Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
Speaker 1: and there's Chuck, and there's Cherry, and it's the stuff
Speaker 1: you should know. Okay, deal with it. Yeah, up your nose,
Speaker 1: et cetera. Yeah. I just suddenly, you know how, I
Speaker 1: stopped saying that quote mid quote because I suddenly felt
Speaker 1: like an old dinosaur Chuck, and that probably nobody knew
Speaker 1: what I was talking about. And I'm tired of feeling old, Chuck.
Speaker 1: Are you feeling old? I feel young. I'm glad to
Speaker 1: answer your question. Yes. Okay, So hey, before we get started, Um,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be a really good episode. Uh, and
Speaker 1: I want to enhance it by saying, I finally saw
Speaker 1: I got to see my niece's movie that I've been
Speaker 1: talking NonStop about. O Exit. It's amazing. It's such a
Speaker 1: great I would call it a popcorn thriller. Um. Like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not like high art. It's not trying
Speaker 1: to be high art, but it's it's like really well
Speaker 1: done in the script, doesn't have a bunch of like
Speaker 1: holes in it. Uh. It doesn't like they've trimmed off
Speaker 1: all the fat. It moves along really nicely. Um, and
Speaker 1: once it gets going, it keeps like getting going again
Speaker 1: and like these lurches forward and just it does it
Speaker 1: doesn't go off the rails. But it's just like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, I can't believe this is going on right now.
Speaker 1: And then to be able to see my niece Mila
Speaker 1: act as like the kid in this, to see her
Speaker 1: like do this stuff, it's just it's amazing Tod first
Speaker 1: of all, and I'm I'm like removing, I've done everything
Speaker 1: I can to remove any subjectivity as a proud uncle,
Speaker 1: and like actually watch her acting and like the performance
Speaker 1: she gets and it is great. It's amazing. She does
Speaker 1: an amazing job. She has to do a bunch of
Speaker 1: different stuff. She gets like tortured and harrass and beat
Speaker 1: up and everything. Um, it's actually really graphic movie in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways, but like delightfully if you ask me, Um,
Speaker 1: and she did. She did a great job. And I
Speaker 1: thought the whole cast did a really good job too,
Speaker 1: including great It is good, including Havannah Rose Lou by
Speaker 1: the way, but yes it is. It is a great movie.
Speaker 1: And I recommend anybody who watches our movies to watch
Speaker 1: the movie and it's on It's on Hulu right now streaming.
Speaker 1: It's called No Exit Awesome. I can't wait to watch it.
Speaker 1: I've been traveling. I went on the road for a
Speaker 1: bit once again. See more Bonnie Prince Billy and Matt
Speaker 1: Sweeney Superwolve shows. Matt Sweeney is that the girlfriend guy?
Speaker 1: What the guy who had that hit in the nineties
Speaker 1: called Girlfriend? No, he's local that was that was a
Speaker 1: great album. Um, I can't think of his name. No,
Speaker 1: Matt Sweeney is a genuine stuff you should know listener
Speaker 1: and super smart, awesome guy, and we're kind of pals now,
Speaker 1: so he's always kind enough to hang out and he
Speaker 1: always sends me really good ideas for the show. But
Speaker 1: that's not my ninth Bonnie Prince Billy show in the
Speaker 1: past like a year and a half. I'm going to
Speaker 1: where he goes. That's really cool. He didn't come to Atlanta,
Speaker 1: so I just I'm hitting the road and along with
Speaker 1: our good friend Joey c R. He came on this one.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's right. I saw that post on Instagram.
Speaker 1: That's awesome to see Joey's looking good. Yeah, he he
Speaker 1: says hello, and uh, if you want to see pictures
Speaker 1: of this in my Travels and Travails. You can follow
Speaker 1: me to Chuck the Podcaster on Instagram. I'm sorry you
Speaker 1: had travails. Uh what I say travails? Did I not
Speaker 1: say travels? He said travels and travails? No, no travails,
Speaker 1: only good good It was only good times. I'm sure
Speaker 1: I've told you before, but I always love rubbing it in.
Speaker 1: Did I ever tell you that I saw Bonnie Prince
Speaker 1: Billy doing karaoke at our friend Toby's wedding years back?
Speaker 1: I don't know that. You told me that do you
Speaker 1: do a song? It was? It was some like sweet
Speaker 1: old country song he didn do wet with I think
Speaker 1: maybe his wife. Oh my god. I mean he's the best.
Speaker 1: He's my favorite vocalist. He's to me, the best singer
Speaker 1: that literally in music history. And a cool dude. I
Speaker 1: can tell you because I've been in the same room
Speaker 1: with them plenty of times. Me too. I was four
Speaker 1: ft from him the other night. That's really cool. Anyway.
Speaker 1: Shout out to Sweeney, Shout out to no Exit. And
Speaker 1: now let's talk about a time when the US government
Speaker 1: was not above uh planning false flag operations that were
Speaker 1: crazy and ludicrous and planning potentially to assassinate the leaders
Speaker 1: of other countries hundreds of years ago. Oh actually no,
Speaker 1: this was way back in the nineteen sixties. Yeah, planning,
Speaker 1: that's the operative word here is planning doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: like any false flag operation was ever carried out, at
Speaker 1: least by the United States government. There's been plenty of
Speaker 1: false flag operations carried out, most recently, um apparently by Russia,
Speaker 1: who was trying to accuse Ukraine of doing like sabotage
Speaker 1: embombing across the border as a pretext for invasion. And
Speaker 1: that's generally the point of a false flag operation, which
Speaker 1: we should probably define it. But it's basically where you
Speaker 1: dress up as the um somebody from the country that
Speaker 1: you want to invade, have them or you assault your
Speaker 1: own like border crossing, your own military installation, your own railroad,
Speaker 1: and then you publicize to the world how that country
Speaker 1: attacked you, and now you're gonna have to go in
Speaker 1: and invade in in you know, for your own your
Speaker 1: own welfare and the welfare of your own country. That's
Speaker 1: a false flag operation, that's right. Staging any kind of
Speaker 1: a fake operation. Uh. The it originally came about the
Speaker 1: term false flag from pirates would fly a flag of
Speaker 1: a friendly country two lureships closer than they would attack them.
Speaker 1: But since then and Russia is big on it, they've
Speaker 1: I mean, Japan has done this, Germany has done this,
Speaker 1: but the Soviets and Russia, UH, like you said, they're
Speaker 1: they're still gangbusters for this kind of thing. Yes, I
Speaker 1: also think it's just a p s A. If you
Speaker 1: are really um feeling sympathetic or um, you know, absorbing
Speaker 1: information that makes you see things through Putin's view, you're
Speaker 1: probably being manipulated online. Just why you may want to
Speaker 1: you may want to look a little deeper into that
Speaker 1: and pull your head out of that particular rabbit hole.
Speaker 1: All right, So let's go back in time, uh and
Speaker 1: talk about Operation north Woods. But to talk about Operation Northwoods,
Speaker 1: we have to first talk about who did this one
Speaker 1: for us? By the way, who put this together? This
Speaker 1: was Olivia Joint Olivia Gershn, great work. We need to
Speaker 1: talk about Cuba and what the threat that that country
Speaker 1: started to pose or the seeming threat that country started
Speaker 1: to pose to the United States, UH, in the late
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties early nineteen sixties. Yeah, because Castro came to
Speaker 1: power ninety nine, and in doing so he became the
Speaker 1: first UM. He established the first communist regime in the
Speaker 1: Western hemisphere. Uh in America's backyard, as it would later
Speaker 1: be put. And this is not settled well with the
Speaker 1: Americans because at the time we were UM I guess
Speaker 1: our military, um brass, our intelligence community, basically everybody in
Speaker 1: charge with security for America. UM was of the of
Speaker 1: the of the ILK that like, we should be invading
Speaker 1: other countries that are communists and toppling those regimes and
Speaker 1: fighting communism wherever it pops up. No, no countries too small,
Speaker 1: no countries too large. We need to invade them and
Speaker 1: fight them and remove those communists and and probably install
Speaker 1: like a democratic government from that point on, which is
Speaker 1: kind of ironic. By the way. That was Matthew Sweet,
Speaker 1: That's what I said. What did you say, Oh, Matt
Speaker 1: Matt Sweeney. Matt Sweeney. But it came to me when
Speaker 1: was when you were talking about Cuba, Matthew Sweet, because
Speaker 1: it's a great record. Yeah, I can't remember the song
Speaker 1: how it goes, but I know it was a good song.
Speaker 1: I don't think I ever heard the record had a
Speaker 1: cool video too. Yeah, while you sing it. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: love somebody, remember that. That's it. I think I need
Speaker 1: somebody to love Okay, and then the chorus is, uh,
Speaker 1: you need to get back in the Little Friend. Oh yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a pretty good song. It's not as good as
Speaker 1: I remember just by the Superwolf record, it's better. Um alright,
Speaker 1: so good set up on Cuba. Uh, if you want
Speaker 1: to go back, well, um, I don't even know how
Speaker 1: much we need to go over it, but if you
Speaker 1: want to go back and listen to our I think
Speaker 1: pretty great episode from November called the Bay of Pigs disaster.
Speaker 1: This was sort of one of the first things that
Speaker 1: happened in the nineteen sixties when UH Eisenhower approved this
Speaker 1: boondoggle of an operation UH known as the Bay of
Speaker 1: Pigs Invasion that just went just about as wrong as
Speaker 1: it could go on every level. Yeah, and so like
Speaker 1: we were setting up fake invasions of Cuba supporting exiles
Speaker 1: invasions of Cuba. UM RFK and JFK were obsessed with
Speaker 1: Cuba and in particular removing Castro from power. Cuba was
Speaker 1: a big deal for a number of reasons, we should say,
Speaker 1: and one of the leading reasons that Cuba was a
Speaker 1: problem for the United States is because they were worried
Speaker 1: Castro is going to serve as an inspiration for other
Speaker 1: countries in Latin America, especially the economically depressed ones um
Speaker 1: where they're like, yeah, all this this capitalism running around
Speaker 1: where Americans own most of our national operations and exports
Speaker 1: and we're getting very little in return, Communism might seem
Speaker 1: pretty appealing to them, So Castro might serve as an inspiration.
Speaker 1: And if there's like that domino effect like they were
Speaker 1: worried about in Southeast Asia that happens in Latin America
Speaker 1: thanks to Cuba, all of a sudden, America's American businesses
Speaker 1: are gonna be out a lot of money, Americans are
Speaker 1: gonna be out a lot of the bananas that they've
Speaker 1: come to love thanks to Edward Burney's and we would
Speaker 1: also lose access to things like the Panama Canal and
Speaker 1: other things we need. So it wasn't just like a
Speaker 1: like a ideological problem. It was a practical problem too.
Speaker 1: But the biggest problem, the biggest problem that a communist
Speaker 1: Cuba post to the United States is that it was
Speaker 1: now an ally with the USSR. America's swore an enemy.
Speaker 1: The other polar power of the Cold War would now
Speaker 1: had a country that would be willing to let them
Speaker 1: set up nuclear missile basis a hundred boles from Florida.
Speaker 1: That was truly the big problem with Cuba and Castro,
Speaker 1: That's right. And because of that kind of from the
Speaker 1: very beginning, the US very quietly started thinking about like, hey,
Speaker 1: should we assassinate this guy? Should we depose this guy? Um,
Speaker 1: And there were all kinds of crazy like poison cigars,
Speaker 1: like mafia hitman, that kind of stuff was being talked
Speaker 1: about behind closed doors, including um, Florida Senator George Smathers,
Speaker 1: great name, Uh, he proposed assassinating Castro, was a good
Speaker 1: buddy of Kennedy's and brought it up during the nine
Speaker 1: presidential campaign and include which included the plan included a
Speaker 1: false flag attack at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. And he
Speaker 1: claims that Kennedy basically was like a put something down
Speaker 1: on paper and I'll take a look. And um, so
Speaker 1: Kennedy wasn't you know, if you believe this, he wasn't
Speaker 1: initially adverse or averse excuse me, to the idea of
Speaker 1: taking care of the problem. If you know what I'm saying, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's how obsessed he was with removing Castro. The problem
Speaker 1: was this after the Bay of Pigs. That was what
Speaker 1: nine teen sixty one, I believe, Yeah, it was April nine. Um.
Speaker 1: The one of the huge problems with aside from America
Speaker 1: having an enormous amount of a on its face for
Speaker 1: being outed for supporting a failed coup of Castro, Um,
Speaker 1: was that Kennedy had been led to believe by his
Speaker 1: military and intelligence advisors that there was going to be
Speaker 1: an uprising, that like these exiles showing up having maken
Speaker 1: a couple of wins against the Castro regime was going
Speaker 1: to like awaken the Cuban people who would want to
Speaker 1: go back to, you know, the way things were before
Speaker 1: the Communists came along and took over the country, and
Speaker 1: they're being uprising that top of Castro. That was the thing.
Speaker 1: They weren't necessarily trying to take over the country. They're
Speaker 1: trying to incite a revolution, and that did not happen.
Speaker 1: Was supposed to work. Yeah, even though Kennedy had been
Speaker 1: told up and down by these advisors. He was a
Speaker 1: brand new president at the time, and he had been
Speaker 1: told up and down by these advisors that that was
Speaker 1: going to happen, and it didn't happen. It never materialized,
Speaker 1: and so he lost full faith in any military or
Speaker 1: intelligence advisor around him at the time. From that point on,
Speaker 1: so he found he needed to surround himself with new
Speaker 1: people to take on this this Castro Cuba problem. And
Speaker 1: the point man he put on the whole thing, he
Speaker 1: basically said, I want you to to be in charge
Speaker 1: of getting rid of Castro, you know, figuring out how
Speaker 1: to do it without sending in military people was his brother, Bobby.
Speaker 1: That's right. Uh, Like you said, Kennedy still had that
Speaker 1: new president smell, and Bobby still had that new attorney
Speaker 1: general smell. You were very very patient and waiting for
Speaker 1: your chance to use that, and I think it paid
Speaker 1: off in aces. Okay, good, I mean I try to
Speaker 1: get in there. But you know, uh so, Bobby, it
Speaker 1: was attorney general, like I said, And that isn't you know,
Speaker 1: attorney attorney general or attorneys general um or would it
Speaker 1: be attorneys generals? They usually don't get involved in stuff
Speaker 1: like this, but he was his his brother, and so
Speaker 1: he trusted him, and he ended up overseeing something called
Speaker 1: Operation Mongoose, which was kind of this crazy idea that
Speaker 1: they could disrupt life in Cuba such that, uh with
Speaker 1: you know, sabotage, with disorder, with espionage, um. And it
Speaker 1: would all be just in the name of stirring things
Speaker 1: up with the Cubans themselves again, not like putting in
Speaker 1: Americans dressed as Cubans and stuff like that. Uh. They
Speaker 1: thought they could get this done. Um. The CIA was
Speaker 1: going to be involved, the State Department was going to
Speaker 1: be involved, UM, the Defense Department, what we had at
Speaker 1: the time, the US Information Agency, and basically they were
Speaker 1: going to get together and get this done. And it
Speaker 1: was going to be headed up by a general from
Speaker 1: the Air Force named Edward Landsdale, who was interestingly a
Speaker 1: former AD exec and a CIA operative, and he was
Speaker 1: sort of in charge along with Kennedy of getting this
Speaker 1: thing planned and this Operation Mongoose again. Yeah, So Operation
Speaker 1: Mongoose is that operation that like all the wacky stuff
Speaker 1: that you have ever heard about getting rid of Castro,
Speaker 1: like a poisoned skin suit for him to scuba dive in,
Speaker 1: or exploding cigars, all that is Operation Mongoose. And like
Speaker 1: you're saying, the point was two kills a poison cigar.
Speaker 1: I don't think it was an exploding cigar. That's like
Speaker 1: a novelty, right, Well, that was the level they were at.
Speaker 1: Somebody brought up joy buzzer once, right, they were like,
Speaker 1: exploding cigar won't kill him, like yeah, but it'll humiliate him, right,
Speaker 1: and we'll finish him off with the joy buzz um.
Speaker 1: So that that's all of that fell under Operation Mongoose.
Speaker 1: And like you said, they were trying to basically make
Speaker 1: life for the average Cuban so weird and disjoined it
Speaker 1: and uncomfortable without anybody realizing the Americans were actually behind
Speaker 1: all these seemingly unrelated things that they would just get
Speaker 1: rid of Castro themselves. And that was the reason why
Speaker 1: they weren't just like, well, we can't just go in
Speaker 1: and kill Castro is because again they were friends with
Speaker 1: the Ovit's, and there was a chance that um JFK believed, uh,
Speaker 1: if they did in Vague Cuba, they would set off
Speaker 1: World War three. Like that was a very real fear.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, there was also this ticking clock
Speaker 1: going at all moments and among some people, some advisors
Speaker 1: to the White House and security advisors, it was like
Speaker 1: deafening the sound of this clock ticking. That the longer
Speaker 1: we waited, the more chance there was going to be
Speaker 1: that the Cubans were going to say, hey, so if
Speaker 1: it's come, build a missile base here. They hadn't yet,
Speaker 1: but it was on the table and everybody knew it.
Speaker 1: So they Americans needed to do something about Castro and fast.
Speaker 1: So the idea that the Americans could come up with
Speaker 1: these plots to get the Cubans to overthrow Castro themselves.
Speaker 1: That takes a lot of time, it might not pay off.
Speaker 1: And then looming in the background, getting ever closer, are
Speaker 1: these Soviet missile bases arriving in Cuba any day? Now?
Speaker 1: They just knew it. All right, that's a great suspenseful
Speaker 1: lead up to our first break. We're gonna come back
Speaker 1: and find out what happened with Operation Mongoose right after this.
Speaker 1: All right, so you set the stage very well. My
Speaker 1: friend General Lansdale is running the show. It was a
Speaker 1: pretty impossible situation to try and do this with the
Speaker 1: Cuban people without any real power, basically like he didn't
Speaker 1: have any real teeth in this. He was overseeing a
Speaker 1: bunch of different agencies. Uh And in February of sixty two,
Speaker 1: he basically put forward a plan that was supposed to
Speaker 1: get Castro out of office by October or even though
Speaker 1: he said that was pretty optimistic. And some of these
Speaker 1: ideas were pretty crazy. Um. One of them was that
Speaker 1: there's these things called star shells, which is kind of
Speaker 1: how you how you light up the night sky during wartime.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, it's like you shoot it for as
Speaker 1: it were mortar around, but it's not mort around. It
Speaker 1: just lights things up for the night vision goggles or
Speaker 1: back then. I guess, well, I don't know if they
Speaker 1: had them back then, but it's like that one scene
Speaker 1: at night, that battle, that night battle in Apocalypse Now, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: So one of the ideas was for a submarine, the
Speaker 1: US submarine to fire these star shells off the coast
Speaker 1: and convinced the Cubans that the Second Coming of Jesus
Speaker 1: was was happening and that Jesus was against Castro. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were going to shoot it off on All Saints Day,
Speaker 1: and that was based on the premise that the Cubans
Speaker 1: were deeply, deeply Catholic and that they would see this
Speaker 1: as a sign. And these are just ideas. Again, they
Speaker 1: never did this. All of these are just ideas, but
Speaker 1: they were ideas that were literally put forth in writing
Speaker 1: by the US government to the President. So it's okay,
Speaker 1: So the clock is ticking on Lansdale, and I read
Speaker 1: that basically every week he would go to the Oval
Speaker 1: Office and asked to be taken off of this assignment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was apparently a golden child. Like you said, he
Speaker 1: was an ad executive CIA operative. He basically shaped the
Speaker 1: geopolitical map of Southeast Asia by himself in the fifties. Um,
Speaker 1: and they, the Kennedy's, were like, hey, you seem pretty
Speaker 1: great at this. Let's see what you can do at Cuba.
Speaker 1: And he just ran into a brick wall in Cuba,
Speaker 1: in no small part because, like you were saying, the
Speaker 1: Kennedy's didn't give him any teeth, any authority. So he
Speaker 1: had to beg for everything from everybody from this this
Speaker 1: multi agency task force that he was in charge of.
Speaker 1: It was a terrible, terrible thing. And then again that
Speaker 1: clock is ticking. So in addition to coming up with
Speaker 1: ways to get the Cubans to topple Castro, Lansdale also
Speaker 1: was trying to figure out how to justify over action
Speaker 1: and actual military invasion. And so he asked the Joint Chiefs,
Speaker 1: who were one of the agencies that were part of
Speaker 1: the task force. He oversaw for some some info on that,
Speaker 1: like what would it take do you think for the
Speaker 1: United States to be able to justifiably invade Cuba and
Speaker 1: remove Castro as its leader? Problem solved? And again like,
Speaker 1: how can I scare the president bad enough? Kind of yeah,
Speaker 1: right exactly, so they they well, no, Also, like I
Speaker 1: think he was also trying to figure out what we
Speaker 1: could do to make that happen, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: Like could we also like push Cuba into a corner
Speaker 1: and make them do something and be like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: we have our hands are tied. We have to invade um.
Speaker 1: But the reason that it would scare Kennedy too is
Speaker 1: like he was against military action. You just got to
Speaker 1: keep that in mind. After the Bay of Pigs he said, no,
Speaker 1: We're not invading Cuba. So now Landsdills trying to figure
Speaker 1: out basically how to how to change the President's mind.
Speaker 1: And I guess, yeah, like you were saying, if it
Speaker 1: meant through scaring him, whatever it took, he just wanted
Speaker 1: out of this stupid assignment where he's trying to figure
Speaker 1: out how to trick the Cubans into overthrowing Castro. Right.
Speaker 1: So this this is what this briefing was all about
Speaker 1: in February of nineteen sixty two from the Joint Chiefs
Speaker 1: of Staff to basically put put it forth that this
Speaker 1: cannot be ignored. The quote was, the communist regime in
Speaker 1: Cuba is incompatible with the minimum security requirements of the
Speaker 1: Western hemisphere. Um. I mean that's like that sentence kind
Speaker 1: of kind of says it all like where where he
Speaker 1: it is incompatible having him in power with the safety
Speaker 1: of the Western hemisphere, So we gotta get rid of him. Um.
Speaker 1: They said that that, uh, we can't count on like
Speaker 1: you see what happened with the Bay of Pigs. There
Speaker 1: is no insurgents happening in Cuba that we can count
Speaker 1: on basically at this point, and we need to intervene directly.
Speaker 1: And I don't think Russia will even like be supermad
Speaker 1: at this point yet. Yeah. Yet, that was the thing
Speaker 1: because they said that Cuba is not part of the
Speaker 1: Warsaw Packed, which is kind of like the Soviet Union's
Speaker 1: version of NATO UM. And since they weren't a member
Speaker 1: of that, the Soviet Union had no obligations to back
Speaker 1: them up if they were invaded in them by America,
Speaker 1: and the fact that they didn't have any military bases
Speaker 1: there and they also didn't have any reason to back
Speaker 1: up Cuba. So it was possible that if they invaded
Speaker 1: Cuba to capital to top le Castro, they the Soviets
Speaker 1: would not be drawn into it. Maybe JFK was wrong
Speaker 1: about it sparking World War three. They didn't know that
Speaker 1: for a fact, but that was their assessment of it, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: So uh. On February second, Brigadier General William H. Craig,
Speaker 1: he was the Joint Chief of staffs rep for Operation Mongoose,
Speaker 1: He submitted this memo to Landsdale that said it was
Speaker 1: called possible actions to provoke, harass, and disrupt Cuba. And
Speaker 1: this is where some of these, uh, really kind of
Speaker 1: wacky ideas start coming forth. Um, some not quite so acky,
Speaker 1: like the Mercury mission was about to happen with John
Speaker 1: Glenn later that month, and they were like, Hey, if
Speaker 1: anything goes wrong with this thing, we could basically manufacture
Speaker 1: proof that Cuba was behind it and that would give
Speaker 1: us a reason. Yeah, that was one of the more
Speaker 1: reasonable things, and it really was. There was Operation Free ride.
Speaker 1: The idea that they were going to drop one way
Speaker 1: tickets to um like Mexico City over Havana was just like,
Speaker 1: just leave, that's amazing. I guess that was when if
Speaker 1: Castro had no one to rule, then maybe he would
Speaker 1: just leave himself. Castro would just shut down the airports
Speaker 1: or something. Yeah. Yeah, And that was not very well
Speaker 1: thought out. It wouldn't have worked. Now. There was also
Speaker 1: Operation Good Times too, which was they were going to
Speaker 1: produce a fake photo and this is at a time
Speaker 1: when it was hard to do that, at least make
Speaker 1: a convincing one of Castro presumably naked, hanging out with
Speaker 1: with beautiful women in a bunch of food at a
Speaker 1: time when you know, the Cubans were having a lot
Speaker 1: of trouble putting food on their own plates. And this
Speaker 1: picture was gonna have Castro surrounded by food and women
Speaker 1: and they were going to caption it my ration is different.
Speaker 1: And they thought that that would just that would be
Speaker 1: yet for cast Strow. So yes, these are the ideas
Speaker 1: that they were coming up with. But when they when
Speaker 1: they kind of turned there, I think when they said, like, wow,
Speaker 1: these are the ideas were coming up with. This stuff's
Speaker 1: not gonna work. There's no counter revolutionary insurgency to spark
Speaker 1: in Cuba, Like, what are we gonna do? We need
Speaker 1: to figure out how to how to get our army
Speaker 1: in there, right, get army in there, and then uh,
Speaker 1: that kind of set the table, all of us set
Speaker 1: the table for Operation Northwoods, which was put forward by
Speaker 1: Army General. It's so funny. I'm glad that that Olivia mentioned, uh,
Speaker 1: Doctor Strangelove, which had not come out yet, because some
Speaker 1: of the names in this are very like you can
Speaker 1: kind of tell that Kubrick and the writer were very
Speaker 1: much influenced by like real stuff that was going on,
Speaker 1: some of the ridiculous names from Dr Strangelove. And then
Speaker 1: you know later on when we get to like what
Speaker 1: was actually in Northwoods that you can only hear it
Speaker 1: as if it was read from Georgie Scott, General Buck Turgenson,
Speaker 1: like you can hear him saying these things. But Army
Speaker 1: General Lyman lim Nitzer was this guy's name, and he
Speaker 1: was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty. Very hawkish to say, the least right wing
Speaker 1: guy who uh, I mean, this guy he wanted to
Speaker 1: attack everybody at all times. He wanted a preemptive nuclear
Speaker 1: war launched against the Soviet Union. At one point that
Speaker 1: was a proposal that he took to Kennedy. He proposed
Speaker 1: that in writing. He said, we here's a plan to
Speaker 1: to for a surprise attack against the USSR. Let's do it. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He was that kind of guy. He was one of
Speaker 1: those ones that I mentioned earlier. Fight communism everywhere it
Speaker 1: pops up, any time it pops up, Just invade and
Speaker 1: take over. That's that was like, is his plan. And
Speaker 1: this guy's running the Joint chiefs of Staff. So Kennedy
Speaker 1: the head, No, he was Eisenhower appointee. Kennedy didn't like him,
Speaker 1: and he didn't like Kennedy, especially after the Bay of Pigs.
Speaker 1: He was one of the people that Kennedy did not trust.
Speaker 1: And then he thought Kennedy was reprehensible for not ordering
Speaker 1: an air strike to back up the Bay of Pigs
Speaker 1: exile invaders. Um. So there was no love lost. But
Speaker 1: Landsdale was It sounds like kind of appropriately the guy
Speaker 1: to come up with Operation Northwoods, which was, as far
Speaker 1: as we have is in documentary evidence, the only false
Speaker 1: flag operation the United States ever came up with. Okay,
Speaker 1: is that true documented evidence? I don't think there's ever
Speaker 1: been evidence of anything like this. I mean, there's a
Speaker 1: there's a historian who wrote about it later, a journalist
Speaker 1: who said it was probably the most corrupt document the
Speaker 1: United States government has ever come up with, which is
Speaker 1: really saying something. I mean, I'm not so I'm not
Speaker 1: Pollyanni here. I don't think the US government as of
Speaker 1: course clean hands and is just you know, looking out
Speaker 1: for the good of everybody at all the time. Like
Speaker 1: I think it's done some deeply shady stuff. But I
Speaker 1: also personally think that Operation Northwoods may have been, as
Speaker 1: far as planning goes, the pinnacle of that shape. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I believe it too. March five, the Joint chiefs uh
Speaker 1: Lansdale issued requested them to provide a quote brief but
Speaker 1: precise description of pretext which they would consider would provide
Speaker 1: justification for US military intervention in Cuba. Was passed along
Speaker 1: on March five. I'm sorry, marulimnitz Or passes it to
Speaker 1: Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara, and uh, this is something
Speaker 1: that McNamara, you know, years later was kind of like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, was that a thing? I don't really
Speaker 1: remember that. Yeah, he said, I'm not sure that was true.
Speaker 1: He was a scumbag himself too. Yeah. I recommend the
Speaker 1: Great Great documentary by Errol Morris when he talks to
Speaker 1: Robert ma namera basically before Yeah, for nine minutes straight
Speaker 1: or however long it is. It's crazy what he got
Speaker 1: him to say and to and he tried to get
Speaker 1: him to see and McNamara is like, does not compute
Speaker 1: to It was really fascinating stuff, it really was. I
Speaker 1: didn't realize that was Errol Morris. I should have guessed though. Yeah. Um, alright,
Speaker 1: so the Midnight Cowboy, what I wanted to throw you?
Speaker 1: I wanted to sniff you off the case. You sure did. Uh.
Speaker 1: So this memo was called Justification for US Military Intervention
Speaker 1: in Cuba. That was the official title, uh, signed by
Speaker 1: limnitz Are in the Joint Chiefs. And you know this,
Speaker 1: this was basically, uh here, what do you think of
Speaker 1: this plan? Um? It's you might think it's wacky and
Speaker 1: we've never done anything quite like this officially, but here
Speaker 1: it is President Kennedy. Right. Kennedy said, or um, let
Speaker 1: me see that ain't no bad no that us so, um,
Speaker 1: he looked it over and said, nope, thank you very much.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you going all this trouble, but I reject
Speaker 1: this out of hand. We're not going to to create
Speaker 1: some sort of UM mayhem, blame it on the Cubans
Speaker 1: and then use it as a pretext to evade We're
Speaker 1: just not doing that. And right when that happened, right
Speaker 1: when he realized that that this is not going to UM,
Speaker 1: not going to be implemented, limits are UM, tried to
Speaker 1: get all documentation of this destroyed. He wasn't successful, as
Speaker 1: we'll see obviously because we're talking about it now, but
Speaker 1: he was, oh god, I signed that thing. I thought
Speaker 1: we were all going to do this. And in fact,
Speaker 1: in the Operation Northwood's memo, he talks about how he
Speaker 1: anticipates that other agencies that were all part of Operation
Speaker 1: Mongoose Task Force UM would be submitting similar proposals, which
Speaker 1: are basically ideas for how to make it look like
Speaker 1: Cuba attacked the United States so that we can invade Cuba.
Speaker 1: Turned out he was the only one who put his
Speaker 1: name on a document that he then handed into the
Speaker 1: president that was that it's sort of like the scene
Speaker 1: in like an army movie where they asked for volunteers,
Speaker 1: and everyone but one person takes a step back and
Speaker 1: then one guy's left standing there. Have you ever seen
Speaker 1: there's a video of some dogs that did that to
Speaker 1: another dog. There's three dogs, I think they're all little poodles,
Speaker 1: and one of them, Peter pooped on the staircase and
Speaker 1: there the mom was making the video is asking them
Speaker 1: like who did this? And right when she says who
Speaker 1: did this, the other two look at the third one,
Speaker 1: and then she said who did it? And they take
Speaker 1: a step back and the ones is standing there still.
Speaker 1: It's one of the most amazing dog videos I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: I saw the Nature video the other day that was
Speaker 1: a deer, uh that you know how they had like
Speaker 1: fake deer and things in the woods. That was a
Speaker 1: real deer that had mounted one of these fake deer.
Speaker 1: Have you seen that? I've seen pictures, you know, on
Speaker 1: the internet. So it has mounted this deer and it's
Speaker 1: kind of going at it, and the fake DearS um
Speaker 1: sort of from the neck up, it's piece together, that
Speaker 1: whole section falls off. This deer jumps off of the
Speaker 1: back of that thing, and like I wish there was
Speaker 1: like a human narration going on. Because it looks at
Speaker 1: like it's kind of circling this thing, looking at it like, yeah,
Speaker 1: what was I just doing? Uh this thing too, so
Speaker 1: we figured out it was fake. I killed you. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: It's good stuff here, Yeah, Uh, should we take a
Speaker 1: break before we can get into the absurdity of Operation Northwoods?
Speaker 1: All right, we'll take our second break and we'll talk
Speaker 1: about some of these crazy wacky ideas right for this, Chuck,
Speaker 1: I think you know, we're we're calling these crazy wacky ideas,
Speaker 1: and they are crazy wacky ideas, like you shouldn't do
Speaker 1: stuff like false flag operations and in vague countries based
Speaker 1: on them. Um, but they're also I think only crazy
Speaker 1: wacky because they were in the sixties, they were directed
Speaker 1: at Cuba, which makes it seem even wackier in hindsight
Speaker 1: now today. And then lastly, um, they weren't implemented. Had
Speaker 1: they been implemented, they would there be in no way,
Speaker 1: shape or form crazier wacky. They'd be you know, abhorrent.
Speaker 1: But we're kind of laughing about this stuff now, but
Speaker 1: it's really not funny. No, That's what I'm trying to do.
Speaker 1: Stop laughing. Yeah, sorry, I'm in a good mood. I'm
Speaker 1: glad to hear it. All right, So let's talk about
Speaker 1: some of these false flag operations again signed by General
Speaker 1: Liman Limnitzer. That's right. We already talked about sort of
Speaker 1: attacking Guantanamo. Uh, there are things called over the fence attacks,
Speaker 1: which were uniformed Cubans basically, you know, riding near the bases,
Speaker 1: throwing fire bombs inside the base, setting aircraft on fire. Uh,
Speaker 1: kind of giving the illusion that that Guantanamo is under
Speaker 1: direct attack. And these would probably be exile Cubans who
Speaker 1: were sent from Florida down to Guantanamo to pose as
Speaker 1: Cuban nationals under Castro who were attacking. Um. But they
Speaker 1: would be paid and then remember that movie Wag the Dog.
Speaker 1: Oh sure they would probably be whacked afterward. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: the thing though, And this is if you read, if
Speaker 1: you read the fine print, Aside from one of them,
Speaker 1: these are all basically elaborate ruses where no one actually dies. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's very important that I know a lot of people believe.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say suspect, I think believe is as
Speaker 1: much more correct word that that September eleven was a
Speaker 1: false flag attack. Um, some people that. I mean, I
Speaker 1: get that, I get I get believing that and why
Speaker 1: you would believe that. Um, but if you look at
Speaker 1: Operation north Woods, they they go out of their way
Speaker 1: to basically stage death. People don't actually die. They weren't
Speaker 1: part of the plan killing people. And then let alone
Speaker 1: the idea of killing thousands of Americans, the just the
Speaker 1: fact that that many people died. I don't believe that
Speaker 1: anyone has ever held power in America that is capable
Speaker 1: or willing to kill that that many Americans all at once.
Speaker 1: I just don't believe it. I don't. I don't think
Speaker 1: the world works that way. I think the world can
Speaker 1: be a very very dark place. I don't think it's
Speaker 1: that dark at least that there's like that depth of
Speaker 1: betrayal from you know, the American government to the American people.
Speaker 1: I just I don't believe it. I agree, So I
Speaker 1: just thought we probably we should at least mentioned in
Speaker 1: two thousand one is a false flag operation, that's right.
Speaker 1: Another one from this era was the remember the Main incident,
Speaker 1: which was basically, let's just blow up one of our
Speaker 1: ships in Guantanamo Bay or or another vessel um near Cuba.
Speaker 1: We could like they they proposed sinking ships and all
Speaker 1: kinds of crazy plans like that. The one that really
Speaker 1: speaks to me as far as George C. Scott reading
Speaker 1: it from uh DR Strangelove is this direct quote, we
Speaker 1: could sink a boatload of Cubans on route to Florida,
Speaker 1: real or simulated like they could they it could be dummies,
Speaker 1: or we could actually really do this with real humans.
Speaker 1: That was the one that I was like, Okay, there's
Speaker 1: not there's not like like they're that actually does overtly
Speaker 1: say yeah, we could kill some people. The other ones,
Speaker 1: the ones that I'm like, Okay, they're really going out
Speaker 1: of their way to make sure nobody is actually hurt,
Speaker 1: are ones like um. There was one where they were
Speaker 1: going to uh um, send a like a charter plane,
Speaker 1: like actually like a commercial airline or from the US,
Speaker 1: probably from Florida en route to somewhere, carrying um American
Speaker 1: tourists off to vacation like Jamaica, Venezuela, Guatemala, all the
Speaker 1: vacation hotspots, right, and they were going to release actually
Speaker 1: two planes at once, identical planes, except one of them
Speaker 1: was going to be a drone remote controlled plane. And
Speaker 1: then they were going to reroute the one with the
Speaker 1: actual people in it and then send the drone along
Speaker 1: over Cuban airspace and blow it up and then blame
Speaker 1: it on the Cubans. Yeah. So if you'll notice in
Speaker 1: that plan there's like all those people are safe, they're
Speaker 1: all fine, Like they're all they're they're safe. This is
Speaker 1: all a decoy um, Like that's that's that's what this
Speaker 1: this operation was was, Like it's still wouldn't just they
Speaker 1: wouldn't say or they weren't. They weren't saying like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll just blow up a planeful of tourists, Like it
Speaker 1: just doesn't happen. That doesn't happen. Yeah, But I mean
Speaker 1: some of the stuff to me, like has the could
Speaker 1: serve as setting the stage for things getting out of
Speaker 1: hand and leading to real bloodshed, Like they had ideas
Speaker 1: for a simulated Cuban backed assault on like Dominican Republic
Speaker 1: or something using fake aircraft, you know, painted up to
Speaker 1: look like Cuban aircraft. Uh. I mean, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: something like that gets out of hand and real lives
Speaker 1: are being lost when it's misinterpreted. Yes, And I mean
Speaker 1: that's a really good point. And also, like the whole
Speaker 1: basis of this is like, so we can invade Cuba,
Speaker 1: and when we invade Cuba, there's going to be a
Speaker 1: lot of loss of life and bloodshed from that invasion too.
Speaker 1: So even if we went out of our way to
Speaker 1: make sure that people who were in the false flag
Speaker 1: operation didn't actually get hurt, somebody's eventually going to die
Speaker 1: because of this false flag. The idea is that this
Speaker 1: guy came up with. Yeah. Another idea was a fake
Speaker 1: attack on a plane, like a US Air Force plane
Speaker 1: in international waters. So basically that would be a pilot
Speaker 1: who was flying, as you know, under an alias. They
Speaker 1: would broadcast over the radio that they've been jumped by MIGGS,
Speaker 1: which was I guess this the Soviet fighter jets, I
Speaker 1: saw top gun, I know this stuff. Uh, And it
Speaker 1: would fly I guess under the radar at a low
Speaker 1: altitude and land uh safely and then stored. The pain
Speaker 1: would be um, repainted, given a new tail number, and
Speaker 1: then a submarine would drop plane parts into the water
Speaker 1: where it supposedly happened so they could like pull those
Speaker 1: things out of the ocean show the world again. Totally fake,
Speaker 1: totally fake. Um. There were other ones where like they're
Speaker 1: like well, maybe we could injure Cuban exiles in Miami,
Speaker 1: like assault them and blame it on the Cubans, um, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Like basically anything you could think of, uh, that could
Speaker 1: give America a reason to say, look, this Castra regime
Speaker 1: is unpredictable, unstable, and they're now attacking us. Um, we're
Speaker 1: going to have to invade. Uh. That was the point
Speaker 1: of Operation Northwood's ideas. But it had a bit of
Speaker 1: a stroke of genius that was kind of hidden in there,
Speaker 1: A little bit that I thought was was kind of
Speaker 1: well put. It was using a number of these different
Speaker 1: things making them seem through you know, a separation of
Speaker 1: of in time and space, making them seem like un
Speaker 1: related events. Also staging other events too that didn't necessarily
Speaker 1: have anything to do with anything, that kind of like
Speaker 1: give cover and camouflage the actual events and the goals um.
Speaker 1: And that if you put it all together, the US
Speaker 1: could be like, look at how crazy this Castra regime is,
Speaker 1: We're going to have to invade. I thought that was
Speaker 1: as far as unhinged documents go. I thought that was
Speaker 1: a little bit of sanity shining in it. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I think they should have dropped those one way
Speaker 1: plane tickets. That was that was my favorite idea and
Speaker 1: all this stuff. Uh, so you know, we know that
Speaker 1: Kennedy didn't accept this proposal. The Cuban missile crisis unfolds
Speaker 1: in October sixty two and Operation Mongoose was sort of
Speaker 1: fully laid to rest and Lansdale for his efforts. He
Speaker 1: was replaced um by a man named Sterling Cutrell, who was, um,
Speaker 1: he wasn't like an insider for the for the Kennedy clan,
Speaker 1: and so he was a little more cautious about everything. Um,
Speaker 1: they were still you know, I think the Joint chiefs
Speaker 1: had the idea, Like they didn't put this idea to
Speaker 1: bed completely. They put Operation Mongoose, Operation Mongoose Mongoose down,
Speaker 1: but they still didn't like put to bed the idea
Speaker 1: that like, hey, maybe we should still provoke Cuba and
Speaker 1: see if we can like set them up to invade. Um,
Speaker 1: like that went through sixty three. All the way through three,
Speaker 1: the Hawks were just trying to figure out how to
Speaker 1: get it done. Uh and it it obviously didn't happen.
Speaker 1: And what's somebody pointed out in one of these the
Speaker 1: articles that were the sources for Olivia's article was like
Speaker 1: Castro's still there. He outlived all these guys. Uh. And
Speaker 1: I think it was in like the nineties or the
Speaker 1: early two thousands when the article was written. There like
Speaker 1: he's still there, He's still giving seven hour speeches and
Speaker 1: like all these people are long dead. Um. And that
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the case. Like America and Cuba just
Speaker 1: entered this kind its own, like kind of mini Caribbean
Speaker 1: Cold War with tons of sanctions against Cuba and um
Speaker 1: limits on travel, um. And you know, I think the
Speaker 1: average American would just not really understand why. They just
Speaker 1: know that you that Castro was a communist, and you
Speaker 1: know that was all you needed to know to play
Speaker 1: sanctions on Cuba. Um. And we even further would have
Speaker 1: no idea whatsoever that Operation Northwood ever happened, was ever
Speaker 1: proposed if it wasn't for Oliver Stone movie movie JFK.
Speaker 1: And that a neat little bizarre footnote. Yeah, it really is,
Speaker 1: because like he said, limits are tried to get this
Speaker 1: thing completely destroyed, not even like hey can we bury this,
Speaker 1: Like let's destroy it. There was an investigative reporter named
Speaker 1: James Banford who wrote a lot about this to call
Speaker 1: it the most corrupt plan ever created by the U. S. Government.
Speaker 1: And if not for Oliver Stone sort of that JFK
Speaker 1: movie is so popular, uh for like Americans after that
Speaker 1: calling for the release and like opening of records. Um,
Speaker 1: we we may never have known. So hey yeah Alie Stone, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he got an Act of Congress passed through his movie.
Speaker 1: That's how popular that movie was when it came out.
Speaker 1: It'd be like like passing the Hobbit Act or something
Speaker 1: back in like two thousand seven. To never make another
Speaker 1: Hobbit movie would be that act o um or another
Speaker 1: eight hour be Eatles documentary. How about that ouch? Uh? Well,
Speaker 1: since Chuck said out everybody, that's it for Operation Northwoods,
Speaker 1: which means it's time for a listener mail. And I
Speaker 1: mean just hostility to the Beatles there at the end.
Speaker 1: You didn't see that coming on? Outright hostility. I get
Speaker 1: to Peter Jackson link. But all right, I'm gonna call
Speaker 1: this from a night shift nurse doing great work. Hey guys,
Speaker 1: my husband recently introduced me to your podcast about two
Speaker 1: years into the backlog and loving it. I started with
Speaker 1: your most recent pod, uh and work backwards. But my
Speaker 1: husband scrolls through and picks one at random Russian roulette style,
Speaker 1: which seems insane to me. I've been trying to figure
Speaker 1: out if our listening style says anything about our personalities.
Speaker 1: I would say I'm a little more methodical and he's
Speaker 1: more spontaneous in life, So maybe there's something to that.
Speaker 1: So lindsay, uh, one percent. I mean your husband is
Speaker 1: flying by the seat of his pants. It sounds like
Speaker 1: fast and loose. He's like, yeah, let's hear what they
Speaker 1: have to say about stupid grass. Yeah, you know what
Speaker 1: we had to say A lot we did. That was
Speaker 1: a long episode, and you know what, we've talked about
Speaker 1: this before. We there is no wrong way to listen
Speaker 1: to any show, including stuff you should know. I we
Speaker 1: personally sort of endorsed the sandwiching idea, which is, if
Speaker 1: you're new to the show, listen to the most recent
Speaker 1: release because that way, sometimes they're timely, but um, at
Speaker 1: least you're in the know about current jokes and things
Speaker 1: were referencing and uh, if we have live shows going on,
Speaker 1: like people miss out on kind of information release uh,
Speaker 1: and then see sandwich. So you listen to the most
Speaker 1: recent and then you pick one from the back back catalog,
Speaker 1: the deep Web. No, no, no, not the deep Web. No,
Speaker 1: so we've endorsed that. But there's no wrong way to listen.
Speaker 1: You can be one of those two times as fast
Speaker 1: play our voices, two times as fast weirdos. I think
Speaker 1: that's wrong. That's the too. But someone that's wrong just
Speaker 1: hit download, you know, I'm just teasing. No, it's right.
Speaker 1: However you listen. It's great. It's weird. I think to
Speaker 1: listen to us as if we were the chipmunks. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's funny though too. If that's your jam,
Speaker 1: then go for it, I says, I think it's funny
Speaker 1: though too. It's gonna be like four times when they
Speaker 1: get to happen, right, or maybe we should do this,
Speaker 1: would you, John Wayne? No, but it sped up at
Speaker 1: two times. It sound like myself, right, Yeah, that wasn't
Speaker 1: John Wayne. That was great. You just brought a smile
Speaker 1: to my face. Good, all right, let me finish this
Speaker 1: up anyway. I'm a night shift nurse. I listen to podcasts,
Speaker 1: especially on my way and from work to decompress for
Speaker 1: my shift. Thank you for keeping company on my drive,
Speaker 1: keeping me awake after working these long hours. Fund your
Speaker 1: voice of soothing yet engaging. Really admire that, uh you
Speaker 1: can do that and admit when you were wrong as well,
Speaker 1: which is such a hard thing to do in these
Speaker 1: polar se times. That is from Lindsay Johnson MSN r
Speaker 1: N nice. Thank you, Lindsay doing God's work out there.
Speaker 1: We appreciate you, and we appreciate your husband also for
Speaker 1: introducing you to us. I don't know what he's doing,
Speaker 1: but hey man who whatever he's doing is fine with me. Agreed. Um,
Speaker 1: If you want to be like Lindsay and get in
Speaker 1: touch with us, we would love that. You can send
Speaker 1: us an email to Stuff podcast at i heeart radio
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