10. Reprinted in Gettleman et al., Vietnam and America, 310–318.
11. The scripts of May 13 and June 3, 1966, are in the Gene Roddenberry Collection, Arts Library/Special Collection, UCLA; I examined them while they were on loan to the National Air and Space Museum in 1991 to 1992. The June 3 script is reprinted in Harlan Ellison, Harlan Ellison’s The City on the Edge of Forever: The Original Teleplay That Became the Classic Star Trek Episode (Clarkston, GA: White Wolf Publishing, 1996), which includes a thirty-thousand-word denunciation of Roddenberry by Ellison, two earlier treatments, and afterwords by eight of the participants involved in rewriting, producing, and staging the episode.
12. Interview with Robert Justman, February 26, 1992.
13. “Excerpts from Talk by Westmoreland,” New York Times, November 22, 1967.
14. Hanson W. Baldwin, “Vietnam Report: Foe Seeks to Sway U.S. Public,” New York Times, December 26, 1967; Hanson W. Baldwin, “Vietnam Report: The Foe Is Hurt,” New York Times, December 27, 1967; Hanson W. Baldwin, “Report on Vietnam: Sanctuaries Viewed as a Major War Factor,” New York Times, December 28, 1967; and James Reston, Editorial, New York Times, November 22, 1967.
15. Quoted in Worland, “From the New Frontier to the Final Frontier,” 33. Worland analyzes in detail these letters, which he examined in the Gene Roddenberry Collection, Box 18, Folder 2, “A Private Little War,” UCLA Theater Arts Library.
16. Quoted in Worland, “From the New Frontier to the Final Frontier,” 33.
17. Rick Worland, “Captain Kirk: Cold Warrior,” Journal of Popular Film and Television 16 (Fall 1988): 109–117. My own analysis owes a considerable debt to Worland’s insightful essay.
18. These ads are reproduced and discussed in H. Bruce Franklin, Vietnam and Other American Fantasies (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2000), 151–154.
19. “3 Negroes Killed in New Miami Riot; Policemen Battle Snipers—Troops Hold 100 Blocks Amid Looting and Fires,” New York Times, August 9, 1968.
20. Nixon Speaks Out: Major Speeches and Statements by Richard Nixon in the Presidential Campaign of 1968 (New York: Nixon-Agnew Campaign Committee, 1968), 235.
Chapter 7
You’re Doing It Wrong
Cause and Effect in Star Trek’s Histories
Michael Lewis
Spock: Captain, I never will understand humans. How could a historian as brilliant, a mind as logical as John Gill’s, have made such a fatal error?
Kirk: He drew the wrong conclusion from history.
—TOS, “Patterns of Force”
This exchange occurs at the end of “Patterns of Force,” one of several original series episodes that discuss how historical events create and shape social change. Ironically, Star Trek writers could have been charged with the same error, since the original Star Trek’s historical episodes often ignore the complex social causes that bring about social change. In their place, the show’s writers often substituted the conscious choices of an individual or a small group of actors. This chapter explores episodes from the original series that were modeled on developments from Earth’s history and compares social change on these “strange new worlds” with those on Earth. My intention is not to nitpick or dwell on every inaccurate historical detail and to take the fun out of viewing the series. Instead, this chapter will explore Star Trek’s explanations of social change to see if its writers made the same mistake that Kirk accuses John Gill of: drawing the wrong conclusions from history.
Gangsters in Space
In the episode “A Piece of the Action,” the writers of the original series imagined a social world modeled on 1920s Chicago gangsters. “A Piece of the Action” is the first episode in which we see a pattern of simplifying social change.
The episode opens with the arrival of the Enterprise on Sigma Iotia II in order to assess and to rectify the effects of a possible “contamination” left by contact with the USS Horizon one hundred years earlier. Although the Enterprise has no direct evidence that the Horizon’s visit interfered with the normal evolution of the planet, Spock notes that “reports indicate the Iotians are intelligent and extremely imitative,” making it possible that the Horizon crew could have had such an effect (TOS, “A Piece of the Action”).
Relying on reports that show the Iotians to be at the beginnings of industrialization, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are surprised to beam down to a planet in which technology, dress, and speech patterns resemble those of the gangsters in 1920s Chicago. More disturbing, every man carries an early-twentieth-century-style firearm, and open warfare between groups, called “hits” by the Iotians, seems all too common.
Upon arriving at the office of the “boss” Bela Okmyx, the landing party soon finds the source of the contamination: a book titled Chicago Mobs of the Twenties left by a crewmember from the Horizon one hundred years before. Spock and McCoy quickly realize that Iotian society is based on an imitation of this book; Spock calls it “the blueprint for their entire society,” while McCoy refers to the book as “their Bible.” The effects of the Iotians’ imitation of gangster life are also readily apparent: a breakdown of law and order, a lack of basic social services, and a moral code based on the maxim “someone hits you, you hit them back.”
Finding no solution to the Iotian dilemma in the Enterprise sociological database, Kirk plays a hunch—he will assume the role of a gangster and unify the planet, with the Federation being the head mob boss. After Scotty beams all of the Iotian bosses into one room, Kirk explains that he is cutting the Federation in for 40 percent, and he tells the bosses they need to work together to produce more wealth for the Iotian society and its new boss, the Federation. When the bosses question the Federation’s power, Kirk has Scotty do a phaser blast of the area around the building where they are meeting, temporarily stunning many of the gangsters. Impressed with this display of force, the bosses agree to the Federation’s terms, and the Enterprise leaves, another mission accomplished.
This episode is an excellent example of Star Trek’s causal view of social change—the assumption that broad changes can result from one single cause. The Iotians were peaceful before the Horizon arrived and left the book on Chicago’s mobs; after this event, Iotian society changed to resemble 1920s-style Chicago. No other reason is given for the Iotians’ behavior; thus it’s assumed that had it not been for the book, Sigma Iotia II would have developed differently.
The rise of real Chicago mobs, however, was not caused by a book. Instead, the growth of organized crime in Chicago (and across the United States) can be attributed primarily to the Eighteenth Amendment banning the sale and manufacture of alcohol in 1919, which introduced the period known as Prohibition. What this amendment could not control, of course, was the continued desire of U.S. citizens to drink, and organized crime syndicates made enormous amounts of money supplying Americans with illegal liquor. As these gangs developed, they faced two potential threats: U.S. government agents charged with enforcing Prohibition laws and competing gangster organizations that waged wars to defend or expand the territory in which they would be the lone supplier of alcohol.1
On Sigma Iotia II, no such reason for gang violence exists. Since alcohol is not illegal, there is no compelling reason for the various gangs to be at war with one another. Further, there is no government on Sigma Iotia II, as Kirk finds out when he questions Okmyx about who is in charge. “What government?” Okmyx replies. “I’ve got the territory and I run it.” This is also the case for a dozen or so other bosses with their territories. Not only does this have no parallel to the real 1920s Chicago, it also removes another reason for the extreme force used by the gangsters in Iotian society. In 1920s Chicago, gangsters directed violence toward the government forces that were attempting to shut down the trade in illegal liquor (as well as other vices). Without this, it is hard to fathom why the Iotians would need quite so much firepower.
The writers of this episode weren’t implying that this was an accurate reflection of human history; probably no human gr
oup that draws its inspiration for how to live from a book has ever followed it as faithfully as the Iotians did. Still, “A Piece of the Action” fits nicely within a pattern seen across several of Star Trek’s historical episodes, in which the complex histories of cause and effect are overlooked in favor of explanations that rely on individual actions or random chance.
The Accidental Time Travelers
Along similar lines, the classic episode “City on the Edge of Forever” hypothesizes that one person can change a major event in history, in this case America’s entry into World War II. This episode finds the Enterprise investigating a temporal disturbance centered on a nearby planet. During the course of these investigations, Lt. Sulu is caught in a console explosion, and when Dr. McCoy attempts to awaken him, another disturbance shakes the Enterprise, causing McCoy to inject himself accidentally with an overdose of cordrazine and to become violently paranoid. A delusional McCoy then escapes from the ship and beams down to the planet. The landing party, following McCoy down to the planet, soon finds the source of the time distortions, an ancient ring of glowing stones that identifies itself as the “Guardian of Forever,” a doorway to any time and place. The trouble really begins when McCoy breaks free, jumps through the portal, and vanishes, forcing Kirk and Spock to go after him and back in time to Depression-era New York.
There they meet Edith Keeler, a social worker at the 21st Street mission house where Kirk and Spock take up residence. Edith has also found McCoy and is nursing him back to health in another part of the mission, unbeknownst to Kirk and Spock. Although they are unable to find McCoy, Kirk and Spock make another discovery; their presence at this moment will potentially alter Earth history. If Edith does not die, she will go on to form a pacifist movement whose influence would delay the entry of the United States into World War II; this delay would gave Nazi Germany time to develop an atomic bomb and ultimately to conquer the world. Although Kirk has growing feelings for Edith, he realizes that she must die in order for the “proper” timeline to be secured.
The next evening, as Kirk and Edith are walking to the theater to see a Clark Gable movie, Kirk remarks that he does not recognize who Clark Gable is. Edith replies that “Doctor McCoy does not either.” As Kirk goes to tell Spock that he has found McCoy, McCoy emerges from the mission. A surprised Edith crosses the street to join them, but she fails to notice a truck approaching. Kirk instinctively moves to save her, but he freezes when Spock cries, “No, Jim!” McCoy then tries to save Edith but Kirk holds him back; the truck hits Edith and she is killed. A shocked McCoy exclaims, “I could have saved her . . . do you know what you just did?” Spock replies, “He knows, Doctor. He knows” (TOS, “City on the Edge of Forever”).
Unlike “A Piece of the Action,” which can be dismissed as entirely fanciful, “City on the Edge of Forever” is rooted in a more plausible contention—that one individual leading a social movement could ultimately reshape world events—in this instance delaying U.S. entry into World War II. This is more plausible because history often shows us examples of one individual leading a social movement that brings about great social change; for example, Martin Luther King or Mohandas Gandhi. It’s also true that some Americans, most notably Charles Lindbergh, were wary of getting involved in Europe’s affairs in the years leading up to World War II. If we want to determine whether Star Trek’s writers got this history right, the question to answer here is whether such a social movement had the ability to prevent the United States from getting involved in World War II. Let’s have a look at the events leading up to America’s involvement in that conflict.
Historians point out that the United States, despite its formal position of neutrality, was moving away from isolationism long before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. In September 1940, the U.S. government both reinstated the draft, requiring the registration of all men between twenty-one and thirty-five years of age, and transferred fifty old destroyers to Britain in exchange for the use of eight British Atlantic bases. By November 1940, the United States agreed to lend further military equipment to Britain. Although President Franklin Roosevelt claimed these measures would ensure that U.S. soldiers would not have to fight the Nazis directly, this deal decisively aligned the United States with the Allies in the European conflict. This pro-British stance was confirmed with the Atlantic Charter in August 1941, in which Roosevelt and Winston Churchill coordinated war aims, dedicated themselves to the policy of self-determination for Nazi-occupied Europe, and condemned Nazism.
Roosevelt’s support for Great Britain was, in turn, supported by the U.S. public. According to Gallup polls conducted between October 24 and 29, 1941, 64 percent of Americans agreed that “the United States should take steps now to prevent Japan from becoming more powerful, even if this means risking a war with Japan.”2 One month later, in response to the question “Which of these two things do you think is more important—that this country keep out of war or that Germany be defeated?” 68 percent of respondents answered “defeat Germany.”3
To be fair to Star Trek’s writers, it is unclear how many men and materials U.S. citizens would have been willing to commit in pursuit of these goals; therefore, one could plausibly maintain that a strong advocate of nonintervention might have slowed America’s entry into the war, at least until Pearl Harbor. Similar to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Pearl Harbor galvanized America’s determination to strike back at the perpetrators. Japanese Americans and sympathizers were rounded up and put into internment camps along the West Coast, and an air of suspicion surrounded anyone who was not willing to fight to protect the country.4
Let’s consider Edith Keeler against this backdrop: she was not a famous person, just a social worker who ran a flophouse in New York, and she had no national campaign to help her. If someone as influential as Charles Lindbergh couldn’t make headway against the rising tide of the war sentiment, what kind of impact could a virtually unknown social worker have?
The Historian’s Folly
As in the other two episodes discussed in this chapter, “Patterns of Force” shows us an entire society changing as a result of the actions of one man. The man in this instance is John Gill, Kirk’s former history professor, who had traveled to the planet Ekos as a cultural observer. At the beginning of “Patterns of Force” we learn that Gill has not been heard from in several years, and the Enterprise has been dispatched to ensure Gill’s safety. Approaching Ekos, the Enterprise is attacked by a rocket equipped with a nuclear warhead, technology that is supposed to be beyond the capability of the Ekosians. Fearing that Gill’s mission has been compromised and that the Prime Directive has been violated, Kirk and Spock beam down to Ekos, where they find a culture almost identical to that of Nazi Germany, down to the uniforms, the salutes, the hatred of the neighboring planet Zeon, and the concept of the Führer: Gill himself.
When they attempt to meet with Gill, Kirk and Spock are arrested and jailed. After their escape, they ally themselves with members of the Zeon underground and, posing as Nazi soldiers, infiltrate Nazi Party headquarters. Eluding the guards, the landing party finally finds Gill, heavily drugged and essentially a puppet ruler who is controlled by a subordinate, Melakon. Partly revived by McCoy, Gill reveals what happened: Gill took matters into his own hands on Ekos, which was in a state of anarchy. He organized the planet by using the efficiency of the Nazi system but tried to prevent it from sliding into sadism; however, Melakon began a takeover and drugged Gill. As a revived Gill delivers a speech halting the persecution of Zeon, he is shot by Melakon, who in turn is shot by members of the underground resistance, thus freeing the Ekosians from Nazi rule and ideology, offering the two planets a chance at peaceful coexistence (TOS, “Patterns of Force”).
Unlike “A Piece of the Action” and “City on the Edge of Forever,” which we might dismiss as being historically unlikely, it’s more than a little tempting to treat “Patterns of Force” as something that comes closer to the historical truth about Nazi Germany, since historians generally
agree that Adolf Hitler’s personal magnetism and powerful speaking skills were important factors in the Nazis’ rise to power. Where Star Trek’s writers get history wrong in this episode is their stress on a powerful leader being the only cause of Nazism and the Holocaust: the historical record clearly demonstrates the importance of other factors as well.
The Rise of the Nazis
The National Socialist Party was founded in 1919, fourteen years before they actually came to power. Hitler soon became known for his magnetic speeches, and the party’s leaders developed a strong infrastructure during the 1920s, including solid precinct work and polling to predict which slogans or themes resonated with voters. Despite this, the Nazis’ attempted takeover of the Bavarian government in 1923 failed and, even as late as 1928, less than 3 percent of German voters supported the Nazi Party in national elections.
What changed the fortunes of the Nazi Party was the worldwide economic depression following the 1929 American stock market crash, a calamity that more than tripled the German unemployment rate, from 1.25 million in 1929 to roughly four million by the end of 1930. As the German economy worsened, Nazi Party fortunes improved; beginning with only twelve seats in the Reichstag (German Parliament) in 1928, the Nazis’ total rose to 107 seats in the September 1930 elections and jumped to 230 seats by July 1932. Once on the doorstep of a parliamentary majority, the Nazis forced the Reichstag to pass an extraconstitutional “Enabling Act,” supplemented by illegal methods (arrests and intimidation of political opponents) to install Hitler as the nation’s chancellor. These methods were possible, however, only because of economic factors quite beyond the control of Hitler and the Nazis, factors the Star Trek writers ignore when creating the Nazi state on Ekos.5
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