Another View of American History
AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program. The American film director, Oliver Stone, has devoted his career to an alternate take on American history. He's the director of Academy Award-winning movies like, "JFK," "Nixon" and "Platoon." And he's also often faced criticism for what some detractors say is loosely based subjects on the truth. His latest project is a 10-part TV series and companion book. It's called "The Untold History of the United States." It's not the American history that you may have been taught, but Stone says that's precisely the point. The program will be aired outside the U.S. as well. And Stone wants students of all nationalities to know what was left out of American history books. I met with Oliver Stone a short time ago. We sat down to talk along with his co-author, history professor Peter Kuznick.</s>AMANPOUR: Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick, welcome. Thank you for being with us. Your project, a massive project -- you told me it took four years-plus to do. You are the truth seekers. You said, in your own promos, that you want to reveal a different side of American history, the side that was not the myth that you learnt in school. Give the one myth that you want to bat away.</s>STONE: This is 4 and a half years of work, Christiane. I couldn't put it into one paragraph or one headline. It doesn't -- it's too much to be in there. This is -- this is really, if you want to personalize it, I kind of grew up in '40 -- I was born in 1946 in New York and I lived through this 66 years. And I've seen, from World War II the American story from inside out. I've also traveled abroad and I -- in Vietnam and all through Europe and Asia, Africa, as you have. And I've seen the world through global eyes and that has changed my perspective. I am not who I was when I was born. I have changed -- around 1968, I came back from Vietnam, but not until about 1980, when Ronald Reagan was elected, did I start to see a different pattern.</s>AMANPOUR: We will talk about your Vietnam history, because it is actually fantastic and very, very interesting. I want to ask you, though, Peter, because you're also a World War II historian, Cold War nuclear activities, et cetera, about how you tried -- and you both tried -- to put an alternative idea, a narrative about the Soviet Union's contribution to World War II. We're going to play an excerpt.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Throughout these pivotal years, the Soviets were regularly battling more than 200 German divisions. In contrast, the Americans and British, finding in the Mediterranean rarely confronted more than 10 German divisions. Germany lost over 6 million men fighting the Soviets and approximately 1 million fighting on the Western front. Though the myth lives on that the United States won World War II, serious historians agree that it was the Soviet Union and its entire society, including its brutal dictator, Josef Stalin, who, through sheer desperation and incredibly stoic heroism, forged the great narrative of World War II.</s>AMANPOUR: Peter, why so important to you to put this in this film and the book?</s>PETER KUZNICK, HISTORIAN: Because a lot of America's post-war myths start with World War II. And this is -- what happens during the war is essential for this start of the Cold War. We're showing the roots of the Cold War in World War II and the atomic bombs and the entire post-war period is an attempt for the United States to maintain its hegemony. So we're -- we have a different message. We're talking about -- we're countering the idea of American exceptionalism.</s>AMANPOUR: You talk about American exceptionalism and there are plenty of documentaries and films that have highlighted American exceptionalism. I keep thinking of Steven Spielberg, a fellow director of yours, who has done the heroics of World War II from the American side, whether it's "Saving Private Ryan," whether it's "Band of Brothers." Are you sort of in a kind of a narrative contest, do you think, with Steven Spielberg?</s>STONE: I think he's a great filmmaker, a great narrative spielmaker. But I don't agree --</s>AMANPOUR: Spielmaker?</s>STONE: Spielmaker, yes. He tells a story. But you know, these -- the -- "Private Ryan" is a -- Sgt. Ryan -- Private Ryan is a part of the 1990 surge of patriotism that we saw the United States -- it began with -- somewhat with Tom Brokaw's book, "The Greatest Generation." We see it in Stephen Ambrose. That's brings me back to the origin myth. It's the atomic bomb myth. The atomic bomb had to be dropped apparently to save American lives. And because of that mythology, we live on in this belief that we are right because we have the bomb. Force makes right.</s>AMANPOUR: So let me ask you about that, because obviously, you know, you call your opus "Untold Stories." But the story you tell about the atomic bomb and dropping it on Hiroshima and Nagasaki has been told before, including --</s>STONE: Told and forgotten.</s>AMANPOUR: So that's what you're trying to do --</s>STONE: We're saying it's ignored history. We're saying it's forgotten or ignored or whatever word you want. It's very hard to come up with a right word.</s>KUZNICK: Unlearned, I think it's really unlearned history. But on the bomb question, we're making points that almost nobody else makes and that's that not only was the bomb unnecessary, and the United States knew it was unnecessary and the Russians knew unnecessary even more than the Americans did, but Truman drops it, knowing that he's beginning a process that could end all live on the planet.</s>AMANPOUR: Listening to you, I feel that you feel a burden of righting the historical ship. You feel that so much of history has been written through the eyes of certain historians and you need to right it a bit. Oliver, let me ask you, though, it is fascinating to concentrate for a moment on the fact that you actually voluntarily went to Vietnam. What changed for you in Vietnam? Or did you go to Vietnam expecting to find precisely what you found?</s>STONE: I wasn't looking for the revelation in the -- in the -- on the road to Damascus. It didn't happen that way. It takes years to -- I saw casual brutality. I saw -- against civilians -- and I saw the bombing. And I -- and, you know, I did our share -- we were in our share of battles. I was wounded twice; I was decorated. I saw the cynicism and I saw the racism and it was like being a soldier in the Philippine war of 1898. You know, it was a casual racism. That's behind. You know, I go back to the United States and I'm still -- I haven't become an anti-war protester like Peter was. I don't like these people. But then, over time, I start to learn about more and then by -- when Central America happens and I go down there with Richard Boyle on "Salvador" to research it, I see the same American young soldiers, out in the streets of Honduras and Tegucigalpa, talking to me about what was apparent in 1984 was that Ronald Reagan was about to really planning something to go into Nicaragua. He was not going -- not only going to support the contras, but he was going to send troops. And I talked to the kids; I said, "Do you remember Vietnam?" And none of these kids -- they looked rather embarrassed. They looked away, awkwardly. And they said, "I really don't want to talk about that, sir." You know, and all of a sudden, I saw the repetition pattern in American military. That military pattern continues into Iraq 1 and Iraq 2, both wars -- and Afghanistan. And it doesn't change. I have not seen any change in American thinking. We did not learn anything from Vietnam.</s>AMANPOUR: And yet, America has now elected a black president for the first time and reelected a black president.</s>STONE: Yes.</s>AMANPOUR: This institutional racism that you saw has at least moved.</s>STONE: Yes.</s>AMANPOUR: A little. You have made films on Nixon, on George W. Bush, on John F. Kennedy; we've talked about Vietnam. Will you do an Obama?</s>STONE: I don't -- unless he leads us to disaster and we survive it, but frankly, right now, he's enabled, he's managing a wounded empire, and he's -- I believe he's a very strong and able man.</s>AMANPOUR: He's not -- he's not a subject for a film for you?</s>STONE: If I was to do a film -- a film's a different thing than a documentary.</s>AMANPOUR: Yes.</s>STONE: If I'm doing a film, it'll be Ronald Reagan, because there's a pivot for us. That's a man who changed the world. He moved America to the Right from 1980. And apparently we're staying on that course. Now I don't believe the people want that. I really believe the people want change and I want -- they're tired of war. And they want to have -- they want to inform America. They want to clean it up. They want to build up America.</s>AMANPOUR: Oliver Stone, Peter Kuznick, thank you so much for being here.</s>STONE: Thank you, Christiane.</s>AMANPOUR: "Untold History of the United States," airing here and soon in the New Year in parts around the world. And despite its flaws, Abraham Lincoln called America "the last best hope of Earth." And for many strangers to these shores, it has been just that, which makes it all the more painful for one man who can't go home again. His story when we return.