About

Shades of Gray
Prologue
Me and the Sound
Hello Central, Give Me No Man’s Land
John Doe
History of Battle
Time and War
The Soldier
I Didn’t Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier
Art of War
Talks
Warspeak
War and Peace as Social Systems
Disarmament Scenarios
Goodbye Mama (I’m Off to Yokohama)
Facts
Report from Iron Mountain
Epilogue

Around 1980, James Siena was browsing through the book section of his local thrift store,
Challenge Industries in Ithaca, New York, when he came across a very intriguing book.
Published in 1967, it was an authorless book called Report from Iron Mountain on the
Possibility and Desirability of Peace, purported to be the leaked findings of a secret
government panel tasked with weighing the economic and political feasibility of lasting
peace. James bought the book and quickly read it to find out their conclusion: the panel
decided that peace was inadvisable if economic prosperity and political stability were to be
maintained.

In our view, careful preparation for the possibility of peace should be extended, not
because we take the position that the end of war would necessarily be desirable, if it is
in fact possible, but because it may be thrust upon us in some form whether we are
ready for it or not. Planning for rationalizing and quantifying the war system, on the other
hand, to ensure the effectiveness of its major stabilizing functions, is not only more
promising in respect to anticipated results, but is essential; we can no longer take for
granted that it will continue to serve our purposes well merely because it always has.
The objective of government policy in regard to war and peace, in this period of
uncertainty, must be to preserve maximum options.

James found the book engaging and thought-provoking but he was not completely
convinced as to its authenticity. Could such a heartless, calculating proposition actually be
the work of the federal government, or was this book a work of fiction in disguise?

For the two years that James was at the impressionable ages of 11 and 12, his father, James
V. Siena, worked at the Pentagon as Deputy Under Secretary of the Army for International
Affairs. Although, of course, James could not know the details of his father’s highly classified
work there, he developed a deep fascination with the inner workings of the military industrial
complex and the phenomenon of war.

The elder James Siena later served in the Defense Department throughout President Carter’s
administration while his son was attending Cornell University. One evening not long before
James discovered Report from Iron Mountain, he had just returned from Europe so he and his
father toasted his return with a couple of drinks. As the alcohol took effect, the elder Siena
grew visibly upset. He was nearing the end of his tenure in the Defense Department, and he
told his son confidentially that there was a good probability that the United States would
engage in a nuclear war with the Soviet Union in the foreseeable future. James recalls that
Mr. Siena divulged, “Civilization will be set back 500 to 1,000 years.” That phrase stuck with
James and haunted him. It was a glimpse into the unseen world his father inhabited, where
well-meaning men nevertheless made cold, deliberate decisions affecting the lives of
billions of ordinary people.

This conversation with his father only added to James’ obsession with, and continuing
research into, the subject of war – nuclear war in particular. At the dawn of the 1980s, James
was not alone in his willingness to “think the unthinkable,” in the words of nuclear theorist
Herman Kahn. Fear of nuclear war was a preoccupation of the culture at the time, and this
anxiety only escalated after the inauguration of Ronald Reagan. In 1982, James, who had
remained in Ithaca after graduating from Cornell, came to New York City with an artists’
group called Dinosaur to participate in an enormous anti-nuclear march and to present a
performance art “fashion show” called Fallout Fashions at a gallery in Tribeca. As a result of
this performance, he met recently transplanted Californian Iris Rose and, after moving in with
her, he introduced her to the book The Fate of the Earth by Jonathan Schell. This book
describing the projected effects of a nuclear warhead on New York City later inspired her
1986 show The End of the World, for which James provided the music.

In New York, James found a paperback edition of Report from Iron Mountain that contained
an introduction by Leonard C. Lewin, and he became even more persuaded that the book
was an extremely clever and convincing satire, especially since Lewin was credited on the
back cover as the editor of A Treasury of American Political Humor.
Report from Iron Mountain paperback

After more than four years performing with Iris and the other members of Watchface, James
decided in 1987 to create a solo piece and use Report from Iron Mountain as its primary
source material. At that time, the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union
was still very much in effect. Ronald Reagan’s famous speech that included the immortal
line “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” occurred in June 1987; it would be more than two
years before the wall actually came down and another two before the Soviet Union was
dissolved.

James decided to get in touch with Leonard Lewin to talk about the book and let him know
about his plans for the performance, which was scheduled for October at PS 122. Lewin was
flattered by James’ avid interest in and knowledge of the book and agreed to meet at the
Waverly Diner in Greenwich Village. Although James had his doubts, he couldn’t swear that
the book was a fake until he met Leonard Lewin and had his suspicions confirmed. Lewin
recounted to James his favorite anecdote: it was reported to him that President Lyndon
Johnson walked into the office of his Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, Walt
Rostow, and threw the book on his desk. “Is this ours?” he asked. Even LBJ couldn’t be sure.
Lewin told James he considered the book an act of guerrilla disinformation.

After meeting Lewin, James was even more enthusiastic about spreading awareness of
Report from Iron Mountain. He was also eager to create a show that would take a more
nuanced look at war than the usual broad parodies typical of the political theater genre.

James, who was later a serious collector of antique and unusual typewriters, wrote the script
on his first electronic, self-correcting typewriter; his love of typewriters also showed in his
graphics for the show.

Five sections of the show came directly from Report from Iron Mountain, covering what
James considered the essential points: Leonard Lewin’s introduction; John Doe’s statement of
his reasons for leaking the report; an explanation of war and peace as social systems;
scenarios for disarmament; the panel’s conclusions; and their recommendations. In
performance, James read these out of a binder, seated in an office chair at a table lit by two
desk lamps. For the John Doe section, in which he introduced the man who “leaked” the Iron
Mountain report, he spoke through a stocking pulled down tight over his head to protect his
anonymity.

Other sections were based on additional classic books about war. The section History of
Battle condensed the central idea of John Keegan’s The Face of Battle, which describes
three iconic battles – Agincourt (memorialized in Shakespeare’s Henry V), Waterloo, and
World War I’s The Marne – from the point of view of a typical soldier. The book was one of
James’ favorites and a gift from his father. Another section, Art of War, was inspired by Sun
Tzu’s classic from 513 BC that has provided strategic and tactical inspiration for millennia to
generals and, more recently, coaches and business executives.

James also included a section on the language used by the military, Warspeak, including
the euphemistic words and phrases that are intended to obscure the horror of what they are
describing. The section Facts related up-to-the-moment data about the defense budget,
weapons, and casualties. It ended with a subsection drawn from periodicals like Soldier of
Fortune and trade magazines for arms merchants. James was amazed to find that these
periodicals contained advertisements for landmines, which he included in the script.

James’ costume, which he borrowed from fellow Watchface member Kurt Fulton, was a shirt
and pants designed by James and Iris’ former roommate Gary Cathey. They were made of
gray polished cotton with subtle white lines, the stripes running vertically on the pants and
horizontally on the shirt. James thought they suggested a uniform without representing any
one specifically.

Although there was no set other than his table, chair, and lamps, the lighting was quite
varied and changed with each section. Though the sections drawn from Report from Iron
Mountain were generally lit by the desk lamps, they were sometimes supplemented by
colored lights to give the scene a different tone. A section called The Soldier, about war
from the point of view of individuals representing different categories of participants, gave
each of them his own color of light. lighting plot

Though most of the sections were spoken, three were old songs associated with specific
wars, which James sang a cappella with a bit of minimal choreography. The first two James
had found on an album of songs from the World War I era called Praise the Lord and Pass the
Ammunition. The first, “Hello Central, Give Me No Man’s Land,” was made popular by Al
Jolson. Despite being popularized by a grown man, the lyrics are from the point of view of a
small child.

When the gray shadows creep, and the world is asleep
In the still of the night, baby creeps down a flight
First she looks all around, without making a sound
Then baby toddles up to the telephone
And whispers in a baby tone
Hello Central, give me no man’s land
My Daddy’s there, my Mama told me
She tiptoed off to bed, after my prayers were said
Don’t ring when you get my number, or you’ll disturb Mama’s slumber
I’m afraid to stand here at the phone, ‘cause I’m alone,
So won’t you hurry
I want to know why Mama starts to weep, when I say,
“Now I lay me down to sleep”
Hello Central, give me no man’s land

James sang the song wearing a baby bonnet and holding a giant telephone receiver.

The second of the songs from Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition was a popular tune
from 1915, before the war, as America was still debating whether to join forces with the British
and the French. The plaintive “I Didn’t Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier,” for which James wore
an apron, was one of the first antiwar songs ever written and was also used by feminists to
rally support for women’s suffrage. It included the chorus:

I didn’t raise my boy to be a soldier
I brought him up to be my pride and joy
Who dares to place a musket on his shoulder
To shoot some other mother’s darling boy?
Let nations arbitrate their future troubles
It’s time to lay the sword and gun away
There’d be no war today
If mothers all would say
“I didn’t raise my boy to be a soldier”

“Goodbye Mama (I’m Off to Yokohama)” was a complete change of tone, a jaunty, racially
insensitive piece of early World War II propaganda to rally the troops:

Goodbye Mama
I’m off to Yokohama
For the red, white, and blue
My country and you
Goodbye Mama
I’m off to Yokohama
Just to teach all those Japs
The Yanks are no saps
A million fightin’ sons-of-Uncle Sam, if you please
Will soon have all those Japs right down on their Japa-knees
So goodbye Mama
I’m off to Yokohama
For my country, my flag, and you

Shades of Gray was presented in the downstairs space at PS 122 for two weekends in
October 1987. It alternated nights with another one-person show with a minimal set,
Iris’ show Extreme Women, which was made up of portraits of Jayne Mansfield, Ulrike
Meinhof, and Mother Teresa. James’ show played on Fridays at 10 PM and Saturdays at 8 PM,
and Iris’ show played on Saturdays at 10 PM and Sundays at 8 PM, so on Saturdays they could
be seen as a double feature.

Shades of Gray was never performed again. James’ father died just a few months later; they
had never again discussed his father’s harrowing admission. However, as later decades
passed, James often told the story of their conversation, particularly to those too young to
remember the Cold War and its potentially devastating consequences.

Report from Iron Mountain developed a cult that persisted into the internet era, especially
among conspiracy theorists who reject Leonard Lewin’s claim to authorship and believe the
report is authentic. A new paperback edition was printed in 2008.