Wayne faced many threats over the years on his own. Some even at the time he would go overseas to visit the troupes.
Few know the Communist has sent out a KGB hit man to take out Wayne. Obviously not one to let a thing like Communist assassins get him down, Wayne and his scriptwriter Jimmy Grant allegedly abducted the hitmen, took them to the beach, and staged a mock execution. No one knows exactly what happened after that, but Wayne’s friends say the Soviet agents began to work for the FBI from that day on.
But there were other incidents were KGB agents tried to take the actor out on the set of 1953’s Hondo in Mexico. A captured sniper in Vietnam claimed that he was hired by Chairman Mao to take the actor out on a visit to troops there.
Stalin died in 1953. His successor, Nikita Khrushchev, met privately with John Wayne in 1958 and informed him that the order had been rescinded. Wayne told his friends Khrushchev called Stalin’s last years his “mad years” and apologized.
The entire time Wayne knew there was a price on his head, he refused the FBI’s offer of federal protection and didn’t even tell his family. He just moved into a house with a big wall around it. Once word got out, though, Hollywood stuntmen loyal to the Duke began to infiltrate Communist Party cells around the country and expose plots against him.
Wayne never spoke of the incidents publicly.
What also gets left out is Wayne was much older than many realize. Many of his co actors were much younger than he by 1945 he was nearly 40 years old and had a family. Not the prime age the government wants to send anyone into combat.
The other issue is the US government was not keen on big time actors going into combat. The loss of one would be great propaganda to the other side. Many of the actors that served were up and communing at the time.
Let's put it this way. If Lee Marvin who served and was injured in the worst of WW2 was a friend of Wayne's and never had an issue then you should not either.
