Espionage or spying involves a government or individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, as it is taken for granted that it is unwelcome and, in many cases, illegal and punishable by law. It is a subset of intelligence gathering—which otherwise may be conducted from public sources and using perfectly legal and ethical means.

Espionage is usually part of an institutional effort by a government or corporation, and the term is most readily associated with state spying on potential or actual enemies primarily for military purposes. Spying involving corporations is known as industrial espionage.

One of the most effective ways to gather data and information about an enemy (or potential enemy) is by infiltrating the enemy's ranks. This is the job of the spy (espionage agent). Spies can bring back all sorts of information concerning the size and strength of an enemy army. They can also find dissidents within the enemy's forces and influence them to defect. In times of crisis, spies can also be used to steal technology and to sabotage the enemy in various ways. Counterintelligence operatives can feed false information to enemy spies, protecting important domestic secrets and preventing attempts at subversion. Nearly every country has very strict laws concerning espionage, and the penalty for being caught is often severe. However, the benefits that can be gained through espionage are generally great enough that most governments and many large corporations make use of it to varying degrees.

Further information on clandestine HUMINT (human intelligence) information collection techniques is available, including discussions of operational techniques, asset recruiting and the tradecraft used to collect this information.

History[link]

Events involving espionage are well documented throughout history. The ancient writings of Chinese and Indian military strategists such as Sun-Tzu and Chanakya contain information on deception and subversion. Chanakya's student Chandragupta Maurya, founder of the Maurya Empire in India, made use of assassinations, spies and secret agents, which are described in Chanakya's Arthasastra. The ancient Egyptians had a thoroughly developed system for the acquisition of intelligence, and the Hebrews used spies as well, as in the story of Rahab. Spies were also prevalent in the Greek and Roman empires.^[1] During the 13th and 14th centuries, the Mongols relied heavily on espionage in their conquests in Asia and Europe. Feudal Japan often used ninja to gather intelligence. More recently, spies played a significant part in Elizabethan England (see Francis Walsingham). Many modern espionage methods were well established even then.^[2] Aztecs used Pochtecas, people in charge of commerce, as spies and diplomats, and had diplomatic immunity.

The Cold War involved intense espionage activity between the United States of America and its allies and the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China and their allies, particularly related to nuclear weapons secrets. Recently, espionage agencies have targeted the illegal drug trade and those considered to be terrorists. Since 2008 the United States has charged at least 57 defendants for attempting to spy for China.^[3]

Different intelligence services value certain intelligence collection techniques over others. The former Soviet Union, for example, preferred human sources over research in open sources, while the United States has tended to emphasize technological methods such as SIGINT and IMINT. Both Soviet political (KGB) and military intelligence (GRU^[4]) officers were judged by the number of agents they recruited.

Targets of espionage[link]

Espionage agents are usually trained experts in a specific targeted field. This allows them to differentiate mundane information from a target which has intrinsic value to own organisational development. Correct identification of the target at its execution is the sole purpose of the espionage operation.

The broad areas of espionage targeting expertise are:

• Natural resource strategic production identification and assessment (food, energy, materials)

Agents are usually found among bureaucrats that administer these resources in own countries

• Popular sentiment towards domestic and foreign policies (popular, middle class, elites)

Agents often recruited from field journalistic crews, exchange postgraduate students and sociology researchers

• Strategic economic strengths (production, research, manufacture, infrastructure)

Agents recruited from science and technology academia, commercial enterprises, and more rarely from military technologists

• Military capability intelligence (offensive, defensive, manoeuvre, naval, air, space)

Agents are trained by special military espionage education facilities, and posted to area of operation with covert identities to prevent prosecution

• Counterintelligence

Operations specifically targeting opponents' intelligence services themselves, such as breaching confidentiality of communications, recruiting defectors or moles

Methods and terminology[link]

While news media may speak of "spy satellites" and the like, espionage is not a synonym for all intelligence functions. It is a specific form of human source intelligence (HUMINT). Codebreaking (cryptanalysis or COMINT), aircraft or satellite photography (IMINT) and research in open publications (OSINT) are all intelligence gathering disciplines, but none of them are espionage. Many HUMINT activities, such as prisoner interrogation, reports from military reconnaissance patrols and from diplomats, etc., are not espionage.

Unlike other forms of intelligence collection disciplines, espionage usually involves accessing the place where the desired information is stored, or accessing the people who know the information and will divulge it through some kind of subterfuge. There are exceptions to physical meetings, such as the Oslo Report, or the insistence of Robert Hanssen in never meeting the people to whom he was selling information.

The US defines espionage towards itself as "The act of obtaining, delivering, transmitting, communicating, or receiving information about the national defense with an intent, or reason to believe, that the information may be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation. Black's Law Dictionary (1990) defines espionage as: "...gathering, transmitting, or losing...information related to the national defense". Espionage is a violation of United States law, 18 U.S.C. §§ 792–798 and Article 106a of the Uniform Code of Military Justice".^[5] The United States, like most nations, conducts espionage against other nations, under the control of the National Clandestine Service. Britain's espionage activities are controlled by the Secret Intelligence Service.

Organization[link]

An intelligence officer’s clothing, accessories, and behavior must be as unremarkable as possible — their lives (and others’) may depend on it.

A spy is a person employed to obtain such secrets. Within the United States Intelligence Community, "asset" is a more common usage. A case officer, who may have diplomatic status (i.e. official cover or non-official cover), supports and directs the human collector. Cutouts are couriers who do not know the agent or case officer, but transfer messages. A safe house is a refuge for spies.

In larger networks the organization can be complex with many methods to avoid detection, including clandestine cell systems. Often the players have never met. Case officers are stationed in foreign countries to recruit and to supervise intelligence agents, who in turn spy on targets in their countries where they are assigned. A spy need not be a citizen of the target country - hence does not automatically commit treason when operating within it. While the more common practice is to recruit a person already trusted with access to sensitive information, sometimes a person with a well-prepared synthetic identity, called a Legend in tradecraft, may attempt to infiltrate a target organization.

These agents can be moles (who are recruited before they get access to secrets), defectors (who are recruited after they get access to secrets and leave their country) or defectors in place (who get access but do not leave).

Spies may also be used to spread disinformation in the organization in which they are planted, such as giving false reports about their country's military movements, or about a competing company's ability to bring a product to market. Spies may be given other roles that also require infiltration, such as sabotage.

Many governments routinely spy on their allies as well as their enemies, although they typically maintain a policy of not commenting on this. Governments also employ private companies to collect information on their behalf such as SCG International Risk and others.

Many organizations, both national and non-national, conduct espionage operations. It should not be assumed that espionage is always directed at the most secret operations of a target country. National and terrorist organizations and other groups are also targets.^{[citation needed]}

Communications both are necessary to espionage and clandestine operations, and also a great vulnerability when the adversary has sophisticated SIGINT detection and interception capability. Agents must also transfer money securely.^{[citation needed]}

Industrial espionage[link]

Reportedly Canada is losing $12 billion^[6] and German companies are estimated to be losing about €50 billion ($87 billion) and 30,000 jobs^[7] to industrial espionage every year.

Agents in espionage[link]

In espionage jargon, an agent refers to the person who does the spying; a citizen of one country who is recruited by a second country to spy on or work against his own country or a third country. In popular usage, this term is often erroneously applied to a member of an intelligence service who recruits and handles agents; in espionage such a person is referred to as an intelligence officer or case officer. There are several types of agent in use today.

• Double agent, "is a person who engages in clandestine activity for two intelligence or security services (or more in joint operations), who provides information about one or about each to the other, and who wittingly withholds significant information from one on the instructions of the other or is unwittingly manipulated by one so that significant facts are withheld from the adversary. Peddlers, fabricators, and others who work for themselves rather than a service are not double agents because they are not agents. The fact that doubles have an agent relationship with both sides distinguishes them from penetrations, who normally are placed with the target service in a staff or officer capacity."^[8]
  • Re-doubled agent, an agent who gets caught as a double agent and is forced to mislead the foreign intelligence service.
    • Unwitting double agent, an agent who offers or is forced to recruit as a double or re-doubled agent and in the process is recruited by either a third party intelligence service or his own government without the knowledge of the intended target intelligence service or the agent. This can be useful in capturing important information from an agent that is attempting to seek allegiance with another country. The double agent usually has knowledge of both intelligence services and can identify operational techniques of both, thus making third party recruitment difficult or impossible. The knowledge of operational techniques can also affect the relationship between the Operations Officer (or case officer) and the agent if the case is transferred by an Operational Targeting Officer to a new Operations Officer, leaving the new officer vulnerable to attack. This type of transfer may occur when an officer has completed his term of service or when his cover is blown.
      • Triple agent, an agent that is working for three intelligence services.
• Intelligence agent: Provides access to sensitive information through the use of special privileges. If used in corporate intelligence gathering, this may include gathering information of a corporate business venture or stock portfolio. In economic intelligence, "Economic Analysts may use their specialized skills to analyze and interpret economic trends and developments, assess and track foreign financial activities, and develop new econometric and modeling methodologies."^[9] This may also include information of trade or tariff.
• Access agent: Provides access to other potential agents by providing profiling information that can help lead to recruitment into an intelligence service.
• Agent of influence: Someone who may provide political influence in an area of interest or may even provide publications needed to further an intelligence service agenda. I.e. The use of the media to print a story to mislead a foreign service into action, exposing their operations while under surveillance.
• Agent provocateur: This type of agent will instigate trouble or may provide information to gather as many people as possible into one location for an arrest.
• Facilities agent: A facilities agent may provide access to buildings such as garages or offices used for staging operations, resupply, etc.
• Principal agent: This agent functions as a handler for an established network of agents usually Blue Chip.
• Confusion agent: May provide misleading information to an enemy intelligence service or attempt to discredit the operations of the target in an operation.
• Sleeper agent: A sleeper agent is a person who is recruited to an intelligence service to wake up and perform a specific set of tasks or functions while living under cover in an area of interest. This type of agent is not the same as a deep cover operative who is continually in contact with their case officer in order to file intelligence reports. A sleeper agent will not be in contact with anyone until activated.
• Illegal agent: This is a person who is living in another country under false credentials that does not report to a local station. A non official cover operative is a type of cover used by an intelligence operative and can be dubbed an "Illegal"^[10] when working in another country without diplomatic protection.

Law[link]

Espionage is a crime under the legal code of many nations. The risks of espionage vary. A spy breaking the host country's laws may be deported, imprisoned, or even executed - especially in wartime, a summary execution may well be the penalty. A spy breaking his/her own country's laws can be imprisoned for espionage or/and treason, or even executed, as the Rosenbergs were. For example, when Aldrich Ames handed a stack of dossiers of CIA agents in the Eastern Bloc to his KGB-officer "handler", the KGB "rolled up" several networks, and at least ten people were secretly shot. When Ames was arrested by the FBI, he faced life in prison; his contact, who had diplomatic immunity, was declared persona non grata and taken to the airport. Ames's wife was threatened with life imprisonment if her husband did not cooperate; he did, and she was given a five-year sentence. Hugh Francis Redmond, a CIA officer in China, spent nineteen years in a Chinese prison for espionage—and died there—as he was operating without diplomatic cover and immunity.^{[citation needed]}

In United States law, treason, espionage and spying are separate crimes, the former two of which have graduated punishment levels, the latter for which death is a mandatory sentence.

The United States in World War I passed the Espionage Act of 1917. Over the years many spies, such as the Soble spy ring, Robert Lee Johnson, the Rosenberg ring, Aldrich Hazen Ames,^[11] Robert Philip Hanssen,^[12] Jonathan Pollard, John Anthony Walker, James Hall III, and others have been prosecuted under this law.

However espionage laws are also used to prosecute non-spies. In the United States the Espionage Act of 1917 was used against socialist politician Eugene V. Debs. It was later used to suppress publication of periodicals, for example of Father Coughlin in WWII. In the early 21st century, the act was used to prosecute officials who communicated with US journalists, such as Thomas Andrews Drake and Stephen Jin-Woo Kim^[13]

List of famous spies[link]

This article is in a list format that may be better presented using prose. You can help by converting this article to prose, if appropriate. Editing help is available. (March 2010)

Howard Burnham (1915)

FBI file photo of the leader of the Duquesne Spy Ring (1941)

Espionage under Elizabeth I of England[link]

• Sir Francis Walsingham

Espionage in the American Revolution[link]

• Thomas Knowlton, The First American Spy
• Nathan Hale
• John Andre
• James Armistead

Espionage in the Napoleonic Wars[link]

• William Wickham

George Adams

Espionage in the American Civil War[link]

One of the innovations in the American Civil War was the use of proprietary companies for intelligence collection. See Allan Pinkerton.

• Belle Boyd^[14]

Espionage in the Aceh War[link]

Dutch professor Snouck Hurgronje world leading authority on Islam was a proponent of espionage to quell Muslim resistance in Aceh in the Dutch East Indies. In his role as Colonial Advisor of Oriental affairs he gathered intelligence under the name "Haji Abdul Ghaffar".

His knowledge of Islamic and Aceh culture enabled him to devise strategies which significantly helped crush the resistance of the Aceh inhabitants and impose Dutch colonial rule on them, ending the 40 year Aceh War with varying casualty estimates of between 50,000 and 100,000 inhabitants dead and about a million wounded.

• Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje

Espionage in the Second Boer War[link]

• Fritz Joubert Duquesne

Espionage in World War I[link]

• Fritz Joubert Duquesne
• Jules C. Silber
• Mata Hari
• Howard Burnham
• T.E. Lawrence

Espionage in World War II[link]

Informants were common in World War II. In November 1939, the German Hans Ferdinand Mayer sent what is called the Oslo Report to inform the British of German technology and projects in an effort to undermine the Nazi regime. The Réseau AGIR was a French network developed after the fall of France that reported the start of construction of V-weapon installations in Occupied France to the British.

Counterespionage included the use of turned Double Cross agents to misinform Nazi Germany of impact points during the Blitz and internment of Japanese in the US against "Japan's wartime spy program". Additional WWII espionage examples include Soviet spying on the US Manhattan project, the German Duquesne Spy Ring convicted in the US, and the Soviet Red Orchestra spying on Nazi Germany. The US lacked a specific agency at the start of the war, but quickly formed the Office of Strategic Services (OSS).

Spying has sometimes been considered a gentlemanly pursuit, with recruiting focused on military officers, or at least on persons of the class from whom officers are recruited. However, the demand for male soldiers, an increase in women's rights, and the tactical advantages of female spies led the Special Operations Executive (SOE) to set aside any lingering Victorian Era prejudices and begin employing them in April 1942.^{[citation needed]} Their task was to transmit information from Nazi occupied France back to Allied Forces. The main strategic reason was that men in France faced a high risk of being interrogated by Nazi troops but women were less likely to arouse suspicion. In this way they made good couriers and proved equal to, if not more effective than, their male counterparts. Their participation in Organization and Radio Operation was also vital to the success of many operations, including the main network between Paris and London.

See also Honeypot

Espionage post World War II[link]

In the United States, there are several federal agencies that form the United States Intelligence Community. The Central Intelligence Agency operates a Clandestine Service (NCS)^[15] to collect human intelligence and perform Covert operations.^[16] The National Security Agency collects Signals Intelligence. Other agencies do similar work. The CIA used to head the IC but after the September 11 attacks a new agency was formed, the Director of National Intelligence, to lead the group.

Espionage technology and techniques[link]

Spy fiction[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

An early example of espionage literature is Kim by the English novelist Rudyard Kipling, with a description of the training of an intelligence agent in the Great Game between the UK and Russia in 19th century Central Asia. An even earlier work was James Fenimore Cooper's classic novel, The Spy, written in 1821, about an American spy in New York during the Revolutionary War.

During the many 20th century spy scandals, much information became publicly known about national spy agencies and dozens of real-life secret agents. These sensational stories piqued public interest in a profession largely off-limits to human interest news reporting, a natural consequence of the secrecy inherent to their work. To fill in the blanks, the popular conception of the secret agent has been formed largely by 20th and 21st century literature and cinema. Attractive and sociable real-life agents such as Valerie Plame find little employment in serious fiction, however. The fictional secret agent is more often a loner, sometimes amoral—an existential hero operating outside the everyday constraints of society. Loner spy personalities may have been a stereotype of convenience for authors who already knew how to write loner private investigator characters that sold well from the 1920s to the present.

Johnny Fedora achieved popularity as a fictional agent of early Cold War espionage, but James Bond is the most commercially successful of the many spy characters created by intelligence insiders during that struggle. His less fantastic rivals include Le Carre's George Smiley and Harry Palmer as played by Michael Caine.

Jumping on the spy bandwagon, other writers also started writing about spy fiction featuring female spies as protagonists, such as The Baroness, which has more graphic action and sex, as compared to other novels featuring male protagonists.

See also[link]

References[link]

This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (April 2009)

Further reading[link]

• Jenkins, Peter Surveillance Tradecraft: The Professionals Guide to Surveillance Training ISBN 978953537822
• Felix, Christopher A Short Course in the Secret War, 4th Edition Madison Books November 19, 2001
• West, Nigel MI6: British Secret Intelligence Service Operations 1909-1945 1983
• Smith Jr., W. Thomas Encyclopedia of the Central Intelligence Agency 2003
• Richelson, Jeffery T. The U.S. Intelligence Community 1999 fourth edition
• Richelson, Jeffery T. A Century of Spies: Intelligence in the Twentieth Century 1977
• Owen, David Hidden Secrets: A Complete History of Espionage and the Technology Used to Support It
• O'Toole, George Honorable Treachery: A History of U.S. Intelligence, Espionage, Covert Action from the American Revolution to the CIA 1991
• Lerner, Brenda Wilmoth & K. Lee Lerner, eds. Terrorism: essential primary sources Thomas Gale 2006 ISBN 978-1-4144-0621-3
• Lerner, K. Lee and Brenda Wilmoth Lerner, eds. Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence and Security 2003 1100 pages.
• Knightley, Philip The Second Oldest Profession: Spies and Spying in the Twentieth Century Norton 1986
• Kahn, David The Codebreakers: The Comprehensive History of Secret Communication from Ancient Times to the Internet 1996 Revised edition. First published in 1967.
• Johnson, Robert Spying for Empire: The Great Game in Central and South Asia, 1757-1947 London: Greenhill 2006
• Friedman, George America's Secret War: Inside the Hidden Worldwide Struggle Between the United States and Its Enemies 2005
• Doyle, David W., A Memoir of True Men and Traitors (2000)
• Tunney, Thomas Joseph and Paul Merrick Hollister Throttled!: The Detection of the German and Anarchist Bomb Plotters Boston: Small, Maynard & company 1919 | available on Wikisource: s:Throttled!
• Beesly, Patrick || Room 40 1982
• Burnham, Frederick Russell Taking Chances 1944
• May, Ernest (ed.) Knowing One's Enemies: Intelligence Assessment before the Two World Wars 1984
• Tuchman, Barbara W. The Zimmermann Telegram Ballantine Books 1966

World War II: 1939–1945[link]

Cold War era: 1945–1991[link]

• Anderson, Nicholas NOC Enigma Books 2009 - Post Cold War era
• Ishmael Jones The Human Factor: Inside the CIA's Dysfunctional Intelligence Culture Encounter Books 2008, rev. 2010
• Michael Ross The Volunteer: The Incredible True Story of an Israeli Spy on the Trail of International Terrorists McClelland & Stewart 2007, rev. 2008

External links[link]

Look up espionage in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Espionage

• An Interactive Rosenberg Espionage Ring Timeline and Archive
• GCHQ: Britain's Most Secret Intelligence Agency

Oliver Stone
Stone at the 66th Venice International Film Festival, 2009
Born	William Oliver Stone (1946-09-15) September 15, 1946 (age 65) New York City, USA
Occupation	Film director, producer, and screenwriter
Years active	1971–present
Religion	Buddhist
Spouse	Najwa Sarkis (1971–1977) Elizabeth Burkit Cox (1981–1993) Sun-jung Jung (1996 – present)

William Oliver Stone (born September 15, 1946) is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Stone became well known in the late 1980s and the early 1990s for directing a series of films about the Vietnam War, in which he had previously participated as an infantry soldier. He won further attention - and controversy - with films JFK (1991) and Natural Born Killers (1994). Stone's movies frequently focus on contemporary political and cultural issues. He has received three Academy Awards: Best Adapted Screenplay for Midnight Express (1978), and Best Director for Platoon (1986) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989). British newspaper The Guardian described Stone as "one of the few committed men of the left working in mainstream American cinema."^[1] Stone's films often combine different cameras and film formats within a single scene (including VHS and 8 mm film) as evidenced in JFK and Natural Born Killers.^[2]

Early life[link]

Stone was born in New York City, the son of Jacqueline (née Goddet) and Louis Stone, a stockbroker.^[3] He grew up affluently and lived in townhouses in Manhattan and Stamford, Connecticut. His father was Jewish and his mother was French-born and Roman Catholic.^[4] As a religious compromise, Stone was raised in the Episcopal Church,^[5][6] but has since converted to Buddhism.^[7] Stone attended Trinity School before his parents sent him away to attend The Hill School, a college-preparatory school in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. His mother was often absent and his father made a big impact on his life; father-son relationships were to feature heavily in Stone's films.^[8] His parents divorced when he was 15, due to his father's extramarital affairs with the wives of several family friends.^[9] Stone's father was also influential in obtaining jobs for his son, including work on a financial exchange in France, where Stone often spent his summer vacation with his maternal grandparents - a job that proved inspirational to Stone for his movie Wall Street. Stone graduated from The Hill School in 1964.

Stone was then admitted into Yale University, but left after a year.^[10] Stone had become inspired by Joseph Conrad's novel Lord Jim as well as by Zorba the Greek and George Harrison's music to teach English at the Free Pacific Institute in South Vietnam. Stone taught in Vietnam for six months after which he worked as a wiper on a United States Merchant Marine ship, travelling to Oregon and Mexico, before returning to Yale, where he dropped out a second time (in part due to working on his 1,400 page autobiographical novel A Child's Night Dream).^[9] In September 1967, Stone enlisted in the United States Army, requesting combat duty in Vietnam. He fought with the 25th Infantry Division, then with the First Cavalry Division, earning a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart with an Oak Leaf Cluster before his discharge in 1968 after 15 months.^[9]

Early film career[link]

Stone graduated from film school at New York University in 1971, where he was mentored by director Martin Scorsese (the same year, he had a small acting role in comedy The Battle of Love's Return.^[11]). Stone first began making his mark in film as a scriptwriter in the late 70s, in the period between his first two films as a director: horror films Seizure (1974), and The Hand (1981), which stars Michael Caine. In 1978 he won his first Academy Award, after adapting true-life jail tale Midnight Express into a hit film for British director Alan Parker (the two would later collaborate on a 1996 movie of stage musical Evita).

Stone wrote further features before his directing career took off in 1986, including cult Al Pacino drug lord tale Scarface. The majority of those that made it to the screen were crime stories or thrillers, with the exception of Conan the Barbarian (1982). Stone has written or taken part in the writing of every film he has directed, except for crime movie U Turn (1997).

In 1986 Stone directed two films back to back: the critically acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful Salvador, shot largely in Mexico, and his long in development Vietnam project Platoon, shot in the Phillippines.

Mainstream success[link]

Platoon bought Stone's name to a much wider audience. It also finally kickstarted a busy directing career, which saw him making nine films over the next decade. Alongside some negative reaction, Platoon won many rave reviews (Roger Ebert later called it the ninth best film of the 1980s), large audiences, and Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director. In 2007, a film industry vote ranked it at number 83 in an American Film Institute "AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies" poll of the previous century's best American movies. British TV channel Channel 4 voted Platoon as the sixth greatest war film ever made.^[12]

Platoon was the first of three films Stone has made about Vietnam: the others were Born on the Fourth of July (1989, for which he won his second Oscar for directing) and Heaven & Earth (1993). He has called these films a trilogy; each deals with different aspects of the war. Platoon is a semi-autobiographical film about Stone's experience in combat; Born on the Fourth of July is based on the autobiography of US marine turned peace campaigner Ron Kovic; Heaven & Earth is based on memoir When Heaven and Earth Changed Places, in which Le Ly Hayslip, recalls her life as a Vietnamese girl drastically affected by the war.

During this same period, Stone directed one of his most ambitious, controversial and successful films to date, JFK (1991). His take on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy won him a Golden Globe for directing. Stone also directed the acclaimed Wall Street (1987), which won Michael Douglas an Academy Award for Best Actor as a ruthless Wall Street corporate raider; Talk Radio (1988), based on Eric Bogosian's Pulitzer-nominated play, and The Doors (1991), starring Val Kilmer as singer Jim Morrison.

1994–present[link]

In 1994 saw the release of Stone's frenzied, controversial satire of the modern media, Natural Born Killers. This tale of two serial killers was later ranked as Entertainment Weekly's eight 'Most Controversial' movies to date.^{[citation needed]} Stone went on to direct Nixon (1995), which was nominated for Oscars for script and Anthony Hopkins' portrait of President Richard Nixon.

Stone followed Nixon with two more intentionally populist works, road movie U Turn (1997), and Any Given Sunday (1999), a film about power struggles within and without an American football team. In 2010, he returned to Wall Street for sequel Money Never Sleeps.^[14] Stone also directed the critically savaged Alexander (2004). He later re-edited his biopic of Alexander the Great in two different cuts for DVD. After Alexander, Stone went on to direct World Trade Center, based on the true story of two Port Authority Police Department (PAPD) policemen who were trapped in rubble after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Stone hoped to direct a fourth Vietnam War film Pinkville, about an investigation into the My Lai Massacre of Vietnamese civilians. The film was to have been made for the newly reformed United Artists.^[15], but the company halted the December 2007 production start thanks to the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike. After the strike, Stone went on to write, produce and direct the George W. Bush biopic, titled W. (2008). The film portrays the controversial President's childhood, relationship with his father, struggles with alcoholism, rediscovery of his Christian faith, and continues up until the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Josh Brolin plays the title role.

Controversy[link]

This article's Criticism or Controversy section may compromise the article's neutral point of view of the subject. Please integrate the section's contents into the article as a whole, or rewrite the material. (August 2010)

In 1991, Stone showed his film JFK to Congress on Capitol Hill, which helped lead to passage of the Assassination Materials Disclosure Act^[16] of 1992. The Assassination Records Review Board (created by Congress to end the secrecy surrounding Kennedy's assassination) discussed the film, including Stone's observation at the end of the film, about the dangers inherent in government secrecy.^[17] Stone published an annotated version of the screenplay, in which he cites references for his claims, shortly after the film's release.

Stone's screenplay Midnight Express was criticized by some^[who?] for its portrayal of Turkish people. The original author, Billy Hayes, around whom the film is set, has spoken out against the film, protesting that he had many Turkish friends while in jail.^[18]

Stone's film Natural Born Killers (originally based on a screenplay by Quentin Tarantino), released in 1994, received controversial recognition for its portrayal of violence, along with the intended satire on the media. Before it was released, the MPAA gave the film a NC-17 rating; this caused Stone to cut four minutes of film footage in order to obtain an R rating (he eventually released the unrated version on VHS and DVD in 2001). Entertainment Weekly ranked Natural Born Killers at number 8 on their list of the 25 Most Controversial Movies Ever.^{[citation needed]}

Stone's other film The Doors, released in 1991, received criticism from former Doors member Ray Manzarek (keyboardist–bass player) during a question and answer session at Indiana University East (in Richmond, Indiana), in 1997. During the discussion, Manzarek stated that he sat down with Stone about The Doors and Jim Morrison for over 12 hours. Patricia Kennealy Morrison - a well known rock critic and author - was a consultant on the movie, in which she also has a cameo appearance, but she writes in her memoir Strange Days: My Life With and Without Jim Morrison (Dutton, 1992) that Stone ignored everything she told him and proceeded with his own version of events. From the moment the movie was released, she blasted it as untruthful and inaccurate.^[19] The other surviving former members of the band, John Densmore and Robby Krieger, also cooperated with the filming of Doors, but distanced themselves from the work before the film's release.

Also in 1997, Stone was one of 34 celebrities to sign an open letter to then-German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, published as a newspaper advertisement in the International Herald Tribune, which protested against the treatment of Scientologists in Germany and compared it to the Nazis' oppression of Jews in the 1930s.^[20] Other signatories included Dustin Hoffman and Goldie Hawn.^[20]

In 2010, Stone defended his decision not to interview Hugo Chavez's opponents during the filming of his documentary South of the Border. Stone indicated that people hear enough of those complaints already and that the movie is not intended to be a detailed examination of Chavez's record. He praised Chavez as a leader of a movement for "social transformation" in Latin America and expressed his deep admiration for him.^[21]

Drug use[link]

Stone loosely based Scarface on his own addiction to cocaine which he had to kick while writing the screenplay.^[22] On the DVD of Natural Born Killers: The Director's Cut, one of the producers, Jane Hamsher, recounts stories of taking psilocybin mushrooms with Stone and some of the cast and crew and almost getting pulled over by a police officer—a situation which Stone later wrote into the film.^{[citation needed]} In 1999, Stone was arrested and pleaded guilty to alcohol and drug charges. He was ordered into a rehabilitation program. He was arrested again on the night of May 27, 2005 in Los Angeles for possession of an undisclosed illegal drug.^[23]

Attempted meeting with FARC[link]

In a January 2008 interview with The Observer, Stone expressed disgust for what he claims to be the ongoing U.S.-supported paramilitary violence in Colombia's "war on drugs." He accompanied Hugo Chávez, Venezuela's president and third party negotiator with the Colombian guerrilla group known as Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), in the release of three hostages held for over six years, another episode in the humanitarian exchange affair.

During The Observer interview, Stone did not condemn the FARC outright; "I do think that by the standards of Western civilization they go too far; they kidnap innocent people. On the other hand, they're fighting a desperate battle against highly financed, American-supported forces who have been terrorizing the countryside for years and kill most of the people. FARC is fighting back as best it can and grabbing hostages is the fashion in which they can finance themselves and try to achieve their goals, which are difficult. They're a peasant army; I see them as a Zapata-like army. I think they are heroic to fight for what they believe in and die for it, as was Castro in the hills of Cuba."^[24]

Stone made the comments shortly after returning from a trip to Colombia, where he was to have filmed footage of the expected release of three FARC hostages, including a young child named Emanuel. In the days before the 2007 New Year's Eve, the Venezuelan government had arranged for the release of high-profile hostages held in the Colombian jungle by the FARC guerrilla group. A high-level international team of observers was on hand, including former President Néstor Kirchner of Argentina, Brazil's top presidential foreign policy advisor, and representatives from France, Switzerland, Bolivia, Ecuador, Cuba, the Red Cross, and Oliver Stone.^[25][26] The mission failed, and Stone blamed the Colombian government and the United States for the fiasco.^[24] President Uribe said the FARC were lying the whole time, and they never had any intention of releasing the hostages because they did not have one of the three they had promised to deliver (a 3-year-old boy who was born in captivity). President Chavez angrily accused Uribe of "dynamiting" the mission. He said the FARC was in fact ready to release the two hostages they held, but had to retreat from Colombian military operations. President Uribe maintained his military, under orders from him, had held to a cease-fire in order to allow the release.^[25][26]

Controversial remarks[link]

In an interview with The Times newspaper on July 25, 2010, Stone claimed that America does not know "the full story" on Iran and complained about Jewish "domination" in parts of the US media and foreign policy.^[27] When Stone was asked why so much of an emphasis has been placed on the Holocaust, as opposed to the 25-plus million casualties the Soviet Union, for example, suffered in World War II, he stated that there was a powerful Jewish lobby within the US. The remarks were heavily criticized by Jewish groups, including the Simon Wiesenthal Center, (where Yuri Eidelstein described his remarks as what “could be a sequel to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion,”)^[27] and the American Jewish Committee,^[28] as well as from Israel's Diaspora Affairs and Public Diplomacy Minister.^[27]

Stone a day later, stated: “In trying to make a broader historical point about the range of atrocities the Germans committed against many people, I made a clumsy association about the Holocaust, for which I am sorry and I regret. Jews obviously do not control media or any other industry. The fact that the Holocaust is still a very important, vivid and current matter today is, in fact, a great credit to the very hard work of a broad coalition of people committed to the remembrance of this atrocity - and it was an atrocity.”^[29]

On July 28, 2010, Stone issued a second apology to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which was accepted. "I believe he now understands the issues and where he was wrong, and this puts an end to the matter," said ADL National Director Abraham Foxman.^[30]

Other work[link]

In 1993, Stone produced a miniseries for ABC Television called Wild Palms. In a cameo, Stone appears on a television in the show discussing how the theories in his film JFK had been proven correct (the series took place in a hypothetical future, 2007). Wild Palms has developed a moderate cult following in the years since it aired^{[citation needed]}, and has recently been released on DVD. That same year, he also spoofed himself in the comedy hit Dave, espousing a conspiracy theory about the President's replacement by a near-identical double. In 1997, Stone published A Child's Night Dream, a largely autobiographical novel first written in 1966-1967. After several unsuccessful attempts to get the work published, he "threw several sections of the manuscript into the East River one cold night, and, as if surgically removing the memory of the book from my mind, volunteered for Vietnam in 1967."^[9] Eventually, he dug out the remaining pages, rewrote the manuscript, and published it.

Stone with Hugo Chávez

In 2003, Stone made two documentary films: Persona Non Grata, about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and Comandante, about Cuban President Fidel Castro. In 2004, he made a second documentary on Castro, titled Looking for Fidel. (See also Controversy, above.) Stone is directing a short film about the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, where the games were held. He was recently granted permission by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to make a documentary about him. Stone had been previously refused permission by the Iranian government when the President's media advisor, Mehdi Kalhor, denounced Stone^[31][32] as being part of the "Great Satan" of American culture, despite his opposition to the Bush administration. However, Ahmadinejad approved permission a month later, saying he had "no objections" provided the documentary was based on accurate facts. Stone is due to visit Tehran to negotiate the production of the film with Iranian officials, possibly the president himself.

In 2008, Stone was named the Artistic Director of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts Asia in Singapore.

In 2009, Stone completed a documentary about Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and the rise of progressive, leftist governments in Latin America. Stone, who is a supporter of Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution, hopes the film will get the Western world to rethink the Venezuelan president and socialist policies. Titled South of the Border, Chavez joined Stone for the premiere of the documentary at the Venice Film Festival in September 2009.^[33] The documentary features informal interviews by Stone with Chavez and six allied leftist presidents, from Bolivia's Evo Morales to Cuba's Raul Castro. Stone stated that he hopes the film will help people better understand a leader who is wrongly ridiculed "as a strongman, as a buffoon, as a clown." In May 2010, Stone began a Latin American tour to promote the film, with screenings planned in Ecuador, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay and Argentina. The documentary was also being released in some cities in the United States and Europe in the summer of 2010.^[21][34]

The Untold History of the United States[link]

In early January 2010, it emerged that Stone was preparing a 10-part documentary series for Showtime titled The Untold History of the United States that he had been working on with American University historian Peter J. Kuznick since 2007. Stone will direct every one hour episode of the series, which intends to provide an unconventional account of some of the darkest parts of twentieth century history using little known documents and newly uncovered archival material.^[35] The miniseries will be accompanied by a companion book of the same name by Stone and Kuznick.^[36] Stone hopes to put into context some of the most controversial figures of the last hundred years, such as Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong.^[37] Stone described the series as "the most ambitious thing I’ve ever done. Certainly in documentary form, and perhaps in fiction, feature form."^[38] The series was expected to premiere May 2012^[39], but Stone told MTV News in April that it wasn't ready: "there are so many factors and fact checking. It's a lot of work...each hour has to work like a movie", he confirmed that the series was tentatively rescheduled for November 2012^[40]

Future projects[link]

Stone is also set to direct the 2012 film Savages, based on a novel by Don Winslow and featuring an ensemble cast that includes John Travolta, Uma Thurman, and Benicio del Toro.

Personal life[link]

Stone married three times, first to Najwa Sarkis on May 22, 1971. They divorced in 1977. He then married Elizabeth Burkit Cox, an assistant in film production, on June 7, 1981.^[41][42] They had two sons, Sean Stone/Ali (b. 1984) and Michael Jack (b. 1991). Sean appeared in some of his father's films while a child. Oliver and Elizabeth divorced in 1993. Stone is currently married to Sun-jung Jung, and the couple have a teenage daughter, Tara.^[43] According to Newsmeat, Stone supported Barack Obama in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election.

In 1999, Stone was arrested on alcohol and drug charges and, as part of a plea bargain, agreed to enter a rehabilitation program.^[44] On May 27, 2005, Stone was arrested for driving under the influence and possession of drugs. He was released the next day on a $15,000 bond.^[44] In August 2005 Stone pled no contest and was fined $100.^[45]

He stated recently that he would prefer Ron Paul for U.S. President: "I think in many ways the most interesting candidate – I'd even vote for him if he was running against Obama – is Ron Paul. Because he’s the only one of anybody who’s saying anything intelligent about the future of the world."^[46]

In 2012, his son Sean told Agence France-Presse he converted to Islam whilst in Iran filming a documentary.^[47] The 27-year-old filmmaker did not say why he converted. According to Iran's Fars News Agency, Sean has become a Shia Muslim and had chosen to be known by the first name Ali.

Filmography[link]

As director[link]

As actor[link]

• Battle of Love's Return (1971)
• Platoon (1986) (cameo)
• Wall Street (cameo) (1987)
• The Doors (1991) (cameo)
• Dave (cameo) (1993)
• Any Given Sunday (1999)
• Torrente 3: El Protector (cameo) (2005)
• Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (cameo) (2010)
• Graystone (film) (actor) (2011)

Screenwriter only[link]

• Midnight Express (1978)
• Conan the Barbarian (with John Milius) (1982)
• Scarface (1983)
• Year of the Dragon (with Michael Cimino) (1985)
• 8 Million Ways to Die (with David Lee Henry) (1985)
• Evita (with Alan Parker) (1996)

Producer/executive producer only[link]

• Sugar Cookies (1973)
• Blue Steel (1989)
• Reversal of Fortune (1990)
• From Hollywood to Hanoi (1992)
• Zebrahead (1992)
• South Central (1992)
• Wild Palms (1993) (TV)
• The Joy Luck Club (1993)
• The New Age (1994)
• Indictment: The McMartin Trial (1995) (TV)
• Freeway (1996)
• The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996)
• Cold Around the Heart (1996)
• Killer: A Journal of Murder (1996)
• Gravesend (1997)
• The Last Days of Kennedy and King (1998)
• Savior (1998)
• The Corruptor (1999)
• The Day Reagan Was Shot (2001) (TV)
• Comandante (2003)
• Persona Non Grata (2003)

Bibliography[link]

• Hamburg, Eric. Nixon: An Oliver Stone Film. Hyperion Books. ISBN 0-7868-8157-7
• Riordan, James. Stone: The Biography. (1996)
• Stone, Oliver. JFK: The Book of the Film. Applause Books. ISBN 1-55783-127-0
• Salewicz, Chris. Oliver Stone: the making of his movies. Orion. ISBN 0-7528-1820-1

References[link]