Speaker 1: Welcome to the Great Adventurers of Old Time Radio from Boise, Idaho.
This is your host, Adam Graham. In a moment, we're
going to bring you this week's episode of Counterspot. But
first I want to encourage you. If you're enjoying the podcast,
please follow us using your favorite podcast software, and today's
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You can support the show on a one time basis
at support dot Great Detectives dot net and become one
of our ongoing Patreon supporters for as little as two
dollars per month and just go to Patreon dot Great
Detectives dot net. But now, from August eleventh, nineteen forty nine,
here is the Case of the Murmured Millions.
Speaker 2: That's a Cola p E P s I. That's your
smartest Cola by That's a Cola presents counter Spying, David.
Speaker 3: Hunting, Counterspy Washington Calling David Hunting.
Speaker 2: Counterspy Hiding Counterspy Calling Washington.
Speaker 4: United States Counts especially appointed to investigate.
Speaker 5: And the enemies of our country well at home and abroad.
Good night.
Speaker 2: The Case of the Murmured Millions. Another Counterspy report to
the American people brought to you weeks Tuesday and Thursday
by that's a cola.
Speaker 5: Pepsi cola hits the spot. Two full glasses.
Speaker 2: That's right, you heard what they said. Two full glasses
of sparkling Pepsi from one big twelve ounce bottle. You're
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You can't top Pepsi's tangy flavor. And that big, big
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Speaker 5: And now to counters five? Hello?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Tony, what the same guy?
Speaker 5: Boy? Is that little? Two? Time? And h are you.
Speaker 2: Now downstairs in a line?
Speaker 5: Is she on her way up?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 6: No, you don't have to tailor anymore. I got enough
for a nice big bird.
Speaker 2: Okay, ring off, I want to learn it.
Speaker 5: So lucky I got that. I want to talk to
you about me.
Speaker 6: First, that I got something I want to give.
Speaker 5: Gilt about time. I've been due.
Speaker 2: You've been due for this for a long time.
Speaker 6: Rocky, Okay, make a turk out of Rocky Lucky time
and me for a two bit card man.
Speaker 7: Oh stop it.
Speaker 2: Rocky's got but I tell you, tell me nothing I
know at all.
Speaker 6: Nobody pulls them all over rock Side.
Speaker 1: He's good.
Speaker 6: This guy normal worth taking a beating for him. He's
that good at playing around.
Speaker 2: No, Roy, No, please please this business.
Speaker 6: You know what I think of that kind of difference.
Speaker 2: Listen, it's for you.
Speaker 5: I did it. He wants to meet you, isn't me?
That's good, that's freely good.
Speaker 6: He wants to meet me, so he plays putsie?
Speaker 5: What's my dog? Why don't they come up here? I
get an address?
Speaker 7: Oh no, Rocky, when you're listening, please no more.
Speaker 5: Okay, I got time.
Speaker 6: Fak your piece wants and good because and I'm gonna
kick your tea set Oh listen.
Speaker 5: He wants to see you. He's got a proposition.
Speaker 2: I was gonna set up a date when you got
off a.
Speaker 5: Fairy tale DoD.
Speaker 2: I look him up.
Speaker 5: He's a car and man, a lone wolf. What does
he want for me? He's got a deal. He needs
your syndicure behind a big one. Yeah.
Speaker 6: He wants me to bring you to him two o'clock
this afternoon, a beach on the south shore.
Speaker 5: Of Long Island. A beach.
Speaker 2: Yeah. He don't want to take no chance on anybody.
Speaker 6: Over here in oh sharp cookie huh all rocky rocky.
Speaker 5: You believe me, don't you?
Speaker 2: Maybe yes, maybe no, But we'll keep that date.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I like that beach ideas because at this saint level,
DoD I'll see that you and the boyfriend go for
a long swim one way.
Speaker 5: That's in rocky down on the beach.
Speaker 8: Plum's gentleman.
Speaker 5: Hell do are they rocky? This is Jill Norman still
rocky down? Hi, how do you do?
Speaker 6: Well, let's hear your story, Norman, and it better be good.
I think my habit of being drag fifteen miles from Nohood.
Speaker 2: To talk to a guy. All right, mister dunn at Dorothy,
would you mind taking a walk?
Speaker 6: But well, that's part of my business at this level,
And anything you tell me, I'll tell her anyway.
Speaker 2: That's perfectly all right with me. I just don't want
her to hear.
Speaker 5: What we say. What consense does that make simple.
Speaker 2: If anything should go wrong and we should be arrested,
always a possibility you could testify.
Speaker 5: Wait to what you heard, not what Rocky told you?
Why doe you'll think that I will not at all,
not at all.
Speaker 2: I just don't like to take chances my character.
Speaker 5: I'm getting in arrested. Go on, dot take a watch.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, Norman start talking. Well first, you'd like
to know a little bit about me, wouldn't.
Speaker 6: No, I've been doing a little checking. William Norman alias
Walter Nolan, con Man, swindler three to five years stretching
the Harris built pen. You're at Cluton prison and strictly
alone wolf in operation pretty complete.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Now what's the pitch? Five to ten million dollars
a year. Let big pitch? You're interested. I got a
catcher's midst that throw, and it's a refinement of the
protection like it protection. I got out of that in
a thirty.
Speaker 9: That's too risky.
Speaker 2: The cops and the good citizens get mad fast. This
isn't risky. I don't like to take chances. That's why
I met you out here on the beach. You can't
wire the air and the sea.
Speaker 5: Huge, What do you want from me.
Speaker 2: I'm not forgetting. You got a rep as a lone wolf,
and I'd keep it, except that now I need your organizations.
Why you got men in most of the big cities
in the country, haven't you do?
Speaker 10: That's right.
Speaker 6: Takes a big outfit to run a gambling operation, and
they're tough enough to run any protection racket ever invented.
Speaker 2: There will be no violence at all attached to this.
I don't like force. You can make more with brains.
Speaker 5: What do the boys do then? Wreck? What twenty million
dollar corporation? One million? For that?
Speaker 2: You need an army, not if.
Speaker 5: You do it with words instead of violence. You're still interested.
Speaker 2: And I always like to hear a guy talk in millions.
What's the name of this outfit we're gonna wreck?
Speaker 6: We in already could be if the set up as
sure as you are of yourself.
Speaker 2: It is the name of the outfit is the Double
Circle Products Corporation. Oh, you just sit down and be comfortable,
and I'll tell you how. Mister Blake, the president of
Double Circle, You're going to help us turn a murmur
in a minute? All right, mister Norman, You've got five
minutes of my path. Make it brief into the point.
I'm a busy man, all right, mister Blake. I'm here
to sell you the services in my organization, Norman Associates
public Relations.
Speaker 5: You're five years too late.
Speaker 2: I already have a public relations agency, right, mister Blake.
If they go after the press, radio, medium's mass communication,
I go directly to the people themselves.
Speaker 5: That's not very clear.
Speaker 2: Your product's going to practice every American home. Suppose the
public should get the idea that Double Circle merchandise is inferior,
what possibly dangerous, and start talking about it.
Speaker 5: You could lose a lot of business. Nonsense.
Speaker 2: There's not a thing wrong with Double Circle products, and
there never will be. You've got nothing to say this
to normal, and you've wasted enough of my time already.
I'm satisfied with my present public relationship. I was afraid
you'd say that, mister Blake. I'm sorry, because I offer
my services only once.
Speaker 5: I assure you that's been enough. Bestenomen.
Speaker 2: I'd like you to remember that, mister Blake, just in
case anything should happen to your concern. Hello Dorothy, no no,
no last names please, But they tell our mutual friend
to put our plan into operation.
Speaker 5: Yeah, just as I outlined.
Speaker 2: Subways, railroad stations, ferris wherever people gather.
Speaker 8: That's right, I'll keep in touch with him. Goodbye.
Speaker 2: These subways are getting more credit every day.
Speaker 5: Yeah, have you a wife any better? Tony worse? Mike
hands old Bert listed. Huh. Doctor says it was that
stuff she was.
Speaker 2: Using made by the Double Circle company.
Speaker 5: Oh bad, huh, Well you saw a tit her hand.
Speaker 2: We'll never buy Double Circle again. I'm label. Did you
hear that Double Circle IoT?
Speaker 1: Some of that junk?
Speaker 5: Like so about Jeff Worth.
Speaker 2: A wife thought you were going to the theater with
it as she can't.
Speaker 6: He got some kind of metal poison and using that
that Double Circle product.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna throw that company. Yeah, Artnick, and the stuff
was made by Double Circle.
Speaker 11: I heard it from the man who's white was poison.
Speaker 2: Don't try to tell me double Circle.
Speaker 1: I'm not.
Speaker 5: Don youin't take my advice.
Speaker 2: Donncle near that Double Circle stuff. It's pointed Double circle.
Speaker 5: Sure it's good.
Speaker 2: If you want to drop that quick.
Speaker 7: I wouldn't buy Double Circle. And if they gave me
the company.
Speaker 2: You hear afore several Circle products they.
Speaker 10: Are to be suit but sello manson if you want
to drop that question.
Speaker 7: I want to buy Double Circle the.
Speaker 5: Bag speaking what it is.
Speaker 11: More cancelations somewhere now the West Coast. Look, we've simply
got to put more pressure on our salesman. I know,
I know all about the rumors with sending up a
we sent. We can to combat them, but we can't
keep it up in the face of these cancelations.
Speaker 5: Two more weeks and we'll be.
Speaker 2: Forced to sell out.
Speaker 3: From Federal Securities Commission to David Harding, Chief United States Counterfires,
request preliminary investigation into failure of Double Circle Products Corporation
stockholder's loss. Enormous evidence of malfeasons or fraud should be
forwarded to US for prosecution.
Speaker 2: Four months with the hearting, that's all of four months
of the twenty million dollar business practically wiped out. We
just have to sell with cancelations outnumbering orders by four
to one. Alissa Blake, about those rumors about your products.
Speaker 5: And not who they never worked through, and they're not
through today. We know that, mister Blake. They couldn't be.
Speaker 10: The federal trade laws protect consumers against the sale of
anything harmful.
Speaker 2: Well, I wish more people were aware of that. Mister Peters,
or as mister Blake, rumors have to spring from some place.
Speaker 5: Now, I have you any idea at all how they started?
Speaker 2: I've been thinking about that. Your competitors, mister Peter's free
enterprise is a competitive system, but there are rules and ethics.
Every one of my competitors offered to help me weather this,
but it was no use. Well then what were you thinking,
mister Blake?
Speaker 5: Oh what's the use?
Speaker 2: You can't arrest a rumor if it's criminal slander, and
you can prove who started it.
Speaker 5: You can prove. If I can't prove anything, but you
suspect something, miss Blake, I do. Well, then we'd like
to know those suspicions.
Speaker 2: All right, mister Harding, I'll give you my suspicions in
one name.
Speaker 5: William Norman. Norman.
Speaker 2: Yes, he runs an outsit called Norman Associates Public Relations.
He predicted this might happen when he tried to sell
me his.
Speaker 5: Services or a profit.
Speaker 2: And I'm very pointed profits because he underscored his predictions.
Speaker 10: When the rumors started, did you try to get in
touch with him?
Speaker 2: Well, well, not at first, mister Peters, but later on
I did. In fact, I offered to retain his services
to see if that would stop the rumors.
Speaker 5: But he wasn't for higher then was he?
Speaker 2: How did you know, mister Hart, Well, it had been
stupid if he had been. It's easy enough to start gossip,
but almost impossible to stop it.
Speaker 10: Suppose this Norman did stunt those rooms, jeeves, it'll be
just as impossible to cove it.
Speaker 5: One perhaps, perhaps none.
Speaker 2: But before we jump through any conclusions, I don't want
to know more about William Norman. Well, my secretary has
his address and phone numbers. I get it, Peters, and
put Norman's name through the words. I want to know
everything about him, from the day he was born until
the day you hand me.
Speaker 5: Your report back to cobber spy in a moment.
Speaker 2: But for Pepsi cola ten to spot two fold glasses, that's.
Speaker 5: A lot lots more value, lot more deaths. I take
less when Pepsi said.
Speaker 2: More and more among fellows and girls, among mothers and dads.
You hear that same and sensible question. Why take less
when Pepsi is best? No budgets, no allowance ever had
a better friend than tangy sparkling pepsicola. Because one dig
twelve pepsi bottle gives you two delicious drinks. That's twice
as much tangy taste, twice as much delicious pepsi to
go just twice as far. That's why more and more
families say, why take less when pepsi is bet? Yes,
family is like yours and mine. Families all over America
they're all saying, why take less when pepsi is bet?
Pepsi coluth so delicious and this bottle makes two drinks?
Is certainly the cola or the purchaser who thinks everybody's
thinking pepsi doesn't compare it with the rest.
Speaker 5: Sooma, smile and soomat finer Tas.
Speaker 2: Petty said today, tomorrow, always get America's biggest cola. Val
you take home a carton of six big, big pepsi bottles.
Insist on pepsi at the store, and say pepsi at
the fountain, Say pepsi at the sand, say pepsi whenever
you reach for refreshment. Remember why take class when pepsis said?
Speaker 5: Now back to counters.
Speaker 2: Bill Norman, the immaculate racketeer has just put his proposition
to another important businessman.
Speaker 5: Mister Norman. It's simply no use.
Speaker 2: This company is satisfied with its present public relations set up.
It's funny, that's the same thing mister Blake said to me.
Blake the Double Circle Corporation, you read about their failure
and forced sale. I imagine, yes, I did. He might
have forestalled all those nasty rumors if he'd employed the
services of an alert public relations agency like mine. I'm
not sure I like what you're saying. Why not saying anything?
I'm just trying to sell you make your sales point
a little clearer. I don't like talking business in offices.
Speaker 5: Suppose we go for a drive. I have my car downstairs.
Suppose I don't.
Speaker 2: Well, it's a free country. Do as you choose. Blake did, yes,
I hope you don't have the same difficulties today. Wait
a minute, I think I will go for that drive.
Speaker 5: Wise decision. I want to see all your cards.
Speaker 2: I'd be glad to show them to you, as long
as there are no kibitzers around. Let's go, mister Sandford.
All right, christer, noentleman, let's have your proposition. Not here,
mister Sandford. I even't suspect my own car. Someone may
have wired it. We just go for a little walk
in this field by the road and then talk whatever
you say.
Speaker 5: What are you doing?
Speaker 2: Just making sure you're not concealing anything?
Speaker 5: What do you mean?
Speaker 2: I once made a record on wittingly concealed microphone.
Speaker 5: They played it in court.
Speaker 2: Liked my voice so much they gave me a year's
engagement in a penitentiary. I don't want a return date. No,
you're becoming candid. I'll do even better. I'll become blunt.
The rumors because the failure of the Double Circle Corporation,
I started them and spread them. That's quite an admission,
isn't it. Suppose I repeated it to the authorities.
Speaker 5: We have no witnesses.
Speaker 2: I'd simply deny it and the nsue you for slander
and defamation of character. On top of which rumors about
your products would start, and with what your company sells.
Speaker 5: Think of the pleasant tales I could invent.
Speaker 2: Just addressed up version of the protection record. Huh Well, put,
mister Sandford, only you protect yourself against words instead of violence?
Speaker 5: And how much would this cost the corporation?
Speaker 2: One percent of your gross business?
Speaker 5: Are you crazy?
Speaker 2: We do nearly fifty million dollars a year. No, that's
what makes one percent so reasonable from my kind of
public relations? For million dollars, I can't say yes or no,
just like that, you can't say no. But I'll give
you time to figure out a way to say yes.
Call me the first of the week. We'll go for
another drive and complete our business there.
Speaker 10: It is recording the report on William Norman, complete from
the day of his birth September twelfth, nineteen eleven, up
to and including yesterday when he called on Colton Samford
of the Sanford Beauty Corporation, Sanford, any of our agents
siesand Virgin No not said.
Speaker 5: Well, then we will.
Speaker 2: I want to find out what Norman said to him. Well, now,
what about Norman's background?
Speaker 10: We serve time in two state penitentiaries. It would have
been more except his head good lawyers. He's been a
confidence man from the age of twenty two, and suddenly
he blossoms out into a public relations expert. Blake had
a good foundation for his suspicions yes day, but he
was right about proof. There's not a thing to connect
Norman with the rumors that ruin double circle unlets.
Speaker 5: We tried to trace them.
Speaker 2: How impossible we'd be licked before we start. Besides, even
if through some merrigo we did.
Speaker 5: Trace them to Norman, it wouldn't prove a thing.
Speaker 2: He'd just say he heard them somewhere else. Now, our
best bet is to start at the source. Interview Sandford,
find out what Norman told him. Okay, Chief, but Norman
would hardly admit to Sanford that he was the cause
of Blake's bankrupts and or wrong Peters. If what we
suspect is true, Norman had to admit it. What do
you mean, Well, that's the flaw and any protection racket,
the crook has to reveal himself to his victim in
order to extort.
Speaker 5: Money nobody'd pay off otherwise.
Speaker 2: Now our job is to get Norman to reveal himself
in the presence of a witness or a microphone well hidden,
and mister Sandford is going to help us do just that.
That's right for starting. You and mister Peters have reconstructed
the whole picture. Norman definitely admitted he did the Blake
admitted he boasted about it. But if you've got any
idea about my testifying in court, forget it would be
my word against his, and you couldn't convict him without
supporting evidence. Well, if we got that supporting evidence, you'd testify,
wouldn't you, mister Sandford.
Speaker 5: With pleasure? But how are you going to get it?
Speaker 2: I told you Norman won't talk with a third party around.
I told you about he's searching me.
Speaker 10: Norman sounds even smarter than his record indicates, perhaps.
Speaker 5: Too smart, Peters.
Speaker 2: Mister Sandford, you Saint Norman didn't start talking until you
were well away from his car.
Speaker 5: That's right.
Speaker 2: He wasn't taking any chances on eavesdroppers.
Speaker 5: When you meet him again, it's supposed to be the
same setup, Yes, same Blake. Well, I don't know.
Speaker 2: The last time we drove around, he just seemed to
stop with the first convenient country field.
Speaker 10: That gives us no chance at all to stakeout microphones, recorders.
Speaker 5: Maybe we can do it another way.
Speaker 2: Well, how, mister Harding, you want proof that will stand
up in court, The only way you'll get it is
from Norman's only, right, mister Sandford, That's just where I
intend to get it. When are you supposed to meet
him next two or three days?
Speaker 5: I call him to set the.
Speaker 2: Time, okay, make sure it's daylight and it's for the date. Peters,
call a meteorological bureau in Washington. Tell them to give
you as positive a forecast as they can on the
weather for the next three days. Now, mister Sandford, yes,
you will meet Norman on the nicest day of the
three Well, what are you going to do, mister heart
that's what you suggested convict Norman from his own lips.
You will certainly pick peculiar places to meet christ Norman.
Speaker 5: What's wrong with the beach?
Speaker 2: Pleasant breathe, it's nice surroundings. So you think of a
better place to do business. You've got a pint if
we do business, do we?
Speaker 5: Look?
Speaker 2: How do I know you're not just cashing in on
Blake's fans luck?
Speaker 5: Maybe you had.
Speaker 2: Nothing to do with the rumors that ruined him. After all,
a rumor campaign like that would take a lot of
men and money, a big organization. You're right, missus Anton,
and I've got an organization behind me, one of the
biggest syndicates in the country, a syndicate of Rocky.
Speaker 5: Done, Rocky Done. So you read the papers, Well.
Speaker 2: I give the word and in two hours his man
would be spreading rumors across the country about every product
you make.
Speaker 5: Now do you pay off or do I give the word.
I'd still like more proof. Okay, no, wait a minute,
don't go. I don't like to waste my time.
Speaker 2: I know how rumors can spread. Every now and then,
from nowhere comes the rumor that some famous person is dead.
So let's pick a name. Say Bert Plants, the baseball player.
He's in good Else, if I hear he's dead from
some public source, then we can do business.
Speaker 5: That's not bad, Missus Hanford.
Speaker 2: In fact, it's good enough for me to file for future.
Speaker 5: Use and it's a deal. Yeah, when you hear Plancy's dead,
call me.
Speaker 2: I'll come around to collect my first quarterly retainer, mister Norman,
Missus Colton Sandford, I just heard a rumor that Bert
Clancy died.
Speaker 5: Funny, isn't it.
Speaker 2: Incidentally, we've decided to retain your firm for public relations.
I'm if you'll drop around our conference room in about
an hour, our vice president of charge of personnel will
outline the company policies and of course give you your first
waterly retainers.
Speaker 1: Splendid?
Speaker 3: Are they very interested in learning the company policy?
Speaker 5: One hour?
Speaker 6: Then?
Speaker 5: Good?
Speaker 9: Mine right in here, mister Norman.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, mister Sandford was called away.
Speaker 5: He left a note about the retainer.
Speaker 2: I know, naturally, we'll pick it up in accounting. After
you've seen the orientation film, we like to show all
new executives. Well, let's step to it. Then, Oh, there's
mister Thurman here. Run the projector and interpret.
Speaker 5: Hello, how do you do it? Where shall we start?
Speaker 2: Well, I'm expecting to Oh that must be the excuse
me come in after you, Rockie. I don't want to
know what mister Dunn, you know each other?
Speaker 5: Well?
Speaker 2: He yes, yes, but I wasn't aware of that. Mister
Dunnan was connected with your company.
Speaker 5: I thought he was connected.
Speaker 2: With your fray.
Speaker 5: What is this double?
Speaker 2: Don't you know who this guy is?
Speaker 5: Norman? I don't think I got the name. I didn't
give it.
Speaker 2: But it's Harding, David Hardy, the counterspies Norman, some kind
of attentship.
Speaker 5: Quiet, mister Dunn.
Speaker 2: I'm sure mister Harding will explain the meaning of this
himself with pleasure.
Speaker 5: At first, I'd like you to look.
Speaker 2: At the moving pictures, mister Norman Peter's will you turn
off the lights and.
Speaker 5: Stay with Rocky Burman started the projector.
Speaker 2: Yes, sir, recognize yourself mister Norman has let's say, I
photographed better than mister.
Speaker 10: Sandy, guy to hire Fucky.
Speaker 2: I thought silent pictures were passing. I'm not always notice
this next shot, the way the camera zooms in for
a close up telephoto lens.
Speaker 5: H huh, very interesting. Is there any point?
Speaker 2: Definitely, mister no, I'm arresting you for extortion, criminal slander,
and whatever other counts we can dig up against you on.
Speaker 5: The basis of this film. Yes, it's silent, mister Harny.
Speaker 2: I was discussing legitimate business with mister Sandford when you
took them.
Speaker 5: And if he says differently.
Speaker 2: The liar, the pictures say different. Do you notice how
mister Sandford kept moving around to keep your face toward
one of our cameras that had a purpose.
Speaker 5: I don't block easy, mister Harney. You don't have to.
I told you.
Speaker 2: Mister Thurman was the interpreter. What's Norman saying on the
screen now, Thurman, I've got an organization behind me, one
of the biggest syndicates in the country, the syndicate of Rocky.
Speaker 5: Don watch that's how we picked Rocky up.
Speaker 2: Smart guy hand Norman, you blabbering a little note form, soya,
you look to see if they all right for Rockey,
Rocky always had a reputation or a quick trigger timber.
Look here, mister honey, why don't you give it up? Norman?
Mister Thurmon is a lip reador flip reader. Yes, and
he'll appear in court together with a dozen other expert
lip readers to testify.
Speaker 5: To every word you said.
Speaker 10: On top of which we've gotten Rocky in as a
pickup order on for his girlfriend not to run out.
Speaker 5: Of kiss flip breader.
Speaker 2: That's right, Norman, Come on, Peters, let's get him to
the headquarters. Looks like that's the only way we'll convince
him this arrest is not a rumor, but a fact.
When your friends drop him, be generous, but be thrifty too.
Serve plenty of delicious Petsicola. Pepsi's the twelve outs bottle
gives you not just one sparkling glass full, but two.
Get a carton of six, and serve twelve delicious drinks. Yes,
Pepsi is America's biggest cola value. You get twice the tang,
he taste, twice the refreshment, twice the pepsi. So why
take let's when Pepsi is that whenever you reach for refreshment,
remember put.
Speaker 9: The cause, hit the fop the twofol classes.
Speaker 5: That's a lotta lass when Petty.
Speaker 2: Tune in every Tuesday and Thursday, same time, same station,
two Counterspi with the next Tuesday for the exciting Counterspy
case of the Statue of death, the silky coated carrier
that outsmarted an electric eye, the gift of appreciation that
caused the death of an innocent woman, and the clicking
guardian that halted two international agents who carried.
Speaker 5: Molecules of murder.
Speaker 2: Be sure to be tuned in next Tuesday to the
case of the Statue of Death on Counterspive. Tonight's Counterspy program,
originated in New York, was directed by Winnim M Sweets
and featured Don McLaughlan and Mandel Kramer, with music by
Rosa Reoll. Counterspy is a phillips h large production for
Pepsicola and Johnny Some Pepsi I's Cold Tonight.
Speaker 1: Welcome back. In many ways, mister Norman was really ahead
of his time because so much of what he was
doing in this episode feels very modern, except in a
low tech sort of way. In some ways it was
building upon something that we already knew about propaganda and
rumor during wartime, but he extends it to peacetime and
what he realizes, and this is the key point, is
that information and the ability to shape a narrative about
a business or about an entity is power, and with
that power you can do as much damage to a
business as if you were going around blowing up the factories.
And in many ways, these same sort of things he's
doing are things that we see today in the way
that information and misinformation is manipulated in all sorts of ways.
Speaker 5: Today.
Speaker 1: There are terms like astroturfing, where you try to create
the impression that there is this major feeling of the grassroots,
you know, just organic, this is what people are thinking, feeling,
believing about whatever. But really it's being manufactured and manipulated,
and certainly social media and now AI is allowing even
more of this.
Speaker 5: But there's something a.
Speaker 1: Bit uncanny about this plot because it feels like such
a precursor to what we're dealing with so much in
our twenty first century life. On the other hand, what
he chooses to do with this revelation and just shows
some limits of imagination in trying to reinvent the protection racket.
Modern people who do what mister Norman does don't do
that sort of thing, and there are many opportunities that
would be more fruitful. Fortunes are made and lost by
people shortening various stalks, and certainly if you are going
to start a misinformation campaign, there are some stalk trades
that you can make ahead of time that would make
you quite wealthy. Or if you don't want to deal
with that sort of paper trail yourself, you can hire
yourself out to damage people's reputation to competitors or to
speculators who want to do the stock speculation themselves, or
maybe take control of the company on the cheap by
driving down the stalk. And of course in the twenty
first century we've added all other sorts of ways to
make money from these sort of little bits of arbitrage,
such as the whole production market phenomenon, which obviously they
didn't have a nineteen forty nine, but they had other
ways to exploit it, which I think does show like
the limits of imagination in reality, maybe a bit in
the writers, but certainly in mister Norman, who in nineteen
forty nine hit on an idea that would become the
basis of so many fortunes, often obtained in dubious ways
that in many cases are quite hard to prove illegality.
But because he is a man of his time, the
best he can come up with is reinventing protection rackets
with this and that tends to be a bit of
a weak spot in this plan, because protection rackets were
targeted towards a very different sort of victim. If you
were a victim of a protection racket, you were likely
a small shop owner. Oftentimes these were people who were
immigrants or others who might not be particularly favored with
those in authority, but regardless were not politically well connected,
which many of their tormentors were. So these people could
be easily scared into pain up they had reasons to
keep silent. Now you take that same business model and
you decide, you know what, I'm going to try this
on well connected CEOs. Now, even though the heads of
corporations and large businesses were not, for the most part,
the major magnates that you'll see leading say the mag
seven or Fortune one hundred company, these were still generally
people who had a lot of resources. They had lawyers,
pr departments, security departments, They could reach out to regulators,
They knew politicians, so you're not going to get the
same level of cooperation and submission. And you you listen
to programs where somebody is beaten up and they have
their store vandalized, and the detective or the police are
asking it as alum, I don't know anything, and they're
scared to share anything at all. They come to this
guy who got ruined by mister Norman and he's like, yeah,
I did have somebody come here. I think I know
who's behind this, and here, let me go ahead. I'll
get you his business card. But probably listeners were appreciative
that he just kind of went into the typical organized
crime sort of way of doing things, because that's what
you're kind of used to. Avid Harding was equipped to
deal with the mid century organized crime bosses, not the
master manipulators of the twenty first century. But that doesn't
mean that it was easy for Harding. I did like
Norman's caution. I thought it was a very intelligent feature
along with his whole system, and it gave Harding something
to foil, which I think he did in a pretty
clever way by just thinking, Okay, what is this guy
not going to expect? Oh, it's not going to expect
that we can use the combination of a silent video
and a lip reader to catch this guy because he
was worried about what might be heard without understanding you know,
what could be seen. And I guess that is kind
of the defining characteristic of Norman as a villain is
he is exceptional at spotting some elements and coming up
with ideas that are ahead of his time and are
smarter than other criminals, but he misses some key details
along the way, which ultimately leads to his undoing. Now
it's time to think our Patreon supporter today. Thank you
to RB, Patreon supporter since September twenty twenty four, currently
supporting the podcast at the super Scientist level of fifteen
dollars more per month.
Speaker 5: Thanks so much for your.
Speaker 1: Support, RB, and that will do it for today. If
you're enjoying the podcast, please follow us using your favorite
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podcast wherever you download it from. We'll be back next
Saturday with another episode of Counterspy, but join us back
here on the Great Detectives of Old Time Radio on
Monday for Saint, and then join us back here on
Tuesday on the Great Adventurers of Old Time Radio for Tarzan.
In the meantime, do send your comments to Box thirteen
Great Detectives dot net from Boise, Idaho. This is your host,
Adam Braham signing off.
Speaker 3: Ye