WEBVTT - Part One: How The Dulles Brothers Created The CIA And Destroyed Everything Else 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:07.680 M hm cool. I'm Robert Evans hosted Behind the Bastards, 0:00:07.760 --> 0:00:11.079 the podcast that generally starts with me shouting something a 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:14.560 tonally that's either related or not related to the subject 0:00:14.640 --> 0:00:17.520 of the episode. Today it is uh, this is Behind 0:00:17.520 --> 0:00:22.960 the Bastards podcasts bad people talk about him never introduced 0:00:22.960 --> 0:00:28.240 well my guests as in like government or cuse as 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:32.240 an NBA player, Kyle kuse Ma, I have never heard 0:00:32.240 --> 0:00:34.880 of the NBA. So no, I was talking about the coups. 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:37.280 I was talking about the coups, and here to talk 0:00:37.320 --> 0:00:40.160 with me about a lot of coups this this week. 0:00:40.760 --> 0:00:45.920 Uh is my old boss uh. And editor for I 0:00:45.960 --> 0:00:49.919 don't know, like a decade Jason Pargeon. It was almost 0:00:50.080 --> 0:00:54.080 thirteen years the executive editor at Cracked. So does your 0:00:54.120 --> 0:00:56.959 time at Cracked? Does it seem like a thousand years ago? 0:00:57.040 --> 0:00:59.760 Or does it seem like yesterday? It's weird. Yeah, it 0:00:59.840 --> 0:01:03.800 does seem like an impossibly different lifetime. Um, and also 0:01:04.080 --> 0:01:08.199 is foundational to everything about who I am now, um, 0:01:08.240 --> 0:01:10.480 which is a weird way for it to feel. Because 0:01:10.480 --> 0:01:13.160 when you showed up there, you were a little child, right, 0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:17.319 I thought you were like sixteen when you first showed 0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:18.960 up on the message board. So I could be wrong 0:01:19.000 --> 0:01:20.760 about that. Oh no, I was, but that was before 0:01:20.760 --> 0:01:22.679 it was Cracked. That was back when it was your 0:01:22.720 --> 0:01:25.080 weird little website, pointless waste of time. I'm trying to 0:01:25.080 --> 0:01:27.880 make it clear to the listeners what what exactly we 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:30.480 were referencing here, because it's not it's not something we 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:34.039 briefly met at a job a while ago. It's his 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:37.080 formative years were kind of spent in an operation that 0:01:37.160 --> 0:01:39.360 I that I ran. So a lot of the things 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:42.600 that are wrong with Robert Evans today you can blame 0:01:42.640 --> 0:01:49.080 me for in federal court in the upcoming series of trials. Actually, Jason, 0:01:49.280 --> 0:01:52.200 uh that my entire legal defense is structured around that. 0:01:52.600 --> 0:01:55.280 This is really great to know. Thank you so much, Jason. 0:01:56.520 --> 0:01:58.880 But no, like you did, actually like you were my 0:01:59.160 --> 0:02:02.080 you edited most you It was you were Brockway that 0:02:02.200 --> 0:02:04.800 edited most of the writing I put out for the 0:02:04.960 --> 0:02:10.480 entire start of my career pretty much. Um, so thank you. Yeah. 0:02:10.520 --> 0:02:14.600 And then Robert was the person who brought original journalism 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:16.639 to Cracked, because prior to that it was a lot 0:02:16.680 --> 0:02:19.400 of like lists and things that were just rerivancy, know 0:02:19.440 --> 0:02:21.960 the sources, and he brought the concept of actually interviewing 0:02:21.960 --> 0:02:25.040 people and creating new content. And while I worked at 0:02:25.080 --> 0:02:28.240 crancked uh, like basically every other night I would have 0:02:28.280 --> 0:02:30.840 a stress dream about cracked, like I had blown to 0:02:30.960 --> 0:02:34.880 deadline or had screwed something up, and one height towards 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:38.519 the end, I had a dream in which Robert went 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:42.000 to some country where there was a revolution going on 0:02:42.320 --> 0:02:44.799 in eastern Europe and I had to go with him 0:02:44.840 --> 0:02:47.760 as his editor, which in real life, he's laughing because 0:02:47.760 --> 0:02:50.200 that's not a thing that occurred. I worked from my 0:02:50.280 --> 0:02:53.960 bedroom editing coop jokes into articles, but in this dream, 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:56.880 for some reason, they sent me along with you to 0:02:57.000 --> 0:03:00.600 cover this violent uprising in I don't know, the Ukraine somewhere. 0:03:01.040 --> 0:03:03.640 And when we arrived in the dream, this was it 0:03:03.680 --> 0:03:06.880 was stressful because it became clear once we arrived that 0:03:07.000 --> 0:03:09.480 you were not there to cover the revolution, that you, 0:03:09.600 --> 0:03:14.880 in fact were part of it a flat jacket. And 0:03:15.000 --> 0:03:17.480 I was like trying to email back to the home office, 0:03:17.520 --> 0:03:21.120 like do you know Evans is like part of this militia? 0:03:21.600 --> 0:03:24.280 Like ethically can we like I can't. I don't know 0:03:24.320 --> 0:03:26.239 how to edit this because he's like I think he's 0:03:26.280 --> 0:03:29.880 now like leading part of it and so woke up 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:32.720 like extremely upset. And those are the type of dreams 0:03:32.720 --> 0:03:34.639 I had. Right in my dreams, I was a much 0:03:34.720 --> 0:03:37.680 more important figure in journalism than I was in in 0:03:37.760 --> 0:03:39.880 real life, Whereas in real life I was just constantly 0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:42.760 having to like check the Wikipedia page for Transformers to 0:03:42.800 --> 0:03:46.360 make sure that I had the name of Star Scream 0:03:46.440 --> 0:03:53.040 spelled correctly. Jason, I mean, that's both a fun dream 0:03:53.080 --> 0:03:55.640 and a pretty good idea for a Netflix original series. 0:03:56.520 --> 0:03:59.400 You you you could make some solid, some solid money 0:03:59.400 --> 0:04:03.080 off of a him. Just say, well, Jason, how do 0:04:03.080 --> 0:04:05.920 you feel about the c I A. I have mixed 0:04:06.000 --> 0:04:08.760 feelings because on one hand, I know they keep us safe. 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:13.680 Yes it's John Krazinski says, yeah, as as I've seen. 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:16.080 I've read a lot of Tom Clancy books. I mean, 0:04:16.120 --> 0:04:19.040 there are heart their patriots, but sometimes they have to 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:23.680 make tough decisions like which government's get to have democracies 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:27.920 and which don't. Well, do you do you know anything 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:31.800 about the guys who are kind of most formational behind 0:04:32.080 --> 0:04:34.360 making the see I into what it is, the Dullus brothers. 0:04:34.360 --> 0:04:37.360 Have you heard much about these guys? I have, and 0:04:37.400 --> 0:04:41.159 that my first exposure to the name Dullus was when 0:04:41.160 --> 0:04:45.400 watching the movie die Hard to actually that was the 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:48.240 name of the airport that the terrorists were taking over. 0:04:48.839 --> 0:04:51.040 And I think it was less than a year later 0:04:51.279 --> 0:04:55.800 I was watching the Oliver Stone JFK conspiracy movie and 0:04:55.880 --> 0:04:59.279 he mentioned Dullus as being one of the conspirators he 0:04:59.360 --> 0:05:02.680 thought and the assassination. I like pointed at the screen 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:06.279 and said, ah, Dullest, that's the guy who owns the 0:05:06.400 --> 0:05:11.080 airport and die Hard and and then it turns out 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:13.520 it's actually, no, it's not the same. It was named 0:05:13.520 --> 0:05:16.040 after there's more than one dollar so to let the 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:19.280 to establish my knowledge, I knew one fact about the 0:05:19.360 --> 0:05:22.039 Dullus is and it turned out it was wrong. You know, 0:05:22.160 --> 0:05:25.040 my my my only memory of die Hard two is 0:05:25.120 --> 0:05:29.040 that guy, that actor who was also a Republican congressman, right, 0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:33.559 who played the head of the airport for president, didn't 0:05:33.600 --> 0:05:35.520 he did run for but it wasn't he also elected 0:05:35.720 --> 0:05:39.680 at some point? Did he actually serve in the Senator something? 0:05:39.960 --> 0:05:42.800 Surely not? My dad loves him. Um, I don't know 0:05:43.040 --> 0:05:45.160 he was. He was fineing die Hard, but I remember 0:05:45.240 --> 0:05:47.960 him saying Dullest Tower about a million times. And yes, 0:05:48.040 --> 0:05:51.120 that was my first interaction with these guys interactions the 0:05:51.160 --> 0:05:53.080 wrong way to put it, But no, they're They're a 0:05:53.080 --> 0:05:56.000 fascinating set of characters and we're going to talk about 0:05:56.080 --> 0:05:58.440 them for way too much time today. So I hope 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:01.400 you're happy, Jason. I hope you're happy, because now I 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:05.680 have to read words about the Dullest Brothers and that 0:06:05.720 --> 0:06:10.880 will that will be him compressing it as much as possible, 0:06:10.920 --> 0:06:13.360 because one of these guys ran the CIA, the other 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:16.159 Secretary of Stay at the same time, and they we're 0:06:16.200 --> 0:06:19.839 leaving out so much. Two of the most important people 0:06:19.960 --> 0:06:22.680 in the history of the modern world in terms of 0:06:22.720 --> 0:06:26.039 how they shape the world it is. These guys names 0:06:26.040 --> 0:06:28.840 come up in every conspiracy theory, but you don't need 0:06:29.040 --> 0:06:33.600 any of that. The actual things they did run so wide, 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:38.440 and so the the actual conspiracies they were like inarguably 0:06:38.480 --> 0:06:44.080 a part of you don't. So yeah, the sooner we 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:47.520 get started, the better, because we are. If this will 0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:49.920 not leave you with a full education on the Dullest 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:52.200 better how long we go. We could do a Joe 0:06:52.279 --> 0:06:57.280 Rogan length episodes and it would we could set aside 0:06:57.320 --> 0:06:59.960 the next six months and and and get a decent 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:03.520 grounding on these guys. But we have an afternoon. So 0:07:04.040 --> 0:07:09.159 let's do the really irresponsibly brisk version of this. UM. 0:07:09.160 --> 0:07:11.960 So it may be hard to believe for people listening today, 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:14.760 but for a long time, our country did not have 0:07:14.840 --> 0:07:18.600 any kind of state intelligence apparatus. UM. Obviously, like the 0:07:18.640 --> 0:07:20.560 CIA and the FBI, don't go back forever. I think 0:07:20.600 --> 0:07:23.520 most people assume that. But the very idea that our 0:07:23.520 --> 0:07:26.520 country would need a group of people to handle international 0:07:26.680 --> 0:07:29.840 espionage doesn't go back very far. For most of our 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:33.520 nation's history, that sort of international intelligence was gathered by 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:37.880 a weird assortment of public figures, charming diplomats and like celebrities, 0:07:38.040 --> 0:07:40.560 guys like Ben Franklin. Like Ben Franklin in his day 0:07:40.640 --> 0:07:43.840 kind of did what we now have intelligence agencies for. 0:07:43.960 --> 0:07:46.800 You would have these guys who were like celebrities and 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:49.680 kind of intelligence gathers who would travel around the world 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:53.200 and hobnob with rich and powerful people in other countries 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:55.880 and then bring back information to the government about ship 0:07:55.920 --> 0:07:58.280 that was happening in France or whatever. Like. That was 0:07:58.400 --> 0:08:02.640 intelligence in the seventeen and eight teen hundreds, you know, UM. Now, 0:08:02.760 --> 0:08:05.600 the most famous example of intelligence during this period was 0:08:05.640 --> 0:08:07.160 probably what come to be came to be known as 0:08:07.200 --> 0:08:10.040 the Great Game, which is a political and diplomatic ship 0:08:10.120 --> 0:08:13.720 fight between the Russian and British empires over Afghanistan that 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:16.120 lasted most of the eighteen hundreds. This is like a 0:08:16.160 --> 0:08:20.320 century of screwing around in Afghanistan between both countries. Um, 0:08:20.360 --> 0:08:22.800 the Great Game was You know, soldiers played their role 0:08:22.840 --> 0:08:25.240 in it, right. There were actual battles and invasions, but 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:27.520 the most decisive moves in it were the result of 0:08:27.520 --> 0:08:30.840 this kind of coterie of really shady characters, noblemen and 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:34.800 diplomats and adventurers who would forge backroom alliances and put 0:08:34.880 --> 0:08:38.000 kings on thrones and instigate wars Like there. There's a 0:08:38.000 --> 0:08:40.640 bunch of wild history with the Great Game. Um, but 0:08:40.720 --> 0:08:42.760 that was like c I a ship back before there 0:08:42.800 --> 0:08:46.199 was a CIA. Now, for most of modern history, that 0:08:46.280 --> 0:08:48.360 sort of stuff was the purview of European powers. The 0:08:48.440 --> 0:08:51.280 US didn't do a lot of that stuff. In Washington, 0:08:51.400 --> 0:08:53.520 d c. Through most of the eighteen hundreds, very few 0:08:53.559 --> 0:08:56.680 elected leaders felt there was value in collecting intelligence about 0:08:56.679 --> 0:08:59.080 foreign countries at all. Part of this came from a 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:02.600 belief that the United States was best ice off isolating herself, 0:09:02.880 --> 0:09:06.000 and that gathering information about other countries was useless, and 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:08.800 part of it came from an idea elucidated by Secretary 0:09:08.800 --> 0:09:12.439 of War Henry Stimpson that quote, gentlemen do not read 0:09:12.520 --> 0:09:16.120 each other's male Basically, it's it's rude. It's kind of 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:19.040 ghosh to have spies, because that's not the way we 0:09:19.120 --> 0:09:22.079 want to do things in our nice, civilized country. Now, 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:24.520 one of the first American officials to make a concerted 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:28.400 push for organized intelligence gathering was Secretary of State John 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:32.880 Watson Foster. Now, John Foster's greatest claim to fame was 0:09:32.920 --> 0:09:35.760 the fact that in eighteen ninety three he directed the 0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:39.920 overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy. President Harrison had encouraged white 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:44.000 settlers in the islands to rebel against the Queen Liliu Kalani, 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:47.000 and when they did, Secretary of State Foster approved the 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:49.959 landing of US troops in Honolulu to aid the settlers, 0:09:50.080 --> 0:09:52.920 who declared themselves a government and were then recognized by 0:09:52.920 --> 0:09:55.199 the United States. A whole bunch of horrible stuff was 0:09:55.240 --> 0:09:56.640 done to the Hawaiians that we don't have a lot 0:09:56.640 --> 0:09:58.800 of time to cover today. We will at some point 0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:01.280 in the future. It's it's a real fucked up tail. 0:10:01.679 --> 0:10:04.960 What's important for today is that John Watson Foster was 0:10:05.000 --> 0:10:08.720 the first American Secretary of State to participate in the 0:10:08.800 --> 0:10:12.200 overthrow of a foreign government, the government outside of the 0:10:12.240 --> 0:10:15.160 continental United States. UM. I guess, depending on how you 0:10:15.160 --> 0:10:17.760 want to look at, you know, the genocide of indigenous people, 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:19.880 you could kind of see it that way. But going 0:10:19.960 --> 0:10:23.640 to a set of islands off the continent and overthrowing 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:26.640 a sovereign government there feels like a change, you know. 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:29.520 Um And he's the first Secretary of State to participate 0:10:29.520 --> 0:10:32.840 in something like this. His justification for this would establish 0:10:32.880 --> 0:10:36.840 a pattern that has been followed by most of his successors. UM. 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:39.040 I think it would be fair to say, uh, he 0:10:39.080 --> 0:10:41.880 wrote into in order to justify, you know, the the 0:10:41.960 --> 0:10:45.280 conquering of Hawaii. Basically, he wrote, quote the native inhabitants 0:10:45.320 --> 0:10:49.440 had proved themselves incapable of maintaining a respectable and responsible 0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:52.600 government and lacked the energy or will to improve the 0:10:52.679 --> 0:10:57.160 advantages with which Providence had given them. So you do 0:10:57.280 --> 0:10:59.120 see a lot of like ties to kind of how 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:02.760 the conquest, you know, the westward expansion was justified. Right, 0:11:03.000 --> 0:11:05.280 they're not making use of this land and the way 0:11:05.320 --> 0:11:08.160 that we are, so that justifies us taking over. Yeah, 0:11:08.160 --> 0:11:11.240 and Foster was in many ways the first really modern 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:13.960 U S Secretary of State. He was probably our government's 0:11:14.000 --> 0:11:17.480 earliest major advocate of espionage. In eighteen ninety two, he 0:11:17.520 --> 0:11:22.000 started to assign military attaches to American embassies and diplomats. 0:11:22.040 --> 0:11:24.600 He sent out agents to different European cities to go 0:11:24.640 --> 0:11:28.520 into military libraries and bookstores and comb publication lists so 0:11:28.559 --> 0:11:31.280 that our defense department would get early warning about foreign 0:11:31.280 --> 0:11:34.319 advances in arms technology. And you know, when we're talking 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:38.120 about that stuff, that's pretty reasonable, right. You have a country, 0:11:38.240 --> 0:11:40.920 you want to keep it safe from other countries, not 0:11:41.080 --> 0:11:44.040 a not inherently immoral to like figure out what kind 0:11:44.040 --> 0:11:46.560 of guns they're buying. You know, that's that's hard to 0:11:46.640 --> 0:11:50.280 argue with UM as opposed to, you know, conquering Hawaii. Yeah, 0:11:50.320 --> 0:11:54.280 and John Foster's intelligence agency, this kind of thing that 0:11:54.320 --> 0:11:57.000 he starts to establish is kind of fundamentally defensive. In 0:11:57.040 --> 0:12:00.920 the eighteen nineties, UM he established a Military Harry Intelligence 0:12:00.960 --> 0:12:02.680 Division out of his office, and he used it to 0:12:02.720 --> 0:12:05.640 collect and analyze information his agents sent him from Europe. 0:12:06.000 --> 0:12:08.760 It grew steadily, and when World War One became a thing, 0:12:08.880 --> 0:12:11.920 it's size and scope of operations exploded. The man most 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:15.160 responsible for the expansion of the Military Intelligence Division was 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:18.960 another Secretary of State, a guy named Robert Lansing. The 0:12:19.000 --> 0:12:23.000 inciting incident for Lansing's dedication to international intelligence was the 0:12:23.040 --> 0:12:25.920 sinking of the Lusitania in nineteen fifteen by a German 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:28.959 U boat. The American people believed that the Lusitania was 0:12:29.000 --> 0:12:32.920 a defenseless passenger liner, and the fact that hundred Americans 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:35.480 had died on it caused rage an anti German sentiment 0:12:35.520 --> 0:12:38.200 to spread throughout the country. Now, the Germans argued that 0:12:38.200 --> 0:12:41.360 the Lusitania had been transporting war material for the British 0:12:41.440 --> 0:12:43.400 and that meant it was a valid target for war. 0:12:43.600 --> 0:12:45.560 And we now know they were right, Like the Lucitania 0:12:45.640 --> 0:12:48.520 was full of fucking guns. Um by the kind of 0:12:48.800 --> 0:12:51.440 rules set down, they were within their rights to sink it. 0:12:51.800 --> 0:12:53.360 But that was kind of hushed up at the time. 0:12:53.640 --> 0:12:57.800 As recently as my time in school, this was not taught. 0:12:58.240 --> 0:13:02.280 It was just a passenger boat was sunk by the Germans. 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:05.079 Because it's hard, I feel like, and even now when 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:07.840 you explain it, I think when you hear Germans, you 0:13:07.880 --> 0:13:11.560 automatically assume not the Nazis. Yeah, the bad guy's like, no, no, 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:13.840 this is this is World War One. They're not the 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:16.320 bad guys. They're not the good guys. We could easily 0:13:16.360 --> 0:13:18.600 have joined the German side in World War One. This 0:13:18.640 --> 0:13:22.600 is nothing that we're about to explain. But the dullises 0:13:22.679 --> 0:13:26.920 makes sense until you understand this part, which is that 0:13:27.040 --> 0:13:30.160 America there was a bitter debate as to whether or 0:13:30.160 --> 0:13:33.079 not we had any business in these European wars when 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:35.520 World War One and then World War Two in both cases, 0:13:35.960 --> 0:13:38.679 and fucking world War One is like, you know, world 0:13:38.679 --> 0:13:41.960 War Two, my stances, well, there were Nazis, Like we 0:13:42.000 --> 0:13:45.679 had to do something at a certain point. Um world 0:13:45.760 --> 0:13:48.400 War One. There's a real good argument to be had 0:13:48.440 --> 0:13:50.720 that if we had just kind of let that play out, 0:13:51.120 --> 0:13:53.480 things wouldn't have been well, they certainly wouldn't have been 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:54.920 the way they went. Who knows if it would have 0:13:54.920 --> 0:13:56.960 been better, it would have been different. There's a reason 0:13:57.200 --> 0:14:00.280 we have no movies about World War One were the 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:02.680 most part like compared to how many you've gotten about 0:14:02.800 --> 0:14:06.120 killing Nazis. Uh, there's a reason why. You know, like 0:14:06.320 --> 0:14:09.560 if Indiana Jones Adventures took place in World War One era, 0:14:09.679 --> 0:14:12.199 would not be quite as compelling to be going up 0:14:12.240 --> 0:14:16.280 against the Kaiser's people. It was a totally different scenario. 0:14:16.840 --> 0:14:19.920 And the morality of getting involved, into what degree we 0:14:20.000 --> 0:14:24.400 got involved in using that sinking as the excuse to 0:14:24.440 --> 0:14:28.240 get involved, is very tangled and very muddy as compared 0:14:28.280 --> 0:14:30.000 to everything that happened later, where it's like, well we 0:14:30.000 --> 0:14:32.840 were we were late to come to World War two. 0:14:33.400 --> 0:14:37.640 It's like, uh, they again, something skipped over very quickly. 0:14:37.680 --> 0:14:40.800 In my history education in public school, it always is, 0:14:41.240 --> 0:14:43.800 and it's weird. Just it's it's frustrated me that the 0:14:43.840 --> 0:14:47.200 most recent major movie touchstone for World War One and 0:14:47.240 --> 0:14:51.040 German guilt in that war is Wonder Woman, which just 0:14:51.040 --> 0:14:55.880 just portrayed an actual dude as like a literal evil 0:14:55.960 --> 0:15:00.400 god trying to destroy humanity. Um, when it like, now, 0:15:00.480 --> 0:15:02.880 he was just he was. He was one of a 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:07.280 bunch of identically immoral guys on every side of that conflict. 0:15:08.080 --> 0:15:12.360 Good stuff. So yeah, at the time, as you've just said, 0:15:12.600 --> 0:15:15.280 the only very few Americans knew that the Lusitania had 0:15:15.320 --> 0:15:17.600 been filled with a legal war material. Now, one person 0:15:17.600 --> 0:15:20.640 who did know was Secretary of State Robert Lansing, because 0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:22.600 he was privy to the fact that his government had 0:15:22.640 --> 0:15:25.840 secretly agreed to violate the Neutrality Act by shipping guns 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:28.360 to Great Britain. The next few years saw a huge 0:15:28.400 --> 0:15:30.800 build up in both the US military and an attendant 0:15:30.840 --> 0:15:35.280 and international espionage apparatus, and by nineteen eighteen, John Foster's 0:15:35.280 --> 0:15:38.920 Military Intelligence Division had more than twelve employees and worked 0:15:38.920 --> 0:15:42.360 with agents and multiple government agencies. Now I bring all 0:15:42.440 --> 0:15:46.440 this up because Robert Lansing and John Foster were the 0:15:46.560 --> 0:15:52.360 uncle and grandfather, respectedly of the dullest brothers. Which is fun. 0:15:53.120 --> 0:15:55.320 So these are the dudes who, in a lot of 0:15:55.360 --> 0:15:59.520 ways raise the guys who come create the CIA um 0:15:59.560 --> 0:16:02.040 and the dull his brothers are John Foster Doulas, who 0:16:02.120 --> 0:16:04.720 were just going to call Foster, and Allan Welsh Doulas, 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:09.120 who will call Allen Um. Now these men would together 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:12.200 invent the modern CIA, overthrew governments of more countries than 0:16:12.240 --> 0:16:14.680 most people ever visit, and enable a number of genocides 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:17.160 and ethnic cleansings in the name of fighting communism and 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:21.280 helping fruit companies. John Foster Doulas was born in Washington, 0:16:21.360 --> 0:16:25.600 d C. On February eight eight His little brother, Allan 0:16:25.720 --> 0:16:28.800 was born on April seventh, eighteen ninety three. In Watertown, 0:16:28.920 --> 0:16:32.120 New York. The Dullest brothers were two of five children, 0:16:32.160 --> 0:16:35.320 and from the beginning they were extremely close. Their father, 0:16:35.480 --> 0:16:38.680 also named Allen, was a Presbyterian minister, which is not 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:41.920 a super showy gig. He made very little money and 0:16:41.960 --> 0:16:43.920 from what I can tell, he was a pretty decent guy. 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:46.320 One of the stories his family told about him as 0:16:46.320 --> 0:16:48.840 there was a time when he liked, during a snowstorm, 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:51.280 literally gave the code off his back to a homeless man. 0:16:51.640 --> 0:16:53.840 There was another moment where he like suffered a lot 0:16:53.840 --> 0:16:57.480 of criticism within church leadership because he performed a marriage 0:16:57.480 --> 0:17:00.200 ceremony on a woman who had been divorced before. Like 0:17:00.280 --> 0:17:02.960 that was a huge deal in the late eighteen hundreds, 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:04.680 right that you would you would let a divorced woman 0:17:04.760 --> 0:17:07.800 marry again. But their dad is seems to be a 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:10.040 decent guy um and is like, well no, and I'm 0:17:10.080 --> 0:17:13.200 not gonna not marry her. Um, So good on you, 0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:18.200 Minister Alan Dullish. He was a quiet, thoughtful, retiring man, 0:17:18.280 --> 0:17:20.280 and his sons did not take after him at all. 0:17:20.600 --> 0:17:23.479 They were both utterly captivated with their grandfather. With their 0:17:23.520 --> 0:17:26.879 grandpa Foster, their mother's father, who was the former Secretary 0:17:26.880 --> 0:17:28.840 of State, and by the point they came into the 0:17:28.840 --> 0:17:32.520 picture and international diplomat, they were equally taken with their 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:36.040 uncle Bert also on their mother's side, that guy also 0:17:36.080 --> 0:17:38.879 became a Secretary of State. The fact that Alan Dullis 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:41.080 their dad, made very little money meant that the Dullest 0:17:41.160 --> 0:17:45.120 family was extremely dependent upon the Fosters for financial support, 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:49.359 which frustrated Allan. John Foster was thus the patriarch of 0:17:49.400 --> 0:17:52.159 the family, and the Dulles brothers spent every summer with 0:17:52.280 --> 0:17:55.119 him on his lake house in Lake, Ontario. They were 0:17:55.240 --> 0:17:57.679 raised to believe that power was in their blood, and 0:17:57.760 --> 0:17:59.800 from a very young age they grew up with con 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:04.159 stations about geopolitics around the dinner table. Since John Foster 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:07.639 was so prominent, these conversations often included foreign statesmen and 0:18:07.760 --> 0:18:10.480 diplomats visiting the old man for help with some issue 0:18:10.560 --> 0:18:14.200 or another. The book The Brothers by Stephen Kinser gives 0:18:14.240 --> 0:18:16.359 a good overview of how these summer days on the 0:18:16.440 --> 0:18:20.000 lake tended to go. Quote early every summer morning in 0:18:20.000 --> 0:18:22.480 the first years of the twentieth century, two small boys 0:18:22.520 --> 0:18:25.680 awoke as dawn broke over Lake Ontario. Their day began 0:18:25.720 --> 0:18:28.080 with a cold bath, the only kind their father allowed. 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:30.480 After breakfast, they gathered with the rest of their family 0:18:30.520 --> 0:18:32.520 on the front porch for a Bible reading, sang a 0:18:32.560 --> 0:18:34.439 himm or two and not as their father led them 0:18:34.440 --> 0:18:37.040 in prayer. Their duty done, they raced to the shore, 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:39.399 where their grandfather and uncle were waiting to take them 0:18:39.400 --> 0:18:44.840 out to stalk the wily smallmouth bass. So yeah, that's 0:18:44.920 --> 0:18:47.680 that's that's how the guys who found the Cia grow 0:18:47.760 --> 0:18:51.000 up and shaped the modern world as we know now, 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:53.840 completely changed the life of every person listening to this. 0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:59.240 These two, these two dudes growing up under the care 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:02.760 taking cold Dad's under the care of this very By 0:19:02.760 --> 0:19:05.400 the way, if anyone listening, if you're trying to mentally 0:19:05.440 --> 0:19:08.880 picture what the dullest has looked like, what you're picturing, 0:19:09.040 --> 0:19:15.280 that's what they looked like. We just well, we just described. Yeah, 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:17.120 you don't have to go look it up. You can 0:19:17.160 --> 0:19:20.520 picture these these white guys who are raised taking cold 0:19:20.520 --> 0:19:24.359 as Yeah, they will pop unbidden into your head like 0:19:24.440 --> 0:19:27.879 Athena and from the skull of Zeus. It's it's it's 0:19:27.920 --> 0:19:33.080 almost magical. Did one of him smoke a pipe? You said, absolutely, Jason, 0:19:34.200 --> 0:19:36.679 Why don't he smoking to pop my imagination because he 0:19:36.760 --> 0:19:39.640 didn't they look like Mr Potter from It's a Wonderful Life. 0:19:39.680 --> 0:19:44.439 They do, Yes, as did Yeah. Mr Potter might have 0:19:44.480 --> 0:19:49.240 been based on their grandfather. That's a solid point again. 0:19:49.280 --> 0:19:52.560 The guys they're fishing with, our two former secretaries of State, 0:19:52.840 --> 0:19:55.359 um Now and Alan, who grew up to be the 0:19:55.359 --> 0:19:57.840 head of the CIA, would later recall that his interest 0:19:57.840 --> 0:20:00.760 in espionage was first peaked by these fishing trips with 0:20:00.800 --> 0:20:04.000 his grandpa and uncle. The experience of quote finding the fish, 0:20:04.160 --> 0:20:07.040 hooking the fish, and playing the fish, working to draw 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:09.480 him in and tire him until he's almost glad to 0:20:09.520 --> 0:20:12.160 be caught in the net, which is sinister as hell 0:20:16.800 --> 0:20:20.879 because for everyone else, fishing is like a peaceful pastime. 0:20:20.920 --> 0:20:23.040 We can be alone with your thoughts, and for this guy, 0:20:23.040 --> 0:20:26.639 it's all about seeing the hope die from the fish's eyes. 0:20:27.600 --> 0:20:33.560 Give up. I want to do this to people someday. 0:20:35.920 --> 0:20:38.359 I do want to interject here if it's okay in 0:20:38.440 --> 0:20:41.600 an audio format. When you're talking about multiple members of 0:20:41.600 --> 0:20:45.480 a family, it is very easy to get lost. To 0:20:45.560 --> 0:20:49.679 be clear, there are two guys, one man, the c 0:20:49.760 --> 0:20:53.800 I A one was Secretary of State at the same time. 0:20:53.880 --> 0:20:58.280 For the most part, they they their terms overlapped mostly, 0:20:58.760 --> 0:21:01.880 and they work hand in hand when when we talked 0:21:01.880 --> 0:21:03.639 about what each of them did, there's a lot of 0:21:03.760 --> 0:21:07.760 overlamp because they worked together, you know, the CIA, and 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:11.320 when when the CIA is dedicating itself to reshaping foreign 0:21:11.320 --> 0:21:14.720 policy and the Secretary of State, like, they work hand 0:21:14.760 --> 0:21:17.479 in gloves. So when you talk about Alan and Foster, 0:21:18.680 --> 0:21:20.600 it's gonna be easy to get mixed up. But just 0:21:20.880 --> 0:21:24.200 one is the CIA guy, that's Alan. The other is 0:21:24.240 --> 0:21:28.600 going to set And it's more confusing here because they're 0:21:28.640 --> 0:21:32.800 both on a boat with their grandpa Foster, who was 0:21:32.880 --> 0:21:37.720 also a Secretary of State. Their uncle Bert's easier, thank god. Um, 0:21:37.760 --> 0:21:40.960 but yeah, it's it's it's gonna be messy. Um, we'll 0:21:40.960 --> 0:21:43.920 do our best here. So both of the boys seemed 0:21:43.960 --> 0:21:46.760 to find their childhood's idyllic as creepy as we might 0:21:46.800 --> 0:21:49.880 find aspects of them. Alan, who again ran the CIA, 0:21:50.040 --> 0:21:54.080 later wrote quote here in delightful surroundings, we indulged ourselves 0:21:54.080 --> 0:21:56.320