him attach Williams to The Longest Day as associate producer and coordinator of battle episodes. Ryan was brought in to write the script, but had conflicts with Zanuck as soon as the two met. Williams was forced to act as a mediator; he would deliver Ryan's script pages to Zanuck, then return them with the latter's annotations. While Ryan developed the script, Zanuck also brought in other writers for cleanups for the various nationalities, including James Jones for the Americans, Romain Gary for the French, Noël Coward for the British and Erich Maria Remarque for the Germans. As their contributions to the finished screenplay were relatively minor, Ryan managed to get the screenplay credit after an appeal to the Writers Guild arbitration, but four other writers are credited for writing "additional episodes" in the film's closing credits. During pre-production, producer Frank McCarthy, who had worked for the United States Department of War during World War II, arranged for military collaboration with the governments of France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Zanuck, who was friends with Supreme Allied Commander Lauris Norstad, secured 700 United States Army Europe and Africa soldiers for use as extras. However, hundreds of these soldiers had to be recalled after the Berlin Crisis of 1961, and many Members of Congress, such as Bob Wilson, criticized the military for transferring soldiers to a film production in France during a major Cold War standoff. The Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights under Sam Ervin investigated the film for allegly forcing soldiers to appear as extras against their will. In the end, the film included 250 U.S. Army soldiers and 500 British Army soldiers as extras. Zanuck realized that, with eight battle scenes, shooting would be accomplished more expediently if multiple directors and units worked simultaneously, so he hired German directors Gerd Oswald and Bernhard Wicki, British director Ken Annakin, and Hungarian-American director Andrew Marton. Zanuck's son Richard D. Zanuck was reluctant about the project, particularly the high budget; with a budget of $10 million ($ in dollars), this was the most expensive black-and-white film made until 1993, when Schindler's List was released. Casting Jack Lord was originally cast in a starring role in the film when Levy was producing it. Charlton Heston actively sought the role of Lt. Col. Benjamin H. Vandervoort, but the last-minute decision of John Wayne to take the role prevented Heston's participation. At