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Operation Northwoods: The False Flag Op That Never Was · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
0:04
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
0:13
Speaker 1: and there's Chuck, and there's Cherry, and it's the stuff
0:15
Speaker 1: you should know. Okay, deal with it. Yeah, up your nose,
0:24
Speaker 1: et cetera. Yeah. I just suddenly, you know how, I
0:30
Speaker 1: stopped saying that quote mid quote because I suddenly felt
0:34
Speaker 1: like an old dinosaur Chuck, and that probably nobody knew
0:37
Speaker 1: what I was talking about. And I'm tired of feeling old, Chuck.
0:41
Speaker 1: Are you feeling old? I feel young. I'm glad to
0:45
Speaker 1: answer your question. Yes. Okay, So hey, before we get started, Um,
0:50
Speaker 1: this is gonna be a really good episode. Uh, and
0:52
Speaker 1: I want to enhance it by saying, I finally saw
0:56
Speaker 1: I got to see my niece's movie that I've been
0:58
Speaker 1: talking NonStop about. O Exit. It's amazing. It's such a
1:03
Speaker 1: great I would call it a popcorn thriller. Um. Like,
1:07
Speaker 1: you know, it's not like high art. It's not trying
1:09
Speaker 1: to be high art, but it's it's like really well
1:11
Speaker 1: done in the script, doesn't have a bunch of like
1:13
Speaker 1: holes in it. Uh. It doesn't like they've trimmed off
1:16
Speaker 1: all the fat. It moves along really nicely. Um, and
1:20
Speaker 1: once it gets going, it keeps like getting going again
1:23
Speaker 1: and like these lurches forward and just it does it
1:27
Speaker 1: doesn't go off the rails. But it's just like, oh
1:28
Speaker 1: my god, I can't believe this is going on right now.
1:31
Speaker 1: And then to be able to see my niece Mila
1:35
Speaker 1: act as like the kid in this, to see her
1:38
Speaker 1: like do this stuff, it's just it's amazing Tod first
1:41
Speaker 1: of all, and I'm I'm like removing, I've done everything
1:44
Speaker 1: I can to remove any subjectivity as a proud uncle,
1:48
Speaker 1: and like actually watch her acting and like the performance
1:51
Speaker 1: she gets and it is great. It's amazing. She does
1:54
Speaker 1: an amazing job. She has to do a bunch of
1:56
Speaker 1: different stuff. She gets like tortured and harrass and beat
1:59
Speaker 1: up and everything. Um, it's actually really graphic movie in
2:04
Speaker 1: a lot of ways, but like delightfully if you ask me, Um,
2:07
Speaker 1: and she did. She did a great job. And I
2:09
Speaker 1: thought the whole cast did a really good job too,
2:11
Speaker 1: including great It is good, including Havannah Rose Lou by
2:15
Speaker 1: the way, but yes it is. It is a great movie.
2:18
Speaker 1: And I recommend anybody who watches our movies to watch
2:23
Speaker 1: the movie and it's on It's on Hulu right now streaming.
2:26
Speaker 1: It's called No Exit Awesome. I can't wait to watch it.
2:29
Speaker 1: I've been traveling. I went on the road for a
2:31
Speaker 1: bit once again. See more Bonnie Prince Billy and Matt
2:35
Speaker 1: Sweeney Superwolve shows. Matt Sweeney is that the girlfriend guy?
2:39
Speaker 1: What the guy who had that hit in the nineties
2:42
Speaker 1: called Girlfriend? No, he's local that was that was a
2:47
Speaker 1: great album. Um, I can't think of his name. No,
2:50
Speaker 1: Matt Sweeney is a genuine stuff you should know listener
2:54
Speaker 1: and super smart, awesome guy, and we're kind of pals now,
2:57
Speaker 1: so he's always kind enough to hang out and he
2:59
Speaker 1: always sends me really good ideas for the show. But
3:02
Speaker 1: that's not my ninth Bonnie Prince Billy show in the
3:04
Speaker 1: past like a year and a half. I'm going to
3:06
Speaker 1: where he goes. That's really cool. He didn't come to Atlanta,
3:09
Speaker 1: so I just I'm hitting the road and along with
3:12
Speaker 1: our good friend Joey c R. He came on this one.
3:14
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's right. I saw that post on Instagram.
3:17
Speaker 1: That's awesome to see Joey's looking good. Yeah, he he
3:19
Speaker 1: says hello, and uh, if you want to see pictures
3:22
Speaker 1: of this in my Travels and Travails. You can follow
3:25
Speaker 1: me to Chuck the Podcaster on Instagram. I'm sorry you
3:28
Speaker 1: had travails. Uh what I say travails? Did I not
3:32
Speaker 1: say travels? He said travels and travails? No, no travails,
3:35
Speaker 1: only good good It was only good times. I'm sure
3:38
Speaker 1: I've told you before, but I always love rubbing it in.
3:40
Speaker 1: Did I ever tell you that I saw Bonnie Prince
3:43
Speaker 1: Billy doing karaoke at our friend Toby's wedding years back?
3:47
Speaker 1: I don't know that. You told me that do you
3:49
Speaker 1: do a song? It was? It was some like sweet
3:51
Speaker 1: old country song he didn do wet with I think
3:53
Speaker 1: maybe his wife. Oh my god. I mean he's the best.
3:56
Speaker 1: He's my favorite vocalist. He's to me, the best singer
3:59
Speaker 1: that literally in music history. And a cool dude. I
4:02
Speaker 1: can tell you because I've been in the same room
4:04
Speaker 1: with them plenty of times. Me too. I was four
4:07
Speaker 1: ft from him the other night. That's really cool. Anyway.
4:11
Speaker 1: Shout out to Sweeney, Shout out to no Exit. And
4:14
Speaker 1: now let's talk about a time when the US government
4:18
Speaker 1: was not above uh planning false flag operations that were
4:22
Speaker 1: crazy and ludicrous and planning potentially to assassinate the leaders
4:27
Speaker 1: of other countries hundreds of years ago. Oh actually no,
4:31
Speaker 1: this was way back in the nineteen sixties. Yeah, planning,
4:35
Speaker 1: that's the operative word here is planning doesn't mean that
4:39
Speaker 1: like any false flag operation was ever carried out, at
4:42
Speaker 1: least by the United States government. There's been plenty of
4:45
Speaker 1: false flag operations carried out, most recently, um apparently by Russia,
4:50
Speaker 1: who was trying to accuse Ukraine of doing like sabotage
4:54
Speaker 1: embombing across the border as a pretext for invasion. And
4:58
Speaker 1: that's generally the point of a false flag operation, which
5:01
Speaker 1: we should probably define it. But it's basically where you
5:04
Speaker 1: dress up as the um somebody from the country that
5:08
Speaker 1: you want to invade, have them or you assault your
5:12
Speaker 1: own like border crossing, your own military installation, your own railroad,
5:18
Speaker 1: and then you publicize to the world how that country
5:21
Speaker 1: attacked you, and now you're gonna have to go in
5:23
Speaker 1: and invade in in you know, for your own your
5:26
Speaker 1: own welfare and the welfare of your own country. That's
5:28
Speaker 1: a false flag operation, that's right. Staging any kind of
5:31
Speaker 1: a fake operation. Uh. The it originally came about the
5:35
Speaker 1: term false flag from pirates would fly a flag of
5:40
Speaker 1: a friendly country two lureships closer than they would attack them.
5:43
Speaker 1: But since then and Russia is big on it, they've
5:47
Speaker 1: I mean, Japan has done this, Germany has done this,
5:50
Speaker 1: but the Soviets and Russia, UH, like you said, they're
5:53
Speaker 1: they're still gangbusters for this kind of thing. Yes, I
5:57
Speaker 1: also think it's just a p s A. If you
5:59
Speaker 1: are really um feeling sympathetic or um, you know, absorbing
6:05
Speaker 1: information that makes you see things through Putin's view, you're
6:10
Speaker 1: probably being manipulated online. Just why you may want to
6:15
Speaker 1: you may want to look a little deeper into that
6:17
Speaker 1: and pull your head out of that particular rabbit hole.
6:22
Speaker 1: All right, So let's go back in time, uh and
6:25
Speaker 1: talk about Operation north Woods. But to talk about Operation Northwoods,
6:30
Speaker 1: we have to first talk about who did this one
6:33
Speaker 1: for us? By the way, who put this together? This
6:35
Speaker 1: was Olivia Joint Olivia Gershn, great work. We need to
6:40
Speaker 1: talk about Cuba and what the threat that that country
6:46
Speaker 1: started to pose or the seeming threat that country started
6:48
Speaker 1: to pose to the United States, UH, in the late
6:53
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties early nineteen sixties. Yeah, because Castro came to
6:57
Speaker 1: power ninety nine, and in doing so he became the
7:01
Speaker 1: first UM. He established the first communist regime in the
7:04
Speaker 1: Western hemisphere. Uh in America's backyard, as it would later
7:08
Speaker 1: be put. And this is not settled well with the
7:11
Speaker 1: Americans because at the time we were UM I guess
7:15
Speaker 1: our military, um brass, our intelligence community, basically everybody in
7:20
Speaker 1: charge with security for America. UM was of the of
7:26
Speaker 1: the of the ILK that like, we should be invading
7:30
Speaker 1: other countries that are communists and toppling those regimes and
7:34
Speaker 1: fighting communism wherever it pops up. No, no countries too small,
7:38
Speaker 1: no countries too large. We need to invade them and
7:42
Speaker 1: fight them and remove those communists and and probably install
7:46
Speaker 1: like a democratic government from that point on, which is
7:50
Speaker 1: kind of ironic. By the way. That was Matthew Sweet,
7:54
Speaker 1: That's what I said. What did you say, Oh, Matt
7:56
Speaker 1: Matt Sweeney. Matt Sweeney. But it came to me when
8:00
Speaker 1: was when you were talking about Cuba, Matthew Sweet, because
8:02
Speaker 1: it's a great record. Yeah, I can't remember the song
8:05
Speaker 1: how it goes, but I know it was a good song.
8:07
Speaker 1: I don't think I ever heard the record had a
8:09
Speaker 1: cool video too. Yeah, while you sing it. Yeah, I
8:14
Speaker 1: love somebody, remember that. That's it. I think I need
8:19
Speaker 1: somebody to love Okay, and then the chorus is, uh,
8:23
Speaker 1: you need to get back in the Little Friend. Oh yeah, Yeah,
8:30
Speaker 1: it's a pretty good song. It's not as good as
8:31
Speaker 1: I remember just by the Superwolf record, it's better. Um alright,
8:36
Speaker 1: so good set up on Cuba. Uh, if you want
8:39
Speaker 1: to go back, well, um, I don't even know how
8:41
Speaker 1: much we need to go over it, but if you
8:42
Speaker 1: want to go back and listen to our I think
8:44
Speaker 1: pretty great episode from November called the Bay of Pigs disaster.
8:49
Speaker 1: This was sort of one of the first things that
8:51
Speaker 1: happened in the nineteen sixties when UH Eisenhower approved this
8:57
Speaker 1: boondoggle of an operation UH known as the Bay of
9:01
Speaker 1: Pigs Invasion that just went just about as wrong as
9:04
Speaker 1: it could go on every level. Yeah, and so like
9:07
Speaker 1: we were setting up fake invasions of Cuba supporting exiles
9:13
Speaker 1: invasions of Cuba. UM RFK and JFK were obsessed with
9:18
Speaker 1: Cuba and in particular removing Castro from power. Cuba was
9:21
Speaker 1: a big deal for a number of reasons, we should say,
9:24
Speaker 1: and one of the leading reasons that Cuba was a
9:27
Speaker 1: problem for the United States is because they were worried
9:29
Speaker 1: Castro is going to serve as an inspiration for other
9:33
Speaker 1: countries in Latin America, especially the economically depressed ones um
9:38
Speaker 1: where they're like, yeah, all this this capitalism running around
9:42
Speaker 1: where Americans own most of our national operations and exports
9:47
Speaker 1: and we're getting very little in return, Communism might seem
9:50
Speaker 1: pretty appealing to them, So Castro might serve as an inspiration.
9:54
Speaker 1: And if there's like that domino effect like they were
9:56
Speaker 1: worried about in Southeast Asia that happens in Latin America
10:00
Speaker 1: thanks to Cuba, all of a sudden, America's American businesses
10:03
Speaker 1: are gonna be out a lot of money, Americans are
10:06
Speaker 1: gonna be out a lot of the bananas that they've
10:08
Speaker 1: come to love thanks to Edward Burney's and we would
10:12
Speaker 1: also lose access to things like the Panama Canal and
10:14
Speaker 1: other things we need. So it wasn't just like a
10:18
Speaker 1: like a ideological problem. It was a practical problem too.
10:22
Speaker 1: But the biggest problem, the biggest problem that a communist
10:26
Speaker 1: Cuba post to the United States is that it was
10:28
Speaker 1: now an ally with the USSR. America's swore an enemy.
10:33
Speaker 1: The other polar power of the Cold War would now
10:39
Speaker 1: had a country that would be willing to let them
10:42
Speaker 1: set up nuclear missile basis a hundred boles from Florida.
10:45
Speaker 1: That was truly the big problem with Cuba and Castro,
10:49
Speaker 1: That's right. And because of that kind of from the
10:53
Speaker 1: very beginning, the US very quietly started thinking about like, hey,
10:58
Speaker 1: should we assassinate this guy? Should we depose this guy? Um,
11:02
Speaker 1: And there were all kinds of crazy like poison cigars,
11:05
Speaker 1: like mafia hitman, that kind of stuff was being talked
11:08
Speaker 1: about behind closed doors, including um, Florida Senator George Smathers,
11:14
Speaker 1: great name, Uh, he proposed assassinating Castro, was a good
11:18
Speaker 1: buddy of Kennedy's and brought it up during the nine
11:22
Speaker 1: presidential campaign and include which included the plan included a
11:27
Speaker 1: false flag attack at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. And he
11:31
Speaker 1: claims that Kennedy basically was like a put something down
11:35
Speaker 1: on paper and I'll take a look. And um, so
11:39
Speaker 1: Kennedy wasn't you know, if you believe this, he wasn't
11:42
Speaker 1: initially adverse or averse excuse me, to the idea of
11:48
Speaker 1: taking care of the problem. If you know what I'm saying, Yeah,
11:52
Speaker 1: that's how obsessed he was with removing Castro. The problem
11:56
Speaker 1: was this after the Bay of Pigs. That was what
11:59
Speaker 1: nine teen sixty one, I believe, Yeah, it was April nine. Um.
12:06
Speaker 1: The one of the huge problems with aside from America
12:09
Speaker 1: having an enormous amount of a on its face for
12:12
Speaker 1: being outed for supporting a failed coup of Castro, Um,
12:18
Speaker 1: was that Kennedy had been led to believe by his
12:21
Speaker 1: military and intelligence advisors that there was going to be
12:24
Speaker 1: an uprising, that like these exiles showing up having maken
12:29
Speaker 1: a couple of wins against the Castro regime was going
12:32
Speaker 1: to like awaken the Cuban people who would want to
12:35
Speaker 1: go back to, you know, the way things were before
12:38
Speaker 1: the Communists came along and took over the country, and
12:40
Speaker 1: they're being uprising that top of Castro. That was the thing.
12:43
Speaker 1: They weren't necessarily trying to take over the country. They're
12:45
Speaker 1: trying to incite a revolution, and that did not happen.
12:49
Speaker 1: Was supposed to work. Yeah, even though Kennedy had been
12:52
Speaker 1: told up and down by these advisors. He was a
12:54
Speaker 1: brand new president at the time, and he had been
12:57
Speaker 1: told up and down by these advisors that that was
12:59
Speaker 1: going to happen, and it didn't happen. It never materialized,
13:02
Speaker 1: and so he lost full faith in any military or
13:06
Speaker 1: intelligence advisor around him at the time. From that point on,
13:10
Speaker 1: so he found he needed to surround himself with new
13:12
Speaker 1: people to take on this this Castro Cuba problem. And
13:15
Speaker 1: the point man he put on the whole thing, he
13:17
Speaker 1: basically said, I want you to to be in charge
13:20
Speaker 1: of getting rid of Castro, you know, figuring out how
13:23
Speaker 1: to do it without sending in military people was his brother, Bobby.
13:27
Speaker 1: That's right. Uh, Like you said, Kennedy still had that
13:30
Speaker 1: new president smell, and Bobby still had that new attorney
13:34
Speaker 1: general smell. You were very very patient and waiting for
13:38
Speaker 1: your chance to use that, and I think it paid
13:40
Speaker 1: off in aces. Okay, good, I mean I try to
13:42
Speaker 1: get in there. But you know, uh so, Bobby, it
13:46
Speaker 1: was attorney general, like I said, And that isn't you know,
13:49
Speaker 1: attorney attorney general or attorneys general um or would it
13:53
Speaker 1: be attorneys generals? They usually don't get involved in stuff
13:58
Speaker 1: like this, but he was his his brother, and so
14:01
Speaker 1: he trusted him, and he ended up overseeing something called
14:04
Speaker 1: Operation Mongoose, which was kind of this crazy idea that
14:09
Speaker 1: they could disrupt life in Cuba such that, uh with
14:14
Speaker 1: you know, sabotage, with disorder, with espionage, um. And it
14:19
Speaker 1: would all be just in the name of stirring things
14:22
Speaker 1: up with the Cubans themselves again, not like putting in
14:25
Speaker 1: Americans dressed as Cubans and stuff like that. Uh. They
14:29
Speaker 1: thought they could get this done. Um. The CIA was
14:32
Speaker 1: going to be involved, the State Department was going to
14:34
Speaker 1: be involved, UM, the Defense Department, what we had at
14:37
Speaker 1: the time, the US Information Agency, and basically they were
14:41
Speaker 1: going to get together and get this done. And it
14:43
Speaker 1: was going to be headed up by a general from
14:46
Speaker 1: the Air Force named Edward Landsdale, who was interestingly a
14:50
Speaker 1: former AD exec and a CIA operative, and he was
14:54
Speaker 1: sort of in charge along with Kennedy of getting this
14:57
Speaker 1: thing planned and this Operation Mongoose again. Yeah, So Operation
15:01
Speaker 1: Mongoose is that operation that like all the wacky stuff
15:04
Speaker 1: that you have ever heard about getting rid of Castro,
15:07
Speaker 1: like a poisoned skin suit for him to scuba dive in,
15:10
Speaker 1: or exploding cigars, all that is Operation Mongoose. And like
15:14
Speaker 1: you're saying, the point was two kills a poison cigar.
15:17
Speaker 1: I don't think it was an exploding cigar. That's like
15:19
Speaker 1: a novelty, right, Well, that was the level they were at.
15:22
Speaker 1: Somebody brought up joy buzzer once, right, they were like,
15:26
Speaker 1: exploding cigar won't kill him, like yeah, but it'll humiliate him, right,
15:29
Speaker 1: and we'll finish him off with the joy buzz um.
15:33
Speaker 1: So that that's all of that fell under Operation Mongoose.
15:36
Speaker 1: And like you said, they were trying to basically make
15:38
Speaker 1: life for the average Cuban so weird and disjoined it
15:41
Speaker 1: and uncomfortable without anybody realizing the Americans were actually behind
15:45
Speaker 1: all these seemingly unrelated things that they would just get
15:49
Speaker 1: rid of Castro themselves. And that was the reason why
15:54
Speaker 1: they weren't just like, well, we can't just go in
15:56
Speaker 1: and kill Castro is because again they were friends with
15:59
Speaker 1: the Ovit's, and there was a chance that um JFK believed, uh,
16:05
Speaker 1: if they did in Vague Cuba, they would set off
16:08
Speaker 1: World War three. Like that was a very real fear.
16:11
Speaker 1: On the other hand, there was also this ticking clock
16:15
Speaker 1: going at all moments and among some people, some advisors
16:20
Speaker 1: to the White House and security advisors, it was like
16:24
Speaker 1: deafening the sound of this clock ticking. That the longer
16:27
Speaker 1: we waited, the more chance there was going to be
16:30
Speaker 1: that the Cubans were going to say, hey, so if
16:33
Speaker 1: it's come, build a missile base here. They hadn't yet,
16:35
Speaker 1: but it was on the table and everybody knew it.
16:38
Speaker 1: So they Americans needed to do something about Castro and fast.
16:42
Speaker 1: So the idea that the Americans could come up with
16:45
Speaker 1: these plots to get the Cubans to overthrow Castro themselves.
16:48
Speaker 1: That takes a lot of time, it might not pay off.
16:50
Speaker 1: And then looming in the background, getting ever closer, are
16:53
Speaker 1: these Soviet missile bases arriving in Cuba any day? Now?
16:57
Speaker 1: They just knew it. All right, that's a great suspenseful
17:00
Speaker 1: lead up to our first break. We're gonna come back
17:03
Speaker 1: and find out what happened with Operation Mongoose right after this.
17:31
Speaker 1: All right, so you set the stage very well. My
17:33
Speaker 1: friend General Lansdale is running the show. It was a
17:37
Speaker 1: pretty impossible situation to try and do this with the
17:41
Speaker 1: Cuban people without any real power, basically like he didn't
17:46
Speaker 1: have any real teeth in this. He was overseeing a
17:50
Speaker 1: bunch of different agencies. Uh And in February of sixty two,
17:54
Speaker 1: he basically put forward a plan that was supposed to
17:58
Speaker 1: get Castro out of office by October or even though
18:01
Speaker 1: he said that was pretty optimistic. And some of these
18:03
Speaker 1: ideas were pretty crazy. Um. One of them was that
18:07
Speaker 1: there's these things called star shells, which is kind of
18:10
Speaker 1: how you how you light up the night sky during wartime.
18:14
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, it's like you shoot it for as
18:16
Speaker 1: it were mortar around, but it's not mort around. It
18:19
Speaker 1: just lights things up for the night vision goggles or
18:22
Speaker 1: back then. I guess, well, I don't know if they
18:24
Speaker 1: had them back then, but it's like that one scene
18:26
Speaker 1: at night, that battle, that night battle in Apocalypse Now, Yeah, exactly.
18:31
Speaker 1: So one of the ideas was for a submarine, the
18:34
Speaker 1: US submarine to fire these star shells off the coast
18:37
Speaker 1: and convinced the Cubans that the Second Coming of Jesus
18:41
Speaker 1: was was happening and that Jesus was against Castro. Yeah,
18:45
Speaker 1: they were going to shoot it off on All Saints Day,
18:48
Speaker 1: and that was based on the premise that the Cubans
18:51
Speaker 1: were deeply, deeply Catholic and that they would see this
18:54
Speaker 1: as a sign. And these are just ideas. Again, they
18:57
Speaker 1: never did this. All of these are just ideas, but
19:00
Speaker 1: they were ideas that were literally put forth in writing
19:03
Speaker 1: by the US government to the President. So it's okay,
19:06
Speaker 1: So the clock is ticking on Lansdale, and I read
19:09
Speaker 1: that basically every week he would go to the Oval
19:12
Speaker 1: Office and asked to be taken off of this assignment. Yeah,
19:15
Speaker 1: he was apparently a golden child. Like you said, he
19:18
Speaker 1: was an ad executive CIA operative. He basically shaped the
19:22
Speaker 1: geopolitical map of Southeast Asia by himself in the fifties. Um,
19:27
Speaker 1: and they, the Kennedy's, were like, hey, you seem pretty
19:30
Speaker 1: great at this. Let's see what you can do at Cuba.
19:31
Speaker 1: And he just ran into a brick wall in Cuba,
19:34
Speaker 1: in no small part because, like you were saying, the
19:36
Speaker 1: Kennedy's didn't give him any teeth, any authority. So he
19:39
Speaker 1: had to beg for everything from everybody from this this
19:42
Speaker 1: multi agency task force that he was in charge of.
19:46
Speaker 1: It was a terrible, terrible thing. And then again that
19:49
Speaker 1: clock is ticking. So in addition to coming up with
19:52
Speaker 1: ways to get the Cubans to topple Castro, Lansdale also
19:56
Speaker 1: was trying to figure out how to justify over action
20:00
Speaker 1: and actual military invasion. And so he asked the Joint Chiefs,
20:05
Speaker 1: who were one of the agencies that were part of
20:07
Speaker 1: the task force. He oversaw for some some info on that,
20:12
Speaker 1: like what would it take do you think for the
20:15
Speaker 1: United States to be able to justifiably invade Cuba and
20:20
Speaker 1: remove Castro as its leader? Problem solved? And again like,
20:23
Speaker 1: how can I scare the president bad enough? Kind of yeah,
20:27
Speaker 1: right exactly, so they they well, no, Also, like I
20:32
Speaker 1: think he was also trying to figure out what we
20:34
Speaker 1: could do to make that happen, you know what I'm saying,
20:37
Speaker 1: Like could we also like push Cuba into a corner
20:40
Speaker 1: and make them do something and be like, oh, well,
20:41
Speaker 1: we have our hands are tied. We have to invade um.
20:44
Speaker 1: But the reason that it would scare Kennedy too is
20:48
Speaker 1: like he was against military action. You just got to
20:51
Speaker 1: keep that in mind. After the Bay of Pigs he said, no,
20:53
Speaker 1: We're not invading Cuba. So now Landsdills trying to figure
20:56
Speaker 1: out basically how to how to change the President's mind.
20:59
Speaker 1: And I guess, yeah, like you were saying, if it
21:01
Speaker 1: meant through scaring him, whatever it took, he just wanted
21:05
Speaker 1: out of this stupid assignment where he's trying to figure
21:07
Speaker 1: out how to trick the Cubans into overthrowing Castro. Right.
21:10
Speaker 1: So this this is what this briefing was all about
21:12
Speaker 1: in February of nineteen sixty two from the Joint Chiefs
21:15
Speaker 1: of Staff to basically put put it forth that this
21:19
Speaker 1: cannot be ignored. The quote was, the communist regime in
21:23
Speaker 1: Cuba is incompatible with the minimum security requirements of the
21:27
Speaker 1: Western hemisphere. Um. I mean that's like that sentence kind
21:31
Speaker 1: of kind of says it all like where where he
21:35
Speaker 1: it is incompatible having him in power with the safety
21:38
Speaker 1: of the Western hemisphere, So we gotta get rid of him. Um.
21:43
Speaker 1: They said that that, uh, we can't count on like
21:46
Speaker 1: you see what happened with the Bay of Pigs. There
21:49
Speaker 1: is no insurgents happening in Cuba that we can count
21:52
Speaker 1: on basically at this point, and we need to intervene directly.
21:56
Speaker 1: And I don't think Russia will even like be supermad
22:01
Speaker 1: at this point yet. Yeah. Yet, that was the thing
22:04
Speaker 1: because they said that Cuba is not part of the
22:07
Speaker 1: Warsaw Packed, which is kind of like the Soviet Union's
22:10
Speaker 1: version of NATO UM. And since they weren't a member
22:13
Speaker 1: of that, the Soviet Union had no obligations to back
22:17
Speaker 1: them up if they were invaded in them by America,
22:20
Speaker 1: and the fact that they didn't have any military bases
22:22
Speaker 1: there and they also didn't have any reason to back
22:25
Speaker 1: up Cuba. So it was possible that if they invaded
22:27
Speaker 1: Cuba to capital to top le Castro, they the Soviets
22:32
Speaker 1: would not be drawn into it. Maybe JFK was wrong
22:34
Speaker 1: about it sparking World War three. They didn't know that
22:36
Speaker 1: for a fact, but that was their assessment of it, right, Yeah.
22:40
Speaker 1: So uh. On February second, Brigadier General William H. Craig,
22:44
Speaker 1: he was the Joint Chief of staffs rep for Operation Mongoose,
22:48
Speaker 1: He submitted this memo to Landsdale that said it was
22:51
Speaker 1: called possible actions to provoke, harass, and disrupt Cuba. And
22:55
Speaker 1: this is where some of these, uh, really kind of
22:58
Speaker 1: wacky ideas start coming forth. Um, some not quite so acky,
23:03
Speaker 1: like the Mercury mission was about to happen with John
23:05
Speaker 1: Glenn later that month, and they were like, Hey, if
23:08
Speaker 1: anything goes wrong with this thing, we could basically manufacture
23:11
Speaker 1: proof that Cuba was behind it and that would give
23:14
Speaker 1: us a reason. Yeah, that was one of the more
23:16
Speaker 1: reasonable things, and it really was. There was Operation Free ride.
23:20
Speaker 1: The idea that they were going to drop one way
23:22
Speaker 1: tickets to um like Mexico City over Havana was just like,
23:29
Speaker 1: just leave, that's amazing. I guess that was when if
23:32
Speaker 1: Castro had no one to rule, then maybe he would
23:34
Speaker 1: just leave himself. Castro would just shut down the airports
23:37
Speaker 1: or something. Yeah. Yeah, And that was not very well
23:39
Speaker 1: thought out. It wouldn't have worked. Now. There was also
23:42
Speaker 1: Operation Good Times too, which was they were going to
23:45
Speaker 1: produce a fake photo and this is at a time
23:47
Speaker 1: when it was hard to do that, at least make
23:49
Speaker 1: a convincing one of Castro presumably naked, hanging out with
23:54
Speaker 1: with beautiful women in a bunch of food at a
23:57
Speaker 1: time when you know, the Cubans were having a lot
24:00
Speaker 1: of trouble putting food on their own plates. And this
24:03
Speaker 1: picture was gonna have Castro surrounded by food and women
24:06
Speaker 1: and they were going to caption it my ration is different.
24:10
Speaker 1: And they thought that that would just that would be
24:12
Speaker 1: yet for cast Strow. So yes, these are the ideas
24:15
Speaker 1: that they were coming up with. But when they when
24:18
Speaker 1: they kind of turned there, I think when they said, like, wow,
24:21
Speaker 1: these are the ideas were coming up with. This stuff's
24:22
Speaker 1: not gonna work. There's no counter revolutionary insurgency to spark
24:27
Speaker 1: in Cuba, Like, what are we gonna do? We need
24:30
Speaker 1: to figure out how to how to get our army
24:32
Speaker 1: in there, right, get army in there, and then uh,
24:37
Speaker 1: that kind of set the table, all of us set
24:38
Speaker 1: the table for Operation Northwoods, which was put forward by
24:43
Speaker 1: Army General. It's so funny. I'm glad that that Olivia mentioned, uh,
24:49
Speaker 1: Doctor Strangelove, which had not come out yet, because some
24:53
Speaker 1: of the names in this are very like you can
24:55
Speaker 1: kind of tell that Kubrick and the writer were very
24:58
Speaker 1: much influenced by like real stuff that was going on,
25:01
Speaker 1: some of the ridiculous names from Dr Strangelove. And then
25:05
Speaker 1: you know later on when we get to like what
25:07
Speaker 1: was actually in Northwoods that you can only hear it
25:11
Speaker 1: as if it was read from Georgie Scott, General Buck Turgenson,
25:16
Speaker 1: like you can hear him saying these things. But Army
25:19
Speaker 1: General Lyman lim Nitzer was this guy's name, and he
25:23
Speaker 1: was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in
25:25
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty. Very hawkish to say, the least right wing
25:29
Speaker 1: guy who uh, I mean, this guy he wanted to
25:34
Speaker 1: attack everybody at all times. He wanted a preemptive nuclear
25:37
Speaker 1: war launched against the Soviet Union. At one point that
25:40
Speaker 1: was a proposal that he took to Kennedy. He proposed
25:44
Speaker 1: that in writing. He said, we here's a plan to
25:46
Speaker 1: to for a surprise attack against the USSR. Let's do it. Yeah. Yeah.
25:51
Speaker 1: He was that kind of guy. He was one of
25:52
Speaker 1: those ones that I mentioned earlier. Fight communism everywhere it
25:55
Speaker 1: pops up, any time it pops up, Just invade and
25:57
Speaker 1: take over. That's that was like, is his plan. And
26:01
Speaker 1: this guy's running the Joint chiefs of Staff. So Kennedy
26:04
Speaker 1: the head, No, he was Eisenhower appointee. Kennedy didn't like him,
26:08
Speaker 1: and he didn't like Kennedy, especially after the Bay of Pigs.
26:11
Speaker 1: He was one of the people that Kennedy did not trust.
26:14
Speaker 1: And then he thought Kennedy was reprehensible for not ordering
26:18
Speaker 1: an air strike to back up the Bay of Pigs
26:20
Speaker 1: exile invaders. Um. So there was no love lost. But
26:25
Speaker 1: Landsdale was It sounds like kind of appropriately the guy
26:28
Speaker 1: to come up with Operation Northwoods, which was, as far
26:31
Speaker 1: as we have is in documentary evidence, the only false
26:35
Speaker 1: flag operation the United States ever came up with. Okay,
26:41
Speaker 1: is that true documented evidence? I don't think there's ever
26:44
Speaker 1: been evidence of anything like this. I mean, there's a
26:46
Speaker 1: there's a historian who wrote about it later, a journalist
26:49
Speaker 1: who said it was probably the most corrupt document the
26:52
Speaker 1: United States government has ever come up with, which is
26:56
Speaker 1: really saying something. I mean, I'm not so I'm not
26:58
Speaker 1: Pollyanni here. I don't think the US government as of
27:01
Speaker 1: course clean hands and is just you know, looking out
27:03
Speaker 1: for the good of everybody at all the time. Like
27:05
Speaker 1: I think it's done some deeply shady stuff. But I
27:08
Speaker 1: also personally think that Operation Northwoods may have been, as
27:13
Speaker 1: far as planning goes, the pinnacle of that shape. Yeah,
27:18
Speaker 1: I believe it too. March five, the Joint chiefs uh
27:22
Speaker 1: Lansdale issued requested them to provide a quote brief but
27:25
Speaker 1: precise description of pretext which they would consider would provide
27:30
Speaker 1: justification for US military intervention in Cuba. Was passed along
27:34
Speaker 1: on March five. I'm sorry, marulimnitz Or passes it to
27:39
Speaker 1: Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara, and uh, this is something
27:44
Speaker 1: that McNamara, you know, years later was kind of like,
27:48
Speaker 1: I don't know, was that a thing? I don't really
27:50
Speaker 1: remember that. Yeah, he said, I'm not sure that was true.
27:53
Speaker 1: He was a scumbag himself too. Yeah. I recommend the
27:56
Speaker 1: Great Great documentary by Errol Morris when he talks to
27:59
Speaker 1: Robert ma namera basically before Yeah, for nine minutes straight
28:03
Speaker 1: or however long it is. It's crazy what he got
28:05
Speaker 1: him to say and to and he tried to get
28:07
Speaker 1: him to see and McNamara is like, does not compute
28:11
Speaker 1: to It was really fascinating stuff, it really was. I
28:16
Speaker 1: didn't realize that was Errol Morris. I should have guessed though. Yeah. Um, alright,
28:23
Speaker 1: so the Midnight Cowboy, what I wanted to throw you?
28:28
Speaker 1: I wanted to sniff you off the case. You sure did. Uh.
28:31
Speaker 1: So this memo was called Justification for US Military Intervention
28:35
Speaker 1: in Cuba. That was the official title, uh, signed by
28:38
Speaker 1: limnitz Are in the Joint Chiefs. And you know this,
28:41
Speaker 1: this was basically, uh here, what do you think of
28:45
Speaker 1: this plan? Um? It's you might think it's wacky and
28:49
Speaker 1: we've never done anything quite like this officially, but here
28:52
Speaker 1: it is President Kennedy. Right. Kennedy said, or um, let
28:56
Speaker 1: me see that ain't no bad no that us so, um,
29:02
Speaker 1: he looked it over and said, nope, thank you very much.
29:05
Speaker 1: I appreciate you going all this trouble, but I reject
29:09
Speaker 1: this out of hand. We're not going to to create
29:13
Speaker 1: some sort of UM mayhem, blame it on the Cubans
29:17
Speaker 1: and then use it as a pretext to evade We're
29:19
Speaker 1: just not doing that. And right when that happened, right
29:22
Speaker 1: when he realized that that this is not going to UM,
29:26
Speaker 1: not going to be implemented, limits are UM, tried to
29:31
Speaker 1: get all documentation of this destroyed. He wasn't successful, as
29:35
Speaker 1: we'll see obviously because we're talking about it now, but
29:37
Speaker 1: he was, oh god, I signed that thing. I thought
29:41
Speaker 1: we were all going to do this. And in fact,
29:43
Speaker 1: in the Operation Northwood's memo, he talks about how he
29:46
Speaker 1: anticipates that other agencies that were all part of Operation
29:49
Speaker 1: Mongoose Task Force UM would be submitting similar proposals, which
29:53
Speaker 1: are basically ideas for how to make it look like
29:56
Speaker 1: Cuba attacked the United States so that we can invade Cuba.
30:00
Speaker 1: Turned out he was the only one who put his
30:01
Speaker 1: name on a document that he then handed into the
30:04
Speaker 1: president that was that it's sort of like the scene
30:07
Speaker 1: in like an army movie where they asked for volunteers,
30:10
Speaker 1: and everyone but one person takes a step back and
30:13
Speaker 1: then one guy's left standing there. Have you ever seen
30:16
Speaker 1: there's a video of some dogs that did that to
30:18
Speaker 1: another dog. There's three dogs, I think they're all little poodles,
30:22
Speaker 1: and one of them, Peter pooped on the staircase and
30:25
Speaker 1: there the mom was making the video is asking them
30:28
Speaker 1: like who did this? And right when she says who
30:31
Speaker 1: did this, the other two look at the third one,
30:34
Speaker 1: and then she said who did it? And they take
30:37
Speaker 1: a step back and the ones is standing there still.
30:39
Speaker 1: It's one of the most amazing dog videos I've ever seen.
30:42
Speaker 1: I saw the Nature video the other day that was
30:45
Speaker 1: a deer, uh that you know how they had like
30:48
Speaker 1: fake deer and things in the woods. That was a
30:50
Speaker 1: real deer that had mounted one of these fake deer.
30:53
Speaker 1: Have you seen that? I've seen pictures, you know, on
30:57
Speaker 1: the internet. So it has mounted this deer and it's
30:59
Speaker 1: kind of going at it, and the fake DearS um
31:02
Speaker 1: sort of from the neck up, it's piece together, that
31:04
Speaker 1: whole section falls off. This deer jumps off of the
31:08
Speaker 1: back of that thing, and like I wish there was
31:12
Speaker 1: like a human narration going on. Because it looks at
31:15
Speaker 1: like it's kind of circling this thing, looking at it like, yeah,
31:18
Speaker 1: what was I just doing? Uh this thing too, so
31:22
Speaker 1: we figured out it was fake. I killed you. I'm sorry.
31:27
Speaker 1: It's good stuff here, Yeah, Uh, should we take a
31:30
Speaker 1: break before we can get into the absurdity of Operation Northwoods?
31:34
Speaker 1: All right, we'll take our second break and we'll talk
31:36
Speaker 1: about some of these crazy wacky ideas right for this, Chuck,
32:04
Speaker 1: I think you know, we're we're calling these crazy wacky ideas,
32:07
Speaker 1: and they are crazy wacky ideas, like you shouldn't do
32:09
Speaker 1: stuff like false flag operations and in vague countries based
32:12
Speaker 1: on them. Um, but they're also I think only crazy
32:15
Speaker 1: wacky because they were in the sixties, they were directed
32:20
Speaker 1: at Cuba, which makes it seem even wackier in hindsight
32:23
Speaker 1: now today. And then lastly, um, they weren't implemented. Had
32:28
Speaker 1: they been implemented, they would there be in no way,
32:31
Speaker 1: shape or form crazier wacky. They'd be you know, abhorrent.
32:35
Speaker 1: But we're kind of laughing about this stuff now, but
32:38
Speaker 1: it's really not funny. No, That's what I'm trying to do.
32:42
Speaker 1: Stop laughing. Yeah, sorry, I'm in a good mood. I'm
32:46
Speaker 1: glad to hear it. All right, So let's talk about
32:49
Speaker 1: some of these false flag operations again signed by General
32:53
Speaker 1: Liman Limnitzer. That's right. We already talked about sort of
32:56
Speaker 1: attacking Guantanamo. Uh, there are things called over the fence attacks,
33:01
Speaker 1: which were uniformed Cubans basically, you know, riding near the bases,
33:09
Speaker 1: throwing fire bombs inside the base, setting aircraft on fire. Uh,
33:14
Speaker 1: kind of giving the illusion that that Guantanamo is under
33:17
Speaker 1: direct attack. And these would probably be exile Cubans who
33:21
Speaker 1: were sent from Florida down to Guantanamo to pose as
33:26
Speaker 1: Cuban nationals under Castro who were attacking. Um. But they
33:31
Speaker 1: would be paid and then remember that movie Wag the Dog.
33:34
Speaker 1: Oh sure they would probably be whacked afterward. Yeah, that's
33:39
Speaker 1: the thing though, And this is if you read, if
33:42
Speaker 1: you read the fine print, Aside from one of them,
33:45
Speaker 1: these are all basically elaborate ruses where no one actually dies. Yes,
33:51
Speaker 1: that's very important that I know a lot of people believe.
33:55
Speaker 1: I was gonna say suspect, I think believe is as
33:57
Speaker 1: much more correct word that that September eleven was a
34:01
Speaker 1: false flag attack. Um, some people that. I mean, I
34:05
Speaker 1: get that, I get I get believing that and why
34:08
Speaker 1: you would believe that. Um, but if you look at
34:12
Speaker 1: Operation north Woods, they they go out of their way
34:16
Speaker 1: to basically stage death. People don't actually die. They weren't
34:20
Speaker 1: part of the plan killing people. And then let alone
34:23
Speaker 1: the idea of killing thousands of Americans, the just the
34:26
Speaker 1: fact that that many people died. I don't believe that
34:29
Speaker 1: anyone has ever held power in America that is capable
34:34
Speaker 1: or willing to kill that that many Americans all at once.
34:38
Speaker 1: I just don't believe it. I don't. I don't think
34:40
Speaker 1: the world works that way. I think the world can
34:42
Speaker 1: be a very very dark place. I don't think it's
34:46
Speaker 1: that dark at least that there's like that depth of
34:50
Speaker 1: betrayal from you know, the American government to the American people.
34:54
Speaker 1: I just I don't believe it. I agree, So I
34:58
Speaker 1: just thought we probably we should at least mentioned in
35:02
Speaker 1: two thousand one is a false flag operation, that's right.
35:07
Speaker 1: Another one from this era was the remember the Main incident,
35:12
Speaker 1: which was basically, let's just blow up one of our
35:14
Speaker 1: ships in Guantanamo Bay or or another vessel um near Cuba.
35:20
Speaker 1: We could like they they proposed sinking ships and all
35:23
Speaker 1: kinds of crazy plans like that. The one that really
35:27
Speaker 1: speaks to me as far as George C. Scott reading
35:30
Speaker 1: it from uh DR Strangelove is this direct quote, we
35:36
Speaker 1: could sink a boatload of Cubans on route to Florida,
35:39
Speaker 1: real or simulated like they could they it could be dummies,
35:43
Speaker 1: or we could actually really do this with real humans.
35:46
Speaker 1: That was the one that I was like, Okay, there's
35:48
Speaker 1: not there's not like like they're that actually does overtly
35:52
Speaker 1: say yeah, we could kill some people. The other ones,
35:55
Speaker 1: the ones that I'm like, Okay, they're really going out
35:57
Speaker 1: of their way to make sure nobody is actually hurt,
36:00
Speaker 1: are ones like um. There was one where they were
36:02
Speaker 1: going to uh um, send a like a charter plane,
36:07
Speaker 1: like actually like a commercial airline or from the US,
36:10
Speaker 1: probably from Florida en route to somewhere, carrying um American
36:14
Speaker 1: tourists off to vacation like Jamaica, Venezuela, Guatemala, all the
36:20
Speaker 1: vacation hotspots, right, and they were going to release actually
36:24
Speaker 1: two planes at once, identical planes, except one of them
36:26
Speaker 1: was going to be a drone remote controlled plane. And
36:30
Speaker 1: then they were going to reroute the one with the
36:33
Speaker 1: actual people in it and then send the drone along
36:37
Speaker 1: over Cuban airspace and blow it up and then blame
36:40
Speaker 1: it on the Cubans. Yeah. So if you'll notice in
36:45
Speaker 1: that plan there's like all those people are safe, they're
36:47
Speaker 1: all fine, Like they're all they're they're safe. This is
36:50
Speaker 1: all a decoy um, Like that's that's that's what this
36:55
Speaker 1: this operation was was, Like it's still wouldn't just they
37:00
Speaker 1: wouldn't say or they weren't. They weren't saying like, yeah,
37:02
Speaker 1: we'll just blow up a planeful of tourists, Like it
37:05
Speaker 1: just doesn't happen. That doesn't happen. Yeah, But I mean
37:08
Speaker 1: some of the stuff to me, like has the could
37:12
Speaker 1: serve as setting the stage for things getting out of
37:14
Speaker 1: hand and leading to real bloodshed, Like they had ideas
37:17
Speaker 1: for a simulated Cuban backed assault on like Dominican Republic
37:21
Speaker 1: or something using fake aircraft, you know, painted up to
37:24
Speaker 1: look like Cuban aircraft. Uh. I mean, all of a sudden,
37:29
Speaker 1: something like that gets out of hand and real lives
37:31
Speaker 1: are being lost when it's misinterpreted. Yes, And I mean
37:34
Speaker 1: that's a really good point. And also, like the whole
37:36
Speaker 1: basis of this is like, so we can invade Cuba,
37:38
Speaker 1: and when we invade Cuba, there's going to be a
37:40
Speaker 1: lot of loss of life and bloodshed from that invasion too.
37:43
Speaker 1: So even if we went out of our way to
37:45
Speaker 1: make sure that people who were in the false flag
37:48
Speaker 1: operation didn't actually get hurt, somebody's eventually going to die
37:51
Speaker 1: because of this false flag. The idea is that this
37:54
Speaker 1: guy came up with. Yeah. Another idea was a fake
37:58
Speaker 1: attack on a plane, like a US Air Force plane
38:02
Speaker 1: in international waters. So basically that would be a pilot
38:07
Speaker 1: who was flying, as you know, under an alias. They
38:10
Speaker 1: would broadcast over the radio that they've been jumped by MIGGS,
38:13
Speaker 1: which was I guess this the Soviet fighter jets, I
38:17
Speaker 1: saw top gun, I know this stuff. Uh, And it
38:20
Speaker 1: would fly I guess under the radar at a low
38:22
Speaker 1: altitude and land uh safely and then stored. The pain
38:27
Speaker 1: would be um, repainted, given a new tail number, and
38:31
Speaker 1: then a submarine would drop plane parts into the water
38:35
Speaker 1: where it supposedly happened so they could like pull those
38:37
Speaker 1: things out of the ocean show the world again. Totally fake,
38:42
Speaker 1: totally fake. Um. There were other ones where like they're
38:46
Speaker 1: like well, maybe we could injure Cuban exiles in Miami,
38:49
Speaker 1: like assault them and blame it on the Cubans, um, etcetera, etcetera.
38:55
Speaker 1: Like basically anything you could think of, uh, that could
38:58
Speaker 1: give America a reason to say, look, this Castra regime
39:02
Speaker 1: is unpredictable, unstable, and they're now attacking us. Um, we're
39:07
Speaker 1: going to have to invade. Uh. That was the point
39:10
Speaker 1: of Operation Northwood's ideas. But it had a bit of
39:13
Speaker 1: a stroke of genius that was kind of hidden in there,
39:16
Speaker 1: A little bit that I thought was was kind of
39:18
Speaker 1: well put. It was using a number of these different
39:22
Speaker 1: things making them seem through you know, a separation of
39:27
Speaker 1: of in time and space, making them seem like un
39:31
Speaker 1: related events. Also staging other events too that didn't necessarily
39:36
Speaker 1: have anything to do with anything, that kind of like
39:38
Speaker 1: give cover and camouflage the actual events and the goals um.
39:44
Speaker 1: And that if you put it all together, the US
39:46
Speaker 1: could be like, look at how crazy this Castra regime is,
39:49
Speaker 1: We're going to have to invade. I thought that was
39:51
Speaker 1: as far as unhinged documents go. I thought that was
39:54
Speaker 1: a little bit of sanity shining in it. Yeah, I
39:57
Speaker 1: mean I think they should have dropped those one way
39:59
Speaker 1: plane tickets. That was that was my favorite idea and
40:02
Speaker 1: all this stuff. Uh, so you know, we know that
40:06
Speaker 1: Kennedy didn't accept this proposal. The Cuban missile crisis unfolds
40:11
Speaker 1: in October sixty two and Operation Mongoose was sort of
40:15
Speaker 1: fully laid to rest and Lansdale for his efforts. He
40:20
Speaker 1: was replaced um by a man named Sterling Cutrell, who was, um,
40:27
Speaker 1: he wasn't like an insider for the for the Kennedy clan,
40:31
Speaker 1: and so he was a little more cautious about everything. Um,
40:34
Speaker 1: they were still you know, I think the Joint chiefs
40:38
Speaker 1: had the idea, Like they didn't put this idea to
40:41
Speaker 1: bed completely. They put Operation Mongoose, Operation Mongoose Mongoose down,
40:47
Speaker 1: but they still didn't like put to bed the idea
40:50
Speaker 1: that like, hey, maybe we should still provoke Cuba and
40:54
Speaker 1: see if we can like set them up to invade. Um,
40:58
Speaker 1: like that went through sixty three. All the way through three,
41:01
Speaker 1: the Hawks were just trying to figure out how to
41:03
Speaker 1: get it done. Uh and it it obviously didn't happen.
41:06
Speaker 1: And what's somebody pointed out in one of these the
41:09
Speaker 1: articles that were the sources for Olivia's article was like
41:12
Speaker 1: Castro's still there. He outlived all these guys. Uh. And
41:17
Speaker 1: I think it was in like the nineties or the
41:19
Speaker 1: early two thousands when the article was written. There like
41:21
Speaker 1: he's still there, He's still giving seven hour speeches and
41:24
Speaker 1: like all these people are long dead. Um. And that
41:27
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the case. Like America and Cuba just
41:30
Speaker 1: entered this kind its own, like kind of mini Caribbean
41:32
Speaker 1: Cold War with tons of sanctions against Cuba and um
41:37
Speaker 1: limits on travel, um. And you know, I think the
41:41
Speaker 1: average American would just not really understand why. They just
41:45
Speaker 1: know that you that Castro was a communist, and you
41:48
Speaker 1: know that was all you needed to know to play
41:51
Speaker 1: sanctions on Cuba. Um. And we even further would have
41:55
Speaker 1: no idea whatsoever that Operation Northwood ever happened, was ever
42:00
Speaker 1: proposed if it wasn't for Oliver Stone movie movie JFK.
42:07
Speaker 1: And that a neat little bizarre footnote. Yeah, it really is,
42:10
Speaker 1: because like he said, limits are tried to get this
42:12
Speaker 1: thing completely destroyed, not even like hey can we bury this,
42:16
Speaker 1: Like let's destroy it. There was an investigative reporter named
42:19
Speaker 1: James Banford who wrote a lot about this to call
42:22
Speaker 1: it the most corrupt plan ever created by the U. S. Government.
42:25
Speaker 1: And if not for Oliver Stone sort of that JFK
42:28
Speaker 1: movie is so popular, uh for like Americans after that
42:32
Speaker 1: calling for the release and like opening of records. Um,
42:36
Speaker 1: we we may never have known. So hey yeah Alie Stone, Yeah,
42:40
Speaker 1: he got an Act of Congress passed through his movie.
42:45
Speaker 1: That's how popular that movie was when it came out.
42:47
Speaker 1: It'd be like like passing the Hobbit Act or something
42:50
Speaker 1: back in like two thousand seven. To never make another
42:54
Speaker 1: Hobbit movie would be that act o um or another
42:58
Speaker 1: eight hour be Eatles documentary. How about that ouch? Uh? Well,
43:05
Speaker 1: since Chuck said out everybody, that's it for Operation Northwoods,
43:08
Speaker 1: which means it's time for a listener mail. And I
43:14
Speaker 1: mean just hostility to the Beatles there at the end.
43:17
Speaker 1: You didn't see that coming on? Outright hostility. I get
43:20
Speaker 1: to Peter Jackson link. But all right, I'm gonna call
43:24
Speaker 1: this from a night shift nurse doing great work. Hey guys,
43:29
Speaker 1: my husband recently introduced me to your podcast about two
43:32
Speaker 1: years into the backlog and loving it. I started with
43:34
Speaker 1: your most recent pod, uh and work backwards. But my
43:38
Speaker 1: husband scrolls through and picks one at random Russian roulette style,
43:44
Speaker 1: which seems insane to me. I've been trying to figure
43:46
Speaker 1: out if our listening style says anything about our personalities.
43:50
Speaker 1: I would say I'm a little more methodical and he's
43:52
Speaker 1: more spontaneous in life, So maybe there's something to that.
43:56
Speaker 1: So lindsay, uh, one percent. I mean your husband is
44:01
Speaker 1: flying by the seat of his pants. It sounds like
44:03
Speaker 1: fast and loose. He's like, yeah, let's hear what they
44:06
Speaker 1: have to say about stupid grass. Yeah, you know what
44:10
Speaker 1: we had to say A lot we did. That was
44:12
Speaker 1: a long episode, and you know what, we've talked about
44:14
Speaker 1: this before. We there is no wrong way to listen
44:17
Speaker 1: to any show, including stuff you should know. I we
44:21
Speaker 1: personally sort of endorsed the sandwiching idea, which is, if
44:24
Speaker 1: you're new to the show, listen to the most recent
44:26
Speaker 1: release because that way, sometimes they're timely, but um, at
44:30
Speaker 1: least you're in the know about current jokes and things
44:34
Speaker 1: were referencing and uh, if we have live shows going on,
44:37
Speaker 1: like people miss out on kind of information release uh,
44:41
Speaker 1: and then see sandwich. So you listen to the most
44:43
Speaker 1: recent and then you pick one from the back back catalog,
44:46
Speaker 1: the deep Web. No, no, no, not the deep Web. No,
44:52
Speaker 1: so we've endorsed that. But there's no wrong way to listen.
44:55
Speaker 1: You can be one of those two times as fast
44:57
Speaker 1: play our voices, two times as fast weirdos. I think
45:00
Speaker 1: that's wrong. That's the too. But someone that's wrong just
45:03
Speaker 1: hit download, you know, I'm just teasing. No, it's right.
45:06
Speaker 1: However you listen. It's great. It's weird. I think to
45:09
Speaker 1: listen to us as if we were the chipmunks. But yeah,
45:11
Speaker 1: I think it's funny though too. If that's your jam,
45:13
Speaker 1: then go for it, I says, I think it's funny
45:15
Speaker 1: though too. It's gonna be like four times when they
45:18
Speaker 1: get to happen, right, or maybe we should do this,
45:27
Speaker 1: would you, John Wayne? No, but it sped up at
45:30
Speaker 1: two times. It sound like myself, right, Yeah, that wasn't
45:33
Speaker 1: John Wayne. That was great. You just brought a smile
45:38
Speaker 1: to my face. Good, all right, let me finish this
45:40
Speaker 1: up anyway. I'm a night shift nurse. I listen to podcasts,
45:43
Speaker 1: especially on my way and from work to decompress for
45:45
Speaker 1: my shift. Thank you for keeping company on my drive,
45:48
Speaker 1: keeping me awake after working these long hours. Fund your
45:51
Speaker 1: voice of soothing yet engaging. Really admire that, uh you
45:54
Speaker 1: can do that and admit when you were wrong as well,
45:58
Speaker 1: which is such a hard thing to do in these
45:59
Speaker 1: polar se times. That is from Lindsay Johnson MSN r
46:04
Speaker 1: N nice. Thank you, Lindsay doing God's work out there.
46:07
Speaker 1: We appreciate you, and we appreciate your husband also for
46:10
Speaker 1: introducing you to us. I don't know what he's doing,
46:13
Speaker 1: but hey man who whatever he's doing is fine with me. Agreed. Um,
46:19
Speaker 1: If you want to be like Lindsay and get in
46:20
Speaker 1: touch with us, we would love that. You can send
46:23
Speaker 1: us an email to Stuff podcast at i heeart radio
46:26
Speaker 1: dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of
46:32
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit
46:35
Speaker 1: the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
46:38
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.