Notes
Some contemporary and modern sources refer to the film's title as Wintersoldier. The title of the film and the name of the Winter Soldier Investigation that it documents are based on the famous quote from The American Crisis, written by Thomas Paine and read to the soldiers at Valley Forge in the winter of 1776. The quotation is heard in voice-over narration by filmmaker Rhetta Barron over the film's title: "These are the times that try men's souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it NOW, deserves the thanks and love of man and woman." Only the title card appears in the opening credits. Although the opening title card includes a 1972 copyright statement for Winterfilm, Inc., the picture was not copyrighted until October 18, 2004, under the number RE-902-239.
The end credits feature only the names of the veterans who appear giving testimony, although during the film, few of the speakers are identified by name. The still photographs at the film's conclusion are of veterans participating in the week-long, April 1971 Operation Dewey Canyon III demonstration at Washington, D.C., which culminated in the soldiers' throwing away of their ribbons, medals and commendations. The end credits contain a written statement reporting that all the testimony from the Winter Soldier Investigation appears in the Congressional Record of 6 and April 7, 1971. The end credits also contain a written thanks to the filmmakers and friends whose participation made the film possible. Winter Soldier was shot in 16mm black-and-white, although the photographs of the soldiers in Vietnam, provided by themselves, are in color. Also in color are the 8mm "home movies" shot by the soldiers in Vietnam and the newsreel footage of civilians and military personnel.
The Vietnam War marked a bitter time in American history. U.S. involvement in the conflict began in 1950 with the sending of military advisors to aid France, which was attempting to retain control of Vietnam, its former colony. During the 1960s, the deployment of actual troops dramatically increased as the U.S. supported South Vietnam against the Communist government of the north. The war ended with the Fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, and Vietnam was reunified as one country under the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in July 1976. Among the many contentious issues surrounding the U.S.'s involvement in Vietnam were the war-time draft, student protests, the treatment of prisoners of war and atrocities committed by the combatants.
As noted in the onscreen credits, the Winter Soldier Investigation, organized by the VVAW, was held 31 January-February 2, 1971 at the Howard Johnson's New Center Motor Lodge in Detroit, MI. The conference, offering testimony by more than one hundred veterans about atrocities they had witnessed and participated in, was an attempt to enlighten the public about what the VVAW called long-term "Official United States Military Policy," according to the invitation sent out to veterans. Although the VVAW did maintain a policy of personal responsibility, leaders of the organization felt that individual soldiers, including Lt. William Calley, who had been convicted of pre-meditated murder after the 1968 massacre in the Vietnamese village of My Lai, were being scapegoated for crimes that were suggested and sanctioned by the soldiers' military training, commanding officers and high-level military policy.
The VVAW hoped that having such a large group of veterans speak out would make it clear that no individual could be held culpable in isolation without taking into consideration the general policies of the government, and that the My Lai massacre was not an isolated incident sparked only by the brutality of specific soldiers. In addition to investigating carefully the legitimacy of the soldiers set to testify, the VVAW researched the possibility that they could be arrested for the war crimes they discussed, and it was determined that the veterans could not be charged or tried for crimes committed while they were on active duty. The veterans were instructed, however, not to give specific names other than their own.
After testifying, the veterans, who were grouped together by unit in order to corroborate one another's statements and unit policies, were questioned by members of the press and audience. The number of testifying veterans listed by contemporary and modern sources ranges from 109 to over 200, with most contemporary sources reporting 125. Over 700 veterans, as well as many civilians of various ages, were in attendance.
During the conference, the U.S.'s secret incursions into Laos were publicly acknowledged by soldiers who had participated in them, as were the devastating health effects of Agent Orange upon the Vietnamese people. In addition to the veterans' testimony, civilian doctors and experts spoke about the psychological and physical effects of the war. Although VVAW documents inviting veterans to the conference announced the intent to include statements from Vietnamese victims via a closed circuit television broadcast from Windsor, Canada, the Canadian government denied entry visas to the Vietnamese participants, according to the opening statements to the investigation given by William Crandall, a VVAW leader. At the end of the investigation, some of the veterans did travel to Windsor to sign a "peace treaty" with three Vietnamese representatives.
According to the Variety review of the film, "the hearings were aired via eight hours of tape on Pacifica [Radio] Foundation's listener-sponsored stations." Although numerous print and television journalists were present at the investigation, very little of it was written about or shown on television, and Winter Soldier remains the only audiovisual record of the event. An abridged transcript of the hearings was published in book form in 1972 as The Winter Soldier Investigation: An Inquiry into American War Crimes, and a 1971 book, The New Soldier, written by John Kerry and the VVAW, featured testimony from the hearings, as well as photographs from it and Dewey Canyon III.
Funds to conduct the Winter Soldier Investigation were raised in part by celebrities such as Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, Joan Baez, Graham Nash, David Crosby and author-attorney Mark Lane, who held concerts, speaking engagements and benefits for the VVAW, according to contemporary sources and information included as added content on the 2006 DVD release of the film. In her autobiography, Fonda noted that she and Sutherland were the main civilian coordinators of the hearings in conjunction with the VVAW. Although the Winter Soldier Investigation became the target of much scrutiny and controversy, contemporary sources reported that the Pentagon and reporters attending the conference investigated the authenticity of the testifying men and their statements, and were unable to refute any of it. The VVAW continued to hold other Winter Soldier hearings throughout the 1970s.
None of the filmmakers involved is credited onscreen; the names of the crew members listed above were taken from the press materials for the 2005 theatrical re-release of the picture. The Variety review of Winter Soldier's May 5, 1972 Cannes Film Festival screening noted that the picture had been "made by a team of 18 filmmakers who have decided to remain anonymous." In a 2004 interview with the filmmakers, included as added content on the picture's DVD release, they related that they decided not to include any credits for themselves in order to keep the focus on the veterans.
Although each of the collective members performed several functions on the film, including directing, producing and editing, Frederick Aranow and Robert Fiore served primarily as cinematographers; Nancy Baker, Lucy Massie Phenix and Rhetta Barron as editors; Barbara Kopple, Roger Phenix and Lee Osborne as sound recorders; and Michael Lesser as lighting director. The collective was organized after the September 1971 Operation Raw march on Valley Forge, organized by the VVAW, at which the intention to hold hearings was announced. Some of the collective members were present at the Pennsylvania demonstration and upon their return to New York City, contacted friends and colleagues to see if they wished to participate in documenting the conference.
In modern interviews, the filmmakers reported they had four separate film units shooting throughout the hearings, that they worked for no salaries and that their equipment and film stock were mostly donated. A May 1972 Variety article estimated the picture's final cost as "around $55,000." According to an August 2005 New York Times article, the filmmakers shot more than one hundred hours of film during the course of the three-day hearings and spent six months editing it. In modern interviews, the filmmakers recounted that the editing process took more than eight months, and that during that time, duties among themselves revolved, depending on family and work obligations, with five or six of them working on the post-production at any given time. Also, several of the veterans from the hearings participated in the editing.
Winter Soldier first screened at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, 27 January-February 2, 1972, as part of the New American Filmmakers Series. It played at the Cannes Film Festival during Critics' Week on May 5, 1972 and then had a week-long, theatrical run in New York City beginning May 8, 1972. Although the picture played widely in Europe, according to modern sources, it received a very limited theatrical distribution in the United States during the early 1970s. According to the May 10, 1972 Variety article, Donald Rugoff of Cinema 5, Ltd. was personally distributing the film in New York City, where it was being exhibited at his Cinema II theater. The article reported that Rugoff was relying on word-of-mouth to advertise the film, with the publicity being supervised by Mark Lenix, one of the testifying veterans. If the film did well, Rugoff announced, he would continue distributing it across the country, with the VVAW to receive fifty percent of the profits after fees and costs were recouped. No source to confirm Rugoff and Cinema 5's nationwide distribution of the film has been found, however.
When Winter Soldier played at Filmex in Los Angeles on November 15, 1972, the print was supplied by National Talent Service. According to the added content on the DVD release, Joan Baez, in addition to helping with the fundraising for the investigation, undertook the financing of the film's initial distribution, but no contemporary sources confirming her involvement have been found.
The Variety review noted that the film had been offered for television broadcast, but "all three commercial networks and public tv" had declined to air it. The May 1972 Variety article added that the television stations rejected the film because of its subject matter and the "strong language" used by the veterans. According to the Variety review and New York Times's television schedule, portions of the film were aired, along with a panel discussion, on WNYC's All About Television series on February 19, 1972. The Variety review added that the film was broadcast once on New York City's public television station, WNET, in February 1972, after the WNYC airing; a May 16, 1972 New York Times article indicated that the picture was shown on WNET's series Dateline 13. According to modern interviews with the filmmakers, WNET was expecting a late-night, live news feed from President Richard Nixon's historic, late February 1972 trip to China, but due to technical problems, the feed could not be shown, and so Winter Soldier was broadcast, unannounced, to fill the time gap. The unscheduled broadcast provided the film with its largest American audience.
In a modern interview, the Winterfilm Collective members recounted that the picture was never intended for theatrical release, but to be shown wherever possible. A February 13, 1972 New York Times ad for a free screening, with a panel discussion, to be held at the First Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn illustrates the type of distribution the VVAW and Winterfilm Collective originally had in mind. The filmmakers also noted that, at the request of the VVAW, after the investigation, they quickly assembled a seventeen-minute documentary for use by the veterans to promote political action. The short was also shown to raise money to continue post-production on Winter Soldier. That short, comprised of the testimony given by the 1st Marine Division, was included on the DVD release of Winter Soldier, as was another, longer short focusing on the Americal Division, which was the same division in which Calley served.
In addition to the conference testimony, Winter Soldier features one-on-one interviews conducted by the press and the filmmakers with the veterans. Scott Camil is the primary focus of the individual interviews. His testimony at the hearings inspired singer-songwriter Graham Nash to write the song "Oh! Camil (The Winter Soldier)," which was included on his popular 1974 album Wild Tales. After his appearance at the Winter Soldier Investigations, Camil's activism intensified and he became one of the most prominent anti-war protesters of the 1970s. He was part of the trial of the Gainesville 8, which concerned a student-and VVAW-led demonstration conducted in Florida, and after his acquittal, was shot and wounded by federal agents in a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) sting. In 1994, Camil returned to Vietnam as the U.S. representative for the Vietnam Friendship Village Project. A documentary specifically about Camil, entitled Seasoned Soldier: A Winter Soldier Looks Back, was produced in 2002 and was included as added content on the DVD release of Winter Soldier.
Winter Soldier marked the first, major feature-film work for several members of the Winterfilm Collective members, including Barbara Kopple, David Grubin, Nancy Baker and Lucy Massie Phenix. Kopple won Oscars for directing the documentaries Harlan County U.S.A. (1976) and American Dream (1990). Grubin went on to win several Emmys for his work on television documentaries, and Baker was the editor of the Oscar-winning, 2004 picture Born into Brothels. Phenix was an editor and co-writer of the Oscar-nominated, 1999 documentary Regret to Inform, about the widows of both American and Vietnamese soldiers. According to a modern interview with Phenix, Winter Soldier was "used in the research and the foundation for the narration" for Regret to Inform.
The Winter Soldier Investigation and the film Winter Soldier came under scrutiny again during the failed campaign of 2004 Democratic candidate John Kerry against incumbent president George W. Bush. Kerry, who appears very briefly in the film as a registrar, also served as a moderator at the investigation and was one of the organizers of Dewey Canyon III. On April 22, 1971, he appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, becoming the first Vietnam veteran to testify before Congress about the war, to present testimony from the Winter Soldier Investigation and propose scenarios for U.S. troop withdrawal.
Several groups spoke out against Kerry during his campaign, claiming that his accusations and those of the other Winter Soldier veterans were false, and scenes from Winter Soldier were included in the 2004, anti-Kerry film Stolen Honor. Kenneth Campbell, one of the Vietnam veterans appearing in Winter Soldier, sued the producers of Stolen Honor for defamation, according to the August 2005 New York Times article, but the outcome of the suit has not been determined. Documentary filmmaker George Butler used portions of Winter Soldier in his 2004, pro-Kerry documentary Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry in order to support the candidate.
On August 10, 2005, Village Voice reported that Dennis Doros and Amy Heller, the co-founders of Milestone Film and Video, had purchased the rights to Winter Soldier after another company, worried that the film would harm Kerry's campaign, dropped it. Doros and Heller stated that in order to protect Milestone's assets from any potential litigation by Kerry's opponents, they formed a separate company, Millarium Zero, to distribute Winter Soldier both theatrically and on DVD. The August 12, 2005 re-release premiere in New York City was attended by many of the original filmmakers and veterans, as well as representatives of Iraq Veterans Against the War. Numerous 2005 reviews of the re-issued picture compared the Vietnam atrocities to similar reports concerning Abu Ghraib in Iraq in 2002-2004.
