WEBVTT - Part Two: How The Dulles Brothers Created The CIA And Destroyed Everything Else 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:06.200 M hm. Hitler is a guy we're gonna be talking 0:00:06.240 --> 0:00:09.120 about a lot today because we're talking about The Dullest 0:00:09.160 --> 0:00:12.760 Brothers Part two, and we'll be covering their time in 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:16.520 the war, which involves a lot of Nazis. I'm Robert Evans. 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:20.479 This is you know, Behind the Bastards. You should know 0:00:20.560 --> 0:00:23.280 that this is the second episode we're doing on this series. 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:26.920 And my guest is again Jason Targeant. Jason, how are 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:29.680 you doing? Do some people start with part two of 0:00:29.760 --> 0:00:31.800 a series like this? Do we have to catch them? 0:00:31.920 --> 0:00:35.480 Catch them up with if they are Jason, their maniacs, 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:38.040 and I feel no need to pay ander to them. 0:00:38.080 --> 0:00:40.120 There's a question I did want to ask though, because 0:00:40.159 --> 0:00:43.320 when you left off the two Dullest Brothers, and again 0:00:43.400 --> 0:00:46.839 just because it's been a week or whatever, You've got 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:50.960 the elder brother, Foster Dulles, who is not yet going 0:00:51.200 --> 0:00:53.480 he's going to be Secretary of State later. You've got 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:57.240 the younger alan Um who was later going to take 0:00:57.240 --> 0:01:00.120 over the CIA. Right now, they're not doing that. Right now, 0:01:00.280 --> 0:01:04.919 they are helping to basically negotiate the post war post 0:01:04.959 --> 0:01:08.760 World War one piece with Germany correct and the terms 0:01:08.760 --> 0:01:12.440 of that that will wind up the terms of the 0:01:12.480 --> 0:01:15.440 piece of World War One set the stage for everything 0:01:15.480 --> 0:01:20.080 that comes after, right up until today. Yes, So how 0:01:20.120 --> 0:01:23.280 old are these brothers when that is occurring, Because they're 0:01:23.319 --> 0:01:27.200 not They're not very old. No, I mean like twenty, 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:32.199 like like Allen. Well, yeah, in there, in there there. 0:01:32.400 --> 0:01:36.800 So Foster is older. Foster starts um college. Well, no, 0:01:36.920 --> 0:01:40.320 he starts high school in nineteen o four, so he's 0:01:40.560 --> 0:01:44.120 graduated by nineteen o eight. World War One starts when 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:47.360 he's in his early twenties. He's in his late twenties, 0:01:47.480 --> 0:01:50.960 and Alan is in his early twenties. I think. Okay, 0:01:51.080 --> 0:01:55.240 so when you think about your early twenties, would you 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:58.720 have felt confident in your ability to redraw the map 0:01:58.800 --> 0:02:03.720 of post war Europe? Done a pretty good job? I 0:02:03.760 --> 0:02:05.480 think I could have, you know, because the the only 0:02:05.520 --> 0:02:08.360 people who have their ship together, uh, in all of 0:02:08.400 --> 0:02:13.760 Europe um in my opinion, my opinion Jason um is 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:17.480 probably gonna be I don't know, uh, fucking Bosnia and 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:19.160 I thing's ever gotten wrong there. Let's give it all 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:22.959 to Bosnia. Let them figure it out. I think that's 0:02:22.960 --> 0:02:25.840 how I do it. You've got Greater Bosnia and then 0:02:25.840 --> 0:02:29.320 you got Russia. There could be an entire There have 0:02:29.440 --> 0:02:34.760 been entire, unsure, horrifying books written about the way that 0:02:36.200 --> 0:02:38.840 the map when after the breakup of the Ottoman Empire 0:02:38.880 --> 0:02:41.359 and everything else, like everything that's happening all the way 0:02:41.360 --> 0:02:46.080 through al Qaeda and ISIS, and everything comes down to 0:02:46.120 --> 0:02:48.799 in many ways, how those borders were drawn by people 0:02:48.840 --> 0:02:52.240 who in many cases had never even visited the places 0:02:52.320 --> 0:02:56.520 they were. And one of the most telling things in 0:02:56.560 --> 0:03:00.600 the world if you want to know understand a lot 0:03:00.639 --> 0:03:02.560 of why people in a lot of parts of the 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:04.399 Middle East field the way they do and why things 0:03:04.440 --> 0:03:07.960 have gone the way they do, is the vast majority 0:03:08.000 --> 0:03:10.720 of people in the United States and England and France 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:14.680 have never heard of the Psykes Pico Treaty. Every fucking 0:03:14.760 --> 0:03:19.440 kid in Iraq, in Syria knows what Psykes Pico was. Um, 0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:23.920 because it created their fucking world. Um, And it was 0:03:24.000 --> 0:03:27.320 a treaty that you know, Sykes and Picco. I think 0:03:27.360 --> 0:03:32.560 we're British and French guys, but um, it's um yeah, 0:03:32.600 --> 0:03:34.800 this is this is the period that period. Well that's happening. 0:03:34.800 --> 0:03:37.560 And I will say, you know, in fairness, redrawing the 0:03:37.560 --> 0:03:40.960 boundaries of Europe as a result of this conflict. What 0:03:41.040 --> 0:03:43.680 they're doing is not the same as what's being done 0:03:43.720 --> 0:03:47.160 to the Ottoman Empire, because that's much more violent and horrible. 0:03:47.880 --> 0:03:51.840 What like they had, they understand Europe a lot better. Um, 0:03:51.880 --> 0:03:54.640 they're often negotiating with the people who are running these 0:03:54.680 --> 0:03:57.520 countries because like they you know, they for one thing, 0:03:57.600 --> 0:04:01.000 think that Europeans get to have more input into what 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:03.800 happens with their nations than than the people of the 0:04:03.840 --> 0:04:08.240 Ottoman former Ottoman territories. Yeah, it's just it's a very 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:13.160 consequential period of world history. The same after World War One, 0:04:13.600 --> 0:04:17.440 the whole world order kind of gets reshuffled, and I 0:04:17.480 --> 0:04:19.559 think one of which of the Dullest brothers was dealing 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:24.440 with Germany's repayment of their foster foster. Like how that 0:04:24.480 --> 0:04:30.320 comes down, that's gonna sow the seeds of everything, everything 0:04:30.360 --> 0:04:33.039 that happens up until today. Like it's it's hard to 0:04:33.080 --> 0:04:37.880 overstate how the mistakes are made at the time, and 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:41.400 maybe things couldn't have been anticipated. I don't know, that's 0:04:41.440 --> 0:04:45.160 a whole separate deal. It's hard to overstate how important 0:04:46.240 --> 0:04:49.839 what their work was here up through until the time. 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:52.839 Both of these men die. Because it is a personal 0:04:52.880 --> 0:04:55.120 beef of mind that when we talk about politics in 0:04:55.160 --> 0:04:58.839 America today, when we look for a historical example, we 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:05.840 have like two, everyone is either Hitler or uh now, 0:05:06.000 --> 0:05:10.119 I don't know if it's everything is either four or Hitler, 0:05:10.440 --> 0:05:14.359 it's yeah. And I wish I wish you could insult 0:05:14.400 --> 0:05:18.000 the president by saying he's like Woodrow Wilson. And I 0:05:18.040 --> 0:05:22.279 wish you could insult an administration's foreign policy by saying 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:25.080 it's like it's like the Dulles are in charge. To 0:05:25.160 --> 0:05:29.120 the average person today, like arguing on the internet those names, 0:05:29.160 --> 0:05:31.920 I guarantee you don't mean anything. They don't. And it's 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:35.760 one of the things that's fascinating about this that you're 0:05:35.839 --> 0:05:39.280 kind of touching on is that when the most consequenceial 0:05:39.440 --> 0:05:42.840 decisions in modern history are being made, a number of 0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:46.240 people at the table are just some dudes, grandkids, you know, 0:05:46.880 --> 0:05:49.200 like the dullest brothers are not the only people who 0:05:49.240 --> 0:05:51.839 get in this position, including like the crowned heads of Europe. 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:56.240 You could argue, but like, how much a factor this 0:05:56.400 --> 0:06:00.920 is that the people making these calls are all buddies 0:06:00.920 --> 0:06:03.279 and relatives of each other in a lot of ways. 0:06:03.520 --> 0:06:06.760 It's different because in America we're not supposed to have 0:06:07.120 --> 0:06:12.080 royalty and and so. But when you but when you 0:06:12.120 --> 0:06:13.800 look and he said, well, gosh, how are these two 0:06:13.839 --> 0:06:15.760 guys fresh out of college or fresh out of the 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:19.520 first jobs? Like sitting at the table help redraw what 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:22.160 the future looks like. And it's like, oh, well, they 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:28.559 were having dinner with foreign leaders when they were in kindergarten. Uh. 0:06:28.800 --> 0:06:32.160 It's there are classes of people who when you're growing up, 0:06:32.200 --> 0:06:35.039 you have the option of saying, well, do you want 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:37.240 to go into your father's business to be a minister? 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:40.240 Do you want to be secretaries? Stay like your grandfather, 0:06:40.960 --> 0:06:43.520 And that's one of the options. Uh. And you're just 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:46.320 traveling in a circle of people and you have as 0:06:46.760 --> 0:06:49.280 you mentioned the previous episode, like their jobs they were 0:06:49.320 --> 0:06:52.200 getting at the time didn't pay much at all, totally 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:55.920 irrelevant to this class of people. That's not what it's about. 0:06:56.680 --> 0:07:00.800 Like they are destined to be names and history books 0:07:00.920 --> 0:07:03.120 and so they have the money if they want to 0:07:03.160 --> 0:07:05.839 spend a year in India or do whatever they did 0:07:05.880 --> 0:07:07.880 to see these parts of the world and all these 0:07:07.880 --> 0:07:10.480 things would influence how they see the world. They have 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:14.080 the ability to do that. You you didn't, you could 0:07:14.080 --> 0:07:17.240 not have have taken off and just you know, traveled 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:20.119 around and all of this and failed your way upward 0:07:20.200 --> 0:07:23.720 the way Allen did. Yeah. Um, Now, Jason, as we 0:07:23.760 --> 0:07:25.840 get into this because we into the last episode, noting 0:07:25.880 --> 0:07:27.880 that this is the period the world, the end of 0:07:27.880 --> 0:07:31.000 World War One in which communism really gets fixed on 0:07:31.040 --> 0:07:34.400 the dullest boys radar right. And of course it would 0:07:34.400 --> 0:07:37.880 like it wasn't really a massive topic of discussion until 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:40.920 the Russian Revolution that really made it something that a 0:07:40.920 --> 0:07:44.720 lot of American conservatives were obsessed about. Um because they see, 0:07:44.760 --> 0:07:46.720 you know, you see, like the business leaders in the 0:07:47.040 --> 0:07:50.400 crowned heads of of Russia get murdered and have their 0:07:50.400 --> 0:07:52.960 stuff taken, and it it scares a lot of people. 0:07:53.360 --> 0:07:55.800 But it is worth noting as we start this episode 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:59.080 that the hardline anti communist attitudes that were adopted by 0:07:59.120 --> 0:08:02.520 Foster and alan a List immediately after the Russian Revolution 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:08.040 were not necessarily the default even among conservatives. Herbert Fucking 0:08:08.120 --> 0:08:12.440 Hoover is one of the most conservative presidents in US history, 0:08:12.600 --> 0:08:16.200 and during this period of time he urged Woodrow Wilson 0:08:16.280 --> 0:08:19.840 to reevaluate the Bolshevik movement and acknowledge that it had 0:08:19.920 --> 0:08:24.600 quote true social ends and roots in quote grievous injustices 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:26.880 to the lowest classes in all the countries that have 0:08:26.960 --> 0:08:30.640 been affected. Hoover warned that in the United States, the 0:08:30.720 --> 0:08:35.679 advancement of communist causes was directly the fault of American reactionaries, 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:40.600 who had stimulated Bolshevism by viciously attacking social welfare programs. Now, 0:08:40.559 --> 0:08:42.679 if you know what anythan about Hoover, it's wild that 0:08:42.760 --> 0:08:46.560 he's the one saying this, but he is. History has 0:08:46.559 --> 0:08:51.280 gotten rewritten. Yeah, in terms of looking backward about and 0:08:51.280 --> 0:08:53.079 and and then in the same way where it's like, well, 0:08:53.120 --> 0:08:56.199 we always hated the Nazis, so like, well, yeah, yeah, 0:08:56.240 --> 0:08:59.079 we're about to talk about that a lot, Jason, No, 0:09:00.520 --> 0:09:03.959 uh yeah. So the idea that the communism is like 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:07.640 always antithnical to everything America. It's godless and it's there's 0:09:07.640 --> 0:09:11.240 no freedom, and it's like, well, like Herbert Hoover was saying, 0:09:11.520 --> 0:09:15.160 these guys have a point because what it replaced was 0:09:15.200 --> 0:09:19.240 not American style. We have this thing where it's like 0:09:19.280 --> 0:09:22.480 the whole world is either America or it's communist. It's like, 0:09:23.520 --> 0:09:26.440 but I mean, to his credit, he is very astute. 0:09:26.520 --> 0:09:29.400 Lee noting that one of the thing reasons these causes 0:09:29.440 --> 0:09:32.480 are being advanced in the United States is because reactionaries 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:36.560 are refusing any kind of meaningful social welfare. Um, so 0:09:36.600 --> 0:09:38.640 he's not entirely like that is a That is a 0:09:38.679 --> 0:09:42.319 pretty astute observation. I would say it is a level 0:09:42.440 --> 0:09:45.439 of nuance on the subject that America would have would 0:09:45.440 --> 0:09:48.200 be in no mood for a few decades later. And 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:51.600 again from one of one of the worst presidents in 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:55.320 American history. The guy who who just kind of steers 0:09:55.400 --> 0:09:59.600 us right into the Great Depression is staying this amazing. 0:10:00.520 --> 0:10:04.280 Herbert so Woodrow Wilson and the Dullest Brothers did not 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:07.560 listen to Herbert Hoover. Between nineteen nineteen and nineteen twenty, 0:10:07.600 --> 0:10:10.760 President Wilson deployed the U. S. Army to suppress labor 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:14.720 or racial unrest twenty five times. That's the Army, not 0:10:14.800 --> 0:10:17.160 the National Guard. We don't talk about that a lot either. 0:10:18.000 --> 0:10:22.040 The Dullest Brothers enthusiastically supported this. After the war, Allen 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:25.320 continued his diplomatic career for a while, but eventually left 0:10:25.320 --> 0:10:28.600 to join his brother at Sullivan and Cromwell. Now by 0:10:28.640 --> 0:10:31.240 that point, Foster Dullas had been made a full partner 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:33.760 in the firm, which was more powerful than ever. As 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:36.480 the United States grew through the nineteen twenties to become 0:10:36.520 --> 0:10:39.960 the West's pre minute power, Sullivan and Cromwell continued to 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:42.400 do the work of weaving their corporate clients into the 0:10:42.480 --> 0:10:46.319 very fabric of American governance. In the US, Foster Dullas 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:49.000 presided over the merger of a group of oil drillers 0:10:49.040 --> 0:10:53.000 and refiners into a Moco. He worked with mining corporations 0:10:53.000 --> 0:10:56.960 in Chile and Peru, sugar plantations in Cuba, banks in France. 0:10:57.240 --> 0:11:00.559 He specialized in helping US utility companies take control of 0:11:00.679 --> 0:11:05.480 utilities and foreign nations, generally by bribing their governments. Alan's 0:11:05.520 --> 0:11:07.640 first post World War One posting was to the U. 0:11:07.720 --> 0:11:11.240 S Embassy in Turkey. Now again, he is technically a 0:11:11.280 --> 0:11:13.520 diplomat at this point, but his real job in all 0:11:13.559 --> 0:11:16.920 these postings is to gather intelligence. He's a spy, but 0:11:16.960 --> 0:11:19.280 at this point, again not a very good one, because 0:11:19.280 --> 0:11:21.800 as soon as Alan sets up shop in Turkey, he 0:11:21.920 --> 0:11:25.480 falls for the most obvious forgery of all time, the 0:11:25.520 --> 0:11:31.559 Protocols of the Elders. Yes, grats that one off your 0:11:31.600 --> 0:11:36.600 Bengo card, and then really evaluate reevaluate your life. If 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:38.560 you have a bingo card with the Protocols of the 0:11:38.559 --> 0:11:42.000 Elders of Zion on it, that's maybe think about. If 0:11:42.040 --> 0:11:44.520 you're a podcast listener, I'm sorry, you can't go very 0:11:44.520 --> 0:11:47.880 many podcast episodes without running into it, either in a 0:11:48.000 --> 0:11:54.520 good way or a very bad way. So I'm gonna 0:11:54.600 --> 0:11:58.680 quote from The Devil's Chessboard by David Talbot here. One day, 0:11:58.720 --> 0:12:00.800 the young American diplomat was given a copy of the 0:12:00.800 --> 0:12:03.320 Protocols of the Elders of Zion by a British reporter 0:12:03.360 --> 0:12:06.080 who had fished the scillious document out of a second 0:12:06.080 --> 0:12:10.720 hand bookstore in Istanbul's Old European Quarter. The Protocols purported 0:12:10.760 --> 0:12:13.240 to offer a secret plan for Jewish world domination and 0:12:13.280 --> 0:12:16.840 included tales about Christian children being sacrificed for Passover feast 0:12:16.960 --> 0:12:20.000 rituals and other lurid fantasies. By the time Dullus got 0:12:20.000 --> 0:12:21.640 his hands on the book, which was the creation of 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:24.920 the Russian Czars anti Semitic secret police, the document had 0:12:24.920 --> 0:12:28.040 been widely denounced and discredited, but Dullus took it seriously 0:12:28.120 --> 0:12:30.480 enough to send a coded report about the secret Jewish 0:12:30.480 --> 0:12:34.920 plot back to his superiors in Washington, so he he 0:12:35.080 --> 0:12:37.320 sends this back to the State Department, like you guys 0:12:37.400 --> 0:12:42.160 got to hear about this? Uh incredible spy. The authors 0:12:42.160 --> 0:12:45.600 of who named that? How upset were they when they 0:12:45.760 --> 0:12:50.000 later heard the much more badass title The Devil's Chessboard, 0:12:50.679 --> 0:12:54.960 So much better of a should have called our thing 0:12:55.120 --> 0:12:59.040 the Devil's Chessboard the Devil's Chessboard. It is a pretty 0:12:59.040 --> 0:13:01.720 good book. It's actually the guy who founded Salon, which 0:13:01.760 --> 0:13:04.600 is not a website. I like a lot, But Alan 0:13:04.679 --> 0:13:07.760 Dullas got married in nineteen twenty to a woman named Clover, 0:13:07.840 --> 0:13:12.120 who he almost immediately cheated on. It was a miserable relationship, 0:13:12.160 --> 0:13:14.200 but they would stay together the rest of their lives. 0:13:14.400 --> 0:13:17.600 Clover was prone to depression, while Alan barely paid attention 0:13:17.600 --> 0:13:21.240 to her and slept around constantly. His sister Eleanor estimated 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:23.760 that he had more than a hundred mistresses, to the 0:13:23.840 --> 0:13:27.280 extent that Ellen Dulas was capable of feeling bad about anything. 0:13:27.559 --> 0:13:30.199 He seems to have felt kind of bad about this. 0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:32.960 At one point he wrote to his wife and advised 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:35.040 her to ask her friends for advice on how to 0:13:35.160 --> 0:13:38.600 quote live with a queer duck like me. He later 0:13:38.640 --> 0:13:41.320 confessed in a letter, I don't feel I deserve as 0:13:41.320 --> 0:13:43.200 good a wife as I have, as I am rather 0:13:43.280 --> 0:13:46.440 too fond of the company of other ladies. So there's 0:13:46.280 --> 0:13:49.240 a there's a degree of self awareness that he has 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:52.440 because he's he's she is miserable, like on the verge 0:13:52.520 --> 0:13:56.800 sometimes of suicide, because he's he's just constantly sleeping with her, 0:13:56.800 --> 0:13:58.560 and like he'll tell her about it, like he's not 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:01.439 even trying to hide it. Like he'll like brag about 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:05.920 his new mistresses to like their kids. Like it's he's 0:14:06.160 --> 0:14:10.400 a weird dude, A weird dude who, like most narcissists, 0:14:10.400 --> 0:14:13.840 I assume, could turn on the charm when he wanted 0:14:13.880 --> 0:14:17.360 to and probably worked like a magic spell. Like that 0:14:17.520 --> 0:14:20.280 is the worst type of person to be in a 0:14:20.320 --> 0:14:22.680 relationship with when they can turn that on and then 0:14:22.720 --> 0:14:27.360 just turn it off instantly. Now, one of the chief 0:14:27.400 --> 0:14:29.840 problems in their union, as you were kind of getting 0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:33.280 at Jason, was Alan's temper. He was prone to angry 0:14:33.360 --> 0:14:35.840 rants that would provoke his wife to curl up into 0:14:35.880 --> 0:14:39.000 a fetal position. When he finally stopped, she'd leave the 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:42.720 house and wander for hours. They were miserable together, so 0:14:42.800 --> 0:14:45.000 perhaps it's for the best that Alan spent most of 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:48.840 his time traveling around the world ignoring her. Clover tried 0:14:48.880 --> 0:14:51.200 to make the best of a bad situation by focusing 0:14:51.200 --> 0:14:53.960 on her son and two daughters. While her husband was 0:14:54.000 --> 0:14:57.080 an arch conservative, she became obsessed with penal reform and 0:14:57.120 --> 0:15:00.160 spent a great deal of time visiting prisoners. She was 0:15:00.240 --> 0:15:03.320 known to regularly stop for long conversations with homeless people 0:15:03.360 --> 0:15:06.400 and impoverished men and women. In breadlines and letters to 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:09.280 her family, she wrote that she felt guilty for her wealth. 0:15:09.720 --> 0:15:12.440 Alan felt no such guilt. He was known to not 0:15:12.560 --> 0:15:15.280 even pick up napkins he dropped at dinner, leaving that 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:19.240 for his servants. So they're very different people. In nineteen 0:15:19.280 --> 0:15:21.920 thirty one, Alan started an affair with a blonde Russian 0:15:21.920 --> 0:15:25.120 immigrant whose husband was chronically ill. He did not try 0:15:25.120 --> 0:15:27.800 to hide his relationship from his wife, and in fact 0:15:27.840 --> 0:15:31.080 bragged to her and to his children about the relationship. 0:15:31.480 --> 0:15:34.360 One of his biographers later wrote, sex, it appears was 0:15:34.400 --> 0:15:37.320 to Alan dillis a form of physical therapy, something one 0:15:37.360 --> 0:15:41.000 did to keep himself fit for more important things. Clover's 0:15:41.000 --> 0:15:44.200 insistence on staying home with the children and her increasing 0:15:44.240 --> 0:15:47.000 preoccupation with prisoners rights were treated by him as a 0:15:47.040 --> 0:15:50.480 betrayal of her obligation to be his good and faithful companion. 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:53.520 If Clover would not travel when Alan asked, then he 0:15:53.520 --> 0:15:55.640 could not really be blamed if he diverted himself with 0:15:55.680 --> 0:15:59.200 other women, always of his own class and station. So 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:02.520 pretty cool, dude, I guess that's what I'm getting at, Jason. Yeah, 0:16:02.600 --> 0:16:06.320 And if he was a narcissist, as I throughout a 0:16:06.360 --> 0:16:09.280 wild guest in the previous episode, if you disagree, that 0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:13.160 is fine. If he was literally everything that happens here 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:16.480 is totally unsurprising to you. Right. He does not conceive 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:19.840 of anyone else. He is the main character in the 0:16:19.880 --> 0:16:22.800 story that is his life. Everyone else or extras and 0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:26.280 he it's not that he can't have feelings or emotions, 0:16:27.520 --> 0:16:31.640 but the fits of rage, the fact that when you 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:36.600 make a narcissist angry, your humanity disappears. You are just 0:16:36.720 --> 0:16:41.000 an object. You're a receptacle for their rage. And so 0:16:42.240 --> 0:16:45.360 whatever love he felt for someone like that, it is 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:50.080 different because he said, like, you know, I don't you know, 0:16:50.240 --> 0:16:52.680 I don't deserve a wife is as good as her 0:16:53.120 --> 0:16:55.880 or whatever. Again, he's still not thinking of her as 0:16:56.480 --> 0:16:59.840 an in you know, like a separate person with agency 0:17:00.440 --> 0:17:03.080 and the same thing with the servants and everyone else. 0:17:03.160 --> 0:17:07.439 I personally believe this is just my opinion that his 0:17:07.560 --> 0:17:10.800 whole worldview was kind of shaped by that. And the 0:17:10.840 --> 0:17:13.879 fact that we have a system where narcissists consistently bubbled 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:20.160 to the top explains a lot about the way name 0:17:20.280 --> 0:17:23.080 name a popular figure. I'm not saying that Donald Trump 0:17:23.119 --> 0:17:25.440 was a narcissist. I again, I've not spoke to the man. 0:17:25.520 --> 0:17:30.000 I I certainly couldnt make that determination. He kind of 0:17:30.040 --> 0:17:34.800 has some uh elements of one in my opinion. Again, 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:37.719 if you disagree, those of you who know it all 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:40.520 Trump personally, I know some of your friends, you know 0:17:41.160 --> 0:17:44.000 this has a this our our number one hot spot 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:48.560 for listeners is Mara Lada action. Um so. But I 0:17:48.600 --> 0:17:52.399 think guys like this they can't fully conceive of consequences 0:17:53.119 --> 0:17:57.840 to themselves or to other people, like they just everything 0:17:57.880 --> 0:18:01.480 about the way and like the idea that the citizens 0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:03.480 of these other countries where they're going to do the 0:18:03.520 --> 0:18:06.080 things spoiler alert that they're going to be doing over 0:18:06.080 --> 0:18:09.080 the next few decades, the idea that the people suffering 0:18:09.119 --> 0:18:12.479 because of that, that those are actual human beings. I 0:18:12.520 --> 0:18:15.920 don't think would enter the mind of someone like al adult. 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:18.960 I don't think he can really conceptualize that. No, I don't, 0:18:19.000 --> 0:18:21.280 And that's what I was saying earlier. I think makes 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:23.480 him different from his brother because Foster is not the 0:18:23.520 --> 0:18:27.080 same um I think Foster has and it evolves through 0:18:27.119 --> 0:18:30.200 time an ideology. Well, actually he goes through a couple 0:18:30.280 --> 0:18:33.680 of different ones. But he he acts based on things 0:18:33.720 --> 0:18:36.640 that he believes about the world, and I think with 0:18:36.720 --> 0:18:39.199 Alan it's more he acts based on things he believes 0:18:39.200 --> 0:18:43.520 about himself or wants to have for himself. It's almost 0:18:43.600 --> 0:18:46.840 like you have the representation of what we now think 0:18:46.840 --> 0:18:49.439 of as like the modern conservative movement, where you have 0:18:49.560 --> 0:18:53.199 the Bible true believers, and then like the Donald Trump 0:18:53.240 --> 0:18:57.000 wing who's just in it for a really interesting way 0:18:57.000 --> 0:18:59.280 to look at this. And so that's how you can 0:18:59.320 --> 0:19:04.119 wind up with like a womanizer, a crazy party boy 0:19:04.600 --> 0:19:08.360 who has the loyal devotion of the studious Bible thumpers 0:19:08.359 --> 0:19:10.920 in the South. It's like, how do they have anything 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:14.880 in common? Well, look at the dullest brothers raised by 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:17.800 the same family at the same time in the same era, 0:19:19.200 --> 0:19:21.680 two very different people that would wind up on the 0:19:21.760 --> 0:19:27.119 same mission for in my view, totally different reasons. Yeah, 0:19:27.280 --> 0:19:29.600 I think I think you're right on the money with that. 0:19:29.600 --> 0:19:31.840 That is not I think a way I would have 0:19:32.640 --> 0:19:37.000 thought to bring it up. But let's get moving. Um okay. 0:19:37.200 --> 0:19:41.280 So Foster, by comparison to his brother, was utterly devoted 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:43.440 and as far as we know, loyal to his wife Janet. 0:19:43.480 --> 0:19:46.000 But the brothers were similar in the fact that neither 0:19:46.080 --> 0:19:48.200 of them did seem to give a good goddamn about 0:19:48.240 --> 0:19:51.680 their children. David Talbot writes that Alan treated his kids 0:19:51.720 --> 0:19:54.679 as if they were quote visitors in his house, and 0:19:54.720 --> 0:19:58.320 they were both just they were both like complete workaholics. 0:19:58.359 --> 0:20:00.720 You know, I think with Alan it more he really 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:03.960 didn't care all that much. Foster is just working all 0:20:04.000 --> 0:20:07.960 the time. They're both people who their children are number one. 0:20:08.640 --> 0:20:11.800 Then this is them being a product of their time. Right, 0:20:12.200 --> 0:20:15.760 that's the wife's job, right. Um, you know, when they're older, 0:20:15.800 --> 0:20:18.000 all helped them start their careers off and stuff, and 0:20:18.040 --> 0:20:20.920 like they'll but like it's it's her job to raise them. 0:20:20.920 --> 0:20:23.679 I have to go change the world. But neither of 0:20:23.720 --> 0:20:28.240 them are very warm fathers, you would say. Um, Now, 0:20:28.280 --> 0:20:30.800 as the Roaring twenties gave way to the Great Depression 0:20:30.800 --> 0:20:33.840 of the early nineteen thirties. The Dullest brothers grew increasingly 0:20:33.920 --> 0:20:37.120 concerned about the spread of Communist sympathy at home and abroad, 0:20:37.680 --> 0:20:41.720 and Foster this ignited a deep and enthusiastic sympathy for 0:20:41.800 --> 0:20:44.840 the Nazis, who he regarded as the best bet for 0:20:44.840 --> 0:20:48.159 stopping communisms westward advance in Europe. While he does not 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:50.480 seem to have fallen for the protocols of the Elders 0:20:50.520 --> 0:20:53.879 of Zion like his younger brother, Foster's Nazi sympathies led 0:20:53.960 --> 0:20:58.479 him to some pretty vile behavior from the Devil's Chessboard quote. 0:20:59.000 --> 0:21:01.600 In ninety two, is Hitler began his takeover of the 0:21:01.640 --> 0:21:05.600 German government, Foster visited three Jewish friends, all prominent bankers, 0:21:05.600 --> 0:21:08.040 in their Berlin office. The men were in a state 0:21:08.040 --> 0:21:10.960 of extreme anxiety during the meeting. At one point, the bankers, 0:21:11.000 --> 0:21:13.840 too afraid to speak, made motions to indicate a truck 0:21:13.880 --> 0:21:17.120 parked outside and suggested that it was monitoring their conversation. 0:21:17.680 --> 0:21:20.480 They indicated to him that they felt absolutely no freedom. 0:21:20.520 --> 0:21:24.600 Eleanor recalled Foster's reaction to his friends terrible dilemma. Unnerved 0:21:24.600 --> 0:21:27.360 his sister There's nothing that a person like me can 0:21:27.400 --> 0:21:29.920 do in dealing with these men except to probably keep 0:21:29.960 --> 0:21:33.560 away from them, he later told Eleanor They're safer if 0:21:33.600 --> 0:21:36.399 I keep away from them. Actually, there was much that 0:21:36.480 --> 0:21:39.040 a Wall Street powerbroker like John Foster Dolas could have 0:21:39.080 --> 0:21:42.320 done for his endangered friends, starting with pulleage, pulling strings 0:21:42.359 --> 0:21:43.959 to get their families and at least some of their 0:21:44.000 --> 0:21:46.760 assets out of Germany before it was too late. And 0:21:46.760 --> 0:21:48.800 I think David Talbot is right on the money here. 0:21:48.800 --> 0:21:51.200 This is not a situation where he could have done nothing. 0:21:51.640 --> 0:21:56.000 The Nazis were extremely happy to let very wealthy Jewish 0:21:56.000 --> 0:21:59.040 people leave Europe, often with some of their assets, in 0:21:59.160 --> 0:22:02.720 order to please For indignitary stuff like that happened. A 0:22:02.800 --> 0:22:05.520 man with Foster's poll would have had no trouble getting 0:22:05.560 --> 0:22:09.280 his friends out of Nazi Germany. Many other influential foreigners 0:22:09.320 --> 0:22:12.119 did the same, and in fact Hitler himself intervened to 0:22:12.160 --> 0:22:15.159 allow a Jewish doctor who had treated his mother's cancer 0:22:15.400 --> 0:22:17.840 to immigrate from Germany with his assets. This was not 0:22:17.920 --> 0:22:21.880 an impossible thing. Um he just didn't do it. Uh 0:22:21.920 --> 0:22:24.359 it was I think he just got spooked. Um Or 0:22:24.400 --> 0:22:26.600 he didn't really care all that much, one way or 0:22:26.640 --> 0:22:30.440 the other. Now, the fact that Foster Dulas absolutely could 0:22:30.440 --> 0:22:32.600 have saved his friends is underscored by the fact that 0:22:32.600 --> 0:22:34.919 he was seen by the Nazis as one of their 0:22:34.960 --> 0:22:39.159 most valuable American friends. In fact, without Foster Dullus, it 0:22:39.280 --> 0:22:41.840 is possible that the Nazi military build up and the 0:22:41.880 --> 0:22:44.840