Latest / Brian Thomas / Spy Novels Filled with History - Big Picture with Jack Atherton

Transcript

Spy Novels Filled with History - Big Picture with Jack Atherton · Brian Thomas

• 0:12
  Speaker 1: It's seven five here, fifty five karsit he talks that
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: he's in.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: It's Wednesday.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: What a great time to be tuned into the fifty
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: five CARC Morning Show. Or hello to the folks that
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: are listening on podcasts later in the day or sometime later.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Good to hear from you, Jack added, and it's time
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: for the Big Picture with the brilliance of Jack Adada.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Welcome back, Jack Man. It's always great heaving on the program.
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: Good morning, Brian. You were mentioning those terrific spy novels
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: by William F.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Buckley. J. Yeah, I really enjoyed those.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Oh you, I'm playing a while Jack. That's one of
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: the reasons I brought out. I knew that was a
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: book that you had to or those were books you
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: had to have read since your topic today's spine novels
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: filled with history, because that's exactly what those books are,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: very historically accurate and really good, well written books, so
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: well not always read.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: Do you and enjoy audio books, don't?
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: I don't. I mean I have listened to them before,
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: but I man, I can't remember lesbian years. A matter
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: of fact, I think the last time I listened to
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: an audiobook. It was probably on a cassette.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: Amesley and I listened to them in the car.
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: Sometimes we take long drives just to keep listening, which
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: gets expensive with these gas prices.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: A series of novels.
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: That became best sellers during World War II are now
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: making a comeback thanks to Audible in the Audio Book Company.
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: They're packed with espionage, high society, Golden Age Hollywood, and
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: as you'd expect, since we were fighting Hitler, Mussolini and
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: Tojo back then, international politics. What's remarkable, Brian is the
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: two giants who stood polls apart politically urged everybody to
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: read these books. The arch conservative and war leader Winston
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: Churchill and the democratic socialist and pacifist Albert Einstein both
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: called Upton Sinclair's Lannie Budd books the best way to
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: understand how the world plunged into two world wars and
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: then a war against a new axis of evil that
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: we're still fighting today. Maybe I can weigh in on
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: a run at the end of this sure. The hero
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: of these eleven novels, Lannie Budd, is the son of
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: a munitions maker, Having grown up in Europe at the
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: turn of the century. Lannie speaks all of its languages
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: and has friends in every country. Following World War One,
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: the teenager volunteers to translate for American diplomats at the
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: Versailles peace Conference. We have talked my friend about my
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: hope that Donald Trump will not surrender, but our incredible
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: military one in Iran, the way Woodrow Wilson's disastrous peace
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: treaty led directly to World War II. During the nineteen twenties,
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: Lanny Bud marries a celebrity heiress think Paris Hilton or
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: whoever is big today on TMZ. In page six. It's glamorous,
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: but Lannie tires of being a playboy, especially when a
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: German friend becomes a high level Nazi and introduces Lannie
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: and his wife Irma to Adolf Hitler. Like Nancy Astor
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: and many wealthy Americans, Irma turns into a Nazi sympathizer,
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: so Lannie poses as one too, but actually becomes a
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: secret agent for Franklin Roosevelt. There is intrigue, breath taking escapes,
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: and a panoramic view of every event you can imagine,
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: from evacuating British troops at Dunkirk to swimming with movie
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: stars at William Randolph Hurst's ranch San Simeon to conferring
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: with Joseph Stealin in the Kremlin, and even young Mause
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: Dung in his mountain cave during the Chinese Civil War.
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: My dad recommended these books when I was twelve, and
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: he ignited my passion for politics and journalism the way
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: journalism used to be. Upton Sinclair was a muckraker, and
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: that's what they called investigative reporters who exposed corruption. He
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: did wherever he saw it, starting with his nineteen oh
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: six novel The Jungle. You may have read that, na, Yeah,
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: most kids didn't our day. That novel The Jungle unmasked
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: Chicago's meat packing industry. Politically, Upton Sinclair was a socialist
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: because socialism at that time had never been tried. That's
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: why the author cheered on the newborn Soviet Union after
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: the First World War and its nationalization of industry. Sinclair
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: quoted his real life pal Lincoln Stephen's claim about the
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: new Russia. I have seen the future and it works.
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: But by the nineteen fifties, when the last Lammy budd
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: novel appeared, Sinclair, like George Orwell, had come to realize
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: that Marxist big governments inevitably turned to talitarian It's one
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: theme of our weekly talks, Brian power corrupts and absolute
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: power corrupts, absolutely exactly. The other theme is Andrew Breitbart
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: saying that politics is downstream of culture, including poisonous pop culture.
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: That even before Upton Sinclair realized the truth about Marxism,
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: even as a young journalist, Sinclair had always been fair,
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: not like today's so called journalists and university professors. Following
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: his hero, the playwright George Bernard Shaw, Sinclair was always
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: open to debate in his search for truth, so in
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: the novels, he lets Lannib's father make a powerful case
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: for limited government and free market capitalism, even though Lannie
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: himself becomes a champion of FDR's New Deal and in fairness.
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: By the time Upton Sinclair died in nineteen sixty eight,
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: even many Conservatives had come to support social security and
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: some other New Deal safety nets, but not when they
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: became an excuse for power grabs and graft as in
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: today's Minnesota, California. Everywhere, democrats use social spending to buy
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: votes and skim millions billions off the top for themselves,
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: and too often establishment Republicans also don't want to derail
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: the government gravy trade, even if it means our country's
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: national debt. Whoever talks about that anymore is heading me
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: off the rails. Upton Sinclair illustrates the clash of ideas
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: through actual personalities and events. For instance his portrayal of
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: Hitler from the Munich beer Hall push in the nineteen
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: twenties until his suicide in nineteen forty five. Brian, it's
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: the most riveting portrait I've ever read of that dictator.
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: Really.
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: In one scene, Hitler takes to the topmost peak of
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: his mountain retreat on the Austria border and explains how
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: Nazism was inspired by jihadist Islam. So much for trying
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: to cut a deal with the IRGC and Churchill Stalin
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: Mal They're each allowed to make their case through words
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: and deeds. Because the author and his hero don't tell
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: you how to think. They show the truly genocidal consequences
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: of not thinking of mass indoctrination and tyranny. Not many
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: libraries today still carry the Lenni Bud books. It took
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: years for me to assemble the whole series from used booksellers.
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: So I cannot thank Audible the audio book Company enough
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: for recording all eleven novels performed terrifically by Bronson Pinchot.
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: You remember him, Balky from the old sitcom Perfect Strangers.
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: He uses more accents than you can hear at the
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: un The guy is fabulous, folks. I cannot imagine a
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: more exciting or thought provoking gifts for a teenager or
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: for yourself. Upton Sinclair the Lenny Bud series. What do
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: you say, my fellow book lover, about this or if
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: you want to talk about it, Iran.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about it wrong. All I can say is
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: I have not read them, ergo, I now have a
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: reading assignment. I'm going to dive into those because I'll
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: have to go to Audible, maybe start spending time listening
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: to books on tapes or books audio books as opposed
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: to the Heck's going on here? Joe? You get an
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: errant finger there. Now it's just a live the no.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: I I got a reading assignment or listening assignment to
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: do on that one. I appreciate the recommendation. They sound
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: absolutely fascinating and a bit of parallel to the Buckley books,
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: kind of a parallel to the Buckley books too, since
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: he wrote one about Cheguo Vara too is an in
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: depth sort of person to person, a long winded account
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: of Jegovar the man and what he stood for and
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: all that. It was absolutely fascinating, so excellent, excellent points there.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: So reading assignments or listening assignments for everybody. Let's pivot
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: over to I run. You said you wanted to talk
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: about that. Please, let's do that, all right.
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: I know this is controversial with a lot of our
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: audience were kind of split, and forgive me for mentioning it.
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: But if folks go to my podcast page, the one
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: that's set up by Joe, just search for it. The
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: Big Picture with Jack Atherton and the most recent discussion
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: from May thirteenth, although we talked about them the Iranians
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: being conchroach just before then, that one from May thirteenth
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: is called Iran and never Land. We discussed the danger
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: of negotiating. We're trying to negotiate with Iran's jihadist Mullahs
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: and revolutionary Guard. It will not work right because they're
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: fanatics demanding death to America for forty seven years, as
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: well as death to Israel, and that's when we had
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: endless missiles punnel of them with But unlike many critics,
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: I think President Trump was right in June of twenty
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: twenty five launching Operation Midnight Hammer to degrade Iran's clear
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: nuclear capacity, And when Iranian negotiators told Steve Whitcoff last
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: February that they had reconstituted enough highly enriched uranium to
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: build eleven nuclear bombs, I think Trump was right to
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: degrade Iran again. At that point, the President could have
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: pledged to resume bombing whenever US and Israeli intelligence detected
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: emergency activity at Pickaxe Mountain or other nuclear sites. But
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: having killed Iran's Ayatola and other top leaders at that
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: infamous February twenty eighth pancake breakfast or you could eat
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: until you died, Trump thought we could co opt Iran's
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: new regime leaders as easily as he had co opted
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: Delsi Rodriguez in Venezuela. But it wasn't that easy. The
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: difference was that Maduro's vice president is not a fanatic,
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: She's an opportunist. The Venezuelas or were Trump call's scum,
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: but reasonable scum and Venezuela did not have a so
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: called mosaic leadership structure that lets free agentsy in Iran
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: keep fighting as they're doing it. The Strait of Horror
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: moves faced with endless cat and mouse tactics in Iran,
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: Trump for the last five months has threatened various actions,
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: including naval escorts so ships could freely pass through the
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: strait as they really need to twenty percent of the
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: world's oil capacity. But President Trump has never followed through.
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: That has emboldened the Arabians, its hiked inflation, especially oil prices,
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: and threatened his own midterms. Colonel Davis knows better than
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: I do, but I have never believed we need boots
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: on the ground to defeat the IRGC. I do think
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: we need consistent and suffocating economic pressure. Did I mention consistency?
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: We need to let Israel kill in transigent leaders like Vahiti,
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: who by the way, is not a third stringer. He
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: was just retired and he came out after that breakfast.
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: We need to kill those leaders the way we killed
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: the ones of the February twenty eighth get together, instead
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: of letting them by time by stringing Trump a lawn.
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: And we need to encourage Iranian dissidents, something you never
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: hear about the way the Allies in World War II
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: encouraged and funded Charles de Gaulle in exile and resistance
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: fighters throughout France, while FDR and Churchill consistently demanded unconditional surrender,
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: not negotiations with Hitler and Mussolini.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: And tojo real quick here on that just finished with this.
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: The worst thing we can do right now is diither
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: and that's what we've been doing.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: Well.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: A couple of points here. You know, in terms of
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: kinetic action, I guess you have to be able to
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: back up your threats with the ability to use military
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: force effectively enough to defeat your enemy. And there seems
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: to be some swirling question of whether we have enough
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: missile capacity to do that. There's one issue at this point,
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: right CIA, I guarantee you is trying to foster and
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: encourage dissidence within the Iranian community. I can't imagine them
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: not having taken that opportunity, having been involved with it,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: perhaps maybe for years and years. We've always heard these
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: swirling rumors like we have in other conflicts. Well, all
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: we need to do is help the like for example,
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: the Iraqi people, you know, get rid of Sadamuscen and
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: then they'll rise up. All we need to do is
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: get rid of the Aatol and then the Iranian people
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: will rise up. And you expect that to happen. But
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: in an unarmed society where they have these military police
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: going around murdering people who dare lift or raise a
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: finger of protest, it's a little difficult to get people
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: to do that. So arming them, coordinating with them, training them,
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: that takes time, and I do believe those activities have
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: to be going on. I can only imagine. And then
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: the other question I have to ask you, because this
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: has been brought up many many times. You said, let
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: Israel go after these evil doers, right, And I just
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: sort of scratch my head. Does Israel need our permission
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: to do anything? Really? It's an independent country with its
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: own thought process, its own leaders, and maybe it has
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: its own different interests in mine. I mean, can't they
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: just go ahead and do that on their own. The
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: idea that we specifically control all things in Israel, I
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: think feeds the fodder the anti Israeli crowd out in
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: the world.
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump was telling Israel that they could not respond
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: to attacks from Lebanon by Hisbola. The idea the Israelis
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: can go off and try to unseat the IRGC and
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: the IATOLA by themselves. I mean, he's just he's not
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: allowing them to do that. Can they do it? Certainly
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: they can, but you know, this is not the way
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: that FDR and Churchill coordinated things, and I think we
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: have to do better. As for the CIA, believe me,
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: under John Ratcliffe's leadership, I am not uning their integrity
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: or their competence. But I don't see any evidence of
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: encouraging anyone, whether it's Raiza Palavi, the son of the
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: deposed Shah, who was of course outside of Iran, or
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: people within it. Back in World War Two, just to
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: use that as an analogy, de Gaulle in London was
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: making broadcasts and we encouraged them, and we were actively
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: trying to come up with some opposition. Look, a lot
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: of people never want to talk about regime change, and
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: I would have been one of them. But if we
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: are in the middle of this thing, the idea that
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: we're just going to constantly go back to the well
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: and try to negotiate with the Iranian scum because we
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: think that we found somebody who a is reasonable and
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: B has some power to actually make a deal, and
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: C can actually follow through on a deal. How much
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: longer can you go on with this?
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: Exactly?
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: Donald Trump never talks about the fact that he will
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: only be in office now for le yes than two
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: and a half more years?
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: How long? Right?
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: Well, you know, and real quick. Just have to make
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: one another observation, because it seems to be there's sort
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: of swirling question marks about who is sitting at the
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: table and who has the ability to negotiate on behalf
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: of the Iranians. Clearly you have the IRGC and the
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: terrorist factions aligned with their insane theocratic, you know, hatred
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: toward us and their refusal to sit down and discuss.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: But then there seems to be this moderate faction within
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: the Iranians, and I think that's what feeds the idea
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: that there is some hope perhaps of a peaceful resolution
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: on this. Some within the Iranian government might want to
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: do that and avoid further conflicts, but they seem to
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: be well overruled by or maybe the IRGC just unilaterally
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: does what of the hell it Once I just sort
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: of think about a foreign government coming here and talking
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: with the Democrats about entering into some sort of agreement
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: on some topic, and then the Republicans saying, hell, no,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: we're not going to do that. So I'm not sure
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: what the status is politically within Iran, but that there
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: seems to be some division within it.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: Yes, and there usually is that kind of thing.
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: Admiral Yamamoto didn't want to start World War two, but
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: at some point, you know, you have to go along
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: with what the government is doing, and that mosaic strategy
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: means there is nobody that you can easily talk with.
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: Mosaic simply means you've divided the country up. I think
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: it's twenty one different provinces something like that. They're not
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: political entity, but for all practical purposes, they're operating entities.
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: And it makes it very difficult to deal with this
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: so called regime because it's not really a regime. It's
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: just a bunch of guys who are going to keep
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: this thing going until Donald Trump leave's office. And I
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: don't want to get into the personalities who may succeed
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: him on the Democrat and Republican side, but that's what
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: they're counting on.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: Jah guy, that is always excellent I love our conversations.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Look for