AMERICAN BAROQUE: A HISTORY OF THE PARALLAX VIEW TEST FILM

 "It's got, of course, arguably, the best film-within-a-film that anybody's ever created. That's certainly unthinkable now that you would stop a film dead for that length of time and show something that deeply deranged." - Steven Soderbergh, filmmaker

INTRODUCTION

A half-century ago this week, Alan J. Pakula’s political assassination conspiracy thriller THE PARALLAX VIEW premiered in the United States. The original reviews were mostly favorable and the box office receipts were modest. Today the Warren Beatty film is widely considered to be a classic - the second entry in Pakula’s “Paranoia Trilogy” (preceded by KLUTE in 1971 and followed by ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN in 1976). In 2021, the film was reissued in a deluxe Blu-ray edition by the prestigious Criterion Collection.

Oddly, the key sequence in THE PARALLAX VIEW that elevates it above the other conspiracy dramas of its era was mentioned by only a handful of critics during its original release in 1974. If you’ve seen the film, you know the sequence. It is the mind-blowing four-and-a-half-minute tour de force of “visual material” that is screened by the diabolical Parallax Corporation for Joe Frady (Beatty) to determine if he has assassin potential. Film Comment later called it “an ingenious montage of primally evocative images…with astutely manipulative music scoring.”

Several years ago, I began researching the history behind this extraordinary piece of filmmaking. I obtained copies of some of the production records and I interviewed one of the key people behind its creation. In addition to reading the original novel and screenplay adaptations, I also reviewed numerous articles, reviews and book excerpts.

This post presents what I have learned about THE PARALLAX VIEW Test Film.

“SOUNDS A LITTLE CRAZY”

Director Alan J. Pakula [1928-1998] completed principal photography on THE PARALLAX VIEW on July 5, 1973. By all accounts, it was a chaotic production filmed during a three-month Writers Guild strike. In a telephone interview, Pakula’s assistant on the film, Jon Boorstin told me that the scenes of Warren Beatty’s character coming into the Parallax Corporation’s screening room, sitting down and then getting up after the “test” were probably “the very last things that were shot.” Boorstin confirmed to me that it is Pakula himself as the voice of the test instructor who directs Beatty to his chair.

In between these two unremarkable shots was a “big hole” that needed to be filled. Boorstin conceded in his interview that the idea of wrapping a major studio movie with such a huge gap “sounds a little crazy.” Though Boorstin explained, “It was a gamble, but that’s how he (Pakula) played. He’d take risks like that. A lot of his brilliance was in making the most of the situation he was in. He had an impromptu quality.”

The situation Pakula found himself in was partly due to the source material for his movie. The novel, THE PARALLAX VIEW (1970) by Loren Singer and the screenplay adaptations by Lorenzo Semple Jr. and David Giler all had unsatisfactory “test” scenes. One of the test scenarios, as presented in the screenplays, involved killing a kitten at a bar in front of Beatty’s character in order to gauge his reaction.

Boorstin told me that he is not certain when exactly the call was made to replace the kitten scene with something else. “I was not a party to the decision. I was not part of pre-production. I was hired a few days before shooting started.” He adds, though, that he did write a five-page memo to Pakula recommending other possible “tests” including one based on the Milgram compliance experiment conducted in the early 1960s. 

Pakula’s goal, as Boorstin understood it, was to “blur the line between killer and reporter.” But the “tests” that Boorstin’s memo proposed may have been too elaborate for a production already under scheduling pressure. Also, as Boorstin said in an email, the scene would have involved the Warren Beatty character in a “staged scenario” as opposed to immersing the audience in the same experience.

Less complicated than devising the final test, but still critical to the plot, was the written Parallax Corporation questionnaire. Boorstin said in an interview for the Criterion Collection in 2021 that it was his first contribution to the movie and that he “based it on the Minnesota Multiphasic (Personality Inventory).”

Pakula revealed to a seminar audience at the American Film Institute in 1974 that it was Boorstin’s faux questionnaire sheets that inspired him to do the examination scene as a short film: “He originally got the verbal tests that we showed (in the film). They were based upon real verbal tests. And I changed them to pictures and still pictures. That was my idea. I wanted to…I thought it would be a wonderful exercise for me to just have the use of still film and sound and music…to tell a kind of story.”  

Boorstin concurs that it was Pakula’s vision to do the Parallax Corporation’s test as a film that Beatty’s character views versus other options. “It was his movie,” Boorstin told me, “He was driving the bus. He was open to learning from other people during the process, but the basic concept was his.”

Boorstin explained the importance of the Test Film in his Criterion interview: "Alan realized this is what the movie was about - this crucial scene which proves to everyone that Warren Beatty is a potential assassin. So, we were talking about this a lot. About how do you create a test you can't fake. And what would it look like and what would it be about. Alan's brilliant idea here was he wanted to put us (the audience) through the same test. And he wanted us to feel the potential in us to be that assassin… So, we had to craft this three-and-half minute experience. And, you know, I was scared shitless, basically. I didn't know...There was nothing."

“AT LEAST FOUR MONTHS”

In the Alan J. Pakula Papers collection at the Margaret Herrick Library in Beverly Hills, California there are folders labeled “Parallax View – Special Sequence” that document the evolution of the Test sequence. There are meeting notes. There are doodles. There are pages devoted to thematically organizing the assembled images. And, most of all, there are numerous pieces of correspondence regarding rights clearances for those images. I reviewed the material for this post. 

On September 19, 1973, Alan J. Pakula; Jon Boorstin; Don Record; and Ben Ashe of Pacific Title and Design met to discuss the “TEST FOR ALAN PAKULA ‘PARALLAX VIEW’ VISUAL TEST SEQUENCE.” A September 21, 1973 memo summarizes the meeting and how “50 visual subjects” will be “tested and photographed.” The memo goes into detail regarding how the images will be shot and processed with optical effects recommendations. Cost: $6,600.

Don Record, one of the meeting participants, was an extraordinarily gifted art director and title designer whose work includes the title sequences for the original PLANET OF THE APES (1968); DOCTOR DOOLITTLE (1967); VALLEY OF THE DOLLS (1967) and many other films. He is listed in the on-screen end credits of THE PARALLAX VIEW as Consultant Designer.

“We had a meeting with Don Record,” Jon Boorstin recalled in our interview, “and we wound up going with a simpler approach – much simpler than what Record was going for in the meeting.” Boorstin elaborated, “We had a contract with him to do the test sequence and he had a sense of what we were trying to do. Don found some very useful stuff. He came up with the sexual stuff. He found a lot of the images.”

Another document found in the Pakula Papers is a typewritten page summarizing an October 2, 1973 meeting with Record that offers a fascinating glimpse into the early phase of creating the Test Film. In it, Boorstin notes that “Don currently tracking down pics of alcoholism, drug abuse, the good life (incl. positive whiskey stuff), Hitler, from his contacts and library.”

Also discussed in these notes are abandoned ideas such as the “possibility of shooting certain subjects ourselves to get what we need.”

The second half of the page has columns divided into subjects in a “tentative” effort at structuring the Test Film: FAMILY; POLITICS; ALIENATION. Under these column headers are sections that take us from Domestic Bliss; Americana; Loneliness to the Swinging Life; Adulation of Political Heroes; Alcoholism and Drugs to Raw Sex; Riot and Assassination; Corpses and Violence. The notes state that the “…sequence should build in menace.”

Finally, Boorstin adds at the bottom of the page, the following directions:

“While there are not clear-cut separations between sequences, balance should shift as indicated. Pictures should be re-used as much as possible, changing meaning by judicious juxtaposition and use of portions of pictures in different ways (e.g. just hands) or subtle alteration of pics.”

Boorstin also described the creative process behind the creation of the Test Film in his 2021 interview with Criterion:

"Alan and I spent a lot of time talking about what this would be. And Alan's key idea was to use those title cards - Power, Father, Mother, Love - and having the images evolve from being very benign to being very threatening then to being very angry and vengeful." 

"Alan did a brilliant job and I helped him with the choice of images - both finding them and how to edit them and shoot them. I'd go down to Chinatown or I'd look through magazines. I went to the Village Voice and found this picture of a bunch of guys and brought it to Alan and he said 'Yeah! That's great, let's use that!' And then we'd talk about it and we'd go out and find more and it was creative like that."

"If you could say it in words, you wouldn't have to show the movie. And what's wonderful about this three-and-a-half minutes is you can’t say it in words." 

The other key member of this four-person group was Wilson S.“Willie” Hong Jr. who worked for Don Record almost until Record’s death in 1980. Record’s surviving partner Lollie Ortiz told me in a telephone interview that “Willie was Don’s still photographer and cinematographer and he used him all the time.”

Boorstin recalled in his interview with me that Hong shot images for the Test Film sequence on an animation stand. “I would direct him based on what Alan and I had discussed.” According to Boorstin, in many cases they shot from the actual source image. He told me that the careful viewer can see magazine creases in some of the images in the released film. In an email Boorstin added, “I have fond memories of evenings with him doing the shoots.”   

Alan J. Pakula himself spoke at some length about the Test Film at a seminar held at the American Film Institute in 1974. If, at times, he sounds like a psychology professor, it is because in his high school years he contemplated becoming a psychoanalyst. According to Pakula’s biographer, Jared Brown, the director’s “interest in psychology…only grew over the years.” It makes perfect sense, of course, that THE PARALLAX VIEW Test Film was conceived of by a person with a deep fascination with the human psyche. 

"I worked on that for at least four months. One of the reasons I’m slow was, one, getting the pictures, getting the rights to the pictures, and then playing with them…endless playing with slides. And I’d put one there and one there. And I wanted to use all those mother, father…the most primitive kind of almost elementary school images, childlike images. And there was a story behind that. I mean there is a story through that whole thing. I tried to make it look like a couple of lovers. But on the simplest level, one, it starts out with love…and that fascinated me that you come and they test for hostility, and to find a gunman or a killer’s personality…and the first word is love…and all these happy bourgeois images, and father and all the wonderful ideal fathers we’ve been told we’re supposed to have, and country and that’s just what country is supposed to be, and motherhood, oh, God, it’s just perfect. And everything is all as it should be. 

And then it starts getting into what is for the person involved, or might be. Father becomes possibly a Depression figure, an ‘Okie’ who’s been hurt by society, who’s worked hard and has obviously been destroyed in some way. Many other versions of father come. And mother becomes a kind of broken figure. And then you go back to the start where everything’s happy and the way it’s supposed to be, and then it comes back to what it’s really like for that kind of person.

And honing it all down is the definition of me, one’s sense of one’s self. And it starts out with baseball players and kids on bicycles and they’re all cheery. What we’re all supposed to think of ourselves in the best of all possible worlds. Totally well-adjusted and wonderfully extroverted simple people. And then it goes, winding up with in contrast to that key figure who is the man in the prison cell, actually the man in the prison cell and that hungry child on the bed and then that man in a mental cell huddled on the cot looking down, the impotent, passive person cut off from the world.

And people who are attracted to that kind of violence, the kind of assassination fantasy, very often there’s that great fear of impotence, the great fear of passivity, that great fear of being destroyed by the world. And then we pop back to all the people being happy. And he’s caught in that…and there’s another media image, and that’s Superman, there’s the manic me, that’s the aggressive me as compared to the passive me. And they keep coming back, and you have the choice of of being one or the other. You can be destroyed by the society, you can be left out, you can give in to your sense of impotence…And wanted him to look at that cartoon figure because I wanted it to be the most infantile sense of a super hero fantasy. And everything doesn’t mean what it does anyway. Suddenly you look at those things of Nazi-ism, swastikas…you know, you’re playing around with George Washington, and suddenly there’s George Washington and a swastika at a Nazi Party rally, and there’s Kennedy…and it’s like nothing’s really with us anyway. And it whips you out of the unfairness of this world where everybody has everything, steak and meat and gold and fame and sex and love, and why have I been left out? But you can be Superman or else you can give up and be that, be destroyed. You can be Superman and break out and destroy…and that’s a happy note…and make the world well again by destroying.

And then I played with some other things. I played with the sexual guilt that kind of a man can have where there’s a whole kind of Oedipal thing, where there’s a picture of mother, and suddenly there’s a picture of a boy who looks like he’s opening his trousers. It’s sort of like he’s exposing himself to mother. And using all the love images, and using them in terms of mother, and just examining one of the Oedipal guilts there. And then suddenly the castrating father figure, leaping after him in that kind of shadow on the wall. It looks like a penis shadow, like it’s going to destroy, running after the little boy to destroy him, to punish him [ed. note: this Ralph Crane photograph titled “A Boy’s Escape,” was published in LIFE in 1947]. And then you get the cruel father figures, and then the confusion of father and authority, and authority being father, and if you kill authority, you kill father. So, all of those things are really examined in there. And sexual confusion, and the confusion of sex and violence. You go from the couple making love happily…and it winds up in shooting. You shoot somebody. And I wanted to play it to just keep whipping them up and whipping them up and whipping them up until he breaks through. So the final test is, for somebody taking that test, do you get that excited or not? Do you have that kind of personality that you would get that excited.” 

And in a Boston Globe interview that was published at the time of THE PARALLAX VIEW’s theatrical release, Pakula said that he wanted to “use as many familiar photographs that we’ve seen in LIFE magazine and grown up with as possible.” The director told the Globe writer that he wanted a “rootedness in American folk images.”

“HE WOULD FUSS OVER EVERY FRAME”

Once all of the images for the Test Film had been selected and shot, it was time for Alan J. Pakula to work with his editor John W. “Jack” Wheeler to weave all the pieces together. Boorstin told me that editing was Pakula’s “very favorite part of filmmaking” and that he was a “very tenacious editor.” “He would fuss over every frame.” Boorstin described the process for me in our interview: “Alan was with Wheeler. Jack would cut it. Alan would talk with him, Jack would recut, Alan would come back. Rinse Repeat - recutting all the time.”

Wheeler’s role, Boorstin said, was “realizing Alan’s vision,” adding that “Jack was a very good enabler.” Boorstin also said that he himself would view cuts on a Moviola with Pakula and offer suggestions.

Pakula also briefly discussed the editing process with Filmmakers Newsletter in 1974. “…I work very closely with the editor. I am obsessed with that, and in THE PARALLAX VIEW more so than before.” In response to a question about whether he did the cutting himself during editing, Pakula said he did not. “No. I’ll sit at the Moviola, not all the time, but a lot. Sometimes I’ll stop and start in the projection room, and other times at the Moviola; it all depends.” 

Of course, the stunning musical score of the Test Film is integral to the completed piece. Pakula spoke highly of composer Michael Small, with whom he had worked on two previous films, including KLUTE, during his AFI seminar in 1974: “And then Michael came in and the music is so crucial. It contributes. Music and sound is so important to me and I always allow room for it in making the film. It must be a sound perception. And in that he started out with a simple Americana and then it just builds into this kind of acid rock hysteria.”

Pakula’s biographer Jared Brown interviewed the composer not long before Small’s death in 2003:

"Working on a tight deadline, Michael Small then composed and recorded music for the sequence in a few days. As he recalls, 'I don't think Alan even heard it. It was just one of these magical events.'”

Small told Brown that he considered his entire score (including the Test sequence) for THE PARALLAX VIEW to be his very best.

It isn’t exactly clear when Small completed his scoring for the Test sequence itself, but according to Lukas Kendall of Film Score Monthly, the final day of soundtrack score recording was February 8, 1974.

The final cut of the Test Film that appears in THE PARALLAX VIEW is four-minutes-and-thirty-seven-seconds and comprises 342 frames from 108 still images with nine title cards.

“THE FILM’S GREATEST TRIUMPH”

THE PARALLAX VIEW opened on June 19, 1974 in New York City and in Los Angeles on June 26, 1974. A few critics immediately understood the singular achievement of the Test Film sequence, while some other major reviewers like Vincent Canby of the New York Times completely ignored it. Canby was generally unimpressed with THE PARALLAX VIEW and gave it a negative review.

Here are some quotes from critics in 1974 who were moved to write about the Test sequence.  

Variety’s “Murph.” wondered in his review who exactly was responsible for “the dazzling five minute fast-edited test sequence.”

Cinefantastique’s Dale Winogura called the Test sequence “an affecting emotional manipulation” and compared it to the “trip” in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY: “A direct participation experience that the protagonist goes through as well as the audience. It is a classic sequence…”

The Boston Globe’s Patrick McGilligan described it as “an extraordinary and clinical insert in an otherwise chilling movie.”  

The Hollywood Reporter’s Cynthia Kirk wrote in her review that the “visual test” “becomes the film’s greatest triumph.”

The Atlantic Monthly’s Joseph Kanon called the sequence “extraordinary.”

Newsweek’s Paul Zimmerman wrote that THE PARALLAX VIEW was a “dazzling exercise in montage and melodrama.”

The Boston Phoenix’s Janet Maslin called the Test sequence “crucial” and described it as “an extraordinary series of arch-American slides.”

Gordon Gow in the British film magazine Films & Filming wrote, “The entire indoctrination film is a satire at once disquieting and wry, an incitement to the paranoia that breeds maniacal ‘saviors.’”

“IN THE AIR”

THE PARALLAX VIEW Test Film is an original, breathtaking and powerful work of filmmaking, but it was not produced in a vacuum. It is very much a product of its time, but also bracingly fresh to most contemporary viewers.

The style of rapidly cut photomontage or kinestasis was percolating in film schools by the mid-1960s. LOOK AT LIFE, George Lucas’s first student film at the University of Southern California in 1965 is an example of the form that, in a very basic way, anticipates elements of the PARALLAX Test Film.

But it was Chuck Braverman’s AMERICAN TIME CAPSULE that really popularized the style of kinestasis. The short film was first broadcast on THE SMOTHERS BROTHERS COMEDY HOUR on CBS on the Sunday before the 1968 presidential election. It proved to be such a hit with viewers that the show ran it again the following month. Braverman went on to create many other photomontage short films including the dystopian title credit sequence for SOYLENT GREEN which was released the year before THE PARALLAX VIEW.

I reached out to Braverman to ask him if he recalled what his reaction was to the Test Film in THE PARALLAX VIEW when he first saw it. He replied by email: “My reaction was that I wish I had been asked to produce the montage. I enjoyed it and now plan on watching the film again as I have not seen it since it was first released.”

There were a couple of other notable short political films that preceded PARALLAX that have a similar thematic feel. In the controversial Barry Goldwater campaign film CHOICE (1964), archival clips and stills of wholesome, patriotic America are juxtaposed with images of riots, vice and corrupt politicians. The film ends with rapidly cut clips interspersed with title cards that read “CHOICE” with a white background (for Goldwater’s Republican America) and a black background (for Lyndon Johnson’s Democratic America).

The NIXON NOW (1972) campaign commercial with a theme song by the Mike Curb Congregation (“Reaching out to find the way to make tomorrow a brighter day…Nixon now, Nixon now… He showed us how…”) celebrates Republican candidate Richard Nixon as a savior figure. It has a very PARALLAX vibe to it, but without the dark complexity, of course. 

I sent video links and asked Jon Boorstin about these last two films as well as the Lucas short. He replied via email: “Those campaign films are intriguing. I don't recall seeing either one, though they certainly resonate. Whether that was just what was in the air or something we'd seen I can't say. The Nixon one might well have been seen. Don't forget with no video yet, seeing things was a hit and miss matter. I think I'd remember the Goldwater film. That is chilling.” 

Boorstin said he had never seen the George Lucas student film before viewing from my link. He added, “Interesting to contrast his frenzied efforts to impose meaning on his images with Alan J. Pakula’s approach.”

The one film sequence that is sometimes referenced in direct comparison to the PARALLAX Test Film is the scene in Stanley Kubrick’s A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971) in which Alex (Malcolm McDowell) undergoes cinematic violence aversion therapy. The image of a tortured-looking Alex with his eyes cranked open has become iconic.

But the comparisons are misplaced as Boorstin explained in his Criterion interview:

“The key scene is the scene where they show Malcolm McDowell being brainwashed by the combination of images and sound which is essentially similar to ours. But if you look at that as an example - it's a well-made movie, a beautiful movie, and that's a great scene, but it's a different thing. You cut to the character, you cut to a piece of the movie he's watching. You cut back to the character. And it's really not about what it is doing to us, it's about what it is doing to him.” Boorstin added, "Alan (Pakula) said, no, no shots of Warren Beatty being agonized or being tested or reacting to the thing at all."

Boorstin elaborated on these differences in an email:

“I maintain that the brilliance of AJP's choice is that we aren't watching Warren take the test, we are taking the test ourselves, unmediated and uncut. So we feel the emotions as they are aroused in us, not only in Warren. The underpinning of the film, and what makes it different from others, is that AJP is finding the emotional connection between the journalist and the assassin, and then with us. In Pakula's tale, the assassin shares personality traits with the killer, and we see those same traits in ourselves as we take the test.” 

WHAT WAS THE TEST SCORE?

Near the end of the 1974 American Film Institute seminar with Alan J. Pakula, an audience member asks, “How did the Warren Beatty character score on that test? I never understood that?”

Pakula responds that it was a “mistake” not to have included a “segment” that explains how the Beatty character scored on the Parallax Corporation’s test. But he then goes on to explain why it was absolutely not necessary to include such a scene.   

“…I should have had it in. But I also find that when in doubt, make a bold leap…in films. But sometimes you can explain so much, and where’s there a film…I always felt that PARALLAX depended on a certain kind of hypnosis to work. And if you stop to explain to such an extent that you break the hypnotic rhythm of the film, you make it more believable on an intellectual level and the thing that may pull that audience emotionally can fall apart.”  

Fifty years later, it seems beyond question that Pakula’s decision not to buttress the meaning of the test sequence with some awkward follow-up scene was the right one. It was the crux of his entire film and it needed to stand on its own.

ODDS AND ENDS

Items that I collected during my research that did not really fit in the main post.

WARREN BEATTY’S OPINION OF THE PARALLAX VIEW

Warren Beatty did not promote THE PARALLAX VIEW in the media when the film was released in June of 1974. Jon Boorstin told me in our interview that he does not know what Beatty thinks of the film.

I was able to find one very brief quotation about the movie from Beatty from “Film Night with Tony Bilbow,” BBC 2, October 30, 1975:

BILBOW: A film you didn’t produce, but I suspect was important to you nevertheless is THE PARALLAX VIEW.

BEATTY: It was a film relating to the possibilities of conspiracies in assassinations and politics in the United States. And you’re right, I didn’t produce it, and it’s a film I respect. It’s subject that is going to be reopened, it’s a very important subject and it’s part of the entire reopening process that’s taking place in the United States now on the entire fabric of the last 25 years of our life as a nation.

ALAN J. PAKULA RETROSPECTIVE COMMENTS ON THE TEST FILM: 1

The following quotes are from an archival video interview with Alan J. Pakula included in the 2019 documentary, ALAN PAKULA: GOING FOR TRUTH.

"And I had in mind a certain kind of psychological test that would define and attract an assassin and whip him up and whip his blood pressure up."

"The whole idea of this film, if there was a cautionary tale in this film and indeed there was a cautionary tale for the '70s, is that 'Beware hiding behind all sorts of patriotic symbols that seem all American. That can whip you up into a frenzy of excitement, can be ideas that are not American, that are not democratic, that are not free.'" 

"What is the genius of this country? What defines this country? Our ideas of great, the great 18th century ideas of the Enlightenment, which is freedom and democracy, and that, indeed other things can be hiding behind them and we can all be manipulated."

ALAN J. PAKULA RETROSPECTIVE COMMENTS ON THE TEST FILM: 2

Alan J. Pakula commented briefly on THE PARALLAX VIEW in a 1995 AFI interview included on the Criterion reissue of the film.

"(Warren Beatty's character goes)...to a test to weed out people who would be potential assassins against people who would not be. So, I designed this kind of free association test sequence which is all stills and is designed to whip you up into a kind of frenzy of rage if you are one of the people left out of the society. One of the tragic people who is one of the unknowns in the society - people society doesn't care about. This was a fascinating sequence."

THE PARALLAX VIEW PRESS BOOK (Paramount Pictures, 1974)

Paramount Pictures’ promotional press book does not explicitly mention the Test Film sequence, but Alan J. Pakula is quoted. Some of his comments below are clearly about the Test Film.

"Talking about 'The Parallax View' while in New York City to map out the advertising and promotional campaigns for the film, Pakula noted that in his new film "the personal relationships are certainly secondary to the melodrama and mystery. The picture deals with a paranoiac delusion that turns out to be a total reality." "It deals with a paranoiac delusion that turns out to be a total reality." "It deals with a character, played by Warren Beatty, who imagines the worst and suspects the worst. He imagines the most bizarre kind of plots and the truth turns out to be worse than anything he could have imagined."

THE PARALLAX VIEW "demanded a style which while seeming real and unstylized would nonetheless have a sense of the surreal to it. It would give me a chance to attempt a kind of visual comment on our society. On the way we live and our values without ever discussing it." "One of the reasons I was attracted to 'The Parallax View' was that it was the least literary things I've ever done. It depends on visual storytelling. While it is based on Loren Singer's book, I felt it could only be a movie." "The fascinating thing about melodrama is that you're playing with the most infantile emotions of an audience. Scaring people, terrorizing them. Using film to do that is fascinating." "When you're cutting a film, you're manipulating emotions. It's very easy to horrify somebody if you want to show a corpse being mutilated. I'm not talking about that - that's a form of pornography actually. Real terror does not come from any ghoul but out of the audience's fantasy terrors. In a sense I'm saying, 'how can I scare myself? How can I surprise myself." "It's been said that in making a film that manipulates other people's fears, directors are really dealing with their own childhood fears. For a man who dream a great deal, as I do, controlling dreams by cutting them is an incredible thing."

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Special thanks to Jon Boorstin for taking the time to discuss at length his work on THE PARALLAX VIEW. His insights regarding the production of the Test Film were invaluable in writing this post. Watch Jon’s Academy Award nominated short documentary EXPLORATORIUM on YouTube. 

Visit Jon’s website to learn more about his writing and film work.

Thanks to Lollie Ortiz for speaking with me about her late partner Don Record and his friend and cinematographer / photographer, Wilson S. “Willie” Hong Jr.

Thanks to Chuck Braverman, Steven Brower, Alan Andres, Tim Goldsmith, Scott Saslow, J.G. Michael.

SOURCES AND NOTES

Steven Soderbergh comment regarding THE PARALLAX VIEW Test Film is from the documentary, ALAN PAKULA: GOING FOR TRUTH (2019).

The PARALLAX VIEW Test Film on YouTube: https://youtu.be/vhztDt7-QT8?si=foZci2_si_D-czrJ 

The reference to the Alan J. Pakula “Paranoia Trilogy” is from Richard T. Jameson’s article, “The Pakula Parallax,” Film Comment, September-October, 1976.

Date of Alan J. Pakula completing principal photography on THE PARALLAX VIEW is from Variety, July 6, 1973.

All quotes from Jon Boorstin are either from my telephone interview with him from June 12, 2023 or from the video entitled PULLING FOCUS: CONSTRUCTING THE PARALLAX VIEW produced by Elizabeth Pauker which is included as a supplement to the 2021 Criterion Collection Blu-ray reissue of THE PARALLAX VIEW. All quotes are identified in the post. Quotes from Boorstin’s emails to me are cited separately.

I read the source novel:  

Loren Singer [1923-2009], “The Parallax View,” Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1970. The “Test” scene in the novel is called an “Interview” and it involves the journalist character (named Graham, not Frady) going to a hotel for two tests that culminate in a bizarre eye exam involving word association.

 I read the following screenplay drafts:

THE PARALLAX VIEW by Lorenzo Semple, Jr. [1923-2014], Undated.

THE PARALLAX VIEW by David Giler [1943-2020], First Draft, February 13, 1973.

The Alan J. Pakula quotes in this post are, unless otherwise noted, from “The American Film Institute Seminar with Alan Pakula,” November 20, 1974.

Parallax View – Special Sequence folders, Alan J. Pakula Papers, Margaret Herrick Library, Beverly Hills, CA.

Biographical information on Don Record [1936-1980]:

Steven Brower, “Don Record: Hollywood’s Other Lost Title Designer,” Print, October 20, 2015
https://www.printmag.com/culturally-related-design/don-record-hollywood-title-design/

Telephone interview on June 1, 2023 with Don Record’s surviving partner, Lollie Ortiz.

Biographical information on Wilson S. “Willie” Hong Jr. [1934-2016]:

The Montana Standard, December 2, 1956.

The Montana Standard, September 7, 2017.

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0393272/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1

Telephone interview on June 1, 2023 with Don Record’s surviving partner, Lollie Ortiz.

Jon Boorstin email on June 6, 2023 to Bill Geerhart re: shooting images with Wilson S. “Willie” Hong Jr.

Alan J. Pakula quote is from Patrick McGilligan, “’Parallax View,’ Grips Audience,” Boston Globe, June 28, 1974.

Editor John W. “Jack” Wheeler [1931-2015]: Palm Springs, CA Desert Sun obituary, December 15, 2015.
https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/thedesertsun/name/john-wheeler-obituary?id=16482932
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0923847/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cr

Alan J. Pakula quote on editing is from Andrew Bobrow, “Interview with Alan J. Pakula,” Filmmakers Newsletter, September, 1974.

Composer Michael Small [1939-2003] information and quote are from the biography “Alan J. Pakula: His Films and His Life” by Jared Brown. Back Stage Books, 2005.

THE PARALLAX VIEW soundtrack scoring recording completion date was confirmed to me via a June 1, 2023 email from Film Score Monthly founder Lukas Kendall who said FSM had obtained the data from the American Federation of Musicians. The date is also included in the Film Score Monthly liner notes to their 2010 release of the MARATHON MAN and PARALLAX VIEW soundtracks: https://www.filmscoremonthly.com/notes/parallax_view.html

The exact length of THE PARALLAX VIEW Test Film and the number of images and frames used in it are from David Levine’s “The Sight of Blood Does Not Make Me Sick or Afraid” [Bard College, Center for Curatorial Studies/LUMA Foundation, 2017] which contains a thorough analysis of the Test Film: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/537f6618e4b00d67fdb599eb/t/58a1b2aaf5e231ba9d0ca863/1486992066212/FINAL+PV.pdf

Film reviews referenced:

Vincent Canby, “Screen: Villains Abound in ‘Parallax,’ New York Times, June 20, 1974.

Murph., Variety, June 19, 1974.

Dale Winogura, Cinefantastique, Winter, 1974.

Patrick McGilligan, “‘Parallax View’ Grips Audience,” Boston Globe, June 28, 1974.

Cynthia Kirk, the Hollywood Reporter, June 14, 1974.

Joseph Kanon, “The Parallax Candidate,” Atlantic Monthly, August, 1974.

Paul Zimmerman, “Needle’s Eye,” Newsweek, July 1, 1974.

Janet Maslin, “Film: Ain’t That Pakula,” Boston Phoenix, June 25, 1974.

Gordon Gow, Films & Filming, December, 1974.

Information on George Lucas’s student film was derived from:

Charles Champlin, “George Lucas: The Creative Impulse,” pp. 18; 90., 1997 (Revised and Updated Edition), Harry N. Abrams

Steven Travers, “Coppola’s Monster Film,” p. 33, 2016, McFarland & Co, Inc.

George Lucas's LOOK AT LIFE (1965): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12m7gRSfy7U

Articles that mention kinestasis or photomontage in relationship to film schools:

ee cummings Show Scheduled, Los Angeles Evening Citizen News, May 6, 1966.

Kevin Thomas, “12 Student Films Presented at USC,” Los Angeles Times, June 28, 1968.

Information on Chuck Braverman and his film work was derived from:

AMERICAN TIME CAPSULE (1968) as seen on THE SMOTHERS BROTHERS COMEDY HOUR

https://youtu.be/z2XJA7IAGnY?si=HRxHVV1c4jecba-R

Video interview with Chuck Braverman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdw3pbVmKZM

Television listings, Lima News (Ohio), December 15, 1968.

Article on Braverman and his role in popularizing kinestasis: “Kinestasis Latest Madison Avenue Darling,” Broadcasting, March 24, 1969.

SOYLENT GREEN (1973) opening title sequence by Chuck Braverman:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlVczvB4FQk

Chuck Braverman June 21, 2023 email to Bill Geerhart re: THE PARALLAX VIEW Test Film.

CHOICE (1964), Goldwater campaign film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xniUoMiHm8g 

NIXON NOW (1972) campaign film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceocNS-toDk

Jon Boorstin May 31, 2023 email to Bill Geerhart re: campaign films.

Jon Boorstin June 3, 2023 email to Bill Geerhart re: George Lucas student film.

A DEATH AT MOUNT WEATHER

Buried in a box at the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene, Kansas there is a short memo describing the death of a man at the classified federal emergency relocation site now known as the Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center (MWEOC) in Bluemont, Virginia. In a memorandum dated March 31, 1960, Leo A. Hoegh, the administrator of the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization (ODCM), wrote the following to General Andrew J. Goodpaster Jr., President Eisenhower’s Staff Secretary: 

On Wednesday evening an employee of a Navy contractor [ed. note: this company is Irons & Reynolds, Inc.] working on the WHASA (White House Army Signal Agency) communications project at REDACTED was killed by carbon monoxide. Four other employees are hospitalized [ed. note: press accounts name five individuals]. 

Apparently a gasoline sump pump, or kerosene heaters, located at the bottom of the hole created the gas. Little is known at this time as to how it was discovered or how many men were in the area. Some of the casualties were stricken in the course of rescue operations. 

OCDM personnel, guards and the fire company, assisted in the rescue, emergency medical treatment, administrative actions and transfer of the victims to REDACTED. The Navy is conducting an investigation.

I was unable to find any follow-up correspondence regarding the tragic incident either at the Eisenhower Library or at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland. A representative of the Navy's Judge Advocate General's office told me that he could find no record of the investigation. 

But thanks to local newspaper coverage of the accident, we know the name of the man who lost his life at Mount Weather: Harry Wilburn Tibbs, a 32-year-old Virginia native with a wife and three young children. According to the Winchester Evening Star, Tibbs had been in a “shaft” helping clear out water from melting snow when he and several co-workers became “overcome” by fumes created by “a gasoline engine used to power a portable pump.”

The Commonwealth of Virginia Certificate of Death for Mr. Tibbs lists the cause of death as “carbon monoxide poisoning.” Under the section of the certificate titled “Describe How Injury Occurred,” Dr. James R. York wrote, “Exposure to gas fumes in closed building while at work.” Mr. Tibbs’ occupation on the certificate is listed as “Laborer” and his “Kind of Business or Industry” is entered as “Gov’t Installation.” 

Harry Tibbs’s funeral was held Saturday, April 2, 1960 in Berryville, Virginia. The announcement for the service that ran in the Winchester Evening Star the previous day may be the first published reference to Mount Weather and its mission. It refers to the site where Tibbs died as the “Mt. Weather federal relocation project.”

Beyond the government documents and newspaper clips, who was Harry Tibbs? I reached out to his family to learn more. Hal Tibbs, Harry’s oldest son, was just five when the Mount Weather accident occurred. “I remember people coming to the house at night to tell my mom,” Hal told me in a telephone interview. “We were woken up and taken to our grandparents.” He added that his cousin had custody of his father’s clothes from the day of the accident. “I remember there was a tear in the khaki work pants from where, I assume, they tried to pull him up (from the shaft).” 

Hal Tibbs has his father’s U.S. Army ring and Bowie knife from when Harry served in the Philippines from 1946-1947. Hal recalls that in civilian life his father worked in construction and in a slaughterhouse. 

Hal says that, to the best of his knowledge, representatives of the federal government never reached out to the family after his father’s death to offer condolences or financial assistance. His mother, Charlotte A. Tibbs (now deceased), received a very small worker’s compensation settlement that was issued weekly over a period of years. She remarried in the year following the accident. 

A little more than a month after the accident that claimed Harry Tibbs's life at Mount Weather, President Dwight Eisenhower visited the site as part of a civil defense drill known as Operation Alert. He received a tour of the facilities by Leo Hoegh. There's no documentary evidence that the president was ever told of the fatality.

Shortly after learning about Mr. Tibbs’s story, I filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with FEMA – a successor agency to the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization – to see if a memorial plaque exists at Mount Weather for those who lost their lives building the site. A couple of years later, a FEMA representative responded to my FOIA informing me that no such plaque exists. 

Isn't it long overdue that the federal government officially recognizes the sacrifice of Harry W. Tibbs and others who have died building Cold War era relocation sites?

RESEARCH NOTES

Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library 

White House Office, Office of the Staff Secretary: Records, 1952-61

Subject Series: Alpha Subseries

Box 21

Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization (4)

Hoegh to Goodpaster re accident at emergency location, 3/31/60

"Federal Project Mishap Kills 1, Sends 5 to Hospital," Winchester Evening Star, March 31, 1960

Judge Advocate General's representative to Bill Geerhart on October 12, 2022. The representative stated that he searched their electronic database as well as "a whole room of physical 3x5 cards" for the year 1960. No records were found for an investigation of the accident at Mount Weather on March 30, 1960.

Commonwealth of Virginia Certificate of Death for Harry W. Tibbs accessed via Ancestry.com

Tibbs Service, Winchester Evening Star, April 1, 1960

Telephone interview with Hal Tibbs conducted by Bill Geerhart, September 29, 2022

Worker's Compensation claim information was obtained from claim no. 507-404 (C60-117976), November 14, 1961, Commonwealth of Virginia, Department of Workmen's Compensation

Freedom of Information Act Request, FEMA, 2023-FEFO-00008. Response date: April 4, 2024

Other known fatalities resulting from the construction of Cold War era relocation sites are the following - all during the construction of Raven Rock (Site R): 

LeRoy R. Fleagle [1926-1951]

Roland P. Kelly [1923-1951]

Charles S. Stanley [1910-1951]

It should also be noted here that in addition to the fatality of Harry W. Tibbs, the following five persons were hospitalized as a result of carbon monoxide inhalation at Mount Weather on March 30, 1960:

Arthur A. Breeden [1932-2012]

Arthur A. Fox [1927-1980]

Sanford B. Lam [1925-2014] (Mr. Lam had been employed by the U.S. Bureau of Mines)

Calvin L. Myers [1933-2019]

Delbert Monroe Payne [1932-2023]

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

I am grateful to the family of Harry W. Tibbs for being willing to speak with me regarding their late father.

  

A DIABOLICAL THING: Anne Ford’s Atomic Protest Letter

In anticipation of the 70^th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we recently spent a week in Independence, Missouri at the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library. Our research goal was to find letters reflecting the immediate public reaction to the Bomb. We expected to find a mountain of material, but instead came across only a small file of letters.[1] Thankfully, though, there are a few gems in this slim collection.

One such gem is an impassioned note from a publishing executive named Anne Ford. Ms. Ford, who was then the Publicity Director for Little, Brown and Company, minced no words in her August 9, 1945 broadside against the bombing of Hiroshima. Indeed, she emphatically told President Truman that she thought it was “a disgrace that America should be involved in such a diabolical thing…” She described herself as “stunned and sick at heart” for “Japan and her people – thousands of them innocent.”[2]

But Ms. Ford also couldn’t help viewing the aftermath of the first use of the Bomb as the veteran publicist she was. In a paragraph on how poorly the post-atomic news had been handled, she singled out a strange image of the wife of the Enola Gay pilot with their young children. Amidst all the tabloidy hoopla over Hiroshima, the wire photograph of Lucy Wingate Tibbets (1906-1985) and her two sons had appeared in newspapers across the country on August 8 and August 9, 1945.[3] A caption accompanying the photo stated that Mrs. Tibbets had received calls of congratulation for her husband’s successful mission.

Ms. Ford supported her brief critique of the media to Truman by writing: “The picture of Tibbets [sic] wife, for instance, with her innocent babies in her lap receiving congratulations over the telephone for this ghastly thing…”

Ms. Ford concluded her letter by writing that she would “force” herself to tune in to the President’s 10:00 p.m. radio address that evening. Given that news of the second atomic bomb, dropped on Nagasaki, was already being reported in the evening newspapers, Ms. Ford may have skipped the speech.

There is no evidence that Truman or his staff ever replied to Ms. Ford’s damning message. She had tried to get it in front of the President by routing it through his appointments secretary, Michael J. Connelly (1907-1976). But obviously someone in the Truman White House thought enough of Anne Ford’s letter to file it away for future generations to hold and to read.

At this point you may be wondering whether there is more to know about Anne Ford. There is. CONELRAD researched Ms. Ford’s biography and we are happy to share what we found.

Anne Adelaide Ford was born in Boston, Massachusetts on September 12, 1901. She grew up in Brookline in a house not far from John F. Kennedy’s birthplace. Ms. Ford, a lifelong Catholic, would later teach the future President in prayer class at St. Aidan’s Church. She graduated from Brookline High School in approximately 1918 and Boston University four years later.

When she was just 21 Ms. Ford landed a job as assistant to the prominent music and drama critic Philip Hale (1854-1934) at the Boston Herald. She performed editing tasks and filled in as an alternate critic which afforded her the opportunity to interview some of the top entertainers of the era. Ms. Ford soon moved on to become an advance woman for the Theatre Guild where she met stars like Helen Hayes, Alfred Lunt, George M. Cohan and Lynn Fontaine. One of Ms. Ford’s jobs with the Guild was to promote plays adapted from novels which allowed her to develop contacts in the publishing industry. She became Director of Publicity at Little, Brown and Company in 1938. In 1949 she was promoted to the position of Manager of Public Relations for the company.

During her tenure at Little, Brown Ms. Ford was profiled in a Boston Globe column that focused on women in the workplace. The columnist marveled at how Ms. Ford got to travel to New York City and hobnob with authors like John Marquand, A.J. Cronin, James Hilton and C.S. Forrester. The column was accompanied by a photograph of Ms. Ford at her office desk where she may have written her letter to President Truman in 1945.

Ms. Ford became Publicity Director for Harcourt Brace after her long stint at Little, Brown. At Harcourt she helped promote the works of T.S. Eliot, Thomas Merton and others. She concluded her career in publishing as Director of Publicity for Houghton Mifflin Company in 1970. Concurrent to her retirement, she was contributing an occasional column to the Boston Globe called “Anne Ford Remembers.” In one column, she mentioned that her friend actor James Cagney offered some advice on the next phase of her life: “Start rehearsing, kid. You’ve got to rehearse for retirement.”

Unlike Mr. Cagney, though, it does not appear that Ms. Ford ever came out of retirement. Her step-nephew, Dr. James M. Kieran who is 95 years old, told CONELRAD in a telephone interview that he isn’t sure what Ms. Ford did after 1970. He told us that she had lots of friends because “she was outgoing and easy to get along with.” He added that she was “very intelligent and sophisticated,” but in response to another question said that she never talked fast like Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday (as we had imagined). Dr. Kieran told us that he remembered his step-aunt supporting her former pupil John F. Kennedy for President in 1960, but was not sure if she remained a Democrat for her entire life.

Anne Ford died on November 16, 1993 in Rockport, Massachusetts. She had never married and had no children. Her younger sister, Margaret Ford Kieran survived her, but passed away ten years later. Ms. Ford is buried at the Beech Grove Cemetery in Rockport. Her anguished and insightful letter about America’s atomic debut lives on.

Anne Ford's Atomic Protest Letter by Bill Geerhart

BIOGRAPHICAL SOURCES

Dr. James M. Kieran, telephone interviews with Bill Geerhart, August 3 and 5, 2015.

“Anne Ford, 92 Was Critic, Literary Agent,” Boston Globe, November 18, 1993, 63.

Anne Ford, “Anne Ford Remembers” column, Boston Globe, June 10, 1970, 19.

Anne Ford, “Anne Ford Remembers” column, Boston Globe, February 24, 1970, 19.

Anne Ford promotion announcement, Publishers Weekly, 1949.

Nell Giles, “Smooth Susan at Work Interviews Anne Ford of Little Brown & Co.,” Boston Globe, October 6, 1941, 15.

---

[1] After we were unable to find what we thought would be a huge collection of public opinion mail regarding the first use of atomic weapons, we consulted with historian D.M. Giangreco, the co-author of the 500+ page book Dear Harry: Truman’s Mailroom, 1945-1953 (Stackpole, 1999). Mr. Giangreco confirmed in an August 4, 2015 telephone conversation that there is only a small number of letters reflecting the immediate public reaction to the atomic bomb. There are many more letters from the public regarding the 1946 atomic tests conducted during Operation Crossroads. There is an even larger volume of citizen mail concerning the possible use of atomic weapons during the Korean War (1950-1953). CONELRAD will be presenting some of these letters in future posts.

[2] Anne Ford to Michael J. Connelly and Harry S. Truman, August 9, 1945. White House Central Files: Official File: 692; Box 1686; Folder: Miscellaneous April – October 1945; Truman Papers, Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum.

[3] Jesse Helms, “Columbus Woman’s Husband Pilot of First Plane to Drop Atomic Bomb,” Columbus (Georgia) Enquirer, August 8, 1945, 1. The same wire photo of Mrs. Tibbets also appeared on page 2 of the New York Daily Mirror on August 9, 1945. It also appeared on page 2 of the New York Daily News on August 9, 1945.

Kudos on the Atomic Bombs

Surprisingly, there are only a handful of letters at the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library that capture the first public reaction to the atomic bomb. We know this because last month we went to the Library in Independence, Missouri and searched with the help of an archivist.[1] And of these few Bomb letters from August of 1945, only one is unreservedly positive in its praise for the Commander in Chief. The handwritten missive came not from a citizen, but from an old friend of the President’s and a Republican to boot! Indeed, Ohio Senator Harold Hitz Burton’s short note is dated August 9, 1945 and offers congratulations to Truman for his role in the “winning of the war and the saving of the lives of many American soldiers and sailors.”[2]

Senator Burton Atomic Kudos by Bill Geerhart

It is interesting to see how the Senator made some last minute edits to reflect the news of Fat Man, the second atomic bomb dropped on Japan. Burton may have been perusing the Washington Evening Star headline (“Second Atom Raid Brings ‘Good Results”) for August 9^th when he crossed out “by” and replaced it with the word “with” and added an “s” to what was “bomb.” The new, pluralized line read:

“Even your old battery would find it hard to match what you have done with the atomic bombs…”

President Truman was so pleased by the fan letter that he replied on August 11th, “I certainly appreciated your note of the ninth more than any I received.” A little more than a month later Truman, in his first Supreme Court nomination, picked Senator Burton to fill the vacancy left by the retiring Associate Justice Owen J. Roberts. The nomination of a Republican to the bench after Franklin D. Roosevelt’s three and a half terms and eight Supreme Court appointees (seven of whom were Democrats) sent a clear signal that Truman was his own man. He also got a new Democratic Senator out of the deal in James Wylie Huffman. Huffman was appointed by Ohio Governor Frank Lausche to finish Burton’s term when he was confirmed to the Supreme Court on September 19, 1945.

In a Cold War coda of sorts, it was Justice Burton who reviewed the 1955 Letter of Understanding with the Grove Park Inn of Asheville, North Carolina to serve as an emergency relocation site for the Court in the event of a nuclear attack on the United States. “Dear Chief,” Burton wrote to Earl Warren, “I have examined the attached material and believe it presents a reasonable solution on its face.” The tone was certainly different from the congratulatory letter to a President ten years earlier. But times had changed.

MOUNT WEATHER WITNESS: Jack Rosenthal

As faithful readers are well aware, CONELRAD has long been fascinated by Cold War government relocation sites. And, as far as we know, there is no site more intriguing than Mount Weather, a facility that has outlived the Soviet Union and remains operational and at the service of the President of the United States to this day. Ironically, over the course of its half century-plus existence the “top secret” installation near Berryville, Virginia has burrowed its way into the public consciousness. But few visitors have ever talked openly about what the place is really like. So when we had the opportunity to speak with someone who had spent time at the site during the Cuban missile crisis, we basically hopped on the next train to New York City for an interview.

Jack Rosenthal, the current Interim Director of Roosevelt House, the Public Policy Institute at Hunter College, was the Assistant Director of Public Information in the Justice Department in 1962. At the height of the missile crisis he was temporarily transferred to the White House to work on their emergency information planning in the event of an attack on the United States. We spoke with Mr. Rosenthal over lunch at the charming Match 65 Brasserie at 29 East 65^th Street on January 16, 2015.

We hope that you find the conversation illuminating.

CONELRAD: Do you recall if you read Seven Days in May before the Cuban missile crisis?

JACK ROSENTHAL: I may very well have because I knew [co-author Charles W.] Bailey [1929-2012] fairly well. I'm sure I did because it had such wonderful word of mouth and reviews.

CONELRAD: You mention the book in your 2004 oral history interview for the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and the fact that the authors used a different name for Mount Weather.

ROSENTHAL: Right, Mount Thunder, I remember that.

 

CONELRAD: So I guess the question is, do you remember hearing about Mount Weather before you were formally told about it?

ROSENTHAL: No. I'm sure I assumed there were such places, but I had no reason to know about it. 

CONELRAD: Could you briefly describe the circumstances that led you to being detailed from your post as Assistant Director of Public Information at the Justice Department to the White House to work on updating emergency planning?

ROSENTHAL: My boss was Ed Guthman [1919-2008] who was the director of public affairs and was a very close aide to Robert Kennedy [1925-1968]. I was a kid, assistant director of public affairs. It was an exalted title - number two man in a two man office. But, as you know, RFK was deeply engaged in the missile crisis and I had had frequent dealings with the White House. For example, each cabinet department was responsible to provide a weekly report of interesting activities that might come up at the President's weekly press conference. That was my responsibility each week to draft the Justice Department's report to the White House. I'd known Pierre Salinger [1925-2004]. He'd once been the press aide to RFK when Kennedy was the head of the rackets committee investigation [the United States Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in Labor and Management AKA the McClellan Committee]. Anyway, Pierre, with Andy Hatcher [1923-1990], the deputy press secretary, were obviously up to their ears in dealing with all manner of press inquiries about the actual events [of the Cuban missile crisis] and about the noise stirring around Washington. Anyway, they were vastly overworked and I think Bobby [Kennedy] suggested that I be sent to the White House to help.

CONELRAD: Was this after the missiles had been discovered on Cuba?

ROSENTHAL: I don't remember.

CONELRAD: But it was in that general time period.

ROSENTHAL: It had to have been.

CONELRAD: Could you briefly describe what your assignment was?

ROSENTHAL: Sure. I was given an office which later became famous. It was Room 1 in the Executive Office Building. The fact that it had only a single digit meant that it was in the basement. The door was like a safe - there was no door handle, there was a combination. It was pretty workman-like space, but I remember being kind of thrilled to be able to say I had an office at the White House.

CONELRAD: And who later occupied that space?

ROSENTHAL: It became famous during Watergate. I guess one of the leaders of the Watergate break-in...

CONELRAD: E. Howard Hunt [1918-2007]?

ROSENTHAL: Yes. He was the occupant.

CONELRAD: So that space was the headquarters for the Plumbers unit?

ROSENTHAL: Uh-huh. [Editor’s note: Nixon administration speechwriter William Safire remembered the Plumbers office number as 16 in a 1989 New York Times column; several prominent Watergate books, including Stanley Kutler’s The Wars of Watergate, cite the office number as 16].

CONELRAD: So what were you actually tasked with doing on this assignment?

ROSENTHAL: There had been a lot of papers developed, long before, in the abstract of what to do in the case of emergencies. And it was tiered, so if you got to DEFCON 5 [editor’s note: Rosenthal meant to refer to DEFCON 1] which is the most dangerous level with the whole country on alert, these were the things that had to be done. Well, Pierre and Andy Hatcher had never been confronted with this before. Nobody had ever thought to bring it up to date. It had probably been written five years before. So, as I recall, they said 'here, figure it out.'

CONELRAD: And were these contingency plans for the dissemination of news? Or was it more broad than that?

ROSENTHAL: I am sure there were aspects of it that went way beyond news, on things like how do you get members of Congress out of the city. But my piece of it was limited to dissemination of news. I started with which journalists would be saved. As I recall, I was told there was room for fifty. That was TV and print. Of course, there was no online then. It included photographers and tech people, not just actual writers and editors. So the first thing I had to figure out was who. I think that was probably one of the reasons I was chosen. Because at the Justice Department we dealt with maybe two hundred press inquiries a day.

CONELRAD: So you knew all the journalists...

ROSENTHAL: Right. Anybody who covered the Justice Department was somebody I knew. So I remember painfully going over a list of people and wondering how do you balance a columnist I didn't think very much of as opposed to a reporter who I thought really did work. And that was really hard. In retrospect I think that was the hardest part of the job. But that was just the beginning because very hard questions then arose - tangible practical ones, like how do you get...Do you let these people know in advance? Do you get them issued passes to get in? How do you get word to them to go where when an evacuation is to take place? Where will the helicopters land to take you to the site? I remember the questions, but I don't remember the answers.

CONELRAD: But something was arrived at?

ROSENTHAL: Must have been. By the time we got to that level of detail, the crisis was already easing enough so that things were suspended. But the next thing was for me to go see the site. I guess my first briefing was with Ed McDermott [1920-1999] who was head of the Office of Emergency Planning or Preparedness. He issued me my pass.

CONELRAD: Could you describe that pass?

ROSENTHAL: Yes. I was thrilled to get it because it was so James Bond-like. All government I.D. at that point was black and white. My official government I.D. was in a leather case with "Department of Justice" on the outside in gold and on the inside [was] a black and white picture of me with my I.D. Well this was, for God's sake, in color. A color photo of me in a laminated plastic card. And not just color, but woven gold threads across the face of the picture to make it impossible to counterfeit. And it had some numbers on it, but very little writing. As I recall, all it said was "If found, return to G.P.O such and such, Washington, D.C. What was interesting about the card is not just that it was hard to duplicate, but unless there was an identical one in the box at the guard gate at the site, you couldn't get in. McDermott told me the story about how he'd gone to the Supreme Court to give Chief Justice [Earl] Warren [1891-1974] his card. And he briefed the Chief Justice about what the site was and here's his pass. And the chief looked at it and he smiled benignly and he said "I just had a question: where's the pass for Mrs. Warren?" And McDermott mumbled something about how we only have room for the 2,100 most important people in government. And the chief gently pushed the pass back to him and said, "Here, you'll have room for 2,101." He obviously wasn't going to go without his wife.

CONELRAD: When did he tell you that story? Was it years later or at the time of the Cuban missile crisis?

ROSENTHAL: No, at the time.

CONELRAD: Was he dismayed? Did he want to convince the Chief Justice to go to Mount Weather?

ROSENTHAL: No, I think he kind of admired it in a way. [Editor’s note: At the time of the Cuban missile crisis, Warren’s Supreme Court had a long standing contract with the Grove Park Inn of Asheville, North Carolina to serve as a relocation site. Mr. McDermott was aware of this fact, but he still wanted the Justices to relocate to Mount Weather].

CONELRAD: So please go on with your account of visiting Mount Weather.

ROSENTHAL: So McDermott turns me over to his assistant, maybe his deputy - a man named Frank Muckenhaupt [1922-1992] who escorted me to the site. [Editor’s note: McDermott’s Deputy at O.E.P. was Colonel Justice M. Chambers. Muckenhaupt was worked in various roles in disaster recovery and public affairs during his 20 year government career].

CONELRAD: And was that via helicopter?

ROSENTHAL: No. We were met on 18th Street, outside the E.O.B., by a government van. I think probably the van was a regular shuttle back and forth to the site. It was a tan van. It was a cloudy, kind of gray day in October. On the way up Frank briefed me on what the site was all about. I'm guessing it took the better part of an hour to get there. We wound around a circular road, two lane road - leading up. We got one full view of all of Mount Weather with the blast doors showing. But as we climbed, we sort of lost track of which side of the mountain we were on. We drove past the weather station on top of the mountain and I remember seeing cyclone fence and weather towers and we came down the other side. It was probably the southwest side where the blast doors were.

CONELRAD: Could you describe your reaction to the blast doors?

ROSENTHAL: I guess I was astonished by the size of it. It was like a great slice of the mountain had been cut away and replaced by huge sheets of steel studded with bolts and painted in a beige color more or less to match the surrounding environment. So we got to the regular door where the guard station was and showed our passes and then I'm sure we walked in, but they must have opened a door to let the van inside. And then I was taken a tour of the facility.

CONELRAD: Did Frank Muckenhaupt give you that tour?

ROSENTHAL: We were met by someone assigned to the site [who gave the tour]. I'm not sure I can reconstruct the tour for you in order, but I will tell you scenes that stick inside my mind. So, several distinct impressions: one was we walked down a long corridor, like a tunnel, and then through some doors into what looked like a hallway at the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. There were fluorescent lights, a series of doors, just as they would be at a government department building. There were blue placards with white writing on them, just as you would have in a government department. But instead of being sub-offices, they were whole departments. So the department of HEW occupied part of a corridor and then you kept on walking and there was the Department of the Interior all of a sudden. And if you looked in any of the offices, except for the fact that were no windows, they looked just like they would have on Independence Avenue in Washington. Another scene: I guess you would call the control room. A very large room, very high ceiling, of the kind you've often seen in movies since then or in pictures from NASA. I had never seen anything like that at that earlier juncture.

CONELRAD: So it was like Dr. Strangelove? Or Seven Days in May?

ROSENTHAL: Big screens, maps. I hope I'm not misremembering, but I believe the wall screens were in fact like big color TVs. They weren't computer screens. But there were a lot of desks arranged near the screens.

CONELRAD: So it was Strangelovian?

ROSENTHAL: Yes. And the man who showed it to us was very proud of how elaborate and modern and space age the technology was. The next scene: the press room, a not very large room like all the others with a series of wooden desks and typewriters and that's all I remember of that.

CONELRAD: OK.

ROSENTHAL: One room that left a real impression felt like it was low ceiling, but it was large. With row after row after row of three-tiered bunks. Not bunks exactly - hammocks. Blue hammocks.

CONELRAD: Like something you would see in the Navy?

ROSENTHAL: Maybe a little firmer than that. The idea was, if I remember correctly, they said there were 900 bunks. But there were some 2000 people there, so people would sleep in shifts.

CONELRAD: And this was in a very large room?

ROSENTHAL: With an almost oppressively low ceiling. And I guess I wondered who you'd have to be to get one of the lower bunks.

CONELRAD: Did you see where Robert Kennedy would have slept?

ROSENTHAL: Probably, but I don't remember.

CONELRAD: Were there special quarters for higher ranking people?

ROSENTHAL: There was an area set aside for the President, but it was said at the time that it was highly unlikely that he would come there. Because the safest place for him was in Air Force One flying somewhere. And there was another special presidential hideaway - I don't know where. I guess if I were to guess, somewhere near Camp David.

CONELRAD: So did your tour take you anywhere else?

ROSENTHAL: No, I think we had lunch in the cafeteria. Again, it was like being in a government cafeteria except no windows.

CONELRAD: I think in your oral history interview you mentioned that they had paper roses or flowers on the tables.

ROSENTHAL: Could be, I don't recall it anymore.

CONELRAD: How long did you stay at Mount Weather that day?

ROSENTHAL: Well, I am thinking it was dark by the time we got back, so probably at least a couple of hours. I remember at some subsequent point about being anxious about giving away the real name. I couldn't remember which was Thunder and which was Weather.

CONELRAD: How many times did you go to Mount Weather?

ROSENTHAL: Certainly once, maybe a second time.

CONELRAD: Were there any sections of Mount Weather that were stated as being off limits to you?

ROSENTHAL: The only thing I can think of was - I don't know if it was off limits - but we did not go into the space set aside for the President.

CONELRAD: Did you generate a lot of paperwork when you were working at the Executive Office Building on these plans?

ROSENTHAL: Well, I don't remember. You sent me a memo that I wrote and that's all that I remember. I was surprised at how much detail went into it. [Editor’s note: There are two Jack Rosenthal memos related to his work for the White House Emergency Information Program in 1962. They can be found here].

CONELRAD: Were there any pre-positioned messages at Mount Weather by Arthur Godfrey or Edward R. Murrow to be played in the event of an attack?

ROSENTHAL: I have no recollection of anything like that. Doesn't mean it wasn't so.

CONELRAD: Is it possible there was a vault at Mount Weather containing audio and film to be played over the Emergency Broadcast System?

ROSENTHAL: Sure, but I have no recollection of it.

CONELRAD: Was there a broadcast operation at Mount Weather?

ROSENTHAL: I'm sure there was. I have a dim recollection of a little TV studio. But that's all I can say - a dim recollection.

CONELRAD: Did Robert Kennedy ever talk with you about whether he would have actually gone to Mount Weather in the event of an attack?

ROSENTHAL: Not that I recall.

CONELRAD: What was Ed McDermott like? Do you remember much about him?

ROSENTHAL: Somewhat tall. Somewhat dark haired. Very businesslike, but would occasionally let a sense of humor show through. But it would be irresponsible to say anything more, because I hardly knew him.

CONELRAD: Was there any place to get an alcoholic beverage at Mount Weather in 1962?

ROSENTHAL: Not that I know of.

CONELRAD: You might be interested to know that since your time there, they have added a saloon called the Balloon Shed.

ROSENTHAL: Oh? [Laughs].

CONELRAD: Was it difficult not discussing Mount Weather with anyone else?

ROSENTHAL: Probably no more so than not talking about other classified things that I came in contact with regularly.

CONELRAD: Was your time working on these contingency plans more or less restricted to the Cuban missile crisis period?

ROSENTHAL: Yes.

CONELRAD: So you went back to your regular job after the crisis ended?

ROSENTHAL: Yes. Early in November.

CONELRAD: When you were working on these contingency plans, did you become aware of the Congressional bunker at the Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia?

ROSENTHAL: I knew there was such a thing. In fact, at the time I learned about Mount Weather, the question came up about where would Congress go? I was told there was a huge elaborate thing at the Greenbrier, but they had a bitch of a time getting congressmen to agree to go even to go see what it was like.

CONELRAD: So they told you where it was and what it was for?

ROSENTHAL: Well, let me back up. I don't know if I knew it was the Greenbrier as opposed to White Sulphur Springs, but it had to be one of the two.

CONELRAD: So you were told the site was either the Greenbrier or White Sulphur Springs?

ROSENTHAL: Well, I was told they're located in some resort type of place and I probably understood that there were only two possibilities.

CONELRAD: In that area?

ROSENTHAL: Yeah.

CONELRAD: So you being a Washingtonian I am sure you were aware of the Greenbrier.

ROSENTHAL: And White Sulphur Springs, also.

CONELRAD: And there's really only one thing in White Sulphur Springs of any note. 

ROSENTHAL: Right [laughs].

CONELRAD: Have you ever taken a tour of the Greenbrier bunker?

ROSENTHAL: No. Could I go back to Mount Weather?

CONELRAD: I don't know. Would you like to?

ROSENTHAL: Not enough to make a special trip.   

CONELRAD: Do you still have your Mount Weather ID card?

ROSENTHAL: No. I left the government [in 1967], it was taken back.

CONELRAD: Thank you for your time!

ROSENTHAL: Thank you for lunch.

The preceding Interview with Jack Rosenthal was conducted by Bill Geerhart on January 16, 2015 in New York City. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

THE ENVELOPE PLEASE! APPENDIX 25 REVEALED

Back in 2013 we posted an article that detailed how members of the United States Congress would be notified of their post-apocalyptic accommodations in the event of a national emergency. To summarize this protocol we’ll quote from a February 10, 1961 FBI memo:

“All FBI offices, day-to-day and emergency, should be supplied in advance and on a secret basis, with the location of the Congressional relocation site and with instructions that in the event of a Presidential proclamation calling upon the Congress to convene at the Congressional relocation site, the FBI should inform members of Congress so presenting themselves and so establishing their identity, of the location of the Congressional relocation site.”

The delivery system for this top secret information was decidedly low-tech. Indeed, once the lawmaker had identified him or herself to the satisfaction of the FBI field officer, he or she was to be handed a sealed business envelope that contained the location of the Congressional relocation site.

This procedure, which was approved by the Office of Civil Defense Mobilization (OCDM), was put into place shortly after the issuance of the above quoted document.

On March 7, 1961 another memo was sent out to the Albany, New York FBI office along with the sealed envelopes for distribution to each field office.

Once received, the envelope was to be filed in each office’s defense plan documentation as “Appendix 25.” As a reminder, the memo cautioned: “these envelopes should not be opened, except in the event the condition cited previously exists…”

As mentioned in our previous post, this plan was in effect through at least 1977 when the Director of the FBI ordered an inventory of all the envelopes to make sure that they were still in place and sealed (miraculously, most were). During the course of our research we found no evidence to suggest that the original notification protocol was ever changed during the life of the bunker. As most readers know, the relocation site’s covert existence at the Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia was exposed in 1992 by the Washington Post.

When we were examining the FBI War Plans on Government Attic for our original post we were surprised to see that “Appendix 25” was specifically mentioned and explained, but not yet declassified. This seemed especially odd given that public tours have been running through the Greenbrier bunker since 1995. So on October 21, 2013 we filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the FBI for a complete copy of file number 66-17388 captioned “Defense Plans – Bureau Assistance for Members of Congress in the Event of Emergency” including the contents of Appendix 25. We even asked for a photocopy of the envelope. 425 days later, on December 19, 2014, we received precisely what we asked for.

Even though we knew what was in the envelope, it is still interesting to see exactly what a member of congress would have seen if, say, the Cuban missile crisis had taken a turn for the worse. What would his or her reaction have been upon tearing open the envelope? Confusion? Amused surprise? No FOIA response will ever be able to answer that question.

FBI_Location of Congressional Bunker

Source of Document:

Federal Bureau of Investigation
FOI/PA Request
Record/Information Dissemination Section
170 Marcel Drive
Winchester, VA 22602-4843

MOUNT WEATHER MEMOS: PART 3

As we mentioned in Part One and Part Two of our series, the Cold War era meeting minutes from the top secret government relocation site known as Mount Weather (aka The Special Facility, aka High Point, aka the Classified Location) are not what the average person would consider interesting. But when you stop to remind yourself every few pages that the notes were produced by men in a Stranglovian underground office park, they suddenly become fascinating in their utter banality. Here are the highlights from the minutes issued in 1966.

The year began with a request about bunk beds and a suspicious increase in requests for aspirin.

 
The January 20, 1966 meeting began with an apparent reference to the major broken arrow incident over Palomares, Spain that had occurred just three days earlier. We’re not sure why the state of Florida is cited here unless it was a mistake on the part of the recording secretary. In view of the seriousness of the Palomares event which involved four hydrogen bombs, it is hard to imagine that the Special Facilities team would have been discussing any other nuclear accident.

With the near apocalypse of Palomares barely behind them on January 27, 1966, the issue of whether people should be allowed to sleep in the executive suites during inclement weather was discussed. This request was vetoed.

On February 3, 1966 the persistent rumors of snow removal favoritism on the part of Loudoun County for the Special Facility was brought up.

On March 17, 1966 the Chairman discussed the second, less well known outbreak of rioting in the Watts section of Los Angeles. Per the front page of the Los Angeles Times on March 16, 1966, two people were killed and 25 were injured on March 15. This excerpt also mentions Farris Bryant being nominated to head the Office of Emergency Planning – the agency that had oversight over Mount Weather. Bryant’s predecessor was Buford Ellington.

On April 21, 1966 the issue of the Russians renting property near Mount Weather was discussed. CONELRAD was able to find a number of news clips from the local Berryville, Virginia newspaper as well articles in larger circulation papers. The Soviet Embassy had rented a Virginia estate known as Spout Run Farm (formerly known as Heartsease) near Berryville to use as a children’s summer camp.

The Associated Press dutifully quoted “State Department officials” as saying “the Defense Department had been informed of the proposed lease on the Clarke County property to the Russians and that the Pentagon had not reported any sensitive U.S. installations being in the area.”[1]

The local paper was more honest about the worst kept secret in Berryville. In an editorial published in the Clarke Courier on April 28, 1966: “…somebody should have thought this thing out more clearly before allowing the Soviet Embassy to establish a summer camp and recreation area within a short distance of an apparent vital installation such as Mt. Weather.”[2]

On May 5, 1966 there was another cryptic mention of local “publicity.” This was apparently a reference to a front page article in the Clarke Courier newspaper on the Soviet summer camp complete with photo of the property.[3]

Without the full transcripts of these meetings, it is hard to know exactly what the senior staff at the Special Facility thought of the Russians moving in next door. They almost certainly believed that the Soviets knew about the Special Facility and its purpose. Indeed, in the first comprehensive news story on Mount Weather in Time magazine in 1991, Ted Gup wrote: “…it is assumed that all along the Soviets have known both its precise location and its mission.”[4] The meeting minutes strongly suggest that the attendees were more concerned with local media attention to the site than they were about Soviet spying.

The June 9, 1966 notes highlighted a problem with Western Union not delivering to relocation sites.

The June 23, 1966 minutes provide a push for the FARs (Federal Agency Representatives at Mount Weather) to participate in the company picnic.

In July, the Chairman attempted to cut down on the frequency of meetings during the summer months. This was not approved.

On July 14, 1966 and August 4, 1966 there was more discussion about the publicity over the Soviet summer camp at Spout Run Farm. CONELRAD was unable to find these particular news clips.

Before their meeting on September 15, 1966 the FARs (Federal Agency Representatives) watched on “TV receivers” the landing of the manned Gemini 11 spacecraft.

On October 27, 1966 the chairman previewed what was expected to be an unpopular decision regarding bus service to and from the Special Facility.

On November 17, 1966 Mount Weather employees were complaining about the “curtailment” in bus service.

On December 15, 1966 there were announcements about the holiday meeting schedule and “the nuclear war plan.” Just in time for Christmas!

Read the whole document here:

Mount Weather Meeting Minutes: 1966

 

SOURCE

Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library
Federal Records: Office of Emergency Planning
Box 10
Folder: Minutes of Special Facilities Meetings, 01/13/66-12/15/66

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[1] “Soviet Summer Camp,” Washington Post via Associated Press, April 23, 1966, B5.

[2] “Heartsease or Heartaches,” Clarke Courier, April 28, 1966, 4.

[3] “Soviet Embassy Plans Summer Camp,” Clarke Courier, April 28, 1966, 1.

[4] Ted Gup, “Doomsday Hideaway,” Time, December 9, 1991, 26.