Latest / Ridiculous History / Gods of Deception, Part I: Alger Hiss in the Halls of Power

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Gods of Deception, Part I: Alger Hiss in the Halls of Power · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. Let's give a big hand,
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  Speaker 1: so long as you're not driving to our man, the myth,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: the legend, the one and only super producer, Mr Max Williams.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: You can give it one hand if you're driving, that's okay,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: just for a second. Then go back to Tennant to
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Tennant to um. Yeah. Max is our own kind of
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: god of deception here. He's a real low key esque figure,
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: a real puckish fellow. And uh they called me Ben,
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: you're oal and no, you and I have been excited
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: about today's episode for quite some time. We love stories
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  Speaker 1: about espionage. We love learning these um often often like
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  Speaker 1: obscured in the modern day tales of what really happened
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: behind the scenes. Well, it's so interesting now, especially, I mean,
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: you know, we're living in a obviously a different time
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: than the early days of the Cold War, but we're
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: grappling with some very similar paranoia either around you know,
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: things like existential threats like climate change. Obviously now with
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: with Vladimir Putin really kind of puffing his chest out
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: and and pushing forward into Ukraine. You know, when that
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  Speaker 1: first happened, I think a lot of people are, well, well,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: if he's gonna do that, what's he gonna do next?
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  Speaker 1: And then what's what's he gonna do after that? And
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: then what are we you know, where do we fit
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: into this equation? So, you know, the Cold War was
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: a time where it was hard to trust people because
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: there was a lot of con learned that someone who
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: you might think was your neighbor could actually be, you know,
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  Speaker 1: a Red spy. And how how I proposed that you
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  Speaker 1: bring this up? No, because you and I have become
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  Speaker 1: fascinated recently by a novel called Gods of Deception. And
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: as you know, fellow ridiculous historians, we like to go
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  Speaker 1: to the source whenever we have questions, whenever we want
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  Speaker 1: to learn more. We had, in full disclosure, kicked around
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  Speaker 1: off the air a couple of ideas about episodes surrounding
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  Speaker 1: a gentleman named Algier Hiss, which will be familiar to
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  Speaker 1: some but maybe not all of our listeners today. And no,
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  Speaker 1: you and I had this moment where we looked at
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  Speaker 1: each other. We're talking about alger Hiss. We're talking, We're
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: talking about Hiss. We're talking about this book, and um,
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  Speaker 1: we were fortunate enough, lucky enough to join with the author,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: the historian, the creator of this and many other works,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: Mr David Adams, Cleveland. David, thank you so much for
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: joining us on the show today. Oh, Benn, it's my
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: pleasure now you have. I don't want to make I
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: don't want to make it awkward. You and I were
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: talking before we started rolling today and I said, I'm
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: going to try not to fanboy too much. But um,
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Noel and I are authors as well, and one thing
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: that has always impressed me is the pursuit of literary fiction.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Could you tell us a little bit about what inspired
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  Speaker 1: you to create Gods of Deception and then tell us
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  Speaker 1: a little bit about this story, because I hope I
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  Speaker 1: not the only person who was unaware of this before
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: encountering your work. No, No, you got me too. I
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: was unnoying. Well, Ben, No, let me set just say
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: that the Aldre his affair has been something that's been
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  Speaker 1: on my radar screen since I was a kid. I
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  Speaker 1: can remember years decades past, Bill Buckley having various guests
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: on firing Line and arguing about the about the innocence
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  Speaker 1: or guilt of Aldrew Hiss. It was a huge, huge
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  Speaker 1: issue in this country. The trial was nineteen fifty, but
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  Speaker 1: for fifty years afterwards it divided the country between those
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: who thought Aldre Hiss was an innocent paragon of the
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  Speaker 1: of the New Deal, the State Department, he was president
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: of the Carnegie Endowment, and half the country who thought
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  Speaker 1: he was a trader who had sat at the right
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  Speaker 1: hand of Roosevelt during the y'all to give away of
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  Speaker 1: Eastern Europe and a lot of other bad things. So
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  Speaker 1: this has been going on for quite a while and
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: in recent decades. In recent years a lot of new
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: information has come out. And the long and the short
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  Speaker 1: of it is that we now know that his was
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  Speaker 1: not only guilty, he was guilty of crimes that went
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  Speaker 1: far beyond what he was actually charged for in the trial,
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  Speaker 1: which was passing State Department documents in the late nineteen
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  Speaker 1: thirties to Whittwaker Chambers, who was his Soviet military intelligence contact. Right,
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  Speaker 1: So we now know that that was just that was
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  Speaker 1: just the ten percent of the iceberg of it was
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: below the surface. We know that his and his fellow
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  Speaker 1: spies in the Treasury Department and the State Department and
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  Speaker 1: the White House even there were five of them at
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  Speaker 1: least Stalin's willing agents working in the thirties and forties
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  Speaker 1: and early fifties to further the goals of the Soviet Union.
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  Speaker 1: So there were five hundred spies and a number that
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  Speaker 1: still boggles my mind. There were two hundred thousand members
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  Speaker 1: of the American Communist Party in the day, and uh,
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  Speaker 1: they provided the infrastructure, the underground, the background, the support
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  Speaker 1: system for the five hundred Soviet spies that were instrumental
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  Speaker 1: in the stealing of the Adam bomb secrets and a
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  Speaker 1: lot of other bad things that led to the Korean
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  Speaker 1: War and Pearl Harbor. So that's just a starter. And
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  Speaker 1: this is of course before the McCarthy hearings. I mean
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  Speaker 1: that was when you know, it became you were blacklisted
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  Speaker 1: if you were a member, you were one of those
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  Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of Americans that were a member of
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  Speaker 1: the Communist Party. So this is sort of like maybe
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  Speaker 1: one of the big trials that led to that kind
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  Speaker 1: of which hunt mentality or right, what's what do you
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  Speaker 1: feel like that fits in to this story. Well, there's
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  Speaker 1: no question that the conviction of Altre Hiss for spying
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  Speaker 1: was a wake up call to America. It also happened
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  Speaker 1: at the same time that the Soviets tested their first
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  Speaker 1: atomic bomb. It was also at the time that the
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  Speaker 1: Red Chinese Mouzi Tongue took over China. It was also
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  Speaker 1: right before the outbreak of the Korean War, So all
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  Speaker 1: of these played into UM the spy frenzy, the red
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  Speaker 1: baiting uh nineteen fifties. The truth of the matter is
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  Speaker 1: is that there were had been a lot of spies.
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  Speaker 1: There were five hundred of them that we now know.
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  Speaker 1: There were, in fact two hundred thousand Americans who have
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  Speaker 1: been part of the Communist Party. By the nineteen fifties,
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  Speaker 1: most most of those members had kind of slunk away
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  Speaker 1: and disappeared into the woodwork, and most of the spies
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  Speaker 1: had either been um had had been shown up and
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  Speaker 1: so had also disappeared, or had been the few that
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  Speaker 1: had been convicted. So by the nineteen fifties it was
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  Speaker 1: kind of a done deal. It was over. The damage
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  Speaker 1: had long been done, but they didn't know that. In
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  Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties there was still a feeling that the
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  Speaker 1: US was under threat. It wasn't as much under threat
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  Speaker 1: as it had been but it was still there, so
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  Speaker 1: it was a very ambiguous time. One thing that I
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  Speaker 1: think is fascinating about his his early life or his
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: you know, his trajectory, that is I think quite an
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  Speaker 1: informative here is that David he had as all the
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  Speaker 1: makings of the ideal asset for a foreign intelligence agency.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, this is a guy who was a clerk
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  Speaker 1: in the Supreme Court. He was a oh he was,
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  Speaker 1: of course, as you mentioned, involved a state department, later
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  Speaker 1: became a u N official. He was also, I believe
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  Speaker 1: a graduate of Harvard. Is that correct? And Johns Hopkins
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  Speaker 1: not mistaken not to mention a real smoke show, real,
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  Speaker 1: real good looking man. Yeah. The the the interesting thing
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  Speaker 1: is that Aldre Hiss and a lot of his uh
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  Speaker 1: underground colleagues, uh, we're all Harvard graduates. There were a
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  Speaker 1: lot of them. He wasn't just yes. And that's something
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  Speaker 1: I think that might surprise many people unfamiliar with the
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  Speaker 1: story because often in the public sphere, when people think
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: in terms of espionage and spycraft, uh, they think in
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  Speaker 1: terms of some kind of deep cover, very ordinary, possible
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  Speaker 1: mid level bureaucrat. They don't necessarily think of people who
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  Speaker 1: are at the wheels of the halls of power. Could
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  Speaker 1: you tell us a little bit about um hiss is
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  Speaker 1: evolution toward becoming a spy? As as you said, you know, Um,
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  Speaker 1: there was a lot of information that only came out
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  Speaker 1: after the fact. Is there a moment in this man's
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  Speaker 1: life or a frame of time where he encountered some
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  Speaker 1: sort of ideology or event that UM persuaded him turned him,
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  Speaker 1: that turned him. That's a great question. And Uh, the
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  Speaker 1: answer is is that nobody really knows for sure, because
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  Speaker 1: his is unique among the great major spies. If you
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  Speaker 1: look instance at the British Cambridge Five, the great spies,
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  Speaker 1: Kim Philby, Donald McLean, Anthony Blunt, John Cairncross, they all
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  Speaker 1: fled to the Soviet Union. Uh. They all spent their
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  Speaker 1: last days at their docas outside of Moscow. They admitted
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  Speaker 1: that they had been spies and they were under such
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  Speaker 1: pressure during the days of their spying. They were traders
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  Speaker 1: to the country, they were traders to their to their class.
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  Speaker 1: Uh that they were all alcoholics. They literally drank themselves
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  Speaker 1: into early graves. So we have a pretty good idea
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  Speaker 1: about when they became a Communists, mostly in their their
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  Speaker 1: days at Cambridge. Uh, and they were active Communists, uh
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  Speaker 1: and in in support of the Soviet Union from day one.
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  Speaker 1: We don't know that much about altre His. He managed
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  Speaker 1: to keep his affiliations under wraps. Only Whittaker Chambers, the
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  Speaker 1: guy who found him out and who was he was
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  Speaker 1: his spy handler, and who was was in the trial
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  Speaker 1: against aldre His. He was the only person who really
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  Speaker 1: knew algre His when he was reading up on Lenin
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  Speaker 1: and in Marxist studied groups and that kind of things.
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  Speaker 1: So we know that that went on, but we don't
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  Speaker 1: know from algre His or any of his um contemporary
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  Speaker 1: spies or agent or Communist party members exactly how that
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  Speaker 1: evolution took place. But it was quite clear that for
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  Speaker 1: his to get where he got in the highest reaches
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  Speaker 1: of the State Department, he couldn't show any of that.
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  Speaker 1: If he was caught reading the New Masses magazine or
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  Speaker 1: the Communist Manifesto or the works of Lenin, that would
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  Speaker 1: have come up in his security errands. So he was
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  Speaker 1: obviously very careful um not to display anything like that
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  Speaker 1: that would have brought issues in terms of his security clearance.
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  Speaker 1: But the amazing thing is is that Alger Hiss maintained
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  Speaker 1: his innocence literally to his dying day. He went to
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  Speaker 1: jail for four years, he came out, and again he
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  Speaker 1: tried to undo his conviction, and uh tried it again
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  Speaker 1: and again to appeal his conviction. Was unable to do so. Um,
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  Speaker 1: but to his dying day, with the greatest equanimity, maintained
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  Speaker 1: his total innocence. And that was a conviction for perjury,
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  Speaker 1: which is obviously a big deal, but it's not the
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  Speaker 1: same as treason. Well, the conviction was for perjury about
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  Speaker 1: lying about passing top secret State Department papers to Whittaker Chambers,
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  Speaker 1: so it amounted to uh to espionage and a traitorous
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  Speaker 1: active it even though the they got him on the
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  Speaker 1: technical issue of perjuring. Yes, I see, I've always wondered,
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  Speaker 1: you know, you talked about these two hundred thousand Americans
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  Speaker 1: that you know, identified as members of the Communist Party
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  Speaker 1: at that time. That doesn't necessarily mean, you know, complete
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  Speaker 1: affiliation with the Soviet Union, or that they were spies,
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  Speaker 1: or that they were in some way trying to bring
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  Speaker 1: down the government of the United States. I mean, isn't
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  Speaker 1: there some of those that just thought it was an
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  Speaker 1: interesting philosophy and and found, you know, things in it
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  Speaker 1: they were functional that maybe they wanted to read about
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  Speaker 1: and that they were inspired by. It's a little bit
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  Speaker 1: hard to say, because, uh, most of the members of
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  Speaker 1: the American Communist Party UH just stated into the woodwork
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  Speaker 1: and UH didn't admit anything about their past, and most
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  Speaker 1: would say that, uh, they were idealists. And in fact,
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  Speaker 1: the American Communist Party, it has to be said, was
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  Speaker 1: in the forefront of trying to get civil rights reform
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  Speaker 1: early in the UH. In the in the thirties and forties,
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  Speaker 1: they were really in the forefront for calling for Voting
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  Speaker 1: Rights Act and the desegregation all of that good stuff.
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  Speaker 1: So there were a lot of good things that they
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  Speaker 1: believed in. But in fact, the Communist Party was in
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  Speaker 1: itself a secret organization dedicated to the overthrow of the
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  Speaker 1: American government. It was not a democratic party. They believed
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  Speaker 1: in revolution. They believed in overthrowing the US government by
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: one way or another. So even though a lot of
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  Speaker 1: the fellow travelers Communist Party members believed in good things
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  Speaker 1: and wanted good things for the country, they nevertheless provided
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  Speaker 1: the underground, uh, infrastructure financing and what have you for
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  Speaker 1: the for the American spies. So they were you know,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: they had they had their side to them. That was
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: pretty anodyne. But on the other hand, uh, they also
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  Speaker 1: provided the underground for almost all the Soviet spies, and
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: almost all the Soviet spies came out of the American
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  Speaker 1: Communist Party. Is fellow travelers a thing like I've not
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: heard that term used in this context before. Yeah, fellow travelers,
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  Speaker 1: uh is uh sort of those little bit betwixt and
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  Speaker 1: between who are not quite members of the party. Um.
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  Speaker 1: But on the other hand, we're cow towing to most
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: of the party discipline and the party's line, uh in
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: terms of their attitudes towards the Soviet Union and uh,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: the communist movement around the world. So, I mean one
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  Speaker 1: of alger Hisses spy compatriots was Harry Dexter White, who
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  Speaker 1: worked in the Treasury Department. Now Harry Dexter White, among
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  Speaker 1: other things, and wittered your chambers knew this very well,
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  Speaker 1: was never actually a member of the American Communist Party.
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  Speaker 1: And if you're a member of the American Communist Party,
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  Speaker 1: you are under the discipline of the party, which basically
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: means you're under the discipline of Moscow Central and the
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: Soviet Union in Stalin and his his his band of brothers. Right,
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  Speaker 1: So Harry Dexter White was not under the discipline of
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: the Communist Party, but he did. He did some of
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: the more damage in some ways than even an alger
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: his Just as a brief example, Harry Dexter White was
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: called into a meeting by his Soviet handler. This was
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: in the summer of nine. Victor Pavlov was his name,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: was the Soviet handler in Washington, d c. And he
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  Speaker 1: asked Harry Dexter White to have a meeting with him
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  Speaker 1: at Old Abbott's Grill across the from the Treasury Department
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  Speaker 1: in Washington. And Pavlov says, I'll be carrying a copy
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: of the New Yorker. That's how you will recognize me.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: They never met in person. They had lunch together at
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: Old Eppit's grill, and Pavlov same Pavlov like the dog
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: you can remember that, pushed a piece of paper across
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: the table to Harry Dexter White and said, I want
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: you to memorize what's on this piece of paper. And
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: Harry Dexter White picked it up and looked at it
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: and read it, nodded, noted, nodded and was about to
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: put it in his coat pockets, and Pabble says, dog,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: give it back to me, and he handed it back
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: to Pavlov, and Pavlov said, do you remember everything that's
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: on that piece of paper? And Harry Dexter White said,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: I do, I remember, and I will follow the orders explicitly. Well.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: What was in that piece of paper was known as
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: Operation White, as in Snow White. This was a plan
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: can acted by intelligence agencies of the Soviet Union to
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: get Harry Dexter White to influence the pot American policy
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: towards Japan at this very precarious moment before Pearl Harbor,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: when the Japanese had been fighting the Soviet Union for
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: years along the Soviet borders with Mongolia and Manchuria. They
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: had had flare ups there and thousands of soldiers had
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: been killed. It was a big deal. It was it was.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: It was a war by by any shape or form.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: And so the orders that Harry Dexter Watt got was
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: to put pressure on the Japanese. He was the top guy,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: one of the highest officials in the Treasury Department. Put
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: pressure on the more sanctions on oil, steel, war materials,
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: rubber of all kinds. Ratchet up the pressure, ratchet up
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: the pressure. And the idea was that at the US
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: ratcheted up the pressure enough, the Japanese, instead of going
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: west into Siberia north into Siberia, would go east into
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: the Pacific and would attack the US and go south
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: into Indonesia where the oil was. And uh, Harry Dexter
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: White pushed this policy for many, many months with his
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: colleagues in the State Department and Treasury. And what happened.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: They ratcheted up the pressure on the Japanese precisely at
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: the time that the U. S. Navy brass was telling
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Roosevelt was telling the State Department, do not put pressure
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: on japan. We are not in a position to fight
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: a war in the Pacific, much less the Two Front War,
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: which we expect to be fighting against Germany any day. Now. Nevertheless,
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: Harry Dexter White pushed this policy. We upped the anti
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: where the Japanese pushed them, and they made the decision
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: to fight and go south to Pearl Harbor and the Pacific.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: So there is a specific example of a Soviet spy
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: influencing American policy that literally brought about Pearl harbor. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: and this is this is something that I am. I
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: am so glad we're discussing today, because the geopolitical circumstances
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: of Japan building up to that great conflict were I think,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: for for the people in the know, the writing was
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: on the wall. Japan was it was known, it wasn't
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: a secret. Japan was resource poor in several key areas,
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: and they would go inevitably. One could argue in one
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: direction or another. And the way that you are describing
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: this um, this influence, this finger on the scale right
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: of this fellow traveler. I believe it's a story that
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: needs to be told more often, and I'd like to
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: I'd like to return David to something that you mentioned
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: that I think is going to catch a lot of
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: our fellow ridiculous historians a bit flat footed here. So Aldre,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: his four doesn't pass away until, as we always say,
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: history is closer than um. Many people would like to think, right,
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: perhaps Faulkner is right when he says the past isn't
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: even past. But the thing that I really was drawn
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: to is that the story doesn't end when his goes
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: to prison, he gets out of prison, and then people
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: involved in the litigation. Right, people involved in the in
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: the legal proceedings, by one way or another, seemed to
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: meet with some abrupt ends. Could you tell us a
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: little bit about Aldre his post conviction, you know, or
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: post incarceration, excuse me, when he when he gets out,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: when he serves his time and let's see, he's released
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: in n Is that correct? That's correct? Yes, So he
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: is released, he's disbarred. He goes on to write his
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: own book, I believe, which is about like you said,
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: he maintains his innocence. But what was what was the
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: fallout of this great discovery? You know, at this point,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: Uncle Sam has no choice but to acknowledge, Yes, there
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: is espionage occurring at the highest levels. Were there changes
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: in US policy regarding this um? Were there further consequences
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: for his what happened to some of the people? And
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking also specifically of the example of Lawrence Dugan.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: If I'm pronouncing that correctly, who has a well, I
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: I don't want to I don't want to poison the
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: weld too much here, David, But I believe he falls
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: from a window under questionable circumstances. That's absolutely right, And
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: this is actually one of the things that my reading
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: of the history and doing my research for the book,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: that I was profoundly amazed at. Uh. It was something
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: that was spoken of at the time, but not too
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: many people paid a lot of attention to it. But
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: the fact is that a lot of the people around
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: the his trial, potential witnesses disappeared in and unhappy ways.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: For instance, you mentioned Lawrence Duggin. Lawrence Duggin was in
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: the State Department with his He was actually before his
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: he was the golden boy of Soviet intelligence. Uh. They
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: had a lot of money writing on Lawrence Duggan. They
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: thought that he would prove to be the hiss Um
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: in the State Department. But Lawrence Duggin got cold feet
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: after a while. He was a very nervous character. But anyway,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: Lawrence Duggin would have been called as a witness to
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: the Aldre His trial, who had obviously known Aldre hiss
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: and had obviously known Aldre His as a communist and
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: as a and as a spy. But Lawrence Duggan never
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: made it. He somehow fell out the sixteen story window
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: on Street in New York and fell to his death. Uh.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: They found him in a snow bank, very near death.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: On his last breath, a Catholic priest came along and
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: gave him the last rites. He had one gum shoe
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: on and one gum shoe off. Very strange thing. Uh.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: And at the time it was remarked upon people couldn't
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: understand what had happened. His wife Um said it wasn't suicide,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: that he was fine, that he was that he was
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: in good shape. Um. But it was a strange death.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: But it was also a death by falling, which was
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: a specialty of the KGB. They knew their way around this.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: And there was yet another witness in the algae his
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: trial by the name of Marvin Smith, who was a
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: lawyer in the Justice Department and he somehow fell six
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: stories to his death on an inner stairwell in the
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: Justice department. He was the man who had signed the
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: transfer document on his his Ford roadster which he wanted
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: to contribute to the Communist Party. And uh he needed
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: to get a legal document signed, and Marvin Smith was
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: a friend of Algree his going way back, had been
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: the witness to that signing of that document. That document
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: would have fairly conclusively proved that his was a member
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: of the Communist Party if not a if not a
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: spy and Marvin Smith uh fell to his death. Harry
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: Dexter why who we just talked about, died mysteriously of
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: a sudden heart attack at his home in New Hampshire,
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: just days after testifying about Kiss, denied knowing if his
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: was a Communist Party member, denied being a spy himself. Um.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: He died suddenly of an overdose of digitalis um at
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: his home in New Hampshire. And talk about straight aine
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: deaths Algre hissed when he was in jail just before
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: he got out, was in jail with another Soviet spy
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: who had been convicted of spying. William Remington was murdered
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: in Lewis Bird Penitentiary. Uh when when Hiss was in
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: there and he was bluntoned to death by a couple
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: of inmates uh and nobody had any motive for doing it. Uh.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: It was assumed that they were after something in his cell,
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: maybe to grab cigarettes or money, but it made no sense.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: Most likely William Remington's had been killed by by the KGB,
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: or these guys have been hired by the KGB to
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: murder him as a warning to Aldre Hiss that if
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: when he got out from prison just two weeks later,
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: that he better keep his head down and keep quiet,
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: because what happened to William Remington's what's gonna happen to Hiss.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: So Hiss was under no doubt that he better keep
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: his mouth shut one way or the other, and he
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: maintained his silence throughout the fifties and sixties right up
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: to his death. Hold the phone, hold the phone? It again,
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: someone need to hold something. I don't know should I
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: hold the phone? Guys? Where that expression comes from? But
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: I like it. I use it like like I guess
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: the day of landline phones. Nobody has ever really told
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: me to literally hold the phone. But what we mean,
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: I think it means putting someone on hold. But the guys,
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: then there's the real question is where did the phrase
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: being on hold come from? Like where did that expression
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: come from? Like like the holder, I don't know they're
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: asking that, you're asking the big questions. We don't have
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: time to dig into that right now because it's been
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: too much time. We actually have to have to end
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: this episode. But we thought it was going to be
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: like kind of a single topic discussion about a book
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: ended up going so many other places with a very
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: fascinating David Adams Cleveland. Um, so we're gonna take a
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: pause for this episode and then we're gonna come back
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: with a whole another episode with David that goes into
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: everything from art history to geo state of geopolitics, and honestly,
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: I was just kind of blown away by the guys
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: off the dome, uh fact dropping. And this is uh,
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: you know, long time listeners of ridiculous history or stuff.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: They will want you know, you know that that next
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: conversation is oo, mommy for me. Uh. We are not
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: blowing smoke. Uh. We are big fans of the book
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: and David Cleveland's work. We can't wait for you to
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: check it out. So stay tuned for later this week
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: on Thursday, when we'll come with part two of our
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: conversation with David Adams Cleveland on Gods of Deception and
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: much much more. Thinks as always to Mr Max Williams,
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: Thanks to Alex Williams, Thanks to Christopher Hasiotis, Jonathan Strickland
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: ak the Quister, Thanks to um listen, let's thank let's
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: thank everybody well. Thanks to Beetle Juice. I loved that
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: film the star or the or the fictional character both.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: You know what, It's Friday. Thanks to the Cosmos for
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: make thanks for thanks for making it Friday. The Cosmos
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: Matt Frederick of course, because you know he is the
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: best among us. He is the best among us and
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: also the star of our Max with the Facts audio bumper,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: So thanks for that. Thanks to you, ridicul story are
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: the best. We love you very much with all of
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: our little shriveled hearts. Speaking for myself anyway, well, you
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: know it's it's time for the end of the episode.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: Can you do the line? We'll see you nextbooks. For
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: favorite shows.