Sam Flagg

MASH character


bgcolor=#c00
fgcolor=#000
rank=Captain/Lieutenant Colonel/Colonel
all may be covers
name=Sam Flagg (presumably)
first_name=Sam
last_name=Flagg
gender=Male
hair=Dark Brown
eyes=Blue
home=Unknown
film=None
tv=Edward Winter
español=Carlos Hugo Hidalgo
first="A Smattering of Intelligence"(possibly "Deal Me Out"
last="Trials" ("AfterMASH")

Colonel Samuel Flagg is a fictional character on the television series "M*A*S*H", played by actor Edward Winter.

Character history

Col. Flagg is an American intelligence agent. His behavior is rather paranoid and irrational, and he appears to the staff of the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital to be mentally unstable; the fact that he deliberately seriously injures himself to advance an investigation seems proof of that. At one point, he tries to get into Counter Intelligence Corps headquarters by crashing his jeep into a brick wall and setting himself on fire. Another time, to get into the 4077th, he ordered a helicopter pilot to crash and then twice broke his own arm. [Episode 48/Season 2] He alternatively claims to be affiliated with either with the CIA, the CIC, or the CID, depending on with whom he is dealing, occasionally all at once. Example: "I'm with the CIA, but I tell people I'm with the CIC, so they think I'm with the CID." Majors Frank Burns and Margaret Houlihan, strong anti-Communists, follow his assignments with great interest, but are unable to "buddy up" to him as they hope.

His paranoia is so fanatical that Flagg even accuses Major Burns twice of being a communist agent on the grounds that Burns has seen a performance of the Bolshoi Ballet in Tokyo and is reading "Reader's Digest", which Flagg notes would be "Red's Digest" if the 3rd, 5th, and 6th letters were eliminated.

Flagg uses multiple aliases, including "Captain Goldberg" (a Jewish chaplain with horn-rimmed glasses) and others. One of his codenames is "Queen Victoria".) At the conclusion of his second appearance, a rival intelligence officer asks him, "Buy you a cup of coffee, Sam?", revealing his first name. However, his disguises are so obvious that people generally see through them immediately. Once, he shows up as an unusually tall Chinese double agent ("The Abduction of Margaret Houlihan") and Radar O'Reilly casually greets him by rank and name. When pressed, Radar's hasty explanation is that since Flagg looks nothing like himself, it has to be him, as only Flagg has that skill.

Flagg uses his position to intimidate the first 4077th commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake. When Colonel Potter replaced Blake, Potter makes a point of standing up to Flagg, telling him coldly, "I'm not fond of personal abuse, Flagg. I was in this man's Army when the only thumb you cared about was the one in your mouth!" Army psychiatrist Major Sidney Freedman also refuses to cave in to Flagg's intimidation, "I'd like to help you, but with your schizophrenia, I'd have to charge you double rates." Freedman, along with Captains Hawkeye Pierce, Trapper John McIntyre, and later B.J. Hunnicutt, are high on Flagg's list of suspects as "unpatriotic" Communist sympathizers or subversives, but always outwit him, if Flagg is not busy outwitting (or harming) himself.

Flagg's "trademark" is to ensure that no one sees him leave when he has finished a job. ("I have no home, I am the wind.") Keeping up that image backfires at least once when he orders all of the others in the room to close their eyes as he exits by leaping through the window in Col. Potter's office. (When the others open their eyes after hearing a yelp of pain, Hawkeye investigates and dryly notes, "The 'wind' just broke his leg.")

Flagg makes a serious mistake when he tries to manipulate Major Winchester into spying on Captain Pierce who has put the welfare of a Communist soldier over the other patients on the basis of the seriousness of his injuries, which leads Flagg to accuse Pierce again of being a Communist sympathizer. Winchester, who is of better character than Flagg suspects, instead dupes him into thinking a camp bridge game (which includes the mayor of Uijongbu and his brother, the city's chief of police, as guest players), is a meeting of conspirators, which Flagg then attempts to raid. Even after learning that Winchester has set up the whole thing, the two angry Korean officials vow to use their influence with U.N./U.S. military leadership to ensure that Flagg is punished; their apparent success is evidenced by Flagg's absence for the remainder of the series.

Flagg resurfaces a few years after the war, in a Hannibal, Missouri courtroom (on the short-lived spinoff "AfterMASH"), in which he uses the name Flagg and asserts employment with the Central Intelligence Agency.

Rank

Edward Winter's first appearance on "M*A*S*H" is in the second season episode, "Deal Me Out", in which he claims to be a CID captain named Halloran, and is listed in the credits as such. In the fourth season episode "Quo Vadis, Captain Chandler?" - the next episode in which both Flagg and Sidney Freeman appear - Flagg and Halloran are revealed to have been the same man. Flagg greets Sidney Freedman with the statement "We played poker once," to which Sidney replies, "Oh sure; with Intelligence, right?"

During the remainder of Flagg's visits in seasons two and three (1973-75), he wears the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Thereafter, for the rest of the series (1975-83), he wears that of Colonel. In both cases, his displayed rank matches the rank of the 4077th M.A.S.H.'s incumbent commanding officer: Lieutenant Colonel Henry Blake, and later Colonel Sherman Potter.

Given Flagg's extensive list of aliases, all of these ranks may be assumed "cover" ranks. Real-world operational agents of both the CIC and CID are typically noncommissioned officers and warrant officers. If Flagg is a CIA officer as he also claims, he would presumably be in civilian status; although, even then, he might be retired military of any conceivable rank (given his remark about his long intelligence career). His actual rank, agency and name were never difinitively answered by the writers.

ervice

In one episode Flagg remarks he has been in Intelligence for twenty years.

He was a showgirl at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas for six weeks.

After the Korean War, he is employed by the Central Intelligence agency, according to his statement on "AfterMASH".

Quotes

"Nobody can get the truth out of me because even I don't know what it is. I keep myself in a constant state of utter confusion."

"I was a show girl for six weeks."

"After tonight, every kid in America will wish he were me!"

"I've trained myself not to laugh or smile. I watched a hundred hours of the Three Stooges; every time I felt like smiling or laughing, I jabbed myself in the stomach with a cattle prod."

"Let's talk about your camp, colonel. And don't play dumb, you're not as good at it as I am!"

("When an MP says that Colonel Flagg made "a little mistake")
"I don't make little mistakes!"

("After reading Frank Burns's file")
"I don't know what game you're playing but I have enough pictures of your file to have you executed for the rest of your life!"

("When Father Mulcahy says that he will leave to let Colonel Flagg talk to Colonel Potter")
"Freeze, Mr. Vatican! Nobody moves until I do, and I never do!"

("When Frank Burns tried to buddy up to Flagg by slapping him on the shoulder")
"My father touched me like that once. To this day, he still has to wear orthopedic shirts."

("confronting Sidney Freedman")
"You think you're real smart. But you're not smart; you're dumb. Very dumb. But you've met your match in me."

("After Hawkeye treats a wounded North Korean soldier before operating on an American one")
"You took a yellow Red before a White American, and that's pretty pinko!"

("To Radar")
"Shut up, you, or I'll use you to clean a cannon!"

("After Hawkeye jokingly suggests using nuclear weapons in a search for the missing Major Houlihan")
"Don't try to make friends with me."

("After Frank says, "You’re crazy, buddy!")
"You call me that again, friend, I’ll reach into your throat and pull your heart out."

("Holding up his index finger to Major Winchester")
"Do you believe I can break your leg with this finger?"
("Winchester replied after a moment, "Strangely enough, I do." Flagg then replies "Smart boy".")

("After Frank shows delight in Flagg's plan."')
"You interrupt me one more time, I'll drop a grenade down your shorts."
("After Frank starts to tell Flagg his orders by saying," "But my orders are...")
("Flagg stated," "The C.I.A. can supersede anyone's orders.")
("Frank responded," "Except the president, of course.")
("And Flagg replied," "Give us time!")

("Corporal, have you ever heard of the Malaysian Chest Implosion Torture?"
(Radar)"No, sir."
(Flagg) "Good, because there's no such thing. "Yet".")

("I have nothing to do with intelligence." (when asked by Dr. Freedman if he was with Intelligence))

Characteristics & appearances

*Flagg scared Blake when Flagg told how Blake could be killed by booby traps if Blake did not cooperate with Flagg. Flagg threatened Major Winchester by cutting off Winchester's family money. Flagg also scared Major Burns and Radar O'Reilly.
*On one occasion, however, even Radar stood up to Flagg, who had unaccountably wandered into post-op, where he decided to get what he wanted by pinching an I.V. tube leading whole blood into a wounded North Korean soldier's arm. Radar was aghast and croaked, "I don't care who you are — you can't do that to somebody's blood!" Winchester approached, gestured in approval of Radar's reaction, and sarcasticly suggested Flagg try some other trick, such as thumbscrews.
*In last episode he appeared in, Flagg wore a U.S. Army Finance Department insignia on his collar; in 3.23 Flagg wore US Army Infantry Insignia on his collar.
*Actor Edward Winter had previously appeared in the "M*A*S*H" episode "Deal Me Out", as counterintelligence officer Captain Halloran. This character could possibly be Flagg under an alias, based on Flagg's greeting to Sidney Freedman in the 4th season episode "Quo Vadis, Captain Chandler?" where he says "We played poker once." To which, Sidney replies, "Oh sure. With Intelligence, right?"
*After "M*A*S*H", in the premiere of the science fiction TV series "Misfits of Science", in a character switch, Edward Winter played an aide-de-camp who is killed trying to stop an insane general, who was played by Larry Linville.

References