The Chilly Effect is sponsored by Wallstreet Window dot Com and listeners like you yeah,
and now in our media, y o'lly twenty eighth day of December twenty
twenty three, allegedly according to that thing called the calendar, and this is
the o'celly effect. So it is Thursday Thursday, and that means usually speaking,
I have either Mike Swanson or Larry Hancock with me. And last week
we had Larry on a Wednesday, which was unusual, but we had to
reschedule. This week we got Mike Swanson, the man behind Wall Street Window
dot Com, the author of the War State as well as Why the Vietnam
War, which is kind of funny because I was looking at some historical films
actually and noticed that Lyndon Johnson was making this statement. I was wondering if
this is where you got the title from, because Johnson was, you know,
doing his thing defending the war at one point, going why Vietnam,
Why Vietnam? And I'm thinking to myself, I might recut pieces of that
into a commercial for you. I might do that just to get people aware
of that book. Plus, it is the first in a series of what
might be three books, right Mike about the Vietnam War. Is that right?
Yeah, I'm getting ready to start working on the next book, and
I'm starting to conceive what it's going to really be about or how to organize
it. And basically I'm gonna the last book, Why the Vietnam War Book,
And I think what you're mentioning. I didn't get the title from that,
but there was a propaganda movie that the government put out. I think
it's called Why Vietnam or something like that, and it features Johnson saying that
over and over again. Yeah, that's exactly it. Well, what it
is is I got to it's a National Archives set and and somebody sold it
to me really cheap months ago. Uh okay, and it's like six or
seven DVDs, But it has many of these propaganda films, some of them
showing the Green Berets working with the villagers here, the the among people here
are the you know what I'm saying, like, and they're talking about the
original thing where they were going in there and they were training these guys to
resist the Viet Cong et cetera. Right, And they were doing these propaganda
films where there's like, you know, a good government announcer going, and
these people are here to make sure that they can defend themselves against the terrorism.
Yes, here's a timent. I found it on YouTube. And so,
yeah, I didn't get the title from the book from from this.
I'll tell you how I got that in a second. But I saw this
movie a long time ago. I've been interested in Vietnam since the war,
since I was a teenager, you know, probably watched this when I was
twenty years old or something. But this was a documentary put out, you
know, by the military, and it basically features LBJ throughout it and asking
that question over and over again, and basically they're the movie is making the
argument that this is just a replay of Hitler all over again, and you
got to stop them. And then Ho Chi Minh is like Hitler. Basically
is like Hitler, and these people are terrorists. That's the other part of
it. Yeah, yeah, which looks like wow. No, And I
look in our age group, Mike, let's be honest about something. In
our age group, as teenagers, as young kids, a lot of us
were actually fascinated by the war. Oh yeah, you know the movies about
the war. Uh. There was actually a comic book made right, which
was called Yeah I was getting I bought it, not getting it by buying
the stores. But you know what I'm talking about. The Vietnam was name
of the comic book. It was just But what I'm saying is that Vietnam
was just one of those things that was still being discussed even into the eighties
and everything in our generation because as I've said many times, it was still
kind of affecting us. Well really, really, I would guess that,
you know once, I mean, it seems I mean, I can't remember
what things were like when I was one years old, but you know,
I think the country, let's say, at some point probably before the war
ended, probably seventy one seventy two, probably as Watergate was breaking right afterwards,
kind of wanted to move on from the war and just forget about it,
and did that for a couple of years, and then a bunch of
Hollywood movies came out, which is what we were consuming, and in the
Platoon movie kind of may have been the peak of all these Vietnam movies and
talk oh yeah, yeah, three year, you know, maybe two or
three years following it. But there was an attempt to but there was an
attempt to reframe the entire thing, Like Platoon was Oliver Stone movie. But
I mean there were the Chuck Norris movies Missing and Action, and then there
was Rambo, which the first one was called First Blood. You know,
those movies caught fire popularity wise because there was this mentality of like, let's
see if we can rehabilitate the public's ideas about the war. Right. And
like I said, I think our generation was kind of generally fascinated with it
because there we were, you know, again initially affected by the war itself
because our fathers, our grandfathers, our uncles, whatever, went to the
war. And then on top of it, Hollywood was pumping out a whole
bunch of things look at it differently. You know, they're actually going to
go back, like Chuck Norris is going and rescuing you know, prisoners,
right, And we had gone through that time period in the late seventies and
early eighties when there were people talking about, you know, there's still prisoners
of war in Vietnam, they might still be alive. Indeed, a guy
named Ross Perot was involved in some of those search efforts. Right. I
mean, there's a whole thing going on here from the end of the seventies
into the beginning of the nineties, where you know, again where Ross Paro
ends up running for president. I'm just saying bringing this my feeling perception is
that when we were teenagers and Vietnam was a big deal in all these movies
and a lot of people our age interested in it, I think that was
the peak of the interest in our lifetime. After Vietnam, Mu's say,
in war and in America being at war. So the reason I say that
is, you know, nine to eleven happens, and I don't think there's
all these nine eleven movies are a lot of real interest in it like there
was in Vietnam. No, it's not. I mean, it's continuous wars
and we just take it for granted. And now there's a war in Israel,
you know, right, it's just like no, no, no,
no, it's not the same kind of event. And that's the thing is
that, you know, again, when we were reaching adulthood, what were
we confronted with the first desert storm deal and all that which was over really
quickly, blink your eyes and it's done. And the idea, right there
is the relief that came with oh my god, at least we're not getting
into another Vietnam. Yeah, that's right. And just because the lead up
to that war, I mean people can't. Yeah, sorry, go go
ahead. I got a dog bark and I got to let out of the
room, So go ahead. Well, the lead up to the First Gulf
War, you know, the six months before it started, there was a
lot of worry that it would be like Vietnam in some ways, and it
wasn't. And then when the second war came, you know, if you
out of that, a lot of people would call you a trader. While
people were actually doubting the first one before it started, but the second one
after nine to eleven, you know, if you were to even doubt that
you were, you know, killed. Donahue doubted it. He was taking
off the air. And then it did turn out to be that in Afghanistan
did turn out to be quagmires, just like Vietnam was in regards to trying
to accomplish any meaningful objective. But this I'm looking up this why Vietnam thing,
this propaganda movie, and you just if you just look at it,
it looks it's crude. You know, not many people like Lennon Johnson at
all nowadays. You know, so hearing Lynn and Johnson say this why Vietnam
over and over again, is it seems kind of silly. But it was
produced in nineteen sixty five, of what I'm reading right here as we're speaking,
And my understanding was that it was shown in boot camps to soldiers,
and I'm looking. I found it on YouTube and someone made a comment in
the YouTube section that says, we were made to watch this lie in army
medic training at Fort sam Houston in nineteen seventy. The instructors will not accept
any questions. Many of us just laughed and smirked as it rolled. Now
that's guy's talking about nineteen seventy. By then, you know a lot of
people did not believe in the war, even when they're you know, drafted
and going over there. Different than it was in nineteen sixty five. Well,
right, I mean because that came out. Yeah, so back in
sixty five. See, a couple of things got to be you got to
put it in context. Right, is sixty four you have the you know,
post Kennedy assassination trauma, and now you know Johnson has risen to the
presidency and he's taken over and he's the commander in chief and we all got
to get behind him. Now, you could parallel that with you know,
the whole get behind Bush right where you where you have to be if you're
a true American, you got to get behind President Bush. Like you said,
Donahue was punished. Other people were punished for Oh I should say,
you know that what's his name? O'Reilly's on Fox anymore? Bill O'Reilly.
He was labeling anyone who doubted the war going into the Second Iraq were a
trader on its show, right, you know, anyone who doubted in Bill
O'Reilly's world was a trader. Well, and that's the thing, and that's
where he started that whole patriots and pinheads thing, right, And so you
were a pinhead if you were anti American in any way, but you were
a patriot if you were pro American. And that's the thing is that divining
line really got stark during the look we were attacked, right, so you
know in the in the war on terror, this is the deal that you're
either with us or you're with the terrorist, as Bush said, and that's
all there was to it. Even Bill Maher i think No, sure,
I mean most of the ones on TV were like that. I mean comedians
were getting I think people forgot that comedians were getting protested and run out of
comedy clubs if they made jokes about it, if they you know, picked
on Bush. There was a cartoon as a matter of fact, run by
a Comedy Central called Little Bush, I think. And Little Bush was,
you know, making fun of the President and his cabinet. It was like
as if they were all like big headed Peanuts character toddlers, and they were
all goofballs, but you know, politically the same as they were in their
adult lives, you know, running around being raised by you know, George
H. W. Bush and Barbara Course right. And you know, they
took that off the air. They took away anything that was a criticism of
Bush, off of just about everything, because you couldn't criticize the president.
You couldn't say something that criticized America. You couldn't question the motives at all,
because we were at war with terrorism itself. And that's the odd thing.
Like I say, another parallel with this Vietnam thing is that I heard
through these propaganda films and as that guy said in nineteen seventy there were probably
still showing them, but they were producing tons of these things mainly to show
to the guys that were, you know, going to boot camp and stuff
like that. Get them ready, get them interested in the job, get
them psyched and set up to go win what was it called Hearts and minds
right where they were supposed to go there and be the you know, the
tactical trainers and all this stuff. And then they start escalating to bring it
in more troops, and you know, by nineteen seventy you have protests fully
erupted, you have the problem the pushback in sixty eight, you know where
Bobby Kennedy literally is using that as the wedge to pretty much run LBJ right
out of the presidential race. I mean, it's an important pivotal thing.
But what's fascinating is we don't have a difference after, you know, like
in other words, the War on Terror was motivated by something that actually happened
to us. This was a theoretical thing where it was like if we don't
stop the communists, if we don't stop the communists terror. Yeah, you
know, in fact, thinking about the the thing that this show, you
know, we did a long thing a couple of years ago, came out
twenty seventeen time because by about that ken Burns series, which is really endless,
and I always suggest people don't watch the ken Burns thing and watch this.
Yeah, thirty minutes, watch this why Vietnaming fun on YouTube? Watch
this. Watched the Robert McNamara thing, The Fog of War Warrior, and
then watch Hearts of Mind Hearts and Minds, which was made in nineteen seventy
four. It's anti war film. Just watch those three things and they're all,
you know, worthwhile, you know, the latter two of either one
Academy awards, both of them, or lots of awards. Well, ken
Burns is awful, awful, absolutely awful. This will ed. The only
thing it was good about ken Burns is that, you know, in rare
Form they did show the Vietnamese side of it a bit. That's the only
thing good about the ken Burns film outside of that. No, if you
go with those three suggestions that you just said, you would get a much
clearer picture in different time periods of exactly how it was being handled, how
it was being sold to the public, how the public was reacting to it,
stage by stage right, because you have the initial rah rah, look,
we need to fight the communist stop the dominoes from falling, you know,
propaganda to begin with. Then you have you know McNamara and his reflections
on it, and then you have the anti war sentimentality, which seems I
mean, look again, you and I were small children at the tail end
of that, you know, not even really cognizant of the whole world around
us. Yet it seems to me as though the majority of the American public
turned against and then it finally ended, right, Gerald Ford finally pulled this
out, even though Nixon kept promising it from sixty eight on. Okay,
so all these things go on, and it was a political wedge. But
again it's not comparable to what happened with the War on Terror because in a
literal sense, we had more of a obvious motivation. You know, it
wasn't theoretical, It wasn't just about battling communists. It wasn't well, we're
just going to go battle the Islamo fascists over there so they don't spread this
was no, we were attacked, So it was a different motivation. And
in all honesty, another thing that changes it is you don't have the same
body count, Like I mean, we're in Afghanistan longer, but I mean
the losses are I'm not saying they're not significant. Every loss is significant.
But what I am saying is that if you lose you know, seven thousand,
eight thousand people over the course of two decades, it is not comparable
to one decade and sixty thousand. You know what I'm saying, It's just
not comparable. And even if you go back and you get realistic about it,
and you say, look, we had special forces and stuff over there
from the end of World War Two, which we did, still you don't
have the same type of body count. If you stretch it out, it's
not the same kind of body count. It's not the same kind of impact
numerically, and nobody's being drafted, right, So this is a volunteer army
with a lower body count. And some people would say, see, it's
not as big of a deal, but again, it's us involved in an
endless war. That what did we actually accomplish at the end of the day,
And I would dare say we accomplished less in Afghanistan than we did in
Vietnam because at least Vietnam had been changed Afghanistan. The Taliban just waited around
to come back into office. I mean, what you know, anyway,
and then people could talk about the disastrous you know, withdrawals, and neither
one of them was pretty got to give it that, you know, no
matter how you look at it. But anyway, I didn't want to delve
into this too much. I just wanted to mention though that I caught I
probably have seen that propaganda film before, but since I'm familiar with the title
of your book, I was like, I wonder if that's actually where he
got it from. So you said you were going to tell us where you
actually got the title of the book from, So why don't you tell us
that, and then we'll move on to your presentation in Dallas and some other
news on that. Well, I didn't have a title for the book when
I started writing it, and I got to a point where I didn't feel
confident. I was worried it was getting too long. Like my initial plan
was to write it starts nineteen forty five and it's about Vietnam, and I
was going to write it up to nineteen sixty three when Kennedy gets killed.
But I got up to the point where he puts the advisors in, and
I didn't feel confident that I could. I was worried that, you know,
I'm doing all these clotes and meeting after meeting after meeting, that it
would get to a point where it might bore people. And I just stopped
writing. And then and I didn't have a title. And then I was
out somewhere and I overheard, like I was at a buffet type restaurant,
and I overheard an older man talking to a young a young young person,
and the older man had served in Vietnam, and the young guy asked him,
why did the war happen? And that's where I got that, Oh
that why did the war happen? Though that, I'll just frame the book
around that. It's a good title, you know. Are you to take
this entirely chronologically through the different volumes, because that means that if you're taking
it up to sixty two or so, then that means you almost have to
begin with the assassination and a few things previous to the assassination in the next
volume. So I mean you're gonna open with the Kennedy assassination basically in the
next book. Oh, what doesn't happen to sixty three? Yeah, but
I mean you're gonna open in sixty two if you're gonna continue on, and
then it won't be too long before we get to the assassination. Well,
I'm I'm I'm thinking about the book will really be almost about the assassination.
Really, but I'm gonna write, I'm thinking about writing about Vietnam, Cuba
and the arms uh dick your arms race. So that means you're gonna write
about Cuba, the missile crisis in Vietnam, Vietnam. I mean you're gonna
You're gonna also include Laos and the uh you know, No, No,
I pretty much did Laos in the in the in this book. Okay,
well what about what about what about Germany and the beginning of the Probably I'm
not going to get too much into it. We might need to mention it
though, I mean, yeah, yeah, I mean I already wrote about
it though in the first book. Oh yeah, yeah, okay, No,
I was just thinking, you know, the beginning of the Brandon of
the wall around the Brandenburg get and all that is a point of context though,
so you know, as you go along chronologically, I guess, yeah,
you could just write it all about the assassination and then probably about the
transition and policy that occurs there, because that's I mean, that's a huge
issue. Is so I mean that that's that's probably what you'll focus on.
Is by the time we end that book will probably be into the Johnson administration
and how things changed, right something like that. I mean, is that
if that's what the third book would be about, is when Johnson comes in,
That's what I'm thinking. Oh, okay, okay, right, look,
I'm not telling you how to write it. I'm just asking yeah,
no, but okay, well, you know that I'm looking forward to it,
and I definitely want to see where you go with it because I know
that this is a obviously a particular personal interest to you, the Kennedy assassination
in and of itself, you know, and to me it's very very interesting,
and the change in policy is extremely notable because I feel as though if
the assassination doesn't occur, we don't have the next decade to talk about in
Vietnam, because you know, obviously National Security Action Memorandum two sixty three and
so on, plus other things that have now been revealed that look to me
more and more like, there's no doubt we would not have been engaged in
Vietnam all the way up to nineteen seventy six. You know. So there
you go, it's going to have to be discussed at length. Well let
me, I wish I could quote this to you exactly. But so there's
this. This is a little sounds like a tangent. But there's a bad
Star Trek episode the original series called a Simon Earth and some do you remember
that episode? Yes? I do, Okay, Well, so the episode's
about it. I've watched it today, rewatched it, I guess because I
saw someone mention it in a couple of quotes from us. Well, I
got to watch that, and it's the episode I've watched the least. Because
of that, I've like I dislike it the most because what it was Star
Trek was three seasons. This was the last episode in the second season,
and Gene Roddenberry, the producer, was doubtful that Star Trek was going to
have a third season, so he made this last episode as a backdoor pilot
for a potential other show, which never aired. Yeah, that's a We
introduced a character named Gary seven. Yeah, and the next TV show was
going to spin off a Star Trek sort of where there's this guy who is
like a secret agent of sorts on Earth around you know, what would have
been modern times there in the mid sixties, and was the guy that they
encountered during a sign and Earth. There's also a woman on there. I
can't remember who it was, but I think she's a pretty significant cast member,
like like it's her first Terry Garr, That's who it was, Sterry
Garr's first appearance for like TV and everything. It's like her introduction into a
career, which is crazy, and she doesn't even she doesn't even want to
mention it when they ask her about it in interviews and stuff. She pretty
much wants to skip over her appearance in garyn in the Gary seven Star Trek
episode, you know, Assignment Earth, because I think she feels as though
she was just put on there to wear a mini skirt and look good.
But it is it is an interesting, interesting Star Trek. You know,
Star Trek went to Earth quite a few times, probably for budgetary reasons in
the sixties. Okay, I don't know people realize this, but that's the
truth of it is that they could, you know, they wouldn't have to
build brand new sets or anything. They might be able to use my day
things in modern day sets and people dressed in modern day clothing in the sixties
a lot easier, you know, or at least in the twentieth century.
Like at one point they go to a very earthlike planet that's in a different
episode where it's all run by Nazis now because one of the guys who went
there decided that it was a good way to organize things. And they end
up on another very earthlike planet one time where it's run by gangsters. It's
called that one's called a piece of the Action. I remember that one because
it's kind of comical where they're trying to be like, you know, I
don't know, like nineteen thirties like al Capone era gangsters, like right,
like Chicago type al Capone gangsters from the thirties and from the movies in the
forties and stuff like that. But please continue on about as sign on Earth
that you rewatched again today, Well, I'll just going off of a tangents.
But the reason it's related though is that the I mean, it's a
terrible episode, but the enterprise goes and it goes back in time in nineteen
sixty eight to observe and what ends up happening is the characters that we know
on Star Trek, do you know this staying around basically, and these new
characters, this Gary seven and this the girl that you talked about, are
doing all the action in the show and there you know it's it's it's just
a bad episode. But the story is that this Gary seven guy is going
to Earth two because there's going to be a new nuclear platform that the United
States is launching into space and if it accomplished that mission, it's going to
escalate the arms race and become dangerous. It's gonna be an orbital nuclear warhead
platform, right, And he goes there to sabotage it. And in the
first segment of the show, a Spock makes the comment that you know,
once the Enterprise arrives at this period of time in nineteen sixty eight and the
episode airs and this is important on the twenty eighth, twenty ninth to March
nineteen sixty eight is the air date, and Spock makes the content, this
is the quote I'm want to dig up for you. There will be an
important assassination today and equally dangerous government cop in Asia, and this could be
highly critical the launching an orbital nuclear platform in the United States countering a simil
launch by other powers. Well, in seven days of the airing of this
episode, Martin Luther King is assassinated. So the thing about it is,
you know, the nineteen sixties, Obviously they didn't know King was going to
be killed when they made this episode in an RFK after that, but nuclear
war and the assassinations and a government coup in Asia was part of a Star
Trek episode. And the irony to me of of that sentence there will be
an a port assassination day inequally dangerous government coop in Asia. Well, what
no one talks about is that the day after Kenny was killed, there was
a coup in Asia in North Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh was essentially sidelined,
turned into a puppet, and General Giapp was pretty much stripped of his power
at the time too. So new leadership took over the day after the Kenny
assassination, and that leadership the way they the reason they took over was they
said that Hoe she Men, that that propaganda movie that you spoke about earlier
was saying was Hitler. That new leadership took over, led by Le Dwan,
who's a figure in that Ken Vern's documentary. We didn't know about him
back then, apparently in the sixties, but he took over on the basis
that the United States was about to escalate and we need them. They needed
to escalate first, and Ho Chi Minh and Gyip had been resistant to escalating
in South Vietnam for ten years, and so they were sidelined. They made
immediate declaration in the park, pull up beer there to escalate, and they
ordered sending down the first regiment of uh NVA regular troops. So, you
know that's a historical fact. When Americans, it's just human nature. You
know, we think of all the events in Vietnam in Vietnam as being driven
by the decisions in Washington. But before Johnson escalates, they made they made
this, or may put it this way, if you think NSM the after
two sixty three was a two seven seven two is the one two seven three
if you think that two seven three is a turning point in Vietnam. So
it's happening at the same exact time as the decision in North Vietnam. So
both sides are escalating the day after Kene's killed. Now, the thing about
the North Vietnamese ac Corn de Yah, they believed that Kenny was going to
withdraw. So, uh, you know, I haven't seen it written out
anywhere like this, but my belief from this, this sequence of events and
gap statement that made repeatedly that they believe that Kenny was going to withdraw from
Vietnam. My interpretation of this these sequence events is that they interpret assassination as
in the end of the Watrawal program or an escalation on our part, so
that that helped us coup to happen. That's that's what I That's what I
believe in. It's not in writing anywhere, but that's what I'm inferring from
the sequence event. Now that said, the presentation I gave and I'm was
really you know, the book I wrote. That's the only presentation I've given
about it. Because when I write these things, I don't I want.
My hope is that the facts will just speak for themselves and the interpretations I
may have. People will read the facts and just come to them or understand
them. I feel real hesitant to just spit out a bunch of interpretations that
are new. Will you rather lay out the facts and let the reader come
to the conclusion themselves. I understand that, and that's a great thing about
your style. It's not aggressive. What's really interesting here to me is that
there is a lot that went on here regarding Vietnam where there's a whole lot
of misconception. It is not just driven by Washington's actions. You're exactly right.
But what it is driven by, however, is a lot of the
propagation. Like look, our militaries and our intelligence agencies take actions quite often
sometimes based on things that are exaggerated, amped up. You know, the
missile gap in and of itself problem, It wasn't a real gap, you
know that. Why did we participate? Why did we do mk ultra Mike,
Well, it was because the justification was what the Soviets are already doing
it, see, you know, and then we've come to find out they
actually weren't just yet doing the kind of stuff that we wound up doing.
It's very weird you see actions being taken like Okay, ho Chi men believes
in Kennedy's withdrawal. These guys turn around and knock him out of there because
he's not being aggressive enough because they don't believe per second that Kennedy's going to
withdraw because of some of the public statements he's making. You see what I'm
saying, Propaganda and communication, you know, politically, the stuff that's above
board, the stuff that's under the table, all of these things are relevant
and they can have effects whether we know it or not. See, the
thing is, nobody would have tried to take out Ho Chi Minh or the
generals that were running things if they thought that Kennedy was getting ready to withdraw.
If that was made absolutely clear, and that's all there was to it,
there'd be no reason to try and take Ho Chiman out. It meant
he was winning. You know what I'm saying. Like a bunch of things
would not have happened if you know, like the crazy thing that people bring
up about, you know, Reagan with Star Wars, right, some people
would say that Reagan basically bankrupted the Soviets by them trying to participate in an
arms race because of Star Wars. Because of the escalation of the arms race,
it broke them financially, and this led them to be vulnerable. Now
I'm not saying I absolutely agree with that, but what I am saying is
that it is a strategy to outlast your opponent with some propaganda, with the
idea that they need to step up and compete with some whether it is a
real threat or an imagined one. I mean, I even think back to
that thing in World War Two when those people had those inflatable tanks that people
were openly put out. You know, like if you just imagine there's an
army there and you could present it to people, Look, there's gonna be
a huge army that's going to roll through here. What do you do?
You create reactions? Real world reactions might occur from the propaganda, from disinformation,
from some of these psychological warfare operations, et cetera. It is not
always a cut and dry thing. So again with the Vietnam situation, Indeed,
if it had been clearly signaled that Kennedy was going to back out and
there was no contradiction, because you know what I'm saying, I mean,
there was only days before the assassination, he's making statements that make it sound
like I'm not pulling out of there in any way, shape or form.
And meanwhile he's having these guys right reports that basically justify him pulling out right,
I mean, but nobody saw that in public. So what do you
have the reaction of the North Vietnamese people where they're saying, look, our
guys are not being aggressive enough, unless I'm misreading this, because they don't
think that the United States is going to step out. As a matter of
fact, they figured that it's going to escalate. And there are a bunch
of missed opportunities here and a bunch of misleading that goes on where you know,
either we're faining to the peace process or we're feigning to escalate the war,
which create real world reactions. And this happens in every conflict when you're
playing this game. This is why it's so important in the nuance of this
communication, the stuff that's above boards, the stuff that's you know, the
back channels. Every channel of communication has its purpose in this activity, you
know, in the conflicts that occur between nations. And this is one of
the more interesting aspects of it. So and that Gary seven thing, I'll
tell you it just just to point to how ridiculous it was. Though I
remember there was a cat in the episode. Since you just watched it,
Mike, let me ask you something, because I have not watched this episode,
probably in ten fifteen years, but I do remember that the cat had
like a special collar on. Was the cat the boss of Gary seven or
was he like another agent? Was the cat another agent? I can't remember
what the deal was with the cat in the Star Trek thing, which was
wholly ridiculous and silly, meant to be a Cold War and this is the
excuse that they would make about it, by the way, is that it
was a commentary on the Cold War and how dangerous decisions and escalations and arms
races could lead to bigger problems later on. And indeed those things are true.
Sometimes they lead to solutions, and sometimes they lead to other situations that
are going to require more solutions. Depending on what it is you're doing and
what it is you signal as opposed to what it is you're doing is also
important. Meanwhile, Yeah, it is pretty weird that the assassination of King
occurs a couple of days after this thing airs, which, by the way,
I've read in a couple of different places that Martin Luther King Junior was
actually a Star Trek fan. You know, he might have watched it quite
a few times, not just because he liked Michelle Nichols, although Michelle Nichols
tells the story about meeting I'm sure you've heard that before, right, Oh
yeah, yeah. So anyway, look, all I'm saying is that there
is a lot to be explored and examined here, and I look forward to
you doing it. So what else, what else could we glean from all
of this? In your mind? And what else do you want to say
about the presentation in Dallas? Before I run you out of time here?
He asked me something about the cat. Oh yeah, the cat. I
was what was the deal with that cat? Was the cat like the boss
agent or was? It's never explained. I mean I just watched this today
and the cat. It's just so the guy walks round to this cat and
several times the cat well, you know, he asked to deal with some
guards, and the cat will distract the guards so he can disabled the cards
and does things. The cat does stuff like that. It's like a super
intelligent cat, and Huger intelligent. And then and at the end, at
the very end of the show, almost you know, towards the end,
there's one brief scene where the cat is sitting on a sofa and it turns
into a woman, and one per the girl that you talked about, uh,
sees it and gets mad and then asks Gary seven, who is that?
And then they look back and the it's turned back into a cat,
but there's no explanation for what's going on, and he just says, that's
my cat. Yes, I mean, it's just uh, who knows,
who knows? It's just kind of hokey. I wonder if it inspired remember,
like in the maybe it was the seventies or eighties, I can't remember
what year it was that there was suddenly a movie called The Cat from Outer
Space. Yeah, I remember that. I wonder if that inspired it.
If guy had it might have. So there's a good reason why I can't
remember what the deal was with that damn cat, right, because there was
something weird. It had a special collar and it was super intelligent. It
was like part of the team of special agents in a weird way. Okay,
No, I just wanted to see you because but it's not explained.
It's not really explained, right, I haven't watched it in like fifteen years,
so yeah, well, I'm telling you it's the episode I probably have
watched the very least, you know, I don't know that that Nazi episode
is pretty weird, you know too. But like I said, a bunch
of times they went to Earth, right, Yeah, there was another time
where they ended up capturing an astronaut. I think, yeah, that's right,
that's right, you know, And that's like an astronaut in like nineteen
sixty. I mean, this is before the moonshot and everything. You know,
remember that's sixty Yeah, yeah, it is. Yeah, And so
I mean they suddenly have, you know, one of these test pilots they
grab up somehow, and then they decide they have to return him to Earth
because not not for him, but because his child is going to be part
of the first space station that goes out or something like that. Right,
It's all kinds of weird stuff goes on with Star Trek. But a lot
of times they went to an Earth or an Earth like planet simply basically they
wrote episodes like that to cut down on the budget. I mean, that's
the truth of it, because Desilu didn't want to invest as much money as
But I didn't really realize till today because I went to I read some miracles
about this episode, right, that this really was deliberately. The phrase is
backdoor pilot. And they made it the last episode of the second season thinking
that Star Trek wouldn't be renewed, right, So I didn't I didn't really
really, you know, realize that part of it. Yeah, well,
they had moved it and it's time slot. They put it in a bad
time slot for its demographic, you know, and all kinds of weird things
happened, and they thought it was gonna Yeah, this was supposed to be
like, oh now we got another TV show. It spins right off of
Star Trek. Yeah, that's what it was. I knew that for many
years. You just found that out though, huh, Well I didn't.
I didn't really think about that. I knew it was a pilot, but
I did. I didn't really realize, Oh, I didn't know. It
was Gene Roddenberry kind of whole idea to make this other show, and it
was. That's why it was the last episode of the second season. I
didn't know that part well, you know. And long before they did Star
Trek the Next Generation, they tried to reboot they were gonna call it Star
Trek Phase two, which was a whole other thing that they were trying to
pull together in the seventies, and they because of the success of the Star
Wars movies, they ended up making Star Trek the motion picture instead and borrowed
a bunch of elements out of Phase two. They canceled that TV show to
create the movies because they were just going to take it into the movie universe
basically of Star Trek, and then in the eighties they then they you know,
came up with the next generation. But yeah, it's an interesting,
interesting piece of media history. Star Trek is all together. But there's tons
of commentary throughout Star Trek about the Cold War. Uh, some people would
say about Vietnam directly clearly they they had, you know, a commentary about
World War Two via the Nazi theme in that one episode, which you know,
I always find that remarkable because there's something where if you search online you
can find you know, Leonard nimoy in a in an s S uniform,
I think, and uh, you know, and they actually got a McCoy
in a uh, in a Nazi doctor uniform, like he's a Nazi doctor
officer, you know. Yeah, and it's just it's just pretty wild.
I think at one point they say something like uh, oh no, no,
no, then there's that other one, uh previous to that where where
what is it the woman that ends up getting run over by the car.
She becomes part of the peace movement if they save her life, which screws
things up. You know, there's a whole bunch of things where like you
know, piece, it's like the right idea but at the wrong time.
Remember, it prevents World War two, but then it leads to you know,
nuclear annihilation or whatever, so they kind of have to let her die,
even though you know Kirk is again falling in love with some woman in
the past or whatever. All kinds of weird stuff happens during Star Trek,
but they send them to Earth generally just to save money. But the commentaries
are there, you know, the anti war and anti Vietnam and anti Cold
War commentaries are intact throughout the early part of the TV show for sure.
Anyhow, back to the you know, the presentation though that you did,
because I still have not watched the whole thing, and I was there for
part of it, but you know, I was getting run around doing other
things. Other people came up to you though, and I mean, what
was the thing that stood out to them that you know, that was most
remarkable that you presented there because usually you don't do stuff like this, and
it is relevant. It did have to do. I know, you had
both the War State and why the Vietnam and you know war in your hand
at the time, and you were going to get to uh, quoting out
of the book, but I think you ran out of time because your hour
just sort of flew by. But what do you think it was? The
was the key highlight there that people like most most wanted to talk to you
about afterwards? Uh, I'm I'm not. I don't I'm not really sure
if there's one specific thing. But what I was doing was making the argument
that well, I put it to you this way when I when I wrote
it, I started to see some things differently, interpreted things differently than I
had before, came to a different understanding and put that in the book and
and explain that in the in the talk. So for example, the Cuban
missile crisis. You know, the first book I wrote, in the War
State, I showed there's a memo and I've talked about this at the presentation
that they knew the Joint Che's of Staff Kennedy they knew that there's mobile missile
launchers in Cuba on trucks that could fire short range nuclear missiles like a twelve
mile range, not the intercontinental ones that can reach DC or New York,
but the short range ones on a truck. And Kenny had a meeting about
it. It's on tape where they the YouTube people are photo CIA photo people,
you know, they got easels of the stuff. They show them to
him and he talks to John mcconne about it, and they based in the
Cone basically tells them the CIA director that they, you know, that they
can't assure destroying all these things in air strike because there are their trucks.
They can hide them in the woods. And when Canny resolves the crisis with
khruse Chef, they joint chiefs of staff. They still want to invade Cuba,
and Kenny gets McNamara to ask them how many casualties would there be in
an evasion and they say in the memo that something like twenty thousand people if
there's if we have an evasion force the size of Normandy, uh, but
more if the Cubans or Soviets use one of these short range nuclear missiles.
And they there's evidence of at least one of them on on the island.
And you know, I show this memo and to me, you know,
this is a shot frocking memo when I first saw it. And know one
is you know that disputed this or even made a big deal about it.
Well, here's a question about that though, because you know, in only
the past decade or so, did we learn that there were local commanders that
could have utilized those things in a in in the battlefield, that they could
have actually launched those those you know, the battlefield nukes, right, and
that was something that was supposed to be a New Revolution revelation. Did they
know it at the time is my question. I mean, if they knew
that maybe there were some of these mobile short range things and things that could
be used like right there, uh, in order to prevent the invasion,
did they know that the uh, that the local commanders had the ability to
launch them or not? I don't think they did. But have you found
evidence to the contract? Oh no, I don't. I don't think they
knew that. Just the fact that they existed, though, is still news.
Yeah, it's new because that's not what we were That's not the story
that we've been told for a long time. Is that the major corct that
the story that Robert McNamar tells that fog of war thing? For example,
Well, did he know that's the did he was he in on that memo?
Did he know about it? Was? Oh? Well yeah, I
mean he wrote the question to get the memo and yeah this this was talked
about. Okay, I mean, and he knew all about it. But
what But the problem is, you know, I we don't know when he
does that that fog of war thing? Is he covered? Is he deliberately
uh forgetting this information? Uh? In order to create this narrative that but
he says, we didn't know how close you were to nuclear war and it
was just luck that it didn't happen. And in that once he found out
this information years later, he was shocked. Well, I'm saying he knew
that and but but that doesn't mean he could have remembered things wrong and is
not lying when he does. And here's the other thing is that if that
remained classified, right, I mean, is it possible that he was still
just protecting classified information at that point when he did that movie? Because that's
a good that's a good point you know, because that's still early on and
maybe that s that's a good point, you know, only on a need
to know basis, even back then, because that might have made the narrative
a whole lot different, right, because you have the heroic narrative of Kennedy
prevented. We had missiles pointed at us at the public, right, they
could have easily hit Florida, they could have easily hit the East Coast.
They could have easily all that, and it would kind of disturb the narrative
if it's like, no, we also knew they had battlefield nukes ready.
You know, maybe that was just not supposed to be shared with the public
at all. Maybe that was still highly classified at the time. I don't
know. I'm just speculating about the possibilities here. I'm not saying that McNamara
wouldn't allied. I'm not saying the government wouldn't allied. But what I am
saying is that there are certain times where they might be withholding information for different
reasons. And you know, people have always said that that's almost like a
confession that he gives in the fog of war and all this other stuff.
But I don't see it that way I see it as and much like I
saw him in It was either two thousand or two thousand and one at NYU
he did a presentation, and even then, when he was talking about this
kind of stuff, I gotta say that I feel as though he always had
very strict control about the information he was willing to share and not willing to
share, and wanted to make sure that he always drew the right narrative out
of every circumstance that involved him, for sure. But also I think he
was protective of the Kennedy administration, the Kennedy mystique as well. And that's
the impression I got from seeing the guy in person. You know, I
don't know what your thoughts are on McNamara, but I mean people have had
various thoughts about him, because, after all, he is essentially one of
the architects of the Vietnam War. But then again, was he a reluctant
architect? Was he, you know, a fully willing accomplice. Is he
somebody who, you know, in all in all honesty, was out there,
you know, trying to do what he thought was absolutely the right thing
or not? Or was he just being pulled along by other interests? I
leave that to somebody else's judgment. I don't know, but but there's something
to be said about that. And McNamara is definitely a key player obviously,
I mean Secretary of Defense. But anyway, what let's tie a bow on
this so I can get you out of here on time. And you know,
I do urge you guys to go ahead and read the first of all
that this volume that Mike's talking about, why the Vietnam War but also the
war state. And I'm looking forward to volume two, which Mike has told
us tonight. You know, we'll start before the assassination, would probably be
a lot about the assassination of John F. Kennedy and uh and and how
that proceeds and what that what is happening during that time period, which will
be most interesting given what we discussed tonight, And god knows what else you'll
unearth in the course of researching and assembling that book, right Mike, Well,
I mean that share some of the information as we do these do these
shows. But yeah, I've got I've got a book for future shows sitting
right here in front of me. It's called Strategic Air Warfare, all right.
In his interviews with General le maay nice and in it he's there's a
whole section on the Cuban missile crisis, and he's got a whole different narrative
than the macnamara narrative or any one that you've heard before. I bet you
la Masson differently. I mean, here's you know, and it's it's worth
breaking down. I got you in there. Does he discuss the fire bombing
of Dresden and uh and u Berlin? I guess, and then the fire
bombings that they did in Japan? Does he discussed all that? Well?
Yeah, Well, here's an interesting thing, he says, So, I
mean, this is covering. It's a group of it's a group of general
Air Force generals, is like three of them, and he's one of them.
Interviews done in the like in the early eighties, and uh he talks
about the Korean War and bit and says, let me get let me tell
you this. It's just something else that they wanted to do strategic bombing in
Korea like they did in Japan, and they weren't allowed to because the strategic
targets were all in China, and instead they're forced to just do uh uh,
what's the word for it? Uh, interdiction bombing, dude, which
is what why the bombing Vietnam was bombing the Ho Chi Minh trail, bombing
the forces as they come into South Vietnam. That's what he says. We
were his strategic air command, the Air Force was forced to do in Korea,
where when he wanted to bomb the strategic targets that were in in China.
Uh. But uh, he says, this is something Uh, we
went and fought. This is what he says. We went over there and
fought the war and eventually burned down every town in North Korea, someway or
another, and some in South Korea too. We ever burned, We burned
down Pussan and acts. But we've burned it down anyway. The Marines started
a battle down there with no enemy in sight. Over a period of three
years or so, we killed off what twenty percent of the population of Korea
as direct casuals of war over a period of three years. That seemed to
be acceptable to everybody. But to kill a few people at the start right
away the way I wanted to with my strategic bombing, No, we can't
seem to stomach that. Yeah. See, that's the thing about him is
that he argues that, look, if I murdered a few people right away,
it'll be a lot cleaner than what we're going to have to do if
we stick around. And here's the thing, numerically, he might not be
wrong, even though some of those things, I mean, it was savage,
what was done to Dresden, it was savage. What was done in
Japan absolutely brutal, you know, lighting the air on fire basically over a
major city. But did it, in the end actually do a lot more
good than even using the new you know, the atomic weapons? Probably?
You know, is it strategically more sound? Even though it is difficult to
stomach what it is they were talking about doing. I don't know. You
know, again, I'm not the the grand strategist that that he was supposed
to be. So it's an interesting thing to break down and take a look
at and historically examine. So I guess we'll get to that in future show.
Can we give you one little more tidbitch? Sure? So, because
it's it's I mean, there's so much in here. Uh, it's worth
going through a lot of it. But so he says when they're bombing Japan
that one of his generals calculated that they were just going to wipe out the
whole country and Japan was going to surrender. That they before the tomic bomb
was dropped, they they were calckling that their own bombing was going to collapse
the entire country and it probably wouldn't be necessary to invade him. And he
says that he went to Washington. I'm not sure what the date is here,
June nineteen, nineteen forty five. Here he is to tell him this,
and he says, we briefed the Joint chiefs of Staff. We did
not get a very good reception. As a matter of fact, General Marshall
slept through the briefing. I can't blame him. He was probably wore down
to a rug. Decision was made to invade here I was coming and saying
the war could be ending to without invasion. We didn't make much of an
imprint. So we went back to the Marianas and kept bombing, right,
you know, But there you go. Look, and this is the way
things function. Sometimes is impossible. If they were already locked in and had
a decision made his alternative, you know, fear about how to win,
maybe nobody nobody was going to listen to it because they had already had that
debate, you know that was already over. Is just bad timing on his
part. Yeah, but there's something to be said about all that. And
you know, again, LeMay is an interesting character and I would say that,
you know, as much as he could easily be brought up on war
crimes over and over again, he may have also been one of the better
strategists that we had when it came to air campaigns. So I mean,
little column Ay, little column B war is an ugly thing, isn't it.
But anyway, we'll get into that in future episodes. And I want
people to go, oh, we didn't even talk about you know, what's
going on with Wall Street Window dot Com and what you're doing over there,
but you sent out an email recently over the Christmas holiday to kind of give
people heads up. Why don't you tell them about that? And then we'll
close this one out. But I urge you guys to go to Wall Street,
Window dot Com check out Why the Vietnam War and also The War Stayed
Both books do I recommend, authored by Mike's Whnson. But Mike just tell
them on your way out the door what it is you're doing with Wall Street
Window and what it is, Uh, you're you're going to be doing in
the very near future with with maybe some other websites and things. Well,
with the Wall Street just make real simple. I'm making it like a weekly
newsletter instead of putting out every single day and people can get it. It's
just I'm making it a little better organized to the emails that you get,
so a little you know, it's cleaner looking and uh, it'll probably go
out every Sunday Sunday. Yeah, it does look better. It's a weekly
it's gonna be a weekly email. You were doing it every weekday. Uh.
But also you're gonna you're gonna continue on with the local news thing,
but that's going to be in a split off website, right yeah. Yeah,
I'm making another website for that, So there's gonna be a separate website
for the local news thing. But you're going to continue on with Wall Street
Window. It's just going to be uh, you know, your your weekly
news thing as opposed to the the you know, every weekday and stuff like
that. Plus you're still going to publish articles, write your own, maybe
publish couple other people's as well, right, Yeah, yeah, all right,
absolutely so. Like I said again, I highly recommend all those things.
Wallstreet, Window dot com, the book The War State, that read
book you see in the sidebar on my website with Ike on the front cover
given his Military Industrial Complex farewell speech, and of course Why the Vietnam War,
the first book in a series of three that Mike plans, and he's
working on book number two right around now, and we're gonna hear about it
as it happens on the Ocelly Effect coming up in the future. Wallstreet Street,
Window dot Silver, the stock market, Wallstream, window dot dot Perhaps
you're invested deeply, perhaps you're not in deep enough. Maybe you're thinking about
getting started Wall Street, Windows dot com, doo dot com. Michael Swanson,
the brilliant author of the War State, understood these trends professionally for many
years, and now he gives you the benefit of his knowledge. Rollino dot
dot go there, now go there, now go there, now go ahead.
Call it the truth about the day of Ay assassination. Right, well,
what do you want to know? Daddy Baker's wild claim Oswald girlfriends he
knew Ruby and Barry answer weapons. Really, I imagine I could claim I
have four wheels. It doesn't make me a wagon, but okayal building and
trying to present the murder of John Kennedy Come on now has a real effort
on the day of pay assassination claim. Go to Amazon dot com enter Judith
Baker in her own words. You'll get the results for a digital copy of
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case to get at well a different perspective. Let's say you can get Judith
Barry Baker in her own words from the author himself signed if you request it
by contacting doctor Brown at k I as jfk at aol dot com. It's
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in her own words thormation. So it's just me dropping in one more time
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All right. So all that having been said, I want to thank Mike
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