[Liberty Drive, Metropolis downtown core]
The class from Smallville High sat in the stands. A brisk wind drove the students together in a huddle.
Pete and Lana carefully climbed the stairs with the hot chocolate. "That's for you, Clark. And the extra marshmallows is Chloe's."
Chloe sipped her drink. "MMmmm. That's good." The parade had begun.
The National Guard led the way -- dressed in crisp uniforms of the Continental Army, 1779. Pipers and drummers marched in step to the martial beat.
In the reviewing stand across the street, - framed in patriotic red, white and blue banners - the mayor of Metropolis waved at the crowd. Beside him were the dignitaries: the police chief, Senator Callahan, Daily Planet editor Perry White ... and Lionel Luthor, event sponsor and one of the city's major employers.
Lex quickly took his seat. Lionel frowned. "I expected you to be prompt. It's our history - Luthor history - they're exalting in this parade!"
"If you were so proud of our ancestry, you wouldn't be pushing to pave over the excavation site," Lex grumbled.
Lionel smirked. "Are you suggesting that I'm 'ashamed' of our family history. A Luthor has been at every pivotal event in American history. Concord, Gettysburg ..."
"... booze smuggling during Prohibition, arms trading in Southeast Asia ..." Lex continued.
"Take a seat," Lionel ordered, "Don't believe everything you read in the papers. It's not all black and white."
"Shades of grey," Lex sighed, "I've heard this tune before. Why don't you stop campaigning and level with me, just this once."
Lionel focused his stare towards the parade. "You would never understand."
Across the street, Pete noticed the heated discussion between father and son. "Looks like Lex and the old man are having a heart-to-heart."
The last of the Kansas Volunteers Civil War re-enactors had just passed. "Everyone knows the Wayne and Luthor legends," Chloe remarked, "but what's the real story? Why is Lionel Luthor such a committed enemy of the Waynes?"
"Well, we've heard Lex's version," Lana added, "Clark, you know Bruce Wayne. Has he ever talked to you about the Luthor-Wayne feud?"
Clark clutched his cup of hot chocolate. "Bruce doesn't tell me much. His dad, Thomas Wayne, used to work for the State department in the late 60s and early 70s. A couple of years before ..."
Chloe gasped. "The Wayne murders in Gotham's Crime Alley! I can see why he would prefer not to relive his early years."
"The 1970s, eh," Pete replied, "Vietnam, Watergate ... maybe Lionel and Mr. Wayne found themselves on opposite sides of the debate then?"
"Perhaps," Clark nodded. He watched as the U.S. Army Rangers from nearby Fort William marched in their camouflaged olive greens. In the reviewing stand, he noticed that Lionel Luthor was visibly uncomfortable.
"Chloe, you did that essay on the Vietnam War," Lana noted, "do you think that was the cause of the rift between Lionel and Thomas."
"Vietnam was a complicated affair," Chloe gazed at the Army Rangers marching in step. "In the late 60s, President Nixon was pledging peace with honour: the beginning of the Vietnamization of the war. We would pull out our troops, as the South Vietnamese army took on more of the ground fighting. Not to mention continued U.S. bombing
in Cambodia and Laos, the secret Phoenix Program, the galvanization of the anti-war movement after the shootings at Kent State and Jackson State College ..."
Clark shook his head in confusion. "My hard drive is crashing with the overload. Run that by me again?"
As the Army Rangers saluted their general in the reviewing stands, Chloe began to explain the endgame: the last gasp of American involvement in Vietnam ...
[West Wing, White House, September 1972]
Thomas Wayne turned up the radio. The Rolling Stones 'Paint It Black'.
"Would you turn down that racket, Tom?" Frank grumbled. He reviewed the intelligence reports. North Vietnamese Army activity was escalating along the Ho Chih Minh trail.
Thomas laughed, then turned down the volume. "C'mon Frank. Get with the times."
"Get with the times," Frank grumbled, "Frank Sinatra. Now that was a man who knew how to swing!"
Thomas smirked. Frank maybe 20 years older than him, but he was one of the finest minds in the U.S. State Department. Frank was a guest lecturer at Georgetown U., when graduate student Thomas was defending his thesis in International Relations. An intelligent man, this Wayne did not strike him as a lazy rich kid -- coasting through
school, through life on his family's name. Frank tapped him for an internship at the State Department. Fortunate for Wayne, since he received his draft card a mere week after he joined the department. Frank quickly had his draft revoked.
Thomas Wayne would serve his country in the diplomatic corps, not in the jungles of Vietnam. In public, Nixon wanted "peace with honour". He also wanted a free South Vietnam. How to reconcile these conflicting goals was the job of the thinkers and strategists in the State Department.
And the Pentagon. They didn't always agree.
Congress has passed the Cooper-Church Amendment, specifically forbidding the use of American troops outside South Vietnam. The amendment left enough elbow room to permit continued bombing of suspected NVA and Viet Cong hideouts in Cambodia and Laos. The Paris peace talks were in a mess. Again.
"You know, the CIA isn't helping us out with this 'Phoenix' program," Thomas complained.
Frank sighed. "The President is committed to the Phoenix Program. He believes that, if we target the pro-Communist guerrillas in the north, we'll weaken their structure."
Thomas examined the huge map of Vietnam on the wall, pegged with a rainbow of thumbtacks. "You're not buying this Phoenix hogwash, are you?"
"You know I could answer that," Frank grinned, "but Kissinger would have my head."
Thomas turned towards the window. These bombings are only going to drive the Cambodians and Laotians into the Communist ranks. With recent revelations about presidential involvement in the burglary at Watergate, the Nixon Administration was rapidly losing public confidence.
As if those dead kids at Kent State weren't proof enough.
The sun was painting a glorious tapestry in the sky. Tomorrow may be a better day ...
[Hong Kong, Victoria Harbour, October 1972]
Lionel Luthor shook hands with the CIA contact, known only as 'Rick'.
Luthor Industries had evolved from a mining and metallurgy consortium in the 1900s into a dominant aerospace and arms manufacturing leader. Armed forces from every NATO country flew, drove, fired, or launched a Luthor product. Lionel was not beyond selling a few products to some Warsaw Pact governments.
In peace time, this would have jeopardized his relations with the Pentagon power-brokers.
With a crippled presidency, and a country at war at home and in godforsaken Indochina, a man of opportunity could make a fortune.
The Phoenix Program, Lionel pondered, was just such an opportunity. American regular infantry could not take the fight to the enemy beyond Vietnam ... to Cambodia and Laos. But secret operatives -- CIA, special forces, South Vietnamese -- could. And did.
They needed weapons. Bombs. The military division of Luthor Industries had what they wanted. Untraceable and cheap (but efficient) AK-47 rifles. High- grade explosives. Anything the CIA wanted.
For a price.
"Pleasure doing business with you," Rick shook Lionel's hand. "The goods are in Dock 59?"
"All accounted for. Get them out of there before the harbour master inspects the warehouses in the morning," Lionel glared. Men like Rick could not be trusted. They lived for thrills. Adventure. A man who acted with abandon had no plan. The Ricks of the world lived and died for the rush, a quick adrenaline hit. They usually lived short lives.
"Off to do your duty for Uncle Sam," Lionel shouted over the whirr of the corporate helicopter.
"We're mounting an operation. Soon," Rick remarked. "But you won't hear about it in the Daily Planet." He saluted mockingly. "It's a secret."
Lionel gave his pilot the thumbs-up. As the helicopter buzzed past the Hong Kong skyline, Lionel couldn't stop smiling.
Let these glory-hounds fight this ridiculous war. Have they not learned from the mistakes of the French two decades ago? Nixon is thinking about pulling out, is he? Kennedy, Johnson ... now Nixon. If three presidents can't win this war, it's not to be won.
Rick, you stupid idiot. Whatever Uncle Sam promised you, I doubt you'll live to get it.
A week later, Thomas Wayne read an intelligence report. A foiled CIA-led, south Vietnamese incursion along the Cambodian border. Hundreds of casualties. The victorious Viet Cong took the decapitated head of one CIA operative - known only as Rick - back to Hanoi as a trophy.
Thomas flung the report on the floor. Frank turned around. "The CIA got us in shit again?"
"Something like that," Thomas frowned. "We've got to pull our boys out."
"Tom," Frank began, but Thomas continued his rant.
"No! We're playing this chess game with the Soviets. And this whole 'domino effect' theory. What the hell is Nixon thinking? Just watch. Cambodia and Laos will go running to the Communists. We drove them there! Hanoi is playing us for fools in Paris, while we send our troops to fight in a war our own country doesn't believe in any longer!"
"If this was supposed to make sense, we'd be in the Oval Office instead of Nixon," Frank replied.
Thomas buried his head in more reports. Outside the window, storm clouds enveloped the capital. Nixon was up for re-election next month ...
The class from Smallville High sat in the stands. A brisk wind drove the students together in a huddle.
Pete and Lana carefully climbed the stairs with the hot chocolate. "That's for you, Clark. And the extra marshmallows is Chloe's."
Chloe sipped her drink. "MMmmm. That's good." The parade had begun.
The National Guard led the way -- dressed in crisp uniforms of the Continental Army, 1779. Pipers and drummers marched in step to the martial beat.
In the reviewing stand across the street, - framed in patriotic red, white and blue banners - the mayor of Metropolis waved at the crowd. Beside him were the dignitaries: the police chief, Senator Callahan, Daily Planet editor Perry White ... and Lionel Luthor, event sponsor and one of the city's major employers.
Lex quickly took his seat. Lionel frowned. "I expected you to be prompt. It's our history - Luthor history - they're exalting in this parade!"
"If you were so proud of our ancestry, you wouldn't be pushing to pave over the excavation site," Lex grumbled.
Lionel smirked. "Are you suggesting that I'm 'ashamed' of our family history. A Luthor has been at every pivotal event in American history. Concord, Gettysburg ..."
"... booze smuggling during Prohibition, arms trading in Southeast Asia ..." Lex continued.
"Take a seat," Lionel ordered, "Don't believe everything you read in the papers. It's not all black and white."
"Shades of grey," Lex sighed, "I've heard this tune before. Why don't you stop campaigning and level with me, just this once."
Lionel focused his stare towards the parade. "You would never understand."
Across the street, Pete noticed the heated discussion between father and son. "Looks like Lex and the old man are having a heart-to-heart."
The last of the Kansas Volunteers Civil War re-enactors had just passed. "Everyone knows the Wayne and Luthor legends," Chloe remarked, "but what's the real story? Why is Lionel Luthor such a committed enemy of the Waynes?"
"Well, we've heard Lex's version," Lana added, "Clark, you know Bruce Wayne. Has he ever talked to you about the Luthor-Wayne feud?"
Clark clutched his cup of hot chocolate. "Bruce doesn't tell me much. His dad, Thomas Wayne, used to work for the State department in the late 60s and early 70s. A couple of years before ..."
Chloe gasped. "The Wayne murders in Gotham's Crime Alley! I can see why he would prefer not to relive his early years."
"The 1970s, eh," Pete replied, "Vietnam, Watergate ... maybe Lionel and Mr. Wayne found themselves on opposite sides of the debate then?"
"Perhaps," Clark nodded. He watched as the U.S. Army Rangers from nearby Fort William marched in their camouflaged olive greens. In the reviewing stand, he noticed that Lionel Luthor was visibly uncomfortable.
"Chloe, you did that essay on the Vietnam War," Lana noted, "do you think that was the cause of the rift between Lionel and Thomas."
"Vietnam was a complicated affair," Chloe gazed at the Army Rangers marching in step. "In the late 60s, President Nixon was pledging peace with honour: the beginning of the Vietnamization of the war. We would pull out our troops, as the South Vietnamese army took on more of the ground fighting. Not to mention continued U.S. bombing
in Cambodia and Laos, the secret Phoenix Program, the galvanization of the anti-war movement after the shootings at Kent State and Jackson State College ..."
Clark shook his head in confusion. "My hard drive is crashing with the overload. Run that by me again?"
As the Army Rangers saluted their general in the reviewing stands, Chloe began to explain the endgame: the last gasp of American involvement in Vietnam ...
[West Wing, White House, September 1972]
Thomas Wayne turned up the radio. The Rolling Stones 'Paint It Black'.
"Would you turn down that racket, Tom?" Frank grumbled. He reviewed the intelligence reports. North Vietnamese Army activity was escalating along the Ho Chih Minh trail.
Thomas laughed, then turned down the volume. "C'mon Frank. Get with the times."
"Get with the times," Frank grumbled, "Frank Sinatra. Now that was a man who knew how to swing!"
Thomas smirked. Frank maybe 20 years older than him, but he was one of the finest minds in the U.S. State Department. Frank was a guest lecturer at Georgetown U., when graduate student Thomas was defending his thesis in International Relations. An intelligent man, this Wayne did not strike him as a lazy rich kid -- coasting through
school, through life on his family's name. Frank tapped him for an internship at the State Department. Fortunate for Wayne, since he received his draft card a mere week after he joined the department. Frank quickly had his draft revoked.
Thomas Wayne would serve his country in the diplomatic corps, not in the jungles of Vietnam. In public, Nixon wanted "peace with honour". He also wanted a free South Vietnam. How to reconcile these conflicting goals was the job of the thinkers and strategists in the State Department.
And the Pentagon. They didn't always agree.
Congress has passed the Cooper-Church Amendment, specifically forbidding the use of American troops outside South Vietnam. The amendment left enough elbow room to permit continued bombing of suspected NVA and Viet Cong hideouts in Cambodia and Laos. The Paris peace talks were in a mess. Again.
"You know, the CIA isn't helping us out with this 'Phoenix' program," Thomas complained.
Frank sighed. "The President is committed to the Phoenix Program. He believes that, if we target the pro-Communist guerrillas in the north, we'll weaken their structure."
Thomas examined the huge map of Vietnam on the wall, pegged with a rainbow of thumbtacks. "You're not buying this Phoenix hogwash, are you?"
"You know I could answer that," Frank grinned, "but Kissinger would have my head."
Thomas turned towards the window. These bombings are only going to drive the Cambodians and Laotians into the Communist ranks. With recent revelations about presidential involvement in the burglary at Watergate, the Nixon Administration was rapidly losing public confidence.
As if those dead kids at Kent State weren't proof enough.
The sun was painting a glorious tapestry in the sky. Tomorrow may be a better day ...
[Hong Kong, Victoria Harbour, October 1972]
Lionel Luthor shook hands with the CIA contact, known only as 'Rick'.
Luthor Industries had evolved from a mining and metallurgy consortium in the 1900s into a dominant aerospace and arms manufacturing leader. Armed forces from every NATO country flew, drove, fired, or launched a Luthor product. Lionel was not beyond selling a few products to some Warsaw Pact governments.
In peace time, this would have jeopardized his relations with the Pentagon power-brokers.
With a crippled presidency, and a country at war at home and in godforsaken Indochina, a man of opportunity could make a fortune.
The Phoenix Program, Lionel pondered, was just such an opportunity. American regular infantry could not take the fight to the enemy beyond Vietnam ... to Cambodia and Laos. But secret operatives -- CIA, special forces, South Vietnamese -- could. And did.
They needed weapons. Bombs. The military division of Luthor Industries had what they wanted. Untraceable and cheap (but efficient) AK-47 rifles. High- grade explosives. Anything the CIA wanted.
For a price.
"Pleasure doing business with you," Rick shook Lionel's hand. "The goods are in Dock 59?"
"All accounted for. Get them out of there before the harbour master inspects the warehouses in the morning," Lionel glared. Men like Rick could not be trusted. They lived for thrills. Adventure. A man who acted with abandon had no plan. The Ricks of the world lived and died for the rush, a quick adrenaline hit. They usually lived short lives.
"Off to do your duty for Uncle Sam," Lionel shouted over the whirr of the corporate helicopter.
"We're mounting an operation. Soon," Rick remarked. "But you won't hear about it in the Daily Planet." He saluted mockingly. "It's a secret."
Lionel gave his pilot the thumbs-up. As the helicopter buzzed past the Hong Kong skyline, Lionel couldn't stop smiling.
Let these glory-hounds fight this ridiculous war. Have they not learned from the mistakes of the French two decades ago? Nixon is thinking about pulling out, is he? Kennedy, Johnson ... now Nixon. If three presidents can't win this war, it's not to be won.
Rick, you stupid idiot. Whatever Uncle Sam promised you, I doubt you'll live to get it.
A week later, Thomas Wayne read an intelligence report. A foiled CIA-led, south Vietnamese incursion along the Cambodian border. Hundreds of casualties. The victorious Viet Cong took the decapitated head of one CIA operative - known only as Rick - back to Hanoi as a trophy.
Thomas flung the report on the floor. Frank turned around. "The CIA got us in shit again?"
"Something like that," Thomas frowned. "We've got to pull our boys out."
"Tom," Frank began, but Thomas continued his rant.
"No! We're playing this chess game with the Soviets. And this whole 'domino effect' theory. What the hell is Nixon thinking? Just watch. Cambodia and Laos will go running to the Communists. We drove them there! Hanoi is playing us for fools in Paris, while we send our troops to fight in a war our own country doesn't believe in any longer!"
"If this was supposed to make sense, we'd be in the Oval Office instead of Nixon," Frank replied.
Thomas buried his head in more reports. Outside the window, storm clouds enveloped the capital. Nixon was up for re-election next month ...