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Speaker 1: Welcome back to Behind the Bastards. I'm Robert Evans uh,

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Speaker 1: and this is a podcast about the worst people in

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Speaker 1: all of history. And this week we are talking about

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Speaker 1: some very uh creative men who liked to design them

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Speaker 1: some weapons. Uh. My guests uh this episode as with

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Speaker 1: last episode, Uh, Carl Casarda from Enranged TV. Carl, how

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Speaker 1: are you doing? I'm doing pretty good. I'm sitting here

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Speaker 1: contemplating my my future with a Maxim machine gun. Let's

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Speaker 1: let me teach me more about something that I probably

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Speaker 1: need in my life but I'm not aware of. Well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean this, this would this would be a little

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Speaker 1: bit harder to the weapons we're talking about today, would

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Speaker 1: be slightly harder to acquire than a maximum gun UM

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Speaker 1: and require somewhat more space. UM. As a spoilier for

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Speaker 1: where we're going, you will need a hill or a

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Speaker 1: small mountain to properly use this UM. So you know,

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Speaker 1: I don't know how much property you have, but but

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Speaker 1: maybe set like a good sized hill. Aside, um, you

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Speaker 1: need about a thousand meters So, as we discussed last

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Speaker 1: episode here in Maxim may be directly responsible for more

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Speaker 1: deaths via his invention than any other arms designer in history. Now,

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Speaker 1: our next subject was equally brilliant in his ability to

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Speaker 1: design guns. He's probably better at it than here him was.

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Speaker 1: He may be better at it than anybody was. Um.

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Speaker 1: The fact that his creations killed fewer people is not

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Speaker 1: through lack of trying. Although his goal was never to

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Speaker 1: make weapons of war. That was just kind of an

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Speaker 1: un that was kind of a necessary asside to the

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Speaker 1: thing he really wanted to do. The guy we're talking

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Speaker 1: about today is Gerald Bull. And when I say guns here,

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Speaker 1: we're talking about the big stuff like artillery pieces. We're

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Speaker 1: not talking about anything you can fit in a jacket,

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Speaker 1: you know. Um. Gerald Vincent Bull was born on March

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Speaker 1: nine night in North Bay, Ontario. You may recognize this

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Speaker 1: as being part of Canada. And the fact that two

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Speaker 1: of the three great gun designers in North American history

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Speaker 1: were from nowhere near the south is a fact of

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Speaker 1: some shame from my people. Um. Most Browning was born

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Speaker 1: in what Utah? So yeah, still come on South, somebody

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Speaker 1: figure something out. But I know that Gerald's father was

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Speaker 1: George Toussaint Bull. He was a lawyer and he was

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Speaker 1: He and his wife were very productive during the brief

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Speaker 1: time that they were alive, spreading a lot of kids

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Speaker 1: out over the land. Ten children. Um. They were quite

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Speaker 1: comfortable financially for a little while until about a year

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Speaker 1: after Gerald was born when the stock market crashed. You know,

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Speaker 1: n not a great year for anybody, really. George had

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Speaker 1: taken out a bunch of loans for investments during the

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Speaker 1: bull market, and he wound up broke when they came due.

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Speaker 1: After the crash, the family had to move to Toronto

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Speaker 1: for work. Now, Gertrude Bull, Gerald's mother kept having kids,

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Speaker 1: and she suffered severe complications after giving birth to her

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Speaker 1: tenth child. So Gerald was kid number nine. Um. A

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Speaker 1: couple of years later she has child number ten, Gordon,

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Speaker 1: and she doesn't go great. She died is in April

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Speaker 1: of nineteen thirty one, which sets uh Gerald's dad, George,

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Speaker 1: on a sharp decline. He becomes an alcoholic, He has

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Speaker 1: a nervous breakdown, and he abandons his children and leaves

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Speaker 1: them with his sister Laura, who dies almost immediately afterwards.

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Speaker 1: So by the time Gerald is five, he has had

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Speaker 1: he's been through the ringer. That's a rough set of

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Speaker 1: cards to draw as a five year old child. Wow, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you kind of wonder how that influences someone to the

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Speaker 1: to their adulthood, right, I mean, yeah, losing your mother,

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Speaker 1: you're essentially part of a litter. You know, brothers and

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Speaker 1: sisters have a litter. Yeah, you've got a litter. Your

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Speaker 1: dad just fox right off. Your second mom dies, Like

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Speaker 1: it's not great, No, it's not great. Yeah. Um, and

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Speaker 1: we will talk a little bit about how this influences him.

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Speaker 1: But definitely not a stable upbringing, right. Um, So George,

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Speaker 1: his dad falls in love with somebody else, gets married, um,

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Speaker 1: and does not take his children back. He's married in

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Speaker 1: a more stable position. Instead, After his sister dies, he

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Speaker 1: gives up his kids to an assortment of relatives. He

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Speaker 1: just kind of like splits them and then goes off

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Speaker 1: and does his own thing. He's like, I don't want

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Speaker 1: these kids around anymore. I'm trying to doing a new life.

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Speaker 1: You get a kid, you get a kid, You get

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Speaker 1: a kid. Everyone gets a kid. You know the rule.

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Speaker 1: Your mom's dead. I ain't your dad anymore, said this ship.

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Speaker 1: We got to find me another uterus destroy. Yeah, we

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Speaker 1: don't get a ton of to tail about George Bull,

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Speaker 1: but he definitely sucks pretty bad. Um. Gerald winds up

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Speaker 1: being raised largely by his older sister, Bernice Um and

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Speaker 1: when he was nine or ten, he starts spending the

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Speaker 1: summer with his aunt and uncle, who were well off

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Speaker 1: and able to send him to an all boys Jesuit school.

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Speaker 1: So he does have a large family who takes care

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Speaker 1: of them. He's kind of an orphan, but he's taken

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Speaker 1: care of by his family who are comfortable enough that

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Speaker 1: like he's not a financial burden to them, and they're

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Speaker 1: they actually like put a lot of resources into him.

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Speaker 1: So it is a rough childhood, it's not nearly as

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Speaker 1: bad as it could be. Right, he doesn't wind up

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Speaker 1: in an institution or something. Um. He has a loving family.

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Speaker 1: His dad is just a massive piece of ship. So uh.

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Speaker 1: He starts doing better at this point once he gets

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Speaker 1: to the Jesuit school and he shows an aptitude for engineering.

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Speaker 1: He had a hobby of designing and building model airplanes

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Speaker 1: out of balsa wood. Um, not like a kit for

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Speaker 1: an airplane. Would just get raw wood and he would

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Speaker 1: make his own planes and fly them. So Gerald graduates

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Speaker 1: in nineteen forty four and he was accepted to Queen's University.

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Speaker 1: His initial plan was to join the military as an officer,

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Speaker 1: but he found himself really really taken by engineering. He

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Speaker 1: transferred to the University of Toronto, where he'd been accepted

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Speaker 1: by their new aeronautical engineering school. This was an undergraduate program,

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Speaker 1: and Gerald was sixteen years old when he starts it, right,

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Speaker 1: so he is he is not just in college, he's

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Speaker 1: in a graduate program for aeronautical engineering when he's a

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Speaker 1: sixteen year old. Um, so, very very smart kid, right uh,

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Speaker 1: and also a very ambitious kid. But the uncertainty and

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Speaker 1: abandonment in his childhood had left keen marks on him.

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Speaker 1: Classmates noted that he could be difficult to work with

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Speaker 1: and prone to anger, something that would be commented on

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Speaker 1: by his peers for the rest of his life. Charles Murphy,

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Speaker 1: who worked closely with Gerald as an adult, later told

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Speaker 1: interviewers in a sense, he was an orphan and that

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Speaker 1: affected his personality a lot. He wanted people to like him,

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Speaker 1: and he felt hurt and rejection, keenly and kind of

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Speaker 1: like Maxim, He's one of these guys that when someone

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Speaker 1: wrongs him or he sees someone is wrong, he never

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Speaker 1: is able to let this ship go. Um. They're both

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Speaker 1: men who take which I find interesting, who takes slights

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Speaker 1: extremely personally and like cannot deal with with the idea

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Speaker 1: that somebody has wronged them. Uh Bulls program was funded

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Speaker 1: by the Defense Research Board of Canada and his first

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Speaker 1: project as a student was to build a supersonic wind tunnel.

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Speaker 1: He used this as the basis for his nineteen forty

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Speaker 1: nine Masters thesis, and by nineteen fifty he'd almost finished

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Speaker 1: his pH d thesis, which is an insane rate of

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Speaker 1: productivity for a young ecademic, going from Masters to pH

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Speaker 1: d thesis in the space of about a year. UM.

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Speaker 1: He is a really smart kid. Now. That year, the

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Speaker 1: d r B asked the school to provide them with

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Speaker 1: an aerodynamicis for a missile project code named Velvet Glove.

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Speaker 1: He proved to be exceptional at practical engineering, and gerald

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Speaker 1: Bull was quickly selected to participate in this joint Canadian

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Speaker 1: British Defense Department program to study artillery and develop new

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Speaker 1: methods for shooting people with big guns. The program that

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Speaker 1: he worked with next had been started during World War

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Speaker 1: two UM in Canada to keep British weapons developments out

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Speaker 1: of German hands, and now that the Cold War was on,

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Speaker 1: the purpose of the program switched to ensure that the

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Speaker 1: Commonwealth had the most accurate artillery possible that they could

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Speaker 1: use if things got hot again. He helped to design

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Speaker 1: some of the first segmented aluminum SABO rounds. He's like

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Speaker 1: the guy who really in like is a heavy part

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Speaker 1: of obviously it's teams, but he's one of the people

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Speaker 1: who invents like the concept of a SABO round and

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Speaker 1: makes it actually effective. And that's when you have like

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Speaker 1: a big smooth bore gun and there's basically rifling in

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Speaker 1: this SABO thing that gets discarded as the shell travels

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Speaker 1: out of the barrel, and it allows you to do

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Speaker 1: things like later on they'll do stuff like the the

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Speaker 1: art the artillery piece will almost be a rocket, and

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Speaker 1: when the sabo is discarded, wings pop out or fins

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Speaker 1: pop out that allow it to like stay more aerodynamic.

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Speaker 1: Like the fact that you have this that you build,

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Speaker 1: this discarding SABO system allows you to do all sorts

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Speaker 1: of stuff with with artillery rounds that people couldn't really

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Speaker 1: do before. It will also enhance the capabilities of existing

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Speaker 1: artillery because you're taking on existing smooth bore and by

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Speaker 1: changing the projectile you're probably giving it higher accuracy and

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Speaker 1: greater range. Yeah, that's exactly and that's exactly a big

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Speaker 1: part of this is, you know, the militaries and whatnot

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Speaker 1: are always like, there's always budgetary concerns. We have all

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Speaker 1: these big guns. The SABO allows us to massively upgrade

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Speaker 1: their capacity and we don't have to actually make new

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Speaker 1: fucking guns, um, which nobody really wants to deal with.

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Speaker 1: Um So, yeah, he helps design some of these the

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Speaker 1: first of these rounds. He also helps to design new

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Speaker 1: methods for testing powerful artillery that's much more like the

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Speaker 1: artillery they're making shoot so much further and faster than

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Speaker 1: it ever has. They have to invent new ways to

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Speaker 1: decide to figure out how fast they're shooting it, right, Like,

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Speaker 1: they didn't actually have the equipment to determine how fast

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Speaker 1: are we firing these shells because they never needed to.

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Speaker 1: So he's he's not just making the rounds. He's also

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Speaker 1: helping to figure out how are we actually going to

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Speaker 1: analyze and test this stuff, because that needs to be

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Speaker 1: invented right alongside it. Um. In nineteen fifty one, at

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Speaker 1: age twenty one, he gets his PhD, becoming one of

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Speaker 1: the youngest PhDs in the university's history to this day.

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Speaker 1: UM So, life's pretty good for bolt during this period.

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Speaker 1: On a fishing trip in the early fifties, he meets

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Speaker 1: the daughter of a local doctor, Naomi Gilbert. The to

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Speaker 1: start dating and then get married. In nineteen fifty four.

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Speaker 1: Her father gave the couple of house as their wedding gift,

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Speaker 1: and the very next year, their first son, Philip, was born.

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Speaker 1: Michelle followed soon after. Now Gerald was exceptional enough at

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Speaker 1: what he did that in nineteen fifty three he received

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Speaker 1: attention from McLean's magazine, which titled him Canada's boy rocket scientist.

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Speaker 1: His cantankerous nature, though increasingly a aserted itself as a

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Speaker 1: fundamentally pragmatic, experiment driven scientist. He expressed hatred for theoretical researchers,

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Speaker 1: who he called cocktail scientists. He also grew increasingly furious

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Speaker 1: with red tape, which restricted the kind of weapons projects

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Speaker 1: that he could embark on. So he's he really hates

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Speaker 1: anyone who's not getting their hands dirty actually like making ship.

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Speaker 1: He has no time at all for like theoretical physics

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Speaker 1: or anything like that. He wants to go out and

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Speaker 1: build things, and if you're not doing that, he thinks

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Speaker 1: you're kind of full of ship. Well, that kind of

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Speaker 1: smells like I'm the smartest guy in the room, sort

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Speaker 1: of simplex complex, does it not? Like all these other

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Speaker 1: people are just holding me back. Get out of my

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Speaker 1: way and watch what I can do. He's probably a narcissist,

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Speaker 1: Like you can't diagnose someone based on this, but he

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Speaker 1: he has in it and he's he's he's a genius.

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Speaker 1: But he also has this extremely high opinion of himself

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Speaker 1: and gets enraged whenever someone is like, no, we don't

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Speaker 1: really want you to do that. I wonder, I mean,

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Speaker 1: I wonder. I don't think I'm not I'm not a psychiatrist,

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Speaker 1: but I wonder how much that comes back to being

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Speaker 1: sort of discarded as a child. Yeah, yeah, I really,

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Speaker 1: I mean it's it's it's it's interesting to think about,

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Speaker 1: like it's it must have had some sort of impact. Um,

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Speaker 1: and yeah, he really he never is able to handle

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Speaker 1: being told no. So an early example of both of

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Speaker 1: these things came in n when Bull was working on

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Speaker 1: a smooth bore gun that could fire explosive rounds at

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Speaker 1: four thousand, five d and fifty miles per hour. This

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Speaker 1: would be the fastest and most accurate artillery piece ever made.

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Speaker 1: Now to make his gun work. He had to design

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Speaker 1: a special telemetry system to even collect data on how

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Speaker 1: the weapon functioned. His plans to do this were considered

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Speaker 1: impossible by staff at the organization he was working at,

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Speaker 1: and several of them went to the mat to try

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Speaker 1: to stop Bull from moving forward. To thwart them, he

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Speaker 1: sneakily moved his departments funding around, paying for the project

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Speaker 1: under their noses, and it worked. Bull continued his work

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Speaker 1: more or less without fanfare for the next decade, experimenting

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Speaker 1: with anti ballistic missiles and radar, eventually impressing the director

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Speaker 1: of the U S Army Research and Development Division enough

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Speaker 1: that a model of one of Bull's guns was brought

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Speaker 1: to the States and test fired over the Atlantick. The

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Speaker 1: US team had to use the fire control radar from

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Speaker 1: a Nike Hercules missile to track the shells fired by

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Speaker 1: Bulls gun, which reached altitudes of a hundred and thirty

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Speaker 1: thousand feet. So this is like, this is a gun

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Speaker 1: that shoots at such ranges and so quickly that you

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Speaker 1: have to use like the radar systems on a fucking

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Speaker 1: missile to track the projectiles at fires. It's fascinating because

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Speaker 1: like I was just kind of making a joke about

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Speaker 1: being the smartest guy in the room, but he might

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Speaker 1: legitimately have been. He's very smart. Yeah. Yeah, Like when

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Speaker 1: we say he's making guns, he's making like like he's

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Speaker 1: making like fantasy weapons like these are these are uh,

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Speaker 1: extremely advanced weapon platforms. So at this point, yeah, he's

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Speaker 1: making guns that can basically fire into space. Like he's

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Speaker 1: he's he's making weapons that can shoot projectiles damn near indoors.

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Speaker 1: It sounds like something you'd read into Jules Verne novel. Yeah. Um,

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Speaker 1: he must have like Jules Verne as a kid, and

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Speaker 1: his work here was as much rocket science as it

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Speaker 1: was anything like what Maxim and other men were doing

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Speaker 1: a generation or two earlier. Right, And so in like

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Speaker 1: literally like a generation or two, we've gone from making

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Speaker 1: a water cooled gun that that is recoil operated to

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Speaker 1: I am shooting missiles into the into space. It is

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Speaker 1: again just like a mark of how quickly things change. Now.

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Speaker 1: It was at this point in the late nineteen fifties

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Speaker 1: that Bull and his colleague and friend Gerald Murphy started

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Speaker 1: talking about doing something totally new with their cannons. Instead

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Speaker 1: of just firing munitions, might it be possible to use

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Speaker 1: them to launch aircraft. They started with model airplanes. And

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Speaker 1: when I say model airplanes, scale models of airplanes one

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Speaker 1: one scale models of airplanes that they are shooting out

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Speaker 1: of cannons to see, like, can we launch planes this way? Um?

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Speaker 1: One of the weapons one of the planes they launched

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Speaker 1: through a cannon this way is a supersonic jet called

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Speaker 1: the Avro Arrow. US work yielded early results, and it

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Speaker 1: actually revealed a flaw in like one of the stabilization

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Speaker 1: systems in the Arrow because they were shooting it so quickly.

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Speaker 1: That leads to this very important safety upgrade in the

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Speaker 1: plane that makes it a lot safer to fly. So

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Speaker 1: there's immediate results to this. But the institute he's working

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Speaker 1: at cancels the program immediately after like this, and he's

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Speaker 1: enraged again, right, he wants to keep shooting planes out

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Speaker 1: of guns, and the university is like, now we feel

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Speaker 1: like that's all we need to know about shooting a

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Speaker 1: plane out of a gun, like so we're gonna take

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Speaker 1: your funding away. And he's livid, you know, in his eyes,

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Speaker 1: these cocktail scientists have robbed him of a chance to

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Speaker 1: do a thing he thought was cool. It does sound

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Speaker 1: like a lot of fun. It does sound it sounds

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Speaker 1: as hell. Yeah, absolutely, I would have loved to get

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Speaker 1: to hang out and just watch him shoot planes out

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Speaker 1: of guns. That sounds neat. So in nineteen fifty seven,

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Speaker 1: Russia does a spot nick, which we today see as

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Speaker 1: rad but Americans and a lot of Canadians found terrifying

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Speaker 1: at the time. And there's this whole mania over Well,

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Speaker 1: now we gotta get a fucking satellite up there, right,

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Speaker 1: this is this is also base race stuff. Everybody's probably

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Speaker 1: broadly familiar with this. Um So Gerald Bull takes this

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Speaker 1: as an opportunity and he leaks a story to the

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Speaker 1: press that Canada was about to put their own Sputnik

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Speaker 1: type satellite into orbit by building a high velocity cannon

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Speaker 1: into the nose of a red Stone missile. Now this

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Speaker 1: was a complete lie, but he wanted he wanted to

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Speaker 1: make this thing, so he figured, I leaked this to

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Speaker 1: the press, there will be a frenzy in Canada for

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Speaker 1: me to launch a satellite, and then I'll get to

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Speaker 1: build this. And again this this is one of the

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Speaker 1: most insane ideas I've ever heard. He's talking about like

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Speaker 1: a nuclear ballistic missile and you replace the explosive in

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Speaker 1: it with a gun built into the front of the

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Speaker 1: missile so that the missile shoots up into the sky

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Speaker 1: and then the gun fires the satellite into space from

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Speaker 1: the missile. So that's the second stage. It's a fucking

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Speaker 1: insane idea he's and he's also like really incredibly playing

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Speaker 1: the media. It's really fascinating. Like he sees he's looking

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Speaker 1: at this missile the size of a fucking building and goes,

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Speaker 1: I bet I could stick a gun on that and

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Speaker 1: that'd be pretty And if I put this out in

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Speaker 1: the news and say that Canada's making it and they

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Speaker 1: don't make it, it olympariss them, so now they have

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Speaker 1: to make it. Well that was his hope. It doesn't

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Speaker 1: quite work out. So the leaked story was obviously a

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Speaker 1: calculated act, but it causes an uproar in the Canadian

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Speaker 1: government and the Prime Minister, a guy named deefend Baker,

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Speaker 1: loudly denounces the idea as bogus to the press, so

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Speaker 1: it does not work for him and heads rolled in

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Speaker 1: Bull's office. But the hubbub also led to massive press

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Speaker 1: interest in the Canadian Armament and Research Development Establishment or CARD,

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Speaker 1: which is where he was working at the time. Um

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Speaker 1: and the subsequent A lot of the media coverage that

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Speaker 1: comes out of this this leak and the around it

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Speaker 1: focuses on guns that Gerald Bold had built, so he

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Speaker 1: doesn't get his wish, he doesn't get to build his

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Speaker 1: missile gun, but he gets a lot of interest in

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Speaker 1: his the guns that he's already built, so it does

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Speaker 1: kind of work out for him. By the end of

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Speaker 1: the fifties, Bull was fed up with the timidity of

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Speaker 1: his superiors. In April of nineteen sixty one, he had

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Speaker 1: an argument with one of his bosses who wanted him

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Speaker 1: to complete paperwork before moving on to actually testing stuff.

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00:17:06,200 --> 00:17:09,520
Speaker 1: Bull asked his boss which is more important, paperwork or

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Speaker 1: getting the work done, and his boss said, in this case, paperwork.

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Speaker 1: So Bold responded, you want paperwork, I'll give you paperwork,

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Speaker 1: and he wrote out his resignation right there on the spot.

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Speaker 1: So he stops working for the University of the Canadian government.

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Speaker 1: This like big joint project. Um, yeah, you get a

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Speaker 1: sense of like the kind of duty. I have to

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Speaker 1: admit having a career in absolute security, I totally get that.

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Speaker 1: I can't tell you how many change controled documents I

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Speaker 1: never filled out right, I can't fucking handle that ship.

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Speaker 1: I just wanted to make routers do stuff and make

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Speaker 1: firewalls go. I didn't want to make paperwork go. I

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Speaker 1: get that, Yeah, I mean fuck paperwork. Like it's hard

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Speaker 1: not to be on his side with some of this,

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Speaker 1: just like, yeah, that that's I of course it would

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Speaker 1: be frustrating if all you want to do is build

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Speaker 1: guns into the into missiles and shoot them into space.

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Speaker 1: If somebody wants you to fill out a fucking requisition

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Speaker 1: form um, that's just useful time you had spend making

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Speaker 1: your space guns. So according to the book Wilderness of

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Speaker 1: Mirrors a report, which is a book about Gerald Bull,

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Speaker 1: a Canadian Army intelligence report on Bold that came out

359
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Speaker 1: after his death later analyzed this incident that led to

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Speaker 1: him quitting card and concluded his tempestuous nature and strong

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Speaker 1: dislike for administration and red tape constantly led him into

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Speaker 1: trouble with senior management. In this is true, and you

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Speaker 1: get the feeling that, however understandable some of us may

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Speaker 1: have been, he was. He was an asshole to work with,

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Speaker 1: like he was not an easy man to have as

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Speaker 1: a colleague. Both transitioned pretty seamlessly to a professorship at

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Speaker 1: McGill University, where he kept helped to carry out more

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Speaker 1: experiments with aerodynamics and big guns. He and his wife

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Speaker 1: actually purchased a two thousand acre plot of land on

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Speaker 1: the Quebec Vermont border, which they donated to McGill University

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Speaker 1: to use as a ballistics lab to like us as

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Speaker 1: a shooting range. Bull quickly received funding from Project HARP,

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Speaker 1: which stood for High Altitude Research Project. It would a

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Speaker 1: joint operation by the U. S Department of Defense in

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Speaker 1: the Canadian equivalent, and the goal was to study the

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Speaker 1: ballistics of re entry using large guns to fire projectiles

377
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Speaker 1: at high speed and then watching those projectiles fall back

378
00:19:11,280 --> 00:19:13,440
Speaker 1: to Earth. So, right, this is part of the space race.

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Speaker 1: They know we're gonna be launching shi up and we're

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Speaker 1: gonna need some of it to come back without killing

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Speaker 1: people in it. So we need to shoot a bunch

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Speaker 1: of stuff up into the atmosphere and then let it

383
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Speaker 1: fall and take data on like what happens when ship falls,

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Speaker 1: because we haven't done that before, and the most efficient

385
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Speaker 1: way they can think of to do that is these

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Speaker 1: giant guns that Gerald Bull has been building. Because it's like, well, yeah,

387
00:19:32,720 --> 00:19:34,399
Speaker 1: we don't need to we don't need to actually be

388
00:19:34,400 --> 00:19:36,719
Speaker 1: getting it into space. We just want to look at

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Speaker 1: what's happening like aerodynamically as these things land. Let's have

390
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Speaker 1: him shoot a bunch of stuff up and take notes

391
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Speaker 1: on it. Are there bonus points of the projectiles land

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Speaker 1: on a small Polynesian island? Um? I don't, it's not

393
00:19:51,240 --> 00:19:55,880
Speaker 1: written about here. Um but maybe yeah maybe um? And

394
00:19:55,880 --> 00:19:58,239
Speaker 1: and these are not like ballistic route like these are

395
00:19:58,280 --> 00:20:00,680
Speaker 1: guns that could be used as artillery, but they're they're

396
00:20:00,720 --> 00:20:03,159
Speaker 1: like little models and stuff that they're basically shooting and

397
00:20:03,520 --> 00:20:06,600
Speaker 1: monitoring at this point, um. And Bulls work here is

398
00:20:06,720 --> 00:20:09,679
Speaker 1: very successful, and he's very supported by his boss, the

399
00:20:09,680 --> 00:20:13,800
Speaker 1: head of McGill's engineering department, Donald more Dell. Other professors

400
00:20:13,800 --> 00:20:16,960
Speaker 1: described quote second rate attempts at manipulation by both to

401
00:20:17,040 --> 00:20:20,520
Speaker 1: secure more resources for his work. This was unnecessary, as

402
00:20:20,520 --> 00:20:23,240
Speaker 1: more Dell believed in Bulls projects, but he was constantly

403
00:20:23,280 --> 00:20:25,280
Speaker 1: needled anyway in this war at him. So again, even

404
00:20:25,280 --> 00:20:29,000
Speaker 1: when he's really supported by his boss, he can't like

405
00:20:29,320 --> 00:20:31,560
Speaker 1: he's he never shows any gratitude for the stuff that

406
00:20:31,600 --> 00:20:33,280
Speaker 1: he's getting. He's always just like no, no, I want more,

407
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Speaker 1: I want more. I want to be able to do more.

408
00:20:34,920 --> 00:20:37,400
Speaker 1: He's just you know, not a not a I mean

409
00:20:37,440 --> 00:20:40,200
Speaker 1: he's he's also a very motivated guy, and so he's

410
00:20:40,200 --> 00:20:43,240
Speaker 1: just kind of has this um. Some of it's being

411
00:20:43,359 --> 00:20:45,280
Speaker 1: very prickly and addict some of it's just he's got

412
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Speaker 1: this very relentless belief in his projects and can't really

413
00:20:48,600 --> 00:20:51,520
Speaker 1: stand the thought of not moving forward on them. Now,

414
00:20:51,600 --> 00:20:55,080
Speaker 1: Bulls work for HARP was wildly successful. His cannons worked

415
00:20:55,119 --> 00:20:58,360
Speaker 1: even better than intended for the people funding the research.

416
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Speaker 1: The primary goal here was just a further the space race.

417
00:21:01,880 --> 00:21:04,400
Speaker 1: The guns existed to provide data on how different things

418
00:21:04,480 --> 00:21:07,520
Speaker 1: re entered the atmosphere, but Gerald Bull didn't think of

419
00:21:07,560 --> 00:21:09,680
Speaker 1: things that way. He believed his guns were the real

420
00:21:09,800 --> 00:21:12,320
Speaker 1: stars of the show. And he starts to think about

421
00:21:12,600 --> 00:21:14,600
Speaker 1: he starts to have more and more ideas around this, like, well,

422
00:21:14,600 --> 00:21:17,840
Speaker 1: I don't really like the fact that the gun is

423
00:21:17,920 --> 00:21:20,040
Speaker 1: just sort of a thing to study the ballistics of

424
00:21:20,040 --> 00:21:22,680
Speaker 1: ship falling. I think the gun, I think these guns

425
00:21:22,680 --> 00:21:24,720
Speaker 1: I'm building can really be like the basis of a

426
00:21:24,760 --> 00:21:27,120
Speaker 1: new of the of the whole space program. That's that's

427
00:21:27,160 --> 00:21:30,760
Speaker 1: that's how he increasingly starts to think. Now, what happens

428
00:21:30,760 --> 00:21:33,680
Speaker 1: next is influenced by something that happens in nineteen sixty five.

429
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Speaker 1: And to tell that story, I'm gonna read a quote

430
00:21:35,720 --> 00:21:38,080
Speaker 1: from a write up in The New York Times. A

431
00:21:38,119 --> 00:21:40,879
Speaker 1: middle aged German woman arrived in Montreal to visit a

432
00:21:40,880 --> 00:21:45,320
Speaker 1: relatively unknown scientist of McGill University Space Research Institute. The

433
00:21:45,359 --> 00:21:49,159
Speaker 1: scientist was Professor Jerald Bull, then thirty seven. The German

434
00:21:49,160 --> 00:21:51,119
Speaker 1: woman who sought Bull out was the daughter of an

435
00:21:51,160 --> 00:21:53,960
Speaker 1: engineer who had worked on the top secret Paris Gun

436
00:21:54,040 --> 00:21:57,000
Speaker 1: project during the First World War. Developed by Krupp, the

437
00:21:57,000 --> 00:22:00,159
Speaker 1: German steelmakers, the Paris Gun was an enormous howitzer with

438
00:22:00,200 --> 00:22:03,040
Speaker 1: a range of seventy four miles, double that of any

439
00:22:03,080 --> 00:22:05,640
Speaker 1: weapon then existing. First fired on the morning of March

440
00:22:05,720 --> 00:22:09,320
Speaker 1: twenty third, nineteen eighteen, during Germany's Spring Offensive, it instantly

441
00:22:09,359 --> 00:22:13,040
Speaker 1: brought terror to Paris's Placid autrondisements. The first round hit

442
00:22:13,080 --> 00:22:16,440
Speaker 1: the Palace of the Republic. The French aghast and mystified

443
00:22:16,520 --> 00:22:19,679
Speaker 1: sent intelligence officers into the woods surrounding the city in

444
00:22:19,720 --> 00:22:23,000
Speaker 1: search of a hidden German gun emplacement. On Good Friday, March,

445
00:22:23,840 --> 00:22:25,640
Speaker 1: the guns scored a hit on the Church of Saint

446
00:22:25,680 --> 00:22:29,040
Speaker 1: Gervas in central Paris, killing ninety one and injuring a hundred.

447
00:22:29,359 --> 00:22:31,440
Speaker 1: The Paris Gun came too late to turn the tide

448
00:22:31,440 --> 00:22:33,639
Speaker 1: of the First World War in Germany's favor, but it

449
00:22:33,680 --> 00:22:37,480
Speaker 1: was an incredible technical triumph for its inventor, Fritz Rausenberger,

450
00:22:37,720 --> 00:22:40,560
Speaker 1: corrupts head of artillery development and production. Even with the

451
00:22:40,600 --> 00:22:43,600
Speaker 1: relatively primitive technology of the time, the show reached a

452
00:22:43,640 --> 00:22:47,200
Speaker 1: height of twenty six miles, an altitude not exceeded until

453
00:22:47,240 --> 00:22:49,800
Speaker 1: Germany developed the V two rocket in World War Two.

454
00:22:50,480 --> 00:22:57,760
Speaker 1: So this woman uh comes to Canada with papers from

455
00:22:57,800 --> 00:23:01,280
Speaker 1: Rousenburger's archives. So the Germans the Paris Gun never falls

456
00:23:01,320 --> 00:23:03,080
Speaker 1: into Allied hands at the end of World War One.

457
00:23:03,119 --> 00:23:07,000
Speaker 1: It's dismantled and like hidden or destroyed, and nobody knows

458
00:23:07,040 --> 00:23:09,240
Speaker 1: how this thing was fucking built, right, because it's it's

459
00:23:09,359 --> 00:23:12,080
Speaker 1: a military secret. It doesn't fall in anyone's hands. It's

460
00:23:12,119 --> 00:23:15,600
Speaker 1: kind of a mystery. The blueprints were lost forever, essentially,

461
00:23:15,880 --> 00:23:19,680
Speaker 1: But this German woman has an unpublished manuscript from Rausenburger's

462
00:23:19,720 --> 00:23:22,520
Speaker 1: family archives and it wasn't the original blueprint, but it

463
00:23:22,600 --> 00:23:25,320
Speaker 1: had hard data on the gun's capabilities, and it's not

464
00:23:25,520 --> 00:23:29,040
Speaker 1: information that bow is able to reverse engineer the gun

465
00:23:29,200 --> 00:23:32,520
Speaker 1: from this and rebuild it via computer model, so he

466
00:23:32,560 --> 00:23:35,520
Speaker 1: actually gets effectively the plans for the Paris Gun by this.

467
00:23:35,840 --> 00:23:38,040
Speaker 1: I guess this woman who's just like, well, he's he's

468
00:23:38,080 --> 00:23:42,480
Speaker 1: building the biggest guns anyone's building. Uh, And I think my, my, uh,

469
00:23:42,520 --> 00:23:45,760
Speaker 1: my ancestor Felix would would want him to have these plants.

470
00:23:45,920 --> 00:23:48,800
Speaker 1: It's I'm a big fan of giant guns. I hear

471
00:23:48,840 --> 00:23:51,159
Speaker 1: you're a fan of giant guns. Why don't you give

472
00:23:51,200 --> 00:23:52,960
Speaker 1: you some of the secret information so you could build

473
00:23:53,000 --> 00:23:56,359
Speaker 1: a giant ass gun. Yeah, it's really kind of a weird, Like,

474
00:23:56,440 --> 00:23:58,639
Speaker 1: I want to know more about this lady who just

475
00:23:58,720 --> 00:24:01,760
Speaker 1: like is take to buy this quest to help this

476
00:24:01,840 --> 00:24:06,800
Speaker 1: man build the biggest gun effort. It's such a strange

477
00:24:06,840 --> 00:24:10,800
Speaker 1: thing to what to do. But I'm gonna quote again

478
00:24:10,840 --> 00:24:13,600
Speaker 1: from The New York Times about what happens next. At

479
00:24:13,640 --> 00:24:16,320
Speaker 1: that moment, the obsession was born that would dominate Bull's

480
00:24:16,400 --> 00:24:19,159
Speaker 1: life and determine his death. Bull realized that if the

481
00:24:19,200 --> 00:24:22,200
Speaker 1: projectile and the huge gun was a powered rocket, its

482
00:24:22,320 --> 00:24:25,080
Speaker 1: range could be increased dramatically. With the backing of the

483
00:24:25,160 --> 00:24:27,879
Speaker 1: United States Army, the Canadian Department of Defense, production in

484
00:24:27,960 --> 00:24:31,040
Speaker 1: McGill University. He established a test site on the island

485
00:24:31,040 --> 00:24:33,639
Speaker 1: of Barbados and set to work on the High Altitude

486
00:24:33,640 --> 00:24:37,359
Speaker 1: Research Project. By welding together to sixteen inch guns that

487
00:24:37,480 --> 00:24:39,439
Speaker 1: had been put in storage by the U. S. Navy,

488
00:24:39,720 --> 00:24:43,040
Speaker 1: Bull created a huge gun, thirty six meters long with

489
00:24:43,119 --> 00:24:46,399
Speaker 1: a diameter of four hundred and twenty four millimeters. It

490
00:24:46,480 --> 00:24:50,639
Speaker 1: remains the longest working gun ever built. So he is

491
00:24:50,880 --> 00:24:53,719
Speaker 1: he is the man who's made the biggest gun, at

492
00:24:53,760 --> 00:24:58,520
Speaker 1: least the longest gun. I don't even know what I mean.

493
00:24:59,119 --> 00:25:01,520
Speaker 1: It's wild. I can totally see why he was going

494
00:25:01,560 --> 00:25:03,840
Speaker 1: down this path. And the concept of instead of just

495
00:25:03,960 --> 00:25:06,119
Speaker 1: using a rocket from the surface to get to space,

496
00:25:06,200 --> 00:25:08,880
Speaker 1: I mean making a rocket giving it its boost by

497
00:25:08,920 --> 00:25:13,040
Speaker 1: just a general ballistic boost with a gun is pretty

498
00:25:13,160 --> 00:25:16,720
Speaker 1: amazing idea. It is, And he is a weapons designer here,

499
00:25:16,760 --> 00:25:18,800
Speaker 1: but he's his goal is not to make a weapon

500
00:25:19,080 --> 00:25:21,520
Speaker 1: the weapon. His goal is, like I think the gun

501
00:25:21,600 --> 00:25:25,240
Speaker 1: should be a platform for space exploration. Um. So again,

502
00:25:25,320 --> 00:25:28,080
Speaker 1: nothing like bad that he's done here, Like even within

503
00:25:28,119 --> 00:25:30,400
Speaker 1: the context of like, yeah, it's wild that he's got

504
00:25:30,440 --> 00:25:33,960
Speaker 1: like the plans for this German apocalypse canon, um, but

505
00:25:34,080 --> 00:25:36,399
Speaker 1: he's using it because he wants to shoot stuff into space,

506
00:25:36,760 --> 00:25:40,040
Speaker 1: which I would say is a broadly noble aim wanting

507
00:25:40,080 --> 00:25:41,960
Speaker 1: to shoot stuff. I mean there's always like the whole

508
00:25:42,000 --> 00:25:44,520
Speaker 1: Dick measuring of the Cold War, but like it's cool

509
00:25:44,600 --> 00:25:47,119
Speaker 1: to put stuff in space. It's interesting to think about this.

510
00:25:47,160 --> 00:25:49,160
Speaker 1: You've got that, You've got the Paris gun being used

511
00:25:49,160 --> 00:25:51,399
Speaker 1: in this instance, and the V two rocket ultimately in

512
00:25:51,480 --> 00:25:53,960
Speaker 1: von Braun, Yeah, the Saturn five that gets us to

513
00:25:53,960 --> 00:25:56,960
Speaker 1: the moon, right, I mean that's that's two different instances

514
00:25:57,000 --> 00:26:00,600
Speaker 1: of these German weapons of war being turned into space

515
00:26:00,600 --> 00:26:06,439
Speaker 1: exploration ideas. Yeah, it's interesting that, like he we get Bull,

516
00:26:07,320 --> 00:26:09,800
Speaker 1: a gun that was made basically so that we could

517
00:26:09,800 --> 00:26:12,920
Speaker 1: shell random civilian structures in Paris to scare the French,

518
00:26:13,440 --> 00:26:15,879
Speaker 1: winds up becoming the basis of a system to shoot

519
00:26:15,920 --> 00:26:20,880
Speaker 1: satellites into space. Like that's that is really strange, um,

520
00:26:20,920 --> 00:26:24,159
Speaker 1: but I'd make sense, you know, like obviously, if you

521
00:26:24,200 --> 00:26:27,400
Speaker 1: can shoot a shell seventy four miles, you're not all

522
00:26:27,400 --> 00:26:29,720
Speaker 1: that far from being able to put something into space.

523
00:26:29,760 --> 00:26:31,960
Speaker 1: You're well on your way at least, right, Like, yeah,

524
00:26:32,000 --> 00:26:33,959
Speaker 1: and I believe the V two was the first thing

525
00:26:34,000 --> 00:26:38,440
Speaker 1: to actually ever make it into space. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, yes,

526
00:26:39,560 --> 00:26:44,080
Speaker 1: the German arms industry complicated, complicated thing to think about,

527
00:26:44,359 --> 00:26:47,600
Speaker 1: a lot of good, a lot of bad. Speaking have

528
00:26:47,640 --> 00:26:51,600
Speaker 1: a lot of good, a lot of bad. Break is

529
00:26:51,640 --> 00:26:56,679
Speaker 1: heavily supported by the German arms industry. Sophie, this podcast

530
00:26:58,040 --> 00:27:01,680
Speaker 1: uh huh, yeah we are. We are entirely supported by

531
00:27:01,880 --> 00:27:05,679
Speaker 1: the German munitions industry. So go pick up a uh

532
00:27:06,040 --> 00:27:10,520
Speaker 1: something from car. Just find some sort of car arm

533
00:27:10,560 --> 00:27:13,359
Speaker 1: by it or one of those submarines the Germans keep

534
00:27:13,440 --> 00:27:15,640
Speaker 1: selling the Egyptians for some reason. Get one of those.

535
00:27:16,520 --> 00:27:19,880
Speaker 1: Explain why this podcast is as hard as crystall That's

536
00:27:19,920 --> 00:27:23,000
Speaker 1: exactly right. That's what everyone says about our podcast. We're

537
00:27:23,040 --> 00:27:32,959
Speaker 1: the first people anyone said that about. Anyway, here's ads Ah,

538
00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:36,760
Speaker 1: We're back. So Gerald Bowl at this point has built

539
00:27:36,800 --> 00:27:39,960
Speaker 1: the longest gun anyone still has ever built, I guess

540
00:27:39,960 --> 00:27:42,040
Speaker 1: because there's not really any need for like if you

541
00:27:42,040 --> 00:27:44,720
Speaker 1: could shoot a thing into space. You've kind of made

542
00:27:44,800 --> 00:27:50,800
Speaker 1: the biggest gun anyone needs to make. There's not a

543
00:27:50,800 --> 00:27:53,639
Speaker 1: lot of of of point to going bigger at that point.

544
00:27:53,680 --> 00:27:56,960
Speaker 1: At that stage, so as the project neared its close,

545
00:27:57,119 --> 00:28:00,760
Speaker 1: Bull felt he'd perfected plans for a gun launched three

546
00:28:00,760 --> 00:28:04,720
Speaker 1: stage rocket with flipout fins using the SABO technology he'd

547
00:28:04,720 --> 00:28:08,080
Speaker 1: helped work on that could put a small, functional satellite

548
00:28:08,080 --> 00:28:11,200
Speaker 1: into orbit. He was extremely excited by this idea, As

549
00:28:11,200 --> 00:28:14,240
Speaker 1: his son Philip later recalled, he thought HARP would be

550
00:28:14,240 --> 00:28:17,199
Speaker 1: a big advancement for Canada and aeronautical engineering. They were

551
00:28:17,240 --> 00:28:19,880
Speaker 1: already putting small probes into space. It was the drive

552
00:28:19,880 --> 00:28:22,040
Speaker 1: of his life to be working on that project. He

553
00:28:22,160 --> 00:28:24,680
Speaker 1: was alone, it was his project. It came from his brains,

554
00:28:24,720 --> 00:28:27,840
Speaker 1: and it was functioning. It worked, and so this is

555
00:28:27,880 --> 00:28:30,280
Speaker 1: like the high point of his life. But it doesn't

556
00:28:30,359 --> 00:28:33,800
Speaker 1: last long because on June thirtieth, nineteen sixty seven, the

557
00:28:33,840 --> 00:28:37,800
Speaker 1: Canadian government stops funding HARP. Their justification is that they

558
00:28:37,800 --> 00:28:40,240
Speaker 1: didn't like the idea that their space program would be

559
00:28:40,320 --> 00:28:43,959
Speaker 1: so closely associated with military hardware. They find it distasteful

560
00:28:44,000 --> 00:28:48,320
Speaker 1: that their space program involves like gigantic guns. Right. Um,

561
00:28:48,440 --> 00:28:51,840
Speaker 1: they don't like the idea. That's one reason. Another reason

562
00:28:52,000 --> 00:28:56,800
Speaker 1: is that, um, they're they're they're moving towards rockets, right.

563
00:28:57,080 --> 00:29:00,240
Speaker 1: The vast majority of scientists working in the US in

564
00:29:00,280 --> 00:29:02,760
Speaker 1: Canada on the space race are all pretty much an

565
00:29:02,800 --> 00:29:05,080
Speaker 1: agreement that rockets are the way to get shipped into

566
00:29:05,080 --> 00:29:09,080
Speaker 1: space without breaking it. Um. And you know, bull is

567
00:29:09,160 --> 00:29:11,880
Speaker 1: kind of his his attitude is like, well, no, we

568
00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:14,520
Speaker 1: should do it with gigantic guns. And he's basically the

569
00:29:14,560 --> 00:29:17,840
Speaker 1: only guy on team giant guns for the space race, right,

570
00:29:17,880 --> 00:29:21,640
Speaker 1: so obviously he does not win that argument. Um. And

571
00:29:21,680 --> 00:29:23,440
Speaker 1: who knows what would have been better? Right, Like it

572
00:29:23,480 --> 00:29:27,600
Speaker 1: worked out more or less, So I'm not gonna backseat

573
00:29:27,680 --> 00:29:30,520
Speaker 1: rocket scientist. Interesting to note the US had no such

574
00:29:30,600 --> 00:29:35,840
Speaker 1: qualms about the origins of their technology. Oh, absolutely not. Yeah,

575
00:29:35,880 --> 00:29:37,960
Speaker 1: and I don't I don't like that was one of

576
00:29:38,000 --> 00:29:40,040
Speaker 1: the reasons that like they gave him. I don't know

577
00:29:40,080 --> 00:29:42,440
Speaker 1: how much I about leave any government would like give

578
00:29:42,440 --> 00:29:46,000
Speaker 1: a shit about that, But I don't think of governments

579
00:29:46,040 --> 00:29:49,560
Speaker 1: as being basically that altruistic. So that's odd. Yeah, I

580
00:29:49,600 --> 00:29:51,719
Speaker 1: mean maybe it was like maybe there was some pr

581
00:29:51,760 --> 00:29:55,160
Speaker 1: concern because he's using some of his technology, is this

582
00:29:55,280 --> 00:29:58,680
Speaker 1: giant Paris gun, which is doesn't have a great history,

583
00:29:58,760 --> 00:30:04,160
Speaker 1: you know. Um, but yeah, uh so right, he the

584
00:30:04,240 --> 00:30:07,200
Speaker 1: rocket scientists kind of went out over the gun scientists,

585
00:30:07,240 --> 00:30:09,719
Speaker 1: who are basically just Gerald bull Um and The New

586
00:30:09,800 --> 00:30:12,200
Speaker 1: York Times in their write up, adds that quote. Bull

587
00:30:12,280 --> 00:30:16,200
Speaker 1: later admitted that personality clashes had aggravated his budgetary problems.

588
00:30:16,520 --> 00:30:19,320
Speaker 1: Arrogance was his trademark, and he had made few friends

589
00:30:19,320 --> 00:30:22,720
Speaker 1: among his government backers. He frequently referred to bureaucrats as

590
00:30:22,760 --> 00:30:25,920
Speaker 1: morons and the lowest form of life on Earth. The

591
00:30:25,920 --> 00:30:29,000
Speaker 1: abrupt termination of HARP devastated Bull. He was out in

592
00:30:29,040 --> 00:30:32,720
Speaker 1: the wilderness, his dream of recreating the Paris guns stillborn.

593
00:30:33,280 --> 00:30:36,520
Speaker 1: The Cocktail scientists had beaten him, but Bull was determined

594
00:30:36,560 --> 00:30:38,760
Speaker 1: to get his revenge, and an epilog to the book,

595
00:30:38,840 --> 00:30:42,400
Speaker 1: called Studies of Ultra Performance HARP Systems, he sketched out

596
00:30:42,440 --> 00:30:46,120
Speaker 1: plans for an extraordinary new weapon, a launcher thirty two

597
00:30:46,200 --> 00:30:49,400
Speaker 1: inches in diameter that could blast a tw pound payload

598
00:30:49,520 --> 00:30:56,280
Speaker 1: six hundred miles into space. I'm sure this is going

599
00:30:56,320 --> 00:30:58,320
Speaker 1: to take a darker turn, but up until now, his

600
00:30:58,400 --> 00:31:01,160
Speaker 1: disdain for pace for work and his desire to prove

601
00:31:01,240 --> 00:31:04,800
Speaker 1: this technology with the ultimate goal of launching very endearing.

602
00:31:05,160 --> 00:31:07,360
Speaker 1: It's actually I'm kind of digging the guy at the moment.

603
00:31:07,520 --> 00:31:09,760
Speaker 1: I'm kind of waiting for the bomb to drop. Yeah,

604
00:31:10,200 --> 00:31:12,360
Speaker 1: it's about too but it is like it is, there

605
00:31:12,440 --> 00:31:14,960
Speaker 1: is something noble about like this man just wanted to

606
00:31:15,000 --> 00:31:18,280
Speaker 1: build a gun that could shoot stuff into space. And

607
00:31:18,520 --> 00:31:20,120
Speaker 1: I mean that's a noble goal in itself. When you

608
00:31:20,200 --> 00:31:21,880
Speaker 1: think at the Space Race, I mean, we knew this

609
00:31:21,960 --> 00:31:24,760
Speaker 1: was needed to be done. It's it's it's also a

610
00:31:24,800 --> 00:31:27,880
Speaker 1: pretty cool life, Ambishop. And frankly, if he had gotten

611
00:31:27,880 --> 00:31:30,560
Speaker 1: it done sooner, maybe we wouldn't have seen would have

612
00:31:30,800 --> 00:31:33,280
Speaker 1: put Elon Musk into a different line of business. Yeah,

613
00:31:33,720 --> 00:31:37,200
Speaker 1: we'd be just making cannons to shoot rich people into space.

614
00:31:39,040 --> 00:31:42,120
Speaker 1: So Bull decided he was done with bureaucrats and cocktail

615
00:31:42,200 --> 00:31:45,400
Speaker 1: scientists forever. He used his savings and his wife's ample

616
00:31:45,440 --> 00:31:49,520
Speaker 1: family money to form his own company, the Space Research

617
00:31:49,600 --> 00:31:52,960
Speaker 1: Corporation of Quebec. This was modeled after the institute he'd

618
00:31:52,960 --> 00:31:55,240
Speaker 1: worked for at McGill, but it would be private and

619
00:31:55,280 --> 00:31:58,080
Speaker 1: not as subject to the whims of government officials. Since

620
00:31:58,120 --> 00:32:00,360
Speaker 1: Harp had been killed, the equipment built for it was

621
00:32:00,400 --> 00:32:04,000
Speaker 1: being sold for basically nothing, so Bull's new company buys

622
00:32:04,080 --> 00:32:07,240
Speaker 1: all of this, including the Barbados gun in the test area,

623
00:32:07,280 --> 00:32:09,960
Speaker 1: for basically nothing. They also get a twenty thousand acre

624
00:32:10,040 --> 00:32:13,880
Speaker 1: site near Quebec. Most of their funding comes from contracts

625
00:32:13,880 --> 00:32:16,840
Speaker 1: by the U. S. Army UM or US military, who

626
00:32:16,880 --> 00:32:19,840
Speaker 1: are not interested in Bull's satellite goals, but are interested

627
00:32:19,840 --> 00:32:22,440
Speaker 1: in his ability to make big, funk up guns um

628
00:32:22,480 --> 00:32:24,360
Speaker 1: and his pitch to them is basically like, I built

629
00:32:24,360 --> 00:32:26,040
Speaker 1: the biggest gun ever, want to see if I can

630
00:32:26,040 --> 00:32:29,719
Speaker 1: make a bigger one. Um. And Niois is actually not

631
00:32:29,760 --> 00:32:31,840
Speaker 1: all that interested in his guns, but as we talked

632
00:32:31,880 --> 00:32:34,800
Speaker 1: about earlier, they're interested in better artillery shells for their

633
00:32:34,800 --> 00:32:37,800
Speaker 1: existing guns. Um, and they want Bull to make them

634
00:32:37,920 --> 00:32:41,120
Speaker 1: nuclear capable artillery shells with a top range of twenty

635
00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:45,200
Speaker 1: five miles, which is fucking nuts. Wanting to shoot a

636
00:32:45,280 --> 00:32:48,080
Speaker 1: nuke at someone twenty miles away with the field gun

637
00:32:48,480 --> 00:32:52,120
Speaker 1: is absolutely mad cap. Like you can start driving in

638
00:32:52,160 --> 00:32:55,320
Speaker 1: the opposite direction and have a remote detonator to set

639
00:32:55,320 --> 00:32:58,760
Speaker 1: it off, a remote trigger. Yeah, Gerald, who wants you

640
00:32:58,800 --> 00:33:01,440
Speaker 1: to make a suicide? And and for our boys in Europe,

641
00:33:01,760 --> 00:33:04,520
Speaker 1: just something that will kill everybody around? What's the kill

642
00:33:04,600 --> 00:33:08,240
Speaker 1: So we're gonna launch this what's the kill radius? Fifty mile? Oh?

643
00:33:08,320 --> 00:33:13,720
Speaker 1: This sounds like a great plan. Yeah cool? Um Yeah,

644
00:33:13,720 --> 00:33:15,600
Speaker 1: this is like the early seventies, so you have to

645
00:33:15,640 --> 00:33:19,800
Speaker 1: assume a lot of cocaine is involved at this point. Um.

646
00:33:19,880 --> 00:33:22,920
Speaker 1: So Operation Nuke Bullets is a big hit and even

647
00:33:22,960 --> 00:33:25,680
Speaker 1: non nuclear versions of the shells are sold end mass

648
00:33:25,720 --> 00:33:29,280
Speaker 1: to Israel in nineteen seventy three for counter battery fire

649
00:33:29,600 --> 00:33:32,200
Speaker 1: because they were getting outraged by Soviet artillery and a

650
00:33:32,280 --> 00:33:34,840
Speaker 1: number of engagements they had, and these new shells allow

651
00:33:34,920 --> 00:33:37,280
Speaker 1: them to take the range advantage back in a number

652
00:33:37,280 --> 00:33:40,480
Speaker 1: of their conflicts. So the U S. Defense Establishment goes

653
00:33:40,640 --> 00:33:43,480
Speaker 1: very gaga for Bulls bullets, which had made the U S.

654
00:33:43,640 --> 00:33:46,120
Speaker 1: M one oh seven the most valuable field gun on

655
00:33:46,160 --> 00:33:49,240
Speaker 1: the face of the earth. Money came pouring in, and

656
00:33:49,280 --> 00:33:52,160
Speaker 1: the United States was grateful enough that Bastard's pot alumni,

657
00:33:52,200 --> 00:33:56,120
Speaker 1: Berry Goldwater, the then Senator from Arizona, pushed forward a

658
00:33:56,160 --> 00:33:59,680
Speaker 1: bill making Gerald Bull retroactively a US citizen for the

659
00:33:59,720 --> 00:34:07,160
Speaker 1: last ten years. Now, that's interesting. Goldwater shows up in

660
00:34:07,200 --> 00:34:10,040
Speaker 1: such interesting places over and over again. Yeah, that's the

661
00:34:10,080 --> 00:34:12,000
Speaker 1: real weird one for him to be it. And the

662
00:34:12,320 --> 00:34:16,360
Speaker 1: reason they give Gerald Bull like basically his citizenship accounts

663
00:34:16,400 --> 00:34:18,040
Speaker 1: as if he's been a citizen for ten years. It's

664
00:34:18,040 --> 00:34:20,239
Speaker 1: it's security clearance thing. They want to be able to

665
00:34:20,239 --> 00:34:22,479
Speaker 1: give him a higher security clearance because of the work

666
00:34:22,520 --> 00:34:25,279
Speaker 1: that he's doing. But there's like requirements about how long

667
00:34:25,320 --> 00:34:27,440
Speaker 1: you had to be a US citizen. He's one of

668
00:34:27,520 --> 00:34:30,160
Speaker 1: I think three people who have ever had this done,

669
00:34:30,840 --> 00:34:32,520
Speaker 1: unless you were a Nazi, and then you just get

670
00:34:32,560 --> 00:34:35,479
Speaker 1: straight lined right in. Well, yeah, we don't talk about

671
00:34:35,520 --> 00:34:37,759
Speaker 1: that so much. That doesn't go up in Congress. You know,

672
00:34:37,800 --> 00:34:43,320
Speaker 1: it's different. Yeah, the Space Research Corporation was doing pretty

673
00:34:43,320 --> 00:34:45,359
Speaker 1: well by most people standards at this point. They've got

674
00:34:45,360 --> 00:34:48,200
Speaker 1: about eleven million dollars in US defense contracts, which is

675
00:34:48,280 --> 00:34:50,319
Speaker 1: quite a lot of money at the time, but Bull

676
00:34:50,400 --> 00:34:52,840
Speaker 1: is still disappointed by their rate of growth. From the

677
00:34:52,880 --> 00:34:57,520
Speaker 1: Washington Post quote and two competitions, his revolutionary hundred and

678
00:34:57,520 --> 00:35:00,840
Speaker 1: fifty five millimeter shell design outshot the U. S. Armies

679
00:35:00,880 --> 00:35:05,160
Speaker 1: in cannon system hands down, according to knowledgeable sources, but

680
00:35:05,239 --> 00:35:07,719
Speaker 1: the army spurned his system and stuck with its own

681
00:35:07,800 --> 00:35:11,440
Speaker 1: less powerful guns. So they want his shells. They have

682
00:35:11,560 --> 00:35:13,759
Speaker 1: things they want him to do for them, but he

683
00:35:13,840 --> 00:35:16,520
Speaker 1: wants to make really big guns and sell them, and

684
00:35:16,560 --> 00:35:18,279
Speaker 1: the U. S. Armies like, no, we don't really, we

685
00:35:18,280 --> 00:35:20,200
Speaker 1: don't want to buy a whole new set of artillery. Like,

686
00:35:20,239 --> 00:35:22,480
Speaker 1: we're happy that you've made the ones we have work

687
00:35:22,520 --> 00:35:24,720
Speaker 1: a lot better. We don't. We're not really on board

688
00:35:24,760 --> 00:35:27,760
Speaker 1: with this ship. And again he never forgives the United

689
00:35:27,760 --> 00:35:29,960
Speaker 1: States for not wanting to buy his big stupid cannons.

690
00:35:30,440 --> 00:35:32,799
Speaker 1: Um now, he'll keep taking their money, but this like

691
00:35:32,920 --> 00:35:35,239
Speaker 1: really enrages him, so he works at a deal with

692
00:35:35,239 --> 00:35:39,440
Speaker 1: a Belgian ammunition manufacturer to create a European subsidiary of

693
00:35:39,560 --> 00:35:42,840
Speaker 1: his company, funded by an injection of their investment cash.

694
00:35:43,320 --> 00:35:45,760
Speaker 1: This money allowed Gerald Bold to do what he did best,

695
00:35:46,080 --> 00:35:50,520
Speaker 1: designed new, really fucking big cannons, and his latest invention

696
00:35:50,840 --> 00:35:55,640
Speaker 1: was the g C Gun Canadian, a hundred and fifty

697
00:35:55,640 --> 00:35:58,440
Speaker 1: five millimeter howitzer that could fire a shell with twice

698
00:35:58,480 --> 00:36:00,560
Speaker 1: the throw weight of any of the biggest guns used

699
00:36:00,600 --> 00:36:03,479
Speaker 1: at the time. It outranges all of the existing field

700
00:36:03,560 --> 00:36:06,239
Speaker 1: artillery in the world by a significant margin. The New

701
00:36:06,320 --> 00:36:09,719
Speaker 1: York Times rights quote a triumph of military engineering. The

702
00:36:09,800 --> 00:36:13,440
Speaker 1: g C forty five vindicated Bulls belief in his own genius.

703
00:36:13,480 --> 00:36:15,840
Speaker 1: He took his revenge by selling it to the highest

704
00:36:15,840 --> 00:36:18,960
Speaker 1: bidder That turned out to be South Africa, then fighting

705
00:36:18,960 --> 00:36:22,280
Speaker 1: a costly war against Soviet backed Angolan and Cuban forces

706
00:36:22,320 --> 00:36:24,800
Speaker 1: on the savannahs of Angola, and in desperate need of

707
00:36:24,840 --> 00:36:28,440
Speaker 1: a new long range artillery weapon restricted by the United Nations,

708
00:36:28,480 --> 00:36:31,160
Speaker 1: arms embargo, the South African regimes set out to acquire

709
00:36:31,200 --> 00:36:34,560
Speaker 1: the g C forty five technology illegally. At first, South

710
00:36:34,600 --> 00:36:38,200
Speaker 1: Africa approached Space Research Corporation to provide fifty five thousand

711
00:36:38,200 --> 00:36:41,879
Speaker 1: extended range shells for its existing artillery. The US helps

712
00:36:41,920 --> 00:36:44,680
Speaker 1: the deal along with the with the when the Office

713
00:36:44,680 --> 00:36:48,120
Speaker 1: of Munitions Control waived the requirement to obtain an export

714
00:36:48,160 --> 00:36:51,800
Speaker 1: license for what we're termed as rough steel forgings two

715
00:36:51,960 --> 00:36:55,280
Speaker 1: unidentified gun barrels. The g C forty five test models

716
00:36:55,280 --> 00:36:58,520
Speaker 1: were shipped out with the shells, so this is very illegal.

717
00:36:58,560 --> 00:37:00,239
Speaker 1: So what happens is he gets the u US to

718
00:37:00,280 --> 00:37:03,319
Speaker 1: approve him selling them better shells, and he ships out

719
00:37:03,400 --> 00:37:07,080
Speaker 1: pieces of these GC forty five guns of a prototype

720
00:37:07,280 --> 00:37:09,400
Speaker 1: to the South Africans. At the same time in the

721
00:37:09,480 --> 00:37:11,839
Speaker 1: U S is very aware about this, but it's all

722
00:37:11,920 --> 00:37:14,239
Speaker 1: kept on the download because you're not allowed to sell

723
00:37:14,280 --> 00:37:18,719
Speaker 1: South African new military technology because they're using it in

724
00:37:18,960 --> 00:37:23,880
Speaker 1: brutal colonial wars. UH with a deep racist bent. I

725
00:37:23,920 --> 00:37:25,839
Speaker 1: have to assume that the US government at that point

726
00:37:25,880 --> 00:37:29,480
Speaker 1: eyebawling that security clearance they gave him pretty warily. Oh no, no,

727
00:37:29,600 --> 00:37:33,160
Speaker 1: they're on board with this because South Africa's anti communist.

728
00:37:33,600 --> 00:37:37,480
Speaker 1: This is very illegal, but he's he they are, they

729
00:37:37,560 --> 00:37:40,520
Speaker 1: know exactly what's going on. They're helping make this happen.

730
00:37:40,880 --> 00:37:44,040
Speaker 1: But it's also technically illegal, right, Like it's one of these.

731
00:37:44,560 --> 00:37:47,520
Speaker 1: George Gerald's son Michael Um later would say about his

732
00:37:47,520 --> 00:37:50,040
Speaker 1: father's understanding of the arrangement that he was quote led

733
00:37:50,080 --> 00:37:51,640
Speaker 1: to believe it was the thing to do, that the

734
00:37:51,719 --> 00:37:54,240
Speaker 1: US had a passive policy to more or less favor

735
00:37:54,280 --> 00:37:56,279
Speaker 1: these type of things in order to save the last

736
00:37:56,320 --> 00:38:01,400
Speaker 1: bastion of capitalism in Africa. So it's very illegal, and

737
00:38:01,440 --> 00:38:05,440
Speaker 1: no one ever says we're making this legal. They're just like, hey,

738
00:38:05,480 --> 00:38:06,719
Speaker 1: if you just do this, it's not going to be

739
00:38:06,719 --> 00:38:10,520
Speaker 1: a problem. We got you. We got you, buddy. Just like,

740
00:38:10,680 --> 00:38:13,080
Speaker 1: just just get the biggest guns possible to the most

741
00:38:13,160 --> 00:38:15,759
Speaker 1: racist country in the world, so many of them that

742
00:38:15,920 --> 00:38:19,160
Speaker 1: you can ship over um, and by god, he does.

743
00:38:19,480 --> 00:38:22,880
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy seven, the South African government's Arms Division

744
00:38:22,920 --> 00:38:25,319
Speaker 1: buys a which I think is called arms Core by

745
00:38:25,440 --> 00:38:29,400
Speaker 1: a steak in the Space Research Corporation, which came with

746
00:38:29,440 --> 00:38:32,319
Speaker 1: a license to manufacture the g C forty five, which

747
00:38:32,360 --> 00:38:36,080
Speaker 1: they'd already received parts to copy. Soon South Africa was

748
00:38:36,160 --> 00:38:39,600
Speaker 1: marketing their gun as the G five, a product of

749
00:38:39,640 --> 00:38:43,400
Speaker 1: their home grown arms industry and absolutely not a violation

750
00:38:43,400 --> 00:38:46,480
Speaker 1: of international law. So they're like, we made a cannon

751
00:38:46,520 --> 00:38:50,000
Speaker 1: that's really good on our own. We just popped us

752
00:38:50,000 --> 00:38:51,719
Speaker 1: out of nothing. We just figured this out all on

753
00:38:51,760 --> 00:38:53,719
Speaker 1: our own, pulled out a little, you know, sheet of

754
00:38:53,760 --> 00:38:55,880
Speaker 1: paper at the local pub and drew on it with

755
00:38:55,920 --> 00:38:58,640
Speaker 1: some crayons, and boom, here we go. Can build a

756
00:38:58,640 --> 00:39:01,000
Speaker 1: real big gun all on our own, just us southcot.

757
00:39:01,280 --> 00:39:03,719
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's our South African ingenuity right there, right,

758
00:39:05,160 --> 00:39:07,360
Speaker 1: So this works out for a while, works great for

759
00:39:07,360 --> 00:39:10,040
Speaker 1: the South Africans because again they were being very badly

760
00:39:10,120 --> 00:39:12,960
Speaker 1: as as Israel had been. They were being like horribly

761
00:39:13,000 --> 00:39:16,120
Speaker 1: outraged by better Soviet artillery. And once they've got the

762
00:39:16,120 --> 00:39:19,080
Speaker 1: G five, like fuck it, Like again, it's the best

763
00:39:19,320 --> 00:39:21,960
Speaker 1: field gun in the world, right, Like nothing really measures

764
00:39:22,000 --> 00:39:26,239
Speaker 1: up to encounter battery fire. Um. So, unfortunately for Bull,

765
00:39:26,320 --> 00:39:29,520
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty, the story about his little cannon caper

766
00:39:29,600 --> 00:39:33,560
Speaker 1: goes public. The Washington Post writes quote when press reports

767
00:39:33,600 --> 00:39:36,040
Speaker 1: later revealed that the munitions had gone to South Africa

768
00:39:36,080 --> 00:39:39,360
Speaker 1: despite a US trade embargo, The Customs Service began probing

769
00:39:39,520 --> 00:39:43,120
Speaker 1: src Bowl enlisted Trudeau, who's an American general who had

770
00:39:43,120 --> 00:39:47,160
Speaker 1: once headed Army intelligence, and Richard Bissell, former deputy director

771
00:39:47,160 --> 00:39:49,320
Speaker 1: of the CIA, to take his case to the highest

772
00:39:49,400 --> 00:39:53,080
Speaker 1: levels of the Carter administration. Within a few months, Lawrence Curtis,

773
00:39:53,120 --> 00:39:55,640
Speaker 1: the customs agent who headed the Bull probe, found that

774
00:39:55,680 --> 00:39:59,120
Speaker 1: his ambitious plans for wide ranging indictments of numerous individuals

775
00:39:59,120 --> 00:40:02,080
Speaker 1: and firms and three countries for arms export crimes had

776
00:40:02,120 --> 00:40:05,520
Speaker 1: come unraveled. Bull and one other individual were allowed to

777
00:40:05,560 --> 00:40:08,880
Speaker 1: plead to reduced charges, a move that resolved the case quickly,

778
00:40:08,920 --> 00:40:12,000
Speaker 1: but also eliminated any possibility that a trial could produce

779
00:40:12,040 --> 00:40:16,400
Speaker 1: potentially embarrassing revelations about any involvement of US agencies with

780
00:40:16,440 --> 00:40:21,239
Speaker 1: Bulls munitions exports. I was totally surprised, very disappointed and bewildered,

781
00:40:21,320 --> 00:40:25,040
Speaker 1: says Curtis, and Curtis quits not that long after this

782
00:40:25,680 --> 00:40:28,920
Speaker 1: um now the House Subcommittee on Africa subsequently discovers that

783
00:40:28,960 --> 00:40:31,319
Speaker 1: the States O MC had been told of the Bull

784
00:40:31,360 --> 00:40:34,560
Speaker 1: South Africa scheme three years before the shipments were reported

785
00:40:34,600 --> 00:40:38,279
Speaker 1: publicly and had done nothing. The reponderance of evidence was

786
00:40:38,320 --> 00:40:41,600
Speaker 1: that through the CIA introductions, the United States was turning

787
00:40:41,600 --> 00:40:45,520
Speaker 1: a blind eye, recalls Subcommittee chairman Howard Wolp. The United

788
00:40:45,560 --> 00:40:49,319
Speaker 1: States government was totally negligent in enforcing American law. So again,

789
00:40:49,360 --> 00:40:51,719
Speaker 1: this is like the CIA is heavily involved, Like they

790
00:40:51,960 --> 00:40:56,040
Speaker 1: we absolutely approve of this until it gets discovered, and

791
00:40:56,080 --> 00:40:57,960
Speaker 1: then it's like this, Yeah, you gotta fall in your

792
00:40:57,960 --> 00:41:00,799
Speaker 1: sword a little bit, buddy, Um, but we'll make sure

793
00:41:00,800 --> 00:41:03,279
Speaker 1: the investigation doesn't get that far. And you just get

794
00:41:03,360 --> 00:41:05,359
Speaker 1: kind of a slap on the wrist, you know, like

795
00:41:05,400 --> 00:41:07,399
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to take one for the team here,

796
00:41:07,880 --> 00:41:10,880
Speaker 1: but we're not going to let them actually fully investigate

797
00:41:10,920 --> 00:41:14,200
Speaker 1: your company or what's happened. So that it's such a

798
00:41:14,200 --> 00:41:16,960
Speaker 1: great example of how these American agencies work, right, are

799
00:41:16,960 --> 00:41:20,440
Speaker 1: many many government agencies work the actual supposed will of

800
00:41:20,480 --> 00:41:22,680
Speaker 1: the country or the law of the country's irrelevant to

801
00:41:22,719 --> 00:41:24,560
Speaker 1: the agency, and they really run as a rogue state

802
00:41:24,600 --> 00:41:28,680
Speaker 1: within a state. Yeah, and and that's like exactly what

803
00:41:28,719 --> 00:41:30,560
Speaker 1: happens here. And they try to promise Bull like, hey,

804
00:41:30,560 --> 00:41:32,160
Speaker 1: if you just play ball with this, it's not going

805
00:41:32,200 --> 00:41:34,360
Speaker 1: to be that bad, um, and they wind up being

806
00:41:34,400 --> 00:41:37,000
Speaker 1: a little wrong. So so Bull pleads guilty to one

807
00:41:37,040 --> 00:41:40,360
Speaker 1: count of smuggling thirty thousand shells, two cannon barrels, and

808
00:41:40,400 --> 00:41:43,359
Speaker 1: a radar van to South Africa without a license. Now

809
00:41:43,400 --> 00:41:46,120
Speaker 1: you would think that would be a pretty serious crime.

810
00:41:46,520 --> 00:41:48,799
Speaker 1: I think if I were to smuggle thirty thousand high

811
00:41:48,840 --> 00:41:51,840
Speaker 1: explosive shells to any country, I would probably get in

812
00:41:51,880 --> 00:41:55,000
Speaker 1: a lot of trouble. Um, that would be my guess.

813
00:41:55,280 --> 00:41:59,640
Speaker 1: The federal prosecutors recommend no jail time. Well it was

814
00:41:59,680 --> 00:42:02,239
Speaker 1: against a communist, right, yeah, it was the healthy was

815
00:42:02,280 --> 00:42:05,880
Speaker 1: to fight communists. Um. And it's actually this is a

816
00:42:05,960 --> 00:42:08,000
Speaker 1: rare case. The judge in this, as I guess, kind

817
00:42:08,040 --> 00:42:10,319
Speaker 1: of rad because he puts Bull away for six months

818
00:42:10,320 --> 00:42:12,399
Speaker 1: because it's up to him, right, so he is able

819
00:42:12,400 --> 00:42:15,120
Speaker 1: to like the Feds are trying to give Bull no

820
00:42:15,239 --> 00:42:16,959
Speaker 1: time at all, and this judge is like, oh, fuck

821
00:42:17,040 --> 00:42:19,720
Speaker 1: that ship, like you have to do some fucking time,

822
00:42:20,239 --> 00:42:23,680
Speaker 1: like like fuck you man, um. And so Bull actually

823
00:42:23,719 --> 00:42:27,280
Speaker 1: does go to jail for six months, which he's fucking vivid.

824
00:42:27,360 --> 00:42:30,279
Speaker 1: This makes him so angry at the United States at

825
00:42:30,280 --> 00:42:33,960
Speaker 1: this and like he's just enraged, and it is like

826
00:42:34,160 --> 00:42:36,719
Speaker 1: it's weird because like obviously no sympathy for a man

827
00:42:36,719 --> 00:42:40,279
Speaker 1: who gets in trouble smuggling arms to the apartheid South

828
00:42:40,280 --> 00:42:43,680
Speaker 1: African government, right like fuck that, fuck you. But also

829
00:42:44,160 --> 00:42:46,520
Speaker 1: he did get screwed over, right like he was just

830
00:42:46,760 --> 00:42:49,239
Speaker 1: doing what the army and the CIA wanted him to do.

831
00:42:49,760 --> 00:42:51,520
Speaker 1: It did teach him a hard lesson about how the

832
00:42:51,600 --> 00:42:54,520
Speaker 1: US government actually functions with its allies. Yeah. And it's

833
00:42:54,520 --> 00:42:56,960
Speaker 1: one of those things, like, you know, we talk about

834
00:42:57,080 --> 00:42:59,800
Speaker 1: how nice Jimmy Carter's post presidency thing is, Like the

835
00:43:00,120 --> 00:43:02,879
Speaker 1: administration does everything they can to get this guy off

836
00:43:02,920 --> 00:43:06,400
Speaker 1: because they're fine with it. Everyone's fine with it except

837
00:43:06,440 --> 00:43:09,400
Speaker 1: for this one judge. So good on you, judge for

838
00:43:09,800 --> 00:43:12,000
Speaker 1: doing something. I wonder what happened to that judge. Did

839
00:43:12,000 --> 00:43:14,239
Speaker 1: he like wake up dead one day? Probably had a

840
00:43:14,280 --> 00:43:18,520
Speaker 1: bad fishing trip. This was the period in which there

841
00:43:18,520 --> 00:43:25,319
Speaker 1: were more consequences for making the CIA angry. Um. You

842
00:43:25,360 --> 00:43:30,560
Speaker 1: know who else makes the CIA angry? Nest Lee, Yeah,

843
00:43:30,600 --> 00:43:35,120
Speaker 1: they do that. Nestle's intelligence arm does now significantly outrange

844
00:43:35,280 --> 00:43:39,960
Speaker 1: the CIA. Um. It's it's really they come from behind

845
00:43:40,080 --> 00:43:50,840
Speaker 1: victory for the Nestle Corporation, our primary sponsor. AUH. And

846
00:43:51,080 --> 00:43:56,360
Speaker 1: we're back. So when we last left off, our buddy

847
00:43:56,440 --> 00:43:59,120
Speaker 1: Gerald Bowl, he's been kind of fucked over. He also

848
00:43:59,239 --> 00:44:02,960
Speaker 1: totally deserved to do time for smuggling guns to South Africa.

849
00:44:03,239 --> 00:44:05,680
Speaker 1: But also he's not the one who probably should have

850
00:44:05,719 --> 00:44:08,239
Speaker 1: gotten the worst penalty for that. Probably a bunch of

851
00:44:08,280 --> 00:44:11,840
Speaker 1: CIA dudes who should have been punished for that, and

852
00:44:11,880 --> 00:44:16,279
Speaker 1: a bunch of other stuff. So Bull is very angry. Um,

853
00:44:16,800 --> 00:44:20,239
Speaker 1: and uh, it's it's it's it's just kind of a

854
00:44:20,280 --> 00:44:22,560
Speaker 1: fucked up situation. True to form, he goes on the

855
00:44:22,600 --> 00:44:25,279
Speaker 1: war path against his former employer and like spends a

856
00:44:25,280 --> 00:44:27,760
Speaker 1: lot of time in the media ship talking the United

857
00:44:27,800 --> 00:44:30,520
Speaker 1: States and like particularly our level of weapons development. He

858
00:44:30,560 --> 00:44:34,120
Speaker 1: tells a Canadian journalist quote, the US has obsolete conventional

859
00:44:34,160 --> 00:44:36,760
Speaker 1: weapons and no morale in their armed forces. They couldn't

860
00:44:36,760 --> 00:44:39,560
Speaker 1: defeat Tim bucktoo in a fight. And this is not

861
00:44:39,640 --> 00:44:41,759
Speaker 1: long after the end of the Vietnam War. So he's like,

862
00:44:41,880 --> 00:44:44,279
Speaker 1: he's also not not far off, you know, kind of

863
00:44:44,280 --> 00:44:47,799
Speaker 1: poured a little salt into the wound. Yeah, bulls US

864
00:44:47,840 --> 00:44:50,520
Speaker 1: and Canadian businesses had gone broke as a result of

865
00:44:50,520 --> 00:44:54,640
Speaker 1: the whole scandal, but his Belgian operations were still humming along. Now,

866
00:44:54,719 --> 00:44:57,439
Speaker 1: furious at both Canada in the United States, he moved

867
00:44:57,440 --> 00:45:00,040
Speaker 1: to Brussels, and started making money the only way he

868
00:45:00,120 --> 00:45:03,880
Speaker 1: knew how, by selling really fucking big guns. He designed

869
00:45:03,880 --> 00:45:06,080
Speaker 1: a new howitzer based off of the g C forty

870
00:45:06,120 --> 00:45:08,720
Speaker 1: five for Austria, and he made a cool five million

871
00:45:08,800 --> 00:45:12,560
Speaker 1: selling them. The plans both told the Austrians, Hey, you

872
00:45:12,560 --> 00:45:15,120
Speaker 1: guys are gonna be making this cannon your your your

873
00:45:15,200 --> 00:45:17,040
Speaker 1: arms industry at home. There's not a whole lot of

874
00:45:17,640 --> 00:45:18,960
Speaker 1: You don't need a whole lot of guns for the

875
00:45:19,000 --> 00:45:21,480
Speaker 1: Austrian army. You might want to consider selling them. And

876
00:45:21,480 --> 00:45:24,040
Speaker 1: by the way, I think I know a guy who's

877
00:45:24,040 --> 00:45:26,839
Speaker 1: in the market for some really big guns. Little dude

878
00:45:26,840 --> 00:45:32,239
Speaker 1: you might have heard of named Saddam Hussein. Yeah. Baby,

879
00:45:32,800 --> 00:45:39,400
Speaker 1: Our favorite romance novelist is in the game, a story

880
00:45:39,440 --> 00:45:41,759
Speaker 1: about a man who wanted to build the biggest gun ever.

881
00:45:41,760 --> 00:45:44,319
Speaker 1: Would of course involve Iraq at some point. It is

882
00:45:44,360 --> 00:45:50,759
Speaker 1: the seventies, so his guns. The Austrians start making a

883
00:45:50,760 --> 00:45:53,839
Speaker 1: shipload of bulls guns and sending them to Jordan, who

884
00:45:53,880 --> 00:45:56,400
Speaker 1: then sells them to it. Well, they're being sold to Iraq,

885
00:45:56,480 --> 00:45:58,120
Speaker 1: but kind of by way of Jordan's so that the

886
00:45:58,160 --> 00:46:00,759
Speaker 1: Austrians can pretend that's selling to Jordan. Because you can't

887
00:46:00,800 --> 00:46:03,360
Speaker 1: really sell guns to Iraq right now, because Saddam Hussein

888
00:46:03,480 --> 00:46:06,000
Speaker 1: was a little bit of an international pariah because he

889
00:46:06,040 --> 00:46:08,960
Speaker 1: had just invaded Iran and started this horrible one of

890
00:46:09,000 --> 00:46:11,920
Speaker 1: the great blood best in the twentieth century. So it's

891
00:46:12,000 --> 00:46:14,600
Speaker 1: kind of dicey selling guns to Saddam right now, so

892
00:46:14,640 --> 00:46:17,520
Speaker 1: they have to hide it yet again. Here's the Washington

893
00:46:17,560 --> 00:46:21,720
Speaker 1: Post quote. According to a still classified Austrian report, Saddam,

894
00:46:21,800 --> 00:46:24,440
Speaker 1: whose war with Iran had bogged down, met with the

895
00:46:24,480 --> 00:46:28,359
Speaker 1: Austrian Interior Minister in April two and demanded to know

896
00:46:28,760 --> 00:46:31,160
Speaker 1: where are our guns? Can't you speed up delivery? We

897
00:46:31,239 --> 00:46:36,560
Speaker 1: require them urgently. Vest Alpine was Austria's largest state owned industry,

898
00:46:36,760 --> 00:46:39,280
Speaker 1: but facing slumping sales and layoffs, it made a risky

899
00:46:39,320 --> 00:46:42,520
Speaker 1: secret decision to violate neutral Austria's ban on selling weapons

900
00:46:42,560 --> 00:46:45,120
Speaker 1: to belligerents, and in the next few years sold bulls

901
00:46:45,120 --> 00:46:48,720
Speaker 1: cannons not only to Iraq but also to Iran. Today

902
00:46:48,800 --> 00:46:52,160
Speaker 1: that the two former Austrian chancellors and various other cabinet

903
00:46:52,160 --> 00:46:55,239
Speaker 1: ministers have become the subject of the largest criminal investigations

904
00:46:55,239 --> 00:46:58,440
Speaker 1: in Austrian history. Documents and records in the vest Alpine

905
00:46:58,480 --> 00:47:01,320
Speaker 1: sale of two g h in forty five to Iran

906
00:47:01,560 --> 00:47:05,000
Speaker 1: indicate that the Reagan administration, pursuing its tilt towards Iraq

907
00:47:05,040 --> 00:47:07,800
Speaker 1: in the Iran Iraq War, quietly eased the sale of

908
00:47:07,840 --> 00:47:10,640
Speaker 1: guns to Iraq, but sought to prevent the Austrians from

909
00:47:10,680 --> 00:47:14,719
Speaker 1: selling bulls guns to Iran. Now, this was an unusual

910
00:47:14,760 --> 00:47:17,800
Speaker 1: a piece of moral consistency from the Reagan administration, because

911
00:47:17,800 --> 00:47:20,960
Speaker 1: they absolutely sell guns to the Iranians too, Like they

912
00:47:21,239 --> 00:47:24,120
Speaker 1: have no problem selling weapons to the Iranians, but they

913
00:47:24,120 --> 00:47:28,200
Speaker 1: do briefly try to stop bowl. Um what better way

914
00:47:28,239 --> 00:47:30,120
Speaker 1: to make profit when you sell meat grinders than to

915
00:47:30,160 --> 00:47:33,800
Speaker 1: also sell the meat? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um. The CIA

916
00:47:33,880 --> 00:47:36,680
Speaker 1: actually sits down with the Austrian ambassador and shows him,

917
00:47:36,719 --> 00:47:41,080
Speaker 1: like ci a satellite photos of these artillery pieces in

918
00:47:41,120 --> 00:47:44,080
Speaker 1: an Iranian training center, and there are some like token

919
00:47:44,120 --> 00:47:46,359
Speaker 1: efforts made to stop for their trade, but Iran gets

920
00:47:46,400 --> 00:47:49,720
Speaker 1: like two hundred of these guns. Bulls business with China

921
00:47:49,840 --> 00:47:52,479
Speaker 1: was doing gangbusters now too, so he also starts through

922
00:47:52,520 --> 00:47:56,080
Speaker 1: the CIA selling guns to China because the CIA has

923
00:47:56,120 --> 00:48:00,000
Speaker 1: a vested interest in China having artillery that can outrage

924
00:48:00,160 --> 00:48:03,000
Speaker 1: Soviet artillery because the Chinese and the Soviets are having

925
00:48:03,040 --> 00:48:05,719
Speaker 1: all sorts of fucking kerfuffles right now, like border kerfuffles,

926
00:48:05,760 --> 00:48:08,840
Speaker 1: and we're kind of this is after Nixon goes to China.

927
00:48:09,120 --> 00:48:12,680
Speaker 1: We're very much tilting like towards China, especially as like

928
00:48:13,160 --> 00:48:16,120
Speaker 1: an anti Soviet sort of thing. So the CIA is

929
00:48:16,320 --> 00:48:18,759
Speaker 1: very bullish on the idea of China getting their hands

930
00:48:18,760 --> 00:48:22,359
Speaker 1: on some of these gigantic, fucking bull cannons um and

931
00:48:22,480 --> 00:48:25,400
Speaker 1: China loves this guy. Uh. They invite him to a

932
00:48:25,440 --> 00:48:28,520
Speaker 1: test range in Manchuria in nineteen eighty three, and his

933
00:48:28,680 --> 00:48:31,160
Speaker 1: guides in China showed him that they had collected every

934
00:48:31,200 --> 00:48:33,680
Speaker 1: academic paper he published over the course of his career

935
00:48:33,719 --> 00:48:36,240
Speaker 1: going back to the fifties. They told him they wanted

936
00:48:36,239 --> 00:48:39,279
Speaker 1: his help to aid armsmaker Narenko in producing a full

937
00:48:39,320 --> 00:48:42,960
Speaker 1: line of his hundred and fifty five millimeter canons. Now

938
00:48:43,239 --> 00:48:45,520
Speaker 1: they understood that they were dealing with a guy who

939
00:48:45,560 --> 00:48:48,200
Speaker 1: had a massive ego, and they provide him with food, drinks,

940
00:48:48,239 --> 00:48:50,839
Speaker 1: and flattery. He even has his photo taken with Dan

941
00:48:50,960 --> 00:48:53,520
Speaker 1: Jao Ping and was with Dan Jao Ping and was

942
00:48:53,600 --> 00:48:56,759
Speaker 1: invited to teach a course at Nanjing University, which he did.

943
00:48:56,960 --> 00:48:58,960
Speaker 1: So they're very much like, oh, we get what kind

944
00:48:59,000 --> 00:49:01,200
Speaker 1: of man you are, we will, we will, we will

945
00:49:01,239 --> 00:49:03,440
Speaker 1: make you as happy as possible because we want very

946
00:49:03,520 --> 00:49:05,359
Speaker 1: large guns. We would like the biggest guns you can

947
00:49:05,400 --> 00:49:08,319
Speaker 1: make us. Please. Now, there's a little bit of a

948
00:49:08,360 --> 00:49:11,520
Speaker 1: problem here, because in order to sell this technology, or

949
00:49:11,520 --> 00:49:14,120
Speaker 1: at least his knowledge of how to make it, to China,

950
00:49:14,719 --> 00:49:17,320
Speaker 1: there's a munitions control license, right, like you have to

951
00:49:17,400 --> 00:49:18,799
Speaker 1: There's a bunch of things you have to do to

952
00:49:18,880 --> 00:49:22,480
Speaker 1: sell weapons to China if the weapon technology is of

953
00:49:22,600 --> 00:49:26,400
Speaker 1: US origin. And Bull is a US citizen now, but

954
00:49:26,480 --> 00:49:29,040
Speaker 1: he's also a Canadian citizen, and he gets his friend

955
00:49:29,080 --> 00:49:31,440
Speaker 1: true Daw, this army general former head of Intelligence, and

956
00:49:31,480 --> 00:49:36,600
Speaker 1: his CIA buddies to argue that since he's Canadian, the

957
00:49:36,640 --> 00:49:39,400
Speaker 1: weapons are not of US origin and thus no export

958
00:49:39,440 --> 00:49:43,200
Speaker 1: license is necessary. Um, And the State Department is like,

959
00:49:43,560 --> 00:49:46,680
Speaker 1: this is not a very good justification. But the CIA

960
00:49:46,800 --> 00:49:49,280
Speaker 1: is again like, na, no, no, no, let this ship happen.

961
00:49:49,360 --> 00:49:51,120
Speaker 1: We want to get these guys the biggest guns we

962
00:49:51,120 --> 00:49:54,480
Speaker 1: can get them. In nineteen eighty four, this story broke

963
00:49:54,520 --> 00:49:57,520
Speaker 1: when a customs agent, acting off of a tip, searched

964
00:49:57,560 --> 00:50:00,200
Speaker 1: Bull at an airport and found as signed twenty five

965
00:50:00,239 --> 00:50:06,239
Speaker 1: million dollar arms contract with China in his suitcase. Maybe

966
00:50:06,239 --> 00:50:09,800
Speaker 1: it don't take that one with you. Well, you couldn't

967
00:50:09,880 --> 00:50:11,920
Speaker 1: fit the cannon in your suitcase, you can certainly fit

968
00:50:11,960 --> 00:50:15,480
Speaker 1: the contract. Yeah, just keep it as his keeping, as

969
00:50:15,840 --> 00:50:19,800
Speaker 1: giant international crime contract in his suitcase as he walks

970
00:50:19,840 --> 00:50:24,279
Speaker 1: through security. Um, so there's a grand jury investigation and

971
00:50:24,320 --> 00:50:26,360
Speaker 1: it looks again like Bull is about to go away

972
00:50:26,360 --> 00:50:29,680
Speaker 1: for arms dealing. But again the CIA steps in and

973
00:50:29,719 --> 00:50:32,560
Speaker 1: they squashed the case, which dies completely. He doesn't even

974
00:50:32,600 --> 00:50:35,040
Speaker 1: go to trial at this point, like they just put

975
00:50:35,040 --> 00:50:38,480
Speaker 1: an end to this because they really want China to

976
00:50:38,480 --> 00:50:41,040
Speaker 1: get these guns. And in fact, in nine six, the

977
00:50:41,120 --> 00:50:44,719
Speaker 1: Pentagon actually steps in directly to help China complete their

978
00:50:44,760 --> 00:50:48,120
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty five millimeter cannon production line designed by Bull,

979
00:50:48,560 --> 00:50:51,960
Speaker 1: The Washington Post reports quote according to a US defense

980
00:50:52,000 --> 00:50:54,839
Speaker 1: consultant involved in the project, the Army issued a US

981
00:50:54,920 --> 00:50:58,719
Speaker 1: funded foreign military sales contract to a California firm to

982
00:50:58,880 --> 00:51:01,600
Speaker 1: provide China with a one hundred and fifty five millimeter

983
00:51:01,760 --> 00:51:06,439
Speaker 1: artillery fuse manufacturing line. Initially, I was surprised, this consultant said,

984
00:51:06,600 --> 00:51:09,720
Speaker 1: I thought Narenko only made a hundred and thirties smaller guns,

985
00:51:09,880 --> 00:51:12,000
Speaker 1: So why were they building hundred and fifty five millimeter

986
00:51:12,120 --> 00:51:14,400
Speaker 1: fuses when they didn't have a hundred and fifty fives

987
00:51:14,440 --> 00:51:17,120
Speaker 1: while the US government knew they were building one prior

988
00:51:17,160 --> 00:51:20,320
Speaker 1: to nine six. Barely a year later, said the consultant

989
00:51:20,320 --> 00:51:23,640
Speaker 1: in Israeli intelligence sources, Narenko had made its first sale

990
00:51:23,640 --> 00:51:26,279
Speaker 1: of the so called W A C. Twenty one bowl

991
00:51:26,360 --> 00:51:29,880
Speaker 1: designed guns to Iraq. According to a person associated with

992
00:51:29,920 --> 00:51:32,560
Speaker 1: Bull's work in Iraq, the scientists soon caught the attention

993
00:51:32,719 --> 00:51:35,680
Speaker 1: of Camille Hussain, an influential cousin and son in law

994
00:51:35,680 --> 00:51:38,319
Speaker 1: of Saddam, with a proposal that Bull, Narenko and a

995
00:51:38,360 --> 00:51:41,480
Speaker 1: Spanish firm build a huge two hundred and three millimeters

996
00:51:41,520 --> 00:51:45,319
Speaker 1: self propelled howitzer for Iraq. It's fascinating to me that

997
00:51:45,640 --> 00:51:48,080
Speaker 1: even when he's helping China build these guns, they still

998
00:51:48,160 --> 00:51:52,280
Speaker 1: keep winding up in Saddam's army. All everything flows to Saddam.

999
00:51:52,360 --> 00:51:55,120
Speaker 1: Who's saying in this period, if you're making big guns,

1000
00:51:55,120 --> 00:51:58,080
Speaker 1: they are winding up in Saddam's armory at some points

1001
00:51:58,120 --> 00:51:59,680
Speaker 1: like Yo, dog, I heard about this thing called the

1002
00:51:59,719 --> 00:52:01,960
Speaker 1: pair scun I kind of want they around gun. Can

1003
00:52:02,000 --> 00:52:03,920
Speaker 1: you help me with this? I would like to shoot

1004
00:52:03,920 --> 00:52:08,360
Speaker 1: to run with a giant cannon from Baghdad Police. Um.

1005
00:52:08,400 --> 00:52:11,840
Speaker 1: And yeah. So so Bull works with Narenko and a

1006
00:52:11,880 --> 00:52:14,480
Speaker 1: Spanish company and they make this massive two hundred and

1007
00:52:14,480 --> 00:52:18,560
Speaker 1: three millimeter howitzer for the Iraqi military. There's a prototype

1008
00:52:18,560 --> 00:52:21,600
Speaker 1: of this stupidly huge gun called the owl Foul that

1009
00:52:21,680 --> 00:52:24,480
Speaker 1: was produced and shown off at an arm show in Baghdad.

1010
00:52:24,560 --> 00:52:27,120
Speaker 1: And Saddam is over the moon about this. If you

1011
00:52:27,160 --> 00:52:30,680
Speaker 1: know anything about our man, Saddam, motherfucker loved his guns.

1012
00:52:31,160 --> 00:52:34,960
Speaker 1: Um literally got an education by threatening his principle at gunpoint.

1013
00:52:35,440 --> 00:52:37,960
Speaker 1: Was was a big fan of big guns. Um, and

1014
00:52:38,040 --> 00:52:42,279
Speaker 1: he is enthralled by Bull. Um the finally Bull has

1015
00:52:42,320 --> 00:52:45,040
Speaker 1: found a guy who's like anything you want to make, man,

1016
00:52:45,080 --> 00:52:46,920
Speaker 1: as long as it's a real big gun. Like I

1017
00:52:47,120 --> 00:52:50,279
Speaker 1: I'm I'm on board. Can you gold play one of these?

1018
00:52:50,280 --> 00:52:53,399
Speaker 1: I kind of can you go play one of these fuckers? Son?

1019
00:52:53,400 --> 00:52:58,600
Speaker 1: Carry it aro out. So in Night, Saddam Hussein signs

1020
00:52:58,600 --> 00:53:01,840
Speaker 1: a contract with Gerald Bolt produce more normal artillery. So

1021
00:53:01,880 --> 00:53:04,320
Speaker 1: now Bull is just working directly with the Iraqi government.

1022
00:53:04,520 --> 00:53:06,760
Speaker 1: So he signs his contract to make you more hundred

1023
00:53:06,760 --> 00:53:09,280
Speaker 1: and fifty fives and two oh three's. But he also

1024
00:53:09,440 --> 00:53:13,080
Speaker 1: in the contract is included something else. He finally has

1025
00:53:13,200 --> 00:53:17,520
Speaker 1: a contract to make the gun of his dreams. See,

1026
00:53:17,840 --> 00:53:20,439
Speaker 1: Saddam was an ambitious man, and he wanted to start

1027
00:53:20,600 --> 00:53:23,759
Speaker 1: his own space program. Now, if you've ever interface with

1028
00:53:23,800 --> 00:53:26,080
Speaker 1: any relics of the old Bathist government or talked to

1029
00:53:26,200 --> 00:53:29,000
Speaker 1: a single Iraqi who lived under that government, the idea

1030
00:53:29,040 --> 00:53:31,560
Speaker 1: that Saddam would have had a successful space program is

1031
00:53:32,239 --> 00:53:35,799
Speaker 1: um a fun proposition. I think a lot of things

1032
00:53:35,840 --> 00:53:39,120
Speaker 1: would have burst in in re entry um. But Bull

1033
00:53:39,239 --> 00:53:42,000
Speaker 1: was confident that his genius was enough to overcome the

1034
00:53:42,000 --> 00:53:45,600
Speaker 1: fact that Saddam Hussein was terrible at running Iraq. From

1035
00:53:45,600 --> 00:53:49,760
Speaker 1: the BBC quote, the Iraqi government paid Bull twenty million

1036
00:53:49,800 --> 00:53:53,520
Speaker 1: dollars to begin Project Babylon, the first true space gun project,

1037
00:53:53,560 --> 00:53:56,200
Speaker 1: on the condition that he continued to work on their artillery.

1038
00:53:56,640 --> 00:54:00,440
Speaker 1: Project Babylon began life as three super guns, too full

1039
00:54:00,480 --> 00:54:04,799
Speaker 1: sized Big Babylon one thousand millimeter caliber guns, and a

1040
00:54:04,880 --> 00:54:08,840
Speaker 1: prototype three hundred and fifty millimeter gun called Baby Babylon.

1041
00:54:09,280 --> 00:54:11,759
Speaker 1: The full size Big Babylon barrel would have been a

1042
00:54:11,880 --> 00:54:14,959
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty six meters in length with a one

1043
00:54:15,080 --> 00:54:18,520
Speaker 1: meter bore. In total, it would have weighed fift hundred

1044
00:54:18,600 --> 00:54:22,080
Speaker 1: and ten tons, far too big to be transportable, and

1045
00:54:22,120 --> 00:54:24,399
Speaker 1: so instead would have been mounted at a forty five

1046
00:54:24,440 --> 00:54:32,360
Speaker 1: degree angle on a hillside. The absolute biggest gun anyone

1047
00:54:32,440 --> 00:54:38,000
Speaker 1: has ever thought to build. Yeah, like that, the a

1048
00:54:38,120 --> 00:54:42,520
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty six meter long barrel, a thousand millimeter

1049
00:54:42,960 --> 00:54:45,839
Speaker 1: like Jesus Christ. It's really hard to wrap your head

1050
00:54:45,840 --> 00:54:48,080
Speaker 1: around that size. Honestly, when you think about it, when

1051
00:54:48,120 --> 00:54:50,320
Speaker 1: you really put that into context, it's done the skies

1052
00:54:50,360 --> 00:54:55,200
Speaker 1: of a skyscraper, right yeah. Um. Each shot would have

1053
00:54:55,320 --> 00:54:59,359
Speaker 1: used nine tons of especially designed propellant um, and using

1054
00:54:59,360 --> 00:55:02,480
Speaker 1: this propellant, Big Babylon would have been theoretically capable of

1055
00:55:02,480 --> 00:55:07,840
Speaker 1: shooting a six gram projectile across a thousand kilometers of distance,

1056
00:55:08,120 --> 00:55:11,520
Speaker 1: putting Kuwait and Iran well within striking distance from inside

1057
00:55:11,520 --> 00:55:14,759
Speaker 1: of Iraq. Alternatively, the gun could have been used to

1058
00:55:14,840 --> 00:55:18,360
Speaker 1: launch a two thousand kilogram rocket assisted projectile carrying a

1059
00:55:18,360 --> 00:55:23,880
Speaker 1: two kilogram satellite. Now, had it been completed, Big Babylon

1060
00:55:23,960 --> 00:55:26,480
Speaker 1: probably would have been a really low cost way to

1061
00:55:26,600 --> 00:55:30,360
Speaker 1: launch satellites of a certain size. Right now, NASA estimates

1062
00:55:30,360 --> 00:55:33,440
Speaker 1: it costs about twenty two dollars per kilogram to put

1063
00:55:33,480 --> 00:55:36,720
Speaker 1: something into orbit. Gerald's gun would have cost about sevent

1064
00:55:37,200 --> 00:55:40,480
Speaker 1: d dollars per kilogram, over and over again. The concept

1065
00:55:40,560 --> 00:55:44,560
Speaker 1: doesn't sound it seems it makes sense the idea. Yeah,

1066
00:55:44,880 --> 00:55:47,319
Speaker 1: and and like Saddam probably if he had not been

1067
00:55:47,440 --> 00:55:50,319
Speaker 1: quite the guy that he was um and he had

1068
00:55:50,360 --> 00:55:52,799
Speaker 1: actually had this thing built, he probably could have made

1069
00:55:52,800 --> 00:55:54,719
Speaker 1: good money on it, you know. Like the problem is

1070
00:55:54,760 --> 00:55:57,440
Speaker 1: that the Iraqi government under Saddam was and and today

1071
00:55:57,600 --> 00:55:59,440
Speaker 1: there was so much corruption that I don't know how

1072
00:55:59,520 --> 00:56:01,640
Speaker 1: much I think they would have actually been able to

1073
00:56:01,680 --> 00:56:05,279
Speaker 1: like get this going, but they were able to, like, like,

1074
00:56:05,400 --> 00:56:08,239
Speaker 1: it's not really that much more complicated than than than

1075
00:56:08,360 --> 00:56:10,480
Speaker 1: sucking oil out of the earth and selling it. So

1076
00:56:10,520 --> 00:56:13,760
Speaker 1: like I think theoretically this could have been a really

1077
00:56:13,800 --> 00:56:16,280
Speaker 1: significant industry for Iraq. Like, if they had actually built

1078
00:56:16,280 --> 00:56:17,800
Speaker 1: this thing, they could have made a lot of money

1079
00:56:17,800 --> 00:56:21,360
Speaker 1: shooting satellites into space very very cheaply. They would have

1080
00:56:21,400 --> 00:56:23,840
Speaker 1: literally been they would have literally been the little guy's

1081
00:56:23,880 --> 00:56:28,720
Speaker 1: satellite launching platform. They could have democratized satellite launch. Yeah,

1082
00:56:28,760 --> 00:56:30,680
Speaker 1: and it's interesting to think if he hadn't done some

1083
00:56:30,719 --> 00:56:32,759
Speaker 1: of the especially like hadn't done some of the the

1084
00:56:32,800 --> 00:56:34,840
Speaker 1: aggressive things that he had done, or and and was

1085
00:56:34,880 --> 00:56:37,560
Speaker 1: asked to do in some cases by the CIA. If

1086
00:56:37,640 --> 00:56:40,600
Speaker 1: Iraq had built this thing and started launching cheap satellites

1087
00:56:40,640 --> 00:56:42,560
Speaker 1: and we had gotten to like the nineties and the

1088
00:56:42,560 --> 00:56:45,239
Speaker 1: Internet era, and there had been fucking Iraq willing to

1089
00:56:45,280 --> 00:56:48,719
Speaker 1: put a satellite into space for goddamn nothing, and for anybody,

1090
00:56:49,520 --> 00:56:52,200
Speaker 1: maybe a really interesting set of changes to like what

1091
00:56:52,280 --> 00:56:54,200
Speaker 1: happens on the Internet, Like who the funk knows where

1092
00:56:54,200 --> 00:56:59,560
Speaker 1: that could have gone. Yeah, it's starling sooner um. Now,

1093
00:56:59,560 --> 00:57:02,799
Speaker 1: of course Saddam Hussein was Saddam Hussein, and everyone who

1094
00:57:02,840 --> 00:57:05,759
Speaker 1: found out about the supergun immediately assumed he was going

1095
00:57:05,800 --> 00:57:08,719
Speaker 1: to use it to shoot at people, um, because and

1096
00:57:08,960 --> 00:57:11,560
Speaker 1: it's the kind of thing. Maybe he is Saddam Hussein.

1097
00:57:11,719 --> 00:57:14,520
Speaker 1: He does a lot of shooting at people. He's also

1098
00:57:14,560 --> 00:57:16,880
Speaker 1: it's a bad weapon, Like it's people who will talk

1099
00:57:16,880 --> 00:57:18,919
Speaker 1: about like was he planning to use as a weapon

1100
00:57:18,920 --> 00:57:21,160
Speaker 1: will point out like it's one of the worst things

1101
00:57:21,200 --> 00:57:24,600
Speaker 1: you can imagine as a weapon system because planes exist, Right,

1102
00:57:25,120 --> 00:57:27,040
Speaker 1: maybe he could have like shot at Iran with it,

1103
00:57:27,120 --> 00:57:30,360
Speaker 1: and Iraq had air had, you know, at least during

1104
00:57:30,400 --> 00:57:32,680
Speaker 1: points in the war air superiority. But like if he

1105
00:57:32,720 --> 00:57:36,280
Speaker 1: had thought to like fire and Israel or even Kuwait, like,

1106
00:57:36,720 --> 00:57:39,480
Speaker 1: you could blow this thing up very easily. It's not.

1107
00:57:39,600 --> 00:57:42,440
Speaker 1: It can't defend itself. It cannot be hidden, It is

1108
00:57:42,480 --> 00:57:45,240
Speaker 1: extremely obvious where it's firing from, and it can't really

1109
00:57:45,280 --> 00:57:48,520
Speaker 1: move like it's not a good weapons system. Um So,

1110
00:57:48,640 --> 00:57:51,520
Speaker 1: I kind of I'm kind of the opinion that yet, yeah,

1111
00:57:51,600 --> 00:57:53,320
Speaker 1: he might not have wanted it as a weapon. He

1112
00:57:53,400 --> 00:57:57,840
Speaker 1: might have wanted to like shoot ship into space. Um

1113
00:57:57,880 --> 00:58:00,000
Speaker 1: And that was when people who would like in converse

1114
00:58:00,000 --> 00:58:01,960
Speaker 1: stations with their weapons designers, they would be like, well,

1115
00:58:02,000 --> 00:58:03,560
Speaker 1: are you worried that he's going to use this to

1116
00:58:03,680 --> 00:58:06,760
Speaker 1: like shoot whatever other country? Geraldill be like, well, why,

1117
00:58:07,000 --> 00:58:09,200
Speaker 1: it would just be throwing your gun away. It's gonna

1118
00:58:09,240 --> 00:58:13,680
Speaker 1: get bombed and it'll be useless then. Um so. And

1119
00:58:13,920 --> 00:58:15,880
Speaker 1: it is one of those things I should probably talk

1120
00:58:15,880 --> 00:58:17,640
Speaker 1: about what the recoil on this thing would have been,

1121
00:58:17,680 --> 00:58:20,200
Speaker 1: because it is not possible to fire without the entire

1122
00:58:20,280 --> 00:58:24,880
Speaker 1: world noticing. The recoil force from shooting this gun once

1123
00:58:25,000 --> 00:58:28,600
Speaker 1: would have totaled twenty seven thousand tons, which is equivalent

1124
00:58:28,640 --> 00:58:31,640
Speaker 1: to a small nuclear blast. Shooting this thing would have

1125
00:58:31,680 --> 00:58:34,680
Speaker 1: been a seismic event detectable in every country on Earth

1126
00:58:34,960 --> 00:58:39,000
Speaker 1: like it. It's hard to overstate what a big fucking

1127
00:58:39,040 --> 00:58:41,600
Speaker 1: canon this would have been. But you know what if

1128
00:58:41,640 --> 00:58:43,880
Speaker 1: it wasn't the cannon itself to be used as a weapon,

1129
00:58:43,920 --> 00:58:46,320
Speaker 1: but what if it was to shoot weapons into space?

1130
00:58:46,640 --> 00:58:48,400
Speaker 1: I mean that that's that is the thing, and that's

1131
00:58:48,400 --> 00:58:51,840
Speaker 1: actually what one of the one one of Saddam Hussein's

1132
00:58:51,880 --> 00:58:54,000
Speaker 1: members of government argues that that was the purpose. It

1133
00:58:54,000 --> 00:58:56,360
Speaker 1: wasn't meant to be used as like field artillery. So

1134
00:58:56,400 --> 00:58:58,000
Speaker 1: I'm like, what years are we talking right now? This

1135
00:58:58,080 --> 00:59:01,120
Speaker 1: is a yeah, this is like the eight I mean

1136
00:59:01,160 --> 00:59:03,520
Speaker 1: we're talking to Star Wars area. Yeah, I mean so

1137
00:59:03,600 --> 00:59:07,240
Speaker 1: it makes sense yeah, um and in general, Hussein Camel

1138
00:59:07,280 --> 00:59:10,400
Speaker 1: al Magi, a former head of a RACKS weapons development program,

1139
00:59:10,600 --> 00:59:12,760
Speaker 1: later said quote, it was meant for a long for

1140
00:59:12,880 --> 00:59:16,000
Speaker 1: long range attack and also to blind spy satellites. Our

1141
00:59:16,040 --> 00:59:19,000
Speaker 1: scientists were seriously working on that. It was designed to

1142
00:59:19,040 --> 00:59:21,320
Speaker 1: explode a shell in space that would have sprayed a

1143
00:59:21,360 --> 00:59:24,520
Speaker 1: sticky material on the satellite and blinded it. And that's

1144
00:59:24,600 --> 00:59:27,960
Speaker 1: that does seem like maybe more plausible. It's a glue

1145
00:59:27,960 --> 00:59:31,200
Speaker 1: gun from cash. He was paid a big glue gun.

1146
00:59:32,720 --> 00:59:35,000
Speaker 1: He's made of these They're going to shoot the German

1147
00:59:35,040 --> 00:59:37,160
Speaker 1: shells up that glue all the piece seventeens together, and

1148
00:59:37,200 --> 00:59:40,000
Speaker 1: they followed the earth. Just Saddam, who's saying, like drunk

1149
00:59:40,040 --> 00:59:42,520
Speaker 1: at one in the morning watching a Spiderman cartoon and

1150
00:59:42,800 --> 00:59:45,200
Speaker 1: getting on the forum. I have an idea or read

1151
00:59:45,240 --> 00:59:47,720
Speaker 1: cass like, this is a good idea. You can just

1152
00:59:47,760 --> 00:59:49,919
Speaker 1: glue the satelleite together and they'll fall to the earth.

1153
00:59:51,280 --> 00:59:53,880
Speaker 1: It's very funny. I don't know how much I believe

1154
00:59:54,560 --> 00:59:57,360
Speaker 1: what Hussein Camel al Magite is saying, because he's one

1155
00:59:57,360 --> 01:00:00,000
Speaker 1: of a number of guys who defects from Saddam's government

1156
01:00:00,040 --> 01:00:02,760
Speaker 1: to Jordan to work with the u N. And like,

1157
01:00:04,000 --> 01:00:05,880
Speaker 1: some of those guys were telling truth about something, but

1158
01:00:05,920 --> 01:00:07,880
Speaker 1: they were also all liars who had been part of

1159
01:00:07,920 --> 01:00:11,280
Speaker 1: like the Baptist administration, had been fine with Saddam until

1160
01:00:11,320 --> 01:00:12,760
Speaker 1: they pissed him off and thought that they were going

1161
01:00:12,800 --> 01:00:15,120
Speaker 1: to get killed, at which point they fled and you know,

1162
01:00:15,200 --> 01:00:17,920
Speaker 1: turned on him in order to get a better deal themselves.

1163
01:00:17,960 --> 01:00:20,200
Speaker 1: Like none of them are trustworthy people, is what I

1164
01:00:20,280 --> 01:00:22,400
Speaker 1: will say about all of these. There's a number of

1165
01:00:22,440 --> 01:00:24,920
Speaker 1: these generals who like defect some of like the bullshit

1166
01:00:25,040 --> 01:00:27,920
Speaker 1: we get during the second invasion of Iraq is because

1167
01:00:28,200 --> 01:00:30,480
Speaker 1: these guys who defect from the Iraqi government and make

1168
01:00:30,520 --> 01:00:33,640
Speaker 1: these very lurid claims about Iraqi weapons systems that are

1169
01:00:33,720 --> 01:00:36,720
Speaker 1: not true. I'm not convinced Saddam actually wanted to use

1170
01:00:36,760 --> 01:00:39,720
Speaker 1: this his weapon at all. He's not a dumb guy.

1171
01:00:39,760 --> 01:00:42,880
Speaker 1: He does make some dumb calls, but I think that, like,

1172
01:00:43,200 --> 01:00:45,480
Speaker 1: he's probably probably thinking, like, we can make a funkload

1173
01:00:45,480 --> 01:00:47,600
Speaker 1: of money with this thing. You might have legitimately just

1174
01:00:47,640 --> 01:00:50,920
Speaker 1: wanted to be part of the space race. Yeah, it

1175
01:00:50,960 --> 01:00:54,080
Speaker 1: would have been cool. Yeah, Um, he was that kind

1176
01:00:54,080 --> 01:00:55,800
Speaker 1: of dude. I kind of think he might have not

1177
01:00:55,920 --> 01:00:57,960
Speaker 1: had violent intent with this thing. He might have just

1178
01:00:58,000 --> 01:01:02,840
Speaker 1: wanted to get make a shipload of money. Um, who knows.

1179
01:01:03,040 --> 01:01:06,080
Speaker 1: And May of nineteen nine, Baby Babylon, a forty five

1180
01:01:06,480 --> 01:01:11,160
Speaker 1: meter long prototype, was finished, finished and mounted on a hillside. Meanwhile,

1181
01:01:11,240 --> 01:01:15,360
Speaker 1: parts for the big guns started being made in Great Britain, Germany, France, Spain,

1182
01:01:15,520 --> 01:01:19,440
Speaker 1: Switzerland and Italy. Once again, this was all extremely illegal.

1183
01:01:19,640 --> 01:01:22,440
Speaker 1: You're not allowed to sell Saddam like new weapons systems.

1184
01:01:22,440 --> 01:01:24,880
Speaker 1: You are certainly not allowed to build him a cannon

1185
01:01:24,880 --> 01:01:28,640
Speaker 1: that could shoot space like that is very against the law,

1186
01:01:30,000 --> 01:01:32,800
Speaker 1: so they're hiding all of this is like industrial equipment

1187
01:01:32,840 --> 01:01:35,760
Speaker 1: for like reservoirs and ship like, Oh, we need these

1188
01:01:35,800 --> 01:01:38,360
Speaker 1: big tubes for some like civil engineering projects, so we

1189
01:01:38,360 --> 01:01:40,720
Speaker 1: can have them made in the UK that the British

1190
01:01:40,760 --> 01:01:43,440
Speaker 1: don't know these tubes are meaning to be a fucking

1191
01:01:43,480 --> 01:01:45,720
Speaker 1: gun barrel, though of course they do know because none

1192
01:01:45,760 --> 01:01:48,720
Speaker 1: of this they don't keep this a secret very well.

1193
01:01:49,560 --> 01:01:52,560
Speaker 1: So this gun gets under construction like five different countries

1194
01:01:52,560 --> 01:01:55,560
Speaker 1: and it's actually coming together. Gerald bulls the dream of

1195
01:01:55,640 --> 01:01:58,600
Speaker 1: his entire life of decades. He has the backing, he

1196
01:01:58,680 --> 01:02:01,320
Speaker 1: has the place to do it, has the technology. He

1197
01:02:01,440 --> 01:02:05,840
Speaker 1: is going to make his super gun. But his good

1198
01:02:05,920 --> 01:02:10,200
Speaker 1: luck doesn't last Carl, because on March two, nineteen ninety

1199
01:02:10,320 --> 01:02:14,040
Speaker 1: Gerald Bull suffered a significant setback. He was shot three

1200
01:02:14,040 --> 01:02:15,960
Speaker 1: times in the back of the head with a silenced

1201
01:02:15,960 --> 01:02:19,280
Speaker 1: pistol outside of his apartment in Brussels. That tends to

1202
01:02:19,280 --> 01:02:21,400
Speaker 1: put a hitch in your playoff. Yeah, that's really gonna

1203
01:02:21,480 --> 01:02:24,920
Speaker 1: that that'll that'll that'll really interrupt your your your weapon

1204
01:02:24,960 --> 01:02:28,760
Speaker 1: design goals. Very few gun designers have continued to work

1205
01:02:28,800 --> 01:02:30,560
Speaker 1: after being shot three times in the back of the

1206
01:02:30,560 --> 01:02:32,880
Speaker 1: head with a silence pistol. I gotta say, the minute

1207
01:02:32,920 --> 01:02:34,320
Speaker 1: you told me that the first thing that popped on

1208
01:02:34,360 --> 01:02:35,760
Speaker 1: my head. And I don't know the story, so I'm

1209
01:02:35,760 --> 01:02:37,320
Speaker 1: curious to where this is going to go. But the

1210
01:02:37,320 --> 01:02:40,480
Speaker 1: minute I heard that, I thought Massad. That's what everyone thinks, right,

1211
01:02:40,520 --> 01:02:44,200
Speaker 1: that that is the number one assumed culprit um. There

1212
01:02:44,240 --> 01:02:46,840
Speaker 1: are no witnesses obviously, right, which is also makes you

1213
01:02:46,840 --> 01:02:50,120
Speaker 1: think massade because they're pretty good at killing people. Um,

1214
01:02:50,240 --> 01:02:52,720
Speaker 1: no one has ever been charged with his murder um.

1215
01:02:52,840 --> 01:02:55,760
Speaker 1: Whatever kind of suppressory they were using on the gun

1216
01:02:55,840 --> 01:02:58,360
Speaker 1: was good enough that like nobody even hears this, they

1217
01:02:58,360 --> 01:03:00,600
Speaker 1: find him later. You know what's in thinking about that,

1218
01:03:00,600 --> 01:03:05,360
Speaker 1: as the Massad was known for using suppress pretty good chance. Yea.

1219
01:03:06,520 --> 01:03:09,200
Speaker 1: I have not found direct information on what caliber he

1220
01:03:09,240 --> 01:03:11,919
Speaker 1: was shot with, but I would not be surprised. That said,

1221
01:03:11,960 --> 01:03:14,840
Speaker 1: there are some other possibilities. When police arrive at the scene,

1222
01:03:14,840 --> 01:03:16,800
Speaker 1: they find his key in the door in a brief

1223
01:03:17,160 --> 01:03:20,120
Speaker 1: case with twenty dollars in cash, so everyone knows immediately

1224
01:03:20,120 --> 01:03:23,080
Speaker 1: like this is not a robbery, right, And it may

1225
01:03:23,120 --> 01:03:26,520
Speaker 1: even be that like they made sure to leave cash

1226
01:03:26,560 --> 01:03:29,000
Speaker 1: on him to let people know like this is as

1227
01:03:29,040 --> 01:03:32,120
Speaker 1: a message to other people, like this was not a robbery.

1228
01:03:32,400 --> 01:03:34,640
Speaker 1: He he was making this kind of ship for Saddam,

1229
01:03:34,720 --> 01:03:36,640
Speaker 1: and that's not okay. If you don't want to get

1230
01:03:36,680 --> 01:03:38,320
Speaker 1: shot in the back of the head, don't make fucking

1231
01:03:38,320 --> 01:03:41,800
Speaker 1: guns for Saddam Hussein. UM would not be surprised that

1232
01:03:41,920 --> 01:03:43,880
Speaker 1: if if it is the Massad, that would be very

1233
01:03:44,000 --> 01:03:48,960
Speaker 1: within kind of the Massad's operating principles. Um. Now. And

1234
01:03:49,000 --> 01:03:52,200
Speaker 1: it's interesting because the people who suspect a Massad the

1235
01:03:52,240 --> 01:03:54,880
Speaker 1: most reasonable expectation is not because he was building them

1236
01:03:54,880 --> 01:03:57,440
Speaker 1: a super gun, but because he was also working to

1237
01:03:57,520 --> 01:04:01,240
Speaker 1: improve Iraqi ballistic missiles. Like they were worried about the scuds. Basically,

1238
01:04:01,240 --> 01:04:03,640
Speaker 1: they didn't care about this. They recognized to the big

1239
01:04:03,680 --> 01:04:06,840
Speaker 1: cannon is not a great weapons system. Um. They're worried

1240
01:04:06,880 --> 01:04:08,840
Speaker 1: that he's going to make the scuds more accurate, and

1241
01:04:08,880 --> 01:04:13,440
Speaker 1: he's Saddam's gonna you know, shell Tel Aviv again or whatever. Um.

1242
01:04:13,480 --> 01:04:17,320
Speaker 1: But really it's also worth noting the Massada is the

1243
01:04:17,640 --> 01:04:20,640
Speaker 1: what most people assume it could have been, literally anyone.

1244
01:04:21,000 --> 01:04:23,280
Speaker 1: The CIA has a tone of reasons to want this

1245
01:04:23,320 --> 01:04:26,400
Speaker 1: guy dead, right, so does UK intelligence. He's building his

1246
01:04:26,480 --> 01:04:29,320
Speaker 1: gun in the UK South African intelligence has a lot

1247
01:04:29,320 --> 01:04:31,680
Speaker 1: of reason to want this guy dead at this point. Um,

1248
01:04:31,720 --> 01:04:34,840
Speaker 1: two weeks after his death, UK customs seized parts of

1249
01:04:34,920 --> 01:04:36,960
Speaker 1: the supergun before they could leave ports, So there's even

1250
01:04:36,960 --> 01:04:38,760
Speaker 1: an argument to be made that like maybe this is

1251
01:04:38,800 --> 01:04:41,200
Speaker 1: a British operation, right, they find out what he's doing,

1252
01:04:41,200 --> 01:04:44,040
Speaker 1: that he's doing it with like their manufacturers, they kill

1253
01:04:44,120 --> 01:04:48,280
Speaker 1: him and they seize his gun. Um and yeah, who knows,

1254
01:04:48,320 --> 01:04:51,240
Speaker 1: We have no idea who killed him. Massad is probably

1255
01:04:51,280 --> 01:04:53,840
Speaker 1: like the smart money, but he really he had piste

1256
01:04:53,840 --> 01:04:56,840
Speaker 1: off basically everyone with the capacity to carry off a hit.

1257
01:04:57,040 --> 01:04:59,280
Speaker 1: So it could have been might have been fucking Iraq.

1258
01:04:59,360 --> 01:05:01,200
Speaker 1: Maybe he had some sort of falling out with Saddam.

1259
01:05:01,280 --> 01:05:03,800
Speaker 1: You know, they had an argument over the Dinny table

1260
01:05:03,840 --> 01:05:06,920
Speaker 1: one night and that was the end of up. Yeah,

1261
01:05:07,160 --> 01:05:10,160
Speaker 1: he was definitely. You gotta say one thing about Gerald Bull.

1262
01:05:10,200 --> 01:05:12,479
Speaker 1: He gave a lot of people reasons to want him dead.

1263
01:05:14,680 --> 01:05:16,840
Speaker 1: It's like, I'm trying to understand the moral of the story.

1264
01:05:16,920 --> 01:05:18,320
Speaker 1: Is it is? It is the moral the story? You

1265
01:05:18,320 --> 01:05:23,360
Speaker 1: should not necessarily be a a moral arms dealer, weapons designer,

1266
01:05:23,520 --> 01:05:25,600
Speaker 1: or is the moral of the story. Follow your dreams

1267
01:05:25,600 --> 01:05:26,880
Speaker 1: and you'll get chipped in the back of the head

1268
01:05:26,880 --> 01:05:29,680
Speaker 1: three times with a suppress pointy two, I think, which

1269
01:05:29,920 --> 01:05:32,360
Speaker 1: both of them are morals. Probably the wisest thing if

1270
01:05:32,400 --> 01:05:35,400
Speaker 1: you have a dream is to maybe, even if you

1271
01:05:35,480 --> 01:05:37,960
Speaker 1: have a beautiful dream, you should not follow that dream

1272
01:05:38,080 --> 01:05:41,040
Speaker 1: to the point that leads you to make artillery for

1273
01:05:41,240 --> 01:05:45,280
Speaker 1: apartheid South Africa and a space gun for Saddam. Who's saying, yeah,

1274
01:05:45,280 --> 01:05:46,680
Speaker 1: maybe at that point you should have a moment of

1275
01:05:46,680 --> 01:05:49,040
Speaker 1: self revelation to go. You know what, Maybe I'm the

1276
01:05:49,080 --> 01:05:52,200
Speaker 1: baddie when you keep sitting down in meetings with Saddam

1277
01:05:52,280 --> 01:05:54,920
Speaker 1: hus saying you should probably thinking Donna Rumsfeld should have

1278
01:05:54,920 --> 01:05:57,280
Speaker 1: come to this conclusion too. I might be making some

1279
01:05:57,360 --> 01:06:00,280
Speaker 1: bad steps here. Yeah, these are some odd life is.

1280
01:06:00,320 --> 01:06:02,439
Speaker 1: How did I get here today? I don't feel good

1281
01:06:02,480 --> 01:06:08,280
Speaker 1: about consistently being in a room with this. And Yeah,

1282
01:06:08,320 --> 01:06:12,120
Speaker 1: shortly after Gerald's assassination, Iraq invades Kuwait and the dream

1283
01:06:12,160 --> 01:06:15,400
Speaker 1: of the super gun dies at least for now. You know,

1284
01:06:15,840 --> 01:06:18,720
Speaker 1: we have the plans, we have the technology. We could

1285
01:06:18,840 --> 01:06:21,800
Speaker 1: build the biggest gun anyone has ever built and use

1286
01:06:21,840 --> 01:06:26,160
Speaker 1: it to shoot satellites or goo into space. I like

1287
01:06:26,240 --> 01:06:29,800
Speaker 1: the idea. I think goo and space has been a

1288
01:06:29,840 --> 01:06:34,920
Speaker 1: completely unexplored reality. I think we as Americans need something

1289
01:06:34,920 --> 01:06:37,880
Speaker 1: to bind us together again, and maybe we could build

1290
01:06:37,920 --> 01:06:39,919
Speaker 1: I don't know what, the Mountaineer. We build a big

1291
01:06:39,920 --> 01:06:41,840
Speaker 1: gun on the side of Mountaineer and we use it

1292
01:06:41,880 --> 01:06:44,320
Speaker 1: to shoot the fucking moon. Well, I would think if

1293
01:06:44,320 --> 01:06:45,880
Speaker 1: we were going to do it in true American style,

1294
01:06:45,920 --> 01:06:47,600
Speaker 1: we would do it like Mount Rushmore. We would take

1295
01:06:47,640 --> 01:06:50,480
Speaker 1: something that was on a reservation and destroy indigenous location,

1296
01:06:50,680 --> 01:06:53,760
Speaker 1: the Holy Mountain of sorts. That coil is going to

1297
01:06:53,800 --> 01:06:56,160
Speaker 1: destroy everything sacred around. So if you want, if you

1298
01:06:56,200 --> 01:06:57,360
Speaker 1: want to do it right, we have to do it

1299
01:06:57,480 --> 01:07:00,040
Speaker 1: someplace that's on Indigenous land, and that would be of

1300
01:07:00,080 --> 01:07:05,000
Speaker 1: the truly American way. We could call it colonialism the gun, Yeah,

1301
01:07:05,200 --> 01:07:08,240
Speaker 1: and then we can use it to shoot settlers onto Mars,

1302
01:07:08,280 --> 01:07:12,600
Speaker 1: which we then funk up. That's true. You know. One

1303
01:07:12,640 --> 01:07:14,480
Speaker 1: life goal, I guess is to live long enough to

1304
01:07:14,480 --> 01:07:17,080
Speaker 1: be around to experience or learn about the first gunfight

1305
01:07:17,160 --> 01:07:20,120
Speaker 1: on Mars, because would get us there sooner. Yeah, we could.

1306
01:07:20,120 --> 01:07:22,960
Speaker 1: We could shoot people and guns onto Mars with our

1307
01:07:23,000 --> 01:07:25,400
Speaker 1: big gun that we've built to shoot things into Mars.

1308
01:07:25,720 --> 01:07:28,240
Speaker 1: All things come back to guns and giant foulic symbols.

1309
01:07:28,280 --> 01:07:32,320
Speaker 1: Don't they. Yeah, it is a pretty like It is

1310
01:07:32,360 --> 01:07:35,760
Speaker 1: definitely not surprising that Saddam hears about this man's dream

1311
01:07:35,800 --> 01:07:38,600
Speaker 1: and says, I will absolutely build that big stupid gun

1312
01:07:38,760 --> 01:07:41,360
Speaker 1: in my country. You can, you can put it anywhere.

1313
01:07:41,640 --> 01:07:44,280
Speaker 1: I want the biggest, longest, largest thing to shoot goo

1314
01:07:44,360 --> 01:07:47,200
Speaker 1: with ever made. Yeah. How would a big long gun

1315
01:07:47,280 --> 01:07:51,480
Speaker 1: to shoot go into space? It is kind of like

1316
01:07:51,560 --> 01:07:55,400
Speaker 1: the fundamental desire of every dictator. Yeah, I want you

1317
01:07:55,440 --> 01:07:57,840
Speaker 1: to build me a big penis with a twenty seven

1318
01:07:57,880 --> 01:08:00,960
Speaker 1: thousand tons of recoil that can shoot all over my

1319
01:08:01,080 --> 01:08:07,360
Speaker 1: enemy's satellites, which are basically their eyes. You know. Saddam

1320
01:08:07,480 --> 01:08:10,200
Speaker 1: just wanted to give a facial to all of the

1321
01:08:10,240 --> 01:08:12,760
Speaker 1: countries that had angered. We just we just came to

1322
01:08:12,800 --> 01:08:16,120
Speaker 1: the true conclusion. It was the Iraqi space bookaky gun. Yeah,

1323
01:08:16,160 --> 01:08:23,720
Speaker 1: the Iraki space Bokaki cannon. Uh fucking hell um. All right, Carl, Well,

1324
01:08:23,800 --> 01:08:27,960
Speaker 1: that is the episode that That's what I got for you.

1325
01:08:28,479 --> 01:08:30,120
Speaker 1: This was a real treat, I have to I mean,

1326
01:08:30,200 --> 01:08:32,479
Speaker 1: I had heard about space cannons before, but I did

1327
01:08:32,520 --> 01:08:34,640
Speaker 1: not know all of these stories. And I mean I

1328
01:08:34,640 --> 01:08:37,400
Speaker 1: had also been obviously very familiar with Maxim's work, but

1329
01:08:37,479 --> 01:08:41,080
Speaker 1: not maximumself and the parallels between this are quite interesting

1330
01:08:41,200 --> 01:08:43,559
Speaker 1: really when you think about people that are so driven

1331
01:08:43,920 --> 01:08:48,040
Speaker 1: by their goal that they lose the morality in the process. Yeah,

1332
01:08:48,080 --> 01:08:49,479
Speaker 1: and it is one of those things when you talk

1333
01:08:49,479 --> 01:08:53,040
Speaker 1: about the inevitability of such things. Yeah, when you have

1334
01:08:53,200 --> 01:08:56,400
Speaker 1: people that are that dedicated, like no one was ever.

1335
01:08:56,560 --> 01:08:59,080
Speaker 1: The only way to stop Gerald Bull from making bigger

1336
01:08:59,120 --> 01:09:00,960
Speaker 1: and bigger guns was to shoot him three times in

1337
01:09:01,000 --> 01:09:03,240
Speaker 1: the back of the head. Like he was. He wasn't

1338
01:09:03,280 --> 01:09:08,920
Speaker 1: he was. He was so driven to keep making those things, um,

1339
01:09:08,960 --> 01:09:12,280
Speaker 1: which is is fascinating and it is also like, yeah,

1340
01:09:12,520 --> 01:09:14,160
Speaker 1: it also brings you back to that thought I mean

1341
01:09:14,160 --> 01:09:17,120
Speaker 1: those thought experiments that never actually can truly be explored

1342
01:09:17,200 --> 01:09:19,040
Speaker 1: besides just thinking about them because we don't know what

1343
01:09:19,120 --> 01:09:20,960
Speaker 1: the reality would be. But what if he had been

1344
01:09:21,000 --> 01:09:23,559
Speaker 1: given the opportunity to make his space gun without turning

1345
01:09:23,560 --> 01:09:27,280
Speaker 1: into this international arms designer and dealer. You know, if

1346
01:09:27,320 --> 01:09:29,479
Speaker 1: if if Canada said, you know what, go for it,

1347
01:09:29,680 --> 01:09:31,760
Speaker 1: make that big thing. We want to launch Google into

1348
01:09:31,800 --> 01:09:34,559
Speaker 1: space and he had just gone down that path, Yeah, perhaps,

1349
01:09:34,600 --> 01:09:36,640
Speaker 1: I mean it could have changed everything. What if what

1350
01:09:36,760 --> 01:09:38,920
Speaker 1: if Hitler had sold his paintings, right, I mean, who

1351
01:09:38,920 --> 01:09:41,519
Speaker 1: the funk knows it could have changed the world. Yeah,

1352
01:09:41,520 --> 01:09:43,160
Speaker 1: I mean I think the main thing that would if

1353
01:09:43,200 --> 01:09:45,840
Speaker 1: he built his big space gun in Canada, motherfucker would

1354
01:09:45,840 --> 01:09:48,240
Speaker 1: probably be a billionaire because it seems like it would

1355
01:09:48,240 --> 01:09:50,599
Speaker 1: have worked and it would have been that Like, that's

1356
01:09:50,600 --> 01:09:52,320
Speaker 1: just an insane amount of money if you can make

1357
01:09:52,320 --> 01:09:55,439
Speaker 1: it that much cheaper to put satellites in space. Not

1358
01:09:55,479 --> 01:09:57,600
Speaker 1: only that, what would what would the butterfly effect be

1359
01:09:57,680 --> 01:10:00,559
Speaker 1: for the technology of could now launch into space low cost?

1360
01:10:00,640 --> 01:10:02,599
Speaker 1: I mean that could have changed things in a very

1361
01:10:02,680 --> 01:10:06,639
Speaker 1: humanitarian way. Yeah, it is really interesting to like think about.

1362
01:10:07,200 --> 01:10:11,120
Speaker 1: And again, I am kind of from a from an

1363
01:10:11,120 --> 01:10:15,479
Speaker 1: alternative science fiction standpoint, fascinated the possibility of like you

1364
01:10:15,520 --> 01:10:20,200
Speaker 1: have the Internet boom and Iraq is letting anybody with

1365
01:10:20,280 --> 01:10:24,040
Speaker 1: two grand put a tiny satellite into space? What what

1366
01:10:24,120 --> 01:10:26,559
Speaker 1: does that do? Like? What how is that different? How

1367
01:10:26,640 --> 01:10:29,200
Speaker 1: was like piracy different? If the Pirate Bay could just

1368
01:10:29,240 --> 01:10:32,080
Speaker 1: like launch satellites into space for a few grand apiece,

1369
01:10:32,120 --> 01:10:34,759
Speaker 1: and like what does that change about like the late nineties,

1370
01:10:34,800 --> 01:10:37,800
Speaker 1: early two thousand's and all of these Like it is

1371
01:10:37,880 --> 01:10:42,120
Speaker 1: kind of a fascinating question um to think about. It

1372
01:10:42,320 --> 01:10:45,439
Speaker 1: could have been pretty weird or Saddam would have done

1373
01:10:45,439 --> 01:10:47,320
Speaker 1: something chetty, who knows. I would like to think it

1374
01:10:47,320 --> 01:10:49,439
Speaker 1: would have done something amazing. It would have brought great

1375
01:10:49,439 --> 01:10:52,439
Speaker 1: technology to the world. But in reality we probably would

1376
01:10:52,439 --> 01:10:54,920
Speaker 1: have ended up with four chan in space. Yeah, because

1377
01:10:54,920 --> 01:10:57,559
Speaker 1: it again it is Saddam Hussein, So you shouldn't expect

1378
01:10:57,680 --> 01:11:01,439
Speaker 1: things to go to wealth like he is the guy

1379
01:11:01,520 --> 01:11:03,840
Speaker 1: that he is. He probably he may have just sold

1380
01:11:03,880 --> 01:11:06,320
Speaker 1: it all to the Disney Corporation in order to shut

1381
01:11:06,360 --> 01:11:11,240
Speaker 1: down any ability to broadcast non Disney products. We could

1382
01:11:11,280 --> 01:11:14,800
Speaker 1: live in a global dictatorship of Disney enforced by Saddam's

1383
01:11:14,800 --> 01:11:17,280
Speaker 1: space penis. Well, we're kind of close to that already.

1384
01:11:17,280 --> 01:11:20,400
Speaker 1: It's just two different mechanisms. Look Disney again, it trends

1385
01:11:20,479 --> 01:11:23,639
Speaker 1: enforces right like, even without the space gun, Disney found

1386
01:11:23,640 --> 01:11:28,000
Speaker 1: a way, Life finds a way. The corporate oligarchy finds

1387
01:11:28,000 --> 01:11:30,559
Speaker 1: a way with or without a gun to shoot go

1388
01:11:30,760 --> 01:11:35,240
Speaker 1: into space with. I do want to see that fucking

1389
01:11:35,280 --> 01:11:42,160
Speaker 1: thing fire nine tons of propellant, like I wonder, I mean, honestly, legitimately,

1390
01:11:42,240 --> 01:11:44,640
Speaker 1: just firing that thing, how much like damage in the

1391
01:11:44,680 --> 01:11:48,080
Speaker 1: surrounding environment would happen from the concussion is hard to fathom.

1392
01:11:48,360 --> 01:11:50,840
Speaker 1: You would have and that every possible living thing away

1393
01:11:50,880 --> 01:11:52,800
Speaker 1: from it, right, I mean you, you would have to

1394
01:11:52,840 --> 01:11:56,320
Speaker 1: have like a couple of miles clear um, because it's

1395
01:11:56,360 --> 01:11:58,400
Speaker 1: just too funny. You can't be near that thing. It's

1396
01:11:58,439 --> 01:12:00,639
Speaker 1: not like hearing protection doesn't even matter at that point.

1397
01:12:00,680 --> 01:12:03,400
Speaker 1: It will fucking liquefy you. This will make when the

1398
01:12:03,439 --> 01:12:05,800
Speaker 1: MythBusters destroyed a bunch of windows firing one of their

1399
01:12:05,840 --> 01:12:08,320
Speaker 1: little things in one of their filming episodes, seem very

1400
01:12:08,360 --> 01:12:11,800
Speaker 1: minor by comparison. Yeah, it is. It is a very

1401
01:12:11,880 --> 01:12:15,040
Speaker 1: it's it's yeah, could have made a pretty good water

1402
01:12:15,080 --> 01:12:18,120
Speaker 1: slide too. Um. All right, Carl, that's our episode. You

1403
01:12:18,200 --> 01:12:21,000
Speaker 1: got any pluggables to plug? I am my normal pluggable.

1404
01:12:21,479 --> 01:12:23,840
Speaker 1: I run in range dot tv. You can find me

1405
01:12:23,880 --> 01:12:26,639
Speaker 1: on multiple different distribution points. One of my big things

1406
01:12:26,680 --> 01:12:28,880
Speaker 1: that I did long ago is demonetize my work because

1407
01:12:28,920 --> 01:12:31,720
Speaker 1: I believe it's completely fewer supported, therefore no sponsors in

1408
01:12:31,760 --> 01:12:34,680
Speaker 1: the overlords and UH got a lot of hype once

1409
01:12:34,720 --> 01:12:36,880
Speaker 1: when I decided to publish my content on porn hubs.

1410
01:12:36,920 --> 01:12:38,479
Speaker 1: So at any rate, if you want to see gun

1411
01:12:38,520 --> 01:12:40,320
Speaker 1: content that's a little bit outside of the norm, you

1412
01:12:40,320 --> 01:12:44,080
Speaker 1: can find me an range dot tv. Excellent. Well check

1413
01:12:44,120 --> 01:12:47,320
Speaker 1: that out. Yeah, so my book is now available for

1414
01:12:47,360 --> 01:12:49,920
Speaker 1: preorder After the Revolution, my novel. You can pre order

1415
01:12:49,960 --> 01:12:52,400
Speaker 1: it with an autographed book plate in the front of

1416
01:12:52,400 --> 01:12:55,200
Speaker 1: the book right now at a k press dot org

1417
01:12:55,400 --> 01:12:58,240
Speaker 1: slash after the Revolution with a datch, or if you

1418
01:12:58,280 --> 01:13:00,320
Speaker 1: just google a K Press after the Revolution and you'll

1419
01:13:00,360 --> 01:13:02,120
Speaker 1: find it. That's the easy way to do it. Just

1420
01:13:02,200 --> 01:13:05,639
Speaker 1: google after the Revolution, a K Press, pre order my book.

1421
01:13:06,160 --> 01:13:10,679
Speaker 1: It'll come signed. Um, so that's pretty cool. And yeah,

1422
01:13:10,800 --> 01:13:12,519
Speaker 1: that's gonna do it for us here at Bombing the

1423
01:13:12,520 --> 01:13:15,840
Speaker 1: Bastards for today, Sophie. We're not going to bind the lives.

1424
01:13:16,880 --> 01:13:20,880
Speaker 1: Absolutely not. I'm not doing it either. I do it

1425
01:13:20,960 --> 01:13:26,160
Speaker 1: every episode. I don't. All right, we're donning nailed it.