Charlie Wilson's War
Encyclopedia
Charlie Wilson's War is a 2007 American biographical
comedy
drama film
recounting the true story of U.S. Congressman Charlie Wilson (D
-TX
) who partnered with "bare knuckle attitude" CIA
operative Gust Avrakotos
to launch Operation Cyclone
, a program to organize and support the Afghan mujahideen
in their resistance to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan
.
The film is adapted from George Crile's
2003 book Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History. It was directed by Mike Nichols
, written by Aaron Sorkin
, and stars Tom Hanks
, Julia Roberts
, Om Puri
, Philip Seymour Hoffman
, Amy Adams
, Ned Beatty
and Emily Blunt
. It was nominated for five Golden Globe Awards, including "Best Motion Picture", but did not win in any category. Philip Seymour Hoffman was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
.
) is more interested in partying than legislating, frequently throwing huge galas and staffing his congressional office with young, attractive women. His social life eventually brings about a federal investigation into allegations of his cocaine
use, conducted by then-federal prosecutor Rudy Giuliani
as part of a larger investigation into congressional misconduct. The investigation results in no charge against Charlie.
A friend and romantic interest, Joanne Herring
(Julia Roberts
), encourages Charlie to do more to help the Afghan people
, and persuades Charlie to visit the Pakistan
i leadership. The Pakistanis complain about the inadequate support of the U.S. to oppose the Soviet Union
, and they insist that Charlie visit a major Pakistan-based Afghan refugee camp
. (This and other Afghan scenes were filmed in Morocco
.) Charlie is deeply moved by their misery and determination to fight, but is frustrated by the regional CIA personnel's insistence on a low key approach against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Charlie returns home to lead an effort to substantially increase funding to the mujahideen
.
As part of this effort, Charlie befriends the maverick CIA operative Gust Avrakotos
(Philip Seymour Hoffman
) and his understaffed Afghanistan group to find a better strategy, especially including a means to counter the Soviets' formidable Mi-24 helicopter gunship. This group was composed in part of members of the CIA's elite Special Activities Division
, including a young paramilitary officer named Michael Vickers
(Christopher Denham). As a result, Charlie's deft political bargaining for the necessary funding and Avrakotos' group's careful planning using those resources, such as supplying the guerrillas with FIM-92 Stinger
missile launchers, turns the Soviet occupation into a deadly quagmire with their heavy fighting vehicles being destroyed at a crippling rate. The CIA's anti-communism budget evolves from $5 million to over $500 million (with the same amount matched by Saudi Arabia
), startling several congressmen. This effort by Charlie ultimately evolves into a major portion of the U.S. foreign policy known as the Reagan Doctrine
, under which the U.S. expanded assistance beyond just the mujahideen and began also supporting other anti-communist resistance movements around the world. Charlie states that senior Pentagon official Michael Pillsbury
persuaded President Ronald Reagan
to provide the Stingers to the Afghans: "Ironically, neither Gust nor Charlie was directly involved in the decision and claims any credit."
Charlie follows Gust's guidance to seek support for post-Soviet occupation Afghanistan, but finds almost no enthusiasm in the U.S. government for even the modest measures he proposes. The film ends with Charlie receiving a major commendation for the support of the U.S. clandestine services, but his pride is tempered by his fears of what unintended consequences
his secret efforts could yield in the future and the implications of U.S. disengagement from Afghanistan.
Charlie's "Angels"
Composite character
s
reported that 81% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 192 reviews. Metacritic
reported the film had an average score of 69 out of 100, based on 39 reviews.
, have criticized some elements of the film. The Washington Times
reported that some have claimed that the film wrongly promotes the notion that the CIA-led operation funded Osama bin Laden
and ultimately produced the September 11 attacks. Other Reagan-era officials, however, have been more supportive of the film. Michael Johns
, the former Heritage Foundation
foreign policy analyst and White House
speechwriter to President George H. W. Bush
, praised the film as "the first mass-appeal effort to reflect the most important lesson of America's Cold War
victory: that the Reagan-led effort to support freedom fighters
resisting Soviet oppression led successfully to the first major military defeat of the Soviet Union... Sending the Red Army packing from Afghanistan proved one of the single most important contributing factors in one of history's most profoundly positive and important developments."
that shows the crazies are rolling into Kandahar
."
George Crile III
, author of the book on which the film is based, wrote that the mujahideen's victory in Afghanistan ultimately opened a power vacuum for bin Laden: "By the end of 1993, in Afghanistan itself there were no roads, no schools, just a destroyed country - and the United States was washing its hands of any responsibility. It was in this vacuum that the Taliban and Osama bin Laden would emerge as the dominant players. It is ironic that a man who had almost nothing to do with the victory over the Red Army, Osama bin Laden, would come to personify the power of the jihad."
While the film depicts Wilson as an immediate advocate for supplying the mujahideen with Stinger missiles, a former Reagan administration official recalls that he and Wilson, while advocates for the mujahideen, were actually initially "lukewarm" on the idea of supplying these missiles. Their opinion changed when they discovered that rebels were successful in downing Soviet gunships with them. As such, they were actually not supplied until the second Reagan administration term, in 1987, and their provision was mostly advocated by Reagan defense officials and influential conservatives.
, "just can't deal with this 9/11 thing," according to Melissa Roddy, a Los Angeles
film maker with inside information from the production. Citing the original screenplay, which was very different to the final product, in Reel Power: Hollywood Cinema and American Supremacy
Matthew Alford wrote that the film gave up "the chance to produce what at least had the potential to be the Dr. Strangelove of our generation".
unfavorably. UPI Russia head Yevgeny Beginin denied that, saying, "We simply decided that the film would not make a profit." Reaction from Russian blog
gers, who had seen the film on pirated
DVD
s, was negative. One wrote: "The whole film shows Russians, or rather Soviets, as brutal killers."
April 22, 2008; a DVD version and a HD DVD
/DVD combo version are available. The extras include a making of featurette and a "Who is Charlie Wilson?" featurette, which profiles the real Charlie Wilson and features interviews with him and with Tom Hanks
, Joanne Herring
, Aaron Sorkin
, and Mike Nichols
. The HD DVD/DVD combo version also includes additional exclusive content.
. I think the bloodying thereof had a great deal to do with the collapse of the Soviet Union." He now surmises that some of the weapons probably wound up in the hands of the Taliban regime, which took power in Afghanistan and harbored Saudi fugitive Osama bin Laden
, organizer of the September 11 attacks. "I feel guilty about it," he said. "I really do."
"Those things happen," Wilson said of wartime weapons that wind up in the wrong hands. "How are you going to defeat the Red Army without a gun? You can't blame the Marines for teaching Lee Harvey Oswald
how to shoot." Wilson, who did not seek re-election to Congress in 1996 after serving 24 years, now believes he could have worked harder to steer Afghanistan away from the course that led it to today. "The part that I'll take to my grave with guilt is that ... I didn't stay the course and stay there and push and drive the other members of Congress nuts pushing for a mini-Marshall Plan
," he said. "And I let myself be frustrated and discouraged by the fact that (the Afghan) leadership was so fragmented that we were unable to do the things we needed to do, like clear the mines, like furnish them millions of tons of fertilizer to be able to replant the crops."
The policy was later embraced by Reagan administration foreign policy and defense officials, who escalated conflict with Soviet-supported governments. Jimmy Carter
— who had already served his term previous to Reagan — distanced himself from the policy's broader application, and was a vocal opponent of U.S. aid to such "nation building" movements. Congressional Democrats also largely opposed the broader application of the Reagan Doctrine
.
Carter's national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski
, allegedly stated in an interview that he claimed was illegitimate and fabricated that the U.S. effort to aid the mujahideen was preceded by an effort to delibrately draw the Soviets
into a costly and presumably distracting Vietnam War
-like conflict. In a 1998 interview with the French
news magazine Le Nouvel Observateur
, Brzezinski is said to have recalled: "We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would... That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Soviets into the Afghan trap... The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter, "We now have the opportunity of giving to the Soviet Union its Vietnam War
." He maintains that this interview is simply untrue and that there were no arms sent to the Afghan insurgents until the week after the Soviet invasion. He suggested that the latter claim is easily verifiable, saying "the records are open!" Two declassified documents signed by Carter shortly before the invasion do authorize the provision "unilaterally or through third countries as appropriate support to the Afghan insurgents either in the form of cash or non-military supplies" and the "worldwide" distribution of "non-attributable propaganda" to "expose" the leftist Afghan government as "despotic and subservient to the Soviet Union" and to "publicize the efforts of the Afghan insurgents to regain their country's sovereignty," but the records also show that the provision of arms to the rebels did not begin until 1980. According to Eric Alterman
of The Nation
, Cyrus Vance
's close aide Marshall Shulman "insists that the State Department worked hard to dissuade the Soviets from invading and would never have undertaken a program to encourage it" and President Carter has said it was definitely "not my intention" to inspire a Soviet invasion but to deter one.
Jimmy Carter reacted with "open-mouthed shock" to the Russian invasion, and began promptly arming the Afghan insurgents. Vice-President Walter Mondale famously declared: "I cannot understand -- it just baffles me -- why the Soviets these last few years have behaved as they have. Maybe we have made some mistakes with them. Why did they have to build up all these arms? Why did they have to go into Afghanistan? Why can't they relax just a little bit about Eastern Europe? Why do they try every door to see if it is locked?" Before the invasion, the Soviets staged conversations with the Afghan leadership several times, suggesting that they had no desire to intervene, even as the Politburo was—with much hesitation—considering such an intervention. They had apparently orchestrated these meetings in a manner that would allow the Americans to easily intercept them. Though some have argued that US financial assistance to Afghan dissidents, including Islamic and other militants, prior to the invasion; along with a Soviet desire to protect the leftist Afghan government, helped convince the Russians to intervene, the Russians brutally murdered the Afghan President and his son, replacing him with a puppet regime, immediately after the invasion for fear that the US had secretly been collaborating with him.
sued the makers of the film, claiming that they had used material he produced in the 1980s without obtaining the proper authorization. On September 19, 2008, Kent announced that he had reached a settlement with the film's producers and distributors, and that he was "very pleased" with the terms of the settlement, which remain confidential.
Biographical film
A biographical film, or biopic , is a film that dramatizes the life of an actual person or people. They differ from films “based on a true story” or “historical films” in that they attempt to comprehensively tell a person’s life story or at least the most historically important years of their...
comedy
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
drama film
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...
recounting the true story of U.S. Congressman Charlie Wilson (D
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
-TX
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
) who partnered with "bare knuckle attitude" CIA
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
operative Gust Avrakotos
Gust Avrakotos
Gustav Lascaris "Gust" Avrakotos was an American case officer and Afghan Task Force Chief for the United States Central Intelligence Agency....
to launch Operation Cyclone
Operation Cyclone
Operation Cyclone was the code name for the United States Central Intelligence Agency program to arm, train, and finance the Afghan mujahideen during the Soviet war in Afghanistan, 1979 to 1989...
, a program to organize and support the Afghan mujahideen
Mujahideen
Mujahideen are Muslims who struggle in the path of God. The word is from the same Arabic triliteral as jihad .Mujahideen is also transliterated from Arabic as mujahedin, mujahedeen, mudžahedin, mudžahidin, mujahidīn, mujaheddīn and more.-Origin of the concept:The beginnings of Jihad are traced...
in their resistance to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan
Soviet war in Afghanistan
The Soviet war in Afghanistan was a nine-year conflict involving the Soviet Union, supporting the Marxist-Leninist government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan against the Afghan Mujahideen and foreign "Arab–Afghan" volunteers...
.
The film is adapted from George Crile's
George Crile III
George Crile III was an U.S. American journalist most closely associated with his three decades of work at CBS News.-Personal:...
2003 book Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History. It was directed by Mike Nichols
Mike Nichols
Mike Nichols is a German-born American television, stage and film director, writer, producer and comedian. He began his career in the 1950s as one half of the comedy duo Nichols and May, along with Elaine May. In 1968 he won the Academy Award for Best Director for the film The Graduate...
, written by Aaron Sorkin
Aaron Sorkin
Aaron Benjamin Sorkin is an Academy and Emmy award winning American screenwriter, producer, and playwright, whose works include A Few Good Men, The American President, The West Wing, Sports Night, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, The Social Network, and Moneyball.After graduating from Syracuse...
, and stars Tom Hanks
Tom Hanks
Thomas Jeffrey "Tom" Hanks is an American actor, producer, writer, and director. Hanks worked in television and family-friendly comedies, gaining wide notice in 1988's Big, before achieving success as a dramatic actor in several notable roles, including Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia, the title...
, Julia Roberts
Julia Roberts
Julia Fiona Roberts is an American actress. She became a Hollywood star after headlining the romantic comedy Pretty Woman , which grossed $464 million worldwide...
, Om Puri
Om Puri
Om Puri is an Indian actor who has appeared in both mainstream Indian films and art films. His credits also include appearances in British and American films. He has received an honorary OBE.-Early life:...
, Philip Seymour Hoffman
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Philip Seymour Hoffman is an American actor and director. Hoffman began acting in television in 1991, and the following year started to appear in films...
, Amy Adams
Amy Adams
Amy Lou Adams is an American actress and singer. Adams began her performing career on stage in dinner theaters before making her screen debut in the 1999 black comedy film Drop Dead Gorgeous...
, Ned Beatty
Ned Beatty
Ned Thomas Beatty is an American actor who has appeared in more than 100 films and has been nominated for an Academy Award, two Emmy Awards, an MTV Movie Award for Best Villain and a Golden Globe Award; won a Drama Desk Award....
and Emily Blunt
Emily Blunt
Emily Olivia Leah Blunt is an English actress best known for her roles in The Devil Wears Prada , The Young Victoria , and The Adjustment Bureau . She has been nominated for two Golden Globe Awards, two London Film Critics' Circle Awards, and one BAFTA Award...
. It was nominated for five Golden Globe Awards, including "Best Motion Picture", but did not win in any category. Philip Seymour Hoffman was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
.
Plot
In 1980, Congressman Charlie Wilson (Tom HanksTom Hanks
Thomas Jeffrey "Tom" Hanks is an American actor, producer, writer, and director. Hanks worked in television and family-friendly comedies, gaining wide notice in 1988's Big, before achieving success as a dramatic actor in several notable roles, including Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia, the title...
) is more interested in partying than legislating, frequently throwing huge galas and staffing his congressional office with young, attractive women. His social life eventually brings about a federal investigation into allegations of his cocaine
Cocaine
Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic...
use, conducted by then-federal prosecutor Rudy Giuliani
Rudy Giuliani
Rudolph William Louis "Rudy" Giuliani KBE is an American lawyer, businessman, and politician from New York. He served as Mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001....
as part of a larger investigation into congressional misconduct. The investigation results in no charge against Charlie.
A friend and romantic interest, Joanne Herring
Joanne Herring
Joanne Herring is a Houston socialite, political activist, businesswoman, and former talk show host.In the 1980s Herring played a role in helping U.S. Representative Charlie Wilson persuade the U.S. government to train and arm Mujahideen resistance fighters to fight in the Soviet war in...
(Julia Roberts
Julia Roberts
Julia Fiona Roberts is an American actress. She became a Hollywood star after headlining the romantic comedy Pretty Woman , which grossed $464 million worldwide...
), encourages Charlie to do more to help the Afghan people
Pashtun people
Pashtuns or Pathans , also known as ethnic Afghans , are an Eastern Iranic ethnic group with populations primarily between the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan and the Indus River in Pakistan...
, and persuades Charlie to visit the Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
i leadership. The Pakistanis complain about the inadequate support of the U.S. to oppose the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, and they insist that Charlie visit a major Pakistan-based Afghan refugee camp
Refugee camp
A refugee camp is a temporary settlement built to receive refugees. Hundreds of thousands of people may live in any one single camp. Usually they are built and run by a government, the United Nations, or international organizations, or NGOs.Refugee camps are generally set up in an impromptu...
. (This and other Afghan scenes were filmed in Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
.) Charlie is deeply moved by their misery and determination to fight, but is frustrated by the regional CIA personnel's insistence on a low key approach against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Charlie returns home to lead an effort to substantially increase funding to the mujahideen
Mujahideen
Mujahideen are Muslims who struggle in the path of God. The word is from the same Arabic triliteral as jihad .Mujahideen is also transliterated from Arabic as mujahedin, mujahedeen, mudžahedin, mudžahidin, mujahidīn, mujaheddīn and more.-Origin of the concept:The beginnings of Jihad are traced...
.
As part of this effort, Charlie befriends the maverick CIA operative Gust Avrakotos
Gust Avrakotos
Gustav Lascaris "Gust" Avrakotos was an American case officer and Afghan Task Force Chief for the United States Central Intelligence Agency....
(Philip Seymour Hoffman
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Philip Seymour Hoffman is an American actor and director. Hoffman began acting in television in 1991, and the following year started to appear in films...
) and his understaffed Afghanistan group to find a better strategy, especially including a means to counter the Soviets' formidable Mi-24 helicopter gunship. This group was composed in part of members of the CIA's elite Special Activities Division
Special Activities Division
The Special Activities Division is a division in the United States Central Intelligence Agency's National Clandestine Service responsible for covert operations known as "special activities"...
, including a young paramilitary officer named Michael Vickers
Michael G. Vickers
Michael G. Vickers was confirmed as the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence by the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee on March 16, 2011. Before becoming USD-I, Vickers served as United States Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict...
(Christopher Denham). As a result, Charlie's deft political bargaining for the necessary funding and Avrakotos' group's careful planning using those resources, such as supplying the guerrillas with FIM-92 Stinger
FIM-92 Stinger
The FIM-92 Stinger is a personal portable infrared homing surface-to-air missile , which can be adapted to fire from ground vehicles and helicopters , developed in the United States and entered into service in 1981. Used by the militaries of the U.S...
missile launchers, turns the Soviet occupation into a deadly quagmire with their heavy fighting vehicles being destroyed at a crippling rate. The CIA's anti-communism budget evolves from $5 million to over $500 million (with the same amount matched by Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...
), startling several congressmen. This effort by Charlie ultimately evolves into a major portion of the U.S. foreign policy known as the Reagan Doctrine
Reagan Doctrine
The Reagan Doctrine was a strategy orchestrated and implemented by the United States under the Reagan Administration to oppose the global influence of the Soviet Union during the final years of the Cold War...
, under which the U.S. expanded assistance beyond just the mujahideen and began also supporting other anti-communist resistance movements around the world. Charlie states that senior Pentagon official Michael Pillsbury
Michael Pillsbury
Michael Pillsbury is a defense policy adviser, former government official and author of books and reports on China.-Career:During the Reagan administration, Pillsbury was the Assistant Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Planning and responsible for implementation of the program of covert aid...
persuaded President Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
to provide the Stingers to the Afghans: "Ironically, neither Gust nor Charlie was directly involved in the decision and claims any credit."
Charlie follows Gust's guidance to seek support for post-Soviet occupation Afghanistan, but finds almost no enthusiasm in the U.S. government for even the modest measures he proposes. The film ends with Charlie receiving a major commendation for the support of the U.S. clandestine services, but his pride is tempered by his fears of what unintended consequences
Blowback (intelligence)
Blowback is the espionage term for the violent, unintended consequences of a covert operation that are suffered by the civil population of the aggressor government...
his secret efforts could yield in the future and the implications of U.S. disengagement from Afghanistan.
Cast
- Tom HanksTom HanksThomas Jeffrey "Tom" Hanks is an American actor, producer, writer, and director. Hanks worked in television and family-friendly comedies, gaining wide notice in 1988's Big, before achieving success as a dramatic actor in several notable roles, including Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia, the title...
as Representative Charlie Wilson. - Julia RobertsJulia RobertsJulia Fiona Roberts is an American actress. She became a Hollywood star after headlining the romantic comedy Pretty Woman , which grossed $464 million worldwide...
as Joanne HerringJoanne HerringJoanne Herring is a Houston socialite, political activist, businesswoman, and former talk show host.In the 1980s Herring played a role in helping U.S. Representative Charlie Wilson persuade the U.S. government to train and arm Mujahideen resistance fighters to fight in the Soviet war in... - Philip Seymour HoffmanPhilip Seymour HoffmanPhilip Seymour Hoffman is an American actor and director. Hoffman began acting in television in 1991, and the following year started to appear in films...
as Gust AvrakotosGust AvrakotosGustav Lascaris "Gust" Avrakotos was an American case officer and Afghan Task Force Chief for the United States Central Intelligence Agency.... - Amy AdamsAmy AdamsAmy Lou Adams is an American actress and singer. Adams began her performing career on stage in dinner theaters before making her screen debut in the 1999 black comedy film Drop Dead Gorgeous...
as Bonnie Bach - Nancy Linehan Charles as Mrs. Long
- Ned BeattyNed BeattyNed Thomas Beatty is an American actor who has appeared in more than 100 films and has been nominated for an Academy Award, two Emmy Awards, an MTV Movie Award for Best Villain and a Golden Globe Award; won a Drama Desk Award....
as Representative Doc LongClarence LongClarence Dickinson Long, PhD , known as "Doc Long", was a Democratic U.S. Congressman who represented the 2nd congressional district of Maryland from January 3, 1963 to January 3, 1985. Long became Chairman of the subcommittee on Foreign Operations of the House Appropriations Committee. In this...
. - Emily BluntEmily BluntEmily Olivia Leah Blunt is an English actress best known for her roles in The Devil Wears Prada , The Young Victoria , and The Adjustment Bureau . She has been nominated for two Golden Globe Awards, two London Film Critics' Circle Awards, and one BAFTA Award...
as Jane Liddle - Om PuriOm PuriOm Puri is an Indian actor who has appeared in both mainstream Indian films and art films. His credits also include appearances in British and American films. He has received an honorary OBE.-Early life:...
as Pakistani President Zia-ul-HaqMuhammad Zia-ul-HaqGeneral Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq , was the 4th Chief Martial Law Administrator and the sixth President of Pakistan from July 1977 to his death in August 1988...
. - Ken StottKen StottKenneth Campbell "Ken" Stott is a Scottish actor, particularly known in the United Kingdom for his many roles in television.-Early life:...
as IsraeliIsraelThe State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
arms merchant Zvi Rafiah. - John SlatteryJohn SlatteryJohn M. Slattery, Jr. is an American actor and director, best known for his role as Roger Sterling on AMC's series Mad Men. He has been nominated for many awards, and has won two SAG Awards with the Mad Men ensemble....
as CIA director of European operations (Avrakotos' superior), Henry Cravely. - Denis O'HareDenis O'HareDenis O'Hare is an American actor noted for his award winning performances in Take Me Out and Sweet Charity as well as the HBO television show True Blood. He is also known for his supporting roles in the films Charlie Wilson's War and Milk...
as CIA station chief Harold Holt. - Judy TylorJudy TylorJudy "Jud" Tylor is a Canadian television and film actress. She has had recurring roles in a number of television programs including That '70s Show and Edgemont.-Television:...
as the aspiring starlet Crystal Lee. - Peter GeretyPeter GeretyPeter Gerety is an American actor.Gerety began acting while a student at Boston University, participating in productions at the Charles Playhouse. In 1965, he joined the Trinity Square Repertory Company, a resident theater company in Providence, Rhode Island where he appeared in over 125...
as Larry Liddle - Brian MarkinsonBrian MarkinsonBrian Markinson is a Canadian film and television actor. He has appeared as Police Chief Bill Jacobs on Da Vinci's Inquest and Da Vinci's City Hall...
as Crystal Lee's agent, Paul Brown. - Christopher Denham as Michael G. VickersMichael G. VickersMichael G. Vickers was confirmed as the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence by the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee on March 16, 2011. Before becoming USD-I, Vickers served as United States Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict...
- Spencer GarrettSpencer GarrettSpencer Garrett is an American actor who has appeared in television programs, television films, films, and a few blockbuster productions like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Public Enemies, and Air Force One....
as congressional committee staffer. - Kevin RooneyKevin RooneyKevin Rooney , is a former boxer and a current boxing trainer.-Amateur Boxing Career:Rooney won the 1975 147 lb Sub-Novice New York Golden Gloves Championship. Rooney defeated Kevin Higgins of West Point in the finals...
as congressional committee staffer. - Pasha LychnikoffPavel LychnikoffPavel Lychnikoff , also credited as Pasha D. Lychnikoff, is a Russian television, film and theatre actor, who lives and works in the United States.-Life and work:...
as RussianRussiansThe Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
helicopter pilot. - Hilary Angelo as Kelly
- Cyia BattenCyia BattenCyia Batten is an American dancer, model and film/television actress as well as former Pussycat Dolls dance troupe. She has worked as a professional dancer all over the world for various projects including The Pussycat Dolls and Carmen Electra, Teatro Comunale di Firenze and others.She has had...
as Stacey - Tracy Phillips as Carol Shannon, bellydancer.
- Navid NegahbanNavid NegahbanNavid Negahban , is an Iranian American actor. He often plays terrorists in movies and television series, but sometimes plays evil magicians in some TV movies. He plays both Arabs and Iranians...
as Refugee Camp Translator
Charlie's "Angels"
- Shiri ApplebyShiri ApplebyShiri Freda Appleby is an American film and television actress. She is best known for her leading role as Liz Parker in the television series Roswell...
as Jailbait - Rachel NicholsRachel Nichols (actress)Rachel Emily Nichols is an American actress and model. Nichols began modeling while attending Columbia University in New York City in the late 1990s...
as Suzanne - Wynn EverettWynn EverettWynn Everett is an American film and television actress.She has made appearances on television in Hope and Faith , Supernatural, Valentine, The Mentalist and NCIS: Los Angeles....
as Receptionist - Mary Bonner Baker as Marla
Composite character
Composite character
A composite character is a character composed of two or more individuals, appearing in a fictional or non-fictional work. Two fictional characters are often combined into one upon adaptation of a work from one medium to another, as in the film adaptation of a novel...
s
Box office
The film was originally set for release on December 25, 2007; but on November 30, 2007 the timetable was moved up to December 21, 2007. In its opening weekend, the film grossed $9.6 million in 2,575 theaters in the United States and Canada, ranking #4 at the box office. It grossed a total of $119 million worldwide — $66.7 million in the United States and Canada and $52.3 million in other territories.Critical reaction
Charlie Wilson's War received generally favorable reviews from critics. The review aggregator Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
reported that 81% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 192 reviews. Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
reported the film had an average score of 69 out of 100, based on 39 reviews.
Governmental criticism and praise
Reagan-era officials, including former Under Secretary of Defense Fred IkleFred Ikle
Dr. Fred Charles Iklé was a United States Department of Defense official during the presidency of Ronald Reagan who is credited with a key role in increasing U.S. aid to anti-Soviet rebels in the Soviet War in Afghanistan...
, have criticized some elements of the film. The Washington Times
The Washington Times
The Washington Times is a daily broadsheet newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. It was founded in 1982 by Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon, and until 2010 was owned by News World Communications, an international media conglomerate associated with the...
reported that some have claimed that the film wrongly promotes the notion that the CIA-led operation funded Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...
and ultimately produced the September 11 attacks. Other Reagan-era officials, however, have been more supportive of the film. Michael Johns
Michael Johns (executive)
Michael Johns is an American health care executive, former federal government of the United States official and conservative policy analyst and writer.-Biography:...
, the former Heritage Foundation
Heritage Foundation
The Heritage Foundation is a conservative American think tank based in Washington, D.C. Heritage's stated mission is to "formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong...
foreign policy analyst and White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
speechwriter to President George H. W. Bush
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...
, praised the film as "the first mass-appeal effort to reflect the most important lesson of America's Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
victory: that the Reagan-led effort to support freedom fighters
Resistance movement
A resistance movement is a group or collection of individual groups, dedicated to opposing an invader in an occupied country or the government of a sovereign state. It may seek to achieve its objects through either the use of nonviolent resistance or the use of armed force...
resisting Soviet oppression led successfully to the first major military defeat of the Soviet Union... Sending the Red Army packing from Afghanistan proved one of the single most important contributing factors in one of history's most profoundly positive and important developments."
Aftermath
The film depicts the concern expressed by Charlie and Gust that Afghanistan was being neglected in the 1990s, following the Soviet withdrawal. In one of the film's final scenes, Gust dampens Charlie's enthusiasm over the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, saying "I'm about to give you an NIENational Intelligence Estimate
National Intelligence Estimates are United States federal government documents that are the authoritative assessment of the Director of National Intelligence on intelligence related to a particular national security issue...
that shows the crazies are rolling into Kandahar
Kandahar
Kandahar is the second largest city in Afghanistan, with a population of about 512,200 as of 2011. It is the capital of Kandahar Province, located in the south of the country at about 1,005 m above sea level...
."
George Crile III
George Crile III
George Crile III was an U.S. American journalist most closely associated with his three decades of work at CBS News.-Personal:...
, author of the book on which the film is based, wrote that the mujahideen's victory in Afghanistan ultimately opened a power vacuum for bin Laden: "By the end of 1993, in Afghanistan itself there were no roads, no schools, just a destroyed country - and the United States was washing its hands of any responsibility. It was in this vacuum that the Taliban and Osama bin Laden would emerge as the dominant players. It is ironic that a man who had almost nothing to do with the victory over the Red Army, Osama bin Laden, would come to personify the power of the jihad."
While the film depicts Wilson as an immediate advocate for supplying the mujahideen with Stinger missiles, a former Reagan administration official recalls that he and Wilson, while advocates for the mujahideen, were actually initially "lukewarm" on the idea of supplying these missiles. Their opinion changed when they discovered that rebels were successful in downing Soviet gunships with them. As such, they were actually not supplied until the second Reagan administration term, in 1987, and their provision was mostly advocated by Reagan defense officials and influential conservatives.
Happy ending
The film's happy ending came about because Tom HanksTom Hanks
Thomas Jeffrey "Tom" Hanks is an American actor, producer, writer, and director. Hanks worked in television and family-friendly comedies, gaining wide notice in 1988's Big, before achieving success as a dramatic actor in several notable roles, including Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia, the title...
, "just can't deal with this 9/11 thing," according to Melissa Roddy, a Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
film maker with inside information from the production. Citing the original screenplay, which was very different to the final product, in Reel Power: Hollywood Cinema and American Supremacy
Reel Power: Hollywood Cinema and American Supremacy
Reel Power: Hollywood Cinema and American Supremacy is a 2010 book by Matthew Alford, which argues that cinematic output from Los Angeles routinely endorses the notion of American Exceptionalism and that even many of the most liberal films provide surprisingly favourable mythology for the United...
Matthew Alford wrote that the film gave up "the chance to produce what at least had the potential to be the Dr. Strangelove of our generation".
Russian reception
In early February, it was revealed that the film would not play in Russian theaters. The rights for the film were bought by Universal Pictures International (UPI) Russia. It was speculated that the film would not appear because of a certain point of view that depicted the Soviet UnionSoviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
unfavorably. UPI Russia head Yevgeny Beginin denied that, saying, "We simply decided that the film would not make a profit." Reaction from Russian blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
gers, who had seen the film on pirated
Piracy
Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence at sea. The term can include acts committed on land, in the air, or in other major bodies of water or on a shore. It does not normally include crimes committed against persons traveling on the same vessel as the perpetrator...
DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
s, was negative. One wrote: "The whole film shows Russians, or rather Soviets, as brutal killers."
Home release
The film was released on DVDDVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
April 22, 2008; a DVD version and a HD DVD
HD DVD
HD DVD is a discontinued high-density optical disc format for storing data and high-definition video.Supported principally by Toshiba, HD DVD was envisioned to be the successor to the standard DVD format...
/DVD combo version are available. The extras include a making of featurette and a "Who is Charlie Wilson?" featurette, which profiles the real Charlie Wilson and features interviews with him and with Tom Hanks
Tom Hanks
Thomas Jeffrey "Tom" Hanks is an American actor, producer, writer, and director. Hanks worked in television and family-friendly comedies, gaining wide notice in 1988's Big, before achieving success as a dramatic actor in several notable roles, including Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia, the title...
, Joanne Herring
Joanne Herring
Joanne Herring is a Houston socialite, political activist, businesswoman, and former talk show host.In the 1980s Herring played a role in helping U.S. Representative Charlie Wilson persuade the U.S. government to train and arm Mujahideen resistance fighters to fight in the Soviet war in...
, Aaron Sorkin
Aaron Sorkin
Aaron Benjamin Sorkin is an Academy and Emmy award winning American screenwriter, producer, and playwright, whose works include A Few Good Men, The American President, The West Wing, Sports Night, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, The Social Network, and Moneyball.After graduating from Syracuse...
, and Mike Nichols
Mike Nichols
Mike Nichols is a German-born American television, stage and film director, writer, producer and comedian. He began his career in the 1950s as one half of the comedy duo Nichols and May, along with Elaine May. In 1968 he won the Academy Award for Best Director for the film The Graduate...
. The HD DVD/DVD combo version also includes additional exclusive content.
Historical context
Wilson since recounted that, "I always, always, whenever a plane goes down, I always fear it is one of our missiles. Most of all I wanted to bloody the Red ArmyRed Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
. I think the bloodying thereof had a great deal to do with the collapse of the Soviet Union." He now surmises that some of the weapons probably wound up in the hands of the Taliban regime, which took power in Afghanistan and harbored Saudi fugitive Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...
, organizer of the September 11 attacks. "I feel guilty about it," he said. "I really do."
"Those things happen," Wilson said of wartime weapons that wind up in the wrong hands. "How are you going to defeat the Red Army without a gun? You can't blame the Marines for teaching Lee Harvey Oswald
Lee Harvey Oswald
Lee Harvey Oswald was, according to four government investigations,These were investigations by: the Federal Bureau of Investigation , the Warren Commission , the House Select Committee on Assassinations , and the Dallas Police Department. the sniper who assassinated John F...
how to shoot." Wilson, who did not seek re-election to Congress in 1996 after serving 24 years, now believes he could have worked harder to steer Afghanistan away from the course that led it to today. "The part that I'll take to my grave with guilt is that ... I didn't stay the course and stay there and push and drive the other members of Congress nuts pushing for a mini-Marshall Plan
Marshall Plan
The Marshall Plan was the large-scale American program to aid Europe where the United States gave monetary support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II in order to combat the spread of Soviet communism. The plan was in operation for four years beginning in April 1948...
," he said. "And I let myself be frustrated and discouraged by the fact that (the Afghan) leadership was so fragmented that we were unable to do the things we needed to do, like clear the mines, like furnish them millions of tons of fertilizer to be able to replant the crops."
The policy was later embraced by Reagan administration foreign policy and defense officials, who escalated conflict with Soviet-supported governments. Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
— who had already served his term previous to Reagan — distanced himself from the policy's broader application, and was a vocal opponent of U.S. aid to such "nation building" movements. Congressional Democrats also largely opposed the broader application of the Reagan Doctrine
Reagan Doctrine
The Reagan Doctrine was a strategy orchestrated and implemented by the United States under the Reagan Administration to oppose the global influence of the Soviet Union during the final years of the Cold War...
.
Carter's national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski
Zbigniew Brzezinski
Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski is a Polish American political scientist, geostrategist, and statesman who served as United States National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981....
, allegedly stated in an interview that he claimed was illegitimate and fabricated that the U.S. effort to aid the mujahideen was preceded by an effort to delibrately draw the Soviets
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
into a costly and presumably distracting Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
-like conflict. In a 1998 interview with the French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
news magazine Le Nouvel Observateur
Le Nouvel Observateur
Le Nouvel Observateur is a weekly French newsmagazine. Based in Paris, it is the most prominent French general information magazine in terms of audience and circulation ....
, Brzezinski is said to have recalled: "We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would... That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Soviets into the Afghan trap... The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter, "We now have the opportunity of giving to the Soviet Union its Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
." He maintains that this interview is simply untrue and that there were no arms sent to the Afghan insurgents until the week after the Soviet invasion. He suggested that the latter claim is easily verifiable, saying "the records are open!" Two declassified documents signed by Carter shortly before the invasion do authorize the provision "unilaterally or through third countries as appropriate support to the Afghan insurgents either in the form of cash or non-military supplies" and the "worldwide" distribution of "non-attributable propaganda" to "expose" the leftist Afghan government as "despotic and subservient to the Soviet Union" and to "publicize the efforts of the Afghan insurgents to regain their country's sovereignty," but the records also show that the provision of arms to the rebels did not begin until 1980. According to Eric Alterman
Eric Alterman
Eric Alterman is an American English teacher, historian, journalist, author, media critic, blogger, and educator. His political weblog named Altercation was hosted by MSNBC.com from 2002 until 2006, moved to Media Matters for America until December 2008, and is now hosted by The...
of The Nation
The Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
, Cyrus Vance
Cyrus Vance
Cyrus Roberts Vance was an American lawyer and United States Secretary of State under President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1980...
's close aide Marshall Shulman "insists that the State Department worked hard to dissuade the Soviets from invading and would never have undertaken a program to encourage it" and President Carter has said it was definitely "not my intention" to inspire a Soviet invasion but to deter one.
Jimmy Carter reacted with "open-mouthed shock" to the Russian invasion, and began promptly arming the Afghan insurgents. Vice-President Walter Mondale famously declared: "I cannot understand -- it just baffles me -- why the Soviets these last few years have behaved as they have. Maybe we have made some mistakes with them. Why did they have to build up all these arms? Why did they have to go into Afghanistan? Why can't they relax just a little bit about Eastern Europe? Why do they try every door to see if it is locked?" Before the invasion, the Soviets staged conversations with the Afghan leadership several times, suggesting that they had no desire to intervene, even as the Politburo was—with much hesitation—considering such an intervention. They had apparently orchestrated these meetings in a manner that would allow the Americans to easily intercept them. Though some have argued that US financial assistance to Afghan dissidents, including Islamic and other militants, prior to the invasion; along with a Soviet desire to protect the leftist Afghan government, helped convince the Russians to intervene, the Russians brutally murdered the Afghan President and his son, replacing him with a puppet regime, immediately after the invasion for fear that the US had secretly been collaborating with him.
Arthur Kent lawsuit
In 2008, Canadian journalist and politician Arthur KentArthur Kent
Arthur Kent is a Canadian television journalist. He rose to international prominence during the 1991 Persian Gulf War during which he acquired the nickname "The Scud Stud"...
sued the makers of the film, claiming that they had used material he produced in the 1980s without obtaining the proper authorization. On September 19, 2008, Kent announced that he had reached a settlement with the film's producers and distributors, and that he was "very pleased" with the terms of the settlement, which remain confidential.
Awards and nominations
Nominations- 65th Golden Globe Awards65th Golden Globe AwardsThe 65th Golden Globe Awards, honoring the best in film and television of 2007, were scheduled to be presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association on January 13, 2008...
- Best Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical
- Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical (Tom HanksTom HanksThomas Jeffrey "Tom" Hanks is an American actor, producer, writer, and director. Hanks worked in television and family-friendly comedies, gaining wide notice in 1988's Big, before achieving success as a dramatic actor in several notable roles, including Andrew Beckett in Philadelphia, the title...
) - Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture (Philip Seymour HoffmanPhilip Seymour HoffmanPhilip Seymour Hoffman is an American actor and director. Hoffman began acting in television in 1991, and the following year started to appear in films...
) - Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture (Julia RobertsJulia RobertsJulia Fiona Roberts is an American actress. She became a Hollywood star after headlining the romantic comedy Pretty Woman , which grossed $464 million worldwide...
) - Best Screenplay - Motion Picture (Aaron SorkinAaron SorkinAaron Benjamin Sorkin is an Academy and Emmy award winning American screenwriter, producer, and playwright, whose works include A Few Good Men, The American President, The West Wing, Sports Night, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, The Social Network, and Moneyball.After graduating from Syracuse...
)
- 80th Academy Awards80th Academy AwardsThe 80th Academy Awards ceremony honored the best films in 2007 and was broadcast from the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, California on ABC beginning at 5:30 p.m. PST/8:30 p.m. EST, February 24, 2008 . During the ceremony, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented Academy Awards in 24...
- Best Supporting Actor (Philip Seymour HoffmanPhilip Seymour HoffmanPhilip Seymour Hoffman is an American actor and director. Hoffman began acting in television in 1991, and the following year started to appear in films...
)
- Best Supporting Actor (Philip Seymour Hoffman
See also
- Howard HartHoward HartHoward Phillips Hart is a former Central Intelligence Agency officer. He worked as the CIA Chief of Station in Islamabad, Pakistan from May 1981 until 1984. He was succeeded by William Piekney in the summer of 1984.-Early life:...
- Milton BeardenMilton BeardenMilton Bearden is a retired Central Intelligence Agency officer, author and film consultant. As of 2003, Bearden lives in Reston, Virginia with his French-born wife, Marie-Catherine....
- Operation CycloneOperation CycloneOperation Cyclone was the code name for the United States Central Intelligence Agency program to arm, train, and finance the Afghan mujahideen during the Soviet war in Afghanistan, 1979 to 1989...
- Soviet war in AfghanistanSoviet war in AfghanistanThe Soviet war in Afghanistan was a nine-year conflict involving the Soviet Union, supporting the Marxist-Leninist government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan against the Afghan Mujahideen and foreign "Arab–Afghan" volunteers...
- War in Afghanistan (2001-present)