WEBVTT - Part One: The Golden Age of Terrorism 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:07.960 M hmm. It's up cast uh pod today Robert Evans 0:00:08.119 --> 0:00:12.160 me behind the Bastards. This podcast we talk about bad people, 0:00:12.280 --> 0:00:14.760 and I don't do a very good job of introducing 0:00:14.760 --> 0:00:17.880 the show. That is the entirety of my job to 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:22.640 do and also to introduce UM. I apologize for that. 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:24.919 Today we have a little bit of a special episode 0:00:25.040 --> 0:00:28.520 for y'all. We're talking about the Golden Age of terrorism 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:30.400 and I'll explain what that is in a minute. And 0:00:30.480 --> 0:00:33.519 my guests are a couple of of of friends and 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:37.920 colleagues of mine from the the real world, UM and 0:00:37.920 --> 0:00:41.760 in the mean streets of Portland, Oregon. Welcome to the show. 0:00:42.520 --> 0:00:45.080 To two of the people, I get repeatedly tear gassed 0:00:45.080 --> 0:00:52.839 and grenaded and threatened with firearms, sometimes with being a lane. Hello, Hi, 0:00:53.440 --> 0:00:57.520 how are y'all doing tonight? I'm doing okay. I'm not 0:00:57.640 --> 0:01:01.480 getting threatened with grenades or tear guests. Yeah, that's some 0:01:01.760 --> 0:01:05.160 always a fun thing to do, especially since probably some 0:01:05.240 --> 0:01:07.280 of our friends will get threatened with grenades into your 0:01:07.319 --> 0:01:12.080 guest tonight more likely than not. Yeah, that's most most night. So, uh, 0:01:12.200 --> 0:01:13.560 you want to you want to tell the listeners a 0:01:13.600 --> 0:01:15.720 little bit about yourself since you're not you're not comming 0:01:15.720 --> 0:01:19.360 into this as as as as a big time stand 0:01:19.440 --> 0:01:24.360 up comedians like most of our guests, or is local 0:01:24.440 --> 0:01:29.040 youths like Garrison. Oh um, Yeah, So my name is 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:36.200 b Um and I am half of Surtists were journalists 0:01:36.280 --> 0:01:41.039 collective that started as a ship posting account and then 0:01:41.080 --> 0:01:44.840 there was a curfew and our friend Robert wanted some backup, 0:01:44.959 --> 0:01:47.880 so we went and started reporting on stuff. And now 0:01:47.920 --> 0:01:51.480 three months later we're still reporting on stuff and we've 0:01:51.480 --> 0:01:53.640 been shot with a lot more tear grass and grenades 0:01:53.680 --> 0:01:56.520 and pepperballs since then. Yeah, and an amount that seems 0:01:56.520 --> 0:01:59.920 almost impossible when you try to take stock of it. 0:02:01.120 --> 0:02:03.480 I have now Vintier guest with you more times than 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:07.160 I can count. Yes, yes, that is very accurate, but 0:02:07.200 --> 0:02:12.519 certainly I can confirm north of a hundred times. Um. 0:02:12.600 --> 0:02:15.440 So yeah, that's that's be in a lane. And today 0:02:15.560 --> 0:02:18.160 we're going to talk about the Golden age of terrorism? 0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:19.600 Do you do you know? What? What do do you do? 0:02:19.600 --> 0:02:21.120 You know anything about the golden age of terrorism? Is 0:02:21.160 --> 0:02:23.480 that a term you've heard prior to tonight? I assume 0:02:23.520 --> 0:02:26.800 it involves bell bottoms and just massive quantities of cocaine 0:02:26.800 --> 0:02:29.920 in a K fort Yes to everything, but the A 0:02:30.000 --> 0:02:32.880 K forty seven. So this is a fascinating period because 0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:35.079 when when you were talking about the golden age of 0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:38.520 terrorism is like the sixties up through the late seventies, 0:02:39.040 --> 0:02:41.760 and some people would say into the eighties. One of 0:02:41.800 --> 0:02:44.400 the things that's fascinating about it is that modern body 0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:48.000 armor didn't really exist. Like you you had some you know, 0:02:48.320 --> 0:02:50.320 some flak vests and stuff. You had some stuff that 0:02:50.320 --> 0:02:52.000 can maybe stop some pistol rounds, but like it was 0:02:52.120 --> 0:02:55.880 very uncommon and it didn't work well. So fucking everybody 0:02:55.880 --> 0:02:58.639 in terrorism uses machine pistols so like, which are like 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:01.480 like little handguns the fire a bunch of rounds really fast, 0:03:01.680 --> 0:03:03.560 so you can just jam in like the door of 0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:05.880 a building and just spray it down with gunfire. So 0:03:05.880 --> 0:03:08.680 it's like a lot of fucking scorpion machine pistols and stuff. 0:03:08.760 --> 0:03:13.760 Nine Mills and Toko ReBs. Yeah, all of the all 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:17.720 of the eighties action movies and every good James Bond 0:03:18.000 --> 0:03:20.400 and every good. That's why I'm excited to talk about 0:03:20.440 --> 0:03:24.120 today because like terrorism real bummer these days, right, Like 0:03:24.160 --> 0:03:26.200 it's mostly you're gonna kill a lot of innocent people. 0:03:26.320 --> 0:03:29.800 You're gonna specifically try to just kill innocent people most 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:32.600 of the time. And usually if you're a terrorist now, 0:03:32.720 --> 0:03:34.960 like one way or the other, you want to kill 0:03:35.000 --> 0:03:37.480 everyone in the world, pretty much like your isis and 0:03:37.520 --> 0:03:39.280 you want to kill all the people who aren't Muslims. 0:03:39.400 --> 0:03:41.400 You're some Nazi and you want to kill everybody who's 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:44.040 not like you're kind of white like whatever, whatever kind 0:03:44.040 --> 0:03:46.480 of terrorists you are, it's a bleak ass kind of terrorists. 0:03:46.760 --> 0:03:51.080 Whereas in the sixties and seventies there were some fun terrorists, Like, 0:03:51.120 --> 0:03:53.280 I mean, they killed a lot of people, Like, but 0:03:53.480 --> 0:03:56.000 did any of them want to drown Silicon Valley to 0:03:56.080 --> 0:04:00.400 make France the new hub of technology? Not no, but 0:04:01.600 --> 0:04:03.720 that that would have been That would have been fun. 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:06.920 There is there, there is. There is a pretty good 0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:10.800 attack on OPEC though. Um. Yeah, so it was like 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:13.680 you you've got in this period of time, number one, 0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:16.479 the world wasn't quite so bleak, so terrorism was like 0:04:16.480 --> 0:04:18.960 a lot more fun, um and it's a lot cooler. 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:22.159 Everybody's like walking random machine pistols. They got like fucking 0:04:22.200 --> 0:04:25.039 bell bottoms, great great outfits. You've got all these cool 0:04:25.600 --> 0:04:29.440 like different you know, liberation movements that aren't all religious 0:04:29.440 --> 0:04:33.640 extremists and stuff. It's a fun time to talk about terrorism. Um, 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:36.919 and the main thing people do isn't just suicide bomb 0:04:36.920 --> 0:04:42.240 others too and fire randomly into businesses full of people. Um. Yeah, 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:46.080 we're gonna talk a lot about plane hijackings, skyjackings. Yeah, 0:04:46.360 --> 0:04:50.640 I just keep thinking of now Saturday Night Live episodes 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:53.680 from my childhood. Yeah, there's a lot of a lot 0:04:53.720 --> 0:04:55.880 of those eighties episodes make jokes, and there's like the 0:04:55.920 --> 0:04:58.080 movie Airplane, there's a joke. But we'll talk about We're 0:04:58.120 --> 0:05:00.000 all that in a second. So we're gonna talk abou 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:02.160 the Golden Age of terrorism, and that's mostly gonna be 0:05:03.080 --> 0:05:05.920 part one. We're mostly going to talk about sky jackings 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:08.599 and the Japanese Red Army, which is a fun group. 0:05:08.880 --> 0:05:11.279 And then part two was going to be all Carlos 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:14.800 the Jackal, who used to be the most wanted terrorists 0:05:14.839 --> 0:05:17.480 in the world and is a neat guy, I mean, 0:05:17.520 --> 0:05:22.640 a monster. Maybe he was definitely the one in the 0:05:22.720 --> 0:05:25.360 Day of the Jackal. Well that's actually where his name 0:05:25.400 --> 0:05:27.479 came from, but when they made the movie about it, it 0:05:27.400 --> 0:05:30.440 it was pretty inspired. But anyway, Yeah, Carlos the Jackal, 0:05:30.600 --> 0:05:33.360 um who as you can tell by his incredible nickname, 0:05:33.839 --> 0:05:37.039 um one of the coolest terrorists. A lot about it 0:05:40.920 --> 0:05:44.240 probably and sucks out the morrow somewhere he was he was, 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:46.520 he was one of the guys who was like there 0:05:46.560 --> 0:05:48.640 for all of Black September. So he may have had 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:50.760 to eat a couple of bones out in the deserts 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:53.600 of Jordan's. This is lots of things I'll be new 0:05:53.640 --> 0:05:57.480 to me. Yeah. So, but before we get into anything else, 0:05:57.720 --> 0:05:59.840 I want to start by talking about the phenomenon that 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:04.160 most defined the golden age of terrorism, which is skyjacking. 0:06:04.480 --> 0:06:07.000 And no, that does not refer to masturbating on an aircraft, 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:09.480 because masturbating on an aircraft isn't a crime, and in 0:06:09.520 --> 0:06:12.119 some cases it's actually mandatory. I don't know they're aware 0:06:12.120 --> 0:06:14.800 of that, Um, I've seen a very specific movie from 0:06:14.839 --> 0:06:19.120 the seventies that implies that. Right. Oh yep, yeah, I 0:06:19.120 --> 0:06:25.040 don't opening INVESTI Beethoven. There's a lot of mandatory sex 0:06:25.040 --> 0:06:28.320 on airplanes. Well, I'm very supportive of skyjacking. That kind 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:31.520 of skyjacking and the other kind of skyjacking. Actually both 0:06:31.600 --> 0:06:36.520 kinds of skyjacking. So the kind of skyjacking that we're 0:06:36.560 --> 0:06:39.599 talking about today involves the hijacking of planes, which was 0:06:39.600 --> 0:06:41.279 a thing that used to happen back in the day 0:06:41.320 --> 0:06:44.760 before al Qaeda kind of ruined it forever. Um, nobody 0:06:44.760 --> 0:06:47.040 gets to enjoy an air It used to be fun. 0:06:47.120 --> 0:06:50.520 Hijacking airplanes used to be a joyful affair. Um, and 0:06:50.560 --> 0:06:56.160 they ruined. That's really the crime. Okay, I probably shouldn't. 0:06:56.720 --> 0:07:00.839 So the first recorded skyjacking occurred on February eighteen thirty 0:07:00.880 --> 0:07:03.159 one and are to keep up Peru when a group 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:08.680 of passenger plans they were really like one of the 0:07:08.720 --> 0:07:11.000 crazy things when you study aviations, like how fucking quick. 0:07:11.000 --> 0:07:12.280 It was like, well, now we're just flying these things 0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:16.080 all over the damn place. Yeah, it was paying hijacking 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:20.080 and now we're sky skyjacking, skyjacking, very hijacking. So the 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:23.480 first one, yeah, a keeper our equippa whatever. Peru, when 0:07:23.480 --> 0:07:26.800 a group of rebel soldiers accosted two American pilots and 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:29.440 tried to force them at gunpoint to drop profit propaganda 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:34.000 leaflets over Lima. Um. So the pilot said no, and 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:37.320 so the rebels occupied their plane and kind of sat 0:07:37.360 --> 0:07:40.800 around for two weeks. Basically, Um, no one was good 0:07:40.840 --> 0:07:43.720 at it yet flying no they were just kind of 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:47.120 sitting there on the tarmac being like fly drop. These 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:50.720 pamphlets flu around and the pilots were like no. And 0:07:50.760 --> 0:07:53.680 then we were like okay, yes, yeah, they weren't dicks 0:07:53.760 --> 0:07:55.520 like they were going to murder them, but they really 0:07:56.360 --> 0:07:59.600 like less of a skyjacking and more of a sit in. Yeah, 0:07:59.640 --> 0:08:03.160 it was an attempted skyjacking. Um, no one was good 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:06.080 at it yet, but yeah, that was the first attempt 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:08.280 at a skyjacking anywhere in the world that that is 0:08:08.320 --> 0:08:10.080 on record as far as I can, as far as 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:12.560 I can find um. And yeah, they didn't get what 0:08:12.560 --> 0:08:15.040 they wanted in the end. The pilots were just kind 0:08:15.040 --> 0:08:17.480 of like no, and like, no one else knows how 0:08:17.520 --> 0:08:19.680 to fly planes because it's nineteen thirty one, so you 0:08:19.720 --> 0:08:24.440 really have no other options right now. I'm just also 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:26.800 in that two weeks, they weren't like how else can 0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:30.840 we distribute pamphlets? You know how it is when you 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:33.880 kind of like get your heart set on something, Yeah, 0:08:33.920 --> 0:08:35.840 and you're already there with a gun pointed at the 0:08:35.880 --> 0:08:40.120 pilot and you're Timac and bro there's like military surrounding 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:46.240 you at the airport or something, it's never mind. Yeah, 0:08:46.520 --> 0:08:50.400 I I don't know how much attention it drew, but um, yeah, 0:08:50.440 --> 0:08:55.160 that's the first one. Now, the first US no SA, 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:59.480 someone would have to know about it. And it's the thirties. Yeah. Um. 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:03.680 The first U S skyjacker was a failed carney named 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:09.560 Ernest Pledge um and in nineteen thirty nine he he 0:09:09.640 --> 0:09:11.600 shot his flight instructor in the back of the head 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:14.200 during a during a training flight while in mid air 0:09:14.320 --> 0:09:17.480 and very nearly crashed because he shot his instructor in 0:09:17.480 --> 0:09:23.520 the head it was flying at Also what a career trajectory. Yes, 0:09:23.679 --> 0:09:26.840 failed Carny to sky jack to first American sky jack. 0:09:26.920 --> 0:09:29.760 I'm no good at operating this ferris wheel. Perhaps I'll 0:09:29.800 --> 0:09:36.280 try stealing at airplane. I mean, you know, we all 0:09:37.559 --> 0:09:39.719 that's life. I'm just saying, there's one lever on the 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:42.680 ferris wheel. It's a little bit more complicated with the airplane. 0:09:43.600 --> 0:09:46.960 So the Yeah, so Ernest, yeah, shoots his flight instructor, 0:09:47.120 --> 0:09:50.240 manages to like I think, throw his corpse out of 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:54.320 the plane and like take control. Um, and then he 0:09:54.400 --> 0:09:57.360 kind of goes on the run with this stolen plane. Um. 0:09:57.559 --> 0:10:00.720 But almost immediately before he can really get into being 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:05.520 on the run, he stops for Hamburgers. I'm sorry, but 0:10:06.040 --> 0:10:09.120 he stops for hamburgers. Like he lands the plane, lands 0:10:09.200 --> 0:10:12.560 the plane. No, he lands the plane outside of a town, 0:10:12.600 --> 0:10:15.880 and then he walks into town to get hamburgers. Well, 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:17.200 if you're going to go on the run, you need 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:20.520 to be fortified. He should have packed a lunch. Yeah, 0:10:20.760 --> 0:10:23.760 So he gets caught by police immediately because he's covered 0:10:23.800 --> 0:10:26.719 in blood, and the people at the Hamburger restaurant are like, 0:10:27.080 --> 0:10:29.760 this guy seems like he might have done something. I'm sorry, 0:10:29.760 --> 0:10:33.600 where was this? Um, let's see the I forget exactly 0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:35.920 where Pletch was when he put some like some in 0:10:35.920 --> 0:10:39.040 the middle of America, Right, So yeah, you know, sheriff 0:10:39.160 --> 0:10:41.640 was like, hey, there's a plane and that guy is 0:10:41.679 --> 0:10:48.840 covered in blood. Caper solved. That's good police work. Yeah. 0:10:48.880 --> 0:10:51.920 So the Pletch case essentially invented a lot of early 0:10:52.000 --> 0:10:54.880 legal codes for air piracy, which is what it's called 0:10:54.920 --> 0:10:56.880 when you commit crimes like this in the air, and 0:10:56.920 --> 0:11:00.120 it's the coolest crime you can get charged with. Right, Like, 0:11:00.200 --> 0:11:02.920 if I had to go commit federal crimes that we're 0:11:02.960 --> 0:11:04.480 going to put me in prison, I would want it 0:11:04.520 --> 0:11:07.120 to be air piracy because then people like, what are 0:11:07.120 --> 0:11:08.920 you in here for well, I was an air pirate 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:12.640 and you wear a little leather hat and monocle. Yeah, 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:15.560 I have a scar one Oh yeah, yeah, you gotta 0:11:15.600 --> 0:11:17.600 get a scar on one cheek. That's something you request 0:11:17.640 --> 0:11:21.480 from law enforcement during the standoff. Now, I'll let these 0:11:21.480 --> 0:11:23.840 people live, but you need to wound me so in 0:11:23.920 --> 0:11:26.440 such a way that I have exactly one Rakish scar 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:29.800 on my right cheek. That way, twenty years from now, 0:11:29.800 --> 0:11:32.480 when Nicolas Cage comes to get me released on prison 0:11:32.480 --> 0:11:34.440 in a special deal with the federal government because I 0:11:34.440 --> 0:11:37.720 need to hijack a plane in order to get an alcatrat. Whatever. Wait, 0:11:37.800 --> 0:11:40.640 that's just my pitch for about Nicolas with Nicholas Cage. 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:42.600 Isn't that the rocks like the rock but in the 0:11:42.600 --> 0:11:46.440 air the time? Oh yeah, it's all it's a sky prison. 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:48.840 All the ground prisons are full, so they have sky prisons. 0:11:49.840 --> 0:11:54.480 So it's like escape from anyway. Yeah. So uh yeah. 0:11:55.160 --> 0:11:58.560 So the Pledge case invents a lot of the early 0:11:58.640 --> 0:12:02.520 legal code for sky crime air piracy um. But by 0:12:02.559 --> 0:12:04.920 the time the federal government started to oversee aviation in 0:12:05.040 --> 0:12:07.920 nineteen fifty eight, hijacking a plane that still was not 0:12:08.040 --> 0:12:12.200 technically a crime nobody really thought they'd need to put 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:14.640 that in the lackers. So as long as you're not 0:12:14.880 --> 0:12:18.400 on the ground or the water, it's fine. Yeah, it 0:12:18.480 --> 0:12:20.199 was fine. There were no laws in the sky in 0:12:20.280 --> 0:12:25.440 nineteen beautiful time. It must have been perfect. So airports 0:12:25.440 --> 0:12:27.800 had no security measures in place. There was just nobody 0:12:27.840 --> 0:12:30.440 did anything about airplanes. Everyone was like, well, why would 0:12:30.440 --> 0:12:33.760 we why would we even think for a second about 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:36.920 airports security. It was it was, it was like an 0:12:36.920 --> 0:12:41.760 aggressive disregard for wanting to take like any precautions. You're saying, 0:12:41.800 --> 0:12:47.080 it's like when we drive past the National Guard car lot, Yeah, 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:50.559 drive tanks and they just leave all the tanks sitting 0:12:50.600 --> 0:12:52.800 there and they're just push button ignitions, which, yeah, we 0:12:52.840 --> 0:12:55.400 shouldn't talk too much about that, but it's a thing 0:12:55.440 --> 0:12:59.559 you should know. And Tullio Ortiz is the first guy 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:02.319 uh to hijack a plane successful, And he gets on 0:13:02.360 --> 0:13:04.199 a flight bound for Key West and he locks himself 0:13:04.200 --> 0:13:06.600 in the bathroom. Then he slips a note underneath the 0:13:06.640 --> 0:13:08.760 door and he warns everyone he's got a bomb and 0:13:08.800 --> 0:13:11.600 he says he'll detonate it if the flight isn't rerouted 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:14.760 to Havana. Now, Ortiz timed his attempt, well, because the 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:17.000 Bay of Pigs had happened just a couple of weeks earlier, 0:13:17.240 --> 0:13:20.360 tensions were high between the United States and Cuba, and 0:13:20.480 --> 0:13:23.280 Castro basically was like, oh, ship, Like this is a 0:13:23.280 --> 0:13:27.040 great opportunity to say funk you to the United States, um, 0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:30.280 and not actually risk anything. So he offers Ortiz political 0:13:30.280 --> 0:13:34.360 Sanctuary's super romantic though, because he's locked in the bathroom, 0:13:34.440 --> 0:13:37.320 he is threatening the plane. He's locked in the back 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:41.920 with the bomb. Right. Yeah, you wonder like a number 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:44.880 of things about this, um okay, And my only other 0:13:44.960 --> 0:13:47.480 question is it he just want to lift to Cuba 0:13:47.640 --> 0:13:50.000 or was he taking the plane there for some reason 0:13:50.120 --> 0:13:52.920 or because he just wanted to lift to Cuba. He 0:13:53.000 --> 0:13:55.040 just wanted to go to Cuba the way way he 0:13:55.080 --> 0:13:58.280 could kind of worked at that point. Really yeah, I 0:13:58.280 --> 0:14:00.880 mean the Bay of Pigs had just happened. But you 0:14:00.920 --> 0:14:03.640 go to another country and like just round a little bit. 0:14:03.640 --> 0:14:05.319 I don't know if it was that easy in that time. 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:09.120 You could lock yourself in the bathroom and slip whatever 0:14:09.200 --> 0:14:11.800 the reasoning or Teaz decides this is the way he's 0:14:11.840 --> 0:14:14.680 going to Cuba. Um, and he doesn't like it there. 0:14:14.679 --> 0:14:18.040 He actually tries to leave and then gets put in 0:14:18.080 --> 0:14:20.360 prison in Cuba. It takes him like fifteen years to 0:14:20.360 --> 0:14:23.880 get back to the United States. Um, So he regrets 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:26.760 his decision very soon quickly. Sometimes you make your bed 0:14:26.800 --> 0:14:28.200 and then you lie in it. Yeah, and then you 0:14:28.240 --> 0:14:30.520 gotta live in Cuba, which I don't know right now, 0:14:30.560 --> 0:14:32.680 maybe not the worst bed in the world. So yeah, 0:14:32.800 --> 0:14:34.600 so or tease. It doesn't work out well for him. 0:14:34.640 --> 0:14:36.680 He's not super happy with the decision that he made 0:14:36.720 --> 0:14:39.000 to hijack a plane and get to Cuba. UM. But 0:14:39.160 --> 0:14:41.160 a lot of people suddenly realize once he's done it, 0:14:41.240 --> 0:14:45.560 like it's that easy, Like, well, all you gotta do, 0:14:45.760 --> 0:14:49.480 I want to go to Cuba. So three more US 0:14:49.560 --> 0:14:51.880 planes were hijacked and taken to Cuba over the course 0:14:51.880 --> 0:14:56.000 of nineteen sixty one. UM And afterwards it becomes it 0:14:56.040 --> 0:14:59.240 becomes a meme. UM. In the next like eight years, 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:03.280 a hundred and seventies seven skyjackings were committed worldwide, and 0:15:03.320 --> 0:15:06.000 more than seventy percent of them involved an attempt to 0:15:06.040 --> 0:15:09.480 divert a plane to Cuba. So Cuba is the place 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:12.400 to the place to go if you are jacking a plane, 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:17.160 if you're an airline or government maybe just let people 0:15:17.240 --> 0:15:20.600 fly to Cuba, right, Yeah, that might have been an option. 0:15:20.840 --> 0:15:24.480 Um you know, there's a number of reasons. It's free essentially, 0:15:24.520 --> 0:15:26.280 like you can get a real cheap ticket and then 0:15:26.280 --> 0:15:28.120 just demand it go to Cuba because you've got a gun. 0:15:28.800 --> 0:15:31.000 But also, it was the seventies. It was real cheap 0:15:31.120 --> 0:15:34.360 to fly do everything. It was the Golden Age, and 0:15:34.400 --> 0:15:36.920 you could smoke on airplane. You could smoke. Everybody's smoking 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:39.280 the like a hundred percent of the people involved in 0:15:39.320 --> 0:15:42.360 all of these hijackings are smoking the entire time. That 0:15:42.520 --> 0:15:45.920 is something we have to keep in mind. Um. So, yeah, 0:15:46.560 --> 0:15:49.280 Cuba comes like the motherfucking place to go if you're 0:15:49.360 --> 0:15:51.800 hijacking a plane, and the reason to hijack a plane. 0:15:52.360 --> 0:15:56.960 So how Cuba's got like a pretty decent airport set up, right, Like, 0:15:57.000 --> 0:15:59.920 because otherwise I could see this being a problem. I've 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:01.880 ever heard that it was a problem. I think they 0:16:02.240 --> 0:16:04.920 I don't know much about the Cuban Cuban airport. Just 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:09.040 imagine air traffic controller in Cuba and like the nightmare 0:16:09.040 --> 0:16:11.560 of like, oh god, we got another one. Not a 0:16:11.600 --> 0:16:13.400 lot of other traffic into Cuba. I don't think in 0:16:13.400 --> 0:16:16.440 this period of time. So I just have one more question, though, 0:16:16.720 --> 0:16:18.640 what did Cuba do with the planes afterwards? They just 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:23.040 give them that getting to that. So, the reasons why 0:16:23.160 --> 0:16:26.280 people would hijack sky jack planes and take them to 0:16:26.320 --> 0:16:29.640 Cuba were very varied. Everybody had like a different purpose 0:16:29.680 --> 0:16:32.440 behind it. Um, But the del Castro kind of helped 0:16:32.680 --> 0:16:36.000 Um make his country a more desirable destination by letting 0:16:36.040 --> 0:16:38.280 everyone in the world know that Cuba just kind of 0:16:38.280 --> 0:16:40.880 would take in anybody who stole a plane. Like, if 0:16:40.880 --> 0:16:43.120 I'm steal a plane, you can land in Cuba and 0:16:43.160 --> 0:16:47.760 live here. Was like essentially what he told everybody Um. 0:16:47.800 --> 0:16:49.040 And there were a lot of ways in which he 0:16:49.080 --> 0:16:51.960 benefited from the situation. For one thing, it was good propaganda. 0:16:52.040 --> 0:16:54.680 All these people leaving the decade and West like traveled 0:16:54.920 --> 0:16:58.520 to this socialist paradise of Cuba. Um. But more than anything, 0:16:58.680 --> 0:17:02.000 it meant hard currency for Castro. See airlines had to 0:17:02.000 --> 0:17:04.679 pay to get their planes returned, and eventually Cuba settled 0:17:04.720 --> 0:17:07.600 on a standard fee of seventy five hundred dollars per plane, 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:10.240 So every time a plane got skijacked, they got a 0:17:10.240 --> 0:17:14.240 pile of cash to return it. Um. Yeah, So that's 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:18.399 that's their little industry develops. I mean of this, you 0:17:18.400 --> 0:17:20.840 build your own commercial airline one plane at a time. 0:17:20.920 --> 0:17:22.800 But I guess that works. And just to crunch the 0:17:22.880 --> 0:17:26.520 numbers here for you said, so there was about a 0:17:26.560 --> 0:17:28.359 hundred and twenty or so, well know about like a 0:17:28.440 --> 0:17:34.520 hundred and thirty years something like that trips to Cuba. Yeah, okay, 0:17:34.600 --> 0:17:39.159 so that's not bad money. Up. I do it for 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:45.680 a living. So uh yeah, Now a number of people. Um, 0:17:45.840 --> 0:17:48.000 there were a lot of reasons people ski jack planes 0:17:48.040 --> 0:17:49.800 for Cuba, including like some folks were just kind of 0:17:49.840 --> 0:17:52.720 mentally ill and decided to do it. Um. Other folks 0:17:52.840 --> 0:17:56.119 chose Castro's capital because they were true believers in communism. 0:17:56.320 --> 0:17:58.800 They convinced themselves that they would be greeted as revolutionary 0:17:58.880 --> 0:18:01.840 heroes if they success. We got a ransom from, you know, 0:18:01.920 --> 0:18:05.200 some government and took it to Cuba. One skyjacker recalled thinking, 0:18:05.200 --> 0:18:07.119 at the start of his endeavor, in a few hours, 0:18:07.160 --> 0:18:09.080 it would be that dawn in a new world. I 0:18:09.119 --> 0:18:12.440 was about to enter paradise. Cuba was creating a true democracy, 0:18:12.480 --> 0:18:14.840 a place where everyone was equal, where violence against blacks 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:17.240 and justice and racism, where things of the past. I 0:18:17.240 --> 0:18:19.600 had come to Cuba to feel freedom at least once. 0:18:20.000 --> 0:18:22.000 There are a number of non white people whose skyjack 0:18:22.040 --> 0:18:24.440 planes to Cuba because they're just kind of like, fuck 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:27.920 this bullshit and the United States in the seventies, I'm 0:18:27.960 --> 0:18:31.760 going to Cuba in the Black liberation struggle. There's a 0:18:31.800 --> 0:18:34.119 lot of people who get broken out of jail and 0:18:34.280 --> 0:18:37.480 get to Cuba somewhere another, so better place than jail, 0:18:38.080 --> 0:18:42.879 that's what people say. Um, yeah, So the reality of 0:18:42.920 --> 0:18:45.760 the situation, UM, I don't know. It differed for everybody, 0:18:45.800 --> 0:18:48.000 but it was less rosy than a lot of skyjackers 0:18:48.000 --> 0:18:51.440 had anticipated. Um. For one thing, just as a general rule, 0:18:52.200 --> 0:18:55.240 governments that put a lot of value on law and 0:18:55.359 --> 0:18:58.480 order don't like people who hijack planes, even if those 0:18:58.520 --> 0:19:01.800 people believe the same fixed they do. So like, thanks 0:19:01.840 --> 0:19:05.520 for the plane, we get dollars out of it, but 0:19:07.800 --> 0:19:12.679 I forgot it was still like at some point two 0:19:12.760 --> 0:19:16.119 hundred thousand dollars or something. But now that you brought 0:19:16.160 --> 0:19:18.640 us this plane, you're also the kind of person who 0:19:18.680 --> 0:19:21.080 steals planes by pointing guns and moms out of them. 0:19:21.200 --> 0:19:24.160 So we don't really trust you, is what we're saying. 0:19:25.440 --> 0:19:28.040 Kind of person who's not one of our highly trained 0:19:28.040 --> 0:19:31.840 doctors in our very good medical system. Yeah, um so. 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:34.639 According to Wired quote, Castro had a little bit disdained 0:19:34.680 --> 0:19:38.560 for the hijackers themselves, whom he considered undesirable malcontents. After 0:19:38.640 --> 0:19:41.240 lying landing at Jose Martie, which I guess is the airport, 0:19:41.359 --> 0:19:44.119 hijackers were whisked away to an imposing Spanish citadel that 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:47.280 served as the headquarters of G two Cuba secret police. 0:19:47.560 --> 0:19:49.959 There they were interrogated for weeks on end, accused of 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:52.520 working for the CIA, despite all evidence to the contrary. 0:19:52.720 --> 0:19:54.520 The lucky ones were then sent to live at Cassa 0:19:54.560 --> 0:19:59.000 de Troncitos, the hijackers house decrupt dormitory in southern Havana, 0:19:59.040 --> 0:20:02.199 where each American was allocated sixteen square feet of living space. 0:20:02.440 --> 0:20:05.600 The two story building eventually held as many as sixty hijackers, 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:08.359 who were forced to subsist on monthly stipends of forty 0:20:08.400 --> 0:20:11.560 pesos each skyjackers who rubbed their G two interrogators the 0:20:11.600 --> 0:20:14.800 wrong way. Meanwhile, we're dispatched to squalid sugar harvesting camps 0:20:14.800 --> 0:20:18.320 where conditions were rarely better than nightmarish. At these tropical goologs, 0:20:18.320 --> 0:20:22.040 inmates were punished with machette blows. Political agitators were publicly executed, 0:20:22.200 --> 0:20:25.040 and captured escapees were dragged across razor sharp stocks of 0:20:25.080 --> 0:20:28.160 sugarcane until their flesh was stripped away. One American hijacker 0:20:28.280 --> 0:20:30.440 was beaten so badly by prison guards that he lost 0:20:30.440 --> 0:20:34.520 an eye. Another hanged himself in his cell. So it's like, wow, 0:20:34.880 --> 0:20:38.520 kind of a mixed bag. Yeah, he stole a whole 0:20:38.520 --> 0:20:41.320 plane just for that, because sixteen feet of living space, 0:20:41.400 --> 0:20:44.520 that's that's two feet by eight feet. That's like a 0:20:44.520 --> 0:20:49.359 cop back to talking about career trajectories of hijackers. You 0:20:49.440 --> 0:20:51.560 really got to have an end goal in mind. Better, 0:20:51.640 --> 0:20:54.320 jacking itself is not cannot be the end goal. Better 0:20:54.400 --> 0:20:57.280 to be the broker who's arranging the transfer of the 0:20:57.320 --> 0:21:03.360 planes back to their that's the growth industry. Maybe it's 0:21:03.480 --> 0:21:07.040 also funny that a communist country would take the people 0:21:07.040 --> 0:21:14.760 who put in the hard labor and you know, expropriate that. Yeah, yeah, 0:21:14.880 --> 0:21:17.560 you know, all governments are kind of the same when 0:21:17.600 --> 0:21:20.119 you get on the other hand, depending on where you 0:21:20.119 --> 0:21:23.720 lived before, at least you're warm now, Yeah, you're warm now. 0:21:24.960 --> 0:21:26.720 It works out for some of them, right, Like, there's 0:21:26.720 --> 0:21:28.960 got to be some people that like getting good with 0:21:29.000 --> 0:21:31.080 the G two folks, and I don't know. I assume 0:21:31.080 --> 0:21:32.840 it worked out for some people, but it's it's a 0:21:32.920 --> 0:21:36.119 rough it's a rough situation for most of them. Now, 0:21:36.400 --> 0:21:38.480