title: Roman salute

text: After the French Revolution of 1789, David was commissioned to depict the formation of the revolutionary government in a similar style. In the "Tennis Court Oath" (1792) the National Assembly are all depicted with their arms outstretched, united in an upward gesture comparable to that of the Horatii, as they swear to create a new constitution. The painting was never finished, but an immense drawing was exhibited in 1791 alongside the "Oath of the Horatii". As in the "Oath of the Horatii", David conveys the unity of minds and bodies in the service of the patriotic ideal. But in this drawing, he takes the subject further, uniting the people beyond just family ties and across different classes, religions, and philosophical opinions.


title: Roman salute

text: After the republican government was replaced by Napoleon's imperial régime, David further deployed the gesture in "The Distribution of the Eagle Standards" (1810). But unlike his previous paintings representing republican ideals, in "Eagle Standards" the oath of allegiance is pledged to a central authority figure, and in imperial fashion. Boime sees the series of oath pictures as "the coding of key developments in the history of the Revolution and its culmination in Napoleonic authoritarianism".


title: Roman salute

text: The imperial oath is seen in other paintings, such as Jean-Léon Gérôme's "Ave Caesar! Morituri te salutant (Hail, Caesar, those who are about to die salute you)" of 1859. In this painting, the gladiators are all raising their right or left arms, holding tridents and other weapons. Their salutation is a well-known Latin phrase quoted in Suetonius, "De Vita Caesarum" ("The Life of the Caesars", or "The Twelve Caesars"). Despite becoming widely popularised in later times, the phrase is unknown in Roman history aside from this isolated use, and it is questionable whether it was ever a customary salute, as is often believed. It was more likely to be an isolated appeal by desperate captives and criminals condemned to die.


title: Roman salute

text: On October 12, 1892, the Bellamy salute was demonstrated as the hand gesture to accompany the Pledge of Allegiance in the United States. The inventor of the saluting gesture was James B. Upham, junior partner and editor of "The Youth's Companion". Bellamy recalled Upham, upon reading the pledge, came into the posture of the salute, snapped his heels together, and said "Now up there is the flag; I come to salute; as I say 'I pledge allegiance to my flag,' I stretch out my right hand and keep it raised while I say the stirring words that follow."


title: Roman salute

text: As fascism took hold in Europe, controversy grew over the use of the Bellamy salute given its similarity to the Roman Salute. When war broke out in 1939, the controversy intensified. School boards around the country revised the salute to avoid the similarity. There was a counter-backlash from the United States Flag Association and the Daughters of the American Revolution, who felt it inappropriate for Americans to have to change the traditional salute because aliens had later adopted a similar gesture.


title: Roman salute

text: On June 22, 1942, at the urging of the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Congress passed , which codified the etiquette used to display and pledge allegiance to the flag. This included use of the Bellamy salute, specifically that the pledge "be rendered by standing with the right hand over the heart; extending the right hand, palm upward, toward the flag at the words ‘‘to the flag’’ and holding this position until the end, when the hand drops to the side." Congress did not discuss or take into account the controversy over use of the salute. Congress later amended the code on December 22, 1942, when it passed . Among other changes, it eliminated the Bellamy salute and replaced it with the stipulation that the pledge "be rendered by standing with the right hand over the heart."


title: Roman salute

text: The gesture, already established in the United States through the Bellamy salute, has been traced to the Broadway production of the play "Ben-Hur". The play, based on Lew Wallace's book "", opened on Broadway in November 1899 and proved to be a great success. Photographs show several scenes using the gesture, including one of Ben-Hur greeting a seated sheik and another of a small crowd so greeting Ben-Hur in his chariot. Neither Wallace's novel nor text for the theatrical production mentions a raised arm salute. The salute was evidently added in keeping with the exaggerated style of acting in 19th century theater, which in turn influenced acting in the silent cinema.


title: Roman salute

text: The salute frequently occurs in early 20th century films set in antiquity, such as the American "Ben-Hur" (1907) and the Italian "Nerone" (1908), although such films do not yet standardize it or make it exclusively Roman. In "Spartaco" (1914), even the slave Spartacus uses it. Later examples appear in "" (1925) and in Cecil B. DeMille's "Sign of the Cross" (1932) and "Cleopatra" (1934), although the execution of the gesture is still variable.


title: Roman salute

text: Of special note is the use in Giovanni Pastrone's colossal epic "Cabiria" (1914). Its intertitles, character names, and movie title were attributed to Italian nationalist Gabriele d'Annunzio, who was known as the "poet-warrior". Inspired by the Italo-Turkish War, in which Italy conquered the North African Ottoman province of Tripolitania, Pastrone pursued a politically volatile issue. The film highlights Italy's Roman past and the "monstrous" nature of Carthaginian society, which is contrasted with the "nobility" of Roman society. "Cabiria" was one of several films of the period that "helped resuscitate a distant history that legitimized Italy's past and inspired its dreams" and which "delivered the spirit for conquest that seemed to arrive from the distant past", thereby presaging the "political rituals of fascism", "thanks ... to its prime supporter and apostle, Gabriele d'Annunzio."


title: Roman salute

text: Variations on the salute occur throughout "Cabiria" on the part of Romans and Africans. Scipio uses the gesture once. Fulvius Axilla, the story's fictitious hero, twice employs it as a farewell greeting to his hosts. The Numidian king Massinissa, guest of the Carthaginian Hasdrubal, raises his right hand and is so greeted in return, once by the strongman Maciste. Princess Sophonisba and King Syphax mutually greet each other by raising their hands and declining their bodies. The diversity of the gesture and the variety of nationalities who use it in "Cabria" is seen as further evidence that the salute is a modern invention, used in the film to highlight the exotic nature of antiquity.


title: Roman salute

text: D'Annunzio, who had written the subtitles for the silent movie epic Cabiria, appropriated the salute when he occupied Fiume in 1919. D'Annunzio has been described as the John the Baptist of Italian Fascism, as virtually the entire ritual of Fascism was invented by D'Annunzio during his occupation of Fiume and his leadership of the "Italian Regency of Carnaro". Besides the Roman salute, these included the balcony address, the cries of ""Eia, eia, eia! Alalà!"", the dramatic and rhetorical dialogues with the crowd, and the use of religious symbols in new secular settings.


title: Roman salute

text: Like other neo-Imperial rituals used by D'Annunzio, the salute became part of the Italian fascist movement's symbolic repertoire. On January 31, 1923, the Ministry of Education instituted a ritual honoring the flag in schools using the Roman salute. In 1925, as Mussolini began his fascitization of the state, the salute was gradually adopted by the regime, and by December 1, 1925, all state civil administrators were required to use it.


title: Roman salute

text: Achille Starace, the Italian Fascist Party secretary, pushed for measures to make the use of the Roman salute generally compulsory, denouncing hand shaking as bourgeois. He further extolled the salute as "more hygienic, more aesthetic, and shorter." He also suggested that the Roman salute did not imply the necessity of taking off the hat unless one was indoors. By 1932, the salute was adopted as the substitute for the handshake. On August 19, 1933, the military was ordered to use the salute whenever an unarmed detachment of soldiers was called on to render military honors for the King or Mussolini.


title: Roman salute

text: The symbolic value of the gesture grew, and it was felt that the proper salute "had the effect of showing the fascist man's decisive spirit, which was close to that of ancient Rome". The salute was seen to demonstrate the fascist's "decisive spirit, firmness, seriousness, and acknowledgment and acceptance of the regime's hierarchical structure". It was further felt that the correct physical gesture brought forth a change in character. A joke claimed, however, that the Fascist salute used one hand because Italians were tired of raising both hands to surrender during World War I.


title: Roman salute

text: The handshake was supposed to disappear from the view of Italians and not contaminate their daily life. In 1938, the party abolished handshaking in films and theater, and on November 21, 1938, the Ministry of Popular Culture issued orders banning the publishing of photographs showing people shaking hands. Even official photographs of visiting dignitaries were retouched to remove the image of their handshaking.


title: Roman salute

text: In Germany, the salute, sporadically used by the Nazi Party (NSDAP) since 1923, was made compulsory within the movement in 1926. Called the Hitler salute ("Hitlergruß"), it functioned both as an expression of commitment within the party and as a demonstrative statement to the outside world. Yet in spite of this demand for the outward display of obedience, the drive to gain acceptance did not go unchallenged, even within the movement. Early objections focused on its resemblance to the Roman salute employed by Fascist Italy, and hence on it not being Germanic. In response, efforts were made to establish its pedigree and invent a proper tradition after the fact.


title: Roman salute

text: The compulsory use of the Hitler salute for all public employees followed a directive issued by Reich Minister of the Interior Wilhelm Frick on July 13, 1933, one day before the ban on all non-Nazi parties. The Wehrmacht refused to adopt the Hitler salute and was able for a time to maintain its own customs. The military were required to use the Hitler salute only while singing the Horst Wessel Lied and German national anthem, and in non-military encounters such as greeting members of the civilian government. Only after the July 20 Plot in 1944 were the military forces of the Third Reich ordered to replace the standard military salute with the Hitler salute.


title: Roman salute

text: Similar forms of salutes were adopted by various groups. Its use in France dates back to the revolution. It will be used also by the "Jeunesses Patriotes (Patriotic Youth)", a movement led by Pierre Taittinger, would give the fascist salute at meetings while shouting "Dictatorship!". Marcel Bucard's "Mouvement Franciste," founded in September 1933, adopted the salute as well as donning blue shirts and blue berets. "Solidarité Française" used the salute as well, though its leaders denied the movement was fascist. By 1937, rivalry amongst French right wing parties sometimes caused confusion over salutes. The Parti Populaire Français, generally regarded as the most pro-Nazi of France's collaborationist parties, adopted a variant of the salute that distinguished itself from others by slightly bending the hand and holding it at face level.


title: Roman salute

text: In the early 1930s, the salute was used by members of the Estonian nationalist right wing Vaps Movement, as well as the Brazilian Integralist Action, who used to salute by raising one arm. The Brazilian form of the Salute was called "Anauê" – a word used as a salutation and as a cry by the Brazilian indigenous Tupi people, meaning "you are my brother".


title: Roman salute

text: In Greece in 1936, when Ioannis Metaxas and his 4th of August Regime took power, an almost identical salute was adopted – first by the National Youth Organization and later by the government as well as common people – and used even while fighting against Italy and Germany in WW2.


title: Roman salute

text: In Spain, in the early 1930s, CEDA, the "Confederación Española de Derechas Autónomas" ("Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Right-wing Groups") adopted a form of the Roman salute. Then, on April 27, 1937, after General Francisco Franco took over the fascist "Falange Española de las JONS" party and merged it with the Carlist, monarchist, and ultracatholic Traditionalist Communion, creating the FET y de las JONS ("Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista", lit. 'Traditionalist Spanish Phalanx of the Councils of the National Syndicalist Offensive"), he formally approved the salute in a decree which made it the official salutation to be used by all except the military, who would continue to use the traditional military salutes. This was repealed in September 1945. When the Franco regime restored "Marcha Real" as the Spanish national anthem in 1942 and established unofficial new lyrics for it, the first stanza referred to the fascist salute: "Alzad los brazos, hijos del pueblo español" ("Raise your arms, sons of the Spanish people"). These lyrics remained part of the Spanish national anthem until 1978.


title: Roman salute

text: After a meeting with Mussolini, in December 1937, Yugoslav Prime Minister Milan Stojadinović and chairman of Yugoslav Radical Union adopted a version of the salute as he took to styling himself as "Vođa (Leader)".


title: Roman salute

text: On January 4, 1939, the salute by raising one arm was adopted in Romania under a statute promulgating the National Renaissance Front. In Slovakia, the Hlinka Guard's "Na stráž!" (On guard!) consisted of a half-hearted compromise between a friendly wave and a salute with a straight raised arm.


title: Roman salute

text: The salute has been used many times by prominent individuals as well as groups of people since the war. Famed poet Ezra Pound used the salute in praise of his adopted country of Italy when he returned in 1958 after being released from an insane asylum in the United States. The salute was on display in the 1968 funeral for Mussolini's youngest daughter, Anna Maria Mussolini Negri. When the Italian Social Movement had its greatest electoral gains since the Second World War in June 1971, crowds at the party headquarters cheered and gave the outstretched arm salute. On July 29, 1983, on the 100th anniversary of Mussolini's birth, thousands of black-shirted supporters chanted "Duce! Duce!" with their arms raised in the fascist salute on a march from his native village of Predappio in Romagna to the cemetery where he was buried. On the eve of Silvio Berlusconi's election victory in 1994, young supporters of Gianfranco Fini made the fascist salute while chanting "Duce! Duce!"


title: Roman salute

text: In 2005, Italian footballer Paolo Di Canio created controversy by twice using the gesture to salute S.S. Lazio fans, first in a match against archrivals A.S. Roma and then against A.S. Livorno Calcio (a club inclined to leftist politics). Di Canio received a one match game ban after the second event and was fined 7,000 euros, after which he was quoted as saying "I will always salute as I did because it gives me a sense of belonging to my people [...] I saluted my people with what for me is a sign of belonging to a group that holds true values, values of civility against the standardisation that this society imposes upon us." His salute featured on unofficial merchandise sold outside Stadio Olimpico after the ban. Di Canio has also expressed admiration for Mussolini.


title: Roman salute

text: In June 2009, Michela Vittoria Brambilla, an Italian politician and businesswoman commonly described as a possible successor to Silvio Berlusconi for leadership of the Italian right, was caught in a controversy over her alleged use of the Roman salute, with calls for her to step down. She denied the accusation, stating "I've never either done or thought of doing any gesture that is an apology of fascism, something toward which I've never showed any indulgence, let alone sympathy. And why should I have made a public display of such a despicable gesture shortly after I've been made a minister?" A video of the event was posted on the Web site of the newspaper "La Repubblica" that showed Brambilla extending her right arm upward in what appears to be a fascist salute. Brambilla said she was just greeting the crowd.


title: Roman salute

text: Use of the salute and accompanying phrases has been forbidden by law in Germany since the end of World War II. Section 86a of the German Penal Code provides for punishment of up to three years in prison for anyone using the salute, unless it is used for artistic, scientific, or educational purposes.


title: Roman salute

text: The Greek nationalist party Golden Dawn used the Roman salute unofficially. Golden Dawn was accused by its opponents of being neo-Nazi, but the party denies this and claims that the salute was ancient Greek or Roman, and that it was used as a tribute to Ioannis Metaxas and his 4th of August Regime which led Greece against the foreign occupation forces in WWII.


title: Roman salute

text: The salute employed by certain groups and their supporters, like Hezbollah, pro-Assad NDF and Assad supporters, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, and the Kataeb Party, have often been confused with the Roman/Nazi salute, even though in many cases the salute is performed by a closed fist rather than the Roman/Nazi extended palm. Opposition fighters in Syria have also been filmed and documenting using it, or a variance thereof, on multiple occasions. However, the oath of allegiance by the Lebanese army, and the salute to the flag uses the Roman salute – possibly influenced by Vichy France shortly before independence was officially gained in 1943 – still continues to be used by the state today.


title: Roman salute

text: In Portugal the salute is still used today by the military to take their oath to the national flag, when they successfully complete the first phase of military instruction. Formed in front of the highest symbol of national sovereignty, the military raise their right arm pointed towards the flag and take their oath.


title: Roman salute

text: The Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging, a neo-Nazi political party and paramilitary force known for its advocacy of an all-white Afrikaner "Volkstaat", has used Nazi-style uniforms, flags, insignia, and salutes at meetings and public rallies. Hundreds of supporters in 2010 delivered straight-arm salutes outside the funeral for its founder and former leader Eugène Terre'Blanche, who was murdered by two black farm workers over an alleged wage dispute.


title: Roman salute

text: The Red Hand of Ulster Salute is a modified version of the Roman Salute in which the hand is raised vertically to symbolise the Red Hand of Ulster. It is used by some Rangers F.C. fans to show an affinity with the Loyalist cause. Its similarity to the Nazi salute has caused offence and the football club and its supporters' association have asked them not to use it.


title: Roman salute

text: A large number of films made after World War II made the Roman salute a visual stereotype of a proto-fascist ancient Roman society. In the 1951 film "Quo Vadis", Nero's repeated use of the salute at mass rallies explicitly presents the Roman Empire as a fascist military state. The movie provided other filmmakers of the time a model, with notable examples including "Ben-Hur", "Spartacus", "Cleopatra", and "Caligula". Not until "Gladiator" did the Roman epic return to the cinema. In this movie, the salute is notably absent in most scenes, for example when Commodus enters Rome or when the Senate salutes the Emperor by head-bowing.


title: Roman salute

text: Variations on the salute also appear in neo-fascist contexts. For example, The Christian Falangist Party, founded in 1985, uses a "pectoral salute", in which the right arm, bent at the elbow, is extended from the heart, palm down. This gesture was used in François Truffaut's 1966 film "Fahrenheit 451". The film portrays a futuristic totalitarian society modeled after the fascist state, including black uniforms, book burnings, and thought control. In the "" episode "", the salute begins with the right fist being placed over the heart, as in a pectoral salute, and then the arm is stretched out (usually up) before the body, open palm down, as in a traditional Roman salute. In the episode, Captain Kirk and members of his crew are transported to a parallel universe in which the United Federation of Planets has been replaced by an empire characterized by sadistic violence and torture, genocide, and unquestioning obedience to authority. A modified Roman salute is commonly used in the British-American series "Rome". Here the salute avoids similarity to the Fascist salute, as the series seeks not to depict these Romans as stereotypical conquerors. Therefore, the salute is not the familiar straight arm salute but rather resembles a pectoral salute, with the right hand is placed over the heart and then extended to the front of the body.


Military Assistance Command, Vietnam – Studies and Observations Group (MACV-SOG) was a highly classified, multi-service United States special operations unit which conducted covert unconventional warfare operations prior to and during the Vietnam War.


title: Military Assistance Command, Vietnam – Studies and Observations Group

text: Established on 24 January 1964, it conducted strategic reconnaissance missions in the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam), Laos, and Cambodia; took enemy prisoners, rescued downed pilots, conducted rescue operations to retrieve prisoners of war throughout Southeast Asia, and conducted clandestine agent team activities and psychological operations.


text: The unit participated in most of the significant campaigns of the Vietnam War, including the Gulf of Tonkin incident which precipitated increased American involvement, Operation Steel Tiger, Operation Tiger Hound, the Tet Offensive, Operation Commando Hunt, the Cambodian Campaign, Operation Lam Son 719, and the Easter Offensive. The unit was downsized and renamed Strategic Technical Directorate Assistance Team 158 on 1 May 1972, to support the transfer of its work to the Strategic Technical Directorate of the Army of the Republic of Vietnampart of the Vietnamization effort.


text: The Studies and Observations Group (also known as SOG, MACSOG, and MACV-SOG) was a top secret, joint unconventional warfare task force created on 24 January 1964 by the Joint Chiefs of Staff as a subsidiary command of the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV). It eventually consisted primarily of personnel from the United States Army Special Forces, the United States Navy SEALs, the United States Air Force (USAF), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and elements of the United States Marine Corps Force Reconnaissance units.


text: The Studies and Observation Group, as the unit was initially titled, was in fact controlled by the Special Assistant for Counterinsurgency and Special Activities (SACSA) and his staff at the Pentagon. This arrangement was necessary since SOG needed some listing in the MACV table of organization and the fact that MACV's commander, General William Westmoreland, had no authority to conduct operations outside territorial South Vietnam. This command arrangement through SACSA also allowed tight control (up to the presidential level) of the scope and scale of the organization's operations.


text: ...to execute an intensified program of harassment, diversion, political pressure, the capture of prisoners, physical destruction, acquisition of intelligence, generation


text: These operations (OPLAN 34-Alpha) were conducted in an effort to convince North Vietnam to cease its sponsorship of the Viet Cong (VC) insurgency in South Vietnam. Similar operations had been under the purview of the CIA, which placed agent teams in North Vietnam with airdrops and over-the-beach insertions. Under pressure from Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, the program, and all other agency para-military operations, was turned over to the military in the wake of the disastrous Bay of Pigs Invasion operation in Cuba.


text: SOG's first commander, Colonel Clyde Russell, had difficulty creating an organization to fulfill his mission since, at the time, United States Special Forces were unprepared doctrinally or organizationally to carry it out. At this point the Special Forces' mission was to conduct guerrilla operations behind enemy lines in the event of an invasion by conventional forces, not conducting agent, maritime, or psychological operations. Russell expected to take over a fully functional organization and assumed that the CIA (which would maintain a representative on SOG's staff and contribute personnel to the organization) would see the military through any teething troubles. His expectations and assumptions were incorrect. The contribution of the South Vietnamese came in the form of SOG's counterpart organization (which used a plethora of titles, and was finally called the Strategic Technical Directorate [STD]).


text: After a slow and shaky start, the unit got its operations underway. Originally, these consisted of a continuation of the CIA's agent infiltrations. Teams of South Vietnamese volunteers were parachuted into the North, but most were quickly captured. Maritime operations against the coast of North Vietnam resumed after the delivery of Norwegian-built "Nasty" Class Fast Patrol Boats to the unit, but these operations also fell short of expectations.


text: On the night of 30–31 July 1964, four SOG vessels shelled two islands, Hon Me and Hon Ngu, off the coast of North Vietnam. It was the first time SOG vessels had attacked North Vietnamese shore facilities by shelling from the sea. The next afternoon, the destroyer began an electronic intelligence-gathering mission along the coast, in the Gulf of Tonkin. On the afternoon of 2 August, three s of the Vietnam People's Navy came out from Hon Me and attacked the "Maddox". The American vessel was undamaged, and the U.S. claimed that one of the attacking vessels had been sunk and that the others were damaged by U.S. carrier-based aircraft. On the night of 3–4 August, three SOG vessels shelled targets on the mainland of North Vietnam. On the night of 4 August, after being joined by the destroyer , "Maddox" reported to Washington that both ships were under attack by unknown vessels, assumed to be North Vietnamese.


text: This second reported attack led President Lyndon B. Johnson to launch Operation Pierce Arrow, an aerial attack against North Vietnamese targets on 5 August. Johnson also went to the United States Congress that day and requested the passage of the Southeast Asia Resolution (better known as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution), asking for the unprecedented authority to conduct military actions in Southeast Asia without a declaration of war.


text: Johnson's announcement of the incidents involving the destroyers did not mention that SOG vessels had been conducting operations in the same area as the "Maddox" immediately before, and during, that cruise; nor did it mention that, on 1 and 2 August, Laotian aircraft, flown by Thai pilots, carried out bombing raids in North Vietnam itself, or that a SOG agent team had been inserted into the same relative area and been detected by the North Vietnamese. Hanoi, which may have assumed that all of these actions signaled a coordinated military escalation against them, decided to respond in what it claimed as its territorial waters. Thus, the three P-4s were ordered to attack the "Maddox." The second incident, in which "Maddox" and "Turner Joy" were claimed to be attacked, never took place. Although some confusion reigned at the time of the second attack, the facts were clear to the administration by the time it went to Congress to obtain the resolution. When confronted by Senator Wayne Morse, who had discovered the existence of SOG's 34-Alpha raids, McNamara lied to him, stating, "Our Navy played absolutely no part in, was not associated with, and was not aware of any South Vietnamese actions." Yet both Commander in Chief, Pacific Command (CINCPAC) and he were well aware of the possible connections, at least insofar as they might have existed in the minds of the Hanoi leadership. These events were not disclosed until the publication of the "Pentagon Papers" in 1970.


text: The last aspect of SOG's original missions consisted of psychological operations conducted against North Vietnam. The unit's naval arm picked up northern fishermen during searches of coastal vessels and detained them on Cu Lao Cham Island off Da Nang, South Vietnam (the fishermen were told that they were, in fact, still within their homeland). The South Vietnamese crews and personnel on the island posed as members of a dissident northern communist group known as the Sacred Sword of the Patriot League (SSPL), which opposed the takeover of the Hanoi regime by politicians who supported the People's Republic of China (PRC). The kidnapped fishermen were well fed and treated, but they were also subtly interrogated and indoctrinated in the message of the SSPL. After a two-week stay, the fishermen were returned to northern waters.


text: This fiction was supported by the radio broadcasts of SOG's "Voice of the SSPL", leaflet drops, and gift kits containing pre-tuned radios which could only receive broadcasts from the unit's transmitters. SOG also broadcast "Radio Red Flag," programming purportedly directed by a group of dissident communist military officers also within the north. Both stations were equally adamant in their condemnations of the PRC, the South and North Vietnamese regimes, and the U.S. and called for a return to traditional Vietnamese values. Straight news, without propaganda embellishment, was broadcast from South Vietnam via the "Voice of Freedom", another SOG creation.


text: These agent operations and propaganda efforts were supported by SOG's air arm, the First Flight Detachment. The unit consisted of four heavily modified C-123 Provider aircraft flown by Nationalist Chinese aircrews in SOG's employ. The aircraft flew agent insertions and resupply, leaflet and gift kit drops, and carried out routine logistics missions for SOG.


text: On 21 September 1965, the Pentagon authorized MACV-SOG to begin cross-border operations in Laos in areas contiguous to South Vietnam's western border. MACV had sought authority for the launching of such missions (Operation "Shining Brass") since 1964 in an attempt to put boots on the ground in a reconnaissance role to observe, first hand, the enemy logistical system known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail (the Truong Son Road to the North Vietnamese). MACV, through the Seventh Air Force, had begun carrying out a strategic bombardment of the logistical system in southern Laos in April (Operation Steel Tiger) and had received authorization to launch an all-Vietnamese recon effort (Operation "Leaping Lena") that had proven to be a disaster. U.S. troops were necessary and SOG was given the green light.


text: On 18 October 1965, MACV-SOG conducted its first cross-border mission against target D-1, a suspected truck terminus on Laotian Route 165, inside Laos. The team consisted of two U.S. Special Forces soldiers and four South Vietnamese. The mission was deemed a success with 88 bombing sorties flown against the terminus resulting in multiple secondary explosions, but also resulted in SOG's first casualty, Special Forces Captain Larry Thorne in a helicopter crash. William H. Sullivan, U.S. Ambassador to Laos, was determined that he would remain in control over decisions and operations that took place within the supposedly neutral kingdom.


text: The Laotian Civil War that raged intermittently between the communist Pathet Lao (supported by People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) troops) and the Royal Lao armed forces (supported by the CIA-backed Hmong army of General Vang Pao and USAF aircraft) compelled both sides to maintain as low a profile as possible. Hanoi was interested in Laos due only to the necessity of keeping its supply corridor to the south open. The U.S. was involved for the opposite reason. Both routinely operated inside Laos, but both also managed to keep their operations out of sight due to Lao's supposed neutrality pursuant to the 1962 International Agreement on the Neutrality of Laos.


text: Ambassador Sullivan had the task of juggling the bolstering of the inept Lao government and military, the CIA and its clandestine army, the USAF and its bombing campaign, and now the incursions of the U.S.-led reconnaissance teams of SOG. His limitations on SOG's operations (depth of penetration, choice of targets, length of operations) led to immediate and continuous enmity between the embassy in Vientiane and the commander and troops of SOG, who promptly labelled Sullivan the "Field Marshal." The ambassador responded in kind.


text: Regardless, MACV-SOG began a series of operations that would continue to grow in size and scope over the next eight years. The Laotian operations were originally run by a Command and Control (C&C) headquarters at Da Nang. The teams, usually three Americans and three to 12 indigenous mercenaries, were launched from Forward Operating Bases (FOBs) in the border areas (originally at Kham Duc, Kontum, and Khe Sanh). After in-depth planning and training, a team was airlifted over the border by aircraft provided by the U.S. Marine Corps (who operated in the I Corps area) or by dedicated Republic of Vietnam Air Force (RVNAF) H-34 "Kingbee" helicopters of the 219th Squadron, which would remain affiliated with MACV-SOG for its entire history. The team's mission was to penetrate the target area, gather intelligence, and remain undetected as long as possible. Communication was maintained with a forward air control (FAC) aircraft, which would communicate with USAF fighter-bombers if the necessity, or the opportunity to strike lucrative targets, arose. The FAC was also the lifeline through which the team would communicate with its FOB and through which it could call for extraction if compromised.


text: By the end of 1965, MACV-SOG had shaken itself out into operational groups commanded from its Saigon headquarters. These included Maritime Operations (OPS-31), which continued harassment raids and support for psychological operations (via kidnapped fishermen); Airborne Operations (OPS-34), which continued to insert agent teams and supplies into the north; Psychological Operations (OPS-33), which continued its "black" radio broadcasts, leaflet and gift kit drops, and running the operation at Cu Lao Cham; the revised "Shining Brass" program; and Air Operations (OPS-32), which supported the others and provided logistical airlift. Training for SOG's South Vietnamese agents, naval action teams, and indigenous mercenaries (usually Nùng or Montagnards of various tribes) was conducted at the ARVN Airborne training center (Camp Quyet Thang) at Long Thành, southeast of Bien Hoa. Training for the U.S. personnel assigned to recon teams (RTs) was conducted at Kham Duc.


text: During 1966 and 1967, it became obvious to MACV that the North Vietnamese were using neutral Cambodia as a part of their logistical system, funneling men and supplies to the southernmost seat of battle. Unknown was the extent of that use. The answer shocked intelligence analysts. Prince Norodom Sihanouk, trying to balance the threats facing his nation, had allowed Hanoi to set up a presence in Cambodia. Although the extension of Laotian Highway 110 into Cambodia in the tri-border region was an improvement to its logistical system, North Vietnam was now unloading communist-flagged transports in the port of Sihanoukville and trucking the cargo to its base areas on the eastern border.


text: Beginning in 1966, SOG conducted prisoner snatch missions of PAVN soldiers behind enemy lines along the Hồ Chí Minh Trail. No matter the team's primary mission, capturing enemy soldiers always remained the team's secondary mission when the opportunity presented itself due to valuable intelligence gained related to PAVN troop movements, size, and base locations. Teams also received rewards including free R&R trips to Taiwan or Thailand aboard a SOG C-130 Blackbird, a $100 bonus for each American, and a new Seiko watch and cash to each indigenous member. Recon teams succeeded in capturing 12 enemy soldiers in Laos during that year.


text: In April 1967, MACV-SOG was ordered to commence Operation "Daniel Boone", a cross-border recon effort in Cambodia. Both SOG and the 5th Special Forces Group had been preparing for just such an eventuality. The 5th SF had gone so far as to create Projects B-56 "Sigma" and B-50 "Omega", units based on SOG's "Shining Brass" organization, which had been conducting in-country recon efforts on behalf of the field forces, awaiting authorization to begin the Cambodian operations. A turf war broke out between the 5th and SOG over missions and manpower. The Joint Chiefs decided in favor of MACV-SOG, since it had already successfully conducted covert cross-border operations. Operational control of "Sigma" and "Omega" was eventually handed over to SOG.


text: The first mission was launched in September and construction was begun on a new C&C at Ban Me Thuot, in the Central Highlands. The recon teams (RTs) inserted into Cambodia faced even more restrictions than those in Laos. Initially, they had to cross the border on foot, had no tactical air support (neither helicopters nor fixed wing), and were not to be provided with FAC coverage. The teams were to rely on stealth and were usually smaller in size than those that operated in Laos.


text: "Daniel Boone" was not the only addition to SOG's size and missions. During 1966, the Joint Personnel Recovery Center (JPRC) was established. The JPRC was to collect and coordinate information on POWs, escapees, and evadees, to launch missions to free U.S. and allied prisoners, and to conduct post-search and rescue (SAR) operations when all other efforts had failed. SOG provided the capability to launch "Brightlight" rescue missions anywhere in Southeast Asia at a moments notice.


text: The Air Operations Group had been augmented in September 1966 by the addition of four specially-modified MC-130E Combat Talon (deployed under "Combat Spear") aircraft, officially the 15th Air Commando Squadron, which supplemented the C-123s ("Heavy Hook") of the First Flight Detachment already assigned to SOG. Another source of aerial support came from the CH-3 Jolly Green Giant helicopters of D-Flight, 20th Special Operations Squadron (20th SOS) (callsign "Pony Express"), which had arrived at Nakhon Phanom Royal Thai Navy Base during the year. These helicopters had been assigned to conduct operations in support of the CIA's clandestine operations in Laos and were a natural for assisting SOG in the "Shining Brass" area. When helicopter operations were finally authorized for "Daniel Boone", they were provided by the dedicated support of the Huey gunships and transports of the 20th SOS (callsign "Green Hornets").


text: MACV-SOG reconnaissance teams were also bolstered by the creation of exploitation forces, which could either support the teams in time of need, or launch their own raids against the trail. They consisted of two (later three) "Haymaker" battalions (which were never used) divided into company-sized "Hatchet" forces which were, in turn, sub-divided into "Hornet" platoons. The commanders and non-commissioned officers of these forces were U.S. personnel, usually assigned on a temporary duty basis in "Snakebite" teams from the 1st Special Forces Group on Okinawa.


text: By 1967, MACV-SOG had also been given the mission of supporting the new "Muscle Shoals" portion of the electronic and physical barrier system under construction along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in I Corps. SOG recon teams were tasked with reconnaissance and the hand emplacement of electronic sensors both in the western DMZ ("Nickel Steel") and in southeastern Laos.


text: Due to the disclosure of the cover name "Shining Brass" in a U.S. newspaper article, SOG decided that new cover designations were necessary for all of its operational elements. The Laotian cross-border effort was renamed "Prairie Fire" and it was combined with "Daniel Boone" in the newly created Ground Studies Group (OPS-35). All operations conducted against North Vietnam were now designated "Footboy". These included "Plowman" maritime missions, "Humidor" psychological operations, "Timberwork" agent operations, and "Midriff" air missions.


text: Never happy with its long-term agent operations in North Vietnam, SOG decided to initiate a new program whose missions would be shorter in duration, conducted closer to South Vietnam, and carried out by smaller teams. Every effort would be expended to retrieve the teams when their missions were accomplished. This was the origin of STRATA, the all-Vietnamese Short Term Roadwatch and Target Acquisition teams. After a slow initial start, the first agent team was recovered from the north. The following missions were plagued with difficulties, but, after additional training, the team's performance improved dramatically.


text: On 2 June 1967 SOG launched an operation against "Oscar Eight", a PAVN base area located approximately south-southwest of Khe Sanh Combat Base (), believed to contain a PAVN field army headquarters. The target area was hit by nine B-52s which caused numerous secondary explosions, but an aerial observer could see PAVN troops in the area immediately afterwards. A Hatchet Force was then landed by nine H-34 "Kingbee"s and five United States Marine Corps (USMC) CH-46s from HMM-165. The Hatchet Force was soon pinned down in the bomb craters and close air support aircraft were called in. One A-1 Skyraider was hit by flak and collided with another A-1 losing its tail and crashing into the ground killing its pilot, Lieutenant Colonel Lewis M. Robinson. The fighting continued throughout the night and the next morning it was decided to pull the force out. During the extraction two USMC UH-1E helicopter gunships from VMO-3 were shot down as was a "Kingbee" H-34. A CH-46 succeeded in extracting part of the force, then a USAF F-4 Phantom was shot down. Another CH-46 came and extracted more of the force, but it was hit by antiaircraft fire and crashed from a height of . The PAVN fired on the survivors in the wreckage killing many of them. One of the survivors, Sergeant first class Charles Wilklow was dragged into a clearing covered by PAVN machine guns to be used as bait to attract a U.S. rescue mission. After four days Wilklow escaped into the jungle, was seen by a reconnaissance plane and then rescued by a "Kingbee". The raid had cost 7 U.S. dead and missing, only one of the missing, USMC Corporal Frank Cius, was released on 5 March 1973 as part of Operation Homecoming. More than 40 Nùngs were also killed or missing.


text: For MACV and SOG, 1968 was a black year. The year saw the Tet Offensive, the largest PAVN/Viet Cong offensive thus far in the conflict, but the collapse of SOG's northern operations. Although the Tet Offensive was contained and rolled back, and significant casualties were inflicted upon the enemy, the mood of the American people and government had turned irrevocably against an open-ended commitment by the United States. For most of the year MACV-SOG's operations centered around in-country missions in support of field forces. Since the enemy had to come out from his cover and launched conventional operations, the U.S. and South Vietnam lost no opportunity in engaging them. General Westmoreland, encouraged by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, requested 200,000 more troops, under the stipulation that they would be used to conduct cross-border operations to pursue the foe. This was the logical military move at this point in the conflict, but it was already too late. In 1968, SOG recon teams conducted hundreds of missions gathering valuable intelligence but suffered 79 SF troops killed in action or missing. MACV-SOG captured three PAVN soldiers from Cambodia and one from Laos.


text: President Johnson sought a way out of the commitment that he had originally escalated. Politically, this was late in coming, but Washington had finally awakened to its predicament. Johnson attempted to get Hanoi to reopen peace negotiations and the carrot he offered was the cessation of all U.S. operations against North Vietnam north of the 20th parallel. Hanoi had only sought an end to the air campaign against the north (Operation Rolling Thunder), but Johnson went one further by calling a halt to all northern operations, both overt and covert. This order effectively ended MACV-SOG's agent team, propaganda, and aerial operations.


text: In reality, for MACV-SOG, the point was moot. Suspicions abounded within the organization that Operation "Timberwork" had been penetrated by North Vietnamese "dich van" agents. Intelligence returns from the northern agent teams had been disappointing and more than three-quarters of the agents inserted had been captured either during or not long after their insertion. The fact that SOG had followed the CIA's failed formula for three years was not considered a contributing factor. The unit was more concerned over Washington's continuous rejection of one of the original goals of the operation: the formation of a resistance movement by potential dissident elements in North Vietnam. Washington's stated goal in the conflict was a free and viable South Vietnam, not the overthrow of the Hanoi regime. The conundrum was what would happen had the program succeeded. The best possible outcome would have been a repeat of the ill-fated Hungarian revolution of 1956, crushed by the Soviet Union, and about which the U.S. could do nothing.


text: Some American writers on the subject (including many ex-SOG personnel) blamed the failure of the operations on the penetration of the unit by enemy spies – a claim not entirely unsupported by facts. Others, however, laid more of the blame on the operational ineptitude of SOG, which simply continued to repeat a failed formula. Changes to the infiltration program (in the form of the diversionary Operation "Forae"), spurred by suspicions at headquarters, came only in 1967.


text: The security apparatus of North Vietnam had decades in which to learn to cope with not only the CIA's program, but with the unconventional and covert operations of its French predecessors. The CIA had been loath to conduct such operations in the north, since similar operations in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and the PRC had been abject failures and North Vietnam was considered an even tougher target to penetrate.


text: North Vietnamese security forces simply captured a team, turned its radio operator, and continued to broadcast as though nothing had happened. Supplies and reinforcements were requested, parachuted in to the requesting team's location, and were likewise captured. During the period 1960–1968 both the CIA and MACV-SOG dispatched 456 South Vietnamese agents to their deaths or long incarcerations in northern prisons. Hanoi continued this process year after year, learning SOG's operational methods and bending them to its purpose. In the end, it was running one of the most successful counterintelligence operations of the post-Second World War period.


text: On the night of 22–23 August as part of the Phase III Offensive a company from the VC R20 Battalion and a sapper platoon infiltrated MACV-SOG's Forward Operating Base 4, a compound just south of Marble Mountain Air Facility, killing 17 Special Forces soldiers (their largest one-day loss of the war) and wounding another 125 Allied troops. Thirty-two VC were killed.


text: With the deflation of its northern operations (although the JCS demanded that SOG retain the capability of reinitiating them), SOG concentrated its efforts on supporting "Commando Hunt", the Seventh/Thirteenth Air Force's anti-infiltration campaign in Laos. By 1969 the Ground Studies Group was running its operations from C&Cs at Da Nang for operations in southeastern Laos and at Ban Me Thuot for its Cambodian operations. That year they were joined by a new C&C at Kontum, for operations launched into the triborder region of the "Prairie Fire" and the northern area of "Daniel Boone", which was renamed "Salem House" that year. Each of the C&Cs was now fielding battalion-size forces, and the number of missions rose proportionately.


text: Command and Control North (CCN) at Da Nang, commanded by a lieutenant colonel, used 60 recon teams and two exploitation battalions (four companies of three platoons). Command and Control Central (CCC) at Kontum, also commanded by a lieutenant colonel, used 30 teams and one exploitation battalion. During 1969 404 recon missions and 48 exploitation force operations were conducted in Laos. To give an example of the cost of such operations, during the year 20 Americans were killed, 199 wounded, and nine went missing in the "Prairie Fire" area. Casualties among the Special Commando Units (SCUs – pronounced Sues), as the indigenous mercenaries were titled, were: 57 killed, 270 wounded, and 31 missing. Command and Control South (CCS) at Ban Me Thuot, also commanded by a lieutenant colonel, consisted of 30 teams and an exploitation battalion. Since the use of exploitation forces was forbidden in Cambodia, these troops were utilized in securing launch sites, providing installation security, and conducting in-country missions. During the year, 454 reconnaissance operations were conducted in Cambodia.


text: The teams were ferried into action by RVNAF H-34 "Kingbees" and assorted U.S. Army aviation units in the "Prairie Fire" area, and by the USAF helicopters of the 20th SOS in the "Salem House" area. By the end of 1969, SOG was authorized 394 U.S. personnel, but it is useful to compare those numbers to the actual strengths of the operational elements. There were 1,041 Army, 476 USAF, 17 USMC and seven CIA personnel assigned to those units. They were supported by 3,068 SCUs, and 5,402 South Vietnamese and third-country civilian employees, leading to a total of 10,210 military personnel and civilians either assigned to or working for MACV-SOG.


text: The mission of the Ground Studies Group was to support the sensor-driven Operation "Commando Hunt", which saw the rapid expansion of the bombing of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. This was made possible by the close-out of "Rolling Thunder", which freed up hundreds of aircraft for interdiction missions. Intelligence for the campaign was supplied by both the recon teams of MACV-SOG and by the strings of air-dropped electronic sensors of Operation Igloo White (the successor to "Muscle Shoals"), controlled from Nakhon Phanom. 1969 saw the apogee of the bombing campaign, when 433,000 tons of bombs were dropped on Laos. SOG supported the effort with ground reconnaissance, sensor emplacement, wiretap, and bomb damage assessment missions. The cessation of the bombing of the north also freed the North Vietnamese to reinforce their anti-aircraft defenses of the trail system and aircraft losses rose proportionately.


text: By 1969, the North Vietnamese had also worked out their doctrine and techniques for dealing with the recon teams. Originally, the PAVN had been caught unprepared and had been forced to respond in whatever haphazard manner local commanders could organize. Soon, however, an early warning system was created by placing radio-equipped air watch units within the flight paths between the launch sites and Base Areas. Within the Base Areas, lookouts were placed in trees and platforms to watch likely landing zones while the roads and trails were routinely swept by security forces. The PAVN also began to organize and develop specialized units that would both drive and then fix the teams so that they could be destroyed. By 1970, they had created a layered and effective system, and SOG recon teams found their time on the ground both shortened and more dangerous. The mauling or wiping out of entire teams began to become a more common occurrence.


text: Since his election in 1968, President Richard M. Nixon had been seeking a negotiated settlement to the Vietnam War. In 1970, he saw an opportunity to buy time for the Saigon government during Vietnamization, the phased withdrawal of U.S. troops that began in the previous year. He also sought to convince Hanoi that he meant business. That opportunity was provided by the overthrow of Cambodia's Prince Sihanouk by the pro-American General Lon Nol.


text: Nixon had escalated U.S. involvement in Cambodia by authorizing the secret Operation Menu bombings and by the time of Sihanouk's ouster, the program had been in operation for 14 months. Lon Nol promptly ordered North Vietnamese personnel out of the country. North Vietnam responded with an invasion of the country launched at the explicit request of the Khmer Rouge following negotiations with Nuon Chea. Nixon then authorized a series of incursions by U.S. and South Vietnamese ground forces that began on 30 April. With intelligence on communist Base Areas in eastern Cambodia gleaned from MACV-SOG, huge stockpiles of PAVN arms, ammunition, and supplies were overrun and captured. In May, Operation "Freedom Deal", a continuous aerial campaign against the PAVN/Viet Cong and the Khmer Rouge was initiated. SOG recon teams in Cambodia now had all the air support that they needed.


text: As a result of U.S. political reaction, on 29 December the Cooper-Church Amendment was passed by Congress, prohibiting participation by U.S. ground forces in any future operations in either Cambodia or Laos. U.S. participation in Cambodian operations (which were already being turned over to all-Vietnamese teams) ended on 1 July 1970 and the same stipulation was to apply in Laos no later than 8 February 1971 (the only qualifications to the restrictions, in both operational areas, were in case of either POW rescue missions or aircraft crash site inspections). Although unknown to the U.S. public, many MACV-SOG veterans participated in Operation Ivory Coast, the Son Tay POW camp raid carried out in North Vietnam on 21 November 1970. The deputy commander of the joint rescue force was Colonel Arthur "Bull" Simons, who had created SOG's cross-border effort in 1965.


text: By 1971 the U.S. was steadily withdrawing from Southeast Asia. As a test of Vietnamization, Washington decided to allow the South Vietnamese to launch Operation Lam Son 719, the long-sought incursion into Laos whose aim would be the cutting the Ho Chi Minh Trail. MACV and the South Vietnamese had been planning just such an operation as far back as August 1964, but the concept was continuously turned down due to the fallout that would have been incurred by the invasion of supposedly "neutral" Laos. The Laotian government (supported by Ambassador Sullivan and the State Department) was adamantly opposed to such an operation. On 8 February, 16,000 (later 20,000) South Vietnamese troops, backed by U.S. helicopter and air support, rolled into Laos along Route 9 and headed for the PAVN logistical hub at Tchepone. Unlike the Cambodian incursion, however, the North Vietnamese stood and fought, gradually mustering 60,000 troops. By 25 March, the South Vietnamese forces retreated. Ironically, MACV-SOG's role in the operation was only peripheral. Recon teams conducted diversionary operations prior to the invasion and helped cover the South Vietnamese withdrawal, but they were otherwise forbidden from participation in the very operation that both MACV-SOG and MACV had come to consider its "raison d'etre."


text: In Laos, the North Vietnamese cleared their logistical corridor to the west for security reasons and increased their aid and support for the Pathet Lao. Fighting that once was seasonal became continuous and conventional. The Cambodian Civil War would escalate with the PRC backed Khmer Rouge (also backed by the exiled Sihanouk), fighting Lon Nol's central government. Following US withdrawal from Indochina, its allies in Laos and Cambodia would collapse to the North Vietnamese backed forces.


text: The American withdrawal from South Vietnam began to directly affect SOG in 1971. By early 1972 U.S. military personnel were forbidden from conducting operations in either Laos or Cambodia, its teams of mercenary SCUs continued those operations (in the newly renamed "Phu Dung"/"Prairie Fire" and "Thot Not"/"Salem House" areas). The organization did, however, maintain its strength in U.S. personnel, who continued to conduct in-country missions. It was also continuously tasked by the JCS with maintaining forces in readiness to once again take up northern operations if called upon to do so.


text: The Easter Offensive, launched by the PAVN on 30 March 1972, made cross-border operations irrelevant. As with Tet, all of MACV-SOG/STD's efforts were concentrated on in-country missions to support the Field Forces.


text: In late March 1971, when the 5th Special Force Group was redeployed to the U.S., the Command and Control elements were renamed Task Force Advisory Elements (TF1AE, TF2AE and TF3AE). They originally consisted of 244 U.S. and 780 indigenous personnel each, but they were quickly drawn down by the elimination of the exploitation forces. For SOG, Vietnamization was finally nigh. On 1 May 1972, the unit was reduced in strength and renamed the Strategic Technical Directorate Assistance Team 158 (STDAT-158). The Ground Studies Group was disestablished and replaced by the Liaison Service Advisory Detachments. SOG's air elements stood down for redeployment, the JPRC was turned over to MACV and redesignated the Joint Casualty Resolution Center, while the psychological operations personnel and installations were turned over to either the STD or JUSPAO. The final casualty of SOG ground operations occurred on 11 October 1971 when Sergeant First Class Audley D. Mills was killed when a booby-trap he was trying to disarm detonated.


text: The function of STDAT-158 was to assist the STD in a complete takeover of SOG's operations. The operational elements had already been absorbed and were expanded by the inclusion of troops from the now-disbanded South Vietnamese Special Forces. The task of the American personnel was to provide technical support (in logistics, communications, etc.) and advice to the STD. This the unit did until its disbandment on 12 March 1973. The South Vietnamese Joint General Staff, strapped for cash and equipment in the final stand-down period, never used the STD in a strategic reconnaissance role. Instead, the STD's units were launched on in-country missions until the dissolution of their parent organization in March 1973.


text: In January 1973, President Nixon ordered a halt to all U.S. combat operations in South Vietnam and, on the 27th of that month, the Paris Peace Accords were signed by the belligerent powers in Paris. On 21 February, a similar accord was signed on Laos, ending the bombing of that country and instituting a cease fire. On the 29th, MACV was disestablished and remaining U.S. troops began leaving the south. On 14 August the U.S. Air Force ceased its bombing of Cambodia, bringing all military actions by the U.S. in Southeast Asia to an end.


text: The U.S. military (and MACV-SOG personnel) kept tight security over knowledge of the unit's operations and existence until the early 1980s. Although there had been some small leaks by the media during the conflict, they were usually erroneous and easily dismissed. More specific was the release of documents dealing with the early days of the operation in the "Pentagon Papers" and by the testimony of ex-SOG personnel during congressional investigations into the bombing campaigns in Laos and Cambodia in the early 1970s. Historians interested in the unit's activities had to wait until the early 1990s, when MACV-SOG's Annexes to the annual MACV Command Histories and a Pentagon documentation study of the organization were declassified for the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs' hearings on the Vietnam War POW/MIA issue.


text: One early source of information (if one read between the lines) were the citations issued for the award of the Medal of Honor to MACV-SOG personnel (although they were never recognized as such). One USAF helicopter pilot, two U.S. Navy SEALs, one U.S. Army medic, and nine Green Berets earned the nation's highest award on SOG operations:


text: Twenty-two other members of the unit received the Distinguished Service Cross, the nation's second highest award for valor. On 4 April 2001, the U.S. Army officially recognized the bravery, integrity, and devotion to duty of its covert warriors by awarding the unit a Presidential Unit Citation during a ceremony at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the home of U.S. Army Special Forces.


title: Pippin (musical)

text: Pippin is a 1972 musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and book by Roger O. Hirson. Bob Fosse, who directed the original Broadway production, also contributed to the libretto. The musical uses the premise of a mysterious performance troupe, led by the Leading Player, to tell the story of Pippin, a young prince on his search for meaning and significance. The 'fourth wall' is broken numerous times during most traditional productions.


title: Pippin (musical)

text: The protagonist, Pippin, and his father, Charlemagne, are characters derived from two historical figures of the early Middle Ages, though the plot is fictional and presents no historical accuracy regarding either. The show was partially financed by Motown Records. As of April 2019, the original run of "Pippin" is the 36th longest-running Broadway show.


title: Pippin (musical)

text: Ben Vereen and Patina Miller won Tony Awards for their portrayals of the Leading Player in the original Broadway production and the 2013 revival, respectively, making them the first actors to win Tonys for Best Leading Actor and Best Leading Actress in a Musical, for the same role.


title: Pippin (musical)

text: "Pippin" was originally conceived as a student musical titled "Pippin, Pippin" and performed by Carnegie Mellon University's Scotch'n'Soda theatre troupe. Stephen Schwartz collaborated with Ron Strauss, and, when Schwartz decided to develop the show further, Strauss left the project. Schwartz had said that not a single line or note from Carnegie Mellon's "Pippin" made it into the final version.


title: Pippin (musical)

text: This musical begins with the Leading Player of a traveling performance troupe and the accompanying Players inviting the audience to witness their show, breaking the fourth wall ("Magic to Do"). They begin telling the story of Pippin, (who they say is being portrayed by a new actor making his stage debut), the first son of King Charlemagne. Pippin tells the Players of his wish for satisfaction, believing he must find his purpose in life ("Corner of the Sky"). Pippin then returns home to the castle and estate of his father. Charlemagne and Pippin don't get a chance to communicate often, as they are constantly interrupted by nobles, soldiers, and courtiers vying for Charlemagne's attention ("Welcome Home"). Pippin also meets with his stepmother Fastrada, and her dim-witted son Lewis. Charles and Lewis are planning on going into battle against the Visigoths soon, and Pippin begs Charlemagne to take him along as a soldier to prove himself. He reluctantly agrees and proceeds to explain the battle plan to his men ("War is a Science").


title: Pippin (musical)

text: The Players express the battle through song and dance, with the Leading Player and two lead dancers in the middle (performing Bob Fosse's famous "Manson Trio") whilst depictions of violence and dismemberment occur behind them ("Glory"). Pippin believed that combat would give him satisfaction, but he is instead horrified and decides to flee to the countryside ("Simple Joys"). There, Berthe, his paternal grandmother, exiled by Fastrada, tells Pippin to stop worrying about his future, and rather to enjoy the pleasures and comforts of the present ("No Time at All"). Pippin takes this advice to heart and searches for more lighthearted pastimes. He begins to enjoy many meaningless sexual encounters, but it soon becomes overwhelming and Pippin forces all the women away ("With You"), discovering that relationships without love leave you feeling "empty and vacant".


title: Pippin (musical)

text: The Leading Player enters and talks with the now exhausted Pippin, suggesting that fulfillment can be found in fighting against his father's tyrannical ways. He agrees, and becomes the leader of a revolution against his father. Upon Fastrada's realization of Pippin's plan, she takes advantage of it by devising a plan of her own— If Pippin either successfully kills Charlemagne, or if Pippin is arrested for treason, Lewis will be next in line for the throne either way. She gets Charlemagne to go to his annual prayer early, and she tells Pippin that he will be at the chapel unarmed ("Spread a Little Sunshine"). At the royal chapel in Arles, Pippin murders Charlemagne, and the people bow to their new king, rejoicing that the tyranny has come to an end ("Morning Glow"). The Leading Player mentions to the audience that they will break for now, but to expect a thoroughly thrilling finale.


title: Pippin (musical)

text: As king, Pippin brings peace to the land by giving to the poor, eradicating taxes, ending the military, and peacefully settling foreign disputes. However, this soon falls through, as Pippin is forced to go back on many of his promises, reverting to the tyrannical ways of his father. At Pippin's request, the Leading Player revives Charlemagne, who takes the throne back, and Pippin is left discouraged, as his life is still unfulfilled. The Leading Player inspired him to keep going down his life's path ("On the Right Track"), but after experimenting with art and religion, Pippin falls into monumental despair and collapses on the floor.


title: Pippin (musical)

text: Widowed farm-owner Catherine finds him on the street and is attracted by the arch of his foot ("And There He Was"), and when Pippin comes to, she introduces herself ("Kind of Woman"). From the start, it is clear that the Leading Player is concerned with Catherine's acting ability and actual attraction to Pippin — after all, she is but a player playing a part in the Leading Player's yet-to-be-unfolded plan. Catherine has Pippin help as a farmhand on her estate. At first, Pippin thinks himself above such things ("Extraordinary"), but after comforting her son, Theo, on the sickness and eventual death of his pet duck ("Prayer for a Duck"), he warms up to Catherine and finds himself attracted to her ("Love Song"). However, as time goes by, Pippin realizes he's grown too comfortable in monotony, and leaves the estate to continue searching for his true purpose. Catherine is heartbroken and reflects on him, spontaneously beginning a song that was not initially in the script, much to the Leading Player's anger and surprise ("I Guess I'll Miss the Man").


title: Pippin (musical)

text: All alone on a stage, Pippin is surrounded by the Leading Player and the various Players. They tell him that the only fulfilling thing is their one perfect act, the Finale, in which Pippin will light himself on fire and "become one with the flame", implying that he will die in the process. Just when he is about to do it, he realizes that there has to be something other than death and chooses not to follow through. Catherine and Theo enter, defying the script, and stand beside Pippin. He sings to her and that his purpose was never in magic, but rather to live an ordinary life ("Finale"/"Magic Shows and Miracles"). The Leading Player becomes furious and calls off the show, telling the rest of the Players and the orchestra to pack up and leave Pippin, Catherine, and Theo alone on the empty stage. When Catherine asks Pippin how he feels, he says he feels "trapped, which isn't too bad for the end of a musical comedy. Ta da!." (These lines did not appear in the 2013 Broadway revival.)


title: Pippin (musical)

text: The "Theo ending" was originally conceived in 1998 by Mitch Sebastian, and is included in all newer productions of "Pippin", including the 2013 Broadway revival. After the Players shun Pippin for not performing the grand finale, and he avers his contentment with a simple life with Catherine, Theo remains alone on stage and sings a verse of "Corner of the Sky", after which the Leading Player and the Players return, backed by the "Magic to Do" melody, implying that the existential crisis at the heart of the play is part of a cycle and will now continue, but with Theo as the Players' replacement for Pippin. Current productions vary between the two possible endings, though Schwartz himself has expressed his preference for the newer ending.


title: Pippin (musical)

text: Though "Pippin" is written to be performed in one act and its single-arc structure does not easily accommodate an intermission, many performances are broken into two acts. In the two-act version currently licensed by Musical Theatre International, the intermission comes after "Morning Glow", with an Act I finale – an abridged version of "Magic to Do" – inserted after Charles' murder. As with the new ending, the intermission can be added at the director's discretion without additional permission required. The 2013 Broadway revival is performed with an intermission.


title: Pippin (musical)

text: In the original 1972 production, Fosse planned to use Stephen Schwartz's songs "Marking Time" and "Just Between the Two of Us", but before the show opened on Broadway the songs were replaced with "Extraordinary" and "Love Song" respectively. The songs "Spread a Little Sunshine" and "On the Right Track" were added to the show during its rehearsal period at the request of Bob Fosse. "And There He Was" was cut from the show before it made it to Broadway, but was incorporated into all future revisions.


title: Pippin (musical)

text: The show premiered at the Imperial Theater on October 23, 1972, and ran for 1,944 performances before closing on June 12, 1977. It was directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse. The original cast was led by Ben Vereen as Leading Player, John Rubinstein as Pippin, Eric Berry as Charlemagne, Leland Palmer as Fastrada, Christopher Chadman as Lewis, Irene Ryan as Berthe, Jill Clayburgh as Catherine, and Shane Nickerson as Theo.


title: Pippin (musical)

text: Clive Barnes commented for "The New York Times", "It is a commonplace set to rock music, and I must say I found most of the music somewhat characterless...It is nevertheless consistently tuneful and contains a few rock ballads that could prove memorable." Advertising for the Broadway production broke new ground with the first TV commercial that actually showed scenes from a Broadway show. The 60-second commercial showed Ben Vereen and two chorus dancers, Candy Brown and Pamela Sousa, in the instrumental dance sequence from "Glory". The commercial ended with the tagline, "You can see the other 119 minutes of Pippin live at the Imperial Theatre, without commercial interruption."


title: Pippin (musical)

text: Musical theatre scholar Scott Miller said in his 1996 book, "From Assassins to West Side Story", ""Pippin" is a largely under-appreciated musical with a great deal more substance to it than many people realize...Because of its 1970s pop style score and a somewhat emasculated licensed version for amateur productions, which is very different from the original Broadway production, the show now has a reputation for being merely cute and harmlessly naughty; but if done the way director Bob Fosse envisioned it, the show is surreal and disturbing." Fosse introduced "quasi-Brechtian elements" to empower audiences. Brecht's 'distancing effect' breaks the illusion of reality to encourage analysis of the play's meaning. The ambiguity of Pippin's "trapped, but happy" line forces spectators to confront the frustrations of ordinary life as well as the fruitlessness of Pippin's attempt at revolution. Distancing empowers the spectator to think, and moreover to decide for themselves.


title: Pippin (musical)

text: The show opened in the West End at Her Majesty's Theatre on October 30, 1973, and ran for 85 performances. Louise Quick, Fosse's personal assistant, and Gene Foote, an original cast member, co-directed this production with Fosse's original staging and choreography. The cast included Northern Calloway as the Leading Player, Paul Jones as Pippin, John Turner as Charlemagne, Diane Langton as Fastrada, Elisabeth Welch as Berthe, and Patricia Hodge as Catherine.


title: Pippin (musical)

text: The first national tour opened on September 20, 1974, at the Scranton Cultural Center. The production starred Irving Lee as the Leading Player, Barry Williams as Pippin, I. M. Hobson as Charlemagne, Louisa Flanigan as Fastrada, Adam Grammis as Lewis, Dortha Duckworth as Berthe, Carol Fox Prescott as Catherine, and Eric Brown as Theo. The production closed at The Playhouse on Rodney Square in Wilmington, Delaware, on April 5, 1975.


title: Pippin (musical)

text: A second tour starring Michael Rupert as Pippin, Larry Riley as the Leading Player, Eric Berry as Charles (reprising his role from the original Broadway cast), and Thelma Carpenter as Berthe opened at the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera on August 2, 1977. The tour closed at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion back in Los Angeles on August 26, 1978.


title: Pippin (musical)

text: A third tour began opened on October 7, 2006, at the Eisenhower Hall Theatre in West Point, New York. The cast was led by Andre Ward as the Leading Player, Joshua Park as Pippin, Micky Dolenz as Charlemagne, Shannon Lewis as Fastrada, James Royce Edwards as Lewis, Teal Wicks as Catherine, and Jason Blaines as Theo. The production ended its run on January 15, 2007, at the Forrest Theatre in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.


title: Pippin (musical)

text: The fourth US tour launched in September 2014, at the Buell Theatre in Denver, Colorado, with Sasha Allen as Leading Player, Kyle Selig as Pippin, John Rubinstein as Charles, Sabrina Harper as Fastrada, Kristine Reese as Catherine, and Lucie Arnaz as Berthe. Selig was placed on vocal rest just one week before the tour was scheduled to open and was replaced by Matthew James Thomas. Despite being said to be on a medical leave of absence, Selig never rejoined the touring company; but instead, when Thomas left the production, he was replaced by Kyle Dean Massey. Andrea Martin reprised her role as Berthe for the last two weeks of the San Francisco engagement and the entire Los Angeles engagement of the tour. In Dallas in summer of 2015 the role of Berthe was played by Adrienne Barbeau and Pippin by Sam Lips. Gabrielle McClinton (who performed the role on Broadway as Tony Award Winner Patina Miller's understudy) replaced Sasha Allen as Leading Player on July 29, 2015, in Chicago, and Brian Flores replaced Sam Lips as Pippin.


title: Pippin (musical)

text: A new production was developed for the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The production was directed by Diane Paulus, with choreography by Chet Walker, scenic design by Scott Pask, costume design by Dominique Lemieux, lighting design by Kenneth Posner, sound design by Clive Goodwin, orchestrations by Larry Hochman, music supervision by Nadia DiGiallonardo, and music direction by Charlie Alterman. Notable in this new production are its integration of illusions by Paul Kieve and circus acts created by Gypsy Snider and performed by the Montreal-based troupe "Les 7 Doigts de la Main". The cast was led by Matthew James Thomas as the title prince, Patina Miller as Leading Player, Andrea Martin as Berthe, Rachel Bay Jones as Catherine, Erik Altemus as Lewis, Terrence Mann as King Charles, Charlotte d'Amboise as Fastrada and Andrew Cekala as Theo. The players were Gregory Arsenal, Lolita Costet, Colin Cunliffe, Andrew Fitch, Orion Griffiths, Viktoria Grimmy, Olga Karmansky, Bethany Moore, Stephanie Pope, Philip Rosenberg, Yannick Thomas, Molly Tynes, and Anthony Wayne. Miller was nervous to take on the role of the Leading Player, re-creating a character originated by the highly acclaimed Vereen. However, the challenge presented by such a role, and the representational power of the gender-blind casting, outweighed the apprehension. "I know there are people who wonder why the Leading Player has to be a woman this time, but one of the great things about revivals is to be able to do things in a new and exciting way," Miller said. Composer Stephen Schwartz was present to oversee the sitzprobe. The production omits the first act number "Welcome Home". The A.R.T. production opened on December 5, 2012, and ran through January 20, 2013. This production transferred to Broadway with an opening on April 25, 2013.


title: Pippin (musical)

text: The production transferred to Broadway beginning with previews on March 23, 2013, at the Music Box Theatre, followed by an opening on April 25. The same cast that performed at the A.R.T. transferred to the Broadway production. Diane Paulus again directed, with circus choreography and acrobatics by Chet Walker and Gypsy Snider. This revival won four categories at the 67th Tony Awards out of 10 nominations, including Best Revival, Best Leading Actress for Miller, Best Featured Actress for Martin, and Best Direction for Paulus. On April 1, 2014, the roles of Pippin and Leading Player were taken over by Kyle Dean Massey and Ciara Renée, respectively. The role of Berthe was taken over by Tovah Feldshuh, Annie Potts, and then Priscilla Lopez. On June 19, 2014 John Rubinstein, the original Pippin in 1972, replaced Terrence Mann in the role of Charles. From September 2, 2014, through September 21, 2014, the role of Berthe was played again by Andrea Martin, who won the Tony for her portrayal of Berthe in 2013. In September 2014, Carly Hughes replaced Ciara Renee as the Leading Player. In November, Josh Kaufman, winner of the sixth season of U.S. television series "The Voice", took over the role of Pippin from Kyle Dean Massey.


title: Pippin (musical)

text: The original Australian production (a replica of the Broadway production) opened in February 1974 at Her Majesty's Theatre in Melbourne. It starred John Farnham as Pippin, with Ronne Arnold as the Leading Player, Colleen Hewett as Catherine, Nancye Hayes as Fastrada, David Ravenswood as Charles and Jenny Howard as Berthe. The production transferred to Her Majesty's Theatre in Sydney in August 1974. A cast album was released and it reached 60th on the Australian charts according to the (Kent Music Report).


title: Pippin (musical)

text: Following an 8-month suspension of theatrical performances due to the global coronavirus pandemic, "Pippin" was the first major musical to open in Australia, produced by the Gordon Frost Organisation at the Lyric Theatre in Sydney. Previews began 24 November with an official opening on 3 December 2020, and a planned closing on January 31, 2021. The production reproduces the 2014 Broadway revival and is directed by Diane Paulus. It stars Ainsley Melham as the title character and Gabrielle McClinton, reprising her Broadway role as Leading Player. The cast also includes: Simon Burke as Charlemagne, Lucy Maunder as Catherine, Leslie Bell as Fastrada, Euan Doidge as Lewis and Kerri-Anne Kennerley as Berthe. Theo is alternated between Ryan Yates, George Halahan-Cantwell, Andrew Alexander and William Wheeler. The production was criticized for failing to cast a local woman of colour as the Leading Player.


title: Pippin (musical)

text: In 1974, "Pippin" made its Spanish-language debut at Teatro de los Insurgentes in Mexico City. It was produced by Mexican pop singer Julissa, who also played Catherine. Also in the cast were Burt Rodríguez as Leading Player, Héctor Ortiz as Pippin, Guillermo Rivas as Charles, Anita Blanch as Berthe, and Jacqueline Voltaire as Fastrada. A cast album was released by Discos Gas.


title: Pippin (musical)

text: On June 10th, 1975, the musical made its African debut at His Majesty’s Theatre in Johannesburg, South Africa. It was produced by musical duo Des and Dawn Lindberg and starred Sammy Brown as Leading Player, Hal Watters as Pippin, Robin Dolton as Charles, Andre Haddingh as Catherine, Jo-Ann Pezarro as Fastrada, and Bess Finney as Berthe. A cast recording was released by Satbel later in 1975.


title: Pippin (musical)

text: In 1986, a production of "Pippin" toured throughout the US, directed by Ben Vereen. Vereen also reprised his original role of the Leading Player. The production was choreographed by Kathryn Doby, who was also in the original production. The cast featured: Sam Scalamoni (Pippin), Betty Ann Grove (Berthe), Ginger Prince (Fastrada), Rae Norman (Catherine), and Ed Dixon (Charles).


title: Pippin (musical)

text: In June 2000, the Paper Mill Playhouse in Milburn, New Jersey, staged a revival with director Robert Johanson, choreographer, set design Michael Anania, costume design by Gene Meyer and Gregg Barnes, lighting design Kirk Bookman, and orchestrations by David Siegel. The cast starred Jim Newman (Lead Player), Ed Dixon (Charlemagne), Jack Noseworthy (Pippin), Natascia Diaz (Catherine), Sara Gettelfinger (Fastrada), Davis Kirby (Lewis), and Charlotte Rae (Berthe).


title: Pippin (musical)

text: In 2004, the first major New York revisitation of the show was featured as the second annual World AIDS Day Concert presented by Jamie McGonnigal. It featured Michael Arden as Pippin, Laura Benanti as Catherine, Julia Murney as Fastrada, Terrence Mann as Charlemagne, Charles Busch as Berthe, and the role of the Leading Player was split up among five actors including Rosie O'Donnell, Darius de Haas, Billy Porter, Kate Shindle and a surprise guest appearance by Ben Vereen, making his first New York stage appearance in over a decade.


title: Pippin (musical)

text: In 2005, the Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor, New York, staged a production starring BD Wong (Leading Player), Stephanie Pope (Fastrada), Anastasia Barzee (Catherine) and James Stanek (Pippin). The production ran from August 9, 2005, through September 4, 2005.


title: Pippin (musical)

text: East West Players (EWP) produced a diverse and inclusive version of the musical featuring a cast with all artists of color as a part of their 42nd season under the artistic direction of Tim Dang. At the time, "Pippin" was the highest grossing production ever produced by EWP in their 50-year history (later surpassed by "Allegiance" in 2018). Stephen Schwartz had reached out to Tim Dang on multiple occasions prior to the show's run, playfully noting that EWP had a penchant for hosting the works of Stephen Sondheim while "never [doing Schwartz's] work -- the other SS." From this interaction, a new version of the musical was conceived.


title: Pippin (musical)

text: As with other interpretations of this musical, the music and aesthetics of EWP's iteration were a vast departure from the original. Both aspects of the production were heavily inspired by the animated works of Shinichirō Watanabe, who is most well known for his work on the Japanese anime series "Cowboy Bebop" and "Samurai Champloo"; as such, the production incorporated aesthetic aspects of both anime and hip-hop. The set, designed by Alan Muraoka, was constructed in the image of a dance club with characters sporting vibrantly colored costumes and slicked neon hairstyles. Dang saw this blend of cultural elements as a reflection of the youth at the time:A lot of the younger audiences, the younger performers, don’t want to be defined by race anymore. They’re not necessarily Asian anymore, or African American or Latino. They’re this urban, metropolitan, cosmopolitan kind of generation.The show was produced in Los Angeles at the Mark Taper Forum, from January 15, 2009, through March 15, 2009, in a radically different form. The play's setting was changed to reflect a modern tone and was subtly modified to include deaf actors using American Sign Language. The production was choreographed and directed by Jeff Calhoun for actors from both the Deaf West Theatre Company and the Center Theatre Group. The title character was played by Tyrone Giordano and was voiced by actor Michael Arden. The Leading Player was played by Ty Taylor. The rest of the cast included Troy Kotsur as Charles (who was voiced by Dan Callaway), Sara Gettelfinger as Fastrada, Harriet Harris as Berthe, and Melissa van der Schyff as Catherine. Nicolas Conway and José F. Lopez Jr. alternated as the role of Theo (and they were voiced by Bryan Terrell Clark). "The New York Times" noted that the duality was required by the situation, but effectively showcased the character's "lack of a fixed self" in an exciting new fashion.


title: Pippin (musical)

text: The Menier Chocolate Factory opened a revival of "Pippin" on November 22, 2011. The cast was made up of Frances Ruffelle, Ian Kelsey, Matt Rawle, Carly Bawden, Ben Bunce, Louise Gold, Bob Harms, Harry Hepple, Holly James, Anabel Kutay, David McMullan, Stuart Neal, David Page, and Kate Tydman. The creative team was led by director/choreographer Mitch Sebastian.


title: Pippin (musical)

text: The Kansas City Repertory Theatre produced and performed a version of "Pippin" that opened on September 14, 2012, and closed on October 7, 2012. The score was adapted to reflect a punk-rock style by Curtis Moore. The cast included Wallace Smith as the Leading Player, Claybourne Elder as Pippin, John Hickok as Charles, Katie Kalahurka as Fastrada/Ensemble, Sam Cordes as Lewis, Mary Testa as Berthe, Katie Gilchrist as Catherine/Ensemble, and Utah Boggs as Theo. The ensemble was made up of Jennie Greenberry and Gil Perez-Abraham Jr.


title: Pippin (musical)

text: The creative team was headed by Director Eric Rosen, Production Stage Manager Samantha Greene, Music Director/Orchestrator/Arranger Curtis Moore, Choreography Chase Brock, Scenic Design Jack Magaw, Costumes Alison Heryer, Lighting Design Jason Lyons, and Sound Design Zachary Williamson.


title: Pippin (musical)

text: A Spanish-language version of "Pippin", produced by the Lily Alvarez Sierra Company in Caracas, Venezuela, directed by César Sierra, opened on December 12, 2013. The cast featured Ruthsy Fuentes as the Leading Player, Wilfredo Parra as Pippin, Anthony LoRusso as Charlemagne, Marielena González as Fastrada, Orlando Alfonzo and Gerardo Lugo shared the role of Lewis, Violeta Alemán as Berthe, and Rebeca Herrera Martinez as Catherine.


title: Pippin (musical)

text: In August 2017, a scaled down production opened at the Hope Mill Theatre in Manchester. It featured a ten-person cast and a scaled down set to focus more on the story. This production transferred in late February 2018 to the Southwark Playhouse in London for a limited run. The production starred Jonathan Carlton as Pippin and Genevieve Nicole as Leading Player.


title: Pippin (musical)

text: A Japanese-language version of Pippin, produced by Fuji-Television, Kyodo-Tokyo and Watanabe-Entertainment in Tokyo, directed by Diane Paulus, opened on June 10, 2019. It then commenced a tour in July in Nagaoya, Osaka and Shizuoka. The cast featured Yu Shirota as Pippin, Crystal Kay as the Leading Player, Kiyotaka Imai as Charlemagne, Hiromu Kiriya as Fastrada, Ryosuke Okada as Lewis, Mie Nakao and Beverly Maeda shared the role of Berthe, Emma Miyazawa as Catherine, and Jian Kawai & Seishiro Higurashi shared the role of Theo.


title: Pippin (musical)

text: In 1972, a cast recording of the original Broadway production was released on LP by Motown Records. It was the label's first musical cast recording and featured the entire original cast. In 2000, it remastered and released on CD by Decca Broadway. This version featured The Supremes' cover of "I Guess I'll Miss the Man," The Jackson 5's cover of "Corner of the Sky," and Michael Jackson's cover of "Morning Glow" as bonus tracks.


title: Pippin (musical)

text: A cast recording was made for the Australian premiere, starring John Farnham and Colleen Hewett in 1973. It was released on LP and later CD by EMI.


title: Pippin (musical)

text: The first non-english cast album was made for the 1974 Mexico City production produced by and starring Julissa. Also featured were Hector Ortiz as Pippin, Burt Rodríguez as Leading Player, Guillermo Rivas as Charles, Jacqueline Voltaire as Fastrada, and Anita Blanch as Berthe. The recording was released by Discos Gas on LP in 1974.


title: Pippin (musical)

text: A 2013 revival cast recording was released on CD by Ghostlight Records on April 29, 2013. This version included four karaoke tracks as bonus tracks. A competition was held to find 700 fans of the show to sing the section of "No Time at All" where Berthe invites the audience to sing along with her.


title: Pippin (musical)

text: Additional cast albums were released for the 1975 Johannesburg production and the 2014 Poznań production. Los Angeles Harbor College also recorded and released a cast album of their production in 1980.


title: Pippin (musical)

text: In 1981, a stage production of "Pippin" was videotaped for Canadian television. The stage production was directed by Kathryn Doby, Bob Fosse's dance captain for the original Broadway production, and David Sheehan directed the video. Ben Vereen returned for the role of Leading Player, while William Katt played the role of Pippin. However, this version was a truncated adaptation and several sections of the play were cut. Originally, Catherine sings "I Guess I’ll Miss the Man" after Pippin departs, but this song does not appear in the video.


title: Pippin (musical)

text: In 2003, Miramax acquired the feature film rights for "Pippin", following the success of the film adaptation of the musical "Chicago".


title: Pippin (musical)

text: It was announced in April 2013 that The Weinstein Company has set director/screenwriter James Ponsoldt to pen and adapt the film. In December 2014, Craig Zadan announced that his next project with coproducer Neil Meron would be "Pippin", to be produced for The Weinstein Company. In April 2018, the film rights have quietly reverted to Schwartz following The Weinstein Company's bankruptcy filing with the project being shopped to other studios.


title: University of Colorado Boulder

text: The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state, it is the flagship university of the University of Colorado system. CU Boulder is a member of the Association of American Universities, a selective group of major research universities in North America, and is classified among R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity. In 2021, the university attracted support of over $634 million for research and spent $536 million on research and development according to the National Science Foundation, ranking it 50th in the nation.


title: University of Colorado Boulder

text: The university consists of nine colleges and schools and offers over 150 academic programs, enrolling more than 35,000 students as of January 2022.


title: University of Colorado Boulder

text: To date, 5 Nobel Prize laureates, 10 Pulitzer Prize winners, 11 MacArthur "Genius Grant" recipients, 1 Turing Award laureate, and 20 astronauts have been affiliated with CU Boulder as alumni, researchers, or faculty. In 2022, the university received over $658 million in sponsored research to fund programs like the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics and JILA.


title: University of Colorado Boulder

text: The Colorado Buffaloes compete in 17 varsity sports and are members of the NCAA Division I Pac-12 Conference. The Buffaloes have won 28 national championships: 20 in skiing, seven total in men's and women's cross country, and one in football. The university has produced 10 Olympic medalists. Over 1,000 students participate in over 34 intercollegiate club sports annually.


title: University of Colorado Boulder

text: On March 14, 1876, the Colorado territorial legislature passed an amendment to the state constitution that provided money for the establishment of the University of Colorado in Boulder, the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, and the Colorado Agricultural College in Fort Collins.


title: University of Colorado Boulder

text: Two cities competed for the site of the University of Colorado: Boulder and Cañon City. The consolation prize for the losing city was to be the home to the new Colorado State Prison. Cañon City was at a disadvantage as it was already the home of the Colorado Territorial Prison. (There are now six prisons in the Cañon City area.)


title: University of Colorado Boulder

text: The cornerstone of the building that became Old Main was laid on September 20, 1875. The doors of the university opened on September 5, 1877. At the time, there were few high schools in the state that could adequately prepare students for university work, so in addition to the university, a preparatory school was formed on campus. In the fall of 1877, the student body consisted of 15 students in the college proper and 50 students in the preparatory school. There were 38 men and 27 women, and their ages ranged from 12 to 23 years.


title: University of Colorado Boulder

text: During World War II, Colorado was one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program which offered students a path to a navy commission.


title: University of Colorado Boulder

text: CU hired its first female professor, Mary Rippon, in 1878. It hired its first African-American professor, Charles H. Nilon, in 1956, and its first African-American librarian, Mildred Nilon, in 1962. Its first African American female graduate, Lucile Berkeley Buchanan, received her degree in 1918.


title: University of Colorado Boulder

text: The main CU Boulder campus is located south of the Pearl Street Mall and east of Chautauqua Auditorium. It consists of academic and residential buildings as well as research facilities. The East Campus is about a quarter-mile from the main campus and is composed mainly of athletic fields and research buildings.


title: University of Colorado Boulder

text: CU Boulder's campus has been ranked as one of the most beautiful college campuses in the United States by "Travel + Leisure" and "Condé Nast Traveler".


title: University of Colorado Boulder

text: CU Boulder's distinctive architecture style, known as Tuscan Vernacular Revival, was designed by architect Charles Klauder. The oldest buildings, such as Old Main (1876) and Macky Auditorium (1923), were in the Collegiate Gothic style of many East Coast schools, and Klauder's initial plans for the university's new buildings (approved in 1919) were in the same style. A month or so after approval, however, Klauder updated his design by sketching in a new wrap of rough, textured sandstone walls with sloping, multi-leveled red-tiled roofs and Indiana limestone trim. This formed the basis of a unified style, used in the design of fifteen other buildings between 1921 and 1939 and still followed on the campus to this day.


title: University of Colorado Boulder

text: The sandstone used in the construction of nearly all the buildings on campus was selected from a variety of Front Range mountain quarries. In 2011, Travel+Leisure named the Boulder campus one of the most beautiful college campuses in the United States.


title: University of Colorado Boulder

text: Currently, freshmen and others attending the University of Colorado Boulder have an option of 24 on- and off-campus residence halls. Residence halls have 17 varieties of room types from singles to four-person rooms and others with apartment-style amenities. There are several communities of residence halls located throughout the campus, as well as in a separate area called Williams Village which is located approximately 1.5 miles off of the main campus. There is a free bus service that transports students to the main campus from Williams Village and vice versa. The university also offers Residential Academic Programs (RAPS) in many of its Residence Halls. RAPs provide students with in-dorm classes tailored to academic interests (international affairs, environmental studies, etc.).


title: University of Colorado Boulder

text: The Engineering Center on the North-East side of campus houses the nation's largest geotechnical centrifuge as well as ion-implantation and microwave-propagation facilities, spectrometers, electron and other microscopes, and a structural analysis facility.


title: University of Colorado Boulder

text: Until 1903, the library collection was housed with the rest of the school in Old Main. The growing size of the library required a move, as the weight of the books was causing physical damage to the floor. The cornerstone for the first separate library building was laid in January 1903, and the building was opened in January 1904. When the new Norlin Library opened in 1940, the old library was turned over to the Theatre department and was converted into classrooms and a theatre.


title: University of Colorado Boulder

text: Norlin Library was the last building to be designed by Klauder. There are two inscriptions on the western face of the building, overlooking the Norlin Quadrangle. Both were composed by President Norlin. The larger inscription reads "Who knows only his own generation remains always a child," based on a Cicero quotation, while the smaller inscription on the marble just over the door reads "Enter here the timeless fellowship of the human spirit."


title: University of Colorado Boulder

text: Macky Auditorium is a large building on the north edge of the University of Colorado campus, near 17th Street and University Avenue, which plays host to various talks, plays, and musical performances. Andrew J. Macky was a prominent businessman involved with the town of Boulder in the late 19th century. Macky served as the President, as well as a stockholder of the First National Bank, an institution founded by another early CU supporter, Lewis Cheney. Macky is credited with a number of landmarks throughout Boulder, where he was a carpenter and involved in politics.


title: University of Colorado Boulder

text: The Auditorium opened its doors in 1923, thirteen years after construction started. Macky's adopted daughter, May, sued for a third of Macky's estate, a case that took thirteen years to settle. May was angered that her father left her no money in his will while leaving $300,000 to CU for the hall's construction. The university eventually won the case, and the majority of critical construction on the building resumed.