Three Days of the Condor

Turner: Do we have plans to invade the Middle East?

Higgins: Are you crazy?

Turner: Am I?

Higgins: Look, Turner…

Turner: Do we have plans?

Higgins: No. Absolutely not. We have games. That's all. We play games. What if? How many men? What would it take? Is there a cheaper way to destabilize a regime? That's what we're paid to do.

Higgins: Fact is, there was nothing wrong with the plan. Oh, the plan was alright, the plan would've worked.

Turner: Boy, what is it with you people? You think not getting caught in a lie is the same thing as telling the truth?

Higgins: No. It's simple economics. Today it's oil, right? In ten or fifteen years, food. Plutonium. And maybe even sooner. Now, what do you think the people are gonna want us to do then?

Turner: Ask Them.

Higgins: Not now — then! Ask 'em when they're running out. Ask 'em when there's no heat in their homes and they're cold. Ask 'em when their engines stop. Ask 'em when people who have never known hunger start going hungry. You wanna know something? They won't want us to ask 'em. They'll just want us to get it for 'em!

Turner: Boy, have you found a home.

---

[Turner and Higgins stop in front of The New York Times.]

Turner: I told 'em a story. You play games; I told 'em a story.

Higgins: Oh, you… you poor, dumb son of a bitch. You've done more damage than you know.

Turner: I hope so.

Higgins: Hey Turner! How do you know they'll print it? You can take a walk… but how far if they don't print it?

Turner: They'll print it.

Higgins: How do you know?

Comments

[Jodi]

Alain!! I wanted to write on this, too!! We just saw it again a couple of weeks ago. There is a great line near the end--something line, who ae you guys? do you think truth is the same as lies you don't get caught in? or something like that. It is SHOCKING how appropriate the film is now. So, we are starting a 70s movie kick. (Would be a great theme for LS: Thurs, 70s movies day...or something.)

[hyacinth chabert]

The screenwriter, Lorenzo Semple, of batman tv fame, was honoured ten years ago or so in France, because you know he was 'the goat' - famous character in the resistance. called 'the goat' because he was just a teenager and all he could grow on his chin was a goatee.

[Alain]

Jodi, the line is quoted above:

"Boy, what is it with you people? You think not getting caught in a lie is the same thing as telling the truth."

It is absolutely amazing.

[Alain]

Hyacinth, I did not know that. How appropriate. Thank you.

[Jodi]

Alain--right--sorry, I skimmed over that! It really is astounding how resonant the film is.

[Michel]

The original book title was "6 days of the condor" but they trimmed it down for the movie. What a fantastic book.

It's funny that at the end, I took away from the encounter between Redford and Cliff Roberts as that government (ours) is not an agent of evil, as so many of the 60's degenerates claimed. The government is an amoral entity that, in the long term, makes decisions that it thinks may be the best for its citizens.

Violence is part of life. We do violence, others do it to us. The movie is not an indictment of our country - it is an expose showing that not everyone is ready to see what really goes on behind closed doors. People don't want to see chickens having their heads cut off, they just want the 4 piece family pack nicely wrapped in plastic and sitting in the meat bin at their local Dominicks. They don't want to worry about where their next tank of petrol will come from. They simply want it to be there when they pull up to the pump.

I'm glad the government plays games, thinks about scenarios and does whatever it can in our interest - if that means we're safer and our economic interests are protected; so what if we sell a few weapons to Nicaraguans? We're not the great white knight riding into battle against the evil adversary. It is more convoluted than that. We do plenty of dirty things too but not everyone has the stomach to accept it. That's why much of what the CIA does remains shielded from prying eyes. And thank God for it. People like Cindy Sheehan, who can't conceptualize the great scheme of things, who doesn't understand history and, who has no idea who the enemy is - would do all of us a tremendous disservice. Possibly to our very demise.

Thanks.

[Alain]

Michel you raise some interesting issues, particularly regarding the dirty work necessary to maintain our safety. I largely disagree with you but the point is well taken. The part of your comment that seems completely full of shit is regarding Cindy Sheehan: I do not embrace all aspects of her newly found political consciousness but I am a parent. If my child died for the cause of oil, or maintianing our standard of living, or our freedom, or whatever the rubes are calling it these days, I would be raising bloody hell.

As a "60's degenerate" I am completely outraged that people like you, who "understand history" and can "conceptualize the great scheme of things," who know who the enemy is, are calling the shots in Washington. It is these pragmatic insights that truly do a "tremendous disservice." In fact they may lead to our very demise.

Thanks.

1960's Cafe Marxist Scum

[ricia]

Michel,

Your view of history as a justification for carelessly brutal amorality is precisely why "history repeats itself". Furthermore, it would benefit you to actualize the absence of "us and them" in the real world. If you truly believe that "us" at the expense of "them" is making your world a safer place that is catering to your interests - you've been 'had'.

The 'amorality' is far too influenced by "immoral" (in the scope of democratic idealism) elitist interests to actually support any concern whatsoever for your well being. If you just happen to have 'benefited' from this in the short term, it doesn't mean it was FOR your benefit in the first place. If your gov't was actually attending to your interests, they wouldn't do (at least) half of what they are busy doing.

[Michel]

Yes parenthood does change quite a few things, does it not? :)

Sheehan and her anti-War ilk have a right to voice their opinion but she is using her son's death as an excuse to get a platform in which to voice her Anti-Republican sympathies. Her personal beliefs notwithstanding, she has been shown to be a narcissist who's highest motivation is to satisfy cravings for media attention - all the while being managed, financed and handled by George Soros/Moveon.org's PR firm.
It's a big dog & pony show that caters to the Katie Courics of the world who just read the headlines & bumper stickers but don't bother to delve into the meat of the issues.
I wish to hell that our boys weren't over in Iraq but that card was dealt to us and we have to play it to the end. Her son volunteered for service and knew the risks. She chooses to turn her grief into a public 'whine' party. Though her 15 minutes of fame are over, the majority (gasp and horror! not the Majority!) of citizens now realize that she is just a goof who should be pitied, not honored. Those of us who remember the 60's know how close we came to losing our country to socialism. You probably think that that would have been a victory - thankfully we have examples of how wonderful a socialist state can be : Stalin, Pol Pot, Ceausescu and the supreme icon for National Socialism - Hitler.
Now we have fascists who are motivated by their remedial religion, killing us on our own soil - in France and in the US. Support the troops, support president Bush and support the mission!
L'apaisement va avoir pour résultat une chose. Il aura pour résultat notre annéantissement.
As they say, "Semper fidelis..."

[MICHEL]

Ricia:
Well certainly with that view there is no right or wrong, no good nor evil - sounds like you've been listening to too much John Lennon music. That pablum will strip away your moral compass. I honestly don't understand what you mean when you say, "history repeats itself." How does carelessness, brutality and amorality tend to cyclical events? Is it that you're implying that by fighting fire with fire we're doomed to ever escalating violence? Not so. Appeasement and turning the other cheek are surefire ways to keep getting victimized.
The world is not an aesthetic exercise in philosophy. Decartes and Kant have no validity on the battlefield. Save your pontifications for a college classroom.
And as far as getting beyond the idea of good and evil - that is for each person on their own individual initiative. Each person chooses to strip away the values, the prejudices, and their karmic baggage by tuning in-turning-on-dropping-out, if they wish but, to say that a civilization should be beyond identifying good and evil is dangerous and unacceptable. With that attitude, Europe would be speaking German and Nazis would be the party du jour.
And is not government's job to "attend to our interests" that is why we live in a democracy. Freedom is the key to happiness - free markets, free will and free language. The gov't has a role but it should be limited and minimally intrusive.

[ricia]

"Freedom is the key to happiness - free markets, free will and free language."

Where we differ most, I suppose, is in the concept that happiness is attached to any kind of market, whether or not free will has a relationship to war, and what exactly language is or is not free of.

The arguement that some other logic from your own is but a flaky dixy whistle trot through the tulips is a cop out. And indicative of an extremely efforted will to exclude any other thought processes or perspectives from your own sense of logic. In other words, it says more about your own mindset, than it does mine.

The use of the word "moral" was taken in response to above posts, it's not a word I have "good" and "evil" attachments to particularily.... Far too subjective. My position is one that evaluates the ethics of the issue.

BTW, "turn the other cheek" is not my stance. In fact, if the US gov't and it's people hadn't turned their cheeks in order to witness their own brutality and injust actions in the world - you wouldn't have these 'enemies' to protect yourselves from... Assuming you are from the states.

C'est triste, je pense, que vous acceptez le "fact" pour le "droit", mais criox en le "free will" - c'est contraire, n'est-ce pas?
These are your gov't (if not the people's) choices, not random happenings, not coincidences. There are more 'choices' avail and that can be excerted, it is not that only 'two sides' to the arguement exist.

[CG]

I just finished watching Three Days of the Condor and found this conversation about the film. It's a year later but all these issues are more relevant than ever. So much philosophizing about what the government should and should not do to protect the citizens. How much of what they do should be secret? In the film the games and actual invasion plans were to secure oil. Higgins says that next it will be for plutonium and then food. And that the citizens will be glad when they are starving to have had a government that secured them food, at any price! Killing seven innocent people can never be justified by some possible future necessity. We must act ethically in the present and the future will be better for it.

[Jack Logan]

The events of the film where based on events Nov Dec 1972. It is still very difficult to deal with after 35 years.

[Randy]

Everything said by Higgins is true. Here it is, middle of 2008 and the grubmling of the masses are getting louder as we read this. 4.00 gas, inflated food prices, not to mention rationing of food (rice) items. Won't be long and alot of dogooders are going to turn their heads and pretend they don't see how our government provides for them, as long as they provide.