Still from the 1970 film M*A*S*H, showing the disheveled and grungy “pros from Dover” arriving at a military hospital in Japan from front-line duty in Korea carrying golf clubs and a golfing umbrella: Hawkeye (left), played by Donald Sutherland, and Trapper John (right), played by Elliot Gould; two nurses in the background look on incredulously
22 January 2021
The pros from Dover is a phrase that is often used to denote expertise and excellence. For instance, there is this describing U.S. President George W. Bush’s national-security team from the January/February 2004 issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists:
Next to the vice president, the person closest to the Oval Office is the national security advisor. For George Bush this is Condoleezza Rice. Like Cheney—like a number of the pros from Dover—Rice is no stranger to the issues, or even to the national security staff.
Or there is a 6 August 2019 post to the social media site LinkedIn about a firm that installs gymnasium and sports flooring titled “The Pros From Dover.”
Many of those who use the phrase recognize that it comes from the 1970 Robert Altman film M*A*S*H, but they are unaware that its use in the movie is in a completely different sense, that of a con man who is using false credentials, pretty much exactly the opposite of what those using the phrase intend.
The phrase first appears in 1968 book M*A*S*H by Richard Hooker, about army surgeons during the Korean War. In the book, the character Hawkeye is described as using the guise of being the pro from Dover to obtain free entrance to golf courses:
[Hawkeye] would walk confidently into a pro shop, smile, comment upon the nice condition of the course, explain that he was just passing through and that he was Joe, Dave or Jack Somebody, the pro from Dover. This resulted, about eight times out of ten, in an invitation to play for free. If forced into conversation, he became the pro from Dover, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New Jersey, England, Ohio, Delaware, Tennessee, or Dover-Foxcroft, Maine, whichever seemed safest.
Later in the book, Hawkeye and fellow surgeon Trapper John are called from Korea to Tokyo to perform surgery on a congressman’s son. The two surgeons recognize the work could be done by any competent surgeon, no special expertise required, and decide to do the operation quickly so they can go golfing. The following exchange takes place:
“All right,” Trapper said. “Somebody trot out the latest pictures of this kid with the shell fragment in his chest.”
No one moved.
“Snap it up!” yelled Hawkeye. “We’re the pros from Dover, and the last pictures we saw must be forty-eight hours old by now.”
This latter exchange is repeated in the 1970 movie, but the earlier explanation for the term pros from Dover that is in the novel is not present in the film’s script. People who had seen the movie, but not read the book, started using the phrase to mean experts without understanding that Hawkeye was using the term facetiously, referring to an old con he used to run.
Sources:
Altman, Robert, dir. M*A*S*H, Richard Hooker (novel) and Ring Lardner, Jr. (screenplay), writers, 20th Century Fox, 1970.
Dougherty, Robert. “The Pros from Dover.” LinkedIn, 6 August 2019.
Hooker, Richard (pen name of Hiester Richard Hornberger, Jr.). M*A*S*H. New York: William Morrow, 1968.
Prados, John. “The Pros from Dover.” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 60.1, January/February 2004, 46.
Photo credit: Altman, Robert, dir. M*A*S*H, Richard Hooker (novel) and Ring Lardner, Jr. (screenplay), writers, 20th Century Fox, 1970. Fair use of a low-resolution still from the film to illustrate the topic under discussion.