Documents

With the death of former Cuban leader Fidel Castro I felt this would be a good time to provide a copy of an important but seldom-read CIA memo from 1959 where they discuss and approve the 'elimination' of Castro. Shortly after the Cuban revolution Castro visited the United States, speaking with then Vice President Richard Nixon on friendly terms. Castro then went home to Cuba while Nixon wrote a memo where he declared that the new Cuban leader was a dangerous Communist.

Sometimes the Freedom of Information Act is a strange beast and you receive something you didn't ask for, but are still happy to get. That happened to me recently when in response to a request about the Pentagon's Hollywood database I received an updated list of DOD Films - movies that were assisted by the DOD.

The first two Iron Man movies are far more important to cinematic history than their daft scripts, super-arrogant star performer and cartoonish presentation might suggest. Between them they made over $1.2 billion worldwide and established the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which has since become the biggest film franchise of all time.

Charlie Wilson's War reduces nearly 10 years of the Soviet-Afghan War into an hour and forty minutes of Sorkin-scribed witty dialogue focusing almost entirely on how one alcoholic, womanising congressman helped to raise the billions of dollars that were given to the mujahideen to fight the godless Commie invaders. While we know that CIA entertainment liaison Chase Brandon worked on the film, along with former CIA officer Milt Bearden, there is no documentation on exactly what influence they had.

In November 1959 CIA Director Allen Dulles sent a copy of the new Ian Fleming novel Goldfinger to Jackie Kennedy. In October 1964 the CIA Deputy Director Marshall Carter was invited to a special screening of the new James Bond movie Goldfinger at the MPAA headquarters in Washington.

Tomorrow Never Dies is perhaps the most military-heavy Bond film of recent times, benefiting from production support from both the British and American armed forces. Despite this the Pentagon's Hollywood liaison Phil Strub denied that they provided any assistance to the film-makers.

The Department of Energy has a minor but interesting role in the history of Hollywood, providing shooting locations for Tron (1982) and Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. I am still awaiting documents on Star Trek but the DoE have provided me with another of their records on Tron - a kind of in house making of video.(Read more...)

2009's Brüno is probably the most shallow of Sacha Baron Cohen's movies, based almost solely around the comedy of irritation and embarrassment. However, the story of its production is quite fascinating and a great example of how to get the state to accidentally or unwittingly sponsor your movie.

The CIA has had an interest in James Bond almost since its inception as a series of novels in the 1950s. The books were probably the first spy fiction to refer to the CIA by name and to depict them through the character of Felix Leiter. This led to a friendship between Ian Fleming and CIA bigwig Allen Dulles, who not only discussed with Fleming how the CIA were portrayed in the Bond novels but also sourced ideas from the books.

Scorpio holds the dubious distinction of being the first film to be allowed to shoot at the CIA headquarters in Langley. Since then the likes of Patriot Games and Argo are among a very small number to have been granted that privilege.