August 6, 2019 • 46 mins
When Ronald Reagan was president, America got involved in some deeply shady stuff, not the least of which was the Iran-Contra scandal – a convoluted operation that managed to combine an illegal covert war in Nicaragua with secretly selling arms to Iran.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, it's Josh and Chuck and we're coming to
see you guys, some of you some cities. Just listen up.
That's right, because you know, we just did Chicago and
Toronto and it went great, and I think our topic
of went really well. Everyone loved hearing about me. That's right.
So if you're in Boston, you can come see us
in August twenty nine at the Wilbur Portland, Maine, Maine,
(00:23):
at the State Theater on August thirty. I can't wait.
I'm gonna Labor Day weekend. I'm gonna stay the whole weekend.
I'll be all over Maine. That's great, man. Where else.
We're gonna be in Orlando on October nine, and then
on October t we're going to be in New Orleans, Man.
And then later on that month we're doing a three
night stand at the Bellhouse in Brooklyn. That's right. Is
sold out, but you can still get tickets for the
(00:45):
and we will see you then. Check it out at
s y s K live dot com. Welcome to Stuff
you should Know, a production of My Heart Radios How
Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
There's Charles W Chuck Bryant with Jerry over there eating
(01:08):
with chopstick. As a matter of fact, you know what,
Jerry pulls up the chopsticks. It's time to record. That's right. Yeah,
he's got she's got Facebook open and she's sitting there
with her chopsticks. So it's we're recording. Jerry's been fork
free since eighty three. Speaking of eighty three, your shirt,
I guess it's kind of eighty three ish. It looks
(01:28):
very Thomas Magnum. It does chuck. It does not just
the shirt, the whole outfit. Look at the jeans, the shoes. Yeah, yeah,
you got the Ferrari out back. Thank you for noticing, man,
I look like a chubby Thomas Magnum. It's funny because
I just finished Stranger Things three, and um, I saw
that there was Have you seen it yet? Are you
(01:49):
into that? No? I I like the first season. I
never really got back into it after that. No, no
offense to anybody. Sure, Uh, the main the sheriff guy, yeah,
Hop wears a shirt kind of like that through most
of this season. And so someone did a cut of
a like a Magnum p I intro and had him
running around and shooting things and jumping into cars. I'll
(02:12):
set to the Magnum thing and it really fits at
that song with the guy with a shirt like that
and it's magnum. Of course he has a mustache too. Well,
I'm a mustache less chubby. You should wear a mustache.
That's look interesting. I don't know. I do solve a
lot of mysteries, though. Nothing can change a look like mustaches,
(02:32):
Oh dude, especially spontaneously, right, especially a fake mustache, because
you just put it on and bam, you're done. So uh,
I tried. I'm gonna go back to the eight three segue.
Yeah we're here, right, We're right in the middle of
the eighties. Yeah, like this is super eighties. This is
as eighties as it gets. I wrong. Contra fair, that's
what we're talking about. Some people call it irong gate
(02:54):
poo poo, that name iron contra sure um. I remember
this going on at the time too. I remember watching
Oliver North testify too, and my sister was like, he's
so dreamy. Look at how much poise he has. He
had his dress greens on, had his boy scout three
fingers up like swearing. I really think he did do that. Um,
(03:19):
but even as an adult, like everything I knew about
Iron Contra, like until researching this, it was just the
glossiest version. Well, I mean I was like ten and eleven,
so you were like seven and eight. Sure, sure, but
I mean like still over time, as you age, you're like, oh,
that's what was going on or oh I understand that
(03:39):
even as an adult, my conception of it was not
very thorough at all. And as I dug into I'm like,
this is one of the shadiest things has ever done ever. Yeah,
and it was really great to do this and like
now I know it. Now I have a full understanding
of what happened. And if it ever comes up at
a party and people like, oh what was that all about? Anyway,
(04:02):
and be like, well, please sit down for an hour
and I'll just pull up my smartphone and play our episode.
Actually maybe an hour and a half. We'll see how
this goes. Yeah, by the way, everyone, this is a
two parter buckle up and so, uh, this is part one.
I figured we'd start with the beginning. I think that's
a really good idea. That reminds me of my friend
in college watched the movie. Uh, which one was it? Shortcuts.
(04:28):
The movie that was on two video cassettes. It was
so long, you know, they had to split them up.
Was it Magnolia A Bridge too far? I can't remember.
My friend in college, very very famously among our friends,
watched the second tape first and then watch the first
tape second and didn't really put it together. She was
just like, I thought it was a little confusing, really,
(04:49):
so it was accidental. Oh yeah, And then she was
like and then she showed up in the and the
second part, and I was like, she's already dead. She
was kind of country. This is kind of funny movies,
one of them anachronisms. Yeah, well, this is not anachronism,
because we're gonna be normal, smart, singing people and start
at the beginning. And there's really no better place to
(05:10):
start than the election of Ronald Reagan. In Ronald Reagan,
if you weren't familiar with him already when he was president,
he had already been governor of California. But even before that,
he had a pretty extensive career in Hollywood. And while
he was a pretty big star in Hollywood at least
B plus list if not a list actor, I mean,
(05:33):
he was a medium sized star, but definitely way more
famous as president than he ever was as a movie star. Um.
He learned to detest communism. And at the time, communism
was a really big thing in Hollywood, like it was
very fashionable, um, especially among the intellectuals of Hollywood. And
(05:54):
he learned to hate it so much so that by
the time he got to be president, he had this
idea that there was it was impossible for capitalist democracy
and communism to coexist even peacefully on Earth. You couldn't
have both. You had to have one or the other.
And by god, Ronald Reagan was going to see to
(06:15):
it that the one that we had was a capitalist democracy. Yeah.
He wanted to stamp out communism wherever it reared its head. Uh,
and it was rearing its head close to home, which
we'll see here in a second, but all over the world.
Oh yeah, for sure. He it was called the Reagan Bits,
and pieces of it were right, and he came up
with the Reagan doctrine. And the Reagan doctrine was, um,
(06:38):
we will aid any any opposition to communism wherever it's spouts,
Like if you're if you're fighting against a communist revolution,
will support your country. If you're a rebel fighting against
a leftist communists, Um government will help you overthrow. That's
the Reagan doctrine. Yeah, via money, via arm via training,
(07:01):
via covert operations that we carried out ourselves. There were
all kinds of ways that we could and did help
stem the flow of communism. So there was, as you
were saying, there was a place pretty close to home
where communism had sprouted up, and that was Nicaragua down
in Central America, and in Central America in the thirties,
the Sandinista government had taken power and had held onto
(07:26):
power well into the seventies and by this time the
early eighties, and it drove Ronald Reagan nuts that there
was a communist power right there that was being supported
by the Soviet Union through Cuba. Ostensibly. I've never gotten
the impression that this was ever conclusively proven. They definitely
got support from Cuba. But whether it was the Soviet
(07:47):
Union who was really calling the shots of nick Nicaragua
or not, I I don't know. Yeah, And I think
you know, to go even further back and draw the
lines a little even more clear. The Sandinistans were named
for Augusto Sandino, who led the Nationalist rebellion against what
the US occupation of Central America. That's where it started.
(08:10):
That's where it all started. And from nineteen you know,
the US occupied This is all part of the Banana Wars.
So we occupied Nicaragua from nineteen twelve to nineteen thirty three, Uh,
for a lot of reasons, but one was like, hey,
no one's going to build a canal here unless it's US.
That was sort of one of the main reasons. And uh,
that all ceased in nineteen thirty three with Roosevelt's Good
(08:31):
Neighbor Policy, which is basically like, we're gonna pull out
of Nicaragua. Yeah, okay, So but we we had our
fingers all over Central America for many, many, many years.
And that's why when people forget or choose not to
remember when people flee horrible situations in Central America to
come to the United States now like kind of where
(08:53):
all these horrible situations started years and years ago because
of things that we did well. When when Reagan became president,
UM intervening in Nicaragua, Nick Man, I'm going to have
a hard time if I can't say Nicaragua. UM intervening
in Nicaragua became like a like first and foremost priority
(09:13):
for them. Almost immediately they started UM funding the Contras.
The Contra rebels are the groups who were fighting against
the Santainista government. They were right wing groups, UM, and
they were funding them, they were training them, like you
were saying, and they're doing all this secretly. There was
an operation called Operation Black Eagle, that one that was
(09:34):
something else. So we were already funding them and at
the time, Congress was on board. Congress was on board,
especially at first because the Republicans controlled the House. Well,
you know how when somebody comes in andto steamrolls over
the other party, usually in a presidential election, very frequently
there's in the mid terms, the congressional mid terms, there's
(09:54):
like a backlash against that flip. Believe it or not,
That happen to Ronald Reagan inwo Yeah, and the House
did flip. They flipped over to the Democrats, and UM
that Democrat controlled House, combined with a Newsweek cover story
that came out, kind of turned the tide against UM
(10:16):
Reagan's policy on helping out in Nicaragua. Yeah, there was
a CIA director named William Casey who was UM. He
was kind of telling Congress what they needed here, here
and there, uh you have been here vague briefings that
that was probably um a generous way to say it.
Sometimes Casey would send another guy though, named Dwyane Dewey Clarridge.
(10:38):
And this is where things really went south because Claridge
did not present well to Congress UM. And anytime Congress
feels like they're being subverted or ignored or like kept
out of the loop or like not able to offer
their checks and balances on the executive branch, they really
get mad. They do. And like we're seeing that today.
(10:59):
This is like history just repeats itself over and over again, exactly. Yeah.
And and in this particular case, the place where UM
where the administration, the regular administration, and Congress just started
budding heads over Nicaragua, it was Duyne Clarridge. You know,
he just that's how poor job he did. But in
his defense, he was coming from a place where he
(11:21):
was a CIA man through and through. And this is
less than ten years after Congress had just basically rooted
out the CIA held public hearings. That's when like the
um MK ultra came out and the fact that they've
been dosing unsuspecting Americans with LSD so that's his defense.
He was mad because they uncovered all the awful things
(11:42):
that he'd been doing, right, right, right, true compassion, Chuck,
that's true compassion. So um, So Congress is starting to
get a little unhappy with this. And there was one
congress Man in particular named Edward Boland, I believe, and
he was from Massachusetts, and he said, hey, I just
read about this cover story in Newsweek has a title
(12:05):
America's Secret War colon Nicaragua. Seems like they should have
flip flopped that, you know, Nicaragua colon America's Secret War.
I think they both had the same end goal. It's fine.
But he was like, wait, why am I reading about
this in a magazine? And I'm a member of Congress,
right because at this time, like Congress is like, well, okay,
(12:27):
we think we're just kind of funding things, we're maybe
helping out a little bit. This Newsweek magazine was like, no, no, no,
it's way more than that. Like there's way more American
involvement down in Nicaragua than than you've been led to
believe Congress, like actual covert CIA ops like blowing up
bridges and blowing up buildings and uh, you know, direct
(12:50):
saboteur type ops. Yeah, not just here's some arms and
then you know, you you close this one eye, believe
this eye open when you're shooting. There was way more
involved than that. Or we could just do the shooting
basically here, just let me do it. So Congress, uh,
in the guys of Edward Bowland said nope, we're not
(13:11):
doing that, and they passed the Bowling Amendment, which basically said,
if if you cannot use CIA funds or depart Defense
Department funds to aid the contras in Nicaragua, it's done.
Good night. Congress went to sleep, and so that should
have been the that's the end of it, right, because
Congress passed a well it was at a loft now
(13:32):
passed an amendment enact enact yea, and so everyone just stopped. Right,
that's how it works. All right, what's part two going
to be about. We're just gonna see here quietly. So, um,
this did not stop anything. Uh. Here's what happened. In nine.
The CIA had this one operation where they went into
the commercial shipping harbors of Nicaragua. Oh boy, I know
(13:55):
it's it's I said it right in my head all morning. Nicaragua. Uh,
and they put mines there. You know, I was about
to say land mines, but they were c mines, floating mines,
and uh, the idea here was we're gonna plant these
mines that we're gonna whip up our own press releases
for the Contras where they take credit for it, like,
(14:17):
we don't even trust them to write a good press release,
wrote the press release for so where the contrasts are
saying that they did it, and Uh, the overall effect
it's going to have is they're not gonna be able
to ship arms via the seaport, at least into Nicaragua.
Plus it also makes the Contras look way more together
and with it than they actually were, right, Like, all
we need to do is give them some money, and
(14:38):
they got it covered. Right. So the CIA does this
and and they're thinking, Okay, so, um my shipping in
the Nicaraguan harbors is going to stop. It does not stop. Um.
As a matter of fact, there there were there was damage.
So they used little firecracker mines which make a big
blast and a lot of water everywhere. But the big ship.
It's not gonna hurt the ship. Well, it's sunk a
(14:58):
lot of small fishing vessels, but it also damaged ships
from the Netherlands, Great Britain, Japan, and the USSR commercial ships.
So um. The Wall Street Journal broke this story and said, hey,
you guys, you Congress, You remember how you pass this
amendment saying there could be no CIA involvement in in Nicaragua. Well,
(15:18):
they mind the harbor of the sovereign nation, and it
blew up a bunch of other other country ships. In
Congress once again, it's like, man, you keep doing secret
things behind their back. That really makes us mad. Should
we take a break. All right, let's take a break.
Stuff you should know. Gosh, stuff you should know. Stuff
(15:48):
you should know. Okay, let's keep going. So what does
Congress do? They're like, all right, they're mad. We passed
one bowl in amendment, which I don't think we said, chuck.
(16:09):
The first Bowling Amendment was passed four hundred and eleven
to zero, unanimously saying do not mess around in Nicaragua anymore.
That's when you know Congress is mad when they unanimously
agree on something. And then then the Wall Street Journal
breaks the story about the harbor mining long after the
Bowling Amendment was passed. And now Congress is even madder, right,
(16:31):
So they passed two more amendments, bowling amendments. Uh, because
there were loopholes basically that allowed you know, the the
US to sort of do these things semi legally. So
it was like, well, here's a loophole, so it wasn't
really fully illegal that we did this stuff. That's like
the Reagan Administration's way, all right, they close ease loopholes
(16:53):
and uh, now this was like it was pretty iron clad.
I don't know about iron clad, but it was pretty
tight amendment wise. At the very least, Congress walked away
thinking it's done. It's we made ourselves quite clear. Ronald
Reagan signed these into law. Yeah he didn't. He didn't.
He accepted these things. I think he even said like, yeah,
(17:15):
this is a good idea, great way to go, Congress
and signed it. Um I'm not gonna do a Reagan impression,
but um so the Congress thought that the matter was settled,
but it wasn't settled. Like this is how laser focused
Reagan was on overthrowing the Santinista government down in Nicaragua.
He just took a CIA operation and took it even
(17:40):
further underground than it had been before. Basically, he was like, Okay,
if you guys are gonna outlaw this stuff, um, we're
just gonna have to get even more illegal. Yeah. So
there were a couple of factions here at work. One
was this continued operation underground, deep deep, underground now, and
then there was Reagan's public Like he still wanted to
get real money from Congress so he didn't have to
(18:04):
do this stuff, so he kept up this public PR campaign,
beating this drum about communism matter doorstep. Uh. He said
that the contrasts were the moral equals of our founding fathers.
That's a big one to pull out, Like, that's a
direct quote of our founding fathers. Um and started in
with the and again you see the stuff kind of
(18:25):
repeating itself, the campaign of fear, where he basically said,
unless we do something tough here, then there will be
a tidal wave of FEAT people. I don't even know
what that means, but that's that just seems super offensive,
swarming into our country. He meant, you know, refugees, FEAT
people seeking a safe haven. It was one word, even
I think one word. It's funny because I looked at
(18:47):
FEAT people and that's a company that like, I think
it makes shoelaces and they're like, yn't see it again,
say dot com. Uh, so this is all going on
and on the on the on the down low, all
the operations are going on, and on the public facing side.
Reagan's just continuing this PR push right basically saying like, Congress,
(19:08):
look at these heartless old you know, gas bags, turning
off the funding to these founding father moral equivalent to
our founding fathers. Go vote these guys out of office
and voting some people who will turn the funding back on. Yeah.
And while the contrast may have been fighting communism, they
were doing so through means that the Founding Fathers probably
(19:29):
would not have approved of, like murder and torture and
rape and mutilation, kidnapping and not. You know, I mean
it wasn't so widespread that it was like that's all
they were doing, but they would resort to those tactics. Uh.
And that's not Founding father stuff. No, it's definitely not, not,
as far as I've ever learned. Now, I don't think so.
And I mean it's had a few hundred couple hundred
(19:51):
years to come out and it still hasn't. So Yeah,
I read some of the stuff too, Like some of
the UM affidavits were like just brutal. Oh yeah, dude.
The a war down in Nicaragua, the civil war that
the US basically fomented and supported. UM, it went on
for a decade, like it was, it went on into
the nineties, and it was like not just like countrymen
(20:13):
against countrymen, Like civilians were getting murdered by the scores
and just they would get kidnapped and tortured and killed,
and like it was a really brutal time in Nicaragua.
And the regular administration is right in the middle of this,
like providing as much I eat as they can to
one side. Yeah, And it was one of the big
problems was that the Contras back then were a bunch
(20:35):
of different factions and they didn't answer to a single leader.
And the one thing I got out of the affidavits,
one of which this woman described them taking her children
and her finding their mutilated bodies the next day, it
was brutal. Um. One of the leaders said that there's
there's no disciplinary system at all within the Contra groups.
(20:56):
So yeah, yeah, like there's no accountability, so you could
do any thing you wanted, and there's no discipline set up,
so it was just they were fractured and no one,
you know, was talking to each other, and it was
just a big mess. Right. But Reagan was doing his
best to paint everything in black and white Contrast good
Sandinista's bad. So anything that Contrast did was good, and
(21:20):
stuff that couldn't be painted as good would just be
denied or glossed over, not reported on. That's right. So
while while Reagan's out running around trying to drum up
public support for the Contrast and thus congressional aid being
turned back on, and also saying don't do drugs, he yeah,
that was a big one, even though we're shipping a
lot of drugs back and forth. It's awfully rich now
(21:40):
that you know all that stuff, you know. Um, he's
also secretly supporting them going in flagrant violation of what
Congress has said that that America can do. Um. He
tells his people he wants the Contrast movement to be
kept alive, body and soul. Is how we put it,
which any basically said do it. This is what history
(22:01):
has told us, is that Reagan basically said keep the
Contra movement alive, body and soul. I'm gonna go work
on Congress. I'm putting my hands over my ears from
now on. Whether that's true or not, we will probably
never know as far as the history books is concerned. Yeah,
that was, that's what happened, right. So, uh, here's what
(22:22):
they did. They said, the CIA has a bad rap
um for a lot of reasons, and Congress is not
super friendly with them. Well, they expressly forbade the CIA
from operating them. Right, So he said, here's what we're
gonna do. Um, we're gonna use the National Security Council.
And there the CIA chief, William Casey, he's around. He's
gonna just like advise here and there. And William Casey
(22:44):
was like, oh no, I really got to be involved
because this is really good stuff. They're like no, no, no no,
we're talking like officially here. That okay exactly. So at
first National Security Advisors Robert McFarlane, and then he was
succeeded by John Poindexter. Very important to remember that name. Um,
and then case he's still there, like you said, doing
his thing on the download unofficially right. I think even
(23:06):
in some cases kind of stepping on toes or whatever.
He was like a an additional boss to the to
the main guy, the guy everybody's heard of, the guy
whose mind or whose name jumps to mind when you
hear about this, Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, and in in
in retrospect, especially if you went, if you live through
the Iran Contra hearings and you're familiar with all the North,
(23:29):
like you would guess that when all the North was
tapped to head up this extraordinarily difficult secret operation to
go against Congress and keep the Contra movement alive and
kicking that Ali North was a a a bad, a
covert operator to the ninth degree. Right, that is not
(23:52):
at all correct. No career marine, very highly decorated marine,
served in Vietnam one, silver stars and purple hearts, devout Catholic,
and by all accounts a stand up guy, and to
many many Americans he is uh still like a top
(24:12):
notch American hero. Sure well, he was like the president
of n r A until I think recently. Yeah, I
think there's some scandal that just happened where there was
it came out that he like tried to depose Wayne
Lapierre or something like that. I don't know. I don't either,
But but even beyond that, like even beyond whether he's
a stand up guy or not, as far as you know,
patriotism is concerned just job experience he had like none,
(24:36):
He had no experience whatsoever as far as I could
ever tell in covert operations. He did a pretty good
job for he did an amazing job. He was basically
the the White Houses operations and intel arm of the
shadiest stuff that was doing stuff that was so shady
the c i A. Was even kept in the dark
about it. That's how shady this stuff Alie North was doing.
(24:59):
And he had no experience. He's learning as he went,
just making it up as he went along. And he
really did do a pretty good job of it if
you look at it from that angle. Just as far
as like getting getting or done so um, what they
basically decided was all right, if we can't get the
real taxpayer money and like official funds, we'll just go
and raise funds on the side and secret um through
(25:23):
business people that you know, we can have these big
parties and dinners and say, hey, listen, communism is knocking
at our door. This wouldn't be good for America, wouldn't
be good for your company, And why don't you give
us some money, open up the checkbook. Reagan's here, you
want a photo. Yeah, sometimes he would show up to
these secret fundraisers and uh it was, it was, it
(25:45):
really worked. Like they raised a ton of money from
the business elite of America to stop the sand and
Easton's Nicaragua. So they actually forget this. They founded they
had two private citizens found a nonprofit, the National Endow
Meant for the Preservation of Liberty. It's sole purpose was
to get these funds, these illicit funds to send to
(26:07):
the Contrast, which means that the people who are donating
to the president's illegal secret proxy war could write their
donations off on their taxes. It's just mind boggling hilarious
in some senses. Yeah, but they were not the most
stand up nonprofit because, as you point out, they raise
six point three million dollars through that organization. Uh during
(26:31):
six about three point three million made it to the Contras.
And uh so that means a fifty two program expense rate.
That's pretty bad. Yeah, it's not good at all. Now,
three million dollars it took supposedly to run to run
that nonprofit, those fundraising breakfast for a year. Yeah, pretty
bad good omelets though, so um yeah, oh yeah, the best. Yeah.
(26:54):
So from this this idea like okay, this is this
is probably kind of legal. We're just fundraising. We're not
giving any American taxpayer funds, We're just getting other people
that donate. Private citizens. Saudi Arabia was a big one,
and it was all the stop communism. So, like, I
think their intentions were that, oh definitely, there's were yeah,
(27:14):
and but there was this definite end justifies the means
kind of thing. And and it really isn't the president
really the most powerful person in the world. Can Congress
really tells the president what to do as far as
foreign policy goes? Nah, that was kind of the idea,
I think. So Saudi Arabia donated a bunch of money.
There's all these private citizens donating money. Um, And here's
(27:36):
the thing. The contras found themselves flush with cash, many
millions of dollars over just two years. Saudi Arabia alone
donated thirty two million. To the contrast, this is a
couple of loosely affiliated factions fighting in two spots of
Nicaragua that suddenly have thirty plus million dollars at their disposal.
(27:59):
The problem is they don't have the contacts in the
international arms trade to buy arms with this money. They said,
a bunch of money. They're like, who wants this? And
they were getting crickets, got some bombs, right, you know,
the cartoonist black kind, the round ones that are shiny
before Craigslist two. Right, So they're only uh, their only
(28:22):
avenue was to go back to the Americans and Oliver
North and uh he began working with a guy named
Richard S. Cord. He was a retired forced retired we'll
get into that in a minute, Air Force major general,
and he had a lot of experience. Um, there was
this group of dudes in the nineteen seventies and eighties
that were uh former CIA or current CIA, former CI
(28:46):
A former and current American military who were all had
their fingers in the illegal arms trade. So exactly what
you can imagine a Hollywood writer would come up with this,
the real life version of Yeah, sure, so they would.
They would, Um, you could farm out assassinations to them.
(29:06):
They could rustle up mercenaries, they could carry out sabotage operations.
They could find whatever, gun, bomb, anything you need on
some money laundered, right, anything that is extraordinarily illegal and
deals in death. Like these guys could get their hands
on some poison, sure, a bomb disguised as a briefcase.
(29:27):
We got it, buddy, and they would. Here's the other
thing too. They were an illegal black market arms ring,
but they were also even more illegal in that they
would sell to whoever. Whether you were an enemy or
a friend of America, it didn't matter. These guys were
operating well above any sort of national loyalty or anything like. Yeah,
this was about making money, like many millions of dollars. Yeah,
(29:49):
you're right. So, especially guy like se Cord, he wasn't
He was in it to make dough definitely, whereas an
Ali North was seemingly in it to stop the you know, communism. Right.
So that's that's an important point. But the fact that
they that they contract with c Cord to kind of
swoop in and help um hook the contrasts up with
(30:09):
arms means that the Reagan administration is contracting with this
extraordinarily illegal black market arms ring. Yeah, one of which
they took down some of these dudes over the years
from one of them. One of the founders of this
group was a c I A OP named Edwin Wilson.
He UH was sentenced He served twenty two years, twelve
(30:31):
of which were in solitary confinement, but was sentenced to
fifty two years for illegally arming Libya with ten thousand
machine guns and twenty tons of C four that he
hid in barrels of mud and flew on a charter
jet to Libya. Hollywood stuff. I know, it really is,
like this really happened crazy, And it wasn't just Libya.
(30:51):
This guy was funding or Um outfitting Momar Kadafi Da
Mean was another customer. Like, whoever, if you need to
keep a strangle old on power in your country, were
the people to help you do that? Yeah? And when
I teased earlier about Richard c. Cord being forced into retirement,
that was due to his connection with UH, with Edwin Wilson. Right,
(31:13):
so he was forced to retire from the Air Force.
They couldn't pin anything on him, but there was enough
of a connection there where he had to step down. Yeah.
They're like, you can do this the hardway or the
easy way. We're going to give you the option, and
he took the easy way and then he went on
to make a lot of money. Right. He was like Okay, well,
I'll just do the armstealing thing full time now, and
he did so. When they brought him in. At first,
s Cord was basically acting as like a very las
(31:37):
a Fair intermediary. He was basically the guy who on
behalf of all the North was like, yeah, I can
introduce the Contrast to my friends in the arms ring
in Canada, of all places. Yeah. He introduced the Conscious
to some Canadian arms dealers. So now the setup was
this the friendliest arms arms stealers, right, They're like, all
these bullets will really put a hold in somebody. A. Yeah,
(31:58):
oh sorry, I meant to include get launchers on that order.
Sorry sorry. Um, that's pretty good. So U s Cord
was just there to make some introductions, make sure things
went smoothly. Um. And then it was up to the
Contrast to use these funds that were coming in from
other people and to buy weapons from the Canadians. Easy
(32:19):
pac Right, You'd think, Okay, that's fine, that's done. It's
still has like a slight veneer of arms length legality
as far as America's concerned. Yeah, and we should mention
too that he to do this, he set up a
shell company. Uh, the Stanford Technology Trading Group with an
Iranian American businessman named Albert Hakim who knew how to
(32:40):
get around certain official procedures and stuff like that. He's
another guy who could get things done. So he set
up Swiss bank accounts, untraceable accounts because that's what you
do to run the funds through. And this became known
as the Enterprise. Yeah, there's Stanford Technology Trading Company or
or Group starting Group a k a. The Enterprise. Yeah,
(33:02):
that was like everybody called it that because they're like
this sounds way cooler, the enterprise, right, all right, but
like you were alluding to, you think it would have
been going great. But the contrast in the North, who
was the f d N. They were the largest, by far,
the largest group. They were the better organized from what
I understand. Yeah, they were doing a pretty good job.
But in the South they were not doing a very
(33:25):
good job. No. Somehow they were like, we don't have
the arms and equipment. They're like, what are you talking about.
You have the same amount of money, you have the
same contact, just by the weapons, and they're like no't know.
So ali North is like, okay, all right, here's what
we're gonna do. He called the leaders of the f
d N and the fsl N to Miami to meet
with him, and he said, here's here's how it's going
(33:46):
to be. From now on, any venner of legality is
going out the window. From now on, I'd like you
to meet your new boss, Richard C. Court. Not only
is he going to make sure you have arms, he's
going to take the funnel money himself by the arms himself,
and then he's going to have it kicked out of
(34:06):
a plane over your camps. So now America is directly
involved in supporting and arming and training the Contra rebels
in the north and the south of Nicaragua. And if
there was any again, if there's any kind of legality,
it's totally gone at this point. Yeah. And in the meantime,
uh c Cord and Acheam were marking up their stuff
(34:30):
as much as like dude. They made a lot of
money off of this, They made a ton, but they
put it, they put a lot back into the enterprise.
I mean, they took this job very seriously. If you
are if you were all the North, you were quite
happy with the work you were getting from Richard C.
Cord and Albert Hakim because the shipments went out on time.
They got everything they needed. They had so much money
(34:52):
they had it left over, but they were also investing
it into the enterprise. They bought UM planes, they rented airstrips,
they hired him employees. They contracted with other like UM airlines,
like a Cia front UM. I can't remember the name
of it right now, but they were. They were doing
the work for sure. Great healthcare, yeah, the best benefits,
all of the all of the Contras had really nice teeth.
(35:15):
After Richard Scorn took over work from home. All right,
so let's take another break here and we'll come back
and bring it home for part one with a little
bit about the propaganda machine that was set up. Stuff
you should know, Gosh, stuff you should know. Stuff you
(35:40):
should know, alright, Chuck. So things are in full swing.
America is unknowingly totally hooking up the cow basically running
(36:01):
this proxy war that the Contras are fighting against the
Santaista government. Um. The enterprise is working full boar. And
if it if it couldn't get any more illegal, if
you thought it couldn't get any more illegal, prepared to
just be knocked right over. Yeah. So here on the
home front, Um, it was decided that there needed to
(36:23):
be a pretty massive and dense um propaganda campaign. And
it's we're not talking about Reagan just going on the
news talking about communism being at our doorstep. We're talking
about a real deal propaganda campaign. Uh. And they even
set up an office, the Office of Public Diplomacy for
Latin America and the Caribbean, that was founded and managed
(36:44):
by a Cuban American named Otto Reich. Uh. And this
was all exposed later on by the Miami Herald by
the reporting of a guy named Alfonso Chardi. Yeah. I
just want to interject your real quick So do you
remember when we've done, you know, historic stuff in the
pass And I'm like, go read the contemporary articles. There
was some really good reporting going on because the story
(37:06):
was so huge and multifaceted. Oh yeah, I mean Newsweek
broke it before Congress knew, right, The Washington Post broke
it in the All Street Journal, Yeah, Wall Street Journal,
and then the Miami Herald Lly Times did a lot
of really good going on, like in Miami's backyard. But
it was back when it wasn't like oh, think piece,
think peace, think piece, actual I think piece think piece.
(37:27):
You know, it's like real reporting, and even then it
still didn't wasn't up to snuff in the end, But
they were actual journalists, like actually paying attention in writing
about this stuff and informing the public about it. And
this is when you and I were kids, and I
think like maybe even the seeds of us, because we
both kind of had desires to be real deal journalists
in our lives at one point. Yeah, what got us? Now?
(37:48):
Speaking of what a joke? R I p Mad magazine?
Oh yeah, what a shame. Yeah, they tried that reboot.
It didn't work. Stuff it is. It's it's tough bizin
these days. And I got friends that worked for him too,
Like in this recent reiteration, yeah or iteration, I guess
(38:09):
I know. One of their illustrators is the stuff you
should know fan from years back. Yeah. Yeah, it's very
sad to see it go. So uh it's very eighties
reference though it really wasn't up track. So um, all right,
this is going on. They set up this office run
by autoke and this whole thing was designed and orchestrated
(38:32):
by the CIA. But here's the deal. The CIA wasn't
supposed to be doing this. They were barred from doing this. Yeah,
there was a long standing like prohibition on the CIA
from operating in the US. Basically like we know who
you are, and we know you're so good. You can't
use that stuff on us. You can only use it overseas.
It's fine if you go overthrow other countries in on
(38:54):
your mind tricks. Yeah, it used those on other groups,
but you can't use them here in the States. And
actually Reagan himself also had his own executive order explicitly
banning the CIA from, let's see um, doing any activity
that was intended to influence United States political processes, public opinion,
or media. This is Reagan's executive Order twelve three thirty three.
(39:18):
And he at least his administration was like, forget about that.
We'll just get around that. Yeah, And who was this um?
It says here that they the CIA's uh, like the
biggest foremost psychological warfare expert retired from the agency officially
and then was hired as a consultant. I guess to
(39:38):
this Office of Public Diplomacy was that Auto Reich? Was
that someone else? That's the whole point, right, Yeah, But
that was how That's why I was saying earlier, like
Reagan that's the Reagan administration way, just like here's the
letter of the law. Well, let's change this letter in
our sentence, and now we're following the letter of the law,
you know. And that's what they did. So the CIA
(40:00):
psychological warfare guy retired, came on as a console and said, oh,
here's what you do. You need to basically start setting
up some sting operations because the the point of this
is too I can't remember who said this, but to
paint or to glue black hats on the Sandinistas and
white hats on the contrast in the public mind. Right,
(40:21):
So when you say, uh, sting operations, we mean literally
the United States and all over north smuggling cocaine into Nicaragua,
photographing Sandinistan officials with this shipment, and then smuggling the
cocaine back to the United States back to Florida. Back
to Florida, They're like, we told you we'd bring it back.
(40:43):
Chill man, unbelievable, give us our driver's licenses back. So
this photo is published. This is during the middle of
the Just Say No movement um champion by Nancy Reagan.
So it all, it all fit on the surface, But
what was going on behind the scenes is just unconscionable.
It is unconscionable, unconscionable both but that so, but this
(41:08):
gave Reagan this photograph that got published all over the place. Yeah,
and he's like, look what's going on. Look what these
guys are doing. These are they're bringing this stuff into America.
They're killing our kids, exactly right. So these are the
people that were fighting or where the contras are fighting.
How can you keep the funding turned off for the contrast, Congress,
you jerks? And that was the only evidence too. Yeah,
(41:29):
the somehow came out and said, by the way, I
don't know if anybody cares or not, but we have
no evidence whatsoever that this Santinistan official has ever engaged
in drug trafficking aside from this photograph. But this was
a follow up, probably weeks after the big splash of
the original photograph came out. So that was one sting operation.
(41:50):
There's another one that involved Manuel Noriega, the dictator of Panama,
who actually was selling drugs to America's youth. But he
was also a friend of the CIA exactly so much
so that he was a CIA operative for a very
long time. Yeah, I don't know about a friend, but
he was at least an asset, right. So, um, this
seeing operation was they were going to through Panama, have
(42:13):
Panama arranged for a shipment of arms to be seized
in um, Honduras, Salvador, Al Salvador on its way to Honduras,
or maybe just in Al Salvador, ostensibly arms from Nicaragua.
Basically saying, you're arming Salvadorians, you're arming Hondurans, you're exporting
your revolution. This is exactly the kind of thing that
(42:35):
Ronald Reagan has been saying, we need to contain, We
need to pluck this sprout of communism out from Nicaragua
because they're trying to spread out of the region. Totally
made up, complete sting operation, and it didn't even work
because Manuel Noriega was like, I didn't like that New
York Times piece you guys just published about me. I'm
going to keep this shipment of arms from myself. Yeah,
(42:56):
but I love it. First he was like I can
do that, Oh yeah, sure, send me the arms. And
then we were like, okay, there would be uh. I
think it's from the Iran Contra investigation. The description of
Manuel Noriega was that he ran a narco kleptocracy, that
was the government that he ran. He was about down
(43:18):
that word. He was as shady as they come. That
just means drugs fevery yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, um, this
is what's going on in the United States in the
in the mid eighties. And here's the deal. If you
were a reporter at the time and you were reporting
on this stuff, uh, the NSC didn't like that very much.
(43:39):
So they would meet with editors and reporters themselves and
be like, hey, can you, like, can you report on
the sand anistance that they're really not good people? Like,
can you help us out a little bit? Well, but
here's the thing. If you didn't play ball, then didn't
they cook up some story that they would uh that
they would send like Sandinistan sex workers there to the
(43:59):
like pleasure of the reporters. That was the rumor was
that if if you were a journalist who reported favorably
on the Santinista government, the reason you reported favorably on
him was because the Santinista government was furnishing you with
sex workers. Right. That was that was directly from the
Office of Public Diplomacy. And I read the thing about it,
and they said. The guy was like, and we're not
just talking women either. If they were gay men, then
(44:22):
they would we would send gay sex workers, so totally
discredit them. It's like a complete page right out of
the Edward Burnet's playbook. It's orchestrated by the CIA's foremost
expert on psychological warfare. And this was the state of
America in the mid eighties. But that was just one
dimension of this whole thing. And I say, this is
(44:43):
the end of part one. What do you think. I
think that's great, And uh, we're gonna make this a hanger.
That's right, and is uh per tradition. We are not
going to do a listener mail, but uh instead we'll
do a call, which we rarely do. Um a little
just a little marketing call everyone, if you like stuff.
You should know. We've been doing this so long. We're
(45:03):
so bad at this, yet we've managed to grow. Anyway,
it's crazy. Tell a friend, share an episode with a
friend right now that they don't have to. You don't
have to explain what a podcast is, right, it's a
lot cleaner now. Maybe start with a good one like
ballpoint Pens or something. Yeah, tell a friend about the show.
Leave a nice review or just any kind of review
at all on iTunes that would help us out. Yeah. Yeah,
(45:25):
that's how classy Chuck and I are. He even corrected
himself from good review to just any review whatever you
want to leave. We're not going to try to influence,
you know, like the rigging White House. That's all right.
Uh so, Yeah, we'd really appreciate it. Spread a little
of try and turn one person onto our podcast this week,
and that really helps us out. Nice Chuck, how about that.
It sounds like a good pyramid. We'd like to do
(45:46):
this once every five or six years. Well, thank you
for joining us this week. If you want to get
in touch with us, you can go on to stuff
you Should Know dot com and check out our social links.
You can also send us an email two stuff podcast
at i heeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know
is a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For
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(46:08):
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
H
Hey, everybody, it's Josh and Chuck and we're coming to
see you guys, some of you some cities. Just listen up.
That's right, because you know, we just did Chicago and
Toronto and it went great, and I think our topic
of went really well. Everyone loved hearing about me. That's right.
So if you're in Boston, you can come see us
in August twenty nine at the Wilbur Portland, Maine, Maine,
(00:23):
at the State Theater on August thirty. I can't wait.
I'm gonna Labor Day weekend. I'm gonna stay the whole weekend.
I'll be all over Maine. That's great, man. Where else.
We're gonna be in Orlando on October nine, and then
on October t we're going to be in New Orleans, Man.
And then later on that month we're doing a three
night stand at the Bellhouse in Brooklyn. That's right. Is
sold out, but you can still get tickets for the
(00:45):
and we will see you then. Check it out at
s y s K live dot com. Welcome to Stuff
you should Know, a production of My Heart Radios How
Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
There's Charles W Chuck Bryant with Jerry over there eating
(01:08):
with chopstick. As a matter of fact, you know what,
Jerry pulls up the chopsticks. It's time to record. That's right. Yeah,
he's got she's got Facebook open and she's sitting there
with her chopsticks. So it's we're recording. Jerry's been fork
free since eighty three. Speaking of eighty three, your shirt,
I guess it's kind of eighty three ish. It looks
(01:28):
very Thomas Magnum. It does chuck. It does not just
the shirt, the whole outfit. Look at the jeans, the shoes. Yeah, yeah,
you got the Ferrari out back. Thank you for noticing, man,
I look like a chubby Thomas Magnum. It's funny because
I just finished Stranger Things three, and um, I saw
that there was Have you seen it yet? Are you
(01:49):
into that? No? I I like the first season. I
never really got back into it after that. No, no
offense to anybody. Sure, Uh, the main the sheriff guy, yeah,
Hop wears a shirt kind of like that through most
of this season. And so someone did a cut of
a like a Magnum p I intro and had him
running around and shooting things and jumping into cars. I'll
(02:12):
set to the Magnum thing and it really fits at
that song with the guy with a shirt like that
and it's magnum. Of course he has a mustache too. Well,
I'm a mustache less chubby. You should wear a mustache.
That's look interesting. I don't know. I do solve a
lot of mysteries, though. Nothing can change a look like mustaches,
(02:32):
Oh dude, especially spontaneously, right, especially a fake mustache, because
you just put it on and bam, you're done. So uh,
I tried. I'm gonna go back to the eight three segue.
Yeah we're here, right, We're right in the middle of
the eighties. Yeah, like this is super eighties. This is
as eighties as it gets. I wrong. Contra fair, that's
what we're talking about. Some people call it irong gate
(02:54):
poo poo, that name iron contra sure um. I remember
this going on at the time too. I remember watching
Oliver North testify too, and my sister was like, he's
so dreamy. Look at how much poise he has. He
had his dress greens on, had his boy scout three
fingers up like swearing. I really think he did do that. Um,
(03:19):
but even as an adult, like everything I knew about
Iron Contra, like until researching this, it was just the
glossiest version. Well, I mean I was like ten and eleven,
so you were like seven and eight. Sure, sure, but
I mean like still over time, as you age, you're like, oh,
that's what was going on or oh I understand that
(03:39):
even as an adult, my conception of it was not
very thorough at all. And as I dug into I'm like,
this is one of the shadiest things has ever done ever. Yeah,
and it was really great to do this and like
now I know it. Now I have a full understanding
of what happened. And if it ever comes up at
a party and people like, oh what was that all about? Anyway,
(04:02):
and be like, well, please sit down for an hour
and I'll just pull up my smartphone and play our episode.
Actually maybe an hour and a half. We'll see how
this goes. Yeah, by the way, everyone, this is a
two parter buckle up and so, uh, this is part one.
I figured we'd start with the beginning. I think that's
a really good idea. That reminds me of my friend
in college watched the movie. Uh, which one was it? Shortcuts.
(04:28):
The movie that was on two video cassettes. It was
so long, you know, they had to split them up.
Was it Magnolia A Bridge too far? I can't remember.
My friend in college, very very famously among our friends,
watched the second tape first and then watch the first
tape second and didn't really put it together. She was
just like, I thought it was a little confusing, really,
(04:49):
so it was accidental. Oh yeah, And then she was
like and then she showed up in the and the
second part, and I was like, she's already dead. She
was kind of country. This is kind of funny movies,
one of them anachronisms. Yeah, well, this is not anachronism,
because we're gonna be normal, smart, singing people and start
at the beginning. And there's really no better place to
(05:10):
start than the election of Ronald Reagan. In Ronald Reagan,
if you weren't familiar with him already when he was president,
he had already been governor of California. But even before that,
he had a pretty extensive career in Hollywood. And while
he was a pretty big star in Hollywood at least
B plus list if not a list actor, I mean,
(05:33):
he was a medium sized star, but definitely way more
famous as president than he ever was as a movie star. Um.
He learned to detest communism. And at the time, communism
was a really big thing in Hollywood, like it was
very fashionable, um, especially among the intellectuals of Hollywood. And
(05:54):
he learned to hate it so much so that by
the time he got to be president, he had this
idea that there was it was impossible for capitalist democracy
and communism to coexist even peacefully on Earth. You couldn't
have both. You had to have one or the other.
And by god, Ronald Reagan was going to see to
(06:15):
it that the one that we had was a capitalist democracy. Yeah.
He wanted to stamp out communism wherever it reared its head. Uh,
and it was rearing its head close to home, which
we'll see here in a second, but all over the world.
Oh yeah, for sure. He it was called the Reagan Bits,
and pieces of it were right, and he came up
with the Reagan doctrine. And the Reagan doctrine was, um,
(06:38):
we will aid any any opposition to communism wherever it's spouts,
Like if you're if you're fighting against a communist revolution,
will support your country. If you're a rebel fighting against
a leftist communists, Um government will help you overthrow. That's
the Reagan doctrine. Yeah, via money, via arm via training,
(07:01):
via covert operations that we carried out ourselves. There were
all kinds of ways that we could and did help
stem the flow of communism. So there was, as you
were saying, there was a place pretty close to home
where communism had sprouted up, and that was Nicaragua down
in Central America, and in Central America in the thirties,
the Sandinista government had taken power and had held onto
(07:26):
power well into the seventies and by this time the
early eighties, and it drove Ronald Reagan nuts that there
was a communist power right there that was being supported
by the Soviet Union through Cuba. Ostensibly. I've never gotten
the impression that this was ever conclusively proven. They definitely
got support from Cuba. But whether it was the Soviet
(07:47):
Union who was really calling the shots of nick Nicaragua
or not, I I don't know. Yeah, And I think
you know, to go even further back and draw the
lines a little even more clear. The Sandinistans were named
for Augusto Sandino, who led the Nationalist rebellion against what
the US occupation of Central America. That's where it started.
(08:10):
That's where it all started. And from nineteen you know,
the US occupied This is all part of the Banana Wars.
So we occupied Nicaragua from nineteen twelve to nineteen thirty three, Uh,
for a lot of reasons, but one was like, hey,
no one's going to build a canal here unless it's US.
That was sort of one of the main reasons. And uh,
that all ceased in nineteen thirty three with Roosevelt's Good
(08:31):
Neighbor Policy, which is basically like, we're gonna pull out
of Nicaragua. Yeah, okay, So but we we had our
fingers all over Central America for many, many, many years.
And that's why when people forget or choose not to
remember when people flee horrible situations in Central America to
come to the United States now like kind of where
(08:53):
all these horrible situations started years and years ago because
of things that we did well. When when Reagan became president,
UM intervening in Nicaragua, Nick Man, I'm going to have
a hard time if I can't say Nicaragua. UM intervening
in Nicaragua became like a like first and foremost priority
(09:13):
for them. Almost immediately they started UM funding the Contras.
The Contra rebels are the groups who were fighting against
the Santainista government. They were right wing groups, UM, and
they were funding them, they were training them, like you
were saying, and they're doing all this secretly. There was
an operation called Operation Black Eagle, that one that was
(09:34):
something else. So we were already funding them and at
the time, Congress was on board. Congress was on board,
especially at first because the Republicans controlled the House. Well,
you know how when somebody comes in andto steamrolls over
the other party, usually in a presidential election, very frequently
there's in the mid terms, the congressional mid terms, there's
(09:54):
like a backlash against that flip. Believe it or not,
That happen to Ronald Reagan inwo Yeah, and the House
did flip. They flipped over to the Democrats, and UM
that Democrat controlled House, combined with a Newsweek cover story
that came out, kind of turned the tide against UM
(10:16):
Reagan's policy on helping out in Nicaragua. Yeah, there was
a CIA director named William Casey who was UM. He
was kind of telling Congress what they needed here, here
and there, uh you have been here vague briefings that
that was probably um a generous way to say it.
Sometimes Casey would send another guy though, named Dwyane Dewey Clarridge.
(10:38):
And this is where things really went south because Claridge
did not present well to Congress UM. And anytime Congress
feels like they're being subverted or ignored or like kept
out of the loop or like not able to offer
their checks and balances on the executive branch, they really
get mad. They do. And like we're seeing that today.
(10:59):
This is like history just repeats itself over and over again, exactly. Yeah.
And and in this particular case, the place where UM
where the administration, the regular administration, and Congress just started
budding heads over Nicaragua, it was Duyne Clarridge. You know,
he just that's how poor job he did. But in
his defense, he was coming from a place where he
(11:21):
was a CIA man through and through. And this is
less than ten years after Congress had just basically rooted
out the CIA held public hearings. That's when like the
um MK ultra came out and the fact that they've
been dosing unsuspecting Americans with LSD so that's his defense.
He was mad because they uncovered all the awful things
(11:42):
that he'd been doing, right, right, right, true compassion, Chuck,
that's true compassion. So um, So Congress is starting to
get a little unhappy with this. And there was one
congress Man in particular named Edward Boland, I believe, and
he was from Massachusetts, and he said, hey, I just
read about this cover story in Newsweek has a title
(12:05):
America's Secret War colon Nicaragua. Seems like they should have
flip flopped that, you know, Nicaragua colon America's Secret War.
I think they both had the same end goal. It's fine.
But he was like, wait, why am I reading about
this in a magazine? And I'm a member of Congress,
right because at this time, like Congress is like, well, okay,
(12:27):
we think we're just kind of funding things, we're maybe
helping out a little bit. This Newsweek magazine was like, no, no, no,
it's way more than that. Like there's way more American
involvement down in Nicaragua than than you've been led to
believe Congress, like actual covert CIA ops like blowing up
bridges and blowing up buildings and uh, you know, direct
(12:50):
saboteur type ops. Yeah, not just here's some arms and
then you know, you you close this one eye, believe
this eye open when you're shooting. There was way more
involved than that. Or we could just do the shooting
basically here, just let me do it. So Congress, uh,
in the guys of Edward Bowland said nope, we're not
(13:11):
doing that, and they passed the Bowling Amendment, which basically said,
if if you cannot use CIA funds or depart Defense
Department funds to aid the contras in Nicaragua, it's done.
Good night. Congress went to sleep, and so that should
have been the that's the end of it, right, because
Congress passed a well it was at a loft now
(13:32):
passed an amendment enact enact yea, and so everyone just stopped. Right,
that's how it works. All right, what's part two going
to be about. We're just gonna see here quietly. So, um,
this did not stop anything. Uh. Here's what happened. In nine.
The CIA had this one operation where they went into
the commercial shipping harbors of Nicaragua. Oh boy, I know
(13:55):
it's it's I said it right in my head all morning. Nicaragua. Uh,
and they put mines there. You know, I was about
to say land mines, but they were c mines, floating mines,
and uh, the idea here was we're gonna plant these
mines that we're gonna whip up our own press releases
for the Contras where they take credit for it, like,
(14:17):
we don't even trust them to write a good press release,
wrote the press release for so where the contrasts are
saying that they did it, and Uh, the overall effect
it's going to have is they're not gonna be able
to ship arms via the seaport, at least into Nicaragua.
Plus it also makes the Contras look way more together
and with it than they actually were, right, Like, all
we need to do is give them some money, and
(14:38):
they got it covered. Right. So the CIA does this
and and they're thinking, Okay, so, um my shipping in
the Nicaraguan harbors is going to stop. It does not stop. Um.
As a matter of fact, there there were there was damage.
So they used little firecracker mines which make a big
blast and a lot of water everywhere. But the big ship.
It's not gonna hurt the ship. Well, it's sunk a
(14:58):
lot of small fishing vessels, but it also damaged ships
from the Netherlands, Great Britain, Japan, and the USSR commercial ships.
So um. The Wall Street Journal broke this story and said, hey,
you guys, you Congress, You remember how you pass this
amendment saying there could be no CIA involvement in in Nicaragua. Well,
(15:18):
they mind the harbor of the sovereign nation, and it
blew up a bunch of other other country ships. In
Congress once again, it's like, man, you keep doing secret
things behind their back. That really makes us mad. Should
we take a break. All right, let's take a break.
Stuff you should know. Gosh, stuff you should know. Stuff
(15:48):
you should know. Okay, let's keep going. So what does
Congress do? They're like, all right, they're mad. We passed
one bowl in amendment, which I don't think we said, chuck.
(16:09):
The first Bowling Amendment was passed four hundred and eleven
to zero, unanimously saying do not mess around in Nicaragua anymore.
That's when you know Congress is mad when they unanimously
agree on something. And then then the Wall Street Journal
breaks the story about the harbor mining long after the
Bowling Amendment was passed. And now Congress is even madder, right,
(16:31):
So they passed two more amendments, bowling amendments. Uh, because
there were loopholes basically that allowed you know, the the
US to sort of do these things semi legally. So
it was like, well, here's a loophole, so it wasn't
really fully illegal that we did this stuff. That's like
the Reagan Administration's way, all right, they close ease loopholes
(16:53):
and uh, now this was like it was pretty iron clad.
I don't know about iron clad, but it was pretty
tight amendment wise. At the very least, Congress walked away
thinking it's done. It's we made ourselves quite clear. Ronald
Reagan signed these into law. Yeah he didn't. He didn't.
He accepted these things. I think he even said like, yeah,
(17:15):
this is a good idea, great way to go, Congress
and signed it. Um I'm not gonna do a Reagan impression,
but um so the Congress thought that the matter was settled,
but it wasn't settled. Like this is how laser focused
Reagan was on overthrowing the Santinista government down in Nicaragua.
He just took a CIA operation and took it even
(17:40):
further underground than it had been before. Basically, he was like, Okay,
if you guys are gonna outlaw this stuff, um, we're
just gonna have to get even more illegal. Yeah. So
there were a couple of factions here at work. One
was this continued operation underground, deep deep, underground now, and
then there was Reagan's public Like he still wanted to
get real money from Congress so he didn't have to
(18:04):
do this stuff, so he kept up this public PR campaign,
beating this drum about communism matter doorstep. Uh. He said
that the contrasts were the moral equals of our founding fathers.
That's a big one to pull out, Like, that's a
direct quote of our founding fathers. Um and started in
with the and again you see the stuff kind of
(18:25):
repeating itself, the campaign of fear, where he basically said,
unless we do something tough here, then there will be
a tidal wave of FEAT people. I don't even know
what that means, but that's that just seems super offensive,
swarming into our country. He meant, you know, refugees, FEAT
people seeking a safe haven. It was one word, even
I think one word. It's funny because I looked at
(18:47):
FEAT people and that's a company that like, I think
it makes shoelaces and they're like, yn't see it again,
say dot com. Uh, so this is all going on
and on the on the on the down low, all
the operations are going on, and on the public facing side.
Reagan's just continuing this PR push right basically saying like, Congress,
(19:08):
look at these heartless old you know, gas bags, turning
off the funding to these founding father moral equivalent to
our founding fathers. Go vote these guys out of office
and voting some people who will turn the funding back on. Yeah.
And while the contrast may have been fighting communism, they
were doing so through means that the Founding Fathers probably
(19:29):
would not have approved of, like murder and torture and
rape and mutilation, kidnapping and not. You know, I mean
it wasn't so widespread that it was like that's all
they were doing, but they would resort to those tactics. Uh.
And that's not Founding father stuff. No, it's definitely not, not,
as far as I've ever learned. Now, I don't think so.
And I mean it's had a few hundred couple hundred
(19:51):
years to come out and it still hasn't. So Yeah,
I read some of the stuff too, Like some of
the UM affidavits were like just brutal. Oh yeah, dude.
The a war down in Nicaragua, the civil war that
the US basically fomented and supported. UM, it went on
for a decade, like it was, it went on into
the nineties, and it was like not just like countrymen
(20:13):
against countrymen, Like civilians were getting murdered by the scores
and just they would get kidnapped and tortured and killed,
and like it was a really brutal time in Nicaragua.
And the regular administration is right in the middle of this,
like providing as much I eat as they can to
one side. Yeah, And it was one of the big
problems was that the Contras back then were a bunch
(20:35):
of different factions and they didn't answer to a single leader.
And the one thing I got out of the affidavits,
one of which this woman described them taking her children
and her finding their mutilated bodies the next day, it
was brutal. Um. One of the leaders said that there's
there's no disciplinary system at all within the Contra groups.
(20:56):
So yeah, yeah, like there's no accountability, so you could
do any thing you wanted, and there's no discipline set up,
so it was just they were fractured and no one,
you know, was talking to each other, and it was
just a big mess. Right. But Reagan was doing his
best to paint everything in black and white Contrast good
Sandinista's bad. So anything that Contrast did was good, and
(21:20):
stuff that couldn't be painted as good would just be
denied or glossed over, not reported on. That's right. So
while while Reagan's out running around trying to drum up
public support for the Contrast and thus congressional aid being
turned back on, and also saying don't do drugs, he yeah,
that was a big one, even though we're shipping a
lot of drugs back and forth. It's awfully rich now
(21:40):
that you know all that stuff, you know. Um, he's
also secretly supporting them going in flagrant violation of what
Congress has said that that America can do. Um. He
tells his people he wants the Contrast movement to be
kept alive, body and soul. Is how we put it,
which any basically said do it. This is what history
(22:01):
has told us, is that Reagan basically said keep the
Contra movement alive, body and soul. I'm gonna go work
on Congress. I'm putting my hands over my ears from
now on. Whether that's true or not, we will probably
never know as far as the history books is concerned. Yeah,
that was, that's what happened, right. So, uh, here's what
(22:22):
they did. They said, the CIA has a bad rap
um for a lot of reasons, and Congress is not
super friendly with them. Well, they expressly forbade the CIA
from operating them. Right, So he said, here's what we're
gonna do. Um, we're gonna use the National Security Council.
And there the CIA chief, William Casey, he's around. He's
gonna just like advise here and there. And William Casey
(22:44):
was like, oh no, I really got to be involved
because this is really good stuff. They're like no, no, no no,
we're talking like officially here. That okay exactly. So at
first National Security Advisors Robert McFarlane, and then he was
succeeded by John Poindexter. Very important to remember that name. Um,
and then case he's still there, like you said, doing
his thing on the download unofficially right. I think even
(23:06):
in some cases kind of stepping on toes or whatever.
He was like a an additional boss to the to
the main guy, the guy everybody's heard of, the guy
whose mind or whose name jumps to mind when you
hear about this, Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North, and in in
in retrospect, especially if you went, if you live through
the Iran Contra hearings and you're familiar with all the North,
(23:29):
like you would guess that when all the North was
tapped to head up this extraordinarily difficult secret operation to
go against Congress and keep the Contra movement alive and
kicking that Ali North was a a a bad, a
covert operator to the ninth degree. Right, that is not
(23:52):
at all correct. No career marine, very highly decorated marine,
served in Vietnam one, silver stars and purple hearts, devout Catholic,
and by all accounts a stand up guy, and to
many many Americans he is uh still like a top
(24:12):
notch American hero. Sure well, he was like the president
of n r A until I think recently. Yeah, I
think there's some scandal that just happened where there was
it came out that he like tried to depose Wayne
Lapierre or something like that. I don't know. I don't either,
But but even beyond that, like even beyond whether he's
a stand up guy or not, as far as you know,
patriotism is concerned just job experience he had like none,
(24:36):
He had no experience whatsoever as far as I could
ever tell in covert operations. He did a pretty good
job for he did an amazing job. He was basically
the the White Houses operations and intel arm of the
shadiest stuff that was doing stuff that was so shady
the c i A. Was even kept in the dark
about it. That's how shady this stuff Alie North was doing.
(24:59):
And he had no experience. He's learning as he went,
just making it up as he went along. And he
really did do a pretty good job of it if
you look at it from that angle. Just as far
as like getting getting or done so um, what they
basically decided was all right, if we can't get the
real taxpayer money and like official funds, we'll just go
and raise funds on the side and secret um through
(25:23):
business people that you know, we can have these big
parties and dinners and say, hey, listen, communism is knocking
at our door. This wouldn't be good for America, wouldn't
be good for your company, And why don't you give
us some money, open up the checkbook. Reagan's here, you
want a photo. Yeah, sometimes he would show up to
these secret fundraisers and uh it was, it was, it
(25:45):
really worked. Like they raised a ton of money from
the business elite of America to stop the sand and
Easton's Nicaragua. So they actually forget this. They founded they
had two private citizens found a nonprofit, the National Endow
Meant for the Preservation of Liberty. It's sole purpose was
to get these funds, these illicit funds to send to
(26:07):
the Contrast, which means that the people who are donating
to the president's illegal secret proxy war could write their
donations off on their taxes. It's just mind boggling hilarious
in some senses. Yeah, but they were not the most
stand up nonprofit because, as you point out, they raise
six point three million dollars through that organization. Uh during
(26:31):
six about three point three million made it to the Contras.
And uh so that means a fifty two program expense rate.
That's pretty bad. Yeah, it's not good at all. Now,
three million dollars it took supposedly to run to run
that nonprofit, those fundraising breakfast for a year. Yeah, pretty
bad good omelets though, so um yeah, oh yeah, the best. Yeah.
(26:54):
So from this this idea like okay, this is this
is probably kind of legal. We're just fundraising. We're not
giving any American taxpayer funds, We're just getting other people
that donate. Private citizens. Saudi Arabia was a big one,
and it was all the stop communism. So, like, I
think their intentions were that, oh definitely, there's were yeah,
(27:14):
and but there was this definite end justifies the means
kind of thing. And and it really isn't the president
really the most powerful person in the world. Can Congress
really tells the president what to do as far as
foreign policy goes? Nah, that was kind of the idea,
I think. So Saudi Arabia donated a bunch of money.
There's all these private citizens donating money. Um, And here's
(27:36):
the thing. The contras found themselves flush with cash, many
millions of dollars over just two years. Saudi Arabia alone
donated thirty two million. To the contrast, this is a
couple of loosely affiliated factions fighting in two spots of
Nicaragua that suddenly have thirty plus million dollars at their disposal.
(27:59):
The problem is they don't have the contacts in the
international arms trade to buy arms with this money. They said,
a bunch of money. They're like, who wants this? And
they were getting crickets, got some bombs, right, you know,
the cartoonist black kind, the round ones that are shiny
before Craigslist two. Right, So they're only uh, their only
(28:22):
avenue was to go back to the Americans and Oliver
North and uh he began working with a guy named
Richard S. Cord. He was a retired forced retired we'll
get into that in a minute, Air Force major general,
and he had a lot of experience. Um, there was
this group of dudes in the nineteen seventies and eighties
that were uh former CIA or current CIA, former CI
(28:46):
A former and current American military who were all had
their fingers in the illegal arms trade. So exactly what
you can imagine a Hollywood writer would come up with this,
the real life version of Yeah, sure, so they would.
They would, Um, you could farm out assassinations to them.
(29:06):
They could rustle up mercenaries, they could carry out sabotage operations.
They could find whatever, gun, bomb, anything you need on
some money laundered, right, anything that is extraordinarily illegal and
deals in death. Like these guys could get their hands
on some poison, sure, a bomb disguised as a briefcase.
(29:27):
We got it, buddy, and they would. Here's the other
thing too. They were an illegal black market arms ring,
but they were also even more illegal in that they
would sell to whoever. Whether you were an enemy or
a friend of America, it didn't matter. These guys were
operating well above any sort of national loyalty or anything like. Yeah,
this was about making money, like many millions of dollars. Yeah,
(29:49):
you're right. So, especially guy like se Cord, he wasn't
He was in it to make dough definitely, whereas an
Ali North was seemingly in it to stop the you know, communism. Right.
So that's that's an important point. But the fact that
they that they contract with c Cord to kind of
swoop in and help um hook the contrasts up with
(30:09):
arms means that the Reagan administration is contracting with this
extraordinarily illegal black market arms ring. Yeah, one of which
they took down some of these dudes over the years
from one of them. One of the founders of this
group was a c I A OP named Edwin Wilson.
He UH was sentenced He served twenty two years, twelve
(30:31):
of which were in solitary confinement, but was sentenced to
fifty two years for illegally arming Libya with ten thousand
machine guns and twenty tons of C four that he
hid in barrels of mud and flew on a charter
jet to Libya. Hollywood stuff. I know, it really is,
like this really happened crazy, And it wasn't just Libya.
(30:51):
This guy was funding or Um outfitting Momar Kadafi Da
Mean was another customer. Like, whoever, if you need to
keep a strangle old on power in your country, were
the people to help you do that? Yeah? And when
I teased earlier about Richard c. Cord being forced into retirement,
that was due to his connection with UH, with Edwin Wilson. Right,
(31:13):
so he was forced to retire from the Air Force.
They couldn't pin anything on him, but there was enough
of a connection there where he had to step down. Yeah.
They're like, you can do this the hardway or the
easy way. We're going to give you the option, and
he took the easy way and then he went on
to make a lot of money. Right. He was like Okay, well,
I'll just do the armstealing thing full time now, and
he did so. When they brought him in. At first,
s Cord was basically acting as like a very las
(31:37):
a Fair intermediary. He was basically the guy who on
behalf of all the North was like, yeah, I can
introduce the Contrast to my friends in the arms ring
in Canada, of all places. Yeah. He introduced the Conscious
to some Canadian arms dealers. So now the setup was
this the friendliest arms arms stealers, right, They're like, all
these bullets will really put a hold in somebody. A. Yeah,
(31:58):
oh sorry, I meant to include get launchers on that order.
Sorry sorry. Um, that's pretty good. So U s Cord
was just there to make some introductions, make sure things
went smoothly. Um. And then it was up to the
Contrast to use these funds that were coming in from
other people and to buy weapons from the Canadians. Easy
(32:19):
pac Right, You'd think, Okay, that's fine, that's done. It's
still has like a slight veneer of arms length legality
as far as America's concerned. Yeah, and we should mention
too that he to do this, he set up a
shell company. Uh, the Stanford Technology Trading Group with an
Iranian American businessman named Albert Hakim who knew how to
(32:40):
get around certain official procedures and stuff like that. He's
another guy who could get things done. So he set
up Swiss bank accounts, untraceable accounts because that's what you
do to run the funds through. And this became known
as the Enterprise. Yeah, there's Stanford Technology Trading Company or
or Group starting Group a k a. The Enterprise. Yeah,
(33:02):
that was like everybody called it that because they're like
this sounds way cooler, the enterprise, right, all right, but
like you were alluding to, you think it would have
been going great. But the contrast in the North, who
was the f d N. They were the largest, by far,
the largest group. They were the better organized from what
I understand. Yeah, they were doing a pretty good job.
But in the South they were not doing a very
(33:25):
good job. No. Somehow they were like, we don't have
the arms and equipment. They're like, what are you talking about.
You have the same amount of money, you have the
same contact, just by the weapons, and they're like no't know.
So ali North is like, okay, all right, here's what
we're gonna do. He called the leaders of the f
d N and the fsl N to Miami to meet
with him, and he said, here's here's how it's going
(33:46):
to be. From now on, any venner of legality is
going out the window. From now on, I'd like you
to meet your new boss, Richard C. Court. Not only
is he going to make sure you have arms, he's
going to take the funnel money himself by the arms himself,
and then he's going to have it kicked out of
(34:06):
a plane over your camps. So now America is directly
involved in supporting and arming and training the Contra rebels
in the north and the south of Nicaragua. And if
there was any again, if there's any kind of legality,
it's totally gone at this point. Yeah. And in the meantime,
uh c Cord and Acheam were marking up their stuff
(34:30):
as much as like dude. They made a lot of
money off of this, They made a ton, but they
put it, they put a lot back into the enterprise.
I mean, they took this job very seriously. If you
are if you were all the North, you were quite
happy with the work you were getting from Richard C.
Cord and Albert Hakim because the shipments went out on time.
They got everything they needed. They had so much money
(34:52):
they had it left over, but they were also investing
it into the enterprise. They bought UM planes, they rented airstrips,
they hired him employees. They contracted with other like UM airlines,
like a Cia front UM. I can't remember the name
of it right now, but they were. They were doing
the work for sure. Great healthcare, yeah, the best benefits,
all of the all of the Contras had really nice teeth.
(35:15):
After Richard Scorn took over work from home. All right,
so let's take another break here and we'll come back
and bring it home for part one with a little
bit about the propaganda machine that was set up. Stuff
you should know, Gosh, stuff you should know. Stuff you
(35:40):
should know, alright, Chuck. So things are in full swing.
America is unknowingly totally hooking up the cow basically running
(36:01):
this proxy war that the Contras are fighting against the
Santaista government. Um. The enterprise is working full boar. And
if it if it couldn't get any more illegal, if
you thought it couldn't get any more illegal, prepared to
just be knocked right over. Yeah. So here on the
home front, Um, it was decided that there needed to
(36:23):
be a pretty massive and dense um propaganda campaign. And
it's we're not talking about Reagan just going on the
news talking about communism being at our doorstep. We're talking
about a real deal propaganda campaign. Uh. And they even
set up an office, the Office of Public Diplomacy for
Latin America and the Caribbean, that was founded and managed
(36:44):
by a Cuban American named Otto Reich. Uh. And this
was all exposed later on by the Miami Herald by
the reporting of a guy named Alfonso Chardi. Yeah. I
just want to interject your real quick So do you
remember when we've done, you know, historic stuff in the
pass And I'm like, go read the contemporary articles. There
was some really good reporting going on because the story
(37:06):
was so huge and multifaceted. Oh yeah, I mean Newsweek
broke it before Congress knew, right, The Washington Post broke
it in the All Street Journal, Yeah, Wall Street Journal,
and then the Miami Herald Lly Times did a lot
of really good going on, like in Miami's backyard. But
it was back when it wasn't like oh, think piece,
think peace, think piece, actual I think piece think piece.
(37:27):
You know, it's like real reporting, and even then it
still didn't wasn't up to snuff in the end, But
they were actual journalists, like actually paying attention in writing
about this stuff and informing the public about it. And
this is when you and I were kids, and I
think like maybe even the seeds of us, because we
both kind of had desires to be real deal journalists
in our lives at one point. Yeah, what got us? Now?
(37:48):
Speaking of what a joke? R I p Mad magazine?
Oh yeah, what a shame. Yeah, they tried that reboot.
It didn't work. Stuff it is. It's it's tough bizin
these days. And I got friends that worked for him too,
Like in this recent reiteration, yeah or iteration, I guess
(38:09):
I know. One of their illustrators is the stuff you
should know fan from years back. Yeah. Yeah, it's very
sad to see it go. So uh it's very eighties
reference though it really wasn't up track. So um, all right,
this is going on. They set up this office run
by autoke and this whole thing was designed and orchestrated
(38:32):
by the CIA. But here's the deal. The CIA wasn't
supposed to be doing this. They were barred from doing this. Yeah,
there was a long standing like prohibition on the CIA
from operating in the US. Basically like we know who
you are, and we know you're so good. You can't
use that stuff on us. You can only use it overseas.
It's fine if you go overthrow other countries in on
(38:54):
your mind tricks. Yeah, it used those on other groups,
but you can't use them here in the States. And
actually Reagan himself also had his own executive order explicitly
banning the CIA from, let's see um, doing any activity
that was intended to influence United States political processes, public opinion,
or media. This is Reagan's executive Order twelve three thirty three.
(39:18):
And he at least his administration was like, forget about that.
We'll just get around that. Yeah, And who was this um?
It says here that they the CIA's uh, like the
biggest foremost psychological warfare expert retired from the agency officially
and then was hired as a consultant. I guess to
(39:38):
this Office of Public Diplomacy was that Auto Reich? Was
that someone else? That's the whole point, right, Yeah, But
that was how That's why I was saying earlier, like
Reagan that's the Reagan administration way, just like here's the
letter of the law. Well, let's change this letter in
our sentence, and now we're following the letter of the law,
you know. And that's what they did. So the CIA
(40:00):
psychological warfare guy retired, came on as a console and said, oh,
here's what you do. You need to basically start setting
up some sting operations because the the point of this
is too I can't remember who said this, but to
paint or to glue black hats on the Sandinistas and
white hats on the contrast in the public mind. Right,
(40:21):
So when you say, uh, sting operations, we mean literally
the United States and all over north smuggling cocaine into Nicaragua,
photographing Sandinistan officials with this shipment, and then smuggling the
cocaine back to the United States back to Florida. Back
to Florida, They're like, we told you we'd bring it back.
(40:43):
Chill man, unbelievable, give us our driver's licenses back. So
this photo is published. This is during the middle of
the Just Say No movement um champion by Nancy Reagan.
So it all, it all fit on the surface, But
what was going on behind the scenes is just unconscionable.
It is unconscionable, unconscionable both but that so, but this
(41:08):
gave Reagan this photograph that got published all over the place. Yeah,
and he's like, look what's going on. Look what these
guys are doing. These are they're bringing this stuff into America.
They're killing our kids, exactly right. So these are the
people that were fighting or where the contras are fighting.
How can you keep the funding turned off for the contrast, Congress,
you jerks? And that was the only evidence too. Yeah,
(41:29):
the somehow came out and said, by the way, I
don't know if anybody cares or not, but we have
no evidence whatsoever that this Santinistan official has ever engaged
in drug trafficking aside from this photograph. But this was
a follow up, probably weeks after the big splash of
the original photograph came out. So that was one sting operation.
(41:50):
There's another one that involved Manuel Noriega, the dictator of Panama,
who actually was selling drugs to America's youth. But he
was also a friend of the CIA exactly so much
so that he was a CIA operative for a very
long time. Yeah, I don't know about a friend, but
he was at least an asset, right. So, um, this
seeing operation was they were going to through Panama, have
(42:13):
Panama arranged for a shipment of arms to be seized
in um, Honduras, Salvador, Al Salvador on its way to Honduras,
or maybe just in Al Salvador, ostensibly arms from Nicaragua.
Basically saying, you're arming Salvadorians, you're arming Hondurans, you're exporting
your revolution. This is exactly the kind of thing that
(42:35):
Ronald Reagan has been saying, we need to contain, We
need to pluck this sprout of communism out from Nicaragua
because they're trying to spread out of the region. Totally
made up, complete sting operation, and it didn't even work
because Manuel Noriega was like, I didn't like that New
York Times piece you guys just published about me. I'm
going to keep this shipment of arms from myself. Yeah,
(42:56):
but I love it. First he was like I can
do that, Oh yeah, sure, send me the arms. And
then we were like, okay, there would be uh. I
think it's from the Iran Contra investigation. The description of
Manuel Noriega was that he ran a narco kleptocracy, that
was the government that he ran. He was about down
(43:18):
that word. He was as shady as they come. That
just means drugs fevery yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, um, this
is what's going on in the United States in the
in the mid eighties. And here's the deal. If you
were a reporter at the time and you were reporting
on this stuff, uh, the NSC didn't like that very much.
(43:39):
So they would meet with editors and reporters themselves and
be like, hey, can you, like, can you report on
the sand anistance that they're really not good people? Like,
can you help us out a little bit? Well, but
here's the thing. If you didn't play ball, then didn't
they cook up some story that they would uh that
they would send like Sandinistan sex workers there to the
(43:59):
like pleasure of the reporters. That was the rumor was
that if if you were a journalist who reported favorably
on the Santinista government, the reason you reported favorably on
him was because the Santinista government was furnishing you with
sex workers. Right. That was that was directly from the
Office of Public Diplomacy. And I read the thing about it,
and they said. The guy was like, and we're not
just talking women either. If they were gay men, then
(44:22):
they would we would send gay sex workers, so totally
discredit them. It's like a complete page right out of
the Edward Burnet's playbook. It's orchestrated by the CIA's foremost
expert on psychological warfare. And this was the state of
America in the mid eighties. But that was just one
dimension of this whole thing. And I say, this is
(44:43):
the end of part one. What do you think. I
think that's great, And uh, we're gonna make this a hanger.
That's right, and is uh per tradition. We are not
going to do a listener mail, but uh instead we'll
do a call, which we rarely do. Um a little
just a little marketing call everyone, if you like stuff.
You should know. We've been doing this so long. We're
(45:03):
so bad at this, yet we've managed to grow. Anyway,
it's crazy. Tell a friend, share an episode with a
friend right now that they don't have to. You don't
have to explain what a podcast is, right, it's a
lot cleaner now. Maybe start with a good one like
ballpoint Pens or something. Yeah, tell a friend about the show.
Leave a nice review or just any kind of review
at all on iTunes that would help us out. Yeah. Yeah,
(45:25):
that's how classy Chuck and I are. He even corrected
himself from good review to just any review whatever you
want to leave. We're not going to try to influence,
you know, like the rigging White House. That's all right.
Uh so, Yeah, we'd really appreciate it. Spread a little
of try and turn one person onto our podcast this week,
and that really helps us out. Nice Chuck, how about that.
It sounds like a good pyramid. We'd like to do
(45:46):
this once every five or six years. Well, thank you
for joining us this week. If you want to get
in touch with us, you can go on to stuff
you Should Know dot com and check out our social links.
You can also send us an email two stuff podcast
at i heeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know
is a production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For
more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
(46:08):
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
H
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Josh Clark
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