WEBVTT - Part Three: Kissinger 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:02.800 Hi, everybody. Robert Evans here and my novel After the 0:00:02.840 --> 0:00:05.800 Revolution is available for pre order now from a k 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:08.480 press dot org. Now, if you go to a k 0:00:08.640 --> 0:00:10.880 press dot org you can find After the Revolution. Just 0:00:10.960 --> 0:00:13.760 google a k press dot org After the Revolution you'll 0:00:13.760 --> 0:00:16.840 find a list of participating indie bookstores selling my book. 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:19.439 And if you pre order now from either these independent 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:21.840 bookstores or from a k Press, you'll get a custom 0:00:22.120 --> 0:00:25.440 signed copy of the book, which I think is pretty cool. 0:00:25.520 --> 0:00:27.960 You can also pre order it in physical or in 0:00:28.040 --> 0:00:30.960 kindle a form from Amazon or pretty much wherever books 0:00:30.960 --> 0:00:34.600 are sold. So please google a k press after the 0:00:34.640 --> 0:00:38.080 Revolution um or find an indie bookstore in your area 0:00:38.159 --> 0:00:40.159 and pre order it. You'll get assigned a copy and 0:00:40.200 --> 0:00:49.640 you'll make me very happy. Ah, I don't how how 0:00:49.680 --> 0:00:52.440 do I, Sophie? How do I introduce Part three of 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:56.040 the Kissinger series? You just did it. Gareth and David 0:00:56.040 --> 0:00:58.640 are right here, they're waiting for something good, and I 0:00:58.720 --> 0:01:02.440 just I'm just I'm fucking up, Sophie. I mean, yeah, 0:01:02.520 --> 0:01:06.160 but you you accidentally introduced the podcast which is behind 0:01:06.160 --> 0:01:10.600 the basket, behind the dollops, dollop the bastard up the 0:01:10.640 --> 0:01:15.520 bastards hybrid podcast, and like all hybrids, it is incapable 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:20.400 of procreating, but better at getting up steep mountain passes. 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:23.640 It's getting a little goat. Now we can multiply by 0:01:23.920 --> 0:01:31.479 cell division, but not through sexual Yeah. Yeah we've tried. Yeah, 0:01:31.520 --> 0:01:36.400 we have, we have. We're in that processed. So since 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:40.039 we last recorded a podcast, war has broken out and 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:44.160 I was just thinking, mister in Europe, God three days. Yeah, 0:01:44.200 --> 0:01:46.160 but we like ended it and then it was like, 0:01:46.280 --> 0:01:49.000 oh wow, it's happening, and now it feels like it's 0:01:49.040 --> 0:01:51.800 been two months since. Then had a brief conversation what 0:01:51.840 --> 0:01:53.760 do you think is going to happen? And then immediately 0:01:53.840 --> 0:01:56.760 checked our phones to be like, oh, okay, so they're 0:01:56.760 --> 0:02:02.160 showing all over the plate. Oh so y'all, are are 0:02:02.200 --> 0:02:05.400 we ready to learn about Henry Kissinger and a little 0:02:05.440 --> 0:02:09.600 country you might have heard of called Cambodia and also 0:02:09.600 --> 0:02:13.640 a separate country you might have called Lao, and also Vietnam. 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:18.160 Still so that energy, let's go, let's do it. Yeah. 0:02:18.440 --> 0:02:22.760 So on February fourteen, Valentine's Day, nineteen sixty five, President 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:26.960 Lyndon B. Johnson approved Operation Rolling Thunder. This was a 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:30.320 long term campaign of aerial bombing against North Vietnam. It's 0:02:30.360 --> 0:02:32.440 primary aims were to help them arout with the South 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:36.120 Vietnamese and the Psigon government, to persuade North Vietnam to 0:02:36.120 --> 0:02:38.919 stop supporting the Vietcong, and to destroy the North Vietnamese 0:02:38.960 --> 0:02:41.840 transportation infrastructure and industrial base so as to stop them 0:02:41.840 --> 0:02:45.160 from sending men and equipment south. It did not succeed 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:48.720 as a spoiler. None of this, None of this works. 0:02:49.639 --> 0:02:54.000 Like it's just amazing that, like you have all this firepower, 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:57.240 you have all these planes, and really you're talking about 0:02:57.320 --> 0:03:02.560 destroying like railroads and shipping and like underground tunnels too. 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:04.920 This is the hoche Man trail, you know. I mean 0:03:04.919 --> 0:03:08.360 it's not what we're talking about, the Hotimon trail, and 0:03:08.360 --> 0:03:10.800 they we're never going to do that. No, this is 0:03:10.840 --> 0:03:13.040 like a lesson that no one ever learns in warfare. 0:03:13.040 --> 0:03:15.760 Because you can also point to like the saturation bombing 0:03:15.800 --> 0:03:19.240 of Germany, which had a minimal effect on German industrial production. 0:03:19.360 --> 0:03:21.560 You can talk about like what's happening right now in Ukraine, 0:03:21.600 --> 0:03:23.919 which is not succeeded in its strategic games. You could 0:03:23.919 --> 0:03:26.800 talk about a number of wars the US has been involved, 0:03:26.840 --> 0:03:28.639 and you can talk about like World War One where 0:03:28.639 --> 0:03:31.360 the British would drop a million shells in a couple 0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:33.240 of hours on a chunk of trench line and then 0:03:33.240 --> 0:03:35.440 I'll get killed by machine gun fire because the shells 0:03:35.800 --> 0:03:39.800 didn't do enough. Like military leaders always have this idea 0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:41.920 that we can just bomb our problems away and it 0:03:42.000 --> 0:03:45.880 just never really works. Yeah, no, it doesn't. It's yeah, 0:03:46.200 --> 0:03:49.800 you know what it does. It It terrifies the civilian population. 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:52.760 It sure does, yes, um, And it helps the Pentagon 0:03:52.840 --> 0:03:54.440 a lot. I think it does help the Pentagon. It 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:56.520 makes money for people, so I guess to that extent 0:03:56.640 --> 0:03:59.480 it succeeds in its goal. And Operation Thunder did make 0:03:59.520 --> 0:04:02.160 some people a lot of money. Um. It continued for 0:04:02.200 --> 0:04:05.280 three straight years until November of nineteen sixty eight. During 0:04:05.280 --> 0:04:07.920 this period, Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps planes through 0:04:07.920 --> 0:04:10.480 more than three hundred thousand attack sorties, which dropped more 0:04:10.480 --> 0:04:13.160 than eight hundred and sixty four thousand tons of bombs. 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:16.520 For reference, the United States dropped half a million tons 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:18.560 of bombs in the Pacific theater during all of World 0:04:18.600 --> 0:04:22.800 War Two. Um. Yeah, it is hard to exaggerate the 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:25.039 extent to which we bombed the ship out of North 0:04:25.120 --> 0:04:28.920 Vietnam to no notable effect. According to our trustworthy friends 0:04:28.920 --> 0:04:31.480 at the CIA, the raids did five hundred million dollars 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:34.320 in damage, killed twenty one people, and injured more than 0:04:34.360 --> 0:04:37.880 thirty thousand more. The CIA says that sevent of all 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:42.440 casualties were people involved in military operations. US government estimates, 0:04:42.520 --> 0:04:45.760 not by the CIA, however, estimate at least thirty thousand 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:49.560 civilian fatalities. Other estimates placed the civilian death toll much higher, 0:04:49.680 --> 0:04:53.520 at close to two hundred thousand civilians um. Probably fair 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:56.040 to say north of a hundred thousand, you know, um 0:04:56.080 --> 0:04:59.400 a lot, a lot of folks. Um. By the time 0:04:59.480 --> 0:05:01.800 Kissing Your and Nixon took office, it was clear that 0:05:01.880 --> 0:05:04.640 Rolling Thunder had failed miserably. This was due in part 0:05:04.680 --> 0:05:07.200 to the existence of the Ho Chiman Trail in nineteen 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:09.960 fifty nine. This is before US soldiers had officially entered 0:05:09.960 --> 0:05:13.040 the country. The trail had been created under order by 0:05:13.080 --> 0:05:15.800 the Laodong, which is the Communist Party of Vietnam, to 0:05:15.880 --> 0:05:17.640 aid them in what was at that point a building 0:05:17.680 --> 0:05:20.799 conflict with South Vietnam. At the start, it led across 0:05:20.880 --> 0:05:24.640 just the demilitarized zone into Cassan and South Vietnam. Porters 0:05:24.640 --> 0:05:27.479 would carry boxes of ammunition and rifles on their body, 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:29.799 which they would then hand to insurgents in the south. 0:05:30.279 --> 0:05:32.920 Over time, the trail was expanded to a vast underground 0:05:32.960 --> 0:05:36.760 transit network, more than twelve thousand miles in size, capable 0:05:36.800 --> 0:05:39.080 of moving more than ten thousand troops and thousands of 0:05:39.080 --> 0:05:42.119 trucks per year. As the fighting escalated, the trail veered 0:05:42.120 --> 0:05:44.599 into Lao, where the government was engaged fighting its own 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:47.560 insurgency and unable to stop the transit of weapons. The 0:05:47.560 --> 0:05:50.440 Ho Chiman Trail allowed North Vietnam to smuggle equipment south 0:05:50.480 --> 0:05:52.600 and to evade the U. S. Naval blockade that sought 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:56.120 to choke it out. Today, even Defense Department sources recognized 0:05:56.120 --> 0:05:59.200 it as one of the greatest logistical successes of twentieth 0:05:59.200 --> 0:06:03.880 century warfare. It works pretty good. It's amazing to think 0:06:04.000 --> 0:06:07.040 of the number of bombs you're talking about, and then 0:06:08.200 --> 0:06:14.800 they made a tunnel. Yeah, yeah, really good haul. But 0:06:15.680 --> 0:06:18.360 it's like chop out. It's not just it's not just 0:06:18.440 --> 0:06:22.080 a tunnel, it's it's it's in a jungle. Like we're 0:06:22.080 --> 0:06:26.080 talking about, very difficult sort of environment to make a tunnel. 0:06:26.520 --> 0:06:31.080 It's not that like, it's incredible what they did. Yeah, 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:34.400 So lbj's administration sent planes into allow to bomb the 0:06:34.400 --> 0:06:37.640 trail and to escort Lautian planes while they bombed the trail. 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:40.840 When US airmen were killed or captured over law, their 0:06:40.839 --> 0:06:44.080 families were told they'd gone down in Southeast Asia to 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:47.360 allow LBJ to claim he'd abided by his nineteen sixty 0:06:47.360 --> 0:06:50.640 four election promise to avoid a wider war. Cambodia was 0:06:50.680 --> 0:06:53.919 bombed as well, but during lbj's administration, Loo was considered 0:06:53.960 --> 0:06:56.120 a more important target. They thought more stuff was getting 0:06:56.160 --> 0:06:59.280 into Vietnam through law. This changed in nineteen when the 0:06:59.320 --> 0:07:01.760 Tet offense made it clear that North Vietnam had gotten 0:07:01.880 --> 0:07:04.200 very good at running troops in and out of Cambodia. 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:07.320 Johnson hadn't been willing to escalate the bombing campaign against 0:07:07.320 --> 0:07:09.480 a neutral country, though, especially since again, there was this 0:07:09.520 --> 0:07:11.920 big election going on and he was kind of having 0:07:12.040 --> 0:07:14.480 his vice president run on the promise that, like, we're 0:07:14.480 --> 0:07:16.720 really going to end this thing. So you know, lb J, 0:07:16.920 --> 0:07:20.040 when he's trying to tease North Vietnam with a bombing halt, 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:23.120 isn't gonna just start laying into Cambodia in the spring 0:07:23.200 --> 0:07:25.600 of nineteen sixty nine, after you know, Kissinger and Nixon 0:07:25.640 --> 0:07:28.960 took office, they approved the expanded use of US special 0:07:29.000 --> 0:07:32.320 forces in Lao, along with a campaign of sustained air strikes. 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:37.640 This was called Operations Steal Tiger. All of these So, 0:07:38.080 --> 0:07:43.120 I mean the stupidest names. Yeah, we, I mean we 0:07:43.280 --> 0:07:45.880 the marketing that we have gone for in this country 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:50.160 for so long has been so absurd. Steal Tiger. Well, 0:07:50.280 --> 0:07:52.600 I mean they're just taking Y and T album names 0:07:52.600 --> 0:07:58.960 at this point. Yeah. Uh, if only they'd gone with 0:07:59.000 --> 0:08:01.600 like Prince Operate and Purple Rain. But it's like the 0:08:01.680 --> 0:08:08.640 defoliant that gives everyone cancer. Um, so it's I should 0:08:08.720 --> 0:08:11.920 note here that all secret operations carried out by any 0:08:12.040 --> 0:08:15.600 US forces anywhere in the world during the Nixon administration 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:19.560 were approved personally by Henry Kissinger. Henry was the chairman 0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:25.960 of something called the forty comm Hell sorry, this was 0:08:26.000 --> 0:08:27.960 a semi secret body that had been set up to 0:08:28.000 --> 0:08:31.320 provide management and oversight to c i A covert operations. 0:08:31.800 --> 0:08:33.720 The committee was made up of members of the National 0:08:33.720 --> 0:08:36.600 Security Council. They concerned themselves regularly with the question of 0:08:36.600 --> 0:08:39.520 how to stop weapons from flowing into Vietnam By this point, 0:08:39.559 --> 0:08:41.960 trails ran through parts of Law and Cambodia, but also 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:45.319 from the Vietnam Chinese border, so Kissinger is ahead of this. 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:47.600 Committee considers a number of ways to stop weapons from 0:08:47.600 --> 0:08:50.320 getting into New or from getting into and with Vietnam, 0:08:50.559 --> 0:08:54.679 including the use of thermonuclear weapons to annihilate the railways 0:08:54.720 --> 0:08:59.839 between North Vietnam and China out of its entire damn my, 0:09:00.240 --> 0:09:03.360 and to be fair, is nuts enough that even Kissinger 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:09.800 is like, no, that's a little too far. He also 0:09:09.880 --> 0:09:13.600 considered bombing the dikes that kept North Vietnam's irrigation system 0:09:13.640 --> 0:09:16.240 from flooding all of its fields. Both of these would 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:19.120 have been war crimes on a Titanic scale. Um. Thankfully, 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:21.760 Kissinger declined to do either in favor of a completely 0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:26.599 different set of war crimes. So that's good, that's nice. Yeah, 0:09:26.920 --> 0:09:29.960 let's do a different thing. He decides which war crimes 0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:32.400 to commit, like we decide like jeans or sweatpants in 0:09:32.440 --> 0:09:34.640 the morning, you know, I mean, I think that would 0:09:34.840 --> 0:09:36.760 go really well with what we're doing now. That a 0:09:36.840 --> 0:09:41.240 really tie the whole thing together. Yeah, that's quite a life. 0:09:41.520 --> 0:09:44.240 So immediately after taking office, Henry helps his new boss 0:09:44.280 --> 0:09:47.960 put together a menu of bombardment targets in Cambodia. This 0:09:48.040 --> 0:10:00.040 is literally called Operation Menu. Now, yeahs before up to 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:05.800 tip your bomba deer, get the sample that was. That's 0:10:05.800 --> 0:10:08.719 what I don't know. I actually don't recall off the 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:11.160 top of my head which bombing operation McCain was involved in. 0:10:11.160 --> 0:10:13.360 But there's a good there's a good tip joke to 0:10:13.440 --> 0:10:16.559 be made there. Somebody will figure it out. Um, people 0:10:16.559 --> 0:10:20.080 doing post Yeah, we'll figure it out. Different or parts 0:10:20.120 --> 0:10:22.840 of Operation Menu had code names. Different targets had code 0:10:22.880 --> 0:10:30.360 names like breakfast, lunch sack. What I mean, it is 0:10:30.400 --> 0:10:34.640 one thing to be like so sadistic and it's just 0:10:34.840 --> 0:10:38.160 another thing to tie it into do a lot to 0:10:38.160 --> 0:10:43.840 try brunch yea, yeah, we're going back to brunch finally 0:10:43.960 --> 0:10:51.000 under watch the next Um. So yeah, it's nice that 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:53.800 slaughter can be fun, like you can find fun. Yeah, 0:10:53.880 --> 0:10:57.240 it's the kind of love what you do, Dave. Otherwise 0:10:57.280 --> 0:11:03.600 you're just gonna feel like work, you know. So before 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:06.160 they began this series of bombings, the Joint Chiefs of 0:11:06.200 --> 0:11:09.480 Staff they warned the White House quote some Cambodian casualties 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:13.199 would be sustained in the operation. The surprise effective ASTA 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:16.920 could tend to increase casualties. So they're like the fact 0:11:16.920 --> 0:11:18.640 that we're not warning anyone and that we're keeping this 0:11:18.679 --> 0:11:21.199 a secret means more civilians will die. Like heads up, 0:11:21.880 --> 0:11:24.120 so you know what you're doing. This is this is 0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:27.040 what's going to happen. Um. Now. As they approached the 0:11:27.120 --> 0:11:29.960 question of bombing Cambodia A, Kissinger and Nixon had a choice. 0:11:30.000 --> 0:11:32.600 They could either tell Congress or they could hide what 0:11:32.640 --> 0:11:34.920 they were doing and use the presidential power over the 0:11:35.000 --> 0:11:37.680 Armed services to appropriate funds from other places in order 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:40.160 to carry out the bombing in secret. Nixon had been 0:11:40.200 --> 0:11:42.520 elected with Kissinger's help in part due to the LBJ 0:11:42.600 --> 0:11:45.400 administration's failure to in the war. He didn't want to 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:48.200 go in the nineteen seventy two reelection campaign, having to 0:11:48.280 --> 0:11:51.560 defend the fact that he expanded it. Henry Kissinger worked 0:11:51.600 --> 0:11:54.440 with Colonel's Alexander Haig and Race Sitton to figure out 0:11:54.440 --> 0:11:57.000 a way for the president to direct bombing operations in 0:11:57.000 --> 0:11:59.920 a private manner. And I'm gonna quote from Kissinger's shadow, 0:12:00.120 --> 0:12:04.120 Greg Grandon, sitting based on recommendations he received from General 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:07.520 Creighton Abrams, the commander of military operations in Vietnam, would 0:12:07.520 --> 0:12:09.880 work up a number of targets in Cambodia to be struck. 0:12:10.040 --> 0:12:11.679 Then he would bring them to Kissinger and hag in 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:14.320 the White House for approval. Kissinger was very hands on 0:12:14.400 --> 0:12:16.680 revising some of Sitton's work. I don't know what he 0:12:16.720 --> 0:12:19.120 was using as his reason for varying them. Sitting later 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:21.920 recalled strike here in this area. Kissinger would tell him 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:25.160 or strike there in that area. Once Kissinger was satisfied 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:27.920 with the proposed target, Sitting would back channel the coordinates 0:12:27.960 --> 0:12:30.280 to Saigon, and from there a career would pass them 0:12:30.280 --> 0:12:33.000 on to the appropriate radar stations, where an officer would 0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:35.480 make a last minute switch. The B fifty two would 0:12:35.480 --> 0:12:38.800 be diverted from its cover target in South Vietnam into Cambodia, 0:12:38.840 --> 0:12:41.240 where it would drop its bomb load on the real target. 0:12:41.480 --> 0:12:43.439 When the run was complete, the officer in charge of 0:12:43.480 --> 0:12:46.480 the deception would burn whatever documents, maps, computer print outs, 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:49.120 radar reports, messages, and so on that might reveal the 0:12:49.120 --> 0:12:51.839 actual flight. Then he would write up false post strike 0:12:51.880 --> 0:12:55.160 paperwork indicating that the South Vietnam sortee was flown as planned. 0:12:55.480 --> 0:12:58.680 It's so much work. Yeah, reminds me of when I 0:12:58.760 --> 0:13:01.720 used this skip school that like the lengths I would 0:13:01.720 --> 0:13:05.160 go to to get away with cutting class and like that. 0:13:05.320 --> 0:13:07.240 The point would be made always to me, like if 0:13:07.240 --> 0:13:11.360 you put this focus towards studying, you'd probably you'd spend 0:13:11.400 --> 0:13:14.040 less time and it would be more effective. But instead 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:17.360 you just waste so much. Instead of just stopping you 0:13:17.360 --> 0:13:20.880 you do all this gymnastics just to continue the thing 0:13:20.960 --> 0:13:24.959 that is the problem, that makes the problem compound. Yeah, 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:27.679 it's they really are are going through a lot of 0:13:27.720 --> 0:13:31.440 work to illegally bomb a neutral country look like they're 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:35.239 not bombing, Yeah, to look like they're not Um, it's gaslighting, 0:13:35.280 --> 0:13:37.000 you know, this is this, that's what. That's what. This 0:13:37.120 --> 0:13:39.960 is kissing you you know, we're finally going to get 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:45.120 him canceled. This is gonna be what man, it would be. 0:13:45.280 --> 0:13:51.240 Imagine we're going to do to kissing on Hannibal Burst 0:13:51.320 --> 0:13:58.319 did to Cosby. Oh man, come on, come on. Uh. 0:13:58.440 --> 0:14:02.520 So you know, obviously this is very illegal. Um, there's 0:14:02.559 --> 0:14:04.120 a lot and there's a lot of parts of it 0:14:04.200 --> 0:14:06.760 that are illegal. For example, the military has a chain 0:14:06.800 --> 0:14:09.800 of command, and Sitton was bypassing his bosses in the 0:14:09.840 --> 0:14:12.080 Department of Defense because he's just a colonel, right, like 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:14.880 colonels don't get to that's not there, Like you're not 0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:18.000 at that level, right, So he is he is bypassing 0:14:18.240 --> 0:14:22.160 the normal chain of command in order to directly orchestrate 0:14:22.160 --> 0:14:24.560 an a legal bombing campaign with the White House and 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:27.560 kind of cutting out a chunk of the Pentagon sitting 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:29.160 knew at the time that it was weird to cut 0:14:29.200 --> 0:14:31.960 his commanding officers out and report directly to Henry Kissinger. 0:14:32.160 --> 0:14:34.480 He later recalled, I kind of felt I was way 0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:36.280 out on a limb and skating on some pretty thin 0:14:36.360 --> 0:14:38.160 ice with all my trips to the West basement of 0:14:38.200 --> 0:14:42.920 the White House where he's meeting with Yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah, 0:14:42.920 --> 0:14:46.560 I'm going to a secret basement. Yeah, and to talk 0:14:46.600 --> 0:14:49.560 about bombing, like maybe maybe this isn't how it's supposed 0:14:49.600 --> 0:14:55.680 to be done. Seemed like a democracy. I feel like 0:14:55.720 --> 0:14:58.160 we shouldn't be doing things like this in a basement. 0:14:58.920 --> 0:15:04.880 You've come to secret democracy basement. Yeah. The people voted 0:15:04.920 --> 0:15:09.000 for this basement knock. So I know, as you I 0:15:09.000 --> 0:15:11.080 noted here that they kind of cut out a large 0:15:11.160 --> 0:15:14.240 chunk of like the military command apparatus to do this, 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:16.520 which doesn't mean that those guys were against what they 0:15:16.520 --> 0:15:19.160 were doing, and in fact, all of sitton superiors knew 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:21.320 what he was doing. They just didn't want to be 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:23.960 involved because again, it was a crime, you know. So 0:15:24.680 --> 0:15:27.120 they so they're like they're down with the cut out 0:15:27.240 --> 0:15:29.720 because they're just like, yeah, you do it, and I 0:15:29.760 --> 0:15:32.320 don't want my name on this ship crazy, but go 0:15:32.400 --> 0:15:36.880 with it for sure. Yeah, yeah we love it. But yeah, 0:15:36.920 --> 0:15:39.800 they didn't know about the bombing Cambodia the same way. 0:15:39.840 --> 0:15:45.400 I have never known a pot dealer, right, So Sitton 0:15:45.440 --> 0:15:47.360 would regularly like, I don't know. I'm not going to 0:15:47.440 --> 0:15:49.040 say this is to his credit, but he was like 0:15:49.080 --> 0:15:50.840 this is weird, and he would go He did on 0:15:50.880 --> 0:15:53.000 a couple of occasions go to his superiors and was 0:15:53.080 --> 0:15:57.320 like are you okay with this? And his exact phrase 0:15:57.640 --> 0:16:00.480 what they responded was just do just what you're doing. 0:16:00.560 --> 0:16:02.040 When you get a call to go to the White House, 0:16:02.040 --> 0:16:04.560 go because you don't really have a choice, which is great. 0:16:04.600 --> 0:16:08.160 Oh my god, it's it's it's straight out of the 0:16:08.240 --> 0:16:12.120 show Snowfall, Like it's just like this ship just happens 0:16:12.160 --> 0:16:14.800 all the time. Yeah, this is what happened with Iran Contra. 0:16:14.840 --> 0:16:18.000 It was the same fucking ship, you know. Yeah, it's 0:16:18.000 --> 0:16:20.720 all crimes and It's worth noting that like the United 0:16:20.760 --> 0:16:23.680 States is going to war with a neutral country in secret, 0:16:23.880 --> 0:16:26.240 under the personal direction of a guy who several months 0:16:26.240 --> 0:16:28.800 ago had been a Harvard professor, like Kissinger is not 0:16:28.920 --> 0:16:31.560 even a year distant from being a fucking teacher and 0:16:31.600 --> 0:16:34.720 this and now he is orchestrating a secret war in Cambodia. 0:16:34.880 --> 0:16:39.240 And like, I love the I love the beginning thing 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:41.680 where you said, there's like a guy whose job it 0:16:41.720 --> 0:16:44.720 is to pick targets, and he's picking targets and nick 0:16:45.000 --> 0:16:47.000 and kissing, just taking them apps and going no, I 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:50.720 like here, like just totally random. He doesn't have any 0:16:50.720 --> 0:16:52.920 fucking idea what he's doing. He's just like that it 0:16:53.120 --> 0:16:55.840 looks like it should go away. He has not even 0:16:55.880 --> 0:17:01.800 begun to micromanage this, this war crime, Dave. So, the 0:17:01.880 --> 0:17:04.480 purpose of this illegal bombing campaign was not just to 0:17:04.520 --> 0:17:07.480 stop the movement of Vietnamese troops and material. It also paid. 0:17:08.000 --> 0:17:10.879 It also played a role in advancing what Nixon called 0:17:10.960 --> 0:17:14.840 his Madman theory. Now, the President had shared this with 0:17:14.880 --> 0:17:18.000 close confidence prior to the nineteen six election. He told 0:17:18.000 --> 0:17:20.480 his future chief of staff that, in order to negotiate 0:17:20.480 --> 0:17:23.159 an into the war with favorable terms he felt he 0:17:23.160 --> 0:17:25.879 had to make the North Vietnamese quote, believe I've reached 0:17:25.920 --> 0:17:28.080 a point where I might do anything to stop the war. 0:17:28.400 --> 0:17:30.840 We'll just slip the word to them that, for God's sake, 0:17:30.880 --> 0:17:33.399 you know, Nixon is obsessed about communists. We can't restrain 0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:35.040 him when he's angry and he has his hand on 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:37.280 the nuclear button. And ho Chi Men himself will be 0:17:37.320 --> 0:17:40.239 in Paris in two days begging for peace, which is 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:42.879 like the idea. Someone's like, so you want us to 0:17:42.960 --> 0:17:46.520 try to convey that you're crazy? Okay, that seems um 0:17:46.320 --> 0:17:48.760 and I think it's coming across her. Honestly, I think 0:17:48.760 --> 0:17:51.680 that's already it's baked into this whole thing a little bit. 0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:54.439 It's also very funny that, like they are trying to 0:17:54.560 --> 0:17:56.879 scare ho Chi Men, who at this point is fighting 0:17:56.920 --> 0:18:00.320 his second winning war against a major world power with 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:04.240 like a very very small number of people, you know, 0:18:04.359 --> 0:18:07.240 like North North Vietnam not a big country compared to 0:18:07.240 --> 0:18:12.720 say the French Imperial Forces or the United States. He's 0:18:12.720 --> 0:18:14.480 not a kind of You're not going to scare ho 0:18:14.720 --> 0:18:16.760 Chi Men, right, He's not. He's not a guy who 0:18:16.760 --> 0:18:21.080 gets spooked. It's over. It's just absolutely not happening at 0:18:21.080 --> 0:18:24.479 this point. Yeah, Now, Kissinger either believed in his boss's 0:18:24.520 --> 0:18:27.280 plan or understood that he had to play along. Greg 0:18:27.320 --> 0:18:30.119 Grandon argues that Nixon's Madman theory was actually just an 0:18:30.119 --> 0:18:33.080 extension of the foreign policy arguments that Kissinger himself had 0:18:33.119 --> 0:18:36.320 been making for years. Quote. Toughness after all, was a 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:38.520 late motif that run through much ran through much of 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:41.920 his state craft, the idea that war and diplomacy are inseparable, 0:18:41.960 --> 0:18:44.400 and that to be effective, diplomats need to be able 0:18:44.440 --> 0:18:47.520 to punish and persuade an equal, unrestricted measure. In fact, 0:18:47.600 --> 0:18:50.520 the Madman theory was an extension of Kissinger's philosophy of 0:18:50.560 --> 0:18:53.399 the deed that power wasn't power unless one was willing 0:18:53.440 --> 0:18:55.359 to use it, that the purpose of action was to 0:18:55.400 --> 0:18:59.560 neutralize the inertia of an action. I mean it like 0:19:00.720 --> 0:19:02.760 it's not I mean, it's not a double down. It's 0:19:02.800 --> 0:19:06.439 like you've it's eighteen double downs. But at some point 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:11.040 you just I I, at least in my lifetime, had 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:14.720 a moment where I did believe that there were there 0:19:14.720 --> 0:19:17.320 were people who were who would like point out the 0:19:17.400 --> 0:19:20.720 crazy shit. And the more you learn, the more you go, No, 0:19:20.800 --> 0:19:23.000 there's just there's not They are just all like it's 0:19:23.000 --> 0:19:25.000 like a bunch of junkies figuring out how to get 0:19:25.000 --> 0:19:28.360 more junk. Yeah, I mean, it's just like it's just 0:19:28.520 --> 0:19:30.760 how do you get through the day. It's not long 0:19:30.920 --> 0:19:34.159 term anything. Yep. You know, there's a degree to which 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:36.720 And this is like one of the things that's most 0:19:36.720 --> 0:19:39.760 frustrating about this part of how this always gets justified 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:43.240 is there's legitimate logic in that, Yeah, Hitler gobbled up 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:46.280 a bunch of little chunks of Western Europe and nobody 0:19:46.359 --> 0:19:49.240 stopped him, and they should have, like something should have 0:19:49.280 --> 0:19:52.480 been done, like when he decided to take Czechoslovakia. You know, 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:56.080 we're during the Angelustre's certainly, you know, like there, and 0:19:56.119 --> 0:19:58.199 they take this logic of like, yeah, if you have 0:19:58.359 --> 0:20:01.720 this like massive military his nation gobbling up its neighbors, 0:20:02.080 --> 0:20:05.359 you can't just necessarily do nothing. And they applied that 0:20:05.400 --> 0:20:08.000 to like, well, okay, we've got a bomb Cambodia because 0:20:08.000 --> 0:20:10.520 some dudes are hiking through it with guns on their back, 0:20:10.600 --> 0:20:16.000 like Chamberlain. Nonsense escalation. Chamberlain also is always in play 0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:18.399 there too, because it's like everyone's like, you don't want 0:20:18.400 --> 0:20:21.360 to be a Chamberlain. Yeah, we're appeasing North Vietnam if 0:20:21.359 --> 0:20:23.679 we don't drop more bombs, and we're dropped in all 0:20:23.720 --> 0:20:28.000 of World War two on Cambodia, Cambodia. It's this nonsense 0:20:28.119 --> 0:20:33.040 escalation of of of logic, of historical logic. That's like 0:20:33.040 --> 0:20:34.920 like someday Nixon's just going to look in the mirror 0:20:34.920 --> 0:20:37.560 and be like, sometimes I think I'm I'm just fighting 0:20:37.560 --> 0:20:41.159 a war inside of myself. They're actually there are some 0:20:41.280 --> 0:20:43.920 quotes from Kissinger that aren't all that far off here. 0:20:52.520 --> 0:20:56.240 We're back. So the first bombing mission in this operation 0:20:56.320 --> 0:21:00.760 was launched on March eighteenth, nineteen sixty nine. Kissinger was 0:21:00.800 --> 0:21:03.199 in conversation at the time when he was interrupted with 0:21:03.200 --> 0:21:05.119 a note telling him that the bombing run had been 0:21:05.119 --> 0:21:07.800 a success. He smiled and then sent the information on 0:21:07.840 --> 0:21:11.520 to the President. Nixon's chief of staff later recalled historic day. 0:21:11.640 --> 0:21:15.760 Kissinger really excited. He came in beaming with the report. Now, 0:21:16.000 --> 0:21:18.040 it was noted by people who were around the White 0:21:18.080 --> 0:21:21.359 House that Nick's that Kissinger seemed to enjoy. Quote playing 0:21:21.400 --> 0:21:24.560 the bomba deer, taking great pains to direct the destruction, 0:21:25.000 --> 0:21:28.320 saymour seymour Hirsch wrote that quote When the military men 0:21:28.359 --> 0:21:31.560 presented a proposed bombing list, Kissinger would redesign the missions, 0:21:31.560 --> 0:21:34.280 shifting a dozen planes, perhaps from one area to another, 0:21:34.359 --> 0:21:38.480 and altering the timing of the bombing runs. And it does. Yeah, 0:21:38.520 --> 0:21:42.320 I guess no fucking expertise in this area, absolutely none. 0:21:42.960 --> 0:21:46.200 He's a fucking nerd who reads books, like you don't 0:21:46.200 --> 0:21:48.800 know anything about what to bomb Henry. It's like me 0:21:48.920 --> 0:21:50.679 showing up at a hospital and being like, all right, 0:21:50.760 --> 0:21:53.359