1 00:00:00,640 --> 00:00:02,520 Speaker 1: The best kind of useful idiot. The best kind of 2 00:00:02,680 --> 00:00:06,520 Speaker 1: person who can be manipulated and used is somebody who 3 00:00:06,720 --> 00:00:10,680 Speaker 1: feels himself to be deeply aggrieved and underappreciated or completely 4 00:00:10,760 --> 00:00:14,440 Speaker 1: unappreciated in his own society. They detest the establishment, They 5 00:00:14,480 --> 00:00:17,840 Speaker 1: detest a society to which they want badly to belong 6 00:00:17,960 --> 00:00:20,639 Speaker 1: and to be celebrated by, but feel that they have 7 00:00:20,720 --> 00:00:23,960 Speaker 1: been jilted. He's a loser, right. What I'm describing here 8 00:00:23,960 --> 00:00:25,360 Speaker 1: clearly is Tucker Carlson. 9 00:00:27,240 --> 00:00:30,280 Speaker 2: I'm John Cipher and I'm Jerry o'she. I served in 10 00:00:30,320 --> 00:00:33,880 Speaker 2: the CIA's Clandestine Service for twenty eight years, living undercover 11 00:00:34,120 --> 00:00:35,360 Speaker 2: all around the world. 12 00:00:35,159 --> 00:00:37,519 Speaker 3: And in my thirty three years with the CIA, I 13 00:00:37,600 --> 00:00:40,440 Speaker 3: served in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. 14 00:00:40,600 --> 00:00:42,839 Speaker 2: Although we don't usually look at it this way, we 15 00:00:42,960 --> 00:00:45,040 Speaker 2: created conspiracies. 16 00:00:44,479 --> 00:00:47,479 Speaker 3: In our operations. We got people to believe things that 17 00:00:47,560 --> 00:00:48,240 Speaker 3: weren't true. 18 00:00:48,360 --> 00:00:51,280 Speaker 2: Now we're investigating the conspiracy theories we see in the 19 00:00:51,320 --> 00:00:52,520 Speaker 2: news almost every day. 20 00:00:52,760 --> 00:00:54,960 Speaker 3: Will break them down for you to determine whether they 21 00:00:55,040 --> 00:00:57,400 Speaker 3: could be real or whether we're being manipulated. 22 00:00:57,680 --> 00:01:04,360 Speaker 2: Welcome to Mission Implausible. So, guys, we spent a lot 23 00:01:04,400 --> 00:01:06,679 Speaker 2: of time talking about conspiracy theories, because that's what our 24 00:01:06,680 --> 00:01:09,160 Speaker 2: podcasts about. But today I think we're going to talk 25 00:01:09,160 --> 00:01:12,720 Speaker 2: about some real conspiracies because there are groups that conspire, 26 00:01:12,959 --> 00:01:15,400 Speaker 2: and one of the most well known are the Russian 27 00:01:15,440 --> 00:01:18,839 Speaker 2: intelligence services. So they conspire to do all sorts of things, 28 00:01:18,959 --> 00:01:22,920 Speaker 2: but they also conspire to spread conspiracy theories inside our 29 00:01:22,920 --> 00:01:25,720 Speaker 2: own countries. And so we're meeting today with Michael Weiss, 30 00:01:25,720 --> 00:01:27,800 Speaker 2: who was an expert on Russian intelligence issues. 31 00:01:28,040 --> 00:01:30,679 Speaker 4: I always find that fascinating that one of the most 32 00:01:30,720 --> 00:01:36,600 Speaker 4: common actual conspiracies is a conspiracy to spread conspiracy theories. Yeah, 33 00:01:36,760 --> 00:01:40,200 Speaker 4: oh yeah, So can we talk about the various conspiracies 34 00:01:40,200 --> 00:01:43,160 Speaker 4: to create conspiracy theories. So one is you have an 35 00:01:43,280 --> 00:01:46,760 Speaker 4: enemy and you want to undermine that enemy. My family 36 00:01:46,800 --> 00:01:50,760 Speaker 4: were Russian Jews. Russian Jews were not a particular threat 37 00:01:50,840 --> 00:01:53,880 Speaker 4: to the Czar of Russia in the eighteen nineties. Quite 38 00:01:53,880 --> 00:01:57,120 Speaker 4: the contrary. They were a very weak, beliegued, incredibly poor, 39 00:01:57,440 --> 00:01:57,920 Speaker 4: but there were. 40 00:01:57,840 --> 00:01:58,520 Speaker 3: Someone to blame. 41 00:01:58,760 --> 00:02:01,400 Speaker 4: Right, It's like a drive by conspiracy theory. You don't 42 00:02:01,440 --> 00:02:04,480 Speaker 4: actually care about the people you're conspiring against. It's just 43 00:02:04,560 --> 00:02:08,320 Speaker 4: helpful to have an enemy, right, So there's a we're 44 00:02:08,320 --> 00:02:10,360 Speaker 4: going after our enemy we want to undermine our enemy. 45 00:02:10,440 --> 00:02:13,560 Speaker 4: You can think of the US against Japan and World 46 00:02:13,560 --> 00:02:16,839 Speaker 4: War Two. Then b there's the kind of drive by 47 00:02:17,040 --> 00:02:19,640 Speaker 4: like we want all these people to think we're good, 48 00:02:19,720 --> 00:02:22,400 Speaker 4: so we're going to create a fake shared enemy. But 49 00:02:22,440 --> 00:02:24,880 Speaker 4: then there's this stuff of just we just want to 50 00:02:24,919 --> 00:02:27,720 Speaker 4: create chaos, which is what I think of as Russia today. 51 00:02:27,840 --> 00:02:30,160 Speaker 4: They'll be on all sides of an issue because they 52 00:02:30,200 --> 00:02:32,320 Speaker 4: just want fighting and distrust. 53 00:02:32,639 --> 00:02:35,120 Speaker 2: That's what they want when they put it against enemies abroad, 54 00:02:35,120 --> 00:02:37,720 Speaker 2: but they also want it domestically. They don't want their 55 00:02:37,720 --> 00:02:40,320 Speaker 2: citizens engaged in politics, and so what they do is 56 00:02:40,360 --> 00:02:43,000 Speaker 2: they just put out so many false and crazy stories 57 00:02:43,080 --> 00:02:46,400 Speaker 2: that people just eventually give up, and eventually you just 58 00:02:46,600 --> 00:02:49,000 Speaker 2: back out of this thing. It's impossible to know what's true. 59 00:02:49,040 --> 00:02:51,079 Speaker 2: Is therefore I give up? And they want their sentence 60 00:02:51,160 --> 00:02:51,840 Speaker 2: ready to give up. 61 00:02:52,120 --> 00:02:55,320 Speaker 3: This is the genius of nineteen eighty four Cast Your 62 00:02:55,360 --> 00:02:57,480 Speaker 3: My Bag. You probably had to read it in high school, 63 00:02:58,000 --> 00:03:01,639 Speaker 3: and the whole point is there is no objective truth. 64 00:03:01,720 --> 00:03:04,760 Speaker 3: Oceana's our enemy. No, No, they're not. They were like 65 00:03:04,919 --> 00:03:10,320 Speaker 3: last week, and the dish scale of conspiracy theories right 66 00:03:10,360 --> 00:03:13,160 Speaker 3: now on the right, somewhat on the left, but mostly 67 00:03:13,480 --> 00:03:17,720 Speaker 3: overwhelming on the right. Is just this cascade of conspiracy theories, 68 00:03:18,000 --> 00:03:20,720 Speaker 3: and you can't keep up with it, and eventually you 69 00:03:20,800 --> 00:03:25,560 Speaker 3: get tired and you just simply accept whatever your team says. 70 00:03:25,960 --> 00:03:28,280 Speaker 4: Here's an interesting fact. I was in high school. I 71 00:03:28,360 --> 00:03:31,280 Speaker 4: read it in nineteen eighty four, and you, Jerry, were 72 00:03:31,320 --> 00:03:34,760 Speaker 4: in high school when it was published in nineteen forty nine. Right, 73 00:03:34,760 --> 00:03:39,760 Speaker 4: you were in high school. So if all they want 74 00:03:39,880 --> 00:03:42,840 Speaker 4: is to spread despair, the last thing in the world 75 00:03:42,880 --> 00:03:45,680 Speaker 4: you'd want to do is create a podcast about conspiracy theories, 76 00:03:45,720 --> 00:03:50,080 Speaker 4: that's just playing into their hands. Ah, what do you do? 77 00:03:50,480 --> 00:03:52,760 Speaker 4: How do you fight that? Like, I never share my 78 00:03:52,840 --> 00:03:55,160 Speaker 4: political preferences, so everyone will have to guess what the 79 00:03:55,160 --> 00:03:57,480 Speaker 4: guy who worked at NPR and the New York Times 80 00:03:57,520 --> 00:04:01,160 Speaker 4: and this podcast and the New Yorker thinks. But you know, 81 00:04:01,200 --> 00:04:04,080 Speaker 4: people have often said it's easier to be a small 82 00:04:04,320 --> 00:04:06,840 Speaker 4: government republican or a libertarian because all you have to 83 00:04:06,840 --> 00:04:09,080 Speaker 4: do is make government look bad. It's much harder to 84 00:04:09,160 --> 00:04:12,240 Speaker 4: build up to say no, no, it's got problems, it's 85 00:04:12,240 --> 00:04:15,040 Speaker 4: got issues, but on balance, we think it's pretty good. 86 00:04:15,440 --> 00:04:16,960 Speaker 4: So what do you do. It's like if you were 87 00:04:16,960 --> 00:04:19,159 Speaker 4: a citizen of Russia. What would you do? 88 00:04:19,480 --> 00:04:20,960 Speaker 2: That's the things I don't think you can do. They 89 00:04:21,040 --> 00:04:24,919 Speaker 2: created a massive security service whose job right from the 90 00:04:24,920 --> 00:04:26,880 Speaker 2: beginning was to keep your leadership in power at all cause, 91 00:04:26,920 --> 00:04:28,880 Speaker 2: which means they had to control the population and make 92 00:04:28,880 --> 00:04:30,280 Speaker 2: sure there's no opposition. 93 00:04:30,360 --> 00:04:34,840 Speaker 3: So Adam I was in Germany and in Berlin actually 94 00:04:35,200 --> 00:04:38,920 Speaker 3: in nineteen seventy nine, and we all thought, oh, the 95 00:04:38,960 --> 00:04:42,560 Speaker 3: East Germans and the Romanians, and the Bulgarians and the Poles, 96 00:04:42,760 --> 00:04:46,400 Speaker 3: the Czechs, they all bought into this. They actually believe 97 00:04:46,440 --> 00:04:49,800 Speaker 3: their propaganda, or were neolistic, they didn't want and yet 98 00:04:50,440 --> 00:04:55,839 Speaker 3: given the chance, and within weeks or months, the entire 99 00:04:55,960 --> 00:05:00,520 Speaker 3: population turned on their political masters and they basically said, 100 00:05:00,800 --> 00:05:02,640 Speaker 3: we know you've been fucking lying to us for the 101 00:05:02,760 --> 00:05:05,560 Speaker 3: last forty years. Every East German who came through that 102 00:05:05,720 --> 00:05:09,160 Speaker 3: wall knew that they'd been lied to and understood that. 103 00:05:09,680 --> 00:05:12,719 Speaker 3: And I think we were in shock at how poor 104 00:05:13,600 --> 00:05:17,839 Speaker 3: Russian and East German authoritarian propaganda was. I think what 105 00:05:17,880 --> 00:05:20,039 Speaker 3: the Russians have going for them now, at least in 106 00:05:20,080 --> 00:05:24,200 Speaker 3: their own territories, is people are afraid to tell the truth. 107 00:05:24,320 --> 00:05:25,800 Speaker 3: Yet no, they know the truth, but they don't want 108 00:05:25,839 --> 00:05:28,760 Speaker 3: to say it. And I think even in deepest, darkest 109 00:05:28,760 --> 00:05:32,200 Speaker 3: Trump Land, except for a few people who are truly ignorant, 110 00:05:32,400 --> 00:05:34,760 Speaker 3: they know the election wasn't stolen, right, But they're fucking 111 00:05:34,839 --> 00:05:37,680 Speaker 3: with you. They know people aren't stealing cats, right. They 112 00:05:37,800 --> 00:05:40,159 Speaker 3: know that the Mexicans who come in who are cutting 113 00:05:40,200 --> 00:05:42,000 Speaker 3: their lawn and serving their food, they know they're not 114 00:05:42,120 --> 00:05:45,839 Speaker 3: rapists and murders. So there's this cognitive dissonance going on 115 00:05:45,920 --> 00:05:48,320 Speaker 3: about what you want to say and what you want 116 00:05:48,400 --> 00:05:50,240 Speaker 3: to believe, but what you really know. 117 00:05:50,760 --> 00:05:53,680 Speaker 2: So to talk about these actual conspiracies that the Russians 118 00:05:53,680 --> 00:05:55,400 Speaker 2: and others have been involved, we're going to speak with 119 00:05:55,720 --> 00:06:01,320 Speaker 2: Michael Weiss. Michael Weiss as an investigative journalist author. He's 120 00:06:01,440 --> 00:06:05,320 Speaker 2: reported on Ukraine, Syria, and Russian intelligence. He's the author 121 00:06:05,360 --> 00:06:07,960 Speaker 2: of isis Inside the Army of Terror and is presently 122 00:06:07,960 --> 00:06:10,280 Speaker 2: writing a book on the history of Soviet and Russian 123 00:06:10,320 --> 00:06:13,040 Speaker 2: military intelligence. And he's one of the best connected journalists 124 00:06:13,080 --> 00:06:15,360 Speaker 2: today writing on the Ukraine War and an expert on 125 00:06:15,440 --> 00:06:18,279 Speaker 2: Russian intelligence. In fact, several of his recent articles have 126 00:06:18,400 --> 00:06:22,080 Speaker 2: uncovered Western spies and secret Russian units. And so we're 127 00:06:22,120 --> 00:06:23,679 Speaker 2: really happy to have you here today, Michael. 128 00:06:23,760 --> 00:06:25,440 Speaker 1: That's good to be here, John, Thanks for having me on. 129 00:06:25,760 --> 00:06:28,280 Speaker 2: So on the podcast, we've spoken a lot about how 130 00:06:28,320 --> 00:06:32,280 Speaker 2: people can come to believe various conspiracies. Many even seem silly, 131 00:06:32,320 --> 00:06:35,520 Speaker 2: but there is a darker side. We've seen that conspiracies 132 00:06:35,520 --> 00:06:38,680 Speaker 2: can be packaged and weaponized by malign actors. Can you 133 00:06:38,720 --> 00:06:41,400 Speaker 2: speak to us a little bit about how intelligence services 134 00:06:41,480 --> 00:06:44,200 Speaker 2: might use conspiracies as part of a strategy of political 135 00:06:44,200 --> 00:06:45,400 Speaker 2: warfare or disinformation. 136 00:06:45,720 --> 00:06:49,320 Speaker 1: I think the most famous case is the conspiracies surrounding 137 00:06:49,360 --> 00:06:52,680 Speaker 1: the assassination of JFK. A lot of people don't realize this, 138 00:06:53,279 --> 00:06:55,679 Speaker 1: and in fact, I didn't realize this until I started 139 00:06:55,760 --> 00:06:59,760 Speaker 1: digging into the history of active measures, the KGB term 140 00:06:59,760 --> 00:07:04,080 Speaker 1: of art to describe political warfare and disinformation and propaganda campaigns. 141 00:07:04,080 --> 00:07:08,320 Speaker 1: And the film JFK by Oliver Stone, who not really 142 00:07:09,040 --> 00:07:13,720 Speaker 1: very creative in hiding his pro Butin and pro Russian sensibilities. 143 00:07:13,720 --> 00:07:15,560 Speaker 1: And I can talk to you about how he developed 144 00:07:15,600 --> 00:07:18,040 Speaker 1: those sensibilities at length because I lived in Hollywood for 145 00:07:18,040 --> 00:07:21,600 Speaker 1: a spell. He made this blockbuster movie starring Kevin Costner 146 00:07:22,000 --> 00:07:24,600 Speaker 1: and Oliver Stone. Was seen as a self parodying figure 147 00:07:24,680 --> 00:07:29,520 Speaker 1: of paranoia, your classic kind of countercultural sixties type who 148 00:07:29,560 --> 00:07:32,560 Speaker 1: graduates to the nineteen seventies, eighties, and nineties believing that 149 00:07:32,600 --> 00:07:37,320 Speaker 1: the government is capable of these far reaching, nefarious conspiracies 150 00:07:37,360 --> 00:07:41,200 Speaker 1: to suppress dissidents at home and even take out the 151 00:07:41,280 --> 00:07:43,640 Speaker 1: leader of the free world. And so this film Traffic 152 00:07:43,640 --> 00:07:46,440 Speaker 1: and all kinds of paranoid nonsense, the CIA and league 153 00:07:46,480 --> 00:07:48,920 Speaker 1: with the Johnson administration murder the President of the United 154 00:07:48,920 --> 00:07:51,480 Speaker 1: States and all that. What people didn't realize was that 155 00:07:51,520 --> 00:07:55,760 Speaker 1: the specifics of this conspiracy theory were cooked up by 156 00:07:55,840 --> 00:08:00,320 Speaker 1: the KGB, and they were floated to an Italian newspaper, 157 00:08:00,360 --> 00:08:03,200 Speaker 1: So they found this Italian journalist who was clearly either 158 00:08:03,240 --> 00:08:06,880 Speaker 1: on the payroll or The KGB have a wide spectrum 159 00:08:06,920 --> 00:08:10,239 Speaker 1: of definitions for people that they're working within the West, 160 00:08:10,280 --> 00:08:12,960 Speaker 1: because a journalist is not all that dissimilar to an 161 00:08:12,960 --> 00:08:15,520 Speaker 1: intelligence officer in the sense that they're training in secrets, 162 00:08:15,680 --> 00:08:18,400 Speaker 1: and they have a whole rolodex of sources, many of 163 00:08:18,400 --> 00:08:20,960 Speaker 1: whom are anonymous. So this is somebody who could be 164 00:08:21,520 --> 00:08:23,960 Speaker 1: chatted up at a bar or taken out to dinner 165 00:08:24,440 --> 00:08:28,920 Speaker 1: by a task reporter quote unquote, or a Russian diplomat 166 00:08:29,000 --> 00:08:31,640 Speaker 1: quote unquote, who is actually in reality an SVR A 167 00:08:31,720 --> 00:08:34,920 Speaker 1: g are you intelligence officer? So we don't know. I mean, 168 00:08:34,920 --> 00:08:37,360 Speaker 1: this Italian journalist could have been thinking he's on the 169 00:08:37,400 --> 00:08:41,640 Speaker 1: receiving end of some really juicy gossip kicking around in Moscow, 170 00:08:41,679 --> 00:08:45,199 Speaker 1: if not on the receiving end of Russian or Soviet intelligence. 171 00:08:45,200 --> 00:08:47,480 Speaker 1: But the point is he wrote this story in this 172 00:08:47,559 --> 00:08:51,640 Speaker 1: little known newspaper. And keep in mind, this is the sixties, 173 00:08:51,640 --> 00:08:54,959 Speaker 1: before the era in which disinformation travels at the speed 174 00:08:54,960 --> 00:08:57,000 Speaker 1: of light. And this story works its way all the 175 00:08:57,000 --> 00:09:00,120 Speaker 1: way into the New Orleans Prosecutor's office, where it is 176 00:09:00,200 --> 00:09:03,640 Speaker 1: lapped up by people who are tasked with investigating the 177 00:09:03,720 --> 00:09:06,560 Speaker 1: murder of the President of United States, and lo and behold, 178 00:09:06,679 --> 00:09:09,679 Speaker 1: a KGB active measure takes the form of a blockbuster 179 00:09:09,920 --> 00:09:13,440 Speaker 1: movie that is produced thirty years after the fact, which 180 00:09:13,480 --> 00:09:15,520 Speaker 1: to this day people will say, oh, that's a great film, 181 00:09:15,559 --> 00:09:18,680 Speaker 1: and everyone wants to know who really killed JFK. And 182 00:09:18,679 --> 00:09:22,400 Speaker 1: they will invariably come back to Oliver Stone without any 183 00:09:22,679 --> 00:09:25,800 Speaker 1: awareness of the fact that again, this was a wholly 184 00:09:25,880 --> 00:09:30,560 Speaker 1: produced piece of fiction by the Soviet security services. And 185 00:09:30,600 --> 00:09:32,600 Speaker 1: you know, I think one of the problems we've had 186 00:09:32,640 --> 00:09:36,040 Speaker 1: in the last almost ten years now, particularly looking at 187 00:09:36,120 --> 00:09:39,560 Speaker 1: the Trump Russian investigation, the extent to which MAGA types 188 00:09:40,200 --> 00:09:45,720 Speaker 1: either knowingly or unwittingly or accidentally parrot Kremlin talking points 189 00:09:45,720 --> 00:09:50,440 Speaker 1: at a host of issues Ukraine, NATO, European security, etc. Etc. 190 00:09:51,280 --> 00:09:53,280 Speaker 1: We tend to be a little cartoonish in our thinking, 191 00:09:53,760 --> 00:09:56,840 Speaker 1: believing that everything is cooked up by the Russians, right, 192 00:09:56,880 --> 00:10:01,160 Speaker 1: everything must be as Oliver Stone's JFK act measure, when 193 00:10:01,160 --> 00:10:04,160 Speaker 1: in reality, a lot of the time we're so nuts 194 00:10:04,760 --> 00:10:08,719 Speaker 1: and polarized and so maddened with our own feverish conspiracy 195 00:10:08,760 --> 00:10:11,920 Speaker 1: theories that are very homegrown that all the Russians have 196 00:10:11,960 --> 00:10:15,000 Speaker 1: to do is point to us and give us a megaphone. 197 00:10:15,120 --> 00:10:17,439 Speaker 1: Or the metaphor I like to use is we're like 198 00:10:17,559 --> 00:10:20,360 Speaker 1: lemmings running off of a cliff, and the Russian security 199 00:10:20,360 --> 00:10:22,920 Speaker 1: services are standing there with big signs that say keep going, 200 00:10:23,040 --> 00:10:26,080 Speaker 1: you can do it faster. And the work that I've 201 00:10:26,120 --> 00:10:31,040 Speaker 1: done at any rate, apart from exposing fully recruited FSB 202 00:10:31,559 --> 00:10:34,360 Speaker 1: agents who in many cases are compensated by the FSB 203 00:10:34,480 --> 00:10:37,240 Speaker 1: and they're asking their FSB handler for money, when it 204 00:10:37,280 --> 00:10:41,120 Speaker 1: comes to the realm of information warfare political warfare, more 205 00:10:41,160 --> 00:10:43,880 Speaker 1: often than not, what I see as what begins at 206 00:10:43,880 --> 00:10:48,080 Speaker 1: home is simply given that added oomph and boost right 207 00:10:48,160 --> 00:10:49,240 Speaker 1: hostile foreign services? 208 00:10:49,320 --> 00:10:52,160 Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I love the term misattributed to Lenin. But 209 00:10:52,440 --> 00:10:55,280 Speaker 3: useful idiots, right, And you touched on this a couple 210 00:10:55,320 --> 00:10:57,719 Speaker 3: of places here, And the question is if you han't 211 00:10:57,800 --> 00:11:00,360 Speaker 3: Oliver's own and you set him there, it doesn't have 212 00:11:00,400 --> 00:11:03,440 Speaker 3: to be Oliver Stone, but an Oliver stoneish figure. Would 213 00:11:03,440 --> 00:11:06,640 Speaker 3: they be okay being a useful idiot? Would they recognize 214 00:11:06,679 --> 00:11:10,640 Speaker 3: themselves being useful idiots? Would one particular political party of 215 00:11:10,640 --> 00:11:14,520 Speaker 3: the United States recognize themselves as being partially useful idiots? 216 00:11:14,600 --> 00:11:18,200 Speaker 3: What's your sense on this? The self awareness of being 217 00:11:18,240 --> 00:11:20,520 Speaker 3: manipulated or just not given a shit. Look. 218 00:11:20,559 --> 00:11:23,240 Speaker 1: I'm not a trained psychologist, but I think the most 219 00:11:23,240 --> 00:11:27,959 Speaker 1: successful useful idiot is the one who genuinely believes that 220 00:11:28,080 --> 00:11:30,760 Speaker 1: he is the recipient of a revealed truth that is 221 00:11:30,800 --> 00:11:34,400 Speaker 1: inaccessible to the broader population. In other words, he's convinced 222 00:11:34,400 --> 00:11:36,760 Speaker 1: of his own bullshit and he doesn't believe that it 223 00:11:36,800 --> 00:11:39,480 Speaker 1: has been planted there, or that he's been steered in 224 00:11:39,480 --> 00:11:43,000 Speaker 1: a certain direction by a hostile foreign intelligence service. The 225 00:11:43,040 --> 00:11:45,240 Speaker 1: best kind of useful idiot, the best kind of person 226 00:11:45,240 --> 00:11:49,320 Speaker 1: who can be manipulated and used, whether or not recruited 227 00:11:49,760 --> 00:11:53,000 Speaker 1: to another point. But really an asset, let's say, is 228 00:11:53,040 --> 00:11:57,520 Speaker 1: somebody who feels himself to be deeply aggrieved and underappreciated 229 00:11:57,600 --> 00:12:01,480 Speaker 1: or completely unappreciated in his own society. He's a loser, right, 230 00:12:01,520 --> 00:12:04,880 Speaker 1: there's a reason. For instance, the Russians have characteristically seized 231 00:12:04,960 --> 00:12:09,120 Speaker 1: upon sex pests, people with weird pedophilia in their background, 232 00:12:09,240 --> 00:12:12,400 Speaker 1: or have been caught doing naughty things on camera. Whether 233 00:12:12,400 --> 00:12:14,760 Speaker 1: the Russians have compromised them themselves or they were just 234 00:12:14,800 --> 00:12:18,839 Speaker 1: compromised by their own haplessness in their own country doesn't matter. 235 00:12:19,040 --> 00:12:22,280 Speaker 1: People who've lost jobs and they haven't taken it on 236 00:12:22,320 --> 00:12:24,320 Speaker 1: the chin as it were, I mean they've they've really 237 00:12:24,400 --> 00:12:27,600 Speaker 1: they're snarling about it. They detest the establishment. They just 238 00:12:27,720 --> 00:12:30,480 Speaker 1: to test a society to which they want badly to 239 00:12:30,840 --> 00:12:34,319 Speaker 1: belong and to be celebrated by, but feel that they 240 00:12:34,320 --> 00:12:37,800 Speaker 1: have been jilted. What I'm describing here clearly is Tucker Carlson, 241 00:12:37,920 --> 00:12:40,200 Speaker 1: and I know we're all gonna oh, I thought about. 242 00:12:40,000 --> 00:12:43,280 Speaker 3: That issue Rudy Giuliati in my mind, But okay, all right. 243 00:12:43,280 --> 00:12:47,840 Speaker 1: That's the classic classic example of somebody who demands to 244 00:12:47,880 --> 00:12:50,560 Speaker 1: be taken seriously. It's like the arrested Development thing with 245 00:12:50,640 --> 00:12:53,160 Speaker 1: Job and the musicians. A lot we demand to be 246 00:12:53,200 --> 00:12:56,680 Speaker 1: taken seriously, and they're not. They're comic figures. They've washed 247 00:12:56,679 --> 00:12:59,880 Speaker 1: out of every enterprise. TV shows have failed. They could 248 00:13:00,080 --> 00:13:01,600 Speaker 1: hack it as this, they couldn't hack it as that, 249 00:13:01,840 --> 00:13:04,600 Speaker 1: And so they decide whether or not even they truly 250 00:13:05,120 --> 00:13:07,520 Speaker 1: believe these things in their core, but they have decided, 251 00:13:07,559 --> 00:13:10,199 Speaker 1: as a matter of principle, for their own sense of 252 00:13:10,280 --> 00:13:13,040 Speaker 1: narcissism and self worth, that they're just going to stick 253 00:13:13,080 --> 00:13:16,000 Speaker 1: it to everybody that they blame for their own misfortunes. 254 00:13:16,000 --> 00:13:19,319 Speaker 1: And if sticking it to them means riding sidecar with 255 00:13:19,520 --> 00:13:23,880 Speaker 1: Russian intelligence or Russian propaganda, who cares, That's just makes 256 00:13:23,920 --> 00:13:26,680 Speaker 1: it even more delicious to them. 257 00:13:26,760 --> 00:13:27,440 Speaker 2: Let's take a break. 258 00:13:27,559 --> 00:13:41,280 Speaker 3: We'll be right back, and Rebecca Michael, let me jump 259 00:13:41,280 --> 00:13:43,360 Speaker 3: into just I think for the audience. I'd love to 260 00:13:43,360 --> 00:13:45,120 Speaker 3: get you with both you and John's take on this. 261 00:13:45,400 --> 00:13:49,440 Speaker 3: Conspiracy theories, as we all know, generally revolve around some 262 00:13:49,800 --> 00:13:53,360 Speaker 3: sinister force that you can never really it's the Jews 263 00:13:53,640 --> 00:13:56,719 Speaker 3: or the Illuminati, and they're manipulating the rest of us. 264 00:13:56,800 --> 00:14:01,320 Speaker 3: But in our society, in reality, forces by and large 265 00:14:01,360 --> 00:14:05,240 Speaker 3: don't exist as organized forces, but in an authoritarian government 266 00:14:05,440 --> 00:14:09,079 Speaker 3: like Russia, they actually do, right, I mean pregosion. That's 267 00:14:09,120 --> 00:14:11,400 Speaker 3: how he made his money. So if you could bring 268 00:14:11,440 --> 00:14:14,480 Speaker 3: an American audience into the reality of what it's like 269 00:14:14,559 --> 00:14:17,760 Speaker 3: to live in an authoritarian government where people where the 270 00:14:17,800 --> 00:14:21,120 Speaker 3: government actually sits down and comes up with conspiracies to 271 00:14:21,160 --> 00:14:23,480 Speaker 3: inflict on either their own population or others. 272 00:14:24,320 --> 00:14:28,000 Speaker 1: The Rosetta stone of conspiracy, theoris I mean you alluded 273 00:14:28,000 --> 00:14:30,720 Speaker 1: to it talking about anti Semitism, right, is the Protocols 274 00:14:30,720 --> 00:14:34,800 Speaker 1: of the Learned Elders of Zion, which people often refer 275 00:14:34,840 --> 00:14:37,000 Speaker 1: to this as a forgery. But a forgery suggests that 276 00:14:37,000 --> 00:14:40,280 Speaker 1: there's a genuine article that's been spoofed. There's no genuine 277 00:14:40,360 --> 00:14:43,200 Speaker 1: article here. This is a wholesale fabrication. And who did 278 00:14:43,240 --> 00:14:47,640 Speaker 1: the fabricating the Okrana the Czarist secret Police, which in 279 00:14:47,680 --> 00:14:51,920 Speaker 1: many ways all of their tradecraft and their organizational structure 280 00:14:52,080 --> 00:14:56,160 Speaker 1: was imported into the post Tsarus Soviet Cheka. And then 281 00:14:56,360 --> 00:14:59,240 Speaker 1: I mean, through the succession of alphabet soup incarnations, that 282 00:14:59,280 --> 00:15:01,600 Speaker 1: body took as the KGB or now we know it 283 00:15:01,600 --> 00:15:04,120 Speaker 1: as the SVR and the FSB. So here's a case 284 00:15:04,160 --> 00:15:07,480 Speaker 1: where in the nineteenth century, Jews are seen not just 285 00:15:07,560 --> 00:15:11,320 Speaker 1: within Russia, where they're suppressed, but outwardly in the world, 286 00:15:11,440 --> 00:15:15,680 Speaker 1: whether it's in Western Europe with the Rothschilds and positions 287 00:15:15,720 --> 00:15:20,440 Speaker 1: or echelons of global finance politics, where even if they're 288 00:15:20,440 --> 00:15:23,280 Speaker 1: not in a leadership position, they're not premiers or presidents, 289 00:15:23,600 --> 00:15:27,800 Speaker 1: they're in war cabinets, they're advisors to these politicians. And 290 00:15:27,920 --> 00:15:33,320 Speaker 1: you concoct this elaborate explanatory thesis for why the world 291 00:15:33,400 --> 00:15:36,000 Speaker 1: doesn't go the way you want it to go. Right, 292 00:15:36,080 --> 00:15:38,480 Speaker 1: there's a bogey man, there's somebody to blame. It's not 293 00:15:38,520 --> 00:15:40,880 Speaker 1: that we're bad, it's not that we're inept. It's not 294 00:15:40,960 --> 00:15:43,880 Speaker 1: that our trains don't make it to the station on time, 295 00:15:44,000 --> 00:15:46,320 Speaker 1: or we don't have indoor plumbing because we didn't invest 296 00:15:46,320 --> 00:15:50,040 Speaker 1: in infrastructure. No, no, no, no, no, it's those guys are 297 00:15:50,200 --> 00:15:53,280 Speaker 1: responsible for all of our misfortunes right here in America. 298 00:15:53,400 --> 00:15:58,240 Speaker 1: Henry Ford, who was a celebrated industrialist in the twentieth century, 299 00:15:58,280 --> 00:16:00,880 Speaker 1: I mean, he believed every word of this and actually 300 00:16:00,880 --> 00:16:05,800 Speaker 1: spent his own fortune putting out added conspiratorial nonsense about Jews. 301 00:16:06,080 --> 00:16:09,320 Speaker 1: And again did he convince himself that he was taken 302 00:16:09,320 --> 00:16:13,520 Speaker 1: in by Zara's secret police disinformation experts. Of course not 303 00:16:13,760 --> 00:16:16,520 Speaker 1: He had his own, his own way of coming to 304 00:16:16,560 --> 00:16:19,760 Speaker 1: the same conclusions. But these conclusions were only reinforced by 305 00:16:19,800 --> 00:16:22,200 Speaker 1: what he was able to read cooked up in Moscow 306 00:16:22,440 --> 00:16:24,560 Speaker 1: or in Saint Petersburg. I should say, way back. 307 00:16:24,440 --> 00:16:26,840 Speaker 2: What Andy Michael, can I ask you? Why does this 308 00:16:26,920 --> 00:16:29,320 Speaker 2: always seem to be Russia? Why is Russia the place 309 00:16:29,360 --> 00:16:31,760 Speaker 2: that seems to be for a century, no hour more, 310 00:16:32,320 --> 00:16:36,520 Speaker 2: the place that's weaponizing and spreading conspiracies for political reasons? 311 00:16:36,600 --> 00:16:39,240 Speaker 2: And are there others that either have done it for 312 00:16:39,280 --> 00:16:41,280 Speaker 2: a long time or picking up on what the Russians 313 00:16:41,280 --> 00:16:41,720 Speaker 2: have done. 314 00:16:41,840 --> 00:16:45,240 Speaker 1: I mean, it probably would take a true Russian historian 315 00:16:45,320 --> 00:16:48,960 Speaker 1: to explain it. Actually, there is a great Russian historian, 316 00:16:48,960 --> 00:16:52,560 Speaker 1: a Soviet Hungarian called Tibor Zamweli. I think he was 317 00:16:52,640 --> 00:16:55,880 Speaker 1: the cultural attache and then he defected. He wound up 318 00:16:55,920 --> 00:16:58,560 Speaker 1: in the UK and he wrote a book, and broadly 319 00:16:58,640 --> 00:17:02,920 Speaker 1: his view is things Russia don't really change in erratic 320 00:17:03,080 --> 00:17:06,080 Speaker 1: or unpredictable ways. It's a sort of sign curve of 321 00:17:06,119 --> 00:17:10,080 Speaker 1: repression and liberalization. But even liberalization takes an asterisk right. 322 00:17:10,119 --> 00:17:12,879 Speaker 1: It's not in the sense the Western sense of true enlightenment, 323 00:17:13,000 --> 00:17:17,280 Speaker 1: open society, transparency of government, accountability of leaders. No, I mean, 324 00:17:17,320 --> 00:17:22,000 Speaker 1: it's the authoritarian imprint has been there, and according to Tibor, 325 00:17:22,280 --> 00:17:24,679 Speaker 1: it's been there for a very simple reason. Russia was 326 00:17:24,720 --> 00:17:27,439 Speaker 1: conquered by Genghis Khan and not by Julius Caesar. Right, 327 00:17:27,480 --> 00:17:29,959 Speaker 1: if they were the legatees of the Roman Empire and 328 00:17:30,000 --> 00:17:32,679 Speaker 1: what we now call the collective West, the chance is 329 00:17:32,720 --> 00:17:35,800 Speaker 1: that we wouldn't be faced with this. It's not even 330 00:17:35,800 --> 00:17:40,239 Speaker 1: a level of sophisticated political warfare. It's so entrenched and 331 00:17:40,280 --> 00:17:43,080 Speaker 1: it's so well invested in, and it's so relied upon 332 00:17:43,400 --> 00:17:45,600 Speaker 1: that whether we know it or not, we're constantly being 333 00:17:45,680 --> 00:17:48,359 Speaker 1: bombarded with this. Right, it's a lot easier to take 334 00:17:48,600 --> 00:17:51,560 Speaker 1: societies or countries where there is things such as the 335 00:17:51,640 --> 00:17:54,400 Speaker 1: rule of law and transparency or in our case First 336 00:17:54,440 --> 00:17:57,560 Speaker 1: Amendment freedom of speech. Is a great gift to the 337 00:17:57,600 --> 00:18:00,520 Speaker 1: other side because they don't have these things where they 338 00:18:00,520 --> 00:18:02,879 Speaker 1: come from, and they know it, and they look for 339 00:18:03,520 --> 00:18:06,760 Speaker 1: our virtues as they try to transform our own virtues 340 00:18:06,800 --> 00:18:09,159 Speaker 1: into vulnerabilities and weaknesses. I mean, I'll give you a 341 00:18:09,160 --> 00:18:12,760 Speaker 1: perfect example of this, and moral equivalency is one of 342 00:18:12,800 --> 00:18:16,159 Speaker 1: the great sort of It really ties the room together 343 00:18:16,240 --> 00:18:20,200 Speaker 1: of all Russian active measures. So today, as we sit here, 344 00:18:20,680 --> 00:18:22,440 Speaker 1: and I know the show will come out in future 345 00:18:22,480 --> 00:18:24,639 Speaker 1: at some point, as we sit here, Lexi Navalni, the 346 00:18:24,680 --> 00:18:28,000 Speaker 1: leader of the Russian opposition, has been discovered dead in 347 00:18:28,240 --> 00:18:32,000 Speaker 1: the Russian penal colony. And I've just heard President Biden 348 00:18:32,080 --> 00:18:34,760 Speaker 1: say Putin bear's responsibility for this. I would say, actually, 349 00:18:34,760 --> 00:18:38,520 Speaker 1: the Russian state, beyond Putin alone bears responsibility of this. 350 00:18:38,640 --> 00:18:41,040 Speaker 1: He was murdered. And what did the Russian Ministry of 351 00:18:41,080 --> 00:18:45,680 Speaker 1: Foreign Affairs just do? They said, unbelievable cynicism. How can 352 00:18:45,720 --> 00:18:49,200 Speaker 1: the president be so upset about a Russian citizen who 353 00:18:49,320 --> 00:18:53,600 Speaker 1: died in a Russian penal colony when American citizen Gonzalo 354 00:18:53,720 --> 00:18:58,600 Speaker 1: Lira was tortured and killed in Ukrainian So, Gonzala Lira 355 00:18:59,080 --> 00:19:03,160 Speaker 1: was a preferred conspiracy theorist, a sex tourist who moved 356 00:19:03,160 --> 00:19:05,160 Speaker 1: to Kharkiv and then at the start of the full 357 00:19:05,160 --> 00:19:08,320 Speaker 1: scale invasion, was basically cheering Russia's genocide. So he was 358 00:19:08,400 --> 00:19:12,600 Speaker 1: arrested under Ukraine's civil code. You don't trade the propaganda 359 00:19:12,600 --> 00:19:14,680 Speaker 1: of the enemy, right. He died in prison. We don't 360 00:19:14,720 --> 00:19:16,840 Speaker 1: know the circumstances. But in other words, the leader of 361 00:19:16,880 --> 00:19:20,800 Speaker 1: the Russian opposition twice poisoned with Novachuk, a military grade 362 00:19:20,880 --> 00:19:24,480 Speaker 1: nerve agent by FSB assassins, whose identities we know thanks 363 00:19:24,480 --> 00:19:27,560 Speaker 1: to my colleagues Christo Grozev and raumand de Brhotov. That 364 00:19:27,720 --> 00:19:30,240 Speaker 1: is the moral equivalent of some asshole you've never heard 365 00:19:30,280 --> 00:19:33,480 Speaker 1: of who was in a country cheering as a fifth colonist, 366 00:19:33,600 --> 00:19:36,840 Speaker 1: cheering for the other side, and breaking those countries democratically 367 00:19:37,160 --> 00:19:40,320 Speaker 1: determined laws. On the one hand, they know that that's 368 00:19:40,400 --> 00:19:42,760 Speaker 1: going to tickle the funny bones of people in the west, 369 00:19:43,119 --> 00:19:46,600 Speaker 1: far right magatypes. They've sunk their teeth into Gonzala Lira. 370 00:19:46,840 --> 00:19:50,080 Speaker 1: Elon Musk has tweeted about him, Tucker Carlson has tweeted 371 00:19:50,119 --> 00:19:53,600 Speaker 1: about him. And yet the wider population, who is this guy? 372 00:19:53,640 --> 00:19:54,480 Speaker 3: Why should we care? 373 00:19:55,119 --> 00:19:57,680 Speaker 1: Only we know leader of the opposition, right, the one 374 00:19:57,680 --> 00:20:00,480 Speaker 1: nemesis that Putin has got. Now he's dead, that's a 375 00:20:00,520 --> 00:20:03,359 Speaker 1: world historic event. There's another line that I'm quite fond of, 376 00:20:03,400 --> 00:20:06,720 Speaker 1: and this tells quite strongly, I think on how intelligence 377 00:20:06,760 --> 00:20:10,560 Speaker 1: operations and active measures applied. Russia is an inferiority complex 378 00:20:10,760 --> 00:20:14,199 Speaker 1: wrapped inside of a superiority complex. They consider themselves to 379 00:20:14,200 --> 00:20:16,439 Speaker 1: be the greatest civilization the world has ever known and 380 00:20:16,480 --> 00:20:18,840 Speaker 1: ever will know, and yet they deeply resent the fact 381 00:20:18,840 --> 00:20:19,840 Speaker 1: that no one agrees with them. 382 00:20:21,000 --> 00:20:23,640 Speaker 2: When the Bolstvik regime took over, it was taken over 383 00:20:23,680 --> 00:20:25,600 Speaker 2: by a bunch of revolutionaries that had been fighting the 384 00:20:25,640 --> 00:20:28,159 Speaker 2: czar estate for a long time, and so all of 385 00:20:28,200 --> 00:20:30,399 Speaker 2: a sudden they took over this massive, continental wide country 386 00:20:30,400 --> 00:20:32,800 Speaker 2: and found the fact that they were actually pretty weak. 387 00:20:33,240 --> 00:20:37,160 Speaker 2: Their enemies were the Western Powers. They did have quite 388 00:20:37,320 --> 00:20:41,760 Speaker 2: serious internal opposition monarchists and white Russians and others, and 389 00:20:42,080 --> 00:20:46,639 Speaker 2: they developed this form of political warfare, asymmetric warfare, this 390 00:20:46,680 --> 00:20:49,720 Speaker 2: stuff we're talking about, how subversion, disinformation, and it's been 391 00:20:49,800 --> 00:20:52,879 Speaker 2: part and parcel of Russian intelligence services ever since. And 392 00:20:53,000 --> 00:20:56,400 Speaker 2: I see it in a way as like terrorism. It's 393 00:20:56,560 --> 00:20:59,720 Speaker 2: the weapon of the weak against the strong. Terrorists can't 394 00:20:59,720 --> 00:21:02,119 Speaker 2: take you head on, so they find weaknesses and take 395 00:21:02,160 --> 00:21:05,080 Speaker 2: advantage of it. It's like a big, strong, huge boxer 396 00:21:05,200 --> 00:21:08,000 Speaker 2: fighting someone much smaller and weaker. The weaker boxer is 397 00:21:08,040 --> 00:21:09,600 Speaker 2: going to have to try to hit below the belt, 398 00:21:09,640 --> 00:21:12,600 Speaker 2: and obviously is a much bigger and more powerful Western country. 399 00:21:13,080 --> 00:21:14,480 Speaker 2: It's just not part of our DNA. 400 00:21:15,080 --> 00:21:17,520 Speaker 1: There's another important point which you remind me of by 401 00:21:17,840 --> 00:21:21,800 Speaker 1: likening it to international terrorism, folk emphasis on international So 402 00:21:22,040 --> 00:21:23,679 Speaker 1: one of the things I realized in the course of 403 00:21:23,760 --> 00:21:26,040 Speaker 1: researching my book on the GRU, there was a case 404 00:21:26,040 --> 00:21:29,400 Speaker 1: to be made that the GRU, more so than the NKVD, 405 00:21:29,480 --> 00:21:32,719 Speaker 1: which is another name for the KGB, what became the KGB, 406 00:21:33,400 --> 00:21:36,480 Speaker 1: was the premier intelligence service on the planet for a 407 00:21:36,600 --> 00:21:39,000 Speaker 1: period of years in the nineteen thirties. But one thing 408 00:21:39,000 --> 00:21:43,479 Speaker 1: they were good at was capital e espionage, pure intelligence collection, 409 00:21:43,720 --> 00:21:46,960 Speaker 1: running agents, getting agents to do things. And one of 410 00:21:47,000 --> 00:21:48,639 Speaker 1: the reasons they were so good at it is some 411 00:21:48,680 --> 00:21:51,840 Speaker 1: of the best spies that worked for the Soviet system 412 00:21:52,200 --> 00:21:55,560 Speaker 1: were not Russian. They were European, or they were American. 413 00:21:56,000 --> 00:21:58,600 Speaker 1: It was a thoroughly internationalized operation. 414 00:21:58,960 --> 00:22:01,600 Speaker 2: It was communist worldwide, communist common turn. 415 00:22:01,480 --> 00:22:05,960 Speaker 1: Members ideology itself. It brooked no sense of nationalism or patriotism. 416 00:22:06,080 --> 00:22:08,280 Speaker 1: The head of what it was, the fourth Department, the 417 00:22:08,359 --> 00:22:11,359 Speaker 1: GRU in its earlier incarnation, but the head of it, 418 00:22:11,400 --> 00:22:13,960 Speaker 1: the first real head and the most successful one, was 419 00:22:14,040 --> 00:22:17,320 Speaker 1: Jon Berzen Jan Burson was Latvian. He was a rifleman 420 00:22:17,400 --> 00:22:20,199 Speaker 1: in World War One, and he fought against Russia in 421 00:22:20,240 --> 00:22:22,720 Speaker 1: World War One and then flipped over to the other side. 422 00:22:22,760 --> 00:22:25,479 Speaker 1: And basically he was a brilliant sort of director and 423 00:22:25,640 --> 00:22:28,080 Speaker 1: case officer in his own right and basically managed the 424 00:22:28,119 --> 00:22:32,280 Speaker 1: Republican effort in fratricidal Spain. Was recalled during the purges 425 00:22:32,320 --> 00:22:34,760 Speaker 1: and of course killed, as were most of the good 426 00:22:34,760 --> 00:22:38,800 Speaker 1: gru cadres from the twenties and thirties who essentially gave 427 00:22:38,880 --> 00:22:41,160 Speaker 1: the keys to the Kingdom to Stalin. And of course 428 00:22:41,160 --> 00:22:43,280 Speaker 1: he was so paranoid he didn't believe anything that he 429 00:22:43,359 --> 00:22:46,600 Speaker 1: was told. But they were idealists, no disrespect of posterity 430 00:22:46,640 --> 00:22:49,760 Speaker 1: to say they were true believing communists. They believed that 431 00:22:49,960 --> 00:22:52,520 Speaker 1: Moscow was the Third Rome, it was the future, that 432 00:22:52,840 --> 00:22:55,359 Speaker 1: the great depression world, the ravages of World War One, 433 00:22:55,359 --> 00:22:59,000 Speaker 1: liberal democracy had failed, and Marxist Leninism was the future. 434 00:22:59,040 --> 00:23:01,520 Speaker 1: And they gave themself body and soul to this movement. 435 00:23:01,560 --> 00:23:04,720 Speaker 1: And then of course we're completely disillusioned and demoralized and 436 00:23:04,840 --> 00:23:07,840 Speaker 1: in many cases murdered because they realized that they'd been 437 00:23:07,840 --> 00:23:10,320 Speaker 1: sold to Bill of goods. But we don't have that anymore. 438 00:23:10,320 --> 00:23:13,200 Speaker 1: And you notice we're talking about some of the more 439 00:23:13,240 --> 00:23:16,320 Speaker 1: crude CAC candidate attempts by the Russians to divide and 440 00:23:16,359 --> 00:23:18,960 Speaker 1: conquer and sow discord in the West, some of which 441 00:23:19,520 --> 00:23:22,679 Speaker 1: are unfortunately successful. But I would blame ourselves for being 442 00:23:22,760 --> 00:23:24,800 Speaker 1: so stupid, not for them being so clever. But the 443 00:23:24,840 --> 00:23:26,800 Speaker 1: reason this it doesn't hold a candle to what they 444 00:23:26,880 --> 00:23:30,280 Speaker 1: used to do is they're not relying on well trained 445 00:23:30,320 --> 00:23:33,360 Speaker 1: Western cadres who understand their own systems and their own 446 00:23:33,400 --> 00:23:36,720 Speaker 1: societies better than they do. They're relying on people like 447 00:23:37,240 --> 00:23:40,879 Speaker 1: Mishkin and Chipega who are literally reading Wikipedia entries about 448 00:23:40,960 --> 00:23:43,280 Speaker 1: the lovely spires of the Salisbury Cathedral. 449 00:23:43,400 --> 00:23:45,280 Speaker 3: I want to stick up for the Russians. We're sort 450 00:23:45,280 --> 00:23:46,680 Speaker 3: was coming down at that kind of heart. Let me 451 00:23:46,760 --> 00:23:50,160 Speaker 3: put in a good word for Moscow. So my sense 452 00:23:50,320 --> 00:23:54,400 Speaker 3: is conspiracy theories and pushing them isn't just a realm 453 00:23:54,440 --> 00:23:57,360 Speaker 3: that the Russians do. They're just extremely good at it. 454 00:23:57,920 --> 00:24:02,840 Speaker 3: But all, basically all all autocracies need this right because 455 00:24:02,920 --> 00:24:06,240 Speaker 3: if whatever you decide, truth is what your dogma is, 456 00:24:06,720 --> 00:24:08,960 Speaker 3: and truth interferes with it, you've got to get rid 457 00:24:08,960 --> 00:24:11,240 Speaker 3: of truth. You've got to come up with an alternate narrative. 458 00:24:11,320 --> 00:24:15,680 Speaker 3: So Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan. They had their conspiracy theories 459 00:24:15,800 --> 00:24:18,440 Speaker 3: right wing, left wing. It doesn't really mean isis my 460 00:24:18,720 --> 00:24:22,199 Speaker 3: lord talk about wacky conspiracy theories on how the world 461 00:24:22,240 --> 00:24:25,240 Speaker 3: actually works and when the Chris When Isis became hostile 462 00:24:25,280 --> 00:24:28,160 Speaker 3: to al Qaeda, isis bought into the fact that Ben 463 00:24:28,240 --> 00:24:29,600 Speaker 3: Laden was a CIA guy. 464 00:24:29,680 --> 00:24:29,840 Speaker 5: Right. 465 00:24:30,920 --> 00:24:34,520 Speaker 3: But I think what does separate the Russians from almost 466 00:24:34,600 --> 00:24:37,720 Speaker 3: everybody else is that we look at it and we 467 00:24:37,760 --> 00:24:40,920 Speaker 3: talk about it as though it's a state, a country, 468 00:24:40,960 --> 00:24:43,840 Speaker 3: and it's in a lot of ways, it's a security 469 00:24:43,880 --> 00:24:47,400 Speaker 3: service running a country, which is different than almost everybody else. 470 00:24:47,640 --> 00:24:50,720 Speaker 1: Yes, but also you know, there are people I'm talking 471 00:24:50,720 --> 00:24:53,920 Speaker 1: to formers here who there is a code of ethics 472 00:24:53,920 --> 00:24:57,560 Speaker 1: and a covenant of serving an intelligence service for one's nation. Right, 473 00:24:58,000 --> 00:25:01,200 Speaker 1: It's not just a security service run a state. It's 474 00:25:01,240 --> 00:25:04,919 Speaker 1: a kleptocratic, a moral and corrupted security server. And you 475 00:25:04,960 --> 00:25:07,080 Speaker 1: could see this in real time. I mean, you could 476 00:25:07,160 --> 00:25:11,560 Speaker 1: chart the degeneration of the Soviet enterprise and the rise 477 00:25:11,600 --> 00:25:14,360 Speaker 1: of Stalinism based on the case officers that were being sent. 478 00:25:15,400 --> 00:25:17,800 Speaker 3: Okay, let's take a break from the craziness just for 479 00:25:17,840 --> 00:25:26,160 Speaker 3: a minute or two, and we're back. 480 00:25:28,680 --> 00:25:31,800 Speaker 1: So you had this guy Alexander Ulinovski who's an anarchist 481 00:25:31,800 --> 00:25:35,119 Speaker 1: recruited in Odessa and fights in the Civil War with 482 00:25:35,160 --> 00:25:37,280 Speaker 1: the Red Army. Even though he's not a card carrying Bolshevik, 483 00:25:37,359 --> 00:25:40,560 Speaker 1: he really believes in fighting that the reactionary regime that 484 00:25:40,720 --> 00:25:43,560 Speaker 1: was represented by Bizarre, which was also an anti Semitic regime, right, 485 00:25:43,600 --> 00:25:46,679 Speaker 1: a lot of Jews did become hardcarring communists because of 486 00:25:46,720 --> 00:25:51,000 Speaker 1: the entrenched state, homegrown anti semitism of the Empire. And 487 00:25:51,040 --> 00:25:53,680 Speaker 1: you know, there's this great anecdote which kind of shows 488 00:25:53,760 --> 00:25:57,919 Speaker 1: the shift in opinion and sensibility. So Julinovsky is a 489 00:25:57,920 --> 00:26:01,320 Speaker 1: case officer because he believes Chained is an agent. Because 490 00:26:01,320 --> 00:26:05,280 Speaker 1: he believes there's no consideration of compensation or money or 491 00:26:05,320 --> 00:26:08,760 Speaker 1: stealing from the till using operational resources for your own 492 00:26:08,920 --> 00:26:11,040 Speaker 1: it doesn't enter into it. Then you get this case 493 00:26:11,080 --> 00:26:15,119 Speaker 1: officer Boris Bikoff, who is this again. He is a 494 00:26:15,160 --> 00:26:18,919 Speaker 1: creature of high Stalinism. He's squirrely, he's angry. That's when 495 00:26:18,920 --> 00:26:21,000 Speaker 1: he's in a good mood. Is most dangerous because much 496 00:26:21,040 --> 00:26:23,440 Speaker 1: like Stalin, the pendulum will swing back in the other 497 00:26:23,480 --> 00:26:26,320 Speaker 1: direction with force. And he's the guy who says, why 498 00:26:26,359 --> 00:26:28,920 Speaker 1: don't we pay your friends in state department? Why don't 499 00:26:28,960 --> 00:26:32,399 Speaker 1: we pay for information? He who pays his boss, And 500 00:26:32,440 --> 00:26:34,879 Speaker 1: this is for Chambers, this kind of realization, what do 501 00:26:34,880 --> 00:26:36,800 Speaker 1: you mean, he who pays his boss. We're not doing 502 00:26:36,800 --> 00:26:39,840 Speaker 1: this for money. We're doing this for world revolution. It 503 00:26:39,880 --> 00:26:42,639 Speaker 1: turns out by Kof was cynical enough, and he was 504 00:26:42,760 --> 00:26:46,800 Speaker 1: correct enough. You incentivize, you provide some dusours, whether they're 505 00:26:46,840 --> 00:26:50,399 Speaker 1: you know, oriental rugs or cash payments in hand. The 506 00:26:50,480 --> 00:26:54,320 Speaker 1: Russians are at the present time all of the idealism 507 00:26:54,359 --> 00:26:58,440 Speaker 1: that may have once obtained really ended in the nineteen thirties. 508 00:26:59,280 --> 00:27:03,320 Speaker 1: They are mass at instrumentalizing cynicism. And the worst thing 509 00:27:03,440 --> 00:27:07,399 Speaker 1: is our own cynicism is now almost outpacing theirs in 510 00:27:07,480 --> 00:27:09,520 Speaker 1: terms of what we're I mean, you know, Matt Gates 511 00:27:09,600 --> 00:27:12,960 Speaker 1: under congressional investigation for a host of things that frankly 512 00:27:13,400 --> 00:27:17,560 Speaker 1: I understand why this guy loves Russia. Prostitution, public corruption, 513 00:27:18,160 --> 00:27:22,399 Speaker 1: taking bribes, sharing sex, picks of his former bedmtes on 514 00:27:22,440 --> 00:27:24,359 Speaker 1: the house for Jesus Christ. And you should be a 515 00:27:24,440 --> 00:27:25,560 Speaker 1: dooma deputy. 516 00:27:25,240 --> 00:27:28,040 Speaker 2: Truly, just as an asside I would suggest to people 517 00:27:28,040 --> 00:27:30,920 Speaker 2: who are interested in this history. Obviously, when Michael's book 518 00:27:30,960 --> 00:27:33,439 Speaker 2: comes out, that will be the premier thing to read 519 00:27:33,520 --> 00:27:36,480 Speaker 2: on this. But talking about Wittaker Chambers was a fascinating individual. 520 00:27:36,480 --> 00:27:40,080 Speaker 2: And there's a book by Sam Tanneerhouse about Whittaker Chambers 521 00:27:40,200 --> 00:27:42,840 Speaker 2: entitled Widowicker Chambers, and then Whitdiker Chambers himself for a 522 00:27:42,840 --> 00:27:45,840 Speaker 2: book called Witness, which is also a fantastic book. And 523 00:27:46,080 --> 00:27:48,480 Speaker 2: Ronald Reagan always said that was his favorite book and 524 00:27:48,520 --> 00:27:51,440 Speaker 2: he would quote from as President by heart, you point. 525 00:27:51,240 --> 00:27:54,560 Speaker 3: Head intellectuals talking books stuff. People should watch Death of Styalin. 526 00:27:54,680 --> 00:27:58,879 Speaker 1: Yeah, if only for Steve Buscemi speaking in a Brooklyn 527 00:27:58,920 --> 00:28:04,000 Speaker 1: accent as khush No. But the reason that I think 528 00:28:04,280 --> 00:28:06,280 Speaker 1: Chambers he gets short shripped for a lot of reasons. 529 00:28:06,280 --> 00:28:11,359 Speaker 1: But he is the godfather of postwar American conservatism. I 530 00:28:11,400 --> 00:28:14,399 Speaker 1: mean his protege William F. Buckley Junior, who at the 531 00:28:14,440 --> 00:28:18,320 Speaker 1: time was just founding National Review. Richard Nixon was the 532 00:28:18,359 --> 00:28:23,320 Speaker 1: main junior congressman on the House an American Activities Committee 533 00:28:23,440 --> 00:28:26,480 Speaker 1: who believed Chambers and believe that ALGERR. Hiss was a 534 00:28:26,520 --> 00:28:30,159 Speaker 1: spy and was correct, propelled him into the national limelight, 535 00:28:30,200 --> 00:28:33,800 Speaker 1: which made him Vice President under Eisenhower Chambers impact on 536 00:28:33,880 --> 00:28:37,800 Speaker 1: postwar American conservatism and also history is the direct result 537 00:28:38,440 --> 00:28:43,080 Speaker 1: of cack handed stupidity by the GRU because they ran 538 00:28:43,120 --> 00:28:45,120 Speaker 1: a guy who they should have realized from the very 539 00:28:45,200 --> 00:28:49,920 Speaker 1: beginning was both too intellectual, too ideologically restless, and too 540 00:28:50,000 --> 00:28:53,720 Speaker 1: humane and moral to be a really good GRU agent. 541 00:28:53,840 --> 00:28:56,760 Speaker 1: So the Trump people will say, what you put the 542 00:28:56,760 --> 00:28:59,560 Speaker 1: former president through, meaning the deep state and the Democrats, 543 00:28:59,560 --> 00:29:03,800 Speaker 1: of course, was mccarthy'sm neo McCarthyism right, looking for Russians 544 00:29:03,880 --> 00:29:06,080 Speaker 1: under the bed and blah blah blah. And yet the 545 00:29:06,120 --> 00:29:08,960 Speaker 1: Trump people will then say the election was stolen by 546 00:29:09,000 --> 00:29:12,520 Speaker 1: a Communist in Venezuela and the ghost of Hugo Chavez, 547 00:29:12,600 --> 00:29:15,680 Speaker 1: and this is a cultural Marxism is ruining American I mean, 548 00:29:16,040 --> 00:29:19,880 Speaker 1: the greatest bit of harm that McCarthy did, in addition 549 00:29:19,960 --> 00:29:23,600 Speaker 1: to ruining innocent people's lives, was, if you were a 550 00:29:23,720 --> 00:29:27,719 Speaker 1: knowledgeable and committed cold warrior, you just gave the Russians 551 00:29:27,880 --> 00:29:31,560 Speaker 1: the greatest gift by allowing them to say everything is 552 00:29:31,560 --> 00:29:34,160 Speaker 1: a hysterical witch hunt that is not founded in reality 553 00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:37,000 Speaker 1: or fact, when in reality and in fact we know 554 00:29:37,640 --> 00:29:41,719 Speaker 1: thanks to the Venona decrypts and memoirs and books and 555 00:29:41,800 --> 00:29:44,880 Speaker 1: documents such as the Mctrochian Archive, which I referred to earlier, 556 00:29:45,280 --> 00:29:48,840 Speaker 1: that there were Soviet agents embedded in very high levels 557 00:29:48,880 --> 00:29:51,080 Speaker 1: of the US government, from the State Department to the 558 00:29:51,080 --> 00:29:55,000 Speaker 1: Treasury Department, Department of Agriculture. The FBI knew they were 559 00:29:55,000 --> 00:29:57,400 Speaker 1: Soviet agents, but they could not bring them to book 560 00:29:57,400 --> 00:29:59,760 Speaker 1: for espionage. So what did they do. They went after 561 00:29:59,760 --> 00:30:03,240 Speaker 1: peace people for illegal immigration crimes because a lot of 562 00:30:03,240 --> 00:30:05,760 Speaker 1: these guys, you know, use fake passports and documents to 563 00:30:05,760 --> 00:30:08,000 Speaker 1: come to the United States, and the other crime, lying 564 00:30:08,040 --> 00:30:11,120 Speaker 1: to the FBI green mailing people. So we got you 565 00:30:11,200 --> 00:30:13,360 Speaker 1: on something, so you can either work for us and 566 00:30:13,400 --> 00:30:15,480 Speaker 1: give us more about the thing we really care about, 567 00:30:15,520 --> 00:30:17,080 Speaker 1: which is what the Soviets are telling you to do 568 00:30:17,120 --> 00:30:19,280 Speaker 1: in this country, or well, we're just going to throw 569 00:30:19,320 --> 00:30:22,120 Speaker 1: you in prison for a couple of years for committing 570 00:30:22,360 --> 00:30:24,760 Speaker 1: a minor infraction. By comparison, and a lot of them again, 571 00:30:24,880 --> 00:30:27,600 Speaker 1: because they were idealists and because they didn't care about 572 00:30:27,600 --> 00:30:29,400 Speaker 1: their own hide so much as they cared about history. 573 00:30:29,400 --> 00:30:31,160 Speaker 1: But the capital age they took the hit, they went 574 00:30:31,200 --> 00:30:33,600 Speaker 1: to jail. And so you know, I keep telling people 575 00:30:33,640 --> 00:30:35,760 Speaker 1: the history of what has transpired in this country in 576 00:30:35,760 --> 00:30:38,840 Speaker 1: the last ten years in change. Everyone thinks that we've 577 00:30:38,880 --> 00:30:42,120 Speaker 1: seen the final definitive verdict, either the Molor Report or 578 00:30:42,160 --> 00:30:45,440 Speaker 1: the Senate Intelligence Subcommittee and Intelligence Reports, which is five 579 00:30:45,520 --> 00:30:48,640 Speaker 1: full volumes. Nobody's probably read it except David Corn and myself. 580 00:30:49,000 --> 00:30:51,680 Speaker 1: It's not true. It's going to take decades for this 581 00:30:51,680 --> 00:30:54,160 Speaker 1: stuff to come to light, for things to be declassified, 582 00:30:54,200 --> 00:30:56,880 Speaker 1: for new bits of intelligence and information to be known, 583 00:30:56,920 --> 00:31:00,480 Speaker 1: because people who are currently working from Moscow Center grow 584 00:31:00,520 --> 00:31:02,360 Speaker 1: disillusioned and one day knock on the door of an 585 00:31:02,360 --> 00:31:05,160 Speaker 1: embassy and say I have treasure to trade. 586 00:31:05,240 --> 00:31:08,760 Speaker 2: That's what's interesting about this is it's a committed professional 587 00:31:08,840 --> 00:31:13,200 Speaker 2: intelligence service which is weaponizing and using conspiracies against us. 588 00:31:13,240 --> 00:31:16,479 Speaker 2: And as you mentioned earlier, what makes it bad is 589 00:31:16,520 --> 00:31:19,880 Speaker 2: we get this weaponized conspiracy thrown into our system off 590 00:31:19,880 --> 00:31:22,600 Speaker 2: and through social media, but via other ways too, and 591 00:31:22,640 --> 00:31:24,440 Speaker 2: then we use it to attack each other. So this 592 00:31:24,520 --> 00:31:28,920 Speaker 2: is oftentimes partisan tribalism that just takes a piece of 593 00:31:28,920 --> 00:31:31,360 Speaker 2: information that was put there they may not realize was 594 00:31:31,360 --> 00:31:33,840 Speaker 2: put there by the Russians, of Chinese or somebody, and 595 00:31:33,840 --> 00:31:35,680 Speaker 2: then we use it to attack each other, and it 596 00:31:35,720 --> 00:31:38,440 Speaker 2: creates chaos and weakness inside around country and they win. 597 00:31:38,520 --> 00:31:39,920 Speaker 2: That's exactly what they want. 598 00:31:39,960 --> 00:31:43,240 Speaker 1: Right, And you know a lot of the fervor surrounding 599 00:31:43,280 --> 00:31:45,120 Speaker 1: Trump Russia. I mean, you know, I was living in 600 00:31:45,160 --> 00:31:47,320 Speaker 1: Los Angeles. I was watching cable news, and I was 601 00:31:47,360 --> 00:31:50,240 Speaker 1: seeing people go up on television, and I got to 602 00:31:50,280 --> 00:31:52,560 Speaker 1: be honest, I mean, saying that they were getting ahead 603 00:31:52,600 --> 00:31:54,920 Speaker 1: of their skis was putting it generously. They didn't know 604 00:31:54,920 --> 00:31:57,880 Speaker 1: what they were talking about, but they had feelings about things. 605 00:31:57,880 --> 00:32:00,560 Speaker 1: And God, again, I'm with a bunch of four here. 606 00:32:00,640 --> 00:32:02,560 Speaker 1: If you tried to ply your trade on the basis 607 00:32:02,600 --> 00:32:05,960 Speaker 1: of feelings, you wouldn't be CIA officers for very long, 608 00:32:06,000 --> 00:32:08,760 Speaker 1: would you. And these regimes and armies and intelligence they 609 00:32:08,840 --> 00:32:11,400 Speaker 1: live to muddy the waters and to make you believe 610 00:32:11,440 --> 00:32:15,520 Speaker 1: something that isn't true, right. Disinformation works by having you 611 00:32:15,640 --> 00:32:18,400 Speaker 1: lean into your own priors, you know, telling people what 612 00:32:18,440 --> 00:32:20,920 Speaker 1: they want to hear as opposed to what the reality is. 613 00:32:20,960 --> 00:32:23,280 Speaker 1: A Part of the difficulty with will they or want 614 00:32:23,280 --> 00:32:27,680 Speaker 1: they invade Ukraine was again the Kremlin is quite good 615 00:32:27,800 --> 00:32:31,239 Speaker 1: at psychological operations and amassing one hundred thousand troops at 616 00:32:31,240 --> 00:32:34,520 Speaker 1: the border. Oh no, no country. But Russia would do 617 00:32:34,600 --> 00:32:36,600 Speaker 1: that just as a head fake, right, So we were 618 00:32:36,640 --> 00:32:39,160 Speaker 1: all doubting ourselves when in fact, of course they intended 619 00:32:39,200 --> 00:32:39,600 Speaker 1: to do that. 620 00:32:39,680 --> 00:32:42,720 Speaker 3: And more so, the tone of this conversation, people could 621 00:32:42,760 --> 00:32:45,560 Speaker 3: get the impression that Russia has a great advantage, that 622 00:32:45,560 --> 00:32:47,160 Speaker 3: it's able to do this, and that's true to it 623 00:32:47,200 --> 00:32:50,600 Speaker 3: to an extent, but it's also living in a conspiratorial 624 00:32:50,640 --> 00:32:54,080 Speaker 3: society is also damning for those inside of it and 625 00:32:54,120 --> 00:32:54,640 Speaker 3: weaken it. 626 00:32:54,840 --> 00:33:00,080 Speaker 1: When your main instrument of power, your weapon, is conspiracy. There, 627 00:33:00,560 --> 00:33:03,160 Speaker 1: it's you know what, the ouroboroses, the snake that devours 628 00:33:03,160 --> 00:33:05,800 Speaker 1: its own tail. It's not something that can be controlled 629 00:33:05,840 --> 00:33:08,600 Speaker 1: or contained, because it eventually affects the way you view 630 00:33:08,720 --> 00:33:11,800 Speaker 1: your own system. It affects the way your people view 631 00:33:12,040 --> 00:33:15,040 Speaker 1: their system. Look, Stalin had, as I said, some of 632 00:33:15,080 --> 00:33:18,360 Speaker 1: the best agents scattered across the world in the lead 633 00:33:18,440 --> 00:33:23,080 Speaker 1: up to World War two. Ricardsorge, a German gru Case officer, 634 00:33:23,440 --> 00:33:26,160 Speaker 1: was a de facto diplomat working out of the Nazi 635 00:33:26,160 --> 00:33:29,840 Speaker 1: embassy in Tokyo, and in such capacity he discovered two 636 00:33:29,960 --> 00:33:33,440 Speaker 1: very important things. The first one was that Germany was 637 00:33:33,440 --> 00:33:36,360 Speaker 1: planning to invade the Soviet Union, so Hitler was going 638 00:33:36,400 --> 00:33:38,880 Speaker 1: to break the Hitler Stalin Pact before Stalin could get 639 00:33:38,880 --> 00:33:42,320 Speaker 1: around to doing it. Stalin classed this as disinformation. He 640 00:33:42,360 --> 00:33:44,800 Speaker 1: didn't believe. He said, the spies are working for Russia, 641 00:33:44,800 --> 00:33:47,440 Speaker 1: for Germany, and they're planting disinformation with me, so that 642 00:33:47,480 --> 00:33:50,320 Speaker 1: I miscalculated. No, it was true, and of course Operation 643 00:33:50,360 --> 00:33:53,280 Speaker 1: Barbarossa commenced. The other important thing which he did heed 644 00:33:53,880 --> 00:33:56,080 Speaker 1: was that the Japanese were not going to invade the 645 00:33:56,080 --> 00:33:58,480 Speaker 1: Soviet Union from the east, which allowed the Red Army 646 00:33:58,520 --> 00:34:01,000 Speaker 1: to divert resources from SIB and so on. Him lived 647 00:34:01,000 --> 00:34:02,520 Speaker 1: by the sword, you die by the sword. And I 648 00:34:02,520 --> 00:34:04,800 Speaker 1: think one of the things that Putin is discovering now 649 00:34:05,480 --> 00:34:07,600 Speaker 1: coming back to the war in Ukraine. So the war 650 00:34:07,640 --> 00:34:12,359 Speaker 1: in Ukraine, the political warfare for a decade leading up 651 00:34:12,400 --> 00:34:15,759 Speaker 1: to February twenty fourth, twenty twenty two, was in the 652 00:34:15,800 --> 00:34:19,200 Speaker 1: hands of the FSB's Fifth Service. This is a military 653 00:34:19,280 --> 00:34:21,560 Speaker 1: unit in the FSB, one of the successor agencies of 654 00:34:21,560 --> 00:34:26,080 Speaker 1: the old KGB. The FSB is designed to maintain order domestically, right, 655 00:34:26,200 --> 00:34:28,560 Speaker 1: it's the sword in the shield of the Russian state. 656 00:34:29,080 --> 00:34:30,560 Speaker 1: But a lot of people didn't realize they actually have 657 00:34:30,600 --> 00:34:33,880 Speaker 1: a foreign intelligence arm called the Fifth Service with spies 658 00:34:33,920 --> 00:34:37,400 Speaker 1: and embassies around the world, and this was an organization 659 00:34:37,480 --> 00:34:41,239 Speaker 1: created in the nineties but reconstituted after the color revolutions 660 00:34:41,239 --> 00:34:43,640 Speaker 1: of the two thousand and four, which again coming back 661 00:34:43,680 --> 00:34:46,520 Speaker 1: to the remit of the show. The conspiracy theory, as 662 00:34:46,560 --> 00:34:49,280 Speaker 1: per Putin is all of those revolutions, they weren't people 663 00:34:49,280 --> 00:34:52,040 Speaker 1: on the ground asking for democracy, and it was Hillary Clinton. 664 00:34:52,400 --> 00:34:55,600 Speaker 1: It was Hillary Clinton and Victoria Newland landing out chocolates 665 00:34:55,960 --> 00:35:01,160 Speaker 1: that cad CIA State Department, USAIV any ned. All of 666 00:35:01,160 --> 00:35:05,840 Speaker 1: these people are this grand apparatus of puppeteers controlling you know, 667 00:35:06,000 --> 00:35:08,880 Speaker 1: kids on the streets of capital cities of post Soviet 668 00:35:09,239 --> 00:35:12,200 Speaker 1: So the Fifth Service was given the task destabilized Ukraine. 669 00:35:12,800 --> 00:35:15,040 Speaker 1: Serghe Bisida, who was the head of it, was the 670 00:35:15,040 --> 00:35:18,120 Speaker 1: guy who told Viktor Yanikovich, former president of Ukraine, opened 671 00:35:18,120 --> 00:35:21,560 Speaker 1: fire on protesters in Maydan in twenty fourteen. So he 672 00:35:21,640 --> 00:35:24,920 Speaker 1: was entrusted with, Okay, find me a bunch of recruit 673 00:35:25,239 --> 00:35:28,920 Speaker 1: and pay. It's fifth columnists who can basically take over 674 00:35:28,960 --> 00:35:31,319 Speaker 1: the government on our behalf when we our tanks roll 675 00:35:31,400 --> 00:35:33,560 Speaker 1: in no more than three days to take Kiev. And 676 00:35:33,680 --> 00:35:37,360 Speaker 1: turns out Bista probably in a combination of things. One 677 00:35:37,440 --> 00:35:39,720 Speaker 1: he's a crook like they all are, and stole money 678 00:35:39,760 --> 00:35:41,840 Speaker 1: that was given to him for trade kraft burp. This 679 00:35:41,880 --> 00:35:43,920 Speaker 1: is number two. He probably did have a sense that 680 00:35:44,560 --> 00:35:46,560 Speaker 1: things in Ukraine don't go the way you would like 681 00:35:46,640 --> 00:35:50,600 Speaker 1: them to go in the Kremlin, meaning Ukrainians are patriotic, 682 00:35:50,600 --> 00:35:53,279 Speaker 1: they are more nationalistic, and if the Russians come here, 683 00:35:53,520 --> 00:35:56,000 Speaker 1: they're gonna go to war. So he was telling the 684 00:35:56,000 --> 00:35:58,400 Speaker 1: Tsar what the Tzar wanted to hear. No, we got it. 685 00:35:58,400 --> 00:36:01,319 Speaker 1: Don't worry, we got it. Time he was in ill oder, 686 00:36:01,400 --> 00:36:05,680 Speaker 1: possibly under house arrests, covered in murkiness, but there you go. 687 00:36:05,800 --> 00:36:10,320 Speaker 1: I mean, the reason Putin's war went sideways was conspiracy theories. 688 00:36:10,680 --> 00:36:14,480 Speaker 1: Conspiracy theories cooked up by his own intelligence services, designed 689 00:36:14,480 --> 00:36:18,920 Speaker 1: to prosecute those conspiracy theories and sew them against the enemy, 690 00:36:18,920 --> 00:36:22,000 Speaker 1: but in fact they were regurgitated within for lack of a 691 00:36:22,000 --> 00:36:22,680 Speaker 1: better term. 692 00:36:22,520 --> 00:36:25,520 Speaker 2: Well, let's hope that those conspiracy theories in Russia make 693 00:36:25,600 --> 00:36:29,160 Speaker 2: Russia fall apart before conspiracy theories here make us fall apart. 694 00:36:29,239 --> 00:36:30,919 Speaker 2: So we just wanted to thank you for spending time 695 00:36:30,960 --> 00:36:33,600 Speaker 2: with us and talking about this. It's the real dark 696 00:36:33,640 --> 00:36:36,400 Speaker 2: side of conspiracies, and so thank you very much and 697 00:36:36,480 --> 00:36:39,120 Speaker 2: continue reaction reporting and we'll hope to have you on again. 698 00:36:39,280 --> 00:36:40,040 Speaker 1: Happy to join. 699 00:36:40,520 --> 00:36:42,919 Speaker 2: That's enough for today and we will be back next 700 00:36:42,920 --> 00:36:45,400 Speaker 2: week with another episode of Mission Implausible. 701 00:36:50,239 --> 00:36:55,280 Speaker 5: Mission Implausible is produced by Adam Davidson, Jerry Osha, John Seipher, 702 00:36:55,600 --> 00:37:00,680 Speaker 5: and Jonathan Sterner. The associate producer is Rachel Harners. Implausible 703 00:37:00,760 --> 00:37:04,160 Speaker 5: is a production of Honorable Mention and Abominable Pictures for 704 00:37:04,320 --> 00:37:05,480 Speaker 5: iHeart Podcasts.