In Secrecy's Shadow
The OSS and CIA in Hollywood Cinema 1941-1979
During the Second World War hundreds of Hollywood filmmakers under the command of the legendary director John Ford enlisted in the OSS to produce training, reconnaissance and propaganda films. This wartime bond continued into the post-war period, when a number of studios produced films advocating the creation of a permanent peacetime successor to the OSS: what became the Central Intelligence Agency. By the 1960s however, Hollywood's increasingly irreverent attitude towards the CIA reflected a growing public anxiety about excessive US government secrecy.
In Secrecy's Shadow provides the first comprehensive history of the birth and development of Hollywood's relationship with American intelligence. It takes an interdisciplinary approach, synthesizing literatures and methodologies from diplomatic history, film studies and cultural theory, and it presents new perspectives on a number of major filmmakers including Darryl F. Zanuck, Alfred Hitchcock and John Ford.
Based on research conducted in over 20 archival repositories across the United States and UK, In Secrecy's Shadow explores the revolution in the relationship between Hollywood and the secret state, from unwavering trust and cooperation to extreme scepticism and paranoia, and demonstrates the debilitating effects of secrecy upon public trust in government and the stability of national memory.
Chapter 1: The Facts of War: Cinematic Intelligence and the Office of Strategic Services
- John Ford’s Navy
- Weaponising Cinema
- Hollywood’s Intelligence Archive
- Wild Bill Donovan and the Origins of the OSS Field Photographic Unit
- December 7th: Scripting an Intelligence Failure
- Zanuck, Ford and the Filming of the North African Invasion
- The Authority of Cinema at the Nuremberg Trials
Chapter 2: ‘What is Past is Prologue’: Hollywood’s History of the OSS and the Establishment of the CIA
- Hollywood Enlists in General Donovan’s Campaign for a Permanent Peacetime Intelligence Agency
- O.S.S. (1946)
- Cloak and Dagger (1946)
- 13 Rue Madeleine (1947)
Chapter 3: Quiet Americans: The CIA and Hollywood in the Early Cold War
- Cherishing Anonymity: Hollywood and the CIA in the Early Cold War
- Dangerous Liaisons: The CIA in Hollywood
- Joseph Mankiewicz’s The Quiet American (1958)
- Figaro Entertainment’s Unmade CIA Semi-Documentary TV Series
Chapter 4: The Death of the ‘Big Lie’ and the Emergance of Postmodern Incredulity in the Spy Cinema of the 1960s
- Our Man in Havana and the Origins of Cold War Satire
- North by Northwest
Chapter 5: Secrecy, Conspiracy, Cinema and the CIA in the 1970s
- Scorpio
Written in an incisive and accessible style, In Secrecy’s Shadow is a welcome addition to the growing literature on Cold War cinema. As Willmetts observes, while the CIA’s engagement in the cultural Cold War through music, literature, and the visual arts has been well documented, its relationship with Hollywood has received far less attention. In Secrecy’s Shadow is also notable for its adept synthesis of scholarship and archival research from academic fields that include intelligence and diplomacy as well as cultural and film studies. This broadly interdisciplinary approach results in a nuanced understanding of the "complex interrelationship between fact and fiction" (16) that has shaped the CIA’s place and meaning in American society.'
Willmetts advances an overarching interpretation of the interaction between intelligence, secrecy and culture, and in doing so challenges some senior figures in the historiography of his field. Well researched… rigorously organized… In Secrecy’s Shadow is a courageous and substantial contribution to intelligence studies.'
Willmetts is a fine writer who deftly blends archival work, textual analysis, and his larger arguments.
In Secrecy’s Shadow provides readers with a comprehensive, nuanced and insightful picture of the CIA both in and on film from the 1940s to the 1970s. Libraries should certainly acquire the text, as its prose is highly readable, its information rich and its subject matter important to understandings of intelligence, propaganda and cinematic history.'
