The Colonel’s Corner Presidents’ Secret Wars, chapter 15

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Transcript

0:00 Okay, so I have to start out today with a funny. My daughter is just now the one that helps a lot with my substack and other projects, not the one doing the store. Just is now getting around to watching the Paul Williams.

0:29 She's the one that set up my YouTube page and did a whole bunch of other stuff for me originally. And so she's just now getting around to watching the two Paul Williams interviews that we did over the last couple of weeks. So I have to share with you. She texted me and says, well, she posted on her social media about, her quote on her social media is,

0:58 I love my friends who make amazing work and I hate the CIA who committed unspeakable horrors every day. So she has a picture of two of books that her friends authored and she has Paul Williams book. And then down in the bottom of it, it says, my mom just interviewed Paul Williams. One of the people.

1:26 speaking out about Operation Gladio, crazy shit. So she just posted that on her social media and has gotten a bunch of response. I don't recognize it. It may have been TikTok or Snapchat or whatever those things are. I don't know what any of them are. So anyway, she sends me this picture a few minutes ago and she says, I love how you and Paul Williams are laughing so hard in this interview because you guys are basically finishing each other's thoughts.

1:56 And I said, thank you for watching. It's as close to fangirling as you will ever get to see me. And she says, ha ha, you were getting so excited. It was awesome to see. I'm about halfway through the first interview. And she says, I was just reading a book about the Dutch East India Company. And the concept of that is insane.

2:23 And I said, yes. And I have something really exciting to tell you about that. Because interestingly enough, I was just talking about that whole concept just a couple of hours ago. So it's rubbing off on my family. And the more.

2:51 I get involved in this and the more I find out about it, the more crazy it is. So anyway, I still think the baby's first word is going to be gladio. It would be very interesting. So anyway, it's crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy. All right. Hopefully.

3:23 I have something else. I'm going to hold off on it until the beginning of next week on a personal note that I want to share with you guys. But I want it to actually happen first. It's just kind of a concept right now. But if it happens, it will happen this weekend. So look forward to sharing that information with you and a little personal story. OK, so we're going to get started.

3:54 And, oh, I see Warhamster. Yeah. See Warhamster, my enthusiasm on this has worn off to my daughter as well. All right. So we're going to start Chapter 15. And it is called Global Reach. And, of course, where we left off with Laos.

4:17 And it kind of went back and forth. One of my frustrations with these books is the skipping around chronologically. I'm very chronologically focused. So it got a little bit into the Nixon part of Vietnam. And with the, you know, it kind of went back and forth throughout the Laos piece of that. So anyway, this one starts with LBJ as president.

4:48 saying that he had wanted to pursue a very aggressive, and he did, domestic policy, while at the same time playing regime change around the world. So he was proud of instituting his social programs called the Great Society, and he viewed...

5:17 the foreign affairs as a problem that was just another job he had to do as president. And obviously, he got more and more disappointed with the Vietnam War and the way it was going. And his big fear of that was not necessarily, you know, all of the people he killed. It really was its infringement on his ideal of creating the big welfare program.

5:45 And as you guys have heard, he was a significant racist and believed that implementing all of those social programs would have the blacks voting for Democrats for the next 200 years. The growth of controversy and opposition to the war began to escalate. And again, his big frustration with that was that it was taking away from his social programs. And then.

6:13 You basically have Nixon that is going to vie for the Republican ticket in 1968. We talked about the 1968 election. And like Johnson, Nixon was prepared to use the full powers of the office of presidency, even if it meant being an imperialist at the same time.

6:40 Nixon was primarily interested in foreign policy and not much domestic policy at all. Paradoxically, Nixon was personally bored with the details of policymaking. This made the choice of his staff a crucial decision, especially things like the Assistant National Security Affairs staff and the National Security Council in and of itself.

7:06 Of course, his selection of Henry Kissinger to be his NSC advisor was a big, big deal. He had at the time been a professor at Harvard prior to him coming into the White House and was very adept at bureaucracy as a result of that. Nixon's dominance in American foreign policy could...

7:33 would be outlasted by Kissinger's by two and a half years in the end. At the onset of his administration, however, there was no question as to Nixon's power and authority. The political comeback was quite remarkable at the time, because if you guys remember, he was vice president under Eisenhower, JFK gets elected, and then we go through Johnson, and then the comeback of Nixon.

8:04 was in the 1968 election. So he basically spent eight years on the outside. Nixon had acquired a very broad understanding of covert action being Eisenhower's vice president. He now took command of that very thing, not just in Asia, but all of the

8:30 ongoing operations that were occurring in Latin America. So he basically was right back home. The American activities in Cambodia were not new either. According to Prince Nahonok, who basically filled all of the different roles as king, prime minister, whatever, the U.S. had been deteriorating steadily.

8:58 since the days when Nixon had served as vice president, according to the quote-unquote king of Cambodia. Nixon himself knew about all of what was going on, obviously, in Cambodia. And he visited Phnom Penh in early 1953, which was the capital of Cambodia.

9:24 Soon after, in 1954, after the Geneva agreements that we didn't pay any attention to, the United States had been instrumental in setting up a regional alliance in the Southeast Asian Treaty Organization called CETO, S-E-A-T-O. Cambodia was encouraged to join by John Foster Dulles, who did not take kindly to Dhanak's refusal. He didn't want anything to do with it.

9:52 Allen Dulles repeated the offer in 1955 during a visit, only to be rejected again. The Americans did not seem to care that the Geneva Accords explicitly prohibited Cambodia and the other states that had succeeded French Indochina from joining any multilateral alliance. Okay, so the Geneva Accords say they can't.

10:21 But the U.S. is begging them to do it. And unlike the U.S. who ignored the Geneva Accords, they evidently was complying with them, which is kind of a weird juxtaposition for the U.S. to be in when we keep telling everybody inside the United States that we're the ones that follow all the rules and everybody else is the ones that does not.

10:52 Sahankuk remained head of state throughout the 50s and 60s. He remained committed to neutrality. Oh, so you know that that's a death sentence, right? We've already discovered that. Despite increasing pressures to take a side, the Americans gave some foreign aid, but linked any aid to them joining CETO, even though they're not allowed.

11:17 was adamant in resisting and came to regard the desire for dollars as a disease among Cambodians. In 1965, he rejected further aid and diplomatic relations with the U.S. So the U.S. then, quote unquote, broke off relations because there was none to be had. Because we weren't willing to have relationships with anybody that remained neutral.

11:49 America's effort to change this basic situation went beyond diplomatic exchanges, so much so that Suhanak entitled his memoirs of this period, My War with the CIA. That's the name of his book, My War with the CIA. Before the break in diplomatic relationships, the.

12:15 U.S.'s embassy personnel, identified as CIA officers by the Khmer intelligence, had reached 27 people in a relatively small embassy. Sahanek actually believed that number was much larger. He also believed that Robert McClintock, the American ambassador in the mid-1950s, was on the payroll of the CIA, not the State Department.

12:46 They're one in the same, but we know that they've used them interchangeably. McClintock had served in Indochina during the French War and had long been abiding the interest of the special operation warfare and military operations in gathering intelligence everywhere he went. However, Eisenhower did appoint John Purifoy.

13:13 the supervisor of the Guatemalan operation success as the American ambassador to the adjoining country in Thailand, which didn't make the king feel any better because they had already overthrown at least one government. It was in Thailand and South Vietnam that Americans quietly began supporting the Cambodian resistance to the king, specifically the Khmer Siri and Khmer Krom.

13:42 By the late 1950s, these groups were making raids into Cambodia. The fact that the Khmer Syri and the Khmer Krum were incorporated into the CIA Green Beret Mike forces that we talked about in Vietnam made obvious the existence of this complicity, but the origins of the support was still very shrouded.

14:07 A more clearly attributable plot arose in 1958 when the Americans forged a direct relationship with a Cambodian army regional commander by the name of Dap Chuhan. It was hoped that a reincarnation of the strategy that had failed in Indonesia, that the Cambodian general would mount a coup and overthrow the king. Failing that,

14:36 That their option two, because they always have a second option, was to basically declare the area that the CIA actually wanted, which was near the Mekong River, basically create a separatist movement like they did in Qatar and like Panama when they stole it from Colombia and just declare it a different country. So that was option B. So they had two options. Shahanak.

15:08 Suspicions were aroused when Dap Chuong, sudden popularity among all of the American visitors. That would be a dead giveaway. The stream included Edward Lansdale of CIA fame. Other generals that were stationed in South Vietnamese, the Pacific Theater commander, the Pack Fleet commander.

15:39 And activity began being coordinated by an American at the Phnom Penh embassy by the name of Victor Matsui, a former Marine identified by the king as a CIA agent as well. And it was said that he had spent already by this time over a million dollars trying to buy people inside of Cambodia to disobey the king.

16:09 Chuan plot was broken up in the spring of 1959 when the king dispatched his army chief of staff, a guy by the name of Long Nol, to arrest the commander. Long Nol killed him instead. As Dap Chuan's villa, Khmer authorities found two South Vietnamese radio operators with their equipment posing as Chinese filmmakers.

16:39 Victor Matsui went on to work for a time in the CIA's effort to penetrate North Vietnam and then for the agency in Pakistan, from which he was expelled for what? Spying on Pakistan in 1966. Meanwhile, the Vietnamese War had escalated from small-scale guerrilla warfare

17:03 to actual regular forces on both sides. Cambodia became increasingly vital, according to the Americans, because of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Cambodia's neutral position became more of an irritant to the United States. Beginning in the mid-1967, the Americans countered with cross-border patrols into Cambodia, basically doing...

17:33 gladiocel-type terrorism. This project was ran by a guy whose codename was Daniel Boone. He was part of the military advisory group. So at the foot of the Central Highlands, the military advisory group established a command element in November of 1967 to regularize Daniel Boone, the actual mission. The unit contained reconnaissance teams.

18:03 patrol units, plus four strike forces. When Daniel Boone missions were revealed in the American press, the code name had changed to Salem House. The Special Operations Group unit also made efforts to install agent networks inside of Cambodia, basically like day-behinds. This went on for at least two years.

18:28 Cross-border operations were still in progress when Richard Nixon was inaugurated in 69. A month later, there was an upsurge in fighting in South Vietnam. Nixon determined to retaliate by secretly bombing Cambodia and their refusal to go along with America and their insistence that they remain neutral. The Cambodian effort utilized B-52s, some of the most powerful weapons in the United States,

18:55 To carry out this bombing campaign, known eventually as Operation Menu, in a nation with which the U.S. was at peace, Nixon ordered unprecedented levels of secrecy. The regular Pentagon records themselves classified and supposedly secured were falsified to indicate that the bombing missions were hitting South Vietnam. Pilots were briefed for flights over Vietnam and diverted at the last minute.

19:24 Within a little over a year, B-52s had flown over 3,000 sorties over Cambodia, dropping more than 100,000 tons of bombs. Because a B-52's got like enough room. It depends. I mean, they've been modified over time. But back when they did non-smart bombs, I mean, you could pack on like 70 at a time.

19:53 Far from wiping out North Vietnamese-based areas, the Operation Menu bombing had little apparent effect. Salem House teams found the enemy infuriated but not dazed. One bombing assessment patrol under Special Forces Captain Bill Orthman, O-R-T-H-M-A-N, was practically wiped out. When another team was ordered out on the same mission, the men rebelled and refused to go.

20:20 Several were arrested, but the military advisory command could hardly court-martial soldiers publicly for refusing to violate the neutrality of Cambodia, so no further action was taken. Green Beret morale was affected, however, by other court-martials that did take place. An intelligence activity in Cambodia called Project Cherry

20:46 ended in January 68 with charges against its commander, Captain John McCarthy Jr., in the killing of a Cambodian interpreter suspected as a double agent. The most celebrated trial occurred in 1969 when eight Green Berets, including Colonel Rialt, R-H-E-A-U-L-T, commander of the 5th Special Forces Group, was accused of murder in the death of another suspected double agent.

21:14 This agent had been acting on part of Project Blackbeard, a set of networks in Cambodia controlled by a man by the name of Captain Robert Marasco, M-A-R-A-S-C-O. The agent's murder evidently followed Marasco's discovery that his sources in Cambodia was drying up.

21:35 Army charges in the case were dropped after CIA officers refused to testify at the court-martial. The Green Beret affair, which is what it was called, resulted in Washington in one of the few meetings ever held by the U.S. Intelligence Board at which all subordinates were excluded and no notes taken. With crippled agent networks and ineffective Salem House missions,

22:02 Nixon nonetheless forged ahead in Cambodia because, you know, what's the big deal? It's just a dead body. The apparent willingness of the U.S. to act encouraged those Khmer who opposed the king's neutrality. This was especially true for Prime Minister Lon Nol, his lieutenant, Syriac Matak, and Khmer Syri chief, Song Lok.

22:32 So in March 1970, when the king was abroad, Long Nol launched a coup and overthrew the chief of state and plunged Cambodia into the Indochina War. The extent of American complicity in the coup has long been disputed. But what is not disputed is that they were trained and equipped by the CIA. Whatever is said.

23:04 about the coup, there is no doubt that the Khmer Siri owed their status to the CIA. Sources range from the king to Long Nol's own army commanders who agreed that without the funding of the CIA, these are the guys that actually put the coup on, there was no way they would have been able to pull off the coup.

23:30 Khmer Syri in Vietnam were openly recruited by CIA Mike forces. Most particularly through the 1969, there was a wave of desertions from the Khmer Syri in Thailand with entire units going over to the Cambodians. 200 in January, 300 in May, three full battalions by the end of the year. As the prime minister and army commander,

23:58 Long Nol incorporated some of these Khmer series into the National Police and others in the Phnom Penh garrison. As soon as he launched the coup, Long Nol appealed to the Americans for assistance. Within two weeks, there was 1,800 Mike Force in Cambodia to assist the people who committed the coup.

24:27 They were airlifted into the country by the CIA. As early as February 1970, the special forces captain in charge of the camp that was across the border in South Vietnam was ordered to send two companies of Hmong strikers into Cambodia in order to assist this effort. Henry Kissinger's

24:56 presses were official versions of his memoirs. He argues that, quote, we neither encouraged the King's overthrow nor knew about it in advance. We did not even grasp its significance for many weeks, unquote. Bold face lies. Not until the very day of the coup, reports Kissinger, did the CIA report in Washington predict the event that would occur.

25:26 In the first days of March, however, an Air Force pilot flew a party of about 60 American diplomats and military officers to Phnom Penh for secret talks. He believes the purpose of this highly classified mission was to basically affect the coup. The pilot was told that he was stupid and that the Americans had been talking to the Cambodian general willing to move against the king for a very long time.

25:55 During the same period, the Khmer Syri leader, Sung Nak Thang, also met with Lone Knoll, a fact confirmed by the SecDef Marvin Laird. According to this contact, William Colby of the CIA told a journalist, William Shawcross, that Lone Knoll may well have been encouraged by the fact that the U.S. was working with Thang, saying, I don't know any of the specifics.

26:24 that he was given, but that was the obvious conclusion. In other interviews for his study on Cambodia, Shawcross was told by the military advisory command deputy commander, General William Rosson, R-O-S-S-O-N, that the U.S. military had several days notice of the coup and a request for American assistance went to the Saigon CIA analyst, Frank Snepp, S-N-E-P-P.

26:55 Also told of contact with DIA by lone knoll. So again, 100% of the U.S. knew all about it. Perhaps the most telling indicator was inadvertently supplied by Henry Kissinger himself. The date of Kissinger's memorandum to Richard Nixon reporting on the plans of expanding the Cambodian army was March 17th, 1970.

27:24 which was the day before the coup. Nixon, of course, was amenable to helping the coup. In his own memoirs, he expressed surprise at the coup, but basically said, what the hell do those clowns do there in Langley? That was a quote. But on Kissinger's memo, according to the National Security Advisor, Nixon wrote, let's get a plan to aid the new government, which, again,

27:55 was written the day before it happened. Kissinger was ordered to say nothing about this to the bureaucracy or to the NSC special group monitoring the covert operations. The aid matter would be handled like the operation menu airstrike, completely secret. The prepackaged shipments of non-attributable CIA weapons

28:25 en route to Phnom Penh before the U.S. formally considered arms aid to Cambodia. So the CIA is arming them before the official announcement within the U.S. government that they even recognize the government. So Richard Nixon followed up in the last few days of April with a full-fledged military advisory command.

28:51 invasion with the South Vietnamese of the Cambodian border regions. The invasion ignited political firestorm in the U.S. Although Richard Nixon learned much of what he knew about the leadership from President Eisenhower, there was a fundamental difference between the two men. Ike tried to be subtle and work with a hidden hand. Nixon preferred to think in terms of drama and result.

29:17 One such was conceived in the early days of the Cambodian invasion, and what didn't necessarily go over very well with the American people. And again, there's a lot to be said by Eisenhower doing it and having the credibility, although wrongly, as a military general to say, hey, we really needed to do this for our safety and security. Nixon doesn't have any of that cover. And unfortunately,

29:46 Eisenhower abused his. The mission was nothing less than an attempt to liberate American prisoners from a camp in the heart of North Vietnam, talking about a mission. A camp only two dozen miles from downtown Hanoi. There had been other attempts to rescue prisoners in South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos since 1966. The raid on Sante Prisoner Camp

30:16 would be the 91st rescue mission, but one of the most ambitious and the first in North Vietnam. Only 20 of the previously made rescue missions had been successful, freeing 318 South Vietnamese soldiers and 60 civilians, but only one American, an Army enlisted man that had been rescued, but later died of his wounds that was inflicted.

30:46 during the actual rescue. Now, of course, the U.S. says those wounds were inflicted by the enemy, but who the hell knows, because you can't believe anything they say. Still, the Pentagon began considering a rescue mission at Sante among

31:03 other prisoner camps. The Sante Raid was the brainchild of Brigadier General Donald Blackburn, one of Army's premier special warfare enthusiasts, who by 1970 was head of SECDEF's Office Special Assistant for Counterinsurgency and Special Activities. Blackburn had been a paratrooper in Japan during World War II, and he emerged

31:29 As a full colonel, he taught at West Point. Then he was an advisor in Vietnam and commanded a special group at Fort Bragg. And in 1960, it was Blackburn who got the assignment for setting up White Star in Laos. After that tour with the special forces, he returned to Vietnam in 1965 as commander of the Military Advisory Command. Blackburn had worked North Vietnamese before with special operations.

31:59 whose Bearcat Base prepared agent teams for infiltration. After receiving intelligence in the existence of a prisoner camp, the Special Operations and DIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, began feasibility studies for this rescue mission. A proposal was accepted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff on July 10, 1970, and Chairman Admiral Thomas Moore gave Blackburn the green light for planning and prep.

32:26 On August 8th, a joint contingency task force was expanded with Air Force Brigadier General Leroy Manor, M-A-N-O-R, to carry out the raid. The chief of the ground element, Blackburn, handpicked Special Forces Colonel Arthur Bill Simmons, S-I-M-O-N-S, who had run White Star for him 10 years earlier. Like Blackburn, Bull

32:55 Simon was a legendary figure with two tours in charge of White Star, one with special operations and one with a military advisory group, where he helped develop contingency plans for an invasion of Laos and the command of special forces group down in Latin America. Blackburn worried about a heart condition that Bull had recently developed in Korea, but was reassured that he was fine.

33:23 Planning reached an advanced stage by the late summer, practice exercises had began, and it was ready for Richard Nixon's approval. The Sante operation was christened Ivory Coat. This spectacular mission was planned down to the last detail, including exercises, a mock village that was set up at Eglin Air Force Base, because again, remember the Special Forces is right down the street from there for the Air Force.

33:53 So great was the secrecy that the Mok village was disassembled and concealed each time a Soviet reconnaissance satellite went overhead. There were more than 100 exercises with helicopters intended to fly in the raid and 368 practice flights. The following day, Blackburn, Manor, Simons, and the Air Force General John Vogt, V-O-G-T,

34:18 who was director of the Joint Staff, presented a detailed status to Kissinger at the White House recommending that Operation Ivory Coast be carried out at the end of the month. The Joint Chiefs, the SECDEF, and the CIA Director, Richard Helms, had already been apprised of all of this. However, the raid was postponed another month. Admiral Thomas Moore, M-O-O-R-E-R,

34:45 was the presenter on November 18th when Ivory Coast's plan was again briefed at the White House, this time directly to Nixon, SACDEP, Kissinger, CIA Director Helms, and Secretary of State William Rogers. The president was told that he had a decision to make within 24 hours or postpone it until the spring of 1971. Nixon kept the briefing book to examine it, but gave his approval in time. Ivory Coast went forward.

35:13 The word on a flash cable to pepper grinder was spook bait in Thailand, where now Bull, Simon, and 58 men, assault force, and helicopters were standing by. From there, they moved up to Udorn, Thailand. Ivory Coast was executed during the night of November 21st and 22nd. The air... Hold on a second.

35:43 That's really interesting. November 22nd. The air assault search and recovery aboard the HH-53 took just 27 minutes. None of the Green Berets were killed. The worst casualty was a sprained ankle. Even the Air Force crew of another helicopter, which deliberately crashed inside the compound as a diversion, got out. Only two things marred the perfect performance. One amounted to an intelligence failure.

36:10 of huge proportions. There was not a single prisoner at the camp. It had indeed been an active camp when the rescue mission was first conceived, but then they were all evacuated. Washington had aerial photographs that confirmed as much that had been taken by high-altitude SR-71 spy planes on October 3rd, but more photos from SR-71 overflights in early November showed that the camp was back in

36:40 in use. Crops had been planted in the complex, additional SR-71 flights that week before the raid and the days immediately preceding it confirmed Sante's renewed employment. Reconnaissance drone flights scheduled for the day before the raid were canceled because of adverse weather. When Sante complex was back in use, it was not a prisoner camp. That name did not appear on the prisoner's headcount and list of camps passed to America's

37:11 Once the Hanoi information was available, a new camp was listed near the city of Dong Hoi. This information came from DIA, whose director in Washington told Admiral Moore and General Blackburn this information. The special operations were challenged with information.

37:34 And he thought that the agent's report ambiguous while the three most recent SR-71 flights had returned marginal photo photography and did not indicate that there were any prisoners. That crazy Blackburn, another officer said, is going to invade North Vietnam so Bull Simons can land in an empty camp. At 6 a.m. meeting, Blackburn indeed recommended to Admiral Moore.

38:04 that the raid go ahead. Moore said that the decision for the SECDEP, who let stand the execute order, which had already gone out, even though now it was suspected there was no one there. One of the HH-53 assault helicopters mistakenly landed at a secondary school about 100 meters away. The school had been converted into a barrack, and there was a short, sharp

38:32 with the Green Berets killed an estimated 100 to 200 enemy. These soldiers, however, were too tall for Vietnamese and are thought to have been from some other country. Operation Ivory Coast could have turned into a major international incident. The Nixon administration had made no preparations to deal with any of the fallout.

38:59 The last part of the Sante story is the deception of Congress and the American public that was inadvertently revealed by Nixon himself. Airstrikes had been made against North Vietnamese targets that night to divert attention from this rescue attempt. This became known by this, but the SecDef at first denied that there was even bombings that occurred. Then he claimed that they were protective reaction for the downing of a Marine reconnaissance plane two weeks before.

39:29 For his part, Richard Nixon had arranged to host Thanksgiving dinner for disabled veterans drawn from military hospitals in the Washington area. You know, the ones they sacrificed and that nice of them. Thanksgiving came and the president sat down at a table of a small group of servicemen busy autographing White House matchbooks. Nixon began talking about Sante, including the air raid made to pin down North Vietnamese defenses.

39:59 This story got back to junior reporters covering the desk at the Washington Post. The SecDef carefully obfuscated story was blown by his own boss. As for Henry Kissinger, the former national security advisor, maintained he learned of the intelligence that Sante had been closed only after the failure.

40:26 There would be 28 more rescue missions attempted before the end of the war. Of the total, 119 missions were undertaken between 66 and 73. Fully, 98 were raids. Only one American prisoner was ever recovered. Raids might be spectacular, but they were not going to determine the outcome of the Vietnam War. In the South, there were two wars, really. The War of the Posts and the Combat Division and the Pacification War.

40:56 That was basically just a contest of the loyalty of the Vietnamese people. The second was the business of the CIA. And that had been true since Operation Switchback took the CIA.

41:13 kind of took the focus of the paramilitary action in South Vietnam. A comprehensive pacification program had been proposed by the agency in 65, and the CIA was involved in planning and expert assistance for many of the pacification activities that followed, which, of course, that's Operation Phoenix, and I firmly believe Vietnam was the precursor for them bringing that home here.

41:41 And they used it many other places. President Johnson repeatedly considered the pacification, which he did not want to leave entirely to the military because he had his own plans for it. At conferences in Honolulu and Manila, in documents and telephone conversations, LBJ pressed the theme that the other war was the real war.

42:14 meaning the pacification. Johnson's interest owed much to a White House staff that had attention on the pacification issues, and in particular to a CIA officer that had been attached for duty inside the National Security Council, Robert Comer, K-O-M-E-R, which of course we run across often.

42:41 thought so much of Comer's work that he was soon a White House troubleshooter working on a whole host of things. In 1966, Comer served for a few months as the actual acting National Security Council advisor. The CIA action officer was temporarily the boss of the CIA director.

43:08 A year later, President Johnson decided that a top-level Saigon command for pacification was needed, and he chose Comer for the job and promised him anything that he needed for the job to be done well. The Saigon unit was called CORDS, and we've talked about this before, because CORDS is basically the equivalent of the fusion centers here in the United States. You also had Ambassador Cabot Lodge, who...

43:38 was working with Comer in Vietnam. Langley soon learned just how much of an influence Comer had in the White House. In late 1967, Richard Helms, the CIA director, felt that the time had came for a change in the plans area of the Far East Division. He wanted the division chief, William Colby, and offered him a plum posting.

44:07 in the Soviet-Russian division. William Colby naturally accepted and was already getting his first briefings when Comer asked instead for Colby's assignment to Saigon as deputy chief of his cords program. At one of the president's regular Tuesday lunch decision meetings, LBJ turned to Helms and out of the blue told him to send Colby to Comer.

44:31 Helms, who had known nothing about the court's chief request, apologetically told Colby that he had been overridden and he was going to Vietnam. The court's error led to one of the most controversial pacification programs in the Vietnam War. This resulted from Comer's thinking about how to specifically target the Viet Cong Padre and leadership in villages. Comer settled on a massive intelligence program to collect information on suspected Viet Cong.

45:02 who could then be neutralized, murdered in this program. And of course, as I said, this was called Phoenix. And since we've spent a lot of time on Phoenix, I'm not going to go through the details of this. Just understand that this program ended up during 1969 alone, neutralizing almost 20,000 suspects. Again.

45:31 Remember, they have all of the people that were Catholics that they forced relocated into these villages. Then they burn the villages, they move them into the compounds, and they are paying them to rat out anybody that's suspected Viet Cong. They don't have to be, they have to be suspected. And then they kill them. And the next year, the almost 30,000 went up to 40,000.

46:04 So it was basically just a major assassination program. And Comer was responsible for it. They created prisons on islands and they basically were mapped out. They basically were concentration camps. I don't even think you could call them a prison. So there's no doubt that the pacification effort.

46:34 had some impact. North Vietnam diplomats and officers have said as much in interviews. Their forces were increasingly forced to other areas outside of these compound areas. And perhaps the program's success had more to do with choices that the North Vietnamese made as opposed to

47:01 that actually happened with Phoenix because the North Vietnamese chose early on that they were not going to engage the U.S. and the CIA in kind of a tit-for-tat on them doing that, that they weren't going to. I mean, obviously, they had POWs. I've met many of them. But they were not going to penalize.

47:28 the South Vietnamese and hold them hostage basically to take those resources away from the CIA in this kind of like a tit-for-tat kind of setup. So despite the apparent pacification program, the invasions of

47:47 Cambodia, and Laos, the bombing and secret army operations in Laos, and all of the rest, the North Vietnamese were poised for a major conventional offensive by 1972. Nixon responded with huge increases in air power, and they also mined High Pond Harbor and committed a Christmas bombing of Hanoi with B-52s.

48:16 Then we went into the Paris Agreements in 1973, which took the last U.S. combat forces out of the war. Saigon was left with residual military aid. The Vietnam War continued for two more years to Saigon. Richard sent a new ambassador, Graham Martin, who had already been in the middle of the war from Thailand. Martin and the CIA director, Chief Thomas Polgar, P-O-L-G-A-R.

48:44 Ignored growing indications that Saigon was going downhill, the CIA and other American services were forced to frantically evacuate. We've seen all the pictures. In 1968, before Nixon hired him to work in the administration, Henry Kissinger wrote an article that advocated a settlement providing a decent interval for the U.S. withdrawal. Thinking with shame that the Americans' final abandonment of Vietnam allies, senior Saigon CIA analyst Frank Snepp,

49:14 S-N-E-P-P, could find no better title for the book, giving his account of the debacle other than decent interval. After the March 7th, 1969, Richard Nixon helicoptered out of Langley with Richard Helms to address senior officials of the CIA in their lodge auditorium.

49:45 The president basically said, I look upon this organization, meaning the CIA, as not one in which is necessary for the conduct of conflict or war, or call it what you may. But in the final analysis, one of the great instruments of our government for the preservation of peace, for the avoidance of war, and for the development of a society in which this kind of thing would not be necessary.

50:14 if necessary at all. So Richard Nixon, in his own words, viewed the CIA as a necessary way to keep peace by killing people and regime chains and overthrowing governments and stealing their resources. It was a necessary evil. So Nixon continued supporting these efforts.

50:44 And there were new funds that were appropriated by Congress in January 1971. The late Senator Clifford case of New Jersey detailed secret CIA funding of several different programs that were similar to this and announced legislation to make them independent but directly funded.

51:10 Nixon and Kissinger worked on the legislation which passed Congress March 3rd, 1972, providing that radios for things like Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, and all of the other propaganda bullshit was passed with $36 million in its first fiscal year. They were to be administered by the Secretary of State and CIA. One nation

51:40 To fill the weight of Nixon's covert options was Iraq and even more so the Kurds in Kurdistan. The new secret war was going to involve the U.S. doing a favor for the Shah of Iran. The Kurds were, I think we probably want to save this one because this is a long chapter. And I do want to talk about the Kurds that I was deployed there.

52:08 Basically, I want to save that for a separate day because it's very interesting. And we'll leave that there with another coup in another country called Cambodia. And we did not in our Around the World tour cover Cambodia. There's a lot to that because once we overthrew the government, obviously you have the killing fields.

52:37 Well over some, depending on what estimate, what thing you read, well over a million. Some people say two million. Some people have said that it's more than two million dead because Pol Pot obviously comes to power. And you basically, for those of you who are not aware, he went into every, Cambodia was a very well-established country.

53:07 Cities had, I don't even know how to explain it. It was just a normal place, like any place in America. Doctors, lawyers, teachers, a great education system. It was not an impoverished country. And Pol Pot decided that he was going to implement a Nigerian.

53:33 um society where nobody had a college education if you wore glasses you were going to be murdered if you had a college education you were going to be murdered if you knew how to be a doctor a lawyer if you were a mayor whatever he's going to kill everybody um the only people that were basically going to live through this was going to be farmers and everybody was going to go back to like the stone age and um for those of you who are new here um i visited

54:05 Phnom Penh. I've been in the killing fields. They basically took these people, they went into these cities and they told the people in the cities and there were still Americans working with Pol Pot during this time.

54:28 They went into cities and they told the population that the U.S. was going to come in and kill them and that they all had to leave. And then they were told that they needed to dig trenches in order to be able to hide from the Americans. Unfortunately, those trenches were their graves and they would just mow all of the people down, murder them and throw them in the graves and then cover them back up. And there's waves and waves and waves of people.

54:57 on the outskirts of cities that they did this to. And in one area called the Killing Fields, today you can visit there and they have created formal walkways and then dug the actual graves down about a foot. And so you just walk on the areas that are still

55:27 you know, higher. And you see not only where you're walking, but in the areas that are a little bit recessed, bones of people that were buried there and pieces of their clothing. And as the ground erodes, you are able to see more and more of that. And they have this like 20, 30 foot tall monument.

55:56 created of nothing but the skulls of victims. The guide that was with us also pointed out these killing trees which the Khmer Rouge actually took the small children and basically just bashed their heads up against these trees killing them and then let them kind of just rot. And you see all scattered around the trees that they used for this.

56:25 I mean, they're ginormous oak trees. Some was still standing when we were there. All of these tiny little bones around the trees. And it was, again, it's something that you will never, ever forget. You can't unsee any of that. And all of that was horrible. The worst wasn't even that.

56:55 The worst part was they turned every single school into a prison. They wrapped strands of barbed wire around the outside.

57:07 of the schools like you know how in the old days we didn't have like these block schools where you basically went indoors and everything the classrooms and everything were access from inside you walked along like you had school building you had a walkway in the front and then you know like the overhang above if it was a two-story

57:28 And that was also a walkway ahead. So what they did was the poles that held up the second story, they wrapped from around the building all the way around the poles, just strands of barbed wire higher and higher and higher. So you could walk in on one end. You couldn't get out unless you came back that same end because it was just a one wall of barbed wire and then these classrooms on the left-hand side. So you walk in.

57:58 to an outdoor breezeway-like porch to the classrooms. There was like, I don't know, maybe 10 or 15 classrooms, and then it was L-shaped, and then the classrooms went down off to the right as well. And again, this open-air walkway was surrounded by barbed wire. And in each classroom,

58:22 There were chalkboards that had hash marks on how many people were killed in that particular classroom. There were pictures of all of the people that they knew had been killed that had later been turned in as part of a project. And then I also mentioned when I was relaying this before that the guy one of the guys.

58:46 A lot of the people that were made to clean up after each time because they killed them in the most hideous ways, like bludgeoning them and like tying them up from the ceiling and dropping them all kinds of hideous ways. And so there was like blood all over the ceiling, steel. I mean, when I was there, this was, you know, decades later.

59:10 But one of the guys that had been given the task of cleaning these rooms in therapy to try to deal with all of the horrible things that he was dealing with in the aftermath, he became became an artist. And he basically at the very end, all of the classrooms, so all of the classrooms down the main walkway had been left as they were. Obviously, they cleaned up the floor, but not the walls, the still whatever that day was that that.

59:39 prison was freed the hash marks that were on this um chalkboard everything was just like that you walk down to the end and you turn right through an open air um breezeway surrounded by barbed wire that whole end of the classrooms there was a doorway that was cut out of each classroom and his art was on display of people that he had seen killed in different scenes in which

1:00:08 depicted the way that they had been killed. And I won't go into that, but it's very graphic. And that was kind of his therapy of giving back and honoring the people that had been murdered in that way. And again, I had no idea when I was there, how all of that, I believed the education that I had got and the research that I had done when I was at Air War College prior to going on this trip.

1:00:39 that the United States had nothing to do with this. This was some crazy, weird guy that overthrew the king, took over the country, and murdered all of the people because he was crazy. And oh, by the way, he was a communist. Only to find out, of course, that none of that is true. He was not a communist. He was crazy.

1:01:06 But the CIA is the one that overthrew the government and left when they were moving their operations out of the their primary operations. They didn't ever technically all leave the Golden Triangle. But when they were refocusing them over to the Golden Crescent in the Afghanistan region, you know, left these weirdos there to do whatever they wanted with their people.

1:01:36 um culture if you go to um the uh i'm i'm my brain just kind of lost it the pyramids that are there anchor watt um we went to anchor watt i climbed all the way up to the top of it that's the craziest damn thing um and um bought some solid silver

1:02:00 like imprinted dishes of the building itself. There's civilization that looks like it's probably 2,000 years old. It has these monster big boulders that represented the old kingdom. And there's a guide that took us around the entire area.

1:02:25 was basically, you know, these were the stables. This was where the king lived. This is where the trading post was. It's literally just a crazy, beautiful place that we destroyed. And again, this journey for me, having been over there and saw all of that, you know, I've been to South America a couple of times.

1:02:52 Back when I was still naive and stupid, thinking we were, you know, the saviors. So having to go back and try to reprocess everything that I saw in terms of the, you know, the CIA, NATO, this international syndicate being behind the devastation that I've already seen with my own eyes has been quite crazy. A way to.

1:03:17 get through all of this because it just literally turns your entire world upside down. But anyway, having said that, that's it. We can open it up. Bridget, SR71, I know you guys have been posting some stuff. You got anything that you want to add? We've been working together a lot for the last well over a year now.

1:03:51 I don't know, it just maybe never hit me before. Thank you. Just because we haven't, most of us in the space, most of us who will listen to the space later, and most of us learning all these, haven't walked in those shoes. And it isn't until you add the depth that we can't grasp, even if we did read all these books.

1:04:23 Because of your military experience and because of walking through those fields. And and, you know, thank you. I it's hard to even fathom. And when the words come out of my mouth now, I mean, I I got off that bus and there was 15 of us and I had no.

1:04:50 I had no idea what I was going to see. I knew we were going to see the killing fields. And I studied it. I've read about it. There's no amount of preparation for walking out into that field and looking around. And I mean, it's as far as you can see. It's ginormous. And your eye catches. And again, it's disorienting because your eye catches these.

1:05:19 things sticking out of the dirt. And you're like, what the fuck is that? And then these, you know, and it was kind of breezy that day. You see this stuff moving around and you're like, it looked like maybe wings or something like that on the ground. And I was like, what is that? And so the, then the guide starts talking about how they like.

1:05:43 petrified, just like what we did with the Catholic Church. And it would be interesting to know if the Catholic Church had anything to do with Cambodia, but the Catholic Church being the psyops and making all of the North Vietnamese people move to the South and get on the airplanes and blah, blah, blah. The psychological operation of terrifying an entire town of people. There's just so many elements to this.

1:06:09 And the CIA was doing this as basically you can think of it as an experiment on how to mass petrify people to get them to do things that are literally walking into their graves. And they did it. And the again, so you walk out and as the guy starts telling us the story that.

1:06:39 And how they got him out of the town by lying to them and then basically, you know, had them dig their own graves and they just shot him dead and buried them. And then it dawns on me. I'm I'm looking again at the horizon and I'm like, oh, son of a bitch. And then, of course.

1:07:05 You're not going to be the one that says, yeah, no, I'm not walking out there. And so you walk out there and you just see what looks like miles of these, what have been turned into now grave sites of people. And it's just a bunch of bones and the clothes that they were wearing that has been eroded over time in the blowing of the wind and stuff like that. So it's kind of like,

1:07:34 frayed and stuff like that um and the the part the really hard part was obviously the tree where you consider that grown ass people men are picking up little kids and just murdering them in cold blood um it is hard to fathom that as as a human being um

1:07:59 But I think things like this and the reason why I'm doing what I'm doing is because people today, when you talk about Anthony Fauci or you talk about any of these people in the international syndicate or any of these vile terrorists that the CIA has trained and unleashed on humanity, you can't in any way, shape or form fathom.

1:08:28 That they have any conscience at all. Because I've seen with my own eyes. They have zero. You are a bug. You are. And I think it would be a compliment if you consider yourself cattle. They don't see you as cattle. They see you as a bug to squash. And that's kind of the vile contempt that they have.

1:08:58 for humanity and i have seen it firsthand with my eyes you can't i just again i thought that that was the exception i thought that that was something that was unassociated with america that was this you know just this weird foreign country over there that has a bunch of wackos and i don't know what their culture is but they created a bunch of wackos only to find out that that isn't that country over there

1:09:25 That's every country that the CIA has or the, you know, NATO. It's not just the CIA again. But every country that has been touched has left something similar to that. SR-71, go ahead. Thank you, Colonel. And thank everybody for attending. This is some really rough stuff to go through. I know it is. My father was in Vietnam. He served a term in Vietnam. He was Green Beret.

1:09:58 If he had known what was really going on, there's no doubt in my mind he would have left the service years ago before any of this was brought to light. But what's really disheartening about this is during that time, I graduated high school in 74. In 73, the draft was abolished, so I missed it by the skin of my teeth. But given that...

1:10:28 During this whole time the Vietnam War was going on, here on the home front, what we were talked about and what everything was done was about Vietnam. There was barely a word about Cambodia, if any. If you got drafted, you were going to Vietnam. You weren't going to Cambodia, you were going to Vietnam. It just boggles my mind that none of this came out.

1:10:59 during that time to the public? No, a large part of them, you know, like I said, was operating actually in Thailand, especially the air component. But a lot of the SF guys were in Thailand doing missions in Laos and then eventually moved up to Laos under the guise of CIA and wore civilian clothes, which again, none of that is even, you know, supposed to have happened at that particular time. Now it's kind of commonplace that they do it.

1:11:30 But Vietnam was a kind of a bridge too far. It was a do whatever to whoever and we will fall back just this side of what we're able to get away with there to be able to go forward. I, again, during my formal education, not my self-education, had no idea.

1:11:59 the extent to which we were in Cambodia either. And like I said, I went there. I had no idea. But obviously it's extensive, but I have to share something with you guys. Castle Grahams on Rumble says, this show makes me want to go buy more ammo. I'm sorry.

1:12:27 Love you, Castle Graham. Thank you for saying that and making me smile. So if you saw me smile, I wasn't smiling about the dead bodies. I was smiling about what Castle Graham posted. But yeah. So anyway, Miles, go ahead. Yeah, I was thinking about this yesterday, but you had to go. So being a history buff, and if I look back through the centuries.

1:12:57 of some kind of regime or dictator, going back to even Genghis Khan. In a 75-year period, I haven't seen more crimes against humanity than what we're talking about, Gladio, because it's on a global scale. These other things were...

1:13:28 pretty much localized. And they were horrific, but nothing on the scale that we're dealing with right now. So how are we going to deal with this? Well, I think that's the whole purpose of Trump and what they're afraid of is that he is going to be able to deal with this. And I think during his first term, he has already laid the foundation with China, Saudi Arabia, and many of the countries to do exactly that.

1:13:58 That that is what I believe in my heart. And until that's proven otherwise, I'm going to continue to believe it. And all of the people that he is has nominated, the ones that they fear the most, like I watch most of the Cash Patel.

1:14:26 They're literally shitting their pants over the fact that he may be the FBI director. That brings me great joy. The same thing with Tulsi Gabbard. The more they scream, the more I know that they are going to do something in that job that freaks them out. So I think at this point.

1:14:54 I'm going to do the old Russ Limbaugh thing. I'll let you know when I'm panicked. I'm not panicked at all. I believe that there is a cast of people coming in to dismantle this. And we'll see. What else do you got, Miles? Well, look, Shifty Schiff, that was hysterical because he was panicking so much.

1:15:24 He was going, we, we, we, we, we, we, we. Yes. I couldn't stop laughing. I know. And he goes, well, I guess it's the definition of we. Cash was enjoying it. The funniest part of that is he's bashing Cash for claiming the fifth while he's got a fucking pardon for treason. So, yeah, fuck you, Shift. That's what I got to say about you.

1:15:53 Carrie, go ahead. Hi, Colonel. This yesterday and today, very difficult to listen. I just want to say one thing about bugs. I only kill ticks and mosquitoes. I love bugs. And the other thing I want to talk about is, do you know the name of the artist? I do not. Oh, that's so sad. Okay.

1:16:27 Thanks. I can look. I have all my old notes out in a locker in my, I have all of the flyers, everything that I got on that trip. So I probably have a postcard that I bought in the gift shop of that horrible place just so I could support him. I bought several things in there and I'm sure probably something has his name on it. So I will look the next time I'm out there.

1:16:57 Oh, my God, I would love that. Thank you so much. You're welcome. And thank you for asking. All right. What else we got? Warhamster, are you in a place that you can say a few words? He's usually got us on listening. Yeah, I'm in a place to say a few words, but I don't have a whole lot to say. You know, I read about the Khmer Rouge back probably when I was a teenager, just reading some spy fiction books, spy novels. But it's some pretty ugly stuff having, you know, my father.

1:17:31 Served in Vietnam, and I've talked to some of his friends and heard some of the stories. So I think it's a great point that you're hammering home, but I really don't have anything to add. Okay. All right. SR71, go ahead. Yes, Colonel. I just did a quick search on that artist. I believe the artist is called Van Nath. That's V-A-N space N-A-T-H. Hold on a second. Spell it for me again. V-A-N space N-A-T-H. Look.

1:18:08 see i'll be able to tell you yeah that looks just like him yep oh that's the book i got yep that's him yeah that folder thing that um that's the folder um that book cover thing our folder looked just like that for that day so yeah that's him yeah see the recording if we look at everybody

1:18:51 If you look this guy up on Wikipedia, he's actually showing you the waterboarding. If you want to know where that came from. If you don't believe the CIA was involved in this, he actually drew a picture. And again, this guy didn't know anything. He was a custodian. He was like lower than dirt. And his picture, that was one of the very first things that, because I seen this picture that he did.

1:19:20 I thought it was weird because I didn't know anything about waterboarding. Never even heard of it. And I mean, I was there. I was a lieutenant colonel. I mean, we never went into torture techniques or anything in any job that I ever had. So I never even heard of waterboarding. And so.

1:19:39 Again, it looks like he's watering the guy's face with like a watering can. And I thought that was the strangest, stupidest thing I'd ever seen. And as soon as they started talking about waterboarding, I'm like, son of a bitch. That's what that guy's picture was depicting. Yeah. Benjamin, go ahead. Oh, Bridget, go ahead. And then we'll go to Benjamin. Oh, no, I was just going to ask. What was like.

1:20:09 other people's reactions in what the local people, you know, you being an American going and touring this, that had to be kind of in their mind now looking back awkward. So they love us. The people, and that's the one weird thing about humanity. None of those people judged us based on what they knew our intelligence services were doing. And they all know. They were very aware.

1:20:40 Of the the fact that the CIA, they knew what it was because they had their own secret police. And everywhere we went, obviously, not a lot of Americans go there. We were treated with the most utmost respect. And it was it was.

1:21:08 It was quite overwhelming. So I have to. What is the name? Hold on a minute. There's a movie because you guys know I don't do movies. There's a movie that was done on. OK, it was about Anchor Watt. So some guy, whoever the movie star was in the movie about.

1:21:37 anchor watt where actually, you know, it was filmed part of it in Cambodia and it had anchor watt in it. Um, if you guys know what that movie is, um, drop it in the chat. Um, cause I never remember the name of this stupid movie, but there's a funny story with our bus driver, um, who was a young kid, maybe 20, 22 years old. That was hilarious. Um, but I have to know what the name of the movie is to tell the story. Benjamin, go ahead.

1:22:09 Thank you, Colonel. Something that I think about quite a bit is like, you know, for you, for example, you guys have put together so much information about certain time periods throughout history, you know, and it's like we all talk about how.

1:22:27 We never learned any of this stuff, you know, and then we come to find out that it's real and that it happened. And, you know, then you look at like the last four years where there's just been so much disclosure and everything. And then I was watching the hearings today. One of the senators, I can't remember which one he was talking about. You know, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, you know, they're trying to defend these these people doing these things, you know, all this.

1:22:55 You know, they were talking about like the FISA warrants and what Peter Strzok and his girlfriend and everything. Everybody said, you know, you know, with all the disclosure and all the smoke and mirrors and everything, it's kind of exciting for me because like all this is finally coming out and it just keeps coming out more and more. You know, what it what it appears to me is like, you know, we've had this deeply rooted.

1:23:21 type of communism built within our society for a very long time. And a lot of these bad actors are getting brought out into the light. You know, like part of what's happening is for me, you know, we're not all on the same page as a nation. You know, we all see it from different levels and degrees. But one of the great things is more and more people as we go along are seeing the importance of what's going on, you know, and, you know, the causes and effect that have happened because of it and the possibilities of the future.

1:23:51 if we don't get these people out of power. So to me, a lot more people are looking at this like, Hey, this is a real big deal. We need to be watching this stuff. Like there was.

1:24:01 80 some thousand people watching the hearing today. And it's like that, or 780,000 people watching the hearings today. So it's like, that is amazing because all those people listening, we're getting it right from the horse's mouth. You know, we're not getting it second party, third party, you know? So like we got a much more informed public now. So it's kind of cool. I agree. Okay. So here's the story. I found the, I remembered the movie. So we, we spent, I don't know.

1:24:31 three days, four days in Cambodia on this trip. And we had the same bus driver the whole time. And so like the second day, we're driving to this very remote place. And he was trying to make people, so we stopped for lunch. He was trying to, you know, entertain everybody. And he is standing in the front of the bus and we're all sitting in the seats. It's kind of like one of those like mini buses.

1:24:58 And he says to one of the guys that's sitting up front, he goes, you know Tom Ryder? And, you know, because he was stilted English. And the guy turns around and he looks at me and he goes, who's Tom Ryder? And I'm like, I don't know. And he goes, no, no, no, Tom Ryder, Tom Ryder, you know Tom Ryder? And everybody was laughing and we're like.

1:25:23 Who's Tom Ryder? Is he like a military person? And so everybody's kind of looking at each other going, was that the ambassador here? No, we don't know any of those. And one guy goes, oh, my God, he's asking us if we know Tomb Raider, the movie Tomb Raider was filmed there. And then he told us that he met.

1:25:45 He got to drive, he was hired by the movie production. And he was, his story was that he had got to drive around and meet a lot of the movie stars that were in that movie when they were filming there. But he needed us to understand what the name of the movie was. But instead of saying Tomb Rider, he was calling it Tom Rider. Tom Rider. And we're all looking at each other going, what the hell is Tom Rider? But anyway.

1:26:15 crazy hysterical yeah took us like two hours to figure out what tom rider was but anyway we did um that's the joy of communicating with people that speak um you know broken english um carrie go ahead yeah uh steven spielberg is a motherfucker cia sorry i normally don't say that um

1:26:49 And there was something else. I can't remember. Okay. Oh, I remember. I remember. So in the East, like I lived in the East. So in the East, people that are travelers are honored. That's not true in the West. The West is like you go somewhere in the West and they barely look at you. In the East, they honor travelers.

1:27:22 So, obviously, especially Western people that are traveling in the East, you kind of stand out. When you have Westerners traveling in the West, I have been to a couple of countries, not a lot, so I'm not disagreeing with you in general, Carrie.

1:27:49 But I've also noticed that the Eastern cultures are much more, the word's not subservient because they are culturally very strong, but they are also very submissive in an inner action with people.

1:28:14 You can't push them around at all. I've watched this happen. They don't take shit from anybody. But in a general honorable one-on-one exchange, they are very submissive in appearance. And so it is always been that any time that I've ever traveled in the East, no matter what country I was in, that's the face that they show people, especially.

1:28:43 Not so much with other Easterners, because there's a lot of rivalry, especially between the Japanese and the Koreans. I mean, and the Japanese and Chinese. I mean, very, very not that way at all in general. So there's some very and I only know most of this because of cultural briefings that we got on trips to prepare us for interactions that you were going to see.

1:29:13 And, you know, especially because obviously our military has all kinds of cultures in it. And so if you're traveling with a group that happens to have an ethnic Chinese person in it and you're going to Japan, they will, and you're all briefed as the team, they will tell you some of what you may expect with this kind of dissident thing that goes on. And I just always found it fascinating.

1:29:46 the interchanges there. Just like when you go to Latin America, the most humble, nicest people, and we've done so much damage in Latin America, but I've traveled all over. I've went to several of the islands. I've went, I mean, like around Venezuela, like Margarita Island, and to the countries.

1:30:11 And it's it's mind boggling looking back on the way in which they embrace you and treat you when, you know, I have to imagine the majority of them knew. Number one, they know we're American, but it's just mind boggling looking back on it. Miles, go ahead. So I want to speak on what you're talking about as far as their culture. So to give you a time reference, this is.

1:30:42 Tenement Square days. So 1989, I was working at an upscale Hong Kong style Cantonese restaurant. And it was a huge family that owned it. And I can't remember the incident, but I screwed up. I was a bartender, made a mistake. And they're all like around me. And I was like, what is going on? And I finally figured it out. They wanted me to lose face.

1:31:12 That's real big in their culture. And once I did that, I was more accepted, asked to come to family gatherings. They started teaching me more Cantonese. But that was hard because once I figured it out, I went, oh, I have to lose face. But it's a big deal to them, guys.

1:31:40 Yeah, over on Rumble, Unknown One says, my husband had to go to China on business once. He's 6'4". They treated him like royalty and they kept mentioning his height. That is, we did have one guy in our group that was very, very tall. Total deference to him. It is a funny phenomenon because obviously most of them are not very tall at all. You will find occasionally someone that's tall, very, very, very occasionally. But yeah.

1:32:10 They they're very deferential to anyone that's of any height at all. Stellar, go ahead. Well, Asian, well, Koreans are kind of prejudiced at times for like people that are half and half like me. But all of my mom's friends and stuff, they adore the fact that I'm like five, nine, five, ten. So they really like tall people. Yeah, because it's just a strange thing. Yeah.

1:32:40 Yeah, it is a very interesting culture. Obviously, being in the military, a lot of guys, because all of the Korean assignments, they've kind of relaxed the OSAN one for the Air Force, but they're basically remote assignments. They're one year without your family. And so a lot of the younger military come back with a Korean wife.

1:33:09 So being in the military and you do the potlucks like for Thanksgiving and stuff like that at work, you're going to run into a lot of Korean people, a lot. As a matter of fact, my last assignment, my next door neighbor was a retired cop from the military and then got a civilian job who married a Korean. He had three girls, the youngest, which was still at home.

1:33:36 His wife was Korean. And of course, like at least once a week, if not more. I got fresh spring rolls every day that she had just cooked. And again, the nicest people in the whole world. And she was trying to teach my two younger girls Korean because everywhere they were at, they had to have Korean television so they could watch all of their shows.

1:34:03 And so the girls would sit over there, you know, if I had to work late or whatever or go back into work, I just take them over next door and they'd be watching the shows and she'd be trying to teach them how to speak in Korean. So lots of interesting memories. But anyway. All right. So that about does it. I think we've answered all of the questions, the comments. And so we're going to close up shop for the day.

1:34:35 And, oh my gosh, unknown one said her husband's 6'4 and she's 4'9". Okay. Good on you. Good on you. So thank you guys for being here.

1:34:54 We will be back tomorrow. If you guys didn't catch the earlier show with Warhamster on Secret Societies, it was a very interesting show. I suggest you go back. You'll see some of the pieces come together of stuff that we've studied here that he puts in context of the Secret Society called Skull and Bones at Yale. Very interesting crossovers to Operation Gladio.

1:35:21 So, again, thanks for being here. And Friday we have this special guest. We have a very special guest tomorrow at 4. And you guys are not going to believe her story. It is just, it's a crazy story of our freaking federal government being out of control. So, definitely mark your calendar. You want to be here.

1:35:51 It's going to be a very, very interesting. I don't know. Is she here? I'm looking down in the. I don't see her. I don't see her. Yeah, I don't either. But anyway, I'll be here tomorrow. Four o'clock. We want to show her lots of love. And she has an incredible story. So. Awesome. All right. Take care, everybody. See you tomorrow.

Entities here

Vietnam27 Cambodia25 Richard Nixon25 CIA25 Norodom Sihanouk18 U.S. Army Special Forces13 Henry Kissinger11 Lyndon B. Johnson10 Sante Prisoner Camp8 Laos7 Khmer Serei7 Operation Ivory Coast7 Robert Komer7 Lon Nol7 Military Airlift Command6 Thailand6 Dwight D. Eisenhower6 Richard Helms5 Don Blackburn5 Thomas Moorer5 Paul L. Williams4 William Colby4 Operation Gladio4 Special Operations Group4 Dap Chong4 South Vietnam4 Killing Fields3 Viet Cong3 Vann Nath3 Pol Pot3 Great Society3 Phoenix Program3 Defense Intelligence Agency3 Operation Salem House3 U.S. Air Force3 Operation White Star3 Operation Daniel Boone3 Operation 403 1954 Geneva Agreement3 CIA Mike Forces3

Claims made here

Henry Kissinger member_of CIA documented ▶ 34:18

“who was director of the Joint Staff, presented a detailed status to Kissinger at the White House recommending that Operation Ivory Coast be carried out at the end of the month. The Joint Chiefs, the S…”

Richard Nixon ordered_assassination_of Operation Ivory Coast documented ▶ 34:45

“was the presenter on November 18th when Ivory Coast's plan was again briefed at the White House, this time directly to Nixon, SACDEP, Kissinger, CIA Director Helms, and Secretary of State William Roge…”

Operation Ivory Coast carried_out_attack Sante Prisoner Camp documented ▶ 35:13

“The word on a flash cable to pepper grinder was spook bait in Thailand, where now Bull, Simon, and 58 men, assault force, and helicopters were standing by. From there, they moved up to Udorn, Thailand…”

CIA spied_on Sante Prisoner Camp documented ▶ 36:10

“of huge proportions. There was not a single prisoner at the camp. It had indeed been an active camp when the rescue mission was first conceived, but then they were all evacuated. Washington had aerial…”

Operation Ivory Coast carried_out_attack Vietnam documented ▶ 38:59

“The last part of the Sante story is the deception of Congress and the American public that was inadvertently revealed by Nixon himself. Airstrikes had been made against North Vietnamese targets that n…”

CIA funded Operation Switchback documented ▶ 41:13

“kind of took the focus of the paramilitary action in South Vietnam. A comprehensive pacification program had been proposed by the agency in 65, and the CIA was involved in planning and expert assistan…”

Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Robert Komer documented ▶ 43:08

“A year later, President Johnson decided that a top-level Saigon command for pacification was needed, and he chose Comer for the job and promised him anything that he needed for the job to be done well…”

Robert Komer headed Civil Operations and Rural Development Support documented ▶ 43:08

Robert Komer founded Phoenix Program documented ▶ 44:31

“Helms, who had known nothing about the court's chief request, apologetically told Colby that he had been overridden and he was going to Vietnam. The court's error led to one of the most controversial …”

Richard Helms reassigned William Colby documented ▶ 44:31

Phoenix Program assassinated Viet Cong documented ▶ 45:02

“who could then be neutralized, murdered in this program. And of course, as I said, this was called Phoenix. And since we've spent a lot of time on Phoenix, I'm not going to go through the details of t…”

CIA supplied_arms_to Laos documented ▶ 47:47

“Cambodia, and Laos, the bombing and secret army operations in Laos, and all of the rest, the North Vietnamese were poised for a major conventional offensive by 1972. Nixon responded with huge increase…”

Richard Nixon carried_out_attack Hanoi documented ▶ 47:47

Henry Kissinger member_of Decent Interval documented ▶ 48:44

“Ignored growing indications that Saigon was going downhill, the CIA and other American services were forced to frantically evacuate. We've seen all the pictures. In 1968, before Nixon hired him to wor…”

Frank Snepp member_of CIA documented ▶ 48:44

Frank Snepp member_of Decent Interval documented ▶ 49:14

“S-N-E-P-P, could find no better title for the book, giving his account of the debacle other than decent interval. After the March 7th, 1969, Richard Nixon helicoptered out of Langley with Richard Helm…”

CIA funded Radio Free Europe documented ▶ 51:10

“Nixon and Kissinger worked on the legislation which passed Congress March 3rd, 1972, providing that radios for things like Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, and all of the other propaganda bullshit wa…”

CIA supplied_arms_to Iran host_asserted ▶ 51:40

“To fill the weight of Nixon's covert options was Iraq and even more so the Kurds in Kurdistan. The new secret war was going to involve the U.S. doing a favor for the Shah of Iran. The Kurds were, I th…”

CIA supplied_arms_to Kurdistan host_asserted ▶ 51:40

Pol Pot assassinated Cambodia host_asserted ▶ 53:33

“um society where nobody had a college education if you wore glasses you were going to be murdered if you had a college education you were going to be murdered if you knew how to be a doctor a lawyer i…”

Khmer Rouge assassinated Cambodia host_asserted ▶ 55:56

“created of nothing but the skulls of victims. The guide that was with us also pointed out these killing trees which the Khmer Rouge actually took the small children and basically just bashed their hea…”

CIA overthrew Cambodia host_asserted ▶ 1:01:06

“But the CIA is the one that overthrew the government and left when they were moving their operations out of the their primary operations. They didn't ever technically all leave the Golden Triangle. Bu…”

CIA covered_up Cambodia host_asserted ▶ 1:10:28

“During this whole time the Vietnam War was going on, here on the home front, what we were talked about and what everything was done was about Vietnam. There was barely a word about Cambodia, if any. I…”

CIA carried_out_attack Laos host_asserted ▶ 1:10:59

“during that time to the public? No, a large part of them, you know, like I said, was operating actually in Thailand, especially the air component. But a lot of the SF guys were in Thailand doing missi…”

Vann Nath exposed Khmer Rouge documented ▶ 1:18:51

“If you look this guy up on Wikipedia, he's actually showing you the waterboarding. If you want to know where that came from. If you don't believe the CIA was involved in this, he actually drew a pictu…”

Operation Gladio member_of Skull and Bones host_asserted ▶ 1:34:54

“We will be back tomorrow. If you guys didn't catch the earlier show with Warhamster on Secret Societies, it was a very interesting show. I suggest you go back. You'll see some of the pieces come toget…”