The Good Shepherd: CIA Secrets or Hollywood Sizzle?
Romantic Affairs
*While studying at Yale, Wilson falls in love with Laura (Tammy Blanchard) who has a hearing loss. She loves him, but innocently refuses to consummate their relationship. A Skull and Bones classmate introduces Wilson to Clover/Margaret Russell (Angelina Jolie) who immediately beds him, becoming pregnant. Wilson is forced to do "right" by her and they marry. Wilson later has a sexual encounter with a Soviet spy masquerading as his secretary in Berlin. He realizes her skullduggery when he notices that she can hear perfectly without a hearing aide that she had earlier claimed was needed — a subtle reminder of his relationship with the hearing-impaired Laura. The Soviet spy is executed by the OSS. Years later, Wilson is reunited with Laura, but their illicit affair is secretly photographed and the snapshots are turned over to Clover/Margaret. She confronts him during a public dinner and moves out of their Washington DC home to live with her mother.
Fact: The idea of Angleton being a Don Juan caused biographer Mangold to erupt in laughter. Mangold recalled that Matt Damon came to England and spent three hours talking to him about Angleton. (Mangold is thanked in the film credits.) "Matt is short, blue-eyed, blonde-headed and handsome," Mangold said, "but Jim was tall, gaunt, and half-Mexican with dark features. I never heard that he screwed around and I spoke to real enemies of Jim's — people who loathed every fiber in his body — and nobody ever told me anything bad about his personal life apart from the booze. He was an alcoholic. I interviewed his wife, Cicely, (Cicely d'Autremont Angleton ) and I was not privy to any tensions in their marriage at all. In fact, she stuck by him and I think he relied on her heavily. After he became an alcoholic and developed clinical paranoia, he depended on her more and more."
The sexual affairs, romance with Laura, and battles with his wife were all Hollywood flourishes, screenwriter Roth said.