WEBVTT - Flashback: Episode 1 "McVeigh’s Mentor" (Sneak Peek) 0:00:02.400 --> 0:00:04.280 You're about to listen to a sneak peak of the 0:00:04.320 --> 0:00:08.280 first episode of my new podcast, Flashback from Ozzie, the 0:00:08.280 --> 0:00:10.760 creators of The Thread. Flashback is a journey through the 0:00:10.800 --> 0:00:14.760 hidden connections and ripple effects of history. In our premier episode, 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:18.680 we hear a cautionary tale about hate, free speech, and 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:23.240 giving a big platform to little men. Enjoy this sneak 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:26.240 peak of our first episode, and don't forget to subscribe 0:00:26.280 --> 0:00:28.400 so you're the first to hear it in full, along 0:00:28.440 --> 0:00:36.640 with new episodes dropping every Wednesday, whether to applications. April, 0:00:38.920 --> 0:00:41.400 just past nine in the morning, a meeting of the 0:00:41.400 --> 0:00:44.599 Water Resources Board had just begun inside the Alfred pie 0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:49.200 Mura Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City. Basically, there are 0:00:49.200 --> 0:01:04.160 four elements that I have to ask receive information regarding 0:01:08.760 --> 0:01:11.600 a massive car bomb exploded outside of a large federal 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:16.080 building in downtown Oklahoma City, shattering that building, killing children, 0:01:16.440 --> 0:01:20.400 killing federal employees, military men, and civilians. The bomb weigh 0:01:20.480 --> 0:01:23.800 nearly seven thousand pounds, nearly three quarters of the weight 0:01:23.840 --> 0:01:27.280 of the nuclear device dropped on Hiroshima. Most people were 0:01:27.319 --> 0:01:30.360 already inside at work here when the blast ripped the 0:01:30.480 --> 0:01:34.319 nine story federal office building apart, shattering floors and the 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:38.520 offices inside. Most devastating of all the day care center 0:01:38.560 --> 0:01:41.840 on the second floor, destroying that was where most of 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:47.080 the children who were killed had been. The first clue 0:01:47.160 --> 0:01:50.160 as to those responsible for the bombing, the worst domestic 0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:53.760 terror attack ever on American soil, was an eight foot 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:57.200 piece of twisted meadow. It landed nearly six hundred feet 0:01:57.200 --> 0:02:00.120 away from the blast site. It was the axle to 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:03.360 the writer rental truck that had carried the homemade bomb. 0:02:04.080 --> 0:02:09.040 The truck nine Ford, had a vehicle identification number stamped 0:02:09.080 --> 0:02:11.920 on that axle. It was thanks to the vehicle i 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:15.280 D that FBI agents were able to track down and 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:19.240 arrest to suspect. The U s. Attorney General Janet Reno 0:02:19.480 --> 0:02:24.560 reported his capture to the nation. Timothy McVeigh, aged twenty seven, 0:02:25.200 --> 0:02:28.840 was arrested by local authorities twenty five years ago. Timothy 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:32.080 mcveigh's heinous act killed one hundred and sixty eight people, 0:02:32.440 --> 0:02:36.160 including nineteen children. But here's something they didn't tell you 0:02:36.200 --> 0:02:39.040 on the news or teach you in school about what 0:02:39.160 --> 0:02:43.880 happened in Oklahoma City. A Ford truck may have delivered 0:02:43.880 --> 0:02:48.480 the fateful payload that terrible April morning, and but Timothy 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:50.920 mcveigh's act was really the end of a chain of 0:02:50.960 --> 0:02:54.560 events that began long before that day, the legacy of 0:02:54.560 --> 0:02:57.680 a toxic package of lies and hate that began seventy 0:02:57.720 --> 0:03:01.399 five years earlier with another four Ward, one whose name 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:09.240 we associate with mass production, not mass murder. Welcome to Flashback, 0:03:09.400 --> 0:03:11.880 a new podcast from AZZI that aims to bring the 0:03:11.880 --> 0:03:15.680 pass back to life like never before. I'm Sean Braswell, 0:03:15.919 --> 0:03:18.160 and I'll be your visiting professor, taking you on a 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:20.480 journey through history that will change how you look at 0:03:20.480 --> 0:03:24.120 the world today. Imagine Flashback is that history class you 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:27.679 always wanted to take but can never find one where 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:30.880 there are no textbooks, no exams, and no note taking, 0:03:31.200 --> 0:03:34.120 just the most compelling and surprising stories from the past, 0:03:34.400 --> 0:03:38.440 told by those who know them most about them. We 0:03:38.480 --> 0:03:41.200 are all living in the ripple effects of history, and 0:03:41.240 --> 0:03:44.160 so in the first seasonal Flashback, We're going to connect 0:03:44.160 --> 0:03:47.240 the dots on some of the most incredible, unintended consequences 0:03:47.280 --> 0:03:49.960 from the past. We'll learn how the invention of air 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:54.200 conditioning change the landscape of American politics, how Hitler's doctor 0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:57.240 changed the course of World War two and much more. 0:03:57.720 --> 0:04:02.080 Today's lesson is a cautionary tale about hate, free speech, 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:11.480 and giving a big platform to little men. Actually, I 0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:15.320 remember I was in the sixth grade. I was going 0:04:15.320 --> 0:04:17.919 to Sat Jane's classic school at the time. This is 0:04:18.000 --> 0:04:20.680 Latrese Sutton. She was thirteen at the time of the 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:23.880 Oklahoma City bombing. I remember being in class and the 0:04:23.920 --> 0:04:26.240 whole class sending up and looking out the window and 0:04:26.320 --> 0:04:30.120 seeing the boat coming out from far away. We didn't 0:04:30.120 --> 0:04:32.240 know what it was at the time, but it shook 0:04:32.240 --> 0:04:36.080 our school building. That was free massive. That was not 0:04:36.160 --> 0:04:38.920 the only sign that something was amiss. My mom was 0:04:38.960 --> 0:04:41.280 supposed to be lux with me that day and she 0:04:41.320 --> 0:04:44.640 didn't show up during a lunch period, and since she 0:04:44.760 --> 0:04:47.599 was a nursing assistant, I thought maybe she got called 0:04:47.640 --> 0:04:49.640 into the hospital to help with all the people that 0:04:49.680 --> 0:04:53.200 were injured. Um, so I'm thinking anything of it. Latrise 0:04:53.320 --> 0:04:55.920 ate lunch with her friends and went to recess as usual. 0:04:56.240 --> 0:05:01.800 When my aunt came to pick us up from school, Um, 0:05:01.920 --> 0:05:04.359 she was crying, and I think at that point we 0:05:04.440 --> 0:05:08.080 kind of knew something was wrong. Sutton's mom, Teresa, had 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:11.040 gone alone downtown to the Mura Federal Building to get 0:05:11.040 --> 0:05:13.960 a Social Security card for Sutton's eight month old brother. 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:22.400 When mcveigh's homemade bomb exploded, she was thirty three. Four 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:25.920 years before Oklahoma City, Timothy McVeigh made his first killing. 0:05:26.400 --> 0:05:29.920 He received the Army Commendation Medal for it. Just two 0:05:29.960 --> 0:05:33.920 hours ago, Allied air forces began an attack on military 0:05:33.960 --> 0:05:38.240 targets in Iraq and Kuwait. In January, the U S 0:05:38.240 --> 0:05:41.000 went to war against Iraq and the first Persian Gulf War. 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:43.719 One of the first American soldiers to enter the enemy 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:47.000 nation was a twenty two year old infantryman from Buffalo, 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:50.520 New York. In the Gulf, you saw combat. This is 0:05:50.560 --> 0:05:53.840 correspondent Ed Bradley in a two thousand interview that Sixty 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:56.559 Minutes did with McVeigh in his Death Row prison cell, 0:05:57.279 --> 0:06:00.680 and McVeigh was particularly open with his past. I did 0:06:01.320 --> 0:06:06.919 you fired a weapon at Yes and killed soldiers? Yes. 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:10.279 McVeigh was a gunner in a Bradley fighting vehicle, and 0:06:10.360 --> 0:06:12.680 he was a damn good shot. One day, his crew 0:06:12.720 --> 0:06:15.680 spotted an enemy machine gun nest in the distance. It 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:18.279 was more than a mile away, but poised a major 0:06:18.320 --> 0:06:21.600 threat to American troops. When one of the Iraqi gunners 0:06:21.640 --> 0:06:24.600 briefly came up from his position, McVeigh popped him right 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:27.640 in the chest. The lethal shot, taken from more than 0:06:27.800 --> 0:06:31.200 nineteen football fields away, would help force the surrender of 0:06:31.240 --> 0:06:34.479 thirty other Iraqis from that position and become the stuff 0:06:34.520 --> 0:06:38.320 of legend in the army. McVeigh had been using firearms 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:42.479 since boyhood. Tim McVeigh was raised in a rural town 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:45.880 outside of Buffalo, New York. This is lou Michelle. He 0:06:45.960 --> 0:06:48.400 and his colleague at the Buffalo News, Dan Herbeck, spent 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:51.920 seventy three hours interviewing McVeigh after the bombing, and at 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:55.320 a very young age, his grandpa Ed taught him how 0:06:55.400 --> 0:07:01.000 to shoot guns rifles along the erie canal. Ed taught 0:07:01.040 --> 0:07:03.520 to him about safety. You just don't shout a gun 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:06.880 anywhere because you could hurt somebody. The son of a 0:07:06.920 --> 0:07:10.200 factory worker, young Tim had a typical boyhood. He loved 0:07:10.200 --> 0:07:13.880 pro football, comic books, and battles between good and evil. 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:16.880 He even made his own Star Wars lightsabers by attaching 0:07:16.960 --> 0:07:20.840 flashlights to cardboard tubes. He was known as Noodle McVeigh 0:07:20.880 --> 0:07:25.600 because he was very slender and he was a target 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:29.760 for bullies. Thus his hatred for bullies, and he came 0:07:29.800 --> 0:07:34.200 to realize the American government was the ultimate bully. But 0:07:34.280 --> 0:07:37.440 he didn't come to that realization right away. And in 0:07:37.520 --> 0:07:41.960 May he joined the Army. And one of the things 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:46.880 he told Dan Herbeck and I was that the army 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:51.440 had all the ammunition anyone could ever want. McVeigh loved guns, 0:07:51.720 --> 0:07:54.880 and he loved the Army. At first, other soldiers might 0:07:54.920 --> 0:07:57.920 have hated the early morning wake ups, the strenuous training, 0:07:58.200 --> 0:08:02.880 the uniform inspections, and the discipline McVeigh thrived in late nine, 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:05.640 but they learned he was on the fast track to 0:08:05.640 --> 0:08:08.680 being in the U s Special Forces, the elite of 0:08:08.720 --> 0:08:12.600 the elite. Then, just before his Special Forces try out, 0:08:12.960 --> 0:08:16.520 McVeigh learned the Army had a different plan for him. Iraq. 0:08:17.240 --> 0:08:19.840 I went over there, hyped up, just like everyone else. 0:08:20.120 --> 0:08:22.680 This is McVeigh again in that sixty minutes interview. Not 0:08:22.720 --> 0:08:27.360 only is Saddam evil, all Iraqis are evil. Uh. What 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:30.760 I experienced, though, is an entirely different ballgame. Dan Herbert 0:08:30.800 --> 0:08:35.360 co authored mcveigh's authorized biography, American Terrorist, with lou Michelle, 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:39.840 and he looked at the US involvement in the Persian 0:08:39.880 --> 0:08:45.640 Gulf War as a giant, cruel bully picking on the 0:08:45.679 --> 0:08:48.800 people of Iraq. By the time he got out of 0:08:48.840 --> 0:08:53.040 the army, he literally hated the US government, the government 0:08:53.120 --> 0:08:55.400 he had worked for. By the end of the year, 0:08:55.480 --> 0:08:59.040 McVeigh quit the army, and without the discipline, paycheck, and 0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:04.000 authorized isolence that it afforded him. McVeigh, the bitter antigovernment 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:07.320 gun lover, was a loose cannon just waiting for a 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:15.040 spark to light him up. Henry Ford was a lot 0:09:15.080 --> 0:09:18.280 like Timothy McVeigh in some ways. He came from a simple, 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:21.080 working class home near Lake Erie, and he grew to 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:23.680 hate war and those he believed to be behind it. 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:27.760 This is Victoria Weisti, a legal historian and author of 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:32.920 Henry Ford's War on Jews. Ford was a fierce, fierce 0:09:33.080 --> 0:09:40.880 pacifist and went on record publicly criticizing the way that 0:09:41.000 --> 0:09:44.679 World War One was being conducted. The eccentric tycoon may 0:09:44.720 --> 0:09:47.559 have made his fortune from the automobile, but in nineteen 0:09:47.600 --> 0:09:50.360 fifteen he decided to take a boat to Europe in 0:09:50.440 --> 0:09:53.640 a bold effort to end the war through diplomacy. It 0:09:53.720 --> 0:09:57.360 proved to be a giant fiasco. Ford's reputation took a 0:09:57.440 --> 0:10:00.920 beating in the papers. The Chicago Tribune called him quote 0:10:01.240 --> 0:10:06.880 an ignorant, idealist and an anarchist, and Ford didn't particularly 0:10:06.880 --> 0:10:10.520 care for being called ignorant or an anarchist, so he 0:10:10.600 --> 0:10:14.080 sued for Liabel, which made Matters even worse. Unable to 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:17.680 stop the press from criticizing him, Ford tried something else, 0:10:18.120 --> 0:10:25.400 so in nineteen he purchased a newspaper in his own hometown, Dearborn, Michigan. 0:10:25.400 --> 0:10:28.079 It was about to go defunct, was called the Dearborn Independent, 0:10:29.200 --> 0:10:33.680 and he even purchased a printing press. He brought it 0:10:33.760 --> 0:10:38.760 to the Ford Motor Company factory and he retooled it himself. 0:10:39.280 --> 0:10:41.800 Ford may not have called the national media fake news, 0:10:41.960 --> 0:10:44.200 but he was tired of the newspapers spreading what he 0:10:44.240 --> 0:10:46.840 considered lies. He wanted to have a means for reaching 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:50.640 ordinary Americans directly and unfiltered, and it wasn't just to 0:10:50.640 --> 0:10:54.440 protect his own reputation or sell more cars. Ford was 0:10:54.480 --> 0:10:57.280 deeply concerned with where America was going as a nation, 0:10:57.640 --> 0:11:01.720 and he wanted to use The Dearborn Independent to reshape 0:11:02.960 --> 0:11:09.520 cultural practices, um people's leisure time activities, how immigrants were 0:11:09.840 --> 0:11:15.680 assimilated into American culture, and what kind of politics should prevail. 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:18.680 Ford used every means at his disposal to bolster his 0:11:18.720 --> 0:11:22.720 newspapers readership. Free copies were sent to schools, libraries, and 0:11:22.840 --> 0:11:26.320 universities across the country. Ford dealers were even required to 0:11:26.320 --> 0:11:29.680 fill quotas for newspaper subscriptions, just like they did for 0:11:29.720 --> 0:11:34.240 their car sales. And because they never took subscriptions and 0:11:34.320 --> 0:11:39.240 they never sold ads, it was a complete loss leader 0:11:40.160 --> 0:11:43.520 for Ford, but he didn't care even if it did 0:11:43.520 --> 0:11:46.440 not make him money. Ford realized the power that having 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:49.800 his own print media pedestal gave him. He had entered 0:11:49.800 --> 0:11:52.880 the newspaper business to counter the lies he believed were 0:11:52.920 --> 0:11:55.920 being spread about him, and it didn't take long for 0:11:56.000 --> 0:12:11.720 Henry Ford to start spreading his own. To listen to 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:13.960 this episode and full click the link in the show 0:12:14.000 --> 0:12:18.559 notes or search your podcast app for Flashback History's Unintended Consequences, 0:12:18.920 --> 0:12:25.400 premiering today,