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Speaker 1: Welcome back, fellow conspiracy realist. We returned to you with

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Speaker 1: a classic that we think you'll enjoy. As you know,

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Speaker 1: we have talked at length about the big fantasy job

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Speaker 1: in the government. Who gets to choose the names for

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Speaker 1: secret operations? Right? Who gets to make the acronyms or retrodyms?

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Speaker 1: What is Operation Chaos? It was that thing in fight Club, right,

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Speaker 1: wasn't Wasn't that called Operation Chaos?

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Speaker 2: Wasn't.

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Speaker 1: I think it was where they destroy like, you know,

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Speaker 1: public works of corporate art. Huh, mayhem, Project Mayhem. This

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Speaker 1: is Operation Chaos, not yes, Project Mayhem. Yeah, they also

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Speaker 1: ran No.

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Speaker 3: I think this is more proxy war stuff.

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Speaker 1: Right, yeah, yeah, So this is a true story, real conspiracy.

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Speaker 1: During the Vietnam War, Uncle Sam was desperate to UH

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Speaker 1: to clamp down on domestic opposition to the war effort

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Speaker 1: protest in the streets, people saying, you know, why can

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Speaker 1: we commit atrocity an ocean away? But we can't make

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Speaker 1: sure people who live here have any kind of quality

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Speaker 1: of life? And their solution was not to improve the

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Speaker 1: domestic quality of life for Americans. It was Operation Chaos.

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Speaker 2: Let's dive right from UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies.

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Speaker 2: History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back

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Speaker 2: now or learn this stuff they don't want you to know.

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Speaker 3: Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.

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Speaker 1: They call me Ben. We are joined, of course with

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Speaker 1: our super producer Paul Deckatt on the ones and twos.

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Speaker 1: Most importantly, you are here. You are you, and that

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Speaker 1: makes this stuff they don't want you to know.

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Speaker 3: That's what this is. Brand new logo rocking feeling good.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true. We have the six finger logo designed

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Speaker 1: by the way, by our super producer, Paul Paul nice work, sir,

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Speaker 1: with a consultation from our graphic artist team.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Pam, Yeah, we can say your name. It's okay,

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Speaker 3: Pam is awesome, Pam Peacock.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. And we have a situation here wherein it may

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Speaker 1: be deceptively easy to think that there are only three

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Speaker 1: or four people involved in stuff they don't want you

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Speaker 1: to know. That could not be further from the truth,

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Speaker 1: because this podcast, like many many other things in the world,

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Speaker 1: has an entire team behind the curtain actively working to

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Speaker 1: make stuff like this sound easy. I think we have

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Speaker 1: the easiest jobs on the team, to be honest.

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Speaker 3: Sure, absolutely, we just get in here and ramble. Man,

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Speaker 3: That's what I do. You do the hard stuff? I

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Speaker 3: just go well, Ben, guess what what? Oh?

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Speaker 1: I fell for it?

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Speaker 3: See there you go?

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Speaker 1: No, no, no no. But the reason we're bringing up

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Speaker 1: this idea of a team that often is not acknowledged

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Speaker 1: is because today's episode dives into something that could easily

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Speaker 1: be seen as the actions of just a few isolated people.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely maybe just fifty two of.

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Speaker 1: Them, perhaps as few as fifty two. But as we're

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Speaker 1: going to find, just like this podcast, today's topic has many, many, many,

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Speaker 1: many more people in play, some of whom remain mysterious

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Speaker 1: and unidentified today. If you're listening to this show, then

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Speaker 1: you probably won't be surprised. Matt and I are going

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Speaker 1: to go out on a limb and assume you will

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Speaker 1: not be surprised to learn that most governments, at one

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Speaker 1: point or another, love them or hate them, have perpetrated secret,

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Speaker 1: illegal programs against either their citizens or citizens of another country.

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Speaker 1: And since our show is based in the US, we

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Speaker 1: naturally tend to explore stories based in this country. This

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Speaker 1: one is no exception, but it's one you may not

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Speaker 1: have heard of before. Today we're exploring a classified program

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Speaker 1: known as Operation Chaos.

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Speaker 3: Yes, and to discuss this program, we need to take

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Speaker 3: ourselves back to nineteen fifty four onwards just a little

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Speaker 3: bit there, to the Second Indo China War. You probably

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Speaker 3: don't know it as that. You probably know it as

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Speaker 3: the Vietnam War. I know. That's how I was a

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Speaker 3: little while ago. It was a conflict between North and

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Speaker 3: South Vietnam, which were two separate countries at the time,

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Speaker 3: and it lasted from nineteen fifty four until nineteen seventy five.

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Speaker 3: Now this is distilling it like crazy, but this is

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Speaker 3: just to say what it is. And you probably already

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Speaker 3: know this. North Vietnam was a communist government. It was

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Speaker 3: run by a communist government, and they worked with these

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Speaker 3: rebels in South Vietnam who were called the Viet Cong,

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Speaker 3: and together they attempted to overthrow the government of South Vietnam.

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Speaker 3: And this was a terrible, terrible conflict that cost the

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Speaker 3: lives of so many and we'll discuss that here shortly,

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Speaker 3: but ultimately the physical combat took place in both South

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Speaker 3: Vietnam and North Vietnam. Laos and Cambodia, which are immediately

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Speaker 3: to the west of the Vietnam. Of Vietnam. That's right there,

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Speaker 3: and I guess spoiler alert. Ultimately the North Vietnamese were

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Speaker 3: successful in their attempts to overthrow the South Vietnamese government.

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Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and along the way the US got involved.

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Speaker 1: You may have heard us reference earlier instances surrounding the

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Speaker 1: catalyst that set the US on a path to war

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Speaker 1: in this part of the world, the most controversial one

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Speaker 1: being the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Yes, which did we

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Speaker 1: do a whole episode on that yet or did we

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Speaker 1: just do false Flags?

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Speaker 3: We did false Flags where we discussed it at length,

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Speaker 3: but you know, maybe we could go deeper. Who knows?

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Speaker 1: Who knows? Check out the False Flags episode if you

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Speaker 1: have yet to do so. There's some pretty interesting stuff there.

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Speaker 1: For now, we're going to explore the not the entire

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Speaker 1: Vietnam War, because this is the setup right to Operation Chaos.

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Speaker 1: We're going to look at the people the US sent

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Speaker 1: to wage this war. The Vietnam War, as it's called

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Speaker 1: in the US, used a conscription system, a draft, and

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Speaker 1: that is something that hasn't occurred since. Roughly two point

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Speaker 1: seven million US soldiers served in Vietnam, and of those

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Speaker 1: two point seven million, around twenty five percent were draftees,

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Speaker 1: meaning that they were forced to go, and in most

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Speaker 1: cases it would be a crime for them to refuse

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Speaker 1: to serve in the war. Regardless of their ideological or

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Speaker 1: political affiliations. There are cases where you could be a

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Speaker 1: conscientious objector, for instance, a pacifist or a so called

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Speaker 1: pacifist like the Quakers. Lindon LaRouche was raised a Quaker,

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Speaker 1: which will be important a little bit later in today's show.

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Speaker 3: Or Muhammad Ali who was a conscientious objector.

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Speaker 1: M hmm. Yeah, and so conscientious objection is a genuine thing,

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Speaker 1: but there were a lot of people who high tailed

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Speaker 1: it to Canada, for instance, because they felt like they

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Speaker 1: wouldn't be able to make a case for conscientious objection,

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Speaker 1: that they would have been popped into the shake and

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Speaker 1: bake system and then sent off to die in the jungle.

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Speaker 1: That's how a lot of people looked at it.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, especially towards the end of the Vietnam conflicts, as

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Speaker 3: the propaganda and the truth of the situation was coming.

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Speaker 1: Forward, and many, many, many other people. As you can

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Speaker 1: tell from the statistics, about seventy five percent of the

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Speaker 1: forces there volunteered or were already career military yes, and

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Speaker 1: not all of these people came back. We discussed this

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Speaker 1: briefly in our episode on the allegations of POW's left

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Speaker 1: behind in Vietnam, which is still a contentious topic of conversation,

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Speaker 1: right because there's simply not enough proof, Yeah, one way

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Speaker 1: or the other, unfortunately, And we know that of the

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Speaker 1: people who went, of the roughly two point seven million,

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Speaker 1: not everybody made it home. That's the reality. But we

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Speaker 1: have the actual numbers too.

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Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, one out of every ten Americans who served

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Speaker 3: in Vietnam was in some way a casualty. There was

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Speaker 3: somewhere between fifty eight thousand, one hundred and forty eight

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Speaker 3: and fifty two hundred and twenty that were killed, just

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Speaker 3: killed while they were there, and then another three hundred

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Speaker 3: and four thousand that were wounded. And that's an estimate there, right.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. The oldest and this is again just on the

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Speaker 1: US side, the oldest person on the US side killed

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Speaker 1: was sixty two years old. Of the people who were killed,

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Speaker 1: sixty one percent, more than half were younger than twenty

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Speaker 1: one wow. And more than eleven thousand of those killed

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Speaker 1: were younger than twenty jeez. And five people who were

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Speaker 1: killed in Vietnam were only sixteen years old.

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Speaker 3: That's again on the American side. That's very important because

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Speaker 3: there are a lot of people under sixteen years old

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Speaker 3: that died that were not on the American side.

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Speaker 1: Right, that were civilians, Yeah, that were simply trying to

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Speaker 1: live their lives. So let's look at the Vietnamese side.

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Speaker 1: The US military estimates that between two hundred thousand and

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Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty thousand South Vietnamese soldiers died in

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Speaker 1: the war. And in nineteen ninety five, Vietnam released its

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Speaker 1: official estimate of war casualties, and it cited as many

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Speaker 1: as two million civilians on both sides, the North Vietnamese

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Speaker 1: and South Vietnamese side, and they said, in addition, there

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Speaker 1: were one point one million North Vietnamese and viet Cong

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Speaker 1: soldier casualties.

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Speaker 3: That is unthinkable.

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Speaker 1: It's a bloodbath.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, you know, the overall tonnage of bombs that

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Speaker 3: were dropped during the Vietnam War exceeds that of if

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Speaker 3: you add up most of World War II, of just

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Speaker 3: if you think about the amount of munition that was

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Speaker 3: used there, it exceeds almost all of World War Two,

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Speaker 3: which is insane.

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Speaker 1: And in many cases some of that ordinance remains.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, in Laos, right, unexploded.

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Speaker 1: Right, And the US conducted secret illegal operations in Cambodia

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Speaker 1: and Laos in particular. A lot of people here in

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Speaker 1: the US agreed with the war, and a lot of

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Speaker 1: people did not. And this is where we hit upon

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Speaker 1: the concept of deserters. Deserters would be a little bit

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Speaker 1: different from draft dodgers, right, yes, yeah, So if you're

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Speaker 1: a draft dodger, your number gets called up, they pull

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Speaker 1: your card, and you say, for one reason or another,

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Speaker 1: forget this, I'm out of here. I'm going to Canada,

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Speaker 1: I'm going to Europe. I'm gonna head out for the

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Speaker 1: Southern continent.

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Speaker 3: You know. And there were organizations set up to assist

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Speaker 3: people that wanted to the draft. That's a that's a

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Speaker 3: pejorative kind of a draft dodger. But like they wanted

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Speaker 3: to what is a better way to do?

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Speaker 1: They did not want to participate in a war with

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Speaker 1: which they did not agree.

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Speaker 3: Oh there you go. But yeah, they just they disagreed.

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Speaker 3: But if we're gonna talk about what a deserter is

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Speaker 3: an actual deserter, this is the military has a classification

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Speaker 3: for this, and it is that it's any person that's

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Speaker 3: been absent without leave a service member, mind you, for

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Speaker 3: more than thirty days.

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Speaker 1: Thirty days or less, you're a wall, right.

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Speaker 3: Yes, exactly, And you have to be an active member

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Speaker 3: of the military to be considered a deserter.

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Speaker 1: And desertion is something that occurs in almost every war. Oh, yes,

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Speaker 1: it's It's often looked down upon. It's seen as an

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Speaker 1: unpatriotic move, to say the least, and at times it's

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Speaker 1: seen as from tremendously unethical, right, the idea being that

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Speaker 1: someone has already to some extent agreed to serve in

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Speaker 1: a military, yeah, and then they have gone back on

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Speaker 1: their word or the vow they took, the oath they took.

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Speaker 1: And Vietnam was no different. In fact, quite a few

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Speaker 1: people deserted during Vietnam.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. According to reports from nineteen seventy two. From let's

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Speaker 3: see July nineteen sixty six until November nineteen seventy two,

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Speaker 3: around four hundred and twenty three thousand United States military

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Speaker 3: personnel were classified as deserters. Now again, they've been classified

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Speaker 3: as deserters. It doesn't mean that that's necessarily you know,

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Speaker 3: whatever the situation they're going through. Those are very they're

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Speaker 3: varying to a large extent, but they're classified that way

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Speaker 3: by the military. Now, let's see, by July of nineteen

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Speaker 3: seventy two, according to this report, a large number of

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Speaker 3: these people were quote returned to military control. That's three

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Speaker 3: hundred and ninety one thousand of the four hundred and

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Speaker 3: twenty three thousand, so they were returned to military control.

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Speaker 3: And it's interesting because this around this time frame nineteen

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Speaker 3: sixty six to nineteen seventy two, this is when the

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Speaker 3: US military began even tracking these numbers because they had

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Speaker 3: been relatively low in the past. If you look at

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Speaker 3: World War Two, there were sixteen point three million Americans

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Speaker 3: who served in some capacity in the military during World

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Speaker 3: War Two, and there were only an estimated forty thousand

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Speaker 3: deserters at that time. But again, like, when do those numbers?

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Speaker 3: When are those numbers put forth? Is it after you've

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Speaker 3: returned a lot of the other ones to military control?

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Speaker 3: Are they still considered deserters in that number? It gets

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Speaker 3: a little fishy because they weren't tracking it very.

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Speaker 1: Well, right, Yeah, And again these are official numbers, which

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Speaker 1: will almost always differ from actual numbers, especially when you

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Speaker 1: get into the big government stuff. Whenever a government reports

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Speaker 1: bad news about itself, there's going to be a difference

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Speaker 1: between what is officially said and what actually happened. But

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Speaker 1: let's not get lost in the numbers, right, Let's explore

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Speaker 1: these deserters as people. They didn't one day, well, not

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Speaker 1: to speculate too much, but most of them did not

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Speaker 1: one day say you know, I gave it a shot.

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Speaker 1: I'm just gonna just gonna hide out. These people, being rational,

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Speaker 1: intelligent beings, had a series of desires and motivations and

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Speaker 1: fears and ambitions that drove them to commit this act

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Speaker 1: of desertion. But what are those reasons? What are those motivations?

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Speaker 1: We'll get to that after a word from our sponsor.

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Speaker 1: We're back. And the first reason for desertion is incredibly

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Speaker 1: dare I say, painfully apparent. It is the fear of

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Speaker 1: physical harm or death.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the one that stands right out.

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Speaker 1: Like, Hey, for instance, I'm born in Nebraska, right, and

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Speaker 1: I was easily going to live most of my life

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Speaker 1: in my small town. I was gonna go watch the

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Speaker 1: local high school or college games. And now because someone

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Speaker 1: I never met in Washington, d C. Has a problem

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Speaker 1: with Vietnam. Now, here I am. I don't know these people.

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Speaker 1: I don't speak Vietnamese. That guy next to me got

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Speaker 1: shot in the head. This is terrible. Yeah, that's understandable.

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Speaker 1: And people have people deserve did for fear of being

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Speaker 1: the next headshot at times. Right, and the calculation. Again,

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Speaker 1: this is not to deride people. We're attempting to illustrate

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Speaker 1: the psychological process. They reached a point where the instinct

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Speaker 1: for self preservation outweighed the social obligation to do one's duty.

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Speaker 3: Or the ideological belief that what they're doing is more

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Speaker 3: important than their safety.

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Speaker 1: Right. Yeah, And I'm so glad you mentioned that, because

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Speaker 1: that's another reason for desertion. Right. Ideological differences.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe I don't agree that the way of life

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Speaker 3: we are fighting for, you know, the stated goals of

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Speaker 3: removing communism or saving this country from communist invaders. Maybe

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Speaker 3: I don't agree with.

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Speaker 1: It, right. Yeah, maybe you agreed with it originally, right

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Speaker 1: when you signed up in northern California or Oregon or something. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and then you went to the war and you saw

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Speaker 1: what was happening on the ground, and you said, this

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Speaker 1: is not what I believe to be just. And I'm

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Speaker 1: not afraid of dying, but I will not be a

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Speaker 1: part of this thing with which I disagree.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's a whole other situation there. When you're

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Speaker 3: looking at the actual operations that occurred and some of

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Speaker 3: the tragedies and massacres that were it's true that we're

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Speaker 3: perpetrated by the US military, and it's unfortunate.

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Speaker 1: Fact and sometimes perpetrated by factions of the US military

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Speaker 1: without the approval.

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Speaker 3: Yes, oh, absolutely, with.

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Speaker 1: Larger entities, absolutely, but yes, those atrocities did occur. A

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Speaker 1: third reason for an individual to dessert would be a

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Speaker 1: little bit more mercenary, an opportunity for a new life,

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Speaker 1: for celebrity, for material goods, material gain, or for profit. So,

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Speaker 1: for example, you can think of the stories of people

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Speaker 1: in the Korea War. There have been a couple of

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Speaker 1: guys who deserted to the DPRK, to the Democratic People's

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Speaker 1: Republic of Korea, and when they deserted, they were occasionally

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Speaker 1: treated like celebrities. They were the bad Americans and the

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Speaker 1: propaganda films, they were literally movie stars. Yeah, it did

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Speaker 1: not end well for them, to be clear about that.

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Speaker 1: I think one guy recently was I believe he was

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Speaker 1: allowed to see his mother before she passed as she's

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Speaker 1: he lived most of his life in North Korea. But

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Speaker 1: those are the reasons. Fear physical harm, don't kill me.

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Speaker 1: Ideological differences. I disagree with the concept or the motivations

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Speaker 1: for this war, or the opportunity, the self serving opportunity

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Speaker 1: to be famous, to get paid. Okay, Yeah, and those

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Speaker 1: are I mean, there are nuances to allure, absolutely sure.

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Speaker 1: But let's let's look at the other side of this

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Speaker 1: war as well. There was not just a physical side

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Speaker 1: of this large proxy war between capitalism and communism. There

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Speaker 1: was an ideological side, and war was functioning as a business. Yes,

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Speaker 1: war has always been about resource extraction, control, suppression, management,

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Speaker 1: et cetera. And deserters were another resource to be exploited.

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Speaker 3: Oh yes, by other countries, by enemies of the state.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, for the USSR and communism at large, deserters are fantastic,

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Speaker 1: especially if they come over to your side. The best

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Speaker 1: anti war advertise, heiss are always going to be images

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Speaker 1: of a wonderful life somehow better on the other side

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Speaker 1: of the trenches, the other side of the conflict. In

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Speaker 1: the US, for instance, you'll see propaganda that touts amenities

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Speaker 1: like we have refrigerators, we have new automobiles. Why are

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Speaker 1: you fighting? You can buy four kinds of ham in

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Speaker 1: our grocery stores.

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Speaker 3: Think about how much food you can cook with this microwave.

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Speaker 1: Mm hmmmm hmm. Exactly. You know this idea of selling

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Speaker 1: again in the American dream, the retro futuristic Jetson's life.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Another thing that is enormously beneficial from a propaganda perspective

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Speaker 1: is testimony from deserters actual word of mouth. Don't believe

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Speaker 1: this advertisement about the microwave.

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Speaker 3: Oh, I don't believe. I don't know. I don't believe

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Speaker 3: that at all. You know why, because I've seen it

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Speaker 3: before and that all that microwave does is burn your

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Speaker 3: food and it just makes things soggy. Don't listen to them.

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Speaker 1: Join the revolutionary yeah, whatever that revolution might be at

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Speaker 1: the time. Yeah, spot on. You will tend to believe

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Speaker 1: a person more so than an idea, especially depending on

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Speaker 1: how that person is presented to you.

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Speaker 3: Ah, there you go.

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Speaker 1: So this is a crucial ideological tool for the forces

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Speaker 1: opposing the US in the end of China or Vietnam conflict. Often,

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00:22:21,160 --> 00:22:26,800
Speaker 1: these two propaganda opportunities were combined in anti US operations.

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Speaker 1: A deserter laments the injustices of the war and imperialistic

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Speaker 1: US culture overall, and then pivots to tout the freedom

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Speaker 1: they encountered after crossing over. That freedom might not be

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Speaker 1: what the Western world would think of as freedom. It

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Speaker 1: might not be necessarily freedom of speech. It might be

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Speaker 1: portrayed as freedom to join the great collective pushing for

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Speaker 1: a better world or something like that. But what about

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Speaker 1: European nations.

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Speaker 3: A lot of times European nations are are they want

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Speaker 3: to be seen as neutral parties when there's something like

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Speaker 3: this going on, some kind of conflict of this nature,

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Speaker 3: or maybe they want to be a safe haven where

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Speaker 3: either a deserter or otherwise could come and you know,

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Speaker 3: live in their land, just to show that they're not

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Speaker 3: on either side really of the conflict, Like you can

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Speaker 3: come here, We'll give you safe passage. You know, you

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Speaker 3: can stay here for X number of days or weeks

355
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Speaker 3: or years, and just to show that they can act

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Speaker 3: on their own accord and not be influenced by again,

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Speaker 3: usually the US or whichever whichever country is in power.

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Speaker 1: Right like the old Disney Pinocchio, I have no strings. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I can act you nilaterally.

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Speaker 3: Yes, and we will help you out, but we also

361
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Speaker 3: won't you know, we won't. We won't really help or

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Speaker 3: hurt you, but we'll give you safe.

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Speaker 1: Haven, right, Yeah, a refugee status, yes, perhaps, or a visa.

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Speaker 1: In Sweden in particular, many deserters joined something called the

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Speaker 1: American Deserters Committee, named in what I can only imagine

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Speaker 1: is a burst of creativity. Yes, sorry, that's iby, it's

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Speaker 1: they had other stuff going on. I'm sure they didn't

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Speaker 1: spend you know, a week work shopping the name.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and there were American Deserters Committees throughout several countries

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Speaker 3: that kind of popped up to do a similar thing.

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Speaker 1: So what were they doing.

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Speaker 3: Well, they've really just wanted to have some kind of

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Speaker 3: united front for deserters, a voice for everyone to speak

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Speaker 3: in unison, right, like, all deserters together. This is this

375
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Speaker 3: is us. We are We have a powerful voice.

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Speaker 1: Ah. Yes, we are now a voting block of some

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Speaker 1: sort or we can unite. And now it's not just

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Speaker 1: one or two of us occasionally on anti war television spots.

379
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Speaker 1: It's a huge group of us all at once. Yeah,

380
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Speaker 1: old stage pro test.

381
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Speaker 3: Yeah, and we can issue a statement from us, not

382
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Speaker 3: just from me, Matt, the deserter.

383
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Speaker 1: Oh good call, I didn't even think about that. It

384
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Speaker 1: sounds so much more official. Uncle Sam was predictably concerned,

385
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Speaker 1: very much so, because there are hazards for the US

386
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Speaker 1: when it comes to deserters from the war, and one

387
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Speaker 1: of the it's tough to say which is more important,

388
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Speaker 1: but we can walk through a couple of them in

389
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Speaker 1: no particular order. Then public opinion support for the war

390
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Speaker 1: is incredibly fragile. On the domestic front, the role of

391
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Speaker 1: the media in the Vietnam War, especially as it escalated,

392
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Speaker 1: cannot be overstated. This was not World War Two, where

393
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Speaker 1: information was often carefully managed for the domestic front. Journalists

394
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Speaker 1: were out there. Sixty something of them got killed in

395
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Speaker 1: the process, but they were showing things that the American

396
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Speaker 1: public would not expect to see, and in many cases

397
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Speaker 1: was not supposed to see.

398
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Speaker 3: Yeah, would not normally see in any kind of conflict

399
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Speaker 3: like this.

400
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Speaker 1: And because of this, the US was unable to entirely

401
00:26:15,680 --> 00:26:21,000
Speaker 1: suppress the flow of domestic information from domestic sources, much

402
00:26:21,080 --> 00:26:25,400
Speaker 1: less suppressed the flow of anti war messages from abroad.

403
00:26:26,040 --> 00:26:28,920
Speaker 1: Can't It's tough to scramble a short wave radio, you

404
00:26:29,000 --> 00:26:31,639
Speaker 1: know what I mean? Oh, yeah, and there was a

405
00:26:31,640 --> 00:26:36,800
Speaker 1: tremendous and plausible, very well founded concern that anti war

406
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Speaker 1: movements in the US could trigger massive domestic unrest. We're

407
00:26:41,760 --> 00:26:45,480
Speaker 1: talking about the fall of states and follow the rule

408
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Speaker 1: of law, and that if the American public sympathized with

409
00:26:50,480 --> 00:26:55,680
Speaker 1: deserters who could not return home and who also implicitly

410
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Speaker 1: avoided the legal consequences of desertion, then the powder can

411
00:27:00,040 --> 00:27:04,639
Speaker 1: would explode. People would watch this and say, these people

412
00:27:04,680 --> 00:27:08,560
Speaker 1: deserve to come back to our homeland. And I guess

413
00:27:08,560 --> 00:27:11,280
Speaker 1: our homeland is not as powerful as it wants us

414
00:27:11,320 --> 00:27:11,840
Speaker 1: to believe.

415
00:27:12,280 --> 00:27:16,400
Speaker 3: Oh, man, right, if the ideological foundations begin to crumble,

416
00:27:16,440 --> 00:27:19,200
Speaker 3: then everything.

417
00:27:18,760 --> 00:27:21,320
Speaker 1: Does sounds kind of abstract, But I think you're right.

418
00:27:21,560 --> 00:27:23,199
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know.

419
00:27:23,320 --> 00:27:26,200
Speaker 1: People are so weird, you know, like there's so many

420
00:27:26,320 --> 00:27:29,639
Speaker 1: things that if we if we attempted to explain to

421
00:27:29,680 --> 00:27:34,119
Speaker 1: an extraterrestrial civilization, we would sound insane.

422
00:27:34,520 --> 00:27:34,960
Speaker 3: Yeah.

423
00:27:35,000 --> 00:27:38,280
Speaker 1: Oh hey, welcome. Let me take you two our leaders

424
00:27:38,359 --> 00:27:41,159
Speaker 1: hop in this we call a car. And then the

425
00:27:41,160 --> 00:27:43,159
Speaker 1: alien's like, why are we stopping? Oh we have to

426
00:27:43,160 --> 00:27:46,160
Speaker 1: wait for this thing to change colors? Yea, why there's

427
00:27:46,160 --> 00:27:48,520
Speaker 1: no one here, It's just the thing we do. Man.

428
00:27:48,800 --> 00:27:51,040
Speaker 1: Cool be cool. We're on the way to see the president.

429
00:27:51,440 --> 00:27:54,040
Speaker 3: Wait, hold on, are you saying Are you saying that

430
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Speaker 3: I shouldn't follow traffic signals if there's no one around.

431
00:27:58,680 --> 00:28:03,240
Speaker 1: I cannot legally I agree with that. No, I'm using

432
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Speaker 1: it as just as a poor example.

433
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Speaker 3: No, no, it's not for example.

434
00:28:07,359 --> 00:28:11,959
Speaker 1: It's weird because we'll sit I think most death has

435
00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:17,920
Speaker 1: as a great line about that blackstar. Oh nice, they're

436
00:28:18,000 --> 00:28:20,879
Speaker 1: quoting a poem in one of the songs where a

437
00:28:20,960 --> 00:28:24,600
Speaker 1: guy says, we were sitting three deep into traffic stop

438
00:28:24,680 --> 00:28:27,600
Speaker 1: talking about how brainwashed some of our brothers and sisters

439
00:28:27,640 --> 00:28:29,800
Speaker 1: are while we waited for green light to tell us

440
00:28:29,800 --> 00:28:34,040
Speaker 1: when to go. Oh, it sounds way better when when

441
00:28:34,040 --> 00:28:34,480
Speaker 1: you hear.

442
00:28:34,359 --> 00:28:36,720
Speaker 3: The and there's a nice beat behind it.

443
00:28:37,440 --> 00:28:42,360
Speaker 1: Yeah. But this, I mean, we're we're pointing out, hopefully

444
00:28:43,080 --> 00:28:49,080
Speaker 1: that the ideological things, the programmed behaviors of people are

445
00:28:49,200 --> 00:28:53,160
Speaker 1: very easily normalized and accepted, and it doesn't take as

446
00:28:53,240 --> 00:28:57,200
Speaker 1: much as you might think to disrupt those things. Absolutely right,

447
00:28:57,240 --> 00:28:59,880
Speaker 1: we're gullible. How many people did you see where it

448
00:29:00,120 --> 00:29:02,400
Speaker 1: tie today? Why do they do that? What does a

449
00:29:02,440 --> 00:29:04,760
Speaker 1: tie do? What's the point? What's the point of a tie?

450
00:29:05,920 --> 00:29:08,200
Speaker 3: Okay, so sorry, No, you're good.

451
00:29:08,240 --> 00:29:09,600
Speaker 1: You're good on my mind for a while.

452
00:29:09,760 --> 00:29:12,200
Speaker 3: I get it, Man, I feel the same way. I'm

453
00:29:12,240 --> 00:29:13,960
Speaker 3: just not as vocal about it. I need to start,

454
00:29:14,560 --> 00:29:17,680
Speaker 3: you know, saying the things I think I feel like.

455
00:29:17,760 --> 00:29:22,440
Speaker 1: I feel like saying that ties are silly is maybe

456
00:29:22,480 --> 00:29:25,720
Speaker 1: not the best way to start a revolution. But anyway,

457
00:29:25,760 --> 00:29:28,720
Speaker 1: ideology aside. Sorry, I went off the rails on that one, Matt.

458
00:29:29,800 --> 00:29:32,640
Speaker 1: There are other things that are perhaps more material.

459
00:29:33,040 --> 00:29:35,440
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, the other the next one has to do

460
00:29:35,480 --> 00:29:41,520
Speaker 3: with triangulation. Really, so, let's imagine that you are another country, right,

461
00:29:41,640 --> 00:29:44,560
Speaker 3: You're an intelligence officer for another country, and there's a

462
00:29:44,600 --> 00:29:49,160
Speaker 3: group of American deserters. You meet one of them, and

463
00:29:49,240 --> 00:29:51,880
Speaker 3: you start talking to them. Maybe you even let's say,

464
00:29:51,920 --> 00:29:54,680
Speaker 3: capture them, or maybe maybe you don't even have to capture.

465
00:29:54,760 --> 00:29:56,560
Speaker 3: Maybe you just have some drinks with them at a bar.

466
00:29:57,080 --> 00:29:59,840
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, And you.

467
00:29:59,600 --> 00:30:03,840
Speaker 3: Get intelligence from this person. You're essentially interrogating them, right,

468
00:30:04,400 --> 00:30:08,240
Speaker 3: one individual, one small group of individuals, and you get

469
00:30:08,280 --> 00:30:11,400
Speaker 3: any and all relevant information that you can from these people.

470
00:30:11,440 --> 00:30:15,840
Speaker 3: Operation aims programs, both ongoing ones that are occurring right now,

471
00:30:15,880 --> 00:30:19,320
Speaker 3: ones from the past. You can get all kinds of

472
00:30:19,360 --> 00:30:23,920
Speaker 3: details about your enemy with somebody like this. And then

473
00:30:24,280 --> 00:30:27,600
Speaker 3: here's the deal I said, triangulation. You take that information

474
00:30:27,640 --> 00:30:31,480
Speaker 3: you've gathered, then you compare and contrast it to another individual,

475
00:30:31,800 --> 00:30:34,080
Speaker 3: perhaps that you met at another bar or that was

476
00:30:34,120 --> 00:30:34,920
Speaker 3: also captured.

477
00:30:35,160 --> 00:30:36,760
Speaker 1: Okay, question them separately.

478
00:30:37,040 --> 00:30:39,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, and now you've got leads, You've got real leads.

479
00:30:39,560 --> 00:30:42,440
Speaker 3: You can you can decide what is probably bunk, what

480
00:30:42,600 --> 00:30:47,560
Speaker 3: is probably real. I don't know, it's a it's a

481
00:30:47,640 --> 00:30:51,280
Speaker 3: gold mine for an intelligence mind.

482
00:30:52,200 --> 00:30:57,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, because then you would be able to falsify misinformation.

483
00:30:57,280 --> 00:31:00,680
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, right, unless the people you were questioning already

484
00:31:00,720 --> 00:31:05,320
Speaker 1: had an established story or narrative, you would ultimately be

485
00:31:05,320 --> 00:31:08,080
Speaker 1: able to find out what they were thinking, where they

486
00:31:08,080 --> 00:31:11,120
Speaker 1: were going. And this can lead to all these massive insights.

487
00:31:11,720 --> 00:31:18,600
Speaker 1: And there's a sticky thing here. It's logical then, in

488
00:31:18,640 --> 00:31:22,400
Speaker 1: a world of rational actors, which all nations and states are,

489
00:31:22,640 --> 00:31:26,080
Speaker 1: it's logical then that you could be in a situation

490
00:31:26,400 --> 00:31:30,280
Speaker 1: as a leader of a country where you can rationalize

491
00:31:30,640 --> 00:31:35,440
Speaker 1: the death of a single prisoner or deserter, because it

492
00:31:35,480 --> 00:31:39,880
Speaker 1: can be framed as a effective way, albeit brutal, an

493
00:31:39,920 --> 00:31:43,880
Speaker 1: effective way of saving the lives of multiple other people.

494
00:31:45,640 --> 00:31:47,680
Speaker 1: And when we say, rationalize the death of a deserter

495
00:31:47,760 --> 00:31:51,240
Speaker 1: or prisoner. That doesn't just mean abandoning them, leaving them

496
00:31:51,240 --> 00:31:53,520
Speaker 1: in the cold, or throwing them to the wolves. That

497
00:31:53,640 --> 00:31:57,480
Speaker 1: also could mean sending one of your own people to

498
00:31:57,480 --> 00:32:00,000
Speaker 1: get rid of them. Possible.

499
00:32:01,040 --> 00:32:04,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's an unfortunate comparison, but I think it works

500
00:32:05,200 --> 00:32:09,440
Speaker 3: of the mafia. If you join the mafia in some

501
00:32:09,480 --> 00:32:12,880
Speaker 3: capacity or another, or let's just say an organized crime association,

502
00:32:13,800 --> 00:32:18,480
Speaker 3: leaving that group is probably not a good idea, just

503
00:32:18,600 --> 00:32:20,880
Speaker 3: because for that saint, for the information that you have,

504
00:32:21,320 --> 00:32:23,000
Speaker 3: for the loose end that you become.

505
00:32:24,000 --> 00:32:26,880
Speaker 1: You know, Can I make a confession to you, man,

506
00:32:27,400 --> 00:32:29,080
Speaker 1: I have never seen The Sopranos?

507
00:32:29,400 --> 00:32:31,480
Speaker 3: What is it good? I love it?

508
00:32:31,760 --> 00:32:32,280
Speaker 1: Do you really?

509
00:32:32,400 --> 00:32:32,840
Speaker 3: I really?

510
00:32:32,880 --> 00:32:34,239
Speaker 1: Did you have seen it?

511
00:32:34,400 --> 00:32:36,120
Speaker 3: I have? I've seen it twice all the way through.

512
00:32:36,680 --> 00:32:37,480
Speaker 1: Should I watch it?

513
00:32:38,280 --> 00:32:40,160
Speaker 3: I mean I would recommend it. What do you think

514
00:32:40,400 --> 00:32:45,520
Speaker 3: anyone Sopranos? Yeah, Tony, I.

515
00:32:47,680 --> 00:32:49,240
Speaker 1: Read the wiki. Does that count?

516
00:32:49,560 --> 00:32:50,800
Speaker 3: Sure? That's all you need?

517
00:32:51,480 --> 00:32:54,960
Speaker 1: Paul? Paul? Or did you watch the Sopranos? Oh, Paul

518
00:32:54,960 --> 00:32:59,160
Speaker 1: didn't watch it either. It's classic HBO. It's like, hmm,

519
00:33:00,880 --> 00:33:03,400
Speaker 1: all right, I will watch it. You are the one

520
00:33:03,400 --> 00:33:04,760
Speaker 1: who told me to watch The Wire.

521
00:33:05,400 --> 00:33:09,960
Speaker 3: Yeah. Wow, I was one of those guys. Huh No, dude,

522
00:33:10,000 --> 00:33:12,560
Speaker 3: the Wire is so good, Paul, you got to watch

523
00:33:12,600 --> 00:33:16,560
Speaker 3: The Wire man. It's so good. It really was.

524
00:33:16,640 --> 00:33:18,880
Speaker 1: It was great. But yeah, I liked a lot of it.

525
00:33:19,440 --> 00:33:23,080
Speaker 1: So that I think your comparison holds up this idea

526
00:33:23,080 --> 00:33:27,760
Speaker 1: of omerta, this idea of silence above all, right, and

527
00:33:27,800 --> 00:33:32,760
Speaker 1: the idea that this is a one way entry organization. Yeah,

528
00:33:33,920 --> 00:33:37,040
Speaker 1: that does apply. Maybe not to all militaries, maybe not

529
00:33:37,080 --> 00:33:39,640
Speaker 1: even to the US military, but that applies to a

530
00:33:39,720 --> 00:33:42,240
Speaker 1: lot of things when we start talking about the murky

531
00:33:42,280 --> 00:33:46,600
Speaker 1: world of government secrecy. And then deserters are also very

532
00:33:46,680 --> 00:33:53,560
Speaker 1: very useful as another form of propaganda. Propaganda advertised two

533
00:33:53,640 --> 00:33:55,160
Speaker 1: soldiers in the field.

534
00:33:54,960 --> 00:33:58,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, actively occurring while soldiers are trying to fight, like

535
00:33:58,880 --> 00:33:59,400
Speaker 3: in a battle.

536
00:33:59,480 --> 00:34:05,640
Speaker 1: Yeah. There radio stations that would bombard people with broadcasts,

537
00:34:05,680 --> 00:34:10,200
Speaker 1: and several of several of you listening to today's episode

538
00:34:10,840 --> 00:34:15,400
Speaker 1: may be Vietnam veterans, and we would be intensely interested

539
00:34:15,400 --> 00:34:21,959
Speaker 1: to hear whether you personally encountered this sort of propaganda,

540
00:34:22,560 --> 00:34:28,160
Speaker 1: something like Hanoi, Hannah, whatever, which would release these broadcasts

541
00:34:28,200 --> 00:34:32,600
Speaker 1: in English telling soldiers how useless, the US side of

542
00:34:32,600 --> 00:34:36,080
Speaker 1: the war was, and how dumb it was to be there.

543
00:34:36,280 --> 00:34:38,960
Speaker 1: So imagine you're up to your waist in mud and

544
00:34:39,160 --> 00:34:43,760
Speaker 1: filth and you're marching. Your feet are rotting in your socks.

545
00:34:44,000 --> 00:34:46,680
Speaker 1: The rain hasn't stopped for three days, and at this

546
00:34:46,760 --> 00:34:49,200
Speaker 1: point everybody knows it's just not going to.

547
00:34:49,560 --> 00:34:52,400
Speaker 3: Some of your friends and acquaintances have just died.

548
00:34:53,719 --> 00:34:56,560
Speaker 1: And then you hear a radio broadcast featuring a soldier

549
00:34:56,640 --> 00:34:59,520
Speaker 1: who sounds like he could be from your hometown in

550
00:34:59,560 --> 00:35:03,359
Speaker 1: the Brass getting Kansas and Oregon and California, and they're

551
00:35:03,400 --> 00:35:06,920
Speaker 1: talking about the injustices of war, the freedom of life

552
00:35:07,160 --> 00:35:13,400
Speaker 1: in neutral Sweden or Europe, the ideological struggle and progress

553
00:35:13,800 --> 00:35:17,920
Speaker 1: occurring in communist Russia. How much more marching do you

554
00:35:18,040 --> 00:35:22,480
Speaker 1: have in you with all these things bombarding you? What

555
00:35:22,600 --> 00:35:23,120
Speaker 1: is the limit?

556
00:35:23,480 --> 00:35:26,560
Speaker 3: That's where that first one, the public opinion and the

557
00:35:26,719 --> 00:35:31,920
Speaker 3: ideological foundations are so important, because if you don't have,

558
00:35:32,320 --> 00:35:36,239
Speaker 3: if you don't have that stuff as just steal, if

559
00:35:36,320 --> 00:35:40,000
Speaker 3: that stuff is not steel in your mind, then maybe

560
00:35:40,120 --> 00:35:43,320
Speaker 3: your chips away enough to get you to go Yeah.

561
00:35:43,360 --> 00:35:47,520
Speaker 1: And in many cases it must be said that that

562
00:35:47,640 --> 00:35:52,919
Speaker 1: kind of attempt at brainwashing might just make somebody more

563
00:35:53,000 --> 00:35:57,160
Speaker 1: resolute in their existing convictions. Absolutely possible, and I'm sure

564
00:35:57,200 --> 00:36:01,279
Speaker 1: that has happened. But do ue to these concerns, which

565
00:36:01,320 --> 00:36:06,040
Speaker 1: again are not specific to the Vietnam War, they echo

566
00:36:06,160 --> 00:36:08,760
Speaker 1: throughout history, and they're not specific to the US either.

567
00:36:09,040 --> 00:36:13,839
Speaker 1: They echo throughout cultures. Due to these concerns, countries have

568
00:36:14,320 --> 00:36:19,359
Speaker 1: legal punishments for the act of desertion, incredibly harsh punishments.

569
00:36:20,080 --> 00:36:23,799
Speaker 1: In the US, any person found guilty of desertion or

570
00:36:23,840 --> 00:36:27,640
Speaker 1: attempt to desert shall be punished. If the offense is

571
00:36:27,640 --> 00:36:30,440
Speaker 1: committed in a time of war, they will be punished

572
00:36:30,440 --> 00:36:34,440
Speaker 1: by death or such other punishment as a court martial

573
00:36:34,600 --> 00:36:37,960
Speaker 1: might direct. But if the desertion or attempt to desert

574
00:36:38,040 --> 00:36:42,000
Speaker 1: occurs at any other time, by such punishment other than death,

575
00:36:42,080 --> 00:36:45,080
Speaker 1: as a court martial may direct. What that means is,

576
00:36:46,160 --> 00:36:50,640
Speaker 1: if we're in a war and you run away, technically.

577
00:36:50,560 --> 00:36:51,560
Speaker 3: You're just gonna get shot.

578
00:36:51,600 --> 00:36:54,440
Speaker 1: It's the death penalty. Yeah, and if you might get

579
00:36:54,440 --> 00:36:58,239
Speaker 1: court martialed and sentenced to several years in jail or

580
00:36:58,320 --> 00:37:01,919
Speaker 1: something like that. And in some cases in the Vietnam War,

581
00:37:02,960 --> 00:37:07,040
Speaker 1: there would be attempts to negotiate with deserters where people

582
00:37:07,080 --> 00:37:10,320
Speaker 1: would say, through one entity or another, they would say, hey, well,

583
00:37:10,880 --> 00:37:14,520
Speaker 1: if you agree to come with us voluntarily, then you know,

584
00:37:15,280 --> 00:37:19,920
Speaker 1: just have a year in prison, dishonorable discharge, go on

585
00:37:20,040 --> 00:37:25,120
Speaker 1: with your life. We get it, war as hell, come

586
00:37:25,160 --> 00:37:31,840
Speaker 1: in from the cold. But still it's tough to believe

587
00:37:31,840 --> 00:37:33,920
Speaker 1: people when they say things like that, especially if you

588
00:37:33,960 --> 00:37:36,280
Speaker 1: know legally it is a death sentence.

589
00:37:36,480 --> 00:37:39,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, Juliana's on, It's just come on over, man, it's

590
00:37:39,680 --> 00:37:41,680
Speaker 3: gonna be fine. We're going to treat you well.

591
00:37:41,800 --> 00:37:47,120
Speaker 1: What secuidor god that we ain't got oh too soon,

592
00:37:47,239 --> 00:37:49,479
Speaker 1: too soon, we should do an update on him soon.

593
00:37:50,400 --> 00:37:53,680
Speaker 1: But with all this in play, we have to ask

594
00:37:53,719 --> 00:37:58,080
Speaker 1: ourselves how far would Uncle Sam go to buy hook

595
00:37:58,239 --> 00:38:01,400
Speaker 1: or by crook? Bring it soldiers home.

596
00:38:01,640 --> 00:38:04,040
Speaker 3: And we'll find out right after a word from our sponsor.

597
00:38:10,200 --> 00:38:15,120
Speaker 1: Here's where it gets crazy. The US went above and

598
00:38:15,360 --> 00:38:20,239
Speaker 1: beyond all legal thresholds and attempts to surveil and or

599
00:38:20,440 --> 00:38:24,279
Speaker 1: apprehend deserters with minimum publicity.

600
00:38:24,640 --> 00:38:30,520
Speaker 3: Absolutely that one of the top priorities of let's say

601
00:38:30,560 --> 00:38:35,560
Speaker 3: the goals here were to avoid propaganda of successful desertion.

602
00:38:35,920 --> 00:38:39,000
Speaker 3: So if we don't want anyone to know that people

603
00:38:39,040 --> 00:38:42,320
Speaker 3: have deserted and they got away with it, like, let's

604
00:38:42,440 --> 00:38:46,640
Speaker 3: keep that to a minimum at least. And it was

605
00:38:46,640 --> 00:38:49,080
Speaker 3: also a thing where it was probably not a good

606
00:38:49,120 --> 00:38:52,520
Speaker 3: idea to actually go out and assassinate deserters, like that's

607
00:38:52,520 --> 00:38:54,680
Speaker 3: probably a bad idea because this is you know, you

608
00:38:54,760 --> 00:38:57,200
Speaker 3: turn them into a martyr of sorts. And again I'm

609
00:38:57,239 --> 00:39:01,239
Speaker 3: speaking from the side of the intelligence system within the

610
00:39:01,320 --> 00:39:05,120
Speaker 3: United States, like this is what you're imagining. That would

611
00:39:05,120 --> 00:39:07,279
Speaker 3: just it would totally fuel the fire for anti war

612
00:39:07,320 --> 00:39:10,280
Speaker 3: protests and the activists that are already inside the United

613
00:39:10,320 --> 00:39:14,879
Speaker 3: States fomenting these feelings of anti war. And this led

614
00:39:15,719 --> 00:39:17,879
Speaker 3: to something that we researched this.

615
00:39:17,880 --> 00:39:24,000
Speaker 1: Week called Operation Chaos. Yes, yes, it's true. The intelligence

616
00:39:24,000 --> 00:39:28,640
Speaker 1: agencies were in quite a pickle, a rock and a

617
00:39:28,640 --> 00:39:34,800
Speaker 1: hard place type dilimma. You don't want deserters to flout

618
00:39:34,840 --> 00:39:39,080
Speaker 1: the law, right, you don't want them to be successful

619
00:39:39,280 --> 00:39:42,000
Speaker 1: in their desertion, and you certainly don't want other people

620
00:39:42,040 --> 00:39:44,680
Speaker 1: to know that they can do any of that. But

621
00:39:44,800 --> 00:39:47,800
Speaker 1: you also don't want to be known as a government

622
00:39:47,840 --> 00:39:53,319
Speaker 1: that actively goes out and kills its own. Yeah, neither

623
00:39:53,360 --> 00:39:58,719
Speaker 1: of these are particularly good looks. So Operation Chaos was

624
00:39:58,800 --> 00:40:03,799
Speaker 1: formed a special operations group within the CIA, and it

625
00:40:04,040 --> 00:40:07,840
Speaker 1: was secret for a while for a long time after

626
00:40:07,920 --> 00:40:11,800
Speaker 1: it was closed down, because it only functioned for a

627
00:40:11,880 --> 00:40:12,480
Speaker 1: number of years.

628
00:40:12,560 --> 00:40:15,680
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, It was established in August of nineteen sixty

629
00:40:15,719 --> 00:40:18,600
Speaker 3: seven and it was then active for six full years.

630
00:40:19,280 --> 00:40:25,360
Speaker 3: And the stated purpose here was to collect, coordinate, evaluate,

631
00:40:25,400 --> 00:40:30,560
Speaker 3: and report on foreign contacts with American dissidents. And for it,

632
00:40:30,600 --> 00:40:35,000
Speaker 3: they collected information on dissident Americans and they did that

633
00:40:35,360 --> 00:40:37,839
Speaker 3: via the FBI domestically. So if they wanted to get

634
00:40:37,840 --> 00:40:41,600
Speaker 3: information on dissonance who were within the United States, they

635
00:40:41,680 --> 00:40:43,480
Speaker 3: used the FBI because that's their purpose.

636
00:40:43,719 --> 00:40:46,520
Speaker 1: Who's on the mailing list for this communist newsletter?

637
00:40:46,680 --> 00:40:50,879
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then I guess thankfully for these

638
00:40:51,200 --> 00:40:54,920
Speaker 3: for this intelligence community. There are so many active military

639
00:40:54,960 --> 00:40:58,800
Speaker 3: stations overseas in other countries that they are just using

640
00:40:58,960 --> 00:41:03,120
Speaker 3: these stations to collect information on let's say, the local dissidents,

641
00:41:03,680 --> 00:41:05,160
Speaker 3: the local American dissidents.

642
00:41:05,760 --> 00:41:10,080
Speaker 1: The local would be expats. Right, So, how many people

643
00:41:10,160 --> 00:41:13,239
Speaker 1: were involved with this on the espionage.

644
00:41:12,680 --> 00:41:15,040
Speaker 3: Side, Well, you heard us say fifty two people at

645
00:41:15,080 --> 00:41:18,400
Speaker 3: the top. There were officially fifty two staff members working

646
00:41:18,440 --> 00:41:22,120
Speaker 3: on Operation Chaos officially. Well, yeah, because you had there

647
00:41:23,040 --> 00:41:25,560
Speaker 3: there were operatives. I'm going to go out on a

648
00:41:25,600 --> 00:41:28,040
Speaker 3: limb and say there were probably operatives who were not

649
00:41:28,239 --> 00:41:32,800
Speaker 3: known in any official capacity or maybe even recorded anywhere.

650
00:41:32,960 --> 00:41:35,399
Speaker 1: Ah, just a friend of a friend.

651
00:41:35,960 --> 00:41:39,880
Speaker 3: Perhaps, just I mean, in any undercover operation, there's going

652
00:41:39,960 --> 00:41:41,040
Speaker 3: to be a few of those.

653
00:41:41,800 --> 00:41:46,480
Speaker 1: If you're just actors assets m hmm, yeah, you know what.

654
00:41:46,640 --> 00:41:48,800
Speaker 1: I think you were absolutely right, or a few people

655
00:41:48,920 --> 00:41:51,760
Speaker 1: who may not know that they are assets or helping

656
00:41:51,800 --> 00:41:55,200
Speaker 1: the operation. Right, they just run a local newspaper.

657
00:41:54,920 --> 00:41:56,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, there you go.

658
00:41:56,160 --> 00:42:00,600
Speaker 1: They're a photographer who happens to have a mysterious but

659
00:42:01,200 --> 00:42:05,240
Speaker 1: loaded benefactor would like to buy some photos. Oh jeez, Yeah,

660
00:42:05,280 --> 00:42:06,080
Speaker 1: that's how it happens.

661
00:42:06,320 --> 00:42:06,640
Speaker 3: Yep.

662
00:42:07,080 --> 00:42:11,680
Speaker 1: So they successfully did this right for years, they created

663
00:42:11,760 --> 00:42:15,200
Speaker 1: files on thousands of US citizens.

664
00:42:14,880 --> 00:42:19,000
Speaker 3: Yes, seventy two hundred officially American citizens. And then within

665
00:42:19,040 --> 00:42:21,520
Speaker 3: these files there are the names of over three hundred

666
00:42:21,520 --> 00:42:25,720
Speaker 3: thousand people in organizations that were associated with those seventy

667
00:42:25,719 --> 00:42:26,520
Speaker 3: two hundred people.

668
00:42:27,000 --> 00:42:30,920
Speaker 1: Just to be clear, this is an active conspiracy. Yeah,

669
00:42:31,000 --> 00:42:34,480
Speaker 1: the government is the conspirator in this case. But this

670
00:42:34,640 --> 00:42:38,080
Speaker 1: is illegal. They're not supposed to be doing it, and

671
00:42:38,160 --> 00:42:38,759
Speaker 1: they sure did.

672
00:42:39,400 --> 00:42:41,759
Speaker 3: I mean it's not as bad as the NSA from

673
00:42:41,760 --> 00:42:44,480
Speaker 3: a couple of years back and currently, but you know

674
00:42:45,200 --> 00:42:46,840
Speaker 3: it's not great.

675
00:42:46,880 --> 00:42:51,920
Speaker 1: A right, I mean it feels weird to split these airs, yes,

676
00:42:52,080 --> 00:42:55,799
Speaker 1: but the argument used to justify these actions was very,

677
00:42:55,880 --> 00:42:58,719
Speaker 1: very similar to the argument used today to justify the

678
00:42:59,080 --> 00:43:03,880
Speaker 1: essays war. Access to anything you do online in theory,

679
00:43:04,239 --> 00:43:08,319
Speaker 1: anyone you associate with and anyone they associate with, and

680
00:43:08,360 --> 00:43:11,760
Speaker 1: on and on and on. Kevin Bacon pops up sooner

681
00:43:11,800 --> 00:43:13,040
Speaker 1: than you think in this game.

682
00:43:12,920 --> 00:43:14,640
Speaker 3: And echelon five eyes forever.

683
00:43:14,880 --> 00:43:19,000
Speaker 1: Amen, Oh boy, do you think we have records?

684
00:43:19,680 --> 00:43:20,959
Speaker 3: Come on, remember we used.

685
00:43:20,880 --> 00:43:23,320
Speaker 1: To joke about it intern at the Essay. If someone

686
00:43:23,400 --> 00:43:24,319
Speaker 1: was listening to us.

687
00:43:24,480 --> 00:43:27,319
Speaker 3: By this point, we have like an associate producer, or

688
00:43:27,520 --> 00:43:29,800
Speaker 3: there's somebody.

689
00:43:28,719 --> 00:43:32,759
Speaker 1: That guys that poor guy or girl, that poor kid

690
00:43:32,840 --> 00:43:33,680
Speaker 1: is just so.

691
00:43:33,760 --> 00:43:35,600
Speaker 3: Bored, right, maybe it's a junior officer.

692
00:43:36,040 --> 00:43:40,680
Speaker 1: Do you think we got oh man moving on up? Yeah? Yeah, yeah,

693
00:43:40,719 --> 00:43:42,600
Speaker 1: all right, you know what, I'll take it. And hey,

694
00:43:42,719 --> 00:43:45,759
Speaker 1: if you're listening, I don't know if you can write in,

695
00:43:46,440 --> 00:43:50,600
Speaker 1: but feel free to do so. Yeah, we would love,

696
00:43:50,960 --> 00:43:54,160
Speaker 1: we would love to hear from you. And also, if

697
00:43:54,200 --> 00:43:59,000
Speaker 1: you know my internet history friendly stranger. You'll see that

698
00:43:59,040 --> 00:44:01,680
Speaker 1: I'm really into call flower recipes, so send a few

699
00:44:01,719 --> 00:44:04,560
Speaker 1: my way. Cauliflowers amazing.

700
00:44:04,719 --> 00:44:06,760
Speaker 3: Oh okay, we're talking about the food.

701
00:44:06,560 --> 00:44:09,080
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, the food, not euphemism, not a weird thing.

702
00:44:09,280 --> 00:44:12,960
Speaker 1: Ok I actually love cooking with cauliflower. Nice Nol does

703
00:44:13,000 --> 00:44:15,319
Speaker 1: as well. I believe very good. I'm a broccoli guy,

704
00:44:15,360 --> 00:44:19,279
Speaker 1: but you know, I'm trying to get into more vegetables. Man,

705
00:44:19,360 --> 00:44:21,080
Speaker 1: Broccoli is my first love.

706
00:44:22,000 --> 00:44:26,239
Speaker 3: Dude, food wise, Nice this took a dirt.

707
00:44:26,480 --> 00:44:29,040
Speaker 1: We're just trying to prove that we are innocuous to

708
00:44:29,120 --> 00:44:33,880
Speaker 1: the n essay, and we have an opportunity to attempt

709
00:44:33,880 --> 00:44:37,320
Speaker 1: to that because we are aware that these programs exist.

710
00:44:37,600 --> 00:44:42,440
Speaker 1: The people being surveiled had very strong suspicions and in

711
00:44:42,480 --> 00:44:47,479
Speaker 1: many cases very strong circumstantial evidence, but for the most part,

712
00:44:47,600 --> 00:44:49,839
Speaker 1: they had no proof of what was happening. They had

713
00:44:49,880 --> 00:44:53,200
Speaker 1: no opportunity to be like, hey, yeah, you know, I'm

714
00:44:53,239 --> 00:44:55,680
Speaker 1: not great on the war, but have you heard about cauliflower.

715
00:44:56,120 --> 00:44:59,759
Speaker 1: They couldn't do any of that endearing stuff. Yeah, and

716
00:45:01,120 --> 00:45:04,800
Speaker 1: most people, even in the modern day, didn't have any

717
00:45:04,840 --> 00:45:07,680
Speaker 1: idea what was happening. We learned about this through a

718
00:45:07,880 --> 00:45:11,440
Speaker 1: book called Operation Chaos, the Vietnam deserters who fought the

719
00:45:11,440 --> 00:45:13,680
Speaker 1: CIA brainwashers and themselves.

720
00:45:13,960 --> 00:45:14,960
Speaker 3: Oh that's a great title.

721
00:45:15,280 --> 00:45:19,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty specific. In this book, the author Matthew

722
00:45:19,400 --> 00:45:24,760
Speaker 1: Sweet outlines the strange and often contradictory accounts from Vietnam

723
00:45:24,800 --> 00:45:28,800
Speaker 1: deserters who joined the ADC that we mentioned there in Sweden,

724
00:45:29,120 --> 00:45:32,239
Speaker 1: and he also asked them about their opinions regarding intelligence

725
00:45:32,239 --> 00:45:36,360
Speaker 1: agencies from the US, Russia, and Sweden, all of whom

726
00:45:36,920 --> 00:45:41,080
Speaker 1: infiltrated their group at some point in some shape, fashion

727
00:45:41,160 --> 00:45:46,480
Speaker 1: or form, and then later infiltrated the subsequent extremist offshoots

728
00:45:46,719 --> 00:45:53,520
Speaker 1: of the ADC. Because Operation Chaos, as you outlined earlier,

729
00:45:53,560 --> 00:46:00,799
Speaker 1: matt is an umbrella term domestic monitoring, foreign monitoring, all

730
00:46:00,840 --> 00:46:04,720
Speaker 1: sort of for the larger aim. The aspects of Operation

731
00:46:04,880 --> 00:46:12,800
Speaker 1: Chaos that Matthew Sweet focuses on are exclusively the stories

732
00:46:12,840 --> 00:46:18,000
Speaker 1: of the deserters living abroad, and he tracks them down

733
00:46:18,200 --> 00:46:20,600
Speaker 1: those who are still alive, and he asked them to

734
00:46:20,640 --> 00:46:25,759
Speaker 1: tell their stories. He also asked members of foreign intelligence

735
00:46:25,800 --> 00:46:29,040
Speaker 1: agencies to tell their stories if they can. Right and

736
00:46:29,160 --> 00:46:33,479
Speaker 1: the US intelligence agency, the community in the US had

737
00:46:33,520 --> 00:46:38,840
Speaker 1: a sustained effort to not only infiltrate these deserter organizations,

738
00:46:39,239 --> 00:46:43,000
Speaker 1: but to repatriate deserters, they're the ones who would say, hey,

739
00:46:44,600 --> 00:46:46,839
Speaker 1: no harm, no foul, just to come back. We can

740
00:46:46,840 --> 00:46:50,680
Speaker 1: probably get you out of jail in a year dishonorable discharge.

741
00:46:50,719 --> 00:46:52,080
Speaker 1: But you can go on with your life.

742
00:46:52,360 --> 00:46:52,560
Speaker 3: Yeah.

743
00:46:52,760 --> 00:46:55,399
Speaker 1: All you have to do is say that you made

744
00:46:55,440 --> 00:46:58,919
Speaker 1: a mistake publicly, that you regret it. You're still Team

745
00:46:58,960 --> 00:47:00,719
Speaker 1: America and we're all good.

746
00:47:01,680 --> 00:47:03,440
Speaker 3: Have you seen the show Barry?

747
00:47:03,800 --> 00:47:05,480
Speaker 1: Yes? Yeah, yeah, yeah? Are you a fan?

748
00:47:05,640 --> 00:47:08,440
Speaker 3: Yeah? You did something just now that totally reminded me

749
00:47:08,600 --> 00:47:11,359
Speaker 3: of I forget his name. He's the super nice guy

750
00:47:12,040 --> 00:47:15,400
Speaker 3: who's one of the bad guys. He's baldy. Hey, Barry,

751
00:47:15,719 --> 00:47:19,040
Speaker 3: what's going on? Just let you know. You know they're

752
00:47:19,040 --> 00:47:22,360
Speaker 3: gonna kill you, so anyway, be careful.

753
00:47:22,640 --> 00:47:25,040
Speaker 1: I love that guy. That's one of my favorite characters

754
00:47:25,040 --> 00:47:25,560
Speaker 1: in that show.

755
00:47:25,719 --> 00:47:26,320
Speaker 3: He's awesome.

756
00:47:26,320 --> 00:47:29,600
Speaker 1: That's what you call it alopecia, he's hairless. Yeah, yeah,

757
00:47:29,760 --> 00:47:34,800
Speaker 1: that that guy is for me, a scene stealer because

758
00:47:34,880 --> 00:47:37,239
Speaker 1: everyone he meets and this is not spoiling the show

759
00:47:37,280 --> 00:47:43,160
Speaker 1: for you. This guy is a gangster who does horrific things.

760
00:47:43,480 --> 00:47:48,239
Speaker 3: What did he ever did anything? Horrific. I couldn't even

761
00:47:48,239 --> 00:47:49,600
Speaker 3: tell you. And this is we don't even have to

762
00:47:49,600 --> 00:47:51,520
Speaker 3: talk about this, man, I just I all I could

763
00:47:51,560 --> 00:47:53,960
Speaker 3: think about was that for a split second, and then

764
00:47:54,000 --> 00:47:55,160
Speaker 3: it just reverberated.

765
00:47:55,480 --> 00:47:58,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, because well, the the most endearing thing about that

766
00:47:58,800 --> 00:48:01,840
Speaker 1: dude is everyone he meet is described as a super

767
00:48:01,920 --> 00:48:04,520
Speaker 1: nice guy. Oh yeah, he's a super nice guy, especially

768
00:48:04,520 --> 00:48:10,279
Speaker 1: Barry though, Barry, do you want some juice? Yeah, I've

769
00:48:10,280 --> 00:48:11,799
Speaker 1: got to go back and rewatch it. If you haven't

770
00:48:11,800 --> 00:48:14,919
Speaker 1: watched the do check it out because it's it's a

771
00:48:14,960 --> 00:48:18,600
Speaker 1: fantastic show. And it's not Bill Haters in it, but

772
00:48:18,640 --> 00:48:20,960
Speaker 1: it's it's not really a comedy.

773
00:48:21,040 --> 00:48:23,080
Speaker 3: No, but fantastic.

774
00:48:23,239 --> 00:48:27,040
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, the comedy parts are pretty much that guy

775
00:48:27,160 --> 00:48:29,600
Speaker 1: that we just mentioned. And did you know the other

776
00:48:29,640 --> 00:48:32,520
Speaker 1: gangster is the bad guy from True Detective.

777
00:48:32,680 --> 00:48:35,200
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, man, so awesome.

778
00:48:36,080 --> 00:48:37,000
Speaker 1: Now I'm impressed.

779
00:48:37,120 --> 00:48:39,320
Speaker 3: Okay, So anyway, oh yes, anyway.

780
00:48:39,000 --> 00:48:42,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So graphic widespread abuse is a power

781
00:48:42,480 --> 00:48:46,360
Speaker 1: by the intelligence agencies, not just the US, also Russian

782
00:48:46,360 --> 00:48:49,680
Speaker 1: and Sweden. So they wanted to the US wanted to

783
00:48:49,840 --> 00:48:57,239
Speaker 1: repatriate these deserters, suppress or nullify their anti war messages, right,

784
00:48:58,280 --> 00:49:06,520
Speaker 1: and in this book, Matthew Sweet explores the explores the

785
00:49:06,560 --> 00:49:11,320
Speaker 1: facts through statistics, but then primarily through anecdotes and accounts

786
00:49:11,360 --> 00:49:19,040
Speaker 1: of the deserters and the other players on the field. So, well,

787
00:49:19,200 --> 00:49:22,640
Speaker 1: who what's our Who's who? If we were to do

788
00:49:22,640 --> 00:49:24,560
Speaker 1: with who's who, what are some of the main players

789
00:49:24,880 --> 00:49:25,400
Speaker 1: in this.

790
00:49:25,840 --> 00:49:30,080
Speaker 3: Well, one is one of the deserters is Chuck Onen

791
00:49:30,360 --> 00:49:35,000
Speaker 3: O N A N. And he joined the US Marines

792
00:49:35,040 --> 00:49:37,440
Speaker 3: when he was a bit younger. Then he ended up

793
00:49:37,800 --> 00:49:43,799
Speaker 3: deserting to Sweden via Iceland. With this ADC and the

794
00:49:43,840 --> 00:49:45,920
Speaker 3: other information that was in the book. There's a little

795
00:49:45,960 --> 00:49:47,799
Speaker 3: section at the front of this book that gives you

796
00:49:47,920 --> 00:49:50,120
Speaker 3: kind of a rundown of the characters, and it said

797
00:49:50,160 --> 00:49:52,800
Speaker 3: he's now a big fan of medical marijuana.

798
00:49:53,400 --> 00:49:59,799
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, If you read Suite's initial encounters with the

799
00:50:00,640 --> 00:50:05,600
Speaker 1: he gets to his house, uh, he's The author spends

800
00:50:05,640 --> 00:50:08,759
Speaker 1: some time describing how this dude thinks marijuana is going

801
00:50:08,840 --> 00:50:11,600
Speaker 1: to save the world, and how he's going to start

802
00:50:11,600 --> 00:50:16,840
Speaker 1: this growing operation, and how he's extremely uncomfortable because I

803
00:50:17,239 --> 00:50:20,239
Speaker 1: think at some point while Matthew Sweet is talking to

804
00:50:20,280 --> 00:50:24,439
Speaker 1: this guy, a drug deal occurs. Oh it's I think

805
00:50:24,520 --> 00:50:26,600
Speaker 1: someone comes to buy marijuana.

806
00:50:26,880 --> 00:50:27,600
Speaker 3: Oh, geez.

807
00:50:28,200 --> 00:50:32,480
Speaker 1: And this is this is one guy. Uh, there's there

808
00:50:32,520 --> 00:50:35,200
Speaker 1: are other ones. One of the big players, and one

809
00:50:35,280 --> 00:50:40,520
Speaker 1: of the most controversial is a fellow named Michael Vale.

810
00:50:40,800 --> 00:50:46,080
Speaker 3: Yes, this is I guess, the leader of the the ADC,

811
00:50:46,320 --> 00:50:49,480
Speaker 3: the American Deserters Committee, and he was considered by some

812
00:50:49,640 --> 00:50:54,200
Speaker 3: to be the resputant of the ADC. And this guy

813
00:50:54,440 --> 00:50:57,640
Speaker 3: was suspected of being a CIA infiltrator.

814
00:50:57,920 --> 00:51:02,480
Speaker 1: He used in terry gation and breakdown techniques on people.

815
00:51:02,719 --> 00:51:03,480
Speaker 3: Oh geez.

816
00:51:03,520 --> 00:51:09,440
Speaker 1: So he was known for breaking down would be members

817
00:51:09,480 --> 00:51:12,440
Speaker 1: of the ADC or people trying to join the ADC.

818
00:51:12,640 --> 00:51:15,720
Speaker 1: These are people who have already deserted on the basis

819
00:51:15,719 --> 00:51:19,320
Speaker 1: of their politics or their beliefs, reducing them to tears,

820
00:51:20,320 --> 00:51:23,280
Speaker 1: winnowing away their personalities so he could remake them anew.

821
00:51:23,520 --> 00:51:26,040
Speaker 1: And a lot of people followed him. He had disciples,

822
00:51:26,120 --> 00:51:29,959
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of people hated the guy. And

823
00:51:30,320 --> 00:51:35,520
Speaker 1: using those sorts of techniques, of course, lends some credence

824
00:51:35,520 --> 00:51:38,600
Speaker 1: to the idea that someone is a CIA infiltrator works

825
00:51:38,600 --> 00:51:41,640
Speaker 1: for an intelligence agency. But what becomes a parent very

826
00:51:41,719 --> 00:51:46,200
Speaker 1: quickly here is that these people were all accusing each other.

827
00:51:46,840 --> 00:51:50,120
Speaker 1: No one was dedicated enough to the cause no one

828
00:51:50,239 --> 00:51:54,520
Speaker 1: was ideological enough. Everyone could be a mole.

829
00:51:54,800 --> 00:51:58,400
Speaker 3: The paranoia was definitely running high because there was another

830
00:51:58,600 --> 00:52:03,400
Speaker 3: gentleman named Bob Burningham. He went by Arlow Jacobs for

831
00:52:03,560 --> 00:52:05,920
Speaker 3: part of that time. He was a student radical, a

832
00:52:06,040 --> 00:52:09,000
Speaker 3: weatherman if you will, part of the Weather Underground, and

833
00:52:09,040 --> 00:52:12,000
Speaker 3: he was suspected of being a CIA infiltrator as well

834
00:52:12,680 --> 00:52:14,200
Speaker 3: by other members of the group.

835
00:52:15,239 --> 00:52:16,680
Speaker 1: It's the hip new thing to do.

836
00:52:17,520 --> 00:52:20,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, And then we get into the actual spies, the

837
00:52:21,520 --> 00:52:25,439
Speaker 3: people who are confirmed intelligence officers like Richard ober who

838
00:52:25,520 --> 00:52:28,319
Speaker 3: was pretty much the head of Operation Chaos, or at

839
00:52:28,400 --> 00:52:31,239
Speaker 3: least in some way as the functional head of it, right,

840
00:52:31,600 --> 00:52:34,120
Speaker 3: And he was considered by a lot of others to

841
00:52:34,239 --> 00:52:38,520
Speaker 3: be paranoid and secretive in his own workings, which again,

842
00:52:39,239 --> 00:52:41,560
Speaker 3: you know, if you're running an operation like that that's

843
00:52:41,600 --> 00:52:46,279
Speaker 3: full of secrecy and lies, it gotta be pretty paranoid, right, right.

844
00:52:46,360 --> 00:52:48,560
Speaker 1: And he expected the same out of the people who

845
00:52:48,600 --> 00:52:51,200
Speaker 1: worked with and for him. M hm, you know. And

846
00:52:52,239 --> 00:52:55,799
Speaker 1: for his part, Hugh will argue, and he does argue

847
00:52:55,800 --> 00:52:59,480
Speaker 1: in the book, I believe that the mission was entirely

848
00:53:01,360 --> 00:53:06,120
Speaker 1: meant to surveil and collect information, not to do any

849
00:53:06,160 --> 00:53:11,200
Speaker 1: sort of skullduggery or wetwork or kidnapping or assassination or

850
00:53:11,239 --> 00:53:13,520
Speaker 1: any of that black bag hoopla.

851
00:53:13,600 --> 00:53:16,040
Speaker 3: I mean, the state of goals are just that, just.

852
00:53:17,600 --> 00:53:21,680
Speaker 1: Vacuum up the information, right, who's sending who notes, who's

853
00:53:21,719 --> 00:53:28,760
Speaker 1: calling who? That's the official story. Yeah, there's another member

854
00:53:28,880 --> 00:53:31,120
Speaker 1: of the intelligence community that pops up in the book.

855
00:53:31,239 --> 00:53:34,440
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, there's a gentleman named Frank Rafalco. And he

856
00:53:34,760 --> 00:53:39,080
Speaker 3: was working on the Black Panther detail of Operation Chaos

857
00:53:39,160 --> 00:53:41,560
Speaker 3: because they were looking at what they considered to be

858
00:53:41,640 --> 00:53:45,480
Speaker 3: extremist groups, and they considered sections of the Black Panthers

859
00:53:45,480 --> 00:53:49,120
Speaker 3: to be just that. And this guy was the only

860
00:53:49,200 --> 00:53:52,160
Speaker 3: officer so far, at least according to Matthew Sweet that

861
00:53:52,200 --> 00:53:57,080
Speaker 3: has spoken publicly about Operation Chaos so far.

862
00:53:57,440 --> 00:54:02,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the stories continue. It's just strange to learn

863
00:54:03,120 --> 00:54:08,239
Speaker 1: that not only did this operation go on successfully on

864
00:54:08,280 --> 00:54:11,319
Speaker 1: a global scale for what six years, more than half

865
00:54:11,320 --> 00:54:15,960
Speaker 1: a decade, but there were no repercussions for the US. Right,

866
00:54:16,360 --> 00:54:20,279
Speaker 1: A lot of the deserters found their way back to

867
00:54:20,360 --> 00:54:22,760
Speaker 1: the States or found their way to a friendly country,

868
00:54:23,200 --> 00:54:29,160
Speaker 1: and many of their I mean, regardless of whether someone

869
00:54:29,440 --> 00:54:31,880
Speaker 1: from the outside looking in would call their lives successful

870
00:54:31,960 --> 00:54:36,320
Speaker 1: or unsuccessful. The truth is that their lives were tremendously

871
00:54:36,880 --> 00:54:42,520
Speaker 1: affected by this program right in ways that we probably

872
00:54:42,560 --> 00:54:47,520
Speaker 1: still don't fully understand, And there's still questions there. We

873
00:54:47,719 --> 00:54:50,799
Speaker 1: don't know for sure who was or wasn't a mole,

874
00:54:50,880 --> 00:54:53,680
Speaker 1: who did or did not provide information. Many of these

875
00:54:53,719 --> 00:54:59,120
Speaker 1: people had torturous personal lives, drug addiction, right, heavy debts,

876
00:55:00,040 --> 00:55:03,719
Speaker 1: childhoods full of abuse, and it's very difficult to speculate

877
00:55:03,800 --> 00:55:08,040
Speaker 1: what motivated them and how deep they got. We know

878
00:55:08,200 --> 00:55:13,360
Speaker 1: something happened because the information got out there, but we

879
00:55:13,520 --> 00:55:17,160
Speaker 1: have to ask ourselves what did this mean in the

880
00:55:17,160 --> 00:55:21,000
Speaker 1: long run. Did it change the course of the Vietnam War?

881
00:55:21,719 --> 00:55:25,560
Speaker 1: Probably not? Probably not. It's you know, in comparison to

882
00:55:25,560 --> 00:55:28,640
Speaker 1: two point seven million soldiers, it's not that many people.

883
00:55:29,160 --> 00:55:32,960
Speaker 3: Were there any large movements from groups that were helping

884
00:55:32,960 --> 00:55:35,920
Speaker 3: out dissidents, I mean it doesn't seem to there's no

885
00:55:36,000 --> 00:55:40,640
Speaker 3: at least there aren't many. No. I can't think of

886
00:55:40,640 --> 00:55:44,480
Speaker 3: a single one where the United States took any kind

887
00:55:44,520 --> 00:55:47,680
Speaker 3: of action against a civilian group in another country because

888
00:55:47,680 --> 00:55:52,000
Speaker 3: they were aiding dissidents, at least not overtly. No. I mean, yeah,

889
00:55:52,040 --> 00:55:53,560
Speaker 3: that we would know about, right.

890
00:55:53,840 --> 00:55:57,719
Speaker 1: Right, and it's common to work through proxy groups and

891
00:55:57,800 --> 00:56:02,759
Speaker 1: so on. But we have to think beyond the events

892
00:56:03,040 --> 00:56:06,920
Speaker 1: of Vietnam that still have many unexplained things. Agent Orange

893
00:56:07,040 --> 00:56:09,560
Speaker 1: is an example. The recurred during the Iraq War, at

894
00:56:09,640 --> 00:56:13,080
Speaker 1: least allegations of exposure to it. Is it possible that

895
00:56:13,160 --> 00:56:18,560
Speaker 1: programs like this exist now in the current wars the

896
00:56:18,680 --> 00:56:21,839
Speaker 1: US is embroiled in or I guess since we don't

897
00:56:21,880 --> 00:56:24,279
Speaker 1: call them wars anymore, the current conflicts?

898
00:56:24,640 --> 00:56:27,800
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, who is a situation?

899
00:56:28,000 --> 00:56:28,600
Speaker 1: The situation?

900
00:56:28,800 --> 00:56:29,080
Speaker 3: Yeah?

901
00:56:29,200 --> 00:56:33,719
Speaker 1: Who is monitoring these interactions? Why are people deserting in

902
00:56:33,760 --> 00:56:39,440
Speaker 1: the numbers that occurred during the Vietnam War? Probably not?

903
00:56:40,000 --> 00:56:43,719
Speaker 1: Probably not because there's not a draft. Yeah, but that

904
00:56:43,760 --> 00:56:44,320
Speaker 1: could change.

905
00:56:44,719 --> 00:56:47,000
Speaker 3: Oh, that could absolutely change. It just takes an Act

906
00:56:47,040 --> 00:56:47,600
Speaker 3: of Congress.

907
00:56:48,280 --> 00:56:52,680
Speaker 1: Right, So we wonder. We have to wonder if there's

908
00:56:52,800 --> 00:56:54,640
Speaker 1: more stuff they don't want you to know, if there's

909
00:56:54,640 --> 00:56:57,440
Speaker 1: an Operation Chaos two point zero out there somewhere, and

910
00:56:57,440 --> 00:57:00,719
Speaker 1: if so, what's it called. Currently, the US US military

911
00:57:00,840 --> 00:57:05,240
Speaker 1: is comprised of volunteers, meaning that no one is conscripted

912
00:57:05,440 --> 00:57:08,560
Speaker 1: or drafted, and there are no laws that compel a

913
00:57:08,680 --> 00:57:13,360
Speaker 1: US citizen to serve mandatory time in the armed forces.

914
00:57:13,520 --> 00:57:16,480
Speaker 1: And that's that's not the same in other countries. South

915
00:57:16,560 --> 00:57:19,920
Speaker 1: Korea and Israel, for example, have laws requiring citizens to

916
00:57:20,000 --> 00:57:21,919
Speaker 1: serve in the military for X amount of time.

917
00:57:22,240 --> 00:57:25,280
Speaker 3: Absolutely, the one thing I would say in the US,

918
00:57:25,280 --> 00:57:29,520
Speaker 3: it is still compulsory for all male citizens to submit

919
00:57:29,560 --> 00:57:32,959
Speaker 3: their information to the Selective Service system within thirty days

920
00:57:32,960 --> 00:57:35,720
Speaker 3: of their eighteenth birthday. And that's just to make sure

921
00:57:35,880 --> 00:57:39,560
Speaker 3: the selective service system remains in case a draft is necessary.

922
00:57:39,600 --> 00:57:42,800
Speaker 3: In Congress puts the hammer down and makes it happen.

923
00:57:42,760 --> 00:57:47,000
Speaker 1: Because, as Malcolm Gladwell so eloquently explains in the Tipping Point,

924
00:57:48,520 --> 00:57:51,360
Speaker 1: nothing seems like it will ever happen until suddenly it does.

925
00:57:51,640 --> 00:57:54,720
Speaker 3: Yeah, great point, Malcolm, great point, Great.

926
00:57:54,440 --> 00:58:01,760
Speaker 1: Point, mister g. Today we end our episode with this,

927
00:58:01,760 --> 00:58:04,680
Speaker 1: this important point. Yes, there is no draft going on now.

928
00:58:04,840 --> 00:58:08,040
Speaker 1: There is no Operation Chaos that we are aware of,

929
00:58:08,480 --> 00:58:12,760
Speaker 1: even though the technological abilities to do so are far

930
00:58:12,800 --> 00:58:15,640
Speaker 1: and beyond what they ever were before in Vietnam. Oh yeah,

931
00:58:15,680 --> 00:58:19,360
Speaker 1: you know, we're all carrying The average person is carrying

932
00:58:19,400 --> 00:58:21,440
Speaker 1: a tiny spy in their.

933
00:58:21,280 --> 00:58:23,760
Speaker 3: Pocket, two cameras at least in a mic.

934
00:58:23,880 --> 00:58:26,400
Speaker 1: Right, and how tough is it to get in there?

935
00:58:26,440 --> 00:58:29,480
Speaker 1: Who watches the watchman, all that jazz, all that slow jazz.

936
00:58:29,560 --> 00:58:31,400
Speaker 3: And what about on your wrist if you got a

937
00:58:31,600 --> 00:58:34,640
Speaker 3: smart watcher, who knows? What? What if you got a

938
00:58:34,680 --> 00:58:38,280
Speaker 3: Google Home or an Amazon Echo in your house man,

939
00:58:38,400 --> 00:58:39,920
Speaker 3: or a couple of security cameras.

940
00:58:40,680 --> 00:58:42,360
Speaker 1: Don't please, it's too late.

941
00:58:42,400 --> 00:58:45,080
Speaker 3: Does your TV have a camera on it? Does your

942
00:58:45,080 --> 00:58:46,880
Speaker 3: PlayStation have a microphone?

943
00:58:47,320 --> 00:58:49,760
Speaker 1: You know what? Maybe if they did, I would take

944
00:58:49,840 --> 00:58:52,160
Speaker 1: better care of my like, I'd eat more healthy food,

945
00:58:52,240 --> 00:58:53,120
Speaker 1: you know, I would.

946
00:58:53,240 --> 00:58:56,120
Speaker 3: Uh, that's where you'd start.

947
00:58:56,240 --> 00:58:58,959
Speaker 1: That's where it's start. They'd be base level check it out,

948
00:58:59,240 --> 00:59:03,840
Speaker 1: I meaning chaos. Well, thank you, police state. But one

949
00:59:03,960 --> 00:59:06,920
Speaker 1: other important thing to hit on here is that in

950
00:59:06,960 --> 00:59:11,280
Speaker 1: many cases these deserters live on today somewhere right, and

951
00:59:11,320 --> 00:59:15,720
Speaker 1: they're real people. Are they perfect? No? Who is? Some

952
00:59:15,800 --> 00:59:18,680
Speaker 1: folks would consider them straight out traders. Other folks would

953
00:59:18,720 --> 00:59:23,600
Speaker 1: consider them the equivalent of freedom fighters. And there are

954
00:59:23,640 --> 00:59:26,320
Speaker 1: people who will make the argument that if they broke

955
00:59:26,360 --> 00:59:30,000
Speaker 1: the rules, the rules no longer apply to them. But

956
00:59:30,120 --> 00:59:34,720
Speaker 1: that goes into what sort of importance we place on

957
00:59:34,840 --> 00:59:39,360
Speaker 1: the rule of law, And it goes into, perhaps even

958
00:59:39,400 --> 00:59:45,680
Speaker 1: more importantly, what importance we place on the lawmakers obeying

959
00:59:45,720 --> 00:59:46,720
Speaker 1: the laws. They create.

960
00:59:47,560 --> 00:59:51,320
Speaker 3: Wow. So what do you think about Operation Chaos? Have

961
00:59:51,440 --> 00:59:53,800
Speaker 3: you read the book? Do you know anything about it?

962
00:59:53,920 --> 00:59:58,040
Speaker 3: Have you ever encountered anyone who was a dissonant? An

963
00:59:58,080 --> 01:00:02,240
Speaker 3: American or otherwise. We'd love to hear your stories. We'd

964
01:00:02,280 --> 01:00:04,440
Speaker 3: love for you to contact us and just talk to

965
01:00:04,480 --> 01:00:06,400
Speaker 3: us about it. You can find us on Twitter. You

966
01:00:06,400 --> 01:00:09,800
Speaker 3: can find us on Facebook where Conspiracy Stuff. On Instagram

967
01:00:09,800 --> 01:00:13,040
Speaker 3: where Conspiracy Stuff Show. You can find our websites. Stuff

968
01:00:13,080 --> 01:00:16,160
Speaker 3: they Don't Want You Tono dot com. And that's the

969
01:00:16,280 --> 01:00:19,720
Speaker 3: end of this classic episode. If you have any thoughts

970
01:00:19,800 --> 01:00:23,680
Speaker 3: or questions about this episode, you can get into contact

971
01:00:23,720 --> 01:00:25,840
Speaker 3: with us in a number of different ways. One of

972
01:00:25,920 --> 01:00:27,720
Speaker 3: the best is to give us a call. Our number

973
01:00:27,800 --> 01:00:32,080
Speaker 3: is one eight three three st d WYTK. If you

974
01:00:32,080 --> 01:00:33,960
Speaker 3: don't want to do that, you can send us a

975
01:00:33,960 --> 01:00:35,160
Speaker 3: good old fashioned email.

976
01:00:35,400 --> 01:00:39,480
Speaker 2: We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.

977
01:00:39,680 --> 01:00:41,760
Speaker 3: Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production

978
01:00:41,880 --> 01:00:46,400
Speaker 3: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

979
01:00:46,480 --> 01:00:49,360
Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.