Louisiana Voice

Those of us old enough to remember can recall a terrific 1964 movie called Seven Days in May.

Starring such heavy-hitters as Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Ava Gardner, John Houseman, Martin Balsam, Edmond O’Brien, Andrew Duggan, Leonard Nimoy and Fredric March, the movie was about an attempted takeover of the US government by a military-political cabal.

The award-winning movie was an adaptation of the book by the same name by authors Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey, II. Both the book and movie were packed with intrigue and suspense and deserve a place among the best fictional political stories of the era.

But readers and movie buffs probably are unfamiliar with a follow-up book by Knebel the very next year that suddenly takes on eerie relevance to today’s political climate more than half-a-century after it was written.

NIGHT OF CAMP DAVID is the story of a narcissistic president who has descended into madness and sees enemies everywhere he looks as he sits in a darkened room and unloads on a naïve midwestern senator before whom he is dangling the vice-presidency in his upcoming election to a second term (the current vice-president is one of those perceived as an enemy).

This president, Mark Hollenbach, expresses his desire to install telephone taps on every living American as a means of reducing crime, a suggestion that chills the potential running mate, Sen. Jim MacVeagh.

But the real shock comes on MacVeagh’s second visit to Camp David. That’s when Hollenbach unveils his plans to annex Canada, which some find to be strangely familiar rhetoric.

But then, Hollenbach expands on his grandiose plans when he announces his intention to also incorporate Scandinavia – Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland (but not Greenland in this scenario) – into a new superpower he calls Aspen.

If all that is not enough, the president, who is obviously going insane, suggests that he would dispense of NATO in his scheming. He tells MacVeagh that he would freeze out Great Britain, France and Germany because he sees them as has-beens on the world stage. At the same time, he assures his audience of one that the three European countries would eventually come around and join his new nation of Aspen – even if he were compelled to use force to convince them.

Force? MacVeagh asks.

“Yes, force,” Hollenbach replies. “Only if necessary, and I doubt it ever would be. There are other kinds of pressure; trade duties (tariffs) and barriers, financial measures, economic sanctions, if you will.”

But Hollenbach said his first move, however, would be to meet with the Russians and to propose a nuclear alliance against China.

It suddenly becomes MacVeagh’s task to alert congressional leaders and cabinet members of Hollenbach’s intentions and of his mental instability. But the problem is getting others to listen to him because Hollenbach is an immensely popular president and no one wants to believe the – dare we say, “fake news” about him.

It’s almost impossible to believe all that was written 60 years ago, but it was – proof that art can indeed imitate life and life can imitate art.

Despite the popularity – and success – of Seven Days in May, the plot of Night of Camp David was so far out there, so absurd, so wildly unbelievable, that Hollywood wouldn’t touch it.

But yet, here we are.

Talk about déjà vu…it’s almost as if IMPOTUS had read the book.

Except we know he doesn’t read.