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"CLASSIC: Operation Northwoods: How the US Planned to Attack Itself and Start a War with Cuba" · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Fellow ridiculous historians, we're back with a classic episode. You
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: may have heard about Cuba and the United States in
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: the news recently or in the news for, you know,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: decades past.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: It's been, it's hot. Yeah. I remember like there was
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: a brief period where we, you could go. Yeah. My,
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: my ex and my, my kid said, were able to
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: go for that very, very brief period of time. If
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: I'm not mistaken, it was under Obama, or maybe it
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: was early Biden. But they said it was awesome, and
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: then they closed it on back up because we got
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: some issues with the Cuban government, some failure to see
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: eye to eye, let's just say.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, very much so. It's a very long tale. And
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: back in 2019, we did an episode about one of
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: the stinkier things Uncle Sam tried to do in their
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: fraught relationship with Cuba. The proper term is a false
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: flag attack.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: That's right. And that is about what it sounds like.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: It's flying a flag that ain't accurate. Dirty pool. Dirty pool.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: This involves attacks on U.S. citizens, soldiers, planes, and ships,
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: all with the goal of blaming these attacks on Cuba.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: This is quite a stuff they don't want you to
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: know crossover. Why don't we roll the tape? Tut, tut, tut.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you for tuning in. We
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: are coming to you with fresh hot coffee and some
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: fresh hot takes on this Monday morning as we record this.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Who knows when you'll hear it. I'm kidding. It's either
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: a Tuesday or a Thursday.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: It's true, Ben. The takes that we plan to bring
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: today are of the hottest variety. So be careful.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: And you're Noel.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: No, I'm not.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: You're not Noel.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: No, not today.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: That was a false flag.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: That was a false identity of yours?
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: Well, I guess so. I mean, a false flag would
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: be if I said I was China and then attacked
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: the United States, but I was actually an agent of
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: a different country trying to put the blame on China.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: A good example of a false flag would be if
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: super producer Casey Pegram hacked his own bank account and
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: then blamed it on a different person or country. And
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: then use that as an excuse to go to war.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: But you're a peaceful dude, Casey. I don't see you
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  Speaker 1: waging a one-man war against an entire country. No.
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  Speaker 3: No false flags here.
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  Speaker 2: No siree. Ben, are you saying that I would not
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: be a believable China as an individual? People would not
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: buy that I was, in fact, the country of China?
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Well, maybe if you did it online in like a
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: chat room. and you wrote in, you either, you spoke
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: in Mandarin and you sounded like 1.3-ish billion people, or
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: you wrote out the ideograms. I feel like you could
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: pull it off. Maybe not in person, but online, definitely.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: You got this.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: You got this. I really was hoping to be able
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: to do it in person, Ben, but I guess if
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: online's all I can manage, then that's what I'll do.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: So today, yeah, it's true. We're talking about a false
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: flag attack. Specifically... against Cuba. It's true.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: So we have defined false flag with a bit of
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: a cavalier approach, but our two comparisons hit the mark.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: A false flag attack is a term that describes a
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: country purporting to be attacked by a foreign entity of
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: some sort when in fact they are attacking themselves, right?
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: So there are so many alleged false flags throughout modern history.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: The Gulf of Tonkin incident is one famous alleged false
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: flag because according to the official narrative, Uncle Sam still
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: says that was 100% legit. The rest is fake news.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: We often relegate the concept of false flags, the concept
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: of this deceitful action to the realm of fringe theory,
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  Speaker 1: revisionist history, conspiracies and whatnot. However, today we are examining
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: a case of a genuine would-be false flag proposed by
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  Speaker 1: good old folks here at the US of A.
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  Speaker 2: And just a little background, this might be super obvious
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  Speaker 2: to most people, especially folks who listen to our other show,
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: Stuff They Don't Want You To Know. we cover things
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: like this all the time. A false flag attack refers to,
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  Speaker 2: I guess, the idea of in an engagement in warfare,
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  Speaker 2: you're supposed to identify yourself, right? Like using a flag
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  Speaker 2: or some sort of markings on your uniform.
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  Speaker 1: Great.
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  Speaker 2: Good point. And with a false flag attack, you are
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  Speaker 2: misidentifying yourself on purpose to create a diversion or draw
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  Speaker 2: the attention to a country that you are trying to
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  Speaker 2: kind of malign, essentially, or create a false conflict between
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: these countries, unbeknownst to the party that you are impersonating.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: Right, right. Nail on the head there, man. And today's
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: episode takes us to the Cold War, takes us to
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  Speaker 1: the 1950s, 1960s, and to Cuba. So the United States
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  Speaker 1: was terrified by the threat of communism, right? And Cuba,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: the country and island of Cuba, was at the time
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  Speaker 1: seen as a proxy for the USSR, a communist nation
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  Speaker 1: right on the doorstep. The Reds, they called them. And
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  Speaker 1: the people in charge of the US military and the
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: US political machine at the time were absolutely certain that
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: there would be some for lack of a better phrase,
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  Speaker 1: there would be some sort of domino effect that first
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  Speaker 1: Caribbean countries would fall to communism and then that it
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  Speaker 1: would spread like some sort of ideological disease throughout South America.
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  Speaker 1: And the next thing you know, there's an uprising in
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  Speaker 1: Mexico and maybe even Canada. This was alarmist, alarmist thinking,
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: and it was taken seriously. So The U.S. spent a
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  Speaker 1: lot of time, as we learned later through declassified documents,
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  Speaker 1: trying to figure out ways to overthrow the government of
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Cuba or assassinate the leader of that government, a man
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  Speaker 1: that is probably familiar to many of us called Fidel Castro.
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  Speaker 2: And here's the thing, this scheme that was cooked up,
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  Speaker 2: it wasn't just some kind of like harebrained idea. It
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  Speaker 2: was very much a product of the Joint Chiefs of
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: Staff And its Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, who's kind
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: of a big deal, looms large in international politics.
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  Speaker 1: So we know that there were numerous failed attempts, some
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: that never made it out of the pitch room, right?
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  Speaker 1: And there was the Bay of Pigs invasion, which was
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  Speaker 1: a failure by all accounts. And the attempts to depose
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: or assassinate Fidel Castro were collected under a CIA program
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  Speaker 1: that was called Operation Mongoose, or its street name was
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  Speaker 1: the Cuban Project. So if you were a member of
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: the agency and you were talking in, you know, semi-mixed company,
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  Speaker 1: you might just refer to it as the Cuban Project,
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  Speaker 1: led by General Edward Lansdale of the U.S. Air Force.
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  Speaker 1: We're not 100% sure. Even now in 2019, where the
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  Speaker 1: idea for what would be called Operation Northwoods germinated. It
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  Speaker 1: may have originated with President Eisenhower toward the end of
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: his administration. But past McNamara, we can't nail down a
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: specific time and date. All we know is that Eisenhower
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  Speaker 1: did tell the head of the Joint Chiefs and other
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: aides in his cabinet that he wanted to move against
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: Castro before the inauguration of the new president. And all
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: he was waiting for, basically, was for the Cuban government
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  Speaker 1: to give him some sort of excuse.
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  Speaker 2: Any excuse.
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  Speaker 1: Any excuse. And then the time grows short, right?
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  Speaker 2: Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.
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  Speaker 1: Eisenhower floats this idea. He says, you know, if This
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  Speaker 1: Castro fella doesn't provide an excuse to invade. Well, perhaps
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: the U.S. could think of manufacturing something that would be
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  Speaker 1: generally acceptable. Generally acceptable means he was suggesting some sort
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  Speaker 1: of pretext for war, right? A bombing, perhaps, an attack,
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  Speaker 1: an act of sabotage. carried out against the U.S., and
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  Speaker 1: we would tell everyone that it was was the communist
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  Speaker 1: forces doing this, right? We're not talking about necessarily a
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  Speaker 1: huge catastrophic loss of life. We're talking about maybe a
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  Speaker 1: Coast Guard boat, right, that got sank or something that
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  Speaker 1: makes an ironclad case for us to tell the public,
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  Speaker 1: the U.S. public, that these are acts of Cuban aggression
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  Speaker 1: and we must act to save American lives. The problem
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  Speaker 1: with that is that Cuba wasn't going to do that,
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  Speaker 1: so we were going to attack our own stuff. That
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  Speaker 1: was the idea, right?
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  Speaker 2: No, totally. But they were not able to pull this
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  Speaker 2: off at the time. Kennedy would not approve any of
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  Speaker 2: this kind of action. And the general that was in
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  Speaker 2: charge of all this stuff, General Limnitzer, was really irritated
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  Speaker 2: at the fact that Kennedy would not play ball. And
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  Speaker 2: he was also irritated, equally irritated, at the fact that
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  Speaker 2: Castro seemed to be kind of like cooling his heels
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  Speaker 2: a little bit. You know, he wasn't going to be
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  Speaker 2: the one that was going to light the match that
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  Speaker 2: set the fire, you know.
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  Speaker 1: Exactly, exactly. So fast forward to February 26th, 1962. We
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  Speaker 1: mentioned two generals so far. Let's remember the earlier one,
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  Speaker 1: General Lansdale. This is the guy who was cooking with
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  Speaker 1: gas in Operation Mongoose. And Operation Mongoose, again, is this
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  Speaker 1: sort of mixtape of increasingly cartoonish ideas about how to
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  Speaker 1: overthrow or assassinate Fidel Castro. Robert Kennedy hates this stuff.
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  Speaker 1: It's like this is more and more ridiculous. We're talking
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  Speaker 1: about poisoned or exploding cigars. There was a plan at
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  Speaker 1: one point to try to make Castro lose his beard,
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  Speaker 1: which wouldn't kill him.
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  Speaker 2: It would just, like, shame him. You know, his people
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  Speaker 2: would be like, Castro without a beard is like a
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  Speaker 2: bird without a song, you know? I can no longer
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  Speaker 2: follow you.
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  Speaker 1: Which is weird and tells us how condescending these folks were.
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  Speaker 1: They thought very little of the intelligence of the Cuban people.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, clearly.
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  Speaker 1: So Robert Kennedy goes to General Lansdale and says, look,
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  Speaker 1: just drop this mongoose thing. Drop all these efforts to
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  Speaker 1: antagonize or assassinate Fidel Castro. Instead, just concentrate on learning
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  Speaker 1: more about Cuba. Just concentrate on learning stuff before you
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  Speaker 1: try this regime change. And Lansdale hated this. He felt very,
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  Speaker 1: very sidelined. He thought that the Kennedy brothers... had gone
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  Speaker 1: soft on Castro. And this is where the other general
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  Speaker 1: that you just mentioned, Limnitzer, comes into play.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, because like we said before, he was very annoyed
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  Speaker 2: that he couldn't get the support of Kennedy, the president,
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  Speaker 2: or his brothers, you know, who were also powerful men.
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  Speaker 2: And there was this sense that his window for this
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  Speaker 2: invasion that he saw as being so crucial was, you know,
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  Speaker 2: kind of slipping through his fingers, right? And he... felt
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: like these efforts, the two, so Ben, let's talk a
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: little bit about what were some of the things they
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: were doing to provoke the public, you know, the Cuban
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: citizenry to maybe revolt against Castro. We did have some
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: efforts to make that happen. Isn't that right?
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Oh, it goes way back. It goes way, way, way, way,
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: way back. As part of the Spanish-American War, the U.S.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: invaded and occupied Cuba when it was ruled by Spain
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: in 1898 and occupied the country until 1902. And then
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: there was a brief period of insolvence or independence, however
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: you want to call it, and the U.S. occupied it
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  Speaker 1: again from 1906 to 1909, and then briefly 1912, and
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: then from 1917 to 1922. The United States has a very,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: very long history of interfering with Cuba. For some, this
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: was seen as a necessary step to prevent the encroachment
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: of foreign powers. You know what I mean? First, the
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Spanish Empire, later the USSR, and for others, This was
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: seen as a bellicose act of an outside country trying
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: to interfere with another country or nation's internal affairs. So
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: there are a couple ways to look at it, but
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: it's true. The CIA has a long history of fomenting
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: revolution or attempting to do so through proxy protest groups.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: So students spontaneously protest. You know what I mean? Tale
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: as old as time, unfortunately. So there were some activities
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: like that, most likely.
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  Speaker 2: Well, and unfortunately, again, that stuff wasn't working. No. It
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: was very toothless, it seemed like. If it had ever
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: worked at all, it certainly wasn't working anymore. And there
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: just seemed to be no inclination on the part of
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: the Cuban government to launch the attack that we very
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: weirdly so desperately wanted, right?
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. So- Lemnitzer and the other Joint Chiefs get together,
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: no doubt, in a smoky back.
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: Room and say— Yeah, they are the Joint Chiefs, after all.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: They're the chiefs of the Joint's back room, you know?
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: Who knows?
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: I imagine that they would see marijuana as hippie stuff.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: You think so?
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they were probably more hard drinkers.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: You don't think it made them more creative? Look, hey, man,
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: some of these ideas in Operation Mongoose sound like the
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: product of a bunch of stoners in a back room.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: Stoners? I don't know. That seems kind of aggro for stoners.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe more like amphetamine poppers.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: Amphetamines were very popular in that time, right? Also, you know,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: maybe this was like a pill thing. I don't even know.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: What pills did they have back then? Did they have Quaaludes?
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: Spennies? Quaaludes.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: Poppers? Yeah.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Is that what? Quaaludes are my go-to drug joke because
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: I don't know really what they are.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: Well, have you seen Wolf of Wall Street? Yes. Remember
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: that scene where he takes the Quaaludes and falls down
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: the stairs repeatedly in like amazing comical form?
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: And tries to get in the car. Yeah, yeah.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it makes you like a noodle person. That's what
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: Quaaludes does.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: I just like saying lewds.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Remember that game Drug Wars that you'd play on
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: the graphing calculator back in the day? No. No. No,
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: it was like, do you remember this, Casey?
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: I totally remember this.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So the TI-83 graphic calculators have these little apps
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: you could load into them, I guess. I don't remember
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: how you even did it, but one of them was
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: Drug Wars and you'd play it with alphanumeric key entries
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: to kind of like generate responses. And I remember one
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: of the drugs you could buy was Ludes. And I
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: was like, what is this Ludes? That sounds decadent.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: It's a brand name. It's sold as, I think the
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: drug is still around in different countries, but Don't do drugs, kids.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: Definitely not.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: You'll end up like the Joint Chiefs. And who knows, maybe,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: you know, ideology is a drug, and that's definitely, whatever
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: they were doing, that's the drug that they got the
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: highest on the most often. So they say, we're going
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: to trick the American public. We need to get the U.S.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: behind us, and because this is an international operation... we
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: would hopefully, ideally, also fool the rest of the world,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: or at least get a nod and a wink from
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: our friendly countries who are also fighting communism. So they said,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: if we can get everybody to turn against Cuba, then
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: they'll allow us to make war on this nation, but
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: we'll know we did a super top-notch job if everyone
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: agrees in the world outside of Cuba, insist that we
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: launch this war against Castro. There was a secret document
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which is declassified now,
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: in which they say blatantly, explicitly, let me try a
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: villainous voice out.
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: Here, world opinion and the United Nations forum. should be
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: favorably affected by developing the international image of the Cuban
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: government as rash and irresponsible, and as an alarming and
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: unpredictable threat to the peace of the Western Hemisphere. At
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: the end of that, everybody's like.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, of course.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: And wringing their hands and all that stuff. That was
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: a very Lord of the Rings villain kind of sound
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: that you had there, Ben.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Lord of the Rings is loosely based on the
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: Joint Chiefs of Staff, at least the Ringwraiths.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: That's what I heard. So here's the thing that happens next.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: Operation Northwood, which had been approved by the chairman of
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: the Joint Chiefs of Staff, every member of the Joint
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: Chiefs of Staff, it actually, this is what the plan contained.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: several quite horrendous acts of faux terrorism, but yet actual
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: terrorism on American soil. The idea of folks being shot
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: in the streets, refugee boats that were leaving Cuba to
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: be sunk, and also launching a wave of violent acts,
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: terrorist acts in Washington, D.C. and Miami and other places
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: across the country. It would involve framing people for bombings.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: Hijacking planes, planting evidence, and all of it would be
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: blamed on Castro and Limnitzer and his crew would have
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: everything they needed. to gain public support and international support
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: for backing them in this war effort.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: Another quote from the memo, we could develop a communist
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: and even in Washington. They were planning this. This is
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: absolutely right. And remember earlier we said that false flags,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: when they work, tend to be stuff like Gulf of Tonkin, right?
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: Not like a huge loss of thousands of lives. This, however,
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: still feels like a cavalcade of catastrophes. The list that
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: you read off for us, what was that? Innocent people
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: shot in the street. Yikes. Boats being sunk on the
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: high seas, right? violent terrorism in the capital of the U.S.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: and Miami and other places, framing people for bombings, hijacking planes,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: tracing it all back to Castro and some kind of
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: this goes to the very top sort of idea. This
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: feels like they were looking for whatever would have been
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: most effective. And it would be nice to think that
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: it would have immediately stopped the Once that call to
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: war actually happened and they got the support of the
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: West and they got the support of the domestic public.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: But this is not what the joint chiefs or the U.S.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: military are supposed to be doing. Northwoods suggested that U.S.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: personnel would disguise themselves as Cuban agents and then they
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: could burn ammunition, sink ships at Guantanamo. And they even said, look,
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: let's just blow up a U.S.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: Ship.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: We can take the loss. We'll blame it on Cuba.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: Blame it on Cuba. I mean, this thing was like,
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: you know, the whole idea to a false flag attack
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: or the idea of like crisis actors. That's a big
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: term that gets thrown around like the conspiracy community. It's terrible.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: I don't like it.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: No, I don't like it either. But it's used by
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: a horrible cancerous media personalities like Alex Jones to justify,
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: you know, their position on things like the Sandy Hook
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: school shooting where they say, oh, These weren't real shooters.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: They were, quote-unquote, crisis actors. And, you know, this was
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: all staged for the purposes of creating uproar against gun
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: violence or whatever. Absolutely absurd. In this case, absolutely provable
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: and confirmed. They even were planning to do things like
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: conduct fake funerals for these supposed victims, right? And I
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: don't know if we've talked about this, Ben, but a
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: lot of this comes from a declassified document from the
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: Joint Chiefs of Staff, subject memorandum for the Secretary of
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: Defense's Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba. And it
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: goes through and describes a lot of the things that
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: we're talking about here. The author of this report, being
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: General Limnitzer himself, goes on to talk about the Remember
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: the Maine incident, which I was not familiar with up
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: until this point. That was the explosion and sinking of
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: the USS Maine that began the Spanish-American War that we
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: mentioned earlier, where the casualties were listed in U.S. newspapers.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: And that caused this kind of wave of national anger
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: and contempt and, again, fomented that support of the war effort,
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: which is important, right? Like we never– it's easy to
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: forget or to think that like the government can just
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: wave a wand and make war happen. But they do
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: kind of depend on the support of the public, of constituents,
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: because it's all– kind of a political game in the end, right?
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: Right. So one of the first lessons learned by the U.S.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: government about the public and war, especially war in other countries,
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: came about in the Vietnam War. This was the first
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: time that many domestic residents were able to see the unvarnished,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: unpropagandized results of invading a foreign country. They were able
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: to see men, women, and children dying, many of whom
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: were civilians. They were able to see war crimes in
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: real time. This is before the Vietnam War. This, again,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: is a plan that exists in secret in a smoky
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: back room. And they still pitched other ideas, too. They said, well,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: what if we refit an American jet to resemble a
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: Cuban jet, and then we use it to harass civil air,
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: which means private industry air or even just some poor
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: schmuck with a little plane in Miami. I don't know.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: That's hilarious to me. It's hilarious because everyone's okay. They
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: also want to do a fake attack on U.S. military jets.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: They wanted to have submarines involved. They wanted a pilot
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: to fly under assumed identity. And they had steps to
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: this plan, which feel a little bit like a spaghetti
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: at the wall kind of attempt at solving the problem.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: What if we did this? What if we did that?
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: It's a very Dr. Seussian approach to terrible, terrible actions.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: They say we could. They also acknowledge, this is very interesting,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: they also acknowledge, more or less, tacitly at least, they
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: acknowledge that, remember, the main incident was indeed a false flag.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: And this was during a time when no one admitted
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: that publicly, at least no one associated with the government. Also,
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: they said, why don't we have an, get this, an
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: incident which will demonstrate that a Cuban aircraft has attacked
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: and shot down A charter civil airline. So what's a
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: charter civil airline? That's like Delta Southwest, something like that.
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: A commercial passenger plane. They were going to do that?
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: They were actually going to shoot down a plane?
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: No. Well, they were going to fake it. They were
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: not actually going to kill the people.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: Got it. Okay, so that's when the crisis actors thing
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: comes in. I know you hate that term, but this
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: does apply because this is literally folks that are posing
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: as victims. Who would write? Like even they're talking about
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: shooting people in the streets. Were they really going to
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: shoot people in the streets or was it going to
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: be people like pretending to be shot in the streets
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: and then they were going to have fake funerals?
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: That's the tough part because at this time too, we
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: have to remember social media doesn't exist. So you could,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: if you had people playing ball with you in the broadcast, radio, television,
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: and the media of the time, the printed papers, then
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: you could just, you could just make up some names.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: You could be like, well, It turns out that Casey,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: real name Pegram from any town, Illinois, was tragically a victim.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: He leaves behind two children, a schnauzer, and a collection
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: of vintage records.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and also tiny spoons.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: He's also a spoonist, yeah.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and thimbles.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: So what our point is here is that there's no
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: way for Pegram the average newspaper reader or the average
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: TV radio listener to go through and do due diligence
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: to me a couple of times.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: I said, do, do stuff. Yeah, that's funny too. My
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: 12 year old self applauds you.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm emotionally nine, so I'm glad I'm impressing an
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: older person. So, so this, this thing though, we're, we're
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: being a bit glib, but this is, this is evil.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: This is actually an evil thing to do because.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: Why would they declassify this ever? Right? We've had this
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: conversation on the other show, and so they want you
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: to know about, like, what leads to things being declassified.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: Is it literally just a clock time thing where enough
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: time has passed that this stuff doesn't matter anymore? We
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: want to give the public a little bit of juicy stuff? Or,
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: I don't know, is it just literally a storage thing,
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: or we need to move some documents out of the
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: secret vaults into this other vault so we can, you know,
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: make more room for more classified stuff? Right.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: Mistakes were made, huh?
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: So.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: All details of this plan of Operation Northwoods were hidden
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: for almost 50 years, more like 40 years, but for
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: decades and decades were hidden. And that general that we
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, Lemnitzer, he probably thought that this very dark
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: brainstorming exercise was over and done with, that all copies
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: of the paperwork, all copies of this memo were preserved.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: Destroyed.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: And he had an established practice of regularly destroying things
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: if they would compromise him or his associates later. However,
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: I do want to mention you can find this at
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: the NSA archives. It is online now. You can Google it. Noel,
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: you earlier read the name of the memo. We want
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: you to find it, read it for yourself. I will
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: say that it's written in very, to the point, simplistic language.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: They're not trying to cloak this in some sort of legalese.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: Oddly enough, we know exactly how the Operation Northwoods documents
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: came to light. At first, it turned out that not
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: everything was destroyed, obviously. A lot of it was so
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: much so that we don't know who knew what and when,
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: but these came into the public eye In 1992, that's
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: when they hit the mainstream, because of a film by
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: one Oliver Stone. Casey, can you guess which one it is?
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: JFK.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Nailed it. Nailed it. Yeah, because of the Oliver Stone
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: film JFK, which examined the idea of a conspiracy behind
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: the internet. assassination of President JFK, President Kennedy. This conspiratorial
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: film ultimately led to the discovery of Northwoods because Congress
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: passed a law due to overwhelming public outcry. They passed
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: a law to increase public access to government records. at
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: least as far as they're related to JFK. And this
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: is something that came out in the wash.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: Very interesting. Speaking of assassination attempts, talk about dodging bullets.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: Fidel Castro was certainly a very popular target for assassination attempts.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: Oh, he's the bell of the bloody ball.
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: That's right. Yeah. According to a gentleman who protected him
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: during his regime, He survived over 600 assassination attempts, everything
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: from snipers to some of the crazy methods the CIA
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: were plotting against him.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: Poisoned wetsuit.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: Poisoned wetsuit. Go on, Ben.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: Well, OK. So in 1975, the Senate Intelligence Committee said
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: it had concrete evidence of this plan to offer Fidel
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: Castro through proxy, of course, a wetsuit lined with spores
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: and bacteria that that would give him a skin disease.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: This apparently involved the guy who would be their point
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: man for this was a U.S. lawyer named James B. Donovan,
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: and he was going to give Castro the wetsuit when
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: he went to negotiate the release of prisoners from the
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: failed Bay of Pigs invasion. Eventually, they abandoned the plan
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: because the lawyer gave Castro a different diving suit And
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: they said, on his own initiative. But that's, yeah, just
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: like you said, there are so many weird ways that
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: the U.S. government planned to antagonize or kill Fidel Castro.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: If you want to check out a list of those,
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: you can go to Mental Flaw straight away for 10
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: ways the CIA tried to kill Castro by Stacey Conrad.
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: We mentioned exploding cigar earlier. That kind of makes me
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: think of the episode we did about the Nazis' attempts to,
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: or like plans, plots to kill Castro. Winston Churchill, and
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: that was with an exploding chocolate bar and also an
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: exploding cigar. Several cigar-based murder attempts here, including poisoning his cigar.
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: We even have one that involved an exploding conch shell,
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: ballpoint hypodermic syringe.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: You know, the closest one, the closest they ever got
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: by most sources was a poisoned milkshake in 1963. Castro
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: may well have died, but the waiter at the Havana
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: Hilton was trying to retrieve the pill that he was
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: supposed to stick in the milkshake, but it stuck to
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: the freezer. And then when he was trying to grab
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: it and rip it loose, the capsule itself tore apart. Shame. Well,
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, don't ruin a good milkshake.
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: So this is literally all just about eradicating communism, huh?
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: You know, I think it's more than that. It's easy
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: to say, yeah, they were targeting communism, but there are
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: a lot of economic incentives at play. There are a
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: lot of questions about regional hegemons. You know, you want
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: to control other nations on your border.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: They're close.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: They're too close for.
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: Comfort, right? And, you know, it's crazy too. My daughter
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: and her mom and stepdad, they briefly, there was this
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: window that opened up for tourists to be able to
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: visit Cuba. And they did that and had a lovely time.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: My daughter, it was a super amazing adventure for her.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: And then like very shortly after they got back, the
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: Trump administration closed that window. And it's all about kind
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: of putting pressure on them for trade and tariffs. And
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: there's like that embargo that's been going on for so long.
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: It's part of the reason that in Cuba, they don't
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: have any modern cars. It's all like older cars that
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: they've been able to work on because they've been kind
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: of in this trade bubble for so long, right? Yeah.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: And my buddy Scott and I have an excellent episode
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: on our show Car Stuff about the amazing ingenuity of
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: Cuban nationals when it comes to those vehicles. You can
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: see cars from the 50s and 60s that are maintained
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: in this, this amazing fashion. By the way, car stuff
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: is coming back and you can, you can hear more
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: about everything that floats, flies, swims, or drives very, very soon.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: So check it out. If you get a chance to
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: tell my buddy, Scott, you heard about it here. You
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: can say Ben sent me and Ben told me that
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: you would give me a free t-shirt. If I write
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: to you, it's true. It's true.
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: It's true.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: It's not a false flag. So Ben, That is the story.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: The good news is that Operation Northwoods never occurred. As
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: far as we know, there was no false flag that
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: actually took U.S. lives or Cuban lives and used those
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: deaths as a pretext to go to a hot war
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: with Cuba. However, we might never have found out about
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: this if it weren't for the public outcry of and
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: public interest following Oliver Stone's film, JFK. And this is
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: important for us to remember because it's often said that
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: history doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme. And yeah, maybe
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: that's a cliche, but here's a pro tip about cliches.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: They're usually called cliches because they're true. So now we
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: have to, not as members of individual countries or nations
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: or communities, but as a species, We must exercise critical
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: thinking when we hear about these sorts of attacks, these
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: sorts of things that could be Malcolm Gladwell-esque tipping points.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: One of the most recent that's occurred as we record
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: this is the rising tension in the Strait of Hormuz,
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: which is largely controlled by the Republic of Iran. And recently, again,
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: this is 2019, there have been alleged attacks on tankers.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: The U.S. says that Iran did it. Iran says they
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: didn't do it. And Iran has also made other claims
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: about its own tankers being taken. And there are some people,
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: policy wonks, journalists, et cetera, who are keeping an eye
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: on the situation and already claiming that a false flag
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: is afoot. This has not been proven yet. And the
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: weird thing about false flags is if Operation Northwoods is
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: in the indicator, we learn about them about 40 years
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: after they happen. But it makes for some fun podcast fodder.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: It's okay because no one actually died.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: So we hope that you will write to us and
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: tell us whether you have visited Cuba. A couple of
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: our close friends have. Our research pal, Ryan. Barish has
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: visited Cuba recently. He was there for quite a while.
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: I think he has dual citizenship, so he's able to go. Right,
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: because he has German citizenship.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: Yep, yep. And I do want to, before we end
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: today's episode, I want to get your opinion, Casey, on
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: the 1992 Oliver Stone film JFK. Did you watch it?
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: Did you like it? What's your take?
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: One?
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: Ten? I don't know.
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: I think it's great.
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: I think a lot of people have pointed out there's
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: a lot of conjecture and stuff that's probably been disproven
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: since that film came out. But just as a piece
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: of filmmaking itself and as something that kind of goes
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: to the wider skepticism, suspicion, whatever you want to call it,
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: lingering doubts in the American psyche about that whole event,
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: I think it's great.
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: Casey on the case. What do you think, Noel? Do
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: you remember that one?
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: I have not seen JFK.
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: That's Kevin Costner, I believe.
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: Kevin Costner. I did see Nixon. I remember liking it
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: just fine. I really liked Platoon.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: Platoon was always a.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: Favorite war movie of mine. But now in my older years,
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: I realize that Full Metal Jacket is the superior film.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: You're not in Apocalypse Now, man?
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: No, I think Full Metal Jacket is my favorite. Apocalypse
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: Now would be second. Platoon would be third.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: You know, I.
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: In terms of NOM movies.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: I think because I did a stage play of Apocalypse Now.
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: Wait, what? Like in Rushmore?
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: No. Kind of. Yeah, true story.
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: That's amazing.
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. It was definitely a thing that happened. I
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: think that's maybe that's why I love Apocalypse Now. I
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: even love the documentary about the making of Apocalypse Now.
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: I do too.
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: That's Hearts of Darkness.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: Great. I'm such a fanboy for that. Full Metal Jacket
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: is great. Don't get me wrong. Just for my money,
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: I love the brutal chaos.
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. And the madness of it too. It's a
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: very Shakespearean almost tragedy. You know, you're right, Ben. Maybe
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: if I held them side by side. I just have
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: a real fondness in my heart for Full Metal Jacket.
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: I haven't seen Apocalypse Now in some time. I think
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: if I watched it today, I might flip.
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: We get a chance to see a new version of
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: it soon because he's doing yet another director's cut.
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: I'm kind of tired of seeing different versions of that movie,
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: but I guess there's one more.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: It might be a diminishing return.
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: At some point.
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: Well, yeah, a lot of people have pointed out that
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: the extended cut, the redux cut, is kind of boring.
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: There's about 40 minutes in there where they're just at
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: that weird plantation. Yeah, the old French colonial. Rubber plantation, yeah.
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: Which is kind of just... Drags for a long time.
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: There's a weird sex scene in there that just, it
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: just occurs as it feels as if that, that scene,
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: and I know this is not your other show movie crush,
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: but that scene, that entire segment of the Redux film,
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: it seems like backstage, they, they just in production had
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: access to this place and they said, all right, let's just,
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: let's do some stuff. You know, let's do a dinner scene.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: They should talk about how they feel in very vague terms.
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: And then let's do a, you know, let's do a
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: sex scene because we still have the room. We still
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: have the location. And they were like, all right, we
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: got to get back.
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: To the story. Speaking of getting back to the story,
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: our story's over.
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: That's true.
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: And so is our episode. But if you want to
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: do any of the things we were talking about, write us,
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: let us know. Your favorite false flag attack, something you
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: think maybe was a false flag attack. Anything. Your favorite
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: part of Apocalypse Now. How did you feel about the redux?
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: Too long? Did it lag a little bit?
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: How did you feel about that weird sex scene? Let
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: us know. Write to us at ridiculous at iheartradio.com or
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: hit us up on our Facebook group, which is the
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: Ridiculous Historians.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: You can also find us individually on Instagram. See me
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: get kicked into and out of various places and countries.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: Spoiler alert, I've got a couple big trips coming up
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: in summer, so stay tuned to that. I am at
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: Ben Bolin.
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: You can find me at HowNowNoelBrown. It's mainly just me
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: getting kicked in the shins by small children.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know why they hate your shins so much.
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: It's a thing now.
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it really is.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: And as always, thank you to our super producer, Casey Pegram.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: Thank you to our research associates, Gabe Luzier and Ryan Barish.
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: Big thanks to Alex Williams, who composed our theme. Thanks
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: to Jonathan, the quizster Strickland for, you know, occupying that
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: space of pure evil that allows the universe to exist
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: in some weird form of harmony.
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: That's so nice that you give me a shout out
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: because you guys get kind of antagonistic.
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: A little bit.
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: And of course, thanks to Eve's Jeff coat, who will
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: be appearing on the show sometime soon. We hope as
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: well as Christopher Hossie Otis. Thank you for listening. And Noel,
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: thank you for taking this strange journey with me. May
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: we never be the victims of a false flag attack.
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: They should just be real flats.
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: Agreed. See you next time, folks. For more podcasts from
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.