Unveiling the Secrets of the Bridge of Spies

[Music] [Applause] [Music] what a great crowd tonight this is an exciting program I'm really anxious to get started tonight my name is Chris Costa I'm the executive director here at the International Spy Museum and I'm excited to introduce the program unveiling the secrets of the bridge of spies with our four amazing panelists and our own dr. Vince Houghton who will be modern moderating first we have Gary Powers jr. Gary Gary has a big fan club gary is the founder and chairman emeritus of the Cold War museum founded in 1996 because of his efforts to honor Cold War veterans the Junior Chamber of Commerce selected him as one of the 10 outstanding young Americans for 2002 Gary's the author of letters from a Soviet prison in spy pilot which both helped to dispel the misinformation surrounding the u-2 incident he is a board member of the Strategic Air Command in the aerospace museum and an honorary member of our museum here recently he consulted for the Steven Spielberg Cold War thriller bridge of spies we're also excited to have VIN Aarthi he has worked as a television producer where are you ven there you go as a university academic his research and published work on the spy we know as Rudolph Adel able has been praised by many across the spy world from Jon Lajoie to Boris LaBeouf I don't know if I got that right press bureau chief of the russian external intelligence agency known better as the SVR residing in in Burks Scotland Venice a biographer in reviews cold war in espionage books for the national daily The Scotsman recently then joined us on a podcast here at the Museum to discuss the life of Rudolf Abel our next panelist Mary Ellen fuller is the daughter [Applause] that's all right also brought her own crowd with her she is the daughter of James B Donovan the subject of the oscar-winning Steven Spielberg film bridge of spies Mary Ellen Ellen's first 20 years were unique experiences that gave her a front-row seat to history and behind-the-scenes access to dramatic events Mary Ellen's home textile design career spanned 35 years beginning as a director of design for a number of prestigious companies shortly after winning the industry's prestigious home Tech's award to bring in Springs Colorado she was invited to move her home office in Fort Mill South Carolina she has recently joined the board of the South Carolina humanities is very engaged in active in her local community presently she is finishing her debut novel in developing a new screenplay we certainly want to track that novel so we can get you to unveil it here and we can do some podcasts all right that's scary last but not least we're joined by Beth a MOOC currently she is what a great audience tonight everyone's very upbeat currently she is president of her own firm amo communications as well as consultant to leading marketing firms including Fastlane Communications where she is a managing director additionally she founded the Donovan global exchange a nonprofit organization inspired by the legacy of her grandfather James B Donovan dedicated to transcending boundaries for the exchange of dynamic dynamic ideas and implementation of action to create new avenues of opportunity for learning growth and change for youth in marginalized areas of society we are excited to have these four individuals here tonight to discuss one of history's most notable spy trades involving Rudolf Abel Francis Gary Powers and James be Donovan so now without further ado I'll turn it over to Vince to get the discussion started thank you again everyone and i'm vince by the way just there is there it is everyone so we're we're really happy to have everyone here tonight i mean this is this is really gonna be a panel about family and this is you know you're at the spy museum you want to come hear about spies there'll be a lot of that tonight too but this is really gonna trying to bring down these historical figures that maybe a lot of us have read about in our history books or learned about through school at other places and realize that they're not not just names on a page they're not just these kind of weird historical figures that none of us can really identify with these are these are fathers these are sons these are brothers these are grandfathers they had all the same hopes fears and dreams that all of us do and trying to find a way to humanize these people that are just their abstractions to many of us they're they're they're pages in a history book and we want to try to bring that to life here today and so we're really proud to have this panel was this kind of the dream team being able to have this conversation about this moment in history that really helped to redefine the way the Cold War was thought of I mean this is a time when this is the kind of thawing a little bit began you've had some bumps in the road as you went forward but this is a chance to kind of come together in one particular area in Germany and the East met West for in a very poignant manner all right so one of the interesting things I want to start with is both Mary Ellen and Gary because I've read a lot about what you've written about your father's and one of the most extraordinary things to me is that for both of you for much of your life in fact for the entire time that your father was alive your parents James Donovan and Gary Powers senior were just dad they were just you know that was you didn't know them as this huge historic figure you know them as a guy who changed history or guys who changed history they were just your father American I talked a little bit about that growing up really just looking at this man who Tom Hanks later played in a movie by Steven Spielberg who was just dad to you well do I bring up do I bring up how much I got each week as a school kid he was indeed my father and the I will say I will say that it always came back to me when we were picketed we were constantly being picketed dad would get picketed because he was defending a commie or then he was getting picketed because he was president of Board of Education of New York City during integration and busing he had his first heart attack then then he was we were picketed when student uprisings in 1969 were national and he was getting locked on elevators as president of Pratt Institute and so the picketing I just thought it was normal I thought it never occurred to me that this was not it was just part of my like oh they're at it again okay and I'd wave and they're all yelling at me and I thought oh my lord but he always was us children into history so he'd say well now Mary Ellen Shirley Chisholm's coming tonight she's coming for dinner and you can greet her at the door and you can offer her a Sheree well I was 10 you know and I thought okay I can do that I'll pour you know people were always coming into our lives I it just Jimmy Breslin he was hilarious he came he did a wonderful wonderful story on my father based on his coming over several nights in true magazine 1962 he wrote I think one of the best articles on my dad went with extraordinary stories is something that your brother experienced was your father if people don't know this actually negotiated the release of the Bay of Pigs captives those that were captured by the Castro regime and he went down and spoke with Castro he didn't just go by himself how old was her brother when he brought him to talk to Castro well oh yeah we we all had something to play he it was my father was negotiating and as an individual lawyer going into Cuba since Cuba wasn't recognized the United States so he would do this but the missile crisis was a problem so periodically during this period he couldn't go in so his first visit back to Cuba he had to do something personal to bring it back to the boys that were on the Isle of Pines and he thought the only way to do it is to bring I'll bring my son and when he was with Castro Castro was thrilled and he simply said we're talking about boys here there's a boys in prison so I'm representing the parents I want my son to you know spend time with you so he made it about family he made it about family and he took me to Russia and that was fascinating ten or twelve days trying to hunt down Colonel Abel so and it was fun I had mentioned to you that we'd sit and played lots of gin rummy he was always waiting for the phone call and he'd say now Mary don't be careful what you're saying because we're we're being bugged you know I said and I thought this is perfectly normal in my life okay dad we're getting we're getting bugged so Gary well yeah perfectly normal is basically what it was my experience growing up is dad was a pilot he was working for Lockheed when I was born he did that up until 1970 when I was five years old so my father was a pilot I was aware of that I would go to the airport I would see the planes I have pictures of me when I'm you know five seven ten years old at airports and planes with my father he went on to fly 4kg I'll radio station in the Cessna he went on to fly helicopters for NBC so for me growing up my dad was always a pilot and I was aware that my father had been shot down imprisoned and exchange for a Soviet spy but my perception as a young kid everybody's dad went through that that perception changed on August 1st to 77 my father passed away on the helicopter crash while working for NBC television and that's when the light bulb went on that's when I realized not everybody's dad gets shot down imprisoned or exchanged but by that time I'm starting to realize that wow dad's in the history books oh he's going to be buried at on oh people want to ask me questions about it I didn't know what to answer I wasn't sure what the answer is war and so throughout high school as a result of my dad's death I was very introverted in college I came out of my shell I started to do research which led to my first book and now my second one coming out next year but my research started not to vindicate my father not to honor Cold War veterans not to start a museum or anything like that I wanted to find out the truth so I knew how to answer questions and this is what set me on this path was the untimely death of my father because he was not around to answer them for me so then let me let me move on to you because Rudolf hobble a Soviet spy you know we in the West not all that big fans of Soviet spies especially once metal infiltrating the United States so it very easy for us to kind of hold him up as this villain and the movie dispels a lot of that it makes him a very likable character but even on imprint when you when you read about would all fall or Willy Fisher his real name it's very easy to kind of fall back into this trend of he's the enemy but Fisher also is a family man this is somebody who really at his heart didn't want to be a spy he wanted to do something else he wanted to have a family he wanted to have kids he wanted to be like everyone else yeah his oh this is what is good the subject of my book this man árbol Fisher Abel Fisher the key resource for this book was his daughter Evelyn who died a few years ago and I learned from her how important family was to her father but going back specifically to to Vince's point yes Fisher himself was born in the United Kingdom his father was a Botto was a Leninist he was exiled into the UK the young Fisher was born in the UK when the Soviet Union was established the old man took the family back to the promised land and the young man Fisher his father was a native German speaker his mother was a Russian speaker his native language was English he'd been born in the United King he'd learned French and Latin at school he was illogical as a Bolshevik entrant into internment into the foreign intelligence service he started off in the Red Army but then fell in love got married and what do you do when you get married you got to get a job and he once said will you be an ideal candidate for these security services so he joined what became the the KGB so that's his his background and Evelyn his first daughter told me a lot about their family life and you'd mentioned to us earlier when we were talking beforehand Evelyn - the day she died didn't call him dad or you know William or anything like - you know there was a very loving relationship between Italy everything was his only daughter his only child but something I discovered English was the language of their home just imagine working for the NKVD Stalin the KGB the home was a haven and English was the language of the home so during the few years I spoke to Evelyn she was absolutely overjoyed that she could she could speak English and she called her father daddy daddy this daddy that it was a very warm loving relationship so it'd be very easy to look at the the fathers in this case and you have a pilot who is the cream of the crop within the Air Force and then later for the CIA the only reason you get chosen for the You Tube program is if you're the best of the best you have someone who was chosen to be a Soviet illegal which means they were the best intelligence officer and then the bridge of spies movie has every man Tom Hanks the kind of bumbling stumbling guy who just finds himself in extraordinary situation and that to me as a historian as a I kind of cringed at that a little bit because Beth your grandfather was not just another guy he wasn't just some lawyer in New York who was chosen to do this spy trade because he was the only one that agreed to do it this is somebody who had at this point decades of service not only for some intelligence agencies in the United States but also some major things that people have heard of he talked a little bit about what made James Donovan the choice at this moment Joyce I'm sorry so that what made him perfect for negotiating this trade what may give him the background that he was the guy that that they wanted to go to well I could I'd like to share a couple of comments on that one you know he was somewhat of an ordinary man in terms of the fact that he was a family man he was very warm and amiable and congenial but he was also you know an incredibly smart and funny and I think all those attributes lend themselves very well to the situations that he was put in or and the movie really played up the ordinary man I think and it did I think for a fact and I think I think it did it very well but he was chosen for you know the the jobs that he was chosen for for a reason and the movie left a lot of that out I mean there's a guy who was the general counsel for the OSS yeah somebody who is actually a lawyer for the OSRD which it's at my neck of the woods I do science and technology OSRD I ran the Manhattan Project and other things and of course he worked as a assistant counsel for the Nuremberg trials and then we talked about the Cuba thing too I'm gonna talk a little bit about that Mariana if you want what's interesting is that the OSS he was just out of Harvard Law and while Bill Donovan hired him and he was inducted into the OSS he became general counsel that was critical during World War two because you had to judge every other country and see how their set of laws were and you had to work together in tandem now how do you do that so it was his job to study every every possible country how their laws were set up and makes sure that everybody dovetailed and pushed in one direction when you do something like that you really get a look at people's agendas and you start studying people as individuals to see what is it that person is trying to get from me what is that person doing it was perfect when he moved into a socio prosecutor at Nuremberg for the same exact reason it was a study of human nature so the one thing I loved about the bridge of spies was that he had an agenda he had a mandate he was had to get garriepowers out he learned about Pryor he had his own mandate but if you see in the movie there are a lot of moving parts and people pecking at him getting him do this do that he took it all in he didn't he just was going to quietly keep his own his own confidence and move forward and get the job done he was an individual lawyer he wasn't government so he didn't really have to abide by any of the mishegoss that was going on around him and he learned that in the OSS and Nuremberg a quick question with you before your grant for your dad he worked for the OSS but was he in the field or was he always behind a desk he started off doing mundane things which none of us care to think about you know well okay this man's throat was slit in Lisbon and who gets them $10,000 that was found in his breast pocket he thought that was fascinating we have to worry about this who has ownership of those monies crazy crazy things that had to be solved along the way he would tell me about training training spies there is a location it's secret in Maryland that was the training of spice and the OSS oh all right and he would tell me how they they trained they trained a woman she was perfect she was doing great jobs six months of training and she was letter-perfect and they dropped her into Holland and Ted said to me it was it was just amazing she went to a street corner waited for the light to change and she looked in the wrong direction and they picked her up and you know it was just that elementary there was another time when a man was cutting his steak in a different way that anybody had noticed now he's not from around here why is he cutting a steak like that those were fascinating things he would contribute but all in all he was he was a student of human nature to make decisions on negotiation and it was brutal as a kid you know trying to negotiate with your father so let me ask you Gary and then I think there's bringing some extraordinay have an outsider to this so I'm looking at this try as objectively as I can we've already talked a little bit about some of the similarities between Abel Fisher and Francis Gary Powers there's a lot they're both Patriots in their own kind of way from different sides certainly their professional intelligence officers one is doing it from way up in the sky at 70,000 feet the other on the ground as human intelligence officer but they're both incredibly stoic under pressure they found themselves in situations that most people would break under do you kind of see them as kindred spirits you know from you've spent most of your life studying gobble you spent most your life looking at your dad and trying to understand it do you see them do you think they'd be friends if they if they if they had lived long enough to meet up together in a bar somewhere do you think they would be friends when I was writing the book I was asked who did I like Fisher and I said I don't think he would have liked me very much and they said why and I said because I talk too much I think Fisher was a real professional he kept himself to himself he was quiet he wasn't a womanizer he male friendship was it was important in his life I'm not a psychologist but I think I put that down to the difficult relationship he had with his mother but who said he was an utter professional and he did the job that he was required to do from the moment he joined the service till the moment he died and this is similar with my father my father was a professional he did his job he did to the best of his ability one of the comparisons that I want to bring out is regards to when Abel and my father was exchanged each goes home to the respective countries Abel returns home very well received by the Soviet Union still a little bit of a shadow over him because did he turn was he a plant I mean there's still a little concern from the KGB as to did he follow orders and do everything my father comes home there's all this press negative about how my father had defected he'd landed the plane intact he spilled his guts and told the Soviets everything he knew so these these two dichotomies here but in fact my father just like Rudolf Abel did not spill his guts did not give any information out to the enemy that they were being interrogated by but it's just interesting to see how the difference perceptions manifested itself upon their returns home to their respective countries so Beth you you were very young when your grandfather died died in 1970 I believe was a 71 Alba was 71 right died okay so there right like right next to each other how much growing up did you learn about the legacy of James Donovan just now now it's everywhere right now Tom Hanks's played him in a Steven Spielberg movie how much of that legacy was passed down to you as a kid from the rest of your family my Mary Ellen from your parents about you know carrying on that tradition well definitely I grew up you know surrounded by all of the pictures and the books and you know I knew that he was someone when I was very young he died when I was three so I really have very very faint memory of him as you know alive and then you know in high school and college you know all of us did papers on you know the incident not all of us are three out of four of us I think did and you know and you know I always heard my grandmother talking because there was supposed to be a movie made back in the 60s shortly after the first publication of strangers on a bridge and Gregory Peck was going to play my grandfather and for whatever reason it was shelved and it never happened so I grew up you know he doing that all the time and my grandmother saying I've written to Robert Redford and I've written to this person and and finally you know but I've never really talked about it too much with friends I think mainly because our generation really didn't know as much as my parents generation about the incident and like you know whenever Cuba came up in the news you know he was kind of lost to history so I kind of had to explain who he was and I just you know I didn't really talk about it too much and then there was a biography published about him in 2005 and that was when I really took an active more active role and trying to you know work with my family on making something happen and sometimes karma or the universe has a way of working its way you know working its magic separately and independently and that's really what happened and we were very very lucky and blessed and you've talked about you talked to me earlier about the whole Gregory Peck earlier movie thank I thought they picked Steven Spielberg cast Mark Rylance who win an Academy Award for playing Roy wobble but there was an interesting choice potentially to play him originally and some of the conversations about that movie were fascinating to me when you were telling me about them earlier well it was interesting strangers on a bridge was picked up by MGM and they chose Gregory Peck to play my father dad kind of like Spencer Tracy but you know he was taking but Gregory Peck was chosen and Alec Guinness which I thought was an interesting choice was to play Colonel Abel the screenplay which I didn't mention to you was also a fascinating man Peter Ustinov and he would come to our house and and try to get things just right so my father and I were in London and it was great we spent several days with Gregory Peck and I always loved it when he was trying to campaign for this role and he said you know Jim I I got an Oscar for playing a fictitious lawyer I just know I can do this I just don't and he actually sweetened the pot and and dad comes in and says Gregory Greg wants to know if you'll go out with his son tonight I said oh he's really pulling out the stops on this one it was fascinating I loved it wait I did are you passing that up I had a little friend a little friend in Park Slope Brooklyn and I knew since I was 7 or 8 and then always laughs at me when I tell this story and there is there's dad announcing Gregory Peck wants to know will you have dinner at their home tonight and his son's gonna pick you up and I sat there and I said oh boy I can't wait to tell Patti Dennehy and she's just a little friend on on Garfield place in Park Slope but VIN always thinks that's the funniest bring it back to family and personal you know so let me ask Gary and actually VIN can track every one can chime in on this because this is let's take it another step as far as fathers are concerned your grandfather had a pretty close relationship or at least a close conversation with Jim Donovan because your grandfather right when your father was shot down and taken prisoner immediately went to try to get him out and obviously when Jim Donovan was brought into this there was that connection between the two you want to talk a little bit about that and obviously we can bounce it around sure well when I started to do my research 25 years ago I never realized that my grandfather and James Donovan interacted and in going through the letters that my father wrote to and from prison there's one that was written by my grandfather to Donovan oh not to Donovan but to my father in prison that talked about Donovan and I want to read this to you here I can find it real quick so my dad's in prison he's writing letters back and forth to his loved ones Oliver is behind the scenes trying to do everything he can to get the release of his boy he writes a letter to RUF Abel in prison Abel writes him back basically says hey I can't help you you have to write my wife in East Germany aka the KGB my dad writes my grandfather writes to Khrushchev trying to say if he can get leniency let me serve out his prison stay let my boy come home anything he could do to get my dad's released so he's writing this letter to my father and he says the following this is June of 61 dear son in answer to your 16th letter mom told you she had just got home with a third trip from the hospital she is much better now she has had a much better breathing time than the other times we don't know how long till she has to go back with another spell we hope not for a long time I could not find out what was discussed at the Khrushchev Kennedy meeting June 3rd but I did have a call from blank a lawyer in New York he is in touch with blank in East Germany and blank is working for a release from that end and blank this end just how much good it will do is yet to be seen I want you to take care of your health and yourself above all things I was told that I would receive a letter from East Germany I have not received it yet I blocked out a few names that I didn't want you to me that I did not want to mention in this letter I will later on will have all of our hey-up first cutting 3 acres of corn three seeds of rye this fall have eight heads of cattle to bring calves this year in November or December and will close for the time we're all doing our best to help you and will continue to do so your pop so here I'm reading this letter thinking the KGB had blacked out these names turns out that my grandfather blacked out his own names and then my dad replies to them and basically says well if I can get my thing open again I got it in July of 61 dad writes back dear dad you didn't do a very good job of marking out those names I could read one or two of them it doesn't really make a difference I'm sure but I thought I'd let you know so here I am thinking that the KGB had blacked out my dad got a censored letter in but it turns out grandfather blacked out his own names and when I get the letter I'm looking up with the light I'm trying to read through it I'm probably doing exactly what my dad did looking up the light trying to read through it so I was just interesting for me to learn that my grandfather had reached out to Khrushchev to Abel and Donovan to try to get the process going to get his son released and the irony there is there's about 16 numbers in that letter it has the cattle three heads I'm like what book code is your grandfather or sending your dad there's all sorts of code words they're like and and it goes back to family because my father was enamored of your grandfather and he just kept saying I want my boy I want my boy and that stayed with him through the negotiations and the hard times in Germany everybody else who's giving him left and white right jabs none of them knew about the boy in the prison they just had their agendas and it was your grandfather's personal reach out to dad that made the difference and one of the story I want to throw in here is after my grandfather wrote to Rudolf Abel every piece of mail that went into prison or out from that cell was read so the FBI got wind of it the CIA got wind of it that my grandfather was stirring the pot he was writing Rudolf Abel so two guys in suits show up to the family shoe store in pound Virginia they walk in mr. powers please don't meddle in our affairs you will only make it worse for your son we will take it from here and sure enough they did contracting with Donovan to broker the exchange so then let me ask you about the relationship between a bowl and Donovan because that's that's central to this movie right the idea British spies is about it's about Tom Hanks and Mark Rylance playing these characters that there's this almost friendship not almost I think there is a friendship that comes between the two of them I be good to check it how many people have seen the movie British spies oh that's that's great it's it is a superb movie and it's very close there and very close of course to strangers on a bridge Jim Donovan's Donovan's book it comes over in the book the two men clearly did respect each other and when he got back to the Soviet Union the Fisher sent Donovan some amazing gifts a wonderful rare book for his book collection a painting and another side of it at this period of history the Soviet Union was in a mess the the Laufey the war fees in the United States had to be paid so they were paid by a third party but they were overpaid by two or three hundred dollars you might have seen a picture up there earlier of Watterson Donovan the scent of the Czech - - Vogel for the two or three hundred dollars that were overpaid unfortunately Vogel couldn't use the check he couldn't so it had to go to the US mission in Berlin and the political officer there Frank million had to endorse the check so this money could be paid over I just think could that possibly like that sort of thing possibly have happened now another important thing to have said just picking up from what was Gary was saying about the exchange of letters and you've seen the movie certainly the letters that were coming from quote mrs. Abel close quotes in in Germany were being written by the KGB and the KGB were poring over the letters from the United States looking for code and similarly the United States was poring over the Metis from from from the east looking for code so that with the letters written by the KGB but in the movie when they're on the on the eve of the exchange you see a mother and a daughter from central casting that was utterly untrue Willie Fishers wife and his daughter were both present and just as sort of their a sort of present it's all well but they were present at part of the negotiations but also when it came to the change how Willy Fisher went up the it was on the Glenna kirbridge edge of Potsdam why there or certainly the Russians didn't want the exchange to be a checkpoint charlie where the Americans would have got the publicity they wanted it somewhere else I was on the edge the glienicke bridge but the other end of the glienicke bridge was the KGB headquarters for the whole of europe known by the locals as the Forbidden City and Yelena and Evelyn Fisher had gone there to meet their husband father the exchange takes place and there's a panic the KGB can't find the two women they've gone shopping the shopping even in East Germany was better than the shopping in Moscow when I had something about letters because we've been talking about those when I first started doing my research into my dad's letters I didn't think anything was censored because they were handwritten and there was no blanks and nothing was blacked out but from listening to his audio tapes of what he went through that he recorded in 70 when he was writing his book the KGB would have him write the first letter they would review it they'd say move this change this take this out rewrite the letter he'd rewrite the letter the third or fourth draft would finally be mailed home and that third of course third or fourth draft looked as if there was no censoring because it was in his hand handwriting what I discovered is that just like VIN was saying they were trying to intercept codes they were trying to disrupt codes they didn't want my father to communicate with the CIA through whatever means available through coded messages or numbers or figures and so that's why they wanted to rearrange the sequence of the letters he was writing for the first three months after the trial he could ride home and there was no interception so Beth let me ask you when you did research as a middle school or a high school kid this movie as a couple years old now and in our audience because they're our audience has all seen it but it may not be necessarily something 10 years from now is going to be widely seen by everyone how do we ensure and it sounds like you're trying to do this through this foundation how do we ensure that the legacy not only of your grandfather but also of the people he work with like the garriepowers senior like the the way if Lily Fisher how do we ensure that that is continued on throughout generations well I think a number of ways I mean you know in advance of the movie one of the things that I did was I work to get the book his book republished and you know I did a lot of research on that process and I enjoy being a sleuth and you know and the process of research and fun you know discovering new things and one thing leading to the next and ultimately you know I found who the original publisher was so that's one one thing I think the movie frankly I I don't mean to disagree with you but I you know and obviously I'm partial but I do think that the movie is a classic and is pretty timeless and has pretty much and in my opinion humble opinion cemented you know the his him in my grandfather and history as well as you know the Francis Gary Powers and Rudolf Abel and really you know brought them to you know out of the shadows of history and I think you know through actually one of the initiatives that we've been working on I think the movie really did a great job in appealing to the younger generation too because they didn't know about this you know about this history and one of the initiatives that our family has been working on as well as I know Gary does too with students around the country with National History Day and the last few few themes you know they pick a theme every year have been very relevant to you know to my grandfather's legacy and you know the history covered in British spies so we've worked with many students we anticipate more this year you know I constantly am writing you know I'm trying to get pieces published in the newspaper about the importance of history and and the arts and classics I think that all of those things are very very paramount to you know to can that you know to continuing the training of the mind to whether you go into business or whatever I think you know one of the things about my grandfather was he was an extremely well rounded person he did go into law but he had a very multifaceted career and he had very multifaceted talents and interests so I think through initiatives like I'm trying to do with this foundation is working with not only youth but people you know in marginalized areas of society that don't have you know the opportunity that others do particularly in rural areas and to be act as kind of a bridge as my grandfather was I think to you know between small towns and and urban areas between left and right between the public and private sectors and to kind of you know transcend those looking at things so black and white for me I'm I I wanted to pick up on what Beth is saying because the hit national history day has been fascinating fascinating Beth would call me and say guess what we have a fifth child that wants to concentrate on dad for me what I've experienced is the passion these kids are looking for a hero they're looking for hero and I found adults are looking for heroes and the one thing that I learned after this movie was everybody would come up and say wow it's finally somebody with integrity it's good to see but it's somebody with integrity somebody I can look up to and say okay okay he's done right where there's a paucity of it and and this movie seemed to bring out the Hunger almost a hunger for it well I think we can say that across the board of all the people represented in the movie so Gary your father died long before he should have as did James Donovan what do you think now is important to remind people about his legacy because there had been for some time and there's still every so often someone that doesn't quite understand the real story behind it so what do you think the movie did or what do you you can keep doing or we as a museum can keep doing because the new museum will have a lot of your artifacts in it about your father can do to try to kind of bring his legacy forward because this is somebody who 90% of the people probably would have found themselves in a Soviet prison in Moscow clearly a spy right they weren't falling for the weather plane thing may have cracked under pressure and he did it well I think history has a way of writing itself over time especially in when you talk about the u-2 incident it's been 58 years since my father was shot down and in the last since 98 so 20 years that's when the declassification really kicked in and as a result of the history being able to have more information brought into it to shed light on what actually happened that has helped to reveal the truth of what my father did or did not do as I mentioned earlier there was all the misinformation surrounding him about whether he defected or landed the plane or or spilled his guts and because of the declassification conference that happened in 98 because the posthumous awards he was awarded as a result of that declassification his place in history has evolved and his reputation has shifted from one of infamy in the 60s to one of an American hero in the 2000 21st century and I believe that's a natural progression over time of history and how history continues to change and evolve and helps to set the record straight but it takes time for the truth to be revealed I believe that one of the reasons Spielberg did this movie was when I talked to him on set he knew about my father he knew about the u-2 incident he knew about the exchange he didn't know about Donovan at the time and he read the script that Donovan the person who brokered the exchange who is this guy how did he maneuver between East Germany and Russia and America and all the politics the politics of the time to broker this exchange so when I was talking to Spielberg he also had a family connection to the u-2 incident his dad mr. Spielberg senior was working for GE he was in Russia Moscow in the 60s 1960 shortly after the you to shoot down this is when the plane was on display at Gorky Park so mr. Spielberg and two or three of his engineers from GE are walking through the line to look at the u2 wreckage the guards notice that their Western they yanked them out of line they take him to the front they bear little them Oh evil Americans look what you do we protect our country and so mr. Spielberg senior relates this story to babies Spielberg as he's growing up so I believe that because his dad had a part it had told him a story as a young kid about the u-2 incident that when he learned about this new script about Donovan and the exchange and the pilot powers the light bulb went on he wanted to do this movie that's why I believe he did it well thank you then about what you think Evelyn wants the world to know about William Fisher about the legacy of again someone we may need jerk reaction to as a Soviet spy a bad guy but what do you think the most important thing moving forward might be this is a difficult one Evelyn whenever I spoke to I said I can tell you nothing about daddy's work we do at home we talked about the important things books art cooking music I can't talk to you about I don't I know nothing of Daddy's work so I think she would she would say nothing but she did say some interesting things during our conversations she said then all this corruption now it hasn't just suddenly started it was there from the very beginning and how many people here watch the Americans series about the illegals great it's a superb series overdramatic of course life is very boring but she said something very interesting um while I was in Moscow for a while there was a television program about an illegal a woman and they've interviewed this old lady in a faded housecoat and she'd been sent to somewhere in China as a young woman and when she arrived in China where she was going to be if this illegal spy she met the man who would be husband and whereas she did not love him he adored her and I told Evelin this story and she said her she doesn't understand what love is so I think it was very complicated I once asked because Fisher came to the United States in 1947 he went home on leave in 1955 he was then arrested and I said you know what what what was it like for you and your mother and she said that's the way it was and can I tell the story we've talked a little bit about the reputation of Francis Gary but Fisher when he went he was a failed spy he was caught he was interrogated the FBI admired him they said we tried to break the guy but we couldn't you had to admire him and the court the pictures you've seen from the courtroom the stories you've read about the way he behaved in the courtroom the way Jim Donovan in cross-examined the other witnesses and made them look like crooks and hopeless people Fisher's image in the in the United States courtroom was of an impressive honorable man even though he was our enemy he was an honorable man and the Soviets suddenly realized they've got something of a hit on their hands when he went back he wasn't a hero he was a busted flash they could never they would never know what he'd given away but he was sent around to schools to talk about what it was how great the Soviet Union was and how awful the United States was he was sort of you meet lots of Russians particularly in Moscow and in some petersburg in the in their 70s who would remember his visits to their school so his reputation is gradually in them the new Russia being forgotten he touched VIN touched on honorable and professionalism and how there was a mutual respect in a way between the FBI and Rudolf Abel the gaiters something similar with my father I was told a story by one of the interrogators who wrote the questions that were asked of my father oleg colonel Orlov and he indicated to me that the KGB guards the interrogators had a respect for my father because of the way he conducted himself during the interrogations and I thought that was very profound to learn that they admired him in a way of mutual professionalism back and forth now my father I don't believe admired them at the time under the circumstances but there was this mutual respect that was there when the interrogators were asking the question and how my father conducted himself so I found that very interesting so Gary you were too young to remember but you've talked about your mom telling you stories about how your father reacted to both that almost your difference between the death of both James Donovan and Rudolf Abel or seven years before your father died you tell a little bit about that well I don't know much about when Donovan died in seventy I was five years old and I'd not heard any stories from my mom or dad about his passing I do have a story in regards to how my father thanked mr. Donovan for getting him home from prison and he sent will either Thanksgiving her Christmas I don't know which one a very large country ham a Virginia ham and it showed up on the doorstep remember well I remember it was my father was flabbergasted and it was a huge thing we dined on it thank you very much we dined on it for a week or so and it was priceless that was that was our thank you from from your father at the time when he got on the plane didn't know who Donovan was he wasn't sure if he was government he didn't know what to make of it and it was so cute because my father said that your grandfather said to him you you crazy person that's my buddy that's my friend he's on your side so thus the ham appeared yes there we go and then another thing in regards to enable passed away in 71 I'm six years old I don't have a memory of this directly but my mother told me this story when I was growing up is that they had some friends over they had a little cocktail party they did a toast to mr. Abel basically that my father outlived him no disrespect but just that he's dead dad's alive I ought lived him the one thing I think everybody seems to have a favorite in the movie just a favorite little time and for me it's one word just one word and the man got it an Academy Award for it but I loved it when they were on the bridge and Abel gets out of the car and he looks around and all he said is Jim that's that melts me every time and it demonstrates what you're talking about we're okay we're we're I remember this wonderful man you know they had a an intellectual relationship but I will say that he had my brother show up at Christmastime in the prison to sing Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer and a able thought that was hilarious and my father was a rare book collector and so about a year after the exchange over the wall came this package to be delivered to this man at Watters and Donovan in Manhattan and my father was ecstatic abled knew he collected the rare books and my father got a double volume on vellum of the Justinian code and he was beside himself and it was the right thing to do and it's currently on display in the Georgetown library here in Washington DC from Beth's family donated to Georgetown where all four children went so take a look okay so Beth let me wrapped up with this let me talk about the movie itself because you've all been very very positive about it and you're right I think it's an extraordinary movie but there's no such thing as a perfect movie when it comes to getting history right the family probably has conversations perhaps from time to time about little things here and there that maybe bothered you a little bit I know I know talking to Marielle and there's certainly things like that so I can I'll give you the question but fun but I give you the question then you can certainly back up I mean Mary Ellen I think you know because she lived through it you know so I'm the oldest one here apparently you know so I think maybe the inaccuracies may be you know stand out to her and my mother on my uncle more than they would to me to me the inaccuracies you know I think you know we're kind of replacements you know he didn't paint a portrait of my grandfather he gave him a seascape which I it was included in the slideshow there I guess there's arguments back and forth about whether or not there actually were shots but they did not live in a house they lived in the house until they were my mother was 12 so and then they lived in an apartment building on the 14th 14th and 15th floors so you know shooting through the window wasn't really going to happen there are reports of somebody throwing bricks so things like that I think but I think that they did that you know they took dramatic license for effect and we I mean personally I mean I I was fine with that I am they were touching things like the idea of being in the house that I love this they had him as every man opening the door of this wonderful old Victorian home oh my god my mother would no sooner live in that house in the man in the moon and all their little geegaws throughout the house my mother would have had them in the trash so fast but Spielberg but the bathroom looked like I think her bathroom well I don't well we could I buy got marmalade but I will say I will say that it was it was Spielberg it was dealing with an international audience and how do I say an American family life fast how do I say it fast and that was the perfect to do we had no issues but I will tell you something fun I love it when there's a scene where my Tom Hanks is saying I've been called I've been I'm just I've been called over to see a client in Scotland and we're gonna go fishing well the first time I saw the movie and I saw and I thought fishing my father's a lawyer that would never touch a dead fish or a live fish that isn't happening that is not having I knew I thought Lord and and it struck me as funny because during the process of him disappearing dad said he was going to play golf in Scotland he needed a break and that made perfect sense to us if he had said he was going fishing we would have definitely called that one out so we would get postcards from Scotland and dad had filled them out and then agents in Scotland were mailing them to us so that we indeed Oh weather's so good today or you know now today's rainy you know so we were along for the ride you know though all these great postcards nobody called Oh at that time none of us called overseas or anything so what really was terrific was at two o'clock in the morning which berries from Pierre Salinger on the television two o'clock in the morning the phone's ringing and I remember it so clearly and it woke my mum up and I came running in and there's man from the New York Times it's on the extension and says to my mother oh you must be so proud you must be so proud of him and what he's accomplished and she's pretty sleeping trying to figure it out and she says did he get a hole-in-one we had not a clue what he was talking about it was priceless and one discrepancy that I want to mention with the movie and my dad and what he went through in the interrogation scenes in the movie the KGB guard is holding up the silver dollar oh look what the evil Americans your spy pilots they wanted you to use this well they didn't have the Silver Dollar dad on the way down threw it away he thought that the first thing a Soviet would want as a souvenir is this silver dollar that was hung around his neck so he took the poison tip to pin out and put it in his pocket the pin was given to the pilots optionally it was optional to take optional use at your discretion at their discretion in the event of torture so in the movie Spielberg takes some liberties shows that the cage we have the dollar they take some other liberties in that the shoot-down sequence scene dad does not see two missiles before he shot down in the movie you see two missiles it's building dramatic effect the third missile in the movie hits the plane the tail section it pushes it forward in the movie it's zooming down the dials are unwinding the canopy starting to crack building dramatic effect in reality as soon as the missile hit the nose pitched forwards the wings broke off right away it goes into an inverted spin and dad's being thrown around trying to get out does not use the ejection seat he basically crawls out of the plane he is attached by his air hose in real life two or three feet of air hose haft in the cockpit half out of the cockpit being banged around his face plate has frosted over he can't see outside of his past his nose he can't see the destruct button he can't feel it can't reach it but in the movie again differences the canopies cracking it shatters he sucked up out of the plane in the movie ten feet of air hose wildly swinging around the fuselage crawling hand-over-hand back into the cockpit dramatic effect they did so some misinformation did sneak into the movie from the newspapers of the time and I think Spielberg did that intentionally because it's what people remember reading but they did also honor my dad at the end of the film through the PostScript I think it's called where they acknowledge him as a hero to our country through the awards he was posthumously awarded and you've mentioned the awards we didn't specify it we're talking about the Distinguished Flying Cross we're talking about the Silver Star these aren't like you know the Boy Scout badge for doing good things these are I mean massive major awards the Silver Star is the third highest award for valor in the country so this this was not just great job Gary this is coming back and truly honoring him for his service and it took 50 years respectively first in 2000 which is the 40th anniversary and then 2012 which was the 50th anniversary of the exchange and it just goes to show that it's never too late to set the record straight and the family powers family is very humbled very honored that the CIA and the Air Force stepped up to the plate and did acknowledge my father as a hero to our country we all completely understand why they couldn't do it earlier it would have been nice had they done it when Dad was alive but the politics of the time did not allow for that to happen so I've been op alized the question answering and I could keep talking for another hour or so but I'm not going to do that because of all you find people so we are going to open it up to the audience please wait for the microphone to come around I see you a man is coming with the microphone so come on Amanda there she comes there she comes alright presentation it was said at the time and it's been said since that it was criticized as an unequal exchange even for those who recognized the heroism and courage of your father if the Soviets got the better of the deal so I'd like to hear assessments of was this in equal exchange or was it a unequal exchange well I'm gonna start with that one yes I understand it completely what you're saying about people in the press at one point in time said it was like Trading Mickey Mantle for a rookie and my dad being the rookie so I believe that while it may not be an equal exchange it was beneficial to both governments in that my dad got brought home and was debriefed he was unable to communicate to his superiors what questions they asked what type of knowledge were they looking for how did you evade answering questions can you help our agents learn what you went through so they can know what to do if they're captured same thing with Abel Abel wanted to the KGB wanted him home to be debriefed CIA one of my dad home to be debriefed so in that respect it was an equal exchange and well and Kelly Johnson even before dad was brought home well know during the debriefings with Kelly Johnson my father said this is what happened an explosion a shockwave the wings broke off down I fell and after Kelly Johnson the designer of the airplane listened to my father through the debriefing asked him questions back and forth that goes yep that's exactly what would happen I have no doubt that he did what he did so that was a nice accolade that's a damn good question thank you for it I think it was an equal exchange it was one man for one man but Fisher didn't stop his work when he was in prison in the United States he got to know Soviet agents who were in prison he didn't give away anything of the rings' that he was responsible for of the people he was really was paying the people who was giving orders to he didn't give any of that away at least we don't know that he didn't give any of that away with the evidence that we have at this moment so I think it was an equal exchange but what the Soviets got back was someone who was very very important and very very useful and one other thing I want to piggyback on with that is Abel did not give up any information to his FBI interrogators nor did my father but in the press he spilled his guts he collaborated with the enemy he did didn't follow orders when he my father was debriefed at a safe house in Maryland three weeks of debriefings they'd come back and forth to the shoot-down how high were you flying are you sure there wasn't a flameout no I was at altitude 70,000 feet making a left-hand turn vectoring in for my next target and the shoot-down sequence occurs the how did I want to say this the the the press that put all the misinformation out there the fake news of the era was detrimental to my father but my father didn't care about what other people thought he should or should not have done he knew that what he did under the circumstances they found himself in was the correct thing to do and he was often quoted as saying he do the exact same things again giving the exact same set of circumstances so I able gets accolade for not spilling his guts not talking to the enemy my father gets criticized for talking to the enemy though he didn't do it so I find that very unique and the other thing is during the interrogations when my father was going through these interrogations he had to appear to cooperate he had to pretend that he was trying to help them answer the questions of the best of his ability all the while he wasn't giving them any information of use when dad has brought back home and debriefed the CIA figure this out when my father shot down oh crap dad knows this program be program C program D program we have to get those offline get those guys out of there dad gets home and debriefed hey Frank did you talk about this no I didn't say that didn't mention this didn't talk about that Oh get these programs back in so he was debriefed they realized he didn't spill everything he knew he only cooperated to the extent that they believed he was cooperating with them this question really is an indictment of the negotiator so maybe perhaps you want to chime in that the person actually negotiated this was your father and certainly he probably thought that this was an even trade I I agree with what both both men are saying my father had come up with the idea it was a brain germ germinated during the he knew he knew that you don't let a colonel in the KGB walk so he wasn't going to be sent home something had to be arranged what is that why would you kill a colonel in a KGB why would you do that there it doesn't benefit anybody keep that colonel you may well need that man and I will tell you that both both presidents Eisenhower initially and candidate were all over this this is the way to go so they believed also that this was the right timing it was on an international stage I mean the Paris peace talks everything was getting crazy so in essence yes the presidents believed it my father my father believed it and certainly just talking to your grandfather you know let's just do the humane thing and also you have to stand up for your own men you know you it doesn't matter what your status is my father believed let's get our own man back let's get him back so my father didn't view it as Colonel for a spy pilot no it was a man for a man and an Americans are going to show the world that we get our guys back i something's just occurred today that I know we've all seen the movie the Americans got the better of the exchange because they got two men back they got Fred Pryor back and that's really interesting i hope you saw on the this the slides that Beth put together earlier one of them is me with a gentleman by the name of Francis J Mian now in his mid 90s who were United States ambassador in in in Warsaw in in Prague and he was the last United States ambassador in East Germany at the end of the Cold War but as a young diplomat he was in Moscow and was deep uted to go and you the you to wreckage he was sent from the embassy and in Germany he was responsible for the Frederic Pryor bit of the exchange he's written a lot of stuff for his children his grandchildren his great-grandchildren but he did say to me before I left if I could find in the United States publisher who was interested in his mid-90s he might be he might have his mind changed and what are their questions oh they got one there okay hello I'm Cynthia winGuard Lynne and I hope someone here remembers my parents but I know remember your dad because I was there when german-english dead garriepowers dad I was there when they brought it when he my dad left to pick him up and I was there when they brought him back to the safe house that we lived in and this is it because I copied it and built it in Columbia Maryland so my children would see it it was a phenomenal place with lots of secret staircases but beyond that I was there and I almost messed up the whole thing because I was late for school and jumped in the van I wasn't supposed to be in and all the and I'll tell that I won't go and all that but when he came back they brought him to Germany my dad picked him up and and with two other agents and picked him up brought him back and brought him into the safe house that we stayed in my parents went out for the day and and my older brother and I were there and we heard a noise behind the door and so I said Mike someone's there and he says no there's not I said yeah there is he said get a bobby pin from mom's room and we'll pick the lock so we did and there was your dad and you do look a lot like him but he had black her hair and sharper features but I can see your shadows that maybe was younger age yes and I was younger too but but he was pretty upset with us because he was supposed to be protected obviously and they did debrief him there as well right but then we got nabbed because all of our nannies etc were all agents and they were guns and they pulled them out on us so we got in lots of trouble that's right this is a funny story a bobby pin I loved it it did but you know hey they're supposed to keep him safe and a bobby pin my mother's bobby pin opened the I'm not kidding so I'm glad that he got back safe I'm glad the story was done and and and he was finally acknowledged for what he did was a very our fathers were in peril all the time and there's a lot more but I hope you know I can talk later and I'll fill you in on the rest of story I would love to do that at some point I wonder if anyone view could speak about the artifacts in the back specifically I was curious about the the briefcase if they said it was Frank brought it back and was it his did they bring it to him the family or would they give it to him the Russians the suitcase in the back of the room is the suitcase that my father walked across the bridge with when he was exchanged we tried to get Marc Platt to put one of his wicked suitcases that looked very similar in the movie to walk across but they didn't do the suitcase it was a Russian Soviet suitcase there's a sticker in it that's in what I call its Cyrillic so it's a Russian made suitcase from the 1950s probably late 50s and they gave it to my father so he could pack the few belongings he had in it to walk across the bridge so that's how he got the suitcase when dad came home it sat in the trunk and the foot lockers in the closet for years and years and years it used to contain all the videotapes audiotapes that my father did for his book and a couple of other tchotchkes souvenirs that my father brought home from prison dad was given a small allowance I don't know 10 rubles a month or something maybe a little bit more and he could not take any of these rubles out of the country it was illegal to do so he did get a few out he smuggled him out have those at home but he bought a couple of souvenirs for family they took him around the last day he was there they wanted him to spend his rubles and so he bought a little plastic bear and a little plastic this and a little wooden car a sculpture that to bring home to family and friends so we have some of these both on display around the country and in my little credenza oh yeah the the items at the back the sketchbook Willie took back on his last lick what he's leave home he had to go back for six months for debriefing andrey briefing it was you know his leave and he was an artist he has been said at the beginning he would have preferred to have been an artist rather than than an illegal spy but so his sketchbook was when he left the united states at 55 and came back in 56 the painting is one he did in the United States never could look at it it's um in near Atlanta in Atlanta Georgia we've never been able to work out exactly where it is so anyone knows exactly where it is on the tree where he left a mess interest and the two cups born and brought up in the United Kingdom his childhood be cathedrale from oak and the cup that was his father's Heinrich so that cup was held by hand that had shaken Lennon's hand and drunk from the lips that had kissed Lenin as well because that's that was the custom of greeting and they were given me they are gifts to me from Evelyn but two of them three of them have been in boxes or envelopes for some years and they're here on a medium term loan so that more people can see them and they'll come back to me or my grandson when that time is over not only the painting that was given to you by Fischer not the one at the end of the movie was a change that was but also Castro we could my father didn't smoke cigars but we have two humidors my father Kennedy was trying to figure how to handle this Bay of Pigs and he because my father was an independent lawyer so the decision was made he would represent the parents of the children who were captured so children well they're young very young men but so the parents gave my father a fabulous humidor and then Castro gave a dad a couple of things it was a wonderful humidor but also dominoes dominoes and this is very off script but there were some funny stories that went on in Cuba and you know they tied into the spy museum I lived in Brooklyn and I would try to drag my father movies as often as I could so on Flatbush Avenue they were hard Goldfinger one of my favorites no question about it so we get outside and I'm just II phoric I'm thrilled with this movie and he says boy you really like that movie and I said yeah yeah and he said well most of those gadgets exist they they weren't gimmicks I mean I know you all view it that way but I had I had a tracking device in my shoe the whole time I was in Cuba because I go into by myself and they had to know where I was and what was going on so even a little tidbits on Flatbush Avenue were kind of interesting did he ever tell you the story that he was asked by CIA to bring a very particular wetsuit into Cuba with him yeah well that was interesting because my my brother-in-law Robert Fuller Bob Rob Fuller said to me I'm over here in Asia and they've got a Newsweek article about your dad and it says he unwittingly he was given a wetsuit by the CIA to bring to Castro and they were called in CIA the men who came up with assassination attempts and there were so many of them on Castro they were called the boys on the fourth floor now I've spoken at the CIA since and they said they're down in the basement now I I said well what did they do wrong what did they do wrong but the article in Newsweek Rob Fuller said it says your father unwittingly purchased his own wetsuit and brought his own I said my father never did anything unwittingly in his life and so he wasn't going to do he his score was he's there you tried to get him to do it and he said look I'm not in the business of assassination I'm in the business of negotiation so you boys do what you want to do try to get it right they put oh disease inside of the yeah so and he'd lose his hair and if Castro didn't have a beard and hair maybe he'd lose bout they were all these crazy gimmicks but no exploding cigars all kinds of all kinds of wild stuff but he brought him his his own wet suit yeah Vince you might want to mention that the artifacts have gone away they will be back in the new museum in the spring and Beth has brought some things that are still out that we're keeping an eye on maybe you want to mention what you I was gonna say you have metals or tours things up there yeah I brought a case I think we have another case my brother has a portion of his metals but it's a beautiful case of various honours that my grandfather received I was going to bring one of these sketches and actually this led these are some other interesting artifacts my sleuthing in the you know during the process of republishing the book we had I found this one sketch at home that was kind of you know not hanging anywhere it was just amidst I don't know why it wasn't hanging anywhere it's a wonderful sketch and I looked at the name on it and it was a very prominent illustrator William Sharpe and it was a rendering of the courtroom scene and I did some googling and somehow one thing led to me knew another and it led me to this law firm downtown on Wall Street and I didn't really know I went through this long story when I called and the woman said oh I'll put you right through to the partners and she put me through to this man who immediately said you have to come down to our office we are the two remaining lawyers left of you know the fifth iteration of your grandfather's firm because the firm it the name of the firm is no longer you know anything with Donovan and it they they absorb the last in her it it's a firm called Marshall Dennehy and these men have been tremendous Stewart's of my grandfather as some of my grandfather's belongings over many years in the office including five of these original sketches by William Sharpe a beautiful or very ornate chair that was given to my grandfather by Cardinal Cushing in Boston for you know the release of the Cuban prisoners or the Cuban American prisoners and the original transcript of the able case so unfortunately I don't have those here but I did include a lot of the pictures in the slideshow but I do have I did bring the medals and we as a family were in such shock about this movie because my father was relatively unknown and it was a shock so how do you think Spielberg how do you thank Matt Charman who wrote the screenplay how do you thank Tom Hanks who even got down it was very eerie to watch him in jail for instance he would rub his hands my father rubbed his hands just like that it was really spooky a little bit how do you thank these men and so that that was very interesting is Chris Mary here yes there he is Chris and I don't talk very much and it's it's abysmal that we don't because he is cute as a button this man is great what a talent if anybody's been to govinda gallery in georgian for 40 odd years chris is renowned in the world of photography and so much else that we couldn't be mentioned in public but anyway um Chris I'm on the phone with him and he said I said I don't know what I don't know what we're gonna do for Tom Hanks what are we what do we do so out of nowhere Chris says I actually have something since I'm a cousin I have got the right thing and he and I said oh my god thank god what is it and he said I had been to George Harrison's home in England and he George said let's go out to my garden and Chris said can I photograph you and you can correct me but he said yes you can but I never ever want it published ever and he agreed to it so now so many years later he says I've only printed it once and it was for her his widow and I happen to know which I certainly didn't that Tom Hanks's number one is in the world as the Beatles so it's a passion of his music the door George Harrison and by the way Mary Ellen he had been to that same garden in George Harrison's home so it was a phenomenal experience to put that frame together with a book plate because George Harrison collected rare books and his talented wife had done an etching that st. George which is a patron saint in Great Britain is on horseback you know to slay the dragon but it had George Harrison's face on it and he it was a newborn a baby in there all the things that would mean something to George it was phenomenal so I framed both in one frame and then told this entire story that you're hearing tonight on the backside of this and we got to thank you that was adorable because Beth had found out that Tom Hanks collects antique typewriters so I get this crazy little crazy little envelope and Tom Hanks it was it was personal stationery and on it he had typed the whole thing on one of his old typewriters and so that everything's you know going up but going down this and that each one of the men got something of Mark Matt Charman my father would still be a footnote in history if it hadn't been for a British screenwriter and what do you give this man and I only had one thing my dad's and it was a gorgeous lighter he was in veteran smoker and I've had it for 40 odd years and what he what am I going to do with it you know and if there was ever a moment to give it away it would be to a man that brought my father out from the footnotes so I put it in a very interesting shadow box and at the top it says to Matt Charman from a grateful Donovan family and at the bottom it says in 3d and at the bottom it says Jim Donovan carried this throughout the Cold War oh is this man happy this man is so happy with this so that's been interesting and I wanted to tell you about Steven Spielberg it was fascinating first of all that mark Platt said now you'd be nice to him I said what do I do what do I say he's very shy and you know he's on the quiet side and I said don't we'll be good to him we'll be good to him what a self self facing quiet gentle soul that only wants to know about you he's just the most wonderful individual and he said I'm so happy to talk to you because my last movie was Lincoln and I had nobody to talk to and which I thought was hilarious and then he was talking about his dad and and Gary knows his dad and and I said well Stephen by this time he Steven I said Stephen did your father see the movie and he said oh yes I showed it to him last week I said well what did he say and he says with pride my father said it was neat the premiere director in the world and his father thought it was neat and I said you're kidding me right and he said no no this is a high accolade from my father this is a high accolade so my best my best story is is Charles pink here he is the director of the OSS society here in Northern Virginia and he was gracious enough to make me part of the OSS Society because my dad had been in it so he called me up he said you're gonna meet Hanks you're gonna meet Spielberg you got to do something for me you know so I right so he loaded me up with all I said no no no no I was up in New York he's down here and I said I'm not handing them in the middle of her premiere pamphlets things I'm not doing it so I said I'll tell you what I will do you have the coolest OSS ID card from the night from the 19th floor is the coolest thing why don't you make each of them an honorary member and I'll be happy to do that because they're little there's size of a driver's license I will do that so I was little embarrassed I don't know what it is but this man had just gotten the Medal of Freedom last month and washing but oh god oh god what am i doing so at the end of all our time with him I was beginning to get embarrassed but I had to do it so I I said Steven eyes and I passed it over on the table and then handed to him and I said you are now an honorary member of the OSS Society now this quiet self-deprecating man went nuts I thought I'd given him a truck out of a cereal box or something I couldn't get over he picked it up he said oh oh oh my god this is so cool this is so cool it's the neatest thing he went he started jumping up and down it was the most animated we had seen him it was adorable he's he's like the what he's a little you as his inner child is alive and well and that is why he is the most brilliant director and lovely man put the OSS button on it was adorable to watch and lo and behold the next night when I did the same thing with Tom Hanks I said Tom you know we've made you an honorary member and he looked and he said oh my god this is so cool he was printing Sully and his hair was all grey and he said oh my god this is so cool he says Mary Ellen which button should I put on this one this one I said well one one day one the next Jo both and then I understood why they're best friends because they have this schwa dick they were like little boys and it was adorable to watch this and I wanted to share it with all of you because they're so down-to-earth and so genuine and they see world through a different prism than so many others like them so I just wanted to tell you that fun story I think it was three years ago that I first met Mary Ellen and the first conversation was I've been coddled by Tom Hanks when I was a little girl and now I've been coddled by Tom Hanks now I'm a big girl so what we're gonna do is we're gonna run the slideshow again it'll be up here as people can mingle and have a conversation obviously we have the books in the back if you want to take you know grab one of them and have someone Gary or Vince sign the book but as of now let me thank Mary Ellen let me thank Gary let me thank VIN let me think Beth for taking the time to talk to us here tonight we really appreciate it as a fantastic program so please join me in thanking them here and we'd like to thank all of you for coming out tonight one last thing before I send you on your way we are gonna be doing programs here for the next about month and a half and then we are done for about another year busy museum here closes on January 1st and we don't reopen until the spring and we won't start doing programs again until probably the fall so checkout on the back on the table with all the programming that we're doing here in the fall get a chance to come check out what we do here at the museum and we really appreciate you coming out tonight thank you so much [Applause] [Music]

Channel: IntlSpyMuseum

Views: 35,129

Rating: 4.7407408 out of 5

Keywords: Francis Gary Powers, James Donovan, CIA, Bridge of Spies, Russia, Cold War, KGB, spy, spy swap

Id: uXh-fADTn2g

Length: 91min 19sec (5479 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 12 2018