It stars Tom Hanks as attorney James Donovan, a man who first defended an accused Russian operative, then negotiated his swap for an American pilot held by the Soviet Union. In 1964, Donovan published a memoir about his unforgettable experiences called Strangers on a Bridge .
As Steven Spielberg's "Bridge of Spies," starring Tom Hanks, hits theaters today, we're taking a look at the thrilling real-life events and people that inspired the movie. In "Bridge of Spies," Tom Hanks plays James Donovan, the attorney who defended a Russian spy and then negotiated his swap for an American pilot held by the Soviet Union.
In "Bridge of Spies," Tom Hanks plays James Donovan, the attorney who defended a Russian spy and then negotiated his swap for an American pilot held by the Soviet Union. Steven Spielberg's new film Bridge of Spies dramatizes an incredible spy exchange that took place at the height of the Cold War.
James Donovan: Aren't you worried? Rudolf Abel: Would that help? James Donovan: It doesn't matter what people think. You know what you did.
Did Donovan tell his wife he was going to Berlin to negotiate the prisoner exchange? No. He deliberately fooled his wife. Business trips to Europe were an almost yearly occurrence.
Frederic Pryor went on to become a professor at Swarthmore College. James B. Donovan was asked by President Kennedy to negotiate the release of 1000 prisoners from Cuba after the Bay of Pigs invasion. He would eventually get over 9000 men, women, and children released.
Donovan believed everyone deserves a defense After refusing to cooperate with the U.S. government, Abel was indicted on espionage charges. Now he needed a lawyer. Defending an alleged Soviet spy wasn't a sought-after assignment in 1950s America.
As Abel proceeds, he tells Donovan he earlier sent the lawyer a gift a painting, which turns out to be a portrait of Donovan in the courtroom. So Abel has left no doubt that Donovan will have the painting regardless of what happens on the bridge. (Interestingly, Donovan would later become president of Pratt.)
James Britt Donovan (February 29, 1916 – January 19, 1970) was an American lawyer and United States Navy officer in the Office of Scientific Research and Development and the Office of Strategic Services (OSS, predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency), ultimately becoming general counsel of the OSS, and an ...
On May 1, 1960, an America U-2 spy plane was shot down in Soviet airspace, causing great embarrassment to the United States, which had tried to conceal its surveillance efforts from the USSR.
Abel returned to Moscow, where he was forced into retirement by the KGB, who feared that during his five years of captivity U.S. authorities had convinced him to become a double agent. He was given a modest pension and in 1968 published KGB-approved memoirs. He died in 1971.
pilot Francis Gary PowersIn the USSR, captured American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers is sentenced to 10 years imprisonment for his confessed espionage. On May 1, 1960, Powers took off from Pakistan at the controls of an ultra-sophisticated Lockheed U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft.
Donovan's Coat when he gets to East Berlin? A gang of boys steal it.
The Supreme Court affirmed Abel's conviction in a 5–4 decision.
Powers was tried and convicted of espionage and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. He was released in 1962, however, in exchange for the Soviet spy Rudolf Abel. Powers returned to the United States and wrote of his view of the incident in Operation Overflight (1970).
Powers had flown a daring solo mission and, having miraculously survived a missile attack, plunged 75,000ft to Earth and endured psychological torture and threats of execution before serving two years of a ten-year jail sentence.
But all of that is about to change with the autumn release of a £50 million blockbuster film, directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Hanks and Wolf Hall’s Mark Rylance.
Take a look at the real-life events and people that inspired the Cold War movie starring Tom Hanks. Steven Spielberg 's Bridge of Spies dramatizes an incredible spy exchange that took place at the height of the Cold War. It stars Tom Hanks as attorney James Donovan, a man who first defended an accused Russian operative, ...
Defending an alleged Soviet spy wasn’t a sought-after assignment in 1950s America. But the Brooklyn Bar Association knew just the man for the job: James B. Donovan. Donovan was an insurance lawyer who'd worked for the Office of Strategic Services (forerunner to the CIA) during World War II.
Evidence against Abel had been found in his hotel room and studio. It included shortwave radios, maps of U.S. defense areas and numerous hollowe d-out containers (such as a shaving brush, cufflinks and a pencil). Another piece of evidence was a hollow nickel that Hayhanen had lost soon after his arrival in New York.
Then pilot Francis Gary Powers was brought down over the Soviet Union on May 1, 1960. Powers had been flying a U-2 spy plane, and Soviet officials tried him for espionage; he received a 10-year sentence. When Powers was captured, there was talk that he could be swapped for Abel.
Abel faced charges of 1) conspiracy to transmit military and nuclear information to the Soviet Union; 2) conspiracy to gather this information; and 3) being in the United States without registering ...
After a few years of heavy drinking, and with no intelligence-gathering accomplishments, Hayhanen was told to return to the Soviet Union. Fearing the punishment that his shortcomings would bring, Hayhanen asked for asylum at the U.S. Embassy in Paris in May 1957.
In 1964 , Donovan published a memoir about his unforgettable experiences called Strangers on a Bridge . Here’s a look at some of the real-life events and people that inspired the movie:
Nonetheless, the 2015 film Bridge of Spies, directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Matt Charman and brothers Ethan and Joel Coen , has succeeded in depicting at least one epoch in the fascinating and inspiring life that Donovan led. The film – which took in $165 million at the box office, and racked up Golden Globe and Oscar nominations ...
Hanks and actor Mark Rylance ( center) as Rudolf Ivanovich Abel in a courtroom scene from Bridge of Spies. (Photo: Jaap Buitendijk/DreamWorks and Twentieth Century Fox)
While most lawyers would have called it a day when Abel was carted off to serve 30 years in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, and a return to a steady and lucrative corporate practice would have been the smart play for a lawyer with a young family, Donovan continued to litigate on the spy’s behalf.
The pilot, Francis Gary Powers, was captured and tried in Moscow as an enemy agent, and sentenced to three years imprisonment and seven years in a labor camp. Powers was in prison from September 9, 1960 until February 8, 1962 when the CIA opted to use Abel as a bargaining chip.
The Real Life Story of Bridge of Spies Lawyer James B. Donovan. Donovan (right) and Fidel Castro in Cuba, 1963. The Irish American New York lawyer who defended a Russian spy, and negotiated on behalf of the thousands of prisoners captured after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, is remembered by his daughter Jan.
Donovan became an assistant to Justice Robert H. Jackson, the chief United States prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials, from 1945 to 1949. In his capacity as a lawyer who needed to show the extent of what the Nazis had done, he collaborated with several directors in order to produce some rather harrowing documentaries which would serve as video ...
United States was rejected in 1960 in a five to four decision, with the dissent led by Justice William Brennan, and Justice William O. Douglas Despite losing the case, Donovan was satisfied he had pursued it to the full extent of U.S. law and that Abel had been given a fair hearing.