Daily Dialogue — October 18, 2016
U.S. Ambassador: We’re not involved, Mr Horman. Our position has been completely neutral.
Ed Horman: That is a bald face lie, sir. How can you say a thing like that when you have army colonels, you have naval engineers, they’re all over Viña Del Mar!
U.S. Ambassador: Please sit down. Look, it’s very obvious you’re harbouring some misconception regarding our role here.
Ed Horman: What is your role here? Besides inducing a regime that murders thousands of human beings?
U.S. Ambassador: Let’s level with each other, sir. If you hadn’t been personally involved in this unfortunate incident, you’d be sitting at home complacent and more or less oblivious to all of this. This mission is pledged to protect American interests, our interests.
Ed Horman: Well, they’re not mine.
U.S. Ambassador: There are over three thousand US firms doing business down here. And those are American interests. In other words, your interests. I am concerned with the preservation of a way of life.
Capt. Ray Tower, USN: And a damned good one.
Ed Horman: [Staring out the window] Maybe that’s why there’s nobody out there.
U.S. Ambassador: You can’t have it both ways.
Capt. Ray Tower, USN: I don’t know what happened to your kid, Ed. But I understand he was a bit of a snoop. Poked his nose around in a lot of dangerous places where he didn’t really belong. Now, suppose I went up to your town, New York, and I started messing around with the Mafia. I wind up dead in the East River. And my wife or my father complains to the police because they didn’t protect me. They really wouldn’t have much of a case, would they? You play with fire, you get burned.
— Missing (1982), screenplay by Costa-Gavras & Donald Stewart, book by Thomas Hauser
The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Cover Up, suggested by Will King.
Trivia: The movie was based on true events during the Chilean coup of 1973. The film was made and released about nine years after this. The film’s end credits disclaimer states that the United States Government’s State Department denies any involvement in the death of Charles Horman. This movie’s opening prologue states: “This film is based on a true story. The incidents and facts are documented. Some of the names have been changed to protect the innocent and also to protect the film”.
Dialogue On Dialogue: What’s so fascinating about this exchange is the world view the American political operatives lay out. Their arguments are plausible, rational… and utterly devoid of heart. A truly horrific scene about a massive cover-up.