Sometimes, things that are so completely different and range wildly in their impact have a single, slender, fascinating thread that binds them together. Pulling on that thread, not just merely remarking upon it, but finding out what it means and how it matters is exactly what we do on this podcast.
Today's episode finds the tie that binds three disparate elements: The CIA's attempt to win the Cold War through culture with the Congress for Cultural Freedom. The assassination of Robert Kennedy by Sirhan Sirhan. As well as, the 2nd place runner up in the pre-1983 video game crash Mattel's Intellivision. What could they possibly have in common? Listen to find out.
‘Blue Sky Rangers Intellivision History’. https://history.blueskyrangers.com/.
Boellstorff, Tom, and Braxton Soderman. ‘Transplatform: Culture, Context, and the Intellivision/Atari VCS Rivalry’. Games and Culture 14, no. 6 (1 September 2019): 680–703. https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412017721839.
‘Defending Sirhan Sirhan | Bentley Historical Library’. https://bentley.umich.edu/news-events/magazine/defending-sirhan-sirhan/.
Gorney, Cynthia. ‘Sirhan’. Washington Post, 20 August 1979. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1979/08/20/sirhan/75cd41f0-e570-4bc4-ac93-83f251eec765/.
Library of Congress, ‘Robert F. Kennedy’s Assassin | https://www.loc.gov/exhibitions/drawing-justice-courtroom-illustrations/about-this-exhibition/assassination-and-murder-trials/robert-f-kennedys-assassin/.
‘Remembering the Congress of Cultural Freedom - ProQuest’. https://www.proquest.com/docview/206723938?accountid=11862&sourcetype=Scholarly%20Journals.
Severo, Richard. ‘George Plimpton, Urbane and Witty Writer, Dies at 76’. The New York Times, 26 September 2003, https://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/26/obituaries/george-plimpton-urbane-and-witty-writer-dies-at-76.html.
‘The Assassination of Robert Kennedy | History Today’. https://www.historytoday.com/archive/months-past/assassination-robert-kennedy.
The Paris Review. ‘Invisible Ink: At the CIA’s Creative Writing Group’, https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2024/01/09/invisible-ink-at-the-cias-creative-writing-group/.
X. ‘Who Is Sirhan Sirhan? His Life before the RFK Assassination’. Los Angeles Times, . https://www.latimes.com/california/newsletter/2021-08-30/sirhan-sirhan-robert-f-kennedy-essential-california.
Seemingly Unrelated is a podcast all about exploring how everyday things connect to major movements in history, politics and culture.
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