The Colonel’s Corner Safe for Democracy Part 3 (2)

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0:00 Hello, Ms. Bridget and SR. How are you guys today? Oh my God, it is over 70 degrees. Mark it on the calendar. Spending the whole day outside. So we pretty much did too. I sent my grandson home with dirty feet and dirty pants because he decided that he wanted to play in a mud puddle in the backyard while grandpa was raking leaves.

0:30 Adorable. Yeah. Let his mom clean them up. Kids are supposed to get dirty, Colonel. That's right. I know. I was one of them. Probably the funniest picture that my mom had of me growing up was a little kid like around four or five. And I had watermelon juice running down the front of me.

1:00 And I was filthy. So you could just see the trails of watermelon juice and it's hysterical. So anyway, that was another wash off with the water hose before you're even allowed to get into the bathroom inside to take a bath. We have lots and lots of stories like that. Okay, we're gonna continue.

1:29 Where we left off, we're on page 15, and in Safe for Democracy. So where we left off is the union's involvement and everybody else's involvement in Guyana. Dean Rusk flew to London in advance of a meeting. His goal was to make...

1:58 made clear that the British must not leave behind a country with a quote-unquote communist government. Again, as a reminder, there's no communists there. That London must unseat Jagen before independence. On June 30th, Kennedy and Macmillan met at Birch Grove, England. Kennedy warned twice that the effect of having a communist Guyana in addition to Cuba would create irresistible pressure on the U.S.

2:31 to strike militarily against Cuba. And of course, JFK is working off of quote-unquote intelligence from his CIA. This is astonishing. Barely seven months after the Cuban Missile Crisis, which had brought the world close to nuclear war, a massive World War III between the US and Russia, John Kennedy was threatening to start that war after all.

3:00 and place the onus on the British crown, which of course he's doing with fake intelligence. The U.S. had made a public pledge not to invade Cuba as a consequence of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Aggressive, overt action of this sort would reactivate the Russian guarantees to Castro. To do that on the excuse of the existence of a Jagan government in Guyana would have been both disproportionate

3:30 and foolish. The British could have seen through the subterfuge and turned Kennedy down. Instead, they played straight and the meeting concentrated on how to put Forbes-Burnham-led coalition in power. William McCabe met with the Guyanese unionists within a day of the decisions. The first piece of the new maneuver was for London to provide

3:59 that proportional representation, and that would be the guiding formula in the upcoming Gaiwanese election, not unlike they do here with the ranked choice voting. The British took that action in the fall of 1963. Jagen's letter to Kennedy

4:20 Having gone unanswered, Jagen called in the American consul in Georgetown to say that he had seen Washington shift to a policy of Jagen must go. The prime minister warned that his ouster would lead to a takeover by extremists. Saddling the U.S. with precisely the type of Castro-ite situation it feared.

4:45 Jagan then went to New York for the opening of the UN General Assembly and tried without success to meet with Ambassador Stevenson. No doubt, Jagan understood the snub. The decision had already been made. Meanwhile, Washington conceived a fresh idea to dilute ethnic support for Jagan.

5:16 East Indian-based political party, one different from Jagan's. The CIA replied on November 26th that the most suitable candidates to lead the new movement were reluctant to do so. In early December, the agency followed up with a report that Burnham's PNC, which is the name of his political party, would favor such a party but do nothing to support it.

5:43 If Great Britain resumed direct control, there would be more scope for the new party. On December 6th, Mac Bundy convened Helms and others and determined to put pressure on British and Canadian diplomats on the direct rule question. It failed. In Georgetown, Jagan's People's Progressive Party, the PPP, saw its main chance.

6:13 in strong showings of public support. Continuing PPP marches and demonstrations coincided with the early 1964 Pandemonium Revolt against the U.S. authority in the Panama Canal Zone. That too led Washington to fear the security of Guyana. Mac Bundy advised President LBJ to tell the visiting British Foreign Secretary that he remained as concerned about Guyana.

6:42 as JFK had. In February, the Joint Chiefs of Staff reviewed U.S. contingency planning for military intervention in Guyana. The chiefs expected that a battle group of ground troops could be inserted in 12 to 27 hours. Why 27? Depending upon whether a situation involved no notice or a previous alert. By March, pro-Jagan strikes had idled

7:12 an estimated 30% of the sugar plantations. The CIA reported that Richard Ishmael's bitter complaints that his own organizers with no protection were unwilling to hold rallies. But on March 18th, the CIA reported that Jagen's police were acting vigorously against intimidation and demonstrations. The violence increased. By the end of April, 13 persons had died.

7:40 in strike-related incidents. Most of them were attributed, of course, to Jagan. Meanwhile, the new party's initiative moved forward. On March 8th, a group announced formation of the United Muslim Party. A week later came creation of the All Indian League, an organization the CIA reported as actually testing

8:11 for support for the eventual formation of an anti-Jagan Hindu party. Divide and conquer. Agency undercover advisors were assigned to each of these parties to manipulate them. Political warfare. The CIA action achieved something of an undesired coup in early June when Forbes Burnham stood up in the assembly to propose a three-party coalition government.

8:42 When the United Front refused to participate, the initiative collapsed. Jagen himself had made a counteroffer. British authorities announced voting districts in mid-April, and voter registration took place in May. The CIA provided advice and support to the non-Jagen parties, all of them. In June, the British Monitor of Elections certified the voter list.

9:13 The list for Georgetown contained fewer names, 95%, than in the previous election. So we're rigging the election. Other irregularities turned up. There would be more absentee voting. Sound familiar? There were more absentee voting than there were people on the voter rolls in some areas. Sound familiar? Continuing violence frightened.

9:47 frightened Gaiwanese and affected registration. The CIA explored military training for some of the anti-Jagan activists and had a contingency plan to arm them. McGeorge Bundy approved it May 7th, a week after Helms proposed it. And guess what we find? Caches of weapons.

10:20 supposedly alleged to belong to Jagan's party, were discovered by police. I wonder who has the history of caches of weapons. That certainly would not have been Prime Minister Jagan. That would have been the CIA. In late June, Jagan had to take his daughter out of school because of harassment.

10:52 Five to 10 houses were burning every day and 60 people had died. American diplomats in Georgetown believed that even troops could not now end the violence. No matter what I try to do, Jagen told the U.S. Consular Delmar Carlson on May 25th, I can get nowhere. I am opposed by everyone, including the CIA, which I suppose is the American government.

11:23 I laid my cards on the table to President Kennedy in 1961, and he gave me to understand that he would help me, but he didn't. And I can only conclude that he was a liar or that he was influenced to change his mind. The Gaiwanese leader made yet another bid for reconciliation. He called in Carlson several times over the last days of June. Jagen worried about, excuse me, Forbes Burnham.

11:53 Um, you don't know, Burnham, Jagen said. He'll cut my throat, Jagen reported. Prime Minister Jagen again suggested a coalition. He offered to sign an international treaty to neutralize Guyana in much the same way that Austria had from 1945 to 1955. Of course, we know in hindsight, Austria was never neutralized. That's where all of the Nazis were hanging out.

12:26 But whatever. Jaden wanted to send an emissary to Washington to discuss the proposal, but he was turned down. The standard working group on Guyana convened at the State Department on June 30th to include Mac Bundy, Richard Helms, William Tyler from the State Department, and Bundy's special assistant, Gordon Chase. The officials agreed that the dialogue with Jaden

12:55 might conceivably cool down the security problem, but they didn't want it cooled down. Washington rejected the approach in early July of meeting with him, having a conversation, because they've already made up their mind. In Georgetown, Carlson proved reluctant to inform Jagen. The same group, plus additional officials, including National Security Council Staff Director for Intelligence Matters,

13:30 Peter Jessup rejected an emissary again several weeks later. Finally, Washington induced British to tell Gaiwanese that talks with the Americans had established to talk with the U.S. saw no useful purpose in receiving their emissary. The British themselves now pressed the issue of a national unity coalition of three parties.

14:01 When Gordon Chase approached him on the matter at the end of July, McBundy returned the memo with a handwritten reply, I'd Stonewall for now. When Jagen's political opponent came to Washington toward the end of August, Gordon Chase advised Bundy that to avoid the impression of being an American stooge, the Gaiwanese should not be accorded a meeting with the president. By this time, the British governor anticipated

14:30 that even with proportional representation, Jagen might still be elected prime minister. Washington told the British this would be unacceptable. By late August, the CIA announced itself cautiously optimistic about the election, but in truth, its political analysis fell short. The state and CIA meeting on Guyana took place on September 8th, again optimistic. Several days later,

15:00 Desmond Fitzgerald, sitting in the agency, continued the discussion. Bundy pressed for a contingency paper on measures if Jagen won. The CIA drafted a paper not long after, and Bundy discussed it with Helms and the State Department on September 17th. Meanwhile, in Georgetown, after months of encouragement from CIA political action officers, Indian politician Balram Singh,

15:32 Ray, decided to form a new Justice Party. For a month or so, Ray appeared to do well, but then his efforts sputtered. An internal document from Jagen's PPP party, which the CIA acquired and reported on in late August, declared that local elements hostile to the PPP had secured international assistance in their efforts to overthrow the government, and that the unity

16:01 of opposition forces would not have availed were it not for the U.S. intervention. The documents recommended diffusing such opposition elements as the Portuguese Roman Catholics plus overtures to the U.S. through Canada. Forbes, Burnham continued to plague everyone. He antagonized the British, remained in conflict with other opposition parties, and had a difficult time with the Americans.

16:31 The U.S. consul in Georgetown reported that to Bundy and Helms and Tyler's group on September 11th that he had tried to forge relations with Burnham but could not. Quote, Burnham is a racist and probably anti-white. Remember slights and repays them. At the same time, he takes advantage of people who treat him.

17:05 softly. In other words, he's a thug and the CIA was in bed with him. By the fall of 1964, Jagen had offered concessions. CIA's third force movement was stalled. Burnham stood revealed as a treacherous ally and the British worried that Jagen would win after all. Washington still had the opportunity to call off the CIA. It refused.

17:38 Senior officials remained upbeat like they do on all of these coups, even ones that stand no chance of success. Burnham's campaign buttons produced in the U.S. and doubtlessly paid for by the CIA were appearing everywhere in Georgetown. Gordon Chase told McBundy that the, excuse me, Mac Bundy.

18:03 that the CIA, in a deniable and discreet way, had begun paying party workers. Violence escalated. The Justice Party station wagon was blown up. PNC meetings were fired upon. Jagan activists were roughed up and killed. In all, the campaign season brought over, well, almost 200 murders. A thousand people were injured.

18:32 and 15,000 others were forced from their homes because they were burnt to the ground. The December elections did not turn out as advertised. Jagen had won 47% of the vote, more than either the Americans or the British expected. Burnham trailed by almost 13,000 votes in spite of overseas ballots overwhelmingly favoring him.

19:04 But because Jagen did not obtain an outright majority, a coalition would have to be formed. The British governor simply refused Jagen the opportunity to put one together. The CIA officer elsewhere in South America noted in his diary on December 18th, a new victory for the station in British Guyana, largely due to CIA operations over the last five years to strengthen the anti-Jagen trade unions.

19:34 So they're declaring victory because Jiggin didn't get the majority. The British turned to Forbes Burnham to form a government. This sounds almost exactly like what happened in Ukraine in 2004, where the guy that they didn't want to get elected kept getting elected. So they forced it into a third unconstitutional election until they could cheat enough to get their guy elected. The British turned, oh, excuse me.

20:09 All right, Burnham went on to rule like a dictator until he died in office. He was racist and imperious as many had feared. Guyana's export industries of sugar rice and borscht atrophied. By 1984, the wills had come full circle.

20:31 And Burnham's publicly accused Washington of trying to undermine his government by encouraging the striking Borsight workers, shades of the CIA, in 1963. Guyana did not have another free election until 1992. When it did, the nation elected Jagen. Washington still had trouble coming up with a reasonable policy.

21:01 Jagen had to reject an American nominated for ambassador who had been, so you guys have to understand this. This is so freaking crazy. The U.S. nominated one of the former officers involved in Jagen's overthrow to be their ambassador to Jagen. That's how crazy this is.

21:36 Ironically, Jagen would die in Washington at Walter Reed Army Hospital in 1997 while still in office. Schlesinger said, in retrospect, we misunderstood the whole struggle down there. He wasn't a communist. The British thought we were overreacting and we were. The CIA decided that this was some great menace and they got the bit between their teeth.

22:02 But even if British Guyana had gotten communist, it would still have not been a threat to the United States. Let that sink in for just a second. I want to check something out real quick while we're doing this. If you guys will give me just a second. I want to look up something in my notes and I'll come back to that. Okay, so.

22:38 Moving on. Just astounding. Absolutely astounding. The universe of covert operations only begins with political action. That's step one. What the Central Intelligence Agency did in Guyana represents that type of activity. Although the coordination and analysis of intelligence was the reason for the creation of the CIA, they don't do that. The political action in Guyana lay at about the halfway point.

23:12 on a spectrum from propaganda and influence peddling to violence, quasi-war. Then it transitions to paramilitary operations, step two, and support for military operations at the upper boundary. Many within the CIA and outside saw that covert operations was another option other than doing nothing.

23:43 And short of full-scale war. Okay, hold on. I want to, hold on just a second. I need to move on down in my notes. All right. And of course, we just talked about political and paramilitary. And then you have economic warfare that normally coincides with the paramilitary. And that's how they topple governments.

24:32 The story of covert operations and these types of initiatives cannot be treated individually because there is a broad span of them throughout CIA's history. The tale involves the men and women who made the operations happen, what was accomplished and what was not accomplished. The impact of these activities on America's global quest for quote unquote democracy.

25:04 on its foreign policy, national security and standing in the world, and the tension between the CIA operations and the agency's accountability under our current form of government. This set of concerns will remain whether or not the CIA survives as an entity. Guyana was not the only CIA political action of its kind. Indeed, it is among the least known.

25:33 Of such greater renown is the agency's political action in Italy after World War II and over the decades afterwards. There were many more efforts. Political action involves all form of activity that might contribute to a given outcome. Mechanisms include propaganda, subsidizing political parties, labor organizations, cultural groups, print and broadcast media.

26:01 and other agents of influence, sowing disinformation and discredit any message they disagree with, whether it's factual or not. Political action may be viewed as the bread and butter of covert operations. Some of these kinds of activities were also employed individually in long-term operations, such as the CIA's efforts to broadcast freedom. And I put that in air quotes too.

26:32 Propaganda and psychological warfare remain at the heart of much of what happens in political action. Often several of these types of projects are melded together into an operational initiative. The radio operations, for example, serve as a variety of different purposes, simultaneously supporting various specific activities.

26:56 An interim form of initiative is the enlistment of officials or military officers in the targeted country to overthrow their own government and install individuals more favorable to the U.S. At the upper end of the spectrum is paramilitary operations, the use of armed forces secretly supported by the covert actor to affect events in other nations. These operations may be full-scale wars

27:26 and may also feature in all of the other covert action toolkit. Paramilitary operations are the most significant variety of covert actions and bear the greatest risk. Over time, the character of this kind of activity has changed. The CIA often functions as a sort of middleman, engaging the services of third parties, whether they are governments, security services, ethnic or political movements.

27:55 or even individuals. Plausible deniability. Military special ops forces have assumed an increasing importance with the CIA. The CIA nevertheless still supports these operations. Purists might say that support of military operations is not paramilitary action, especially with the changing character of the world into the age of terrorism.

28:27 Military special operations have increasingly substituted for paramilitary action and must fall within the scope of the book. Other forms of activity that shape covert action, espionage, provides key inputs for their secret warriors. In intelligence analysis, it also provides guidance for operators. The CIA great white case officer, Alan Dulles, once cited,

28:56 Analysis as a check and balance on covert action. Yeah, they produce the intelligence to justify the covert action. The general point is that analysis establishes the dimensions of operational problems and indicates avenues of approach. Parameters for covert activities are also set by quote unquote congressional overseers. If that's not a bunch of horseshit, I don't know what is.

29:28 covert action remains fraught with consequences for the peoples and nations involved. Covert operations have frequently involved transnational alliances with foreign intelligence services. No kidding. The saga of American covert operations provides a window on a number of companion intelligence services. Time has transformed covert operations. Technical developments have changed the way information moves, ideas are influenced, plans developed.

29:58 and how spies operate. Devices have become more subtle, weapons more lethal, aircraft more capable. The secrecy of these activities make it difficult to apply conventional techniques when secret warriors get in trouble. That is what happened in the Iranian hostage rescue in 1980. The news came after a party in Georgia near Fort Stewart.

30:33 They had just finished an exercise with the Special Forces Operational Detachment, Delta. Delta's commander, Colonel Charlie Beckwith, and his top officers and FBI agents who had played terrorists in the drill, and CIA officers who had handled the intelligence side, celebrated over beers with DIA Chief General Samuel Wilson. Beckwith had hardly gotten to sleep when Iranian

31:06 Student radicals had taken over the U.S. embassy in Tehran, and he got a phone call. Outside Washington, another middle-of-the-night phone call awakened the director of the CIA, Admiral Stansfield Turner. The CIA duty officer informed him that seven months earlier, when another Tehran demonstration had overran the embassy, was now re-emerging.

31:40 In February, the Iranian revolutionary government had ejected demonstrators and restored the embassy and the freedom of the U.S. diplomats. The former Shah of Iran had just been permitted to come to the United States for medical treatment, and tempers flared. To his surprise, Jimmy Carter waited a day before gathering his top officials in the White House sit room. National Security Advisor

32:10 Brzezinski ordered preparation for a rescue mission. Colonel Beckwith's unit would have the lead role. Major Burrus, plus a top planner to Washington, he ordered him to report to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They were told to obtain the latest information on the situation and present a concept of operations. Moving a rescue force to Tehran posed obvious problems.

32:40 Brzezinski began holding daily sessions at the top level. Both he and President Carter kept close tabs on it. Admiral Turner began every meeting by briefing the intelligence, then turned to the diplomatic and any coercive action to be taken. After a week, Turner noticed that certain officials

33:06 stayed behind after the sessions and realized that there were private conversations about what must be a rescue plan. Returning to his office at the CIA, Turner called Brzezinski, angrily objecting to being left out of the rescue planning, asking where the rescuers were going to get their intelligence from, if not from the CIA. Only then was the agency permitted to...

33:38 participate in the conversations. Neither the chairman, General David Jones, or Colonel Beckwith liked the initial plan. Both wanted more striking power. Delta only had 120 troopers, yet every man and pound of equipment inserted to give the force more depth would have to be gotten into Tehran, where the hostages were at.

34:11 Just a week after the embassy seizure, an Air Force special operations expert, Colonel James Kyle, was summoned from his post in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to plan the airside of the mission. At first called Rice Bowl to suggest an Asian locale as camouflage. Kyle became the deputy commander of the Joint Task Force cobbled together under Major General James Vaught.

34:44 Major Burris, with his cartoon-like character, he reminded him of Dennis the Menace. Burris emphasized that Delta needed to arrive in Tehran as a cohesive unit, which ruled out any kind of a parachute drop. A long-range helicopter flight soon emerged as the best option. Delta Force would furnish the muscle on the ground. Colonel Beckwith moved his unit to a secured training ground.

35:13 The same place used to marshal his earlier validation exercise to execute this secretly. President Jimmy Carter remained preoccupied with the hostages and the mission's success. The president's concern was well-founded. An airline identified with the CIA had furnished the aircraft that flew the Shaw to Cairo and then to New York City. And if you guys don't think Jimmy Carter was set up with all of this shit, you're smoking crack.

35:45 They knew exactly what they were doing. You don't make those kind of mistakes. The former Iranian dictator remained kind of out of step to those who had become a new government in Iran. Brzezinski had conducted back-channel talks with moderate elements in the Tehran government, but the revelation of these contacts only made...

36:20 more people in Tehran angry. Among the consequences would be the demise of a moderate element of the Iranian government. The CIA had worries of their own. Even as controversy swirled around whether U.S. intelligence had failed to understand Iran, the agency had the problem of the loss of its own people in Tehran as well as official Americans.

36:50 the equipment and records in the U.S. embassy. Beyond the CIA, they faced imminent danger. The agency had played a major role in the Shah's Iran. Its station in Tehran, when he fell, had 125 people. The CIA had 125 people in Iran. That's not the rest of the embassy. That's just the CIA piece.

37:23 large of a contingent, was dwarfed by the 10,000 U.S. military people in Iran. And why would they need that many people? Because they were running the SAVAK, the secret, not secret, the National Police Force slash intelligence slash torturers that were running all of the black site torture prisons.

37:55 for normal Iranians under the Savak, under the Shah. All of those pictures that you see about how great it was in Tehran, it was not great for normal Iranians. It was great for people who were in the upper echelon that basically went along with everything that the Shah wanted done. If you push back at all, you ended up in prison.

38:25 Americans had been evacuated and only a tiny staff returned afterwards from the first one. During the interval between the Shah's fall and the embassy takeover, the CIA resorted to unusual tactics. Using both official and undercover stations, the CIA station at the embassy was led by Thomas Ahern, comprised just three operations officers and five people overall. Howard Hart

38:53 with four agents shuttled among CIA safe houses in Tehran, not so much a station as a clandestine network. Among their notable achievements was the exfiltration of Raptor, a senior Iranian military officer, CIA's top spy in the Shah's government. In the embassy takeover, Ahern and his people were captured, but Hart and his agents remained at large.

39:23 They escaped and eventually turned up at agency headquarters where Hart became the branch chief for Iran in the Near East Division. Admiral Stansfield Turner, director of the CIA under Carter, had a different headache. In the form of six other Americans, five of them led by the general consul, Robert Anders, had been

39:48 in a building at the rear of the embassy when Iranian students began climbing the front walls and managed to escape. A sixth agricultural attache, Lee Schlatz, which is probably CIA too, they love using those attache positions, had an office outside the compound. These Americans took refuge in the Canadian embassy, shielded by Canadian Ambassador Kenneth Taylor. Getting the six out of Iran posed critical questions.

40:18 for the CIA, even as Ambassador Taylor and other brave Canadian diplomats hid the Americans in their homes. The Canadian offered to help them escape. In mid-December, Turner approved participation by a graphics and authentication branch of the CIA's technical support, which also had a vital role in helping Raptor escape. Their top CIA spy,

40:47 in the Shah's government. To test the difficulty of moving in and around Tehran, Branch Chief Antonio Mendez carried out covert operations of his own. They created a fake movie production company that supposedly was filming a picture in Iran in the middle of all of this upheaval. Others scouted over land escape routes while

41:17 Mendez focused on open travel throughout Tehran, even as Mendez set up his Hollywood company called Studio 6 Productions. His unit aided agency officers moving in and out of Tehran to prepare for the hostage rescue. Studio 6 advertised in Hollywood trade publications, designed a logo, solicited scripts, even one from Steven Spielberg.

41:46 for a science fiction movie set in the Middle East. And you have the entire Middle East, but we're going to do it in Iran. And nobody's going to suspect a thing. Mehrabad, considered the quickest way out, became the route of choice. And Mendez and other officers flew into Tehran and prepared false passports for the escapees. They and their families left on January 28th.

42:19 1980. To preclude reprisals, Ambassador Taylor left too. As final preparations for the escape proceeded, Admiral Turner reviewed the main rescue plan. Based upon seizing an airfield where helicopters would be refueled before heading into Tehran, the plan required holding the base during the duration of the meeting, or the mission, during which Iranians might easily discover the operation. Turner thought this was far too risky and

42:48 claims credit for the CIA in involving the final rescue concept. Special operations experts advise simply landing in the Iranian desert to establish a refueling site and launching Rice Bowl from there. Chuck Gilbert, a CIA aviation expert with extensive experience in Laos during Southeast Asian War, spearheaded this effort. He had been assigned to the Iran task force as early as November 14th.

43:18 Within days, the CIA had identified a site and prepared to fly a small aircraft into it to take soil samples to make sure it would support the landing of the helicopters in the C-130. Turner ordered the plane pre-positioned at Rome and went to the White House, where he sold the concept to Carter and Brzezinski. The code name for this operation was going to be Eagle Claw.

43:48 Intelligence remained a striking sticking point, you know, because we don't spend billions of dollars on it. Special Operation veterans of Eagle Claw condemned the intelligence as inferior and Turner as having lukewarm, being lukewarm at best. Turner disputes that. He later told Colonel Kyle that from the beginning of the crisis, he spent most of his time on it.

44:15 Charles Kogan, chief of the Near East Division, and Howard Hart would also have disputed the complaints. In truth, the CIA lacked resources in Tehran after the takeover. As Hart told, the joint task force leaders creating fresh networks would be difficult. So in other words, they're flying blind. Admiral Turner recalled former Tehran station chief George Cave.

44:43 from retirement to lead the advance team. Much of the work focused on trying to learn about Tehran from the outside, interviewing Iranians who had left or had traveled recently. In Rome, Officer Floyd Paceman saw as many as 100 Iranians a day to mine data from. Out of all of that, he came up with just one who had any real knowledge of the area that they were interested in.

45:13 Langley had reason to want the hostages freed. The Iranians had captured the CIA station in Tehran. They quickly identified Thomas Ahern as its chief and kept him in solitary confinement. Although CIA records in Tehran had been evacuated when the Shah fell, some were returned during the summer and fall, and new papers had been filed, which were supposed to have been destroyed or sent out no more.

45:40 then three months, was supposed to be retained on station. But as they accumulated, that was ignored. When the embassy fell, station efforts to destroy files were defeated by failure of the machine to reduce the paper to pulp. And the shredders was shredding it big enough that they could be reconstituted. They used that to single out William Daughtery, a case officer on his first tour,

46:12 as additional CIA. The Iranians were an odd mix of student, fundamentalist, and anti-Shaw activists. Their slogan was calling us the great Satan. Having captured 66 Americans in November, the Iranians released 13 women and minority group diplomats. But once the Iranians found Daughtry,

46:38 and charged two others, Malcolm Kalp and Philip Ward, as being CIA, they refused to release anybody else. It's my opinion, strictly my opinion, that just about everybody there was CIA under cover, which is what they do. Those were the only the people that they could prove were in the CIA. By then, Americans had begun actual rehearsals for Eagle Claw. Navy helicopters were to be used for movement.

47:10 But these lack sufficient precise navigational gear of failing remedied by efforts of CIA's Chuck Gilbert. Marine pilots were to fly the craft because Navy airmen lacked experience in long-distance flights over land. Delta 4s, a separate unit of Rangers for airstrip security and gasoline to fuel eight helicopters for their final flight, were to be delivered by C-130 aircraft.

47:40 that met them at the remote desert location. That site soon became known as Desert 1. The helicopters would fly Delta to Desert 2, a staging base 50 miles from Tehran, then hide while the rescue took place. Colonel Beckwith, the Delta Force,

48:00 would proceed into Tehran in trucks, free the hostages, escape in the helicopters to a third airfield to be taken over by U.S. Rangers, and the whole command would leave aboard C-130s that had returned to pick them up. Eagle Claw remained an extremely long-range mission with big MC-130s to fly from Egypt and the helicopters from the aircraft Nimitz. The work in Iran to make all this feasible fell to the CIA.

48:31 Admiral Turner's retiree, Bob, was to be the inside man, assisted by a fake identity crafted by Mendez's shop. Bob arrived in late December. The ease with which he transited through the airport dictated the choice of that route for the Canadian exfiltration. Short, compact, and rugged looking, Bob spoke a number of languages, though not Farsi.

49:01 You know, the one required in Iran. He spoke all of them but that one. He functioned effectively as a businessman starting a construction company. In meeting Colonel Beckwith, Bob's deliberate speech and mannerism reminded the Delta commander of Anthony Quinn. Through Bob, the CIA bought half a dozen English and two Mazda trucks and acquired a warehouse on the edge of Tehran.

49:29 The trucks were to be driven by Iranian agents the CIA recruited elsewhere and sent back home. One wealthy Iranian volunteer drove to Langley headquarters in a Mercedes but had no knowledge of the standard gear shifts of trucks and had to be trained to drive a standard stick shift. Bob scouted out the Delta hide site at Desert 2 as well as the recovery airstrip to be used later.

49:59 He left Tehran repeatedly to brief CIA officials that were located both in Rome and Athens. Bob personally advised Charlie Beckwith, but Beckwith wanted all the data rechecked by someone he trusted. After the CIA rejected several Delta Force volunteers for a fresh Tehran scouting expedition, Major Richard Meadows asked for the assignment.

50:27 Meadows became involved in the planning just a few days after the embassy seizure when Beckwith sent him to Washington. A legendary special forces figure in Korea and Vietnam, Meadows now struck the CIA as an amateur with insufficient support and training. He could not master Portuguese for his cover identity. Admiral Turner, who saw the mission as

50:53 a manifestation of distrust of the CIA, relented when Meadows threatened to go away. Strictly speaking, the Meadows mission was an egregious security error. He possessed detailed knowledge of the Eagle Claw plan, but Delta's previous lead candidate for the reconnaissance had been Major Burris. On March 10th, Turner's deputy, Frank Carlucci,

51:22 met Task Force Chief General Vought with the latest CIA data. There was also the problem of whether Desert One strip, chosen from satellite photos, could bear the weight of a 130. That could only be verified on the spot, so they needed a reconnaissance mission to go and get dirt samples. They also needed to know if they could install runway lights that could remotely be activated.

51:54 These were created by the CIA at the behest of Chuck Gilbert. At least three times, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General David Jones, Admiral Turner, and Security Advisor Brzezinski appealed to Carter to approve the mission. At Camp David on March 22nd, the president received his first detailed briefing of the rescue plan. General Jones emphasized that Eagle Claw would be a highly complex operation.

52:24 Carter preferred to await diplomatic developments, but new preparations were necessary. Stanford Turner had pressed for permission to make Desert One reconnaissance since January. Carter then approved it, the reconnaissance mission to get the soil samples. At Langley, when he planned this expedition, Admiral Turner had been astonished to learn that the lead pilot, James Ryan, had a peg leg.

52:55 You literally can't make this shit up. Having lost one of his legs flying in Laos. Assured Ryan was far and away the finest CIA airman. Turner scored this in the believe it or not category and moved on. Co-pilot Bud McBroom, also a Southeast Asia veteran, participated. They rendezvoused in Athens.

53:24 with Air Force Major John Carney and picked up the modified de Havilland DH-6 Twin Otter, modified for long range, taking it to Rome to load the CIA-designed strip lights. They went through Cairo and then on to Desert One, landing the night of March 31st. Carney took soil samples and...

53:54 He was aided by McBroom. They installed the remote lighting. His worst problem would be orientating himself to the planned layout of the airstrip. While they were on the ground, no fewer than six vehicles drove by on a nearby highway. That should have been taken as a bad omen. They're there at night and there's a highway visible from the location.

54:25 that they're anticipating on using. It's fine. The second omen came at London's Heathrow Airport while Carney waited with his samples for a Concorde flight home. Two CIA officers appeared in the lounge and used his real name. Um, probably not a good thing. The scout mission confirmed that Desert One could be used. On April 7th, President Carter held a meeting in the NSC, Secretary of State.

54:58 Cyrus Vance, had opposed this for months, favoring UN mediation, but Carter didn't want to delay. The next day, an SC staffer, Gary Sick, prepared a memo for Brzezinski picturing Eagle Claw as preferable over any other option. I don't know what other option there were because they were all working on this one. Maybe.

55:30 talking to the UN, maybe negotiating something. I don't know, but that definitely wasn't going to happen. After a redraft, Brzezinski gave it to the president. As the exhausted Vance vacationed in Florida, Carter held another NSC session on April 11th and approved the rescue. Vance demanded a hearing upon his return. Unable to dissuade the president, the secretary resigned after

55:58 it was going to be effective after Eagle Claw. So Cyrus Vance was so upset that they were picking this plan that he went ahead and submitted his resignation to be effective upon the conclusion of it because he didn't want to leave his post in the middle of it. Meanwhile, Major Meadows set out on the last minute reconnaissance. He had been given an Irish passport and identity as,

56:29 Richard Keith. A Virginian Meadows southern accent apparently struck the Iranian as Irish enough. Holy crap. He arrived in Tehran on April 21st, three days before the scheduled start of Eagle Claw. Just as Delta Force flew across the Atlantic to their staging base in southern Egypt. Meadows linked up with two Green Berets who had relatives in Tehran and were familiar with the region.

56:58 They entered Iran separately and would be his drivers. It was tough moments as when one of the men failed to stop at a roadblock and they had to talk their way past an Iranian sergeant. But Meadows rechecked the Desert 2 site, modified the planned hiding place, and used a satellite phone to tell Washington.

57:21 At the last minute, some workers showed up outside the CIA warehouse and began to dig up the streets at the warehouse where all of their equipment is going to be. Suitable bribes induced them to delay the work and fill back in the trench. Yeah, that wouldn't be suspect at all. The Iranian agent who had originally rented the garage fled the country. Meaning, obviously,

57:54 He felt his life was in danger because there's so many of these bad things happening. But hey, just go ahead and go through with it. The biggest question still remained, the exact location of the hostages. They've planned a rescue meeting mission, and they have no idea where the people are to be rescued. Just two days ahead of the operation, they got some intel. The U.S. Embassy chef.

58:25 a Pakistani who had taught the Iranian occupiers to cook dishes suitable for the hostages, was suddenly allowed to leave the country. I'm sorry, if you guys don't think that's a setup, I don't know what to tell you. Flying out by chance, just miraculously, the man sat next to a CIA undercover officer who connected with him.

58:56 and got the cook to tell him exactly where the hostages were. It's always the chef. Oh my gosh. Okay, three hostages, including the charge de l'affaire, Bruce Langan, were being held at an Iranian foreign ministry. The remaining 50 Americans were in the chancellery building on the U.S. compound.

59:28 Howard Hart briefed the intelligence to Beckwith four hours before Delta was to leave for Desert One. Beckwith asked his air officer, Major William Boykin, to say a prayer. The blessing proved insufficient to overcome all of the obstacles. Despite the best efforts of the CIA, Chuck Gilbert, who had gone with a senior airman to Diego Garcia,

1:00:00 And then to the Nimitz to check on the helicopters. One of the choppers encountered navigational problems. Two more suffered mechanical failures in a dust storm. Their innocent Iranian passerby in a bus and trucks blundered into the Delta on the ground, opening the door for a breach to Eagle Claws security. You know, the same highway that they knew was very busy.

1:00:31 Yeah, imagine that. Following the third helicopter abort, Colonel Beckwith considered that he no longer had enough ships to proceed. The Joint Task Force commanders decided to terminate the operation. Then, in a horrible accident, one of the remaining choppers collided with the C-130 aircraft. The fire that ensued, visible for miles in every direction, destroyed both of them and killed eight Americans.

1:01:02 Losses could have been higher except for the heroic efforts of some of the fellow military members on the ground. The hostage rescue had failed. Iranian authorities quickly dispersed the American hostages who would not be together again. Although Washington prepared plans for a second operation, the Carter administration never again thought intelligence was good enough.

1:01:29 and did not overcome the uncertainties regarding a military special operations. Meanwhile, quiet negotiations with the Iranian government eventually led to the release on Ronald Reagan's inauguration day. So that's the story and brings us to chapter two. So we're going to stop there. I'm sorry, but you just can't make this shit up. All right, what you got for me?

1:02:07 I'm listening to all of this and thinking about what's really going on here. Yes, you take a look at Guyana and what happened there in Guyana and the election that they rigged and all that was going on. I had to ask Grok a question. I asked Grok if the CIA was stupid in rigging elections and backing authoritarian figures, if you will.

1:02:38 backing the wrong people and and brock actually came back and said no all of it's by design and gave examples they're not stupid yeah no it's all planned all by design um all along go ahead yeah a couple of things uh colonel you're mentioning um uh major burris um i'm just i became curious as to whether that might be the same

1:03:09 uh burris who was the top military advisor to lbj and um who took the lbj trip to saigon with him and then according to historian john newman maybe one or two others i'm not sure but um basically jfk is getting different military intelligence reports on you know and guard including body counts and from lbj

1:03:40 Right. And, you know, we know that that later became a story much, much later in the Vietnam War when it actually started with ground troops just deliberately obscured by the fake left. So they don't have to pretend that the Vietnam policy was changed 180 degrees because the left is where that would really matter. So the CIA gets that and they have special liars for them. But anyway.

1:04:10 And also relating to Burris, he's a really key guy. There was about to be a lot more research on him, especially when you look at relationships between LBJ and possibly longer-term shenanigans going on when he was head of the Senate and Nelson Rockefeller was running the operations coordinating board.

1:04:41 And so but the other thing that this really reminded me of was, you know, the preparations for Bay of Pigs and how I'm very curious. I'd be very curious to read more about Turner's, you know, perceptions of this, these goings on at the time and then later, you know, to see if that comparison is viable, because, you know, as we know, as you know, and have.

1:05:10 have shared widely the Bay of Pigs was, you know, a deliberately planned failure designed to provoke a U.S. military intervention that JFK had categorically refused beforehand and enforced it. Correct. And that was bad for his health, among other things. But anyway, yeah, fascinating, fascinating reading tonight. Great show. Yeah. Thank you.

1:05:34 Yeah, they're definitely. And that's why I say I find all of this so fascinating, because most of these events replicate themselves both beforehand and afterwards when we start to compare the data between them. Megan, go ahead. Yeah, Colonel, I just wanted to say thank you again for another stellar chapter in your book series. Sure.

1:06:05 It never fails to cease to amaze me how the government can turn a simple snatch and run into a Rube Goldberg machine. And I would love to have been a fly in the communication network.

1:06:28 When they went down and snatched up Maduro at the CIA, that had to be really funny to listen to. I would have paid good money for that. I agree. May I jump in? Sure. Hey, everyone. All along, I am pretty sure that is a different verse. LBJ's guy was not involved in Iran, if that was the question.

1:06:59 I never saw a connection to that. I think it would have been too old. The stuff about Iran today is interesting. If you want to get a cinematographer, anyways, a movie that talks about this, the private rescue, there's a movie called Argo, came out around 2010 by Ben Affleck. And I wasn't too critical when I watched it recently, but it did a pretty realistic job of describing those six people that were stuck in the Canadian house.

1:07:28 And what it really did best is it painted a really good picture of just how uncomfortable it was walking the streets of Tehran shortly after the revolution. So that's something I would highly recommend you go watch. And there's another really good book that got turned into a movie called On Wings of Eagles. This is written by Ken Follett, and I read him. I read this probably when I was 12, 13 years old. But Ross Perot, the guy who ran for president.

1:07:57 billionaire head of a company called EDS, which had a lot of employees in Iran. They got taken hostage, tried to set up a private rescue. Now, this is a book that was supposed to be historical fiction, so it's missing a lot of the facts, a lot of poetic or literary license. But those are both two pretty good sources to get a better feel for what's really going on on the ground in Iran at that point in time. So I thought I'd share that. Thank you.

1:08:26 So you spell his name, this Burrus, you spell his name as B-U-R-R-U-S-S, Junior. Now his dad was also in the military. So if that's a similar spelling, it could have been referring to his dad. This guy got his commission in 1966.

1:08:55 And so chances are it is not the same guy. He would have been way too young for that. But he was in Vietnam and he goes, he comes back from Vietnam and goes to special forces training at Fort Bragg. That doesn't mean that he wasn't in special forces because sometimes they use them. He comes back, he joins, he's on the staff for a while.

1:09:24 at Fort Bragg. He then goes and completes the British Special Air Services, which is basically their version of our special forces, which is very interesting because not a lot of them are dual qualified like that. And he gets, it talks about him being selected as a result of all of his training to go on.

1:09:51 the Iranian deployment. It also says that he was in Operation Urgent Fury, which is the CIA's overthrow of Grenada, which I find very interesting. He also went on missions in the Middle East and South and Central America during the 80s.

1:10:18 which would be during the whole time that Iran-Contra is going on and the CIA is running all of their drug operations out of there. So he definitely had some, he also assisted the British having his SAS qualifications in the Falkland Islands. So this guy definitely got around. He later wrote,

1:10:49 four novels, and then became a professional staff member at the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Armed Forces, having spent his entire career with the CIA. So, very, very interesting. Very interesting. That is a different spelling on the last names. Yeah. Very interesting.

1:11:27 Okay. All along. Go ahead. Yes. Colonel, I think, you know, the similarity that we can, even though these are obviously very different versions, but, you know, the comparison with the Bay of Pigs operation and this operation make it seem as though there were some kind of bifurcation in communications, you know, involving like CIA and parts of the military that were.

1:12:00 you know, possibly not what was explained to elected officials. Oh, yeah, most certainly. In order to achieve an outcome that was desired by the CIA and not by elected officials. Correct. So also, I think the other thing that caught my attention, there were many of them, obviously, but in that was the Spielberg reference, right? And the idea.

1:12:31 that already as part of planning operations, there was a media and Hollywood component. And this was, I guess, in 1978, 79. And that's, to me, it's very worth noting that it had already been baked in to the propaganda component, including a director like Spielberg. To me, I mean, admittedly, he was, well, yeah, he was.

1:13:00 Very noteworthy in terms of the timelining of the interconnection of mass corporate media and CIA military operations. Yeah. Anybody else? No? Well, we're going to finish a little ahead of schedule, which is good because it's Wednesday and family dinner night. And Alpha show tonight, right? And Alpha show tonight. SR, go ahead.

1:13:38 Thank you, Colonel. Before you close up, I did want to thank everybody for being here on Spaces, being here on Rumble. Hit the like button. It helps. We appreciate all your support. Thank you, Colonel. Sure. I do have some news. We have a couple of shows coming up. They're tentative. They're not definite.

1:14:08 One of them is It Can Make the Time Work, a podcast hosted by Tommy with William Ramsey. And I don't know if you guys know who he is, but I hope that works out. And the other one, let me get, I think you guys will be more excited about the other one. The other one.

1:14:40 is with, let's see, hold on just a second, Susan Kokenda. Do y'all know who that is? Can you give everybody a reminder? She's the one from the, hold on, I can't remember the name of her show. You see her on X all the time.

1:15:21 Hold on. Promethean action. Oh, yeah. So great. So to sign up as well. So if that works out, I will let you guys know. Yeah, that's crazy. Awesome. Because that every time I hear any, I'm always like, boy, if you only knew one more piece, you've got almost the picture almost.

1:15:57 Well, obviously she does know, I don't know if she knows the detail that we have uncovered. She knows the 30,000 foot look because she uses that in the context of being able to decipher what's really going on today in such an expert way. Obviously I would be flattered to be on the same show with her because I think she's brilliant. So yeah, very exciting.

1:16:25 And we can all thank Tommy. If you guys are not following Tommy's podcast that I've been on, please go follow him. He does such a good job of putting people together. And he does amazing work. He has some of the most interesting podcasts and variety of people on his shows. So make sure you're following him.

1:16:51 And especially if he's going to help us get the word out by hooking us up with some of these people. So definitely follow him. Okay. All right. So thanks for being here. Take care. And we'll be back tomorrow at...

1:17:12 four o'clock. And just so that you guys know, all of Tommy's stuff is recorded, so you won't be able to watch it live, but I will let you know if we're able to get all of the timing worked out. And when he posts them, I'll repost them so all of you guys can see them. Okay, take care, everybody. And tonight, Alpha's show tonight is gonna be at nine o'clock, not 9.30, just FYI. Okay, take care.

Entities here

CIA75 Tehran25 United States25 Iran25 Cheddi Jagan25 United Kingdom20 Guyana20 Operation Eagle Claw14 Stansfield Turner13 Jimmy Carter11 Forbes Burnham11 Charlie Beckwith10 Delta Force9 Georgetown8 Reza Pahlavi8 U.S. Embassy Tehran8 Zbigniew Brzezinski7 McGeorge Bundy7 Burrus Junior6 Canada5 Antonio Mendez5 Richard Meadows5 Washington, D.C.5 South Vietnam5 Howard Hart5 John F. Kennedy5 Desert One4 Chuck Gilbert4 London4 Richard Helms4 Rome4 Iran hostage crisis4 Joint Chiefs of Staff3 Desert Two3 Kenneth Taylor3 Cuba3 Delmar Carlson3 Langley3 Gordon Chase3 Cyrus Vance3

Claims made here

Dean Rusk ordered_assassination_of Cheddi Jagan book_quoted ▶ 1:58

“made clear that the British must not leave behind a country with a quote-unquote communist government. Again, as a reminder, there's no communists there. That London must unseat Jagen before independe…”

John F. Kennedy ordered_assassination_of Cheddi Jagan book_quoted ▶ 1:58

John F. Kennedy ordered_assassination_of Cheddi Jagan book_quoted ▶ 3:30

“and foolish. The British could have seen through the subterfuge and turned Kennedy down. Instead, they played straight and the meeting concentrated on how to put Forbes-Burnham-led coalition in power.…”

William McCabe recruited Cheddi Jagan book_quoted ▶ 3:30

United Kingdom funded Cheddi Jagan book_quoted ▶ 3:59

“that proportional representation, and that would be the guiding formula in the upcoming Gaiwanese election, not unlike they do here with the ranked choice voting. The British took that action in the f…”

CIA funded Forbes Burnham book_quoted ▶ 5:16

“East Indian-based political party, one different from Jagan's. The CIA replied on November 26th that the most suitable candidates to lead the new movement were reluctant to do so. In early December, t…”

McGeorge Bundy ordered_assassination_of Cheddi Jagan book_quoted ▶ 5:43

“If Great Britain resumed direct control, there would be more scope for the new party. On December 6th, Mac Bundy convened Helms and others and determined to put pressure on British and Canadian diplom…”

CIA trained Forbes Burnham book_quoted ▶ 8:11

“for support for the eventual formation of an anti-Jagan Hindu party. Divide and conquer. Agency undercover advisors were assigned to each of these parties to manipulate them. Political warfare. The CI…”

CIA supplied_arms_to Forbes Burnham book_quoted ▶ 9:47

“frightened Gaiwanese and affected registration. The CIA explored military training for some of the anti-Jagan activists and had a contingency plan to arm them. McGeorge Bundy approved it May 7th, a we…”

McGeorge Bundy ordered_assassination_of Cheddi Jagan book_quoted ▶ 14:01

“When Gordon Chase approached him on the matter at the end of July, McBundy returned the memo with a handwritten reply, I'd Stonewall for now. When Jagen's political opponent came to Washington toward …”

CIA funded Forbes Burnham book_quoted ▶ 17:38

“Senior officials remained upbeat like they do on all of these coups, even ones that stand no chance of success. Burnham's campaign buttons produced in the U.S. and doubtlessly paid for by the CIA were…”

CIA funded Forbes Burnham book_quoted ▶ 18:03

“that the CIA, in a deniable and discreet way, had begun paying party workers. Violence escalated. The Justice Party station wagon was blown up. PNC meetings were fired upon. Jagan activists were rough…”

CIA funded Forbes Burnham book_quoted ▶ 19:04

“But because Jagen did not obtain an outright majority, a coalition would have to be formed. The British governor simply refused Jagen the opportunity to put one together. The CIA officer elsewhere in …”

United Kingdom installed Forbes Burnham book_quoted ▶ 19:34

“So they're declaring victory because Jiggin didn't get the majority. The British turned to Forbes Burnham to form a government. This sounds almost exactly like what happened in Ukraine in 2004, where …”

Forbes Burnham overthrew Cheddi Jagan book_quoted ▶ 20:09

“All right, Burnham went on to rule like a dictator until he died in office. He was racist and imperious as many had feared. Guyana's export industries of sugar rice and borscht atrophied. By 1984, the…”

United States targeted_for_regime_change Cheddi Jagan book_quoted ▶ 21:01

“Jagen had to reject an American nominated for ambassador who had been, so you guys have to understand this. This is so freaking crazy. The U.S. nominated one of the former officers involved in Jagen's…”

Zbigniew Brzezinski ordered_assassination_of Iran book_quoted ▶ 32:10

“Brzezinski ordered preparation for a rescue mission. Colonel Beckwith's unit would have the lead role. Major Burrus, plus a top planner to Washington, he ordered him to report to the Joint Chiefs of S…”

Charlie Beckwith trained Delta Force book_quoted ▶ 34:44

“Major Burris, with his cartoon-like character, he reminded him of Dennis the Menace. Burris emphasized that Delta needed to arrive in Tehran as a cohesive unit, which ruled out any kind of a parachute…”

CIA funded SAVAK documented ▶ 37:23

“large of a contingent, was dwarfed by the 10,000 U.S. military people in Iran. And why would they need that many people? Because they were running the SAVAK, the secret, not secret, the National Polic…”

Thomas Ahern headed CIA documented ▶ 38:25

“Americans had been evacuated and only a tiny staff returned afterwards from the first one. During the interval between the Shah's fall and the embassy takeover, the CIA resorted to unusual tactics. Us…”

Howard Hart member_of CIA documented ▶ 38:53

“with four agents shuttled among CIA safe houses in Tehran, not so much a station as a clandestine network. Among their notable achievements was the exfiltration of Raptor, a senior Iranian military of…”

Stansfield Turner headed CIA documented ▶ 39:23

“They escaped and eventually turned up at agency headquarters where Hart became the branch chief for Iran in the Near East Division. Admiral Stansfield Turner, director of the CIA under Carter, had a d…”

Kenneth Taylor recruited Robert Anderson documented ▶ 39:48

“in a building at the rear of the embassy when Iranian students began climbing the front walls and managed to escape. A sixth agricultural attache, Lee Schlatz, which is probably CIA too, they love usi…”

Kenneth Taylor recruited Lee Schatz documented ▶ 39:48

Antonio Mendez founded Studio 6 Productions documented ▶ 41:17

“Mendez focused on open travel throughout Tehran, even as Mendez set up his Hollywood company called Studio 6 Productions. His unit aided agency officers moving in and out of Tehran to prepare for the …”

Chuck Gilbert carried_out_attack Operation Eagle Claw documented ▶ 42:48

“claims credit for the CIA in involving the final rescue concept. Special operations experts advise simply landing in the Iranian desert to establish a refueling site and launching Rice Bowl from there…”

Chuck Gilbert member_of CIA documented ▶ 42:48

Charles Koch headed CIA documented ▶ 44:15

“Charles Kogan, chief of the Near East Division, and Howard Hart would also have disputed the complaints. In truth, the CIA lacked resources in Tehran after the takeover. As Hart told, the joint task f…”

George Cabe headed CIA documented ▶ 44:15

Iran captured Thomas Ahern documented ▶ 45:13

“Langley had reason to want the hostages freed. The Iranians had captured the CIA station in Tehran. They quickly identified Thomas Ahern as its chief and kept him in solitary confinement. Although CIA…”

Iran captured William Daughtry documented ▶ 45:40

“then three months, was supposed to be retained on station. But as they accumulated, that was ignored. When the embassy fell, station efforts to destroy files were defeated by failure of the machine to…”

Iran captured Malcolm Kalp documented ▶ 46:38

“and charged two others, Malcolm Kalp and Philip Ward, as being CIA, they refused to release anybody else. It's my opinion, strictly my opinion, that just about everybody there was CIA under cover, whi…”

Iran captured Philip Ward documented ▶ 46:38

Charlie Beckwith headed Delta Force documented ▶ 47:40

“that met them at the remote desert location. That site soon became known as Desert 1. The helicopters would fly Delta to Desert 2, a staging base 50 miles from Tehran, then hide while the rescue took …”

Richard Meadows member_of Delta Force documented ▶ 50:27

“Meadows became involved in the planning just a few days after the embassy seizure when Beckwith sent him to Washington. A legendary special forces figure in Korea and Vietnam, Meadows now struck the C…”

Major Burris member_of CIA documented ▶ 50:53

“a manifestation of distrust of the CIA, relented when Meadows threatened to go away. Strictly speaking, the Meadows mission was an egregious security error. He possessed detailed knowledge of the Eagl…”

Frank Carlucci member_of CIA documented ▶ 50:53

David Jones headed Joint Chiefs of Staff documented ▶ 51:54

“These were created by the CIA at the behest of Chuck Gilbert. At least three times, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General David Jones, Admiral Turner, and Security Advisor Brzezinski appe…”

James Ryan member_of CIA documented ▶ 52:24

“Carter preferred to await diplomatic developments, but new preparations were necessary. Stanford Turner had pressed for permission to make Desert One reconnaissance since January. Carter then approved…”

Cyrus Vance removed_from_power Jimmy Carter documented ▶ 55:58

“it was going to be effective after Eagle Claw. So Cyrus Vance was so upset that they were picking this plan that he went ahead and submitted his resignation to be effective upon the conclusion of it b…”

Bruce Laingen captured Iran documented ▶ 58:56

“and got the cook to tell him exactly where the hostages were. It's always the chef. Oh my gosh. Okay, three hostages, including the charge de l'affaire, Bruce Langan, were being held at an Iranian for…”

William Boykin member_of Delta Force documented ▶ 59:28

“Howard Hart briefed the intelligence to Beckwith four hours before Delta was to leave for Desert One. Beckwith asked his air officer, Major William Boykin, to say a prayer. The blessing proved insuffi…”

Ronald Reagan succeeded Jimmy Carter documented ▶ 1:01:29

“and did not overcome the uncertainties regarding a military special operations. Meanwhile, quiet negotiations with the Iranian government eventually led to the release on Ronald Reagan's inauguration …”

Nelson Rockefeller headed CIA host_asserted ▶ 1:04:10

“And also relating to Burris, he's a really key guy. There was about to be a lot more research on him, especially when you look at relationships between LBJ and possibly longer-term shenanigans going o…”

Ben Affleck founded Argo documented ▶ 1:06:59

“I never saw a connection to that. I think it would have been too old. The stuff about Iran today is interesting. If you want to get a cinematographer, anyways, a movie that talks about this, the priva…”

Ken Follett founded On Wings of Eagles documented ▶ 1:07:28

“And what it really did best is it painted a really good picture of just how uncomfortable it was walking the streets of Tehran shortly after the revolution. So that's something I would highly recommen…”

Burrus Junior member_of British Special Air Service host_asserted ▶ 1:09:24

“at Fort Bragg. He then goes and completes the British Special Air Services, which is basically their version of our special forces, which is very interesting because not a lot of them are dual qualifi…”

Burrus Junior carried_out_attack Operation Urgent Fury host_asserted ▶ 1:09:51

“the Iranian deployment. It also says that he was in Operation Urgent Fury, which is the CIA's overthrow of Grenada, which I find very interesting. He also went on missions in the Middle East and South…”

Burrus Junior member_of House Armed Services Committee host_asserted ▶ 1:10:49

“four novels, and then became a professional staff member at the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Armed Forces, having spent his entire career with the CIA. So, very, very interesting. Very i…”