"I will try to get the plane aloft and fly it toward the target area, which will be Washington, D.C. I will shoot the pilot and then in the last few minutes steer the plane into the target which is the White House."

Newly released text from a letter by one of the 911 Arab Terrorists, right?

No.

Ah, then, this plan was extracted from that evil Muslim from Detroit, who was sent to Gua --

No!

It was beaten out of the other guy, the alleged prospective assassin of the President. They are going TO SEND HIM to Guatanamo!

Could be . . . but no . . . .

Getting colder, I guess.

In fact, the above note was written to Washington Columnist Jack Anderson by an unemployed tire salesman named Sam Bycke, a 200 percent American, back in 1974. The year before, he had been arrested in front of the White House, dressed in Santa Claus suit, protesting to President Richard M. Nixon at being turned down for a Small Business Administration Loan, and his downhill pattern continued. He lost his job(s), lost his wife, lost his kids. He lost his idealism and belief in America.

History has forgotten Sam Bycke.

The Bush Administration has completely forgotten him. [They might well have studied him, or even now, study him anew.]

Only Stephen Sondheim gave Sam a walk-on, at the beginning of his brilliant but unsuccessful musical play: Assassins. Bycke fitted into the group of lonely, lost, embittered true believers in the promise of America who made up the cast and the murderous subject of that musical (just about the only piece by Sondheim that never made it to Broadway).

But, then, along came a near first-time director, Niels Mueller (TADPOLE, 2002), who remembered Sam Bycke.

Of course, like Sondheim's Assassins (or Melville's "Barnaby the Scribner"), THE ASSASSINATION OF RICHARD NIXON is stylized, as we must grant, most movies are. Within that context, Sean Penn's Sam Byck (note that the historical Bycke loses an 'e') is a rather common but significantly American character. He is indeed an idealist, if one of limited abilities, who buys the American Dream that any citizen can be a success within our business structure (in his case, that of salesmanship) and within the moral order set forth by our dominant religions (for Sam, being a Hassidic Jew) of marriage, family, and social inclusion.

[Even so far back as 1974, people like Sam were neglecting the fact that the melting pot had chilled, the country had too many people, and our heavy industries, especially our product manufacturing plants, were being dispersed overseas. (The threat of Communism had not yet been replaced by "the war on terror," of course, but the pattern was becoming clear.) Few people not a success by age 30, or who were not born into wealth, would be able to have the comfortable life the American Dream promises.]

Byck is further handicapped by a fanatical honesty. Fatal, alas, in any kind of salesmanship; and often, if without self-understanding, or self-censoring thought or tact, fatal in ones social relationships, as well.

Like Sondheim's Bycke, Sam walks onto the scene of THE ASSASSINATION OF RICHARD NIXON (after shaving his beard in his car, in in parking lot of the Washington, Baltimore Airport, and heading for Delta Flight # 523). Then, we travel back to a day when he had more hope. Pushed out of the family tire business by his older brother Julius (Michael Wincott) following the death of their father, Sam has gone through a series of jobs. He is estranged from his wife, Marie (Naomi Watts), taking part in a failing "trial separation," which often prevents him from seeing his young children as much as he would like. But he is determinedly upbeat.

THE ASSASSINATION OF RICHARD NIXON offers a lesson in the present absurd atmosphere of demagoguery. Most assassins and terrorists in America have have been idealists or, at least, true believers like Sam. When they believe the system has failed them, or recognize its all too human hypocrisy, they have often acted out violently as Sam did.

It is usually an act of self-destruction, a feeling of failure, projected onto others.

In Sam's case, a series of escalating events begins when he is reduced to taking a job at an office furniture and supply store, where the boss, Jack Jones (Jack Thomson) and his son, Martin (Brad Henke), keep him on as a kind of gauge for their loss leading. They cherry pick his workups, and regard him condescendingly as a clown; a fact which Sam, in his desire to please and do well, mostly overlooks. His need to succeed is a means to an end. He wants to bring to fruition a sales/service scheme to sell tires out of an old bus to hapless, stranded motorists. With his own business, he reasons that he can win back Marie and the kids.

[In the hectic chaos of his life, between unrealistic optimism and plunging depression, the historical Sam Bycke found time to write letters or send tapes to various personages he admired, such as Composer/Conductor Leonard Bernstein, President Richard Nixon and Columnist Jack Anderson. He commented on his life and current events. In THE ASSASSINATION OF RICHARD NIXON, the fictional Sam Byck communicates only with Bernstein, but Actor Sean Penn is particularly effective in these sessions of nervous self-therapy.]

While applying to the Federal Small Business Administration for a loan, Sam is assisted in his "Tires on Wheels" project by his best, perhaps only friend, Bonnie Simmons (Don Cheadle), who runs an auto repair garage, where the old bus is kept and is being restored. Sam has a home-cooked meal occasionally with Bonnie's family, and he is fiercely passionate about Civil Rights, in many ways more so than his friend Bonnie, who is comfortable with his life. As Sam puts it callowly: "Slavery never really ended in this country. They just gave it a different name: employee."

[Quite seriously Sam goes to the local office of the Black Panthers, and volunteers to form a white auxiliary organization, which he suggests might be called "The Zebras."]

His commissions fall off, the work on the bus goes slowly, and Marie, who supports herself and the children as a cocktail waitress, has started to date other men. As a result, in his tightening frustration, Sam begins to fantasize violence. He fondles, then brandishes a pistol kept in the desk of Bonnie's office. He pours a drink over one of Marie's customers. And at the moment Richard Nixon is revealed a crook in Watergate, when the Small Business Administration denies his loan, when he engages in a business fraud to jump-start his business, and when Marie finalizes their divorce, Sam Byck --

------------------

No actor deserved an Oscar Nomination for Best Actor more than Penn did in this picture. Every gesture, every expression, every tentative attempt at compromise, all the hopeful remarks and bitter observations, are given to us as the Sam Bycke's of the World feel them. And every other actor in the small ensemble cast comes up to his performance.

Produced by Alexander Payne (SIDEWAYS) and Leonardo DiCaprio (THE AVIATOR), photographed by Emmanuel Lubeski (Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN, 2003), THE ASSASSINATION OF RICHARD NIXON is a beautifully crafted little tragedy, which is a true story but, of course, not quite as the title would suggest. I doubt that the picture lasted more than three weeks here in the Bay Area, where it was shot, and where Sean Penn lives, which is a shame because it was well worth anyone's time. How the picture fared in other parts of the country is hard to say, but I notice that it's still out there.

See it if you can find it, and then think of Lee Harvey Oswald . . . or the crazy, hopeless bombers prowling closer to us all the time.

And oh, yes, now that we know the CIA and other American Intelligence Agencies reported dozens of terrorist threats in the year and a half before 911, don't let anyone tell you, as a high official of the Bush Administration said at the time -- and has repeated more recently: No one could have imagined taking an airplane and crashing it into the White House!

Point to the example of Sam Bycke, and what he intended to do in 1974.

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