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Speaker 1: See, here's the thing, guys. Conspiracy is really far. However,

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Speaker 1: stupidity is really easy. And nine times out of ten,

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Speaker 1: in the course of human events, you should never chalk

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Speaker 1: up to conspiracy what you can reliably attribute to stupidity.

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Speaker 2: I'm John Cipher and I'm Jerry O'Shea. I was a

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Speaker 2: CIA officer stationed around the world in high threat posts

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Speaker 2: in Europe, Russia, and in Asia.

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Speaker 3: And I served in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East

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Speaker 3: and in war zones. We sometimes created conspiracies to deceive

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Speaker 3: our adversaries.

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Speaker 2: Now we're going to use our expertise to deconstruct conspiracy

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Speaker 2: theories large and small.

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Speaker 3: Could they be true? Or are we being manipulated?

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Speaker 2: This is mission implausible. Today's guest is Tim Winer. Tim's

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Speaker 2: an author and reporter with a special focus on intelligence

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Speaker 2: and national security. He's worked at The New York Times

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Speaker 2: in Philadelphia Choir, where he won a Pulitzer Price for

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Speaker 2: his reporting. He's also written a number of best selling books,

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Speaker 2: and in recent years he has written on political warfare

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Speaker 2: between Russia and the West and has a new book

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Speaker 2: coming out soon on the CIA.

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Speaker 1: So welcome, temp, Thank you, gentlemen.

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Speaker 2: Well, let me start with that issue of political warfare,

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Speaker 2: because one of the weapons a state can use can

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Speaker 2: be both conspiracies and conspiracy theories. Can you give us

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Speaker 2: a sense of what you mean by political warfare and

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Speaker 2: how you see it in the war environment.

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Speaker 1: Well, George Hendon, who was the great American diplomat and

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Speaker 1: the intellectual father of the Clandestine Service of the CIA,

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Speaker 1: define political warfare in nineteen forty eight as all the

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Speaker 1: means at a nation's disposal short of military weapons, to

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Speaker 1: achieve its national foreign policy goals. And this would include espionage,

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Speaker 1: covert action, sabotage, psychological warfare, and all of that is

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Speaker 1: political warfare. Diplomacy is political warfare, Propaganda is political warfare.

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Speaker 1: It's anything that doesn't involve sending in the marine. So

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Speaker 1: let's jump in a time machine and go back a

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Speaker 1: little bit into Iran Contra and also the October Surprise.

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Speaker 1: So maybe we could you could take us through a

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Speaker 1: little bit on what that is for some of the

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Speaker 1: audience who don't remember that, and then we can discuss

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Speaker 1: the relevance of that set of real conspiracies and conspiracy

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Speaker 1: theories around it and how it impicts on us today. Well,

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Speaker 1: the October Surprise is an alleged conspiracy. Iran Contra is

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Speaker 1: an actual conspiracy, and at the center of both is

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Speaker 1: the wily and duplicitous William J. Casey, Director of Central

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Speaker 1: Intelligence from nineteeny one until his death in nineteen eighty seven.

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Speaker 1: HEYTHI was the last great buccaneer from the OSS, the

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Speaker 1: Office of Strategic Services, America's wartime intelligence agency care World

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Speaker 1: War Two. He was Ronald Reagan's campaign manager in the

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty election when Reagan was running against Jimmy Carter.

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Speaker 1: At the time, those in your audience with long memories

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Speaker 1: will recall Iran was holding American hostages and had been

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Speaker 1: for more than a year, and the October surprise, as alleged,

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Speaker 1: is that Casey threw inter myriad intermediaries got a deal

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Speaker 1: with the Iranian saying don't release the hostages until Ronald

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Speaker 1: Reagan is president. There is one living witness to this

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Speaker 1: who says that's what happened. I can't prove it with documents,

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Speaker 1: but I know it from my own experience, and if

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Speaker 1: Casey did that, it would not be out of character.

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Speaker 1: He was a schemer. He did not have a great

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Speaker 1: deal of respect for the laws of the United States.

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Speaker 1: His mission upon taking office at CIA was to basically

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Speaker 1: turn it back into the oss set europe a blaze,

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Speaker 1: although in this case it was Central America. This is

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Speaker 1: just before you guys came on board in the mid eighties,

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Speaker 1: So in the early eighties they were stacking up new

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Speaker 1: officers in the Corridor. Like Cordwood, he was on the

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Speaker 1: path to double the size of the clandestine Service, and

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Speaker 1: he was really just initiating COVID action all over the

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Speaker 1: globe in the name of anti communists. If there was

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Speaker 1: a dictator in Ethiopia who had a Marxist bent, by God,

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Speaker 1: we were going to run guns to the rebels in

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Speaker 1: Ethiopia to overthrow him, and in Chad and throughout Africa,

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Speaker 1: throughout Central America where there was a shooting war going

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Speaker 1: on against the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. The goal here

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Speaker 1: was to knock down leftist governments around the world through

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Speaker 1: COVID action, and in doing so achieved the dream of

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Speaker 1: every Sea High director since the agency was founded in

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Speaker 1: nineteen forty seven, was to roll back the Russians, free

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Speaker 1: the captive states of Central and Eastern Europe, sabotage, over

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Speaker 1: throw Marxist leaders throughout the Third World, and Ronald Reagan

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Speaker 1: was all for it. So we had a pretty good

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Speaker 1: little war Berlin there in Central America. And there are

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Speaker 1: a lot of officers who came to prominence at the

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Speaker 1: Agency after the turn of the twenty first century during

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Speaker 1: the War on Terror got their teeth down there in

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Speaker 1: the steam and jungles of Central America. It wasn't fun,

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Speaker 1: but it was a real war, and there were Vietnam

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Speaker 1: veterans at CIA were fighting it. There were kids whose

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Speaker 1: parents fled Cuba after the Bay of Pigs and were

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Speaker 1: now in their twenties, and we're all about killing some commis.

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Speaker 2: There was another part of it, too, right, so that

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Speaker 2: it had to do with the Oregan administration sending arms

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Speaker 2: to Iran, maybe you'd get hostages out, and then using

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Speaker 2: the money to fund the contrast.

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Speaker 4: The Iran contrast scandal transfected Washington for most of nineteen

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Speaker 4: eighty seven and renewed a struggle as old as the

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Speaker 4: Republic between the President and conguens. The Reagan administration's determination

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Speaker 4: to sell arms secretly to Iran and to help guerrillas

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Speaker 4: fighting the Marxist government of Nicaragua, despite Congressional objections was

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Speaker 4: the engine that drove the Iran Contra policy. Secretly, Lieutenant

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Speaker 4: Colonel Oliver North devised a scheme to finance the Countras

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Speaker 4: by overcharging Iran for the weapons, and to use the

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Speaker 4: profits to help the rebels in Nicaragua.

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Speaker 5: What is involved is that in the course of the

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Speaker 5: arms transfers, certain monies were taken and made available to

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Speaker 5: the forces in Central America which are opposing the Sandinista government.

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Speaker 6: There by giving Iran what it wanted military arms. The

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Speaker 6: US was hoping to get what it wanted the return

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Speaker 6: of American hostages in Beirut. Arms priced by the government

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Speaker 6: at twelve and a half million dollars were sold to

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Speaker 6: Iran at a marked up price. These funds were then

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Speaker 6: diverted to the contras in Senate for America.

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Speaker 7: I thought it was a good idea. I was convinced

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Speaker 7: that the President would in the end think it was

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Speaker 7: a good idea.

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Speaker 8: I asked Admiral Poindexter directly, does the President know? He

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Speaker 8: told me he did not.

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Speaker 7: I made a very deliberate decision not to ask the

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Speaker 7: President so that I could insulate him from the decision

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Speaker 7: and provide some future deniability for the president if it

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Speaker 7: ever leaked out.

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Speaker 2: How much do you think Reagan himself was involved in

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Speaker 2: either planning or carrying this out?

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Speaker 1: Right, let's get to the Irong part of the Iran contrast.

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Speaker 1: So the contras are the counter revolutionaries that the CIA

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Speaker 1: in the United States is back in Central America. The

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Speaker 1: situation with Iran is that in Lebanon and in bear Root,

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Speaker 1: the Israelis have invaded Lebanon to try and crush the PLO.

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Speaker 1: They have slaughtered hundreds of civilians in the process. The

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Speaker 1: United States is backing them to the hill. The Iranians

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Speaker 1: set up shop in the Beka Valley of Lebanon in

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three and they start creating this force that

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Speaker 1: became known as hesbo La. And the young second in

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Speaker 1: command of hesbo La was a twenty five year old

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Speaker 1: dude named Imad Mugnier who would go on to kill

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Speaker 1: more Americans than anybody up to and I think up

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Speaker 1: to Osama bin Laden. It was after bin Laden had

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Speaker 1: the most American blood on his hands of anybody in

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Speaker 1: our lifetimes. So the Americans are back in the Israelis.

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Speaker 1: In April eighty three, hes Bolah blows up the American

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Speaker 1: embassy in Beirut Hills, sixty three Americans, including eight CIA

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Speaker 1: officers and support staff. The station chief, the CIA's top

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Speaker 1: Middle East dandalist, Bob Ames, wipes out the station. The

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Speaker 1: Reagan sends significant military peacekeeping Force marines at the Beirut airport.

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Speaker 1: Hes Bolap blows them up, kills two hundred and forty

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Speaker 1: one Americans. In October of that year, I believe the

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Speaker 1: sixth Fleet is out in the Mediterranean. Their lobbin shells

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Speaker 1: all over the Bekhav Valley. The response of Iran and

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Speaker 1: Hezbolah is this. In March of eighty four, the CNN

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Speaker 1: bureau chief is kidnapped and taken hostage. In Later in March,

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Speaker 1: the new CI station chief, Bill Buckley, is kidnapped and

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Speaker 1: taken hostage. A couple weeks later, the Reverend Benjamin Weir,

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Speaker 1: who was a Presbyterian missionary, vanishes from Beirut. In all,

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Speaker 1: fourteen American hostages are taken over the years. So we

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Speaker 1: got two things going on. Now. It's nineteen eighty four.

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Speaker 1: A mysterious group that nobody knows anything about has got

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Speaker 1: the CIA station chief and a bunch of other Americans

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Speaker 1: chained to radiators in basement somewhere, and meanwhile Congress has

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Speaker 1: cut off funds for the sea Is Warrants Central America.

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Speaker 2: The Boland Demandment Affair Bowland Demendment.

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Speaker 5: We did not to have the view that we were

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Speaker 5: circumventing the Bowl and Amendment.

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Speaker 9: We simply read the ball In Amendment and believed that

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Speaker 9: it did not apply because we were private.

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Speaker 1: So what is Bill Casey to do about the very

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Speaker 1: long story short, there's a guy lurking around. You probably

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Speaker 1: run across people like this in your decades of service

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Speaker 1: at CIA. He's a paper hanger, he's a fabricator. His

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Speaker 1: name is Monitor goor Boni. He's a former member of Savak,

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Speaker 1: the Iranian intelligence service under the Shah. This guy is

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Speaker 1: such a ething lie that the CIA issues a very

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Speaker 1: rare burn notice, a worldwide burn notice, saying the truth

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Speaker 1: is not in this guy. Nothing he says or rights

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Speaker 1: should ever be believed. Keep back five hundred feet.

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Speaker 2: There's a number of famous people that burn notices have

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Speaker 2: gone out, and then the US policymakers nonetheless have run

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Speaker 2: with over the years.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Well, things do not end well when you

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Speaker 1: trust the word of someone who has a burn notice

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Speaker 1: on him. Bill Casey says, this is my guy, because

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Speaker 1: Gourbana Bar comes to him with a proposal that if

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Speaker 1: the US sells weapons to Iran, which is fighting a

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Speaker 1: very bloody war against Iraq at the time. Okay, we're

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Speaker 1: helping Saddam Lusain fight the Iranians because we hate the Iranians.

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Speaker 1: What's also, they'll both the Iranians if we do this.

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Speaker 2: Hold on just a second, well we take a quick break.

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Speaker 3: There's a conspiracy theory inside of this, real conspiracy, and

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Speaker 3: I'm waiting for you to get to it. But it's

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Speaker 3: one that's still we still deal with today, and that

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Speaker 3: is the conspiracy theory about the moderate faction inside of Iran.

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Speaker 3: These mythical Iranian moderates and Bill Casey Mumbles, who he

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Speaker 3: was known as affectionately back in the day, believe this,

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Speaker 3: or at least Gerbonifore got into believe.

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Speaker 1: Okay, the guy who really believes this is a gung

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Speaker 1: Home Marine lieutenant colonel on the National Security Council staff

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Speaker 1: named Oliver el North.

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Speaker 8: I came here to tell you the truth, the good,

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Speaker 8: the bad, and the ugly. I'm here to tell it

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Speaker 8: all pleasant and unpleasant, and I am here to accept

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Speaker 8: responsibility for that which I did. I will not accept

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Speaker 8: responsibility for that which I did not do.

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Speaker 9: And these operations were carried out in secret, we hope.

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Speaker 9: So they were covert operations, Yes, there were. And covert

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Speaker 9: operations are designed to be secrets from our enemies, that

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Speaker 9: is correct. But these operations were designed to be secrets

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Speaker 9: from the American people.

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Speaker 1: Nobody at the SEE I wants to touch this with

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Speaker 1: a ten foot pole. The chief of the Clandestine Service,

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Speaker 1: Claire George, says, I ain't doing this. The head of

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Speaker 1: the Hostage Task Force at CI, Charlie Allen, legendary officer, says,

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Speaker 1: I would sooner cut my grandmother's throat and get in

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Speaker 1: bed with monitor coor Bonaparte. So Katy can't get a

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Speaker 1: senior officers to do it, he calls up this young

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Speaker 1: punk at the National Security Council who's like his golden boy,

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Speaker 1: Oli North, and makes him the action officer.

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Speaker 3: I think it's a good move because Ali North spent

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Speaker 3: a year at the State University of New York at Brockport,

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Speaker 3: which is what Jerry.

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Speaker 2: He went to school, A safety school, you too, A

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Speaker 2: by of the only people famous people out of that

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Speaker 2: Jerry with all due respect, you would be in the

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Speaker 2: minority of people, Okay, Bonifarre and north sell Casey on

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Speaker 2: this concept.

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Speaker 1: A lot of people get involved with this. A Secretary

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Speaker 1: of Defense, Casper Weinberger, his senior staff men Colin Powell

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Speaker 1: later our Secretary of State, are all involved in this

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Speaker 1: basically money laundering and weapons smuggling scheme to take anti

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Speaker 1: tank and anti aircraft missile toes and hawks out of

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Speaker 1: the inventories of the Pentagon and the Israelis, ship them

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Speaker 1: through a middleman, deliver them to the Iranians, mark up

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Speaker 1: the price six hundred percent. Everybody gets paid, the middlemen

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Speaker 1: get paid, or Bonifire pockets millions, but there's still going

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Speaker 1: to be twelve million dollars left over for the conscience.

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Speaker 1: And the way the money is reimbursed through the Pentagon

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Speaker 1: is CIA takes the money and delivers it in tranches

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Speaker 1: of nine hundred ninety nine nine ninety nine point ninety

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Speaker 1: nine cents a million dollar transfer. Triggers are reporting requirement

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Speaker 1: to Congress, so they're smurfing it back into the coffers

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Speaker 1: of the concerence. Everybody's happy, except the Uranians are not

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Speaker 1: happy because the weapons are some of them came out

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Speaker 1: of Israeli stocks and have Hebrew lettering on it, which

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Speaker 1: upsets the Iranians. And in the fall of eighty six,

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Speaker 1: one of the CIA's resupply planes gets shot down by

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Speaker 1: a teenage Sandinista. The only survivor is a contractor named

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Speaker 1: Eugene Hassenfuss and Hassin Fuss. He's a little banged up,

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Speaker 1: but he's alive. This is a big deal, Sandonisa's shoot

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Speaker 1: down American plane. What kind of plane is it? The

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Speaker 1: reporters on the scene would like to know. Oh, says Hastenfuss,

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Speaker 1: I worked for this DiiA. A hallmark of Casey's covert operations,

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Speaker 1: where that they were so big they could not be covert. Okay,

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Speaker 1: you could call them a covert operation, but it's like

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Speaker 1: trying to hide an elephant with a handkerchief. Reporters all

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Speaker 1: over Washington were on the scent of this illegally funded

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Speaker 1: war in Central America, the secret war in Central America.

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Speaker 1: It wasn't a secret to the Sandinistas, and pretty soon

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Speaker 1: it wasn't secret to the American press on the scene

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Speaker 1: in Central America.

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Speaker 2: Mind the harbor.

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Speaker 1: As part of that process that was Dewey's I did.

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Speaker 1: That was Dewey Clerg's I did. He said, I was

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Speaker 1: having a glass of gin one night, and then it

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Speaker 1: struck me, the mines will mind the harbor of Corinto

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Speaker 1: and Nicaragua, which is an act of war.

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Speaker 2: Dely, you know, when you're having a drink, what's another war.

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Speaker 1: So as soon as as the shootdown in Central America happens,

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Speaker 1: the Iranians stroke their beards and they said, ah, now

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Speaker 1: we'll really screw and Ralph soon. Johnny, the head of

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Speaker 1: the Maudeleisei Israian Iranian Parliament, said the Americans had been

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Speaker 1: playing pussyfoot with us and shipping arms to the Iranian

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Speaker 1: Revolutionary Guard to ransom the hostages and bear root. This

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Speaker 1: was Reagan's scheme. Bob Gates, later the Director of Central

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Speaker 1: Intelligence and the Secretary of Defense. This is how we

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Speaker 1: recounted it. I'm going to quote Bob Gates. Now. Reagan

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Speaker 1: was preoccupied with the fate of the hostages and could

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Speaker 1: not understand why CI could not locate and rescue them.

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Speaker 1: He put more and more pressure on Casey to find them.

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Speaker 1: Reagan's band of pressure was hard to resist. No loud

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Speaker 1: words are harsh indictment, not like Linda Johnson or Richard Nixon,

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Speaker 1: just a whizical look, a suggestion of pain, and then

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Speaker 1: the request, we just have to get those people out,

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Speaker 1: repeated daily, week after week, month after month. And implicit

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Speaker 1: was the accusation, what the hell kind of intelligence agency

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Speaker 1: you're running if you can't find and rescue those Americans.

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Speaker 1: And the whole thing blew up. And what it came

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Speaker 1: down to was the President of the United States. First,

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Speaker 1: the whole thing goes sky high and he gets on

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Speaker 1: TV and says, I didn't do that.

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Speaker 4: Mister President.

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Speaker 10: You have stated flatley, and you stated flatley again tonight,

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Speaker 10: that you did not trade weapons for hostages. And yet

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Speaker 10: the record shows that every time an American hostage was

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Speaker 10: released last September, this July, and again just this very month,

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Speaker 10: there had been a major shipment of arms just before that.

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Speaker 10: Are we all to believe that was just a coincidence, Chris?

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Speaker 11: The only thing I know about major shipments of arms,

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Speaker 11: as I've said, everything that we sold them could be

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Speaker 11: put in one cargo plane and there would be plenty

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Speaker 11: of room left over. Now, if there were major shipments,

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Speaker 11: and we know this has been going on, there have

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Speaker 11: been other countries that have been dealing in arms with Iran.

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Speaker 11: There have been also private merchants of such things that

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Speaker 11: have been doing the same thing. Now I've seen the

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Speaker 11: stories about a Danish tramp steamer and Danish sailors Union

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Speaker 11: officials are talking about their ships taking various supplies to Iran.

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Speaker 11: I didn't know anything about that until I saw the president,

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Speaker 11: because we certainly never had any contact with anything of

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Speaker 11: the kind.

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Speaker 1: He tells the American people, I never sold arms for

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Speaker 1: hostages or anything like that. He's lying. And when presidents

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Speaker 1: lie through their teeth to the American people, something break.

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Speaker 1: This happened.

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Speaker 2: Usually usually it breaks.

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Speaker 1: Well, now we're used to it, right, I'm showing my age.

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Speaker 1: When Dwighteyes Howard got on TV after the CI's YouTube

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Speaker 1: spyplane was shot down over Russia, he believed CI believed

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Speaker 1: the pilot had died, right, he had a poisoned needle

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Speaker 1: it kill himself with. And he says, oh, it was

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Speaker 1: a weather balloon. It wasn't like a CI spyplane. Well,

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Speaker 1: then Christoff produces the pilot, Francis Gary powers the CI pilot,

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Speaker 1: and Eisenhower said, literally he felt a sense of shame

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Speaker 1: that he had lied to the American people. He said

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Speaker 1: he wanted to resign as president. Our sense of shame

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Speaker 1: is now missing from the American's body pods. We've become

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Speaker 1: inord to presidents lying to us. It was a big

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Speaker 1: deal at the time, let me tell you. And you

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Speaker 1: guys ran new with the CIA.

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Speaker 3: At the time when it was just coming out, I

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Speaker 3: was like, okay, I want to get the hostages out.

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Speaker 3: I'm sorry. Real politic Iron and Iraq fighting each other

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Speaker 3: at screwm both right pots on both their houses and

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Speaker 3: they both lose. It was I get the reality politic

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Speaker 3: of it, but where where as things progressed, I separated

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Speaker 3: from it as a citizen. Was two or three things.

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Speaker 3: One was operations Staunch, which is where the US and

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Speaker 3: CIA was asked to stop any arms flowing into Iran

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Speaker 3: right at the same time we were doing it right,

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Speaker 3: so we were talking out of both sides of our mouth,

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Speaker 3: which is I understand if it's needed, but this was

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Speaker 3: like self defeating. The other thing was and how we

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Speaker 3: moved the arms. We actually collaborated, both with the South

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Speaker 3: African aparthep state to do that, and even worse with

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Speaker 3: the East German Stazi. I get sometimes things are rough

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Speaker 3: and sometimes are difficult, and facing off against the access

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Speaker 3: of evil. I was all about there as a young

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Speaker 3: officer and still am, but on a big picture. But

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Speaker 3: there's got to be some limits in the conspiracy, or

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Speaker 3: at least maybe I don't understand the conspiracy theories.

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Speaker 1: The originally ethos of the CIA back at its foundation

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Speaker 1: was that we had to buy fire with fire against

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Speaker 1: Joe Stalin. Okay. This did not work out well because

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Speaker 1: the early CIA thought it could operate as the OSS

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Speaker 1: had done during World War Two and parachute recruited agents

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Speaker 1: behind the Iron Curtain, behind enemy lines. They all died

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Speaker 1: with the Iround contract, with selling weapons to the Irragians

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Speaker 1: to the Revolutionary Guard. It's not just that it was

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Speaker 1: a really stupid idea. It also violated the law and

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Speaker 1: the foreign policy of the United States, which Reagan had

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Speaker 1: proclaimed over and over we do not negotiate with terrorists,

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Speaker 1: but we will sell them a shitload of missiles to

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Speaker 1: rip them off in the process.

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Speaker 3: Hold on for a sec while we take a quick break, and.

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Speaker 12: We're back.

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Speaker 1: So there was some loose talk at the time that

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Speaker 1: Reagan would be impeached. Nobody had the heart to impeach

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Speaker 1: him for violating the Law on the Poor Policy United States.

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Speaker 1: What did happen, however, was that the Secretary of Defense,

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Speaker 1: the chief of the seai's Clandestance Service, Dewey Claridge, who

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Speaker 1: was then the head of the first Head of the

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Speaker 1: counter Terrorism Center, and a couple of other SEA officers

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Speaker 1: were indicted for lying to Congress. At the end of

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Speaker 1: his presidency, in December nineteen ninety two, President George H. W.

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Speaker 1: Bush pardoned the mall nobody did a day in the

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Speaker 1: slam for Iran contract.

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Speaker 2: Well, I remember Reagan too.

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Speaker 1: He did that.

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Speaker 2: He had two public thanks on this. The first time

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Speaker 2: he came out and said we didn't share arms or hostages.

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Speaker 2: And then later he came back, almost like with his

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Speaker 2: tail between his legs and says, as much as I

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Speaker 2: want to believe that we never did this, text me

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Speaker 2: I didn't.

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Speaker 1: Do it, but my head tells me maybe I did.

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Speaker 11: I Fellow Americans, I've spoken to you from this historic

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Speaker 11: office on many occasions and about many things. For the

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Speaker 11: past three months, I've been silent on the revelations about Iran,

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Speaker 11: and you must have been thinking, why doesn't he tell

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Speaker 11: us what's happening? First? Let me say I take full

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Speaker 11: responsibility from my own actions and for those of my administration.

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Speaker 11: As angry as I may be about activities undertaken without

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Speaker 11: my knowledge, I am still accountable for those activities. As

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Speaker 11: disappointed as I may be, and some who serve me,

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Speaker 11: I am still the one who must answer to the

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Speaker 11: American people for this behavior. And as personally distasteful as

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Speaker 11: I find secret bank accounts and diverted funds, one of

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Speaker 11: the Navy would say, this happened on my watch. Let's

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Speaker 11: start with the part that is the most controversial. A

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Speaker 11: few months ago, I told the American people I did

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Speaker 11: not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best

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Speaker 11: intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and

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Speaker 11: the evidence tell me.

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Speaker 8: It is not.

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Speaker 2: Exactly so, when a president comes from the American people,

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Speaker 2: it looks so shameful and weak. I think he ended

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Speaker 2: up protecting himself, but the rest of the people ended

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Speaker 2: up Obviously.

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Speaker 3: I'll just say it was self defeating because as the

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Speaker 3: some hostages were released, Hezbollah and its Iranian bankers were

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Speaker 3: just taking more right. So they were getting weapons as

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Speaker 3: time went on towards eighty five eighty six, but they

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Speaker 3: were just going out and snag and more Americans. So

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Speaker 3: it was becoming like an industry as opposed to a

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Speaker 3: one time discreete.

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Speaker 2: We created an incentive structure that seems to be working.

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Speaker 1: Let's take more hostages.

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Speaker 3: And for folks out there who love conspiracy theories, I

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Speaker 3: got to say, even with CIA involved in Oliver North,

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Speaker 3: I see there were like some amazing fuck ups that

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Speaker 3: people forgotten about. At one point that Oliver North or

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Speaker 3: Fawn Hall, his secretary famous at the time, transposed a

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Speaker 3: couple of numbers in a Swiss bank account and they

422
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Speaker 3: mistakenly sent ten million dollars to the wrong guy. And

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Speaker 3: so like the Swiss businessman is like I just made

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Speaker 3: ten million dollars. And then they were hiding the secret

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Speaker 3: documents in like her boots. She was wearing go go

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Speaker 3: boots right right of smuddled them out and that didn't

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Speaker 3: work either. So even at the core of the American government,

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Speaker 3: there was still some like incredible fuck ups because they're people.

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Speaker 1: See here's the thing, guys, Conspiracy is really hard. It

430
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Speaker 1: comes from the lat on spieda to breathe together. However,

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Speaker 1: stupidity is really easy, and nine times out of ten,

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Speaker 1: in the course of human events, you should never chalk

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Speaker 1: up to conspiracy what you can reliably attribute to stupidity.

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Speaker 2: And Casey actually went outside the CIA, two people who

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Speaker 2: aren't trained in any of this kind of stuff and

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Speaker 2: keeping secrets. Not that it would have necessarily gone better

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Speaker 2: if the CIA did it, but having Oliver North and

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Speaker 2: Vaughn Hall and people do this.

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Speaker 3: And running with stupidity, Tim, I wonder if you could

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Speaker 3: take us into the key shaped hate. And to add

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Speaker 3: to that, I remember meeting George Cave, who's gonna be

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Speaker 3: part of this story.

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Speaker 1: Oh, George Cave was like one of the top Iranian operators.

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Speaker 1: He was a good guy. I'm going back to the

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Speaker 1: fifties when the SEI overthrew the duly elected government of

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Speaker 1: Iran and put the Shawn the peacocks thrown back in

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00:26:06,040 --> 00:26:10,720
Speaker 1: fifty four the cake, all right, So this just takes

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Speaker 1: the cake. Yeah, this is another part of what Oli North.

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Speaker 1: He actually testified to Congress that the whole Iran contra

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Speaker 1: thing was and I quote, a really neat idea.

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Speaker 8: I don't think it was wrong. I think it was

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Speaker 8: a neat idea.

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Speaker 1: So part of the really neat idea was that Oli

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Speaker 1: North and the National Security Advisor of the United States,

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Speaker 1: Bob McFarlane. We're going to go to Tehran in a

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Speaker 1: concert with the first ship and the weapons, and they

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Speaker 1: bring a chocolate cake and the ice.

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Speaker 3: We're going to meet the mysterious moderate Iranian faction. Yeah right,

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Speaker 3: we still talk about today, right, Like they're good Iranians

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Speaker 3: in the Iranian government.

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Speaker 1: They were apparently unaware or unwilling to believe that the

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Speaker 1: modern Iranians were dead or in prison. So they bring

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Speaker 1: this cake and the icing on this chocolate cake has

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Speaker 1: a old tea in the middle of it, symbolizing the

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Speaker 1: opening of a new, covert but heartfelt relationship the United

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Speaker 1: States government and the Islamic Republic of Iran. This is

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Speaker 1: what's gonna happen if people like Telsey Gabbard and Cash

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Speaker 1: Bateel and God help him, John Radcliffe, get up my question.

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Speaker 2: Olie North sounds exactly like Cash Bateel and Pete Haigseith

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Speaker 2: and he's got.

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Speaker 1: Oliver North looks like Napoleon compared to these.

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Speaker 12: We're gonna stop here for today, but we'll be back

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00:27:35,240 --> 00:27:38,640
Speaker 12: with Tim Weiner talking more about the potential for actual

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Speaker 12: conspiracies in the US government. Mission Implausible is produced by

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Speaker 12: Adam Davidson, Jerry O'sha, John Cipher, and Jonathan Stern.

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Speaker 1: The associate producer is Rachel Harner.

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Speaker 12: Mission implausible. It's a production of honorable mention and abominable pictures.

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Speaker 3: For iheartpock ask