WEBVTT - Callings 0:00:16.115 --> 0:00:30.275 Pushkin the Last Archive A History of Truth? 0:00:36.075 --> 0:00:38.355 Are you going to answer that? I don't want to 0:00:38.395 --> 0:00:40.395 tell you what to do, but you're listening to this 0:00:40.475 --> 0:00:46.835 on your phone and your phone is ringing. Fine, I'll 0:00:46.875 --> 0:00:47.315 answer it. 0:00:48.675 --> 0:00:49.155 Oh. 0:00:49.315 --> 0:00:53.275 It's a character from a movie made in the nineteen fifties, Wiretapper. 0:00:54.155 --> 0:00:57.755 Could you develop equipment to listen in on a telephone? 0:00:57.995 --> 0:01:01.075 That is, record a conversation without the owner knowing anything 0:01:01.115 --> 0:01:01.435 about it? 0:01:02.795 --> 0:01:07.355 Wiretapper tells the story of Big Jim Voss, an electronics 0:01:07.355 --> 0:01:10.715 guy in Los Angeles who gets work bugging and slowly 0:01:10.755 --> 0:01:13.715 but surely gets sucked into a criminal underworld and winds 0:01:13.755 --> 0:01:16.635 up becoming a pretty big deal. There's this scene that 0:01:16.675 --> 0:01:19.355 shows the moment he becomes a wire tapper. You can 0:01:19.395 --> 0:01:21.555 tell he's hanging out with the mob because they're sitting 0:01:21.555 --> 0:01:24.275 around smoking, listening to jazz. 0:01:25.035 --> 0:01:29.355 Wiretapping is illegal, mister Remstey, just that the question, I 0:01:29.355 --> 0:01:30.515 could put the equipment together. 0:01:31.835 --> 0:01:34.715 The movie hit theaters early in nineteen fifty five. That 0:01:34.875 --> 0:01:38.515 same year, a best selling book called Wiretap was in stores. 0:01:38.835 --> 0:01:40.955 Columbia Pictures was said to be working on a movie 0:01:40.955 --> 0:01:43.995 called The wire Tappers. The stuff was all over the place. 0:01:44.515 --> 0:01:46.315 It was still a new thing for some people to 0:01:46.355 --> 0:01:48.195 have a phone in their house, and people were a 0:01:48.235 --> 0:01:51.675 little itchy about it. The newspapers kept writing stories about 0:01:51.675 --> 0:01:55.835 the dangers of wire tapping. Someone was listening in wiretapper 0:01:55.875 --> 0:01:59.035 of the movie was tapping straight into that fear. The 0:01:59.075 --> 0:02:01.395 ads for the film read, if you're on the phone, 0:02:01.755 --> 0:02:02.795 you're not safe. 0:02:04.155 --> 0:02:06.755 Even the police aren't a lot of tap private wires. 0:02:07.035 --> 0:02:10.195 Here's five hundred, there'll be another five. I have you 0:02:10.235 --> 0:02:11.235 do a good job. 0:02:11.795 --> 0:02:15.955 I guess if it's for the police, eh, it'll be 0:02:15.995 --> 0:02:16.435 all right. 0:02:17.315 --> 0:02:19.875 So this movie at first seemed to me like pretty 0:02:19.875 --> 0:02:23.075 straightforward in noir stuff. But it wasn't made by a 0:02:23.075 --> 0:02:26.955 major studio like Warner Bruthers or MGM or Columbia. It 0:02:26.995 --> 0:02:30.275 was made by the most famous evangelical Christian in the country, 0:02:30.675 --> 0:02:34.755 the Minister Billy Graham, which maybe I should have suspected 0:02:34.755 --> 0:02:35.955 from all the church scenes. 0:02:36.755 --> 0:02:39.315 The Bible says, what shall it properer man? He be 0:02:39.355 --> 0:02:41.515 gained the whole world and lose his home soul. 0:02:42.595 --> 0:02:45.795 So this put a pretty big question in my mind. 0:02:45.995 --> 0:02:49.115 Why was the most famous evangelist in America making a 0:02:49.115 --> 0:02:51.875 movie in the nineteen fifties about how if you're on 0:02:51.955 --> 0:02:55.795 the phone, you're not safe. Pulling on this thread. It 0:02:55.835 --> 0:02:58.315 turned out to be like yanking on a telephone gable 0:02:58.675 --> 0:03:02.075 and discovering that it's wired up to everything in the 0:03:02.195 --> 0:03:08.595 United States. Welcome to Season four of The Last Archive, 0:03:09.275 --> 0:03:11.355 the show about how we know what we know, how 0:03:11.355 --> 0:03:13.915 we used to know things, and why it seems sometimes 0:03:13.995 --> 0:03:16.795 lately as if we don't know anything at all. I'm 0:03:16.795 --> 0:03:21.995 Ben Matta Haffrey. Today's episode, We're Tapping the Phones. I 0:03:22.075 --> 0:03:25.595 was watching that movie Wiretapper, because I've gotten curious about 0:03:25.595 --> 0:03:27.235 the history of a feeling. I think a lot of 0:03:27.275 --> 0:03:30.555 people have. Now we're all on our phones all the time, 0:03:31.035 --> 0:03:33.155 and I at least have pretty much accepted that I'm 0:03:33.235 --> 0:03:36.955 constantly being surveiled, if not by wiretappers and cops, then 0:03:36.995 --> 0:03:41.155 by companies and bots. But this weird intersection of phone 0:03:41.155 --> 0:03:44.555 anxieties in American religion in the fifties caught me off guard. 0:03:45.115 --> 0:03:48.515 I wanted to understand how those things fit together, So 0:03:48.995 --> 0:03:52.275 I dug into the absolutely unhinged story behind that film, 0:03:52.675 --> 0:03:57.275 a story about the telephone, American spirituality, and most of all, 0:03:57.795 --> 0:04:04.075 that wiretapper, Big Jim Voss. Because it turns out He's 0:04:04.115 --> 0:04:15.115 a real guy. 0:04:09.835 --> 0:04:14.075 Yarn and raised in the city of Los Angeles, the 0:04:14.235 --> 0:04:15.275 son of a preacher. 0:04:16.755 --> 0:04:20.035 Jim Voss, son of a preacher, grew up in Los Angeles. 0:04:20.435 --> 0:04:24.235 His first phone number was Broadway sixteen zero seven. That 0:04:24.395 --> 0:04:26.355 was more important than the son of a preacher thing, 0:04:26.795 --> 0:04:29.355 because Big Jim wasn't on track to become a preacher 0:04:29.435 --> 0:04:31.955 like his father. He was on track to become a 0:04:31.995 --> 0:04:33.035 telephone criminal. 0:04:35.795 --> 0:04:39.675 His father was definitely, you know, on the fundamentalist side. 0:04:40.035 --> 0:04:44.635 He had two sisters, but being the only boy, I 0:04:44.635 --> 0:04:47.235 think there were a lot of expectations that he would 0:04:47.315 --> 0:04:49.635 go into the ministry himself. 0:04:50.515 --> 0:04:52.835 Will Voss one of Big Jim's kids, who wrote a 0:04:52.835 --> 0:04:56.355 book about his father's life. Like his grandfather, Will is 0:04:56.355 --> 0:04:59.035 a minister. I called him up to talk about his 0:04:59.115 --> 0:05:01.635 dad and just to say if the interviews in this 0:05:01.675 --> 0:05:05.035 episode sound different than usual, it's because I recorded them 0:05:05.195 --> 0:05:06.155 by tapping my phone. 0:05:07.115 --> 0:05:11.835 You know, he really struggled with the level of expectation 0:05:12.155 --> 0:05:15.835 that was there, and in his younger life really rebelled 0:05:15.955 --> 0:05:18.435 against just the whole upbringing. 0:05:19.595 --> 0:05:22.195 This is a kind way of saying that from childhood on, 0:05:22.675 --> 0:05:24.475 Big Jim Voss was always in. 0:05:24.435 --> 0:05:27.075 Trouble thata guy would sell them out of it. 0:05:28.235 --> 0:05:31.315 Voss grew up during the Great Depression, but he decided 0:05:31.355 --> 0:05:34.035 the reason his family was poor was because his parents 0:05:34.075 --> 0:05:37.995 were Christians. He wanted to get rich. When he was little, 0:05:38.115 --> 0:05:40.195 his parents took in borders to earn a little bit 0:05:40.195 --> 0:05:42.755 of extra cash, and there was one man who was 0:05:42.795 --> 0:05:46.635 always building radios. Voss would sit in the border's room 0:05:46.755 --> 0:05:50.075 and watch. Eventually, the man taught Kid Jim had to 0:05:50.115 --> 0:05:54.235 tinker himself, and he fell in love with sound machines, radios, 0:05:54.435 --> 0:05:58.515 microphones phones. Pretty quickly. He realized that one of the 0:05:58.515 --> 0:06:00.875 best parts about this gear was that he'll let you 0:06:00.995 --> 0:06:02.755 hear things you weren't supposed to. 0:06:04.235 --> 0:06:10.155 His first wired top experience is that he wired his 0:06:10.795 --> 0:06:13.555 sister's date in the family home. 0:06:14.315 --> 0:06:17.675 He was about twelve. His sister's boyfriend was coming over. 0:06:18.195 --> 0:06:21.315 Kid Jim dug around his electronics stash, snuck into the 0:06:21.355 --> 0:06:24.515 living room and hit a microphone behind the couch. He 0:06:24.635 --> 0:06:26.315 ran a wire from it out a window to a 0:06:26.355 --> 0:06:28.155 speaker in the backyard, and then. 0:06:28.635 --> 0:06:31.235 Sold tickets to kids in the neighborhood to come listen 0:06:31.795 --> 0:06:34.395 to his sister's conversation with her boyfriend. 0:06:35.155 --> 0:06:40.075 This is like his origin story that combination spying, recording devices, 0:06:40.195 --> 0:06:44.635 money betrayal. That was the story of Big Jim Voss' 0:06:44.715 --> 0:06:50.355 life in college at Bible School, he claimed he'd set 0:06:50.435 --> 0:06:53.075 up a fundraiser for the yearbook where people paid to 0:06:53.115 --> 0:06:56.915 watch a long distance call from Los Angeles to Africa. Then, 0:06:57.035 --> 0:06:59.555 according to his son Will, he embezzled the money and 0:06:59.555 --> 0:07:02.355 he flew to Florida. He got away with that, But 0:07:02.515 --> 0:07:05.115 it was mugging an old man at gunpoint that supposedly 0:07:05.155 --> 0:07:08.155 finally landed him in prison. He left his driver's license 0:07:08.195 --> 0:07:10.915 at the scene. But Big is like a cat with 0:07:11.075 --> 0:07:14.075 nine lives. World War II was for most people not 0:07:14.155 --> 0:07:17.355 a good thing. For Jim Voss, it was great because, 0:07:17.395 --> 0:07:20.275 he says, he left prison, got drafted, and was put 0:07:20.355 --> 0:07:22.675 to work using his electronic skills. 0:07:23.235 --> 0:07:25.595 The army was good to me, wiped out the record 0:07:25.635 --> 0:07:28.875 of conviction, detailed me to duty on the West Coast. 0:07:29.715 --> 0:07:31.595 This tape, by the way, is from a speech Foss 0:07:31.595 --> 0:07:33.875 gave a couple of years before that Wire Tapper movie 0:07:33.915 --> 0:07:36.635 came out. This is his version of his life story. 0:07:36.955 --> 0:07:39.675 The story that movie is based on, the story whose 0:07:39.675 --> 0:07:42.355 significance I'm trying to understand a lot of It is 0:07:42.395 --> 0:07:45.795 probably fluff, but there's important truths there if you sift 0:07:45.835 --> 0:07:49.755 for them. First truth, this is a story about how 0:07:49.755 --> 0:07:52.035 Big Jim Voss was bad news. 0:07:53.195 --> 0:07:58.915 Finally was court marshaled again, this time for misuse of priorities, 0:07:59.035 --> 0:08:03.755 misappropriation of government's property. I was sent in ten years hard. 0:08:03.595 --> 0:08:09.635 Labor misappropriation of government property, basically stealing equipment from the army, 0:08:10.035 --> 0:08:12.555 as he tells it. When the war ended he got out. 0:08:12.795 --> 0:08:14.955 He moved back home to Los Angeles in his parents' 0:08:14.995 --> 0:08:20.235 house to set up an electronics business. Now we're going 0:08:20.315 --> 0:08:22.675 to leave Big Jim there for a moment, just a moment, 0:08:23.075 --> 0:08:25.915 so I can tell you that that decade, the nineteen forties, 0:08:26.195 --> 0:08:28.635 Americans were spending a lot of time on the phone. 0:08:30.195 --> 0:08:33.155 The telephone had been around since eighteen seventy six, so 0:08:33.355 --> 0:08:36.235 to me, the phone seems practically ancient compared to say, 0:08:36.275 --> 0:08:39.635 the radio. But it was especially after the Second World 0:08:39.715 --> 0:08:43.795 War that the telephone system really exploded for the first time. 0:08:44.115 --> 0:08:46.835 More than half of Americans had phones in their homes. 0:08:47.315 --> 0:08:49.115 You can hear the thrill of it in those post 0:08:49.195 --> 0:08:50.995 war telephone ad campaigns. 0:08:51.475 --> 0:08:54.155 Lift a telephone receiver and the world is at your 0:08:54.235 --> 0:08:58.875 fingertaips speed and your voice spans oceans and continents with 0:08:58.955 --> 0:08:59.835 the speed of light. 0:09:00.675 --> 0:09:03.675 Everyone was getting a phone. There were ten thousand new 0:09:03.715 --> 0:09:06.635 hookups a day. More people got telephones right after the 0:09:06.675 --> 0:09:09.475 war ended than any other time in history up till them. 0:09:09.915 --> 0:09:12.555 In the four years after the war, the system grew 0:09:12.595 --> 0:09:16.715 by half, and in the sprawling, booming city of Los Angeles, 0:09:17.035 --> 0:09:19.955 everyone was patching in. It had always been a big 0:09:19.995 --> 0:09:23.675 phone city. As a historian Emily Bills points out, everyone 0:09:23.675 --> 0:09:27.675 thinks cars la, but before there were cars, trolleys, or 0:09:27.715 --> 0:09:31.555 even paved streets in downtown Los Angeles, there were telephone 0:09:31.595 --> 0:09:35.035 lines criss crossing all over the place, and over time 0:09:35.315 --> 0:09:38.875 it became a catch all technology. People used the phone 0:09:38.995 --> 0:09:41.315 for everything, the means. 0:09:40.995 --> 0:09:47.555 Were transacting business, the means for communicating information, for seeking help, 0:09:48.635 --> 0:09:50.915 for keeping all friends in touch. 0:09:52.915 --> 0:09:55.715 But people swiftly realized that the phone didn't just connect 0:09:55.755 --> 0:09:59.835 you to everything, It connected everything to your living room. 0:10:00.115 --> 0:10:03.275 That was a little anxiety inducing. Maybe all this connection 0:10:03.435 --> 0:10:05.675 wasn't such a good thing after all. There was a 0:10:05.675 --> 0:10:08.195 lot of concern about who might call, and the fact 0:10:08.235 --> 0:10:10.955 that they might call at any hour. But even more 0:10:11.035 --> 0:10:14.435 upsetting was the concern about who might be listening, which 0:10:14.475 --> 0:10:16.355 was on a lot of people's minds because they were 0:10:16.395 --> 0:10:19.195 all on something called a party line, which phone companies 0:10:19.195 --> 0:10:21.395 spend a lot of time and money getting people used to. 0:10:22.635 --> 0:10:25.155 You and the other fellow on your line can help 0:10:25.155 --> 0:10:28.875 each other to better telephone service by simply being good 0:10:28.995 --> 0:10:30.195 party line neighbors. 0:10:31.075 --> 0:10:33.875 Party lines were shared lines that connected a few houses 0:10:33.915 --> 0:10:37.395 to the network. Most phone users had them, so picking 0:10:37.515 --> 0:10:40.635 up the phone and overhearing someone else's conversation was a 0:10:40.675 --> 0:10:44.955 regular thing. I find that tension really interesting. Here was 0:10:44.995 --> 0:10:47.155 a device that lets you speak one on one to 0:10:47.195 --> 0:10:49.435 someone far away from the privacy of your own home. 0:10:49.955 --> 0:10:53.555 It invited secrets, but it also gave you the constant 0:10:53.555 --> 0:10:55.755 awareness that someone might be able to hear them at 0:10:55.755 --> 0:10:58.755 any time. I feel that now when I Google something 0:10:58.995 --> 0:11:00.675 and then the next day see ads for it all 0:11:00.715 --> 0:11:04.355 over the place. This moment the nineteen forties, when a 0:11:04.355 --> 0:11:06.595 lot of people were getting their phones and Big Jim 0:11:06.635 --> 0:11:10.275 was in La setting up his electronics business, I think 0:11:10.275 --> 0:11:14.555 that feeling began to go mainstream by the way people 0:11:14.595 --> 0:11:17.115 called him Big Jim Voss, because what else do you 0:11:17.155 --> 0:11:19.595 call a guy who's six foot four weighs three hundred 0:11:19.595 --> 0:11:22.035 and twenty four pounds and is pursuing his passion for 0:11:22.075 --> 0:11:23.715 electronics in his parents' basement. 0:11:24.315 --> 0:11:27.555 Believe me, that's lige. Don't look so startled you've been 0:11:27.595 --> 0:11:28.475 wondering anyway. 0:11:28.635 --> 0:11:33.995 Imagine a guy that size, with slicked hair and big 0:11:34.115 --> 0:11:36.635 v neck lapels like a linebacker, who kind of looks 0:11:36.675 --> 0:11:39.315 like Elvis if you squint. He stood a head taller 0:11:39.355 --> 0:11:42.235 than pretty much anyone else. With his life of crime 0:11:42.275 --> 0:11:45.475 behind him, Big Jim went straight with his electronics business 0:11:45.555 --> 0:11:48.835 at his parents' house for like two seconds. 0:11:49.195 --> 0:11:52.475 One day, we were approached by the Los Angeles Police Department. 0:11:52.595 --> 0:11:55.755 They wanted us to aid them in the development of 0:11:55.835 --> 0:11:58.995 some equipment they thought would could have curbed crying. 0:12:00.155 --> 0:12:02.915 The LAPD had found Big Jim kind of by accident. 0:12:03.315 --> 0:12:06.755 A cop on their vice squad, Officer Charles Stoker, was 0:12:06.795 --> 0:12:09.755 investigating a tip about an alleged prostitute living in an 0:12:09.875 --> 0:12:14.235 apartment building. The other tenants had been complaining. When Stoker arrived, 0:12:14.355 --> 0:12:16.515 he checked in with the manager, who happened to be 0:12:16.635 --> 0:12:20.235 Big Jim Voss, helping out a friend. Luckily for us, 0:12:20.395 --> 0:12:23.235 Stoker was very much the hero of his own story 0:12:23.435 --> 0:12:26.115 and later wrote about this fateful encounter in a memoir 0:12:26.195 --> 0:12:29.875 called Thicker in Thieves, the nineteen fifty factual expose of 0:12:29.915 --> 0:12:34.835 police payoffs, graft, political corruption, and prostitution in Los Angeles 0:12:34.875 --> 0:12:38.235 and Hollywood. Stoker needed proof that the suspect was engaging 0:12:38.275 --> 0:12:40.955 in prostitution, but it was going to be hard to 0:12:40.955 --> 0:12:43.995 get the kind of evidence he needed, at least if 0:12:44.035 --> 0:12:45.155 he was going to do it legally. 0:12:46.795 --> 0:12:49.515 One glance at the apartment, and I knew that the 0:12:49.635 --> 0:12:52.635 arrest was going to be difficult, since defendans must be 0:12:52.715 --> 0:12:56.115 caught in the act of sexual intercourse. The apartment had 0:12:56.155 --> 0:12:58.755 a long hallway and the rooms were so far from 0:12:58.795 --> 0:13:02.515 the outer door it would be virtually impossible to detect 0:13:02.635 --> 0:13:04.115 incriminating conversation. 0:13:04.755 --> 0:13:07.875 Big Jim was there observing all of this. Truthfully, he 0:13:07.915 --> 0:13:09.675 didn't really care if one of the tenants was in 0:13:09.835 --> 0:13:13.595 aging and prostitution. He later wrote, I was keeper of 0:13:13.715 --> 0:13:17.875 no man's morals. But having watched the cops haplessly climb 0:13:17.875 --> 0:13:19.635 a tree in an attempt to catch the woman in 0:13:19.675 --> 0:13:23.835 the act, Big Jim sensed an opportunity. He revealed to 0:13:23.875 --> 0:13:28.435 officer Stoker that his real job was electronics microphones. He 0:13:28.515 --> 0:13:30.475 told them that he could bug the room and get 0:13:30.515 --> 0:13:33.675 them the proof they needed. The cops were thrilled. This 0:13:33.795 --> 0:13:37.235 plan wasn't exactly legal, but it probably seemed better than 0:13:37.235 --> 0:13:40.675 the climbing trees thing. So Big Jim Voss got to work. 0:13:41.275 --> 0:13:45.235 He hit a microphone in the room, and then they listened. 0:13:45.475 --> 0:13:49.035 To say that I was amazed what I heard would 0:13:49.115 --> 0:13:50.555 be an understate. 0:13:51.475 --> 0:13:55.755 Big Jim had struck gold. The vice squad cops loved him. 0:13:56.195 --> 0:13:59.075 He began making them all kinds of wire tapping gizmos. 0:14:00.035 --> 0:14:02.715 We had one gadget that made it possible for us 0:14:02.755 --> 0:14:06.835 who listen into telephone conversation, so that we didn't have 0:14:06.955 --> 0:14:10.435 to go anywhere near the telephone in question, but we 0:14:10.555 --> 0:14:14.315 could sit back on the other side of town and 0:14:14.395 --> 0:14:16.835 hear all what was being said on that telephone. 0:14:23.675 --> 0:14:26.275 Big Jim was kind of like Queue in James Bond. 0:14:26.395 --> 0:14:28.195 He kept coming up with new ways for the cops 0:14:28.275 --> 0:14:31.715 to spy on people. Mostly his innovations came from hiding 0:14:31.715 --> 0:14:34.755 miniaturized microphones in places and recording what he heard on 0:14:34.795 --> 0:14:38.435 a wire, an old recording format. He was especially proud 0:14:38.555 --> 0:14:41.875 of something he called a talking cane, which allowed cops 0:14:41.915 --> 0:14:45.115 to hear things through walls. It looked like a walking stick, 0:14:45.355 --> 0:14:47.915 except it probably had a tiny microphone hidden in the 0:14:48.035 --> 0:14:50.195 end and a wire running up the cane through the 0:14:50.195 --> 0:14:52.955 cops sleeves to an amplifier and then to an earbud. 0:14:53.475 --> 0:14:56.555 It also sent a signal wirelessly to a recording device 0:14:56.635 --> 0:14:59.115 hidden in a car outside, so they could tape everything. 0:14:59.915 --> 0:15:02.555 And then there were the wire taps that became Big 0:15:02.675 --> 0:15:03.635 Jim's signature. 0:15:04.435 --> 0:15:10.595 Tectologically speaking, in the days of the Copper eelephone system, 0:15:10.595 --> 0:15:14.595 the electro mechanical switching system, it was really quite easy 0:15:15.035 --> 0:15:16.115 to tap a line. 0:15:16.875 --> 0:15:20.955 That's Brian Hawkman, director of American Studies at Georgetown University, 0:15:21.195 --> 0:15:23.955 an author of the book The Listeners, a History of 0:15:23.995 --> 0:15:27.115 wiretapping in the United States, And. 0:15:27.315 --> 0:15:34.035 It's Big Jim Voss who was a true pioneer in 0:15:34.195 --> 0:15:40.355 the postwar electronic eavesdropping field and made an extraordinary name 0:15:40.435 --> 0:15:42.915 for himself on both sides. 0:15:42.635 --> 0:15:43.075 Of the law. 0:15:43.675 --> 0:15:46.595 Big Jim didn't make much money off the LAPD, but 0:15:46.875 --> 0:15:50.235 as his reputation grew, he started getting more work around town. 0:15:50.795 --> 0:15:53.915 He claimed to do a lot of work for movie stars. Specifically, 0:15:54.035 --> 0:15:56.475 he said he'd tapped Mickey Rooney's phone so he could 0:15:56.515 --> 0:15:58.115 prove his wife was having an affair. 0:15:59.035 --> 0:16:01.875 It's always interesting what goes on when people don't know 0:16:01.915 --> 0:16:04.155 they're being listened to by so many people. 0:16:06.915 --> 0:16:09.795 I think this line of business is basically the same 0:16:09.955 --> 0:16:13.675 as broadcasting his sister's date to the neighborhood kids, exposing 0:16:13.675 --> 0:16:16.955 women by means of technology. The history of the telephone 0:16:16.995 --> 0:16:20.235 and wiretapping is a history of privacy and concerns about 0:16:20.275 --> 0:16:23.595 privacy which have always been gendered. We made a whole 0:16:23.595 --> 0:16:26.675 episode about this a couple of years ago, The Invisible Lady. 0:16:26.915 --> 0:16:29.115 You can listen to it on your phone on Apple 0:16:29.155 --> 0:16:33.835 Podcasts wherever you get your podcasts. Anyway, the idea of 0:16:33.875 --> 0:16:36.995 an electronic ear sitting in your living room was worrisome 0:16:37.115 --> 0:16:39.875 to the broader public, in part because it violated the 0:16:39.875 --> 0:16:43.355 sanctity of the home, and also because nobody particularly seemed 0:16:43.355 --> 0:16:47.075 interested in cracking down on it. Exhibit A. The cops 0:16:47.075 --> 0:16:50.595 were hiring Big Jim to do more of it. 0:16:50.755 --> 0:16:53.635 One thing that's extraordinary to note, Despite the fact that 0:16:53.715 --> 0:16:58.795 wire tapping was illegal in the state of California, private 0:16:58.835 --> 0:17:05.755 eavesdroppers for hire advertised their services openly in the LA 0:17:05.875 --> 0:17:09.395 Yellow Pages. And this was a business that was out 0:17:09.435 --> 0:17:14.795 in the olden It was illegal, but it was never prosecuted, 0:17:15.275 --> 0:17:20.275 and Boss emerges as a leader in this very strange 0:17:20.315 --> 0:17:21.795 gray area industry. 0:17:23.075 --> 0:17:26.235 Big Jim Voss, son of a preacher, two time convict 0:17:26.475 --> 0:17:29.875 cat on his third life, was now simultaneously working for 0:17:29.955 --> 0:17:32.355 a bunch of movie stars who wanted to expose There 0:17:32.435 --> 0:17:35.755 soon to be ex spouses, rich men who wanted radar 0:17:35.795 --> 0:17:38.635 guard at homes, and self righteous cops who wanted to 0:17:38.675 --> 0:17:40.195 wire tap call girls phones. 0:17:41.035 --> 0:17:44.515 I don't think at the time he thought much at 0:17:44.515 --> 0:17:48.875 all about the morality of the things he was doing. 0:17:49.755 --> 0:17:51.635 I think he thought it was great fun. 0:17:53.155 --> 0:17:57.075 It probably was fun until Big Jim got in over 0:17:57.115 --> 0:18:09.715 his head. We'll be right back. In nineteen forty eight, 0:18:10.075 --> 0:18:13.075 Big Jim Voss was wire tapping all over Los Angeles. 0:18:13.355 --> 0:18:15.715 He was basically a character in a film noir movie. 0:18:15.755 --> 0:18:19.355 Already that same year, an actual film noir movie came 0:18:19.395 --> 0:18:21.795 out that opened with an epigraph which reads to me 0:18:21.915 --> 0:18:26.995 like a mission statement for Big Jim. 0:18:25.275 --> 0:18:28.595 And the tangled networks of a great city. The telephone 0:18:28.675 --> 0:18:31.915 is the unseen link between a million lives. It is 0:18:31.955 --> 0:18:36.115 a servant of our common needs, the confidant of our 0:18:36.275 --> 0:18:38.395 inmost secrets. 0:18:39.595 --> 0:18:42.635 Big Jim Voss was wired tapping all over those networks, 0:18:43.075 --> 0:18:45.675 and he was about to get tangled up in something 0:18:45.755 --> 0:18:52.835 pretty serious. Among the many clients he claimed cops, movie stars, businesses. 0:18:53.195 --> 0:18:55.355 Big Jim had been working with a private detective who 0:18:55.435 --> 0:18:57.835 turned out to have a connection to the mob. The 0:18:57.915 --> 0:19:00.075 Mob realized he could use a guy like Big Jim, 0:19:00.555 --> 0:19:01.475 so they called him up. 0:19:02.155 --> 0:19:05.355 One day, we were called after a little habitashery on 0:19:05.435 --> 0:19:07.115 the Sunset Drip in Hollywood. 0:19:07.875 --> 0:19:10.755 Big Jim drove out to the Habitashery, a little hat 0:19:10.835 --> 0:19:13.315 shop on the Sunset Strip, and he made his way 0:19:13.355 --> 0:19:13.795 to the back. 0:19:14.595 --> 0:19:17.075 I was quite well impressed, first of all with the 0:19:17.115 --> 0:19:19.755 steel doors that I passed through to get into it. 0:19:19.915 --> 0:19:24.195 Secondly with its exquisite furnishing, walnut panels that ran from 0:19:24.235 --> 0:19:28.755 ceiling to floor, suspended television set in the corner, red 0:19:28.835 --> 0:19:33.635 leathered upholstered furniture in a semi circular death behind which 0:19:33.715 --> 0:19:36.715 SATIS famed man Mickey Cohen. 0:19:37.835 --> 0:19:41.155 Mickey Cohen was the head of the Los Angeles Underworld. Short, 0:19:41.275 --> 0:19:44.115 bald guy with a pretty odd personality, a cold blooded 0:19:44.155 --> 0:19:46.475 killer who loved eating ice cream and washed his hands 0:19:46.475 --> 0:19:49.355 fifty times a day. In the back of that hat shop, 0:19:49.475 --> 0:19:53.315 he explained the situation to Big Jim. The LAPD had 0:19:53.315 --> 0:19:57.035 bugged Cohen's house. Cohen wanted Big Jim to find the bug. 0:19:57.835 --> 0:20:01.395 He came by the next day piece of cake. Cohen 0:20:01.475 --> 0:20:04.115 was impressed, and pretty quickly he hired Big Jim to 0:20:04.195 --> 0:20:06.915 listen in on all of his enemies for him, including 0:20:06.915 --> 0:20:10.275 the LAPD, for whom Big Jim had also been wired tapping. 0:20:10.795 --> 0:20:13.035 He was a double agent, worked for the good guys 0:20:13.235 --> 0:20:15.955 and the bad guys, except as I came to realize, 0:20:16.035 --> 0:20:19.195 those were the same guys. In Los Angeles, there used 0:20:19.235 --> 0:20:22.635 to be something known as the combination, the alliance between 0:20:22.755 --> 0:20:26.555 city government, law enforcement, and the mob. Something like that 0:20:26.595 --> 0:20:29.435 still existed in Big Jim's day, so he didn't have 0:20:29.475 --> 0:20:32.875 to pick sides because there weren't really sides. He worked 0:20:32.875 --> 0:20:35.675 for the LAPD and he worked for the Mob. He 0:20:35.755 --> 0:20:39.235 got pretty cozy with them. Eventually he moved his electronics 0:20:39.235 --> 0:20:42.715 shop onto the Strip, right alongside the mobbed up Habitashery. 0:20:43.355 --> 0:20:46.995 The strip was outside city jurisdiction for quite some time. 0:20:47.115 --> 0:20:50.715 After engaging in this activity with mister Cohen, I found 0:20:50.715 --> 0:20:54.075 it convenience to work for him on the one side, 0:20:54.115 --> 0:20:56.595 and for law enforcement agencies. 0:20:56.035 --> 0:20:59.795 On the other Voss was still working with the LAPD. 0:20:59.915 --> 0:21:03.075 Tapping the phones was amazingly useful for those guys, because 0:21:03.115 --> 0:21:05.195 the phone has always been a kind of refuge for 0:21:05.235 --> 0:21:08.115 the things people can't do in public. That's one way 0:21:08.155 --> 0:21:10.355 to think about the telephone network as a kind of 0:21:10.435 --> 0:21:13.595 shadow of public life, the place where secret lives and 0:21:13.635 --> 0:21:19.915 longings go, things like prostitution. In the late nineteen forties, 0:21:20.075 --> 0:21:22.835 Voss's main gig with the police had been helping Stoker 0:21:22.875 --> 0:21:26.755 investigate probably the biggest prostitution ring in the city. It 0:21:26.835 --> 0:21:29.915 was headed up by a woman named Brenda Allen. She 0:21:30.035 --> 0:21:34.475 was a hard nosed businesswoman, glamorous, always in sunglasses. As 0:21:34.515 --> 0:21:37.675 Time magazine put it, somewhat absurdly, she had a mind 0:21:37.755 --> 0:21:40.235 like a cash register, and she hadn't been in love 0:21:40.475 --> 0:21:44.155 since she was twenty one. Like Big Jim, She'd found 0:21:44.155 --> 0:21:48.035 a good use for Los Angeles' vast telephone network. Brothels 0:21:48.075 --> 0:21:50.915 were risky, they could be raided, all the foot traffic 0:21:50.915 --> 0:21:53.995 would draw attention. But if you had a web of employees, 0:21:54.035 --> 0:21:56.755 each with their own phone, the modern adam could function 0:21:56.835 --> 0:21:59.595 like a telephone exchange. This is where the term call 0:21:59.635 --> 0:22:02.875 girl comes from. Brenda Allen had one hundred and fourteen 0:22:02.915 --> 0:22:05.355 of them all over town. She was always on the 0:22:05.355 --> 0:22:09.795 phone setting up secret rendezvous, and Officer Stoker wanted Big 0:22:09.915 --> 0:22:13.995 Jim to listen in. He wrote about the plan in his. 0:22:13.995 --> 0:22:17.875 Memoir We went to Brendan entered through the basement through 0:22:17.915 --> 0:22:21.835 a rear door, and in short order Voss had tapped 0:22:21.835 --> 0:22:25.555 rendered Lyne. There were more calls than she could possibly 0:22:25.635 --> 0:22:28.035 hand them. As soon as she received one call and 0:22:28.075 --> 0:22:32.355 dispatched a girl or girls, she would dial the telephone, 0:22:32.395 --> 0:22:35.435 exchange them and contact. The operator would give her the 0:22:35.515 --> 0:22:37.395 names of waiting customs. 0:22:38.115 --> 0:22:41.595 The scene was recreated in that movie Wiretapper, in loving detail. 0:22:41.995 --> 0:22:44.835 You can see the real equipment, and the conversation is 0:22:44.875 --> 0:22:47.355 straight from an account. Big Jim wrote of the night. 0:22:49.555 --> 0:22:57.475 Cord, who gave you this number? Why, mister Fielding, our 0:22:57.555 --> 0:23:02.435 sales manager. Oh, yes, Well, we have some very nice 0:23:02.435 --> 0:23:07.355 books the heroine and one is especially attractive, A brunette 0:23:07.715 --> 0:23:12.155 about five for three ads like very interesting reading. How 0:23:12.155 --> 0:23:14.755