Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 291 - The CIA, Smuggling Drugs, and Fighting Communism: The Story of Air America

Episode Date: April 11, 2022

Fascinating stuff today!  I knew almost nothing about Air America - the CIA's secret airline - before this week's research. Today, we go over the history of Air America, and also look at how Air America fit into the CIA's battle for ideological control of southeast Asia. We look at the Cold War battle that wasn't limited to just Korea and Vietnam. Significant fighting also took place in Laos and elsewhere as the US waged secret wars against communist forces backed by the Soviets or the Chinese, or both. The Cold War was an international battle for ideological supremacy - communism versus democracy - and so much of the fighting was done in Asia. And the CIA was so heavily involved. As was Air American. Hope you find all of this as interesting as I do. Hail Nimrod! Bad Magic Productions Monthly Patreon Donation:  This month our donation will be going to Lifting Hands International whose mission statement is “We provide aid to refugees both at home and abroad. No politics. Simply humanitarian.”  If you are looking for a way to help those in crisis in Ukraine, please visit liftinghandsinternational.org and look for the Urgent Ukraine Banner at the top. Our donation amount is TBD as we also recorded this one in advance!TICKETS FOR HOT WET BAD MAGIC SUMMER CAMP!  Go to www.badmagicmerch.comWatch the Suck on YouTube: https://youtu.be/AkVnLYZAKwMMerch: https://www.badmagicmerch.comDiscord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89vWant to join the Cult of the Curious private Facebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" in order to locate whatever happens to be our most current page :)For all merch related questions/problems: [e-mail] (copy and paste)Please rate and subscribe on iTunes and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcastWanna become a Space Lizard?  Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcastSign up through Patreon and for $5 a month you get to listen to the Secret Suck, which will drop Thursdays at Noon, PST. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. You get to vote on two Monday topics each month via the app. And you get the download link for my new comedy album, Feel the Heat. Check the Patreon posts to find out how to download the new album and take advantage of other benefits.

When you think of an airline, what do you think? Do you think of booking your tickets online? Then get annoyed when you realize you have to pay for extra baggage? Do you think about how there seems to be less legroom than there used to be? Maybe think about how you hope you get bumped up to first class, so you don't have to sit to some next to some sweaty mouth breather who's gonna spend the whole time chatting about some vacation they just took that you could care less about, that kind of stuff.

I doubt you think about the CIA and drugs muggly. Air America was a passenger in cargo airline originally established in 1946 by Whitley and Willowr and former US military aviator Claire Lee Shenalt. Initially called Civil Air Transport. Its mission was to provide support for nationalist Chinese forces fighting the communists in war-ravaged China.

But that would change when China fell to the communists and suddenly the Asian communist plane field got a whole lot bigger. Now China was looking to support communist parties wherever else they could take hold in Southeast Asia. The red spread in the US was not happy about it. And the CIA would be sent in to fight communist forces and they would buy out civil air transport to help changing the name to air America. Air America often appeared as if it were running regular old civilian flights while also

engaging in covert military operations pilots for air America made dangerous rescue missions picked up mysterious passengers and were told they should fly without identifying documents in case they were picked up by enemy forces and they were sometimes shot down and picked up by enemy forces. And they were sometimes shot down and picked up by enemy forces. Air America would function in Southeast Asia through the Korean and Vietnam wars, performing tasks like infiltration and ex-filteration of US personnel, the provision of direct and indirect support of US special forces, and the conducting of photo reconnaissance missions on Viet Cong activities. In addition to these standard tasks, Air America pilots, who for the most part were unaware on the Senate's on the Senate's on the Senate's on the Senate's on the Senate's

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During this conflict, the agency used among people to fight communist, pathit, Laos, rebels. Pathet Laos rebels. Excuse me, the among people depended on poppy cultivation for hard currency. When swastive land were captured by communist rebels, the poppy operation could not raise funds due to the lack of ground available to land aircraft transport their opium. CIA would step into help, effectively becoming drugs mugglers. Air America was known to be flying opium as late as 1971. Among village leaders claimed that their 1970 and 1971 opium harvest were bought up by

Van Pau's officers and flown to Long Chen on an air-america helicopter. This opium was probably destined for heroin laboratories in Long Chen or Vien Tian for GI addicts in Vietnam. And also for the American streets. The CIA has denied much of this, but is it true? And does it really matter if it did happen? Does covert equal shady, if the end justifies the means?

Had operations like this not have been carried out, how far would the red have spread? All of this and more on today's conspiracy theory fueled, super classified, fight the communist good boy Bojanglesmins, Suck Nasty, Amish, Psychiatric Ortelee, Will Smith's Life Coach, CIA flight attendant, Black strap, molasses, wholesaler, and you're listening to TimeSuck. Hail Nimrod, Hail Lucid Fina, try and keep your shit together today, Bojangles, and Glory B to Triple M. I'll keep you announcements short this week. I feel like they were longer last week. Check out the Bad Magic store for this week's tea, pretty cool classic text lock up, very

vintage and earthy. Visit BadMagicMarch.com to check out this and more with new merch drops. Excuse me coming every week. If you're looking to find a way to help those in crisis as Ukraine, please visit liftinghandsinternational.org. Badmagic charity of the month this month. I'll reveal our donation amount next week. I'll record this one quite a bit in advance. So I can take a family vacation.

Not much sleep last night, but drink, but got everything done in advance. So I could take a family vacation, a little, not much sleep less than hype of drink, but got got everything done in advance of vacation. Drink a shell load of black rifle coffee to stay up late. I'll keep my mind sharp to get this sucked on and get ahead on some other shows. And was thinking about how black rifle founder, Evan Hafer, former CIA contractor, huh? What does he have to do with today's operations with covert shit that he put bugs in the can mocus I drink to find out what I was talking about while I was putting all this together so you have me killed if I said the wrong thing Seriously, I thought that was just a weird connection

Next up on this infinity of insanity to our tempi improv comes see me in Phoenix this weekend April 15th and 16th and that is it for announcements And now on to our main topic. Today we're going to be talking about, of course, Air America, secret airline run by the CIA from the 1950s to the 1970s. First, we're going to look at the secret nature of the CIA, including how its secrecy has fueled conspiracy theories. Rightly so, some theories which have turned out to be true,

some theories which have turned out to probably not be true. Always hard to say for sure with an intelligence agency that operates so well in the shadows. Then we'll briefly take a look at some of the other companies that the CIA has owned or is alleged to have owned over the years. Next we'll get into an overview of the conflicts in Southeast Asia that the CIA and Air America

would be, you know know it took part in that sort of sort of glit will do sort of global play by play before we get into specific missions and stories in today's time suck timeline and because it just can help myself probably mention the rush of you crane conflict uh... situation at some point because a lot of today is about the cold war basically all of the most of the days about the cold war and the cold war uh... is as we're currently being reminded not not really over. It might not be exactly a democracy versus

communism anymore, but it's still alive and well. And being played out on the world stage right now, let's begin. If you've never heard about Air America, I would think you're probably in the majority. I was a secretly owned airline. I had not before, you know, this topic came up on our list. It was a secretly owned airline amid a massive amount of other highly secretive endeavors the CIA was involved in during the Cold War's opening decades, many of which have not come to light fully to this day. No surprises.

The CIA has been pretty tight-lipped about the various operations they've engaged in over the years. I mean, they've had to be. They're an espionage agency. Pretty damn hard to spy on people if you're blabbing about it to whoever asks. That would make for a really shitty spy agency. The CIA by its very nature has to be very covert. And I think sometimes we forget that, right? They're hiding information from us. Yeah, they sure are. They're supposed to. That's literally their job. Spine is not spine. If it just out there in the open, we just hope that they're doing it with our best interests in mine. Hopefully, they're not going to kill any more presidents, at least not any more good ones.

Come on. Seriously, though, there's literally no point in having this agency around. If you can't plan and carry out missions, clandestine missions that it does not notify the American public of the classified nature of many CIA operations has led people to form conspiracy theories, of course, about what is really going on in Langley, Virginia, location of CIA headquarters. Some people, a lot of people, as you learn a cover in various conspiracies over the years, they just don't do real well with secrets. Anywhere there are secrets, their paranoid worldviews lead them to consistently assume the absolute worst, oftentimes a cartoonish level of worst, the new world order, satanic pedophile

rings, closed to non-member organizations like the Freemasons or close to the public, you know, and reporters events like Bohemian Grove and they drive people fucking boggards. Simply to the fact that most of us just don't get to know what's going on for sure. And that leads to wild speculation. And that doesn't mean that the wild speculation no matter how improbable, you know, can't be true, but it doesn't mean that it is true either. I personally don't think the CIA is part of some type of international deep state illuminati organization, Kim trailing us. So we can't breed and

controlling our minds with 5G thought manipulation waves or anything of that nature. But I also do think that they're probably doing something shady, right? Probably multiple shady things right now. They're habitual moral line crossers to To be fair though, part of their job to walk right on the edge of what many consider ethical. Right, the CIA first became the target of conspiracy law on late 1960s when many Americans began to question the official government finding of a lone gunman in the John Kennedy assassination, right, President JFK.

And yes, I am one of the nuts who truly thinks the CIA had fucking way more to do with killing JFK. And yes, I am one of the nuts who truly thinks the CIA had fucking way more to do with killing JFK than they will ever admit. I don't think we'll ever fully know the truth. No matter what gets caught declassified, they're never going to spill all the beans in my opinion. If I had to put, you know, my life, bet my life on whether they were directly involved in his assassination or not, I would quickly bet my life that they were involved. And I know I know some of you think that is not a good example of critical thinking on my part. Maybe it's not. They have to agree to disagree with a lot of you there.

Too long to go into all of it again in great detail, I've already covered it in the past, but I distinct that they had motive, opportunity, definitely had the capability, probably justified it by thinking that getting rid of JFK was in the best interests of national security when it came to the Cold War. And then secret memo from 1967, a CIA official expressed dismay that conspiracy theories about the assassination and danger quote the whole reputation of the US government and had frequently thrown suspicion on our organization. He recommended, I love this, using the agency's propaganda assets to refute critics' arguments. Yeah, that's how you get the public to trust you again.

Propaganda, that only works if the public literally never finds out that you push propaganda. You know, once they find out, trust is irreparably damaged. And the CIA has definitely pushed propaganda on the American public. We talked about that in SUCK 175, declassified military out trust is irreparably damaged. And the CIA has definitely pushed propaganda on the American public. We talked about that in SUCK 175, declassified military documents, Operation Mockingbird. Started in the 1950s,

the CIA recruited journalists, editors, students in order to write and promulgate fall stories. The CIA's stories were pure propaganda. Their employees were paid huge salaries in order to promote fake news. That for sure happened. They recruited leading American journalists into a network in order to promulgate the CIA's views. Allegedly more than a billion dollars was invested annually for several years into this propaganda program. The full scope of the program has never been declassified, but enough has been declassified that we know what happened, not conspiracy law, right, documented, uncovered, and admitted

to be true in congressional hearings in the mid 1970s. Despite the CIA's best efforts to keep shit covered up, the percentage of Americans who believe that the US government routinely conspires to subvert the Constitution grew in the late 1960s and 70s. Thanks largely to the declassifying of this and other CIA operations 1975 Senator Frank Church right here from the Jim State at Hoseone born and boy see fuck yeah bro I've formed the church committee to look into some of these conspiracy theories And the course of investigation

Church and his committee documented at least eight CIA sponsored plots on Fidel Castro's life as well as assassination plots on Fidel Castro's life, as well as assassination plots on numerous other foreign leaders. The committee also published official reports on the FBI's spine on and straight up trying to ruin the reputations of civil rights leaders here in the US, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X. There was a CIA's legal domestic surveillance operation known as Operation Chaos, early versions of NSA surveillance programs on the American public. Operation chaos in particular was super fucked up. When tricky dick, President Richard Nixon came to office in 1969, existing domestic surveillance activities were consolidated into Operation Chaos. Of course,

they were. Nixon loved to spy on people. Have we ever had a shade of your president, the Nixon or did or it's just the one that got fucking costumost. Operation chaos kicked off by using CIA stations abroad to report on the anti-war activities of US citizens who were traveling or living abroad. They should have spied on Americans using electronic eavesdropping. EG, you know, they bugged their phones, bugged their hotel rooms, residences, uh, follow them, had undercover contacts, befriend them and more, all justified by the cold war. Make sure Americans abroad aren't conspiring against the nation. Praise both jangles. You know, he fears the red spread. But then by 1970, the CIA started doing the same shit on American soil. Now they were doing shit that cold war could not justify, right? They crossed the line. to line. They're infiltrating leftist countercultural groups with no discernible connection to

Vietnam or communism groups operating within the women's liberation movement. For example, they spied on the Israeli embassy. They purchased a trash collection company to collect documents that were destroyed from the Jewish embassy. It's pretty fucking smart. They did similar shit to former suck subjects like the Black Panthers episode 126. They went after the young lords, women's strike for peace, students for a democratic society. Any other group that they felt were anti-establishment. Basically, any group that seemed like it might lean in an anti-establishment direction was a possible target for illegal surveillance.

By the time an invest investigative journalist Seymour Hirsch, working for the New York Times, exposed them in 1974, Operation Chaos contained files on 7200 Americans and a computer index named 300,000 Americans, billions and approximately 1,000 groups. Imagine with how far information gathering abilities have improved thanks to advances in computers since 1974.

How many names are in secret CIA databases right now? I would be shocked if my name at this point was not in a database. I might even have a file now. This episode might get another page or two tossed into it. A project MK Ultra, suck subject back on August 25, 2017. Another example of the CIA definitely doing some seriously shady shit to American people. MK Ultra, you know, mostly about truth serums or serums, basically mind control.

Could we figure out how to extract any information we need from anyone we capture if we could dose them with the right kind of truth serum? This project ran from 1953 to 1973 included shit like dosing unsuspecting US citizens with LSD Just to basically see what the fuck would happen to them Not not debriefing them later. Just you know at a bar fucking put some stuff and someone's drinking. How's gonna happen? Also prisoners mental hospital patients,

given LSD, other drugs, sometimes unknowingly, sometimes heavily pressured to participate so that scientists funded by the CIA could manipulate subjects, mental states, and try to figure out if they'd concocted this magical elixir that once given to say, you know, some spy they'd caught, would allow them to extract any and all information

that person held. And they would know that that information was good until it was truth and not bullshit. Now obviously that would be an incredibly useful tool in the spy game. Also obviously wildly unethical to experiment on people like they did congressional committees in the late 70s or in the 70s not not late 70s, just in the 70s, sorry, exposed CIA drug testing programs like MK Ultra, possible US government involvement in the JFK, Martin Luther King assassinations, numerous other morally questionable or repugnant covert programs. In a memorable phrase, Senator Church suggested that the CIA had never received presidential approval for its worst abuses and had acted like a quote

rogue elephant on a rampage. But of course they never received presidential approval. They were given the ability when they were conceptualized to plan and carry out covert operations without White House knowledge due to for plausible deniability. So if they got caught, the White House wouldn't get their hands dirty. As Congress revealed more and more CIA operations, some Americans came to suspect that there were other as yet undisclosed government conspiracies waiting to be discovered, like darker shit. And can you blame them? Senator Church received handwritten letters from

people around the country who wanted him to investigate allegations ranging from the CIA's hidden role in Watergate to its spiking of the New York City water supply with mine control drugs, chemtrails, all that stuff. Despite the widespread conservative citizens, the only substantive reform to come out of the church investigation was the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 1978. That act established procedures for the physical and electronic surveillance and a collection of foreign intelligence information between foreign powers and agents of foreign powers suspected of espionage or terrorism. But does anyone really believe that the CIA followed those procedures?

Get the fuck out of here. It's subsequent legislation like the Protect America Act of 2007 stripped this act of its power anyway. Excuse me, it'll probably always be hard to tell what's conspiracy theory and what's not when it comes to CIA. They'll never be fully trusted by the American public. And they probably shouldn't be. One conspiracy that is unlikely to be true, but has a lot of

widespread support among the tinfoil hat crowd rumors surrounding the CIA's involvement with the HIV AIDS crisis, right, the epidemic. Since the CDC centers for disease control and prevention, first reported the HIV AIDS epidemic in 1991, rumors have persisted that the deadly virus was created by the CIA to wipe out homosexuals and African Americans. Seems like every time a new disease has shown up in the past several decades, there are those who believe the disease was man-made. Others since the government deliberately injected gay men with the virus during 1978, hepatitis

B experiments in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Still others point to tricky dick, who combine the U.S. Army's BioWare Fair Department with the National Cancer Institute in 1971. All of that is probably untrue. Though the code discovers of HIV, Dr. Robert Gallo of the National Cancer Institute, Dr. Luke Montagir of the Pasture Institute in Paris, don't agree on the exact origins of HIV AIDS.

Most members of the international scientific community believe the virus jumped from monkeys to humans sometime during the 1920s in the Congo basin. But did the CIA help accelerate its spread once discovered? Maybe. I don't know. I can go on and on. With other examples of concerning things, the CIA has done or maybe has done.

With today, we're talking about Air America, a company that would become a secretly owned CIA corporation, one of numerous companies that have been exposed for being fully CIA-owned or at the very least a front for CIA activities A business can provide a pretty good cover, right for espionage Whether it's something like a bank and insurance company newspaper, you know for agents trying to gather information Carry out other clandestine activities We might have talked about a CIA owned company before but I can't remember really Thinking about this how weird to think that some businesses are CIA fronts or CIA owned company before, but I can't remember really thinking about this. How weird to think that some businesses are CIA fronts or CIA owned.

Next thing about all the little counter-culture coffee shops I popped into, it's some riding done over the past two decades. How I guess you know, one of them, more than one of them could have been bugged. How the CIA work in there could have been, or how the people work in there could have been CIA informants makes me think about comedy clubs, right? Such important places for free speech, dissent. You know, there's a lot of, uh, kind of comedic protest that goes on in comedy club stages. What if some of them are CIA fronts? What if the manager is a CIA informant? What if some podcasts are bought and paid for by the CIA. What if Reverend Dr. Joe Paisley is a CIA informant? What if I am?

What if maybe Michael McDonald is? She... and I placed me in his life. And he... and I made her... they... well... What's she really talking about here?

She rises to her poverty and everybody else. She's really talking about here. What would they know? Where's she going? Who's the fool? Me? The American public? What kind of power? Reason away, our basic constitutional rights. Seems to be. Pollution.

What's better than nothing? What's better than nothing? What's better than nothing at all? Hmm. What kind of place did she have in his life? Why didn't she have to think twice? Why is he watching her go? Is he spying on her? Who's the fool? I don't know.

What the fuck is he trying to tell us? No, seriously. I'm thinking about all this too much could lead you to pacing around in a bomb shelter basement of yours. You know, some kind of bunker with reinforced concrete walls, maybe a signal disruptor to keep the government from spying on you, 10-foil hats, keep the government allied aliens from reading your thoughts. This kind of stuff can make somebody go crazy. I get it.

We talked about schizophrenia last week, paranoid schizophrenia, paranoid schizophrenia and deep diving in the CIA, probably not a good combo to ever do. There were plenty of conspiracies, I'm sorry, plenty of companies. Not my brand, just locked in conspiracies. Besides American Airlines, our America Air, our America Jesus Christ.

They've been either known or suspected CIA front organizations. For starters, there have been other airlines and transport companies, Air Asia and Taiwan, Arizona helicopters, Bonom, airways, Air Asia and Taiwan, Arizona helicopters, Bonom, Airways, Civil Air Transport, Continental Air Services, Intermountain Aviation,

well, Civil Air Transport, I mean, it's just another name for the same one, but there's a Premier Executive Transport Services, Seaboard World Airlines, Southern Air Transport, just a name of few. For more than 50 years, the US and Germany, they spied on foreign governments. This is pretty brilliant.

Through a Swiss company called Crypto AG, a firm secretly controlled by the intelligence agencies. This is crazy. This company sold encryption devices, machines supposedly built to send secure communications and keep communications out of the hands of spies, but these devices were then used to spy on the cryptos clients right customers include the governments of Pakistan India Syria Saudi Arabia even the Vatican and they did this for over 50 years

and i just have to get this out i was listening to the uh... the wombat's new album during a lot of this uh... week's research excuse me a fix yourself not the world great album and while working on this section of notes, the song Worry came on, and the chorus refrain is, it's not paranoia if it's really there. It says over again, over and over again.

It's like, God, coincidence! What are the warm baths trying to tell me right now? Stop spying on me, CIA. Again, the shake of drive you crazy. Anyway, crypto AG, not the first, certainly won't be the last firm run by US spies. Another one was called Brewster Jennings and Associates, fake law office. The CIA said the Boston based Brewster Jennings and Associates in 1994 as a front for officers,

including Valerie Plame, ex head of operations in the Iraq joint task force. Plame later outed as a, as Valerie, Plame. Plame later outed as a spy in 2003, listed the company as her employer for tax purposes. Although the Boston Globe described as nothing more than just a telephone number and a PO box. Directory listed Brewster Jennings as a legal services office with annual sales of 60,000 and just one employee CEO Victor Brewster. The CIA also used this fake company to investigate and alleged foreign intelligence ring, including Pakistan's ISI, which was attempting to recruit moles to obtain US nuclear secrets.

The international cat and mouse spy game is fucking fascinating. The CIA, not the only intelligence organization to have fake companies. Like the CIA, Israel's spy agency, Masad, has been using front companies for decades. In Koda, which claimed to export Ethiopian beef, was a wholly owned Masad operation from 1955 to 1964. According to Yasi Harrell, a former military intelligence officer who managed the In Koda factory in Maneritria.

He described in Koda as an Israeli intelligence station in Africa. I think, I think I miss pronounced that Ethiopian name. Too many, too many pronunciation words. I need, or word I need guys for this week in this 30,000 word set of notes. But he described in code as an Israeli intelligence station in Africa. Saying in an interview, we had a huge arms cache. We were only a cover in massage deals. When they had to send someone to an Arab country, they did it through us. We transmitted mail to spy in Arab countries in our ships, or transmitted mail to spies in Arab countries in our ships. So genius, rather than try to sneak sensitive information on to somebody else's ship or on to somebody else's plane, what

if you own the ships and planes? One less variable to worry about, right? Great way to help control the situation. Okay, now before we get into the meat of today's episode, Air America, I can't want to call them American Airlines earlier. That'd be funny if American Airlines this whole time has been a CIA front. Let's start with an overview of the conflict the Air America would take part in. This was the most fascinating part of this episode to me. Or rather, the multiple Asian cold war related conflicts it was involved in.

Though many of the operations would take place in nearby countries like Laos and Thailand, the two enormous military conflicts, Air America, would work through in the 20th century where the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Also known as the Second Indochina War, also known as the Vietnam conflict, since war was never officially declared by the US, but get the fuck out of here. It's war. The US's aim in all this was to stop communism from spreading throughout Asia, beginning in the late 1940s,

lasting throughout the 70s. And towards that end, they would end up fighting a lot in Laos and other neighboring countries, not just Korea and Vietnam. The US military, the CIA and Air America, all president and many parts of Asia started in the late 40s.

How do the conflicts they were involved in fit into the larger scope of international 20th century military history? It all starts if we can even really put a definitive starting point on any of this with the end of World War II and European colonialism in the region. After World War II, the disintegration of Britain's global colonial empire transformed global politics. Before the war, Britain maintained colonies all over the world, which provided them with valuable raw materials, additional manpower, a numerous strategic basis.

By 1945, however, numerous fights for independence in these colonies and changing markets for the goods they provided had made them an expensive liability instead of an asset. And the US's opposition to imperialism had made colonialism less viable in a politically globalized world. Same was true for France, which the 20th century had French Indochina, a large colonial area made up primarily of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and also the now Chinese territory of Guangzhouan. The colonization of the region was a complex, often bumpy process.

Each colony's unique societies presented different political pressures, which sometimes led to violence, ranging from riots to massacres. This happens all the time around the world, right? A nation is given autonomy, awesome, yay, but now who the fuck is going to run it? When does any society ever all agree on who should be in charge? Never? Almost never? Some of the people in these nations wanted to be democracies.

Some of them wanted to be communists. Some of them wanted to be capitalists, right? Some wanted to return to monarchies that had either existed before colonial rule or had kind of existed during colonial rule as figureheads and puppet regimes. Former colonies were now suddenly tasked with how they are going to organize their new countries. As these countries fought for independence from colonizers. And France, they didn't want to totally let go of control.

They wanted to maintain a semi-colonial structure, which complicated things more. The whole area quickly became in the wake of World War II, a huge fucking mess, politically. Due to the influence of the nearby Soviet Union, which was aggressively looking to expand communism in the wake of world war two, a huge fucking mess politically. Due to the influence of the nearby Soviet Union, which was aggressively looking to expand communism in the wake of world war two, bunch of Soviet-funded communist political parties and militias took hold in these former colonies, promising freedom for their colonists,

colonialist oppressors, communist freedom. So, freedom with the big old fucking asterisk, freedom to love communism, and due to the state tells you, or rot in a state prison where you'll be tortured. I mean reeducated, you know, or you'll disappear, aka, be executed. As you can imagine, the US, not too eager to let this happen.

The first colonial war was in French, Indochina, where a power vacuum caused by Japan's removal after wartime occupation gave a unique opportunity to the communist, uh, uh, Viet Minh, the league for independence of Vietnam as the group's full name would translate to an English. A nationalist communist Vietnamese party that formed in 1941. When in 1946, the French army tried to regain the colony they'd lost to the Japanese in World War II.

These communists proclaimed themselves Republic and they went to battle against France. Right? When Miles Adon's communists won the Civil War they went to battle against France. Right? When Mao's adongs communist won the Civil War in China in 1949, this greatly hurt France's chances of regaining a colonial foothold in the region. We talked about Chairman Mao and suck 238. 1954, the French would be defeated by communist armies, winning with the help of new heavy guns supplied to them by the Chinese. And something similar was going down simultaneously in Korea.

The Korean War lasted from 1950 to 1953, during which the communist North Koreans, supported by China, the Soviet Union, found a fought the anti-communist South Korean supported by the US. Cold war and full effect. Imagine what the global map might look like now, had we never fought it.

How far could have Joseph Stalin and his direct successors and and Mao Zedong have spread their influence? The Korean War began when the North Korean Army invaded across the 38th parallel. The line of division between North Korean and South Korea, they had been established after the Japanese occupiers were defeated in World War II. The Japanese were defeated, the Soviets and the US both quickly tried to establish governments on the Korean Peninsula that were either western friendly or Soviet friendly. An international battle for dominating global influence rose from the ashes of World War II before those ashes were even done burning. Under President Truman, the US joined the war against the communist North Koreans not only to defend the south,

consistent with the Truman doctrine, but also to offensively liberate North Koreans from communism. Although the US successfully pushed North Koreans to their side of the 38th parallel, once US started to cross into North Korea, China quickly sent in troops to aid North Korea. God damn it! So hard for the West to push their influence around in Southeast Asia when both China and the USSR, or USSR, to gigantic and powerful nations, were right there and not in ocean away. We had a wee bit of a location disadvantage

President Truman didn't want to involve the Chinese fairing a full-scale war Right began peace talks with the North Koreans on July of 1951 The talks included in an armistice signed in July of 1953 which suspended hostilities reinforced in july 1953 which suspended hostilities reinforced korea's division of the 38th parallel and created a 4000 kilometer wide demilitarized zone that has remained there to this day almost five million people died in the war with more than 2.7 million korean civilian casualties holy shit more than 30,000 american casualties now the civilian casualties in these southeast Asian conflicts are staggering and sickening. So much collateral damage, so much so. I think that many have a knee jerk response to all of this jumping quickly to we should have

never gotten involved in any of that. What we did was terrible millions of innocent people would not have died if he would have stayed to fuck out of their business. That's true. But and this is a huge butt. South Korea would also now be part of North Korea. And we talked about the fucking horrific lives that people live in North Korea way back in episode 45, approximately 60% of North Korea's population currently lives in poverty.

A hundred percent live in fucking fear. Fear of the state dragging him off to some reeducation toward your camp, right? Worshiping leader Kim Jong-un as a god is expected. And if you don't want to live there and you want to leave the country, well tough shit. You don't even get to travel freely around North Korea. Let alone leave it. Your life is rigidly controlled. It's awful. I mean, I think, you know, compared to life in any controlled. It's awful. I mean, I think, you know, compared to to life in any Western nation. Roughly 52 million excuse me, we're roughly 52 million Koreans live in South Korea. Roughly 15% of them live in poverty. Right, so they're doing much better overall. They have wonderful universities where they can study what they want. They have fashion, art, free media, you know, innovation, a chance at wealth, on and on and on.

Life is better and literally every way I can think of in south korea compared to north korea they can travel around the country however they want they can vacation out of the country if they want you know i think overall the freedom of the fifty two million people who live there now and the freedom of the additional tens of millions who live there between nineteen fifty three and now who have died before now

do justify the overall death count of the Korean War. So important, I think, to zoom out, evaluate the big picture in situations like this, look at the greater, greater good. Almost 3 million people died. That's beyond tragic. But how many people have lived free and fulfilling lives because of that war since? A hundred million and counting.

And also, adding to to that with no Western intervention in Southeast Asia, how many other nations would be communists today? How many more millions would live their lives oppressed under the rigid thumbs of totalitarian regimes, right? 50 million, 100 million, 200 million. Following the Korean War for the US and Southeast Asia

was the Vietnam War. Like Korea, Vietnam had also been occupied by the Japanese during World War II. After the Japanese were defeated, the Japanese withdrew from Vietnam. And then Ho Chi Minh, a communist political leader, quickly gained control in North Vietnam while French-backed Emperor Bao Dai retreated to the South. And we talked about all this in depth in Suq 139 on the Vietnam War. Today's episode has so many companion episodes. Both sides signed a treaty in Geneva, splitting Vietnam along the 17th parallel with a

ho-controlling the North and Bale controlling the South. But despite the 17th parallel agreement, many Vietnam Vietnamese communists, known as the Vietnam Kong, began attacking the Southern government. Now the US is worried about the so-called domino effect, believing believe in that if one Southeast Asian country follows the communism others will follow. It'll strengthen communism not only in the region but also globally. And I do think that was a very valid and real concern. I know some people don't agree. There's theories that say it wouldn't happen but I wouldn't know what I'll let it to chance. Due to this concern under both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, the US sent more troops to support South Vietnam amidst Viet Cong attacks. In August 1964, the North Vietnamese attacked two warships in the Gulf of Tonkin, kind

of not really. And the US retaliated by bombing North Vietnam and sending more troops to be stationed in South Vietnam. And yes, conspiracy lovers, I do know that the Gulf of Tonkin actually was a false flag event, like a for real no sarcasm one Documented not one with Christ's acres and all that bullshit But it was not the unprovoked attack that would sold to the American public to justify military involvement in Vietnam NSA declassified documents in the early 2000s revealed this to be true The USS Maddox was patrolling the waters just a few miles off the North Vietnamese coastline

and the Gulf of Tonkin, locating and identifying coastal radar transmitters and navigation aids to make it easier for the U.S. back to South Vietnamese forces to attack North Vietnam. And while actively helping the South Vietnamese in the middle of a war zone, the USS Maddox fired warning shots at some approaching North Vietnamese torpedo boats, who would then fire back after they were fired upon and then the maddox would fuck them up. And then two days later the US would fire again at nothing. They misread some radar blips. They thought they were being engaged.

They weren't, but now the US is involved again in firing on the enemy and that essentially was all it took to get the US to officially join the war. They just misrepresented what happened. Well, he just lied and said that, you know, unprovoked, they were attacked, unprovoked, which was not true. The White House sold a story of the North Vietnamese attacking the u.s. and then the White House authorized war against North Vietnamese without calling it a war. Then unlike the Korean war, which didn't get a lot of press coverage in the u.s. to Vietnam war became a massive hot button issue. An anti-war protest condemning the government for continuing to conflict that seemed

unwinnable as it went on, you know, in suit. And maybe the US, you know, didn't win this war per se, but did participating in it helped stop the spread of Communism in Southeast Asia. Today, China, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, the only Communist nations there, other than Cuba, the only officially Communist nations in the world. How many more would I be listing right now if not for the Vietnam conflict? I don't know.

I hope a lot of, you know, Vietnam and Korean war veterans feel good about what they did over there. I hope that they, you know, thought about how their sacrifices allowed tens of millions of people to live free. That's beautiful. And I think a lot of people like me understand

and respect what was done, but I think a lot of people don't. After 1968 election, President Nixon took over the peace talks, began focusing his attention on Viet. Viet. Oh my gosh, Viet Namization. Viet. It's a word he made up.

I don't know how I was supposed to be pronounced. Viet Namization, which meant withdrawing US troops from Vietnam and providing the resources, South Vietnamese troops needed to continue the war without the US. In January of 1973, peace talks between the US and North Vietnam concluded with the US's complete withdrawal from the war.

Two years later, South Vietnam fell to North Vietnam and Vietnam became unified under communist control. As a result of this war, as many as two million civilians on both sides, some 1.1 million North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters did die. The US military estimated between 200,000 to 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers died as well in addition to 60,000 U.S. casualties, just under 60,000. So again, a lot of death. A lot of civilian deaths were a lot of those deaths unnecessary, certainly. A lot of mistakes, lot of civilian death, where a lot of those deaths unnecessary, certainly,

a lot of mistakes were made. But again, from someone who has never served and is just a student of history, war is routinely fucking messy. Always has been, always will be more so, you know, when you go back into the past, when we didn't have the same technical expertise we have now, not giving every action that occurred there a moral past with a sentiment. But I hate when other people who have never fought like myself get real fucking judgey towards those who have and do some real easy hindsight, shit it on this, shit on that, armchair quarterbacking, which is so

easy to do when you're sitting behind a computer, you know, just to judge people who are out in a jungle. Refoxy now. These conflicts led a massive presence, or led led a massive presence or led to a massive presence of US forces in Southeast Asia from the end of World War II until the withdrawal of US troops in the 1970s. And part of that presence was the CIA and part of their presence was Air America. Okay, background info, complete, you beautiful bastards. Let's now dive into a lot more of Air America's story in today's Time Suck timeline.

Right after today's mid show sponsor break, full of sponsors that are probably not CIA deep state fronts. And we're back. Hope you didn't hear any ads for surveillance equipment. If you did, that wasn't a real sponsor. Dammit, CIA! You stuck in there! On to the Air America timeline now.

Shrap on those boots, soldier. We're marching down a time-sug timeline. The history of what would become Air America, begin in 1946, as a company with a different name. We gonna prayer airlines. Their slogan was, sorry if we crash, become air America began in 1946 as a company with a different name. We're going to prayer airlines. Their slogan was, sorry if we crash, it flies really hard and we're trying our best. Of course not. I'll be terrible airline. The airline was created by Claire, the airline created by Claire Chinat and Whiting will hour. What have I never seen a Whiting for a first

name for? There was in 1946 initially Name the Chinese National Relief and Rehabilitation Administration Air Transport shortened to CAT for Chinese administration Transport or Chinese Aviation Transport Using surplus World War II transport aircraft such as the C47 Dakota and the C46 Commando Cat airlifted supplies and food into war-ravity China back when there was a chance that China would not turn communist. Now, it would have been so great. Medi-of-China was our powerful democracy-loving go-ahead and protest.

If you want to buddy, you just know ally. Our most powerful ally. Oh well, let's say tried such a noble effort. Before we dig into their efforts, let's meet the founders of this airline. September 6, 1893, Shenalt was born in Commerce, Texas to John Stonewall Jackson, Shenalt and Jesse Shenalt, formerly Jesse Lee. Man, dude, it was destined to be in the military. His dad's middle name for Stonewall Jackson.

How do you like to be burdened with the expectations that would come from that name? John Wilcox Rutherford, county tax collector, what's your name, sir? John Stonewall Jackson, Shenalt. What do you do? Good sir, military, I imagine. Perhaps gunsmith, maybe I'll new sheriff. No sir, I'm a florist. I run John Stonewall Jackson Shenalt adorable arrangements on Main Street. On the weekends, I decide clothing, I design clothing for children's dolls. The surname is of a French origin. The French pronunciation is Chanel, but his family pronounced it Chanel. Because America, a nation where Moshmouth is the norm. Thank God. Shannalt grew up in Louisiana towns of Gilbert and Waterproof. Quick side note in Waterproof,

because I was like, what? There's a fucking town named Waterproof, Louisiana. Town is still there on the banks of Mississippi, right across the river from the state of Mississippi. Only about 700 people, most of them poor farmers, agricultural workers, and ironically, I love this so much. Presenday Waterproof.5 miles from its original mid 19th century location. Having moved three times to escape flood waters.

That's fucking great. The first couple of water proofs were flooded and not waterproof. The original town named after a guy crossed the river. He went to another guy, sat on the mound, surrounded by flood waters. Well, Abna, I'll see you'll waterproof. And then it stuck. But of course it's not. I just, what are the fucking odds? The town in water proof. I'm about to move several times because I got flooded. Should I all begin, Miss, Miss represented in the year of his birth as either 1889 or 1890 during his teen years.

Possibly because he was too young to attend college after he graduated from high school. And he is dead at a three years to his age. Clearly, he wasn't small for his age to be able to pull that off and clearly pretty smart. Make that age leap. Shannalt was a talented go-getter who attended Louisiana State University between 1909, 1910, where he trained with the ROTC, Reserve Officer's training corps. He and his wife Nell then moved to West Carroll Parish, where he would serve as principal of the Killborn School from 1913 to 1915. At the onset of World War I he graduated from officer school at Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indiana before being transferred to the Aviation

Division of the Army Signal Corps on November 27th 1917. Not much listed in sources regarding what action he saw or did in World War I. He did learn to fly in the Army Air Service during World War One, though. Following the war, he graduated from a pursuit pilot training at Elleton Field, Texas, April 23rd, 1922. Remaining the service after became the Air Corps in 1926, Shenalt then became the Chief of Pursuit Section at Air Corps Technical School in the 1930. So he's moving on up, now fucking around. In the mid 1930s, Chanel led and represented the first pursuit group of the Montgomery, Alabama-based Army Air Corps aerobatic team known as the Three Musketeers, death-defined aerial acrobatts,

right, thrill seekers, pushing aerial maneuvers to the limit. Pretty cool for his former students when he was a principal to find out that he was an ace pilot now I think The group performed in the 1928 national air races 1932 as a pursuit aviation instructor and Maxwell Field Chanel reorganize the team as three men on the flying trapeze Little wordy, but okay Chanel was promoted to the rank of major in June 1936 But then poor health mostly hearing problems and chronic bronchitis

Disputes with superiors and the fact that he was passed over as unqualified for promotion, led Shinalt to resign from the military in April 30, 1937. But he wasn't done with planes or war. As a civilian, he was then recruited to go to China and join a small group of American civilians training Chinese airmen. He was a private military contractor or operator long before companies like Blackwater made that job, you know, much more well known. Shinolta arrived in China June 1937, he had a three month contract salary of a thousand

dollars per month charged with making a survey of the Chinese Air Force upon the outbreak of the second Asino Japanese War in August. Shinolta became an officer, a chief air advisor, then it's that war is pronounced, Sino or Sino. So you know, assisted in the training of new Chinese Air Force pilots and sometimes flu scouting missions in an export Curtis H 75 fighter. As duties also included organizing an international squadron of mercenary pilots, fuck yeah.

Sound like the plot of some kind of expendables type movie, right Brad Pitt, Idris Elba, Nick Cage, Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, even though there weren't any female pilots, but you know, showbiz, Idris Elba, Nick Cage, Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, even though there weren't any female pilots, but you know, showbiz doesn't have to be historically accurate. Late 1937, the Chinese Air Force considered attacking the Japanese home islands with bombers launched from the mainland of China and Shenalt was advising. Shenalt went along to the Wujiaaba airbase in the capital of Yunnan Province in southwestern China to reorganize and train

new Chinese Air Force cadets at the Academy with the American Army Air Corps training model. By 1940, seen that the Chinese Air Force was struggling militarily due to obsolete aircraft, ill-trained pilots. In overall, shortage of equipment, the Chinese government sent Chen all to the United States Chen-Alt, as you like to say, to United States to meet with banker, Dr. TV, and Washington DC with the following goal. To get as many fighter planes, bombers, and transports as possible, plus all the supplies needed to maintain them in the pilots to fly the aircraft.

Chen Alt's mission to Washington generated interest in the concept of creating an American volunteer group of pilots and mechanics to serve in China. Then on April 25, 1941, the US and China formally signed a $50 million stabilization agreement to support the Chinese currency. Crazy, crazy considering how powerful China is now. There wasn't that long ago when the US had to help mal like that. We cover a lot of Chinese history in the 1940s and more depth that I'm going to do here today in episode 238 on Mao Zedong, if you're curious. By December 23rd, 1940 with approval by the war department, State Department and US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, an agreement is reached to provide China with 100 P-40B Tomahawk aircraft, a single engine, single seat, all metal fighter, ground attack aircraft that

just recently debuted in 1938. Hundred planes were created, sent to Burma on 3rd country freighters during the spring of 1941. Their first battle occurred on December 20th, 1941, when the aircraft were flying out of Kunming. Did you ever heard of Kunming before? I hadn't. Just a little known Chinese city of over 6 million people.

So many fucking giant cities in China. That's the 16th biggest city over there. It'll be the fifth biggest U.S. metro area here, right behind Houston, ahead of Phoenix, and Philadelphia. Shannel recruited some 300 American pilots and ground crew, posing as tourists who were adventurers or mercenaries, not necessarily idealists out to save China

from communist forces, or Japanese forces. Under Shannel, they developed into a crack fighting unit, always going against superior Japanese forces, right? They became the symbol of America's military, in Maiden, Asia, the flying tigers. And Shunalt became known as leatherface, seriously. He became a badass, beloved commander of his private air force, living legend.

Leatherface is flying tigers. That's a name, the big blockbuster Hollywood movie based on all this. Also remember hearing about the flying tigers? We talked about them back in the Hell's Angel episode. Maybe once before that. According to the Hell's Angel's website, the club's name first suggested by an associate of the founders named Arvid Olsen,

a man who had served in the Hell's Angel Squadron of the flying tigers in China. So a guy who fought under Shenol. Year before the US officially entered World War II, Shenol developed an ambitious plan for a sneak attack on Japanese bases. His flying tigers would use US bombers and US pilots all flying with Chinese markings. He thought a handful of flyers and planes could win the war single-handedly. Of course he did. He's fucking leather face.

He probably could've just, he's probably just, give me just, if you just gave me the right guns and drop just me in Japan, I'll win it for you. Chanel's flying tigers began training, August 1941, primarily based out of a rain-goon Burma and Koonming China. Burma, now known as Myanmar. Borders China the South, Eastern Thailand and Laos and Western Bangladesh. And rain-goon, now known as Myanmar. A border China of the South, Eastern Thailand, and Laos, and Western Bangladesh, and Rangoon, now known as Yangan.

Just weeks after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the flying tigers made their first successful attack on Japanese forces when the American flyers encountered 10 Japanese aircraft, heading to Raid Kunming, and successfully shot down four of those raiders. Thus, Claire Shadalalt became America's quote, first military leader to be publicly recognized for striking a blow against the Japanese military forces despite being a civilian mercenary. Flying Tigers fought the Japanese for seven months

after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Chinalt's three squadrons used P-40s and his tactics of defensive pursuit formulated in the years when bombers were actually faster than intercepting fighter aircraft to guard the Burma Road, Burma Road, Rangoon, and other strategic locations in Southeast Asia and Western China against Japanese forces. P40 could get up to almost 360 mile per hour. The Nakajima K43, when it was Japan's most popular single engine fighters, it would max out at 329 miles

per hour, 329. So yeah, a little slower than the than the bombers. Let's fast forward now to the end of World War II. Following the surrender of Japan in August of 1945, she's not retired from the Army Air Forces on Halloween. October 31st, 1945. All right, so he's back in and then he's out. He left with a high opinion of Chang Kai Chek, Kai Chek, the leader of the Republic of

China at the Closer World War II, and he advocated international support for Asian anti-communist movements. He thought it was his responsibility to do all he could to help nationalist China and his struggle against the Chinese Communist Party. That feeling of responsibility was what led him to found the civil air transport company with with whiting will lower. Unlike Shenalt, will lower was not a pilot. Had no prior military experience.

He was prior to Air America, mostly known for being America's number one hamster breeder, randomly. You know, every pet shop in America sells hamsters now? Well, that was not always the case. You couldn't buy a single hamster in the US prior to 1940. So where do they come from today's pet store hamsters Actually can be traced back to Syria Female wild hamster and her litter were captured in Aleppo Syria in 1930 and also taken to a laboratory in Jerusalem for behavioral study Lab workers found them to be friendly full of character cute very easy to look after

So you know some were taken home the Jerusalem lab workers and hamsters the laboratories around the world as well workers found them to be friendly, full of character, cute, very easy to look after. So you know, some were taken home. The Jerusalem lab workers sent hamsters to laboratories around the world as well with their short lifespan, large litters. The domesticated hamster was developed pretty quickly. The Syrian hamster first brought to the US 1938 by Whiting Willowr. By 1940, he sold in the popular pet stores in New York City, Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, Seattle, San Francisco, LA, Dallas, and then Catherine Hepburn being crossby, Humphrey Bogart.

They get on the talk about them in interviews, popular magazines like Life, Good Housekeeping and Harpers, and it's, you know, it's fucking hamster, Mania. And to this day, Will Lauer, one of the America's most popular hamster names, I had a hamster growing up named Will Lauer and that is fucking nonsense Of course now the part about Will Lauer and the celebrities is nonsense But the Syria and Jerusalem hamster origins part. Well, that's true. So the lie was kind of worth it right Pestor hamsters say in the States do trace back to Syria. So now you know that also the animal did become popular in the US 1940s and was not available prior to that decade So you know important hamster trivia, to make you look super cool at parties

that you probably didn't think you were gonna get today. You know, now you get to have people say say, like, who knew Michelle knew so much about hamsters? We got to invite her over more often. She's so cool. So you're welcome. Will Lauer was an American ambassador. That's what he was.

That, he might have had hamsters. I don't know everything about him. A primarily two Honduras and Costa Rica before Air America. He was born November 30th, 1906 in New York City, graduated from Princeton, then Harvard Law, so I guess it's kind of smart. From 1931 to 1939, he practiced Admiralty Law in Boston, serving as an attorney in the criminal division of the Department of Justice. Then from 1941 to 1944, he served as executive secretary of China Defense Supplies Incorporate.

China Defense Supplies, the main agency for coordinating Lend at least A to China from the US. Incorporated in the US in 1941, it was an organization of the Chinese government chaired by TV, Song, the banker, Chen Al, right, met with a 1940 on a mission to help get the US to fund anti-communist military efforts in China. And China Defense Supplies, staffed by Americans, primarily based in Washington, DC, like Will Lauer, which is how he met old fucking leather face. Right.

Now the two have united. Will Lauer also served as director of the Far East and special territories branch of the foreign foreign economic administration in 1944, 1945. Right. Then he goes on to found cats with Chinat. Well, our was cats executive vice president later became president, remained associated with the civil air transport company from 1946 until his resignation in 1954. And yes, the acronym, yeah, would be called civil air

transport, not the Chinese stuff I said earlier. That sort of started as and morphed into this and then morphed into America. 1950 will widen. I just that name will not keep what I call him will you know more Whitling or something. Whiting will hour would be that's a that's a fucking weird name. That's a weird name right. Whiting will hour. Why does it's the first name is too close to the second name. I mean like if I was like Daniel Danielson or something. Come on, it's not just me. He'd be the one to sell cat to insert drum while here in your head.

The International Federation of Syrian hamster transportation. Or he would sell it to the CIA. Done with the hamster stuff. Yeah, that's the one. Now that we know these men, let's zoom out, reconnect with cat. Right, civil air transport America, air America's precursor by 1950. Following the defeat of the Chinese nationalists forces and their retreat to Taiwan, this

airline was facing financial difficulties. Their mission to get the Chinese nationalists, excuse me, on the Chinese nationalists and power was over. The Communist of one, yuck, but Jangels just took a piss on a Chinese flag. That August, a CIA formed a private Delaware corporation called Airdale, called Airdale Corporation, which formed a subsidiary called Cat Incorporated. The subsidiary corporation purchased shares of Civil Air Transport, and now CIA controlled airline we continue to be called Cat until 1959.

Cat maintained a civilian appearance by now flying scheduled passenger flights while simultaneously using aircraft to fly covert missions. They base themselves in Taiwan, flew international flights to Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Philippines, Thailand, as well as domestic routes within Taiwan. Pretty fucking slick. They had flight attendants and everything. Fully operational civilian airline running domestic flights in Asia and South Pacific. Ambienos to passengers, CIA was running and transporting military shit in the cargo

holds. And they sometimes would use a plane only for covert missions. They wouldn't like simultaneously do it, but they would do both sometimes. Just fucking crazy. Like imagine being on a Delta flight. It's also being used for covert operations, right? You're flying from Atlanta to Peru. Over Colombia, you catch a glimpse of a bunch of Navy SEALS just parachute out the back of the plane. Then when you get

to your hotel, maybe a couple of scary looking dudes show up at your room, tell you, maybe you gotta just fucking stop talking about those people in the parachute you think you saw. Or the cleaning staff, you know, finds you dead the next morning of an accidental drug overdose. More than 1950, the Pautet Laos Laos' Communist Party, would come to power. So, the fuck did these commies come from? But, Daniels is shaking. He forgot how many different Communist forces existed back then. Let's go back to colonialism to see how they originated.

1893, France declared Laos, part of French-Indochina, to the French having Laos as a protectorate. What does it mean to control the Mecan River, or the Mecan River, a valuable trade route through Southeast Asia. France's grass-bound Laos slipped in 1945 when the Japanese occupied Laos and the closing days of World War II.

When atomic bombs fell in Japan, Laos declared independence under the short-lived Laos Isara, free Laos government in 1945. Then the French regained power the following year, while Laos wouldn't achieve full independence until 1954 with the victory of their ally, North Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh over the French, the Pate Lao began organizing back in 1950 at Viet Minh headquarters at Laos fought France for independence before it would then go into a civil war, communist

forces versus pro democracy forces. They didn't want to be controlled by some European power and I respect that. and go into a civil war, communist forces versus pro democracy forces. They didn't want to be controlled by some European power and I respect that. I just hate that the answer to pushing back against colonialism was communism for some people, and allow still communist. And check out a US State Department recent review of their human rights violations, arbitrary detention, political prisoners, censorship, substantial interference with the rights of peaceful assembly and freedom of association, restrictions on political participation, corruption, etc. But, you know, I know the US could be biased, so what does Amnesty International have to say about Laos?

Amnesty International, an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, headquartered in the UK. And in their most recent report on Laos from 2018, the rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly still remain severely restricted. And the state still exercises strict control over the media and over civil society, political activists regularly disappear over there. I bring all this up to say, I think the intention to push Laos towards democracy was a noble one. What the US did in the name of that push, well, that's a hell of a lot harder to justify. Back to Pate Lao, forming in the 1950s now. The Communist group largely depended on aid from their Vietnamese Communist brothers, right? Their leader was Prince, Supu Nivong, the red prince born to lawy, born to a lauation prince and a

commoner. This this episode today is a fucking tongue exercise for me. His education of Vietnam had led him to become a disciple of Ho Chi Minh and later to lead the opposition against his half brother, Suvana Puma, who is prime minister of Laos five different times. Puma wanted Laos to have a coalition government balancing the Pataet Laos with the more conservative parties, parties of the country. But the Pataet Laos had a different vision.

True communism, it doesn't coexist well with other forms of government, right? It's kind of an all or nothing deal. Forms of socialism can coexist with capitalism and other political ideologies, but actual communism, right? The state fucking controls everything. Too extreme to really blend in mingle with other forms of government.

Unfortunate for the anti communist US, Puma's hold on power tenuous at best under his rule government troops and the Pate Laob began to clash in the Northeast, along the border of Vietnam. And then a few years CIA, Air America, they would step in to try and help stop the red spread there. So now it's head Northeast for a second. Way up the coast near Japan, checking on some other commies, air America would help battle.

The Korean War kicks off June 25th, 1950, when some 75,000 soldiers from North Korea's, you know, people's army, pour across the 38th parallel. These fuckers crashed to the boundary between the Soviet back democratic peoples, Republic of Korea, to the North, and the pro-Western Republic of Korea to the South. This invasion was the first true non-covert military action of the Cold War.

Two days later, President Truman orders US forces to South Korea to repulse North Korea's invasion, wanting to make sure that Americans sent a strong message to North Korea, and more importantly to China and the Soviet Union Union that the spread of communism will be fought head on, right? So the US is going to fuck around and just turn a blind eye to that. I put some early back and forth across the 38th parallel, the fighting stalls, casualties mount with nothing to show for the casualties in some people's eyes. Then Kat shows up to help out. During the Korean War, Kat airlives thousands of tons of war materials to supply U.S. military operations,

including support of Chinese nationalist party military holdouts based down in Burma, named Operation Paper. Kat's head office address was in Washington, DC, with the footnote to the company at Reg from the U.S., that time the president was listed in the directory still at William, God damn it. Whiting. The fuck. I'm never going to meet another Whiting. Listed director's Whiting will hour. And their fleet was listed as 23 Curtis C46 Commando and four Douglas DC three aircrafts. But cat of course was operating very far from DC.

November 29th 1952, a cat C-47 leaves Seoul on a mission to collect an anti-communist Chinese agent in the foothills of Northeastern China. The mission was apparently compromised. Chinese forces were waiting for them. Approaching low over the ground, it was attacked by small arms fire, crash lands near the town of on two

in China's G-Gen Province. The pilots, Robert Snoddy, Norman Schwartz, were killed during the crash and subsequent fire were buried nearby. Two CIA officers onboard John T. Downey and Richard G. Fectau, they survived and are immediately taken prisoner by Chinese Communist forces who are waiting for the flight. And then these guys are carried away in a golden chariot to Beijing, where they will stay in a five-star hotel, you know, made of diamonds and be entertained by the world's most beautiful women, fed the finest foods

until they felt like heading home. Mal's communists loved entertain CIA operatives and showed them how great life actually was there as opposed to bullshit western propaganda. And of course, that's not true. No, this is a crazy story. Downey infect how held by China regularly interrogated for roughly 20 years. Can you fucking imagine that? Two decades in a Chinese prison. Effectow released unexpectedly following Nixon's visit to China in 1972. Downey released

only after Washington publicly acknowledged their spy mission in 1973. And with his release, Downey would become the longest held prisoner prisoner of war in u.s. military history what a horrible distinction he was just twenty two when he was captured forty three when he was released and what do these guys do when they got back well uh... down he he went to harvard pretty awesome three years later age forty six down he graduated from harvard law school ultimately would become a judging connecticut and i love this summer before law school, he registered for a Russian course at Yale, see how well he taught himself that language while he was in prison in China. And in New Haven, while taking classes, he meets a Chinese born woman, he would go on to

marry and have a son with Audrey Lee, born just a few miles from the prison where he was held. She had immigrated from China just a few months after his capture. That was strange and awesome. He would live to the age of 84 and do so much else. We could do a whole episode on him. And then this other guy, Richard Fectao, truly known as Dick, not just my joke,

well, Dick was just 25 when he was captured. This story's even crazier, I think. Poor guy had twin daughters waiting for him back home when he's captured. His girls are just two years old when he's captured when he gets out there 22. Then, I know that's fucking sad, but how cool is this? When he gets home, he reunites with their mother who he had gotten a divorce from, or she divorced him shortly before he left for Southeast Asia.

Now, you know, his ex-wife Peg. So now they get back together, they get remarried, bands back together after all of that, after two decades. 1977, Dick meets up with an old Boston University football teammate, John Simpson, who's now the BU athletic director. He offers him the position of assistant athletic director and he accepts his job, works diligently and quietly serving BU until his retirement in 1989. And then he's honored by being inducted into the BU athletic hall of fame in 2017. He's 95 and still alive.

So he was, uh, you know, he's, he was working there when he was like, uh, fucking, oh, no, sorry, he was decked at the hall of fame when he was 90 years. For a second, I looked at the dates wrong. And I thought he was the assistant athletic director. Still at 90. He's like, Jesus, fucking retire already. But no, but hail Nimrod to both of those amazing motherfuckers. Uh, Bojangles just stood on his hind legs, uh,

salute it with his one remaining front paw. And if he's our, uh, three-legged one-eyed, commie-hating, people mascot slash out one of the suck gods, if you're confused. At the time of their capture, the families, these pilots were told in order to keep the CIA's covert actions in China, uh, covert that they had crashed into the C.A. Japan on a routine flight to Tokyo and were presumed dead. So that's obviously tragic.

How crazy for Dick's ex-wife to realize he was still alive two decades later. Crazily enough, it would take until 2001 for China to allow the U.S. Defense Department's prisoner of war and missing an action office to conduct a recovery effort for the bodies of the pilots those guys crashed with. In 2005, the POW MIA office announced it identified the remains of Robert Snoddy using DNA analysis. Swortses remains have never been recovered. So just a little quick personal note on some of the people who served in Air America. So back to Kat now. May 1, 1953, Operation Squad began calling for Kat to air drop supplies

to French troops besieged at Nassam Laos. This operation was the first US involvement in what became the first Indochina war as Laos fought for its independence from France. US and CIA would back France in this conflict, right? Again, trying to stop the spread of communism. The Cold War all about puppet governments. The Soviet Union, China, North Vietnam, funding, sometimes actively fighting for communist

friendly regimes, US funding, sometimes actively fighting for regimes friendly with the West. And the same shit goes on today. Now I got to mention Ukraine, right? Zelensky, the first, you know, the US and the West want him to remain in power in Ukraine. Why? Well, because he's friendly with the West. He'll fight with and for the West. He values Western capitalistic ideals. They have an emerging free market economy. He's a good trading partner, pro-democracy, no matter what, some like Tucker Carlson, try to say it's very confusing. The West also likes Ukraine because it's an important buffer between Russia and much of Eastern Europe, between Russia and NATO. Why does Putin want to, you know, probably kill him? Definitely replace him with a pro-Russian leader.

Well simple, no weird, deep state convoluted conspiracies needed to see what's going on over there. Putin wants to extend the sphere of Russian influence, of his influence westward further into Europe. But the rest of Europe outside of Belarus does not want to, you know, Putin to do that. They don't want to be under the thumb of Putin. At the core of all of it, I mean, that's it. It's pretty simple. It's a battle for influence, a power grab, Cold War 2.0 shit.

The authoritarianism versus democracy. Why do I hate Putin? Because he's a fucking dictator. I don't understand why anybody likes this guy at any level. He's a dictator posing as a president, the head of a fake democracy. He's anti-freedom as shown by how he's just been thrown journalists in prison for reporting the truth along with protesters, you know, currently he's been censoring the media over in Russia to an insane degree, right?

Any politician that anti-freedom, right? No, we can't have Facebook and here can't control that. You gotta have it out. That's someone that I want dead, actually. Him, Kim Jong-un, any other crop motherfucker who throws people in prison for criticizing the state. One of the most important rights we have in America, I think, is to be able to openly hate whoever happens to be in charge and not be legally punished for it, not disappear for that. That's so important to me. One of the most important freedoms is

legal in every nation in the world to suck your leader's dick. That means nothing. Being able to tell the leader right or wrong to suck your dick, that's the kind of freedom I want. As ugly as it sometimes gets, right? I don't always like to criticism or who's given it, but I love what it represents. This is why there's so much concern about the CIA killing or being involved somehow in, you know, Kennedy's death, or an MLK's death, or Malcolm X's. If we start making our own disappear, well then we're no better in moments than our Cold War enemies. Then my sentiments about all this are why I support the US military, what they tried to accomplish. Air America included in Southeast Asia following World War II and into the 70s. We covered Stalin.

We covered North Korea's Kim Il Sung. We covered Mao Zedong. Those motherfuckers, tyrants. And those who lived under them lived in tyranny and North Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh. Well, he was aligned with, I know he wasn't as bad, but he was aligned with some of their ideals. I do train in Moscow, stop the red spread about as noble as an ideal that you can, that you can fight for, I think. But I realized the way this fight was fought, you know, was often unethical. So back to 1953 now. Cat transported supplies and troops for French operations during Operation Caster in November of 1953. Cat assisted the French government at various times during his Indo-China wars,

flying supplies and equipment, into Hanoi's, a G-A-L-A-M airport, and fields, other fields using C-46, C-47 transport aircraft. At Battle of DN Bien Fou, sorry, cat supplied the French garrison by parachuting troops and supplies with covert, US Air Force C-119s and scribe with French Air Force insignia. Two cat pilots, James B. McGovern, Jr., and William Buford killed an action during the siege of DN Bien Fu in May 1954, and some historians consider them to be the very first American casualties of what would later be termed the Vietnam War. All depends on how you define when that conflict began.

The government's remains recovered in 2002, identified in 2006. Seven surviving cat pilots out of the 37 involved in the battle received the French Legion of Honor, award in February of 2005 during a special ceremony at the French Embassy in DC Meanwhile back in 1953 operation Squall continued May 5th cat flus six of the transports repainted with French insignias to G-A-LAM airbase and parachuted supplies and equipment to French forces in Laos until July 16th With cat pilots making numerous air drops to French troops in Laos until July 16th with cat pilots making numerous air drops to French troops in Laos.

Cat contracting with the French in January of 1954 to provide 24 pilots or they contracted with them to provide 24 pilots to fly a dozen C-119 aircrafts. They went to support isolated French troops at the NBN Foo. The Viet Minh had successfully isolated the French garrison, aka military post from other French troops, and a march they launched a fierce siege on the stronghold. Over the next two months, Viet Minh units battled the trapped French soldiers with artillery and the aircraft guns and automatic weapons fire. As the siege dragged on, conditions inside the JNBN FU,

you know, decayed rapidly outnumbered an outgunned. The garrison's defenders suffered terrible casualties, especially as food, medicine, ammunition, other supplies dwindled away. The French magazine, Le Monde, reported at the height of the siege. The surgeons at the NBN Fu are reaching the limit of their endurance. And the overflow wounded are waiting on the ground for their dressings to be changed. The water of the river in which bodies float can be filtered only in eyedrop amounts. There is just enough water to give the men when they get delirious from thirst.

Eager to help out, cat flight started in March 1954, as the Viet Minh began their assault and continued until Jian Bien Fu fell to the communists on May 7th. May 7th, 1954, the garrison and Jian Bien Fu finally overrun by Viet Minh forces. An estimated 8,000 V000 Vietnamese were killed in the siege and battled another 15,000 troops injured. By comparison, only 2,200 French troops died. Another 6,000 wounded and another 10,000 captured. Despite those stats, the battle of the NBN Fu

was universally regarded as a tremendous Vietnamese victory and a shocking defeat for France. In fact, the loss triggered a tremendous shakeup in the French government, created an outcry against the war throughout France that could not be ignored. And then on July 20th, 1954, France agreed to permanently withdraw from Vietnam under terms of an agreement known as the Geneva Accords. Now people in North Vietnam got to live in a nation where criticized in the state could cost your job, kicked out of school, sent to prison, or even killed.

So fuck yeah bro. Things became so shitty that in the first few years of communist rule, there was a mass exodus of around 2.5 million people. Approximately 5% of the population were like, we got to get the fuck out of here. And secretly escaped the country either by sea or overland through Cambodia. And they had to do that secretly, right? They weren't openly allowed to leave. And this is why one of the many reasons I still like communism.

Like, you don't do that when your government is awesome, right? Laos was now declared neutral, but due to its location, pretty clear that there would quickly be a similar war occurring there to determine if it was going to be a communist country or a free nation. Laos borders both Vietnam and China, primarily sandwiched between Vietnam and Thailand. Again, per the domino theory, which has the states felt a communism like dominoes, meaning one after another in geographical proximity, the US proclaimed Laos a buffer state due to aborting or bordering North Vietnam and China. Now the main Cold War fighting in the region

you know moves to Laos. January of 1955 the US creates the United States Operations Mission, U-SOM. In Vien Can, Laos to provide foreign aid. By the end of the year, a program's evaluation office, PEO, staff by retired military personnel or military officers, quietly delegated leadership to the CIA.

In July of 1955, U-S some officials learn that a rice failure threatens famine in several provinces in Laos because a bunch of these areas were in remote mountainous regions, air drops provided the only feasible means to deliver essential supplies of rice and salt. Three cats C-46 arrived at the north-eastern railhead at the province of Udon, Tani, Thailand on September 11, 1955, to begin the airlift. And I would love to visit Udon, Thailand someday. By the way, looks fucking gorgeous. Crazy, beautiful landscape, so green. By the end of the month, Cat had flown more than 200

missions to 25 reception areas delivered a thousand tons of emergency food. They're going to drop a lot of bombs later on this nation, but did also drop food as well, humanitarian relief type supplies. This air drop relief operation conducted with smooth efficiency marks the beginning of cats and later air America's support of US assistance programs in Laos. So they did start with food. New cat contract was signed in 1957, pilot named Bruce Bruce Blevin flew the C-47 to Vienn-Tion in service of the US Embassy.

When he flew elsewhere in the country, conditions were technologically underdeveloped. Vienn-Tion had the only control tower, radio navigational aid, and non-dirt runway, and all of Laos. Laos is very rural, still pretty rural. Just over 7 million people live in the whole country, right now, with around a million of them in the biggest city of Vienn-Chan.

1957 cable from the American intelligence officials in Laos to Washington noted that the Patet Laos, the Loatian communists and the Royal Loatian Guard, soldiers of a constitutional monarchy, unable to come to a peaceful agreement and recent negotiations So CIA gathered intelligence applying to the Communist group We're not about to abandon their radical ideology and that they desire to overthrow a democratic government

CIA believed that the potet law wanted to establish, you know communism be a subversive political and covert actions As opposed to overt military operations CIA also thought that the potet law would use military means if they had to. So the CIA hangs around and allows, keep a fucking eye on things. October of 1958, in a memorandum, the CIA acknowledges that the agency is officially overseeing covert operations in Laos now.

As the Civil War grows in intensity there, cat C-47s and C-46s pass with, you know, ever-grader frequency over Vianton to fulfill urgent air drop requests. 1958 Time Magazine reports that 20 cat aircraft are supplying the PRRI movement against presidents who car nose government and Indonesian out, which the Eisenhower administration feared had communist sympathies. It's all over Southeast Asian, the South Pacific and the reports were right, but can commies are everywhere.

April of 1958, two cat pilots, William H. Beale, Alan Pope, they fly combat missions for Indonesian rebels CIA directed Beale and Pope to target not only Indonesian armed forces, but also unarmed foreign merchant ships in order to frighten overseas trade away from Indonesian waters. Thereby weakening the Indonesian economy and undermining Sukarno's government. A yeek. Targeting unarmed foreign merchant ships. That feels like it's crossing a serious line there. Does this end justify the means?

I mean, I said stop in the red spread is noble cause. I believe that, but is it okay to attack unarmed merchant ships? I don't think so. But where is the line though? I'm not sure. It's also fucking great. April 28th, 1958, Beale attacks a royal Dutch shell terminal in Indonesia and sinks a British tanker. Pope sinks merchant ships from Greece, Italy and Panama. God, I feel as fuck as JD. He, even if your cause is just what military actions start to make it real hard to keep calling

yourself one of the good guys. May 18th, Pope attacks a of Indonesian merchant ships, their carrying government troops for a counteroffensive. Okay, now it's military, I'm military. Indonesian anti-aircraft fire then shoots Pope and is a Indonesian radio operator out of the sky and they are captured. The CIA had ordered the cat pilots fly sterile with no documents that could either identify them or link them to the US government. However, Pope was carrying around 30 documents, including a detailed flight log, secret orders for temporary deployment in Indonesia, military separation files, cat identity card. Uh-oh. Pope captured these documents immediately exposes a level of CIA activity for the Pramista

rebellion in Indonesia. Embarrassed the Eisenhower administration and CIA support in the region with draws its agents and remaining aircraft from the area. Early 1916 Indonesian military court then tries Alan Pope Pope, excuse me, and sentences him to death. However, 1962 Robert Kennedy negotiates with President Sukarno and in August of that year the Indonesian authorities released Pope and return him to the US. Bet that it was nervous as fuck for a while. Also about when he got back home, he immediately became the guy at the bar with the coolest story. Well, you got to fight with the two guys at the same time in one.

That's pretty intense. It's a cool story, bro. I was sentenced to die in an Indonesian prison. I was getting shot out of the sky, fighting the spread of communism for the CIA. Yeah, I will have another beer. Thank you. Uh, the communists never did take over in Indonesia. By the way, they tried, uh, they were never successful. And actually, 1965 and 1966, this is crazy. I can't believe I'd never heard of this.

Indonesia did an insane purge of communists and people just suspected of being communist sympathizers. Anywhere from half a million to 1.2 million people were fucking purged. One of the worst massacres, the 20th century and one that almost never gets talked about. And the CIA was for sure involved in it, to what extent not publicly known. I might have to suck that craziness someday. I'm clearly not pro-communist, but looking into this thing, it sure seems like anti-communist forces in Indonesia took shit way too far.

Now it's back up to 1959, an important year for Air America. 1959 would be the year that civil air transport became Air America on March 26. The change made primarily to avoid confusion about the air preparitaries, oh my gosh, about its operations in Japan. During the summer of 1959, pro-communist North Vietnam invaded Laos to help the Pate Lao, which made the US believe that his chances of anti-red success and Laos had become lower than ever. But they still decided to try and stop the red spread. Fall of 1959, US Special Forces initiated training in a number of aviation,

lay-ocean soldiers, and unconventional warfare tactics. Since the lay-ocean government wanted U.S. assistance to remain secret in the leocean leocean civil war against the patet lao, the CIA established a unit from the U.S. Army Special Forces who arrived on Air America, wearing civilian clothes, having no obvious U.S. connection, right? Covert Operations. These soldiers led mail and and among tribesmen against communist forces. And this covert program was called Operation Hotfoot. Hotfoot was under

the command of Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Bull Simmons, fucking Bull Simmons, you know, in Louse. 12 mobile CIA training teams took up duties in Louse. Air America would bring them whatever resources they requested. Let's zoom in now in the CIA's secret war in Laos. And it's crazy. This is not also more well known. This is a huge fucking war. As we know, CIA activities in Laos started the 1950s.

Wasn't until Operation Hotfoot that things really took off. Why was the CIA recruiting lay-ocean civilians, not working with the Royal Army like they had before? Well, they realized that the Communists and the Royal Army kind of battled to a standstill and that there was a power vacuum to be exploited. The power vacuum lay in the fact that at the time, a single lay-ocean national identity did not exist. Since parts of Laos and Thailand were one of the same before French colonizers kind of randomly

fucking drew up some mapboards, many people considered lay-ocean or tie by the Western world did not think of themselves that way. They thought themselves as members of a particular tribe or group that did not line up with their borders. Though Louse had a king, a government and an army, many of its people estimated only around 2 million at that time identified more as male or among or black Thai or columb tribesmen among various other small ethnic groups that resided in the countryside. Many of these people also had a very lucrative trade business they were involved in. Laos' chief cash crop was opium.

The CIA knew that whoever could gain control of the opium trade would rule us. Another moral dilemma here is spreading heroin heroin used around the world worth preventing the formation of a new communist regime. The ocean and opium, we made into heroin. Much of that heroin will never know how much, you know, would find its way to Americans, American GIs and to America. The CIA, man, they got to make a lot of tough choices. They had to, their whole history, I'm sure these do today global politics gaining maintaining control of global influence

It's a fucking dirty game and I don't think you can play it effectively Without getting your hands dirty. It might be weird to say But I think I might do okay working for the CIA. I think I might have the right temperament I just imagine that you have to make logical strategic strategic, emotionalist choices, view human lives as pawns in a chess game as cold as that sounds and accept terrible consequences in order to achieve victories that prevent even greater negative consequences. You can't win without sacrificing some pawns. Some people, I don't think they could get past that, but I think you just have to see it as an unavoidable evil, the way of the world. If you're not willing to fight dirty, you're going to lose the fight to someone else who's

willing to fight dirty. And they're going to cause more atrocities than you would have. I would think no experience in this obviously. But looking at it with cold logic, trying to be rational, it just doesn't seem like there's much room for true white knights who never get innocent blood on their hands in situations and battles and ideological, you know, wars like this, whether the CIA puts a pro-democratic regime in charge or the Vietnamese help put a pro-communist regime in charge, innocent people are going to die either way. So if you believe in democracy, the fight for it is worth it, despite tragic deaths that will occur along the way viewed through this kind of prism. Anyway, the CIA steps in, tries to unite Laos's different tribes.

Commons in the area, they're doing the fucking exact same thing. This is a huge job for the CIA, it'll be their biggest so far, according to William Leary, historian at the University of Georgia. CIA led covert action in Laos was the biggest paramilitary operation in the history of the agency.

The CIA backed Mungerillas, used Air America to drop 46 million pounds of food, tens of thousands of troops, and engage in numerous clandestine missions with state-of-the-art equipment like night vision goggles. And of course, Air America also transported fuckload opium. Those are some debate about whether the CIA merely allowed the transport of opium or actually was directly involved in it. But does that distinction really fucking matter?

I mean, in the end, the result is the same. The opium is transported. In the end, they would contribute to the global heroin market that would lead to hundreds of thousands of arrests and overdoses in just the US. William M. Leary, that professor from the University of Georgia, said that the CIA was not directly involved in the drug trade, writing that American owned airlines never knowingly transported opium in or out of Laos, nor did their American pilots ever profit from its transport. But most people disagree with this.

We've looked into it. 1972 a PhD candidate in the Southeast Asian history at Yale University, Alfred McCoy, testified before the US Senate Committee on appropriations foreign operations subcommittee and accused American officials of condoning and even cooperating with corrupt elements and Southeast Asia's illegal drug trade out of political and military considerations the US State Department responded to the initial allegations saying that they were unable to find any evidence to substantiate them much less proof, but they didn't want to find that and they can hide it if they wanted to later investigations by the inspector general

of the CIA, the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs and US Senate Select Committee to study government, governmental operations with respect to intelligence activities. Jesus Christ, these fucking terms also found the charges to be unsubstantiated. But again, they can just be saying that. I mean, after all, you know, we're talking about the CIA, again, kind of part of their job, to hide what they've been up to, to not admit to what they've done. Sometimes I feel like we've been spoiled so long in the US and in much of the West actually, especially outside of Europe, or massive wars, haven't been repeatedly fought on our soil. We've had it so easy compared to almost everywhere else in the world for so many generations

that we don't understand really how important it is to have organizations willing to do international dirty work like the CIA to make sure the regimes like the ones they fought That would make life so much worse for anyone living under their oppressive thumb some dictator who controls the media and your ability to protest in ways You've never come close to experiencing make sure they don't fucking take over where we're living living I just don't think many of where we're living. Living. I just don't think many of us will ever really appreciate how much easier, you know, shady shit going down in foreign lands has made our lives.

And I'm not even condoning everything done in the name of defeating oppressive regimes, but we do benefit from the result of the efforts. All of that makes me think about one of my favorite bands of all time, Raging Hands of the Machine. Love them. Love basically their entire catalog.

I can't think of a single song I don't like. But while they were screaming about how evil the US has been, they were also selling a fuckload of albums in Western stable economies, right? They're shit when multi-platinum in the US, not allows, right? Like not in, not in like comedy is fucking nice, not in Cuba.

They toured almost exclusively in stable Western economies where fans, you know, make enough money to buy tickets. Thanks to those economies, where they have the freedom to shout about how much they hate the place that has given them the freedom to shout about how much they hate the place. Like I wonder how they would feel if they didn't get to live in posh digs

in low crime neighborhoods paid for with all the royalty and tour money. What if they were trying to make their music under some communist regime in the 50s or 60s that put artists to fucking death for dissent, right? Would they still think America was an evil empire? So easy to shit on the lesser evil when you've never had to experience the greater evil first hand, I think. Back to 1960 now. Early 1960, the CIA approached Wang Pao, major general in the Royal Lao Army and a member

of the Meng Minority Lao, Laos, to be the chief of the Secret Army to push back against the Communist Pate Lao. This motherfucker is a Meng Chuk Norris. Charismatic prone to pacing while he talked. Wang Pao had experienced fighting both the French and the Japanese kicking the shit out of both. His father was praised him for his bravery in fighting alongside his men, didn't lead from the back of the field, led from the front.

In addition, the CIA ordered the Air Force to deploy a squadron of B-47 bombers to the region to be used to destroy potet-lao communications to the North Vietnamese. And for long series of negotiations, combined with interventions from the Royal Thailand government, US Special Forces infiltrated the Lao Country side, began training the Laosians in unconventional warfare and anti-Garilla tactics. In March 1960, four Air-America pilots trained on US Air Force H-19A helicopters in Japan, and the Philippines

and reach Laos. Due to the operating limitations of the H19s, the underpowered pilots could only fly at lower elevations. Generally, they were used to carry CIA case officers to meetings and outline areas and to distribute leaflets during elections. Beefing up their forces, Air America then hired four experienced US Marine Corps helicopter pilots. Later in the year, the CIA arranged for the Marine Corps to transfer four UH-34 helicopters to Air America to replace the H-19s, right? They just keep kind of expanded. CIA would also build a secret base in Laos, 1960 called Long Chen. This base so secret that not even Congress was aware of its existence. Long Chen was unmarked, unmapped, right? Not only maps, only known to a select few, but used extensively,

became the CIA headquarters during the Vietnam War. So active, more than 400 flights came in and out of this fucking secret base that didn't exist on a daily basis, and almost no one in America knew about it. Almost no one in the world knew about it. It would be from Long-Gendt, the CIA's secret bombings of Laos were organized. Bombing Laos was seen as a safer means of cutting off communist supply lines and Vietnam before they could be used against American troops than ground forces would be. From 1964 to 1973, this is insane.

The US would drop more than 2 million tons of bombs on Laos during 580,000 bombing missions equal to a plane load of bombs every eight minutes 24 hours a day for nine fucking years making Laos the most heavily bombed country per capita in the history of the world. Between 1939 and 1945 allied powers, all of them together dropped 3.4 million tons of bombs on Hitler and other access powers. Right? That is nuts and Laos. The CIA alone dropped over two million tons of bombs. As more than all the bombs, the US dropped on Germany and World War II. More bombs dropped in Laos than were dropped on the Nazis, but it wasn't a war. Wasn't even a conflict. The most US citizens even knew about. That's crazy. Later, even more bombs are dropped on Vietnam. The US dropped

two million, uh, 150,000 tons of bombs in World War II, but in Vietnam, the US would drop 7.6 million tons of bombs. Motherfucker. Uh, and both nations would end up coming this anyway. So many bombs were casually dropped in Laos that when fighter jets could not reach their targets, they would just unload bombs on rural areas of the country and I guess just kind of fucking hope that they didn't blow up anybody. So this is obviously really fucking hard to justify. Would the CIA have dared to do that in like a European country, in a white country? I doubt it.

Feels like a lot of 1950s, 1960s racism, right? Conscious or not? Maybe shaped a tax strategy quite a bit in Southeast Asia. The bombings destroyed many villages, displaced hundreds of thousands of, you know, leotians of civilians during the nine year period, which more fucked up up to a third of the bombs dropped, didn't explode. Leaving Laos contaminated with vast quantities of unexploded ordinance. Right?

Over 20,000 people have been killed or injured by unexploded ordinance in Laos since the bombing ceased. And that's obviously horrific. On the day of this farewell address, January 17, 1961, US President Dwight Eisenhower approved the CIA's training of anti-communist forces in the mountains of Laos. Their primary mission was to disrupt communist supply routes along the Ho Chi Minh Trail to Vietnam. Eisenhower's successors in the White House, from Kennedy through Linda Johnson, Richard Nixon,

would also approve air support for guerrilla fighters in the region. And Air America would play a big role in all that. From 1962 to 1975, Air America inserted an extracted US personnel provided logistical support to the Royal LOW Army, the Mung Army under a command of Royal LOW Army Major, General Wright Wang

Powell and combatant Thai volunteer forces. They transported refugees, flew photo reconnaissance missions, transported bunch of fucking drugs, provided intelligence on Viet Cong activities. Its civilian marked aircraft were frequently used to launch search and rescue missions for US pilots down throughout Southeast Asia. Air America pilots were the only known private US corporate employees to operate non-federal aviation administration certified military aircraft in combat roles during this conflict. By mid-1970, the airline had two dozen twin-engine transport aircraft, as well as Boeing 727 and

Boeing 747 jets, plus two dozen fixed-wing short takeoff and landing aircraft, in addition to 30 helicopters, dedicated to operations in Burma, Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos. So it's a big operation. There are more than 300 pilots, co-pilots, flight mechanics, air freight specialists, based in Laos Vietnam and Thailand. Also during 1970, Air America delivered 46 million pounds of food and Laos. Helicopter flight time reached more than 4,000 hours a month at same year.

Air America flu civilians diplomats spies refugees commandos sabotage teams doctors pet hamster loads no work casualties drug enforcement officers even visiting VIPs like Richard Nixon all over Southeast Asia. It's not human passengers maybe more bizarre force draft urbanization policies, such as the widespread application of Asian orange to Vietnamese farmland, created a disruption

and local food production. So thousands of tons of food had to be flown in including live chickens, pigs, water buffalo, and cattle. Flying in water buffalo, that had been interesting. On top of the food drops, known as rice drops, came logistical demands for the war itself. An air-american pilots through thousands of flights transporting and air-dropping ammo and weapons referred to as hard rice, to friendly forces. Now what's kind of funny to me?

Let's get some hard rice out there. Are we taking rice or hard rice? It's because it's very different kinds of rice. Let's get to know one of the American, American air-america pilots mixed up in all this now in a little more detail. Give a nice little personal touch to the story, humanize it. Uh, September of 1964, Neil Hanson began a journey that would become the biggest

adventure in his life. It's 27. He'd been a pilot for more than half his life, uh, according to him when he was hired by air America. After orientation and Taipei, Taiwan and a stint flying big DC-6 transport planes out of, uh, touchy college of Pam, Neil was sent to Saigon. Taiwan and a stint flying big DC-6 transport planes out of a Tachikawa, Japan. Neil was sent to Saigon.

He arrived in March 1965 to war there, revving up. He quickly comes to realize that America is slogan anything, anytime, anywhere, is no fucking joke. He will go on to deliver everything from rice to hard rice to bodies, both living and dead. It's work never boring. There was no such thing as a typical day. Neil's work was also particularly difficult because urban cygone quite different from the

air-america bases in remote areas of like Laos and Thailand. It was difficult to go anywhere in the city because of the influx of refugees from the communist controlled countryside, which in turn caused massive traffic jams. Trips 2 and from the airport sometimes took one or two hours out of the day, adding to the irritability factor when Neil was forced to wait another hour or more in a hot cockpit while in line for takeoff. And Neil's own words, daily life, not anything like the movies. He said, according to the movie representation of airman at war, we were grace suited nights, warriors all who climbed out into our steeds of shining aluminum. Blasted off into the blue skies and supported the battle with godless communist hordes great rhetoric perhaps but the romanticized viewpoint could not have

been further from the truth in reality when our intrepid birdman arrived at an airfield he was often already dusty and wrinkled from his ride on the pothole road to the field he was still bone-tired from the previous days flying and in a bad mood after mosquitoes feasted on him and he weighed in the dark for the Volkswagen bus, the transported the crew to the plane. In many cases, a searing hangover coupled with gut twisting diarrhea also made our night a bit snappy. I like to weigh this guy writes, the crew bus dropped pilots off at operations a gray uninspiring two story building. Right? So he ride for hour two in traffic on a fucking bus, get dropped off in this gray building. 1965 as air america's missions expanded, they received new pilots almost daily and the

facilities very crowded. Piles got their daily flight schedule on the second floor, most of them went to the standby room, just where there was always a pot of coffee, Neil described as vile. But according to Neil, no matter how bad it was, everyone wanted a cup. Even though, you know, when it was dumped onto an already troubled gastrointestinal system, it would send the lower intestine into violent spasms and to make matters worst. The only restrooms were in the back of the building on the second floor. Wonder how many of these guys shit themselves on the plant? The actual missions, super dangerous.

On the morning of July 5th, 1965, Neil said he waited to depart Saigon from the midfield intersection of the North South runway, which was crossed by a main runway. Neil could barely hear, you know, the rumble of two R95 radial engines on either side of the cockpit of his beach craft, a twin engine plane built in the US during World War II. The tower cleared for takeoff and air-american beach craft from front of him. He washes it roll into the tail, comes off the ground, then the pilot clears C-46 commando transport plane to his right on runway 25. Now, clear is eight, one of those planes. He washes it roll into the tail comes off the ground then the pilot clears C46 commando transport

plane to his right on runway 25. Now clears eight one of those planes as he begins his role Nielex becks to get his own clearance for departure but then he hears an expletive on the radio. He looks at the beach craft that I've been cleared notices that it's flying but in trouble and dropping as though in slow motion it drifts down and just crashes so the plane going right in front of them just fucking crashes outside the airport into the courtyard of a Catholic church. Does debris rise, obscure the airplane, he thinks the pilot is managed to make a survivable crash landing, but suddenly a ball of flame blossoms over the crash site. The fucking plane explodes no survivors. It's a tragedy, but Neil given no time to process it. After emergency vehicles

clear the tarmac on the way to the crash site, air control tower quickly resumes business as usual. Another C-46 clear for takeoff on runway 25, as soon as it passes the intersection, the tower clears Neil to go on the north-south runway. He begins his takeoff despite having just watched the fucking plane explode just minutes before. That was going on the same runway. According to a later accident investigation, some witnesses claimed to have seen an orange flash under the ill-fated aircraft as it cleared the end of the runway. The investigators surmised that it came from what was called a sky horse, a simple piece of pipe and planted in the ground with a charge at the bottom and debris, nuts, rocks, rocks, etc. placed on top. You know, Viet Cong hiding nearby probably set it off as the plane passed over, you know, making it a, you know, a matter of luck that it hadn't been Neal's plan, plane exploding that day.

It could have been him right behind. Aside from terrifying life as an air-american pilot, also very interesting and Neal's own words. With the escalation of air-america operations, we were getting more airplanes every week and hiring several hundred pilots, which turned us into a sea of interesting characters. Somewhere the Hihha, funny kind. Nice love watching he-ha. Others were the volatile punch you in the mouths for fun type.

A few were one notch from being Skid Row alcoholics. They were all so plenty of normal people, but some of them just didn't stay very long. Most of the new pilots came from the retired or ex-military group, civilian trained pilots were the minority. Neil was the assistant manager of flying and in charge of several aircraft programs. A job description included training the new arrivals. And he knew that an important part of training was weeding out pilots who didn't have what it took

to carry out dangerous, high-stressed missions. Neil kept up the pressure on trainees until he could smell their fear. I wanted to see if they could cope with situations. He put them in that would likely mirror what they would see in battle. Those who passed the training received a a handshake set a wings with a star on top from air America The losers will you know usually went home the ones who didn't pass the training Neil harassed his trainees

Sometimes you give a new pilot a body bag with the pilot's name on it or would put pictures of burnt crash victims on their desk It is fascinating to me like I think this is a good thing to do. Just to, you know, like make sure they feel ready, but it is funny to me that I feel like if that happened today, and people found out about there be so much outrage. Oh my God! How could they do that? If I can't they just be nice and warm. The reaction would give them a glimpse into the ability to handle the unusual. One trainee was a guy named Neil called Tom. Didn't say his real name, and later accounts about this. He said, Tom was a short Pgy pilot in his late 40s with a dusting of grain as hair. He'd recently retired from the Air Force wanted to make some, quote, big bucks to add his retirement

check. In the briefing room with three others before the first training flight in country, Neil noticed a tremble in this guy's hands as he kept smooth in the chart laying across his knees. So he's like, all right, he got to test this guy. He finds out in the air, Tom is not as skilled as he thinks he is. Neal, I'm not going to take it easy on him. One training flight takes Neal, Tom, other trainees from Saigon to an old Michelin rubber plantation, about 65 miles north near Cambodia. They do a couple touch and go landings on the air strip

at the plantation, then fly to an area above the Mekong Delta on the Cambodian border. There the group does, they do full stop landings. Each trainee does a turn during takeoffs and landings at all the locations. In around Tom now at the controls, it's telling Neil how he used to be a chief check pilot in the Air Force and could help Neil lay out a similar program here. Neil just keeps smiling and nodding, keeping in mind the possibility of ground, ground fire Neil has Tom to give him a 60 degree bank turn to the left. Tom looks over his shoulder to check for traffic If he rolls into turn, always look out the window. Neil reaches down and shuts off the field to the left engine. Takes a little wire for the fuel line to be

To empty so Neil starts to get on him to tighten the turn pull some jeez Increased the gravitational force in the plane. For this time he has it honked in good and tight and then the left engine quits But this time he has it honked in good and tight and then the left engine quits. The sudden shock from the drag of the now win million propeller propeller spinning on his own without power from the engine rolls them partially inverted mainly because Tom doesn't react fast enough to this unexpected event. During his ensuing struggle to regain control Neil moves the fuel selector valve back to the on position which goes unnoticed by Tom. Just as he gets the plane leveled, the left engine bursts back to life swiveivels the plane in the other direction now. What happened, Neil asked, knowing full well what

happened. Engine quit. Tom, we used to a sharp intake of air. Wonder why, maybe water in the gas, ask Neil. Guess, oh, let's not do any more steep turns. Tom says, all right, Tom, let's do a power on stall straight ahead then. Neil commands, he had some more tricks up a sleeve, he begins pulling the nose up into a stalling angle when Neil slips his hand down between the seats onto the elevator trim wheel. Device helps the pilot keep the plane at a constant speed and angle and begins to roll a full nose up. As the speed let off and the elevator control pressure became looser, Tom couldn't feel what Neil was doing. The plane shuttered, Tom dropped the nose to recover from the stall while applying

full power to the engines. The result from a propeller blast now hits fully deflected, hits the fully deflected trim tab, which in turn slams the hand wheel back into this guy's gut with a little help from Neil's right hand on the side of the control call. This makes the nose pitch up violently. Tom's eyes start to bug out. He's still oblivious to anything Neil is doing. So as the aircraft enters a second stall in about a 45 degree nose up angle, Neil shoves in full left rudder and this causes the machine to in about a 45 degree nose up angle, Neil shoves in full left rudder,

and this causes the machine to rotate in a neat snap roll. Right, Neil then takes control, levels the airplane releases the controls back to Tom and says, oh man, that's pretty neat. Uh-huh, he replies, the elevator jammed. We better let the wrench benders know about that little problem. For now, we just won't do any more of those. Tom seems a little more the nervous now

as the anter an air traffic pattern. Neil then places his left arm over the back of his seat, not in the gesture of friendliness as Tom thought, but to get his hand by the circuit breaker panel. And he plugs out some circuit breakers for the flaps and landing gear motor. Jesus Christ. Neil sounds like a fucking lunatic. I don't know that I would enjoy working with Neil, but maybe he was doing this shit to save lives, right?

Better for him to scare you off than for you to end up dead, I guess. Or he could just, I don't know, kill you both during the training. Now the approach will run away. Neil Urgitown to make a tight approach. Get the plane on the ground as soon as possible. Eager to comply, Tom flips the landing gear handle down, pulls off some power, rolls into close to the runway, just to add all the fuckery. Neil calls out, hey, Tom, they're shooting at us over here on the right,

which they weren't. The whites of Tom Eyes expand. He slams the flap lever, full down, pulls more power off, whips into a final approach without the landing gear and flaps down for drag, hard to slow an airplane down as it's losing altitude. By the time Tom gets to the approach, uh, end of the run away, he has to pull the throttles all the way back. They're still high and fast.

People are yelling at him. Now, Tom, you dipshit, go around before you fucking pull us into the dirt. Other trainees yelling at him where he's gonna crash land. Tom suddenly realizes now Neil had been screwing with him the whole time. He's embarrassed. Neil hopes he understood how important it was to be a very good pilot in Air America. Not just brag about being a good pilot and pick up a check. You had to be able to handle crazy shit like that, I guess, and keep your cool if you didn't want to end up dead or end up as a POW and some torture prison camp. Tom would actually end up doing a good job and eventually make captain. So so good on tam. Good on Tom.

To handle all that shit. I don't I don't know that I would. I would like to think I would or I would fucking shit myself. I don't know. Neil Hanson didn't just train pilots. He also flew on covert missions. Here's one before we return to the timeline. Once he was asked by a superior, if this is just interesting to see the kind of things Air America would do, he's asked if he was, uh, be interested in taking a beach craft on a black flight, secret flight to what was called the ranch, a secret operation at a Thai Air Force base, a 145 miles northwest of Bangkok. The job was to get a guy out of Vietnam and to Thailand without going through the proper channels. It was made very clear that Nia was not even supposed to look at this secret passenger.

The embassy would call as soon as he left from downtown in a car. Nia was ordered to just sit in the cockpit with the door closed until this person knocked after climbing in. And that would signal him to crank up and go. They filed a legitimate flight plan with Bangkok, then just before letting into Bangkok, Nia was supposed to announce he was diverting to an alternate location, that secret air force base. US Embassy officials in Saigon, well, actually not the secret part, they were supposed to divert to the Thai air force base, but then they were really going to go to the secret

part. US Embassy officials in Saigon assure Neil no one's going to get upset over a minor change in plans when he tells Bangkok they would send someone from the embassy to make sure everything went smoothly, which it wouldn't. As soon as the embassy calls, says that the pastor is on his way, Neil does as they requested. He sits in the cockpit, he waits and waits. He said the cockpit temperature rose to over 130 degrees Fahrenheit before the cargo arrived. Said he was starting to see little floating spots in his vision was about to pass out for this person got there.

Black car with curtained windows, windows, finally drives under the ramp, pulls up out of sight behind the airplane. The knot comes, Mr. You know, the mystery person is in and then Neil takes off. After the flight, the pastor gets off, walks to another curtain, black car, Neil refueled, cranks up halfway down the runway, when two Jeep loads of tie soldiers block the taxiway, raise the rifles. He's detained in a tie jail for a week. Can't fucking tell him why he's really there. His cover story, he just got lost, and then finally some people behind the scenes, make some arrangements,

and he gets to go back to Saigon. And he never figured out the identity of that mystery passenger, has no idea who he transported. Neil Hanson left Air America, October 1973. Today he travels the country on the speaking circuit, recounting stories about his days of, you know, air-america days to military civic and veterans groups. So a little cool personal story there. Back to our timeline now. After getting to meet one of

air-americas, you know, top out in the field employees. Let's meet a few other of air-americas finest. July 14th, 1965, Navy pilot Don Bacher and his bombardier Navigator Don Eaton Don and Don double Don's double Don's given a mission to fly an a6 and Truder and a bomb a loop in a part of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. I roll in over the target push the bomb button Bacher said all five five hundred pound bombs released but one prematurely detonates because we were armed with old World War II fuses. The blast destroys the starboard engine causing a hydraulic failure followed by a massive fuel leak and a fire. So that's not fun.

The Wingman joined up with the crippled plane radios you're on fire eject eject. It was the first A6 down in the Vietnam war. Eating ejected first followed by Bokker. Eating was a small man 135 pounds Bokker said I was 200 pounds and floated down like a lead balloon. I passed him on the way down and the shoot was not steerable. The two were separated by wind, landed in a hostile area of Laos, Eaton landed on one side of a hill, Bokker on the other,

landed up about two miles apart. Eaton ran east downhill, cliffs over streams away from pursuers, trying to kill him. In the middle of the night under a full moon, Bokker climbs through jungle terrain to the top of the mountain to avoid enemy patrols. At dawn, he uses a fucking mirror to try and flash his position. No GPS little signal. Doesn't have an iPhone. Find my phone. Guys, I'm over here. A little mirror.

Boxed by the enemy, Bacher watches several air rescue attempts turn back by, or get turned back by fire. Phil Goddard of Air America with Bob Davis is his backup. They're the first responders to the call to rescue these down to Airman. Goddard helicopter was hit by 13.7 automatic machine gun fire, penetrated the fuel cell, sent fuel leaking out of the helicopter when they first try. Can't hover. Can't, had to keep going forward to keep the fuel out of the exhaust stack. Also takes a hit and one of the blades and has to return to base.

Lips back to base followed by David's information required to helicopters. Goddard then goes back out. I just got fucking shot up in a US Air Force CH3 chopper to direct another military pilot to the location of Bachar and Eden. And these men would end up needing backup in the form of a pilot named Sam Jordan. From for six years, Sam Jordan flew helicopters for the US Marine Corps. 1961, he had answered an advertisement for pilots by an upstart airline called Air America. Didn't know where they were flying.

Who owned the company? Just wanted to get back out there. During his 14 years spent with Air America, he flew into Laos carrying medical supplies, other supplies to refugees and remote mountain villages, flew fixed wing planes along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, scanned for radio signals from the ground and dropped provisions from the sky. Performing high altitude reskumations in enemy territory and Huey helicopters was going to be harder than that.

Others tried to rescue Don Bacher, including the Air Force, Jolly Green Giant, two T-28s, a caribou and sky raiders, but they kept happening with draw because conditions weren't right. I kept getting fired on. That's when Jordan is told to fly his air America at UH 34D into the fray July 15th 1965. Why me? He wondered because it's your turn, Sam, and you have a knack for always coming back was the answer. He was told to top off his fuel, but he ignored that since the target was at 4,300 feet, you know, altitude, he knew he could not make a rescue at that altitude with full tank.

So Jordan then went on to recover Eden from a grass covered ridge near a highway. Eden had injured his hands upon ejection, couldn't grip the rescue sling aka the horse collar. So Jordan had to hover low enough for him to be able to literally dive into the open doors. Fucking nuts. A bacher finally spotted. The hundred foot cable is lowered, but it gets caught in some trees. As we pulled up, dropped again, you know, while waiting to get fired on, this is happening. Bocker, uh, bocker stretched to hook his arm into the horse

collar instead of his body. The rescue took place again, you know, 4,300 feet. Just the same he had predicted. If he'd launched with full fuel, it would have been way too heavy to hover at that altitude. He made a quick calculation. got the engine to allow him to hover there for about 30 minutes, at which point, Bacher managed to climb inside the craft. Right? Just half an hour of just hoping you're not going to get fucking blown out of the sky. Eat in Bacher, then transport it quickly back to base. All I remember is shaking hands with Sam. Bacher would later say, didn't even get his name at the time. He just said, get out of here. Jesus Christ. Once at the base, these men were bandaged up, offered scotch and beer, then flown to Thailand

for debriefing. Bokker made sure to write down the name of his rescuers. Luckily, Bokker survived the war, went on to a distinguished career in leadership positions in the Navy, graduated from the US Naval Test Pilot School, tested Naval aircraft. 1980 assumed command of the Naval Air Test Center at the Naval Air Station, Potun command of the Naval Air Test Center at the Naval Air Station, Paw, uh, Pawtunks at River in Maryland.

1991 became Vice Commander of Naval Air Systems Command in Washington, D.C. And served there until his retirement in 1995, I for 39 years, eight months in the U.S. Navy. Damn. Received two legions of merit, uh, defense, Maritorious Service Medal, Maritorious Service Medal, six air metals, two Navy Commodation Metals with combat, with combat five, the combat action ribbon, a Navy unit commendation, the Maritorious Unit commendation, the Navy Expeditionary Medal, and several Vietnam decorations. And he had two daughters.

After he was rescued, he two daughters before he went to Vietnam, and had four more kids afterwards, ended up with six kids, eleven grandkids. Don Eden also went on to a distinguished naval career, been serving as a senior lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School since 1994. When he retired, after spending more than 36 years in Navy, in total, he flew 66 combat missions. On July 15, 2010, Eden and Becker celebrated the 46th anniversary of their rescue and a new lease on life made possible by Air America pilots. So pretty cool rescue mission. 1971, three US journalists make it allows and they find the secret base. And

they attempt to expose Longchang to the international public. Their discovery, however, does not make front page news. The US military informs US citizens. It's just conducting a humanitarian mission over in Laos. Over two million tons of bombs have been dropped for humanitarian mission. Various media members likely paid off by the CIA fabricate stories about US building hospitals and providing development aid to Laos. So the US is historically not above propaganda either, which is self fucked up. I'd hope we never fucking go there again. I mean, it makes me wonder like, what are we doing right now?

Right? I mean, I hate Putin because a lot of propaganda, he's pews. Are we fucking doing that? Gotta hope it's nowhere near what's going on in Russia. Oh, man, I don't think it is because we're still connected to the rest of the world's websites. That's where it gets really problematic when you get shut off to what's being reported in other countries. But what stories here are being massaged,

what narratives being shoehorned into something other than the truth. Not fun to think about. Finally four years later, 1975, the CIA leaves Laos after the Pate Lao win their civil war with the fallacy gone, South Vietnamese capital, fallacy communist, April 30th, 1975. CIA, air-american, been in Laos the whole time the Vietnam War been going on and for years earlier. Right? Since 1953, 22 years. One of America's finest most iconic moments was evacuated American and Vietnamese civilians after Saigon fell. Famous photograph shows an Air America helicopter, a top and apartment building, as a long line of people wait to board it. Brian K Johnson, former Air America helicopter pilot, past president of the Air America Association,

would later say that flight crews raised to be the first to pick up down military personnel in an incredibly dangerous and chaotic situation. The Cold War military operations in Laos that the CIA was part of for so many years left the nation seriously battered. By 1975, 10% of the population in Laos or 200,000 civilians and members of the military were dead.

Twice as many wounded, 750,000 of full quarter of the population had become refugees, including fucking lay ocean chaknas, General Wang Pao himself. What a nightmare. The classified documents show that 728 Americans died in Laos, most of whom were working for the CIA. The secret war in Laos or the Laos Civil War, to many who lived through it, set a precedent for a more militarized CIA, with the power to engage in, you know, big-time covert conflicts around the world, heavily militarized conflicts. Even after pulling out of the South Vietnam in 1975, there was a brief attempt to keep Air America presence in Thailand. That fell through and America, Air America was dissolved June 30th, 1976. Asia, the company that held all of the Air America assets later purchased by Evergreen International

Airlines. This is kind of interesting. Evergreen based about 30 miles outside of Portland, Oregon in MacMindville would go on to work for the CIA. So really, Air America does kind of keep going in a different form uh... you know uh... they become involved in covert cia missions in the middle east and central and south america all proceeds from the sale of america

which was estimated between twenty twenty five million dollars return to the u.s. treasury uh... then former air america employees released unceremoniously with no accolades and no benefits even for those who suffered long-term disabilities, nor death benefits for families of employees killed in action. Technically, all contracts with the U.S. Air Force required workers' compensation insurance, but the CIA didn't make it easy for pilots to get those benefits, and that is so fucked up. Very frustrating to hear. Many disabled pilots ultimately compensated under the Federal Longshoreman's Act after lengthy battles, though, with CIA bureaucrats who denied their connection to the airline

for years. According to Tony Colson, one pilot, we couldn't tell you people actually who we were working for because it was all classified. So nobody knew it. How can you have any retirement benefits? I said, well, that's a catch-22. And then it's such bullshit. Like, what a stab in the back.

If the CIA can make fake companies they can also create fake backstories as a front for legitimate retirement benefits so that's so shady and disappointing. Jump into the 1980s now the CIA's interest in opium continues after the conclusion of the Vietnam War. The CIA goes on to support Muja Houd, rebels in Afghanistan in the name of fighting the Soviet army. More cold war shit in the 1980s.

Osama bin Laden once joined Muja Houdin forces in Pakistan fighting against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. bin Laden would be a great suck subject by the way. According to a 2009 report from the US Institute of Peace, the CIA began to turn a blind eye to the Muja Houdin's involvement in the opium trade. So much more heroin flows from Afghanistan onto the streets of America, right? Leading to more drug war arrests and more overdoses. 1990 now, the movie Air America, starring male Gibson, Robert Downey, Jr. premieres. Melon

Rob played two pilots working at a lousy during the Vietnam War when the protagonists discovered their aircraft being used by government agents to smuggle heroin, they have to avoid being framed as drug smugglers. The publicity for the film advertised as a lighthearted buddy movie, implied a tone that differed greatly from the actual film, which included serious themes, such as an anti-war message,

focus on the opium trade, negative portrayal of royal, a lauation general, a laotion General, Van Pau. Air America received mostly negative reviews from critics, the film review in New York Times by Karen James.

Saw the film as a flawed star vehicle. This model film about a secret CIA project in Laos in 1969 fails on every possible level. As an action film, a buddy film, a scenic travel log, and even sad to say as a way to flaunt Mel Gibson's appeal. Those who study Air America's operations in Southeast Asia, or who did study, say the film, not that accurate. William Liri, that history professor would say, the film depicts a CIA man as having the opium process into heroin in a factory just down the

street from the favorite bar of Air America's pilots. The Asian general in return supplies men to fight the war, plus a financial kickback to CIA. Ultimately, we learn that the Communist versus anti-Commonist war in Laos was merely a facade for the real war, which was fought for control of the area's opium fields. Other scholars disagree with that assessment, though. Larry Collins, right, in the opinion piece from the New York Times, 93 titled CIA Drug Connection is as old as the agency, noted that the CIA has had its hand in the international drug trade since the Korean war 1950 when they traded weapons in heroin and exchanged for intelligence. The practice continued as the Vietnam War started in 1955 and Kalas noted that the CIA appeared to have

one interest in mind, one primary interest in mind, the cultivation of the opium poppy. But what about those who are actually there? What do they think? Well, Ron Rickenbach, former official at the US Agency for International Development, served in Laos during the 60s. He says that the soldiers involved, they initially believed what they were doing was in the best interests of America, even if it meant being involved in some not-so-desirable aspects of the drug traffic business.

He said these people were willing to take up arms. We needed to stop the red threat. And people believed that in that vein, you know, we made you know certain compromises or certain trade-offs for a larger good. Rick and Bach added, growing opium was a natural agricultural enterprise for these people. And they had been doing it for many years before the Americans ever got there. When we got there, they just continued to do so. Fred Platte, a former pilot in Laos, said that the incentives among tribesmen had to take part in the trade, had to take part in the trade,

had to give them incentives, what he's trying to say here. Platte said, when a farmer raised a crop of opium, what he got for his years worth of work was he equivalent to $35 to $40. That's crazy. The amount of opium refined into morphine base, then into morphine, then into heroin, would appear on the streets of New York

and that $35 crop opium will be worth 50, 60, $100,000, 1969, maybe a million dollars today. Man, 2016 President Barack Obama becomes the first city in US president to visit Laos. He pledges an additional 90 million in aid to remove unexploded ordinance on top of the 100 million that the US had spent previously doing that. The work of cleaning out unexploded bombs from the ocean soil continues to this day. As far as we know, America does not exist anymore today, but you can bet the CIA is cooking

up other stuff as we speak. Now with that, let's pop out and look back at this long and secret and a lot of information history today. Good job, soldier. You've made it back. Barely. All right, so that was a lot. You have info.

We just went over. Bojangles is exhausted. He just fell asleep while looking at his that was a lot. You have info we just went over. But Jangles is exhausted. He just fell asleep while looking at his balls for a while. If you're sitting on all of this for a few days, what do I think about Air America, the morality of all this, the CIA? Yeah, I just think it's really, really, really complicated. I think it would have had a lot more knee jack knee jerk reactions to a lot of the info we just went over when I was you know 20 years younger than I am now. I think it's very easy to

pull out isolated examples from US Cold War operations right wherever, but all you know for today in the Southeast Asian in the 50s 60s 70s, you know, and just have a reaction of like oh my god, that's fucking terrible. How can we do that? That's inexcusable. There's no justification for ever dropping that many bombs. No justification for being part of a conflict that far from our borders that left so many innocent civilians dead. I do understand because of that why people protested Vietnam, not even saying they shouldn't protest it. I understand why people are outraged to find out, you know, that US, what, like what

hand they had in Laos and other anti-communist military struggles in Southeast Asia and elsewhere you know around the world. Lot of horrible shit happened over there. US responsible for a lot of it, a lot of deaths, a lot of innocent deaths. War is hell. But I also understand that global politics are very fucking complicated and that all of this can get very morally gray and murky when you look at it. How murky it looks changes depending on which angle you're looking at it from, I think.

Right? There's just no white nights and shining armor in any of this. That's not real life. This isn't some old western, you know, whether it's the good guys and the white cowboy hats and the bad guys and the black cowboy hats, you know, one always just is fight for truth and justice. The other is always Stephen. You know, it's super easy to root for one side because they're just righteous. You know, the other side is evil and oppressive. I'm aware that there are great people who are communist, who just want a world where resources are shared in an equitable fashion.

A world where there are only the halves, not the halves and the half-nots. And I think that's a beautiful dream and I think there are beautiful dreamers dreaming it. Right, I'm also aware that there are beautiful dreamers dreaming it. Right? I'm also aware that there are terrible people who are pro-democracy capitalists who want to become wealthy or maintain their wealth

at the expense of others. People who enjoy being haves probably partially because it makes them feel superior to the half-nots. So how do you judge what Air America did in Southeast Asia? How do you judge what the CIA has done around the world? Subjectively. I don't think there's any other way. When you pull back and look at all this globally, the morality changes. You can view it differently depending on what you believe in ideologically, knowingly pursuing

military objectives that you know will lead to massively in casualties that can easily read only as evil when I think it's looked at up close, but when you zoom back out way out knowing that yes, many in a sense will die, but their sacrifices will allow many more to experience a monumental increase in fulfillment and freedom and happiness. I think the morality of it all looks very different now. The morality of all is going to look very different though if you're pro-communist as opposed to pro-capitalists. Personally, as someone who is largely pro-capitalist and pro-democracy, even if I would like to see

an effective implementation of a socialized base layer of healthcare and higher education that's a discussion for another day, I think for the most part, the end has justified the means with CIA cold war activities. And I know some of you not gonna agree. My son, Kaira, I had quite the argument about this the last night.

I'm not gonna go into it in depth because I don't wanna be unfair to his point of view, but he did not, he strongly disagreed with me. My viewpoint, you know, just based in my world view, my values, I personally would rather die than have to live the rest of my days and what I consider to be a fucking communist shithole of a state. For me, being able to chase the American dream of greatly increasing your, your fortune of making enough money to be able to travel the world,

help your family achieve their dreams, maybe take your parents on exciting vacations, help put nieces and nephews to college, make enough to donate charities, make enough know you can retire and enjoy yourself and your golden years if you're lucky enough to make it that far and keep your health. That chase has always been very motivating to me.

It has fulfilled me. Before time suck and scare to death, brought me a measure of success. I only once dreamed of before, the dream of attaining something meaningful, not just artistically, but financially as well. The dream alone motivated me, kept me working, hard grinding for years and years,

creating close to two decades before I was able to achieve a tangible piece of the dream. Chasing dreams, like that for me, goes a long ways towards making life literally worth living. And there is the freedom to dissent that I have spoke about so much that I love so much that is so important to me. I love that I am legally able to create the kind of content I do here that I can make the fucking craziest, darkest jokes I want. I never think that I'm going to get thrown into prison for doing so.

I'm my loose sponsors, my loose fans, but I'm not gonna have the government shut me down. You know, as much as I love having sponsors, by the way, if they all went away, I still have many of you buying tickets to shows, buying t-shirts, subscribing on Patreon. That's so fucking beautiful me to live in a form of government and an economy that makes that possible, right? It lets me make a living, a great living, doing what I love, and what I love to do requires an enormous amount of freedom. Freedom that I would lose living in a communist state, looking into communism heavily into many different forms of it. Yeah, it just doesn't allow for that for a lot of dissent. And then there's religion.

You know, if you have a list of this podcast, friend of length of time, that I'm not religious, you know, I can get pretty frustrated with organized religion. You know, if you have a list of this podcast, friendly link to time that I'm not religious, you know, I can get pretty frustrated with organized religion, you know, in this country usually comes out with Christianity, but do know that I love that you can worship anything in America. You can be Catholic, Baptist, Muslim, Hindu, Mormon, you can be fucking Scientologists, you can be Amish, you can be Jehovah's Witness, you can be a member of a cult, I fucking despise, you can be part of the Westboro Baptist Church, right?

Be some dirty motherfucker who protests veterans, funerals, and slanders and domains homosexuals. And I fucking hate you. I hate to do that. But I love that you have the freedom to do that. I despise Alex Jones. I think he's a fucking idiot piece of shit, but I love that you can listen to him. I hate David Ike, but I love that you can buy a ticket to one of his shows or that you can buy his books.

I got a couple on the desk here. Hopefully you know that that's a parody. I love that you can be so many different things in America for all of our faults. What we have here in so many ways is so precious and beautiful and it's taken so much sacrifice I think to hold on to it. And I fucking love that we fought around the world trying to give this way of life to others. And when I look back at a lot of Cold War fights, covert or overt, I see what America was doing is trying to share that dream with millions of others. Was part of the incentive in certain operations,

possibly making money off the opium trade? Maybe, yeah, okay, okay, I'm open to that primary. I don't think so. That reads as kind of like evil paranoid conspiracy, Lord of me. Uh, I do know that money, you know, pushes war around the world. I do understand the military industrial complex. It profits off the wars where countries are ravaged. I know that's horrible. I know the CIA has done shady shit in four lands and there are countless individual examples of CIA actions that are very, they're impossible to morally justify, but overall, what the CIA has done, what Air America was a part of in today's suck, I do think there's a lot of nobility in it, right?

Live free or die, very important to me. I'm someone who's vaccinated, but also someone who opposes legally enforced vaccinations, right, Freedom. I would like the most reasonable amount of freedom we can have before it becomes anarchy, for it tells us some mad Max lower the fly's bullshit. Air America, I think, well, yeah, they turned a blind eye to a trafficking opium that would lead to a lot of people going to prison, a lot of overdoses, ran by the CIA, the same

organization that has led irresponsible bombing runs all over the fucking place. I think overall, the cause righteous, right? And it's gray. I know it's gray, but I think it tilts. I think it's at the very least the lesser of two evils in the Cold War. And I say all this aware that many of you will see this very differently. And you might be right. I don't know. The fuck am I? I don't have a fucking degree in all this. Something that might be easier to agree on. What you might be right. I don't know. Fuck my, I don't have a fucking degree in all this. Something that might be easier to agree on. What a fucking cool story.

Right, a secret airline flying into secret bases. Seekily without the knowledge of the American public for years as a covert operation run by the CIA, Air America sent pilots to regions all over Southeast Asia as the Korean War and the Vietnam War rates. Delivering food, ammunition, supplies, well it also barmed, you know, communist enemies. Air America's fleet an impressive one, C-130s,

D-HC-4 caribouze, Curtis-C-46s, Commandos, the Douglas-DC-6s, and more, you know, helicopters including the Bell-47, Bell-2-04-B, Bell-2-05, Hughes-500-D, Sikorski-H-34, these aircraft often marked as civilian transporters allowing them to enter zones. They wouldn't normally be able to for military operations. By 1962, Air America was moving and extracting troops and personnel from the war zone as well as providing support for several

foreign governments involved in the war. It was transporting refugees, taking photos that would be used to further intelligence information. The airline quickly ruined the 60s and masked more than 80 aircraft, had more than 300 specialists mechanics and more based in Southeast Asia alone. Air America almost certainly smuggled heroin, out of northern Laos, working to help the mong people in Laos who were fighting against the communist, you know, Pate Lao, and the mong dependant on heroin for their livelihoods. And without that income, you know, their cause was basically fucked from the get go. All of the CIA might have actively engaged, maybe even profited

from this drug smuggling trade. Then after the Vietnam War ended, Air America shut down 76 workers laid off, no recognition for their work, no financial assistance, the families of those killed received virtually nothing for those injured. They faced a long lengthy battle for insurance to cover their treatment costs. Whenever they try to get their dues, the CIA's sympathy claim the airline had never existed. Fucking terrible ending for such an interesting organization, right? Fucking CIA. Not easy to root for. In many cases, again, they're sure as shit not white nights, but yeah, but they've also done a lot of things that are very good, I think, such a mixed bag. Right? So, I might be doing some terrible shit right now,

but also probably doing some great shit right now. And also, if they weren't around, I just think about that. If they just weren't around, if you just like, okay, let's say JFK did want to splinter them into a million pieces, he doesn't get a sastened and they go away. Would the world be better off now without them? Or would it be worse off?

And that's a good way to view the overall morality of this. I think definitely worse off. All right, if I could go back in a time machine to there are 1947 inception, perhaps I would not want to get rid of them. Right? Because other countries have intelligence agencies. There have been too many other agencies around the world at the KGB that they need to fucking do battle with. That the CIA has been needed to keep them in check. And I keep talking around and around about the morality. I don't know, I can keep talking about this for hours. I'm probably not adding any fucking new food for thought. I haven't already thrown out.

So let's move on now. To this week's top five takeaways, I hope with the very least you found this is interesting as I did. Time suck, top five takeaway. Number one, Air America originally created in 1956 as Civil Air Transport. Later bought out by the CIA, renamed Air America originally created in 1956 as civil air transport. Later bought out by the CIA, renamed Air America.

This mission began with providing support to Chinese nationalists, fighting communist rebels. Then, when the communist won, Air America transitioned into fighting basically wherever the communists were trying to spread to in Southeast Asia, operating according to the domino theory. When one state follows communism, others around it will quickly follow. Though Air America's success was limited in terms of helping its anti-communist allies, it definitely does part to rescue and provide support for both its allies and American soldiers fighting there. And it may be some more things too. Number two, Air America may have been engaged in the lay oation or lay ocean opium trade,

possibly for over a decade. The official story is that civilians of Laos, whose main cash crop was poppy, were facing severe economic troubles and only outside support for this opium trade would ensure that they had enough resources to fight the communist putt that loud. Others alleged that the CIA didn't just help the economy, but actively traded opium for its own profit. Of course, the CIA and some historians who may or may not be funded by the CIA deny this. Number three, Neil Hanson is a fucking G. Hanson along with countless other Arab-American

pilots tasked with some incredibly difficult and dangerous missions flying right into enemy war zones, pretending to be civilian aircraft, picking up mysterious passengers, keeping their mouths shut, but with a really up to when they get fucking thrown into foreign prisons. Number four, CIA still has a long way to go to officially recognize and compensate those who worked for Air America. Because of the heavily secret nature of Air America's operations in Southeast Asia, the CIA could and simply did deny that Air America ever existed, leaving its employees without sufficient pensions or medical care for their injuries, which is a really, really dark little,

you know, side of this. Five new info. Number five, did you know that there was another air America also involved in drug smuggling? Just not one owned by the CIA, but because it was called air America, let's talk about it here because it's a cool little story. This could be a whole separate suck if we wanted to expand this. The story of this iffy airline begins in the early 1980s when the Reagan administration declared war on drugs muggling in the US. Colombian drug cartels were hiring Americans to fly their drugs into the US primarily via stops in Florida. To combat this, a sophisticated network of radar systems were installed throughout Florida

and the Gulf Coast. The government also put up planes in the air which acted as radar systems to catch even more drug perpetrators. All suspicious airplanes as well as sea vessels were tracked and targeted. And a bunch were caught. Many of those 80s drug smugglers in the US were very flashy. They were based in South Florida, had gold chains, expensive watches. Authorities able to break down their operations and arrest them pretty easily.

Some Miami Vice shit. Fucking cucked out flashy 80s. God, I bet they had so much fun. them pretty easily. So Miami vice shit. Fucking coaked out flashy 80s. God, I bet they had so much fun. One drug smuggler, though alluded authorities for years, bringing in several billion dollars worth of coke into the US. The man authorities were looking for was Rick Ludges.

A businessman, excuse me, not based in Florida, lived in Scranton, Pennsylvania. The other Miami. No, not exactly the same five as Miami. And he brought 10 tons of cocaine into the US, more cocaine than any other drug smuggling ring in the US at the time he was active. Made himself a fortune, earned millions, and finally a couple of key mistakes led to his discovery and arrest by law enforcement.

As a young boy, Ludges was obsessed with flying. He obtained his pilot's license before graduating high school. After he graduated from college, he formed his own company called Air America. The company owned a number of small airplanes earned money by upgrading small planes to more luxurious models. Known for its top notch quality, business began to thrive, allowed Rick to donate to local charity, befriend politicians, even fly politicians around, uh, and his pimped out airplanes. Uh, Rick did not seem to want to get into the coke business at first.

1980, however, big recession hit, slow down business for America substantially, leading Rikt to lay off many of his workers. He has some new workers who'd work for cheaper quickly finds out many of these new guys have shady histories. They're involved in drug smuggling. One of the workers offers Rikt a lot of money if he'll help them smuggle, smuggle drugs in from Columbia with air America on the brink of bankruptcy, Rick agrees, taking the step that would turn Air America to, as it was being called now, into one of the biggest drug smuggling rings

in American history. Rick began his drug smuggling by piloting the drugs from Columbia to the US through Florida, just like the other guys. But as a business man, he quickly noticed some amateurish mistakes taking place. His workers and clients use drugs themselves. We're in that stable. Regularly flew over areas covered with radar and DEA officials. Rick quit after three jobs, but by then his reputation had made its way to Jorge Ochoa,

one of the prominent leaders of a cocaine drug cartel operating in Colombia. And Jorge reached out. Ochoa offered Rick millions if he could pilot his drugs from Columbia to the U.S. Still desperate for cash. Rick agrees. Even when threatened to be killed by Ochoa, if he cheats Ochoa out of his money, uh, Rick decides it flying to Florida. Too dangerous. Too many radars, uh, too much surveillance, everything. So he decides to take the drugs from Columbia to Scranton. So random. I love it. Uh, but there was another problem.

His plane's fuel tank didn't hold enough fuel to make that trip in one go. And if he stopped, he'd definitely be at risk of getting questioned by authorities. So he modifies a Sessna 310 which can fly for about 900 miles to allow for much more fuel capacity. He does this in a sneaky way, putting fuel reserves in rubber bladders hidden in the nose of the airplane under the cabin floor and by the luggage compartments. Restructures of plane to account for the extra weight. Cranks up the horse power, the engine reinforces the wings and the wheel struts. Inside the plane, Rick installs custom radars to inform him of weather conditions and government

air control. Finally, after three months of planning and pimping the thing out, takes off from Pennsylvania, takes a direct route to Columbia, Rick arrives there 13 hours later right one straight flight loads up His plane with coke a shipping of 800 pounds With the way to the fuel plus the drugs his plane weighs you know two thousand pounds farther the planes recommend a weight capacity But he's upgraded it properly. I would the extra horse part everything He manages to get the plane airborne on his way back flies directly to screen about five miles into his flight or five hours into his flight though. Navy airplane picks him up on radar starts following him. To ward off this Navy vessel, he flies right into the heart of a nearby storm. The Navy aircraft refuses to follow,

Rick loses him two hours later emerges from the storm, continues his flight inland to Scranton. It's right still is able to make it. And then he delivers about a million dollars, enough drugs to earn himself about a million dollars in cash. The car tell massively impressed with Rick's operation makes him do regular runs over the next year. Makes millions. Rick starts thinking about expanding the operation. Heires pilots to run trips to Columbia, runs us all with efficiency. The efficiency he learned to run his legit business with. No flights were ever lost, crashed. Everything always made it on time.

But then everything came to a halt in 1924. That year a pilot named Jim Cooper crashed a plane into a car, killed his driver. On the scene, police realized the plane has about 500 pounds of fucking coke. So much. Face with Jesus Christ is so much. Face with felony murder charges and life in prison. Cooper decided to give info about the drug smuggling operation in exchange for reduced sentence. He rats out Rick and the whole air-americ operation knowing the police

are on doing Rick wires his money to the Cayman Islands flees there the DEA appealed to local authorities Cayman Islands police cooperate and eventually Rick is deported as an undesirable alien in 1997. Once back in the DEA custody charged with conspiracy to smuggle cocaine to avoid a 345-year sentence he gives up the money he earned from the drugs offers information on the rest of the smuggling team all of whom would serve time for the rules for his role Rick Ludges would send be sentenced to eight and a half years in prison and then once he got out no idea where he is today probably

fucking hiding from all the people he ranatted on. I'll be interesting to see if the next Air America, if there is one, ends up also having connections to cocaine. Let's get out of here. The CIA smuggled on drugs and fighting communism. The story of Air America has been sucked. I would have loved to sit in this subject for a few more weeks, actually. Learn so much more, and have more debates with Kyler. But the next subject always calling. I hope and I'll get a lot of cool updates. And assuming I'll get some corrections, probably pronunciation ones and others, based on this complicated topic, looking forward to reading them. You can send them to bowjangels at timesuckpodcast.com. We pull from those emails to curate the timesucker updates every week. Thank you to the Bad Magic Productions team. Thanks to Queen of Bad Magic Lindsey Cummins.

Thanks to the Reverend Doctor Joe Paisy, possible CIA informant for production. Thanks to Bitelixer for upkeeping on the time suck app. Logan Art Warlock Keith, definitely CIA informant. Create an emerge at BadMagicMarch.com. Run on the socials with another CIA plant, Lizzie and Chantras Hernandez. Thanks again to Sophie Evans. Has to be CIA leading the research to feel pretty good about the future. Thanks to the all-seeing eyes moderating the Colton Curious private Facebook page. Thanks to Beefstake again is Mon Squad running Discord. A lot of people having fun fun in there. You can easily link to TimeStalk Discord community via the TimeStalk app. Next week, the space let's have spoken about someone else who CIA has some shirts and files on. We're gonna be digging into the Jeffrey Epstein suicide conspiracy. We talked about that p-dope piece of shit back in August of 2019, right? The ninth circle cult in Jeffrey Epstein

and exploration into pedophile rings episode recorded shortly after he died and we didn't know nearly as much as we do now. So we'll do a much deeper dive into Epstein's life and into the conspiracies that have booked up substantially in the years since his death. Not sure exactly what I'm going to cover at this moment, so I'll leave the preview a little more vague than usual. But I promise we'll dive deep. If this guy doesn't kill me, and I'm sure he'll be very interesting. So now let's move on to this week's Time Sucker updates where I'm sure there's more interesting

information ahead. I know this because I curated it and I put it in there. Start off with the physician assisted suicide update from Grim Reaper Assistance manager Joe Morsey. My mouth is shot right now. I'm trying to build a Southeast Asian Pranetations. Joe writes glorious suck master and time suck team. I'm trying to build a Southeast Asian pronunciation. Joe writes, Gloria Suckmaster and Time Suck team. I was looking in the news last night and saw that Oregon has agreed to end the residency rule for medically assisted suicide, and it's encouraging other states to do the same. This is a settlement following a lawsuit in which the residency requirement was found

unconstitutional. Hopefully, this will offer more families better options than what they may have in more socially conservative states. This is certainly fitting timing for your excellent suck last week. That's very nice. Thanks, and Link was included. Thanks for all of you, or what all of you in the team do every week, space, dummy Joe. Well, Joe, thanks for sending that Oregon live.com link. Great update.

Yeah, after reading it, yeah, you no longer have to be a state resident of Oregon to die via medically assisted suicide in Oregon. So hail Oregon You know providing a Respet for more people in pain providing mercy for those who need it most So hail nirah joe. Yeah, that's a that's a great great update I'm glad to happy to get the word out anyone hearing it. You know, at least there's a an Oregon option for you if you're US citizen now Pick whether you live there not you know pick fucking sucker a's an Oregon option for you if you're US citizen now. Pick whether you live there or not, you know, pick fucking sucker. A great meat sack, Dan Cohnick, now has an update spawned by a previous update. He writes, what's up Bingbong? Well, listening to the Kavorkin episode and one of the time sucker updates about Sandy

Hook reminded me of this. Handfully years ago, I was working in the architectural industry and my company got selected to help design the new Sandy Hook school. So cool. The existing school was still there with plywood covering the windows that were shot out creepy for sure. We arrived, met up with the architect, few people from the town, and a security consultant. If you've never been there, I've seen pictures. The school sits in kind of a bowl with small hills surrounding it on three sides. First thing to do from the security company says is we can put towers on the east, west, and north to keep an eye on things and then fence in everywhere else to which my boss

said, it's an elementary school, not a fucking prison. It's my pretty cool boss. To my knowledge, I was the last time that security company was part of the design team. I bet. I will say that the new design was made specifically to maximize the amount of time it takes a person to go from classroom to classroom. Exclusive of fire exits. That's very cool.

Another connection is that my mom worked with the stepmother of the shooter. Fuck that guy. He doesn't deserve name recognition. And after it happened, she never came back to work. Anyway, as Garfield instilled in my brain, I hate Mondays, but I do thoroughly enjoy Monday mornings and afternoons because I can listen to your podcast on the way into and from work. There's no better way to start a week than gleefully listing the stories about pig fucking, throat fucking, soft pedophile dicks, and eating poop.

I hate that that's all through. I can't like it actually. Have a good one, Dan. Well, thank you for that update, Dan. And man, that poor stepmom, what a tragedy she ended up involved in. And that's so cool about the design. So sad that designs like that are needed, but so impressive that we're able to adapt like we do.

As much as I kind of shit on humanity, some of these, we're pretty resilient and adaptive species overall. That is impressive. Enjoy whatever future debauchery we have coming down the pipe. Who knows what some future serial killers are gonna be fucking on the suck. Gonna end the updates this week with a powerful tale of overcoming adversity. Get your fucking tissues ready.

It is allergy season. Kick ass motherfucker. Cody Webwrights. Dan, I will listen to your comedy since I was 13. I'm now 24 and you have been a bigger part of my life than I could have ever put into words, but I will try now. When I was 12, I was an active drug addict,

primarily using opioids, benzos, and beginning my usage with cocaine. I father tried to kill my mother and I, when I was young, and ultimately killed himself. Later in life, I was abused in all ways that you can be abused by my mother's boyfriend from ages nine to 11. We left and I was angry, so very angry.

Soon after I began using drugs to cope and man did it stick. From 12 to 19, I was a drug addict. Angry, lashing out at anyone and anything I could. I'll spare the details to keep this as short as I can. I say all that to say during that time in my life, you were one of the only lights at the end of the tunnel. There were countless nights that I would lay in bed awake trying to talk myself and any my life to save my family and myself, the everlasting agony of the terrible cage I felt I was trapped in. But I would always turn on your comedy

later your podcast. You always managed to make me laugh even a moment that I wanted to die. When I overdosed the first time 2016, I listened to Time Suck the first chance I could and you brought me peace. When I went to my second treatment center, we were allowed to have an hour every day to listen to music, podcasts, etc. I always chose your podcast or stand up. You're talks on Time Suck about being strong, continue to keep on keeping on, help me to keep on keeping on. You sharing stories about yourself, other meat sacks, help me to know I wasn't alone. You've done so much more for me than you'll ever know, and I can do nothing to repay you,

except thank you dearly. I'm proud and happy to say that I've just passed five years cleaning sober, although I still drink, that was never a problem for me. I'm happily engaged, the most amazing woman I could have ever asked for. In fact, we went to see you in 2019. She'll be with me in a few weeks at your Raleigh show.

Although she loves the comedy, the podcast, aren't her vibe, LOL. I'm surprised it's as many people's vibes as it is. I have a great job as a foreman for a concrete company here in Eastern North Carolina. Overall, my life is now worth living. I'm sorry for the long email. Don't be. And if you want to read it on the podcast, go ahead. I want people to hear how impactful you've been on my life. You're a genuine dude and I'm truly grateful for you, our Hell Nymron, fuck giving up. Most of all keep on sucking with my deepest appreciation, Cody Webb.

Well, God damn, Cody. Putting some pollen in that message, firing up the allergies. I luckily had a preview rate to get some of it out of my system. My wife Lindsay read your message. First, it really got her allergies going. Man, good on you, Cody. Man, you can be a fucking motivational speaker with your story. Like, I'm not joking.

Your story is so beautiful, so inspiring, such a fire inside of you clearly that you refuse to let the world blow out when you, you know, had some real bad storms blow through your life when you were so, so young. And that shows so much strength, so much character. Now you're getting married to someone who's clearly wonderful, someone you clearly love. I bet a walk in safe space for you. I would tell you to enjoy the fuck out of every good day

you're having right now, but you don't need to hear that. You're already doing that. So just keep on being you, Cody Webb. Keep on letting that fire burn. Smin, your message is powerful. Hail Nimrod, you beautiful fucking bastard. I'll see you in your lady in North Carolina. Thanks, time suckers.

I need a net. We all did. Thanks again for listening to another bad magic productions podcast meet sex. Please go ahead or do Asia this week to battle communism. For the moment, it doesn't appear that the red is spreading. So just hang back, keep an eye on things, keep on sucking. I'm magic productions. Joe, you ready to record?

Yeah, one second. One second. Get me in, I'm gonna come on in. Yeah, come on in. Yeah. Right after you, be cool. Yeah. I'm gonna see the stuff at the door, alright? Okay, cool. Okay.

Buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh. Mm-mm. Okay, so CIA, can I be... talking about the CIA. Some feels... Some just feels often here Some's different on the hey Fucking Woody goddamn Woody the CIA plan Joe. We're gonna have to burn him. Yeah, yeah him fucking Woody Woody!