WEBVTT - Knitting as Espionage, Part Two: Legendary Spies -- and One Traitor 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:27.920 Ridiculous Histories, a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the show, 0:00:28.000 --> 0:00:31.880 fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much for 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:39.560 tuning in. Previously on Ridiculous History, we examined the phenomenal 0:00:39.680 --> 0:00:45.520 story of people conducting trade craft of people conducting espionage 0:00:45.600 --> 0:00:51.240 and acts of spying through something as humble as knitting crafts. 0:00:51.479 --> 0:00:51.959 Crafts. 0:00:52.400 --> 0:00:55.720 Yeah, there, we draft perfect, and we want to give 0:00:55.760 --> 0:00:59.880 a shout out to our big homie, our super producer, 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:01.680 Max Crochet. 0:01:02.000 --> 0:01:08.720 Croquet Croquette. Wait a minute, different things, Williams. That is 0:01:08.880 --> 0:01:11.400 Bizar Falcons. 0:01:11.880 --> 0:01:14.560 We also have lightly pitched the idea of a Falcon 0:01:14.680 --> 0:01:19.520 tsar to ourselves off air. We took, we took a 0:01:19.600 --> 0:01:22.679 quick break, but through the magic of editing, we are 0:01:22.920 --> 0:01:27.640 rejoining you today. Let's hear it for none other than 0:01:27.720 --> 0:01:29.880 the one and only mister Noel Brown. 0:01:30.200 --> 0:01:31.800 Does I tis you? 0:01:32.080 --> 0:01:35.600 My friends, they called me Ben Bullen in this neck 0:01:35.640 --> 0:01:40.600 of the global woods for tax purposes. You can obviously 0:01:40.880 --> 0:01:45.760 communicate my comings and goings through a v or a 0:01:45.880 --> 0:01:47.760 pearl in a scarf. 0:01:48.760 --> 0:01:50.480 I'll bring a scarf right now because it's kind of 0:01:50.520 --> 0:01:54.280 got chilli today. It's unpredictable. I walked out, and I 0:01:54.520 --> 0:01:57.400 yelled at the sky, what that is such an old 0:01:57.440 --> 0:01:58.880 man thing to do with you been, and I'm here 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:00.880 for it. I mean, you shake your fist. 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:06.120 This is the thing, though, nol So we all reside 0:02:06.320 --> 0:02:11.000 in the Atlanta metro area, and everybody in Atlanta, if 0:02:11.040 --> 0:02:14.000 you've never had the privilege to visit, please please let 0:02:14.080 --> 0:02:17.160 us know and we'll hang out. But everybody in Atlanta 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:19.920 will tend to speak to you as though they know 0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:23.280 you and you're vaguely related. So this is a true story. 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:27.040 This morning when I walked out and as he said, Noel, 0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:29.680 the weather totally did a one to eighty on us. 0:02:30.320 --> 0:02:33.560 I yelled what because I was aggravated. It was very 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:36.359 early in the morning, and there was a guy walking 0:02:36.440 --> 0:02:39.280 through the parking lot who turned around and said, I. 0:02:39.200 --> 0:02:43.680 Know, I said, seriously, I think I maybe did shake 0:02:43.720 --> 0:02:46.680 my fist a little bit. But then, as promised in 0:02:46.720 --> 0:02:51.320 our previous exploration of the nuts and bolts, the pearls 0:02:51.360 --> 0:02:57.040 and stitches, warp and weft, there you go of knitted coding, 0:02:57.919 --> 0:03:00.440 we are going to present you with a hand full 0:03:00.639 --> 0:03:04.919 of real life examples of folks doing this very thing 0:03:05.440 --> 0:03:08.079 in the service of various war efforts. So what do 0:03:08.120 --> 0:03:10.440 you say, we jump right into it. We got the spies, 0:03:10.520 --> 0:03:13.359 you knit it the Big Three, the Big Three. 0:03:13.480 --> 0:03:16.240 Yes, And this comes to us again courtesy of our 0:03:16.280 --> 0:03:28.920 research associate Maria. So let's start with Molly Rinker. Molly 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:31.919 old Mom Rinker. That's a street name. 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:32.400 Okay. 0:03:32.560 --> 0:03:35.800 So this takes place way before World War One and 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:38.840 World War Two. This is what the US calls the 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:46.320 Revolutionary War. Rinker is an innkeeper in Philadelphia and she's 0:03:46.440 --> 0:03:49.680 one of those we're all big fans of RPGs and 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:54.200 gaming and stuff, so she's to the powers of the beach. 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:58.040 She's one of those n PCs at the local tavern. 0:03:58.400 --> 0:04:00.960 But they usually have some good intel for you, those 0:04:01.600 --> 0:04:05.360 bar maids and tavern keepers. Right, Yeah, you got to 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:09.480 run out all the dialogue options. Quick pro tip from handkeepers. 0:04:09.760 --> 0:04:11.680 You get what I'm talking. Yeah, we got to run 0:04:11.720 --> 0:04:15.280 out all of the dialogue tree options to get to 0:04:15.320 --> 0:04:15.920 get the goods. 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:22.160 So, because people were often ignoring women at this time, 0:04:22.839 --> 0:04:28.000 Molly Rinker was able to be around people that didn't 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:30.880 really treat her as a person, and she used that 0:04:31.120 --> 0:04:36.279 to her advantage. She would gather intel eavesdropping on her 0:04:36.440 --> 0:04:41.800 tavern guest, specifically her British tavern guest, and. 0:04:41.800 --> 0:04:45.520 Her methods weren't the most sophisticated in terms of the 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:49.600 types of crafty trade craft that we're talking about here, 0:04:50.040 --> 0:04:54.679 but it did still involve knitting supplies. She didn't encode messages, however, 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:56.919 inside of her knitting, what she did do was deliver 0:04:57.040 --> 0:05:00.120 messages to George Washington, the General and the cotton An 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:06.599 Army concealed inside balls of yarn. Yeah. So she would 0:05:06.600 --> 0:05:10.960 sit outside Reakerwood and she's knitting, and then when she 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:17.640 saw Patriot couriers or Patriot troops pass by American forces, 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:22.920 she would toss out small balls of yarn, just casually, like, well, 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:25.960 here you go. You guys need yarn, right, you need a. 0:05:25.880 --> 0:05:29.240 Lot of stuff in general, which was true, but she 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:34.680 had stuffed these small balls of yarn with wartime secrets 0:05:34.720 --> 0:05:37.400 on small scraps of paper. So it's kind of like 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:41.560 how you have a message in a fortune cookie, or 0:05:41.600 --> 0:05:44.880 it's kind of like how you have soup in a dumpling. 0:05:44.800 --> 0:05:47.200 Right yeah, or you know the new git inside of 0:05:47.240 --> 0:05:53.360 the delicious sweet retreat, right. And her efforts were and 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:56.880 are considered to have been absolutely as you like to say, 0:05:56.880 --> 0:05:59.960 Ben mission critical during these seventeen seventy seven to seventeen 0:06:00.200 --> 0:06:02.200 seventy eight Philadelphia campaign. 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:06.240 Beautiful, thank you, Rinker. There are a lot of American 0:06:06.320 --> 0:06:10.919 heroes who don't get the credit they are due. So 0:06:10.960 --> 0:06:12.239 you want to shout you out. 0:06:12.360 --> 0:06:16.560 And then we also want to travel again in time. 0:06:17.240 --> 0:06:21.680 Let's go to what he say? May nineteen forty four. Oh, 0:06:21.720 --> 0:06:26.000 why the heck not? We're talking about Phyllis Pippolatour Doyle, 0:06:26.440 --> 0:06:30.359 a twenty three year old South African born British secret 0:06:30.400 --> 0:06:35.360 agent who parachuted into Nazi occupied Normandy in May of 0:06:35.440 --> 0:06:38.880 nineteen forty four. So hard, unbelievable, it's so. 0:06:39.000 --> 0:06:42.040 Cool, and she was not alone, right and all. She's 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:47.800 one of thirty nine female secret agents who served in 0:06:48.080 --> 0:06:52.279 one of the coolest secret armies of the entirety of 0:06:52.320 --> 0:06:57.040 World War Two. Forget oss, folks, if you haven't heard 0:06:57.040 --> 0:06:59.880 about it before, we are so thrilled to introduce you 0:06:59.880 --> 0:07:06.560 to Winston Churchill's secret army, something called the Special Operations Executive. 0:07:06.760 --> 0:07:10.480 The more innocuous the name, the more sinister the plot. 0:07:11.000 --> 0:07:14.560 In France right during World War Two, she posed as 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:18.360 a young woman with the cover name of Genevieve and 0:07:18.400 --> 0:07:21.760 she was actually assigned to the SOE Scientist Circuit where 0:07:21.800 --> 0:07:25.360 she was able to gather intelligence to help the RAF 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:29.480 bombing missions, that's the Royal Air Force. She transmitted one 0:07:29.560 --> 0:07:34.160 hundred and thirty five coded messages Morse coded messages to 0:07:34.200 --> 0:07:38.600 be precise to Allied forces with her handy dandy wireless 0:07:38.720 --> 0:07:42.480 radio and of course her hairtyme. How's that work? Ben? 0:07:43.480 --> 0:07:43.760 Right? 0:07:43.920 --> 0:07:44.240 Yeah? 0:07:44.480 --> 0:07:48.320 Do you morse code in the hairtie? She embeds these 0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:52.280 messages in the lace of her hair tie and get this, folks. 0:07:52.800 --> 0:07:58.239 She lives. Latour lives until two thousand and twenty three, 0:07:58.760 --> 0:08:03.000 and she will talk about her war efforts. She was 0:08:03.040 --> 0:08:06.960 speaking to New Zealand Army News about how she concealed 0:08:06.960 --> 0:08:11.520 her codes. She said, quote, I always carried knitting because 0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:14.320 my codes were on a piece of silk. I wrapped 0:08:14.360 --> 0:08:17.360 the piece of silk around a knitting needle and put 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:20.440 it in a flat shoelace that I used to tie 0:08:20.680 --> 0:08:21.480 up my hair. 0:08:21.960 --> 0:08:27.600 Tricky, tricky. Sending coded messages took her around thirty minutes 0:08:27.840 --> 0:08:31.239 from her wireless radio, and it took the Germans ninety 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:34.959 minutes to get a bead on where she actually was 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:38.880 to trace the location of the signal that it was 0:08:38.920 --> 0:08:42.240 sent from. So the odds are certainly in her favor 0:08:42.480 --> 0:08:45.080 to make a clean getaway by the time the Germans 0:08:45.160 --> 0:08:46.959 knew what was up, yeah. 0:08:46.800 --> 0:08:50.680 At least for the first few iterations restaurant, because you 0:08:50.760 --> 0:08:53.360 have a window of time in which you need to 0:08:53.600 --> 0:08:59.040 move quickly. But the German intelligence community was, you know, 0:08:59.280 --> 0:09:01.840 they're not knuckle heads. They're not good people, but they're 0:09:01.840 --> 0:09:06.479 not knuckleheads, and they they start to clock the unusual 0:09:06.600 --> 0:09:12.360 activities of this person, so they interrogator, they detain her, 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:15.840 and at least one time they strip searcher, but she 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:21.240 always was able to slip the noose. She continually avoided 0:09:21.720 --> 0:09:26.440 detection because they would have to have looked in depth 0:09:26.800 --> 0:09:30.200 at the lace of her hairtie to figure out any 0:09:30.320 --> 0:09:34.600 coded information, and they just didn't because again, not to 0:09:34.679 --> 0:09:38.080 sound too soapboxy, they did not take women seriously. 0:09:38.360 --> 0:09:40.320 Well, yeah, and it was just it was literally a 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:42.600 needle in a haystack, at least a needle and a 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:46.600 hairtie kind of situation. And until they had gotten wind 0:09:46.720 --> 0:09:49.960 of this type of covert activity, they wouldn't have even 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:51.959 thought to have looked in something like that. But you're 0:09:51.960 --> 0:09:55.959 absolutely right, Ben. There was a lot of dismissal involved 0:09:56.040 --> 0:10:00.200 as well. She never talked about her work much, if 0:10:00.240 --> 0:10:04.000 at all, and her own family never knew until very 0:10:04.080 --> 0:10:08.120 late in her life. She passed away in twenty twenty 0:10:08.160 --> 0:10:11.800 three at the age of one hundred and two years old, 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:19.079 and it kept a lag a low until it became 0:10:19.200 --> 0:10:22.600 like a deathbed confession your real one, Tovo. 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:33.120 We've got another person we want to introduce. We tease 0:10:33.240 --> 0:10:36.079 this a little bit in the first part of this series, 0:10:36.520 --> 0:10:38.040 Elizabeth Bentley. 0:10:39.280 --> 0:10:44.400 Elizabeth Bentley cooked up a plot to steal a lector 0:10:44.840 --> 0:10:48.960 cryptographic device from the Soviets and then sell it back 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:52.440 to them. That's actually the plot of From Russia with Love. Sorry, 0:10:52.440 --> 0:10:54.200 I had to, I had to drop that one in there. 0:10:54.200 --> 0:10:57.880 A good one, Maria, but her actual story makes that 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:02.200 kind of mix up a whole lot of sense, mixing 0:11:02.280 --> 0:11:06.000 up her plot with the plot of a Russian spy thriller. 0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:11.439 Elizabeth Bentley was born in Connecticut. She went to Vassar 0:11:11.640 --> 0:11:16.400 and Columbia. No slouch academically speaking, and she was in 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:21.200 fact an American communist m M yeah. Since in a twist, 0:11:21.200 --> 0:11:25.600 coming Ben card carrying yeah, she was known as the 0:11:25.920 --> 0:11:28.560 Red Spy Queen, and we're getting a lot of this 0:11:29.040 --> 0:11:33.040 from the official CIA website CIA dot gov. Check out 0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:37.239 Red Spy Queen, a biography of Elizabeth Bentley by Catherine 0:11:37.280 --> 0:11:41.959 s Olmsted. Coming to us out of University of North Carolina. 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:49.000 So she considered herself more of and this is a 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:55.680 quote a communist June Cleaver. So for seven years she 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:59.520 worked as what we call a contact woman, which meant 0:11:59.559 --> 0:12:04.719 she gothered covert information, primarily Washington, DC, and then she 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:09.800 would pass it along to her Soviet handler. That's correct, folks, 0:12:10.160 --> 0:12:14.440 this is an American, as you said, highly born in 0:12:14.679 --> 0:12:19.640 our socio economic pyramid. She was an American who spied 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:22.640 for the other side, kind of like the Cambridge five, 0:12:22.960 --> 0:12:26.000 Say it ain't so, Lizzie, say it ain't so. Yeah. 0:12:26.280 --> 0:12:29.120 This is a thing that I think a lot of 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:34.080 people miss when we're talking about the basics of tradecraft. 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:41.439 It's not necessarily the shadowy guy in a nice suit 0:12:42.040 --> 0:12:44.640 that you have to be worried about. Right in a 0:12:44.679 --> 0:12:48.280 foreign hotel, It's going to be the people who are 0:12:48.600 --> 0:12:53.240 admin the people who are in housekeeping, the bartender, the 0:12:53.280 --> 0:12:56.599 bartender of people, the concierge. They're hearing all the d 0:12:57.160 --> 0:13:00.199 I met a few of them, Yeah, the people who 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:04.400 surprisingly seemed to know four languages, You know what I mean. 0:13:04.760 --> 0:13:07.760 I've met a few. They're cool people. Just stay on 0:13:07.800 --> 0:13:11.240 their good side and be honest with yourself about why 0:13:11.240 --> 0:13:15.959 they're talking to you. All right, Okay, so here's another twist, 0:13:16.120 --> 0:13:17.599 like you were kind of teasing. 0:13:17.240 --> 0:13:20.600 There and all. A second twist, A second twist, almost 0:13:20.600 --> 0:13:24.160 as though we're making a not in fabric. The communist 0:13:24.320 --> 0:13:30.079 June Cleaver, as she styled herself, her activities, her early 0:13:30.160 --> 0:13:35.000 activities end in nineteen forty five, she goes to Uncle 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:39.880 Sam and she outs herself to the FBI as fact. Yeah, 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:41.079 and they they. 0:13:40.960 --> 0:13:45.280 Do what any smart intel agency will do. They say, Okay, 0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:48.760 we'll just work for us. We're not the double cross. Yeah, 0:13:48.920 --> 0:13:52.320 the double cross. Heck, yeah, she turned double agent. And 0:13:52.360 --> 0:13:55.400 she said that she did this because she had become 0:13:55.440 --> 0:14:00.400 disillusioned by the party. As we know we often talk about, 0:14:00.440 --> 0:14:02.199 especially on our sister show stuff. 0:14:02.200 --> 0:14:05.319 They don't want you to know. Communism seems great on paper, 0:14:06.200 --> 0:14:10.600 but the inherent corruptibility of human beings tends to not 0:14:10.720 --> 0:14:14.479 make it work out so great in practice. Yeah. 0:14:14.600 --> 0:14:18.920 The issue with communism as a theory is like you said, 0:14:19.360 --> 0:14:23.440 communism in practice is something that maybe the human brain 0:14:23.560 --> 0:14:28.240 in society hasn't evolved for yet, you know. But there's 0:14:28.400 --> 0:14:35.560 there's another factor here. Our character Bentley feels the walls 0:14:35.680 --> 0:14:39.200 closing in like she's Han Solo and Star Wars. She 0:14:39.320 --> 0:14:43.880 thinks the FBI is hot on her heels. She's just 0:14:43.960 --> 0:14:48.160 being paranoid. History will prove later she is not actually 0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:52.080 on the FBI's radar. She was incorrect in that assumption. 0:14:52.240 --> 0:14:54.560 But it's a very scary time and it's also very 0:14:54.680 --> 0:15:00.200 frightening and anxiety inducing to have to function as a spy. 0:15:00.920 --> 0:15:08.800 And then a third factor, Look, folks, not the soapbox here, 0:15:08.880 --> 0:15:14.960 but tradecraft is pretty brutal, and you are only you 0:15:15.200 --> 0:15:20.480 as an individual, are only worth the actions you can 0:15:20.560 --> 0:15:25.040 do in any kind of arrangement. As soon as you're 0:15:25.760 --> 0:15:28.800 done with those actions, as soon as your value is 0:15:28.880 --> 0:15:34.600 no longer relevant. 0:15:32.760 --> 0:15:33.560 They might kill you. 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:36.640 She was worried that the Soviets would kill her because 0:15:36.920 --> 0:15:41.480 she had exhausted whatever her value was, and it turned 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:45.000 out that bit of paranoia was true, so her going 0:15:45.040 --> 0:15:49.440 to the FBI may have been less of an altruistic 0:15:51.960 --> 0:15:55.720 crossroads moment for her it may have been something much 0:15:55.760 --> 0:15:57.280 more like self preservation. 0:15:59.360 --> 0:16:02.280 It's a good point, I mean, is it's a good 0:16:02.320 --> 0:16:05.640 story to you know, frame it in terms of she 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:08.320 saw the lights or what have you. That, as we 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:11.000 all know, in these types of situations, when you start 0:16:11.000 --> 0:16:14.400 thinking that maybe the walls are closing in, sometimes making 0:16:14.440 --> 0:16:16.280 a deal is the best move that you have. 0:16:16.960 --> 0:16:20.240 And so it comes to pass in the United States 0:16:20.360 --> 0:16:26.440 that Bentley the communist June Cleaver testifies in numerous very 0:16:26.520 --> 0:16:34.800 high profile investigations that Uncle Sam is conducting. This is 0:16:34.920 --> 0:16:39.840 also you know, shadows of the Red Scare, right, She's 0:16:39.920 --> 0:16:45.840 testified in communist influence investigations. She is a huge part 0:16:45.880 --> 0:16:49.080 in kicking off the second Red Scare. This is when, 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:52.920 as we all recall, you could have your life and 0:16:52.960 --> 0:16:56.440 your career ruined because you went to the wrong meeting one. 0:16:56.320 --> 0:17:00.600 Time or Carthyism right, or you knew the wrong person. Yeah, 0:17:00.640 --> 0:17:02.560 you get pulled up in front of the House an 0:17:02.640 --> 0:17:06.720 Americans Committee and didn't get blacklisted from Hollywood. A lot 0:17:06.760 --> 0:17:10.119 of writers got thrown under the bus for previous membership 0:17:10.240 --> 0:17:14.119 in the US version of the Communist Party. It was 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:17.120 it was not good. It was very much a witch hunt. 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:22.560 Oh, very much so. And the House on American Volcanic Ready, yeah, 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:25.680 the House on American Activities Committee. I love that you're 0:17:25.720 --> 0:17:28.520 mentioning that. A lot of people don't know that they 0:17:28.680 --> 0:17:32.560 started in nineteen thirty eight, but they continued all the 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:35.200 way up until nineteen seventy five. 0:17:35.560 --> 0:17:39.560 Wow. I know they kind of went a little more underground, right, 0:17:39.720 --> 0:17:42.040 But they were weren't they keeping tabs on like John 0:17:42.119 --> 0:17:43.000 Lennon and stuff as well? 0:17:43.080 --> 0:17:47.200 Sure, everybody, Arthur Miller, anybody they could touch, so in these. 0:17:47.280 --> 0:17:51.760 But they weren't calling people publicly in front of their committee. 0:17:51.800 --> 0:17:53.639 They were just sort of operating a little more in 0:17:53.640 --> 0:17:56.800 the shadows. After that period, Yeah, they wouldn't. 0:17:57.280 --> 0:18:01.760 They wouldn't really pull people out into the public eye 0:18:01.960 --> 0:18:04.600 unless they felt they had some kind of evidence. In 0:18:04.720 --> 0:18:10.800 Bentley's testimony, often would consist of them saying, Hey, do 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:13.640 you know this person in your work as a spy? 0:18:13.840 --> 0:18:16.760 Did you ever contact this person? Did you ever hear 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:19.920 this code name or whatever? And I'm sure it got 0:18:20.000 --> 0:18:23.000 ridiculous at some point and they said, you know, have 0:18:23.200 --> 0:18:28.800 you ever interacted with the insert famous Hollywood screenwriter here 0:18:29.040 --> 0:18:30.200 or something like that. 0:18:30.240 --> 0:18:32.880 And know what was it? Dalton Trumbo was a big 0:18:32.920 --> 0:18:37.160 one that got railroaded. And lest we cast her in 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:39.320 some kind of like, you know, again, we've already sort 0:18:39.359 --> 0:18:41.879 of couched it. This may well not have been some 0:18:41.920 --> 0:18:45.800 sort of moral about face, but less we cast her 0:18:45.800 --> 0:18:48.040 as some sort of you know, hero coming back and 0:18:48.080 --> 0:18:52.320 working for Uncle Sam. A lot of her testimony resulted 0:18:52.359 --> 0:18:57.520 in some people being very unfairly targeted and railroaded themselves 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:01.160 as a direct result of her testimony. Oh yeah, man, 0:19:01.200 --> 0:19:07.280 one hundred percent. Her counter espionage was responsible for the 0:19:07.400 --> 0:19:14.199 conviction of party leaders eleven real life proven Communist Party leaders. 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:18.520 But to your point, her testimonies also lit a match 0:19:18.760 --> 0:19:23.280 under that growing America paranoia of the Cold War. You know, 0:19:23.440 --> 0:19:28.480 who isn't a communist? Yeah, name names, report on your neighbors. 0:19:28.520 --> 0:19:31.119 It's very much like a similar situation with what was 0:19:31.160 --> 0:19:33.639 going on during the Cold War in Berlin. You know 0:19:33.840 --> 0:19:36.280 that was depicted in the film The Lives of Others, 0:19:36.480 --> 0:19:39.200 where you know, kids were even like reporting on their 0:19:39.240 --> 0:19:42.680 parents and all kinds of stuff like that, really really dirty, 0:19:43.160 --> 0:19:48.360 unclean stuff. As you would say, Ben, we're talking classified 0:19:48.440 --> 0:19:51.760 documents that she got her hands on, pieces of microfilm. 0:19:52.720 --> 0:19:56.440 She delivered information to the Soviets about Allied force plans 0:19:56.480 --> 0:19:59.560 regarding the invasion of Normandy. And she kept a lot 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:02.560 of this stuff hidden in her knitting bag, which no 0:20:02.600 --> 0:20:06.320 one ever thought to dig through for information about what 0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:08.920 the B twenty nine bomber was going to be doing, 0:20:09.640 --> 0:20:13.320 but they really should have because that was definitely in there. Yeah, 0:20:13.440 --> 0:20:14.800 she kind of got that far. 0:20:15.040 --> 0:20:19.160 Yes, specifically, she got the antela the B twenty nine. 0:20:19.640 --> 0:20:27.200 And when she testifies, she becomes a celebrity. For a time, 0:20:27.359 --> 0:20:31.840 She's all over the headlines. She is a. 0:20:31.960 --> 0:20:36.640 Legit, actual facts, public figure, as our friend Lauren would say. 0:20:37.480 --> 0:20:42.080 But as the years wend on and the news cycle 0:20:42.160 --> 0:20:48.840 and public attention shifts, her story falls into obscurity. Knitting 0:20:49.040 --> 0:20:55.160 espionage was so effective that multiple countries, including the United 0:20:55.200 --> 0:21:02.040 States Office of Censorship, restricted the international of knitting patterns. 0:21:02.119 --> 0:21:05.680 They did this in nineteen forty two. Because let's say 0:21:05.760 --> 0:21:10.120 you have correspondence right with a friend in Vienna who 0:21:10.160 --> 0:21:12.320 doesn't have a friend in Vienna, a. 0:21:12.000 --> 0:21:14.520 Friend in Vienna as a as a friend of mine. 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:17.040 Doesn't it that it sounds like a weird album name. 0:21:17.119 --> 0:21:20.280 What band would have an album called a Friend in Vienna? 0:21:20.359 --> 0:21:22.639 Would it be Mountain goats, Billy Joe Joel. 0:21:22.680 --> 0:21:25.480 He has a song called Vienna Early Billy Joel slaps 0:21:25.480 --> 0:21:27.600 by the way, Oh yeah yeah. He was much more 0:21:27.640 --> 0:21:30.919 of a Leonard Cohen type figure early days, like really 0:21:31.040 --> 0:21:35.120 literate poetic song story type stuff, and Vienna is one 0:21:35.119 --> 0:21:44.000 of my favorites. Then I think we're about to reach 0:21:44.400 --> 0:21:49.679 the tangents and trivia part of our story, wherein we 0:21:49.720 --> 0:21:52.080 can set the record straight first and first and foremost, 0:21:52.280 --> 0:21:54.720 I think we owe this to the ridiculous historians out 0:21:54.760 --> 0:21:59.040 there to describe the difference between crocheting and knitting. They 0:21:59.080 --> 0:22:01.240 are not the same. They are not the same, and 0:22:01.280 --> 0:22:03.840 I know people were yelling at their podcast devices, but 0:22:04.320 --> 0:22:07.440 they are in fact distinctly different crafts. Knitting uses two 0:22:07.480 --> 0:22:11.479 needles to create much more stretchy and draping fabrics that 0:22:11.640 --> 0:22:15.479 might be better used for garments, while crocheting uses a 0:22:15.480 --> 0:22:19.119 hook and in order to produce a thicker and sturdier, 0:22:20.040 --> 0:22:23.040 a little rougher hewn fabric that might be better for 0:22:23.160 --> 0:22:27.600 blankets and the aforementioned little characters, little toys that your 0:22:27.920 --> 0:22:33.200 girlfriend and my kiddo like to craft. Knitting focuses much 0:22:33.240 --> 0:22:38.120 more on what's called live stitches, whereas crochet completes each 0:22:38.200 --> 0:22:44.000 stitch individually. Yeah. Yeah, and let's go over to Max 0:22:44.080 --> 0:22:46.720 as well, because Max, you wanted to clear the record 0:22:46.840 --> 0:22:52.240 on not just crochet, but also croquet croquette. Yeah. 0:22:52.240 --> 0:22:54.439 I've always had an issue with this one where I'm like, 0:22:54.520 --> 0:22:58.840 what's the difference between croquet, crochet, croquette? What is all 0:22:58.880 --> 0:23:02.320 these things? So obviously crochet is what we're talking about today, 0:23:02.320 --> 0:23:05.040 which is knitting, which is not to be confused with 0:23:05.160 --> 0:23:08.560 the sport croquet, which is an out of our game 0:23:08.600 --> 0:23:11.680 played on grass where players use malice to hit balls 0:23:11.680 --> 0:23:14.399 through a series of hoops, but also not to be 0:23:14.400 --> 0:23:18.359 confused with a croquette, which is a small breaded, fried 0:23:19.320 --> 0:23:20.520 and delicious. 0:23:20.160 --> 0:23:23.240 Which is what is it? Isn't it Cuban in origin? 0:23:24.280 --> 0:23:25.760 It is South American. 0:23:26.160 --> 0:23:27.320 Let's see, it's. 0:23:27.240 --> 0:23:29.600 A little pastry. It's a little savory pastry. I think 0:23:29.600 --> 0:23:32.080 it's everywhere it is. I guess, I guess where I 0:23:32.119 --> 0:23:33.560 typically see it is in. 0:23:35.080 --> 0:23:35.679 It's French. 0:23:38.520 --> 0:23:44.119 French, but the process of frying food is pretty common, 0:23:44.240 --> 0:23:46.960 especially with some bread crumbs. Yeah. No, it's a really 0:23:47.000 --> 0:23:51.320 good point. It also is another product of colonialism, where 0:23:51.520 --> 0:23:55.280 you will see potato croquettes and other types of croquettes 0:23:55.359 --> 0:23:59.760 very popular in some South American cuisine. I want to say, 0:24:00.080 --> 0:24:05.440 what is poppies. That's a Cuban, isn't it poppies the restaurant? Yeah, yes, yes, 0:24:05.800 --> 0:24:08.280 that's a place here at Balanta. Yeah. 0:24:08.320 --> 0:24:11.400 And I find all this so interesting and so insightful, 0:24:11.400 --> 0:24:12.960 and I will forget it within an hour. 0:24:13.520 --> 0:24:16.720 That's okay, man, We'll have this episode out as long 0:24:16.920 --> 0:24:21.560 as society doesn't collapse, and maybe even a little bit after. 0:24:21.840 --> 0:24:25.879 And forgive me. The Caribbean and South American version of 0:24:25.880 --> 0:24:29.080 that food would typically be pronounced croquetas, but it very 0:24:29.160 --> 0:24:32.479 much comes from the same background and from that French 0:24:32.880 --> 0:24:36.400 culinary tradition, where you're going to see in Brazil, for example, 0:24:36.600 --> 0:24:41.959 yucca and mandioca croquettes, various fillings depending on the region 0:24:42.000 --> 0:24:44.879 that you're getting them from, and also differences in preparation. 0:24:45.080 --> 0:24:49.720 But just like we see the incredibly fantastic bond me 0:24:49.920 --> 0:24:55.680 sandwich in Vietnamese cuisine, you're going to see that French 0:24:55.760 --> 0:25:01.800 bread influence from the old colonial days of French influence 0:25:01.840 --> 0:25:02.560 over that region. 0:25:03.359 --> 0:25:07.119 And we have a proposition for you, folks. I have 0:25:08.560 --> 0:25:13.400 something we have to mention Just because knitting is no 0:25:13.440 --> 0:25:17.280 longer considered a very successful form of trade craft, like 0:25:18.080 --> 0:25:21.200 enemy forces know what to look for, it doesn't mean 0:25:21.240 --> 0:25:25.200 that other innocuous things are not being used to communicate 0:25:25.400 --> 0:25:30.080 secret messages. One of the most interesting recent examples comes 0:25:30.119 --> 0:25:33.520 from our sister show stuff They Don't Want You To Know? 0:25:34.320 --> 0:25:39.959 Where was truly Nolan, Our pal Matt Frederick learned that 0:25:40.200 --> 0:25:45.480 the CIA was communicating secret messages through You'll Love this 0:25:45.640 --> 0:25:51.000 facs through purposefully dumb looking Star Wars fan sites. 0:25:51.640 --> 0:25:55.080 Oh god, I love it. It's such. It's another perfect 0:25:55.080 --> 0:25:58.439 example of this kind of stuff, things that are dismissed 0:25:58.800 --> 0:26:02.480 and hidden in planes like whoever you know? No one 0:26:02.520 --> 0:26:07.720 ever expects the the GeoCities Star Wars fan sites of old. 0:26:08.080 --> 0:26:11.560 But that is exactly what the covert agencies of the 0:26:11.600 --> 0:26:14.240 United States government were depending on when they used them 0:26:14.280 --> 0:26:17.440 as ways to communicate with their assets in the field. Yeah, 0:26:17.480 --> 0:26:19.880 did you ever hear about that with Max? No? 0:26:19.960 --> 0:26:21.920 But I don't spend much time on Star Wars fans 0:26:21.920 --> 0:26:24.040 dice because I spent all my time on. 0:26:25.840 --> 0:26:28.399 I'm kidding, that's not true. I'm gonna get canceled like 0:26:28.440 --> 0:26:33.280 Timothy Shallamy being dismissed of opera. Oh that was weird. No, no, no, 0:26:33.680 --> 0:26:36.000 much love to the Star Wars fan community out there. 0:26:36.040 --> 0:26:37.920 I guess the point, though, Ben, is that there were 0:26:38.040 --> 0:26:40.720 just a lot of them because it is so popular, 0:26:40.920 --> 0:26:43.879