A beautiful friendship
The final line in perhaps the most-famous movie in Hollywood history is: “Louie, I
think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
Yes, it’s “Casablanca,” and Rick (Humphrey Bogart), who has just shot Nazi Major Strasser, ensuring Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid’s safe getaway, walks off into the fog of a Moroccan night with Claude Rains’s Capt. Louis Renault.
There is great irony in this “beautiful friendship,” as Louie’s job is to
enforce the Nazi collaborationist occupation of French Morocco. Can opponents
on either side of a world-dividing conflict bridge their differences?
There is also great irony in another “beautiful friendship” more than 80
years later, as President Donald Trump prepares to meet Vladimir Putin for a summit in
Alaska on the fate of Ukraine. We know that Trump admires Putin and other
autocrats (Bolsonaro, Kim, Orban, Modi, et al.). We also know that
questioning his preference for palling around with dictators over leaders of
democracies will get you in trouble with the goon squads that now
comprise the three branches of the American government.
Trump has always believed that he alone can solve the world’s problems. True to
form, he refused to include our European allies, or even Ukraine itself, in the
summit. Ignoring smart diplomacy and proven bargaining techniques, Trump has
already promised Putin Ukrainian territory and agreed to other Russian demands
in advance of his meeting with a far more experienced, and ruthless, negotiator.
Let’s hope that when these two fly off on their separate ways into the frozen Alaskan fog that Trump isn’t waving frantically fond farewells from the runway while Putin mouths the words, “So long, sucker!” from his cabin window.
Daniel Sullivan
Bennington