Subverting the Cold War in the 1960s: Dr. Strangelove, The Manchurian Candidate, and The Planet of the Apes

Kirshner | Subverting the Cold War in the 1960s: Dr. Strangelove, The Manchurian Candidate, and The Planet of the Apes Subverting the Cold War in the 1960s: Dr. Strangelove, The Manchurian Candidate, and The Planet of the Apes Jonathan Kirshner Cornell University The election ofJohn F. Kennedy in 1960 was, in retrospect, a crucial inflection point in the trajectory ofthe Cold War. Certainly the ideology of anti-communism pervaded American life in the 1950s. But after the hysteria of its first half-decade, the practical conduct ofthe superpower conflict became routinized during the cautious and conservative Eisenhower administration . Kennedy, however, had campaigned against American complacency , and even weakness in the shadow ofthe Soviet threat. Additionally , as difficult as it is to conceptualize today, the Soviet Union was at this time viewed as an economic success story, with international assertiveness to come on the heels of its material achievements. The first two years of the Kennedy Administration were characterized by ubiquitous superpower confrontation , culminating in the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, at which time Kennedy estimated that the chance of nuclear war was better than one in three. ' The second half of the decade witnessed the Vietnam War, an instrumental and perhaps inevitable outgrowth of the Cold War. The war not only became the principal outlet ofthe larger conflict, but also over time reshaped the nature of Cold War scholarship. In the 1950s, the Cold War was unquestionably attributed to the Soviet Union and its communist ideology. By the early 1970s, a thriving "revisionist" school now blamed the United States and the imperative of capitalist expansion. In the midst of all this, three remarkable films, The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Dr. Strangelove (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb) (1964), and Planet ofthe Apes (1968), subverted the ColdWar. They "subverted" the war in two ways. First they challenged the fundamental ideological tenets upon which U.S. policy was based. This was quite daring , especially for the first two films, made at a time when anticommunism pervaded American society, and people could still The Manchurian Candidate (The Manchurian Candidate) get in trouble by saying the wrong thing.2 But more profoundly, these films subverted the very idea of the Cold War itself. Rather than switching , as much scholarship did, from an ideological position that blamed the USSR to one that accused the US, these politically charged films were ultimately a-political statements. They did not take sides, but instead ridiculed both and trivialized their conflict, asserting that the differences between them were meaningless . Left or Right? The Manchurian Candidate, directed by John Frankenheimer and written by GeorgeAxelrod (from the novel by Richard Condon), is the most explicit in equating the far left with the far right. The principal villain , portrayed by Angela Lansbury, is the puppet masterbehind her second husband, Senator Johnny Islen, a drunken, vacuous McCarthy stand-in. In one ofthe film's most chilling (and prescient) images, Islen attacks the Secretary of Defense at a press conference, while Lansbury, in the background of the room, dominates the screen as she towers over a television monitor that captures the unfolding action.3 Lansbury also dominates her son from a previous marriage , Raymond Shaw, who has just returned from Korea to a hero's welcome. Shaw received the Congressional Medal of Honor for saving his patrol, but in fact his heroism is an illusion created by the Chinese and Russians who captured and brainwashed his entire squad. Shaw has been programmed as the perfect assassin, and after a few bloody tests ofhis skills back in the States, he is turned over to his American handler. In the film's most stunning twist, Raymond's American handler turns out to be none other than his mother. She has arranged to secure the vice-presidential nomination for Islen, and has instructed Raymond to kill the presidential nominee as 40 I Film & History Jonathan Kirshner | Special In-Depth Section he addresses the party convention at Madison Square Garden. Islen, the ultimate anti-Communist, will then be swept into office , leaving his wife, a Soviet agent, running the show. These plans come undone as Raymond's commanding officer (portrayed by Frank Sinatra), haunted...