Other reviewers have complained of the pace of this six-episode documentary on the death of Dr. Frank Olsen in 1953. It is a bit slow on occasion but I sense that was intentional as it was the most apt way for the audience to grasp the pit of time that the main character, Eric Olsen, devoted to his effort to gain justice.
As far as the revelation that our government kills people - even innocent people - duh? If you are at all engaged in our society you know this from the light fiction of the 007 series to recalling why the Nixon Administration sought to suppress the Pentagon Papers back in the 1970's ... or to recall one of Seymour Hursh's articles exposing Mei Lai - who cares now.
And Eric Olsen's story of his expose of the murder of his father in 1953 is summed up by the principle in the closing moments that he gained no great catharsis or anything by seeing this personally devastating story to its conclusion. The whole endeavor comes across a bitterness and a wasted life.
As one who follows our government close enough to read between the lines, it is obvious to me that Seymour Hersh's contact had access to the presidential directives that are much like those that we know that Barack Obama was known to execute that called for the elimination of national security targets. (You know even US citizens - such as the Imam and his 16-year old son who were killed in a drone attack in Yemen some years back.) This probably means that Dwight Eisenhower's name was on the top secret presidential order that called for Frank Olsen's killing.
The good news is that there is a tradition in the executive office of the president that prevents the execution of people arbitrarily. Dr. Olsen, as head of the biological weapons section at Fort Dietrich, had probably suggested he was about to blow the whistle on our use of some kind of biologic weapon in the Korean conflict. At that time it would have been a serious blow to US credibility both overseas and at home.
Had the documentary been more explicit in its coverage of what Dr. Olsen did and knew in his work, the estimation of his decency in wanting to blow the whistle would have been tempered by his complicity in what could be truly horrific crimes. But then it wouldn't have been Eric Olsen's story.
That this documentary skims over those elements and only alludes to the seriousness of the cold war and the risk of a nuclear holocaust, hides the historical justification for his elimination. Still, by presenting how the whole sordid story played out over time and even the limits of what a storied journalist would put on the record today about events then, its pace and presence as a work of art in the documentary genre is justified.
For instance, the documentary presents another dozen or so 'suspicious' deaths from foreign leaders to government workers as examples of other such 'deniable' exterminations. Certainly such historically similar incidents slow the pace but add certainty to message being written in between the lines by this documentary.
The point is this documentary is not news but a genuine expose of how, as I.F. Stone was fond of saying, governments always lie. This is Eric Olsen's bitter story of how he spent his life parsing the multitude of lies fed him and by extension, us. When you understand it from his perspective, it is a brilliant, if not cautionary tale with the message; there is no catharsis and it is okay to let it go.
As far as the revelation that our government kills people - even innocent people - duh? If you are at all engaged in our society you know this from the light fiction of the 007 series to recalling why the Nixon Administration sought to suppress the Pentagon Papers back in the 1970's ... or to recall one of Seymour Hursh's articles exposing Mei Lai - who cares now.
And Eric Olsen's story of his expose of the murder of his father in 1953 is summed up by the principle in the closing moments that he gained no great catharsis or anything by seeing this personally devastating story to its conclusion. The whole endeavor comes across a bitterness and a wasted life.
As one who follows our government close enough to read between the lines, it is obvious to me that Seymour Hersh's contact had access to the presidential directives that are much like those that we know that Barack Obama was known to execute that called for the elimination of national security targets. (You know even US citizens - such as the Imam and his 16-year old son who were killed in a drone attack in Yemen some years back.) This probably means that Dwight Eisenhower's name was on the top secret presidential order that called for Frank Olsen's killing.
The good news is that there is a tradition in the executive office of the president that prevents the execution of people arbitrarily. Dr. Olsen, as head of the biological weapons section at Fort Dietrich, had probably suggested he was about to blow the whistle on our use of some kind of biologic weapon in the Korean conflict. At that time it would have been a serious blow to US credibility both overseas and at home.
Had the documentary been more explicit in its coverage of what Dr. Olsen did and knew in his work, the estimation of his decency in wanting to blow the whistle would have been tempered by his complicity in what could be truly horrific crimes. But then it wouldn't have been Eric Olsen's story.
That this documentary skims over those elements and only alludes to the seriousness of the cold war and the risk of a nuclear holocaust, hides the historical justification for his elimination. Still, by presenting how the whole sordid story played out over time and even the limits of what a storied journalist would put on the record today about events then, its pace and presence as a work of art in the documentary genre is justified.
For instance, the documentary presents another dozen or so 'suspicious' deaths from foreign leaders to government workers as examples of other such 'deniable' exterminations. Certainly such historically similar incidents slow the pace but add certainty to message being written in between the lines by this documentary.
The point is this documentary is not news but a genuine expose of how, as I.F. Stone was fond of saying, governments always lie. This is Eric Olsen's bitter story of how he spent his life parsing the multitude of lies fed him and by extension, us. When you understand it from his perspective, it is a brilliant, if not cautionary tale with the message; there is no catharsis and it is okay to let it go.