Failing Marks: Hollywood as History Teacher

As an Emmy-winning nonfiction writer and tenured California State University communications professor whose research about the Cuban missile crisis drew from my interviews with Bobby Kennedy, Ted Sorensen, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Roger Hilsman, Allen Dulles, Barry Goldwater and others, I applaud Richard Reeves’ attempt to set the record straight about the abominable canonization of Kevin Costner’s Kenny O’Donnell in “Thirteen Days” (“Call ‘Days’ What You Will, but It’s Not Quite History,” Jan. 16).

But I weep with the knowledge that all such attempts are doomed in view of Hollywood’s unique power to fashion fictional history for fun, profit and propaganda. And I dream of the day that my fellow members of the Writers Guild of America will vote to strike, not for personal gain, but to gain the freedom to write the truth about the record of humanity’s once and future follies.

MARK DAVIDSON

Pasadena

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Reeves missed one inaccuracy.

Newspaper ads for the movie show fighter pilots dashing toward F-15 fighters (or perhaps F-14s). Neither fighter was flying until the early 1970s.

BILL SEIBEL

La Verne

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I want to thank you for Reeves’ article explaining the historical inaccuracies in “Thirteen Days.” On the heels of similar reports on the inaccuracies in “Erin Brockovich” and “The Hurricane,” I want to thank The Times for making clear to me the fact that movies aren’t real. Before, I never could really tell. So I have a couple of questions I was hoping could be cleared up:

(1) In World War II, was there really an archeology professor who single-handedly took out whole platoons of Nazis while looking for lost treasure? (“Raiders of the Lost Ark”)

(2) Was New York City really almost destroyed by a mutated iguana? (“Godzilla”)

(3) How long did it take them to repair the White House after it was blown up in “Independence Day”? I was busy hiding in my alien-invasion/bomb shelter and missed out on that news.

It’s nice to know that I don’t have to believe everything I see in a film. Now I will start telling my kids to read their history books and not rely on movies for their knowledge. But I’d still like to get one of those light sabers. Do you know who sells them?

HOUSTON MITCHELL

San Dimas

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“Thirteen Days” is one of the best films I have ever seen, but some facts should be pointed out. In it, a Navy pilot is asked by the White House to lie to his superiors to achieve a greater good, which is a liberal (Kennedy) position, as opposed to a conservative (military) position. This lie is OK by Hollywood standards. Fine.

However, when Lt. Col. Oliver North lied to achieve a greater good, which was a conservative position (funding anti-communist activities in the 1980s) vs. a liberal position (to not oppose Central American communism), he was excoriated by the dominant media culture.

STEVEN TRAVERS

Hermosa Beach