The President's Daily Brief - November 11th, 2022. Veteran's Day Special: Hugh Francis Redmond

Episode Date: November 11, 2022

It’s November 11th. You’re listening to the President’s Daily Brief. Your morning intel starts now. ------ Seventy Seven years ago this month, there was a veteran in Yonkers, New York who was sitting at home after being discharged from the military, having been wounded in World War II. His name was Hugh Redmond. Today we’re going to re-tell the story of Hugh Redmond his incredible life, his service as an intelligence officer, and his eventual death. And the reason that we’re focusing on it today is because of events happening next week. Joe Biden is traveling to Asia and, based on reporting from Reuters News, he will likely meet the President of China. And it’s in China where Hugh Redmond died. A captive held for over 15 years by the Chinese Government, often in solitary confinement and often tortured. To this day, we’re not really sure what happened to Hugh — officials in Beijing told us a story at the time but neither the US Government nor Hugh’s family ever believed it. So today I want to remind us of Hugh’s story of courage, tenacity, and love of country all as America’s president goes face to face with China’s President. It’s a story worth re-telling, folks, because as PDB listeners know, we face the growing prospect of war between China and America. And if that happens, we are going to need men and women just like Hugh Redmond. A new generation of American fighters who are willing to sacrifice everything to ensure freedom and liberty for all. ------ Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of the President's Daily Brief. Email: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's November 11th. You're listening to this Veterans Day edition of the President's Daily Brief. I'm your host and former CIA officer Brian Dean Wright. Your morning intel starts now. Good morning, my friends. I want to start us off with this. 77 years ago this month, there was a veteran in Yonkers, New York, who was sitting at home after being discharged from the military. He was wounded in World War II. His name was Hugh Redmond. And like a lot of wounded veterans at the time, Hugh was restless. He was still a young man and he wanted to be of service. Now, he probably heard rumors at the time about a new office being set up within the U.S. government.

It was called the Strategic Services Unit, and so he applied and joined it. We now know that special unit as the CIA. Today we are going to retell the story of Hugh Redmond, his incredible life, his service as an intelligence officer, and his eventual death. And the reason that we're focusing on it today is because of events happening next week. Joe Biden is traveling to Asia,

and based on reporting from Reuters' news service, he will likely meet with the president of China. And it's in China where Hugh Redmond died. He was a captive, held for over 15 years by the Chinese government, often in solitary confinement and often tortured. To this day, we're not really sure what happened to Hugh. Officials in Beijing told us at the time, but neither the U.S. government nor Hugh's family ever believed their story.

So today I want to remind us of Hugh's actual life, of courage, tenacity, and love of country. All as America's president goes face-to-face next week with China's president. It's a story, folks, worth retelling because, as PDB listeners know, we face the growing prospect of war between China and America today. And if that happens, we are going to need men and women just like Hugh Redmond, a new generation of American fighters who are willing to sacrifice everything to ensure freedom and liberty for all. That, ladies and gentlemen, is a story for today, Veterans Day, on this very special edition of the president's Daily Brief. Hugh Francis Redmond. He was born in Yonkers, New York, in October of 1919. His family, was very much working class, and they encouraged him to study hard, but by all accounts,

Hugh wasn't, well, an especially great student. He was a decent athlete, but you could say, fairly, that he didn't stand out as anything special. He was just a decent, all-American kid. Well, after high school, he tried college, lasted one semester, but he left to join the Civilian Conservation Corps. It was a Depression-era program for unmarried men that did lots of great work, and proving public lands all across America. But when war broke out in Europe, he enlisted in the Army, and he went on to serve in the famed 101st Airborne Division. And then on June 6th of 1944, D-Day,

he parachuted in near the Dove River in Normandy. Of the 20 paratroopers in his group, he was the only one who escaped death or wounds. He went on to fight in other major battles. It managed to actually escape death and injury in all of them, but his good luck ran out in the Battle of the Bulge. And like so many, he was wounded. In fact, he was hospitalized for a year.

He was eventually discharged in October of 1945. He got a purple heart, a silver star, and a bronze star with oak leaf clusters. And that took him back home to Yonkers. And, well, he would say he probably went a little bit stir-crazy. In fact, he said restless. So my veterans listening today probably know that feeling. He went from the battlefield to baseball fields. In fact, he'd like to watch as Yankees.

And while that was great and all, it just wasn't for him. He needed thrill and adventure. And so he applied to a new government agency that would be called the Strategic Services Unit, later renamed the Office of Strategic Services. And we now call those offices the Central Intelligence Agency. So Hugh applied and was accepted, in fact, joining just nine months after he left the army. Hugh became a unique part of the CIA called the Special Activities Division. These are men and women who then, as now, tend to be pretty good at blowing things up or killing people,

rather than, say, going to cocktail parties. And so, after he went through that kind of very specialized training at the CIA in 1946, Hugh was sent to Shanghai, China. And that was a heck of a time to be there. For some historical context, there was a civil war in China between the communists and the nationalists. It had settled down before Hugh arrived, but it was revving back up. The U.S. government needed clandestine boots on the ground.

So that is where Hugh went. The CIA gave him what's called a cover job, basically a story to offer when people ask, well, what's he doing? and his cover job was a salesman of ice cream machines. But Hugh was anything but an ice cream salesman. In fact, what we know is that through the networks of people that he made, he set up a ring of spies of Chinese citizens, all opposed to the communists.

He was their handler, is what they would say. His group of spies would collect intelligence, relay it to Hugh, who then in turn would send it back to Washington, D.C. He also trained this group on how to conduct clandestine sabotage operations, like blowing up buildings and bridges, but doing it without getting caught. So Hugh was in China for about five years doing all that incredible work, spying, when in April of 1951, things in the country went from bad to worse. The communists had finally beaten the nationalists in the civil war, and those nationalists, they fled to Taiwan, where their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren remain to this day. Regardless, the civil war was over, and with that, a new outbreak of sorts, but it wasn't war.

It was a fever for revenge killings. In fact, there was a total suspicion of foreigners. So the CIA ordered Hugh and all other CIA officers to come home. But Hugh didn't make it home. He was caught for reasons that aren't still clear. It appears as though someone close to him probably ratted him out. After a quick break, I'm going to tell you more about who that probably was. Plus, what happened to Hugh as he sat in prison, often in solitary confinement, for 15 years after he was caught?

We'll be right back. Welcome back to the PDB, ladies and gentlemen. Today, we are celebrating Veterans Day by retelling the story of Hugh Redmond. From 1946 to 1951, Hugh was working as an ice cream machine salesman during the day, but at night he was a covert officer for the CIA, organizing aspiring for intelligence and sabotage operations in Shanghai. But things were getting pretty hot in 1951. The Chinese communists had won their civil war against the nationalists,

and Beijing was on a witch hunt for foreigners, especially businessmen and missionaries. So the CIA ordered its staff out, including Hugh. One night he got a secret message with a code word that meant evacuation. evacuation. So Hugh got his things together and made his way to the local port. But as Hugh was boarding a ship bound for San Francisco, Chinese police grabbed him. Now, they were letting other people go through, including foreign businessmen, but not Hugh. So clearly, Hugh was being targeted. And it became clear it was because he had a connection to the U.S. government. But how did Beijing find out? Because obviously he was a clandestine officer, nobody should know. Well, suspicion. fell almost immediately on a Russian woman who, much to the CIA's surprise, Hugh had actually married some time before. Now, whether or not she had something to do with it, we still don't know, but we do know this. Very quickly, Hugh disappeared. His family back in New York was, as you can

imagine, absolutely distraught. His mother Ruth kept up a constant vigil. She wrote letters to the U.S. government asking for an update to anything, really. But they had nothing to take. tell her. The U.S. Embassy and all the consulates were emptied. The Chinese networks were gone. And so from 1951 to 1953, Ruth heard virtually nothing about her son other than confirmation once that he had been, in fact, arrested. But, you know, Ruth was a pretty smart lady. Her intuition, it is said, told her that, you know what, he was probably a special officer of some kind, probably an intelligence officer. And she was right. but she kept quiet and she maintained the ruse about him selling ice cream machines,

all to keep him safe. Then on March 29th of 1953, a German citizen who had been held in a Shanghai jail, said that he'd been in a cell next to Hugh. He reported that initially Hugh was receiving relatively soft treatment, all in an effort to get him to confess to having conducted espionage for the CIA. But Hugh refused to admit anything. A year later, that same German man heard Hugh's voice once more. But this time, Hugh was being tortured, and I will spare you those details.

On September of 1954, three years after he had been captured, imprisoned, and tortured, the Chinese government announced that Hugh was, in fact, a prisoner. He was alive, and that he had been tried and convicted of spying. The sentence was life in prison. they also announced that they had caught his CIA agents, his spiring, and they executed all of them right in front of Hugh. But incredibly, that didn't break him. He still refused to acknowledge that he ever worked for the CIA, which is pretty remarkable for lots of reasons, but especially this. There were other CIA officers captured by the Chinese at the time, and eventually all of them admitted to being U.S. government officers, but not Hugh.

and for that he sat in prison for year after year after year. As punishment for his refusal, he was given just enough food to keep him alive but not enough to thrive. That meant that he lost a ton of weight and eventually most of his teeth fell out. So over time, perhaps as an attempt to bribe him, the Chinese did allow Hugh to finally read some books. He taught himself how to speak Russian, Spanish, Italian, French. He did, grew to love science and the latest theories and physics. He also became fond of classics and philosophy and art. And so as it turns out, the man with one month of college who wasn't especially good at school as a boy, well, he was quite the student. Regardless, as Hugh sat in prison for years,

there was eventually a glimmer of hope. The Chinese decided to let him exchange letters with his family. Now, the letters were obviously screened, and many of them never made it out. but some did. His first letter was in about 1955, four years after he had been captured. He wrote his mother asking for heavy woolen clothes. Winter, as he explained, was fast approaching, and the Chinese didn't want to give him anything

to protect himself from the elements. It was a very brief letter that ended with these words. I'm sending all my love to you and everybody back home. Keep your fingers crossed for me. Love, Hewitt. Around that same time, there was a citizens group that launched in New York called the Yonkers Citizens Committee for the release of Hugh Francis Redmond. And it worked to keep his case in the press, plus to support Hugh's mother who worked at a local

school. But what the group didn't acknowledge was that the CIA was actually funding and organizing most of their activities. Regardless, the letters to and from Hugh and his family continued throughout the 1950s. His mother Ruth sent him things like Lucky Strike cigarettes, powdered milk and candies. And above all else, he wanted books and sports columns, especially about baseball.

Hugh also asked about his wife, that Russian that I mentioned earlier. But his mom didn't have the heart to tell Hugh that she had divorced him years ago and then disappeared. Ruth, over the years, grew increasingly fearful that she would never see Hugh again, but the Chinese finally agreed to let her come visit the man in prison. So, of course, for propaganda purposes, they had to dress him up in a suit, and they gave him a new set of dentures to make up for all those teeth that had either fallen out or, frankly, that they had pulled out. But it didn't matter, because as Ruth later said, it was a joyous few hours.

Heartbreaking, but at least something. She later shared that she spent part of her time with her son praying to St. Jude, who, of course, is the patron saint of lost causes. Unfortunately, the years ticked by from the 1950s, well, those became the 1960s, and the Chinese still refused to release Hugh, all because he still refused to admit who he was. And the American government, by the way, was either unable or, some say, unwilling to do much to get him out. Now, that last part about the U.S. government, well, it's because there was a new era underway

to re-engage with the Chinese, and some in the U.S. government didn't want to upset that process of re-engagement by demanding Hugh's return. So, Hugh sat. For what it's worth, the CIA did try a few times to get him out. The final attempt was in 1968, over 15 years after Hugh was first imprisoned.

They basically offered up a ransom that would have been given to the Chinese through the Yonkers Citizen Committee that I mentioned earlier. Now, what's really interesting is that famous people agreed to tell the public that that ransom was actually their money instead of the CIA or U.S. governments. One famous man in particular who lent his name to the cause was Jackie Robinson.

He knew Hugh loved baseball. But unfortunately, that plan failed. China, it seems, wasn't interested in America's money. Meanwhile, Hugh's mom never gave up hope. She visited him four times in total over the years. but, as she later said, each time she grew more and more concerned for his health. Still, she always held out hope that he would be released eventually. But by the mid-1960s, the cultural revolution in China was in full swing,

and odds that he was going to be released dropped. Now, to explain that, if you recall from history, China's communist leader, a man, really a monster named Mao Zedong, felt that Beijing was drifting too far away from the revolutionary principle of socialism and communism, so he shut down the nation's schools, and he urged students to rise up against old values and old customs and such. It turned out that would lead to absolute chaos, near anarchy, actually, and the economy collapsed. Over a million people were killed. As that was happening, the war in Vietnam was raging and actually grabbed the passions of the

world to include the Chinese government. And because of those two things, Beijing was in no mood to grant clemency or compassion to the man that they believed correctly was a CIA spy. And it was in the midst of that dark time that Hugh wrote for what would be his last time, a letter dated July 4th of 1967. He asked about how big the Independence Day parties were and what the fireworks were like and such. And quite true to his character, he insisted that somebody get his nephews some ice cream. and then three years later the sad news arrived according to the chinese government hugh killed himself on the evening of april 13th of 1970 now they claimed that they rushed him to the hospital but that it was already

too late what's suspicious is that the chinese quickly cremated his body placed the ashes in an urn and handed that urn to another captive and quite surprisingly just released him from the moment of China's announcement, no one believed the story of how Hugh died, not Hugh's family, not his CIA colleagues, and not the U.S. government. But they had no way of proving or disproving their hunch. And actually, they had no way of confirming that the ashes inside the urn were actually Hughes. There was even a suspicion that Hugh was probably still alive. But there wasn't much to be done at that point, just anguish. So without any other options, the family did the only thing that they felt to be right.

They buried his remains in the Yonkers Oakland Cemetery on August 3rd of 1970. That was 19 years after Hugh had been first captured. On his headstone, they engraved five words that the family thought best fit Hugh's life. His country above all else. The CIA, for its part, chiseled a new star on what's affectionately known as the marble wall of stars. And each of those stars signify an officer who died and a lot. line of duty. Now, some stars have names associated with them and others don't, all because their affiliation with the CIA has to be kept secret. And that was the case with Hugh. They didn't list

his name, not in 1970 or for many decades after. In fact, the U.S. government would not confirm Hugh's intelligence affiliation until the year 2000. At a ceremony that year, CIA colleagues finally publicly acknowledged Hugh as one of their own. And they honored his tremendous service and sacrifice. In attendance at that ceremony was a man named Bill McKinnelly. Bill, as it turns out, was one of Hugh's nephews, one that Hugh always told his mom to buy ice cream for and all those letters over all those years. And with that, ladies and gentlemen, you have your Veterans Day brief. But when we come back, I'd like to offer you one final word as you celebrate this very special day for all the veterans in your life.

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Bro, sky coin, way better than points. Never fly during a Scorpio full moon. Just tell the manager you'll sue. Instant room upgrade. Stop taking bad travel advice. Start comparing hundreds of sites with kayak and get your trip right. Kayak. Got that right. Welcome back to the PDB, ladies and gentlemen. As we celebrate Veterans Day today and the incredible life of Hugh Redmond, I want to tell you all something pretty special. One of you, a PDB listener, knows of Mr. Redmond and his legacy.

He told me that Hugh actually has a park named after him in Yonkers. But sadly, a lot of people there don't know who Hugh was or the sacrifices that he made for his country. So, folks, if you happen to live nearby Yonkers, I'd like you to do, me a personal favor. Go take a visit to that part for me. Just to take a picture and offer up a prayer, remember him. And as you do, let's remember all of our veterans, both those who are alive and with the Lord, because what these folks represent to me is what is chiseled into Hughes' headstone, his country above all else. Folks, those words inspire me, especially in this moment in American history where we are effectively at war with Russia and have another war looming with

China. Joe Biden's meeting with President Xi next week may be a part of that dark history someday. And if a world war does come once again, I hope that we are ready to stand up and fight just like Hugh did. A man who fought at the Battle of Bulge against Hitler, a man who refused to break when his Chinese prison guards tortured him for 15 years. That is what is called a fighter, ladies and gentlemen. That is the kind of man that I want to be. And I think that that is the kind of man that we should all want to be. Because America needs people like that.

America needs fighters. And we need those men and women now more than ever. Let us close out this Veterans Day podcast, ladies and gentlemen, reminding each other of why we are here, talking about our country and our world. It's the creed of every good spy and every smart American. It's from John, chapter 8, verse 32. And you shall know the truth.

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