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On this edition of Film, Literature and the New World Order we talk to Sibel Edmonds of BoilingFrogsPost.com about the 1975 spy thriller, Three Days of the Condor. We explore the context of the film’s release, the possible CIA involvement with the production itself, and what the film’s ambiguous ending tells us about the nature of the deep state and the media’s role in covering it up. We also discuss the future of Newsbud.
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SHOW NOTES:
Sidney Pollack interviewed on Three Days of the Condor
DCI Richard Helms with Robert Redford on the set
Last month’s episode and comments: The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress
Next month: Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle
Not only Sibel’s favorite movie it was also the favorite of Michael Ruppert. (Full disclosure mine as well.) Interestingly Ruppert points out the dialog regarding the sub-plot driving the events: The planning for a Middle East war.
Turner (Robert Redford): “Do we have plans to invade the Middle East?”
Higgins (Cliff Robertson): ” Are you crazy?”
Turner: ” Am I?”
Higgins: “Look, Turner…”
Turner: “Do we have plans?”
Higgins: “No. Absolutely not. We have games. That’s all. We play games. What if? How many men? What would it take? Is there a cheaper way to destabilize a régime? That’s what we’re paid to do.”
—
Take 1975, the year of the movie came out, add 5 years and we get The Carter Doctrine (the game(?) turned formal plan that the United States would use military force to defend its national interests in the Persian Gulf.)
Add ten more and we get Operation Desert Shield in 1990, (game, turned plan, turned operational) another ten or so and we have The War on Terror…
Higgins: “…That’s what we’re paid to do.”
To quote from another classic performance, Joe Pesci’s in JFK: “Fun and games man fun and games.”
Thanks for choosing this film. This was one of my favorite films as a teenager in the 70s. I saw it first at 14 when it came out. There was something that rang so true about it. I went to a progressive high school. I was lucky to have a great teacher who taught me how to read the newspaper and to discern where articles were placed in the paper and how the truth was being manipulated in order to serve a pro-war agenda.
I have returned to this film a few times over the past 40 years and it holds up. Sidney Pollack is a great director. He knows how to tell a story and how to get the essential performance out of each actor. Faye Dunaway is so beautiful and mesmerizing in this film and and this is one of Redford’s best and most subtle performances.
I also am obsessed with the score. Dave Grusin’s funky score is a classic. It has all the right elements of jazz and rock. He uses some of LA’s best studio musicians (Harvey Mason, Lee Ritenour, Tom Scott…etc) and gives them plenty of room to improvise while keeping up the suspense.
I remember leaving the film thinking that we need to wake up and stop being so naive about our governments agenda…….and that real patriotism means telling the truth, like you james.
I have ordered this movie, and will watch it as soon as I can. I’m not even going to watch the rest of this FLNWO until I’ve seen it. Sibel’s like for this film reminds me of my own fascination with the Bourne movies. I always liked how portray the CIA, far more realistically than movies in which the infamous agency is out saving the world from terrorists. Just wanted to put that out there. Are there any other movies like this (that are almost whistleblowing in nature) that I ought to see?
I got the DVD at the library and will watch tonight. I looked for an episode on “Eyes Wide Shut” but didn’t see it. Are you planning to do one? If you do the person to contact for the show would be at “Vigilant Citizen”. There is a 3-article series on that website about hidden and not so hidden meanings in the film. It is an excellent analysis of the film.
May suggest an alternate URL at Project Gutenberg for The Jungle?
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/140
That way it can be downloaded. 🙂
Good points ; so how about assembling a limited bibliography of existing historical & economic works which tell the real story? These can be supplemented with connecting and background essays.
There are probably five basic themes worthy of some focus individually, and the more so in their properly historical merging and integration ;
The history of usury ;
The history of imperialism, and above all the western obsession with renovatio imperi Romani (especially strong in Venice and England) ;
The invention and development of banking, above all the fractional reserve lending flavour and its takeover of the industrial revolution ;
Institutions of physical oppression & the police state (usually dressed up as law enforcement, national security) ;
Institutions of information & mind control, schools, universities, the press and later media ; above all the control and co-option of science
An authentic modern history would describe the original merging of all these themes and elements, for the first time, in the U.K. and British empire which projected itself as moderate constitutional monarchy regulated by law and democratic elections, while indeed controlled by a lawless, largely hereditary, oligarchy or cartel of gangsters (whose membership included the royal dynasties) which may reasonably be called Anglo-Venetia.
This emergent phase included the signal success of integrating France as a secondary partner or even client state during the Napoleon III reign (in stark contrast to a millenium of prior history) but also serious set-backs and defeats, above all the Russian opposition (the original Great Game) and the German unification and Russo-German alliance.
Second phase would describe the Russo-German-American plans to break up the British empire, and the Anglo-Venetian counter-moves to destroy that opposition ; that is the Great War and the epoch of its preparation (1890s-1918).
This includes the co-option of the Catholic Church (ending its opposition to usury), the wooing of Romanov Russia for the purpose of its destruction fighting Germany, and the reintegration of the u.s., which first jumps on board as an imperial power masquerading as something entirely different with the Spanish war of 1898.
Third phase is the 20th century promotion of internationalism, socialism and onslaught upon nationalism and the whole concept of the nation state, for the purpose of complete world domination.
The Second World War has a fundamentally different competitive meaning than the First. Its root cause appears to have been the nationalistic flavour of Stalinist Russia, in express opposition to the Anglo-Venetian plans for an international or at least pan-European Bolshevik empire and captive market which were supposed to have been the fief of the Comintern and Trotskyite clients. Stalin, however, seems to have rocked the boat a little too vigorously by planning a Russian world empire and the destruction of Anglo-Venetia, deploying their own policies and institutions against them. Both sides helped raise up Hitler and Nazi Germany to use against the other, but both eventually lost even remote control, compelling them to fight together against the monster of their own creation. Fascist Japan was an Anglo-Venetian client in the image of France (only patronized and modernized in the late 19th century to attack Romanov Russia) which rebelled.
I think there are a few existing titles which tell most of this story, ranging from detailed conventional narratives like Robert Massie’s massive biography of Peter the Great (describing the first rise of the Russian colossus) and Lord Norwich’s history of Venice, to Antony Sutton’s trilogy on Wall Street backing of Bolesevhism, Nazism and FDR and the La Rouche group’s numerous detailed essays on the Venetian transfigurations of the English, but especially Tarpley’s Against Oligarchy collection.
Nicholas Shaxon’s Treasure Islands (2011) tells a very great deal all in one place about current financial realities and structures, with an especially valuable chapter on the City of London Corporation which is both current and historical.
V. C. Vickers, Economic Tribulation (1939) is an invaluable expose of the financial system by a City insider who turned against it, apparently from genuine nationalism and his inability to stomach the magnitude of the (deliberately engineered) Great War catastrophe
E. C. Knuth, The Empire of the City (ed.2, 1946) does a pretty good job surveying international politics from the Napoleonic exit (Congress of Vienna) to the 1930s
Arthur Kitson, The Money Problem (1894 and 1903) clarifies most of the financial and monetary issues in a fairly straightforward manner, and is especially good debunking the various claims made in support of usury from time to time, from both ethical and economic points of view.
But those are just a few suggestions from my own recent reading. Probably the whole topic could be covered thoroughly and accurately by less than a hundred titles already written, supplemented by a handful of introductory, connective and critical/review essays.
Perhaps James would be willing to set up a page or two on this site to gather lists of such resources. It would be the ideal location because there is already so much relevant content here produced by himself, and by talented guests like Perloff.