Oliver Stone - The Untold History of The United States

The Untold History of The United States

In 2009, it emerged that Stone was preparing a documentary miniseries for Showtime titled Oliver Stone's Secret History of America. It would cover "the reasons behind the Cold War with the Soviet Union, U.S. President Harry Truman's decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan, and changes in America's global role since the fall of Communism." In January 2010, it was revealed that he had been working on the project since 2008 with American University historian Peter J. Kuznick, who co-wrote the script with Stone, along with British screenwriter Matt Graham. Stone is the director and narrator of all 10 episodes, which intend to provide an unconventional account of some of the darkest parts of twentieth century history using little known documents and newly uncovered archival material. Kuznick objected to the title "Secret History", claiming that "the truth is that many of our 'secrets' have been hidden on the front page of the New York Times. If people think the secrets will be deep, dark conspiracies, they'll be disappointed. We'll be drawing on the best recent scholarship". It was subsequently retitled The Untold History of the United States.

The first three episodes of the series premiered at the New York Film Festival on October 6, 2012, which Indiewire described as "extremely compelling" and "daring".

The 10-part series is supplemented by a 750-page companion book of the same name, also written by Stone and Kuznick, released on Oct 30, 2012 by Simon & Schuster.

Stone described the project as "the most ambitious thing I've ever done. Certainly in documentary form, and perhaps in fiction, feature form." Because of Stone's feature film commitments, production took four years to complete. Stone confessed "It was supposed to take two years but it's way over schedule", The premiere was finally set for November 12, 2012. Stone spent $1 million of his own money on the budget, which had inflated from $3 million to $5 million.

In 2012, The Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald highly recommended the series and book, describing it as "riveting", "provocative" and "worthwhile".

Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev wrote approvingly of the book:

"Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick provide a critical overview of US foreign policy during the past few decades. There is much here to reflect upon. Such a perspective is indispensable at a time when decisions are being taken that will shape America's role in the global world of the twenty-first century. At stake is whether the United States will choose to be the policeman of a "Pax Americana", which is a recipe for disaster, or partner with other nations on the way to a safer, more just and sustainable future."

David Wiegand wrote for The San Francisco Chronicle: "The films are at their best when they provide a panoramic view of our history in the middle part of the 20th century. Ably abetted by the superb editing work by Alex Marquez". Verne Gay for Newsday similarly praised the craft: "By far the most interesting part of "Untold" is the visual presentation. Stone has cobbled together a mother lode of chestnuts, including grainy newsreel footage and Soviet propaganda films. It's all weirdly engrossing" but found the content less than provocative: "You keep waiting for a fresh insight, a new twist, a bizarre fact and after a while would even be profoundly grateful for some wacky Stone revisionism. It never comes. What's "untold" here?"

Stone defended the program's accuracy to TV host Tavis Smiley

'This has been fact checked by corporate fact checkers, by our own fact checkers, and fact checkers by Showtime. It's been thoroughly vetted...these are facts, our interpretation may be different than orthodox, but it definitely holds up.

In November 2012, Hudson Institute adjunct fellow historian Ronald Radosh (who was averse to the project since its announcement, and encouraged a write-in campaign to cancel the series) lambasted it as "mendacious" Cold War revisionism and "mindless recycling of Stalin's propaganda," noting similarities to Communist author and NKVD agent Carl Marzani's Soviet-published treatise We Can Be Friends. Writes Radosh:

"Over and over, Stone uses the same quotations, the same arrangements of material, and the same arguments as Marzani. This is not to accuse Stone of plagiarism, only to point out that the case he now offers as new was argued in exactly the same terms by an American Communist and Soviet agent in 1952."

Journalist Michael C. Moynihan criticized the book for "moral equivalence between the policies of the psychotically brutal Soviet Union and the frequently flawed policy of the United States" and called the title "misleading" in that nothing within the book was "untold" previously.