Fourth Reich Archaeology - Jerryworld 1: Origins

Episode Date: April 6, 2025

Published on the 50th Anniversary of his ascension to the highest office in the world, this is the first installment of our excavation into the life, times, and meaning of the presidency of Gerald R. Ford, Jr.  Ford is an ideal case-study for the consolidation of the Fourth Reich through the vessel that is the quintessential modern American everyman. In this episode, we first discuss some of the major recurring themes that mark our exploration of Ford's life. Those are:American Exceptionalism (aka American Imperialism) and settler colonialismThe "Greatest Generation" and the myth of Good Guys (Freedom & Democracy) vs. Bady Guys (Totalitarianism)Freemasonry, other Secret Societies, and their role in American political lifeAmerican expansionism and the promise of unending growthWe will also explore the early years of Gerald Ford’s biography. We touch on the traumas from Jerry’s early days and the horrific events that indelibly marked his psyche: the fraught relationship between his birth parents, the settler-colonial ideology and pedigree of his forebearers, and his ultimate upbringing in a household striving to ascend the socio-economic ladder in middle America straddling the first world war. Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/fourthreicharchaeology

Colonialism or imperialism, as the slave system of the West is called, is not something that's just confined to England or France or the United States. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. So it's one huge complex or combine. Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists. And this international power structure is used to suppress the masses of dark-skinned people all over the world and exploit them of their natural resources. We found no evidence of conspiracy, foreign or domestic, the Warren Commission, the science. I'll never apologize for the United States of America.

America. Ever. I don't care what the facts are. In 1945, we began to require information which showed that there were two wars going. His job, he said, was to protect the Western way of life. The primitive simplicity of their minds renders the more easy victims of a big lie than a small one. For example, we're the CIA. Now, he has a mile.

He knows so long this is to die, afraid of we never be secure. It usually takes a national crisis. Freedom can never be secure. Pearl Harbor. A lot of killers. We've got a lot of killers. Why, you think our country's so innocent? This is a day.

I have a national globe. This is coming. With that fourth Reich archaeology. This is Fourth Reich Archaeology. Dick. And I'm Don. Thank you for joining us for this, our second episode. If you haven't already listened to our first episode yet, please do give that a listen as it provides a bit of an exegesis on what Fourth Reich archaeology is all about. And as a reminder, we'd love to hear from you at forthrightepod at gmail.com. And you can also find us on Twitter at

Fourth Reich Pod. Today, we mark the 50th anniversary of Gerald Ford's inauguration as the 38th president of the United States upon the resignation of Richard Nixon by launching Jerry World, our first of what we hope will be many series of excavations here on Fourth Reich Archaeology. In today's episode, we will introduce the concept of Jerry World and begin our biographical exploration of Jerry Ford's life. Jerry World is the result of countless hours of research into the life and times of Gerald Ford, Jr. For this project, we've relied on the works of Richard Norton Smith, James Cannon, Thomas DeFrank, and Hendrik Boreum,

as well as primary sources including letters, speeches, interviews, and testimony provided by President Ford and those in his personal and political inner circles. We also relied on broadcasts from C-SPAN, and the online archives of the Gerald Ford Presidential Library. Last, of course, it would be remiss of us to leave out that we relied on our personal archives of noided works. I assume the presidency under extraordinary circumstances never before experienced by Americans. I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your president

by your ballots. So I ask you to confirm me as your president with your prayers. My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works.

Our great republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here, the people rule. But there is a higher power. By whatever name, we honor him. God helping me, I will not let you down. Thank you. Now, the story of how we came to Jerry World as a concept

and how we landed on Gerald Ford as a focus for our first series, It has everything to do with the present moment. So we're talking summer 2024. We are recording today, July 21st, the day that Joe Biden announced, he will not be running for re-election. Right. So you want to talk a little bit about some of our earlier conversations and how we became. kind of unhealthily obsessed with Gerald Ford? Oh, yeah, for sure.

I would say unhealthily, to say the least, I'm addicted to the guy. It was like March of 2024, I think, that sort of making the rounds on Twitter, there was this video of Jerry Ford, giving a talk to a bunch of schoolchildren in Iowa. It's like a sort of a press. store he was doing in 1989.

The visit was part of a conference on the role of former presidents in American society, sponsored by the Herbert Hoover Library Museum and the Gerald Ford Library Museum. A schoolgirl asks him, Mr. Ford, what advice would you give a young lady wanting to become president of the United States? Jerry could have said anything. He could have said, stay in school, you know, work hard, tell the truth. But he goes on this very specific explanation. Well, I hope we do have a young lady at some point become president of the United States. The way it's going to happen.

I can tell you how I think it will happen because it won't happen in the normal course of events. Either the Republican or Democrat political party will nominate a man for president and a woman for vice president. And the woman and man will win. So you'll end up with a president. The sitting president, of course, is a man. A male and a vice president and a female. Vice president who is a woman. And in that term of office of the president, the president, the president,

will die. During his term, he dies. And the woman will become president under the law or constitution. And remember, he's talking to like 10-year-olds. And once that barrier is broken, from then on, men better be careful because they'll have a hard, hard time ever even getting a nomination in the future. It's an amazing video. It was just coming out at a time, it was on Twitter, like, at a time where we were all thinking, I know Don and I were definitely talking about, what the fuck is going on with this presidency and with this election that's coming up? Yeah, I think both of us had concluded long ago. I mean, maybe as early as 2021 or, you know, you know, early on in the Biden term, that he was not going to make it through for years. Like, the signs of cognitive decline that all of a sudden everybody woke up to

at the presidential debate with Trump were there on full display for anybody with eyes to see, but for the media telling Americans not to believe our lying eyes and that in fact it was a stutter or it's ageism or it's otherwise inappropriate to question Biden's mental fitness until snap he falls apart on national TV. The only real difference was the debate lasted 90 minutes, whereas the other gaffs and warning signs were shorter in duration and, you know, could be accused of having been taken out of context.

But at the end of the day, yeah, it's been there for a long time. We were seeing it, and I think regularly during our calls, we would talk about how it's just so absurd. how all the signs are there. This guy, what little we do see him in the public eye in the last year, he's doing something real weird. And I think we're both sort of betting that he doesn't make it to November. Like, he is that old, and the decline and deterioration is so evident that I wouldn't be

surprised at any day now at this point. But the absurdity of it was how the dead. Democratic Party was full steam ahead behind this guy. And it sort of, as you say, you know, your lying eyes. And that got us thinking about like, whoa, what is a president? What is a presidential candidate? And got us thinking, right, like he clearly was not calling the shots. It's impossible for somebody with, you know, medium to late stage dementia to exercise all of the awesome powers of the presidency, the imperial presidency, inherited from decades upon decades of consolidation of power in the office of the presidency.

And that combined with the prophetic statement about the first woman president from Jerry Ford, you know, it got us to looking at. at the first and only unelected president of the U.S., which was, of course, Jerry Ford, the only voters that ever elected him into any office were the residents of Michigan's fifth district. And you know what? Based on what I've learned about the residents of the fifth district,

I think they, I would go with their vote any day, any day of the week. Those are some fine people up there in Grand Rapids. They make the right moral decision. But what I was going to say is we started looking into Jerry. And aside from his prophetic statement about the first woman president, we pretty soon realize he is just the guy that has been in the right place at the right time throughout his life. almost, as Henry Kissinger says, providential the way he has been able to step in and serve. In these moments, and these are big moments, right, in the 20th century. You're thinking, you're talking about now, you're talking about the Warren Commission,

the Kennedy assassination, you're talking about Nixon, you're talking about Vietnam. So we started peeling the onion, and this idea of the president as a, brand ambassador for a larger agenda, as we're looking at Jerry Ford, we could think of, I don't know, Don, any other, like, any finer example of that in the 20th century? He's a real character like Z-Lig, the Woody Allen movie of, you know, the caricature that's in all of the great historical events. there's nothing like it, I don't think. And with our interest in exposing the sort of fascist undercurrents of the United States over the course of the 20th century

and the idea of excavating the Fourth Reich archaeology, you see pieces falling into place along the trajectory of the latter half of the 20th century that can be illustrated through the life and times of the man known as Gerald R. Ford, Jr. That's right. You know, more and more the way I'm thinking of him is, as Elton, Elvis is the sort of archetype for celebrity. So is Gerald Ford, the archetype for presidency. I can't walk out because I love you too much, baby.

Why can't you see what you're doing to me? When you don't believe a word I say. I like that. Yeah, he's particularly the American presidency, and particularly because of not in spite of the fact that he was never elected in a nationwide election. 100%. I mean, I think a lot of, the reason he was so successful in the moment was because his story, resonated with Americans in such a way because he embodied or at least superficially seemed

to appear to embody all of the what would you call it ideals yeah characteristics of American culture at that time and this is really what episode one of Jerry World is about isn't it it absolutely is in our construction of the forthright for kind of an every man synecdiki of a certain brand of the American experience in the Fourth Reich. And so in that regard, we thought it would be helpful to introduce the listeners to a few of the main themes that will recur both throughout Jerry Ford's life and also throughout our excavation of the Fourth Reich.

So the first is one that I'm sure most people listening to this will have at least some familiarity with, which is American exceptionalism. American exceptionalism often employed as a euphemism for American imperialism and the settler colonial ideology that undergirds the so-called American experience. You know, one of the principal theses of Fourth Reich archaeology is that there's a fundamental continuity between the American experiment and its veneer of democracy and the fascism that characterized its apparent erstwhile enemy in the form of the Third Reich, you know, presented in the official narrative as, the antithesis of democracy. And, you know, we believe certainly that the same Reichward trajectory, pun intended, continues to this day. So in the family history of Jerry Ford, and as listeners of Program to Chill,

certainly, agree, all history is family history. We'll see lots of traces of this continuity and the playing out of settler colonial ideology in the American every man. Jerry is a great example of this greatest generation, right? They fought the Nazis and it really our thesis is that they didn't vest this big bad guy, what they did was sort of the baton was handed over to the American Empire. And so, but one of the reasons Jerry was, you know, the public was drawn to Jerry and Jerry was so successful is he was a part of this so-called greatest generation. These men who went out and fought the Nazis who got their street cred, right?

taking down fascism and these values of truth and hard work and justice and being on the right side of history, World War II gave them an opportunity to show that they're not just talking about these things. This is what they really truly believe in and they're willing to get out there and defend those ideals in the world. But again, it's really fitting that we're talking about World War II and Jerry's participation in the Navy sort of giving him that street cred to be able to say that, you know, he was there when it happened, when really part of our examination is to see how it was very much, you know, not an ending of fascism and, but taking another form into the post-world era. Of course, the bad guys now being the communist.

Yeah. And it's really one of these fundamental contradictions at the core of American post-war identity, right? I mean, you and I both were, I think, adolescents or so when Saving Private Ryan came out and won all the Oscars and this re-inflation of the myth of World War II. And it was also around the time that I think the book, The Greatest Generation by a big Ford booster, Tom Brokaw, came out as well. I'm a schoolteacher. I teach English composition. This little town called Abley, Pennsylvania. In the last 11 years, I've been at Thomas Alva Edison High School.

I was a coach the baseball team in the springtime. Back home and I tell people what I do for a living, they think, well, now that figures. But over here, it's a big, big mystery. So I guess I've changed some. so sometimes I wonder if I've changed so much my wife is even going to recognize me whenever it is I get back to her and how I'll ever be able to tell her about days like today Ryan I don't know anything about Ryan I don't care man means enough

Nothing to me. It's just a name. But if, you know, if going to Ramel and finding him so he can go home, if that earns me the right to get back to my wife, well, then... Then that's my mission. You want to leave? You want to go off and fight the war? All right. All right. I won't stop you. I'll even put in the paper. work just know that every man I kill the farther away from home I feel and it's a great way to sort of when you're thinking of a country and millions of people and you want to short sort of short circuit or shortcut into the brains of every single one of your constituents that these men are just and honorable what you do is you have this as you say overinflated

sort of depiction of what World War II was and how the Americans went out and they fought on the side of justice and everything that's right and good and then you say hey by the way Jerry Ford he fought in World War II and you know George HW he fought in World War two and Nixon fought in World War II and hey Reagan fought in World War II and immediately when you say that you give them that cred where you can also say don't you know don't look any further this man is, he's the right guy for the job. He'll do what's right. It sets them above reproach in a way.

And this is not, look, we're not trashing World War II vets by any means either. Both of my great uncles were in World War II. You know, I know other people of that general. certainly well-intentioned most of them drafted 100% by no means am I saying that the people who fought in the war were you know bad people I of course it's all of that what I think what I'm getting at is that to be very very clear this is a extremely anti-nazzi podcast yeah we should say that all the time any apologia for the third Reich That is not what we're doing here.

And if anybody wants to pull away that interpretation, fuck you. You're willfully misrepresenting what we're doing. Yeah, I think our whole thing is we're trying to expose the Nazis among us. We are very much anti-Nazi here. Yes. What I was saying, though, is the dastardly thing is how this narrative, was sort of weaponized in the public eye, right? You can shortcut sort of these ideals

by just saying, you know, Jerry Ford, World War II vet, and, as you say, all of a sudden, he's beyond reproach. Absolutely. I'll just give one more shout out to, I think, one of the creators on whose shoulders we stand in this project. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention, the great Dave Emery, I know that my horizon certainly broadened a great deal when I listened to his, like, 37-hour series or whatever it was. It is time now for the next installment of a massive archive show, specifically Radio Free America program number 37,

how the United States lost the Second World War. And when I talk about the U.S. losing the Second World War, I am in no way speaking figuratively. not a metaphor. You know, and he's been ringing the Nazi alarm bell for almost half a century. Van Klausvitz, the famous Prussian military theoretician noted, and this is an oft-quoted phrase, that war is the continuation of politics by other means. You will also see that translated war as the continuation of policy by other means. In the nuclear age, it was simply not possible to defeat another nation by sending major

army groups crashing across an opponent's border because that would lead to mutually assured destruction. So what we are looking at in this program is politics or policy as the continuation of war by other means. This is a massive archive show. I'm doing it in installments. So props to Mr. Emery, thank you for your service, sir, and hopefully we'll be doing justice and continuing that line of work. I think it will go a long way toward a explaining not only the history of the second half of the 20th century, but it will in particular explain how the United States has gotten to its present, sorry state of affairs. With that, I'll get into the third running theme, in addition to American exceptionalism, the related theme of the

greatest generation. We also, you know, it wouldn't be a parapolitical podcast if we didn't pay attention to secret societies and the esoteric. So the Ford story is a great window through which to view particularly free masonry and its role in American political economy. Who controls the British crown? Who keeps the metric system down? We do. We do.

Ford was a 33rd degree Scottish right Mason, a master mason, a Shriner. I mean, he held basically all of the Masonic titles you can think of. Again, coming back to this time and place thing, the timing of his elevation to, for example, the 33rd degree, I think matches up when he was put on the CIA Appropriations Committee in that same year. So these sort of little wonky timing things that keep popping up, this is another example. And we are, again, to kind of distinguish ourselves from some of the other, I would say, less credible examiners of Freemasonry. We are not proposing a David Ike-like lizard person conspiracy. Don't mention the reptiles. They'll just laugh at you again.

And I said, I know, but I've seen enough and heard enough to believe that it's real, and so I say it. In simple terms, there is a predator race which take a reptilian form. They're feeding off humanity. They've turned humanity into a slave race. They demand human sacrifice. That's where Satanism comes in. They feed off human energy, particularly feed off the energy of children. It's interesting.

When you look at the traits, this is mainstream science, when you look at the traits of, of what we call the reptilian brain, reptilian genetics, which we all have, one of the traits is an obsession with ritual. So when you look at all the pomp and ceremony of the royal family, you know, with Buckingham Palace and all this stuff and all the ceremonies and the guards and the horses

and the colors, you're looking at ritual. But my goodness me, there is a network of freemates Freemasons, Satanists, and paedophiles that run this island. Rather, as I think will illustrate through the person of Gerald Ford, masonry provides a safe space for elites to conspire, to build trust among themselves. To get their story straight, right? Yes.

To network. to pick and choose the trustworthy of the next generation. And that's not only limited by any means to free masonry will intersect with some of the other favorites, the skull and bones at Yale, et cetera, as well as Masonic offshoots, which we'll be getting into in this very episode. in the local level. We see a hierarchy in the public arena of President, Secretaries of State, of Prime Minister's Secretaries of State,

down, down, down. That's the public hierarchy. The real hierarchy in the shadows is the occult hierarchy. And if you're higher in the occult hierarchy, the satanic hierarchy, which is incredible hierarchical, it's all hierarchical, then you have more power over someone higher than you in the public hierarchy. Okay, having, you know, covered sort of the overarching themes,

of our excavation into the life in times of Jerry Ford, we should probably go over some of the biographical themes that inform our, shall we say, paranoid examination of Jerry Ford's life. Sort of weird and insane events, as I said at the top, the timing of these things, it's it's wild and bizarre. Uncanny.

In examining Jerry's life, we've found so many contradictions, just this tension, a duality of a man, and in fact, he had two names, right? Not many people know he was born Leslie Lynch King, Jr., which we'll get into. But beyond that, there was sort of always with Jerry Ford, and this is what both historians and the folks, you know, firsthand accounts around him have said,

there's always this sort of outward identity versus what he was willing to share to sort of his inner circle. Outward, you know, maybe he was a humble man that didn't want to reach too high up in the political world. But inwardly, the evidence shows he was sort of plotting and scheming from day one how to best position himself to gain political power. he's sort of depicted as this goofy dim-witted guy but if you if you just maybe shift your perspective a little bit you realize he's actually he's got a very strategic mind and he's sort of playing playing the the game as as any you know chess grandmaster or or maybe in his case a quarterback that's right that's right but it you know these sort of contradictions abound, right? Like he has a reputation of never raising his voice and being a very kind and sort of,

you know, he's on record saying things like, I've never hated anyone. But as we were exploring his childhood, and we've seen, you know, accounts even when he was in office, he did have a rage to him, which no doubt came from his father's bloodline, which we'll get into next. But But I think with that, that's, I think, a goodest place as any to sort of jump into the beginning. And I guess the beginning for Jerry is going to be going up the family tree. Well, you've got your diamond and you've got your pretty close. And the chauffeur drives your calls. You let everybody know

But don't play with me Because you're playing with fire Your mother She's an heiress Owns a block in St. John's Wood And your father Be there with her If he only could

but don't play with me 111 years and one week ago from today The man who would gain fame as Gerald Ford was born Leslie Lynch King Jr. In Omaha, Nebraska. To our Omaha listeners, you may be familiar with the Gerald Ford birthplace site at 3202 Woolworth Avenue.

That home was the palatial mance that was commissioned by and inhabited by his paternal grandfather, Charles Henry King, who will discuss in some detail. As for Jerry's parents, his birth father, his biological father, was named Leslie Lynch King. Leslie Lynch King, Sr., or Leslie Sr., as we'll be referring to him throughout,

and his mother was Dorothy Ayer Gardner. So don't you play with me, because you're playing with fire. Jerry came from wealth on both sides of his family. His mother's side, her father was a businessman, an ambitious guy, and he wasn't. well off, but he wasn't super wealthy. Jerry's father, Leslie, however, was Uber rich, very wealthy son of a business magnate. So maybe we start with the father's side because I think that's going to be a little more interesting for the listener. Yeah. And before we jump into the personalities of these ancestors, it's just worth pointing out that on both sides of his family, family, biologically speaking. His ancestry in the United States traces back to pre-revolution

times. The para-power mapping podcast has done some great work on pre-revolutionary American power networks, especially in New England and Pennsylvania, which is precisely where Ford's stock comes from. So this idea of a deep connection. to America is something that I think the elites in American political economy understand to be a token that even if a family is not in a moment of great wealth, it gains a certain amount of prestige by dint of the fact that it can trace its roots back generations upon generations to the early days of the Republic. And something to bear in mind that even if we're not talking about a Rockefeller or a

melon or some of these other high-profile dynasties at play here, those dynasties that really do sit atop the pyramid in the United States have a certain level of respect. for pedigree that certainly exists in the person of Gerald Ford. His paternal great-grandfather was, get this name, Lynch R. King. This is insane. Lynch R. King. Dear, dear, dear, dear, dear listener, when we told you that there are some insane, insane moments in our podcast. podcast. This is one of them. Yeah. I mean, there, you know, some people might be familiar with

animatology. I don't think that we put too much stock necessarily into the symbolic meaning of names the way that say a James Shelby Downard might, but it can't be ignored that that's a fucking crazy name. And no doubt. And my, I think my thing, when I first learned this, was like, this guy's name was Lynch King. He was in the, you know, what is now what, the American Midwest or whatever, in the 19th century at the time that they be lynching people out there. Absolutely. And not only, you know, was lynching a method of terror utilized and made famous by the KKK. in the wake of the Civil War and during Reconstruction, which it certainly was.

Lynching on the frontier also played an important role in westward expansion, and Lynch Our King was himself a westward expander. He was born in Pennsylvania, tracing his roots there to a guy called Philip King, apparently emigrated in 1730 to Philadelphia, and he moved to Minnesota to pursue a career in agricultural tools at a time when, you know, this, it was an unincorporated territory still. This was, you know, right around the time that those Midwestern states were on the block to become states in the first place. So you could imagine the racial violence was a part of life.

Oh, yeah. And Lynch King was married to Rebecca Jane Shepard. Shepard being another interesting name, given, you know, the religious connotations. Sheep came from a line of Irish Quakers. that could also trace its roots back before the American Revolution. And in fact, her great-grandfather, Solomon Shepherd, is recognized as having provided service to the revolutionary cause, albeit as a Quaker, not in a military form, but he's got his D.A.R. Daughters of the American Revolution stamp on his name. so when we talk about pedigree this is what we mean um and once lynch moved west um we don't know for sure

but we can surmise that he was himself a freemason his grave is marked there in minnesota by a sizable obelisk. And while in, while still in Pennsylvania, he gave birth to, or Rebecca, rather, gave birth to their first son, Charles Henry King. And he was born in 1853. So Charles Henry moved first with his parents from Pennsylvania to Minnesota, but he had bigger and better things in store for himself. So he followed the railroad construction further west from the Midwest along the Chicago Northwestern Railroad Line, setting up settlements and townships along the railroad line over the second half of the 19th century. He did business under the name of C.H. King and Company and branched off several subsidiaries. He worked in banking. He worked in storage and warehousing.

He worked in trading. And, you know, like I said, he put his name and he put his stamp on all of these towns throughout Nebraska and Wyoming. Little doggies, well, it's your misfortune and not of my own. Groupit Thai, I'll get along, little doggis, you know that Wyoming'll be your new home. Among those towns was Chadron, Nebraska, where Leslie Lynch King was eventually born. Federman City, Wyoming, Douglas, Wyoming, and my personal favorite, or our personal favorite, Casper, Wyoming. Dick, who was from Casper, Wyoming?

Oh, my namesake, our man, Dick Cheney. Hell yeah. And I think you nailed it, you know, see. H. King was the settler's settler. It was sort of in his blood from day one. He was sort of born into it. And he took it to a whole other level, right? Absolutely. A millionaire many times over, definitely a wealthy man. And like you say, he's straight up established many, many towns in Wyoming and in Nebraska. To put a finer point on the historical backdrop for the rise of CH King,

I'd like to describe, at the risk of overgeneralizing, a few historical events that shaped the American West in which King made his bones. As the listeners are probably aware, the U.S. invaded Mexico in 1845 with the aim of territorial expansion, and particularly the expansion of chattel slavery. In 1848, that war ended, with the U.S. absorbing by conquest about half of Mexico's territory. That includes the current states of California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, as well as parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming. In other words, a vast territory. Three years later on the Treaty of 1851, the U.S. cut a deal with Native American tribes from the Great Plains,

following a large gathering of some 10,000 Indians in what is now Wyoming. In exchange for an annual payment, and some recognition of Indian sovereignty over Indian territories, the U.S. secured for its settlers the right to safely cross Indian country on route westward, including building roads, all that kind of stuff. This is the period of the Great Oregon Trail and the Gold Rush Out California Way. Under the terms of the treaty, Nebraska and most of Wyoming remain designated Indian territory. which meant that whites were at least legally prohibited from establishing permanent settlements.

But even before the ink on the Fort Laramie Treaty was dry, whites continued to settle Indian land using force to take and defend it. At the urging of Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas, you know, the guy who debated Lincoln, that all changed, and Nebraska became a U.S. territory in 18, through the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Douglas, you see, wanted to organize the territory to protect and expand the interests of the railroads. The Act also decreed that the legality of slavery in the newly minted Kansas and Nebraska territories would be left up to popular sovereignty.

The people, or white males anyways, would have the freedom to choose whether they would remain in. free to own slaves. After the passage of the act, the process of conquest and confinement ensued at a rapid pace. As early as 1855 there was a massacre of Sioux Indians at Blue Water Creek by U.S. Army forces under the command of Brigadier General William Harney. 86 were killed, including women and children. There was another mass killing of Indians in Nebraska in 1879, killing between 60 and 80 people. Smaller-scale killing was commonplace. The white population in the Nebraska Territory grew from just over 2,700 in 1854 to just under 123,000 by 1870, which would have been just around the time

when Charles Henry King set off on his pursuits, riding the coattails of the railroad rubber barons to make his fortune in the West, driven to success by his sense of pride, white supremacist entitlement, and the ruthlessness that characterize the settler colonial mentality. The similarities between this mentality and the violence of its disciples

to the expansionist Nazi ideology behind the conquest in pursuit of Liebenzhaum across the European landmass are self-evident. Hitler and his lawyers studied the bureaucratic legalization of mass death and confinement on the Western frontier as they prepared to administer the Third Reich on a larger scale. If you are interested in how they went about this, I'd recommend checking out Yale Law Professor James Whitman's book, Hitler's American Model. The bottom line is that the Western expansion of the United States was in many ways a precedent for the Nazi regime. And the genocide of the Native American peoples in North America was itself looked to explicitly as a model to be followed.

This is exactly the type of historical continuity we're referring to when we talk about the Fourth Reich. Now that we've set that stage, let's get back to Gerald Ford's granddaddy, Charles Henry King. When you think of the time period of the 19th, 20th century, and you think of these business magnates, he was right there with them. Maybe more of a local guy, right? Not your Carnegie's. Yeah, and the process by which he built his wealth is not dissimilar from the Great American Fortunes. I'll give a shout out here to Subliminal Jihad and their great series of episodes on Gustavus Meyer's masterwork, titled The Great American Fortunes, that essentially follows how all of the dynastic families of, American capitalist aristocracy built their fortunes through plunder, theft, fraud, murder, intimidation, and all the ways of cheating that you could possibly imagine.

And Charles Henry King will talk about why he's not in the pantheon of American fortunes, but his rise to prominence was achieved by similar means. And in his case, we actually can confirm to a certainty that he was a mason because his gravestone bears the Masonic square and compass symbol right there in the middle of it. I think of Charles Henry King is kind of analogous to the character in Killers of the Flower Moon. I don't know if you've seen that, Dick. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is De Niro's.

Right, like, his name is William King Hale in the movie. He's also a Freemason. He is able to escape justice. He's, like, a big personality in the town. What are you talking about? What are you going to charge me with? What could they charge me with? I have many friends, many, many friends.

That means I have the best attorneys. They protect me. They're going to protect you. So you don't have to worry. Nobody's coming after you, son. Nobody. Thank you, King. Sort of a proto-mobster.

That's how I think of Charles Henry King. Some happens to you. The head rights got to stay in the family. This is the only way to do it. They got to stay in the family. You know that. Well, if something happens to me, well... If something happens to me, what?

What would happen to me? Nothing's going to happen to you. This is the formality. Nothing's going to happen to you, because I'm going to make sure nothing's going to happen to you. Charles was, I don't think we've said this yet, but he was a violent man. There are accounts of him, you know,

beaten up his employees, and he was ruthless. I am a 32nd. 32nd degree, Mason. I am imbued. Confidence, trust, and responsibility, among other things. Yes, sir. You know what that is? No, sir.

Absolutely. There's a particularly salient scene from his life where he and his co-defendant, who in this case was his fail son, Leslie Sr., took a brawl that started with them beating up on one of their employees, and they spilled right out into the street in Omaha, outside of the Omaha Wool and Storage Company, which was one of the many subsidiaries of C.H. King's Enterprise, and this kind of Old West mentality, was their blood that was running through their veins. You made a good choice coming back here, because here. I don't know.

Money flows freely here now. Well, I do. I do love that money, sir. Don't call me, sir. You call me, I'll call me king like he used to. Remember? Call you king. Yeah.

King. It's noteworthy also that, you know, we're talking about Omaha in the early 20th century, this is also the birthplace of Malcolm Little, later Malcolm X, right on. Whose own family was victimized by the KKK, another Masonic offshoot, by the way, right? His family fled Omaha in, I think it was 1924, so a little bit after. after Gerald Ford's birth, but they had a cross burned out on their front line. So all of this, it's right there.

This is the cauldron out of which young Leslie Lynch King, Jr., later known as Gerald Ford, emerges. I'm speaking as a black man from America, which is a racist society. No matter how much you hear it talk about democracy, it's as racist as South Africa or as racist as Portugal or as racist as any other racialist society on this earth. The only difference between it and South Africa, South Africa, preachers separation and practices separation. America preaches integration and practices segregation. This is the only difference.

They don't practice what they preach. Whereas South Africa preaches and practices the same thing. I have more respect for a man who lets me know where he stands, even if he's wrong, than the one who comes up like an angel and there's nothing but a devil. Well, this is, you know, the seed. right this is when we're going to so a part of this is that we're going to get into is there's a little bit of nature versus nurture going on with jerry ford one of these dualities i was talking about earlier but this is his seed right this is where it comes from and it's worth noting again you know

with respect to the masonic element here the c h king company building in shoshonee wyoming Shout out to all of our Shoshone listeners is listed in the National Register of Historic Places, started out as a king property and later converted to a Masonic Lodge. Another fact of life in Omaha at that time and even today is the Knights of Axarben. The day is Thursday, October the 5th, 1916,

the year before America's entry into Great World War. We are part of a crowd waiting. for the exorban parade to start. Getting into Gerald Ford, I didn't think that it would overlap with the Franklin scandal, the infamous child sex trafficking scandal out of Omaha from the 1980s,

but, and if you want more information on this, you know, I suggest that you check out the source where I first learned of the Knights of Ex Harbin, which is Jimmy Fallingong's program to chill episode with Monty on that group. It's a Masonic offshoot there in Omaha, which really exercised control over the city in a lot of ways

and certainly constituted a sort of network or cabal through which elites could dictate the direction of the city, select who is who, And, you know, certainly keep the blacks out. President Woodrow Wilson and Mrs. Wilson had traveled from Washington to witness this the finest of all daylight historical parades in the history of X-Arbin. Indians came from many reservations to participate in this great parade. I was going to say, keep the blacks out and have sex with minor children.

The board of governors of X-Arbin. Right, or something along those lines. Whenever you get into these riffs about these secret societies and cabals, I'm reminded of Epstein, right? And it's, I think, a good parallel. When we're talking about these societies, for example, the Knights of Axarben, although not facially known for this, but under the surface, you got to think there are these,

God, weird sex parties going on at these places. Allegedly, yes. Allegedly, allegedly, right, allegedly. You like women? Oh, you know I like women. That's my weakness. What kinds I got out there? Just white.

It's white that I saw. Mm-hmm. You like red? Red. I mean, that kind of red? Mm-hmm. I like red. I like white.

I like blue. I like all of them. Don't matter to me, I'm greedy. I like the heavy ones. I like the heavy ones, pretty ones, soft, one that smell good, you know. Well, we got to keep an eye on you. You're just going to run all over the place.

Speaking of that. Totally, the Epstein vibe, the kind of eyes wide shut, masked ball, sort of a vibe. And indeed, It is worth noting that the Knights of X-R-Ben have an annual ball, kind of like St. Louis's Veiled Profit Ball. Tru-Anon did an episode about that with the journalist Devin O'Shea,

which is a good listen. And at the Axar-Ben ball, a king and a queen of X-R-Ben are crowned each year. Now, the king is typically one of these citizens. father type characters, you know, an older, middle-aged or older guy. And the queen is typically a daughter, like a debutante type of a girl, a teenager. And they get paired together in this weird ritual that, yeah, completely jives with the pedophocracy, as Dave McGowan called it.

So Charles Henry King himself was never crowned king of Axarbon, but I'm pretty sure he would have been a member, and indeed his son-in-law, the husband of Leslie King's sister, Savilla King, was a king of Axarbon. And the Franklin Connections continue. That king of Axarbon, who is one degree removed from Jerry Ford, he would have been Jerry Ford's uncle by marriage, was named Edward Fitch Pettis. He was married to Savilla King in 1926, so 13 years after little Leslie King Jr., Jerry Ford was born, and for reasons we'll get into, Jerry Ford was no longer in Omaha.

by that time, but he was chairman of the Knights of Ex-Arbon, and he had been head of the Omaha Trust, but his real career lie in a business outfit that will be familiar to readers of, for example, Nick Bryant's book on the Franklin scandal. Shout out to Nick Bryant, has done really great work on this whole Omaha morass for anybody who's interested in further. research. But that Suss business is the Brandeis stores. Edward Fitch Pettis, Gerald Ford's uncle by marriage, was the head of finance for the Brandeis stores. The Brandeis stores connect to the Suss Omaha story because the founder, E. John Brandeis, who would have been Pettis's boss. John Brandeis was one of the main contributors to the construction of Boys Town, the shelter

from which many of the victims of the child sex trafficking ring in Omaha were preyed upon. And another interesting thing about John Brandeis is that he relocated from Omaha to the Southern California area in his later years. and lived at a place called Diamond Bar Ranch. And that was adjacent to Spawn Ranch where the Manson family was headquartered. Now, the Manson family will intersect with Jerry Ford's life as well, won't it, Dick?

Oh, yeah. Manson family will come up, I think, more than once, but notably with one of our two assassins, squeaky Frame Yeah, I've heard her pronounce it like Fromey Oh, Frome

That's right Frommi Yeah We want to of course pronounce her name The way she wants to pronounce it So it is squeaky Fromey

Who was a Manson girl? She was in fact The heir apparent Of the Manson family And we will certainly Talk about her Dalliances At the Spawn Ranch

In a later episode To get back to the Brandeis store, Brandeis's daughter married a guy by the name of Alan Baer who was directly implicated in child sexual abuse and trafficking, allegedly, in Omaha, alongside Lawrence E. King. Ladies and gentlemen, the chair now recognizes Lawrence King, Jr. Not to be confused with the TV host Larry King. A member of the Nebraska delegation. But rather, the black Republican bigwig who sang the national anthem at the Republican National Convention in 1984. Oh, say, can you see by the don't fairly lie. What so broadly we hail after twine? and who was involved in the Franklin Community Federal Credit Union,

that was the financial front for the sex trafficking ring, and who was working with many D.C. personalities in high Republican circles, including the lobbyist Craig Spence. We won't get into all of that here, but suffice it to say, that all of these Masonic networks, one, show that tension we talked about earlier between the exoteric, civic-oriented, you know, community-focused and charitable purposes, and then the dark underbellies that often ooze with pus, worms, maggots and other viscera once the surface thereof is sufficiently scratched.

And I think this is a good time, not to take you off of the conspiracy theories about the masons in other secret societies, which I know you really, you just got to wind you up and you go. There's so much to say. But I think this is actually a great time to turn next to Jerry's mother's side of the family. Here, too, is another example of the contradictions. So we sort of talked about the King family and how they just had so much money, true, true wealth, well-known in the West. Yeah, even Ford's official biographers, like the most recent, very, very long biography by a guy called Richard Norton Smith that was published in

2023. He specifically says that Charles Henry King was a millionaire many times over, and that's like that's not an everyday occurrence in those times. Right. And on his mother's side, they were, you know, they were well off. I'd say, you know, I would call them wealthy, but maybe upper middle class. So Dorothy Gardner is the daughter of Levi Gardner and Adel Gardner. Levi is a businessman in Chicago, and he moves out, I guess it's, you know, I haven't looked at the map, but Harvard, Illinois is probably not far away, and he becomes the mayor of the town. Harvard is to the west of Chicago, kind of near the Wisconsin border, pretty small town.

He may have founded the town, I'm not sure if he did, but he was certainly mayor of Harvard, Illinois. So we have Dorothy's mom, Dorothy's father, I'm sorry, is this ambitious guy, sort of hard-nosed businessman in the Midwest. Doesn't really have a lineage like Leslie or Charles, but none of the same. has an American heritage that traces back to New England. As does his wife, Adele Gardner. And Adele is much more ancestry conscious. She herself was a member of the daughters of the American Revolution. So she's very attuned to how important it is to have that lineage. And so you can imagine how excited the gardeners were when their daughter, Dorothy, I guess, coming home from college, from Wellesley College in Massachusetts, lets them know that she met a boy, her

roommate's older brother, a man by the name of Leslie Lynch King. But they had big plans for Dorothy as a social climber. But they had big plans for Dorothy as a social climber before she went to Wellesley. And the reason really why a girl from Harvard, Illinois, could get into and attend a storied, one of the so-called Seven Sisters, New England, colleges was because they sent her to this boarding school in Knoxville, Illinois, St. Mary's school that was a destination in the Midwest for girls getting an education at a time when that wasn't the norm necessarily. Right. Her father was very ambitious man and her mother was very conscious of, you know, the American lineage, it's no surprise that they were pushing

this sort of social-climy effort on their daughter, because that's what it was all about at the time, right? Like, when you're in the middle class, the upper middle class, the point is to keep trying to elevate yourself higher and higher, right? That's the, it's ultimately the goal, the American dream, if you will. Yep. Okay, so you can imagine when Dorothy's parents find out that she has a suitor, who is the heir to, what did you say, don millions upon millions of dollars? Yeah. And Leslie, he was not at all demure about being rich. He, in fact, exaggerated in many ways his personal wealth as opposed to, you know, his family's wealth. Totally. And from what I understand is, like, he wasn't an unlikable guy. Like, he was charming when he wanted to be, and he was good-looking,

and you sort of had the, you know, blonde hair and blue eyes. And he was able to sort of schmooze. I think with him is sort of he just had a very dark side to him as well and would sort of do upon violence unto anyone and anything because he was this bratty rich kid at the end of the day. From the town of Lincoln, Nebraska, where they sought off 4'10 on my lap, through the bad lines of wine on me, I killed every thing in my bag. As you were saying, that side didn't come out during the courtship or even, you know, when the couple came back to Illinois to get married. And I think they got married in her hometown.

Yeah, exactly. That's what I was going to get. Not only did they get married in Harvard, you can so imagine the former mayor of the town's daughter's wedding, right? he's bringing this wealthy family by way of the kings into Harvard and he's saying look at who my daughter found and they have the wedding at I think the family church in Harvard so it's like very much this display of like you know the the gardeners have made it because now we've got this tie to the real money yep and funnily enough on the opposite side of the family, the Kings looked down their noses at Dorothy and thought that she wasn't good

enough for Leslie. And when they sent the couple on their honeymoon, according to the Smith biography, Mrs. King said, I hope I'll never see this girl again. The honeymoon is a good good point to sort of mention the violence that Leslie would do onto Dorothy's head, you know, in the coming months. There were, you know, episodes of violence during the honeymoon and thereafter, and ultimately that's what sort of ended the relationship. But this is just another point where, you know, Leslie was able to hide that pretty well from others for a good long bit.

I mean, indeed they got married with the gardeners very much. looking up to sort of the prospect of, you know, becoming part of that family. But true to form, Leslie was sort of lying about how close he was sort of lying about how close he was with his father. I think at the time him and his father were not getting along. When Dorothy returned to Omaha with Leslie, they did not live in the mansion with Charles at first. They lived in a basement apartment in Omaha, Nebraska. And it was not the lavish lifestyle that was sort of on display or sort of promised at the wedding. It was not until Dorothy was pregnant that Charles Henry King said, okay, you can come to the

palatial manse and have your child and have your child here my my grandson need not be born in a basement it sort of brings us to the point of jerry's birth right the night of his birth which was by all accounts he was born c h king's mansion yes he was born there i think it's even marked in the house to this day as Cheryl Ford birthplace. The elder kings, they even moved out of the house to give privacy to the young mother following, you know, lots of conflict. I think her mother also moved in there for a period of time. Yes, and that sort of escalated, yeah, she moved in and that escalated tensions. So, you know, I don't know how clear we're being at this point, but like Leslie was a drunk degenerate brat abusive yeah and he had a temper and it had to be his way

and you know he was a liar and a thief and all the bad things you could think of a man this is the guy right and Dorothy had her mom come just shortly after Jerry Ford was born to sort of take over and help because I think one of maybe Leslie had chased out one of the nurses or something like that. And that caused even more tension between Dorothy and Leslie. You've got to take back control of your home. Yeah, I mean, even under normal circumstances, having a mother-in-law in the mix doesn't always help things out.

Not in my case. I love my mother-in-law very much. I love my mother-in-law too, Don. I want to make that clear. We are anti-Nazi and pro-mother-in-law on this podcast. So let's put that out there. But at some point, Leslie on one drunken night threatened to kill the mother and child, right? Dorothy and Jerry Ford.

I think that was sort of the last straw. And the detail here is because of the king's social stature at the time. What Dorothy and Adele did was they called on Levi Gardner, Dorothy's father, the Chicago businessman, and had him come and sort of speak with Leslie Lynch King. And at that point, Leslie said, look, take your daughter and get out of here. I think a divorce makes sense. And a few days after Levi returned to Chicago, I think things were sort of heating up. again between Leslie and Dorothy, and this is the infamous sort of butcher knife scene

where he sort of chases, threatens to kill all three, right? The mom, the nurse, and the baby. 16-day-old baby. As I've seen it, Dorothy literally ran out of the house this, like, landmark in Omaha, right? in the middle of the night with a bundle in her arms. Yeah. And took a taxi across the river to Council Bluffs, Iowa. Yes, cross the Missouri.

Cross the, yes. It sits right across from Omaha. And she had some family in Iowa. Right. And she did, I think there was some confusion on this point, but she did return to Harvard for a little bit, not long, because she soon moved to Chicago, actually. She was living in Chicago for maybe less than a year

before they finally made the decision to go to Grand Rapids. Now, you say there's been some confusion about this. Let me just clarify a little bit. In the Smith biography and in Gerald Ford's own later retelling of the story, he omits entirely Dorothy's sojourn back to Harvard, Illinois, and her time spent in Chicago in favor of simply saying that his mother took him to her family's home in Grand Rapids. And it's interesting because I think this simplifies the story. and it erases what we'll talk about now,

which is the circumstances under which her family moved from Illinois to Grand Rapids. And I think that omission in itself is very interesting because it suggests to me that Dorothy herself omitted that chapter of her escape narrative. and it bears consideration why she would neglect to recount this story of familial shame and disgrace. Right. So she returned to Harvard, Dorothy returns to Harvard, babe in arms, and then finds a job, I want to say, as a salesperson in Chicago, and gets herself a little apartment there, and I think her sister was living there at the time. or near there at the time.

And this is when she starts calling Leslie Lynch King, Jr., aka Jerry Ford, or at this point had been just readily been calling him Jr. And that's the name he sort of takes on in his early years. And then at what point do they relocate to Grand Rapids? My thinking is, is like, obviously disgraced Levi and Adele, who are very much conscious of class and very much. conscious of your position in society and know what it means to have a daughter who's a divorcee with a child. They think about starting fresh. Levi is sick at this point. So one thing

I don't think we've really ever talked about is like at this point Levi is sort of at the end of his life. It doesn't really become clear, but by 1916 he's, you know, he passes away. So Levi's a little bit sick and, you know, he wants to change a pace from Chicago. His company has an office in Grand Rapids, and so they move to a neighborhood in Grand Rapids where he sort of can work out of that local office, and they take Dorothy and young Jerry Ford, young junior, or I should say Junie is what his mom would regularly call him. They take them to Grand Rapids, Michigan. I'll just note the business was in the furniture business, if I'm not wrong, right?

Yeah, I think that's right. That might make sense, too, right? Grand Rapids at the time, furniture was like the one of the top industries that Grand Rapids was known for. But like I said, like as soon as they get to Grand Rapids, it's pretty clear, like Levi Gardner's health is deteriorating. And pretty soon thereafter, he's dead. like May 1916, he's gone, and it's just, now we're just talking about Adele Gardner and Dorothy and young baby Junie in their home in Grand Rapids. And so you can imagine the dynamics there of these two women and this baby in this new town

and sort of trying to develop roots, established roots, as any respectable family would do, but they obviously are in a very sort of peculiar social standing. And that's when, lucky for them, in church, Dorothy makes the acquaintance of another young businessman Freemason by the name of Gerald Ford, Sr. Shout out to the Malta Lodge. Yeah, so it's the Grace Church, which is like sort of the big Episcopal Church in Grand Rapids near the south side of the city. So like of that area was the church that they regularly attend and they meet Jerry Ford. I think his business was tied to the furniture business, but it was like paints and varnishes and stuff like that.

Yeah, and Jerry Ford had kind of a. a rhyming biography to the man who would eventually take his name in as much as his father was also a profligate, a big drinker. His father was named George Ford. Well, they give him his orders at Monroe, Virginia, San Steve, you're way behind time. This is not 38. This is old night. Just like Charles Henry King, a highly esteemed Freemason, and he also had left his wife and family behind. I don't think that there's any reason to think that George Ford was abusive to young Gerald Ford, Sr., but he was more on the side of abandonment.

He was apparently pursuing patent litigation in St. Louis, while his family remained in Grand Rapids. But while he was in St. Louis, he also took on a child bride and was run over by a train. Ironically, his patented invention had been a cleaning device for locomotive boilers. It was on that crate that he lost his air brakes. See what a jump he made. He was going down the crate, making 90 miles an hour. His whistle broken to a stream He was found in the wreck

With his hand on the throttle A scalded to death by the steam His absence forced Gerald Ford Sr. To drop out of school after the eighth grade So, you know, his Ascent in the paint and varnish business Was very much like getting a job in a shop Right, as a child

laborer as much as if it was a rhyme to the you know young Jerry Jr. it's also a perfect foil to Leslie Lynch King senior. So now all you lind is you better take a warning from this time on and learn never speak harsh words be a true love and husband he may leave you and never Jerry Ford, Sr., probably had the exact opposite upbringing and sort of values and outlook on life compared to Leslie Lynch King, Sr. Absolutely, absolutely. And personality-wise, that shows through in that he's known as a hard worker, you know, a decent and an honest, guy, you know, he marries a divorcee with a child in 1917 is when they tied the knot.

So you could imagine that's not exactly, it's somewhat frowned upon. Right. Or it's taboo. Right. It doesn't happen very often, right? It's rare in the time for a woman to be divorced, even rarer still for a divorcee to get remarried. So it's, yeah, that just didn't happen. And yeah, Jerry's a guy, Jerry Sr. is a guy with integrity, with purpose, trustworthy, all of the things we talked about at the top of the hour that are sort of, we use the, quote, greatest generation as a short shortcut to sort of get folks to think about these ideals.

But this is sort of the predecessor to that, and Jerry Ford Sr. sort of. The Great Depression Survivor. Harbored all of those values as a person. Right. And Gerald Ford, Jr., interestingly, he was never adopted by Gerald Ford, Sr., even though he thought during most of his childhood that Gerald Ford was his father, the reason why he was never adopted probably has to do with the fact that Dorothy, over the years, always pursued alimony and child support from Leslie.

Oh, yes, this is a good point. And during several years, Charles Henry King was supplying the child support in lieu of Leslie King. He, you know, was trying to do the right thing. It's also worth noting that Charles Henry King, after the disgrace brought on him by Leslie's abuse and, you know, bad reputation of chasing away a wife and a baby, Charles Henry King moved to Los Angeles, similar, in fact, to John Brandeis of Omaha, and spent the rest of his life out there controlling his business empire remotely, but certainly lowering his profile relative to what

it had been up until 1913. And that may be why we don't hear of the king fortune. Right on. As part of American royalty. Right on. We have Leslie to thank for that. But in any event, Dorothy vigorously and continuously pursued child support, including after Charles Henry King died, she got wind of it and sought inheritance from Leslie Lynch King.

I think we'll talk in the next episode further about that and about the interactions that were eventually triangulated by Jerry Ford between Dorothy and Leslie King. But for now, suffice it to say that Charles Henry is providing some degree. I think it was something like $25 a month, which is not a huge sum compared to his wealth. And so Dorothy has to pursue this vehemently because meanwhile, she's living in a duplex with Gerald Ford, senior, his mother, and his sister. So very, very humble circumstances. I think they eventually get their own house where Gerald Ford's three half-brothers are born, all understood by him to be biological brothers until later in his life. But that house, too, they lose it when the Great Depression comes around.

So they're always kind of living on. the edge of financial ruin while pursuing social upward mobility. Yeah, there was like a point, Jerry's a young boy, maybe the third or fourth grade, where they move into a house. And that's like a very pivotal moment in his life as they got their own place in Grand Rapids. Another couple of salient things about Gerald Ford's childhood, touching on some of the themes that you've already brought up. One, he continues to have two sides to him.

And in fact, there's even a neurobiological basis for this. So according to Richard Norton Smith, Gerald Ford had a symmetrical brain, which caused him to right-handed while sitting down, and right-handed while standing up. Right. But his school forced him to be right-handed, right? That was the time when, and it's actually something in common with the Third Reich

and with West Germany after the war as well. Right. They forced children to right-handed, even if they're left-handed. He also had a speech impediment and a stutter and had a hard time putting word together when he was a young boy. I don't know if that was linked to his issues with his handwriting or, you know, dominant hand. Or with, you know, potentially the very, very early childhood trauma.

100%. And you and I have talked at great length about, you know, sort of burying the lynch king inside of him. Right. Well, because he did exhibit rage too as a child. And, you know, when he was a young boy, he would have tantrums and he wasn't a very good boy in grade school, right? He was always getting in trouble. So he did have a rage in him that his mother tried to, you know, tamp him down. For all that he attempts to suppress that sinister

element, throughout his life, he would always say that he was 90% teddy bear and 10% grizzly bear. Oh, my God. stepping up your first knocking at your door but we always Okay Hey Don I think

We didn't get as much as we would like to in this episode But we always have Our next episode To get through sort of his early years and into the Yale years and beyond, sort of the days before politics for our man Jerry. Yeah, I think we'll pick it up next time with his high school football career and his first encounter with his biological father, Leslie Lynch King,

senior in the Grand Rapids Diner where he was working during his high school days. But for today, I think I would like you, Dick, if you'd be so agreeable, to close us out with a poem which Dorothy required young junior to recite. So Dorothy recognized this temper in her son very early on. And it's a temper that she would say came directly from Jerry's biological father. And so in the early years, Dorothy did everything she could to try and get Jerry to suppress this temper. And one of the things that she would do is send him to his room and force him to read Rudyard Kipling's If. If you can keep your head, when all about you, are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too. If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, or being lied about, don't deal in lies, or being hated, don't give way to hating, and yet don't look too good nor talk too wise, If you can dream and not make dreams your master, if you can think and not make thoughts your aim, if you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two impostors just the same. If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken, twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, or watch the things you gave your life to broken, and stoop and build them up with worn-out tools. If you can make one heap of all your winnings and risk it in one turn of pitch and toss,

and lose and start again at your beginnings and never breathe a word about your loss, if you can force your heart and nerve and sinew to serve your turn long after they are gone, and so hold on when there is nothing in you, except the will which says to them, hold on. If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, or walk with kings, nor lose the common touch, if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, if all men count with you, but none too much, if you can feel the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distance run, yours is the earth and everything that's in it, and which is more, you'll be a man, my son. I'm Dick and I'm Don.

Saying farewell and keep digging. I'm... ...a... ...a... ...thea... ...and... ...a... ...the...

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