THE LOS ANGELES offices of Universal Security are located in a forty-six-story glass tower in the central business district, that small section of L.A. that actually looks urban. Most of the space they lease is on the fourth, fifth, and sixth floors. Joe Broz, for example, had his cubicle on the fifth floor near conference room 2 and the training center. Main Reception is on four, the lunchroom is on six.
The executive offices, however, are on forty-four, with windows facing west. That’s high enough that it’s often above the smog and there’s a view of the ocean. After dark it’s a view of lights, that geometric pattern that is the hallmark of films set in Los Angeles, just as the tip-of-Manhattan skyline is the signature of New York films. The only curving lines are the freeways and the coast. Inward toward the center of the building there is a room with no view called the Cube.
It is a room suspended within a room built to the same specifications that are used to construct surveillance-proof spaces in United States embassies. In spite of its nickname, it’s really a rectangle, longer than it is wide, wider than it is high. Its walls are fully soundproofed. The gap between the two rooms is large enough to permit visual inspection of all eight sides, most emphatically including top and bottom. These areas, collectively called “the gap,” are monitored by video. The walls of the Cube also contain internal wiring that broadcasts a variety of jamming signals and generates white noise into the gap. Alarms will sound if any attempt is made to introduce recording or broadcast equipment into the Cube.
A BZX-7000 is located inside the room. It creates a constantly shifting randomized pattern of electronic and audio signals that interfere with any attempt at recording. As an additional failsafe, any recording would be degaussed by a powerful magnetic field that surrounds the one and only door. This is the single device that can be turned on and off by request since one of the things that people often use the Cube for is to listen to recordings. For that reason there is a variety of play-only equipment installed inside.
Some of the technology is restricted and cannot be exported without a special license. But the existence of the room and how it functions is no secret. It is, rather, advertised by Universal Security as the ultimate in aural privacy. It rents for $2,000 an hour. That may seem high for a room that is small, hot, and inherently claustrophobic. But all the clients who use it inevitably express a sense of value received and they frequently return to use it again. Rolls-Royces and Lear jets, even high-priced sex, can only make people feel wealthy. The Cube can make people feel something more special and rare—important.
The door to the Cube itself is thirty-six inches above the floor. Cube users are escorted into the gap by a guard who carries a stepladder. After the client has entered the gap and closed the door, the guard removes the ladder, takes it with him, and returns to his post in the outer room.
It was a Saturday. The two men who sat in the Cube were dressed casually but very expensively. David Hartman had been outfitted by a shop in L.A. called DownEast that sold clothes that made the wearers look like they were New Englanders, the sort that had so much money they needn’t mention it, and, more importantly, that the last person in their family that had actually earned money had died long before the invention of motion pictures. John Lincoln Beagle was a film director. His style was far more bohemian: jeans, southwestern-style shirt, Navaho belt with a turquoise buckle, and desert boots, about $2,500 for the ensemble. But that included $800 for boots that were hand-sewn from a custom last, which was in no way an indulgence, since Beagle had sensitive feet and off-the-rack shoes, no matter how costly or carefully fit, always hurt. And the belt buckle was $960.
Lee Atwater’s memo was in the inside pocket of David Hartman’s $1,800 Whittier & Winthrop jacket. He was trying to think of a way to avoid revealing it.
The door of the Cube closed. “Wow, heavy-duty,” John Lincoln Beagle said. “I love it. I’d love to use it as a set. But what the fuck could you possibly have to tell me that needs this much secrecy. What are you, taking over Columbia? Taking over Sony?”
David Hartman reached into his pocket. He took out Lee Atwater’s memo. He unfolded it. Smoothed it flat on the table.
From the moment they left this room, Beagle would be watched and listened to by operatives of Universal Security. His home and his office would be wired. His friends and family would be monitored.
Hartman slid the memo over to Beagle.
It said:
MEMO FROM: L.A.
TO: J.B. III/YEO
WAR has always been a valid political option, through all societies, through all time. We, who grew up in the South, know about revering our warriors and war heroes. Even those who have lost! So long as they fought valiantly and gallantly. You and I grew up on the legends of Lee and Jackson and Beauregard. My first president was Eisenhower, General Eisenhower. Kennedy was a war hero. George Bush was a war hero. George Washington was General Washington. Andrew Jackson was General Jackson. The two great names in British history are Nelson and Wellington. The heroes of France are Charlemagne, Napoleon, and de Gaulle.
After Vietnam and in the shadow of atomic weapons, war ceased to be a political option. It was considered to be, and may have been in fact, political suicide to pursue a war option.
Then Maggie Thatcher showed us the way.
It is important to remember that Thatcher’s political career appeared to be virtually over. That she was at a low point in the polls. That most forecasters considered that she and the Conservative Party could not win reelection.
Then she had her war in the Falklands. She rallied her country. She won. For her, war was not a liability—it was political salvation. She became a hero of her nation. She won reelection. She became the longest-serving British prime minister in modern history.
Obviously, I am not the only one to take note of the event and the results. It changed all of our attitudes. Especially Mr. Reagan’s. He had his adventure in Libya; that rather tentative affair in Lebanon—quickly and correctly aborted; he had his invasion of Grenada.
These military affairs did no harm in terms of domestic political standing.
This proves absolutely that an American president can go to war and survive politically. It is an option. But is it an option worth employing?
We have yet to duplicate anything approaching the Iron Lady’s success with her “splendid little war.” While Libya, Lebanon, Grenada, and Panama did no harm, they did precious little good.
Why not?
Because we have not fully embraced the fact that modern war is a media event There is a recognition of a media element in war, especially in the post—Vietnam War American military. It is de rigeur to say that we lost in Vietnam because of the media. If we ignore the possibility that this belief is so universal exactly because it also serves the function of completely removing responsibility from the people who would most logically bear responsibility for the loss, then the implication is obvious, clear, and logical: the new order of battle says we must win on television (and the lesser media) as well as on the battlefield. This is now an article of faith in the military.
“You know you never defeated us on the battlefield,” said the American colonel.
The North Vietnamese colonel pondered this remark a moment. “That may be so,” he replied, “but it is also irrelevant.” (H. G. Summers, On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War)
The Vietnamese lost every battle. According to our military, the Americans and the ARVN even won the Tet offensive. Yet this battle is without question the battle in which the Communists won the war.
The military has understood only half the idea. Yet the whole of the concept stares us in the face: it is not necessary to win the war on the battlefield as well as is in the media, it is only necessary to win in the media. It is possible to lose on the battlefield, win on television—and win. War is not partially a media event. It has become completely a media event.
If the president is to go with the Thatcher option, to establish or reestablish popularity—to win reelection by going to war—he must recognize that it must be handled as a media event. Both he and Mr. Reagan have employed war. They were sensible in leaving the logistics and the fighting to the professional armed forces. Those armed forces did what they do with reasonable success. That is, they got there in good order, they executed with minimal embarrassment, they won the fighting, there were few casualties, and they kept the body bags off camera. Lebanon excepted, of course.
But they did not leave the media war to the professionals. (This is particularly surprising in Mr. Reagan, who should have intuited better. It is possible to fault his intellect and his work habits, but his intuition, never!)
What is war? To you? To me? To the American people?
War is John Wayne. It’s Randolph Scott and Victory at Sea. It’s Rambo, Star Wars, Apocalypse Now, it’s body bags on CBS. It’s Combat, The Rat Patrol, Patton. The face of war is not reality. It is television and motion pictures. Even for people who have been to war. Whatever their memories, they have been replaced by what they have seen subsequently on TV. Even if they were “disillusioned” by Vietnam, those illusions came from the movies. As Mr. Reagan proved, people much prefer a good, solid story to an elusive and complex truth.
The war must be run by professionals.
If victory or defeat will be attained on television, then the professionals are not the generals. Or even the politicians. The war should be directed by a film or television director. This may sound, on the face of it, like a frivolous idea. It’s not. It’s dead serious.
The generals and the politicians—even the media-wise Mr. Reagan—have demonstrated that they can achieve victory on the battlefield without achieving victory where it counts: in the hearts and minds and votes of the American people. To repeat a method that we know is a failure, that is the frivolous idea.
Who, then, is to run this war?
David Hartman, head of RepCo, the most powerful agency in Hollywood today. If anyone can figure out how to package a war and who should direct it, Hartman can. If anyone has a sense of a deal and making it happen, it’s him. Remember that it was Mr. Reagan’s agent, Lew Wasserman, and MCA that supported and guided, even partially created, that president’s career. Hartman and RepCo are the Wasserman and MCA of the nineties.
When all seems like it might be lost, and there are no other options, go to war. It is the classical response to insoluble domestic problems. It is the reverse of the hostage crisis that destroyed Carter so completely—another media event. Don’t leave the impact to chance. Find someone who has the gut instincts, the style, the sheer artistry, to create a war that America can love—on television.
Then you will win.
“Wow. Cool,” said John Lincoln Beagle. He was capable of writing great dialogue, but he didn’t speak it.