Podcasts about harry s truman

Queen Elizabeth II reigned for seven decades, meeting 13 American presidents and quietly becoming one of the most enduring figures in the U.S.-British relationship. In the new book, 'The Queen and Her Presidents, The Hidden Hand that Shaped History,' veteran political journalist Susan Page explores how Elizabeth used diplomacy, personal relationships, and the subtle power of the monarchy to influence presidents from Harry Truman to Donald Trump.

Thanks to AG1 for sponsoring this video! Head to https://ag1.yt.link/5vFDx0N to save an extra 20% on your first subscription order of AG1 Next Gen, AG1 Pro, or AG1 Essentials with code BACK2ROUTINE, for a limited time. Kansas City might not be the first place that comes to mind when you think about RV destinations—but it should be. This week, we're taking you to one of our favorite cities in the country and sharing how to visit Kansas City by RV. Abby grew up in KC, we've spent a lot of time there over the years, and we're covering some of our favorite places to camp, eat, explore, and experience the city. We start with one of our favorite RV camping options near Kansas City, then head into Independence for Harry S. Truman history before exploring Union Station, Crown Center, the National WWI Museum and Memorial, Country Club Plaza, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Swope Park, the Kansas City Zoo, the West Bottoms, and more. And of course, you can't talk about Kansas City without talking about barbecue. We share two very different KC barbecue recommendations—from the old-school institution Arthur Bryant's to the more modern Q39—plus one of our favorite spots for live Kansas City jazz. Then, in this week's black tank and fresh tank, Jason has some thoughts about just how BIG fifth wheels are becoming after getting a look at the new Brinkley Model R—and one design choice he thinks other RV manufacturers should be paying attention to.  @JoshtheRVNerd  's tour of the  @BrinkleyRV  Model R: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44dRR9ZzyvI Get links and more in the show notes at https://RVMiles.com/424 Support RV Miles and independent RV journalism

This week we talk about money policies, yield curves, and government bonds.We also discuss the Fed, the Treasury Department, and a WWII accord between them.Recommended Book: Paved Paradise by Henry GrabarTranscriptIn April of 1942, a few months after the United States entered World War 2, the US Treasury Department asked the Federal Reserve to help it borrow a truly staggering amount of money, and as cheaply as possible. The Fed agreed, committing itself to holding short-term Treasury bill rates at three-eighths of 1%, while also capping the yield on long-term government bonds at 2.5%.This was a type of yield curve control. Rather than allowing the market to decide how much interest the government would pay, the Fed decided that price and promised to enforce it.That helped finance the war, because the Treasury knew its borrowing costs wouldn't spiral out of control at a moment when it needed to spend unprecedented sums on ships, planes, weapons, soldiers, and all the other machinery of an ongoing global conflict.The downside was that the Fed lost control of an important monetary policy lever.Bond prices and yields move in opposite directions, so keeping yields below a certain level meant the Fed had to stand ready to buy bonds whenever their prices dropped. It couldn't decide in advance how many it would buy, or how much money it would create in the process. The market would thus forth decide that, instead.Consequently, the Fed became, in some ways, an extension of the Treasury's debt-management operation, its inflation-related responsibilities made secondary to the government's need for cheap financing.That arrangement persisted after the war ended, despite the return of inflation, and President Harry Truman's administration pushed to maintain it during the Korean War, as well.Fed officials resisted, though, with inflation running at more than 8%, and after a very public, very contentious standoff, on March 4, 1951, the Treasury and the Fed announced that they had reached what became known as the Treasury-Fed Accord.That agreement did not make the Fed independent all at once, but it established the principle underlying the modern relationship between these institutions: the Treasury manages government borrowing, while the Fed sets monetary policy based on inflation and employment, not on how much that policy costs the government.The market, in other words, would once again be allowed to decide the price of long-term US debt.What I'd like to talk about today is what happens when that price goes up, what's pushing long-term US borrowing costs toward levels we haven't seen in decades, and why two people appointed by the same president are pulling in opposite directions on this issue.—The Federal Reserve's primary interest-rate lever is the federal funds rate, which is the overnight rate banks charge each other to borrow money. The Fed currently targets a range of 3.5 to 3.75 percent for that rate, and while it has other tools, this is the number people are usually talking about when they say the Fed raised, cut, or held rates.The Fed does not directly set the yield on 10- or 30-year Treasuries, though.Those securities are sold at auction and then traded in a huge secondary market, and their yields reflect a combination of what investors expect inflation to look like, where they think short-term rates will go over the life of the bond, and what's called the term premium.The term premium is basically extra compensation for uncertainty. If you lock up your money for 30 years instead of rolling over short-term debt, you accept the risk that inflation, growth, government policy, and other variables will change in ways that make your bond less valuable over that thirty year period. The more uncertain the future seems, the more compensation you're likely to demand.And again, when demand for a bond falls, its price falls and its yield rises. When we say yields are rising, that means borrowers have to offer investors, the people and institutions giving them the money they want to borrow, more money, more interest, to convince them to buy those bonds.That doesn't only affect the government. The 10-year Treasury serves as something like a reference rate for the entire economy, influencing mortgages, business loans, and the value of long-lived assets.As of September 3 of 2026, the average US 30-year fixed mortgage rate was 6.71%, up from 6.5% a year earlier. That increase is the result of yield increases in the bond market.Long-term Treasury yields have been climbing for much of 2026, and that climb accelerated over the summer.The 30-year yield reached about 5.31 percent on August 17, its highest level since 2007. A few days earlier, the Treasury sold 30-year bonds at a yield of 5.216%, the highest borrowing cost at one of those auctions since 2001.The 10-year yield briefly hit about 4.81% this past week, its highest level since early 2025, and ended Friday at about 4.78%. The two-year yield, which tends to track expectations about contemporary Fed policy more closely, ended at about 4.37%.There isn't one clean cut reason for these yield bumps. Instead, there are a bunch of forces pushing in roughly the same direction.The first is government borrowing. The Congressional Budget Office now expects a roughly 2.1 trillion dollar federal deficit this fiscal year, which is 200 billion dollars more than it projected in February. Covering that gap means issuing more debt, and more supply generally means the Treasury has to offer a better return to attract enough buyers.The second is competition from corporations, especially technology companies borrowing to build AI infrastructure and data centers.The Dallas Fed estimates that AI-related investment-grade bond issuance—these companies borrowing money, in the form of bonds, to help build more data centers and other AI-enabling stuff—could total around $300 billion this year, creating long-duration debt equivalent to about an eighth of what the Treasury is expected to issue. Some of the companies selling this debt have extremely strong balance sheets and high credit ratings, so investors who want safe-ish, long-term bonds suddenly have a lot more options, and the US government has to compete with that for a finite pool of investor resources.Third, oil prices have surged following renewed strikes and attacks around the Strait of Hormuz, with US benchmark prices recently climbing above $90 a barrel. More expensive energy can goose inflation across the economy, which makes locking in a fixed return for 10 or 30 years less appealing, because those yields might not keep up with the practical devaluation of the dollar.Fourth, that aforementioned term premium has risen as investors ask to be paid more for uncertainty related to inflation, deficits, geopolitics, and future Treasury issuance.And fifth, the pool of buyers is changing. Foreign investors still own trillions of dollars in Treasuries, but private foreign demand for notes and bonds fell sharply in June, even as corporate bonds attracted more of that finite sum of money.A big shift we seem to be seeing here is that some investors seem to be judging Treasuries less as a bet on the next Fed meeting, and more as a long-term bet on whether the US political system can manage its finances. And that shift is showing up at an awkward moment for the two institutions involved in the 1951 Accord.Kevin Warsh, who became Fed chair in May, used his August 28 speech at Jackson Hole to say that although inflation expectations remain anchored, the Fed still has work to do if underlying inflation is not moving toward its target quickly enough.Markets read that as a warning that a rate hike could be coming, and the unexpectedly strong August jobs report reinforced that interpretation: employers added 162,000 jobs, far more than economists anticipated, while estimates for June and July were revised upward.The Treasury Department, meanwhile, is moving in the opposite direction.On August 19, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that the government would at least double the size of its long-term bond buybacks, from a maximum of 2 billion dollars to at least 4 billion dollars per operation, beginning September 9 and continuing through November 4.The stated purpose is to improve liquidity, buying older, less frequently traded 10- to 30-year securities. But buying long-term bonds also reduces the supply available to investors, boosting prices and putting downward pressure on yields, which is why Bessent has referred to the approach as a “Treasury twist.”The scale is small in the context of a $40 trillion national debt, and analysts have described it as more signal than substance. It is nonetheless a striking signal: one Trump appointee is telling markets that higher short-term rates may be necessary to control inflation, while another is using the Treasury's balance sheet to push long-term rates in the other direction.These jobs, which again, were separated in 1951, are working against each other. And this matters, first, because long-term government debt is the foundation upon which a lot of other prices are built.When a 30-year Treasury yields more than 5%, companies refinancing debt have to pay more, commercial real estate becomes harder to finance, mortgages become more expensive, and investors have less reason to pay extremely high prices for stocks based on profits those companies might earn many years from now.It also matters because interest on the federal debt has become one of the government's largest expenses. Gross interest expense reached about $1.17 trillion during the first ten months of fiscal 2026, up about 15% from the same period last year. The somewhat narrower CBO measure of net interest reached $963 billion over that span, roughly level with Medicare spending and greater than defense spending.This creates a potentially self-reinforcing loop: higher yields increase the cost of servicing the debt, higher interest costs expand the deficit, larger deficits require more borrowing, and more borrowing can put further upward pressure on yields.Economists use the term fiscal dominance to describe the point at which government financing needs start to constrain monetary policy, pushing the central bank to keep rates lower than it otherwise would, or to buy government debt, even if doing so undermines its effort to control inflation.The US is not necessarily at that point, but this is exactly the kind of pressure the 1951 Accord was meant to prevent.As with everything government money-related, there's also a global dimension to this shift.For decades, Japanese banks, insurers, pension funds, and other institutions bought foreign bonds in part because yields at home were so low. On September 1, though, Japan's 10-year government bond yield touched 3% for the first time since 1996.Japan's government has more debt relative to the size of its economy than any other wealthy country, and it assumed a 3% long-term rate when calculating debt-service costs for its current budget. Rising above that level would strain its finances, but those higher yields also give Japanese investors more reason to keep their money at home.That doesn't mean Japanese institutions will dump all their Treasuries. Currency-hedging costs and the specific needs of different investors complicate that calculation. But when a major source of relatively steady demand becomes more price-sensitive, the marginal buyer of US debt has to be paid more to invest.Finally, the Treasury market itself has become somewhat more fragile.The amount of debt in circulation has grown far faster than the balance sheets of the dealers that traditionally absorb buying and selling. Hedge funds have filled some of that gap using highly leveraged strategies, including something called the cash-futures basis trade.Fed researchers estimate that these positions reached about $830 billion by September 2025, representing 35% of hedge funds' long Treasury exposure. These trades can provide useful liquidity when markets are calm, but because they rely on enormous amounts of borrowed money to capture tiny price differences, they can also unwind pretty quickly when volatility spikes.That sort of unwind contributed to the Treasury-market seizure in March of 2020, and a different leveraged hedge-fund strategy added to turbulence in April of 2025.The assets treated as the world's safest and most liquid can still become difficult to sell when everyone needs cash at the same time, in other words.The next few weeks should partially clarify what's actually driving this unusual market.The expanded Treasury buybacks begin the day after this episode goes live, September 9. Producer-price inflation data arrives on September 10, consumer-price data on September 11, and the Fed meets on September 15 and 16. The Bank of Japan follows on September 17 and 18, when it may increase its policy rate from 1% to around 1.25%.If the Fed hikes and long-term yields fall, that could indicate investors view the move as credible inflation-fighting: short-term borrowing becomes more expensive, but the term premium shrinks because the distant future seems less inflationary.If the Fed holds after a soft inflation report and short-term yields fall while the 30-year barely moves, that would suggest the long end is being driven by deficits, debt supply, oil prices, corporate competition, and global demand more than Fed policy.And if the buybacks begin but long-term yields continue to climb, that would demonstrate the limits of debt-management policy in a market this large. The Treasury could respond by issuing more short-term and less long-term debt, reducing immediate borrowing costs, though that would also mean refinancing more frequently and taking on the risk that rates remain high.It could also draw down some of the around $950 billion in its account at the Fed to fund larger buybacks, but that cash also serves as a buffer against the debt ceiling, which the government is currently expected to reach sometime in 2027. Spending the buffer now would mean rebuilding it later, and rebuilding it would require issuing even more debt.Back in 1951, the Treasury and the Fed reached an agreement that the central bank should not be required to make government borrowing cheap, and that the price of long-term debt should be allowed to reflect what the market believed that debt was worth.Right now, the market is rendering its verdict, and that verdict is that lending the United States money for 30 years has become substantially more expensive. Now we wait to see what Washington decides to do about it.Show Noteshttps://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/treasury-fed-accordhttps://www.brookings.edu/articles/what-is-the-treasury-fed-accord-of-1951-and-why-is-it-important/https://www.federalreserve.gov/data/three-factor-nominal-term-structure-model.htmhttps://www.freddiemac.com/pmmshttps://www.cbo.gov/publication/61983https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/interest-expense-on-the-public-debt-outstanding/interest-expense-on-the-public-debt-outstandinghttps://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/debt-to-the-penny/debt-to-the-pennyhttps://www.dallasfed.org/research/economics/2026/0210-searls-aifinancinghttps://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0606https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0607https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/warsh20260828a.htmhttps://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.htmhttps://apnews.com/article/1af16359af43eb8abc66445465f633c8https://apnews.com/article/775d7cf741349c7c8e689c0beb57f074https://apnews.com/article/a27a8d3651ff810b25c610d3e1b6259dhttps://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/decomposing-hedge-funds-u-s-treasury-exposures-20260622.htmlhttps://www.imf.org/en/publications/fandd/issues/2026/03/safeguarding-the-treasury-market-jeremy-steinhttps://www.investing.com/news/economy-news/japans-benchmark-bond-yield-rises-to-3-for-first-time-in-30-years-4883532https://www.boj.or.jp/en/mopo/mpmsche_minu/index.htmhttps://bipartisanpolicy.org/article/when-will-we-reach-the-debt-limit-again/https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financing-the-government/quarterly-refunding/most-recent-quarterly-refunding-documents/https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/fomccalendars.htmhttps://www.bls.gov/schedule/2026/09_sched.htmhttps://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-markets-a975877a-ddce-4ea0-a735-4b460d37af90.htmlhttps://www.ft.com/content/c96c25c1-b27c-4c08-a2ba-21821b39dd78https://www.axios.com/2026/08/19/rates-treasury-borrowing-bessent This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit letsknowthings.substack.com/subscribe

(1) Israel Watch 9/6/26: We renew "tit-for-tat" between the U.S. and Iran. And we discuss the propaganda war with another fake news story about Israel closing Christian schools, which they did not. (2) Feminist Founder Has Died: Gloria Steinem. We provide a little history (from a left wing media perspective) compared with Scripture AND the fact that Gloria was a C.I.A. asset. We discuss Harry Truman's intentions for the C.I.A., when he founded it and his Washington Post article one month after the assassination of JFK. (3) Apostasy Update: Drag "preachers" in the United Methodist churches preaches the "Gospel of Stardust" similar to that preached by Neil DeGrasse Tyson. (4) Vice President J.D. Vance makes clear that he is not a born again believer in the Gospel. (5) On A Lighter Note: VP Vance sadly also follows the culture feminization of the English language pronouncing "and" as "an-T" with a hard T instead of a hard D. https://bbfohio.com

Laci and Matt turn in their longest podcast ever to talk about Oppenheimer... and honestly, it could have been twice as long. There's so much to say about this movie, which, after spending the summer consuming the man's movies, it's pretty easy to call his best film, and one of the best films of the 21st century. In the history segment, we go through the life and legacy of the real J. Robert Oppenheimer and try to parse what drew Nolan to him. In some ways, Nolan's quotes about Oppenheimer the man and the movie are directly contradicted by what his movie seems to be saying. And that only makes this miracle of a film all the more fascinating. In the movie discussion, we go as fast as we can through the three-hour running time that breezes by. Film critic Bilge Ebiri said Oppenheimer is "an action movie about scientists talking" and that's about right. It's about some pretty dark shit. But it also might be the most entertaining movie ever made.  One last time, THANK YOU to the amazing Wade Hymel and TJ Barends for helping us produce our Summer of Nolan theme song!    Watch this Oppenheimer podcast in full on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Gb65tOc4kBQ Get more 1-Week Rental on Patreon: https://patreon.com/1weekrental  Next episode (Sept. 11, 2026): Practical Magic (1998)!   The Summer of Nolan is our summer 2026 miniseries covering the movie career of Christopher Nolan through nine movies on the main feed (plus additional episodes on the Patreon!), presented in chronological order, starting with Memento and going through Oppenheimer. And don't be surprised if our old pal Odysseus drops by to tell us about his long journey home to his wife.   Time stamps: 00:03:25 — Opening thoughts on Oppenheimer 00:14:35 — History segment: The life and legacy of J. Robert Oppenheimer; the long development of a movie adaptation of the Oppenheimer biography American Prometheus; casting Cillian Murphy; reception and success of Oppenheimer  01:09:15 — Movie discussion + Oppenheimer film analysis 03:33:15 — Star ratings, final review of Oppenheimer, and ranking Christopher Nolan's movies   OPPENHEIMER (2023) was written and directed by Christopher Nolan. Based on AMERICAN PROMETHUS by Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin. Starring Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr., Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Florence Pugh, Alden Ehrenreich, Jason Clarke, Josh Hartnett, David Krumholtz, Benny Safdie, Dylan Arnold, Tom Conti, and Gary Oldman as Harry S. Truman. Plus a million other people.   Sources: "The Nolan Variations: The Movies, Mysteries, and Marvels of Christopher Nolan" by Tom Shone (2020) - https://amzn.to/4yiNtw0  "American Prometheus: The Triumph & Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer" by Kai Bird & Martin Sherwin (2005) - https://amzn.to/4cvnmIQ "Christopher Nolan and the Contradictions of J. Robert Oppenheimer" by Dennise Overbye | The New York Times (2023) - https://bit.ly/4gnJFkZ  "A nuclear legacy in Los Alamos" by Alicia Inez Guzmán | Searchlight New Mexico (2024) - https://bit.ly/4c5Hr8C   "In 'Oppenheimer,' Cillian Murphy leads a Nolan epic" by Lindsey Bahr | The Associated Press (2023) - https://bit.ly/4qxUiq3  "An Action Movie About Scientists Talking" by Bilge Ebiri | Vulture (2023) - https://bit.ly/4qCwi5e  "Why Did Oppenheimer Say "Now I am Death, the Destroyer of Worlds" and What Did It Mean?" by James Grebey | SyFy.com (2023) - https://bit.ly/4hQtzCJ  "The Decision To Drop The Bomb" 1965 NBC News Documentary - https://youtu.be/lb13ynu3Iac    Transcript: https://1weekrentalpod.com/2026/09/oppenheimer/#transcript  Artwork by Laci Roth.   Matt has two monthly spin-off podcasts!  PodJob: A James Bond Podcast on Apple Podcast (https://bit.ly/4jRL2K1), Spotify (https://bit.ly/4a8jM6E), and YouTube (https://youtube.com/@podjob007). The Sign Post Up Ahead: A Twilight Zone Recap Podcast on Apple Podcast (https://bit.ly/4vtO6jG), Spotify (https://bit.ly/4w1qDat), and YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@TheSignPostUpAhead).   Music by Rural Route Nine. Listen to their album The Joy of Averages on Spotify (https://bit.ly/48WBtUa), Apple Music (https://bit.ly/3Q6kOVC), or YouTube (https://bit.ly/3MbU6tC).   Songs by Rural Route Nine in this episode: "Summer of Nolan" - https://youtube.com/shorts/CAIzthDLrT8  "Winston-Salem" - https://youtu.be/-acMutUf8IM "Snake Drama" - https://youtu.be/xrzz8_2Mqkg "The Bible Towers of Bluebonnet" - https://youtu.be/k7wlxTGGEIQ    The "Summer of Nolan" theme song was written by Matt Stokes. Produced, engineered, mixed, and mastered by TJ Barends. Performed by: TJ Barends - backing vocals Wade Hymel - drums, percussion, and backing vocals Laci Roth - vocals Matt Stokes - vocals, guitar, and bass   Follow 1-Week Rental, a movie podcast: Twitter: @1weekrental | @MattStokes9 | @LRothConcepts Facebook: @1weekrental Instagram: @1weekrental TikTok: @1weekrental | @mattstokes9 Letterboxd: @loadbearinglaci | @mattstokes9 Bluesky: @1weekrental.bsky.social   1-Week Rental used to be Load Bearing Beams.

At 1:15 p.m. on April 12, 1945, Franklin Roosevelt was sitting for a portrait at his cottage in Warm Springs, Georgia, when his face suddenly fell forward. He raised his left hand to his temple and whispered to his cousin Daisy: "I have a terrific pain in the back of my head." He was dead by 3:35. That evening, Harry Truman, a former farmer and failed haberdasher who had been vice president for eighty-two days and had met with Roosevelt only twice, placed his hand on a Bible and became the thirty-third president of the United States. He had never been briefed on the atomic bomb. Thirteen days later, War Secretary Henry Stimson handed him a three-page memo that began: "Within four months we shall in all probability have completed the most terrible weapon ever known in human history, one bomb of which could destroy a whole city." Today's guest is James M. Scott, author of Empire of Ashes: Truman, Hirohito, and the Descent into Total War. We discuss how a Hungarian physicist who did his thinking in the bathtub tracked down Einstein by asking a boy on a Long Island street corner to launch the Manhattan Project, why Oak Ridge, Tennessee, became a secret city of 75,000 people who had no idea what they were building, and how the firebombing of Tokyo killed 105,000 people in a single night months before the atomic bombs fell. We look at why Groves wanted to destroy Kyoto for its two thousand temples and Stimson stopped him because he had honeymooned there, how Japan's military leaders refused to surrender even after two atomic bombs and forced an unprecedented intervention by an emperor who had spent the war collecting marine specimens in a palace while his cities burned, and why a group of young officers assassinated the commander of the Imperial Guards and seized the palace on the eve of surrender in a coup that came within hours of succeeding. Scott argues that the historical record supports Truman's decision but lets the last word belong to the survivors, and to a war minister who committed seppuku wearing the white shirt the emperor had personally given him, with a photograph of his dead son folded on top of his dress uniform.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SONS of LIBERTY Radio with Bradlee Dean They Are Here At the Gates: Sports, Faith, Cultural Conflict, and Constitutional Responsibility Summary Sports, Entertainment, and Civic Priorities Bradley Dean opens the episode by contrasting the passion Americans show for professional and college sports with the level of public engagement he believes is needed to confront political and social wrongdoing. He uses a prerecorded sports-highlight montage as an example of the emotional intensity surrounding games and argues that entertainment can distract citizens from civic responsibility. He repeatedly returns to the idea that people have been "entertained out of their freedoms" and criticizes churches that hold Super Bowl parties or otherwise place sports alongside religious activity. The host frames sports as a form of idolatry when it displaces God, public duty, or moral action. He connects that argument to his call for citizens to organize, protest, and hold government officials accountable. Minnesota State Fair Outreach and Cultural Conflict The live broadcast continues from the Minnesota State Fair, where Bradley describes the Sons of Liberty booth, visitors who have stopped by, and the ministry's 17-year presence at the fair. He says face-to-face participation and public outreach are central to the ministry's work and encourages listeners to visit, subscribe, call in, and become active. Later, he discusses a drag revue at the State Fair and says he contacted management to object. He presents the event as part of a broader effort to normalize conduct he rejects on biblical and moral grounds. The episode also references a bathroom video involving a child and an adult man, which Bradley uses to reinforce his criticism of transgender policies and government actions involving children. Biblical Worldview, Church Responsibility, and Judgment A large portion of the program is built around Bradley's Christian biblical worldview and his criticism of what he calls the modern or professed church. He cites Scripture repeatedly, discusses George Whitefield, Charles Spurgeon, John Wesley, Jeremiah, Romans, Psalms, Matthew, and other biblical passages, and argues that the church is supposed to reprove darkness and act as society's moral compass. He presents repentance, righteous judgment, obedience to God's law, and public action as interconnected responsibilities. The program also includes a church promotion and Lisa Mead's testimonial describing Bradley's Sunday teaching as a return to biblical preaching. Throughout these segments, the host argues that love cannot be separated from moral law or accountability. Government, Constitution, and Public Accountability Bradley repeatedly argues that elected or appointed officials are servants of the people and that citizens have a duty to hold them accountable under the Constitution and law. He references various constitutional articles and sections, criticizes the Patriot Act, attacks political officials and courts, and says government institutions have exceeded delegated authority. He also argues that citizens could correct wrongdoing quickly if large numbers of people acted together. Historical quotations attributed to Elbridge Gerry, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Harry S. Truman, and others are used to connect Christian faith, freedom of speech, and constitutional government. These historical and legal claims are preserved from the transcript and would require independent verification if presented outside the episode as established facts. New York, Muslim Community Patrols, and Assimilation Near the end of the broadcast, Bradley shifts to New York and discusses Muslim police officers, hijabs, Zohran Mamdani, the governor of New York, and Muslim community patrol vehicles. He plays a prerecorded news clip describing patrol cars in Brooklyn that reportedly resemble police vehicles and mentions concerns about Sharia-law enforcement. Bradley interprets these developments as evidence that people he views as foreign or ideologically hostile are attempting to establish their own system within American government rather than assimilate. He also repeats controversial claims about September 11, 2001, government complicity, and political officials. The transcript presents these statements as Bradley's arguments and allegations; several names, figures, and factual assertions remain specifically flagged for verification. Constitution Week and High School Outreach After the radio portion ends, caller Bob from Texas proposes a way for Bradley's educational work to reach federally funded schools during Constitution Week. Bob describes a law requiring schools to hold a Constitution-related program around September 17 and suggests creating a Rumble program that listeners could bring to school boards and principals. Bradley says he has already conducted assembly programs in 366 public high schools and would welcome opportunities to reach many more. He points Bob toward the existing "Equipping the Saints with Bradley Dean" video series while emphasizing the value of being physically present with students after assemblies. The call closes with the two men agreeing to exchange information, and Bradley ends by asking supporters to help fund school outreach and educational programs.

VJ Day (Victory over Japan Day) marks the surrender of Imperial Japan and the end of World War II. It is observed on August 14/15 or September 2, 1945. August 14, 1945: President Harry S. Truman announced Japan's surrender to the United States, sparking massive public celebrations. August 15, 1945: The date the news reached the UK, Canada, and other Allied nations, which officially commemorate the event on this day. September 2, 1945: The formal signing of the surrender documents took place aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, marking the official end of the war. Brought a final close to six years of global conflict following the surrender of Germany three months prior. Led to widespread joy, relief, and large street gatherings in major cities like New York, London, and Toronto. E531. Check out the YouTube version of this episode at https://youtu.be/tF3bbKNzbrI which has accompanying visuals including maps, charts, timelines, photos, illustrations, and diagrams. History Unplugged podcast available at https://amzn.to/4gfK3mA Hiroshima & Nagasaki books available at https://link.amazon/B0bkYDVw8 ENJOY Ad-Free content, Bonus episodes, and Extra materials when joining our growing community on https://patreon.com/markvinet SUPPORT this channel by purchasing any product on Amazon using this FREE entry LINK https://amzn.to/3POlrUD (Amazon gives us credit at NO extra charge to you). Mark Vinet's HISTORICAL JESUS podcast at https://parthenonpodcast.com/historical-jesus Mark's TIMELINE video channel: https://youtube.com/c/TIMELINE_MarkVinet Website: https://markvinet.com/podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mark.vinet.9 X (twitter): https://twitter.com/MarkVinet_HNA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/denarynovels Mark's books: https://amzn.to/3k8qrGM Audio credits: History Unplugged with Scott Rank, What if Japan Hadn’t Surrendered After Nagasaki Sept. 5, 2017 (Parthenon Podcasts, Salem Media Network). Audio & text excerpts reproduced under the Fair Use (Fair Dealings) Legal Doctrine for purposes such as criticism, comment, teaching, education, scholarship, research and news reporting.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The bomb ended the war in one sentence. The real story took five months and a president three weeks into the job.Everybody thinks they know this ending: two cities, two bombs, one date, case closed. James M. Scott has spent twenty years proving otherwise. He's a Pulitzer Prize finalist, New York Times bestseller, and the author of Black Snow, Rampage, Target Tokyo, The War Below, and The Attack on the Liberty (plus Targeted: Beirut, co-written with Jack Carr). He teaches as scholar in residence at the Citadel, leads battlefield tours, and somehow still finds time to write books that make eighty-year-old history feel like it happened last Tuesday.His latest, Empire of Ashes (W. W. Norton), picks up where his last book, Black Snow, left off — and goes looking for the part of the story everybody skips.Before Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there was March 9, 1945: the single deadliest air raid of World War II, deadlier than Dresden by a factor of four, and somehow the raid history forgot. Scott explains why Japanese cities burned the way German cities never could, and how one Time magazine headline and some peer pressure from the British helped talk America into a new level of warfare.We also cover:Scott's take on the “othering” argument for why the bombs got dropped — and what he found in Curtis LeMay's and Leslie Groves's own papers insteadHow Scott tracked down survivor accounts from Hiroshima's archive that had never been published in English, and what it's like sitting in a survivor's living room Harry Truman's letters home from the trenches of World War I, written decades before he'd need every bit of that experience to make the hardest decision of his presidencyWhat Oppenheimer got wrong about Truman's personality (spoiler: the “crybaby” scene did some heavy lifting for the movie that the historical record doesn't fully back up)The end of Dad Books?The Truman Presidential LibraryHistoric Missouri (chock full of Truman!)This is also just a great conversation about how a career gets built by accident — Scott went to Japan in the '90s expecting a gap year and came home with a life's work, one classroom conversation about firebombing at a time.WATCH the video edition — with archival photos from James M. Scott's own research, plus material from the Truman Presidential Library, Wikipedia, and other fair-use sources — is up now for paid supporters of Alex's Substack, All the Fits That's News. Hearing about the Tokyo fire raids is one thing. Seeing the photographs while Scott talks about them is another. It will be up free soon, so subscribe NOW to see it NOW!Find James M. Scott: JamesMScott.com — books, tours, and everything else.Empire of Ashes is out now from W. W. Norton, wherever you buy books.Mysterious Goings On is celebrating its 11th year of author interviews, craft talk, and the occasional trip somewhere you legally can't go. New episodes drop weekly — subscribe wherever you listen, and catch the video extras at All the Fits That's News.CONNECT with ALEX:​⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠All the Fits That's News on Substack (Free or Paid)⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠​⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Alex's Author Website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Buy a Book!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Going to Killing City...Alex's True Crime Podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Book J. Alexander Greenwood for keynotes, panels, podcasts, and live conversations:⁠⁠Speaking & Media FAQ⁠⁠Mysterious Goings On Podcast episode was recorded and mixed at Green Shebeen Studios in Kansas City, Missouri. Copyright 2026 all rights reserved. No reproduction, excerpting, or other use without written permission.

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James M. Scott, Part Two: The Potsdam Declaration offered Japan a choice between rebuilding or "utter destruction." President Harry Truman greenlit the atomic bomb on the back of a pink telegram sheet, leading to historic missions piloted by Paul Tibbets, who trained his crew using concrete-filled "pumpkin" bombs. Following the devastating atomic strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki—where little was initially understood about radiation's long-term effects—Japan's military leaders still resisted surrendering. Junior officers launched a failed palace coup to destroy Emperor Hirohito's recorded surrender broadcast, but the rapid succession of the two bombings ultimately proved that total annihilation was imminent. (3)

TABLE OF CONTENTS THE JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW, 8-21-2026Jeff Bliss reports Las Vegas is planning major upgrades to Allegiant Stadium, with the Raiders seeking $75 million in taxpayer funding to resolve pedestrian choke points and add retail opportunities. In Los Angeles, incumbent Mayor Karen Bass faced criticism after a poor debate performance against challenger Nithya Raman, highlighting her perceived disconnect from critical city problems like expanding homeless encampments. Meanwhile, CaliforniaGovernor Gavin Newsom faces backlash over a state commission's decision to phase out standard car tires, raising costs by hundreds of dollars. Lastly, former Representative Swalwell was detained by the FBI, who seized his electronics over alleged sexual improprieties. (1)Richard Epstein examines the suit by Disney and ABC against the FCC, claiming that threats to review their local television station licenses constitute unconstitutional retaliation for their political late-night and morning show commentary. Epstein agrees ABC's case is strong, arguing that FCC Chair Brendan Carr is abusing regulatory power by treating public airwave licensing as a private property right to suppress critics. Additionally, Epstein asserts that Trump Media's paid service offering fast-access Truth Social posts is, by definition, insider trading, criticizing the president for using inside government knowledge for personal profit. (2)James M. Scott, Part Two: The Potsdam Declaration offered Japan a choice between rebuilding or "utter destruction." President Harry Truman greenlit the atomic bomb on the back of a pink telegram sheet, leading to historic missions piloted by Paul Tibbets, who trained his crew using concrete-filled "pumpkin" bombs. Following the devastating atomic strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki—where little was initially understood about radiation's long-term effects—Japan's military leaders still resisted surrendering. Junior officers launched a failed palace coup to destroy Emperor Hirohito's recorded surrender broadcast, but the rapid succession of the two bombings ultimately proved that total annihilation was imminent. (3)Jim McTague reports Lancaster County's diverse economy—spanning tourism, agriculture, light manufacturing, and healthcare—is showing signs of notable resilience. While heavy July rains and high fuel costs temporarily slowed business, economic activity stabilized in August. Local tourist destinations like Kitchen Kettle Village report strong traffic, attracting over a million visitors annually with unique local goods and food. Lower gasoline prices have also arrived just in time to boost back-to-school shopping. Meanwhile, high inflation is driving steady consumer traffic to Costco for essentials, and local hotels remain heavily booked on weekends through October. (4)Lorenzo Fiori reports Europe's severe heatwave is finally breaking as heavy rain and storms across Switzerland and Northern Italy drop temperatures by up to 20 degrees. This rainfall offers critical, long-awaited relief for the dry Po River, which has reached record lows. To escape over-tourism, Fiori recommends Chieti, a historic hilltop town in the Abruzzo region boasting Roman ruins, scenic views of the Adriatic Sea, and nearby mountain peaks. Visitors can explore the medieval fortress of Rocca Calascio and enjoy local culinary traditions, including macaroni with fresh pesto, paired with local white Trebbiano or full-bodied red Montepulciano wine. (5)Bob Zimmerman reports SpaceX is rumored to be expanding to Louisiana with a massive 130,000-acre launch and data center site, while aerospace startup Castelion is successfully building low-cost hypersonic missiles for the Pentagon. Internationally, China achieved a vertical soft landing of its Zhuque-3 rocket first stage, and Ukraine damaged a key Russian rocket factory. In space science, NASA and Catalyst canceled their telescope rescue mission, while Marsexploration continues to reveal delicate rock formations and "taffy terrain." Finally, the James Webb Space Telescopehas discovered unexpected low-mass stars in the early universe, challenging previous cosmological models. (6)Henry Sokolski warns that while nuclear negotiations focus heavily on Iran's uranium, Iran has a neglected second path to weapons: hundreds of bombs' worth of plutonium stored at the Bushehr plant. Sokolski also criticizes the geopolitical reliance on Elon Musk's Starlink, arguing that a private company should not make critical military decisions, such as approving Ukrainian drone strikes inside Russia. In Asia, Sokolski addresses North Korea's estimated arsenal of 57 nuclear weapons. Finally, he discusses gray-zone warfare with Russia and the debated trillion-dollar cost of the proposed "Golden Dome" U.S. missile defense system. (7)Jonathan Marcus reports American universities are suffering from declining public trust, soaring tuition costs, and a looming demographic drop in enrollment tracing back to the 2008 recession. Schools that became financially dependent on high-paying international students face severe budget cuts and program closures as foreign enrollment drops. This financial squeeze has forced a shift, prompting the rapid rise of three-year "applied bachelor's degrees" designed to save students time and money. Additionally, domestic universities face a STEM crisis fueled by weak K-12 math performance, leaving advanced research programs vulnerable as China's PhD output rapidly outpaces the United States. (8)Jonathan Marcus applied at (8) as directed. Other fixes: Nithya Raman (transcribed as "Nitia Ramen," segment 1 — the LA councilmember), Castelion (transcribed as "Castellion," segment 6 — the hypersonics startup, one l), and segment 3 marked Part Two of the James M. Scott Empire of Ashes series, continuing from yesterday's Part One. Flag any of these if the audio differs.

New York Times best selling author AJ Baime talks about his book, The Accidental President: Harry S. Truman and the Four Months That Changed the World. He discusses Truman's unlikely rise to the presidency, detailed looks at the day FDR died and Truman's first day as president, and the many events taking place early in his presidency including the fall of Berlin, the founding of the UN, victory at Okinawa, firebombings in Tokyo, the first atomic explosion, the Nazi surrender, the liberation of concentration camps, the Potsdam conference, the decision to drop the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the surrender of Japan, the end of WWII and the beginning of the Cold War.

This week Seth Paridon and Jon Parshall welcome there good buddy author and historian James Scott to the show to discuss James's new book, Empire of Ashes. In this week's episode the guys dig into the other American president of World War II, Harry S Truman and his decision to use the atomic bomb on Japan and all the intricacies therein. The conversation then shifts to that of the Soviet intervention in the Pacific war its actual effects, versus the myth, and the reasons behind the usage of the atomic bomb in relation to the Soviets. Finally the team looks at the Japanese side of the final days of World War 2 including Hirohito, The Big Six, the coup, and everything else that goes into the high drama that is the end of the Second World War. #wwiihistory #ww2 #usnavy #usa #usarmy #medalofhonor #enterprise #aircraft #aircraftcarrier #cv6 #midway #wwii #wwiihistory #ww2 #worldwar2 #usnavy #usnavyseals #usmc #usmarines #saipan #usa #usarmy #aircraft #aircraftcarrier #battleship #battleships #ussenterprise #aircraftcarriers #museum #essex #halsey #taskforce38 #wwii #wwiihistory #ww2 #usnavy #usa #usarmy #medalofhonor #enterprise #aircraft #aircraftcarrier #cv6 #midway #wwii #wwiihistory #ww2 #worldwar2 #usnavy #usnavyseals #usmc #usmarines #saipan #usa #usarmy #aircraft #aircraftcarrier #battleship #battleships #ussenterprise #aircraftcarriers #museum #hollywood #movie #movies #books #mastersoftheair #8thairforce #mightyeighth #100thbombgroup #bloodyhundredth #b17 #boeing #airforce wwii #wwiihistory #ww2 #usnavy #usa #usarmy #medalofhonor #enterprise #aircraft #aircraftcarrier #cv6 #midway #wwii #wwiihistory #ww2 #worldwar2 #usnavy #usnavyseals #usmc #usmarines #saipan #usa #usarmy #aircraft #aircraftcarrier #battleship #battleships #ussenterprise #aircraftcarriers #museum #hollywood #movie #movies #books #oldbreed #1stMarineDivision #thepacific #Peleliu #army #marines #marinecorps #worldwar2 #worldwar #worldwarii #leytegulf #battleofleytegulf #rodserling #twilightzone #liberation #blacksheep #power #prisoner #prisonerofwar #typhoon #hurricane #weather #iwojima#bullhalsey #ace #p47 #p38 #fighter #fighterpilot #b29 #strategicstudying #tokyo #boeing #incendiary #usa #franklin #okinawa #yamato #kamikaze #Q&A #questions #questionsandanswers #history #jaws #atomicbomb #nuclear #nationalarchives #nara #johnford #hollywood #fdr #president #roosevelt #doolittle #doolittleraid #pearlharborattack #salvaged #medalofhonor #tarawa #malayalam #singapore #guadalcanal #china #burma #oil #marinecorps

Ashe, Christy, and Jackie kick off with a genuinely fascinating history lesson on the origin of pass the buck, tracing it from a 19th century poker table all the way to Harry Truman's Oval Office desk sign. It is one of those rabbit holes you did not know you needed. Then the tone shifts as Ashe and a guest dig into the fresh reporting on Eric Swalwell and his relationship with alleged Chinese intelligence asset Fang Fang, questioning what Congress knew, when they knew it, and why accountability keeps getting kicked down the road. It is a frustrated, no holds barred conversation about foreign influence operations reaching into American institutions. Later, the ladies lighten things back up with a handy iPhone document scanning trick, a voice memo hack worth stealing, and a closing round of internet reactions that will make you laugh out loud. Sponsors, laughs, and a little bit of everything, same as always.

Paul Axton preaches: This sermon follows the sacrificial stages in the life of Harry Truman as a prototype of the seeming necessity of the apocalyptic religion into which Christ intervenes.  If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

VJ Day (Victory over Japan Day) marks the surrender of Imperial Japan and the end of World War II. It is observed on August 14/15 or September 2, 1945. August 14, 1945: President Harry S. Truman announced Japan's surrender to the United States, sparking massive public celebrations. August 15, 1945: The date the news reached the UK, Canada, and other Allied nations, which officially commemorate the event on this day. September 2, 1945: The formal signing of the surrender documents took place aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, marking the official end of the war. Brought a final close to six years of global conflict following the surrender of Germany three months prior. Led to widespread joy, relief, and large street gatherings in major cities like New York, London, and Toronto. Check out the YouTube version of this episode at https://youtu.be/tF3bbKNzbrI which has accompanying visuals including maps, charts, timelines, photos, illustrations, and diagrams. History Unplugged podcast available at https://amzn.to/4gfK3mA Hiroshima & Nagasaki books available at https://link.amazon/B0bkYDVw8 ENJOY Ad-Free content, Bonus episodes, and Extra materials when joining our growing community on https://patreon.com/markvinet SUPPORT this channel by purchasing any product on Amazon using this FREE entry LINK https://amzn.to/3POlrUD (Amazon gives us credit at NO extra charge to you). Mark Vinet's HISTORICAL JESUS podcast at https://parthenonpodcast.com/historical-jesus Mark's TIMELINE video channel: https://youtube.com/c/TIMELINE_MarkVinet Website: https://markvinet.com/podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mark.vinet.9 X (twitter): https://twitter.com/MarkVinet_HNA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/denarynovels Mark's books: https://amzn.to/3k8qrGM Audio credits: History Unplugged with Scott Rank, What if Japan Hadn’t Surrendered After Nagasaki Sept. 5, 2017 (Parthenon Podcasts, Salem Media Network). Audio & text excerpts reproduced under the Fair Use (Fair Dealings) Legal Doctrine for purposes such as criticism, comment, teaching, education, scholarship, research and news reporting.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What happened to the Latter Day Saint movement after it fractured? We discuss the fascination history on RLDS & Bickertonite views about temples. While Brigham Young led his followers West to build physical temples in Utah, multiple restoration branches took a completely different path—formally rejecting Nauvoo theology, secret endowments, and polygamy https://youtu.be/-tjIZUJcOqo Don't miss our other conversations on temples: https://gospeltangents.com/mormon_history/lds-temples/ Copyright © 2026 Gospel Tangents All Rights Reserved We dive into the fascinating, competitive, and highly diverse world of non-LDS temples. Discover how the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (now Community of Christ) built the massive Auditorium in Independence, Missouri—which historian John Hamer argues was secretly designed as a Kirtland-style temple—before dedicating their famous spiral temple in 1984 under Wallace B. Smith. We also explore: RLDS & Bickertonite Views About Temples The Battle for the Temple Lot: How Granville Hedrick’s followers returned to Jackson County in 1867 and purchased the original plot where 24 temples were once planned. The Great Depression’s Forgotten Temple: Why Otto Fetting's attempt to construct a Greek-style temple on the Temple Lot in the 1930s left a massive excavation hole—and why former President Harry Truman asked to have it filled in. The Bickertonite Chasm: Why William Bickerton abandoned Brigham Young’s church after polygamy was announced in 1852, choosing to reject physical temples entirely while embracing radical inclusivity—including ordaining deaconesses in the 1860s and calling an African-American apostle. Tongues and the “Smith Corpus”: A fascinating discussion on why groups that rejected Joseph Smith's later revelations (like the Doctrine and Covenants) successfully preserved early Kirtland Pentecostal gifts like speaking in tongues, while the mainstream LDS Church largely phased them out. Tune in for an incredible journey through the fractured history and competing temple visions of the Restoration! Support the show at patreon.com/gospeltangents to hear the entire uncut conversation! Copyright © 2026 Gospel Tangents All Rights Reserved

“There is a big chasm between defeat and surrender. Surrender is inherently a political decision.” — James M. Scott Exactly eighty-one years ago, on August 9, 1945, the United States dropped its second nuclear device on Nagasaki. Three days earlier, on August 6, the Enola Gay dropped the first bomb on Hiroshima. Little Boy and Fat Man. Our nuclear Rubicon had been crossed. Three days in August that changed the world. These historic 72 hours are the subject of Empire of Ashes: Truman, Hirohito, and the Descent into Total War, by James M. Scott, America's foremost chronicler of the Pacific War. This new book, Scott reveals, grew out of Black Snow, his history of the firebombing of Tokyo. But whereas Black Snow was a military study, he explains, Empire of Ashes focuses on Truman, Hirohito and the politics of nuclear warfare. By August 1945, Scott argues, Japan was already defeated. So surrender was a political decision — one that required a weak, figurehead emperor to summon the power to save his country from an even darker apocalypse. Should America regret these August days? Harry Truman certainly didn't, Scott notes. In fact, in 1958 Truman even held a press conference in Independence, Missouri, to fire back at Hiroshima's city council when it suggested that he should. Nor does Scott render much of a moral verdict of his own. “Nobody needs to hear James Scott in Charleston, South Carolina tell you what it is you should think,” he explains, suggesting that we can all make up our minds by reading Empire of Ashes. So two bombs, somewhere between 150,000 and 246,000 civilian deaths, and no crime? That, oddly enough, might be the biggest tragedy of those three days in August 1945 that changed the world forever. Five Takeaways •       Defeat Is Not Surrender. Scott's organizing insight: as destructive as it was, the atomic bomb was inherently a political weapon, aimed at the chasm between a nation defeated and a nation willing to say so. Surrender is a political act — and Japan's politics ran through Hirohito, ostensibly the center of political, cultural, and spiritual life, in practice a figurehead bypassed by militarists who had consolidated power through the 1920s and '30s under the standing threat of assassination. His first peace soundings had to be conducted incognito, for fear of his own army; not until June 1945 does he rise to the occasion. Truman, by contrast, emerges as strong and morally serious — a First World War artillery officer who inherited the Okinawa bloodbath, approved the invasion of Japan, chose what he saw as the lesser evil, and then stopped all further atomic use the moment surrender came.•       The Firebombing Precedent. Would FDR have made the same call? “Absolutely. No doubt about it.” The moral threshold had already been crossed on March 9, 1945, when Curtis LeMay abandoned precision bombing and burned Tokyo — 105,000 men, women, and children in a single night, the most destructive conventional raid in history. The Pentagon braced for public outrage, monitoring editorials, radio, and the floors of Congress. None came; Time wrote that “properly kindled, Japanese cities will burn like autumn leaves.” LeMay took the green light and burned 64 cities — 170 square miles — before the first atomic bomb ever fell. War Secretary Henry Stimson confessed his amazement to his diary; FDR, with every opportunity to rein it in, said nothing. When Elliott Roosevelt later claimed his father would never have dropped the bomb, Stimson publicly corrected him.•       The Second Bomb Mattered More. Scott's most counterintuitive argument: Nagasaki, not Hiroshima, ended the war. Atomic energy was the AI of its day — over a hundred academic papers in 1939 alone, new physics programs at Berkeley and Chicago, dreams of atom-powered ships — and Japan, which had its own failed program, knew exactly how ruinously expensive a bomb was to build. So after Hiroshima, the militarists reasoned the Americans could not possibly have another, and held to the plan of bleeding the invasion on the beaches for better terms. A second city destroyed seventy-five hours later shattered the illusion: if they can drop one every three days, they may have twenty — or two hundred. As for simply telling Tokyo? There were no channels beyond dropped leaflets and slow relays through neutral capitals. You could not, as Andrew noted, email in those days.•       In the Room Where It Happened. Scott's method — borrowed, he says, from Hamilton — is to put readers in the room: the White House, the Imperial Palace, and above all the streets. He has interviewed survivors in Tokyo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki across multiple books, and the physics of the firestorm connects all three: heat that melts concrete, fuses coins into lumps, welds roof tiles to kitchenware. Only five photographs were taken in Hiroshima on the day of the blast — stunned people, sitting. Organized rescue took thirty hours to arrive. In Nagasaki, the thirsty and burned waded into the river to die, so many that their bodies formed a dam. Radiation sickness began within thirty minutes. These are beautiful, functioning cities today, Scott notes — which is exactly why the accounts matter.•       No Regrets, No Verdict. Truman defended the decision to his grave — and then some: when Hiroshima's city council passed a resolution in 1958 urging him toward remorse, he wrote back that Japan had started the war, then held a press conference at his museum in Independence to distribute the reply. The Oppenheimer film's chilly Oval Office scene is overdramatized, Scott thinks, but true to the core: the buck — and the moral weight — stopped with the commander-in-chief, not the scientists. Scott himself, pointedly, renders no verdict: “Nobody needs to hear James Scott in Charleston, South Carolina tell you what it is you should think.” Both sides laid out, 95 percent of the documents public, the reader left to grapple — which is perhaps why Black Snow sold well in Japan, and why Empire of Ashes will be published there next August 6. About the Guest James M. Scott is a Pulitzer Prize finalist, New York Times bestselling author, and former Nieman Fellow at Harvard, widely regarded as America's leading historian of the Pacific War. His books include Target Tokyo (Pulitzer finalist), Black Snow, Rampage, The War Below, and, with Jack Carr, Targeted: Beirut. A scholar-in-residence at The Citadel who leads battlefield tours across the Pacific, he lives in Charleston, South Carolina. Empire of Ashes: Truman, Hirohito, and the Descent into Total War (W. W. Norton) is out now. References: •       Empire of Ashes: Truman, Hirohito, and the Descent into Total War by James M. Scott (W. W. Norton). The Charleston Post and Courier: “An amazing accomplishment.”•       Black Snow by James M. Scott — the firebombing of Tokyo, and the book whose cut Hiroshima chapters beca...

La serie di podcast “Conversazioni sull'America”, del prof. Mario Del Pero (Professore di Storia Internazionale presso SciencesPo, Parigi) e di Riccardo Alcaro (Coordinatore delle Ricerche e responsabile del Programma Attori globali dello IAI), si concentrano su fatti di cronaca politica americana attuali per cercarne paralleli storici, mettendo in luce le continuità col passato ma anche le differenze dell'oggi. In questa puntata ci si rioccupa dei Vice Presidenti, in particolare di Harry Truman, l'ultimo dei vice presidenti di Franklin Roosevelt, che ebbe in sorte di succedergli subito dopo il suo insediamento nel gennaio 1944, visto che Franklin Roosevelt morirà in aprile, lasciando a Truman il compito di organizzare il mondo del dopoguerra. Fra le fondamentali iniziative promosse dall'Amministrazione Truman c'è quella che porta alla conclusione del Trattato del Nord Atlantico, da cui poi sarebbe discesa un'organizzazione tout court che porta il nome di Nato. A cura di Francesco De Leo. Montaggio di Silvio Farina. https://storiainpodcast.focus.it - Canale Le questioni della Storia ------------ Storia in Podcast di Focus si può ascoltare anche su Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/293C5TZniMOgqHdBLSTaRc ed Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/it/podcast/la-voce-della-storia/id1511551427. Siamo in tutte le edicole... ma anche qui: - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FocusStoria/ - Gruppo Facebook Focus Storia Wars: https://www.facebook.com/groups/FocuStoriaWars/ (per appassionati di storia militare) - YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/focusitvideo - Twitter: https://twitter.com/focusstoria - Sito: https://www.focus.it/cultura Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our conversation about military integration continues with a look at Harry Truman and the civil-rights battle within the Democratic party. After a contentious 1948 convention, Truman starts to embrace desegregation, starting witht the military. Then we discuss how the culture of the armed forces began to slowly change.Join our America250 newsletter community! Subscribe for free to get the latest news and analysis of how America250 is playing out. Paying subscribers get access to early, ad-free versions of the show. Plus bonus features throughout the year. To support our work and get access to everything, subscribe now.This Day is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.comGet in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Follow us on social @thisdaypodOur team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

For the twenty-eighth installment of “50 Weeks That Shaped America” we go to 1948 and the moment that Harry Truman issued an executive order to — finally, formally — desegregate the armed forces. We talk about the long history of Black Americans in the armed services, and how the “double V” campaign of WWII put pressure on segregation. We also discuss how the military has served as a vehicle for growth for many Black families, including Kellie's.Join our America250 newsletter community! Subscribe for free to get the latest news and analysis of how America250 is playing out. Paying subscribers get access to early, ad-free versions of the show. Plus bonus features throughout the year. To support our work and get access to everything, subscribe now.This Day is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.Your support helps foster independent, artist-owned podcasts and award-winning stories.If you want to support the show directly, you can do so on our website: ThisDayPod.comGet in touch if you have any ideas for future topics, or just want to say hello. Follow us on social @thisdaypodOur team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

No American or foreign leader has met with as many sitting U.S. presidents as Queen Elizabeth II. Her 70-year reign witnessed the highs and lows of the close and crucial alliance between the United States and the United Kingdom, from the Suez crisis to Brexit. Following the advice of her mentor, Winston Churchill, to “stay close to the Americans,” Queen Elizabeth played an unexpected role behind the scenes that has never been thoroughly explored. Susan Page changes that with her new book The Queen and Her Presidents: The Hidden Hand That Shaped History. Described as “The Crown” meets “The West Wing,” it chronicles the largely unknown story of Queen Elizabeth II's relationship with 13 American presidents, from Harry S. Truman to Donald J. Trump. With that, she changed the world. Veteran political reporter Susan Page goes beyond the image of a staid monarch in colorful hats to reveal a skilled strategist, who, like many powerful women, was routinely underestimated and discounted. She also shows the impact American presidents had on the monarch as she developed from a shy, anxious princess to a powerful and persuasive global leader, and analyzes both the reach and the limits of the “soft power” she wielded. These accounts of the Queen's deft diplomacy provide candid and telling assessments of her partners in the Oval Office as well. What was the reality of the relationship between Donald Trump and Queen Elizabeth? What did the Queen and Barack Obama think about each other? How did she navigate between Ronald Reagan and her own prime minister, Margaret Thatcher? And what about Richard Nixon seeking the Queen's help during Watergate—and even wanting to make her a relative? Join us for a fascinating discussion about an often underestimated figure who played a big role in the history of the United States and Britain. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this BONUS EPISODE of CASCADE OF HISTORY, Feliks Banel digs for a second time into the “This NOT Just In” archives for three installments from the occasional history series that aired from 2010 to 2016 on KUOW 94.9 FM in Seattle. The premise of “This NOT Just In” was to use archival audio to shed light on forgotten or not fully understood stories from Pacific Northwest history. In this second "This NOT Just In" Archival Revival, we hear about when President Harry Truman killed time at Mount Rainier in 1945 while waiting for the first meeting United Nations to get underway in San Francisco; the sad tale of Bobo the Gorilla and his time in Anacortes, Washington and at the Woodland Park Zoo in the 1950s and 1960s; and the one and only season of Major League Baseball's Seattle Pilots in 1969. This material was originally produced by Feliks Banel with editing and other assistance from KUOW's Jim Gates. “This NOT Just In” was initially awarded a Program Venture Fund grant from KUOW in 2009 which funded production of the first three episodes; KUOW ultimately green-lighted more than 30 additional episodes during the run of the series. The episodes remained online for many years, but most are no longer accessible via the KUOW website – so it seemed like a good time to share them once again as a public service. Links to more information as well as images related to most topics discussed on the show are often available at the CASCADE OF HISTORY Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/groups/cascadeofhistory CASCADE OF HISTORY is broadcast LIVE most Sunday nights at 8pm Pacific Time via flagship station SPACE 101.1 FM in Seattle and gallantly streams everywhere via www.space101fm.org. The radio station broadcasts from studios at historic Magnuson Park – located in the former Master-at-Arms' quarters in the old Sand Point Naval Air Station - on the shores of Lake Washington in Seattle. Subscribe to the CASCADE OF HISTORY podcast via most podcast platforms and never miss regular weekly episodes of Sunday night broadcasts as well as frequent bonus episodes. "LIKE" the Cascade of History Facebook page and get updates and other stories throughout the week, and advance notice of live remote broadcasts taking place in your part of the Old Oregon Country.

Dying Days by Anthony Byrt. Set in May, 1945, near the end of the Second World War, Tito's Yugoslav army and the Allies are in a tense standoff in the city of Trieste. When a group of Kiwi soldiers go missing, tensions escalate and the unlikely pairing of a British MI6 officer and a New Zealand intelligence officer is flung together to locate them. The Queen and Her Presidents by Susan Page. During Queen Elizabeth the Second's time on the throne, 13 US Presidents came and went, from Harry S. Truman to Donald Trump. This is a fascinating and charming account of those relationships, full of anecdotes and history and reinforcing her reputation as a masterful diplomat and a woman of enormous influence. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lanny Davis joins Brian Nichols to reveal why as Bill Clinton's lawyer, he now agrees with libertarians on government surveillance and why America's privacy crisis is happening right now.This isn't a gotcha. Davis was Special Counsel to President Clinton, legal advisor to Michael Cohen, and the only Democrat George W. Bush put on the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board - the panel that watched the government's surveillance programs from the inside. The invitation came from Karl Rove himself.So what makes a lifelong Democrat go straight to George Orwell's 1984? Flock cameras. License plate readers. Every car in America logged and shared between departments. Davis looked at all of it and said the quiet part out loud... "the bigger government is, the more I feel shared wisdom with libertarians."His new book, Finding the Third Way, tackles the civility crisis head-on. He and Joe Lieberman once asked 535 members of Congress and 50 governors to sign a civility pledge - three signed. Davis names his own party's labeling problem, pulls a Harry Truman warning from 1948, and makes the case that Democrats and libertarians agree on more than either side admits.And then Brian does the thing we do... the scorecard. Three things Lanny got right. Three where he lost me. One of them pointed straight at our own side. One standard.CHAPTERS:0:00 The Guest Nobody Expected0:06 "Who Are You, Zelig?"1:53 The Resignation That Wasn't2:34 The Karl Rove Phone Call5:31 Inside the Spy Room7:21 The Guardrails Are Slipping8:16 The Empty Oversight Board10:00 Cameras on Every Corner11:26 "Big Brother Is Watching You"12:24 Only 3 Out of 585 Said Yes15:32 The Socialist Label Trap17:49 Truman's Warning to Democrats20:38 Why Voters Snapped24:14 "The Heck With Your Civility"26:02 The Empathy Problem29:52 Lanny's Curveball Close33:11 The ScorecardGUEST LINKSGet the book: ⁠https://lannyjdavis.com⁠Purple Nation column: ⁠https://www.realclearpolitics.com⁠SUPPORT THE SHOWCardio Miracle - 15% off: ⁠https://cardiomiracle.com/TBNS⁠ (code TBNS)Website: ⁠https://briannicholsshow.com⁠Email: ⁠brian@briannicholsshow.com⁠Socials: @BNicholsLibertyNew episodes every Thursday.Educated. Enlightened. Informed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lanny Davis joins Brian Nichols to reveal why as Bill Clinton's lawyer, he now agrees with libertarians on government surveillance and why America's privacy crisis is happening right now.This isn't a gotcha. Davis was Special Counsel to President Clinton, legal advisor to Michael Cohen, and the only Democrat George W. Bush put on the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board - the panel that watched the government's surveillance programs from the inside. The invitation came from Karl Rove himself.So what makes a lifelong Democrat go straight to George Orwell's 1984? Flock cameras. License plate readers. Every car in America logged and shared between departments. Davis looked at all of it and said the quiet part out loud... "the bigger government is, the more I feel shared wisdom with libertarians."His new book, Finding the Third Way, tackles the civility crisis head-on. He and Joe Lieberman once asked 535 members of Congress and 50 governors to sign a civility pledge - three signed. Davis names his own party's labeling problem, pulls a Harry Truman warning from 1948, and makes the case that Democrats and libertarians agree on more than either side admits.And then Brian does the thing we do... the scorecard. Three things Lanny got right. Three where he lost me. One of them pointed straight at our own side. One standard.CHAPTERS:0:00 The Guest Nobody Expected0:06 "Who Are You, Zelig?"1:53 The Resignation That Wasn't2:34 The Karl Rove Phone Call5:31 Inside the Spy Room7:21 The Guardrails Are Slipping8:16 The Empty Oversight Board10:00 Cameras on Every Corner11:26 "Big Brother Is Watching You"12:24 Only 3 Out of 585 Said Yes15:32 The Socialist Label Trap17:49 Truman's Warning to Democrats20:38 Why Voters Snapped24:14 "The Heck With Your Civility"26:02 The Empathy Problem29:52 Lanny's Curveball Close33:11 The ScorecardGUEST LINKSGet the book: ⁠https://lannyjdavis.com⁠Purple Nation column: ⁠https://www.realclearpolitics.com⁠SUPPORT THE SHOWCardio Miracle - 15% off: ⁠https://cardiomiracle.com/TBNS⁠ (code TBNS)Website: ⁠https://briannicholsshow.com⁠Email: ⁠brian@briannicholsshow.com⁠Socials: @BNicholsLibertyNew episodes every Thursday.Educated. Enlightened. Informed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

July 30, 2026Sixty years ago, Medicare and Medicaid went into effect, Congress had amended the Social Security Act of 1935 to establish the two national health insurance programs, for seniors and for people who qualified on the basis of income, In 1945 Harry Truman had proposed an Economic Bill of Rights tht guaranteed certain rights including the right to adequate medical care, Truman said that “the health of this nation is a national concern,” John F Kennedy made the expansion of health insurance a priority, but faced strong opposition, With LBJ's victory in 1964, he had the votes to pass Medicare and Medicaid, But in 2026 the Republicans are rejecting LBJ's vision of a government that works to support its people, The One Big Beautiful Bill Act partially offset its tax custs with cuts to Medicaid, and the administration now plans to cut a program capping the cost of drugs for Medicare recipients.Watch today's recording here: https://www.youtube.com/live/g9TUa1Rwd6U?si=T8_KKcHQZElhpnZ-Get full, free access to Letters from an American here: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribeYou can also find me:Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/hcrichardson.bsky.socialInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/heathercoxrichardson/?hl=enFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/heathercoxrichardson/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@heathercoxrichardson Get full access to Letters from an American at heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribe

Lanny Davis joins Brian Nichols to reveal why he agrees with libertarians on government surveillance and why America's privacy crisis is happening right now. This isn't a gotcha. Davis was Special Counsel to President Clinton, legal advisor to Michael Cohen, and the only Democrat George W. Bush put on the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board - the panel that watched the government's surveillance programs from the inside. The invitation came from Karl Rove himself. So what makes a lifelong Democrat go straight to George Orwell's 1984? Flock cameras. License plate readers. Every car in America logged and shared between departments. Davis looked at all of it and said the quiet part out loud... "the bigger government is, the more I feel shared wisdom with libertarians." His new book, Finding the Third Way, tackles the civility crisis head-on. He and Joe Lieberman once asked 535 members of Congress and 50 governors to sign a civility pledge - three signed. Davis names his own party's labeling problem, pulls a Harry Truman warning from 1948, and makes the case that Democrats and libertarians agree on more than either side admits. And then Brian does the thing we do... the scorecard. Three things Lanny got right. Three where he lost me. One of them pointed straight at our own side. One standard. CHAPTERS: 0:00 The Guest Nobody Expected 0:06 "Who Are You, Zelig?" 1:53 The Resignation That Wasn't 2:34 The Karl Rove Phone Call 5:31 Inside the Spy Room 7:21 The Guardrails Are Slipping 8:16 The Empty Oversight Board 10:00 Cameras on Every Corner 11:26 "Big Brother Is Watching You" 12:24 Only 3 Out of 585 Said Yes 15:32 The Socialist Label Trap 17:49 Truman's Warning to Democrats 20:38 Why Voters Snapped 24:14 "The Heck With Your Civility" 26:02 The Empathy Problem 29:52 Lanny's Curveball Close 33:11 The Scorecard GUEST LINKS Get the book: https://lannyjdavis.com Purple Nation column: https://www.realclearpolitics.com SUPPORT THE SHOW Cardio Miracle - 15% off: https://cardiomiracle.com/TBNS (code TBNS) Website: https://briannicholsshow.com Email: brian@briannicholsshow.com Socials: @BNicholsLiberty New episodes every Thursday. Educated. Enlightened. Informed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

America's First Alien Contact Wasn't Roswell!Six years before Roswell, something came down over Cape Girardeau, Missouri — and the government made sure you never heard about it. This week we sit down with author and researcher Paul Blake Smith to dig into his book The UFO Bombshell Before Roswell: Missouri's 1941 Crash and Cover-Up.Paul walks us through the wreckage, the witnesses, and the powerful names tied to the cover-up — FDR, a young Senator Harry Truman, and even whispers of Einstein. We get into what allegedly happened to the recovered craft and its occupants, why the Freemason connections in the case run so deep, and how MO41 may have quietly set the stage for the country's reaction to Roswell six years later.Paul is the author of eight books, including the bestsellers President Eisenhower's Close Encounters and The Nixon-Gleason Alien Encounter. This is a deep one — bring your tinfoil hat.

Rob and Teresa Heckenlively never set out to own a haunted hotel. During a family vacation to Osceola, Missouri, they called a realtor simply because they wanted to see inside the long-vacant Commercial Hotel. They weren't looking to buy a historic landmark—but by the end of the tour, that's exactly what they wanted to do.Built in 1867 after the Civil War's Sacking of Osceola destroyed an earlier hotel on the property, the Commercial Hotel has welcomed famous guests including President Harry Truman and brothers Jesse and Frank James. Today, many believe not every guest has ever truly checked out.As Rob and Teresa began bringing the historic hotel back to life, they discovered they weren't the only ones invested in its future. Before the restoration was even complete, Rob had an encounter so unsettling it kept him away from the hotel for months. Since then, guests have reported heavy footsteps, voices in empty hallways, shadow figures, and other unexplained encounters that continue to fuel the hotel's haunted reputation.Today on The Grave Talks, Rob and Teresa share the remarkable story of rescuing the Commercial Hotel—and what it's like living with whatever may have never left.For more information, just search “Haunted Commercial Hotel” on Facebook.#TheGraveTalks #HauntedCommercialHotel #OsceolaMissouri #HauntedHotel #MissouriHauntings #GhostStories #ParanormalPodcast #HistoricHotels #HauntedHistory #ParanormalInvestigationLove real ghost stories? Don't just listen—join us on YouTube and be part of the largest community of real paranormal encounters anywhere. Subscribe now and never miss a chilling new story:

Harry Truman's presidency became for millions of Americans the answer to the question “Who lost China?” On his watch, enemies foreign and domestic cut off U.S. support for a friendly Chinese government, enabling Mao Zedong's murderous take-over.  Today, the answer to “Who lost South Korea?” may be Donald Trump unless he intervenes swiftly.  After all, on his watch, a Communist there named Lee Jae Myung stole an election and is tyrannically transforming the country domestically and aligning it with our Chinese and North Korean enemies.  Former Trump Ambassador Morse Tan has bravely opposed Lee's election fraud and freedom-wrecking operation. He's stuck in South Korea and under indictment for defaming the tyrant. Before worse happens to Amb. Tan, the people of South Korea and our vital interests there, President Trump must forcefully engage directly with Lee Jae-Myung. There's not a moment to lose. This is Frank Gaffney.

This is Part Two of our conversation.Rob and Teresa Heckenlively never set out to own a haunted hotel. During a family vacation to Osceola, Missouri, they called a realtor simply because they wanted to see inside the long-vacant Commercial Hotel. They weren't looking to buy a historic landmark—but by the end of the tour, that's exactly what they wanted to do.Built in 1867 after the Civil War's Sacking of Osceola destroyed an earlier hotel on the property, the Commercial Hotel has welcomed famous guests including President Harry Truman and brothers Jesse and Frank James. Today, many believe not every guest has ever truly checked out.As Rob and Teresa began bringing the historic hotel back to life, they discovered they weren't the only ones invested in its future. Before the restoration was even complete, Rob had an encounter so unsettling it kept him away from the hotel for months. Since then, guests have reported heavy footsteps, voices in empty hallways, shadow figures, and other unexplained encounters that continue to fuel the hotel's haunted reputation.Today on The Grave Talks, Rob and Teresa share the remarkable story of rescuing the Commercial Hotel—and what it's like living with whatever may have never left.For more information, just search “Haunted Commercial Hotel” on Facebook.#TheGraveTalks #HauntedCommercialHotel #OsceolaMissouri #HauntedHotel #MissouriHauntings #GhostStories #ParanormalPodcast #HistoricHotels #HauntedHistory #ParanormalInvestigationLove real ghost stories? Don't just listen—join us on YouTube and be part of the largest community of real paranormal encounters anywhere. Subscribe now and never miss a chilling new story:

Harry said this --  “She (Eisenhaur) knows as much about the constitution (politics)…as a hog does about Christmas.”Music courtesy of Steven Valley Church (Be Still My Soul) & closing music curtesy of Harpeth Presbyterian Church -- used with permission. After the 2010 flood, 90% of businesses that lost data failed to reopen. Think Opery-Land!Listeners may call MouseCalls at six one five —six six two — zero two — three five, use the coupon code W-O-O-D-Y for a $19.95 rate for the first three months.A VIP/Silver subscription includes: MouseCalls weekly tech tips and alerts direct to your inbox.Call six one five —six six two — zero two — three five  Do it right Now!Next time on Wizard of iPhone Woodrow Wilson was a lousy movie critic -- some remarks about Birth of a Nation (film)

This is Part Two of our conversation.Rob and Teresa Heckenlively never set out to own a haunted hotel. During a family vacation to Osceola, Missouri, they called a realtor simply because they wanted to see inside the long-vacant Commercial Hotel. They weren't looking to buy a historic landmark—but by the end of the tour, that's exactly what they wanted to do.Built in 1867 after the Civil War's Sacking of Osceola destroyed an earlier hotel on the property, the Commercial Hotel has welcomed famous guests including President Harry Truman and brothers Jesse and Frank James. Today, many believe not every guest has ever truly checked out.As Rob and Teresa began bringing the historic hotel back to life, they discovered they weren't the only ones invested in its future. Before the restoration was even complete, Rob had an encounter so unsettling it kept him away from the hotel for months. Since then, guests have reported heavy footsteps, voices in empty hallways, shadow figures, and other unexplained encounters that continue to fuel the hotel's haunted reputation.Today on The Grave Talks, Rob and Teresa share the remarkable story of rescuing the Commercial Hotel—and what it's like living with whatever may have never left.For more information, just search “Haunted Commercial Hotel” on Facebook.#TheGraveTalks #HauntedCommercialHotel #OsceolaMissouri #HauntedHotel #MissouriHauntings #GhostStories #ParanormalPodcast #HistoricHotels #HauntedHistory #ParanormalInvestigationLove real ghost stories? Don't just listen—join us on YouTube and be part of the largest community of real paranormal encounters anywhere. Subscribe now and never miss a chilling new story:

The flag of the President of the Unites States shows an eagle holding an olive branch and arrows.  President Harry Truman wanted to add something...

Rob and Teresa Heckenlively never set out to own a haunted hotel. During a family vacation to Osceola, Missouri, they called a realtor simply because they wanted to see inside the long-vacant Commercial Hotel. They weren't looking to buy a historic landmark—but by the end of the tour, that's exactly what they wanted to do.Built in 1867 after the Civil War's Sacking of Osceola destroyed an earlier hotel on the property, the Commercial Hotel has welcomed famous guests including President Harry Truman and brothers Jesse and Frank James. Today, many believe not every guest has ever truly checked out.As Rob and Teresa began bringing the historic hotel back to life, they discovered they weren't the only ones invested in its future. Before the restoration was even complete, Rob had an encounter so unsettling it kept him away from the hotel for months. Since then, guests have reported heavy footsteps, voices in empty hallways, shadow figures, and other unexplained encounters that continue to fuel the hotel's haunted reputation.Today on The Grave Talks, Rob and Teresa share the remarkable story of rescuing the Commercial Hotel—and what it's like living with whatever may have never left.For more information, just search “Haunted Commercial Hotel” on Facebook.#TheGraveTalks #HauntedCommercialHotel #OsceolaMissouri #HauntedHotel #MissouriHauntings #GhostStories #ParanormalPodcast #HistoricHotels #HauntedHistory #ParanormalInvestigation Love real ghost stories? Don't just listen—join us on YouTube and be part of the largest community of real paranormal encounters anywhere. Subscribe now and never miss a chilling new story:

This Day in Legal History: The Housing Act of 1949On July 15, 1949, President Harry Truman signed the Housing Act of 1949, a centerpiece of his “Fair Deal” and one of the most ambitious housing laws in American history. Its stated goal was breathtaking in scope: “a decent home and a suitable living environment for every American family.” To get there, the Act poured federal money into public housing construction, expanded federal mortgage insurance, and created the urban renewal program to clear and redevelop so-called “slum” neighborhoods.The Act's legacy is genuinely double-edged, and it's worth telling honestly. On one hand, it expanded homeownership for millions and built hundreds of thousands of units of public housing. On the other, its implementation became one of the great engines of racial segregation in the twentieth century. Urban renewal too often meant bulldozing established Black neighborhoods—critics bitterly renamed it “Negro removal”—and the public housing built in their place was frequently segregated by design and concentrated in already-poor areas. Meanwhile the federal mortgage machinery it fed continued the practice of redlining, steering the benefits of homeownership toward white families and away from Black ones.That mixed legacy is why the Housing Act belongs in a legal-history conversation about civil rights. The same federal government that would, within a few years, order schools desegregated in Brown v. Board of Education was, through its housing policy, actively entrenching residential segregation—and residential segregation is what makes school segregation so durable, because in America where you live largely determines where you go to school. The story of July 15, 1949 is a reminder that the law's effects depend enormously on how it's carried out: a statute promising a decent home for every family became, in practice, a tool that shaped the segregated geography we're still litigating over today.Todd Blanche faced a high-stakes Senate Judiciary Committee hearing today in his bid to become attorney general on a permanent basis. Blanche has been acting attorney general since President Trump fired Pam Bondi in April, and before joining the Justice Department he served as Trump's personal criminal defense lawyer—a background that sits at the center of the concerns about him. The confirmation process exists because the Constitution's Appointments Clause requires the Senate to advise and consent on the nation's top law-enforcement officer, and the attorney general is supposed to serve the United States, not the president personally. That tension drove the questioning: senators pressed Blanche on the Department's $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund, its handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, and its prosecutions of figures perceived as Trump's political enemies, including former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. The significance is about the independence of the Justice Department. An attorney general who was recently the president's private defense attorney raises the question of whether federal prosecutorial power will be wielded neutrally or as an instrument of the president's interests. With a pair of undecided Republicans—Senators Cornyn and Tillis—holding real leverage, the hearing was Blanche's chance to reassure a narrowly divided Senate, and most observers still expect him to be confirmed by a slim margin.Blanche to face Senate grilling in bid to be Trump's attorney general | ReutersTwo U.S.-based advocacy groups have sued the Trump administration, arguing that its sanctions targeting the International Criminal Court violate the First Amendment. The groups—Democracy for the Arab World Now and the Taxpayer Alliance Against Genocide—are challenging the February 2025 executive order under which the administration has sanctioned ICC judges, prosecutors, and Palestinian human rights organizations, and which officials pledged this week to expand. The free-speech theory is the key. The plaintiffs say the sanctions regime is so broad that they have stopped doing constitutionally protected things—filing submissions with the ICC and coordinating advocacy with sanctioned people, like the U.N. special rapporteur for Palestine—out of fear that doing so could expose them to fines or even prison. In First Amendment law, that's a classic “chilling effect”: when a law is vague or sweeping enough that people self-censor protected speech to avoid the risk of penalty, the law itself can be unconstitutional even before anyone is actually punished. There's notable precedent here: a similar Trump order in 2020 was blocked by a judge who found it likely violated the First Amendment, before the Biden administration rescinded it in 2021. The significance is a direct clash between the executive's broad power over foreign affairs and sanctions on one side, and Americans' right to speak, associate, and petition on the other. Three ICC judges have separately sued over the same sanctions, so this order is now being attacked on multiple fronts.Trump's ICC order violates free speech, advocacy groups say in lawsuit | ReutersA federal appeals court has ended more than sixty years of federal oversight of the Concordia Parish School Board in Louisiana, lifting one of the desegregation orders that dates back to the Civil Rights era. The Fifth Circuit's decision hands a win to the Trump administration, which has pushed to wind down these long-running cases—a striking reversal for a Justice Department that spent decades on the other side, fighting to enforce them. Here's the legal framework. After Brown v. Board of Education, hundreds of Southern school districts were placed under federal court supervision and ordered to dismantle segregation. A district can be released from that oversight when a court finds it has achieved “unitary status”—meaning it has eliminated the vestiges of segregation, to the extent practicable, in areas like student assignment, faculty hiring, facilities, and discipline. The dispute in cases like this one is whether that's really been accomplished. Louisiana officials argue the orders are relics of a bygone era and no longer needed. Civil rights advocates and some parents counter that the vestiges persist—in racial disparities in student discipline, access to advanced academic programs, and teacher hiring—and that lifting oversight removes a crucial tool for addressing them. The significance is part of a broader push to close out Civil Rights-era decrees, and it raises a hard question: whether these districts have genuinely outgrown the need for supervision, or whether ending it prematurely risks letting old patterns quietly reassert themselves.Appeals court ends US oversight of Louisiana school system related to desegregation mandate | Reuters This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe

Truman's Post-Election Struggles and the Rise of Dean Acheson GUEST: Nick Bunker By Labor Day 1949, President Harry Truman's optimistic mood following his 1948 victory had soured as he was "overtaken by events." A post-election recession created a $5 billion budget deficit, stalling his "Fair Deal" liberal reforms. Simultaneously, the communist takeover of China provided a grim backdrop to his administration. Truman relied heavily on his Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, a competent and diligent official who shared Truman's "Wilsonian" internationalist philosophy. However, internal friction plagued the administration. Defense Secretary Louis Johnson, harboring presidential ambitions, aggressively cut military spending to appeal to fiscal conservatives, ultimately depleting American readiness. Meanwhile, powerful Southern Democrats like Senator Walter George and Sam Rayburn blocked civil rights legislation and remained skeptical of public spending and the newly formed NATO alliance. This political dissension undermined Democratic stability during the critical early months of the Cold War. (1)

The Domestic Crisis: Coal Strikes and the 1950 Winter of Discontent GUEST: Nick Bunker Despite the escalating Cold War, Harry Truman viewed the winter 1950 coal strike as his "greatest test." Coal was essential for heating homes and running trains, and a total shutdown early that year threatened the nation's basic functions. John L. Lewis, the fiery leader of the United Mine Workers, launched the strike to secure sustainable wages, pensions, and health benefits, knowing the industry faced a long-term decline against oil and gas. The conflict was particularly painful for Trumanbecause labor unions were his core constituency, yet he could not repeal the restrictive Taft-Hartley Act. Lewis publicly insulted the President, calling him "malignant" and "unfit" for office. During this period of high domestic tension, Americans sought escape in the opulent biblical epic Samson and Delilah, which became a massive box-office success. This cultural backdrop highlighted the contrast between the public's desire for normalcy and the administration's deepening crisis. (4)

Truman's Rally and the Brave Dissent of Margaret Chase Smith GUEST: Nick Bunker In May 1950, a politically wounded Harry Truman embarked on a western tour to rebuild momentum and refocus the nation on his "Fair Deal." Despite a high-profile Chicago rally featuring stars like Elizabeth Taylor, his approval ratings continued to plummet amid the ongoing coal strike and corruption scandals in cities like New York. Within his own party, the "middle way" was failing to find traction. Amidst this polarization, Senator Margaret Chase Smith delivered her courageous "Declaration of Conscience" speech, calling out the Republican Party for using "fear, ignorance, bigotry, and smear" — her "Four Horsemen." She criticized both McCarthy's tactics and the Truman administration's perceived "bitterness" and lack of leadership. Though she was the first Republican to publicly challenge McCarthy, her message fell on "deaf ears" as the Senator's power grew. Only weeks later, the North Korean sneak attack on June 25 changed the world forever, ending the period of "shadow of fear" and beginning a hot war. (8)1952 STORK CLUB

Most empires never write their plans down, but the American empire did. In 1950 a top-secret government document called NSC-68 laid out the blueprint for permanent war: a militarized economy, a nuclear buildup without limit, and a posture of global confrontation that would outlast the men who wrote it. It is the founding doctrine beneath every operation in this series.In this episode we take a deep dive into how NSC-68 was written and by whom, and its role in shaping the trillion-dollar war economy still running today.This is part of the first season of Socialist History, our new series on The Socialist Program. In each episode we unpack a different CIA or Pentagon operation or document that shaped US imperialism.Join The Socialist Program community at www.patreon.com/thesocialistprogram to get access to the next episodes in this series, more exclusive content, and help keep this show on the air.Archival notes:0:10 - Alex Jones, host of Infowars (2017)0:16 - Pres. Donald Trump speaking at a rally (2018)2:13 - Pres. Harry S. Truman speaking at his inauguration. Includes newsreel narrator voiceover (1949)3:40 - Interview with Paul H. Nitze, former US government official and author of NSC-68 (1996)6:03 - US Army documentary on the end of World War II, narrator voiceover (1945)6:44 - Gen. Douglas MacArthur speaking at the signing of Japan's surrender in World War II. Includes newsreel narrator voiceover (1945)8:04 - Newsreel on soldiers returning home at the end of World War II, including narrator voiceover and source audio (1945)10:24 - Pres. Franklin Roosevelt addresses Congress on World War II (1943)11:06 - Newsreel on Soviet heroism in World War II, narrator voiceover (1942)11:25 - Newsreel on the formation of the United Nations, narrator voiceover (1945)11:49 - Newsreel on the formation of the International Monetary Fund, narrator voiceover (1944)12:29 - Newsreel on the bombing of Dresden in World War II, narrator voiceover (1945)14:39 - Newsreel on US industrial transition to wartime, narrator voiceover (1943)15:30 - Pres. Harry S. Truman radio address (1945)16:35 - Documentary on economic transition after World War II, narrator voiceover (1945)17:10 - Cold War propaganda cartoon (1949)18:30 - Newsreel on the formation of NATO, narrator voiceover (1949)19:34 - Source audio of first Soviet nuclear weapon test (1949)19:46 - Newsreel on first Soviet nuclear weapons test, includes narrator voiceover and source audio of reporters questioning Soviet Foreign Minister Vyshinsky (1949)20:33 - Documentary on Chinese Civil War, narrator voiceover (1950s)22:25 - Interview with Paul H. Nitze, former US government official and author of NSC-68 (1996)25:25 - Interview with US Ambassador George F. Kennan (1993)29:21 - Interview with Paul H. Nitze, former US government official and author of NSC-68 (1996)31:50 - Newsreel on development of the hydrogen bomb, narrator voiceover (1950)35:11 - Newsreel on outbreak of the Korean War, narrator voiceover (1950)36:46 - Interview with Dean Rusk, Asst. Sec. of State during the 1950 division of Korea (1988)37:38 - Interview with Donald MacDonald, official in the US military occupation government in South Korea (1988)38:09 - Interview with Gregory Henderson, US Vice Consul in Korea 1948-1950, on the South Korean police (1988)39:07 - Interview with Ko Wan-soon, survivor of the Jeju Massacre (2022)41:37 - Newsreel on Gen. Douglas MacArthur meeting John Foster Dulles, narrator voiceover (1950)42:39 - Interview with Paul H. Nitze, former US government official and author of NSC-68 (1996)44:46 - Pres. Harry S. Truman speech, after outbreak of Korean War (1950)46:01, 46:50 - Interview with Yan Von Sik, soldier in the Korean People's Army (DPRK [North Korea]), on his experience in the Korean War (1998)48:15 - Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower on Korean War armistice. Includes newsreel narrator voiceover (1953)1:02:55 - Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower's farewell address (1961)

Notes and Links to Devin O'Shea's Work       Devin Thomas O'Shea is the author of The Veiled Prophet: Secret Societies, White Supremacy, and the Struggle for St. Louis, publishing with Haymarket Books on June 23, 2026. His writing is in The Nation, the Iowa Review, Slate, LA Review of Books, Boulevard, and elsewhere.    Buy The Veiled Prophet   Devin Thomas O'Shea's Website   Review and Informative Article for The Veiled Society in St. Louis Magazine     At about 1:45, Devin details book tour information and ordering information for his book, The Veiled Prophet At about 2:50, Devin talks about the truth and fiction that goes with the book At about 3:30, Devin describes his work with QAnon-related podcasts and reporting At about 5:10, Jim Caviezel (!!!) Talk At about 6:15, Devin and Pete reflect on the state of QAnon in 2026 and the American public's viewpoint  At about 13:30, Pete makes connections between the Veiled Prophets and history “rhyming” At about 18:20, The two discuss famous people from St. Louis and the McCloskey's   At about 21:40, Devin responds to Pete's asking about seeds for the book At about 24:10, The two discuss the high-level capitalists, policymakers, and "landed gentry”-Devin discusses the key years of the 1870s and beginnings of the Veiled Prophet Society At about 27:15,  At about 29:45, Pete notes the Orientalism associated with the symbology of the Veiled Prophet, and Devin expands on the early Prophet At about 32:10, The two reflect on class solidarity and racism and the “aggrieved white male” in early and modern times, with connections to the Veiled Prophet Society  At about 35:00, Devin details Alonzo Slayback, a founder of the Society, and early philosophy and symbology and capitalistic views At about 36:55, Devin responds to Pete's musings about American political parties and past and present ideas of progressivism  At about 38:10, Devin traces some early leadership in the Society and the ways in which “Mardi Gras-centric” clubs evolved/devolved   At about 41:35, Devin expands upon the idea put forth in the book, adapted from Edward Said, of Orientalism as “projected feelings into an Aladdin…framework” At about 42:55, Devin talks about Alonzo Slayback's killing At about 45:45, The two reflect on the importance of the 1904 World Fair in Saint Louis, and the fact that 11/12 board members were part of the Veiled Prophet Society At about 49:30, Mary Smith and her controversy regarding her marriage is discussed At about 51:00, Patriarchy and connections to the Society are discussed At about 52:00, The commodification of the history of the Society and Societal connections to the Manhattan Project At about 54:30, Devin responds to Pete asking about Clark Clifford and Harry Truman and connections to local and federal governments At about 56:50, Devin reflects on the life and legacy of Thomas Dooley At about 58:50, Monsanto and other St. Louis connections and Black communities' protests, including ACTION, are discussed At about 1:02:40, The famed 1972 unmasking of the Veiled Prophet is discussed At about 1:04:00, Devin talks about going to the VP Fair as a kid At about 1:04:40, The two discuss the book's ending and St. Louis “potential”      You can now subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, and leave me a five-star review. You can also ask for the podcast by name using Alexa, and find the pod on Stitcher, Spotify, and on Amazon Music. Follow Pete on IG, where he is @chillsatwillpodcast, or on Twitter, where he is @chillsatwillpo1. You can watch other episodes on YouTube-watch and subscribe to The Chills at Will Podcast Channel. Please subscribe to both the YouTube Channel and the podcast while you're checking out this episode.       Pete is very excited to have one or two podcast episodes per month featured on the website of Chicago Review of Books. The audio will be posted, along with a written interview culled from the audio. His conversation with Jeff Pearlman, a recent guest, is up now at Chicago Review.     Sign up now for The Chills at Will Podcast Patreon: it can be found at patreon.com/chillsatwillpodcastpeterriehl      Check out the page that describes the benefits of a Patreon membership, including cool swag and bonus episodes. Thanks in advance for supporting Pete's one-man show, DIY podcast and extensive reading, research, editing, and promoting to keep this independent podcast pumping out high-quality content!    This month's Patreon bonus episode is the trailer episode for Pete's limited podcast series, Rage is a Gift: Evil Empire at 30. Pete reflects on the Importance (and the power of this capital "I") of Rage Against the Machine and their seminal Evil Empire album, which is celebrating 30 years of resistance. The limited podcast series will do a deep exploration of, and reflection on, the lyrics and context of each of the 12 powerful songs on the album.     Pete has added a $1 a month tier for “Well-Wishers” and Cheerleaders of the Show.    The intro song for The Chills at Will Podcast is “Wind Down” (Instrumental Version), and the other song played on this episode was “Hoops” (Instrumental)” by Matt Weidauer, and both songs are used through ArchesAudio.com.     Please tune in for Episode 346 with Julie Buntin, whose debut, Marlena, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Prize and longlisted for the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize. The novel was released in ten territories worldwide and named a best book of the year by over a dozen outlets, including The Washington Post, NPR, and Kirkus Reviews.     The episode airs on July 14, Pub Day for her novel, Famous Men. This book is so, so good.     Please go to ceasefiretoday.org, and/or https://act.uscpr.org/a/letaidin to call your congresspeople and demand an end to the forced famine and destruction of Gaza and the Gazan people.    You can also donate at chuffed.org, World Central Kitchen, and so many more, and/or you can contact writer friend Ursula Villarreal-Moura directly or through Pete, as she has direct links with friends in Gaza.

On this episode of The Hillsdale College Online Courses Podcast, Jeremiah discusses the challenges that Eisenhower and Kennedy faced in a changing United States before introducing Wilfred McClay. Americans have overcome many challenges throughout our history, including the American Revolution, the Civil War, the Great Depression, two World Wars, and the Cold War. Studying the great stories from our past inspires us to preserve the blessings of liberty in our day. Now you can study these stories with Hillsdale College. Hillsdale’s free online course, “The Great American Story: A Land of Hope,” explores the history of America as a land of hope founded on high principles. In presenting the great triumphs and achievements of our nation’s past, as well as the shortcomings and failures, it offers a broad and unbiased study of the kind essential to the cultivation of intelligent patriotism. Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower pursued a post-war foreign policy of containing the growing threat of the Soviet Union and the spread of communism.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this episode of The Hillsdale College Online Courses Podcast, Jeremiah discusses the challenges that Eisenhower and Kennedy faced in a changing United States before introducing Wilfred McClay. Americans have overcome many challenges throughout our history, including the American Revolution, the Civil War, the Great Depression, two World Wars, and the Cold War. Studying the great stories from our past inspires us to preserve the blessings of liberty in our day. Now you can study these stories with Hillsdale College. Hillsdale’s free online course, “The Great American Story: A Land of Hope,” explores the history of America as a land of hope founded on high principles. In presenting the great triumphs and achievements of our nation’s past, as well as the shortcomings and failures, it offers a broad and unbiased study of the kind essential to the cultivation of intelligent patriotism. Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower pursued a post-war foreign policy of containing the growing threat of the Soviet Union and the spread of communism.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit detective Gary Jenkins sits down with former criminal and prison minister Bill Corum for one of the most unusual conversations ever featured on Gangland Wire. Bill Corum recounts his journey from car theft and prison escapes in the early 1960s to his deep involvement in Kansas City's criminal underworld in the 1970s and early 1980s. He describes his work around pornography, prostitution, stolen property, cocaine trafficking, and his connections to notorious Kansas City underworld figures. Gary and Bill discuss legendary Kansas City mob fence Sol Landi and his murder by assassins sent by the mob, the River Quay era, Junior Bradley, corrupt influences in local politics and the courts, and the explosive cocaine culture that swept through Kansas City during the 1980s. Bill also shares stories involving Weld Wheels founder Kenny Weld, cocaine trafficking operations, and the dangerous atmosphere surrounding organized crime in Kansas City. The conversation dives into: Bill's prison escape and stolen car career The prostitution business in Independence, Missouri Mob-connected fences and stolen property rings Cocaine trafficking in Kansas City during the early 1980s The murder of Saul Landy River Quay nightlife and mob influence Corrupt officials and criminal networks Kansas City organized crime personalities Prison life and criminal culture Bill Corum's dramatic religious conversion in 1983 His decades-long prison ministry work across America Bill also explains how he transformed his life after addiction, violence, and years in the criminal world, eventually dedicating his life to prison outreach and ministry programs throughout the United States. You can learn more about Bill Corum and his book at either The Ultimate Pardon or Bill Corum Official Website If you're interested in true crime, mafia history, and real law enforcement stories, this is an episode you don't want to miss. Subscribe for more mafia history and true crime stories every week. Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to “buy me a cup of coffee” Subscribe to the website for weekly notifications about updates and other Mob information. 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. [00:00:00] hey, all you wiretappers. Gary Jenkins here, retired Kansas City police detective in the intelligence unit. Turned podcaster and author and documentary filmmaker. If you want to see any of my stuff, go to my website and look in the show notes or look in the I think the donate page. Of course, if you’re in the donate page, you might want to hit the donate button. We always use a little, can use a little support. And I have a guy that I’d heard of and I’d seen on YouTube and I have mu- we have mutual friends, but I had never actually met him. And I, so I g- I… Some people he knows asked me to be on their show. And so I was on their show, and Bill was on that show at the same time. So we started talking. We had lunch and we had all these… We were running in the same circles, but separate circles that then overlapped every once in a while. He was on one side of the law and I was on the other. So Bill Corum. Welcome, Bill. Thank you, Gary. Thank you so much. And we were running in opposite… We were running real close- … but I was careful. When [00:01:00] I got out of prison, it- You were. When I got out of prison in 1964, I had two goals. Yeah. Never go back, and never get caught. And I started breaking the law the day I got out of prison, and I broke the law for almost 19 years and didn’t get caught. I got caught a couple times at little things, and I got… I hired a high-powered criminal attorney that came out of Alex Peebles’ office who’s now a judge. I won’t even mention his name. He’s now a judge. I think I told you who it was. But and Alex got me out of a couple deals way back when. But little things. And I was still, doing everything. And I went for almost 19 years and didn’t get caught. Unlike many of my friends, I’ve been in prison ministry for 40 years now, and I run around with a lot of guys that did a lot of time. 25 years, 40 years. Li- they had double life without parole, now they’re out But I never got caught. Yeah. And I was speaking at a women’s prison just recently, and I was talking to the women, and I was telling that story, and I said, “I got out and I [00:02:00] went for 19 years.” She said, “You must have been awful smart.” I said I wa- I wasn’t too smart or I wouldn’t have been doing that stuff.” But I did know ways and one thing was ’cause I didn’t talk to people. I didn’t have a lot of… Kinda like the trench coat robbers. They robbed banks for 15 years- Yeah … and never got caught because they didn’t email, text, phone calls, none of that. Yeah. They would, they would- And they moved away too. Oh, yeah. Kinda moved away from their home territory, so they- Yeah y- they weren’t having their buddies come up to them say, “Hey, what are you doing? Where you been?” “I haven’t seen you for a while.” And then they turn around and tell some cop that they know, “Hey, I can’t remember the guy’s name now. Billy Kirkpatrick. Billy Kirkpatrick. He’s been out of town. He just got back.” And, you know- Yeah … then they put… Suddenly they get this notice about these bank robbers somewhere else. They… He didn’t do that. He stayed- … out of town. So Bill, let’s- No, that was me. Go ahead. Go, let’s go back and start you from the beginning. Introduce to who you are to my guys, ’cause they don’t know you. I didn’t know you, ’cause you were such a low profile in this world. You said you got out of prison. Why don’t we [00:03:00] start with that? Where, what were you in the joint for originally? I was originally in there for Dyer Act, which is, in the feds, that’s interstate transportation- Yeah of stolen motor vehicles. I was in the Marine Corps. I went AWOL. I got caught. I went back. I got back AWOL again. I went back. They put me on restrictions, said I couldn’t leave the base. I was at that point in my life where nobody could tell me what to do. And so I’s “I’m leaving the base,” and I left and I think I stole 10, 12 cars while I was out. And then I got put in the… When I got back the next time, they put me in the brig, and I escaped from the brig. And and I stole a car off the base back in tho- in the ’60s, early ’60s, ’62, 3. People left their keys in their car. Yeah. And I went out. I was in the parachute locker painting. When the guard came in to check on me, I hit him in the back of the head with a full bucket of paint, a full gallon of paint, and I went out the window and I got a car, and I actually had a guy with me. He said, “I’m going with you.” And so we got in the car, and when we got to [00:04:00] the gate, I said, “Now, if that guard steps out at the gate, I’m running over him.” And he’s “No, don’t do…” I said “Just shut up. I’m running over him.” And I got to the gate, and the guard stepped out and saluted me. And I’m like, “What in the world?” I drove into town, run out of gas, Gary. Got out and stole… I don’t know how I remember this. I stole a ’62 maroon Bonneville. And when I was walking away from the car, my buddy looked back and started laughing. I said, “What are you laughing about?” He said, “I see why they saluted us. That car had a colonel sticker on the bumper.” So then I stole that car, that Bonneville, drove into Mississippi. Because I always ask guys in prisons, “How many of you know when you escape from prison you need some different clothes?” Yeah. So I drove into a little town called Leland, Mississippi, and I was breaking in a clothing store to get me some clothes. It was 11:00 at night, and I looked down, I was climbing up on some boxes to get to the roof to go in the skylight, ’cause they had analog alarms, they were easy to beat. [00:05:00] And I looked down and I saw a flashlight coming down the alley. So I dropped down, ran the other way, and I turned the corner and ran into the biggest, fattest Mississippi sheriff you ever seen. And he had a gun, he had a gun about this long. And he stuck it right here, and he goes, “Where are you going, boy?” And I said, “With you, sir.” That’s what I said. And that was the end of the Marine Corps. So now I’ve taken a car across the state line, and the feds step in. And I went to… I got a six-year sentence. I got what they call a zip six. And back then, before ’86, now in ’86 they passed it to 85%. Yeah. But prior to 80- prior to ’86, you could get out of the feds at one-third of your sentence. And so I got this six-year sentence. I got out in two years, and when I got out, I said, “I’m never getting caught again. I’m never going back to prison.” And I went for ni- and I just started right then. And everything from then on was like, I got involved with pornography. I was promoting [00:06:00] pornography and prostitution. There’s a story in my book about me being a… I was a bodyguard and a chauffeur for a lady that had a cat house over in Independence. You know where Inglewood was in Independence? And guys- You know where- … In- Independence is a suburb of Kansas City, but it’s like whole, decently large city for a suburb- Yeah … but it’s connected to it. Yeah. That’s where Harry Truman was from- That’s right … and retired back to. Yeah. So y- you were over there probably on the east side of Independence. Inglewood’s kinda closer to Kansas City, over there- Yes … by Dogpatch, in what we call Dogpatch. That’s- The- … kinda totally lawless area. And so there was a guy there that I was friends with that had a record store. He was the first guy in Kan- his name was Tony Marino. He’s in my book. He’s dead now. He was the first guy ever in Kansas City to sell paraphernalia in a record store. And he was making 25,000 a month- Wow … back in the… Yeah, when it started. That was a lot of money. And he, right next to him was a [00:07:00] store, it’s still there. I go by it all the time, ’cause we eat at the Englewood Cafe all the time. It’s the only one on that little s- first strip there that’s got steps going up. And a lady up there had a cathouse for 12 years, prostitutes. And her main customers were executives from Ford Motor Company- … from General Motors, and from Hallmark Cards. And the reason, Gary, was because she knew if she had executives, they weren’t gonna talk. Yeah. And she had beautiful women. She didn’t have ladies like up on Main and Troost and Prospect. Yeah. The- these women had all their teeth, and they were- … and they were good-looking. Yeah. And so the first guy, a- actually, who got me the job was Sal Rello, that o- that owned he owned that deluxe deli down on 430, where the Erotic City is now. Oh, yeah. He owned that- Yeah … he owned that bar. Heard about him, yeah. And I told him for years, I said, “You need to open an adult bookstore here,” because Gary, he was the only bar in Kansas City, the only bar [00:08:00] in Kansas City that was open on Election Day. You know why? ‘Cause he was in the county. He was in the county. He wasn’t in- Wasn’t in the city, yeah … he wasn’t in the city. And he was open on Election Day. And I told him, I said, “Man, if you’d open an adult bookstore, you could make a lot of money.” He never did, of course. Yeah. And then they put Erotic City in there, and it went good for a few years and stuff, yeah. But so he’s the one that told me about her. I went to interview with her, and she said, “I just have one question. Do you carry a gun?” I said, “No, ma’am, I carry two guns.” And she said, “You’re hired.” And so G- Gary, I picked her up every day on the Plaza. She lived in a $2,000 a month apartment on the Plaza in 1976. Yeah. That was a lot of money. That’s five today. And, yeah, and I took her to get her facial every Tuesday. I took her to the beauty shop every Thursday, and read about her in my book. She was 80 years old. The name of that chapter in my book is 80-Year-Old Hooker. She was 80, 80 years old, and she [00:09:00] ran it like a business. I had, I, she opened at 9:00 in the morning and closed at 5:00 at night, and ran it just five days a week, just like a business. And I wouldn’t be surprised she didn’t pay taxes. She was legit, man. Yeah. And I knew you can’t operate something like that for 12 years in Independence, Missouri, and not have the police know about it. No, they knew about it. Oh, yeah. It’s that upper echelon, they were, they just steered people away from each other. Oh, yeah. Don’t worry about that. Oh, yeah. That’s right. So that was- So Bill, y- you, you moved from that- Into the drug business now, how did you, how’d you even get started in that? Where like 1960s, ’60, by the late ’60s, drugs are starting to, become more popular and there becomes a real market for it that’s among- Yeah a much larger constituency than ever before. So now, how did you- I re- … move into that? I, oh, I really, for years and years, Gary, years, I didn’t have a partner [00:10:00] because I knew if I had to run, I didn’t want somebody… I didn’t know if my partner would tell on me, so I did everything by myself. I did one thing one time and I had to have a partner, and I stole a computer out of a crane at General Motors down in Leeds. And I, and my fence, the chapter in my book, They Killed My Fence, that was Saul Andy. Yeah. And when Saul got killed, like they killed my fence, because anything I took to Saul, he’d buy it. Didn’t matter if it was guns or it didn’t matter what it was. And I didn’t never keep anything except cash. If I had money, I’d keep it, but I’d never keep anything. I didn’t keep diamond rings or… I got rid of all that stuff, ’cause I never wanted anything to be able to identify me and tie me to a crime. And Saul, when he got killed, of course, then I started dealing with another guy. But Saul was taking all that and selling it to Junior Bradley, most of it, the stuff that Junior- And, and- … would be interested in. And guys- But, J- Junior Bradley, I gotta explain who Junior Bradley was. Junior Bradley was the mob fence in Kansas City. He was probably the biggest fence in Kansas City I got a [00:11:00] feeling. He, and what he started doing was trading Dilaudid especially for stolen property, and he had a little deli right across from police headquarters and City Hall, and everybody knew Junior. Everybody loved Junior. Everybody liked Junior. He’s always doing favors for people. If you went in the penitentiary, you’d go talk to Junior and say, “Okay, what, what’s gonna happen when I get here? Can you help me out?” And he’ll say, “I’ll make some calls.” Or I, we had, we overheard him on a wiretap once saying- a, a father called him and said, my son’s got to report up here to Leavenworth to the camp.” He said, “Okay, I’ll take care of it. I’ll be somebody there to meet him there.” And I’ve had many other reports but Junior was the main mob fence. So go ahead- Yeah … and we’ll talk what you were dealing with- Yeah Junior Bradley. Yeah be- let’s back up. So you asked me about how I got into drugs. So all those years when I was married, I didn’t drink and I didn’t do drugs. I thought if you did dope, you were a d- I thought that’s why they call it dope, ’cause you were a dope if you did it. Yeah. So I didn’t do it, and I didn’t drink because I knew I had to always be able to think and make [00:12:00] decisions and… ‘Cause I cheated on my wife every day for 10 years, and I did crime every day for 10 years, and she never knew it till I wrote this book. And I gave her the first book actually. And so- When I got divorced and started smoking pot and doing stuff, hanging out with those people, and I started smoking weed, then the first time I bought an ounce of weed it was 40 bucks. And I’m like, “Okay, how much is how much is more if you buy more? You can buy a half pound for this or you can buy…” So I said then I’ll… Give me a half a pound and I’m gonna sell,” yeah. So I started buying pounds and selling ounces, and man, all of a sudden I’m, now I’m smoking free and I’m making some money. Yeah. And then I started sell- And by the time I ended, even when I was selling cocaine, I was selling 100 pounds of pot a week. I had one guy that would buy 100 pounds of pot from me every week. Yeah. And I’d just take him 100 pounds and he’d just bring my… Every day he’d stop by my house [00:13:00] with sacks of money, and that was, the way I got started in the drug world then. And everything. It was from pot, it was, meth. We called it crank back then, not meth. And then I never did get real addicted to crank, but I got real addicted to cocaine. And of course, I was doing a drug class the other day. I teach a drug class, my wife and I, addictions class at our church. And I said, when I started, I was only gonna sell it and not do it.” And because one guy said I was only gonna do it and never sell it.” And I said, “No, not me. I was gonna sell it and never do it.” But that didn’t last very long. And once you start doing it you’re in there, and, Yeah, really … and then, when I got arrested September 5th of ’82 the guy that I beat up I put 100 stitches in the back of his head with a ball bat, and it was in an active enforcement really. But he turned states. He’s the one, when Kenny… You remember Kenny Weld? I remember the name. Was you still on the force when Kenny got busted in ’83? [00:14:00] Yeah. ’80- Yeah, I would’ve been. Okay. So- I have some vague memory, I don’t remember the, all the details. At the time it was the biggest drug bust, it was the biggest just drug bust in, I know in Kansas City, maybe. They caught him out there in Blue Springs with 29 pounds of cocaine, and we were selling- Yeah … cocaine to the people that were selling cocaine to Kenny. And so the guy that I beat up gave a 20-page, which is like reading a book, 20 typewritten pages. Yeah. 20 typewritten pages, and he named every name involved in the circle that he knew, and that implicated us as being some of the leading cocaine dealers in Kansas City. Yeah. Now, when I go speak in churches and a pastor gets up and says, “Folks, today we’ve got the biggest cocaine dealer that ever lived.” I get up and say, “You know what? I don’t mean to correct your pastor.” But I was implicated as being one of the leading cocaine- I was not the leading cocaine dealer. There was a lot of people bigger than me. But that’s that’s how it all started and [00:15:00] of course my case, I never did… the drugs never came in. The lawyers that I had, because when I got busted it was on a Sunday, and that’s part of my story. I always ask inmates, “How many of you have been arrested on a weekend?” And every hand goes up. Yeah. And I say, and then I say, “What happens when you get arrested on a weekend?” They all yell, “Nothing.” ‘Cause you’re not going anywhere till Monday morning, at the very least. I got arrested 2:00 Sunday afternoon. By that time, Gary, I had three goals. When I was about 30, I got nicknamed by one of the key mafia figures Crazy Bill, ’cause I did some crazy things. Like I ran through a bar. You know where the old Club Royal was on Main? Oh yeah. There was a bar right ac- I’ve drunk there many times. Okay. There was a bar across the street that I had a girlfriend working in, and we got in a fight, and I was gonna cut the bar in half with a chainsaw. And I had my buddy drop me at the back parking lot. I fired the chainsaw up, I opened the door, and when the door… When I stepped inside, the door [00:16:00] closed with the closer, and the dar- the bar was totally dark. It was not a bar where you could even buy a bag of potato chips. It was strictly alcohol. And when you get- Yeah … in a bar like that, they’re dark. And that door shut, and I thought, “I’m gonna bend over and start cutting this bar, and somebody just shoot me in the back.” So I just wa- I just walked through the bar with the chainsaw running and went out the front door, and Kenny picked me up in the front, and off we went. And so because of that, I got nicknamed Crazy Bill. Yeah. By 30 years old, I had three goals: money, power, and influence. Now, I told you as we were selling a lot of cocaine. So I stayed in $500 a night hotels. I ride in limousines. I bought $20,000 worth of cocaine for a one-night party. So I had money, and I had enough power to make a phone call and have somebody killed, so I had power. And I had enough influence that when I got arrested Sunday afternoon, now I love telling this to a police officer. I was on a show in Texas with a cop, and we called it the Con and the Cop. [00:17:00] But I love telling this story. I got arrested September 5th. 2:00, 2:00 PM is when they booked us into the jail, and I made a phone call back to Kansas City to somebody who was in politics, and I said, “You know who to call.” And that person called the judge we were selling cocaine to. And I ask this question in prisons, “How many of you know when you’re selling cocaine to a judge, he don’t want you in jail?” And I walked out of that jail, Gary, at 1:30 Monday morning. Wow. I got arrest- less than 12 hours after I got arrested on a weekend. And when I walked out of that jail, I said, “Bill Corum, you’ve arrived. You got money.” “You got power, and you got influence.” But the one thing I didn’t have was peace. Yeah. I didn’t have any peace, man. No peace. Yeah. If I was in a restaurant eating and a cop walked in, I’d put money on the table and go out the door. If I saw a UPS driver, I got nervous ’cause he had a uniform on. I didn’t have any peace. And then after I became a Christian, I was reading in the Bible [00:18:00] one day, and it said, “A wicked man runs when no one’s chasing him.” And I went, “Oh my gosh, I left a lot of steak dinners sitting on the table.” And wasn’t anybody chasing you. Nobody. That cop didn’t even know I was in there. He probably didn’t even know who I was. Really? He just come in… He just came in there to eat, and I thought he was after me. So Bill, I always like to go into the, the nuts and bolts of some of these things. And we kinda left one thing hanging, is the Saul Landy story. Now guys, Saul Landy was a big sports bettor. And Saul Landy had a, wasn’t it a metal- Square Deal Junk- Square Deal Junkyard. Square… He had a junkyard. Square Deal. He bought a lot of scrap metal and dealt in scrap metal, but he also would buy most anything from, from- Yeah … thieves, from boosters- Yeah … and burglars and people like that. That’s where Bill met him. But he’s a huge sports gambler, and they thought he might testify against our boss, Nick Civella, because he had been allowed to bet down at The Trap, down with Frankie Tusa, who was the underling [00:19:00] that handled all the sports gambling for Nick Civella. Isn’t that right? Isn’t that the way that went down? Oh, yeah, and Bobby Maroon was running The Trap at the time. And- yeah … so do you remember the guy that, that paid for his murder? Remember that guy, Johnny Franks, Johnny Frank Avella? That’s what they said, yep. Yeah. Yep. He had, he had- That’s what they said. He had some connections. But he got… But Johnny Franks got the order from somebody else. Yeah. Yeah … the bug, the buck stopped with Johnny Franks now, didn’t it? Yes. ‘Cause he hired another guy, who then he hired a Black guy, which was- That’s right … truly unusual. Who then- That’s right … hired a couple of young Black street kids and that was even more unusual, and they killed this Saul Landy and his wife. So they keep a f- And then they sang and then they sang like The Temptations. Exactly, yeah. That, and that’s that w- some claim that Johnny Franks did that just on his own, trying to impress Nick Civella. Some people say that somebody else told him to do it. I don’t… It never, he never talked, so it never came about. Yeah. [00:20:00] Did you ever hear anything about that? I never heard anything except what you just said, that he- Okay … he never talked, and Nick, Nick never got convicted. He never- Yeah … but here’s the thing that, what you said. The guys that they hired to do it, because back in those days as y- you’d go to… i’d go to the electric chair before somebody, before I’d tell on somebody. Yeah. I’m not gonna tell on anybody. Go ahead and put me in the gas chamber, I’m not telling on nobody. But those guys would, they’d sing like The Temptations. They weren’t gonna, they- Yeah … they wouldn’t- Those street kids If they offered them a day in jail, they wouldn’t take it. If you’ll tell us, we won’t, we’re only gonna put you in jail for a week if you’ll tell. Yeah. They wouldn’t tell. So how did that work with you and Saul Landy? You weren’t a sports bettor you didn’t have anything to do with that. You were a thief. Yeah, and I don’t know- And- I honestly, you know what? Gary, I don’t remember who even told me to go to Saul with stolen merchandise, ’cause I was hitting a lot of construction jobs back then. [00:21:00] Ah. I worked construction, and I was in the union, and I was stealing off these jobs all the time. Big- Ah, yeah … big amounts of stuff. Like they’d start a brand-new job, and they’d have all brand-new tools, and I’d go over there and take everything they had. And then I’d take it all to Saul. And matter of fact, one time I did a job over in, it was a eight-story high-rise over in Kansas City, Kansas, down around Argentine, in the Argentine area. And I was on the job, I was working on the job, and we just started. And we had all this trailer, a whole trailer load of tools. And I went over and got all the tools, and the last thing I took out was the cutting torch. I cut the lock off the door, ’cause I had a key to get in. And so when I got to work the next morning, I had everything in my truck. I had a tonneau cover over my truck and had all these tools in the back of my truck, and parked in the parking lot. I got there and I called Johnny Myers, who was running the job, and Johnny’s been dead for years. I said, “Hey, Johnny, somebody hit our job last night.” He’s “What?” I said, “Yeah, they cut the lock off. They got everything.” [00:22:00] And he said call the police and I’ll be out there in just a few minutes.” And so the cops come, couple detectives and he was telling what they, what was going on. I’m standing there listening to the whole thing. And there was a generator, a big generator, and I was real strong back then, Gary. I was 6’3″ and weighed 275 and I carried this generator down the steps and this… and Johnny said, or the cop said that, how much that generator weigh?” And he told him, and he said it had to be at least two guys, if not three. But no, no one guy could carry that down them steps.” And Johnny turned around and he said, “Except Superman,” ’cause that’s what they called me on the job. And they laughed, and he laughed, and I laughed. Yeah. And then that night after I got off work, I took it all down to Square Deal and sold it all to Saul. Yeah. Interesting. So- All right. Thanks so much … and I did that stuff all, yeah, I did that stuff all the time. But I honestly do not remember who introduced me to Saul Landy. Yeah. But I know that for years and years we were buddies. And when I first met him, I used a, I had an alias that I always went by. I had two a- two aliases. One of them was a guy I [00:23:00] was in prison with that was from East St. Louis, and I knew everything about him, ’cause we were real good friends. I knew his middle name, I knew his mom and dad’s name. I knew everything about him, so I’d use his name. So if anybody ever asked me a question, I knew. The other guy was a cousin of mine that I hadn’t seen for y- I used his name, ’cause I knew everything about him. So what, the, when I first met my wife, we went to a dance one night. We weren’t married yet, and we were walking up the steps, and this guy walking down said, “Hey, Jim. How you doing, Jim?” And I said, “Good.” We got in, sat down. My wife looked at me and she said, “I thought your name was Bill.” I s- said, “It is. It is Bill.” I said, “He probably just had me mixed up with somebody else.” ‘Cause there was a lot of people in the inner circles, yeah. So when I met Saul Andy, something inside of me told me to… Because I met Saul, and I told him my name was Jim Gardner. Yeah. And he’s we did a couple deals, and then something inside of me told me to b- be honest with Saul. And so I sat him down one day, I said, “I wanna tell you something. I use that name as an alias. My [00:24:00] real name is Bill Corum,” and da. And I was so glad I did, because later I would be in the River Key in a restaurant or a bar with Saul, and some of the guys were in there, and I thought if I’d have used the… If he’d introduced me as Jim Gardner- Yeah … and then later they find out who I am, I might not be here. Yeah. You know what I mean? You might- So I- They might think you’re undercover cop or a- Exactly. Exactly. So I just- Informant or something, yeah … it, a- and that, I think that’s in my book. I told that story because I just, I felt like being upfront with him, and I, because I trusted him, yeah. I actually, in, in the book I think I said if Nick Civella trusted him, I thought I could trust him. Yeah. But a- apparently, apparently- Bet he didn’t trust him all that much … no. Yeah. Because right there, out there on Pennsylvania, or let’s see, where’d they… They lived right off 75th, right behind the what was that restaurant on 75th? The Italian place? Yeah … I starts with a G, I think. Yeah, I know. Just north of Ward Parkway Shopping Center. Yeah. Yeah. I know the neighborhood, yeah. Oh, Cat- was it Cat? [00:25:00] No. C- it doesn’t matter. But he lived right down that str- he lived on Washington. Yeah. Right there. Yeah. About 77th or 8th and Washington, in Washington, yeah. I remember that. Yeah. But that’s how I met Saul. And what, and guys, what those guys did that night, they tried to make it look like a home invasion robbery, but ended up killing him and his w- and I think they raped his wife too. But, They didn’t kill her. They left her alive they, they left her alive. But- Yeah … they really m- tried to make it look like a home invasion robbery, not a hit, which was, at least they were that smart. They just weren’t- Yeah … couldn’t keep their mouth shut, and they couldn’t, weren’t smart enough to not tell their friends, so they got caught. Good, good thing there wasn’t no Facebook back then, Gary. Yeah, it’s crazy. It’s crazy. Crazy world you live in, so- these kids- Bill … yeah. What happened? What happened? You had all this going. You had money, power, influence. Yeah, I- You caught a cocaine case. Now the thing about that cocaine case, that you said, I thought you said Wells. It’s Kenny Weld, isn’t it? The race car driver? W-E-L-D. Kenny Weld. W-E-L-D. Yeah. He was a race [00:26:00] car driver at that time. I, I- Kinda well-known, and he had a whole set of… He had a big company that sold wheels … Weld Wheels … fancy wheels. He was really doing well, and then he got involved with a b- huge, big cocaine thing. I didn’t know, remember you were part of that, but I remember that. A multi-million dollar- Yeah … wheel business. Yeah. I still am a big… I was a dirt track guy. I grew up on dirt. Yeah. I love dirt. I actually took his brother, Greg, who actually owned the company, I took Greg to his first… the first race that Greg ever raced in, I drove him to the races. And then Kenny and I and Greg, and they won the Knoxville Nationals. Greg raced in the Indianapolis 500 four times. Yeah. They were a big name in the country, the Welds. And making millions of dollars, Gary. Even back then, they were making millions of dollars. Yeah. And then Kenny got caught up in the cocaine and started messing with it, and next thing you know… he was making a lot of money in the cocaine too, but- Yeah … he got caught with 29 pounds, which was a large amount. But that statement that guy [00:27:00] made on me, ’cause I always felt guilty because Kenny got busted because the statement that he made, he named Kenny Weld in that statement, and it wasn’t long after that they arrested Kenny. But I’m sure they were already watching him, for sure. But then I, and I don’t know, Kenny got eight year, Kenny got 25 years. He went to Sandstone first up in Minnesota. Yeah. And he only did 52 months, so I’m not sure, because back then a third would’ve been eight, eight and a half years or something, right? Yeah. And he only did 52 months, so I don’t know how that, maybe it was money or whatever. I don’t know. Yeah. But he turned his life around in prison, but then what’s the sad deal, when I turned my life around, I tried to get in touch with Kenny Weld, and he wouldn’t talk to me. He- Yeah … he was avoid- I think he was afraid that I was gonna come after him because the guy I beat up was the guy that was… We were all involved in the cocaine world together. Joker John, I don’t know if you knew who Joker John Agrusa was. I [00:28:00] don’t remember that n- I don’t remember that name now. Was he- They had a bar out on, they had a bar on, out on 23rd Street. No, I don’t, I don’t- Joker John’s. John, his last name was Agrusa. He had a brother- Agrusa, yeah … named Nick Agrus. New- Nick Agrusa’s brother. Yeah, I co- do kinda remember that. He went down- Yeah … with that whole thing. See, I was- That was ’83. I was I was off into something else during those years. Okay. No- That was early in the coke, crack cocaine thing … no, John, w- after I beat up Pink Mike, John Agrusa left town. He moved to Arizona, ’cause he was scared of me. A l- a lot of people- ’cause I was crazy. I did some crazy things, and people were scared. And so when I got arrested on that deal, he left town. He went to Arizona. And then Kenny got busted, Kenny Weld. And the, some of the people in that… My dad read that 20-page statement, and my dad said… And my dad was an old guy. He was born in 1909, but he read that statement, and he said, “This guy’s worth, life ain’t worth a nickel, is it?” And I [00:29:00] said, “No.” ‘Cause the guy that wrote the statement. Then I got arrest- you knew Jim Smart was a judge? Yeah, I remember the name. I didn’t know him. Okay. Jim… back then, Jim was a lawyer, and then later became appellate court judge. Yeah. And he’s retired now, but a real good friend of mine. So when I, that happened, I got… My case ended in May of ’84. Started September 5th of ’82, and ended in May of ’84. And in June of ’85, 13 months later, I got sued by the guy I beat up. Me and the other couple guy. One of the guys that was with me is dead, Charlie Elmer. I don’t know if you ever heard that name, but he was a- No, don’t know that name … cocaine dealer. But anyway I was just gonna forget about it, and I showed that to my dad, that indict- or not indictment, the notice that I need to appear in court. Statement. Yeah. Yeah, and my dad s- no, not the statement, when he sued me. [00:30:00] Oh, the oh, okay. Then they filed charges. Yeah, the counter-suit. And I showed it to my dad one day and I wasn’t even gonna go. I said, “Oh, God will take care of it.” And my dad read it, and he’s “Bill, you gotta get a lawyer.” Yeah. You’re being charged, and so I went and got a lawyer, and I got Jim Smart. And and Jim tried to go and do a deposition on that guy, on Pink Mike. Could never find him. Ah. And I di- I don’t know, I honestly don’t know. I know I didn’t have nothing to do with… But nobody’s ever been able to find him. But I’m suspecting, ’cause my dad said when he read that 20 pa- he said his life isn’t worth a nickel. Because he named judge in there, a judge in there. He named Kenny Weld in there. He named a lot of other big-name guys, and he’s disappeared, so nobody know. I haven’t seen him since the day in court in 1982. So who knows where he’s at. Yeah. If he’s around. I don’t know. But- Interesting. What did you finally cop? Did you have a full trial, or did you go ahead and cop a plea in the end? That’s interesting you’d [00:31:00] ask because when we first, when we got out of jail at 1:30 Monday morning, the 3rd of the 6th of September, he wal- the lawyer came and walked us out with, we… we had left, we were staying in the Embassy Suites downtown. You know where that was at? Oh, yeah. It was 500 bucks a night, and we had left two s- two s- brief- briefcases there with one had cocaine in it uncut, and the other one had about $60,000 in it. And so we went down. We actually called… he’s dead now, so I can tell you who it was. Jerry Schanzer that owned Napoleon Bakery. And Jerry was a big… i’m surprised that you didn’t, you talk about bookmakers. Jerry was a big bookmaker. Yeah. Exactly. And Schanzer- I remember him, yeah … Schanzer owned Mother’s down on 18th and Baltimore. Not Mother’s. Granny’s. Granny’s, yeah. He owned Granny’s at 18th and Baltimore. Yeah, a lot of mob guys used- And then he- … to go down there and eat. Oh, every time I went in there I saw [00:32:00] somebody. Yeah. And then later he opened up one over in Mission shopping center there on Mission Road. And then they then they ended up opening up Napoleon, him and his brother Larry. And then they’re both dead now. But we, this is how much we trusted Jerry. We told Jerry, “Go…” We called Jerry from the jail and said, “Go down to the Embassy and get our, get a briefcase.” And Jerry went down and he drove halfway to Warrensburg and ha- something told him to open it- Oh, wow … and he opened the one, he opened the one that had the cocaine in it. Oh, shit. And he called us and said, “I got the wrong briefcase.” And it… No, he said, “I can’t come and get you with this.” And so he went back to the Embassy and got the right one. Came down, and we made bond that night. Then the next morning was… Okay, that was we got busted on Sunday the 5th. Monday we got out. The lawyer [00:33:00] said, Mike, I don’t know if you ever knew Mike and what was his dad’s name? The Fi- it was Fitzgerald and Fitzgerald was the name of the firm in, down in Warrensburg. Warensburg, yeah. I don’t know them. Yeah. And Mike and Charlie Fitzgerald. So ’cause I called People’s Office and said, “Hey, this happened.” And they said, “Stick with those guys. Those guys are the best in the county. They know the county. They know the prosecutor, the judges and everything. Stick with them.” So we went in. He told us, “Don’t come in tomorrow morning,” ’cause it was 1:30 in the morning Monday morning. He said, “Come and see me Wednesday.” Yeah. And so we went… no, he said, “Come and see me Tuesday,” ’cause that was 1:30 in the morning. And we walked in there that morning and he said, “Come and see me tomorrow morning, Tuesday morning.” And bring me $10,000 apiece. And I wish I had a video of it, because it can be on America’s Funniest Home Videos. I walked into his office with a white bank bag and dumped out $30,000 on his desk in cash, and he opened [00:34:00] his drawer like this and scooped it into the drawer. And I said, “Mike, there’s a lot more where that came from.” He said, “Bill, I can’t. It’s… I gotta do everything legitimately.” Yeah. And I said, “Okay.” So the first meeting, his dad was in there and he was in there, and the three of us, and he said, “Guys, Dad and I have talked, and you guys might wanna think about getting separate attorneys.” And I said, “For what?” He said, “Because if one of you take a plea.” Yeah. I almost jumped over the desk. I said, “There’ll be no plea. There will be no plea. We’re not guilty. We’re not gonna admit we’re guilty. They can send us to the electric chair. We didn’t do it.” Now, Gary, they took us out of the house at 2:00 on Sunday afternoon in broad daylight. First, they s- we sent the guy out the back. He was totally naked when we got there. He was laying in bed. He’d been doing Dilaudids and Quaaludes all night, and he was [00:35:00] blood from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet. His whole back was red. We walked him out the door in- totally naked in front of the whole world and told him, “Go out there and tell them there’s nobody else in the house.” We were so jacked up. And here’s the thing, I have to tell you this. All those years that I got away with stuff is because I was smart, and now I’m snow blind. There was a song years ago by Styx called Snow Blind- Yeah … and it’s about cocaine. It’s about… And I’d been up for 86 hours when we went down to Holden. I had not- Okay … closed my eyes for 86 hours, so I was in m- I wasn’t in my right mind. Anyway, that was… So when we we said, “No plea bargain. There’ll be no plea bargains.” And for seven months… No, I’m sorry, for four months. That was October, November, December, January, February, March, April. No, seven months. For seven months. For seven months [00:36:00] we went to court multiple times. The whole police department, I don’t know if we can- I guess we’ll say it, because it’s done. It’s history. But I had a, I had two grocery sacks, the old brown grocery sacks on the couch that I’d inventoried. I had $62,000 in cash. I had… Because it was in envelopes, and I- they were $10,000. I was throwing them in there. 62,000 in cash, about four pounds of pot, three gallon Ziploc bags full of precious jewels. Er emeralds, rubies, and stuff like that. Some hash- a 12-gauge shotgun. I think that was all. Maybe maybe it… Whatever. When they, when… The first time we ever went to court and my partner had, the one that’s dead, Charlie, he had a leather Gucci bag that we always had with us, and it had four or five grams of cocaine in it. He took his diamond rings off, put them in there. His watch, he had a Rolex [00:37:00] watch he put in there, and about 3,000 in cash. That was in the car. That was never mentioned in court. No guns were ever mentioned in court. No guns were ever mentioned in court. I had a brand new, I had a brand new fif- not- model 59 nine millimeter. That was never mentioned in court. That 12-gauge shotgun was never mentioned in court. They said that they found a couple envelopes of cash, and they found a gram. Now, there was about, I think there was about probably a half a, maybe eight, eight grams or no more than that. It was ounces. Four or five ounces of cocaine. Oh, yeah. They said they found one, they said they found one gram of a, approximately one gram of a substance believed to be cocaine. Yeah. And my lawyer said… And they said they’d send it to Jeff City for analysis. And my lawyer said, “And what were the analysis of that?” They said they haven’t come [00:38:00] back yet. This is two months after they arrested us. They did- And they found approximately one gram, and there was ounces of cocaine in there. They found a couple envelopes with approximately $2,000 in cash. There was $62,000. The car I was driving, so when I got arrested, I had the keys in my pocket. So when they booked us into jail, when we walked out at 1:30 Monday morning, they gave us back our property. I had the keys in my pocket. So the car’s… Now, this is a brand new ’80, this was a ’82. This was an ’81 Trans Am. The car’s in Holden. The police chi- And they said they were gonna confiscate the car because it had Kansas tags on it, that they wanted to go through the car da. The police chief changed the ignition and was driving that car for his personal car. It cost my buddy, because it was a friend of mine, T- Ronnie M- Ron McGee, it was his car. It cost him $10,000 and an attorney to get his car back from them. So bottom line, every time we [00:39:00] went to court, several ti- my lawyer would say, “I’d like to call Officer Gary Jenkins up.” Gary Jenkins is not on the force anymore. He moved to Arizona.” “I’d like to call so-and-so up next time we go in.” He’s not here anymore. He moved to wherever.” So all the money and all the guns and all the drugs, they split it up and no, nobody ever… So the thing was so dirty. So what happens is we’d been going to court for that seven months, And then I become a Christian. I walk into his offi- and we’re adamant, we’re not plea bargain. We don’t want separate lawyers. We want you two guys to represent us. We’re gonna beat this thing. And, oh, and I told, because when that guy gave that 20-page statement after he got out of the hospital, this was a month later or something, he called us all in. We went in. He sh- hands each one of us 20-page statement. He said, “Guys, let me tell you something. I’m defending you on an assault with intent to kill charge. I’m gonna get that reduced, but if you get busted [00:40:00] dealing cocaine, you’ve got to stop dealing cocaine, ’cause if you get busted dealing cocaine while I’m on this case, it’s gonna complicate the case.” Yeah. “You gotta stop.” And I said, “Mike, I don’t tell you how to practice law, and you don’t tell me how to make money. You just keep doing what you do, and I’ll keep doing what I do, and I’ll keep bringing you money.” And he never said another word. Three or four months later, I become a Christian. I walk into his office by myself. And when I walked in the door, he said, “What happened to you?” If you look at that book on the picture of my, on the back of my book, that was four months before I became a Christian. And the Bible says the eyes are the windows of the soul. I had a very dark soul. Yeah, I can see. I had a very dark soul. Yeah. And so he goes, “What happened to you?” And I said, “What do you mean?” And he said, “You don’t look the same.” And I said, “I’m not the same.” And I told him what happened. And he said… And I said, “We’ve got a problem.” And he goes, “What’s our [00:41:00] problem, Bill?” I said, “I can’t lie anymore.” He said, “You’re right. We’ve got a problem.” ‘Cause we’d been lying for seven months. We told… He knew the story. He said, “I just need to know this. I’ll defend you guys. I’ll beat this case, but I need to know.” So we told… And at this point now, seven months later, he said, “There’s no way out of this thing. You guys are going to prison.” He said, “I can help you figure out a way to get to the good prison, but you’re going to prison.” So when I go in that day and he goes, “What’s wrong? What what happened?” And I told him, and he said, “You don’t look the same.” I said, “I’m not the same.” I said, “We got a problem.” He goes, “What?” I said, “We can’t lie. I can’t lie anymore.” And he said I’ve got an idea.” And I said, “What?” He said if I enter a plea bargain, I think we can do this.” And he said, “You guys won’t go to prison.” And he said, “Talk to Mike and Charlie and see what they say.” So I called them. We went down, met with him. And this time they looked at me and said, “What do you think we should do, Bill?” [00:42:00] I said, “I think we ought to take the plea bargain.” We got five years’ probation and a $5,000 fine. Now, the crazy thing- that was on the assault. Yeah, they- That was on the assault. But you still got a cocaine case out here pending with the feds. No. No. No. That, if, that, that- 20-page statement that implicated me was never, he never got it out of his office. It never went out of Fitzgerald’s office. So it, he didn’t tell it to… He told it to whoever he told it to, but to the police, and the police were all crooks anyway . Yeah. So I don’t know who he told. I just know that our lawyer said if this cocaine thing comes up, it’s gonna complicate our case. It never came up. Oh. And so maybe it was the mercy of God, I don’t know. Because it was a 20-page typewritten statement naming judges, Kenny Weld, all these guys, and all these people started falling after that. And so anyway, we ended up getting a $5,000 fine and five-year probation. Now, the crazy thing, if you read my book, Charlie and Mike both went, they got called and they [00:43:00] went and reported. I never got a call. 13 months later, I had a nephew getting married up in in Wisconsin, and I wanted to go to that wedding, and I knew I couldn’t leave without permission, but I didn’t have anybody to ask permission from. And when that guy sued me, G- Gary, when that guy sued me and I went and got the lawyer that I told you I went and got, I said, “By the way…” He said, “I wanna take this case.” I said, “Great.” I said, “By the way, I got arrested September 5th of ’82. The case ended in May. I was placed on five-year probation, a $5,000 fine. I’ve never heard from anybody. What do you think I sh- should do?” He said, “Bill, you need to write a letter.” And I put the letter in the book. I wrote a letter and said da. I’d like to be supervised. Please contact me.” 13 months, and they, within two days they were knocking on my front door. And that’s when I started reporting. And Kay King was my first pr- [00:44:00] probation officer, and she asked me all the whole story, and I had sat with her for two hours and told her the whole story. She asked me how many drugs I did, what I did. I said, “I’ve done everything there is, from, marijuana to heroin to… I’ve done it all.” And I did massive amounts of everything. And I was drinking two quarts of whiskey at the end every day. And people are like, “You can’t drink two quarts of whiskey.” I said, “You never did cocaine, did you?” ‘Cause when you’re doing, ’cause when you’re doing cocaine, you can’t get drunk. And so anyway that… And I asked her when I left her office, I said, “So does my probation start now, or does it start back then?” She said, “No, Bill, it starts today.” Oh, really? I said- Wow. I said, “For 13 months I’ve been going to churches and schools and telling people how bad drugs are and how bad alcohol is and how bad this is.” And I said, “I’ve not had a traffic ticket. I haven’t had a traffic ticket.” The only ticket I’ve got in the last 43 years, I had a bad car wreck where I got T-boned at 70 miles an [00:45:00] hour. I pulled out in front of a guy. It was my fault. And that’s the only ticket I’ve had in 43 years. I haven’t been stopped by the police. And she said, “I’m sorry, Bill, it starts today.” Guess what? I did the whole five year. I went from then, I got off in ’89 or something, I th- it was almost five years I did. My partners, they only did a year and a half, and they let them off. And they were still dealing cocaine. They were still dealing. They were still dealing. Matter of fact, one of them’s brother his mama died, and the funeral was at Passantino Brothers over there on the avenue. And I went to the funeral, and I was sorry, and we were hugging. And me and him sat down and were talking, and he had a little leather Gucci bag. And he said, “Hey, I’m go- now listen.” He said, “I’m going to the bathroom. You wanna go with me?” I said, “No, brother.” Yeah. And I got up and left. He wanted to go do some cocaine. Damn. And that was years after, he’d been… Anyway. Yeah. But I’m glad I had to do the whole five years because I got to speak [00:46:00] in some… She called me once and said, “I got a friend that teaches a criminal justice class at a college, and they’ve had detectives and they’ve had police officers, they’ve had lawyers, they’ve had parole officers, but they’ve never had a criminal. Would you come and speak?” And I said, “I’d be glad to.” And I f- and then I called the professor and I said, “I’ve been asked to come.” And he said, “Yeah, we’re looking forward.” And I said I have to tell you one thing. I cannot come in there and speak and not tell your class that my life was radically changed April 15th, 1983, when I came into encounter with God through his son, Jesus Christ.” He said, “That’s okay.” And I went and told them, so I was glad I got to stay on parole for five years. So- So Bill what are you doing now? I know you- I’m just- you’ve got a prison ministry. Do you speak- Yeah … at prisons and, and- That’s all I do, Garrett. 40 years just- How does one get into that? Do you have an agent that booked you into different prisons- No … or how does that work? No. No. I started going in 1986 with [00:47:00] a guy named Bill Glass, who was a NFL player. Played for the Cleveland Browns. He was an All-Pro. Actually started… He got, he retired from football in 1968, so that’s how old he was. Started the ministry in ’72, and was the biggest prison ministry in the nation, had 30,000 volunteers. And I started going in as just a volunteer, and then he asked me to be a platform speaker, and I was a platform speaker for him for 30 years. And went to, I’ve been in over 500 different prisons in my life, and I do prisons almost every day, a prison or a jail almost every day. We’re getting ready to do, this will be our 17th car show up at Crossroads in Cameron, and this will be the biggest car show ever in a US prison, in history. Last year was the biggest. We had 80 cars last year, but this year we’re planning on- by car sh- car show, what do you mean? Like guys bring their classic cars up and…? And drive them in on the prison yard. Oh, wow. And the inmates get to come out, walk around and look at them. And last year we had 80 cars and bikes. [00:48:00] This year we’re gonna have 250 motorcycles and cars. Wow. And we’re gonna feed 2,000 people. We’ve got… W- we’re gonna have 2,000 meals that day for the inmates and the staff, all the staff. So that’s what I’ve been doing for all these years, and will keep doing it as long as I can, wow. But as far as… I was gonna ask you about old Joey Rags. I knew Joe Ragusa. Did you ever deal with that guy? Did you? Not directly. I followed him a lot and almo- we almost caught him too, in a hit one time. And then they saw us and they had boogied on out. But I know one story- That would have been a- … about him. He was, He needed to go… I heard this later. He needed to go to a meeting downtown, down to City Market with the other mob guys, ’cause, he was right next to Charlie Martina, and he went on several hits with these guys during the Spiro-Savella war. So he’s out at the plumbing place where he was working, so he… Guy comes in- Where was he at? Was he at St. John Plumbing? I don’t remember the name of it. It was over there by N- Jackson, Ninth and Jackson, or Truman and Jackson, somewhere over there [00:49:00] on the east side. I can’t remember the name of it now. And so he need… said… told this guy, he said, “Hey,” he said, “I need to go down to the market.” He said, “Can you give me a ride down there?” And the guy said you got your car here.” He said no, you give me a ride.” So he gets in, lays down in the back seat. So the guy takes him down there, then he gets out. No, he was a real deal. Boy, that old market was something, wasn’t it? Yeah. That old City Market. Oh, man. Yeah, heard mob guys out there. Yeah they had a pretty big… Hey, what about, I was gonna ask you about a couple guys that were big heroin kingpins, Sam Haley and Aaron Gant. Was you involved when they were really big in Kansas City? Y- I was a young policeman, ’72, ’73, ’74, and Aaron Gant and Sam Haley were like the big ducks. And they had this war going between the two little heroin organizations. And Gant was, he was in with some guys, and Aaron Gant called him Junebug. He was in with the God, there was a whole family, the Denmans. He was in with [00:50:00] these guys. And so they… And Sam Haley was… I never did understand the difference, but they had two different organizations and they hated each other is my understanding. Oh, they did. Yeah. How about Ramseys? Did you know who the Ramseys were? I don’t see. The Ramsey brothers? I remember that na- Huh? I know that name. I think one of those crime families that, that stole- they were- … money in the neighborhood and- They were the- … everyone else … they were killers, all of them. Yeah. I think there was eight boys, and at one time seven or eight of them were in Missouri for murder. And I was seeing… I was in Potosi. And Rambo, R- Roy Rambo Ramsey they called him, and he’s the one that they got a… Remember when the la- what’d they call them that you put on the roof of your car? Oh, Landau top. Landau top, yeah. Yeah. That wasn’t the word I’m looking for, though. Whatever it was, th- you could have them tops put on. Yeah. They got one put on in a poster shop over on Prospect. Oh. And [00:51:00] when they called and said, “Your car’s ready,” they went up there and killed everybody in the shop and took their car and left. And then they went out to Belton or Grandview, and there was an old couple that had a bunch of old coins and stuff, and they knew one of the people. They knew one of the brothers, and I think it was Roy. And they went out there and knocked on the door, and of course, they let them in. They told their girlfriend to stay in the car, and they went in and they shot them They were 65 and 66 years old. The little old lady was 65 and the old man was… They shot each one of them three times, and just for a few dollars worth of coins, man. They were murderers. They were killers. But I was up in Potosi and Roy asked me, he said, “Would you go see my dad?” And I was… I said… He said, “He’s in a nursing home.” And Gary, his father, was a hardworking man, had never committed a crime in his life, and he was in this nursing home. And I went and saw him and prayed for him and stuff. But here are these… He [00:52:00] had these eight sons that were murderers. They were killers. And the old man was in a nursing home dying. And, Roy asked me if I’d go see him, so I went and saw him, prayed for him. But yeah, they were something else, them guys. Interesting. You you mentioned Sam Haley. There w- we had, here just in your area, was a guy named Michael Cantu, who used to be a fire captain. Had… Was a, a big time cocaine dealer. During those years, he got into- Yeah … cocaine. He and his brother Joe and Joe Maggio, and they had a cocaine deal going, and he got back out. He had a body shop over on Independence Avenue, and two Black guys came in and executed him, basically. Left the employee there. There wasn’t anything to steal, and executed him. And the drawings, one of them we… There was a lot of speculation it looked like Sam Haley. So I think he was- Might’ve been … I think he was supplying Black dealers with cocaine I believe. I saw him meeting with some guys once that that- Yeah, they were- … I didn’t know who they were, but they all looked like Black cocaine dealers they were killers, all them guys. Haley and Gant and those guys. Did you, I asked you about, Yeah, heavy idea. [00:53:00] I- here’s a question. I just got an inquiry from one of Gant’s relatives of… They were wanting to know more about Aaron Gant getting killed. See, he got out of the joint. He went to Missouri State Penitentiary, I think it was for drugs. Yep. And he went to a club that night, and somebody walked in, was walked in, shot him, and walked out right away. Another Black dude. So this relative was asking me if I knew any more about it. I didn’t know any more about it. You remember that deal at all? I don’t remember that. Okay. I di- I actually, I was thinking that Aaron Gant and Sam Haley had been dead for years, but, that was- this was years ago. This was quite a while ago. Okay. This was probably- Yeah, I thought he might have died in prison or something, ’cause I knew they both had a lot of time. They did a lot of- Yeah … time in Missouri. Yeah. Yeah, they did. So did you- But they were kingpins. Their names are really well-known, feared names on the East Side in Kansas City. Oh, yeah. Really feared names. Absolutely. Did you ever go around Vic Fontana’s place when he opened up Fanny’s? Oh, yeah. I went in and out of several. He had several different places. He had Fanny’s. [00:54:00] He had one down on the Southwest Trafficway a little bit after your time, I think oh, God, I forgot the name of it. But yeah, the, all the mob guys went into his joints. He was mob friendly. Yeah. I was really s- I met him when he had when he had the one up on Main next to Butch’s, next to Mother’s. Oh, yeah. Yeah. He had that place yeah what was, Walter Midy. Must have been Walter Midy’s. Walter Midy. Yeah, that’s where I met Vic. And then I actually plumbed that Fanny’s when he opened up Fa

This episode unpacks how the Marshall Plan transformed postwar Western Europe and why security, allied cooperation, and forward thinking were the real keys to its enduring success.   To mark the 250th anniversary of the U.S. declaration of independence, CFR is dedicating a yearlong series of articles, videos, podcasts, events, and special projects that will reflect on two and a half centuries of U.S. foreign policy. Featuring bipartisan voices and expert contributors, the series explores the evolution of America's role in the world and the strategic challenges that lie ahead.   Host: James M. Lindsay, Mary and David Boies Distinguished Senior Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy, CFR   Guest: Benn Steil, Senior Fellow and Director of International Economics, CFR   We Discuss: How the British Empire's rapid collapse in early 1947 forced the United States to assume responsibility for Western European security. What George Marshall's six weeks of negotiations in Moscow revealed about Soviet intentions in Germany and Western Europe. How Marshall deliberately crafted the plan's offer to include the Soviet Union while ensuring Soviet leader Joseph Stalin would reject it. How Congress, controlled by Republicans, was persuaded to support a massive foreign aid program from a Democratic administration. Whether the Marshall Plan's $13 billion actually explains Western Europe's economic recovery in the late 1940s. What role NATO played in making the Marshall Plan work, and why the French and British insisted on security guarantees before cooperating. Why security has to precede economic reconstruction—and what Afghanistan and Iraq  reveal about ignoring that lesson. What Senator Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.'s 1947 prediction about sustained alliances tells us about the stakes of U.S. foreign policy today.   Mentioned on the Episode:   The 10 Best and Worst Decisions in U.S. Foreign Policy, Council on Foreign Relations   Benn Steil, The Marshall Plan: Dawn of the Cold War   George Kennan's Long Telegram, February 22, 1946   “Sinews of Peace (‘Iron Curtain' Speech).” at Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri, March 5, 1946.   Harry Truman, “The Truman Doctrine,” Address to Congress, March 12, 1947   George C. Marshall, Commencement Address at Harvard University June 5, 1947   For an episode transcript and show notes, visit The President's Inbox at: https://www.cfr.org/podcasts/presidents-inbox/america-at-250-the-marshall-plan   Opinions expressed on The President's Inbox are solely those of the host or guests, not of CFR, which takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.

May 31, 2026Margaret Chase Smith was elected represent Maine as a Republican in the House after her husband, who held that seat, died in 1940, Smith served three terms in the House and then was elected to the Senate in 1948, Anti-New Deal Republicans were insisting that the US government was sliding toward communism, Senator from Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy, claimed he had a list of communists working for the State Department, McCarthy's charges were unproven, but fellow Republicans did not protest, except for Senator Smith, On June 1, 1950, Smith made an eloquent speech in the Senate that bluntly challenged McCarthy, and condemned the leaders in her party who were supporting him and were making wild accusations, She wanted to see President Harry Truman replaced in the next election, but not with a Republican regime without integrity,  Her speech presented a Declaration of Conscience to her party, She was largely ignored at the time, but four years later the Senate condemned McCarthy, Smith would be remembered for her courage, while McCarthy has gone down in history as a disgrace to the Senate and to the country. Watch today's recording here: https://www.youtube.com/live/g9TUa1Rwd6U?si=T8_KKcHQZElhpnZ-Get full, free access to Letters from an American here: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribeYou can also find me:Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/hcrichardson.bsky.socialInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/heathercoxrichardson/?hl=enFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/heathercoxrichardson/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@heathercoxrichardson Get full access to Letters from an American at heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribe

Preview for Later Today: Former Congressman Thaddeus McCotter analyzes the historical significance of presidential endorsements in primary elections. While FDR struggled to defeat internal party rivals like Harry Truman, Donald Trump has shown greater success within current Republican primaries.1941

FDR faced significant domestic opposition from powerful congressional voices like Harry Truman and Hiram Johnson, who viewed both Hitler and Stalin as "monsters" or "beasts." Internal polls showed that 54% of Americans opposed aiding the Soviet Union, with majority support in only 11 states. To bypass this political resistance, the Roosevelt administration kept the early stages of Soviet aid secret for six months. Sean McMeekin notes that it was only after the Soviet regime survived the 1941 winter that Roosevelt publicly admitted to a multi-billion dollar credit line with no strings attached, effectively winning the political battle through executive discretion. (2/8)1900 BAKU