· For James B. Donovan, an Irish-American lawyer from New York who was recently played by award-winning actor Tom Hanks in the film Bridge of Spies, the opposite was in fact the case. His life was ultimately so seemingly fantastic that it would simply be impossible to depict in a single film. Nonetheless, the 2015 film Bridge of Spies, directed ...
1943-1945. Rank. Commander. 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 ...
 · That James Donovan died at age 53, of a heart attack, is staggering – both for its sadness and remarkableness that he did so much in such a short period. I asked John Donovan what else might his father have accomplished if his life had not been cut so short.
No, but in his book Strangers on a Bridge, James B. Donovan does refer to such incidents, where escaping East Germans were shot by VOPOs (East German police) at the Berlin Wall. However, it doesn't appear that he ever witnessed such a shooting in person.
As Abel proceeds, he tells Donovan he earlier sent the lawyer a gift ďż˝ 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.)
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. He'd also served as associate prosecutor at the principal Nuremberg trial.
A bridge between two worlds during three decades, he came to symbolize the ambiguity of his time and environment, and his career was cited as material worthy of Len Deighton and John le Carré.
Donovan, an Irish-American lawyer from New York who was recently played by award-winning actor Tom Hanks in the film Bridge of Spies, the opposite was in fact the case.
In 1957, Donovan defended the Soviet spy Rudolf Abel in what was known as the Hollow Nickel Case after many other lawyers refused. He later brought in Thomas M. Debevoise to assist him. Abel was convicted at trial, but Donovan was successful in persuading the court not to impose a death sentence.
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.
Donovan's Coat when he gets to East Berlin? A gang of boys steal it.
Sir Julius Vogel, (born Feb. 24, 1835, London—died March 12, 1899, East Molesey, Surrey, Eng.), New Zealand statesman, journalist, and businessman known for his bold project to regenerate New Zealand's economy in the 1870s through large-scale public works financed by British loans.
War is Boring writes, “Bridge of Spies' attention to detail is incredible. The costumes, props, military information and spycraft techniques are all pretty close to historically accurate. Charman and the Coens streamlined the details of the story, but the broad strokes remain true.
Early in the film Bridge of Spies, Tom Hanks, playing Donovan, is asked to defend an accused Soviet spy. “I'm an insurance lawyer,” he says, and it's true. But it's a vast understatement.
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).
Rusted RootJim Donovan / Music groupRusted Root is an American worldbeat rock band formed in 1990 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, by singer-guitarist Michael Glabicki, bassist Patrick Norman and percussionist Liz Berlin. The band got its start as the house band playing a weekly gig in Jack's Back Room on Pittsburgh's South Side. Wikipedia
Donovan was portrayed by Tom Hanks in the 2015 feature film Bridge of Spies .
United States was rejected by a 5–4 vote. Donovan's argument that evidence used against his client had been seized by the FBI in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Chief Justice of the United States Earl Warren praised him and publicly expressed the "gratitude of the entire court" for his taking the case.
The re-issue coincided with the pre-release promotion for the movie, directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Matt Charman and the Coen Brothers, which was released on October 16, 2015. Tom Hanks plays the role of Donovan, with Amy Ryan as his wife, Mary.
The story of the Abel trial and defense, followed by the negotiation and prisoner exchange, was the basis for the book Strangers on a Bridge: The Case of Colonel Abel and Francis Gary Powers, written by Donovan and ghost writer Bard Lindeman, which was published in 1964.
In 1941, Donovan married Mary E. McKenna, who was also an Irish American. The couple had a son and three daughters, and lived in Brooklyn, New York, while also maintaining seasonal residences in Spring Lake on the Jersey Shore, New Jersey, and Lake Placid, New York State, where Donovan is buried alongside his wife and daughter.
In June 1962, Donovan was contacted by Cuban exile PĂ©rez Cisneros, who asked him to support the negotiations to free the 1,113 prisoners of the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion. Donovan offered pro bono legal service for the Cuban Families Committee of prisoners' relatives. A few months later, he traveled to Cuba for the first time. Donovan managed to create confidence with Castro, who was pleased Donovan brought his (Donovan's) teenage son with him to Cuba.
Donovan successfully negotiated for the exchange of Powers, along with American student Frederic Pryor, for the still-imprisoned Rudolf Abel, whom Donovan had defended five years earlier. This negotiation and preceding events were dramatized by the 2015 historical thriller Bridge of Spies, by Steven Spielberg.
That James Donovan died at age 53, of a heart attack, is staggering – both for its sadness and remarkableness that he did so much in such a short period. I asked John Donovan what else might his father have accomplished if his life had not been cut so short. He speculated that it may have been related to education, having been President of the New York City Board of Education and Pratt Institute. John dismissed the possibility of politics -- as he didn’t think his father was too upset about losing the race for a United States Senate seat.
Having joined the National Bureau of Casualty Underwriters right when Congress had passed the McCarran-Ferguson Act, Donovan was directly involved in the state vs. federal fight over insurance regulation. He even litigated the issue in the Eighth Circuit where he was successful and cert. was denied by the Supreme Court.
The screenplay for Bridge of Spies was written by Matt Charman, along with Joel and Ethan Coen. [My sense is that Charman did the heavy-lifting.] John had a breakfast meeting with Charman when he was writing the script. Charman was a good listener. John read me an email that he had just received from the writer -- thanking him for bringing his father alive.
Donovan’s children could not have been kinder to me or more generous with their answers to my questions. They were not on the phone to talk about themselves, but, of course, I had to ask whether certain things in the film, about their characters, were real or fictionalized. For a Curious George-type like myself that’s just too tempting to pass up.
There is no denying Donovan’s bone fides as a coverage lawyer. He was no dabbler. This makes it all that much more remarkable that, from 1957 to 1962, he was involved in the Abel case and spy swap.
In Weissblum v. Glens Falls Insurance Company, 244 N.Y.S. 2d 689 (N.Y.A.D. 1963), [subscribers can access an enhanced version of this opinion: lexis.com | Lexis Advance ], Donovan convinced the New York Appellate Division that an insurer was not liable for coverage, for 189 damaged windows, because the insured did not establish that he was “legally obligated to pay” for such damage. The insured only established that he was obligated because of a contractual assumption of liability, which was excluded under the policy.
According to the JII article, in 1946 or so, following his involvement with Office of Strategic Services and the Nuremberg trial, the 30 year old Donovan became general counsel of the National Bureau of Casualty Underwriters. But the road to that office dates back to Donovan’s WWII days, where he developed a top-secret disability and life insurance program for civilian scientists who were taking great risks in research.
The case, which had made international headlines and turned James Donovan into a public pariah, faded into obscurity. It wasn't until May 1960, when the Russians shot down the U-2 spy plane piloted by Francis Gary Powers, that Abel's case, in particular Donovan's talk of spy exchanges, became relevant again.
As depicted in the movie, during Rudolf Abel's trial, Donovan had also argued that the government had violated Abel's Fourth Amendment rights by searching his home and seizing both Abel and all his property without a public search warrant or a criminal warrant of arrest.
Believing that the CIA's spy plane had been destroyed and that its pilot, Francis Gary Powers , was most likely dead, the Eisenhower administration tried to cover up the incident by telling the press that the pilot of a weather plane had experienced oxygen difficulties and drifted off course.
Actor Austin Stowell ( right) portrays Powers in the Bridge of Spies movie.
Byers sentenced Soviet spy Rudolf Abel to consecutive terms of 30, 10, and 5 years in prison and fined him $3,000. The case, which had made international headlines and turned James Donovan into a public pariah, faded into obscurity. It wasn't until May 1960, when the Russians shot down the U-2 spy plane piloted by Francis Gary Powers, that Abel's case, in particular Donovan's talk of spy exchanges, became relevant again. -Strangers on a Bridge
On November 15, 1957, attorney James B. Donovan, who represented Soviet spy Rudolf Abel, urged Judge Mortimer W. Byers not to consider the death penalty for his client.
Was Donovan's wife upset that he was going to defend a spy? Yes . James Donovan's wife Mary was not happy that he was going to defend the Soviet spy Rudolf Abel. "When I told my wife I'd been asked to defend a Red spy, she screamed" (The Milwaukee Journal).
Early in the film Bridge of Spies, Tom Hanks, playing Donovan, is asked to defend an accused Soviet spy. “I’m an insurance lawyer,” he says, and it’s true. But it’s a vast understatement. What the film doesn’t make clear is that Donovan was a Navy commander, schooled in spies and spycraft during World War II.
He was serving his third term as a state senator in March 1955, when he died suddenly of a heart attack at age 42.
Watters & Donovan, the firm he joined as a partner in 1950, was thriving, and by 1957 he and his family had moved into a 15-room duplex apartment on Prospect Park West. On August 19 of that year, the Donovans were at their summer cottage in Lake Placid, unpacking their luggage, when the phone rang.
attorney in the Southern District of New York, was elected to a seat in the New York State Senate. He was serving his third term as a state senator in March 1955, when he died suddenly of a heart attack at age 42.
After completing his work at Nuremberg, Donovan rejoined his family, arriving in Brooklyn on Christmas Day 1945. He was discharged from active duty in February and, before long, joined the postwar boom in New York City.
And he spent much of the summer of 1945 in London, assisting Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson negotiate the treaty that established the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, Germany. Jackson, the chief U.S. prosecutor at Nuremberg, took a shine to Donovan.
After law school, Donovan handled insurance and libel cases for a New York firm, but within two years, the country was at war. He and Mary moved to Washington, D.C. , where he became assistant general counsel in the Office of Scientific Research and Development—the federal agency responsible for developing the atomic bomb.
Just six months after the spy swap at the center of Steven Spielberg’s “Bridge of Spies,” James B. Donovan, the New York lawyer who negotiated that exchange in real life, sat down in Havana with Fidel Castro for high-stakes talks about the prisoners captured after the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion attempt.
A few months after Mr. Donovan’s last visit, President John F. Kennedy sent an emissary on a good-will visit to Cuba to meet Mr. Castro.
According to interviews the C.I.A. conducted with Mr. Donovan, Mr. Castro asked him about the possibility of re-establishing ties with Washington.
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 . Here’s a look at some of the real-life events and people ...
Most importantly, he believed that everyone — even a suspected spy — deserved a vigorous defense, and accepted the assignment. (Though Donovan and his family experienced some criticism, including angry letters and middle-of-the-night phone calls, his commitment to standing up for Abel's rights was largely respected.)
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.
But on March 28, 1960, the Court ruled 5 to 4 against Abel.
After his conviction, Abel faced more than prison: transmitting strategic information to a foreign country carried a potential death sentence. Donovan now had to fight for his client’s life.
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.
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 ...