Truth Vs. Fiction

And so we come to the meat of the blog. Is the movie Good Night and Good Luck historically accurate? Well the short is answer is yes. Using script from the original footage of See it Now,  which in turn used McCarthys own words, the movie is incredibly accurate when it comes to the nuts and bolts of the situation. They got their facts straight. But what about the little things? While watching the movie, we came up with a list of questions that we believe the movie may present the answers to in a misleading or outright false manner. Mostly small things, bu there were a few examples of framing that were fairly surprising. Lets dive right into those questions.

It appears from the movie that almost immediately after Murrow's show on McCarthy is shown, Radulavich is reinstated. Was it really that quick?

It indeed appears that shortly after Murrow’s scoop on Radulovich’s situation with the Air Force, Rodulavich was reinstated. “The program outlined the elements of the case, casting doubt on the Air Force’s decision, and within a short while, Milo Radulovich had been reinstated.” (This Reporter)

However, what does “a short while” mean? After doing some research about the site above, it appears that some false information was given regarding Radulovich’s story. For example, this source states that Radulovich’s mother and sister were accused of being involved with communists. “Radulovich had been discharged from the Air Force on the grounds that his mother and sister were communist sympathizers.” This is not true. In fact, it was Radulovich’s father and sister who were involved. (Martin)

This is rather amusing, as it appears that in this case, Hollywood was more accurate then some other sources one could look to. It took some time but in the end we found a reliable source of information for this question.

So how long did it really take for Radulovich to get reinstated. Put simply, a month. (Leavitt)

“Radulovich was reinstated one month after the broadcast.” The movie does not say how long it took. However, it appears that it was very quick, almost within a matter of days. Perhaps this impression was made to the viewers to show how powerful Murrow’s broadcast was. There is absolutely no doubt that it was powerful and that it made a difference, but Radulovich was not reinstated as quickly as the movie portrayed.

Here are a few interesting facts about Radulovich’s story. After Murrow reported about the Radulovich story, CBS and Alcoa got 8,000 letters and they were 100 to 1 in support for Radulovich. The broadcast on Radulovich was the first broadcast that Murrow and Friendly, a coworker, had broadcast against McCarthy. The movie and the real facts seem to be accurate. Both portray that the majority of the people were scared to talk about McCarthyism; but after Murrow talked about it, the people who agreed with his assessment came out and supported it. The information that his father was a suspect because he had read a Slavic newspaper is correct. The movie does not, however, talk much about Milo’s sister. It briefly shows an image of her stating that her political ideas are her own business. It does not however mention that she picketed a Detroit hotel that would not let Paul Robeson, a renowned singer, stay there. Robeson openly admired Stalin. This is an example of framing because they omitted certain information, that could potentially put Radulovichs sister in different light. Putting in more information about the sister could possibly change the way we think about the situation. (Martin)


Did McCarthy’s attack against Murrow in the movie leave out anything? Perhaps to keep Murrows reputation intact? Or was he really that squeaky clean?

 To be accurate in presenting information, and to portray McCarthy as they wanted to, Clooney, (the director) and his directing team decided that no one could act as McCarthy in the film. (Carr)

One of the main benefits of doing the movie this way is that the audience sees the real history with no actors polluting the way that it really happened. “Good Night, and Good Luck” shows only archived clips of McCarthy from the past. There is no actual actor that plays McCarthy in the movie. One doesn't have to worry about if that is really what the person said. However, one must ask one's self if some of the information was omitted. In this specific case, Good Night and Good Luck showed everything that McCarthy said about Murrow during that broadcast. So the answer to the question above is no. McCarthy’s attack on Murrow did not leave out anything because it was raw footage from when it really happened.


McCarthy said Murrow was part of the IWW (What is the IWW?). Murrow said not true. Why would McCarthy say that? Any ounce of truth? 

McCarthy says: “Mr. Murrow, by his own admission, was a member of the IWW...”

Murrow says: “I was never a member of the IWW, never applied for membership."  (Clooney, and Heslov)

First off, let’s start by simply explaining what the IWW is. Here is the definition: “A former international labor union and radical labor movement in the United States; founded in Chicago in 1905 and dedicated to the overthrow of capitalism; its membership declined after World War I." (Definition) 

After doing research on the matter, we found no evidence whatsoever that Murrow was indeed a member of the IWW. McCarthy knew that many people would not take the time to research his statements. In fact, McCarthy was using a Media Theory, even if he didnt know it. Selective Perception. His audience would believe him, because they WANTED to believe him.  (“Life and Work of Edward Murrow”)


How did the interview REALLY happen with Paley and Murrow after his shows? Did he really say he was going to cut him to five episodes?
Yes, the movie shows this correctly. After the broadcast on McCarthy, Paley talked to Murrow and said he was going to cut his program from weekly prime-time to only five episodes. (Onesto) However, Murrow’s show, “See It Now,” was still on prime-time television for a year after the McCarthy broadcast. (Shafer) Two months after the broadcast on McCarthy, ALCOA, the sponsor of CBS, dropped them. There was nothing unethical that Murrow and his team had done. They simply stated the truth and informed the public of what was going on in the world. Yet still, their sponsor dropped them. Another interesting note is that the movie doesn’t clearly state when things happened. It can be a bit difficult to know how long things took to actually take place. The movie doesn’t state that their sponsor dropped them after two months. The movie also doesn’t state that it was on prime-time for a year after the McCarthy broadcast.

Despite the confrontation with Paley and Murrow, Murrow and his team did not stop broadcasting controversial issues. In January 1955, Murrow interviewed J. Robert Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer had recently lost his federal security clearance because he had communist associations. (Shafer) Throughout the movie, Paley, who ran CBS radio and television networks for years, began to get nervous about Murrow's project on McCarthyism. A few different times, he spoke personally with Murrow about the matter. One of Paley's main concerns was if it would get good ratings. Paley was known to have been “a genius for detecting trends in the popular culture.” (Gerard) This very interesting. Paley knew that it might not be the most exciting thing that the general public would like to hear. He also knew that it would contradict what many people had heard before about McCarthy. There was also the risk of the viewers thinking that Murrow and his staff were communists. Several risks were at hand when Murrow made the broadcast against McCarthy, and Paley knew all of this. 

Did Edward Murrow really smoke that much?
Yes.  It is estimated that Murrow smoked around three packs a day (over sixty cigarettes). See It Now was the first television program to air a segment devoted to the connection between smoking and cancer, but this didn’t keep Murrow from his beloved Camels, his preferred brand. In fact, this addiction is what ultimately claimed his life, as Murrow died in 1965 of lung cancer (Hilliard and Keith 137). George Clooney, who directed and acted in “Good night, and Good Luck.”, said this about the prevalent smoking in the movie, “I'm not going to not smoke in this film. It's accurate. Two thirds of those guys died of lung cancer, but it's real” (Murray 2).


What is Air Force Regulation 35-62?
In “Good Night, and Good Luck.”, Edward R. Murrow broadcasts a special episode of his show, See It Now, that seeks to address the rising concern over Senator McCarthy’s “witch hunt”. Highlighted in the episode is former Air Force lieutenant Milo Radulovich, who was dishonorably discharged from the military for violating Regulation 35-62.
In the original broadcast of this episode of See it Now, Murrow used these words to describe the regulation, “[It] states that 'A man may be regarded as a security risk if he has close and continuing associations with communists or people believed to have communist sympathies'“ (Murrow).

In Radulovich’s case, the “people believed to have communist sympathies were his dad and sister. His father, born in Serbia, subscribed to a Serbian newspaper , “The Daily Worker”, and his sister was accused of “picketing the Federal Building in Detroit in protest against the Smith Act, picketing a Detroit hotel that refused accommodation to Paul Robeson, attending a ‘social gathering’ of the Labor Youth League and a Lenin memorial meeting” (Abel).

So the story of Milo Radulovich in the movie is accurate?

For the most part, yes.  In “Good Night, and Good Luck.”, Murrow tells Friendly about Radulovich, saying, “Air Force kicked him out because is dad read some Serbian newspaper… they call Milo a security risk… he was declared guilty without a trial and told if he wanted to keep his job he’d have to denounce his father and his sister… so he told ‘em to take a hike.” (Clooney).

In an article about Radulovich that was published in The New York Times in 1953, the story is told a little bit differently. Milo was in fact dismissed from military service for being in violation of Regulation 35-62, but he was granted a trial by three senior officers after demanding a hearing instead of offering his resignation. Radulovich’s own loyalty was never questioned, but he was called a security risk because of the alleged communist activities of his family members. In rebuttal to these accusations, Radulovich said that his father “also purchased anti-Communist newspapers” in order to get both sides and that, “I never see my sister, except at an occasional family gathering. I’ve never talked politics with her in my life” (Abel). The film does not discuss specific charges against Radulovich’s sister, or his relationship with her.

The trial that was granted to Radulovich was anything but fair, which was emphasized by Edward Murrow in See It Now. According to Jack Gould, a reporter at the New York Times, “The evidence, including the identity of the accusers, was not revealed even to Lieutenant Radulovich and his counsel. They were expected to disprove the charges without being informed of their substance” (Treatment of Radulovich Case).

Radulovich’s story was covered in a special episode of See It Now. The episode was extremely controversial, and led to Murrow being personally attacked by Senator McCarthy. The program led to almost universal support for Radulovich, and public pressure prompted his re-instatement into the Air Force Reserves (Martin). 

Were Colonel Anderson and Colonel Jenkins, the two colonels who approach Fred Friendly about “See It Now” in the movie, really friends of Edward Murrow?

In “Good Night, and Good Luck”, two military officials discuss with Friendly their disapproval of the story he’s working on with Murrow. In the film, Colonel Jenkins’ final comments to Friendly in his office are, “Mr. Friendly. We have been a friend and an ally of both Mr. Murrow and CBS News. The story that you are going to run tomorrow is without merit. So before you take the steps that cannot be undone, I urge you to reconsider your stand” (Clooney).

Colonels Jenkins and Anderson are fictitious characters, created for the point of the film’s plot. While both Murrow and Friendly almost certainly faced intimidation and scrutiny from the military for their exposure of Radulovich’s story, there is no record of a specific instance when Friendly was solely threatened by two colonels in his office.

I Heard The Term “Pinko” Being Used In The Movie. What Does That Mean?

According to Webster’s Online Dictionary, “Pinko is a derogatory term for a person regarded as sympathetic to Communism, though not necessarily a Communist Party member. The term has its origins in the notion that pink is a lighter shade of red, the color associated with communism; thus pink could be thought of as a ‘lighter form of communism’ promoted by mere supporters of socialism who weren't, themselves, ‘card-carrying’ communists” ("Definition of "Pinko"" ).

The term was coined by Time magazine in 1926 as an abbreviation of the term, “parlor pink”, which had long been used to describe someone with left, or liberal, political views. During the Cold War, and especially during the McCarthy era when opposition to communism was strongest, “pinko” was used to describe communist supporters, or sometimes those who fraternized with alleged communists, such as Milo Radulovich. The term was used to and by several characters in the film, including Murrow saying to Hollenbeck, “But you’re a pinko, Don” (Clooney).

The movie said that Murrow was on the Soviet payroll. Is that true?

Joseph Wershba, one of the reporters who worked with Murrow and Friendly on the McCarthy episodes of See It Now, was approached shortly before the release of the Radulovich broadcast by Senator McCarthy’s chief investigator, Don Surine, who claimed that he had evidence that Murrow was on a communist government’s payroll in 1935. The evidence he produced was a Hearst newspaper from February of 1935 that cited Murrow as being in attendance at a seminar in Moscow.

According to Wershba, the institution through which Murrow had attended the seminar, “had to go through VOKS, the Soviet student exchange organization, they paid some of the expenses” (Wershba). To McCarthy, this put the entire institution, including Murrow, on the Soviet’s payroll. It was an attempt by the senator to discredit Murrow and his broadcast by framing it as communist propaganda, as Surine said, “I’m not saying Murrow’s a Commie himself…but if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck- it’s a duck” (Wershba). While these accusations were intended to frighten Murrow into submission, they instead enraged him to the point of making his convictions even firmer.

These events were portrayed in the movie during an interaction between Wershba and Surine, where Surine hands Wershba a classified envelope stamped with HUAC’s symbol. (As a Senator, McCarthy technically had no direct involvement with HUAC, which was a House Committee, but he was influential in its development and motives.) In the scene, Surine’s comments, such as alluding to Murrow’s brother, a General in the Air Force, are thinly veiled threats. He also claims, “Ed Murrow has been a communist sympathizer since the 1930’s. Member of the International Workers, sponsor of educational trips to Moscow…and on the Soviet payroll in 1934” (Clooney). The film, however, did little to explain these allegations or challenge their veracity, other than Murrow commenting that Bill Paley must be reading fiction when he sees the envelope on his desk.

In the movie, Paley talks to Murrow and says to let the McCarthy subject go. How true is this? Is that really how it happened? Anything left out?

In the film, a confrontation takes place between Murrow and CBS chief executive Bill Paley, where Paley tries in vain to convince Murrow not to attack McCarthy. Earlier in the movie, Paley had been somewhat passive about the subject, urging Murrow to go after Joseph Kennedy instead of such a politically influential subject. However, it is during this confrontation that Paley gets serious about trying to persuade him against broadcasting the episode exposing McCarthy. Paley insists that somebody will go down in the aftermath, saying, “You lose, what happens? Five guys find themselves out of work. I’m responsible for a hell of a lot more than five goddamn reporters. Let it go. McCarthy will self-destruct” (Clooney).

In the end, Paley agrees to broadcast the episode of See It Now, under the stipulations that everybody on Murrow’s team is clean of any communist connections and that the studio will not pay for its advertising. This confrontation is fairly accurate. As the date of the broadcast approached, Paley and other CBS executives balked at its possible repercussions. After attempts to talk Murrow and Friendly out of it failed, they were only given clearance on the conditions that the reporters were to use no CBS logos during the broadcast, and that the studio would not pay any money towards its advertisement. Murrow and Friendly invested $1,500 dollars of their own money to place an ad for the episode in the New York Times (Martin).

Were Murrow’s claims about McCarthy accurate? Did he leave out any information that could have helped McCarthy?

The validity of “Murrow vs. McCarthy” comes from the fact that Murrow used the Senator’s own words against him, rather than resorting to personal attacks or unfounded accusations. The entire broadcast was mostly made up of video footage of McCarthy speaking or direct quotes as recorded in newspapers, interspersed rarely with Murrow’s own commentary (Murrow). According to New York Times writer Jack Gould, “By itself Mr. Murrow’s program was strongly one-sided. But the alternative to not handling the story in this manner was not to do the story at all, by far a greater danger,” adding that, “The Senator seldom has shown relish for letting others do the cross-examination” (Television In Review). So the claims made about McCarthy were accurate, yet heavily biased and undoubtedly framed him in poor light.

When creating “Good Night, and Good Luck.”, director and actor George Clooney relied heavily on archived footage from See It Now and other sources in his attempt to make the film as realistic and historically accurate as possible (Murray).

Did Murrow vs. McCarthy get good reviews?

Yes. The New York Times praised Murrow’s program as excellent journalism and applauded his refusal to back down in the face of losing his career and reputation. Jack Gould called it “a milestone that reflected enlightened citizenship on the part of the Columbia Broadcasting System and particularly, the Aluminum Company who paid the bill to make it possible,” in a world where TV is “so often plagued by timidity and hesitation.” He continued on to say that, “No voice is braver than those who enable it to be heard” (Television in Review).

CBS called it the biggest response they had ever known, saying that “among the tabulated responses, 11,567 persons favored Mr. Murrow’s comments and 781 disapproved, a ratio of about 15 to 1”, as just a few days after Murrow’s report, CBS had received 12,348 responses in the form of telephone call or telegram (Adams).

It is believed that McCarthy’s downfall is largely due to public pressure that was triggered by Murrow’s television program, as it was only a matter of months after the broadcast that McCarthy was censured by the U.S. Senate. Whether or not this is the case is unclear, but what is clear is the fact that McCarthy’s approval ratings did drop dramatically, almost overnight, after the program aired.


The "Loyalty Oath" shown at the beginning of the movie. Come on, no way that's real.
Actually it is real. CBS did require its staff to sign loyalty oaths. It was not the only broadcasting company to do so, but it was under a lot more scrutiny than most from the government. Dubbed "the Communist Broadcasting System" by conservatives, CBS also hired a former FBI agent to head its loyalty clearance office. I was unable to embed the video by request, but you can find a link to the clip depicting the loyalty oath here.


Framing
It is easy to see that the movie is rather accurate in its depiction of E. Murrow's role in the McCarthy trials. Is there ANYTHING that the movie may have portrayed inaccurately? Actually yes.

In the movie, one gets the sense that Murrow and friends were the first to raise an alarm at McCarthy's actions. From the number of people who tell him its a bad idea, to the Air Force officers who visit Fred Friendly, events are framed in such a way that without prior knowledge, it would be easy to believe that if not for Murrow, the McCarthy trials would have continued unchallenged. While Murrow did have a good deal of influence, especially over the American public, he was by no means the first to question McCarthy and his methods. While touring Wisconsin, Eisenhower stated that he agreed with McCarthys goals, but not his methods, and received a fair amount of flak for that opinion. As seen earlier, McCarthys past was not squeaky clean. This, coupled with his harsh policies and tendency to lie earned him a spot on the Subcommittee for Investigations, and NOT on the Internal Security Subcommittee, the committee normally in charge of the communism investigations. Many believe this to be because many Republican politicians were wary of the damage he could do, and was thus given a lesser post to limit his power. And once Eisenhower became president McCarthy stepped up his criticism of the man, referring to him as a traitor, and repeatedly calling him out to debate. Eisenhowers reply? No, because he did not want to "...get down in the gutter with that guy." Murrow was not the first to call out McCarthy. He was, however, the first to make such a public display of it, and do it so successfully.

In addition, the general feeling one gets is that McCarthy was popular with the government, evidenced by the visit of the Air Force, and unpopular with the general public, as seen by the raving positive reviews when the McCarthy See it Now aired. But the truth is, the fear of communism was so wide spread that McCarthy actually had tremendous public support, which is why he was reelected. And so the exact opposite is true. McCarthy was unloved by the government, but supported by the populace. This is why Murrows program was so important. He was able to change public opinion about McCarthy, thus freeing up those in government to come down on him without fear of public reprisal.

Also,CBS is framed as being completely sympathetic to the government, which is seen as the colonels who visit Fred Friendly's office claim that they have supported both Murrow and CBS in the past, but this isn't entirely accurate. CBS was notorious for their liberal agenda long before Milo Radulovitch's story appeared on See It Now. In fact, the loyalty oath that is depicted in the beginning of the film was a direct result of CBS trying to regain favor with government officials such as McCarthy, as well as prove to the public that they were not affiliated with any communist agendas.

One more quick note. If you watch the trailer for the movie, located on the next page of the blog, you will see framing at its finest. Notice how they take a number of disconnected quotes and snippets of footage to create the impression that Good Night and Good Luck, is a fast paced political thriller, when in reality, its pace is much slower than depicted, and almost philosophical and introspective in its mood, not really that thrilling.