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Home , Brian Markinson, City of Ember, Connie and Carla, Gary Goetzman, Gilda Live, Gust Avrakotos

December 2, 2014 (Series 29:15) , CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR (2007, 102 minutes)

Directed by Mike Nichols Written by Aaron Sorkin and George Crile Produced by and Music by Cinematography by Stephen Goldblatt Film Editing by John Bloom and Antonia Van Drimmelen

Tom Hanks ... Charlie Wilson Amy Adams ... Bonnie Bach ... Joanne Herring ... Gust Avrakotos Terry Bozeman ... CIA Award Presenter Brian Markinson ... Paul Brown Jud Tylor ... Crystal Lee Om Puri ... President Zia Ned Beatty ... Doc Long Mary Bailey ... Doc Long's Secretary Heartburn, 1986 The Longshot, 1983 , 1977 “The 'Annie' Christmas Show” (TV Movie), 1976 “Family” (TV Mike Nichols (director) (b. Michael Igor Peschkowsky, Series), 1975 , and 1971 Carnal Knowledge. November 6, 1931 in Berlin, Germany—d. November 19, 2014 He also appeared in 6 films and television shows— (age 83) in Manhattan, New York) won the 1968 Academy 1998 Instant Dread (Short), 1997 The Designated Mourner, Award for Best Director for (1967). He directed 1967 Bach to Bach (Short), 1960 “Playhouse 90” (TV Series), 22 films and television shows, which are 2007 Charlie Wilson's 1958 “The DuPont Show of the Month” (TV Series), and 1958 War, 2004 Closer, 2003 “Angels in America” (TV Mini-Series), “Omnibus” (TV Series)—and wrote 2—2001 “Wit” (TV 2001 “Wit” (TV Movie), 2000 What Planet Are You From?, Movie), 1967 Bach to Bach (Short). He was a layout artist in the 1998 Primary Colors, 1996 , 1994 Wolf, 1991 animation department for 1994 “The Magic School Bus” (TV , 1990 Postcards from the Edge, 1988 Working Series), and performed on the soundtrack for 2007 “American Girl, 1988 Biloxi Blues, 1986 Heartburn, 1983 Silkwood, 1980 Masters” (TV Series documentary). In addition, he was the (Documentary), 1975 The Fortune, 1973 The Day of original stage director and/or producer for 4 films and television the Dolphin, 1971 Carnal Knowledge, 1970 Catch-22, 1968 shows—2005 “Whoopi: Back to Broadway - The 20th Teach Me! (Short), 1967 The Graduate, and 1966 Who's Afraid Anniversary” (TV Movie), 1985 “Whoopi Goldberg: Direct of Virginia Woolf?. from Broadway” (TV Movie documentary), 1982 Annie, 1981 In addition, he produced 19 films and TV shows, which “The Gin Game” (TV Movie)—and is credited with giving are 2014 Crescendo! The Power of Music (Documentary), 2011 “particularly good advice” in the making of 2003 Capturing the Friends with Kids, 2004 Closer, 2003 “Angels in America” (TV Friedmans (Documentary). Mini-Series), 2001 “Wit” (TV Movie), 2000 What Planet Are You From?, 1998 Primary Colors, 1997 The Designated Aaron Sorkin (writer, screenplay) (b. Aaron Benjamin Sorkin, Mourner, 1996 The Birdcage, 1993 The Remains of the Day, June 6, 1961 in , New York) won the 2011 1991 Regarding Henry, 1990 Postcards from the Edge, 1986 Academy Award for Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay for The

Nichols—CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR—2

Social Network (2010). He wrote 11 films and television shows, John Bloom (editor) (b. September 12th 1935) won the 1983 which are Jobs (pre-production), 2012-2014 “The Newsroom” Academy Award for Best Film Editing Gandhi (1982). He (TV Series, 25 episodes), 2011 Moneyball (screenplay), 2010 edited 51 films and television shows: 2011 King Kennedy The Social Network (screenplay), 2007 Charlie Wilson's War (Documentary), 2009 “Into the Storm” (TV Movie), 2007 (screenplay), 2006 – 2007 “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” (TV Charlie Wilson's War, 2006 Notes on a Scandal, 2004 Closer, Series, 22 episodes), 1999 - 2006 “The West Wing” (TV 2003 “Angels in America” (TV Mini-Series), 2001 “Wit” (TV Series,155 episodes), 1998 – 2000 “Sports Night” (TV Series, Movie), 2000 Shaft, 1999 The Deep End of the Ocean, 1996 The 45 episodes), 1995 The American President, 1993 Malice First Wives Club, 1996 Last Dance, 1994 Nobody's Fool, 1993 (screenplay/story), and 1992 A Few Good Men Screen One (TV Series), 1992 Damage, 1992 Prague, 1990 Air (play/screenplay). He also produced 5 films and TV shows, America, 1990 Everybody Wins, 1989 Jacknife, 1988 Bright which are 2012-2014 “The Newsroom” (TV Series, 25 Lights, Big City, 1987 Black Widow, 1985 , 1984 episodes), 2006-2007 “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” (TV “Mistral's Daughter” (TV Mini-Series), 1983 Betrayal, 1982 Series, 22 episodes), 1999-2003 “The West Wing” (TV Series, Gandhi, 1981 The French Lieutenant's Woman, 1979 Dracula, 88 episodes), 2002 “The West 1978 Magic, 1977 Orca, 1977 The Wing Documentary Special” Message, 1976 The Ritz, 1974 The (TV Movie documentary), Abdication, 1973 “The Glass 1998-2000 “Sports Night” Menagerie” (TV Movie), 1973 (TV Series, 45 episodes), and “Divorce His - Divorce Hers” (TV appeared in 7: 2011 “30 Movie), 1972 Travels with My Rock” (TV Series), 2010 The Aunt, 1972 Henry VIII and His Six Social Network, 2010 Wives, 1971 Keep Your Fingers “Entourage” (TV Series), Crossed, 1971 The Road Builder, 2006 “The West Wing” (TV 1971 The Last Valley, 1970 In Series), 1999 “Sports Night” Search of Gregory, 1968 The Lion (TV Series), 1995 The in Winter, 1967 The Last Safari, American President, and 1992 1966 The Specialist (Short), 1966 A Few Good Men. Funeral in Berlin, 1966 Runaway Railway, 1966 Georgy Girl, 1965 Cup Fever, 1965 The Party's Over, 1964 Go Kart Go, George Crile (writer, book) (b. George Washington Crile III, 1964 The Winston Affair, 1962 Love Me, Love Me, Love Me March 5, 1945 in San Diego, California—d. May 15, 2006 (age (Short), and 1961 The Impersonator. In addition, he worked in 61) in New York City, New York) produced 4 films and TV the editorial department for 3 films and television shows, which shows, which are 2007 “60 Minutes” (TV Series documentary), are 1983 Under Fire (supervising editor), 1981 “Masada” (TV 1999 “60 Minutes Wednesday” (TV Series documentary), 1982 Mini-Series, editorial consultant), and 1978 Who'll Stop the “The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception” (TV Special), Rain (supervising editor). and 1980 “CBS Reports” (TV Series documentary). He has only 1 Hollywood writing credit, 2007 Charlie Wilson's War (book), Antonia Van Drimmelen (editor) edited 6 films and television for which he was also credited as a technical consultant. shows, which are 2009 “Into the Storm” (TV Movie), 2007 Charlie Wilson's War, 2006 Notes on a Scandal, 2004 Closer, Stephen Goldblatt (cinematographer) (b. 1945 in South 2003 “Angels in America” (TV Mini-Series), and 2000 Shaft. Africa) has 34 film and television cinematography credits, She worked in the editorial department for 9 films and television which are 2015 The Intern, 2014 Get on Up, 2011 The Help, shows—2003 View from the Top (associate editor), 2001 “Wit” 2010 Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, (TV Movie, associate editor), 1999 The Deep End of the Ocean 2009 Julie & Julia, 2007 Charlie Wilson's War, 2005 , (first assistant editor), 1996 The First Wives Club (associate 2004 Closer, 2003 “Angels in America” (TV Mini-Series), 2002 editor), 1996 Last Dance (associate editor), 1994 Nobody's Fool “Path to War” (TV Movie), 2001 “Conspiracy” (TV Movie), (associate editor), 1994 Camilla (associate editor), 1991 Thelma 1999 The Deep End of the Ocean, 1997 Batman & Robin, 1996 & Louise (assistant film editor), and 1989 “The Woman in Striptease, 1995 , 1993 The Pelican Brief, 1992 Black” (TV Movie, assistant editor)—and the sound department Consenting Adults, 1991 The Prince of Tides, 1991 For the for 1—1989 Chattahoochee (assistant dubbing editor). Boys, 1990 Joe Versus the Volcano, 1989 Lethal Weapon 2, 1988 Everybody's All-American, 1987 Lethal Weapon, 1985 Tom Hanks ... Charlie Wilson (b. Thomas Jeffrey Hanks, July Young Sherlock Holmes, 1984 The Cotton Club, 1983 Kilroy 9, 1956 in Concord, California) won 2 for Was Here, 1983 The Hunger, 1982 The Return of the Soldier, Best Actor in a Leading Role, in 1994 for Philadelphia (1993) 1981 Outland, 1980 Breaking Glass, 1973 Odeon Cavalcade and in 1995 for Forrest Gump (1994). He has produced 46 films (Short), 1973 The Mangrove Nine (Short), 1972 Pass of Arms, and television shows: “American Gods” (TV Series, and 1969 Forum. He also worked in the camera and electrical announced), “Lewis and Clark” (TV Mini-Series, announced), department on 3 films and television shows: 1980 The 2013 “Jack Johnson” (TV Mini-Series), 2015 Ithaca, 2015 A Alternative Miss World (Documentary, lighting director), 1974 Hologram for the King, 2014 “The Concert for Valor” (TV “Disappearing World” (TV Series documentary, camera Special), 2014 “Olive Kitteridge” (TV Mini-Series), 2014 “The operator), and 1971 Loving Memory (camera assistant). Sixties” (TV Series documentary, 9 episodes), 2013 “The Assassination of President Kennedy” (TV Movie documentary), Nichols—CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR—3

2013 Parkland, 2013 “The 2013 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Do!, 1995 , 1995 Apollo 13, 1994 “Vault of Horror I” Induction Ceremony” (TV Movie), 2012 “Electric City” (TV (TV Movie), 1994 Forrest Gump, 1993 Philadelphia, 1993 Series short), 2012 “The 2012 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame “Fallen Angels” (TV Series), 1993 Sleepless in Seattle, 1992 A Induction Ceremony” (TV Movie), 2012 “Game Change” (TV League of Their Own, 1992 “Tales from the Crypt” (TV Series), Movie), 2011 He Has Seen War (Documentary), 2011 Larry 1992 Radio Flyer, 1990 The Bonfire of the Vanities, 1990 Joe Crowne, 2011 “The 3 Minute Talk Show” (TV Series, 12 Versus the Volcano, 1989 Turner & Hooch, 1989 The 'Burbs, episodes), 2006-2011 “” 1988 Punchline, 1988 Big, 1987 (TV Series, 51 episodes), 2010 Dragnet, 1986 Every Time We “” (TV Mini-Series, Say Goodbye, 1986 Nothing in 10 episodes), 2009 “The 25th Common, 1986 The Money Pit, Anniversary Rock and Roll Hall 1985 Volunteers, 1985 The Man of Fame Concert” (TV Special), with One Red Shoe, 1984 2009 Beyond All Boundaries Bachelor Party, 1984 Splash, (Short), 2009 Where the Wild 1983-1984 “Family Ties” (TV Things Are, 2009 My Life in Series), 1982 “Mazes and Ruins, 2008 , 2008 Monsters” (TV Movie), 1982 Mamma Mia!, 2008 “David “Happy Days” (TV Series), McCullough: Painting with 1982 “Taxi” (TV Series), 1980- Words” (TV Movie 1982 “Bosom Buddies” (TV documentary), 2008 “John Series, 37 episodes), 1980 “The Adams” (TV Mini-Series, 7 Love Boat” (TV Series), and episodes), 2008 The Great Buck 1980 He Knows You're Alone. Howard, 2007 Charlie Wilson's War, 2007 Evan Almighty, 2007 He also performed on 10 film and TV soundtracks: “Big Love: In the Beginning” (TV Series), 2006 Starter for 10, 2013 Saving Mr. Banks, 2006 “” (TV 2006 The Ant Bully, 2006 Neil Young: Heart of Gold Series), 2004 The Polar Express, 2002 The Road to Perdition, (Documentary), 2005 “Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the 2000 , 1999 Toy Story 2, 1996 That Thing You Do!, Moon 3D” (Documentary short), 2005 “We're with the Band” 1990 Joe Versus the Volcano, 1987 Dragnet, and 1980-1982 (TV Movie documentary), 2004 The Polar Express, 2004 “Bosom Buddies” (TV Series). He wrote 6 films and television , 2003 “My Big Fat Greek Life” (TV Series), shows—2012 “Electric City” (TV Series short), 2011 Larry 2002 , 2001 “We Stand Alone Crowne, 2005 Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon Together” (TV Movie documentary), 2001 “Band of Brothers” 3D (Documentary short), 2001 “Band of Brothers” (TV Mini- (TV Mini-Series, 10 episodes), 2000 “West Point” (TV Series), Series), 1998 “From the Earth to the Moon” (TV Mini-Series), 2000 Cast Away, 2000 “The American Experience” (TV Series 1996 That Thing You Do!—and directed 8—2011 Larry documentary), and 1998 “From the Earth to the Moon” (TV Crowne, 2001 “Band of Brothers” (TV Mini-Series), 1998 Mini-Series, 12 episodes). “From the Earth to the Moon” (TV Mini-Series), 1996 That He has appeared in 74 films and television shows, Thing You Do!, 1994 “Vault of Horror I” (TV Movie), 1993 which are The Lost Symbol (announced), 2015 Untitled Cold “Fallen Angels” (TV Series), 1993 “A League of Their Own” War Spy Thriller, 2015 Ithaca, 2015 A Hologram for the King, (TV Series), and 1992 “Tales from the Crypt” (TV Series). 2014 “Toy Story That Time Forgot” (TV Short), 2013 Saving Mr. Banks, 2013 “Toy Story of Terror” (TV Short), 2013 Amy Adams ... Bonnie Bach (b. Amy Lou Adams, August 20, Captain Phillips, 2012 Toy Story Toons: Partysaurus Rex 1974 in Vicenza, Veneto, Italy) has appeared in 52 films and (Short), 2012 Cloud Atlas, 2012 “Electric City” (TV Series television shows, which are 2017 The Justice League Part One, short, 21 episodes), 2011 Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, 2016 Story of Your Life, 2016 Batman v Superman: Dawn of 2011 Toy Story Toons: Small Fry (Short), 2011 , Justice, 2014 Big Eyes, 2014 Lullaby, 2013 American Hustle, 2011 “30 Rock” (TV Series), 2011 “Toy Story Toons: Hawaiian 2013 Her, 2013 Man of Steel, 2013 Back Beyond (Video short), Vacation” (Short), 2010 Toy Story 3, 2010 “The Pacific” (TV 2012 Trouble with the Curve, 2012 The Master, 2012 On the Mini-Series, 6 episodes), 2009 Late Show with David Letterman Road, 2011 The Muppets, 2010 The Fighter, 2010 Love & (TV Series), 2009 Beyond All Boundaries (Short), 2009 Angels Distrust (Video), 2010 Leap Year, 2009 Moonlight Serenade & Demons, 2008 , 2007 Charlie (Video), 2009 Julie & Julia, 2009 Night at the Museum: Battle Wilson's War, 2006 The Da Vinci Code, 2006 Cars, 2005 of the Smithsonian, 2008 Doubt, 2008 Miss Pettigrew Lives for “Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon 3D” a Day, 2008 Sunshine Cleaning, 2007 Charlie Wilson's War, (Documentary short), 2004 The Polar Express, 2004 Elvis Has 2007 Enchanted, 2007 Underdog, 2006 The Ex, 2006 Tenacious Left the Building, 2004 The Terminal, 2004 The Ladykillers, D in The Pick of Destiny, 2006 Pennies (Short), 2006 Talladega 2003 “Freedom: A History of Us” (TV Series documentary, 7 Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, 2005-2006 “The Office” episodes), 2002 Catch Me If You Can, 2002 The Road to (TV Series), 2005 Standing Still, 2005 The Wedding Date, 2005 Perdition, 2001 “Band of Brothers” (TV Mini-Series), 2001 Junebug, 2004 The Last Run, 2004 “Dr. Vegas” (TV Series), “Scene by Scene” (TV Series), 2000 Cast Away, 1999 The 2004 “King of the Hill” (TV Series), 2002 Catch Me If You Green Mile, 1999 Toy Story 2 (Video Game), 1999 Toy Story 2, Can, 2002 “The West Wing” (TV Series), 2002 Serving Sara, 1998 You've Got Mail, 1998 Saving Private Ryan, 1998 “From 2002 Pumpkin, 2002 The Slaughter Rule, 2001 “Smallville” the Earth to the Moon” (TV Mini-Series), 1996 That Thing You (TV Series), 2000 Cruel Intentions 2 (Video), 2000 “Buffy the Nichols—CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR—4

Vampire Slayer” (TV Series), 2000 “Providence” (TV Series), “An American Girl Holiday” (TV Movie), 2003 “Queens 2000 “Zoe, Duncan, Jack & Jane” (TV Series), 2000 The Supreme” (TV Series), and 1998 Stepmom—and performed on 3 Chromium Hook (Short), 2000 “Charmed” (TV Series), 2000 soundtracks—1998 Stepmom, 1996 Everyone Says I Love You, “That '70s Show” (TV Series), 2000 Psycho Beach Party, 2000 and 1990 Pretty Woman. “The Peter Principle” (TV Movie), and 1999 Drop Dead Gorgeous. Philip Seymour Hoffman ... Gust Avrakotos (Born: July 23, In addition, she performed on 9 film and television 1967 in Fairport, New York—d. February 2, 2014 (age 46) in soundtracks: 2013 “The Tonight West Village, Manhattan, New Show with Jay Leno” (TV York City, New York) won the Series), 2012 Trouble with the 2006 Academy Award for Best Curve, 2011 The Muppets, 2010 Performance by an Actor in a “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” Leading Role for Capote (2005). (TV Series), 2009 Moonlight He appeared in 63 films and Serenade (Video), 2008 television shows, which are 2015 “Saturday Night Live” (TV The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Series), 2008 Miss Pettigrew - Part 2, 2015 “Happyish” (TV Lives for a Day, 2008 “The 80th Series), 2014 The Hunger Annual Academy Awards” (TV Games: Mockingjay - Part 1, Special), and 2007 Enchanted, 2014 A Most Wanted Man, 2014 God's Pocket, 2013 The Hunger Julia Roberts ... Joanne Games: Catching Fire, 2013 Herring (b. Julia Fiona Roberts, Back Beyond (Video short), 2012 October 28, 1967 in Smyrna, A Late Quartet, 2012 The Georgia) won the 2001 Master, 2011 Moneyball, 2011 Academy Award for Best The Ides of March, 2011 “A Actress in a Leading Role for Child's Garden of Poetry” (TV Erin Brockovich (2000). She Movie), 2010 Jack Goes Boating, has appeared in 52 films and 2009 “Arthur” (TV Series), 2009 television shows, which are The The Invention of Lying, 2009 Secret in Their Eyes, 2014 “The Pirate Radio, 2009 Mary and Normal Heart” (TV Movie), Max, 2008 Doubt, 2008 2013 August: Osage County, Synecdoche, New York, 2007 2012 Mirror Mirror, 2011 Charlie Wilson's War, 2007 Larry Crowne, 2011 Love, Before the Devil Knows You're Wedding, Marriage, 2010 Eat Dead, 2007 The Savages, 2006 Pray Love, 2010 Valentine's Mission: Impossible III, 2005 Day, 2009 Duplicity, 2008 Capote, 2005 Empire Falls (TV Fireflies in the Garden, 2007 Movie), 2005 Strangers with Charlie Wilson's War, 2006 Candy, 2004 Along Came Polly, Charlotte's Web, 2006 The Ant Bully, 2004 Ocean's Twelve, 2003 Cold Mountain, 2003 Mattress Man Commercial (Video 2004 Closer, 2003 Mona Lisa Smile, 2003 “Freedom: A History short), 2003 Owning Mahowny, 2002 25th Hour, 2002 Red of Us” (TV Series documentary), 2002 Confessions of a Dragon, 2002 Punch-Drunk Love, 2002 Love Liza, 2000 Almost Dangerous Mind, 2002 Full Frontal, 2002 Grand Champion, Famous, 2000 State and Main, 1999 The Talented Mr. Ripley, 2001 Ocean's Eleven, 2001 America's Sweethearts, 2001 The 1999 Magnolia, 1999 Flawless, 1998 Patch Adams, 1998 Mexican, 2000 Erin Brockovich, 1999 Runaway Bride, 1999 Happiness, 1998 The Big Lebowski, 1998 Next Stop Notting Hill, 1999 “Law & Order” (TV Series), 1998 Stepmom, Wonderland, 1998 Montana, 1997 “Liberty! The American 1997 Conspiracy Theory, 1997 My Best Friend's Wedding, 1996 Revolution” (TV Mini-Series), 1997 Culture (Short), 1997 Everyone Says I Love You, 1996 Michael Collins, 1996 Mary Boogie Nights, 1996 Twister, 1996 Hard Eight, 1995 The Reilly, 1996 “Friends” (TV Series), 1995 Something to Talk Fifteen Minute Hamlet (Short), 1994 Nobody's Fool, 1994 When About, 1994 Ready to Wear, 1994 I Love Trouble, 1993 The a Man Loves a Woman, 1994 “The Yearling” (TV Movie), 1994 Pelican Brief, 1992 The Player, 1991 Hook, 1991 Dying Young, Szuler, 1994 The Getaway, 1993 Money for Nothing, 1993 My 1991 Sleeping with the Enemy, 1990 Flatliners, 1990 Pretty Boyfriend's Back, 1993 Joey Breaker, 1992 Scent of a Woman, Woman, 1989 Steel Magnolias, 1989 Blood Red, 1988 Mystic 1992 Leap of Faith, 1992 My New Gun, 1991 Triple Bogey on a Pizza, 1988 “Miami Vice” (TV Series), 1988 “Baja Oklahoma” Par Five Hole, and 1991 “Law & Order” (TV Series). (TV Movie), 1988 Satisfaction, 1987 Firehouse, and 1987 In addition, he produced 6 films and TV shows—2015 “Crime Story” (TV Series). “Happyish” (TV Series), 2014 One Armed Man (Short), 2014 In addition, she has produced 7 films and television God's Pocket, 2011 Candlesticks (Short), 2010 Jack Goes shows—2012 Jesus Henry Christ, 2011 “Extraordinary Moms” Boating, and 2005 Capote—performed on 2 soundtracks—2012 (TV Movie documentary), 2008 Kit Kittredge: An American The Master and 1999 Magnolia—and directed 1 film—2010 Girl, 2005 “An American Girl Adventure” (TV Movie), 2004 Jack Goes Boating. Nichols—CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR—5

May when she sneered at his performance in Strindberg’s Miss Julie. He made his debut as a director in another university production, of Yeats’ Purgatory. Nichols abandoned his psychiatric career in 1954, when he went to New York and joined Lee Strasberg’s Actor’s Studio. He supported himself by teaching horseback riding and waiting tables at Howard Johnson’s. The story goes that he lost the latter job when a customer asked which of the establishment’s great range of ice creams he would recommend for a hot fudge sundae and Nichols suggested chicken. After that he worked as a disc jockey in Philadelphia, commuting to New York for his lessons at the Actor’s Studio. In 1955 Nichols was invited to join Shepherd’s Compass Theatre in , a sort of threadbare nightclub where the performers improvised their satirical sketches, often around ideas elicited from the audience. The Compass Players, an extraordinarily talented bunch of unknowns, included Alan MIKE NICHOLS: 1988 entry from World Film Directors Arkin, Shelley Berman, Barbara Harris, Zorah Lampert, and v.2. Ed. John Wakeman, H.W. Wilson Co., NY 1988. Nichols’ old university sparring partner Elaine May. It was then that Nichols developed his reputation as “the fastest tongue in American director and producer, was born Michael Igor the Midwest.” Peschkowsky in Berlin, Germany. He is the son of Paul According to an article in Time magazine (June 15, Peschkowsky, a Russian Jewish doctor who had emigrated to 1970), Elaine May replaced Nichols’ “child bride,” although Germany after the revolution and the former Brigitte Landauer. their relationship was “much too serious for marriage.” Or much His maternal grandparents were Hedwig Lachmann, who wrote too funny. Thanks to what Time calls “their matched the German libretto for Richard Strauss’ Salome, and Gustav metabolism and high literacy,” as well as their “impeccable” Lachmann, head of the German Social Democrat Party, who stagecraft, they worked marvelously together. When Compass was eventually murdered by the Nazis. folded in the fall of 1957, the routines they had developed there Nichols can himself remember being racially formed the basis of a double act that, after a couple of years of segregated and harassed as a small boy in Germany. In 1938 his growing acclaim in nightclubs and on television, arrived on father went alone to the , where he changed his Broadway in October 1960 as An Evening With Mike Nichols name to Paul Nichols, obtained American medical qualifications and Elaine May. The two-character sketches that made up the and set up a practice in Manhattan. The following year Mike program were like frontline reports from the sex war, mixed in Nichols and his older brother joined him. Their mother, detained with parodic variations on the works of Pirandello, Proust, by illness, followed in 1941. O’Neill, and Noel Coward. The best of them are preserved on Paul Nichols was successful in his adopted country. five enormously successful discs. The family lived near Central Park in Manhattan, and Mike Elaine May wanted to write and Nichols to direct. Nichols was sent to the Cherry Lane School in Darien, After An Evening With finally closed in July 1961, they went Connecticut, the Dalton School and Walden High in New their separate ways (though Nichols subsequently starred in York—a series of “very chic, very progressive schools” where May’s unsuccessful play A Matter of Position). Nichols went he was generally lonely and unhappy. Nichols was stagestruck first to , where he directed a production of The by the time he was fourteen but was assured by his teachers that Importance of Being Ernest (and played in Shaw’s Saint he was not suited for a theatrical career. Joan).He had his first smash hit in 1963 with Neil Simon’s Graduating from Walden, Nichols enrolled in New Barefoot in the Park, which brought him a Tony award as best York University but soon dropped out. Drudging as a shipping director of the year. The following year Nichols staged an off- clerk was no more satisfying, and in 1950, when he was Broadway production of Ann Jellicoe’s The Knack and had nineteen, he began the pre-med program at the University of another Tony-winning triumph with Murray Schisgal’s Luv. Chicago, planning a career in psychiatry. At about the same There was another Neil Simon hit, The Odd Couple, in 1965, time he was married to a girl even younger than himself. and yet another Tony. Formerly lethargic, and given to sleeping away the Nichols was already a celebrity as a sophisticated greater part of his time, Nichols now began to tap his immense entertainer. By 1966, an unbroken succession of Broadway resources of energy. His father had died some years earlier, smashes had made him “the most in-demand director in the leaving the family financially hard-pressed. Nichols had to work American theatre”—a “superstar” and “a certified Beautiful his way through college in an assortment of jobs, including one Person.” He was, Time prattled on, the “intimate of Lenny and as a radio announcer. Finding that he could cut classes and still Jackie, chum of Gloria Steinem….His Upper West Side triplex keep pace with the other students, he also began to involve was decorated by Billy Baldwin. His Rolls patiently waited at himself in university theatrical activities. According to his own the curb while he visited his fellow greats.” account, he first became aware of a fellow student named Elaine Nichols—CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR—6

At that point, with no experience whatever of the attributed to the director’s collaborators—to the producer Ernest cinema, he was invited by Warner Brothers to direct the screen Lehman, the photographer Haskell Wexler, the composer Alex version of Edward Albee’s most famous play, Who’s Afraid of North, and/or to two men who thereafter regularly worked on Virginia Woolf?, starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. Nichols’s films, the production designer and the Those monstres sacrés play George and Martha—an associate editor Sam O’Steen. professor of history at a minor college, witty, intelligent, but Virtually everyone agreed that Nichols had drawn psychologically deeply scarred; and his vulgar and venomous marvelous performances from his actors. All of them were wife, daughter of the college president. The setting is their nominated for Oscars, as was almost everyone involved in the house on campus, where, after a faculty party, they repair to movie, including the director. Academy Awards actually went drink away the night, and to rend each other emotionally with a to Elizabeth Taylor, Sandy Dennis, Haskell Wexler, Richard skill and knowledge born of much Sylbert, and the costume designer Irene practice. Hapless witness of these Sharaff. Threatened with censorship on scenes of witty torment are two account of the profanity of its language. newcomers to the college—Nick Who’s Afraid was specifically (George Segal), a ruthlessly ambitious exempted from Production Code and macho young biologist, and his standards in recognition of its serious frigid wife Honey (Sandy Dennis). intentions as a work of art. And the A fifth character, much paying public likewise took the film to discussed, is George and Martha’s son its multifarious bosom. Made at a cost who, we learn, is shortly to arrive of about $6 million, the movie grossed home. He is never seen and indeed, it $14.5 million, suggesting that Nichols’ emerges, he has never existed. This Midas touch knew no formal barriers. does not prevent George, at the film’s Pausing only to snap up his climax, from “killing” him—a brave fourth Tony award as director of yet and loving attempt to exorcize a fantasy another Neil Simon smash, Plaza Suite, that allows their agonized symbiosis no Nichols made his second film, The way forward. Graduate (1967). Scripted by and Calder Willingham from the As Stanley Kauffmann pointed novel by Charles Webb, it became a out, Mike Nichols had been given “two world-shaking stars, the cult object and a manifesto for a whole generation of young play of the decade and the auspices of a large looming studio. people, earned Nichols an Oscar as best director of the year, and What more inhibiting conditions could be imagined for a first grosses $50 million, making it one of the greatest box-office film?. . . But Mr. Nichols has at least survived.” Ernest Lehman, successes in the history of the cinema. Its Simon and Garfunkel the picture’s producer and scriptwriter, had “broken the play out songs—”The Sound of Silence,” “Mrs. Robinson,” of its one living-room set into various rooms in the house and “Scarborough Fair”—were as much loved as the film itself. onto the lawn, which the play accepts well enough. He has also The Graduate brought instant stardom to little-known placed one scene in a roadhouse which is a patently forced move Dustin Hoffman. He plays Benjamin Braddock who, having for visual variety…. fulfilled all his parents’ expectations at college, graduates The real job of ‘filmizing’ was left to the director” who “with no summa cum laude and goes home to Los Angeles. He has no possible chance to cut loose cinematically. . . has made the most idea of what to do with the rest of his life—only the wrap- of the two elements that were left to him–intimacy and acting.” around affluence and a career in plastics are not the answer. Kauffmann thought that Nichols had “gone to school to Benjamin sinks into anomie, where he is promptly seduced by several film masters. . . in the skills of keeping the camera close, Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft), predatory wife of his father’s indecently prying; giving us a sense of the characters’ very business partner, who gobbles up what remains of Benjamin’s breath; tracking a face–in the rhythm of a scene–as the actor wilted ego. moves, to take us to other faces; puncturing with sudden What saves him is his dawning love for Mrs. withdrawals to give us a brief, almost dispassionate respite; then Robinson’s daughter Elaine (Katherine Ross). Their situation is plunging us in close again to one or two faces, for lots of pores impossible and (as Nichols says) “impossibility always leads to and bile. There is not much that is original in Mr. Nichols’ passion.” Forbidden access to Elaine, first by his mistress, then camerawork, no sense of the personality that we get in his stage by Elaine herself, he learns that she is to marry a more direction. . . But he has minimized the ‘stage’ feeling, and he acceptable graduate. A bemused Lochinvar, he rushes to the has given the film an insidious presence, good phrasing and a church, arrives too late to halt the ceremony, but snatches her nervous drive.” away from her outraged clan. With Elaine still in her wedding This was fairly typical of the film’s reviews, though dress, they escape by bus into an uncertain future in a scene that some critics took extreme positions, for or against. One thought brought many audiences cheering to their feet. that it established Nichols as “the new Orson Welles.” Others Wayne Schuth, in his monograph on Mike Nichols, assumed that what was most successful in the film could be analyzes The Graduate in terms of its Nichols—CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR—7 symbolic use of color, music, and visual images. Schuth parachuites, and in due course negotiating the bombing of his maintains that water and “drowning” are motifs that recur own base with the Germans. At every turn, corruption is throughout Nichols’ work, and are especially prominent in this honored, goodness and humanity are crucified—Yossarian, who film. Thus we see Benjamin’s face in close-up “swimming” happens to be naked at the time, does receive a medal from through the alien faces at his welcome-home party, then the fish General Dreedle (Orson Welles) but only to encourage him to swimming behind their glass walls in his aquarium (which bomb a civilian target. contains a model of a deep-sea diver). Later, wearing the diving Five times in the course of the film, Yoassarian’s mind gear his father has given him, Benjamin enters the family pool, returns to the nightmare scene in which, during a raid, he had wanders to the deep end and stands there alone, the camera tried to help his wounded gunner Snowden; each time his mind pulling back and back so flinches away from the that he becomes smaller memory before it reaches the and smaller as the blue discovery of Snowden’s water obscures him. appalling wound. “As in a Benjamin is shown psychoanalysis,” Nichols symbolically drowning, says, “Yossarian keeps fading away, becoming getting closer to the memory nothing.” and then forgetting it and ...The Graduate cutting it off. That’s what the was one of the most movie is….When he finally thoroughly discussed of does remember Snowden, he recent American movies, breaks down and is recognized at once as a reconstituted and makes his cultural event, a document decision. It is exactly a in the youth revolution. Not parallel to psychoanalysis.” everyone agreed that it was Yossarian’s decision is to an important event or a valuable document, but Andrew Sarris desert. The film ends with him in a life-raft, paddling toward found it “moving precisely because its hero passes from a Sweden. premature maturity to an innocence regained, and idealism Catch-22 is in fact a series of dream sequences. As reconfirmed.” John Lindsay Brown, in an article about Nichols Buck Henry has said, “everything except the last scene where in Sight and Sound (Spring 1972). drew a somewhat different Yossarian leaves the hospital and goes to Sweden is inside conclusion, calling “the enchanted fairytale conclusion...moving Yossarian’s mind.” This was not true of the novel and was not precisely because of its ambiguity within Benjamin. As the bus apparent to some critics who were accordingly confused. Others moves off with both him and Elaine smiling defiantly at the missed the endless comic invention of the book….It garnered no audience, no real transition from innocence to experience has Oscars or nominations and, though it grossed over $12 million, yet been made.” it is not certain that this actually represented a profit, the cost of Some critics failed to find the film moving in any the film having been cited variously as $10 million and $14 terms, though most thought it wonderfully funny, thanks to “a million. dazzlingly witty script that rewards great attention.” Paul In Carnal Knowledge (1971), Nichols returned to the Mayersburg, whose phrase that is, also complained of “density intimate scale of his first two films. The original and extremely in the visuals.” David Robinson found it “basically a rather witty script was by the cartoonist and dramatist Jules Feiffer, messy and indecisive film, very uncertain in intention and tone who shared Nichols’ preoccupation with American sexual and unashamedly derivative” (of Karel Reisz’s Morgan among neuroses. It follows the sexual careers of two friends—the stud other films). And the iconoclastic David Thomson called the Jonathan () and the romantic Sandy (Art movie “a horrible mesh of whimsy, safe black humor and Garfunkel)—from college days at Amherst in the mid-1940s to continental games with time.” the early 1970s. The principal women in their lives are Susan Critical opinion was just as radically divided about (Candice Bergen), whom they meet at college and who is Nichols‘ next picture, Catch-22 (1970), scripted by Buck Henry secretly seduced by Jonathan, though she eventually marries from the book by Joseph Heller and photographed on location Sandy; Bobbie (Ann-Margret), who moves in with Jonathan, (mostly in Mexico) by David Watkin. The setting is an marries him, and eventually divorces him; and Cindy (Cynthia American bomber base in Italy in 1944. Allied victory is O’Neal), Sandy’s second wife, whom Jonathan tries but fails to inevitable, but the publicity-crazed Colonel Cathcart (Martin seduce. In the end, as David Robinson wrote, “a middle-aged Balsam) endlessly escalates the number of missions his men Sandy is discovering mystical love with a hippy girl half his must fly. And when bombardier Captain Yossarian (Alan Arkin) age, while Jonathan is paying prostitutes to arouse his failing tries to opt out of the mindless slaughter, pleading insanity, he appetites with pathological rituals of his own devising.” encounters Catch-22: “Anyone who wants to get out of combat Some reviewers decided that the problem with duty isn’t really crazy,” so he has to go on flying. Jonathan and Sandy was latent homosexuality, but Jules Feiffer This kind of Lewis Carroll logic permeates the film, attributed their condition to “the society…[they] were born into. reflecting the global insanity of war itself. Lieutenant Milo the mythology they were reared in from birth…. They were Minderbinder (Jon Voight) for example, finding it profitable to trained to think about women as conveniences, receptacles, sell army rations, is soon disposing of his comrades’ appendages….[sex] had to do with rivalry and envy, with Nichols—CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR—8 competition with other fellow, more than it had to do with imbecility and lust in a way that is often found in Italian, but women.”...Jonathan Rabin called Carnal Knowledge “a glossy, rarely in American comic acting.”… undistinguished film, full of slack and dreadfully static.” Most For the next eight years, Nichols directed no fictional critics thought better of it than that, and for many it is Nichols’ films, devoting himself to television, as producer of the ABC- best film…. TV series Family, and to the theatre, where he directed After Carnal Streamers, Comedians, The Gin Knowledge, which grossed Game, the musical Annie, and $12.3 million, Nichols other successful productions. In returned for a time to the 1980 he made a smoothly-paced theatre. He directed Neil documentary of the comedian Simon’s latest play, The ’s Broadway Prisoner of Second Avenue, performance, basically a one- adding another Tony to his woman show with a little help collection, and the following from other veterans of NBC-TV’s year, 1973, staged a popular Saturday Night Live. But production of Chekhov’s his next major film was Silkwood Uncle Vanya, in a new (1983), based on the true story of translation by himself and Karen Silkwood, who died under Albert Todd. Its star, George suspicious circumstances in a car C. Scott, played the lead in accident in 1974. A union activist, Nichols’ next film, The Day of she allegedly had obtained the Dolphin (1973). documents—never recovered—that would have embarrassed her Nichols’ central theme, in the opinion of John Lindsay employer, the Kerr-McGee Corporation, which at that time Brown, is “the varieties of defeat suffered by innocence in its manufactured nuclear fuel out of plutonium. Written by Nora confrontations with experience.” Such a confrontation is Ephron and Alice Arlen, the film stars Meryl Streep as the certainly central in , another Buck Henry angular pill-popping heroine and mines the contrast between the script from the novel by . Scott plays Dr. Jake workers’ messy, idiosyncratic lives and the futuristic technology Terrell, a marine biologist who, on his Prospero’s island off the of their workplace. Florida coast, is teaching dolphins to think and speak like Silkwood received a number of Oscar and Golden human beings. Malevolent forces plan to pervert the animals’ Globe nominations. Vincent Canby called it “a brassy, profane, innocent intelligence by involving them in a plot to murder the gum-chewing tour de force, as funny as it is moving,” and said American president. Terrell, who loves the dolphins, frees them “it may be the most serious work Mike Nichols has yet done in into the ocean, instructing them never to speak again. At the films.” David Denby could not “help loving a tragic movie with end, he is calmly awaiting murder at the hands of the villains. so fertile a sense of the incongruous.” And for Jack Kroll it was Splendidly photographed by William A, Fraker, the one of the best films of the year. film has a lyrical score by , full of “Bach-like Throughout the 1980s, Nichols was unusually busy in chorales” as the dolphins “race, leap, dance, dive, pirouette, talk, the New York Theatre….Yet Nichols somehow found time to stand on their tails and all but walk off with the film.” It seemed return to Hollywood to make another film, Heartburn (1986), to David Robinson that “the training of the dolphins owes adapted for the screen by Nora Ephron from her own novel something of its feeling to Truffaut’s L’Enfant Sauvage, in its based on her marriage to celebrity journalist Carl Bernstein. picture of the patience and the reluctant cruelty of the teacher, This time out, reviews were generally negative. It was the terrible resistance and equally terrible capitulation of the felt that Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson were both able pupil.” But this promising parable “dwindles to the banality of a enough in their roles, but that their performances added up to a Disney live-action animal adventure, distinctly out of style with series of bright, effective moments rather than a realized study the talents involved.” of relationships. Stanley Kauffmann remarked that Nichols “is By Nichols’ standards, The Day of the Dolphin was one of the best of directors, on stage or screen, as long as he only moderately successful, and the decline continued—at least sticks to lightweight stuff…. He has given the film a freshness in financial terms—with The Fortune (1975), an original script of composition, a scene-by-scene substance, that implies by “Adrien Joyce” (Carole Eastman). It is set in the 1920s, comedy-drama of more import than we get….This is just a mostly in and around a Spanish stucco bungalow in southern series of events, not a drama, not even a narrative made cogent California. Here Freddie (Stockard Channing), a kooky teen-age by insight.” Pauline Kael agreed, observing that Nichols’ heiress, is shacked up with two naive and incompetent con men technique—his moving the camera in for each significant ( and Jack Nicholson). When they are not double- nuance—makes us unduly conscious of the acting, and how crossing one another or making out with Freddie, Nicky and studied it is. He turns us into connoisseurs of performance Oscar are planning to murder her for her money. In the end, instead of giving us a grasp of character.” The complaint of confronted with incontrovertible evidence of their lethal many critics was summed up by Richard Corliss when he wrote intentions. Freddie simply refuses to accept it and return that Heartburn “doesn’t seem to be about anything…..it’s less a cheerfully to her dangerous ménage a trois in a willed victory of slice of life than a slice of lifestyle.”... innocence over experience…. Molly Haskell thought that Interviewers describe Nichols as a tall, slim, slow- “Nichols deserves credit for a concept that tries to combine moving man who manages to combine “an ethereal fragile air” Nichols—CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR—9 with “an impression of intense alertness.” He breeds and sells How the Wildest Man in Congress and a Rogue CIA Agent Arabian horses. Nichols once said that his talent “isn’t Changed the History of Our Times, stated during a November necessarily the one I would have chosen, but people have no 2007 Oprah interview, "I think Charlie Wilson is a fascinating choice. They have to go on as themselves.” example of how things can get done from the oddest quarters. That you would jump to a conclusion, that you would adhere to “Questioning the Story” (Chasingthefrog.com) a stereotype about a no-good do nothing guy from a little section Why did Charlie Wilson want to help the people of of that doesn't mean anything, and in fact a guy like that ? can change the world, which is an example to all of us quite Despite being liberal on social issues, Texas Congressman frankly." Charlie Wilson was a fervent anticommunist. After being urged by socialite Joanne Herring, Charlie agreed to visit the Perhaps Hanks is alluding to another obvious political statement Afghan refugee camps in . He made his first trip to that the movie is trying to make, that an elected official with a , Pakistan in the fall of 1982. He met moral compass worse than that of Bill Clinton with President Zia (a meeting that had been can still get things done. In this way, the movie arranged by Joanne Herring), and he visited the is reminiscent of the 2000 drama The Contender Afghan refugee camps and hospitals in northern starring Joan Allen, which attempted to separate Pakistan, which were home to approximately 3 a sexual orgy in a woman's past from her ability million Afghans. Charlie Wilson's biography to do her job in office. That film was released a suggests that he was deeply moved when he month before the US presidential election that visited the children, many of whom had been came directly after the scandalous years of Bill maimed by Soviet land mines and weapons, Clinton. Similarly, Charlie Wilson's War comes including the ominous Mi-24 Hind Helicopter. on the eve of a presidential election year, this "I left those hospitals determined that as long as time involving Bill Clinton's wife Hillary as a I had a breath in my body and was a member of candidate. Is it only a coincidence then that Congress, that I was gonna do what I could to make the Soviets actor and producer Tom Hanks, a supporter of Hillary Clinton's pay for what they were doing" (The Real Charlie, (he has contributed $2,300 to her presidential campaign) has CharlieWilsonsWar.net). The Soviets had killed an estimated made an effort to focus on the film's ability to see past Charlie 10% of the population of Afghanistan in three years time. By Wilson's moral flaws (CNN.com)? the end of the war in Afghanistan, the Soviets had the lives of more than 1,000,000 Afghans. Each time that Charlie Did the original screenplay end with a shot of the Pentagon had visited the refugee camps and hospitals, he donated blood to in flames? help those suffering. -History Channel, The True Story of Yes. The real Charlie Wilson and Joanne Herring succeeded in Charlie Wilson having parts of the movie's script omitted, which had suggested that they were responsible for seeding the events of September Is Charlie Wilson's War a round-a-bout attempt to provide 11, 2001. This included a shot of the Pentagon in flames at the an opinion on present day politics? end of Aaron Sorkin's original screenplay. When she first read After a TIME magazine interviewer implied that the movie's the script, Texas socialite Joanne Herring says that she depiction of the US involvement in Afghanistan directly relates "practically choked." She and Charlie Wilson were aghast at the to the US in Iraq, Tom Hanks corrected him by saying, "This screenplay's implications that they had abetted Al Qaeda and isn't about Iraq. ...Charlie Wilson's War is about something Osama Bin Laden. "Can you ever predict a war?" Joanne argues. happening in 1980." Hanks obviously wants to avoid having his "The shelf life of a Stinger missile is five years. There's no film associated with the recent string of left wing Iraq flavored weapon we got them that can be used today." Herring and box office failures. Wilson brought in famed Houston attorney Dick DeGuerin, who helped pressure Universal and to change the For the most part, the movie is not about Iraq, but a postscript to script. -NY Daily News the movie quotes the real Charlie Wilson as saying, "We f---ed up the endgame." Mr. Wilson is referring to how the I heard Rudy Giuliani's name mentioned in the movie, what Mujahedeen, whom the US supplied with weapons in role did he play in the Charlie Wilson real story? Afghanistan, eventually flowered into the Taliban and backed It is likely no coincidence that the movie more than once Osama bin Laden's war against the US. This brief criticism of mentions 2008 Republican Candidate Rudy Giuliani's fight, as US foreign policy left liberal critics of the film disappointed that part of a Justice Department investigation, to convict the movie did not emphasize this point more strongly. Congressman Charlie Wilson. Then a famed-prosecutor and Newsweek critic David Ansen asks of the filmmakers, "Is this U.S. Attorney from the Southern District of New York, Rudy admirable restraint or cold feet? Are they afraid of spoiling the Giuliani headed a 1986 ethical investigation into the Texas feel-good uplift of Charlie's victory with the harsh downdraft of Congressman's supposed drug use in a Las Vegas hot tub, a history? It's as if Titanic ended with a celebratory shipboard conviction that could have jeopardized Wilson's ability to get banquet, followed by a postscript: by the way, it sank." weapons into the hands of the Afghans. Giuliani's ethical harassment of Charlie Wilson becomes a punch line in the Tom Hanks, who purchased the rights to George Crile's movie. Contrarily, the movie casts Democrats like John Murtha biography, Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of in a positive light. Nichols—CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR—10

troops left in 1989. How did the real life Joanne Herring become involved with The Tom Hanks movie also pushed the theme that the Afghanistan? war was really the pet project of a maverick Democratic In the movie Charlie Wilson's War, Joanne Herring (Julia congressman from Texas, Charlie Wilson, who fell in love with Roberts) sets up a meeting between the Afghan mujahedeen after Charlie Wilson (Tom Hanks) and falling in love with a glamorous President Zia of Pakistan. The Texas oil woman, Joanne Herring, meeting proves effective after who was committed to their anti- Charlie visits wounded and starving communist cause. Afghans living in refugee camps in Northern Pakistan. What he sees However, “Charlie further ignites his existing hatred Wilson’s War” – like many toward the , inspiring Hollywood films – took him to demand an increase in the extraordinary license with the defense appropriations for facts, presenting many of the Afghanistan. In real life, Joanne war’s core elements incorrectly. Herring served as honorary to That in itself might not be a both Pakistan and Morocco. This is serious problem, except that key how she developed connections in the region. Joanne was also a U.S. policymakers have cited these mythical “facts” as lessons conservative Houston socialite, political activist, to guide the current U.S. military occupation of Afghanistan. businesswoman, and former talk show host. Her friendships The degree to which Ronald Reagan’s White House with politicians like future Secretary of State added saw Wilson as more puppet than puppet-master is underscored to her political influence. by a newly discovered document at Reagan’s presidential library in Simi Valley, California. I found the document in the How did Joanne Herring convince Charlie Wilson to help files of former CIA propaganda chief Walter Raymond Jr., who the Afghan rebels? in the 1980s oversaw the selling of U.S. interventions in Central In the movie, Joanne (Julia Roberts) invites Charlie Wilson America and Afghanistan from his office at the National (Tom Hanks) to a party at her house, where she has sex with Security Council. him in order to help persuade him to find a way to get more The handwritten note to Raymond appears to be money appropriated for Afghanistan. Charlie Wilson's initialed by then-National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane biography reveals that Charlie and Joanne were dating in 1980. and instructs Raymond to recruit Wilson into the Reagan In fact, for a short time they were engaged to be married, administration’s effort to drum up more Afghan war money for suggesting that Joanne Herring's influence over Charlie was the fiscal 1985 budget. The note reads: more significant than a random act of intimacy. -Biography.com “Walt, Go see Charlie Wilson (D-TX). Seek to bring him into circle as discrete Hill connection. He can be very Did Gust Avrakotos first meet Wilson on the day Wilson helpful in getting money. M.” (The notation may have used the learned he was being investigated? wrong adjective, possibly intending ”discreet,” meaning No. In the movie, we see Congressman Charlie Wilson's well- circumspect and suggesting a secretive role, not “discrete,” endowed secretaries running in and out of Wilson's office, meaning separate and distinct.) humorously interrupting his meeting with Gust Avrakotos Raymond appears to have followed up those (Philip Seymour Hoffman). The true story behind Charlie instructions, as Wilson began to play a bigger and bigger role in Wilson's War reveals that Charlie and Gust did not meet until unleashing the great Afghan spending spree of 1985 and as later, when Wilson approached the CIA to inquire about better Raymond asserted himself behind the scenes on how the war weapons for the Afghans. -SuburbanChicagoNews.com should be sold to the American people. Raymond, a 30-year veteran of CIA clandestine Robert Parry: “”Hollywood’s Dangerous Afghan Illusion: services, was a slight, soft-spoken New Yorker who reminded ‘Charlie Wilson’s War.’” (Global Research, 12 April 2013) some of a character from a John le Carre spy novel, an A newly discovered document undercuts a key intelligence officer who “easily fades into the woodwork,” storyline of the anti-Soviet Afghan war of the 1980s – that it was according to one Raymond acquaintance. But his CIA career “Charlie Wilson’s War.” A note inside Ronald Reagan’s White took a dramatic turn in 1982 when he was reassigned to the House targeted the Texas Democrat as someone “to bring into NSC. circle as discrete Hill connection,” Robert Parry reports. At the time, the White House saw a need to step up its Official Washington’s conventional wisdom about domestic propaganda operations in support of President Afghanistan derives to a dangerous degree from a Hollywood Reagan’s desire to intervene more aggressively in Central movie, “Charlie Wilson’s War,” which depicted the anti-Soviet America and Afghanistan. The American people – still stung by war of the 1980s as a fight pitting good “freedom fighters” vs. the agony of the – were not eager to engage in evil “occupiers” and which blamed Afghanistan’s later descent more foreign adventures. into chaos on feckless U.S. politicians quitting as soon as Soviet Nichols—CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR—11

So, Reagan’s team took aim at “kicking the Vietnam called “perception management.” Syndrome” mostly by wildly exaggerating the Soviet threat. It Scores of documents about this operation were released became crucial to convince Americans that the Soviets were on during the -Contra scandal in 1987, but Washington-based the rise and on the march, though in reality the Soviets were on journalists never paid much attention to the evidence about how the decline and eager for they had been manipulated by these accommodations with the West. propaganda tactics, which included Yet, as deputy assistant rewarding cooperative reporters secretary to the Air Force, J. with government-sponsored “leaks” Michael Kelly, put it, “the most and punishing those who wouldn’t critical special operations mission parrot the lies with whispering we have … is to persuade the campaigns in the ears of their American people that the editors and bureau chiefs. [See communists are out to get us.” Robert Parry's Lost History.] The main focus of the Even after the Iran-Contra administration’s domestic scandal was exposed in 1986 and propaganda was on Central Casey died of brain cancer in 1987, America where Reagan was arming the Republicans fought to keep right-wing military juntas engaged secret the remarkable story of this in anti-leftist extermination propaganda apparatus. As part of a campaigns. Through the CIA, Reagan also was organizing a deal to get three moderate Republican senators to join drug-tainted terrorist operation known as the to Democrats in signing the Iran-Contra report, Democratic leaders overthrow ’s leftist Sandinista government. dropped a draft chapter on the CIA’s domestic propaganda role. To hide the ugly realities and to overcome popular Thus, the American people were spared the chapter’s opposition to the policies, Reagan granted CIA Director William troubling conclusion: that a covert propaganda apparatus had Casey extraordinary leeway to engage in CIA-style propaganda existed, run by “one of the CIA’s most senior specialists, sent to and disinformation aimed at the American people, the sort of the NSC by Bill Casey, to create and coordinate an inter-agency project normally reserved for hostile countries. To oversee the public-diplomacy mechanism [which] did what a covert CIA operation – while skirting legal bans on the CIA operating operation in a foreign country might do. [It] attempted to domestically – Casey moved Raymond from the CIA to the manipulate the media, the Congress and public opinion to NSC staff. support the Reagan administration’s policies.” [See Raymond formally resigned from the CIA in April Consortiumnews.com’s “Iran-Contra’s Lost Chapter.”] 1983 so, he said, “there would be no question whatsoever of any Raping Russians contamination of this.” But from the beginning, Raymond Hiding the unspeakable realities of the anti-Soviet jihad fretted about the legality of Casey’s involvement. Raymond in Afghanistan was almost as high a priority as concealing the confided in one memo that it was important “to get [Casey] out U.S.-backed slaughter in Central America. Reagan’s pet of the loop,” but Casey never backed off and Raymond “freedom fighters” in Afghanistan as in Nicaragua were tainted continued to send progress reports to his old boss well into by the drug trade as well as by well-documented cases of 1986. torture, rape and murder. It was “the kind of thing which [Casey] had a broad Yet, Raymond and his propagandists were always catholic interest in,” Raymond shrugged during a deposition looking for new ways to “sell” the wars to the American people, given to congressional Iran-Contra investigators in 1987. leading to a clash with CIA officer Gust Avrakotos, who was Raymond offered the excuse that Casey undertook this overseeing the Afghan conflict and who had developed his own apparently illegal interference in domestic politics “not so much close ties to Rep. Charlie Wilson. in his CIA hat, but in his adviser to the president hat.” According to author George Crile, whose book Charlie Raymond also understood that the administration’s Wilson’s War provided a loose framework for the movie of the hand in the P.R. projects must stay hidden, because of other same name, Avrakotos clashed with Raymond and other senior legal bans on executive-branch propaganda. “The work down Reagan administration officials when they proposed unrealistic within the administration has to, by definition, be at arms propaganda themes regarding Afghanistan. length,” Raymond noted in an Aug. 29, 1983, memo. One of Raymond’s ideas was to get some Russian As one NSC official told me, the campaign was soldiers to “defect” and then fly them from Afghanistan to modeled after CIA covert operations abroad where a political Washington where they would renounce communism. The goal is more important than the truth. “They were trying to problem, as Avrakotos explained, was that the Afghan manipulate [U.S.] public opinion … using the tools of Walt mujahedeen routinely tortured and then murdered any Soviet Raymond’s trade craft which he learned from his career in the soldier who fell into their hands, except for a few who were kept CIA covert operation shop,” the official said. around for anal rape. From the NSC, Raymond organized inter-agency task “For Avrakotos, 1985 was a year of right-wing forces to bombard the U.S. public with hyped-up propaganda craziness,” Crile wrote. “A band of well-placed anti-Communist about the Soviet threat in Central America and in Afghanistan. enthusiasts in the administration had come up with a plan they Raymond’s goal was to change the way Americans viewed these believed would bring down the Red Army, if the CIA would dangers, a process that the Reagan administration internally only be willing to implement it. The leading advocates of this Nichols—CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR—12 plan included Richard Perle at the Pentagon. … [NSC aide] American people the inhuman brutality of the jihadists who also checked in briefly, but the man who set were receiving billions of dollars in U.S. and Saudi largesse. Avrakotos’s teeth on edge most was Walt Raymond, another The movie depicted the Soviet soldiers as sadistic monsters and NSC staffer who had spent twenty years with the CIA as a the mujahedeen as noble warriors, just as Ronald Reagan and propagandist. Walter Raymond would have wanted. (Raymond died in 2003; “Their idea was to encourage Soviet Reagan in 2004; the movie appeared in 2007.) officers and soldiers to defect to the But the Reagan administration did . As Avrakotos derisively calculate correctly that Wilson from his key describes it, ‘The muj were supposed to set up position on a House Appropriations defense loudspeakers in the mountains announcing subcommittee could open the spigot on funding for such things as “Lay down your arms, there is a the Afghan muj. passage to the West and to freedom.”’ Once Learning Wrong Lessons news of this program made its way through While it’s not unusual for Hollywood to the Red Army, it was argued, there would be a produce a Cold War propaganda film, what was flood of defectors. … different about “Charlie Wilson’s War” was how it “Avrakotos thought North and Perle was treated by Official Washington as something were ‘cuckoos of the Far Right,’ and he soon close to a documentary. That attitude was felt quite certain that Raymond, the man who somewhat a tribute to the likeable Tom Hanks who seemed to be the intellectual ringleader, was portrayed the womanizing and hard- truly detached from reality. ‘What Russian in drinking Charlie Wilson. his right mind would defect to those fuckers Yet, perhaps the biggest danger all armed to the teeth,’ Avrakotos said in in viewing the movie as truth was its treatment of frustration. ‘To begin with, anyone defecting to the Dushman why the anti-Soviet jihad led to Afghanistan becoming home to would have to be a crook, a thief or someone who wanted to get the Taliban and Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terrorists in the cornholed every day, because nine out of ten prisoners were 1990s. The movie pushed the myth that the United States dead within twenty-four hours and they were always turned into abruptly abandoned Afghanistan as soon as the Soviet troops concubines by the mujahideen. I felt so sorry for them I wanted left on Feb. 15, 1989. to have them all shot.’ All across Official Washington, pundits and “The meeting [with Raymond’s team] went very badly policymakers have embraced the lesson that the United States indeed. Gust [Avrakotos] accused North and Perle of being must not make that “mistake” again – and thus must leave idiots. … Avrakotos said to Walt Raymond, ‘You know, Walt, behind a sizeable force of U.S. troops. you’re just a fucking asshole, you’re irrelevant.’” For instance, the New York Times’ lead editorial on However, as Crile wrote, Avrakotos “greatly May 1, 2012, criticized President Barack Obama for not underestimated the political power and determination of the explaining how he would prevent Afghanistan from imploding group, who went directly to [CIA Director] Bill Casey to angrily after the scheduled U.S. troop withdrawal in 2014, though the protest Avrakotos’s insulting manner. The director complained Times added that the plan’s “longer-term commitment [of aid] to [CIA operations official] , who responded by sends an important message to Afghans that Washington will forbidding Avrakotos to attend any more interagency meetings not abandon them as it did after the Soviets were driven out.” without a CIA nanny present. … The abandonment myth also has been cited by senior “Avrakotos arrived for one of these White House Obama administration officials, including U.S. Ambassador to sessions armed with five huge photographic blowups. … One of Afghanistan Ryan Crocker and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, them showed two Russian sergeants being used as concubines. as they explained the rise of the Taliban in the mid-1990s and Another had a Russian hanging from the turret of a tank with a al-Qaeda’s use of Afghanistan for plotting the 9/11 attacks on vital part of his anatomy removed. … ‘If you were a sane the United States in 2001. fucking Russian, would you defect to these people?’ he had In late 2009, Defense Secretary Gates reprised this demanded of Perle. phony conventional wisdom, telling reporters: “We will not “But the issue wouldn’t go away. Perle, Raymond, and repeat the mistakes of 1989, when we abandoned the country the others continued to insist that the Agency find and send back only to see it descend into civil war and into Taliban to the United States the many Russian defectors they seemed to hands.” However, that narrative was based on a faux reality believe, despite Avrakotos’s denials, the mujahideen were drawn from a fictional movie. harboring. … Gates knew the real history. After all, in 1989, he was “It had been almost impossible to locate two prisoners, deputy national security adviser under President George H.W. much less two defectors. The CIA found itself in the Bush when the key decisions were made to continue covert U.S. preposterous position of having to pony up $50,000 to bribe the aid to the mujahedeen, not cut it off. Afghans to deliver two live ones. ‘These two guys were basket The truth was that the end game in Afghanistan was cases,’ says Avrakotos. ‘One had been fucked so many times he messed up not because the United States cut the mujahedeen off didn’t know what was going on.’” but because Washington pressed for a clear-cut victory, Despite this knowledge about the true nature of the rebuffing Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev’s proposals for a Afghan “freedom fighters,” the Reagan administration – and the power-sharing arrangement. And we know that Gates knows “Charlie Wilson’s War” moviemakers – concealed from the this reality because he recounted it in his 1996 memoir, From Nichols—CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR—13 the Shadows. years [after the Soviet pull-out], as the United States and the The Real History USSR continued to aid their respective sides,” Gates wrote. Here’s what that history actually shows: In 1988, Indeed, Moscow’s and Washington’s supplies continued to flow Gorbachev promised to remove Soviet troops from Afghanistan until several months after the Soviet Union collapsed in summer and sought a negotiated settlement. He hoped for a unity 1991, according to Gates. government that would include elements of Afghan President Crile’s Account Najibullah’s Soviet-backed regime in Kabul and the CIA- And other U.S. assistance continued even longer, backed Islamic fundamentalist rebels. according to Crile’s Charlie Wilson’s War. In the book, Crile Gates, who in 1988 was deputy CIA director, opposed described how Wilson kept the funding spigot open for the Gorbachev’s plan, disbelieving that the Soviets would really Afghan rebels not only after the Soviet departure in 1989 but depart and insisting that – if they did – the CIA’s mujahedeen even after the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991. could quickly defeat Najibullah’s army. Eventually, the mujahedeen did capture the strategic Inside the Reagan administration, Gates’s judgment city of Khost, but turned it into a ghost town as civilians fled or was opposed by State Department analysts who foresaw a faced the mujahedeen’s fundamentalist fury. Western aid drawn-out struggle. Deputy Secretary of State John Whitehead workers found themselves “following the liberators in a and the department’s intelligence chief Morton Abramowitz desperate attempt to persuade them not to murder and pillage,” warned that Najibullah’s army might hold on longer than the Crile wrote. CIA expected. U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Robert Oakley began to But Gates prevailed in the policy debates, pushing the wonder who were the worse bad guys, the Soviet-backed CIA’s faith in its mujahedeen clients and expecting a rapid communists or the U.S.-supported mujahedeen. Najibullah collapse if the Soviets left. In the memoir, Gates “It was the leaders of the Afghan puppet government recalled briefing Secretary of State George Shultz and his senior who were saying all the right things, even paying lip service to aides on the CIA’s predictions prior to Shultz flying to Moscow democratic change,” Crile reported. “The mujahideen, on the in February 1988. other hand, were committing unspeakable atrocities and “I told them that most [CIA] analysts did not believe couldn’t even put aside their bickering and murderous thoughts Najibullah’s government could last without active Soviet long enough to capture Kabul.” military support,” wrote Gates. In 1991, as the Soviet Union careened toward its final After the Soviets did withdraw in February 1989 – crackup, the Senate Intelligence Committee approved nothing proving Gates wrong on that point – some U.S. officials felt for Afghanistan, Crile wrote. “But no one could just turn off Washington’s geostrategic aims had been achieved and a move Charlie Wilson’s war like that,” Crile noted. “For Charlie toward peace was in order. There also was mounting concern Wilson, there was something fundamentally wrong with his war about the Afghan mujahedeen, especially their tendencies ending then and there. He didn’t like the idea of the United toward brutality, heroin trafficking and fundamentalist religious States going out with a whimper.” practices. Wilson made an impassioned appeal to the House However, the new administration of George H.W. Intelligence Committee and carried the day. The committee first Bush – with Gates moving from the CIA to the White House as considered a $100 million annual appropriation, but Wilson got deputy national security adviser – rebuffed Gorbachev and them to boost it to $200 million, which – with the Saudi chose to continue U.S. covert support for the mujahedeen, aid matching funds – totaled $400 million, Crile reported. which was being funneled primarily through Pakistan’s Inter- “And so, as the mujahideen were poised for their Services Intelligence agency, the ISI. thirteenth year of war, instead of being cut off, it turned out to At the time, I was a Newsweek national security be a banner year,” Crile wrote. “They found themselves with not correspondent and asked my CIA contacts why the U.S. only a $400 million budget but also with a cornucopia of new government didn’t just collect its winnings from the Soviet weaponry sources that opened up when the United States withdrawal and agree to some kind of national-unity decided to send the Iraqi weapons captured during the Gulf War government in Kabul that could end the war and bring some to the mujahideen.” stability to the country. One of the CIA hardliners responded to But even then the Afghan rebels needed an external my question with disgust. “We want to see Najibullah strung up event to prevail on the battlefield, the stunning disintegration of by a light pole,” he snarled. the Soviet Union in the latter half of 1991. Only then did Back in Afghanistan, Najibullah’s regime defied the Moscow cut off its aid to Najibullah. His government finally fell CIA’s expectation of a rapid collapse, using Soviet weapons and in 1992. But its collapse didn’t stop the war – or the mujahedeen advisers to beat back a mujahedeen offensive in 1990. As infighting. Najibullah hung on, the war, the violence and the disorder The capital of Kabul came under the control of a continued. relatively moderate rebel force led by Ahmad Shah Massoud, an Gates finally recognized that his CIA analysis had been Islamist but not a fanatic. However, Massoud, a Tajik, was not wrong. In his memoir, he wrote: “As it turned out, Whitehead favored by Pakistan’s ISI, which backed more extreme Pashtun and Abramowitz were right” in their warning that Najibullah’s elements of the mujahedeen. regime might not fall quickly. Gates’s memoir also Rival Afghan warlords battled with each other for acknowledged that the U.S. government did not abandon another four years destroying much of Kabul. Finally, a Afghanistan immediately after the Soviet departure. disgusted Washington began to turn away. Crile reported that “Najibullah would remain in power for another three the Cross Border Humanitarian Aid Program, which was the Nichols—CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR—14 only sustained U.S. program aimed at rebuilding Afghanistan, Charlie Wilson into the White House “circle as discrete Hill was cut off at the end of 1993, almost five years after the connection” suggests that even the impression that it was Soviets left. “Charlie Wilson’s War” may have been more illusion than Rise of the Taliban reality. Though Wilson surely became a true believer in the While chaos continued to reign across Afghanistan, the CIA’s largest covert action of the Cold War, Reagan’s White ISI readied its own army of Islamic extremists drawn from House team appears to have viewed him as a useful Democratic Pashtun refugee camps inside Pakistan. This group, known as front man who would be “very helpful in getting money.” the Taliban, entered Afghanistan with the promise of restoring Most significantly, the mythology – enshrined in the order. movie and embraced by the policymakers – obscured the key The Taliban seized the capital of Kabul in September lessons of the 1980s: the dangerous futility of trying to impose a 1996, driving Massoud into a northward retreat. The ousted Western or military solution on Afghanistan as well as the need communist leader Najibullah, who had stayed in Kabul, sought to explore negotiation and compromise even when dealing with shelter in the United Nations compound, but was captured. The unsavory foes. It wasn’t the mythical U.S. “abandonment” of Taliban tortured, castrated and killed him, his mutilated body Afghanistan in February 1989 that caused the devastation of the hung from a light pole – just as the CIA hardliner had wished past two decades, but rather the uncompromising policies of the seven years earlier. Reagan-Bush-41 administrations. The triumphant Taliban imposed harsh Islamic law on First, there was the ascendance of propaganda over Afghanistan. Their rule was especially cruel to women who had truth. The U.S. government was well aware of the gross human made gains toward equal rights under the communists, but were rights crimes of the Afghan “muj” but still sold them as forced by the Taliban to live under highly restrictive rules, to honorable “freedom fighters” to the American people. Second, cover themselves when in public, and to forgo schooling. there was the triumphalism of Gates and other war hawks, who The Taliban also granted refuge to Saudi exile Osama insisted on rubbing Moscow’s nose in its Afghan defeat and bin Laden, who had fought with the Afghan mujahedeen against thus blocked cooperation on a negotiated settlement which held the Soviets in the 1980s. Bin Laden then used Afghanistan as out the promise of a less destructive outcome. the base of operations for his terrorist organization, al-Qaeda, Those two factors – the deceit and the hubris – set the setting the stage for the next Afghan War in 2001. stage for the 9/11 attacks in 2001, a renewed Afghan War So, the real history is quite different from the bogging down tens of thousands of U.S. troops, America’s Hollywood version that Official Washington has absorbed as its disastrous detour into Iraq, and now a costly long-term U.S. short-hand understanding of the anti-Soviet Afghan war of the commitment to Afghanistan that is expected to last at least until 1980s. 2024. With a distorted account of “Charlie Wilson’s War,” Tom The newly discovered document about bringing Hanks and Hollywood didn’t help.

SPRING 2015 PRELIMINARY SCREENING SCHEDULE Jan 27 Charlie Chaplin, The Gold Rush, 1925 Feb 3 Howard Hawks, Bringing Up Baby, 1938 Feb 10 Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, ‘I Know Where I’m Going,’ 1945 Feb 17 Carol Reed, Odd Man Out, 1947 Feb 24 Budd Boetticher, Seven Men from Now, 1956 March 3 Roger Vadim, Barbarella, 1968 Mar 10 Bob Fosse, All That Jazz, 1979 Mar 24 George Miller, Mad Max, 1979 Mar 31 Karel Reisz, The French Lieutenant’s Woman, 1981 Apr 7 Gregory Nava, El Norte, 1983 Apr 14 Bryan Singer, The Usual Suspects, 1995 Apr 21 Bela Tarr, Werkmeister Harmonies, 2000 Apr 28 Sylvain Chomet, The Triplets of Belleville, 2003 May 5 Joel and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men, 2007

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