Katsky, Clay

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The past is never dead. It's not even pastNOT EVEN PASTSearch the site ...   Like 18TweetThe Enemy Within: ColdWar History in FX’s TheAmericansBy Clay KatskyThose who watch the television show The Americans share a secret with itsprotagonists: they are not a quintessential American couple living in the suburbs of D.C.;they are, in fact, spies for the Soviet Union. Set against the backdrop of a resurgent ColdWar in the early 1980s, this serialized spy thriller and period drama follows the  ctionallives of Elizabeth and Philip Jennings, played by Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys, whowere born in Russia and trained as KGB o cers to be “sleeper” agents in America.Activated when Reagan throws détente out the window, no one suspects that they havetwo deeply separated lives, one as travel agents who live in Northern Virginia with twoyoung children, and a second  lled with spy missions where they don disguises toseduce and assassinate targets and gather intelligence by blackmailing o cials andrecruiting assets. The dichotomy of their lives is by day marked by their genuinedevotion to their children and to each other, and by night by the violent and frequentlymurderous clandestine missions directed by their Russian handlers. These Americansare not what they seem to be.Kerri Russell and Matthew Rhys star in The Americans (via FX).Ultimately, it is Reagan’s hardline against the U.S.S.R. that gives the show context. The rst season begins as Reagan assumes the presidency and the third ends with theJennings family watching his “evil empire” speech together. During the most recentfourth season, a family viewing of the TV movie The Day After, which is about nuclearArmageddon, adds another dimension to a subplot involving powerful bioweapons. Thewriters of The Americans do a good job of using 1980s popular culture and history toadd contextual drama to the show, but sometimes ignore chronological speci cs andthe technical aspects of espionage tradecraft for the sake of storytelling. Regardless, thelate Cold War works well as a general guide for the narrative arc of the series; theescalating tension between superpowers is directly responsible for the increasing dramain the lives of its main characters.Privacy  - TermsPresident Reagan in 1982 (via Wikimedia Commons).Perversely, The Americans sometimes makes you root for the enemy within.  Fueled byterri c performances from Russell and Rhys, the Jennings can come off as sympathetic,and patriotic in their own way. Reminiscent of James Gandol ni in The Sopranos, theseare bad people with redeeming qualities. She is an ideologically driven cold-blooded killerwho is loyal to her family, while he is more sensitive and compelled by emotion, yet alsocapable of extreme violence. Both struggle with the con ict between their mission asspies and their duty as parents, which is a major plot device of the show. The tension ofthe  rst season is driven by their fear that the FBI will catch them. Right away evadingcapture is set up as synonymous with protecting their family. The second seasonexpands on the theme of protecting their family from their world – after two othersleeper agents and their young children are murdered the Jennings fear they are next.The danger in the third season comes from within the family, with their daughtersuspecting her parents are way more than just travel agents. And in the fourth seasonan assignment to steal bioweapons puts the whole world in jeopardy, pitting their loyaltyto their country against their instinct to protect their children. Making the show aboutmore than just spying and the Cold War, there are strong subplots involving the family’snext door neighbor, the FBI agent who works in the counter-intelligence division, andtheir daughter’s increasing devotion to Christianity, which comes to a head when sheover shares with her pastor. The drama is about the characters, how they develop andhow they react to one another in the context of the world around them.The images of nuclear destruction in The Day After (1983) were troubling to many American families (via WikimediaCommons).In The Americans, history is used as the setting. The show underscores Reagan’sdetermination to defeat the forces of Communism using clips from his speeches – asSoviet agents, the Jennings  nd the rhetoric palpable. And at their house, the newsalways plays in the background at night, helping to give a timeline of events while alsohighlighting the television culture of the time – pop culture events like David Copper eldmaking the Statue of Liberty disappear are drawn on to both diffuse the tension andoffer social nostalgia. But the headlines are also used to drive the drama. When Reagangets shot, the Jennings go on high alert because they are not sure if their governmentwas involved; and when Yuri Andropov, their former leader at the KGB, takes power in1982, they know their lives are about to get busier. The writers incorporate the shifttowards renewed hostilities that occurred during the late Cold War in order to give theviewer the sense that the Jennings mission is important. The rivalry between thesuperpowers could have spun out of control very quickly and at any moment, and the“the Americans” are caught in the middle of it.The show begins as Reagan kicks the Cold War into high gear in 1981 and it will endwith the collapse of the Communist superpower – having been renewed for a  nal twoseasons, the story will be told to its conclusion. The Soviet fear of the Strategic DefenseInitiative, Reagan’s anti-ballistic missile “Star Wars” project, is a centerpiece of the  rstfew episodes. In reality, 1981 is too early for the Russians (or even Reagan) to bethinking seriously about SDI, but it works as an easy set up. At that time, however, it wasmostly Reagan’s rhetoric that threatened to turn the Cold War hot. Nicaragua comes tothe fore in the second season, again a little early in terms of chronology, but it works wellbecause the Jennings’ sympathy for the Sandinista movement helps humanize them.Oliver North is credited as a technical advisor on an episode where the Jenningsin ltrate a Contra training base. Empathy for the Jennings continues to build as theyassist the anti-apartheid movement during the third season, while meanwhile the seedsof mistrust in their government are sown with the opening of the war in Afghanistan. Inthe fourth season, as their government pushes them to recruit their own daughter, theSoviet mismanagement of that war feeds their growing disillusionment and dovetailswith a risky mission to acquire an apocalyptic bioweapon. While this past season wasit’s least historically based, it was also its best because it dealt with larger, moreexistential issues.A Soviet Spetsnaz (special operations) group prepares for a mission in Afghanistan, 1988 (via WikimediaCommons)The technical focus of the show is on tradecraft, not history. The thrills come fromwatching the spies operate; and from making dead drops and cultivating assets toplanting listening devices and evading surveillance, the Jennings are very busy. But theshow’s most exciting aspect is also its least plausible. It is hard to believe that such well-placed agents would be used as workhorses for the KGB. Especially in the  rst twoseasons, the Jennings juggle multiple assignments at the same time and go on a widevariety of missions – simultaneously they are assassins, saboteurs, mastermanipulators, and experts in surveillance, counterespionage, and combat. As valuableas they would have been to their government, the Jennings are asked to take too manyrisks and expose themselves too often. But even in its most exaggerated aspects, TheAmericans feels realistic due to the expert performances from Russell and Rhys, whoare so believable in their roles as skilled spies and as doting parents that one cannothelp but trust in their inhuman ability to be an expert in anything they need to be.Two miniature Soviet spy cameras form the late Cold War (via Wikimedia Commons).Overall, The Americans is a highly engaging and richly thought out show set in thewaning years of the Cold War. It is very exciting to watch two highly trained KGBoperatives as they navigate the complexity of staying ideologically loyal to their causewhile raising an American family and living a lie. People who remember the 1980s19th century 20th Century African American History american history Asia Asia & Middle East book review BrazilBritish Empire China Civil War Cold War Colonialism communism cultural history digital history Early Modern Europe Europe  lm gender history History of Science immigration India Islam Latin America Latin American History Mexico Not Even Past Public History race religion Russia slavery Texas Texas History Texas History Day Transnational Twentieth Century History United States US History USSR Womens History world history World War IINOT EVEN PAST is produced by The Department of History THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN  We are supported by the College of Liberal Arts And our READERSDONATE  CONTACT  All content © 2010-present NOT EVEN PAST and the authors, unless otherwise notedSign up to receive the monthly Not Even Past newsletterSUBSCRIBE rsthand will enjoy the references and set pieces, and anyone who likes spy thrillers willbe instantly hooked on the slow boiling but constant action and drama. It will beinteresting to see how the upcoming  fth season incorporates the Able Archer warscare, when the Soviets mistook NATO war games for the start of real life a nuclearengagement. Will it be the Jennings who witness an increase in late night pizzadeliveries to the Pentagon and report back to Moscow that nuclear war is imminent?They seem too savvy to drop the ball like that. But what will happen in the end? Will theysurvive or be caught by the FBI, or will they get called back to Russia to be punished forsome failure or perceived disloyalty?  Read more by Clay Katsky on Not Even Past: Kissinger’s Shadow, By Greg Grandin (2005)You may also like: Simon Miles reviews Reagan on War: A Reappraisal of the Weinberger Doctrine, 1980-1984, by Gail E. S. Yoshitani (2012) Joseph Parrott examines The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan: A History of the End of theCold War, by James Mann (2010) Posted October 3, 2016More Digital & FilmYour email addressFEATURES BOOKS TEACHING DIGITAL & FILMBLOG IHS & PUBLIC HISTORY TEXAS ABOUT

The Enemy Within: Cold War History in FX’s The Americans

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