The Colonel's Corner The Devil's Chessboard Part 16

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0:00 Okay, let's get this party started since we're waking up all the bots on X today. Crazy, crazy. So we left off with Sheik Havera's letter to his mom saying that he was not going to make the same mistake that Arbenz made in giving in to the imperialist. This section starts on September 20th, 1960.

0:33 When Fidel Castro came uptown to Harlem, the white terracotta facade of Hotel Teresa on 7th Avenue and West 125th Street, the Waldorf of Harlem, was brightly lit like a Hollywood movie premiere. Outside the hotel entrance, a boisterous crowd was steadily growing in defiance of the rain and the police.

1:06 awaiting the international political celebrity who was rumored to be checking in. Suddenly, a roar went up through the crowd as a car pulled up and Fidel Castro exited the car. The Cuban leader and his 50-member delegation who were in New York for the annual UN General Assembly meeting had not received such a warm welcome at his first choice of accommodations.

1:34 in Midtown Shelburne Hotel. When the Cuban delegation checked in two days earlier at the Shelburne, they were greeted by a militant group of anti-Castro exiles calling itself La Rosa Blanca, the White Rose, which threatened to blow up the hotel. The Shelburne management promptly informed Castro's party

2:02 that they would need to put up a $20,000 security deposit, which outraged Fidel Castro, insisting that his government did not have ready access to cash, announced that they would leave the hotel and pitch tents if necessary. Castro's 1960 trip to New York marked a turning point in U.S.-Cuba relations. The previous year in 1959, the Cuban leader had enjoyed a much more hospital,

2:33 hospitable reception during his 11-day visit to the U.S. Fresh from his revolutionary victory on New Year's Eve, Fidel was still something of a political mystery to the Eisenhower administration. And the media embraced him as a silver-tongued conqueror that had liberated the Cuban people from Batista's gangster reign.

3:01 Earlier visit to New York, a city he loved, Fidel roamed the streets, followed by packs of reporters and photographers, dropping by an elementary school where all of the kids had cut out beards that they wore as if they were masked. He went to the Bronx Zoo, ate hot dogs and ice cream, and alarmed zoo guards by sticking his hand through the bars of a cage to pet.

3:33 the tiger. This is like prison. I have been in a prison too, Fidel said, who had survived prison time in Batista's regime. Even the CIA seemed charmed by Castro during his 1959 visit. After meeting the Cuban leader in New York in his suite, an ecstatic CIA agent reported Castro is not only not a communist, but he is a strong anti-communist fighter.

4:03 That was before he told the mafia no and the CIA no, they can't resume their pilfering of people's money, the prostitution and the trafficking of drugs. But there had been many changes over the following year as Castro moved to deliver on the promise of nationalizing the sugar and oil industries and began transforming Cuba.

4:30 from a vassal state of the U.S. into a sovereign nation. By early 1960, Dulles had resolved the debate within the intelligence agency over Castro's true identity. He declared he was a communist. That designation then meant he was a national security threat. The CIA's director's hardening line mirrored that of friends in the business world.

5:02 like none other than William Polly, the entrepreneur whose major investments in Cuba was in sugar plantations and municipal transportation systems that were wiped out. One of the vigorously anti-communist international businessmen who provided the CIA with foreign information and contacts, as well as guns,

5:30 Pauly began lobbying the Eisenhower administration to take aggressive action against Castro when he was still fighting Batista soldiers in the mountains. After Fidel rode into Havana on a tank in January of 1959, Pauly, who was gripped by what Eisenhower called a pathological hatred of Castro,

5:59 even volunteered to pay for his assassination. As the Eisenhower administration took an increasingly belligerent posture towards the Castro regime, Polly found himself at the center of action, boasting that he and Alan Dulles chatted every day. The Eisenhower administration responded to Castro's ex-appropriation of American-owned plantations, factories, and utilities by cutting imports of sugar.

6:30 into the United States. That was their lifeblood. And by launching a secret campaign aimed at sabotaging Castro's government. By February of 1960, mercenary pilots hired by the CIA had dropped bombs on Cuba's sugar mills. In March, a French freighter loaded with Belgian weapons was blown up in Havana's harbor, killing dozens of sailors.

7:02 and shoremen. And they had planted a second bomb and waited just long enough for firefighters and emergency personnel to come on the scene and blew them up. President Eisenhower approved a plan to train paramilitary forces outside of Cuba for an invasion of the island. The operation, which was spearheaded by Vice President Richard Nixon,

7:35 and the CIA would culminate the following year on the beaches of the Bay of Pigs. Now, again, other than nationalizing industry in Cuba, outside of the control of American oligarchs, Polly was a multi-multi-millionaire. Castro had done nothing communistic at this point, but was dubbed a communist so that they could justify, because remember the National Security Action Memorandum.

8:06 You had to be labeled a communist in order for that security memorandum to allow the assassination or attack. You had to be dubbed a communist. The explosion in Havana's harbor was a milestone in the Cuban Revolution. At a funeral ceremony the next day at the cemetery, an emotional Castro vowed that Cuba would never become cowardly in the face of U.S. aggression.

8:35 He ended his speech with a declaration that became a ringing slogan of the Cuban Revolution. Motherland or death, we shall win. Determined that Cuba would not become another Guatemala, Castro turned to the Soviet Union for economic and military aid. And the tragic dance began, locking Cuba and the U.S. and Russia into an embrace for years to come, which nearly ended.

9:05 in a nuclear holocaust this is a pattern that we see repeated over and over again the refusal of the oligarchs to allow a country to determine their own destination pushes them into the hands of the very people they say they're fighting against when castro and his entourage landed in new york

9:35 On September 18, 1960, he appeared to be in a subdued mood, reported the New York Times, for reasons that was not known to the American people. The Cuban airliner that flew the delegation to the U.S. had to be immediately refueled and flown back to Havana so that it wasn't confiscated. It was just one of the numerous ways the Castro delegation was subjected to harassment during his visit.

10:02 as the Eisenhower administration maneuvered against the Castro leader on multiple fronts. By the time his entourage was forced out of the Shelburne Hotel, Castro seemed persona nagrada in New York. The State Department had ruled that the Cubans could not leave Manhattan. They couldn't roam around the area. And no city hotel was willing to accommodate them. If New York was incompatible,

10:33 incapable of providing hospitality to world leaders, Castro fumed, perhaps the UN should be moved. But then Castro turned his humiliation into a propaganda triumph. And I'm sure this left all of them seething. As the Cuban delegation was preparing to leave Shelburne, a political sympathizer put them in touch with black Muslim leader Malcolm X, who intervened on their behalf.

11:02 with the operators of the Hotel Teresa. The tallest building in Harlem, the 13-story hotel, was lofty but a little worn down. It was a landmark in the black community. In its heyday, it had accommodated a glittering array of African-American celebrities, including Josephine Baker, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Nat King Cole, and Lena Horne.

11:30 In June of 1938, Joe Louis celebrated his heavyweight championship victory over Max Slimling, Nazi Germany's great white hope at the Teresa, as thousands of fans cheered on in the streets outside. When word spread that the Cuban delegation was headed uptown, Love B. Woods, manager of the Teresa, immediately came under the same political pressure.

11:58 as other New York hotel operators. Even Harlem's outspoken congressman, Adam Clayton Powell Jr., opposed Castro's relocation to Harlem. He called it a publicity stunt. And boy, was it. Quote, we Negro people have enough problems of our own without the additional burden of Dr. Castro's confusion, unquote.

12:23 But Woods, an elderly man who had grown up in Jim Crow, South Carolina, knew what it was like to be denied a roof over your head. Woods stood his ground and opened the doors of Harlem's finest hotel to the Castro delegation. Quote, we don't discriminate against anybody, unquote. Other prominent figures in Harlem also stuck out their necks for Castro.

12:51 Knowing that Woods might have trouble cashing the Cuban's check because of rising political tension between the two countries, a Harlem attorney by the name of Conrad Lin arranged to have a local gambling kingpin put up $1,000 in cash to cover the delegation's hotel costs. The gangster was not a communist or a politically developed, Lin said. But something told me that this man

13:20 that he wanted to help, and he did. Young Harlem activists also rallied around Castro, like Preston Wilcox, who was among those cheering the Cuban leader outside the Teresa. Wilcox saw a spiritual connection between Fidel's decision to come to Harlem and the rising civil rights movement. He noted the color division between the opposing lines of Cubans in the crowd, the black Cubans,

13:49 were pro-Castro, while those loudly denouncing him were lighter shaded. Whenever Juan Almeida, Castro's black military commander and a hero of the revolution, left the hotel during the delegation stay and went scrolling along the neighborhood, enthusiastic crowds swirled around him. The New York Citizen Call, an African-American newspaper, commented, quote,

14:15 To Harlem's oppressed ghetto dwellers, Castro was a bearded revolutionary who had told white America to go to hell, unquote. Harlem's show of hospitality for Castro turned out to be a public relations disaster for the Eisenhower administration. By moving to Harlem, the Cuban leader not only shamed the U.S. government for its lack of manners, but focused a sharp spotlight on racial.

14:44 tensions. Some of the city's finest hotels suddenly offered entire floors to the Cuban delegation, free of charge. But Castro refused to move. When world leaders like Khrushchev, Nasser, and Nehru began coming uptown to meet with Castro, with TV camera crews close behind, Washington's embarrassment grew larger. Castro's mastery of the media game was on full display during his Harlem

15:15 After Eisenhower snubbed him by not inviting him to an official reception for Latin leaders, the Cuban premier responded by inviting Teresa's all-black staff to a steak dinner in the hotel banquet room with him and his chief. When articles suddenly began appearing in New York newspapers alleging that the Teresa was overrun with hookers,

15:41 Fidel again parried the propaganda thrust, declaring in his speech at the UN, quote, they began spreading the news all over the world that the Cuban delegation had lodged in a brothel. But some, a humble hotel in Harlem, a hotel inhabited by Negroes of the United States, must obviously be a brothel, unquote.

16:06 By the time he delivered his speech before the UN General Assembly on September 26th, Castro had seized the moral high ground in his growing war of words with Washington. His UN speech, a marathon performance that stretched over four hours, was a passionate defense of Cuba's autonomy. For years, his colonialized nation had no voice in world affairs. Castro told the International Assembly, quote,

16:34 Colonies do not speak. Colonies are not recognized in the world. That is why our nation and its problems were unknown to the rest of the world. There was no independent republic. There was only a colony where orders were given by the ambassador of the United States, unquote. But now at long last, Castro had a voice. What had his small and prosperous nation done?

17:03 To so offend his powerful neighbor, asked Castro, quote, we instituted an agrarian reform that would solve the problems of the landless peasants and would solve the problems of lack of basic foodstuff. That would solve the great unemployment problem on the land. That would end, once and for all, the ghastly miseries that existed in the rural areas of the country. Was that radical, he asked?

17:31 When his own life was on the line in Batista's courtrooms, it was not very radical. We were not 150% communist at the time, he told everyone. We just appeared slightly pink. We were not confiscating lands. We simply proposed to pay for them in 20 years. And the only way we could afford to do that was by bonds. Bonds which would mature in 20 years at 4.5% interest.

18:00 which would accumulate annually. Castro was telling the world that revolutionary Cuba had been willing to play by capitalist rules, but this was not enough for Washington. Cuba's new government had been too bold. It had clashed with the International Mining Trust. It had clashed with the interest of the United Fruit Company.

18:26 It had also clashed with the most powerful interest of the United States. So then the example shown by the Cuban Revolution had to receive its punishment. Punitive actions of every type. Even the destruction of Cuba's foolhardy people had to be carried out against the audacity of a revolutionary government. Journalist I.F. Stone pronounced Castro's oration,

18:56 which he delivered hour after hour by consulting with just a single page of notes, a tour de force. It was unlike anything ever heard before the UN, a scholarly, eloquent, heartfelt broadside against a rogue imperial power, delivered in the capital of world finance by a charismatic rebel leader who had risked his life to challenge the power.

19:24 If Allen Dulles' Imperial Guard still had any doubt about how serious a threat Fidel Castro represented, his dramatic performance at the UN that day dispelled every single doubt. The CIA knew how seductive Fidel's appeal was, even in the West, particularly among college students, intellectuals, artists. In April of 1960, Robert Tabor

19:51 the first African-American reporter for CBS News, who had scored an exclusive interview with Castro when he was still fighting in the mountains, stirred liberal circles by purchasing a full-page ad in the New York Times that passionately endorsed the Cuban Revolution. The appeal was signed by an impressive list of literary people.

20:14 It sparked a wave of popular interest in the Cuban cause that led to the formation of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. Within six months, the committee had enrolled 7,000 members in 27 adult chapters across the country and had struck a chord on college campuses where 40 student councils were formed. While Castro was staying at the Teresa,

20:41 The Fair Play for Cuba Committee, FPCC, organized a party in his honor at the hotel's ballroom. Among the guests was Allen Ginsberg, Langston Hughes, and C. Wright Mills, whose own impassioned defense of the Cuban Revolution, Listen Yankee, had sold 400,000 copies within months. Mills' book was based on his brief tour of the island, including three 18-hour days with Fidel Castro himself.

21:13 He said he was addicted to the habit of conversation. He rests by talking. Those were the early honeymoon days of the revolution before Castro's tendencies had hardened and before the Soviet quote unquote partnership with Cuba had begun. The relentless US pressure on the island would never succeed in toppling Castro, but it would help turn his nation into a tropical police state that CIA propagandas.

21:44 The propagandist insisted it was from the very beginning, amounting a victory of sorts for Washington hardliners. But there was also a glow around Castro as he and his entourage settled into the Hotel Teresa. It was the dawn of the 1960s. The great Eisenhower dullest reign was coming to an end, and the world seemed to shimmer with new possibilities. The most electric moment of Castro's week in Harlem came one evening when Malcolm X,

22:14 wearing a long black leather coat and tie, swept past the press pack in the hotel lobby and whisked to Fidel's suite on the ninth floor. Fidel invited Malcolm to sit next to him on the bed, the only comfortable oasis in the room. The revolutionary icons seemed hesitant at first to talk to each other.

22:40 But as Castro lunged ahead with his uncertain English, they slowly found common ground. Fidel told Malcolm that the Cubans appreciated the warm reception in Harlem. I think you will find the people in Harlem are not so addicted to the propaganda they dish out downtown, Malcolm said. Castro's young foreign minister, Raul Rayo Cori, later said that he thought the meeting between the two, though lasting,

23:09 Only a half hour turned out to be historically significant because it helped broaden the black Muslim leaders narrow racial parameters. Malcolm began to understand that blacks were not the only poor people that were oppressed and the struggle was a common struggle. Afterwards, Malcolm maintained a strong interest in Cuba. The only white people that I have really liked was Fidel, he later said.

23:37 The meeting between Fidel and Malcolm sent shutters through U.S. security circles. There was a potential alliance between the Cuban revolutionaries and the militant black nationalists was seen as the stuff of nightmares at CIA. Malcolm's broadening political outlook.

24:00 which accelerated after his split with the Nation of Islam in 1964 made him increasingly dangerous. And Corey, among others, was convinced that it led to his assassination in 1965. In 1960, Malcolm was the target of an intensive FBI surveillance. In fact, one of the people who had squeezed into Castro's hotel room that night was an undercover FBI agent.

24:27 who later reported back to the Bureau that the two men's conversation. According to a confidential FBI memo based on the source's report, Malcolm told Fidel that he was predisposed to like him because usually when one sees a man whom the U.S. is against, there's a good reason that the man is good.

24:50 By the time Castro came to Harlem, he too was the target of increasingly ominous U.S. intelligence scrutiny. Just days before they checked into the hotel, Robert Mayhew, on orders of the CIA, met at another Manhattan hotel with Johnny Roselli, the silver-haired mafia lord who presided over the underworld in Las Vegas.

25:22 to develop a plan to assassinate Castro. Mayhew and Roselli was joined at the Plaza Hotel meeting by Jim O'Connell, Mayhew's CIA handler. O'Connell posed as an American businessman who had been predispossessed by Castro's revolution and was willing to pay to have him killed. But the savvy Roselli was not fooled.

25:50 He quickly figured out that the mafia was being recruited by the CIA. Once again, Robert Mayhew found himself at the center of a lethal CIA operation. Near the end of his life, he recalled that he went through when the CIA asked him to serve as the main emissary with the mafia in the Castro assassination plot. Sitting with two visitors at his ranch in Las Vegas,

26:16 Mayhew recounted a long night of soul searching as he wrestled with the CIA request. Chef Edwards and Jim O'Connell framed their pitch to Mayhew in terms of a good Catholic would understand. Killing Castro was an act of just war, they said. It saves thousands of lives.

26:46 Mayhew realized that he would have blood on his hands. Not that that bothered him because he killed lots of people. To ponder the moral difficult question, Mayhew went down to the recreation room in the basement of his Virginia home where he made the big decision and listened all night long to classical music on a sound system that the CIA had installed for him. In conversation with his visitors years later, Mayhew tried to make it seem

27:15 like it was a tortured process, but it actually sounded like a relative no-brainer for the security contractor. The CIA had made Robert Mayhew. He owed everything he had to the agency, even the stereo system. He wasn't about to give it all up to spare the life of a Cuban revolutionary. Mayhew told the CIA, yes, when it came down to it, he didn't mind having

27:44 Castro's blood on his hands after all, or Rayol Castro, or Che Guevara. It was the beginning of a long U.S. intelligence campaign to kill the Cuban leader, stretching over several presidencies and involving untold numbers of accomplices, including mobsters, soldier of fortune, disinfected Havana regime members, and security contractors like Robert Mayhew.

28:14 As Castro prepared to return home at the end of his week in New York, he gave a press conference at the airport. Why was the Cuban delegation departing on a Soviet jet, a reporter asked. Because the U.S. had impounded all of Cuba's airliners as a result of its claim against his government. What do you want us to do? You leave us without petroleum. Khrushchev gives us petroleum.

28:44 You cut our sugar. They actually bombed it. Khrushchev buys our sugar. You take away our planes. Khrushchev gives us planes. The CIA knew what it wanted Castro to do. Shortly after the Cuban leader arrived home in Havana, he was addressing a crowd from the balcony of the presidential palace when a bomb went off.

29:11 behind the palace, followed by a second explosion within an hour. Later, a third bomb, more powerful than the other two, rocked Havana. CIA-sponsored terror campaign aimed at killing Castro and destroying his government had already began to escalate. Two weeks after Fidel Castro checked out of the Hotel Teresa, another young dynamo made an appearance at the hotel.

29:37 The afternoon of October 12, 1960, Senator John F. Kennedy brought his presidential campaign to Harlem, speaking to a large crowd from a platform erected in front of the hotel. Kennedy was well aware that Castro had just been there. JFK was fascinated by the Cuban leader, whose bio bore some resemblance to his own. Both men were products of Catholic immigrant families who had worked their way up to wealth and success.

30:05 Castro's father had immigrated from Spain. Both were the second sons of shrewd entrepreneurial fathers and devout mothers. Both were educated at elite schools. Both had rejected class privilege, dedicated themselves to improving the lives of less fortunate and to changing their country. After Castro's triumph over Batista, Kennedy had warm words for the revolutionary.

30:35 declaring, quote, Fidel Castro is part of the legacy of Bolivar, who led his men over the Andres Mountains vowing war to the death against Spanish rule, unquote. The young senator criticized the Eisenhower administration for not giving Castro a more friendly greeting in his hour of triumph when he visited Washington in April of 1959. But during the presidential campaign, Kennedy determined not to be tarred.

31:05 by Nixon's soft-on-global communists, carved out a position on Cuba that was even more militant than the Republican candidate, declaring that Castro had betrayed the ideals of the Cuban Revolution and called his regime a communist menace that had been permitted to rise under the very nose only 90 miles from our shore. Kennedy went so far as to suggest that the U.S. should take decisive action to remove the threat.

31:31 His militant campaign rhetoric evoked a heated response from Castro. He called him illiterate and ignorant millionaire. In truth, Kennedy was keenly aware of Cuban's colonial history and was outspokenly critical of how the U.S. business interests had screwed the country. In the same campaign speech in which he attacked Castro as a dangerous enemy at our doorsteps,

31:59 JFK ripped into America's corporate plunder and political domination of the island in surprisingly unvarnished terms. He also denounced Washington's shameful practice of propping up dictators throughout Latin America, including Batista. Kennedy's campaign rhetoric on Cuba revealed a man who was painstakingly trying to work out a correct position for himself and his country on the revolutionary conversion.

32:29 that were shaking the world. He did not want to appear naive about communism, but he was even more concerned that the U.S. be on the right side of history by supporting aspirations of people in Latin America, Africa, and Asia after they threw off colonial shackles. On that fall day outside of the Hotel Teresa,

32:55 where Kennedy was joined on the platform by a formidable supporting cast of Democrat dignitaries, including Eleanor Roosevelt and Congressman Powell. The presidential contender sounded more like a supporter of the bearded revolutionary in whose wake he was following than an enemy. Quote, I am happy to come to this hotel a little late, but I am happy to come here, unquote.

33:23 He went on to say, behind the fact of Castro's coming to this hotel, Khrushchev coming to Castro, there is another great traveler in the world, and that is the travel of world revolution, a world in turmoil. I am delighted to come to Harlem, and I think that the whole world should come here, and the whole world should recognize that we all live right next to each other, whether here in Harlem or on the other side of the globe.

33:48 We should be glad that Castro and Khrushchev came to the United States. We should not fear the 20th century. For the worldwide revolution, which we are seeing all around us, is part of the American Revolution. The man who was soon to become America's youngest president showed Harlem that day that he too could deliver a speech, perhaps less fiery than Castro, but with equal passion and vision.

34:17 Declaring America's revolutionary ideas to continue to inspire people throughout the world, Kennedy said, quote, There may be a couple called Adam Powell, he laughed.

34:45 America could not continue to inspire the world Kennedy went on unless it practiced what it preached at home. If a Negro baby is born here and a white baby is born next door, the Negro's baby's chance of finishing high school is about 60% of the white baby. His chance of getting through college is about a third of that baby's. His chance of being unemployed is four times as great. All that must change.

35:15 JFK told the audience, white people are a minority in the world. They could no longer hold back the dreams of the rest of the world. Kennedy vowed that if he was elected, he would align America with the winds of change. I believe it is important that the president of the United States personify the ideals of our society, speak out on this, associate ourselves with a great fight for equality. In the next three years, as Cuba became

35:43 A focal point of U.S. foreign policy, Kennedy would continue to wrestle with his relationship to Cuba, to Castro, and revolutionary change. As president, JFK's posture on Cuba gradually softened, with the White House inching towards a state of peaceful coexistence with its neighbor. The fitful rapprochement with Cuba would set off a turbulent reaction in Washington.

36:10 particularly within the national security circles still dominated by Dulles. In these men's mind, it was not just Havana that loomed a hotbed of dangerous ideas. JFK had just added his name to that list. The cruel circus of American politics has a way of exposing a candidate's inner self, particularly of congressional campaigns, where the battle is fought up close and on one's home turf.

36:39 Allen Dulles briefly threw himself into the political arena in August of 1938 when he declared himself a candidate in the Republican primary in Manhattan's Upper East Side. Like Foster, who later ran a similarly ill-fated campaign for U.S. Senate, Allen had a nuanced feel for power, but not for politics. The brothers were

37:04 imbued with a sense of public service, but in their minds, democracy was something to be saved from the demos. Democracy works only if so-called intelligent people make it work, Allen said. You can't sit back and let democracy run itself. Dulles' partisan sensibilities did not play well in the campaign, even in posh Republican Upper East Side. During the race, he put

37:35 together all of the right elements, like a corporate lawyer meticulously building his case. He lined up Elihu Root Jr., the son of Teddy Roosevelt's Secretary of State, who served as his campaign chairman. He secured endorsements from all of the New York papers, including the Times and Herald Tribune. He opened up a campaign office in Belmont Plaza Hotel. Clover joined him.

38:06 He volunteered for charities. But there was no passion in Dulles' campaign. His speeches were stilted and his debate for performance was lawyerly. The month-long primary campaign pitted Dulles against the incumbent, a conservative Democrat congressman named John J. O'Connor.

38:28 who had cross-filed in the Republican primary after President Roosevelt announced his intention to purge O'Connor as a traitor in the New Deal. During the brief race, Dulles tried to carefully parse his attacks on the popular president, expressing sympathy for FDR's broad social aims, while denouncing his dictatorial attitude.

38:52 But O'Connor, who had established himself as one of the more effective opponents of the New Deal in Congress, came across much more muscular. When the battle-scar political warhorse turned his invective on Dulles, accusing him of being a sellout to his country, to international interests, to Wall Street like J.P. Morgan, Dulles could only mutter a feeble reply.

39:21 On election day, September 21st, Dulles went down with a thumping defeat, losing the Republican nomination in a 3-2 margin to a man who did not even belong to the party. That's gross. Dulles promptly returned to the world of discrete power that he knew best, never again subjecting himself to the political process. On the surface, JFK seemed similarly unsuited for the...

39:51 political arena. Privileged, reserved, and physically frail, young JFK was a far cry from his glad-handing political forebears, such as his maternal grandfather, John Honeyfritz Fitzgerald, the perennial Boston politician who wooed voters with his gift of song and blarney. Kennedy confided to friends over dinner, I'm not a political type.

40:19 In contrast to his grandfather, who wanted to talk to everybody, Kennedy said he'd rather read a book. When he made his political debut in 1946 running for Congress from the Boston-Cambridge 11th District, the 28-year-old Kennedy was far from a shoo-in, despite his father's wealth and connections. The sprawling district encompassed a slew of tough Irish and Italian working-class neighborhoods and slums.

40:49 He was a Harvard-educated candidate and seemed too aloof to run with that pack. Joe Kennedy tried to outfit his son with the best campaign brain trust money could buy, but JFK preferred to work with the young war veterans like himself. Jack Kennedy sought out Dave Powers, an Air Force veteran who had grown up scruffy Irish Catholic Charlestown as a political wise guy.

41:19 the son of a dock worker who had died when Powers was two, leaving his widow and eight children, the political operator knew the dreams and heartaches of the families crowded into the neighborhoods. When Kennedy first approached him in Charlestown's tavern to ask him to join the campaign, Powers said no. A millionaire's son running for Congress in a shot-and-beer district? No way. Kennedy didn't seem cut out for the Boston...

41:46 sprawling politics. In fact, the young man who would soon be diagnosed with Addison disease and who was told that he would not live past 45 did not seem long for this world. As the 1946 campaign got underway, Kennedy was plagued with severe back and abdominal distress, and he suffered ever since. He had malaria when he was in the South Pacific.

42:19 He was described by Powers as aggressively shy. Even after Powers turned him down over drinks, Kennedy kept dogging him, showing up a few nights later at his family's three-decker flat, peppering with questions. Well, if you were helping me, what would you do here or there? A few days later, when Kennedy invited him to come to his first campaign appearance, Dave Powers gave in to his political destiny.

42:47 JFK was addressing a group of gold star mothers, women who had lost sons in the war at Charlestown American Legion Hall. As Kennedy began to speak, a hush fell over the crowd. Power stood listening in the back of the room. And at first, the political operator who was used to these types of oratory cringed at what he was hearing. The young candidate was painfully nervous, stuttering. And then it happened.

43:18 Kennedy, whose own family had lost their firstborn son, Joseph Patrick Kennedy Jr., in the final days of the war found his voice. I was getting kind of nervous, Powers would say years later. And then Jack looked out at all of those women. I think I know how you feel because my mother is a gold star mother too. And all of the years I've been in politics.

43:44 There was nothing like the reaction he received. He immediately was surrounded by all of these Charlestown's mothers. And in the background, I could hear them saying, he reminds me of my own son. It was overwhelming. Powers finally gave in. JFK reached out his hand and said, then you will be with me. And I shook his hand and I was with him until the day in Dallas.

44:16 Kennedy went on to win the Democrat primary and the general election by landslides. He spent the rest of his life in politics, a profession he regarded as honorable, at which he displayed a unique talent. Even if he never felt entirely comfortable in that position, he prepared to run for president. He expressed hope that the country was ready for a new style of politics.

44:43 You didn't have to be a back-slapping happy warrior like Hubert Humphrey, a leading rival for the Democrat nomination in 1960. I just don't think you have to have that type of personality, JFK said. Every great life in politics had a theme. With JFK, it was his horror of war and the endless suffering it brings. He felt it in a way most politicians, untouched by the savagery,

45:13 couldn't all war is stupid kennedy had written home as a navy lieutenant where he had nearly lost his own life when his pt boat was carved in half by a japanese destroyer the death death of his older brother only confirmed his deep disgust of war he was very close to my brother joe and it was a devastating loss

45:42 Senator Edwards Kennedy would later say. JFK's youngest brother said near the end of his life, he was a very different person when he came back from the war. I think this burned inside of him. Alan Dulles had also felt a personal impact of war when his son was irreparably damaged in Korea, but his own family tragedy provoked no deep agonizing feelings in Dulles.

46:12 because he's a devil. The spymaster liked to talk and boast about his ability to dispatch men, including his own loyal agents, to their death. In contrast, during his years in the White House, Kennedy continually wrestled to avoid bloodshed, again and again defeating belligerent counsel from his national security advisors. Dulles came to see this as a weakness, while Kennedy would conclude that his CIA director

46:41 was a man of the past, recklessly provoking Cold War confrontations when the world was crying for a new vision. Though it was largely hidden from the public, the duel between the Kennedy and Dulles would define deep politics in the 1960s. Dulles first met Kennedy in the winter of 1954 while JFK was at his family beach home in Florida, in Palm Beach. He had just had back surgery.

47:10 The freshman senator from Massachusetts, who had not yet made much of a political mark, did not strike the graying Washington power fixture as a sort of man with whom he would have a crossword with. Kennedy was so enfeebled from his latest surgery, they had put him in a coma and administered his last rites because they weren't sure he was going to survive.

47:39 From an early age, Kennedy had been afflicted with multiple different illnesses and suffered a lot of pain. In October 53, while relaxing on Cape Cod after their wedding, Kennedy recited his favorite poem to Jacqueline. That poem was written by Alan Seeger, the uncle of folk singer Pete Seeger. And I'm not going to read it, but...

48:11 It's kind of a weird poem because it talks about dying. Dulles was a frequent house guest of the Kennedy's Palm Beach neighbors, Charles and Jane Wrightsman. Charlie Wrightsman was a globetrotting oil millionaire who had met his younger wife when he was pushing 50 and she was 24. She was a model of swimsuits in department stores.

48:40 Under his tutelage, Jane Reitzman grew to be a world-renowned art collector. I would like to say I'm shocked, but I'm not. She became also a high society hostess that would mentor Jackie Kennedy in her first lady duties. Charlie Reitzman was a blunt former oil wildcatter who ruggedly Republican values were right out of the page.

49:11 of iron ran right reitzman and dallas who served as the oil man's attorney when he worked at sullivan and cromwell forged a tight beneficial friendship reitzman generously shared his lavish lifestyle with dallas inviting him to frequent winter retreats in palm beach among all of his glamorous art collection he even flew him

49:40 on his personal aircraft, as well as took him on yachting expeditions. Jane and I are leaving to Paris on Thursday. He wrote Dulles, please join us. Dulles in turn opened doors for rights men in far-flung oil capitals like Baghdad and Tripoli, because the CIA has never worked for the American government. He provided him with introductions.

50:11 Two ambassadors, government officials, shakes. The oil man made sure that the spy chief was kept in the loop and brought back intelligence for him. The mere mention of Reitzman recalled Mary Bancroft, his girlfriend, Alan Dulles' girlfriend, was apt to set off one of those fights between Dulles and his wife. Clover didn't necessarily care for him. Clover blamed Reitzman.

50:42 Clover is Allen Dulles' wife, for bringing out her husband's reprehensible characteristics. You know, like for all of the ritzy stuff. It was Reitzman who introduced the Dulleses to young JFK. Charlie Reitzman was no fan of the new dealer Joe Kennedy, but he and his wife found themselves charmed by Jack and Jackie.

51:09 who seemed to have an air of American royalty. Years later, after JFK was dead, Dulles recalled the day in early 1954 when he met JFK. Invited by Joe Kennedy to drop by the family's Palm Beach home while they were staying with the rights men, Dulles first came upon JFK recovering. As the two men discussed various international hotspots, JFK would get up from time to time to stretch. On another occasion, JFK was invited to dinner.

51:39 at the Reitzman's house with both Dulles brothers in attendance. JFK was quite a modest man in those days, recalled the CIA chief. I remember my brother was there, and I don't say Kennedy was overawed, but he was very respectful. Thus began a relationship that Dulles regarded as tutorial in educating the promising young man who had the proper regard for his elders.

52:07 He was always trying to get information, I don't mean secrets of that kind, just to make sure he was informed. He wanted my views. He asked my brother his views. If Dulles' attitude towards young Kennedy was condescending, his wife was awed. Clover's first real opportunity to become acquainted with JFK was in August of 55. She and Allen were vacationing with the rights men on the beach in southern France. They were sitting in a cabana.

52:38 But the most memorable occasion she wrote took place when they went to dinner with the Kennedy clan. They were on holiday in France as well. Joe Kennedy's son, the senator, was there. He was 36. Actually, he was 38. But we're reading what she said. But looks no older than a college boy. Is nice looking and straightforward. Sincere, intelligent, attractive, and likable. And I haven't been so enthusiastic about anybody for ages.

53:08 The aging Dulles, who still regarded himself as something of a ladies' man, must have found his wife's schoolgirl crush on the young senator unnerving. But JFK brought out the motherly feelings in Clover. We talk of you, Clover, wrote Allen Jr. Later it goes on to about a letter, but it's saying that she basically fashioned JFK in place of her son.

53:40 The two Dulles brothers were slow to realize that if the young Senator Kennedy was their pupil, he was also increasingly rebellious one. Kennedy began questioning the rigid Cold War paradigm that dominated Washington's policymakers as early as 1951, when he undertook a fact-finding mission to Asia while he was still a congressman. His stopover in Vietnam, where the French colonial regime was struggling to put down Ho Chi Minh,

54:09 made a deep impression on Kennedy. When he landed in Saigon, the U.S. congressman and the prominent family name was immediately sworn by French officials. But he slipped away and met with diplomats and journalists. Saigon was a city on the edge when JFK arrived in October 51, with explosions rumbling in the distance, French agents whisking suspects off the street at night, and headless bodies being found floating in the river by the morning.

54:39 On the rooftop restaurant overlooking the Parisian-styled streets below, Kennedy met with an astute American embassy officer called Edmund Gullion. The diplomat told the inquisitive congressman that French would never win this war. He said that Ho Chi Minh, who had once worked as a baker at JFK's favorite Boston hotel at the Parker House,

55:07 who was inspired by the blazing ideals of the American Revolution, was seen as a national hero. He had awakened thousands of fellow Vietnamese that would rather die than live under French colonial rule. You guys will recall, we talked about when we discussed Vietnam a long time ago, that Ho Chi Minh had actually taken a document that was their Declaration of Independence modeled after ours that had...

55:36 He had help authoring by his OSS handlers during World War II to Paris because they did not want the French who had been kicked out by the Japanese back in Vietnam. And the Dulles brothers who were there basically told him to pound sand that the French was coming back and they were going to fight to their death to get the French colonial power out of their country. And JFK was told all of that.

56:08 By April 54, when Kennedy stood on the Senate floor and challenged the Eisenhower administration for supporting the doomed French war in Vietnam, he had become an informed critic of Western imperialism. Even as French headed towards its Waterloo at Dinh Binh Phu that spring, Eisenhower administration insisted that massive US military aid and firepower would save them. We all know it didn't, nor did it save us. But as Kennedy told the US Senate,

56:37 To pour money, material, and men into the jungles of Indochina would be a dangerously futile and self-destructive. The young senator had a much firmer grasp of reality than anybody in the Eisenhower administration. I am frankly of the belief that no amount of military assistance in Indochina can conquer an enemy which is everywhere at the same time.

57:02 an enemy of the people, which has the sympathy and covert support of the people. History proved him right. Kennedy had an instinctive sympathy for downtrodden subjects of imperial powers, one that was rooted in his Irish heritage. His political rhetoric often reverberated the extra passion when he addressed anything dealing with imperialism.

57:29 In July of 1957, Kennedy once more took a strong stand against French colonialism. This time, France's bloody war in Algeria. They had a massive independence movement going on, which again found Eisenhower administration on the wrong side of history. Rising on the Senate floor two days before America's Independence Day, this is what Kennedy said. This whole thing's a quote.

57:57 The most powerful single force in the world today is neither communism nor capitalism, neither the H-bomb nor the guided missile. It is man's eternal desire to be free and independent. The great enemy of this tremendous force of freedom is called, for want of a more precise term, imperialism. And today, that means Soviet imperialism, and whether we like it or not,

58:27 Western imperialism. Thus, the single most important test of American foreign policy today is how we meet the challenge of imperialism. What we do to further man's desire to be free. On this test more than any other, this nation shall be critically judged by the uncommitted millions of Asian and Africa and anxiously watched by the still hopeful lovers of freedom behind the Iron Curtain.

58:57 If we fail to meet the challenge of either Soviet or Western imperialism, then no amount of foreign aid, no aggrandizement of armaments, no new packs, no doctrine, or high-level conferences can prevent further setbacks to our course and our security, unquote.

59:17 Kennedy's speech was a bold challenge to Eisenhower-Dulles' worldview, which interpreted all international events through the prism of the Cold War and allowed no space for developing nations to pursue their own progress. Breaking from the Cold War orthodoxy that prevailed in the Democratic as well as Republican parties, JFK suggested that Soviet expansionism was not the only enemy of freedom.

59:44 Western imperialism had crushed legitimate aspirations of people as well. Kennedy's thinking about historical imperative of third world liberations was remarkably advanced. Even today, no nationally prominent leader in the United States would dare question the imperialistic policies.

1:00:04 that have led our country into one military nightmare after another. Kennedy understood that Washington's militant opposition to the world's revolutionary forces would only reap a bitter harvest. If the U.S. stifled legitimate forces of national self-determination, he said, then rising generations around the globe would be left with radicalism and feudalism, which is exactly what happened. Kennedy's Algeria speech was a political bombshell.

1:00:34 Ike sounded off about JFK's speech in a cabinet meeting, sourly commenting, quote, that's fine. Everybody likes independence. We can all make brilliant speeches, but these things are rather difficult problems. And maybe somebody ought to make a speech to remind the senator that they're not so easy, unquote. Eisenhower began referring after that time to JFK as the little bastard.

1:01:03 Meanwhile, Secretary Dulles icily told the press that if the senator from Massachusetts wanted to crusade about imperialism, maybe he should target the Soviet variety. You are free to talk about that all you want, but not Western imperialism. JFK brushed aside the Eisenhower-Dulles criticism as predictable Washington rhetoric.

1:01:27 Kennedy had little respect for Eisenhower, seeing him as a disengaged leader who would rather play golf with his millionaire cronies than confront the world's emerging new realities. Quote, I could understand if he played golf all the time with his old army friends, unquote, Kennedy told Arthur Schlesinger, but no man is less loyal to his old friends than Eisenhower. He is a terribly cold man. All of his golfing pals are rich men that he has met.

1:01:57 since 1945. As for Foster, Kennedy dismissed him as a aging pontificator who saw the world through slogans, godless communism, Soviet's master plan, all of that kind of rhetoric. While Kennedy's denunciation of French colonialism in Algeria brought sharp rebukes at home, even from the democratic standard bearers like Adelaide Stevenson, who called it terrible in the New York Times, which found the speech.

1:02:27 insufficiently delicate. It stirred hopes overseas, particularly in Africa, a continent swept by anti-colonialism tempest. Dignitaries from African countries began calling regularly on Kennedy at Capitol Hill, praising him for his courageous position on Algeria. In the words of an Angolian revolutionary, one of the senator's aides had to spend much of her time

1:02:57 trying to find housing in segregated Washington for the steady stream of African visitors. In the Senate office building, it was becoming the center of African aspiration. The Eisenhower administration remained a reactionary bastion. The president and his top advisors were convinced that the African people were not ready to take responsibility for their own affairs because they're too stupid. The book doesn't say that, but that's exactly what they thought.

1:03:27 And that any revolutionary mischief on the continent would only play into the communist hands. So they would overthrow them, pushing them into the communist hands. At one time, the National Security Council meeting, Vice President Nixon observed, quote, some of the people of Africa have been out of the trees for only 50 years, unquote. Maurice stands.

1:04:00 who would later serve as Nixon's Commerce Secretary, recorded that statement. He replied that he had the impression that many Africans still belonged in trees. The president did nothing to elevate the discussion, remarking with assurance that Africa, man's emotions still have control over his intelligence. Eisenhower said that.

1:04:29 Eisenhower also expressed resentment when he was invited to those N-words by which he meant African dignitaries' diplomatic receptions. By the spring of 1959, the Eisenhower-Dulles regime was coming to an end. Foster was declining. He had colon cancer. On April 11th, Allen, who was vacationing at the Reitzman's Palm Beach house, was summoned to...

1:04:58 to his brother because he was basically dying and he wanted to hand in his resignation. Allen chartered a plane and flew to Augusta, Georgia, where of course Eisenhower was golfing at his little White House. Foster only had days, maybe hours to live and he knew it, Allen wrote. Speech came hard to him. I saw him.

1:05:26 I saw there was something very special he wished to tell me. Every word of what he said was a struggle. Foster's last testament was recorded by Allen, was a remarkable war cry, undimmed by pain or fog of death. It was a gift of forged steel to his brother. Foster told his younger brother, America was facing no ordinary antagonist. The Soviets sought not a place in the sun, but the sun itself.

1:05:57 Their objective was the world. Somehow the American people must be brought to understand the issues, their responsibility, and the need for American leadership anywhere, maybe everywhere in the world. This is what my brother said to me on May Day. It was his last message to me, said Alan Dulles. To defeat communism and to project U.S. power everywhere in the world, Alan Dulles was determined to pursue his brother's holy war. But with Foster buried,

1:06:26 The younger Dulles had lost his principal ally. Allen had never been as close to Eisenhower as John Foster. The president had given his CIA director a long leash, but he never felt fully comfortable with his judgments. The relationship between the two men would sharply fracture in May of 1960 when a high-flying U-2 spy plane operated by the CIA was shot down in the Soviet Union. And why was that done?

1:06:56 And when was it done? Oh, on the eve of the Khrushchev-Eisenhower's conference to sabotage it. Eisenhower was agonizingly aware of allowing the U-2 spy missions over Soviet territory. He had given them on-again, off-again approval for the surveillance, but Dulles had repeatedly assured Eisenhower there was no way they could be shot down.

1:07:28 On May 1st, the president found out that the CIA director's assurance was hollow when a Soviet missile slammed into the U-2 plane flying over Russia's Ural Mountains, resulting in the downing of the aircraft and the capture of CIA pilot Francis Gary Powers. The flight on the eve of the Paris summit seemed so badly timed and planned that at least one close observer

1:07:56 Colonel Prouty suspected that the CIA had intentionally provoked the incident in order to ruin the peace conference. Everybody thinks that, I think. Prouty had served as a liaison officer between the Pentagon and CIA and was summoned by Dulles whenever CIA spy flights were in trouble. He later wrote that the U-2 shutdown was a most unusual event that grew out of the tremendous underground struggle of peacemakers.

1:08:27 John Eisenhower, who was generally reluctant to give his father advice, was so disturbed by the deceitful way Dulles handled the U2 affair that he urged Ike to fire him. The president erupted at his son, yelling at the top of his voice for me to drop dead. So Eisenhower's son is working as an aid to Eisenhower in the White House. And he saw crystal clear that Alan Dulles

1:08:54 had basically staged this entire thing and said that he should be fired. What did I do? He yelled at his son, told him to drop dead. The younger Eisenhower since his father rage came from the realization that he should have fired Dulles a long time ago. The president told White House aides, Andrew Goodpaster and Gordon Gray, that he never wanted to see Alan Dulles again. In the final days of his presidency, Eisenhower was presented with yet another.

1:09:26 set of recommendations for getting Alan Dulles' CIA under control. This time, the president's board of consultants on foreign intelligence activities, which urged the spy agency to de-emphasize the cloak and dagger adventures of which Dulles was so fond, but it was far too late for Eisenhower to do anything about his spymaster and the parallel government that he seemed to run. I tried, Ike told Gray, I cannot change Alan Dulles, nor did he warn JFK.

1:09:55 About Allen Dulles, at a meeting of the National Security Advisors convened in the White House to consider panel reforms, Dulles brushed aside any suggestion that his CIA was flawed. It would be a folly for him to delegate any responsibility for running the agency. Without his leadership, it would be a ship without any oars.

1:10:20 Dulles' display of arrogance at last triggered an explosive reaction from Eisenhower. He had delegated far too much of his presidency to the Dulles brothers, and he suspected that history would not be kind to him. It shouldn't be. In a scalding tone, the president told Dulles that the CIA was badly organized and badly ran, and the commander-in-chief, he had been utterly powerless to do anything about it. Despite one blue-ribbon presidential task force after another, he would leave the next presidency.

1:10:49 A quote unquote legacy of ashes. Dulles had little reason to take Eisenhower words to heart. He had already ensured that he was going to be JFK's CIA director. And that's the conclusion of today. Anyone? Comments? Go ahead, SR. Thank you, Colonel. And thank everyone for being here on.

1:11:27 rumble and spaces and anybody that's trying to dig out i sympathize with you because i'm doing it myself but that aside uh i was when we opened with castro and what he was doing in uh harlem as well as his un speech he declared himself to be a marxist leninist communist okay and if i take a look at

1:11:59 Castro's rule, and even today, Marxism and Leninism are tied together, but I never saw anything that Castro did or anybody who's leading Cuba today to move towards communism. So I'm not saying, and I don't think this book is saying that Castro was good, but Castro, like,

1:12:27 all of these players in this foreign policy or foreign countries were physically, mentally, psychologically pushed into the communist camp because they refused to conform with the U.S. dictates in allowing their resources to be plundered.

1:12:57 That's a point that's not even, you can't even argue against that. It was done in every country that we've looked at. If you were not willing to bend the knee, your only recourse at the time, because you couldn't trade with China. China was still a third world country as well. The only large entity that had the ability.

1:13:26 to defy the dictates of this oligarchical system was the Soviet Union because they didn't give a shit. And pushing countries that all they wanted was, if Cuba wanted to experiment with that, it's a fucking island. Who gives a shit? If they wanted to be Marxist,

1:13:54 it'll implode. If what they say economically about these programs is in fact true, they'll implode. And you have the biggest naval armada, you can certainly make sure that no weapons get there, which is why I'm really suspect about the, not that there wasn't Soviet weapons there, but

1:14:23 They knew every single thing that was coming and going out of that island. I think that that was allowed to happen intelligence-wise, so they have yet another reason to destabilize the United States and JFK into another blunder. But that aside, in Chile,

1:14:48 It was not until he picked up the phone after blockade, after blockade, make the economy scream, they're starving all of the people. They bought the newspaper. They're just every attack from every angle that Salvador Allende picked up the phone and said, I need help. The same thing happened with Patrice Lumumba. He was not a communist. I mean, he was educated all over the place.

1:15:18 He came to America and tried to make a deal with us. And we were not interested because he wanted to use his own resources for his own people. And so you just see this playing out over and same thing with Ho Chi Minh. Ho Chi Minh loved America. He actually lived here. He loved America, but he was not going to be a colony to the French. He wasn't going to allow America to take over Vietnam.

1:15:49 And by doing that, you push people into the only other entity that has weaponry and resources to support the nationalist. And by them reaching out for that support, they get labeled a communist. And I'm just, for the life of me, can't figure out why not just let the communist fail. It was because they were afraid they would succeed.

1:16:17 They were afraid that there's going to be an alternative to the capitalist imperialist giant that people could potentially thrive in. I'm not a communist. I don't think that's a great way of doing things. But why not let it fail? Then you have the documentation, same way with the Soviet Union. Did it eventually fail? Hell yes, it did, because it's dumb. But you can do that.

1:16:45 But that's not what they wanted. They wanted control over everything. Illini, go ahead. Hey, Colonel. Yeah, first off, what an interesting chapter. The thing that really struck me is the convergence of all of these different people kind of coming together around Fidel Castro, which, of course, later becomes, I mean.

1:17:13 This chapter must have derived a lot of its information from the House Select Committee on Assassination. Yes. Because you've got, you know, Mayhew there. Yes. Who later gets fingered in, you know, some of the assassination of Kennedy. You've got Johnny Roselli. You've got Nixon kind of in the background, who later has an October 8th.

1:17:40 1971 conversation with the head of the CIA, Richard Helms, where he asks him, you know, what was that whole Bay of Pigs thing? Who shot John? You know, give me the documents. Give me all the documents that you have on that whole Bay of Pigs thing and who shot John. And then kind of organizing all of this from the CIA side, at the very top of it, you have Alan Dulles.

1:18:10 You know, if Talbot were willing to be as speculative as Len Kolodny or Jim Hoogan was about how Watergate really played out and who was really behind all of that, you kind of have this very sketchy, very circumstantial case as to who you know the whole kingpin.

1:18:38 But behind, you know, the quote unquote men who shot Kennedy. Yes. Might have been. You know, Ellen Dulles, I think, lived to 1969. I don't necessarily know everything that was going on with all of that. But you certainly have people who were, you know, on the National Security Council who certainly had inside information about Dulles' behavior. Yes.

1:19:07 who had some deep and disturbing questions about what happened in Dallas. Yes. I find that fascinating. One last question. I'm going to hold it for now, but at some point are we going to entertain current events in Minneapolis? Sure, go ahead. Okay. You've obviously taken a look at the whole Cam Higby thing and all those links there.

1:19:39 I guess the first question is, is like, what do you make of all of it? Or is it kind of too early to assess things? So my initial take, because if you guys remember, and I did a long post this morning, did you get to see my Albert Einstein Institute post this morning? I missed it. No, that's fine. Because I don't mind talking about it. A long time ago, a couple of years ago,

1:20:10 maybe even more than that. We came across in looking at all of the, when we were doing our around the world tour of all of these CIA orchestrated coups, we came across Albert Einstein Institute. It kept coming up in some of the more recent coups, like in Georgia, in...

1:20:37 Ukraine, both in, as early as 2004. It came up in Venezuela. And so I spent probably a week on their webpage. They had a special forces colonel that Gene Sharp, who founded the Albert Einstein Institute, hired to create, under the guise of

1:21:05 peaceful, and I'm using air quotes, big, big air quotes, peaceful resistance as street agitators. And it kind of the modern day Gladio people minus assassin training. And what they did was they were, the money coming in to the Albert Einstein is all of the typical CIA.

1:21:32 the American Institute for Peace, the USAID, the International Republican Institute, not the Democrat one. And they were going around doing training. There's a slew of videos that are on that website. In these videos, and I watched almost every one of them, the Gene Sharp and this Colonel Calbee was bragging.

1:22:01 They did presentations about how to orchestrate what just happened in Minneapolis, how to create insurgents and people that do just exactly what is being articulated. Those guides that are going around, they're all done by, those are special forces guides on how to conduct an insurgency.

1:22:27 just like Calvi presented to all of these young people all over the world. And then one of the videos, like the fourth one I watched, had some of the people that had led these revolution insurgent efforts in their home countries, bragging about how they did it. It had videos of them walking around the streets at meetings doing it.

1:22:52 how they conducted the meetings. And you're seeing some of these videos online about internal meetings and how they're training tactics of how to approach law enforcement and that type of thing. They're off of those videos. And so my assessment of what is going on is they brought that home. They have...

1:23:22 taught all of these people how to be insurgents in the United States. They are running a coup operation. Those people that you see out there that have been trained are insurgents. And they're not protesters. They're not rioters. They are trained insurgents operators that are there to provoke a civil war.

1:23:48 They do it under the guise of democracy and peaceful resistance and all this other bullshit. That's not why they're there. They are there to provoke a violent response that will damage the credibility of the government. You saw it play out in Ukraine both times. And when you have that type of chaos in the street, all it will take is a bomb.

1:24:18 to go off and multiple people will be injured. And it will be basically, the government will be accused of provoking it and they use that for propaganda. And then people psychologically just want the chaos to stop. And if that means overthrowing the Trump government, that's fine. We just want it to go away.

1:24:41 And that's what they look for. They want that psychological effect, which is why they primarily use women in these efforts. Because anytime you touch a woman, and not to mention the fact that most of these women don't look like women, number one. And number two, almost every one of these militant guys have videos of them in dresses. So it's just the craziest thing. But every piece of this,

1:25:10 is visibly documented. The handbooks are even on their website on how the whole thing operates. And it was funded by the Ford Foundation, George Soros, the Albert Einstein Institute I'm talking about, the IRI, which is part of National Endowment for Democracy, which Congress just refunded, and all of those things. So that's what we're seeing playing out. It is an insurgency operation.

1:25:40 Okay, I definitely agree with you. My knowledge of strategy of tension is more primitive, but you can identify all these people going around being quote-unquote legal observers, being funded by the Soros-backed National Lawyers Guild to do all of this. Yes. That's clearly strategy of tension. Go ahead.

1:26:04 Yes, we found the National Lawyers Guild in multiple operations as well. I think I've posted your Albert Einstein post from 10 hours ago to the nest. Yeah. The other thing that I put up that's based on my more rudimentary understanding of the Pinochet coup was a CIA memo from September of 1970 explaining how psychological warfare works.

1:26:32 to create coup conditions, here's what I'm concerned about and what the strategy is. Ultimately, their goal is to make propaganda obviously sharper and more provocative, but then public and provocative rallies should be held, growing in size and intensity, until the communists must react.

1:26:57 It seems like – And by communist, they don't mean communist. They mean the government. They mean Allende. And in this case, if you go off of this more rudimentary 1970 model of it, they're obviously trying to have all these demonstrations, and they're trying to get Trump to react and then to use that as a big fuck-up. I'm sorry. Pardon my language. No, that's fine.

1:27:27 Question is, how do we, I mean, number one, you know, when people are talking about the Insurrection Act, you know, should we be urging, you know, maybe a more cautious approach? And what's the counter strategy for this? How do, like, number one, obviously, Cam Higbee.

1:27:47 is doing God's work, exposing all the nonsense going on. There's a lot of different citizen journalists on the ground who are exposing the whole thing. I think that's helping, but what should people who don't want to have a coup, who want to maintain the constitutional republic, what should we be urging everybody in these big public spaces to be doing?

1:28:17 Should we be basically saying, hey, we need to expose this in front – we need to have a civil racketeering hearing before we invoke the Insurrection Act? Or what should Trump be trying to do if he's got time? Well, I'm not going to offer – I believe there is a strategy to counter what is going on. I don't think these people just randomly showed up there.

1:28:46 There's an entire team that seems to be very well connected that are working real time on social media, providing us with information. And to your point, going back to the Pinochet CIA coup of Allende, if you recall, when we studied that one specifically, and I know you know this,

1:29:14 Who did they target? Do you remember the CIA creating an entire campaign for the females, the women, the stay-at-home moms? The women would show up in their BMWs and their Mercedes to protest, I think was one quote that I heard. Well, what they did was the CIA wanted the women in the streets banging pots.

1:29:47 They mobilized the women with a propaganda campaign to get them in the streets as foot soldiers. That was one of their tactics, banging on pots. That is exactly what you're seeing here, is the women being recruited to be the face of this effort. So I think I differ from you.

1:30:15 The Insurrection Act has been used multiple times throughout our history for much less than what we're seeing today. I believe that there is a point that could approach the use of that. And honestly, I believe that any of our previous...

1:30:44 presidents, who I have no faith in at all, by the way, would have already done it. I think there is a strategic reason why it's not being done. I think they're trying to bait him into doing that. And the one thing that I know more than anything else is Trump does not take their bait. He baits them in to his own trap.

1:31:10 I'm not going to encourage the Insurrection Act one way or the other. I think there's a strategic reason why it hasn't been invoked because there has been much less mayhem in our past when it has been used. So there's a reason why it isn't being used. And I am in the camp of that they have gamed out this,

1:31:41 as it's happening and they're going to make the right choice to do. Just for those of you who don't know, the gaming, and I don't mean that as it's a game, it's not a game, but there are computer systems. I used them when I was at Air War College. I saw them being used in CENTCOM during the war.

1:32:10 after 9-11. There are like 10 steps of a tree of options that are provided to warfighters. This is an insurgent war that is going on in the United States right now, a very well-funded insurgency war.

1:32:37 They are using those same modeling systems to make decisions on. And I retired in 2008. Those modeling systems are a thousand times better than what we had. And I will tell you firsthand, what we had when I left was amazing. It was mind-boggling amazing. One of the projects you do at Air War College,

1:33:07 is they put you, like you guys know, historically, I was in aircraft maintenance and personnel. They put you in a completely different functional capacity. I was an intel officer during this game. That's the only time I've ever pretended to be an intel officer in my entire life. And you have...

1:33:30 the outputs of every decision that the commander makes, and you as the staff officer are gathering up the inputs to provide to him, he makes the decisions, they get locked in, and then you get outcomes again on what those decisions led to. It's simply amazing. That was my first exposure to it in that kind of a scenario. I mean, I had been at CENTCOM.

1:34:00 just saw the products. I didn't actually see the process and I didn't get to pretend to be an intel officer. I just was on the HR. And for those of you who don't know, in wartime, the personnel function becomes basically the casualty function. Your job is to get people identified for deployment, equipped for deployment, and then get them on airplanes and stuff like that.

1:34:28 to report casualties. That was what my wartime role is. I actually sat on what they called the commander's action team, the CAT, in that function to prepare mortuary reports and stuff like that. So I was completely out of my element when I got to Air War College and pretending to be an intel officer in that process. But it was like dazzling to me to be on the inside of something like that.

1:34:57 I feel very confident with the team that President Trump put together to be able to deal with this. I know that's a long-winded answer, but. That's reassuring. The only other thing, you know, that I'm looking at with all of this is, you know, it's kind of funny how Talbot, you know, traces the whole crimson thread.

1:35:22 He doesn't trace the modern-day CIA and Soros and these strategy attention networks that are getting run by Arabella advisors and all these different organizations, but he does trace the Crimson Thread all the way from the CIA, the Dulles brothers, back to Reinhard Galen.

1:35:48 Their betrayal of the country during World War II, the Dulles's, Nixon's covering for that. They trace it all the way back. I'll bet you this probably goes back to the Sturmabteilung and the brown shirts. Oh, most definitely. The one thing that's in the back of my head right now is, okay.

1:36:14 We all know what happened to the brown shirts after they became a political liability during the Night of the Long Knives. Yes, they murdered them all. I wonder when – I'm sure that the playbook for dealing with that is going to be much –

1:36:34 better concealed today in the same covert way that they were able to conceal that this is a big brown shirt operation um so the best thing that could happen to these militant insurgents is for them to get arrested yeah i mean i mean that that's kind of my take too we need to get a lot of different people into the witness protection program and we need to kind of you know i i i'm worried about

1:37:02 What could happen next year now that it's a political liability? Because, to your point, in every one of these scenarios that we've researched, the people that were part of the, if it was successful, they just embedded the insurgents into the future government. When it was unsuccessful, they eliminated them.

1:37:32 They brought them back to the United States. There's no United States to bring them back to. So the best thing that could happen to any of the people that are out there acting as insurgents in the United States is for them to be arrested and jailed. Because that's probably, and although you're not safe in our jail system, but they're probably a lot more safer there.

1:38:01 than they would be running around with inside information as to what their role was in it, especially the higher ups. The cells are pretty autonomous and a lot of the people in the cells don't know what the hierarchy is, but the higher up in that hierarchy you are, the greater risk in the aftermath you will be. And we saw, we've seen repeatedly

1:38:30 what happens to the quote-unquote witnesses um in all of these regime change operations inside the united states they're eliminated i mean roselli um turned up in a barrel chopped up so there were a couple of assassinations right before witnesses were supposed to testify to the hsc a couple

1:38:53 A couple? It wasn't just Roselli. There was another mafia guy, too. No, there's a whole ton of them. A whole bunch of people died in 75, 76, if I recall correctly. Yes. Yeah. Megan, go ahead. You know, one thing in all these discussions, I'm wondering if President Trump isn't sitting back and waiting for the good people.

1:39:25 And when I say good people, I mean people with a conscience rise up and fight for their freedom. Now, I'm not advocating for violence. Do not get me wrong whatsoever on that. But this harkens back to, say, around 1775. At that time, there was no government to step in and fight for the freedoms that.

1:39:56 our forefathers wished for. And seriously, I'm glad they did what they did. So I get really irritated when I hear all this talk about, well, when's the president going to do this? When's DHS going to do this? When is it? On and on and on. What about the people that live in the damn city? I mean, I know it's 10 degrees outside and your poor little digits are going to get froze, but.

1:40:27 Somebody has to go out there. I mean, we had this happen over the summer. Biker showed up. Antifa disappeared with a quickness and hurry ups. That's the kind of stuff that needs to happen. No violence. Just showing them that, hey, we're not going to take this crap anymore because here's the problem. Yeah. But here's the problem that you have. And this is the reason why they pick these particular cities. You show up.

1:40:52 In Portland, they arrested you. They arrested you because you had a flag on your shirt. They arrested you because you were carrying a flag. They arrested you because people pointed out that you didn't belong there. These police forces in these cities are part of the operation. They are insurgents themselves with a weapon and a badge. There's a friend of mine, they don't,

1:41:20 I mean, they live about an hour outside of Minneapolis and they're all of the same mind. It's a trap for them. The governor is in on it. The lieutenant governor is in on it. The people on the council are in on it. This is a trap to anybody that would go there. Now, to your point, I have said this for the last...

1:41:50 I don't say it often, but if someone provides me an open door, I walk into it. And I just did with General Flynn. There are people that have large audiences that around the country, they have followers on X that if they had a day of unity or a patriot day of people just

1:42:18 peacefully asking for permits to go in front of their city hall or whatever to all over the United States to show their support for the government and the deportation of, you know, have like maybe five points. This is what we support. I think that morale wise would do an amazing thing.

1:42:45 I would never advocate for anyone to go into what I view as a trap with a corrupt system. But there are other avenues of expressing what you're suggesting. And I don't know why that doesn't happen. They have the resources. They have the audience to do that. They have the reach.

1:43:14 to do it. They have the network because they've organized events all over the United States. So they have the mechanism to do that. You and I couldn't do that. We don't have a big enough reach, but they don't. And I don't understand why they don't. And I think that would be a huge morale boost on the white hat side of this to let people know that we're out there.

1:43:44 not the provocateurs and not all of the other people that try to hijack stuff, but just regular American patriots. But because then I don't think people would feel helpless or not part of the fight. It gives them something that they can do and show of support of President Trump. And I mean, I certainly would be there, but.

1:44:14 Illini, go ahead. To respond to Megan Nukes, I can give one example from history, which was John Brown. He runs this raid on Harper's Ferry. The Southerners call him a terrorist. They have a point. They arrest him. They catch him. They put him on trial. They convict him. He gives his sentencing speech. And all the newspaper reporters,

1:44:44 you know, reported, you know, in that moment was that, you know, the entire trial was very respectful, number one. And number two, that, you know, as all these Southerners who completely hated this guy, you know, big military culture, you know, a lot of fighting back in there. As he's speaking, as he's giving his, you know, sentencing speech, you could have heard a pin drop in there. And I think they sensed

1:45:13 the same tension that we do, which is that nobody wants to hand the other side the propaganda victory of crossing over the line and doing it in a way that might help the other side. And I think that's really the risk. The risk, and it's a big risk.

1:45:42 You have to wait for the other side to mess it up. Well said. SR, go ahead. Thank you, Colonel. To add a point to Mega's suggestion here, the problem I have with it is what you're going to see if it's just the city involved.

1:46:08 What you're going to see is all of a sudden they're going to turn the tables and they're going to say, oh, you're white supremacist. You're this, you're that, the other. The entire population has already been propagandized with that. And I don't know, even with our reach and everybody else's, that we have gotten enough people to wake up to what these people are really doing. That's my problem with it. Other than that.

1:46:41 I got to trust you. Go ahead. Yeah, I think there's enough people that it would make a difference. But the not to physically go there. Megan, go ahead. OK, I think everyone here is missing my point. If you're a husband and wife and you have an argument and it's pretty heated, what's the last thing on the planet you want anyone to do?

1:47:15 Outside influence. And that's my point. It isn't the outside people that, yeah, we're all screaming, do this, do that, do this, do that. Why are the people in that community not? I just told you. Well, what I'm saying is, though, it sounds like people are taking it that I want a confrontation.

1:47:42 What about these people going in and confronting the chief of police, confronting the mayor? The only thing you ever see is them up on a soapbox speaking to MSM. You don't hear anybody going in there and saying, look, dude, if you don't do what needs to get done, you're going to get the hammer dropped on you.

1:48:08 But they're not because there's corrupt vote. They're not in there because people voted them in. They're in there because of backroom deals. Just take the fraud. The people in, the good people in the government at the state level exposed that fraud 10 years ago. It went nowhere. The people.

1:48:38 have sought redress of their government, both at the state level in Minnesota and at the city level in Minnesota. It goes nowhere. That's why they import foreigners and terrorists into their cities. Because if you get too vocal and too out of line, they'll just have one of them either kidnap your kid.

1:49:06 give you death threats or whatever. There is so much to this. I mean, they just killed one of the congressmen, the state congresswoman, for voting to stop funding illegal aliens' health care. They killed her. They assassinated her. Well, I'm glad that our forefathers

1:49:36 didn't relent to this kind of shenanigans. Because if they hadn't, we wouldn't be in America today, would we? Those people are overwhelmed right now because the federal government stood by and allowed their city to be inundated with foreigners, with terrorists, with drug traffickers. It's being addressed right now.

1:50:04 They are inside of a corrupt system that they are rightfully afraid of. I'm not saying I would do things the same way they're doing it, but I also am not going to stand in judgment of living in that type of an insurgency situation. I can't even begin to tell you.

1:50:36 how I would react in that situation. Probably because it'd get me in trouble. But anyway, I understand your frustration, but I also understand reality too. I've read so many stories about how these operations work and the terror of anyone that steps out of line, the things that happen to them. So I certainly understand.

1:51:05 where they're at. And they've lived with this now over 10 years of being inundated and had, no matter who cried out, no matter how much fraud they found, no matter what, they got zero traction. And they just had one of their congressional members that had the backbone to stand up against the system and do the right thing assassinated. Illini, go ahead. Colonel, I mean, the question about outside influence,

1:51:34 though, at least outside international influence. I mean, that's the one that has me worried. If this is purely a domestic thing, Trump's going to be able to win it. Where I'm more concerned, even if it's a NATO thing, I think Trump can probably win this. It'll be a little bit more work. Where I'm concerned about is, you know...

1:52:01 There is talk. I'm trying to remember this guy's name. There was this guy who was affiliated with the CCP who was also helping to organize some of these protests. And then, of course, you got Tim Waltz, you know, who did his honeymoon in China. Right. You know, is the risk that, OK, you know, China obviously has intelligence and they're aware of this whole system.

1:52:30 Are they going to try to basically plug in and replace the old Rockefeller, Vatican Bank, London, Tel Aviv network, along with Reinhard Galen and the BND? Are they going to try to replace that network with them at the top running these different cells?

1:53:00 Well, I think that's why you just saw a lot of recent changes in China. I'm very much of the mind that every country leading up to the Trump administration had its own deep state. And I think all of those people, I mean, we certainly saw it happen in Saudi Arabia during Trump's first term. I think all of those...

1:53:29 You see it in the second term with the arrangement that was created with Qatar. I think all of those dynamics are in play here. I think there's, anytime there's one of these operations, there are outside influence, meaning foreign.

1:53:58 But the heart of these operations has always been ran by U.S. in conjunction with others. They kind of had the head seat at the table. And would some of the people in that collective ask for foreign assistance? Sure.

1:54:27 that all of that stuff is being mapped as we speak. And I think that the appropriate response will be had because they're all collectively in this together. The international syndicate is called international for a reason. It's all being taken down and they all hate it. So there's certainly collective efforts to ensure.

1:54:56 That Trump does not get the House and Senate during the midterms and that he spends the last two years fighting impeachment. I'm sure that's part of their plan. And it is not just a U.S. operation. So why are you so mad? Go ahead. Okay. I wish you could have seen I was throwing up a whole bunch of 100 emojis to what you said. I completely agree with what you're saying.

1:55:26 The whole thing is pretty much by the book when it comes to the insurgency in Minnesota. I find it interesting that apparently Waltz has gone ahead and has talked to Donald Trump and is going to be going ahead and calling up the National Guard. So we'll see how that goes. It's also interesting that he wants the National Guard to wear fluorescent vests.

1:55:56 which is, I guess, just making sure that they stand out compared to other agents. Gee, I wonder why. And it seems that he's, well, I don't know how to put this other than birds are singing when it comes to Minnesota. And like you said, mapping out who and what and the flow of money.

1:56:27 right now and um we'll i'll put it out we're just going to see what happens because once the national guard gets there and put on their fluorescent fest um well they're already there they were handing out donuts and coffee oh fantastic i love donuts um not to not to the feds but to the um insurgents yeah just what i thought they would be doing is i

1:56:54 It sounds like they're there to go ahead and keep... I can't even say it. I was going to say keep the peace. We already can tell what side they're on. We'll see how that seems to flow out from here. Mapping things out. It seems like Tim Waltz is being a bird that's being caged right now.

1:57:24 willing to sing a few a few verses so to speak so we'll we'll see how that's going and i think something's going to be coming of that within the next what 72 hours maybe a couple weeks but we'll figure it out it's it's things happen fast on this timeline oh yeah happen very fast when you live in a 24 7 hour world it's uh it happens absolutely at the blink of an eye so well

1:57:54 It's going to be interesting. But yeah, I agree. I'm waiting for the call out for foreign aid for Minnesota right now. I think that about covers past and present. Thank you guys all for being here. I appreciate it. We will be back tomorrow. I did say that we were going to look at the calendar.

1:58:25 Um, so today, let me get on the right day. Um, all right. Um, tomorrow we have the four o'clock and, um, Wednesday, um, our four o'clock and the Alpha Warrior Show. Um, and then Thursday night at eight Eastern time, the Justice Cometh podcast.

1:58:51 um will be on and then friday at noon we have war hamster and then our normal four o'clock so that's what the week looks like so take care everybody have a nice evening and i'll see you back here tomorrow at four o'clock appreciate it

Entities here

United States73 Cuba46 Allen Dulles35 John F. Kennedy28 Dwight D. Eisenhower25 CIA25 Fidel Castro25 2024 Minneapolis Protests23 Harlem17 Cuban Revolution15 Hotel Theresa15 Soviet Union13 France11 Charles Wrightsman8 Malcolm X8 Dave Powers7 Vietnam7 Robert Maheu7 Havana6 World War II6 United Nations6 Pierrette Dulles6 Washington, D.C.6 Republican Party6 Democratic Party5 Fulgencio Batista5 Donald Trump5 U-2 incident5 CIA Assassination Plots against Castro5 Charlestown5 Richard Nixon5 Palm Beach5 Johnny Roselli4 William Pawley4 Jane Wrightsman4 Ho Chi Minh4 Paris summit meeting4 China4 Joseph Kennedy Sr.4 Paris4

Claims made here

La Rosa Blanca carried_out_attack Shelburne Hotel documented ▶ 1:34

“in Midtown Shelburne Hotel. When the Cuban delegation checked in two days earlier at the Shelburne, they were greeted by a militant group of anti-Castro exiles calling itself La Rosa Blanca, the White…”

Fidel Castro targeted_for_regime_change United States documented ▶ 2:02

“that they would need to put up a $20,000 security deposit, which outraged Fidel Castro, insisting that his government did not have ready access to cash, announced that they would leave the hotel and p…”

Fidel Castro overthrew Fulgencio Batista documented ▶ 2:33

“hospitable reception during his 11-day visit to the U.S. Fresh from his revolutionary victory on New Year's Eve, Fidel was still something of a political mystery to the Eisenhower administration. And …”

Allen Dulles spied_on Fidel Castro documented ▶ 4:30

“from a vassal state of the U.S. into a sovereign nation. By early 1960, Dulles had resolved the debate within the intelligence agency over Castro's true identity. He declared he was a communist. That …”

William Pawley ordered_assassination_of Fidel Castro documented ▶ 5:30

“Pauly began lobbying the Eisenhower administration to take aggressive action against Castro when he was still fighting Batista soldiers in the mountains. After Fidel rode into Havana on a tank in Janu…”

United States carried_out_attack Cuba documented ▶ 6:30

“into the United States. That was their lifeblood. And by launching a secret campaign aimed at sabotaging Castro's government. By February of 1960, mercenary pilots hired by the CIA had dropped bombs o…”

Fidel Castro targeted_for_regime_change United States documented ▶ 8:35

“He ended his speech with a declaration that became a ringing slogan of the Cuban Revolution. Motherland or death, we shall win. Determined that Cuba would not become another Guatemala, Castro turned t…”

Malcolm X recruited Fidel Castro documented ▶ 10:33

“incapable of providing hospitality to world leaders, Castro fumed, perhaps the UN should be moved. But then Castro turned his humiliation into a propaganda triumph. And I'm sure this left all of them …”

Love B. Woods funded Fidel Castro documented ▶ 12:23

“But Woods, an elderly man who had grown up in Jim Crow, South Carolina, knew what it was like to be denied a roof over your head. Woods stood his ground and opened the doors of Harlem's finest hotel t…”

Conrad Lynn funded Fidel Castro documented ▶ 12:51

“Knowing that Woods might have trouble cashing the Cuban's check because of rising political tension between the two countries, a Harlem attorney by the name of Conrad Lin arranged to have a local gamb…”

Robert Taber spied_on Fidel Castro documented ▶ 19:51

“the first African-American reporter for CBS News, who had scored an exclusive interview with Castro when he was still fighting in the mountains, stirred liberal circles by purchasing a full-page ad in…”

Fidel Castro member_of Fair Play for Cuba Committee documented ▶ 20:41

“The Fair Play for Cuba Committee, FPCC, organized a party in his honor at the hotel's ballroom. Among the guests was Allen Ginsberg, Langston Hughes, and C. Wright Mills, whose own impassioned defense…”

C. Wright Mills spied_on Fidel Castro book_quoted ▶ 20:41

Fidel Castro spied_on Malcolm X documented ▶ 24:00

“which accelerated after his split with the Nation of Islam in 1964 made him increasingly dangerous. And Corey, among others, was convinced that it led to his assassination in 1965. In 1960, Malcolm wa…”

Robert Maheu recruited Johnny Roselli documented ▶ 24:50

“By the time Castro came to Harlem, he too was the target of increasingly ominous U.S. intelligence scrutiny. Just days before they checked into the hotel, Robert Mayhew, on orders of the CIA, met at a…”

Robert Maheu ordered_assassination_of Fidel Castro documented ▶ 27:15

“like it was a tortured process, but it actually sounded like a relative no-brainer for the security contractor. The CIA had made Robert Mayhew. He owed everything he had to the agency, even the stereo…”

John F. Kennedy targeted_for_regime_change Fidel Castro documented ▶ 31:05

“by Nixon's soft-on-global communists, carved out a position on Cuba that was even more militant than the Republican candidate, declaring that Castro had betrayed the ideals of the Cuban Revolution and…”

John F. Kennedy targeted_for_regime_change Fulgencio Batista host_asserted ▶ 31:59

“JFK ripped into America's corporate plunder and political domination of the island in surprisingly unvarnished terms. He also denounced Washington's shameful practice of propping up dictators througho…”

John F. Kennedy supported Fidel Castro host_asserted ▶ 32:55

“where Kennedy was joined on the platform by a formidable supporting cast of Democrat dignitaries, including Eleanor Roosevelt and Congressman Powell. The presidential contender sounded more like a sup…”

John F. Kennedy supported Nikita Khrushchev host_asserted ▶ 33:48

“We should be glad that Castro and Khrushchev came to the United States. We should not fear the 20th century. For the worldwide revolution, which we are seeing all around us, is part of the American Re…”

Allen Dulles ran_against John J. O'Connor documented ▶ 38:06

“He volunteered for charities. But there was no passion in Dulles' campaign. His speeches were stilted and his debate for performance was lawyerly. The month-long primary campaign pitted Dulles against…”

John J. O'Connor defeated Allen Dulles documented ▶ 39:21

“On election day, September 21st, Dulles went down with a thumping defeat, losing the Republican nomination in a 3-2 margin to a man who did not even belong to the party. That's gross. Dulles promptly …”

John F. Kennedy recruited Dave Powers host_asserted ▶ 41:19

“the son of a dock worker who had died when Powers was two, leaving his widow and eight children, the political operator knew the dreams and heartaches of the families crowded into the neighborhoods. W…”

Dave Powers worked_for John F. Kennedy host_asserted ▶ 43:44

“There was nothing like the reaction he received. He immediately was surrounded by all of these Charlestown's mothers. And in the background, I could hear them saying, he reminds me of my own son. It w…”

Allen Dulles met John F. Kennedy host_asserted ▶ 46:41

“was a man of the past, recklessly provoking Cold War confrontations when the world was crying for a new vision. Though it was largely hidden from the public, the duel between the Kennedy and Dulles wo…”

Charles Wrightsman introduced John F. Kennedy host_asserted ▶ 50:42

“Clover is Allen Dulles' wife, for bringing out her husband's reprehensible characteristics. You know, like for all of the ritzy stuff. It was Reitzman who introduced the Dulleses to young JFK. Charlie…”

Charles Wrightsman introduced Allen Dulles host_asserted ▶ 50:42

John F. Kennedy traveled_to Vietnam documented ▶ 53:40

“The two Dulles brothers were slow to realize that if the young Senator Kennedy was their pupil, he was also increasingly rebellious one. Kennedy began questioning the rigid Cold War paradigm that domi…”

John F. Kennedy met Edmund Gullion host_asserted ▶ 54:39

“On the rooftop restaurant overlooking the Parisian-styled streets below, Kennedy met with an astute American embassy officer called Edmund Gullion. The diplomat told the inquisitive congressman that F…”

Edmund Gullion informed John F. Kennedy host_asserted ▶ 54:39

John F. Kennedy criticized Dwight D. Eisenhower documented ▶ 56:08

“By April 54, when Kennedy stood on the Senate floor and challenged the Eisenhower administration for supporting the doomed French war in Vietnam, he had become an informed critic of Western imperialis…”

Dwight D. Eisenhower criticized John F. Kennedy host_asserted ▶ 1:00:34

“Ike sounded off about JFK's speech in a cabinet meeting, sourly commenting, quote, that's fine. Everybody likes independence. We can all make brilliant speeches, but these things are rather difficult …”

Allen Dulles criticized John F. Kennedy host_asserted ▶ 1:01:03

“Meanwhile, Secretary Dulles icily told the press that if the senator from Massachusetts wanted to crusade about imperialism, maybe he should target the Soviet variety. You are free to talk about that …”

John F. Kennedy criticized Dwight D. Eisenhower host_asserted ▶ 1:01:27

“Kennedy had little respect for Eisenhower, seeing him as a disengaged leader who would rather play golf with his millionaire cronies than confront the world's emerging new realities. Quote, I could un…”

John F. Kennedy criticized Allen Dulles host_asserted ▶ 1:01:57

“since 1945. As for Foster, Kennedy dismissed him as a aging pontificator who saw the world through slogans, godless communism, Soviet's master plan, all of that kind of rhetoric. While Kennedy's denun…”

Adlai Stevenson II criticized John F. Kennedy host_asserted ▶ 1:01:57

Maurice Stans member_of National Security Council documented ▶ 1:03:27

“And that any revolutionary mischief on the continent would only play into the communist hands. So they would overthrow them, pushing them into the communist hands. At one time, the National Security C…”

Richard Nixon member_of National Security Council documented ▶ 1:03:27

Allen Dulles headed CIA documented ▶ 1:06:26

“The younger Dulles had lost his principal ally. Allen had never been as close to Eisenhower as John Foster. The president had given his CIA director a long leash, but he never felt fully comfortable w…”

Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed Allen Dulles documented ▶ 1:06:26

Gary Powers member_of CIA documented ▶ 1:07:28

“On May 1st, the president found out that the CIA director's assurance was hollow when a Soviet missile slammed into the U-2 plane flying over Russia's Ural Mountains, resulting in the downing of the a…”

CIA carried_out_attack U-2 incident host_asserted ▶ 1:07:56

“Colonel Prouty suspected that the CIA had intentionally provoked the incident in order to ruin the peace conference. Everybody thinks that, I think. Prouty had served as a liaison officer between the …”

Allen Dulles covered_up U-2 incident host_asserted ▶ 1:08:27

“John Eisenhower, who was generally reluctant to give his father advice, was so disturbed by the deceitful way Dulles handled the U2 affair that he urged Ike to fire him. The president erupted at his s…”

John Eisenhower member_of Washington, D.C. host_asserted ▶ 1:08:27

Allen Dulles appointed CIA documented ▶ 1:10:49

“A quote unquote legacy of ashes. Dulles had little reason to take Eisenhower words to heart. He had already ensured that he was going to be JFK's CIA director. And that's the conclusion of today. Anyo…”

John F. Kennedy targeted_for_regime_change Fidel Castro host_asserted ▶ 1:11:59

“Castro's rule, and even today, Marxism and Leninism are tied together, but I never saw anything that Castro did or anybody who's leading Cuba today to move towards communism. So I'm not saying, and I …”

Johnny Roselli ordered_assassination_of John F. Kennedy host_asserted ▶ 1:17:13

“This chapter must have derived a lot of its information from the House Select Committee on Assassination. Yes. Because you've got, you know, Mayhew there. Yes. Who later gets fingered in, you know, so…”

Robert A. Mayhew ordered_assassination_of John F. Kennedy host_asserted ▶ 1:17:13

Allen Dulles ordered_assassination_of John F. Kennedy host_asserted ▶ 1:17:40

“1971 conversation with the head of the CIA, Richard Helms, where he asks him, you know, what was that whole Bay of Pigs thing? Who shot John? You know, give me the documents. Give me all the documents…”

Richard Nixon ordered_assassination_of John F. Kennedy host_asserted ▶ 1:17:40

CIA targeted_for_regime_change Ukraine host_asserted ▶ 1:20:10

“maybe even more than that. We came across in looking at all of the, when we were doing our around the world tour of all of these CIA orchestrated coups, we came across Albert Einstein Institute. It ke…”

CIA targeted_for_regime_change Venezuela host_asserted ▶ 1:20:10

CIA targeted_for_regime_change Georgia host_asserted ▶ 1:20:10

Gene Sharp founded Albert Einstein Institute host_asserted ▶ 1:20:37

“Ukraine, both in, as early as 2004. It came up in Venezuela. And so I spent probably a week on their webpage. They had a special forces colonel that Gene Sharp, who founded the Albert Einstein Institu…”

George Soros funded 2024 Minneapolis Protests host_asserted ▶ 1:25:10

“is visibly documented. The handbooks are even on their website on how the whole thing operates. And it was funded by the Ford Foundation, George Soros, the Albert Einstein Institute I'm talking about,…”

Albert Einstein Institute funded 2024 Minneapolis Protests host_asserted ▶ 1:25:10

Ford Foundation funded 2024 Minneapolis Protests host_asserted ▶ 1:25:10

International Republican Institute funded 2024 Minneapolis Protests host_asserted ▶ 1:25:10

National Lawyers Guild funded 2024 Minneapolis Protests host_asserted ▶ 1:25:40

“Okay, I definitely agree with you. My knowledge of strategy of tension is more primitive, but you can identify all these people going around being quote-unquote legal observers, being funded by the So…”

CIA targeted_for_regime_change Salvador Allende documented ▶ 1:26:32

“to create coup conditions, here's what I'm concerned about and what the strategy is. Ultimately, their goal is to make propaganda obviously sharper and more provocative, but then public and provocativ…”

CIA targeted_for_regime_change Chile documented ▶ 1:28:46

“There's an entire team that seems to be very well connected that are working real time on social media, providing us with information. And to your point, going back to the Pinochet CIA coup of Allende…”

Allen Dulles covered_up Reinhard Gehlen host_asserted ▶ 1:35:48

“Their betrayal of the country during World War II, the Dulles's, Nixon's covering for that. They trace it all the way back. I'll bet you this probably goes back to the Sturmabteilung and the brown shi…”

Richard Nixon covered_up Reinhard Gehlen host_asserted ▶ 1:35:48

CIA covered_up Reinhard Gehlen host_asserted ▶ 1:35:48

Richard M. Bissell Jr. carried_out_attack Harper's Ferry raid host_asserted ▶ 1:44:14

“Illini, go ahead. To respond to Megan Nukes, I can give one example from history, which was John Brown. He runs this raid on Harper's Ferry. The Southerners call him a terrorist. They have a point. Th…”