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Speaker 1: you never know stories of things we simply don't know
Speaker 1: the answer too. Well, you're there. Welcome to another episode
Speaker 1: of Thinking Sideways. I'm your host this week, joined as
Speaker 1: always by my friends Stephen Devon. Say hi guys, Hi,
Speaker 1: Hi Joe, Hi, audience, Hey, we love you. Okay, let's
Speaker 1: it going wild? Uh So this week, according to the emails, yeah,
Speaker 1: we don't get any email. Somebody sayd us an email. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: just kidding. But uh uh so this week we are
Speaker 1: going to be talking about another baffling mystery. Sorry to
Speaker 1: say this one doesn't involve any bloodshed, immulated bodies, or
Speaker 1: beheadings or anything, so sorry about that. Although I get
Speaker 1: I do get emails. I got an email a while
Speaker 1: back from some guys saying we were just focusing too
Speaker 1: much on bloody stuff. I agree, we always do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we kind of do a lot. So so yeah, no,
Speaker 1: not really, we did theok, we did that little useless
Speaker 1: head that somebody stuck in the that the tomb, Yeah
Speaker 1: there was that one was shut up. I'm sorry that
Speaker 1: was part of the key chain, I think. Uh where Okay?
Speaker 1: Back to our story. Uh. It begins in nineteen seventy six.
Speaker 1: On March sixteenth of that year, Prime Minister Harold Wilson
Speaker 1: of the United Kingdom suddenly announced that he was resigning
Speaker 1: his job, just like that. He hadn't even been in
Speaker 1: it for two years. He also didn't give a reason why,
Speaker 1: he just said he was quitting. And people have been
Speaker 1: wondering about it ever since. And so people are saying
Speaker 1: why did he resign? And this has been going up
Speaker 1: for thirty plus years and as recently it's just this
Speaker 1: past August, the Daily Mail in the UK published you
Speaker 1: had another article about it? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I quote
Speaker 1: them a little later on, but I'm not totally placing
Speaker 1: total credence under theory. But just goes to show you
Speaker 1: in the UK at least this story is actually still
Speaker 1: talked about. Can we be honest in the UK? If
Speaker 1: it's been in the Daily Mail more than twice, It's
Speaker 1: been in the Daily Mail about thirty seven times. Because
Speaker 1: they love to trot things out on yeah, and I
Speaker 1: swear they've got like a rollo decks of old stories.
Speaker 1: Let's kind of like bat Boy. Yeah. I like that
Speaker 1: boy too. That boy appears in twelve Monkeys, by the way. Yeah, okay, First,
Speaker 1: just a quick little background. Harold Wilson entered the British
Speaker 1: Parliament in as a Labor MP. Uh. He was actually
Speaker 1: it was kind of a Minister of Parliament. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: Member of parliament yeah, not military police. Uh. And it
Speaker 1: was kind of a fluke in a sense because he
Speaker 1: was actually in academia and some Labor Party types decided
Speaker 1: they wanted to put him up to run in this
Speaker 1: one district. They didn't think he was gonna win. They
Speaker 1: just wanted a candidate to run, and well, it turns
Speaker 1: out he won. So he was a part of parliament
Speaker 1: and he was in parliament for like, you know, thirty
Speaker 1: years after um and he quickly rose through the ranks
Speaker 1: in the Labor Party that I didn't mention his Labor
Speaker 1: and by nineteen sixty three he was shadow Foreign Secretary.
Speaker 1: You know. So when you're when you're in the opposition,
Speaker 1: you're out of power of the party, you still have
Speaker 1: a full minority. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay, still you still
Speaker 1: have a full cabinet, so he's like the minority foreign secretary. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So essentially okay, so you're when you I prefer the
Speaker 1: way that they do that parliamentary thing like yeah, shadow member. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you got these guys secretary. Yeah. It's almost like Harry
Speaker 1: Potter was written in the UK or something almost. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you get to wear a cape and everything. It's
Speaker 1: got a little mask. But uh yeah, okay, opportunity came knocking.
Speaker 1: Hugh gate Skill, the head of the party that's the
Speaker 1: Labor Party, was suddenly stricken with a rare disease called
Speaker 1: systemic lupus uh arithmatosis. I'm sure miss pounced, yeah, but
Speaker 1: we'll it was. We'll call it lupas. Uh. He just
Speaker 1: was stricken and suddenly died. Bamn like that. It was
Speaker 1: at the age of fifty six. It's kind of a
Speaker 1: shocker for everybody. But of course they had to elect
Speaker 1: a new leader. There was a there was an election
Speaker 1: within the party. Harold Wilson was elected as gate Skills successor,
Speaker 1: and then in the following year in Ateen sixty four,
Speaker 1: Labor one of the the majority of seats in parliament and
Speaker 1: Harold Wilson became prime minister just like that? Is that?
Speaker 1: Is that how it works? Yeah, it's just like it's
Speaker 1: like the House majority leader is prime minister kind of
Speaker 1: like that. After the head of the party, then you
Speaker 1: become prime minister. Interesting And what's what it took me
Speaker 1: a while to really wrap my head around is that
Speaker 1: in this country our elections are very regimented. There every
Speaker 1: four every two two years for certain seats, or every
Speaker 1: four years for other seats, or six years for the Senate. Right,
Speaker 1: but if for Parliament it's no, it's it's you can't
Speaker 1: go more than five years without an election. So at
Speaker 1: two years you could say, I'm going to prove that
Speaker 1: we're still strong and having elections, or you could wait
Speaker 1: till four years or wait till the fifth. It's it's
Speaker 1: really kind of willing. Nearly a little bit is strength.
Speaker 1: Like the national elections are like that. Yes, literally, somebody
Speaker 1: is just like, you know what, let's have an election
Speaker 1: this year. Yeah. Or sometimes what happens is say if
Speaker 1: if neither no party wins a majority, I saw the
Speaker 1: majority in the form of coalition, and sometimes the coalitions,
Speaker 1: well they start quarreling and they break up and bam
Speaker 1: and then and I know the Queen comes in at
Speaker 1: some point in this entire process, but I don't remember
Speaker 1: where that. Yeah, she comes down and just you know,
Speaker 1: spank him or something them. So Wilson just ends up
Speaker 1: random movie prime minister. Yeah, so Harold, Yeah, it becomes
Speaker 1: prime minister and back to Hugh Gatescale for a second.
Speaker 1: His death, as I said, was very, very shocking to everybody,
Speaker 1: and of course it spawned a few conspiracy theories, which
Speaker 1: gives us a nice little mystery within a mystery, which
Speaker 1: was he murdered, Yeah, and by whom. It is the
Speaker 1: one theory that's out there, as the Soviets murdered him
Speaker 1: because they wanted him out of the way so that
Speaker 1: their buddy Wilson would be in line for the prime
Speaker 1: minister slot. But anyway, we'll talk about that later, but
Speaker 1: it's still a popular theory. It's out there. Harold Wilson
Speaker 1: served as Prime Minister until nineteen seventy when Labor got
Speaker 1: turned out, So that's six years six years roughly, and
Speaker 1: then uh in nineteen seventy four Labor came back in,
Speaker 1: so he became prime Minister again, and then less than
Speaker 1: two years later in March sixteen, nineteen seventy six, he
Speaker 1: announced that he was resigning, and to this day we
Speaker 1: still don't actually know why. And I'm trying to remember
Speaker 1: who was it that was prime minister in between, because
Speaker 1: it was one guy in a four yr span. Believe
Speaker 1: it was Edward Heath, Yes it was and he So
Speaker 1: this is where that whole like, we're going to have
Speaker 1: an election. He decided to do this, you know, to
Speaker 1: have an election to prove that what he was doing
Speaker 1: was right and was turned out maybe not, And it
Speaker 1: turned out he totally got it handed to him. And
Speaker 1: that's how how Harold ended up back in the back
Speaker 1: in office. And I don't think Harold actually came in
Speaker 1: with a resounding majority. I think he had three seats extra.
Speaker 1: That was about it. So it wasn't huge, but it
Speaker 1: wasn't not to make him prime minister. All right, let's
Speaker 1: go straight into theories. I mean, that's a short story,
Speaker 1: don't you think. Yeah, I mean I guess in my
Speaker 1: mind the answer is pretty short, right, is like being
Speaker 1: prime minister probably kind of sucks. And he did it
Speaker 1: for like six years and then he was like, oh crap,
Speaker 1: this again, and then he did it for a couple
Speaker 1: of years and he was like, no, no no, no, I
Speaker 1: really do hate this. By there you go, that's my theory.
Speaker 1: Episode over. Great, that's a plausible theory. Yeah, that is
Speaker 1: a plausible theory. But there's many others. Some of them
Speaker 1: are juicier than that. Yeah, I mean that's a good
Speaker 1: practical theory. I do have to admit. Yeah. Well, first theory,
Speaker 1: and this is only a partial theory, was that his
Speaker 1: wife just wanted out. Because his wife, Mary was uh,
Speaker 1: he's a very private person and she didn't want to
Speaker 1: be a politician's wife. No, not really, she was like
Speaker 1: a professor's wife. Yeah. She really preferred the academic life
Speaker 1: and what that's then, that's what Harold was originally was
Speaker 1: an academic and she kind of preferred that, and she
Speaker 1: didn't like the publicity and all that she did. She
Speaker 1: didn't like the nastiness of all the politics. And you know,
Speaker 1: in all the years since she left and then the
Speaker 1: years since he died, she's pretty much stayed out of
Speaker 1: the public life and she's not talked to anybody. She's
Speaker 1: given like one interview in that entire time. I think, Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's a very private person. Yeah, she went to like
Speaker 1: the big events and she would be by his side
Speaker 1: and go to the dinners and whatnot. There's actually I
Speaker 1: was looking at through the records and there's a picture
Speaker 1: of Wilson and his wife and the other prime minister,
Speaker 1: Harold and his wife Harold hold at at an event.
Speaker 1: So it was like, wait, wait, which one are we
Speaker 1: talking about here? I love it? Uh yeah, don't don't
Speaker 1: lose that picture. By the way, thankfully it was on
Speaker 1: the international again. Yeah yeah, yeah, that's a good one.
Speaker 1: But but you know what the problem with the series is,
Speaker 1: it's a little late to make a career change because
Speaker 1: your wife wants you to, because he had that thirty
Speaker 1: some years prior to have come to that decision. Well,
Speaker 1: but there's also the point of like he was prime
Speaker 1: minister for six years, right and then they lost. That
Speaker 1: would have been a really great time if his wife
Speaker 1: had been like not into the whole politician thing, that
Speaker 1: she could have said, Okay, great, you've done it right,
Speaker 1: you've kind of seen this thing through, you've led your
Speaker 1: party for six years. You did a really good job.
Speaker 1: It's time to just take a step back. And then
Speaker 1: that's when, like for me, that's when I would have
Speaker 1: done it right, And that's when I think the logical
Speaker 1: time for something like that is not two years after
Speaker 1: you've become prime minister again in my mind, so I agree,
Speaker 1: I don't think this theory is good. Yeah, it's if
Speaker 1: this could have been a factor. I don't think it's
Speaker 1: see the all encompassing theory, right, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: It might have been a factor in his thinking. Maybe. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of the stuff that is our theories,
Speaker 1: not all of them, and a lot of them could
Speaker 1: very easily have been simply contributing factors. Yeah, I think, Well,
Speaker 1: and he wasn't. He was in office for how long
Speaker 1: to seventies six? Break? Well, he was thirty one years.
Speaker 1: That's a long time to do something that your wife
Speaker 1: hates and to finally give in Exactly my point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't like. If I don't, I don't get away
Speaker 1: with doing anything. I was just gonna say, if you
Speaker 1: were doing something that your wife hated, would you get
Speaker 1: thirty one years out of it or would you be like, okay,
Speaker 1: I've done this for ten that was fun. Well, then
Speaker 1: again I am still podcasting. So she had past, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, she she didn't even like ten Downing Street. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they when they when he won against seventy four, they
Speaker 1: didn't even move back into it because she really didn't
Speaker 1: like it. She thought it was a crappy little apartment.
Speaker 1: So yeah, no ten Downing for her. Uh, let's get
Speaker 1: to our next one here. And this is the reason.
Speaker 1: Is the pressure of the whole thing. Reportedly at the
Speaker 1: time he was drinking like during the day because of
Speaker 1: his job was so stressful for him. Understandable. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: his wife again, Mary said, this is the one interview
Speaker 1: she gave said, quote, he'd had enough. There was a
Speaker 1: seaman strike which he had just dealt with. He told
Speaker 1: me that he could not deal with it with the
Speaker 1: same level of energy and the same zest, and possibly
Speaker 1: he began to feel that his memory was going unquote
Speaker 1: that's what That's what his why, I said. Apparently just
Speaker 1: wasn't as enthusiastic about it as he used to be. Go, figure, well,
Speaker 1: if we gotta we gotta jump back here second though,
Speaker 1: and say, look at what was going on in the
Speaker 1: world at the time, both prior to and then during
Speaker 1: the time that he was serving his second stint. I mean,
Speaker 1: we're looking at the late sixties. Things are getting kind
Speaker 1: of dicey. The early seventies, things are starting to fall apart.
Speaker 1: Economically for Britain, there's their stagflation going on, the unemployment
Speaker 1: rate is rising. They've got obviously it was three or
Speaker 1: four states of emergency were called in that four years,
Speaker 1: which you know is just astronomical because it didn't happen
Speaker 1: very often reduced work weeks, so people weren't making money.
Speaker 1: I mean, like it was all kinds of social and
Speaker 1: economic things that were just going wrong, left, right and center.
Speaker 1: The crisis. Yeah, especially in the mid seventies well, with
Speaker 1: the rise of OPEC and the sudden shoot up in
Speaker 1: oil prices that damaged a lot of Western economies. It
Speaker 1: took us a long time to get out of that.
Speaker 1: So it wasn't just Britain, but sure they were hard,
Speaker 1: harder hit than st because we at least produced some oil.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess, I guess they produced some from
Speaker 1: the North Sea, but they're not the big well it
Speaker 1: hadn't that hadn't really come online, So that was that
Speaker 1: was the hard part of r C. Oil really didn't
Speaker 1: come in until the very end of the seventies beginning
Speaker 1: of the eighties. That was one of the things that
Speaker 1: really helped Thatcher out is that she you know, there
Speaker 1: was that economic boom just after she came in because
Speaker 1: the wells started really producing. Well, let's here for oil wells.
Speaker 1: I guess, let's kill some more, stay for some cold. Uh.
Speaker 1: But you can see how the pressure of being the
Speaker 1: prime minister would just sort of wear on you. It's
Speaker 1: pretty exciting and glamorous for a while and all that
Speaker 1: power and everything, but after a while, it does it
Speaker 1: probably does wear you down. And so the reason I
Speaker 1: like this theory is that, uh, he didn't want to
Speaker 1: admit when he was resigning. He didn't want to say that, well, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm just a big weeding and I can't take the
Speaker 1: pressure anymore. You know, you're not gonna say that. You're
Speaker 1: not gonna say, oh my god, I just can't take it.
Speaker 1: So maybe that's why he said he didn't resign. He
Speaker 1: wouldn't say why he resigned, you know. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: a little early in the game to to bring this up,
Speaker 1: but I wonder about a lot of times when there's
Speaker 1: the resignation, and it's a resignation in order to put
Speaker 1: your favorite in the spotlight so that when the next
Speaker 1: election comes up, they're the incumbent, and therefore they have
Speaker 1: a better chance of getting elected. And it just suddenly
Speaker 1: struck me as we're talking about it, like, wait, he
Speaker 1: didn't do that. No wonder people are so confused by
Speaker 1: the whole I'm out here, thanks a lot, see you later. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't think he had a preferred successor really? Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: so again, I mean Jesus, you know, Harold, you really
Speaker 1: could have cleared a few things up and spare us
Speaker 1: a lot of speculation. Yeah. So the pressure, that's another one.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, maybe maybe combined, combined with the
Speaker 1: wife that was unhappy, you know, and everything else, maybe
Speaker 1: decided to just screw it. What do we got next? Well,
Speaker 1: there's another theory, this is popular actually, which is Alzheimer's disease,
Speaker 1: which is eventually what did kill him. Unfortunately, he died
Speaker 1: in nineteen years after he resigned. H he was what
Speaker 1: in his early eighties, way passed. Let me think, No,
Speaker 1: I think we're tired around like six, do I think?
Speaker 1: You know? And so nineteen years later, I guess he's
Speaker 1: around eight. Okay, yeah, close to it, late seventies early
Speaker 1: I had it written down somewhere in my notes, and
Speaker 1: I don't see it at all, so I evidently didn't
Speaker 1: really write it down. Yeah, it's been speculated that Wilson
Speaker 1: was already experiencing symptoms of it, and as he saw
Speaker 1: that his memory was was going and he was just
Speaker 1: kind of losing a little bit, it seems, but like
Speaker 1: it would have been early. That's really early, because I
Speaker 1: feel like Alzheimer's takes not so long to really it's
Speaker 1: pretty rare that it takes more than I mean, typically
Speaker 1: it's like eight to ten years after diagnosis, and and
Speaker 1: so between the time when symptoms appeared you finally go
Speaker 1: see a doctor and they make a diagnosis, it's usually
Speaker 1: less than three years. So between the time now, between
Speaker 1: the time that you experienced the first symptoms but you
Speaker 1: don't realize exactly what it is, and by the time
Speaker 1: you finally go to the doctor and get it diagnosed,
Speaker 1: usually you know, less than three years has gone by. Typically. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but the early symptoms can be really subtle. And I
Speaker 1: was reading some stuff about early onset that because there's
Speaker 1: there's the two the two derivative or two types. There's
Speaker 1: the early onset, which is anyone under sixty five, and
Speaker 1: then just standard anyone over sixty five, And there was
Speaker 1: a study of this family that's got the gene four.
Speaker 1: They they're just genetically disposed to have it. And yeah,
Speaker 1: but there's non changes that happen in the brain, and
Speaker 1: so they've they've been tracking this this family, but they're
Speaker 1: seeing the beginnings of some of those changes happen as
Speaker 1: early as eighteen or twenty years of eight. Are we
Speaker 1: talking like, no, like something that would be noticeable to
Speaker 1: changes in the brain, not not not noticeable exhibiting symptoms,
Speaker 1: but the the changes in the brain that then get
Speaker 1: the ball rolling. So it's possible that we may not
Speaker 1: know how to diagnose it. But people who are feeling
Speaker 1: the very very beginnings of this, you know, the anxiety
Speaker 1: and forgetful listen, things like that that's come in the
Speaker 1: very early stages. I mean, I don't know that they
Speaker 1: all they all occur at the same rate. In other words,
Speaker 1: everybody experiences Alzheimer's at the same progression of symptoms. I
Speaker 1: think that's accurate. But I think what Joe is saying
Speaker 1: is that usually when people are starting to see the
Speaker 1: first symptoms right by the time they've been experiencing those
Speaker 1: symptoms for about three years, they go to the doctor
Speaker 1: because I would. I mean, I think most reasonable human beings.
Speaker 1: Remember this is the seventies though, right, But I'm just
Speaker 1: saying that typically, right when you start to exhibit symptoms
Speaker 1: of that nature, you're going to start you're gonna go
Speaker 1: to the doctor, or you're at least going to mention
Speaker 1: to your doctor on your whatever exam that you do.
Speaker 1: You know, hey, I've been noticing I'm a little forgetful.
Speaker 1: And if that's not a solid number, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: like three years, isn't like everybody gets diagnosed within their
Speaker 1: first I'm guessing that he probably had probably much more
Speaker 1: intensive medical care than most of us, get being Probably
Speaker 1: we probably saw a doctor a lot more often, was
Speaker 1: checked out, so it was and I agree with you
Speaker 1: that probably there was a lot of stuff, especially if
Speaker 1: he was Prime Minister, like the early onset symptoms of
Speaker 1: kind of anxiety and forgetfulness. Those are things that you
Speaker 1: would kind of expect anyway, if you're super stressed out
Speaker 1: and busy all the time. So there's certainly some wiggle
Speaker 1: room there. But but for him to have, you know,
Speaker 1: have Alzheimer's at that time and then survive for another
Speaker 1: twenty years that's the unusual part. Statistically not so likely.
Speaker 1: I mean, it happens, as you say, statistically is one
Speaker 1: thing what people, what we see people do sometimes is
Speaker 1: dramatically different. Yeah, and I think that. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: so too. But I mean it could have also been
Speaker 1: the beginnings of he may have had some early forms
Speaker 1: of dementia that you know, and then it progressed into
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm making a I said that, I'm by
Speaker 1: no means versed and in exactly how all the symptoms work.
Speaker 1: Do we know when he was actually diagnosed with Alzheimer's
Speaker 1: I know, to be honest, I don't know that. I've
Speaker 1: never seen it listed. Well, I mean that's the private thing.
Speaker 1: You don't have to yea, you don't have to say.
Speaker 1: And then and this doctor, I feel like it was
Speaker 1: in the early eighties for some reason, so about you know,
Speaker 1: less than a decade after he left. And that's that's
Speaker 1: what I was projecting here, based on when he died.
Speaker 1: It was a diagnosis or actually onset around eighty two,
Speaker 1: diagnosis around eighty five, somewhere around there. You know, statistically speaking,
Speaker 1: that's about when it should have happened, you know, so
Speaker 1: so that that would explain why, you know if he's
Speaker 1: if he's I've always been so sharp. I know everything.
Speaker 1: I'm on top of it. I know everybody's name. Suddenly
Speaker 1: I can't focus, I don't know anything, and I am
Speaker 1: just so beat. I can't do this, and I sometimes
Speaker 1: I wonder if that's a dedication to the job factor.
Speaker 1: I can't do this job like I think I should. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and may he did say that his memory was kind
Speaker 1: of going. Yeah, yeah, she did say that. But again
Speaker 1: he was he was around sixty. That might just be
Speaker 1: normal memory loss, did aging, I don't know, you tell us, Joe,
Speaker 1: that's sixty. All the drink, but all the drinking probably
Speaker 1: wasn't helping either. Yeah, definitely, Stress of course can cause
Speaker 1: memory loss. Do we know how much he was actually drinking?
Speaker 1: Not really now, see that's that's the problem. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: know he might have in the middle of the day said,
Speaker 1: you know what, poor me, pour me a glass. I'm
Speaker 1: going to have a glass with my lunch because they
Speaker 1: need to calm down. And this was what was this
Speaker 1: the seventies. Yeah, liquid lunch was a normal thing. It
Speaker 1: was a lot more common back and really was Yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember you remember, I know you're that old Yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember you got written up for it recently too.
Speaker 1: I was just bringing it back, reviving it. Well, I
Speaker 1: know women couldn't work in the office, then it's fine
Speaker 1: kind of doing part of it. It's fine, that's right.
Speaker 1: The seventies. Oh, back to her. Back to the theory
Speaker 1: though anyway, Alzheimer's right, I forgot what's my name? Yeah,
Speaker 1: the pro part of this theory that I like, it
Speaker 1: might explain why Wilson didn't say why he was resigning,
Speaker 1: because he didn't want to tell the world about his disease,
Speaker 1: which is kind of disease. Yeah, it's understandable, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. Yeah, they don't don't even need to
Speaker 1: explain why. And Mary took care of him the whole time.
Speaker 1: It's not like except for the at the very very
Speaker 1: very end, that he went anywhere for care. So they
Speaker 1: tried to keep it at home and contained as much
Speaker 1: as possible. Yeah, although he was he was actually going
Speaker 1: to to Parliament and stuff, even though he was like
Speaker 1: kind of gone, but he still wanted to go. And
Speaker 1: so everybody at that time new you know, I guess
Speaker 1: for me, the there's there's not like so much of
Speaker 1: a reason to not say like I'm stepping down to
Speaker 1: to health reasons. That's the thing you see politicians in
Speaker 1: America do all the time. And we might even be
Speaker 1: even more prideful than you know people in the UK,
Speaker 1: and that that there's no reason to hide that there
Speaker 1: may be a reason to hide your specific diagnosis, but
Speaker 1: there's no shame in saying I need to take a
Speaker 1: step down due to illness or for my health or whatever.
Speaker 1: There's tons of precedents for it. There's tons of people
Speaker 1: have done it in the past. And technically, you know,
Speaker 1: when a politician, at least here in America says, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm resigning my job for health reason, where I'm resigning
Speaker 1: to spend time with my family, that means he got
Speaker 1: caught having sex with one of the one of the
Speaker 1: congressional pages you're saying, and you know what, that's a
Speaker 1: fine line, so it means something different. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but that's what it was. A hike in the Appalachian Trail.
Speaker 1: So I don't know. Yeah, of course the con part
Speaker 1: of this whole theory, but also timers as as I
Speaker 1: said earlier, statistically unlikely his memory loss was explainable by
Speaker 1: other things. Uh, and Also that interview that I mentioned
Speaker 1: in two thousand seven with Mary Wilson, she said they
Speaker 1: didn't move back into ten Downing Street, as I said
Speaker 1: after the nineteen seventy four election, because quote, we knew
Speaker 1: that even if we moved, we wouldn't be in Downing
Speaker 1: Street for long unquote, which sounds to me like maybe
Speaker 1: Will was his planning his resignation, maybe even as early
Speaker 1: as nineteen seventy four. Sounds like he told his wife said, hey,
Speaker 1: I know it sucks, I know you hate it. We're
Speaker 1: back here. I won't stay more than a year and
Speaker 1: a half. Again, I find that I find that weird
Speaker 1: because if he knew that he wasn't going to do it,
Speaker 1: I guess that sometimes there's the line of I'm going
Speaker 1: to further the party versus I'm going to do what
Speaker 1: I should do for myself, because I personally would be like,
Speaker 1: you know, let's get my second, you know, pick somebody
Speaker 1: else who I think can do and at least a
Speaker 1: passable job, and make them the head of the party,
Speaker 1: win this election before as this election is going on,
Speaker 1: so that I don't put myself and the country in
Speaker 1: that position. But I don't know, I'm I'm making it up.
Speaker 1: I guess. Yeah, well, you know, I mean, and after
Speaker 1: he left, you know there, I mean, the country didn't
Speaker 1: inspiral out of control. They're still there so far, so
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, I guess somebody reasonably decent succeeded him.
Speaker 1: So there we go. And who did succeed him? Oh
Speaker 1: you mean who his uh two took over when he resigned,
Speaker 1: successor his successor to the professor. Yeah, um, James Callahan,
Speaker 1: because he's the one who didn't know I'm smart. Damn good. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's move on to our next theory. There's so many
Speaker 1: good theories in this one, which was a blackmail slash
Speaker 1: smear campaign. Apparently Wilson said more than once that they
Speaker 1: felt that m I five was out to get him,
Speaker 1: and he might have had a point, but we'll talk
Speaker 1: about that later, because it turns out there may have
Speaker 1: been another intelligence service that was also about to get him.
Speaker 1: And this is according to another article. Apparently Wilson was
Speaker 1: supposedly obsessed by the possibility to the South African Intelligence
Speaker 1: Service was out to smear him and other anti apartheid politicians.
Speaker 1: Let's we call this was a mid seventies there was
Speaker 1: still white rule in South Africa. And uh, there had
Speaker 1: been a sex scandal of all a British ampire named
Speaker 1: Jeremy Thorpe Thorpe affairs, they is, it's commonly referred to. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he had committed a quote unquote indiscretion with a
Speaker 1: male model named Norman's son, Scott. Uh. And he had
Speaker 1: been paying hush money to the model, uh Norman Scott, Yeah,
Speaker 1: from party funds. And and when finally and Scott basically
Speaker 1: out of him. It wasn't the South African Intelligence Service,
Speaker 1: but Scott basically was the guy who sold it to
Speaker 1: the papers and sold his buddy down the river. And
Speaker 1: of course when that came out to the papers, it
Speaker 1: was a little damaging to Jeremy Thorpe's career, as you
Speaker 1: can imagine. Yeah, now which side was Thorpe on? He
Speaker 1: was he was in the Liberal Party, Okay, so he
Speaker 1: was in the same party. It was not labor role.
Speaker 1: Oh sorry, yeah, people, Yeah, that's close enough. We'll just
Speaker 1: say they're the same. But I know, I know all
Speaker 1: you BRIT's, come on, we know everything about Britain. In fact,
Speaker 1: I have answered that we came from there. We know,
Speaker 1: we know all about it. Wilson was convinced that the
Speaker 1: s a I s South African Intelligence Service was behind
Speaker 1: the entire thing. On the eppisode of this article that
Speaker 1: was published last year was that Wilson left before sa
Speaker 1: I asked could do the same thing to him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that applies, of course, said he had at least one
Speaker 1: skeleton in his closet. Yeah, exactly. But there really actually
Speaker 1: never was any proof that the South Africans were involved
Speaker 1: in the Thorpe scandal at all, because, I mean Norman
Speaker 1: Scott was really kind of shopping the story around. I
Speaker 1: mean he was the guy that actually well he kept
Speaker 1: he kept going back to Thorpe and and Thorpe kept
Speaker 1: running around and being a digging about it and trying
Speaker 1: to shut him off. Reportedly, he even tried to get
Speaker 1: him murder. Yeah, that's well, that's that's what brought it out.
Speaker 1: They hired he went through somebody else who had hired
Speaker 1: a hit man. The all the himen ended up doing
Speaker 1: was shooting his dog. No, no, and that that's the
Speaker 1: only casualty in this story was the dog fish called Wanda.
Speaker 1: Did you ever see that movie? Yeah? Yeah, so Wilson
Speaker 1: may because this this article again was in the Daily Mail.
Speaker 1: So I'm not sure. Yeah, uh so I'm not going
Speaker 1: to file that. Yeah, fun, yeah, fun theory. There's another
Speaker 1: theory actually that's got a bit more legs to it.
Speaker 1: It's actually a lot better documented. It looks like here
Speaker 1: that you've you've you've accidentally typed the same thing twice, Joe,
Speaker 1: because the theory name is the same. Another smear campaign. Yeah,
Speaker 1: pretty close. I said before the Wilson thought m I
Speaker 1: five was out to get him, And this is true.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, the Daily Mail might say that
Speaker 1: Wilson thought the S A S A I S was
Speaker 1: out to get him. We don't know if that's true
Speaker 1: or not. But for sure, Wilson did say My five
Speaker 1: was out to get him. Well, he knew it, he
Speaker 1: knew he had been investigated. Oh yeah, yeah, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: I thought I thought you were saying it was true
Speaker 1: that the entire organization of m I five was out
Speaker 1: to get him, not that it was true that Wilson thought. Okay, sorry,
Speaker 1: I was confused, But yeah, I wasn't the entire organization.
Speaker 1: It was so certain people within the organization, a certain
Speaker 1: number of m I five officers didn't particularly like Wilson.
Speaker 1: That they were suspicious of all of associations with various
Speaker 1: Eastern European types. Uh, and he was. He he used
Speaker 1: to actually do business in Europe. He traveled in Russia
Speaker 1: a lot in Eastern Europe, and he had a lot
Speaker 1: of contacts and he had some pretty good friends and
Speaker 1: stuff who were Eastern European armigrades and Uh. In his
Speaker 1: book SpyCatcher, which I'll talk about again in a little bit,
Speaker 1: but Peter Wright published a book called SpyCatcher in nine seven,
Speaker 1: which was his memoir of his time in m I five. Yeah,
Speaker 1: good book, and he talks of about this briefly because
Speaker 1: he was approached by a number of m I five
Speaker 1: officers who wanted him to join with them in leaky,
Speaker 1: selacious materials to the press regarding Wilson, to the Labor Party,
Speaker 1: to him because they had a dottional election coming up.
Speaker 1: And this is the one a little bit frustrating thing
Speaker 1: about SpyCatcher is he he's not great always about putting
Speaker 1: the dates in. But when certain events happened, Peter Peter right,
Speaker 1: I'm guessing this was before the seventy four election, because
Speaker 1: it was said it was close to his retirement, so
Speaker 1: that would have been seventy four I think, and certainly
Speaker 1: m I five was a lot more likely to have
Speaker 1: dirt on Wilson than South Africa. I think Peter Wright
Speaker 1: briefly considered joining the cabal against Wilson, but then he
Speaker 1: finally decided against it because he was nearing the end
Speaker 1: of his career and he didn't want to jeopardize his pension.
Speaker 1: Smart smart move. And actually he he kind of had
Speaker 1: a grudge against m I five because he spent the
Speaker 1: earliest part of his career with the Admiralty and m
Speaker 1: I five lured him away and he said, well, I'm
Speaker 1: going to be leaving behind like fifteen years and we
Speaker 1: keeping the pension if I do that, and they said,
Speaker 1: not a problem, we'll make a whole Of course, in
Speaker 1: the end they didn't, so he got a crappy pension,
Speaker 1: really crappy pension, which is one of the reasons he
Speaker 1: wrote SpyCatcher. It was revenge and he wanted the money.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't appear the M I five conspiracy was
Speaker 1: all that successful. Obviously, you know, Wilson wasn't kept out
Speaker 1: of office. Part of the reason probably is they needed
Speaker 1: right in on the plot because he was pretty high level,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure he had access to a lot of
Speaker 1: juicier material than a lot of them did, so they
Speaker 1: didn't get a lot of traction. But another mystery is
Speaker 1: how Wilson found out. And I won't go too deep
Speaker 1: into that, but my candidates for this, this one is
Speaker 1: Marrie Oldfield, who was ahead of the m I six.
Speaker 1: You've heard about my six, right of course. Yeah, he's
Speaker 1: cousin to the guy near my seven, right. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: don't even know how many m I s there are. God,
Speaker 1: it's complicated as F branch D branch, D branch branch.
Speaker 1: I mean, oh my got, there's all kinds of stuff
Speaker 1: possible branch. Yeah, Maurice, but Maurice Oldfield man m I five,
Speaker 1: by the way, then my six. They didn't collaborate exactly.
Speaker 1: They were actually kind of not in great terms. There
Speaker 1: was wasbi yeah, I kind of like that. But apparently
Speaker 1: he become aware of it somehow. Peter Wright wrote in
Speaker 1: his book that he had dinner with Oldfield at some
Speaker 1: time sometime after the fact, and that Oldfield kept hinting
Speaker 1: about the whole thing, the little plot against Wilson and stuff,
Speaker 1: kept dropping little hints about and Finally, uh Right came
Speaker 1: clean with him, and Oldfield suggested that Right should make
Speaker 1: a full report to his superiors. But it appears that
Speaker 1: Oldfield was already aware of the plot before then, and
Speaker 1: he had a fairly decent relationship, at least at that time,
Speaker 1: with Wilson, so he must have been the guy that
Speaker 1: that read it him out of guessing that he could
Speaker 1: have found out from other places. But I like the
Speaker 1: old Field theory. So the question is, of course, has
Speaker 1: did all this plot in cars Wilson to resign early?
Speaker 1: What do you guys think? No, yeah, no, I don't
Speaker 1: mean yeah, no, I don't ye am I am I
Speaker 1: five had been investigating Wilson since probably about nineteen, multiple times,
Speaker 1: so it's yet one more am I five investigation. Oh
Speaker 1: you're snooping around my my garbage can again, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: and see you next week, same time. Boys trash comes
Speaker 1: at this time. Yeah, I know. So the m I
Speaker 1: five things like, well, the m I five pops up
Speaker 1: again in the theory section. Now we were well I
Speaker 1: thought we were in theories. Yeah, well yeah later on
Speaker 1: in the theory Okay, yeah, I don't think so. In
Speaker 1: the absence of that, it doesn't look to me like
Speaker 1: they got any dirt on him, at least in terms
Speaker 1: of scandalous materials that they could use to discredit him
Speaker 1: or embarrass him and get about of office. So no
Speaker 1: reason to really, you know, I think Wilson was actually
Speaker 1: a fairly upright guy. I don't think. I don't know
Speaker 1: that there was much in the way of you know,
Speaker 1: sex scandals and stuff like that on the guy, although
Speaker 1: there was one sex scandal which is our next theory,
Speaker 1: which is his longtime secretary Marsha Williams, who eventually became
Speaker 1: Lady Falkonder, and that was one of the criticians Wilson
Speaker 1: is that he handed out peerages and things like that
Speaker 1: to way too many of his buddies. Yeah, he did,
Speaker 1: including to his secretary. She became Lady Falconder eventually, and
Speaker 1: correct me if I'm wrong. Prior to that, the ability
Speaker 1: to hand out peerages sat with the Is it the
Speaker 1: senior whip, I don't remember, I don't know is that
Speaker 1: the correct word. Is it the senior whip? I can't
Speaker 1: remember the name of that title, but that was the
Speaker 1: person who could do it, and then he took it
Speaker 1: from them and took it and kept it for himself
Speaker 1: as soon as he came into power. Yeah, and so
Speaker 1: aren't the whip just the leader of the party. No,
Speaker 1: he's under the leader of the party, the leader of
Speaker 1: the party to enforce or help encourage other members of
Speaker 1: the party to follow the party. Because I watch House
Speaker 1: of Cards. So I know what whip is because I
Speaker 1: only know it because I had to read about it today,
Speaker 1: because I never understood. I was like, there's a dude
Speaker 1: running around Congress with a whip. Seen this? I think
Speaker 1: some he is, Oh, where are we are here? The
Speaker 1: very beginning of this? Okay? Uh? There? There have long
Speaker 1: been rumors about an affair between Marsha Williams secretary, and
Speaker 1: so of course it's thought again somebody got the goods
Speaker 1: on Harold and he was hired rather than face a scandal,
Speaker 1: like there's always that though there well, you know, I
Speaker 1: mean they were out there anyway. I mean, if somebody
Speaker 1: had actually gotten the goods on him, people would have
Speaker 1: been like how hum. I mean, people have been murmuring
Speaker 1: about this behind his back for years, and so to
Speaker 1: be honest, you know where I think this came from
Speaker 1: is the fact that I think Marcia had a lot
Speaker 1: of sway over him. She did not necessarily because they
Speaker 1: were doing the deed, but she just had a lot
Speaker 1: of sway. And it's from some of the things that
Speaker 1: I've read gave me the impression that she was part
Speaker 1: of the reason that he was handing out so many peerages.
Speaker 1: And then she was also leaning on other people in
Speaker 1: the party to do things, whether they were what Wilson
Speaker 1: wanted to have done or not. So it seems like
Speaker 1: she was just the kind of person who would go
Speaker 1: out and say, you need to do this, and keep
Speaker 1: pushing on it because there was somebody was saying, I
Speaker 1: only did it because of that girl, Marsha. I remember
Speaker 1: there's a quote of that somewhere. Apparently she was a
Speaker 1: strong willed lady. That's putting it. That's putting it one way.
Speaker 1: Other people have had less flattering things to say. Well
Speaker 1: for me, I guess you know, when I see assistant,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people think like, oh, executive
Speaker 1: assistant or you know, administrative assistant. That's just like, oh,
Speaker 1: you just file paperwork and whatever. But but in reality,
Speaker 1: you know, executive assistant positions and assistant positions like this
Speaker 1: are typically like that person when they're gone and it's
Speaker 1: totally possible in my mind that his assistant was in
Speaker 1: fact one of his most trusted advisers. Well, in this case,
Speaker 1: she wasn't just called the secretary. She probably really was
Speaker 1: probably more like chief of staff. Yeah, I mean she
Speaker 1: really probably ran a lot of its stuff. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: could be a pretty powerful position. I can and if
Speaker 1: you can, you know, foster that trust with someone, you
Speaker 1: can become a really close advisor. And so for me,
Speaker 1: it's not so suspicious that you know, he had a
Speaker 1: crazy close relationship with her and all that she then
Speaker 1: exhibited power or not exhibited power, exerted, exerted thank you,
Speaker 1: I'm always doing the wrong word, but yeah, exerted power
Speaker 1: that sometimes might have been a little bit outside of
Speaker 1: the bounds of what she should have been doing. Maybe
Speaker 1: just in just influence. You have to have power. You
Speaker 1: just have to have the influence over the power. So anyway,
Speaker 1: another theories, Uh, the only thing I can say against
Speaker 1: that one is entirely possible if you work with somebody
Speaker 1: for for decades and you know often you know, sooner
Speaker 1: or later something happens. You know it happens. But uh,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, Mary was best. Mary Wilson was
Speaker 1: best buds with her for many many years. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: that and that is of course Harold Wilson's wife, and
Speaker 1: they were besties for a long long time before and
Speaker 1: after his death. That that has not stopped many people
Speaker 1: from from committing the adultery still being the best friend
Speaker 1: and then still being the best friend to the spouse. Well,
Speaker 1: there's other I mean, there's other situations there, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: there's certainly the situation of um, you know, giving permission,
Speaker 1: like saying I know that I'm not doing whatever for
Speaker 1: you or you know whatever, so that kind of open
Speaker 1: relationship hump. But there's also the possibility that maybe Mary
Speaker 1: Wilson was a lesbian and so was his assistant, and
Speaker 1: they were more than best friends, sort of like eleanor
Speaker 1: Roosevelt situation here like that. You know, I've always hesitant
Speaker 1: to say that because they never know if you don't
Speaker 1: know anything, I mean, we don't know anything, right, So,
Speaker 1: like there are a lot of different options for why
Speaker 1: they could have been best friends, and that that don't
Speaker 1: necessarily mean that, you know, she couldn't have also been
Speaker 1: sleeping with Harold, but maybe, but not likely, especially in
Speaker 1: those days. I mean, most people, if you know, you've
Speaker 1: had sex with my spouse, I'm probably not going to
Speaker 1: be your buddy, you know, I mean, unless it's an arrangement. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I guess that happens. But I don't know how
Speaker 1: often does that happen any stats. I don't know. I
Speaker 1: had no idea. Yeah, I'm sure there was a study
Speaker 1: done on it once with government funds. I'm sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I had no doubt. But well, I'll do some googling
Speaker 1: on that, but not right now. Let's come to our
Speaker 1: little don't don't google forever unclean through that. Okay, I
Speaker 1: won't do that. There's certain things you really don't want
Speaker 1: to google. But our last theory, this is a sexy one.
Speaker 1: I like this one, which is that Wilson actually was
Speaker 1: a Soviet mole and m I five finally got the
Speaker 1: goods on him, and rather than had this whole scandal
Speaker 1: of you know, the Prime Minister and all that, they
Speaker 1: just presented him with this irrefutable evidence and he quietly
Speaker 1: resigned and retired, which would have been the way they
Speaker 1: rejected his dignity. Yeah, and that would keep the whole
Speaker 1: thing under the rug. Yeah, that totally would have been
Speaker 1: a way they would have done it. I mean that
Speaker 1: is the way they do it. I mean a lot
Speaker 1: of those guys were actually caught, and they were more
Speaker 1: interesting it in number one, avoiding scandal and embarrassment, because
Speaker 1: every time they found themselves a mole in the rights
Speaker 1: of m I five and my six, well, if it
Speaker 1: blew up into a big public thing, then that means
Speaker 1: they lost the confidence of the American cousins who they
Speaker 1: were trying to have a cooperative intelligence sharing relationship with.
Speaker 1: So they tended to like sort of trying to keep
Speaker 1: that stuff in the d L and just let somebody
Speaker 1: quietly retire rather than actually make a make a big
Speaker 1: stink about it. And this brings us to a guy
Speaker 1: named Norman John Worthington. Worthington was actually a pseudonym for
Speaker 1: Harold Wilson. That was the name that was on the
Speaker 1: file that m I five had on him. That's big
Speaker 1: fat one. I don't know if they still have it not.
Speaker 1: Yeah they didn't. Yeah, it was such such a hot
Speaker 1: potato they couldn't. Yeah, they couldn't have his name on
Speaker 1: that file. So I assume it was throughout the file.
Speaker 1: It would have been one of those things where if
Speaker 1: he sat down and read the file cover to cover,
Speaker 1: he would have figured it out. But at any glance,
Speaker 1: even looking at a couple of pages, you're not going
Speaker 1: to figure it out. But it was kept undertight apps
Speaker 1: of course. One of the sources. By the way, as
Speaker 1: I said I talked about earlier with SpyCatcher by Peter
Speaker 1: Wright and which was published in seven um. It was
Speaker 1: actually banned in the UK right after his publication. Yea, yeah,
Speaker 1: it totally was. But then well then it was discovered
Speaker 1: that they couldn't actually ban it in Scotland, so people
Speaker 1: were just going to Scotland and buying take copies. They
Speaker 1: buy take copies for them and their friends, and so yeah,
Speaker 1: eventually they had to just like lighten up and let
Speaker 1: let the book be sold everywhere in the UK. But
Speaker 1: it's a really interesting book back to the early days
Speaker 1: when he was going out and burgling people's flats and
Speaker 1: planning bugs and stuff like that, and so it's kind
Speaker 1: of a kind of a cool book. And the way
Speaker 1: they used to do the little cloaker dagger thing way
Speaker 1: back in the fifties and the sixties a lot different
Speaker 1: from today, you know. Yeah, but I can recommend that
Speaker 1: one um, but one suspicious connection. Of course, I don't
Speaker 1: know if I mentioned Joseph Kagan, but this was somebody
Speaker 1: that wait, wait, just just to back up here, so
Speaker 1: you you you've explained to us that he had a
Speaker 1: fake name on his m I five file. We've just
Speaker 1: talked about spy catcher. But I'm sort of jumping right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but but nothing here is saying why they say he's
Speaker 1: a mole. Uh yeah. The reason that Worthyton A k A.
Speaker 1: Wilson had been in a suspicion is due to his travels,
Speaker 1: as I think I said earlier, to places like Russia
Speaker 1: and Eastern Europe, and he had a lot of friends
Speaker 1: and connections with Eastern block type people. Um, and a
Speaker 1: lot of these friends and contacts had already come to
Speaker 1: the attention to m I five already, just separately and independently.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of inevitable that Wilson was going to
Speaker 1: come into scrutiny to so I think it's it's only
Speaker 1: fair that we point out that between forty seven and
Speaker 1: fifty one he was the President of the Board of Trade,
Speaker 1: so part of his job was to go around and
Speaker 1: meet people of industry and other countries for reasons of trade.
Speaker 1: Absolutely and so it's not necessarily illegitimate. It's not as
Speaker 1: if he was just like I'm gonna take a vacation
Speaker 1: to the Baltics. Yeah, but the of course KGB, one
Speaker 1: of their specialties is in trapping and blackmailing people. So
Speaker 1: you know, we can assume that maybe not, we can
Speaker 1: assume that Wilson was careful about that kind of thing. Well,
Speaker 1: you gotta hope, so yeah, yeah, yes, uh like that.
Speaker 1: One particularly suspicious guy was Joseph Kagan. He was a
Speaker 1: Lithuitian emigree and a successful businessman, but a kg B
Speaker 1: agent named olegle Allen. He worked in Place in Britain
Speaker 1: for a while before he defected. And that's an interesting
Speaker 1: story is his defection is by catcher because they were
Speaker 1: running in Place and in Britain and the pressure was
Speaker 1: getting to him. He was drinking a lot and this
Speaker 1: is not right. But le Allen one night he got
Speaker 1: busted for drunk driving by London police and he was
Speaker 1: hauled down to the jail. So Peter right gets a
Speaker 1: call at like three in the morning saying, hey, get
Speaker 1: you your office and get that special kid out of
Speaker 1: your safe and uh and so he had to go
Speaker 1: down to his office and get this kid. What the
Speaker 1: kid was was it was his collection of every known
Speaker 1: antidote for anti every KGB poison there was. He had
Speaker 1: to go out of the jail with this just in
Speaker 1: case they all know this had been poisoned, because they
Speaker 1: they were figuring he was gonna get killed in jail
Speaker 1: by the KGB because it makes him a target because
Speaker 1: now he's he can't get away. Yeah and so, yeah,
Speaker 1: so and and and so. Anyway, at that point, there
Speaker 1: was no choice. He had a defect. But yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: one of those really interesting little stories that he tells
Speaker 1: while he was in place. He's totally my five about
Speaker 1: a friend of his name. I don't know the first name,
Speaker 1: but his last name was on veg Aucus. That sound
Speaker 1: about right, Yeah, okay, veg Aucus Russian Navigascus who was KGB. Also,
Speaker 1: he was working at the Sylvia Trade delegation in London,
Speaker 1: and according to vick, Augus told Leland that he was
Speaker 1: in contact with Joseph Kagan, Wilson's buddy. And so it's wait,
Speaker 1: what's what's the connection between I'm not catching the connection
Speaker 1: between Kagan and Wilson here. They were, they were friends
Speaker 1: and associates. They you know they hung out just through
Speaker 1: common people or did they have a working relationship, Like
Speaker 1: I don't understand how they knew each other. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: seemed to be that kind of like I'm not sure
Speaker 1: if they were like really total socializing together best buds.
Speaker 1: It was one of a business relationship. I know that Kagan,
Speaker 1: for example, did of certain favors like when he was campaigning,
Speaker 1: he loaned him an airplane and actually funded his book
Speaker 1: at office and things like that. That that fleshes out
Speaker 1: what what this quote unquote relationship is. Yeah, they apparently
Speaker 1: were close in one way or nother even if they were,
Speaker 1: even if they weren't soul mates. Apparently Kagan felt it
Speaker 1: was important to like cultivate this friendship. Yeah, and for
Speaker 1: his part, Wilson did a little product placement for him.
Speaker 1: He had a raincoat factory in Leeds, Kagan did, and
Speaker 1: so Wilson was always wearing his raincoats. So it's the
Speaker 1: product placement. Basically, was it a Macintosh that wasn't a
Speaker 1: mac Okay? I really wish it had been. Okay, sorry, Yeah,
Speaker 1: So so these guys, so there's this this whole triad
Speaker 1: of of Soviets and know each other that then no Wilson, Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's there's And so obviously having even this rumor,
Speaker 1: m I five took a big interest in finding out
Speaker 1: what the relationship between Kagan and Vygaucus was and weren't
Speaker 1: able to come up as much. Actually they were. They
Speaker 1: were looking for some sort of coret communications. But according
Speaker 1: to Kagan, he was interrogated evntionally the East far that
Speaker 1: he only occasionally met by Gaucus for chess games, although
Speaker 1: who knows now they were talking in coded coded language
Speaker 1: and passing you know, like like secret messages under the
Speaker 1: table maybe, but you know, it was totally innocent. That
Speaker 1: could have been totally innocent. Absolutely. Uh. It's one of
Speaker 1: those things though, I mean, once the suspicion is out there,
Speaker 1: I mean it's kind of hard to dispel. Yeah. In
Speaker 1: in ninety four it was this. This is after Wilson
Speaker 1: became Prime Minister. James j Angleton you remember him, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and counterintelligence for the CIA came to London to visit
Speaker 1: M BY five and uh, I don't know if you
Speaker 1: remember a Yari Endnssenko episode long long ago. I had
Speaker 1: James j Angleton. Yeah, okay, same guy. Every according to Angleton,
Speaker 1: everybody was working with the Reds. Yeah, yeah, he was.
Speaker 1: He was a little paranoid, Yeah, definitely. He definitely gave
Speaker 1: a yur Nssenko a hard time, although there's some other
Speaker 1: defectors he seemed to take more seriously. Angleton told him
Speaker 1: I five that he had a good authority from an
Speaker 1: unnamed source that Wilson was actually a Soviet agent, and
Speaker 1: he offered to provide detailed information if m I F
Speaker 1: I've promised to keep all evidence strictly confidential, as in
Speaker 1: not share it with the government. It just it stays
Speaker 1: strictly with the n M I five. Such a weird,
Speaker 1: weird thing to put down as a requirement. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I can kind of see it. I mean, and he
Speaker 1: probably shouldn't give it some reasons like, well, I don't
Speaker 1: want you sharing with ex politicians because I think there's
Speaker 1: a mole somewhere in there in the British government and
Speaker 1: something like that, and maybe that was it. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Generally speaking, you don't if your source is already defected,
Speaker 1: then you don't need to worry so much about protecting
Speaker 1: yoursel ors, right, So maybe that says he had at
Speaker 1: an agent place, or maybe that was him just being
Speaker 1: a drama queen. But he could He was capable of
Speaker 1: doing that, There's no doubt about that. Um So this
Speaker 1: is a conundrum of course, because they wanted what he had.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, the purpose of what they
Speaker 1: did is to provide intelligence to the politicians who had
Speaker 1: our governments. Right, otherwise enough, it's just for their consumption.
Speaker 1: Well what so, anyway, they turned the deal down, or
Speaker 1: at least they said they did. There's a general theory
Speaker 1: out there that these allegations came from the Soviet the
Speaker 1: vector named anatotly Gleetzen But actually nobody actually knows really
Speaker 1: where they came from. You know, did did Angleton make
Speaker 1: it up? Probably not, I mean, did you get it
Speaker 1: from Gleetzon or god knows wherever? Who knows? It was
Speaker 1: a long time ago. Probably everybody had knowledge of it
Speaker 1: is probably dead. It could be. It could be he
Speaker 1: put two and three together and came up with four
Speaker 1: different bits of information and he puts them together in
Speaker 1: one way and decides it points at certain person. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that happens all the time in spike craft,
Speaker 1: especially when you just ignore a lot of stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that happens that like extra one number from two plus three.
Speaker 1: It works really well in my checking account. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: that thing you got to be very very careful about
Speaker 1: to fall prey to that, that thing that you want
Speaker 1: to shoehorn everything into the proper theory. You know, you
Speaker 1: gotta not fall prey to that. We, of course, a
Speaker 1: thinking side was never do that. No, never at all,
Speaker 1: not once, never have Yeah, but it's an intriguing question
Speaker 1: for me is whether I'm if I've really actually turned
Speaker 1: down that deal, because actually, wow, that would be a
Speaker 1: hard deal to shurn down. I want to know what
Speaker 1: he had to say. Yeah, but the problem is that
Speaker 1: it's not actionable. Well it's not, but it can be. Um,
Speaker 1: it's actuable sense. I mean, if you want to, like,
Speaker 1: you know, like put out a hit on the guy
Speaker 1: or something like that, you can always do that. But
Speaker 1: I mean, so it's actuable in that sense. Sorry, nobody
Speaker 1: can see me. I'm rolling my eyes that the putting
Speaker 1: up the hit bart I mean, yeah, okay, no, actually
Speaker 1: what Okay, So we'll never know how, but yeah, back
Speaker 1: to Hugh Gates skill though, remember him, the guy who
Speaker 1: died very great volunteered to die. You have to make
Speaker 1: room for Harold Wilson. Yeah, so he Uh, if you
Speaker 1: read the Wicked page about him, they say the only
Speaker 1: source of the assassination room was the same Auditlely Glitsen
Speaker 1: that we were just talking about, And that's actually not true.
Speaker 1: The actual rich origin of the story was Gateskill's doctor
Speaker 1: who contacted m I five after he died, and he
Speaker 1: said he was disturbed by the manner of his death
Speaker 1: because lupus, that particular part kind of lupas is so
Speaker 1: rare and temperate climate said he felt there was absolutely
Speaker 1: no way that that Gatesville could have gotten it. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna ask you a question. I did. I did
Speaker 1: reading on lupus in general, but I didn't I didn't
Speaker 1: catch this particular variant until about five minutes after I
Speaker 1: got here. So I'm going to ask you, did you
Speaker 1: ever read to find out if indeed that is true,
Speaker 1: that it is only occurs in places that have a
Speaker 1: different climate than Yeah, now that is that is true.
Speaker 1: I mean, although it doesn't that mean you looked at
Speaker 1: this particular kind of loopus restrain of lupus that he had. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's rare. I mean, it's extremely rare. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think even in equatorial climates it's kind of rare.
Speaker 1: But in a climate like ours, we have a climate
Speaker 1: very similarly written right here temperature, Yeah, it's just kind
Speaker 1: of rare. So yeah, well, I mean, I guess it's
Speaker 1: worth mentioning though, Like lupus is not like you can't
Speaker 1: catch it, well, you can't be given it. Well, this
Speaker 1: is a different breed of lupus apparently, but it's like,
Speaker 1: but you still it's not as though somebody could have
Speaker 1: just injected him with the lupus virus. Well yeah, now,
Speaker 1: but actually somebody could have injected him with something, right,
Speaker 1: But I think like it's it's important to say that,
Speaker 1: like if realistically he did actually die of lupus, right,
Speaker 1: which I don't think his doctor is saying. No, his
Speaker 1: doctor is saying it's weird that he got this kind
Speaker 1: of lupus, but he's not saying he didn't have it. No,
Speaker 1: he had it. He had it, definitely had it. But
Speaker 1: it's also important to note that like you couldn't just
Speaker 1: somebody couldn't have just injected him with it or like
Speaker 1: given it to him, that it had to have developed
Speaker 1: in his own body. Yeah, it's definite issue exactly. It's
Speaker 1: not something that he could have been infected with. Well,
Speaker 1: it turns out that the Soviets did experiments on inducing
Speaker 1: this particular kind of lupus in lab rats. How did
Speaker 1: that go for them? It actually worked, Yeah, using a
Speaker 1: certain It didn't go so well for the rats. Yeah,
Speaker 1: now the poor rats. Sorry about that guy. Interesting, So
Speaker 1: it can be induced this, yeah, apparently, rats. Yeah, what
Speaker 1: a totally Glets had said, And and of course he
Speaker 1: was supposedly was the sole source of this room, but
Speaker 1: not really according to Peter Right. Uh, this is the
Speaker 1: author of spy Catcher. Peter Right, the author SpyCatcher. You
Speaker 1: said that that Glets and told him my five and
Speaker 1: let's remember he had no idea about the doctor's suspicions.
Speaker 1: He said that during his last few years with the KGB,
Speaker 1: he had had contact with Department thirteen, which is known
Speaker 1: as the Department of Wet Affairs, and this is the
Speaker 1: department responsible for planning assassinations. And according to the Soviet department, Yeah,
Speaker 1: of course, of course, yeah, I said, just before he
Speaker 1: left KGB, he heard that they were planning a high
Speaker 1: level political assassination in Europe in order to quote to
Speaker 1: get their man into place unquote, which could have been anybody,
Speaker 1: could have been. He didn't know. He didn't actually say
Speaker 1: which country. He didn't know which country was planned for.
Speaker 1: So that's the information again. So they put those two
Speaker 1: things together. Okay, So he died to this really strange
Speaker 1: and rare disease, and and the KGB was planning a
Speaker 1: hit on some major guy in Europe. So right, Peter
Speaker 1: Wright contracted, of course, every buddy James J. Angleton, and
Speaker 1: asked him for information. Angleton dug up a Soviet scientific
Speaker 1: research paper and which it turns out they had perfected
Speaker 1: a procedure to induce lupus and lab rats like at
Speaker 1: least according to the Soviet paper, according to that paper. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I want to note it's according to that paper. Yeah,
Speaker 1: according to the paper. I'm assuming that it was true.
Speaker 1: I'm assuming this. I'm I'm making that that because it
Speaker 1: is a is a Soviet paper that the Western world
Speaker 1: has gotten their hands on. And we have talked many
Speaker 1: times about the practice of disinformation, of sending things out
Speaker 1: there that are totally bogus to mess with your enemy,
Speaker 1: that's always a possibility. Yeah, I mean, that's the whole
Speaker 1: that's that whole worlderness and mirrors thing, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just you never know up from down or right
Speaker 1: from wrong or anything. I mean, it's kind of crazy,
Speaker 1: and you can see why I drive so many people
Speaker 1: to drink. But it's entirely possible, I mean, right, consultant
Speaker 1: with one of their MPI scidists who said it wasn't
Speaker 1: who said it was, it did appear to be possible,
Speaker 1: and he said that in the seven years since that
Speaker 1: paper been written, at the time they spoke, it's possible
Speaker 1: they had perfected the process to the point where they
Speaker 1: could with a single dose or injection induced lupus and something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it does appear that then the Soviets, if they
Speaker 1: did perfect this assassination tool, does appear they never used
Speaker 1: it again because the m I five was on the
Speaker 1: lookout for that, and so that would argue against a
Speaker 1: Soviet assassination and Lupa's inducing assassination tool. But at the
Speaker 1: same time, of course, at the time Peter Wright and
Speaker 1: some other people in m I five suspected that there
Speaker 1: was actually a highly placed mole and m I five
Speaker 1: which would have met the Soviets have been tipped, and
Speaker 1: so they knew not to use that again, at least
Speaker 1: nowhere near Europe other than Wilson. Yeah, like a Soviet
Speaker 1: mole old than Wilson high up in Oh yeah, the
Speaker 1: the m I five mole. Yeah that's outside, that's outside
Speaker 1: of parliament. Yeah, that's then by five. Yeah, Soviets were
Speaker 1: just running the UK government at that time, is what
Speaker 1: that allegation be lease as right, I mean they had
Speaker 1: they had Wilson who was the Prime Minister, and they
Speaker 1: had like a high level in the m I five.
Speaker 1: So yeah. Yeah, although the allegations against Wilson, I gotta say,
Speaker 1: are pretty sketchy compared to uh, the allegations against then
Speaker 1: we'll talk more of someday about the mole in m
Speaker 1: I five. Yeah, that's an interesting story and of itself,
Speaker 1: but I don't want to talk about that now. Of course,
Speaker 1: it could have been that they had no intention of
Speaker 1: It wasn't about getting Wilson into place. They just wanted
Speaker 1: to get rid of you gate Skill to begin with,
Speaker 1: because he was kind of an outlier for the Labor Party.
Speaker 1: He was a much more conservative, almost Reaganesque kind of guy.
Speaker 1: I didn't believe in nationalization, which made it put him
Speaker 1: at odds with labor unions and such. Maybe the labor
Speaker 1: unions wanted to get rid of maybe they did it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Labor unions tend to be better at
Speaker 1: organizing strikes and stuff like that than actually coming up
Speaker 1: with ways of inducing lupus. But well, yeah, you can
Speaker 1: see what it might have thought that gate Skill was
Speaker 1: not the ideal guy to have at the head of
Speaker 1: the Labor Party if they were in the next election.
Speaker 1: So maybe it was that it wasn't so much for Wilson.
Speaker 1: It's just getting rid of gate skull, alright. So that's
Speaker 1: about it for the evidence against Wilson. Um. So does
Speaker 1: that put him in the clear? I mean, I agree,
Speaker 1: it's not super solid, and you'll hear it stated in
Speaker 1: many places at m I five investigated Wilson and totally
Speaker 1: cleared him. That's not true. Well, but like like I
Speaker 1: said before, they had been investigating him for twenty or
Speaker 1: thirty years. Multiple times they would open a new file
Speaker 1: on him and investigat him for whatever reason. So when
Speaker 1: when the claim is said that he was found to
Speaker 1: be clear, it could be for in the first time
Speaker 1: and the second time, but maybe not the third time.
Speaker 1: When you read that I think that that might be
Speaker 1: part of why people say he was clear or they
Speaker 1: cleared him every time, but they kept reopening it for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, and the last one just never was closed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's in a lot of these cases, it's it's
Speaker 1: really rare that they, you know, like investigate somebody. I
Speaker 1: shouldn't say it's really rare, but it's very rare that
Speaker 1: they totally clear somebody. Yeah, I mean, it's because it's
Speaker 1: really are too, especially when there's this many little fragments
Speaker 1: of evidence against him. I mean, obviously you know, it's
Speaker 1: not overwhelming by any means, but you can't prove a
Speaker 1: negative either. I'd have to say the case it's far
Speaker 1: from proven, very very likely he was not a mole
Speaker 1: based on what I've seen, so I should give him
Speaker 1: the benefit of the doubts. So, in other words, that theory,
Speaker 1: the theory that he was forced to resign by m
Speaker 1: I five probably probably bogus. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: I don't know what I don't know. I mean, maybe
Speaker 1: they maybe the m I five did set him down
Speaker 1: and show him the dossier and explain the facts of life.
Speaker 1: Maybe they did give him a choice between leaving quietly
Speaker 1: or being forced out of office in disgrace. So my
Speaker 1: pros in this series it's it's pretty juicy. I like it.
Speaker 1: So I can't think of any cons? Can you against
Speaker 1: this theory? Yeah? Not other than the ones that I've
Speaker 1: said multiple times. I was gonna say, you just listed
Speaker 1: a bunch of cons and then said here's your one
Speaker 1: pro pro it's juicy. Yeah, you're editing like the Daily Mail. Now, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think yeah, unless less always possible. I mean I
Speaker 1: kind of doubted. I think most likely it was just
Speaker 1: the pressure that got to him and he just got
Speaker 1: sick of the whole thing, and that's why he resigned.
Speaker 1: I don't think m I five forced him out. I mean,
Speaker 1: it doesn't appear to me. Again, they might ask, they
Speaker 1: might have some juicy stuff on him that I'm not
Speaker 1: aware of. Two Maybe they did, and that's certainly what
Speaker 1: they would have done. They would have they would have
Speaker 1: totally avoided a scandal for sure. And if they have
Speaker 1: caught him inflagrante, you know, passing information to the Soviets,
Speaker 1: they totally would have kept it quiet. But that's about that.
Speaker 1: But there's nothing, there's absolutely nothing to prove that. So
Speaker 1: I think we gotta go with the obvious, which is
Speaker 1: that he just got sick of being prime minister. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna stick with my original theory, Yeah, which is
Speaker 1: that he just he just he just you know, got
Speaker 1: tired and said, I don't really want to do this again.
Speaker 1: This kind of sucked, not really interested in it, I think. So,
Speaker 1: you know, there's always that the statement of his wife
Speaker 1: that they didn't move in a tin down because they
Speaker 1: knew they weren't going to be there very long. It
Speaker 1: sounds to me like he maybe made her a promise
Speaker 1: that hey, just a couple more years and I'm out,
Speaker 1: okay please. Yeah, for the fact that he barely won
Speaker 1: to see eat may have been an indication to him
Speaker 1: that things could very easily turn again. Yeah, totally. I
Speaker 1: guess for me, I just have that continuing doubt of like,
Speaker 1: why would you not why why would it be then?
Speaker 1: Why would you not leave before then? But you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe he thought he was prime minister
Speaker 1: for six years things had gone away, he would kind
Speaker 1: of be able to take a graceful exit of just
Speaker 1: he would take a step down and then continue to
Speaker 1: take steps down into retirement, and then suddenly he found
Speaker 1: himself as Prime minister. Okay, I guess I'm doing this
Speaker 1: again for a little bit. But the but but again,
Speaker 1: you know, I just I just don't totally understand why
Speaker 1: you wouldn't just say you were stepping down for personal reasons. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean he should probably maybe should given a reason,
Speaker 1: but maybe even maybe it was a little unheard of
Speaker 1: at that time to have to give a reason. It's
Speaker 1: only because of all the other stuff that we consider.
Speaker 1: It's so very strange. That's that's a good point. Um. Well,
Speaker 1: I think typically even then you probably were expected to
Speaker 1: give a hint of a reason. But you know, it
Speaker 1: might have been that he just decided to pull in
Speaker 1: Andy Kaufman and little mystery for us. All. That's that's
Speaker 1: what I plan to do. I'm gonna I'm gonna hold
Speaker 1: Wilson's last joke pretty much. So that's it. I hope
Speaker 1: you found this episode illuminating and edifying. Uh, as did
Speaker 1: all of us. I'm sure, uh you know, and I won't.
Speaker 1: I promise I'm not gonna do any cold War Sylvie
Speaker 1: Desponatge episodes for a while. Appreciate it. I do have
Speaker 1: one of the cooker for you. But that's okay, I can.
Speaker 1: I can hold off on it for a while. Uh so, uh,
Speaker 1: you guys have any other theories before I do all
Speaker 1: the housework? All right? Uh? Well, good news. We now
Speaker 1: have a website. Our website is called Thinking Sideways podcast
Speaker 1: dot com and where you can of course, like you know,
Speaker 1: find our stuff, download it or list. Can you download
Speaker 1: from there or just yeah I thought you could? Okay
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Speaker 1: pretty big, really yeah, this thing we are on the
Speaker 1: Facebook we have where we have a group and a page,
Speaker 1: so joined the group they have the bigger, the better.
Speaker 1: And we're also all of course on the Twitter where
Speaker 1: we are Thinking Sideways without the g the huge. We've
Speaker 1: got like three followers or something. Yeah. What else. We're
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Speaker 1: uh so our sepreddit course is called Thinking Sideways. And
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Speaker 1: heard of email. I hope it's a it's kind of
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Speaker 1: That's it for this week, I suppose. So, Dospedonia, you
Speaker 1: did that one last time. Good point. You can't do
Speaker 1: that to two in a row. Okay, Lay, that doesn't
Speaker 1: even make any sense, doesn't that does any of this? Uh?
Speaker 1: Good point. Cheers guys,