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Selects: Iran-Contra Affair: Shady in the 80s, Part 1 · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey guys, it's me Josh. For this week's select I've
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: chosen our twenty nineteen episode on the Iran Contra affair.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: We called it Shady in the eighties for two good reasons.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: One it took place in the eighties, and two it
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: was probably the shadiest thing the US government has ever done.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: And that's really saying something. Anyway, if you like your stuff,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: you should know episodes eye popping, then prepare for this one.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Charles w Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry over there eating with chopstick.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: As a matter of fact.
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: You know what, Jerry pulls up the chopsticks.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: It's time to record.
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she's got she's got Facebook open and she's sitting
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: there with her chopstick. So it's we're recording now.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: He's been fork free since eighty three.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Speaking of eighty three, your shirt, I guess it's kind
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: of eighty three ish.
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: It looks very Thomas Magnum.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: It does, Chuck. It does not just the shirt, the
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: whole outfit. Look at the jeans, the shoes.
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you got the Ferrari out back.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Thank you for noticing. Man, I look like a chubby
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Thomas Magnum.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: It's funny because I just finished Stranger Things three and
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: I saw that there was a have you seen it yet?
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: Are you into that?
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: No? I like the first season. I never really got
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: back into it after that. No, no offense to anybody.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Sure, the main the sheriff guy, Yeah, Hopper wears a
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: shirt kind of like that through most of this season.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Is that right?
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: And so someone did a cut of a like a
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: Magnum p I intro and had him running around and
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: shooting things and jumping into cars, all set to the
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Magnum thing, and it really fits. All I gotta do
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: is throw that song with the guy with a shirt
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: like that Magnum.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Yep. Of course he has the mustache too. Well, I'm
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: a mustacheless chubby Magnum.
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: You should wear a mustache. That looks interesting.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I do solve a lot of mysteries though.
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: Nothing can change a look like.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: Mustaches, Oh dude, especially right, especially a.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Fake mustache, because you just put it on and bam,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: you're done. Right, So I tried. I'm going to go
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: back to the eighty three segue.
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah we're here, right, We're right in the middle of
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: the eighties.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like this was super eighties. This is as eighties
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: as it gets. Yeah, Iran Contra, fair, that's what we're
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: talking about. Some people call it iron Gate. I poo
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: poo that name.
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: Iran Contra.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Sure. I remember this going on at the time, me too.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: I remember watching All Over North Testify me too, and
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: my sister was like, he's so dreamy. Look at how
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: much poise he has.
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: He had his dress greens on right exactly those metal.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Had his boy scout three fingers up like swearing. I
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: really think he did do that. But even as an adult,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: like everything I knew about around Contra was like, until
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: researching this, it was just the glossiest version.
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: Well, I mean I was like ten and eleven, so
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: you were like seven and eight.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Sure, sure, but I mean like it's still over time.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: As you age, you're like, oh, that's what was going
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: on or oh I understand that. Even as an adult,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: my conception of it was not very thorough at all.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: And as I dug into I'm like, this is one
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: of the shadiest things in Meerica has ever done yeah ever.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it was really great to do this, and like,
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: now I know it. Now I have a full understanding
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: of what happened. And if it ever comes up at
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: a party, right and people are like, oh, what was
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: that all about? Anyway, I'm gonna be like, wow.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Please sit down for an hour and.
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: I'll just pull up my smartphone and play our episodes.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: Right, actually, maybe an hour and a half. We'll see
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: how this goes.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, by the way, everyone, this is a two parter. Yeah,
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: buckle up, and so, uh this is part one.
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: I figured we'd start with the beginning.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: I think that that's a really good idea.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: That reminds me of my friend in college watched the movie,
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: Oh which one was it?
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: Burned Shortcuts?
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: The movie that was on two video cassettes? What it
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: was so long?
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: I had to split him up? Was it Magnolia?
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: The Bridge Too Far?
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: I can't remember.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: My friend in college, very very famously among our friends
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: watched the second tape first and then watched the first
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: tape second and didn't really put it together.
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: She was just like, I thought it was a little.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: Confusing, really, so it was accidental.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh, and then she was like and then
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: she showed up in the in the second part, and
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: I was like, she's already dead.
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: She was kind of country. This is kind of funny.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: This movie is one of them an achronisms. Yeah, well,
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: this is not an acronism, because we're going to be normal, smart,
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: singing people and start at the beginning.
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: And there's really no better place to start than the
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: election of Ronald Reagan in nineteen eighty Ronald Reagan, if
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: you weren't familiar with him already when he was president,
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: he had already been governor of California, But even before that,
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: he had a pretty extensive career in Hollywood. And while
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: he was a pretty big star in Hollywood, at least
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: B plus list, if not a list.
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: Actor, yeah him. Mean, he was a medium sized.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: Star, sure, but definitely way more famous as president than
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: he ever was as a movie star.
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: He learned to detest communism. Yeah, and at the time,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: communism was a really big thing in Hollywood, Like it
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: was very fashionable, especially among the intellectuals of Hollywood. Yeah,
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: and he learned to hate it so much so that
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: by the time he got to be president, he had
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: this idea that there was. It was impossible for capitalist
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: democracy and communism to coexist even peacefully on earth. You
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: couldn't have both. You had to have one or the other.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: And by god, Ronald Breagan was going to see to
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: it that the one that we had was a capitalist democracy.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: Ye want to stamp out communism wherever it reared its head,
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: and it was rearing its head close to home, which
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: we'll see here in a second, but all over the world.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, for sure. It was called the Reagan.
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, bits and pieces of it were right.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: And he came up with the Reagan doctrine. And the
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: Reagan doctrine was, we will aid any any opposition to
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: communism wherever it sprouts, Like if you're if you're fighting
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: against a communist revolution, we'll support your country. If you're
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: a rebel fighting against a leftist communist government, we'll help
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: you overthrow. That's the Reagan doctrine.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, via money, via arms, via training, via covert operations
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: that we carried out ourselves. Yeah, there were all kinds
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: of ways that we could and did help stem the
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: flow of communism.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: So there was, as you were saying, there was a
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: place pretty close to home where communism had sprouted up,
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: and that was Nicaragua down in Central America, and in
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Central America in the thirties, the Sandinista government had taken
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: power and had held onto power well into the seventies
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: and by this time the early eighties, and it drove
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan nuts that there was a communist power right
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: there that was being supported by the Soviet Union through Cuba. Ostensibly.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: I've never gotten the impression that this was ever conclusively proven.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: They definitely got support from Cuba. But whether it was
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: the Soviet Union who was really calling the shots of
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: Nicaragua or not, I don't know.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think, you know, to go even further
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: back and draw the lines a little even more clear.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: The Sandinistans were named for Augusto Sandino, who led the
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: nationalist rebellion against what the US occupation of Central America.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: Oh that's where it started.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: Huh, that's where it all started. And from nineteen you know,
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: the US occupied. This is all part of the Banana Wars.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: So we occupied Nicaragua from nineteen twelve to nineteen thirty
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: three for a lot of reasons, but one was like, hey,
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: no one's going to build a canal here unless it's us, right.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: That was sort of one of the main reasons, and
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: that all ceased in nineteen thirty to three with Roosevelt's
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: Good Neighbor policy, which is basically like, we're going to
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: pull out in Nicaragua.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: Oh really, yeah, okay, So, but we.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: Had our fingers all over Central America right for many, many,
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: many years. And that's why when people forget or choose
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: not to remember when people flee horrible situations in Central
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: America to come to the United States now like kind
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: of where all these horrible situations started years and years
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: ago because of things that we did right well.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: When Reagan became president, intervening in Nicaragua, Nick Man, I'm
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: going to have a hard time if I can't say
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: Nicaragua intervening in Nicaragua became like a like first and
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: foremost priority for them.
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: Almost immediately they started funding the Contras. The Contra are
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: the groups who were fighting against the Santa Nista government.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: They were right wing groups, and they were funding them,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: they were training them, like you were saying, and they're
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: doing all this secretly. There was an operation called Operation
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: Black Eagle Man that one that was something else. Yeah,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: So we were already funding them, and at the time,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Congress was on board. Congress was on board, especially at
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: first because the Republicans controlled the House. Well, you know
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: how when somebody comes in and just steamrolls over the
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: other party, usually in a presidential election, very frequently in
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: the midterms, the congressional midterms, there's like a backlash against that.
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like a house flip.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: Believe it or not. That happened to Ronald Reagan in
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two, and the House did flip. They flipped
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: over to the Democrats. And that Democrat controlled House, combined
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: with a Newsweek cover story that came out, kind of
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: turned the tide against Reagan's policy on helping out in Nicaragua.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: There was a CIA director named William Casey who was
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: he was kind of telling Congress what they needed to
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: hear here and there you have been here vague briefings.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: That was probably a generous way to say it. Sometimes
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: Casey would send another guy, though, named Dwayne Dewey Clarridge.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: And this is where things really went south because Clarridge
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: did not present well to Congress, and anytime Congress feels
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: like they're being subverted or ignored or like kept out
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: of the loop, or like not able to offer their
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: checks and balances on the executive branch. They really get mad,
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: they do. And like we're seeing that today. This is
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: like history just repeats itself over and over again.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Yeah. And in this particular case, the place where
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: where the administration, the regular administration in Congress just started
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: butting heads over niic Aragua, it was Duane Claridge. Yeah,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: you know, he just that's how poor a job he did.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: But in his defense, he was coming from a place
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: where he was a CIA man through and through. And
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: this is less than ten years after Congress had just
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: basically rooted out the CIA, held public hearings. That's when
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: like the MK ultra came out and the fact that
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: they've been dosing unsuspecting Americans with LSD.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So in his defense, he was mad because they
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: uncovered all the awful things that.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: He'd been doing, right right, right, true compassion, Chuck, Yeah,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: that's true, compassion. So Congress is starting to get a
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: little unhappy with this. And there was one congressman in
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: particular named Edward Edward Boland I believe, and he was
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: from Massachusetts, and he said Hey, I just read about
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: this cover story in Newsweek has a title America's Secret
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: War colon Nicaragua. Seems like they should have flip flopped that,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: you know, Nicaragua colon America's Secret War.
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: I think they both had the same end goal.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: It's fine, right, But he was like, wait.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: Why am I reading about this in a magazine? Yes,
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: and I'm a member of Congress, right.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: Because at this time, like Congress was like, well, okay,
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: we think we're just kind of funding things, we're maybe
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: helping out a little bit. This Newsweek magazine was like, no, no, no,
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: it's way more than that. Yeah, like there is way
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: more American involvement down in Nicaragua then you've been led
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: to believe Congress.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: Like actual covert CIA ops like blowing up bridges and
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: blowing up buildings and you know, direct saboteur type ops.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, not just here's some arms. Yeah, and then you
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: know you close this one eye, believe this eye open
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: when you're shooting. There was way more involved than that.
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: Or we could just do the shooting basically here, just
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: let me do it.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: So Congress in the guys of Edward Bolan said Nope,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: we're not doing that, and they passed the bowl In Amendment,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: which basically said, if you cannot use CIA funds or
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: Department Defense Department funds to aid the Contras in Nicaragua,
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: it's done. Good night. Congress went to sleep.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: And so that should have been the that's the end
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: of it, right, because Congress passed a well it was
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: at a law, now passed.
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: An amendment in act in act.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and so everyone just stopped, right, that's how it works,
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: all right, what's part two going to be about that?
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: We're just going to see here quietly.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: So this did not stop anything. Here's what happened. In
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: nineteen eighty three. The CIA had this one operation where
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: they went into the commercial shipping harbors of Nicaragua.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Oh boy, I know it's it's pageous.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: I said it right in my head all morning. Nicaragua.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: And they put mines there. You know, I was about
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: to say land mines, but they were sea mines, yeah,
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: floating mines, right. And the idea here was we're going
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: to plant these mines that we're going to whip up
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: our own press releases for the Contras where they take
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: credit for it, like we don't even trust them to
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: write a good press release.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: The CIA wrote the press release for.
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: It, so where the Contras are saying that they.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: Did it, and the overall effect it's going to have
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: is they're not gonna be able to ship arms via
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: the seaport, at least into Nicaragua.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: Plus it also makes the Contras look way more together,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: sure and with it than they actually were.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: Right, like, all we need to do is give them
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: some money, and they got it covered.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: Right. So the CIA does this and they're thinking, okay,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: so mine are shipping in the Nicaragua Harbor's is going
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: to stop. It does not stop. No, as a matter
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: of fact, there there was damage. So they used little
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: firecracker mines which make a big blast in a lot
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: of water everywhere. But if it's a big ship, it's
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: not going to hurt the ship. Well, it's sunk a
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: lot of small fishing vessels. But it also damaged ships
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: from the Netherlands, Great Britain, Oops, Japan, and the USSR
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: commercial ships. So the Wall Street Journal broke this story
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: and said, hey, you guys, Congress, you remember how you
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: pass this amendment saying there could be no CIA involvement
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: in Nicaragua. Well, they mined the whole arbor of the
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: sovereign nation, and it blew up a bunch of other
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: other country ships.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: In Congress once again, it's like, man, you keep doing
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: secret things behind our back. That really makes us mad.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: Should we take a break.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: All right, let's take a break.
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: Stuff you should know, Josh and shuck. Stuff you should know.
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: Stuff you should know.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's keep going. So what does Congress do? They're like,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: all right, they're mad. We passed one Bowlan amendment, which
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: I don't think we said chuck. That first Bowlin Amendment
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: was pasted four hundred and eleven to zero, unanimously saying
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: do not mess around in Nicaragua anymore. That's when you
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: know VERSU is mad, right, when they unanimously agree on something.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: And then then the Wall Street Journal breaks the story
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: about the harbor mining long after the Bowling Amendment was passed.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: And now Congress is even madder.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: Right, So they passed two more amendments, Boland amendments, because
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: there were loopholes basically that allowed you know, the US
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: to sort of do these things semi legally. So it
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: was like, well, here's a loophole, so it wasn't really
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: fully illegal that we did this stuff.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's like the Reagan administration's way.
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: They closed these loopholes and now this was like it
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: was pretty ironclad. I don't know about iron clad, but
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: it was pretty tight amendment wise.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: At the very least. Congress walked away thinking it's done.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: So we made ourselves quite clear, right, Ronald Reagan signed
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: these into law.
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he didn't bete him.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: No, he accepted these things. I think he even said like, yeah,
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: this is a good idea, great way to go Congress
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: and signed it. I'm not going to do a Reagan impression.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: But so Congress thought that the matter was settled, but
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: it wasn't settled. Like this is how laser focused Reagan
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: was on overthrowing the Santainista government down in Nicaragua. He
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: just took a CIA operation and took it even further
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: underground than it had been before. Basically, he was like, Okay,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: if you guys are going to outlaw this stuff, we're
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: just going to have to get even more illegal.
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: So there were a couple of factions here at work.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: One was this continued operation underground, deep deep underground now,
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: and then there was Reagan's public like he still wanted
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: to get real money from Congress, so he didn't have.
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: To do this stuff.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: So he kept up this public PR campaign, beating this
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: drum about communism at our doorstep. He said that the
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: contrast were the moral equals of our founding fathers.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: That's a big one to pull out, Like that's.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: A direct quote, Yeah, of our found founding fathers. Yeah,
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: and started in with the and again you see this
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: stuff kind of repeating itself, the campaign of fear, where
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: he basically said, unless we do something tough here, then
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: there will be a tidal wave of feet people.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: I don't even know what that means, but that's that
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: just seems super offensive.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: Swarming into our country. He meant, you know, refugees, feat
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: people seeking a safe haven.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: It was one word, even I think one word.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: It's funny because I looked up feet People and that's
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: a company that, like, I think, makes shoelaces.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: And they're like, yes, say it again, say dot com. Uh.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: So this is all going on and on the on
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: the on the down low, all the operations are going
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: on and on the public facing side, Reagan's just continuing
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: this PR push.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: Right basically saying, like Congress, look at these heartless old
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: you know, gas bags. Turning off the funding to these
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: Founding father moral equivalent to our Founding fathers. Go vote
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: these guys out of office and vote in some people
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: who will turn the funding back on.
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And while the Contras may have been fighting Communism,
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: they were doing so through means that the Founding Fathers
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: probably would not have approved of, like murder and torture
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: and rape and mutilation, kidnapping and not. You know, I
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: mean it wasn't so widespread that it was like that's
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: all they were doing, but they would resort to those tactics, right,
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: And that's not Founding father stuff.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: No, it's definitely not, not as far as I've ever learned.
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: No, I don't think so.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: And I mean it's had a few hundred couple hundred
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: years to come out, yeah, and it still hasn't. So Yeah.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: I read some of the stuff too, Like some of
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: the affidavits were like just brutal.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, dude. The war down in Nicaragua, the civil war, Yeah,
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: that the US basically fomented and supported. It went on
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: for a decade, like it was, it went on into
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: the nineties, and it was like not just like countrymen
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: against countrymen, like civilians were getting murdered by the scores. Yeah,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: and just they would get kidnapp and tortured and killed,
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: and like, it was a really brutal time in Nicaragua.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: And the Reggae administration is right in the middle of this,
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: like providing as much I eat as they can to
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: one side.
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and it was.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: One of the big problems was that the Contras back
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: then were a bunch of different factions and they did
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: an answer to a single leader. And the one thing
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: I got out of the affidavits, one of which this
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: woman described them taking her children and her finding their
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: mutilated bodies the next day.
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: It was brutal.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: One of the leaders said that there's no disciplinary system
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: at all within the Contra groups, so oh yeah, yeah,
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: like there's no accountability, so you could do anything you
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: wanted and there's no discipline set up. So it was
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: just they were fractured and no one was talking to
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: each other and it was just a big mess.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: Right. But Reagan was doing his best to paint everything
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: in black and white. Right, Contra's good Santinista is bad.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: So anything that Contras did was good, and stuff that
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: couldn't be painted as good would just be denied or
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: glossed over, not reported on.
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: So, while while Reagan's out running around trying to drum
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: up public support for the Contras and thus congressional aid
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: being turned back on.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: And also saying don't do drugs, he yeah, that was
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: a big one, even though we're shipping a lot of
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: drugs back and forth.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: It's awfully rich now that you know all that stuff.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: You know, he's also secretly supporting them, going in flagrant
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: violation of what Congress has said that America can do.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: He tells his people he wants the Contras movement to
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: be kept alive, body and soul is how we put it,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: which and he basically said do it. This is what
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: history has told us, is that Reagan basically said keep
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: the Contra movement alive, body and soul. I'm going to
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: go work on Congress. I'm putting my hands over my
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: ears from now on. Whether that's true or not, we
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: will probably never know as far as the history books
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: is concerned. That's what happened.
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: Right, So here's what they did.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: They said the CIA has a bad rap for a
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: lot of reasons, and Congress is not super friendly with them.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: Well, they expressly forbade the CIA from operating.
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: There, right, So he said, here's what we're going to do.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: We're going to use the National Security Council and they're
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: the CIA chief. William Casey he's around. He's going to
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: just like advise here and there. And William Casey was like,
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: oh no, I really got to be involved because this
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: is really good stuff.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: They're like no, no, no, we're talking like officially, here's oh yeah,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: okay exactly.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: So at first National Security Advisors Robert McFarlane, and then
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: he was succeeded by John Poindexter, very important, you remember
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: that name. And then Casey's still there, like you said,
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: doing his thing on the down load unofficially, right.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: I think even in some cases kind of stepping on
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: toes or whatever. He was like an additional boss to
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: the main guy, the guy everybody's heard of, the guy
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: who's mine or whose name jumps to mine when you
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: hear about this, Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North North. And in retrospect,
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: especially if you went if you lived through the Iran
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: Contra hearings and you were familiar with Olie North, like
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: you would guess that when Allie North was tapped to
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: head up this extraordinarily difficult secret operation to go against
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: Congress and keep the Contra movement alive and kicking that.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: Alie North was a bad a covert operator to the
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: ninth degree. Right, that is not at all correct.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: No career marine, very highly decorated marine, served in Vietnam one,
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: silver stars and purple hearts, devout Catholic, and by all accounts,
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: a stand up guy. And to many many Americans he
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: is still like a top notch American hero.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: Sure well, he was like the president of NRA until
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: I think recently, Yeah, I think there's some scandal that
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: just happened where there. It came out that he like
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: tried to depose Wayne Lapierre or something like that.
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: I don't either. But even beyond that, like, even beyond
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: whether he's a stand up guy or not, as far
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: as you know, patriotism is concerned, sure, just job experience
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: he had, like none, Yeah, he had no experience whatsoever
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: as far as I could ever tell in covert operations.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: He did a pretty good job for a while, it
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: did an amazing job.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: He was basically the the White House's operations and intel
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: arm of the shadiest stuff it was doing stuff that
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: was so shady the CIA was even kept in the
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: dark about it. That's how shady this stuff Allie North
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: was doing. And he had no experience. He's learning as
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: he went, Yeah, just making it up as he went along.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: And he really did do a pretty good job of
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: it if you look at it from that angle, just.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: As far as like getting getting or done right. So
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: what they basically decided was, all right, if we can't
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: get the real taxpayer money and like official funds, we'll
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: just go and raise fund on the side and secret
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: through business people that you know, we can have these
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: big parties and dinners and say, hey, listen, communism is
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: knocking at a door. This wouldn't be good for America,
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: wouldn't be good for your company, right, and why don't
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: you give us some money?
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: Open up the checkbook. Reagan's here, you want a photo.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Sometimes he would show up to these secret fundraisers.
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: And it was it was it really worked.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: Like they raised a ton of money from the business
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: elite of America to stop the sandin Eastans in Nicaragua.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: So they actually forget this. They founded they had two
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: private citizens found in nonprofit the National Endowment for the
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: preservation of liberty. Its sole purpose was to get these
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: fund these illicit funds to send to the Contras, which
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: means that the people who are donating to the president's illegal,
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: secret proxy war could write their donations off on their taxes.
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: It's just mind boggling hilarious in some senses.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but they were not the most stand up nonprofit because,
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: as you point out, they raised six point three million
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: dollars through that organization during eighty five eighty six, about
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: three point three million made it to the Contras. And
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: uh so that means a fifty two percent program expense rate.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: That's pretty bad. Yeah, that's not good at all.
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: Now, three million dollars it took supposedly to run to
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: run that nonprofit.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: Those fund raising breakfast for a year. Yeah, pretty bad.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: Good omelets though, so yeah, oh yeah, the best not Yeah.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: So from this this idea, like, okay, this is this
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: is probably kind of legal. We're just fundraising, right, We're
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: not giving any American taxpayer funds, We're just getting other
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: people that donate. Private citizens. Saudi Arabia was a big
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: one and it was all to stop communism.
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: So, like, I think their intentions were that, oh, definitely,
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: theirs were.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but there was this definite and justifies the means
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: kind of thing, And really, isn't the president really the
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: most powerful person in the world. Can Congress really tells
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: the president what to do as far as foreign policy goes? Nah? Yeah,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: that was kind of the idea, I think. So Saudi
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: Arabia donated a bunch of money. There's all these private
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: citizens donating money. And here's the thing. The contrasts found
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: themselves for lush with cash.
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, many millions of dollars.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: Over just two years. Saudi Arabia alone donated thirty two million.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: To the contrast, this is a couple of loosely affiliated
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: factions fighting in two spots of Nicaragua that suddenly have
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: thirty plus million dollars at their disposal. The problem is
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: they don't have the contacts in the international arms trade
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: to buy arms with this money. They've had a bunch
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: of money, They're like, who wants this? And they were
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: getting crickets out, got some bombs, right, you know, the
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: cartoonish black kind, the round ones that are shiny. It
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: take fifteen of those.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: This is before Craigslist two, right, So they're only their
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: only avenue was to go back to the Americans and
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: Oliver North and he began working with a guy named
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: Richard Seacord. He was a retired forest retired we'll get
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: into that in a minute, air Force major general, and
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: he had a lot of experience. There was this group
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: of dudes in the nineteen seventies and eighties that were
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: former CIA or current CIA, former CIA, former and current
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: American military who were all had their fingers in the
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: illegal arms trade.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: Right, so exactly what you can imagine a Hollywood writer
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: would come up with, Yeah, this is the real life
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: version of yeah, for sure. So they would. They would.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: You could farm out assassinations to them. They could rustle
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: up mercenaries, they could carry out sabotage operations. They could
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: find whatever, gun, bomb, anything you need.
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: On some money laundered gun, right, anything.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: That is extraordinarily illegal and deals in death. Like these
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: guys could get their.
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: Hands on here, he's a poison done, Sure.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: A bomb disguise as a briefcase. We got it, buddy. Yeah,
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: and they would. Here's the other thing too. They were
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: an illegal black market arms ring. But they were also
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: even more illegal and that they would sell to whoever,
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: whether you were an enemy or a friend of America,
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: it didn't matter. These guys were operating well above any
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: sort of national loyalty or anything like that.
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this was about making money, sure, like many millions
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: of dollars.
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you're right.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: So, especially a guy like Seacord, he wasn't He was
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: in it to make dough, definitely, whereas an Ali North
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: was seemingly in it to stop the you know, communism.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: Right, So that's an important point. But the fact that
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: they that they contract with Seacord to kind of swoop
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: in and help hook the contras up with arms means
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: that the Reagan administration is contracting with this extraordinarily illegal
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: black market arms ring.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, which they took down some of these dudes over
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: the years, but one of them, one of the founders
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: of this group was a CIA op named Edwin Wilson.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: He was sentenced He served twenty two years, twelve of
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: which were in solitary confinement, but was sentenced to fifty
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: two years for illegally arming Libya with ten thousand machine
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: guns and twenty tons of C four that he hid
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: in barrels of mud and flew on a chartered jet
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: to Libya.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: Right, the Hollywood stuff, I know, it really is, like
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: this really happened.
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: It's crazy.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: And it wasn't just Libya. This guy was funding or
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: outfitting Momar Kadafi.
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: Edie Amine was another customer, Like, whoever, if you need
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: to keep a stranglehold on power in your country, were
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: the people to help you do that?
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: And when I teased earlier about Richard Seacord being forced
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: into retirement, that was due to his connection with Edwin Wilson. Right,
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: so he was forced to retire from the Air Force.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: They couldn't pin anything on him, but there was enough
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: of a connection there where he had a step.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah. They're like, you can do this the hardware or
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: the easy way. We're going to give you the option.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: And he took the easy way.
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: And then he went on to make a lot of money. Right.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: He was like, okay, well, I'll just do the arm
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: stealing thing full time now, right, And he did so.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: When they brought him in at first, Seacord was basically
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: acting as like a very lase Fair intermediary. He was
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: basically the guy who on behalf of Ali North was like, yeah,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: I can introduce the contras to my friends in the
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: arms ring.
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah in Canada of all places.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah. He introduced the Contras to some Canadian arms dealers.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: So now the setup was this the friendliest arm steeler. Right,
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: They're like, well, these bullets will really put a hole
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: in somebody.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: Ah yeah, oh sorry, I meant to include rocket launchers
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: on that order.
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: Sorry.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: Sorry, that's pretty good. So Seacord was just there to
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: make some introductions, make sure things went smoothly, and then
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: it was up to the Contras to use these funds
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: that were coming in from other people and to buy
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: weapons from the Canadians. Easyps, right, you'd think, okay, that's fine,
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: that's fine. It still has like a slight veneer of
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: arms length legality as far as America is concerned.
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and we should mention too that he to do this,
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: he set up a shell company, the Stanford Technology Trading Group,
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: with an Iranian American businessman named Albert Hakim, who knew
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: how to get around certain official procedures and stuff like that.
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: He's another guy who could get things done.
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: So he set up Swiss bank accounts, untraceable accounts, because
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: that's what you do to run the funds through. And
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: this became known as the Enterprise.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's Stanford Technology Trading Company or.
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: Group Starting Group, aka the Enterprise.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was like everybody called it that because they're
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: like this sounds way cooler, the enterprise, right.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: All right, But like you were alluding to, you'd think
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: it would have been going great. But the contras in
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: the North, who was the FDN, They were the.
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: Largest, by far, the largest group.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: They were better organized from what I understanding.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they were doing a pretty good job. But in
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: the South they were not doing a very good job.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: No. Somehow they were like, we don't have the arms
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: and equipment. They're like, what are you talking about. You
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: have the same amount of money, you have the same contacts. Yeah,
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: just buy the weapons. They're like, oh no. So Allie
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: North is like, okay, all right, here's what we're gonna do.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: He called the leaders of the FDN and the fsl
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: N to Miami to meet with them, and he said,
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: here's how it's going to be from now on. Any
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: veneer of legality is going out the window. From now on,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: I'd like you to meet your new boss, Richard Secourt.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: Not only is he going to make sure you have arms,
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: he's going to take the funnel money himself by the
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: arms himself, and then he's going to have it kicked
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: out of a plane over your camps. So now America
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: is directly involved in supporting and arming and training the
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: Contra rebels in the north and the south of Nicaragua.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: And if there was any again, if there's any kind
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: of legality, it's totally gone at this point.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And in the meantime, Seacord and Achem were marking
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: up their stuff as much as like three hundred percent.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: Dude, they ate a lot of money off of this.
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they made a ton.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: But they put it. They put a lot back into
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: the enterprise. I mean, they took this job very seriously.
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: That was a company.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: If you are, if you were Allie North, you were
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: quite happy with the work you were getting from Richard
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: Seacord and Albert Hakim. Because the shipments went out on time,
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: they got everything they needed. They had so much money
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: they had it left over, but they were also investing
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: it into the enterprise. They bought planes, they rented air strips,
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: they hired employees, They contracted with other airlines like a
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: CIA Front I can't remember the name of it right now,
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: but they were doing the work for sure, great healthcare, yeah,
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: the best benefits. All of the contrace had really nice
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: teeth after Richard Seacord took over.
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: Work from home.
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: All right, so let's take another break here, then we'll
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: come back and bring it home for part one with
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: a little bit about the propaganda machine that was set up.
• 35:11
  Speaker 4: Stuff you should know, Josh, and shock. Stuff you should know,
• 35:20
  Speaker 4: stuff you should know.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: All right, Chuck. So things are in full swing. America
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: is unknowingly totally hooking up the countries. I'm basically running
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: this proxy war that the contracts are fighting against the
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: Santa Nista government. The enterprise is working full bore. And
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: if it couldn't get any more illegal, if you thought
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: it couldn't get any more illegal, prepared to just be
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: knocked right over.
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: So here the home front, it was decided that there
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: needed to be a pretty massive, in dense propaganda campaign.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: And it's we're not talking about Reagan just going on
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: the news talking about communism being at our doorstep. We're
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: talking about a real deal propaganda campaign. And they even
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: set up an office, the Office of Public Diplomacy for
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: Latin America and the Caribbean, that was founded and managed
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: by a Cuban American named Otto Reich, and this was
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: all exposed later on by the Miami Herald by the
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: reporting of a guy named Alfonso Chardie.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I just want to interject you real quick. So
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: do you remember when we've done, you know, historic stuff
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: in the past, and I'm like, go read the contemporary articles.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: Was really good reporting going on because the story was
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: so huge and multifaceted.
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean Newsweek broke it before Congress knew,
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: the Washington Post broke it, and the Wall Street Journal, yeah,
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: Wall Street Journal, and then the Miami Herald at really
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: one fun like in Miami's backyard.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: But it was back when it wasn't like, oh, think peace,
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: think peace, think piece, actual article, I think peace, think piece.
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: You know, it was like real recording. And even then
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: it's still it wasn't up to snuff in the end,
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: but there were actual journalists like actually paying attention and
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: writing about this stuff and informed the public about it.
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: And this is when you and I were kids, and
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: I think like maybe even the seeds of us because
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: we both kind of had desires to be real deal
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: journalists sure in our lives at one point.
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, what got us now?
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: Speaking of what a joke rip Mad magazine.
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, what a shame. Yeah, they tried that reboot
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: didn't work.
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's tough.
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: It is.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: It's it's tough busy these days.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I got friends that worked for him too,
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: like in this recent reiteration Oh really yeah, or iteration
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: I guess I know.
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: One of their illustrators is the stuff you should know
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: fan from yours back.
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, it's very sad to see it go.
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: So, uh, it was very eighties reference though it was.
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: It really wasn't up track. So all right, this is
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: going on.
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: They set up this office run by Otto Reich, and
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: this whole thing was designed and orchestrated by the CIA.
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: But here's the deal. The CIA wasn't supposed to be
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: doing this. They were barred from doing this.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there was a long standing like prohibition on the
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: CIA from operating in the US. Basically, like we know
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: who you are and we know you're so good. You
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: can't use that stuff on us. You can only use
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: it overseas. It's fine if you go overthrow other countries.
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: On your mind tricks, Yeah, use those.
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: On other groups, but you can't use them here in
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: the States. And actually Reagan himself also had his own
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: executive order explicitly banning the CIA from, let's see, doing
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: any activity that was intended to influence United States political processes,
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: public opinion, or media. This is Reagan's executive Order twelve
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: three point thirty three. And he, at least his administration
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: was like, forget about that. We'll just get around that.
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And who was this?
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: It says here that they the CIA's biggest, foremost psychological
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: warfare expert retired from the agency officially and then was
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: hired as a consultant. I guess to this Office of
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: Public Diplomacy, was that Auto Reich?
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: Was that someone else?
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: I don't well that's the whole point, right, yeah.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: But that was how That's why I was saying earlier,
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: like Reagan, that's the Reagan administration way, just like here's
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: the letter of the law. Well let's change this letter
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: in our sentence, and now we're following the letter of
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: the law, right, you know. And that's what they did.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: So the CIA's psychological warfare guy retired, came on as
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: a consultant. He said, oh, here's what you do. You
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: need to basically start setting up some sting operations, because
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: the point of this is to I can't remember who
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: said this, but to paint or to glue black hats
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: on the Santainistas and white hats on the Contras in
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: the public mine.
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: So when you say, uh, sting operations, we mean literally
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: the United States and Oliver North smuggling cocaine into Nicaragua,
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: photographing Sandinistan officials with this shipment, and then smuggling the
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: cocaine back to the United States, back to Florida.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: Back to Florida, They're like, we told you, we bring
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: it back. Chill man, unbelievable, give us their driver's licenses. Bank.
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: So this photo is published.
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: This is during the middle of the Just Say No movement,
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: champion by Nancy Reagan. So it all, it all fit
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: on the surface, but what was going on behind the
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: scenes is just unconscionable.
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: It is unconscionable. Unconscionable both but so the but this
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: gave Reagan this photograph that got published all over the place.
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and he's like, look what's going on. Look
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: what these guys are doing. These are they're bringing this
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: stuff into America. They're killing our kids.
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: Exactly right, So these are the people that were fighting,
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: or the contras are fighting. How can you keep the
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: funding turned off for the contras? Congress jerks?
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: And that was the only evidence too.
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the case somehow came out and said, by the way,
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: I don't know if anybody cares or not, but we
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: have no evidence whatsoever that this Santinistan official has ever
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: engaged in drug trafficking aside from this photograph. But this
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: was a follow up, probably weeks after the big splash
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: of the original photograph came out. So that was one
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: sting operation. Yeah, there's another one that involved Manuel Noriega,
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: the dictator of Panama, who actually was selling drugs to
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: America's youth.
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but he was also a friend of the CIA.
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: Exactly, so much so that he was a CIA operator
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: for a very long time.
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I don't know about a friend, but he was
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: at least an asset, right. Yeah.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: So this sting operation was they were going to through Panama,
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: have Panama arranged for a shipment of arms to be
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: seized in Honduras, El Salvador, El Salvador, Yeah, on its
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: way to Honduras or maybe just in El Salvador. Ostensibly
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: arms from Nicaragua.
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, basically saying you're arming Salvadorians, you're arming Hondurans.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: You're exporting your revolution. This is exactly the kind of
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: thing that Ronald Reagan has been saying, we need to contain,
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: we need to pluck this sprout of communism out from Nicaragua. Yeah,
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: because they're trying to spread out of the region. Totally
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: made up, complete sting operation and it didn't even work
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: because Manuel Noriega was like, I didn't like that New
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: York Times piece you guys just published about me. I'm
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: going to keep this shipment of arms for myself.
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but I love it. First he was like I
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: can do that. Oh yeah, sure, send me the arms. Yeah,
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: and then we were like, okay.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: There would be I think it's from the Iran Contra investigation.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: The description of Manuel Noriega was that he ran a
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: narco kleptocracy. That was the government that he ran.
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: He was about break down that word.
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: He was as shady as they come.
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: That just means drugs favory.
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: So this is what's going on in the United States
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: in the in the mid eighties. Yeah.
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: And here's the deal.
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: If you were a reporter at the time, right, and
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: you were reporting on this stuff. The NSC didn't like
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: that very much. So they would meet with editors and
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: reporters themselves, right and be like, hey, can you, like,
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: can you report on the Sandonisians that they're really not
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: good people? Like, can you help us out a little bit? Well,
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: but here's the thing. If you didn't play ball, then
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: didn't they cook up some story that they would that
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: they would send like Sandinistan sex workers there to the
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: like pleasure of the reporters.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: That was the rumor was that if if you were
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: a journalist who reported favorably on the Sandinista government, the
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: reason you reported favorably on him was because the Santainista
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: government was furnishing you with sex workers.
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: That was that was directly from the Office of Public Diplomacy.
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: And I read the thing about it and they said
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: the guy was like, and we're not just talking women either.
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: If they were gay men, then they would we would
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: send gay sex workers.
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: So totally discredit them. It's like a complete page right
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: out of the Edward Burnet's playbook. It's orchestrated by the
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: CIA's foremost expert on psychological warfare and this was the
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: state of America in the mid eighties. But that was
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: just one dimension of this whole thing. And I say,
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: this is the end of part one. What do you think.
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: I think that's great, And we're going to make this
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: a cliff thing.
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: And as per tradition, we are not going to do
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: a listener mail, but instead we'll do a call, which
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: we rarely do. A little just a little marketing call everyone.
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: If you like stuff, you should know. We've been doing
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: this so long. We're so bad at this, yet we've
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: managed to grow.
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: Anyway, it's crazy.
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: Tell a friend, share an episode with a friend right
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: now that they don't have to. You don't have to
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: explain what a podcast is, right, It's a lot cleaner now.
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: Maybe start with a good one like Ballpoint Pens or something.
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, tell a friend about the show, leave a night
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: review or just any kind of review at all on
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: iTunes that would help us out.
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, that's how classy Chuck and I are. He
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: even corrected himself from good review to just any review.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: Whatever you want to leave. We're not going to try
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: to influence you. No, like the Reagan White House.
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: That's all right, so yeah, we'd really appreciate it.
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: Spread a little love, try and turn one person onto
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: our podcast this week, and that really helps us out.
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: Nice Chuck, how about that? That sounds like a good pyramid.
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: We like to do this once every five or six years.
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you for joining us this week. If you
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: want to get in touch with us, you can go
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: on to stuff youshould Know dot com and check out
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: our social links. You can also send us an email
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
• 45:45
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• 45:49
  Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.