Speaker 1: Hi, everybody. Robert Evans here and my novel After the
Speaker 1: Revolution is available for pre order now from a k
Speaker 1: press dot org. Now, if you go to a k
Speaker 1: press dot org you can find After the Revolution. Just
Speaker 1: google a k press dot org After the Revolution you'll
Speaker 1: find a list of participating indie bookstores selling my book.
Speaker 1: And if you pre order now from either these independent
Speaker 1: bookstores or from a k Press, you'll get a custom
Speaker 1: signed copy of the book, which I think is pretty cool.
Speaker 1: You can also preorder it in physical or in kindle
Speaker 1: form from Amazon or pretty much wherever books are sold.
Speaker 1: So please google a k press after the Revolution um
Speaker 1: or find an indie bookstore in your area and pre
Speaker 1: order it. You'll get assigned a copy and you'll make
Speaker 1: me very happy. The Dollar Crossover Special event Week three
Speaker 1: of our Henry Kissinger series, and and the stress is
Speaker 1: getting to everyone. Uh, David and Gareth fighting viciously. I'm
Speaker 1: not I mean, I've been quite home. I just I
Speaker 1: just when I'm attacked. Like Henry Kissinger, I am attempting
Speaker 1: to maintain a balance of power between you and Yeah
Speaker 1: in the state, get it? You have the answers? Yes, Yes,
Speaker 1: Our podcasts are now bombing Cambodia. Um, finally show that
Speaker 1: to Oh boy, well this is this is week three.
Speaker 1: Can you all believe we're already in the home stretch
Speaker 1: of of this series? Is it week three? Yes? Wow?
Speaker 1: Episodes five and six together for three weeks. I know
Speaker 1: most podcasts don't make all of the guests live together,
Speaker 1: but we do it. What do they? Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: with like like the the Internet. I'm gonna have to
Speaker 1: look that up in my dictionary. I've enjoyed our time here.
Speaker 1: I would really like I don't I don't want to leave,
Speaker 1: so I mean, but I mean, you know, we should.
Speaker 1: I gotta go back to as a family. We could
Speaker 1: do another couple of episodes on Henry Kissinger. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: just do one a year for the next like five years.
Speaker 1: Here we will just be like a reunion show. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what's Henry Kissinger up revival? Yeah, there's probably more chapters,
Speaker 1: hopefully just dead soon hopefully dead. I don't think that.
Speaker 1: I don't think that ends it. Somehow, I feel like
Speaker 1: that's not gonna be enough. Yeah, we'll be doing the
Speaker 1: episode about how Henry Kissinger brings the Army of Hell
Speaker 1: back through a portal to somehow fight on both sides
Speaker 1: of the Ukrainian War, and the Army of Hell has
Speaker 1: been misled us to the rationale. They're like you said
Speaker 1: that there was going to be a lot more slavery. Here,
Speaker 1: go ahead, it's follow me. Come with me. I'll show
Speaker 1: you where they w m D s Henry kissing it.
Speaker 1: I should have studied the Kissinger's accent before this totally.
Speaker 1: But do you have an ear for accents? It's all right,
Speaker 1: this will be so iconic that it will retroactively become
Speaker 1: Henry Kissinger's accent, kind of like the Nazis are now British.
Speaker 1: I do one, do one, just one stranger accent. I
Speaker 1: nail one thing perfect. It's like we're there. It's like
Speaker 1: I am excited for when what's his name? The guy
Speaker 1: who did vice of that director? What's his name? I'm
Speaker 1: talking about the Chainey. Yes, when Adam McKay does his
Speaker 1: Kissinger movie in ten more years, he'll use that accent. Tavid,
Speaker 1: that'll be great, David beyond set coaching Christian Bale. You
Speaker 1: know you're saying hello, and it's really like all o vera,
Speaker 1: so hear it behind the bastards um and and at
Speaker 1: the dollar which behind the Bastards is the Kirkland brand
Speaker 1: version of we like to ask questions that historians all
Speaker 1: too often try to ignore it, namely, how did bad
Speaker 1: people in history fuck? So? Yeah, we're talking about how
Speaker 1: Kissinger bone? Um, are you excited for the state? No? No,
Speaker 1: I want to go? Can I leave? I make you
Speaker 1: know this is it is important to both cover the
Speaker 1: historical crimes of a guy like Kissinger and and to
Speaker 1: get some personal color. And since we've spent four episodes
Speaker 1: talking about his beliefs and his acts and power, it's
Speaker 1: only fair that we now turn our furoscopes onto his
Speaker 1: sex life. This episode is going to have base under it,
Speaker 1: right absolutely. Um, So, I think the best way for
Speaker 1: me to start this segment is by reading a quote
Speaker 1: from a September nineteen seventy one article in the San
Speaker 1: Francisco Chronicle as a warning, guys, there is a thirty
Speaker 1: percent chance this is going to give one of you
Speaker 1: a stroke. No you mean wait, you mean we're gonna
Speaker 1: be stroking it our actual that that is impossible to say.
Speaker 1: Quote Henry Kissinger, sex symbol of the Nixon administration steps
Speaker 1: let a stick. I'm just gonna buite a stick just
Speaker 1: to be safe. I'm just gonna I'm just gonna get
Speaker 1: a branch in my mouth. Steps out of his office
Speaker 1: onto a sun drenched San Clemente terrace with a cup
Speaker 1: of black coffee and sits in a white deck chair
Speaker 1: with his legs crossed. The man who was pressured Moscow
Speaker 1: drafted State of the World addresses, advised the president to
Speaker 1: enter a Cambodia and paved the road to red China
Speaker 1: appears as something of an anachronism, and his baggy midnight
Speaker 1: blue cotton trousers, black tie shoes, bright blue unfitted blazer,
Speaker 1: blue and white striped shirt and striped tie. What you
Speaker 1: guys hold then so far? I mean embedded reporter L L. Bean.
Speaker 1: Why I can't I can't imagine combining the fashion sense
Speaker 1: with the war crime. It's so good because they acknowledged
Speaker 1: the war crimes and then talking about It's like Henry
Speaker 1: could be walking out a catwalk, like like you'll see
Speaker 1: Henry right now in a tie, white pants suit. You
Speaker 1: can see it's sucked to him. Henry, also known for
Speaker 1: ruining Cambodia and Vietnam, continue to quote it comes mass motors,
Speaker 1: sex machine kissing, You're oh no, it's an open robe.
Speaker 1: On the back wall you can see some victims of
Speaker 1: the aged Orange campaign, and with in Vietnam and Henry Sucker.
Speaker 1: You could notice the outline of his hog and those
Speaker 1: I don't know fancy pants brands. Otherwise I would have
Speaker 1: finished that, But I'm gonna finish the quote now, because
Speaker 1: by god, there's more. What are you trying to do?
Speaker 1: Seduce me? Henry will tease as he notices his visitors
Speaker 1: hot pants. You know, I like these hot pants very much.
Speaker 1: Then he'll light your cigarette, touching your hand as all
Speaker 1: continentals do, offer you a cup of coffee, and discuss
Speaker 1: trivia as readily as he would have Sino Soviet entaunt.
Speaker 1: The impeccably tidy image is perfect for dealing with Alexei
Speaker 1: question or or Zouan Lie, or lecturing at Harvard, But
Speaker 1: one cannot help wonder if the movie stars mind that
Speaker 1: the ankle socks of Washington's greatest swinger are falling down,
Speaker 1: or that his wiry chestnut hair, which flashes golden in
Speaker 1: the intense white sunlight, is too close crop to run
Speaker 1: their fingers through, or that at least ten of his
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy eight pounds protrude over his thin black belt,
Speaker 1: somehow shortening his five ft nine inches. But suddenly an
Speaker 1: electric twinkle will flash through the intense blue of his eyes,
Speaker 1: and one it touches an inkling of that movie star magnetism,
Speaker 1: that special quality which causes some people to call him
Speaker 1: cuddly Kissinger. How is the craziest thing that's happened so far?
Speaker 1: How did that happen? Oh? Man, yeah, this is oh
Speaker 1: my god, a bottom below the bottom folks look back
Speaker 1: to just murdering us? How did that happen? What in
Speaker 1: the fund just went on? Is this a guy or
Speaker 1: a lady writing this? I think it's a late certain
Speaker 1: it's a lady. Yeah, wants to well, who hold your
Speaker 1: hand when he lights your cigarette? Why did we have
Speaker 1: to talk about Kissinger's chest air? Why? Why? Why? Indeed,
Speaker 1: why indeed, David? Because can we na palm that? This
Speaker 1: is what name palms for? Right? Speaking of made in
Speaker 1: that hair of Henry's. This has convinced me there is
Speaker 1: a place for the B fifty two bomber in his pants. Boy,
Speaker 1: that's what Henry calls little Hank. So bafflingly, almost impossibly,
Speaker 1: it is not hard to find articles written at this
Speaker 1: exact sexual tenor, and unfortunately I would I would love
Speaker 1: to tell you guys that I'm sure this was like
Speaker 1: a satire or a joke, but people were weirdly serious
Speaker 1: about this kind of ship in nineteen seventy two. And
Speaker 1: there's no way you're ready for what comes after this
Speaker 1: part of the center in night. What In nineteen seventy two,
Speaker 1: the Playboy Club hosted a poll of the bunnies and
Speaker 1: asked them who was quote the man I would mostly
Speaker 1: not do that on a date with Henry Kissinger was
Speaker 1: number one? What in the no, no, what are the
Speaker 1: horrible indictment of the worst indictment of America that has
Speaker 1: ever been This is the most damning thing you can
Speaker 1: say about it, right in the ground and the Playboy Mansion.
Speaker 1: What how is that? I can't It's like we're in
Speaker 1: the back to the future, Biff Timeline, Well, hold on,
Speaker 1: the man who massacres hundreds of thousands knows how to fuck.
Speaker 1: That's just an old saying. That is that is an
Speaker 1: old saying. I want to funk you like the people
Speaker 1: of Vietnam Ov. So once the first few articles about
Speaker 1: Henry Kissinger's you know, sex symboltitude dropped um Kissinger himself
Speaker 1: started being questioned by reporters about the phenomenon. His standard
Speaker 1: reply became one of his most favorite famous quotes. Power
Speaker 1: is the ultimate aphrodisiac. I mean, like there are there is.
Speaker 1: I mean people are attracted to like psychos too, like
Speaker 1: Ted Bundy had like a fan club, and like you know,
Speaker 1: like I mean like I've been compared to Jeffrey Dahmer
Speaker 1: a number of times looks, which has always been a pleasure.
Speaker 1: And you're both very handsome young men, yes, thank you
Speaker 1: so much. Uh, and both still in the primes of
Speaker 1: our youth. Absolutely, it's still it's like if you feel
Speaker 1: like there is a separation with him and what it
Speaker 1: just seems very like a very strange connection. It's it's baffling.
Speaker 1: Other than that, like, here's the sad thing. We're gonna
Speaker 1: get to this. It's not just that he's powerful, and
Speaker 1: the other thing about him that makes him women so
Speaker 1: attracted to him is like bleak in a surprising way.
Speaker 1: But but we'll we'll get to that. So famous women
Speaker 1: loved being spotted on Kissinger's arm. One night he was
Speaker 1: sited at the Traitor vix in the Los Angeles like
Speaker 1: flirting and holding hands with Jill st John, who played
Speaker 1: the very first Bond girl. What he dated the first
Speaker 1: James Bond girl on he needs to be Yeah, she'll
Speaker 1: st John to be honest. Fucking murder troll. Well so
Speaker 1: horrifying part. But who goes from Bond to murder munchkin?
Speaker 1: I mean, Bond is kind of a murder like but
Speaker 1: he's a good He's a good guy. Come on, always
Speaker 1: a good guy. So while they were out on this date,
Speaker 1: Jill st John and Kissinger were spotted by Anne Miller,
Speaker 1: and was a dancer famous d answer at the time.
Speaker 1: She approached Kissinger and quote in a friendly way. These
Speaker 1: are the words of biographer Walter Isaacson criticized him for
Speaker 1: having fun in public while our boys in Vietnam are
Speaker 1: getting their heads shot off. Kastinger responded, dourly, Miss Miller,
Speaker 1: you don't know anything about me. I was miserable in
Speaker 1: a marriage for most of my life. I never had
Speaker 1: any fun. Now was my chance to enjoy myself. When
Speaker 1: this administration goes out, I'm going back to being a professor.
Speaker 1: But while I'm in the position i'm in, I'm damn
Speaker 1: will going to make it count, I mean, really avoiding
Speaker 1: the centralistation. No point does he acknowledge that that is
Speaker 1: an unfair thing he's doing. He's just like, look, come on,
Speaker 1: even us. You know, psychopaths need to have some fun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's it's I mean, it's nice to hear someone
Speaker 1: like approach him and and say something like that too. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And of course she approached him for not doing right
Speaker 1: by our g I s and as opposed to not
Speaker 1: doing right millions of Cambodian and Vietnamese and morsel it's
Speaker 1: a morsel oution, yeah, civilians, but yes, it is a morsel.
Speaker 1: I did something similar to the lead singer of the
Speaker 1: Count of Crows. I want up to him and said
Speaker 1: that his band was bad and they drove me crazy.
Speaker 1: Your bands a war crime. You know, if you might
Speaker 1: have had more of an impact if you criticized him
Speaker 1: for playing his music while our boys in Vietnam are
Speaker 1: getting their head shut off, you would have had some
Speaker 1: trouble parsing that out. Sir, Are you okay? Ye? Blag
Speaker 1: your jam band there dying in the mud, face down
Speaker 1: in the mock. God, dare you I think you have
Speaker 1: the wrong persons? I don't want you dead, something about
Speaker 1: a parking lot that that you are. You are edging
Speaker 1: up on my favorite conspiracy theory, which is that the
Speaker 1: tonk and golf incident was engineered by the Counting Crows
Speaker 1: in order to sell out. We know it was absolutely
Speaker 1: that seems proven at this point, so biographer Walter Isaacson
Speaker 1: described Kissinger is having quote the boyish glee of a
Speaker 1: senior on prom night and in the twinkle of a
Speaker 1: middle aged rake. He regularly had quote, striking blonde women
Speaker 1: come with him into the White House on lunch dates
Speaker 1: so he could show them off to his colleagues, telling
Speaker 1: a co worker on at least one occasion to eat
Speaker 1: your heart out. He's very much like bragging to other
Speaker 1: dudes about the fact that being Henry Kissinger has turned
Speaker 1: him into a sex symbol and he just had a
Speaker 1: gun and he was like no. Literally. So it was
Speaker 1: known that Kissinger's notorious temper could be somewhat offset by
Speaker 1: tossing young women in front of him. When his staffers
Speaker 1: fucked up and had to give him bad news about
Speaker 1: a scheduling issue, they'd send the youngest female secretary they
Speaker 1: had to go and give him the news the White
Speaker 1: House Press Office used Diane Sawyer for this purpose. Eventually
Speaker 1: the two started dating. Oh my god, I mean she
Speaker 1: should not be allowed to still be doing news. I
Speaker 1: mean your you need to have your news license revote.
Speaker 1: Do you think do you think he just comes pure poison.
Speaker 1: It's just like a gas slowly releases. We could harness
Speaker 1: Henry Kissingers come to to get Europe off of Russian crude.
Speaker 1: They're gonna drop the Kissinger go on us um. Diane
Speaker 1: Sawyer later told New York Magazine quote, the power of
Speaker 1: Henry working a room is still seismic. All of a sudden,
Speaker 1: everybody wants to step up their game and say something
Speaker 1: he'll find interesting or funny. And you know, I don't
Speaker 1: know how much of this is just like his He's
Speaker 1: clearly a charismatic man, right, he clearly has it feels
Speaker 1: like it's it's dinner for schmucks, and he's like the Rube.
Speaker 1: Like it feels like it's not everyone's just doing a bit.
Speaker 1: Like it's just like it's growing with the person that
Speaker 1: we I see and hear about that. You're like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, if you could get in a room with
Speaker 1: Henry Kissinger, just get right next to you will not
Speaker 1: leave his side. Obviously sexy, obviously sex who wouldn't want
Speaker 1: to fuck Henry Kissinger too. Now, this is all profoundly upsetting,
Speaker 1: but it gets weaker. So if Walter Isaacson, who's who's
Speaker 1: probably Kissinger's best biographer. If Walter Isaacson is correct, the
Speaker 1: reason all these women liked hanging around Henry wasn't just
Speaker 1: that he was powerful and no, it was not that
Speaker 1: he had, you know, incredible dick game, which I'm sorry
Speaker 1: for saying that in the context of Henry Kissinger. Thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you, we are we just plunged in the rankings.
Speaker 1: That's a fireba. I'm gonna quote now from Kissinger, a
Speaker 1: biography by Walter Isaacson. Kissinger secret with women was not
Speaker 1: all that different from his one with men, whom he
Speaker 1: wanted to charm. He flattered them, he listened to them,
Speaker 1: he nodded a lot, and he made eye contact. But
Speaker 1: unlike the way he was with most men, Kissinger was
Speaker 1: exceedingly patient with women who wanted to talk. Very few
Speaker 1: men in the night teen seventies actually listened to women.
Speaker 1: According to Betty Lord, Henry talked with you, talked to you,
Speaker 1: seriously and probed for what you knew or thought. He
Speaker 1: was someone who could and would make a Jill Saint
Speaker 1: John feel intelligent or as Shirley McClain, feel politically savvy.
Speaker 1: Next to Ingmar Bergmann, he is the most interesting man
Speaker 1: I have ever met, said liv Ullmann. He is surrounded
Speaker 1: by a fascinating aura, a strange field of light, and
Speaker 1: he catches you in some kind of invisible net. Over
Speaker 1: long dinners at public places, he would listen with sympathy
Speaker 1: while women talked about themselves, their lives, their hopes, and
Speaker 1: even sometimes they're slightly wacking new age philosophies. He would
Speaker 1: call them on the telephone late at night and talk
Speaker 1: for an hour or more at a time. He was
Speaker 1: a great friend, especially a telephone friend, always there when
Speaker 1: you needed him, said Jill Saint John. The dirty little
Speaker 1: secret about Kissinger's relationship with women was that there was
Speaker 1: no dirty little secret. He liked to go out with them,
Speaker 1: but not home with them. His fascination with affairs tended
Speaker 1: to be foreign rather than domestic. Henry's idea of being
Speaker 1: romantic was to slow down his car when he dropped
Speaker 1: you off at a date, said Hower. He may have
Speaker 1: been how in fact, the most celibate lecture in Washington.
Speaker 1: People say, yes, he doesn't do anything with this with
Speaker 1: these girls. His friend Peter Peterson once remark, Yeah, what
Speaker 1: what is happening? So he's a little a sexual. I
Speaker 1: don't know if. I mean, he definitely had sex, he
Speaker 1: had relationships, he had kids, But I think that the
Speaker 1: being seen with women, the being seen as a sex
Speaker 1: and but wasn't. But I don't think he had a
Speaker 1: particularly high sex drive. I don't think he's going out
Speaker 1: and like fucking his way through like famous people. I
Speaker 1: think he likes being seen in public with beautiful women.
Speaker 1: And I think beautiful women. Number one, he's safe, like
Speaker 1: he's not gonna pressure you for anything. Number Two, he'll
Speaker 1: actually listen to you like he's company. It's an extremely
Speaker 1: low bars, I mean really bleak right. There is like
Speaker 1: something to that. You know, it's like he's he's doing Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean I think that even now with guys like what,
Speaker 1: I'll here like guys talking like yeah, it's like just
Speaker 1: be respectful and it will probably get you, like I mean,
Speaker 1: it at least makes you not an asshole. I mean,
Speaker 1: he's he's he's you know what it is. I think
Speaker 1: the women in this situation are getting something out of it, right.
Speaker 1: Being within re Kissinger gets you in the news, It
Speaker 1: raises your profile. He's extremely famous and powerful. Um, and
Speaker 1: you get taken maybe even more seriously, you know, as
Speaker 1: as a woman who's a who's a journalist, who who
Speaker 1: wants to be seen as kind of intellectual um being
Speaker 1: around Henry Kissinger. He's a very serious public intellectual. It's
Speaker 1: good for your career. And also he's just men in
Speaker 1: power were so much worse than than they even are
Speaker 1: now that he was like the best dude in that
Speaker 1: world you could hang out. He's kind of like it's
Speaker 1: almost like a Batman villain again in the sense that
Speaker 1: like he's got he's this evil piece of shit, but
Speaker 1: yet he is also able to hold a conversation and
Speaker 1: not be a prick, And you're like, wow, who could
Speaker 1: pull off such opposing forces. Yeah, he treats women like
Speaker 1: humans exactly. Yeah, literally that he and he will look
Speaker 1: a woman in the eyes. Yeah, he is the saint
Speaker 1: John feels smart. The guy is a magician. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: is the only he is the only man in power
Speaker 1: in Washington, d C. Who will like sit down with
Speaker 1: a woman and listen to what she has to say,
Speaker 1: and as a result, he is the primary sex symbol
Speaker 1: of nineteen seventies squaking bar. I mean, it's incredible. It
Speaker 1: also again is it comes down to what we've talked
Speaker 1: about before with him, which is media normalization and how
Speaker 1: it is just once you kind of create that bubble,
Speaker 1: most people just acquiesce and then you're just like, you know,
Speaker 1: you're kind of like Diane Sawyer is just like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: well he's people don't throw bricks at him when he's outside,
Speaker 1: so he's okay now. Isaacson's gives an example of a
Speaker 1: typical relationship. Kissinger's friendship with Jan Golden, who's a New
Speaker 1: York socialite he dated from seventy to seventy one. She
Speaker 1: was twenty two, he's like fifty. Um and Kissinger had
Speaker 1: been given her name by Kissing had been given her
Speaker 1: name by by Kirk Douglas. Douglas is the fucking hook
Speaker 1: up in this case. So Henry calls her one day
Speaker 1: without warning and asks if she wants to come out
Speaker 1: for dinner. When she flew down to d C to
Speaker 1: meet him, she was met at the airport by one
Speaker 1: of Kissinger's military AIDS, who drove her to a fancy
Speaker 1: club where he was dining. The two sat down to eat,
Speaker 1: and midway through dinner, Henry got a phone call and
Speaker 1: stayed away for forty minutes. When he came back, he
Speaker 1: apologized and said that the Secretary of State had needed
Speaker 1: his advice. But whenever he was present, he paid cost
Speaker 1: close attention to her, and he asked her her opinion
Speaker 1: on issues of the day. She found the overall experience heady.
Speaker 1: The two dated for half a year, without any romance
Speaker 1: ever developing. Isaacson writes, quote, only once did they go
Speaker 1: back to his apartment, and when they arrived and Aid
Speaker 1: was their fielding telephone calls. By Golden's count, the phone
Speaker 1: rang forty times. You couldn't do anything romantic in that place,
Speaker 1: even if he were dying to She recalled, who's dying.
Speaker 1: Nobody's dying too. She wants to get by the old weirdo. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's she's she's into it. I must is horned. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: she said. I just don't think Henry was interested in
Speaker 1: sex when it came time to perform, Well, I just
Speaker 1: think he was too preoccupied for it. He didn't have
Speaker 1: time for it. Power for him may have been the aphrodisiac,
Speaker 1: but it was also the climax. Oh my god, I
Speaker 1: know that's a line right there. That's what he was
Speaker 1: doing in the bathroom for oh, Henry. So on one occasion,
Speaker 1: Henry was more honest than usual with one of his
Speaker 1: female friends, Oriana Falacci, who's an Italian author and a
Speaker 1: former World War Two partisan. She's actually pretty fascinating person um,
Speaker 1: he said. Quote when I speak to Lee Ducto, who
Speaker 1: was the Vietnamese negotiator for North Vietnam, I know what
Speaker 1: I have to do with Lee Ducto, and when I'm
Speaker 1: with girls, I know what I must do with girls. Besides,
Speaker 1: Lee Ducto doesn't at all agree to negotiate with me
Speaker 1: because I represent an example of moral rectitude. This frivolous reputation,
Speaker 1: it's partially exaggerated, of course. What ounces to what degree
Speaker 1: women are part of my life, a central preoccupation. Well
Speaker 1: they aren't that at all for me. Women are only
Speaker 1: a diversion, a hobby. Nobody spends too much time with
Speaker 1: his hobbies. See for a minute there, you're sort of thinking, okay, well,
Speaker 1: if he if he's getting something out of female accompaniment,
Speaker 1: then in a way that is. I mean, there's something
Speaker 1: kind of like, there's is something kind of nice about
Speaker 1: the idea that a guy isn't just not like trying
Speaker 1: to funck his way through you know, beautiful women, like
Speaker 1: he's just enjoying the company of women. But then the
Speaker 1: more you kind of peel back, the more it just
Speaker 1: does seem to be really like, he's just he's just backwards.
Speaker 1: He's a backwards person. Every part of him has just
Speaker 1: been rearranged. He's like a mannequin body of guts that
Speaker 1: fell down and was put back improperly. Now the surprise,
Speaker 1: Kirk Douglas cameo there. Make Key went on the fact
Speaker 1: that Henry was also very popular with the celeb set.
Speaker 1: During the party throw for Gloria steinhum By, the talk
Speaker 1: show host Barbara Howard, Kissinger told those assembled, I am
Speaker 1: a secret swinger. Now yes, uh yeah, that's the thing,
Speaker 1: he claimed, I like any whole Maybe it's a joke.
Speaker 1: That means he's like he's saying he likes to fuck,
Speaker 1: but all the evidence we have is that he doesn't.
Speaker 1: Like Yeah, I think again, I think that's him myth making.
Speaker 1: I think it's just saying that I'd like to go
Speaker 1: around and touch the genitals of fucking people. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: go to a swingers party in d C. And Henry's
Speaker 1: just they're putting a finger on things. If I penetrate
Speaker 1: the pinky rings, I get nothing out of this. It's fine.
Speaker 1: I don't worry. I'm comeless. So Kissinger missed the announcement
Speaker 1: that he'd been nominated for Secretary of State because he
Speaker 1: was on a date with Norwegian Oscar nominee liv Ullman.
Speaker 1: He took Candice Bergen out on a date when she
Speaker 1: was a young star. She later said that he gave
Speaker 1: her quote the sense of shared secrets probably be the
Speaker 1: same set he gave every anti war actress, Like he
Speaker 1: would act like, oh, I'm really against the war. I'm
Speaker 1: inside the administration like trying to get us out of
Speaker 1: these things. You know. It's it's like, yeah, he's he's
Speaker 1: just he doesn't he's yeah, he's a psycho psycho about it.
Speaker 1: Just I mean that way, he's completely everything we've heard
Speaker 1: is completely contrary. The sucking devil. Yeah, yeah, it's just psychotic.
Speaker 1: But also you have to credit like, I don't think
Speaker 1: Candice Bergen is lying. I can imagine how you're not
Speaker 1: privy at that point in time, to any of what
Speaker 1: we have right to any this information we have about
Speaker 1: how much he was planning this, about what a two
Speaker 1: faced liar he was, So maybe you believe. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: man is so intelligent and it's so like emotionally competent.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine him being the architect of these war crimes.
Speaker 1: He must be just it's it's such a titanic system
Speaker 1: of evil and he's fighting alone to bring it down,
Speaker 1: and like it must be why Hillary Clinton still hangs
Speaker 1: around him. He's like, look, I had nothing to do
Speaker 1: with any of the Taylor, don't worry. We'll talk about that. Gareth.
Speaker 1: Oh god. Um. So I'm gonna quote next from Nil
Speaker 1: Ferguson's Kissinger quote for the Press, The story was irresistible.
Speaker 1: The dowdy Harvard professor reborn in Hollywood as Carry Grant
Speaker 1: with a German accent. When Marlon Brando pulled out of
Speaker 1: the New York premiere of the Godfather, It's executive producer
Speaker 1: Robert Evans and unhesitatingly called Kissinger, and Kissinger obligingly flew
Speaker 1: up despite blizzard conditions and a schedule the next day
Speaker 1: that began with an early morning meeting with the Joint
Speaker 1: Chiefs of Staff to discuss the mining of Hypong Harbor
Speaker 1: and ended with a secret flight to Moscow. A reporter asked,
Speaker 1: doctor Kissinger, why are you here tonight at the Godfather premiere?
Speaker 1: Kissinger responded, I was forced by who? By Bobby Bobby Evans.
Speaker 1: Did he make you an offer you couldn't refuse? Yes.
Speaker 1: As they fought their way through the throng, Evans had
Speaker 1: Kissinger on one arm and Ali McGraw on the other.
Speaker 1: What I know, right, would you have called that when
Speaker 1: we started this ship? Like you Kissingers, you've lulled us
Speaker 1: into this being okay because at the beginning absolutely, But
Speaker 1: now I mean imagine honestly like a war criminal on
Speaker 1: a rent carpet going like, look, I didn't one through obviously,
Speaker 1: I wanted to stay in sell Vietnam. But Bobby called,
Speaker 1: oh man, it's incredible. You know what? Who else attended
Speaker 1: the premier of The Godfather with producer Robert Evans and
Speaker 1: Ali McGraw that I can't wait to hear the sponsors
Speaker 1: of this show all deeply tied in Well, of course
Speaker 1: they are right, like they're the kind of people who
Speaker 1: get invited to hunt children on private island reserve off
Speaker 1: the coast of Indonesia. You know, I've heard it's an archipelago.
Speaker 1: I refused to believe that Hollywood producer Robert Evans did
Speaker 1: not hunt children for sport at least once. There's just
Speaker 1: no way those glasses were just scopes, he laughed, like
Speaker 1: a man who has hunted the most dangerous game. Anyway,
Speaker 1: here's ads. We're back now. In our Cambodia episode, I
Speaker 1: mentioned and by the way, we're done with the sex stuff.
Speaker 1: You made it through my sweat pants. My sweatpants half repped. God,
Speaker 1: please get back to the killing. Well, in our Cambodia episode,
Speaker 1: I mentioned that the illegal bombing of Cambodia was leaked
Speaker 1: to the New York Times, and this was a big story,
Speaker 1: and it prompted Nixon to suspect that Kissinger's liberal staffers
Speaker 1: UM had been the ones who had done the leaking. UM.
Speaker 1: And so after this gets leaked, Kissinger and Nixon worked
Speaker 1: together to orchestrate a wire tapping program. Well, Kissinger initially
Speaker 1: ran the whole program. He was actually in charge for
Speaker 1: only like a day. Nixon decided pretty quickly that he
Speaker 1: didn't trust Kissinger. After all, namely because Herbert Hoover expected
Speaker 1: that Kissinger was the one leaking things. And this is
Speaker 1: because Kissinger absolutely was leaking. Now, he was not leaking
Speaker 1: the men of Cambodia, right. But Kissinger had his favorite
Speaker 1: journalists that he'd leaked things to. UM. Some of them
Speaker 1: were guys he wanted to write a book about him,
Speaker 1: you know, and so he wanted them to give him
Speaker 1: positive coverage. Some of them were like leaks in order
Speaker 1: to hurt other people in the administration. Because there's just
Speaker 1: Consert's Nixon's We're not getting into those enough. But Nixon's
Speaker 1: administration is just like an endless series of power struggles.
Speaker 1: Everyone is fucking over everybody else, right, Like, that's that's
Speaker 1: the Nixon administration. That's incredible. Yeah, it's it's really quite
Speaker 1: quite a tale. Um. So, yeah, Kissingers absolutely leaking some stuff,
Speaker 1: and that's that. Nixon is pretty aware of who Kissinger
Speaker 1: is leaking things to. UM And, as Walter Isaacson writes,
Speaker 1: the real reason why he pulled Henry from overseeing the
Speaker 1: program was that the two were having one of their
Speaker 1: periodic feuds. Nixon actually made the call to pull Kissinger
Speaker 1: from the wire tapping program right before he flew to
Speaker 1: Camp David and like stopped returning Kissinger's phone calls for
Speaker 1: a week. It's this like thing that it was like,
Speaker 1: it's like fucking nineteen year olds fighting. It's not here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they literally had just little TIFFs, and yeah, they have
Speaker 1: little TIFFs. You know. There's there's so much petty bullship
Speaker 1: between Kissinger and Nixon, and they're very much like if
Speaker 1: you've ever been in a codependent relationship, the Kissinger and
Speaker 1: Nixon will seem extremely familiar because they'll like be fighting
Speaker 1: over some stupid bullshit and then things will get bad
Speaker 1: and they'll like come together and be like also collapsing
Speaker 1: at the same time as they're propping each other up.
Speaker 1: It's very funny. I got millions die. But I'm sorry
Speaker 1: that they said that. Well, I've been waiting for your apology.
Speaker 1: I can't stay mad at you, Cambodia with Look, we
Speaker 1: have too many people to kill to stayment at each
Speaker 1: other for this long, So good over shift. Despite Kissinger
Speaker 1: Nixon periodically being angry with him throughout the duration of
Speaker 1: the wire tapping program, Henry Kissinger retained the ability to
Speaker 1: pretty much wire tap American citizens at command he would
Speaker 1: submit names to the FBI, who would start a wire
Speaker 1: tap on that person. When the secret wire tapping program
Speaker 1: was leaked in nineteen seventy three and it blew up
Speaker 1: into a big congressional inquiry, Nixon took the blame, defending
Speaker 1: Kissinger by saying it was his responsibility not to control
Speaker 1: the program, but solely to furnish information to the FBI.
Speaker 1: So what they claimed, it's like Kissinger wasn't ordering wire taps.
Speaker 1: He was giving the FBI information on people we thought
Speaker 1: were suspicious, and they would decide to wire tap, And
Speaker 1: it's a coincidence that all he would do was hand
Speaker 1: them a name and they would immediately start the wire tap.
Speaker 1: It's like he would give the garment to the bloodhound,
Speaker 1: but he's not hunting the child looking for on. So
Speaker 1: it's also though, like this might be the moment that
Speaker 1: proves Dick Nixon was actually a better person than Henry Kissinger,
Speaker 1: because he did like kind of take a hit for
Speaker 1: his team, not that he wasn't responsible for the wire tapping.
Speaker 1: In the Land of no respect, a man with one
Speaker 1: ounce has on all. It was like a tiny, tiny dollar,
Speaker 1: if you will, of honors from Henry Kissinger, and we
Speaker 1: just never see that or from from Nixon, and we
Speaker 1: just never see that from Kissinger. Um. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like saying that, like a cheese grater is better to
Speaker 1: fun than the blade of a jigsaw. But you know
Speaker 1: it's something, well, no that, now that I think about it,
Speaker 1: I mean, if someone laid it on the table, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: well that's great this cheese. What do we say, gentlemen,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna drop trap. Let's get greater. So here's how
Speaker 1: the secret wire tapping program worked. Kissinger and another Nixon
Speaker 1: dude I think it was Haldeman Um would submit names
Speaker 1: to the FBI, which the FBI viewed as requests, right.
Speaker 1: The transcripts of that person's conversations then would all be
Speaker 1: sent to Kissinger's death desk. So he got direct transcripts
Speaker 1: of every wire tap personally, and he would decide what
Speaker 1: to bring to Nixon. He wasn't the only guy he
Speaker 1: because again Nixon had multiple like people kind of competing
Speaker 1: through this program. Right, he's like the head writer. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So.
Speaker 1: James Adams, head of the FBI's Intelligence Division, later told
Speaker 1: a biography that he did not think there was quote
Speaker 1: more or less wire tapping under Nixon than under previous presidents.
Speaker 1: What made things unusual then was that the wire taps
Speaker 1: Nixon and Kissinger ordered, we're on n SC staff, individuals
Speaker 1: that were part of the White House family and Isaacs
Speaker 1: worlds right quote. In other words, previous wire taps had
Speaker 1: mainly been on suspected spies potentially subversive union leaders in
Speaker 1: the like a regular program of wire tapping one's own
Speaker 1: aids was, according to Thomas Smith, another top FBI official, unprecedented.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, it's amazing, Like that's what's amazing, right,
Speaker 1: It's like, well, no, it's not unusual. That's for this
Speaker 1: many wire taps. It's just normally on people that you're
Speaker 1: worried about, like attacking the country, not people who you've hired.
Speaker 1: The FBI is like, you know, we're okay with spying
Speaker 1: on dissidents, but they made a spy on their friends,
Speaker 1: and we feel gross about this. What you see Henry
Speaker 1: Kissinger's wire tapping Nixon. Yeah, he's getting very caddy. Kissingers
Speaker 1: just as wire tap on himself. You were joking, but
Speaker 1: you have accurately predicted where the story goes. No, what
Speaker 1: the this is such a weird chapter of American rust
Speaker 1: me as far as I could throw myself. I am
Speaker 1: such a fucking asshole. Look at what I was saying.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. So these wire taps were all considered
Speaker 1: legal at the time, although the Supreme Court did later
Speaker 1: determine that they were illegal. It was kind of like
Speaker 1: one of these at the time they were legal, and
Speaker 1: because of how gross they were, the Supreme Court was like,
Speaker 1: you know what, no, um And thankfully the US never
Speaker 1: never wire tapped people again. That's the end of That's
Speaker 1: the end of it. Famously, that's why Edward Snowdon is
Speaker 1: famous for his reveal that no one was ever wire tapped. Again.
Speaker 1: That's why we don't know who Edwards Snowdon is. Yes,
Speaker 1: famous private citizen living in Ohio. Edwards a name out
Speaker 1: of the air, random guy. Um. So. A tremendous amount
Speaker 1: has been written on the subject of the wire tapping
Speaker 1: in the Nixon administration. I'm not going to go to
Speaker 1: into detail on it because as sleazy as it is,
Speaker 1: why are tapping your friends? Doesn't quite measure up to
Speaker 1: war crimes? Like, it's gross, but it's also not that gross,
Speaker 1: and because it's super weird. Yeah, it's just like weird.
Speaker 1: It's a weird thing about them. There is something I
Speaker 1: should read here that reveals something meaningful about Henry's character.
Speaker 1: William Sapphire was a New York Times op ed columnist
Speaker 1: and a Nixtion speech and a Nixon speech writer. He
Speaker 1: later said that Kissinger was quote capable of getting a
Speaker 1: special thrill out of working most closely with those he
Speaker 1: spied on the most. Like Sapphire's attitude is like he
Speaker 1: was doing this mainly because he thought it was like
Speaker 1: kind of hot to be wire tapping a guy. That heasm, Yeah, finally,
Speaker 1: it's the power thing. It's the power thing. And he
Speaker 1: knows he's he loves that. He's like fucking over someone.
Speaker 1: He's just hanging out with him, talking to him. They
Speaker 1: don't know he's it's like slipper. Yeah, he gets this
Speaker 1: crazy thrill out of it. Yeah, he knows secrets about them, like,
Speaker 1: oh god, it's so fucking weird going to tap that
Speaker 1: does so he gets like, yeah, that quote from Kissinger
Speaker 1: powers the ultimate affrodaisac. It's usually translated to him being like,
Speaker 1: that's why women are so into me, right, because power
Speaker 1: turns people on. But I think it literally means that
Speaker 1: like he kind of gets off on exercising power, right,
Speaker 1: Like that's his thing. Oh my god, I can even
Speaker 1: fuck my friends over yea. It is also worth noting
Speaker 1: that Henry wire tapped himself once he took off, as
Speaker 1: he had a secret kidding, I know, I know, but
Speaker 1: it happened once he took off, as he had a
Speaker 1: secretary list in on all of his calls and take
Speaker 1: mimo notes on his conversations. He also had a series
Speaker 1: of what are called dead key extensions added to phones.
Speaker 1: These are keys that were secretly added to phones in
Speaker 1: his office so that his secretaries and aids could like
Speaker 1: press them to listen in on calls without other people
Speaker 1: knowing and take notes on the calls. When Nixon would
Speaker 1: call kissing your drunk, slurring his words, Kissinger would like
Speaker 1: wave all of his people who get in there, get
Speaker 1: in there, get in here, like kick up the phone,
Speaker 1: pick up the phone, and then he would make faces
Speaker 1: making fun of the president while his notes is like aids, listen,
Speaker 1: bit okay, I mean just that's the coolest thing about
Speaker 1: Now take a step back and realize that Henry Kissinger
Speaker 1: is making fun of the wire tap he's called on
Speaker 1: himself while he's talking to the president who's blackout drunk.
Speaker 1: It's it's something else war is. He isn't like not
Speaker 1: to minimize how fucked up you know the current administration
Speaker 1: to the previous administration was. But by god, America still
Speaker 1: has not reached the Nixon peak of craziness. We've gotten
Speaker 1: it in pieces, the little bit I've never had like
Speaker 1: the full team together, and yeah you can't. It's it's
Speaker 1: really hard to compete with Dick Nixon and Henry Kissinger.
Speaker 1: I talking about ahead of his time. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: his stuff age is great. Oh man. So Kissinger also
Speaker 1: used the transcripts he made to attack his coworkers and
Speaker 1: reinforce his loyalty to the president. When his colleagues said
Speaker 1: something to him that he knew Nixon would hate, or
Speaker 1: when someone made a comment to green with Kissinger on
Speaker 1: an issue, he would pass those notes from his secret
Speaker 1: conversations onto the president. So you would hand the president
Speaker 1: like a transcript of a call he'd had with like
Speaker 1: a thing underlined that made Kissinger look good. Um, oh
Speaker 1: my god. From Kissinger of biography quote William Sapfire, who
Speaker 1: dubbed the transcripts the dead key Scrolls said he once
Speaker 1: saw Kissinger altering one to shore up a point he
Speaker 1: wanted to make to the president. He had been chewing
Speaker 1: out a reporter from the Christian Science Monitor for writing
Speaker 1: a story that was unfavorable to Nixon. In doing so,
Speaker 1: he also tossed in occasional complaints about the perfidy of
Speaker 1: Secretary Rogers. Since he was planning to send the transcript
Speaker 1: to the President, Sapphire said he had taken a draft
Speaker 1: and edited it, adding to the fierce loyalty of his
Speaker 1: own remarks, So you would like mark it up to
Speaker 1: make him like be more of a kiss asked to
Speaker 1: kick to Nixon. I mean Nixon's also like hammered. It's like,
Speaker 1: how hard do you have to work to convince this guy?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Hand him a my tie
Speaker 1: like from tred Vis. Here're my best friend. I love you,
Speaker 1: Henry a closer friend. Look at how much of of
Speaker 1: your pitch I am. The existence of these transcripts was
Speaker 1: revealed by The Washington Post in nineteen one, but Kissinger
Speaker 1: insisted they were just for the President's files. In reality,
Speaker 1: he used them for as notes to write his two
Speaker 1: books that he published after leaving power. But he was
Speaker 1: canny enough to know they had damning information. So when
Speaker 1: he considered quitting the Nixon administration in nineteen seventy three,
Speaker 1: he had them all shipped to a bomb shelter at
Speaker 1: Nelson rockefeller cells. I mean what you just said every
Speaker 1: third sentence you have to write about these guys's magnet
Speaker 1: fridge poetry. Yeah, he illegally hit government files and Nelson
Speaker 1: Rockefeller's private bomb shelters just like, feel like, may I
Speaker 1: use your bomb shelter storage? I need to put my
Speaker 1: biography notes there of course, of course, And right, that's
Speaker 1: you're not what I always say, my bomb shelters yours?
Speaker 1: These are these are what short stories? Right, yes, sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: whatever you need to tell yourself. I need I need
Speaker 1: them save in case there's a nuclear war. So obviously
Speaker 1: this is very illegal. Um. And when Kissinger decided not
Speaker 1: to quit the administration, he had a military liaison Cinda
Speaker 1: plane to pick them up from Rockefeller's house and then
Speaker 1: he hit them in a bomb shelter under the White House.
Speaker 1: After he left. There's less for these people. They're fucking notes.
Speaker 1: They they don't need to survive the fucking nuclear holocaust. Great, though,
Speaker 1: if a bomb is in coming towards the White House,
Speaker 1: and they all go there and it's just stacked with
Speaker 1: Kissinger papers. Yeah, this guy was a real piece of ship.
Speaker 1: This is awkward going to petish. He's just sitting in
Speaker 1: the corner. I don't think you should read those. So
Speaker 1: after he left office, Kissinger donated the papers to the
Speaker 1: Library of Congress under the restriction that they would not
Speaker 1: be made available until he had been dead for five years.
Speaker 1: Well he's been He's been for five years. We should
Speaker 1: them now, who makes that deal. It's not a great thing,
Speaker 1: the Library of Congress. Jesus Christ five, by the way,
Speaker 1: most people, most people do like the after I die.
Speaker 1: He wants the five year buffer, which sounds a little Yeah.
Speaker 1: He wants time for people to get things out of
Speaker 1: the country. Yeah. Yeah, I want to make sure I'm
Speaker 1: pure bone. Yeah. So Kissinger was also convinced that Nixon's
Speaker 1: chief of staff Holdeman had Nixon wire tapped uh and Nixon. Sorry,
Speaker 1: Kissinger was also convinced that Nixon's chief of staff Holdman
Speaker 1: and Nixon had wire tapped him, which they absolutely had.
Speaker 1: So Kissinger was kind of tapping himself. But Nixon had
Speaker 1: also wire tapped Kissinger, and when he passed Holdeman in
Speaker 1: the hall, Kissinger would say, quote, what do your taps
Speaker 1: tell you about me? Today? It's almost remember that what
Speaker 1: was it? I don't remember when I was on where
Speaker 1: Lily Tomlin was the one ringy dinghy operator who keeps
Speaker 1: plugging in on it. It's almost like that with wire taps,
Speaker 1: where you're just like every wire is getting plugged across.
Speaker 1: Nixon's wire tapping Kissinger, who's wire tapping himself, who's wire
Speaker 1: tapping Nixon is also wire tapping hold him It is
Speaker 1: wire tapping Kissinger is also wired tapping Nixon. And that's
Speaker 1: why we know so much about not just like the
Speaker 1: crimes they committed, but like what they were saying in
Speaker 1: the meetings while they committed the crimes, because unbeknownst to
Speaker 1: Kissinger and to everyone else, Nixon was also wire tapping himself,
Speaker 1: like he recorded every conversation that he had. Is the
Speaker 1: most that that to me is like the one of
Speaker 1: the most. I mean, it's why we know so much
Speaker 1: because if you are able to, like if if Trumper,
Speaker 1: I mean, if any of them, I mean, if you
Speaker 1: had the Bush tapes, like they would be fucking incredible.
Speaker 1: But It's also that Nixon recorded himself and it was like, okay,
Speaker 1: take them, and everyone's like, the funk Are you drunk?
Speaker 1: And he's like, I am, actually, I am extreme. I
Speaker 1: am so drunk. My Secretary of Defense has a contingency
Speaker 1: plan in case I try to nuke everyone. Checkers been
Speaker 1: that drunk, No one has. So this was a secret
Speaker 1: until the Watergate scandal was really feeled at the end
Speaker 1: of nineteen seventy two. Kissinger was warned about this that,
Speaker 1: like the Watergate story was about to break two months
Speaker 1: ahead of time, and he was horrified by the implications,
Speaker 1: namely by the fact by the things we've already gone
Speaker 1: over at length that he had, Like he was on
Speaker 1: tape in these records, agreeing and encouraging with Nixon's bigotry
Speaker 1: and his copious racial slurs. So, like, Kissinger is not
Speaker 1: involved in Watergates, so he's like, I'm not worried about that.
Speaker 1: I'm worried that everyone's going to know that I was
Speaker 1: like egging Nixon's bigotry on in order to kiss his
Speaker 1: ass um Yeah, amazing, amazing for him to be horrified,
Speaker 1: like of all the things he's done, like for this
Speaker 1: to be like it's it's always like the weirdest thing,
Speaker 1: but it's like for this too, for him to be
Speaker 1: like this could really damage my credibility. Yeah. When he
Speaker 1: was asked about this later about like encouraging Nixon's bigotry,
Speaker 1: Kissinger explained that the things he'd said to Nixon were
Speaker 1: based on quote, the needs of the moment, rather than
Speaker 1: to quote, stand the test of deferred scrutiny, which was
Speaker 1: a nice way of saying, I'm only racist around racists
Speaker 1: and one of the most impressive feats of mental gymnastics
Speaker 1: and political history. Kissinger actually argued that his egging Nixon
Speaker 1: on was meant to protect the American people. Quote he
Speaker 1: was so much in need of succor so totally alone.
Speaker 1: Our national security depended so much on his functioning. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's called yes, and okay, he was Chicago school. It's
Speaker 1: called the Olympic. I mean again, to be able to
Speaker 1: get away with that argument just shouldn't be stud Now,
Speaker 1: speaking of Nixon's functioning, it's probably time to talk a
Speaker 1: little more about Watergate. As previously covered in nineteen seventy one,
Speaker 1: Nixon and his team, including Kissinger, hired a goon squad
Speaker 1: of x FBI and CIA agents called the plumbers and
Speaker 1: asked them to investigate the leak of the Pentagon papers.
Speaker 1: These guys broke into the office of Daniel Ellsberg, that's
Speaker 1: the guy wh leaked the Pentagon papers. He was a
Speaker 1: Department of Defense employee. They break into the office of
Speaker 1: his psychiatrist to try and steal records to smear him.
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy two, one of the plumbers, g Gordon Liddy,
Speaker 1: was transferred to the Committee to re Elect the President.
Speaker 1: The acronym of this organization organization was literally creep because
Speaker 1: satire has never happened even once, Like it's impossible, nopevers over.
Speaker 1: Liddy's team executed a wide ranging plan to illegally spy
Speaker 1: on the Democratic Party, which ended with them breaking into
Speaker 1: DNC headquarters in the Watergate Building in d C and
Speaker 1: bugging the phones of staffers. They got arrested almost immediately,
Speaker 1: like that night they get busted, right, that's like when
Speaker 1: this all starts, um. And so that's what like the
Speaker 1: fact that this, like the Watergate scandal in public knowledge
Speaker 1: starts is like these guys getting arrested doing a break in.
Speaker 1: He's a crime reporter named Bob Woodward and on the case.
Speaker 1: He was not a political journalist. He was like a
Speaker 1: crime beat d C reporter. But he hears about this
Speaker 1: break in and he's like, something's going on here, and
Speaker 1: he winds up making you know, contacts with a guy
Speaker 1: who we later eventually, like decades later, learned was the
Speaker 1: associate director of the FBI. That's deep throat, you know. Famously,
Speaker 1: this guy gives him information and the Washington Post under
Speaker 1: Woodward and and Bernstein, right, he has a partner in
Speaker 1: it too, Like they're both doing very good journalism here.
Speaker 1: They start dropping articles at the tailed of nineteen seventy two,
Speaker 1: and a trial over the break and starts in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy three January, right after Nixon wins reelection. Well Woodward
Speaker 1: and his partner Carl Bernstein were running down leads. They
Speaker 1: got in touch with another FBI guy and asked him, hey,
Speaker 1: who kept authorizing all of these wire taps that FBI
Speaker 1: guys said, well, Henry Kissinger in a lot of cases,
Speaker 1: this Kissinger, he's like our main guy calling us. So
Speaker 1: Woodward calls Henry Kissinger, who plays dumb at first and
Speaker 1: then tries to blame Holdeman for the wire tapping. Woodward asked, okay, well,
Speaker 1: is it possible you were the one doing wire tapping Henry,
Speaker 1: and Kissinger says, I don't believe it was true. Woodward asked, what. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's such a weasel answer. Yeah, he's four years old.
Speaker 1: Woodward asks, is that a denial and kissing Your response,
Speaker 1: I frankly don't remember. I mean, it's kind of like
Speaker 1: it's it is kind of like nice to see the
Speaker 1: genesis because the I don't remember things just utilized so
Speaker 1: much now it's like it's like one of the first
Speaker 1: like where you're just like, I think if I just
Speaker 1: say I forgot, I can go the way with this ship. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You can imagine a young Bill Clinton reading this news
Speaker 1: story and saying, I'm not sure why, but I think
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take notes on this. I'll remember ejaculating, but
Speaker 1: I don't remember how that come to me. It's also
Speaker 1: it shows you, like how insulated they were in their
Speaker 1: psychotic little dome that once they actually take their tactics
Speaker 1: out in the real world, people like, yeah, that's like
Speaker 1: crime and we have you. They're like, yeah, ship, the
Speaker 1: President's drunk. So Kissinger admitted after that line of question
Speaker 1: that he might have given the FBI the names of
Speaker 1: some people who had access to leaked documents and quote,
Speaker 1: it's quite possible they construed this as an authorization. So
Speaker 1: once he makes this admission to Woodward, Henry starts to
Speaker 1: get looser and he talks about how he figured he
Speaker 1: probably should take responsibility for the wire tapping, and then
Speaker 1: he realized almost immediately, oh shit, I fucked up, And
Speaker 1: he asks Bob Woodward, you aren't quoting me, right? Like,
Speaker 1: He's like, this isn't on the record. Is it that
Speaker 1: it works to? Right? You put it on the record,
Speaker 1: and then you're like Woodward says, of course this is
Speaker 1: on the record. Like what like? I like, I never
Speaker 1: said this was off the record. Kissinger insisted, well, I
Speaker 1: was only speaking on background. Quote. I've tried to be honest,
Speaker 1: and now you're going to penalize me. In five years
Speaker 1: in Washington, I've never been trapped into talking like this.
Speaker 1: If a journalist calls you and asks you questions, as
Speaker 1: the secretary of State, goff Right, you just wanted to chat, right,
Speaker 1: I thought, how are you times have you committed bub Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's fascinating. Yeah, it's so dumb, and it shows
Speaker 1: what fucking tame little pricks. The entirety of the White
Speaker 1: House press corps were right because thought he could get
Speaker 1: away with this, and he finally encountered like an actual
Speaker 1: journalist for the once right and just like thirty seconds
Speaker 1: with with Woodward and he's blown wide open and it
Speaker 1: doesn't not handle it. Yeah, he's just pissing his paints, crying.
Speaker 1: You know what it is? You have you've seen those
Speaker 1: videos of like those fucking um uh those tai Chi
Speaker 1: champions who are like in those videos fighting their students
Speaker 1: where they're just like flipping everyone around the room, throwing
Speaker 1: them and then like they fight an actual m M
Speaker 1: A fighter who just like takes them down in thirteen seconds. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like how Seal fights where Yeah it's yeah, it's
Speaker 1: Steven Seagal, say Putin's Judo, Yeah it is. This is
Speaker 1: this is the moment for Kissinger. That's like when when
Speaker 1: Steven Seagal got choked out by Gene LaBelle and chats passed, Alright,
Speaker 1: I'm the star. Come on, this could happen? Come on
Speaker 1: play fake next from kissinger biography quote. Woodward wondered what
Speaker 1: kind of treatment Kissinger was accustomed to getting from the press.
Speaker 1: He consulted Murray Martyr, the kindly soft edge diplomatic reporter
Speaker 1: who covered Kissinger for The Post. Well. Martyr admitted Henry
Speaker 1: was regularly allowed to put statements on background after he
Speaker 1: had made them. I mean it really it does. And
Speaker 1: and what's so frustrating is that it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: they they've all kind of learned from the mistakes of
Speaker 1: this time in ways where it is it's kind of
Speaker 1: the same ship. I mean, everything is kind of a
Speaker 1: fluff piece. You're allowed to be in the White House
Speaker 1: press color if you ask softball questions. You know, it's
Speaker 1: like this this was like a major funk up. And
Speaker 1: they all were like, well, the lesson we've learned here
Speaker 1: is don't let good reporters around you. Yeah, don't let
Speaker 1: journalists exist. Yeah, it's one of those. Um, there's so
Speaker 1: much going on here. It really is. This is like
Speaker 1: we are peaking. There are ways in which, like, there
Speaker 1: are times when journalism does work that way, right when
Speaker 1: I'm like sitting down and talking to like a fucking
Speaker 1: dissident or or a protest or someone who like might
Speaker 1: be targeted by the state or by you know, fucking
Speaker 1: fascist or whatever and murdered, and they like say something
Speaker 1: and then later like, oh, you know, can I take
Speaker 1: that off the record? I'm worried that's gonna like reveal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: of course, Like I'm not gonna like but like, it doesn't.
Speaker 1: It should never work that way for cabinet level fucking government,
Speaker 1: efficients right, they don't. They can't if you agree ahead
Speaker 1: of time to make something off the record. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: that happens. That's like a thing that occurs. Although I
Speaker 1: think that's problematic too, but like they don't get to
Speaker 1: just take something off the record retroactively. That's not how
Speaker 1: it works. Yeah, And I mean it's just about excess.
Speaker 1: So then about the actual story. They just want to
Speaker 1: talk to them again. Yeah, they want to keep getting access.
Speaker 1: It is. It's like it needs to be a a
Speaker 1: group of people need to say that this is all fun,
Speaker 1: but instead they're like, what a great Coppile party? And
Speaker 1: Woodword to his credit, there critiques to make about Woodward
Speaker 1: later in his career, but to his credit was like,
Speaker 1: I don't give a shit about access. I'm trying to
Speaker 1: take down a president like I could give a fuck,
Speaker 1: you know, like um so Nixon eventually took the fall
Speaker 1: as we've covered, but the issue was brought up again
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy three when Kissinger went through his confirmation
Speaker 1: hearings to become Secretary of State. We don't need to
Speaker 1: cover the politicking he did to secure that job, but
Speaker 1: I should note all the fallout over wire tapping in
Speaker 1: the disaster in Cambodia didn't do ship to reduce Henry's
Speaker 1: popularity at home. In nineteen seventy two, he had ranked
Speaker 1: fourth on the list of most admired Americans. In nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy three, he was number one, largely because Harry Truman died,
Speaker 1: which is also bleak. Yeah we are, I mean, and
Speaker 1: that's when you're like, we deserve it. I mean, if
Speaker 1: you are that incapable of deciphering reality from fiction to
Speaker 1: some extent, you want to be taken advantage of. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're the rube who opens the door to the vacuum
Speaker 1: cleaner salesman. Yeah, well, on my floor. I want to
Speaker 1: see how this thing sucks. You mean by Social Security number,
Speaker 1: of course, a new problems. I get five thousand dollars
Speaker 1: in the mail. Okay, So one congressman that proposed a
Speaker 1: constitutional amendment to allow foreign born citizens to run for
Speaker 1: president because of like how much he liked fucking Kissinger.
Speaker 1: I don't like Henry. Henry received a figure at Madame
Speaker 1: Tussaud's wax Museum in London, which quickly became the star attraction.
Speaker 1: Miss Universe pageant contestants voted him quote the greatest person
Speaker 1: in the world today. Is it possible that we just
Speaker 1: put a heart in the Madame Tussau's a year and
Speaker 1: melted it and that's what's walking around now, Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: but we just left it in the sun for a week,
Speaker 1: like you bring up the medium like this is just
Speaker 1: so like they just normalize monsters. They act like monsters
Speaker 1: are great people, and people don't actually hear the fucking
Speaker 1: hainoush ship that they're doing, and they just hear he's
Speaker 1: a smart guy. But because that's what he can like
Speaker 1: quote smart dead people that they you haven't read, but
Speaker 1: you know they're smart because their name sounds vaguely familiar.
Speaker 1: And so you're like, well, this guy's read all these
Speaker 1: smart dudes, he must be a good guy because smart
Speaker 1: people don't do bad thing. Well, it's smart people don't
Speaker 1: like go out with reporters, and you know you would
Speaker 1: just be like, look at Frankenstein at the Playboy mansion. Gosh,
Speaker 1: he's got those bolts on his neck and the girls
Speaker 1: love to twirl him. So it is perhaps not surprising,
Speaker 1: even though the Watergate scandal had built to a fever
Speaker 1: pitch by seventy three, that Henry Kissinger was a shoe
Speaker 1: in to be appointed as Secretary of State. On the
Speaker 1: day of his first Congressional confirmation hearings, someone in the
Speaker 1: press asked, do you prefer to be called Mr? Secretary
Speaker 1: or doctors secretary? He replied, I do not stand on protocol.
Speaker 1: If you just call me excellency, it will be okay,
Speaker 1: excuse me, pardon, And again, as a journalist, the proper
Speaker 1: response to that is to throw your handheld recorder at
Speaker 1: his face, like try to take a chair to his
Speaker 1: nose like they did break his face. I'm not tugue
Speaker 1: up on time. You can just bow and call me
Speaker 1: on majesty. So Kissinger was extremely nervous going into the
Speaker 1: confirmation hearings because again, Nixon is being torn apart for
Speaker 1: Watergate right now, and he was expecting that he'd be
Speaker 1: interrogated about all the shady wire tapping he'd done. But
Speaker 1: As it turned out, all he had to do was
Speaker 1: lie and say he'd never recommended wire tapping. Everyone decided
Speaker 1: that was fine, and he was confirmed by Secretary of
Speaker 1: States seventy eight votes to seventy seven. Fucking And here's
Speaker 1: the thing. Even among the people who voted against him,
Speaker 1: there was not always strong antipathy. George McGovern voted against
Speaker 1: confirming him, but he called Kissinger afterwards to privately endorse him,
Speaker 1: to be like, hey, publicly, I got to pretend I
Speaker 1: don't like you, but like we're cool, right, bro, I
Speaker 1: don't worry. Someday I'll be the president and I got
Speaker 1: my eye you Henry. Yeah, I mean, honestly, that might
Speaker 1: have happened. Yeah, probably so. When he was sworn in
Speaker 1: on September twenty one, nineteen seventy three, a family friend
Speaker 1: presented Kissinger with a copy of the Old Testament that
Speaker 1: would be been published in first in eighteen oh one
Speaker 1: for him to be sworn in on. Kissinger decided instead
Speaker 1: to use Nixon's copy of the King James Bible, which
Speaker 1: I just opened it. It's a bottle of bourbon. Sorry,
Speaker 1: it's actually the bottle of lets that first one. So
Speaker 1: I'll last for Dick Nixon. Seventy four was an even
Speaker 1: worse year for him than seventy three had been. In
Speaker 1: July of that year, three Southern Democrats on the House
Speaker 1: Judiciary Committee announced that they were voting to impeach him.
Speaker 1: On August five, a transcript of taped conversations between him
Speaker 1: and Haldeman was released, which proved his involvement in the
Speaker 1: cover up of the Watergate break and and proved he'd
Speaker 1: lied under oath. This was the nail in the coffin.
Speaker 1: On August seven, Very Goldwater told Nixon he would not
Speaker 1: survive an impeachment vote. Nixon had already made the decision
Speaker 1: to leave. He met with Jerry Ford, his vice president,
Speaker 1: and told him that he was about to be president.
Speaker 1: He urged forward to keep Kissinger on as his secretary
Speaker 1: of State. Then Nixon made his big announcement to the
Speaker 1: American people next from history dot com. After the speech,
Speaker 1: Kissinger accompanied Nixon to his living quarters. One last time,
Speaker 1: history is going to a record that you were a
Speaker 1: great president, Kissinger assured Nixon. Henry the President said that
Speaker 1: will depend on who writes the history. Can you imagine
Speaker 1: a wasted Nixon showed Gerald Ford around like thought put
Speaker 1: that in your way. Days in the morn this is
Speaker 1: pineapple cottage cheese every day. Now here's a Jack Nixon's secret.
Speaker 1: If you pour a little diet coke in the bourbon,
Speaker 1: they can't tell you're getting drunk. At nine in the morning,
Speaker 1: when do you confuse? Just nod what you're throwing up
Speaker 1: in the toilet and say something disagreed with you, and
Speaker 1: it's diarrhea. The Secret Service agents have to let you
Speaker 1: puke down their sleeves. That's what I've been doing. This
Speaker 1: is the vacky room, and this is the vodka room.
Speaker 1: And this is the vacky room. This drawer here's for
Speaker 1: letters and things like stamps like that. And this is
Speaker 1: the drawer you can puke in. But just bend over
Speaker 1: and pretend you're looking for something. I'm gonna be honest.
Speaker 1: I've been shifting in the fireplace a lot. It's hard
Speaker 1: to find the bathroom when you're turned in the oval. Look. Look,
Speaker 1: if you're worried, just lift this cushion up. This chair
Speaker 1: is actually a toilet with wheels. Sits behind the desk.
Speaker 1: Trying to think what else? These are laws? You can
Speaker 1: wipe your ass with them. By the way, this is
Speaker 1: all being recorded. Everything is this chest hare is actually
Speaker 1: a tape recorder. Kissinger's sorrow over his boss stepping down
Speaker 1: was stopped somewhat by the fact that right around the
Speaker 1: same time, he'd succeeded in overthrowing an actual democratically elected leader,
Speaker 1: doctor salvador I End. Now, yeah, we have We're not
Speaker 1: going to talk about this in a lot of detail
Speaker 1: because we have gone into detail on the coup against
Speaker 1: Ende in both our episodes on the Dullest Brothers into
Speaker 1: the School of the America's. It's just like, not this
Speaker 1: is the thing to like cut out of our Kissinger
Speaker 1: story because we've covered it a lot before. But I
Speaker 1: will give an overview of Kissinger's involvement for the listeners
Speaker 1: who maybe aren't familiar. Robert, Yeah, I know we are
Speaker 1: all on the same page, but you're Derris or whatever.
Speaker 1: Salvadora End was a socialist e dude who was elected
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy Like all kind of socialists the US overthrows,
Speaker 1: he was not nearly as radical as they pretended he was,
Speaker 1: but he was solidly left wing. The US back to
Speaker 1: military coup that overthrew him in nineteen seventy three, I
Speaker 1: end committed suicide and was replaced by General Augusto Pinochet,
Speaker 1: who tortured and murdered tens of thousands of people over
Speaker 1: the next seventeen years. So I'm gonna be brief here
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna read a summary of Kissinger's role in
Speaker 1: that kerfuffle from the Transnational Institute. Less than a week
Speaker 1: after Nixon received the disappointing news about the presidential vote,
Speaker 1: he decided to annul the Chilean vote. A quote widely
Speaker 1: attributed to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger explained to Nixon's morality,
Speaker 1: I don't see why we need to stand by and
Speaker 1: watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of
Speaker 1: its people. The issues are much too important for the
Speaker 1: Chilean vote voters to be left it aside for themselves.
Speaker 1: I mean, like you are you need to be like
Speaker 1: so far gone to be comfortable speaking in that way. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you you that's ghoulishly evil. I mean it's just like
Speaker 1: you could come up with a version of that that
Speaker 1: would also probably sound effective, but basically be like, look,
Speaker 1: the people have fucked up voting, They've they've wrongly voted.
Speaker 1: BOOPSI poopsie. Well, we'll do it for him. We'll figure
Speaker 1: out I mean, we'll take care of this in United
Speaker 1: States policy pretty much, you know, yeah, all the time,
Speaker 1: in perpetuity. Yeah. And it's it's it's good. Um. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and after the bloody coup that that Kissinger and
Speaker 1: Nixon endorsed, Kissinger pushed to recognize Pinochet's coup government and
Speaker 1: offered economic aid. Uh. He pressured international lending organizations to
Speaker 1: lend money to the new Chilean government. Yeah, he sucks.
Speaker 1: This is a bad thing that he did. Um. You
Speaker 1: can hear a lot more about it. And honestly, Kissingers
Speaker 1: was involved, but like the Dulles Brothers were a much
Speaker 1: bigger part of this specific things. So check that out
Speaker 1: in our Dulles Brothers episode. All this would Raquel welch
Speaker 1: on his arm. Yeah, Jill st John, I love the
Speaker 1: way you. Actually the woman he does marry, Nancy McGinnis,
Speaker 1: who is also a fairly prominent person, is a huge
Speaker 1: fan of the overthrowing of the Chilean government. Um, and
Speaker 1: his wife is like more hardcore right wing than he is.
Speaker 1: Come to bed. Tell me about how you ignore the
Speaker 1: will of the Chilean voters. Yeah. So I don't know
Speaker 1: much about the working relationship Henry had with Jerry Ford honestly,
Speaker 1: Like they didn't spend a lot of time together. We're
Speaker 1: not going to delve super deep into it. Um, there
Speaker 1: were like too much to talk about. Still, Um, there
Speaker 1: is one thing I want to note about his relationship
Speaker 1: with with kissing with Nixon, Like, for the first several
Speaker 1: years that he's working with Nixon, he's desperate to go
Speaker 1: to Camp David anytime the President invites him, He's excited
Speaker 1: to go. But then when the Watergate thing is going
Speaker 1: on and Nixon feels isolated and alone, Kissinger spends like
Speaker 1: the whole Watergate hearing time, jetting around the Middle East
Speaker 1: and stuff doing diplomacy. Nixon begs him like do you
Speaker 1: want to come hang out at Camp Dated with me?
Speaker 1: And Henry's like, oh, buddy, I'd love to, but you know,
Speaker 1: I just got so much work. I'm swamped over here
Speaker 1: with stuff. Was like such a It's amazing that there's
Speaker 1: a moment at this where you're like, oh, man, Dick,
Speaker 1: he did you dirty? That's not yeah A friend to
Speaker 1: him a little bit of sympathy for do you want
Speaker 1: to come to summer camp David with me. I can't
Speaker 1: I could really use a friend. I broke my arm.
Speaker 1: I can't get any merit badges or anything. This someone
Speaker 1: my mom said. So oh man, it's amazing. Um. So yeah,
Speaker 1: there's so much to talk about. I will tell you.
Speaker 1: I will note that one of the first things that
Speaker 1: Henry did a Secretary of State for President Ford was
Speaker 1: to deliberately enable another genocide, which put him just one
Speaker 1: genocide away from earning a free coffee at the Pentagon Starbucks.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, he's close. He's close. He's close. We're
Speaker 1: gonna talk about that. But you know what we got
Speaker 1: to talk about right now. Products and services that support
Speaker 1: this podcast, including Starbucks, commit five genocides, and Starbucks will
Speaker 1: fund to six that it reduces the price of coffee. Bee,
Speaker 1: make sure it's eventy. We're back. So. In nineteen sixty nine,
Speaker 1: the US conspired with the Indonesian dictator Suharto to encourage
Speaker 1: the illegal annexation of West Papa through what was called
Speaker 1: the Act of Free Choice. This was a shameless propaganda
Speaker 1: exercise which allowed the United States to pretend democracy. Ray, Ray,
Speaker 1: you get the idea. Behind the scenes support by the
Speaker 1: US at the UN allowed Suharto to solidify his control
Speaker 1: on West Papua. This led to four decades of genocidal
Speaker 1: policies which have killed huge numbers of the Papuin population.
Speaker 1: Six years later, Suharto had another fun idea. East Timore
Speaker 1: was nearby and near the end of a twenty seven
Speaker 1: year long process of being decolonized by Portugal. Having just
Speaker 1: been ruled pretty brutally in the name of capital, you
Speaker 1: will be surprised to hear that the East Timorese people
Speaker 1: were somewhat sympathetic towards socialism. The leftist Friedland freight fright
Speaker 1: Fredlin Party began to gain ground as freedom grew near.
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy five, it had a brief civil war
Speaker 1: with the much smaller right wing wing Pro Indonesian Party.
Speaker 1: This freaked out Portugal, who pulled their last people out
Speaker 1: of the country during the fighting. Seeing the territory abandoned,
Speaker 1: General Suharto felt he had an opportunity. He and others
Speaker 1: in the Indonesian military began to complain to the Americans
Speaker 1: that East Timore might be used as a base for
Speaker 1: dastardly communists to inspire secessionist movements in Indonesia over in here,
Speaker 1: it's just like, you know, East Timore seems like it's
Speaker 1: gonna be really bad. We're gotta tell them, we gotta
Speaker 1: get rid of them. And don't like the side of
Speaker 1: this over in East Timore, Freightlin the Socialist Departy recognized
Speaker 1: the fact that they were in danger. They had their
Speaker 1: oh we're in danger moment, and they declared their independence
Speaker 1: on November nineteen seventy five so they could ask for
Speaker 1: help from the United Nations. Everyone ignored them. Japan, a
Speaker 1: major investor in Indonesia, twiddled her thumbs. Australia looked away.
Speaker 1: This left the United States is the only power that
Speaker 1: could potentially stop Indonesia from invading. More do we do it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we did it. Everything's good now they're doing great. They're
Speaker 1: flying cars. How many times do we have to be
Speaker 1: the heroes? Yeah? Another job well done for the United States.
Speaker 1: On December six, five, on the eve of the planned invasion,
Speaker 1: Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger flew to Jakarta to meet
Speaker 1: with Suharto. The very next day, Indonesian land, air, and
Speaker 1: naval forces invaded. The timing is predominant, predominant enough that
Speaker 1: people have debated ever since, whether or not Kissinger and
Speaker 1: Ford gave Suharto the green light here too, from a
Speaker 1: right up in the nation. Kissinger, who does not find
Speaker 1: room to mention East two more, even in the index
Speaker 1: of his three volume memoir, has more than once stated
Speaker 1: that the invasion came to him as a surprise and
Speaker 1: that he barely knew of the existence of the Timorese question.
Speaker 1: He was obviously lying, but the breathtaking extent of his
Speaker 1: mendasca that he has only just become fully apparent with
Speaker 1: the declassification of a secret State Department telegram. The document,
Speaker 1: which has been made public by the National Security Archive
Speaker 1: at George Washington University, contains a verbatim record of the
Speaker 1: conversation among sue Hardo, Ford and Kissinger. We want your
Speaker 1: understanding if we deem it necessary to take rapid or
Speaker 1: drastic action, Suharto open bluntly, We will understand and will
Speaker 1: not press you on the issue. Ford responded, we understand
Speaker 1: the problem you have in the intentions you have. Kissinger
Speaker 1: was even more emphatic, but had an awareness of the
Speaker 1: possible spin problems back home. It is important that whatever
Speaker 1: you do succeeds quickly. He instructed the despot, we would
Speaker 1: be able to influence the reaction if whatever happens happens
Speaker 1: after we return. If you have made plans, we will
Speaker 1: do our best to keep everyone quiet until the president
Speaker 1: returns home, micromanaging things for sue Harto. He added, the
Speaker 1: president will be back on Monday at two p m.
Speaker 1: Jacarta time. We understand your problem and the need to
Speaker 1: move quickly, but I am only saying it would be
Speaker 1: better if it we're done after we returned. Worst case scenario,
Speaker 1: I'll just say I never said this, and nobody that
Speaker 1: I mean to be scheduling it like a like a
Speaker 1: golf day. Can you cracked out on the independence and
Speaker 1: freedom of these people and engage in a genocidal war
Speaker 1: like once we're back, just one five or like four
Speaker 1: on Monday with the great Tursday Thursday, would really like
Speaker 1: that's a lot of time. Yeah, I thought it was
Speaker 1: a workout right. Yeah, there's a lot of US factory
Speaker 1: and fucking Indonesia. I'm sorry, I'm not going to hear this, gentleman.
Speaker 1: That's enough of that talk. Please, the greatest country on Earth,
Speaker 1: you do have that giant Indonesia in the United States
Speaker 1: shaking hands over a burning East him or tattoo over
Speaker 1: your heart. Well, I would hate for that that speculation,
Speaker 1: and uh, please cut that out, so if you can,
Speaker 1: we make a note that that should not be included
Speaker 1: in the episode. It seems a little incriminating. So Suharto's
Speaker 1: troops when they invaded East two more, which they did,
Speaker 1: were equipped with the finest u S made weaponry. Under
Speaker 1: the four and Assistance Act, such material could only be
Speaker 1: provided to nations who would use it exclusively for self defense.
Speaker 1: When this was brought up to sue Haarto, and when
Speaker 1: this was brought up to Kissinger and he was asked
Speaker 1: whether or not selling arms to sue Harto had violated
Speaker 1: the Act, Kissinger responded, it depends on how we construe it,
Speaker 1: whether it is in self defense or it is a
Speaker 1: foreign operation. Back in d C on December eighteenth and
Speaker 1: a meeting his minutes are now to classified, Kissinger admitted
Speaker 1: that he knew that he that he and you know
Speaker 1: the United States were violating the statute from the nation.
Speaker 1: And even more sinister note was struck later in the
Speaker 1: conversation when Kissinger asked sue Harto if he expected along
Speaker 1: guerrilla war, the dictator replied that there will probably be
Speaker 1: a small guerrilla war, while making no promise about its duration.
Speaker 1: Bear in mind that Kissinger has already urged speech and
Speaker 1: dispatch urged speed and dispatch upon Suharto Adam Malick, Indonesia's
Speaker 1: Prime minister at the time, later conceded in public that
Speaker 1: between fifty thousand and eighty thousand temporary civilians were killed
Speaker 1: in the first eighteen months of the occupation. These civilians
Speaker 1: were killed with American weapons, which Kissinger can tried to
Speaker 1: supply over congressional protests, and their murders were covered up
Speaker 1: by American diplomacy. So I mean again again, it really
Speaker 1: it really is like it's it's like a like a
Speaker 1: serial killer who just gets very comfortable with killing, gets
Speaker 1: kind of cocky about it, starts leaving clues. But in
Speaker 1: this case, there's no cops chasing anyone. There's no he
Speaker 1: was really trying to solve the case. It's like if
Speaker 1: the UNI bomber left his name on every package. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then he was like a return address, yeah. Ted
Speaker 1: Kazinski Shack nine. Roughly three hundred thousand East Timor's civilians,
Speaker 1: roughly half the population, were forced out of their homes
Speaker 1: and into camps during the fighting. By nineteen eighty the
Speaker 1: death toll was at least a hundred thousand, and possibly
Speaker 1: as high as two d. Thomas Meany, writing in The
Speaker 1: New Yorker, has tried to make sense of this. All
Speaker 1: kissingers sign off on the Indonesian president to Harte's genocidal
Speaker 1: campaign and East two more was meant to signal that
Speaker 1: America would unquestionably reward those who had decimated communists within
Speaker 1: their reach. In retrospect, the notion that everything America did
Speaker 1: would be duly registered and responded to by its opponents
Speaker 1: and friends seems like an expression of geopolitical narcissism. At
Speaker 1: the time, the thirty three year old Senator Joe Biden
Speaker 1: accused Kissinger at a Senate hearing of trying to promuligate
Speaker 1: a global Monroe doctrine. The Kissinger is that guy to
Speaker 1: where repeatedly terrible people will be like, well, you're in
Speaker 1: the right here, but only because you're talking about Henry Kissinger.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, I mean yeah, He's like yeah. It's like,
Speaker 1: in the next episode, we're gonna have a moment where
Speaker 1: the CIA is a voice of reason to give you
Speaker 1: an idea of where and how many people have to
Speaker 1: be the voice of reason. I mean, it just is
Speaker 1: like he's like cocky. I mean, it's just just no
Speaker 1: ships given at this point to have no I mean
Speaker 1: it's not like he's had a soul throughout all of this.
Speaker 1: But you think that once you have a soul for
Speaker 1: such a long period of time, you would start to
Speaker 1: notice the absence of a soul and at least start
Speaker 1: to act like you had a soul. Well, good news, Gareth,
Speaker 1: nothing like that ever happens. Fucking great. Yeah, we're we're
Speaker 1: gonna have fun and episode six, um, but you know,
Speaker 1: now it's time to just chill out, you know, have
Speaker 1: a drink of just a nice sip of the blood
Speaker 1: of I don't know, East Timorese dissonance. Um, and uh
Speaker 1: go watch the Paraos documentary Henry Kissing You get cooked.
Speaker 1: But I mean, yeah, you only only like I forget
Speaker 1: who said it, but that's true. That's our hero. She's
Speaker 1: our hero Zanko who was like, hey, yeah you can,
Speaker 1: we can do this with your blood at Walgreens because
Speaker 1: she got Henry kissing her involved. And I mean, just
Speaker 1: he's he's not It's not like he's not a genius
Speaker 1: there's just not a lot of genius it takes to
Speaker 1: just be awful and indiscriminate. Yeah, he's just like the
Speaker 1: best of all time. And here's the thing. Episode six,
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about his political downfall because he does
Speaker 1: get his come uppance, but it's from people who suck,
Speaker 1: maybe even worse at least as bad as he does,
Speaker 1: and so there's no satisfaction in it, like and he's
Speaker 1: also it's also it's like Hitler had gotten assassinated by
Speaker 1: Hitler too, who had been like expanded. And it's also
Speaker 1: by people who are like they're there because of him,
Speaker 1: like they like he had to walk so they could run. Yes, exactly, Yes,
Speaker 1: there's someone needs to paint a picture of like Henry
Speaker 1: Kissinger kind of on the bow of the Titanic holding
Speaker 1: up Dick Cheney with his arms. All that fails. Nice,
Speaker 1: that feels real, Nice, Henry, So you love your form,
Speaker 1: Let me paint you kissing your walked so that Donald
Speaker 1: Rubbs felt could stagger ya. But that's gonna be part six. Still,
Speaker 1: then Dave, what Gareth you got plug? I want to
Speaker 1: drink like Nixon? We uh again, look at what capitalism gets. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we we will be invading the stories of Australia searching
Speaker 1: for their w m d s, which we believe our north, South,
Speaker 1: East and West. Um. You can go to Dollar podcast
Speaker 1: dot com and uh, I'll be also doing stand up
Speaker 1: over there, and you can go to Gareth Reynolds dot
Speaker 1: com for those stand up dates. And we're also touring
Speaker 1: America this summer. Sorry, we're touring the best country on
Speaker 1: Earth this summer, and you can go to Dollar podcast
Speaker 1: dot com for all that information. Now I should note
Speaker 1: here y'all that that you guys have an ongoing, uh
Speaker 1: an ongoing argument over over whether or not Gare is
Speaker 1: an appropriate nickname for you. Gareth and I felt like
Speaker 1: maybe we could bring in a negotiator to help us,
Speaker 1: to help us deal with this question. So I'd like
Speaker 1: to introduce to the Paul Dr Henry Kissing. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry I said all those horrible things. I think
Speaker 1: good idea. Look like a little bit. He's got his
Speaker 1: nice shorts on, he's got those nut huggers. You can
Speaker 1: see the outline, you can see the whole bread basket.
Speaker 1: Looks like a baby bird in the nest now, but
Speaker 1: it comes a python when the water starts once the
Speaker 1: bumbs hit the soil. I ripped these babies. I really
Speaker 1: hope people stopped listening so desperately stopped. I stopped listening,
Speaker 1: and I'm talking alright, everybody, alright, let's see you on Thursday. Hi, everybody.
Speaker 1: Robert Evans here and my novel After the Revolution is
Speaker 1: available for pre order now from a k press dot org. Now,
Speaker 1: if you go to a k press dot org you
Speaker 1: can find After the Revolution. Just google a k press
Speaker 1: dot org after the Revolution you'll find a list of
Speaker 1: participating indie bookstores selling my book. And if you pre
Speaker 1: order now from either these independent bookstores or from a
Speaker 1: k Press, you'll get a custom signed copy of the book,
Speaker 1: which I think is pretty cool. You can also pre
Speaker 1: order it in physical or in kindle a form from
Speaker 1: Amazon or pretty much wherever books are sold. So please
Speaker 1: google a k press after the Revolution um or find
Speaker 1: an indie bookstore in your area and pre order it.
Speaker 1: You'll get assigned a copy and you'll make me very happy.