After the film came out, the CIA's own history experts also evaluated the film, https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi- publications/csi-studies/studies /vol51no1/the-good-shepherd.html
, although the CIA experts believe that many places in the movie have distorted the facts (some historical time is wrong, some have added oil and vinegar, etc.), but the evaluation itself shows that this movie is indeed one A fairly reliable biography of the early history of the CIA.
In some places, I didn't understand, and maybe there are still some places that are misunderstood. I hope you can correct me.
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This film develops in a two-line fashion, with the landing of the Bay of Pigs as the time demarcation point. In the past There are constant flashbacks and jumps between events (in chronological order) and now (main line-mainly about the technical analysis of anonymous materials). In order to make the plot more clear, I ignored the technical analysis part (because it is easy to understand).
The film began in 1961. Edward Wilson (Matt Damon) (the prototype is former CIA director James Angleton) is making a boat in a bottle.
He boarded a bus and got ready to go to work. A little boy in the car came over and asked him if he had any change, and then gave him a one-dollar bill. After returning to the office, Edward used the serial number on the one-dollar bill to decode a code cardinal. (asset means spy) The
movie shows a segment of the landing in the Bay of Pigs and the failure of the CIA to overthrow Castro. In the Caribbean CIA operations command center, Edward witnessed the failure of the operation. He told Brocco (John Turturro) that there was an outsider in the house, guessing that an inner ghost had leaked the landing site to Castro (more likely to Moscow).
Someone secretly stuffed a photo and a tape into Edward's home. The photo was rough and the tape was full of noise. He took these things back to the office and handed them over for technical analysis.
Edward met with an FBI person in a restaurant. The FBI person told him that there was a ghost in the CIA and the president wanted to dismantle the CIA and conduct a thorough investigation of the CIA members. Edward found a pick-up ticket in the hat left by the man, and then took out a paper box from the laundry. There was a shirt in it and a file about Phillip Allen (played by William Hurt) under the shirt.
In 1939, Edward was studying at Yale University. After a performance was over, his friend invited him to participate in the skull meeting. This is a very powerful fraternity organization (it is said that many presidents, judges, and celebrities in business and political circles in the history of the United States are its members). At the initiation ceremony, the host asked him to tell everyone a secret that he had never told anyone before. He talked about how he witnessed his father commit suicide and hid his suicide note when he was six years old. Someone asked what was written in the suicide note, and he said he had never read it.
Dr. Fredericks, Edward's thesis tutor, admired his talent and recommended him to be the editor of a poetry journal, but he was sexually suggestive. The professor also recite a poem of his own to him. Edward found the poem in a collection of poems in the library and found that the professor had also borrowed the book. Later, he met Laura, a female student with hearing impairment, and they had a good chat. After coming out of the library, FBI agent Sam Murach stopped him and told him that Dr. Fredericks was in contact with a Nazi organization, and the FBI asked him to help monitor the professor. Edward stole the list of members of the Nazi organization from the professor and gave it to the FBI, which forced the professor to resign.
Edward and Laura’s first date, because Laura was very shy, nothing happened, Edward left her cross necklace.
In 1940, Edward attended the Skull Club's Kashima party. There, he met Clover (classmate's sister, senator's daughter). William Sullivan (played by Robert DeNiro) (prototype is General William "Wild Bill" Donovan, who was then the chief of OSS) met Edward and invited him to participate in OSS (the Office of Strategic Services). Clover and Edward had a one-night stand on the island.
The day after returning home, Edward was chatting with Laura at the beach, Clover's brother came to him and told him that Clover was pregnant. Edward looked back at Laura, only to find that she already knew the news by reading her lips.
Edward and Clover's wedding was not over yet, he received a notice to be sent to the UK, and set off in a week.
In 1941, in London, Edward met Fredericks, his former thesis teacher, who is now in charge of teaching Edward counterintelligence techniques. It turned out that Fredericks was a British intelligence officer. It took him two years to break into the Nazi organization. He didn't expect to be destroyed by Edward's actions and wasted his previous work. Under the introduction of Dr. Fredericks, Edward met Arch Cummings (Billy Crudup), a British intelligence officer.
Soon, Arch Cummings told Edward Fredericks that the bad habit of promiscuity may cause problems, and asked Edward to persuade his teacher. Edward and Fredericks went for a walk together, and Fredericks rejected Edward's suggestion to let him continue teaching. Said that if Edward wanted to "tie his shoelaces" (signal for failure of the talks), he also understood very well. Edward hesitated, so Fredericks leaned over, tied his shoelaces, and suggested "You still have a conscience, you should leave this dirty job." After the conversation ended, Fredericks was killed after leaving Edward. (The role of Fredericks may be derived from the Alan Turing (Turing) incident. Turing is a famous British mathematician and one of the founders of modern computer science. He helped the British decipher German codes in World War II, but in 1952 due to homosexuality He was prosecuted for his behavior and expelled from the British secret service. In 1954, he committed suicide by taking poison, but he may have been killed.)
Time came to 1945, when Berlin had just been captured, and the Allies and the Soviet Union began to compete for German scientists. The Soviet intelligence chief Ulysses (the Americans call him) requested a meeting with Edward in a church and praised Edward as a terrible opponent (his code name on the Soviet side is mother). Ulysses mentioned that his hands had been frostbited and he was afraid of the cold. The two sides exchanged lists of scientists (the Soviets exchanged Jewish scientists for Nazi scientists held by the Allies).
Edward called home and found out that Clover had an affair. Later, his female translator invited him to eat at her house, and Edward agreed. The female translator said that her hearing had almost disappeared and she had to wear a hearing aid. After a night of passion, Edward discovered that the female translator could hear her without a hearing aid. Edward told his men that an outsider had entered the room. So the female translator was killed (looks at her smile, it looks like Edward killed her himself), and her hearing aid was put into Ulysses' teapot.
In 1946, Edward returned to the United States. This was the first time he saw his son. He gave him a miniature ship model made by himself. Sullivan met with him again and asked him to work in a newly established intelligence agency (that is, the CIA), whose supervisor is Phillip Allen.
Edward's first task was to deal with a country in China and the United States that is rich in coffee. The country’s leader Dr. Ibanez (Marcos Cohen) (the prototype is former Guatemala President Jacobo Arbenz) supports nationalization and intends to move closer to the Soviet Union. Edward found Ulysses standing behind the country’s leader while watching the country’s information film, but he did not tell his colleagues about the incident. An agent will pretend to be an agricultural expert and travel to the country with the Mayan Coffee Company. When the country’s leaders gave a public speech, the Americans arranged several planes to sow large numbers of locusts from the sky. Soon after, Edward received a can of Mayan coffee, and a section of the agent's severed finger was found in the coffee can. Edward immediately reported to his superiors that Ulysses had a great impact on the country and requested immediate large-scale action. Soon there was an armed coup in the country and the leader stepped down.
Edward's wife revealed his identity to a friend, but at a party, Edward categorically denied it. So his wife was furious, and the gap between the two deepened. At the Christmas party, General Sullivan told Edward phillip Allen that he would take over Central American affairs and told him to be careful of this man. Edward found the FBI agent he had known before and asked him to help investigate Phillip Allen (1947 or 1948).
Jump back, April 24, 1961, Washington. Edward is reading about Phillip Allen's work at Swiss Bank in
1953. There is a Russian who claims to be Valentin Mironov, a senior official of KGB, and is familiar with Ulysses. He also knows that Ulysses's weakness is fear of cold, and he asks for political asylum. He met with Edward and worked for him. Arch cummings also came to the United States to work with them and gave Valentin Mironov a book "Ulysses".
In 1958, Edward met his girlfriend Laura from college when he was watching a play with Valentin Mironov and Arch cummings. Laura told him that he was not married yet, and the two spent a good night together. When Edward's family attended a Skull and Bones party, his wife received an anonymous letter with a picture of him and Laura. Margaret threw the letter to him in front of everyone. Edward sent someone back to Laura (waiting at the entrance of the theater) the cross necklace he had always treasured. (Question: Who took the picture? That British man?)
In 1959, Edward watched his son's choir performance and met Ulysses in the theater (the background of the radio broadcast: Khrushchev's visit to the United States). Edward asked the Soviets to warn Castro, who had just come to power, not to make too much noise.
In 1960, another Soviet man asked for asylum, claiming that he was the real Valentin. He said that the fake Valentin's real identity was Yuri Modin, a spy sent by Ulysses. The Americans did not believe him, not only used torture to extract a confession, but also used LSD (a hallucinogen that is said to make people tell the truth). After using LSD, the Soviets still insisted that they were Valentin, and when the agents were unprepared, they rushed out of the window and committed suicide. Valentin Mironov, who had been watching the interrogation next to Edward, quickly stated that he was willing to take LSD to prove that he did not lie. (The prototype of the LSD death event was Frank Olson who died in the CIA MKULTRA project, and the prototypes of the two spies were Yuri Ivanovich Nosenko and Anatoliy Golitsyn)
At the initiation ceremony of the Skull and Bones, Edward's son told him that he wanted to join the CIA. Margaret asked Edward to persuade his son to give up the idea, and the two began to quarrel again. In furious, Edward said that he married Margaret for the sake of a child, and Margaret left Edward.
With the deepening of the Cuban revolution, the Americans became more and more disturbed. Edward began to gather people to deal with Castro. Edward met with Italian mafia leader Joseph Palmi (Joseph Palmi) (the prototype should be Santo Trafficante Jr. and Sam Giancana), and three of his casinos were confiscated by the Cuban government (Castro confiscated some gangs in Chicago and Florida) The molecule’s casino was nationalized. The CIA recruited these gang members to assassinate Castro).
At the Skull and Bones party in 1961, when Edward was discussing Operation Bay of Pigs with his boss, he suspected that his son had heard the conversation, and he warned his son not to disclose any content.
After a thorough analysis of the photos and audio tapes provided by Edward, CIA technicians discovered that the location of the photos was taken in Leopoldville, Congo. After Edward got there, he found the room where the photo was taken, and found in the room the gift he had previously given to his son--a miniature ship model. Ulysses walked in and played a tape, proving that it was his son who had revealed the location of the landing. Ulysses told him that his son's girlfriend was a Soviet spy, but he was really in love with little Edward. He threatened Edward with little Edward and asked him to work for the Soviets. Later, Edward saw his son. He told his son that his girlfriend was a spy, but the son refused to believe him.
Edward knew there was a ghost around him. He found a passport (showing that Valentin's real name is Yuri Modin) and an escape plan from a book "Ulysses" on the shelf in Valentin's office. Yuri Modin was caught, Arch Cummings was his accomplice and fled to the Soviet Union. (Question: A book next to "Ulysses" is not next to the bookshelf. What does it mean?)
(Arch Cummings is based on Kim Philby)
Edward met Ulysses at the museum and refused Ulysses' request, indicating that the Soviet Union had acquired Cuba. There is no point in hurting his son again. Ulysses did not force him, saying that Edward owed him personal affection, and might even ask him for help in the future. Enemies can become friends, and friends can become enemies. Ulysses also said that Edward's girlfriend was difficult to deal with, and he had a headache, and asked him "Do you want her to be your family?". Edward didn't answer.
Before Ulysses left, his assistant said that he wanted to buy a souvenir for his daughter, but he had no change. Edward gave him one dollar and said, "This is a gift from the US government. The cardinal principle of democracy is generosity." (At the beginning of the movie, Edward received $1 on the bus. Its code number is decoded as Cardinal, suggesting that this assistant is a member of the CIA. Another note: Cardinal is the highest number of U.S. penetration into the Soviet Union in Tom Clancy's novel The Cardinal in the Kremlin Level spy.)
Edward and his wife came to Africa to attend their son's wedding, and they waited for the bride's arrival in the church. The bride was thrown off the plane by the flight crew shortly after the plane was lifted off. Edward told his son that her girlfriend had died and little Edward collapsed in his father's arms. (Personally, I think it should be the Russians, because young Edward asked his father if you did it? Edward said "no", he shouldn't lie.)
Edward met Hayes in the unfinished new CIA headquarters building, Hayes ( The prototype Richard Helms, one of the former directors of the CIA, told him that Phillip Allen (the prototype was Allen Dulles, a former OSS member, the director of the CIA when the Bay of Pigs landed. He left the CIA shortly after the failure of the Bay of Pigs operation, but not Due to corruption) and resigned due to corruption and bribery issues, the president appointed himself as the CIA director (someone left a box of chocolates in Allen's car with Allen's statement from the Swiss bank, which should have been done by Edward). Hayes praised Edward as the heart and soul of the CIA, and said that maybe he also has the handle in Edward's hands. Edward will continue to lead the CIA's counterintelligence agency.
When Edward returned home, he opened the hidden safe (HMS pinafore was supposed to be the drama he played in Yale before), took out his father's suicide note, opened it and read it, and burned it (beautiful boat shape, burning letters are so wonderful). His father regretted what he had done and felt deeply ashamed. He hoped that he could grow into a brave man, a good man, a good husband and a good father.
At the end, Edward moved into the new CIA building.
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