The Jump: The Tale of a Lithuanian Boat Jumper is Cold War History Told Firsthand
By Liam Lacey
Rating: B Plus
In November, 1970, little more than a year after Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon for his “giant leap for mankind,” an obscure Soviet sailor, Simonas "Simas" Kudirka, made his own giant leap
A radio operator on a Soviet fish-processing vessel, Kudirka jumped across icy waters off Martha’s Vineyard to the deck of an American Coast Guard ship on close-approach, and into the international spotlight..
Less than 12 hours later, the Americans allowed six Soviet sailors onboard to take Kudirka, wrapped in ropes and a blanket. He was subsequently sentenced to 10 years in a labour camp for treason and, under different circumstances, might never have been heard of again.
Simas Kudirka’s Soviet prison mugshot
But the optics of the U.S. capitulating to Soviet bullying were terrible. And the Lithuanian American community, among others, campaigned hard on Kudirka’s behalf. At a press conference, American President Richard Nixon said a serious error had been made.
Eventually, someone discovered that Kudirka’s mother had lived for a while in the Bronx before returning to Lithuania. The American government decided he had a valid claim to U.S. citizenship. Four years later, under President Gerald Ford’s administration, Kudirka was returned to the U.S., with his wife, mother and four children. The American media celebrated.
In Giedre Zickyte’s documentary The Jump, Kudirka, now a sturdy 90-year-old, first appears on camera taking a dive into a lake in rural Lithuania. And then, sitting in his living room looking at old photos, he begins to relate history.
In archival footage, the film traces the news reports of his leap more than a half-century ago. The two vessels were in proximity because of a fishery summit that was taking place. Before he made the jump, Kudirka sent the Americans a note, tucked into a cigarette package, that began: “My dear comrade. I up down off Russian ship and go with you together.”
PROUDLY SUPPORTS ORIGINAL-CIN
Though the story of Kudirka’s attempted defection has been well-chronicled elsewhere, The Jump (initially Lithuania’s 2020 Oscar feature film submission, later replaced by the Holocaust drama, Isaac) is engaging for several reasons. First, there’s the presence of Kudirka himself, a brash, funny and forceful senior with a flair for drama, telling a story he has obviously told many times before.
Though he doesn’t duplicate the actual leap, he does an energetic re-enactment of his arrival on the deck of the USS Vigilant, which is still in service off the coast of Florida - from his arrival on deck, to the washroom where he was hidden for almost a dozen hours.
Secondly, there is the fascinating examination of the memories and changing faces of other characters who were involved at an emotional point in their lives 50 years ago. We hear from the officers of the Vigilant, including the commander Ralph Eustis, who requested advice up the chain of command and was in tears when he released Kudirka back to the Soviets.
Eustis is, perhaps understandably, still emotional about the event dubbed the Coast Guard’s “Day of Shame” in a subsequent book. After the event, Eustis was given a letter of reprimand and put on shore duty.
We also hear from American activists, once young women now grandmothers, who talk about their efforts and surprisingly successful campaign to get Kudirka sprung. Even Henry Kissinger, now 98, weighs in on the diplomatic back-and-forth that got Kudirka and his family released.
Completing the picture, we even hear from the KGB interrogator assigned to the case, who recalls that Kudirka said his main motive in defecting was to earn some money so he could buy a Grundig tape recorder. Looking over the file, he peers at a mug shot of Kudirka and dryly observes: “He doesn’t look as though I hurt him.”
Finally, it’s fascinating to look back at the confluence of geopolitics and media, which seized on Kudirka’s symbolic leap to freedom as a confirmation of the American Dream. After moving to the United States, Kudirka raised the American flag outside his home every morning. (Kudirka and his wife, who died in 2015, moved back to Lithuania in the early 2000s, where he took to raising the Lithuanian flag instead.)
His story was even packaged as an Emmy-winning movie-of-the-week, The Defection of Simas Kudirka, with Alan Arkin in the lead. Watching it on the television in his living room, Kudirka’s lip trembles slightly with emotion as he watches a reunion scene in which the defector is dropped off in a forest for a tearful reunion with his wife (played by Shirley Knight). As the scene progresses, Kudirka’s expression turns into a smirk: “The style is so American,” he scoffs.
The Jump, directed by Giedre Zickyte is available for home streaming by going to the online ticket sites of the following theatres to purchase online tickets: Cinema du Parc, Montreal (Jan. 14), Sudbury Indie Cinema, Hyland Cinema, London, The Vic (Victoria, BC).