Latest / DISGRACELAND / Bob Dylan (Pt.2): BREAKING–New JFK Files Link Dylan to Richard Nixon’s Watergate Scandal

Transcript

Bob Dylan (Pt.2): BREAKING–New JFK Files Link Dylan to Richard Nixon’s Watergate Scandal · DISGRACELAND

0:00
Speaker 1: These and opinions expressing this podcast are satirical and slowly
0:03
Speaker 1: those are the podcast author or and visualists participating in
0:05
Speaker 1: the podcast. Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. This
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Speaker 1: is the story about one of the greatest singer songwriters
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Speaker 1: of all time, a protest singer, A protest singer who
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Speaker 1: paradoxically tried to remain a political until the President threatened
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Speaker 1: his friend, a threat that dragged this singer songwriter into
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Speaker 1: one of the crimes of the century, and because of
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Speaker 1: recently disclosed secret government files, this singer's involvement in this
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Speaker 1: crime may prove one of the wildest conspiracy theories of
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Speaker 1: all time to be true. This singer, in this songwriter
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Speaker 1: is none other than Bob Dylan, a man who made
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Speaker 1: and continues to make great music, undoubtedly some of the
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Speaker 1: greatest music of all time. Unlike that music I played
1:03
Speaker 1: for you at the top of the show. That wasn't
1:05
Speaker 1: great music. That was a preset loop from my melotron
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Speaker 1: called not So Tricky Dick MK one. I played you
1:14
Speaker 1: that loop because I can't afford the rights to feel
1:17
Speaker 1: like Make in Love by ROBERTA. Flack. And why would
1:21
Speaker 1: I play you that specific slice of George Benson. Did
1:24
Speaker 1: it better? Geez? Could I afford it? Because that was
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Speaker 1: the number one song in America on August eighth, nineteen
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Speaker 1: seventy four, and that was the day President Richard Nixon
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Speaker 1: resigned from office, an event that led to one of
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Speaker 1: the craziest stories in rock and roll history that most
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Speaker 1: have yet to hear. On this episode, an assassination, a
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Speaker 1: presidential threat, a prostitution ring, secret JFK files, the Watergate burgery,
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Speaker 1: and as he's referred to in the FBI documents, Bobby Dylan.
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Speaker 1: I'm Jake Brennan, and this is disgraceland. When I was
2:29
Speaker 1: a young man, I worked for Carl Bernstein at a
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Speaker 1: dot com boom era internet company called voter dot Com.
2:35
Speaker 1: I was one of the first employees hired number fourteen.
2:39
Speaker 1: I was twenty four years old, and I was going
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Speaker 1: to make a bundle during the early days of the internet. Spoiler.
2:44
Speaker 1: I did not make a bundle, but I did work
2:47
Speaker 1: with Carl Bernstein. And Carl wasn't my direct boss, but
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Speaker 1: he was brought in to be the major DOMO, and
2:52
Speaker 1: on some level everyone worked for Carl. Carl was a legend.
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Speaker 1: Carl was part of the Woodward in Bernstein journalism duo
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Speaker 1: at the Washington Post that broke the Watergate scandal and
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Speaker 1: was responsible for taking down a sitting President Richard Nixon.
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Speaker 1: Carl co wrote All the President's Men with Bob Woodward.
3:10
Speaker 1: Dustin Hoffman portrayed Carl in the movie of the same name.
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Speaker 1: Carl was super famous. He still is. He turned on
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Speaker 1: CNN on any election night and you're likely to see
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Speaker 1: Carl doing his talking head thing. Carl Bernstein is a
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Speaker 1: journalism giant, and Carl Bernstein is also an idiot, or
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Speaker 1: at least he was regarding anything connected to the Internet.
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Speaker 1: My job was literally to make sure that Carl never
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Speaker 1: got his way on anything. My direct boss, who was
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Speaker 1: the chief product officer, instructed me to work closely with
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Speaker 1: Carl and not let any of his dumb ideas get
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Speaker 1: implemented into the product. And when it came to Carl's
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Speaker 1: story past, it was rumored that he basically sharpened Bob
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Speaker 1: Woodward's pencils while Woodward did all the investigative journalism that
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Speaker 1: sank Nixon. Less known is that Bob Woodward, before winding
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Speaker 1: up as a junior writer at the Post, was a
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Speaker 1: naval intelligence officer, and it was Woodward, not Carl Bernstein,
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Speaker 1: who had the relationship with the infamous deep throat source,
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Speaker 1: who it was later revealed, was the high ranking FBI agent.
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Speaker 1: Mark felt. The rumor around our office, which was staffed
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Speaker 1: with a mix of DC operatives and prep school kids,
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Speaker 1: some of whose parents worked in high levels of government,
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Speaker 1: was that Carl was not only an intellectual lightweight, again
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Speaker 1: a trait I saw up close and personal, but that
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Speaker 1: Woodward wasn't what he said he was. Now, how did
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Speaker 1: an ex Navy intelligence officer just show up at the
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Speaker 1: Washington Post and then basically overnight be given one of
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Speaker 1: the most important stories of the century with his new
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Speaker 1: burnout buddy, Carl Bernstein, who was fresh off covering the
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Speaker 1: band for Rolling Stone Magazine. One of my best friend's
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Speaker 1: dad was a senior reporter at the Post during the
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Speaker 1: Watergate era, and I asked him this question and he
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Speaker 1: had no idea. But if you fall all the whispers
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Speaker 1: into the dark corners of Washington elite cocktail parties, eventually
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Speaker 1: you'll be confronted with a whopper of a conspiracy theory.
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Speaker 1: And it is this President Richard Nixon did not let
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Speaker 1: his paranoia bungle him into a series of crimes known
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Speaker 1: as the Watergate scandal that led to his resignation. Instead,
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Speaker 1: Richard Nixon was set up by those closest to him,
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Speaker 1: permanent Washington types intelligence officers FBI and XCIA handlers, whom
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Speaker 1: Nixon had incorporated into his circle to help him fend
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Speaker 1: off the radicals and the hippies. These men, all the
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Speaker 1: President's men, had themselves sabotaged the president. That's one theory. Anyway.
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Speaker 1: The idea that Bob Woodward and the dopey Carl Bernstein
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Speaker 1: did not actually bring down a sitting president is further
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Speaker 1: supported by the fact that Vice President Gerald Ford was
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Speaker 1: the man who directly benefited from Richard Nixon's downfall by
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Speaker 1: sending to the most powerful position in the land after
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Speaker 1: Nixon resigned, because gerald Ford served on the Warren Commission,
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Speaker 1: the investigative body responsible for getting to the bottom of
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Speaker 1: John F. Kennedy's assassination. This was the same investigative body
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Speaker 1: that ruled that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone after gerald
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Speaker 1: Ford and his Warren Commission declined to interview Jack Ruby,
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Speaker 1: Oswald's assassin. This is highly suspicious, as they say, but
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Speaker 1: no Woodward and Bernstein disposed of the most powerful man
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Speaker 1: on the planet largely on their own, using nothing but
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Speaker 1: good old fashioned gumshoe journalism. Well, for the past fifty years,
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Speaker 1: there's been a lot of people in Washington who secretly
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Speaker 1: never believed this story. They believed instead that Nixon was
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Speaker 1: the victim of a coupdeta from inside his own government,
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Speaker 1: because Nixon knew who killed Kennedy, and as such, Nixon
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Speaker 1: could not be trusted with that information. How did they
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Speaker 1: know Nixon knew because of this quote from the President
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Speaker 1: to CIA Director Richard Helms in the Oval Office on
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Speaker 1: October eighth, nineteen seventy one, at which time the President
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Speaker 1: instructed the CIA director to turn over all the quote
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Speaker 1: unquote dirty trick information that the CIA had regarding all
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Speaker 1: the nasty shit they've been up to for the past
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Speaker 1: few decades. Nixon requested this info under the guise of
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Speaker 1: protecting the CIA, but historians don't dispute that this was
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Speaker 1: a raw power grab meant to insulate the president with information.
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Speaker 1: On this phone call, Nixon tells Helms he wants info
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Speaker 1: on the Bay of Pigs. He wants info on the
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Speaker 1: CIA trying to whack Castro on Iran on Guatemala and
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Speaker 1: on quote unquote who shot John? Don't believe me? Here's
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Speaker 1: the tape off show, and client dark Shop had a lion.
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Speaker 1: What others have believed for some time was that this
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Speaker 1: was Nixon telling the CIA he knew the agency's darkest secret.
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Speaker 1: He knew the CIA killed Kennedy, and he wanted whatever
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Speaker 1: info they had, and he wasn't going to take no
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Speaker 1: for an answer. Of course, the CIA was petrified of
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Speaker 1: Nixon releasing this information, and before these past few weeks,
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Speaker 1: we had no actual proof that this theory was true.
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Speaker 1: But now we do because of what we just learned
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Speaker 1: about Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan sat in the back seat
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Speaker 1: of the limousine on one side, Bill Graham, the legendary
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Speaker 1: concert promoter, and Bob's friend, sat on the other. Between them,
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Speaker 1: a dapper aristocrat much older than the two men, sat
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Speaker 1: with his intertwined hands resting peacefully on his crossed legs.
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Speaker 1: Dylan was reading The New York Times. Specifically, he was
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Speaker 1: reading an article about former President Richard Nixon's criticism of
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Speaker 1: Dylan's friend, the new President, Jimmy Carter. It was nineteen
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Speaker 1: seventy nine, an election year. And America was tense. Dylan
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Speaker 1: loathed politics, but any news of Nixon intrigued him. Nixon
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Speaker 1: went mad in the pursuit of power, and abuse of
9:34
Speaker 1: power scared Bob Dylan. He saw it up close and
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Speaker 1: in person his whole life, especially after he made it
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Speaker 1: big and was invited into the company of power. The
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Speaker 1: aristocrats seated next to Dylan nodded at the article Bob
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Speaker 1: was reading and said, in his Transatlantic accent, my people
9:51
Speaker 1: don't believe that the peanut farmer will be able to
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Speaker 1: defeat the actor. Dylan ignored him. Penut farmer. Jimmy Carter
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Speaker 1: was so much more than a peanut farmer, and he
10:01
Speaker 1: was more than a politician as well. He was, as
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Speaker 1: Dylan would later say, quote, the kind of man you
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Speaker 1: don't meet every day, and you're lucky to meet if
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Speaker 1: you ever do. He was a simple kind of man,
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Speaker 1: like in the Leonard skynerd song unquote. Unlike the actor
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Speaker 1: Reagan and Ford and Nixon before him, Jimmie wasn't concerned
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Speaker 1: with power, and that was all right by Dylan, even
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Speaker 1: if the well healed friend of Bill Graham sitting next
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Speaker 1: to him couldn't see it. It had been years since
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Speaker 1: Dylan last danced with politics, and he was loth to
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Speaker 1: ever do it again, despite his friendship with Carter and
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Speaker 1: the pressure being put on him by the Democratic Party
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Speaker 1: to publicly endorse his friend. The limousine pulled to the
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Speaker 1: side of the road and the driver popped the door open,
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Speaker 1: and the Aristocrats said his goodbyes, climbed out and was gone.
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Speaker 1: Dylan asked Bill Graham why his friend didn't just ride
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Speaker 1: all the way back to the hotel with him. He was,
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Speaker 1: after all, staying in the suite next to Bob's My friend,
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Speaker 1: Bill Graham wanted to know. I thought he was your friend,
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Speaker 1: Dylan snapped to attention, what do you mean, my friend
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Speaker 1: he's with you. We've been hanging out with them all week,
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Speaker 1: and you're telling me you don't know this guy. Graham
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Speaker 1: gave Dylan a baffled look. Dylan couldn't believe it. For
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Speaker 1: the past week, during his entire stay in San Francisco,
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Speaker 1: every night he and his friend Bill Graham had been
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Speaker 1: dining out before the gigs with this man, each believing
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Speaker 1: that he was the other's friend, when in reality, neither
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Speaker 1: knew the man prior or knew where he came from.
11:30
Speaker 1: In truth, this man was part of the fifty five Families.
11:34
Speaker 1: Don't google them. You won't find them anywhere, but in
11:37
Speaker 1: the book The Political World of Bob Dylan by Jeff
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Speaker 1: Taylor and Chad Israelson, which is where this story comes from.
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Speaker 1: The aristocrat later informed Dylan's assistant that he was a
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Speaker 1: representative of an organization known as the Fifty five Families,
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Speaker 1: an organization that controlled the country above and beyond the
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Speaker 1: power of the government and the people who were supposedly
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Speaker 1: empowered as a democracy. This organization is still largely secret.
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Speaker 1: They don't want to be known, and they've been running
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Speaker 1: this country for the better part of a century out
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Speaker 1: of their unofficial power center on Jupiter Island in Florida,
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Speaker 1: near where I live. I heard the local lore about
12:12
Speaker 1: the fifty five Families when I moved here, but I
12:14
Speaker 1: never believed it until this story came to my attention,
12:18
Speaker 1: and there it was, the fifty five Families in print
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Speaker 1: in a book about Bob Dylan. Days after this incident,
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Speaker 1: when Dylan's assistant informed him of the aristocrat's identity and
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Speaker 1: why he had infiltrated Dylan's inner circle to gather information
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Speaker 1: on the rock Star and report back to his employers
12:36
Speaker 1: on Dylan's activities and on Dylan's intentions, especially those that
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Speaker 1: were political. When Dylan heard this, he had one thought,
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Speaker 1: Oh no, not again. Was Bob Dylan drunk? It was
13:14
Speaker 1: hard to say. He'd been seen back in the kitchen
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Speaker 1: earlier in the evening with his friend. Now what they're
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Speaker 1: up to was anybody's guess. Dylan's friend, a broad shouldered,
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Speaker 1: clean cut, indoor sunglasses tight, was the kind of guy
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Speaker 1: who never seemed drunk even when he was whatever Dylan was,
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Speaker 1: he wasn't serious. These other people, rich people, rich people
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Speaker 1: with opinions, opinions about the world that seemed to be
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Speaker 1: so far removed from the world Dylan traveled in. They
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Speaker 1: all made Dylan nervous, and so did this kind of event.
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Speaker 1: And what the hell was this anyway? Were they giving
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Speaker 1: each other awards awards for what? For being good people?
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Speaker 1: That seemed odd? Who awards themselves for being virtuous? These
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Speaker 1: people had all the money in the world. Why not
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Speaker 1: just give some of that money away to help solve
14:05
Speaker 1: the problems These people were protesting against poverty, racism. It
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Speaker 1: was all a power game, and these people were part
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Speaker 1: of the problem. No matter how they tried to dress
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Speaker 1: themselves up as the Answer, their black ties and fancy gowns,
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Speaker 1: their cuff links and their brand new leopard skin pillbox hats.
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Speaker 1: None of it mattered. All this was for show to
14:26
Speaker 1: remind people like him where he came from, which is
14:30
Speaker 1: not something Bob Dylan wanted to be reminded of. He
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Speaker 1: came from nowhere. He was an outlaw. He wasn't like them,
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Speaker 1: the powerful. How the fuck did he wind up here?
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Speaker 1: Back near the kitchen with the wait staff among the
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Speaker 1: pre dinner bustle. In the hallway off of the ballroom
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Speaker 1: where this tony event was being held, Bob Dylan leaned
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Speaker 1: against the wall, making himself even skinnier than he already was.
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Speaker 1: As the busboys and servers squeezed by. He turned to
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Speaker 1: his friend, the one with the sunglasses, the one they
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Speaker 1: called the Answer, the one he called Andy Grossman, coming
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Speaker 1: into this I just as soon split. Andy looked down
15:09
Speaker 1: into his rocks glass and replied, can't split. They've given
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Speaker 1: you an award. James Baldwin was sitting next to you
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Speaker 1: up on the dais. For Christ's sakes, Dylan ignored him.
15:20
Speaker 1: From out in the ballroom, they heard the sound of
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Speaker 1: cutlery on crystal, signaling some sort of blue blood cattle call.
15:28
Speaker 1: Dylan shrugged, nodded to Andy, and headed past them through
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Speaker 1: the kitchen and into the ballroom to the Emergency Civil
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Speaker 1: Liberties Committee, the eclc's annual Bill of Rights dinner. It
15:40
Speaker 1: was a who's who of bold faced names from nineteen
15:43
Speaker 1: sixty three progressive politics that filled this room on December thirteenth,
15:47
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty three, just three weeks after President Kennedy had
15:51
Speaker 1: been shot and killed supposedly by Lee Harvey Oswald, and
15:56
Speaker 1: they were about to give Bob Dylan their prestigious Thomas
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Speaker 1: Payne Award. Bob Dylan had burst onto the scene just
16:03
Speaker 1: two years prior after murdering Robert Zimmerman and skipping out
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Speaker 1: of his hometown of Hiving, Minnesota. Like any good outlaw,
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Speaker 1: Bob Dylan knew that you don't look back. And also,
16:14
Speaker 1: like any self respecting outlaw, all Dylan wanted was to
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Speaker 1: be free. Andy the Answer knew that, and Dylan knew
16:23
Speaker 1: Andy knew as soon as he met him. Once Dylan
16:25
Speaker 1: arrived in New Yorktown, he made a pilgrimage to Woody
16:28
Speaker 1: Guthrie's deathbed over in Jersey, and then strapped on his
16:31
Speaker 1: boots and waded into the ankle deep commy bullshit flooding
16:34
Speaker 1: Greenwich Village. Dylan did his best to navigate the warring
16:38
Speaker 1: Leninists and trotsky Heites, co opted the best of the beats,
16:41
Speaker 1: and laid waste to his coffee shop contemporaries with a
16:44
Speaker 1: modern folk style that was unlike anything anybody, not Joe Biaz,
16:48
Speaker 1: not Peter Paul and fucking Mary, not the Irish crooners,
16:51
Speaker 1: not the sons of Brendan Bian, not even Woody Guthrie
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Speaker 1: or his keeper Pete Seeger had heard before. Dylan's musical
16:58
Speaker 1: style was completely his own somehow. It was folk and
17:03
Speaker 1: blues and hillbilly and sophisticated, spiritual and heretical, traditional and
17:09
Speaker 1: modern and simple and anthemic, all at the same time.
17:13
Speaker 1: After his self titled full length debut in nineteen sixty two,
17:17
Speaker 1: an album that consisted mostly of covers and reworked traditionals,
17:20
Speaker 1: had introduced Dylan as a man who knew a thing
17:22
Speaker 1: or two about the music that infatuated the likes of
17:25
Speaker 1: Alan Lomax and the Newport Folks scenesters. Dylan's second album
17:29
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty three, The Freewheel In Bob Dylan grabbed
17:32
Speaker 1: those scenesters by their prep school callers and shook them
17:35
Speaker 1: into a catatonic state of fanaticism with the modern day
17:38
Speaker 1: anthems Blown in the Wind and A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall,
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Speaker 1: songs that not only explained the rapidly shifting social sands
17:45
Speaker 1: America was slipping on at the time, but also defined
17:48
Speaker 1: that moment in real time as it was happening. Bob
17:53
Speaker 1: Dylan wrote what he saw, and what he saw in
17:55
Speaker 1: the early sixties was political strife. Dylan wrote about it
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Speaker 1: in the most emotionally compelling way possible, with a familiality
18:03
Speaker 1: that is impossible to contrive. That type of relatability comes
18:06
Speaker 1: from a deep well of influence, in practice, from a
18:10
Speaker 1: fearless point of view, and because it was amalgamated properly,
18:14
Speaker 1: it organically created the one thing that Dylan's core audience,
18:17
Speaker 1: the indoctrinated folkies, despised the most commercial appeal. It took
18:24
Speaker 1: no time before they hung that voice of a generation
18:26
Speaker 1: albatross around Dylan's neck. From Bob Dylan's perspective, he wasn't
18:31
Speaker 1: the voice of anything or anyone except Bob Dylan. He
18:34
Speaker 1: was a loner, an outsider on the run from a
18:37
Speaker 1: pass that never was. He wasn't about to claim leadership
18:40
Speaker 1: of or membership to any group. He was an outlaw,
18:44
Speaker 1: just like Billy the Kid. Hell just like Pat Garrett too.
18:48
Speaker 1: Before Chisholm stuffed all that money in Pat's pocket, Dylan
18:52
Speaker 1: was as free as the roving carnies he paid to
18:54
Speaker 1: see back on the Iron Range as a kid. Groups
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Speaker 1: did not interest him. Music and art were freedom groups
19:03
Speaker 1: where death groups are governed. With government comes power, with
19:08
Speaker 1: power comes corruption. That's what Medgar Evers was about. Sure,
19:14
Speaker 1: the murder of a black civil rights activist in Jackson,
19:16
Speaker 1: Mississippi in nineteen sixty three was about racism, but at
19:20
Speaker 1: its core the horrific event was also about the corrupt
19:24
Speaker 1: abuse of power, the white man showing the black man
19:28
Speaker 1: who was in control in this part of the country,
19:30
Speaker 1: and right now the state was in a power struggle
19:33
Speaker 1: to maintain that control. It was all, in a word, disgusting,
19:38
Speaker 1: and it freaked Dylan out. So he wrote about it,
19:42
Speaker 1: first directly in the song Only Upon in Their Game,
19:45
Speaker 1: and then figuratively in the Times They Are Changing. He
19:49
Speaker 1: never intended for either song or any of his songs,
19:52
Speaker 1: or for his performance at the March on Washington in
19:54
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty three alongside Martin Luther King Junior, and support
19:58
Speaker 1: of the civil rights movement lead to any of this
20:01
Speaker 1: Voice of a Generation crap. Bob Dylan was just an
20:05
Speaker 1: antenna tune to what was going on around him. He
20:08
Speaker 1: was an outlaw writing what others were feeling. At the moment.
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Speaker 1: He saw an abuse of power and he felt compelled
20:13
Speaker 1: to comment on it. He wasn't trying to lead anybody,
20:17
Speaker 1: not like Kennedy that thing a couple weeks ago in Dallas,
20:21
Speaker 1: that was certainly about power. That thing that happened to JFK.
20:25
Speaker 1: On November twenty second, nineteen sixty back in Manhattan, at
20:35
Speaker 1: the ECLC bill of Wright's Dinner, Bob Dylan stood at
20:39
Speaker 1: the podium accepting his Thomas Payne Award, looking out at
20:42
Speaker 1: a bunch of bedazzled elites, all beaming with pride. They
20:47
Speaker 1: were also self satisfied, certain that what they were doing
20:51
Speaker 1: was good. They were, after all, awarding a young folk
20:55
Speaker 1: singer who was tapped into the times. This gave them
20:59
Speaker 1: a sense of moral and titlement that well, you can
21:01
Speaker 1: only obtain by paying a couple thousand dollars a plate
21:05
Speaker 1: plus formerly fedting Bob Dylan might give them sway with
21:08
Speaker 1: their kids who begun to abandon their parents' ways in
21:11
Speaker 1: favor of grass and sex. On the quad, Dylan's eyes
21:16
Speaker 1: went wild up there on the podium, and then he spoke,
21:20
Speaker 1: old people, when their hair grows out, they should go out.
21:23
Speaker 1: And I look down to see the people that are
21:25
Speaker 1: governing me, making my rules, and they haven't got any
21:28
Speaker 1: hair on their head, and I get very uptight about it.
21:31
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, attention fell upon the room that
21:35
Speaker 1: nasally scat that smirk. What was this, Dylan continued, And
21:41
Speaker 1: they talk about negroes, and they talk about black and white,
21:44
Speaker 1: and they talk about colors of red and blue and yellow. Man,
21:47
Speaker 1: I just don't see any colors at all when I
21:49
Speaker 1: look out, I don't see any colors at all. And
21:52
Speaker 1: if people have taught through the years to look at colors,
21:55
Speaker 1: James Baldwin shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Men in the
21:58
Speaker 1: front row avoided eye contact, their wives busied themselves with
22:03
Speaker 1: their salads. Dylan went on, I want to accept this
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Speaker 1: award the Tom Payne Award from the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee.
22:11
Speaker 1: I want to accept it in my name, but I'm
22:14
Speaker 1: not really accepting it in my name, and I'm not
22:16
Speaker 1: accepting it in any kind of group's name, any Negro
22:19
Speaker 1: group or any other kind of group. With this booze
22:24
Speaker 1: started making their way from the back of the crowd.
22:27
Speaker 1: Dylan was undeterred. I'll stand up and get uncompromisable about it,
22:31
Speaker 1: which I have to be to be honest. I just
22:33
Speaker 1: gotta be as I got to admit that the man
22:35
Speaker 1: who shot President Kennedy Lee Oswald, I don't know exactly
22:39
Speaker 1: where or what he thought he was doing, but I
22:42
Speaker 1: got to admit honestly that I too, I saw some
22:45
Speaker 1: of myself in him. Then the booze started to win down,
22:49
Speaker 1: Dylan didn't stop. He continued, you can boo, but booing's
22:53
Speaker 1: got nothing to do with it. It's a I just
22:56
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, man, it's Bill of Wright's free speech.
23:00
Speaker 1: Just want to admit that I accept this Tompagne Award
23:02
Speaker 1: in behalf of James Foreman of the Student's Nonviolent Coordinating Committee,
23:06
Speaker 1: and on behalf of the people who went to Cuba.
23:09
Speaker 1: The men in the audience cut their mouths so their
23:11
Speaker 1: booze could be better heard. Women literally clutched their pearls,
23:15
Speaker 1: and Bob Dylan did not give a fuck. These people,
23:20
Speaker 1: like most who wore their virtue on their sleeve, were
23:23
Speaker 1: as shameless as the Carnie Barkers back on the iron range,
23:26
Speaker 1: but with half the soul. And the scene was beat
23:30
Speaker 1: and Dylan bounced. We'll be right back after this.
23:38
Speaker 2: Were were were.
23:42
Speaker 1: Those who believe the President Richard Nixon was the victim
23:45
Speaker 1: of a koudeta and was not undone by his own corruption.
23:48
Speaker 1: Believe he was overthrown by a combination of CIA and
23:52
Speaker 1: FBI agents working together to secretly protect their own interests. Mainly,
23:57
Speaker 1: they believe that these powerful intel agencies we're hell bent
24:00
Speaker 1: on preventing Richard Nixon from disclosing the truth about President
24:04
Speaker 1: John F. Kennedy's assassination. What you're about to hear is
24:07
Speaker 1: me reading to you an actual FBI file regarding Bob
24:10
Speaker 1: Dylan following his public appearance at the ECLC Awards just
24:14
Speaker 1: a few weeks after the assassination of President Kennedy. This
24:18
Speaker 1: file can be found easily online by searching newly uncovered
24:22
Speaker 1: documents reveal FBI's campaign against Bob Dylan. When you hear
24:27
Speaker 1: me use the word redacted, redacted is not actually written
24:31
Speaker 1: in this FBI report. It just means that as a
24:34
Speaker 1: big black mark over whatever word goes in that part
24:37
Speaker 1: of the document. December sixteenth, nineteen sixty three, Airtel two
24:44
Speaker 1: Director FBI one zero zero dash three eight four five
24:48
Speaker 1: six zero from SAC, New York one zero zero DASH
24:52
Speaker 1: one zero seven four four one nine subject Emergency Civil
24:57
Speaker 1: Liberties Committee is dash CISA of one nine to five
25:00
Speaker 1: zero zero zero, New York. Forwarded herewith are five copies
25:05
Speaker 1: of letterhead memorandum concerning the twelve thirteen sixty three Dinner
25:09
Speaker 1: of the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee. The source is redacted.
25:14
Speaker 1: The source furnished the characterization of the individual listed below.
25:18
Speaker 1: Bob Dylan aka Bobby Dylan aka Robert Dylon. Robert Dillon,
25:25
Speaker 1: self employed as a folk singer, appeared on December thirteenth,
25:28
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty three, at the tenth annual Bill of Rights
25:30
Speaker 1: Dinner held by the ECLC at the American Hotel, New
25:34
Speaker 1: York City. At this dinner, Dylan received the Tom Payne Award,
25:38
Speaker 1: given each year by the ECLC to the foremost fighter
25:41
Speaker 1: for civil liberties. In his acceptance speech, Dylan said that
25:45
Speaker 1: he agreed in part with Lee Harvey Oswald and thought
25:49
Speaker 1: that he understood Oswald, but would not have gone as
25:52
Speaker 1: far as Oswald did under the Connor Intelligence program. It
25:56
Speaker 1: has urged at this statement of Bob Dylan made at
25:58
Speaker 1: this meeting be brought to the attention of all bureau's
26:01
Speaker 1: contacts in the mass media fields, so that proper publicity
26:04
Speaker 1: will be given to Dylan, who, by means of his
26:06
Speaker 1: folk singing, has the ability to have some communication with
26:09
Speaker 1: the American youth. It is recommended that Bob Dylan is
26:12
Speaker 1: kept under continued close surveillance by the following source redacted.
26:21
Speaker 1: Bob Dylan sat in his Greenwich Village apartment stewing. It
26:25
Speaker 1: was nineteen seventy one. Ever since the Tom Payne Award
26:28
Speaker 1: fiasco back in late nineteen sixty three, Dylan had indeed
26:32
Speaker 1: been under FBI's surveillance, as public FBI files indicate, and
26:37
Speaker 1: quote unquote, proper publicity meant. Dylan was being dragged through
26:41
Speaker 1: the press repeatedly during the late sixties and early seventies
26:44
Speaker 1: by American journalists who were working covertly to do the
26:47
Speaker 1: FBI's bidding, Dylan did himself no favors by continuously taking
26:52
Speaker 1: a contrarian view of the world in his interviews. As
26:56
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties counterculture raged against the Vietnam war machine,
27:00
Speaker 1: Dylan was asked by sing Out magazine if he, as
27:03
Speaker 1: an artist, had a responsibility to speak out against the
27:06
Speaker 1: war that was dividing the nation. Dylan responded that he
27:10
Speaker 1: knew quote very good artists who are for the war unquote,
27:14
Speaker 1: and that he and this artist's friend of his shared
27:17
Speaker 1: the same basic values and Bob Dylan then asked the
27:20
Speaker 1: interviewer how he knew that he Dylan wasn't actually for
27:24
Speaker 1: the war. The mainstream record buying public did not understand
27:29
Speaker 1: Bob Dylan's comments. How could the so called voice of
27:32
Speaker 1: a generation, the voice of the peace and love generation,
27:36
Speaker 1: be for a war that this hippie generation was so
27:38
Speaker 1: fervently against. Dylan didn't even know the answer, and neither
27:43
Speaker 1: did his friend Andy, who sat with Dylan in his
27:46
Speaker 1: apartment watching him. The two men sat in silence, taking
27:50
Speaker 1: in the sounds of the city from outside Dylan's McDougall
27:53
Speaker 1: Street townhouse. Andy knew what Dylan was thinking. His friend
27:57
Speaker 1: the so called protest singer had learned his lesson from
28:00
Speaker 1: the Thomas Payne Awards ceremony back in sixty three. He
28:03
Speaker 1: wasn't going to get roped into leading any cause, even
28:06
Speaker 1: if he did believe in it. Leadership meant power, and
28:09
Speaker 1: power corrupts. It was getting dark, and the city had
28:14
Speaker 1: entered that in between time of day when the sun
28:17
Speaker 1: dips down and New Yorkers en mass head for their
28:20
Speaker 1: homes to regroup and get ready to head back out
28:22
Speaker 1: on the town. There's a strange lull around dusk in
28:26
Speaker 1: the city. You can feel it that moment when everyone
28:30
Speaker 1: has taken a beat and recalibrating. It's not exactly silence,
28:35
Speaker 1: but it's at least an urban hush. For a few moments,
28:40
Speaker 1: peace in this chaotic Gotham seemed possible. And then Dylan
28:47
Speaker 1: rocketed out of his chair. Damn it, fucking Weberman again.
28:51
Speaker 1: Man Dylan raced down the stairs of his apartment and
28:54
Speaker 1: into the alley out back, and he followed him. There
28:58
Speaker 1: he was Aj Weerman, self proclaimed Dylanologists, the inventor of
29:04
Speaker 1: so called garbology, going through the dumpster, rooting through Dylan's trash,
29:09
Speaker 1: looking for some sort of evidence of Bob Dylan's political leanings, writings, pamphlets,
29:15
Speaker 1: anything that would feed his delusion that Bob Dylan was
29:18
Speaker 1: down with the cause. Weberman, You crazy fuck. I told you, man,
29:24
Speaker 1: my wife is gonna kill me. She's gonna kill.
29:26
Speaker 3: Me if she catches you one more damn time in
29:28
Speaker 3: our trash, man, Now get the hell. Dylan picked up
29:32
Speaker 3: a discarded can of peaches and rocketed it at Weberman's
29:34
Speaker 3: head and the dumpster. Weberman propelled himself out of the
29:37
Speaker 3: dumpster incredibly, with no shame at all.
29:40
Speaker 1: He dusted himself off and confronted his hero. What's it
29:44
Speaker 1: gonna take, Dylan asked, an interview? Weberman replied, Man, Dylan
29:50
Speaker 1: did not want to hear that. One interview man, One
29:53
Speaker 1: interview from my magazine, and I promise I'll leave you alone.
29:57
Speaker 1: Dylan paced in the alley, his hand on his chin
30:00
Speaker 1: and thinking. Andy stood nearby, watching, ready to pounce on
30:04
Speaker 1: Weberman if need be. And Dylan spoke one interview, one interview,
30:09
Speaker 1: and you'll never come around here again. You'll leave my
30:11
Speaker 1: wife and my kids alone, I promise, Weberman said. Dylan replied, tomorrow,
30:18
Speaker 1: call the studio. I'm there all day. Bob Dylan then
30:22
Speaker 1: turned and headed back into his townhouse. Inside he let
30:26
Speaker 1: loose on Andy. They don't quit man, I tell you
30:28
Speaker 1: a magazine. He ain't got no fucking magazine. It's a
30:31
Speaker 1: damn rag. Aj Weberman was the head of the Rock
30:35
Speaker 1: Liberation Front, a loose group of new left radicals hell
30:39
Speaker 1: bent on bringing down Richard Nixon's government in nineteen seventy one,
30:43
Speaker 1: with the specific mission of enlisting rock stars to help
30:46
Speaker 1: them with their cause. When aj Weberman wasn't dumpster diving,
30:50
Speaker 1: he was focusing on quote unquote liberating famous rock artists
30:54
Speaker 1: from their bourgeois tendencies so that they could continue to
30:57
Speaker 1: represent the political counterculture of the nineteen sixties. As insane
31:02
Speaker 1: as this sounds, aj Weberman was not ineffective. He prevailed
31:07
Speaker 1: upon no less than John Lennon in the early seventies
31:10
Speaker 1: to take up his cause. This was at a time
31:13
Speaker 1: when John Lennon had moved to Manhattan and had become
31:15
Speaker 1: increasingly political, supporting all manner of radical causes, singing out
31:20
Speaker 1: against the pot related persecution of radical John Sinclair, parading
31:24
Speaker 1: the Black Panthers onto national television, aligning himself with Jerry Rubin,
31:29
Speaker 1: to make plans to disrupt Richard Nixon's nineteen seventy two
31:32
Speaker 1: Republican National Convention, and yes, even aligning himself with AJ
31:36
Speaker 1: Weberman to pull Bob Dylan out of his a political
31:39
Speaker 1: trance and into the cause to help America disentangle itself
31:43
Speaker 1: from the war and overthrow Richard Nixon from power. John
31:47
Speaker 1: Lennon was so convinced of the need for his old
31:49
Speaker 1: friend Bob to join the New Left fight that he
31:52
Speaker 1: famously wore a pin that read free Bob Dylon. Weeks
32:00
Speaker 1: weeks later, Andy sat on Bob Dylan's stoop next to
32:02
Speaker 1: his friend and told him about the pin. Bob already
32:05
Speaker 1: knew about it, John Man. Andy cut him off. John's
32:11
Speaker 1: in a lot of trouble. Dylan got quiet. Andy went
32:14
Speaker 1: on that Jerry Rubin's stuff, Nixon hates Ruben, hates Abby
32:19
Speaker 1: Hoffman hates the New Left with a burning passion. John's
32:22
Speaker 1: days are numbered. What Dylan thought of Kennedy? No, Andy said,
32:29
Speaker 1: not that, but well what man? Dylan was impatient. He'd
32:34
Speaker 1: already started his day upset. The AJ Weberman interview had
32:37
Speaker 1: come out, and it was filled with lies, filled with misquotes,
32:41
Speaker 1: A total frame job meant to get the radical's point
32:43
Speaker 1: of view out there, using Dylan as their vehicle. Worse,
32:48
Speaker 1: it projected the radicals belief on to Dylan. Dylan thought
32:52
Speaker 1: it made him look like a clown, like one of
32:53
Speaker 1: those geeks they paid to see in the carnival, a freak.
32:57
Speaker 1: Dylan was pissed, and now this news of John was troubling.
33:01
Speaker 1: John was still Dylan's friend, even if he was annoying
33:04
Speaker 1: him at the time, trolling him in the press with
33:06
Speaker 1: this free bob Dylan bullshit. Is John gonna be all right?
33:10
Speaker 1: He asked Andy. He didn't hear? Hear what?
33:15
Speaker 2: Man?
33:15
Speaker 1: Quit being cute? What's happening with John? Nixon came at
33:19
Speaker 1: him and Yoko with both guns, deportation, maybe even jail.
33:24
Speaker 1: Dylan shook his head in disgust, spit between his legs
33:27
Speaker 1: onto the stoop, and looked up and there he was
33:31
Speaker 1: Aj Weberman, strutting his hippy ass down McDougall Street, A
33:35
Speaker 1: dirty fucking rat, Hey, Dylan, yell. Weberman turned his head
33:40
Speaker 1: quick saw. Dylan saw that he was pissed and took
33:43
Speaker 1: off in a sprint. Dylan jumped from the stoop and
33:45
Speaker 1: gave chase within seconds, he was on Webman's back, dragging
33:49
Speaker 1: him to the pavement. Bob Dylan, the peace and love,
33:51
Speaker 1: so called voice of the Hippie generation, rained down punches
33:54
Speaker 1: onto his detractor. Weberman laughed, delusional fuck that he was.
33:59
Speaker 1: It only fueled Dylan's anger. Dylan spouted an unintelligible rage
34:04
Speaker 1: for months. The scumbag had invaded his privacy, his wife's privacy,
34:08
Speaker 1: his children's, his fucking kids, his family. Weberman confronted Dylan's
34:13
Speaker 1: wife on the street, went through Dylan's man, went through
34:16
Speaker 1: Dylan's trash, misquoted Dylan in the press, miscategorized and misrepresented
34:21
Speaker 1: Dylan's words, talk bullshit about Dylan and his family. Weberman protested,
34:26
Speaker 1: Weberman giggled, Weberman winced, Weberman outright laughed. Weberman was psychotic.
34:32
Speaker 1: Dylan stood and kicked Webman in the ribs, kicked Weberman
34:35
Speaker 1: in the head, and stopped him furiously until Andy pulled
34:39
Speaker 1: Bob Dylan off of Aj Weberman. It's a good thing
34:46
Speaker 1: Andy was there, or Bob Dylan may have killed Aj Weberman.
34:50
Speaker 1: Andy was always there for Dylan back then. It's hard
34:53
Speaker 1: to tell when Andy the Answer came into Bob Dylan's life.
34:56
Speaker 1: Sometime around nineteen sixty three from my research, but by
35:00
Speaker 1: most accounts, he just appeared Andy the Answer blew in
35:04
Speaker 1: with the Wind, and that's where his nickname came from.
35:07
Speaker 1: Like Bobby Newarth, Andy the Answer became at times one
35:11
Speaker 1: of Dylan's closest and also most mysterious friends. He was
35:16
Speaker 1: around and then he wasn't, and Dylan didn't seem to mind.
35:21
Speaker 1: Andy didn't require much of Dylan. He gave more than
35:24
Speaker 1: he took, which is to say he didn't take much
35:26
Speaker 1: at all. And for a famous person, this is precisely
35:30
Speaker 1: the type of dynamic needed in a friendship. So when
35:34
Speaker 1: Andy the Answer Blew In with the Wind to Washington,
35:36
Speaker 1: d C. On June seventeenth, nineteen seventy two, and called
35:39
Speaker 1: on Bob Dylan, nobody, least of all Dylan, suspected anything.
36:00
Speaker 1: On January twenty third, twenty twenty five, President Trump issued
36:07
Speaker 1: an executive order instructing members of his intelligence community to
36:11
Speaker 1: come up with a plan within fifteen days to release
36:13
Speaker 1: the so called JFK files. Within the last few weeks,
36:17
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of pages from this treasure trove of
36:21
Speaker 1: previously unreleased documents related to the Kennedy assassination have been
36:25
Speaker 1: unredacted and released officially. One document, in particular, a document
36:31
Speaker 1: mentioning Bob Dylan, looks and reads a lot like the
36:34
Speaker 1: previously released FBI document on Bob Dylan that I read
36:37
Speaker 1: for you earlier in this episode, the FBI documents summarizing
36:41
Speaker 1: Dylan's comments about Lee Harvey Oswald at the Tom Payne Awards.
36:45
Speaker 1: I'm going to read this new document to you now.
36:49
Speaker 1: June sixteenth, nineteen seventy three, Airtel two director FBI one
36:55
Speaker 1: zero zero dash three eight four, five six to zero
36:58
Speaker 1: from sac Whington d C one zero zero dash one
37:02
Speaker 1: zero eight five five two eight subject Watergate Complex Prostitution Ring.
37:08
Speaker 1: Forwarded here with are five copies of letterhead memorandum concerning
37:12
Speaker 1: the Watergate Complex Prostitution Ring. Source William Anderson. The source
37:17
Speaker 1: furnished the characterization of the individuals listed below. Becca Handle
37:22
Speaker 1: aka Rebecca Handle aka Foggy Bottom Becca and Bob Dylon
37:27
Speaker 1: aka Bobby Dylon aka Robert Dillon aka Robert Zimmerman. Becca
37:33
Speaker 1: Handle twenty six, employed as secretary by Watergate Commercial Holdings,
37:37
Speaker 1: has for the past eight months, orchestrated and managed a
37:41
Speaker 1: stable of female prostitutes out of her office at the
37:43
Speaker 1: Watergate Complex building in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington.
37:47
Speaker 2: D C.
37:48
Speaker 1: Mishandle keeps photographs of the prostitution she manages under lock
37:51
Speaker 1: and key in her secretarial desk office. Her clients include
37:55
Speaker 1: mostly dignitaries from foreign countries, notably those from the nearby
37:59
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia and as well as traveling athletes and musicians.
38:03
Speaker 1: Mishandle is in an ongoing non commercial sexual relationship with
38:07
Speaker 1: known radical and protest singer Bob Dylan. Mister Dylan, the
38:11
Speaker 1: Mishandle meet most times the singer visits Washington. It is
38:15
Speaker 1: recommended that the Director utilize this information as an asset
38:18
Speaker 1: to turn Bob Dylan towards assisting the Bureau and its efforts,
38:21
Speaker 1: should the Director deem it necessary to that end. No
38:25
Speaker 1: effort has been made by the Bureau to inform local
38:27
Speaker 1: authorities of the Watergate Complex prostitution ring or Mishandle's role
38:31
Speaker 1: in it. It is recommended that Bob Dylan is kept
38:34
Speaker 1: under continued close surveillance by the following source, William Anderson.
38:41
Speaker 1: The Watergate prostitution ring is one of many theories believed
38:45
Speaker 1: to be the real reason behind President Richard Nixon's demise,
38:49
Speaker 1: but we now know that many events contributed to the
38:51
Speaker 1: same result. Bob Dylan, of course knew about the prostitution ring.
38:56
Speaker 1: Richard Manuel from the band told Dylan all about the
38:59
Speaker 1: working girls scene in Washington. He was the first to
39:02
Speaker 1: connect Bob with Becca, but Bob, by the account I read,
39:05
Speaker 1: didn't pay for it. Dylan sat at the end of
39:09
Speaker 1: the bed in his Watergate Hotel room, staring at the television,
39:12
Speaker 1: stressed out, watching the news. It really looked like Nixon
39:16
Speaker 1: was going to deport his friend John Lennon and John's wife,
39:19
Speaker 1: Yoko Ono. Dylan couldn't wrap his head around this. The
39:22
Speaker 1: blatant power flex John was harmless. Dylan thought he was
39:27
Speaker 1: just speaking up for the little guy. He wasn't like
39:30
Speaker 1: aj Weberman or Jerry Rubin the radicals. John was pouwing
39:33
Speaker 1: around with up until his deportation problem started. John was
39:37
Speaker 1: a shiny nickel guy. He was onto something one day
39:40
Speaker 1: and then onto something else the next. This political obsession
39:43
Speaker 1: of his would fade, Dylan knew, but now it seemed
39:48
Speaker 1: it might be too late. John looked to be cooked
39:51
Speaker 1: by Nixon. Dylan couldn't stand Nixon. Who could. The man
39:56
Speaker 1: was clearly governed by his worst instincts. He had no
39:59
Speaker 1: problem stepping all over the little guy if necessary. First
40:03
Speaker 1: it was the Hippies, and then the Panthers, and now
40:06
Speaker 1: John Nixon would trample the rights of anyone to maintain
40:09
Speaker 1: his power. Dylan might not have wanted to lend his
40:12
Speaker 1: name to the cause, but that didn't mean he approved
40:14
Speaker 1: of what Nixon was doing to those who did. In fact,
40:18
Speaker 1: what Nixon was doing to John in particular, scared the
40:21
Speaker 1: hell out of Bob Dylan. If Nixon could get away
40:24
Speaker 1: with evicting a rock and roll singer from a free
40:26
Speaker 1: country for exercising his free speech, then what couldn't Nixon
40:30
Speaker 1: get away with America? It was getting so an outlaw
40:34
Speaker 1: couldn't feel free or brave. But Bob Dylan was feeling brave.
40:40
Speaker 1: It was that contrarian instinct. Andy gave him the idea.
40:45
Speaker 1: Andy had just arrived at Dylan's hotel room. Becka let
40:48
Speaker 1: him in and let herself out. Andy noted his approval
40:51
Speaker 1: of her good looks to Dylan, and Dylan ignored the comment.
40:55
Speaker 1: All she does is work man, and I could dig
40:57
Speaker 1: that Dylan's consternation over the Nixon and Lenin power struggle
41:02
Speaker 1: was palpable. Andy explained that Dylan could help finally, and
41:07
Speaker 1: Dylan pretended to not be interested, but he was at last,
41:12
Speaker 1: and Andy went on, you don't have to go on
41:14
Speaker 1: television and stand up for the war, and you don't
41:16
Speaker 1: have to do an interview with Rolling Stone disparaging Nixon.
41:19
Speaker 1: You don't even have to open your mouth. Dylan was listening.
41:23
Speaker 1: Andy said, write a letter? Who? Write who a letter?
41:27
Speaker 1: Dylan wanted to know. Tricky Dick Immigration and Naturalization Services
41:33
Speaker 1: answered Andy the answer, Why Why would I do that?
41:38
Speaker 1: Dylan protested. Andy closed his eyes, clinched his lips, and
41:43
Speaker 1: tilted his head as if to say, you know the answer,
41:46
Speaker 1: and you know I know the answer, So quit being
41:48
Speaker 1: so fucking coy about it, mister international pop star man.
41:52
Speaker 1: Now I'm serious, man. What's writing a letter going to
41:54
Speaker 1: do to help John? Dylan said, It'll send a message.
41:58
Speaker 1: Andy answered, it'll Alvini's public opinion in favor of John.
42:02
Speaker 1: It'll make Nixon realize the youth vote would be even
42:05
Speaker 1: farther out of reach if he deports John and Yoko.
42:08
Speaker 1: Dylan stood up. He was out of patience, He walked
42:12
Speaker 1: angrily over to the desk in his hotel room. You
42:15
Speaker 1: want me to write a letter, fine, I'll write a letter.
42:18
Speaker 1: Dylan grabbed the piece of hotel stationery off the desk
42:21
Speaker 1: and a pen, and he wrote down the following. John
42:25
Speaker 1: and Yoko had a great voice and drive to this
42:28
Speaker 1: country so called art institution. They inspire and transcend and stimulate,
42:33
Speaker 1: and by doing only can help others to see pure light,
42:36
Speaker 1: and in doing that, put an end to this wild,
42:38
Speaker 1: dull taste of petty commercialism which is being passed off
42:41
Speaker 1: as art by the overpowering mass media. Hooray for John
42:45
Speaker 1: and Yoko. Let them stay and live here and breathe.
42:49
Speaker 1: This country's got plenty of room in space. Let John
42:52
Speaker 1: and Yoko stay, Bob Dylan. When he was finished, he
42:58
Speaker 1: turned to Andy and handed him the paper. There he satisfied.
43:03
Speaker 1: Andy took the letter, tucked it into his jacket pocket,
43:06
Speaker 1: smiled and said, actually, there's one more thing you can do.
43:11
Speaker 1: Dylan gave Andy an annoyed look. Andy smiled and said,
43:16
Speaker 1: call that pretty young secretary and tell her to blow
43:18
Speaker 1: off work and come back here and keep you company. Yeah, maybe,
43:23
Speaker 1: Dylan said, no, Andy insisted and picked up the rotary
43:27
Speaker 1: phone receiver and handed it to Bob. Call her, I
43:31
Speaker 1: insist you deserve it. Dylan was too beat to argue.
43:36
Speaker 1: He grabbed the phone, dialed up Becka in her office
43:38
Speaker 1: on the first floor, and started talking as Andy slipped
43:42
Speaker 1: out of the room downstairs. Later that evening, Andy the Answer,
43:49
Speaker 1: along with the team of four XCIA agents and one
43:53
Speaker 1: security chief from the committee to re elect the president,
43:56
Speaker 1: all of whom were skilled in spycraft, breaking and entering,
43:59
Speaker 1: being a mo those skills, crept through the halls of
44:02
Speaker 1: the Watergate Complex office building. Their main target was on
44:06
Speaker 1: the sixth floor, the Democratic National Committee headquarters, but before
44:11
Speaker 1: breaking into that office, they needed to break into the
44:14
Speaker 1: office of Watergate Commercial Holdings on the first floor of
44:17
Speaker 1: the Watergate The mission was simple. With Becca Handle, the
44:22
Speaker 1: Watergate Commercial Holding secretary and Madam of the Watergate prostitution ring,
44:27
Speaker 1: now preoccupied on the other side of the massive Watergate
44:30
Speaker 1: building in Bob Dylan's hotel room, the burglars could freely
44:33
Speaker 1: break into Becca's office. Once inside, the plan was to
44:38
Speaker 1: get the photos from Becca's desk. The photos of the prostitutes,
44:42
Speaker 1: not all of them, just some it was key to
44:46
Speaker 1: make it look like nothing happened, and it was also
44:49
Speaker 1: key to leave some of the photos behind in Becca's
44:52
Speaker 1: desk in case evidence was later needed to incriminate her.
44:56
Speaker 1: Then get out without leaving a trace. Andy picked the
45:02
Speaker 1: lock to Beca's desk, and there they were the photos.
45:06
Speaker 1: He grabbed about six or seven of them. Each polaroid
45:09
Speaker 1: featured a different prostitute, high class, nearly naked, just enough
45:14
Speaker 1: skin to tease. Their names Candy Cane and Greenhouse Nymph,
45:19
Speaker 1: among others, along with their measurements, were scribbled onto the
45:23
Speaker 1: bottoms of the polaroids. And before Andy closed the desk,
45:28
Speaker 1: he took the small, spare gold desk key from inside
45:31
Speaker 1: the drawer in case he needed access later. He tucked
45:35
Speaker 1: the key into his pocket next to the letter Bob
45:38
Speaker 1: Dylan had written, what was that A light came on
45:43
Speaker 1: suddenly from down the hall? This was the part of
45:46
Speaker 1: the mission that was most critical. Andy needed to escape
45:49
Speaker 1: unseen and to leave the others behind, and if he
45:53
Speaker 1: was to get caught, he was most certainly not to
45:56
Speaker 1: have any evidence on him. So from in his pocket,
46:00
Speaker 1: Andy grabbed the key he had just taken from the desk.
46:02
Speaker 1: He also grabbed the letter Dylan had written, ripped it
46:05
Speaker 1: in half, and carefully folded one half of the stationery,
46:08
Speaker 1: the half that hadn't been written on, over the key.
46:11
Speaker 1: He put what remained of Dylan's note back into his pocket,
46:14
Speaker 1: and then handed the folded paper over the key in
46:17
Speaker 1: the photos to one of his burglars. Frank Carter and
46:20
Speaker 1: Andy carefully exited the office. Andy the answer, crept into
46:26
Speaker 1: the stairwell and absconded into the night. The five remaining
46:29
Speaker 1: burglars crept into the stairwell and up to the sixth floor.
46:34
Speaker 1: Andy needed to get out, but only Andy. The other five,
46:38
Speaker 1: the CIA man and the Committee man did not. That
46:41
Speaker 1: was part of the plan. They had to get caught,
46:46
Speaker 1: but not before the next part of the mission. They
46:49
Speaker 1: quietly broke into the Democratic National Committee offices. Then Frank
46:54
Speaker 1: Carter planted the photos of the prostitutes that were stolen
46:57
Speaker 1: from Becka's office into the desks of various Democrat Attic
47:00
Speaker 1: National Committee members. He made it look like those depraved
47:03
Speaker 1: liberals were busy paying for sex, which they were anyway beholding.
47:08
Speaker 1: What was that a noise from outside the office? Stop
47:13
Speaker 1: all right, it's gone back to business. The burglars planted
47:19
Speaker 1: what they needed to. They made the whole thing look messy,
47:22
Speaker 1: but not too messy, and then white light it was happening.
47:28
Speaker 1: The rent a coop employed by the Watergate Security Office
47:30
Speaker 1: took the bait, the suspicious tape left on the lock
47:33
Speaker 1: of the exit door downstairs, and he was here now
47:36
Speaker 1: in the office doing the hole. Put your hands up
47:39
Speaker 1: or I'll shoot thing. The CIA men smirked and did
47:43
Speaker 1: as they were told, and they were ready, and this
47:45
Speaker 1: was necessary. All the clues were meant to lead back
47:49
Speaker 1: to President Nixon. The men who were arrested were all
47:52
Speaker 1: tied into men within Nixon's inner circle. And now because
47:56
Speaker 1: of this Watergate scandal, there was no doubt Nixon was unhinged.
48:02
Speaker 1: Nixon deployed his own CIA men to break into his
48:05
Speaker 1: opponent's office to spy and to subvert the Democratic Party.
48:09
Speaker 1: That's the message the public was sold, and that's the
48:12
Speaker 1: message the public bought. The message to Richard Nixon from
48:16
Speaker 1: the CIA was darker. It said, we will sacrifice our
48:20
Speaker 1: own to fuck you. We will have our own men
48:23
Speaker 1: arrested and drag before Congress and publicly shamed to fuck
48:26
Speaker 1: you to the fucking death. We will rat fuck you
48:29
Speaker 1: full of historical disgrace in order to keep our secrets
48:32
Speaker 1: and to keep you the fuck out of the halls
48:34
Speaker 1: of real power, because you are nothing more than a
48:37
Speaker 1: temporary employee who merely thought about getting too big for
48:40
Speaker 1: his bridges. And we are forever, and we are soulless.
48:45
Speaker 1: We are the permanent Washington bureaucracy.
48:56
Speaker 4: First it was called the water Day Caper.
48:59
Speaker 2: Five men apparently caught.
49:01
Speaker 4: In the act of burglarising and bugging Democratic headquarters in Washington,
49:06
Speaker 4: but the episode grew steadily more sinister political sabotage, an
49:10
Speaker 4: espionage unparalleled in Americans.
49:15
Speaker 5: Donald Sagrette reports in major newspapers say White house Age
49:19
Speaker 5: recruited Seagrette for secret intelligence work and dirty tricks against
49:23
Speaker 5: the Democratics.
49:26
Speaker 2: Good inhible decisions I had made in my second life.
49:31
Speaker 2: I have always to try to do what was.
49:34
Speaker 1: Best in the nation.
49:37
Speaker 2: Prop the new home difficult to a watergate, I have
49:40
Speaker 2: had that this was my durty persevered with the interest
49:44
Speaker 2: of the nation state, who was from For any Christmas,
49:49
Speaker 2: I have remember say Twitter, America needs a food time proved,
49:59
Speaker 2: I shall resign later through your fetus.
50:04
Speaker 1: In the aftermath of the Watergate break in, there was
50:07
Speaker 1: no mention of the prostitution ring. It is believed that
50:10
Speaker 1: Democrat operatives got a hold of the photos through local
50:13
Speaker 1: authorities and squashed the story with their boys club buddies
50:16
Speaker 1: in the press before the news could get out. However,
50:20
Speaker 1: Jim Houghton, in his excellent book Secret Agenda, lays out
50:24
Speaker 1: the scandal with pretty compelling evidence. President Richard Nixon resigned
50:28
Speaker 1: on August eighth, nineteen seventy four, rather than face impeachment.
50:31
Speaker 1: It wasn't until nineteen seventy nine when one of Nixon's henchmen,
50:35
Speaker 1: g Gordon Liddy, broke the news of the prostitution ring,
50:38
Speaker 1: and that Bob Dylan began to piece together his role
50:40
Speaker 1: in the Washington scandal. Bob Dylan sat in the backseat
50:47
Speaker 1: of his limousine reading his newspaper alongside Bill Graham, annoyed
50:51
Speaker 1: at the fact that both he and Bill had allowed
50:53
Speaker 1: an outsider, this one seemingly political, to enter into his world.
50:58
Speaker 1: The aristocrat who just exited the limo, The aristocrat who
51:02
Speaker 1: had been hanging around with them for the last several evenings,
51:04
Speaker 1: posing as the other's friend, sapping information from Bob, inquiring
51:09
Speaker 1: subtly but consistently about Bob's political leanings, his opinions, his
51:14
Speaker 1: thoughts on his friend, President Jimmy Carter, and on Carter's opponent,
51:18
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan. Once again, Dylan feared he'd been had. It
51:23
Speaker 1: was nearly andy the answer all over again positively fuck Street.
51:28
Speaker 1: Then a headline caught Dylan's eye. It was Watergate, the
51:33
Speaker 1: story that wouldn't die. G. Gordon Lyddy that jack booted
51:37
Speaker 1: thug was back in the news, talking DC prostitutes, talking
51:41
Speaker 1: Becca handled Blues. Bob Dylan, of course recognized Becka's name.
51:47
Speaker 1: That that didn't rattle him. What rattled him was another detail.
51:52
Speaker 1: According to G. Gordon Lyddy, one of the Watergate burglars
51:56
Speaker 1: was arrested with a key in his pocket, and that
51:59
Speaker 1: key belonged to Becca Handel, the madam of the Watergate prostitutionary.
52:06
Speaker 1: What did Bob Dylan think about this news?
52:08
Speaker 2: Then?
52:09
Speaker 1: We don't know. But what does Bob Dylan think about
52:12
Speaker 1: all of this? Now? What does Bob Dylan think about
52:14
Speaker 1: this final mention of him in the FBI files Again
52:18
Speaker 1: another memo from nineteen seventy two, but another recently released
52:23
Speaker 1: as part of the JFK assassination document disclosure which reads
52:28
Speaker 1: two director FBI one zero zero dash three eight four
52:32
Speaker 1: five six zero from Sac, Washington, d C one zero
52:37
Speaker 1: zero dash one zero eight five five two eight Subject
52:41
Speaker 1: Frank Carter, Watergate burglar. Frank Carter aka Bernard Barker of
52:46
Speaker 1: the CIA was apprehended at the Watergate Complex in connection
52:50
Speaker 1: with DNC offices Burglary. Local authorities reported that on his
52:54
Speaker 1: person approximately two hundred and thirty four dollars in cash
52:57
Speaker 1: was confiscated, along with a walkie talk penn Rolex watch
53:02
Speaker 1: and a small gold key and folded piece of paper.
53:05
Speaker 1: The key is believed to be the key for Mishandle's
53:08
Speaker 1: Watergate Commercial Holdings office desk. The paper's origin is unknown.
53:13
Speaker 1: Photographic evidence of the paper attached herein reveals only the
53:17
Speaker 1: words co stay. There are no theories regarding the origins
53:21
Speaker 1: of this paper note, but the key is believed to
53:24
Speaker 1: have been given to agent Frank Carter by FBI source.
53:27
Speaker 1: William Anderson aka Billy A aka Wild Bill aka Billy
53:34
Speaker 1: the Kid aka Willie Anderstein aka the Magnificent Anderson aka
53:40
Speaker 1: Andy Andy. How many other Andys were at the Watergate
53:46
Speaker 1: Complex on that day, June seventeenth, nineteen seventy two, and
53:51
Speaker 1: had their hands on a small gold key and a
53:53
Speaker 1: crumpled up piece of paper inscribed with the words co
53:57
Speaker 1: stay CO stay, with the final scribblings of the final
54:02
Speaker 1: sentence in the note that Bob Dylan wrote on behalf
54:05
Speaker 1: of John Lennon. Let John and Yoko stay CO stay.
54:11
Speaker 1: Bob Dylan gave that letter to Andy, who is surveiling
54:15
Speaker 1: Dylan for the FBI. We now know this because of
54:18
Speaker 1: the unredacted FBI file from the trove of newly released
54:21
Speaker 1: jfk assassination documents. Andy is the dude in that first
54:25
Speaker 1: FBI file from way back in nineteen sixty three, his
54:29
Speaker 1: name redacted. Surveiling Bob Dylan. I believe that it was
54:33
Speaker 1: Andy who broke into Becca Handel's office to steal the
54:36
Speaker 1: prostitution photos, and that he took the spare key so
54:38
Speaker 1: that he could relock the desk drawer. He then took
54:41
Speaker 1: that key and folded it into part of the letter
54:43
Speaker 1: Dylan gave him and handed it to Watergate burglar Frank Carter,
54:46
Speaker 1: as proven in this FBI file. This newly disclosed FBI
54:51
Speaker 1: document proves that the key in the letter come from
54:54
Speaker 1: an FBI source, and that the source's name was Andy,
54:59
Speaker 1: And that proves that the FBI had something to do
55:02
Speaker 1: with the Watergate break in along with the CIA. And
55:06
Speaker 1: that proves that the FBI had a corrupt interest in
55:08
Speaker 1: feeding through Deep Throat aka Mark Felt aka the second
55:13
Speaker 1: most powerful man in the FBI at the time, feeding
55:16
Speaker 1: deep throat information to Bob Woodward and Carl fucking Bernstein
55:21
Speaker 1: to help them take down the president. The FBI was
55:25
Speaker 1: there that night with the CIA. It wasn't just the CIA.
55:29
Speaker 1: We now know that because of Bob Dylan's recently disclosed
55:33
Speaker 1: relationship with the FBI source, Andy the Answer, I believe
55:38
Speaker 1: Andy the Answer or Andy Answers or William Anderson or
55:41
Speaker 1: whatever the fuck his real name was surreptitiously use Bob
55:44
Speaker 1: Dylan to distract his girlfriend, Becca Handle so that he
55:47
Speaker 1: could break into her office and plant incriminating evidence to
55:50
Speaker 1: frame democratic operatives as part of the Watergate plan. From there,
55:54
Speaker 1: the FBI took over from the CIA and, like I said,
55:58
Speaker 1: use their man deep Throat to help Woodward and Bernstein
56:00
Speaker 1: take down the president. Was the Watergate so called scandal
56:05
Speaker 1: uncovered by a heroic feet of investigative journalism by a
56:09
Speaker 1: former Naval intelligence officer, Bob Woodward and his dopey rock
56:13
Speaker 1: journalist buddy Carl Bernstein. Or was it an informational scia
56:18
Speaker 1: spoon fed to these two Washington Post reporters by a
56:21
Speaker 1: seasoned FBI man posing as a noble source with an
56:25
Speaker 1: agenda to shape public opinions strongly against Richard Nixon so
56:29
Speaker 1: as to leave the president no option but to resign
56:32
Speaker 1: or face impeachment. This document indisputably proves the Watergate prostitution
56:38
Speaker 1: ring theory, and it very nearly proves that not only
56:41
Speaker 1: did the FBI and CIA collude to take down Nixon themselves,
56:45
Speaker 1: but that they did it with the unwitting help of
56:47
Speaker 1: Bob Dylon, whom they'd had under watch for nearly a decade. Again,
56:52
Speaker 1: as the FBI files, both the ones that have been
56:54
Speaker 1: public for years and the ones that have been recently
56:56
Speaker 1: released prove. And what does Bob Dylan think of all this?
57:01
Speaker 1: He must know, right, I believe Bob Dylan first realized
57:06
Speaker 1: what he had done years after Watergate in nineteen seventy nine,
57:10
Speaker 1: in the back of that limo. As I mentioned earlier,
57:12
Speaker 1: as reported in Jeff Taylor and Chad Israelson's book The
57:15
Speaker 1: Political World of Bob Dylan. You can check that out.
57:19
Speaker 1: I believe Bob Dylan's guilt over his part in Watergate
57:22
Speaker 1: is what led to his conversion to Christianity. Dylan knew it.
57:27
Speaker 1: He knew that that kind of power was dangerous, not
57:30
Speaker 1: worth getting too close to. It's why he avoided politics
57:34
Speaker 1: until he didn't by writing that damn letter, and the
57:37
Speaker 1: results were disastrous. Writing the letter distracted Dylan. He allowed
57:42
Speaker 1: himself to be taken advantage of by Andy, insisting he
57:44
Speaker 1: called Becca. Andy used his power to manipulate Bob in
57:48
Speaker 1: the unwittingly manipulating the will of millions of Americans, overturning
57:52
Speaker 1: an election where the vast, vast majority of citizens voted
57:56
Speaker 1: for Richard Nixon to become their president, in an election
57:58
Speaker 1: where Nixon won every single state except Massachusetts. Richard Nixon
58:05
Speaker 1: was not a great president. He was petty, paranoid, and
58:10
Speaker 1: abused the power bestowed upon him. But Richard Nixon was
58:14
Speaker 1: set to reveal an even bigger abuse of power the
58:18
Speaker 1: assassination of President Kennedy at the hands of his Central
58:22
Speaker 1: Intelligence Agency, and as a result, that same agency, along
58:26
Speaker 1: with the help of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, neutralized
58:30
Speaker 1: Nixon by orchestrating a secret coupdeta that preyed upon Tricky
58:34
Speaker 1: Dick's obvious flaws. The presidency is a very powerful position.
58:40
Speaker 1: But those who can overthrow a president twice, those who
58:44
Speaker 1: can openly upend the will of millions of Americans, those
58:48
Speaker 1: who can completely subvert democracy by utilizing the power of bureaucracy.
58:54
Speaker 1: That's a truly disgraceful kind of power, in a disgrace
58:58
Speaker 1: that a powerless protest singer named Bob Dylan unknowingly helped engineer.
59:05
Speaker 1: I'm Jake Brennan and this is April Fools episode of Disgraceland. Well, well, well,
59:21
Speaker 1: did I get you? I don't know. I can never
59:23
Speaker 1: tell with these things. I know I got you before
59:25
Speaker 1: in the past. I don't know if I got you here.
59:27
Speaker 1: I hope I did, And if I did, I hope
59:28
Speaker 1: you're not too pissed at me. All right, No, Bob Dylan,
59:31
Speaker 1: he did not have anything to do with Watergate, aside
59:33
Speaker 1: from actually staying at the Watergate hotel while on tour
59:35
Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies. That's kind of what gave you
59:37
Speaker 1: this idea other than claiming that Dylan was responsible for
59:41
Speaker 1: the Watergate breaking. Other than that in the last two
59:44
Speaker 1: FBI files that I read to you, pretty much everything
59:47
Speaker 1: in this episode is fact. The Dylan fight with Weberman,
59:51
Speaker 1: the Watergate prostitution ring conspiracy theory. That's an actual conspiracy theory.
59:56
Speaker 1: It was litigated in court. I believe the fifty five
59:59
Speaker 1: families true. All that's true. Me working with Carl Bernstein
1:00:02
Speaker 1: that's true as well. And despite this episode being satire,
1:00:05
Speaker 1: nothing in here disproves the theory that Nixon was set
1:00:07
Speaker 1: up by a CIA with Watergate, which due to the
1:00:10
Speaker 1: JFK files, I am beginning to believe this theory more
1:00:13
Speaker 1: and more as fact, but I'm not quite there yet.
1:00:16
Speaker 1: I'll have more on all of this and this week's
1:00:18
Speaker 1: After Party Bonus episode, where we're going to dive deeper
1:00:20
Speaker 1: into the making of this episode and separate the historical
1:00:23
Speaker 1: facts in my story here from historical fiction. In the meantime,
1:00:27
Speaker 1: call me text me six one seven nine h six
1:00:28
Speaker 1: sixty six three eight let me know if I got
1:00:30
Speaker 1: you here, Hit me up at Thesgray Slam Pod.
1:00:32
Speaker 2: On the Socials.
1:00:33
Speaker 1: Let me know what you thought of this episode. Let
1:00:35
Speaker 1: me know the answer to this week's question of the week,
1:00:36
Speaker 1: which is which songwriter best spoke for your generation? Was
1:00:40
Speaker 1: A Bob Dylan, Kurt Cobain, Kendrick Taylor Hit me I
1:00:42
Speaker 1: want to know, and you might hear your answer on
1:00:45
Speaker 1: this week's after party coming up next in your feed.
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Speaker 1: He Adnan