Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: The day Oliver North was fired from his job at
Speaker 2: the White House, Ronald Reagan called him on the phone
Speaker 2: and told him he was a national hero. It was
Speaker 2: a brief conversation, but Reagan found time for some gallows humor,
Speaker 2: telling North he thought Iran Contra would make a great
Speaker 2: movie someday. Reagan, a former Hollywood actor with nearly thirty
Speaker 2: years of experience in the movie business, probably didn't realize
Speaker 2: how quickly someday would come.
Speaker 3: Hollywood's already growing up its wait list for a TV
Speaker 3: mini series What's Got all the elements.
Speaker 4: Of the health. It's a very dramatic story. It's complex,
Speaker 4: but it's a dramatic story.
Speaker 2: Ali North was the rare star witness and a political
Speaker 2: scandal who had actual star quality. Norman Lear, the creator
Speaker 2: of All in the Family at good times, marvel at
Speaker 2: his stage presence. He gets tears in his eyes. Lear said,
Speaker 2: TV eats up moist eyed people.
Speaker 5: There were times when this career military man demonstrated a
Speaker 5: brilliant gift for using the media. Through the day, across
Speaker 5: the country, Americans watched as network soap operas were replaced
Speaker 5: by Oliver North.
Speaker 2: Even before the Iran Contra hearings ended in the summer
Speaker 2: of nineteen eighty seven. Journalists and producers in Hollywood were
Speaker 2: talking about who should play North on the big screen if.
Speaker 6: They ever get around to making the movie of the
Speaker 6: contra hearings. Here in Hollywood, Oliver North look alike Treat
Speaker 6: Williams would seem to be the front runner for the
Speaker 6: leading role.
Speaker 2: At one point during north testimony, Prankster's in Los Angeles
Speaker 2: covered up the H and the Hollywood sign so that
Speaker 2: it said olliy would.
Speaker 5: An anonymous scholar said he made the change quote not
Speaker 5: to condone North's actions, but to give expression to the
Speaker 5: nationwide wave of Ali mania.
Speaker 2: The scandal had everything you could want in a blockbuster
Speaker 2: international intrigue, communists, bad guys, secret rons abroad. He was
Speaker 2: an action movie, a legal drama, and a spy thriller
Speaker 2: all at once. And at the center of it stood
Speaker 2: a dashing, charismatic man of conviction, a perfect cipher for
Speaker 2: American attitudes about government, patriotism, and democracy.
Speaker 7: Is Oliver North, a hero who kept the Nicaraguan resistance
Speaker 7: alive after Congress had forbidden it, or a zealot subverted
Speaker 7: the system by repeatedly lying about his activities and shredding
Speaker 7: the evidence.
Speaker 2: The expectation in publishing circles was that North would eventually
Speaker 2: be able to get seven figures for his autobiography, which
Speaker 2: could in theory be optioned for TV and film. But
Speaker 2: that could take years, and producers wanted to capitalize on
Speaker 2: the buzz as quickly as possible. That meant they'd have
Speaker 2: to find their source material somewhere else, so they turned
Speaker 2: to journalism.
Speaker 8: I felt that Iran Contra was a really important story,
Speaker 8: really about a constitutional crisis.
Speaker 2: This is Ben Bradley Junior. He's the son of legendary
Speaker 2: editor Ben Bradley, who Oversawtergate coverage at the Washington Post.
Speaker 8: You know, the ideologues in the Reagan administration used North
Speaker 8: as an agent to circumvent the law.
Speaker 2: Ben Bradley Junior was a reporter at the Boston Globe.
Speaker 2: In February of nineteen eighty seven, it was announced that
Speaker 2: he would chronicle the Iran Contra scandal in a book
Speaker 2: called Guts and Glory.
Speaker 8: You know, he had sex appeal. North sort of a
Speaker 8: do it yourself, a gung ho brand of patriotism and
Speaker 8: making things happen, grabbing the bull by the horns. Exploiting
Speaker 8: power vacuums and filling them. That's why I really chose
Speaker 8: North as a vehicle to tell the story of Iran
Speaker 8: Contra in this book.
Speaker 2: Bradley was still working on Guts and Glory when an
Speaker 2: outline of the book started circulating in La Mike Robe,
Speaker 2: a producer and director, first heard about it from an
Speaker 2: executive at CBS. Robe had recently produced a TV movie
Speaker 2: for the network called Murder Ordained.
Speaker 4: Unmercifully and Without Compassion.
Speaker 9: Murder Ordained was very successful. I was sort of in
Speaker 9: the good graces of CBS, and I was beginning to
Speaker 9: think about what I wanted to do next. Ann Along
Speaker 9: came Ali Maniel.
Speaker 2: Robe worked in the increasingly popular genre known as the
Speaker 2: docu drama, a kind of fictionalized nonfiction that, as Newsday
Speaker 2: put it, gave viewers instant history the way a noodle
Speaker 2: mix and hot water give us instant soup. Murder Ordained
Speaker 2: was a prime example of the form. It was based
Speaker 2: on the true story of a minister in Kansas who
Speaker 2: was accused of killing his wife.
Speaker 8: It was a crime beyond belief, starring Terry Kinney Joe Bethwick.
Speaker 9: They were very popular at the time the networks were
Speaker 9: looking for any extra boost and notoriety in sizzle that
Speaker 9: could elevate the interest in their project above that of
Speaker 9: their competition, and it became a whole new art form,
Speaker 9: an original American art form.
Speaker 2: Robe was intrigued by the idea of making a docudrama
Speaker 2: out of the Oliver North story.
Speaker 9: I was fascinated by Oliver North from the get go.
Speaker 9: I was a former military officer. I understood the pressures
Speaker 9: he was operating under. I understood a lot of his attitude.
Speaker 9: I wasn't sure if he was hiding something, but I
Speaker 9: did feel he's a heck of a performer, and he
Speaker 9: was rather spellbinding to watch.
Speaker 7: He is unquestionably telegenic. You'd perhaps say that the force
Speaker 7: is with him. He is a natural.
Speaker 10: I was working desperately to keep the hostages alive. Good grief,
Speaker 10: We'd had this stuff all over the newspapers. The Israelis
Speaker 10: were calling me every half hour.
Speaker 1: And I was Robe did have some reservations.
Speaker 9: From the very get go. My problem as a dramatist,
Speaker 9: my challenge was how do you make this terribly convoluted
Speaker 9: scheme dramatic for a mass television audience in a way
Speaker 9: that they can come to care about someone in the
Speaker 9: show and to understand the very twisted machinations of Iran Contra.
Speaker 2: At the end of the day, Robe couldn't say no,
Speaker 2: and he signed on to adapt Bradley's book into a
Speaker 2: television movie event. He and Bradley would collaborate on the
Speaker 2: screenplay while Bradley finished up his reporting. CBS wanted them
Speaker 2: to move fast. If they didn't, the Guts and Glory
Speaker 2: movie could end up being just one in a sea
Speaker 2: of Iran Contra adaptations.
Speaker 5: No matter which direction you look these days, you'll be
Speaker 5: facing North. Oliver North has been all over television, and
Speaker 5: he's soon to be all over everything else.
Speaker 9: We heard rumblings of other networks thinking about doing Oliver North.
Speaker 9: If your subject is a hot topic, you want to
Speaker 9: get on the air as quickly as you can. We
Speaker 9: looked at a lot of pressure in that way.
Speaker 2: Among Robes would be competitors was a producer named Jay Weston,
Speaker 2: who had announced his own plans to make an Oliver
Speaker 2: North biopic. North was reportedly a fan of Heartbreak Ridge,
Speaker 2: Weston's nineteen eighty six movies, starring Clint Eastwood as a
Speaker 2: fictional marine who leads a platoon during the invasion of Grenada.
Speaker 9: And an assistant in operation of the Island of Grenada
Speaker 9: to rescue American citizens.
Speaker 1: That the Island of what Grenada?
Speaker 2: For the title, Weston was considering reluctant hero, American hero
Speaker 2: gone wrong and carrying patriotism too far. But Weston's project
Speaker 2: never made it off the ground. In September of nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty seven, he told a reporter that it had all
Speaker 2: become too complicated and that life was too short to
Speaker 2: do that tough a project. Plus, with the congressional hearings
Speaker 2: over and the stream of shocking revelations dying down, Weston
Speaker 2: felt like the Iran contra story was getting kind of
Speaker 2: played out. In his opinion, there would have to be
Speaker 2: another twist, some other development that could recapture public interest.
Speaker 2: One thing that could generate that kind of heat, Weston said,
Speaker 2: was if Ali North got indicted. I'm Leon Napok from
Speaker 2: Prologue Projects and Pushkin Industries.
Speaker 1: This is fiasco Iran contrast. Welcome to the National Security Council. Agent.
Speaker 3: Are you ready to do battle for the administration?
Speaker 10: Absolutely?
Speaker 9: On the set we would have disagreements, so.
Speaker 10: You're right about the job.
Speaker 7: Miss Paul sawn Hall.
Speaker 6: A lot of people probably thought she was a gold digger,
Speaker 6: a bimbo. I didn't want to portray her that way.
Speaker 11: His involvement in the Iran Contra arms deal has left
Speaker 11: him without a job, but with a new responsibility as
Speaker 11: Conservative spokesman.
Speaker 7: I fight any way I can fly.
Speaker 2: Episode seven, Hollywood, How Hollywood tried to turn Iran Contra
Speaker 2: into a movie while Oliver North tried to avoid going
Speaker 2: to prison.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back.
Speaker 2: As you heard in the previous episode, there were three
Speaker 2: major investigations into Iran Contra, the Tower Commission, the Congressional Inquiry,
Speaker 2: and the criminal probe of the Independent Council Lawrence Walsh.
Speaker 2: By nineteen eighty eight, the first two had completed their
Speaker 2: work and only Walsh was still chugging along.
Speaker 12: Independent Council Lawrence Walsh is saying nothing. Since his appointment
Speaker 12: fourteen months ago, he thirty lawyers and fifty investigators have
Speaker 12: poured over hundreds of thousands of documents and conducted at
Speaker 12: least fifteen hundred witness interviews.
Speaker 5: A federal grand jury in Washington has indicted four men
Speaker 5: for try to help the Contras at a time when
Speaker 5: Congress had forbidden it.
Speaker 2: On March sixteenth, nineteen eighty eight, a grand jury brought
Speaker 2: indictments against Oliver North, former National Security Advisor John Poindexter,
Speaker 2: and Richard Secord, who oversaw logistics for the Contra resupply
Speaker 2: operation and the Iran weapons sales.
Speaker 13: All are accused of having participated in the illegal diversion
Speaker 13: of Iranian arm sales profits to the Contras and Nicaragua.
Speaker 7: Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North was named in sixteen counts ranging
Speaker 7: from conspiracy to obstruction of Congress.
Speaker 2: The charges included making false statements to Congress in response
Speaker 2: to early inquiries about the Contra War, obstructing the Attorney
Speaker 2: General's weekend investigation into the Iran arm sales by shredding
Speaker 2: official documents, and defrauding the IRS in the course of
Speaker 2: fundraising for the Contras. Those charges could plausibly be defended
Speaker 2: as efforts to protect the President's foreign policy agenda, but
Speaker 2: a few of the other charges Walsh brought against North
Speaker 2: were harder to frame as acts of government service. During
Speaker 2: their investigation, some prosecutors in the Independent Council's Office suspected
Speaker 2: that North had somehow enriched himself as part of the
Speaker 2: Iran Contra scheme. Their thinking was with all that money
Speaker 2: slashing around from the arm sales and the donations to
Speaker 2: the contras, North could have found a way to line
Speaker 2: his own pockets. As one member of the Walsh team
Speaker 2: reportedly told his colleagues, no jury will convict North unless
Speaker 2: they think he's a crook. In the end, the best
Speaker 2: evidence of self dealing Walsh found was a security fence
Speaker 2: that North had installed at his family home and which
Speaker 2: Richard Seacord had paid for through one of the Swiss
Speaker 2: bank accounts associated with Irankantra.
Speaker 9: A gift by Sea Cord of the security systems.
Speaker 7: The acceptance by North of the security system.
Speaker 2: The fence cost thirteen eight hundred dollars. Walsh characterized it
Speaker 2: as an illegal gratuity and alleged that North had tried
Speaker 2: to cover it up after the Iran Contra scandal broke.
Speaker 9: North's obstruction of our investigation by developing false documents to
Speaker 9: conceal his acceptance.
Speaker 1: Of that gift.
Speaker 2: North had allegedly gone onto a department store and used
Speaker 2: a floor model typewriter to fabricate a pair of backdated
Speaker 2: letters in which he discussed paying for the fence with
Speaker 2: the contractor who had installed it.
Speaker 5: Meanwhile, the Walsh investigation continues, which could mean more charges
Speaker 5: against those named today or against others in the Iran
Speaker 5: Contra affair.
Speaker 2: The prospect of criminal trials for North, Poindexter, and Seacort
Speaker 2: invited a host of new questions about how the Iran
Speaker 2: Contra scandal would play out. Would Reagan be called to testify,
Speaker 2: and if any of the accused were found guilty, would
Speaker 2: they be pardoned. Reagan downplayed that possibility, but he made
Speaker 2: clear that he was standing by Oliver North.
Speaker 4: I still think Haley North is a hero. And at
Speaker 4: the other hand, in any talk about what I might
Speaker 4: do or pardons and so forth, I think with the
Speaker 4: case before the courts, that's something I can't discuss now.
Speaker 4: But I just have to believe that they're going to
Speaker 4: be found innocent, because I don't think they were guilty
Speaker 4: of any law breaking or any crime.
Speaker 2: In the meantime, Ali North was beginning his second act.
Speaker 7: While awaiting trial, North has been giving speeches. Last week,
Speaker 7: this one in Virginia, raised eighteen thousand dollars for his defense.
Speaker 10: I don't believe that there's anything wrong with faithfulness to
Speaker 10: this country or its ideals.
Speaker 2: North started touring the country, meeting his fans and raising
Speaker 2: money for his legal defense fund. In the process, he
Speaker 2: morphed into something between a politician and a motivational speaker.
Speaker 9: Friends of Oliver North paid twenty dollars each to listen
Speaker 9: to a pep talk this.
Speaker 11: Morning, one hundred and fifty dollars each to hear the
Speaker 11: man who fought Congress. They love him and his cause.
Speaker 6: That the man's a hero.
Speaker 1: I wish we had more likely help.
Speaker 12: He's just what we need in America, somebody who stand
Speaker 12: up and protect our land.
Speaker 2: North was invited to address Washington's football team before the
Speaker 2: Super Bowl. He also delivered the commencement speech at Liberty University,
Speaker 2: where he was introduced by the school's founder, Jerry Folwell.
Speaker 5: The first questions always ask, why are you having an
Speaker 5: indicted man to speak to the students at Liberty University.
Speaker 5: I said, well, we serve a savior who was indicted.
Speaker 11: His involvement in the Iran Contra arms deal has left
Speaker 11: him without a job, but with a new responsibility as
Speaker 11: conservative spokesman.
Speaker 2: With the nineteen eighty eight election approaching, North became one
Speaker 2: of the most popular spokesman for publican candidates.
Speaker 1: On the campaign trail.
Speaker 2: Pretty soon people were wondering when Ali North might make
Speaker 2: a run for office himself.
Speaker 7: There has been talk of a political career for Oliver North,
Speaker 7: even though he has no experience and no money. North
Speaker 7: is a hero to conservatives. He is now free to
Speaker 7: speak publicly and to criticize Congress. Political careers have been built.
Speaker 2: Unless While North traveled and prepared for his trial, Mike
Speaker 2: Robe was hard at work on the script for Guts
Speaker 2: and Glory. One of the questions he was asking himself
Speaker 2: was how do you craft a multi layered character or
Speaker 2: out of someone most viewers are going to either love
Speaker 2: or hate before they even see the movie.
Speaker 9: The problem that I had with Oliver North as I
Speaker 9: got into his story was that what he believed with
Speaker 9: all his heart was in the beginning understandable and somewhat admirable,
Speaker 9: But he was done in in his passion and his
Speaker 9: failure to have perspective on those acts which were illegal
Speaker 9: and horribly detrimental to the process of government in the US.
Speaker 2: There was another problem too. Even though the real life
Speaker 2: story all over North was full of exciting scenes and details,
Speaker 2: from a screenwriter's perspective, it was missing something crucial.
Speaker 9: One of the challenges of writing the script was to
Speaker 9: give voice to an opposing, ethical, moral, legal point of
Speaker 9: view when it came to the Shenanigans that North was
Speaker 9: carrying off.
Speaker 2: As Robe saw it, Oliver North needed a foil, someone
Speaker 2: to challenge his point of view, to generate conflict and
Speaker 2: introduce a moral counterweight. The trouble was Robe didn't think
Speaker 2: that person actually existed in the Reagan White House. Bud
Speaker 2: McFarlane apparently didn't fit the bill.
Speaker 9: And I resorted, out of necessity, frankly, to a much
Speaker 9: used docu drama device called the composite character, and I
Speaker 9: named him Aaron Sykes.
Speaker 11: I'm looking for, mister Sykes. Oh that's me, Oliver North, reporting, Sir,
Speaker 11: Major US.
Speaker 3: Marines, Aaron Sikes, Tiger, Princeton University. Welcome to the National
Speaker 3: Security Council, Major.
Speaker 9: And I made him a colleague of Oliver Norse at
Speaker 9: the National Security Council, a man who fictionally knew Oliver
Speaker 9: from most of his career and became the voice of
Speaker 9: reason when it came to judging Oliver North's misdeeds. Listen,
Speaker 9: ALEI for those maps for the contras.
Speaker 3: Yep, But I thought we weren't allowed to pass on
Speaker 3: any kind of military intelligence.
Speaker 10: Well, the CIA can't, I can't.
Speaker 4: But that's not what we're.
Speaker 1: Hearing, boy, Aaron Sykes.
Speaker 2: Robe created a White House official with misgivings, someone who
Speaker 2: is willing to push back against North.
Speaker 9: There's a line I remember at one point when North
Speaker 9: is facing expulsion from the NSC. North is our right,
Speaker 9: and he he says to Aaron Sykes regarding all of
Speaker 9: his transgressions, he doesn't care because the end justifies the means.
Speaker 4: The end justifies the means.
Speaker 3: Damn right.
Speaker 9: And Sykes retorts, but that's not what America's about, colonel.
Speaker 9: But you don't understand. America is about the means.
Speaker 2: Wake up and smell the dog crap, Aaron. We're fighting
Speaker 2: for democracy down.
Speaker 3: There by keeping it a secret from democracy here. Sell
Speaker 3: that somewhere else, colonel.
Speaker 9: And that's the way in which Aaron Sykes became the
Speaker 9: conscience of Oliver North, but also the rebuttal from so
Speaker 9: many Americans who were polarized and critical of what North represented.
Speaker 2: With a tight deadline from CBS, Robe and his team
Speaker 2: got started on the other major part of pre production,
Speaker 2: finding the cast.
Speaker 9: Once the mini series was announced, there was this national furor,
Speaker 9: this big brujja over who should play Home? Are there
Speaker 9: crazy things like al Pacino should play Oliver North or
Speaker 9: vera facet is obviously Von Hall. That was very popular.
Speaker 9: I kind of recall, however, there wasn't quite as big
Speaker 9: as a flood of interest in playing Oliver North himself,
Speaker 9: which is kind of ironic and maybe that can be
Speaker 9: chalked up to liberal Hollywood.
Speaker 2: The production team eventually founded There Oliver North in One
Speaker 2: David Keith, a Tennessee farm boy turned up and coming actor.
Speaker 9: Who was probably best known at the time in his
Speaker 9: role as Richard Gear's buddy and officer and a gentleman.
Speaker 1: I'm just not like you, Mayo.
Speaker 4: I can't shit all over people and just sleep like
Speaker 4: a baby at night.
Speaker 9: And I was fine with that choice. I was fine
Speaker 9: with David as an actor. I think he was okay
Speaker 9: with me as a director. What I didn't know was
Speaker 9: that he was a staunch conservative Republican and I wasn't.
Speaker 8: Maybe bullshit to you, buddy, but I wasn't raised that way.
Speaker 2: One of the most sought after roles in Guts and
Speaker 2: Glory was that of Fawn Hall North secretary who had
Speaker 2: testified before Congress about shredding documents and smuggling them out
Speaker 2: of North's office in her clothes.
Speaker 6: When I first moved to Hollywood, I had kind of
Speaker 6: a little career going playing older actresses in younger flashback scenes.
Speaker 2: That's Amy Stock. She had started her career playing the
Speaker 2: younger version of Joan van Ark's character on the soap
Speaker 2: opera Notts Landing.
Speaker 6: You know, I was very generic blonde, and so when
Speaker 6: Fawn Hall came around, Yeah, the resemblance was pretty striking.
Speaker 2: Stock had just wrapped an arc on the hit drama
Speaker 2: Dallas when she landed the audition for Guts and Glory.
Speaker 6: I went for the initial call, and I'm pretty sure
Speaker 6: it was either the shredding scene between Oliver North and
Speaker 6: Fawn Hall. Are you sure? Hell?
Speaker 9: No.
Speaker 10: I wanted to show this to my grandkids, but I've
Speaker 10: never disobeyed an order in my wife, or was.
Speaker 6: The interview when she walks into oliverant North's office.
Speaker 7: So you're right about the job, miss Hall.
Speaker 11: Fawn Hall, Miss Hall, if you'd like to come aboard,
Speaker 11: I'd be on.
Speaker 6: And then I was called back basically because I looked
Speaker 6: so much like her. I'd like to think is because
Speaker 6: I was a great actress. But you know, I think
Speaker 6: it was morcause I looked a lot like her and
Speaker 6: then got the part and was.
Speaker 12: Thrilled Major North's office.
Speaker 6: And I immediately said, I want to meet Vawn Hall.
Speaker 6: I want to talk with her. I want to get
Speaker 6: close to her as I possibly can get about her
Speaker 6: story and her side of things.
Speaker 2: Stock wanted to do Faun Hall justice, both because it
Speaker 2: was her first time playing a real person and because
Speaker 2: she felt Hall's portrayal in the media had been rather
Speaker 2: one dimensional.
Speaker 6: Well, I'm just going to say it. She came across
Speaker 6: as kind of shallow, you know, like a glory seeker
Speaker 6: in the newspaper, and she had this tiny, minor role
Speaker 6: important in what happened as it turns out. But a
Speaker 6: lot of people felt that she was trying to promote
Speaker 6: herself to during this whole thing, and I didn't want
Speaker 6: her to come across that way, so I tried to
Speaker 6: tried to make her as honest as possible, that she
Speaker 6: truly believed that what she was doing was right.
Speaker 2: Stock tried to schedule a meeting with Hall to get
Speaker 2: a better idea of her experience and motivations, but Hall
Speaker 2: did not want to talk. The rumor was that she
Speaker 2: had hoped to play herself in the movie, but that
Speaker 2: idea was ultimately shot down. As Robes said at the time,
Speaker 2: it would have blurred the line between the illusion of
Speaker 2: reality and reality itself. Stock did not give up. She
Speaker 2: knew that Vaughan Hall had moved to Los Angeles after
Speaker 2: her star turn in the Iran Contra hearings. She had
Speaker 2: started hanging out with celebrities and was said to be
Speaker 2: engaged to Rob Low. As it happened, Stock Scutson Glory
Speaker 2: co star David Keith ran in the same circles as Hall,
Speaker 2: so Stock asked him to put in a word for her,
Speaker 2: and one night it seemed like he was going to
Speaker 2: make the introduction.
Speaker 6: We all met at the Chateau Marmont. David was going
Speaker 6: to this rave which were very popular back in the
Speaker 6: late eighties, and so he invited us to come along,
Speaker 6: and he said, Fawn Hall will be there, and I went, oh, great,
Speaker 6: I would just love to even meet her, So let's go.
Speaker 2: The party was in the Hollywood Hills. The guest list
Speaker 2: included celebrities from the A List to the Z List,
Speaker 2: and the music was loud.
Speaker 6: Some kind of eighties pop crap, you know, the stuff
Speaker 6: that goes boom jiga, boom jaga book, you know, and
Speaker 6: you just can't really think. And there are a lot
Speaker 6: of people around, and one of them was Madonna, and
Speaker 6: she was sitting at David's table. And so I got
Speaker 6: to meet Madonna and it was great. In Fawn Hall,
Speaker 6: she was there. I walked up to her and I said, Hi,
Speaker 6: my name is Amy Stock and I will be playing
Speaker 6: you in Guts and Glory. And honestly, she gave me
Speaker 6: a look. I don't even remember her saying hello. Necessary
Speaker 6: she just kind of walked off.
Speaker 2: With that Stock let it go. Hall just wasn't going
Speaker 2: to talk to her. Thirty years later, she declined to
Speaker 2: talk to me too. Guts and Glory started filming in
Speaker 2: Los Angeles in the winter of nineteen eighty nine, at
Speaker 2: almost the same exact time, the trial of Oliver North
Speaker 2: was getting under way in a Washington courtroom.
Speaker 14: After nearly a year of legal wrangling, the trial of
Speaker 14: former White House aid Oliver North began today in Federal
Speaker 14: District Court in Washington.
Speaker 2: From the outset, North's attorney and the Independent Council's office
Speaker 2: were locked in a procedural battle over evidence. The fact
Speaker 2: that North and Poindexter's immunized testimony before Congress could not
Speaker 2: be used against them meant that Lawrence Walsh and his
Speaker 2: prosecutors could not rely on it in any way while
Speaker 2: making their case. That didn't just mean the prosecutor couldn't
Speaker 2: refer to it. It meant that none of their witnesses
Speaker 2: could either.
Speaker 14: North's attorney's arguments that grand jury witnesses had been exposed
Speaker 14: to the highly publicized congressional testimony.
Speaker 2: The judge in North's trial instructed witnesses not to rely
Speaker 2: on any information they'd learned from his immunized congressional testimony,
Speaker 2: but that was hard to enforce, and there was always
Speaker 2: a chance something it admissible would slip out. That created
Speaker 2: a huge risk for Walsh's prosecution. It also presented an
Speaker 2: opportunity for north legal team should they find themselves having
Speaker 2: to appeal an unfavorable verdict. Instead of a military uniform,
Speaker 2: North wore a simple blue suit to the first day
Speaker 2: of his trial. Sitting next to his lawyer, Brendan Sullivan,
Speaker 2: he filled multiple yellow legal pads with notes. The trial
Speaker 2: was covered by all the major networks on.
Speaker 14: The witness stand today former Reagan administration Attorney General Edwin Mees.
Speaker 5: Today's witness was Adolpho Cooleero, a rebel leader who described
Speaker 5: North as quote the savior of the contrast.
Speaker 1: Oliver.
Speaker 3: North's former White House Secretary, Vaughn Hall, came to court
Speaker 3: today to testify at her former bosses trial. Haul also
Speaker 3: total of the intense atmosphere in North's office and now
Speaker 3: he would occasionally break the tension with jokes, including some
Speaker 3: about how he may end up going to prison. She said,
Speaker 3: he's a man with a wonderful sense of humor.
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, in California, the cast and crew of Guts and
Speaker 2: Glory were trying to make their deadline. They had about
Speaker 2: forty days to shoot the entire film.
Speaker 9: And what happens when you do these things is that
Speaker 9: the network had already slotted the mini series for May sweeps.
Speaker 9: That's the period of time when the network is judge
Speaker 9: on its ratings. So we were pushed. We ended up
Speaker 9: shooting the entire film in the Los Angeles area with
Speaker 9: just two days at the end of the schedule in Washington,
Speaker 9: d C. To pick up backdrops that would ground us
Speaker 9: in real world.
Speaker 2: Robe and his crew arrived in Washington. A few weeks
Speaker 2: into North trial. At one point they were shooting a
Speaker 2: scene of the Jefferson Memorial less than two miles from
Speaker 2: the Federal courthouse. In the scene, Oliver North tries to
Speaker 2: recruit Richard Secord to run the Contrary Supply Operation. Director
Speaker 2: wants you, General, and your country needs you.
Speaker 13: I'm a businessman now, and this is a business proposition
Speaker 13: with the usual markup the CIA is.
Speaker 15: Making up for.
Speaker 2: Writing in The New York Times, Maureen Dowd described it
Speaker 2: as a collision of art and life being played out
Speaker 2: back to the future style. By this point, the relationship
Speaker 2: between Mike Robe and David Keith had become strained. As
Speaker 2: it turned out their political differences placed them at odds
Speaker 2: on the question of who Oliver North was and how
Speaker 2: he should be portrayed in the movie.
Speaker 9: David liked, essentially that North said what he believed, and
Speaker 9: believed what he said and acted on it.
Speaker 10: Now, once again, the same gang of reds are establishing
Speaker 10: a potential nuclear base right in our own hemisphere.
Speaker 11: In front of us. Mister President, We're not ready to.
Speaker 4: Lick a pissant islands or what's become of us.
Speaker 9: There was a period in a scene where Oliver North
Speaker 9: was hospitalized during a rocky time in his marriage, during
Speaker 9: the time he had come back from Vietnam, and he
Speaker 9: was hospitalized for emotional.
Speaker 13: Stress, emotional distress, whatever that means.
Speaker 9: That's documented. But when I tried to get David to
Speaker 9: behave as someone undergoing emotional stress, he felt I was
Speaker 9: trying to make Oliver North look crazy, and I tried
Speaker 9: to say, David, that's why he's in the hospital.
Speaker 2: David Keith, who didn't respond to interview requests for this podcast,
Speaker 2: told People magazine that he had tried to make North
Speaker 2: more of a hero and Robe had tried to make
Speaker 2: him less of one. We probably wound up with something
Speaker 2: around the truth.
Speaker 9: In the end. I kind of felt like David's defense
Speaker 9: of Norse ideology kind of fit the character. I mean,
Speaker 9: that's kind of who Oliver North was.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back.
Speaker 7: The Oliver North jury began debating criminal charges today against
Speaker 7: the former Reagan White House aid with strong ties.
Speaker 2: After eight long weeks, Oliver North's trial began winding down.
Speaker 2: On April twenty first, nineteen eighty nine, the jury began
Speaker 2: its deliberations.
Speaker 13: The fate of Oliver North now rests with the jury
Speaker 13: in his charge to the jury.
Speaker 2: In the midst of those deliberations, the cast and crew
Speaker 2: of Guts and Glory were in the final days of
Speaker 2: promotional blitz before the premiere of their movie.
Speaker 3: David Keith is Oliver North, Peter Boyle Is, John Poindexter,
Speaker 3: Amy stock pointon is Bonn Hall.
Speaker 2: David Keith appeared on the cover of TV Guide in
Speaker 2: a white marine dress uniform. Journalist Ben Bradley Jr. Went
Speaker 2: on Fresh Air with Terry Gross to talk about the
Speaker 2: adaptation of his book.
Speaker 16: You describe in your book the phone call that President
Speaker 16: Reagan made to Oliver North, and he ended, according to report,
Speaker 16: this phone conversation by saying to North, I'd say this
Speaker 16: is going to make a great movie one day. I
Speaker 16: think it's kind of funny that your book is actually
Speaker 16: becoming the first movie about Oliver North.
Speaker 10: Yeah.
Speaker 15: And actually it's even funnier that that very scene is
Speaker 15: in the movie, which when I saw it makes me laugh.
Speaker 15: It's sort of a self fulfilling prophecy, I guess, and
Speaker 15: I'm satisfied that the film will do the book and
Speaker 15: history justice.
Speaker 2: On April thirtieth, nine days after jury deliberations began, Part
Speaker 2: one of Guts and Glory premiered on CBS.
Speaker 7: As good men to risk their lives for Notted, you
Speaker 7: fight to win.
Speaker 2: It was the thirty first most watched program of the week,
Speaker 2: behind Bionic Showdown, The Return of the six Million Dollar
Speaker 2: Man and The Bionic Woman. The second half of Guts
Speaker 2: and Glory was set to air a few days later.
Speaker 4: A secret operation explodes, but taking the heat could destroy
Speaker 4: Oliver North.
Speaker 11: They've done anything criminal.
Speaker 12: The stunning conclusion of Guts and Glory tomorrow.
Speaker 2: Reviews for Guts and Glory were not positive. It is
Speaker 2: fitting that television is rushing to tell North's story before
Speaker 2: it is concluded, wrote a TV critic for the San
Speaker 2: Diego Union Tribune, and particularly fitting that a story so
Speaker 2: confusing has become even more muddied when told in a
Speaker 2: television drama.
Speaker 9: I think some of the critics didn't quite know what
Speaker 9: to make of it. They had their expectations. The ratings
Speaker 9: in the ann weren't particularly great.
Speaker 2: Critics were especially harsh about a scene in which Oliver
Speaker 2: North flew a plane through a firefight in Central America
Speaker 2: to rescue a group of soldiers. Get the Wounded, Get
Speaker 2: thee In his book, Ben Bradley Junior had noted that
Speaker 2: the story may have been apocryphal because no one had
Speaker 2: ever heard of North being able to fly. But the
Speaker 2: main problem, according to a review in The Buffalo Times,
Speaker 2: was that America seemed to be Ali to death already.
Speaker 9: I think the story had evaporated by the time we
Speaker 9: actually got on the air, even though we got on
Speaker 9: the air as quickly as we could. I mean, people
Speaker 9: had had enough of Oliver North. One way or the other.
Speaker 9: It had been prick Asi and fried and stewed Ali Mania.
Speaker 1: It seemed was not a phenomenon. It was a fad.
Speaker 7: The jury now has spoken and answered the question of
Speaker 7: Oliver North's guilt in the Arms for Iran?
Speaker 8: What happened to the money case?
Speaker 2: On Thursday May fourth, nineteen eighty nine, two days after
Speaker 2: And Glory finished airing on CBS, the jury in North
Speaker 2: trial returned to verdict.
Speaker 10: Leading the news.
Speaker 13: This Thursday, a jury found Oliver North guilty on three
Speaker 13: of twelve counts. The guilties game on charges of obstructing Congress,
Speaker 13: destroying government documents, and accepting an illegal gratuity in the
Speaker 13: form of a security system at his hall.
Speaker 2: On all the other charges, the jury found North not guilty,
Speaker 2: an indication that they didn't see him as a ringleader
Speaker 2: or even a rogue operator.
Speaker 14: But it seemed to be saying, we're not going to
Speaker 14: throw the book at him.
Speaker 8: This was the low man on the totem pole.
Speaker 14: So well, we agree he did something wrong, but we're
Speaker 14: not going to buy all of it.
Speaker 4: We're not going to pile on.
Speaker 2: North immediately appealed to verdict and took the opportunity to
Speaker 2: address the media.
Speaker 10: Just a very brief statement, that is that today's verdict
Speaker 10: by the jury here in Washington is a partial vindication
Speaker 10: for what has been for my family in me a
Speaker 10: very long and difficult process. We will continue this battle.
Speaker 10: We will be fully vindicated. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Guts and Glory ended up being the first adaptation of
Speaker 2: Iran Contra to be released, and strangely, it was kind
Speaker 2: of the last.
Speaker 1: Though there have been a few feature.
Speaker 2: Films about the Contra war, Hollywood has failed, at least
Speaker 2: so far, to produce one definitive account of the whole saga.
Speaker 2: There is no All the President's Men for Iran Contra,
Speaker 2: and though Oliver North has held on to various forms
Speaker 2: of relevance over the years, by appearing on Fox News
Speaker 2: leading the NRA and running unsuccessfully for a Senate seat.
Speaker 2: I think it's fair to say that he is not
Speaker 2: endured as an object of fascination. I've been trying to
Speaker 2: figure out why why North didn't last, why Iran Contra
Speaker 2: didn't last, why Guts and Glory ended up being Hollywood's
Speaker 2: only attempt to capture the story. Mike Robe thinks a
Speaker 2: big part of the problem is Oliver North himself.
Speaker 9: Ultimately, American people judged that their est was no complexity
Speaker 9: or intellect or reason to keep following this one dimensional marine.
Speaker 7: Frankly, a marine does what it takes.
Speaker 11: I fight any way I can.
Speaker 4: Bite, scratch lie, because in the end, America's worth it.
Speaker 2: The Washington Post review of Guts and Glory summed it
Speaker 2: up nicely, saying that North, as portrayed by David Keith,
Speaker 2: did not live up to the status of tragic hero
Speaker 2: because his flaws were mundane and his heroic self aggrandizing.
Speaker 2: I think that's true about Oliver North as portrayed by
Speaker 2: Oliver North too. Even when he published his memoir in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety one, North came across as a man without
Speaker 2: much capacity for self doubt or inner conflict about the
Speaker 2: events of Iran Contra. After the sugar High of Alimania,
Speaker 2: it just wasn't that much fun to keep thinking about him,
Speaker 2: so he faded away. There's another theory I've heard about
Speaker 2: why Iran Contra isn't more prominent in our collective memory.
Speaker 2: The theory is basically that the ending sucked. Instead of
Speaker 2: crescendoing into impeachment proceedings or prison time, Iran Contra evaporated gradually.
Speaker 2: One year after his trial, North conviction was overturned because
Speaker 2: of concerns over witness testimony being tainted by immunized statements.
Speaker 2: As for Ronald Reagan, he got to write off into
Speaker 2: the sunset as a triumphant two term president, succeeded by
Speaker 2: his VP, George H. W.
Speaker 1: Bush.
Speaker 2: As it turned out, Bush had some ideas of his
Speaker 2: own about how Iran Contra should end. On the next
Speaker 2: and final episode to Fiasco, the Independent Council's Office tries
Speaker 2: to finish its work on Iran Contra while contending with
Speaker 2: two presidents at once.
Speaker 3: The three leading television channels ran the story of the
Speaker 3: Vice President and all help brokeloves.
Speaker 2: For a list of books, articles, and documentaries, we used
Speaker 2: in our research.
Speaker 1: Follow the link in the show notes.
Speaker 2: Fiasco is a production of Prolog Projects and it's distributed
Speaker 2: by Pushkin Industries. Shows produced by Andrew Parsons, Madeline kaplan
Speaker 2: Ula Kulpa and me Leon Mayfock. Our editor was Camilla Hammer.
Speaker 2: Our researcher was Francis Carr, with additional archival research from
Speaker 2: Caitlin Nicholas. Our music is by Nick Silvester. Our theme
Speaker 2: song is by Spatial Relations. Our artwork is by Teddy
Speaker 2: Blanks at Chips and y Audio, mixed by Rob Buyers,
Speaker 2: Michael Rayfield and Johnny Vince Evans. Copyright council provided by
Speaker 2: Peter Yassi at Yass Butler Po Thanks to Truechivmovies, dot Net,
Speaker 2: Eddie Brandt, Saturday, Mattinee, Ann Roe, Robert Papazian, Jim Hirsch,
Speaker 2: Jay Weston, Michelle McGonagall, the Writers Guild Foundation, the Paley Center,
Speaker 2: as well as Sam Graham Felson, Katya kum Kova and
Speaker 2: SIREA Shockley Special. Thanks to Luminary and thank you for listening.
Speaker 2: Binge the entire season of Fiasco Iran Contra ad free
Speaker 2: by subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Sign up on the Fiasco
Speaker 2: show page on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin dot fm
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