Good film of Cold War true events

Rating: 9/10 (11 July 2017)

"Bridge of Spies" is a first rate film about three true events that occurred at the height of the Cold War (1946-1991). They were headline news stories of their day. The first two incidents were unrelated but were tied together by the third event. Director Steven Spielberg and the writing team had a tough job condensing three stories over five years into a film of less than 2½ hours. They had to skip much detail, and the film seems crammed in places. Some things may not be apparent to one who doesn't know the history.
The first event was the 1957 New York arrest, trial and conviction of Rudolf Abel, a Soviet spy. The second event was the 1960 crash of an American spy plane over Russia and the arrest, trial and conviction of the pilot, Francis Gary Powers. The third event was the 1962 prisoner exchange of the two men, along with a second American. The first and last of these three events involve a third principal character, James Donovan, a New York attorney. The film revolves around Donovan and his role in the lives of the captive men.
All of the cast are superb in their roles. The film naturally had Hollywood treatment, so some parts are fiction. Folks interested in the Cold War, or in espionage, or Soviet spying in particular, might enjoy more details. So, I offer some here from my study of these subjects.
Rudolf Abel was one of many aliases of Vilyam Genrikhovich Fisher (1903-1971). Fisher was an English-born Russian. He moved to Russia in the 1920s, served in the military and became a Soviet intelligence officer. After World War II, he joined the KGB and was trained to spy in the U.S. He left Russia in 1948. Using different IDs and passports, he made his way across Europe to Canada and then the U.S. on Nov. 17. He operated in a spy ring under the code name, Mark. When things heated up, he was about to leave the U.S. with a new ID. But, he was arrested before he could leave. That was June 21, 1957.
The film gives a sense of intrigue with Abel's capture. It didn't happen the way the movie portrays it. He answered the door in his hotel room and was arrested by FBI agents. But the scenes with a hollow nickel were one way to bring into the story a real aspect that led to Abel's capture. In 1953, a Brooklyn newspaper boy received a hollow nickel for payment when he was collecting for his paper route. He dropped the coin and it popped open, revealing a piece of microfilm. It wound up in the hands of the FBI. In time, through trailing other known Soviet spies, and the defection of one in May of 1957, the feds were able to corral Abel.
The federal court in New York convicted him of spying and sentenced him to 30 years in prison. He had served just over four years in an Atlanta prison, when he was exchanged in 1962 for Gary Powers. Back home in Russia, Fisher lectured on his experiences until he died at age 68 in 1971.
Francis Gary Powers (1929-1977) was a U.S. Air Force jet pilot during 1952-56. He was discharged from the Air Force as a captain in 1956, and went to work for the CIA to fly U-2 missions over the Soviet Union. Those began on Sept. 27, 1956 and continued into 1960. On May 1 of that year, Powers was shot down by a new Soviet ground to air missile, and parachuted to safety. On Aug. 19, the Soviet Union convicted him of espionage and sentenced him to three years in prison and seven years of hard labor. He served just over 21 months in prison before the February 10, 1962 exchange. The movie doesn't show it, but the Powers family and two American attorneys were at his trial.
In later years, Powers received honors for his service. Soviet records released after the fall of the Iron Curtain verified the details Power had given of his U-2 flight. Powers died on Aug. 1, 1977 when his TV traffic helicopter crashed in Los Angeles. While making an emergency landing, he swerved to avoid hitting children playing in a park.
James Donovan (1916-1970) took the Abel case after several others had turned it down. He had been in a private law firm just seven years after serving as a commander in the Navy. During World War II, he was associate counsel in a research and development office. After the war, he was assistant to Justice Robert H. Jackson, the chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg war trials in Germany. Donovan was the main negotiator in the prisoner exchange of Abel and Powers, which also included an American student, Frederic Pryor.
While the movie doesn't cover it, Donovan's efforts that same year and the next for Cuban exiles were as harrowing as his negotiations with the Soviets. In June, exiled Cubans asked him to negotiate the release of the Cuban Americans captured by Fidel Castro after the failed April 17, 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion. The negotiations concluded on July 3, 1963, and led to the release of about 1,100 people. Donovan was just 53 years old when he died of a heart attack in January 1970.
A 1976 TV movie was made about Gary Powers. Lee Majors starred in "Francis Gary Powers: The True Story of the U-2 Spy Incident." A 1948 movie, "The Iron Curtain," stars Dana Andrews as Igor Gouzenko. He was a Soviet crypto clerk who defected and exposed a massive spy network in Canada and the U.S. The Soviets were way ahead of the U.S. in their espionage work after WW II and during the early years of the Cold War.