A timely film on Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam
PASADENA - The date: July 28, 1965. The scene: the
White House East Room, packed with reporters, cigarette smoke
swirling. President Lyndon B. Johnson is speaking slowly.
"I do not find it easy to send the flower of our youth, our finest
young men into battle," Johnson says. "I think I know how their
mothers weep and their families sorrow."
Behind a curtain stands John Frankenheimer, the director of HBO
television's ambitious Vietnam drama, "Path to War." He is on the
film's set, a reception room at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium,
staring at a monitor as the British actor Michael Gambon makes
the speech in a slow Texas drawl. At some camera angles,
Gambon's resemblance to Johnson is remarkable.
"This is a Greek tragedy really," said Frankenheimer, whose films
include "The Manchurian Candidate," "Birdman of Alcatraz" and
"Seven Days in May." "This is the bigger-than-life hero who was
taken down by his own weakness. He believed what the generals
told him, he believed what his advisers told him. He was insecure
on foreign issues; he was not going to be the first president to lose
a war. In the end, the war killed him too."
"Path to War" appears to be television's first dramatic exploration
of the Johnson administration's decision to escalate the Vietnam
War. The film, based on extensive research and interviews by the
screenwriter, Daniel Giat, was planned long before Sept. 11, but
the director finds striking parallels between then and now.
"You also have a president today who has American troops on
foreign soil, you have a president who's facing an enemy, he
doesn't know who they are," Frankenheimer said. "You have a
president who wants to be re-elected, you have a president who's
not expert on foreign affairs and is dependent on his advisers. The
similarities are tremendous."
There are obvious differences. In contrast to Vietnam, the country
today overwhelmingly supports the president and the war in
Afghanistan. But the film still carries resonance. On Dec. 2, the
administration of George Bush was reported to be debating
whether it should shift more attention to domestic concerns - an
issue that dominated the Johnson White House, especially as the
war escalated.
The film begins on Jan. 20, 1965, at an inaugural ball at the
Sheraton Park Hotel in Washington - two months after Johnson's
landslide victory over Barry Goldwater. In the film, Johnson
describes, with delight, his aides and cabinet members: "I've got
three or four Rhodes scholars, four or five graduated of Harvard,
a couple from Yale and why there's even one here tonight from
Southwest Texas State Teachers College. And don't you know
that one rules the roost."
The film ends on March 31, 1968, when Johnson, beleaguered by
the war, unexpectedly announces that he will not seek a second
term. The film shows Johnson, bewildered and frustrated, finally
accepting that the war is unwinnable. At first, he is furious and
blames his advisers. Eventually, he accepts his own responsibility.
"How can you not like this man?" Gambon asked as he stood near
his dressing room trailer, just a few blocks from the Civic
Auditorium. "He had a heart, a big heart, and he genuinely wanted
to do something about civil rights and improving the lives of
people. But then he got trapped by the war and he didn't know
how to get out of it."
Gambon, who played an American tobacco executive in "The
Insider," examined Johnson's television appearances and read
numerous biographies about him. "He was surrounded by Harvard
graduates," Gambon said. "He admired them, but part of him
didn't like them at all. Beneath it all, beneath the bluster, he was
insecure, he had a chip on his shoulder."
The screenplay depicts the administration's internecine battles -
especially between Robert S. McNamara, the defense secretary,
played by Alec Baldwin, and George Ball, the deputy secretary of
state and an opponent of the war, played by Bruce McGill. In the
film, Ball compares McNamara, other hawks in the cabinet and
the joint chiefs of staff to "buzzards sitting on a fence discussing the
price of carrion" - a line paraphrased from his 1982 memoir.
The film took more than 10 years to research and produce. In
June 1991, Giat teamed up with Howard Dratch, a classmate from
his days at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. They had
just read excerpts in The New Yorker of "Counsel to the
President," Clark Clifford's memoir of his career as a presidential
adviser.
"It's a drama that everybody thought they knew but nobody really
did," said Dratch, who became a producer of the film. Their
journey was marked by detailed research, constant script revisions
and vain efforts to snare Gene Hackman to play Johnson and Ed
Harris to play McNamara.
Dratch and Giat interviewed numerous members of the Johnson
administration, though McNamara declined. Many White House
aides, including Joseph Califano, Richard Goodwin and Jack
Valenti, as well as several historians, read the script and said it
was an accurate portrayal of the White House decision-making.
In 1999, Barry Levinson agreed to direct, and he cast Gambon in
the role of L.B.J. Two years later, Levinson asked for a delay in
filming. HBO declined and offered the director's job to
Frankenheimer, who had read the script and was eager to do it.
The actors themselves, some of whom demonstrated against the
war, said the characters were almost all complex men
overwhelmed by events.
Donald Sutherland plays Clark Clifford, who served as defense
secretary in the final months of Johnson's administration. In an
early version of the script, "it looked like Clifford was responsible
for those final three years of Vietnam under Johnson, and he was
not," Sutherland said. "His advice to Johnson since '64 was to get
out of there. He kept giving that advice, and Johnson took the
other advice. His whole job was to get Johnson re-elected. So he
was labeled a hawk by some. He wasn't." Sutherland said the role
of Clifford in the screenplay was altered, and he accepted the job.
Walking to the set a few blocks away from his trailer, Gambon
said that he had become fascinated with Johnson after he left the
White House. Johnson, who had a heart condition, died in 1973.
"After Johnson left the White House he went back to his ranch and
sat there," said Gambon. "I saw a film of him giving a speech at a
college shortly before he died. He was popping pills. And you see
photographs of him with long hair, long gray hair. As soon as he
retired he let his hair grow. Just like the people who were standing
outside the White House shouting at him."
By Bernard Weinraub - New York Times - December 13, 2001.
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