File WHJ‑1901
Subject: Jackson, William Harding Born: 25 Mar 1901 Died: 28 Sep 1971 Status: Feature film in development
Top Secret  Declassified

A feature film based on the biography by Vic Currier

Good‑Bye, Lord,
I'm Going to New YorkThe secret life of Bill Jackson

A Tennessee plantation heir who built American intelligence from the inside, then walked out of every room before anyone wrote his name on the door.

He helped plan the deception behind D‑Day, read Hitler's mail through ULTRA, wrote the report that gutted the early CIA, ran it as Deputy Director, and sat at Eisenhower's National Security Council table. Most Americans have never heard of him. This file is the development home for the film that changes that.

Section 00 / Origin

Belle Meade

Columned Greek Revival mansion behind an oak-lined drive
Plate I · The mansion, Belle Meade. Illustration.

Belle Meade means “beautiful meadow.” John Harding started the farm west of Nashville in 1806, and for a century the family ran it as one of the premier thoroughbred studs in the world, growing it past 5,400 acres. Its racing silks, registered in 1823, are the oldest in continuous use in America. President Grover Cleveland visited in 1887.

Bill was born in the mansion in 1901, the only child of William Harding Jackson and Anne Davis Richardson. His great‑grandfather was Gen. William Giles Harding. His grandfather was Gen. William Hicks “Red” Jackson, the cavalryman who missed capturing Ulysses S. Grant by less than an hour. His great‑uncle Howell Edmunds Jackson sat on the U.S. Supreme Court. The wealth rested on generations of enslaved labor before the Civil War.

His father and grandfather both died in 1903, when Bill was two. For the rest of his life he rarely lived in a home or worked in an office without photographs, furniture and paintings from Belle Meade around him.

A groom holds a thoroughbred stallion in front of a white barn with a cupola
Plate II · The stud barns. Illustration.

Memo from the President · July 1950

“If this works out, we'll forget Gen. Smith.”
Harry S. Truman, on nominating Jackson to run the CIA. He said no.
Section 01 / Logline

The man in every room

The day after Pearl Harbor, a forty‑year‑old Wall Street lawyer takes a phone call from his polo‑playing best friend and flies to Washington to volunteer. Over the next fifteen years he becomes the quiet architect of the American secret state, and the one man inside it who keeps asking what it is for.

A Wall Street corner office in winter, a rotary phone and folded newspaper on the desk
Plate III · Carter, Ledyard & Milburn, 8 December 1941. Illustration.

Why now

Audiences have shown up for Oppenheimer, for Operation Mincemeat, for every story about the people who built the modern world in rooms nobody filmed. Jackson was in those rooms, from Bletchley Park to the Oval Office, and his story has never been told on screen.

The hook

A Southern aristocrat born into the last generation of a horse empire becomes a professional keeper of secrets. He turns down the top job at the CIA, takes the number two, fixes the place, hands it to Allen Dulles, and leaves. The question the film keeps pressing: why does a man build something and then refuse to stand in front of it?

Section 02 / Service record

Seventy years, in the order they happened

  1. Born on the Belle Meade Plantation outside Nashville, one of the most famous thoroughbred studs in America. His father, also William Harding Jackson, dies in 1903, the same year as his grandfather, Gen. William Hicks Jackson. Bill is two.

  2. Sent north to the Fay School in Boston and St. Mark's School in Southborough, where he plays football. At Princeton he leads the polo team to the national collegiate championship.

  3. B.A. from Princeton. LL.B. from Harvard Law. Joins Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft in New York.

  4. Moves to Beekman, Bogue & Clark, then after the market collapses lands at Carter, Ledyard & Milburn, a business and financial firm. Marries Elizabeth Lyman Rice the same year.

  5. Full partner at Carter, Ledyard & Milburn. At thirty‑nine, elected president of The Society of the New York Hospital.

  6. The morning after Pearl Harbor, Tommy Hitchcock Jr., the greatest polo player of his age, calls and talks Jackson into flying to Washington to sit with the generals at the War Department. Two men past forty, volunteering for a young man's war.

  7. Enters the Army. Graduates from the Air Combat Intelligence School in Harrisburg, promoted to Major, brought into the War Department under Secretary Henry Stimson. Principal author of the Bay of Biscay estimate: hit the U‑boats where they sleep, on the French coast.

  8. Cover as Assistant Attaché for Air at the U.S. Embassy under Ambassador Gil Winant. Promoted to full Colonel. G‑2 intelligence chief at First U.S. Army Group, the phantom army of Operation Bodyguard, built to make Hitler look the wrong way on D‑Day.

  9. Trained on Enigma. Becomes senior ULTRA Special Counter‑Intelligence Unit team leader for every U.S. army in the European Theater. After the landings, heads all OSS X‑2 SCIUs and moves forward to Luxembourg with Gen. Omar Bradley's Twelfth Army Group.

  10. In the middle of the Ardennes counteroffensive, named Deputy G‑2 for all U.S. armies at Twelfth Army Group. Ends the war with the Bronze Star, the Legion of Merit, the French Legion of Honor and the Croix de Guerre.

  11. After a four‑month study of British secret intelligence for Marshall and Donovan, he submits his own blueprint for a central intelligence agency at the request of Navy Secretary James Forrestal.

  12. Leaves the law to become Managing Partner of John Hay Whitney's investment firm, one of the first venture capital houses in America.

  13. With Allen Dulles and Mathias Correa, delivers a scathing survey of the young CIA under Adm. Roscoe Hillenkoetter. Heads roll. Hillenkoetter is next.

  14. Nominated to run the Agency, he declines. Gen. Walter Bedell Smith takes the directorship and asks for Jackson as his deputy. Sworn in as Deputy Director of Central Intelligence while Chinese armies gather on the Yalu.

  15. He and Smith bring Allen Dulles into the Agency to run clandestine operations. By August, Jackson resigns and Dulles takes his chair. He stays on contract as Senior Consultant to the Director through 1955.

  16. Chairs the President's Committee on International Information Activities, which leads to the U.S. Information Agency. Special assistant to John Foster Dulles at the Big Four summit in Geneva.

  17. Special Assistant to the President for foreign affairs and psychological warfare, Vice Chairman of the Operations Coordinating Board, and from September 1956 to January 1957, Acting National Security Advisor. Suez and Hungary happen on his watch.

  18. Dies in Tucson, Arizona, at seventy, in a hacienda furnished with pieces of Belle Meade.

A wartime codebreaking hut with typewriters and teleprinters under a single bulb
Plate IV · ULTRA, England, 1943. Illustration.
A P-51 Mustang parked on a rain-soaked English airfield
Plate V · P‑51 Mustang, England, 1944. Tommy Hitchcock died test‑flying one. Illustration.
Eyes only
TO:Development file FROM:Office of the Deputy Director DATE:7 October 1950 RE:Swearing‑in, Director's office

Present: incoming Director Gen. W. B. Smith, outgoing Director Adm. R. Hillenkoetter, incoming Deputy W. H. Jackson. Press photograph taken. Hands shaken. Agency budget, as estimated by the Dulles‑Jackson‑Correa survey, was in no condition to be explained to Congress. Subject has already turned down the top job once. Subject did not smile for the photograph.

Section 03 / The players

The rooms he was in, and who else was there

Protagonist

Bill Jackson

Lawyer, colonel, banker, spymaster. The model American who was always half a step outside the frame. A hero who comes home and opens a brief.

The catalyst

Tommy Hitchcock Jr.

Lehman Brothers banker, the top‑ranked polo player in the world for two decades, and a teenage Lafayette Escadrille pilot in WWI. Makes the call on December 8. Killed in 1944 test‑flying a P‑51 Mustang in England.

The general

Omar Bradley

Jackson's commander at Twelfth Army Group. Later nominates him to run the CIA.

The hammer

Walter Bedell Smith

Eisenhower's wartime chief of staff, the most feared man in the Army, and Jackson's boss at the Agency.

The casualty

Roscoe Hillenkoetter

The admiral whose CIA Jackson's report took apart. He hands over the building on October 7.

The heir

Allen Dulles

Co‑author of the report, recruited by Jackson, and his successor. The man who gets the CIA's name in the history books.

The shadow

Frank Wisner

Fellow Carter, Ledyard & Milburn lawyer turned head of covert action, running operations the Agency's own leadership struggles to see.

The patron

John Hay “Jock” Whitney

Old money, new money, Gone with the Wind money. Hands Jackson the keys to J.H. Whitney & Co.

The commanders in chief

Truman & Eisenhower

One tried to give him the Agency. The other gave him a seat at the National Security Council.

Section 04 / The film

Tone, themes, working titles

A period film that doesn't feel like a museum. Patriotism with a bad taste in its mouth. The sinking feeling of watching good men build a machine they will not be able to steer. Dialogue that moves like a fist fight, images that stay quiet.

OppenheimerJFKThe Social NetworkWatchmen (2009) opening titlesSuccessionChinatownSaving Private RyanOperation Mincemeat

Trust and betrayal

Allies who spy on allies. Friends who become rivals. A report that ends a career. Every handshake has a file behind it.

The man alone

Jackson is the decent one, and decency isolates him. He is present at the birth of the secret state and never fully at home in it.

The machine

Wall Street money, wartime power and Cold War fear fuse into something new. The film watches it assemble, part by part, through the eyes of one of its engineers.

Home

Belle Meade, the horses, the family name. A Southern past he leaves behind and carries everywhere, all the way to a hacienda in the desert.

Working titles under review
  1. 01Good‑Bye, Lord, I'm Going to New YorkSource title
  2. 02DeputyCandidate
  3. 03Senior ConsultantCandidate
  4. 04Belle MeadeCandidate
  5. 05The Man in the RoomCandidate
Section 04A / Format

One film, or a season

Jackson's life covers two world wars, the birth of the CIA and four presidents. The story can be told two ways. Both are on the table.

Option A

Feature film

120 minutes · 1941 to 1951

Opens on the December 8 phone call and closes on the day Jackson hands his chair to Allen Dulles. Ten years, from volunteer to deputy director. Belle Meade lives in flashback. Tucson, 1971, is the frame: an old man at a desk, remembering.

Option B

Limited series

8 episodes · 1901 to 1971

  1. The Call. December 1941. Belle Meade in flashback.
  2. Biscay. Washington, Stimson, the U‑boat war.
  3. The Phantom Army. London, Operation Bodyguard, Bletchley Park.
  4. Ardennes. Bradley, ULTRA and the Battle of the Bulge.
  5. The Survey. 1945 to 1949. Building, then dismantling, the CIA.
  6. Deputy. 1950 to 1951. Smith, Wisner, Dulles, Korea.
  7. Psychological Warfare. Eisenhower, Geneva, Suez and Hungary.
  8. Tucson. 1971. What was it for.
Section 04B / Pages

Cold open: Monday, December 8th

GOODBYE, LORD — I'M GOING TO NEW YORK

Written by Jacob Webb & Vic Currier

Based on the book by Vic Currier

FADE IN:

INT. CARTER, LEDYARD & MILBURN — JACKSON'S OFFICE — MORNING

Monday. December 8th, 1941. 8:14 A.M.

New York hasn't panicked yet. That comes later.

Forty-third floor. Shelves of case law, not art. A Dictaphone on the credenza. On the radiator, yesterday's Herald Tribune — JAPANESE ENVOYS SEE HULL — already embarrassingly wrong. Through wide picture windows, the canyon of Wall Street moves below like nothing has happened, because for most of them, nothing yet has.

The Dow opened down six points at the bell.

WILLIAM "BILL" HARDING JACKSON, 41, stands at the glass.

Princeton '22. Partner at one of the oldest white-shoe firms in lower Manhattan. President of the board at New York Hospital. He has a paperweight on his desk — heavy glass, octagonal — that he moves an inch to the left without looking at it. Then moves it back.

On his desk: The New York Times.

BANNER HEADLINE: JAPAN WARS ON U.S. AND BRITAIN.

He's already read it. Twice.

The phone rings.

He doesn't move immediately. One beat. Two. Then he crosses, picks up.

JACKSON

Jackson.

INTERCUT — INT. HITCHCOCK'S OFFICE — DOWNTOWN MANHATTAN — CONTINUOUS

TOMMY HITCHCOCK JR., 42. CEO of North American Aviation's Eastern operation. Ten-goal polo handicap — the highest rating in the sport, shared by maybe five men alive. Lost two fingers over Coblenz in 1918, escaped a German prison camp on foot, and still gets described in the society pages as "dashing" like that's the interesting part.

His Times is already folded. His mind is somewhere else. Somewhere faster.

TOMMY

You've seen the papers.

JACKSON

I have.

TOMMY

And?

JACKSON

Twenty-four hundred men are dead at Pearl Harbor and the President goes to Congress at twelve-thirty.

TOMMY

Right. And then—

JACKSON

And then we're going to hell in a handbasket, Tommy.

TOMMY

Right, exactly, yes—

Beat. Tommy stops himself.

TOMMY (CONT'D)

I know people in the War Department. Marshall's staff — the real kind, not the ribbon-counter variety. I'll get us a meeting. We fly down tomorrow, sit down with them, see where fellas like us fit.

Jackson says nothing. He moves the paperweight again. Doesn't notice he's doing it.

TOMMY (CONT'D)

The new pursuit ships — the P-38, the P-47 — army fighters doing four hundred miles an hour at altitude. It's… it's something else entirely, Bill. Not like the Nieuports we read about.

JACKSON

We're forty-one years old.

TOMMY

Forty-two. And that's precisely my point. We're half-cadavers for crissakes. Pair of old bulls put out to pasture on Long Island while the whole damn world catches fire.

JACKSON

Speak for yourself. I happen to enjoy my pasture.

TOMMY

You enjoy your briefs, Bill. There's a difference.

Beat.

JACKSON

Some of us didn't marry into the Mellon fortune and need to actually work for a living.

TOMMY

(laughing)

Oh that's — that's very good. Peg's gonna love hearing that one.

JACKSON

I mean it. Some of us have billable hours.

TOMMY

Some of us are billing dead men, is what some of us are doing. Bill. Come on. I need real action. Don't make me go alone.

Pause. Something shifts.

TOMMY (CONT'D)

Our families. I know. The practice, the board — I've already turned it over. Same as you're doing right now. There's no clean answer to any of it.

JACKSON

Dorothy's going to have my head on the Waterford crystal before we figure out which ocean we'll be drowning in.

TOMMY

Listen — it's a convahsation. A flight to Washington, a meetin', a flight home. Dat's awl I'm askin'.

He drops the accent. Then, slightly too grand:

TOMMY (CONT'D)

It'll be like playing a championship match on the main field, Bill.

Tommy blinks. Then — quietly, into the receiver — whistles the opening bars of Dixie.

JACKSON

Tell me Tommy, did you ever make love to any of your polo horses.

Beat.

TOMMY

(without missing a beat)

Only the winners.

Jackson lets out a single short laugh. Can't help it. Then — almost to himself:

JACKSON

God help us.

Beat.

JACKSON (CONT'D)

What time.

TOMMY

Seven-fifteen out of LaGuardia. Eastern Air Lines. I'll ring you at five.

JACKSON

And if this meeting turns into something more than a conversation—

TOMMY

Then I'd rather be dead over the Channel than stuck in this office.

Beat.

JACKSON

I'll drink to that.

Beat.

JACKSON

Dottie is genuinely going to asphyxiate you.

Tommy smiles. Opens his mouth.

JACKSON (CONT'D)

Shut it.

Beat.

TOMMY

Pack light, Perry Mason.

Click.

INT. JACKSON'S OFFICE — CONTINUOUS

Jackson sets the receiver down.

Stands there.

Down the hall a typewriter starts up. Monday morning at Carter, Ledyard & Milburn.

He picks up the Times. Looks at the photograph — the USS Arizona's forward magazine going up in a column of smoke eight hundred feet high, Battleship Row turned into a salvage yard in ninety minutes. He sets the paper back on the desk.

Then picks it up again. Sets it down again.

He doesn't move his hands much when he talks. He never really has.

He crosses to the desk. Presses the intercom.

JACKSON

Marge-y. Clear my Wednesday. And would you kindly get me on the seven-fifteen to Washington tomorrow morning.

A pause on the other end.

MARGARET (O.S.)

Eastern or American, Mr. Jackson?

JACKSON

Eastern.

Jackson releases the intercom.

Opens his brief. Picks up his pen.

SMASH CUT TO BLACK.

MONTAGE — IMAGES, NO SOUND:

A polo mallet. Clean. Unused.

A P-51 Mustang on a wet English runway.

A telegram. Folded once.

Belle Meade Plantation at dusk. Still as a painting.

Two boys on Long Island. Laughing at something.

A glass of bourbon. Half finished.

Bletchley Park in winter fog.

A telephone receiver. Off the hook.

A folded flag. Triangle. White gloves.

A horse alone in a field. Not moving.

Dorothy's face. One frame. Maybe less.

Jackson's pen moving across the brief.

Still working.

END MONTAGE.

Silence.

Then — distant. The whine of a fighter engine climbing.

Louder.

Gone.

MUSIC IN — low, patient, unresolved.

TITLE CARD:

GOODBYE, LORD — I'M GOING TO NEW YORK

FADE OUT.

Sample pages · Written by Jacob Webb & Vic Currier · April 2026

Section 05 / Last known address

Tucson, Arizona

32.2226° N · 110.9747° W

Jackson spent his last years in Tucson, in a hacienda filled with furniture and keepsakes carried west from Belle Meade. He died there on September 28, 1971.

The story comes home to the desert twice. Vic Currier, who wrote the book, was born in Tucson and met Jackson. And the production is being developed here, where the old Southern estate and the new American West sit in the same room.

Adobe room with a Tennessee mahogany sideboard and a framed racehorse painting, saguaro outside the window
Plate VI · The hacienda, Tucson, 1971. Illustration.

Int. Jackson hacienda, Tucson. Late afternoon, 1971.

Adobe walls. A Tennessee sideboard that has no business being in Arizona. A framed photograph of a racehorse, long dead.

An old man at a desk. Still working.

Section 06 / Source material

The book

Good‑bye, Lord, I'm Going to New York The secret life of Belle Meade's William Harding Jackson Vic Currier

Vic Currier's biography follows Jackson from five generations of Belle Meade history through Wall Street, the Battle of the Atlantic, ULTRA and the OSS, to the founding of the CIA and the Eisenhower White House. It is the foundation of this film.

654Pages
28Chapters
2015Published
3Parts
  • Part IEarly Years, 1901 to 1941. Belle Meade, New England, the Crash, Carter, Ledyard & Milburn.
  • Part IIBattle of the Atlantic, 1942 to 1943. Coastal Command, London, the Bay of Biscay decision.
  • Part IIIThe intelligence community, 1940 to 1945. Enigma, the OSS, the Ardennes, Hitler's gold, and the call from Washington.
Vic Currier at a radio studio microphone
Exhibit B · The author, on air

About the author. Born in Tucson. U.S. Air Force veteran, served at Cam Ranh Bay during the 1969 Tet Offensive. Later worked in banking and lending, taught finance at Eastern New Mexico University, and raised thoroughbreds in New Mexico. Hosted the radio program Legacy Watch Veterans Hour.

ReadThe book, ebook edition ArchiveWilliam Harding Jackson Papers, Georgetown University ReferencePublic biography and service record
Section 07 / Contact

For producers, financiers and the family

Development

Jacob Webb

Tucson, Arizona

(520) 238‑1578

webbmedia713@gmail.com

Author

Vic Currier

Rights inquiries regarding Good‑bye, Lord, I'm Going to New York go through development.