An Understated Villain

There was Somoza, the dictator; there was Oates, the mercenary; there was even Marcel Jazy, the apparent CIA leader of death squads.

But we mustn't forget Hub Kittle, the PR man working for Somoza, who had lots of great lines:

- "Alex, there's fascist and there's fascist. Let's not use words like that, OK?"

- "The man has a point of view too, right?" [speaking about Somoza]

- "Listen, Russel. Let's grow up, huh? It's easy to fall in love with the underdog. But there's an upside and a downside to this thing." [an upside to the Somoza dictatorship?]

I think this movie was pioneering in showing how dictatorships use the services of PR companies to whitewash their criminal image internationally. Force and violence is good domestically, but it doesn't work outside the borders of a regime. Few movies ever address this question. Since I discovered a company named Burson-Marsteller I've become more sensitive to this topic. Here's a fine article about B-M that puts people like Kittle under a new light:

http://home.intekom.com/tm_info/ge_bm.htm

This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel.