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.Now Stalin had a youngdaughter, Svetlana, who was only thirteen years old at the time, andshe fell madly in love with Kapler, who was a handsome man ofthirty-four.At first, Stalin did not notice Svetlana s infatuation withKapler, but when he did, he accused Kapler of being a British spyand had him imprisoned in the Vorkuta camp. I asked Welles what all this had to do with John Wayne, and hereplied, I am getting to that.Be patient. I quickly learned that whenWelles was in full flow with a story, you didn t interrupt him.Hecontinued, In 1949 Stalin sent a film director, Sergei Gerasimov, toAmerica to attend the Cultural and Scientific Conference for WorldPeace in New York.He was faithful to the party line, and washonored by Stalin by being appointed as head of all the studiosproducing documentaries, the sole purpose of which was to promoteStalinism.In his speech at the conference, Gerasimov denouncedHollywood films as being devoid of any moral standards. He also heard that an actor called John Wayne was publiclydenouncing Stalin and the Communist party.He was alsodenouncing the newly created People s Republic of China and itsleader Mao Tse-tung. In 1949 there was a great deal of brouhaha in Moscow whenGerasimov returned to Moscow and brought to Stalin s ears the newsthat John Wayne was leading the war to crush Communism inAmerica, and in the American motion picture industry.Wayne hadbeen elected president of the Motion Picture Alliance for thePreservation of American Ideals, and its main objective was tofight all that was anti-American, and that meant Communism.Despite all the efforts of Soviet infiltrators, the Communists hadfailed to fully penetrate the American film industry, and peoplewho had become sympathetic to the cause and those who had fullyjoined in the cause had been blacklisted by Hollywood.Some hadeven gone to jail. It is doubtful that Gerasimov intended that his report should 21184_ch01.qxd 12/18/03 1:43 PM Page 127WAYNE S CRUSADE FOR FREEDOM 127produce the result it did, but Stalin decided on the spot that JohnWayne had become one of the greatest of enemies to the SovietUnion. Many within the Soviet film industry, though they may not haveseen a John Wayne film, or may not have even heard his namebefore, whispered that Stalin, the man who thought little ofmurdering his own people, had plotted to kill a major Americanmovie star.Even in prison, word reached Kapler s ears that Stalinwas going to send Wayne a warning that if he continued to urge theAmerican people to wage war on Soviet Russia, he would die. There were ways and means of getting messages in and out ofprison, and there were ways and means of filtering information toAmerican agents working in the Soviet Union.Kapler was able tourge some of his Jewish friends in the Soviet film industry to warnAmerican intelligence that Stalin was going to have a movie starcalled John Wayne assassinated. I do not know if the name John Wayne was already known toJoseph Stalin before 1949, but in 1949 he certainly came to know ofthe name.He came to hate it.He feared it.He felt that the name hadbecome a major threat to him and his ideals.It was as though, inStalin s warped mind, the Americans had invented some new secretweapon, more subtle than a nuclear bomb, but just as destructive toStalin s ideals and his dreams of world domination. Stalin urged Mao Tse-tung to join him in his conspiracy,impressing upon him that John Wayne had become the greatestenemy of Communism.Mao had previously asked Stalin for help inestablishing his regime in China, and Stalin had refused him.SoMao, who had his own agenda which was to bring destruction to theUnited States without taking his own country to war, told Stalin thathe would only support the assassination of John Wayne if Stalinwould make every effort to push America into a war.For all ofStalin s ranting about the corrupt West and his threats of nuclearwar, Stalin had no wish to fight a war he did not believe he couldwin, but he gave Mao his promise, and the conspiracy wasestablished.In doing so, both Stalin and Mao, the two most powerfulCommunist leaders in the world, were engaged in what we corruptAmericans would call the double-cross. 21184_ch01.qxd 12/18/03 1:43 PM Page 128128 JOHN WAYNE Soon after Stalin died [on Monday, 2 March 1953], those he hadimprisoned were released, and among the many to be freed wasAlexei Kapler.He told Sergei Bondarchuk all this, but Bondarchukhad already heard the rumor and did not believe it.So Kapler toldBondarchuk to ask Gerasimov, under whom Bondarchuk had studiedfilmmaking, to verify it.And Gerasimov told Bondarchuk howStalin tried kill John Wayne, Bondarchuk told it to me, and now I tellit to you. Wayne got on with his life and, in May 1949, he signed a non-exclusive contract to make seven pictures over seven years forWarner Bros.As part of the agreement, Wayne would be allowed toproduce his own films at the studio.But first he returned to Republic to produce The FightingKentuckian.Set in 1819, it was the perfect vehicle for Wayne,playing a Kentucky rifleman trying to protect French officers, whohave taken refuge in Alabama, from illegal eviction.It had plenty ofrousing action, especially in the climactic battle, and some finemoments of comedy, much of it supplied by Oliver Hardy
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