Podcast appearances and mentions of edgar hoover

On this week's Neutralizing Workplace Racism, we break down a volatile landscape where financial exploitation, unchecked corporate bias, and lethal field escalations collide directly on the clock. We analyze critical news reports proving that whether you are operating on a multi-million dollar athletic field or delivering app-based orders on a city street, your absolute priority remains identifying systemic white supremacy and navigating structural survival. This week's audio tracks and investigative files expose the extreme hazards operating behind closed institutional doors: ** Data Breach of FBI's Job Portal: J. Edgar Hoover's cronies continue investing the hacker group "Shiny Hunters" that claimed responsibility for looting sensitive data on FBI employees and applicants. More non-white will be vulnerable to this sort of hacking as the hiring process becomes more technological and less connected to printed paper. ** Remaining Composed At Work: Gus T. revisits some of the key points shared during later week's broadcast. A number of listeners shared different experiences about being frustrated by Suspected White Supremacists on the job. Being angry about Between corporate wage withholding, toxic factory abuse, sudden workplace stabbings, and fatal drive-thru encounters, your objective on the floor is no longer career advancement. It is implementing a strict zero-friction protocol, tracking your administrative trails, and keeping your eyes wide open to survive your shift intact. #SurviveYourShift #BlackFarmers #ICE #WorkplaceViolence #TheCOWS17Years #CounterRacism #UntilJustice #JeffersonAvenue #JusticeForSade #ComposureOnTheJob INVEST in The COWS! PayPal: [http://paypal.me/TheCOWS](http://paypal.me/TheCOWS) Cash App: [https://cash.app/$TheCOWS](https://cash.app/$TheCOWS) Call-In Number: 720.716.7300 Code: 564943#

In this gripping fourth installment of our Dorothy Kilgallen miniseries, we follow the relentless syndicated columnist as she escalates her independent investigation into the JFK assassination following her standoff with the FBI. Just two days after refusing to surrender her source for Jack Ruby's sealed testimony, Kilgallen published the Dallas Police Department radio logs from November 22, 1963, exposing that Police Chief Jesse Curry's very first order after shots rang out was to send officers to the triple overpass, railroad yard, and grassy knoll—not the Texas School Book Depository. We reveal how FBI files unsealed under FOIA show Director J. Edgar Hoover personally reading her columns and scrawling angry corrections in the margins, proving the federal government was intensely monitoring her reporting. When the Warren Commission Report was released in September 1964 claiming Oswald and Ruby acted alone, Kilgallen publicly blasted it as "pure baloney" and a "fairy tale designed to reassure the public," pledging to travel to Dallas and New Orleans to break the case wide open herself.We go behind the scenes to examine Kilgallen's extraordinary, hands-on investigative methods and her covert partnership with attorney Mark Lane. To test key witness Howard Brennan's claim that he observed the assassin's height and weight from over 100 feet away, Kilgallen conducted a late-night experiment outside her East 68th Street townhouse, watching her husband Richard Kollmar lean out a fifth-floor window with a broomstick before concluding Brennan's identification was physically impossible. We trace her secret collaboration with Lane as they communicated from public payphones using code names "Parker" and "Robinson" and exchanged sensitive documents under Manhattan streetlights. Together, they unearth the Warren Commission's suppressed lead regarding an unnamed "rich oil man" present during a pre-assassination meeting at Jack Ruby's Carousel Club, while tracking the chilling, suspicious deaths of reporters Bill Hunter and Jim Koethe, who had both entered Ruby's apartment on the night of the shooting.Finally, we follow Kilgallen as she identifies New Orleans and Louisiana Mafia boss Carlos Marcello as the true center of gravity in the assassination conspiracy. We detail her secret research trips to New Orleans—where she flew her hairdresser Mark Sinclair on a separate plane for security—and analyze her investigation into David Ferrie, Guy Banister's 544 Camp Street office, and Oswald's ties to anti-Castro exiles. As Kilgallen compiled her explosive findings into an accordion folder that was kept under lock for a planned chapter in her upcoming book Murder One, we explore the atmosphere of terror surrounding her final weeks: buying a gun, updating her will, sending her 11-year-old son trick-or-treating in a limousine following a mysterious surveillance photograph, and entrusting duplicate research files to JFK's close confidante Florence Pritchett Smith. We close on her bold, fateful declaration to friends that she was "five days away from busting this case wide open" before her sudden, mysterious death in November 1965.Music includes excerpts from  "Hot Swing" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ and from  "Take Off and Shoot a Zero" by Chris Zabriskie (chriszabriskie.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Zayd Ayers Dohrn, author of "Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young," spent the first three years of his life on the run from the law with his fugitive parents, Weather Underground founders Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover once called his mother the "most dangerous woman in America." Zayd Ayers Dohrn talks about his parents' upbringing and revolutionary politics, the violence committed by the Weather Underground during the 1970s, and his life after his parents turned themselves in to federal authorities in 1980. His book has been nominated for the National Book Award this year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Phil and Emily are joined by film journalist and podcaster Blake Howard (One Heat Minute Productions) to close out the 2000s Best Actress Oscar follow-ups mini-series with Michael Mann's Public Enemies (2009). Johnny Depp's John Dillinger robs Depression-era banks and romances Marion Cotillard's Billie Frechette while Christian Bale's Melvin Purvis and Billy Crudup's J. Edgar Hoover build the modern FBI around catching him. It opened July 3, 2009 against Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and made $214 million on a $100 million budget, and Phil, who left the theater disappointed that summer expecting Heat meets The Untouchables, has come all the way around on it.The three dig into the early digital photography everyone hated in 2009 and why it plays so much better now that projectors can actually show it, Mann's refusal to sentimentalize his outlaw (Ebert's read that the movie shrugs off myth gets a workout), Bale's understated Purvis in the year after The Dark Knight, Crudup's version of Hoover as the guy who quietly wins the movie, and the Depp-and-Bale on-set story that may or may not have happened. Blake makes the case for Public Enemies as the best film in the whole mini-series, and Phil agrees, then ranks the whole run, from this one at the top down to Pay It Forward dead last. There's a real case here for Public Enemies as the Michael Mann movie that got caught between the audience he had and the one he was about to find. Cold, beautiful, and stubborn about it. Same as the movie.Follow the show & guest:Podcast Like It's... - https://www.instagram.com/podcastlikeitsPhil Iscove - https://www.instagram.com/pmiscoveEmily St. James - https://www.instagram.com/emilystjamsBlake Howard - https://www.instagram.com/oneblakeminute

Zayd Ayers Dohrn, author of "Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young," spent the first three years of his life on the run from the law with his fugitive parents, Weather Underground founders Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover once called his mother the "most dangerous woman in America." Zayd Ayers Dohrn talks about his parents' upbringing and revolutionary politics, the violence committed by the Weather Underground during the 1970s, and his life after his parents turned themselves in to federal authorities in 1980. His book has been nominated for the National Book Award this year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this part three of our Dorothy Kilgallen deep dive, we reach the high-stakes intersection where America's most famous female journalist took on the official narrative of the JFK assassination. Following the live TV shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald by Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby on November 24, 1963, syndicated columnist Dorothy Kilgallen vowed to her butler James Clement: "If it is the last thing I do, I'm going to break this case." Driven by a deeply personal connection to John F. Kennedy—who had played charades in her Manhattan home and personally presented her young son Kerry with a PT-109 pin—Kilgallen launched an independent crusade, locking her research inside a private "assassination file." In her November 29 column, "The Oswald File Must Not Close," she challenged President Johnson and savaged the Dallas Police Department, exposing how Ruby enjoyed open, casual access to police headquarters while asking how a small-time strip club owner could stroll through high-security corridors as if visiting a health club.We track Kilgallen's relentless field investigation, from walking Dealey Plaza and measuring Elm Street shooting angles to covering Jack Ruby's 1964 capital murder trial in Dallas. We reconstruct her unprecedented, five-minute one-on-one interview with Jack Ruby at the courtroom rail—arranged by defense attorney Joe Tonahill under the pretext of a message from a San Francisco opera singer—making her the only journalist in the world granted private access to the prisoner. We explore her explosive April 1964 front-page column on the J.D. Tippit shooting, where she highlighted overlooked witness Aquilla Clemens, who reported seeing two men running from the scene (neither matching Oswald) and revealed that Dallas police officers had ordered her to keep quiet. Furthermore, we examine Kilgallen's earth-shattering August 18, 1964 scoop, where she published Jack Ruby's secret, sealed Warren Commission testimony on the front page of the New York Journal-American months before official release, exposing Ruby's desperate, unheeded pleas to Chief Justice Earl Warren to be transferred to Washington because his life was in mortal danger in Dallas.Finally, we confront the federal backlash triggered by Kilgallen's reporting and the shadow of surveillance that darkened her final months. We detail J. Edgar Hoover's furious FBI leak investigation and the tense August 1964 standoff inside Kilgallen's East 68th Street townhouse, where she looked federal agents in the eye and declared she "would die rather than reveal" her source—lightheartedly adding that her source wasn't What's My Line? host John Daly, who happened to be Earl Warren's son-in-law. We examine disclosures from her attorney Mark Lane and her personal hairdressers, Mark Sinclair and Charles Simpson, confirming that her 18 home telephone lines were wiretapped and her inner circle was trailed by intelligence operatives. We close on the tragic mystery of her November 1965 death, exploring how her multi-year research files and court notes mysteriously vanished from her home, leaving behind an enduring legacy of fearless journalism and unresolved questions.Music includes excerpts from  "Hot Swing" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ and from  "Take Off and Shoot a Zero" by Chris Zabriskie (chriszabriskie.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

In this captivating launch of our Dorothy Kilgallen miniseries, we pivot from the Jack Ruby trial to investigate the life, investigative crusade, and mysterious death of one of the twentieth century's most formidable journalists. On November 8, 1965, Dorothy Kilgallen—a syndicated columnist read by twenty million people and star panelist on CBS's What's My Line?—was found dead inside her Manhattan townhouse at age 52, just hours after appearing on live television. While official records ruled her death as acute ethanol and barbiturate intoxication under undetermined circumstances, the physical scene in her third-floor master bedroom appeared strikingly staged. Discovered propped up in bed wearing full television makeup, false eyelashes, and a hairpiece in a room she had not slept in for years, Kilgallen left behind a vacuum of missing research files that were allegedly confiscated by federal agents following her death.We examine Kilgallen's high-stakes two-year independent investigation into the JFK assassination and her relentless pursuit of the truth behind Jack Ruby. As the only reporter granted a private, one-on-one interview with Ruby during his 1964 murder trial, Kilgallen shattered official secrecy by obtaining and publishing Ruby's confidential Warren Commission testimony on the front page of the New York Journal-American months before its public release. Her investigative scoops triggered an intense FBI leak investigation and drew the personal ire of J. Edgar Hoover, who had maintained a federal file on her since 1959. In the days leading up to her death, Kilgallen confided in close friends that she was on the verge of breaking the entire assassination conspiracy wide open, making her sudden passing and the vanishing of her investigative dossier one of the most chilling chapters in the post-assassination era.Finally, we trace Kilgallen's extraordinary rise from a 17-year-old cub reporter in 1931 to the pinnacle of American journalism. Raised at the kitchen table of her legendary Hearst correspondent father, Jim Kilgallen, Dorothy turned being underestimated into her greatest reporting weapon, breaking major crime stories from the Sing Sing execution watch of Anna Antonio to the trial of Bruno Richard Hauptmann in the Lindbergh baby kidnapping. We relive her legendary 1936 round-the-world air race aboard the Hindenburg and a Pan American Clipper, where she competed as the sole female journalist against rival newsmen, finishing in second place in 24 days, 12 hours, and 51 minutes. This fearless reporting heritage equipped her with the steel-trap mind and journalistic courage that she carried directly into the dangerous streets of Dallas almost  thirty years later.  Music includes excerpts from  "Hot Swing" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ and from  "Take Off and Shoot a Zero" by Chris Zabriskie (chriszabriskie.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

In this captivating 2nd installment of the Dorothy Kilgallen miniseries, we trace how a 1938 Broadway gossip columnist transformed herself into one of the most formidable investigative figures in Cold War America. We examine her meteoric media empire—spanning her nationally syndicated The Voice of Broadway column read by 20 million people across 146 newspapers, her daily radio show with husband Richard Kollmar, and her iconic Sunday night seat on CBS's What's My Line?. We explore her public feuds, including her bitter clash with Frank Sinatra, as well as her complex personal life inside her five-story East 68th Street Manhattan townhouse.We go behind the courtroom doors of the 1954 Dr. Sam Sheppard murder trial in Cleveland, unearthing the explosive secret that Dorothy guarded for a decade. We detail how trial judge Edward Blythin summoned her into his private chambers before a jury was even seated and declared that Sheppard was "guilty as hell"—a staggering breach of judicial neutrality. We analyze how Dorothy's sworn affidavit, delivered years later to young defense attorney F. Lee Bailey, became a cornerstone of the federal habeas corpus petition that ultimately reached the U.S. Supreme Court, setting off the legal chain reaction that overturned Sheppard's conviction and secured his eventual acquittal.Finally, we confront Dorothy's dangerous early run-ins with federal intelligence agencies and J. Edgar Hoover's FBI. We examine her 1951 reporting on Radio Free Europe subversion, where she politely but firmly refused CIA interrogation attempts to name her source, and her prophetic July 1959 column revealing that the Mafia was actively plotting to assassinate Fidel Castro—a full year before the CIA's top-secret mob plots were formally initiated. We set the stage for her 1964 arrival at the Dallas courthouse for Jack Ruby's capital murder trial, where Judge Joe B. Brown granted her an exclusive, private one-on-one interview with Ruby in his chambers, launching the relentless two-year independent investigation into the JFK assassination that would follow her to her grave. Music includes excerpts from  "Hot Swing" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ and from  "Take Off and Shoot a Zero" by Chris Zabriskie (chriszabriskie.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

This is a side of Tom Doyle that very few people know. A fan-favorite Blurry Creatures guest, Tom is known for his accounts of Muslim dreams about Jesus and more than thirty years on the mission field in the Middle East. What people do not know is how he grew up. His father was an FBI agent and organized-crime specialist in Rat Pack Las Vegas, and one morning he stands at the Marilyn Monroe crime scene as the world wakes up to the headline. He sees who shows up, and it is someone far above a governor. J. Edgar Hoover calls the house personally. Frank Sinatra sends the family a gold watch. This is not the usual Blurry Creatures episode, and that is exactly the point. For one night Tom sets the supernatural aside and cracks open his own family's government files. What spills out is a front-row seat to the biggest conspiracies in American history. Marilyn Monroe and the phone calls to the White House. The Kennedys in Las Vegas the weekend before Dallas. Frankie Sinatra's kidnapping and the watch Tom still owns. Roswell, from a man who knew the people who were there. Josh and Tommy Doyle (Tom's sons) from No Longer Nomads pull up to the table as the Doyle family tells stories they almost never tell in public. And it all bends toward one unlikely ending, how a kid raised around guns and secrets grows up to smuggle Bibles into Iran. This one is for members, and members are what make episodes like this possible. Join us at blurrycreatures.com/members to unlock the full conversation, early and ad-free releases, the community, and ticket discounts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On August 25, 1938, twenty-five-year-old Ben Dickson and his fifteen-year-old wife Stella Mae robbed the Corn Exchange Bank in Elkton, South Dakota, making off with $2,187.64. Two months later they hit a bank in nearby Brookings for $17,593 - after waiting two hours for the vault's time-lock to open while the bank's manager went on processing loans for customers. Unfortunately for these two small-time outlaws, the FBI was in short supply of public enemies at the time, and a newly minted Bonnie and Clyde was exactly what J. Edgar Hoover needed to stoke the agency's public relations machine. My guest is Matt Cecil, author of The Ballad of Ben and Stella Mae: Great Plains Outlaws Who Became FBI Public Enemies Nos. 1 and 2. He has been fascinated with the story of Ben and Stella Mae since he was a teenager, and shares his research with us on this latest episode of Most Notorious. The author's publisher page: https://kansaspress.ku.edu/9780700623242/ The author's Amazon page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Matthew-Cecil/author/B00I4BYFRQ

Six years after seven men were machine-gunned in a Chicago garage, a captured gangster named the killers to the FBI, and J. Edgar Hoover spent two years denying he had ever said a word.EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/ValentinesDayMassacreREAD or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/faw4hz5nLISTEN ON PODCAST APPS: Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.com/wdapps*No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast*SOURCES and RESOURCES:“The Unsolved St. Valentine's Day Massacre” by Steve Shukis from Chicago True Crime (link no longer available)WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.Originally aired: June, 2020LIKE WHAT YOU'RE HEARING? WEIRD DARKNESS posts episodes 7 DAYS A WEEK! Listen FREE wherever you get podcasts or visit https://weirddarkness.com/listen. • Paranormal • True Crime • Ghosts • UFOs • Cryptids • Unexplained • Want even more? Become an OFFICIAL WEIRDO for commercial-free episodes, bonus episodes, weeknight live chats, audiobooks & more at https://WeirdDarkness.com/OFFICIAL

This week’s throwback release: SNAFU Season 2, Episode 1 – about a little known group of ragtag activists who, in 1971, decided to burglarize an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, revealing some incredibly shady wrongdoing at the highest levels J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI. Yes, a HEIST OF THE FBI! What could be more exciting? Listen to the full season wherever you get your podcasts. This is Episode 1 of SNAFU Season 2: "The Citizens Commission to Investigate the FBI"See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hello and Welcome to another episode of Ohio Mysteries Backroads. What lurks in the shadows of Ohio's backroads, forgotten cemeteries, and hidden corners of history? Join us as we uncover the Buckeye State's most chilling legends, mysterious sightings, and enduring folklore. Ohio Mysteries Backroads: The Garrettsville Train Robbery — Alvin Karpis Comes to Ohio In the quiet countryside of Portage County, Ohio, the village of Garrettsville seems like an unlikely setting for one of America's most notorious criminals. But during the violent era of the Great Depression, the backroads of Ohio became part of the story of Alvin “Creepy” Karpis, one of the FBI's most wanted gangsters and a key figure in the infamous Barker-Karpis gang. In this episode of Ohio Mysteries Backroads, we travel back to the days when armored trains, bank robbers, gangsters, and federal agents were locked in a nationwide battle. Our story takes us to Garrettsville, Ohio, where a train robbery brought the national crime wave of the 1930s frighteningly close to home. We explore what happened, how Karpis and his associates operated, and why Ohio's rail lines and isolated rural communities could become attractive targets for Depression-era criminals. We'll look at the world that produced Karpis—the desperate economic conditions, the rise of organized crime, the getaway routes, and the growing presence of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI. We'll also separate the documented history from the legends that have grown around the robbery over the decades. Who was Alvin Karpis?Why did his gang come to Ohio?What happened along the railroad near Garrettsville?And how did law enforcement eventually close the net around one of America's most elusive gangsters? Join Ohio Mysteries Backroads as we leave the highways and take a trip down the old railroad tracks into the dangerous world of 1930s Ohio, where a seemingly peaceful town found itself caught in the crosshairs of America's gangster era. This is the Garrettsville train robbery—and the Ohio connection to Alvin Karpis. Blending local history, eyewitness accounts, folklore, and a healthy dose of skepticism, this podcast explores the legends that refuse to die. Whether you're a paranormal enthusiast, a history buff, or simply fascinated by the unexplained, you'll discover that Ohio's darkest stories are often its most unforgettable. Ohio Legends Uncovered—because every town has a story, and some stories still walk among us. Tune in and found out! Check out our Facebook page!: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61558042082494¬if_id=1717202186351620¬if_t=page_user_activity&ref=notif⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Please check other podcast episodes like this at: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.ohiomysteries.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Dan hosts a Youtube Channel called: Ohio History and Haunts where he explores historical and dark places around Ohio: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCj5x1eJjHhfyV8fomkaVzsA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kai Bird follows his Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer with a timely and meticulously researched true story of Roy Cohn — a friend of the famous, the right-hand man to Joseph McCarthy, mentor to a US President and a lawyer who showed no respect for the law. Kai joins us to talk about American Scoundrel, the McCarthy era, the politics of celebrity, and the cycles of American history with host Miwa Messer. This episode of Poured Over was hosted by Miwa Messer and mixed by Harry Liang. New episodes land Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional Saturdays) here and on your favorite podcast app. Featured Books: American Scoundrel: Roy Cohn's Dark Journey from Joe McCarthy to Donald Trump by Kai Bird American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird The Outlier: The Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter by Kai Bird The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames by Kai Bird The Color of Truth: McGeorge Bundy and William Bundy: Brothers in Arms by Kai Bird Crossing Mandelbaum Gate by Kai Bird The Chairman: John J McCloy & The Making of the American Establishment by Kai Bird G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century by Beverly Gage Mailer: His Life and Times by Peter Manso Ptown: Art, Sex, and Money on the Outer Cape by Peter Manso The Art of the Deal by Donald Trump Angels in America by Tony Kushner

The legend goes that gangster "Machine Gun" Kelly coined the term "G-Men" when he begged federal agents not to shoot during his 1933 arrest — but the real story is a lesson in institutional myth-making. This episode traces how J. Edgar Hoover's Bureau and a cooperative press turned a routine capture into a branding coup months after the fact. It's a case study in how authority, narrative control, and media complicity combine to shape public memory long before anyone had a Twitter account.

The legend goes that gangster "Machine Gun" Kelly coined the term "G-Men" when he begged federal agents not to shoot during his 1933 arrest — but the real story is a lesson in institutional myth-making. This episode traces how J. Edgar Hoover's Bureau and a cooperative press turned a routine capture into a branding coup months after the fact. It's a case study in how authority, narrative control, and media complicity combine to shape public memory long before anyone had a Twitter account.

Grandfathers, grandfathers. Yesterday, David Baerwald talked about his grandfather, Ernst Baerwald, an American spy in Second World War Japan. Today, Katie S. Sanders talks about her grandfather, Murray Simon, whose life was saved by an American spy in Second World War France. In Ortiz's War, co-authored with historian Nicholas Reynolds, Sanders writes about Peter Ortiz, who became the Allies' secret weapon against the Nazis in France. With his stunning looks, Ortiz might have been a Hollywood creation. Polylingual Franco-American aristocrat, French Foreign Legion, race-car driver, circus lion tamer, the most battle-decorated member of America's first spy agency. He even played himself (anonymous brave soldier) in a number of post-war Hollywood movies. I wish he was my grandfather. Five Takeaways •       The Spy Who Saved Her Grandfather. Murray Simon was a 23-year-old Jewish kid from Queens who had never flown before the Army Air Forces trained him — then sent him over occupied France in a black-painted B-24 Liberator carrying spy supplies and carrier pigeons for the resistance. Shot down on May 6, 1944, a month before D-Day, on an OSS mission whose standing advice was don't get shot down — spies were tortured and killed, not taken prisoner — he was hidden by a Bulgarian-born Jew passing as Catholic, a man with an eight-month-old daughter and a pregnant wife who was “already supposed to be dead” and opened his door anyway. Smuggled onward, Murray was intercepted by Peter Ortiz — and made it home to the GI Bill, a family, and what he called “the warm womb of Uncle Sam.” Katie never met him; the book is her way of meeting him. “I gravitate towards stories of resistance, probably in part because I'm a product of one.” Publication day: the anniversary of the liberation of Paris.•       No Peacetime Soldier. Peter J. Ortiz's résumé reads like an unpublishable novel: son of a founding editor of Paris Vogue; French boarding-school runaway into the Foreign Legion (North Africa, Casablanca included); merchant seaman, dude-ranch manager, race-car driver, circus lion tamer; wounded fighting the Germans in 1940, captured, serially escaped — once off a hospital train under a dead soldier's identity; docked in New York the day after Pearl Harbor and enlisted in the Marines, rising to become the most battle-decorated member of the OSS and one of the most decorated Marines of the war. His military file: not a good candidate for a desk job, ever. He spoke five languages, not Wikipedia's ten (“Wikipedia is a storyteller”), walked into bars in occupied France wearing his Marine uniform, and wrote his own epitaph in a twenty-page memoir: “I'm no peacetime soldier.” Afterward: John Ford's Hollywood, minor roles, his own uniforms as costume — and no bragging, ever.•       The Heroic Surrender at Centron. The book's climax is Operation Union II, August 1944 — Ortiz's own inter-Allied mission into the Alps, culminating in the massive “Le Grand Parachutage” supply drop to the Maquis. He recruited his own Parris Island parachute instructors — Marines who remembered the legionnaire who blew them all away at boot camp — plus Francis Coolidge: Harvard dropout, fellow Foreign Legion veteran, and great-great-great-grandson of Thomas Jefferson. When his patrol was surrounded at the village of Centron by vastly superior German forces on a murderous late-war rampage, Ortiz chose saving the town over fighting — the surrender as the war's most heroic act, bravery as the capacity to think while being shot at. Centron celebrates him every year; Katie was just there with Marines stationed in Germany, for the eighty-second anniversary. Guiding lights: noblesse oblige, Don Quixote, and a lifelong allergy to McCarthyism.•       Wild Bill's Wartime Startup. The OSS — forerunner of the CIA, whose Langley lobby still holds Wild Bill Donovan's statue — was, in Katie's telling, a wartime startup: 13,000 military and civilian personnel, mostly Wall Street lawyers, bankers, cryptographers, and cartographers, with a tiny operational subset that included Moe Berg, Virginia Hall trekking the Pyrenees on a wooden leg, and Ortiz. Donovan — World War One Medal of Honor recipient, FDR's “secret legs,” the man who could “see an acorn, envision an oak tree” — was banned from D-Day as the one man carrying too many secrets, and went sniffing around anyway. J. Edgar Hoover was considered for the job and rejected, with Churchill's SOE helping tip the choice. “I respect Donovan a lot more than I respect J. Edgar Hoover.” The lineage runs straight to today's Navy SEALs and MARSOC — including past Keen On guest Brandon Webb.•       Are We in 1939? Katie walks the museum timelines — 1933, and it's “not great”; 1936, and the warnings mount; “I certainly hope we're not in 1939.” Against Andrew's needling about greatest-generation nostalgia (via Brandon Webb's complicated heroism, Kristin Beck's good-and-evil seduction, Richard Overy's question of whether the war ever ended, and Matt Damon's regret-soaked Odysseus), she holds the line: someone like Ortiz is great in any time — and especially needed when democracy is under threat. The warfare itself has closed its chapter: her grandfather's black-painted bomber and carrier pigeons have become Ukraine's drones, delivering aid with less risk and less human connection alike. What survives the technology is the lesson: heroes don't brag — her grandfather and Ortiz would be mortified by the spotlight — and by illuminating what they did, the rest of us might learn to do the right thing. About the Guest Katie S. Sanders is an award-winning journalist who has written for National Geographic, The New York Times, Washington Post Magazine, TIME, Smithsonian, and Vanity Fair. Her reporting has brought her to the CIA, the White House, and the homes and reunions of World War II veterans and Holocaust survivors. After discovering that her late grandfather — a Jewish-American pilot shot down over France — was rescued by Peter Ortiz, she teamed up with the historian Nicholas Reynolds (Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy) to co-author Ortiz's War (Harper Horizon, August 25, 2026). A summa cum laude graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, she lives in Brookline, Massachusetts. References: •       Ortiz's War: The Allies' Secret Weapon Against the Nazis in France by Nicholas Reynolds and Katie S. Sanders (Harper Horizon, August 25, 2026).•       Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy by Nicholas Reynolds — the co-author's Hemingway biography, the book that put him on Katie's radar.•       The Fire Agent by David Baerwald — yesterday's episode: another grandfather, another secret war, rendered as fiction where this one insists on fact.•    &nb...

This week we close out our Kilgallen series with the questions the first three were building toward: who killed her, and where did her JFK file go. Byron and Kelly run the suspect list one at a time, then walk through the string of connected deaths and the six places the missing file could have ended up.  CHAPTERS 0:00 Cold open, Ross Coulthart, and the Marcello confession 2:03 Part four begins 2:30 Suspect 1: Carlos Marcello 4:30 The RFK deportation and the motive 9:00 Operation CAMTEX, the informant, and the 302 11:20 The 2025 declassification 15:14 Suspect 2: Ron Pataki 16:00 Suspect 3: the CIA, and why she was a target 21:36 The 2025 Joannides file 26:00 Suspect 4: the FBI and J. Edgar Hoover 30:00 Suspect 5: the husband, Dickie Kollmar 35:17 Suspect 6: H.L. Hunt 42:10 The Carousel Club and the Murchison party 45:00 LBJ and Madeleine Brown 48:00 Roger Stone sells a stone 50:00 Back to Pataki: Stanford, Panama, and the taped confession 56:00 The string of connected deaths 1:03:00 Mary Pinchot Meyer and the diary 1:07:40 Three women, one year 1:09:15 Byron's read 1:11:30 Where the file went: six possibilities 1:13:35 What was in the file 1:15:53 Books to chase down 1:17:00 The Marilyn column and the elegy ABOUT THIS EPISODE The finale of Frightday's four-part investigation into the 1965 death of journalist Dorothy Kilgallen, found dead in a third-floor bedroom she never used, with her JFK assassination file missing. Byron and Kelly weigh each named suspect against motive, means, and opportunity, cover the recently declassified files that touch the case, and lay out the pattern of witness deaths the HSCA itself called statistically remarkable. THE SUSPECTS Carlos Marcello, New Orleans boss, the CAMTEX prison recordings, and the Camp Street connective tissue to Oswald Ron Pataki, the much younger songwriter, possible handler, and the What's My Line hotel-key signal The CIA, Mark Lane's warning, the Dulles grudge, and the Joannides personnel file The FBI and J. Edgar Hoover, the dossier opened in 1959 and the files removed after her death Richard "Dickie" Kollmar, the widower, the matching death certificate, and the mother's accusation at the funeral H.L. Hunt, Lifeline radio, the Dallas Morning News ad, and the Murchison party LBJ, Madeleine Brown, and the Billy Sol Estes testimony Roger Stone, for completeness and a stone CONNECTED DEATHS COVERED Bill Hunter, Jim Koethe, Tom Howard, Mary Pinchot Meyer, Florence Pritchett Smith, Lee Bowers, Jack Ruby, David Ferrie, George de Mohrenschildt, and Richard Kollmar. SOURCES AND FURTHER READING Mark Shaw, The Reporter Who Knew Too Much and Abuse of Power Sara Jordan-Heintz, Who Killed Dorothy Kilgallen and The Incredible Life and Mysterious Death of Dorothy Kilgallen Lee Israel, Kilgallen (1979) Lamar Waldron, Legacy of Secrecy Roger Stone, The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ G. Robert Blakey, former HSCA chief counsel James DiEugenio, Kennedys and King, for the skeptic's read The Mary Ferrell Foundation collection and the 2025 JFK releases at archives.gov CONNECT Discord: discord.frightday.com The Frightday Society: frightdaysociety.org Email: contact@frightday.com Bluesky / Twitter / Instagram: @frightday Phone line: 1-833-FRIGHT-9 MORE FRIGHTDAY 700+ episodes covering horror, paranormal, cryptids, true crime, and conspiracies since 2014. An Audio Wool original produced by Byron McKoy. Theme music by Jans. #tags

John Hunt meets The Wisdom Team: UAP/UFO Analysis are ready!June 2, 2026, TuesdayThis meeting was a John Hunt led Space Show discussion focused on analyzing UAP (Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena) videos and documents released by the government following President Trump's executive order. John Hunt, the guest expert, demonstrated several videos from the Arrow system that showed infrared detections of unidentified objects, explaining that these were classified as unidentified even though some could potentially be explained as flares or other known objects. The group discussed whether the released materials represented genuine secrets or mostly old declassified information, with John noting that deeply classified documents likely remain hidden and may never be fully disclosed. They also examined claims by Congress members about having seen classified evidence of extraterrestrial visits, discussing how such statements might be interpreted and the potential security risks involved. The conversation included technical details about military sensor systems, redacted data in the released videos, and various theories about UAP origins and government motivations for maintaining secrecy.John showed UAP videos from the Arrow system during the meeting, explaining that these videos show heat signatures detected by aircraft infrared systems but have been redacted to remove technical data about sensor capabilities. He clarified that the government classifies these videos as UAP not because of the objects themselves but because of the advanced sensor technology revealed, which could potentially benefit adversaries like China. John noted that while some deeply classified information may exist, the released documents appear to be mostly old material from the Arrow system rather than new revelations, and expressed doubt about whether truly sensitive information would be easily disclosed.The group discussed recent interviews with Congress members claiming to have seen classified information about extraterrestrials, with John noting that while these claims walk a narrow line regarding security protocols, no one has been prosecuted for UFO-related security violations. They examined the case of Dylan Borland, who allegedly faced harassment after witnessing a UAP at an airbase, leading him to become a whistleblower. The conversation concluded with speculation about whether intelligence agencies are trying to hide alien technology or both alien technology and national security information.The group also discussed the lack of verified alien crash debris and government transparency regarding UFO incidents. John explained that while some recovery sites like Roswell and Aztec occurred before government intervention, no tangible evidence has been publicly confirmed for analysis. The discussion touched on potential motivations for keeping information classified, including bureaucratic inertia, historical concerns about public reaction, and the possibility of reverse-engineering technology. Marshall suggested that congressional claims about classified information might serve as disinformation to deter adversaries, while John proposed that the Department of Energy holds the real secrets about propulsion technologies.John presented and analyzed various UAP footage and incidents, including the Rendlesham Forest case and videos from military surveillance. The group discussed a particular video showing an object that some debunkers believe could be a flare, though John noted the object lasted much longer than typical flares would. Marshall suggested the object could have been created as a diversion, and the group acknowledged that more contextual information would be needed to definitively identify the object, as much of the relevant data was redacted from the footage.Our guest also presented footage of military encounters with unidentified objects, including a Hellfire missile test and a Chinese balloon shootdown, to demonstrate how missiles interact with balloons. The group discussed a Syrian UAP video that showed an object accelerating away when tracked, with Marshall noting the absence of an exhaust plume. David expressed skepticism about the recently released documents, suggesting they contained little substantive information and comparing the situation to previous leaked content.Hunt talked about recent UAP releases and expressed optimism about the quality of the evidence, particularly highlighting a video that showed promising details. The group analyzed various UAP footage, including instances where aircraft appeared to be chasing unidentified objects, with Marshall questioning whether the quality and granularity of the data matched what would be expected from military analysis. The conversation concluded with David asking about whistleblower commentary on the quality of data being shared publicly, though this topic was not fully addressed in the transcripJohn presented and analyzed recent UAP footage releases, discussing various interpretations of the objects captured, including some appearing to move through windmills and potentially interact with water. The group discussed the mixed reactions from UAP community members, with some viewing the releases as a positive step while others considered them trivial. John concluded that while the released footage likely shows real UAPs, particularly small orbs and possibly saucers, the evidence would not be convincing to skeptics like Mick West.The group discussed the potential for artificial intelligence, specifically Claude and OpenAI, to analyze UAP data. David suggested using AI to evaluate the released data, though no one was aware of anyone having done so yet. Marshall presented a theory about space aliens potentially avoiding Earth due to its location in a super bubble with fewer stars, making it less attractive for alien expansion compared to galactic arms. The conversation also touched on challenges with protecting websites from large language models and the possibility of advanced propulsion technologies that might allow unseen alien visits.John discussed his investigation into UFO phenomena, explaining that while he initially approached the topic with skepticism, he became concerned when government agencies appeared to be taking UAP incidents seriously, including cases involving nuclear weapons. He analyzed the claims made by Lou Elizondo and other witnesses, noting that Elizondo had testified under oath and raised concerns about illegal funding mechanisms and lack of proper congressional briefings. The group discussed the challenges of government transparency on UAPs, with David questioning how agencies could resist presidential directives and Marshall drawing parallels to J. Edgar Hoover's secret file practices.David and Marshall discussed concerns about the credibility of reports regarding alien encounters, emphasizing the challenges of verifying information due to modern surveillance capabilities and the potential for manipulation. They explored questions about how extraterrestrial beings might handle radiation in nuclear environments, comparing it to the lingering effects of human nuclear testing sites. The conversation concluded with a suggestion to visit the nuclear test site in Nevada for a better understanding of radiation effects, though John expressed doubt about the current technological gap between humans and any potential alien visitors.The group discussed recent developments in UAP/unidentified aerial phenomena, with John noting that while there has been progress over nine years, the situation remains limited. David expressed interest in potentially doing a space show tour of nuclear test sites in Las Vegas and encouraged John to keep the group updated on any new information about UAP. The conversation concluded with an extended discussion about ancient texts and religious interpretations of extraterrestrial life, where David shared insights from his conversations with a Chabad rabbi about deeper meanings in biblical passages regarding aliens and UFOs.Special thanks to our sponsors:American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Helix Space in Luxembourg, Celestis Memorial Spaceflights, Astrox Corporation, Dr. Haym Benaroya of Rutgers University, The Space Settlement Progress Blog by John Jossy, The Atlantis Project, and Artless EntertainmentWe use Zoom phone numbers for program participation.For real time program participation, email Dr. Space at: drspace@thespaceshow.com for instructions and access.The Space Show is a non-profit 501C3 through its parent, One Giant Leap Foundation, Inc. To donate via Pay Pal, use:To donate with Zelle, use the email address: david@onegiantleapfoundation.org.If you prefer donating with a check, please make the check payable to One Giant Leap Foundation and mail to:One Giant Leap Foundation, 11035 Lavender Hill Drive Ste. 160-306 Las Vegas, NV 89135Upcoming Programs:Broadcast 4579 Zoom: Amir Notea, Shar Bahiri, Fred Simon | Friday 21 Aug 2026 930AM PTGuests: Amir Notea, Shar Bahiri, Fred SimonZoom: Our guests discuss the Israeli company Moonshot.space and moreBroadcast 450 Zoom: Open Lines Discussion | Sunday 23 Aug 2026 1200PM PTGuests: Dr. David LivingstonZoom: Open Lines Discussion. Join us if you can. Get full access to The Space Show-One Giant Leap Foundation at doctorspace.substack.com/subscribe

Article at Kennedys and King Read Here Aguilar’s letter to the Federal Bar News and Journal criticizing Posner.View Here Aguilar’s book review of Bugliosi’s Reclaiming History, as published in The Federal Lawyer.View Here Transcript of Bugliosi’s reply to Aguilar (originally handwritten). View Here Background to the many lies of the corrupt J. Edgar Hoover The Warren Commison was depending on the FBI for investigation The Warren Commission had no criminal investigators. It was completely dependent on the FBI The notoriously corrupt chief, J. Edgar Hoover, announced Oswald guilt before starting the investigation. Hoover “file checked” the Commission and the staff for “derogatory information” Hoover had Gerald Ford secretly spy on the Commissioners The conclusion was set at the outset Anthony Lewis said all the evidence had been released by the Commission In 1964 The New York Times’s Anthony Lewis reported that the Warren Commission released all the evidence it had collected. 30 years later the ARRB discovered that more than 3000 Commission documents were still being withheld.” Gary wrote to the journal “The Federal Lawyer” the official, peer-reviewed journal of the U.S. Justice Dept Media reviewers are almost always ignorant of the facts of the case Lance DeHaven-Smith The CIA had to make up the term Conspiracy Theorists Carl Bernstein reported Church Committee had evidence that the CIA had over 400 assets in major American Media Neutron activation analysis is a scientific technique that was used to try to link JFK’s bullet fragments to Oswald’s rifle. It doesn’t work. Gary and Cyril Wecht explained in the journal, “The Federal Lawyer,” and elsewhere, that NAA couldn’t provably match the bullet fragments taken from JFK’s autopsy with Oswald’s rifle, and that Vincent Bugliosi misrepresented the NAA science. Charles Crenshaw, MD, a Parkland Hospital witness, an AMA member and Warren critic, sued the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) for libel for falsely reporting Crenshaw’s claims in his book, “JFK – Conspiracy of Silence,” was bogus because he never saw JFK. Crenshaw was there; JAMA lost the suit, and it paid Crenshaw $215,000.00, plus court costs. George Lundberg was called and asked to slander the film “JFK” Warren Commisson defenders have no crediblity Louis Alvarez another example… Time after time we have been decieved and lied to by government Peter Dale Scott “You don’t rise to a powerful position in government unless they have the “goods” on you; that is, unless they have compromising information on you.” HSCA Medical panel was fixed from the start Only Cyril Wecht held his ground in the search for the truth

The Journey 194. Planes, Drugs, and the JFK Assasination with Tosh Plumlee and Bill ConroyTrineDay socialsFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/trinedaypress Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/trinedaypress X: https://x.com/TrineDay YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TrineDay The Journey 194. Planes, Drugs and the JFK Assasination with Tosh Plumlee and Bill Conroy. In this episode, Kris Millegan and Todd Baumann speak with Robert Tosh Plumlee and Bill Conroy, about their books, Deep Cover, Shallow Graves (Tosh Plumlee) and The Great Pretense (Bill Conroy) and the information surrounding Planes, Drugs, and the JFK Assassination. Bill Conroy's 40-year journalism career has focused heavily on investigative reporting — as an editor-in-chief, managing editor and reporter. His work has been published online and in print for a range of publications, including daily newspapers; alternative and business weeklies; magazines; and national online publications, such as the Daily Beast, Narco News and Housing Wire. He also have appeared in investigative documentaries aired by major networks, including the BBC, CNBC, the History Channel, Prime Video and Al Jazeera-Europe. Robert "Tosh" Plumlee, a former contract operative for the CIA, and Ralph Pezzullo, a New York Times bestselling author, guide us on an incredible journey through a no-man's land of political intrigue and covert CIA and Pentagon military operations sanctioned by the White House. Plumlee was born in 1937. At 14, he joined the Texas 49th Armored Division at Dallas's Love Field Airport, despite being underage. Later, in 1954, he transferred to the regular army and was attached to the 4th Army at Fort Bliss, Texas. Eventually, he was reassigned to the 4th Army Reserve a specialized Military Intelligence Unit at Dallas Love Field. He obtained his pilot's license in 1956 and soon after began working as a pilot for clandestine CIA aviation companies, which were CIA front companies transporting arms to Cuba before Castro took power. 1956-63. Miami Florida From approximately 1962 to 1963, he was assigned to a specialized Task Force, TF-W Section—C-7 tab B and D, known as the Cuban Project, which operated from the JM/WAVE station in Miami, Florida's Cuba Desk of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The Cuban Project. Some years later, after a brief retirement from military life (1963 to 1974), in 1983, he was reactivated. He became an undercover operative and contract pilot for the federal government during President Reagan's Drug War. He was assigned to a secret team known as the 'America-Mexico Special Operations Group' (“AMSOG”), headquartered at the Panama Southern Command as a pilot, where he became associated with the Contra Resupply Network. Mr. Plumlee has testified in closed-door sessions to various Senate and Congressional Subcommittees. In 1964, shortly after President Kennedy's assassination, he gave testimony to the Director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover; in 1975-76, he also testified in a closed-door session to Senator Church, classified Top Secret; and he gave testimony in 1978 to Congressmen Tom Downing's investigators before the HSCA was formed. In 1990-91, he gave sworn testimony to Senator John Kerry's Committee and twice to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; and the Senate Intelligence Committee, August 2, 1991, and May 7-15, 1992. His testimony to these committees was also classified Top Secret Committee Sensitive. Mr. Plumlee worked undercover operations for the Arizona Tri-State Task Force and later testified to the Drug Task Force committee in New Mexico, chaired by Arizona Governor Bruce Babbitt.

I en mörk korridor i en stad utanför Philadelphia står en 20-åring och svettas framför en låst dörr. Han tänker bryta sig in hos FBI. Lyssna på alla avsnitt i Sveriges Radios app. Året är 1971. Vietnamkriget rasar och en grupp fredsaktivister i USA misstänker att proteströrelsen är övervakad, till och med infiltrerad. De känner sig iakttagna. Bland dem finns en professor, en pastor och en förskollärare - vanliga amerikaner som vill ta reda på vad världens mäktigaste polismyndighet egentligen sysslar med.Inbrott på FBI-kontor avslöjar spionprogrammetDe lämnar FBI-kontoret mitt i natten med väskorna fyllda av stulna dokument. Deras inbrott kommer att blottlägga ett hemligt spionprogram, mer omfattande än vad någon av dem kunnat ana.Medverkande:Keith Forsyth, inbrottstjuv och fredsaktivist.Bonnie Raines, inbrottstjuv och fredsaktivist.Betty Medsger, journalist och författare till “The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI”.Carl Stern, journalist, tidigare reporter på NBC, som avslöjade FBI:s spionprogram COINTEL PRO.Beverly Gage, historieprofessor och författare till “G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century”.En dokumentär av: Robin Jonsson.Producent: Anna Johannessen, Tredje Statsmakten Media.Exekutiv producent på Sveriges Radio: Ida Lundqvist.Programmet är producerat 2026.Vill du ha koll på de senaste dokumentärerna från Sveriges Radio? Då kan du anmäla dig till vårt nyhetsbrev här.

SCHEDULE FOR THE JBS, 7-23-20261950 ONTARIO WILDFIREEvan Ellis examines Mexico's economy, increasingly integrated into the American market and moving beyond oil into diverse manufacturing sectors. Despite Trump administration objections to the USMCA, the treaty includes provisions requiring a ten-year exit process. Current negotiations reflect tensions over Chinese inputs, automotive tariffs, and labor standards. President Claudia Sheinbaum manages these diplomatic challenges while cooperating with the US on extradition, drug lab seizures, and stemming illegal immigration through Mexican territory. (1)Evan Ellis reports Cuba faces a severe humanitarian crisis with failing electricity, yet the communist regime maintains tight control. A recent State Department report labels Cuba the "capital of 21st-century communism," citing its subversion of Latin American democracies and involvement in left-wing political terrorism. Meanwhile, in Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo have officially abolished future elections, claiming the opposition seeks to "capture power" through voting. This moves the country toward becoming a "hermit kingdom." (2)Evan Ellis notes former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández returned to Honduras following a pardon by President Trump, despite previous US convictions for cocaine trafficking. In Venezuela, the US has collected over $13 billion in oil revenue, yet economic recovery remains muted following recent earthquakes. The lack of transparency regarding these funds raises concerns about their management under the Rodríguez regime. Simultaneously, Colombia's new leader faces the challenge of dismantling entrenched cocaine cartels. (3)Evan Ellis surveys Brazil's high-stakes election, with Lula da Silva currently leading Flavio Bolsonaro in polling. New 25% US tariffs threaten nearly 26% of Brazil's exports, totaling $15 billion in goods. Tensions rise as the Supreme Courtblocks high-profile visitors like Argentina's Javier Milei from meeting the elder Bolsonaro. Many Brazilians believe the elder Bolsonaro's influence triggered these punitive trade measures, while the military remains the largest force in South America. (4)Kaitlyn Tiffany recounts how, following JFK's assassination, Lyndon Johnson convened the Warren Commission to consolidate intelligence from the FBI, CIA, and Dallas police. The commission included controversial figures like Allen Dulles and Gerald Ford, the latter of whom clandestinely back-channeled with the FBI. Chief Justice Earl Warren was reluctant to serve, fearing the political nature of the committee and its impact on the American image. Critically, the commission lacked its own independent investigative staff. (5)Kaitlyn Tiffany describes how FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover quickly established the "lone gunman" theory, asserting Lee Harvey Oswald fired three shots from the Texas School Book Depository. However, Shirley Martin, a grieving Oklahoma housewife, began independently investigating the case and badgering the FBI with tips. Her relentless correspondence frustrated Hoover, who viewed her as a nuisance to the bureau's formal investigation. Martin interviewed overlooked witnesses in Dallas and became a key critic of the official narrative. (6)Kaitlyn Tiffany profiles Sylvia Meagher, a World Health Organization secretary who became obsessed with the disorganization of the Warren Commission's evidence. Drawing on professional experience, she created a comprehensive index for the commission's twenty-six volumes of supplementary materials. Meagher was particularly suspicious of Dallas security lapses, having witnessed heads of state protected at the UN. She joined other women, including wealthy soprano Maggie Field, in scrutinizing photographic evidence and government claims. (7)Kaitlyn Tiffany describes the 1965 gathering of independent researchers known as "warologists" at Sylvia Meagher's apartment to discuss missing pieces of the JFK investigation. While they allied with lawyer Mark Lane, they grew frustrated with his territorial and inaccurate behavior. The group was also wary of Marguerite Oswald, who insisted on her son's innocence but was demanding and unpredictable. They focused on inconsistencies in eyewitness testimony and the implausible "magic bullet" theory. (8)Kaitlyn Tiffany notes that by 1966, the media labeled these researchers as "housewives" to dismiss their work, describing them as a "keening pack of speculators." Central to their dissent was the "magic bullet" theory, which claimed a single pristine projectile caused multiple wounds in both JFK and Governor Connally. Dissenters highlighted the bullet's lack of deformation and the FBI's initial reports of a non-exiting back wound. They also investigated the Grassy Knoll for additional shooters. (9)Kaitlyn Tiffany recounts District Attorney Jim Garrison's 1967 high-profile investigation into a New Orleans-based conspiracy to kill the president. He targeted Clay Shaw, alleging a mysterious, powerful figure orchestrated the plot. While some researchers supported Garrison for his willingness to investigate, others like Sylvia Meagher felt he was reckless with facts and self-serving. The investigation ultimately failed with a not-guilty verdict, causing a permanent rift within the community of critics. (10)Kaitlyn Tiffany relates how personal tragedy struck Shirley Martin when her daughter died in a car accident, effectively ending her research. In 1977, the House Select Committee on Assassinations reopened the case, initially concluding a fourth shot from the Grassy Knoll indicated a "probable conspiracy." This finding was based on a police motorcycle radio recording analyzed by scientists. However, later analysis revealed the recording was made after the shooting, causing the conspiracy evidence to crumble. (11)Kaitlyn Tiffany tours modern-day Dallas, a strange mix of somber memorials and pop-culture commercialization of the assassination. Visitors can tour Ruth Paine's house or the rooming house where Oswald lived, which plays As the World Turns on a loop. While some local businesses sell "magic bullet coffee," the Sixth Floor Museum provides a staged look at the sniper's perch. Extensive archives of the critics' work are preserved at Hood College and the Mary Ferrell Foundation. (12)Anatol Lieven warns the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East are converging into a global energy crisis, with refined oil products like diesel in short supply. Ukrainian drone attacks have severely damaged Russia's refining capacity, while US refineries struggle to keep pace. Leadership instability in Kyiv, including the dismissal of the defense minister, further complicates the war effort. Meanwhile, Houthi threats against Saudi tankers jeopardize the world's ability to secure reliable oil exports. (13)Anatol Lieven assesses new British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who faces a country demanding increased spending on health, prisons, and defense despite rising debt costs. While popular for his management of Manchester's transport system, he must navigate radical tax proposals targeting millionaires to raise revenue. Burnham is under pressure to resolve the "net zero" debate and potentially expand North Sea fracking to lower energy prices. He remains wary of reopening the divisive Brexit debate. (14)Anatoly Zak recounts the July 1976 Soviet launch of the Salyut 5 mission, a secret military reconnaissance project camouflaged as civilian research. The mission, dubbed the "Keystone Cosmonauts," was plagued by accidents, including a truck blocking a fuel train and a failed automated docking system. Onboard, the crew faced extreme stress, power failures, and a mysterious illness that incapacitated one cosmonaut. These failures forced an emergency landing and a premature end to the expedition. (15)Anatoly Zak reports Roscosmos is currently developing the Russian Orbital Station (ROS) to replace its segment of the International Space Station after retirement. This modular station is intended to test hardware for future lunar exploration, including a habitat module similar to the American Gateway project. Russia still hopes for potential international cooperation with NASA and the ESA in lunar orbit. The ROS will typically host two to three cosmonauts for long-term deep space validation missions. (16)Corrections applied, pending your confirmation for the log: Kaitlyn Tiffany (transcribed as "Caitlin" — the Atlanticwriter), Anatoly Zak (transcribed as "Anatoli" — his own byline spelling at RussianSpaceWeb), and Allen Dulles in segment 5 (transcribed as "Alan").

Kaitlyn Tiffany describes how FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover quickly established the "lone gunman" theory, asserting Lee Harvey Oswald fired three shots from the Texas School Book Depository. However, Shirley Martin, a grieving Oklahoma housewife, began independently investigating the case and badgering the FBI with tips. Her relentless correspondence frustrated Hoover, who viewed her as a nuisance to the bureau's formal investigation. Martin interviewed overlooked witnesses in Dallas and became a key critic of the official narrative. (6)1961

Walter dives deep into the bizarre, discussing everything from toddlers with past-life memories of being a French chanteuse to theories that J. Edgar Hoover used bad drugs to take out rock stars like Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. We explore the grand conspiracy of Tartaria, the 1859 Carrington Event, and how a 19th-century "Great Reset" allegedly stole the world's atmospheric free energy—and somehow left the Palace of Versailles completely without bathrooms.

In Episode 38, DDSWTNP talk to John Duvall, a major scholar of DeLillo, author of a 2002 reader's guide to Underworld, and expert especially on how DeLillo's 1992 novella “Pafko at the Wall” became, five years later, the Prologue, “The Triumph of Death.” In examining the 1951 Giants/Dodgers game and the Soviets' bomb test, we discuss with Duvall in great detail the issues of race and racism in the portrayal of fourteen-year-old Cotter Martin, winner of the struggle for Bobby Thomson's home run ball, as well as the major difference made by DeLillo's change of the very last word of “Pafko” in Underworld: “It is all falling indelibly into the now”? Or “into the past”? Throughout this episode, Duvall gives us a rare critical glimpse at DeLillo as editor of his sentences and scenes. He speaks also to the mythologizing effects of baseball, what it means to aestheticize politics in DeLillo's representations, DeLillo's relationship to E. L. Doctorow's work, and the competing visions of ideology and history embodied in FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and metafictional radio man Russ Hodges. Not only that, but Duvall has several intriguing, “paranoid” stories to tell about his correspondence with the author and how it's possible his interpretations of “Pafko” in a 1995 journal article might have directly influenced some of DeLillo's revisions as he shaped it into Underworld's opening. Other topics in this probing discussion include how DeLillo fits in with conceptions of Fredric Jameson's postmodernism and Linda Hutcheon's historiographic metafiction, his claims about his art in “The Power of History,” and the motifs of “The Triumph of Death” that set up the 700+ pages to come. For a profile of John Duvall's scholarship and teaching, see https://www.cla.purdue.edu/directory/profiles/john-duvall.html Stay tuned for a series of guest episodes on Underworld to come in the next few months! Texts mentioned and discussed in this episode: Don DeLillo, “Pafko at the Wall.” Harper's (October 1992): 35-70. —. Pafko at the Wall: A Novella. Scribner, 1997.  —. “The Power of History,” New York Times Magazine, September 7, 1997. https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/books/090797article3.html John N. Duvall, “Baseball as Aesthetic Ideology: Cold War History, Race, and Delillo's ‘Pafko at the Wall.'” Modern Fiction Studies 41.2 (Summer 1995): 285-313. —. Don DeLillo's UNDERWORLD. Continuum Contemporaries Reader's Guide. 2002. Mark Osteen, ed. “Notes.” Don DeLillo, Mao II and Underworld. Library of America, 2023. p. 1038. David Remnick, “Exile on Main Street [interview with Don DeLillo].” New Yorker, September 7, 1997. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1997/09/15/exile-on-main-street-don-delillo-profile-remnick

Dorothy Kilgallen spent her career doggedly sniffing out the truth and that really pissed off J. Edgar Hoover and his minions. And then she was found dead in her home under extremely suspicious circumstances. They wanted us to think she killed herself. If she'd still been alive, she never would have let them get away with it.Strange and Unexplained" is a podcast from Grab Bag Collab & Three Goose Entertainment and is a journey into the uncomfortable and the unknowable that will leave you both laughing and sleeping with the lights on. You can get early and ad-free episodes and much more over at www.grabbagcollab.comFollow us on InstagramEpisode Sponsors:BiOptimizers. Sign up now at  https://www.bioptimizers.com/strange and use code STRANGE for 15% off your entire order and a free travel size bottle of Masszymes - BiOptimizers' best-selling digestive enzyme — added to your order automatically when you use our exclusive code. That's a $20 product. Free. On top of your discount. This is a limited time offer and while supplies last.Quince. Make your summer wardrobe feel easier. Go to Quince.com/strange for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too. BATCH. Go to hellobatch.com/STRANGE and use code STRANGE at checkout for 30% off.Avocado Green Mattress. Find an Avocado near you, or shop online at AvocadoGreenMattress.com/STRANGE — and check out their mattress and bedding sale! sitewide!

In this special 169th episode, we commemorate America's 250th anniversary by analyzing the charts of one of American history's most influential political power couples: Franklin D. Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt. Join astrologers Kristina Martin and Tara Redfield as they explore the cosmic blueprint behind the leaders who guided the nation through the Great Depression and World War II. What We Uncover in Their Charts: Franklin D. Roosevelt's Visionary Leadership: Discover how his Virgo Rising combined with a Uranus Ascendant made him a radical visionary. We break down his Sun/Venus conjunction in Aquarius and the challenging Neptune square that shaped his personal battle with illness, transforming him from a victim into his own savior. Eleanor Roosevelt's Optimism and Influence: From a shy "wallflower" to a UN Diplomat, Eleanor's Sagittarius Rising speaks to her monumental life. We discuss her Moon/Mars trine for instinctual power, her Venus square to Pluto (highlighting her struggles with self-worth and even her surveillance by J. Edgar Hoover), and how her devotion drove her numerous publications. Their Synastry & "Venus Score": We analyze the glue and the friction of their relationship. We dive into their comfortable Venus/Moon sextile, their magnetic Mars/Venus attraction, and the lasting potential of their Venus/Saturn trine. But what about the critical Uranus/Mars square and the very public Saturn/MC conjunction? Tune in to hear their final "Venus Score" for this revolutionary couple. Why Listen? If you are fascinated by history, politics, or how astrology shapes world leaders, this episode is for you. We bridge the gap between celestial mechanics and the human stories that defined the 20th century. Reminder: Our Weekly Astrology Workshops with Den Meditation start Wednesday, July 15th  at 6:30 pm PST Register Now! Book Readings With us Kristina Martin www.klmastrology.com Tara Redfield www.anotherdaygreener.com Social Media Links Kristina on instagram @klmastrology Tara on instagram @anotherdaygreener Tara on YouTube   

Just days before the Roswell announcement changed UFO history forever, another mysterious event unfolded in rural New Hampshire—and newly declassified Pentagon files reveal that the FBI took it seriously enough to launch a scientific investigation.In this episode of UFO WARNING, we examine the remarkable case of the West Rindge, New Hampshire incident of July 7, 1947. Witnesses reported dozens of unexplained fires suddenly appearing across a field as strange metallic fragments fell from the sky. The recovered debris was sent to scientists at MIT for laboratory analysis, while the FBI documented every step of the investigation and forwarded reports to Director J. Edgar Hoover.What did the scientists discover? Why did investigators compare the fragments to components from captured German V-2 rockets? Why were some explanations ruled out, and why did the government ultimately leave the case unresolved?We'll break down the newly released documents, explore the forensic evidence, examine the witness testimony, and place this forgotten case within the extraordinary wave of UFO sightings that swept America during the summer of 1947—just one day before the famous Roswell press release.If you're fascinated by declassified government files, UFO investigations, Roswell, historical mysteries, and the hidden history of unexplained aerial phenomena, this episode is for you.

This Land is Your Land by Beverly Gage is a road-trip through the past (and present) alongside an award-winning historian. Beverly joins us to talk about human migration, nostalgia, historical conservation, J. Edgar Hoover and more with host Miwa Messer.  The Westerners by Megan Kate Nelson is a fascinating portrait of the American West. Megan joins us to talk about defining the frontier, historical figures, cowboys, identity and more with host Miwa Messer.  Listen in as these authors speak separately with Miwa Messer, host of Poured Over. This episode of Poured Over was hosted by Miwa Messer and mixed by Harry Liang.        Featured Books (Episode): This Land Is Your Land: A Road Trip Through U.S. History by Beverly Gage G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century by Beverly Gage The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family by Annette Gordon-Reed How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith Never Caught: The Washingtons' Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge by Erica Armstrong Dunbar American Scoundrel: Roy Cohn's Dark Journey from Joe McCarthy to Donald Trump by Kai Bird and Susan Goldmark The Westerners: Mythmaking and Belonging on the American Frontier by Megan Kate Nelson On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder The Three-Cornered War: The Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West by Megan Kate Nelson Thousand Pieces of Gold by Ruthanne Lum McCunn Bad Land: An American Romance by Jonathan Raban

Zayd Ayers Dohrn was born in a safe house during the decade his parents were in hiding. In 1969, Zayd's mother and father, Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, founded the revolutionary group called the Weather Underground. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover declared Bernadine the most dangerous woman in America. In their lives underground, Ayers and Dohrn committed acts of violence like bombing government buildings to call attention to the Vietnam war. They also gave birth to two children. Zayd has written a memoir of those years called Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young. We talk about political ideals and how the role of revolutionary urban guerrilla clashed with the idea of raising a family. "Now What?" is produced with the help of Steve Zimmer, Lucy Little and Jackie Schwartz. Audio production is by Nick Ciavatta.

John Dillinger (1903 en Indianápolis - 1934) fue el más célebre atracador de bancos de la historia del crimen americano, por encima de Bonnie & Clyde. Era una figura popular no solo por robar bancos en la época de la Gran Depresión, sino porque escapó de la cárcel en varias ocasiones. No es extraño que los atracadores de bancos no estuvieran del todo mal vistos. No es que los ciudadanos los apoyaran, pero había un aura a lo Robin Hood en aquellos rebeldes que robaban el dinero a las personas que se lo quitaban a la gente. El FBI de J. Edgar Hoover le declaró enemigo público n.º 1. Se han realizado infinidad de películas sobre Dillinger, dirigidas por cineastas como Max Nosseck, John Milius y Rupert Wainright. Pero lo que ahora resulta más interesante es indagar en los hechos reales que inspiraron estas películas.

The official story has Lee Harvey Oswald firing three shots from a sixth-floor window, yet the witnesses on the stairs never saw him flee, the paraffin test on his cheek came back clean, and J. Edgar Hoover himself admitted the voice on the Oswald tape from Mexico City belonged to another man.EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/ConspiracyInDallasREAD or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p8hjttrFEATURED STORIES IN THIS EPISODE: Was there a conspiracy to murder President John F. Kennedy in Dealey Plaza in 1963? (Conspiracy In Dallas) *** A Weirdo family member tells of his own personal experience with what might've been a hell hound. (The Dog That Wasn't There) *** One island, one couple, one murder. We'll look at the strange life and death of Rolf Neslund. (The Rolf Neslund Murder) *** She was murdered in November of 1901. Her lover spent more than a dozen years in prison, proclaiming his innocence, before being pardoned by the governor. So why did he commit suicide soon after getting out of prison? We'll look at the strange murder of – and eventual haunting by - Nell Cropsey. (The Lingering Ghost of Nell Cropsey)CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…00:00:00.000 = The Foreboding00:01:09.039 = Show Open00:02:46.404 = Conspiracy In Dallas00:20:59.391 = The Dog That Wasn't There ***00:22:36.375 = The Rolf Neslund Murder 00:31:41.043 = Lingering Ghost of Nell Cropsey ***00:40:08.752 = Show Close*** = Begins immediately after inserted ad breakLISTEN ON PODCAST APPS: Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.com/wdapps*No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast*SOURCES and RESOURCES:
“Conspiracy In Dallas” posted at The Unredacted: http://bit.ly/weirddarkness2YVxMdq“The Dog That Wasn't There” by Weirdo family member Daniel Mulberry“The Rolf Neslund Murder” by Elizabeth Tilsa: http://bit.ly/weirddarkness2KywOAX“The Lingering Ghost of Nell Cropsey” by Troy Taylor: http://bit.ly/weirddarkness2UnJ2Rb(Over time links may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.)WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.Originally aired: November 28, 2021Weird Darkness host Darren Marlar moves from the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas to a phantom black dog in the English county of Dorset, the murder and dismemberment of a retired sea captain on a quiet island in Washington's San Juan archipelago, and the 1901 killing of a young woman in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, whose spirit is said to still walk her family home.It opens in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963, where President John F. Kennedy was shot and the Warren Commission, headed by Judge Earl Warren, concluded in 1964 that ex-Marine Lee Harvey Oswald fired three shots alone from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. Eyewitnesses undercut that account from the start: Arnold Rowland saw two men at the window minutes earlier, one holding a rifle and neither matching Oswald, while secretaries Victoria Adams and Sandra Styles and caretaker Jack Dougherty never saw Oswald flee down the only staircase he could have used. The episode dismantles Arlen Specter's single-bullet theory — the claim that Commission Exhibit 399 passed through Kennedy's neck and inflicted five separate wounds on Governor John Connally before turning up nearly pristine on a Parkland Hospital stretcher — a conclusion Connally and his wife Nellie both rejected and Abraham Zapruder's home film contradicts on timing. Oswald's negative paraffin test, his suspicious 1959 defection to the Soviet Union and fluent Russian, his leafleting against the Fair Play for Cuba Committee alongside FBI-linked investigator Guy Banister, and a Mexico City impersonation so plain that J. Edgar Hoover told President Lyndon Johnson the recorded voice and surveillance photograph did not match the man in custody all steer the evidence away from a lone gunman. The thread ends with Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby, whose out-of-state mob contacts spiked twenty-fivefold before he shot Oswald on live television and whose 1965 hint that the truth would never surface still shadows the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle that remains the strongest piece against the accused.From there the tone turns to folklore and a listener's firsthand sighting of Black Shuck, the spectral black dog reported for centuries across Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, and East Anglia and long treated as an omen of coming disaster. Camping alone beside a medieval moat near Raoul Castle in East Dorset, he watched the dark shape of a large dog settle on the far embankment and stare back at him, then rise and dissolve into nothing as every nearby sound of wildlife cut out, leaving him zipped inside his tent until morning.Next comes the disappearance of Rolf Neslund, an 83-year-old retired sea captain who in 1978 drove a 550-foot freighter into the West Seattle Bridge before retreating into a drink-soaked marriage on Lopez Island in Washington's San Juan Islands. When Rolf vanished in August 1980, his wife Ruth insisted he had flown home to Norway, yet his prescriptions went unfilled, his American and Norwegian bank accounts went untouched, and no Christmas card reached his relatives that December. In 1982 Ruth's brother told police she had confessed that on August 8, 1980, a second brother held Rolf down while she shot him twice in the head, after which the body was dismembered in the bathtub, burned in a backyard barrel, and scattered on the manure pile. A search turned up replaced carpet over bloodstains, spatter on the ceiling, and a bloodstained .38-caliber Smith & Wesson hidden in Ruth's dresser, tying her to a killing that began as a fight over the roughly $80,000 she had quietly moved into an account bearing only her name; convicted in 1985 and sentenced to twenty years, she maintained her innocence until her death at seventy-three.The episode closes with nineteen-year-old Nell Cropsey, who walked onto the front porch of her family's Elizabeth City, North Carolina home with her suitor Jim Wilcox on the night of November 20, 1901, and was never seen alive again. Her body surfaced in the Pasquotank River on December 27, her death caused by a violent blow to the left temple, and Wilcox — the son of the local sheriff, known for a fierce temper — was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to thirty years before Governor Thomas Walter Bickett pardoned him in 1918. Once freed, Wilcox sought out newspaper editor W.O. Saunders to reveal something so startling that Saunders began planning a book, but Wilcox killed himself with a shotgun before he could tell it, Saunders died soon afterward in a car wreck, and whatever he knew went with them. More than a century on, the former Cropsey home still answers with lights that switch on and off, doors that open by themselves, faucets that run with no hand on the tap, and a pale young woman glimpsed crossing empty rooms and gazing from an upstairs window — recognized by more than one resident as Nell, her killing never truly solved.

“He didn't just say it, he meant it, he felt it — and the combination of the power guy, the ruthless power guy, and the profound idealist was fascinating, and also hard for him.” — Evan Thomas on Bobby Kennedy Who was the greatest riddle in 20th century American political life? Judging from the ever-expanding library of Bobby biographies, Robert Francis Kennedy ranks very high on that list. Indeed, according to Evan Thomas, one of RFK's most acclaimed biographers, this third Kennedy son is, indeed, the most sphinx-like riddle in 20th century America. In his classic 2000 biography, Robert Kennedy: His Life, Thomas unravels the good and the bad Bobby. But, rather than presenting parallel narratives, his portrait treats the Machiavellian and the idealist as the same riddle. Raised by his father to exercise raw power, RFK discovered that mid-century America wasn't living up to its own ideals. The contradiction of the ruthless Kennedy machine politician and the profound idealist was what continues to make him so intriguing to Americans of every political stripe. Bobby concurred with Churchill's dictum that courage is the greatest virtue because, without it, you can't have the other virtues. So he lived a life of ridiculous physical and moral courage — taking insane risks that would terrify ordinary mortals. And, of course, his most insanely courageous act was his last — running for President in 1968 knowing that he was likely to be assassinated. Where have you gone, Bobby Kennedy? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you. Five Takeaways •       The Central Paradox: Power Guy and Idealist in the Same Man: Bobby Kennedy was raised by his father to be the henchman of the Kennedy machine — doing the dirty stuff in Boston politics to keep Jack floating free and grand. He was pretty ruthless about it. At the same time, in mid-century America, he discovered that the country was not living up to its own constitution, and he wanted to make things right, and genuinely felt it. The combination of the machine politician and the profound idealist was what made him so endlessly fascinating. It also made him hard for himself: a man permanently at war with his own nature. •       Courage: The Only Word That Mattered: No word was more important to Bobby Kennedy than courage. Churchill: it's the greatest virtue, because without it you can't have the others. Kennedy believed in physical courage, emotional courage, mental courage. He was a runty little kid at the wrong end of the dinner table — Jack and Joe and Kick at the golden end with the father, Bobby with the nuns and the mum. He got kicked out of prep school for cheating. He was not the athlete, not the golden one. Real courage comes from suffering. It took courage just to overcome being the loser. That was the source. •       Making Up for Missing the War: Physical and Moral Courage: Bobby missed World War Two, basically. He got in at the very end and ended up scraping the deck of a destroyer in the Caribbean, far from combat. His brother Jack is a war hero on steroids — PT boat cut in half by a Japanese destroyer, rescues his men, written about in The New Yorker and Reader's Digest. Joe volunteers for a secret dangerous mission to replicate Jack's glory and dies. Pretty high bar of courage. Bobby spends the rest of his life making up for it — swimming the Colorado River, climbing Mount Kennedy in the Yukon, jumping overboard off the coast of Maine to save Jack's jacket. Sometimes stunts. But increasingly, moral courage — which is the greater thing. •       The Mob, Joe Kennedy, and the Beehive: When Bobby starts poking around in the mob as a Senate aide, J. Edgar Hoover is only too happy to point out: keep going here, you know where it's going to end up. With Joe Kennedy. Bobby's investigation of Giancana and Frank Sinatra starts grazing against his own father. Thomas's reading: whether conscious or unconscious, there is an element of rebellion. Bobby, appointed henchman, doing the dirty stuff for pop, resenting it, starts poking the beehive that might expose him. It never fully landed. But it started. And Hoover used it to blackmail the Kennedys. •       The Ripple of Hope, and RFK Jr. as Tragedy: Bobby's trip to South Africa — apartheid everywhere, the freedom movement barely existing, everybody in prison. His speech: every time somebody does something brave or heroic, it causes a ripple, and that gives you hope. A young Margaret Marshall, later Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, was in the audience. He gave us hope where there was none. That is the ghost Andrew went looking for at Hickory Hill and didn't find. The contrast with RFK Jr. is, for Thomas, simply sad. Poignant. His own family has disavowed him. Caroline Kennedy made a broadcast accusing him of crimes. The idea of Robert Kennedy Jr. is tragic. About the Guest Evan Thomas is an American writer and historian. He was Washington bureau chief of Newsweek for ten years and a writer and editor there for thirty-three years. He is the author of ten books, including Robert Kennedy: His Life (Simon & Schuster, 2000), Being Nixon, Road to Surrender, and, with Walter Isaacson, The Wise Men. He has taught at Harvard and Princeton. His biography of Churchill is forthcoming from Simon & Schuster in December 2026. References: •       Robert Kennedy: His Life by Evan Thomas (Simon & Schuster, 2000). •       The Wise Men by Evan Thomas and Walter Isaacson (Simon & Schuster, 1986) — referenced in the closing. •       Robert Coles — Bobby Kennedy's psychologist friend, referenced in the conversation. •       Hickory Hill, McLean, Virginia — the Kennedy family home Andrew visited on this trip to Washington DC. •       Bobby Kennedy's “Ripple of Hope” speech, University of Cape Town, South Africa, June 6, 1966. About Keen On America Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States — hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,900 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting. WebsiteSubstackYouTube

On this episode, friend of the show (Danny Foxworth @) joins us to discuss:Knicks/Spurs NBA FinalsPlay 82-0.comMixing Kool Aid With FruitsGinuwineJay-Z Roots Picnic FreestyleNBA The Run beta + MORE!TUNE IN

  J. Edgar Hoover the Father of the Cold War: How His Obsession with Communism Led to the Warren Commission Coverup and Escalation of the Vietnam War (Updated Edition) Book Available Here Review of Andrew's Book Read Here - Part Two Jim DiEugenio - Listener questions answered G. Robert Blakey 1936-2026 by Jim DiEugenio      

The C.O.W.S. host Gus T. Renegade delivers an explosive update on his ongoing audit of the federal surveillance apparatus targeted at the late Dr. Frances Cress Welsing. Earlier this year, Gus filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to uncover the hidden state files on the renowned third-generation physician. The staggering truth is now coming to light: - The April File Drop: The initial 20-page release proved active FBI surveillance starting in 1973—two full years before Howard University terminated her contract. It confirmed the Bureau deployed informants to monitor her public lectures decades before *The Isis Papers* was published. - The Multi-Agency Net: The FBI admitted more files existed. Weeks later, Gus secured dozens of additional pages revealing a massive, coordinated spying web weaponized against the entire Cress family lineage. The 1956 Campus Surveillance: This new file exposes documents stamped "SUBV CONTROL" (Subversive Control) under Classification Code 100 (Domestic Security). It includes a crystal-clear surveillance photograph of a young Dr. Welsing before 1960 that was sent straight to the desk of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. - The paperwork proves the Bureau weaponized university registrars and local informants to spy on a teenage Dr. Welsing's reading habits, political activities, and academic milestones. Join Gus T. for a comprehensive, counter-racist analysis of how the system tracks spectators and targets Black intellectuals from youth. #COINTELPRO #TheCOWS17Years INVEST in The COWS – [http://paypal.me/TheCOWS](http://paypal.me/TheCOWS) Cash App: [https://cash.app/$TheCOWS](https://cash.app/$TheCOWS) CALL IN NUMBER: 720.716.7300 CODE 564943#

That's right everybody, Disclosure Day came and went and not much really happened. The reactions to the grifter ufologist hype cycle have been entirely predictable and hilarious. We're talking too much about the substance of the UAP/UFO files released by the government. Mostly because how much can you say about a bunch of infrared videos of a bright dot moving around or FBI files that have been publicly available in essentially the same form for, in some cases, 60 or 80 years already? Subscribe on Patreon to support making this show, get premium only episodes, and listen to our entire back catalog. patreon.com/wetwired I think the proper way to understand what's been happening over the past week is that it wouldn't be a letdown if the hype men and women hadn't been out there building anticipation. And whatever you do, don't think for a second that any of this is anything more than a distraction from Trump failing completely to win a war with Iran that he started. Credit to this account for the outline of the hype cycle I built on in this ep: https://x.com/kyle_ferriter/status/2052768865503920471 Corrections: I gave credit to Robert Skvarla for noticing that the most recent file dump was in at least one case more censored than when the files were released in the past. It turns out that credit belongs to this account on Twitter: https://x.com/mrjeffknox/status/2053972920549232732 Follow Robert anyway while you're at it. He posts great stuff! https://x.com/RobertSkvarla Less importantly, I said that J. Edgar Hoover, while director of the FBI was looking into the communist ties of George Adamski. It was actually Frank Scully who he was looking into. Music: Airglow - Spliff and Wesson (CC-BY) Fly your crypto-leftist flag with our personal love letter to Juan José Arévalo, philosopher and socialist president of Guatemala, and the airline he nationalized. wetwired.printful.me/

Professional Failure and the HUAC AssaultAfter purchasing a story idea about a serial killer from Orson Welles, Chaplin produced Monsieur Verdoux, which became his first major professional flop in America. The film's failure coincided with a massive assault by the House Un-American Activities Committee and J. Edgar Hoover, who targeted Chaplin for his personal life and perceived radicalism. Despite FBI evidence that Chaplin was never a communist, authorities used his British citizenship and films like The Great Dictator to build a narrative of un-Americanism. This cumulative character assassination was spearheaded by columnists like Hedda Hopper, who harbored a deep personal loathing for Chaplin. Guest: Scott Eyman. (5/8)1905, RESIDENCE OF E.T. EARL, WILSHIRE AVENUE LA

On today's episode Arian, PFT and Big T discuss the life of J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover was the longtime head of the FBI who led the agency for nearly five decades. He became one of the most powerful and controversial figures in American history through surveillance, political influence, and crime-fighting campaigns. Plus, we get into college football and the Brendan Sorsby controversy, banning phones in schools and other places, Jack Posobiec's Michael Jackson Take and much more. Enjoy! (00:05:50) Texas Tech Football (00:29:47) Banning Phones in School (00:39:13) Jack Posobiec's Micheal Jackson Take (00:41:43) Animal Farm (00:54:13) J. Edgar HooverYou can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/macrodosing

  John notes that many researchers acknowledge Oswald impersonators during the months prior to the assassination, Does not understand why researchers fail to understand there were duplicate impersonators noted in documentation published by the Warren Commission and described by Robert Oswald in New York City (1952-1954), Frank DiBenedetto (LEE Oswald's supervisor at Tujague's in 1955-1956), Allen Felde (WC Ex 1962) in 1956-1957, Palmer McBride (WC Ex 1386), William Wulf (WC testimony), Linda Faircloth, (President, Pfisterer Dental Lab) Pfisterer Dental Lab employees in 1957-1958), Harvey Oswald in Taiwan while LEE Oswald remained in Atsugi, (Aug-Sept, 1958) LEE Oswald in El Toro, CA, while HARVEY Oswald was in Santa Ana, CA (1958-1959) Numerous reports of LEE Oswald in the USA while HARVEY Oswald was in Russia (1960-1962), LEE Oswald with Jack Ruby during the summer of 1962 while HARVEY and Marina were living in New Orleans, LEE Oswald visiting Robert McKeown at his home in Texas attempting to buy rifles, while HARVEY Oswald was with his wife and the Murrets at Lake Pontchartrain (Labor Day weekend, 1963). J. Edgar Hoover's statement to the Warren Commission about a 1955 $41 refund check supposedly issue to Oswald, and that the IRS was unable to locate this 1955 return Numerous indications that Oswald's 1956 tax return was a complete FBI forgery Allen Felde with Harvey Oswald for 10 months, (Oct, 1956-August, 1957) while LEE Oswald attended Aviation Fundamentals school in Jacksonville and radar school in Biloxi (see CE 1962) In late July and August, 1957, Allen Felde and Harvey Oswald were sent to the Naval Technical Training Center in Millington, Tennessee to attend classes in Aviation Electronics, while in late August, 1957, LEE Oswald was aboard the USS Bexar en route to Japan via Honolulu. Lee Oswald's mother, Marguerite Claverie Oswald, lived at 3830 W. 6th St in Ft. Worth (Oct, 1956-August, 1957), while at the same time the short, heavy set Marguerite Oswald impostor was first living at 4936 Collinwood in Ft. Worth and then in September, 1957, moved to the Hotel Senator in New Orleans while Harvey Oswald worked for 8 months at the Pfisterer Dental Lab. John's research and videos, and documentation available at www.harveyandlee.net  

To celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, historian Beverly Gage took a road trip around the country to visit over three hundred historic sites. Those travels are documented in her new book, This Land is Your Land: A Road Trip through U.S. History. Gage joins us this hour to reflect on what she learned about the country, and what's ahead on this anniversary year. GUEST: Beverly Gage: The John Lewis Gaddis Professor of History at Yale University. She is the author of the Pulitzer Prize winning book G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century. Her new book is This Land is Your Land: A Road Trip through U.S. History Music featured (in order): Road Song – Wes Montgomery This Land Is Your Land – Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings Birmingham – Randy Newman Song About America – Olive Klug America – Simon and Garfunkel I See America – Joy Oladokun Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Historian and Yale University Professor Beverly Gage joined David M. Rubenstein to discuss her Pulitzer Prize winning biography of former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and her road trip across the U.S. to visit historic sites. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Clyde Tolson ran personnel and discipline at the FBI for 44 years — the man who hired, promoted, and silenced the agents who carried out J. Edgar Hoover's illegal surveillance campaigns. He built the compliant machine. He signed the memos. He inherited the house. History gave him the quiet burial he counted on.Jump to the AD-FREE Safe House EditionBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.You can pay more if you want to, but rent at the Safe House is still just a buck a week, and you can get access to over 400 ad-free episodes from the dusty vault, Safe House Exclusives, direct access to the Boss, and whatever personal services you require.We invite you to our other PULPULAR MEDIA podcasts:If disaster is more your jam, check out CATASTROPHIC CALAMITIES, telling the stories of famous and forgotten tragedies of the 19th and 20th centuries. What could go wrong? Everything!For brand-new tales in the old clothes from the golden era of popular literature, give your ears a treat with PULP MAGAZINES with two new stories every week.This episode includes AI-generated content.

At fifteen, Martin Luther King Jr. didn't want to be a preacher—he wanted to be a lawyer, a sharp dresser, and nothing like his father. Stanford scholar Lerone A. Martin joins Mark Labberton to discuss Young King—a revelatory new account of Martin Luther King Jr.'s childhood, adolescence, and calling to ministry. "He's extraordinary and ordinary and everything in between." In this episode, Martin reflects on how MLK's early formation forged the conviction and courage of the man the world would come to know. Together they discuss King's childhood encounters with racism, the transformative summer in Connecticut where King first preached, his courtship of Coretta Scott, his first sermon at Dexter Avenue, the theology of Personalism, and Martin's own formation in Black Baptist and Pentecostal traditions. Episode Highlights "His mother tells him a message that really sticks with him his entire life and is really core to his ministry. And that is that you are somebody and that you're in God's eyes. You are just as good as anybody else." "I kept my mind at the front of that streetcar, and I said to myself, one day, I'm going to put my body where my mind is." "She says within the first 20 minutes he starts to become handsome because they start talking about dismantling Jim Crow." "He's extraordinary and ordinary and everything in between." "God has chosen to work with us and to invite us to be coworkers with God, to bring about God's will in the world." About Lerone A. Martin Lerone A. Martin is the MLK Jr. Centennial Professor in Religious Studies at Stanford and director of the King Research and Education Institute. His books include Young King, The Gospel of J. Edgar Hoover, and Preaching on Wax. He holds a BA from Anderson University, MDiv from Princeton Seminary, and PhD from Emory. His commentary has appeared on NBC's Today Show, PBS, CNN, and NPR. Helpful Links and Resources Young King by Lerone A. Martin https://www.amazon.com/Young-King-Making-Martin-Luther/dp/0063340941 The Gospel of J. Edgar Hoover https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691218939/the-gospel-of-j-edgar-hoover Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu Lerone A. Martin on X https://x.com/DirectorMLK The Luminous Darkness by Howard Thurman https://www.amazon.com/Luminous-Darkness-Anatomy-Segregation/dp/0913408468 Show Notes Martin's upbringing between Black Baptist and Pentecostal traditions Parents debating religion and politics during the Moral Majority era Anderson University, Princeton Seminary, Emory PhD Martin's mother told him he was "a child of God" and "beautiful"—a refrain shaped by her awareness of sending her darkest-skinned child into a world defined by colorism and racism "He's extraordinary and ordinary and everything in between." King and his brother dismembering his sister's Barbie dolls Incessant curiosity—trying big words on the Auburn Avenue librarian Racism at age six: white friends' parents ending the friendship "You are somebody and in God's eyes you are just as good as anybody else" King's mother explained racism to a six-year-old as something manmade, not what God intends—a distinction that became core to his ministry for the rest of his life "One day, I'm going to put my body where my mind is." Jitterbug dancer, sharp dresser, speech contest competitor King Sr. as fighter and provider—but King Jr. was sensitive, nonconfrontational, and determined to find his own path outside his father's shadow Resisting his father's model of ministry—wanting to be a lawyer Appearing to acquiesce to Dad, then doing what he wanted Connecticut tobacco fields at 15—first time outside the segregated South King wrote letters home marveling that he sat anywhere he wanted in restaurants, went to a white church, and didn't have to sit in the balcony at the movies "His sister says he left a boy and came back a man." Professor George Kelsey's Bible course at Morehouse—King's only A Howard Thurman's The Luminous Darkness and the enormous psychological energy required just to maintain a sense of "somebodiness" under Jim Crow's built environment of dehumanization "Within the first 20 minutes he starts to become handsome because they start talking about dismantling Jim Crow." Coretta wrestled with giving up her music career to become a minister's wife, ultimately deciding that partnership with King was itself an act of service toward justice First sermon at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church: "Love Your Enemies" Theology of Personalism—humanity as coworkers with God #YoungKing #MLK #LeroneMartin #KingInstitute #CivilRights #BlackHistory #FaithAndJustice #ConversingPodcast Production Credits Conversing is produced and distributed in partnership with Comment Magazine and Fuller Seminary.

Simma Lieberman and Elmer Dixon go back over 50 years — she was in the Young Patriots, he was co-founding the first Black Panther Party chapter outside California. In this conversation, they cut through the lies, revisionist history, and current attacks on DEI to talk about what the Black Panther Party actually stood for, why erasing Black history will never work, and what it takes to stay courageous when the political winds turn ugly. Elmer shares what it was like to transition from revolutionary to corporate diversity consultant, corrects the record on the myths about the Panthers, and gives three direct pieces of advice for anyone trying to stay grounded right now. What You'll Hear •      Why Elmer and Simma were part of the original Rainbow Coalition — and who actually coined that phrase (hint: it wasn't Jesse Jackson) •      The two biggest lies still being told about the Black Panther Party — and the truth behind them •      What it felt like to leave the movement and step into "Babylon" with four kids to feed •      A Black student who compared the Panthers to the KKK — and what that tells us about deliberate historical distortion •      How the Netherlands teaches Black Panther history in school while the U.S. tries to erase it •      The Seattle Black Panther Legacy Center opening this June in Pioneer Square •      Why DEI is not affirmative action, and what "DEI hire" really reveals about the people saying it •      Elmer's three things everyone needs right now: self-education, self-love, and courage Timestamps [01:30] Introducing Elmer Dixon — 52 years of knowing each other, Black Panthers and Young Patriots [03:00] Elmer's full bio — Seattle BPP, city cabinet, Executive Diversity Services, global work [06:30] Is it still important to talk about race? Elmer answers directly [08:00] From revolutionary to corporate America — the transition, the trauma, and the four kids [11:00] The early days: co-founding the Seattle chapter, Bobby Hutton's funeral, J. Edgar Hoover's threat designation [15:00] Bobby Seale for Mayor, political prisoner, shifting eras inside the party [18:00] Simma's question: What do you say to people spreading lies about the Black Panther Party? [20:00] Correcting the record — Japanese BPP member Mike Tagawa, mixed-race members, Huey Newton's own words on racism [23:00] The Rainbow Coalition — who really coined the phrase, and which organizations were part of it [25:00] The two lies: "They were racist" and "They were violent" — and what the party actually stood for [29:00] The art school student who compared the Panthers to the KKK — and how deliberate distortion works [32:00] Speaking in France, and why Dutch schoolchildren learn the real Black Panther history [36:00] The attempt to erase Black history — why it won't work, and who's holding the torch [39:00] The Seattle Black Panther Legacy Center — Pioneer Square demo site opening June 2025, permanent site search [43:00] Young people picking up the torch — the Black Panther Park mural, the historic family home as landmark [46:00] DEI is not affirmative action — what "DEI hire" really means, and why companies are wrong to be scared [50:00] Paper tigers — how the Panthers faced Nixon and Hoover, and what that means for today [53:00] Elmer's three pieces of advice: self-educate, love yourself first, be courageous Guest Links •       Elmer Dixon website: elmerdixon.com •       Book: Die Standing: From Black Panther Revolutionary to Global Diversity Consultant (Two Sisters Writing and Publishing, 2023) •       Elmer's TEDx Talk: Stories from the Revolution's Front Lines   Connect with Simma •       Website & episodes: raceconvo.com •       Email: simma@simmalieberman.com •       Donate to support the show: raceconvo.com   Guest Bio Elmer Dixon has spent his life fighting for justice, equality, and belonging—values rooted in who he is and the experiences that shaped him. At 17, inspired by the Black Liberation Movement of the 1960s, he co-founded the Seattle Chapter of the Black Panther Party with his older brother, Aaron. It was the first chapter outside of California, and together they built a movement that provided essential services to Black and Brown communities in their city.   Connect with Simma Lieberman Need a speaker, facilitator, or dialogue leader who helps people talk with each other—not past each other? Contact Simma: simma@simmalieberman.com Learn more and support the show: RaceConvo.com  Instagram Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Tiktok Website Share the Conversation If this episode made you think, please share it with a friend or colleague. Real conversations across differences start when someone decides to listen. Please help these necessary conversations continue- Make a one-time, or monthly tax-deductible donation of $5.00  https://fundraising.fracturedatlas.org/everyday-conversations-on-race-for-everyday-people All donations are tax deductible through Fractured Atlas. Loved this episode?  Leave us a review and rating   Previous Episodes Why We Can't Stop Talking About Race: A Conversation with Carole Copeland Thomas What Happens When a White Neighbor Writes a Black Woman's Story? Do We Still Need to Talk About Race?

In this episode of Gangland Wire, host Gary Jenkins sits down with author and historian Gary Clemente for a deep dive into the remarkable life of Nicola Gentile, one of the most influential yet little-known figures in early American organized crime. Click here to find books by mob expert Gary Celemente Gentile was no street thug. Born in Sicily in 1884, he immigrated to the United States in the early 1900s and became a roving Mafia diplomat—trusted to mediate disputes among crime families in cities such as New York, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Kansas City, Pueblo, Chicago, and beyond. Known as Zio Nicola (“Uncle Nick”), Gentile operated as a stabilizing force during the most violent period of Mafia history, including Prohibition and the Castellammarese War. Clemente reveals that Gentile's story survives largely because Gentile broke the ultimate Mafia rule: he wrote memoirs. Those writings—published in Italy in the 1960s—were seized by the FBI and later translated by Clemente's father, Peter Clemente, one of the first Sicilian-born agents assigned to the FBI's elite Top Hoodlum Squad. The episode offers rare insight into those translations and the intelligence value they held for federal investigators. The discussion traces Gentile's interactions with legendary figures such as Carlo Gambino, Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, and Vito Genovese, as well as his behind-the-scenes role in shaping the Mafia's modern organizational structure—including the creation of the national Commission. The episode also explores Gentile's personal contradictions: a lifelong criminal who saw himself as an honorable man, a mediator capable of violence, and a romantic who later believed a lover betrayed him to federal authorities. After fleeing the U.S. under indictment, Gentile returned to Sicily, where he later provided intelligence to Allied forces during World War II—another unlikely chapter in an already extraordinary life. Despite being sentenced to death by Mafia leaders for publishing his memoirs, Gentile was spared due to the respect he commanded on both sides of the Atlantic. He died peacefully in Sicily in 1970, leaving behind a story so expansive it feels tailor-made for film. To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here To rent ‘Brothers against Brothers’ or ‘Gangland Wire,’ the documentaries click here.  To purchase one of my books, click here. [0:00] Hey, all you wiretappers, Gary Jenkins back here in the studio of Gangland Wire. I am a former Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit detective and now turned podcaster and documented filmmaker. We record the mafia, everything we can about the mob. And today I’ve been wanting to do this story, guys, as a man named Nicola Gentile. Did I get that right, Gary? Beautiful. All right. This is Gary Clemente, and Gary’s been on before, or GP Clemente. He’s been on before. His father was Peter Clemente, who was one of the original Sicilian-born FBI agents in the United States and did a lot of translation work with Bellacci. And he’s written, he’s writing books. So we talked about the first book, but tell just a little bit more about it. And guys, I’ll have links to that book. And then tell me a little bit about the two more you have coming out. The first book that I wrote in a series of books about my father’s lengthy FBI career is called Untold Mafia Tales from the FBI Top Hoodlum Squad. [1:04] And it’s about my father’s career in the mafia from 1950 to 1976. And in 1957, he became a part of the Top Hoodlum squad, which is an elite group that J.H. Goober started as part of the Top Hoodlum program. And what happened was in 1957, they had a big mafia conclave meeting in Appalachian, New York. [1:30] And they had about 60 members of the mafia throughout the country, all the bosses that attended this meeting. And it became publicized. The cops were there. They confiscated their identification, their wallets, the money, everything. And it got released into the news. This was a big story. [1:50] So what happened was J. Edgar Hoover at that time had been denying the existence of the mafia for a number of reasons. Probably because he didn’t want to get involved with all of the muck of trying to prosecute these gangland people because he knew that they had a lot of buffers between the bosses and the guys committing the murders. So he knew it was going to be difficult, and it would blemish their conviction record and rate. So he kind of stayed away from it, denied the existence of the mafia, And along comes this Appalachian Conclave meeting. It got released into the news, and everybody was up in arms about this. That’s when Hoover decided to start the Top Hoodland program, because there was absolutely no denial of what was going on here, that there was some sort of vast criminal organization that was highly organized, and he had to do something about it. So in 1957, my father became part of the Top Hoodlum program. [2:54] And in particular, the Top Hoodlum squad in New York City, which is really a hotbed of mafia criminal activity. You couldn’t get any more hotter than what they had. They had five mafia families alone in New York. And the first book was really about how my father confronted Carlo Gambino, how Carlo Gambino became one of his original subjects for him to study and to profile. [3:24] He was ordered to do that, and he was happy to do that. The book is really about him confronting face-to-face with Carlo Gambino, and then afterwards wiretapping him at the Golden Gate Hotel in Miami Beach, Florida. He was on the other side of a wall. From Gambino for six weeks. Gambino did not know he was on the other side of the wall wiretapping him with another agent. So that’s what the first book was about. And the second book is about really the backstory of my father’s life before he got into the FBI a little bit. Then his first years in the Bureau, when he was a part of the investigation of the Communist Party and the Workers’, Party and the few offices that he was in, like the Springfield, Illinois office, and also Cleveland. And then he became a part of the New York office. He was still investigating communist activities at the time. And then he became a part of the Top Woodland squad. And his milieu, his wheelhouse, became organized crime and the mafia. So that’s generally what has happened so far. The second book is being released this coming month, and it will We’ll have book two and book three talking about these sorts of things. [4:44] Interesting. Interesting. All right, guys, I’ll have a link to the old book down there in the show notes and look for that new book coming up and we’ll get back together. I’ll get back with Gary after the book comes out sometime and we’ll do another show. And we’re not going to talk about the mafia so much. We’re going to talk about these activities, which I think is interesting, of the FBI against the Social Workers Party and the Communist Party USA because they did a lot of work. When I was growing up, Gary, do you remember I Led Three Lives, the TV show about, his last name was Phil Brick. It was a weekly TV show about an undercover FBI agent who supposedly was working as a member of the Communist Party. He would go to these meetings and things like that. Do you remember that? I Led Three Lives. I do remember that. That show goes way, way back. What year was that show? Oh, that had to be 1953, 54. I had to be like 9, 10 years old, 55. I was 10 years old, so it probably may be 1955. I do remember the show. I think I’ve seen reruns of it. Yeah, I bet it’s on YouTube. I have to look that up for fun one of these days. [5:52] Issue Machine’s show back then, we will talk about this later on at another time as regards to the second book. Back in the 1950s, J. Edgar Hoover’s main enemy was the Communist Party. It wasn’t organized crime. That was his top focus. He wrote a book called Masters of Deceit. And people, I think everybody, they should have this book in public school system, but they don’t want to do that today. Today’s public school system, they try to inculcate youngsters in more social activities and social warriors and not learning about the perils of Marxism and communism. [6:33] Okay, today we’re going to talk about Nicola Gentile. Now, 1903, he was a Sicilian immigrant that came to the United States, and he found a lot of opportunity among the other Sicilian immigrants because he was a blackhander, if you will, when he first got here. He was a criminal who came over from Sicily, but he was able to move among all the different families, all the different cities, and settle disputes and help people get organized and do things like that. Gary, start telling us a little bit about what you remember about Nicola Gentile. First of all, I want to tell people that Nicola Gentile was an uber jovelace. He was jovelace on steroids. Somebody later on in his life, toward the end of his life, he wrote his memoirs down. This was in 1963. So what happened was he published his memoirs in Italy. He had a co-author, he had another journalist write these memoirs down in Sicilia. [7:36] These memoirs were then grabbed by the FBI and they were given to my father. My father had the papers written in Sicilian. And I remember as a boy in 1963, when this happened, my father was sitting at a table translating these memoirs with my grandmother. Now, my grandmother grew up not too far away. My grandmother and my grandfather grew up not too far away from Nicola Gentile. Nicola was born in the town of Siculiana. Try to say that, Gary. [8:14] I give. I said that one real fast. So he’s writing these, translating the memoirs with my Sicilian-speaking grandmother and grandfather. My grandfather spoke, my grandparents, my father spoke Sicilian as well, too. He grew up with that as a little boy. But my grandmother and my grandfather were helping him translate these papers. These are the FBI papers. This is a copy. This is a copy of the FBI photocopy after it got translated. And my father did write some notes here and there. You can see it’s fairly light. The print is fairly light on it. I do have some post-it notes or notations, comments on it. But this is about 185 pages that were translated. And the language is quite formal, I’ll read to you a little bit of the first page What Nicola Gentile wrote as he started off Before you get started there, was that book ever translated? Is that available here in English form like on Amazon as a book you can buy today? I know a lot of people are wondering, can I find that? [9:34] That’s a good question. I haven’t gone that far yet. Okay, all right. I don’t know. I’ll take a look. That is a good question. But this is the translation that my father and my grandparents did. And whether it came out that way in these books that are out now, I don’t know. There are some books that do talk about Nicola Jantili, but I don’t know if there are any English translation books. So this is how the first page of Nicola’s book opens. Siculiana, a small town of Sicily, did not, prior to 1900, offer any opportunity for work or secondary school education for the betterment of life of its youth. [10:22] The greater portion of whom in which there existed the disposition encouraged by the family while still young frequented the shop of an artisan where they struggled to learn a trade, but at the same time often neglecting school so that illiteracy reigned supreme. So that’s the sort of language that Nicola used in it. And it’s quite interesting. It’s a bit formal. He does jump around a bit from his activities from one place to another. He talks a lot about how he knew practically everybody in the mob at that time. He knew people like Luciano. He knew he interacted with Al Capone. He interacted with Vito Genovese. He interacted with Albert the Mad Hatter, Anastasia. These were all the big shots. I’m talking about in the 1920s through the 1930s and all the way after. If you remember that in the 1920s, the 1919 prohibition happened, okay? That’s what really blew up out of everything, the prestige, the money, and the power of the mafia. That’s how it grew because of prohibition. and they were able to bootleg liquor, and Nikola was indeed a part of this. [11:51] He traveled around a lot. Now, what was the deal with that? He was in New York. I think that was his base, and that’s where he got started, but he traveled to, I think, New Orleans, or did he come up from New Orleans? I can’t remember. He was in Kansas City. He was in Cleveland. He was in Pueblo, Colorado. He made some connections. There’s a really old, early family in Pueblo, Colorado. I’ve talked to a descendant of that family, and I’ve talked to another author that knew quite a little bit about it so he traveled around to these different families what was the story with that, For whatever reason, he was a robing ambassador and a mediator. Look, you’re talking about organized crime. You’re talking about the mafia. You’re talking about vicious people who had one thing and one thing only in mind. What was it? Duh, money. Money and power. Because of that, you’re going to have disputes. You’re going to have arguments. You’re going to have people being killed as a result of it. And Gentile was the sort of individual that, think of Nicola Gentile as a Vida Colleone. [12:59] Think of him as a godfather figure. Very wise, understanding how to mediate the disputes, realizing that, as everybody else did, that if we do not mediate these disputes, what will happen? We will be at each other’s throats like animals. Yeah. And our organization cannot exist. Our universe, our world cannot exist if this happens. So we must mediate these disputes. We must have an organizational structure. We must have a boss. We must have an underboss. We must have a consigliere, an advisor, who tells, who gives words of wisdom about how to proceed with business. Whether to take somebody out, how to proceed in such a fashion. So all of that was a part of the world. And it existed for many years, for many decades because of that. [14:01] Now, let me start off a little bit to tell you the beginnings of Nicola so we can lead up to how he got to this position. So he was born in 1884. He came to America at the age of 19 and went to New York. He travels to Kansas City to meet with his brother Vincent, who lived in Topeka, Kansas, not too far away from Kansas City. He started working out in the Santa Fe Railroad, and he became a linen peddler, and he did make some money doing that. He returned to Italy in 1909. He married in 1910 and had a daughter named Maria. Now, in his papers, you really don’t hear anything more about that happening. You don’t hear anything about his wife, children, nothing. And it isn’t until later on, at the very end of his memoirs, he talks about the women in his life. We’ll get to that later. But so what happened was he returns back from Italy, gets back to America, and he goes to Canada. Then he moves to San Francisco with his brother, and he continues to sell linen until 1914. And it isn’t until he was a year or two later, maybe about the age of 19, 20 or so, he starts getting involved with the Honor Society. [15:27] Now, he knows about the Honor Society from back in Sicily. He’s been well aware of it. He’s been involved with it. At the age of 15, he had been convicted of a crime, and he had been sentenced to jail at the age of 15. So he wasn’t new to the world of organized crime. He knew it from back in Sicily. It’s a very deep fabric of the world of Sicily at that time. Why is that? Because in Sicily, in those years, in the late 1800s, you had either what? You had a sort of a feudal system where people were working for these large landowners, and the landowners were absentee landowners, okay? They delegated authority to people underneath them, and the people working for their land and working on their land were really, for example, a lot of poverty happened because of it. So to bridge that sort of gap with poverty, the Mafia started, in other words, and they called it the Honor Society. These were men of honor. And Nicola Gentile describes it as the, let me see here. [16:39] He describes the honor society, originating many years ago in antiquity, and it gives the right to defend the honor of the weak and to respect human law. With these principles as its guide, it’s still operated within the mafia. So you understand that within the honor society, here’s the code that we must be civilized, even though we’re acting like animals. [17:08] We don’t want to act too much like animals but otherwise we will destroy, the golden goose so this is what they put in the back of their minds we must act in a civilized manner, so that was the understanding of how the outer society worked so he went to New York he went to Brooklyn, and at that time the mafia probably had 2,000 2,000 members of the mafia in New York at that time, between the five families. They call them Bocate families. So he joined the Outer Society in Pittsburgh. [17:49] And soon after, he was asked by Gregorio Conte, the head of the mob boss in Pittsburgh, to do a killing for him. Okay? Now, he doesn’t say whether this was an initiation right, because that’s what they usually did in the mafia. You had to kill somebody in order to be initiated into the mafia, become a member of it. So he was ordered to do a killing, and what happened was he confronted this individual in front of a restaurant. His brother shoots the victim in front of the restaurant. He runs away before Nikola, empties his gun into the guy. Paul runs away. Nicola’s standing there with his gun. People are yelling and screaming, oh my gosh, he did it. He killed this person. Paul is running down the street. He takes his firearm. He shoots it up in the air. [18:45] Scares the crowd away. Nicola runs away. He escapes from that scene. Now, Nicola really has never, throughout his mafia career, he’s never been arrested. It isn’t until later on in his life that he actually does get under the eye of the police and he becomes indicted and will get arrested. So that’s what happens to him later on. But later, during his life in the mob, he does not get arrested in any way, shape, or form. Although he got to Italy, when he goes back to Italy, he was under the scrutiny of the police there and he had been arrested. He gets out on bail, and he was accused of crimes there. So he was pretty slippery. But in terms of what we’re talking about, his mediation skills, little by little, he becomes this sort of individual that people look at as somebody that can mediate their problems and to tamper down the situation that can become very hot. And he became somebody that the other mobsters called, they called him Uncle Nick or Zio Nicola, Zio Cola, Uncle Cola. They saw him as a sort of a vunticular figure. [20:07] That could ameliorate these disputes and these situations that they were involved with. In Kansas City, our mob boss was Nick Savella for a long time, and I was looking over some wiretaps, and people were talking about him, and one of his underlings was talking to another underling about something he was going to take to him, and he called him Zeo the whole time. They always referred to him as Zeo, so that’s a term of honor and respect throughout the mafia world. [20:37] That’s right. As I keep saying, the mafia was able to exist for as long as it did because they had an organizational structure. They had a code of honor that kept them from not acting like wild animals too much. Too much. A lot of these people, you’ve met more than your share of criminals. Gary, you know how many of these people can be. Some of them can be very business-like. Some of them can be very vicious, vicious, sick people too. And the great scarpets of the world that would kill dozens of people. These were psychopaths. You had your whole range. You had your whole range of people. And the fascinating thing about Gentile was that he knew a lot of these individuals. You talked about the Kansas City, the Kansas City entity. Yes, Pueblo, Colorado did have its problems at that time. And somebody had been killed, the Pueblo, Colorado family, and that sort of spilled over into Kansas City. Kansas City was asking to mediate the situation, and it was Chile mediated the situation because of it. [21:57] Chantina became the boss of the Kansas City family. Now, he does not get into this in great depth about what he did in Kansas City at Boston, but it was a temporary thing. He was bopping around from Pittsburgh to Cleveland to Kansas City. He went to New York. He was in Boston. He was far away, San Francisco, Los Angeles. He was all over the place. And he was very well respected. He had a lot to do with what was going on in Chicago with Al Capone. Interestingly enough, Al Capone, at that time, when Gentile encountered him, his family, if you want to call it his crime family, had a lot of international entities in it. It wasn’t an Italian thing. He had a lot of different people from different ethnic backgrounds as a part of his organization. It wasn’t until Nicola comes around and the mafia bosses came around and told him, look, this is what the mafia is like. We’re not an international group here. [23:08] It’s strictly Italian. You want to be a part of it, you need to buy into this. Okay. And that’s indeed what he did, bought into the mafia, marginalize the people that were not Italians. Booted them out and or killed them sometimes and started his own mafia italian thing in chicago which became very very well known as as a bloody place to believe bloody bloody place to be because of the the killings that they had prior to him being a part of the mafia officially there were a tremendous amount of gangland killings as you know in chicago so he had a large part to and he He did keep a lot of those other ethnicities around as players, as people he could use, though. And on into Frank Nitti’s time and on up into current modern times, up into the 50s and 60s, they had several people that were on the periphery would be associates. But I guess he had more organization of Sicilians, it looks to me like, over the years. Yes, yes, he did. What happened eventually was, as Gary, the Castellamareci War erupted in the 1930s. That’s another hard one to say, Castellamareci. Castellamareci. I can say that, Castellamareci. [24:35] Try to say that real fast. So what happened, the Castellamareci War erupted. In June, the boss mazzeria was the boss of bosses. They called him the king. Was the boss of the Capetituticape, the boss of bosses, okay? [24:53] And Mazzaria was wielding a very heavy hand that a lot of the other bosses in the country did not like at that time. And in particular, Maranzano became his chief foe. And he was originally from the Castellammare area of Sicily, okay? and his henchmen, his crew, the men around him were from that area. So they had a big war with the children past Mazaria. They wanted to assume power. A lot of people were dying. They were dropping like flies, especially over in New York. And Nicola Gentile was one of the people that were trying to mediate this situation between Mazaria and Marazano. Originally, Nicola sided with Mazaria, but then the ties changed. In turn, everybody wanted Mazaria dead. All the other bosses wanted him dead, including Capone. Mazaria was eventually executed in, I believe it was 1931. [26:05] And so Salvatore Marzano assumes power, okay? The people that Mazaria had underneath him, And Marisano said, we need to get rid of these guys. So he wound up killing all of the mazzarela boys. So everybody was saying, look, I don’t see any end of this bloodshed. We don’t need this publicity, okay? We need to operate in the shadows, okay? And Carlo Gambino was an expert at doing that. So what happened was the war ended. Marisano took over. He kills the boys. But then after that Marzano, what happens power gets to his head and easily lies the crown of the king, Marzano eventually gets killed by the other bosses and it was Vito Genovese. [27:00] It was Vito Genovese that was ordered to do the hit on Marazano with his crew. And as a result of that, Gary, the other bosses said, look, we need more structure here. There’s too much bloodshed. We can’t have this going on forever and ever. So they created a commission. Now, they did have other commissions before. They did have general assemblies like that. And so they created a commission that included Lucky Luciano, included Al Capone. [27:35] Included Joe Profaggi, included Joe Bananas as part of the commission to settle down, settle things down. Now, I said that originally, when we started that, that they had an Appalachian conclave, right? They had about 60 bosses, 60, 80 bosses there at that conclave. That’s big. Believe it or not, while the big war was going on, Al Capone had a meeting on his dime in Boston, I believe. Guess who was there? I’m sorry, about 500. They had 500 mafia guys there. And there was no publicity about it. Not what happened later on in Appalachian, New York. So here you have, you imagine, 500 mob guys meeting at a hotel in Boston, and it wasn’t covered by the media at that time. But that’s part and parcel of what Nicola was involved with, some of the people he was involved with at that time. So what happens to him later on? What stirs him to write this book? [28:44] What happened was, toward the latter part of his life, he starts to talk about a couple of women that he was involved with. He talks about, I will put all the paperwork so you can actually hear the words that he talks about. He talks about how he met this woman named Maria. [29:08] He meets this woman named Maria, and he really captures his imagination. He doesn’t talk about that he had been married, that he also had a child, too. He had a child named Maria. So he meets this woman named Maria, and she’s really stricken with him. And to the point where she tells him that she’s so smitten with him that I’m going to read what, He tried to pose as a jewelry salesman so that he could meet her. He says, I suspected that you weren’t a jewelry salesman. She says to him, she said, you did. She whispered in my ear, lightly touching my earlobe with her lips. She used to finish by kissing me on the mouth wild with love. There were moments of passion that our bodies would entwine, palpitating with love, and which would later be abandoned with languid reproves. So that’s the sort of language he used. And at one point, he talks about how he liked going to her apartment to visit her when he was feeling edgy. [30:28] You’re a mobster. You feel a little bit edgy. You’re always looking over your shoulder, right? So he was happy to go to her apartment to calm down, and she would talk to him. And she says, Mary was happy to see me. She used to tell me, Nick, that’s how she called me, you are an extraordinary man. You don’t know with what fear and respect those Boers, the Shacatani, speaker view. The Shacatani were the people of Sciacca, Sicily, that were mobsters that he associated with. It says, your name impresses everyone. Any woman alive brought to live among this rabble would be happy to be your co-worker, to wear men’s clothes, and at the necessary time of the occasion should present itself, to embrace a Tommy gun and die in your arm. [31:26] So that’s the sort of romantic verbiage that they used at the time. So what happened, too, was he sees her, then eventually he meets another woman named Dorothy. [31:41] She professes herself to be Irish to begin with, but then he finds out later as she tells him, I’m actually not Irish. I come from a Sicilian family. But she just wanted to impress him somehow to get his eyes. She was very attracted to him, to this woman, Dorothy. What happened was they have a love affair with each other, and Nikola, this is to the very end of his story here, Nikola had been involved with a gambling house in New York, and the gambling house was starting to go underwater. He needed money, so it was proposed to him by another mobster by the name of Jacono to do some narcotic trafficking down in Texas and Louisiana. [32:31] He gets the permission to do so from his bosses. Look, Nicola was still a roving asset, and he had to get permission to do things so that he could acquire enough money for investments, so he can give them money back, so he gets permission to do this. He starts getting involved with the drug trafficking trade in Texas and Louisiana, and he sees that he’s being tailed a lot. He doesn’t understand why. He says, out of nowhere, the police would show up. How did they find out? At the same time, he was trying to contact Dorothy. Before he left, Dorothy asked him. [33:11] Will I be seeing you much? She said, I don’t know. I could be gone six months or a year. She says that she’s so heartbroken about this. And he leaves and he gets involved with the drug trade. And he’s asking these questions about how is it that the cops are showing up at these different places where we are trying to transact business? What happens was he tried to contact Dorothy at different places where she said that she could be contacted. She didn’t get back to him. So he puts two and two together. He thinks that he believes that Dorothy was actually a treasury agent. She had been spying on him, that she was the Mata Hari, so to speak, and was feeding the information to the feds. to where he was. So what happened was they indicted him, got out on bail on $18,000 bail, and he was urged to be a stowaway to get to Italy. So he stows away on a ship, gets back to Italy. And interestingly enough, Gary. [34:23] He starts at World War II erupts, and he becomes an asset to the Allies in Sicily. He’s given them intelligence about what’s happening in Sicily with the mafia in Sicily. And the mafia in Sicily did not want to have anything to do with Mussolini. Mussolini was trying to bag on them big time. He’s trying to shut them down. And Nicola helped the Allies with intelligence reports on what was going on in Sicily. And that was a big part of what he was doing. And then later on, it wasn’t until 1963 or so, and he was still getting involved. He was still getting involved with the mafia at that time, doing criminal activities. But he wasn’t welcomed as much as he had been before. But he was still involved with them. What happened was the 60s came around, and he started writing his memoirs. He was an older man, and he started writing these things down on paper. [35:28] Which is what a mafia member does not do. You do not speak a word, let alone try to write it on paper. Otherwise, it’s a penalty of death. So he wrote all of these memoirs down in 1963. It got published that he was sentenced to death. But one of the mafia families in Sicily refused to do it. They refused to do it because he had a lot of respect. Members of the mafia in the U.S. And also in Sicily respected Gintilian very much because he had this godfather air about him. He had the Vita Corleone air about him. I will talk to you, and I will come up with a solution for you. Everybody’s calmed down by that. They’re not so excited and bloodthirsty when they hear that. They sense him to death. The mafia family in Sicily refused to carry out the hit. The book was published, and he lived the rest of his life in peace. He died peacefully as an old man in Sicily in 1970. Wow, 1970. That’s a hell of a story. That is a hell of a story, man. [36:44] I’m telling you you can make a movie out of this man’s life oh yeah literally the way he was jumping around from one place to the other he was really a maverick rogue sort of individual who is who did not have a higher education about him but was extremely intelligent and was able to use this and that’s what that’s why they respected him a lot of these individuals that he dealt with were boars and uneducated individuals to begin with. Many of them were highly intelligent. And as my dad always told me, his son, these individuals, especially the mob bosses, they could have been tycoons of finance. They could have been industrial tycoons, wizards of finance and economics and Wall Street if they had wanted to, but they did not want to. So they choose a life of crime. [37:40] Interesting. I’ll tell you what, that’s a hell of a story, Gary. That is a really cool story. I’d always wanted to do this guy’s story, mainly because I knew of his Kansas City connection. I talked to our local FBI agent here that has chronicled a lot of these things, got a book out there about those early days, and he’s excited. He’s looking forward to listening to this. So I really appreciate you coming on the show. Gary Clemente, GP Clemente. His father was Peter Clemente, the first Sicilian-born member of the FBI Top Hoodlum Squad. And Gary has been translating his works, is what he did. He wrote down a lot of stuff, and Gary’s been translating. He’s putting it down to a series of books. It’s called, let’s see, it is Untold Mafia Tales from the FBI Top Hoodlum Squad, I believe. I think I can read that on your event there. He does speaking events, too. If you’re back east, you’re from New York City area. Where are you from? Where do you speak at? I originally grew up in New Jersey, not too far from one of the Sopranos guys. [38:47] In New Jersey, my father was working at the New York office at that time and decided to buy a home in the suburbs of New York, not too far away from New York City. So that’s where I grew up. On the right side of the track. If somebody wants to get a hold of you to do a speaking engagement, though, how do they find you? They can get a hold of me at my email, gpclementibooks, gpclementibooks, at gmail.com. And I’m also on X, gpclementi16, I’m also on X. And the book is available on Amazon. You can pick it up there, and it’s doing quite well. I’m looking forward to the next one coming out next month. Yeah, I bet you’re looking forward to that. Yeah, and if you get his book, be sure and give him a review. Give him a good review on whatever review you want to give, but give him a good review. Please. [39:48] Because it helps these guys a lot to get a good review. More people will buy their book. And we, guys, we all want to encourage these mob historians. And Gary has done a real great job at chronicling the history, not just the blood and guts. We all like the blood and guts stories and the murder stories, but the entire history. You were talking about them being out in Pueblo, Colorado, and I just couldn’t figure that out. I just talked to a woman whose ancestors were in Pueblo, Colorado, connected to the mob out there. And she said that what it is, there was lead mines out there, and a lot of Sicilians were miners, and they went to that southern Colorado area to work in the mines. And I know we have a large group of Sicilian populations in southwest Missouri where there were strip mines down there for coal. And it’s a huge family of them down there. And so it’s, you know, where the work was is where people went to, and that’s how they ended up spread around the country. [40:45] That’s right. There were many Sicilians in San Francisco, Louisiana. Believe it or not, when Sicilians were in Louisiana when they first immigrated to Louisiana, there were several of them that had been home because they were looked upon as less than human. And the locals did not want them infiltrating their population. So it didn’t just happen to African-Americans, it also happened to Sicilians. Yeah, I’ve read about that story. So it’s an immigrant experience. Any group of immigrants that comes to the United States at first. [41:25] You know, the greater population, the English and the Irish and the Germans already have the good jobs and they keep them pushed out. And they have a different language, totally different language. And everybody else is speaking English. And so it’s really hard for an immigrant population to move in. That’s why they have to start businesses. And along with them, they brought the mafia. They had brought this tradition of the mafia that is shadow government, if you will, for them. Well, that’s true. And I must add that even though I talk a lot about the mafia and the world of the mafia, the Cosa Nostra, that my father was involved with, My father would be the first to tell you he was not proud of the criminal association and organization that these people started. He was not proud of it in any way. In fact, if you read my first book, you will read the part about how my father confronted Carlo Gambino and told him to his face that he was not proud of what Gambino and his associates were doing. And the bad name that they were bringing upon other Italian and Sicilians that had come to this country, like my grandparents, that work hard and made something of themselves. It’s not something to be proud of. Fascinating, interesting, but it’s not something that I’m certainly not proud of either. But pretty amazing, considering these people could have done something more honest. [42:51] But they chose not to. That’s a whole other story and movie to talk about. Yeah, it is. Gary Clemente, I really appreciate you coming on the show. Thanks so much. You’re welcome. Thank you, Gary. Great being here. Gary to Gary. Gary to Gary, yeah. You know, they don’t name Gary anymore. Gary, little kids, Gary anymore. That was back right after the war in the early 50s. Everybody was named Gary. I had three Garys, I think, in my class. I tell you, I went to this movie with my grandkids. It’s called Zootopia. And they had a character in there called Gary the Snake. [43:27] So that’s what we’ve devolved down to, We’re nothing but snakes, Gary Guys, I really appreciate y’all tuning in And don’t forget to like and subscribe And down in the show notes, I’m going to have links to this stuff And I’ve got links to some of the stuff that I sell My books and DVDs If you want to rent them, I’ve got a link to that You can rent my DVDs for $1.99 So thanks a lot, guys. Okay, Gary, thank you. Hey, thank you, Gary. Thank you very much. Really appreciate that you’re having me on. Really enjoy it. Anything I can do for you, please let me know. Anything I can do. You know that I’ve got your endorsement on the back of the book, right? I didn’t remember. I do so much sometimes, Gary, that I forget all what I do good. Yeah, I’ve got your endorsement on the back of the book. I gave you a good endorsement. All right. The second book, the one that’s coming out, the one that’s coming out, we’ll have the same thing on there. You got some author blurbs? You got enough author blurbs on there? Yeah, yeah. Your endorsement will be on the back of the next book, too. Okay, all right, all right. All right, Gary. Thanks a lot, my friend. Hey, thank you, buddy. Anything in Kansas City. When the other book comes out, I’ll let you know. Yeah, let me know. We’ll do that show here in a couple of months. Okay? Hey, thank you very much. Appreciate it. All right, all right. Stay safe. Okay, buddy. Take care. Bye-bye.

Former agent Larry Wansley, one of the FBI's first long-term deep undercover agents, reviews the early years of the FBI's undercover program when, starting in1973 he and a handful of agents, including the equally legendary Joe Pistone, began using the investigative technique forbidden by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. They were part of a behavioral sciences study to establish standards for UC Agent selection qualifications and operations. Larry also reviews his most life-threatening assignment, which took place in rural Texas. He went undercover to prove Tom Welch, the elected Sheriff of Gregg County, Texas, was essentially a redneck southern crime boss. Welch and his deputies were charged and convicted of conspiracy to commit murder, civil rights violations, and facilitating illegal gambling. Larry is the author of Tough Streets, Rough Skies and Sunday Sidelines. His memoir covers not only his time as an FBI agent but also his post-FBI career with the Dallas Cowboys and American Airlines. Larry served in the FBI for 10 years. Check out episode show notes, photos, and related articles: https://jerriwilliams.com/392-larry-wansley-early-days-of-undercover-program-corrupt-texas-sheriff/ Join my Reader Team to get the FBI Reading Resource - Books about the FBI, written by FBI agents, the 20 clichés about the FBI Reality Checklist, and keep up to date on the FBI in books, TV, and movies via my monthly email. Join here. http://eepurl.com/dzCCmL    Buy me a coffee - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/JerriWilliams Check out my FBI books, non-fiction and crime fiction, available as audiobooks, ebooks and paperbacks wherever books are sold. https://jerriwilliams.com/books/

Tune in to The Other Side of Midnight with Lionel for a wild, late-night ride through breaking news, deep-state secrets, and the unexplained. This episode kicks off with live updates on a catastrophic, fatal collision between an Air Canada jet and a rescue truck at a closed-down LaGuardia Airport. But the midnight weirdness quickly takes over as Lionel and his callers dive into the bizarre tale of a talking zoo lion, and a disturbing, unexplainable string of vanishing scientists in cutting-edge fields like fusion and aerospace. The rabbit hole goes even deeper with passionate debates on unresolved historical mysteries, from questioning the Charles Manson narrative and the Son of Sam accomplices, to a massive deep-dive into the mob, J. Edgar Hoover, and the JFK assassination. Question the official story, embrace the weird, and join the conversation! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the 1970s, Senator Frank Church, a Democrat from Idaho, stuck his neck out–unlike members of Congress today–to take on the real deep state–the FBI and CIA carrying out LSD mind-control experiments on Americans, terrorizing activists, and committing assassinations with the mafia, including against witnesses. The Church Committee Report, based on real Congressional investigations, not just performative show trials, shows us how to confront and dismantle the lawless, mass-murdering MAGA regime.  Historians Matthew Guariglia, a senior policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Brian Hochman, the Hubert J. Cloke Endowed Director of the American Studies Program at Georgetown University, are out with the definitive account, The Church Committee Report: Revelations from the Bombshell 1970s Investigation into the National Security State. They walk us through the decades of U.S. presidents of both major parties allowing a surveillance state to expand, running dangerous operations against the American people. The most chilling legacy is not the cartoonish villainy of poison darts and imperial assassinations, but the insidious cruelty of undermining activists. So pay attention. Don't let anyone–even a well-meaning ally–weaponize purity tests to gatekeep the Fourth American Revolution. Stopping the MAGA threat requires all of us building together in coalition. Based on the Church Committee's own findings, we know exactly what tools the FBI and CIA use to dismantle movements. They have very specific, terrifyingly effective strategies to divide and conquer We the People.  Here is what they do when they want to destroy a movement from the inside out: Snitch Jacketing: This is psychological warfare. They plant false information–maybe they leave a map or a weapon in an activist's car–specifically to make you think your friend is a police informant. They leverage paranoia to make us eat our own. Fabricated Dissent: They create fake zines, fake newsletters, and fake correspondence to manufacture feuds between groups. They want the anti-war movement fighting the labor movement so neither fights the state. The "Friendly" Infiltrator: Watch out for the guy who shows up out of nowhere with coffee and too many questions. They send plainclothes agents into our resilience communities to map our networks and identify leaders and how they operate. Entrapment: They find an "easy mark" in a group, push them toward violence, then arrest everyone for a plot the FBI invented. They manufacture terrorism. The "Suicide" Strategy: J. Edgar Hoover's FBI sent a letter to Martin Luther King Jr., threatening to expose his private life and pressuring him to kill himself. They try to break you psychologically so that you back down and disappear. According to historians Guariglia and Hochman, activists under siege were aware of the threats long before the Church Committee exposed them, and developed resilience strategies we can learn from today:  Reject the "All-Powerful" Myth: Don't give a lawless regime a bigger shadow than it actually has–that is what they want: to live inside your head. When you start believing the government is an all-knowing, all-powerful shadow monster, you are doing their work for them. Paranoia is a tool of the oppressor.  Build a Culture of Care: The only way snitch-jacketing works is if we don't know each other. Build deep, resilient relationships. When we take care of each other, their wedges don't work. Sousveillance (Watch from Below): Do not rely on police body cams; those tapes have a magical habit of being turned off when they're needed. Film everything. Control the narrative with your own evidence, eyes, and ears. Divest from Big Tech: Google, Amazon, and Apple are regime collaborators. We need to build our own infrastructure from high-tech mesh networks to low-tech zines. If you rely on the master's tools, they will shut you down, as we're seeing now with TikTok's mass-censorship under the new owners–MAGA donors, the Ellisons. Get Educated: Practice tech hygiene. Go to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and use their Surveillance Self-Defense guide. Learn how to encrypt, what to carry, and how to stay safe. We're fighting a generational struggle, but we outnumber them. As Andrea's film Mr. Jones reminds us: The truth cannot be killed. Stay safe, vigilant, and united–that is how we win. Join our community of listeners and get bonus shows, ad free listening, group chats with other listeners, ways to shape the show, invites to exclusive events like our Monday political salons at 4pm ET over Zoom, and more! Discounted annual memberships are available. Become a Democracy Defender at Patreon.com/Gaslit EVENTS AT GASLIT NATION: The Gaslit Nation Outreach Committee discusses how to talk to the MAGA cult: join on Patreon. Minnesota Signal group for Gaslit Nation listeners in the state to find each other: join on Patreon. Vermont Signal group for Gaslit Nation listeners in the state to find each other: join on Patreon. Arizona-based listeners launched a Signal group for others in the state to connect: join on Patreon. Indiana-based listeners launched a Signal group for others in the state to join: join on Patreon. Florida-based listeners are going strong meeting in person. Be sure to join their Signal group: join on Patreon. Gaslit Nation Salons take place Mondays 4pm ET over Zoom and are recorded and shared on Patreon.com/Gaslit for our community