JOHN FORD EXHIBIT AT CIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-01448R000401980001-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 22, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: February 26, 1995
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/22 :CIA-RDP99-014488000401980001-6
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PUBLIC AFFAIRS STAFF
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Washington, D.C.
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All Things Considered arlr
February 26, 1995 5:00 PM w
John Ford Exhibit at CIA
JACKIE LYDON: The film director John Ford was born 100 years
ago this month. Most o! ue know him as the master craftsman o!
American Wasterna, with either John Wayne or Harry Fonda playing
the hero, as in the 1946 film "My Darling Clementine."
[Clip of dialogue from "Myi Darling Clementine"]
LYDON: But Ford, perhaps the most influential director aver
to coma out of Hollywood and certainly one o! the most award-
winning, had a lessor-known side ac a master craftsman o! oscar-
winning espionage.
A new exhibit has just opened on his work, but you won't gat
to sa? it because it's at the CIA, at its massive gray complex in
Langley, Virginia, behind two security checkpoints. Four of Ford's
golden Oscars stand is a little glasla case theta. ThQ CIA wanted
to honor Ford for his time with the Ottice for Strategic Bervices,
or OSB, the CIA's precursor in World War II.
As head of the OS3 film/photographic team, Ford invented
aerial camera techniques and combined stock footage with new film
to make what might today ba called docudrama. Tha Navy had asked
Ford for help alter Pearl Harbor.
LINDA MCCARTHY: John Ford took them at their word when they
told him, "We wa Nt you to do an accurate portrayal o! what happened
at Pearl Harbor. And, of course, there ware some recriminations
back and forth: Why did it happen? And John Ford explained on
film some or the situations that lad up to pearl Harbor. And that'
weren't particularly flattering, to be perfectly candid. And that
was deemed a little too accusatory for that era.
CONTINUED
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Z
so, what they did do was shorten the film down to 34 minutes
and show it in defense plants a? kind o! a morals-booster,
patriotic type thing. And it worked will.
LYDONr Amorals-booster? Pearl Harbor?
MCCARTHY: Mmm-hmm. Go qst ~e1q. That sort of thing. You
know. Turn the cheeks on gem hers.
they call him right aft r the bombing and esay ~ ~ Coma a arbor? Did
damage," or what? nd view the
1~tCCARTHY: what hs did was take official
that was shut and then intsrspers? it with miniaturemsetupsohe~d
dons in a Hollywood film studio. So ha kind of blended the two and
created that genre that you see vary -- a lot of today. lie was
kind of a pioneer in that. So that~s what he did.
JOHN FORD [narrating film]z on they came, wave attar wave,
boldly, fearlessly. They had little to tear. They knew that our
task forces were at sea and they ]chew their disposition.
LYDON: Legs step back a minute hats in terms o! where we
are. Moet of us think of John Ford, of course, as the director of
"Th? Searchers" and "The Quiet KanN and the Westerns that ha built
into an American institution. How did ha get started with the
Office of Strategic Services?
MCCARTHY: The man who headed it, William J. Donovan, was a
phenomenal creature in and of himself, and ha had this particular
magnetism where he could draw the likes of a John Ford or the
baseball player Moe Hang or avers Julia Child, the French Chsf . Sha
worked for OSS. He had this magnetism that these people would
follow him to hell and back because they knew he had a perfectly
good, logical reason that would pay off in the end it they did so.
LYDON: The baseball player Moe Herg spied in Europ? for the
OSS. Chef Julia Child worked as a clerk.
John Fords missive had a double purpose: survaillanca and
deception. He mounted enormous film cameras, the Mitchells, in thQ
belly of Allied aircraft and took surveillance fi]aa. Hut it was
also deception. Hs was making aerial sweeps of the Normandy
coastline at places the allies were not planning to land. Ford~a
crew nicknamed their airborne film technique ippy-dippy
intelligence.
MCCARTHY: Thss? are people that had been making Westerns over
in Hollywood, all of a sudden were providing aerial data that led
to things like Operation Overlord, the invasion of Normandy. And
the other thing he did was document the actual process of the invasion.
CONTINUED
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Donovan knew, Roosevelt knew this was a historic moment. It
was the largest armada ever put together of its kind in history and
it probably will never be matched, to its likes, again. And they
wanted it documented. So Ford and his film/photographics shot most
of the U.S. Government film that you sea as reflecting D-Day.
LYDON: Do we have any pictures of the films he took, any
frames?
MCCARTHY: Thies is a sweep that was don? of the Normandy
coastline on the 19th of May, 1944. And, of course, D-Day was June
6th, 1944. So they're doing the sweeps. Not only is he sir vinq
as a diversion, but you see that is an actual picture. And what
you have there is a picture of Hitler's Atlantic Wall, the
barriers. The sticks right there with the gi2mos on top are
actually mines. And this is something crucial. Zf you're goin to
send man in boats aboard there, you need to know what's there.q So
they used that to say, ?Okay. Maybe we don't want to actually put
them right there. We'll put them a little further south."
LYDON: So we've got posts marking minas in the Atlantic
Ocean...
MCCARTHY: Mmm-hmm.
LYDON: ...ofr the beach of the Normandy coastline.
MCCARTHYs Exactly. And I dare say that there would have been
a lot more casualties if they hadn't done this sort o! thing. And
they knew that.
LYDON: How do you feel about the fact that only a few people
can see the material that you've assembled? It's a restricted
viewing.
MCCARTHY: That does sadden me, as a student of history and
someone who enjoys these personalities for what th?y are. Sut I
must say, I whipped around here from cleaning a case just to be
able to talk to you in hopes that ~ could share it with a bigger
audience. So, while I have to be selfish out of security
constraints, I try very hard to share it when I can.
LYDON: Well, Linda McCarthy, thank you very, very much.
MCCARTHY: It was my pleasure.
You folks read about John Ford. He's a fascinating fellow.
FORD [narrating lilm]: At x:55 A.M., hell broke loose, man-
made hull, made in Japan.
CONTINUED
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LYDON: Though the CiA exhibit isn't o
Ford's Oscar-wiru~inq 033 lflm, "December 7th, ~' pe-as released inlite
original form on videocassette last year. The full-
been banned by the Navy as a security risk for SO years film had
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/22 :CIA-RDP99-014488000401980001-6
 Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/22 :CIA-RDP99-014488000401980001-6 P 1
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Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/22 :CIA-RDP99-014488000401980001-6