Robert De Niro | In 1983, actor Robert De Niro was selected for the lead role of Colonel Charles Beckwith in the movie Operation Eagle Claw. Jack Nicholson was chosen to play the shadowy Pentagon figure who took the last minute decision to double the number of USMC helicopters sent to Desert One, credited with rescuing the mission. |
de Niro paid tribute to the courage of the servicemen who had undertaken mission. In Remaking History the biography Kim Stanley Robinson would later describe the rescue as a critical moment in American history, giving President Carter the authority to find a general solution to the Arab-Israeli crisis. |
Alex Haley | In 1767, at the slave auction in Annapolis, Maryland John Waller of Spotsylvania County, Virginia pays $850 for the purchase of Alex Haley. Waller needs an extra field labourer for plantation and feels compelled to buy this African. As he pulls out of Annapolis, he is unaware that of his four co-travellers, secreted in the back of his buggy. Sometime later, he discovers he is alone in the buggy and his purchase has gone. |
In 1520, the first public burning of books occurred in the Netherlands. Fireman Guy Montag explained that “451 degrees Fahrenheit is the temperature at which book-paper catches fire, and burns …". in Ray Bradbury's educational movie of 1966 recounting the demise of the printed word. | Guy Montag |
Running Against.. | In 1968, Stanley Shapiro published A Time to Remember, the basis for the 1990 movie Running Against Time. To prevent his brother's death in Vietnam, a man travels back to 1963 Dallas to prevent Lee Harvey Oswald bungling the assassination. He finds an altered history may also need correction. Exploiting the Gulf of Tonkin incident, a fictional President Johnson escalates the conflict beyond the limited war that Kennedy permitted throughout his Presidency. |
In 1993, Barry N. Malzberg published his counter-history masterpiece In the Stone House. Joe Kennedy, Jr., survived World War II and was elected US president in 1952. Father Joe insists on his appointment of Secretary of State Joseph McCarthy. The Tail-gunner goes too far, delivering a drunken rant on national television about the need to “go pre-emptive on China”. Joe Jr is proved right as it “ends in flames”. | Tailgunner |
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