by C McGivern
Mary, glancing at her boss’s face, realized that all hell was about to erupt. She couldn’t prevent him storming over to the table where the students sat amazed as he slammed both fists down, yelling in a voice shaking with rage, “You stupid bastards! Blame Johnson if you must, blame that sonofabitch Kennedy, blame Truman or Roosevelt, but don’t blame that kid. Jesus, his arm’s gone!” As he backed away he murmured, shaking his head, “What the Hell is happening to this country.”
Later he commented, “I think the American public is getting sick and tired of what these young people are doing. But it’s really their own fault for allowing the permissiveness that’s been going on for the past 15 or 20 years. Our entire society has promoted an “anything goes” attitude in every area of life and in every American institution. The front pages of the newspapers are encouraging these kids to act the way they are. I deplore what happened at My Lai, but I could show you pictures of what the Viet Cong are doing to our people over there. But for some reason the papers don’t report that.”
He was full of rage as he realized the things he believed in were under threat once again from the inside. Eisenhower said that if Vietnam fell to Communism it was only a matter of time before all the Far East fell; the Domino theory. If Vietnam was the place where America had to make its stand against that threat, Duke for one supported the policy of war, “It’s obvious to me, because I’ve been there, and to the young veterans coming home, that there is a lot to say that the media hasn’t told us. Those young men own a piece of that war, and they know what they’re talking about. We should ask them about it. They maybe didn’t want to go, and maybe the government wasn’t justified in sending them off to an undeclared war either, but I sure don’t know why we send them and then stop the bombing so that they get shot up that much more. We could easily stop them getting guns from Chinese and Soviet Communists, but we do nothing because we’re afraid of world opinion. Why in hell should we worry about world opinion when we’re trying to help out a country that’s asked for our help? I don’t say the American government should decide what kind of government they should have over there. I just don’t want the Communists to decide either, and if we hadn’t gone to help out that’s just what they’d do. I honestly believe there is as much need now to help the South Vietnamese as there was to help the Jews in Germany. And I figure if we’re going to send even one man to die, we ought to be in an all-out conflict. If you fight, you have to fight to win. And the Domino Theory is something to be reckoned with too. At some point we have to stop Communism, it might as well be right now in Vietnam. There is the fear that Russia will go to war with us if we stay in Vietnam, but I don’t think Russia wants war any more than we do.”
The American government had given its word to protect Vietnam from the advance of Communism, and to Duke breaking that word would be criminal. Whether he was right or wrong, whether the government was right or wrong, his belief in keeping faith with a promise made was fundamental. Loyalty and courage were the basis of his identity; he believed he was the sum of what his country had made him, if America couldn’t keep its word he was left with nothing.
He had made many mistakes in his life, had done things in which he took no pride, but as an older and hopefully wiser man, he believed he ought to set the younger generation a good example. As always he took no lame measures, he did it full force and hoped some of the kids would listen. Loyalty, courageousness and keeping faith with promises made were uppermost in his mind when he said, “I don’t know a better way to go through life than guiding others-getting the best out of them, pushing them to do better than they thought they could-and all in the framework of fair play and mutual trust. We were coached into leading legal lives by parents who loved us and who knew the rules of the game of life. The secret was coaching. The other secret is one generation setting a better example for the generation that’s pulling up fast. In that area, I plead guilty for not doing more on the positive side. I’ve tried-but in looking back, maybe I could have tried harder.”
Pilar responded, “I don’t know how anyone could have tried harder than he did, especially in later life, when almost everything he did was chosen specifically with the purpose of setting a better example. It is hard to think of anyone else who was so willing to risk everything to set the example that he believed in, to take an unpopular stand to say what he believed in.”
He was offered a part in The Dirty Dozen and though he loved the story he rejected it, saying, “I’ve got my heart set on making a film about Vietnam, I want to show people in the US that we are at war with international communism.” The only way he could support the American soldier was to lend his celebrity status to the cause, making a film in his honor, paying tribute in the best way he knew. He began a rallying crusade, focusing his attention on an idea for The Green Berets, the film he had set his heart on making.
In 1963 Robin Moore wrote to the Pentagon asking for assistance in writing a novel about the new special force that symbolized military excellence, the Green Berets. The resulting book, published in 1965, sold three million copies. Although it was a best seller the war was so unpopular that movie makers steered away from a project they considered too controversial; “political” usually spelled box-office disaster. But Duke was unafraid of controversy and he bought the movie rights for fifty thousand dollars. He wrote to President Johnson telling him about his plans to make a film that would inspire patriotism and asking for his support in the project.
Johnson was intrigued by the idea and asked Jack Valenti, his domestic advisor, what he thought. Valenti replied, “Wayne’s politics are wrong, but insofar as Vietnam is concerned, his views are right. If he made this picture he would be saying the things we want said. I recommend we support him.” The decisions all taken, Duke promised they would be pleased with his movie. Once again he had a cause, and once again there was no room for ambiguity in his heart, “If you go over there, you won’t be middle of the road.”
Pilar knew a frightening sense of deja vu, she had witnessed the damage he did to himself with The Alamo, now she was terrified for him but knew it was useless to argue, “When Duke had something to say, an Act of Congress couldn’t stop him.” He was starring, producing and directing a picture again, explaining, “I wanted to direct the film, like when I did The Alamo, because it was quite obvious to me that no one would tell the truth of why we were there. I’d been over there and I knew that the people of South Vietnam were being treated very badly. I tried to put that in the picture. Whether I succeeded or not I don’t know. I didn’t want anybody else to do it because it was something I was interested in and I wanted it told as I had seen it over there.”
All the big studios ran scared. They had been unwilling to support The Alamo with him at the helm, and he knew there would be no money available for The Green Berets either, but he was convinced Hollywood misjudged the country’s mood. Duke was sure this was a story that would do well financially. He set the film’s budget low at $6.1 million to attract backers, and set off on a now familiar trek round the studios to plead his cause. He did a deal with Universal but when they pulled out, he suspected for political reasons, he turned to Warner Brothers who offered to distribute it and give him a little money toward costs. Pre-production got under way and by the time he began casting everyone in Hollywood was talking about it and wanted to get in on the action. Batjac had to close its doors to agents and Duke was able to hand-pick his stars.
In 1966 he was invited to Fort Bragg where the Green Berets trained. He was given star treatment there and came away full of enthusiasm, convinced he was going to make a great movie. He went on another tour of Vietnam, giving no prior warning of his visit. Within days of his arrival he was unable to leave his hotel without being mobbed! He talked to soldiers in small informal groups, getting close to the men, standing in war zones where snipers bullets hit the turf yards from his feet and visiting the hospitals and camps.
Producer Paul Keyes went with him and was awed by his drive, �
�He kept going from six in the morning until eleven at night. I was forty-two, had two good lungs. I was in good condition but I couldn’t keep up with him. He had in him some peculiar drive which was beyond understanding. On his orders, we went as close to the firing line as we could get. We went by plane-helicopter-boat. He talked to sailors in the holds of boats where temperatures reached 145 degrees. He was airlifted to aircraft carrier decks by ropes dangling from helicopters. I remember one day at Pleiku, we were going over in a chopper. They radioed us to get out fast as an attack was in progress. Duke said the hell with that. He was landing. We did. They were attacking. Duke stepped out. He walked around the area. He introduced himself. Some of the GI’s had loved him since they were little, they had grown up on Wayne pictures and suddenly here was Sergeant Stryker. Some of them just started crying. They couldn’t believe it was really him. And Duke would start blubbering as well. This is what he wanted to do. Sometimes he used prepared gags, mostly he just walked around, shaking hands with strangers.”
Whilst he was there he was hit by a severe eye infection and he had to be treated in hospital. The only spare bed was in the psychiatric ward. The man in the next bed looked depressed and Duke tried to cheer him up, “Hi, I’m John Wayne. Your Doctor tells me you’re doing fine.” The man laughed hysterically and Duke went to fetch a nurse. When she went across to the man he told her, “That guy is really crazy, he thinks he is John Wayne!”
The Green Berets would be the only pro-Vietnam film made during the war. Before he started work on it Duke patiently listened to all the arguments for not doing it. He had won a sympathy vote after his battle with cancer, his friends now warned him he would be stirring up trouble and antagonism in Hollywood if he went ahead and made this film. He had opposed the election of Johnson in 1964, had opposed sending the army into Vietnam, he didn’t like “Johnson’s no-win policy,” he thought America should bomb Vietcong supply lines and blockade their harbors, he didn’t approve of sending men out to fight the war Johnson was sending them to. But the fact was those men were fellow Americans and they were doing their duty to the flag. Meanwhile in American towns and cities the anti-war protests were escalating and intellectuals were burning the flag Wayne honored out on the streets. He couldn’t stand by and watch that whilst American soldiers were dying for it. He couldn’t forget what he had seen with his own eyes and he was haunted by visions of lonely, confused soldiers doing what had to be done. No matter how logical the argument against it might be, he had to make his film, “I owe it to them.”
Duke’s son commented, “At the time it was all very controversial, but dad knew it would be a money maker. The controversy helped what was actually only a formula movie. They wore different uniforms but the story was the same as any story told about World War Two. It was just a group of guys and how they reacted to different situations. In this case it was set in Vietnam. But it was a very difficult film to make and I can’t tell you how many trips I made to The Pentagon, just to get the scripts approved. They kept saying, “You can’t put that in the film,” and the script they finally approved wasn’t as good as the original one.” Final approval came from the Pentagon on March 30 1967. It was at that time Universal backed out, saying the approved script was the worst writing they had ever seen. Duke turned to Jack Warner, who signed the deal because Duke begged him to trust him, promising it would make money. The picture wasn’t about box-office for him and he said, tongue firmly in cheek, “This picture is naturally from the hawk’s point of view, but it isn’t a political statement, it’s made strictly for entertainment purposes.” The fact that he deferred his salary made it a most personal political statement.
The movie couldn’t be shot on location but Pentagon officials allowed Duke to make it at Fort Benning instead. Almost as soon as filming began there the weather turned cold and he found himself in a race against time, struggling to beat the onset of Autumn, which would turn his Vietnamese jungle brown. Already deep in production problems, he continued giving interviews to a Press intent on goading him into making statements which, when taken out of context, as they always were, made him appear a sadistic idiot who gloried in the shedding of blood. Richard Warren Lewis, Contributing Editor of Playboy, and a man hostile to Duke’s image, later interviewed him, probing him about the picture and his stance on Vietnam. The finished article ran ten pages and Duke, well used to difficult writers, had fallen headlong into a trap.
By the time the interview hit the stands Duke was the last remaining Hollywood superstar, grudgingly acknowledged by Lewis as a top box office attraction for 19 consecutive years, a man who had earned his studios more than $400,000,000… more than any other star in motion picture history. He also scoffed, calling him a “profit without honor” because of his “squareness,” his politics, and films like The Green Berets. Lewis visited Duke’s “Eleven room, 7-bath” Newport home and wrote, “Wearing a realistic toupee, Wayne at first appeared considerably younger than he is: only the liver spots on both hands and the lines in his jut-jawed face told of his 63 years. But at six feet four and 244 pounds, it still almost seems as if he could have singlehandedly mopped up all those bad guys … his sky blue eyes, though somewhat rheumy from the previous night’s late hours, reinforced the image.” Duke later confessed mournfully, “I don’t even remember why I agreed to talk to him at all.”
Lewis had approached cautiously; asking standard questions about the state of the film industry. They talked about his childhood, his favorite films, and then Duke was steered into politics, the state of America, and finally, Vietnam. Lewis led, but Duke had never been afraid of alienating a few people, he had nothing to hide and believed he had the same rights as every other American to air his views. He blamed the liberals for, “perverting the natural loyalties and ideals of our kids, filling them with fear and doubt and hate and downgrading patriotism and all our heroes of the past.” And when Lewis asked him what he thought about Angela Davis, the black radical philosopher at UCLA he replied, “I don’t want Angela Davis inculcating an enemy doctrine in my kid’s heads. I wouldn’t mind them being taught the basic philosophies, the theory and how things work practically.” Lewis chased him away from reasoning and started off on something else. The interviewer was delighted with every response, he pushed the buttons and Duke said what he thought; nothing could have been easier. When he was taken down the line of welfare Duke said that though he had gone without the odd meal he blamed no one else for that, and expected nothing from anyone either. When he was asked about his privileged position he agreed, “I am privileged. But I don’t feel the least bit guilty about having worked my ass off to make a good living. You just can’t sit around bellyaching because someone got a break and you didn’t.” He had never had any patience or sympathy for people who complained about their lot in life, and it didn’t matter to him what race, creed or religion those people were, “I don’t feel guilty about the fact that five or ten generations ago these people were slaves. Now, I’m not condoning slavery. It’s a fact of life, it happened.”
Lewis had great fun, pushing him, getting a great quote, pushing harder, getting another Wayne pearl of wisdom. He asked about the plight of the Native American, “This may come as a surprise to you, but I wasn’t alive when the reservations were created… what happened a hundred years ago in our country can’t be blamed on us today… what happened between our forefathers is so far back… right, wrong or indifferent… that I don’t see why we owe them anything today.”
And so it went, until Lewis finally asked if he thought America had lost its dignity, if he was gloomy about the future of the country,; Wayne’s answer shocked him. “Absolutely not. I think that the loud roar of irresponsible liberalism will be quieted down by a reasoning public. We built a nation on the past, it can’t have been so bad. We have to look to tomorrow. Tomorrow… the time that gives a man or a country just one more chance… it’s just one of many things that I feel is wonderful about life. As a country, our yesterdays tell us that we have
to win not only at war, but at peace. So far we haven’t done that. Sadly, it looks like we’ll have to win another war, to have a chance at winning peace. All I hope is that in our anxiety to have peace, we remember our clear and present dangers and beware the futility of compromise, only if we keep sight of both will we have a chance of stumbling forward into a day when there won’t be guns fired anymore in anger.”
Lewis was surprised by the unexpected eloquence, it was time to wrap things up, “In retrospect, would you have wanted your life to have been any different?”
“If I had it to do over again, I’d probably do everything I did. But that’s not necessarily the right thing to do.”
“What legacy do you hope to leave behind?”
“Well, you’re going to think I’m being corny, but this is how I really feel. I hope my family and friends will be able to say that I was honest, kind and a fairly decent man.”
There was no mention of image, nor of his films, nor even about how fellow Americans might see him, he was only concerned with friends and family. Again Lewis was surprised because it was so obviously a gut reaction to the question, as all his answers had been… unguarded, open, and very unwise.
When the issue came out shops ran out of copies. Duke’s phone never stopped ringing, with callers either heaping praise on his head or abusing him. He had anticipated the reaction but felt he had been unfairly treated, goaded into making rash answers and not given time to explain himself. Years before he had complained that whenever liberals asked his opinion they shouted him down before he could get two words out of his mouth, he felt the same way now, but Mary said that on the whole he was happy at the public reaction… “Well, at least I still get a reaction. My philosophy became public property some time ago. When you’re in the public eye you’re always on the spot. I try to remember that at all times. There’s nothing I can do to stop it. I’m often forced into a position where I talk… I’m given leading questions that I feel I should answer. After I do it for one reporter, another comes up and says, “You said so-and-so, what did you mean by that?” Pretty quick I’m in trouble and there’s no way out… but I’m not intimidated. Actually, here’s how I felt about it… I got a lot of complimentary letters about the article. Still, I wish they’d deleted some of the words I said in it… you know we were just two men sitting in the den. But they’re right down on paper… nothing I can do now. But before I’d even read it I’d heard they were leaving every word in. My wife called to ask if I’d seen it… I said, “No,” … I waited… then she said it was good… phew, I got off the rough part of it … because she was the only one I was afraid of. The material, what I said, I meant, and I don’t intend to explain or complain. Anyway, people got over it in a hurry… better than I did anyway! I just had to hang on and tough things out.”