Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Noah.
Speaker 3: They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
Speaker 3: super producer Andrew the try Force Howard. Most importantly, you
Speaker 3: are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
Speaker 3: they don't want you to know. It's that time again,
Speaker 3: friends and neighbors, fellow conspiracy realists. We are exploring one
Speaker 3: of the largest subjects in all of US conspiracy lore,
Speaker 3: the Central Intelligence Agency or the CIA. And let's be honest, guys,
Speaker 3: they get a lot of guff.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I can't imagine what kind of issues people
Speaker 4: might have with the Central Intelligence Agency or a CIA.
Speaker 2: Well, I yeah, I think a lot of it has
Speaker 2: to do with how how much they employ trickery, right,
Speaker 2: that idea of the CIA being so deceptive, which is
Speaker 2: at the heart of this episode.
Speaker 3: That's right, yeah, which may end up being a two
Speaker 3: part episode a series, because we're diving into some deep water. Historically,
Speaker 3: it is true the agency as it's sometimes called this
Speaker 3: organization has met with a great deal of controversy over
Speaker 3: the decades, But tonight we're exploring a story many people
Speaker 3: may have missed. It's a bizarre and very true conspiracy.
Speaker 3: I don't know. Catch up on our episodes on mk Ultra.
Speaker 3: Catch up on the numerous times we roast the CIA
Speaker 3: a little bit for their weird, cartoonish acme level plans
Speaker 3: to kill Castro. And then after you do that, come
Speaker 3: back here exploding cigar piping in LSD to a studio.
Speaker 3: It's wild. Let's pause for a word from our sponsors,
Speaker 3: and then maybe we begin by learning more about the history,
Speaker 3: the fact and fiction surrounding Uncle Sam's most powerful known
Speaker 3: intelligence agency. And there's a lot of fact and fiction there.
Speaker 3: Here are the facts. All right, let's set this sage.
Speaker 5: Just give me some fiction thrown in for good measure, right.
Speaker 3: Oh, there has to be, Yeah, because a lot of
Speaker 3: the sources we're pulling are from the CIA itself. So yeah,
Speaker 3: maybe not an unbiased reporter, maybe a little bit of
Speaker 3: an Well, critics would call it an unreliable narrative, but
Speaker 3: that's that's what makes literature interesting. So where do we
Speaker 3: start when we talk about the CIA, what's our ultimate genesis,
Speaker 3: like our Garden of Eden moment.
Speaker 4: I guess I didn't realize comparatively, you know, as far
Speaker 4: as other agencies are concerned, how relatively recently the CIA
Speaker 4: was created. The United States has always been super invested
Speaker 4: in gathering of intelligence, so much that the CIA's Layson
Speaker 4: Conference Center named three of its meeting rooms after revolutionary
Speaker 4: war heroes. The idea of those early spymasters, right, yeah, oh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, because you need to know what your enemy
Speaker 2: might be doing, and you also sometimes need to let
Speaker 2: your enemy think that you're gonna do something even when
Speaker 2: you're not.
Speaker 4: M h.
Speaker 2: And that goes it. Yeah, that's revolutionary times. That's I
Speaker 2: mean times are the Pharaohs. That's just go all the
Speaker 2: way back, Master.
Speaker 4: Of Whispers and the like and the George or an
Speaker 4: extended universe.
Speaker 3: Love of reference. Yeah, that's varus right. And then also
Speaker 3: we could extend that reasoning further later. There's inevitable mission
Speaker 3: creep in any intelligence operation, and you start to apply
Speaker 3: the same things to people you call allies and friends. Right,
Speaker 3: let me also just trust but verify what my friend, allies,
Speaker 3: my all of friends are saying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, friend and or foes. But I think the difference
Speaker 2: here and why the CIA really stands out for history
Speaker 2: and for you know, these types of organizations, is because
Speaker 2: often that intelligence is dealing in war times, right, and
Speaker 2: so you're you're gathering intelligence to make war, and the
Speaker 2: CIA is really getting into almost prevention of war.
Speaker 4: Well, think about the preprentish is coming you guys. I mean,
Speaker 4: the first of all, they had to know that was happening.
Speaker 4: Then they had to have a clandestine way for Paul
Speaker 4: Revere to let people know, you know, to be prepared
Speaker 4: with the candles in the window and all of that,
Speaker 4: which is a banger Elton JOHNSNG that was not apparently
Speaker 4: originally about Princess Diana.
Speaker 3: And check out also our episodes on Agent three point
Speaker 3: fifty five, who has yet to be identified in the
Speaker 3: modern day, and the culper Ring. If you go like
Speaker 3: you were saying no to the Liaisahl in the center,
Speaker 3: you'll see the CIA has I don't want to maybe
Speaker 3: not deify, but lionized a triumvirate of founding fathers that
Speaker 3: they consider emblematic and pioneers of three key aspects of intelligence.
Speaker 3: We've got, you know, now, it's like.
Speaker 5: A heist film.
Speaker 3: Right where everybody gets their little hero moment at the camera.
Speaker 3: George Washington did a lot of stuff. He's also he's
Speaker 3: also known as a pioneer in the acquisition of foreign intelligence.
Speaker 3: Key one turns out this guy was a cracker jack
Speaker 3: spymaster in addition to all this other stuff, including almost
Speaker 3: being king. But he did not do the cherry tree thing.
Speaker 5: That was more Yeah, well, met or lore.
Speaker 4: Why is it that I'm picturing all of these guys
Speaker 4: like in like street fighter to style versus you know,
Speaker 4: splash screen like it. We've got We've got John Jay
Speaker 4: as well. In addition to George, he would later become
Speaker 4: Chief Justice. He was also considered the founding father of
Speaker 4: US counter intelligence.
Speaker 2: And then we've got Ringo, my favorite.
Speaker 5: My favorite founder, Beetle just trucking.
Speaker 2: It is weird. George John.
Speaker 4: Let's call him by his prophib Christian name, Benjamin Franklin.
Speaker 4: What do we know, was you know, quite the renaissance man.
Speaker 4: And I'm sure with his you know, big brains, figured
Speaker 4: out some very clever ways of gathering intelligence and was
Speaker 4: a great collaborator in a lot of these schemes and.
Speaker 3: A very naughty boy on multiple levels.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but as we're gonna learn throughout these episodes, and
Speaker 2: as I guess as the CIA learned, those types of
Speaker 2: activities where there's a lot of commingling going on, maybe
Speaker 2: a little activity physical mental.
Speaker 3: Where.
Speaker 2: Well, that's where a lot of intelligence can be both
Speaker 2: gathered and you know, given to somebody else quietly. It's
Speaker 2: it's almost it's kind of creepy now that I really
Speaker 2: think about it, because I know that's why he was
Speaker 2: so good, That's why he was so good.
Speaker 4: Well, not to mention flipping that the other way in
Speaker 4: sort of a honeypot operation like a sting operation for entrapping,
Speaker 4: you know, foreign agents, you know, or gathering information clandestinely
Speaker 4: through a little little naughty time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this guy, old old BINGI f he probably didn't
Speaker 3: go by Benji Benny Franks to his friend. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't know why. I don't care for Benny. I
Speaker 3: don't know anyway, it's up to him. It's his name,
Speaker 3: uh Frank.
Speaker 2: Because of the Jets.
Speaker 5: Sorry, then, in fact, are you the Jets?
Speaker 3: Are you serious? Benny and the Jets a banker.
Speaker 2: This conversation, you have issues.
Speaker 4: I think you might be taking it a little personally,
Speaker 4: Ben you.
Speaker 3: Need to realize I'm too close. I got too close.
Speaker 3: Somebody exfiltrate me from the ulti job mission.
Speaker 5: My dear friend day stayed Glass Artist.
Speaker 4: She hates the song It's a Beautiful Day by You
Speaker 4: too because she got teased with that all the time,
Speaker 4: and therefore she thinks she hates the band you two,
Speaker 4: and I've tried to show her like the Joshua Tree
Speaker 4: and turn her off from that way of thinking.
Speaker 5: I understand, Ben.
Speaker 3: Where are you at with the first Noelle? I think
Speaker 3: you at this in the past.
Speaker 4: Okay, okay, this is not I would not be just
Speaker 4: I don't I would be discounting an entire genre or era.
Speaker 4: I'm not a huge fan of Christmas songs in general,
Speaker 4: but the first no Wel, I just don't like you
Speaker 4: when people think that they're the first one that's ever
Speaker 4: thought of that, You know what I mean?
Speaker 3: Hey, I have have you been bowling lately? Holy step
Speaker 3: Aside Shakespeare a new wordsmith in town? Anyway? Regular over here?
Speaker 2: Are you? Fred or Rick?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 3: Oh shit, that's terrible. Sorry, Andrew, thanks for bv B. God.
Speaker 4: Matt, Wow, I'm sorry that happened to you. But Matt,
Speaker 4: now I know who hurt.
Speaker 5: You terrible, that's terrible for he won.
Speaker 3: So so, uh, we all have our burdens to bear.
Speaker 3: Ben Franklin's was he was. He was wearing a lot
Speaker 3: of hats. He's a the old Liberty is known for,
Speaker 3: you know, being saucy and then allegedly being a serial
Speaker 3: killer at some parts of history.
Speaker 5: More likely a resurrection man, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: He's doing some experiments in his creepy basement like you do.
Speaker 4: But he like, like we were saying, though, I mean,
Speaker 4: the dude had smarts and he was very forward thinking,
Speaker 4: very clever, and Ben, like I was saying, I imagine
Speaker 4: that he must have been super useful in the war room, right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he was.
Speaker 3: Actually he was actually more involved in the direct kind
Speaker 3: of wetwork you might call it or covert action, because
Speaker 3: he was masterminding strategizing propaganda operations, influence campaigns, and good
Speaker 3: old fashioned paramilitary ops against the British. These guys, these
Speaker 3: three guys we just named George Washington, Acquisition of Foreign Intel,
Speaker 3: John Jay Founding, father of Intelligence, Benjamin Franklin covert action.
Speaker 3: They had that startup mentality, you know, they were doing
Speaker 3: other stuff. They were wearing a lot of hats, and
Speaker 3: they had to wear a lot of hats at this
Speaker 3: time because the course of the revolution was determined successfully
Speaker 3: by this tendency to exercise and this appetite for unorthodox
Speaker 3: asymmetric strategies. You know, forget Napoleonic warfare lining people up
Speaker 3: in rows. First they didn't have enough resources in terms
Speaker 3: of firepower and ammunition to do that, and then secondly
Speaker 3: they had these This gave them a tremendous advantage. They
Speaker 3: had these new, agile ways of thinking, and the somewhat
Speaker 3: I want to be unfair, but the somewhat tradition bound
Speaker 3: rigor of European enemies couldn't deal with it. They were
Speaker 3: speaking different languages.
Speaker 5: In war.
Speaker 4: Asymmetric just kind of meaning unorthodox or maybe not not
Speaker 4: traditional like battlefield like you said, Ben, like the infantry
Speaker 4: the front lines. This is like wars fought on multiple
Speaker 4: fronts using kind of more secretive means of gathering information
Speaker 4: about your enemy so that you can kind of head
Speaker 4: them off at the past.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the way I think about it is exactly what
Speaker 2: you described it, Ben. Those two If you imagine two
Speaker 2: armies in revolutionary times looking at each other with their muskets,
Speaker 2: and everything just aiming. That is symmetric warfare. Yes, you've
Speaker 2: got two identical, you know, forces that are like, I
Speaker 2: will win, I will win in this way. You got
Speaker 2: some flanking folks right from one of the sides, you
Speaker 2: got somebody that sneaks up from behind, and then it
Speaker 2: just becomes Now it's asymmetrical.
Speaker 5: But it also refers to the information gathering of it
Speaker 5: all too, right.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yes, yeah, yeah, And there were you know,
Speaker 3: of course there were turncoats on, you know, working for
Speaker 3: the British. The game goes both ways. A modern examsample
Speaker 3: of asymmetric warfare, which we've talked about in the past,
Speaker 3: is pretty scary. At some point, multiple countries, especially China,
Speaker 3: looked at the massive US Navy, especially the carriers and
Speaker 3: the battle groups, and they said, all right, we could
Speaker 3: spend billions of dollars trying to make a carrier, or
Speaker 3: we could spend far less money building a missile that
Speaker 3: can definitely just blow up a carrier, and that's what
Speaker 3: they went for. That's asymmetry. It's still a huge deal
Speaker 3: because it works, and you know, we could make an
Speaker 3: entire podcast series about the Revolutionary War and all the
Speaker 3: crazy espionage occurring. Then a lot of people have there's
Speaker 3: no shortage of scholarship on the matter. But in general,
Speaker 3: if in general, in major general and brigadier general, if
Speaker 3: we're talking about the road to modern intelligence are story
Speaker 3: begins with something called the Office of Strategic Services in
Speaker 3: nineteen forty two. Oh man, these guys have popped up
Speaker 3: in previous episodes as well, right, that's right.
Speaker 4: During the Spanish American War, World War One, and other conflicts,
Speaker 4: intelligence gathering was considered a bit more ad hoc. I guess,
Speaker 4: sort of on a case by case basis, right, like,
Speaker 4: sort of as a needed per project.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Like Matt was saying earlier, a lot of this
Speaker 3: would depend upon person to person interactions, right, finding the
Speaker 3: right time to pass the letter, Oh I know you
Speaker 3: from the salon earlier, the viscounts since his regards.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, well, and also intelligence gathering on a specific location, right,
Speaker 2: and then folks who were working in that location because
Speaker 2: it's a strategic target or something like that.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, ad hoc is a really good way to put it.
Speaker 2: I sometimes don't even understand fully what it means. What
Speaker 2: that means, but it's used in a couple of different ways.
Speaker 2: In American English, it.
Speaker 4: Doesn't just kind of mean as needed, like, yes, I
Speaker 4: think that's what presents itself.
Speaker 2: That's how I think about it, but I honestly don't
Speaker 2: know if that's right.
Speaker 3: It's also kind of kind of jazz, like jazz can
Speaker 3: be because it's on the spur of the moment. There's
Speaker 3: a bit of improvisation.
Speaker 5: There's not.
Speaker 3: Ad hoc means that there is not this clearly established,
Speaker 3: ironclad rubric for a procedure.
Speaker 4: So like or an agency that like a centralized you know,
Speaker 4: command structure, right.
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, call those guys. We need some intelligence, right, right, right, Yes,
Speaker 2: it's only.
Speaker 3: Right. So if you, for instance, if you are uh,
Speaker 3: running down a flight of stairs and you stumble and
Speaker 3: you catch yourself, you have done some ad hoc Parker, right,
Speaker 3: So depending on how you stumble. I don't know anyway,
Speaker 3: this like we're saying, this was all again case by case, right,
Speaker 3: No big central, nervous system of espionage and intelligence gathering,
Speaker 3: and a lot of times it depended upon individuals who
Speaker 3: could travel to places. Right, you want to know what's
Speaker 3: going on in Europe, then you have to talk to
Speaker 3: Americans who can travel over there.
Speaker 4: The people who would be able to hide in plain
Speaker 4: sight as well, Yeah, would be seen as being out
Speaker 4: of place.
Speaker 2: Think about how tough that is. Somebody who can gain
Speaker 2: access to an adversary that's high enough to have the
Speaker 2: intelligence you need and also not be on anyone's radar somehow. Right,
Speaker 2: that's a tough.
Speaker 5: We love spy movies so much.
Speaker 4: The snakes are always so damn high, the idea of
Speaker 4: getting your cover blown, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's why. Also, I can't remember it, did
Speaker 3: one of you guys at some point recommend the show
Speaker 3: The Agency.
Speaker 4: Well, there's an original French version that is apparently quite good,
Speaker 4: and there's a new remake with Richard Gear that is
Speaker 4: also apparently quite good. And I have seen neither, but
Speaker 4: I've heard great things about both.
Speaker 3: Okay, Yeah, this bringing this up because a great deal
Speaker 3: of the books in the French series at least, is
Speaker 3: all about the maintenance of a cover or a persona,
Speaker 3: and it's possible psychological effects over the long term.
Speaker 2: Right, nice dude. That's why I like The Recruit so much,
Speaker 2: that show on Netflix. I think it's about a newbie
Speaker 2: getting getting thrown into that world, you know, with the
Speaker 2: like even his job as a cover and then you're
Speaker 2: just like, oh my god, everything just becomes what is
Speaker 2: my life? What is this thing?
Speaker 5: I'll tell you what else is go.
Speaker 4: We're recommending spy type shows, you know, there's been an
Speaker 4: embarrassment of riches of those lately Black Doves, which is
Speaker 4: also I want to say, a Netflix show with that
Speaker 4: guy Ben Wishaw who's also known as the voice of
Speaker 4: Paddington and one of my favorite films of all time.
Speaker 4: It's it's not CI it's British intelligence, but it really
Speaker 4: does tickle out of the boxes as we're talking about.
Speaker 4: And of course Slow Horses, which we've talked about at
Speaker 4: So Good love that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I read, I read, I think the first two books.
Speaker 3: I want to say as well, too good, too good.
Speaker 3: I stopped reading the books because I want to watch
Speaker 3: the show. That's how I learned about it. And now
Speaker 3: I'll watch The Recruit and then I'll watch Black Doves.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and spies everywhere.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, lurking you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're not paranoid folks. So so this idea here,
Speaker 3: this case by case basis, this lack of a centralized authority,
Speaker 3: nervous system, the analogy we used earlier, This all changed
Speaker 3: in World War Two because at the beginning, the United
Speaker 3: States got their ass handed to them in Pearl Harbor.
Speaker 3: You said, ass hand, it's an enormous tragedy. We're not
Speaker 3: trying to be you know, We're being honest. And it
Speaker 3: may sound glib, it may sound flip, but the reality
Speaker 3: is there was a successful Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Speaker 3: It cost thousands of lives and war Nerds, war Nerds
Speaker 3: knew there was precedent for this, didn't they.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And just really quickly, speaking of war Nerds, do
Speaker 4: check out a two part series Ben and I did
Speaker 4: on Ridiculous History. It was almost like about a precursor
Speaker 4: or sort of like an early attempt at the kind
Speaker 4: of warfare that the Japanese would employ during Pearl Harbor.
Speaker 3: Yeah, at that time it was against the Russian Empire
Speaker 3: in the turn of the nineteenth century. This time, it
Speaker 3: was the attack on the Pearl Harbor naval base that
Speaker 3: galvanized the US public to support intervention in World War Two.
Speaker 3: It also launched some pretty serious conspiracy theories that continue
Speaker 3: in the modern day. How much did the US power
Speaker 3: apparatus know about Pearl Harbor or the likelihood of it
Speaker 3: occurring in advance, or did US trade policies push the
Speaker 3: Japanese Empire towards something where from their perspective, Pearl Harbor
Speaker 3: was inevitable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a tough question, and it's something we've explored
Speaker 2: in a bunch of different episodes, like our one on
Speaker 2: the Project for the New American Century and stuff like that,
Speaker 2: where if you have an event and Pearl Harbor is
Speaker 2: used as an example in that specific episode, and that's
Speaker 2: set of circumstances, But if you have an event like that,
Speaker 2: it will spur both the public mind right to want
Speaker 2: a certain thing, but also it will open up dollars
Speaker 2: in budgets to create a thing potentially that you want
Speaker 2: to create even you know, and it doesn't mean that's
Speaker 2: what happens when there's something like that. It just calls
Speaker 2: in to question the motivations perhaps, right.
Speaker 3: One hundred percent. Yeah, well said there too, because that
Speaker 3: shows us the system at play, right, the structural reckonings
Speaker 3: that occur and to the US establishment at large. In
Speaker 3: the wake of Pearl Harbor, while the events of World
Speaker 3: War two are unfolding, everyone in the halls of Power
Speaker 3: DC is looking at each other and say holy smokes,
Speaker 3: if this happens again, it could end the nation.
Speaker 5: Like we.
Speaker 3: Stop so bad. That's essentially what they're saying. I don't
Speaker 3: mean to sound like we're characters on drunk History, which
Speaker 3: is a great show, check it out, but that is
Speaker 3: the like, that's the to your point all about high stakes.
Speaker 3: That's the level of the stakes here. And that's why
Speaker 3: President Roosevelt calls up a very highly decorated veteran of
Speaker 3: World War One, a man named William J. Donovan.
Speaker 2: Oh Billy Donovan, Oh Billy J.
Speaker 5: Billy J.
Speaker 3: Is kind of a cowboy. He's not the soldier you
Speaker 3: take home to your parents, Let's put it that way.
Speaker 3: And he says, all right, Donovan, you're gonna head a
Speaker 3: new organization. It's the first of its kind in the
Speaker 3: United States. We've been kind of ad hoc for a while.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna call it the Coordinator of Information. And then
Speaker 3: apparently all the other generals went, eh, eh.
Speaker 2: Doesn't really have a ring to it. Yeah, I know,
Speaker 2: I know we have to go vague with these things,
Speaker 2: but that's a little too much.
Speaker 3: Right right, And it was like Secretary of Secrets and
Speaker 3: they said no. The abbreviation is S o s that's
Speaker 3: gonna screw up everything.
Speaker 5: No, one don't can use.
Speaker 4: Secretary of secrets. Though it does sound fun. Yeah, I
Speaker 4: like it when you say it out loud like that.
Speaker 4: It's I love the alliteration as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, agree, it's got a how would you say?
Speaker 5: A good feel?
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's also maybe a little too fun. You know,
Speaker 3: how do you introduce yourself and a serious I'm.
Speaker 5: Shouting into a cat right now?
Speaker 2: He really did, he did.
Speaker 3: It's not a figure of speech.
Speaker 4: I've been podcasting from upstairs lately just to kind of know,
Speaker 4: have a little change of scenery in This cat is
Speaker 4: obsessed with me like I never Oh my god, it's like,
Speaker 4: I love this cat.
Speaker 5: I love Vanessa. I love you, but you're making me
Speaker 5: go crazy right now. Sorry, guys, carry on, please.
Speaker 2: Oh send her my way.
Speaker 5: I did she heard you?
Speaker 3: She knows I nominate you Vanessa for our Secretary of Secrets.
Speaker 3: So there we go. It has to be a cat,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean? That's a profile perfect.
Speaker 5: Very cats would be very well suited for spying.
Speaker 4: We have an episode either on this show or Ridiculous
Speaker 4: History about stuff that animals. That's right, Yeah, it was
Speaker 4: exactly it's about animals being employed for these very kinds
Speaker 4: of tasks.
Speaker 2: Much like Ben Franklin cats are always rubbing cheeks with
Speaker 2: everyone there.
Speaker 3: We go, well done, and so Coordinator of Information. It
Speaker 3: just doesn't work as the original as as the ongoing name,
Speaker 3: and so they go with something equally vague. Office of
Speaker 3: Strategic Services or OSS. This is made official. It's June thirteenth,
Speaker 3: nineteen forty two. And here we're going to pause for
Speaker 3: a word from our sponsors. When we return, we'll tell
Speaker 3: you why the OSS is a thing that happened. We're back,
Speaker 3: all right. There's no denying the Office of Strategic Services.
Speaker 3: Just like intelligence in the Revolutionary War, they are absolutely
Speaker 3: instrumental in the Allied victory in World War Two. It's
Speaker 3: actually difficult to list all the ways in which the
Speaker 3: OSS contributed to the war effort because some of it
Speaker 3: is still secret, like some of it died with people.
Speaker 3: We will never know the full extent.
Speaker 2: We do know. Is this the organization that got into
Speaker 2: code breaking and some of that stuff, or is that
Speaker 2: specifically or is that something else.
Speaker 3: That would be you're talking about like Enigma and stuff
Speaker 3: like that, crypto cryptography that would be more. Oh, gosh,
Speaker 3: what was the what was the guy's name, Turing? Yes, yes,
Speaker 3: thank you, Yeah, that would be Yes, the brilliant polymath
Speaker 3: Alan Turing. Oss not as not as involved on the
Speaker 3: cryptography side to the extent that other initiatives were. But
Speaker 3: they had a lot of weird missions and they had
Speaker 3: a lot of fun toys. They they did behind enemy
Speaker 3: line stuff, right. They did a lot of training, surveillance, analysis,
Speaker 3: and what we're called operational groups. Uh, these operational Yeah,
Speaker 3: these operational groups did things like assassination and elimination programs. Uh.
Speaker 3: They they did the wetwork.
Speaker 2: It's a yeah. The CIA says often they were used
Speaker 2: to demoralize the enemy, right, a lot of ops.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, compromising newspapers, spreading fake news, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 4: And the CIA also would probably argue that the OSS,
Speaker 4: in its short lived a very important, you know life,
Speaker 4: was sort of an incubator for the types of operations
Speaker 4: and agents that would go on to make up the
Speaker 4: CIA one hundred.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: The oh, oh dude, they did.
Speaker 2: They did things like creating the Free Time movement, yeah,
Speaker 2: as as an operation, and they got a bunch of
Speaker 2: students involved who had no idea they were working for
Speaker 2: the oss basically high.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, okay, I don't know about this movement.
Speaker 3: They dispatched, Okay, so they they tapped college students who
Speaker 3: were either Thai American or studying in the US from Thailand,
Speaker 3: and they found them wherever they could. It was not
Speaker 3: a big population to choose from from what we understand.
Speaker 3: And then they trained them up and they shipped them
Speaker 3: secretly back to Thailand the submarine. Sometimes they walked over
Speaker 3: the border, and I think they had a few on parachute, right,
Speaker 3: which is a pretty pretty crazy gap year for a
Speaker 3: grad student.
Speaker 2: It's crazy because they're they're using the university students, the
Speaker 2: young minds. They're using the potentially capable fighters with young
Speaker 2: minds that are very malleable to become a resistance force
Speaker 2: against the force of Japanese military might there in Thailand.
Speaker 2: Just it's creepy, smart, and I don't know it just
Speaker 2: it's that yucky feeling of oh, none of this is
Speaker 2: actually what I think it.
Speaker 3: Is, right, Yeah, And we see this later reflected in
Speaker 3: other student movements throughout especially Latin America. But you don't
Speaker 3: have to throw a stone far across the globe to
Speaker 3: find a country or regime that's been touched by something
Speaker 3: like this, and not always from the Yankees. Sometimes it
Speaker 3: occurs from the European side. And of course Soviet forces
Speaker 3: got very good at this in their own way.
Speaker 2: Yeah they did. It makes you really understand why the
Speaker 2: US really cracked down on a bunch of student movements,
Speaker 2: you know, in the nineteen sixties specifically. It really makes
Speaker 2: you understand their paranoia about that because it was their playbook.
Speaker 3: That's the thing. Yeah, it's you know what it's like.
Speaker 3: This may be a deep reference now, but I bet,
Speaker 3: I bet we're all on the same page. It reminds
Speaker 3: me of the Key and Peel sketch about the Albanian
Speaker 3: restaurant and the Macedonian restaurant that are directly across the
Speaker 3: street from each other. One makes kapapi and one makes
Speaker 3: chavapi and they're both. It's super Have you guys seen
Speaker 3: this one.
Speaker 5: I don't think I've seen this one.
Speaker 2: I don't remember it, dude.
Speaker 3: Oh it's legend. It is s here. I'll send it
Speaker 3: to you, but it's without spoiling it too much. The
Speaker 3: owners of these restaurants are essentially creating the same dish,
Speaker 3: and they're super pissed. That the restaurant across the street
Speaker 3: is doing it because it's their thing. And that's exactly
Speaker 3: what happens with student movements in the USS or made
Speaker 3: by the ussr KGB and made by the us CIA.
Speaker 3: It's true or OSS, Yes, oh good note OSS at
Speaker 3: that time. Yes, because we're not adding to the CIA
Speaker 3: just yet. The OSS has, as you were saying, no,
Speaker 3: a very short lifespan. Operationally. They employ they full time
Speaker 3: employ about thirteen thousand people. As in, we're not counting
Speaker 3: the students, we're not counting the assets. We're not counting
Speaker 3: you know, the newspaper printers who didn't know who they
Speaker 3: were taking orders from. The actual facts employees thirteen thousand,
Speaker 3: and they were only The OSS was only really popping
Speaker 3: for about can I say that, all right? Fine, only
Speaker 3: really popping from about nineteen forty two to nineteen forty five,
Speaker 3: three years, very very short. The whole time this is happening,
Speaker 3: our buddy Billy J. Donovan is still cooking with gas Man.
Speaker 3: He's stirring that cauldron of intrigue and he's saying, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: we're doing you know, we're doing cool stuff in wartime.
Speaker 3: And he may have overestimated the effectiveness of some of
Speaker 3: these projects, and he starts talking to the people in
Speaker 3: power above him, to the presidents and the presidential staff,
Speaker 3: and he starts saying, what if we just kind of
Speaker 3: kept the band going, you know, after the tour that
Speaker 3: is World War Two? What if we had a peacetime
Speaker 3: version of this to stop wars from ever happening again
Speaker 3: through trickery. I feel like he paused a second, you know,
Speaker 3: he was like, ever happening again through trickery? And President Truman,
Speaker 3: you know, Roosevelt's not president at this point. Now it's
Speaker 3: President Truman. And he says, you know what, Billy, you
Speaker 3: make some good points.
Speaker 4: So that's when later on Truman decided to create the
Speaker 4: CIA in nineteen forty seven. The organization pretty much took
Speaker 4: all of its cues from Donovan, who had earlier pitched
Speaker 4: the idea of a post war peace time spy operation
Speaker 4: that would continue after World War One. Is more of
Speaker 4: like a preparedness kind of thing rather than like being
Speaker 4: in an active conflict.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and I think you can probably understand why
Speaker 2: this is such an what felt like a necessary move
Speaker 2: at the time. You've got major military powers that all
Speaker 2: rise up during World War two right to fight back
Speaker 2: against a single enemy, but each one of those individual
Speaker 2: nations that has a massive military now could potentially be
Speaker 2: that in that frenemy zone. Right, that kind of developed
Speaker 2: while everybody said, Hey, there's a real threat over there,
Speaker 2: we need to eliminate that threat. Now that it's over,
Speaker 2: we should probably keep our ears and our eyes to
Speaker 2: our friends that we've just made.
Speaker 3: Yeah, pick and choose the parts of the relationships we
Speaker 3: want to maintain and the avenues of communication. You're absolutely right,
Speaker 3: You're absolutely right back, because proponents will argue this was
Speaker 3: a necessary move, and there's validity to that claim because
Speaker 3: away from the public eye, right away from all the shiny,
Speaker 3: problematic support the troops propaganda, you know, with Donald Duck
Speaker 3: and your favorite cartoon characters fighting racist caricatures of access powers,
Speaker 3: away from all that jazz and the Hubblou, Uncle Sam's
Speaker 3: finest minds have already predicted just what you were describing,
Speaker 3: mat a new conflict on the horizon. The alliance with
Speaker 3: the Soviets was always fragile. These were real strange bedfellows,
Speaker 3: the US and the USSR. And it was only it
Speaker 3: was only a friendship. It was not a friendship, it
Speaker 3: was only a working relationship based on the enemy of
Speaker 3: acxis power and without that mutual shared enemy, democracy and
Speaker 3: communism were inevitably going to set on a collision course
Speaker 3: for nothing less than control of the world. And on
Speaker 3: the Soviet side, there Bo often saw this too, because
Speaker 3: the nerds are often going to end up being friends
Speaker 3: with each other outside of political ideologies because they're the
Speaker 3: only ones who like are on the level of what
Speaker 3: the other person is talking about. That's why nuclear technology
Speaker 3: it has to be clamped down so hard, because you know,
Speaker 3: in certain aspects, it's like there are fifty people who
Speaker 3: know about it, and they want to hang out with
Speaker 3: the other forty nine people because they're the only ones
Speaker 3: who like get their dumb puns and stuff like that.
Speaker 5: It's important.
Speaker 2: Isn't it a little weird that both of these superpowers.
Speaker 2: Well here's the thing, I don't know the Soviet view
Speaker 2: of this from this time. I haven't read enough books
Speaker 2: or about the history of it. Were the Soviets I'm
Speaker 2: trying to understand if we're the Soviets also thinking, oh,
Speaker 2: we have to become the world. Old's ideology of how
Speaker 2: you know, governments are organized and how human beings get
Speaker 2: their money and how the economics of the world work.
Speaker 2: We have to be the ones or was it just
Speaker 2: the US thinking they're going to try and take this
Speaker 2: thing from us?
Speaker 4: Well, and I always wonder you guys, like what it
Speaker 4: is that makes communism and capitalism just so like oil
Speaker 4: and water, you know, like I mean, just on paper,
Speaker 4: just the antithesis to one another. Like you know, when
Speaker 4: you think about just what communism is, it doesn't seem
Speaker 4: that alarmist or doesn't seem that, you know, like counterintuitive,
Speaker 4: But I guess it is because it's like literally, you know,
Speaker 4: making money versus like governing for the people or like
Speaker 4: having everyone be on an equal playing field, and that
Speaker 4: does not jive with capitalism.
Speaker 5: So therefore it's like a bigger ideological kind of conflict.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry if I'm oversimplifying, but I think that piggybacks
Speaker 4: on Matt's question.
Speaker 2: It's weird because the oligarch thing can exist in both places,
Speaker 2: which is what you imagine is that's who's being served ultimately.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, so let's unpack that. I think it's worth
Speaker 3: the time here because these are excellent points. So to
Speaker 3: the original question, Yes, both sides had aspirations to control
Speaker 3: the world order in a way that you could argue
Speaker 3: they were both seeking to make a macrocosmic iteration of
Speaker 3: their earlier revolutions, the American Revolution, democracy, right, the Communist revolution,
Speaker 3: the Soviet Empire, and they did see ideologically, they did
Speaker 3: see these as mutually exclusive, clashing ideas. And the important
Speaker 3: point here, the takeaway for all the common John and
Speaker 3: Ivan doze out in the crowd tonight, is that a
Speaker 3: lot of these decisions were being made by what we
Speaker 3: will call oligarchs to your point, in practice, like communism
Speaker 3: in theory was often not communism in practice in the
Speaker 3: Soviet Empire, right, there was a lot of corruption, just
Speaker 3: the same way that democracy in theory is often not
Speaker 3: democracy in practice. In the history of the United States.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is really strange to me.
Speaker 3: Sorry, I know that's cynical, but that's the truth.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, you're right, because ultimately it's well, how
Speaker 2: will I become wealthy? Right, and the minds of the
Speaker 2: people who are really sitting at the top end deciding that, oh, well,
Speaker 2: this ideology is the most important thing. So we need
Speaker 2: to build ships that have the biggest weapons on them
Speaker 2: and go kill the other guys that also have big
Speaker 2: ships with weapons because they think different. It's just sorry,
Speaker 2: I'm breaking it down to like stupidly general and simple
Speaker 2: five parts.
Speaker 5: Which I think is key.
Speaker 4: But I mean speaking of you know, the the baked
Speaker 4: in corruption, the you know, the difference between you know,
Speaker 4: a concept on paper versus how it actually works and
Speaker 4: operates in the real world. The same could be said
Speaker 4: of the CIA and some of the sins of the
Speaker 4: OSS that it kind of inherited, whether you could call
Speaker 4: it corruption or just sort of circumventing the rule of law.
Speaker 4: A lot of these things sort of carried over into
Speaker 4: this new agency right on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there is that also, that underlying thing of
Speaker 2: everyone is a potential enemy, you know, at least an
Speaker 2: organization that has to buy its very nature view everybody
Speaker 2: as a potential enemy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's true. It's true. It's brutal. I mean, riddle
Speaker 3: be this. Do you guys know who the most surveilled
Speaker 3: individuals associated with a lot of these agencies are, Because
Speaker 3: it's the employees of those agencies. They're also not super trusted,
Speaker 3: and they can't be because of the nature of their enterprise.
Speaker 3: I do think it's important here to note that we're
Speaker 3: not saying people in power during the Cold War were
Speaker 3: bad faith actors. A lot of them clearly sincerely believed
Speaker 3: and the ideology and the the ideology they were practicing,
Speaker 3: the aims they were pursuing. Yet you have to ask
Speaker 3: why they believe these things. And when you ask that,
Speaker 3: what you will find is they believed in the thing
Speaker 3: that was good for them in their social structure. They
Speaker 3: liked it because they were successful within that milieu. Whatever
Speaker 3: that miliu may be.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and we can't discount the fact that politicians
Speaker 2: are often in a lot of ways servicing the money,
Speaker 2: which is the folks who you know, who can build
Speaker 2: the bombs and the weapons and the things that are
Speaker 2: necessary to hold on to power and to maintain those structures.
Speaker 2: And that hasn't changed and I don't think that will
Speaker 2: ever change. And those are the oligarchs.
Speaker 4: And it's sort of like a self fulfilling prophecy as well,
Speaker 4: where it's like, in order to satiate those interests, those
Speaker 4: economic interests, you almost kind of have to constantly exist
Speaker 4: in various states of conflicts.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and what if those guys need natural resources,
Speaker 2: if you if some other empire controls where the resources are.
Speaker 2: You can't get those resources, you know, you got to
Speaker 2: pay them for the service of getting those resources. So
Speaker 2: why not just control everything?
Speaker 3: I want a word of the day, salaqu word of
Speaker 3: the evening slecu right now, perfect, perfect? I trust you,
Speaker 3: Tilling and Andrew, because Noel, you settled out of the
Speaker 3: word of the evening. Interest right. Oh gosh, we've done
Speaker 3: so much for American interest. It's not the same thing
Speaker 3: as security, it's not the same thing as humanitarian efforts.
Speaker 3: But it is interesting, you know what I mean. Like,
Speaker 3: intervening in Libya is interesting. A couple of explorations in
Speaker 3: South and Central America super interesting.
Speaker 5: I'm intrigued.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Invading Iraq again interesting interesting?
Speaker 3: And what do we mean by that? We'll tell you
Speaker 3: after a word from our sponsors. We've returned. All right,
Speaker 3: this is this is the point we're getting at. And
Speaker 3: I you know, I think we're all being very fair
Speaker 3: with the way we're exploring this. But we nailed something earlier.
Speaker 3: The proponents have that validity to their claims that something
Speaker 3: like the CIA needs to exist. The critics have validity
Speaker 3: to their claims that the CIA carried along a lot
Speaker 3: of the corruption and problematic behavior of the OSS. And
Speaker 3: that's because this is still Donovan's baby. This is a
Speaker 3: charismatic leader. He has built, he has built a kind
Speaker 3: of church, really, and he has acolytes, he has followers,
Speaker 3: he has disciples. Four of those guys end up being
Speaker 3: directors of the New CIA. They cut their teeth or
Speaker 3: made their bones, if you want to use some crime terms.
Speaker 3: Under Donovan directly, they did the wet work, They did
Speaker 3: the psyops, they did all of that, all the hits,
Speaker 3: all the slow jazz, Alan Dulles, Richard Helms, William Colby,
Speaker 3: William Casey, and later when they took control of the CIA,
Speaker 3: when they were directors, they themselves made decisions that in
Speaker 3: hindsight clearly circumvented the rule of American law and international
Speaker 3: law in pursuit of kind of a greater good that
Speaker 3: they thought was very concrete, and that history proofs was
Speaker 3: somewhat of a moving goalpost at times. You know, Beya
Speaker 3: pigs Cuba, what else? Right?
Speaker 2: Iran Contra was just a thing that happened. You don't
Speaker 2: need to think about.
Speaker 5: That, Pay no attention.
Speaker 3: And this is an organization that has been to protect
Speaker 3: and champion American democracy and of course interest and so
Speaker 3: it's interesting that they also attempted to overthrow the Allende
Speaker 3: government in Chile, which was democratically elected, which was very much,
Speaker 3: on paper the thing the US should support to the
Speaker 3: fullest and not burned out.
Speaker 2: What a weird thing to do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this doesn't count the ways the CIA repeatedly meddled
Speaker 3: in the African theater up to and including being associated
Speaker 3: with assassinations of government leaders. We're not talking about the
Speaker 3: CIA now, we're talking about the history of this organization. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so everybody be cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, should should we talk about the official mission of
Speaker 2: the CIA, like what it stated at least yes when
Speaker 2: it was created. So nineteen forty seven July CIA is born,
Speaker 2: and its missions are there are two of them, and
Speaker 2: then there's a bunch of submissions after that. But the
Speaker 2: two primary ones are prevent surprise foreign attacks against the
Speaker 2: United States, Right, that makes sense. Don't let another pearl
Speaker 2: harbor happen, and you do that by gathering intelligence watching
Speaker 2: your fre enemies. The second is to counter the advance
Speaker 2: of Soviet Communism into Europe and other third world nations,
Speaker 2: is how they called it. Yeah, but yeah, be an
Speaker 2: ideological stop gap and then don't let another surprise happen.
Speaker 3: Oh and this this, yeah, this gives us insight. Again,
Speaker 3: we weren't just spinning tails or flipping pancakes when when
Speaker 3: we were saying this was an ideological war. This very
Speaker 3: heart and mind and soul. But it's also important to
Speaker 3: note a common misconception that shows up in the United
Speaker 3: States all the time. The idea of first, second, and
Speaker 3: third world countries is inherently bs. It is a phrase
Speaker 3: from the Cold War. It does not refer to economic
Speaker 3: development originally, not the way to the way it was
Speaker 3: supposed to be used. Originally, it referred to where people
Speaker 3: we're on this ideological spectrum of democracy v. Communism?
Speaker 2: Yeah, are you one, two or other?
Speaker 3: Right? Right?
Speaker 2: Not yet stomped on? Basically not aligned?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and if you are, if you are a kid
Speaker 3: growing up in the United States, then as now a
Speaker 3: country purporting to be a democracy in a meritocracy so far,
Speaker 3: then of course you're going to be taught that first
Speaker 3: world is the best world. Of course, it's typocratic.
Speaker 2: You know, it's the right one. M's the same, with
Speaker 2: a weird smile on his face.
Speaker 3: Oh gosh, the beatings will continue until morale improves. Also
Speaker 3: look into this very interesting folks. Look into when the
Speaker 3: US public school system decided to make the morning Pledge
Speaker 3: of Allegiance mandatory. Hint, it's way more recent than you
Speaker 3: might assume.
Speaker 2: Oh oh yeah, Oh my god, I'm gonna leave that there.
Speaker 3: Just leave that breadcrumb there. That's a tasty one. Pick
Speaker 3: it up.
Speaker 5: Uh oh hey.
Speaker 2: There's one other thing that we have to mention here.
Speaker 2: One of the primary reasons why the CIA was so
Speaker 2: important as a thing was because there's this term you
Speaker 2: may have heard, the iron Dome like a long time ago,
Speaker 2: or the iron curtain. The iron curtain is probably the
Speaker 2: most widely used. That's the concept that information doesn't come
Speaker 2: out of the Soviet Union. There's so many secrets, secret actions,
Speaker 2: secret motivations, and all these other things that are somewhere
Speaker 2: behind this curtain that you can't see through. It's iron.
Speaker 2: Your signals can't even get through it, right, signals aren't
Speaker 2: coming out. So you got to find a way to
Speaker 2: get behind that thing and then get stuff out of it.
Speaker 2: And that's that was one of the CIA's main things.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, And if you are a longtime listener, you've
Speaker 3: heard and explored these stories with US episodes. If you
Speaker 3: haven't heard these yet, we encourage you to check them out.
Speaker 3: And if you are a fan of deep dive books
Speaker 3: on these sorts of subjects, please also peruse Killing Hope,
Speaker 3: US Military and CIA Intervention since World War Two by
Speaker 3: William Blum and Legacy of Ashes by Tim Wiener. Anyway,
Speaker 3: the key takeaway, and maybe this is episode one, the
Speaker 3: key takeaway is this descended from an organization founded on
Speaker 3: an existential need for subterfuge. The CIA has always had
Speaker 3: an outside the box approach to problems, and we are
Speaker 3: being very diplomatic with that description. Like any good intelligence apparatus,
Speaker 3: this organization, for better or worse, leaves nose stone unturned
Speaker 3: in its constant effort to protect American interest interest. And
Speaker 3: you know, we could say that at times the objectivity
Speaker 3: of these pursuits fell sway to ideology, right or not,
Speaker 3: or paranoia. You know, there's a lot of Unfortunately, there
Speaker 3: are examples of this kind of catch twenty two Heller
Speaker 3: esque reasoning. We had to burn the village to save
Speaker 3: the village, right, because otherwise the village would turn communists.
Speaker 3: And then you know, you know it's yeah, it's like
Speaker 3: a witch hunt. You know, Oh, we killed the person
Speaker 3: to make sure she wasn't a witch. What happened, Well,
Speaker 3: she drowned, so you know she's not a witch?
Speaker 5: Oh yeah? Is she a duck? Though? Is the question?
Speaker 3: That's the question. That's the question imposed by such great
Speaker 3: philosophers as Monty Python. I believe for sure, Okay, good
Speaker 3: best I know. It was either them or Plato, that's
Speaker 3: the issue. Though, there's no denying the CIA's historical asymmetric,
Speaker 3: unorthodox approach has led the organization to some very strange places,
Speaker 3: you know, one of the strangest, of course, being MK Ultra.
Speaker 3: Do we want to talk about MK Ultra for a second.
Speaker 5: Absolutely. I mean we teased it.
Speaker 4: I've been talking about some of the crazy ways that
Speaker 4: the CIA went after Castro, like exposing him to psychedelics,
Speaker 4: you know, in the hopes that it would make.
Speaker 5: Him lose his mind.
Speaker 4: Well, we also did that to just regular people, like
Speaker 4: on subway trains in New York City, missing them with LSD.
Speaker 5: That was only one of the many.
Speaker 4: Bizarro operations that went by MK Ultra, also known as
Speaker 4: Operation Midnight Climax.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it started in nineteen fifty three, way back when.
Speaker 2: And then it never stopped. No, I'm just joking, I.
Speaker 3: Will wet Okay. So the American public only knows about, well,
Speaker 3: the global public only knows about mk Ultra because of
Speaker 3: a filing mistake that is a true story. An activist
Speaker 3: newspaper group broke into the wrong storage facility and they
Speaker 3: found papers that had been misfiled that we're supposed to
Speaker 3: be destroyed in entirety. So to this evening in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty five, no one knows all of what mk ultra
Speaker 3: was over or what it encapsulated encompassed, because it is
Speaker 3: a group umbrella term for a lot of other projects
Speaker 3: like Operation Midnight Climax, which you can hear a fantastic
Speaker 3: podcast on hosted by none other than mister Noel Brown
Speaker 3: and Nolan oh Man.
Speaker 4: Thanks, you know, that was super fun to be a
Speaker 4: part of and it really does tell the whole story
Speaker 4: in a really interesting and well sound design kind of
Speaker 4: narrative way. And speaking of narrative, then another project that
Speaker 4: you know talks about this type of thing is The
Speaker 4: Control Group, written by Brett Wood and eped by you
Speaker 4: Ben Bollen, which is a great piece about kind of
Speaker 4: psychedelic experimentation, you know, in a government capacity.
Speaker 2: Dude, that's an intense one of them. It was one
Speaker 2: of my favorite podcasts for a long time because it
Speaker 2: was fictional, but it was based so much on actual stuff,
Speaker 2: big time.
Speaker 3: Brett Wood's a beast, yeah, and and an extraordinarily humble
Speaker 3: guy that also was That also was sound design and
Speaker 3: eped by our brother in arms, Paul Mission Control decad
Speaker 3: So credit where it's due.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
Speaker 3: Anyway, Yeah, as far as we know, the MKAY Ultra
Speaker 3: program did not create a Manchurian candidate as far as
Speaker 3: we know, because again, most of the conclusions and paperwork
Speaker 3: and documentation was destroyed and a lot of the researchers,
Speaker 3: for one way, through one means or another, were prevented
Speaker 3: from ever going public. And at this point, as you said,
Speaker 3: back beginning in the fifties, at this point, a lot
Speaker 3: of the original Avengers or Justice League crew of Mad
Speaker 3: Science here, they're long dead.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, but you know what didn't die.
Speaker 3: Uh, the funk.
Speaker 5: Never never let the fuck die.
Speaker 2: Well, another thing this is so we talked about how
Speaker 2: MK Ultra we only know about because of those unshredded
Speaker 2: documents that were supposed to die and go away forever.
Speaker 2: We only know about the stuff we're going to be
Speaker 2: talking about in part two of this series because of
Speaker 2: another series of documents that didn't get shredded properly and
Speaker 2: we're just sitting around place where they weren't supposed to
Speaker 2: be And now we know.
Speaker 3: And I'm going to tell you honestly, guys, this is
Speaker 3: something that the the espionage movies and the fiction and
Speaker 3: the film, the novels and so on. That's what they
Speaker 3: always miss, you know, what spies are really afraid of,
Speaker 3: and spy masters more so than even a bullet. It's paperwork.
Speaker 3: It's a paper trail, it's documentation, it's it's indisputable proof. Right,
Speaker 3: So this stuff it may sound, you know, like a
Speaker 3: like a funny bitty hill sketch. Oh, we've found the
Speaker 3: papers that show the secret operations, but that's terrifying to
Speaker 3: the ms of the world.
Speaker 5: Like I mean, yeah, they.
Speaker 4: Thrive on plausible deniability or just straight up deniability. It's
Speaker 4: sort of the whole point is not to be able
Speaker 4: to be connected with any of these things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, especially names, like actual names of that are involved.
Speaker 3: Mike go yeah. Oh, And speaking of names, at the
Speaker 3: center of this web of mk ultra, there is a
Speaker 3: waving spider, a whispering voice, a varus of sorts, a singular,
Speaker 3: fascinating and troubling man, doctor Sidney Gottlieb, who will play
Speaker 3: a major role in our later explorations. Amid all these
Speaker 3: chaotic scramblings for an edge, any advantage over enemies, seditionist movements,
Speaker 3: even allies, the CIA explored surprising conspiratorial partnerships with the
Speaker 3: most unlikely groups and individuals. This series question how far
Speaker 3: did this go? Did the CIA actually hire magicians? That's right,
Speaker 3: this is going to be a two part episode. Thank
Speaker 3: you so much for tuning in. Please join us, fellow
Speaker 3: conspiracy realist, for chapter two of the CIA Higher Magicians.
Speaker 3: We left you with a cliffhanger because there was a
Speaker 3: lot of context. We had to get to a lot
Speaker 3: of explorations together in the dark. So while you're waiting
Speaker 3: in the interim, if you're wondering, Hey, I'm already on
Speaker 3: the internet. What am I going to do now? Just
Speaker 3: keep waiting for chapter two. Never fear. You can join
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Speaker 3: us on email, via telephone, and the internets.
Speaker 4: Indeed, you can find us at the handle Conspiracy Stuff
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