| This dissertation critically examines the television espionage genre of the 1950s and 1960s in relation to the industry that produced it and the culture that shaped it. Drawing upon a variety of sources---from network and production company archives to recently declassified federal agency files---the project explores the interconnections between network television programming and the political prerogatives of the US government. I discuss the development and eventual collapse of the television spy program in light of shifting relations between the television industry and the federal government, changes in dominant definitions of citizenship and norms of racial and gender identity, and a shift from domestic post-war "containment" in the 1950s to international "development" during the 1960s. By examining such programs as The Man Called X, I Led 3 Lives, I Spy, Get Smart, The Man From U.N.C.L.E ., and Mission: Impossible in their political, cultural, and industrial contexts, I demonstrate how these shows helped to formulate models of American citizenship during the period. Through such devices as on-screen narrators, official endorsements in the credits, and references to contemporary political events, these programs enabled an expanding television industry to demonstrate its civic responsibility both to audiences and to the federal government. From its earliest incarnations, the American spy drama was about nationalism in more than an abstracted, general sense; these programs offer carefully nuanced meditations on the challenges, possibilities, and limitations of dominant conceptions of US citizenship. |
