John Wayne Once Went Toe-To-Toe With A KGB Hit Squad

The cinema is well-loved by people around the world. However, no one seems to love the movies more than dictators. While they love the storylines, dictators also recognize the power that movies and their messages hold over the masses.

Many dictators have made their own such as Kim Jon-Il and Saddam Hussien, and no one can forget Hilter's movies filled with Nazi propaganda. Joseph Stalin was in awe of the power they held and wanted to use film to spread Communism to the entire world.

Communist Threat

For him, though, a single actor posed a massive threat to his plan, John Wayne. The Duke was a huge voice in the anti-Communism movement, large enough that Stalin felt that he could ruin his mission even all the way in America.

Stalin ordered a hit on the famous actor, sending multiple groups to do the job. However, according to the book John Wayne-The Man Behind The Myth, Wayne was warned that the dictator was awaiting his demise.

Sergei Gerasimov, a Soviet filmmaker, warned him that the KGB was after him in 1949. In true fashion, Wayne was unphased by the news.

Hit Squad

Allegedly, when the KGB came after the actor, he and Jimmy Grant, a scriptwriter, captured them and hauled the KGB operatives down to the beach and faked an execution.

While there is no record of what happened to those KGB agents, rumor has it they went to work for the FBI. But the book says that the hit was not an isolated incident.

In 1953, KGB agents allegedly tried to take Wayne out in Mexico on the set of Hondo. Chairman Mao allegedly tried to take Wayne out too. When a sniper was captured in Vietnam, he said he was sent to take out Wayne.

After Stalin died in 1953, Nikita Krushchev met with Wayne in 1958 and told him there would no longer be any hits. He had rescinded the order.

Wayne never accepted help from the FBI throughout the whole ordeal and never told his family. He relocated to home with a massive wall around it, and that was the end of it. However, stuntmen in Hollywood found out and began to expose various plots against the Duke to keep him safe.