Book Excerpt: Assassinations

How many governments has the US overthrown? In today's special episode, we're sharing an excerpt from our upcoming Stuff They Don't Want You To Know audiobook. They don’t want you to read our book. They don’t want you to see us on tour.

They don't want you to read our book.: https://static.macmillan.com/static/fib/stuff-you-should-read/

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to a

(00:25):
very special show. My name is Matt, my name is Noel.
They called me Ben. We are joined as always with
our guest super producer Max the freight Train Williams. Most importantly,
you are you. You are here, and that makes this
the stuff they don't want you to know. Hang on,
you might be thinking, isn't this the weekly listener mail segment?

(00:47):
What's going on? Is there no order in the world. Well,
it's a it's a kind of chaotic place the world.
But we are doing something a little bit different today.
You've heard uh Matt, Noel and word was truly talk
about this this book thing we did that we're really
excited about, and that came out in an audio book
platform as well, or an audio book format, I should say.

(01:10):
And Uh, we decided in one of our top secret
think tanks to put our money where our mouths are
or where your ears are. We're are you talking about
that meeting we had in that dumpster the other day?
The think Tank. Yes, it's classier when we called the
think tank. But yes it is a dumpster. It's it's
a very nice dumpster. We have seats. Uh. We also

(01:34):
binkster the thinkster. Yes, yes, it's where we dump our thoughts.
It's also where all the badgers hang out with us.
They usually have They contribute, yeah, pretty well, but sometimes
they get a little mouthy and we have to shove
them back in the bag. Back in the bag, badgers
and bags. Uh. This is an excerpt from our actual
audio book. And we went back and forth and we thought,

(01:58):
you know what, what's the US way to give people
a taste of the kind of stuff we're talking about?
And uh, we decided we would pick just one chapter
and where you're about to hear is that chapter. Sort
of we cut some stuff out. We cut out three
minutes wait no, no, don't no, three bonus minutes in

(02:21):
that way that there'll be something fresh for you when
you go back listen to the audio book and full
or by the book, and this segment is read with
the dulcet tones of by the dulcet tones of Ben
bowling Um. The entire book has contributions for all three
of us. And I also want to say when Ben
says a taste, he's not kidding. These audiobook producer people
are sticklers. There's no styling on any of this. It

(02:42):
is word for word, Uh what the book is. Um,
so this is a new experience thing for all of us.
But that was a part that never really occurred to me.
That like, because of certain search features and audio books
and things like that, Um, you have to read it
verbatim so that they can reference it and match it
back to the text. Huge shout out to the engineers

(03:04):
over at Lantern Audio in Atlanta, to producers. We worked
with Verbe and Tim as well as Mark and Chris.
Oh yeah, that Mark and Chris were the actual guys.
Verbe and Tim was supposed to be a joke and
I failed. Oh I don't think so. I don't think
you failed. I mean we certainly we we certainly didn't

(03:26):
fail to do this book. And know you're right, Uh,
they are, they are sticklers. But I'm gonna go ahead
and doubled down these three mystery minutes that you're not
hearing now, they're gonna they're life changing and you can
only hear them through our audiobook or if you check
out our print book and read it out loud to yourself,

(03:46):
make your make your own audio book. It could be
an activity for the whole family. Be the change. But
really get trying to sell it because we will come
for you. No no, no, no, no no no, don't
do that, but really get ready for this. We're like,
did you know the United States has been correct me
if I'm wrong here, I believe successfully backed in some
way coups in countries across the world. Yeah, minimum thirty

(04:10):
five thirty five proven times. So in our chapter and
Coups and Assassinations, we look at some of these unpleasant facts. Uh,
and we learned why assassinations continue to be a go
to tactic of governments around the world. There really are
no good guys in geopolitics. Uh. And they're definitely doing

(04:33):
the stuff they don't want you to know. So we
hope you enjoy it. We can't wait to hear your thoughts.
Will be back at the very end of this excerpt,
Chapter six Coups and Assassinations. In the U S school system,
many children are taught a carefully curated history of America,

(04:57):
one that frames the nation as a champion of human rights,
and democracy. A country so committed to this ideology that
it can and will take action to bring this ideology
and officially its benefits to foreign sures, even when it
wrestles with its own human rights issues domestically. It's often

(05:21):
a story of heroes, and as such this narrative includes
many of the tropes you'll find in the hero's journey. Yes,
the teacher and textbooks readily admit mistakes were made in
the past, but lessons were learned and the country is
the better for this experience. While that may be broadly true,

(05:45):
it's a story that misses a great deal of nuance
and at times purposely brushes past some of the most
nefarious deeds of the United States. Coups and assassinations. Let's
art with coups. You've heard of them before, both in
the annals of ancient history and in the modern age.

(06:07):
During a coup data French for blow or stroke of state,
a faction overthrows a government with the aim of installing
rulers with differing priorities and policy goals. While the term
entered English in the nineteenth century, the practice itself, just
like propaganda, dates back to antiquity. Many countries kingdoms and

(06:31):
empires have been subject to coups or have instigated coups
in other countries. Some coups may result in the downfall
of an entire country, while others focus on gaining control
over a strategic region. Many citizens of the United States
have found it difficult to face up to their country's

(06:53):
long involvement in coups, labeling attempts to understand these illegal
attempts to over throw foreign governments as conspiracy theories. Because
the histories documenting these coups often originate in other countries,
they are too often brushed aside or dismissed by the

(07:14):
US mainstream media. Unfortunately, the conspiracies are all too often real.
At multiple points in history, from the eighteen hundreds to
the present day, the United States has actively participated in
or orchestrated coups conspiring to overthrow multiple governments, some more

(07:40):
than once. In the mid eighteen hundreds, for instance, the
US annexed the Republic of Texas, despite the fact that
Mexico considered the region its sovereign territory. This led to
the Mexican American War of eighteen forty six to eighteen
forty eight, at to which The US also took the

(08:02):
region that is now Nevada, Utah, Arizona, California, and much
of New Mexico. In the US conspired with local business
interest to overthrow the Kingdom of Hawaii, eventually annexing it entirely.
In In nineteen o three, the US intervened in Central America,

(08:27):
working with the Panama Canal Company to aid Panama's secession
from the Republic of Colombia, one of the most prominent
examples of Uncle Sam intervening in the affairs of nations
in the Caribbean, Central and South America. In some cases,
US forces sought to preserve a particular regime deemed friendly

(08:50):
to US interests. In other cases, US leaders sought to
overthrow existing governments, even when democratically elected, in favor of
another regime more amenable to US political and corporate interest.
As the Cold War ramped up after World War Two,

(09:11):
reviving early twentieth century fears of communism dominating the planet,
these coups were often framed as moral necessities. These nefarious
activities may not have been technically legal, it was reasoned,
but they were ethically sound and crucial to further the

(09:33):
greater good of freedom under capitalism. From the US perspective,
the world was increasingly divided into three camps, communist, anti communist,
and non aligned countries, with the assumption being those countries
in the third group would inevitably either rise to the

(09:55):
level of democracy or fall into the clutches of an
international communist order. The term First World initially described countries
aligned with the US and NATO in opposition to the
Soviet Union or other communist governments. This worldview permitted the

(10:15):
rationalization of illegal activities, up to and including preemptively overthrowing
foreign governments if Western politicians believed those governments might fall
under Soviet sway. In practice, these justifications were all too
often revealed to be spurious. While many members of the

(10:39):
political and military classes doubtlessly believed in the mission of
spreading democracy, big business was inextricably intertwined with many of
these initiatives, and often the idea of freeing a given
nation was little more than a euphemism for aiding corporate

(10:59):
activities in the region. Some members of the military became
disillusioned with this pattern, most famously General Smedley Butler eighty
one to ninety a Marine Corps veteran and author of
War as a Racket, in which he alleged many of
the foreign conflicts he'd been involved in were in fact conspiracies,

(11:24):
exercises in resource extraction and racketeering. In an interview with
Common Sense, a socialist magazine of the day, the retired
general referred to himself as a gangster for capitalism, claiming
that American interventions were ultimately meant to help the bottom

(11:44):
line of banking houses, oil interest, fruit companies, and the like.
This was a far cry from the reasons cited in
the patriotic, idealistic speeches used to sell the American public
on US foreign policy. As a prolific public speaker and activist,

(12:05):
Butler garnered massive support from veterans, leading multiple protest and
making no shortage of powerful enemies along the way. In time,
he found himself embroiled in one last conspiracy, the Business Plot.
In ninety four, Butler stated he had been approached by

(12:27):
agents representing a cabal of massively powerful business tycoons who
sought to take his expertise in coups to American shores.
Butler was contacted by Gerald McGuire, a member of the
American Legion who claimed to be serving the interest of

(12:47):
the newly formed political lobbying group, the American Liberty League.
This organization claimed to have no connection to Gerald McGuire
and denied the allegations of apply to overthrow the Roosevelt administration.
Furious at then President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal policies,

(13:10):
these businessmen wanted to stage a coup of their own,
overthrowing the government and installing a new fascist regime in
its place. At this time, fascism was an increasingly popular
ideology for the ruling class of private industry in the US.
Butler alleged this group and asked him to lead a

(13:31):
private army of a half million men. His concerns were
treated seriously, and he eventually spoke to a committee of
Congress convened to explore whether the story was true. The
committee was able to confirm some of Butler's claims in
their final report, where they noted in the last few

(13:52):
weeks of the committee's official life, it received evidence showing
that certain persons had made an attempt to establish a
fascist organization in this country. There is no question that
these attempts were discussed, were planned, and might have been
placed in execution when and if the financial backers deemed

(14:12):
it expedient. Yet no further investigations followed, no one was
ever prosecuted. The media of the time, itself often controlled
by the same wealthy class, was quick to dismiss the story. Today,
historians still go back and forth over how much of

(14:34):
Butler's tail was true, and his warnings about what he
saw as the hidden motivation for American adventurism abroad are
often ignored. But were he alive today, it would likely
not surprise Medley Butler to learn the pattern he pointed
to in War is a Racket continues in Killing hope.

(15:00):
U S military and CIA interventions since World War Two.
Author William Blum meticulously outlines and explores some fifty five
different cases of US efforts in this regard, each of
which aimed to overthrow foreign governments, and most of which
he finds were in fact democratically elected. It is tragically

(15:25):
accurate to note that the freedom, liberty, and security the
US claimed to fight for was often little more than
the freedom, liberty, and security of US backed corporations to
do as they wished once a new government was installed,
reaping massive profits while avoiding the threat of nationalization. Nationalization

(15:50):
is the force to take over of a business or
entire industry by a government. These conspiracies were all genuine,
and as time marched on, more and more evidence came
to light to prove them so. The coup of Guatemala
in nineteen fifty four is a textbook example of the process.

(16:13):
In nineteen fifty four, the Boston based United Fruit Company
was increasingly concerned about the political leadership of Guatemala. Ten
years before, the people of the country had risen up
on their own to overthrow the military dictatorship of Joge Ubiko.
This was simply put a bummer for the leaders of

(16:36):
United Fruit, who got along famously with Ubiko's government. This
company thrived off the agricultural trade, particularly bananas. In nineteen fifty,
just a few years before the revolution, their annual profits
were twice as large as the revenue of Guatemala's entire government.

(17:00):
United Fruit Company revenues in nifty or around sixty five
million dollars. That's equivalent to almost seven hundred and thirty
eight million dollars in twenty one. The company was also
the largest single landowner in the country and wielded de

(17:20):
facto control of Guatemala's only Atlantic port, creating another hefty
revenue stream from international trade. Almost no part of this
profit trickled down to the common workers, who are often
treated as little more than surfs. Guatemala's revolutionaries were well

(17:41):
aware of United Fruits practices, which included discriminatory actions against
impoverished Native workers, interference in domestic politics, and draconian economic practices.
The new ruler, President Juan Jose Arevalo, instituted progressive reforms,

(18:02):
things like a minimum wage, more voting rights, and other
moves that curtailed some of the common labor exploitation practices
United Fruit depended on. For profit United Fruit felt it
was being specifically targeted. New labor laws meant workers could
strike if their demands for better treatment weren't met. United

(18:25):
Fruits had ignored multiple strikes in the past. The next
Guatemalan president, Jacobo Outbens, took things further. After his election
in ninety one. He instituted land reforms, which granted property
to the impoverished. The Guatemalan government's Decree nine hundred stated

(18:45):
that all idle or uncultivated land could be part of
this reform. According to the government, United Fruit had cultivated
only some fifteen percent of the five hundred and fifty
thousand eight or as it owned, meaning the other was
up for grabs. This again posed a threat to Uniteed Fruits.

(19:09):
Bottom line, the company was at an existential crossroads. United Fruits,
once unassailable stranglehold on the economy of Guatemala was eroding.
The politicians they had bought were no longer relevant, and
the nation they once ruled and all but name was

(19:29):
closer and closer to showing them the door. They needed help,
and they needed it quickly. Luckily for United Fruit, intervention
was an easy cell to Uncle Sam. The US government

(19:51):
was also not a fan of political developments in Guatemala,
and the White House was worried the empowerment of Guatemala's
workers signal they slide into socialism and communism. This fear
only intensified when Our Bends officially legalized the Guatemalan Party
of Labor, a communist political party. It's important to note

(20:14):
that Guatemalan leaders at the time saw themselves as anti dictator,
not necessarily communist in ideology. United Fruit went into a
lobbying overdrive, bending the year of Politicians and the president.
US politicians berated the new Guatemalan government for failing to

(20:35):
protect the interest of United Fruit and other Western companies.
Guatemala responded that, in its opinion, those companies, and United
Fruit in particular, were by far the main obstacle to
progress in its nation. By the time Truman was out
and Eisenhower was elected in nineteen fifty two, the figurative

(20:56):
writing was on the wall. Tensions escalated, Our bends showed
no signs of returning his country to the easily exploited
state of a dictatorship. Eisenhower's staff, particularly John Foster Dulleses
and Allan Welsh Dulless, urged intervention. The New York law

(21:19):
firms Sullivan and Cromwell represented the United Fruit Company. John
Foster Dullas, who served as US Secretary of State from
nineteen fifty three until nineteen fifty nine, was also a
partner at Sullivan and Cromwell. John's brother, Allan Welsh Dulless,
served as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency from

(21:42):
nineteen fifty three until nineteen sixty one. While the specter
of communism was a convenient cover, the consensus in Washington's
back rooms was that United Fruit and its shareholders must
be protected. In eighteen fifty three, the Guatemalan government expropriated

(22:04):
two hundred thousand acres of land from United Fruit, offering
the company compensation totally more than twice what the company
had originally paid. This hefty profit did not mollify United
Fruits executives. Nevertheless, Guatemala continued to reclaim more of UFC's

(22:26):
uncultivated land. In a hilarious turn of events, it began
to base its offered compensation on UFC's own previous valuations
of the property. This was even more unsatisfactory for UFC
because for years the company had been screwing over the

(22:46):
Guatemalan tax system by massively undervaluing its own land. In
a way, you could say United Fruit swindled itself. As
Guatemala and UFC wrangle over land expropriation, a massive lobbying
effort began with master propagandist Edward Burnets. As we learned

(23:09):
in chapter five, Burns is hailed as the father of
public relations, a sort of sift lord of information control,
orchestrating a campaign to paint United Fruit as the undeserving
victim of a merciless, hardline communist government, Berne's commissioned a

(23:30):
bizarre report, a smear piece that he circulated through Congress.
The report painted a frightening picture of a new, dangerously
communist regime on the rise in Guatemala. All in all,
United Fruits spent about five hundred thousand dollars selling America

(23:50):
and its rulers on the Coupe Tata. It was money
well spent. After a false start in nineteen fifty two
with an operation called PB Fortune, which failed because the
CIA was caught attempting to interfere with Guatemala by other
factions of the U S government, the CIA and United

(24:11):
Fruit were able to launch Operation p B success just
a few years later, in nineteen fifty four. This was
a genuine, successful conspiracy on the part of the CIA
and the United Fruit Company to overthrow the democratically elected
government of Guatemala. The Information war in the US evolved

(24:36):
into military action. The US government trained insurgents, provided arms,
and also received a list of people who would be
murdered or exiled in the aftermath of the coup. Guatemala
went on to be ruled by a string of US
backed military dictators leading up to the Guatemalan Civil war,

(24:58):
which ended only in nine seen. The ramifications of this
coup echo throughout Guatemala today. This is only one example
of a successful coup on the part of the US government,
though it is perhaps most notable for the amount of
information available to the public about how this operation occurred.

(25:21):
The United Fruit Company survived, it prospered. It exists today,
rebranded as Chiquita Brands International. The company still sells bananas
and remains controversial due to a number of shady activities,
including things like allegedly paying off foreign terrorist groups. All

(25:41):
in all, experts like William Blum estimate the US has
attempted to overthrow various world governments at least fifty seven
times since the end of World War Two. It hasn't
always been successful, but its track record isn't short on
big winds. Blum states there have been no fewer than

(26:02):
thirty five successful US backed coup ditast seven if you
count three interventions in Laos as separate incidents. Were these
victories for democracy and blows against the boogeyman of communism?
Or is the ideological Overton window dressing of freedom and

(26:22):
liberty just that a disguise draped over the real motivation
the expansion of capitalism and the growth of corporate profits.
It's a question historians continue to analyze, and while each
case carries its own set of complications and intervening factors,

(26:43):
they all share a similar theme. While the US has
for a very long time articulated a clear aspiration for
a liberal, democratic world, it has often shown little compunction
about making this vision a reality. Laws can and should
be respected, so long as they don't get in the

(27:07):
way of that greater good. However, vaguely defined assassinations in
the early days of National Public Radio found themselves at
the heart of a strange controversy. When the US targeted
Irani in General Kaseem Solamani in January of that year.

(27:31):
News organizations were seriously concerned over how best to describe
the US role in the general's death. In common usage,
murder means to kill someone, but legally it means an
unlawful killing. The US operation had all the hallmarks of

(27:52):
an assassination, but still some audience members objected when NPR
used the phrase. It's controversial. Many people don't like to
think of the good guys using assassins. Assassination is a
uniquely awful form of murder. It is defined by target, motivation,

(28:16):
and tactics. The target is typically a prominent public figure,
while the assassin themselves maybe in it only for the money.
The people orchestrating the assassination typically have larger socio political
aims regime change. For example, while a robber may murder

(28:39):
a cashier in the course of a crime, they're not
doing so with the goal of changing public discourse or
a nation's government. But someone who fatally attacks the president
of the United States is an assassin. This distinction may
seem like a trivial game of semantics, but it's a

(29:01):
big deal. In some cases, it can have legal implications.
Politically motivated killings are familiar to cultures across the planet
and throughout the ages, from John Wilkes Booth to Locusta
the Poisoner. You don't have to look far to find
historical records of assassins. The Encyclopedia of Assassinations by Karl

(29:28):
Sefakis explores both attempted and successful assassinations throughout human history
and across the planet. The term assassin dates back to
a real ancient organization known as the Order of Assassins.
A great deal of the stories about this order are

(29:49):
either fancifully embellished or outright fabricated. Their fortress was conquered
in twelve fifty six and their records were destroyed, so
no accounts from the Order itself exists in the modern day.
Much of the contemporaneous writing about the Assassins comes from
their enemies, such as Syrian Sunni chroniclers. These accounts are

(30:14):
biased because the Syrian Sunnis despised the Assassins for good reason.
For example, the connection between assassins and marijuana use was
almost certainly a smear tactic, and there's no credible link
between the Order and this drug. However, we do know

(30:35):
a few things for certain. Between ten ninety and twelve
seventy five, a small Shia sect called the Nazari Ismaili,
located high in the mountains of Persia and Syria, went
into the murder business. This sect was founded by Hassani Saba,
who referred to his followers as a sassayun, which means

(30:58):
people who are faith full to the foundation of the faith.
They were based in a fortress called Alamote Castle, about
one hundred and thirty miles from modern day Tehran. The
Nazari Ismaili sought to challenge the Seljuk Turks Sunni Muslims
who were in control of Persia at the time. This

(31:21):
is when the group first became known as the Hashashion.
This group actively and covertly murdered Muslim and Christian leaders
throughout the Middle East who were deemed to be enemies
of the state or the order. While assassins typically refers
to the entire sect, only a select group of disciples

(31:45):
known as the Fida'i actually engaged in conflict. The Nassari
did not have a standing army, so they relied on
these warriors to carry out espionage and assassinations of key
enemy figure gers. While the reputation of the Assassins was
built largely on exaggerations by their enemies, the impact of

(32:08):
this small sect and its effective tactics struck fear into
mighty powers, and perhaps most importantly, has inspired imitators ever since.
So knowing the bizarre history of the term assassin, we
have to ask how much of their strategy informed similar

(32:28):
activities in the modern day. Assassinations still occur. With so
much new technology and play, and so much more communication
between world powers, it's easy to assume that someone at
some point must have said, hey, we should make assassination illegal, right, Well,

(32:50):
unfortunately that doesn't seem to be entirely true. According to
the political ethicist Michael L. Gross, assassination can be more
or less perfectly legal. He writes, international law does not
man assassination unequivocally, but instead prohibits perfidy, or those acts

(33:13):
that abuse the protections that the laws of armed conflict guarantee.
Common examples of perfidy include attacking from under the protection
of a white flag or harming combatants who laid down
their arms. These protections are integral to modern warfare and
underlie the conventions of surrender. Without them, war would end

(33:35):
only an extermination, or the proverbial fight to the death.
Assassination is perfidious only in so far as it abuses
these or similar protections. So in this sense, assassination is
fine just as long as you obey certain rules. Assassination

(33:56):
remains a viable tactic for governments. For why simple troubling
fact it works. Assassinations, or if you prefer, targeted killings,
have fundamentally altered the course of human history. In Russia alone,
five emperors were assassinated within less than two hundred years,

(34:19):
Ivan the sixth, Peter the third, Paul the first, Alexander
the second, and Nicholas the second, along with his wife Alexandra,
daughters Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia, and son Alexei, with
each murder sparking instability and chaos in the region. Another example,

(34:42):
six of the twelve Caesars were assassinated, with each death
marking a shift in the governance of the Roman Empire.
The most notable assassination victim in US history was President
Abraham Lincoln. Three other US presidents have been killed by
assassin nation since, James Garfield, William McKinley, and John F. Kennedy.

(35:06):
In Europe, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by Gavrilo Princey,
one of several Serb nationalist insurgents, triggered World War One.
It's tricky to say how history would have played out

(35:27):
if these and other murders had not occurred. The stage
was already set for World War One, Lincoln had already
made a lasting impact on the US and so on.
But we will never know what would have happened had
these and other political leaders remained alive for their natural

(35:47):
life span. What we do know is this multiple countries
have committed, do commit, and likely will commit assassinations in
the future. The United States is no exception. Given the
deeply ingrained distrust of government and love of conspiracy so

(36:09):
common in American culture, it should come as no surprise
that one of the country's most popular, prevalent, and long
lived conspiracy theories is centered around an assassination. Who really
killed President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. In the world of conspiracy lore,

(36:31):
the idea that sinister forces assassinated President Kennedy and later
his brother Robert Kennedy looms large. It's one of the
most widely believed conspiracy tales in the United States, and
for good reason. First, there are several strange aspects to
the story. You can call them discrepancies, complications, or coincidence.

(36:58):
Since the day of Kennedy's assass fascination on November two nine,
Gallup has tracked public opinion about the murder. It's first poll,
taken immediately after the assassination, found that fifty two percent
of Americans believed others were involved in the incident, and

(37:18):
only twenty nine percent believed Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone,
though this number has waxed and waned over the years.
Recent polls from Gallop and five thirty eight indicate that today,
nearly sixty years since the murder, well over half of

(37:38):
the American public believes there was a conspiracy afoot. A
twenty nineteen poll from Associated Press GfK found that fifty
nine percent of Americans think multiple people were involved in
a conspiracy to kill President Kennedy. If the officials seem

(37:59):
uni versely aligned on the same conclusion, why do so
many people have a problem with the story? First, there
are the numerous inconsistencies in the findings. During his time
with the Assassination Records Review Board, Dr T Jeremy Gunn
was surprised to learn that some of the medical evidence

(38:21):
was dubious. The Assassination's Records Review Board was created by
the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of
only a year or so after filmmaker Oliver Stone debut
JFK his conspiratorial take on Kennedy's murder. The board was

(38:44):
expressly formed to re examine assassination related records federal agencies
felt were still too sensitive to share with the public.
During a deposition with Dr James Joseph Humes, one of
three doctors who performed the autopsy on Kennedy's corpse, Dr

(39:05):
Gunn learned the medical team skipped some basic steps of
a normal autopsy. Dr Humes also stated he'd made a
copy of the original autopsy, destroying the first document when
he realized it bore bloodstains. Dr Gunn found additional discrepancies

(39:26):
what he calls serious problems with the forensic and ballistic evidence,
as well as the troubling discovery that the official photos
of Kennedy's corps stored in the National Archives do not
appear to be the original photos. These facts do not
point inevitably to conspiracy. First, this murder investigation received much

(39:52):
more scrutiny than an everyday homicide, and to a degree,
it's logical that it would continue to receive heightened scrutiny
in the decades following. It is not uncommon for homicide
investigations to have discrepancies inaccuracies and missing paperwork, and these problems,
when discovered, don't automatically send people into the land of conspiracy.

(40:18):
At the same time, mistrust of the government is as
American as apple pie apples are originally from Kazakhstan, and
since parts of the investigation remain classified today, that lack
of transparency, coupled with an ingrained lack of trust, makes
dense fertile soil for speculation. Belief in conspiracies surrounding the

(40:43):
Kennedy assassination also seems to know no real political divide.
In about fifty nine percent of Hillary Clinton's supporters believed
in a conspiracy surrounding the death, and about sixty one
percent of Donald Trump's supporters were on the same page.

(41:06):
The most prevalent conspiracy theories surrounding the Kennedy assassination can
be grouped into a few broad categories. The Mafia killed Kennedy,
Fidel Castro killed Kennedy, the c I A or then
Vice President Lyndon Johnson or both working in concert killed Kennedy.

(41:28):
On the more extreme end of the spectrum, we find
people claiming shadowy cabals like the Illuminati killed Kennedy, or
that the president somehow never actually died. It's a fascinating,
deep rabbit hole of conjecture, and the theories often contradict
each other on the most basic of assumptions. There is, however,

(41:51):
one commonality, Lee Harvey Oswald, All the popular theories state
did not act alone. M theorists also tend to place
great weight on Oswald's own death. He was murdered on
November nineteen sixty three by a local nightclub owner named

(42:12):
Jack Ruby. Ruby died while awaiting a retrial on January third,
nineteen sixty seven. Again, over half of the American public
believes some version of these stories, and since nineteen sixty
three they've never quite gone away, and the nineteen sixty

(42:34):
eight assassination of JFK's brother, New York Senator Robert Kennedy
only added more fuel to the fire of speculation. While
declassifying all outstanding information regarding the assassination would be a
big step toward dispelling some of the wilder claims, it's

(42:55):
possible that even full transparency wouldn't be enough to stem
the side of speculation. This is because, regardless of what
evidence has been produced or will be produced regarding one
of history's most infamous assassinations, one profoundly disturbing, inarguable fact

(43:16):
remains the United States has assassinated people it like other countries,
likely will assassinate more people in the future if it
deems such actions appropriate, But the US is not infallible.

(43:36):
Just as with the pattern of attempted coup datas, the
U s assassination track record features its own collection of
blunders and failures. The most famous of these was probably
Uncle Sam's long running mission to assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro.
Over the course of decades, multiple US administration tried increasingly

(44:02):
bizarre and outlandish methods to end Castro's life. Poison smuggled
in cold cream, batulenum tocks and laced the cigars a
syringe of lethal substances hidden in a pen. The CIA
reached out to mafia syndicates in the US seeking to
arrange a hit. Some of the plots focused on character assassination,

(44:25):
essentially deciding that if the man couldn't be killed, discrediting
him was the next best thing. What if thallium salt
could destroy his facial hair, could LSD be piped into
his recording studio causing him to hallucinate on air? The
last documented attempt on Castro's life occurred in two thousand,

(44:49):
while he was on a trip to Panama. His personal
security guards discovered a cash of explosives hidden under a podium.
This attempt also yield This list of farcical misfires points
to one reason we should be skeptical of many assassination
conspiracy theories. How can the same government capable of orchestrating

(45:14):
and carrying out a convoluted plot to kill its own president,
including a sweeping multigenerational cover up of that act, also
be so incompetent that it could not kill another world leader,
despite more than six hundred separate attempts, specifically six hundred

(45:34):
and thirty four according to Fabian Escalante, the former chief
of Cuba's counter intelligence initiatives. Nevertheless, we are faced with
the undeniable fact that members of the United States government
are capable of ordering, planning, and carrying out the execution
of political leaders. And this fact has led many people

(45:58):
in the US and around the world to believe that
such extraordinary actions are not as uncommon as we might think,
nor restricted to foreign leaders. This brings us to another infamous,
untimely death, the assassination of doctor Martin Luther King Jr.

(46:20):
Born in Atlanta, Georgia, in nineteen twenty nine. Martin Luther
King Jr. Was a minister, activist and one of the
most prominent leaders of the American civil rights movement. From
the Montgomery bus boycott of nineteen fifty five up until
his death, Doctor King fought tirelessly to further the cause

(46:42):
of equality for all residents of America, regardless of their race, ethnicity, income,
or political stance. Doctor King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee,
on April fourth, nineteen sixty eight. Investigations of the murder
concluded King was killed by veteran and petty criminal James

(47:03):
Earl Ray using a Remington rifle to which he attached
the scope. Riots ensued across the country. As in the
case of Kennedy's assassination, a significant portion of the public
did not accept the government's conclusions, and a large percentage
of the American population today considers US involvement in King's

(47:25):
murder to be a kind of open secret. Critics of
the official narrative, including King's surviving relatives, argue that King
was purposely targeted for assassination by branches of the federal
government and the mafia in The King family brought and
won a civil suit in which the jury agreed that

(47:48):
doctor King's death was the result of a conspiracy by
a coffee shop owner named Lloyd Jowers, who had been
hired by a mafia affiliated Memphis resident and Frank Liberto.
Jowers claimed the Memphis police and a man known only
as Raoul also participated. According to Jowers, Ray was framed

(48:12):
to take the fall, and the actual shooter was Earl Clark,
a Memphis police officer. The court granted the King family
one hundred dollars in damages. This ruling prompted the Department
of Justice d o J to reopen the case the
next year. The d J stated it found no evidence

(48:34):
of a conspiracy. Furthermore, the department found there was no
proof Frank Liberto was a mafioso, jowers own statements didn't
add up, and his witnesses couldn't get their story straight.
The department also noted Jowers was being paid for media
appearances related to the assassination and questioned his motives. By

(48:58):
the time the d O issued this announcement, the public
had already learned about Cohen tell Pro. The federal government
may not have killed Dr King, but it certainly worked
to ruin him. Cohen tell Pro short for counter intelligence
program was an FBI initiative originally intended to discover and

(49:20):
disrupt communist activity in the United States. The program began
in nineteen fifty six and existed in secrecy until nineteen
seventy one. It also experienced mission creep, expanding its scope
from communism to include surveillance and disruption operations against virtually

(49:41):
any groups believed to be a threat to national security.
The definition of national security also broadened, as was convenient coming,
to mean in practice, anything the FBI perceived as a
threat to the existing status quo. This included things like
far right hate groups, as well as left wing civil

(50:04):
rights initiatives. Coin tel Pro broke laws in the service
of what it saw as the greater good, and did
so successfully. Ultimately, it would take an independent crime to
bring these crimes to light. The American public first learned
of co in tel Pro, not through declassified documents or

(50:26):
a whistleblower, but from a good old fashioned heist. In one,
an outfit called the Citizens Commission to Investigate the FBI
broke into an FBI field office in Media, Pennsylvania, making
off with over one thousand documents containing classified information and

(50:47):
later past material describing co in tel Pro to reporters.
Many news agencies initially refused to publish the evidence, concerned
that as it related to ongoing govern ment activities, going
public might threaten the lives of the agents and others
involved in the operations. The Washington Post became the first

(51:10):
to break the story, running their report on March twenty four,
seventy one. Win Magazine published an expose a on the
break in in March nineteen seventy two, with a piece
showing the complete collection of the stolen documents. This treasure
trove of information provided indisputable evidence that the FBI was

(51:34):
conducting criminal acts, including the use of switchboard operators and
postal workers to spy on non violent black activist groups,
black college students, to right wing groups, and more than
two hundred left leaning groups. Cohen Telpro also targeted Dr

(51:56):
Martin Luther King, Jr. In a conspiracy to discredit his
activities and, if possible, prompt him to take his own life.
Perhaps most infamously, in nineteen sixty four, King's wife, Coretta
Scott King, received an anonymous package containing recordings of King's

(52:17):
alleged sexual activities outside of marriage, as well as a
letter that King believed was attempting to persuade him to
commit suicide. King believed this letter and the recording were
the work of the FBI. In the wake of co
Intel prose public exposure, the Church Committee conducted a series

(52:40):
of hearings and investigations, eventually uncovering evidence that seemed to
confirm King's suspicions. The nineteen seventy Senate Select Committee to
Study Governmental Operations with respect to Intelligence Activities, also known
as the Church Committee because it was chaired by Frank

(53:01):
Forrester Church, the Third investigated alleged illegal activities carried out
by the National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, and
the Federal Bureau of Investigation. A copy of the anonymous
letter was found in the work files of Deputy FBI
Director William C. Sullivan. This means that while the US

(53:25):
denies any involvement with the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The government inarguably did instigate and pursue a conspiracy against him,
illegally spying on his activities, conducting smear campaigns, and doing
a number of, at the very least highly unethical things

(53:48):
to discredit his standing in the civil rights movement. And
in the general public eye. With this in mind, it's
no wonder that so many people but eve Doctor King
was murdered by some faction of the government, or that
members of some government agencies may have had at least

(54:10):
knowledge of his impending death. And with this information, it's
also not particularly surprising that the jury in Memphis agreed.
The jury, which was made up of six black and
six white jurors, reached a unanimous verdict. These assassinations are
two of the most famous alleged to have been carried

(54:33):
out by the US government, but they're far from the
only examples, both in the United States and abroad. Again,
consider the assassination of Iranian General Kasam Solamani in two
thousand twenty, or the numerous leaders who, like Salvador Allende
in Chile, died during coups organized by the CIA. Assassination

(54:58):
remains a liable tool for governments, criminal organizations, and terrorist
groups alike, and assassinations are by their very nature inherently conspiratorial.
Countries often don't like to be openly associated with these
acts of murder, and commonly employ proxies to obfuscate their

(55:21):
direct involvement. The problem with many JFK and MLK theories
is that theorists often interpret a lack of evidence as
a form of evidence itself. If evidence doesn't exist, and
it's not because there is no proof of a conspiracy,
it's because the proof has been destroyed or hidden by

(55:43):
the nefarious government bureaucrats behind the assassination plot. The goal
post can continually move, and if evidence that contradicts a
conspiracy theory is revealed, as in our earlier examples, there
would still be people claiming this exonerating evidence was doctored

(56:04):
or manufactured. The latter scenario is rare in any case.
The truth it is highly unlikely the American public will
ever be given full access to classified information regarding the
investigations of the MLK and Kennedy assassinations. That absence of transparency,

(56:26):
even when there are valid security reasons for secrecy, functions
as high test fuel for the engine of public conjecture.
Imperfect transparency is still better than nothing, but speculation of
government involvement in these assassinations will only continue to thrive

(56:47):
in the coming decades. There it is we hope you
enjoyed this chapter on coups and assassinations minus the mysterious
three minutes, and you might be saying you might be
haunted right now by how strange the world is, and
you might be asking yourself, how do I find there's

(57:08):
three minutes you guys are hiding from me. We can
help you with that. On October October eleven eleventh, as
my Monster Truck announcer voice producer of Lackluster The Stuff
they Don't Want you to Know, book and audiobook will
be unleashed. Dare I say released on the public, the
unsuspecting or in your case, suspecting public. And and we
really appreciate if you bought those things. I think sometimes

(57:30):
it's cool to have both because it really is. You know,
you're gonna get us a chance to hear us fumble
our way through an audio book reading. And I think
we all did a fine job. I don't know why
I'm being self deprecating there on all of our behalves.
That was an appropriate me. But seriously, it is something.
There is something to be able to listen to it.
This is the kind of book you can also reread.
I mean it really is like the the actual physical

(57:50):
book really just looks looks really nice on your coffee
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(58:12):
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give us all you know, give us trap flavor, reggaetone,
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What will do? Oh yeah? Or what? What is something
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after duck cry and loving or leaving. We're glad you're here. Uh,

(59:02):
we cannot wait to hear your opinions. As we said. Uh.
The book, the audio book, they're out, check out the art.
We are very fortunate to be joined with with the
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(59:24):
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