Speaker 1: You're listening to Hoax, a production of iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2: Folks.
Speaker 1: It's a huge when us to see you there last.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Hoax, a podcast about the lies we wish were.
Speaker 2: True and truths that sound like lies. I'm the ghost
Speaker 2: of Danish Wortz and I'm the evil twin of Lizzie Logan.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the show, Dana, Oh boy, today's topic. Let
Speaker 2: me just say you did.
Speaker 1: Say you are a little stressed.
Speaker 2: I'm a little bit stressed because I thought that it
Speaker 2: was one thing when I started looking into it, and
Speaker 2: then by the time I realized that it was also
Speaker 2: some other things. It was too close to when we're
Speaker 2: recording to pick a different topic. Great, And I also
Speaker 2: I just wanted to say here at the top of
Speaker 2: the episode that this episode of Hoax, like all episodes
Speaker 2: of Hoax, is based on our research from multiple sources.
Speaker 2: But I am drawing a lot of what I know
Speaker 2: from Phil tin Lines book Ghosts of Iron Mountain. So
Speaker 2: I just wanted to give him a shout out right
Speaker 2: up top. Thank you, Phil, Thank you. If this episode
Speaker 2: sparks your interest, I would go ahead and purchase or
Speaker 2: get from your library a copy of Phil tin lines book. So,
Speaker 2: thank you, Phil.
Speaker 1: Great.
Speaker 2: So this is about the hoax document report from Iron Mountain.
Speaker 2: I'm assuming you don't know what that.
Speaker 1: Is to me, Iron Mountain. I'm like, that sounds like
Speaker 1: a Mario Kart level. It means nothing to me.
Speaker 2: Okay, great, Dana, cast your mind back. We're going back
Speaker 2: in time to the Cold War. Yeah, all right. In
Speaker 2: his outgoing address to the Nation, President Dwight Eisenhower coins
Speaker 2: the frase military industrial complex.
Speaker 1: He was kind of right about that one.
Speaker 2: He was so right on the money about that one.
Speaker 2: It is a time of heightened militarization. Yeah, the space
Speaker 2: race is on. The nature of power has changed thanks
Speaker 2: to the atom bomb. It used to be that the
Speaker 2: masses fought the wars with cheap available weapons. So it
Speaker 2: was that whoever had the most people and the most
Speaker 2: guns won the wars, and the wars were won by
Speaker 2: the people. And you know, it was sort of democratized
Speaker 2: that way. And now the power to kill arrests in
Speaker 2: the hands of a few. You can destroy a whole city,
Speaker 2: like one guy can choose to do that from miles
Speaker 2: and miles away, and you don't even have to look
Speaker 2: a man in the eye to kill him and the
Speaker 2: weapons makers seemed to be dictating military strategy.
Speaker 1: And you're banning a picture. This is very vivid.
Speaker 2: Indeed, can we trust the government to do the right thing?
Speaker 2: Can we even trust what they are saying? The Bay
Speaker 2: of Pigs, the Cuban missile crisis, the Gulf of Tonkin.
Speaker 1: It sounds like we're in a serious situation. Everyone is
Speaker 1: looking over their shoulder exactly.
Speaker 2: There is an atmosphere of paranoia throughout the nation. People
Speaker 2: see communism everywhere. McCarthyism was not so long ago. The FBI, NSA,
Speaker 2: and CIA are all newly created within living memory. Has
Speaker 2: the CIA been covertly trying to assassinate Castro and Jay Goovara? Yes,
Speaker 2: not even that covertly. They're just trying to kill them.
Speaker 2: There's this thing called the UN that is also created
Speaker 2: within living memory. That's like a global government above all
Speaker 2: the governments. And we know now that they're not super
Speaker 2: effective at being a global government, but back then we
Speaker 2: thought they might be. It's kind of nice, It's it's
Speaker 2: not the worst idea. In nineteen sixty three and Kennedy
Speaker 2: is shot by some fucking guy.
Speaker 1: And is the government keeping things from.
Speaker 2: Us about that? So There's two basic theories about this.
Speaker 2: Either the country is totally unstable and like some random
Speaker 2: guy can murder the head of state, or there's something
Speaker 2: they're not telling us. Nineteen sixty seven, LBJ is president.
Speaker 2: The war in Vietnam escalates Agent Orange. They say, we're
Speaker 2: not using napalm on kids, but we totally are. There's
Speaker 2: something called the missile gap, which is what they're saying
Speaker 2: is that the Soviets have way more missiles than us.
Speaker 2: So that's why we got a ramp up military spending
Speaker 2: so we can get more missiles.
Speaker 1: I bet military companies love that.
Speaker 2: They love that. Also, the missile gap is fake. They
Speaker 2: don't have more wos hoax within a hoaxsting hoax, and
Speaker 2: that creates something called the credibility gap, which is a
Speaker 2: thing that's happening more and more, which is people just
Speaker 2: don't believe what the government is saying. You, Dana, Yes,
Speaker 2: resident of nineteen sixty seven in New.
Speaker 1: York, Okay.
Speaker 2: Head out to your local newstand to pick up a
Speaker 2: copy of Esquire magazine.
Speaker 1: Sounds good.
Speaker 2: It's the hottest magazine in town. They're doing like real journalism.
Speaker 2: This is not just some magazine you leave through this
Speaker 2: is like hard hitting stuff.
Speaker 1: And short stories, good fiction and esquire.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, and you find that it has a twenty
Speaker 2: thousand word excerpt of a twenty eight thousand word book.
Speaker 1: So short book, most of a book? Yeah, really a
Speaker 1: short story.
Speaker 2: Called Report from Iron Mountain on the Possibility and Desirability
Speaker 2: of Peace.
Speaker 1: Hmmm.
Speaker 2: And it has a little preface. This report is twenty
Speaker 2: eight thousand words in length and so depressing that you
Speaker 2: may not be able to take it. But if you persist,
Speaker 2: Merry Christmas anyway, and on Earth war ill will toward men.
Speaker 1: Whoa more magazine stories. I feel like the magazine crisis
Speaker 1: wouldn't be happening right now more stories started with disclaimers
Speaker 1: like that. I know, because I would want to read
Speaker 1: these twenty thousand words.
Speaker 2: Immediately, immediately.
Speaker 1: So what the hell is this? Yeah?
Speaker 2: So the introduction is by a writer named Leonard Lewin,
Speaker 2: who explains that he was approached by a friend. He
Speaker 2: won't say who, but this friend is very high up
Speaker 2: in the government, and his friend, said Leonard. Some years ago,
Speaker 2: during the Kennedy days, JFK wanted to figure out what
Speaker 2: would happen if worldwide peace broke out, because you know,
Speaker 2: we've been preparing for the possibility of war, but we
Speaker 2: are unprepared for the possibility of peace.
Speaker 1: That also sort of sounds like a thing like a
Speaker 1: freshman would say when they're really high in a dorm room.
Speaker 1: We're preparing for war, but are we even preparing for peace?
Speaker 2: That is so exactly the mood of the nation, Like yes,
Speaker 2: but also that is the entire country right now, because
Speaker 2: this is the thing like think tanks are all the rage,
Speaker 2: Like think tanks still exist, but they are so all
Speaker 2: the rage during the Cold War because people are trying
Speaker 2: to figure out what happens in a nuclear war and
Speaker 2: there's never been a nuclear war, so they're spending all
Speaker 2: this time, energy and money just being like, I don't know,
Speaker 2: game plan it question mark, question mark, do a war game?
Speaker 2: Come up with the primitive computer simulation, build a shelter
Speaker 2: question mark? Like there, it's the entire country is like
Speaker 2: what if this happens?
Speaker 1: They're just making things up and coming up with ideas.
Speaker 2: They're just making things up. So it's totally kind of
Speaker 2: plausible that JFK would have been like, I don't know, uh,
Speaker 2: what if there's peace, what if there's peace, What if
Speaker 2: there's peace. So he commissions a highly secretive, select group
Speaker 2: of people to go to an underground bunker okay called
Speaker 2: Iron Mountain and work out what would happen if war stopped.
Speaker 2: And they wrote up a report that was so incendiary
Speaker 2: that the administration buried it.
Speaker 1: That bad things happened at four stopped.
Speaker 2: So controversial, Yes, bad things, I say, I'm interested say more.
Speaker 2: But now this friend wants Leonard to tell the people,
Speaker 2: so he's leaking it. So this is the report from
Speaker 2: Iron Mountain, Okay.
Speaker 1: So that's the preface. And this report published in Esquire
Speaker 1: magazine is that buried report.
Speaker 2: Is this top from the JFK days, And inside the
Speaker 2: report are some truly chilling ideas. This think tank says
Speaker 2: that war is the fundamental idea underpinning all of society. Okay,
Speaker 2: that if war stopped, the American economy would collapse. Bombs
Speaker 2: are the perfect product. They cost a lot to make
Speaker 2: and you can only use them once.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Sure, if we stopped even having the possibility of war,
Speaker 2: American society would collapse. Maybe all of society would collapse.
Speaker 2: We would not have any more borders and therefore no
Speaker 2: more countries. There would be no allegiance to your country
Speaker 2: and no allegiance to its values. If you don't belong
Speaker 2: to anything, what are you a part of?
Speaker 1: Sounds like John Lennon was on to something. Imagine.
Speaker 2: I have a note here in my outline the song
Speaker 2: you imagine, the song imagine nothing to kill or die for?
Speaker 2: I wonder if you can.
Speaker 1: It's easy if you try.
Speaker 2: They basically they've been in this bunker just imagining the imagine.
Speaker 1: But what would this be like they've been imagining.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if we don't have any countries, are we essentially
Speaker 2: one super country of planet Earth? And then if one
Speaker 2: person rules it? Is that just is there essentially no freedom?
Speaker 2: Like is there just one guy ruling the whole earth?
Speaker 2: Like whoever is the most powerful man on Earth? Does
Speaker 2: he rule the whole Earth?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Because it's like what sort of system would there
Speaker 1: be where there's no fighting? Where it's like even if
Speaker 1: we were one because we're one country now and there's
Speaker 1: plenty of fighting in America.
Speaker 2: Sure, but it's if there's no fighting, I mean, our
Speaker 2: our weapons sort of the ultimate checks and balances on
Speaker 2: no one country becoming too powerful? Like what what would
Speaker 2: happen if all the countries stop fighting each other? They
Speaker 2: point out that a lot of like scientific advancements have
Speaker 2: been made because of the military. That is true, that
Speaker 2: would stop, And the report says, you know a lot
Speaker 2: of sort of like pro peace people are like, well, okay, yes,
Speaker 2: we would stop spending all this money on bombs and stuff,
Speaker 2: But wouldn't it be better to spend all that money
Speaker 2: on schools and hospitals. And they basically say, like that
Speaker 2: wouldn't work economically, like it would sort of stagnate. We
Speaker 2: would end up we would all just end up kind
Speaker 2: of broke, like the economy would not function that way.
Speaker 1: Okay, they were right, this is chilling.
Speaker 2: And also we would end up with overpopulation because war
Speaker 2: keeps the population under control. Bleak, and then the report
Speaker 2: goes on to suggest that if worldwide peace did break out.
Speaker 1: It's funny to think about peace breaking out.
Speaker 2: We could potentially replace war with some other stuff. Yes,
Speaker 2: so we could fight aliens.
Speaker 1: What about like the more Olympics, more more physical feats
Speaker 1: of competition.
Speaker 2: They literally have, Like we could do blood games, like
Speaker 2: we could do like war games. Basically, we could have
Speaker 2: a pollution crisis, which we probably are.
Speaker 1: Which we have to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we could explore space like we could sort of
Speaker 2: just you know, turn it into space. We could reintroduce
Speaker 2: slavery as a way to sort of keep society in check.
Speaker 1: Keep team spirit going. Yeah, we could have a class
Speaker 1: war that would probably happen.
Speaker 2: Or we could just sort of keep inventing crises, like
Speaker 2: we could have an earthquake every couple of years, Like
Speaker 2: we could you know, have a have a bomb go
Speaker 2: off of it. Like we could just keep having crises
Speaker 2: that kept the population under control, kept people in a
Speaker 2: state of fear. There needs to be some sort of
Speaker 2: we can't just live in harmony forever. We would have
Speaker 2: to invent some sort of emergency.
Speaker 1: So the conclusion of this report is that a freshman
Speaker 1: in college being like, why don't we all just stop fighting?
Speaker 1: That what if we all just decided at once no
Speaker 1: more war? That that would cause the collapse of society
Speaker 1: and we would need to invent other activities for spirit
Speaker 1: just to keep ourselves from eating ourselves alive.
Speaker 2: I guess yeah, basically so that we don't evolve into
Speaker 2: like cannibalism.
Speaker 1: I guess yeah.
Speaker 2: So before we get to what happened next in the story, Dana,
Speaker 2: what do you think of these ideas?
Speaker 1: I mean, look, when you say, like this is a
Speaker 1: think tank. I can see how a group of people
Speaker 1: getting together and like thinking these ideas. I can see
Speaker 1: how it's like plausible. Where yes, the military industrial complex
Speaker 1: does like keep the economy going, and thinking about how
Speaker 1: much money goes to war. It is depressing to think, like, oh,
Speaker 1: our economy or the stock market would probably collapse if
Speaker 1: war stopped. But I think I'm skeptical. I think even
Speaker 1: without war, like nationalism would still exist, and like global
Speaker 1: warming is still a problem that we could deal with,
Speaker 1: and like Silicon Valley and technology is sort of its
Speaker 1: own arms race, like people are trying to get richer,
Speaker 1: Like I think there are other systems in place for
Speaker 1: human ambition that aren't war. So it feels like an
Speaker 1: interesting thought experiment, but it doesn't like ring true to me. Sure, well,
Speaker 1: this is also a show called hoax.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you're right. Yeah, do you think it's
Speaker 2: likely that JFK would have commissioned such a study, that
Speaker 2: such a study would have then been written, and that
Speaker 2: he then would have suppressed it.
Speaker 1: I mean, look, here's the thing. I know this shows
Speaker 1: a hoax. So I know I'm supposed to be all
Speaker 1: smart and be like no, this is so fake, Esquire magazine.
Speaker 1: They got us all. But like, knowing the shady things
Speaker 1: that the government was up to during this period, this
Speaker 1: does seem very plausible. Sure, I like I do. It
Speaker 1: does seem plausible. I think, like the best hoax is
Speaker 1: a hoax that you not want to believe, but like
Speaker 1: could believe. And if you told me genuinely that the
Speaker 1: government had, you know, a group of economists together to
Speaker 1: figure this out, and this was the report they came
Speaker 1: up with, I'd be like, well, that's fucked up, but
Speaker 1: that that's things were happening in the fifties.
Speaker 2: Sure, totally. I mean it's not the most.
Speaker 1: Out there idea.
Speaker 2: I do think that like in groups and out groups
Speaker 2: are sort of fundamental to human nature, Like true true equality.
Speaker 2: Absolutely everyone is absolutely equal is.
Speaker 1: Like not, no, they're cool kids in kindergarten.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like that's not how human civilization arose, and like
Speaker 2: we're always going to have laws and like we're always
Speaker 2: going to have some sort of tears in society. I
Speaker 2: don't know that I would go so far as to
Speaker 2: say that like war is the natural. Yeah, Dana's horizon,
Speaker 2: she agrees with me, just like that. It's like the
Speaker 2: natural state of human nature.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, so I'm like, yeah, I'd buy like
Speaker 1: some of these ideas.
Speaker 2: This is also one of those things where it's like
Speaker 2: this is also nothing knew, Like well, I also world
Speaker 2: War two did end the depression, but also like, yeah,
Speaker 2: this is the idea behind the movie The Purge, Like
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, Like, this is nothing. This
Speaker 2: is nothing like the idea that the government would have
Speaker 2: come to this conclusion and then be.
Speaker 1: Like what the fuck?
Speaker 2: People would freak out if they knew this.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I would they Like I don't know, Like
Speaker 1: would they? Though, Well, here's what I want to clarify.
Speaker 1: I don't think the conclusions as you described them to
Speaker 1: me and this report sound accurate. I'm like, well, that
Speaker 1: sounds a little far fetched, But to me, it does
Speaker 1: sound plausible that the government would get a bunch of
Speaker 1: economic wonks together and they could come up with something wrong. Sure,
Speaker 1: government policy. You know, if you told me that people
Speaker 1: in the fifties came up with a wacky idea that
Speaker 1: turned out not to be true, that is very plausible. Sure,
Speaker 1: So let's go back to the tail, shall we the
Speaker 1: detail please?
Speaker 2: So there's sort of three parts to what has now
Speaker 2: been revealed. Number one, that top secret officials in the
Speaker 2: government are having secret meetings. Number two the findings in
Speaker 2: the report, and number three the burial of the report.
Speaker 1: Yes, the suppressing keeping it from the people.
Speaker 2: So these are three slightly they're interconnected, but these are
Speaker 2: three slightly different ideas that people could react to. So
Speaker 2: you might take objection just to the fact that people
Speaker 2: are having secret meetings. You might be a person who's
Speaker 2: offended mostly that by the idea that the government is
Speaker 2: suppressing reports, or you might be a person who is
Speaker 2: mostly reacting to the ideas in the report.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's like government having secret meetings. Get over
Speaker 1: at babies. That's that's happening. And I'll just say, get
Speaker 1: over at babies. Sure, as Danish worts the conclusions of
Speaker 1: this report, which are pretty whatever, but then the suppression
Speaker 1: that is very scary.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm just pointing those out because throughout this people
Speaker 2: are going to have different reactions to different parts of that,
Speaker 2: and it's all going to be mixed together. But I'm
Speaker 2: just saying, like when people talk about censorship, they're not
Speaker 2: talking about like, what does censorship have to do with
Speaker 2: worldwide peace? It doesn't has to do with bearing of
Speaker 2: the reports, so like, these are the things that are happening.
Speaker 1: Got it.
Speaker 2: So shortly after the Esquire piece comes out the book,
Speaker 2: the Report from.
Speaker 1: Twenty eight thousand words.
Speaker 2: Yes, the twenty eight thousand word book is published by
Speaker 2: dial Press, and it's a big, big hit. It is
Speaker 2: flying off the shelves. Teachers are assigning it to their students.
Speaker 2: Everybody wants to read it. Big ideas, big ideas. It's
Speaker 2: the freakonomics of its day. Is totally the freakonomics of
Speaker 2: its day. Every government agency in the country is like, no,
Speaker 2: it wasn't us. The White House looks into it. Walt Rostau,
Speaker 2: the NSA advisor to LBJ, makes a bunch of calls
Speaker 2: because he's like, I know this isn't real. I know
Speaker 2: this isn't real, but like I you know, like I
Speaker 2: technically wasn't there when Kennedy was in office, so like
Speaker 2: I mean, technically I have to check.
Speaker 1: He has to do his due diligence.
Speaker 2: So it takes him five days to confirm because Lbj's like,
Speaker 2: we didn't fucking do this right, but no, it's not real.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: He makes all these calls and everybody he gets in
Speaker 2: contact with is like, no, it's not real.
Speaker 1: That is so funny to imagine the White House having
Speaker 1: this report and being like, we know it's not real,
Speaker 1: but we have to make sure.
Speaker 2: We have to make sure. So he calls everybody he
Speaker 2: can think of because the press wants to know, and
Speaker 2: he can't just be like no, because I don't think so. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he has to be like, no, I checked, and it's
Speaker 2: not real. Everyone's reaction to the ideas it's very Doctor
Speaker 2: Strangelove had come out three years prior. Oh, and it
Speaker 2: I think strikes a very similar tone of like what
Speaker 2: if you took the illogic of the Cold War to
Speaker 2: an extreme and in a sort of arsical way. So people,
Speaker 2: this is a this is a this is a conversation
Speaker 2: that the country is ready to have.
Speaker 1: Well, here's the big problem. Also, if the White House
Speaker 1: is like, hey, this wasn't us White House lying to you,
Speaker 1: that's the whole point of the report. It's like, of
Speaker 1: course you would lie. This report says you're a liar. Sure, well,
Speaker 1: no kidding, Lewin.
Speaker 2: When anyone asks dial press, hey you publish this is
Speaker 2: this real or fake? They point to all the footnotes
Speaker 2: in the book and there's a lot of footnotes in
Speaker 2: the book and they all refer to real things, so
Speaker 2: they're like, well, I don't know, check the footnotes. Footnotes
Speaker 2: look real, ohotes. Lewin goes on a press tour. He
Speaker 2: goes on a book tour, and he's soaking it up,
Speaker 2: and whenever people ask him if it's real, he gives
Speaker 2: sort of like koy Kgey answers where he's like, well,
Speaker 2: the ideas are real, and the government does have meetings,
Speaker 2: so like there's truth in the book. So I don't
Speaker 2: know what you think, and it's pretty hard to prove
Speaker 2: a negative, and most of the speculation is like okay,
Speaker 2: so like this is probably fake, but well, who do
Speaker 2: you think wrote it? Because it really this is this
Speaker 2: is how those government types talk like this, he really
Speaker 2: got the voice right, and in like.
Speaker 1: The kind of QAnon like you can't disprove a conspiracy
Speaker 1: theory believer. It's kind of that thing where you're like, okay, well,
Speaker 1: even if this meeting wasn't true, the ideas that they
Speaker 1: present are true, so it's it's coming out somehow. Yeah.
Speaker 2: They're very like, well but maybe part of it was true,
Speaker 2: or like this one quote, doesn't that sound like this
Speaker 2: one guy who works in this one department. I feel
Speaker 2: like maybe that guy actually said that one time, or
Speaker 2: like he really got the voice right. This is totally
Speaker 2: how those think tank guys talk, like if it wasn't
Speaker 2: this Lewin, Like what the hell is this?
Speaker 1: So people pretty definitively in the culture don't think that
Speaker 1: Lewin wrote it.
Speaker 2: I don't know about definitively in the culture. I would
Speaker 2: say in the press and in Washington, Yeah, it is
Speaker 2: not being investigated as like, uh oh, we've got a
Speaker 2: leak high up in the government, Like there's no one
Speaker 2: looking into this, like it's a violation of the Espionage Act.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they know it's not like an actual government documently.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, No. Journalists are looking for the leaker and
Speaker 2: the I think probably the FBI has opened the file,
Speaker 2: but I don't think they're like tailing Lewin. Yeah, readers,
Speaker 2: I'm sure there are believers, but yeah, higher ups are
Speaker 2: not taking it seriously. But it it's got the smack
Speaker 2: of truth too.
Speaker 1: It's got the smack of truth. I as you're describing it,
Speaker 1: I'm like, of course people believe this conspiracy because then
Speaker 1: it's the whack a mole of conspiracy theories, because even
Speaker 1: if you don't believe like pieces of it, you're like,
Speaker 1: but the ideas.
Speaker 2: In the nineteen seventies, early nineteen seventy one, the Pentagon
Speaker 2: Papers come out. Yes, that revealed that the government has
Speaker 2: been lying about the reasons and progress of the Vietnam War.
Speaker 1: And those papers are real.
Speaker 2: Those papers are real. And when this happens, Leonard Lewin
Speaker 2: is like, I think I'm gonna stop lying about leaking
Speaker 2: government papers.
Speaker 1: He realized that it's like he didn't want a boy
Speaker 1: who cried wolf something actually important.
Speaker 2: He's just like, you know, this is getting a little
Speaker 2: it's getting a little hat in here, it's getting a
Speaker 2: little hot in this kitchen. I'm gonna go ahead and
Speaker 2: give an interview and say, I wrote the whole thing.
Speaker 2: By the way I wrote the whole thing. Didn't have
Speaker 2: any co write, but I wrote the whole thing. And
Speaker 2: I personally also think it helped that he had a
Speaker 2: satirical novel that he was trying to sell, so it
Speaker 2: helped to put himself as the sole author of this
Speaker 2: best selling book. Yes, So here's what actually happened. In
Speaker 2: the nineteen fifties and six, there was a satire magazine
Speaker 2: in New York called Monocle. Yeah, and it is as
Speaker 2: pretentious as it sounds.
Speaker 1: Do you know I think it still exists.
Speaker 2: It doesn't. Oh no, there is a different publication called Monocle,
Speaker 2: but it's not a satire.
Speaker 1: Not a satire magazine.
Speaker 2: It's where Nora Efron got her start. Actually, she wrote
Speaker 2: a parody of a newspaper that was so good that
Speaker 2: the newspaper hired her. That's so funny, And that's how
Speaker 2: she got her start in journalism. Lewin was a contributor
Speaker 2: at Monocle, and one day the editor, a man named
Speaker 2: Victor Navaski, was looking through a newspaper and he saw
Speaker 2: an article about how there had been talk of Piece
Speaker 2: in some region or some conflict and because of that,
Speaker 2: some stocks had actually dipped. And he saw the phrase
Speaker 2: peace scare, and he was like, look at this. And
Speaker 2: so he and his fellow editors were like, we gotta
Speaker 2: do something with this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is silly and stupid to imagine that when
Speaker 1: Piece has declared the economy panics.
Speaker 2: Yes, So they brainstormed on these ideas and they were like,
Speaker 2: we should do sort of a book about this, and
Speaker 2: they hired Lewin to write it.
Speaker 1: Oh, all right, it wasn't even his idea.
Speaker 2: It was not his idea. I mean, he contributed a
Speaker 2: lot of the ideas in it, but they sort of
Speaker 2: just took it to him because he was like a
Speaker 2: little older and sort of had a i think a
Speaker 2: more serious bent to him that he could get the
Speaker 2: voice of these think tankers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, clearly he nailed it.
Speaker 2: He was particularly satirizing the logic without emotion thinking that
Speaker 2: was very popular in Washington at the time.
Speaker 1: Yes, Oh, you might find it ridiculous, but this is
Speaker 1: what happens when peace is declared. I'm not getting cloudy
Speaker 1: eyed about people dying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that they were sort of you know, the
Speaker 2: logic of using nuclear bombs is cruel and insane. Yes,
Speaker 2: where it's like bombing for peace, it's like you're killing children,
Speaker 2: Like what do you what are you talking about?
Speaker 1: You're like fucking for virginity. Indeed, got it have been
Speaker 1: so good in the seventies.
Speaker 2: That's the bumper sticker. And the reason it sounded so
Speaker 2: real is that he did a bunch of research. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and he talked to experts and people in the government
Speaker 2: and got their voice right footnotes, and he got real
Speaker 2: footnotes E. L. Doctor Oe, the novelist who wrote rag
Speaker 2: Time edited the book. He was another Monocle guy.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And dial Press was in on it the whole time.
Speaker 2: They knew it was fake.
Speaker 1: What about Esquire do we know?
Speaker 2: I actually don't know.
Speaker 1: I wonder. I bet they seems like the magazine people
Speaker 1: would have been like having boozy martini lunches. I bet
Speaker 1: if it was a Monical team. The Esquire team also knew.
Speaker 2: Yeah, probably probably. Monicle had published satire books before, and
Speaker 2: usually with some something on the cover saying like from
Speaker 2: the editors at Monocle, But they decided not to for
Speaker 2: this one because they thought that if they tried to
Speaker 2: make it look real, people would have more of a
Speaker 2: discussion about the ideas and America's dependence on the military economically,
Speaker 2: and that's a conversation that they were trying to provoke.
Speaker 2: So it was less about fooling people and more about
Speaker 2: starting a conversation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's a conversational we should still be having, honest.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Lewin included two fake footnotes, so that was his
Speaker 2: little wink wink in case anyone wanted to do like
Speaker 2: an insane amount of research that it was fake. And
Speaker 2: another tip off in case anyone wanted to fact check
Speaker 2: it is that the Iron Mountain Bunker is a real place,
Speaker 2: but it was not open at the time that Lewin
Speaker 2: said the meeting took place. So just if you wanted
Speaker 2: to do a timeline. Technically, the book does contain logical errors, but.
Speaker 1: It's like that's the classic conspiracy theory thinking where then
Speaker 1: they're like, well, if they were lying about all of this,
Speaker 1: they were lying about when the bunker opened. They weren't
Speaker 1: gonna admit that the bunker was open. Do you want
Speaker 1: to know about the Iron Mountain Bunker?
Speaker 2: Do we not care?
Speaker 1: I don't. I mean, give me like two sets, like
Speaker 1: what is.
Speaker 2: Well, so it is interesting to me. It's in Germantown,
Speaker 2: New York, it is right, it's just a hollowed out.
Speaker 1: Mountain and it's a real bunker.
Speaker 2: So right now, it's a place that companies used to
Speaker 2: store documents that you legally can't destroy, so like point
Speaker 2: of sale documents and like birth certificates and death certificates
Speaker 2: and stuff. But back in the sixties it was like
Speaker 2: corporate bomb shelters.
Speaker 1: Wait, is it a government bunker? No, it's just a
Speaker 1: private bunker.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it was at the time like an underground
Speaker 2: hotel for like oil executives to ride out the annihilation
Speaker 2: of New York. Like it's outside the blast zone of
Speaker 2: New York. So the idea was that it had a
Speaker 2: copy of all the stuff that you would need to
Speaker 2: like run an oil company, and also some apartments. So
Speaker 2: if you were high up at Exon and you got
Speaker 2: word that a missile was headed to New York, you
Speaker 2: could like head up to the bunker with your family
Speaker 2: and like wait out the bombing. Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, yeah, and that is interesting that existed. Indeed,
Speaker 1: it possibly still exists, I guess with all the billionaires
Speaker 1: in like New Zealand. Now, Yes, it is a little.
Speaker 2: Like creepy to think about, and it is people aren't
Speaker 2: not preparing for the end of the world. Yeah, all right,
Speaker 2: So right after I think, I don't quite know the timeline,
Speaker 2: this is all happening right at the beginning of the seventies, okay,
Speaker 2: but I think right after Lewin reveals himself Watergate happened,
Speaker 2: which I think proves a that the government is totally
Speaker 2: lying to you, yep, and be the they're not really
Speaker 2: smart enough to get away with it. Yes, just circling
Speaker 2: back to Nora Ephron because I love to talk about her.
Speaker 1: It's a perfect This is a perfect full circle, perfect
Speaker 1: full circle.
Speaker 2: Her favorite hobby for the next what forty years getting
Speaker 2: drunk at dinner parties telling people who deep for it is?
Speaker 1: Yeah, because she was the then wife then later ex wife.
Speaker 2: Of Carl Bernstein, she knew the whole time. Love to
Speaker 2: tell people she's an icon. She kind of how I
Speaker 2: find modeled my life. Oh, absolutely, both of our number
Speaker 2: one Yeah. Yeah. By the nineteen eighties, the book is
Speaker 2: out of print, all right, Hey, yeah, I mean it
Speaker 2: was a best seller and then it, you know, sort
Speaker 2: of faded.
Speaker 1: Yeah, people knew it was fake. It was a less interesting.
Speaker 2: The Berlin Wall comes down and the Cold War is over,
Speaker 2: And if you're interested in knowing more about the CIA
Speaker 2: potentially being involved in the Berlin Wall coming down, I
Speaker 2: highly recommend the podcast Wind of Change, which is absolutely fascinating.
Speaker 2: But it's about did the CIA help write a rock
Speaker 2: song to foment youth enthusiasm for the Berlin Wall coming down?
Speaker 2: And it's a good it's a good look at what
Speaker 2: silly spy stuff is. And it's not that these ideas
Speaker 2: aren't still relevant. Yeah, like military spending is obviously very influential.
Speaker 2: I do think that, like, you know, we were both
Speaker 2: around for like around, we're both alive and cognizant of
Speaker 2: the news for like WMDs in Iraq and.
Speaker 1: Post nine to eleven warfare.
Speaker 2: No blood for oil, and like why are we really
Speaker 2: going to war? And who is it making rich? So
Speaker 2: all of those ideas are still worth talking about. But
Speaker 2: post Cold War report from Iron Mountain is just not
Speaker 2: relevant in the way that it was because like, the
Speaker 2: permanent state of worldwide war is not what we have.
Speaker 2: We are not stockpiling arms in the same way.
Speaker 1: There are global conflicts, but there's not like an active
Speaker 1: arms race that everyone's talking about.
Speaker 2: No, we are not in a state of war readiness
Speaker 2: at all times, on the brink of nuclear annihilation at
Speaker 2: all times. Like war games are not really a thing.
Speaker 2: Like the brinksmanship in Cuba is not really a thing.
Speaker 2: So I really wish that that is where the story ended.
Speaker 1: Oh no, and this is the part that I.
Speaker 2: Didn't want to talk about because that was a really
Speaker 2: fun hoax.
Speaker 1: Yeah, silly magazine writers having having a laugh, having a
Speaker 1: best selling book. Yeah, print media thinking and having a
Speaker 1: laugh during the Cold War, trying to get through the day,
Speaker 1: trying to get people thinking about the big issues.
Speaker 2: Thinking about the big issues, using satire to make a point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's all important, that's all good.
Speaker 2: So I'm going to speed through the rest of it.
Speaker 2: Oh no, because this is just not the tone of
Speaker 2: our podcast. Report from Iron Mountain has unfortunately sort of
Speaker 2: had a second life in conspiracy.
Speaker 1: Say yeah, yeah, you saw this coming out mile away.
Speaker 2: Really plausible, I'm shouting into the mic at this point.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of people who either think that it's
Speaker 2: real or think that the ideas are real enough that
Speaker 2: they should just believe it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I'm sure telling them that a satire author
Speaker 1: wrote them does not get through to these people, because again,
Speaker 1: the footnotes footnotes are.
Speaker 2: Real because they get all their news from podcasters who
Speaker 2: started as stand ups anyway, So what does the word
Speaker 2: satire even mean to them?
Speaker 1: True.
Speaker 2: In the late nineteen eighties, Lewin finds out that copies
Speaker 2: of Report from Iron Mountain are being printed and sold
Speaker 2: by a small press that purports to be academic but
Speaker 2: is actually a fringe group devoted to spreading the theory
Speaker 2: that the Holocaust never happened. Who is buying it? Right
Speaker 2: wing groups, white nationalists and heavily armed militias. And his
Speaker 2: lawyers are like, you can't do this. This is a
Speaker 2: book and copyright law exists. Yeah, And their lawyers are like,
Speaker 2: government files are in public domain and he's like, it's
Speaker 2: not a government file. I said that I wrote it.
Speaker 2: And they're like, you said that because the CIA told
Speaker 2: you to And he's like, no, see, you never told
Speaker 2: me to do that.
Speaker 1: Did he sue them? Did it work?
Speaker 2: He sued them and it worked sort of right in
Speaker 2: time for the Internet to make that obsolete. I mean,
Speaker 2: you can just pirate books now. But he did win
Speaker 2: and they had to stop selling it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but now it's just on the internet.
Speaker 2: And now it's just everywhere I mean, which is as
Speaker 2: long as you know it's a like whatever. I'm not
Speaker 2: going to ever say like it's okay to pirate books,
Speaker 2: but like, I don't think reading this it's not like
Speaker 2: reading Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Like you're allowed
Speaker 2: to read this book as long as you know it's
Speaker 2: a hoax.
Speaker 1: Also you can I think it's worthwhile even to read
Speaker 1: and think about these ideas because the military industrial complex
Speaker 1: is still a massive thing and problem, and like it's
Speaker 1: it's interesting. This is like to me, as you brought
Speaker 1: this up, I'm like, that's like an interesting like college
Speaker 1: philosophy thought experiment.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, like this was meant to be read for public consumption,
Speaker 2: Like as long as you know that it is very
Speaker 2: much like a thought experiment that is making fun of
Speaker 2: a particular group's way of thinking.
Speaker 1: It's a modest it's trying to read it is what
Speaker 1: it is.
Speaker 2: It absolutely it literally is.
Speaker 1: It's a most proposal, which again people should still read
Speaker 1: as long as you know not to eat Irish babies.
Speaker 2: Conspiracy theorists point to Iron Mountain to back up all
Speaker 2: sorts of ideas from the government is lying to you,
Speaker 2: which is of course sometimes true. To there's a secret
Speaker 2: couple running the country, which is not really true and
Speaker 2: is almost always anti semitic, yep, to they just want
Speaker 2: to keep us at war all of the time, which
Speaker 2: is like even if you think that and can find
Speaker 2: evidence for that, like you just can't say that every
Speaker 2: single world leader thinks that, because like they just don't,
Speaker 2: Like that's not a thing that every single world leader thinks.
Speaker 1: No, they're not all in on it. Although, if you
Speaker 1: want proof that the government is lying to you, Watergate happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then a bunch of like and then Nixon
Speaker 2: had to resign, you know what I mean. Like, there's
Speaker 2: just as much evidence that people are trying to oust
Speaker 2: conspiracy theorists as there are that everyone's in on the
Speaker 2: conspiracy anyway.
Speaker 1: I also, I mean, this is preaching to people listening
Speaker 1: to a podcast called Hoax. People aren't that good at things.
Speaker 2: They're dumb. They're dumb as well.
Speaker 1: We can't people can't all get together and like orchestrate
Speaker 1: these massive conspiracies. It's just not possible. Have you ever
Speaker 1: tried to do a group project. I'm yeah, See, this
Speaker 1: is the rabbit hole. We just cannot can't knock it down. It.
Speaker 2: Another argument that people tend to say is that in
Speaker 2: the absence of war, there needs to be some kind
Speaker 2: of societal enemy, and that the government will create one.
Speaker 2: And you can use this argument to call anything a
Speaker 2: false flag operation ding Ding ding Ding dangerous. People have
Speaker 2: tied report from Iron Mountain to the Oklahoma City bombing,
Speaker 2: and it has influenced writing that has influenced QAnon. I'm
Speaker 2: not going to get into any of that, but if
Speaker 2: you are interested in looking it up for yourself. The
Speaker 2: writings to Google are silent weapons for quiet wars. And
Speaker 2: Behold a Pale Horse, which I really want to stress,
Speaker 2: are writings by and for people not quite in touch
Speaker 2: with reality. I am not endorsing those writings. I'm saying
Speaker 2: those are the writings that have taken Report from Iron
Speaker 2: Mountain out of its proper context.
Speaker 1: And are using it to fuel conspiracy theories.
Speaker 2: Yes, slightly more on the vibe of our podcast, Dana.
Speaker 2: Have you seen the film JFK.
Speaker 1: I haven't, well, I will tell you.
Speaker 2: JFK is all about Kevin Costner plays a real guy
Speaker 2: trying to investigate the I would say, the who and
Speaker 2: the what of the assassination of President Kennedy?
Speaker 1: Does this, say alvar Stone one? Is this the one
Speaker 1: where they sort of implied that it was LBJ, They
Speaker 1: implied that LBJ was in on it, and they.
Speaker 2: Say that it was the CIA. Oh cool, They out
Speaker 2: and out say that it was the CIA.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but this is again a fiction, a fiction movie,
Speaker 1: but presenting it like like they did the investigation.
Speaker 2: It's a it's a fiction movie about a real trial.
Speaker 2: Oh interesting, So it's a fiction a movie about a
Speaker 2: real theory. Yes, so like the the investigating that they do.
Speaker 2: I think they actually did, but it is to back
Speaker 2: up conclusions that have not necessarily been proven. And they
Speaker 2: show conversations and confessions that may or may not have
Speaker 2: taken place as depicted. Interesting, and you know Alliver Stones
Speaker 2: were allowed to whatever he wants. Yeah, actors, it's a movie.
Speaker 2: All of the movie is about the who and the what,
Speaker 2: except for a very long scene right in the middle,
Speaker 2: which is about the why, in which Coosner goes to
Speaker 2: Washington to talk to a character played by Donald Sutherland
Speaker 2: who only goes by mister X, and he's like, didn't
Speaker 2: you ever wonder why would the CIA want to kill
Speaker 2: their own president? And he lays out this whole argument
Speaker 2: about they wanted to kill him because he wanted to
Speaker 2: end the war in Cuba and they couldn't have that
Speaker 2: because war is the natural state of society.
Speaker 3: Oh no.
Speaker 2: And it is a lot of ideas that have come
Speaker 2: from many places, including Report from Iron Mountain. And the
Speaker 2: character that Donald Sutherland is playing is based on a
Speaker 2: real guy, General Proudy, who has definitely read and believe
Speaker 2: Report from Iron Mountain.
Speaker 1: But again, Report from Iron Mountain was a satire of
Speaker 1: think tank thinking yes and taking an idea from a
Speaker 1: satirical text and putting it into the mouth of a
Speaker 1: character in a movie who goes by mister X is
Speaker 1: like fine, and also Donald Sutherland, who's like an actor
Speaker 1: with a real gravitas.
Speaker 2: Yes, and you know who defended that decision is Nora Ephron.
Speaker 2: I just wanted to just we had to mention her
Speaker 2: a third time. But it just is funny that, like,
Speaker 2: you know, Kennedy was killed before this book was even written,
Speaker 2: so like it all like.
Speaker 1: But this movie wasn't made before this book was written.
Speaker 2: No, this movie was made in the nineties. Yeah, So
Speaker 2: like it all circles back to people will latch onto
Speaker 2: any idea that confirms the thing that they want to say,
Speaker 2: even if it's just to like make their screenplay better. Yep,
Speaker 2: which is fine, because you should make your screenplay better.
Speaker 2: But like just always just be careful. Just because it
Speaker 2: sounds really good and just because it makes a theory
Speaker 2: of the assassination makes sense doesn't mean it's real. And like,
Speaker 2: even if that is why the CIA killed Kennedy, that
Speaker 2: doesn't mean that war is the natural state of human beings, Like,
Speaker 2: even if the director of the CIA believes it and
Speaker 2: used it to justify killing Kennedy, that doesn't mean that
Speaker 2: you have to sit in your car and believe that
Speaker 2: war is the natural state of human beings. I believe
Speaker 2: in peace.
Speaker 1: Well, that's also what I was saying. I was like,
Speaker 1: even if you believe that the report from Iron Mountain
Speaker 1: was a thing that happened, that all these you know,
Speaker 1: government thinking people got together and came up with us
Speaker 1: people were wrong in the fifties all the time. They
Speaker 1: had a bunch of ideas that were wrong.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: So it's like, even if you think the thing is true,
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that the report is right. Yes, but
Speaker 1: it is a good I mean, I think at this
Speaker 1: point in Hoax, I do think it is worthwhile that
Speaker 1: we're talking about the ways that conspiracy theory thinking have
Speaker 1: become so like dangerous in our public consciousness, that people
Speaker 1: latch onto conspiracy thinking to make themselves feel important and
Speaker 1: to then be terrible people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll just wrap up now.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Leonard Lewin died in nineteen ninety nine. His daughter sold
Speaker 2: the remaining pirated editions of the report with a big
Speaker 2: sticker on him that said, hoax.
Speaker 1: Hoax satire.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that report from Iron Mountain should just
Speaker 2: live alongside like Hunger Games or Atlas Shrugged as like
Speaker 2: political fiction. Yeah, has inspired a lot of real world thinking,
Speaker 2: and you can think about it as a thing that
Speaker 2: is totally valid to inspire your conclusions, but it is
Speaker 2: not real. And I will also just say, like when
Speaker 2: government documents are leaked, the government really to make an
Speaker 2: example out of the leakers. We know the names of
Speaker 2: these people, Chelsea Manning, reality winner, Edward Snowden. When documents
Speaker 2: from inside the government leak, you will know about it.
Speaker 2: They don't just let that slide. So that's a big
Speaker 2: tip off if you're ever wondering if a document has
Speaker 2: actually leaked, is someone on trial? No, then it's probably
Speaker 2: not real.
Speaker 1: And you know what send their conspiracy thinking against them
Speaker 1: where it's like, oh, no, one's on trial. That means
Speaker 1: they wanted it to get out. But then don't believe
Speaker 1: it because the government wants you to believe it. Indeed, Dan,
Speaker 1: I feel like we've already played would you have fallen?
Speaker 2: For this? But like what's your takeaway? I don't know
Speaker 2: who would you cast in the movie?
Speaker 1: I mean, would you go to Iron Mountain and talk
Speaker 1: about peace. No, I mean Iron Mountain sounds like a
Speaker 1: really scary, depressing place that would make me anxious. I
Speaker 1: would have fallen for it. I don't think I necessarily
Speaker 1: would have believed the conclusion. I like to think I'm
Speaker 1: a critical enough thinker where even if I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: a bunch of government guys got together and put some
Speaker 1: theories in place, I think I would have wanted to
Speaker 1: read that critically. But it sounds plausible that a bunch
Speaker 1: of government guys got together and wrote something because that
Speaker 1: they be doing that.
Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, the government guys would come up with a
Speaker 2: document that justifies the need for perpetual war is not
Speaker 2: like the most out there idea, and that the government
Speaker 2: would then suppress it is also not the most out
Speaker 2: there idea.
Speaker 1: But then when you tell me, oh, this was written
Speaker 1: by a satire writer with a satire magazine, I'm like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: they'd be doing that too, satire writers be writing satire. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then if you say, like, oh, the government just
Speaker 2: wants you to think that, I'm like, no, they would.
Speaker 1: Never work that hard, you know what I mean? Like,
Speaker 1: that's that I don't buy.
Speaker 2: I would be like, no, they would never because this
Speaker 2: report doesn't contain like the government would only go that
Speaker 2: far to cover up a cover up if it was
Speaker 2: like facts, yeah, or like like the Kennedy assasset, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean. Like they would if a book
Speaker 2: came out that accused I don't know, like something freaking
Speaker 2: crazy that was about like Lincoln was a pedophile or something,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, and then it was like, oh, no,
Speaker 2: that was written as satire. And then someone was like, no,
Speaker 2: the CIA made them say that was satire. I'd be like, yeah,
Speaker 2: maybe the CIA would go through that trouble because that
Speaker 2: would be a real national embarrassment. But just like a
Speaker 2: report about ideas, I'm like, I cannot see the government
Speaker 2: going through all that trouble to cover up ida O
Speaker 2: a weekend brainstorming session. Yeah, or like no, it would
Speaker 2: have to be something so embarrassing that accused America of
Speaker 2: like having violated the Geneva conventions. Yeah, that would destroy
Speaker 2: our national reputation that they would then force a guy
Speaker 2: at gunpoint to say he wrote it as satire. For
Speaker 2: me to believe that it was a cover up, If
Speaker 2: it's just ideas about what might happen in a hypothetical
Speaker 2: future that's never gonna come true when there's worldwide peace.
Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, they're never gonna bother covering that up.
Speaker 2: The government is so busy.
Speaker 1: They don't care. And again it's an economic analysis of
Speaker 1: a hypothetical yeah.
Speaker 2: Or even like a sociological analysis. Yeah, that is spooky
Speaker 2: and depressing, but not really a cull to arms.
Speaker 1: No interesting though, you know what, I'm glad that in
Speaker 1: the seventies people were thinking about these big ideas. Yeah,
Speaker 1: good job, monicle, you got the conversation, you.
Speaker 2: Got the conversation, and look forth still having it.
Speaker 1: Now, Lizzie, where can the people find us?
Speaker 2: The people can find us at Hoax the Podcast, Yes,
Speaker 2: on Instagram, on Instagram, Where can they find.
Speaker 1: You, Dana Schwartz with three z's on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 2: Indeed, they can also email us at Hoax Thepodcast at
Speaker 2: gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: Hoax Thepodcast at gmail dot com. We will read your email.
Speaker 2: We will read your email, and I would also say
Speaker 2: it is us reading your email. Yeah, so that's a
Speaker 2: great way to contact us.
Speaker 1: And Lizzie's cat Matilda will also read your email. Indeed,
Speaker 1: my cat can't read you.
Speaker 2: No, sadly.
Speaker 1: Emailing us personally a less good way to contact us. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: you don't.
Speaker 2: Email Hoax The podcast at gmail dot cost easy to remember,
Speaker 2: easy peasy, Please rate, review, subscribe If you're listening to
Speaker 2: the show, it does help a lot. Spotify, iHeart app,
Speaker 2: Apple podcast wherever you are, leave a five stars, and
Speaker 2: please please hoax responsibly.
Speaker 1: Yes. If there's one lesson to take away from this episode,
Speaker 1: it is Hoax Responsibly.
Speaker 3: Bye.
Speaker 2: Hoax is a production of iHeart Podcasts. Our hosts are
Speaker 2: Danish Schwortz and Lizzie Logan. Our executive producers are Matt
Speaker 2: Frederick and Trevor Young, with supervising producer Rima L. Kali
Speaker 2: and producers Nomes Griffin and Jesse Funk. Our theme music
Speaker 2: was composed by Laine Montgomery. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
Speaker 2: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
Speaker 2: your podcasts. Thanks for listening.