed viewers, recalling pilots who dropped bombs,
Agent Orange, and incendiaries from the safety of a cockpit while ground troops literally moved through and among the destruction raining down from the sky.
These narratives reflect two mercenary castes in the sphere of the battlefield, the
hardscrabble entrepreneurs gracefully struggling to keep a small business afloat and the
privately wealthy philanthropist who gives of his time and energy to keep the country
going. They also indicate that there are demonstrated needs for private purveyors of
violence and action at all levels of society, from the poor who are being threatened by
organized crime to the vast expanse of Americans unknowingly protected from nuclear destruction by the actions of a few wealthy individuals. The rigid separations of labor that occur within military hierarchy and the very different real promotion paths between commissioned officers and enlisted soldiers are here separated and magnified by the paramilitary nature of private violence and mercenary work. The covert nature of the work
227 that String does for the Firm means he cannot pay attention to strict chains of command or
detailed Rules of Engagement; in the black ops world, the only rule for engagement is to
complete your mission using any means necessary. String, Archangel, and The Firm
operate in isolated, lone-wolf ways, without protection from any (former or present)
military connections. If the mission fails or the operative is captured, any evidence of
government support is destroyed or disavowed. However, maintaining military hierarchy
works very well in transparent operations and in team situations. Even though as fugitives,
the A-Team does not enjoy government support or sanction, their missions are open and
transparent to their clients and their enemies. By maintaining their military hierarchy, they
are maintaining the division of labor, skills, and talents that allow the team to function like
a well-oiled machine. Each team member contributes equally important functions to the
machinery of the team – strategy, acquisition, mechanical and construction knowledge, and
transportation – that simultaneously provide depth and breadth to the group. If even one team member is gone, the machine cannot function efficiently. Within the ranked sphere of
the battlefield, one cannot move up ranks unless someone else can fill that spot on the team.
“THE LADY” AND THE OTHER LADIES IN THE BATTLEFIELD
Retreating to the paramilitary battlefield in 1980s mercenary narratives removed the
white male mercenary figure from the domestic sphere, which had become a site
representing crises in confidence and loss of social power. Regrouping and preparing for a
comeback took place in the battlefield sphere, which was largely a homosocial
environment. The A-Team and Airwolf both take place in primarily male worlds; the main
characters in both series continue to live in homosocial environments in a paramilitary
228 lifestyle, which makes cultivating a traditional domestic life and family untenable. There
are a few short-lived recurring female characters in these mercenary television series of the
1980s, notably Amy Allen in The A-Team and Caitlin O’Shannessy in Airwolf. But in general, women appear as the “flavor of the week” in these series, either as a damsel-in- distress client or as an assistant to the man in charge (such as Archangel or General
Stockwell). In both series, women are usually pretty objects for the benevolent mercenary figure to protect, romance, or respect from afar – and very occasionally to fear. Overall, there is little in the way of sustained heterosexual relationships or interactions, because the homosocial warrior grouping of the battlefield is not welcoming to a long-term feminine presence. In lieu of female characters, though, pieces of weaponry are feminized through the use of pet names such as “my baby” and “The Lady,” indicating a gendered level to the sustained relationship between the mercenary and the equipment that he obsessively protects and possesses.
Female characters in these mercenary narratives generally split into categories of
short-term sexual interests or desexed female spies and sister/teammates. There is a
revolving door of female characters to be protected, saved, romanced, or intrigued by in
these serialized mercenary narratives. These temporary female characters are primarily clients, short-term or former love interests, or mysterious assistants or spies within the intelligence world that are featured in only one episode. Clients and missions changed with each episode on The A-Team, as did any romantic interests that Face or other Team members may have had. The clients of the A-Team were usually civilians, and these barely-sketched female characters were quickly discarded when the mission was over.
229 In Airwolf, the missions were usually dictated by Archangel or The Firm, so the
interchangeable female characters are most likely to be operatives working for (or against)
The Firm. Archangel was always accompanied by a beautiful female assistant, also dressed
entirely in white, who was brilliant, highly educated, and completely dedicated to her
mission at The Firm.38 As female spies, these characters are all business and will do
anything – “anything” – to fulfill their mission. There are multiple overlays of loyalty,
extraordinary intelligence, physical beauty, targeted use of sexuality and seduction, and a
lack of an independent moral code within these depictions of covert female operatives. As
disposable characters, female operatives tend to be bare sketches of a character, one
dimensional at best, stereotypical and robotic at worst, with no attention given to their
motives, nuances, or stories. So while there are frequently female actors playing roles within these series, there are very few differentiated or recognizable female characters within the homosocial world of the mercenary’s battlefield.
The only long-term female characters in these series are the spunky sister/teammate
characters Amy Allen in The A-Team Seasons 1-2 and in Caitlin O’Shannessy in Airwolf
Seasons 2-3. Both are slightly tomboyish, persistent, independent, and talented truth- seekers, and they are in no way seen as viable sexual mates for any of the mercenary figures. Amy and Caitlin are also the only female roles that were featured for more than one season in either of the series. Amy Allen (Melinda Culea) is an investigative journalist who tracks down the A-Team. Amy makes herself part of the A-Team’s missions so that she can secure headlines and bylines for her own career, and in exchange she does not
38 In the episode “Fallen Angel,” Marella (Deborah Pratt), one of Archangel’s assistants, claims to have five PhDs and to be only “a few classes away” from completing her M.D. “Fallen Angel,” DVD, Airwolf (CBS, November 3, 1984), http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0507139/.
230 reveal their location in her column.39 Amy is written out of the series at the beginning of
Season 2 in the episode “When you comin’ back, Range Rider?”40 In this episode, the A-
Team is hired by a Native American, Daniel Running Bear, to protect the wild mustangs on
his tribe’s reservation from Carter, a local rancher who has been rounding up mustangs and selling them to a glue factory over the border in Mexico. The A-Team narrowly misses being captured by the ruthless Colonel Decker, and Hannibal warns Amy that Decker will
begin targeting her, making it unsafe for her to continue working with them. Amy
develops a romantic interest in Daniel, so she decides to stay on the reservation with him,
to “see where this [relationship] goes.” In choosing to pursue a (hetero)sexual relationship
in a domestic sphere, Amy must opt out of the male homosocial mercenary-warrior
environment. The battlefield sphere cannot coexist with female sexuality or feminized
domesticity, and she will endanger them all if she remains part of the team.
Caitlin O’Shannessy (Jean Bruce Scott) is introduced in the Season 2 premiere
episode of Airwolf, “Sweet Britches.”41 A Texas Highway Patrol helicopter pilot, Caitlin
pushes the wrong local sheriff too far, and he orders his redneck thugs to “take the
feistiness out of her.” The sheriff arranges two different situations for a gang rape – the first
on a lonely stretch of highway at night, and the second when the sheriff arrests Caitlin and
hands over the keys to her cell – both of which are thwarted by String in Airwolf, who just happens to be in the right place at the right time to help out a stranger. Protecting Caitlin’s body takes the form of an unevenly matched Old West-style showdown. Airwolf hovers in
39 Heath, The A-Team; “Mexican Slayride,” DVD, The A-Team (NBC, January 23, 1983), http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0504182/. 40 Heath, A-Team 3; “When You Comin' Back, Range Rider?: Part 1 and 2,” DVD, The A-Team (NBC, October 25, 1983), http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0504239/. 41 “Sweet Britches,” DVD, Airwolf (CBS, September 22, 1984), http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0507167/. “Sweet Britches is the predatory nickname that the head thug/wannabe rapist continually says when cornering Caitlin and professing his manhood in front of his follower thugs.
231 the dusty street outside the sheriff’s office while the sheriff shoots at it wildly, and String
shoots back only after the sheriff refuses to surrender himself. Airwolf, with its superior
firepower, flattens the sheriff’s office (as well as the rest of the block). Having met String
during the episode, Caitlin soon connects the dots and tracks down String and Dom at
Santini Air a few episodes later, where Dom gives her a job.42 Soon, Caitlin is brought into
the Airwolf fold and becomes a supporting member of the team, even learning to fly
Airwolf herself. Caitlin has a crush on String and is characterized as a heterosexual
woman, but as a sister/teammate character, she does not express any female sexuality or
drive to have her own domestic sphere.
Instead of including well-developed female characters as part of the mercenary’s
battlefield sphere, the most consistently gendered “she” in these series involves the
sexualization and gendering of weaponry for the mercenary figures. Other scholars have
discussed the ways that large weapons can act as a substitute phallus reinforcing the hyper-
masculinity of action-adventure heroes in film and novels of the 1980s.43 However, in the more domesticated realm of television, I would argue that instead of a substitute phallus, weaponry becomes a substitute female character that reinforces masculine heterosexuality within the homosocial world of the mercenary’s battlefield, even in the absence of overt expressions of male heterosexuality.
In The A-Team, this is seen in throwaway lines of dialogue, such as when B.A.
refers to his van as his “baby,” or Hannibal refers to his machine gun with a phrase like
“Isn’t she beautiful?” rather than through stand-out dialogue rhapsodizing about loving
weapons like women. More importantly, the weekly “working montage” scene in episodes
42 “The Truth About Holly,” DVD, Airwolf (CBS, October 13, 1984), http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0507173/. 43 For example, Gibson, Warrior Dreams; Jeffords, Hard Bodies.
232 of The A-Team visually reinforces the sensuality of constructing a weapon by hand. These
montages are full of close-up shots of hands interacting with machinery, of flesh intricately
shaping and manipulating metal and wood, reinforcing the intimacy between man and
machine in the construction process. These working montages mimic the shots found in a
PG-13-rated sex scene, where closely cropped shots of flesh on barely identifiable bits of
flesh indicate sensual or sexual contact without revealing the whole image. In The A-
Team’s working montage, these visual techniques are applied instead to closely cropped
shots of flesh on barely identifiable bits of weaponry. In keeping with the theme of
disposable female characters in The A-Team, these sensually produced weapons are for
very specific, mission-related purposes. As temporary weapons used to facilitate an
immediate escape from the bad guys, these sensually produced weapons are quickly
discarded at the conclusion of the mission, when their immediate usefulness is depleted.
The gendering of weaponry is both more direct and more long-term in Airwolf, because, unlike the A-Team’s weekly creation of disposable weapons, the Airwolf helicopter is an indispensable, reusable tool that forms the basis of all missions. Because of this, Airwolf itself becomes a feminized object. At the beginning of the series, Dom refers to Airwolf as a “beast” while he is learning to fly it, because Airwolf is a scary, powerful weapon that he can barely control. As he becomes more comfortable and more in control, though, Dom begins referring to Airwolf as “my baby” and urges String to “take her out more often” on “maintenance flights” just to “make sure she’s ok.”44 By Season 3, Airwolf
has become known primarily as “The Lady” to the Airwolf team, as in “Dom, go get The
Lady ready” or “I’m going to go pick up The Lady, you stay here.”
44 “Firestorm,” DVD, Airwolf (CBS, September 29, 1984), http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0507141/.
233 This evolution from A Beast to My Baby to The Lady draws on long traditions of
naming ships, planes, and other vessels as “she.” However, there is also a very strong
dialogic emphasis on Airwolf’s long-term femininity within Dom’s constant admonitions
to String. Dom complains that Airwolf needs “regular tending” and should be “taken out,
just for fun” to “keep her happy,” complaints that recall the type of language often used in
advice columns for men (or women) interested in maintaining happiness and faithfulness in
a long-term (sexual) relationship. The idea conveyed through this language is that regular
pampering, frequent but gentle “use,” and at least a minimum level of special attention will
keep The Lady (and, in turn, other long-term ladies) happy and willing to perform all of the
tasks that the mercenary might ask of her.
In the homosocial world of the battlefield, then, the mercenary figures in these
narratives have replaced most short- and long-term sexual relationships with short- and
long-term relationships with their weapons. Much like the military chant immortalized in
Stanley Kubrick’s 1987 film Full Metal Jacket distinguished between the uses of a weapon and a penis – “This is my rifle, this is my gun. This is for fighting, this is for fun.” – the line
between obtaining pleasure from weaponry and pleasure from sex is slippery and indistinct in these mercenary narratives. The mercenary figures’ weapons are just as feminine, sensual, one- or two-dimensional, and silent as most of the female characters in the series.
They can be impressive, intelligent, and downright scary if not properly controlled and
directed by the mercenary figures. But, properly “maintained,” both the lady and the
weapon will continue to serve the needs of the mercenary in the realm of the battlefield,
and perhaps even beyond the battlefield when the mercenary figure returns to the top of
domestic social hierarchies.
234 MIXING A FAMILY FOR THE BATTLEFIELD
Though they had retreated away from the family of the traditional heterosexual
domestic sphere, mercenary figures in 1980s narratives constructed pseudo-families that
were appropriate within the sphere of the homosocial battlefield. Just as issues of class
were subsumed by paramilitary rank, and feminine power was shifted into powerful
feminized weaponry, issues surrounding race and nationality were shifted into terms of surrogate brotherhood and paternalism. There is still a racial ordering here, though it is not as strict as the racialized hierarchies in other generations of mercenary narratives. In building a pseudo-family appropriate for the battlefield, mercenary narratives of the 1980s replaced the metaphor of the “little buddy” system of paternalistic race relations with a
metaphor of father-child relationships. Race does not present the same kinds of problem in
1908s narratives as it did in narratives of the 1950s, 1890s, or 1850s – racial differences do
not cause panic and hate among the white mercenaries. Instead, 1980s mercenaries are
more likely to accept and even celebrate racialized members of the team. But, race remains
a component for secondary placement within the mix of the pseudo-family of the
battlefield.
The A-Team itself is a created, inclusive pseudo-family based on the brotherhood
of the battlefield, a family that includes a variety of quirks and quacks held together by a
continuing sense of teamwork and collective efforts for safety and prosperity. Hannibal, as
the father-figure in the pseudo-family, has the flexibility to “put upon” any racial
performance he wants; exercises that flexibility as an actor and “master” of disguises.45
45 Hannibal’s disguises include: Mexican laborer; elderly vaguely-white-ethnic hot dog vendor; babushka- clad grandmother; and others blurring racial and gender performances, but always through a painfully transparent disguise. One of Hannibal’s favorites is his “old Chinese laundryman” alter ego Mr. Lee. Hannibal uses this character, who specializes in frustrating people with annoying and cryptic fortune-
235 Face and Murdock are always in the middle, as B.A. is both the most racially “marked” character and the child of the pseudo-family – a character to be indulged and controlled, depending on the situation.
Sergeant B.A. Baracus – the black soldier with the “Bad Attitude” – is probably the
most popular and enduring character from The A-Team. B.A. is an integral part of the
team, and his inclusion literally pictures minority participation in missions directed by whites as an essential piece of mission and nation building. Actor Mr. T built a career and a public persona around characteristics he shared with B.A.46 B.A.’s racial performance encompasses a wide blend of visual markings associated with various minority groups as well as long-standing stereotypes for black characters in American culture. B.A. blends visual indications of exotic tribalism and brute strength with childlike traits that render him as an incredibly strong, potentially volatile character. He is easily mastered by his compatriots, who as pseudo-family members can neutralize his more threatening traits. In cookie style language, to vet potential A-Team clients. When viewed in 2010, the depiction of the character Mr. Lee is even more offensive than the character of Hey Boy in Have Gun, Will Travel, probably because the disguise is so thinly veiled; none of his “brilliant” disguises do anything to hide George Peppard/ Hannibal’s features, and his impressions of different races and characters are one-dimensional, stereotypical, and more than a little lazy. The performative aspect of these “characters” is attributed within the narrative world to Hannibal’s love for theatre, acting, and dramatic performance. But, his ability to perform multiple racializations also indicates his special place at the top of an implicit racial hierarchy. His whiteness can be (thinly) disguised because he is in control of his performances and characters. The purpose of the terrible yet apparently convincing acting almost seems to be a reinforcement of Hannibal’s mobility through different races and classes, showcasing that he gets to act out in ways that more clearly racially identified characters, like B.A. Baracus, cannot. One of Hannibal’s favorites is his “old Chinese laundryman” alter ego Mr. Lee. Hannibal uses this character, who specializes in frustrating people with annoying and cryptic fortune-cookie style language, to vet potential A-Team clients. When viewed in 2010, watching the depiction of the character Mr. Lee is even more offensive than watching the character of Hey Boy in Have Gun, Will Travel, probably because the disguise is so thinly veiled; none of his “brilliant” disguises do anything to hide George Peppard/ Hannibal’s features, and his impressions of different races and characters are one-dimensional, stereotypical, and more than a little lazy. 46 At times, it is difficult to separate the actor from the character, because there is so much overlap between Mr. T and the shaping of the character B.A. Baracus. Both the actor and the character grew up poor on Chicago’s South Side with a single mother and could have played professional football. Mr. T had a similar “look” when he portrayed Clubber Lang in Rocky III (1982, and he began making professional wrestling appearances under his public persona in the mid-1980s. His real-life wrestling partners (such as Hulk Hogan) appeared on The A-Team as B.A.’s friends, and much of Mr. T’s personal style – gold chains, jewelry, signature Mohawk – is inseparable from his portrayal of B.A. In this section, I focus on the portrayal of the character within the narrative world of The A-Team.
236 appearance, B.A. is decorated and described as a mishmash of various culturally diverse and anachronistic forms of warrior tribalism, as seen in this excerpt from the prequel novel
Operation Desert Sun: The Untold Story:
BA Baracus was an awesome sight indeed, and it wasn’t just the short- barreled M3 Grease Gun he held in each massive, ringed hand. Nor was it his fierce scowl, accentuated by his shaved temples, or the stiff plume of hair that covered the centre of his scalp and gave him the aspect of a demonic cross between a Mohawk chieftain and a Roman centurion. It wasn’t even the camouflage-khaki paratroop pants he wore held up by a studded garrison belt and the matching vest draped over his tightly muscled bare chest. The gold-mesh, chain-link pectoral hanging from his neck was part of it. And so were the thick soapstone and beaten silver bracelets around his wrists and huge biceps, as well as the flamboyant ivory earrings that ended in Golden Eagle feathers. Since leaving the army life behind, BA had refined his life-long interest in his ancestors’ noble history and ancient traditions. The prostrate construction workers cringing before their worst nightmare come to life didn’t know it, but half a world away BA would have been recognized and acknowledged instantly. From the widespread Mande peoples of the western Niger to the proud Dinka tribe of the southern Sudan, he was a familiar mythic figure... the very incarnation of the fierce and feared traditional African warrior!47
47 Heath’s Operation Desert Sun was a “prequel” novel released sixth in the series of The A-Team novelizations. This novel is set in 1973, just after the A-Team has escaped from military police, and ten years before the setting of the television series. This particular phrasing comes from the UK release of Operation Desert Sun. I use the UK version here because it contains slightly more detail in terms of the “scope” of African tribalism that BA is supposed to represent, possibly because a British reading audience might have a better knowledge of African geography. The U.S. version of B.A.’s introduction reads as follows: “B.A. Baracus was an awesome sight indeed, and it wasn’t just the short-barreled M3 Grease Gun he held in each massive, ringed hand that inspired fear. In addition there was his fierce scowl, accentuated by his shaved temples and the stiff plume of hair that covered the center of his scalp, giving him the aspect of a demonic cross between a Mohawk chieftain and a Roman centurion. Also startling were the camouflage-khaki paratrooper pants he wore, held up by a studded garrison belt, and the matching vest draped over his tightly muscled bare chest. The gold-mesh, chain-link pectoral hanging from his neck was part of it as well. As were the thick soapstone and beaten-silver bracelets around his wrist and huge biceps, and the flamboyant ivory earrings that ended in golden eagle feathers. Indeed, he was an awesome sight. Since leaving the Army life behind, B.A. had refined his lifelong interest in his ancestors’ noble history and ancient traditions. The terrified men cringing before this apparition weren’t sophisticated enough to recognize it, but B.A. Baracus was a modern incarnation of the fierce and feared ancient African warrior!” Charles Heath, The A-Team 6 (UK): Operation Desert Sun: The Untold Story, vol. 6 (London: W. H. Allen/Target Books, 1985), 39-40; Heath, Operation Desert Sun, 48-9.
237 Within this description, B.A.’s visual presentation recalls “ancestors” and antecedents as
vastly separate as Roman centurions, Native American Mohawk chiefs, and African
warrior tribes that literally span the continent of Africa.48 His own particular genealogy
becomes unimportant because he becomes an anachronistic representation of generic
tribalism, a mythic pan-African and multi-cultural warrior removed from time and place.
This passage also implies that while in the military, BA’s “ancestors’ noble history” was
visually (and perhaps culturally) unacknowledged because his body was covered in
standard-issue fatigues. While his body would have still been just as big, black, and fierce,
presumably B.A. was unable to decorate himself in jewels, feathers, gold, and silver while
still meeting army regulations, and those decorations were the only way he was able to
truly recall and express “his life-long interest” in his generic tribal ancestry.
Along with the focus in these narratives on B.A.’s tribal and decorative appearance
is an intense focus on his physical, primal strength. While the other (white) members of the
A-Team tend to fight with weapons or reasonably well-placed punches when the team
throws down, B.A. tends to throw knock-out punches and pick at least one of the
adversaries up over his head before body-slamming him to the ground. He often flips
people over cars or other large objects in demonstrations of impressive brute strength. B.A.
is the go-to team member in physical confrontations, and his fighting abilities catalyze
resolution in many episodes. His physicality is even the source of a number of running
jokes. One common motif has Hannibal pick a fight with the enemy group’s leader; B.A. steps from behind Hannibal to look big and intimidating, only to be confronted by the bad guy’s even bigger strong man, resulting in a brute-on-brute fight.
48 For a map of African tribes, see: Central Intelligence Agency, “Africa, Ethnolinguistic Group Map,” Library of Congress, American Memory Collection, n.d., http://memory.loc.gov/cgi- bin/query/h?ammem/gmd:@field(NUMBER+@band(g8201e+ct001294)).
238 However, paired with this innate physical presence and enormous strength, B.A. is
also an infantilized character. He is often followed around and befriended by random
children; when surrounded by kids, B.A. is a gentle giant, protective but tender, and
completely dedicated to caring for children. He even runs an after school program in
L.A.’s “underground” to help kids stay out of trouble B.A.’s association with a child-like state extends to his catatonic fear of flying, a fear that presents continuous problems for the team and continuous “amusement” for the consumers of the narratives. Hannibal and Face find ways to render B.A. unconscious every time they need to fly, creatively running the gamut from slipping drugs in his daily glass of milk to feigning mosquito sightings while
plunging a needle full of sedatives into his neck to simply striking him on the back of the
head with a blunt object. If B.A. wakes up in the middle of a flight, he reacts in extreme
and unpredictable ways, either flying into a fit of murderous rage or slipping into complete,
utter, silent terror, so the team members also tie him down with restraints during flights.
Their frequent and casual drugging and physical restraining indicates an easy mastery of
B.A.’s place in the team as well as a sense of widespread, shared control over his body,
mind, and free will that recalls a devastatingly long history of white men exerting control
over tribalized bodies of color.
B.A.’s uncontrollable rage also serves to infantilize him within the context of the
team. He is unable to control his emotions the way that Hannibal, Face, and even crazy
Murdock can. His emotions seem to go from laughter and easy relaxation to brutal anger
and physical confrontation in the blink of a bad guy’s eye. B.A.’s anger needs to be
mediated from the outside, such as through his interpersonal relationships with the team or
by situating him in a place where he has a reason to fight and an enemy on which to focus
239 his anger. His continuing relationship with the other members of the A-Team provides him
with that needed support and mediation. The team focuses B.A.’s race, power, physicality,
mechanical genius, and displays of heritage in whatever way necessary for successful
completion of the mission.
Unlike the racially integrated A-Team, the world of Airwolf is almost
overwhelmingly white; the high-stakes international espionage flavor of this show creates a
market for enemies from Russia, East Germany, North Africa, or even un-American white
“Americans.” What explicit racial presence there is in Airwolf is related directly to
America’s involvement in Vietnam, usually in terms of the relationships forged in
Vietnam, and particularly to String’s personal experiences in Vietnam, almost as if he would have continued to live in a rugged, individualistic, all-white society if not for that pesky war.
One very tangible legacy of these relationships is found in the biracial “Amerasian”
children at the center of some Airwolf episodes; in these episodes, issues of race are shifted
into conflicted paternalistic perceptions of fatherhood, responsibility, and national duty. In
the first-season episode “Daddy’s Gone a-Huntin’,” Russian KGB officers capture an
Amerasian street urchin in a back alley in Saigon and offer to trade him to his father, an
American pilot, in exchange for a piece of secret military technology.49 In this case, the
“father” is (probably) not Hawke, but is instead one of his former colleagues from
Vietnam, Sam Roper, who rescued Hawke’s former lover Nhi Huong from Saigon and
married her while Hawke was in the hospital. As an assistant to an American general and
wife of a test pilot, Nhi Huong had been trying to find her son, Ho Minh, and get him out of
49 “Daddy's Gone a Hunt'n,” DVD, Airwolf (CBS, January 28, 1984), http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0507131/; Renauld, Airwolf: Trouble From Within.
240 Saigon, but the KGB beat her to it. Everything in the episode implies that String might be
Ho Minh’s real father, including Nhi Huong’s double entendre taunts like, “What if it were
your son, Stringfellow?” and the multiple frame dissolves that blend close-up shots of Ho
Minh’s very blond hair and very blue eyes directly into close-up shots of String’s blond
hair and blue eyes.50 Based on these pleas to reunite a family, String intercedes, attacks a
Russian air base near Alaska with Airwolf, rescues Ho Minh from the KGB, and returns
him to Sam and Nhi Huong as his rightful parents.
In the third-season episode “Half-Pint,” Archangel discovers that St. John may have
an Amerasian son as well, a boy named Le Van Hawke living in L.A. with his mother’s
sister and her husband, Minh Van McBride and Darren McBride.51 Darren tells String that
he served on a super-secret special operations task force with St. John and witnessed him
dying in a raid on a chemistry lab that went bad. Any kernels of truth that may be in
Darren’s story are never revealed, as he is really invoking String’s grief in order to close a
drug deal. Darren attempts to smuggle a casket full of heroin into the country by labeling it
“St. John Hawke” and setting up a situation for String to use Airwolf to steal the “remains,”
thus enabling the smuggling operation. String figures out the deception and uses Airwolf
to attack Darren’s operation instead, killing the people who might have any real knowledge
of St. John’s paternity of Le or his whereabouts as a POW/MIA.
In “Half-Pint,” String’s brotherly devotion to St. John and efforts to protect his
memory literally leads him to destroy the leads that might help him find his brother and
restore his natural family. Unlike the supposedly Amerasian child Ho Minh, Le Van
Hawke “looks” more Vietnamese than white; his mother died in Vietnam, and his aunt
50 The child actor playing Ho Minh was the very blond, blue eyed Chad Allen, later known for his roles in St. Elsewhere and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, among others. 51 “Half-Pint,” DVD, Airwolf (CBS, December 21, 1985), http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0507145/.
241 never met his father, so there is plenty of room to question whether St. John is really Le’s
father, especially in light of Darren’s mendacity in other areas. Regardless, String offers to adopt Le, whom he calls “Half-Pint,” soon after meeting him, claiming that he wants to move on from his memories of the Vietnam War and his missing brother and live a quiet life with his adopted son. After Darren’s drug scheme is uncovered, String reassures Le that, although he is unsure whether they are truly related by blood, “Half-Pint, I’ll always love you.” By bringing Le into his life, String is seeking to rebuild a surrogate family unit from the destruction of his natural family, adding another member to his patchwork pseudo-family of Dom, Caitlin, and Archangel.
The representations of Amerasian children in Airwolf contain several unstated
implications related to sex, miscegenation, and the price of inclusion under the umbrella of
American paternalistic protection. In the case of Ho Minh’s muddy paternity, the
implication is that his mother Nhi Huong had sex with multiple American servicemen all
around the same time. The KGB agent holding Ho Minh shows him a photo of a small
platoon of pilots (including String and Sam) and asks him to identify his father, a task that
Ho Minh, having never met his father, is unable to complete. The viewer (and the camera)
zeroes in on String, of course, but the majority of the fair-skinned platoon “looks” as white
as Ho Minh, meaning that any of them could possibly be his father. By visually
broadening the pool of potential paternity, the narrative also implies that any and all of the
servicemen in the photo may have had sex with Nhi Huong, marking her as promiscuous or
perhaps as a prostitute (willing or unwilling). String apparently has “real feelings” for Nhi
Huong, indicating to viewers that they had a consensual relationship, but this does not
mitigate either of the frameworks of promiscuity or force. The real nature of relations in
242 Vietnam stays outside of the viewer’s realm of knowledge, thought, because the narrative
focuses on the problem of rescuing a “half-American” (i.e. half-white) child from the evil
KGB, studiously ignoring the complex issues of sex, love, force, and rape connecting the
United States and Vietnam. Within the narrative, what happened in Vietnam, the creation
of this mixed-race and mixed-nationality child, is unimportant in the face of a showdown
between American and Soviet military technology. But, after that showdown is over, the difficult, dysfunctional, but unbreakable family ties grafted between the vague paternal and maternal figures continue on.
Sting’s relationship with Le/Half-Pint furthers this metaphor of surrogate families
bridging national ties. It is unimportant whether Le is actually St. John’s son, because
String is willing to take on a surrogate father position either way. String’s willingness to
step in as a father mirrors a larger paternalist thrust engaging in a sense of “moving on” from the past failures in Vietnam that is tangible in 1980s popular discourse. This push encourages Americans to move on from the losses and mistakes of the Vietnam War and the 1970s, to move forward with confidence and a willingness to again provide an umbrella of safety for needy, abandoned “children”/countries as the Cold War heated up under
Reagan’s leadership. By offering to adopt Le, String is taking responsibility for fixing a
“mistake” made in Vietnam – creating but then abandoning a child – whether it was his brother’s mistake or someone else’s. String extends the bonds of surrogate paternalism to this abandoned childe to make up for these and other mistakes. This acts as a sign of taking responsibility for the aftermath of the destruction of Le’s natural family and homeland, even while it exonerates String from any direct connection or causation for that destruction.
The promise of Le having a “better life” with String highlights the regenerative affects of
243 war, violence, and creating national, familial, and racial ties as part of an imperial project, even as it obscures the everyday tragedies involved in imperialism.
In mixing a family appropriate for the battlefield sphere, mercenary narratives of
the 1980s replaced the “little buddy” system of racial paternalism with the metaphor of
fathers and children. This is a more significant shift than at first glance. As we saw with
the relationship between Paladin and Hey Boy, the mercenary figure of the 1950s could
expect his “little” buddy” to follow every command with alacrity and without resistance;
the little buddy does everything that the mercenary wants him to. But a child is a long-term
responsibility, and he can be needy, baffling, and contentious; a child can fight back and
embarrass a father; and while a child eventually grows up and takes responsibility for
himself, the father will never fully let go of his pride in or responsibility for the child. As a
metaphor for racial relations and racialized international relations, a father-and-child system indicates a long-term relationship with implications and complications of authority, submission, and condescension that will never cease.
WARRIORS, HAUNTED AND HUNTED
In the 1980s, mercenary narratives on television tackled the difficult processes
involved in recovering from the failures of the Vietnam War, the resounding blows to
American Exceptionalism from those losses, and general malaise that seemed to be
depressing the American Spirit in the 1970s into the 1980s. Reintegrating specially trained
veterans into civilian society can be problematic, as the particular skill set one learns in the
military is not immediately transferable into civilian life. Television series that represented
American mercenaries in the 1980s addressed this problem by continuously depicting
244 appropriate venues for practicing military skills and military might in a paramilitary fashion
reasonably appropriate for civilian life. These mercenary figures are protectors of peace
and an American way, and thought they have regrets that run deep and responsibilities to
match, they have the wherewithal to help others while helping themselves through this
recovery. While issues of gender, race, and class are intricately layered concerns
underlying the narratives, primary concerns in the episodic plots often included trauma,
isolation, trust and distrust, motivations for helping others, and connections between safety,
technology, and surveillance. These concerns all pointed to strength, control, and a sense of progress as the paths to regroup in the battlefield sphere and eventually regain an ascendant place in domestic social hierarchies.
In The A-Team and Airwolf, Murdock and String represent different approaches to
dealing with the trauma of war. While the other members of he A-Team seem to be
unaffected by their active duty in Vietnam, Murdock lives in the Veterans’ Administration
psychiatric hospital, the victim of a whole host of mental diseases, including anxiety, schizophrenia, delusions, multiple personalities, and a generally tenuous grasp of “reality.”
However, Murdock’s entire performance of craziness points to an “is-he-or-isn’t-he”
debate among his doctors, nurses, teammates, and anyone else he encounters. Though his
A-Teammates refer to him as “crazy,” their intonation and delivery of this term practically
puts the word in scare/air quotes for viewers. Lucid when he needs to be, extra-
performative when it helps him, Murdock primarily seems to be playing the system for
extended care and to avoid being on the wrong end of the military police. As a psychiatric
patient, he will not be prosecuted with the other members of the A-Team. Murdock is the
most unpredictable and appealing character in this series; his “delusions” provide dialogic
245 levity and variety in a series that often stays close to a standard episodic plot, and a
surprising depth of character development, especially when in his “serious” turns.
However, Murdock’s narrative potential for faking crazy is problematic in a
political and cultural environment where real veterans are struggling with post-traumatic
stress disorder. In the 1970s and 1980s, veteran groups fought to get official recognition of
PTSD as a real psychiatric condition stemming from war trauma, and to avoid being
characterized as a bunch of character-challenged malingerers trying to get out of the hard
work of military duty. This was an uphill battle in the 1970s, as references to combat stress
and other terms that have eventually come to indicate “PTSD” were removed entirely or
lumped in with other “situational disorders” in the American Psychiatric Association’s
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders when the DSM-II was released in
1968. As a “situational disorder,” treatment for PTSD was only available on a brief,
temporary basis. Veterans’ groups and health professionals lobbied the APA throughout
the 1970s, and PTSD resulting from combat trauma finally became an official diagnosis in
1980. 52 However, as with all mental health diagnoses, winning industry labels and
minimal health insurance coverage does not mean that stigma is erased. After thirty years
of official recognition, and even with today’s widespread acknowledgement and a near-
expectation that combat veterans will likely experience PTSD in some form, diagnosis and treatment are still surrounded by stigma, shame, and questions about a service member’s personal character and ability to deal with the rigors of the job of the military.
52 For more on Vietnam veterans’ struggle for recognition of PTSD, see: Penny Coleman, Flashback: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Suicide, and the Lessons of War (Boston: Beacon Press, 2006); Wilbur J Scott, Vietnam Veterans Since the War: The Politics of PTSD, Agent Orange, and the National Memorial (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004).
246 In Airwolf, String presents the other extreme from Murdock’s entertaining and erratic acting out; String suffers his deep psychological traumas and personal, familial losses in isolated, stoic silence or through acts of cold, unsatisfying revenge. The best indication viewers get of his inner turmoil is the pained look deep in his eyes as he sits on his dock with his dog, silently and quietly weeping as he plays deeply melancholy music on his cello for the bald eagle. In the pilot episode, after he finds his new love interest
Gabrielle raped and tortured by the evil Moffett and left dehydrated and dying in the desert,
String hunts down Moffett’s jeep and takes his revenge:
Aboard the helicopter, Hawke gripped the triggering mechanism and began firing back at Moffet. There was no expression on his face and no part of him moved saved for the one hand. With surefire accuracy, Airwolf’s entire arsenal unleashed itself upon the hill where Moffet stood next to his jeep. Cannons, machine guns, air-to-surface missiles, air-to-air missiles – they all wreaked their concentrated destruction on the dune, filling the desert with a deafening roar of exploding shells. Even after the section of the dune had been reduced to a charred crater and there was no more ammunition to be fired, Hawke continued to tug at the trigger. His eyes had narrowed to thin, watery slits as he wept quietly. Revenge was his, but it hadn’t been able to bring back Gabrielle, and even as the last din of the explosions hung in the air, he already realized the emptiness of his gesture.53
His revenge is impersonal but destructive, much like any military actions taken from the air can be. It is also passively disconnected from responsibility; Airwolf’s arsenal “unleashed itself” with the smallest of gestures from String. This revenge from afar is permanent but not very therapeutic. String can unleash hell on his enemy, but the violence that he unleashes in not regenerative. String spends most of his time in an isolated state, rarely laughing or smiling, nursing his wounds in private silence or through carefully mediated interactions with Dom, Caitlin, and Archangel, who form a pseudo-family of father, sister, and brother.
53 Renauld, Airwolf, 176.
247 The A-Team and Airwolf demonstrate varying levels of isolation and rejection of
mainstream society. Where String rejects society almost completely, living in helicopters and deep in nature, the A-Team members embrace the world of “the underground” – which, in the context of the series, means living among the poor, disenfranchised, and generally overlooked parts of America that often escape official notice and operate without official help. The A-Team is isolated from government interference and help, but only as much as their neighbors. With the exception of constantly dodging the military police, the
A-Team is generally free from governmental interference for the majority of the first four seasons, until the revamping of the series makes them pawns of covert government operations. But, those first four seasons make a convincing argument that local, targeted help from private sources is superior at solving “real” people’s problems, and preferable to random support or interference from the federal government, mirroring some of the
Reaganite neoconservative arguments that “big government is the problem.” These attempts by mercenaries to be isolated from government and society can be interpreted as responses to trauma and PTSD, a preemptive rejection of a society that does not understand the trauma, or even a rejection of the government that created the conditions for that trauma.
However, even within those layers of rejection and isolation, these mercenary
figures still display a deep patriotic love of country and a deep faith in American
Exceptionalism, especially in terms of taking on excess responsibilities to “make up” for
their past mistakes. These series present a seemingly odd contradiction of simultaneously
trusting and distrusting the government as a completely normal and non-contradictory
worldview. There is a cognitive dissonance between believing in the rhetoric of freedom,
248 equality, and justice for all deeply enough to kill and die for it on one hand, and on the
other being on the receiving end of government officials’ deception, heavy-handed military
tribunals, decades-long conspiracies, and exploitation by heartless jerks in positions of
power who empty that same rhetoric of meaning. These mercenary figures act out an
updated version of the white man’s burden even though they have been personally harmed
by the contrary methods employed in the name of that rhetoric.
AT HOME IN THE BATTLEFIELD
Mercenary figures address dissonant contradictions between abstract rhetoric of mercenary patriotism and their narrative experiences of poor treatment by the government through expressions of personal motivations for paramilitary patriotism and mercenary work. String continues to work with The Firm for personal reasons on several levels. On one, he is trying to bargain with the government to find his brother and restore his natural family. But, on another more compelling level, his unique position in the intelligence world gives him knowledge of vast dangers that could ruin the world (such as an impending nuclear strike) as well as access to a piece of weaponry that can literally save the world (by exploding those same missiles before the nuclear material becomes active).
He is often backed into a corner that demands action. In the urgency of these situations
(only five minutes until nuclear holocaust!) everyday shades of grey coalesce into clear, stark, black and white contrast. While he may have issues with his own and his brother’s treatment at the hands of the U.S. government, those problems pale in comparison to the trauma and responsibility that would be on his shoulders if he refused to use Airwolf to fly the missions asked of him. By eliminating nuance within the narrative, the range of
249 String’s possible responses is limited, and ways for consumers to understand foreign policy and diplomacy through these narratives are also deprived of nuance.
The personal motivations of the members of the A-Team are not quite so high- stakes, but they might be easier for consumers to relate to. When Amy Allen asks
Hannibal why they stay in the United States even though they are being chased by the government, Hannibal sets her straight on their patriotism.
Amy: What I can’t understand is why you all aren’t just living in Switzerland where it’s safe for you. Hannibal: We aren’t living in Switzerland, Miss Allen, because we aren’t Swiss…. We’re Americans. We have a little problem now, but we’ll work our way out of it somehow, some year. In the meantime, we stick together and do what we know best. If we help you, we need to know you’ll protect us – not sell us out. It’s hard enough the way it is, without more trouble. 54
Here, Hannibal is expressing the broader sense of optimism that underlay 1980s mercenary narratives. With a little time and persistence, these mercenary figures will regain control of the social hierarchies within the domestic sphere. They are devoted to American
Exceptionalism and are just waiting out this downturn until their path to Manifest Destiny becomes clear.
Part of the guiding philosophy that holds the A-Team together as they work through their “little problem” is “The Jazz.” As B.A. explains their group’s dynamics to Amy in the pilot episode:
B.A.: [laughing] You talking about Hannibal? He ain’t afraid of nothing. Amy: Then what? Do you think he has a death wish or something? B.A.: No, he’s just got the jazz that’s all. Hannibal got the jazz. Amy: The “Jazz?” B.A.: Yep, he’s been living on the edge ever since I known him. He’s one crazy hooked together dude. That’s what kept him alive through Nam. Kept me and the others alive also. Amy: Then why do you do it?
54 “Mexican Slayride”, Heath, The A-Team, 108.
250 B.A.: [smiling] For the jazz baby. It’s like walking into a casino in Vegas, laying down your money on the crap table and winning on the first roll. You can’t walk away. You just can’t. You know you can beat ‘em, ‘cause you just done it. Amy: [laughing and shaking her head “no”] It’s not the same thing. B.A.: Sure it is. You want this guy Valdez bad enough, and we get him, you’ll feel it. Wait and see.55 For the members of the A-Team, “The Jazz” is code for the reasoning behind their often reckless decisions. The code transforms this word for a quintessential American music form into a broader view on the power of improvisation, ingenuity, creativity, and excitement. This version of “the jazz” includes the surge of adrenaline that accompanies
the unknown factors of battle and adventure as well as the satisfaction of confronting and
overcoming danger and completing your mission. But, “the jazz” is also about controlling
the outcomes of situations and participation of others in those situations. It is about
confidence that can border on arrogance, and reveling in the actions taken to prove
superiority in a situation. “The jazz” becomes about winning, establishing dominance,
making others lose, and enforcing your worldview on another group that had been trying to
assert their worldview on you. In short, “the jazz” banishes the idea that participating in
the Vietnam War would cause Americans like the members of the A-Team to have any
regrets or experience the crisis of confidence, self-pity, or general malaise that supposedly
infected the rest of America after in the 1970s. By dominating others and being in control,
“the jazz” erases regret and encourages progress, renewed strength, and working together to get through this “little problem right now.”
Mercenary figures in 1980s narratives were taking a temporary retreat from domestic society, but not a full retreat. They still took responsibility for providing protection and asserting paternalism. This warrior group was damaged and fundamentally
55 Transcript from series pilot “Mexican Slayride.”
251 altered by the crises of the Cold War, so they retreat, but they are also strongly driven to reconnect with security and push away vulnerability. These mercenary narratives show independent white men trying to reassert authority and control through whatever means necessary – violence, paternalism, rhetoric, separate gendered spheres, and technological superiority. The incompetence of those still working within the system drove them to retreat; if the system was so broken as to make them leave and perpetuate incompetence, then working outside it is the most patriotic thing they can do.
As paramilitary patriots, these mercenary figures are willing to sacrifice all for their
country and for those in need. They might be reluctant to act, but desire to act is less
important than honoring the responsibility to protect and provide for those ostensibly under
their care that impels their action. During their retreat to the battlefield, these white male
mercenary figures are constructing a need and a role for themselves within regular society,
hoping that the created need for paternalism, hierarchy, and “benevolent” social control
will cause them to be invited back to the top spot that they lost through the crises of the
Cold War. These mercenary narratives show the benevolent, paternalistic, white
mercenary trying to recapture a secured, ascendant place at the top of American social
hierarchies, reaching back through generations of mercenary narratives for that elusive
confident feeling. It is a nostalgic grasp for a place that never was assured, confident, or
the least bit secure.
252 EPILOGUE
If ever a film, cinematically speaking, had nothing to lose, it would be The Expendables.... Stuff explodes. Men die. Cigars are smoked in (short) contemplative moments…. The idea was to make an old-fashioned action movie about soldiers of fortune, “back when ‘mercenary’ wasn’t such a dirty word” because of private contractors’ dealings in Iraq….1 -The New York Times, June 29, 2010
In 2010, Hollywood can make an “old-fashioned action movie about soldiers of
fortune” because mercenary narratives have been circulating through American popular
culture for over 150 years. An “old-fashioned” soldier of fortune story can draw on the
type of legacy that William Walker fashioned for himself – that of an idealist determined to create his own personal utopic empire, regardless of the cost to himself or to others. It could present a fine line between the right and wrong ways to dominate others, and it could frame that domination in benevolent terms. The old-fashioned mercenaries in this narrative could depict confident Americans performing good works that leave positive material legacies of civilization, or performing easy acts in far-away places that transform the lives of their little buddies. Or, these “old-fashioned” mercenaries could be hardened and hunted. Living only for the thrill of the battlefield, they could distrust the weakness and stagnancy of soft domesticity while plotting to once again take charge of their worlds.
As I complete this dissertation, we are deep in the midst of yet another spike in the
production and consumption of mercenary narratives in American popular culture. Like the other historical moments examined in this study, the first decade of the twenty-first
century has witnessed many identifiable blows to American Exceptionalism. The
1 “Stallone’s ‘Expendables’ Brings Back Action All-Stars,” New York Times (New York, N. Y., June 29, 2010), New York edition, sec. C.
253 contentious result of the 2000 presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore
deepened cultural battles that had been fought throughout the post-Cold War era. The
attacks of September 11, 2001 and the resulting Global War on Terror have brought threats
to national security to the forefront of popular discourse. We have had at least two major
economic downturns, and may be bracing for more, as deficits and unemployment rise.
Calls ring out daily for either more or less government spending. Public discourse is rank
with deep, angry, ideological voices advocating alternate roles for the United States
government to play at home and abroad.
In this most recent crisis of American Exceptionalism, both the goals of Manifest
Destiny and the paths toward it are under equal attack. With the election of Barak Obama as the nation’s first black President, some claimed that the United States was entering a
“post-racial” era, a time when the struggles of minorities and disadvantaged groups for
equality had been solved. Alas, this is not so; resistance to changes in “traditional” social institutions and the balance of power in race, gender, and class hierarchies is as strong as ever. New to this mercenary moment is the anonymous world of the internet, where threatening statements of bald racism, blatant sexism, and deep hatred abound.
In the midst of this crisis of national identity, conditions are ripe for a spike in
mercenary narratives, and American popular culture has met the demand. Mercenary
narratives and figures continue to appear in television and film. The final two seasons of
the anti-terrorism television series 24 featured both heroic and evil private paramilitary
figures. In the penultimate season of the long-running series, the villain was the owner of
an American private military company that planted nuclear weapons in Washington, DC
and held the first female U.S. President hostage in the White House, the very symbol of the
254 national-domestic sphere.2 Cold War mercenary narratives are still in discursive
circulation. Episodes of both Have Gun, Will Travel and The A-Team air on “retro” channels from my local cable provider at least twice a day. Plans to update Have Gun, Will
Travel have been underway since at least 2007, with a potential release date now set for
2013.3
The summer of 2010 marks a banner year in big-budget mercenary blockbuster
films. In June 2010, a feature-film adaptation of The A-Team was released to great
fanfare.4 With the success of this film and Hollywood’s penchant for sequels, The A-Team
will most likely become a multiple-film franchise over the next few years. The characters
were updated – Hannibal, Face, Murdock, and B.A. are now Iraq War veterans – but they
are still on the run from a “crime they didn’t commit.” Also updated in this film are the
“bad guys:” the A-Team “good guys” face off against a team of ruthless private military
contractor “bad guys,” further blurring any connections between heroic and anti-heroic
American soldiers of fortune.
And, in August 2010, the greatest action stars of the 1980s will unite in the
mercenary film The Expendables.5 The official website for The Expendables contains ways
for fans to insert themselves into this narrative about expendable American mercenary
warriors. This self-insertion can be done figuratively by connecting through Facebook and
2 “24 (2001-2010),” 24 (20th Century Fox Television, n.d.), http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0285331/. 3 The film is still categorized as “under development,” but early plans indicated that Have Gun, Will Travel was being updated as a vehicle for rapper Eminem, in which he would play a modern-day bounty hunter. Have Gun, Will Travel (2013), n.d., http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0816522/. 4 Dir. Joe Carnahan, The A-Team (2010) (Twentieth Century Fox, 2010), http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0429493/. 5 Dir. Sylvester Stallone, The Expendables (Lionsgate, 2010), http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1320253/; “The Expendables - Official Movie Website,” n.d., http://expendablesthemovie.com/; “The Expendables - Hollywood.com Fan Site,” n.d., http://www.theexpendablesmovie.net/. The cast of this action-movie all stars film includes: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, Steve Austin, Terry Crews, Mickey Rourke, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Bruce Willis.
255 participating in activities such as the quiz “Are You Expendable?”, which tests the fan’s
level of “bad-ass”-ness through questions like “Are you: A) American by birth or B)
American by choice.” But the interactive website also allows fans to literally insert
themselves into the visuality of this narrative through an application that superimposes a
photograph of the fan’s face into the “expendable” body in the larger movie poster. A
dedicated fan can insert his/her face into the lineup of “bad-ass” mercenaries, taking a place
on the stage with Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Dolph Lundgren, and various “hard
bodies” of the 1980s, creating and deepening a personal connection with the narratives of
privatized violence within.6
Unlike the spikes in the 1890s, 1950s, and 1980s that I have examined, mercenary narratives circulating in our contemporary moment include narratives of real-life mercenaries making real news and affecting actual events, not just mercenaries playing roles in fictional narratives. Since the end of the Cold War, private military companies and civilian contractors have become ubiquitous in the way the United States and other countries wage wars. Not all of these contractors have to be in the battle zones; Lockheed
Martin, Boeing, and Raytheon benefit as much from contracts with the Department of
Defense as more “active” private military companies do.
I began this project intending to investigate popular cultural reactions to Blackwater
and other private military companies operating in American war zones, because I wanted to
provide a humanities-based cultural counterpart to the conversation on mercenaries and
private military contractors happening in social science fields. But, even in my earliest
research on our contemporary mercenary moment, I found a divide between “good”
6 An example of the personalized movie poster can be found on the Hollywood.com/ The Expendables Fan Site at www.theexpendablesmovie.net, in the blog post “You can be Expendable too” dated June 20, 2010. “The Expendables - Hollywood.com Fan Site.”
256 mercenary figures and “bad” mercenary figures, figures that seemed to have a lot in
common with each other, at least on paper. “That other kind of mercenary” – the benevolent, paternalistic, fictional mercenary that is the source of so many beloved
narratives remembered from childhood – represents a potent collective cultural memory
that affects contemporary representations of private military contractors and good and bad
mercenary figures. This blending of real and fictional makes representations of
mercenaries in our contemporary moment more akin to the deeply held ideological battles
in the fact-and-fictional accounts about William Walker before the Civil War. In fact, if
Erik Prince – the wealthy neoconservative supporter of Republican politicians and founder,
CEO, and driving ideological force behind Blackwater, USA – ever writes a memoir, it might read a lot like The War in Nicaragua.7
Differentiating between the real and the fictional aspects in contemporary
mercenary narratives is difficult because of the deep imbrications between fact and fiction.
The “real” narratives found in mercenary memoirs, news stories, and journalistic works
circulating in contemporary popular discourse borrow liberally from a broad array of
action-adventure narratives from film, television, and popular culture history. Mercenary
memoirists tell of their childhood dream to become actors so they could play heroic roles,
before realizing that the military is where the “real” heroes act. They often compare their
real experiences in combat to the simulated experiences of popular culture: urban combat
7 At the time of this writing, rumors abound that Prince might be planning to move to the United Arab Emirates or another country with policies of non-extradition to the U.S. as a way to avoid indictment on war crimes under U.S. law. Since at least the mid-2000s, investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill has spent most of his time at The Nation writing exposes about Prince, Blackwater, private military companies, and the privatization of war: www.thenation.com. For the good, the (very) bad, and the weird versions of Eric Prince (not necessarily in that order), see also: Adam Ciralsky, “Tycoon, Contractor, Soldier, Spy,” Vanity Fair, January 2010, http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2010/01/blackwater- 201001?currentPage=all; Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army [Revised and Updated], Rev Upd. (Nation Books, 2008); Simons, Master of War.
257 resembles the video game Grand Theft Auto; helicopter combat is visualized through references to Apocalypse Now; the training and camaraderie of the battlefield are likened to
Full Metal Jacket; and so on. Former “mercenaries” often continue to work as consultants for film and television productions after their active duty days are done. Meanwhile, fictional mercenary narratives enhance their truthiness through plots “ripped from the headlines,” where the “good guys” denounce the “bad” mercenaries who inevitably work for White River or some other less-than-creative variation of “Blackwater.” Ritualistically consuming fictional mass-media mercenary narratives circulating in popular discourses helps to create prosthetic memories about (fictional and factional) benevolent American mercenaries, creating heuristics for understanding American mercenaries and private military contractors through popular culture discourses rather than through thoughtful analysis or fact-finding.
The legacy of fictional American mercenaries clearly affects the ways that real mercenaries are understood. Most civilian Americans do not have any life experience with
“real” mercenaries, but they do have associations and experiences with fictional mercenary figures from popular culture sources. When the fictional narratives based on fact, and the factual narratives told through fictional techniques, overlap as much as they do in popular mercenary narratives, those narratives can create prosthetic memories about benevolent, paternalistic, heroic mercenaries that form the basis of American collective cultural memories. Even when consumers of mass-media mercenary narratives are skeptical of what they see on the screen or read in a book, they may have a sense of personal experience and knowledge from their consumption of popular culture, especially if those fictional
258 cultural experiences provide their primary frame of reference for American mercenary
figures.
The mercenary has been and may continue to be an important figure in American
popular cultural and literary history. The current spike in mercenary narrative production
and consumption will record the legacies of previous generations of American mercenary figures as well as the various structures of feeling that are working through these narratives.
These contemporary narratives of control draw on long histories of domination and contestation. They display the realms of the possible, thinkable, idealized, and heroic in particular moments and across the history of the American project. Even as they marry destruction and expendability with action, adventure, and romance, mercenary narratives explore tensions between definitions of Americanness and American Exceptionalism, visions of what the United States can and should be, and who should lead the country forward on its path to righteous Manifest Destiny.
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