Photo courtesy of Bridgehampton Historical Society
DAN'S PAPERS, April 11, 2008 Page 23 www.danshamptons.com
The film Problems of a Small Community covered issues such as potato cropping. Seen here Tony “Gump” Tiska Sr. and his two sons.
Propaganda, ‘50s Style Historic Film Portrays Bridgehampton as a Model of Democracy By Victoria L. Cooper Propaganda created in Bridgehampton? A staged drowning at Sagg Main Beach? Halloween in August? Did these events happen on the East End? To find out for sure you’ll have to speak to Ann Sanford, resident and local historian, who spoke this past Tuesday at the Hampton Library in Bridgehampton about “Democracy and the Cold War in Bridgehampton, 1950-1951.” Sanford, who is the author of Grandfather Lived Here: The Transformation of Bridgehampton, New York 1870-1970 is a passionate finder-of-things and while doing research on Bridgehampton in The New York
Times historical archives, she uncovered a tidbit of information that would send her on a party line journey to the National Archives in Washington, D.C. The goal of her search was a film titled Problems of a Small Community. But before Sanford would ever watch the 11-minute film, she had to call local master engineers to have the original, 35mm format remastered. Richard Wood, a photographer, architect and independent filmmaker, directed the film, which was made in August 1950. During the ’50s and ’60s, Wood vacationed in Bridgehampton but finally settled in East Hampton after retiring. The theme of the
film centers on democracy at work — how a community comes together on issues such as ocean safety and substandard housing for the migrant potato field workers, as well as the ever present Community Council as the means to elect officials and resolve problems. The film was sponsored by the U.S. State Department, with the goal of having it shown abroad in American libraries in Italy and France to aid in our country’s fight against the red blanket of communism spreading across the globe during the Cold War. Imagine Bridgehampton as an international role model for grassroots democracy — (continued on the next page)
U.S. MARINE FROM SAG DISAPPEARS, LEAVES QUESTIONS By Tiffany Razzano In the first weeks that a young marine from Sag Harbor and her husband were reported missing, only questions and more questions have surfaced. Twenty-year-old Lance Cpl. Margaret McMahon and her husband, fellow marine Pfc. George Kevyn Reid, have been missing from her Southern California base since March 31. Both McMahon and Reid were scheduled to deploy to Iraq this summer. After McMahon, a native of Sag Harbor, was reported missing, police speculated that she had possibly been kidnapped by her husband, whom she met last fall and married in
January. The last anyone heard from her was that she and Reid, 22, had gotten into an argument on March 30. The next morning she planned to legally change her last name at her base, Camp Pendleton, but she never made it there and has not been heard from. Reid was last seen at the Marine Corp Air Station Miramar that same morning. Both had been in the marines for only ten months and worked as communication equipment operators. McMahon’s family, friends and police feared the worst, but after she was identified on an April 1 surveillance tape withdrawing $400 from an ATM in Kansas, police have backed
away from the possibility of her being kidnapped, saying that, most likely, she and her husband ran away together. Someone also attempted to withdraw money from her account at an ATM in Missouri on April 3. Escondido police, who have reported that the couple’s off-base apartment was devoid of all personal items except for their Marine uniforms and some furniture, are dropping the case because the ATM video is proof that McMahon is currently outside of their jurisdiction. The Naval Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) and the United States Marine Corps (continued on page 36)