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<v Speaker 1>Welcome back everybody. Today we're gonna be looking at the

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<v Speaker 1>rise and fall of Ilich Ramir Sanchez, also know as

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<v Speaker 1>the Jackal. He was born in October twelfth, nineteen forty nine,

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<v Speaker 1>in Venezuela. His father was a wealthy Marxist lawyer who

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<v Speaker 1>named his three sons after Lenin, Ilich, Vladimir and Lenin.

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<v Speaker 1>That tells you something about the household. Young Yelich got

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<v Speaker 1>the political education early. He spent time in Europe, ended

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<v Speaker 1>up at the Patrise Lumumba University in Moscow and got

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<v Speaker 1>himself kicked out around nineteen seventy for per performance and troublemaking.

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<v Speaker 1>From there, he made his way to the Middle East

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<v Speaker 1>and linked up with the Popular Front for the Liberation

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<v Speaker 1>of Palestine. They gave him the name Carlos. He wasn't

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<v Speaker 1>some pure hired gun waiting for a contract. He was

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<v Speaker 1>an ideological operator who also took work when it aligned

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<v Speaker 1>with his goals or paid well enough. Some regimes looked

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<v Speaker 1>the other way or offered limited support because it suited

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<v Speaker 1>their interests at the time. That's the reality of the

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<v Speaker 1>period Cold Gray War zones, proxy fights, and people who

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<v Speaker 1>moved between causes and paymasters. His real first real action

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<v Speaker 1>that due attention came at the end of nineteen seventy

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<v Speaker 1>three and London, he forced his way into the home

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<v Speaker 1>of Joseph Seife, a prominent Jewish businessman and Mark Spencer executive.

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<v Speaker 1>Carlos shot him in the face. The gun jammed in

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<v Speaker 1>the second round See survived. Carlos walked away. That set

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<v Speaker 1>the tone bold, close range and not always clean. He

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<v Speaker 1>moved into France. In September nineteen seventy four, he threw

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<v Speaker 1>a grenade into a Paris drug store, killing two people,

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<v Speaker 1>wounding thirty. Around the same time, he helped pressure the

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<v Speaker 1>French government doing the Japanese Red Army size or the

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<v Speaker 1>French EMBEC and the Hog by staging attacks in Paris.

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<v Speaker 1>Early nineteen seventy five, he tried twice to hit Israeli

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<v Speaker 1>Allal airliners at or Lee Airport with rock a propel grenades.

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<v Speaker 1>Both attempts failed. Then came to night to put his

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<v Speaker 1>name on every intelligence board. June twenty seventh, nineteen seventy five,

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<v Speaker 1>Carlos was at a party in a Paris apartment French

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<v Speaker 1>DST agents led there by his own PFLP contact, Mikhail

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<v Speaker 1>Morcabad showed up to talk. Carlos played a cool, offered

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<v Speaker 1>drinks and stepped away. Came back with a weapon. It

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<v Speaker 1>opened fire. He killed Mchel and two French officers. A

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<v Speaker 1>third was wounded. Carlos escaped the country. Suddenly the Quiet

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<v Speaker 1>Operator was a priority target. While searching one of his

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<v Speaker 1>London safe houses, he found a copy of Frederick Forsythe's

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<v Speaker 1>novel The Day of the Jackal. The media ran with it.

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<v Speaker 1>The book is fiction. An assassin hired to kill Charles

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<v Speaker 1>de Gaul has nothing to do with Sanchi's actual operations,

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<v Speaker 1>but the nickname stuck. Carlos the Jackal. He never chose it.

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<v Speaker 1>He preferred other names, but it didn't matter. December twenty first,

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<v Speaker 1>nineteen seventy five, in Vienna Opek headquarters, Carlos led a

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<v Speaker 1>team of five others Palestinians and German militants from the

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<v Speaker 1>Revolutionary Cells. They walked into the building on a quiet

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<v Speaker 1>Sunday morning with weapons and bags that killed three people

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<v Speaker 1>in the initial assault, two security personnel and the Libyan

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<v Speaker 1>economists who charged them. They seized the conference floor and

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<v Speaker 1>took more than sixty hostages, including oil ministers from multiple countries.

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<v Speaker 1>Carlos announced himself to the captives. He demanded a bus

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<v Speaker 1>to the airport, a plane in the broadcasts of a

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<v Speaker 1>pro Palestinian kuminika. Austrian authorities, facing the risk of a

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<v Speaker 1>blood blath, complied. The group flew out with a large

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<v Speaker 1>number of hostages. The plade made stops in Algiers and Tripoli.

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<v Speaker 1>The original plan from his PFLP superiors had been to

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<v Speaker 1>execute the Saudi and Iranian ministers, but that never happened.

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<v Speaker 1>Negotiations produced a substantial ransom, reports put it in the

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<v Speaker 1>tens of millions, and the remaining hostages were released in

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<v Speaker 1>Algiers and Carlos and his team walked away free. The

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<v Speaker 1>PFLP was not happy he had failed to carry out

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<v Speaker 1>the executions and was suspected of keeping some of that money.

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<v Speaker 1>They eventually expelled him. From that point, he operated independently,

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<v Speaker 1>building his own network. He moved through Eastern Europe to

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<v Speaker 1>Middle East and North Africa. He had periods of supporter

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<v Speaker 1>of tolerance from certain governments Libya and Akhadaffia, times Syria.

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<v Speaker 1>Others who found him useful carried out or directed bombings

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<v Speaker 1>in France in the early eighties, including attacks on trains

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<v Speaker 1>and other targets that killed and injured civilians, summer retaliation

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<v Speaker 1>for the arrest of people close to him. The body

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<v Speaker 1>cam from the operations tied to him climbed. By the

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<v Speaker 1>late eighties and early nineties, the environment had changed. The

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<v Speaker 1>Cold War was ending. Old patrons were less interested in

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<v Speaker 1>keeping a high profile liability. He ended up in Soudan

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<v Speaker 1>in August nineteen ninety four. French intelligence working with local

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<v Speaker 1>cooperation took them accounts to describe him being seized while

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<v Speaker 1>under medical care and khartoon and flown to France. He

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<v Speaker 1>was forty four. The trials followed. In nineteen ninety seven,

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<v Speaker 1>he received a life sentence for the nineteen seventy five

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<v Speaker 1>Paris killings of the two French agents. Later proceedings out

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<v Speaker 1>in more life turns for the nineteen eighty bombings in France.

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<v Speaker 1>He has been in French custody ever since. As of

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<v Speaker 1>now he remains imprisoned, aging and still claiming the mantle

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<v Speaker 1>of professional revolutionary. Carlos was never a pure contractor working

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<v Speaker 1>for one client. He was a true believer, though an

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<v Speaker 1>anti imperialist in Palestinian causes, who also took opportunities though

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<v Speaker 1>and protected his lifestyle and leveraged state tolerance when it

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<v Speaker 1>was available. The Opeque operation had made him famous, the

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<v Speaker 1>Parachuteout made him hunted. The combination of ideology, competence under pressure,

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<v Speaker 1>and the willingness of certain governments to look all the

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<v Speaker 1>way kept them operational sadly for two decades, but when

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<v Speaker 1>the protection dried up, the system closed in. That's the

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<v Speaker 1>arc from a privileged Venezuelan radical to one of the

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<v Speaker 1>most recognizable faces of nineteen seventies transnational violence, and finally

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<v Speaker 1>to a to a life sentence.