08.) Imposters I

What does the most famous imposter case of all time tell us about the mystery of the phantom marine? Natalie Zemon Davis joins to tell us.

Episode Transcript

(00:09):
Hello, this is Chris de Rose. Welcome back to the Phantom Marine.
We're on episode eight already and we'releaving the island of Iwajima. In the
last episode you heard, Colonel Barrelldiscussed the difficulties associated with William Langston surviving
the battle at Cushman's Pocket and returningto the United States undetected. He also

(00:31):
made some pretty important observations about thelack of fingerprints on William Langston's death certificate.
I didn't realize that fingerprints were unobtainableafter a certain amount of time,
and given how far behind enemy linesWilliam Langston was alleged to have died,
it made sense that it took solong to retrieve his body. So really,

(00:52):
we don't have evidence that this wasa slipshot identification. After all,
it wasn't that they weren't interested ingetting his fingerprints. They simply weren't available,
and they returned his ring that hiswife had given him and his identification
bracelet, which would have been wornon his wrist. Furthermore, despite uncovering
evidence that there were prisoners of wartaken, held hostage and tortured on Iwashima,

(01:18):
we really don't have any evidence ofanyone surviving the encounter. In fact,
all the evidence we have is tothe contrary that they would have died
shortly after falling into the hands ofthe Japanese. So, whoever the man
with the limp was, and itseems clear that he told people that he
had been captured by the Japanese andthat's where he'd been all that time.
That seems to be a lie,or at best a mistake made by a

(01:41):
man who's not in his right mind. Here's the problem we're left with.
If William Langston died on Iwashima,then who appeared in his place in Newport,
Arkansas in January of nineteen forty six. There was no possible motive for
someone to impersonate William Langston. Hewasn't the heir to a fortune. He
was declared dead and not entitled toany military benefits. The only suspect we've

(02:07):
had throughout this is his brother,Marion, who perhaps bore a physical resemblance
to him, would have been familiarwith some of the people from the town,
would have known some of the Langstonfamily stories. You could at least
make a plausible case for why MarionLangston would assume the mantle of his deceased

(02:28):
war hero brother. But Marion wascompletely conclusively ruled out after a thorough investigation
by the Seattle branch of the FBI, leaving us with no suspects and no
possible motivation for someone else to impersonateWilliam Langston. But let's set motive aside.
People do all kinds of sick thingsin the world that don't have an
obvious explanation or rationale behind them.Let's say someone came up with the idea

(02:53):
to impersonate a deceased war veteran,to go to his hometown to do this,
with a knowledge that his mother,his wife, his son would find
out that he had possibly reappeared.Let's say someone decided to do this to
this family that had already suffered somuch. How were they able to do
it so successfully? The man withthe limp was in no hurry when he

(03:15):
arrived in Newport. He went intobars, he went into pool halls,
he went into restaurants, He droppedby people's houses. He spent the night
at the home of a friend.He conversed freely with a number of people,
and he convinced them, almost toa person, that he was indeed
William Langston, the person that theyhad grown up with, that they'd played

(03:38):
team sports with, that they hadgone to school with, people whose businesses
he had frequented as a little boy, believed it was him. How was
he able to do this so successfully? How did he know that Lacy Fields
had visited his mother's house fifteen yearsearlier, and that he had come with
Dutch Vaughan, and that Dove,Duncan and mod And were already present when

(04:00):
he arrived. How did he recognizethe people he saw and why did he
know they are long forgotten nicknames?How did he know about the sea monster
story that he referenced in the letterto the editor of the Memphis newspaper.
How did he know all of thesethings if he wasn't William Langston. This
brings us to the subject of today'sepisode, Impostors. I wanted to look

(04:26):
through history and see if anyone hadever been so convincingly impersonated as it seems
possible that William Langston was in Newport, Arkansas in January of nineteen forty six.
The world's most famous impostor story isthat of Martin Gare. Martin Gare
has been the subject of many articlesand books and even movies over a course

(04:49):
of decades. They tell the storyof his disappearance from his village in France
in fifteen forty eight and the returnof a man claiming to be him years
later. I reached out to theworld's leading authority on Martin Gare, Natalie
Zeman Davis. Doctor Davis is alegend, and it was wonderful to have

(05:09):
an excuse to reach out to herand the privilege of interviewing her. Before
her retirement, she taught at BrownUniversity, the University of Toronto, University
of California, Berkeley, and fornearly twenty years at Princeton. She is
the former president of the American HistoricalAssociation, and the second woman to have
held that position, and in twothirteen President Barack Obama awarded her the National

(05:33):
Humanity's Medal for her insights into thestudy of history and her exacting eloquence in
bringing the past into focus. I'llturn it over to doctor Davis now to
tell us the story of Martin Gareand whether there are any lessons we can
apply to the story of William Langston. People are really interested in these stories
and how people get away with itas far as my reaction to this case,

(05:58):
in a ways classic that is areturn the attorney from who's thought to
be dead in war and then hecomes back. That seems to be one
of the classic examples. Young Martin, only about in his teens, steals,
takes some grain from his father's granaryand disappears and isn't heard from by

(06:20):
his family or his young wife orlittle boy for eight or nine years.
They don't know where he's gone.And it's interesting because though he'd had a
little quarrel with his family, hewasn't poor. He was from a well
off family. He had the chanceto be an important air. He goes,

(06:41):
they had been married very young.Perhaps it was an unhappy marriage.
Had taken him many years to evenget a potent enough to have intercourse with
his wife and have a baby.Who knows what was going on in that
family. But he leans his beautifulwife, bertrand herself from a good peasant
family, and she then await avery difficult situation for a village woman to

(07:06):
be abandoned that way. Uh,she waits, raises her son sexy,
and then in fifteen fifty six heseems to come back. A man appears
in the village, is recognized byMartin Gear's sisters, is four sisters,

(07:29):
and then is accepted by Bear Thronesto rolls Uh into her into the marriage
bed. Is accepted by the uncleof the family. He's now the patriarch
of the family and is married isBear Trones, Martin Gear's wife, Bertone's
mother is accepted comes back. Uhseems so wealth. Is recognized by a

(07:56):
number of the villagers and Artie Godwho she to know him and who seems
to He seems to know them andgive them their names. Some are sort
of dubious about him, feel alittle uncomfortable with him, but then they
too accept him. He's very pleasantto everyone. Gets going fine. The

(08:20):
family is delighted to have their theair back, and he'd beings and managed
the farms. All goes very wellfor three years they he and Bertrand have
a baby daughter, so that MartinGear's son Sankxy has a little sister,
and things go well until Barton,the new Martin, begins to quarrel with

(08:46):
the patriarch uncle of the family aboutwhat to do with the family property,
whether it should be sold or whatshould be done with it dave a quarrel,
and Pierre the patriarch begins to say, you're not really my nephew,
You're an impostor. He's he's beena little bit worried about him. He
noticed that they were there were sortof differences in size feet size. The

(09:11):
shoemaker had kind of wondered how comethe food foot size had changed and it
had become smaller. I think hesaid, I've seen people's feet getting bigger
over the years, but not gettingsmaller in this particular way. So there
begins to be a quarrel. Uhand Uh, their tron on the hole

(09:33):
is completely loyal on the hole,There's some complications at one point her uncle
browbea turn who challenging him. Butto make a heat the story simple.
On the Hole, she's very veryloyal to him and until all of a
sudden, the the case is broughtagainst him that he is not really Martin

(10:00):
Gere. Uh. And there areactually two cases brought, the big one
and then the small one. Butanyway, the cases or first case is
brought. Uh. She she managesto get him through this. Uh.
And what they decide to seem towhat they decide to do and this is
my reading of it before a bigcase UH is brought by Pierre Garrett claiming

(10:24):
with her support, Finally, whatmade what the couple decides to do UH
is to uh is? It seemedto me, in looking through all the
evidence, that Bertrand had simply decidedto accept him UH, that she knew
from the beginning that he was notreally Martin gear As the sixteenth century observers

(10:50):
said, the wife knows the handsof her husband on her on the body,
uh. And she had just decidedthat he was good enough that this
was fine. Believe it or not, this was a revolutionary theory when doctor
Davis first advanced it that Bertrand hadknown that the man who showed up in

(11:11):
the village was not her husband,was not Martin Gare, but accepted him
as her husband. And here's why. At this time, abandonment was not
grounds for divorce. So if yourhusband left you, you were completely out
of luck. You couldn't socialize withthe married women in the village. But
also you couldn't find another husband,and so you were trapped in between.

(11:35):
And so if a man showed upin the town after eight or nine years
and said I'm your husband, It'snot very surprising that someone would say you
know what, yeah, you are. And from everything that I was able
to discover about Arto de Chief,he was very personable and very very a
very skilled actor. If you getaway with what he got away with,

(12:01):
especially with some people in the villageaccepting you recognize him, you would have
to be a charmer in some way, of somebody who would take on the
language and personality of another and carryit off. And she, as you
say, she was stuck and sheaccepted him. And what I think this

(12:22):
is very important to say about thesuccess that he did have that from the
very beginning, either consciously and openlyor semi consciously, she was helping him.
She was giving him memories that hehadn't acquired them from investigating before arriving
in the village. She was givinghim memories of their past together. Therefore,

(12:46):
when the trial, when he becomesthreatened with the trial, he's already
part way there to be able toprovide the main evidence that was used in
the trial, that is to say, memory. Did he have a memory
of the past of Martin Gere Andhe did. He did. Indeed,

(13:07):
he including extremely intimate things that onlysomeone who had been very close to her
could have and therefore she must haveprovided it provided him. She must have
decided that he was it and thatshe was going to help him. Hold
onto what I call in my bookthe invented marriage. They had created a

(13:31):
marriage, not what not one thathad ever been blessed by the church,
but they had created it, andshe holds on to that when she later
actually joins Pierre in bringing the caseagainst him. That is what the case
finally gets to the courts and tothe High Court, and to lose.

(13:56):
She is playing what I called inmy book a double game. She really
hopes he will that he will winthe case. That is, he will
be declared not an impostor, thatthe uncle's claimed that he was an impostor
is false. Of the uncle willbe punished by that flame. And she
has given him all the evidence thathe needs for that by giving him all

(14:18):
the memories that he needs, memoriesthat he can can recall, events that
he can recall from their past,in their early past, separately from her,
and that she will completely confirm.And this is what happened in the
trial except her testimony. So she'sdoing everything she can for him to win

(14:39):
the case, but in case heloses, by joining Pierre in the suit
against him, she is saved,and he probably agreed that she should do
it. She is saved from beingaccused with him of a false of fall

(15:00):
bhood which would of a contrived inventedmarriage, which would have led to her
death as as well, given thekind of punishment said they had in the
sixteenth century, as as well asas hint, she would have been executed
as well. So that, ifyou see what I mean, there's a
double game. On the one hand, she's doing everything possible to help him

(15:22):
be declared her husband. On theother hand, she's got an out and
maybe he agreed with her doing itthat if he has not declared her husband,
she pretends to be the innocent victimand will not be declared guilty.
And that's that's what happened. Hewas found guilty of being an impostor once

(15:43):
the real Martin gear showed up.It's a wonderful, wonderful moment in the
history story that the court was aboutto declare him the real Martin gear when
boom boom boom into the courtroom practicallywalks the real Martin gear on his wooden

(16:04):
leg, the wooden leg he'd hadto acquire after he'd lost his real leg
in the battle. What a scene, What a what a dramatic story.
And indeed, in the course Bertrondthen is asked to recognize is this really
your two husband, Martin gear andthen she says, yes, I was

(16:26):
deceived. Is my true husband thathas arrived by a story? I asked
doctor Davis about the physical resemblance betweenMartin Gere and Arnodt. They were evidently
thought of as lookalikes. They diddissemble each other, at least in their
face, so it's it's not somesome people were genuinely taken in. In

(16:49):
fact, there's some speculation that hegot the idea to do this because he'd
been confused with Martin Garre on twooccasions. Right, yeah, Yes,
A couple of people had had seenhim and had mistaken him, and he
thought he joyed with the idea thathe decided to do it. Some people,

(17:12):
since I published my book speculated tome that maybe this had been something
invited by the sisters, the sisterswho accepted him so enthusiastically, that they
had wanted I'm not sure. I'mjust offering this as a speculation. Who
knows that maybe the sisters had approachedhim apprised by people from the other village

(17:40):
who sugg Arto's village about his beingsomething will Book alike, and that they
had approached him and suggested to himthat was just his idea. That's a
possibility. I kind of like interms of my preference, because we have
no clear evidence on one side oranother, I kind of prefer his thinking

(18:04):
about it on his own rather thanthe sisters thinking of at first. I'd
rather like the idea of his beingthe kind of improvising his carnivalesque improvisations personality
thinking of it, and then thesisters agreeing to it when he accepting him

(18:26):
enthusiastically when he comes. But othershave suggested that it might have been a
family plot ahead of time to getsomebody back into the place so that the
family would have a proper head inprincipal, the principal. Given the patriarchal
structure of that village life, theuncle was the head of the family.

(18:48):
But Arnold, Arnold, that isthe new the new Martin as I often
called him, was willing to challengehim on occasion. He even mean before
the court case in which Pierre andthen Bertron uh claimed that he was an
impostor. Before that, Uh Martin, the false Arnold. Arnold Martin had

(19:15):
done on what I think was anunbelievably stupid saying, really showing him as
being arrogant or or pushing his luck. He had brought a civil suit against
Pierre, Uh, the head ofthe family, in regard to a property
issue of some kind. Uh.And UH that that that could have only

(19:41):
infuriated UH chair here's he I'm thehead of the family. What does he
think he's doing. I know howto run the property. Uh. It
could be the because the issues thatI thought had to do with old style
rather as opposed to new style propertymanagement. That Arnold seemed to want to

(20:03):
buy and sell lands, sell landsthat he thought were less fruitful and get
get better lands. And from Pierre'spoint of view, these were inherited properties.
Uh to Arno, who wasn't reallya care they weren't literally inherited properties.
They were properties he was taking over. And peasants have a kind of

(20:26):
sentiment about inheritance lands. Uh.And even if if Arno thought it was
commercially important to get better lands.It was something that Pierre would not have
accepted. And though this may seemsmall of small importance to us, I
can see how that kind of actionwould have made Tear very suspicious that he

(20:52):
didn't he he didn't like that acommercial style, and he certainly didn't like
his nephew, so called nephew onselling the basic inherited property lands. So
there were quarlos going on between them, and I think that Arnold just began
to feel too sure of himself.In my theory, he actually began to

(21:15):
believe he was the real Martin Gear, that as he had the right to
do the things that the real MartinGear as if he were the real Martin
Gear. He and bared phones acceptancewith him, I think helped him with
this belief. In her younger years, doctor Davis saw many of the men

(21:40):
she grew up with go off towar, waited anxiously for their return,
and learned in many cases that theywould never be coming home. And I
remember just what was like, wasworried about worries during the war and what
was going to happening, and thenwhat it was like when the soldiers came
back with my uncle came back andmy boyfriends. Some of my boyfriends were

(22:03):
killed and some came back. Andso I'm thinking of those years precisely five
forty six, forty seven when theyall came about. I mean, I
do as I should. I rememberso clearly what it was like when you
waited to hear who has survived andwho came back. Now they looked coming

(22:26):
back in their uniforms, and we'llgetting going back. It was quite a
time. And then of course thebomb dropped and that changed everything. My
thinks again to doctor Natalie Zeman Davis, a historic figure in her own right
for her perspectives and recollections. Herbook, which is excellent, is called

(22:47):
The Return of Martin Gare. Thisstory from history has had a major impact
in my thinking on William Langston,but not in the way I expected from
a thousand foot view. You see, are no to t show up in
this village claim to be Martin Gare. Pull it off for four years.
He convinces the wife, he convincesthe family, He demonstrates incredibly detailed knowledge

(23:12):
of the life of Martin Gare,and even manages to convince some judges.
In fact, it looks like theHigh Court is about to declare him Martin
Gare when the real Martin Gare entersthe courtroom. So if you look at
that, you say, well,it's incredibly possible that somebody showed up in
Newport, Arkansas on January nineteen fortysix and successfully pretended to be William Langston

(23:34):
for a couple of days. Right, never had to convince Langston's widow.
He's seeing people that he hasn't seenfor years, and it's only for a
couple of days. But when youlook further into the Martin Gere story,
it makes the imposter theory harder tobelieve, not easier. Here's what I
mean by that. We learned fromdoctor Davis that Martin Gere's wife was in

(23:56):
on it. She had no optionto divorce, no option to remain ry.
A man showed up in town andsaid he was her husband. It
was a pretty good deal from herperspective. Here to doctor Davis's research,
it was widely thought that Arnaud hadactually fooled the wife, which of course's
nonsense. From there, it's easyto understand Arnaud acquired so many of Martin
Gare's memories bertrand supplied them to himin order to help pull off the ruse,

(24:22):
and as doctor Davis pointed out,it may even be the case that
Martin Gare's sisters were in on it, and that they had put Arnaud up
to this in order to secure anheir for the family. Now imagine you're
a skeptic in the village, butyou see that the wife has accepted Arnauld
as Martin Gare, the sisters haveaccepted Arnault as Martin Gere, and Arnauld,
this man claiming to be Martin Geare, has incredibly detailed knowledge of things

(24:47):
that only Martin Gare would ostensibly know. Arnault probably could have ridden this out
forever had he not challenged his uncleover the sale of some land that would
have had sentimental value to the realMartin Gare, but not to an impostor.
Let me put this another way,Arnault may have pulled off the most
famous act of imposture in world history, but what he did was not remotely

(25:10):
as difficult as what the man withthe limp achieved in Newport, Arkansas.
If he indeed was an impostor andnot William Langston Bertrand had a heavy incentive
to accept this man as her husbandand vouch for him no one in Newport,
Arkansas, outside of Langston's family,had any incentive to assume that this

(25:30):
was the young man returned home fromwar mistakenly declared dead. The man with
the limp had to go out andsuccessfully convince people, many of whom were
initially skeptical. Indeed, the manwith the limp seems to have had command
of memories that only William Langston wouldhave known, and if he was not
Lengston himself, there's just no clearanswer for how he could have possibly gotten

(25:52):
them. Next time, we willbe discussing another incredible act of imposture from
history, this time of a manwho had him self declared dead and then
tried to prove he was alive.Until then, connect with us at Facebook
dot com, slash Phantom Marine andsend me your questions at christ rosebooks dot

(26:12):
com. That's hr I S DE R O s E books dot com.
I would love to do a questionand answer episode of the show,
and of course please check out mynew book, The Fighting Bunch wherever you
buy books. I'm yours for thetruth, christ Rose, ind