Book Review The Invisible Government Chapter 5

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4:25 OK, there we go. Hopefully that's going to do it. I'm going to wait till the feed comes over. These things are so complicated. Let me confirm. So low. There we go. All right. We're up and running. Thank you very much. OK, so if you guys want to chat, go to Rumble.

5:22 I will not be live over on X, although it is streaming over to X and it is streaming to YouTube, just FYI. Okay, so we're going to start with chapter five. I did want to let you guys know that we are going to be on a Gladio 101 podcast tonight that is going to be hosted on Telegram chat.

5:51 And the name of the show is Conservative Patriot Nation. Again, on Telegram. And you'll be able to chat live as part of the show. And it's going to start at 8 o'clock. So just want to get you guys up to speed on the next live podcast. If you have someone that you want to introduce to Operation Gladio.

6:22 um it would be a great show to watch i've never been on the show so um shout out to them for asking me and being brave enough to talk about this um okay so chapter five the case of the birmingham widows four widows whose husbands had died at the bay of pigs that we talked about in the last chapter um there were alabama national guard now to be clear they were not on

6:53 active duty orders as Air National Guard, either for the state or for the government. They were there in a civilian capacity working for the CIA. And the reason that they were there is because they were one of the last guard units that had those bombers, the B-26s, still in their inventory. So they were current pilots.

7:23 on that aircraft so they could go down mix right in and fly missions so um they were sent down there um their pay at the time and keep in mind this is back in the 1960s um was for every two weeks they were going to get a check for 245 dollars there was danger that if they said too much

7:57 Excuse me. Let me start over again. The widows were getting every two weeks after their death a check for $245. They were afraid that if they said anything to anyone, that that money would stop coming. And because they were not on duty at the time of their death, the widows got nothing for their sacrifice unless...

8:24 They had life insurance, and even then it's probably going to be precarious as to whether it would be honored since they were flying basically military missions in a foreign country. So definitely really sketchy circumstances. So one of the ladies, Mrs. Margaret Ray, was.

8:51 concerned, she had some indications that her phone was tapped. And she was not the only one that thought that. They also were very young families with small children. So their husbands, Thomas Willard Ray, Leo Francis Baker, Riley W. Schamburger Jr., and Wade Carroll Gray.

9:23 The American CIA airman who died again that date, April 19th, 1961. That happens to be my birthday. Like literally my birthday. I was born April 19th, 1961. That's crazy shit. So they died flying this mission into the Bay of Pigs while my mom was in the hospital.

9:54 One key to the mystery, my dog's in here with me, is that the operation, there's an office in Miami Springs, Florida, at the Miami International Airport. It was the law office of a man by the name of Alex Carlson, C-A-R-L-S-O-N.

10:29 He had been a pilot in World War, I think he was a pilot, but he was in World War II. I looked him up. And interestingly enough, as a tie over to our other four o'clock show, guess where he served? New Guinea, the Philippines, and Okinawa during World War II.

10:58 It's crazy how these things all mash together. He had a bachelor's degree in Spanish from the University of Michigan. By 1952, Carlson was 27 at the time, was finishing up.

11:17 So, man, he had to have been young. He couldn't have been a pilot. He must have just been in the Army. He was finishing up law school at the University of Miami. That year, he went to Chile on an exchange scholarship, probably in an immersion program since his degree was in Spanish from before. And I'm sure that his law school focused on most likely international law.

11:50 That year, let's see, most of his clients appeared to be weird, small airlines, basically in the air cargo area and all flown out of Miami International Airport, which basically means he was like Paul Helliwell, a CIA attorney. But Carlson's most intriguing business was a company called Double Check.

12:20 C-H-E-K Corporation. According to the records in Florida, in Tallahassee, it was incorporated May 14th, 1959. The brokerage is General Nature and the officers of Double Check Corporation as of 1963 was Alex Carlson, who was listed as the president.

12:50 with a Miami Springs address. And Earl Sanders was listed as vice president. Marjorie Carlson was listed as the secretary treasurer, all at the same address. And at the time it was called resident agent, now it's a registered agent, was a guy by the name of Wesley Pillsbury, listed at the same address.

13:18 In 1960, the CIA, having been given the green light by President Eisenhower to organize Cuban exiles, began looking for American pilots to basically serve as instructor pilots. The Cubans would be flying CIA owned B-26s, so they needed some B-26 instructor pilots. And of course, you know, in the Guard and Reserve,

13:49 is where you have the pilots that generally have the longevity and have flown a mixture of aircraft like that. So that would be, there was no B-26s left on active duty at the time from what I've read. The CIA decided to do its recruiting through Alex Carlson and the Double Check Corporation. They were going to use it as a CIA front.

14:18 to hire these B-26 pilots. There was only three states that had B-26s, Alabama, Virginia, and Arkansas. From these states, some two dozen pilots were signed up by the CIA. The majority all came from the Alabama Guard, and there's a reason why.

14:49 And most of them lived in the Birmingham area. The doctor of and commanding officer. So hold on. The doctor that went on this deployment was from Montgomery, Alabama as well. The commanding officer of the Alabama Air Guard overall is a guy by the name of General Reed, R-E-I-D.

15:24 Doster, D-O-S-T-E-R. Reed Doster basically was the liaison between Carlson and these pilots. You can almost think of him as like a part-time covert guy. Because Doster had actually did time at a couple of different CIA locations.

16:00 And had quote unquote left the CIA to go back and run the Alabama Air Guard unit called the 117th Reconnaissance Wing in 1963. Now you can believe that story or the more likely story is they had already been planning this. They installed this guy through this infiltration method that we keep talking about into.

16:29 the guard by paying off the governor having this guy appointed because all of this stuff happens through the governor's office as far as the guard promotions at the general officer level everything is handled by the governor um and so more than likely this guy was um put in this place as a cia operative through payouts within the um

16:59 political system of Alabama. And basically all of these bomber units slash fighter units come under the authority back in the 1960s of what was referred to at the time, Ninth Tactical Air Force at Shaw Air Force Base. It is still known as Ninth Air Force.

17:29 And there are still fighters at Shaw Air Force Base. They are the air component for U.S. Central Command. At the time, there was a entity or maybe a little a couple of years after that called Strike Force. That was the precursor to CENTCOM. So this all makes sense. Doster went to see Major General David Hutchinson, who's in charge at the time of 9th Tactical Air Force.

17:58 at shaw air force base he asked hutchinson for a leave of absence from the air national guard and hutchinson approved the leave of absence and um doster joined this as well as his men joined the cia as civilians and let me just say i'm not talking about what happened then none of that happens today um

18:31 Because the Guard, unless it's mobilized, has nothing to do with 9th Air Force. They don't even give a shit. And I would have to go back and talk to some people. I can't believe this part right here at all. Now, he may have coordinated with 9th Air Force to let him know that he was going, but they don't ask for permission. The Guard is not in any way under the authority of the active duty forces unless they're mobilized.

19:00 So the only way he would have asked permission is if he was somehow in official military capacity at the time this happened. It doesn't appear that's the case. So I'm just calling BS on that part. He could have done it out of a courtesy. He didn't ask for permission. The only person that could give him the authority to take a leave of absence is the governor. Speaking of which, let's just look that up real quick.

19:34 Alabama Governor 1963. Let's see who that was. Oh my God! Is that George Wallace? Was George Wallace the Alabama Governor? Let's see. Alabama Governor. January 1963 to 67. He sure as hell was. George

20:11 Wallace. Holy moly. Well, that makes perfect sense. Okay. All right. I'm tracking now. All right. So George Wallace gave the approval for these guys to go down and participate in this. That's what they don't want you to know. So all of the pilots were sworn to secrecy.

20:44 as part of a CIA op. And Thomas Willard Ray, pilot number one, age 30, when he died. And the author goes through some of their background. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it, but I do want to mention one particular corporation. Pete Ray, one of the other pilots,

21:14 was employed by a company called Hayes International Corporation. They were a large aircraft modification company with their main plant in Birmingham, Alabama. Ray was a technical inspector at Hayes, and he kept up his pilot efficiency by flying the B-26s and F-84s at the Alabama National Guard unit there. And it said,

21:49 let's see, on him, he's one of them that had two small children and his wife had moved to her mother's house when he deployed down to Central America. And it said that if you want to correspond with your wife,

22:22 There was a particular mailbox at a main post office that you were supposed to write letters to. And the guy whose name was on the box is a guy by the name of Joseph Greenland. Now, also what's interesting about him is it says he took a leave of absence from Hays for one year before he joined the CIA for this mission and went on a one year active duty at.

22:53 Fort Rutger, which is the Army's school for helicopter flight training. So it says there was no Joseph Greenland listed in Chicago in any of the phone books. And it was later found out that that was basically confirmed as being a CIA mail drop through some declassified documents.

23:29 And Margaret said she wrote to her husband regularly and that his letters came in bearing return addresses from different stateside Air Force bases. Pete came home only once on April 10th for two days. And what she noticed most about him is he definitely was someplace tropical because he had a significant.

24:00 And based on what was being talked about in newspapers and on the nightly news, she suspected he was down in Central America because there was other things going on at the time. He said to her, if you've learned anything, keep your mouth shut because they're thinking about giving lie detectors even to the wives.

24:23 Which they can't do, but whatever. On April 15th, Margaret was fixing a girl's hair when her friend showed her a clipping of a newspaper about a B-26 strike on Cuba. Margaret knew immediately where her husband was. So next, we have, let's see, Leo Baker, who was 34.

24:56 at the time of his death um it says he was a flight engineer in the air force and that he had been married and divorced had a daughter and um in j that he remarried um and they had two kids from that one one kid from the

25:21 previous one, and in January 1961, Leo Baker went to Boston for his father's funeral. He told Kathy that he was expecting a phone call, and it came while he was gone. Soon after January, Baker left home and did not tell Kathy where he was going. His return mail address came once from Washington, D.C.

25:47 and once from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. One picture postcard from that city showed a motel with a tropical fish pool. One weekend, Leo returned to Birmingham carrying a plastic bag full of tropical fish. Baker said that he was dropping supplies over Cuba and training pilots. He also told her to watch the newspapers in early May.

26:21 Kathy believed that he was in Guatemala. She later learned that, let's see, that he had won a significant amount of money in a poker game and said that he was taking it with him to Cuba because he may need it to buy his way out of trouble. Kathy did not know how much money Leo was being paid, but she received $500 a month while he was away.

26:55 And our third pilot, Riley Schamburger Jr., the oldest of the four, he was married to his childhood sweetheart. He was a big guy, six feet tall, over 200 pounds. He had over 15,000 flying hours and had been flying for 18 years by 1961. He was a test. Hey, be quiet.

27:25 He was a test pilot at Hays, so he worked with the other guy. And he was a major in the Alabama Air National Guard. He was a very good friend of General Doster, and they hung out in their off-duty times. He was kind of the party guy of the bunch, had barbecues over at his house all the time.

27:55 Riley told his wife, I'm going to be away at school for three months. He didn't say where they were going. And once a week, he came back to Birmingham and he and General Doster would fly together. Sometimes they would bring news of other Birmingham acquaintances, such as Colonel Joe Shannon, who was part of this mysterious operation as well. Once when Riley returned,

28:25 he told how the guys that were deployed had rigged up basically a fighter bar in Central America. And it was modeled after their favorite hangout in Birmingham. And believe me, that's a typical thing to do. Wade Carroll Gray, the last of the pilots, was also

28:56 let's see, employed by Hayes. He was a radio and electronics technician at Hayes. He was married. They had no children. Gray left home February 5th, 1961, the same day that Pete had said goodbye to Margaret. He told his wife that he was going to Texas to test planes for the military.

29:26 He first returned home in March, and he told his wife the same address in Chicago if she wanted to write him. Some of the letters Violet, his wife, had wrote were returned to her with her husband's effects after his death. Among these were matchbook covers indicating that he had been in Guatemala and Nicaragua.

29:55 That's the background of the pilots and their wives that were down there flying that lost their lives on April 19th. What happened has already been described as far as the engagement in the air in the previous chapters that we talked about. The flyers were told that they were going to receive air support off of the Navy carrier.

30:28 in the nearby area. The word had been flashed to Happy Valley by Richard Bissell, CIA, after the president authorized unmarked Navy jets to fly for the one hour at dawn. But remember, that got screwed up because of time zone, because they're stupid. Exactly how the two planes were shot down is a subject of varying accounts, but most versions agree that Schamburger and Gray crashed at sea.

30:58 And Ray and Baker crashed inland. Let's see. In a local paper in Birmingham, it said that the plane carrying Schamburger and Gray was shot down by a T-33 jet. And the editor said that the American pilots had launched from Happy Valley. It says that Doster.

31:29 canceled his mission because the editor had, because according to the editor, his aircraft had experienced issues. So this is the only account that I found from the Birmingham examiner that does verify Doster was down there, the unit commander, the wing commander from Alabama's guard unit, flying with these guys.

31:59 and actually was supposed to fly that day, but somehow his got canceled. There was some evidence that Ray and Baker did crash inland in Cuba, provided by Havana Radio on April 19th at around 10.30 a.m. Havana time. The broadcast is, quote, we give you official government communique number three.

32:31 The participation of the U.S. in aggression against Cuba was dramatically proved this morning when our anti-aircraft batteries brought down a U.S. military plane piloted by U.S. airmen who was bombing the civilian population and our infantry forces in the area of Australia Central, which was a sugar mill. Get over here.

32:56 whose body is in the hands of revolutionary forces, was named Leo Francis Bell. His documents reveal his flight license number, and he gives it, which expires December 1962. And they even had his social security card with his social security number. He also had his driver's license and showed that he had a motor vehicle registration. And it gives...

33:25 the um address and it describes how tall he is from the driver's license which is exactly the height that um baker's flight records recorded as his flight um a havana wire service identified the pilot as leo leo francis burles another story had it as burl b-e-r-l-e

33:56 In Oklahoma City, the FAA said it had no record at its headquarters of anybody pilot license as reported by Havana. The numbering system, the FAA said, isn't like that. Reporters in Boston who said that they thought this was basically a fake ID from Leo Francis Burlesque.

34:26 B-E-R-L-I-S, not Burl. What Castro had in his hands, of course, is Leo Baker's CIA-prepared credentials with the fake last name. CIA clandestine officers frequently use a bogus last name, but keep their first name the same. A week later,

34:50 On April 26, Margaret Ray received a visit from Thomas McDowell, a Birmingham lawyer who was a law partner of Frank Dixon, a former governor of Alabama. They're all on the take, guys. They told Mrs. Ray that it was believed that her husband had been lost at sea in a C-46, not the bomber that he was actually flying.

35:17 They asked her to tell no one. They indicated that there was a slim chance that he was still alive. For the next week, Margaret Ray went about her normal life, going to church, PTA, supermarket, whatever. Then a week later, she was visited by McDowell again. This time he brought with him a big man by the name of Alex Carlson, who's the lawyer from the Miami airport.

35:46 They repeated to Mrs. Ray the story about the C-46, but this time they said there's no hope that he's alive. Carlson and McDowell visited Margaret for about 30 minutes at her mother's home. He announced that the four flyers were missing and presumed dead, hush, after their C-46, again alive, had left on a cargo mission from an airstrip somewhere in Central America.

36:15 Carlson said he was an attorney representing Double Check Corporation of Miami who had been paying these guys. They were told to use the radio only in case of an emergency. And let's see. They had reported one engine had gone out and that they were losing altitude. So, again, an elaborate lie, by the way.

36:46 He said that Double Check Corporation had contacted the four on behalf of the organization, which requested to have its identity remain confidential. Isn't that nice? They killed their husbands, but they don't want you to talk about it. He said that Double Check had hired the four at a monthly salary to fly cargo and that they all knew that it was a calculated risk that they were taking.

37:14 To cover its role, the CIA was willing to imply that the four were mercenaries and basically they were expendable as a result. The widows were pissed. Riley wasn't a soldier of fortune, she said. He didn't do this for the money. He was a test pilot at Hays and had a good salary.

37:38 He was the ops officer at the Air National Guard unit, and he felt like he was doing his duty. Mrs. Gray told the newspaper interviewer her husband was no soldier of fortune either. She said he was paid over $2,000 a month during the short period of time he was away. She said that she too had been visited by Carlson, and he said my husband was dead and to start a new life.

38:07 They had spotted one of the plane's engines floating in the water. She says, I don't think engines float. Three days after he returned to Miami, Carlson told the press that he was sure the C-46 had been flying a support mission for the Cuban invasion. But he said that the mission was not connected at all.

38:37 to the exile organization or the Democratic Revolutionary Front, which is all bullshit. There are many so-called fronts and wealthy individuals all trying to do their part. This was a small group. Carlson's partner in double check was a guy by the name of Raymond Cox, COX. Let's see. Shortly after Carlson's appearance in Birmingham,

39:11 Mysterious checks began arriving to the four widows. At first, the checks were issued by Hialeah Miami Springs Bank and were signed by Carlson. Soon afterwards, there was a change and they started coming from Baker's Trust Company of New York, which the CIA has used before. They came every two weeks, the first 52 payments.

39:40 were $225 each. Later, they increased to $245, which was about $6,000 a year for each widow. The checks from Banker's Trust were simply signed by an officer of the bank. They were drawn on a trust fund that had been set up at the bank. It is quite obvious that it came from the CIA. Carlson wrote to Kathy Baker on his law.

40:09 office letterhead, and he enclosed a cashier's check for $1,990, writing this, quote, Double Check Corporation has decided to extend the regular monthly salary through the fourth day of June 1961. Remember, they were killed on April 19th, but is regrettably convinced that the finality of your husband's fate

40:34 Nonetheless, beginning June 5th, on a regular basis, you will receive a regular benefit allotment, as was provided by your husband's employment contract. Again, let me express my sincere feelings of condolences in your time of bereavement. And should you have any questions or problems, please feel free to call me upon our attorney in Birmingham for help. Signed, Alex Carlson.

41:04 Carlson seemed unsure both in this letter and in numerous public statements of whether the firm of which he was the president of, as he wrote to Mrs. Baker, or if it was double check. Okay, so he, in his correspondence to these women, called the company that he supposedly is in charge of C-H-E-C-K.

41:36 like check, like you're writing a check, but it was incorporated as C-H-E-K. So all a sham. The attorney he was referring to in Birmingham that was basically working for double check, regardless of how it's spelled, was a guy by the name of McDowell, M-C-D-O-W-E-L-L, who continued to act as a self-appointed overseer.

42:09 of the widow's affairs. McDowell was able to obtain death certificates for all of them. He kept them in his safe. He worked in the Frank Nelson building in downtown Birmingham. The widows were under the impression that McDowell had a background in Navy intelligence and believed that he had something to do with the checks that they received. Riley Schamburger's mother began to try to do something about this entire affair.

42:37 Riley's father was a retired city fireman, so they knew their way around the Birmingham political and government structure. Riley's mother refused to believe that her son was dead, and she began corresponding with the federal government.

42:57 She did her best to find out what had happened to her son. She even wrote to the Swiss government, which handled the affairs of the U.S. in Cuba. They were acting as a middleman for communications with Cuba by this time. Ms. Schamburger began writing the State Department, and she received a reply from a man by the name of Denman, D-E-N-M-A-N, Stanfield. Here's what it says.

43:27 Reference is made to your letter dated July 9th, 1961 concerning the welfare and whereabouts of your son. If you will provide your son's full name, date and place of birth, last known address, blah, blah, blah. We'll see what we can do. So again, she does that. A few weeks later, she receives the letter from September from a major Ormerod, O-R-M-E-R-O-D.

43:54 that was from the United States Air Force that says, your letters to the State Department concerning your son has been referred to me for reply. The records in this office do not contain the circumstances surrounding your son's accident at the time he was not on active duty in his military status, which is the point I made when we were talking about 9th Air Force. For more detailed information, we suggest you contact Hayes Aircraft Corporation,

44:25 which of course would be a civilian company, since he was under their jurisdiction at the time in question. You're not under jurisdiction at a civilian company, which is a really weird thing to say. Hayes Aircraft was a private corporation. Therefore, there's no jurisdiction. Schamburger, of course, was flying for the CIA.

44:55 So unless they're saying that Hayes was acting as an agent or a front company for the CIA, that letter is bullshit. The following year, she wrote to John McCone, who we know.

45:10 is CIA. And she received a letter on CIA stationary signed by Marshall Carter, who was a three-star general saying, Mr. McCone's abs in his absence, I'm replying to your letter, requesting information concerning your son. I'm sorry to disappoint you, but this agency is unable to finish, furnish you any such information. We have every sympathy for you, um, in your natural concern for the fate of your son. And I am sorry, as I can be.

45:39 of no help. Please be assured that if any time we are able to furnish information, we will contact you promptly. Still, she would not give up. So she decides to write to the president. And by October of the following year in 1962, Brigadier General Godfrey McHugh, M-C-H-U-G-H, the Air Force aide to president wrote back. His letter said,

46:08 If any information is ever obtained on the circumstances surrounding the loss of your son, you will be informed immediately. Unfortunately, at this time, neither the CIA nor any other government agency possesses the slightest pertinent information to your son's disappearance. All of that is a lie. And the military is the one lying to this woman, Riley Schamburger's mother.

46:35 was determined to keep trying and she says i will not give up they take your boy away and never let you know what happened she keeps writing um after a brief flurry of publicity surrounding the bay of pigs the story of the four missing americans dropped out of the news for almost two years until it reappeared in on in february 1963

47:03 On that date, Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen, D-I-R-K-S-E-N, who was an Illinois Republican and minority leader of the Senate, revealed that four American flyers had been killed at the Bay of Pigs. He said that he had learned this in the course of a one-man inquiry into the Cuban invasion. Dirksen's disclosure was extremely embarrassing for the Kennedy administration. In the first place,

47:33 On April 12, 1961, five days before the invasion, President Kenney has said, this government will do everything it possibly can, and I think it can meet its responsibilities to make sure there's no Americans involved in any action inside Cuba. No Americans. Which is why they had to keep the exiled Cubans as trained pilots and terrorists, so they could keep up their charade.

48:06 In the second place, on January 21st, 1963, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, the president's brother, had said in an interview in Knight's newspaper that no Americans died at the Bay of Pigs. Robert Kennedy in this interview and a similar one in U.S. News and World Report said something. Sorry.

48:35 Talk's going crazy. Said something else of greater and historical significance. A ranking official of the government for the first time admitted clearly on the record that the Bay of Pigs was a U.S. operation planned by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the CIA. The president had to give approval for that plan. Robert Kennedy said the Joint Chiefs did approve it.

49:03 although responsibility for the planning laid primarily with the CIA, unquote. After Dirksen's statement, newsmen sought out the elderly Mrs. Schamburger, and her quote is, if no Americans were involved, where is my son, unquote. She said that she had written to the president about her son, but he evaded my question.

49:33 The White House was alarmed by this revelation. Robert Hatcher, the assistant presidential press secretary, issued a statement. General McCoo had answered Mr. Shanberger's letter. Quote, at the direction of the president, the general extended the president's heartfelt sympathy and explained that the government had, unfortunately, no information to add to the question.

50:04 Quote, we are informed that representatives of the organization which employed Mr. Schamburger reported her son's death and as much as was known about the circumstances to her in 1962. However, the White House carefully did not make public the actual text of this letter to Mrs. Schamburger in which McHugh had assured her.

50:31 that at present, neither CIA nor any government agency possessed the slightest pertinent information on her son's disappearance. And that was a direct quote. Senator Mike Mansfield, the Democrat leader of the Senate, tried to blunt Dirksen's political thrust. He noted that Carlson's announcement in Birmingham in May of 1961, the false cover story,

50:57 about the cargo plane, not the bombers, they were actually flying, had been carried at the time in the New York Times. There was nothing new about the story, Mansfield declared. He also said that a few Americans were killed in the invasion, but Mansfield said he did not know how the flyers met their death. Charlson told the newsman,

51:23 who inquired about the widow's checks that a central american group authorized double check to set up this trust fund in case the men died that's where they were receiving their checks from yeah that certain group wasn't a central american group it was a central intelligence agency group when carlson backed away from his nest egg remark a two two years earlier the four men he said

51:51 never were considered soldiers of fortune. They knew what they were doing. They knew that it was hazardous and involving anti-Castro tasks, but were motivated both by their beliefs and the compensation. Two days later, March 6th, the administration under pressure finally made its first admission about the real role of the four airmen.

52:17 At the press conference that day, this exchange took place with Kennedy. Question. Mr. President, can you say whether the four Americans who died in the Bay of Pigs invasion were employees of the government or the CIA? Isn't the CIA government? Why is there an or there? Answer. This is Kennedy's answer. Well, I would say that there is a good many Americans in the last 15 years.

52:48 who have served their country in a good many ways a good many abroad some of them have lost their lives the american government has not felt that it was helpful in our interest and particularly in the struggle against the armed doctrine with which we are in a struggle all around the world to go into great detail let me say just about these four men they were serving their country the flight that cost them their lives was a volunteer flight

53:19 and that while because of the nature of their work, it has been a matter of public record, as it might be in the case of soldiers or sailors, I can say that they were serving their country. As I say, their work was volunteer. The administration found itself in an, that's the end of the quote. They found themselves in an awkward place because it would not admit that,

53:49 the four flyers was basically flying a CIA mission. If it opened up the record on the four flyers, that would be admitting that they were actually flying bomber B-26s. And then what's going to get exposed, number one, is the fake B-26 story about the...

54:20 pilots that had basically fled Cuba. And if you go back, as we had said earlier, and look at the actual statements, nobody believed that cover story anyway. So they're going to know that after they totally screwed up that cover story, they kept flying more missions attacking Cuba, which of course is illegal because there's no declaration of war and you're attacking a foreign country.

54:52 So there's no upside to any of this. This in turn would raise the question of why the president said under no circumstances would there be any military or Americans. In March, 1963, the case of the four flyers in short held the key to the host of the most explosive questions for the white house.

55:21 but these were political questions and suppression of information about the flyers was justifiable only if national security was involved, which of course it no longer was. But once the role of the United States and the CIA was freely known and conceded to by Robert Kennedy in the two interviews in 63, it was difficult to see how the security

55:51 could be national security could be used as an excuse anymore. Mrs. Schamburger had already been informed in writing that the government knew nothing about her son, which she now knows is a complete lie. As for Carlson, the attorney, he was still sticking to his script down in Miami Springs.

56:20 through the summer of 1963 and basically was saying that they were flying for money. And he pulled out, when he was approached by reporters, he pulled out a thick file consulting it and said Schamburger and Ray had been being paid $2,200 a month, Gray $1,500 a month, and Baker $1,700 a month. Double check, had contacted

56:51 was contacted back in 1960 by the CIA. And he said, then he changed it to, oh, I'm at recruiters. And they appeared to be American businessmen. They had recommended to him someone at the Miami.

57:13 airport which he refused to identify and said that they had been originally formed as a holding company for real estate for the same client which makes perfect sense because he's talking about the cia and he's saying that he was a real estate investment company or money launderer for the cia because

57:37 we now know what these people do so it's very easy to look back in time and see exactly what this guy is admitting um he said that the client had um said that he was from czechoslovakia and that's where he got the name check from the recruiters carlson said came to me and said they wanted pilots for the airline business and that um

58:07 I had a corporation that they could use as basically a shell company to recruit these pilots for. Double check then proceeded to recruit pilots for a Central American front group called the CIA. Carlson said he got a telephone call from Central America and was told that the C-46 cargo plane had gone down with the four men on it.

58:37 Would he please go to Alabama and notify the widows? Carlson professed to know nothing about the source of the money or anything else. And he said that at first Doublecheck had an account at the Hialeah Miami Springs Bank and that he was an authorized signator on that account. After that, he said the trust account was established at Baker's Trust in New York. And that's where.

59:06 the rest of the money had gotten transferred and he basically was out of it at that point um three years after the bay of pigs the birmingham widows were still receiving no official acknowledgement from the united states government about their husbands there had been no written notification to the wives of any of the stuff we just talked about um who they were employed by who they were fighting for um they had nothing official to show their children

59:36 why their fathers were dead. So that's the end of chapter five. That's what we're going to do for today. Our next session is going to be chapter six. It's a fairly long chapter. Um, and it talks a little bit more about the history of the invisible government, um, and has some, uh, really interesting, um, sections to it, um, just to kind of tease it a little bit. Um,

1:00:06 It goes and talks about a little bit more of the history that we kind of already know, like Bogota, Colombia, Korea. And it also talks about China, which is going to add a little bit more to what we already know when we're doing our country by country look.

1:00:33 1953 Iran gives us a brief overview of Mosaddegh because they're kind of setting the stage for what I've already taught everybody about our history. There is a part here about Cairo, Egypt and Nasser, which we know a little bit about and the Suez Canal, which we know a little bit about in 1950s, Costa Rica in 1950s, the U2 in 1960.

1:01:03 And so it's just going through. And again, oh, in 1963, which is where we just left off about General Galen, you know, the SS Nazi officer that's running the German BND. It gives us a little bit about that history. And again, this is an amazing book because most of this book, nowhere in it does it talk about Operation Gladio. And yet every bit of this book.

1:01:31 is about the invisible government running Operation Gladio. That's the amazing part of this. And now that we know it, we can go back and read these books and get a lot more information out of them. Confirmation of things that we've gotten out of other books, blah, blah, blah. So we're going to tackle chapter number six in its entirety in our next session. So also chapter seven is about Burma.

1:01:59 And Burma is one of the countries that we're going to discuss in our Gladio series on X. And so it'll be interesting in chapter number seven to see what the authors have come up with. Speaking of which, let's go ahead. I just wanted to see. This one actually talks about the radio island.

1:02:27 Swan Island too. It's funny after you find a place like that, then all of the books you read all talk about it and you didn't even recognize it until you do a deep dive on it. So this book is going to take us into Indonesia as well. It's going to take us into Laos. It'll give us a little bit of more information about Vietnam, Guatemala. It will talk about the NSA and the DIA.

1:02:57 And then it talks two chapters about the CIA and how the Peace Corps falls into all of this. And there's another particular area that I found extremely interesting that's referred to as

1:03:24 a gray operation, which means a combination of covert and overt. And basically a lot of that we find again having to do with the 2506 Brigade, which is, of course, we know our favorite Felix Rodriguez guys.

1:03:45 And some of the international syndicate talking about Texaco and Standard Oil, which of course comes into play in just about everything we talk about because they were at the central part of Indonesia as well. So again, they're all woven together and that's why I love talking about this. All right. So chapter six, next time. Thanks for being here.

1:04:14 Let me take care of my crazy dog. Come here. Come here. Come here. I want everybody to see you since you've been a nuisance the entire time. Come here. Come here. Come here. He got a haircut yesterday, so he's full of piss and vinegar today. Say hello to everybody. I had to get him shaved. We took him to the beach and his entire undercoat was matted. So he's a naked dog now.

1:04:44 Say goodbye, Maverick. Say goodbye. Say goodbye. Give me a kiss. Give me a kiss. Give me a kiss. Where's your daddy? Where's your daddy? He lost his daddy. Where's your daddy? Where's your daddy? See you guys later. We'll be back at four.

Entities here

Claims made here

Thomas Willard Ray died_in Bay of Pigs Invasion documented ▶ 6:22

“um it would be a great show to watch i've never been on the show so um shout out to them for asking me and being brave enough to talk about this um okay so chapter five the case of the birmingham wido…”

Wade Carroll Gray died_in Bay of Pigs Invasion documented ▶ 6:22

Leo Francis Baker died_in Bay of Pigs Invasion documented ▶ 6:22

Riley W. Schamburger Jr. died_in Bay of Pigs Invasion documented ▶ 6:22

Thomas Willard Ray member_of Alabama National Guard host_asserted ▶ 6:53

“active duty orders as Air National Guard, either for the state or for the government. They were there in a civilian capacity working for the CIA. And the reason that they were there is because they we…”

Carlson Alsop headed Double Check Corporation documented ▶ 12:20

“C-H-E-K Corporation. According to the records in Florida, in Tallahassee, it was incorporated May 14th, 1959. The brokerage is General Nature and the officers of Double Check Corporation as of 1963 wa…”

Earl Sanders member_of Double Check Corporation documented ▶ 12:50

“with a Miami Springs address. And Earl Sanders was listed as vice president. Marjorie Carlson was listed as the secretary treasurer, all at the same address. And at the time it was called resident age…”

Wesley Pillsbury member_of Double Check Corporation documented ▶ 12:50

Marjorie Carlson member_of Double Check Corporation documented ▶ 12:50

Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered_assassination_of Bay of Pigs Invasion host_asserted ▶ 13:18

“In 1960, the CIA, having been given the green light by President Eisenhower to organize Cuban exiles, began looking for American pilots to basically serve as instructor pilots. The Cubans would be fly…”

Reed Doster member_of Alabama National Guard host_asserted ▶ 15:24

“Doster, D-O-S-T-E-R. Reed Doster basically was the liaison between Carlson and these pilots. You can almost think of him as like a part-time covert guy. Because Doster had actually did time at a coupl…”

George Wallace appointed Reed Doster host_asserted ▶ 16:29

“the guard by paying off the governor having this guy appointed because all of this stuff happens through the governor's office as far as the guard promotions at the general officer level everything is…”

David Hutchinson headed 12th Air Force host_asserted ▶ 17:29

“And there are still fighters at Shaw Air Force Base. They are the air component for U.S. Central Command. At the time, there was a entity or maybe a little a couple of years after that called Strike F…”

Thomas Willard Ray member_of International Mining Corporation host_asserted ▶ 21:14

“was employed by a company called Hayes International Corporation. They were a large aircraft modification company with their main plant in Birmingham, Alabama. Ray was a technical inspector at Hayes, …”

Riley W. Schamburger Jr. member_of International Mining Corporation host_asserted ▶ 27:25

“He was a test pilot at Hays, so he worked with the other guy. And he was a major in the Alabama Air National Guard. He was a very good friend of General Doster, and they hung out in their off-duty tim…”

Wade Carroll Gray member_of International Mining Corporation host_asserted ▶ 28:25

“he told how the guys that were deployed had rigged up basically a fighter bar in Central America. And it was modeled after their favorite hangout in Birmingham. And believe me, that's a typical thing …”

Richard M. Bissell Jr. ordered_assassination_of Bay of Pigs Invasion host_asserted ▶ 30:28

“in the nearby area. The word had been flashed to Happy Valley by Richard Bissell, CIA, after the president authorized unmarked Navy jets to fly for the one hour at dawn. But remember, that got screwed…”

Thomas Sowell covered_up Bay of Pigs Invasion host_asserted ▶ 34:50

“On April 26, Margaret Ray received a visit from Thomas McDowell, a Birmingham lawyer who was a law partner of Frank Dixon, a former governor of Alabama. They're all on the take, guys. They told Mrs. R…”

Thomas Sowell did_business_with Frank Dixon host_asserted ▶ 34:50

Carlson Alsop covered_up Bay of Pigs Invasion host_asserted ▶ 35:46

“They repeated to Mrs. Ray the story about the C-46, but this time they said there's no hope that he's alive. Carlson and McDowell visited Margaret for about 30 minutes at her mother's home. He announc…”

Raymond Cohn member_of Double Check Corporation host_asserted ▶ 38:37

“to the exile organization or the Democratic Revolutionary Front, which is all bullshit. There are many so-called fronts and wealthy individuals all trying to do their part. This was a small group. Car…”

Thomas Sowell located_in Frank Nelson Building host_asserted ▶ 42:09

“of the widow's affairs. McDowell was able to obtain death certificates for all of them. He kept them in his safe. He worked in the Frank Nelson building in downtown Birmingham. The widows were under t…”

Stanfield member_of U.S. State Department host_asserted ▶ 42:57

“She did her best to find out what had happened to her son. She even wrote to the Swiss government, which handled the affairs of the U.S. in Cuba. They were acting as a middleman for communications wit…”

Riley W. Schamburger Jr. did_business_with Bell Aircraft Corporation host_asserted ▶ 44:25

“which of course would be a civilian company, since he was under their jurisdiction at the time in question. You're not under jurisdiction at a civilian company, which is a really weird thing to say. H…”

John McCone headed CIA documented ▶ 44:55

“So unless they're saying that Hayes was acting as an agent or a front company for the CIA, that letter is bullshit. The following year, she wrote to John McCone, who we know.…”

Bell Aircraft Corporation front_for CIA host_asserted ▶ 44:55

“So unless they're saying that Hayes was acting as an agent or a front company for the CIA, that letter is bullshit. The following year, she wrote to John McCone, who we know.…”

Marshall Carter member_of CIA documented ▶ 45:10

“is CIA. And she received a letter on CIA stationary signed by Marshall Carter, who was a three-star general saying, Mr. McCone's abs in his absence, I'm replying to your letter, requesting information…”

Godfrey McHugh member_of U.S. Air Force documented ▶ 45:39

“of no help. Please be assured that if any time we are able to furnish information, we will contact you promptly. Still, she would not give up. So she decides to write to the president. And by October …”

Riley W. Schamburger Jr. died_in Bay of Pigs Invasion documented ▶ 47:03

“On that date, Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen, D-I-R-K-S-E-N, who was an Illinois Republican and minority leader of the Senate, revealed that four American flyers had been killed at the Bay of Pigs. …”

John F. Kennedy approved Bay of Pigs Invasion documented ▶ 48:35

“Talk's going crazy. Said something else of greater and historical significance. A ranking official of the government for the first time admitted clearly on the record that the Bay of Pigs was a U.S. o…”

CIA planned Bay of Pigs Invasion documented ▶ 48:35

Joint Chiefs of Staff planned Bay of Pigs Invasion documented ▶ 48:35

Double Check Corporation front_for CIA host_asserted ▶ 58:07

“I had a corporation that they could use as basically a shell company to recruit these pilots for. Double check then proceeded to recruit pilots for a Central American front group called the CIA. Carls…”

Double Check Corporation recruited Riley W. Schamburger Jr. book_quoted ▶ 58:07

Delmar Carlson did_business_with Double Check Corporation book_quoted ▶ 58:07

Reinhard Gehlen headed Bundesnachrichtendienst host_asserted ▶ 1:01:03

“And so it's just going through. And again, oh, in 1963, which is where we just left off about General Galen, you know, the SS Nazi officer that's running the German BND. It gives us a little bit about…”

Felix Rodriguez member_of Brigade 2506 host_asserted ▶ 1:03:24

“a gray operation, which means a combination of covert and overt. And basically a lot of that we find again having to do with the 2506 Brigade, which is, of course, we know our favorite Felix Rodriguez…”