Episode 18: JFK - "Seven Days in May"

Seven Days in May  is based on a novel of the same name by Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II. It was published in September of 1962. Kennedy read the novel and encouraged the book's adaptation to film. It details a military coup against a President who's turned to peace and seeks détente with the Soviet Union. Sadly the film wasn't released until February 12, 1964.


⚠️ Spoilers lie ahead!

Links:

https://tubitv.com/movies/100012528/seven-days-in-may

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Days_in_May

https://boundarystones.weta.org/2014/05/13/movie-jfk-wanted-made-didnt-live-see

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_LeMay

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Walker

Need more? You can visit the website at: https://consaracytheories.com/ or my own site at: https://saracausey.com/. Don't forget to check out the blog at: https://consaracytheories.com/blog. 

Transcript

Transcription by Otter.ai.  Please forgive any typos!

Welcome to con-sara-cy theories. Are you ready to ask questions you shouldn't and find information you're not supposed to know? Well, you're in the right place. Here is your host, Sara Causey. 

Hello, Hello, and thanks for tuning in. In tonight's episode, I will be talking about the film Seven Days in May. Spoilers lie ahead, there's no way around it in order for me to talk about the film to review it to place it in its historical context, we will have to get into spoilers. If you have not seen the film already, and you want to please go and watch it first, formulate your own conclusions, get an idea of what you think about it first, and then come back to this episode. As of this recording, it was available to watch free of charge on Tubi, which is how I saw it. But disclaimer again, we know that to be can be a little bit fickle with its movie content. Sometimes films are there for a period of time and then they leave and then they're back and then they leave again so I can't make any promises as to its availability. Nevertheless, wherever you may find it, even if you have to rent it for $1 or two, it's worth your time. crack open a beverage of your choice and we will saddle up and take this ride. A great little snippet summary is provided for us on Wikipedia and I will read from that now. Seven Days in May is a 1964 American political thriller film about a military political cabals planned takeover of the United States government. In reaction to the President's negotiation of a disarmament treaty with the Soviet Union. The film starring Burt Lancaster Kirk Douglas, Frederick March and Ava Gardner, was directed by John Frankenheimer from a screenplay written by Rod Serling. I'm sure that name is familiar to you because of the Twilight Zone, and based on the novel of the same name. So the novel was published in September of 1962, and the film is released on February 12 1964. If you're wondering why I have classified this episode as having a connection to JFK, that's because JFK has a connection to the novel and the film. I will read now from a blog post that's on the weta website. JFK is connection with the film began in the summer of 1962. When syndicated columnist Fletcher Neville sent the president and advanced copy of a novel Seven Days in May, that he co authored with fellow journalist Charles W. Bailey Jr. Neville had been inspired to write the book after he did an interview with US Air Force General Curtis LeMay, in which the military officer went off the record to castigate JFK as cowardly in his handling of the Bay of Pigs crisis. From that thread, Neville and Bailey spun a tale of a right wing military coup, and was a storyline that apparently resonated with JFK in 1961. His Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, even had been compelled to fire US Army General Edwin Walker, from his command in Europe after it was revealed that Walker had been indoctrinating troops with literature from the John Birch Society, which view both JFK and his predecessor Dwight D. Eisenhower as closet communist agents. The President was all too aware of a friend that shared similar views especially after Walker showed up in Mississippi to rally white bigots to oppose James Meredith's enrollment at the University of Mississippi. As Attorney General Robert Kennedy told White House aide Ted Sorensen. Walker was getting them all stirred up. If he hasn't marched down there with guns, we could have a hell of a battle and quote, so JFK reads the book shares it with Bobby and he feels like it would make sense to make it into a movie. I'll read again from this article, as JFK aide Pierre Salinger later told journalist and author David Talbot, Kennedy wanted Seven Days in May to be made as a warning to the generals, the president said the first thing I'm going to tell my successor is don't trust the military man, even on military matters and quote, so there is a connection here. JFK even though we are supposed to believe that he was 24 7365 penis, all he did was sex all the time. You never read anything, he never ate a sandwich, he never took a bath. It was just 24 hour sexcapades. He reads the book, which he was a voracious reader, by the way read newspapers and books all the time. So he reads the book, and he's thinking to himself, a strong impression could be made like this is a plausible scenario that could happen. More people will be in touch with it if it's made into a film. So hence, we get Seven Days in May. However, as we know, JFK doesn't live to see the the final released film, the public reaction to it and all of that. He did actually during filming, leave the White House for a weekend I think and we He went off to Hyannis Port so that the film crew wouldn't have any security obstacles of him being there. They could film the exterior shots of the White House to us in the film. He wanted it to be made. And it makes sense to me in watching the film, understanding the plot and then seeing how plausible something like that could be. Now you have people in modern times that compare Seven Days in May to what happened on the month between December and February of the number between five and seven. I think that's a little bit much that's, I think that's taking it to an extreme. But certainly when we look at the climate in JFK is time, the test ban treaty, the peace beach, and then you have individuals on the other side of the spectrum. They're like, we don't want detente. We don't want this we feel like you're being a coward. We feel like you're being a puss you need to man up and just start dropping bombs. I mean, is it far fetched to think about something like Seven Days in May happening at that point in time? To be honest with you, I don't think it's far fetched at all. So Seven Days in May, opens up with the gate around the White House looking like missiles in the opening credit score. I mean, they're they're drawing a very clear comparison there. We see this unpopular beleaguered President Jordan Lyman, who's played by Frederick March, and his doctor wants him to take a vacation. He's got high blood pressure and stress. Something that I think is interesting is that the the sort of age dynamic is reversed in the film, because you have Frederick March, who's an older man, and then you have Burt Lancaster, playing the general. And he he's a bit younger, sort of like Alright, so the 40 Something guy is the general whereas the older person in this in the movie is the president. So one of Lyman's advisors points out that the economy has been geared towards war for 20 years, and now Lyman wants to slam the brakes on it by calling for peace. People have been hating the Russians, and now everybody is supposed to just dismantle their bombs and live in peace. When he's making the argument. We're not even geared up for such a thing. As Lyman points out in retort, if we keep these weapons, somebody some day is going to use them. And I would argue that Kennedy felt the same way. If we keep making weapons of mass destruction, the day will come where somebody, some madman, some crazy person, some Tyrant is going to finally say The hell with it, the temptation is too strong and hit the button. So General Scott speaks up to say that he's against the treaty and against disarmament. General Scott is the one who's being played by Burt Lancaster looks about 40 something. He's the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Scott is reported to be a composite character of LeMay and Walker, which is very significant here. During the Kennedy administration, General Curtis LeMay is Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force, and it's been reported that he has clashes with Kennedy, he has clashes with Robert McNamara, he has clashes with General Maxwell Taylor of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And if you go to his Wikipedia page, you will see that he allegedly had the nickname of old iron pants, as well as the demon Bombs Away LeMay and the big cigar. So if somebody is referring to you as a demon, and bombs away, le May, I think that sort of gives us a very strong clue that this person was not a dove, but was certainly a hawk. Also bear in mind, from what we just read on weta.org That it was le Mei who went off the record to castigate JFK as being a coward in the way that he handled the Bay of Pigs crisis. There is real tension there between JFK and LeMay.

Edwin Walker was a United States Army Major General who becomes very well known for his right wing, staunch conservative viewpoints. And if you go to his Wikipedia page, we also learned some pretty interesting information there. Walker organized in October 24 1963 un day attack on adeleye Stephenson, American Ambassador to the United Nations in Dallas, I'm going to butt in here for a second because I also plan to do an episode of this flavor on the film executive action. And in that film, they they show the footage of what happens to Adelaide Stevenson when he goes and he's being booed down and people are stopping and he's just like, holy cannoli is what's going on here. And he went back I excuse me, to Kennedy to warn him like I don't think that you should come down here. I don't think the climate is such that it would be safe to come down here based on what just happened to me. Alright, so I continue to read. In mid October 1963, Walker rented the same Dallas Memorial Auditorium in which Stevens who would later speak, he promoted his opposition event as us day and he invited members of the John Birch Society, the National indignation convention, the Minutemen, and other organizations opposed to communism and the United Nations. The verbal attacks on Stevenson were traced to plans organized by Walker and his devotees in the John Birch Society. According to the November issue of the magazine, Texas observer. On November 22, a black bordered advertisement ran in the Dallas Morning News and wanted for treason JFK handbills appeared on the streets. They were traced to Walker and his associate Robert cerie by the Warren Commission. After the Pop Pop, Walker wrote and spoke publicly about his belief there were two pop poppers at the April crime. Oswald and another person who was never found immediately after the Warren Commission released its report in September 1964. Walker described it as a farcical whitewash. Although he accepted the Commission's finding that it had been Oswald who popped Kennedy the previous year, Walker claimed that the commission was attempting to hide some sort of conspiracy that included an association between Jack Ruby and Oswald and quote, so I mean, wow. Wow, to allegedly be behind the protests that happened to adeleye Stephenson, and then to be involved in that one and for treason handbill that goes out the same day that Kennedy is coming to Dallas, which also turns out to be the same day that he was murdered. I mean, clearly, again, you're talking about people in the military industrial complex that are not at all fans of John Kennedy. All right, so we, we have this Colonel Casey, who's played by Kirk Douglas, and he sees a top secret memo about horse racing and betting on Preakness. Apparently, this is a code because of how people are acting about it. You think a run of the mill betting pool in the office? It's like how people nowadays will do March Madness brackets. People are not going to treat it like it's top secret. I mean, maybe as a joke, but not literally at a party. KC meets a Senator who tries to grill him about the treaty. Because remember, in in this Seven Days in May, a similar thing was going on as what happened in real life. Lyman is trying to promote peace and nuclear disarmament with the Soviet Union. Okay, so the Senator is grilling Casey about the treaty and what does he think about it? As that Senator leaves he makes mention that Scott could lead the US out of the mess and there are others on the Hill who would support Scott. Casey is concerned and he drives out to see Scott. He stops in the driveway because he sees that same senator from the party has also gone to Scott's house and his gained entry. Casey gets suspicious and begins piecing together that something odd is going on. Casey is at home watching TV and see Scott at an event the audience cheers we want Scott we want Scott. And the house is packed. He is he's talking to a large, enthusiastic crowd. It gives a passionate, fiery speech. Casey gets into the Oval Office to see the president and he asks about this protocol called EComm. Con. The President says he doesn't know it. And Casey admits that it might stand for something like the emergency communications control. The president says he's never heard of it, nor has he authorized some type of secret installation. At this point case, he spills the beans about training camps and installations around El Paso. And which reminds me of the whole Bay of Pigs fiasco and how they were being trained for that. Casey moorings alignment about a possible military coup. Paul tells the President that EComm Khan is bunk and Casey must just have a big imagination. Paul Girard who's like either an aide or a Chief of Staff is played by Martin Balsam. So he's the one that tells the President that he thinks he calm Khan is just bunk. And Casey must just have a big, vivid imagination. So Casey and Scott have this passive aggressive confrontation. And General Scott tells Casey that he just needs to take a vacation. He's given a three day pass and told to leave immediately. Holbrook may be a concern because she was Scott's mistress. Okay, so at this point, we also learn about Ava Gardner's character she had met Casey at the party and you were sort of wondering how many she fit into all of this because she's really the only predominant female character that's in this movie at all. So we're wondering, well, how does she fit into this? So Ava Gardner plays Eleanor Holbrook and she had been Scott's mistress for some period of time. And based on what she's saying, it sounds like the affair has been over with she hasn't really moved on from it. She still cares about him, but Scott has moved on from her. The senator from the party just seems to be everywhere. It's like, wherever Casey goes about his normal military day to day business. There's this senator from the party line and tell Scott that he's going to skip their red alert meeting, but we'll go fishing instead, because he's just too tired. So this is also part of how Lyman is trying to figure out is this plot real? Whenever Casey came in here and started talking about this secret installation and a secret code called ecom. Con, is it serious? Or does this guy just have a vivid imagination. So in order to play it safe, he's going to cancel this red alert that he was supposed to attend with General Scott, and instead you'll just go fishing. Scott argues with him a little bit, but he doesn't push too hard. And now at this point, we meet a senator Ray Clark, who's prayed played by Edmund O'Brien. And Clark goes to a bar and a woman tells him that they're supposed to be an army base nearby, but they never get any soldiers in the bar, which is weird. Clark figures out that this is sketchy and he asked this lady for some directions on how to get out there. Meanwhile, we have Paul confronting an admiral about the plot, and the admiral denies any involvement in the plot. Casey goes to Holbrooks apartment and remember this is Eleanor Holbrook the ex mistress of Scott. He goes to her apartment seemingly for a date. She tells him that she'll make dinner and tell him the truth, which sounds ominous. She reveals that Scott wrote letters to her that could be incriminating. Holbrook things that Casey was sent by Scott to seduce her and shake her down in order to obtain those letters. Casey, of course, wants the letters but not for Scott. That's the thing that Eleanor doesn't know in the movie she thinks that Scott has sent him but actually Casey wants to get the letters to help linemen and prevent this military coup if in fact, that's what's happening. Lyman believes that if he really had left the White House to go fishing, he could have been abducted by these rogue soldiers. Some some harm could have come to him and his little vacation place. Casey shows surveillance of soldiers doing some recon at the location where Lyman said he was going to to fish. Paul Gerard is killed in a mysterious plane crash, which made me think of dag hammer sholde. In my notes about the film I also wrote this is a shit just got real moment. Ray gets into this mysterious military base. Okay, so Edmond O'Brien is character Ray has driven out to the middle of nowhere to find this mysterious military base. And he gets into it, and one of the soldiers calls Senator Prentice. That's the senator from the party who's just everywhere, just ubiquitous no matter where Casey goes to try to figure out more about this military plot. Is it even real and who's involved, Senator Prentiss is just always there. So we come to believe that Senator Prentice is either a mastermind or is playing a very important role in this array gets locked up at the base like a prisoner and they keep trying to apply and with alcohol, alcohol, they just keep bringing bottle a bottle a bottle of booze. He sees a newspaper story of Paul's death and he too knows that shit just got real. Paul is taken out in a tag hammer sholde kind of way. Now I've written that in my notes too, because whenever you have like weird sketchy plane crash in my mind, that's the first thing I think of Ray tells a soldier at the base about what Casey is doing. The soldier helps ray to escape and then ray makes it back to the White House. Lyman's advisors tell him to fire General Scott and declare martial law. Lyman is concerned that he'll be portrayed as a paranoid crazy if he does something like that.

General Scott is shown in a control room with the ability to cut off all major television broadcasts. lineman believes that the nuclear age is the real enemy not Scott and not the Joint Chiefs of Staff just the nuclear age itself. Lyman even mentions McCarthy and General Walker in his little speech here about it's not really Scott that we're fighting against. It's not the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It's the nuclear age period. The fact that these weapons even exist and countries have them that's the real problem. Lyman and Scott have their take Tay in the White House. Lyman asks for Scott's resignation along with the resignation of others involved in this plot. Scott has used Joint Chiefs of Staff funds to finance his secret military base called econ con. Scott says that Lyman actually approved the plan at a meeting from the Previous November, but apparently he's forgotten about it. Scott accuses lineman of criminal negligence for negotiating a treaty with the Soviets. So now we're starting to get out of the realm of passive aggressive, and hedging language and people are just getting real Scott fields that President Lyman has been criminally negligent for negotiating a treaty with the Soviets. Lyman tells him to run for office if you truly represent what people want. You believe that people think I'm a coward and that aiming for peace is the wrong thing, then run for office and get elected. If you believe you're that popular do it the right way. Well, Scott believes that he would be elected in short order if an election were held, so he might as well just sit in the Oval. In other words, I'm so convinced that I'm what the people want. I'm so convinced that I would be democratically elected anyway. Why don't we just skip the Foofa Aw, and I can just get an office by force. That's freaking scary. He also predicts 100 million dead due to Lyman's quest for peace. Now, this is another theme we will see in the film executive action, the idea that the pursuit of peace is too reckless, you're going to actually kill millions of people by pursuing peace as opposed to pursuing war. wrap your mind around that one. Lyman reminds him that the Soviets would attack if the US had a military coup. If General Scott's military coup were successful, it would be like a giant beacon a giant homing signal. There's trouble in the US. A democratically elected president has been deposed by his own military. We're really behaving like a banana republic. Don't you think that's going to invite trouble? Lyman says that he would keep Scott's resignation quiet. No, no drama, no hassles, just GTFO. Of course, General Scott is not going to go quietly. Both men are convinced they represent what the public truly wants. And Scott, to me seems to enjoy the limelight. He seems to be a TV hog, and an applause hog. Scott decides to hold a press conference to deliver his thoughts to the American public. And Scott believes and nothing else, Lyman will get impeached one way or the other. He's going to get the hell out of the way. So the military can do what it wants to do. Also note, this is a criticism that we hear about JFK, that he had connections to the mafia that he slept around too much. Some of his liaisons with women were irresponsible he was screwing around with with women who maybe could have even been a national security threat. So we're told anyway, allegedly, so he would have just been impeached, if he had gotten elected to a second term, which is, you know, who knows? If that would have even happened? He would have been impeached anyway, and it would have caused a major scandal and everybody in 1960s, America would have been horrified by it. Well, that's general Scott's thinking. Well held up. I'm represent what the public wants, I should just go in the Oval anyway, let's skip the election. Well, hell, you're gonna get impeached. I'm going to drag your name through the mud and make you look like shit for trying to negotiate peace with a rival nation. One way or the other buddy, boy, you're going down? That sounds awfully familiar, doesn't it? So Lyman has his own press conference and a reporter reminds him that his poll numbers are not good. After taking the questions, live and rushes off stage for a few minutes, and he's given a paper of some kind. General Scott and Colonel Casey have an encounter. Scott calls Casey a Judas. Casey intern accuses Scott of being the real Judas. So they have this tense moment there where Scott knows that Casey was a mole who told on him. Lyman announces that he wants to Scott's resignation along with others and this is the public announcement. This isn't the private dressing down that happens in the Oval This is publicly Lyman has the confession of one of the conspirators. Now he has better proof of general Scott's complicity in it. Scott wants to have his own press conference but the network's aren't interested. Casey returns the stolen love letters to Eleanor and tells her that he never needed to use them. That was the backup plan. Had they not been able to expose what was going on without this signed confession of one of the conspirators about what his role was what Scott was doing, et cetera. They would have resorted to blackmail they would have released these compromising letters that Scott had written to his mistress, which I think is interesting because some of the same people who want to take Kennedy's inventory for his sex life, RP People that I am sure if we were to take inventory with them. They weren't monks. They weren't cloistered away somewhere, reading the Bible leading a virginal lifestyle going to bed at 8pm. I mean, give me a break. So at the end of this conference, Lyman reaffirms his desire for peace, and the press corps applauds him, and at least in Seven Days in May we get a happy ending, in real life, not so much. I leave you to decide for yourself, what you think of the Pop Pop Kennedy's legacy. What would he have done? As I've said publicly, before, I've written and been interviewed publicly before about this, I think, given the opportunities, he had to hit the nuclear button, given the opportunities, he had to escalate conflicts, to escalate turmoil, and then he didn't do those things. I'm not convinced that he would have been a war hawk that would have sent all of these troops to Vietnam. That would have escalated tensions with Khrushchev that would have Pop Pop Castro. I think effort was being made, which is more than what we can say for the Warhawks that we get nowadays, at least effort was being made for it's trying for detente, trying for economic improvement, trying to not let big business and its interests run roughshod over everybody. We see evidence of that, in what happened with the steel companies, hey, the workers at the Union, were willing to take less and make a sacrifice here. And then you bastards in the executive team decided we're gonna raise prices anyway. And commandeer the profits. What the fuck guys mean? Pretty much if you listen to that press conference, that's what he's saying. This was a double cross. And I'm gonna tell the public about it. Because what the fuck? I just, yeah, I'm not convinced that we have anything like that in modern times. The movie is good. It's interesting. It's scary to think about how close we could have come to something like that happening. Could it still happen today? There's no reason for it to happen today. People can say what they want to about the event that happened on the sixth today. But there's no need. There's no need for a military coup. Because whoever is in office is going to do the bidding of the military industrial complex anyway. So what would be the point A coup to accomplish? What? It's silly, I think about how Bill Hicks would always talk about his idea that when a president gets elected, they're put in a dark room by whatever industrialists, help them to get elected anyway. And then get sat down in front of a film projector that shows an angle of the JFK pop pop that nobody's ever seen before. It makes it clear exactly what happened to him. And then they're told Do you have any questions? Because this can be you. We own you now. Bill Hicks would also talk about how the President usually goes in looking youthful and fairly vital. And then by the time he gets spit out, he looks like he's aged 100 years. A military coup for one there were there was no reason for it. They're gonna own that person's ass. That's how it is nowadays. Long, deep, heavy sigh. What a world. So I recommend Seven Days in May, especially if you can if it's still available on TV. You can watch it for free. You have no excuse not to check it out. Stay a little bit crazy. And I will see you in the next episode.

Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to this podcast and share it with others.