When the United States, North Korea, and China signed a cease-fire agreement on July 27th to end the Korean War, the Cold War only heated up. This armistice, rather than ensuring peace in East Asia, provided a false sense of security in 1953, as the conflict between the French and the Viet Minh all but abated. After suffering defeat a year later, France pulled out of Vietnam, now split in half at the 17th parallel. But independence from France did not bring resolution to internal discord between the Communist elements in the North and Democratic proponents in the South. A month before John F. Kennedy's inauguration, Ho Chi Minh's formal establishment of the National Liberation Front (Viet Cong) on December 20th substantiated American fears concerning the spread and increasing influence of Communism. Under the premise of this "Domino Theory," President Kennedy dispatched 400 Green Beret "Special Advisors" to Southern Vietnam. And so began the America's military involvement in the Vietnam War.

Underlying the threat of Communism lay the livelihood of freedom. The present conflict between Communist and Democratic ideologies in the 1960s went beyond the proverbial battle between good and evil, as it became a fight for liberty in the face of visible oppression. Articulating these tenets of democracy in film required demonstrating its practices while professing its doctrines. In so doing, war films of the 1960s continued the legacy of their 1950s and 1940s counterparts, but unlike those of past these films had to combat redefinitions of freedom occurring at home as well as abroad. Addressing the fight overseas proved easier than comprehending the battle ensuing on the home front, however, as Hollywood chose to only to respond to the fears they knew how to answer. Faithful to their patriotic propaganda, these films elevated and isolated the realm of war, keeping issues of racial equality, women's rights, and countercultural protest at the fringes of their blanket of Americana. As long as members of the audience kept their allegiance to their country, first and foremost, they were free to undermine conventions of piety, equality, and morality. For all the nuances the All-American hero undergoes, he consistently bears three traits: masculinity, virility, and authority.

As the conclusion of the Korean War did not eliminate the menace of Communism, Americans spent the remainder of the 1950s anticipating the worst and entered the 1960s with no reason to feel otherwise. Released in the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis, The Manchurian Candidate played upon American fears by positing the idea, "If Senator Joseph McCarthy were working for the Communist government, he couldn't be doing a better job." By setting the "war" in Washington D.C., New York City, and Korea, the film established the battleground of the Cold War to be equally at home as it was abroad. Furthermore, combat took place in the mind as much on the soil, evinced in the extensive use of hypnosis and dreams. A backlash to the rigid conformity of the 1950s, premonitions of doubt cloud The Manchurian Candidate's politics, which encourages the audience to be suspicious of its most prized and privileged political figures.

Where The Manchurian Candidate takes two steps forward into the progression of the 1960s, it takes four steps backward in forging a radical conception of citizenship. Amid the social upheaval of the segregated South, the film postures integrationist ideals by featuring a black private, even showing his home life. But if the races were to co-exist, they would not dwell together; for this black private has the same nightmare as his white captain, with one exception his garden ladies are all black. Despite its willingness to question power figures, the film remains content to marginalize or outright condemn otherness. The real face of evil is not that of Sergeant Raymond Shaw but of an Asian, Dr. Yen Lo, and a woman, Mrs. Iselin. An entirely unsympathetic character, Mrs. Iselin does not enjoy the usual adoration awarded motherhood, for the film must negate any goodness in order to structure her wickedness. Standing in stark contrast to this depiction of womanhood, Jocelyn "Jocie" Jordan falls into the standard trope of the female saint; yet one must wonder if the comfort she provides Shaw serves more as a refuge from a member of her own sex.Companion to the other leading protagonist, Rose "Rosie" Chaney may be unconventional in her deeds as a female, for she "rescues" Captain Bennett Marco and even carries his bag, but maintains her role as a woman, as her act of rebellion breaking her engagement with another man - only serves the purpose of committing her to another. Toppling Communism, as suggested indirectly in this film, relies upon the solidarity of the hegemonic white American male.

Nuclear holocaust is something to laugh about. Purported in Dr. Strangelove: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, fear makes war, not bombs. From silly bantering between world leaders to war mongering antics of paranoid generals, the film presents outlandish characters and contrived situations to overstate the ludicrousness of war, a result of simple misunderstandings. Dr. Stranglove's address of the Cold War anxieties, however, remains narrow in its sensitivity to the historical moment it is in. On the one hand, the film incorporates aspects of the real Cold War into its plot, namely the hotline connection and the nuclear testing ban treaty between the United States and the U.S.S.R. Likewise, the point of contention in the movie's plot remains between these two countries. But for all its preoccupation with bombs, the film ignores the Hot War ensuing throughout the remainder of East Asia, specifically in China and Vietnam. Confining Communism to Russia, in this way, limited the satirical work of this film.

Dr. Strangelove, despite its anti-war messages and anti-heroic characters, advances "All American" notions. Military men, though deranged, are manly. Russians, though ominous, are stupid. Germans, though brilliant, are menacing. Englishmen, though astute, are incompetent. Politicians, though insightful, are useless. And women are just for sex. Even before Dr. Strangelove presented his "survival" plan, the film manifests this belief by presenting its single female character, Miss Scott, as General "Buck" Turgidson's secretary and mistress. Turgidson's later claims to "deeply respect [her] as a human being," prove baseless in light of Dr. Strangelove's 10:1 female-to-male ratio, about which he inquires, "Now, wouldn't that necessitate the abandonment of the so-called monogamous sexual relationship, I mean, as far as men were concerned?" Using the "prodigious service" required of each man "for the future of the human race" as a means of rationalizing the need to select women by "their sexual practices," Dr. Strangelove construes the act of fathering children as a means for males to satisfy their sexual appetites.

The Cold War tensions between the United States and the U.S.S.R. began to fall second to the Hot War ongoing in Vietnam, a conflict American citizens could no longer ignore once President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution on August 7th, 1964. Two years later, despite massive bombing campaigns, American victory still seems afar off and increasingly unlikely. Rather than address the realities beleaguering their audience, Hollywood continued to hype Russian anxieties, a well-defined and less controversial plane of good and evil. If anything, aggressions in South East Asia made Cold War safe and even amusing. Take the example of The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming. A quiet, small town launches into a bedlam of chaos with the mere hint of Russians present in their midst. Inducing the audience to believe that their undue hatred towards Russians is more menacing than the enemy's most irascible nuclear submarine captain, the film suggests wars occur out of simple misunderstandings. When President Johnson said, regarding the Vietnam, "to know war is to know that there is still madness in the world," on January of 1966, he did not infer the madness of wacky misapprehensions but that of "young men dying in the fullness of their promise." War simply serves as situational in the plot of this film, for at the foreground are questions about what it means to be a good citizen. As absurd as their efforts to save the world may be, the citizens' patriotism goes uncontested. Even the Russians want to be Americans. Amid the clamor of anti-war demonstrations, The Russians Are Coming alleges that just because it's wrong to hate doesn't make it wrong to fight.

"Hopelessly stalemated." That was Walter Cronkite's assessment of the Vietnam War in February 1968, "Hopelessly stalemated." Stated in the aftermath of the Tet Offensive, a bloody onslaught witnessed by American citizens watching the nightly news on January 31st, this evaluation marked the turning point of the war, especially in concerns to public support. Though peace talks begin eight months later, the Vietnam War was far from over and countless numbers of Americans and Vietnamese continued to die. Salvaging pro-war feelings, a seemingly fruitless endeavor, became the agenda of John Wayne's unabashed propaganda film The Green Berets. Hardly apologetic for the injustices of war, the film casts the blame for such on politicians, as Sergeant Muldoon explains, "Foreign policy decisions are not made by the military. A soldier goes where he is told to go, and fight whom is told to fight." The message "If you were there, you'd know better" dominates the entire film as a reprobate of liberally minded viewers, embodied in the solitary character of journalist George Beckwith, who not only abandons his anti-war sentiments but joins in the fight.

Surprisingly, the undaunted patriotism of the title song, "The Ballad of the Green Berets," enjoyed widespread popularity upon the release of the film. In the lyrics of the song comes a theme constant throughout the film, the real men of valor are the dead heroes. Sergeant Provo, obsessed with being forgotten, wishes for the advent of his death so he too may be memorialized. Not as eager for the arrival of their deaths, but just as willing to bear them, Asian Captain Nim and black Doc McGee perish for a cause that is and is not their own. Nim's fight is not so much for his people as it is a personal vendetta; McGee acts as caretaker while the white soldiers do the fighting. Indeed, the construction of otherness in this film proves problematic, for the face of the enemy bears the same skin tone as those being rescued. Yet, the film solves this problem by presenting white Americans as the principle agents of action, employing Vietnamese operatives like Nim and Lin -the woman who entices the Viet Cong General to his doom - to do only the "dirty" work. A statement at the beginning of the film captures the impetus driving America to war in Vietnam, "What's involved here is a Communist domination of the world." The Green Berets, the only movie about the Vietnam War released while it occurred, defines American involvement as suited to the purpose of winning the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people, not to ensure their right to peace and democracy but to preserve the freedoms and liberties of those back home from the spread of Communism.

Paris Peace talks between the United States and the North Vietnamese did not abate the horrors of war, in fact, these only escalated. When the story of the My Lai Massacre broke the headlines, almost a year after it took place, anti-war protesters stepped up their demonstration campaigns with renewed vigor. Soon, campuses and universities across the nation became a second battleground of American military aggression, exemplified in the Kent State incident of 1970, where National Guardsmen opened fire on a crowd of student dissenters, killing four and wounding eight. Is nothing sacred? Answering this question with a resounding "No," MASH radically recasts the "All American Hero" as three degenerate, immoral, and misogynistic army surgeons. Behind the sacrilege and disrespect of these anti-heroes, however, lay the essence of American patriotism and pride constant in the aforementioned war films.

Duke, Hawkeye, and Trapper John may not agree with war, but they are not draft dodgers. For all the acts of rebellion these three indulge in, they never shirk doing their duty as soldiers when the time calls for it. Their dissent, therefore, is defunct. Replacing standard military crew cuts with their long locks and piety with licentiousness does not make them revolutionaries; it makes them manly. MASH is not a war movie as much as it is an exhibition of maleness. Instead of wielding a gun, they handle a scalpel, but they can throw a football as deftly as any marine can. And they know, as well as the traditional General Hammond, locating the sexiest nurse and the driest martini is the primary focus of every GI. Chauvinism ad nauseum serves as the film's bedrock. Women are sex objects, nothing else. And they like it. The nurses conspire with the three protagonists to discover Margaret "Hot Lips" O'Houlihan natural hair color, and she, despite her initial resentment, contentedly resigns to the sexual wiles of Duke. Beginning the film as the most gender conscious among the female characters, her authority in rank and virtue are debunked as the remainder of the film portrays her as a sex fiend and utterly stupid. Lt. Maria Schneider performs the greatest act of human service conceivable to a woman when she "resuscitates" Walter Kosciusko 'Painless Pole' Waldowski libido, saving him from a near "fatal" episode of homosexuality.

The only film of those discussed here to address issues entering into the body politic, namely those of homosexuality and racial equality, MASH does engage controversial topics directly in its dialogue. "I'm a victim of latent homosexuality," confesses Waldowski, to which he adds, "it's okay, I've decided to commit suicide." Without hesitation, Hawkeye encourages him down this path. More troublesome than his absence of sympathy is his unfaltering disbelief in the plausibility of such inclinations; by proving Waldowski wrong Hawkeye asserts, by implication, that homosexual feelings are a figment of one's imagination. Equally unsettling is the film's dealings with race. In addition to the black nurse at the American hospital in Japan, only three black males work into the plot of the movie: the belligerent lieutenant whose jeep Hawkeye stole, the private who sang Waldowski's eulogy, and the football superstar.Serving as the trump card in their football scam, Corporal Judson elicits sentiments of racial reconciliation, from Duke's overstated reservations about sharing a tent with him to Hawkeye's understated approval of him.Acceptance of Judson's color, however, happens only because he is an asset to their shenanigan, as inferred in Lieutenant Colonel Henry Braymore Blake's assurances that "we're all the same here on the playing field." Yet, Judson is no less a tool of garnering male solidarity than the female cheerleaders off the playing field, who herald Judson's sexual desirability by chanting, "69 is divine!" Set at the front lines of the Korean War, Asians only appear on screen in acts of servitude or, in the case of the baby, inarticulate victims. Again, as in the case of females and blacks, they too function wholly as reinforcements of white male superiority.

Koreans are not the enemy. Death is. MASH takes the unique position of framing its war story inside the horrors of the hospital, which allows the film to emphasize the myriad dead and wounded resulting from combat. Trapper John, Hawkeye, and Duke express their anti-war sentiments strongest in their commitment to save lives while war seeks to destroy them. The lives they save, however, are not nearly as important as the life they live; in the end, their duty has a shelf life. These casualties, even in the most gruesome surgery scenes, remain in the background, and for all the interaction the protagonists have with them, no personal connection is ever drawn. These casualties are only bodies, not people, undermining the potential for a strident anti-war critique.

Korea of The Manchurian Candidate hardly resembled that of MASH, but the menace to freedom and liberty remained ever present. Persistently evoking the nationalistic urges of its audience, these films provided the American public with a route of escape from the convoluted battles ongoing abroad. If movie goers walked away with a clear conception of the "All American" patriot, they lacked a coherent sense of what their country was fighting for. Furthermore, the progression of social revolutions at home made even these notions of freedom and democracy more tenuous.