The Colonel's Corner The Medusa File by Craig Roberts Part 7

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0:04 Okay, let's get this party started. Just a couple of upfront comments before we get into the material today. So I mentioned to you guys last week that author Douglas Valentine had sent me his recent book that he published. It's a very short book called TDY. For those of you who are not military,

0:30 That means temporary duty. And it's a very interesting book. It's a quick read. I read it Saturday morning. And what's interesting about the book is, as I have said many times, every one of these books brings some new aspect that I was completely unaware of. So just in quick summary, it's about a mission.

0:59 that was orchestrated. It's a very weird mission of a collection of people, one of which who is the main source of information, was an Air Force combat camera PA type guy. And they had a collection of other people that met. They went to the Philippines, of course. And then

1:30 they were flown in blacked out aircraft into Laos. And the mission was to take pictures and eavesdrop on a CIA drug transaction. And some of them didn't make it out. This guy obviously made it out. And it was completely classified. And throughout the story,

2:00 It says that the guy that had all of the photos, the Air Force guy, was to not give the photos, not give them to anybody that asked for them because they would send people to ask for them except Jason. And he didn't know anything about Jason, but he was shown a photo.

2:30 of the only person that he was allowed to give it to. And so when he gets back to the location after they're exfiltrated, there are a couple of people that are run at him to try to collect that evidence. And he refuses to give it to him. And Jason shows up. And so I commented to Doug Valentine's, why would...

3:00 someone, send a team in, half of which gets killed, to take pictures of a CIA drug transaction. Were they just trying to blackmail them later on for control or what would be the purpose? It wasn't like our government didn't know they were doing it. And he responded that evidently

3:28 Because I just thought it was weird. Jason, obviously, it's not that guy's real name. And he responded saying there was a group of scientists called the Jasons that were started in 1960. And it says, he goes on to say that they may have been involved in much more.

3:59 than just the CIA drug transactions. And they may have also been involved as mercenaries. So I don't know. I just throw that out there for you guys, because again, it's another piece of the story. And I had never heard of the Jasons. But he goes on to say that they were involved in nuclear weapons, which I found really interesting.

4:28 Because I had already started, before he responded with that, I had already started reading The Killing of Karen Silkwood. And for those of you who are familiar with that story, very, very weird. And she worked at Kermagee's plutonium factory in Oklahoma. And wouldn't you know,

5:00 that the fucking CIA is involved in it too. There's people dropping dead that gets subpoena from this Sheehan guy that's brought the lawsuit on behalf of Silkwood's father. And they have literally tried to sabotage this trial in every way. The private investigator that he's using

5:30 found a couple of companies down. And of course, we all know they're in the Fort Lauderdale area where CIA seems to occupy every other block down there. And there were two companies that specialized in eavesdropping and all kinds of spy paraphernalia. They also trained all kinds of police departments, one of which was the Oklahoma.

5:59 city police department that was responsible for the Silkwood investigation. And everybody's finding, to include one of the union guys that helped her out, found eavesdropping equipment in their houses. And so when his private eye went down to kind of

6:26 monitor that place. They tried to kill him in his hotel room. And they followed him everywhere. They tried to break into his house. And he was very, very good at, at least he thought he was, at making sure he didn't stay in the same hotel twice, that he didn't tell anybody where he was staying. And somehow they kept finding him. And in one of the times,

6:56 they had stolen some very important pen that he had that had a lot of sentimental value. And he called someone on the inside and said that if that pen was not returned within 48 hours, he was gonna start killing people. And they were staying at a Catholic rectory.

7:25 um, in Oklahoma city. And that when he flew in from Miami there, the next day it was laying in his room. The pen was now they had, um, bent it. They said like, look, made it look like a banana, but they had returned that pen. They had gotten into the rectory, um, where the attorney and one of the fundraisers and he was staying, um, and put that pen in his room.

7:55 So it's so crazy that when you go back and you look at all of these, and of course, the Carnegie factory that she was working in had plutonium stolen from it. And no one in the government ever found out where it was. And it was enough plutonium for about 50, the equivalent of 50 nuclear weapons.

8:25 And it's just gone, it's missing. And no one, not the FBI, no one looked into what happened to that plutonium. And it had already been recognized that the CIA had planted in most of the nuclear facilities, their chief of security was basically a CIA guy. So, holy crap, holy crap.

8:56 And they also documented how infiltrated others. I didn't even know some of these towns as far as the cities goes. Oklahoma City was one of them. Had CIA agents posing as police on their police department. So crazy, crazy, crazy. Okay.

9:23 I'll probably just do a show with Alpha later on about this book. Somehow I've got to figure out how to put it down into an hour and a half and just talk about the people that show up dead after they get a subpoena, you know, the whole story. The story that we've been following in all of these domestic situations, they all have the basic same hallmarks.

9:53 And this is just another one that we will lay to rest that CIA was involved in domestically. Okay, we're on chapter 13, page 115. For those of you following along, this chapter is called Casualty of Wars. And again, yes, you will be pissed off at the end of it. This one starts off talking about Den Ben Phu.

10:25 which was the disaster for the French in Vietnam that finally made them withdraw from recolonizing Vietnam. And it said that General Henry Eugene Nafare had started what he thought was going to be a simple assignment on 28 May, 1953.

10:56 And that was to protect the little kingdom of Laos and their precious heroin. The kingdom of Laos had remained loyal to France from a threatened invasion of Ho Chi Minh. They thought that the Dien Bien Phu encampment would be a blocking force to secure their opium trade. The valley was surrounded.

11:28 by mountains, no modern army would attempt to cross with heavy equipment anyway. And without heavy equipment, they thought that they were safe. So as you guys know, I've told that story. When I visited Vietnam, they had a, you know, those boards that you go into museums.

11:55 And they have like a little town set up with the choo-choo train that goes around the outside of it. And it has little things that light up the different businesses. When the train comes by, the lights will go on. They had a mock-up of Din Bin Thu in one of the museums that we visited in Hanoi. And they show on this mock-up board, because it's kind of raised up,

12:25 the underground tunnels that the Vietnamese had dug. I mean, like entire city-like structures below it. Multiple chambers, bunk houses, like a hospital-looking thing. And it was crazy. And then it's time-sequenced to show

12:56 the forces exited this tunnel system and would draw fire in one direction while the others were coming up on the other side to infiltrate that compound. It was quite spectacular to actually see the whole thing. They literally stood no chance at all of surviving it.

13:25 And it says that the French garrison numbered fewer than 11,000 men supported only by seven batteries of artillery, two mortar groups, and 10 American light tanks. Once surrounded, the only relief forces that could come in had to come in by air. That was a disaster. Although we did try, the US did.

13:58 So obviously they breach the outside. Suicide troops with explosives strapped to their battery trudged forward and threw themselves into the French wire, blowing gaping holes in the entanglement. The French fought, but the outcome was inevitable. The dead and wounded was everywhere.

14:27 Medical supplies were almost non-existent. In the end, over 10,000 French and colonial prisoners were taken by the Vietnamese, many of which were never released. By the end of the French Indochina War, 39,888 prisoners were never repatriated. Many were local Vietnamese troops, but according to French military records,

14:58 approximately 3,000 French nationals and 3,000 French legionnaires were among them. Of those that were repatriated, some did not see French soil until as late as 1962. In that year, 40 French POWs were returned to France. But after their return, instead of being greeted as long-lost sons, they were labeled by the French government as deserters.

15:27 Then in an attempt to discredit any testimony they might produce about being abandoned by their government after being taken prisoner, the French army court-martialed them, found them guilty of desertion, and gave them long prison sentence and all of their lost back pay was taken. Kind of like what we did to the USS Indianapolis captain when we flew in the Japanese.

15:57 sub-commander to testify against him at his court-martial. 20 other POWs after hearing of this welcome home decided to remain in Vietnam. That didn't stop the French government being evil little bastards because they went ahead and court-martialed them in absentee. But at least they didn't get imprisoned. Writer William Stevenson, who wrote Kiss the Boys Goodbye,

16:29 And a noted BBC correspondent who covered the French Indochina war testified before a Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in 1991 that he had interviewed French soldiers held as POWs and that due to their long incarceration seemed to be mentally deficient. It was believed that this was due not only to the passage of time, but harsh treatment by the captors.

16:59 Robert Garwood, an American Marine taken prisoner during the Vietnam War, stated that he had personal knowledge and had seen French prisoners in the 1970s that were being used as slave labor on North Vietnamese dairy farms. This was after the French government, in an effort to resolve the lingering problem over unaccounted for POWs and MIAs taken in Indochina, had declared them all dead.

17:29 on Hitler's Germany in the wanting days of World War II, a decision was made by General Dwight D. Eisenhower that U.S., British, and French forces would stop short of Berlin instead of linking up with the Red Army at the Reichstag. The Russians would be permitted to take Berlin on their own. According to Eisenhower, it would save American lives.

17:56 The Russians had demanded the exclusive right to swarm into the Nazi capital in retribution for the death and destruction of the Russian people by the Nazis during Operation Barbarossa. As each army made their way through Nazi-occupied Europe on their trek to Berlin, they overran German POW and concentration camps along the way. At first, the Germans evacuated the camps and transferred the prisoners farther into the Reich.

18:26 In the West, American prisoners were moved into Eastern Germany and Poland. And in the East, Russian POWs were transferred to the West. In the end, the American forces liberated camps that contained thousands of former Russian soldiers. And the Soviets occupied camps that contained thousands of American soldiers and airmen. The repatriation of prisoners from both sides should have been a fairly simple matter, but it wasn't.

18:56 There was a third very significant group of prisoners in the scheme of affairs that would surface as a detriment to straight out prisoner swap negotiations. Besides the Soviet POWs from the liberated Nazi camps, the Western armies had captured hundreds of thousands of anti-communist Russian nationals who had fled the Soviet Union and had joined Hitler's forces.

19:24 to fight against Stalin. This fact was not lost on the Soviets. And as soon as Germany surrendered, inquiries were made by the Soviets concerning the disposition of such captured enemy prisoners. Stalin wanted them turned over and transported back to Russian soil. The punishment at the time for treason was summary execution. But Stalin,

19:54 took treachery a bit farther when he condemned not only those who had turned against Mother Russia, but anyone who had refused to fight until death and had managed to get captured by Germans and surrender while they were supposed to be able to fight. The American high command was deluged with pleas from Soviet prisoners who refused to be repatriated. Each man knew that a return to the Soviet Union meant death.

20:23 In one document of the period, it described the efforts of Allied soldiers to repatriate 399 Soviet soldiers. The feelings of the prisoners were quite evident. This is a quote. All of these men refused to entrain. They begged to be shot. They resisted entrainment by taking off their clothes and refusing to leave their quarters. It was necessary to use tear gas and force them out. Tear gas forced them out of the building into the snow.

20:54 where those who had cut themselves fell exhausted and bleeding in the snow. Nine men hanged themselves and one stabbed himself to death, and another one stabbed himself subsequently died, while 20 others had been hospitalized with self-inflicted wounds. The entrainment was finally effected of 368 men who were sent off, accompanied by a Russian liaison officer on a train carrying American guards.

21:22 Six men escaped on the way. A number of men in the group claimed they were not Russians. British Field Marshal Harold Alexander, commander in Austria and Italy, received a message from American 12th Army Group, signed by Omar Bradley. It stated, quote, still at large in Lower Austria are surrendered forces comprising approximately 105 Germans, not yet totally disarmed, and 45 Croats.

21:51 who are fully armed and may not submit to being disarmed until after evacuation. The latter are accompanied by an estimated additional 11,000 camp followers to include women, children, and old men, who until segregated and disposed of as displaced persons will be given same treatment as forces they accompany to assist

22:15 These groups will be accepted by 12th Army Group units, which will be responsible for any disarmament and turned over to control of 7th Army, which will designate an assembly area in its name for their reception, unquote. In the case of the Kozhiks, who had fought against any mainstream government in Moscow since the day of the Tsars, they were especially not liked.

22:45 And they definitely did not want to be turned over to the Soviets because they knew they'd be killed or sentenced to Siberia. Many of them were wearing German uniforms when they were captured by the Allied forces. And they demanded to be treated as prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention. Under these rules, they could legally, as German soldiers, refuse repatriation.

23:11 They would have been treated as displaced persons and provided for in the country where they currently resided. To deal with the problem, the Allied Command issued written orders to its officers. Under no circumstances will those people captured serving in enemy forces be referred to as prisoners of war. Instead, they will be given at designated as surrendered enemy personnel.

23:39 One top secret message sent to 5th Corps by the 8th Army headquarters said, Ruling now received 15th Army Group. All Soviet citizens, including arrestable categories, will be treated as surrendered personnel and therefore will be handed over to the Russians. Please take action accordingly. What happened next was disgraceful. Both of the U.S. and Great Britain had committed themselves to enforcing repatriation.

24:08 This was done for two reasons. One, to placate Stalin, as per the Russian interpretation of the Yalta Agreement, to trade Russian POWs for American British and Commonwealth POWs. Stalin now held hostage. To clarify the orders issued by the military government and General Eisenhower, Eisenhower's staff replied to an inquiry by Lieutenant General

24:42 Courtney Hodges, who was commander of 1st Army, and it said, quote, as to how much force an army commander should use in the control of displaced Russians, talking to Judge John McCloy today, we agree that, of course, an army commander could use any force necessary to ensure the success of this operation, unquote. Field Marshal Alexander protested, but to no avail.

25:11 In the last week of May 1945, the British forces, in accordance with Eisenhower's directive, began forcibly repatriating everyone. And they issued orders, any attempt whatsoever to resist will be dealt with firmly by shooting to kill. One unit of Russians expected to be forced to return at gunpoint was the SS Galizienne.

25:39 which was the Ukrainian Wafa SS division, Ukrainian as in members of the Soviet Union that had fought with Hitler. This unit was of particular interest to Stalin, for he had marked them to serve as an example to what happened to Soviets when they took up arms against their country. The division had fought with the Nazis against the Soviet Union.

26:08 but had been withdrawn from the front in 1944 due to heavy casualties. While they were in the process of regrouping away from the battle, the Germans were forced out of Ukraine. Indigenous personnel who had served the Nazi controlled local police and civilian action units, many of which used their SS equipped equipment in hunting down and exterminating Poles and Jewish people.

26:37 were no longer needed in that capacity. They were pulled out of Russia and transferred to an SS Gelyans division, which in turn brought the division strength to over 9,000 former Russians. But they were purposely labeled POWs by the OSS, and they would not be returned to Russia.

27:06 Instead of being labeled per Eisenhower's orders as the SEPs, they were marked by the OSS as future assets and secretly smuggled into Italy. Yeah, where they were hidden. The American and British intelligence community had hand-selected this particular group as for future agents and paramilitary operatives. And yes, that is the birth of the modern day.

27:37 Bandera, Stetsco, all of those guys. The war is still going on. And the OSS had already determined that they were keeping the Nazi Ukrainians safe. As they were in the process of disappearing into the OSS, neither world, over 50,000 Cossacks were being forcibly returned to Russian control.

28:13 In another incident where U.S. prisoners were traded for Russian POWs, American witnessed firsthand the fate of the unfortunates that took their place. In Risa, where the American POWs had been held by the Germans in Stalag IVB, they had been moved by the Russians. A prisoner swap took place between Eisenhower's staff and the Russians.

28:42 under General Golboved. In this exchange, which occurred on May 25th, 1945, only 3,000 of the known 6,000 American and British prisoners that were held in the camp were turned over. The Russians, using this exchange as a propaganda opportunity, lined the Americans and British POW up in ranks in a large field near a rock quarry.

29:08 Soviet army cameras ground away as the hostages were released to American control and began boarding a convoy of trucks. But as the Russian POWs, which had been brought to the scene in buses, were herded away by the Russians, the cameras ceased their operation and stood silent. Instead of a joyous reunion with their comrades, the Russian prisoners were marched down into the rock quarry and machine gunned down.

29:37 When the American and British POWs began to protest loudly at what they had just witnessed, they were told by the Allied officers to keep their heads down, keep their mouths shut, and get on the truck. The Allied high command then realized from the beginning that gaining the return of American POWs held in Russian territory would be difficult. Five days after VE Day, the Associated Press from Allied advance headquarters in France

30:05 reported that nearly half of the estimated 200,000 British and 76,000 American POWs still in Germany are believed to be within Russian zones of occupation. And the Supreme Headquarters had twice requested a meeting to agree on their return. Ten days later, a meeting between the representatives of Eisenhower's staff, represented by Major General R.W. Barker and Lieutenant General

30:33 who served as the Soviet representative, took place in Germany. Of major concern to the Americans and British was the Soviets' refusal to provide a complete accounting of how many they had. In a cable from British Marshal Tedder, deputy commander under Eisenhower, sent to all major commands, Tedder exposed the Russians' deceptive actions.

31:03 He basically said that the Russians had asked to visit camps where Russians were kept. We agreed and asked him for permission to visit their camps. He agreed to allow one of our officers to visit five camps. One of our representatives started on a trip accompanied by a Russian major who stated he had the necessary orders.

31:33 US representative to visit just one camp, not five. It quickly became apparent that the Russians had their own agenda regarding repatriation. In a show of force during the conference, the Russian delegation set the stage for what was to come. According to Major General Barker, when the Russian mission was finally assembled, it numbered some 40 officers and 40 to 50 enlisted men.

32:00 Among Russian officers was a lieutenant general and six major generals. The Russian party arrived in German vehicles and they even brought an American armored car. All Russian personnel were heavily armed. When the meeting started, the Allied staff requested the teams of American and British soldiers be allowed to go to the camp, speak with prisoners, and make rosters for accountability.

32:31 and prepare to turn the American and British soldiers over. They also asked for permission for U.S. air transport aircraft to be allowed into the airspace so that they could pick them up and transport them more quickly. After the first meeting, Barker would write to General Eisenhower, quote, came to the firm conviction that British and American prisoners of war were in effect

33:00 being held hostage by the Russians until deemed expedient to let them be released. It is estimated at that time that the Russians held over 344,000 Allied servicemen of all European countries. In addition to these, it was estimated that they held an additional 1 million displaced persons of French, Dutch, and Belgian origin. Six days after the first report,

33:29 Barker described his findings that the Russians were going to hold hostages. He said, The dilemma faced quickly became a monster.

33:59 That was growing by leaps and bounds. The war was over. The US military forces had been sent home. Families awaited the return. So what was the delay? Why could the powerful American military machine that defeated the Nazis not get their POWs? What the American public and allied field commanders did not realize was the fact that the intelligence services, the OSS and the British equivalent,

34:30 were entering a scene through the back door in anticipation of declaring a Cold War and having already decided that the Russians were going to be the next threat. They were basically sabotaging the entire process by protecting primarily the Ukrainians. At the upper level of Eisenhower's staff and the U.S. government,

35:01 A decision had been made. Massive numbers of Allied prisoners remained in Russian control, obviously held hostage for bargaining chips, and the Russians were making demands that were impossible to grant. It became a juggling act between the Intelligence Committee, the Military-Industrial Complex, and the Geneva Convention.

35:24 The OSS wanted the German Army East spy network under Reinhard Galen and their various indigenous expat assets. The military industrial complex wanted the German scientists and their technology already being exported to the U.S. The forced return of unneeded Russians and enemy personnel was quickly handled by a change of the designation.

35:54 But the repatriation of Western forces personnel held by the Russians was another matter. If the Soviets would not give them back willingly, and it appeared that they would not, then the advantage of keeping the Ukrainian, Yugoslav, Hungarian, Serbian, and other East Bloc nationals in the German spy apparatus, scientists, and other Nazis would have to be weighed against U.S. citizens.

36:20 For the American British intelligence services, who stood to gain the most by protecting these future assets, the POW had to be sacrificed to benefit national security. But how could this be done? The American and British people would never stand for such a thing. No one would be willing to trade their sons, husbands, and relatives for a Nazi scientist. The answer became a numbers game. It was a simple matter of accounting.

36:50 The plan would have to do two things. It would have to be shown that the Russians over a period of weeks and months had fully repatriated all allied POWs. The allied forces would have to be shown as expending an all-out effort in searching for them. Any POW not returned would have to be carried as either a missing in action or a killed in action, body not recovered. In other words,

37:20 The OSS was advocating as well as the UK that we just write them off. Moving on. In May 19th of 1945, four days before that meeting happened, Eisenhower had sent a cable to field commanders saying numbers of US prisoners estimated in Russia control 25,000. The message was written as a statement of fact. Eisenhower, whatever means,

37:52 had obtained a solid information number concerning, and it was exactly 25,000, not 25,113. It was 25,000. But this message was written and transmitted before they realized how obstinate the Soviet Union was going to be. With this number now released and known by everyone,

38:21 something had to be done to reduce the amount of personnel noted on the original message. It was essential that the strength of Stalin's bargaining position be reduced. And at the time, the American public had to be placated. So on the 1st of June, there was a message from Eisenhower's staff and signed off by Eisenhower. This is what it said.

38:46 Due to local transfers of U.S. POWs from Russia area to U.S. control immediately prior to and during discussions with Russians, which ended 22 May, it is now estimated that only 15,000 POWs were held, not 25,000. So we're already messing with the numbers. And these are based on nothing because they were not allowed to visit the camps. They have no clue what they're talking about, but they're still talking.

39:17 Of the 15,000 that just mysteriously went from 25,000 to 15,000, the message indicated that 12,400, another really good round number, had already been transferred to U.S. control. It is estimated that not more than 2,000 to 3,000 U.S. POWs still remain in Russian hands. These no doubt are scattered in small groups and with no information available.

39:52 The number of prisoners reported held by the Russians now numbered less than 3,000. The problem with the message unforeseen by the senders when it was written and transmitted was another message that had just entered the system from the other end, Moscow. In a top secret letter dated May 31st, 1945, sent to Lieutenant General Slavin, Assistant Chief of the Soviet

40:20 forces in Moscow by a major General John Dean, US Army Commander General of US military mission in Moscow. Dean said this, I have had a cable from General Marshall in which he states he had received information that indicates 15,597 US liberated prisoners of war are now under the control of the Soviet.

40:49 Marshall. The next day, Eisenhower signed a cable that stated, it is now estimated that only a small number of U.S. prisoners remain in Russian hands. So you have two cables written within 24 hours by U.S. generals. One saying there's 16,000 approximately, but at least it has actual numbers, 15,597. And a separate one.

41:21 from Eisenhower that says, no, it's less than 3,000 within 24 hours. One guy sitting in the Soviet Union and the other guy is sitting in Germany with no clue because he can't visit any of the camps. This message, another work of disinformation from the Eisenhower staff was remarkable in that at the same time, the Russians had admitted

41:52 They held a large number of Americans in several camps while the American commander on the ground is saying something completely different. To add further problems to the hasty concoction of disinformation being released from the Eisenhower staff, another message written by Theater Provost Marshal Major General Milton Record on May 30th entered the message traffic.

42:20 at a very inopportune moment. In it, it asks that Eisenhower staff make arrangements for shipping 10 to 15,000 American POWs home when they were released from Russian control. Darn, that sucks. So that number is consistent with the guy sitting in Moscow telling everybody to get alert.

42:48 we're going to have 10,000 to 15,000 people to transport out of Russian control, both by two U.S. military generals and then Eisenhower's staff saying there's 3,000. On the same day that Eisenhower's cable explained that only a small number of U.S. POWs still remained at large, the New York Times reported via the War Department, quote, substantially all of the American soldiers taken prisoner in Europe are accounted for.

43:18 Undersecretary Robert Patterson said, this means that it is not expected that many of those who are still being carried as missing in action will appear later as having been prisoners of war, unquote. So they're prepping for just leaving them there. It's remarkable for if this information was printed in the New York on August 1st, the very day Eisenhower's

43:50 message labeled secret went out to his commanders, then how did the New York Times get the same information the day before when it would have had to have it in order to print it the same day? It was because the US government's official position on May 31st was that there were no more prisoners other than a few stragglers. Everybody else had been accounted for, even though their own message traffic said something completely different.

44:21 The key to the numbers game being played by the U.S. government instigated by the OSS and their efforts to hide the loss of American prisoners and to buy time for Operation Paperclip and get all of Galen's Nazis out of Germany and the massive movements of Russian expats was a simple change of designation. The POWs were broken down into three categories missing. Return of military control.

44:50 was one of them. Of the three missing categories, the first was POW, which undoubtedly covered any embarrassing stragglers that might surface later. The second was others missing in action, which was divided into two categories, declared dead and MIA. It is very easy to declare someone dead because you have a body to do it. In a report issued by Lieutenant Colonel L.L. Ballard,

45:22 junior chief of strength and accounting from the staff was dated February, 1946. Personnel are shown as returned to military control. Oh, sorry. 90,937 personnel were shown returned to military control. 2,997 as MIA and 11,753 as declared dead. And then the report indicates that 504,

45:55 5,414 were still carried as POW. Where did Ballard get those figures? If all of the U.S. personnel, with the exception of the stragglers, had either been returned or were dead, as reported by Eisenhower seven months previous. In actuality, of the more than 25,000 Americans held by the Soviet at the end of the war, only 4,165 ever came home.

46:25 This count is the total of the figures from the daily evacuation cables that covered that period to the end. At some point, everybody else was labeled missing in action or killed in action. That left over 20,000 people still unaccounted for. Stalin's doctrine concerning captured prisoners, both friend and foe, remained constant throughout the Soviet theater of operations as thousands of German POWs were being transported eastward.

46:57 Toward Siberian gulags, even more Japanese were being brought into the Asian Soviet Union. Imperial Japanese army soldiers captured in the last few weeks of the war in Manchuria and Korea, in the last minutes Russia had gathered them all up, to include when they invaded Unit 731, were headed towards Siberia. In Tokyo, General Douglas MacArthur and his allied administrators

47:27 had been advised by the Japanese government of the Japanese POWs being removed from Manchuria in Korea and had been asked to intercede on their behalf. On December 21st, the four-powered Allied Council, the military government of Japan, met and discussed the issue. The Russian delegation walked out. Lieutenant General Dvoryanko, leader of the Russian group, refused to take part in any debate.

47:57 concerning the American allegation that over 376,000 Japanese POWs and civilian detainees had been taken into the Soviet Union and had not been repatriated. MacArthur's staff made offers of assistance to the Russians in returning the Japanese, even offering to help utilize American assets to transport them. Part of the reasons the Russians

48:24 who had not entered the war against Japan until the last few weeks, kept custody of the Japanese was because they had discovered what was happening in secret in Tokyo. In anticipation of the Cold War, the Americans using intelligence operatives from Fort Detrick Chemical Unit were making secret deals with all of the former Unit 731 Ishii's biological warfare team. When the Soviet Union finally entered the war against Japan, it was Russian units.

48:54 that rushed across the border into Manchuria and found Unit 731. They had captured several of the people that had remained there. Though the American, British, and Australian POWs held in these locations were released within a few weeks, the Japanese that had been left behind and a few of the records that had remained from Ishii's experiments were seized by the Soviet Union.

49:25 It was then that they discovered the biological weapons experiments that had taken place and the majority of Ishii's group that had evaded capture and had evidently made it back to Japan. These findings were further reinforced when several captured members of 731 were tried in Soviet war trials. These men pleading guilty to lesser war crimes stated that the principal 731 staff had been successfully exfiltrated and made it back to Japan.

49:55 If this was so, then the information they had was invaluable to whoever caught them. But the majority of the troops that occupied Japan were the Americans. That meant that unless the Soviet Union could force the Ishii people into public light and divulge what they had discovered and release the information, they weren't willing to hand over the Japanese. The Russian general demanded that Ishii be found and brought to trial.

50:25 Unless he and all of his 731 personnel were apprehended and tried, and the information concerning their experiments exposed, the Japanese government would find it hard to negotiate a return of their prisoners. When pressed for numbers, the Russians admitted that they had 95,000 Japanese prisoners of war and other war criminals. In actuality, by the best estimates, it was well over 300,000.

50:56 Even though the Japanese government newspaper protested vehemently, nothing was done. They weren't willing to give up Ishii or expose him or try him. They protected him and basically left all of the Japanese citizens to rot in the Soviet Union.

51:20 By the end of 1946, scores of eyewitness reports surfacing describing large number of Americans and Western POWs still being held by the Russians. Though the Pentagon, under orders that originated from the OSS, whose European office was headed by none other than Alan Dulles, had created paperwork to cover the loss of more than 20,000 Americans. The varied reports indicating that they still existed continued to trickle in by...

51:51 people that had escaped. One German returnee who had escaped from a Soviet prison in May of 1945 identified three American paratroopers, Corporal Bucky Okun, PFC Olin Taylor, and Private Billy Hafers, was being held prisoner in a Russian camp near Dresden. The German

52:16 who stated that the men had been put aboard a train and sent east, produced a photograph of Taylor in his army uniform, signed by Taylor. None of these men were ever repatriated. Another photograph of an American serviceman, Victor Baum, was smuggled out of a Russian camp and eventually surfaced in the summer of 1945. The information that came with it reported

52:40 That bomb had been transported to Siberia where he'd been put to work in a Russian tank factory with 200 other Americans. Then in December, there was a message sent to the American embassy in Moscow from U.S. forces Europe who evidently did not yet understand the official U.S. position on the matter. Quote, information received here that as of 30 August 1945, the Russians were holding prisoners.

53:10 approximately 45 American enlisted and two officers, one captain and one lieutenant at Rada in the Stalingrad area. Prisoners were reported in barbed wire under guard, unquote. The headquarters of U.S. Forces Europe was not the only player left in the dark on how to treat live sightings of Americans being held by the Russians. Even isolated OSS teams reported information.

53:38 One team on December 18th, 1945 reported several allied prisoners were being held in a camp inside of Russia. Quote, informant, a pole force to serve in the German army was taken prisoner by Russians in 1944. At the end of 45, he escaped and tried to get to Europe. He was however arrested.

54:03 by the NKVD after he had got beyond Moscow and placed in a POW and internment camp. The prisoners numbered in their informant's estimation well over 20,000. They were both military and civilian, but likely overrun by the Russians during the offensive. When informant left the camp, there were Englishmen and several scores of Americans. When he was leaving these Englishmen and Americans,

54:31 asked him to urgently notify allied authorities of their plight, unquote. There were hundreds of other leaks that testified to the existence of Americans being held in Russia long after the cessation of hostilities. Ironically, one organization that could glean the most up-to-date information and form a complete picture of what was happening inside of Russia was none other than Reinhard Galen.

55:01 This, however, was an obvious conflict of interest. If Galen's people provided such information, it would appear to the Russians where the information, it would be apparent where the information came from and his OSS protectors would be exposed. In the end, the OSS and its newest, largest intelligence network inside of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union kept quiet while 20,000 Americans disappeared.

55:35 Yes, there's more. Tomorrow, we're going to expose Korea. And yes, we'll get to Vietnam too. That'll really make you throw up. Under nuclear waste. Not far even underneath nuclear waste. Just saying. But this really needed to be taught in schools. You know what? If we actually knew what actually happened, we would never let this happen again. Correct.

56:16 Which is why they don't want you to know about it. Right. Because the public is dangerous to them. Because they did it over and over and over again. And the public at large bought it. And even I would even go so far as to say and cheered them on because we were sold a lie. What? What choice? Again, I don't know that.

56:49 Up until four years ago, I had no idea how corrupt our government had been. So I don't know how in the 1940s and 50s, when you rely on newspapers, you wouldn't have bought it. I mean, most people aren't going to be, I mean, most of what I just read to you was classified messages that came out declassified well after the fact. All they're hearing is,

57:19 They're being inundated with numbers of media that is controlled by the government. So they had no way of knowing. That's why it's so imperative that we do what we're doing today so that you know not to trust any of these assholes. That's why it's so important. It's horrible to trudge through this, but it's imperative that you do it.

57:47 so that you question everything. Because had this information been known in America at the time, the likelihood of them being able to do it in Korea would have been non-existent. Then the likelihood of them being able to do it in Vietnam would have been non-existent because the people would know you can't trust them. And so many, it also, to me, shows how many of the senators and congressmen

58:20 during a lot of this they knew they knew what was yes yes at the very least they suspected well i think they allowed it yeah i think we've unequivocally proven that most of them are complicit not all of them because anytime they needed help they just went to certain senators and those certain senators made sure that they had enough leverage on other senators to make them all go along

58:50 And, you know, you almost have to now go back through our laws and look at them with this new information and rethink everything. But again, it also goes to show you that the ones who don't fit in in Congress and Senate, that they hate, those are the people, you know, again, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, you know.

59:21 You kind of have to put that light on it to some extent. In some cases, walking on faith. Because if they don't like them, then that's great. Then we want them there for a while. Correct. But the ones they don't like generally don't last either. Because they wear their ass out. Right. Oh, I can't imagine. Can you even imagine being inside the belly of the beast? Yes, I was there. Yes, I was there.

59:52 I can imagine it. Can you imagine knowing this and being there? No, I'm just saying I knew. No, but I'm not saying that. I knew that people that I worked for were corrupt. I watched some of the things that they did. And anything that you did to call them out resulted in you being.

1:00:22 pommeled to death. You really had to work outside of whatever current system you were in, in order to, it was like putting your finger in holes in a leaky dam. You could fix something for a particular person that had been damaged by the system.

1:00:49 That doesn't mean that you were able to fix it for everybody. But what I would do is if I was able to fix it for some person and figured out that the system was flawed and that's how that happened to that person, I would spend literal years working upstream to get policy changed, regulation changed, processes changed. And every time you did that, I had a notebook.

1:01:18 At one point, I had so many of these things, I had to start a notebook of projects that I was working on that were systematically screwing people and on the personnel side of it. And every time you did that, every meeting you went to, every message you sent, you pissed people off that were your peers because number one, they weren't doing it.

1:01:47 You would end up working for these people who had a job, like one particular process, and I won't bore you with the details. I ended up working for the person who I had to embarrass into changing a regulation that disenfranchised an entire, like tens of thousands of enlisted people.

1:02:13 It took me so long. I ended up having to go to that person's boss in order to get it done. And then I had to work with that person. And so, yes, that has nothing to do with dead people and leaving people in prisons. I realize that. But it is a small symptom of trying to work inside of that machine and do what is right. It takes its toll on you.

1:02:43 Because you're constantly bombarded with negative shit. And you're always having to look behind yourself. Because you know those people are talking to other people. And once you get labeled as that person, it's hard. Because all of the stuff that you need to do to be successful as an officer is no longer available to you.

1:03:12 I can't even imagine. I don't know how you survived without killing somebody. Well, I will just say this. You guys know me well enough to know this about me. I definitely had my ways of ensuring anybody that tried to stick a knife in my back did not fare very well.

1:03:42 I had tremendous success at that. And it is, I know it's a horrible thing to say, but it was the only thing that kept me going is you have that little shit list of people

1:04:05 that you come across for lots of different reasons, especially early on. I was told to do this by a friend of mine who was several years more senior to me, that if you engage in some of that back and forth with somebody, several years from now, you won't remember that person's name right at date because it's very important, especially in the small community of your functional career.

1:04:34 And it's funny because I would use that as when I was getting ready to go to meetings, especially once I became a lieutenant colonel and was sitting on Department of Defense wide efforts. I would always check the attendance of any meeting I was going into to know whether it was going to be immediately hostile or maybe just hostile after I opened my mouth.

1:05:01 Yeah, I was able to, and it's funny that so many of the people that were nasty all ended up stepping on their, you know what, at some point in their career with or without me and some with and some without, but they all seem to get what they deserved in the end. Not all of them, but a lot of them did.

1:05:30 It's what restored or maintained what little faith I had in the system alive. But there's some type of perverse enjoyment over beating them. And that's kind of what I thrived on, as crazy as that sounds. Renee, go ahead. Hey, good afternoon, all. Hope you had a nice weekend. Colonel, I haven't read any of...

1:05:57 books on Colonel Fletcher Prouty, but he was in this whole, all this theater in this timeline, correct? I'm just curious of your opinion of him. I think you shared briefly one time, you're a little uncertain, but every now and then I come across his name and I think of, you know, the Phoenix program and all this stuff. And it seems like he would.

1:06:21 he was present during all this stuff. And just curious your thoughts on him, please. So he seems to have been only willing to, number one, he didn't do anything while he was on the inside. He was a willing participant. And while his, the big book, I forget what the name of it is. I have read his book.

1:06:51 His book, interestingly enough, there was a couple of things like the pre-order of the body bags for Guyana that he did what I would say exposed something that was not prior known. But generally speaking, I would assess him as like a 95% gatekeeper.

1:07:18 He was willing to talk about things after they were well known. He was not really what we would refer to as a whistleblower or exposing this. So he has interesting information. It's just not breaking new things. He was only willing to talk about things after they were known.

1:07:48 So it doesn't say that the things that he said is not accurate. I didn't see him providing any disinformation in his book. But he also didn't break news other than a couple of items that I didn't already know. Okay, thank you. Yeah. And then one more question, please, if you don't mind. And who was in the beginning of this chapter, which...

1:08:19 Um, Asian names are hard for me to remember which, um, what was, it was in Vietnam at the beginning of this chapter and the, it was like three sounds. Um, was he, it was in Vietnam, something Dem, was it? No, Den Ben Phu is the name of the town. Ah, okay. Sorry. Because that's the city of the last stand of the French forces.

1:08:48 Okay. Okay. Yeah. It's spelled D-I-E-N-B-I-E-N-F-H-U. Den Ben Thuv. Okay. Very good. Thank you. And was it, was this the city where it was kind of like the last, this was when the French, is that where they? They lost. They lost and they started to withdraw. And then it was like a change of the guard. That was their last stand. Yeah. Okay.

1:09:18 Okay, very good. Thank you for clarifying that. Sure. Yeah, that's when we took over. Nothing like stepping in and a lost cause and killing a whole bunch of us. All for the drug trade. All for the opium. Yep. Well, and to be honest, what was I just reading? It was actually much bigger than just opium.

1:09:57 I think that was in, I'll have to get that and bring it. I think it was in Doug Valentine's book. He, at the very end of that TDY book, listed like seven different industries and companies associated with it in Vietnam that they were protecting. And I found that very interesting. I'll have to, I don't have the book in here on my desk.

1:10:27 I'll have to bring it in here and I'll tell you what they were tomorrow because it was quite a bit of them. Ones I had never heard of too. I knew the rubber was there. I knew there was oil, but I think he listed like six or seven. And we like to keep track of who we're doing this dirty work for here because we don't refer to them as just a big blob. We like to expose them.

1:10:59 For their evilness. Because they're usually the ones. That are running. The propaganda campaigns. Back at home. In order to get us in those foreign wars. So. Anyway. I think they called it accountability. Yeah. We're all about accountability here. And exposing the assholes. Alright. That's it for today. Thanks everybody for being here. I appreciate it.

1:11:37 And thanks for sticking with us. We got so much more work to do. Take care, everybody.

Entities here

Soviet Union25 United States25 Dwight D. Eisenhower17 West Germany12 United Kingdom12 Vietnam10 France9 Japan9 Shiro Ishii6 Unit 7316 Joseph Stalin6 Eastern Soviet Union4 The Jasons4 Manchuria4 R.W. Barker4 Reinhard Gehlen4 Fletcher Prouty4 Oklahoma4 Dien Bien Phu3 The Secret Team3 Doug Valentine3 SS Galizienne3 12th Army Group3 Douglas MacArthur3 Kerr-McGee plutonium factory2 Laos2 The New York Times2 Alexander Haig2 Korea2 Tokyo2 Siberia2 Cossacks2 Karen Silkwood2 George C. Marshall2 Guy Ballard2 French Forces2 Olin Taylor2 Victor Baum2 U.S. Forces Europe2 Điện Biên Phủ2

Claims made here

Henry Eugene Nafare carried_out_attack Dien Bien Phu book_quoted ▶ 10:25

“which was the disaster for the French in Vietnam that finally made them withdraw from recolonizing Vietnam. And it said that General Henry Eugene Nafare had started what he thought was going to be a s…”

France overthrew Vietnam book_quoted ▶ 10:25

Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered_assassination_of Soviet Union book_quoted ▶ 17:29

“on Hitler's Germany in the wanting days of World War II, a decision was made by General Dwight D. Eisenhower that U.S., British, and French forces would stop short of Berlin instead of linking up with…”

Joseph Stalin ordered_assassination_of Cossacks book_quoted ▶ 19:24

“to fight against Stalin. This fact was not lost on the Soviets. And as soon as Germany surrendered, inquiries were made by the Soviets concerning the disposition of such captured enemy prisoners. Stal…”

United States recruited SS Galizienne book_quoted ▶ 27:06

“Instead of being labeled per Eisenhower's orders as the SEPs, they were marked by the OSS as future assets and secretly smuggled into Italy. Yeah, where they were hidden. The American and British inte…”

Soviet Union assassinated Cossacks book_quoted ▶ 27:37

“Bandera, Stetsco, all of those guys. The war is still going on. And the OSS had already determined that they were keeping the Nazi Ukrainians safe. As they were in the process of disappearing into the…”

Soviet Union held United States book_quoted ▶ 33:00

“being held hostage by the Russians until deemed expedient to let them be released. It is estimated at that time that the Russians held over 344,000 Allied servicemen of all European countries. In addi…”

Reinhard Gehlen headed German Army East spy network host_asserted ▶ 35:24

“The OSS wanted the German Army East spy network under Reinhard Galen and their various indigenous expat assets. The military industrial complex wanted the German scientists and their technology alread…”

Dwight D. Eisenhower covered_up United States host_asserted ▶ 36:50

“The plan would have to do two things. It would have to be shown that the Russians over a period of weeks and months had fully repatriated all allied POWs. The allied forces would have to be shown as e…”

Dwight D. Eisenhower covered_up Soviet Union host_asserted ▶ 41:21

“from Eisenhower that says, no, it's less than 3,000 within 24 hours. One guy sitting in the Soviet Union and the other guy is sitting in Germany with no clue because he can't visit any of the camps. T…”

United States funded Operation Paperclip host_asserted ▶ 44:21

“The key to the numbers game being played by the U.S. government instigated by the OSS and their efforts to hide the loss of American prisoners and to buy time for Operation Paperclip and get all of Ga…”

United States recruited Shiro Ishii host_asserted ▶ 48:24

“who had not entered the war against Japan until the last few weeks, kept custody of the Japanese was because they had discovered what was happening in secret in Tokyo. In anticipation of the Cold War,…”

United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases recruited Shiro Ishii host_asserted ▶ 48:24

Soviet Union spied_on Unit 731 host_asserted ▶ 49:25

“It was then that they discovered the biological weapons experiments that had taken place and the majority of Ishii's group that had evaded capture and had evidently made it back to Japan. These findin…”

Soviet Union covered_up Japan host_asserted ▶ 50:56

“Even though the Japanese government newspaper protested vehemently, nothing was done. They weren't willing to give up Ishii or expose him or try him. They protected him and basically left all of the J…”

Fletcher Prouty exposed United States guest_asserted ▶ 1:06:51

“His book, interestingly enough, there was a couple of things like the pre-order of the body bags for Guyana that he did what I would say exposed something that was not prior known. But generally speak…”

French Forces carried_out_attack Điện Biên Phủ host_asserted ▶ 1:08:19

“Um, Asian names are hard for me to remember which, um, what was, it was in Vietnam at the beginning of this chapter and the, it was like three sounds. Um, was he, it was in Vietnam, something Dem, was…”

French Forces removed_from_power Vietnam host_asserted ▶ 1:08:48

“Okay. Okay. Yeah. It's spelled D-I-E-N-B-I-E-N-F-H-U. Den Ben Thuv. Okay. Very good. Thank you. And was it, was this the city where it was kind of like the last, this was when the French, is that wher…”

Doug Valentine exposed Vietnam book_quoted ▶ 1:09:57

“I think that was in, I'll have to get that and bring it. I think it was in Doug Valentine's book. He, at the very end of that TDY book, listed like seven different industries and companies associated …”