Latest / Stuff You Should Know / Iran-Contra Affair: Shady in the 80s, Part 1

Transcript

Iran-Contra Affair: Shady in the 80s, Part 1 · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's Josh and Chuck and we're coming to
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: see you guys, some of you some cities. Just listen up.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: That's right, because you know, we just did Chicago and
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Toronto and it went great, and I think our topic
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: of went really well. Everyone loved hearing about me. That's right.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: So if you're in Boston, you can come see us
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: in August twenty nine at the Wilbur Portland, Maine, Maine,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: at the State Theater on August thirty. I can't wait.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna Labor Day weekend. I'm gonna stay the whole weekend.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: I'll be all over Maine. That's great, man. Where else.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: We're gonna be in Orlando on October nine, and then
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: on October t we're going to be in New Orleans, Man.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: And then later on that month we're doing a three
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: night stand at the Bellhouse in Brooklyn. That's right. Is
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: sold out, but you can still get tickets for the
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: and we will see you then. Check it out at
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: s y s K live dot com. Welcome to Stuff
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: you should Know, a production of My Heart Radios How
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: There's Charles W Chuck Bryant with Jerry over there eating
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: with chopstick. As a matter of fact, you know what,
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Jerry pulls up the chopsticks. It's time to record. That's right. Yeah,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: he's got she's got Facebook open and she's sitting there
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: with her chopsticks. So it's we're recording. Jerry's been fork
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: free since eighty three. Speaking of eighty three, your shirt,
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: I guess it's kind of eighty three ish. It looks
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: very Thomas Magnum. It does chuck. It does not just
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: the shirt, the whole outfit. Look at the jeans, the shoes. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: you got the Ferrari out back. Thank you for noticing, man,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: I look like a chubby Thomas Magnum. It's funny because
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: I just finished Stranger Things three, and um, I saw
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: that there was Have you seen it yet? Are you
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: into that? No? I I like the first season. I
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: never really got back into it after that. No, no
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: offense to anybody. Sure, Uh, the main the sheriff guy, yeah,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: Hop wears a shirt kind of like that through most
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: of this season. And so someone did a cut of
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: a like a Magnum p I intro and had him
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: running around and shooting things and jumping into cars. I'll
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: set to the Magnum thing and it really fits at
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: that song with the guy with a shirt like that
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: and it's magnum. Of course he has a mustache too. Well,
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: I'm a mustache less chubby. You should wear a mustache.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: That's look interesting. I don't know. I do solve a
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: lot of mysteries, though. Nothing can change a look like mustaches,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: Oh dude, especially spontaneously, right, especially a fake mustache, because
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: you just put it on and bam, you're done. So uh,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: I tried. I'm gonna go back to the eight three segue.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah we're here, right, We're right in the middle of
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: the eighties. Yeah, like this is super eighties. This is
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: as eighties as it gets. I wrong. Contra fair, that's
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: what we're talking about. Some people call it irong gate
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: poo poo, that name iron contra sure um. I remember
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: this going on at the time too. I remember watching
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Oliver North testify too, and my sister was like, he's
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: so dreamy. Look at how much poise he has. He
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: had his dress greens on, had his boy scout three
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: fingers up like swearing. I really think he did do that. Um,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: but even as an adult, like everything I knew about
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: Iron Contra, like until researching this, it was just the
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: glossiest version. Well, I mean I was like ten and eleven,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: so you were like seven and eight. Sure, sure, but
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: I mean like still over time, as you age, you're like, oh,
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: that's what was going on or oh I understand that
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: even as an adult, my conception of it was not
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: very thorough at all. And as I dug into I'm like,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: this is one of the shadiest things has ever done ever. Yeah,
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: and it was really great to do this and like
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: now I know it. Now I have a full understanding
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: of what happened. And if it ever comes up at
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: a party and people like, oh what was that all about? Anyway,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: and be like, well, please sit down for an hour
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: and I'll just pull up my smartphone and play our episode.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: Actually maybe an hour and a half. We'll see how
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: this goes. Yeah, by the way, everyone, this is a
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: two parter buckle up and so, uh, this is part one.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: I figured we'd start with the beginning. I think that's
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: a really good idea. That reminds me of my friend
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: in college watched the movie. Uh, which one was it? Shortcuts.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: The movie that was on two video cassettes. It was
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: so long, you know, they had to split them up.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: Was it Magnolia A Bridge too far? I can't remember.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: My friend in college, very very famously among our friends,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: watched the second tape first and then watch the first
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: tape second and didn't really put it together. She was
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: just like, I thought it was a little confusing, really,
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: so it was accidental. Oh yeah, And then she was
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: like and then she showed up in the and the
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: second part, and I was like, she's already dead. She
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: was kind of country. This is kind of funny movies,
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: one of them anachronisms. Yeah, well, this is not anachronism,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: because we're gonna be normal, smart, singing people and start
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: at the beginning. And there's really no better place to
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: start than the election of Ronald Reagan. In Ronald Reagan,
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: if you weren't familiar with him already when he was president,
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: he had already been governor of California. But even before that,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: he had a pretty extensive career in Hollywood. And while
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: he was a pretty big star in Hollywood at least
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: B plus list if not a list actor, I mean,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: he was a medium sized star, but definitely way more
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: famous as president than he ever was as a movie star. Um.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: He learned to detest communism. And at the time, communism
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: was a really big thing in Hollywood, like it was
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: very fashionable, um, especially among the intellectuals of Hollywood. And
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: he learned to hate it so much so that by
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: the time he got to be president, he had this
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: idea that there was it was impossible for capitalist democracy
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: and communism to coexist even peacefully on Earth. You couldn't
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: have both. You had to have one or the other.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: And by god, Ronald Reagan was going to see to
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: it that the one that we had was a capitalist democracy. Yeah.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: He wanted to stamp out communism wherever it reared its head. Uh,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: and it was rearing its head close to home, which
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: we'll see here in a second, but all over the world.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, for sure. He it was called the Reagan Bits,
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: and pieces of it were right, and he came up
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: with the Reagan doctrine. And the Reagan doctrine was, um,
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: we will aid any any opposition to communism wherever it's spouts,
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: Like if you're if you're fighting against a communist revolution,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: will support your country. If you're a rebel fighting against
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: a leftist communists, Um government will help you overthrow. That's
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: the Reagan doctrine. Yeah, via money, via arm via training,
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: via covert operations that we carried out ourselves. There were
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: all kinds of ways that we could and did help
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: stem the flow of communism. So there was, as you
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: were saying, there was a place pretty close to home
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: where communism had sprouted up, and that was Nicaragua down
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: in Central America, and in Central America in the thirties,
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: the Sandinista government had taken power and had held onto
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: power well into the seventies and by this time the
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: early eighties, and it drove Ronald Reagan nuts that there
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: was a communist power right there that was being supported
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: by the Soviet Union through Cuba. Ostensibly. I've never gotten
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: the impression that this was ever conclusively proven. They definitely
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: got support from Cuba. But whether it was the Soviet
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: Union who was really calling the shots of nick Nicaragua
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: or not, I I don't know. Yeah, And I think
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: you know, to go even further back and draw the
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: lines a little even more clear. The Sandinistans were named
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: for Augusto Sandino, who led the Nationalist rebellion against what
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: the US occupation of Central America. That's where it started.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: That's where it all started. And from nineteen you know,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: the US occupied This is all part of the Banana Wars.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: So we occupied Nicaragua from nineteen twelve to nineteen thirty three, Uh,
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: for a lot of reasons, but one was like, hey,
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: no one's going to build a canal here unless it's US.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: That was sort of one of the main reasons. And uh,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: that all ceased in nineteen thirty three with Roosevelt's Good
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: Neighbor Policy, which is basically like, we're gonna pull out
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: of Nicaragua. Yeah, okay, So but we we had our
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: fingers all over Central America for many, many, many years.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: And that's why when people forget or choose not to
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: remember when people flee horrible situations in Central America to
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: come to the United States now like kind of where
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: all these horrible situations started years and years ago because
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: of things that we did well. When when Reagan became president,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: UM intervening in Nicaragua, Nick Man, I'm going to have
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: a hard time if I can't say Nicaragua. UM intervening
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: in Nicaragua became like a like first and foremost priority
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: for them. Almost immediately they started UM funding the Contras.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: The Contra rebels are the groups who were fighting against
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: the Santainista government. They were right wing groups, UM, and
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: they were funding them, they were training them, like you
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: were saying, and they're doing all this secretly. There was
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: an operation called Operation Black Eagle, that one that was
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: something else. So we were already funding them and at
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: the time, Congress was on board. Congress was on board,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: especially at first because the Republicans controlled the House. Well,
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: you know how when somebody comes in andto steamrolls over
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: the other party, usually in a presidential election, very frequently
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: there's in the mid terms, the congressional mid terms, there's
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: like a backlash against that flip. Believe it or not,
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: That happen to Ronald Reagan inwo Yeah, and the House
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: did flip. They flipped over to the Democrats, and UM
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: that Democrat controlled House, combined with a Newsweek cover story
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: that came out, kind of turned the tide against UM
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: Reagan's policy on helping out in Nicaragua. Yeah, there was
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: a CIA director named William Casey who was UM. He
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: was kind of telling Congress what they needed here, here
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: and there, uh you have been here vague briefings that
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: that was probably um a generous way to say it.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Sometimes Casey would send another guy though, named Dwyane Dewey Clarridge.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: And this is where things really went south because Claridge
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: did not present well to Congress UM. And anytime Congress
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: feels like they're being subverted or ignored or like kept
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: out of the loop or like not able to offer
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: their checks and balances on the executive branch, they really
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: get mad. They do. And like we're seeing that today.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: This is like history just repeats itself over and over again, exactly. Yeah.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: And and in this particular case, the place where UM
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: where the administration, the regular administration, and Congress just started
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: budding heads over Nicaragua, it was Duyne Clarridge. You know,
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: he just that's how poor job he did. But in
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: his defense, he was coming from a place where he
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: was a CIA man through and through. And this is
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: less than ten years after Congress had just basically rooted
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: out the CIA held public hearings. That's when like the
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: um MK ultra came out and the fact that they've
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: been dosing unsuspecting Americans with LSD so that's his defense.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: He was mad because they uncovered all the awful things
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: that he'd been doing, right, right, right, true compassion, Chuck,
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: that's true compassion. So um, So Congress is starting to
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: get a little unhappy with this. And there was one
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: congress Man in particular named Edward Boland, I believe, and
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: he was from Massachusetts, and he said, hey, I just
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: read about this cover story in Newsweek has a title
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: America's Secret War colon Nicaragua. Seems like they should have
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: flip flopped that, you know, Nicaragua colon America's Secret War.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: I think they both had the same end goal. It's fine.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: But he was like, wait, why am I reading about
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: this in a magazine? And I'm a member of Congress,
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: right because at this time, like Congress is like, well, okay,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: we think we're just kind of funding things, we're maybe
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: helping out a little bit. This Newsweek magazine was like, no, no, no,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: it's way more than that. Like there's way more American
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: involvement down in Nicaragua than than you've been led to
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: believe Congress, like actual covert CIA ops like blowing up
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: bridges and blowing up buildings and uh, you know, direct
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: saboteur type ops. Yeah, not just here's some arms and
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: then you know, you you close this one eye, believe
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: this eye open when you're shooting. There was way more
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: involved than that. Or we could just do the shooting
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: basically here, just let me do it. So Congress, uh,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: in the guys of Edward Bowland said nope, we're not
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: doing that, and they passed the Bowling Amendment, which basically said,
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: if if you cannot use CIA funds or depart Defense
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: Department funds to aid the contras in Nicaragua, it's done.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: Good night. Congress went to sleep, and so that should
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: have been the that's the end of it, right, because
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Congress passed a well it was at a loft now
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: passed an amendment enact enact yea, and so everyone just stopped. Right,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: that's how it works. All right, what's part two going
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: to be about. We're just gonna see here quietly. So, um,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: this did not stop anything. Uh. Here's what happened. In nine.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: The CIA had this one operation where they went into
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: the commercial shipping harbors of Nicaragua. Oh boy, I know
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: it's it's I said it right in my head all morning. Nicaragua. Uh,
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: and they put mines there. You know, I was about
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: to say land mines, but they were c mines, floating mines,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: and uh, the idea here was we're gonna plant these
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: mines that we're gonna whip up our own press releases
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: for the Contras where they take credit for it, like,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: we don't even trust them to write a good press release,
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: wrote the press release for so where the contrasts are
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: saying that they did it, and Uh, the overall effect
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: it's going to have is they're not gonna be able
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: to ship arms via the seaport, at least into Nicaragua.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: Plus it also makes the Contras look way more together
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: and with it than they actually were, right, Like, all
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: we need to do is give them some money, and
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: they got it covered. Right. So the CIA does this
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: and and they're thinking, Okay, so, um my shipping in
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: the Nicaraguan harbors is going to stop. It does not stop. Um.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, there there were there was damage.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: So they used little firecracker mines which make a big
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: blast and a lot of water everywhere. But the big ship.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: It's not gonna hurt the ship. Well, it's sunk a
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: lot of small fishing vessels, but it also damaged ships
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: from the Netherlands, Great Britain, Japan, and the USSR commercial ships.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: So um. The Wall Street Journal broke this story and said, hey,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: you guys, you Congress, You remember how you pass this
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: amendment saying there could be no CIA involvement in in Nicaragua. Well,
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: they mind the harbor of the sovereign nation, and it
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: blew up a bunch of other other country ships. In
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: Congress once again, it's like, man, you keep doing secret
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: things behind their back. That really makes us mad. Should
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: we take a break. All right, let's take a break.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: Stuff you should know. Gosh, stuff you should know. Stuff
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: you should know. Okay, let's keep going. So what does
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: Congress do? They're like, all right, they're mad. We passed
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: one bowl in amendment, which I don't think we said, chuck.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: The first Bowling Amendment was passed four hundred and eleven
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: to zero, unanimously saying do not mess around in Nicaragua anymore.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: That's when you know Congress is mad when they unanimously
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: agree on something. And then then the Wall Street Journal
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: breaks the story about the harbor mining long after the
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: Bowling Amendment was passed. And now Congress is even madder, right,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: So they passed two more amendments, bowling amendments. Uh, because
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: there were loopholes basically that allowed you know, the the
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: US to sort of do these things semi legally. So
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: it was like, well, here's a loophole, so it wasn't
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: really fully illegal that we did this stuff. That's like
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: the Reagan Administration's way, all right, they close ease loopholes
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: and uh, now this was like it was pretty iron clad.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: I don't know about iron clad, but it was pretty
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: tight amendment wise. At the very least, Congress walked away
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: thinking it's done. It's we made ourselves quite clear. Ronald
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: Reagan signed these into law. Yeah he didn't. He didn't.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: He accepted these things. I think he even said like, yeah,
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: this is a good idea, great way to go, Congress
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: and signed it. Um I'm not gonna do a Reagan impression,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: but um so the Congress thought that the matter was settled,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: but it wasn't settled. Like this is how laser focused
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: Reagan was on overthrowing the Santinista government down in Nicaragua.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: He just took a CIA operation and took it even
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: further underground than it had been before. Basically, he was like, Okay,
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: if you guys are gonna outlaw this stuff, um, we're
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: just gonna have to get even more illegal. Yeah. So
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: there were a couple of factions here at work. One
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: was this continued operation underground, deep deep, underground now, and
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: then there was Reagan's public Like he still wanted to
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: get real money from Congress so he didn't have to
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: do this stuff, so he kept up this public PR campaign,
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: beating this drum about communism matter doorstep. Uh. He said
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: that the contrasts were the moral equals of our founding fathers.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: That's a big one to pull out, Like, that's a
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: direct quote of our founding fathers. Um and started in
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: with the and again you see the stuff kind of
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: repeating itself, the campaign of fear, where he basically said,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: unless we do something tough here, then there will be
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: a tidal wave of FEAT people. I don't even know
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: what that means, but that's that just seems super offensive,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: swarming into our country. He meant, you know, refugees, FEAT
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: people seeking a safe haven. It was one word, even
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: I think one word. It's funny because I looked at
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: FEAT people and that's a company that like, I think
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: it makes shoelaces and they're like, yn't see it again,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: say dot com. Uh, so this is all going on
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: and on the on the on the down low, all
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: the operations are going on, and on the public facing side.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: Reagan's just continuing this PR push right basically saying like, Congress,
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: look at these heartless old you know, gas bags, turning
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: off the funding to these founding father moral equivalent to
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: our founding fathers. Go vote these guys out of office
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: and voting some people who will turn the funding back on. Yeah.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: And while the contrast may have been fighting communism, they
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: were doing so through means that the Founding Fathers probably
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: would not have approved of, like murder and torture and
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: rape and mutilation, kidnapping and not. You know, I mean
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: it wasn't so widespread that it was like that's all
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: they were doing, but they would resort to those tactics. Uh.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: And that's not Founding father stuff. No, it's definitely not, not,
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: as far as I've ever learned. Now, I don't think so.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: And I mean it's had a few hundred couple hundred
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: years to come out and it still hasn't. So Yeah,
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: I read some of the stuff too, Like some of
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: the UM affidavits were like just brutal. Oh yeah, dude.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: The a war down in Nicaragua, the civil war that
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: the US basically fomented and supported. UM, it went on
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: for a decade, like it was, it went on into
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: the nineties, and it was like not just like countrymen
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: against countrymen, Like civilians were getting murdered by the scores
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: and just they would get kidnapped and tortured and killed,
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: and like it was a really brutal time in Nicaragua.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: And the regular administration is right in the middle of this,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: like providing as much I eat as they can to
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: one side. Yeah, And it was one of the big
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: problems was that the Contras back then were a bunch
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: of different factions and they didn't answer to a single leader.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: And the one thing I got out of the affidavits,
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: one of which this woman described them taking her children
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: and her finding their mutilated bodies the next day, it
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: was brutal. Um. One of the leaders said that there's
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: there's no disciplinary system at all within the Contra groups.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, like there's no accountability, so you could
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: do any thing you wanted, and there's no discipline set up,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: so it was just they were fractured and no one,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: you know, was talking to each other, and it was
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: just a big mess. Right. But Reagan was doing his
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: best to paint everything in black and white Contrast good
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: Sandinista's bad. So anything that Contrast did was good, and
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: stuff that couldn't be painted as good would just be
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: denied or glossed over, not reported on. That's right. So
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: while while Reagan's out running around trying to drum up
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: public support for the Contrast and thus congressional aid being
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: turned back on, and also saying don't do drugs, he yeah,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: that was a big one, even though we're shipping a
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: lot of drugs back and forth. It's awfully rich now
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: that you know all that stuff, you know. Um, he's
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: also secretly supporting them going in flagrant violation of what
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: Congress has said that that America can do. Um. He
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: tells his people he wants the Contrast movement to be
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: kept alive, body and soul. Is how we put it,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: which any basically said do it. This is what history
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: has told us, is that Reagan basically said keep the
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: Contra movement alive, body and soul. I'm gonna go work
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: on Congress. I'm putting my hands over my ears from
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: now on. Whether that's true or not, we will probably
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: never know as far as the history books is concerned. Yeah,
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: that was, that's what happened, right. So, uh, here's what
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: they did. They said, the CIA has a bad rap
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: um for a lot of reasons, and Congress is not
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: super friendly with them. Well, they expressly forbade the CIA
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: from operating them. Right, So he said, here's what we're
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: gonna do. Um, we're gonna use the National Security Council.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: And there the CIA chief, William Casey, he's around. He's
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: gonna just like advise here and there. And William Casey
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: was like, oh no, I really got to be involved
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: because this is really good stuff. They're like no, no, no no,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: we're talking like officially here. That okay exactly. So at
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: first National Security Advisors Robert McFarlane, and then he was
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: succeeded by John Poindexter. Very important to remember that name. Um,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: and then case he's still there, like you said, doing
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: his thing on the download unofficially right. I think even
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: in some cases kind of stepping on toes or whatever.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: He was like a an additional boss to the to
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: the main guy, the guy everybody's heard of, the guy
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: whose mind or whose name jumps to mind when you
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: hear about this, Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, and in in
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: in retrospect, especially if you went, if you live through
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: the Iran Contra hearings and you're familiar with all the North,
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: like you would guess that when all the North was
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: tapped to head up this extraordinarily difficult secret operation to
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: go against Congress and keep the Contra movement alive and
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: kicking that Ali North was a a a bad, a
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: covert operator to the ninth degree. Right, that is not
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: at all correct. No career marine, very highly decorated marine,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: served in Vietnam one, silver stars and purple hearts, devout Catholic,
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: and by all accounts a stand up guy, and to
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: many many Americans he is uh still like a top
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: notch American hero. Sure well, he was like the president
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: of n r A until I think recently. Yeah, I
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: think there's some scandal that just happened where there was
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: it came out that he like tried to depose Wayne
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: Lapierre or something like that. I don't know. I don't either,
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: But but even beyond that, like even beyond whether he's
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: a stand up guy or not, as far as you know,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: patriotism is concerned just job experience he had like none,
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: He had no experience whatsoever as far as I could
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: ever tell in covert operations. He did a pretty good
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: job for he did an amazing job. He was basically
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: the the White Houses operations and intel arm of the
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: shadiest stuff that was doing stuff that was so shady
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: the c i A. Was even kept in the dark
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: about it. That's how shady this stuff Alie North was doing.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: And he had no experience. He's learning as he went,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: just making it up as he went along. And he
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: really did do a pretty good job of it if
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: you look at it from that angle. Just as far
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: as like getting getting or done so um, what they
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: basically decided was all right, if we can't get the
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: real taxpayer money and like official funds, we'll just go
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: and raise funds on the side and secret um through
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: business people that you know, we can have these big
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: parties and dinners and say, hey, listen, communism is knocking
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: at our door. This wouldn't be good for America, wouldn't
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: be good for your company, And why don't you give
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: us some money, open up the checkbook. Reagan's here, you
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: want a photo. Yeah, sometimes he would show up to
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: these secret fundraisers and uh it was, it was, it
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: really worked. Like they raised a ton of money from
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: the business elite of America to stop the sand and
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: Easton's Nicaragua. So they actually forget this. They founded they
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: had two private citizens found a nonprofit, the National Endow
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: Meant for the Preservation of Liberty. It's sole purpose was
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: to get these funds, these illicit funds to send to
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: the Contrast, which means that the people who are donating
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: to the president's illegal secret proxy war could write their
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: donations off on their taxes. It's just mind boggling hilarious
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: in some senses. Yeah, but they were not the most
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: stand up nonprofit because, as you point out, they raise
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: six point three million dollars through that organization. Uh during
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: six about three point three million made it to the Contras.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: And uh so that means a fifty two program expense rate.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: That's pretty bad. Yeah, it's not good at all. Now,
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: three million dollars it took supposedly to run to run
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: that nonprofit, those fundraising breakfast for a year. Yeah, pretty
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: bad good omelets though, so um yeah, oh yeah, the best. Yeah.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: So from this this idea like okay, this is this
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: is probably kind of legal. We're just fundraising. We're not
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: giving any American taxpayer funds, We're just getting other people
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: that donate. Private citizens. Saudi Arabia was a big one,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: and it was all the stop communism. So, like, I
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: think their intentions were that, oh definitely, there's were yeah,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: and but there was this definite end justifies the means
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: kind of thing. And and it really isn't the president
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: really the most powerful person in the world. Can Congress
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: really tells the president what to do as far as
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: foreign policy goes? Nah, that was kind of the idea,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: I think. So Saudi Arabia donated a bunch of money.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: There's all these private citizens donating money. Um, And here's
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: the thing. The contras found themselves flush with cash, many
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: millions of dollars over just two years. Saudi Arabia alone
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: donated thirty two million. To the contrast, this is a
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: couple of loosely affiliated factions fighting in two spots of
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: Nicaragua that suddenly have thirty plus million dollars at their disposal.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: The problem is they don't have the contacts in the
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: international arms trade to buy arms with this money. They said,
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: a bunch of money. They're like, who wants this? And
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: they were getting crickets, got some bombs, right, you know,
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: the cartoonist black kind, the round ones that are shiny
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: before Craigslist two. Right, So they're only uh, their only
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: avenue was to go back to the Americans and Oliver
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: North and uh he began working with a guy named
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: Richard S. Cord. He was a retired forced retired we'll
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: get into that in a minute, Air Force major general,
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: and he had a lot of experience. Um, there was
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: this group of dudes in the nineteen seventies and eighties
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: that were uh former CIA or current CIA, former CI
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: A former and current American military who were all had
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: their fingers in the illegal arms trade. So exactly what
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: you can imagine a Hollywood writer would come up with this,
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: the real life version of Yeah, sure, so they would.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: They would, Um, you could farm out assassinations to them.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: They could rustle up mercenaries, they could carry out sabotage operations.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: They could find whatever, gun, bomb, anything you need on
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: some money laundered, right, anything that is extraordinarily illegal and
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: deals in death. Like these guys could get their hands
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: on some poison, sure, a bomb disguised as a briefcase.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: We got it, buddy, and they would. Here's the other
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: thing too. They were an illegal black market arms ring,
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: but they were also even more illegal in that they
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: would sell to whoever. Whether you were an enemy or
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: a friend of America, it didn't matter. These guys were
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: operating well above any sort of national loyalty or anything like. Yeah,
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: this was about making money, like many millions of dollars. Yeah,
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: you're right. So, especially guy like se Cord, he wasn't
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: He was in it to make dough definitely, whereas an
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: Ali North was seemingly in it to stop the you know, communism. Right.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: So that's that's an important point. But the fact that
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: they that they contract with c Cord to kind of
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: swoop in and help um hook the contrasts up with
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: arms means that the Reagan administration is contracting with this
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: extraordinarily illegal black market arms ring. Yeah, one of which
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: they took down some of these dudes over the years
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: from one of them. One of the founders of this
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: group was a c I A OP named Edwin Wilson.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: He UH was sentenced He served twenty two years, twelve
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: of which were in solitary confinement, but was sentenced to
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: fifty two years for illegally arming Libya with ten thousand
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: machine guns and twenty tons of C four that he
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: hid in barrels of mud and flew on a charter
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: jet to Libya. Hollywood stuff. I know, it really is,
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: like this really happened crazy, And it wasn't just Libya.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: This guy was funding or Um outfitting Momar Kadafi Da
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: Mean was another customer. Like, whoever, if you need to
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: keep a strangle old on power in your country, were
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: the people to help you do that? Yeah? And when
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: I teased earlier about Richard c. Cord being forced into retirement,
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: that was due to his connection with UH, with Edwin Wilson. Right,
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: so he was forced to retire from the Air Force.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: They couldn't pin anything on him, but there was enough
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: of a connection there where he had to step down. Yeah.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: They're like, you can do this the hardway or the
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: easy way. We're going to give you the option, and
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: he took the easy way and then he went on
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: to make a lot of money. Right. He was like Okay, well,
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: I'll just do the armstealing thing full time now, and
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: he did so. When they brought him in. At first,
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: s Cord was basically acting as like a very las
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: a Fair intermediary. He was basically the guy who on
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: behalf of all the North was like, yeah, I can
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: introduce the Contrast to my friends in the arms ring
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: in Canada, of all places. Yeah. He introduced the Conscious
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: to some Canadian arms dealers. So now the setup was
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: this the friendliest arms arms stealers, right, They're like, all
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: these bullets will really put a hold in somebody. A. Yeah,
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: oh sorry, I meant to include get launchers on that order.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: Sorry sorry. Um, that's pretty good. So U s Cord
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: was just there to make some introductions, make sure things
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: went smoothly. Um. And then it was up to the
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: Contrast to use these funds that were coming in from
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: other people and to buy weapons from the Canadians. Easy
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: pac Right, You'd think, Okay, that's fine, that's done. It's
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: still has like a slight veneer of arms length legality
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: as far as America's concerned. Yeah, and we should mention
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: too that he to do this, he set up a
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: shell company. Uh, the Stanford Technology Trading Group with an
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: Iranian American businessman named Albert Hakim who knew how to
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: get around certain official procedures and stuff like that. He's
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: another guy who could get things done. So he set
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: up Swiss bank accounts, untraceable accounts because that's what you
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: do to run the funds through. And this became known
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: as the Enterprise. Yeah, there's Stanford Technology Trading Company or
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: or Group starting Group a k a. The Enterprise. Yeah,
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: that was like everybody called it that because they're like
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: this sounds way cooler, the enterprise, right, all right, but
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: like you were alluding to, you think it would have
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: been going great. But the contrast in the North, who
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: was the f d N. They were the largest, by far,
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: the largest group. They were the better organized from what
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: I understand. Yeah, they were doing a pretty good job.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: But in the South they were not doing a very
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: good job. No. Somehow they were like, we don't have
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: the arms and equipment. They're like, what are you talking about.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: You have the same amount of money, you have the
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: same contact, just by the weapons, and they're like no't know.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: So ali North is like, okay, all right, here's what
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: we're gonna do. He called the leaders of the f
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: d N and the fsl N to Miami to meet
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: with him, and he said, here's here's how it's going
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: to be. From now on, any venner of legality is
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: going out the window. From now on, I'd like you
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: to meet your new boss, Richard C. Court. Not only
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: is he going to make sure you have arms, he's
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: going to take the funnel money himself by the arms himself,
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: and then he's going to have it kicked out of
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: a plane over your camps. So now America is directly
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: involved in supporting and arming and training the Contra rebels
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: in the north and the south of Nicaragua. And if
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: there was any again, if there's any kind of legality,
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: it's totally gone at this point. Yeah. And in the meantime,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: uh c Cord and Acheam were marking up their stuff
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: as much as like dude. They made a lot of
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: money off of this, They made a ton, but they
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: put it, they put a lot back into the enterprise.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, they took this job very seriously. If you
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: are if you were all the North, you were quite
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: happy with the work you were getting from Richard C.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: Cord and Albert Hakim because the shipments went out on time.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: They got everything they needed. They had so much money
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: they had it left over, but they were also investing
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: it into the enterprise. They bought UM planes, they rented airstrips,
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: they hired him employees. They contracted with other like UM airlines,
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: like a Cia front UM. I can't remember the name
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: of it right now, but they were. They were doing
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: the work for sure. Great healthcare, yeah, the best benefits,
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: all of the all of the Contras had really nice teeth.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: After Richard Scorn took over work from home. All right,
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: so let's take another break here and we'll come back
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: and bring it home for part one with a little
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: bit about the propaganda machine that was set up. Stuff
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: you should know, Gosh, stuff you should know. Stuff you
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: should know, alright, Chuck. So things are in full swing.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: America is unknowingly totally hooking up the cow basically running
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: this proxy war that the Contras are fighting against the
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: Santaista government. Um. The enterprise is working full boar. And
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: if it if it couldn't get any more illegal, if
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: you thought it couldn't get any more illegal, prepared to
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: just be knocked right over. Yeah. So here on the
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: home front, Um, it was decided that there needed to
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: be a pretty massive and dense um propaganda campaign. And
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: it's we're not talking about Reagan just going on the
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: news talking about communism being at our doorstep. We're talking
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: about a real deal propaganda campaign. Uh. And they even
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: set up an office, the Office of Public Diplomacy for
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: Latin America and the Caribbean, that was founded and managed
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: by a Cuban American named Otto Reich. Uh. And this
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: was all exposed later on by the Miami Herald by
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: the reporting of a guy named Alfonso Chardi. Yeah. I
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: just want to interject your real quick So do you
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: remember when we've done, you know, historic stuff in the
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: pass And I'm like, go read the contemporary articles. There
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: was some really good reporting going on because the story
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: was so huge and multifaceted. Oh yeah, I mean Newsweek
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: broke it before Congress knew, right, The Washington Post broke
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: it in the All Street Journal, Yeah, Wall Street Journal,
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: and then the Miami Herald Lly Times did a lot
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: of really good going on, like in Miami's backyard. But
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: it was back when it wasn't like oh, think piece,
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: think peace, think piece, actual I think piece think piece.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: You know, it's like real reporting, and even then it
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: still didn't wasn't up to snuff in the end, But
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: they were actual journalists, like actually paying attention in writing
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: about this stuff and informing the public about it. And
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: this is when you and I were kids, and I
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: think like maybe even the seeds of us, because we
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: both kind of had desires to be real deal journalists
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: in our lives at one point. Yeah, what got us? Now?
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: Speaking of what a joke? R I p Mad magazine?
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, what a shame. Yeah, they tried that reboot.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: It didn't work. Stuff it is. It's it's tough bizin
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: these days. And I got friends that worked for him too,
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: Like in this recent reiteration, yeah or iteration, I guess
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: I know. One of their illustrators is the stuff you
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: should know fan from years back. Yeah. Yeah, it's very
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: sad to see it go. So uh it's very eighties
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: reference though it really wasn't up track. So um, all right,
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: this is going on. They set up this office run
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: by autoke and this whole thing was designed and orchestrated
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: by the CIA. But here's the deal. The CIA wasn't
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: supposed to be doing this. They were barred from doing this. Yeah,
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: there was a long standing like prohibition on the CIA
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: from operating in the US. Basically like we know who
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: you are, and we know you're so good. You can't
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: use that stuff on us. You can only use it overseas.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: It's fine if you go overthrow other countries in on
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: your mind tricks. Yeah, it used those on other groups,
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: but you can't use them here in the States. And
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: actually Reagan himself also had his own executive order explicitly
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: banning the CIA from, let's see um, doing any activity
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: that was intended to influence United States political processes, public opinion,
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: or media. This is Reagan's executive Order twelve three thirty three.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: And he at least his administration was like, forget about that.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: We'll just get around that. Yeah, And who was this um?
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: It says here that they the CIA's uh, like the
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: biggest foremost psychological warfare expert retired from the agency officially
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: and then was hired as a consultant. I guess to
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: this Office of Public Diplomacy was that Auto Reich? Was
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: that someone else? That's the whole point, right, Yeah, But
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: that was how That's why I was saying earlier, like
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: Reagan that's the Reagan administration way, just like here's the
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: letter of the law. Well, let's change this letter in
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: our sentence, and now we're following the letter of the law,
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: you know. And that's what they did. So the CIA
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: psychological warfare guy retired, came on as a console and said, oh,
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: here's what you do. You need to basically start setting
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: up some sting operations because the the point of this
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: is too I can't remember who said this, but to
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: paint or to glue black hats on the Sandinistas and
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: white hats on the contrast in the public mind. Right,
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: So when you say, uh, sting operations, we mean literally
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: the United States and all over north smuggling cocaine into Nicaragua,
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: photographing Sandinistan officials with this shipment, and then smuggling the
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: cocaine back to the United States back to Florida. Back
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: to Florida, They're like, we told you we'd bring it back.
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: Chill man, unbelievable, give us our driver's licenses back. So
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: this photo is published. This is during the middle of
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: the Just Say No movement um champion by Nancy Reagan.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: So it all, it all fit on the surface, But
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: what was going on behind the scenes is just unconscionable.
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: It is unconscionable, unconscionable both but that so, but this
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: gave Reagan this photograph that got published all over the place. Yeah,
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: and he's like, look what's going on. Look what these
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: guys are doing. These are they're bringing this stuff into America.
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: They're killing our kids, exactly right. So these are the
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: people that were fighting or where the contras are fighting.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: How can you keep the funding turned off for the contrast, Congress,
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: you jerks? And that was the only evidence too. Yeah,
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: the somehow came out and said, by the way, I
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: don't know if anybody cares or not, but we have
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: no evidence whatsoever that this Santinistan official has ever engaged
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: in drug trafficking aside from this photograph. But this was
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: a follow up, probably weeks after the big splash of
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: the original photograph came out. So that was one sting operation.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: There's another one that involved Manuel Noriega, the dictator of Panama,
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: who actually was selling drugs to America's youth. But he
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: was also a friend of the CIA exactly so much
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: so that he was a CIA operative for a very
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: long time. Yeah, I don't know about a friend, but
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: he was at least an asset, right. So, um, this
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: seeing operation was they were going to through Panama, have
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: Panama arranged for a shipment of arms to be seized
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: in um, Honduras, Salvador, Al Salvador on its way to Honduras,
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: or maybe just in Al Salvador, ostensibly arms from Nicaragua.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: Basically saying, you're arming Salvadorians, you're arming Hondurans, you're exporting
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: your revolution. This is exactly the kind of thing that
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan has been saying, we need to contain, We
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: need to pluck this sprout of communism out from Nicaragua
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: because they're trying to spread out of the region. Totally
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: made up, complete sting operation, and it didn't even work
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: because Manuel Noriega was like, I didn't like that New
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: York Times piece you guys just published about me. I'm
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: going to keep this shipment of arms from myself. Yeah,
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: but I love it. First he was like I can
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: do that, Oh yeah, sure, send me the arms. And
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: then we were like, okay, there would be uh. I
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: think it's from the Iran Contra investigation. The description of
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: Manuel Noriega was that he ran a narco kleptocracy, that
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: was the government that he ran. He was about down
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: that word. He was as shady as they come. That
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: just means drugs fevery yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, um, this
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: is what's going on in the United States in the
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: in the mid eighties. And here's the deal. If you
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: were a reporter at the time and you were reporting
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: on this stuff, uh, the NSC didn't like that very much.
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: So they would meet with editors and reporters themselves and
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: be like, hey, can you, like, can you report on
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: the sand anistance that they're really not good people? Like,
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: can you help us out a little bit? Well, but
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: here's the thing. If you didn't play ball, then didn't
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: they cook up some story that they would uh that
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: they would send like Sandinistan sex workers there to the
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: like pleasure of the reporters. That was the rumor was
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: that if if you were a journalist who reported favorably
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: on the Santinista government, the reason you reported favorably on
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: him was because the Santinista government was furnishing you with
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: sex workers. Right. That was that was directly from the
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: Office of Public Diplomacy. And I read the thing about it,
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: and they said. The guy was like, and we're not
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: just talking women either. If they were gay men, then
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: they would we would send gay sex workers, so totally
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: discredit them. It's like a complete page right out of
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: the Edward Burnet's playbook. It's orchestrated by the CIA's foremost
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: expert on psychological warfare. And this was the state of
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: America in the mid eighties. But that was just one
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: dimension of this whole thing. And I say, this is
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: the end of part one. What do you think. I
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: think that's great, And uh, we're gonna make this a hanger.
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: That's right, and is uh per tradition. We are not
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: going to do a listener mail, but uh instead we'll
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: do a call, which we rarely do. Um a little
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: just a little marketing call everyone, if you like stuff.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: You should know. We've been doing this so long. We're
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: so bad at this, yet we've managed to grow. Anyway,
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: it's crazy. Tell a friend, share an episode with a
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: friend right now that they don't have to. You don't
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: have to explain what a podcast is, right, it's a
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: lot cleaner now. Maybe start with a good one like
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: ballpoint Pens or something. Yeah, tell a friend about the show.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: Leave a nice review or just any kind of review
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: at all on iTunes that would help us out. Yeah. Yeah,
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: that's how classy Chuck and I are. He even corrected
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: himself from good review to just any review whatever you
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: want to leave. We're not going to try to influence,
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: you know, like the rigging White House. That's all right.
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: Uh so, Yeah, we'd really appreciate it. Spread a little
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: of try and turn one person onto our podcast this week,
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: and that really helps us out. Nice Chuck, how about that.
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: It sounds like a good pyramid. We'd like to do
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: this once every five or six years. Well, thank you
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: for joining us this week. If you want to get
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: in touch with us, you can go on to stuff
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: you Should Know dot com and check out our social links.
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: You can also send us an email two stuff podcast
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: at i heeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: is a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: H