11 Evil Organizations of the ’60s and ’70s More Terrifying Than the Sony Hackers
It was right out of an old spy-fi plot: a nefarious organization emerges out of the shadows, announcing itself with pain and damage as its calling card, threatening its target with worse if its demands are not met. It appears the organization has a villain at its head that the world considers evil — or, at the very least, in serious need of some help — and the villain has ill-intentioned resources to use at his disposal as well as cinematic props with which to fill the shot.
The fact that the plot described above was the Sony Pictures hack and extortion threat of 2014 makes it no further removed from any other major villainous plot from the 1960s and ’70s, save for it being a piece of nonfiction. Had one of the organizations from this time borrowed the plan, it would not have looked out of place in their playbook: one more operation at hand until the visually striking hero showed up in a good-looking suit to shut them down. (Though it’s probably safe to assume that had this been written in the 1960s, the hero saving the day wouldn’t have been anything like President Obama calling capitulation a “mistake,” which would rally the company.)
Almost immediately, the blame was placed on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and her head of state Kim Jong-un, who had motive after declaring Sony’s imminent release of The Interview to be “an act of war.” Soon after North Korea’s internet was knocked offline for a day from a DDoS, however, others came forward to question the FBI’s claims as to the origin of the cyber-attacks.
If indeed it was not North Korea that perpetrated these attacks, then it’s valuable to look at some of the organizations depicted in the past, to form a forensic profile as to what kind of group we might need to go after. Comparing the 2014 plot to plans these bodies might have pulled off could help in identifying the culprits before they pull something like this again.
And if it ends up the FBI was right, and that it was North Korea all along, then their first major foray into villainy certainly needs to be examined against their fictional counterpart’s capabilities. We need to grade their efforts and see just how well they did compared with folks that may have a lot more experience to see if we now need to build up our defenses; after all, the NSA and DHS may not be enough if we’re going up against threats we need an actual UNCLE or ZOWIE for…
1) SPECTRE
First appearance: Doctor No (1962)
The SPecial Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion is the first of the serious bad-guy organizations. It has a large and menacing reputation in real life as well as fiction, having replaced SMERSH from the original Ian Fleming books (a name which was originally used by a real-life Soviet counter-intelligence group before Fleming re-purposed it) that was further complicated by its literary history and resulting copyright suit that only recently was resolved by all parties, allowing for a new Bond film entitled SPECTRE. An organization beyond borders, SPECTRE is comprised of criminals not afraid to use the latest technology to acquire money and respect, a group closer to the Mafia in spirit and tone than North Korea. Its leader, Ernst Blofeld (played over the years by the likes of Donald Plesance, Telly Savalas, and Charles Gray), runs a tight ship that would not have called off further action so easily after Sony uploaded The Interview to YouTube. The fact that SPECTRE appears in six further films (up through 1971’s Diamonds Are Forever) shows its ability to adapt and survive, something not shown yet by the group the broke into Sony, and has inspired plenty of imitators, some of which we’ll look at below.
2) THRUSH
First appearance: The Man from U.N.C.L.E.: “The Vulcan Affair” (September 22, 1964)
While we never get an official name or origin of the organization in the series, there are tie-in novels by David McDaniel that give the meaning of the acronym as Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables, and the Subjugation of Humanity, and state that the group was descended from the henchmen led by Professor Moriarty carrying on the good work after their boss’ demise in “The Final Problem,” giving the organization literary cachet as well a long, “proud” lineage. Its aims are described as world domination, achieved by any means necessary, making them so dangerous to the world order that U.N.C.L.E. (for United Network Command for Law and Enforcement) could get American and Soviet agents to team up against its plots. Considering we’re not seeing a lot of other countries panicking over this hack, no one seems to be taking this group as seriously as they took THRUSH. As the show went on for four seasons on NBC (and into a spinoff, The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.), the plots went from being strict espionage tales into SF territory with super-science and suggestion of possible alien invasions (with the episodes suggesting this getting turned into a theatrical re-release, The Spy with My Face), which seems beyond the experience of either the North Koreans or any hacker group out there today.
3) Hydra
First Appearance: Strange Tales # 135 (cover date August 1965)
“Hydra” is not an acronym; it’s taken directly from the name of the creature Heracles had to slay for his second task. The organization was originally presented as a stand-alone opponent going up against S.H.I.E.L.D., the main spy organization in the Marvel universe. Soon, however, its true roots were uncovered (in one of Marvel’s first “retcons”), and Hydra was revealed to have been formed by the Red Skull during his time with the Third Reich. Dedicated to world domination through terror and subversion, much like THRUSH, this group also has background and cachet, which makes them a more feared perceived threat than the folks who got into Sony. Hydra, like SPECTRE, has demonstrated a long life, appearing not only in years worth of comic books, but also as the main baddie in both Captain America films and the series Marvel Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which shows a longevity that neither the hackers nor the North Korean government have yet to demonstrate.
4) KAOS
First Appearance: Get Smart! “Mr. Big” (September 18, 1965)
KAOS does not actually stand for anything, either; supposedly, it was formed in Bucharest in 1904, but was listed as a Delaware corporation, formed there for tax purposes. In fact, to say that KAOS stood for anything other than evil and destruction and was otherwise just making it up as it went along is probably what creators Mel Brooks and Buck Henry had in mind from the beginning; the only reason KAOS had five seasons on NBC is that it was opposed by an agency just as inept, CONTROL (which also didn’t stand for anything), whose best asset was Agent 86, Maxwell Smart (ditto). In many ways, whoever broke into Sony is way ahead of the curve, as KAOS rarely had a plan that had a lick of sense or a chance of success. Its best plot, attempted in the 1980 film The Nude Bomb, involved setting off a bomb to denude everyone; this sounds less like the Sony hack than the iCloud hack-celebrity nude picture dump scandal from 2014, which is another piece entirely; so, moving on now…
5) Galaxy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEUv_8T9OlQ
First appearance: Our Man Flint (1966)
This is one of the first of the major SPECTRE imitators warned about above (which could describe whoever broke into Sony as well). Galaxy consisted of three scientists who believed that they could do a better job running the world than anyone else, promising a new world order where attractive women are re-programmed to become “pleasure units” for the worthy, and threatening earthquakes, volcanos and super storms until the world submits. Its aims were far more ambitious and demented than the Sony group showed, however, the fact that it only took one man, Derek Flint (James Coburn) of Z.O.W.I.E. (Zonal Organization for World Intelligence and Espionage), to bring the whole thing down, shows that it had a lot less defensively than either the hackers or Kin Jong-un; if whoever went after Sony was less defensively postured and more offensive, then they might come close to Galaxy’s capabilities.
6) BIG O
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqLVtMsTo8A
First Appearance: The Silencers (1966)
The Bureau of International Government and Order, this organization comes closest among all the SPECTRE clones to being on par with its inspiration. Over the course of three films (followed by Murderers’ Row and The Ambushers, BIG O’s stated goals are world domination by any means necessary, which seems to not be on the Sony hackers’ agenda (that we know of). Like Galaxy, they have an interest in lovely ladies; unlike them, they train them as assassins, called “Slaygirls,” who are sent after BIG O’s biggest threat, Matt Helm (Dean Martin) of ICE (Intelligence Cunter Espionage), making them as glass-jawed as Galaxy. The fact that Matt Helm may be the inspiration for Austin Powers doesn’t say a lot about BIG O’s ability to wield fear and menace to get what they want the way the Sony hack crew did.
7) IMF
First Appearance; Mission: Impossible (September 17, 1966)
But wait a minute, I hear you say, wasn’t the Impossible Missions Force the good guys? Oh, sure, we all thought so at the time, even though they were involved in destabilizing governments and getting foreign leaders assassinated by their own inner circle for seven seasons on CBS, using dubious actions on behalf of good intentions. Yet when we revisit the IMF in the first theatrical film in 1996, we find that the agency has been corrupt for some time; with the confusion as to whether or not it actually is North Korea, who’s to say that the responsible party may be someone we don’t currently suspect, who is hiding right in front of us and may not discover for a few decades?
8) AIM
First appearance: Strange Tales # 146 (cover date July 1966)
Advanced Idea Mechanics from the Marvel universe was originally a section of Hydra that, after Hydra was forced to retrench following Nick Fury’s last encounter with them, became its own separate organization dedicated to harnessing technology to achieve its objectives. If anyone comes closest to the outfit responsible for the Sony job, it’s likely to be AIM: small group (maybe still small), possibly part of a larger organization at one time, using advanced tools to get what they want. The only question is its longevity: AIM got reintroduced to everyone in Iron Man 3, and it’s not clear whether the group responsible for going after Sony could last that long given an effective hunt by government agencies — or a billionaire with a suit of powered armor going after them.
9) Fabulous Face Corporation
First appearance: In Like Flint (1967)
So, we have a beauty company that decides one day that there should be a matriarchy imposed from without, which tries to embarrass the world’s leaders to let them just roll right on in. And they have a cabal within the US Army ready to support them, right up until they decide to take over the operation for themselves. This is reading like The Devil Wears Prada turned into Seven Days in May. Who needs Derek Flint and Z.O.W.I.E. when your plot sounds so flimsy that Maxwell Smart could handle it all alone? You can’t even say that, in a fair fight, the Sony hack group could take out Fabulous Face; if the hack group had both hands cut off, they could still take them down!
10) Aliens
First appearances: The Invaders “Beachead” (January 10, 1967); and UFO “Identified” (September 16, 1970)
Both of these are placed together as these aliens share a number of similarities: we never know the proper name of the alien races or their organizations, we never get a really good look at the aliens in their natural state, they both use stealth tactics to work behind the scenes, and they show they have access to technological tools beyond what we earthlings can muster. The first set, which got two seasons on ABC, had an easier time going up against a lone human, David Vincent (Roy Thinnes), who spent most of the run trying to warn people; the second set ran up against the arms of the paramilitary S.H.A.D.O.W. (Supreme Headquarters Alien Defense Organization) which met the invaders for one season on ITV. This has led some ambitious viewers to claim that it was Vincent’s crusade that allowed a near-future Earth to have S.H.A.D.O.W. ready for the next wave of the same aliens. In any event, the stealthy, advanced aliens (whether two separate races or the same one) don’t share the same characteristics as the brash and belligerent Sony hackers who loudly proclaimed their objectives and demands, and may not have had the most sophisticated equipment available to them.
11) CHUMP
First appearance: Lancelot Link Secret Chimp “There’s No Business Like Snow Business” (September 12, 1970)
One of the more colorful evil institutions to arise, the Criminal Headquarters for the Underworld’s Master Plan was set up to endanger the world in order to… make it safe for chimpanzees? By now, there were so many evil organizations in film and on TV that by the time this showed up on ABC’s Saturday morning lineup for one season, the only thing to distinguish it was that it was run and staffed by chimps, all opposed by chimpanzees who worked for APE (Agency to Prevent Evil), and, well… all right, let’s just pretend we didn’t go there, okay?
Or was it an especially evil individual?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94UpZMvUvEk
Of course, we can’t ignore the potential that this was the work of a lone talented individual who drew people around himself or herself. The likes of an Auric Goldfinger (Goldfinger), a Count Contini (The Wrecking Crew) or a Chief Inspector Dreyfus (The Pink Panther Strikes Again) pulling together a crew for the job can’t be ignored — if it turns out that North Korea didn’t actually do it. Then again, when the cult of personality surrounding Kim Jong-un is taken into account, he doesn’t get off the hook that easily.
Whoever it was that revealed Sony’s secrets and tried to shut it down, we might better understand the hackers now that we have something to compare them against. With any luck, our past experiences will help us better make sense of the present case; at the least, we have something we can crib from if we ever wanted to do a retro-themed spy piece…
