Episode 12 · The GaS Digital / Ray Kump Era
Slumbering Herds of Cattle
Sep 27, 2016 · 1:12:08 · 21 segments, 140 moments indexed
- 1 min
Opening music, applause, and title card before any talk begins.
1moment
- 0:11Tim Dillon Is Going To Hell
- 1 min
Kennedy 'What For' Bit and Devil's Chessboard Intro
#Tim riffs on the phrase 'give you the what for' and jokes about who gave Kennedy his, before introducing the show's topic: David Talbot's book The Devil's Chessboard about Allen Dulles and the CIA.
2moments
- 1:25Tim breaks down the old expression 'I give you what for' and its origins.
- 1:40Introducing guest David Talbot and his book The Devil's Chessboard about Alan Dulles and the CIA's rise as America's secret government.
- 4 min
Trump vs. Hillary Debate Reactions
#Tim and Ray dissect the first Trump-Hillary presidential debate, mocking moderator Lester Holt, comparing Trump's bluntness to Hillary's polish, riffing on NAFTA, China and pollution in Shanghai, and joking about Ray never having been on a plane.
8moments
- 2:10Both sides have unrealistic expectations about who's actually persuadable in a debate
- 2:49Tim criticizes the debate moderators for giving up on pretending to be unbiased
- 3:41Trump attacks NAFTA while Hillary plays it safer, sounding presidential while lying
- 4:03People have a psychological need for bedtime stories, and politicians use that to their advantage
- 4:32Trump's unpolishedness makes him sound more real, even when he's dishonest
- 5:12Trump breaks the fourth wall by admitting he's a scumbag who exploits the system
- 5:26Tim disputes Trump's claim that global warming is a Chinese conspiracy, questioning what to trust
- 5:58Ray has never been on a plane and relies on Google Earth instead
- 3 min
Ray's Fake Harvard Degree Scam Dinner
#Ray reveals he changed his Facebook education to Harvard University and got invited to a free high-end networking dinner for elites, and they joke about the scam-like nature of the club, fake credentials, and what dorm he 'lived in.'
6moments
- 6:18Tim changed his Facebook education to say he went to Harvard University and was offered a free preview dinner at a high-end restaurant.
- 6:46Tim doesn't think he'll need to present identification or worry about people asking if he actually went to Harvard—he'll just lie.
- 7:01When asked what dorm he lived in at Harvard, Tim answers 'Cambridge dorm' and notes the questioner believed him even though he made it up.
- 7:16Tim jokes that the whole event might be full of frauds where nobody actually went to Harvard, just people who changed their Facebook profile.
- 7:38The website for this dinner club had very dated Flash animation and a Polish-looking design, which Tim immediately flagged as suspicious.
- 7:57The membership pitch included 150 complimentary dinners and other perks, making the whole thing seem like a racket or Amway-style scheme.
David TalbotHarvard UniversityThe Devil's ChessboardJohnny Gosh episodeThe Social Network
- 2 min
Tim connects with author David Talbot, introduces his background (Salon.com founder, bestselling author) and asks what drew him from his Kennedy biography to investigating Allen Dulles.
6moments
- 9:00Tim introduces David Talbot, founder of Salon.com and New York Times bestselling author.
- 9:32The book being discussed is The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government.
- 9:47Talbot took three years to write the book with a research associate helping him.
- 9:58Tim explains the book provides context for current conversations about surveillance and military interventionism.
- 10:20Tim asks whether Talbot was fascinated by Dulles the man or by historical events.
- 10:35Talbot wanted to know who killed JFK, which led him to investigate Dulles after writing a revisionist history of the Kennedy period.
Alan DullesThe Devil's ChessboardCIAnational security apparatusSalon.comDavid
- 3 min
Talbot explains JFK's turn toward peace after the Cuban Missile Crisis, his American University 'peace speech,' and his theory that the military industrial complex had JFK killed for challenging its power; discussion of Dulles's outsized role creating the CIA.
6moments
- 10:59Historians portrayed JFK as a cold war hawk, but he was actually always looking for peace and trying to untie the nuclear knot with the Soviet Union.
- 11:43After the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, JFK becomes determined to achieve peace and delivers the American University speech in summer 1963.
- 11:56JFK's peace speech challenges Americans to see Russians as fellow human beings and fellow citizens of the planet rather than enemies to hate and fear.
- 12:23Tim believes JFK's effort to extricate the country from the Cold War is what got him killed, because the military industrial complex is too powerful to tolerate a president challenging it.
- 13:02Allen Dulles shaped the past hundred years more than most people realize—he was essentially the godfather of the modern American intelligence system.
- 13:29Dulles single-handedly pushed through the law creating the CIA in 1947 and lobbied to transform it from a simple intelligence-gathering agency into an aggressive militaristic one that overthrew governments.
John F. KennedyCIANikita Khrushchevmilitary-industrial complexChris MatthewsCold WarAllen Dulles
- 3 min
Talbot describes Dulles as motivated by control rather than money, serving as the CIA enforcer for the elite Council on Foreign Relations crowd, overthrowing governments in Iran and Guatemala for United Fruit and oil interests.
6moments
- 13:58CIA targeted union officials, journalists, and anyone who opposed U.S. interests worldwide.
- 14:22The CIA became a secret police organization serving Wall Street and multinational corporations instead of the American people.
- 14:34Coups in Iran and Guatemala were orchestrated to benefit oil companies and United Fruit, represented by the Dulles family law firm.
- 15:41Alan Dulles wasn't motivated by personal wealth but by power and control over people.
- 15:52Dulles served the interests of an elite group of Wall Street bankers and CEOs who gathered in organizations like the Council on Foreign Relations.
- 16:16He functioned as the enforcer for America's power elite, implementing their policies around the world.
CIAUnited FruitAlan DullesJohn Foster DullesCouncil on Foreign RelationsGuatemala overthrowIran coupC. Wright Mills
- 4 min
Talbot details Dulles's secret WWII meetings with Nazi officials via Switzerland, the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act revealing this collusion, and how Dulles installed former Nazi intelligence chief Reinhard Gehlen as West Germany's spymaster, including the anecdote about Gehlen at a World Series game.
5moments
- 17:20US intelligence officials like Alan Dulles collaborated extensively with Hitler's regime during World War II.
- 18:07Allen Dulles went to Switzerland as an OSS operative and met with Hitler and Himmler's representatives rather than enforce Roosevelt's unconditional surrender policy.
- 18:51Dulles didn't want to deal directly with Hitler but was open to dealing with other top Nazi leaders including Göring and Himmler.
- 19:41The Dulles law firm Sullivan and Cromwell represented major German economic institutions and helped rebuild them after World War I.
- 20:02Sullivan and Cromwell continued representing Nazi collaborators' interests even during the war and found ways to circumvent laws preventing corporations from dealing with the enemy.
Adolf HitlerAlan DullesSullivan and CromwellBill ClintonHeinrich HimmlerHermann GöringThird ReichFranklin Roosevelt+2 more
- 3 min
Discussion of whether Dulles's Nazi collaboration was ideological anti-communism or financial opportunism, covering Operation Paperclip, Wernher von Braun, and Eisenhower's warning about the military industrial complex becoming the entire US economy.
7moments
- 20:19A wartime OSS operative who became Supreme Court Justice felt the Dulles brothers should have been tried for treason, but FDR died before it could happen.
- 20:33The Dulles brothers collaborated with Nazi interests because their real enemy was the Soviet Union, not Hitler — they wanted to rebuild Nazi Germany as a bulwark against communism.
- 21:11Tim explains Operation Paperclip brought Nazi scientists to America for the missile program, but the intelligence officers like Reinhard Gehlen were even more disturbing.
- 22:19Gehlen, Hitler's eastern front intelligence chief, should have been tried and hanged at Nuremberg but instead Dulles protected him and he became West Germany's top spymaster.
- 22:41Dulles brought Gehlen to America and took him to a famous World Series game between the Yankees and Giants as a honored guest of the U.S. alliance.
- 23:09British allies were appalled by the people the U.S. was working with during the Cold War, but Dulles had no problem with any of it.
- 23:27Dulles and the people he aided in Cold War operations made substantial money, raising the question of whether it was purely ideological or just keeping the military-industrial money flowing.
Allen DullesOperation PaperclipReinhard Gehlenmilitary-industrial complexWernher von BraunJoe DiMaggioWillie Mays
- 4 min
Talbot explains how Dulles cultivated cozy relationships with major media outlets, getting reporters pulled from stories on Guatemala, and draws a line to the New York Times' WMD reporting failures before Iraq.
10moments
- 23:48The U.S. economy became so militarized that Eisenhower enabled or looked the other way at forces that now dominate the country.
- 24:01Eisenhower warned about the military-industrial complex before leaving office, but now the entire economy—entertainment, culture, sports—is intertwined with military interests.
- 24:20Torture, extraordinary rendition, mass surveillance, and CIA black sites didn't spring up after 9/11; they were created by Allen Dulles during the Cold War and revived later.
- 24:56Harry Truman and Eisenhower both warned about the deep state and military-industrial complex, yet the media refuses to cover it seriously.
- 25:33The media now depends on government for its existence, continuing a collaboration between national security and press that dates back to the Dulles era.
- 25:50Dulles wined and dined journalists and editors from the New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, and CBS to maintain favorable coverage.
- 26:13When Dulles disliked how the New York Times covered the U.S. overthrow of Guatemala's democratic government, he called the publisher and had the reporter pulled.
- 26:34The New York Times jumped on bogus WMD claims before the Iraq War, showing the pattern continues to the present day.
- 27:05Top media figures attended elite schools, are well-compensated, and have a stake in the existing system, so they avoid rocking the boat.
- 27:28These well-paid editors and executives don't want to challenge the system they're deeply invested in.
New York TimesAllen Dullesmilitary-industrial complexDwight D. EisenhowermediaRuss BakerHarry Truman
- 2 min
Talbot recounts the story of young Allen Dulles watching his sister nearly drown without acting, and describes testimony from his daughter and wife about his emotional coldness and need for total control over women in his life.
5moments
- 27:43Young Dulles watched his sister drown in Lake Ontario without intervening, despite being a strong swimmer, until his mother rescued her.
- 28:10Tim argues that anyone reaching the top of the national security system ordering daily killings exists on a spectrum of psychopathology, with Dulles at the far end.
- 28:54Dulles's daughter, a retired Jungian therapist, describes growing up feeling like a guest in her own home, with her father showing no interest in grades or achievements.
- 29:27His wife's diaries reveal she was a sensitive artistic woman who spent her entire life with a man who took no interest in her whatsoever.
- 29:47Dulles viewed people as a chessboard to control, particularly the women in his life, sharing this outlook with his brother John Foster.
- 4 min
Talbot discusses Carl Jung's inability to psychologically read Dulles, Dulles's chilling quote about watching 'mice' get caught in traps, and how Dulles was actually the first to strike a real blow against Joe McCarthy by refusing to let CIA deputies testify.
9moments
- 30:17Carl Jung analyzed Hitler and Mussolini but couldn't get a read on Dulles, finding him impossible to crack emotionally.
- 30:57Dulles told his mistress Mary Bankroll he enjoyed watching enemies walk into traps like mice getting their necks snapped.
- 31:30Dulles was instrumental in bringing about McCarthy's destruction and stopping his inquiry into the CIA.
- 32:05The Army-McCarthy hearings are commonly thought to have ended McCarthy, but the CIA was actually the first institution that really bit back.
- 32:40McCarthy alleged the CIA was infiltrated by communists and demanded the agency's people testify before his committee.
- 32:59Allen Dulles refused to let CIA deputies testify, standing his ground unlike his brother John Foster Dulles at State Department.
- 33:27Dulles's refusal to allow CIA testimony may have been unconstitutional, as the Senate had constitutional power to investigate.
- 33:53The CIA had dirt on McCarthy's alcoholism and used hardball tactics, possibly even threatening his life to stop his investigation.
- 34:04Intelligence agencies made clear to McCarthy that if he wanted to play hardball with the CIA, they were ready to do the same.
CIAAllen DullesCarl JungJoe McCarthyAdolf HitlerBenito MussoliniMary BancroftJohn Foster Dulles
- 3 min
Talbot compares Allen and John Foster Dulles's complementary roles running the CIA and State Department under an ailing Eisenhower, then pivots to Dulles's fascination with mind control and the MK-Ultra program.
6moments
- 34:29Tim asks what the American elite would be willing to do if Trump got close to the presidency, suggesting they've eliminated bigger threats before.
- 35:13Guest describes the Dulles brothers' power dynamic: John Foster as the dignified diplomat, Allen as the icy enforcer doing the dirty work.
- 35:56Foster had few friends but Allen Dulles was a frequent visitor, constantly strategizing together and effectively taking over the Eisenhower presidency.
- 36:32Allen resented that Foster got the Secretary of State job instead of him, believing his international network was stronger despite Foster being a corporate lawyer.
- 37:10Tim notes the CIA became obsessed with mind control and the MK-Ultra program that was supposedly terminated.
- 37:30Tim asks whether a program like MK-Ultra would have actually ended when the CIA claimed it did, or if something like that persists today.
Allen DullesJohn Foster DullesMK UltraDwight EisenhowerDonald Trump
- 4 min
Talbot describes CIA lying to Kennedy about ending assassination plots against Castro, James Angleton's admission that spies must lie to everyone, and the horrifying detail that Dulles subjected his own brain-damaged war-hero son to MK-Ultra-style insulin shock torture treatments.
7moments
- 37:57CIA officials lied directly to President Kennedy and Attorney General Robert Kennedy about stopping the MK-Ultra mind control program while it continued in secret.
- 38:33James Angleton, a top CIA deputy under Dulles, claimed that spies aren't effective if they can't lie to elected officials and the democratic government they serve.
- 38:54Tim refuses to believe CIA claims about anything, given their documented history of lying to congressional committees, under oath, and to presidents.
- 39:05MK-Ultra was a massive Cold War mind control program under Dulles, spending millions to test whether humans could be forced to act against their will and turned into assassins.
- 39:38The torture manuals developed during MK-Ultra's Cold War black sites were revived and used by the Bush administration during post-9/11 interrogations.
- 40:19Allen Dulles put his own son—a Korean War Marine who returned brain-damaged from shrapnel—into the hands of MK-Ultra scientists for experimental treatment.
- 41:07Dulles's son was subjected to insulin overdose therapy, a procedure so violent it causes convulsions, epileptic seizures, and can crack the spine or cause death.
Allen DullesMK UltraCIAJames AngletonJohn F. KennedyRobert KennedyHarold WolfFidel Castro
- 5 min
Talbot lays out evidence of a CIA assassination operation led by William Harvey, E. Howard Hunt's dying confession about a 'big event' meeting to kill Kennedy, and how journalists Ben Bradlee and Don Hewitt privately admitted they suspected conspiracy but were too afraid to investigate.
7moments
- 42:03Rolling Stone published a deathbed confession from E. Howard Hunt, the CIA agent and Watergate break-in leader, dictated through his son St. John Hunt, claiming involvement in the JFK assassination.
- 43:05Tim's guest describes assembling evidence of a CIA assassination operation run by William Harvey, who led the agency's Castro assassination attempts and other targeted kills.
- 43:46Harvey's own deputy told his children and a European journalist that he saw his boss headed to Dallas in early November 1963, weeks before Kennedy's death, with no stated reason.
- 44:31Multiple CIA assassins were placed in Dallas before the assassination: Howard Hunt, David Morales, and others, with Hunt later describing a Miami meeting where people discussed 'the big event'—the plan to assassinate JFK.
- 45:05The common objection that 'somebody would have talked' misses that the people involved actually were talking—Hunt, Harvey's deputy—but the media wasn't listening and didn't want to know.
- 45:42Ben Bradley, the legendary Washington Post editor who covered Watergate and was JFK's close friend, told the author before dying that he was too afraid to investigate the Kennedy assassination because it would have ruined his career.
- 46:06Don Hewitt, creator of 60 Minutes, admitted before his death that he knew there was a conspiracy, that the Lee Harvey Oswald lone-gunman story was false, and that the CIA and possibly the mafia were involved—but claimed he could never crack the story.
E. Howard HuntWilliam HarveyJFK assassinationCIAJohn F. KennedyLee Harvey OswaldBen BradleeDavid Morales+5 more
- 3 min
Talbot explains Oswald's CIA-linked babysitter George de Mohrenschildt, his mysterious death right as he began recanting his testimony against Oswald, and calls out Bill O'Reilly for fabricating in his book that he was on de Mohrenschildt's doorstep when he died.
5moments
- 46:38Tim describes George de Mohrenschildt as the CIA's babysitter for Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas—a Russian émigré who befriended the impoverished Marine.
- 47:31De Mohrenschildt later realized he was used by the CIA to set up Oswald, and testified before the Warren Commission that Oswald was broke and envious of Kennedy's wealth.
- 48:14De Mohrenschildt later recanted his motive theory, saying he'd told Oswald positive things about Kennedy and came to believe Oswald was a patsy.
- 48:40As de Mohrenschildt began writing his memoir absolving Oswald, he was found dead in his home from a gunshot wound.
- 49:14Bill O'Reilly fabricated being on de Mohrenschildt's doorstep hearing the shotgun blast in his book Killing Kennedy, when he was actually in Texas elsewhere at the time.
Lee Harvey OswaldGeorge DeMornshawBill O'Reilly
- 4 min
Talbot describes the House Select Committee on Assassinations' aborted investigation, the Warren Commission's suppressed finding of a conspiracy, and how Dulles was placed on the Warren Commission itself to steer the investigation away from the CIA and onto Oswald alone.
8moments
- 49:48House Assassinations Committee investigators in the 1970s uncovered connections between the CIA, the Mafia, and Kennedy's assassination.
- 50:41The last official investigation into Kennedy's death found evidence of a conspiracy and more than one shooter in Dealey Plaza.
- 51:04Kennedy kept Allen Dulles as CIA director to reassure the establishment of continuity, though the guest sees this as keeping two of the most dangerous people in Washington.
- 51:59The FBI regularly admits to foreknowledge of violent incidents only after being pressed by families or foreign intelligence agencies.
- 52:33Tim notes it's strange that in a country of 300 million, violent actors often turn out to have been previously surveilled or had relationships with federal agencies.
- 53:03Intelligence agencies often identify potential recruits as informants or double agents, sometimes using legal trouble as leverage or providing money.
- 53:42These recruited informants sometimes either go off the rails into terrorist incidents or are potentially manipulated by intelligence agencies for political reasons.
- 53:59Oswald represents the leading example of someone used as a patsy by intelligence agencies.
JFK assassinationCIAHouse Select Committee on AssassinationsWarren CommissionRobert KennedyAllen DullesJ. Edgar HooverLee Harvey Oswald+3 more
- 5 min
Talbot lays out the case that Oswald was a low-level intelligence asset being manipulated, comparing him to modern FBI-surveilled attackers like Omar Mateen, and details how Oswald's movements to Mexico City and New Orleans were used to build an incriminating 'legend' around him before Jack Ruby silenced him.
10moments
- 54:07Oswald fantasized about espionage from childhood, inspired by the 1950s TV show "I Led Two Lives."
- 54:31Tim describes Oswald's suspicious exit from the Marines—given emergency leave for his sick mother, then defects to the Soviet Union with no money.
- 54:49Despite renouncing citizenship and threatening to hand over military secrets, Oswald returns to America with a KGB-connected Russian wife completely unmolested by authorities.
- 55:19The State Department actually gave Oswald money to travel back to the U.S., and the FBI didn't interview him for months—enormously suspicious during the Cold War.
- 56:05Tim believes Oswald thought he was playing an intelligence role and was being manipulated by handlers who sent him to New Orleans and Mexico City.
- 56:23Intelligence agencies were building a false legend around Oswald, creating a case file to implicate him later.
- 57:15Oswald was a patsy, smart enough despite being a high school dropout, and probably figured out he'd been set up immediately after leaving the Texas Book Depository.
- 57:48Tim theorizes Oswald's call from jail was to his intelligence handlers saying he'd been compromised, which sealed his fate.
- 58:25Jack Ruby, the mafia errand boy who killed Oswald, had extensive mob ties that Bobby Kennedy recognized from his Senate investigations.
- 58:44The whole assassination conspiracy involved organized crime and intelligence agencies, which the American people suspected immediately but was covered up.
Jack RubyLee Harvey OswaldJFK assassinationRobert KennedyOmar MateenI Led Two Lives
- 6 min
Talbot describes how Dulles, supposedly ousted after the Bay of Pigs, still received CIA briefings at his home and was mysteriously monitoring events from a secret CIA facility the day Kennedy was shot, then used his Warren Commission seat to deflect scrutiny; also touches on Gary Webb's death after exposing CIA-Contra cocaine trafficking.
10moments
- 59:04Allen Dulles was fired by Kennedy over the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961.
- 59:46Dulles also attempted to overthrow the French government in Paris the same week as Bay of Pigs.
- 1:00:13After his forced retirement, Dulles kept CIA deputies visiting his Georgetown home and continued running the agency.
- 1:00:57On the weekend Kennedy was killed, the supposedly retired Dulles was monitoring events from The Farm, a secret CIA headquarters in Virginia.
- 1:01:25Dulles used his position on the Warren Commission to deflect attention from the CIA and focus entirely on Lee Harvey Oswald.
- 1:02:04David Talbot's publisher is releasing books about CIA manipulation of the press and Hollywood.
- 1:02:39Gary Webb, who exposed the CIA-Contra drug trafficking connection, had his career destroyed and died in what was ruled a suicide.
- 1:03:35Tim asks Talbot if he ever gets nervous writing about suspicious deaths like Michael Hastings and considers safer subjects.
- 1:04:22Talbot says journalists must operate fearlessly and has received vague threats but nothing direct.
- 1:04:38Michael Hastings angered powerful figures in the US military but whether his death was related to that remains unclear.
Bay of PigsContrasWarren CommissionAllen DullesGary WebbMichael HastingsThe Devil's ChessboardLee Harvey Oswald+2 more
- 4 min
Talbot discusses fears around journalists like Michael Hastings dying in suspicious circumstances, then closes by comparing 9/11 to the JFK assassination as a 'deep event,' citing the declassified 28 pages showing Saudi government links to the hijackers.
8moments
- 1:04:59Richard Clark claimed the CIA can easily hack cars to accelerate them to 100 mph and crash them, raising questions about Michael Hastings' death.
- 1:05:239/11 functions as the JFK assassination of Tim's generation—a deep event that rewrites history and still has hidden dimensions.
- 1:05:53The guest agrees 9/11 is the modern era's Kennedy assassination and says we've barely scratched the surface of what happened.
- 1:06:17Recently released 28 pages from the 9/11 Commission revealed direct connections between Saudi officials and the hijacking cell in San Diego.
- 1:06:35Saudi government was monitoring and probably paying the hijackers, raising the question of whether Bush and Cheney knew about it.
- 1:06:48The Bush and Saudi dynasties are extremely close—Barbara Bush nicknamed the Saudi ambassador 'Bandar Bush.'
- 1:07:07The revelation that Saudis were financing the hijackers opens explosive questions about what George W. Bush and Dick Cheney knew and when.
- 1:07:54The guest oscillates between despair and hope, citing Oliver Stone's JFK as proof Americans can suddenly wake up and care about hidden truths.
9/11Dick CheneyGeorge W. BushJohn F. KennedySaudi ArabiaDavid TalbotBandar BushOliver Stone+4 more
- 3 min
Post-Interview Reflection and Angleton's Hell Quote Sign-Off
#Tim and Ray debrief on the interview, joking that Baker would have hated being cornered by Talbot, reflecting on the detachment needed to be a figure like Dulles, and closing with Talbot's book quote about spymaster Angleton believing he'd see Dulles and Helms in hell.
8moments
- 1:08:42Tim reflects on the interview subject being long-winded but having a lot to say.
- 1:09:20They barely scratched the surface on Dulles, who shaped the past century but nobody wants to discuss.
- 1:09:35Tim argues that cynical people like him and the guest can engage with dark historical material while others find it unbearable.
- 1:10:09Allen Dulles was personally responsible for probably millions of deaths through coups and propped-up tyrannies.
- 1:10:37Tim reads the closing quote from David Talbot's book about Angleton and CIA leadership.
- 1:11:23Angleton on the CIA grand masters Dulles, Helms, and Weisner: you had to believe they would deservedly end up in hell.
- 1:11:43Angleton's final line: 'I guess I will see them there soon'—in response to discussing their damnation.
- 1:11:58Show ends with goodbye on social media handles and closing 'See you in hell.'
Allen DullesCIAThe Devil's ChestportThe Good ShepherdDavid TalbotJames Angleton