scene three -

SCENE ONE -

As millions of Americans came together to fight the war in Vietnam, Nixon's politics became more ruthless.

 

   excerpted from Nixonland, by Rick Perlstein.

It was the idea of a Boston envelope manufacturer, the kind of figure Richard Nixon was used to approaching for political contributions: a one-day nationwide general strike against the war. Most antiwar leaders were skeptical. One who wasn't, who knew something about quixotic successes, was Sam Brown, the organizer of the McCarthy "Children's Crusade" in 1968. The usual spots where dissidents gathered, he realized -- New York, San Francisco, Washington -- were foreign territory to most Americans. This action would be determinedly local. Get pictures on the AP wire of antiwar butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers in Schenectady, Cincinnati, and Bakersfield, and a new antiwar narrative might emerge. Since "strike" sounded like something bomb-throwers did, they adopted, instead, a Nixon word: moratorium. A moratorium from everyday life, smack dab in the middle of the week.

The first press release went out: "On October 15, 1969, this nation will cease 'business as usual' to protest the war in Vietnam and for the Nixon administration to bring the troops home." (Nixon issued a dictate to John Ehrlichman on June 24, using a favorite football metaphor: come up with an anti-Moratorium game plan by July. What was significant about that order was that the protest was not announced publicly for another week.) The Vietnam Moratorium Committee organized on a scale never attempted before. The core was the 253 student government officers and student newspaper editors who had signed an anti-draft pledge in spring.

 

The conversation starter was purposed to make the "kids" grievances sound silly "Isn't 25,000 a rather token amount of troops for Nixon to withdraw, given that there were over 500,000 American boys in Vietnam? Didn't that rate of withdrawal mean we would still be in Vietnam in nine years?"

John Ehrlichman named as the anti-Moratorium game plan's quarterback Nixon's favorite football coach, Bud Wilkinson, late of the University of Oklahoma. What Wilkinson proposed, since "no one likes to be used," was that he jawbone the kids into realizing the Moratorium was "an attempt to exploit students for the organizers' own purposes." "It's easy to manipulate kids," Haldeman agreed, "because they love to get excited. You can foment them up for a panty raid, or in the old days, gold-fish swallowing." Bud Wilkinson started meeting with student leaders to shame them into the realization that they were cats' paws

 

 

 Letter were  sent to every Congressional office on simulated Moratorium letterhead to mislead as ads from the supposedly independent "Citizens for Peace with Security" -- a White House front -- enjoined Americans to blame Hanoi for the continued warfare. (The man listed in the ads as the group's chairman, William J. Casey, was a former intelligence officer who had lost a 1968 campaign for Congress . Americans who'd been held hostage by the Communists in Vietnam were wheeled out as political props. Two POWs had been released by the North Vietnamese in August. In September, the Pentagon sent them around the country to describe their "ordeal of horror." And surely their confinement had been no picnic. But journalists noticed their stories became more extravagant and inconsistent as time went on. The Secretary of Defense announced of their captivity: "There is clear evidence that North Vietnam has violated even the most fundamental standards of human decency." But two years later, when Seymour Hersh investigated, he discovered a letter from the Pentagon in which Laird reassured the prisoners' families he was exaggerating: "We are certain that you will not become unduly concerned over the briefing if you keep in mind the purpose for which it was tailored."

For the first time, the President sent out Spiro Agnew to do what Nixon used to do for Ike: call the administration's critics traitors. On the eve of the protest North Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Van Dong broadcast an open letter on Radio Hanoi praising the Moratorium's efforts "to save the honor of the United States and to avoid for their boys a useless death in Vietnam." The Vice President demanded its leaders "repudiate the support of a totalitarian government which has on its hands the blood of 40,000 Americans," and said pro-Moratorium congressmen were "chargeable with the knowledge of this letter." The legalistic insinuation -- "chargeable" -- nicely recalled the master, in 1952, calling President Truman and Secretary Acheson "traitors to the high principles in which many of the nation's Democrats believe."
Jack Caulfield was sent out to investigate the Red hand in the planning. He claimed the Communist Party "has maintained a background identity," with the Socialist Workers Party making "the heaviest outlays of funds." The Kennedys were in on it to -- in order, he said, to keep the media focus away from Chappaquiddick. Two new White House aides, who shared a taste for blood, Governor Reagan's former press secretary Lynn Nofziger and an eager former cosmetics company junior executive named Jeb Stuart Magruder who had run the congressional campaign of Donald Rumsfeld in Illinois in 1962, cranked up the Nixon network to send angry letters to congressmen who supported the Moratorium.
The President ended up saying: "Whatever the issue, to allow the government policy to be made in the streets would destroy the democratic process."

SCENE TWO- Targets and Traitors "within"

 1974 NewYork Times  Seymour .Hersh

Huge C.I.A. Operation Reported in U.S. Against Antiwar Forces, Other Dissidents in Nixon Years

Files On Citizens; Helms Reportedly Got Surveillance Data in Charter Violation

WASHINGTON, Dec. 21 -- The Central Intelligence Agency, directly violating its charter, conducted a massive, illegal domestic intelligence operation during the Nixon Administration against the antiwar movement and other dissident groups in the United States, according to well-placed Government sources.

An extensive investigation by The New York Times has established that intelligence files on at least 10,000 American citizens were maintained by a special unit of the C.I.A. that was reporting directly to Richard Helms, then the Director of Central Intelligence and now the Ambassador to Iran.

In addition, the sources said, a check of the C.I.A.'s domestic files ordered last year by Mr. Helms's successor, James R. Schlesinger, produced evidence of dozens of other illegal activities by members of the C.I.A. inside the United States, beginning in the nineteen-fifties, including break-ins, wiretapping and the surreptitious inspection of mail.

A Different Category

Mr. Schlesinger was succeeded at the C.I.A. by William E. Colby in September 1973.

Those other alleged operations, in the fifties, while also prohibited by law, were not targeted at dissident American citizens, the sources said, but were a different category of domestic activities that were secretly carried out as part of operations aimed at suspected foreign intelligence agents operating in the United States.

Under the 1947 act setting up the C.I.A., the agency was forbidden to have "police, subpoena, law enforcement powers or internal security functions" inside the United States. Those responsibilities fall to the F.B.I., which maintains a special internal security unit to deal with foreign intelligence threats.


'Gray Areas'

"Look, you do run into gray areas," an official said, "and, unquestionably. some of this fell into the gray area.

"Let's suppose as an academic exercise, hypothetically," the official said, "that a foreigner believed to be an intelligence agent goes to a Washington newspaper office to see a reporter. What do you [the C.I.A] do? Because it's a Washington newspaper office and a reporter, do you scratch that from the C.I.A.'s record?

"Sure, the C.I.A. was following the guy, but he wasn't an American."

A number of other intelligence experts, told of that example, described it as a violation of the 1947 statute and a clear example of an activity, even if involving a foreigner, from which the C.I.A. is barred.

Prof. Harry Howe Ransom of Vanderbilt University, considered a leading expert on the C.I.A. and its legal and Congressional authority, said in a telephone interview that in his opinion the 1947 statute included "a clear prohibition against any internal security functions under any circumstances."

Professor Ransom said that his research of the Congressional debate at the time the C.I.A. was set up makes clear that Congress expressed concern over any police state tactics and intended to avoid the possibility. Professor Ransom quoted one members having said during floor debate, "We don't want a Gestapo."

Similar reservations about they C.I.A.'s role in domestic affairs were articulated by Mr. Colby during his confirmation hearings before the Senate Armed Services Committee in September 1973.

'No Authority'

"So I really see less of a gray area [than Mr. Helms] in that regard. I believe that there is really no authority under that act that can be used."


Mr. Huston took vigorous exception to a suggestion by intelligence officials that his proposed White House domestic intelligence plan resulted in increased pressure on the C.I.A. to collect domestic intelligence.

"There was nothing in that program that directed the C.I.A. to do anything in this country," Mr. Huston said. "There was nothing that they could rely on to justify anything like this. The only thing we ever asked them for related to activities outside the United States."

Two months ago. Rolling Stone magazine published a lengthy list of more than a dozen unsolved break-ins and burglaries and suggested that they might he linked to as yet undisclosed C.I.A. or F.B.I. activities.

Senator Howard H. Baker Jr., Republican of Tennessee, who was vice chairman of the Senate Watergate committee, has publicly spoken of mysterious C.I.A. links to Watergate. The White House transcripts of June 23, 1972, show President Nixon saying to H. R. Haldeman, his chief of staff, "Well, we protected Helms from one hell of a lot of things."

The Times's sources, who included men with access to first-hand knowledge of the C.I.A.'s alleged domestic activities, took sharp exception to the official suggestion that such activities were the result of legitimate counterintelligence needs.

"Look, that's how it started," one man said. "They were looking for evidence of foreign involvement in the antiwar movement. But that's not how it ended up. This just grew and mushroomed internally."

"Maybe they began with a check on Fonda," the source said, speaking hypothetically. "But then they began to check on her friends. They'd see her at an antiwar rally and take photographs. I think this was going on even before the Huston plan.

'Highly Coordinated'

"This wasn't a series of isolated events. It was highly coordinated. People were targeted, information was collected on them, and it was all put on [computer] tape, just like the agency does with information about K.G.B. [Soviet] agents.

"Every one of these acts was blatantly illegal."

Another official with access to details of C.I.A. operations said that the alleged illegal activities uncovered by Mr. Schlesinger last year included break-ins and electronic surveillances that had been undertaken during the fifties and sixties.

"During the fifties, this was routine stuff," the official said. "The agency did things that would amaze both of us, but some of this also went on in the late sixties, when the country and atmosphere had changed."

The official suggested that what he called the "Nixon antiwar hysteria" may have been a major factor in the C.I.A.'s decision to begin maintaining domestic files on American citizens.

One public clue about alleged White House pressure for C.I.A. involvement in the intelligence efforts against antiwar activists came during Mr. Helms's testimony before the Senate Watergate committee in August 1973.

Mr. Helms told how the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board had once suggested that the agency could "make a contribution" in domestic intelligence operations.

'No Way'

"I pointed out to them very quickly it could not, there was no way," Mr. Helms said. "But this was a matter that kept coming up in the context of feelers: Isn't there somebody else that can take on some of these things if the F.B.I. isn't doing them as well as they should, as there are no other facilities?"

The Times's sources, reflecting the thinking of some of the junior C.I.A. officials who began waving "the red flag" inside the agency, were harshly critical of the leadership of Mr. Helms.

These junior officials are known to believe that the alleged domestic spying on antiwar activists originated as an ostensibly legitimate counterintelligence operation to determine whether the antiwar movement had been penetrated by foreign agents.

 

 

In 1969 and 1970, the C.I.A. was asked by the White House to determine whether foreign governments were supplying undercover agents and funds to antiwar radicals and Black Panther groups in the United States. Those studies, conducted by C.I.A. officials who reportedly did not know of the alleged secret domestic intelligence activities, concluded that there was no evidence of foreign support.

"It started as a foreign intelligence operation and it bureaucratically grew," one source said. "That's really the answer."

The source added that Mr. Angleton's counterintelligence department "simply began using the same techniques for foreigners against new targets here."



Indis O 'Say was confused why Parasol Pictures would ask him to write
a "novelization" of
 the face taker
a horror movie-
no-
thought Indis not even a Horror Movie but
a Slasher movie


it was beneath him,thought Indis

the FACETAKER 
 according to Valerie Prentis was already in pre production

but

"it was crucial  "these days".

that a  movie
first  be a novel

so people are already familiar with the product

"it doesn't have to be a masterpiece Indis just something to whet the the public's appetite for the film"

whet the public's appetite

For what?

thought Indis who had read the both the original screenplay

and the shooting script
for "this mess"

"Does anyone really need

more of THIS

inside their heads?"Indis could not help thinking
 

The Face taker was about
a disfigured Mad Scientist
who preyed on
men and women
cared too much about their appearance
and
appearances

according to both the original screenplay and the shooting script

there is a "reasonable" reason 
that
to the Face Taker
behaves the way he does
using the wonders of science for evil

the Face Taker you see
had a baby brother

SCENE THREE-"the facetaker" ,who is never referred to by name
 in the screenplay screenplay
and his baby brother are being baby sat by a very handsome next door neighbor

the handsome-ie Babysitter
is so handsome
or so vain
that he can neither pass a mirror nor  pull himself away from
a mirror
if so encountered by his visage

after the typical ins and outs of handshaking and "the rules of the house" of the parents of the 2 boys
ages 5 and 8
(the mother  EXTERIOR-HOUSE-NIGHT
even comments on the babysitter's striking good looks
saying
"My that boy has strikingly good looks"
INT-HOUSE-NIGHT
the Beauti-liscious Boy BABYSITTER
leaves the BOYS
in THE LIVING ROOM to their own vices

and "disappears into the UPSTAIRS BATHROOM
for a good long look at himself
in the mirror

he finds a tube of hair gel in the medicine cabinet
and begins what seems to be a quite practiced ritual of both self love and intense grooming

sort of a take on Narcissus
is this babysitter
who cannot pull himself away from his own image

INT-KITCHEN-NIGHT
the BOYS are making popcorn on the stove when OFF SCREEN a cell phone rings

The OLDER BROTHER(the YOUNG FACETAKER)
leaves the kitchen and thus the younger brother alone .The younger brother is on a stool
watching the popcorn pop

but
it seems the popcorn is not popping fast enough for the young boy who TURNS THE KNOB of THE FLAME up high

we over hear the OLDER BROTHER who has apparently picked up the phone LAUGHING.

we CUT to the BABYSITTER applying a lather of hair gel to his wondrous locks.

we next CUT to the FLAME of the stove element licking the wallpaper behind the stove.The Boy is absorbed in the physics of the popping ,jumping corn


there is a CLOSE UP
of the BABYSITTER'S NOSE which sniffs

one can only  assume
 that the BABYSITTER (also never referred to by name) is aware of smoke..
YET
BABYSITTER
 cannot seems perhaps purposely
unaware
of anything
but  his own reflection

a WIDE SHOT informs us
 that the small fire caused by  LITTLE BROTHER
is not so small anymore

and LITTLE BROTHER of the future mad scientist FACETAKER
afraid
hides in a closet from the now rampaging fire

YOUNG FACETAKER(the Big Brother) frantically searches the house for his sibling

mean while pretty boy BABYSITTER (who is certainly not doing his job sitting for anybody but his own appraisal)
is still at the mirror
preening
hearing or not hearing
 the SCREAMS of the THE BOYS in his ward
so entranced is
BABYSITTER with his mirrored image

in fact
 it is not until a plume of black smoke
comes between BABYSITTER and mirror
that pretty boi BABYSITTER
attempts to "come to the rescue'

BUT it is too late...
and the house is by now an inferno!

EXT-HOUSE-NIGHT

the SOUNDS and VISION of help on the way
 but too late!

BIG BROTHER(the future mad scientist FACETAKER is now a ghastly half burnt "monster"
holding the still smoldering carcase of his brother
sees the babysitter
not touched ,marred or in any way by the fire..

INSERT the words

20 years later


we see whom we presume is  FACETAKER in an elaborate INTERIOR-
LABORATORY-DAY

we see the back of his lab coat
and his gloved hands
holding the ubiquitous serum or secret potion of some kind!

He cries out some equivalent  of "Eureka!"
 the chair spins around
to reveal the still
disfigured older brother.THE FACETAKER now in his late 20s

we  ZOOM in on the vial FACETAKER is holding
and SEE
that the Potion he is "discovering" is not a serum or potion at all!
but millions of tiny particles
tiny chips.teeny tiny microprocessors!

the audience knows this because

 a beautiful LAB ASSISTANT enters the frame ,apparently hearing the "eureka moment"
says

"so you've Done it.

You've done it at last!You've Made the remote controlled Nano micro processors that can alter ones appearance subdermally work!"

The LAB ASSISTANT hugs the FACETAKER
but we see her pull away when
FACETAKER tries to turn the hug into a kiss...

"I'm ..I'm..I'm so sorry " the LAB ASSISTANT says running out of the LAB crying...



INT-LABORATORY-DAY

Next we see several MONKEYS and RABBITS
their faces swelling up and down
One MONKEY's face actually begins to "morph"

into a semblance of human feature-ness 

and back again
to monkey!

A ROUND OF APPLAUSE from several COLLEAGUES
who have apparently come to the lab to witness this extraordinary breakthrough
in cosmetic surgery!
FACETAKER gives
and a very long winded 'speech" about how the nano particles,
smaller than white blood cells can cluster into shapes
or what FACETAKER calls"filler"
FACETAKER explains that
 the nano can behave like teeny tiny surgeons with scalpels and either  "eat away at small almost imperceptible
subcutaneous structures of both the cartilage
collagen
and smooth muscle
or act as
anchors
(filler) that can
shape the human face
into any sort of beaut-ousity
a potential consumer of
Nano Cosmo (the name of the nano cosmetic company that FACE TAKER has founded )might desire

FACETAKER tells his COLLEAGUES
that the nano particles are potable and edible

                                                   FACETAKER
                  the polymer coated nano particles enter the blood stream and have no problem passing through the blood brain barrier.Next ,the particles which are embedded with magnetic components that can be shifted into place by a remote device
..here let me show you the magic of Nano Cosmo at work gentlemen!

FACETAKER opens open a cage which contains a MONKEY
FACETAKER places the MONKEY on a small chair ,FACETAKER picks up a remote device .and we watch the MONKEY'S face shift in structure into a very handsome version of human handsome-osity


CLOSE UP on FACETAKER'S HAND on REMOTE ,his finger presses a button and we watch
the previously human looking  MONKEY'S's face completely change into a version of monkey monstrosity!

A collective shout of fear and awe emanate from the choir of
COLLEAGUES
FACETAKER quickly pushes the remote and changes the MONKEY'S face back to it's intended design


the COLLEAGUES
 pat  FACETAKER on the back for his wonderful "work"
and all but one  REMARKABLY GOOD LOOKING COLLEAGUE shuffle out of the Lab.

The REMARKABLY GOOD LOOKING  COLLEAGUE
is a very curious fellow we notice
as  REMARKABLY GOOD LOOKING  COLLEAGUE
goes poking around the lab
like he owns the place

                           REMARKABLY GOOD LOOKING  COLLEAGUE
            you are an absolute genius I am sure we will make billions from this sensational new technology!


the FACETAKER puts out his hand
scarred with the
burns from a decade or more ago
for a hand shake
but
 the REMARKABLY GOOD LOOKING COLLEAGUE apparently repulsed by the burns
does not shake FACETAKER's HAND!
 
instead REMARKABLY GOOD LOOKING  COLLEAGUE slips his hands in his own pockets saying," nice work"
and with eyes averted from 
even making eye contact with FACETAKER's disfigured face 
begins
sauntering out of the room

a CLOSE UP on the EYES of the FACETAKER
watching
REMARKABLY GOOD LOOKING COLLEAGUE simper away

"wait," FACETAKER cries out
"let's have a drink ...
I can't really go out and celebrate can I ..Not like this he says indicating his mis-shapen face

"Ok ..let's says REMARKABLY GOODLOOKING COLLEAGUE

the FACETAKER pulls a bottle of scotch and a some plastic cups out  of his drawer
and begins pour himself and his colleague a drink
FACETAKER'S back is turned
as he pours the scotch for himself and  REMARKABLY GOOD LOOKING  COLLEAGUE too repulsed by FACETAKER to even shake his hand!


his back still turned FACETAKER reaches into his lab coat
and removes a vial
with he uncorks
and pours into one of the cups
  could it be?
that FACETAKER has poured
  Nano Particles that act as teeny tiny scalpels or filler that can  add and subtract,enhance or disfigure  the facial structure
of any man ,woman or animal by remote control!


INT-BATHROOM-MORNING

we see the REMARKABLY GOOD LOOKING  COLLEAGUE
shirtless
standing in front of his mirror
combing his hair

suddenly
become
the REMARKABLE MONSTROUS LOOKING COLLEAGUE!

"it's a throw away book ,that we'll make sure gets a hot spot ...on the sellers list...

it really doesn't even have to "come out"we'll just toss snippets of it in some magazines.."

you just DO what you Do Indis ..we'll do the rest...,"Valerie Prentiss said

 

surely

Valerie Prentis

saw something somehow important

in" the project"

for it was being shot  The New Way
that bypassed the usual methods of  film distribution
by bypassing one's eyes and  ears
Immersive Reality was a very expensive format
and not just any "story"
was being made for a Direct Neural Experience 

------------------------------------2--------------------------------------

To glean an idea of what he might be missing
from
"The Facetaker
Indis found himself rereading his own work
for hints
surely Valerie had found something in "let Us Be Conquered"
that indicated that
he be the man to
write
the novelization Facetaker


Chapter 7 of the pink version
 focused
 completely on the Great Being
communing with Jacob
about AFFRONTIVES
and that for instance

it was "just plain sick-o to for instance masturbate while one knew one was in "commune' with

a Being that could read your mind and

SEE the images in one's mind 's eye..

also that it was "sicko " and aberrant for a MAN to spend so much time either focusing on
self referential's
especially during practices of basic hygiene
including bathing
and even relieving themselves
that a
genuine man
must learn to
go to WHITE SPACE in their mind during
such practices.

WHITE SPACE was a technique
not to encourage a subject
to With hold or attempt to buffer one's thinking
but a way of
according to the Voice of-
"placing a curtain between "sick" thinking that might occur doing one's toilet

"One must learn to imagine themselves both In a Cloud and Away from The Cloud at the same time"

this type of thinking Jacob
causes the left and right hemispheres of the brain
to temporarily


confabulate the mise en scene