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Did the CIA Kill Thomas Merton? · Conspiracy! The Show

• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Winter Insurance. Did I'm true the truth? I'm a check
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: out both church? Wait the autist?
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  Speaker 2: Thank you?
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Well? Hey, everybody, welcome to Conspiracy The Show. I'm your host,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Adam Todd Brown joining me as guest co host this week.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Zach Johnston's here.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: How's it going, man, It's going as well as can
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  Speaker 2: be expected. Great to be happy to be here.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Hey, We're happy to have you. Zach is rejoining us
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  Speaker 1: for a sort of continuation of our episode about the
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  Speaker 1: Fifty States of Conspiracy Kentucky edition. We mentioned on that
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  Speaker 1: episode that there was a case that came up in
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  Speaker 1: a Reddit thread about Kentucky related conspiracies, the death of
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  Speaker 1: father Thomas Merton, and we vowed to get justice for
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Thomas Merton by covering his death on this podcast, and
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  Speaker 1: now here we are to do that exact thing.
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  Speaker 2: Justice will be had today.
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  Speaker 1: We're going to get to the bottom of this years later,
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  Speaker 1: just in time. Yeah, now that the world's ready. We
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  Speaker 1: are covering this by way of a book called The
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  Speaker 1: Martyrdom of Thomas Murton, an investigation which you can get
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  Speaker 1: on Amazon or presumably wherever else you can get digital book.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know if this ever made it to print.
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  Speaker 1: You can get it. It's out there. It's not out
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  Speaker 1: of print.
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  Speaker 2: No, it's on Amazon.
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  Speaker 1: This is an interesting book, just broad overview. I will
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  Speaker 1: say they make a compelling case for the CIA having
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  Speaker 1: killed father Thomas Merton, but it's a compelling case that
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  Speaker 1: one would not hold up in court. And two, I
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  Speaker 1: would absolutely not be picked for the jury for the
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  Speaker 1: case because the minute I was asked in that jury interview,
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  Speaker 1: what are your thoughts on the CIA, my answer would
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  Speaker 1: be they did it. I don't care what we're talking about.
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  Speaker 1: I don't care where it happened. But if someone says
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  Speaker 1: you think this was the CIA, yeah, probably So I'm
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  Speaker 1: not the right person to be super objective about this,
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  Speaker 1: but people are prison uncircumstantial evidence all the time.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. And also what you said before about it, like
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  Speaker 2: we'll get into in the book, but like the ideal
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  Speaker 2: CIA termination or elimination that they like to call, it
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  Speaker 2: is something that doesn't have a paper trail and can't
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  Speaker 2: really be proven. And you know, it's not always Fred
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  Speaker 2: Thomas where they break it and shoot him in the
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  Speaker 2: bed in an obvious raid. You know, sometimes it is
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  Speaker 2: a shellfish talks and gun, or an umbrella with a
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  Speaker 2: bb in it with a poison. You know, sometimes it's untraceable.
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  Speaker 2: We know this because the Church Committee where they one
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  Speaker 2: hundred percent admit to killing people all the time. And
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  Speaker 2: we also know this from Trump's first term where he
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  Speaker 2: said on the news, we kill people all the time.
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  Speaker 2: Why are you Matt at Putin doing it? And people
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  Speaker 2: are still like, but we're the good guys, and it's
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  Speaker 2: like that's relative.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's very relative, especially when you're talking about the
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  Speaker 1: era where this happened.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, oh god, yeah.
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  Speaker 1: If you're talking about this like a true crime thing,
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  Speaker 1: the one thing that always comes up with murder is, well,
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  Speaker 1: did the person you suspect have means, motive, and the opportunity.
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  Speaker 1: CIA absolutely had all three of those when it came
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  Speaker 1: to Thomas Murton, especially once they got him in Thailand,
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  Speaker 1: which is where he died.
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  Speaker 2: Should we do a little background before we get into
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  Speaker 2: the whole death and all that, because I think for me,
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  Speaker 2: Thomas Merton was like I heard the name very tangentially,
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  Speaker 2: but a lot of this was new information of me
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  Speaker 2: and the connection to Kentucky. You know, like I can
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  Speaker 2: never say this word correctly. Get the sentemme.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I should have looked it up because it comes
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  Speaker 1: up a lot in this book. But I think you're right.
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  Speaker 1: Get semone. Maybe Abbey of Our Lady gets Semny near Bardstown,
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  Speaker 1: Kentucky is where he was stationed. I don't know how
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  Speaker 1: you say it in Catholic Church.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, at Trappis Monk. I always associated Trappis monks with
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  Speaker 2: like brewing beer in Belgium, but you know they're cloistered.
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  Speaker 2: He was a huge, huge Piecenic anti war like, hey, ken,
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  Speaker 2: we all just get along and you know, love each other,
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  Speaker 2: like Jesus wanted sort of guy. And I think he
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  Speaker 2: really believed it. From what I can do, you'll surmise
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  Speaker 2: from the research again sixty years later, seems like it.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, they don't get super deep into his biography. In
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  Speaker 1: this book. They describe him as possibly the most significant
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  Speaker 1: Roman Catholic thinker and writer of the twentieth century, and
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  Speaker 1: that one seems like it's probably accurate, And two would
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  Speaker 1: explain why he's never been on my radar. My family
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  Speaker 1: is not Catholic. I have no ties to Catholicism whatsoever.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. My biggest tie is I dated a Catholic girl
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  Speaker 2: in college, and I've been to Rome. That's where it ends.
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  Speaker 1: I don't recall his name ever coming up in school.
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  Speaker 1: He's not really that level of a historical figure where
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  Speaker 1: you're going to learn about him like Gandhi or MLK
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  Speaker 1: or some shit. Right, So, yeah, he's kind of fringe
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  Speaker 1: in that way. But he also seems like absolutely the
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  Speaker 1: kind of person the government would have wanted out of
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  Speaker 1: the way in nineteen sixty eight.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think important context it being nineteen sixty
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  Speaker 2: eight when this dude died, his location being he died
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  Speaker 2: in Thailand, oddly, but also this is nineteen sixty eight.
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  Speaker 2: This is when CIA was most out of control, balls
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  Speaker 2: to the wall, pre Church Committee, you know, pretty much
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  Speaker 2: openly terminating or eliminating targets, doing just crazy shit inside it,
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  Speaker 2: the US, outside the US, all over the place. So
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  Speaker 2: one dude basically to them, seems like a line item
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  Speaker 2: on a memo. You know.
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  Speaker 1: One of the things they bring up in this book
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  Speaker 1: is the fact that it was in Thailand is very
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  Speaker 1: important because Thailand was such an ally to the United
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  Speaker 1: States during the Vietnam.
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  Speaker 2: War, huge, hugely.
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  Speaker 1: So yes, they let us set up bases. We gave
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  Speaker 1: them a shit ton of money for it. Oh yeah,
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  Speaker 1: So Thailand would have been the perfect accomplice for something
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  Speaker 1: like this. They were on board with the Vietnam War
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  Speaker 1: carrying on because it was benefiting them. So if the
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  Speaker 1: American government came to them and it was like, Hey,
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  Speaker 1: this fucking guy is coming to a conference in Bangkok,
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  Speaker 1: we need to assassinate this fella, They're not going to
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  Speaker 1: think anything of it because the Phoenix program was happening
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  Speaker 1: in Vietnam at the same time, which was a straight
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  Speaker 1: up assassination program. So the timeline works, the timeline works,
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  Speaker 1: the location works, the person he was works.
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  Speaker 2: And honestly, to your listeners, like, if you want to
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  Speaker 2: feel really shitty about the Vietnam or even more so,
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  Speaker 2: go look up Operation Phoenix and the shit CIA got
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  Speaker 2: up to and you just general the US government got
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  Speaker 2: up to. Yeah, in Operation Phoenix alone, it's dark.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. I almost did an episode about Operation Phoenix, and
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  Speaker 1: I ended up not doing it because of how dark
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  Speaker 1: it is.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: I learned my lesson from covering Unit seven three one
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  Speaker 1: from World War Two, which was Japan's fucking human experimentation program. Yeah, boy,
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: is that a tough episode to listen to unless you're
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: a big fan of human centipede type body Horn.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's deep. And what's crazy, I mean, not to
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  Speaker 2: de realist. What's crazy is nobody knows the name of
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  Speaker 2: the doctors like we do the Nazi ones, Like I
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  Speaker 2: feel like it. Most people still know doctor Joseph Mangela
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  Speaker 2: by name. Yes, do you know it's one of the
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  Speaker 2: Japanese version of that. No, well he existed, Yeah, he
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  Speaker 2: sure did.
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  Speaker 1: And Fellow was brutal. But Thomas Mertin he wrote an
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  Speaker 1: autobiography in nineteen forty eight called The Seven Story Mountain
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  Speaker 1: that has sold a Metrics shit ton of copies. It's
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  Speaker 1: still in print, been translated in a bunch of languages.
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  Speaker 1: National Review includes it in their list of the one
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  Speaker 1: hundred best nonfiction books of the twentieth century. He wrote
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  Speaker 1: more than seventy books. Wikipedia list twenty eight biographies written
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  Speaker 1: about him, So not a household name, but definitely not nobody.
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  Speaker 1: And if you were an American Catholic in the sixties,
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  Speaker 1: this guy was huge.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, I mean, I like again, I feel like if
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  Speaker 2: either of us were Catholic, the whole National Review thing,
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  Speaker 2: the fact that he's on there would have probably been
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  Speaker 2: something our parents wouldn't shut up about.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, And he was like Zach mentioned a big
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  Speaker 1: piece Nick and was specially opposed to the war in
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  Speaker 1: the v NA. And if there's any thread that runs
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  Speaker 1: through MLK RFK JFK in his opposition to the Vietnam war.
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  Speaker 1: So there's your motive if you're talking, means motive opportunity.
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  Speaker 2: And you know, I think not to make it about now,
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  Speaker 2: but I think because for people who aren't that deep
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: in the religious world, we kind of forget how important
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  Speaker 2: those people are to the religious world, whether Catholic or Christian,
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  Speaker 2: or Jewish or Muslim, Like religious leaders are religious leaders
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  Speaker 2: and are importance. And I mean not to bring up
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  Speaker 2: something annoying about right now, but just look how much
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  Speaker 2: the pope is making news again now for kind of
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  Speaker 2: doing the same thing as this, where it's like, hey,
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  Speaker 2: maybe don't go kill children, Yeah, and these being treated
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  Speaker 2: like he's a fucking monster by the current administration.
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  Speaker 1: Merton was also especially critical of the American media and how,
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  Speaker 1: in his view, and not just in his view this
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  Speaker 1: is true, the American media would kind of bend their
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  Speaker 1: reporting to the will of the American government and they
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  Speaker 1: bring up another really important thing in terms of the
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  Speaker 1: CIA at this point in history. This was the thick
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: of Operation Mockingbird, which is a CIA program where they
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  Speaker 1: just flat out went to journalists and sometimes entire publications
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  Speaker 1: to literally get them on the CIA payroll as sort
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  Speaker 1: of de facto agents, and they had connections with hundreds
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  Speaker 1: and hundreds of journalists. This one guy bragged about having
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  Speaker 1: four hundred journalists at one outlet alone. So that part
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  Speaker 1: is really important also because it plays into what they
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  Speaker 1: view as the cover up.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, because it's a simple Karl Marx said, at the
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  Speaker 2: best is you know, a capitalism is possible to have
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  Speaker 2: a you know, a truthful media, like you just can't
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  Speaker 2: because if people can be bought of, if it's for
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  Speaker 2: a profit, then that becomes the sole motivation. So when
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  Speaker 2: you look at something like Operation Mockingbird and you're like, oh,
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  Speaker 2: you know, people have you know, virtue, and yes, some
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: people do have virtue, but also some people have a
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  Speaker 2: second mortgage and a kid that needs to go to
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  Speaker 2: college and you know, maybe a baby mom on the
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  Speaker 2: side who knows, or.
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  Speaker 1: A skeleton in their closet that they don't want to
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  Speaker 1: come out.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and so him, like Thomas I was looking deeply
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: into or more deeply into Thomas Merton and like what
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: he's trying to get quotes from him, and he was
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  Speaker 2: very much like, hey, like, don't trust, don't just blindly trust.
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  Speaker 2: He was kind of saying, don't just blindly trust what
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  Speaker 2: the government or the media says. Paraphrasing, of course, because
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: you know he makes it about God all the time.
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  Speaker 2: So I didn't commit any of this to memory, but
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  Speaker 2: it's sort of like, hey, you know, you should follow
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  Speaker 2: your heart, and if something feels bad, it probably is bad,
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  Speaker 2: no matter what the government or the media tells you. Like,
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  Speaker 2: if it feels bad in your heart, killing children in
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  Speaker 2: Vietnam or now killing children and Gada probably bad.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, your gut instinct is probably correct. Killing children is
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  Speaker 1: in fact usually bad. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: And you know who hates people saying that, as capitalists
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  Speaker 2: and the American government. They hate that POV because it's like, well, no,
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  Speaker 2: we're the good guys. Remember here's money, We're the good guys.
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  Speaker 2: And so somebody using Jesus and God and you know,
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  Speaker 2: Scripture to be like, you know, no, actually be a
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  Speaker 2: human being.
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  Speaker 1: And the fact that not a lot of people have
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  Speaker 1: necessarily heard of this guy outside of Catholicism, to me
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  Speaker 1: actually makes him one of the more sensible targets for
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  Speaker 1: the government to go after.
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  Speaker 2: And I would say successful.
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  Speaker 1: Almost no one even noticed this happened outside of Catholicism, right, So.
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  Speaker 2: I would say this has been a massive success because
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  Speaker 2: I feel like this guy should be I mean, okay,
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  Speaker 2: let's not MLK seems way too you know, grandiose to
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: compare him to, but their contemporaries they had a very
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: similar message. And like you just there's what seventy auto
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: biographies about this guy. You know, he's on the National
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  Speaker 2: Book read like this person was lauded in his lifetime.
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  Speaker 2: He had a voice, and that voice was for peace
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  Speaker 2: and understanding and loving each other and recognizing the machines
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: of war dehumanizing us. Yes, we always killed those people.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: I mean, not to skip ahead, but John Lennon, I mean,
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: you've had a friend of the show on who went
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: over the whole John Lennon conspiracy.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: David Wheeland. Yeah, he wrote a great book about it.
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  Speaker 2: And you know, a big piece of that pie puzzle,
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: whatever you want to call it, is the fact that
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  Speaker 2: John was about to come out of retirement and go
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: back on the road and start protesting again. Yeah, saying
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  Speaker 2: all basically the same shit Thomas Merton was saying, all
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: those shit MLK was saying, all the shit Fred Thomas
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: was saying, all the shit that Malcolm X was saying.
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  Speaker 2: And you know, it's not a coincidence all these people
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  Speaker 2: were killed.
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  Speaker 1: And again to draw another true crime parallel, if you
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: think about the American government in the sixties, like a
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: serial killer, think about JFK, RFK, MLK, just those three
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  Speaker 1: that would be enough to qualify them as a serial killer.
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  Speaker 1: Think about how they did it. Shady assassinations that to
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: this day people question if they really happened the way
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: the government says they happened. Why did they do it?
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: All opponents to the Vietnam War who needed to be eliminated,
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: when did they do it? In the case of MLK, RFK,
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  Speaker 1: and this guy, all in the same fucking year April
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  Speaker 1: June December nineteen sixty eight. If we were talking about
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: a serial killer, everyone would look at Thomas Merten and go, oh, yeah,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: they killed him too.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, fits the pattern. So maybe we should go into
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: a little bit of the book and how they actually
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: break down his murder because it's fascinating actually, because it's
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: so sketchy as well. I think, of course it's sketchy.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: I think first we should talk about the authors, who, oh, yeah,
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: are really interesting, Hugh Turley and David Martin. Yeah to
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: our stone cold conspiracy theorists. And I don't mean that
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: in a bad way. I think when you first read
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: it and you hear them, especially talk about Vince Foster
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: as much as they do, because these two wrote a
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: book about Vince Foster, also, you're tempted to think, oh, well,
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: these are right wingers obviously, so this book's going to
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: get really interesting. I don't think that's the case. I
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: think these two just in general, mistrust the government and
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: the media, both because they talk about a guy later
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: on named Christopher Ruddy, who is a journalist in air
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: quotes at Newsmax at the point this was written, but
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: he had worked a bunch of other places, and their
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: whole gripe with him was that, oh well, after acting
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: like an outsider all this time, now he's buddying up
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: to Trump. So I don't think they are right wing
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: conspiracy theorists. I think they are more of the traditional
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: the government's bad, don't trust any of it types.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because I think Turley he has another book called
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: The failure of public trust, which is more like almost
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: like an academic journalistic, look at how the courts fail
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: us constantly, and you know how FBI covers everything up
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: and blah blah blah, and the White House covers things
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: up and the courts just sort of allow them to
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: do it, which he wrote with other journalists, you know
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: as well. So these guys are more I would put
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: them in the Oliver Stone sort of general area where
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: they're like, hey, shit's fucked up, and they're going to
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: make us sound crazy for killing you this, but here's
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: kind of what's going on.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: And you know, sometimes they're going to say stuff where
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: you're like, eh.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: I don't know about that, yeah, like all for Stone.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. But I don't think these two are pushing
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: any sort of agenda. I think they genuinely just think
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: the government killed a guy and lied about it and
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: got a wig. Yeah, And so I appreciate the motivation
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: here if nothing else.
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  Speaker 2: And look, I mean, I'm sure people could dig up
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: something crazy they've said and be like, I'll look, these
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: guys are in saying sure, I mean probably if this
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: is what they're dealing in. Sometimes you get a wrong
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: lead and go down the wrong path. But seemingly these
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: guys seem pretty much like kind of just investigative journalists
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: level conspiracy theorists, if that makes sense.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, let's talk about the book. Yeah, they take
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: us through kind of the brief details of the death,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: sort of right up top. The way they frame the book,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: the way they break it down is with this death
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: there are three versions of events, the official version, the
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: approved version, and what they call the logical version, which
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: I think is a good way to frame it, because
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: I think they're onto something, that someone's covering something.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: Up for sure to be Devil's advocate right out of
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: the gate. Nineteen sixty eight, Thailand. I'm not trying to
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: be xenophobic here, but you do have to expect a
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: certain level of lack of CSI, if you know what
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: I mean. Like there could just be simply lack of knowledge,
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: lack of skill involved in all this. Like let's not
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: you know, we're not talking about you know, twenty twenty
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: six abilities here and Thailand. I've been there extensively, live there.
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: A bit can be very rough around the edges. I
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: can imagine in sixty eight even refer.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you definitely have to take that into account.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that being said, Yeah.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: That being said, it's really more I would say the
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: US Embassy. There's a lot of weirdness with.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: Them, a lot of sketchiness that no.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: Matter what Thailand's role in it was, be it incompetence
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: or someone pulled them aside and we're like, we got this,
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: don't look get into this one too much, whatever it was.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: It's once the US Embassy gets involved that things get
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: super fucking weird. Yes, we see weird documents that seem
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: like they may or not be real. One of the
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: things the writers keep talking about is the these seventeen
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: Techniques for Truth Suppression, which I looked it up. I
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: think this is just an internet document. I don't think
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: it's an official thing from any sort of government or military.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very sketchy. The whole dummy up waxing, didn't it.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: It feels like what those I don't know if they're fake,
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: but like former CIA officers on podcasts on YouTube go
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: over like you know how to blah blah blah somebody
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: and all you know whatever, it is.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: Like how to read anybody in six minutes? Like six
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: minutes is a long time. I don't have that much
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: time with most people I meet.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: I think you kind of need to do that in
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: the first six seconds. Yeah, it is one of those
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: it feels like a very sketchy sort of thing. Also,
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: let's be clear as well, like I know a lot
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: of people see a US embassy as this like consular
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: outreach of you know, diplomacy. But remember, folks, CIA operatives
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: are stationed through the Foreign Service embassies to operate, and
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: so more often than not they're in country cover will
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: be through the State Department as a Foreign Service officer,
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: so that they're not there obviously as a CIA operative.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: So anything going through the embassy huge red flake immediately.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: And when we say CIA is staffed at an embassy,
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: that doesn't necessarily mean someone showed up and was like, hey,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: I'm CIA, where's my desk? Probably just got a normal
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: assignment that seemed to everyone at the embassy to be
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: a normal assignment without knowing that person is here, doesn't
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: show up and announce their presence.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: I mean not to kit my hand here, but I
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: know of a certain person who had exactly that, and
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: their cover was working at the visa window in a
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: spouse job to the person who was actually working there
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: as a foreign service ation. So it's all the way down, baby,
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: it's turtles all the way down.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So the way this death happened, there is no
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: explanation that makes sense.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: Unless it's farce, like, unless it's literally a farce. Yeah,
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: you know what I mean, where it's like it's like
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: almost cartoonish. If this is like a normal if this
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: is if the official explanation is the real one, then
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: it's almost cartoonish.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: It is final destination.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: Shit, there you go. Yeah.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: According to the official Thailand version of events, Thomas Merton
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: was walking out of the shower and suffered a heart attack,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: and in the course of that heart attack fell into
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: a fan that, Zach, you're not gonna believe. It just
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: happened to be wired wrong and was lethal to the touch.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: It was. Was it an acme fan?
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, fucking wiley coyote put it in the room. So
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: he has a heart attack, falls into an electrified fan
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: and it lands on him and apparently keeps running or something,
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: and it electrocutes his leg and thigh area. But also
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: he had a head wound at the back of his
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: head and a bunch of cuts on his arm. But
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: that doesn't matter. He had a heart attack and fell
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: and an electrified fan fell on him. There is another
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: version that goes he touched the fan coming out of
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: the shower and that shock from the fan gave him
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: the heart attack that killed him.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: Right. Well, this fan literally it's like an acme fan.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: So very interesting notes. I know I've brought it up before.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: It but Church give any CIA revealed they used shellfish
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: talks and gun. Adam, do you know what they called
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: that gun in CIA? The shorthand they used. They called
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: it the heart attack gun.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: Oh go figure.
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they didn't call it the shellfish talks and gun
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: because that's a mouthful. They just called it the old,
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: good old heart attack gun.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Which I've said this before. Why is that a
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: bad thing? Like, if we're gonna be out there assassinating
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: people on the world stage, let's be gentle about it, right.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: I mean, when all things, you know, cards on the table,
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: all things considered, it's a lot better than you know,
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: what we did in Iraq, in Afghanistan in the last
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: twenty five years, because you know, I prefer a heart
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: attack as opposed to ten years of torture.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: And it seems like a fast heart attack too.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty quick. So I don't know electricity that well.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: I know the difference between like direct current and alternating current,
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: and there are still a lot of direct current shit
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: in that part of the world, just because of old
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: technology and cheaper technology. So I guess maybe, like I've
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: touched a like I lived in Indonesia for a year
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: and I touched a lamp once and it shocked me
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: because it was a direct current and not wired correctly.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: And that was in twenty years ago or something like that, right,
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: So okay, sure, maybe there's you know, crappy wiring, bad appliance. Okay,
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: I guess again. I'm not trying to be shitty to
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: the people of Thailand or their technology or their infrastructure,
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: but we know this was a different time, so I guess.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: But for me, the biggest red flag is the fact
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: that the Thai police are trying to oversell you. It's
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: like that you know six year old who gets caught
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: eating cookies and he's like no, but then the dog
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: ate one, and then you know, a bird came in
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: through the window and it stole another one, and then
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: you know a raccoon came in and stole another one,
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: and you're just like you could have just set the dog.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: Bro What's interesting, though, is the authors talk about the
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: official explanation and then the approved explanation. What they're referring
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: to is there are these documents from Thailand, from the
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: authorities in Thailand that say Thomas Merton died of a
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: heart attack and then the magic electric fan fell on
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: him after he died of this heart attack. But if
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: you read any biography of Thomas Merton, especially the ones
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: that were signed off on by the Catholic Church, they
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: all say he touched the electric fan first and then
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: had the heart attack.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: Great, we couldn't.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: Possibly go through this book blow by blow. It's only
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: two hundred or so pages of reading, but it's dense
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: with information in names.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: Also, just to be clear, this is a fifty three
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: year old guy. We're not talking about like an eighty
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: year old man or somebody enfeebled like he was, as
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: far as we can tell, kind of latter late day's
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: prime of his life sort of fella.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: He looked a little ripped. Yeah, he looked like bulky
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: but not fat.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: Right, It's sort of that sixties in shape, if that
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: makes sense. You know that Don Draper in shape where
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: you're sort of like, well, he's not like shredded or like,
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: but he's like bare chested.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he just still has to do shit around the
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: house because it's not the two thousands.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: Right, there's no engine on his lawnmower.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, we should talk about the date he died.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: December eighth, nineteen sixty eight. He was at a conference
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: in Bangkok, Thailand at the Red Cross Conference Center. He
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: ends up dying even and all of the details about
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: that day are it seems like still in dispute. And
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: the question this book raises is that intentional Is that
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: part of the cover up? Because you see a lot
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: of shifting of the time he left this conference to
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: go back to his cottage, who was walking with him,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: who left after he came back, how long was he there.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of weirdness, and most of it centers
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: around one guy, which is one of the reasons I
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: sort of take a little issue with this book is
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: why not maybe the idea that that guy killed and
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: maybe it wasn't the CIA because there is one dude
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: that he ends up walking back with. From all estimates,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: it seems like Thomas Merton died almost the minute these
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: two got back to this cottage, which is like the whole.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: That's where the shower thing sort of falls apart as well.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: I mean it falls apart twice for me in that
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: that this guy was like going back to have a
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: cup of coffee with him, where they were talking or whatever.
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: But also, I know in our minds were like, oh,
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: Thailand hot, you know, sticky, not in December. You know,
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: in December it's mildish. It's still hot, sure, I mean
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: it's tropical in all that, but not like I need
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: a shower in the afternoon hot, right, I mean, I
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: don't know. That's speculation, of course, but it's just sketchy.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: The two names that I think are the most important
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: in terms of well, there's three names in terms of
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: people who were there at the time. There is Father
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: de Groom, who he's the sketchy one. He seems like
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: if anyone was directly involved in this, it was probably him,
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: because he's the one who ends up getting back to
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: the cottage with Thomas Mertin first, and he's the one
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: who's acting weird as shit the whole time. This guy
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: was apparently dead for like an hour or more before
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: anyone even realized it, which that part alone is weird.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: You come back to the cottage with this guy, it's
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: like two o'clock, by two oh five or some shit.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: They think he's dead, and it takes this guy who
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: came back with him, like over an hour to realize
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: that he's been killed or has died whatever.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: I was sort of confused in here as well, because
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: they seem to have a pretty good indication of him
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: dying very close to two o'clock, but there wasn't an
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: autopsy or there's no official record of ones. So how
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: are they figuring that out? I didn't quite did. I
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: might have missed that, so I apologize, but I was
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: sort of like, where are they getting that number from?
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: That is a question to ask in a lot of situations.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: With this story, the lack of autopsy is very very strange,
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: as is the fact that the US embassy basically took
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: possession of his body almost immediately immediately.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: Also, he was flown back on a US military aircraft
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: that was coming back from Vietnam to the US, which
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: is like, oh, not sketchy at all.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and again, if we're talking serial killer shit and
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: modus operandi, think about what happened to JFK's body. They
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: took his body and then when it lands, they're like
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: his brain. I don't know what happened to his brain?
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: What do you want with his brain? Why would you
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: want to look at that?
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: Just to be clear, he's a private citizen, like he
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: is not associated with the military. He's as far as
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: we know, he's not working for any facet of the
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: US government. Why would you fly a US citizen back
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: on a military aircraft at all?
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: That is obviously where the CIA becomes involved in. Well,
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: who would have killed this guy? Because without that, it
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: does seem like maybe that Dagrooon guy just killed him
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: over something when they got back to the cottage. But
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: another thing the writers bring up is that Dagrooon guy Well, no,
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: I don't remember if it was him, but someone involved
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: in this head like a huge homosexual scandal in.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: The Catholic church.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and if you can believe this, Zach, are you
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: sitting down? I know, because we're on video right now.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: He was also accused of moving pedophile priests around to
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: other churches without telling the parishioners at the new Church
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: that this guy was a pedophile elsewhere. If you can
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: believe that unheard of.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: I'm shook to my core right now that that sort
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: of behavior was going on in such a revered institution.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Crazy, But I don't know if it's the de
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: Groom guy who had all of that going on. But
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: one of the things they suggest is maybe this de
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: Groom guy had shit right, CIA had on him, and
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: therefore he helped with.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: This and slipped him a good old heart attack gun.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: And I mean, yeah, that's the sort of thing they
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: kind of vaguely go into that. I couldn't find anything
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: really about any of that stuff.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: Well, that's what's really interesting. They tried to find more
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: about him, and once he goes back to I think
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: it was Belgium he was from, they were like, he
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: falls off the map, like he just come completely fucking disappears,
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: and we couldn't find shit about him, even the abby
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: or whatever he was stationed at. I think we've decided,
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: as the way to put it, they wouldn't answer any
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: questions about him. So that part's weird. That part is
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: super fucking weird. But I should mention the other two
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: people I said who were the most important as far
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: as people who were present. There's a journalist named Thomas Moffatt,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: who is in staying in this same cottage, also who
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: ends up being the source for a lot of the
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: details about Thomas Merton's death that the writers of this
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: book take issue with, and a lot of the claims
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: we've mentioned him getting out of the shower. It seems
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: like that part of the story might have been invented
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: to make the electrocution part of the story seem more plausible.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: Oh, he's wet, right, right, Okay.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: He was found in a pair of shorts, And they're like, well,
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: who steps out of the shower soaking wet and immediately
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: throws on a pair of shorts? Like, you don't, that's
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: not how that works. There was no water around him
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: in the room. They get into it, and we'll talk
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: about it more a little bit. So there's that journalist,
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: he's important. And then I'm so bad with the titles.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: But there's another religious guy there whose last name is say,
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: let's just call him doctors say, we'll make it feel
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: comic book like. He's important because he's walking behind the
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: Grooon and Merton as they're walking to the cottage. He's
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: walking to the same cottage. They're all leaving this luncheon
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: that this conference was having. There's a break. The conference
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: is supposed to resume at like four point thirty. They're
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: all heading back to the cottage. The Grooen and Merton
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: are like far enough ahead of say that he can
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: see him, but he can't hear what they're talking about.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: And they get in the cottage first. He gets there,
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: He goes in, brushes his teeth, all this shit, and
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: then once they discover the body, someone tells him, take
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: a picture right now, in case we have to move anything,
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: in case the doctors have to examine when they show up.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: Take a picture right now so we can show the
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: police what the body look like when we found it.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: And the police show up, and that guy gets really
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: suspicious of the police, and it's like, I'm actually not
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: going to tell them I took this picture. And that
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: picture becomes really important in this story because it completely
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: contradicts the official version of events, and you see efforts
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: on the part of the Catholic Church and his official
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: biographers to make sure this picture never gets out. And
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: the people who wrote this book wanted to just publish
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: drawings of the picture, not even the picture itself, and
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: the Catholic Church would not let them, which is weird
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: because why would the Catholic Church not want the truth
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: about this guy to come out unless the answer is
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: they were involved in this also, which someone would have
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: to be to some degree.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: So I actually, speaking of Moffatt, I actually found interesting
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: thing in the American magazine called America the Jezier Review,
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: where they interview and talk to Moffatt, who was with Merton.
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: And there's a picture of Merton outside of his bungalow
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: at the top of the article, like a couple days
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: before he died. Dude looks healthy as fuck. But also
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: one tiny interesting thing. Merton's last talk at the conference
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: was called Marxism and Monastic Perspectives.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: Ah, there it is.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's such a huge, huge monolith towards American exceptionalism
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: that that word, whether used correctly or not, is a
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: lightning rod. And the fact that this guy was going
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: around talking about Marxism openly, there's no question. If anybody
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: wants to find it, just go to American Magazine dot
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: org and you just look up Thomas Burton and John
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: Moffatt and they will come up because it talks about
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: him talking about it. But even in this article, Just
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: to be clear, Moffitt says, what really caused fr Merton's
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: death will probably never be known. So these people don't
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: think this is a normal thing either, and they're still
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: talking about it. And this is an article from May three.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and to bring it back to the serial killer thing,
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: you know how sometimes serial killers will like to be
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: fancy with the way they display a body or something
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: to just like really taunt the victim. After the US
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: Army took possession of Merton's body, they flew him back
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: to the US on a military plane, along with casualties
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: from the Vietnam War. So that's where your opposition to
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: the war gets you a bubb on a plane with
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: all the dead people from the war.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: And let me tell you, they have that sick sense
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: of humor. Yes, they would do something like that and
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: fucking laugh about it because it's just too golden an
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: opportunity not to Like, I know that sounds dark, but
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: come on, that's not. We're near the darkest shit we
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: did there. It's funny because it's like there's lots of
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: people like, why this is rich? I think for review
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: of a success full assassination by let's just say the
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: intelligence community or the American intelligence community, is that it
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: is not on anyone's radar. Essentially, everyone has been shut
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: up and this person has been taken out of our
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: history books entirely. Like it's almost too successful, to the
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: point where if you ask ninety nine of the next
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: one hundred people you met about Thomas Martin, they would
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: have no clue who you're talking about. It could not
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: have been more successful.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if this was another of that string of government
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: assassinations in the sixties, this was absolutely the most successful
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: they got it down with this. Granted, the part where
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: they were able to get him to Thailand very much helped.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: But if it really went the way the authors lay
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: it out, they get a lot of coordination from the media,
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: They get a lot of coordination from the Catholic Church.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: That's one of the things people who are skeptical of
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: conspiracy theories here and like try to use as an
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: objection like, oh, so all of these people are involved.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: We're maybe talking like fifteen twenty people here.
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: Oh, I would say that you could do this with three. Yeah,
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: you need some assholes sitting in Langley coming up with
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: the idea. In his cubicle, he talks to whomever their
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: guy is at the embassy in Bangkok, who does their
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: work for him, and then that guy finds whatever he
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: needs to find on you know, the guy who walked
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: back with him to the cabin degree. Yeah, on whatever
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: he needs to find out on him through his connections innocuously,
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: especially if there's pedophilia being covered up and he just
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: goes straight to Dagron is like, hey, you got two choices,
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: but what are you gonna choose?
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's it.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: And also, again what's crazy is we live in a
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: world where there are former and I'm putting big air
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: quotes around former CIA operatives on YouTube and podcasts talking
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: about does the CIA have assassins? They're like, yes, absolutely,
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: and we're still like, oh no, Like we're America, We're
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: the good guys. We don't kill people lecture judicially. We
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: fucking do all the time.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, the only question would be if you
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: think we ever stopped? When when do you think we
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: started being good?
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: And I think it's also kind of a cop out
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: whenever someone now is like, the CIA doesn't kill American citizens, Okay, Well,
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: then follow up question which agency does? Because we got
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: sixteen intelligence agencies in this country, which one does it
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: at the CIA's behest you fucking wordplay using bastards.
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: Well then, also, I mean not to be too modelin
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: but I think one thing that is kind of being
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: exposed by the current administration is the absolute disdain the
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: government especially and the more capitalists, hardcore corners of it
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: don't give a fuck about American lives like they just do.
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: Not like we killed a million people with USA cuts
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: over the last eighteen months. It's not even a story,
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: not a single peron and lost a moment of sleep
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: over that. In the government. I mean, in the government
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: that's in power right now. I don't mean the whole thing.
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: There are plenty of people who set up alarms and
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: who are actually trying to stop it and bring it back,
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: including on the right, especially the George Bush era people,
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: trying to bring those that money back to those people
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: to save lives. Of Course those people exist. Of course
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: there's people in CIA and FBI who are altruistic and
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: do believe in this country and the constitution. Yes, but
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: there's also I mean, we got a whole movie about it,
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: and Tom Cruise starred in it where he's the pilot
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: running cocaine. Don Hall Gleeson plays a CIA operative who's
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: just like sitting around looking for something, like, trying to
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: figure out something to do so he can get on
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: his boss's radar. And it turns into this massive thing
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: where you know, Americans end up getting shot in their
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: cars in Missouri or wherever, and he just like goes
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: back to work the next day and figures out something
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: else terrible to do.
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, American Maid, American Maid.
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's a real movie made by Tom fucking Cruise.
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: And you still have people to your face be like, well, no,
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: but we're the good guy, Like America doesn't do that,
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: are you talking about I'd like to live in that world, man.
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that sure would be nice. And when it comes
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: to the press, the simplest version of how this plot
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: worked is Thomas Merton is ostensibly killed by someone tied
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: to intelligence. They don't ever really say who would have
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: been the person who killed him. They don't get into
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: the who's who in the CIA of it all. Yeah,
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: they focus more on the actions of the people around
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: Thomas Merton, which I think are suspicious enough you warrant
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: these questions. So Thomas Murton ends up dead. US army
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: shows up, takes possession of his body. The next thing
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: that happens is these official reports start coming out. That
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: one they make it seem like there was an autopsy
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: when there actually was not, which he's crazy. It's fucking
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: crazy that there would not be an autopsy in a
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: situation like this. And even that part, again, a lot
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: of this is circumstantial information. But the writers reach out
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: to someone at the abbey where Merton was stationed. I'm
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: not going to stop saying it that way, and they
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: were like, why was there no autopsy? And he was like, oh,
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: Thailand had a law that if you did an autopsy there,
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: the person had to be buried in Thailand, and we
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: wanted to bury him in the United States. And the
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: writers were like, what that doesn't sound real.
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, citation needed.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: And they asked a few different people who would have known,
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: and they were all like, no, that doesn't sound right
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: at all, which raises the question why would they lie, right,
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: Why would they lie about that.
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: Especially that for nothing? But I just did a cursory
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: Google search. Did Thailand ever have a law about autopsies
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: requiring local burial? No, Thailand has never had a law
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: like that because that's an insane thing to even in
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: nineteen sixty eight.
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: And at one point someone was even like, well it
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: was a religious thing, and they were like, he wasn't
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: whatever religion you're talking about, he wasn't that, Like, that's
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: not if you're an American, you don't just have to
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: be buried in Thailand because you died there. That's completely weird.
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: Also, he's a foreigner, so the law wouldn't apply to
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: him anyway, right, right, Like it's just huge red flag
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: that they said that.
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: So it's this report that kind of indicates that he
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: had an autopsy, and there's also a witness statement. They
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: call it the Has statement because it's allegedly the statement
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: of a guy named Otto Has. And then there is
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: a letter that's just signed by the six Trappist monks.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: And these three documents end up kind of forming the
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: basis of what has come to be the accepted story
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: of how Thomas Merton died. And the suspicion in this
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: book is that those documents all came from the US
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: Embassy and we're probably crafted by someone in intelligence to
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: form the basis of this cover story. It seems like
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: they didn't do a great job because they left some
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: weird details in there that people have been able to
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: sort of pick at. But once those documents came out,
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: the media runs with them, Catholic church runs with him,
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: and it just becomes accepted history that Thomas Merton touched
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: a faulty Hatachi fan after stepping out of the shower
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: and that's how he died. That's one of the other
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: things the writers bring up that's so insidious about this
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: is they make it seem like it's his fault that
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: he died. Right, It's not enough that they killed the guy,
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: but it's also yeah, no, he died in like slapstick
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: comedy fashion also yeah.
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: Which again it's just a huge red flake that they
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: were trying to be like he was like slipping around
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: on his feet after having a heart attack and touch
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: his fan and was this you know, comic scene. Then
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: the whole thing that his body was confiscated by the
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: military and shift back home. I'm basically a hearse playing
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: the lying about the autopsy thing, you know back then obviously,
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: of course, how are you going to look that up? Right? Like,
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: what are you going to do? Call them Morgan Thailand
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: and try to figure out if that's true.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: That's the other thing that if the CIA did plan
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: this makes it so brilliant. In all of those documents
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: that the writers of this think are false, almost every
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: witness name is misspelled. If it's not misspelled, they're just
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: not named at all. So if you are skeptical, not
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: only do you have to overcome the language barrier of
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: fucking calling someone in Thailand and being like, how do
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: I find this witness? The names aren't spelled right if
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: you do overcome that, if there's names at all, and
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: what they ask in this book is is that just
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: error or is it intentional? Is it meant to make
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: it so you can't investigate this any further, even if
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: you're a journalist wanting to do your job and look
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: into this more. I feel like back then, especially with
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: the not having the technology we have now, I feel
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: like most people would just hit a wall and be like, oh, fuck,
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: he probably did have a heart attack, good enough, Like
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: it would be so much work to get to the
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: bottom of this, just because of the location, the language barrier,
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: and then you add in the misspellings, the leaving out
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: witness names. CIA did a great job.
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you looked up but like you
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: can find the photograph that are Chaia took, Like you said,
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: they took a photograph for continuity, to make sure it
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: wasn't fucked with you mentioned a few minutes ago. You
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: can find that photograph online if you want to. The
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: one thing about that photograph is it's a modern fan
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: that you and I grew up with in the eighties.
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: Like it's not some old school fan you'd see in
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: like a Vietnam War movie from the sixties, you know,
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: with no cover, and you know, it's a modern plastic
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: fan on a pedestal or not a pestlal pole that
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: has a cover on it, that looks like anything you
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: would see up even today.
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: I mentioned that they keep bringing up parallels to Vince Foster.
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: This case reminds me of Kurt Cobain, especially in how
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: sloppy the investigation was. You have the thing where the
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: police show up see a dead person with a head wound.
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: We reminder Thomas Mertin had a fucking bleeding head wound. Also, yes,
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: when he died, police show up, see a person with
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: a head wound and go, well, I know what this was?
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: Case closed. That happened with Kurt Cobain cop showed up
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: and was like, well, that's obviously suicide. They never investigated it.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: And also the shotgun in Kurt Cobain's case was like
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: giving back to Courtney Love almost immediately or some shit in.
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: This case so weird.
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: The fan just like is immediately replaced. But also all
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: of the top soil and plants outside the window were
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: immediately replaced, and they were like, oh, it's a Thailand custom,
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: it has to do with ghost. Don't worry about it.
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: It's like, shut the fuck that obviously something else.
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: That's also Charlie kirkshit when they just completely dug up
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: and repaved that site where he was killed the next morning.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, nothing to see here, folks.
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's some time again nineteen sixty eight. Yeah,
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: go verify whether that's some til and shit or not.
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: I double dog daria, you know what I mean. And
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: they're just in they're smirking about it.
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: And also the writers bring this up, it's like, way
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: to tell me how you got the guy in the
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: room without telling us how you got the guy in
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: the room. Was it maybe someone dressed as a gardener
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: right outside the room who maybe hopped in that window
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: and killed this guy and got right the fuck back
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: out of there. That would be easy to pull off
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: in fucking broad daylight.
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And also it's the sort of thing where like
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: I often, you know, I think of people's like, what
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: would it take for you to like think this is sketchy?
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: It's okay? So it's it's not the sketchiness of the
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: way he died and the fact that there's no clear
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: evidence and the sketchiness of the photo, the fan story,
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: the heart attack story, the fact that you know he
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: was taken into customer by the US military, the fact
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: that they re sotted all the gardens around the cabin.
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: I mean, what else do you need to know that
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: there's something wrong here?
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that is what always bothers me when people give
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: that stock objection to any conspiracy theory where they're like, well,
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: where's the evidence. It's like, what do you mean? Because
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: you'll hear that with UFO videos and it's like, there's
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: your evidence? What is that thing? And you're like, well,
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: the government hasn't officially. It's like the government's gonna lie
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: to you.
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: And that's what scares me about a lot of this stuff,
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: is I mean, as we've seen, especially over the last decade.
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: I kind of feel like, at this point, not to
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: derail us here. At this point, a fucking extraterrestrial could
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: land openly in Los Angeles and people be like, Nah,
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: who cares. I don't think so it could be that.
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: Or if you're me, I'd be like, let's hear them out.
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's hear him out. They got here. If that's
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: impressive enough, take you.
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: To our leader. Gladly, gladly, wait till you meet this
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: fucking guy. Holy shit, you are not gonna believe it.
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: But you know what I mean, Like, there would be
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: a shocking amount of people who just would not give
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: a shit and not even bother to believe it. Or
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: look like, there's a shocking amount of people that don't
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: even know what January sixth is. There's a shocking amount
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: of people who have no idea who Epstein is. There's
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: a shocking amount of people that just don't have any
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: idea what's going on in Iran right now?
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, my wife was listening to some NPR podcast in
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: the car. It was right around the time of the
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty four election. Or no, no, this was in
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty one. That's why it was so fucking shocking
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: to me. And they were talking to young people who
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: were about to vote in their first elections soon, and
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: they're talking to this girl and they go, how would
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: the events of January sixth inform who you vote for?
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: And she goes, refresh my memory what happened on January sixth?
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: And this was twenty twenty one. Still right, right, yeah,
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: God damn, we're fun.
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: I'm of two minds, right, Like people's whole lives shouldn't
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: be fucking politics, Like people should be living their lives. Yes,
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: go vote, but like when it's something that big, it's
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: like you gotta like that's just like in success of
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: the right being able to tust that shit under the
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: rug successfully on their side.
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: And you always hear this thing with conspiracy theories where
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: whenever there's an article about the conspiracy theories around surrounding
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: any news story, whatever, you always eventually get to the
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: part where they're like, well, conspiracy theories are just people
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: trying to find explanations for things that just don't make sense,
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: blah blah blah, And it's like, okay, what is your
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: psychological analysis for people who refuse to believe any conspiracy theory,
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: because that's not any healthier that kind of blind trust
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: in a government that oversees a country that is built
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: on the back of two fucking genocides. When do you
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: think we started being good We're the only country to
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: nuke anybody in war time? When do you think we
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: started being so good that the government would never lie
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: to you? So what is the psychology behind Oh, I
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: just blanket don't believe any conspiracy theories. I think that's
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: people trying to comfort themselves with the idea that it's
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: not coming for me. It's never going to come for me,
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: so I don't really have to worry about that.
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the classic. They came for the homosexuals, but
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: I wasn't one, so didn't really bother me. Then they
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: came for the gypsies, but I wasn't one, so it
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: didn't bother me. It's like, well, guess what they're going
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: to come for you at some point, man, Like people
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: forget in this country as well, Like we're only a
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: generation and a half, maybe two generations away from no
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: Irish no dogs in places of business. We're only two
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: generations away from Italians being lynched. You know, We're not
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: that far from real dark shit, and we seem to
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: be running in a break a pace back to it.
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: I think a lot of the people who were in
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: those groups have forgotten where they're going to end up
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: at the end of that road. Yeah, but this guy
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: was fucking killed by the CIA, dude, Like, he was
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: straight up fucking one assassinated by the CIA. Like, there's
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: no question in my mind. He fits the profile, like
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: you said, serial killer wise, he fits the profile to
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: a t. Yeah, And there's just way too much sketchiness
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: around what happened after his death. It's just way too,
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: way too messy the means.
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: Obviously, we know the CIA has the means to assassinate someone.
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: They wrote books about it. They bring up the Frank
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: Olson killing in this A lot if people have never
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: seen the Wormwood documentary. Very interesting documentary because it's one
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: of the few times in history where the CIA was like,
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: what you got us, you got us. We gave this
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: guy too much acid and he jumped out of wind.
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: He went crazy and jumped out of a window. Whoops,
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: oh my god. And the reason they did that is
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: because that's not what happened. They threw that fucking guy
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: out of window because he was going to tell on
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: America for using chemical weapons in the Korean War. That's
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: what pump In, that fella full of LSD did. It
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: gave him a big old conscience and he wanted to
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: tell people that the US did that. And the makers
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: of Wormwood when they reached out to the CIA, they
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: were like, just out of curiosity, do you have any
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: like training manuals or anything from the fifties about assassination?
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: And the woman was like, yeah, which ones do you want,
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: and set the filmmakers this literal fucking assassination manual from
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties that at one point is just like,
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: you know, a really good way to kill someone without
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: making it look like a murder is just toss him
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: out of fucking window. You might have to like hit
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: him on the head to incapacitate him or something, but
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: that's not gonna show up when they land, and whoops,
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: Frank Olsen was hitting the head with something before he
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: went out that fucking window, and it did show up
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: in his autopsy. So yeah, the CIA's fucking killing people.
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: They write books about it. And the point in history
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: when this happens means motive opportunity again, cannot stress enough
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: the fact that this happened in Thailand makes it the
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: perfect opportunity to do it because Thailand was our ally
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: in the worst shit we were doing in Vietnam at
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: the time, and the amount of money I found it
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: in the book. Between nineteen fifty and nineteen seventy five,
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: Thailand received approximately six hundred and fifty million dollars in
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: economic aid, another nine hundred and forty million for defense
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: and security, over two billion in total assistance from Washington
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: just between sixty five and seventy five to Thailand. Jesus,
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: So Thailand would do whatever the fuck we wanted at
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: this point in history. So yeah, again, they don't necessarily
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: make a case that would hold up in court. But
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: I absolutely believe the CIA killed this guy from reading
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: this book.
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would argue, but don't. You don't even need
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: to read the book to come to that conclusion, just
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: given the preponderance of oddities, And like you said, man,
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: you got to think about it. From a true crime
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: serial killer POV, this guy fits the profile one hundred
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: percent of who we were killing back then. Yeah, he
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: just does. That's also again, not to go back to
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: John Lennon but it's also like why John Lennon's death
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: fits that profile too, same thing. Peace, Nick marxists and
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: had the power to, you know, rally people around him.
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: Bob Marley.
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: Bob Marley, Yeah, same thing.
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know how the CIA would have
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: given him cancer, but I don't fucking put it past
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: them that they could. But we do know. There's a
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: documentary on Netflix, probably still on Netflix. We did an
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: episode about it, but I think I took it down
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: because the audio was all fucked up. But there's a documentary.
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: I think it's called The Assassination of Bob Marley, but
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: it's not about his death. It's about when someone tried
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: to kill him in Jamaica and he survived and he
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: ended up holding this big peace concert in Jamaica. And
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: we find out in that documentary the cameraman who was
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: filming was CIA. And I don't know, skeptics of the world,
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: how am I supposed to take that? Am I supposed
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: to think? Oh, well, how weird that the CIA agent
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: has a side hustle where he films concerts completely innocently.
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: It's like, no, the CIA had eyes on Bob Marley
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: in the early eighties, for the same reason they would
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: have had eyes on John Lennon in the early eighties,
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: because those two people were capable of really rallying opposition
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: to what the CIA wanted to do, especially in Latin
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: America in the fucking agies. Oh God, Yet, like, it's
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: so convenient that Bob Marley died of cancer when he did,
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: if nothing else.
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: And I mean, I don't know if it's an open secret,
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: but again joked about all the time. If you listen
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: to former CIA podcasters and shit like that who talk about,
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: of course the CIA can give you cancer. Anybody can
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: give you cancer. They know how to do it, you know,
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: and they probably they've probably been doing it for seventy years.
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: There's the famous sug Night Jimmy Kimmel interviewed, which Suge Knight.
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: I'd be shocked if that guy is not intelligence related somehow.
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: But Suge Knight gave that interview on Jimmy Kimmel where
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: he was like, yeah, man, they got the AIDS needles
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: now where you can just like inject someone and they
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: just die of AIDS. It's like, dude, that's how easy
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: he doesn't it? Yeah, what are you telling us right now?
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: Maybe we should do an episode about that, if people
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: are unfamiliar. I was alive at the time and listening
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: to a lot of fucking rap music. I had a
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: subscription to the Source magazine at the point in history
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: when Easy he died. That dude, it was like, oh,
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: Easy has aids and then he was dead, like yes,
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: two weeks later.
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah it was fast.
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that never happened. Magic Johnson bought a fucking cure. Meanwhile, Easy, yeah,
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: Easy lasted like ten days. What how it's crazy.
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I literally I think it was. Yeah, it was
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: like late. It was like he went to the hospital
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: and he was dead like two weeks later. Yeah, yeah, like,
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: no joke.
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: He made it about as long in the hospital as
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: Tupac did after he got shot in Las Vegas. Right,
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: but it was nuts.
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: Again Easy, I mean understatement to say that he was
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: a political icon back then. Yeah, you know, I mean
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: it was. But yeah, man, that would be a good
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: episode because that's again super super sketchy, especially with that
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: Kimmel thing with sugar and sugar is weird anyway, man,
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: there's so much, so much shit around him, and also
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: maybe he's just a useful idiot too, you know.
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: So Yeah, Like I said, we can't go through the
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: whole book beat by beat, I would suggest reading.
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: It, yeah, twitter pages.
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: It's a very quick read. It's a lot of names
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: and a lot of information, but they bring up a
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: whole lot of instances where it does seem like a
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: lot of people are trying to cover up what actually
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: happened to Thomas Merton. And if nothing else, the official
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: explanation of what happened to him is silly. It yes,
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: does not make sense.
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: And I think for me, the sort of like cherry
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: on top, it still seems like in the Jesuit community,
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: Catholic community, whatever community, there still seems to be an
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: open ended this is, this is fishy, this is it
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: doesn't feel right, The official thing doesn't feel right, like
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: they're still talking about it now, Whereas I think with
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: a lot of things like this that fall apart is
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: when they do leave the conversation, when the community just
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: accepts it and doesn't talk about it anymore. This is
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: still being taught like that American Jesuit magazine articles from
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: twenty twenty three. Yeah, you know that's still in their minds.
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: And I actually might go down to the guest. I
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: guess sorry, I can't say this word. Get the Samie
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: Monastery and see his grave, just to you know, just
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: to check it out, because i'd write by there. So
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: it's Bartstown. He drives out to the Laredo where it makes
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: Maker's Mark Distillery is and it's on the same road.
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: So I've driven by it a few times, but I've
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: never had any reason to stop.
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: It definitely seems like one of those things that's just
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: ever going to be solved. It's like it's not gonna
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: be solved because it's not considered a crime. Like it
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: would take a whole lot of effort to get this
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: back to a point where it could ever be prosecuted.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: And like I say about so many things, what are
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: we gonna do arrest the CIA?
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: Right? Oh, and there's probably not even a paper trail
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: for evidence, you know.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I looked on the nation's premier entertainment destination FBI
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: dot vault dot gov. I did not find anything about
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's like articles and shit, but it's not
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: like you type in fucking Fred Hampton and alarm bells
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: start going off, flashing and your computer starts filling up
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: with results. Thomas Murtin, they're just like, did you mean
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: Thomas Morton. I don't know who you talking about. CIA
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: not a ton of stuff about Thomas Merton.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: And see, part of the FBI's job even back then
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: was to investigate Americans' deaths abroad. Yeah, so there should
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: be something. I mean, we stationed FBI agents at consulates
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: specifically for this, and we did back then too. I
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: rewatched Bridge of Spies with my son the other day
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: because we're watching all the Spielberg movies, and you know,
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: the big thing in that is the FBI fucking around
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: with people. It's like, it sounds like, did the FBI
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: like work abroad in the fifties, And I was like,
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: hell yeah, they did. Like they were fucking around all
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: over the world in the fifties. So there should be
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: something in the FBI files about this dude, because he
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: died abroad and he was such a huge public figure
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: at the time.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't see anything. I was very surprised. Maybe
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: I'll see what else I can find.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: Another red flake.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll tell people again if you do read this book,
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: it really does just focus on the people around him
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: and how weird they're acting. But I agree with the
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: authors that they're acting weird in a way that speaks
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: to them maybe working with someone else or being involved
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: in a bigger scheme. It's a good book, it's a
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: quick read. They make a good argument, but we can't
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: go through all of it. I'm sold, Yeah, But yeah,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: I'm an easy mark for something like this. I'm inclined
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: to believe the CIA would do this shit. And again
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: the serial killer thing, just think about it that way.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: This guy makes perfect sense as just another victim in that.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: And look, man, I don't even think believe is the
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: right word. We know our government does this shit, like
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: there's no question, you know, it's just the matter of,
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: you know, did we do in this case? It fits
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: the profile. Man, Yeah, I don't know what else to say.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean in terms of I think maybe the
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: best thing to point to in terms of what kind
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: of just really heinous shit the government is capable of
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: getting up to. People recoil when I say this, like
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: I'm being some kind of right winger. But look at
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: fucking Waco.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: Oh god, yeah, Like the.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: Argument is always, oh, well, that guy was a pedophile. Okay,
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: so you burn down a building with dozens of kids
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: inside it.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: Ruby Ridge too, Ruby Ridge is not a fucking bright
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: mark on our society.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: No. No, we shot a woman in the back while
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: she was carrying a baby inside a house. We mean
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: the American government, not me and Zach. We were off
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: that day.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're again some pie and a diner.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: I don't know if we've ever done a full episode
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: about the Waco documentary Rules of Engagement, but there is
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: footage in that that really makes it look like the
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: government was shooting at the possible exits out of that
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: fire so people could not get out.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: I mean, and I don't mean to beat a dead
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: horse here, but it's the exact tactics the US government
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: used against Indians when they were, you know, surround the village,
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: shoot everybody trying to get out of the fire, like
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: they've We've been doing that since day one, all the
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: way up to you know, Wounded Knee and beyond Sand Creek.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's the exact same tactics we've already been using.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: We just start using them on ourselves, and you know,
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: it walks like a duck wax like a duck duck
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: man and Waco is I remember watching that on TV.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you did, because it was a
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: huge thing, like it was a massive standoff, live coverage
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: on TV. What blows my mind is they didn't cut
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: away when they fucking drove the tank into the building
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: and set it on fire, and they showed all that
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: shit live on television like they're attacking a Nazi bunker
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: in nineteen forty five or something.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean that that was the era for it.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: That was that early to mid nineties court TV type shit,
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: which yeah, I was going to say this when I
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: say this wouldn't hold up in court if you put
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: it on TV in the nineties and every day had
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: Nancy Grace being like, they killed MLK, they killed RFK,
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: they're doing the Phoenix program in Vietnam. Of course they
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: killed this guy. The CIA would have been shuddered. But
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: we don't have that. There's no one yelling like that
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: against the CIA.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: No, not in the mainstream, that's for sure. It's I mean,
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: it's the sort of thing as well, like the little
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: bit of research at ed on Thomas Burton, a little
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: bit I read seemed like a cool dude just wanted
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: us to be humans and love each other in peace,
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: and you know, you know, saw the value in talking
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 2: to each other and work with each other, and that
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: makes you enemy number one to the US government, Like
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: we know that. So I would say, if you're going
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: to look into it, also read what this guy has
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: to say. It seems like he had some pretty good ideas.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, seemed like a good dude. So I think that's
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: our episode. We did it. We will link to where
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: you can read this book if you want to give
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: it a read. I think I'm going to read their
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: Vince Foster book. They still really got really got a
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: bone to pick with the government, Vince Foster.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: And that's a fascinating story. Another suicide that's very sketchy.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, the Clinton body count is no joke. There
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: is that. They have put up some numbers, for sure.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: My favorite one, which favorite is a weird way to
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: say it, but there's one where they, uh, this guy
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: like committed suicide and they use Clinton of being involved,
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: and it's like, well, Clinton couldn't have done it. He
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: was hitting on that guy's wife in his office at
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: the point when that guy died.
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 2: So that's incredible, that's incredible, so crazy for such a
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: stupid country.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: Oh, we are be sure, you gotta laugh. So yeah,
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: read the book, decide for yourself. I think it's pretty
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: clear Thomas Merton was murdered, though I would like to
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: see an investigation into that half of it, though the
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: CIA half, like who was in the country at the time,
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: stuff like because you see that with like the Jonestown investigation,
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: the book that I covered when I did all those episodes,
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: they really get into, well, this guy from the CIA
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: was in Guyana at the time. The CIA was doing
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: this in Guyana, and you don't really get those kind
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: of facts and details with this book, which I'd like
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: to see that half of it at some point from
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: someone who probably will not beat me.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: It's very right for a documentary. You could do a solid,
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: like seventy five minute documentary about this, oh yeah for sure. Yeah.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: Or if you're doing it for Netflix, you could make
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: it episodes. Great interview unimportant family members for two and
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: a half hours.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, go to the Hatachi factory in South Korea wherever
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: it is and interview you know, employees. Yeah yeah, So Zach,
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: thank you so much for doing the pod.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: As always, thank you. Do we have to plug before
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: we get out of here. I will say, if you
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: want this podcast completely ad free and with bonus episodes.
• 1:07:29
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• 1:07:31
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• 1:07:37
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• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: those prices could double in the coming weeks or months. Zach,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: what do you want to plug?
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: Go watch Wormwood? Everyone?
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: Uh no, just if you want to follow me an
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 2: ig ZTP whiskey see my exploits dater. Otherwise, yeah, just
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 2: happy to be here. Always good conversation and uh yeah,
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 2: don't believe anything to see I tells you.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, don't trust your elected officials everybody. That's not what
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: they're there for. And I think that's it. Let's get
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: the funk out of here, Zach say goodbye, goodbye, good
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: bye everybody. We love you.