All language subtitles for Theaters of war.en

I directed our military

to take targeted strikes.

Tonight, I ordered
a targeted military strike.

We will respond
with force and precision

at our time, at the
place we choose,

at the moment of our choosing.

Well, they finally did it.

It's been more than 30
years, but Maverick is back.

It was hard to miss the news.

Maverick is back.

Maverick Mitchell is back.

He's back.

Maverick is back.

Maverick is back.

He is back.

Maverick is back.

Maverick is back, baby.

is back in action.

He's back in the film.

I definitely feel
that love and feeling

up here from you all.

The Pentagon
was feeling the love, too.

Beneath all the noise was
a quiet little contract

that allowed the US military
to weave in key talking points,

oversee the script, and
require an official screening

before its release.

Of course, it wasn't
the first time.

All right, talk to me, Goose.

You may not
remember the original film

as an instrument for
engineering public opinion,

but the Pentagon does.

The office that supplied
all those aircraft carriers

and F-14s said as much
in its own database.

The film completed
rehabilitation

of the military's image, which
had been savaged by the Vietnam

War.

I got you down.

You might
wonder how often they do this

and how deep the influence goes.

This is the
Army Air Force's first motion

picture unit in Culver
City, California.

Propaganda, I've been

studying it the better part
of my adult life, especially

the war variety.

I've written the books,
taught the courses.

I knew that the DOD had an
office for helping with movies.

But we didn't even
basic things about it.

How many films?

Were there really
script changes?

And what were they?

It might as well have been
a broom closet locked up

in some dusty corner
of the Pentagon.

Then documents started to get
out, some real revelations.

The paper trail led me to a
couple of British researchers

who had been filing countless
Freedom of Information Act

requests.

I didn't quite know
what I was getting into.

But they were delivering
thousands of pages, eye popping

news, just about every day.

Hi, guys, some new documents
arrived this morning.

These are some of
the US Army script

notes on a Man of Steel,
the Superman movie.

When that door blew open,

I got a glimpse of something way
bigger than I thought possible.

But this journey was
just getting started.

The Pentagon is
powerful in the film and TV industry

because they have
expensive toys.

They have submarines.

They have aircraft carriers.

They have extras.

They have pilots.

They have helicopters.

That is going to
give them rights, usually contracted

in, to change the script.

You can call it censorship.

You can call it propaganda.

It's all of these things.

But this is more
insidious than actually sort of state

controlled and state
produced propaganda.

Because it passes off
as just entertainment.

Are you the
ranking officer here?

And that's when
propaganda is the most effective.

You're a little bit more open
to incorporating those ideas,

because your defenses are down.

Hit it.

Some people
probably would say,

well, yeah, I've heard of
this, like with Top Gun, maybe

Black Hawk Down, maybe
some of the Marvel series.

But what they don't
know is how systematic this has been,

and how huge this
operation has been.

Now these
Freedom of Information requests

that have been
successful allow us

to actually look at that list.

And it's stunning.

What we've found is

that thousands upon thousands
upon thousands of products

have been affected and are
often rewritten at script level

by the national security
state in the United States.

Do normal people
know about that?

No, of course they don't.

So say you're a producer and
you want to make a war film.

You would
walk into the Entertainment Liaison

office in downtown Los Angeles.

You say I want
to film an Air Force base,

or I want an aircraft carrier,
or I want some Black Hawk

helicopters, or whatever it is.

And they would tell
you straight away,

give us your entire script.

They're not stupid.

They're not saying, just
give us those sections

where some dialogue takes
place about the military.

They want to have the
entire manuscript.

So that they can get
a sense of the broader

context in which the
military is being portrayed.

If they go through
the script and say,

we don't really look
that heroic on page 18,

we're going to need
you to change page 18,

the filmmaker either
usually has to acquiesce

or the Pentagon
says, that's fine.

You have the freedom
to not change it.

But we're going to take
our toys and go home.

Now, it's up to the
filmmaker to decide,

do I want to accept
and make these changes?

You'll
end up signing a contract.

And then you're
locked into that.

You're making a film with the
DOD, the Department of Defense,

as your ally.

And they are a really important
collaborator within that.

They're effectively
like another producer.

You might wonder
what the military's own rules say

about this.

It turns out, for
decades, the directive

was to promote
authenticity and dignity

of military representation.

Such a thing is open to
interpretation, of course.

But after 1988,
the list expanded.

Now, they were to
promote something

called public understanding,
recruiting, and official policy

positions.

It's still a bit
abstract on paper.

Whose interests are
being served in practice?

Producers are
able to get cut-price helicopters,

cut-price tanks, cut-price
aircraft carriers,

as well as men, and
material, and advice.

And the more realistic,
of course, a film can be,

the bigger the chances are
for being big box office hits.

And the DOD says this
is a wonderful opportunity

to present ourselves before
the public in a positive light

through a medium that is
mass, that is commercial,

that isn't inflected with
negative connotations

of propaganda.

Just listen
to how the Pentagon itself

puts it in the weekly activities
entry for the 2013 film Lone

Survivor.

"Entertainment
feature films like

this reach far greater audiences
than any single news media

story.

Audiences going to see
the film will voluntarily

sit through a two
hour infomercial."

If you're a producer who can
deliver this kind of thing,

you just might have a
career on your hands.

There are
particular types of directors and filmmakers

the Pentagon really
likes to work with

and has been working with
repeatedly, because they know

that they can trust them,
people like Jerry Bruckheimer,

people like Michael Bay.

We've worked with
Mr. Bay here since Armageddon,

if I'm not mistaken, and
hope to do more of the same.

That's Phil Strub.

He directed the
office for 30 years.

You'll be seeing a lot of him.

The name of the
game in his world

is leveraging military
access to tilt the narrative

and to maintain persistent
relationships with the Michael

Bays out there.

I've got a direct
line to the Pentagon.

For them, it's
a matter of greenlighting

projects the office will like.

They know that their scripts
are going to get vetted.

So what the effect
quite often is

is that filmmakers already
write their scripts in ways

that they know will ultimately
please the Pentagon.

Once we said we're
interested, then we

met with Simpson/Bruckheimer.

They very much wanted us.

We were concerned about will
the military allow us to do it.

Because I didn't want to
get involved in a movie that

didn't get made.

I just-- I really wanted
to get something made.

Because we had written six
pictures before this, and not

one of them got shot.

People self-censor
and tame down any potential critical

view, because they
know otherwise,

it's going to get a desk
reject straight away.

The CIA
essentially copied this model

when it opened its
own office in 1996.

But what they
figured out is that they can be really

effective in the
pre-production stage.

And so they work a lot
with screen writers

as ideas are being
formed or drafted

in order to be able to have a
say in how the agency is going

to be represented.

As you might imagine,

no one involved in these deals,
whether it be the CIA, DOD,

or entertainment
industry at large,

is exactly clamoring to
talk about them publicly.

And perhaps
that's not surprising.

You would have to ask
yourself as someone

who goes to the cinema whether
I want to pay to actually watch

some propaganda stuff.

This relationship
is not secret.

It's just that they don't want
to make a big thing of it.

What they don't
want anyone to know

is that this is
done systematically.

And they also are particularly
wary of the public knowing

about script rewrites.

If people actually
saw a script

and then looked at the kind
of blue bowdlerizing lines

that the military had
done on the script,

I think people would begin
to realize how dangerous

and how censorious this
kind of activity is.

To see how
all this works, just

look at how the
Entertainment Office has

used the biggest weapon
in its arsenal, rejection.

It can put a production at
a distinct disadvantage.

Say you want to make a film
based on the Kennedy White

House tapes about how
military leaders almost

got us into a nuclear war
during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

That'll earn you a solid one.

You'll have to go to the
Philippines for old planes

to repaint and military bases.

You'll have to construct
U2 sequences from scratch

and beg a museum
for a destroyer.

Rejections like this have become
more common over the years.

On the heels of World
War II, the Pentagon

assisted a long list of films.

But it rarely flat
out denied filmmakers.

As Americans began to deal with
a more controversial history

of military intervention,
though, the rejections

started to come,
first with films

that failed to celebrate US
military action in Vietnam

and continuing with the Cold
War, Gulf Wars, and issues way

beyond war films.

But these were
only the rejections

that were lucky enough
to still be made.

Many more weren't.

That is no military assistance
often means no show.

Producer Jerry Bruckheimer said
that without military help,

he couldn't have
made Pearl Harbor.

It apparently means a
lot when the Navy pulls

more than 20 Vietnam
era destroyers out

of storage for you to blow up.

There wouldn't have been a Top
Gun without support either,

he said.

Most of the time, it comes
down to the studio's need

to keep costs low.

Take The Hunt for Red
October, producer Mace Neufeld

said Paramount
straight up told him

if you don't get cooperation,
we won't make the movie.

And they put it in the contract.

It was a good thing for
Neufeld that the script

was an easy sell.

It set him up for the
long Jack Ryan franchise.

In contrast, consider another
'90s film, Countermeasures.

If it doesn't ring a
bell, it's probably

because it was never made.

Sigourney Weaver had signed
on to play the lead role.

But that didn't matter as
much as what the Entertainment

Office thought.

They didn't want a story
about weapons smuggling

on an aircraft carrier.

That was rejected
explicitly on the grounds

that we don't want to
denigrate the White House.

We don't want to remind the
public of the Iran-Contra

scandal, which involved
illegal arms sales,

and drug running, and
arming of Contra rebels,

and all sorts of horrendous
things in the '80s.

In this case,
the Pentagon got its wish.

The public was not reminded.

The Office's own
database is littered

with these denials never made.

So no Eagle in the Sky.

Denied, and never made.

And no Recovery.

It's clear from its own
notes that the Pentagon knows

a denial can shoot down a film.

The entry for A
Moral Issue concludes

that since the film
was never produced,

the answer must have been no.

Here's a sample of titles
from the '80s and '90s,

all denied and never made, so
you can see what you missed.

What themes can earn a
film a denial, you ask.

We start to see a
clear pattern when

you look through the documents.

The office internally
calls these showstoppers.

And yeah, sometimes
they can stop the show.

The Pentagon publicly says it
denies films because they're

in some way unrealistic.

But you don't have
to be an expert

to scratch your
head when it comes

to something like Top Gun.

Just listen to what the
consultants and writers

admitted in retrospect.

The idea that people
chase people around,

trying to get Sidewinder tones,
particularly down in the dirt,

is not reality at all.

It's not realistic compared
to what we do every day.

And I said, well,
there's no trophy.

I said, if there was
a Top Gun trophy,

no one would ever graduate.

You don't understand the
intensity of these guys.

It would all be midair
collisions, and crashes,

and everybody'd die.

Nobody would ever
graduate from Top Gun.

It's very anti-Top Gun.

Maverick as a character
is anti-Top Gun.

It's all about being together.

So it was a dramatic license.

And I think it worked.

Never let the truth get in
the way of a good movie.

None of these concerns

appeared in the Pentagon's list
of requested script changes.

In fact, a memo from
the Marine Corps

later admitted that the
Pentagon had supported

lots of unrealistic scenes.

In Top Gun, they said,
buzzing the tower wouldn't

have happened without
career ending consequences.

And the famous inversion
scene simply couldn't happen.

The Marine Office
assembled this list

not to keep everyone honest,
but rather to justify

an unrealistic scene of its
own, a Harrier jet flying

through a cave for
a Top Gun style film

they hoped to develop.

The issue of realism
comes to a head with films

written by vets themselves.

Surely they must pass
the authenticity test

if Top Gun did.

Jarhead was based on
the celebrated book

by Marine vet Anthony Swofford
and adapted for the screen

by another marine vet.

The DOD has one look
at the script, though,

and finds too many
serious concerns.

They don't want audiences
to see what Swofford saw,

like a sniper trainer praising
the Kennedy assassination

as the perfect shot, Marines
getting excited for war,

boasting about killing
ragheads and shooting

Bedouin camels, references
to friendly fire,

and attempted suicide, and
an abusive drill instructor.

What the
fuck are you even doing here?

Sir, I got lost on
the way to college, sir.

In fact, the Pentagon

sees the movie as
such a threat that it

moves to block the
director from recruiting

any off-duty military
personnel as extras.

When the film premieres, the
Office explains to the press

that it denied Jarhead
assistance because it was not

a quote, "feasible
interpretation

of military life."

Reporters from NPR
and the LA Times

ask if they can take a
few Marines to the film

and get their reactions.

"Absolutely not," says
the Entertainment Office.

But eventually outlets
like the San Diego

Tribune do manage to scare up
some Marine vets, who guess what?

Universally laud the
film for its realism.

Or take Fields of Fire
from the early '90s,

which was denied and
ultimately never made.

This one was notable because it
had some real muscle behind it,

Jim Webb, a highly
decorated Marine Vietnam vet

who had written a
best selling novel

and would go on to
be a US Senator.

At the time, he had
just come off a stint

as Secretary of the Navy.

Now, that's some
credibility, right?

Not enough for Phil Strub
at the Pentagon office.

The script, he says, makes
it look like "fragging,

burning villages, executing
prisoners, and drug abuse where

everyday occurrences."

Yes these things
happen, but mostly not.

"Consider making
substantive changes."

The Marine Corps, for
its part, disagrees

and asks him to reconsider.

Webb's book is required
reading for Marine officers

and is generally acknowledged
by Marine Vietnam veterans

as the most genuine
fictional account of the war.

Webb himself had
some strong words.

"It appears to me that
what you're really saying

is that when it
comes to Vietnam,

DOD will support only
sterile documentaries

or feature films that
amount to nothing

more than dishonest propaganda."

Sorry, says Strub.

And it became a Vietnam
film we didn't get to see.

I kept thinking about
Oliver Stone, too.

Before becoming
a filmmaker, this

was a guy who had
volunteered specifically

for combat duty in Vietnam
and emerged a decorated vet.

His early breakouts are still
lauded as the most realistic

of the post-Vietnam wave.

But it was a real uphill
battle with the Pentagon,

rejection after rejection.

Platoon for a long list
of unacceptable themes.

Born on the Fourth
of July because it

made a strong statement against
participating in the Vietnam

War.

Both were put on hold for years.

I'd give my right
eye to hear what

the man himself had
to say about all this.

Luckily, he had read some of
Alford and Secker's early work

and was impressed.

Matt was able to
shake a few trees

and get an interview for me.

Military veteran,
Hollywood veteran,

I pictured it going down
something like this.

I assume if you've
come this far, what

I have to say interests you.

But I'm not going to
name names and tell you

who or what I represent,
except to say you're close.

I wasn't prepared for this.

Obviously, I was
shocked by some of these--

what these films had to go
through to get what they call

weapons of war,
Pentagon cooperation,

as well as CIA cooperation.

It's a gigantic iceberg
that you've touched.

Wait, Oliver
Stone can't believe

how deep the story goes.

It raises the question,
could the industry

be in the dark as much
as the rest of us?

I guess you know what they
say, the best PR is invisible.

But what about his
firsthand experience?

I wrote Platoon as a
naive young screenwriter,

because it was the truth
of what I saw in Vietnam.

Of course, it was dramatized.

And at some point, I
forgot exactly when,

we sent in the script and
asked for their cooperation.

We got a pretty definite
turndown from them,

saying this was an
unrealistic portrayal of GIs.

It was about this
time that Top Gun paid a visit.

I was offered the script
when it was a magazine article

or something way
back by Don Simpson.

I just couldn't do it.

I thought it was--

I knew-- at that point, I
was accepting that Platoon

would never get done.

You have to understand,
I had shelved Platoon.

I put it out of my mind.

I had written Born on the Fourth
of July and Platoon and I--

both projects had died.

It is astonishing that
you were offered the Top Gun script.

That is an astonishing fact.

And I'm still trying
to process that.

It would have made
for an easier start on a career.

While Top Gun was opening
up the after burners

with full military support,
Platoon and Born on the Fourth

barely made it out
of the jungle alive.

It's not the only
factor in play, I know.

But this is how the
military's invisible hand

moves over Hollywood.

Do you recognize this?

I wanted to bring a gift for
you, blast from the past.

I had his Platoon
rejection letter framed.

I never saw this.

It's funny they mention
what I mentioned,

the murder and rape of
innocent Vietnamese villagers.

Well, I saw both.

The cold blooded murder of
one US soldier by another,

did not see that.

But certainly, there's
reports of it up and down.

They have admitted to
fragging, how many were

killed in fragging incidents,
I imagine they minimized it.

And the portrayal of the
majority as illiterate

delinquents.

The entire script is rife
with unrealistic and highly

unfavorable depictions.

So I'm glad you got this.

That's 1984.

That would be the second time I
tried to do the movie with Dino

de Laurentiis.

I'd love to get a copy
of that, by the way.

Oh, thank you so much.

The whole ethos of
that office, Pentagon,

is that they're supposed
to provide accuracy

to the filmmakers, accuracy.

And they do the opposite.

They provide
inaccuracy and lies.

You show the bad side as
well as the good side.

We keep making military
movies, especially since 2001,

glorifying the American soldier,
glorifying our patriotism,

nationalism, homeland,
all this nonsense.

We make it into this fetish.

We fetishize the military.

No one can say a
bad word about them.

This is wrong.

You have to point out
evil when it happens.

Before we go any deeper,

you might wonder how
it is we came to know

what goes on in that office.

I'll tell you one thing,
we didn't learn about it

from the news.

On the exceedingly
rare occasions

when the issue does
get press attention,

this is the kind
of thing you get.

Phil Strub reviews scripts,

deciding if a script has the
glimmer of realism or fun

he's looking for.

Realism and fun.

Sounds innocent enough.

If you wanted to know
any more than that,

though, for decades, there
was just one place to look.

There was one guy, basically,
one historian who totally

dominated this field in the
'70s, '80s, '90s, all the way

up into the 2000s.

The film and military historian,
whose book, Guts and Glory,

is recognized as the definitive
study of the relationship

between the military and
movie industry, Lawrence Suid.

And he
was the person who had all

of the relevant
documentation on this.

But Suid was the only
person writing about it.

And so scholars didn't even
bother looking into it.

Suid largely
bypassed any concerns

about steering public
opinion and instead told

a story about the
military constantly fixing

Hollywood's mistakes.

Eventually, though,
someone else came along

and did a little muckraking.

It was in 2004
that a journalist, a kind of maverick

journalist who I
quite like called

David Robb decided that he
was going to investigate this.

Robb interviewed
a bunch of industry folks

and combed the few
public documents

the DOD had made available
to Georgetown University

and the National Archives.

He somehow persuaded the
Marine Corps Office in LA

to give him a peek, too.

He acquired
much of the initial documentation.

And he was able to punch a big
hole in what Lawrence Suid had

been saying for the
previous 30 or 40 years.

It was nowhere
near a comprehensive picture,

but this was the
first time someone

had made the case that the
Entertainment Office was

a sophisticated
propaganda machine.

Suid did not like this at all.

He wrote a scathing review
that all but charged Robb

with fabrication and
dismissed the idea

that the office wielded
any influence over movies

beyond making them
more accurate.

Robb shot back, calling
the review libelous.

It has to be the most
contentious exchange I've ever

seen in an academic journal.

But Robb's work inspired
other researchers

like Matthew Alford,
who set out to get

a full sense of the operation.

And this is two decades,
three decades after these things

should have been investigated.

I started looking into it.

And of course, I contacted
the Department of Defense.

I contact Phil Strub.

And Strub can say to me, oh, we
don't have that documentation.

We've given it to Lawrence Suid.

So he picked up the trail

himself, just across the
pond and just up the river

from the Pentagon at
Georgetown University Library.

You asked if I was nervous.

And a little bit nervous.

Not really nervous
about being on camera.

But nervous because I've just
spent a large amount of money

to come over to a library.

And I've spent over $1,000
to come to a library.

There, he found
the public collection of DOD

donated documents, which
he could access no problem.

But then there was Suid's
personal collection,

which Georgetown held
quite separately.

This was the real prize,
the documents the DOD had

given exclusively to Suid.

So every time
anyone wanted to go

into that private
collection, which

as far as I can tell,
no one ever did,

because it was never
advertised, it was never--

there was no kind of
publicity or awareness

of this whole thing, but when I
tried to get into that archive

and when a couple
of my colleagues

tried to get into that
archive, Lawrence Suid

was able simply to say no.

I'm using that.

What do you do if
you get stonewalled like this?

Well, you need a real bulldog.

Enter another enterprising
Brit, freelance journalist Tom

Secker.

Having read Robb's work, too, he
had been carpet bombing the DOD

with Freedom of
Information Act requests.

Hey guys, we've got
some new documents.

These are some DOD script notes
on the film Pitch Perfect 3.

In fact, the
government was so annoyed

at the amount of
document requests

that Tom Secker put in that
they labeled him a vexatious

requester.

And so Tom, and I think
Tom actually found out

that he was called a vexatious
requester, because he

put in a request for any
information about himself

in emails.

And so from that point, I
think I said to Tom, well,

maybe you should put
in more requests.

And Tom said, oh yeah,
I'd quite like to do that.

And then, it just
snowballed from that point.

And we ended up having
thousands and thousands of pages

of documentation come in.

Internal correspondence,

activity reports, line
by line script changes.

The world was opening up.

Then another break.

In an email, Phil
Strub offhandedly

mentioned the existence
of an incomplete database.

So Tom put in a request for it.

First, the army
denied having it.

And then later that year,
the request came through.

This was the Rosetta Stone.

Although missing lots
of entries, the database

listed 900, all the way to the
present, films and TV shows.

It was a bit of a shock.

When we interviewed
Strub, a few years back,

he denied even keeping count.

Well, I don't have
an exact number that

would describe what pictures
the department was involved with

or--

Before all
these document releases,

you had to assume that the
DOD and CIA had affected

only a couple hundred films.

Now we could account
for 10 times that many,

more than 2,500 films
and television shows.

Count up the
individual TV episodes,

and it's thousands more.

Naturally, the CIA files
have been harder to crack.

It's tough, because
the CIA has been less transparent than

the Department of Defense in
terms of how they work with

Hollywood, because so much
of their stuff is done

in the pre-production stage.

It happens in conversations
over the phone.

There's not a paper trail.

There are emails
that are exchanged.

But you have to get
access to those emails

through a FOIA request.

Sometimes those are denied.

Sometimes those take
years to come to fruition.

And so this relationship,
and exactly how it works,

and what scenes the CIA
has objected to, what

scenes they were pushing in
order to have them incorporated

into the final product
is a very murky world

that's very hard for
academics to penetrate.

While the
CIA material trickled in,

the DOD story took
a dramatic turn.

I knew Suid had been ailing.

But in late 2019,
Georgetown Library

informed me that he passed away.

I would never get to meet him.

I would get to meet
his archive, though.

I was shocked to learn that
his estate had opened it

to the public.

And I was the first
to have a look.

The collection truly
took my breath away,

a mountain of official
documents that blew the lid

off the whole operation.

But a few other things
caught my eye, too.

There were these little notes
from the Pentagon Office

that suggested Suid
just had to ask,

and they'd hand the
documents right over.

There was also a big stash
of audiotaped interviews.

It struck me that the
ones with Phil Strub

seemed pretty chummy.

Strub promises to give up files.

And you can hear him tapping
away at the Pentagon database.

GI Jane has a file?

Probably, yes.

OK, but no cooperation.

Tuskegee Airmen, you
gave them some help?

Oh, yeah, big time.

What was the one I was
just going to look up?

Forrest Gump.

Yeah, Forrest Gump.

Apparently
Strub gave Suid database

login privileges.

I found a screenshot
in the collection.

That's some high
level clearance.

- I
- have that written.

You'll see the
manuscript, The Siege.

Hold on, did he just

tell Strub you'll
see the manuscript?

Then I discovered
older taped interviews

with Donald Baruch, who ran
the office before Strub.

He's giving notes on the
Guts and Glory manuscript.

At the top of page 5,

you say "filled with
historic--" this

is in regard to Deer Hunter.

Now, we're on page
6, and you say

"although the Navy provided--"
final paragraph on page 3--

page 7, I would suggest
deleting "at the same time"

and starting "the
studios recognized

the value of Department
of Defense cooperation."

Now you're saying here--

Page 12?

Page 12.

I had to wonder, how deep was

Suid's relationship with
the Pentagon Office?

So I headed to New York to
Don Baruch's personal archive,

kept at Baruch College founded
by his uncle, the financier.

In a box of Office
memorabilia, they

happened to have
Baruch's Rolodex.

Right alongside Clint
Eastwood and other Hollywood

heavyweights, there
was Lawrence Suid.

Baruch also kept a Suid file.

In it, I found his letter
recommending the Guts and Glory

project for a
Guggenheim Fellowship.

He even kept early drafts of
its chapters and clippings

of its reviews.

So there it was.

For decades, the
Office had been trading

access to influence not
just the big screen,

but also its very own story.

It was starting to
become clear why we had

known so little for so long.

If you really want to dive
into these script negotiations,

a good place to start
is how these offices

project the institution
itself on the screen.

Take something obvious,
like recruiting, which

runs deeper than you think.

This kind of thing
has a long history.

But of course, Top Gun
took it to new heights.

They even set up recruiting
tables outside theaters.

This function of
the film was not

lost on Director Tony Scott.

All these kids must
hate me, because they all

signed on thinking they're going
to be fighter pilots pulling

broads all over the world.

And they all ended
up in 11 stories down

in some shitty old
aircraft carrier,

stuck in the Indian Ocean.

Hollywood, you're
looking good.

More recently, there

have been even bigger
leaps into this territory.

Act of Valor literally started
life as a recruitment ad

before the Navy decided it
would make a good feature film.

Captain Marvel was also
a recruiting bonanza,

a vehicle for the Air
Force to reach young women.

The Air Force was
welcoming and amazing.

It was important for
Brie to go up in the F-16

and discover who
Carol Danvers is.

Going to be fun.

The core of her
is the Air Force.

It's the spirit
of the Air Force.

But more than anything, it
was like the spirit of the Air

Force and the spirit
of being a pilot.

Even the
CIA is in on the game.

Its involvement in the show
Alias went far beyond support.

Jennifer Garner, who
played the main character,

did a series of
recruitment pitches.

Right now, the CIA has
important exciting jobs

for US citizens.

Then there's The Recruit.

You're kidding.

Applications for
the CIA are up tenfold.

Would I have to kill anyone?

Would you like to?

Not too subtle, right?

But you'd still never
guess how large of a role

is played by Chase Brandon,
the longtime head of the CIA's

Entertainment Office.

And almost nobody knows this,

but Chase Brandon wrote
the entire treatment

and like 80 pages of the
original draft of The Recruit.

And he is not listed
as a screenwriter

at all in those credits.

The only thing he is listed as
is a technical consultant.

You have all just stepped
through the looking glass.

What you see, what you hear,
nothing is what it seems.

Beyond the
recruiting pitch itself,

these institutions
are also keen to sweep

persistent internal
problems under the rug.

The Pentagon is very sensitive
about depicting mental health

issues.

For example, they
denied Home of the Brave

due to the "vein of suicide,
domestic violence, chemical

abuse, and depression."

They didn't like the image
of vets having a miserable

time readjusting to life.

It was unfortunate.

The Pentagon was
making it harder

to produce this film
exactly when vets

needed the public
conversation the most.

Record high military suicide.

Military
suicides are on the rise.

Over the next decade,

way more military personnel
would die by suicide

than combat.

The Office has also worked
to downplay any impression

that the military has struggled
with institutional racism.

A good example of how they
typically approach the issue

is the Laurence Fishburne
movie The Tuskegee Airmen.

It was based on the
real life experiences

of the first African-American
air squadron in World War II.

How did the Office deal
with the story of racism

in the military?

By containing the racism
two a bad apple, of course,

who then has to be dressed
down by his superior officer.

This meant also
making sure there

was no racism depicted
coming from the top

of the chain of command.

They reversed characters to
make the Senator, rather than

the general, the
source of the bigotry.

I'm General Stevenson.

This is Senator Conyers.

So with this new storyline,

what about the scene
in the original script

where a baseball game breaks
out into racist taunts

and a fistfight?

It appears in this scene
that race was and remained

a major factor to the
troops, which it did not,

the Office declared
quite confidently.

So the fight is out of
place and has to go.

Maybe the office
doesn't get the irony

that its habit of covering
up institutional racism

is institutional racism.

Like racism, the
Entertainment Office

has done its best
to make you forget

all about sexual
harassment and assault

in the ranks, which includes a
pattern of leaders retaliating

against victims who complain.

The problem first went public in
1991 with the Tailhook scandal.

This is where hundreds
of Navy servicemen

assaulted more than
80 servicewomen

at a convention in Las Vegas.

A congressional investigation
flagged a Top Gun mentality

as a major factor.

The fallout from
Tailhook is what

delayed a sequel for so long.

Since then, the Office has
treated sexual harassment

and assault more like a PR
problem than an actual one.

They denied GI Jane
because it dared

to depict a high officer
harassing with impunity.

And in more recent
years, they have actively

endeavored to
whitewash the issue.

They've enlisted their long
running partners, Army Wives

and NCIS to run a
counter plot line.

The problem in this
alternate universe

is the victim, who
refuses to admit

that an assault has occurred.

The military leadership
is so eager for justice,

though, that they launch
an investigation anyway.

Zero tolerance is no
slogan around here, agents.

It's a moral imperative.

If that officer was
harmed on this ship,

we'll move heaven and
Earth to help you.

I only wish Farrell had
said something at the time.

We could have done
something about it.

We're doing something now.

Given that the Navy
reviews every NCIS script, what

would happen if the
producers were to drift

from this official plot?

Well at one point, the
Navy received a script

that more closely resembled
what targets had repeatedly

described, harassment
by numerous crew members

and unresponsive leadership.

The Entertainment Office
sounded the alarm.

A panicked conference
call and a day

later, the Navy had revised
the entire storyline.

When the episode
eventually aired,

it was a tale of sailor
bystanders stepping in,

and timely and effective
engagement by those in charge.

A matter as sensitive as
this required immediate action.

During our transit, I
ordered an investigation.

Even wins over a
skeptical detective in the end

after she sees him go the extra
mile to nab the perpetrator.

See, no institutionally
enabled rape culture here.

Another main job
of the Office is

to sell regular Americans
on pouring vast resources

into these institutions.

All those weapons
can get expensive.

Pushing them had always been a
staple of old style propaganda

films like The Big
Picture series.

One example.

The F-111, the
greatest innovation

in aircraft design
of recent years.

But over time,
the Entertainment Office

took over this function.

The everyday workhorses became
those ubiquitous weapons

documentaries on the Discovery,
History, and National

Geographic channels.

This kind of boosterism
is especially

important for systems
like the F-35, which

gained a trillion dollar
reputation as the most wasteful

project in Pentagon history.

The goal is normalizing
these huge expenditures.

To remain a superpower,

the US needs to constantly
update its technology

and military hardware.

It's all over their notes.

A primary reason for
assisting is the opportunity

to showcase these weapons.

Projects like these,
they say again and again,

support modernizing the force.

And this means that they're
able to show off how sexy,

and how wonderful,
and how useful,

and how targeted their
new products are,

which means that
the public is going

to be less liable to criticize
the arms industry as something

that is messy,
unpleasant, dark, cruel.

Of course, Hollywood

has played a lead role
in selling weapons, too.

They rewrote the Hulk
so he climbed on an F-22

and rode it into the sky.

They got the F-35 to
fly alongside Superman.

And got Ludacris to show
off the new Ripsaw vehicle.

6.6 liter V8 DuroMax engine
with an M-153 CROWS remotely

operated weapons station on top.

See, the army's
developing machines

like this the soldiers can
drive from a mile away.

So they can stay safe and alive.

Or consider
the Transformers franchise,

which might as well have
been a military parade.

The Air Force excitedly
listed everything

to be filmed, the army too.

Action.

What the Air Force has done
in this show has shown us

all the good toys, brand new
stuff that really hasn't even

been put into the field yet.

I've always been
like some of the first

to shoot military hardware.

In Armageddon, I was the
first to shoot the B-2 bomber.

Then this movie was the F-22s.

It's just very
fitting that Starscream

was the air commander.

And second in command
takes that form

of literally the baddest weapon
system in the world right now.

The Iron Man franchise

was an outright celebration
of the arms industry.

It started out as
the exact opposite.

The original script
for the first movie

was all about Tony Stark going
to battle against the arms

manufacturers, including
his own father,

who he says was
stealing his ideas

and twisting them into
truly destructive weapons.

By the time the film went
into production with the DOD,

however, the whole
thing was gone.

Co-star Jeff Bridges told the
press they didn't have a script

and were getting
regular notes from what

he called the suits
at Marvel, who

were, of course, getting notes
from the brass at the Pentagon.

Today, Tony Stark has
changed the face of the weapons

industry by ensuring
freedom and protecting

America and her interests
around the globe.

When it was all said and done,

Stark had happily inherited
his father's business

and become an emissary of the
military industrial complex

himself.

Flipping the storyline cleared
the runway for all of this.

B-2 bombers, C-17s, and
F-22s, and F-35s, I mean,

you could literally pause
the screen and tally it up,

and it would probably come
out to a billion and a half

dollars.

On a broader
scale, the military and CIA

also want to sell the
public on the image

that they are the
ones who save the day.

Take the alien invasion
film Independence Day.

Like, there are
some things that they

objected to which had nothing
to do with historical accuracy.

One of the things that
they were upset about

is the guy who
ultimately defeats

the aliens is a civilian
and is not a military hero.

They wanted the
heroes of that film

to have military backgrounds.

They also didn't like how the
aliens, even though they're

supposed to have
advanced technology,

were able to so thoroughly
decimate the American military.

The Office listed the damage,

which included 30 F-18s, one B-2
bomber, and one whole Pentagon.

Although they denied
the film in the end,

director Roland Emmerich got
gun shy about that last one.

So we famously got the Empire
State Building, White House,

and Capitol, but not this
ultimate showstopper.

Same thing with Rampage
where giant mutants attacked

the city.

The Pentagon rejected this
one after the filmmakers

failed to incorporate
their script notes.

The problem?

The mutants rampage
all over the military.

Sci-fi is one thing,
but the stakes

go up when it comes
to revising the memory

of actual missions gone wrong.

Take the 1993 battle
of Mogadishu, Somalia

that eight years later became
the basis for Black Hawk Down.

At the time, it was
universally regarded

as a debacle, a
needless sacrifice

of 19 American troops, not to
mention the slaughter of 1,000

Somalis.

Today, I want to talk
with you about our nation's

military involvement in Somalia.

Afterward,
the Entertainment Office

was on high alert
for anything that

looked like it in its scripts.

So for Clear and Present Danger,
they worried about a scene

where Colombian militias
overwhelmed US special forces.

"Rangers in Somalia just
went through a real world

fiasco that made the military
look ridiculous," they wrote.

"The DOD is not about to
cooperate on a movie that

does the same thing."

In this case, they
made changes to ensure

the film would ultimately turn
out to be, in their words,

"more of a commercial for
us than damage control."

But with Black Hawk
Down, high level leaders

saw an opportunity to recast the
memory of Somalia altogether.

We got full cooperation
from the Defense Department

through two administrations,
William Cohen who

was the outgoing
Secretary of Defense

was a big fan of
the book and said

he would help us in any
way to get the movie made.

All that essential
equipment gave the DOD

tremendous leverage.

Director Ridley
Scott said it would

have been hard to make
the film without it.

And so we
went right to the wire

in terms of negotiation
with the Pentagon

about their
requirements as to how

they wanted to be
perceived during the film.

But that negotiation
took a long time.

First, the
Pentagon negotiated away

a few unheroic things.

The original book
was actually very good.

And there was loads of
things changed in that.

But the most obvious
thing was that one

of the veterans who
came back from Somalia,

he was convicted of
sexually assaulting a child.

It got out that they

had pressured the filmmakers
to change the character's name.

So they created--

the only composite character,
the only totally fictionalized

character in that film,
was Ewan McGregor.

With those
messy details out of the way,

all they had to do was focus
on the story of the rescue

and avoid any bigger questions.

The filmmakers
grabbed victory out

of the jaws of defeat,
a symbolic victory,

where that film did just that.

The soldiers say, I don't
care about the politics.

I'm just in it to fight
next to the guy beside me.

And we're not going to
leave anybody behind.

You know what I think?

It don't really
matter what I think.

Once that first bullet goes
past your head, politics

and all that shit, just
goes right out the window.

But Somalia
was a mess from beginning to end.

We had-- America had three or
four abortive missions there

that had not worked before.

We'd set up a scenario
that was like this,

that the people started to
distrust us and hate us.

And then we covered it all
up with this nonsense movie.

It's a typical whitewash
of a military--

military corruption, typical.

From then on, the film

became a model for
restoring public faith

when overseas
interventions go wrong.

It turns out, you can
always rescue history

with a rescue story.

The CIA tried it too with Argo.

The film is based on a rescue
that occurred during the Iran

hostage crisis, how the
CIA smuggled Americans

out by pretending to be
a Canadian sci-fi movie

production company.

The Entertainment
Office had been pushing

this storyline for a while.

Five years earlier, the
Office had recommended it

to Hollywood and TV
producers on what it

called it's Now Playing page.

Eventually, Ben Affleck picked
it up as director and star.

He was already in the
pipeline, as he had previously

starred in another CIA sponsored
film, The Sum of All Fears.

The CIA's exact role in Argo
had been something of a mystery,

though.

They took eight years to
respond to Matt Alford's

Freedom of Information request.

And when we finally got
the internal emails,

they didn't include
script negotiations.

We got a peek into how cozy
the relationship was, though.

The CIA knew it had a keeper.

"We are hoping to develop a
close working relationship

with the filmmakers on
this project," they wrote.

After his first couple
of visits to Langley,

Affleck was obviously keen to
stay in the CIA's good graces.

"We love the agency
and this heroic action.

And we really want the
process of bringing it

to the big screen to be
as real as possible."

Over the course of this
gushing relationship,

the CIA Public Affairs Office
reviewed multiple versions

of the script.

"The Agency comes off looking
very well, they wrote."

The synergy couldn't
have been more perfect.

The CIA working with
Hollywood to tell a story

about how the CIA worked with
Hollywood to save the day.

The irony was thick
with scenes like this.

The United States
government has just

sanctioned your
science fiction movie.

Thank you, sir.

You could say it turned out

pretty well for both parties.

And the Oscar goes to--

Hey, the First
Lady of the administration

that helped produce the movie.

Argo.

Congratulations.

And hey, it's Jennifer Garner,

from that other CIA show, Alias.

Argo was on a whole
different level,

though, reframing history
for a new generation.

Some parts of the
story just got buried,

like the fact that
it was the CIA that

led the coup that set the whole
crisis in motion, which they

finally acknowledged a year
later after the documents were

declassified.

That is the coup that toppled
Iran's democratically elected

prime minister.

And the fact that the CIA

failed to see the crisis coming.

Even by Tony
Mendez's own admission,

the Iranian hostage crisis
was an intelligence failure.

For those six people,
absolutely, the CIA

was their savior.

Too bad for the other
hostages who remained

in captivity for over a year.

52 of them to be exact.

And they just kind of
fall out of the script.

And so
the story is not on the failure.

It is on the success.

And so Argo really becomes a
story of redemption for the CIA

in the face of one of its
biggest intelligence failures.

Another
rescue story in the bag.

Great work, boys.

Yeah, I think
probably Hollywood

is full of CIA agents.

And we just don't know it.

And I wouldn't be
surprised at all

to discover that this
was extremely common.

Yeah, I doubt
he would be surprised.

I have to confess
that at one point,

I got pretty wrapped up
in one of these deals.

In 2017, the National
Geographic Channel

aired a popular miniseries
called The Long Road Home.

It was about a 2004
ambush of US soldiers

outside Baghdad in Sadr City.

They called it Black Sunday.

And it put the first big
crack in the US public's faith

in the occupation.

Eventually, ABC
correspondent Martha Raddatz

wrote a bestseller about it.

And it was optioned
for a series.

The army was all
over it, opening up

Fort Hood, Texas for shooting
virtually the entire thing.

In particular, they
allowed the producers

to renovate an urban
combat training

site to look like Sadr City.

This is more than
three football fields long.

It is the largest set working
in North America today.

Thank you everybody,
positions please.

There you
have it, the largest film

set on the largest
military base.

The promos mentioned the
military's involvement.

So naturally, there was a
lot of talk about accuracy.

It's been amazing having
the Army as our advisor,

because I always wanted this
to be as authentic as possible.

National Geographic is
famous for telling the truth.

I love that they're making
honest, real, hard hitting

television.

- I
- wondered how honest.

So I contacted a
couple of vets who had

been wounded in the firefight.

I had the idea to rendezvous
with them at the base

and maybe tour the site.

I thought the army might jump at
the chance to show some Purple

Heart heroes around.

After all, they had trained
at that very facility

before shipping out.

And this was their story.

No dice.

I guess the first
question I have is,

one, have you talked to
the Chief of Public Affairs

folks out in Los Angeles?

That needs to be the first
stop before we can allow you

guys to come in and film.

Essentially there has to be a
production assistance agreement

between yourself and the Army.

If you're curious, yeah,

I did send them
a formal request.

Do you think I should
tell them there's

a part in the movie where
I talk about them changing

the parts of movies
they don't like?

I just think they're going
to want to change that part.

Well,
I eventually did tell them.

And they stopped
writing me back.

In the meantime, the
vets and I could only

meet in Killeen, Texas,
just outside of the base,

hang out in a modest motel,
and watch the show together.

I wondered whether they'd
recognize themselves

and what they went through.

It was traumatic.

It hurt to see this.

No, it wasn't that.

It didn't inspire any
flashbacks or anything.

No, it should have.

Had it been done properly,

maybe I would have
gobbled it up and had

different feelings about
it, also intense feelings,

but not anger.

Yeah, I felt like a liar,
because the story that I

have been telling my family was
not what was shown on the show.

For starters, the guys

mentioned that the show wasn't
too kind to their friend

and fellow GI Tomas Young in
the episode devoted to him.

This was significant,
because his story was that

of the early peace movement.

Paralyzed by a
bullet, he went on

to become one of the most
visible war protesters,

alongside Cindy Sheehan, whose
son died in the same ambush.

Young's own death
became a symbol

of the anguish and
betrayal felt by many vets.

Unable to swallow pills,

unable to pull a trigger,
unwilling to implicate anyone

else, Thomas plans to
starve himself to death.

Wounded April Fourth,
2004, his fifth day in Iraq,

shot in Sadr City,
is now writing

a letter on this
10th anniversary

called the last letter, a
message to George W Bush.

You are
each guilty of egregious war

crimes, of plunder,
and finally, of murder,

including the murder of
thousands of young Americans,

my fellow veterans,
whose future you stole.

Yeah, how
did they depict Young?

As a pussy.

And he wasn't.

He was cool.

He was well read and a cool guy.

Yeah.

I think they depicted
him as a douche bag.

What do you know about it?

War?

You ever even been shot at?

Well, then do me a
favor and shut up.

The show carefully controls

Young's image, especially
his anti-war activities.

We see him protesting.

But you come away with
the sense that he's

just bitter about
having been wounded.

We never get to hear
any of his speeches.

According to the
documents, the Army

even vetted each of the
protest signs' slogans.

And of course, they completely
avoid mentioning his suicide.

But there's more.

The show also went to work
correcting any impression

that Black Sunday was
a strategic blunder.

This was curious,
because in the book,

it's clear that command failed
to anticipate the uprising

and may have provoked it.

They also failed to anticipate
the need for armored equipment.

Scores of soldiers had to
head into the firefight

in unarmored Humvees and fish
in a barrel supply trucks.

But the show lets the man in
charge, Battalion Commander

Gary Volesky,
entirely off the hook

and even makes him the hero.

The series puts him where
he wasn't, in a Humvee

at the vulnerable front
of the rescue convoy.

This was a spot
that, in reality,

had been occupied
by Captain George

Lewis, a big part of the book.

Lewis disappears from
the story entirely.

How are we supposed to turn?

I wrote
to one of my buddies about it.

I said, I think they're going to
put Colonel Volesky in Captain

Lewis's spot.

And he said, that would
be a serious deviation

from the book.

And then the next episode
aired, and sure enough, he

gives a speech in a motor pool
and climbs in and leads us

from the front,
which he did not.

Turns out, Volesky's character

does a lot of valorous
things up there.

I don't know
how involved General Volesky was--

this is part of why I want
to hear his thoughts on being

depicted, imbued with the
valor of Captain Lewis.

It was a
question on my mind, too.

It seemed likely that he'd
played some role in the show's

development.

There he is on set, telling
everyone to break a leg.

And it just so happens that he
served as Chief of Army Public

Affairs during a critical
period between the first script

reviews and the
show's broadcast.

There was one more
thing gnawing at me.

Remember Captain Lewis, whom
Volesky replaced in the show

at the front of
the rescue convoy?

The guys mentioned
that Volesky had

made him the primary
scapegoat after the ambush

and relieved him of duty.

When he looked at it as
a bad thing in the army,

he lost his job for it.

But now, to show
civilians of it,

now something heroic,
something good.

I had to track
Lewis down and ask him

about all this.

He was working for
the Army as a civilian

at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

He confirmed that
Volesky had indeed

removed him from his post.

But what did he
think about Volesky

taking his place in
the convoy on the show?

Yeah, I don't know
why they did that.

It doesn't make much sense
to have a battalion commander

leading a convoy of a company.

I mean, that's a
pretty simple thing.

I think most people who
have any military experience

would say, wait a
sec, that doesn't

make a whole lot of sense.

And what would
he want to say to Volesky?

Yeah, I'm just
wondering how it happened

and whether he had any
knowledge or involvement in it.

And I hope he didn't.

I mean, because if he did,
I mean it'd completely trash

any respect I had for him.

I don't think the
blunder came with Captain Lewis--

was one who took the brunt of
it, who got relieved of duty.

I think the blunder came from
way up top, because I mean,

we didn't have armored vehicles.

Some guys had armor
that didn't fit.

Some guys-- it
was just a total--

Mechanized infantry

against a supply truck.

We didn't do anything
that we trained for.

Yeah.

That's not
the story we got, though.

We didn't see those
in charge needlessly

sacrificing the lives
of these soldiers

or Young's fight to make
sure it doesn't happen again.

It was a story of a good war
and a misguided peace movement.

It was a story of enemies
who come out of nowhere

and a battalion commander who
puts his own life on the line

to get his guys back.

That's how Black Sunday goes
from a black eye to something

more like Black Hawk Down.

I have to
wonder, OK, why are they

doing this?

Why are they
depicting these scenes

that contradict what happened?

I don't think that's
creative license.

I think that's a cover-up.

There's still one big issue

that we haven't touched.

What about certain unsavory
historical realities

that the CIA and Pentagon would
rather keep tucked away?

Consider war crimes.

In short, they want you
to know that there's

nothing to see here.

For example, the
CIA has always been

sensitive about its
associations with torture.

For a long time, it was
the number one showstopper,

no joke.

So in Meet the Parents,

for example, Ben Stiller walks
into Robert De Niro's office--

Robert De Niro is
the CIA character.

And in the original
script, he is

meant to see CIA torture
manuals on the desk

all around, as a way of--

as part of the script.

It's a way of making
Robert De Niro's character

look frightening.

However, the CIA itself
did not like this.

And because they were
consulting on the film,

they asked for it to be changed.

And so that's why
when Ben Stiller goes

into that office in
the finished film,

it's just pictures of Robert
De Niro meeting famous people

like President Clinton.

It's watered down, basically.

Looking for something, Greg?

Oh.

Things
changed after 9/11, though.

The CIA teamed up
with shows like 24,

which did depict
torture, lots of it,

but as a justified and effective
measure to keep America safe.

You got information,
Paul, I need it now.

By the time
Zero Dark Thirty arrived,

the CIA's use of torture was
an established controversy.

The red flags went up
when it went public

that the Obama administration
was involved in the film.

What has some
on Capitol Hill so angry?

You believe, when
watching this movie,

that waterboarding
and torture leads

to information that leads then
to the elimination of Osama bin

Laden.

That's not the case.

What we do know
is that behind the scenes,

the CIA was busy
leveraging the film

not only to justify US torture,
but to soften its image.

The agency demanded
that the screenwriters

remove the torture dogs, despite
the fact that the CIA did

use dogs routinely.

And they politely
asked that the script

keep to those torture techniques
already in the public domain.

The Pentagon has
also done its best

to suppress any
suggestion of war crimes.

For example, in the original
script for the World War II

movie Windtalkers,
there was a character

called The Dentist who pulls
gold teeth from the mouths

of dead Japanese soldiers.

The Marine entertainment
officer wanted it gone.

"The dentist character displays
distinctly un-Marine behavior,"

he wrote.

But it's no secret that
this kind of racism

fueled trophy taking was
commonplace in the Pacific.

Eugene Sledge
describes the practice

as widespread in his famous
memoir, which is required

reading for Marine officers.

Gold teeth were the
least of it, too.

Soldiers raided bodies
for bones and ears.

They developed
techniques for boiling

of flesh off of severed heads.

These grim souvenirs
flooded the home front,

even showing up
in Life Magazine.

But the Marine Office
didn't want the film

to bring any of that up.

Phil Strub at the
Pentagon concurred.

"Stealing gold teeth,
yep, has to go."

So it went.

Lone Survivor got
the treatment, too.

There's the pivotal scene
where the platoon captures

some Afghani goat
herders and tries

to decide what to do with them.

According to Marcus
Luttrell's firsthand account,

the commanding officer
argued that they

should kill them
quietly, hide the bodies,

and keep a pact of silence.

He eventually put it
to a vote, though.

And in a split decision,
the group let them go.

The Pentagon didn't like this
image of military leaders

advocating war crimes
and had a long discussion

about changing it.

In the final version, it's
the commanding officer

who unequivocally orders the
group to let the captives go.

This is not a vote.

This is what we're going to do.

How would the Office

justify twisting
the story like this

if you were to, say,
put them on the spot?

Well, as luck would have
it, I had the chance to ask.

The Navy held a
webinar about how

it works with Hollywood,
a sort of advertisement

for its services.

Dennis Moynihan was the
chief information officer

while Lone Survivor
was in production.

He'd been talking about
how authentic they

were able to make it.

I couldn't believe the
moderator picked up my question.

But being a military ethics
professor, he took an interest.

Trigger warning,
there's going to be

a fair amount of squirming.

I have one more.

This is an interesting one, too.

And this is a question
for you, Admiral Moynihan.

"How does the military
deal--" and this

is Roger Stahl, by the way,
providing this question.

"How does the military deal with
the suggestion of war crimes?

I'm thinking about
Marcus Luttrell's book,

where the CO suggests they
kill the captured goat herders.

This suggestion goes
missing from the film.

This change seems
like it compromises

the principle of authenticity."

What do you think of that?

Look, it gets to,
again, a lot of the things

that we talked about.

Does it reflect well
on the military?

Can it be used for recruiting?

And can people like David,
and in this case, Peter, still

tell a credible story.

So is everything that ever
happened in that situation

reported on
included in the movie?

No, it's not.

But I think that's OK.

Because in the end, you
got a very credible product

that certainly, the service,
I think was proud of,

and I think that Peter
was proud of as well.

So every detail,
absolutely not, for all the

reasons that we
talked about before.

But I don't have a
problem with that.

OK, good.

And I have a question for the--

Yeah, of
course, not every detail.

What about
crimes of aggression,

like overthrowing
foreign governments?

Well, in recent years, you
see a pattern of support

that normalizes these
kinds of interventions.

Of course, you have Iron Man
running ops in Afghanistan.

But you also have
The Suicide Squad.

Here, the US military sends in
a team of B-list superheroes

to overthrow a fictional
Latin American government.

So a long history of
illegal US military action

in Central and South America
ends up as not much more

than a punch line.

Or take Jack Ryan, the most
popular series on Amazon Prime

to date.

Season two got off with a
bang by demonizing Venezuela,

a longtime US foreign
policy target.

Your concern is that
the Russians are secretly

selling weapons to Venezuela?

It would fit a pattern.

It's time we stop,
hey, what's that sound?

This ends up in the news,
it's just going to cause panic.

A nuclear Venezuela
you will not

hear about in the news,
because we'll already be dead.

The central
plot is the CIA trying

to tip a Venezuelan election.

There's
something happening here.

The agency
seeks to topple a dictator

and put a liberal,
populist, human rights

candidate into power.

The thing is, something was
actually happening there

in Venezuela at the time.

US foreign policy leaders
were doing their best

to delegitimize an election
by stoking an insurrection.

But unlike in the show,
their favorite candidate

was less populist and more
the empire friendly kind.

So with CIA and
DOD help, you might

say that Jack Ryan put a pretty
face on the whole operation

in real time.

My character is
Gloria Bonalde.

It's an amazing character
because she's a family woman.

And she's not very
interested in politics.

The Pentagon also wants

you to forget all about certain
policies of mass destruction.

Consider Agent
Orange in Vietnam.

This was a vast toxic
spraying program

designed to kill the jungle
and make Vietnamese resistance

fighters easier to bomb.

It poisoned a whole country,
including many US troops.

One of these poisoned vets
wrote a book about it,

along with his father,
who happened to have

been in charge of the spraying.

Eventually, a script
for a TV movie

landed on the Pentagon's desk.

You guessed it.

The movie is
"inflammatory," they wrote.

Besides, "the exposure of most
Vietnam veterans to herbicide

orange was not very great."

Mind you, this was three
years after Agent Orange

manufacturers had paid
out a huge class action

settlement in a case that drew
out over 100 medical studies.

Luckily, the film
got made in the end.

Without it, throngs
of suffering vets

would have remained
invisible for much longer.

As time went on, it
also became clear

that Agent Orange was having
near genocidal effects

on the Vietnamese population.

An epidemic of
birth defects, brain damage,

and rare cancers still
affecting hundreds of thousands

of Vietnamese today.

For the Entertainment Office,

any reference to Agent
Orange was a problem,

even if the program's
codename appeared years later

in some comic book movie.

There was an Operation--

Operation Ranch Hand was
designed to capture the Hulk.

But the Pentagon didn't like
it, because of course, Operation

Ranch Hand was the name of a
real operation using chemicals

in Vietnam.

So they were trying to avoid
any kind of association

with any of these
sorts of things.

I'm requesting a National
Command Authority Override.

Angry Man is unsecure.

You could call it petty.

But in a way, it's
just-- it's the Pentagon

operating like a slickly
oiled PR machine.

But it's a slickly oiled
PR machine that is not just

advertising toothpaste.

It's advertising the
most violent and powerful

organizations on the planet.

The Office is also
touchy about nuclear weapons.

There's a long
history of rejecting

movies that suggest they might
not entirely be under control.

Take one from the Cold
War, The Day After,

which envisioned the outcome
of a nuclear exchange.

It happened to be the highest
rated TV movie in history.

Nearly half the US
population tuned in.

President Reagan
even watched it.

He wrote in his diary that
it left a powerful impression

on him.

And its influence led directly
to nuclear disarmament talks.

The Pentagon denied
this one because it

didn't like the image of
an accidental nuclear war,

a skirmish that
gets out of control.

They wanted it to
be crystal clear

that the Soviets started it.

They had a problem with
this scene in particular.

Well, maybe
they'll contain it.

After all, I've still got
symphony tickets for tonight.

The thing that bothers me is
that damn launch on warning.

What's that?

That's when one
side tells the other

that they're going to fire
their missiles as soon as they

think the other guy's missiles
are already on the way.

Use them or lose them.

The Pentagon wanted this out.

"We do not have a launch on
warning policy," they wrote.

"And the public should
not be misled that we do."

But they did.

Launch on warning was
an official policy

in The Single Integrated
Operational Plan

beginning in 1979.

And because of it, the US came
dangerously close to launching

in a few occasions.

Thankfully, the filmmakers
stood their ground.

Had the Pentagon successfully
changed the script

to lay all fault at the
feet of the Russians,

the film might have served to
drive nuclear buildup instead.

The Pentagon's view of nukes
has reshaped entire franchises.

Consider Godzilla.

The monster began as
an explicit allegory

for the US nuclear
bombing of Japan.

And these critical
associations held all the way

through the 1998 version
with Matthew Broderick.

By 2014, though, the
DOD was fully involved.

So things had to change.

The nuclear sub
one of the monsters

carries off into
the jungle, they

switched that from
American to Russian,

as not to give the
impression that we could ever

lose control of our arsenal.

We located your Russian sub.

The whole
attitude toward nukes

had to change, too.

There was a scene in the
original script where

one of the characters
tells a harrowing story

about his grandfather surviving
the bombing of Hiroshima.

The Office wanted it gone.

"If this is an apology or
questioning the decision

to bomb Hiroshima
and Nagasaki, that

will be a showstopper for us."

So we got this speech instead.

The arrogance
of man is thinking

nature is in our control,
and not the other way around.

There's more.

The bomb goes from
being the threat

to helping solve the problem.

It turns out, the nukes
weren't the monsters

but were actually being used
to blow up monsters back

in the day.

All those nuclear
bomb tests in the '50s.

Not tests.

They were trying to kill it.

And they
were still our best hope.

Beautiful, isn't it?

Godzilla was
different after this.

The 2019 version
didn't have DOD help.

But it nevertheless stuck with
the nukes as heroes theme.

A planned explosion
supercharges Godzilla

to fight the good fight.

It's hard to imagine a
more complete reversal.

This long time warning about
the dangers of proliferation

is now an extension
of the US military

and something of an
advertisement for the bomb.

These days, it's not
just about war movies.

The Pentagon has
managed to colonize

the entire
entertainment landscape.

They've always had their
toe in sci-fi, for example.,

But now it's a major
part of the game.

Consider that Transformers
was the first franchise

to cooperate with
all four branches.

Sci-fi and comic book
movies served as a refuge

from all those real and hugely
unpopular overseas occupations.

The
science fiction and fantasy

creates kind of
an imaginary space

for the various
melodramas of the military

to be scripted and played out
without ever having to address

the real motives of foreign
policy in the world today,

nor the consequences for
those that fight on its behalf

and die in its wake.

If this embrace of sci-fi

strikes you as a bit
strange, you're not alone.

When Philip Strub or anybody

in the Entertainment
Liaison Office

says that it has to
be accurate, we're

just changing these scripts
to make it accurate,

what I love about that is now
we are battling space invaders.

That's not a very
accurate portrayal

of the Department of
Defense and the role

of the Department of Defense.

Once you've conquered fantasy,

where do you go?

Reality, of course.

This is probably the
most surprising thing

about the documents.

The Pentagon has staked a flag
in every little strange corner

of reality TV.

They've had their
hand in game shows,

like The Price Is
Right for a while.

Despite all the yelling
and running around,

the military carefully
manages these events.

This includes
handpicking participants.

And audience
participation is out,

because they regard
it as too spontaneous.

On these game shows and
especially daytime talk shows,

you'll see a ton of reunions.

The office is constantly
arranging them.

Then there are the many military
themed home makeover shows.

You can also invite the Dude
Perfect influencers to romp

on your aircraft carrier.

I've wanted to do
something like this since I

saw the movie Top Gun.

Or have the Rachael Ray

Show put a bunch
of service people

through a cooking challenge.

Cooking shows are an
astonishingly big part

of Pentagon assistance with TV.

Cake shows, especially.

Boy, do they love
cake shows, lots

of different kinds of cakes,
fighter jet cakes, tank cakes.

You have competition shows that
serve as recruiting vehicles.

Then there's what you might
call harder TV documentary

fare, the kind of stuff on the
History and Discovery channels.

These are those programs that
celebrate weapon systems,

sniper rifles, Apache
helicopters, F-35s,

and what it's like to
drive what will probably

replace the Humvee.

So that's what Jay
Leno has been up to.

Well, that was pretty cool.

This also includes shows

like Taking Fire and Inside
Combat Rescue that embeds you

with the troops
overseas, usually

through the eye
of the helmet cam.

The guy behind this pivot to
reality TV was David Evans.

He took over as director of
the Pentagon office in 2018,

but before that, his job
was to manage assistance

for documentary and
unscripted television.

Shows like Inside Combat
Rescue represented a big turn

in that direction,
a winning formula.

It was a huge
success for Nat Geo.

They saw the ratings go
through the roof on it.

A year later, two years later,
three years down the line,

other filmmakers coming
to us, wanting to do--

or wanting to do something
like a Nat Geo show.

And they'll say as much.

Yeah, we want to do another
Inside Combat Rescue.

Striking out
into all this new territory

has required that the Office
take a more aggressive posture.

These days, they're not just
waiting around for producers

to come to them.

They're out there pounding the
pavement and drumming up deals.

Suddenly, the Air
Force is producing

an ad for its services
and circulating it

among industry types.

The Air Force
Entertainment Liaison Office

is the industry's gateway
to an extraordinary arsenal

of aircraft, equipment,
incredible personnel,

and locations.

They're hitting the
road to conferences and trade

shows to reach new markets.

And the reason
that we are here today

is to inform filmmakers
about our capability,

about our office, and
what we can do to help

them help us tell our story.

They're presenting
at Comic-Con and a bunch

of other industry conferences.

They're going to
military tech expos,

not to advertise their
services, but to find out

what cool new gadgets are out
there to pitch to producers.

Publicly, they claim
they don't pitch.

Here's the new head of the
Pentagon office at that Navy

webinar.

We don't ever pitch.

We don't have an active pitch
where I will call a studio

and say, hey, have you
guys thought about this.

You have to
wonder why he's saying

this when they clearly do.

Recall, they had
pitched Act of Valor

to the studios and pitched
episodes about sexual assault

to NCIS, what they internally
called the Navy's big request.

But there's a whole lot of
day to day pitching, too.

They sent a
congratulatory letter

to the new head of
Fox Team Programming

and requested a meeting to pitch
him potential Air Force ideas.

They pitched a story of
a Marine and her bomb

sniffing dog to film studios,
Animal Planet, Letterman,

and Extreme Makeover
Home Edition.

And they took the
opportunity while working

on an episode of Extreme
Makeover Home edition

to pitch an idea about doing
it again with a different Air

Force team.

In the past few years,
you start to see

entire sections of the
weekly reports categorized

under outreach.

The military worries when they
notice a production for which

they were not approached.

So they often reach out
to offer assistance.

Back when he headed
up the office,

David Evans summarized this role
on his own LinkedIn account.

Engagement runs through the
entire spectrum of production,

beginning all the way back with
concept and script development.

So we're at a unique
point in the evolution

of military
propaganda in the US.

On the one hand, the
Office has managed

to evade scrutiny and insinuate
itself more deeply than ever.

But on the other, we can
finally see the big picture

and do something about it.

I think
the reason it's important,

and perhaps the reason
it's important to me,

is because whenever
there is American

and British military
action around the world,

particularly over
the last 20 years,

that military action has
been extremely destructive.

The stakes are high.

We're talking about
dominant representations

of the most powerful military
on the planet, bigger

than the next dozen
countries combined

that has been bombing
other countries more

or less continually
since World War II,

and with a staggering
legacy of human suffering.

The mood music
for that is our popular culture.

This is
the cinematic universe that's

been operating under the radar
for decades in which there

isn't a problem the US
military can't solve,

and where alternative stories
get sucked into a black hole.

It's a universe of
officially prescribed threats

and target nations.

This is not just

a concern to the United States.

It is a concern to the world.

These are highly censored,
politically motivated

portrayals of the American
empire, if you wish.

We're just a bit affected

by that, which means that we're
a bit more confident about how

great military action will be.

And we're a bit more
confident that those

evil Iranians, or those evil
Chinese, or evil Venezuelans,

or whatever it is, we're just a
bit more confident that they're

a bit less human.

And that kills thousands,
tens of thousands,

or even in Iraq's
case, a million people.

It eventually hit me.

This isn't just a collection
of script changes.

We're inside of it, speeding
through this world created

in the image of the
military industrial complex.

And with razor thin
margins of public support

for some of these
disastrous wars,

this skewed image of
the world might just

be nudging us over the edge.

So what questions should we
be asking if we want out?

Why shouldn't we know
what they're doing?

They shut down a battleship,

put up a giant 22 foot
tall movie screen--

And actually, should we even
be paying these organizations

to generate propaganda
that's going to be

bounced back to
us at the movies?

Why do Americans not
hear Voice of America

or any of the other
identified propaganda formats

distributed around the globe?

It turns out that
the US has some long standing

propaganda laws that,
at the very least,

prohibit its use on
domestic audiences.

And the DOD's own public
affairs directives

prohibits selective
benefit, that

is favoritism toward a
particular ideological movement

or commercial enterprise.

So it seems like
abolishing the Office might

have some legal justification.

But what if these deals could
just be made more transparent?

It's clear that the
Freedom of Information Act

isn't quite cutting it.

For example, Tom
Secker asked the Navy

for the past decade
of script notes.

They said they didn't keep them.

Two years, over 100 emails,
and three formal appeals later,

they admitted they did
keep them, 240,000 pages.

But they said they couldn't
release them, because they

contained trade secrets.

They're giving us the runaround
more and more these days.

It's getting to the
point of absurdity.

Like the time when Tom put in
a request for documents related

to a dozen productions
and the DOD

came back with 1,000 pages
redacted, and I mean blank.

It may take legal action to
get these offices to comply

with public
information requests.

But on the most basic
level, shouldn't we at least

know if they've had their
hands on a production?

After all, rules for
commercial entities

have been around
since the 1930s.

Take this typical
military supported

episode of Rachael Ray that
featured military themed

Suave products.

At the end, Suave is required to
disclose, but not the military.

That could change.

So you might see
something like this.

OK, maybe something
more like this.

The point is--

The public has
a right to know.

And I think the Pentagon
should be legally obliged

to make that information
available to the public.

Not at the very end of
a 3-minute credit run.

Not in the scrolling
credits, somebody

listed as a technical advisor.

At the start of the film.

It wouldn't
be particularly popular

either with the film industry
or with the Pentagon,

because people, I think,
would not necessarily

be prepared to pay money
to see a film like that.

If the CIA wrote a movie,

do you really want
to go see that?

I mean, is that what's going
to pull in box office numbers?

No.

Then we get a culture
that is greater--

with a greater degree
of transparency.

And then the public will
vote with their feet

and vote with their wallets.

I think at the end of the day,
because I'm a media educator,

I really just want people to
be critical media consumers.

The problem is that you can't
be a critical media consumer

unless this relationship
between your war

movies and the military or
your spy movies and the CIA

is made transparent.

Because the moment you
become aware of it,

you can go to the movies
and be far less subject

to the propaganda messages
that the government is

trying to get you to believe,
or to accept, or to act upon.

I guess that's really
what I want for people.

For a decade now, I've

been asking myself the same
question over and over.

Has the long arm of the security
state refashioned this one?

And how about this one?

Now you're asking it too.

Imagine living--

in a world--

where we don't have to.