Behind the Bastards - Part Three: G. Gordon Liddy: The Fascist Behind Watergate

Episode Date: October 10, 2023

G. Gordon Liddy joins the FBI, learns how to express his joy through random gunfire, and threatens a jury with a knife. By the end, we finally get to Watergate! https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1977/09/08/52-months-in-prison-end-for-gordon-liddy/13545ea2-8bfc-4749-8068-bd1a528889c7/ https://www.nytimes.com/1973/12/16/archives/whats-good-for-a-corporate-giant-may-not-be-good-for-everybody-else.htm lhttps://www.history.com/news/watergate-scandal-timeline-nixon https://archive.org/stream/willtheautobiographyofg.gordonliddy/Will%20%20the%20autobiography%20of%20G.%20Gordon%20Liddy_djvu.txt https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1980/11/07/watergate-sphinx/ecfb2e1d-71a1-478b-9d56-8962fb64714c/ https://www.nytimes.com/1977/08/21/archives/role-in-inmates-protest-brings-liddys-transfer-to-highsecurity.html https://washingtoncitypaper.com/article/294948/the-secret-life-of-g-gordon-liddy/ https://reason.com/2021/04/02/g-gordon-liddy-the-hollywood-years/ https://www.npr.org/2010/05/19/126613763/ling-sisters-recount-lauras-capture-in-north-korea https://www.courthousenews.com/watergate-burglar-sues-over-gold-commercials/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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the secret to happiness and the key to a successful relationship? That's harpsaw, because most of that is with me. Listen to Oldish on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Calls on media. Oh! That's probably a bad way to open the 19th most popular podcast on the internet. You really wanted to say that to the agent. I did, I did, I did.

Ever since you sent me that thing. So if you have been trying, I wanted to work it in organically though, right? Otherwise people would think that we're, you know, we're losing our minds from the same. Yeah. Yeah. Hell yeah.

But we are number 19 Andrew proof. We are number 19. Oh my God. Yeah. Congratulations. Hell yeah. But we are number 19, Andrew crew. We are number 19. Oh my God. Congratulations. Congratulations to us. Yeah, from us. We're not lying. This is like when I buy myself a Christmas present.

Yeah. Just like a little treat. It's like it's like getting extra extra donut. Yeah. Yeah. Extra donut. Andrew T. What up? goes how goes the strike? Andrew. Still striking. I brought a a second dog to the picket line on Friday.

And second dog is hit the picket line. She was a huge hit. That's good. That's good. That's good. That's all. I mean, as of this episode coming out, we're closer to its potentially possible that the strike is over. By the time you hear this, I would give it 15% chance the strike is over. And this is all silly, this intro. But again, if the strike is over, this is all silly this intro, but Again, if the strike is over I we will cut in an ad for a random television show You know, yeah, yeah, it'll be good

Andrew as we speak this to Great Hollywood celebrities real like Titans of the industry just announced that they were bringing their shows back and then got Curbs stomped. The level equivalent of Curbs stomped. Yeah. Is it funny or not? How are you landing on that? I, because where I'm sitting, I think it was pretty funny.

The about face came so quickly that I was really like two days. Yeah, so that kind of like the whiplash of it. I think the equally funny part is everyone having to kind of walk back, um, congratulations, or walk back the things they said to Drew Barrymore, who I think people largely still kind of like, um, and then also not really doing the equivalent for Bill Marrow. Yeah.

I don't, the not funny side of it is the telling people that they can start working again when they actually can't. Yes. And like that's the people that are not, you know, Sagger, WGA that work on sets and being like, oh, you're going to get to come back to work and the answer is no, you're not. And I'm just a selfless narcissist. Yeah. There was no good reason for any of this.

I mean, the Drew Barrymore of it, I'm just going to give, I guess, her the benefit of the doubt and say she was probably deceived over what the rules are. And I will equally assume that Bill Mar, given his personal politics, he would have scabbed sooner. He just didn't have the opportunity. His season, he was on some. Is there anybody else that would have loved to have scabbed more than Bill Mar? I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. So whatever they have on him, it's very legit.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, no, I mean, because he would have been just straight up openly scapping, whereas Drew Barrymore would have been like functionally, almost certainly scapping on some level, but in a much more difficult to prove way. But you know, Bill Mar is a member of the writer's guild. Fucking yeah. Yeah, yeah. Fuck Bill Marz is more or less where we're heading here.

You know who unlike Bill Marz, you know, you know, who has been consistent in their principles all of their lives. Is G Gordon Litty, the G-Man. What the G-Man? You're really? Yeah, he never, he's always been honest about who he is. That's not a great thing, you know, it's like, but it is a thing.

Yeah, you got to, you got to acknowledge that. So when we, when we last left off the G-man, he had joined the FBI, compared it directly to the SS, a positive sense. Favorite. Yeah. Favorite. Yeah. As America's protective echelon.

So he's in Indiana a while. He learns how to cowboy gunfight from these great cowboy gunfighters. And then he, and then he, he totally gets super close to needing to use his handgun, but he never quite has to. But he does have like multiple stories where he like, it's everything up to and then like, but then before I could pull my gun, you know, the situation ended, so everything was fine. Well, maybe we don't need to hear about that then. That's not very interesting, G Gordon Liddy. So he gets transferred to a Denver after that. He's involved in, he is

involved in a rest of at least one major criminal, one of the one of these guys that's on the FBI's most wanted list. And then based according to his like recitation of events, he gets transferred to a FBI headquarters in DC and he becomes incredibly close with J. Edgar Hoover. So close that all of the older agents are jealous because Hoover wants to spend a lot of time with Liddy and not them. So that's not what happened. And again, this is, thankfully, this is what I'm not going into as much detail about what Liddy claims because we have, we have other sources on his time in the FBI and they are very different than what he claims.

So he is involved in one high profile arrest, but there's evidence that his superiors, like they had issues with his erratic and irrational behavior. One of his supervisors described him as a wild man and a superclutz. Basically just like, yeah, this guy is kind of out of his mind,

and he's also like, he fucks up constantly. Like whenever he's given a chance to do something, he's going to make some stupid mistake. And not see Elmer Fud in a way that is like. Really, it's a great comparison. And so the kind of attitude that like some of these people who like supervise him is like, yeah, he just, he couldn't be relied on.

And because this is the FBI, right? One thing the FBI, especially under Hoover, was good at, was not leaking shit. So we don't have as much to tail as I'd like on what specifically he fucked up, but given that this is consistent with his performance later in life, I'm going to choose to side with his superiors here, rather than claim that he was just super good at the FBI. Yeah. Yeah. And this makes, if he really is just like kind of incompetent, it makes his transfer to

DC make sense because like that is kind of what they did a lot to guys who were bad at being in the field. Like you move the place where you can kind of, you can keep track of them. what they did a lot to guys who were bad at being in the field, like you moved from a place where you can kind of, you can keep track of them. Like he gets, he gets transferred to the record division, which is like, that's where you put it, dude. You can't fire for some reason, but he like can't be trusted out with a gun. That's like the punish rate in like the second act of a loose cannon cop movie. Right. Like, that is, go file some papers, G Gordon Litty.

Stay the fuck away from the world. Litty would go on to claim that he was the youngest bureau supervisor in agency history. You'll see this cited in like, write-ups of his career periodically, but they only ever cite him. So I'm going to go ahead and say that's probably either not true or not impressive, right? He did get a couple of like, commendations from Hoover, but like, that's not, it doesn't appear to be that big a deal. Wikipedia also lists those claims as citations needed. So again, not going to go out on a limb and say he was definitely awarded by Hoover.

Um, former FBI officials interviewed by journalist Anthony Lucas later would claim that Liddy got pushed out of the FBI because he was seen as dangerous and unreliable. Um, you know, we don't get tons of detail on what exactly caused him to get pushed out, but there are some pieces from Liddy ladies out of biography that may suggest why. For example, this line, my son Jim was born in April of 1961, and I was so elated at finally having a boy that when I thought about it the next day, driving through an unpopulated area, I stopped the car and fired three rounds into the air in a private ceremony of celebration. Just firing his service weapon randomly into the sky to celebrate. Yeah, a populated area. Okay, Liddy. Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, man.

It is, it is wild having done the show a few times now. How much of history's damage has been done by huge nerds? Yeah, just a big old dork. It's really like, how do you think? Yeah, I mean, I guess that's why, but it's, you know, we're not cruel enough to nerds I'm realizing. No, like that's, yeah. I think we need like a national conversation about how to be crueler to them though. Yes, yes, yes, yes. What's the actual appropriate way to handle this? Right, that's a problem. It's the wrong people are boys.

Yeah, the wrong people. Because somebody needed, G Gordon Litty needed more shame of the things that were going on in his head. He needed to feel worse. In a specific way about himself. But if you just had, again, like a kid just shoving him into a locker at school, that's not going to work on this guy.

You need, there needs to be some more like art to it, you know? Like really his dad, I don't know, I don't know how you like get it, like I think if his dad had been more aware of the kind of shit going on in his brain, he could have like shaped it out of him. Like, right. What are you doing shooting your handgun in the air to celebrate having a kid? Give me that gun. Give me that gun Gordon.

Like, I'm keeping this. No gun privileges until you fucking. You're not allowed to have this. It's pretty cool. And he has like, he goes on this rant in his book about how like at the FBI, you know, you're allowed to carry a gun off duty and you don't have to. But if you're in a bad situation, if something happens around you and you're not able to stop it because you don't have a gun, you get in trouble.

So I always had my gun. He just, he needs you. And again, there's never any like, it's one of those, like it feels almost like he's setting up something that's going to happen later. But she Gordon Litty never had any cause to use a fire arm in his entire life. Like, at no point was this even remotely necessary for him. So he's, this is all just pointless. He just needs you to know that he carried a gun around for several years.

I know. The like, they like, oh, no, no, I need this because if I don't fucking save the day I'm going to get in trouble. It's like yeah still somehow weasily which is amazing. It's just like yeah It's so funny. So Liddy claims that everyone at the FBI loved him But he just wasn't making enough money to support his growing family because his wife his wife is popping out kids Added a alarming rate, right? She is like putting out new ladies at the same speed with which he is firing bullets while they're there. And this becomes a problem. He says for their, for their bottom line.

And so, you know, he decides to quit. And the FBI is like, we love you, Liddy, you know, come back anytime. We'd love to have you again. We've, we've stamped your paperwork with a special thing that means you can come back anytime you want. Oh, you're leaving. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. People within the FBI are like, yeah, we were doing everything we could to force him to leave. So, you know, that said, I do think there's probably a good chance his family financial situation is not great. One of these reasons might be, and again, this is a reading between the lines, but every time he talks about his gun collection,

it's like very large. So part of this may just be that he's spending all of his child money on new handguns. Now, the central issue is that Lidian and his wife are devout Catholics. Now, I don't know if you know much about Catholics, but Catholics, like all humans, like you know much about Catholics, but Catholics, like all humans, like to fuck, and Catholics, unlike most humans, are not allowed to use

birth control, right? So this is part of why there's around a billion of Catholics, you know? So, when he and his wife, they try to use the rhythm method to avoid having more kids, and he can't write that like, well, the rhythm method's clearly bullshit. So he just writes that like, well, it didn't work for us. We had after four children, it didn't become clear that the rhythm method does not work for my wife. Maybe it just doesn't work, do you Gordon Liddy?

Maybe it's a bad method of birth control. Oh my God. Hey everyone, my phrasing here was not great. I didn't mean to say that the rhythm method can't work. Obviously, biologically, it does. It's just that great. I didn't mean to say that the rhythm method like can't work, you know, obviously biologically, it does, it's just that realistically, I don't think it is an effective method of birth control particularly for people

in long-term relationships. I think G Gordon Litties case is a pretty good example of this, there are a lot of others, but obviously like biologically, if you were to do it perfectly, it would work. It's just not a very good idea compared to modern forms of contraception. And what is this opportunity to talk about? What amazing sperm he has, you know?

He could have just claimed he was unbelievable fertile. He's just too potent. Yeah. Yeah. The fact that the rhythm method doesn't work is not really this is not really a problem for G Gordon Litty Because he wanted six children and he claims that Fran did too And in true G Gordon Litty fashion his reasoning for wanting six kids is some of the craziest shit I've ever read Quote she had grown up as a lonely only child

I had a sister and a cousin who was a de facto brother and I missed a large number of people always present at home. I was also aware that children can be lost to sickness, accident, or war, and six would raise substantially the probability that at least some offspring would survive. Just as important, I recognize that a child can lose itself through failure of the will to achieve and that having six would make it easier to accept and write off such a living death as well. Yeah. I need more kids. You can write them off if one of them is a dead person while alive still. Well, I think he just caught on some level those. He's he's bringing real looser jeans to the table. So he's really had to give us that. Yeah. You got to be careful if you're like bringing Litty, Litty grade genetics to the table because it's that kids just going to be a fuck up.

You know, it's just tough. He's he brings fuck up to the table. So you like, you know, you break out the punnet square, a little bit of recessive traits. Cool. Yeah. How do you the the math that got him personally to six? I would love to see I'd love to see his little scroll. Don't look like one loser. One. Yeah. that got him personally to six, I would love to see. I'd love to see his little scroll notebook

like one loser, one dead. Yeah, fear, at least one of them's gonna lose their mind. So we gotta write one off and being lit, he's a good at three of them are gonna die in a war. So that gives us two that make it to two, and then one of them's a natural loser. So yeah, exactly. This is just the minimum we need.

You know, just given, given my worthless jeans, this is the only way to share enough Liddy's survive. Yes, it's logic like this that has ensured that we still have G Gordon Liddy's today, everybody. So yeah. Now, unfortunately, Fran's body does not handle multiple pregnancies in quick succession very well, right? And yeah, I don't say that to like make fun of her. Four kids, I think eventually five in, you know, the space of like five years is too many

kids maybe. Like maybe you shouldn't have that many kids that quickly. That's a lot to deal with. She dealt with increasing pain each time and eventually their doctor sits them down and it's like she could die, right? Like this is like she can't have any more kids, you know? Like this is, we need to stop here. So, you know, eventually they shop around

for a Catholic priest because they want a priest who will advise them that it's okay for her to take birth control because, you know, eventually they shop around for a Catholic priest because they want a priest who will advise them that it's okay for her to take birth control because, you know, these things go. Sure. They have one more kid during this process but Lydia decides to give up after that. And this may be the most like moon man-ass piece of reasoning

that I have encountered in his book. Although one of the reasons I had chosen Francis to be the mother of my children was her size and strength, which should have enabled her to bear half a dozen high performance children. I certainly had not intended to risk damage by pushing her to her design limit. No, you're right. It's not a little talk that way about their wives, G Gordon Liddy. He's like actual Marvin the Martian. Yeah, he's talking like about his, his ill wife and his children as if he's like a fucking GM factory. Yeah. Designed limitations.

Yeah, they're designed. She should have been putting out six high performance children by this period. So high performance asterisk, Liddy, Liddy failure rate. All of these kids should already be shooting handguns into the air at random. They haven't murdered any squirrels. So he quits the FBI and takes a gig with his dad's firm where he immediately gets a huge raise. So this is again, the only job that would take him, I think is how I interpret this. He says his dad was desperate for him to come work for them and like had been just trying

for years and was so happy. But he also writes that like as soon as he gets to work there, they start fighting every, it destroys their relationship because his dad like cannot stand him as like a business partner. And I, my guess is going to be because he keeps suggesting crazy shit that would get them both thrown in prison and like his dad is, no, you have to not do that. Seems likely. Yeah. Seems like a G man.

So his, his description is that despite the fact that he's very good at this job, he has to quit this as well to save his relationship with his father and go into public practice as a, for a DA's office in New York state in order to preserve their relationship. Now by the point that he does this, this is like 62 or 63, something like that,

the swing and 60s are well underway. And our boy is starting to pay attention to the resistance that has built in the country to the involvement of US troops in a little country I might have heard of called Vietnam. You know, if you're unaware, Vietnam is a country in Southeast Asia that we had a disagreement with and they want. had a disagreement with and they won. Yeah. So this had started the whole kerfuffle in Vietnam had started due to the failure of French forces to maintain control of Indochina and a bunch of unhinged fears among US policy makers that

the spread of communism in Vietnam would lead to a series of falling dominoes that ended with a unified communist Asia under China now If you read Ho Chi Minh if you're aware at all of like Vietnamese history that was never in the cards, right? The last thing anyone in Vietnam ever wanted was to be part of like a Chinese dominated block They and they immediately go to war with China as soon as they kick us out, right? Like that's the first thing that Vietnam does after finishing us off as fight with China and Cambodia. You know, this is, this is a thing that happens on Joseph's racist all the time.

It's that, you know, if these motherfuckers were less racist, they would be able to achieve their imperialism gains better. They would have realized not all these chinks love each other. Yeah, there's a, there's a, there's a joke that I saw going around Twitter recently, which is like if somebody could have explained, had explained to like the, the leaders of Northern Vietnam right at the start of the war with the US that like in 50 years, they'd be allied with the US against China. They would have said, yeah, sounds about right.

Like, yeah, that totally possible. Absolutely, could happen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's mostly what, yeah. This is their assholes. Yeah. This goes into, we just talked about this a little on our episodes about Scott Adams's terrible books

and his beliefs about the Muslim world. But like, one of the things you need to keep in mind, no matter what fucked up shit, like a foreign country far away is doing to a group of people, those people are always in their hearts going to be angrier at somebody who lives next door to them. That's just the way human be. It's like the United States. Like we get, we have our panics over like Islam or our panics over China. But like fucking people in Texas always hate people in Oklahoma more than anyone else on this

planet. Like, that's just the way it is. Yeah. Yeah. No, or their neighbors or their neighbors. People are there to see. Yeah. Yeah.

Those are people they're actually murdering or whatever. Yes. This is just how humans work. So this is patent nonsense, this whole domino theory, but arch warriors like cold warriors like G Gordon Litty absolutely believed it. Here are some other things that G Gordon Litty believed about Vietnam. This is this is him summarizing the situation with France. Following the close of World War II, when the French were fighting the Vietnam and Indochina, they were at first highly successful. That was because they were using the foreign legion,

then manned almost completely by veterans from the most disciplined, ruthlessly efficient practitioners of all that warfare and history, the Waffen SS. It was only after that act was made public, and political pressure forced their removal that the French began to lose. He cannot, he cannot stop bringing up the SS like almost every chapter. The SS comes up and there's never a good reason for it. And it's like, this is the 80s. This is the 80s. It's pretty. I mean, this is kind of the last time Nazis were basically universally frowned upon.

I would have thought amongst like, not a right way. Gordon Liddy. Yeah. Yeah. What do I know? This is, I should start by saying nonsense. It is true. There were some members of the, the, the often SS.

So the SS is like a state within a state and Nazi Germany, right? They, they are this racial elite. They, they have a huge amount of power in the political system. They do a lot of like a lot of the guys, individual like people who are managing all the different police departments and stuff. And in Nazi Germany, our members of the SS, they also have, you know, they, they, they exercise a lot of control over the industrial apparatus. That was kind of the goal that Himmler was building towards, and it's just into using

them to breed more Aryans. There are divisions of the SS that also fight as regular military units or kind of in a fashion similar to. These guys are called the Vafen SS. Vafen just means weapons, right? So the Vafen SS is the weapons SS, right? Now, there are a lot of like lies and myths as we're about to talk about about how well the Vaphan SS functions. The fact that the foreign legions, some of these guys after the war wind up

in the foreign legion, is not really weird. Nor is it out, it's not specifically even because of World War II, right? It's not because historically, if you look at the foreign legion, it's usually like half or more German guys. This is just like a thing about the way it has always been constructed. The French foreign legion has always been heavily Germanic. About 60% of it in the postwar period were Dutch, Austrian, Swiss, Belgian, or most commonly German. And there's a good chance that about 50,000 Germans cycled through French Indochina during

the post-war stages of the conflict there. But that doesn't tell the whole story. The Vietnamese did like to claim that all of their captive French soldiers were SS veterans, but like that was a propaganda claim, because no evidence was ever provided of this. We do know that the French military scanned for SS veterans, particularly after 1947. And since SS members had all had a tattoo, their blood group was tattooed on them, it was easy to find and deny them. Thus, the first wave of legion volunteers in Indochina would have included a lot of Germans who had served, who had been Nazi soldiers,

but very few of these guys would have been SS. Much more of them are vermocked Nazis, right? As this historian from the Asked Historians subreddit noted, the Legion was recruiting about 10,000 many years, many of them certainly Germans. But by the 1950s, with the average age of a Legionnaire in the very early 20s, most German recruits were young men, simply trying to escape the bleak situation in their home country. And the extent of their involvement with the Nazi party was their membership in the Hitler youth as children. Now I'm not doing this to defend the reputation of the foreign legion, right? Because there's a lot that's messed up about that unit. This is more important because of the specific way in which Liddy is wrong about like both the presence that like all of the guys fighting

in French and O'China in the in the late late 40s were SS veterans and they were really good. You know, if they just stayed in there, they would have won that war. The fact that he believes that in states that says a lot, right? Because this recitation that like the first foreign Legion units in in Doe China are all SS veterans and they were masters of counterinsurgency is based upon one specific novel. I have actually traced back where Liddy gets this belief, and it's from a fiction book called The Devil's Guard. Now, I actually have not seen this written anywhere else. I think I may be like the first person to note this publicly, but it's extremely obvious if you are familiar with

the book, The Devil's Guard. And I'll go into why I am in a little bit. The Devil's Guard was a novel published by a guy named George Elford in 1971. This is about nine years before Litty writes his autobiography. The Devil's Guard is based on the experience of a former Vothan SS officer, who it starts with him like he's fighting in Eastern Europe, he's fighting in Russia, and then is the war ends. He kind of like fights and sneaks his way across Europe, eventually escaping the Allies and traveling to Indochina, where he fights in a 900-man unit of all former assessment.

And they're just the best at countering, they're running circles around the Vietnamese, using all these different, they're combat skills, and they're so sneaky, and they're running circles around the V at men using all these different, their combat skills and they're so sneaky and they have all these different plans and stuff. And because of how ruthless they are, the V at men just, you know, can't do anything about them, right? Now, Elford presents this. This is a nonfiction novel. It's supposed to be, but he claims that it's the result of an interview with an anonymous totally real Nazi historians now universally agree that this is a lie.

There were no, there were definitely SS men who served in the foreign Legion. There was at no point a 900 man unit of former SS veterans, right? That just did not happen. Right. That's from an Indiana Jones sequel. That's from an Indiana Jones book. Yeah. Right. Yeah. It's also like another one of the reasons we know this book is full of shit is that he has these loving descriptions. This is like a soldier of fortune-ass book. So there's loving descriptions of all the different guns they use and how and a bunch of the weapons he describes them using in detail did not exist at the time or were not in use by legion troops at the time, right? They simply were not present in that conflict.

He just thought they were cool guns, so he wanted to put them in his novel. Meanwhile, and there's also a bunch of different genius counterinsurgency tactics shown in the book. Like at one point, these SS guys kidnapped the family members of a bunch of Vietnamese fighters and like stick them in vehicles that they're driving through a part of the jungle so that if the Vietnamese attack a convoy,

they'll kill their family members, right? Which is, would be a war crime if they'd done it. But it's supposed to be like, you know, this is the kind of heart, you can't follow the law if you get a win and insurgency. That and a bunch of other tactics that are like that in the book are all taken directly from a different book about British commandos fighting the Japanese in World War II.

Like, they're lifted directly from this other book. Now, the Devil's Guard is also, it's one of the fact that it shows the whole premise of it is that the SS could have won the war in Vietnam if we'd let them. It's one of the most fascist books of military fiction and existence. And again, I have to really emphasize fiction. It's claims that it was real. Have spread myths about the incredible brilliance of the SS as a counterinsurgency force for generations.

And 2006, and this is why I know about it. In 2006, online bookstore A Books noted that it was one of the top 10 novel sold to US soldiers heading over to Iraq. And the only piece of war fiction on that list. Because again, you've got all these kids. They haven't actually been to combat yet. They're trying to know what it's like. They want like, you know, advice. So they read this book about supposedly the best counterinsurgency experts who ever existed, the fucking SS, right? It's just this very popular book of lies. And Liddy is kind of the first pop prominent guy

who gets taken in by it, right? Which is why everything he writes about Vietnam is very clearly just taken from this book of fiction. Now, I think it's worth spending a little bit more time discussing exactly why Liddy's conception of the Voth and SS is a historical. First off, the SS were dog shit at counterinsurgency. There is no evidence that has ever existed in history, that these guys had any competence

at defeating insurgencies. They are involved in one insurgent campaign and the history of the organization and they lose it, right? Like, they don't win at all. It's like saying the US is the best counterinsurgency army in the world. It's like, well, what the fuck are you basing that on? Right? How cool the Navy seals are in a movie you watched?

They've lost every war they've been involved in. I don't understand why you think they're good at this. That's the power of culture, baby. Now the SS are repeatedly noted by their colleagues and vermicod officers for inciting violence from captive populations due to their brutality, right? The SS comes into all these areas like Ukraine, right? In Eastern Europe where because of sort of the relationship that area had had to the Soviet Union before the Nazis come in, there was a good possibility of like them taking over and being relatively popular.

And they just massacred so many people pointlessly that they inspire like a count, like an insurgent campaign against themselves because they're, they're not, they're not, they're terrible. That said, even outside of like if you're kind of taking it outside of their performance as a counterinsurgency force, there's this idea that's still pretty common, even among people who don't like Nazis, that the SS were an elite combat unit that performed well above, like the level shown by their very mocked counterparts. This is a lie as well. There were certainly specific SS combat units that performed well, right?

You know, that exists. You can find some SS military units that had very good battle records, right? But even that does not mean what you might think it means, because SS divisions consistently received better gear and more of it. They were much more mechanized than their regular army counterparts because of the clout that they had with the Nazi system. And SS divisions were also larger than normal Varmacht army divisions. A Waffen SS division has a standard size

of about 20,000 men compared to 16,500 in the regular army. So if you're saying, well, these Waffen SS divisions performed better than these Varmacht divisions, it's like, well, they were an extra like 3500 guys and I'm, yeah, I mean, the mix doesn't look like they do better. Better tank. Well, you know, that's, that's just the power of area. And this, you know, that's, it's like if you were area and you wouldn't have all those extra dudes. Yeah. How did

they fight so much better? Well, there were like 3000 extra dudes. Yeah. That'll, that'll, that, that can matter sometimes. That's so much extra area and blood. Of course. It's also worth noting that even if you take this into account, they don't actually have across the board a good, like a better combat record than regular units. It is worth noting, SS men were picked both for racial and ideological purity, right? Part of what this meant is that regular enlisted soldiers

in the Waffen SS were often healthier and in better physical shape than regular army soldiers But it also means that their officers were picked not on based on their performance, right on their competence But based on their adherence to propaganda, right, which meant that the most important thing for an SS officer was not What do they know how well are they trained how well of they'd performed but like do they fit this sort of vision we have for how they should look?" And I found another really good ask historians post on this matter, which quotes a February 1943 inspection of an SS division by a vermocked army major. Quote, the commanders of this Wap of an SS division did not seem to realize that brave and ideologically misguided young men were being selflessly sacrificed through insane arrogance, and a lofty disdain for sound

training. Believe in the fear of it, it was more important to them than professional ability. Shocked and sobered by the experience, I returned to headquarters where I was given an opportunity to report my impressions to the chief of the general staff. In other words, officers in the offences were often young men like Liddy, filled with very irrational beliefs about combat and their own racial purity. In other words, officers in the offences were often young men like Liddy filled with very irrational beliefs about combat and their own racial purity. The fact that they were brainwashed meant that they were incapable of judging threats adequately,

right? They could not accurately judge the situations that they were in and what was a necessary response. And as a result, they got a lot of their men killed unnecessarily, right? In other words, these were all the guys who became SS officers were the kind of men who might say disobey orders to crawl through mud with an open surgical wound. And you don't what that guy making calls and combats. It's really a two way street. The love for like the SS would have loved Liddy. And he would have been he would have immediately made it into

the SS. Like the very mocked would have been like, no, get this guy the fuck out of here. He's like, he's not rational, but the SS would have been like, he's a rational, make him an officer. Right. He just, yeah. Right. You know, at least he knows where he would have fit in. Yeah.

That's a lot of people don't, you know, a lot of people don't. Yeah. This was his ideal life situation, and he just missed it. Uh, anyway, that was a long digression, but like I felt it was necessary. Anyway, you know what else is a fascist, paramilitary organization.

Mm-hmm. We'll find out. The sponsors of our podcast. Oh. a military organization. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm OK, they're not there. Unrestorable is a new true crime podcast that investigates the case of Catherine Hoggel, a mother accused of murder. I'm thinking, you know, like, what's going on? Like, this is insane. Like, where are my kids? But despite signs that Catherine Hoggel took her tiny children

one by one into the night, never to come home again, she has yet to stand trial. Because soon after her children went missing, she was declared incompetent to stand trial. You know, when I would ask her, her engagement was up in the bodies of remaining confidence. And then I would say, well, who advised you should to throw you know, I can't tell you that.

In Maryland, if the defendant is found incompetent and can't be restored to competency, their felony charges are dismissed after five years. So as the clock counts down, Catherine's charges on the verge of being dismissed will podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. There's a place beyond this place. A middle ground between the light and the darkness, the nature and the zenith. For some is a bridge between the living and the dead,

yet for others is something else entirely. It's the place where our nightmares dwell. Each one of us has touched the other side and felt the presence of something beyond this world. Welcome to Hip Hop Horror Stories. I'm your host, Belly. And each week we're going to take you to the limits of your imagination

as we explore the reality of paranormal experiences. I believe in the shift for real. And the stories you're about to hear might make you believe too. Everywhere I look, I saw something. And I looked closer and noticed there was a footage figure. And whatever it is, it's like it became reality. Listen to hip-hop horror stories on the High Heart Radio app. Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast.

Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Be unimaginable. Season 2 of the Unimaginable Hones in on individuals who have led unimaginable lives by following their instinct, their gut, their passion. I'm truly inspired by these episodes because they dig into the backstories of people that know success almost as a byproduct of their unwavering dedication to their craft. From guests like Tyco YTT to your vision of what you're trying to do. It's just more pure. The family is more pure and the success is more pure.

To Odessa Rae's life-changing experiences that strangely conditioned an equipped her to produce the Oscar award-winning documentary, Navowni. I was stuck in that Japanese prison for 42 days. This season delivers behind-the-scenes conversations about the many roads to success. Listen to the unimaginable, on the I Heart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. they can win the war in French Indochina. You got it. It's like just as if only there were a few more Nazis there, you know. Yeah. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. So close. for a jungle war in Vietnam. Exactly. Yeah, they were really ready for that. So by the 1960s, the mid 60s, the anti-war movement has started to pick up serious

steam and Liddy is horrified by this. Young people, as he writes, were quote, eroding the national will and respect for authority. They were sinking into another world of drug culture. Also, you wanna hear G-Gordon Liddy's take on the civil rights movement, Andrew? Oh, I'm sure it's very measured. Yeah, solid. It's gonna be good.

Valid demands by blacks for civil rights were often resisted violently by whites. And in response, many blacks were adopting violence as an offensive rather than defensive tactic. This is his, you know, that's not all wrong in that like the fact that they were getting murdered led to like embrace of more radical you. I still would call that defensive violence, right? I will admit that was much more measured than I thought it was going to be. He is, his racism is never like straight up, like he's never going to be the guy who says, I think, you know, we should go back to slavery or I don't think these, like he's always

going to be the guy who his racism is more obvious and like the only ways he ever talks about black people, right? Right. Right. We're like, anytime he deals with a violent criminal, he's going to let you know that it's a black man, right? Like, that's, that's how, that's, that's where you kind of catch it here, right? Now, given his anger at the way things are going in the United States, Liddy has come to feel that his only option is to get a job at the District Attorney's office in Pauke, Kipsey, New York in 1966. And I hate typing the word Pauke, Kipsey.

So I'm very unhappy that this is such a part of the story. But he points out that like part of what he moves there is that it's his wife's hometown, right? So he goes there and he becomes, he describes himself as like an unorthodox but dedicated law man, respected by the local police and liked by the judges, and that is to at least some extent true. A New York Times reporter who visited in 1973 and asked around about Liddy got this description of him. Liddy led an unusual, even bizarre life. He liked to drive around town in a jeep. He cared

or revolver at all times, even when prosecuting a case and seem to enjoy the kidding by the sheriff's deputies who would out draw him. He would spend his off hours cruising the city with policemen. He's like always hanging out in the cops, going on like rains with them and shit, not for because it's his job just because he thinks it's fun. Oh my God. And like what a freak. I love the mental image of a fucking Pekipsi PD and G-Gorded Litty drawing their guns at each other. Yeah, yeah. Wonderful stuff. I also love that little mention that like, oh yeah, he wasn't very good at it, right?

He always lost, you know? Yeah. I'm genuinely surprised he didn't accidentally shoot someone in that moment. Yeah, we don't, we don't 100% know he didn't, you know? That's true. That's the, yeah. So that article also provides us with an amusing summary of some of Lydia's greatest hits in the courtroom.

Lydia's courtroom activities as prosecutor were occasionally a bit unsettling on one occasion. He waved a knife under the noses of startled jurors, later overturned on the basis of that stunt, an opposing lawyer precalled. And another time he smashed a piece of wood over the jury rail while prosecuting an assault case involving the use of the plank. Liddy paid for the repair to the jury rail. God. Love that.

Yeah. He loses a case because he pulls a knife on the jury. What a clown. He's so funny. He's so funny. He's so funny. Now, here's the thing I was going to say about him that is I realized I'm just trying to parse the difference, which is he has humongous like middle school knife catalog guy.

Absolutely. This guy, this guy, like G Gordon Litty never was seen without a Bud K catalog. Right? Absolutely. This guy, like G Gordon Litty never was seen without a Bud K catalog, right? Absolutely. But I will just throw this out there. At least of the people I am friendly with, you might be the person who's closest in my sphere to knife catalog in middle school guy. So that's why I was trying to parse the difference between you and G Gordon Litty.

And I think it might just be not being a huge dork, but you know what I'm saying. I'm a huge dork and I own way more knives than are strictly necessary for any of my purposes. I think one of the big differences is that I've never lost a court case because I pulled a knife on the jury. Yeah, like my knives are more like, you know, used for processing animals and stuff.

Like I can't give you that. I process roadkill with my knives. Yeah. Well, yeah. It's like, I guess it's competence or something. I can't. My old competence, right? That's all I can tell you.

That's the difference. I guess I'm not being a Nazi. Not being a Nazi. Yeah, not using them to threaten people for no good reason. There's a lot of, a lot of things, right? You can do to not be like G Gordon Liddy. You know, I, I also have read books about the SS that are not like strictly, historically accurate, largely because I needed to understand aspects of like the growth of the fascist movement among you as soldiers

in the early parts of the global war on terror, right? So one of the most influential infamous stories about G Gordon Litty is that during one of his court cases, he drew and fired his revolver in court in order to like make a point. You'll hear this summarized like, yeah, he fired a loaded handgun in a courtroom in order to like make an, like, emphasize an argument. The court case, and it didn't quite go down that way, right? So the court case that he's involved in, he's prosecuting a dude who's defense claimed that the revolver he'd been accused of using by the police was inoperable. So he couldn't have fired it because it didn't work. So Liddy wanted to prove that it did work. And in order to do that, he loaded it with blanks

and he fired it during the climax of his argument. The judge was startled by this, but it doesn't seem to have been an ineffective tactic, right? Like, it's a little showmanship, but he's not actually just firing a normal. Right. Right. Like, he's shooting a blank.

It is technically relevant to the case. So, there you go. I think if he was a different guy who had not gotten in trouble for committing a series of crimes, this would be like, oh yeah, look at it. He's like this, you know, this would be kind of celebrated, right? I do think this is the kind of thing that would be celebrated if he was a normal dude, right?

Right. Yeah. Just don't be a freak and you can get to do your idiosyncratic thing. Yeah. Yeah, we all like a weirdo, right? Yeah. You just went too far to Gordon Liddy.

Yeah. In general, he was seen as an eccentric but decent lawyer. One of the defense lawyers who worked opposite of Liddy told the Times later, he was fun in court. You could ridicule him in front of the jury and And he never carried a grudge outside the courtroom. He also worked hard, prepared his case as well and presented them with a lot of ego. He just didn't seem to have the anxieties, fear,

insecurities and uncertainties that the rest of us have. It was hard to visualize him sweating. That's such an interesting thing. I love to this point. It's actually really hard to not visualize him in anything, but flop sweat constantly. Yeah. So, I think, you know, there's, again, there's two TV shows that recently came out, both of which have G Gordon Litty as a character.

There's the one that has one, the one show that starred Justin Thoreau playing him, and then I forget the actor for the one show that starred Justin Thoreau playing him and then I, I forget the actor for the other show that features him. But like one of them shows him as flipping out and screaming and like physically threatening people in a kind of unhinged way on a number of occasions. And one of them shows him as like this, this very like emotionally cool calm, like idiot maniac, right? Who is like, who is like, constantly is always in this sort of, and I think that that's the Justin throw version. I think that's closer to how Liddy actually behaved, right? I do think he, he is very good at maintaining this like, pool outside look, right? To other people,

generally speaking, even though he is, it is very obvious a lot of the time that he's in over his head and incompetent. Like, he's always, he always has this sense of confidence about him. Right. The most noteworthy moment of Lydia's time in Pau Kipsey was his run-in with Dr. Timothy Leary during a raid. And these, these two guys are really tied together. They will, they will wind up touring the country doing a floor ship together later. Oh, that's right. Yeah, yeah. He and Lee and like Timothy Leary is kind of a left wing version of G Gordon, Litty. A lot of what Leary says and gets famous for is bullshit. He is a significant like fabulous, right?

He is a little bit of a con man, you know, but he's also at the core of him. He believes some things very genuinely as an and is extremely committed to those things. And obviously those are better because he's not a Nazi, right? So he's, but he is, you do kind of get an element of like Leary's fundamental like the fact that he's willing to tour around with Leary, this unrepentant fascist after both of them have gotten out of prison says a lot about Tim Leary. But their first run in is so there's this raid in 1966 on on Tim Leary's the place that he's living at the time that a lot of people consider like the inciting incident of the acid era, right? Like

this is the if you're making a movie, right? If you decide to do a mini series about like the birth of the psychedelic drug movement, of acid, of like a lot of the things we consider core to like the hippie movement, you started at this rate in 1966, right? Tim Leary, and the background of this is that like Tim Leary and a bunch of his, he was, you know, a professor at a, I think it was Harvard. Yeah. Maybe I'm wrong about it. I think it was Harvard. And he like becomes aware of LSD. He starts taking it. He starts doing studies with it.

This is during a period where it's legal, right? It gets me to legal eventually, which is why some other stuff happens. But after he gets kind of like pushed out at his college and is no longer working there, he and a bunch of his associates move into a mansion in Milbrook, New York. And this mansion is bought. There's this like rich kid stockbroker who like continues to make a lot of money doing stock shit. Like he's never interested in anything but getting better at being a stockbroker,

but he loves acid, right? So he's like, yeah, you can, I bought this mansion. You can all move in here and do your drug experiments at my mansion. Remember when the rich used to be cool? This guy does sound as cool as a stockbroker. It could be. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, and it's interesting. Leary's always kind of like baffled at the fact that like this guy is so on board with the movement, but also very comfortable and happy being like absolutely a part of the

established. Yeah. Um, being this like soulless business guy. like absolutely a part of the established business. Being this like soulless business guy. So this, the leery in between 30 and 60 at any given point, hippie drop out types, live in this mansion and do hella drugs, right? Mostly acid and weed from what we can tell. I assume there's other stuff that gets thrown into the mix.

So this is all well and good except for Millbrook is kind of a small town. I think it's a little more affluent than your average small town. You know, it's in upstate New York. And the citizens of Millbrook are like, once they realize this famous drug wizard is living in their town, they're like, well, we're not really thrilled about this. We know what Tim Leary living here with a bunch of hippies, you know? And he is kind of, he is by this point already gotten this reputation as like the devil to a lot of conservatives, right? Right.

He is the absolute worst person on earth. He's corrupting the youth. And so because he's got this reputation of spreading the gospel of acid, action is demanded by the citizens of Milbrook. And since G Gordon Liddy is at this point a well-known anti-drug crusader, he winds up helping to organize the raid on Milbrook, right? He's there during it, theoretically, in order to ensure that proper legal procedure is followed, right? He works to the DA's office. So the most notable part of the story is that when the police bust into the

mansion late at night after Leary and his, his like cohorts have gone to bed. Leary is like wearing a shirt and nothing. He's shirt cocking it, right? Like his dick's just swinging in the brace. And well, all there's this whole argument over like, is this rate legal? What are they doing? Like, where, you know, well, while this is all going on and it seems to go on for quite

some time, Leary repeat that like the cops are constantly like, Hey, man, which you put on some pants. Hey, man, like, and Le constantly like, hey man, which put on some pants. Hey man, like, and Leary, this is one thing I will gif, I love this about him. He's like, absolutely not. Like you are in my home. I will have my dick out if I want to. I just repeatedly refuses to not have his,

his, his, his Wang hanging out. Which is honorable, I think. Oh yeah. Yeah, it's also worth noting that Litty who volunteers, his wing hanging out, which is honorable, I think. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's also worth noting that Liddy, who volunteers, he's not asked like his, the only thing he's needed, therefore, is to make sure that like legal teacher, but he volunteers to help the cops surveil the hippies beforehand for no reason, and nearly blows the whole op as a result of this because he's bad at everything.

Quote. And this is he's bad at everything. And this is from the New York Times. It seems that Liddy and some policemen complete with binoculars and walkie-talkie were staked out in the bushes of the estate when a young woman stepped completely nude from one of the tents on the grounds. A lot of funny things were going on at that place. A deputy explained, anyway, they became so preoccupied with this girl that they gave their hideout away and blew the whole bit They nearly exposed the whole operation because like he and these cops can't stop oggling this naked woman

It's like porkeys for Nazi. It's all Nazis. I know but come on. Yeah, you know what else is like porkeys The sponsors of this podcast, we are in fact sponsored by the movie Porkeys. Yeah. Or the bar, the establishment, the establishment, all of those things. If it's called Porkeys, we are legally responsible for it. I noticed Jacob is not in his crib.

So I look in and say, oh, she's not there, so I'm like, okay, they're not there. Unrestorable is a new true crime podcast that investigates the case of Catherine Hoggel, a mother accused of murder. I'm thinking, you know, like, what's going on? Like, this is insane. Like, where are my kids. But despite signs that Catherine Hoggle took her tiny children one by one into the night, never to come home again, she has yet to stand trial.

Because soon after her children went missing, she was declared incompetent to stand trial. You know, when I would ask her her in game it was I've been invited to remain in confidence. And then I would say, well, who advised you should throw you know I can't tell you that. In Maryland if the defendant is found incompetent and can't be restored to competency their felony charges are dismissed after five years. So as the clock counts down, Catherinerestorable on the I Heart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There's a place beyond this place. A middle ground between the light and the darkness, the nature and the zenith. For some, it's a bridge between the living and the dead, yet for others is something else entirely. It's the place where our nightmares dwell. Each one of us has touched the other side and felt the presence of something beyond this world. Welcome to Hip Hop Horror Stories. I'm your host, Bellie. In each week we're going to take you to the limits of

your imagination as we explore the reality of paranormal experiences. I believe in the shift for real and the stories you're about to hear might make you believe too. Everywhere I look, I slow something. And I looked closer and noticed there was a footage figure. And whatever it is, it's like K-Bit, it became reality. Listen to hip-hop horror stories in the I-Hart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Season 2 of the Unimaginable Hones in on individuals who have led unimaginable lives by following their instinct, their gut, their passion.

I'm truly inspired by these episodes because they dig into the backstories of people that know success almost as a byproduct of their unwavering dedication to their craft. From guests like TycoYTT to your vision of what you're trying to do, It's just more pure. The family is more pure and the success is more pure. To Odessa Ray's life-changing experiences that strangely conditioned and equipped her to produce the Oscar award-winning documentary, Navale. I was stuck in that Japanese prison for 42 days.

This season delivers behind-the-scenes conversations about the many roads to success Listen to the unimaginable on the iHeart radio up Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts We are BAQ That's how you spell back. That's good. Anyway. So Litty spends three years, I think, working for the DA's office in Pau Kipsey. Before he decides that it's time to take a more active role, trying to wrench the ship

of state away from degeneracy and leftism. And the way he's going to do this is by running for Congress. That's how he describes it, right? That after a couple of years, he's like, I'm just not doing enough to fight against this. So I've got to get into politics in order to like really, really, you know, make a difference here. That's how he describes it. The Times has a different story. They note that late in his run for the DA's office, a local resident had complained about Lydia's actions and in our KotEx case. And that like that wound up becoming an official complaint to the state commission of investigation.

The case gets dropped for lack of evidence, but this quote from that lawyer, Mr. Tepper, who he had worked against Lydia, gives us an idea of how he kind of might have gotten forced out, like he may have run for office because he was, he was, he was made known to him. There's not going to be a space for you here forever.

Quit. He was always expecting the big narcotics bus, Mr. Tepper said, Gordon kept pushing, pushing all the time. He probably bent the rules a bit now and then to collect evidence, but I can't recall anything specific. Now, his autobiography makes no mention of this, but we do know there were complaints against him

and we do, you get the feeling that like, yeah, maybe he was kind of pushed out to an extent here. At least there was some like, he had the feeling, I'm not going to always have a role here, right? Right. Right. So Liddy, now 38, decides he's going to challenge the leading Republican candidate in New York's 28th congressional district.

The relative of one of our former guests, Maggie Mayfish, Hamilton Fish Jr. So these guys are related to that serial killer and the political dynasty, the fishes. Yeah. So that's cool. Anyway, Hamilton Fish Jr. is kind of like an establishment Republican, right? He's he's probably someone who would like was closer to the dims than like a dude like G Gordon Litty. Right. And so Litty is kind of running against him on a very extreme right wing platform. His campaign had three planks, taxes, which were too high, crime, and Vietnam, right? On crime, Litty persaged much modern right wing discourse when he said, God help us if

the thin blue line of protection comes. He's a thin blue line guy. Yeah. I mean, I got someone had to be someone got it. It is funny how like all of the thin blue line is guys wind up in prison for committing crimes. Yeah. What a whoo. Do you love how consistent that is?

Meanwhile, on Vietnam, he was clear that he supported US commitment to the war effort, quote, but not our conduct of the war. And whenever you hear that, what that means is he thought that we hadn't committed quite enough war crimes, right? If we'd massacred another couple of million people, we would have won it. Yeah, like that's all it is taking. We needed more SS guys out in the jungle. Yeah, like that's all he was taking. We needed more SS guy. It's out in the jungle. Oh, so give it yeah. Yeah, it's it's very funny.

He would have liked if he had gotten any chance to weigh in, he would have pulled out that fiction book about the SS and started on the table. So Liddy lost badly. Uh, it eventually was forced to drop out and backfish in order to have a future in the Republican party. His supporters called him a sellout, but he got a job running the Duchess County Nixon campaign. One lawyer interviewed by the Times called it a deal, right?

So basically, look, man, stop making trouble for this guy who is, yeah, he's not far right like you, but you know, he can win unlike you because you're a maniac. And if you, if you play ball, you'll get a job running the Nixon campaign in this other county. And he says, yes, you know, he is always a team player, right? That is something you got to give, Liddy. He's going to get you in trouble because he's a maniac. Yeah.

But like he will do what he thinks is best for the party, even if it's not what's best for him. Like that's kind of what he's famous for. So he said, he's a toady. He's an ambitious toady. Yeah, he is an henchman, right? He's got a hench. So Liddy is an adequate performer in this role. Nixon was more impressed by his loyalty and his willingness to take a personal hit to his pride for the team than anything else, right? He, he, this is the thing. Dick Nixon is a guy who respects loyalty to him, right? And that's what he sees from Liddy. And so, you know, it becomes, it kind of like, gets through the great vine like, all right, Liddy's somebody that we can trust in the Nixon White House. And as a reward when Dick Nixon wins office, G Gordon Liddy is given a position as special assistant for organized crime to the Secretary of Treasury, right? Which is this is kind

of a dream gig for him. He loves the idea of being like a drug warrior, of like being, you know, fighting the gangsters and stuff. And he, you know, he sees this. And I think it probably was, there was this idea, well, maybe this guy's got to future, maybe one day this guy could even have a cabinet position. So let's try him out, you know, at a lower level, see how he works. Liddy instantly proves himself to be the kind of guy that cannot be trusted with power. He developed, he gets in a lot of trouble very quickly at the Department of Treasury because he keeps trying to set policy, right? On his own, the sort of apropos without any backing, like say, this is our stance on guns.

We won't pursue these kind of gun control laws. He'll give all these speeches at gun control lobby events saying that the Department of Treasury will never do this. And then his boss will be like, the fuck are you talking about? She couldn't believe it. You never cleared this with anybody. You're not supposed to be saying these things. He was also bad

at being a drug warrior, right? Now, because he had experience as an FBI agent, he was asked to help organize an effort to reduce drug smuggling across the Mexican border operation intercept. The goal of this plan was to punish the Mexican government for refusing to allow US air power into their country to spread poison on crops. The response, Operation Intercept, is to punish Mexico by shutting down the border with legal gridlock. The idea is, you have the police question and search every single person who comes in from Mexico, right?

Which is includes Americans. And absolutely, this is a busy reason. There's a lot of region. There's a lot of business that comes through in here. There's a lot of tourism. It just a lot of business that comes through in here. There's a lot of tourism. It just shatters the way the region functions, right? It's a calamity for all of these, the US side of the border too, right? It fucks up the local economy.

It does a lot of damage. And it's, there's no like nothing but chaos as the result. The New York Times summarizes border communities were disrupted by lengthy searches. Traffic across the frontier was halted for hours. Tourism suffered. Liddy sought to justify the confusion with patriotic speeches in the local communities. He was dismissed as a treasury man in 1971.

Ah! Now, for his part, Liddy describes intercept as having been a success, right? The people who thought it was a failure just didn't understand the goal, which was to fuck up life as having been a success, right? The people who thought it was a failure just didn't understand the goal, which was to fuck up life for everyone on the border, right? His idea was like, well, look, yeah, it fucked up everything for Americans, but it fucked them up worse for Mexicans.

And they, the Mexican government could handle the disruption less well, right? He, and this is his, this is his defense of operation. It wasn't exercise in international extortion, peer simple and effective, designed to bend Mexico to our will. Now, Litty claims this is a big win and that he was only fired right after by the Treasury Department

because he made too many good recommendations to his boss, Rossiday's, which is like, it's very funny because, so number one, Operation Intercept, I guess you can debate, you know, like there's there's there's definitely like, an argument to be made that like, well, yeah, you can you some of their goals were achieved by creating this much chaos, but like the Treasury Department considers it kind of a disaster at the time because of all of the complaints that it generates because of how much it pisses people off

So I don't think it was considered that by anyone but Litty Sure The other thing is that like He he sites in his book, you know his boss being jealous of him because every time they would argue Litty was right Right, you know He was just he made too many good calls and it was really pissing off his boss embarrassed him One of the good decisions. We're going to one of these, one of the good decisions that Litty Cites as like the thing that drove his boss crazy was the customs division department

is like trying to figure out how to arm air marshals at this point because there's a lot, we talk about this in our like episodes on the golden age of terrorism, a lot of planes getting hijacked at this period in late 60s, early 70s. This is the golden age of hijacking a plane. It's nothing to hijack a commercial aircraft in this period. And so we're starting to put air marshals on planes and we're, you know, it's a, when you're considering what firearm to give a man who would be expected to shoot it in a plane. That's a, that's a complicated thing to decide. That's a lot more difficult

than just deciding like, what's the best gun to give a cop, right? Where it's like, yeah, no, there's a lot of like, a lot of very complex engineering questions about like, and to today, by the way, our air marshals are armed with firearms that have very specific kinds of bullets that are made to function in a certain way on planes to minimize dangers of depressurization over penetration, all that kind of stuff. So they're trying to decide what's the best thing weapon to arm these guys with. And Litty is like, you should give them 357 magnum firearms loaded with hollow point. No, he picks.

There's not actually a good reason why it should be a 357 over like a nine millimeter. Litty just loves revolvers and he loves the 357 cartridge because it's the quote unquote most powerful gun in the world. It's the only reason he picks the 357. Now, he is right that hollow points are a better choice than full metal jackets. And the reason for this is that hollow points are less likely to over penetrate, right? The point, purpose of a hollow point is that it expands more when it hits meat, right? It expands when it hits meat, right? It expands when it hits meat and that transfers more force from the bullet into the body

of whoever you've hit. So it's less likely to go through them and then through something critical in the plane, right? That is accurate. Litty claims that there's like this big debate, you know, over it and nobody believes him. All by that just because it's actually weirdly, it, if you study the history of how people learned about how bullets function,

it takes a weirdly long time to figure out anything about bullets. So I'll give them that may have been the case, but the evidence that he cites to make this case, if he was actually making this argument, as opposed to everyone being like, well, obviously, hollow points are less likely to overpendory.

If he is not lying about that, the evidence that he cites in his book is how he made the case about hollow points being of it or put it's nuts. And I'll give you one. I'll give you one like guess as to how it's nuts, Andrew. To defy our God on a plane. No, no, okay. But he brings up the Nazis again. He has to move. into it again. That's his other move. He has two moves. He either shot a gun or brought up the SS, right? Quote, here's Litty making the case for why air marshals should carry a hollow points.

I cite Ignatzi experiments using live Jews that determined one 7.9 millimeter ball solid bullet from a Mauser rifle could pass through and kill up to 16 humans lined up in a row and noted that while a stray solid point round through the fuselage wouldn't result in compressive decompression of the aircraft, it might well sever a vital control cable. Now that's fucking nuts. Number one, completely irrelevant, right? He is, we are talking about a handgun and he is talking about the penetration of a irrelevant, right? He is, we are talking about a handgun, and he is talking about the penetration of a rifle.

Right, right. Totally different, different planets, in every way, ballistically, a rifle bound versus a handgun round. It is not relevant in any way to be like, you know, when the Nazis shot, lined up Jews in the end, they were able to kill 16 people with a single,

that has nothing to do with the question. G Gordon Litty. That's a crazy thing to bring up here. You gotta stop. You know, list like you bring it up so many times, it's really. Yeah. That is any other sources. That is not, that does not make any point that's relevant to what you're trying to argue here.

Yeah. Um, you just wanted to talk about the SS killing Jewish people. That's literally the only reason you said this. You just imagine like Nixon being like, anyone have any thoughts? What he raises his hand is like not Nazi thoughts. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Just slowly goes down. Thoughts that do not involve the SS. Fucking, yeah. his life is slowly goes down. Thoughts that do not involve the SS. Fucking yeah, just a just a maniac. So Liddy claims his recommendation is adopted. And even in his recitation of events, the fact that his recommendation is adopted is a disaster, right? Because the bureau nickel plates all of their guns in order to make sure that they're less vulnerable to like, you know, the air and like sea like saltwater, you know, heavy places, right?

And because of this, it like fucks up the chamber if it would matter because he just loves revolver so much. Like, again, even in his recitation of events to make himself look good, he gives them advice on what kind of gun and round to use, and it is such a disaster that they have to recall all of the firearms. Like that's the best that this goes for him is he's completely wrong. Oh my God. And it's like the is he's completely wrong. Oh my God. And it's like the thing he loves the most.

He's like, come on. Very funny. Oh my God, so bizarre. Anyway, I think that's gonna close us out on episode three of the G Gordon Liddy story. How are you feeling, Andrew? This is, I should have said probably before we've started this, I'm not a person that knows like a ton of watergate at all. So this is all wonderful. Next episode. We're really going to get into it, right? Yeah. Yeah. But we've had

to we've had to go through a lot to set up why Littys even there. And if you're wondering, if you're a normal person, I bet you're wondering, like, how the fuck did anyone trust him doing watergate shit? Given this guy's background, how did you get that job? Um, I mean, you see the modern version of this in Trump or the, like, you kind of like, the reason he gets it is because he's willing to do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That is, that is is you have anticipated where this is. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Very well. Very well.

So anyway, Andrew, you got anything to plug? Just, you know, still do the podcast. Yo, it's this racist. I am a writer on strike. So if anyone is wanting to support us, hopefully, I guess there's a chance I'm not a writer on strike as you listen to this, but likely I will still be. And even if I'm not so on strike, the overwhelming possibility is going to be sag will still be on strike. The screen app is killed. So the entertainment community fund, please, if you can and are able send money to that, you know, it's the only way a lot of people are getting through, not the only way, but it's one very helpful way that a lot of people are getting

through this labor action that the studios are trying to extract as much pain as possible and why not not let them? Yeah, why not not let them? Yeah, why not not let them? And if you want to extract pain, you know, I'd figure that out yourself, you know, find a way to take pain out of the world and ideally bottle it in such a fashion that you can then sell it back to somebody else, right? That's catwalks, baby.

Yes. That's how it all works. Yeah, this is what we sell. Other people's paid. Or our own pain, I don't remember. Yeah. Anyway, go to hell. Behind the bastards is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website CoolZoneMedia.com or check us out on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. At the University of British Columbia's Okanagan campus, we offer a transformative university experience in an extraordinary place. UBC Okanagan combines the resources and reputation of one of the world's top universities with

a young and dynamic campus. Bold new ways of thinking are nurtured, and exceptional students and faculty come together to create a better world. Join a vibrant community that is shaping tomorrow. Explore UBC's Okanagan campus at ok.ubc.ca The system's broken, I said something's wrong here, you know, whenever a woman is allowed to kill my two kids. Unrestorable is a new true crime podcast that investigates the case of Catherine Hoggel, a mother accused of murder. Despite signs that Catherine Hoggel took her

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