Cate Blanchett's portrayal of Dallas-based TV producer Mary Mapes should hit movie screens soon. Sony Classic Pictures recently made a $6 million deal for the U.S. rights to the film Truth, about the scandal following Mapes' and Dan Rather's story of George W. Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard.
The film is based on Mapes' 2005 memoir Truth and Duty: The Press, the President and the Privilege of Power.
Robert Redford will play Rather.
Mapes was a star investigative journalist for CBS. She shares a significant part of the credit for breaking the story of prisoner torture by American soldiers at Abu Ghraib.
In 2004, 60 Minutes II broadcast a Rather-Mapes story that said Bush received preferential treatment during his service in the Texas Air National Guard. It was later revealed that documents that supposedly proved Bush had been absent without leave were almost certainly forged.
CBS fired Mapes. Rather's long relationship with the network ended on a sour note. In 2007, he sued CBS and its parent company for $70 million claiming he had been a scapegoat in the Bush Air National Guard story.
The courts rejected Rather's claims.
Ambassador turned author
Dallas lawyer and SMU professor Robert W. Jordan was appointed ambassador to Saudi Arabia in May 2001. Just four months later came the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Suddenly, he was a first-time diplomat in the midst of an unfolding political crisis.
Those exploits are detailed in his new book Desert Diplomat: Inside Saudi Arabia Following 9/11. Jordan gives an insider's look at the key figures of that period: Crown Prince Abdullah (later King Abdullah), Bush, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet and Tommy Franks.
These days, Jordan is Diplomat in Residence and adjunct professor of political science at SMU's Tower Center for Political Studies.
