Latest / DISGRACELAND / John Denver: A Folk Singer, a Sniper and America’s Darkest Day

Transcript

John Denver: A Folk Singer, a Sniper and America’s Darkest Day · DISGRACELAND

0:00
Speaker 1: These and opinions expressing this podcast are satirical and slowly.
0:03
Speaker 1: Those are the podcast author or and visuals participating in
0:05
Speaker 1: the podcast. Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. Hey, guys,
0:12
Speaker 1: this is a special episode. Like you, I've had too
0:14
Speaker 1: much time on my hands lately, and too much time
0:16
Speaker 1: to spend borrowing down into Internet wormholes, especially when prompted
0:21
Speaker 1: by Google alerts indicating movement in the Freedom of Information
0:24
Speaker 1: Act court case hinting at the coming release of more facts,
0:27
Speaker 1: perhaps incredibly incriminating facts on the jfk assassination. No doubt,
0:33
Speaker 1: time to go relatively unnoticed amidst the blanketing COVID nineteen
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Speaker 1: media coverage. Fortunately, I know how to read between the lines.
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Speaker 1: So I'm going to tell you a story, A wild story,
0:44
Speaker 1: A story about a folk singer, a sniper, subversive pop music,
0:48
Speaker 1: a maniacal rock and roll manager, the Mafia, the CIA,
0:51
Speaker 1: and the assassination of John F. Kennedy. All right, hit
0:55
Speaker 1: that melotron, a musician I'm going to tell you about,
1:11
Speaker 1: and the crime he has long been rumored to have
1:13
Speaker 1: committed is so insane that I barely even know where
1:16
Speaker 1: to begin with this episode. His vibe his personality, his
1:20
Speaker 1: music is so the opposite of anything violent that this
1:24
Speaker 1: story makes no sense, not until you look at the
1:27
Speaker 1: actual facts. Facts that have long been held secret, redacted
1:31
Speaker 1: in buried government files, and at the center of numerous
1:35
Speaker 1: court challenges that cite the Freedom of Information Act. Facts
1:39
Speaker 1: that were once believed to be vicious hearsay, but if
1:42
Speaker 1: you were to squint hard enough, revealed truths that were
1:45
Speaker 1: near impossible to dismiss, truths that are about to go public.
1:50
Speaker 1: These facts were known by those closest to him, ex. Wives, lovers, handlers,
1:54
Speaker 1: and managers, whose loose lips let slip the unthinkable and
1:58
Speaker 1: are responsible for giving rise to one of the music
2:01
Speaker 1: industry's most salacious rumors that John Denver, one of the
2:05
Speaker 1: biggest mainstream stars of the nineteen seventies, a man known
2:09
Speaker 1: for his peaceful, docile nature, his easygoing personality, and his
2:14
Speaker 1: easy listening chart topping music, was in fact one of
2:18
Speaker 1: the American military's most prolific snipers, a veritable kill machine,
2:23
Speaker 1: and quite possibly at the center of one of our
2:26
Speaker 1: country's darkest days. I know what you're saying. These rumors
2:30
Speaker 1: have long been disputed, maybe so I'm sure swear that
2:33
Speaker 1: they're false, but others, some who knew John personally, have
2:37
Speaker 1: vouged for their authenticity. But regardless, one thing is indisputable.
2:42
Speaker 1: John Denver made great music. And that music I played
2:46
Speaker 1: for you at the top of the show that wasn't
2:48
Speaker 1: great music. That was a preset loop from my melotron
2:52
Speaker 1: called single Engine Sadness mk IE. I played you that
2:57
Speaker 1: loop because I can't afford the rights to Candle in
3:00
Speaker 1: the Wind nineteen ninety seven by my buddy Elton John.
3:04
Speaker 1: And why would I play you that specific side of
3:06
Speaker 1: Princess Die Gold? Could I afford it? Because that was
3:11
Speaker 1: the number one song in America on October twelfth, nineteen
3:14
Speaker 1: ninety seven, And that was the day John Denver fired
3:18
Speaker 1: up his plane, took to the sky, cut the engine himself,
3:22
Speaker 1: and drifted off into infamy. On this episode a Fatal
3:26
Speaker 1: Flight the Sweet Sounds of the Seventies, John Denver in
3:30
Speaker 1: America's Darkest Day. I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgraceland.
4:00
Speaker 1: Henry John Deutsch and doorf Junior was making his way
4:03
Speaker 1: peacefully through the din of Leadbetters nineteen sixty four, Los Angeles.
4:08
Speaker 1: The folk scene was blooming on the West Coast UCLA
4:12
Speaker 1: college kids filled the small club with their optimism and
4:15
Speaker 1: cigarette smoke. Whatever citizism there was, it was imported by
4:19
Speaker 1: way of the East Coast Greenwich Village. Out Here, jagged
4:22
Speaker 1: street smirts and socialist ideals left over from the earlier
4:25
Speaker 1: part of the century, characteristics that in part define New
4:29
Speaker 1: York City's folk scene seemed to touch too serious, a
4:33
Speaker 1: smidge too real la in nineteen sixty four, that peaceful,
4:37
Speaker 1: easy feeling. It flowed down from the canyons through the
4:40
Speaker 1: honeysuckles slicked maulholland permeated the streets of Hollywood and coursed
4:45
Speaker 1: through the hippy counterculture, taking root at places like Leadbetters
4:49
Speaker 1: in dug West East Troubadour, Leadbetter's back Room aka the
4:54
Speaker 1: back Porch, swinging doors, peanut shells on the floor, beer
4:58
Speaker 1: and only beer behind the bar, in a stage that
5:01
Speaker 1: welcomed the aspiring folk singers as a basic training of
5:04
Speaker 1: sorts before graduating to the main stage. In the main room,
5:08
Speaker 1: This was where John, as his friends called him Henry
5:10
Speaker 1: John Deutschendorff Junior, the man who would take the stage
5:14
Speaker 1: name John Denver and eventually become one of the biggest
5:16
Speaker 1: pop stars of the nineteen seventies worked out his craft.
5:20
Speaker 1: He sang well, had a knack for melody, He could
5:23
Speaker 1: play well enough. He wasn't special, but still you couldn't
5:26
Speaker 1: take your eyes off of him. There was something so appealing,
5:29
Speaker 1: so safe about him. He wanted to put him in
5:32
Speaker 1: your pocket and take him home with you. Sandy bowl
5:34
Speaker 1: cut kind of long, not really. He'd recently replaced his
5:38
Speaker 1: black buddy Holly frames with the more focish round granny glasses.
5:42
Speaker 1: He sang about, well, nothing all that interesting, but he
5:45
Speaker 1: hit all the right notes, literally and figuratively. He had
5:49
Speaker 1: the requisite amount of folk songs down leadbelly phil oakes,
5:52
Speaker 1: and he did his best with the occasional Dylan cover,
5:55
Speaker 1: but mostly he found Dylan songs too edgy for him
5:58
Speaker 1: to get across with any real conm Lately, he, like
6:02
Speaker 1: every other aspiring folk rock pop musician on the planet,
6:05
Speaker 1: was taken by the Beatles, and John had been prepping
6:08
Speaker 1: a version of Paul McCartney's and a Lover to take
6:11
Speaker 1: to the stage. The Beatles were all the rage, the
6:15
Speaker 1: first quote unquote pop group to dominate the charts, and
6:18
Speaker 1: America was obsessed, including most everyone in LA's early folk scene,
6:23
Speaker 1: a couple of Ledbetter's regular folk singers were making noise
6:26
Speaker 1: about teaming up and starting their own folk group, LA's
6:29
Speaker 1: answer to the Beatles. They're going to call themselves the Birds,
6:33
Speaker 1: and they had their sights on John Denver to join
6:35
Speaker 1: their ranks. Well all but one of them, anyway. One
6:39
Speaker 1: future member of the Birds had his doubts. David Crosby
6:42
Speaker 1: did not share Roger mcgwinn's or Gene Clark's enthusiasm for
6:46
Speaker 1: John Denver, and they were sitting at one of the
6:51
Speaker 1: back tables at Ledbetter's after John's short set earlier in
6:54
Speaker 1: the night, Crosby, mcgwinn, Clark, John, and a couple of
6:58
Speaker 1: co eds from UCLA. Crosby was on a tear drinking,
7:02
Speaker 1: smoking reefer, also getting up to god knows what else.
7:05
Speaker 1: In between. He had one eye on the co eds
7:07
Speaker 1: and the other on John, and John was playing it cool,
7:10
Speaker 1: trying to impress what he hoped were as soon to
7:12
Speaker 1: be bandmates with his knowledge of the Beatles, the way
7:15
Speaker 1: they wrote songs, how they work their craft, and dingy
7:18
Speaker 1: clubs just like this one, slinging covers before bringing their
7:22
Speaker 1: original songs into the studio, sort of like what he
7:25
Speaker 1: himself was doing. Crosby wasn't buying it. Fuck that we're
7:30
Speaker 1: ready now, slamming his hand down on the table. John
7:33
Speaker 1: didn't agree, but said nothing. He was too nervous, too polite,
7:37
Speaker 1: too insecure. Crosby went on, songs are in the air, man,
7:41
Speaker 1: doesn't make no difference if you write them or not.
7:44
Speaker 1: I could go in the studio tomorrow and knock out
7:46
Speaker 1: to hit as big as anything the Beatles have done
7:48
Speaker 1: in America, and it don't matter if I write it
7:50
Speaker 1: or the mailman does. Roger McGuinn shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
7:55
Speaker 1: Geene Clark pulled on his cigarette. Nonchalant, John smiled awkwardly
8:00
Speaker 1: summoned the courage to protest. Ah, come on, David, you
8:03
Speaker 1: don't really mean that, do you? The fuck I don't,
8:06
Speaker 1: Crosby snapped back at him. The girls were shocked, and
8:11
Speaker 1: so was John. He recoiled and just stared at Crosbie.
8:14
Speaker 1: The fuck are you looking at you? Doubt me? It's
8:16
Speaker 1: your boy again. John said nothing, and Gwynn leaned over
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Speaker 1: to David and whispered something and tried to calm him down.
8:23
Speaker 1: John suddenly felt dizzy, felt the cigarette smoke hanging in
8:27
Speaker 1: the air start to thicken. Heard the stringed instruments from
8:30
Speaker 1: the main stage in the adjacent room morph. Crosby just
8:34
Speaker 1: stared at John. John couldn't take his eyes off of him.
8:37
Speaker 1: The ko z next to him suddenly radiated intense heat.
8:40
Speaker 1: There was a fucking sauna in there. All of a sudden.
8:43
Speaker 1: John swore he could hear the peanut shells on the
8:45
Speaker 1: floor sizzling under his feet. Crosbie stared, but Gwynn whispered.
8:51
Speaker 1: Clark dragged deeper on his cigarette. A long single ash
8:55
Speaker 1: protruded from its tip, bending slightly at its edge, dipping
8:58
Speaker 1: down toward the round table they crammed around. John felt
9:01
Speaker 1: a slight trembled to the table. He heard the hoot
9:04
Speaker 1: nanny in the next room warped some more, and then
9:06
Speaker 1: big bad bangs clanging violently in succession. It filled up
9:11
Speaker 1: his senses. Shotgun blasts or discharged was from the rifle.
9:14
Speaker 1: John couldn't be sure. He tried to shake it off.
9:17
Speaker 1: Crosby stared some more. John couldn't look away. Crosby's chin
9:21
Speaker 1: began to quiver, his eyes hardened, the edges of his
9:24
Speaker 1: face quaked, His whole head started to shake. The hoot
9:27
Speaker 1: Nanny turned to hell fire, more shots flass, John swore
9:30
Speaker 1: on the corner of his eye. Those weren't peanut shells.
9:33
Speaker 1: They were shotgun shells. The sound they made when they
9:36
Speaker 1: hit the floor unmistakable. They sizzled from the emanating heat,
9:40
Speaker 1: and John was sweating. The co eds were now panting,
9:42
Speaker 1: the sweat dripping on their tropicana skin, dripping like the
9:45
Speaker 1: honeysuckle dripping down maholland sticky Sweet. Crosby deadlocked John's eyes.
9:51
Speaker 1: John wanted nothing more than to look away, and the
9:53
Speaker 1: room closed in. It was just the two of them
9:55
Speaker 1: around the table now and fellowed by intense heat, darkness,
9:58
Speaker 1: and the throbbing sounds of the hoot Nny hellfire from
10:01
Speaker 1: the other room, now intermixed with the sounds of a
10:03
Speaker 1: John Phillips SUSA liked marching band all cacopany and chaos
10:07
Speaker 1: soundtracking the room. Crosby's chin started to quiver more, his
10:11
Speaker 1: cheeks began to shake with even more ferocity. His eyes
10:14
Speaker 1: rolled back into his sockets with pure blackness. His head
10:17
Speaker 1: them began rattling back and forth, side to side, and
10:20
Speaker 1: the most violent horrific inhuman motion. You could imagine Crosby
10:24
Speaker 1: wasn't possessed, He wasn't human, He wasn't of this world.
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Speaker 2: John was petrified, shocked dead, still catatonic.
10:32
Speaker 1: She blacked out. When John opened his eyes, he was
10:39
Speaker 1: back home Fort Worth, Texas. He was a boy again,
10:42
Speaker 1: outdoors where he was most comfortable with his dad, a
10:45
Speaker 1: military man enjoying a rare day off. Ever since the
10:50
Speaker 1: incident in Roswell, the one John's dad never spoke of
10:54
Speaker 1: to anyone. Ever, the military had made much use of
10:57
Speaker 1: his unique talent. He made lieutenant colonel, and the Air
11:00
Speaker 1: Force kept him busy. He was a test pilot, one
11:03
Speaker 1: of the best. He not only knew his way around
11:05
Speaker 1: a cockpit, he also knew his way around a rifle.
11:08
Speaker 1: But when it came to shooting, Dutch Deutschendorff was nothing
11:11
Speaker 1: next to his fourteen year old son John, who seemed
11:14
Speaker 1: preternaturally designed to shoot. He could hit anything. He could
11:18
Speaker 1: shoot a straw off a camel's back at a thousand yards.
11:21
Speaker 1: He could shoot a gnat at the end of a
11:22
Speaker 1: country mile. When it came to scope math, he could
11:25
Speaker 1: judge distance and crunch a sniper trajectory formula in his
11:29
Speaker 1: head like a human calculator. The formula solution was always
11:32
Speaker 1: the same dead center. John Denver was as sure a
11:36
Speaker 1: shot as there was for him. When his eye hit
11:41
Speaker 1: the scope, there was nothing else. It wasn't even like
11:43
Speaker 1: he had to concentrate. The whole world just fell away.
11:47
Speaker 1: It was more feeling than anything else. There was form
11:50
Speaker 1: of course, lock on target, load the chamber, a just
11:53
Speaker 1: rifle up from line of sight in proportional arc to
11:56
Speaker 1: distance from target, Relock on target, take the shot, and
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Speaker 1: when he pulled the trigger, he knew, he absolutely knew
12:02
Speaker 1: he was going to hit his mark. He never missed,
12:04
Speaker 1: he couldn't miss. John Denver opened his eyes again, and
12:10
Speaker 1: the bright lights of the backstage dressing room jarred him,
12:14
Speaker 1: jerked him away from his blackout dream. Rapidly he snapped too,
12:17
Speaker 1: and it was a show to do, not just any show,
12:20
Speaker 1: a television show. His own television show, John Denver's Rocky
12:24
Speaker 1: Mountain Christmas, a variety special with guests Steve Martin and
12:28
Speaker 1: Olivia Newton, John Cozy as a mountainside fireplace in winter,
12:32
Speaker 1: and the ABC Network's highest rated program of nineteen seventy five,
12:37
Speaker 1: sixty million viewers, roughly one in every four Americans would
12:40
Speaker 1: watch a downright astounding audience size, and it was a
12:44
Speaker 1: surprise to pretty much no one, because that's how famous
12:48
Speaker 1: John Denver was at the time. Long gone were the
12:51
Speaker 1: days of Leadbetters and David Crosby. By nineteen seventy five,
12:55
Speaker 1: a mere ten years later, John Denver had taken his
12:58
Speaker 1: safe middle American environ mentally conscious crossover folk and turned
13:02
Speaker 1: himself into one of the biggest stars on the planet,
13:05
Speaker 1: selling more records in that year and having more hit
13:08
Speaker 1: records than any other artists. Billboard magazine named him best
13:12
Speaker 1: Top Singles Artist, Best Overall Pop Artist, Best Easy Listening Artist,
13:17
Speaker 1: and crowned his album Win Song Best Country Album. News
13:21
Speaker 1: Day in nineteen seventy five said of John Denver what
13:25
Speaker 1: Frank Sinatra was to the forties, Elvis Presley to the fifties,
13:29
Speaker 1: and the Beatles to the sixties, John Denver is to
13:32
Speaker 1: the seventies a phenomenon. John took to the stage and
13:41
Speaker 1: the bank of Fresno lights gave off a familiar heat.
13:44
Speaker 1: He gazed out, it is made for TV studio. Audience smiled,
13:48
Speaker 1: slightly clutched his acoustic guitar and launched into his song
13:52
Speaker 1: Aspen Glow. In between the tender strums of his acoustic,
13:56
Speaker 1: the subtle root notes of the bass and high fills
13:58
Speaker 1: of the piano, John could hear another sound, a sound
14:02
Speaker 1: that was available only to him. It sounded like fear
14:06
Speaker 1: and guilt and shame all rolled into one. It sounded familiar.
14:10
Speaker 1: It sounded like the crackle and roll of spent bullets
14:14
Speaker 1: hitting the ground. John woke up in a state. It
14:36
Speaker 1: was like he was possessed. He ignored as soon to
14:39
Speaker 1: be ex wife and be lined through their sprawling seventy
14:42
Speaker 1: five hundred square foot Aspen mansion, custom built with seven
14:46
Speaker 1: bathrooms and three webbars. John passed all of it on
14:49
Speaker 1: his way out to the garage. The dream he had
14:52
Speaker 1: just suffered was a familiar one. It was so intense,
14:55
Speaker 1: so painful. He would do anything to erase it from
14:57
Speaker 1: his memory, to cut it out. Just the tool grabbed
15:02
Speaker 1: the fucking Jean saw the dream, the sucking, the fucking.
15:08
Speaker 1: It was so wrong, but started as an innocent night
15:11
Speaker 1: under the stars. He his wife, some friends gathered on
15:14
Speaker 1: his Aspen property to view the Persia meteor showers was
15:18
Speaker 1: supposed to be a fire out communion with Mother Nature
15:21
Speaker 1: on one of her most miraculous nights. The meteor showers
15:24
Speaker 1: wear an annual late summer visit from the Cosmos, when
15:27
Speaker 1: Earth passes through the debris field from a distant comet
15:30
Speaker 1: and the skylights up like God's own kaleidoscope. At a
15:34
Speaker 1: little past midnight, after most of the drink and smoke
15:37
Speaker 1: had been ingested by his guests, the first meteor blasted
15:41
Speaker 1: through the sky, better late than ever, and then the second,
15:44
Speaker 1: the third, fourth, fifth, giant fiery swishes exploding into Colorado night.
15:50
Speaker 1: The sky was on fire, and the spirit of the
15:54
Speaker 1: natural beauty lifted John's guests into song, singing and dancing
15:58
Speaker 1: around their camps at its fire was inspired and the
16:02
Speaker 1: singing grew more spirited. The dancing grew more intense. Counting John,
16:06
Speaker 1: there were about six others, including his wife. A tight
16:09
Speaker 1: circle of dancing wound itself around John's wife, and John
16:13
Speaker 1: was on the outside of the circle. He tried to
16:15
Speaker 1: see in. He caught glimpses of his wife's hair flailing about,
16:19
Speaker 1: a flash of flesh here, a dash of sweat there.
16:22
Speaker 1: With every explosion in the sky, he caught a better
16:24
Speaker 1: glimpse inside the dance circle, his wife writhes. His wife undulated, sweated, panted.
16:29
Speaker 1: The rhythm of it all was suddenly very sexual. In
16:33
Speaker 1: John's guests, the dancers were chanting and locked into some
16:36
Speaker 1: sort of unheard beat, a rhythm that it seemed to
16:39
Speaker 1: John only they could hear. The meteors flashed above. John
16:43
Speaker 1: saw his wife's near naked body inside the circle. He
16:46
Speaker 1: tried to push through, but the dancers were too tight.
16:49
Speaker 1: The circle would not be broken, and John tried to
16:52
Speaker 1: break through again, caught another glimpse of his wife dancing,
16:55
Speaker 1: pounding away to the beat. It was all sex now.
16:58
Speaker 1: It was like she was in the throes of passion
17:00
Speaker 1: with some unseen adonnis. It was the most sexual thing
17:03
Speaker 1: John had ever witnessed, and he was on the outs,
17:05
Speaker 1: way out. He wanted in, he was denied. His wife
17:08
Speaker 1: continued to ride to grind. She moaned, her eyes rolled back.
17:12
Speaker 1: Another meteor flashed. John saw it the black and her
17:15
Speaker 1: eyes solid black. His wife moaned some more. In the
17:18
Speaker 1: midst of her dance, she opened her mouth again to moan,
17:21
Speaker 1: and there it was.
17:21
Speaker 2: In a quick flash, John saw it, He swore he did.
17:25
Speaker 2: His wife impaled through the mouth by the horn of
17:27
Speaker 2: Satan mid Orgas.
17:29
Speaker 1: And then he woke up, soaked and sweat the same
17:33
Speaker 1: as he was the last time he had the dream.
17:36
Speaker 1: But this was it. The chainsaw would solve the problem.
17:41
Speaker 1: John fired it up outside and stormed back into the
17:43
Speaker 1: house with the motor and full gral. He passed the
17:46
Speaker 1: papers on the kitchen counter, the ones from his lawyer,
17:48
Speaker 1: the ones he couldn't bring himself to sign, the ones
17:51
Speaker 1: that said his wife got half half of everything, half
17:54
Speaker 1: of this insanely large house, half of the cars and
17:57
Speaker 1: the garage, half of his guitars, and half of his royalty.
18:00
Speaker 2: Why stop there. If she wanted half of everything, then
18:03
Speaker 2: she should truly get half of everything. How About half
18:05
Speaker 2: the pain in the assid was to keep the money flowing.
18:08
Speaker 2: How about half the shitty had the swallow for those
18:10
Speaker 2: bullshit television and movie appearances, the one episode guest spot on.
18:14
Speaker 1: Alan Marshall Counselor at Lawn, the role of Deputy Dewey
18:18
Speaker 1: Cobb in the McLoud episode, and the goddamn Muppets. How
18:22
Speaker 1: about she jump up on stage and slung it with
18:24
Speaker 1: his fucking piggy and then he'd half the Shamepi. He
18:27
Speaker 1: had a swallow from doing the gig with the pig half.
18:31
Speaker 2: John stormed through the house with the chainsaw, motoring away,
18:34
Speaker 2: scaring the shit out of the help and the process,
18:36
Speaker 2: ranting like a schizophrenic in a trance. Take half the guilt,
18:40
Speaker 2: Take half the nightmares, Take half the bed. I have
18:42
Speaker 2: half the goddamn nightmares in.
18:45
Speaker 1: John busted into the master suite and took the chainsaw
18:47
Speaker 1: to the California king he shared with his wife, splitting
18:50
Speaker 1: it down the middle, falling feathers and spring spit into
18:53
Speaker 1: the air for the teeth of the chainsaw, ribbing through
18:55
Speaker 1: the mattress. When he was done, he dropped his tool,
18:59
Speaker 1: stumble back to the wall, and slumped down to the floor.
19:03
Speaker 1: The smell of gas filled his nostrils. He could hear
19:06
Speaker 1: the nuthatches and the pines outside singing, and their melodies
19:09
Speaker 1: were accented with the oh too familiar random click clack
19:12
Speaker 1: who spent shellcasings hitting the ground. John closed his eyes,
19:17
Speaker 1: exhausted and let his subconscious check him into the dreaded
19:20
Speaker 1: memory motel. We'll be right back after this word word
19:29
Speaker 1: word e. Howard Hunt was too old for this shit.
19:37
Speaker 1: If the director himself hadn't asked them to fly out
19:39
Speaker 1: to god forsaken Fort Worth, Texas, then he sure his
19:42
Speaker 1: shit would have told whatever pencil neck analyst who gave
19:45
Speaker 1: him the memo to stick it where the good Lord
19:47
Speaker 1: split it, Texas. The kid better have been what they said.
19:50
Speaker 1: He was a sure shot and better than that afflicted
19:56
Speaker 1: in the best way. With catatonia, it was a strange
19:59
Speaker 1: and very valuable to the agency anyway. Combination catatonia is
20:05
Speaker 1: a rare type of psychiatric disorder that manifests in multiple ways.
20:09
Speaker 1: It can make those who are afflicted immobile and speechless,
20:13
Speaker 1: catatonic and stuporous. Catatonia can cause those who have it
20:17
Speaker 1: to basically black out while repeating their physical movements their
20:21
Speaker 1: motions over and over and over again. Their brains are
20:25
Speaker 1: essentially blotto, but their bodies continue to move. And what
20:30
Speaker 1: the big brains back at E. Howard Haunt's shop, the
20:33
Speaker 1: Central Intelligence Agency figured out was that if you gave
20:37
Speaker 1: blacked out catatonics the controlled dosage of lysergic acid diethylamide,
20:42
Speaker 1: the new drug the agency was experimenting with LSD, then
20:46
Speaker 1: the catatonics repetitive motions could be controlled by another party's command.
20:51
Speaker 1: Now what if that motion wasn't random, What if it
20:54
Speaker 1: was a precise action, like the shooting of a gun
20:57
Speaker 1: by a highly skilled sure shot. Now imagine what kind
21:01
Speaker 1: of shit a slick outfit like the CIA could stir
21:03
Speaker 1: up with that kind of asset. Hunt knew the director
21:07
Speaker 1: was onto something, so he hopped the first flight he
21:09
Speaker 1: could from DC to Texas, and the kid didn't disappoint.
21:16
Speaker 1: Hunt had never seen anything like it. The kid could
21:19
Speaker 1: hit milk bottles off logs at five hundred yards. He
21:22
Speaker 1: could account for wind, air, temperature, humidity, and gravity with
21:25
Speaker 1: a shrug of his shoulder like it was the most
21:27
Speaker 1: intuitive thing in the world. His minute of angle, the
21:30
Speaker 1: standard measurement of relative sniper accuracy, was in the ninetieth
21:33
Speaker 1: percentile as an amateur, and the Koude Grau was the blindfold.
21:37
Speaker 1: They moved the kid back to six hundred yards, set
21:40
Speaker 1: up a target on a bale of hey far across
21:42
Speaker 1: the range, and the kid took a stance, adjusted his
21:45
Speaker 1: scope in the angle of his barrel. They dropped the
21:47
Speaker 1: blindfold on him. He swore he saw the kid's breast
21:50
Speaker 1: stop and his body achieved total stillness. Then he pulled
21:54
Speaker 1: the trigger and sure as shit, the shot was true, bullseye,
21:59
Speaker 1: dead center. The kid looked up sheepishly, as if he'd
22:03
Speaker 1: just done something as simple as pouring a glass of milk.
22:06
Speaker 1: Hunt caught his eye. Insecure, vulnerable, a bit scared, eager
22:11
Speaker 1: to please Hunt redim in an instant. This is going
22:14
Speaker 1: to be easier than he thought, provided the old man
22:16
Speaker 1: would play a ball. Dutch and Irma's Fort Worth, Texas home.
22:23
Speaker 1: It read postwar suburban military modest ranch house, maybe a
22:28
Speaker 1: thousand square feet parachevies in the driveway, American flag in
22:31
Speaker 1: the front yard, white picket fence, and well manicured hedges,
22:35
Speaker 1: regulation height, of course, milk cookies, a nineteen inch magnavox
22:40
Speaker 1: to watch the Lawrence Welk Show on right now. Though
22:43
Speaker 1: the magnavox was showing Jack the haircut eating Dick Nixon's
22:47
Speaker 1: lunch on the televised debate stage. The kid said nothing,
22:51
Speaker 1: sat on the sofa and knees locked, hands clasped, staring
22:54
Speaker 1: out at the television, but at the acoustic guitar leaning
22:56
Speaker 1: up against the wall aside him. His old man cursed
22:59
Speaker 1: the caw Athletics, He cursed the Commies. He cursed the Jews,
23:02
Speaker 1: the Pinkos, and the pencil necks. No group was safe.
23:07
Speaker 1: Hunt sipped his milk and tried to suppress a smile.
23:10
Speaker 1: The old man would play ball, all right, This is
23:13
Speaker 1: gonna be easier than he thought. Hunt swapped the natural
23:16
Speaker 1: waspy eloquence in his voice for Near Blue Barracks, Bravado.
23:20
Speaker 1: You see your son as a gift, sir. I've never
23:22
Speaker 1: seen anyone shoot like that, And like you, I did
23:25
Speaker 1: my time for uncle, Navy man, then the Air Corps,
23:28
Speaker 1: like you a wingman, then unlike you, the Oss. I've
23:32
Speaker 1: seen men shoot, is what I'm saying. And maybe in
23:34
Speaker 1: the Air Force you don't get to see as many
23:36
Speaker 1: men work their way around a rifle. But your son,
23:38
Speaker 1: he ain't like anything anyone has ever seen anywhere, at
23:41
Speaker 1: least when it comes to firing a gun. The old
23:45
Speaker 1: man was listening in the background, Kennedy's good looks, his
23:48
Speaker 1: toothy smile, that fucking East Coast entitlement, all of it
23:51
Speaker 1: stoked a raging inferno of insecurity in the old man.
23:55
Speaker 1: It was thick palpable. To the kid, it was genetic.
23:58
Speaker 1: He was fucked, you see. Hunt nodded to the television now,
24:04
Speaker 1: right now, more than ever now, we need boys like
24:07
Speaker 1: your son, sir, capable boys. The world ain't what it
24:10
Speaker 1: was when we were his age. Times are changing and
24:12
Speaker 1: we need all the help we can get keeping things
24:14
Speaker 1: the way they should be, keeping the country pure, keeping
24:17
Speaker 1: our ideals in place. There are enemies among us, sir,
24:20
Speaker 1: Some of them even have designs on the White House
24:22
Speaker 1: right there. And there are conflicts springing up all over
24:25
Speaker 1: the place. Cuba, French, Indonesia. That came me, Genie, that
24:28
Speaker 1: fdr led out of the bottle. It ain't going back in, no, sir,
24:31
Speaker 1: ree Bobcat, not without a concerted effort for men like me,
24:34
Speaker 1: like you, and like your son. The old man was
24:38
Speaker 1: wrapped hunt went in for the clothes, his gift, his ability.
24:42
Speaker 1: It deserves special attention, special cultivation. We have an elite
24:47
Speaker 1: snipers school affiliated with the agency that is ACES, and
24:50
Speaker 1: we think your son would be well utilized there and
24:52
Speaker 1: he'd be making his country proud. Nixon sweated on the
24:56
Speaker 1: screen with indecision. The old man did not share Nixon's
24:59
Speaker 1: in a bilg to make up his mind. His decision
25:02
Speaker 1: was easy, get me the papers, I'll sign him. The
25:06
Speaker 1: boy will report for duty Monday morning at oh five
25:08
Speaker 1: hundred hours with nothing but a gym bag full of
25:27
Speaker 1: clothes and an acoustic guitar. Seventeen year old Henry John
25:31
Speaker 1: Deutschendorf reported for duty to the newly formed United States
25:34
Speaker 1: Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in September of
25:38
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty. The elite academy was so new that it
25:42
Speaker 1: had just graduated its first class a year earlier in
25:45
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty nine. John was ushered through basic training like
25:49
Speaker 1: all of the other students, but by the time November
25:52
Speaker 1: rolled around, John had been reassigned to a smaller group
25:55
Speaker 1: of students in a different type of training. Academics fitness
25:59
Speaker 1: air ship were all sidelined for the moment. In place
26:03
Speaker 1: of one thing, and one thing only, shooting, John, along
26:08
Speaker 1: with two other highly adept shooters students like himself, were
26:11
Speaker 1: moved out of the dorms and into their own living
26:13
Speaker 1: facility on the outskirts of campus. Every morning at oh
26:17
Speaker 1: five hundred hours, they were awakened and guided through their
26:19
Speaker 1: day by their professor, a man by the name of Doc.
26:23
Speaker 1: Doc was effectively the only person in other than themselves
26:26
Speaker 1: that the cadets now saw, and Doc took care of everything,
26:30
Speaker 1: ushering John and his classmates through their morning routine, transporting
26:34
Speaker 1: them out to the shooting range. Through daily maneuvers including marksmanship,
26:38
Speaker 1: battlefield intelligence, stocking, and other sniper related skills. Doc's primary
26:43
Speaker 1: mission was to impart upon his student's long range precision
26:46
Speaker 1: fire sniping skills. To this end, everything was perfectly calibrated.
26:51
Speaker 1: During John's and his fellow students' days. Their meals, their study,
26:55
Speaker 1: and even their free time. Meals were prepared by Doc.
26:58
Speaker 1: Quote unquote. Academic consisted of Doc literally reading to his students,
27:03
Speaker 1: usually military history and almost always something from either Roman
27:06
Speaker 1: history or US Revolutionary war history, and free time consisted
27:11
Speaker 1: of Doc sitting in the middle of the small sniper's
27:13
Speaker 1: student living facility and regaling his students with stories of
27:16
Speaker 1: his days in the European theater of war during the
27:19
Speaker 1: Big One hunting Nazis for Uncle. It was a highly structured,
27:23
Speaker 1: highly sheltered time of constance for young John. Patriotism dedication
27:29
Speaker 1: to country above all else, along with marksmanship training where
27:32
Speaker 1: all that John was exposed to every minute of every day,
27:35
Speaker 1: and everything else was the same as well. The routine,
27:38
Speaker 1: the time, the place, It was as if everything in
27:40
Speaker 1: John's life were wrote right down to his daily meals.
27:44
Speaker 1: Everything was a repetitive motion of the time before. Always
27:47
Speaker 1: the same breakfast oatmeal and hard boiled eggs every morning,
27:51
Speaker 1: lunch tune a sandwich with cheese and butter on white bread.
27:55
Speaker 1: Every afternoon, dinner mystery meat, mashed potatoes and boiled carrots
27:59
Speaker 1: with a white bread roll. Water, milk, juice where all
28:02
Speaker 1: they were allowed to drink, ever, and of course, dessert
28:05
Speaker 1: was always followed up with a shot of mandatory fluoride,
28:09
Speaker 1: a small shot glass sized poll of tasteless warm water
28:12
Speaker 1: that Doc insisted they swallow every last drop of. He'd
28:16
Speaker 1: watch each of them intently to make sure it was
28:18
Speaker 1: all swallowed, and inspect their paper cups afterward to be
28:22
Speaker 1: sure they were empty. John and his classmates would pass
28:26
Speaker 1: out Soon after. John would dream intensely, usually about shooting,
28:30
Speaker 1: sniping some scenario, mixing the training he'd endured that day
28:34
Speaker 1: with one of Doc's war stories, and often involving music.
28:38
Speaker 1: John playing his acoustic in the bombed out streets of Dresden,
28:41
Speaker 1: playing his acoustic side Washington and his men at Valley Forge,
28:45
Speaker 1: playing his acoustic with the centurions at Carthage are often
28:48
Speaker 1: back home in his living room, serenading a sweaty former
28:51
Speaker 1: Vice President Nixon to the approval of his father and
28:54
Speaker 1: to the disapproval of the now President John F. Kennedy.
28:57
Speaker 1: When it came to music, to playing music is John's
29:01
Speaker 1: dreams were all he had. His acoustic guitar was confiscated
29:04
Speaker 1: when he showed up at school, and along with everything
29:07
Speaker 1: else going on in the outside world, music was not
29:10
Speaker 1: allowed in any way, shape or form at the Academy,
29:13
Speaker 1: at least not at the part of the academy where
29:15
Speaker 1: John was stashed away. Years later. By the time John
29:19
Speaker 1: had become a singing sensation, these days at the Academy
29:23
Speaker 1: were barely even there in his memory anymore. His time
29:26
Speaker 1: there was merely a decade removed, and still trying to
29:29
Speaker 1: conjure images of this time was next to impossible. Even
29:33
Speaker 1: more difficult to remember were the years following a black
29:36
Speaker 1: spot in his memory. Bank John did his time in
29:40
Speaker 1: the academy, He remembered nothing of his classmates. Doc his
29:43
Speaker 1: teacher was basically all he could recall him, and the
29:46
Speaker 1: mysterious mister Hunt, who visited every couple months or so.
29:50
Speaker 1: Observed his training and said, little Hunt, with his big, black,
29:54
Speaker 1: soulless eyes and giant dumbo years was hard to miss,
29:58
Speaker 1: never mind forget. When John would try to remember those
30:02
Speaker 1: days and come up short, the feeling of frustration would
30:05
Speaker 1: quickly turn to shame to Gil, and John had no
30:08
Speaker 1: idea why. Perhaps it was due to his time in
30:11
Speaker 1: the war after the Academy, the goddamn Vietnam War. It
30:15
Speaker 1: had torn the country apart, and John was not only
30:18
Speaker 1: ashamed of his personal participation, but also, like most men
30:22
Speaker 1: his age in the nineteen seventies, John was ashamed of
30:24
Speaker 1: his country's participation as well. It seemed so long ago,
30:28
Speaker 1: and like his days at the Academy, John could remember little.
30:32
Speaker 1: Last season, he lay back in bed, sipped on his
30:40
Speaker 1: red wine, and tried telling the very sexy, half naked,
30:43
Speaker 1: career minded gall at his side what it was like
30:46
Speaker 1: to kill a man. You know, I can't remember hardly anything.
30:50
Speaker 1: I'd just sit and wait, wait and wait some more,
30:54
Speaker 1: and by the time the enemy would cross into my sight,
30:57
Speaker 1: I'd pull the trigger. It was as if all the
30:59
Speaker 1: humanity he had already been drained from the situation. I
31:03
Speaker 1: did it so many times that it was all routine,
31:06
Speaker 1: but now the guilt's heavy, heavier than it should be.
31:09
Speaker 1: I mean, we were at war for a reason. They
31:11
Speaker 1: were the enemy. It was killed or be killed. You now,
31:15
Speaker 1: she nodded, shocked, barely able to process. With John Denver,
31:19
Speaker 1: one of the country's biggest pop stars, a man known
31:22
Speaker 1: for his peaceful, kind demeanor, was telling her that he
31:25
Speaker 1: was a secret assassin in the Vietnam War before forging
31:28
Speaker 1: his way in the music industry. John went on, I
31:32
Speaker 1: appreciate you letting me tell you this, even though we
31:35
Speaker 1: just met. I feel like I could share this with you.
31:38
Speaker 1: If Jerry ever found out, though, that I was telling
31:40
Speaker 1: you this, he'd kill me. Thank God for Jerry. Jerry
31:45
Speaker 1: was John's manager, and John was an absolute sap when
31:48
Speaker 1: it came to sexy women. And the one in the
31:50
Speaker 1: bed next to him at the moment was Jerry's new secretary.
31:53
Speaker 1: She'd be Jerry's ex secretary as soon as Jerry found
31:56
Speaker 1: out she was stooping. The talent Jerry was Jerry Wintrot,
32:00
Speaker 1: the ubiquitous concert producer and talent manager of the nineteen seventies.
32:04
Speaker 1: He took Sinatra out of retirement. He put Elvis on
32:07
Speaker 1: the road. He introduced led Zeppelin to pube dowbed teenagers
32:10
Speaker 1: all over America in nineteen seventy. He was an immensely
32:14
Speaker 1: powerful manager and John Denver was his charge. Jerry was
32:19
Speaker 1: all street. He kept buy on, charm and grit. He
32:21
Speaker 1: took no shit. He read more Bronx gangster than Colonel Tom,
32:25
Speaker 1: and no one questioned it. He saw John Denver as
32:28
Speaker 1: the precious resource he was. He deserves special attention, special cultivation,
32:33
Speaker 1: and from the moment he was first exposed to his act,
32:36
Speaker 1: Jerry wintrob knew that John Denver was a special type
32:39
Speaker 1: of performer. He appealed to the younger hippie generation, but
32:43
Speaker 1: could also appeal to their parents. In short, America would
32:47
Speaker 1: welcome John into their living rooms through their televisions in
32:49
Speaker 1: a way they wouldn't other rock stars. So Jerry went
32:53
Speaker 1: to work. He twisted arms to get John on the
32:56
Speaker 1: MERV Griffin Show. He took out full page spreads in
32:59
Speaker 1: the trades with touched up photos showing John performing to
33:02
Speaker 1: enormous crowds, and by the time he was done, John's
33:05
Speaker 1: television appearances poured the requisite fuel needed onto the fire
33:09
Speaker 1: set by his singles. Leaving on a jet plane and
33:12
Speaker 1: take me home country road, and in the process, John
33:16
Speaker 1: Denver burned up the charts. By nineteen seventy five. His
33:20
Speaker 1: music was ubiquitous and he was every bit the household
33:23
Speaker 1: name is Sinatra or Presley, and none of it would
33:26
Speaker 1: have happened without Jerry Wintrop and not just because of
33:30
Speaker 1: his music management skills either. Jerry could make things happen, sure,
33:34
Speaker 1: but he could also make things go away, like John's
33:37
Speaker 1: military record. Years later, Matt Damon and his dad went
33:41
Speaker 1: golfing with Jerry Wintrop. Damon's dad gave him shit for
33:45
Speaker 1: not finishing school at Harvard and graduating, and Jerry Wintrop interjected,
33:49
Speaker 1: ever the problem solver. You want a diploma. I can
33:52
Speaker 1: get you a diploma. Damon looked up from his teeth.
33:55
Speaker 1: How are you going to give me a diploma? Jerry?
33:58
Speaker 1: I know a guy. Damon, You know a guy? What
34:01
Speaker 1: the fuck does that mean? Jerry? There is always a guy.
34:05
Speaker 1: Wintrob's street smarts informed his worldview. There was indeed always
34:10
Speaker 1: a guy, and when it came to John Denver in
34:12
Speaker 1: his time in the Vietnam War, Jerry Wintraub most certainly
34:15
Speaker 1: knew a guy. He had John's record completely expunged, concocting
34:22
Speaker 1: some fugazy story and records to back it up that
34:25
Speaker 1: John was marked fore f due to his flat feet,
34:28
Speaker 1: so John was able to avoid the draft and thus
34:30
Speaker 1: the military at a time when he most certainly would
34:33
Speaker 1: have been shipped off to Vietnam. But that was all bullshit.
34:36
Speaker 1: John Denver definitely served in the military by the time
34:40
Speaker 1: he'd become a pop star under the making and guidance
34:43
Speaker 1: of Jerry Weintrout, having a military record wasn't an option.
34:47
Speaker 1: It would not have played with the peaceful pacifist image
34:50
Speaker 1: that John in congruently radiated and that America was so
34:53
Speaker 1: attracted to. Furthermore, Jerry Wintrop cooked up another for cocta
34:57
Speaker 1: story to completely account for John Denver's time in the military,
35:00
Speaker 1: including his time in sniper's school at the Air Force
35:03
Speaker 1: Academy prior. The story went that John ran away from
35:07
Speaker 1: college to change his name and explore the emerging folk
35:09
Speaker 1: scene sing for his supper Air Force Academy. What Air
35:13
Speaker 1: Force Academy, Vietnam? What Vietnam? John was lost in scores
35:18
Speaker 1: of other wannabe folk musicians in La at the time.
35:20
Speaker 1: How could he possibly be serving Uncle Sam like the
35:23
Speaker 1: rest of America's unfortunate sons. Not at that time, no
35:26
Speaker 1: way ise this story had the benefit of being partially true.
35:32
Speaker 1: John wasn't in the actual Vietnam War, but he was
35:35
Speaker 1: in Vietnam. It's just that America wasn't at war yet
35:38
Speaker 1: and the conflict hadn't yet been given the name of
35:41
Speaker 1: the Vietnam War. Not yet. But John was one of
35:45
Speaker 1: the first quote unquote military advisors in Saigon at the
35:48
Speaker 1: turn of the decade, whereupon he became the most prolific
35:51
Speaker 1: sniper in military history, recording a total of one hundred
35:54
Speaker 1: and five kills in just one quick tour, a record
35:57
Speaker 1: that stood until the War in Afghanistan, where it was
35:59
Speaker 1: broken by Chris Kyle aka Clint Eastwood and Bradley Cooper's
36:03
Speaker 1: American Sniper. John had shipped out of San Diego and
36:07
Speaker 1: landed back on the West Coast when his tour in
36:09
Speaker 1: Vietnam was through to begin his music career in earnest
36:12
Speaker 1: that Ledbetters before we moved east to sling his acoustic
36:15
Speaker 1: in Greenwich Village's folk scene, where he would ultimately meet
36:18
Speaker 1: Jerry Weintraub and begin his career in the music industry
36:21
Speaker 1: in earnest But there was an in between time that
36:24
Speaker 1: neither John nor Jerry could account for. Time between the
36:28
Speaker 1: Air Force Academy Sniper Academy, and the war. John couldn't
36:32
Speaker 1: call it up in his memory. The closest he got
36:34
Speaker 1: to any type of recollection of that lost in between
36:37
Speaker 1: time was just a nebulous feeling, a feeling of intense guilt.
36:42
Speaker 1: What happened to him between Sniper Academy and the war? Why?
36:46
Speaker 1: He wondered? Could he not remember that in between time?
36:51
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after this word word word. That
36:56
Speaker 1: in between time, that forgotten time, that time of hence
37:00
Speaker 1: guilt for John Denver. Only recently of music and history
37:03
Speaker 1: scholars been able to piece together what happened and bring
37:07
Speaker 1: light to the truth of what has been regarded as
37:09
Speaker 1: one of the most disturbing and unbelievable rumors about one
37:11
Speaker 1: of America's most beloved pop stars. We have the Freedom
37:15
Speaker 1: of Information Act to thank for this. But before we
37:18
Speaker 1: begin to unpack this recently leaked treasure trove of innuendo,
37:22
Speaker 1: we must go back again to the early nineteen sixties
37:25
Speaker 1: in America's place in the world. President John f Kennedy
37:30
Speaker 1: had the establishment on edge. The Bay of Pigs was
37:33
Speaker 1: the debacle. Kennedy, because he had believed he had been
37:37
Speaker 1: hung out to dry by his own government, had threatened
37:40
Speaker 1: to destroy the CIA e Howard Hunt's CIA by splintering
37:44
Speaker 1: it into quote one thousand pieces. In Cuba, Fidel Castro's
37:48
Speaker 1: revolution resulted in the loss of millions upon millions of
37:52
Speaker 1: the American mafia's dollars due to their casinos and banks
37:55
Speaker 1: being nationalized by Castro's new government. The mafia was out,
38:00
Speaker 1: Cuba had gone commede. Cuba was closed for business, and
38:03
Speaker 1: communism was spreading elsewhere too. But it wasn't all that bad.
38:07
Speaker 1: In Vietnam, the Soviets had begun back into the oppressive
38:10
Speaker 1: North Vietnamese government, who are on maneuvers to overtake the
38:13
Speaker 1: rest of the country and establish a bigger comedy footprint
38:16
Speaker 1: in Asia. And this sounded worse than it actually was.
38:20
Speaker 1: To the American military industrial complex, this little flare up
38:23
Speaker 1: far from home was more of an opportunity than a threat,
38:26
Speaker 1: an opportunity to rouse support for democracy and in the
38:29
Speaker 1: process built out gazillions of dollars in government contracts for
38:33
Speaker 1: military hardware. Helicopters, explosives, artillery, etc. Vietnam was a goddamn
38:40
Speaker 1: gold mine if played correctly. But the problem was John F.
38:44
Speaker 1: Kennedy wasn't playing, not with Vietnam, not with Cuba, not
38:47
Speaker 1: with the mafia. He resisted his military advisors on doubling
38:51
Speaker 1: down support for the South Vietnamese saw the conflict as
38:54
Speaker 1: a potential quagmire. It was someone else's problem and for
38:58
Speaker 1: the foreseeable future. He had no interest in getting America's
39:01
Speaker 1: ass kicked again in Cuba. So Castro wasn't going anywhere,
39:05
Speaker 1: and JFK had turned his pit pull brother US Attorney
39:08
Speaker 1: General Robert F. Kennedy loose on the mafia, effectively threatening
39:11
Speaker 1: to destroy it, just as he had explicitly threatened to
39:14
Speaker 1: destroy the CIA, who, by the way, were the one
39:17
Speaker 1: American institution with deep interest in all of the above
39:21
Speaker 1: in Vietnam, in Cuba, and in their unofficial partners, the
39:24
Speaker 1: mafias e. Howard Hunt's CIA, that is, Haunt knew this
39:30
Speaker 1: was coming, so did his boss, the Director, and so
39:33
Speaker 1: did the American business tycoons and political leaders whose interests
39:36
Speaker 1: the CIA actually served. Kennedy was a problem. He was
39:40
Speaker 1: an explicit threat as if his unwillingness to play ball
39:43
Speaker 1: in Vietnam and Cuba weren't enough. He was a fucking Catholic,
39:47
Speaker 1: no doubt, taking orders from the Pope, and to add
39:50
Speaker 1: insult to injury, Kennedy seemingly could give a fuck about
39:52
Speaker 1: American social norms, sticking his dick brazenly in anything to
39:56
Speaker 1: move while he was President of the United States, apparently
40:00
Speaker 1: not caring at all who knew about it. It was
40:02
Speaker 1: an affront to their natural conservatism, a blatant fuck you.
40:07
Speaker 1: By the end of nineteen sixty three, with the shit
40:09
Speaker 1: stores swirling around them, all, the CIA and the Mafia
40:13
Speaker 1: put their collective assets together to stop or to become
40:16
Speaker 1: an existential threat to their well established way of doing business.
40:21
Speaker 1: John F. Kennedy Hunt was prepared. He didn't know for
40:28
Speaker 1: sure which asset he would call into action on that day,
40:31
Speaker 1: V Day, November twenty second, nineteen sixty three, code named
40:36
Speaker 1: the Big Show Dallas, Daly Plaza, America's Revelation Day, but
40:41
Speaker 1: he had an idea it would be the kid. He
40:44
Speaker 1: was as sure a shot as he'd ever seen. He said,
40:46
Speaker 1: little showed, little signs of individuality, had taken every single
40:50
Speaker 1: drop of doc's LSD lace boot camp Digestif he was
40:53
Speaker 1: ready and there were other assets as well run by
40:57
Speaker 1: other agents, Hunt and know or care who was running
41:00
Speaker 1: who or how many shooters would be placed in Dallas's
41:02
Speaker 1: daily plaza that day. The less he knew the better.
41:05
Speaker 1: The less other people knew the better as well, and
41:07
Speaker 1: the less any of them talk to each other, the
41:09
Speaker 1: less likely it would be for history to piece together
41:11
Speaker 1: the conspiracy through its conspirators. All Hunt knew was that
41:15
Speaker 1: the agency would provide a couple shooters, as would Trafficanti's
41:19
Speaker 1: boys in New Orleans. Hunt had an inkling that Hoover's
41:22
Speaker 1: men would be on clean up duty, and if either
41:24
Speaker 1: of their outfits were worth the yardbird shit, there would
41:27
Speaker 1: be some sort of homegrown Patsy on the scene for
41:29
Speaker 1: the local unis and national press to devour. Post mortem,
41:33
Speaker 1: mister Lee Harvey Oswald, They're ready for your close up.
41:38
Speaker 1: Haunt's asset said nothing on that morning. He just sat
41:41
Speaker 1: in Hunt's car, secure in the fact that, no matter
41:44
Speaker 1: what he was being deployed to do down here in Dallas,
41:46
Speaker 1: that his rifle was close by in the back seat,
41:49
Speaker 1: and that whatever Hunted planned for him, that it was
41:52
Speaker 1: God's work. John's mind was two screen rambled that morning.
42:01
Speaker 1: John knew it now as he sat in the cockpit
42:03
Speaker 1: of his Routan Long Easy, a small experimental plane with
42:07
Speaker 1: an oversized wingspan he had long pined over some thirty
42:10
Speaker 1: four years later. It was all coming back to him now.
42:14
Speaker 1: The guilt was crystallizing into fully formed memories, prompted by
42:18
Speaker 1: the news of late and the news was this. Sooner
42:22
Speaker 1: or later, the truth was coming out. Who killed Kennedy?
42:27
Speaker 1: The government knew they'd known all along, of course, as
42:30
Speaker 1: far back as LBJ and then the Warrent commissioned. Despite
42:33
Speaker 1: whatever bullshit findings they made public regarding Oswald as the
42:37
Speaker 1: fall guy, the lone gunman, the truth was in those documents.
42:41
Speaker 1: John got winned from Jerry Weintraup, John's old manager, who'd
42:45
Speaker 1: helped him cover up his Vietnam War records so John
42:48
Speaker 1: Denver could go on playing the part of America's most docile,
42:51
Speaker 1: environmentally friendly, post hippie all American nature boy. John ran
42:57
Speaker 1: into Jerry at a charity event in Hollywood. It had
43:00
Speaker 1: been years since they'd been in the same room together,
43:03
Speaker 1: since John fired him. It seemed that enough time had
43:06
Speaker 1: passed for the wound to heal, and for Jerry to
43:08
Speaker 1: let the warm fuzziness of nostalgia overcome his spite for John.
43:12
Speaker 1: After an awkward hello followed by sincere smiles and an
43:15
Speaker 1: even more awkward hug, the two men let their bygones
43:18
Speaker 1: steal away under the din of clinking champagne glasses and
43:22
Speaker 1: the murmur of the Hollywood elite and attendance dutted out
43:25
Speaker 1: in Texas and the latest from Versace, Gucci and Prada.
43:29
Speaker 1: Soon a familiar scene took shape. Jerry Wintrot was holding
43:33
Speaker 1: court at the bar. A crowd had gathered, including John,
43:36
Speaker 1: to hear Jerry wax poetic on his pre show biz
43:38
Speaker 1: days in Brooklyn. He exaggerated his connection to the Bonano
43:42
Speaker 1: family to gathered big screen socialites. Jerry's stories were a
43:45
Speaker 1: typical Jerry body street, Jerry rap beefs, Jerry rap pussy,
43:50
Speaker 1: Jerry rap politics. Sure he knew Trafficante met him in
43:53
Speaker 1: Vegas way back in the day. The lawyer Waghano introduced him.
43:56
Speaker 1: Sinatra knew him too, not too well, not as well
43:59
Speaker 1: as Frank new More and Jerry knew Momo too. Shame
44:02
Speaker 1: about Big Mo. He was a sweetheart despite his reputation.
44:05
Speaker 1: He had a big heart. He'd love you if you
44:07
Speaker 1: let him. But he was a vengeful son of a
44:09
Speaker 1: bitch like most silience wouldn't let us like go any slight,
44:12
Speaker 1: small or big. And that was Kennedy's problem. He went
44:16
Speaker 1: back on his old man's word, and Momo made him pay.
44:18
Speaker 1: Momo didn't shoot him, of course, No, that would be stupid.
44:21
Speaker 1: But don't talk to me about Oswald. And no a
44:23
Speaker 1: single bullet theory. And there were multiple shooters, of course.
44:26
Speaker 1: In fact, Jerry had it on good authority that the
44:28
Speaker 1: real shooter, the one stationed on top of the overpass,
44:31
Speaker 1: that his identity was close to being leaked nationally to
44:33
Speaker 1: the press, and the government had it. Jerry had a guy.
44:37
Speaker 1: His guy let him know this if the Freedom of
44:40
Speaker 1: Information Act was ever successful in compelling the government to
44:43
Speaker 1: release its full findings on the Kennedy assassination, that there
44:46
Speaker 1: was a name, the name of another shooter. Not Oswald,
44:49
Speaker 1: not Woody Harrelson's old man with the two other tramps,
44:51
Speaker 1: but the actual shooter, the one who fired the kill
44:54
Speaker 1: shot from the top of the overpass at Daily Plaza,
44:56
Speaker 1: the one that hit Kennedy's head straight on airing it
44:59
Speaker 1: up the back. Jerry's guy even gave him the third
45:02
Speaker 1: shooter's name. Why not it would be public knowledge any
45:05
Speaker 1: day now. Deutschens Something, Deuschenfeld, Deutschenberg, Deutschenzell, Deuschenfeld, Deutschen Douschen,
45:12
Speaker 1: deus Deutschendorf. John Denver nearly dropped his drink. What the
45:18
Speaker 1: fuck was Jerry saying? John felt woozy? Why was Jerry
45:22
Speaker 1: talking about this? Why had Jerry just publicly uttered that name?
45:26
Speaker 1: Why did that name sound so familiar? Why did it sting?
45:29
Speaker 1: It was vengeance, pure and simple. That's why payback from
45:33
Speaker 1: Jerry for John firing him back in the day. John
45:37
Speaker 1: was gonna puke or pass out or both. He felt
45:39
Speaker 1: another blackout coming. On the sound of Jerry wrapping jfk
45:43
Speaker 1: at to party revelers faded into the background. It was
45:45
Speaker 1: replaced by the sound of some other sort of celebration,
45:48
Speaker 1: and then that familiar clinking sound. John put it all
45:52
Speaker 1: together before Jerry wintrob got the full name off of
45:55
Speaker 1: his tongue, John Deutschendorff aka John Denver. John's memories flooded back,
46:03
Speaker 1: recovered full streaming a torrent of guilt. He felt dizzy
46:07
Speaker 1: even now thinking about it. Days later, and his plane
46:09
Speaker 1: high above Monterey Bay. Of course, he thought Dallas, nineteen
46:14
Speaker 1: sixty three. That was the place. That was the last
46:17
Speaker 1: time he saw Hunt. That was the time between Sniper
46:20
Speaker 1: Academy and the war. That was the in between time,
46:23
Speaker 1: the source of all the guilt. He was remembering it all.
46:27
Speaker 1: Hunt in the driver's seat, Hunt with his instructions, shoot
46:31
Speaker 1: to kill. He's a commie. He's not what he appears.
46:34
Speaker 1: He's a mole, a spy working internally to sink America.
46:38
Speaker 1: Remember your training, you're the weapon. Aim fire, Aim fire,
46:43
Speaker 1: aim fire. I'll be here when it's done. I'll take
46:46
Speaker 1: you out. Hunt's words were succinct. They made sense. Hunt
46:52
Speaker 1: dropped John on the side of the road and give
46:54
Speaker 1: him a stick of gum for good luck. John remembered
46:57
Speaker 1: taking it, remembered how chewing it made him feel like
47:00
Speaker 1: the sides of his skull felt like they were collapsing
47:02
Speaker 1: in on his brain, his stomach knotted up, and John,
47:05
Speaker 1: carrying the feeling of repressed giggling with him off into
47:08
Speaker 1: the crowd. All of it felt like a way more
47:10
Speaker 1: intense version of the feeling John would get at night
47:13
Speaker 1: at the Academy, the feeling Docs after dinner digestif gave
47:16
Speaker 1: him the feeling you would have while listening to Doc's
47:19
Speaker 1: kill stories, stories of assassins trained to do one thing,
47:23
Speaker 1: kill on command, with honor, with purpose, God, country your
47:28
Speaker 1: rifle in that order. It was all wrote to John.
47:32
Speaker 1: John knew what to do. He focused on the task
47:34
Speaker 1: at hand. Hunt's orders.
47:36
Speaker 2: Aim fire, aim fire, aim fire, aim fire, aim fire.
47:47
Speaker 1: He sprinted out of Hunt's car and up the hilt
47:49
Speaker 1: of the overpass, rifle in hand. He could hear the
47:52
Speaker 1: coming motorcade. It was seconds away. John took his spot
47:55
Speaker 1: on the overpass. The motorcave turned off of Houston Street
47:58
Speaker 1: and onto Elm headed straight toward John. On top of
48:01
Speaker 1: the overpass, the book depository was on the mortorcade's right.
48:04
Speaker 1: John lighted up, his body down the barrel of the scope.
48:07
Speaker 1: John heard Hunt in his head. John said his trigger.
48:09
Speaker 1: Figure a second pass. The car drove dead into john sights.
48:13
Speaker 2: John pulled the trigger when I heard a trifecta of
48:16
Speaker 2: sonic blues ring.
48:17
Speaker 1: Out first first split second, there was silence, followed by
48:24
Speaker 1: the sound of a flock of birds flying off on
48:27
Speaker 1: mass and then chaos all held broke loose. Immediately there
48:37
Speaker 1: were screams, cries of terror from the crowd, confusion, sirens,
48:41
Speaker 1: an epic fuck show. John ran straight into it. It
48:45
Speaker 1: got swept up into the chaos, into the crowd, and
48:47
Speaker 1: somehow made it out of Daily Plaza, out from the
48:50
Speaker 1: clutches of history, unscathed, its done. Hunt was nowhere to
48:55
Speaker 1: be found. John made it back to the Academy. It
48:58
Speaker 1: was later learned that Hunt was arrested behind the Grassy
49:02
Speaker 1: Kno with Charlie Harrelson, Woody Harrelson's father, and Frank Sturgis.
49:07
Speaker 1: The two, along with E. Howard Hunt, are now known
49:09
Speaker 1: by JFK conspiracy theorists as the Three Tramps. One or
49:13
Speaker 1: all are theorized to have been part of a triangulating
49:16
Speaker 1: shooting team set up strategically to assassinate the President Oswald
49:21
Speaker 1: in the Book Depository, the three tramps behind the Grassy
49:24
Speaker 1: Knole and a third shooter up on the overpass. Until now,
49:31
Speaker 1: there have been no solid theories on who that third
49:34
Speaker 1: shooter was. John was shell shocked flying high above the
49:43
Speaker 1: Pacific West Coast. Jerry's words from the Other Night Peppering
49:47
Speaker 1: his brain. Deutschendorf, Deutschendorf, Deutschendorf was the name, the name
49:52
Speaker 1: that was about to be leaked, the name of the assassin,
49:55
Speaker 1: and John knew it was also his real name, John
49:59
Speaker 1: Denver's realn name. John Denver knew it then, knew it
50:02
Speaker 1: for sure. Unlike before before Jerry spilled it at the bar,
50:06
Speaker 1: there was no more unaccounted. In between time, John knew
50:09
Speaker 1: exactly where he was and what he'd done, and who
50:12
Speaker 1: he was. He was Henry John Deutschendorff. He was the
50:16
Speaker 1: assassin John Denver killed John F. Kennedy. It said so
50:22
Speaker 1: right there in those documents that Jerry was talking about,
50:25
Speaker 1: the same documents that were about to be released to
50:28
Speaker 1: the public. And that's what the guilt was about. The
50:30
Speaker 1: shame that in between time, that's what John Denver's memory
50:34
Speaker 1: blocked out, the time between the Air Force Academy and
50:37
Speaker 1: Vietnam because PTSD memory triggers. They're like rubble from an explosion,
50:42
Speaker 1: scattered pieces of what was once something whole, lying in
50:45
Speaker 1: a pile, semi recognizable but still dangerous. As the name
50:50
Speaker 1: Deutschendorf spiraled from Jerry's lips to John's ears. It was
50:53
Speaker 1: like all the interior parts of a combination lock falling
50:56
Speaker 1: into place what had for so long been a black hole.
50:59
Speaker 1: And John's memory was now lit up to reveal his
51:02
Speaker 1: own horror, and the guilt was stronger than ever. John
51:08
Speaker 1: sailed on high above the water and his wide winged bruton.
51:12
Speaker 1: He knew that when he landed he'd never be the same,
51:15
Speaker 1: not with the knowledge he now had. He'd never be
51:18
Speaker 1: able to look anyone in the eye again, knowing what
51:20
Speaker 1: he'd done, how he'd affected history. And to think John
51:24
Speaker 1: thought Jerry Weintrot was evil, he John Denver was the
51:28
Speaker 1: evil one, the most efficient sniper in Vietnam history, and
51:32
Speaker 1: a fucking political assassin to boot. John Denver couldn't let
51:36
Speaker 1: himself hold on to the gilt anymore, so he let go,
51:39
Speaker 1: let go of the plane's control column, and cut the engine.
51:48
Speaker 1: When they found him, the wreckage from John Denver's plane
51:51
Speaker 1: crash was so grisly it took fingerprints on the plane
51:54
Speaker 1: to identify the body. Because dental records weren't going to
51:58
Speaker 1: be an option to what would be John's relief, the
52:01
Speaker 1: federal government stepped in, and John Denver's real name remains
52:05
Speaker 1: cloaked behind courtroom debates over extended statutes of limitations on
52:09
Speaker 1: remaining redacted parts of the Kennedy papers, and because of
52:13
Speaker 1: that secrecy, John Denver's untarnished legacy lives on, thanks in
52:18
Speaker 1: part recently to our current President Donald J. Trump, who
52:21
Speaker 1: on April twenty six, twenty eighteen, upheld the redacted parts
52:26
Speaker 1: of the Kennedy papers, presumably the part with the name
52:29
Speaker 1: John Deutschendorff mentioned as the assassin, and so John Denver's
52:33
Speaker 1: secret is safe for the moment. JFK conspiracy theorists know
52:40
Speaker 1: the truth. Recently, the name Deutschendorff has been going around
52:44
Speaker 1: the Internet in connection with the Kennedy papers, which is
52:47
Speaker 1: how I came to know of it. It's only a
52:49
Speaker 1: matter of time before some journalist's freedom of information request
52:53
Speaker 1: wins in court and the papers get released. Currently, the
52:56
Speaker 1: papers are scheduled for twenty twenty one release, and from
52:59
Speaker 1: there once widely available to the public. It won't take
53:03
Speaker 1: non music scholars too long to piece together John Deutschendorff
53:07
Speaker 1: to John Denver, the man who killed John F. Kennedy.
53:11
Speaker 1: I'm Jake Brennan, and this is an April Fools edition
53:16
Speaker 1: of Disgraceland. Happy April Fool's Day, everyone, Thank you for
53:36
Speaker 1: hanging out there with me on this episode. John Denver,
53:39
Speaker 1: in the long totally false rumor that he was one
53:41
Speaker 1: of Vietnam's most prolific snipers, has been amiss forever that
53:44
Speaker 1: I've wanted to mess with, and I was happy to
53:46
Speaker 1: do so in this episode. Of course, again totally not true,
53:49
Speaker 1: and neither, obviously is his involvement of any kind in
53:52
Speaker 1: the jfk assassination. It is all, as I said at
53:55
Speaker 1: the introduction of this episode, satirical I hope it got
53:59
Speaker 1: yet was created by yours truly and is produced in
54:02
Speaker 1: partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be
54:05
Speaker 1: found on the show notes page at disgracelampod dot com.
54:09
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54:12
Speaker 1: you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it, and
54:15
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54:17
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54:22
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54:26
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54:40
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