Speaker 1: Hey guys, it's me Josh. For this week's select I've
Speaker 1: chosen our twenty nineteen episode on the Iran Contra affair.
Speaker 1: We called it Shady in the eighties for two good reasons.
Speaker 1: One it took place in the eighties, and two it
Speaker 1: was probably the shadiest thing the US government has ever done.
Speaker 1: And that's really saying something. Anyway, if you like your stuff,
Speaker 1: you should know episodes eye popping, then prepare for this one.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's
Speaker 1: Charles w Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry over there eating with chopstick.
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact.
Speaker 3: You know what, Jerry pulls up the chopsticks.
Speaker 1: It's time to record.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's got she's got Facebook open and she's sitting
Speaker 1: there with her chopstick. So it's we're recording now.
Speaker 2: He's been fork free since eighty three.
Speaker 1: Speaking of eighty three, your shirt, I guess it's kind
Speaker 1: of eighty three ish.
Speaker 3: It looks very Thomas Magnum.
Speaker 1: It does, Chuck. It does not just the shirt, the
Speaker 1: whole outfit. Look at the jeans, the shoes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you got the Ferrari out back.
Speaker 1: Thank you for noticing. Man, I look like a chubby
Speaker 1: Thomas Magnum.
Speaker 2: It's funny because I just finished Stranger Things three and
Speaker 2: I saw that there was a have you seen it yet?
Speaker 3: Are you into that?
Speaker 1: No? I like the first season. I never really got
Speaker 1: back into it after that. No, no offense to anybody.
Speaker 2: Sure, the main the sheriff guy, Yeah, Hopper wears a
Speaker 2: shirt kind of like that through most of this season.
Speaker 1: Is that right?
Speaker 2: And so someone did a cut of a like a
Speaker 2: Magnum p I intro and had him running around and
Speaker 2: shooting things and jumping into cars, all set to the
Speaker 2: Magnum thing, and it really fits. All I gotta do
Speaker 2: is throw that song with the guy with a shirt
Speaker 2: like that Magnum.
Speaker 1: Yep. Of course he has the mustache too. Well, I'm
Speaker 1: a mustacheless chubby Magnum.
Speaker 3: You should wear a mustache. That looks interesting.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I do solve a lot of mysteries though.
Speaker 3: Nothing can change a look like.
Speaker 2: Mustaches, Oh dude, especially right, especially a.
Speaker 1: Fake mustache, because you just put it on and bam,
Speaker 1: you're done. Right, So I tried. I'm going to go
Speaker 1: back to the eighty three segue.
Speaker 3: Yeah we're here, right, We're right in the middle of
Speaker 3: the eighties.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like this was super eighties. This is as eighties
Speaker 1: as it gets. Yeah, Iran Contra, fair, that's what we're
Speaker 1: talking about. Some people call it iron Gate. I poo
Speaker 1: poo that name.
Speaker 3: Iran Contra.
Speaker 1: Sure. I remember this going on at the time, me too.
Speaker 1: I remember watching All Over North Testify me too, and
Speaker 1: my sister was like, he's so dreamy. Look at how
Speaker 1: much poise he has.
Speaker 3: He had his dress greens on right exactly those metal.
Speaker 1: Had his boy scout three fingers up like swearing. I
Speaker 1: really think he did do that. But even as an adult,
Speaker 1: like everything I knew about around Contra was like, until
Speaker 1: researching this, it was just the glossiest version.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean I was like ten and eleven, so
Speaker 3: you were like seven and eight.
Speaker 1: Sure, sure, but I mean like it's still over time.
Speaker 1: As you age, you're like, oh, that's what was going
Speaker 1: on or oh I understand that. Even as an adult,
Speaker 1: my conception of it was not very thorough at all.
Speaker 1: And as I dug into I'm like, this is one
Speaker 1: of the shadiest things in Meerica has ever done yeah ever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it was really great to do this, and like,
Speaker 2: now I know it. Now I have a full understanding
Speaker 2: of what happened. And if it ever comes up at
Speaker 2: a party, right and people are like, oh, what was
Speaker 2: that all about? Anyway, I'm gonna be like, wow.
Speaker 1: Please sit down for an hour and.
Speaker 3: I'll just pull up my smartphone and play our episodes.
Speaker 1: Right, actually, maybe an hour and a half. We'll see
Speaker 1: how this goes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, by the way, everyone, this is a two parter. Yeah,
Speaker 2: buckle up, and so, uh this is part one.
Speaker 3: I figured we'd start with the beginning.
Speaker 1: I think that that's a really good idea.
Speaker 2: That reminds me of my friend in college watched the movie,
Speaker 2: Oh which one was it?
Speaker 3: Burned Shortcuts?
Speaker 2: The movie that was on two video cassettes? What it
Speaker 2: was so long?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 3: I had to split him up? Was it Magnolia?
Speaker 1: The Bridge Too Far?
Speaker 3: I can't remember.
Speaker 2: My friend in college, very very famously among our friends
Speaker 2: watched the second tape first and then watched the first
Speaker 2: tape second and didn't really put it together.
Speaker 3: She was just like, I thought it was a little.
Speaker 1: Confusing, really, so it was accidental.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh, and then she was like and then
Speaker 2: she showed up in the in the second part, and
Speaker 2: I was like, she's already dead.
Speaker 3: She was kind of country. This is kind of funny.
Speaker 1: This movie is one of them an achronisms. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: this is not an acronism, because we're going to be normal, smart,
Speaker 1: singing people and start at the beginning.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 1: And there's really no better place to start than the
Speaker 1: election of Ronald Reagan in nineteen eighty Ronald Reagan, if
Speaker 1: you weren't familiar with him already when he was president,
Speaker 1: he had already been governor of California, But even before that,
Speaker 1: he had a pretty extensive career in Hollywood. And while
Speaker 1: he was a pretty big star in Hollywood, at least
Speaker 1: B plus list, if not a list.
Speaker 3: Actor, yeah him. Mean, he was a medium sized.
Speaker 1: Star, sure, but definitely way more famous as president than
Speaker 1: he ever was as a movie star.
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 1: He learned to detest communism. Yeah, and at the time,
Speaker 1: communism was a really big thing in Hollywood, Like it
Speaker 1: was very fashionable, especially among the intellectuals of Hollywood. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he learned to hate it so much so that
Speaker 1: by the time he got to be president, he had
Speaker 1: this idea that there was. It was impossible for capitalist
Speaker 1: democracy and communism to coexist even peacefully on earth. You
Speaker 1: couldn't have both. You had to have one or the other.
Speaker 1: And by god, Ronald Breagan was going to see to
Speaker 1: it that the one that we had was a capitalist democracy.
Speaker 2: Ye want to stamp out communism wherever it reared its head,
Speaker 2: and it was rearing its head close to home, which
Speaker 2: we'll see here in a second, but all over the world.
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, for sure. It was called the Reagan.
Speaker 3: Yeah, bits and pieces of it were right.
Speaker 1: And he came up with the Reagan doctrine. And the
Speaker 1: Reagan doctrine was, we will aid any any opposition to
Speaker 1: communism wherever it sprouts, Like if you're if you're fighting
Speaker 1: against a communist revolution, we'll support your country. If you're
Speaker 1: a rebel fighting against a leftist communist government, we'll help
Speaker 1: you overthrow. That's the Reagan doctrine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, via money, via arms, via training, via covert operations
Speaker 2: that we carried out ourselves. Yeah, there were all kinds
Speaker 2: of ways that we could and did help stem the
Speaker 2: flow of communism.
Speaker 1: So there was, as you were saying, there was a
Speaker 1: place pretty close to home where communism had sprouted up,
Speaker 1: and that was Nicaragua down in Central America, and in
Speaker 1: Central America in the thirties, the Sandinista government had taken
Speaker 1: power and had held onto power well into the seventies
Speaker 1: and by this time the early eighties, and it drove
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan nuts that there was a communist power right
Speaker 1: there that was being supported by the Soviet Union through Cuba. Ostensibly.
Speaker 1: I've never gotten the impression that this was ever conclusively proven.
Speaker 1: They definitely got support from Cuba. But whether it was
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union who was really calling the shots of
Speaker 1: Nicaragua or not, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think, you know, to go even further
Speaker 2: back and draw the lines a little even more clear.
Speaker 2: The Sandinistans were named for Augusto Sandino, who led the
Speaker 2: nationalist rebellion against what the US occupation of Central America.
Speaker 1: Oh that's where it started.
Speaker 2: Huh, that's where it all started. And from nineteen you know,
Speaker 2: the US occupied. This is all part of the Banana Wars.
Speaker 2: So we occupied Nicaragua from nineteen twelve to nineteen thirty
Speaker 2: three for a lot of reasons, but one was like, hey,
Speaker 2: no one's going to build a canal here unless it's us, right.
Speaker 2: That was sort of one of the main reasons, and
Speaker 2: that all ceased in nineteen thirty to three with Roosevelt's
Speaker 2: Good Neighbor policy, which is basically like, we're going to
Speaker 2: pull out in Nicaragua.
Speaker 1: Oh really, yeah, okay, So, but we.
Speaker 2: Had our fingers all over Central America right for many, many,
Speaker 2: many years. And that's why when people forget or choose
Speaker 2: not to remember when people flee horrible situations in Central
Speaker 2: America to come to the United States now like kind
Speaker 2: of where all these horrible situations started years and years
Speaker 2: ago because of things that we did right well.
Speaker 1: When Reagan became president, intervening in Nicaragua, Nick Man, I'm
Speaker 1: going to have a hard time if I can't say
Speaker 1: Nicaragua intervening in Nicaragua became like a like first and
Speaker 1: foremost priority for them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1: Almost immediately they started funding the Contras. The Contra are
Speaker 1: the groups who were fighting against the Santa Nista government.
Speaker 1: They were right wing groups, and they were funding them,
Speaker 1: they were training them, like you were saying, and they're
Speaker 1: doing all this secretly. There was an operation called Operation
Speaker 1: Black Eagle Man that one that was something else. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So we were already funding them, and at the time,
Speaker 1: Congress was on board. Congress was on board, especially at
Speaker 1: first because the Republicans controlled the House. Well, you know
Speaker 1: how when somebody comes in and just steamrolls over the
Speaker 1: other party, usually in a presidential election, very frequently in
Speaker 1: the midterms, the congressional midterms, there's like a backlash against that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like a house flip.
Speaker 1: Believe it or not. That happened to Ronald Reagan in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two, and the House did flip. They flipped
Speaker 1: over to the Democrats. And that Democrat controlled House, combined
Speaker 1: with a Newsweek cover story that came out, kind of
Speaker 1: turned the tide against Reagan's policy on helping out in Nicaragua.
Speaker 2: There was a CIA director named William Casey who was
Speaker 2: he was kind of telling Congress what they needed to
Speaker 2: hear here and there you have been here vague briefings.
Speaker 2: That was probably a generous way to say it. Sometimes
Speaker 2: Casey would send another guy, though, named Dwayne Dewey Clarridge.
Speaker 2: And this is where things really went south because Clarridge
Speaker 2: did not present well to Congress, and anytime Congress feels
Speaker 2: like they're being subverted or ignored or like kept out
Speaker 2: of the loop, or like not able to offer their
Speaker 2: checks and balances on the executive branch. They really get mad,
Speaker 2: they do. And like we're seeing that today. This is
Speaker 2: like history just repeats itself over and over again.
Speaker 1: Exactly. Yeah. And in this particular case, the place where
Speaker 1: where the administration, the regular administration in Congress just started
Speaker 1: butting heads over niic Aragua, it was Duane Claridge. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, he just that's how poor a job he did.
Speaker 1: But in his defense, he was coming from a place
Speaker 1: where he was a CIA man through and through. And
Speaker 1: this is less than ten years after Congress had just
Speaker 1: basically rooted out the CIA, held public hearings. That's when
Speaker 1: like the MK ultra came out and the fact that
Speaker 1: they've been dosing unsuspecting Americans with LSD.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So in his defense, he was mad because they
Speaker 2: uncovered all the awful things that.
Speaker 1: He'd been doing, right right, right, true compassion, Chuck, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true, compassion. So Congress is starting to get a
Speaker 1: little unhappy with this. And there was one congressman in
Speaker 1: particular named Edward Edward Boland I believe, and he was
Speaker 1: from Massachusetts, and he said Hey, I just read about
Speaker 1: this cover story in Newsweek has a title America's Secret
Speaker 1: War colon Nicaragua. Seems like they should have flip flopped that,
Speaker 1: you know, Nicaragua colon America's Secret War.
Speaker 3: I think they both had the same end goal.
Speaker 1: It's fine, right, But he was like, wait.
Speaker 2: Why am I reading about this in a magazine? Yes,
Speaker 2: and I'm a member of Congress, right.
Speaker 1: Because at this time, like Congress was like, well, okay,
Speaker 1: we think we're just kind of funding things, we're maybe
Speaker 1: helping out a little bit. This Newsweek magazine was like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: it's way more than that. Yeah, like there is way
Speaker 1: more American involvement down in Nicaragua then you've been led
Speaker 1: to believe Congress.
Speaker 2: Like actual covert CIA ops like blowing up bridges and
Speaker 2: blowing up buildings and you know, direct saboteur type ops.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not just here's some arms. Yeah, and then you
Speaker 1: know you close this one eye, believe this eye open
Speaker 1: when you're shooting. There was way more involved than that.
Speaker 3: Or we could just do the shooting basically here, just
Speaker 3: let me do it.
Speaker 1: So Congress in the guys of Edward Bolan said Nope,
Speaker 1: we're not doing that, and they passed the bowl In Amendment,
Speaker 1: which basically said, if you cannot use CIA funds or
Speaker 1: Department Defense Department funds to aid the Contras in Nicaragua,
Speaker 1: it's done. Good night. Congress went to sleep.
Speaker 2: And so that should have been the that's the end
Speaker 2: of it, right, because Congress passed a well it was
Speaker 2: at a law, now passed.
Speaker 3: An amendment in act in act.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so everyone just stopped, right, that's how it works,
Speaker 2: all right, what's part two going to be about that?
Speaker 1: We're just going to see here quietly.
Speaker 2: So this did not stop anything. Here's what happened. In
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty three. The CIA had this one operation where
Speaker 2: they went into the commercial shipping harbors of Nicaragua.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, I know it's it's pageous.
Speaker 2: I said it right in my head all morning. Nicaragua.
Speaker 2: And they put mines there. You know, I was about
Speaker 2: to say land mines, but they were sea mines, yeah,
Speaker 2: floating mines, right. And the idea here was we're going
Speaker 2: to plant these mines that we're going to whip up
Speaker 2: our own press releases for the Contras where they take
Speaker 2: credit for it, like we don't even trust them to
Speaker 2: write a good press release.
Speaker 1: The CIA wrote the press release for.
Speaker 3: It, so where the Contras are saying that they.
Speaker 2: Did it, and the overall effect it's going to have
Speaker 2: is they're not gonna be able to ship arms via
Speaker 2: the seaport, at least into Nicaragua.
Speaker 1: Plus it also makes the Contras look way more together,
Speaker 1: sure and with it than they actually were.
Speaker 2: Right, like, all we need to do is give them
Speaker 2: some money, and they got it covered.
Speaker 1: Right. So the CIA does this and they're thinking, okay,
Speaker 1: so mine are shipping in the Nicaragua Harbor's is going
Speaker 1: to stop. It does not stop. No, as a matter
Speaker 1: of fact, there there was damage. So they used little
Speaker 1: firecracker mines which make a big blast in a lot
Speaker 1: of water everywhere. But if it's a big ship, it's
Speaker 1: not going to hurt the ship. Well, it's sunk a
Speaker 1: lot of small fishing vessels. But it also damaged ships
Speaker 1: from the Netherlands, Great Britain, Oops, Japan, and the USSR
Speaker 1: commercial ships. So the Wall Street Journal broke this story
Speaker 1: and said, hey, you guys, Congress, you remember how you
Speaker 1: pass this amendment saying there could be no CIA involvement
Speaker 1: in Nicaragua. Well, they mined the whole arbor of the
Speaker 1: sovereign nation, and it blew up a bunch of other
Speaker 1: other country ships.
Speaker 2: In Congress once again, it's like, man, you keep doing
Speaker 2: secret things behind our back. That really makes us mad.
Speaker 2: Should we take a break.
Speaker 1: All right, let's take a break.
Speaker 4: Stuff you should know, Josh and shuck. Stuff you should know.
Speaker 4: Stuff you should know.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's keep going. So what does Congress do? They're like,
Speaker 1: all right, they're mad. We passed one Bowlan amendment, which
Speaker 1: I don't think we said chuck. That first Bowlin Amendment
Speaker 1: was pasted four hundred and eleven to zero, unanimously saying
Speaker 1: do not mess around in Nicaragua anymore. That's when you
Speaker 1: know VERSU is mad, right, when they unanimously agree on something.
Speaker 1: And then then the Wall Street Journal breaks the story
Speaker 1: about the harbor mining long after the Bowling Amendment was passed.
Speaker 1: And now Congress is even madder.
Speaker 2: Right, So they passed two more amendments, Boland amendments, because
Speaker 2: there were loopholes basically that allowed you know, the US
Speaker 2: to sort of do these things semi legally. So it
Speaker 2: was like, well, here's a loophole, so it wasn't really
Speaker 2: fully illegal that we did this stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's like the Reagan administration's way.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 2: They closed these loopholes and now this was like it
Speaker 2: was pretty ironclad. I don't know about iron clad, but
Speaker 2: it was pretty tight amendment wise.
Speaker 1: At the very least. Congress walked away thinking it's done.
Speaker 1: So we made ourselves quite clear, right, Ronald Reagan signed
Speaker 1: these into law.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he didn't bete him.
Speaker 1: No, he accepted these things. I think he even said like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a good idea, great way to go Congress
Speaker 1: and signed it. I'm not going to do a Reagan impression.
Speaker 1: But so Congress thought that the matter was settled, but
Speaker 1: it wasn't settled. Like this is how laser focused Reagan
Speaker 1: was on overthrowing the Santainista government down in Nicaragua. He
Speaker 1: just took a CIA operation and took it even further
Speaker 1: underground than it had been before. Basically, he was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: if you guys are going to outlaw this stuff, we're
Speaker 1: just going to have to get even more illegal.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So there were a couple of factions here at work.
Speaker 2: One was this continued operation underground, deep deep underground now,
Speaker 2: and then there was Reagan's public like he still wanted
Speaker 2: to get real money from Congress, so he didn't have.
Speaker 3: To do this stuff.
Speaker 2: So he kept up this public PR campaign, beating this
Speaker 2: drum about communism at our doorstep. He said that the
Speaker 2: contrast were the moral equals of our founding fathers.
Speaker 1: That's a big one to pull out, Like that's.
Speaker 2: A direct quote, Yeah, of our found founding fathers. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and started in with the and again you see this
Speaker 2: stuff kind of repeating itself, the campaign of fear, where
Speaker 2: he basically said, unless we do something tough here, then
Speaker 2: there will be a tidal wave of feet people.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what that means, but that's that
Speaker 1: just seems super offensive.
Speaker 2: Swarming into our country. He meant, you know, refugees, feat
Speaker 2: people seeking a safe haven.
Speaker 1: It was one word, even I think one word.
Speaker 2: It's funny because I looked up feet People and that's
Speaker 2: a company that, like, I think, makes shoelaces.
Speaker 1: And they're like, yes, say it again, say dot com. Uh.
Speaker 2: So this is all going on and on the on
Speaker 2: the on the down low, all the operations are going
Speaker 2: on and on the public facing side, Reagan's just continuing
Speaker 2: this PR push.
Speaker 1: Right basically saying, like Congress, look at these heartless old
Speaker 1: you know, gas bags. Turning off the funding to these
Speaker 1: Founding father moral equivalent to our Founding fathers. Go vote
Speaker 1: these guys out of office and vote in some people
Speaker 1: who will turn the funding back on.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And while the Contras may have been fighting Communism,
Speaker 2: they were doing so through means that the Founding Fathers
Speaker 2: probably would not have approved of, like murder and torture
Speaker 2: and rape and mutilation, kidnapping and not. You know, I
Speaker 2: mean it wasn't so widespread that it was like that's
Speaker 2: all they were doing, but they would resort to those tactics, right,
Speaker 2: And that's not Founding father stuff.
Speaker 1: No, it's definitely not, not as far as I've ever learned.
Speaker 3: No, I don't think so.
Speaker 1: And I mean it's had a few hundred couple hundred
Speaker 1: years to come out, yeah, and it still hasn't. So Yeah.
Speaker 2: I read some of the stuff too, Like some of
Speaker 2: the affidavits were like just brutal.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, dude. The war down in Nicaragua, the civil war, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that the US basically fomented and supported. It went on
Speaker 1: for a decade, like it was, it went on into
Speaker 1: the nineties, and it was like not just like countrymen
Speaker 1: against countrymen, like civilians were getting murdered by the scores. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and just they would get kidnapp and tortured and killed,
Speaker 1: and like, it was a really brutal time in Nicaragua.
Speaker 1: And the Reggae administration is right in the middle of this,
Speaker 1: like providing as much I eat as they can to
Speaker 1: one side.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it was.
Speaker 2: One of the big problems was that the Contras back
Speaker 2: then were a bunch of different factions and they did
Speaker 2: an answer to a single leader. And the one thing
Speaker 2: I got out of the affidavits, one of which this
Speaker 2: woman described them taking her children and her finding their
Speaker 2: mutilated bodies the next day.
Speaker 3: It was brutal.
Speaker 2: One of the leaders said that there's no disciplinary system
Speaker 2: at all within the Contra groups, so oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: like there's no accountability, so you could do anything you
Speaker 2: wanted and there's no discipline set up. So it was
Speaker 2: just they were fractured and no one was talking to
Speaker 2: each other and it was just a big mess.
Speaker 1: Right. But Reagan was doing his best to paint everything
Speaker 1: in black and white. Right, Contra's good Santinista is bad.
Speaker 1: So anything that Contras did was good, and stuff that
Speaker 1: couldn't be painted as good would just be denied or
Speaker 1: glossed over, not reported on.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 1: So, while while Reagan's out running around trying to drum
Speaker 1: up public support for the Contras and thus congressional aid
Speaker 1: being turned back on.
Speaker 2: And also saying don't do drugs, he yeah, that was
Speaker 2: a big one, even though we're shipping a lot of
Speaker 2: drugs back and forth.
Speaker 1: It's awfully rich now that you know all that stuff.
Speaker 1: You know, he's also secretly supporting them, going in flagrant
Speaker 1: violation of what Congress has said that America can do.
Speaker 1: He tells his people he wants the Contras movement to
Speaker 1: be kept alive, body and soul is how we put it,
Speaker 1: which and he basically said do it. This is what
Speaker 1: history has told us, is that Reagan basically said keep
Speaker 1: the Contra movement alive, body and soul. I'm going to
Speaker 1: go work on Congress. I'm putting my hands over my
Speaker 1: ears from now on. Whether that's true or not, we
Speaker 1: will probably never know as far as the history books
Speaker 1: is concerned. That's what happened.
Speaker 3: Right, So here's what they did.
Speaker 2: They said the CIA has a bad rap for a
Speaker 2: lot of reasons, and Congress is not super friendly with them.
Speaker 1: Well, they expressly forbade the CIA from operating.
Speaker 3: There, right, So he said, here's what we're going to do.
Speaker 2: We're going to use the National Security Council and they're
Speaker 2: the CIA chief. William Casey he's around. He's going to
Speaker 2: just like advise here and there. And William Casey was like,
Speaker 2: oh no, I really got to be involved because this
Speaker 2: is really good stuff.
Speaker 1: They're like no, no, no, we're talking like officially, here's oh yeah,
Speaker 1: okay exactly.
Speaker 2: So at first National Security Advisors Robert McFarlane, and then
Speaker 2: he was succeeded by John Poindexter, very important, you remember
Speaker 2: that name. And then Casey's still there, like you said,
Speaker 2: doing his thing on the down load unofficially, right.
Speaker 1: I think even in some cases kind of stepping on
Speaker 1: toes or whatever. He was like an additional boss to
Speaker 1: the main guy, the guy everybody's heard of, the guy
Speaker 1: who's mine or whose name jumps to mine when you
Speaker 1: hear about this, Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North North. And in retrospect,
Speaker 1: especially if you went if you lived through the Iran
Speaker 1: Contra hearings and you were familiar with Olie North, like
Speaker 1: you would guess that when Allie North was tapped to
Speaker 1: head up this extraordinarily difficult secret operation to go against
Speaker 1: Congress and keep the Contra movement alive and kicking that.
Speaker 1: Alie North was a bad a covert operator to the
Speaker 1: ninth degree. Right, that is not at all correct.
Speaker 2: No career marine, very highly decorated marine, served in Vietnam one,
Speaker 2: silver stars and purple hearts, devout Catholic, and by all accounts,
Speaker 2: a stand up guy. And to many many Americans he
Speaker 2: is still like a top notch American hero.
Speaker 1: Sure well, he was like the president of NRA until
Speaker 1: I think recently, Yeah, I think there's some scandal that
Speaker 1: just happened where there. It came out that he like
Speaker 1: tried to depose Wayne Lapierre or something like that.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't either. But even beyond that, like, even beyond
Speaker 1: whether he's a stand up guy or not, as far
Speaker 1: as you know, patriotism is concerned, sure, just job experience
Speaker 1: he had, like none, Yeah, he had no experience whatsoever
Speaker 1: as far as I could ever tell in covert operations.
Speaker 2: He did a pretty good job for a while, it
Speaker 2: did an amazing job.
Speaker 1: He was basically the the White House's operations and intel
Speaker 1: arm of the shadiest stuff it was doing stuff that
Speaker 1: was so shady the CIA was even kept in the
Speaker 1: dark about it. That's how shady this stuff Allie North
Speaker 1: was doing. And he had no experience. He's learning as
Speaker 1: he went, Yeah, just making it up as he went along.
Speaker 1: And he really did do a pretty good job of
Speaker 1: it if you look at it from that angle, just.
Speaker 2: As far as like getting getting or done right. So
Speaker 2: what they basically decided was, all right, if we can't
Speaker 2: get the real taxpayer money and like official funds, we'll
Speaker 2: just go and raise fund on the side and secret
Speaker 2: through business people that you know, we can have these
Speaker 2: big parties and dinners and say, hey, listen, communism is
Speaker 2: knocking at a door. This wouldn't be good for America,
Speaker 2: wouldn't be good for your company, right, and why don't
Speaker 2: you give us some money?
Speaker 3: Open up the checkbook. Reagan's here, you want a photo.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Sometimes he would show up to these secret fundraisers.
Speaker 3: And it was it was it really worked.
Speaker 2: Like they raised a ton of money from the business
Speaker 2: elite of America to stop the sandin Eastans in Nicaragua.
Speaker 1: So they actually forget this. They founded they had two
Speaker 1: private citizens found in nonprofit the National Endowment for the
Speaker 1: preservation of liberty. Its sole purpose was to get these
Speaker 1: fund these illicit funds to send to the Contras, which
Speaker 1: means that the people who are donating to the president's illegal,
Speaker 1: secret proxy war could write their donations off on their taxes.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 1: It's just mind boggling hilarious in some senses.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but they were not the most stand up nonprofit because,
Speaker 2: as you point out, they raised six point three million
Speaker 2: dollars through that organization during eighty five eighty six, about
Speaker 2: three point three million made it to the Contras. And
Speaker 2: uh so that means a fifty two percent program expense rate.
Speaker 1: That's pretty bad. Yeah, that's not good at all.
Speaker 2: Now, three million dollars it took supposedly to run to
Speaker 2: run that nonprofit.
Speaker 1: Those fund raising breakfast for a year. Yeah, pretty bad.
Speaker 1: Good omelets though, so yeah, oh yeah, the best not Yeah.
Speaker 1: So from this this idea, like, okay, this is this
Speaker 1: is probably kind of legal. We're just fundraising, right, We're
Speaker 1: not giving any American taxpayer funds, We're just getting other
Speaker 1: people that donate. Private citizens. Saudi Arabia was a big
Speaker 1: one and it was all to stop communism.
Speaker 2: So, like, I think their intentions were that, oh, definitely,
Speaker 2: theirs were.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but there was this definite and justifies the means
Speaker 1: kind of thing, And really, isn't the president really the
Speaker 1: most powerful person in the world. Can Congress really tells
Speaker 1: the president what to do as far as foreign policy goes? Nah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was kind of the idea, I think. So Saudi
Speaker 1: Arabia donated a bunch of money. There's all these private
Speaker 1: citizens donating money. And here's the thing. The contrasts found
Speaker 1: themselves for lush with cash.
Speaker 3: Yeah, many millions of dollars.
Speaker 1: Over just two years. Saudi Arabia alone donated thirty two million.
Speaker 1: To the contrast, this is a couple of loosely affiliated
Speaker 1: factions fighting in two spots of Nicaragua that suddenly have
Speaker 1: thirty plus million dollars at their disposal. The problem is
Speaker 1: they don't have the contacts in the international arms trade
Speaker 1: to buy arms with this money. They've had a bunch
Speaker 1: of money, They're like, who wants this? And they were
Speaker 1: getting crickets out, got some bombs, right, you know, the
Speaker 1: cartoonish black kind, the round ones that are shiny. It
Speaker 1: take fifteen of those.
Speaker 2: This is before Craigslist two, right, So they're only their
Speaker 2: only avenue was to go back to the Americans and
Speaker 2: Oliver North and he began working with a guy named
Speaker 2: Richard Seacord. He was a retired forest retired we'll get
Speaker 2: into that in a minute, air Force major general, and
Speaker 2: he had a lot of experience. There was this group
Speaker 2: of dudes in the nineteen seventies and eighties that were
Speaker 2: former CIA or current CIA, former CIA, former and current
Speaker 2: American military who were all had their fingers in the
Speaker 2: illegal arms trade.
Speaker 1: Right, so exactly what you can imagine a Hollywood writer
Speaker 1: would come up with, Yeah, this is the real life
Speaker 1: version of yeah, for sure. So they would. They would.
Speaker 1: You could farm out assassinations to them. They could rustle
Speaker 1: up mercenaries, they could carry out sabotage operations. They could
Speaker 1: find whatever, gun, bomb, anything you need.
Speaker 3: On some money laundered gun, right, anything.
Speaker 1: That is extraordinarily illegal and deals in death. Like these
Speaker 1: guys could get their.
Speaker 3: Hands on here, he's a poison done, Sure.
Speaker 1: A bomb disguise as a briefcase. We got it, buddy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they would. Here's the other thing too. They were
Speaker 1: an illegal black market arms ring. But they were also
Speaker 1: even more illegal and that they would sell to whoever,
Speaker 1: whether you were an enemy or a friend of America,
Speaker 1: it didn't matter. These guys were operating well above any
Speaker 1: sort of national loyalty or anything like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this was about making money, sure, like many millions
Speaker 2: of dollars.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 2: So, especially a guy like Seacord, he wasn't He was
Speaker 2: in it to make dough, definitely, whereas an Ali North
Speaker 2: was seemingly in it to stop the you know, communism.
Speaker 1: Right, So that's an important point. But the fact that
Speaker 1: they that they contract with Seacord to kind of swoop
Speaker 1: in and help hook the contras up with arms means
Speaker 1: that the Reagan administration is contracting with this extraordinarily illegal
Speaker 1: black market arms ring.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which they took down some of these dudes over
Speaker 2: the years, but one of them, one of the founders
Speaker 2: of this group was a CIA op named Edwin Wilson.
Speaker 2: He was sentenced He served twenty two years, twelve of
Speaker 2: which were in solitary confinement, but was sentenced to fifty
Speaker 2: two years for illegally arming Libya with ten thousand machine
Speaker 2: guns and twenty tons of C four that he hid
Speaker 2: in barrels of mud and flew on a chartered jet
Speaker 2: to Libya.
Speaker 1: Right, the Hollywood stuff, I know, it really is, like
Speaker 1: this really happened.
Speaker 3: It's crazy.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't just Libya. This guy was funding or
Speaker 1: outfitting Momar Kadafi.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: Edie Amine was another customer, Like, whoever, if you need
Speaker 1: to keep a stranglehold on power in your country, were
Speaker 1: the people to help you do that?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: And when I teased earlier about Richard Seacord being forced
Speaker 2: into retirement, that was due to his connection with Edwin Wilson. Right,
Speaker 2: so he was forced to retire from the Air Force.
Speaker 2: They couldn't pin anything on him, but there was enough
Speaker 2: of a connection there where he had a step.
Speaker 1: Yeah. They're like, you can do this the hardware or
Speaker 1: the easy way. We're going to give you the option.
Speaker 1: And he took the easy way.
Speaker 3: And then he went on to make a lot of money. Right.
Speaker 1: He was like, okay, well, I'll just do the arm
Speaker 1: stealing thing full time now, right, And he did so.
Speaker 1: When they brought him in at first, Seacord was basically
Speaker 1: acting as like a very lase Fair intermediary. He was
Speaker 1: basically the guy who on behalf of Ali North was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I can introduce the contras to my friends in the
Speaker 1: arms ring.
Speaker 3: Yeah in Canada of all places.
Speaker 1: Yeah. He introduced the Contras to some Canadian arms dealers.
Speaker 1: So now the setup was this the friendliest arm steeler. Right,
Speaker 1: They're like, well, these bullets will really put a hole
Speaker 1: in somebody.
Speaker 2: Ah yeah, oh sorry, I meant to include rocket launchers
Speaker 2: on that order.
Speaker 3: Sorry.
Speaker 1: Sorry, that's pretty good. So Seacord was just there to
Speaker 1: make some introductions, make sure things went smoothly, and then
Speaker 1: it was up to the Contras to use these funds
Speaker 1: that were coming in from other people and to buy
Speaker 1: weapons from the Canadians. Easyps, right, you'd think, okay, that's fine,
Speaker 1: that's fine. It still has like a slight veneer of
Speaker 1: arms length legality as far as America is concerned.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we should mention too that he to do this,
Speaker 2: he set up a shell company, the Stanford Technology Trading Group,
Speaker 2: with an Iranian American businessman named Albert Hakim, who knew
Speaker 2: how to get around certain official procedures and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: He's another guy who could get things done.
Speaker 2: So he set up Swiss bank accounts, untraceable accounts, because
Speaker 2: that's what you do to run the funds through. And
Speaker 2: this became known as the Enterprise.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's Stanford Technology Trading Company or.
Speaker 3: Group Starting Group, aka the Enterprise.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was like everybody called it that because they're
Speaker 1: like this sounds way cooler, the enterprise, right.
Speaker 2: All right, But like you were alluding to, you'd think
Speaker 2: it would have been going great. But the contras in
Speaker 2: the North, who was the FDN, They were the.
Speaker 3: Largest, by far, the largest group.
Speaker 1: They were better organized from what I understanding.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were doing a pretty good job. But in
Speaker 2: the South they were not doing a very good job.
Speaker 1: No. Somehow they were like, we don't have the arms
Speaker 1: and equipment. They're like, what are you talking about. You
Speaker 1: have the same amount of money, you have the same contacts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just buy the weapons. They're like, oh no. So Allie
Speaker 1: North is like, okay, all right, here's what we're gonna do.
Speaker 1: He called the leaders of the FDN and the fsl
Speaker 1: N to Miami to meet with them, and he said,
Speaker 1: here's how it's going to be from now on. Any
Speaker 1: veneer of legality is going out the window. From now on,
Speaker 1: I'd like you to meet your new boss, Richard Secourt.
Speaker 1: Not only is he going to make sure you have arms,
Speaker 1: he's going to take the funnel money himself by the
Speaker 1: arms himself, and then he's going to have it kicked
Speaker 1: out of a plane over your camps. So now America
Speaker 1: is directly involved in supporting and arming and training the
Speaker 1: Contra rebels in the north and the south of Nicaragua.
Speaker 1: And if there was any again, if there's any kind
Speaker 1: of legality, it's totally gone at this point.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And in the meantime, Seacord and Achem were marking
Speaker 2: up their stuff as much as like three hundred percent.
Speaker 1: Dude, they ate a lot of money off of this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they made a ton.
Speaker 1: But they put it. They put a lot back into
Speaker 1: the enterprise. I mean, they took this job very seriously.
Speaker 3: That was a company.
Speaker 1: If you are, if you were Allie North, you were
Speaker 1: quite happy with the work you were getting from Richard
Speaker 1: Seacord and Albert Hakim. Because the shipments went out on time,
Speaker 1: they got everything they needed. They had so much money
Speaker 1: they had it left over, but they were also investing
Speaker 1: it into the enterprise. They bought planes, they rented air strips,
Speaker 1: they hired employees, They contracted with other airlines like a
Speaker 1: CIA Front I can't remember the name of it right now,
Speaker 1: but they were doing the work for sure, great healthcare, yeah,
Speaker 1: the best benefits. All of the contrace had really nice
Speaker 1: teeth after Richard Seacord took over.
Speaker 3: Work from home.
Speaker 2: All right, so let's take another break here, then we'll
Speaker 2: come back and bring it home for part one with
Speaker 2: a little bit about the propaganda machine that was set up.
Speaker 4: Stuff you should know, Josh, and shock. Stuff you should know,
Speaker 4: stuff you should know.
Speaker 1: All right, Chuck. So things are in full swing. America
Speaker 1: is unknowingly totally hooking up the countries. I'm basically running
Speaker 1: this proxy war that the contracts are fighting against the
Speaker 1: Santa Nista government. The enterprise is working full bore. And
Speaker 1: if it couldn't get any more illegal, if you thought
Speaker 1: it couldn't get any more illegal, prepared to just be
Speaker 1: knocked right over.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So here the home front, it was decided that there
Speaker 2: needed to be a pretty massive, in dense propaganda campaign.
Speaker 2: And it's we're not talking about Reagan just going on
Speaker 2: the news talking about communism being at our doorstep. We're
Speaker 2: talking about a real deal propaganda campaign. And they even
Speaker 2: set up an office, the Office of Public Diplomacy for
Speaker 2: Latin America and the Caribbean, that was founded and managed
Speaker 2: by a Cuban American named Otto Reich, and this was
Speaker 2: all exposed later on by the Miami Herald by the
Speaker 2: reporting of a guy named Alfonso Chardie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just want to interject you real quick. So
Speaker 1: do you remember when we've done, you know, historic stuff
Speaker 1: in the past, and I'm like, go read the contemporary articles.
Speaker 1: Was really good reporting going on because the story was
Speaker 1: so huge and multifaceted.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean Newsweek broke it before Congress knew,
Speaker 2: the Washington Post broke it, and the Wall Street Journal, yeah,
Speaker 2: Wall Street Journal, and then the Miami Herald at really
Speaker 2: one fun like in Miami's backyard.
Speaker 1: But it was back when it wasn't like, oh, think peace,
Speaker 1: think peace, think piece, actual article, I think peace, think piece.
Speaker 1: You know, it was like real recording. And even then
Speaker 1: it's still it wasn't up to snuff in the end,
Speaker 1: but there were actual journalists like actually paying attention and
Speaker 1: writing about this stuff and informed the public about it.
Speaker 2: And this is when you and I were kids, and
Speaker 2: I think like maybe even the seeds of us because
Speaker 2: we both kind of had desires to be real deal
Speaker 2: journalists sure in our lives at one point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what got us now?
Speaker 1: Speaking of what a joke rip Mad magazine.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, what a shame. Yeah, they tried that reboot
Speaker 3: didn't work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's tough.
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 1: It's it's tough busy these days.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I got friends that worked for him too,
Speaker 2: like in this recent reiteration Oh really yeah, or iteration
Speaker 2: I guess I know.
Speaker 1: One of their illustrators is the stuff you should know
Speaker 1: fan from yours back.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, it's very sad to see it go.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, uh, it was very eighties reference though it was.
Speaker 3: It really wasn't up track. So all right, this is
Speaker 3: going on.
Speaker 2: They set up this office run by Otto Reich, and
Speaker 2: this whole thing was designed and orchestrated by the CIA.
Speaker 2: But here's the deal. The CIA wasn't supposed to be
Speaker 2: doing this. They were barred from doing this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was a long standing like prohibition on the
Speaker 1: CIA from operating in the US. Basically, like we know
Speaker 1: who you are and we know you're so good. You
Speaker 1: can't use that stuff on us. You can only use
Speaker 1: it overseas. It's fine if you go overthrow other countries.
Speaker 3: On your mind tricks, Yeah, use those.
Speaker 1: On other groups, but you can't use them here in
Speaker 1: the States. And actually Reagan himself also had his own
Speaker 1: executive order explicitly banning the CIA from, let's see, doing
Speaker 1: any activity that was intended to influence United States political processes,
Speaker 1: public opinion, or media. This is Reagan's executive Order twelve
Speaker 1: three point thirty three. And he, at least his administration
Speaker 1: was like, forget about that. We'll just get around that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And who was this?
Speaker 2: It says here that they the CIA's biggest, foremost psychological
Speaker 2: warfare expert retired from the agency officially and then was
Speaker 2: hired as a consultant. I guess to this Office of
Speaker 2: Public Diplomacy, was that Auto Reich?
Speaker 3: Was that someone else?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't well that's the whole point, right, yeah.
Speaker 1: But that was how That's why I was saying earlier,
Speaker 1: like Reagan, that's the Reagan administration way, just like here's
Speaker 1: the letter of the law. Well let's change this letter
Speaker 1: in our sentence, and now we're following the letter of
Speaker 1: the law, right, you know. And that's what they did.
Speaker 1: So the CIA's psychological warfare guy retired, came on as
Speaker 1: a consultant. He said, oh, here's what you do. You
Speaker 1: need to basically start setting up some sting operations, because
Speaker 1: the point of this is to I can't remember who
Speaker 1: said this, but to paint or to glue black hats
Speaker 1: on the Santainistas and white hats on the Contras in
Speaker 1: the public mine.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: So when you say, uh, sting operations, we mean literally
Speaker 2: the United States and Oliver North smuggling cocaine into Nicaragua,
Speaker 2: photographing Sandinistan officials with this shipment, and then smuggling the
Speaker 2: cocaine back to the United States, back to Florida.
Speaker 1: Back to Florida, They're like, we told you, we bring
Speaker 1: it back. Chill man, unbelievable, give us their driver's licenses. Bank.
Speaker 3: So this photo is published.
Speaker 2: This is during the middle of the Just Say No movement,
Speaker 2: champion by Nancy Reagan. So it all, it all fit
Speaker 2: on the surface, but what was going on behind the
Speaker 2: scenes is just unconscionable.
Speaker 1: It is unconscionable. Unconscionable both but so the but this
Speaker 1: gave Reagan this photograph that got published all over the place.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and he's like, look what's going on. Look
Speaker 2: what these guys are doing. These are they're bringing this
Speaker 2: stuff into America. They're killing our kids.
Speaker 1: Exactly right, So these are the people that were fighting,
Speaker 1: or the contras are fighting. How can you keep the
Speaker 1: funding turned off for the contras? Congress jerks?
Speaker 3: And that was the only evidence too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the case somehow came out and said, by the way,
Speaker 1: I don't know if anybody cares or not, but we
Speaker 1: have no evidence whatsoever that this Santinistan official has ever
Speaker 1: engaged in drug trafficking aside from this photograph. But this
Speaker 1: was a follow up, probably weeks after the big splash
Speaker 1: of the original photograph came out. So that was one
Speaker 1: sting operation. Yeah, there's another one that involved Manuel Noriega,
Speaker 1: the dictator of Panama, who actually was selling drugs to
Speaker 1: America's youth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but he was also a friend of the CIA.
Speaker 1: Exactly, so much so that he was a CIA operator
Speaker 1: for a very long time.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I don't know about a friend, but he was
Speaker 3: at least an asset, right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So this sting operation was they were going to through Panama,
Speaker 1: have Panama arranged for a shipment of arms to be
Speaker 1: seized in Honduras, El Salvador, El Salvador, Yeah, on its
Speaker 1: way to Honduras or maybe just in El Salvador. Ostensibly
Speaker 1: arms from Nicaragua.
Speaker 2: Yeah, basically saying you're arming Salvadorians, you're arming Hondurans.
Speaker 1: You're exporting your revolution. This is exactly the kind of
Speaker 1: thing that Ronald Reagan has been saying, we need to contain,
Speaker 1: we need to pluck this sprout of communism out from Nicaragua. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because they're trying to spread out of the region. Totally
Speaker 1: made up, complete sting operation and it didn't even work
Speaker 1: because Manuel Noriega was like, I didn't like that New
Speaker 1: York Times piece you guys just published about me. I'm
Speaker 1: going to keep this shipment of arms for myself.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I love it. First he was like I
Speaker 3: can do that. Oh yeah, sure, send me the arms. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and then we were like, okay.
Speaker 1: There would be I think it's from the Iran Contra investigation.
Speaker 1: The description of Manuel Noriega was that he ran a
Speaker 1: narco kleptocracy. That was the government that he ran.
Speaker 3: He was about break down that word.
Speaker 1: He was as shady as they come.
Speaker 3: That just means drugs favory.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So this is what's going on in the United States
Speaker 1: in the in the mid eighties. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And here's the deal.
Speaker 2: If you were a reporter at the time, right, and
Speaker 2: you were reporting on this stuff. The NSC didn't like
Speaker 2: that very much. So they would meet with editors and
Speaker 2: reporters themselves, right and be like, hey, can you, like,
Speaker 2: can you report on the Sandonisians that they're really not
Speaker 2: good people? Like, can you help us out a little bit? Well,
Speaker 2: but here's the thing. If you didn't play ball, then
Speaker 2: didn't they cook up some story that they would that
Speaker 2: they would send like Sandinistan sex workers there to the
Speaker 2: like pleasure of the reporters.
Speaker 1: That was the rumor was that if if you were
Speaker 1: a journalist who reported favorably on the Sandinista government, the
Speaker 1: reason you reported favorably on him was because the Santainista
Speaker 1: government was furnishing you with sex workers.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: That was that was directly from the Office of Public Diplomacy.
Speaker 2: And I read the thing about it and they said
Speaker 2: the guy was like, and we're not just talking women either.
Speaker 2: If they were gay men, then they would we would
Speaker 2: send gay sex workers.
Speaker 1: So totally discredit them. It's like a complete page right
Speaker 1: out of the Edward Burnet's playbook. It's orchestrated by the
Speaker 1: CIA's foremost expert on psychological warfare and this was the
Speaker 1: state of America in the mid eighties. But that was
Speaker 1: just one dimension of this whole thing. And I say,
Speaker 1: this is the end of part one. What do you think.
Speaker 1: I think that's great, And we're going to make this
Speaker 1: a cliff thing.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 2: And as per tradition, we are not going to do
Speaker 2: a listener mail, but instead we'll do a call, which
Speaker 2: we rarely do. A little just a little marketing call everyone.
Speaker 2: If you like stuff, you should know. We've been doing
Speaker 2: this so long. We're so bad at this, yet we've
Speaker 2: managed to grow.
Speaker 3: Anyway, it's crazy.
Speaker 2: Tell a friend, share an episode with a friend right
Speaker 2: now that they don't have to. You don't have to
Speaker 2: explain what a podcast is, right, It's a lot cleaner now.
Speaker 1: Maybe start with a good one like Ballpoint Pens or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, tell a friend about the show, leave a night
Speaker 2: review or just any kind of review at all on
Speaker 2: iTunes that would help us out.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, that's how classy Chuck and I are. He
Speaker 1: even corrected himself from good review to just any review.
Speaker 1: Whatever you want to leave. We're not going to try
Speaker 1: to influence you. No, like the Reagan White House.
Speaker 3: That's all right, so yeah, we'd really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Spread a little love, try and turn one person onto
Speaker 2: our podcast this week, and that really helps us out.
Speaker 1: Nice Chuck, how about that? That sounds like a good pyramid.
Speaker 3: We like to do this once every five or six years.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you for joining us this week. If you
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