WEBVTT - Part Two: Josephine Baker: The Actor and Spy Who Mighta Saved the World 0:00:00.560 --> 0:00:04.680 Hello, and welcome to Coop People who did Coop Stuff, 0:00:04.840 --> 0:00:10.280 because we've had a coup in which Robert Evans has 0:00:10.920 --> 0:00:13.840 stopped pretending to be a different person than Sophie Lickterman. 0:00:14.600 --> 0:00:17.800 That's right. I'm just the best voice actor there's ever been. 0:00:18.480 --> 0:00:21.680 That's that's right, and that's why you have those immaculate 0:00:21.720 --> 0:00:26.160 accents that you totally do on your show and not mine. 0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:30.640 I'm your host, Margaret Kilsroy, and each week we talk 0:00:30.680 --> 0:00:36.480 about cool people who did cool stuff, which has never 0:00:36.520 --> 0:00:39.960 been the name of the podcast. So this week we're 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:42.400 talking with Lori Penny. Hi, Laurie, how are you? 0:00:43.240 --> 0:00:44.280 I'm all right, how are you? 0:00:45.080 --> 0:00:47.120 I'm doing good on this day that is totally a 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:49.120 different day than the previous day that we recorded. 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:52.320 It's also a different day. It's also a different day 0:00:52.560 --> 0:00:56.000 from me than it is for you. That's true. It's 0:00:56.120 --> 0:00:57.400 just going with here in London. 0:00:57.720 --> 0:01:01.520 Yeah, we wanted to record in two different days, so yeah. Well, 0:01:02.440 --> 0:01:05.560 and of course our producer is Sophie Lichterman. Sophie, how 0:01:05.600 --> 0:01:20.959 are you doing? Sophie. Laurie knows that I'm famously accent blind, 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:24.640 but even I can tell a perfect Boston accent. 0:01:25.680 --> 0:01:28.520 Classic Boston Sophie because she loves the Celtics so much. 0:01:29.160 --> 0:01:35.080 Yeah, totally. Ian is our audio engineer. Hi Ian, You'll 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:39.440 have to say hi to Ian too him. Our theme 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:44.720 music was written for Spyon Woman. So this week won't 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:46.560 make any sense, Well, today won't make any sense unless 0:01:46.600 --> 0:01:48.440 you go back and listen to part one. Where you 0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:50.279 should go back to listen to part one talk about 0:01:50.400 --> 0:01:53.480 Josephine Baker and where she comes from, which is mostly 0:01:53.560 --> 0:01:58.200 a series of not nice things that happened, followed by 0:01:58.320 --> 0:02:01.320 her doing really amazing shit and making it friends as a. 0:02:01.840 --> 0:02:05.800 Web of fascinating and brilliant lies. Love. I love the 0:02:05.840 --> 0:02:06.560 idea of it. 0:02:06.600 --> 0:02:11.080 Has this just amazing, amazing liar that's her talent in 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:11.960 so so many ways. 0:02:11.960 --> 0:02:14.079 And then she just becomes a spy, which I don't 0:02:14.120 --> 0:02:16.359 actually know much about, but I feel I'm about to. 0:02:17.760 --> 0:02:19.679 Yeah no, and it's it's perfect. Everyone keeps thinking that 0:02:19.720 --> 0:02:22.720 she wouldn't be a good spy because she's like an 0:02:22.760 --> 0:02:26.840 actress person in the world. Right, there are some downsides, 0:02:26.880 --> 0:02:31.480 but it works really well. So there's this intelligence agency 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:33.760 in France, or there used to be, and it's called 0:02:33.760 --> 0:02:40.959 the Dooziem Bureau Bureau, god fucking whatever. It's called the Yeah, 0:02:41.000 --> 0:02:46.320 thanks you, there we go, thank you, thank you. A 0:02:46.720 --> 0:02:52.040 low yeah, as compared to the law, you can probably 0:02:52.080 --> 0:02:56.480 actually pronounce all of this stuff. They're spies, and they 0:02:56.520 --> 0:02:59.480 spy on stuff. They counter spy on other people's spies 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:03.520 of the French ci A. Essentially they or the French 0:03:03.800 --> 0:03:07.080 M one six, m I six what's y'all's over and. 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:10.239 M I six or M I five that's what we 0:03:10.320 --> 0:03:12.519 could The M one is is a road? 0:03:12.800 --> 0:03:15.240 Yeah? Wait why five? And why is the most crowded 0:03:15.280 --> 0:03:16.120 road I've ever seen? 0:03:16.680 --> 0:03:19.400 Yes, I've never known why it's five and six? 0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:21.880 Actually, yeah, are they different? 0:03:23.240 --> 0:03:23.440 Yeah? 0:03:23.520 --> 0:03:25.880 One is one is Home affairs, one is one is 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:28.520 the FBI. One is the CIA exactly. 0:03:28.639 --> 0:03:30.720 A g r U F s B sort of sort 0:03:30.760 --> 0:03:32.359 of dell, yeah. 0:03:32.240 --> 0:03:39.960 Okay, okay, So the the those the m BR cut whatever, 0:03:40.200 --> 0:03:42.640 they predate the CIA by a long fucking time, like, 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:44.480 you know, fifty. 0:03:44.240 --> 0:03:44.920 Years at least. 0:03:46.040 --> 0:03:46.200 All. 0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:51.400 Yeah, However, it's also woefully underfunded. 0:03:51.400 --> 0:03:54.200 Not the CIA. They can have no fund fine CIA. 0:03:54.880 --> 0:03:58.200 Yeah, And normally I would say I don't care for 0:03:58.320 --> 0:04:02.400 countries for an intelligence. This is underfunded. There's this problem 0:04:02.480 --> 0:04:06.120 with the Nazis, you know, and it will have impacts, right, yeah, 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:09.760 So one of the ways that they start financing their shit, 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:13.120 or rather they start setting aside this slush fund where 0:04:13.760 --> 0:04:18.440 they're basically like intercepting spies, German spies in France and 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:21.000 then continuing to pretend to be those spies in order 0:04:21.000 --> 0:04:25.039 to keep getting payments from Germany. Because Germany's spy agency 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:26.400 is really well funded. 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:30.760 They're running faked spies in order to feel from the Nazis. 0:04:31.160 --> 0:04:42.120 Yeah, basically, yeah, right. They're also relying primarily on volunteer 0:04:42.240 --> 0:04:48.040 spies because they're broke as fuck. These volunteer spies are 0:04:48.080 --> 0:04:52.560 called honorable correspondence and they are a sort of irregular 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:55.360 and they're probably not super trustworthy to be honest, although 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:58.200 actually they are rated as very trustworthy by the like 0:04:59.360 --> 0:05:01.960 each of of French spies at this time has like 0:05:02.000 --> 0:05:04.440 a rating of the information is like rated on a 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:05.920 like seed a scale. 0:05:07.480 --> 0:05:11.000 Are you meant to be trustworthy if you're a spy? 0:05:11.720 --> 0:05:16.280 I know, maybe I've misunderstood spying here, right. I may 0:05:16.320 --> 0:05:20.200 not know much about about about lying, but I feel 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:22.480 like spies untrustworthy. 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:24.839 Yeah that's fair. 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:28.479 I honestly, sometimes spine seems like the most impossible thing 0:05:28.520 --> 0:05:30.200 in the world because you're like, well, who's lying who's not? 0:05:30.360 --> 0:05:31.640 I mean, I guess that's the whole thing, is trying 0:05:31.640 --> 0:05:33.279 to figure out who's lying, he's not. There's a whole 0:05:33.960 --> 0:05:34.760 things about it. 0:05:34.800 --> 0:05:36.040 But I don't know. 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:39.880 It's much easier to just be like, I'm a partisan, 0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:41.839 I shoot Nazis and then these people to do like 0:05:41.880 --> 0:05:50.080 really complicated shit. You know, yes, communication, yeah, exactly, So 0:05:51.560 --> 0:05:53.279 non violent communication with bullets. 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:56.560 Yeah, that's something different. 0:05:56.960 --> 0:06:01.200 Oh, violent communication? Sorry, violent communication, all right. So they 0:06:01.240 --> 0:06:05.799 recruit her the u z M Hero and it's a gamble. 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:08.320 They're like a lot of people like the guy who 0:06:08.320 --> 0:06:09.880 wants to recruit her is like, I want to recruit 0:06:09.960 --> 0:06:11.880 Jephine Baker And people are like, she's literally the most 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:15.000 photographed woman in the world. How can she be a spy? 0:06:15.800 --> 0:06:16.000 Right? 0:06:16.600 --> 0:06:19.080 But this is how it worked, and it worked because 0:06:19.080 --> 0:06:21.800 of that. So this guy shows up at her house, 0:06:21.920 --> 0:06:24.800 her big her chateau, and it's like, hey, do you 0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:26.280 want to go be a spy for France? And she's 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:29.240 apparently she's like hanging out in boots in the garden, 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:31.200 like picking up snails in order to feed them to 0:06:31.200 --> 0:06:35.400 her ducks. Oh yeah, it's like very like you know, 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:38.159 she has like two lives. You know, she's Josephine Baker 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:40.480 on stage and then she's like the lady who picks 0:06:40.560 --> 0:06:42.279 up snails to go feed to the ducks, or. 0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:46.479 Of secret dorkiness. Yeah, she just pulled her goat and 0:06:46.520 --> 0:06:48.119 her pig and head cheet during her ducks. 0:06:48.440 --> 0:06:51.080 Yeah, and her dog and her three different types of 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:53.719 monkeys and her mice, but we'll get to those. 0:06:54.760 --> 0:06:57.360 She's so glad she got so many animals. At the 0:06:57.400 --> 0:06:59.440 beginning of this story, she's like running away from home 0:06:59.440 --> 0:07:04.240 because they weren't. It's like the same kind. 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:06.240 Of person right the way through. I love it. 0:07:06.520 --> 0:07:08.640 Yeah. 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:10.960 So they show up and this guy shows up and 0:07:10.960 --> 0:07:12.720 he's like, yeah, you want to go spy for France, 0:07:12.760 --> 0:07:14.360 And she's like, well, I fucking hate Nazis and I 0:07:14.400 --> 0:07:17.600 fucking love Paris, so let's go. Or more specifically, she 0:07:17.680 --> 0:07:20.000 says things like the way she's quoted in all of 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:23.960 the various honorifics from France, as she says, dispose of 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:28.280 me as you will. You know, she's willing to die 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:30.960 to fuck up Nazis. She also makes it very clear 0:07:31.000 --> 0:07:33.560 up front that she has no problem killing Nazis herself 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:35.120 with her bare hands as necessary. 0:07:35.920 --> 0:07:39.080 This was this something that they suggested she should deal 0:07:39.240 --> 0:07:42.560 Was she just like as an optional extra in case. 0:07:43.200 --> 0:07:48.360 Has I think she just was like, I just want 0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:50.600 to make it clear, like does this mean I get 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:51.160 to kill. 0:07:51.000 --> 0:07:57.160 Some Yeah, it's like you can have a weapon. 0:08:00.320 --> 0:08:02.200 It's like whatever, I don't care. 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:06.240 There's nothing wrong with you I can't fix with my hands. 0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:12.360 Yeah, and her handler is a guy named Jacques Abtay. 0:08:13.480 --> 0:08:16.760 They start fucking, I think pretty much immediately because those spies, 0:08:17.840 --> 0:08:19.960 which makes the whole like dispose of me as you will, 0:08:20.000 --> 0:08:24.760 like kind of a kind of you say, yeah, both 0:08:24.760 --> 0:08:27.160 of them are married. Both of their marriages on the rocks. 0:08:28.400 --> 0:08:32.720 Sugar Lion has been cheating on Josephine. Josephine also had 0:08:32.840 --> 0:08:35.080 recently had a miscarriage that broke her heart and put 0:08:35.080 --> 0:08:40.200 some distance between her and Lion. And then Abtay, his 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:44.040 like wife I think was an Actually I don't think 0:08:44.040 --> 0:08:44.960 his marriage was on the rocks. 0:08:45.000 --> 0:08:46.360 I think he was just being shitty. 0:08:46.040 --> 0:08:49.000 Because his wife. His wife was not Josephine Baker. 0:08:49.960 --> 0:08:52.520 That was the problem with this, yeah, exactly. And his 0:08:52.559 --> 0:08:54.440 wife was like I think in England at this point 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:59.440 because the aforementioned the fall of France's imminent. One thing 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:02.400 I didn't realize is how everyone in France knew the 0:09:02.440 --> 0:09:07.280 fall of France was eminent except the French government. The 0:09:07.280 --> 0:09:10.320 French government was like, we have the line. I can't 0:09:10.320 --> 0:09:11.280 remember the name of the line. 0:09:11.280 --> 0:09:13.480 You imagine the line. Yeah, thank you. 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:15.840 They're like, we're going to hold this and it's totally 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:18.240 gonna work, and like all of France is like getting 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:20.320 ready for like, well, we're about to become German. Maybe 0:09:20.360 --> 0:09:27.960 we should get out of here, and yeah, including not lions, 0:09:28.000 --> 0:09:32.160 TH's lions whatever. Abdey's wife I believe is in England 0:09:32.160 --> 0:09:36.400 at this stright. So they give her her first assignment. 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:39.960 They want to know if Mussolini is going to join Hitler, 0:09:40.080 --> 0:09:42.959 if he's going to join the Axis forces. It's hard 0:09:43.000 --> 0:09:45.319 to imagine in retrospect that anything else could have happened, 0:09:45.360 --> 0:09:46.960 but it was actually an unknown at the time, and 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:51.480 considering Franco didn't write, there was not actually an assumption 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:54.360 that all of the Fascist countries would fight on the 0:09:54.400 --> 0:09:58.160 same side. So she goes over to the Italian embassy. 0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:02.720 They like her there, they trust her. After all, she 0:10:02.920 --> 0:10:10.320 backed Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia, right, yeah, And she gets 0:10:10.320 --> 0:10:13.240 information out of a guy I think by nagging him. 0:10:13.760 --> 0:10:17.800 Oh yeah, just like can do that ship. That's what 0:10:17.840 --> 0:10:19.640 you gotta do, That's what you gotta do. Yeah, you 0:10:19.640 --> 0:10:22.120 could do that ship. Your biceps a looking kind of 0:10:22.160 --> 0:10:24.600 weak from you even like lift with your tries. 0:10:25.320 --> 0:10:28.120 Yeah, I bet you, I bet, I bet You're not 0:10:28.120 --> 0:10:30.120 going to join any any Nazi alliance. 0:10:30.240 --> 0:10:32.199 You know that, But you couldn't. You just wouldn't be 0:10:32.200 --> 0:10:33.400 that kind of person. Yeah. 0:10:34.000 --> 0:10:39.600 Yeah, So she talks them into joinings. I mean yeah, 0:10:39.640 --> 0:10:41.880 but yeah, and this guy like basically like whispers to 0:10:41.960 --> 0:10:43.760 her like, oh no, we're totally going to join Hitler, 0:10:44.880 --> 0:10:46.720 and so she goes and it's like, oh yeah, totally, 0:10:47.280 --> 0:10:49.640 that's interesting. I am and nobody there's no reason I 0:10:49.640 --> 0:10:54.000 would tell anyone that. And apparently at this point she's like, yeah, like. 0:10:54.600 --> 0:10:58.439 Me a bit you can say to me, honey, And she. 0:10:58.520 --> 0:11:01.600 Like is literally writing the notes on her like arm, 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:05.440 like she's in school, you know. Yeah, because when people 0:11:05.480 --> 0:11:06.760 are like what the fuck you do it, she's like 0:11:06.800 --> 0:11:08.880 not not the people she's spying on, but like later, 0:11:09.880 --> 0:11:12.200 and that's for sure when people are like how do 0:11:12.200 --> 0:11:15.000 you get away with that? She's like, I'm Josephine Baker, Like, 0:11:15.080 --> 0:11:16.320 no one's gonna second guess me. 0:11:17.200 --> 0:11:21.560 So it works, she's yeah. 0:11:21.600 --> 0:11:23.160 And so she's the one who breaks the news to 0:11:23.200 --> 0:11:27.200 the Allies that Mussolini is going to join the Axis 0:11:27.200 --> 0:11:30.480 Powers and this is really fucking bad news, but it's 0:11:30.480 --> 0:11:33.439 also really important news for the Allies to have. And 0:11:34.679 --> 0:11:38.199 next up, they're like, all right, what about Japan. What's 0:11:38.280 --> 0:11:41.080 Japan going to do? Because Japan at the time is like, 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:45.040 what joining Axis? We would we would never do that. 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:49.400 It's like not our thing. This is shortly after Stalin 0:11:49.480 --> 0:11:51.680 had made a deal with Hitler because we cannot go 0:11:51.760 --> 0:11:54.199 an episode without bringing up the Malota ribbon. Trump packed 0:11:54.520 --> 0:11:56.959 It's in that contract with cool Zone Media. 0:11:57.360 --> 0:11:58.880 Yeah, that's one of my favorite pacts. 0:11:59.440 --> 0:12:07.760 Yeah, top five past easy, easy. And the Allies are 0:12:07.800 --> 0:12:11.079 basically like, all right, well, Germany, Italy and Russia are 0:12:11.120 --> 0:12:14.680 all on one side. We're kind of in trouble here, right, 0:12:15.160 --> 0:12:20.640 If Japan joins, we're kind of just entirely fucked right. 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:22.240 Yeah, they never do that. 0:12:22.800 --> 0:12:25.960 No, they would never do what Yeah, which kind of 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:29.160 like I mean, looking at it, I'm like, if Germany 0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:32.240 hadn't betrayed Russia by invading it with the Nazis have 0:12:32.280 --> 0:12:32.880 won the war. 0:12:34.840 --> 0:12:39.080 Americans. Yeah, I mean absolutely. I mean it's one of 0:12:39.080 --> 0:12:44.480 those things. Also, if they had just like stopped, like 0:12:44.600 --> 0:12:47.959 not instituted the Battle of Britain, not invaded Russia, focused 0:12:48.000 --> 0:12:51.120 on Northern Africa, Yeah, it's potentially like at least a 0:12:51.160 --> 0:12:53.960 situation where they can hold on to European dominance and 0:12:54.000 --> 0:12:57.880 probably a big chunk of the Mediterranean too. Yeah. 0:12:58.120 --> 0:13:00.800 Yeah, but it was all because you know, the people 0:13:00.800 --> 0:13:03.600 who one were strong and brilliant and clever are not 0:13:03.760 --> 0:13:06.479 at all because Nazis made mistakes. 0:13:06.840 --> 0:13:09.800 Yeah, right, you know, it's complicated, but Nazis made a 0:13:09.840 --> 0:13:10.640 lot of mistakes. 0:13:11.880 --> 0:13:12.400 Yeah. 0:13:13.120 --> 0:13:15.000 Yeah, we're in a pretty good position after the fall 0:13:15.040 --> 0:13:16.720 of France. It would have been really hard to dislodge 0:13:16.760 --> 0:13:18.559 them if they hadn't have done a bunch of really 0:13:18.600 --> 0:13:19.200 stupid shit. 0:13:20.200 --> 0:13:21.760 Yeah. 0:13:21.840 --> 0:13:22.080 Yeah. 0:13:22.080 --> 0:13:24.880 There's like parts in this that are like, as I'm 0:13:24.880 --> 0:13:29.199 reading about it all I'm like, oh, this. 0:13:27.679 --> 0:13:29.920 This was closer than I thought. 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:31.320 I mean this obviously you look at some of it 0:13:31.320 --> 0:13:32.800 and you're like, oh god, this is close, right, I 0:13:32.840 --> 0:13:34.600 don't know whatever. There's just moments where it's. 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:40.280 Like like there's you know, there had been prior to 0:13:40.320 --> 0:13:41.800 the Nazi invasion. 0:13:41.840 --> 0:13:44.000 Like one of the reasons why Stalin has a series 0:13:44.040 --> 0:13:47.440 of panic attacks is that, like the Germans, even before 0:13:47.480 --> 0:13:49.760 the Nazis took over in the Weimar years, had a 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:54.320 pretty long history post war of collaborating and training with 0:13:54.440 --> 0:13:58.839 the Red Army that's who. Like, as the German military 0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:01.800 was re arming after World War One because they're a 0:14:01.840 --> 0:14:05.439 paria nation, because the Soviets are a pariah nation, they're 0:14:05.440 --> 0:14:09.760 doing like combined arms training together for a so interesting 0:14:10.240 --> 0:14:14.440 of the nineteen thirties. Okay, Yeah, it's like they had. 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:17.800 It's much like the kind of collaborations between the two 0:14:17.840 --> 0:14:21.240 countries actually go back both further than the Nazis coming 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:24.280 to power and significantly further than the Molotov Ribbon trop back. 0:14:24.920 --> 0:14:32.800 Okay, that makes a lot of sense. So, so she's 0:14:32.800 --> 0:14:34.880 trying to find out, Josephine's trying to find out Japan's 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:38.080 going to join the war and fuck everything up. I mean, 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:41.320 spoiler alert, Japan was on the axis side of World 0:14:41.360 --> 0:14:44.520 War Two for anyone who's not familiar with that part 0:14:44.520 --> 0:14:48.480 of it. So Josephine, she's tight with the Japanese ambassador's 0:14:48.520 --> 0:14:53.120 wife in a almost like like she calls her her sister. 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:55.800 This is when when she went back to the US 0:14:55.880 --> 0:14:57.720 and she was getting kicked out of all these hotels. 0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:02.080 Oh she was that was the friend is the Japanese 0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:07.480 ambassador's wife. So she's in with the Japanese embassy, but 0:15:07.560 --> 0:15:10.160 she would have to leverage and betray that trust in 0:15:10.240 --> 0:15:13.200 order to find out what Japan is going to do 0:15:13.240 --> 0:15:19.280 in the war. Man, So she does, yeah, right, choice, that's. 0:15:20.600 --> 0:15:23.160 Yeah, you know, I don't feel like it is. 0:15:23.320 --> 0:15:25.720 I feel like Howard choice, but it's a very obvious one. 0:15:27.160 --> 0:15:30.400 Yeah, Like, I mean, yeah, if there's a good situation 0:15:30.520 --> 0:15:33.920 to betray your friend, it's when they side with the Nazis. Two. 0:15:34.640 --> 0:15:38.280 Yeah, exactly, exactly, a little bit of a no brainer. 0:15:39.080 --> 0:15:40.720 Yeah. 0:15:40.760 --> 0:15:43.160 Like USSR is over here being like, oh, thank god 0:15:43.440 --> 0:15:45.600 Finland joined the Access Power So the winner war makes 0:15:45.680 --> 0:15:48.480 us look like who we were on the right side. 0:15:50.120 --> 0:15:53.200 So she leverages her connections with the Japanese ambassador to 0:15:53.200 --> 0:15:55.880 find out that yes, Japan is going to join the 0:15:55.880 --> 0:15:59.320 Access Powers. So she passes that along too, and the 0:15:59.360 --> 0:16:02.200 war itself is kicking off. At this point. Germany in 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:04.480 the USSR did their joint invasion of Poland in September 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:08.400 nineteen thirty nine, and it seems like most of France 0:16:08.520 --> 0:16:10.480 is like, I think we're just going to kind of lose, 0:16:10.960 --> 0:16:13.360 which is in fact what ends up happening. But for 0:16:13.400 --> 0:16:15.360 a little while, for eight months, you have this quote 0:16:15.400 --> 0:16:19.000 unquote phony war, and it's eight months of not much 0:16:19.040 --> 0:16:22.680 happening on the Western Front. The Western Powers have declared war, 0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:26.720 but they aren't really doing much besides economic actions. The war, 0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:29.640 of course, wasn't phony on the Eastern Front, although in 0:16:29.640 --> 0:16:31.320 some ways the Eastern Front didn't exist yet. 0:16:31.200 --> 0:16:34.280 Because one of my favorite factors, so the phony war 0:16:34.320 --> 0:16:35.240 is one thing it's called. 0:16:35.280 --> 0:16:37.680 The other nickname they had for it was the sits Creek. 0:16:40.960 --> 0:16:46.480 Yeah right, And actually this whole time, Josephine has complaining 0:16:46.520 --> 0:16:49.080 about the sits Kreek basically because her whole thing is 0:16:49.120 --> 0:16:51.640 she's like trying to she doesn't succeed, obviously, she's trying 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:55.520 to get France in England to just fucking invade Germany, just. 0:16:55.480 --> 0:16:57.880 Like let's go, let's do it. 0:16:58.920 --> 0:17:00.800 How is she one per trying to do. 0:17:00.840 --> 0:17:03.200 This if the others doesn't have any. 0:17:03.080 --> 0:17:05.160 Impact, because I'm us making that time. 0:17:05.240 --> 0:17:08.520 Yeah, yeah, Yeah, I don't think she's like pulling strings. 0:17:08.560 --> 0:17:10.520 I think she's just making it clear that her opinion 0:17:10.720 --> 0:17:12.840 is whereat war, let's destroy them. 0:17:12.960 --> 0:17:13.160 Yeah. 0:17:13.400 --> 0:17:17.880 Like she has a fairly like simple she does incredibly 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:20.600 complicated strategy all the time. But it's just like she's 0:17:20.640 --> 0:17:22.480 just like, well, let's just fucking do the thing. It's 0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:25.680 like often seems to be her her strategy in a 0:17:25.760 --> 0:17:29.560 very effective way. And the war, of course, isn't phony 0:17:29.680 --> 0:17:32.320 on the Eastern Front. There's refugees pouring out of everywhere. 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:34.720 It's also not phony to French civilians who are pouring 0:17:34.760 --> 0:17:38.960 away from the border with Germany. Josephine was not willing 0:17:39.040 --> 0:17:43.240 to just to just do behind the scenes shit. She's like, well, 0:17:43.280 --> 0:17:46.280 I can fly a plane. I like giving people stuff. 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:51.159 So on Christmas nineteen thirty nine, she signs up with 0:17:51.200 --> 0:17:53.800 the Red Cross and flies aid to the refugees, goes 0:17:53.840 --> 0:17:58.679 on a bunch of different missions. Yeah, what flying across 0:17:58.800 --> 0:18:00.920 enemy lines to refugees and Europe, I think. 0:18:01.280 --> 0:18:01.480 Yeah. 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:04.760 She starts performing for the troops as well, which is 0:18:04.840 --> 0:18:07.680 most of what people know about her wartime activity because 0:18:07.680 --> 0:18:09.119 a lot of the other stuff was undercover for a 0:18:09.200 --> 0:18:12.480 very long time, right, She starts singing his anthem that 0:18:12.560 --> 0:18:15.640 she'd actually written a while earlier. Je vu a moire. 0:18:16.240 --> 0:18:19.240 I have two loves, and her two loves are Paris 0:18:19.320 --> 0:18:22.000 and her country, and I think this means the USA, 0:18:22.119 --> 0:18:23.840 although it's kind of funny because she hates the USA. 0:18:23.960 --> 0:18:26.680 I sort of write my first read was I have 0:18:26.720 --> 0:18:29.040 two loves Paris and my country. And I kind of 0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:30.920 like it because I like the fact that Paris doesn't 0:18:30.920 --> 0:18:33.399 consider itself part of France. It's like always amused me. 0:18:33.680 --> 0:18:37.000 Yeah, it's kind of like London and the reci of 0:18:37.000 --> 0:18:38.720 the Ukay, it's a different place. 0:18:39.240 --> 0:18:41.399 Yeah, that makes sense. That's kind of like the rest 0:18:41.440 --> 0:18:42.960 of the UK and England. They would like to be 0:18:43.040 --> 0:18:43.760 different places. 0:18:44.280 --> 0:18:46.879 It's like Texas and the rest of the United States. 0:18:47.200 --> 0:18:50.440 Yeah, would prefer to be different places. But if you 0:18:50.480 --> 0:18:54.560 would prefer to be different and stand out from the crowd, 0:18:55.400 --> 0:18:59.000 you can do so by having the same stuff as 0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:02.720 other people who stand out from the crowd, by purchasing 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:05.160 stuff from our fine advertisers. 0:19:07.280 --> 0:19:09.320 What how'd I do? Is that gonna work? We're gonna 0:19:09.440 --> 0:19:12.080 We're gonna make stuff book. That's fine, that's fine. Yeah, 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:14.200 Big Stuff is investing. 0:19:14.720 --> 0:19:24.639 Excellent, excellent, here's some maths, and we're back. So she 0:19:24.720 --> 0:19:27.159 started writing songs for the British troops who were stationed 0:19:27.200 --> 0:19:29.320 in sad bunkers on the Western Front. She started writing 0:19:29.359 --> 0:19:32.000 a bunch of songs in English about like I didn't 0:19:32.000 --> 0:19:33.600 write down the titles of it, but they're like, I 0:19:33.640 --> 0:19:35.640 don't know, I missed London and everything's sad. 0:19:35.960 --> 0:19:36.840 I don't actually remember. 0:19:37.280 --> 0:19:39.320 But she writes a bunch of songs for the British 0:19:39.320 --> 0:19:41.119 people who are like sitting around in the sitskrig. 0:19:41.880 --> 0:19:42.719 I really like this name. 0:19:42.760 --> 0:19:44.520 I'm going to use that all the time now, all 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:46.080 of the times in my life. When I talk about 0:19:46.080 --> 0:19:47.760 the Phony War, I. 0:19:47.840 --> 0:19:50.119 Bet there was like in at least in every one 0:19:50.160 --> 0:19:52.320 of those bunkers, there was one person who kept doing that. 0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:56.480 You just wouldn't let it go. And have you heard this? 0:19:58.640 --> 0:20:00.480 So that's actually where they started to real wool. 0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:05.920 No, they just sent that guy into no man's land 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:11.280 as a scout and then he came back successful. He's 0:20:11.320 --> 0:20:13.119 actually the real hero. We're going to pivot to hit no. 0:20:16.080 --> 0:20:16.960 So she starts working. 0:20:17.240 --> 0:20:20.200 So she's flying missions, she's she's writing songs, she's done 0:20:20.240 --> 0:20:23.280 all the spine. She starts working at soup kitchens for 0:20:23.359 --> 0:20:27.680 the Red Cross, and her presence cheers everyone up. And 0:20:28.320 --> 0:20:31.440 she's doing two things here, well, okays, as mutual aid, 0:20:31.480 --> 0:20:34.679 she's doing two things. She was directly materially helping people, right, 0:20:35.400 --> 0:20:37.719 she was also cheering people up her presence. I mean 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:41.000 she's like, I don't know who's a famous. 0:20:40.720 --> 0:20:42.520 Person she's turning up? 0:20:42.880 --> 0:20:52.120 Yeah, the famous Beyonce. Beyonce is like, right, you know, yeah, 0:20:52.320 --> 0:20:53.359 do we know that she's not? 0:20:55.720 --> 0:20:55.920 Yeah? 0:20:56.680 --> 0:20:57.040 Oh yeah. 0:20:58.359 --> 0:21:00.959 So I think her mutual aid were was entirely sincere, 0:21:01.040 --> 0:21:03.399 but it was also a great cover for spying because 0:21:04.000 --> 0:21:07.960 Germany's spy oparass has been pouring spies into France, and 0:21:08.080 --> 0:21:10.000 it has been for like a decade now, right, like 0:21:10.160 --> 0:21:12.440 building up towards this shit. But it's just it's just 0:21:12.560 --> 0:21:14.200 ramping up more and more and more, and they're going 0:21:14.240 --> 0:21:17.240 from like a couple dozen arrests of spies per week 0:21:17.320 --> 0:21:19.720 to like hundreds of arrests of spies per week, and 0:21:19.800 --> 0:21:23.159 there's just more that keep pouring in. And so she 0:21:23.480 --> 0:21:26.880 is hanging out at the like she's just fucking trying 0:21:26.920 --> 0:21:32.080 to figure who's the spy constantly. Meanwhile, she divorces her 0:21:32.160 --> 0:21:39.720 husbands number three yeah, yeah, so the foreny war doesn't last. 0:21:40.119 --> 0:21:42.960