A Cesspool

“My work in City Heat (1984) was still getting mentions in the trades, and I’d just wrapped Cobra (1986) – another project where I was principally responsible for the film’s moody and stylish palate, lots of shadows and contrast; So when I started Spaceballs (1987) Mel Brooks said to me, “Look, sonny, I don’t want any of this artistic bullshit, and I want none of that dark crap. I paid for those walls back there so I want to see those walls on the screen! Blast the light on ’em!” That’s why Spaceballs looks like a TV pilot, there’s a lot of light. In fact, I probably ­over-lit the film, but that’s the way the studios liked it at that time and it’s also the way Mel wanted it so that’s what I gave them. But if I was to do it again, I would push for something more nuanced and use some effects in there to give it a bit more character.”
― Nick McLean, Nick McLean Behind the Camera: The Life and Works of a Hollywood Cinematographer

“...the attitude of the Joint Chiefs after the Missile Crisis was precisely what one might imagine, given the above events:

’We told you so; you failed to follow our advice and allowed this catastrophe to happen; you then failed in your duty to cleanse Cuba of Communist influence and an undeniable military threat to the United States by force, when presented with the perfect justification for war; and in doing so, you have proven yourself unfit to be President.’

In my view, the foregoing events — revealed by the Northwoods documents — are the Rosetta Stone to the Kennedy assassination. It is my opinion that the great disfavor with which the hawks (i.e., the overwhelming majority) in his own national security establishment viewed his eventual resolution to the coming Cuban Missile Crisis was the proximate cause of JFK’s assassination , one year later in Dallas.”
― Douglas Horne, JFK’s War with the National Security Establishment: Why Kennedy Was Assassinated

“Brando’s longtime Brown, Kraft & Co. accountant, George Pakkala, had told me, in his kind way, Brando had spent over three-quarters of a million dollars on Tetiaroa, since taking over the resort project from my predecessor, Bernard Judge, with almost nothing to show for it.”
― Roger C. Vergin, Brando: With His Guard Down

“Former CIA agent and Watergate convict, Howard Hunt suggested several prominent CIA officials involved in the plot to assassinate JFK, including Richard Helms—the top agency’s top man.
The other CIA suspects Hunt named in his book were William Harvey and David Morales, a “cold-blooded assassin,” Hunt observed, who like his boss Harvey, was “possibly completely amoral.” While vigorously proclaiming his own innocence, Hunt speculated that Harvey—“a strange character hiding a mass of hidden aggression”—might have played the lead role in organizing the assassination, hiring Mafia sharpshooters “to administer the magic bullet” in Dallas. Hunt even went so far as to raise the possibility that Harvey was acting on orders from Vice President, Lyndon Johnson.”
― David Talbot, Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years