Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 12:50pm

Seven Days in May Redux

What is it with liberals and coups?  Recently several liberals, including entertainer? Sarah Silverman, and Obama era Pentagon bureaucrat Sarah Brooks, have  been calling for/predicting a military coup against the Trump administration.  Such fools have no concept of our military where the officers are trained from day one of their careers in the essential fact of civilian control of the military.  If the impossible ever happened and some rogue faction of the military ever did move against Trump, the shots fired in such a coup attempt would merely be the opening shots in Civil War II.  Liberals have often fantasized about a conservative military coup against the government of the United States, perhaps most famously in the novel and film of the Sixties entitled Seven Days in May.  From current calls for a military coup emanating from the portside of our politics, such concerns about a conservative coup apparently were a case of the left projecting upon the right what the left would be tempted to do if confronted by a civilian government they viewed as a menace.

 

Hard to believe that it is more than half a century since the film Seven Days in May (1964) was released.  Directed by John Frankenheimer with a screenplay by Rod Serling based on a novel published in 1962, the movie posits a failed coup attempt in the United States, with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General James Mattoon Scott, played by Burt Lancaster, being the would be coup leader.  Kirk Douglas plays Scott’s aide Marine Corps Colonel Martin Casey who, while agreeing with Scott that President Jordan Lyman’s nuclear disarmament treaty with the Soviets is a disaster, is appalled when he learns of the proposed coup, and discloses it to the President, portrayed by Frederic March.

The film is an example of liberal paranoia in the early sixties and fears on the port side of our politics of a coup by some “right wing” general.  The film is unintentionally hilarious if one has served in our military, since the idea of numerous generals agreeing on a coup and keeping it secret, even from their own aides, is simply ludicrous.  Our military leaks like a sieve, and general officers almost always view each other as competitors for political favor, rather than as co-conspirators.

Ironies abound when the film is compared to reality:

The film is set in the 1970s.  Richard Nixon, the arch bogeyman of liberals, negotiated SALT I with the Soviets in 1972, with not a murmur from the military.

Rather than a war mongering military opposed by a pacifist President, in 1964 LBJ, the great liberal hope, was gearing up the war in Vietnam, in the face of a fair amount of skepticism by admirals and generals.

The film received encouragement from the Kennedy administration, JFK, having read the novel.  When asked by a friend if such a coup as depicted in the novel could happen, Kennedy replied:

“It’s possible. But the conditions would have to be just right. If the country had a young President, and he had a Bay of Pigs, there would be a certain uneasiness. Maybe the military would do a little criticizing behind his back. Then if there were another Bay of Pigs, the reaction of the country would be, ‘Is he too young and inexperienced?’ The military would almost feel that it was their patriotic obligation to stand ready to preserve the integrity of the nation and only God knows just what segment of Democracy they would be defending if they overthrew the elected establishment. Then, if there were a third Bay of Pigs it could happen. It won’t happen on my watch.”

While the film was in production a coup against a civilian government by that country’s military did happen, President Diem of South Vietnam being murdered in the process, and JFK helping to instigate the coup.

The film itself isn’t bad, Lancaster, Douglas and March giving fine performances.  An interesting artifact of Cold War liberal paranoia in an entertaining package.

0 0 votes
Article Rating
20 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Nate Winchester
Nate Winchester
Friday, February 3, AD 2017 6:45am

apparently was a case of the left projecting upon the right what the left would be tempted to do

You can just stop there, Don. That’s 90% of the Left’s political interaction full stop.

As the saying goes, “the Left designs government assuming they are in charge; the Right designs government assuming their enemies are in charge.”

Brian
Brian
Friday, February 3, AD 2017 7:42am

As Rush Limbaugh used to say, to be a liberal is to be a hypocrite. Period.

Phillip
Phillip
Friday, February 3, AD 2017 9:01am
c matt
c matt
Friday, February 3, AD 2017 9:09am

What, exactly, makes them think the military would turn on Trump, rather than on the Left?

Heorogar
Heorogar
Friday, February 3, AD 2017 9:44am

Agree with all of the above. One caveat: Actually, liberals exhibit stupidity. The village idiot isn’t susceptible to hypocrisy.

Phillip
Phillip
Friday, February 3, AD 2017 9:52am

“One caveat: Actually, liberals exhibit stupidity. The village idiot isn’t susceptible to hypocrisy.”

I must remember that line.

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Friday, February 3, AD 2017 12:54pm

The military would defend Trump to the bitter end. These leftists had better beware what they ask for.

Art Deco
Friday, February 3, AD 2017 1:11pm

What’s bizarre about this is that for 35 years, Latin American militaries have been loath to do this. The leftists chewing about this are projecting their essentially emotional reaction to Trump on the military, who have no particular reason to be hostile to Trump and who put up without much vociferous complaint with Messrs. Johnson, Carter, Clinton, and Obama.

The Bear
Friday, February 3, AD 2017 4:03pm

Keep thinking about a military coup. Bears are making their move, and you won’t stand a chance.

Heorogar
Heorogar
Friday, February 3, AD 2017 7:29pm

You are probably safe if you live in a red state, i.e., America.

If the California and New York imbeciles and filthy pagans had the merest concept or experience of war, they would blanch at the thought.

Given the dishonesty, insanity, and stupidity of the academy, media and millions of evil people, I can only conclude that the worst is yet to come – Das dicke Ende commt noch.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Saturday, February 4, AD 2017 4:09am

A French diplomat one assured me there would never be a military coup in the United States – There is no American embassy in the United States.

Timothy Reed
Timothy Reed
Saturday, February 4, AD 2017 5:46am

The men and women in uniform will do their duty. TR.

Timothy Reed
Timothy Reed
Saturday, February 4, AD 2017 6:45am

Here is another bit of info to consider. I just found out that Templehof Air Base in Berlin has been dismantled and turned into a refugee camp ! TR.

Heorogar
Heorogar
Saturday, February 4, AD 2017 6:49am

They have no idea (nor do they care) what is occurring in America or among the military.

Imagine, if you will, in February 2009 that a former Bush Administration official is published in “Foreign Policy” suggesting that the military overthrow the Obama regime. Ms. Rosa Brooks did it in January/February 2017.

Despite the fact Obama ran out many high-level war fighters, the fact that a large majority of military voted for Trump, so that won’t happen.

Art Deco
Saturday, February 4, AD 2017 8:23am

Rosa Brooks has a handsome academic position and is the daughter of Barbara Ehrenreich. What she doesn’t get is that ‘crazy’ isn’t Trump. Crazy is the dame she grew up with.

Art Deco
Saturday, February 4, AD 2017 10:33am

A French diplomat one assured me there would never be a military coup in the United States – There is no American embassy in the United States.

What he said was stupid. You responded how?

John Schuh
John Schuh
Saturday, February 4, AD 2017 12:05pm

There is not a corporal’s guard of leftists with military experience .

Art Deco
Saturday, February 4, AD 2017 4:36pm

In terms of voting behavior, the military is indubitably much more variegated than the arts and sciences faculty or the school apparat. It’s doubtful you’ll find many (if any) who are adherents of what Thomas Sowell has called ‘the vision of the Anointed’ or are among those Sowell calls ‘the one-uppers’. Well, there’s Andrew Bacevich. People cashiered for gross errors have their issues.

Discover more from The American Catholic

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading

Scroll to Top