1 00:00:00,080 --> 00:00:03,279 Speaker 1: Fixture the scene for a second. It's a Senate hearing 2 00:00:03,359 --> 00:00:07,080 room right nineteen seventy five. The Church Committee is just 3 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:10,080 it's in full swing set it for Church is sitting 4 00:00:10,160 --> 00:00:12,000 up there on the desk. The lights are hot, the 5 00:00:12,039 --> 00:00:15,320 tension is palpable in the room, and standing right in 6 00:00:15,359 --> 00:00:18,519 front of him is William Colby, the director of the CIA. 7 00:00:19,160 --> 00:00:22,719 But Colby isn't holding you know, a stack of redacted 8 00:00:22,760 --> 00:00:25,800 documents or a black marker. He's holding a pistol. 9 00:00:25,480 --> 00:00:28,160 Speaker 2: Right, and not just any pistol. It's a modified cult 10 00:00:28,280 --> 00:00:30,879 nineteen eleven. But it looks like a prop from a 11 00:00:31,199 --> 00:00:32,560 bad nineteen. 12 00:00:32,240 --> 00:00:33,799 Speaker 3: Sixties sci fi movie. 13 00:00:33,960 --> 00:00:37,439 Speaker 2: I mean it has this massive, bulky, battery powered scope 14 00:00:37,439 --> 00:00:38,640 mounted right on top of the slide. 15 00:00:38,640 --> 00:00:40,200 Speaker 3: It looks completely ridiculous. 16 00:00:40,280 --> 00:00:42,880 Speaker 1: It really is absurd, but the engineering inside that thing 17 00:00:42,960 --> 00:00:45,359 was terrifying. This is the weapon that has come to 18 00:00:45,359 --> 00:00:47,280 be known as the heart Attack gun. And the reason 19 00:00:47,320 --> 00:00:51,399 we're starting here is that this gun represents the perfect 20 00:00:51,439 --> 00:00:54,799 intersection of technological genius and complete more bankruptcy. 21 00:00:54,920 --> 00:00:57,399 Speaker 2: Yeah, it really does. The mechanism alone is fascinating. It 22 00:00:57,399 --> 00:01:00,079 didn't fire a lead bullet, It fired a projectile. It 23 00:01:00,119 --> 00:01:03,759 a frozen water literally ice mixed with a very specific 24 00:01:04,439 --> 00:01:06,280 shellfish toxin called saxy toxin. 25 00:01:06,560 --> 00:01:09,120 Speaker 1: Now, hold on, because the physics of firing an ice 26 00:01:09,159 --> 00:01:12,200 bullet are a total nightmare. You have the heat of 27 00:01:12,200 --> 00:01:15,040 the explosion, the friction of the barrel. How do you 28 00:01:15,079 --> 00:01:18,560 shoot ice without it melting before it even leaves the gun? 29 00:01:18,920 --> 00:01:21,319 Speaker 2: Well, that's where the battery powered part comes in, along 30 00:01:21,319 --> 00:01:25,239 with some really clever ballistics. They used a sabbot, which 31 00:01:25,280 --> 00:01:28,760 is a protective casing that encases the ice projectile. 32 00:01:29,200 --> 00:01:30,799 Speaker 3: The sabbot takes the heat. 33 00:01:30,560 --> 00:01:32,840 Speaker 2: And the friction as it travels down the barrel, and 34 00:01:32,879 --> 00:01:35,560 then it just peels away in flight, allowing the ice 35 00:01:35,560 --> 00:01:37,439 start to continue straight to the target. 36 00:01:37,560 --> 00:01:41,159 Speaker 1: So the dart hits the target, penetrates the skin, and 37 00:01:41,200 --> 00:01:44,200 then physics just takes over. The ice melts exactly. 38 00:01:44,239 --> 00:01:47,400 Speaker 2: The ice melts, leaving literally nobilistic evidence. There's no bullet 39 00:01:47,400 --> 00:01:50,200 to match to a gun. The toxin enters the bloodstream 40 00:01:50,239 --> 00:01:54,079 and causes immediate cardiovascular collapse. To a coroner or anyone 41 00:01:54,120 --> 00:01:57,959 doing an autopsy, it looks exactly like a massive myocardial infection, 42 00:01:58,319 --> 00:02:01,480 a totally natural heart attack. The only clue a tiny 43 00:02:01,519 --> 00:02:03,439 red dot on the skin about the size of a 44 00:02:03,480 --> 00:02:06,239 mosquito bite. I mean, you could assassinate a world leader 45 00:02:06,280 --> 00:02:09,599 in broad daylight, surrounded by bodyguards, and history would just 46 00:02:09,599 --> 00:02:11,199 record it as natural causes. 47 00:02:11,560 --> 00:02:15,280 Speaker 1: It creates this chilling reality where you realize that what 48 00:02:15,319 --> 00:02:18,479 we see as history might just be a carefully crafted 49 00:02:18,520 --> 00:02:21,759 cover story. Welcome to thrilling threads. 50 00:02:21,960 --> 00:02:24,159 Speaker 2: It is so good to be here. And today we 51 00:02:24,240 --> 00:02:26,960 are going to pull on some threads that I think 52 00:02:27,000 --> 00:02:30,400 a lot of people in power would strongly prefer stayed 53 00:02:30,479 --> 00:02:32,120 buried deep in the archives. 54 00:02:32,479 --> 00:02:35,120 Speaker 1: We certainly are. You know, there's this stereotype of the 55 00:02:35,159 --> 00:02:38,520 conspiracy theorist, the guy in the basement wearing the tinfoil 56 00:02:38,639 --> 00:02:42,879 hat red yarn, connecting blurry photos on a corkboard, ranting 57 00:02:42,919 --> 00:02:44,680 about how they're watching us right. 58 00:02:44,639 --> 00:02:46,199 Speaker 2: And to be fair, a lot of the time, those 59 00:02:46,199 --> 00:02:50,000 theories are just noise. They're pattern recognition gone completely wrong. 60 00:02:50,120 --> 00:02:54,280 Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. But what happens when the files are actually declassified? 61 00:02:54,520 --> 00:02:57,520 What happens when the government actually releases the documents, say 62 00:02:57,879 --> 00:03:00,400 thirty or forty years later, and it turns out the 63 00:03:00,439 --> 00:03:02,479 crazy rumors were just factual history. 64 00:03:02,800 --> 00:03:05,800 Speaker 2: That is the uncomfortable space we are exploring today. The 65 00:03:05,840 --> 00:03:09,280 realization that the difference between paranoia and historical fact is 66 00:03:09,319 --> 00:03:12,080 often just a Freedom of Information Act request and a 67 00:03:12,120 --> 00:03:13,439 few decades of patients. 68 00:03:13,759 --> 00:03:16,960 Speaker 1: Today we are walking through a huge collection of these moments. 69 00:03:17,520 --> 00:03:20,919 We are looking at a compilation of thirty government conspiracy 70 00:03:20,960 --> 00:03:23,719 theories that turned out to be true, drawing from an 71 00:03:23,759 --> 00:03:27,039 extensive list put together by watch Mojo. But we aren't 72 00:03:27,159 --> 00:03:30,000 just listing them. We're going to break down the mechanics, 73 00:03:30,159 --> 00:03:33,719 the costs, and the absolute absurdity of these operations. 74 00:03:33,800 --> 00:03:37,240 Speaker 2: We've categorized them to help us process the madness. Really, 75 00:03:37,879 --> 00:03:42,120 from weird science to biological experiments on citizens, all the 76 00:03:42,159 --> 00:03:44,879 way up to shadow governments. And I have to warn 77 00:03:44,919 --> 00:03:47,280 you some of this is funny in a very dark 78 00:03:47,319 --> 00:03:49,199 I can't believe they spend money on this kind of way, 79 00:03:49,520 --> 00:03:52,360 But some of it is genuinely, deeply disturbing. 80 00:03:52,560 --> 00:03:54,599 Speaker 1: Let's start with lighter side, or at least the side 81 00:03:54,599 --> 00:03:58,960 that highlights pure incompetence in Hubris. Section one is weird science. 82 00:03:59,280 --> 00:04:01,599 We are talking about the government spending massive amounts of 83 00:04:01,639 --> 00:04:04,960 cash on ideas that sound like literal hallucinations. 84 00:04:05,080 --> 00:04:08,199 Speaker 2: The Cold War was a desperate time, and desperation breeds. 85 00:04:08,280 --> 00:04:11,919 Let's call it creative problem solving. The intelligence community was 86 00:04:12,000 --> 00:04:15,520 grounding in money but starving for actionable data on the Soviets. 87 00:04:15,680 --> 00:04:18,120 Speaker 1: Creative is a very generous word for our first case 88 00:04:18,120 --> 00:04:20,279 study here, Acoustic Kitty. 89 00:04:20,600 --> 00:04:23,600 Speaker 2: Ah. Yes, the CIA's attempt to turn the common house 90 00:04:23,639 --> 00:04:27,480 cat into a living purring mobile recording device. 91 00:04:27,879 --> 00:04:29,639 Speaker 1: Now most people hear this and think, oh, they taped 92 00:04:29,639 --> 00:04:32,120 a mic to a cat's collar. No, no, this was 93 00:04:32,199 --> 00:04:35,600 full on Franken cat territory. They launched a massive veterinary 94 00:04:35,639 --> 00:04:36,720 surgery program. 95 00:04:36,839 --> 00:04:40,120 Speaker 2: It was a bioengineering nightmare. The Directorate of Science and 96 00:04:40,199 --> 00:04:43,720 Technology decided they needed a way to listen to Soviet 97 00:04:43,759 --> 00:04:47,120 agents sitting on park benches. They couldn't get close enough 98 00:04:47,120 --> 00:04:49,720 with human agents without being spotted. So they thought, well, 99 00:04:49,920 --> 00:04:51,560 who suspects a stray cat? 100 00:04:51,759 --> 00:04:54,879 Speaker 1: So they took a cat and they surgically implanted a 101 00:04:54,920 --> 00:04:58,079 microphone into its ear canal, using the cat's own ear 102 00:04:58,120 --> 00:05:01,240 geometry to funnel sound. But then they had to get 103 00:05:01,240 --> 00:05:02,800 that signal out right. 104 00:05:02,800 --> 00:05:05,480 Speaker 2: They implanted a radio transmitter at the base of the skull. 105 00:05:05,920 --> 00:05:09,519 But here is the major engineering hurdle. Physics dictates that 106 00:05:09,600 --> 00:05:12,199 for the radio frequencies they were using, you need a 107 00:05:12,240 --> 00:05:15,439 certain length of antenna to transmit the signal. Clearly, you 108 00:05:15,480 --> 00:05:17,600 can't just stick a six inch metal rod out of 109 00:05:17,600 --> 00:05:18,360 a cat's head. 110 00:05:18,600 --> 00:05:20,680 Speaker 3: It ruins the whole disguise, right. 111 00:05:20,560 --> 00:05:23,040 Speaker 1: The Soviets might notice an antenna sticking out of a 112 00:05:23,079 --> 00:05:24,680 tabby cat, So what do they do. 113 00:05:24,959 --> 00:05:27,759 Speaker 2: They wove the wire antenna all the way down through 114 00:05:27,759 --> 00:05:28,439 the cat's tail. 115 00:05:29,000 --> 00:05:31,279 Speaker 3: The tail literally became the antenna. 116 00:05:31,439 --> 00:05:34,839 Speaker 1: Just imagine the complexity here. You have rejection risks, severe 117 00:05:34,879 --> 00:05:37,959 infection risks, and the fact that batteries in the nineteen 118 00:05:38,000 --> 00:05:41,040 sixties weren't exactly microchips. They are bulky and heavy. 119 00:05:41,639 --> 00:05:44,160 Speaker 2: And the cost for all this, adjusted for inflation, we 120 00:05:44,240 --> 00:05:47,680 are talking about roughly one hundred and fifty million dollars 121 00:05:47,720 --> 00:05:50,759 spent on this project over five years. That is the 122 00:05:50,800 --> 00:05:54,920 GDP of a small island nation spent entirely on trying 123 00:05:54,959 --> 00:05:56,759 to turn a feline into a spy. 124 00:05:57,319 --> 00:06:00,560 Speaker 1: And then came the big field test DGE and goes 125 00:06:00,600 --> 00:06:03,319 that they drove the surveillance fan to a park in Washington, DC, 126 00:06:03,920 --> 00:06:07,920 opened the sliding door to release their multimillion dollar cyborg, and. 127 00:06:08,360 --> 00:06:09,319 Speaker 3: Nature just took over. 128 00:06:09,480 --> 00:06:11,639 Speaker 2: The popular story is that it was immediately hit by 129 00:06:11,680 --> 00:06:15,199 a taxi splat game over, but even the less dramatic 130 00:06:15,279 --> 00:06:18,279 version in the official file suggests total failure. The cat 131 00:06:18,279 --> 00:06:20,439 didn't care about the mission at all. With hungry, it 132 00:06:20,519 --> 00:06:21,720 wandered off to find food. 133 00:06:22,040 --> 00:06:24,000 Speaker 3: It got distracted by birds because. 134 00:06:23,759 --> 00:06:25,759 Speaker 1: Cats do not take orders from the federal government. 135 00:06:25,800 --> 00:06:27,720 Speaker 3: They just don't, They absolutely do not. 136 00:06:28,279 --> 00:06:31,120 Speaker 2: The project was eventually scrubbed because they realized that even 137 00:06:31,120 --> 00:06:33,959 if the technology worked perfectly, which was a huge stretch 138 00:06:34,600 --> 00:06:40,000 the platform, the animal itself was fundamentally unmanageable. It really 139 00:06:40,079 --> 00:06:44,199 highlights the hubris of the era, this unwavering belief that 140 00:06:44,240 --> 00:06:47,199 with enough money and enough science, you could bend biology 141 00:06:47,240 --> 00:06:47,879 to your will. 142 00:06:48,160 --> 00:06:51,800 Speaker 1: But they didn't stop looking for magic solutions. This brings 143 00:06:51,839 --> 00:06:54,879 us to the Stargate project. This one always gives me 144 00:06:54,959 --> 00:06:58,800 serious stranger things vibes. We're talking about actual psychic spies, 145 00:06:58,920 --> 00:06:59,439 we are. 146 00:06:59,399 --> 00:07:01,759 Speaker 2: And again to look at the why the US government 147 00:07:01,800 --> 00:07:04,240 didn't just decide to get into the paranormal for fun 148 00:07:04,279 --> 00:07:06,839 on a Tuesday. They were terrified because they had intel, 149 00:07:06,920 --> 00:07:10,360 flawed intel, but intel nonetheless that the Soviets were investing 150 00:07:10,399 --> 00:07:12,079 heavily in psychotronic. 151 00:07:11,480 --> 00:07:12,879 Speaker 1: Weapons, the psychic gap. 152 00:07:13,000 --> 00:07:16,800 Speaker 2: Precisely, they feared the Soviets could use telepathy to locate 153 00:07:16,839 --> 00:07:19,800 our hidden submarines or influence our leader's minds from across 154 00:07:19,839 --> 00:07:23,120 the globe. So the DA and CIA spent about twenty 155 00:07:23,120 --> 00:07:26,480 million dollars over two decades employing people like Uri Geller 156 00:07:26,560 --> 00:07:28,879 and others to perform what they called remote viewing. 157 00:07:29,199 --> 00:07:32,360 Speaker 1: Explain remote viewing for those who haven't spent time diving 158 00:07:32,399 --> 00:07:33,439 into the fringe forums. 159 00:07:33,680 --> 00:07:36,879 Speaker 2: The protocol was basically this. You put a psychic in 160 00:07:36,959 --> 00:07:40,839 a sealed room in Maryland, give them coordinates literally just 161 00:07:40,920 --> 00:07:44,839 numbers latitude and longitude, and ask them to draw what 162 00:07:44,959 --> 00:07:48,319 is at that exact location. The hope was they could 163 00:07:48,360 --> 00:07:51,600 mentally see inside a secret bunker in Siberia or a 164 00:07:51,600 --> 00:07:52,959 research facility in China. 165 00:07:53,000 --> 00:07:54,519 Speaker 1: Did they get anything useful out of it? 166 00:07:54,759 --> 00:07:58,720 Speaker 2: Statistically they had some hits. They drew cranes or buildings 167 00:07:58,720 --> 00:08:03,199 that vaguely resembled the tarts, but in intelligence, vaguely resembles 168 00:08:03,560 --> 00:08:05,519 isn't good enough to launch a cruise missile. 169 00:08:05,879 --> 00:08:07,120 Speaker 3: The official conclusion when. 170 00:08:07,000 --> 00:08:09,360 Speaker 2: They finally shut it down in nineteen ninety five was 171 00:08:09,360 --> 00:08:11,800 that magic wasn't reliable for military intel. 172 00:08:11,839 --> 00:08:14,360 Speaker 1: It's amazing it lasted twenty years. Yeah, you'd think after 173 00:08:14,399 --> 00:08:17,040 the first five years of drawing blurry blobs. They'd cut 174 00:08:17,079 --> 00:08:17,560 the funding. 175 00:08:17,720 --> 00:08:21,560 Speaker 2: Well, bureaucracy protext's own budgets. Once a program exists and 176 00:08:21,600 --> 00:08:23,959 people are employed, it's remarkably hard to kill it. 177 00:08:24,160 --> 00:08:27,560 Speaker 1: Very true. Now, Sometimes the weird science wasn't about technology 178 00:08:27,639 --> 00:08:30,839 or magic. Sometimes it was about culture. This next thread 179 00:08:30,879 --> 00:08:32,879 blew my mind when I first read about it. The 180 00:08:32,879 --> 00:08:34,200 CIA in modern art. 181 00:08:34,639 --> 00:08:36,799 Speaker 2: This is one of my absolute favorites because it's so 182 00:08:37,120 --> 00:08:41,360 incredibly counterintuitive. You have it, the CIA guys in gray 183 00:08:41,440 --> 00:08:46,519 flannel suits, very conservative crew cuts, secretly funding the wildest, 184 00:08:46,559 --> 00:08:52,000 most avant garde abstract expressionism. Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem 185 00:08:52,039 --> 00:08:52,519 de Kooning. 186 00:08:52,639 --> 00:08:55,840 Speaker 1: Why though, I mean critics at the time and probably 187 00:08:55,840 --> 00:08:59,120 a lot of politicians called this art a complete scam. 188 00:08:59,600 --> 00:09:01,840 They said it looked like a child did it with fingerpaints. 189 00:09:01,879 --> 00:09:03,399 Why would the government prop that up? 190 00:09:03,480 --> 00:09:06,840 Speaker 2: It was a weapon against Soviet realism. The Soviets had 191 00:09:06,960 --> 00:09:11,600 very rigid state sanctioned art, heroic workers, realistic tractors, very 192 00:09:11,639 --> 00:09:16,360 clear propaganda. It was technically proficient, but totally soulless and controlled. 193 00:09:16,759 --> 00:09:17,720 The CI wanted to. 194 00:09:17,679 --> 00:09:20,279 Speaker 3: Prove that America was the true land of the free So. 195 00:09:20,240 --> 00:09:22,200 Speaker 1: The message was our artists are so free they can 196 00:09:22,279 --> 00:09:23,879 just splash paint on a canvas, as we call it, 197 00:09:23,879 --> 00:09:25,240 absolute genie exactly. 198 00:09:25,399 --> 00:09:27,759 Speaker 2: They wanted to show that in America creativity had no 199 00:09:27,840 --> 00:09:31,399 boundaries whatsoever. They used a front organization called the Congress 200 00:09:31,399 --> 00:09:35,200 for Cultural Freedom to organize massive, expensive exhibitions in. 201 00:09:35,240 --> 00:09:36,120 Speaker 3: Paris and London. 202 00:09:36,639 --> 00:09:39,200 Speaker 2: They essentially bragged critics to write favorable reviews. 203 00:09:39,399 --> 00:09:41,840 Speaker 1: So the rich irony here is that the American public 204 00:09:42,200 --> 00:09:44,919 mostly hated modern art at the time. They thought it 205 00:09:44,960 --> 00:09:48,960 was garbage, but their own tax dollars were secretly ensuring 206 00:09:49,000 --> 00:09:52,159 it became the global standard of high culture just to 207 00:09:52,159 --> 00:09:52,919 own the Russians. 208 00:09:53,039 --> 00:09:55,720 Speaker 2: It was purely cultural warfare. And the crazy thing is 209 00:09:55,799 --> 00:09:58,639 it worked. New York replaced Paris as the center of 210 00:09:58,679 --> 00:10:02,200 the art world during this period. They literally weaponized Jackson Pollock. 211 00:10:02,320 --> 00:10:04,960 Speaker 1: Okay, so those are the fun ones, cats and weird paintings. 212 00:10:05,320 --> 00:10:07,360 But now we really have to turn the page to 213 00:10:07,440 --> 00:10:12,360 something much darker. Section two is playing god. This is 214 00:10:12,399 --> 00:10:15,360 where the government decided to treat its own citizens as 215 00:10:15,679 --> 00:10:16,879 unwitting labrats. 216 00:10:17,159 --> 00:10:18,960 Speaker 2: Yeah, this is the part of the file that makes 217 00:10:19,000 --> 00:10:21,120 you question the fundamental morality of. 218 00:10:21,120 --> 00:10:24,000 Speaker 3: The people in charge. We aren't talking about spying anymore. 219 00:10:24,159 --> 00:10:27,759 Speaker 2: We're talking about biological experimentation on civilian populations. 220 00:10:28,120 --> 00:10:33,000 Speaker 1: Let's unpack Operation Sea Spray September nineteen fifty, San Francisco. 221 00:10:33,200 --> 00:10:36,600 Speaker 2: The Navy had a legitimate defense question. If a Soviet 222 00:10:36,600 --> 00:10:39,240 ship released a bioweapon off the coast, how would it 223 00:10:39,240 --> 00:10:41,960 spread through a dense city. How vulnerable are we to 224 00:10:42,000 --> 00:10:43,240 an airsolized attack? 225 00:10:43,399 --> 00:10:46,120 Speaker 1: A valid question for national defense, I suppose sure. 226 00:10:46,799 --> 00:10:49,320 Speaker 2: But the ethical way to test that is with computer 227 00:10:49,399 --> 00:10:53,279 models or wind tunnel simulations. The Navy decided to do 228 00:10:53,360 --> 00:10:57,480 a live fire test. They spent six days spraying Seratium 229 00:10:57,480 --> 00:11:00,000 marceessens into the fog off the coast of San Francisco. 230 00:11:00,279 --> 00:11:01,960 Speaker 1: Why use that specific bacteria? 231 00:11:02,279 --> 00:11:05,919 Speaker 2: At the time, they genuinely believed it was harmless, But crucially, 232 00:11:06,240 --> 00:11:09,399 seration marcessens produces a bright red pigment when it grows, 233 00:11:09,440 --> 00:11:12,279 it's very distinct visually. This allowed them to set up 234 00:11:12,320 --> 00:11:15,399 sampling stations all over the city and track exactly where 235 00:11:15,440 --> 00:11:16,759 the bacteria went on the wind. 236 00:11:16,919 --> 00:11:19,679 Speaker 1: So they essentially turned the entire city of San Francisco 237 00:11:19,799 --> 00:11:21,159 into a giant peatrie dish. 238 00:11:21,440 --> 00:11:24,799 Speaker 2: They proved a city could be completely infected. They found 239 00:11:24,799 --> 00:11:27,720 the red bacteria in schools, in hospitals, and private homes. 240 00:11:28,039 --> 00:11:30,000 But then people started getting. 241 00:11:29,759 --> 00:11:31,759 Speaker 1: Sick because it wasn't harmless. 242 00:11:31,480 --> 00:11:34,799 Speaker 2: No, it wasn't. It's an opportunistic pathogen. There was a 243 00:11:34,840 --> 00:11:38,240 massive outbreak of urinary tract infections and very rare heart 244 00:11:38,240 --> 00:11:41,799 infections across the city. One man, Edward Nevin, a seventy 245 00:11:41,840 --> 00:11:45,840 five year old recovering from prostate surgery, developed endocarditis from 246 00:11:45,840 --> 00:11:47,399 the bacteria and died, and. 247 00:11:47,320 --> 00:11:49,720 Speaker 1: His family had absolutely no idea why. 248 00:11:49,559 --> 00:11:53,480 Speaker 2: Not until decades later when the truth finally came out. 249 00:11:53,480 --> 00:11:55,799 They tried to sue the government, but the courts ruled 250 00:11:55,799 --> 00:11:59,519 that the government had sovereign immunity. They basically infected an 251 00:11:59,679 --> 00:12:03,440 entire major American city, killed at least one citizen, and 252 00:12:03,519 --> 00:12:05,120 just walked away without consequence. 253 00:12:05,559 --> 00:12:09,159 Speaker 1: It's terrifying because it shows a total disregard for individual 254 00:12:09,200 --> 00:12:12,120 life in favor of getting the data. And we see 255 00:12:12,120 --> 00:12:15,240 that pattern again with Project Sunshine. The name sounds so 256 00:12:15,399 --> 00:12:18,360 happy and bright, the reality is just ghastly. 257 00:12:18,600 --> 00:12:21,039 Speaker 2: This was in the wake of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The 258 00:12:21,080 --> 00:12:25,720 government needed to know how radiation, specifically strontium ninety affects 259 00:12:25,720 --> 00:12:29,240 the human body on a global scale. Strontium ninety is 260 00:12:29,279 --> 00:12:31,799 what's known as a bone seeker. The body mistakes it 261 00:12:31,840 --> 00:12:34,480 for calcium and absorbs it directly into the bone structure, 262 00:12:34,480 --> 00:12:35,919 where it eventually causes cancer. 263 00:12:36,080 --> 00:12:37,919 Speaker 1: They needed to know how much of this stuff was 264 00:12:37,919 --> 00:12:41,240 in the global population from all the atmospheric nuclear testing. 265 00:12:41,639 --> 00:12:44,080 But obviously you can't just ask a living person to 266 00:12:44,080 --> 00:12:45,440 give you a piece of their femur. 267 00:12:45,720 --> 00:12:50,200 Speaker 2: No, you can't, So they launched a global body snashing operation. 268 00:12:50,840 --> 00:12:54,360 They had a massive network of agents, often working quietly 269 00:12:54,399 --> 00:12:57,559 through scientific attaches in foreign countries, who would collect human 270 00:12:57,639 --> 00:13:02,480 samples limbs, ribs, vertebrae, all taken from the dead. But 271 00:13:02,559 --> 00:13:05,720 they specifically targeted babies and young children. 272 00:13:05,440 --> 00:13:07,120 Speaker 1: Because their bones are growing faster. 273 00:13:07,080 --> 00:13:11,200 Speaker 2: Exactly, Children absorb calcium and therefore strontium ninety much faster 274 00:13:11,279 --> 00:13:14,840 than adults. They were the literal canaries in the coal 275 00:13:14,919 --> 00:13:17,279 mine for global radiation levels. 276 00:13:17,559 --> 00:13:20,919 Speaker 1: The true horror here is the consent aspect, or rather 277 00:13:21,320 --> 00:13:22,519 the complete lack of it. 278 00:13:22,799 --> 00:13:26,759 Speaker 2: In over fifteen hundred documented cases, the parents were never asked. 279 00:13:27,240 --> 00:13:30,039 A grieving mother would lose a child's still birth or illness, 280 00:13:30,440 --> 00:13:32,879 and the hospital staff would just say don't worry, we'll 281 00:13:32,919 --> 00:13:36,600 handle the burial arrangements. In reality, they were harvesting tissue 282 00:13:36,639 --> 00:13:38,879 and bone samples to ship off to US labs for 283 00:13:38,919 --> 00:13:40,919 incineration and chemical analysis. 284 00:13:40,960 --> 00:13:44,120 Speaker 1: It's a violation of the most sacred trust imaginable. The 285 00:13:44,159 --> 00:13:47,200 government literally stealing parts of dead children just to build 286 00:13:47,200 --> 00:13:48,440 a statistical chart. 287 00:13:48,440 --> 00:13:52,720 Speaker 2: And yet the scientists involved convinced themselves it was entirely necessary. 288 00:13:53,440 --> 00:13:56,840 They argued that the data saved millions of lives by 289 00:13:56,879 --> 00:14:01,159 proving just how dangerous radioactive fallout was, which eventually led 290 00:14:01,159 --> 00:14:05,519 to test ban treaties. It's the ultimate utilitarian argument, the 291 00:14:05,679 --> 00:14:07,519 ends justify the means. 292 00:14:08,279 --> 00:14:12,440 Speaker 1: We see this exact utilitarian pattern again with Prohibition. I 293 00:14:12,480 --> 00:14:15,600 always thought the poisoned alcohol story was a myth, you know, 294 00:14:15,679 --> 00:14:18,279 the old warning, don't drink the moonshine, it'll make you 295 00:14:18,320 --> 00:14:20,879 go blind. I thought that was just bad brewing technique 296 00:14:20,879 --> 00:14:22,000 by amateurs in the woods. 297 00:14:22,200 --> 00:14:24,120 Speaker 2: Bad brewing was a small part of it, but the 298 00:14:24,159 --> 00:14:27,360 government actively made it lethal. You have to understand the 299 00:14:27,440 --> 00:14:31,159 chemistry at the time. Industrial alcohol used for paint fuel, 300 00:14:31,519 --> 00:14:34,759 medical supplies is ethanol. It's the exact same stuff and whiskey, 301 00:14:35,399 --> 00:14:38,440 but during Prohibition bootleggers were stealing millions of gallons of 302 00:14:38,480 --> 00:14:41,960 industrial alcohol and simply redistilling it to make it drinkable. 303 00:14:42,120 --> 00:14:44,399 Speaker 1: So the government decided to stop them at the source. 304 00:14:44,360 --> 00:14:45,759 Speaker 3: By poisoning the supply. 305 00:14:46,440 --> 00:14:49,879 Speaker 2: The Treasury Department ordered manufacturers to denature the alcohol with 306 00:14:50,000 --> 00:14:54,639 far more lethal chemicals. They forced them to add kerosene, gasoline, 307 00:14:54,759 --> 00:15:00,039 heavy metals like mercury, and crucially, copious amounts of methyl alcohol. 308 00:14:59,600 --> 00:15:02,559 Speaker 1: Or method methanol is this stuff that blinds. 309 00:15:02,120 --> 00:15:03,120 Speaker 3: You and kills you. 310 00:15:03,799 --> 00:15:07,039 Speaker 2: The logic was termed chemical enforcement. They figured if people 311 00:15:07,080 --> 00:15:09,600 started dying horribly, they would simply stop breaking the law. 312 00:15:09,639 --> 00:15:12,039 They knew full well people would drink it anyway. How 313 00:15:12,080 --> 00:15:15,879 many people died from this, The estimates are absolutely staggering. 314 00:15:16,159 --> 00:15:20,240 Around ten thousand people died from drinking poisoned alcohol during Prohibition. 315 00:15:20,759 --> 00:15:24,399 The government effectively poisoned its own population to enforce a 316 00:15:24,440 --> 00:15:26,039 moral statute. 317 00:15:25,480 --> 00:15:28,759 Speaker 1: That is a war casualty list. Ten thousand dead civilians. 318 00:15:29,000 --> 00:15:31,120 Speaker 2: And then there's the gross negligence aspect. Look at the 319 00:15:31,120 --> 00:15:32,919 polio vaccine and SV forty. 320 00:15:33,120 --> 00:15:35,840 Speaker 1: Right, we all know the triumph of the polio vaccine. 321 00:15:36,320 --> 00:15:40,120 Jonah Salk is an American hero eradicating a terrible disease 322 00:15:40,159 --> 00:15:41,840 that paralyzed children, and. 323 00:15:41,799 --> 00:15:42,480 Speaker 3: He was a hero. 324 00:15:43,320 --> 00:15:47,320 Speaker 2: But the early vaccines, specifically the batches manufactured from nineteen 325 00:15:47,360 --> 00:15:49,240 fifty five to nineteen sixty one, had a. 326 00:15:49,320 --> 00:15:50,600 Speaker 3: Very dirty secret. 327 00:15:50,840 --> 00:15:53,559 Speaker 2: To grow the vaccine in the lab, they used kidney 328 00:15:53,600 --> 00:15:57,399 cells harvested from reesis monkeys. It turned out those specific 329 00:15:57,440 --> 00:16:01,399 monkeys carried a virus called Simian virus four or SV. 330 00:16:01,120 --> 00:16:04,480 Speaker 1: Forty, which is potentially linked to cancer in humans. 331 00:16:04,600 --> 00:16:08,440 Speaker 2: Yes, the government scientists actually discovered this contamination, but they 332 00:16:08,440 --> 00:16:10,919 were right in the middle of a massive national public 333 00:16:10,960 --> 00:16:14,879 health push to eradicate polio. They made a cold calculation, 334 00:16:15,279 --> 00:16:18,279 if we stop the vaccine roll out now, polio returns 335 00:16:18,360 --> 00:16:22,559 and paralyzes thousands. If we continue, we risk SV forty exposure. 336 00:16:22,639 --> 00:16:24,720 Speaker 1: So they didn't pull the contaminated batches from the shelf. 337 00:16:24,799 --> 00:16:28,360 Speaker 2: They quietly switched to a new manufacturing process for future batches, 338 00:16:28,399 --> 00:16:31,240 but they allowed the existing contaminated stock to be used up. 339 00:16:31,799 --> 00:16:34,480 Millions of American children were injected with a live monkey 340 00:16:34,559 --> 00:16:37,240 virus because the government didn't want to cause a public. 341 00:16:36,919 --> 00:16:39,639 Speaker 1: Panic, which brings us to arguably the most infamous breach 342 00:16:39,679 --> 00:16:43,399 of medical ethics in US history. The Tuskegee Syphilis study. 343 00:16:43,440 --> 00:16:46,080 Speaker 2: This is the one that destroys trust in public health 344 00:16:46,159 --> 00:16:49,879 for generations to come. For forty years, ending only in 345 00:16:49,960 --> 00:16:54,120 nineteen seventy two, the Public Health Service observed hundreds of 346 00:16:54,159 --> 00:16:57,440 black men in rural Alabama who had syphilis, and. 347 00:16:57,440 --> 00:16:59,399 Speaker 1: The men thought they were getting free health care from 348 00:16:59,399 --> 00:16:59,879 the government. 349 00:17:00,080 --> 00:17:02,120 Speaker 2: They were told they were being treated for bad blood, 350 00:17:02,200 --> 00:17:06,480 which was a colloquialism for various ailments. In reality, the 351 00:17:06,519 --> 00:17:09,400 doctors were strictly observing the natural progression of the disease. 352 00:17:10,039 --> 00:17:14,079 But here is the profound crime. Penicillin became the standard, 353 00:17:14,240 --> 00:17:17,319 widely available and highly effective cure for syphilis in the 354 00:17:17,359 --> 00:17:18,839 mid nineteen forties. 355 00:17:18,480 --> 00:17:20,039 Speaker 1: So they could have cured all these men at any 356 00:17:20,039 --> 00:17:21,480 point after nineteen forty. 357 00:17:21,240 --> 00:17:24,880 Speaker 2: Five easily a few routine shots of penicillin, But the 358 00:17:24,920 --> 00:17:28,640 doctors deliberately withheld the cure. They actively prevented these men 359 00:17:28,680 --> 00:17:31,920 from getting treatment elsewhere. They even contacted local draft boards 360 00:17:31,920 --> 00:17:34,759 to ensure these specific men weren't drafted into the military 361 00:17:34,920 --> 00:17:37,400 because the army would have routinely tested and cured them. 362 00:17:37,599 --> 00:17:40,279 They wanted the autopsy data. They wanted to see exactly 363 00:17:40,279 --> 00:17:42,240 how syphilis destroys a human body. 364 00:17:42,279 --> 00:17:46,519 Speaker 1: Over decades, forty years of this, men died, their wives 365 00:17:46,519 --> 00:17:50,400 were unknowingly infected, their children were born with congenital syphilis. 366 00:17:50,920 --> 00:17:53,279 And it was all totally government sanctioned. 367 00:17:53,400 --> 00:17:56,240 Speaker 2: It took a brave whistleblower going to the press to 368 00:17:56,279 --> 00:17:59,440 finally stop it. And when you ask why certain communities 369 00:17:59,480 --> 00:18:03,079 don't trust government medical advice today, you just have to 370 00:18:03,119 --> 00:18:04,079 point to Tuskegee. 371 00:18:04,119 --> 00:18:04,920 Speaker 3: It's not a theory. 372 00:18:04,960 --> 00:18:08,079 Speaker 2: It's a deep bleeding scar on the national psyche. 373 00:18:08,240 --> 00:18:11,400 Speaker 1: It is so heavy and it transitions us right into 374 00:18:11,400 --> 00:18:14,160 how that exact same mindset. The manipulation in the view 375 00:18:14,160 --> 00:18:17,720 that people are expendable applies to war. Section three is 376 00:18:17,799 --> 00:18:19,640 manipulation of war and geopolitics. 377 00:18:19,960 --> 00:18:22,039 Speaker 2: This is where we see the perfection of the false flag, 378 00:18:22,400 --> 00:18:26,160 the creation of a totally fabricated narrative to justify a 379 00:18:26,200 --> 00:18:28,279 war that the public might not otherwise support. 380 00:18:28,440 --> 00:18:31,680 Speaker 1: The wildest example has to be Operation Northwoods. I remember 381 00:18:31,680 --> 00:18:34,640 reading this declassified file and thinking there is just no 382 00:18:34,759 --> 00:18:36,960 way the Joint chiefs of Staff signed their names. 383 00:18:36,799 --> 00:18:39,960 Speaker 2: To this, But they absolutely did. In the early sixties, 384 00:18:39,960 --> 00:18:44,720 the military establishment was completely obsessed with Austingfidel Castro, but 385 00:18:44,799 --> 00:18:47,640 they needed the American public to be angry enough to 386 00:18:47,680 --> 00:18:51,119 support a full scale, bloody invasion of Cuba, so they 387 00:18:51,279 --> 00:18:53,039 drafted Operation in Northwoods. 388 00:18:53,279 --> 00:18:56,119 Speaker 1: The list of ideas in that document is insane. They 389 00:18:56,160 --> 00:18:59,319 proposed blowing up a US ship in Guantanamo Bay and 390 00:18:59,359 --> 00:19:04,720 blaming Cure, developing a fake communist Cuban terror campaign in Miami. 391 00:19:05,000 --> 00:19:08,000 Speaker 2: My favorite, in a deeply dark way, was the plan 392 00:19:08,119 --> 00:19:12,400 regarding the civilian airliner. They proposed creating an exact duplicate 393 00:19:12,480 --> 00:19:15,119 of a civilian charter flight. They would load the real 394 00:19:15,160 --> 00:19:19,079 plane with CIA agents posing as innocent college students on vacation, 395 00:19:19,440 --> 00:19:21,960 and then went The plane would take off somewhere off 396 00:19:21,960 --> 00:19:24,079 the coast of Florida. The real plane would drop below 397 00:19:24,200 --> 00:19:27,279 radar to a secure base, and a drone aircraft painted 398 00:19:27,319 --> 00:19:28,759 to look identical would. 399 00:19:28,599 --> 00:19:29,599 Speaker 3: Pick up the flight path. 400 00:19:29,920 --> 00:19:32,920 Speaker 2: The drone would start transmitting frantic May Day calls saying 401 00:19:32,960 --> 00:19:35,279 they were under attack by Cuban MiGs, and then the 402 00:19:35,359 --> 00:19:37,640 drone would be remotely detonated. 403 00:19:37,160 --> 00:19:39,839 Speaker 1: Midair, blaming Castro for shooting down a plane full of 404 00:19:39,839 --> 00:19:41,079 American college kids. 405 00:19:41,319 --> 00:19:45,160 Speaker 2: It's straight up cinematic villainy, and this proposal went all 406 00:19:45,279 --> 00:19:47,079 the way to the top of the chain of command 407 00:19:47,160 --> 00:19:48,440 who finally stopped it. 408 00:19:48,839 --> 00:19:49,759 Speaker 1: JFK Right. 409 00:19:50,079 --> 00:19:53,799 Speaker 2: President Kennedy flat out rejected the plan. He reportedly looked 410 00:19:53,799 --> 00:19:56,359 at the Joint Chiefs and basically said, we are absolutely 411 00:19:56,400 --> 00:19:57,039 not doing this. 412 00:19:57,240 --> 00:19:58,319 Speaker 3: It's one of the very. 413 00:19:58,160 --> 00:20:01,160 Speaker 2: Few moments in these files where the system actually worked, 414 00:20:01,240 --> 00:20:04,640 or at least one man with a conscience stopped the machine. 415 00:20:04,720 --> 00:20:07,640 Speaker 1: But the machine didn't stop. A few years later, in Vietnam, 416 00:20:08,200 --> 00:20:09,440 the Gulf of Tonkin. 417 00:20:09,319 --> 00:20:12,079 Speaker 2: Right, the incident that launched the major escalation of the 418 00:20:12,160 --> 00:20:16,200 Vietnam War. We were told the USS Mattox was unprovokedly 419 00:20:16,240 --> 00:20:19,880 attacked by North Vietnamese torpedo boats on August second and 420 00:20:19,960 --> 00:20:21,880 August fourth, nineteen sixty four. 421 00:20:22,000 --> 00:20:24,160 Speaker 1: Now, the August second attack was real, right, it was. 422 00:20:24,119 --> 00:20:25,559 Speaker 3: Real, though heavily provoked. 423 00:20:25,680 --> 00:20:28,839 Speaker 2: The US was in their territorial waters supporting covert South 424 00:20:28,920 --> 00:20:33,119 Vietnamese commando raids. But the August fourth attack, the specific 425 00:20:33,160 --> 00:20:35,200 one that LBJ used to go to Congress and get 426 00:20:35,200 --> 00:20:38,839 the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, effectively a blank check for war. 427 00:20:38,880 --> 00:20:39,559 Speaker 3: It never happened. 428 00:20:39,680 --> 00:20:41,039 Speaker 1: It was literally ghosts. 429 00:20:40,680 --> 00:20:42,200 Speaker 3: On the radar exactly. 430 00:20:42,599 --> 00:20:45,240 Speaker 2: The commander on the scene and Captain Herrick realized it 431 00:20:45,279 --> 00:20:49,400 was just freak weather and over eager sonar operators reading glitches. 432 00:20:49,759 --> 00:20:51,559 Speaker 3: He actually cabled back. 433 00:20:51,440 --> 00:20:54,759 Speaker 2: To Washington saying review of action makes many reported contacts 434 00:20:54,799 --> 00:20:59,039 and torpedoes appear highly doubtful, suggests complete evaluation before any 435 00:20:59,039 --> 00:21:03,359 further action. But Washington deliberately ignored the correction. They had 436 00:21:03,359 --> 00:21:05,079 their excuse and they ran with it. 437 00:21:05,119 --> 00:21:07,559 Speaker 1: And that lie costs. I mean, how many. 438 00:21:07,400 --> 00:21:10,799 Speaker 2: Lives millions if you count the Vietnamese civilians and soldiers 439 00:21:11,200 --> 00:21:15,880 and fifty eight thousand Americans all escalated on a complete 440 00:21:15,880 --> 00:21:16,440 non event. 441 00:21:16,720 --> 00:21:19,480 Speaker 1: We see this exact pr manipulation happen again in the 442 00:21:19,480 --> 00:21:21,880 Gulf War. The Nayia testimony. 443 00:21:22,039 --> 00:21:26,079 Speaker 2: This is a masterclass in calculated emotional manipulation. Nineteen ninety, 444 00:21:26,119 --> 00:21:28,960 a fifteen year old girl named Nayera testifies before Congress. 445 00:21:28,960 --> 00:21:29,519 Speaker 3: She's crying. 446 00:21:29,799 --> 00:21:32,119 Speaker 2: She says she volunteered at a hospital in Kuwait and 447 00:21:32,119 --> 00:21:35,400 saw invading Iraqi soldiers taking babies out of incubators and 448 00:21:35,440 --> 00:21:36,920 leaving them on the cold floor to die. 449 00:21:37,039 --> 00:21:39,920 Speaker 1: I've seen the footage of her testimony. It's incredibly heartbreaking. 450 00:21:39,920 --> 00:21:43,000 Its swayed the congressional vote. Senators quoted her on the floor. 451 00:21:43,319 --> 00:21:44,640 Speaker 3: It was a total fabrication. 452 00:21:45,200 --> 00:21:48,720 Speaker 2: Naiia was actually the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to 453 00:21:48,720 --> 00:21:49,680 the United States. 454 00:21:49,839 --> 00:21:51,240 Speaker 3: She hadn't been to that hospital. 455 00:21:52,000 --> 00:21:55,279 Speaker 2: Her testimony was heavily coached by a massive PR firm, 456 00:21:55,480 --> 00:21:58,519 Hill and Knowlton, who were paid millions by a front 457 00:21:58,559 --> 00:22:01,519 group for the Kuwaiti government to drag America into the war. 458 00:22:01,960 --> 00:22:05,000 Speaker 1: So we went to war partly based on a theatrical. 459 00:22:04,519 --> 00:22:08,519 Speaker 2: Performance, a very expensive, very effective performance. It reminds us 460 00:22:08,559 --> 00:22:11,480 that in geopolitics, the truth is often just a product 461 00:22:11,519 --> 00:22:12,759 you buy if you have the budget. 462 00:22:13,039 --> 00:22:16,680 Speaker 1: Speaking of buying things off the books, the Iran Contra affair. 463 00:22:17,279 --> 00:22:20,000 This one always confuses people because it's so messy, but 464 00:22:20,079 --> 00:22:23,440 it's essentially the government breaking its own laws to fight 465 00:22:23,480 --> 00:22:26,240 a war Congress explicitly said no to. 466 00:22:26,720 --> 00:22:28,799 Speaker 2: It is very messy, but here is the simple version. 467 00:22:29,400 --> 00:22:33,200 The Reagan administration desperately wanted to fight communism in Nicaragua 468 00:22:33,240 --> 00:22:36,720 by funding a rebel group called the Contras, but Congress 469 00:22:36,759 --> 00:22:39,640 passed the ball And Amendment explicitly saying by law no, 470 00:22:39,759 --> 00:22:42,720 you cannot fund the Contras. They are known drug traffickers 471 00:22:42,720 --> 00:22:43,640 and death squads. 472 00:22:43,839 --> 00:22:46,559 Speaker 1: So the money was completely cut off legally. 473 00:22:46,519 --> 00:22:51,079 Speaker 2: Legally yes, So the administration decided to get extremely creative. 474 00:22:51,400 --> 00:22:55,960 They secretly sold high tech missiles to Iran, our sworn enemy, 475 00:22:56,000 --> 00:22:59,079 who was actively holding American hostages at the time, and 476 00:22:59,160 --> 00:23:02,359 they took the off the book's profit from those illegal 477 00:23:02,400 --> 00:23:03,759 sales to funnel it down. 478 00:23:03,759 --> 00:23:04,960 Speaker 3: To the contrast, it's. 479 00:23:04,839 --> 00:23:08,680 Speaker 1: An absolute pretzel of logic fighting communism by arming in 480 00:23:08,759 --> 00:23:12,039 Islamic theocracy to fund right wing rebels. 481 00:23:12,119 --> 00:23:14,720 Speaker 2: And let's not forget the drug angle here, the Contras 482 00:23:14,759 --> 00:23:18,640 were heavily involved in global cocaine trafficking. There is significant 483 00:23:18,680 --> 00:23:21,319 evidence that the CIA turned a blind eye to Contra 484 00:23:21,400 --> 00:23:25,039 smuggle drugs entering the US, fueling the devastating crack epidemic 485 00:23:25,079 --> 00:23:28,039 of the eighties because that illicit drug money was funding 486 00:23:28,039 --> 00:23:29,119 the shadow war effort. 487 00:23:29,240 --> 00:23:31,200 Speaker 1: It's amazing anyone survived that scandal. 488 00:23:31,200 --> 00:23:33,079 Speaker 2: Politically, well, it helps when a lot of the most 489 00:23:33,160 --> 00:23:37,319 damning documents were frantically shredded by Oliver North before investigators arrived. 490 00:23:37,359 --> 00:23:39,240 Speaker 1: One more of the war category before we move on, 491 00:23:39,599 --> 00:23:44,000 Operation Popeye, Make Mud not war weather warfare. 492 00:23:44,599 --> 00:23:48,799 Speaker 2: We mentioned conspiracy theorists thinking the government controls the weather. Well, 493 00:23:48,920 --> 00:23:52,599 during the Vietnam War, they literally did. They seated clouds 494 00:23:52,640 --> 00:23:56,240 over the jungle with silver iodide to artificially extend the 495 00:23:56,359 --> 00:23:57,279 monsoon season. 496 00:23:57,319 --> 00:24:00,599 Speaker 1: The goal was to wash out the Hochi Man trail, yes. 497 00:24:00,720 --> 00:24:04,599 Speaker 2: Make the unpaved supply roads completely impassable with deep mud. 498 00:24:05,160 --> 00:24:07,759 It actually worked well enough that it eventually led to 499 00:24:07,799 --> 00:24:11,039 a UN ban on environmental warfare, because if you can 500 00:24:11,079 --> 00:24:14,160 weaponize the rain, you can easily starve an entire nation 501 00:24:14,279 --> 00:24:15,440 by ruining their crops. 502 00:24:15,599 --> 00:24:19,039 Speaker 1: Let's pivot now. We've talked extensively about what they did abroad, 503 00:24:19,599 --> 00:24:21,759 but what about what they did to us, to the 504 00:24:21,799 --> 00:24:25,279 people they were supposed to protect. Section four is enemies 505 00:24:25,319 --> 00:24:25,799 of the State. 506 00:24:26,359 --> 00:24:30,160 Speaker 2: This is where the massive surveillance apparatus turns completely inward. 507 00:24:30,480 --> 00:24:33,400 Speaker 1: The FBI versus John Lennon. It sounds like a bad 508 00:24:33,519 --> 00:24:34,160 joke setup. 509 00:24:34,319 --> 00:24:37,680 Speaker 2: Lenin was genuinely terrifying to the Nixon administration. He wasn't 510 00:24:37,680 --> 00:24:40,920 just a beatle anymore. He was a massive counterculture icon 511 00:24:40,960 --> 00:24:43,799 who was planning a huge concert tour in nineteen seventy two, 512 00:24:43,799 --> 00:24:46,519 which was a critical election year. They feared he would 513 00:24:46,559 --> 00:24:49,279 register millions of young people to vote and sway the 514 00:24:49,480 --> 00:24:51,000 entire election against Nixon. 515 00:24:51,200 --> 00:24:53,759 Speaker 1: So Lenin was actually right. He used to tell people 516 00:24:53,759 --> 00:24:54,599 he's being followed. 517 00:24:54,640 --> 00:24:57,559 Speaker 2: He was absolutely right. People called him paranoid, but he 518 00:24:57,599 --> 00:25:00,920 had every reason to be. The FBI heavily tapped his bones, 519 00:25:01,279 --> 00:25:04,640 followed his car constantly, and spent years trying to deport 520 00:25:04,680 --> 00:25:07,759 him on a bogus marijuana charge just to silence his 521 00:25:07,799 --> 00:25:08,799 anti war voice. 522 00:25:08,880 --> 00:25:12,319 Speaker 1: But it wasn't just rock stars co intil pro This 523 00:25:12,400 --> 00:25:12,960 is the big. 524 00:25:12,759 --> 00:25:16,880 Speaker 2: One, the counterintelligence program run by the FBI under the 525 00:25:16,920 --> 00:25:18,720 absolute rule of j Edgar Hoover. 526 00:25:19,079 --> 00:25:20,799 Speaker 3: The scope of this was massive. 527 00:25:21,279 --> 00:25:24,400 Speaker 2: They targeted the Black Panthers, the anti war movement, major 528 00:25:24,440 --> 00:25:27,920 civil rights leaders. Their stated goal wasn't just surveillance, it 529 00:25:27,960 --> 00:25:32,559 was neutralization, and the tactics were vicious, deeply psychological warfare. 530 00:25:32,839 --> 00:25:35,759 They famously sent a package to Martin Luther King Junior, 531 00:25:35,880 --> 00:25:39,559 posing as a disappointed black follower. It contained audio recordings 532 00:25:39,559 --> 00:25:41,759 of his affairs and a letter basically telling him he 533 00:25:41,839 --> 00:25:44,480 was a complete fraud and suggesting that he should commit 534 00:25:44,519 --> 00:25:48,240 suicide before receiving the Nobel Prize. They explicitly called it 535 00:25:48,319 --> 00:25:49,200 the suicide Letter. 536 00:25:49,359 --> 00:25:51,359 Speaker 1: That is just evil, pure and simple. 537 00:25:51,559 --> 00:25:54,720 Speaker 2: They also completely destroyed the life of Jean Seberg, the 538 00:25:54,720 --> 00:25:59,440 famous actress. She financially supported civil rights groups, The FBI 539 00:25:59,519 --> 00:26:02,480 decided to plant a completely fake story in the Hollywood 540 00:26:02,519 --> 00:26:06,200 gossip columns that her unborn baby wasn't her husband's but 541 00:26:06,440 --> 00:26:09,000 fathered by a member of the Black Panthers. 542 00:26:08,759 --> 00:26:11,039 Speaker 1: And the stress caused her to lose the baby. 543 00:26:11,240 --> 00:26:14,519 Speaker 2: She went into premature labor from the intense public stress. 544 00:26:14,839 --> 00:26:18,599 The baby died shortly after birth. She was so traumatized 545 00:26:18,680 --> 00:26:20,880 she brought the dead infant to the funeral in an 546 00:26:20,880 --> 00:26:24,119 open casket to prove the baby was white, just to. 547 00:26:24,000 --> 00:26:25,359 Speaker 3: Prove the FBI had lied. 548 00:26:25,960 --> 00:26:29,920 Speaker 2: She eventually committed suicide years later. The FBI literally destroyed 549 00:26:29,920 --> 00:26:33,680 a woman's life just because she donated money to the NAACP, and. 550 00:26:33,640 --> 00:26:36,440 Speaker 1: They controlled the press while doing all this too, Project Mockingberg. 551 00:26:36,519 --> 00:26:37,839 Speaker 3: Why are tapping journalists? 552 00:26:38,240 --> 00:26:40,640 Speaker 2: The CIA and FBI were desperate to know who was 553 00:26:40,720 --> 00:26:44,480 leaking classified information, so they routinely tapped the home and 554 00:26:44,519 --> 00:26:46,720 office phones of reporters at the New York Times and 555 00:26:46,759 --> 00:26:47,720 The Washington Post. 556 00:26:48,440 --> 00:26:49,279 Speaker 3: They even had. 557 00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:52,359 Speaker 2: Numerous high level reporters secretly on the payroll to spin 558 00:26:52,519 --> 00:26:53,920 stories in the government's favor. 559 00:26:54,039 --> 00:26:55,559 Speaker 1: It makes you look at the news of that era 560 00:26:55,680 --> 00:26:56,559 completely differently. 561 00:26:56,880 --> 00:26:59,519 Speaker 2: It really should, But if we jumped to the modern era, 562 00:27:00,000 --> 00:27:01,680 can you get Edward Snowden. 563 00:27:01,559 --> 00:27:05,559 Speaker 1: Twenty thirteen, the exact moment the conspiracy became accepted. 564 00:27:05,599 --> 00:27:08,960 Speaker 2: Life before Snowden, if you said, hey, the NSA records 565 00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:12,000 every phone call and reads every email, people called you crazy. 566 00:27:12,400 --> 00:27:16,400 But Snowden showed us the actual PRISM presentation slides. They 567 00:27:16,400 --> 00:27:20,279 were collecting massive amounts of metadata on everyone, not just 568 00:27:20,319 --> 00:27:23,000 suspected targets, literally everyone. 569 00:27:23,119 --> 00:27:25,920 Speaker 1: It shifted the whole paradigm. We went from innocent until 570 00:27:25,960 --> 00:27:30,000 proven guilty to monitored until found guilty, and we. 571 00:27:30,000 --> 00:27:32,119 Speaker 2: Just accepted it. That's the wildest part to me. We 572 00:27:32,240 --> 00:27:35,400 learned the surveillance state is absolute and undeniable, and we 573 00:27:35,480 --> 00:27:37,160 just shrugged and kept using our iPhones. 574 00:27:37,240 --> 00:27:39,839 Speaker 1: It's overwhelming when you stack it all up, but let's 575 00:27:39,839 --> 00:27:42,880 look at the people actually pulling the strings. Section five 576 00:27:43,000 --> 00:27:46,039 is shadow, power, coups, and secrets. This is the section 577 00:27:46,079 --> 00:27:48,119 where we ask who is really in charge? 578 00:27:48,160 --> 00:27:49,720 Speaker 2: And we have to start with the business plot of 579 00:27:49,759 --> 00:27:52,279 nineteen thirty three. This is a story that isn't taught 580 00:27:52,319 --> 00:27:54,599 in American history schools, and I honestly don't know why, 581 00:27:54,640 --> 00:27:57,160 because it's the closest America ever came to a full 582 00:27:57,160 --> 00:27:59,279 blown fascist dictatorship. 583 00:27:59,400 --> 00:28:03,000 Speaker 1: Set the state US nineteen thirty three. The Great Depression 584 00:28:03,079 --> 00:28:03,599 is raging. 585 00:28:03,880 --> 00:28:07,880 Speaker 2: The country is in absolute economic ruins. FDR has just 586 00:28:07,960 --> 00:28:10,839 been elected in a landslide. He decides to take the 587 00:28:10,960 --> 00:28:13,960 US off the gold standard. He wants to print money 588 00:28:13,960 --> 00:28:17,640 to fund massive social programs and help the starving working class. 589 00:28:18,000 --> 00:28:21,599 To Wall Street, this was the apocalypse. They viewed FDR 590 00:28:21,680 --> 00:28:25,200 as a class trader, a dangerous socialist, a man who 591 00:28:25,240 --> 00:28:28,599 was systematically destroying their accumulated wealth. 592 00:28:28,839 --> 00:28:31,480 Speaker 1: So a group of wealthy bankers and industrialists, the one 593 00:28:31,480 --> 00:28:34,160 percent of the one percent, decided they couldn't just wait 594 00:28:34,200 --> 00:28:35,519 for the next election to vote him out. 595 00:28:35,720 --> 00:28:36,759 Speaker 3: They looked over at Europe. 596 00:28:36,920 --> 00:28:38,920 Speaker 2: They saw what Missolini had done in Italy with the 597 00:28:39,000 --> 00:28:42,440 black Shirts. They really liked the idea of a corporatocracy, 598 00:28:42,759 --> 00:28:46,480 a government run by a business for business. But they 599 00:28:46,519 --> 00:28:50,000 needed a charismatic frontman. A bunch of Wall Street bankers 600 00:28:50,039 --> 00:28:52,000 couldn't lead a populais coup themselves. 601 00:28:52,200 --> 00:28:53,640 Speaker 1: They needed a respected soldier. 602 00:28:53,680 --> 00:28:57,799 Speaker 2: They needed Smedley Butler, Major General Smedley Darlington Butler, a 603 00:28:57,799 --> 00:29:01,400 two time Medal of Honor recipient, the most decorated Marine 604 00:29:01,400 --> 00:29:01,880 of his time. 605 00:29:01,920 --> 00:29:05,119 Speaker 3: He was an absolute god to the World War One veterans. 606 00:29:04,920 --> 00:29:06,759 Speaker 1: So they approached him with his treason his plan. 607 00:29:07,119 --> 00:29:11,759 Speaker 2: Well bond salesman named Gerald maguire approached Butler. They offered 608 00:29:11,799 --> 00:29:15,880 him a massive private army, five hundred thousand veterans, fully 609 00:29:16,000 --> 00:29:19,039 armed and financed by Wall Street. The plan was to 610 00:29:19,079 --> 00:29:22,720 march on the White House, intimidate FDR into declaring health issues, 611 00:29:22,920 --> 00:29:25,839 and force him to install a newly created Secretary of 612 00:29:25,920 --> 00:29:29,440 General Affairs, basically a fascist dictator, to run the country 613 00:29:29,440 --> 00:29:30,480 on behalf of the banks. 614 00:29:30,559 --> 00:29:33,319 Speaker 1: But they miscalculated who they were dealing with massively. 615 00:29:33,680 --> 00:29:36,920 Speaker 2: They thought Butler was just a dumb, malleable grunt. They 616 00:29:36,920 --> 00:29:39,759 didn't realize he was a fierce patriot who deeply hated 617 00:29:39,759 --> 00:29:43,519 war profiteering. Butler played along for a bit, gave the names, 618 00:29:43,559 --> 00:29:46,559 got the financial details, and then marched straight into Congress 619 00:29:46,559 --> 00:29:47,880 and blew the whistle on the whole thing. 620 00:29:48,119 --> 00:29:50,839 Speaker 1: And what happened? Did these elite bankers go to federal prison? 621 00:29:51,200 --> 00:29:54,200 Speaker 2: No? And this is the real shadow power part. The 622 00:29:54,279 --> 00:29:58,960 McCormack Dickstein Committee investigated. They confirmed the plot was totally real. 623 00:29:59,240 --> 00:30:02,319 They confirmed them massive funding was there, but not a 624 00:30:02,400 --> 00:30:07,279 single person was prosecuted. The names, huge names, like Prescott Bush, 625 00:30:07,519 --> 00:30:11,319 grandfather to two future presidents, were implicated, but it was 626 00:30:11,400 --> 00:30:15,200 all quietly brushed aside. A deal was clearly made in 627 00:30:15,240 --> 00:30:19,160 the shadows. The plot stopped, but the ultrawealthy plotters walked 628 00:30:19,200 --> 00:30:20,119 completely free. 629 00:30:20,200 --> 00:30:22,039 Speaker 1: It proves there is a level of wealth that is 630 00:30:22,079 --> 00:30:23,240 simply above treason. 631 00:30:23,400 --> 00:30:23,960 Speaker 3: It really does. 632 00:30:24,000 --> 00:30:26,240 Speaker 2: It sends shivers down my spine to think what would 633 00:30:26,240 --> 00:30:28,200 have happened if they had just asked a general with 634 00:30:28,319 --> 00:30:30,599 slightly fewer morals than Smedley Butler. 635 00:30:30,960 --> 00:30:33,720 Speaker 1: Speaking of people running the country who legally shouldn't be, 636 00:30:33,960 --> 00:30:35,000 Edith Wilson. 637 00:30:34,799 --> 00:30:39,640 Speaker 2: Secret President President Woodrow Wilson had a massive, debilitating stroke 638 00:30:39,680 --> 00:30:43,839 in nineteen nineteen. He was severely incapacitated. He couldn't speak clearly, 639 00:30:43,880 --> 00:30:47,000 he couldn't focus on policy. For months, his wife Edith 640 00:30:47,039 --> 00:30:50,240 dictated exactly who thought him, what state papers he signed, 641 00:30:50,240 --> 00:30:51,720 and what policies moved forward. 642 00:30:52,000 --> 00:30:54,839 Speaker 1: She was essentially running the executive branch. She was. 643 00:30:55,160 --> 00:30:57,160 Speaker 2: She called it her stewardship, but she was the de 644 00:30:57,279 --> 00:31:00,720 facto president of the United States. They propped him up 645 00:31:00,720 --> 00:31:04,240 in bed for staged photos, hid his paralyzed left side, 646 00:31:04,279 --> 00:31:07,359 and actively lied to the public and even the Vice president. 647 00:31:07,920 --> 00:31:10,599 It was a massive, successful cover up at the highest level. 648 00:31:10,720 --> 00:31:14,359 Speaker 1: Let's move to Operation paper Clip, the ultimate moral dilemma 649 00:31:14,400 --> 00:31:15,319 of the twentieth century. 650 00:31:15,359 --> 00:31:19,319 Speaker 2: The central question was is scientific progress worth for giving 651 00:31:19,359 --> 00:31:23,720 a monster? The US government decided definitively yes. Immediately after 652 00:31:23,759 --> 00:31:27,079 World War II, we actively recruited over sixteen hundred top 653 00:31:27,119 --> 00:31:28,960 German scientists, engineers, and. 654 00:31:28,960 --> 00:31:31,960 Speaker 1: Technicians, including Werner von Braun, the man. 655 00:31:31,880 --> 00:31:34,799 Speaker 2: Who designed and built the V two rockets that mercilessly 656 00:31:34,880 --> 00:31:38,400 bombed London. He used brutal slave labor from the door 657 00:31:38,480 --> 00:31:42,279 Middle Bow concentration camp. Thousands of prisoners died building his 658 00:31:42,359 --> 00:31:46,400 rockets in horrific underground conditions. He was a registered committed Nazi, 659 00:31:46,599 --> 00:31:49,079 but the US desperately needed him for the looming space 660 00:31:49,200 --> 00:31:52,160 race against the Soviets, so we scrubbed his entire record. 661 00:31:52,200 --> 00:31:54,440 Speaker 1: Queen, we whitewashed a war criminal. 662 00:31:54,720 --> 00:31:55,759 Speaker 3: We absolutely did. 663 00:31:55,799 --> 00:31:59,000 Speaker 2: He became an American hero, the father of the mighty 664 00:31:59,039 --> 00:32:01,400 Saturn V rocket that eventually took us to the Moon. 665 00:32:01,720 --> 00:32:04,960 Disney even put him on Primetime TV to explain space 666 00:32:05,039 --> 00:32:06,519 travel to American kids. 667 00:32:06,799 --> 00:32:09,519 Speaker 1: It's a dark stain on the moon landing. In a way, 668 00:32:10,319 --> 00:32:14,160 we literally stood on the shoulders of Nazi war criminals 669 00:32:14,160 --> 00:32:14,960 to reach the stars. 670 00:32:15,079 --> 00:32:17,359 Speaker 2: And then there's the CIA doing what it does best, 671 00:32:17,559 --> 00:32:20,640 spending billions of dollars on crazy elaborate covers. 672 00:32:21,079 --> 00:32:23,319 Speaker 3: Project Azorian Howard Hughes. 673 00:32:23,720 --> 00:32:26,759 Speaker 1: This one sounds exactly like a Hollywood heist movie. A 674 00:32:26,799 --> 00:32:29,960 Soviet nuclear sub, the K one twenty nine, sank deep 675 00:32:29,960 --> 00:32:33,480 in the Pacific with nuclear missiles and ultra secret codebooks 676 00:32:33,480 --> 00:32:37,119 on board. The CIA desperately wanted it, but you can't 677 00:32:37,160 --> 00:32:39,720 just park a massive navy salvage ship over it. The 678 00:32:39,799 --> 00:32:41,839 Russians would notice immediately. 679 00:32:41,599 --> 00:32:43,240 Speaker 3: So they called Howard Hughes. 680 00:32:43,359 --> 00:32:46,440 Speaker 1: The famous eccentric billionaire. They had to build a massive, 681 00:32:46,480 --> 00:32:49,759 weird looking ship, the Glomar Explorer, claiming to the press 682 00:32:49,759 --> 00:32:52,759 he was going to mine precious manganese nodules from the 683 00:32:52,759 --> 00:32:53,640 deep ocean floor. 684 00:32:53,720 --> 00:32:56,839 Speaker 2: And everyone believed it because Howard Hughes constantly does crazy 685 00:32:56,880 --> 00:32:57,720 eccentric stuff. 686 00:32:57,880 --> 00:33:02,079 Speaker 1: Exactly. The ship secretly had a giant mechanical claw underneath, 687 00:33:02,440 --> 00:33:04,759 designed to reach down and lift the sub off the 688 00:33:04,759 --> 00:33:05,400 ocean floor. 689 00:33:05,519 --> 00:33:06,480 Speaker 3: Did they actually get it? 690 00:33:06,559 --> 00:33:09,559 Speaker 1: Partially? The sub broke apart as they were hauling it up. 691 00:33:09,559 --> 00:33:11,920 They got about a third of it, but the lasting 692 00:33:12,000 --> 00:33:15,559 legacy of this massive project is the Glomar response. When 693 00:33:15,599 --> 00:33:19,240 investigative journalists finally started sniffing around the real story, the 694 00:33:19,279 --> 00:33:22,559 CIA came up with the now famous phrase, we can 695 00:33:22,640 --> 00:33:25,720 either confirm or deny the existence of such a project. 696 00:33:25,480 --> 00:33:27,640 Speaker 3: The ultimate bureaucratic non answer. 697 00:33:27,920 --> 00:33:31,000 Speaker 1: One more shadow power thread before we move on. Operation Gladio. 698 00:33:31,400 --> 00:33:34,240 Speaker 3: This sounds like a cheap spy novel title. 699 00:33:34,400 --> 00:33:38,440 Speaker 1: It was NATO's highly classified stay behind network. The idea was, 700 00:33:38,519 --> 00:33:42,079 if the Soviets eventually invade Western Europe, we need secret, 701 00:33:42,240 --> 00:33:45,200 well armed gorilla armies already in place, ready to fight 702 00:33:45,240 --> 00:33:49,200 behind enemy lines. So they hid massive weapons caches and 703 00:33:49,279 --> 00:33:52,400 trained civilian operatives across Italy, France and Belgium. 704 00:33:52,400 --> 00:33:54,519 Speaker 3: But the Soviets didn't invade. 705 00:33:54,240 --> 00:33:58,440 Speaker 1: No, so these secret armies, particularly the factions in Italy, 706 00:33:58,799 --> 00:34:01,680 had nothing to do. They eventually allied with violent right 707 00:34:01,680 --> 00:34:06,279 wing extremists. They started committing horrific terrorist attacks bombings of 708 00:34:06,279 --> 00:34:10,400 civilian train stations and banks, specifically to blame the communists. 709 00:34:10,559 --> 00:34:13,599 It was called the strategy of tension. Scare the public 710 00:34:13,679 --> 00:34:16,880 so badly they vote for authoritarian law and order right 711 00:34:16,920 --> 00:34:18,199 wing political. 712 00:34:17,760 --> 00:34:21,039 Speaker 2: Parties, so the protectors literally became the terrorists. 713 00:34:21,039 --> 00:34:21,599 Speaker 1: Precisely. 714 00:34:21,679 --> 00:34:25,599 Speaker 2: Okay, we've covered malice, we've covered evil genius, but sometimes 715 00:34:25,960 --> 00:34:31,639 sometimes it's just staggering, unbelievable stupidity. Section six is incompetence 716 00:34:31,679 --> 00:34:32,719 and oops moments. 717 00:34:32,920 --> 00:34:36,639 Speaker 1: Malice is scary, sure, but incompetence on this scale is 718 00:34:36,679 --> 00:34:39,440 incredibly dangerous. Let's look at Operation Fast and Furious. This 719 00:34:39,519 --> 00:34:41,840 wasn't the distant sixties. This was two thousand and nine. 720 00:34:41,920 --> 00:34:45,519 Speaker 2: The ATF, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, 721 00:34:45,719 --> 00:34:48,920 had what they thought was a brilliant practical idea. Let's 722 00:34:48,960 --> 00:34:52,480 allow licensed gun dealers in Arizona to sell highly illegal 723 00:34:52,519 --> 00:34:55,880 weapons to known straw buyers, fully knowing those buyers are 724 00:34:55,880 --> 00:34:58,480 going to smuggle them straight to the brutal Mexican cartels. 725 00:34:58,639 --> 00:35:01,119 Speaker 1: Why on earth would any lawn for Horseman agency willingly 726 00:35:01,159 --> 00:35:01,480 do that. 727 00:35:01,639 --> 00:35:04,280 Speaker 2: The working theory was, we will let the guns walk 728 00:35:04,320 --> 00:35:06,480 across the border, track them all the way to the 729 00:35:06,519 --> 00:35:09,039 cartel bosses, and then arrest the big kingpins. 730 00:35:09,599 --> 00:35:11,559 Speaker 3: But they didn't track them, No, they didn't. 731 00:35:11,800 --> 00:35:15,599 Speaker 2: They completely lost track of over fourteen hundred high powered weapons, 732 00:35:15,840 --> 00:35:19,719 fifty caliber sniper rifles, AK forty seven variants. They just 733 00:35:19,880 --> 00:35:22,960 vanish into the hands of the notorious Sinaloa cartel. 734 00:35:23,159 --> 00:35:24,880 Speaker 1: And then the inevitable tragedy. 735 00:35:24,480 --> 00:35:28,079 Speaker 2: Struck Brian Terry, a US Border Patrol agent, was murdered 736 00:35:28,079 --> 00:35:30,920 in a firefight in twenty ten. Two of the specific 737 00:35:30,920 --> 00:35:33,199 guns found at the murder scene were traced back as 738 00:35:33,320 --> 00:35:37,440 fast and furious weapons. The US government effectively armed the 739 00:35:37,559 --> 00:35:39,719 very people who killed their own federal agent. 740 00:35:39,880 --> 00:35:43,800 Speaker 1: It's an absolute unmitigated disaster. And speaking of disastrous callous 741 00:35:43,880 --> 00:35:47,960 personnel management, let's talk about Project one hundred thousand, or 742 00:35:48,000 --> 00:35:51,039 as it was cruelly known McNamara's morons. 743 00:35:50,840 --> 00:35:53,639 Speaker 2: That is the incredibly cruel nickname given to these men. 744 00:35:54,559 --> 00:35:57,960 In nineteen sixty six, the Vietnam war meat grinder needed 745 00:35:58,000 --> 00:36:02,440 more bodies. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara decided to lower the 746 00:36:02,519 --> 00:36:06,960 required IQ standards for the military draft. They started actively 747 00:36:07,000 --> 00:36:10,599 recruiting men who scored in the absolute lowest percentile, men 748 00:36:10,639 --> 00:36:13,840 who were previously legally disqualified for mental aptitude. 749 00:36:13,880 --> 00:36:17,360 Speaker 1: These are men who literally couldn't understand basic instructions right. 750 00:36:17,480 --> 00:36:18,679 Speaker 3: Many could not read or write. 751 00:36:18,719 --> 00:36:22,719 Speaker 2: They couldn't understand complex modern warfare tactics or operate high 752 00:36:22,760 --> 00:36:26,199 tech weaponry safely. Yet they were sent directly to the 753 00:36:26,199 --> 00:36:27,920 most dangerous front lines. 754 00:36:27,639 --> 00:36:29,440 Speaker 1: And the result of that policy. 755 00:36:28,960 --> 00:36:31,800 Speaker 2: They died at three times the rate of other gis. Yeah, 756 00:36:31,840 --> 00:36:35,280 they were quite literally used as disposable cannon fodder. It 757 00:36:35,320 --> 00:36:37,920 was a deeply cynical political way to keep the war 758 00:36:38,000 --> 00:36:41,440 machine fed without drafting middle class college kids from the 759 00:36:41,480 --> 00:36:45,440 suburbs who would protest and cause political headaches. It intentionally 760 00:36:45,440 --> 00:36:48,039 exploited the most vulnerable population in America. 761 00:36:48,119 --> 00:36:50,639 Speaker 1: It just breaks your heart to think about it. Finally 762 00:36:50,639 --> 00:36:53,000 we reached section seven, the extremes of control. We have 763 00:36:53,079 --> 00:36:54,519 to talk about mk ultra. 764 00:36:54,480 --> 00:36:56,639 Speaker 3: The dark search for the Manchurian candidate. 765 00:36:56,920 --> 00:36:59,480 Speaker 1: We mentioned the heart attack gun way earlier in the intro, 766 00:36:59,639 --> 00:37:02,960 but mk ultra was essentially the software for the weapon 767 00:37:03,199 --> 00:37:04,199 pure mind control. 768 00:37:04,679 --> 00:37:08,440 Speaker 2: CIA desperately wanted to know can we use LSD to 769 00:37:08,480 --> 00:37:11,840 control a human mind? Can we program a person to 770 00:37:11,920 --> 00:37:15,599 assassinate someone and forget they did it. They experimented heavily 771 00:37:15,639 --> 00:37:19,400 on prisoners, sex workers, mental patients, people who could not 772 00:37:19,519 --> 00:37:22,599 fight back. As one CIA official bluntly put. 773 00:37:22,400 --> 00:37:25,519 Speaker 1: It, doctor ew And Cameron up in Montreal, his work 774 00:37:25,679 --> 00:37:27,440 is the stuff of actual nightmares. 775 00:37:27,639 --> 00:37:30,079 Speaker 2: He was trying to depattern minds, break them down to 776 00:37:30,159 --> 00:37:33,159 a blank slate. He would put vulnerable patients into drug 777 00:37:33,159 --> 00:37:36,400 induced comas for weeks at a time, continuously playing repetitive 778 00:37:36,400 --> 00:37:39,440 loops of noise or degrading messages under their pillows. He 779 00:37:39,559 --> 00:37:43,320 used immense electroshock therapy at voltage levels that absolutely shouldn't 780 00:37:43,360 --> 00:37:46,280 be legal. He wiped people's entire memories. They woke up 781 00:37:46,320 --> 00:37:48,400 not knowing their own children, not knowing how to use 782 00:37:48,440 --> 00:37:50,280 a toilet or feed themselves. 783 00:37:49,840 --> 00:37:53,079 Speaker 1: And the CIA enthusiastically funded this torture they did. 784 00:37:53,320 --> 00:37:56,400 Speaker 2: Most of the files were hastily destroyed in nineteen seventy 785 00:37:56,400 --> 00:37:59,199 three by CIA director Richard Helms when the heat was 786 00:37:59,199 --> 00:38:03,800 turning up, but the Family Jewels documents that miraculously survived 787 00:38:04,199 --> 00:38:07,280 confirmed the absolute horror of what they were. 788 00:38:07,119 --> 00:38:11,480 Speaker 1: Doing, and finally, the targeted assassinations. The Church Committee eventually 789 00:38:11,519 --> 00:38:14,519 revealed that we weren't just spying on foreign leaders, we 790 00:38:14,559 --> 00:38:16,239 are actively trying to murder them. 791 00:38:16,320 --> 00:38:20,719 Speaker 2: Fidel Castro definitely holds the record there, exploding cigars, poisoned 792 00:38:20,719 --> 00:38:24,840 diving wetsuits, literally hiring the American mafia to do a hit. 793 00:38:25,000 --> 00:38:28,159 The CIA tried everything you can imagine to kill him. 794 00:38:28,159 --> 00:38:29,599 Speaker 1: Patres Lumumba in the Congo. 795 00:38:29,840 --> 00:38:33,320 Speaker 2: Yes, they actually sent a frantic government scientist to Africa 796 00:38:33,599 --> 00:38:36,840 with a tube of deadly poisoned toothpaste to kill Lumumba. 797 00:38:37,039 --> 00:38:39,960 It sounds ridiculous like a cartoon, but the intent was 798 00:38:40,039 --> 00:38:43,159 deadly serious. It established the fact that the CIA was 799 00:38:43,239 --> 00:38:45,719 acting as an unchecked global hit squad. 800 00:38:46,000 --> 00:38:48,360 Speaker 1: So we've pulled all these wild threads. Today, We've got 801 00:38:48,519 --> 00:38:53,880 robotic cat spies, government poisoned alcohol, completely fake wars, horrific brainwashing, 802 00:38:54,039 --> 00:38:55,960 and secret ice bullet heart attack guns. 803 00:38:56,000 --> 00:38:58,679 Speaker 3: It is a massive amount of dark history to digest. 804 00:38:59,039 --> 00:39:01,400 Speaker 1: So what does this all mean for us? When we 805 00:39:01,440 --> 00:39:04,039 step back and look at this mosaic of threads from 806 00:39:04,079 --> 00:39:07,800 the watch Mojo list, what is the larger picture of forms? 807 00:39:08,239 --> 00:39:11,480 Speaker 2: The glaring common thread is that national security is treated 808 00:39:11,519 --> 00:39:14,679 as an absolute blank check. When you convince yourself that 809 00:39:14,719 --> 00:39:19,639 you are fighting an existential apocalyptic threat, whether it's communism, terrorism, whatever, 810 00:39:20,360 --> 00:39:23,599 morality just goes out the window. The law becomes a minor. 811 00:39:23,320 --> 00:39:27,599 Speaker 1: Suggestion, and sheer incompetence is just as dangerous as active malice. 812 00:39:27,639 --> 00:39:30,760 Speaker 2: Absolutely, But the truly chilling part for me is the 813 00:39:30,800 --> 00:39:33,280 timeline of it all. Most of these things were only 814 00:39:33,320 --> 00:39:35,960 revealed thirty forty or fifty years after the fact that. 815 00:39:35,960 --> 00:39:38,639 Speaker 1: The really so here. If we know for a fact 816 00:39:38,639 --> 00:39:40,760 they were doing this stuff in nineteen seventy. 817 00:39:40,599 --> 00:39:43,480 Speaker 2: Exactly what are they doing right now today that we 818 00:39:43,519 --> 00:39:46,000 won't find out about until the year twenty sixty. What 819 00:39:46,119 --> 00:39:48,519 is the acoustic Kitty or the mk ultra of today? 820 00:39:48,760 --> 00:39:52,679 Is it unregulated AI? Is it clandestine genetic editing? Is 821 00:39:52,719 --> 00:39:55,880 it algorithmic social manipulation on a mass scale? 822 00:39:56,079 --> 00:39:58,360 Speaker 1: That is the exact provocative thought I want to leave 823 00:39:58,400 --> 00:40:01,440 you with today. The difference betwe between a crazy conspiracy 824 00:40:01,480 --> 00:40:04,960 theory and accepted history is often just a declassification date. 825 00:40:05,320 --> 00:40:08,519 Speaker 2: Critical thinking is truly your only defense. You have to 826 00:40:08,599 --> 00:40:12,280 question the official narrative, not because everything is a lie, 827 00:40:12,639 --> 00:40:16,159 but because history clearly shows us that some things definitely are. 828 00:40:17,400 --> 00:40:19,880 Speaker 1: We want to hear from you. Which of these threads 829 00:40:19,880 --> 00:40:22,519 did you find the most disturbing Or is there a 830 00:40:22,559 --> 00:40:24,480 theory you believe in right now that you think will 831 00:40:24,480 --> 00:40:27,519 be on this exact list in twenty years. Let us 832 00:40:27,519 --> 00:40:28,519 know in the comments below. 833 00:40:28,800 --> 00:40:30,159 Speaker 3: Keep your eyes open out there. 834 00:40:30,320 --> 00:40:33,199 Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to thrilling Threads. We'll see you next time.