Transcript for #1299 - Annie Jacobsen

I heard through the grapevine you were a fan.

I mean, same thing that's going on all over the place when it comes to military secrets, which is stuff that you want to know about, very few people know about, and every now and then a journalist gets a hint.

I write in the book all about that.

Last 12 pages. You want me to go to the worst pages? What do you think? So Area 51 was this secret test base where the CIA was running spy plane programs. So interestingly, my new book is about ground branch, guys on the ground. That's about air branch, what we were doing in the air. And it was this idea that we should spy on the enemy. But if you go back in time, why area 51 really started? You learned that it was a base hidden inside of a base nuclear weapons. And it was all about beating Stalin at his black propaganda campaign. It's alright in the book. Two hoax Americans in a war of the world's type scenario, whereby Little men who looked like aliens would get out of an aircraft. And the government would go crazy about it. And then Stalin would say, look, we have not only do we have technology better than you, but we have a better propaganda department than you. Real. Joe, you gotta read the whole book. This is like a, this is a tough opening.

All right.

All right. I'm gonna make you save that. I'm gonna make you earn it. Yeah. How's that? I mean, you want me to talk about that right now, right off the bat. Why is it? I'm sweating.

Oh my god, it's such an incendiary topic. I mean, people want to believe they're aliens, right? Okay. I mean, I've spent five books dealing with the mythology of Area 51, which is phenomenal in its own way, because it speaks so much to power to morality, to information, to, you know, people's desire to know what's going on and the government's desire to keep things hidden. So this topic is always coming up because a lot of people want to believe that there were aliens in that craft. And my source, who I write about in the book, told me otherwise that they were genetically, you know, that they were. Let me stop you right there.

That's one legend. So in my book, I interview a man who worked for the Atomic Energy Commission, who tells a different story, tells the story of receiving that craft at Area 51, in 1951, which is why the base is called Area 51. And that inside the craft were humans who had been altered, surgically altered to look like aliens. in a plan for stalling to sort of twist Truman's arm because at that time we had the atomic bomb when Roswell happened we had the atomic bomb and the Soviets did not.

And also because the idea was and remember or I can't say remember because you haven't read the book yet. And I wrote this book eight years ago. But it did really impact a lot of my thinking and working on government secrecy projects because it makes you really consider what a hoax means and what it means to a population of people and how the government begins to work with disinformation versus cover stories and all of that. But going back to answer your question, that is what I was told by the source.

Which is why the book went through the roof in terms of people being upset about it. I mean, were they? Oh my god. I interviewed 79 CIA guys, Air Force guys spy pilots, engineers. I mean, who's mad at you?

They conspiracy theorists were mad at me because they said this woman is bananas. They were aliens.

Yeah, he plays a huge role in Area 51. I mean, before Bob Lazar went public,

I mean, which brings me to another book I wrote called The Pentagon's Brain, which, you know, sort of off this idea was like, wait a minute, what kind of technology is the government capable of? And we have it whole department for that reason called DARPA, which looks at weapon systems 25 years out. So the idea that you and I don't know what the military is capable of in the air underwater, wherever it may be. is because we're not thinking 25 years out, and they are, and they're developing weapon systems. The great weapon systems of the future, that's what they call them.

I mean, it's fascinating when someone touches upon a subject that the government does not want known about for any reason. And there is a campaign to discredit that person. And there's no doubt that that happened to him. I mean, it was remarkable. And I write about him in the book because if you follow the logic that my source told me that these were modified human beings as part of a hoax. And the reason that I trust the source is because Joe heat told me that he also worked on the program. He had like a burden to unload, right? And so if you follow that logic through, then the Bobblas are story is that Bob, when Bobblas are said, I saw an alien. It looked like this. It was small. It had big eyes. It's, yes, those were the genetically, genetically modified humans that the government was doing experiments on.

Well, the source was a major player in the Manhattan Project. He went on and worked in the Atomic Energy Commission. I mean, there's a wing of a museum named after him. His accolades, his awards were so extraordinary. What's his name? I've never said his name.

He recently died and he didn't give me permission to tell his full story after he died. And I'm circling around that. I'm circling around that. But he was absolutely, you know, with the key clearance, that's what you have when you have access to nuclear secrets. So if someone has a key clearance for decades and they're full of garbage, you really have to ask, my God, should this guy have a key clearance? I mean, that's reverse engineering, his credibility, but I think you should read the whole book because, you know, it's shocking what he says, but it does make sense if you can get through 400 pages of You know, the CIA's idea about information, disinformation. Why we need to cover things up. Why?

I don't believe he's lying to you. What's so information? No, I don't believe. I don't believe.

But here's the rub, ready? Okay. When I was writing another book called Phenomena, which dealt with the CIA and the Pentagon's use of psychics. Okay. Over decades. I mean, this goes back. Everything I write about pretty much goes back to post World War, when they... Well, they remote viewing stuff. Yes. Yes. And it's all about government, US government takes poll position after World War II, and we now need to always be ahead of the curve. We must lead. We can never get beaten by the Russians. Now it's China. Okay. So the psychic program had a lot of people who really believe in aliens or other intelligence from other worlds. And when I was writing the phenomenon book, I learned a whole bunch of new information about how upset they were with my story because they all knew the source, by the way. They knew the source and they believed that he was fed misinformation. So these are two sides of the coin which are super interesting. I think if you can look at them with your own biased turned off and not have a desired outcome. I want to believe this. I don't want to believe this. Speaking of I want to believe, you know, is working on a project with Chris Carter, who is the ex files creator and the one person I took the source that I wanted to meet the source was Chris Carter and I we went out there together and sat with him and met him and it was well because the source had never even heard of the ex files that it was like I know they talked about baseball you know really see

Right.

I'm not saying I'm telling you the truth at all. That's why I was not true. Let's wait for our three because it's too explosive people have such a horse in the race. Yeah.

Well, I mean, maybe you are neutral. I don't know. I know I'm neutral.

I stayed with the source. I mean, after the book published, I would go and visit him. We'd sit in a Chinese restaurant and eat and talk and I would try to get a droplet of information out of him. Oh my god. I mean, look, here's another thing. When the book came out, his wife of 65 years knew it was him. And I went out to Las Vegas and sat there in a room with the source and his wife. And she said, tell me this isn't true. Tell me you made this all up to her husband. And he said, It's the truth. I mean, that's a triangular version of getting out the truth, but again, to reiterate, I believe he believes what he told me was the truth. That was the truth he was told.

Well, we met because I was interviewing nuclear weapons engineers who were setting off nuclear bombs in area 51. I mean, in the Nevada Test Site area 12, there are 23. And they all said to me, you've got to talk to the top engineer of all this weaponry. And they gave me his name. And we talked for days and hours about nuclear weapons. And then in one conversation, he began to cry and told me this story that I was like what was he crying he was crying because he participated in our version of the human experiments because what the Russians do we do look I've written five books about we altered people to make them look like alien according to him we had a small program in 1951 where we wanted to see how the Russians did what they did how they made human beings look like this.

He said they were handicapped children.

And he told me that he participated in this. So again, I mean, unless you have someone that lost their mind at age 90 and was willing to tell their wife of 65 years, I lost my mind.

This is where we get into drops of information. Come here. But what I can say is he had a grandchild that was born that way. And the grandchild did not live long. The grandchild died. And it made him feel so guilty about what he had done that he felt compelled to confess, if you will. And I remember saying to him, why are you telling me this? Why don't you tell a priest? And he said, A priest would judge me, and I can tell you won't.

Well, I guess that's why I'm a born journalist joke, because I really try not to judge people. I mean, my new book, Surprise Kill Vanish. It's about assassins. It's about people who work for the CIA who do what needs to be done on the ground in the name of national security. I don't judge them. This is why, you know, what's really at issue here is morality, right? Yeah. I mean, can I tell you how I got the idea for this book?

You want to talk about the idea?

He was totally neutral about aliens. He had nothing to do with aliens. He could have carried less. He didn't watch the ax files.

His take-on-bobles are was that he probably saw something that the government had an extension of the program. I mean, he didn't know that was speculative. We didn't talk about that. I mean, you know, other than inference, he was very limited in his information that he would get out. But I mean, I used 79 sources in that book that all went on the record in name. And he was the one anonymous source. Because, but like I said, you know, he told me after he died that I could tell the whole story. Are you going to? I'm on. You might come back. Right another book. Well, if you give me a break and back off this subject, I might come back and tell you and you're on the same thing. Back off this name. His name is your book.

I mean, I'm teasing you. Right. But it's, it's like, It's an astonishing story and I think the best line of all is that people that read about that in the very end of what we did, they go, I wish they were aliens.

That's what you're going to do. The rest of the afternoon. Nope.

Okay. Come on with the question. Okay. I mean, you're asking the questions.

In those days, drones were, there was a mothership and a drone was attached to it and it was jettisoned off. Okay. So in those days. Well, in 1947, 48. Well, they didn't, I mean, that was drone technology then. All right. So there's a mother, a mother craft, like a aircraft, and then the drone is like a small aircraft under it, and it gets jettisoned off. And that was what the craft was. It was jettisoned off, so that so Stalin actually, according to the source, invaded our aerospace, which was the deep embarrassment to Truman.

Yes, as a way to, and remember, I mean, not remember, but where this was was, you know, very close to a nuclear weapon space two hour. White sends military base. I mean, this is like not a place you want the Russians to be able to get near. You know, I mean, what was interesting is that Area 51, we then went out and mimicked all of those. One of our early drones was a mimicry of that. It was the D2, there was an M21, which was the mothership and a D21, which was the daughter-ship. So how did the pilot them?

No, no, then it was like there was a pilot in the mothership and they kind of let it go. And it flew off. I mean, there's incredible stories about the CIA was able to do out there at Area 51 with their air branch, you know? The technology. They're always ahead of technology.

Yeah, that in the 80s, it gets really crazy with what they're able to do and what they're. But I mean, why I like looking at history is because you can see the progression. You see how science evolves, you know, bit by bit. And then there's these great breakthroughs because what the government is always looking for is called a revolution in military affairs. And that's certainly what drone technology did later on as drones became developed after the Vietnam War.

I mean, that's probably had something like that about that. When the F-17 was revealed during the first call for that aircraft was being developed for 20, 25 years out at Area 51. Actually, at Area 52 was where they had it set up to develop that stealth technology. Think about, and what was amazing, talk about keeping secrets. They had something like 10,000 people working on that. No one knew about it. That story was never broken by the press, not by anyone. It just suddenly appeared in the Gulf War and took out Saddam Hussein's facilities. That's a revolution in military affairs. What becomes interesting is then it becomes obsolete. Because now everybody knows about it, and everybody's going to mimic that. And now you have to have a new weapon system, and that's the military industrial complex.

The latter, right? And remember, that information I am very limited to. That's why it's drive pages. It's like the source gave me these little bits of information, which I felt I felt was important to include because it speaks to the big issue. Why is Area 51 classified? I mean, now it's not. President Obama was the first president to actually say Area 51 publicly. Some people say it because of my book, right? Meaning it was out. The secret was out. But before that, I went through 10,000 pages of documents from the National Archives. And every place you see, the word Area 51 was actually redacted. Why would you keep that so secret? I mean, all the guys that I was interviewing say they could call it You know, groom Lake, they could call it the test facility, they could call it Paradise Ranch, but they couldn't say Area 51. Why? And the source said, well, because we did this horrible program out there, and the government doesn't want anyone to know about that ever. I mean, there's stories of like somebody asking Bill Clinton, you know, about Area 51, him going white. I mean, human experiments? Who wants to be part of that? It's horrible.

Wow, my goodness. I mean, you read, now the declassified documents tell us how many different human experiments were going on around nuclear weapons. Okay. Horrible experiments, where they were subjecting people to radiation. because they wanted to know, they felt, well, it's more important to know what happens to people than to not know. And so they would take groups of people that say had cancer or something and test them. So there's no doubt that the government has experimented on humans. It's just, is that something that is wise to make public? And, you know, there's two sides of the coin on that. I mean, when you reveal these kind of things, when you write about them, I mean, people get really upset and, you know, vilify the government, partially with good reason, and partially it's like bad for national security. So I think that's the justification on the part of the defense department to keep things secret.

I mean, it was radio and world war too, right?

And, you know, so you see, you can see the logic. I mean, at first it sounds absurd. And it sounds ridiculous. And that's why I was sweating because it's like, I know. Right. But when you think it through and I challenge you to read the whole book because you start piecing together these various ideas and disinformation becomes less vague and more specific and you go, ah, that's how it works. And you begin to see how people's perception and how they're easily manipulated factors into national security. Just like you just described, Stalin knew about that. He was a master. He was the master of propaganda. He invented it. I mean, he didn't invent it, but he invented it in a, you know, on the political stage to be used to mess with another country's perception of things. Think of what he did with brainwashing, right? Okay. So, like in the 50s, and this is journalist, you know, said, so there was a journalist who was putting out stories about brainwashing, and there was this idea, which is well taken that, to tallitarian government's brainwash people. And this became a big code word. It was introduced into the American lexicon in 1950. Well, then we're in the Korean War. Our pilots start getting shot down. They're put on TV by the Communist, saying terrible things about American pilots. And suddenly it was like, they've been brainwashed. It was very convenient to have that story. So these things were part and parcel and you've got all kinds of smart people behind the scenes, knowing this, looking at it, examining it, and using it to their advantage, to stay where in the poll position. That's the goal of the US government.

I'm telling you that because you're asking me these questions that as if I spent, I mean, look, I did spend literally hundreds of hours with a source. We sat there and talked about everything and I would try to squeeze out just like you're trying to squeeze out of me and that's why I'm saying read it because I literally tell you everything that there is. I think what's most interesting about the source and why I might come back and talk to you about it and tell you who is on your show is because of his backstory. Right? Why he did what he did? How he wound up in the Manhattan Project.

No. Trying.

Morality. Talk to me. I want to talk about Morality. I want to talk about why we can't talk about certain things.

And why? Why are we not supposed to know about that? That should we know about that? The way the story started for me, I'm at my house in 2009. A source is calls me up he says I'm on my way back from the Middle East. I'm going to pop by the house and say hi. He brings me a challenge coin that says Kabul Afghanistan State Department. I'm thinking, okay, he is not a diplomat. I mean, he's weapons trained. At the time, my boys were young. There were lots of G.I. Joe's in the garden. And they had little weapons, right? And the source is showing them about the weapons. And they're like so into it because they know he's military trained. And then he says, if it's okay with your mom and dad, I'll show you some weapons. Boys are like, please. So he sets up this sniper rifle in the living room and I live up in the hills and you can look across the canyon through this scope. He set up and I can see the veins on the leaf across the canyon. And I thought, okay, so now I know what he was doing in Kabul Afghanistan. He's taking out al Qaeda with this. There's another case on the ground that he never opens. And when the boys go off, I say to him, what's in that? And he said, he opens it up, and inside there's a knife, and it's serrated. And I said, what's that for? Immediately realizing, you know, my knife every day. And he says to me, sometimes a job requires quiet. So why that became interesting to me was because of my own thoughts and perceptions about what he had told me. In other words, I could deal with him with a sniper rifle. I could be like, okay, that's what he does. But the knife gave me pause. See, slidding someone's throat, is it in the ribs? And I thought, why is it that I am willing to accept the clinical nature of a sniper rifle? But I can't, I'm uncomfortable with that close-up hand-to-hand killing. And that led me to surprise Kill Vanish, because that was the motto of the precursor agency. of the CIA was called the OSS, the Office of Strategic Services. Their motto was surprise, Kilvanish, because they would jump out of aircraft, land, work with their French partners and kill Nazis with a knife to the throat. And I thought, okay, that's considered okay because they were Nazis, right? But we're not supposed to do that anymore in this world we live in, why? And I spent the whole This whole book researching and reporting is about that sort of conundrum, if you will. That moral puzzle, you know, why do we, why do we differentiate?

Yeah, MBS, Mohammed bin Salman. I mean, that's the idea is that they're head of state wanted him killed because he was a threat because he was a reporter because he was writing some things.

Yeah, I mean, and there's, that's a great question because what you're saying is like, okay, so, but we all think of that as reprehensible. Right. Right. Why, you know, because.

Yes. Yeah. And who decides who's a threat? I mean, a lot of this book is about who's on the kill list. Right. I mean, there is an actual kill list. They're always husband. Mm-hmm. And the euphemisms involved. I mean, I write history, as I said. So Eisenhower called his assassination program Health alteration. I mean, literally in the due class of eye documents.

He had a health alteration committee. Whoa. Kennedy had an executive action committee. All right. That's all cleaner. All right. Guess what Reagan's was called?

Close. Pre-emptive neutralization.

They're bearing the information, right? And they keep switching around the switch around who has authority to You know, say, yes, let's go ahead and put this guy on the kill list. I mean, that was fascinating. I mean, I interviewed a guy named John Rizzo who's a decades-long CIA attorney. I was stunned that he was willing to talk to me. And he explained to me how a presidential finding also called a memorandum of notification works that gives the president the authority to put an individual on the kill list that job is then given to the CIA's paramilitary army an operator or their assassins because the CIA works under a code called title 50 So it makes it legal, whereas the defense department works under what's called Title 10. So in other words, and they can't, they're rules of engagement are totally different. So the misnomer is like, oh, the seals killed Ben Laden. Well, they were seals trained but that was a CIA mission because Pakistan is a sovereign nation and the military can't kill people in countries we're not at war with so those guys all became essentially CIA operators for the night. And if you look at photographs, as I have seen, you'll notice that they have no markings on their outfits so that if the job went south, that'd be like, I don't know who these guys are. And if you look back at Vietnam photos of the Mac Vesog teams, which I also write about, in surprise kill vanish because that's the precursor of that you see no markings right that's that way you can go into you can go behind enemy lines you can go into louse you know in the vanton more you can go now you can go into Pakistan what i learned reporting this book is we're in a hundred and thirty four countries doing title fifty operations i think about that government wants that to be kept secret

Not, yes, not under the rules of engagement of the military, but the CIA works at the president's behest. That was one thing that really blew my mind to report, to research, to understand, I talked to 42 guys who have direct access to this, who are in this world. You know, from the knuckle draggers on the ground, as they call themselves, to the lawyer at CIA. Senior intelligence staff, that's equivalent of a general at the CIA. Those guys explaining to me, Annie, this is how it works, you know. And again, to your question, why do someone get to know that? And why does the government want? Why do they allow that information out as super interesting? And I believe that has to do with a certain climate we're in right now about military might, right? In other words, what the CIA does is called tertia-optio. It's the third option. You've got the first option is diplomacy. Second option is war. So if diplomacy is not working, and war is on wise, you go to the third option, which is the CIA's paramilitary.

134.

And you as a competitor would be fascinated by the kind of training they do. And what they do, I mean, so many of these infiltration techniques are mind boggling. You know, they've got halo jumping, which you know about, right? Where they, high altitude, low opening. So they jump out. They, you know, free fall down, terminal velocity. Pull the rip cord really low, so they're not detected by radar. And then they meet up with a team on the ground and go do what they do. And they also have halo, which is high altitude, high opening. And that way you can fly over airspace where we're allowed and float into let's say a country like around and land gather your team and do what you have to do but like so much of what I report I get information like that and then I ask a million questions like you've asking me and it's like can't talk about that that's classified you don't you you're a journalist so you're trying not to judge but

Meaning, have the president having a third option? Well, I mean, I write in the book that that's in the prologue after I tell that story about the source with a knife. I say, I want it to know. And that exact question, like, is this a good thing? And my answer at the end after it's complex, not to be vague, but it is really complex, is also that, well, if you're going to take that poll position, you must accept rivalry, right? Also after talk, do I think it's a good thing. After talking to a lot of 20-year-old soldiers who come back from the war theater, missing a limb, or with intense PTSD, and who essentially serve as cannon fodder, I would say, my opinion, right, for the Pentagon. That's the second option, war. The 42 guys that I interviewed, you know, They're like, send me. They are a professional. They are tier one operators. They're green berets. They're seals. They're delta. They retire. They join the CIA. So they're like professionals at what they do. And they're saying, I want someone has to do this job. We've been doing this since the end of World War II. I want to do it. So do I think it's better? I mean, I think that that concept speaks to choice, right? Because I'm not so sure that the 20 year olds know what they're in for and the 40 year olds know what they're in for and are willing to do it.

Right? I mean, and also has, you know, a lot of times I talk to these young kids who go to war. And they tell me what a fascinating detail is that they talk about movies that they see and whether it's saving private Ryan or Black Hawk down, even, right? Where the outcome is not necessarily great, but they talk about the romanticization of or, and of camaraderie and of brotherhood that comes from that. And then they have their experience and some of that does give them that sense. But not always. Whereas the operators are much more about getting the job done. That's what I was fascinated by. I mean, these guys are really clear. They're competitors. They're like top tier competitors. They have a job. They do it. They get it done. And they ask for the next job.

You mean, are they like, kill him nicely? Like, don't make it hard?

Well, I mean, that's, you know, that's a big issue. what I try to write in what I try to report in surprise kill advantage is the idea that the people we take out maybe are bad guys right one one guy right about his check of our okay because j is often portrayed in the press as you know this amazing hero and that he and we you know I don't know if you know but he was he was killed by the Bolivian Rangers but it was a CIA operation and I interview the man in charge of that operation in surprise kill vanishes name was Felix Rodriguez okay long serving CIA paramilitary officer so but I also report Why the president to your question wanted Che Guevara dead? You know, he was really advocating for nuclear war. And I, and I showed that. Yes, I mean, he spoke publicly about, you know, if, if we have to have an atomic war, the Cuban paraphrasing, the Cuban people will be happy to have sacrificed themselves to that. I mean, Jay was also, Jay killed anyone who betrayed him. He killed. He writes about it in his diaries as I write in the book, right? So, but on the morality question, who decides? I don't have that answer, but I will tell you what I did. I went with my main source, Billy Waw, who he's, 89 now and he was he's been with the CIA for 60 years, okay? I mean, and he and I went to Cuba for him to do a halo jump with Che Guevara's son. So we were a guest of the man whose father was killed by the CIA. And we had this really interesting discussion in the cigar club where Che and Castro, you know, smokes cigars and plotted the downfall of the United States. And that's what I try to give readers a sense of the long lens of history, how time changes all things. Maybe leave with them with this idea which they can come to their own conclusions about what you asked me, if is it right or is it wrong? Because really what you might ask is, is it necessary? I mean, I could moralize right wrong, but it would just be my opinion. But when you see, I went, Billy Wahn, I also traveled to Vietnam because he was supposed to kill. He was tasked to kill the top commander of the North Vietnamese Army, a guy named General Shop. And, while I didn't kill Job, and we had this incredibly, this terrible mission that went awry that I write about in the book in the Vietnam War. So, 50 years later, while I go to visit the son of General Job, or sitting there in Job's home, talking about these same issues, right? And my conclusion of that, again, is not is it right or wrong, but is it necessary? I mean, we have these wars. We keep having these wars. is it necessary?

Well, I mean, my opinion is that the Defense Department is far too concerned with vast weapon systems of the future, which is its mission statement of its science department. And so you create what's on at the Pentagon call, a self-licking ice cream cone, or the military industrial complex. And there's a lot built into that. There's a lot to be said about.

Absolutely. I mean, when I was reporting the Pentagon's brain, which is about DARPA, and I was sitting there with scientists who were working on limb regeneration, right? Or working? Or working? Yeah. Oh my god, they have these little salamanders. I mean, they're showing that salamanders can regenerate their limbs. And so, human, their idea, their down at UC Irvine, they have this incredible lab, and they're funded by DARPA, because that's where the money comes from, right? And their idea is that humans should be able to regenerate their limbs. And 50 years out will be doing that. And they're working on the science for that. Well, that's the same science that allows for cloning. And so in our discussions, because that's how I try to report, is like really ask people what they think about future consequences and they said to me your exact question which is well Annie what if one day we wake up and we find out that China has cloned the first human or a dark horse like Saudi Arabia you know the American people are gonna freak out and go where the hell was DARPA why aren't we ahead of the curve so it's that there's a chicken in the egg problem with that of like well we have to stay ahead we're We're on top. We want to be on top. It's kind of terrifying. I mean, everything I write about is terrifying.

I'm more worried of, no, God, no. I'm more worried about coming on your show and being asked to have questions than I am about, no, it's using you. But then I am about, I mean, this stuff is informative, you know? It's informative and it's a longer conversation. That's why I think what you do with your podcast is awesome because people can really get into the thinking about things, right? They can really, and they can move away from their own preconceptions, their own biases, they're bringing into it. And they're stopping for a minute and they're going, what do I really think about that? And to really think about something you need information. Yeah. And information can be boring unless it's interestingly presented through conversation, through, you know, uncomfortable conversation.

But that's the reporter's job, or at least my job. So in other words, okay, so I go to visit Billy Waw at his home. And I knew I heard stories about he's this legendary operator, right? And he's also what's called a singleton. So he works alone. And when I was at the column of singleton, right? Which is like he's got one guy giving him orders. And he's out there. Oh my God. I mean, Billy Waw is, right? I mean, back, can we back up for a second? I'm going to give you this. Here's this guy. He's in Vietnam, and he's part of what was called Mac Vesog, right? And they're doing cross-border missions into Laos, and it's so dangerous. It's like, it's a CIA program that sag stands for studies and observations group. I'm as opposed to sound like a bunch of guys in Ivy League tower with bow ties, right? But the guys on the ground called it suicide on the ground. That's how dangerous it is. A hundred percent. of the people had casualties, right? Billy Wall has nine purple hearts from the work he did. Nine, okay? I mean, they get shot, they bandaged themselves up there, you know, they're up in an aircraft because they're limping instead of on the ground, you know, viewing the missions. The war ends, everybody's furious with the government, with the military. There's no room for special operators. I mean, everything, it's called the time of troubles by them. Billy was working in the post office. And he gets this knock, you know, and it's like he's back in the CIA now in 1977. So he was out? He was out. It was over. I mean, he was, you know, it was over. That was it. He was working in the post office. He was working in the post office. He was working in the post office. He was working in the post office.

He was working in the post office. He was working in the post office. He was working in the post office. He was working in the post office. He was working in the post office. He was working in the post office. He was working in the post office. He was working in the post office. He was working in the post office. He was working in the post office. He was working in the post office. He was working in the post office. He was working in the post office.

He was working I mean, but he said the most incredible thing to me because he said I and he doesn't ever talk about fear and he said there's only one time my whole life I've ever been afraid and that was in the post office.

And he said, I'm going to wind up being one of those old guys drinking beer at the end of the bar, talking about the war. Right? And instead, he gets called up by the CIA and they send him to Libya in 1977. And his cover is that he's training Kodafi's paramilitary guys in paramilitary times. I mean, that's the beginning of his career. And it goes on all the way until we were in Cuba, I think, was an actually some kind of a mission. Because it was like, what are we doing here in Cuba doing infiltration and expiltration? Techniques, allegedly with Jagovara Sun. But in any event, you know, when I went to visit Billy Wall the first time. He's got this, you know, he's got certificates and awards and medals all over the walls of his home. But there's one framed item that I'm looking at and it's a knife and there's a seal from the CIA and it says in appreciation to the assassin. And I said, Billy, tell me about that. And he said, you know, I can't talk about that. So I, you know, stayed with him for two years now. I mean, stayed, we conversed, we traveled. I interviewed him, you know, hundreds of hours. And I kept asking him about that award. And he kept saying, you know, I can't talk about that. But as I write in the book, he couldn't talk about it, but others did. So that's how a reporter works. You get introduced to enough of his friends, enough of the others who are involved. You make sure they're a legitimate source and you begin to find out what he can't talk about. And that's what I report in the book. And that is very explosive because President Bush right after 9.11 created what was called a stalker team. And ironically, people have this idea that we've been sending a team of assassins around the world in NATO, partner countries. And that, what I learned had never happened until right after 11 with the stalker team. 12 men and actually one or two women, the femme fatale, and they would go after bad guys. And they adopted the term from the Reagan era. So it was called preemptive neutralization. Who's who are the women? There's always one woman on the team that's what I was told by the guy who is in charge of the stalker team and Well, I mean he He gave me this great example. I don't report in the book, but I'll tell you right

he said so women have a different presentation and this like he told me a story of a woman sitting on a bench you know in embracing a man right and no one thought anything of it and it allowed her to spy on someone in a manner that would a man would it would have drawn attention and then the stalker team could go so what their job would be to is to conduct surveillance of a target and they call it making book they have to make book on that individual so they know exactly where the guy is and they're waiting on the president's orders, whether or not they should take action. And you know, that's where the, that's where the information stops, right? I say, well, then what happens?

I think it's why so many of these operators stay in it long-term, right?

Adrenaline. I mean, that's what that is. Imagine jumping out of an aircraft. landing in, you know, behind enemy lines, and then your work begins. And then you have to get out. That's why surprise kill vanish. I mean, you got to surprise your way in, kill them, and then get out.

Well, it's like the pink Floyd line, you know, living life of quiet desperation. I mean, that just terrifying.

And how do people get stuck there?

Where do you think opportunity plays into that?

But can people just make that change?

Then you're desperate and you're quiet. But I do think there is something to be said for fate and circumstance. Sure. And I always write, I mean, people in these military environments that I write about, and in these intelligence world environments, Fate and circumstance plays a big part because they too can even get complacent, you know? But when your life is on the line, right? A lot of times they have these experiences where they're like, I must change. And that's what I find really interesting in people.

How about people getting lost? Right? I'll tell you. So the book that I told you I wrote on the Psychics, phenomenal. What do you believe about that? Again, I'm neutral, right? You're not telling me, I want to hear what you believe.

Absolutely.

He has a big heart.

They circumstance getting lost. Oh, psychics.

Oh, that's interesting.

I mean, I think you're talking also about what some scientists would call the self-affilling prophecy, you know, that if you believe this things happen, manifest themselves and you can convince yourself that you believe this. But for me, I'm super interested in people who really believe in psychics, right? Like that's what, and the military, for example.

I talked to a lot of the scientists who taught the remote viewing, and I talked to a number of remote viewers, and for the book, but the most interesting of all was the astronaut Ed Mitchell, right? And he was so, so I'm interested in like the psychology behind, what are you looking for in that? I saw that I was doing some research in an archive and I came across a photo of what turned out to be Ed Mitchell on the moon reading a piece of paper. It's a extraordinary image because you're like, wait a minute, he's on the moon and he's reading a document. What is that document? I found out the document was a map of the moon. Mitchell got lost on the moon and literally pulled a map out of like, okay, he was trying to get to a certain crater. and they had a very limited amount of time. There is right there. Right? Okay, there he is. Wow. I mean, think about that. It's like the most advanced technology of the time.

They had little maps folded up in their pockets in case they got lost. They were on the way to this crater. And in that crater, they were going to find allegedly rocks that were going to solve the mystery of the moon's creation, the origin story. It's like all this pressure. They couldn't find it. The heart rates up. The guys are Houston. Like you got to turn back. Your heart rates going crazy. And think about it. Mitchell tells me I went to interview him at his house when I think it was his last interview before he died. And he said there we had gotten 240,000 miles to only to get lost. They missed the crater by like, you know, 900 feet or something. Really? So he never got to the crater. Never got to it. He was devastated. And on the way back from the moon, he has this, what he told me was a psychic change, right? He is his consciousness flipped. and he became convinced that psychic powers were real. And that is really the beginning of his foray. I mean, Mitchell became a huge proponent of psychic warfare of, you know, the idea behind what you're talking about, that we spoke of as being sort of charlatanism, and he dedicated the rest of his life to it. And he was a ridicule.

And that comes from like, he was so vilified by the scientists and by the astronauts and by the kind of military men, because this was just, he told me the story of when they were in quarantine after they came back from the moon, right? He and Shepard were sitting there, you know, eating breakfast, waiting in Shepard, the story broke that Mitchell had done some ESP experiments on the way back from the moon. And Shepard said to him, like, look at this nonsense. The newspapers will do anything to make a buck. And Mitchell said, I did that. I actually did that. And what experiments? So he was doing ESP experiments on the way back from the moon. He had a psychic in Chicago, a Swedish psychic, that he was sending messages to, like, what's your hot? It was an old Swedish man, right? I don't think he named it a lot, right? But I hear Swedish psycho. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. No, you all introduce you to Olaf. Okay.

I didn't see that one. Olaf's the little snowman. I don't know. You got younger kids. Yeah. Miss that one. Mine are older.

The hot old man in and the story broke because the the Swedish psychic could not resist telling you know leaking to the press that he had done these experiments.

Well, psychics train on these little cards called zener cards, right? So like, you have different symbols on them and, you know, one person, that's how they decide whether or not they're being psychic. Like, there would be a veil between us and I would say, what do you seeing, right? And you would call it out. So it's like a control system. And Mitchell had these items with him on the way to the moon and did these experiments to try to see whether you could have a psychic connection with someone back on earth. I mean, that was, you know, Well, no, and he took notes and he showed me the notes. It was so wild to be at his house in Florida and he pulls out this old spiral notebook with like water stains on it that actually went to the moon. I was like, wow, this is really something else. I mean, it was one of those moments in time where you're just like, I don't know, there was a feeling of sadness around all of it with Ed Mitchell sitting there and his, You know, his chair and talking to me about what it was like to be in a polyastronaut on the walls. I'm with a lot of these sources with like credible amounts of awards on the walls, but what does that mean after time passes? Right.

Yes. I mean, and that's, and he, okay, so what was it? He was ridiculed, you know, and he had such a tough time with it. And so the people who propped him up and the people who gave him a lot of encouragement had sort of more radical ideas as he grew older. You know conspiracy theorists who really kind of used him because he was an Apollo astronaut. So he was so much more famous than any of them would ever be and they really took advantage of him.

And people take advantage of that.

I think people helped him make that claim. That was my understanding of it of reporting it. I mean, I stayed away from some of the crazier speculative things about him because what I was really interested in when I was writing that book was how his authority and power allowed the program to get funding, right? Because so much of this is it's like who's funding this stuff and why? It really does come down to authority, which is always a narrative that I find fascinating, right? How do people get the authority to say go on these programs? Or, you know, we should do that. I mean, the question you asked of like, how to who's in charge, right? And in all of this, what I learn more than anything is that the office of the president has a lot more power than I think any of us are aware. Oh, I'm sure.

It's absolutely true.

I mean, one of the great perils of, you know, living on your laurels is exactly that. And it's why, I mean, like a guy like Billy Waugh, I was so intrigued by it that he was constantly reinventing his own role within the CIA as he talked to me about it, length because he never wanted to just become one of those husbands, right? So his cover later became just another old man. which is like super interesting like he was in Sudan in the 90s and he actually took the first reconnaissance photographs of Osama bin Laden before bin Laden was on anybody's radar except for the CIA's and his I mean how do you run or he said to me how do you run around Sudan which is a country made up of like really tall black dinka tribesmen if you're a five foot eight old white guy who's 72 you know supposed to get reconnaissance photographs of bin Laden do it where golf shirts you know I have a photograph of him he wore like you know those socks like that go all the way up to your mission yes and little shorts and a sweat band over his head and he said my cover was that I was an old man on a fitness craze And there he is running around Sudan. I mean, there's no sidewalks, right? And he's just jogging away. And he said, Bin Laden's dogs used to come after him. And so he would have to run with a lead pipe. And he would whack the dogs on the nose and he said, they stopped coming after me.

I mean, that's an easy narrative.

Well, look, one of the most interesting things about reporting this is that you find out these people that you think have access to all the information. Right. Only know there are peace of the pie.

I mean, to everybody. I often wonder that, like, can the president be like, I demand to know about them? Yeah. And then can they say no, sir? Or they say, as I write in one of my other books, it's like, you don't want to know about that, because you don't want to have to lie.

I would want to know. That would be the only reason to become president.

And the curiosity factor would be outrageous. I mean, can you imagine being the president and saying, I want to know about, you know, JFK and they're like, sir, you don't want to know. Right. Then you would go, well, of course I want to know. Now I really want to know. I mean, that happens to me as a reporter all the time when I can't talk about that. That just becomes the obsession. It's like, I want to know about that.

And then there's all these things that you find out, Jamie and I were talking about that before.

Yeah. I mean, I wrote a book about Operation Paperclip and my God talk about a rabbit's hole.

Allegedly, 1400. But I would not be surprised if, you know. the story changes and then more, right? Yeah. But that goes back to our discussion earlier about being in pole position. I mean, that's why we grabbed those Nazis. We were like, if we don't get them, the Russians.

Well, that was part of the mythology it was like we got the good Germans when I did we got the we got the top Germans and who do you think the top Germans were yeah they were coveted by Hitler himler goring you know yeah I mean these guys were I mean, there were guys that we grabbed out of the docs at Nuremberg literally to come be part of our program.

I mean, you know, ideology aside, I'm super smart and I want that to be known. That's kind of the, that's the competitor, right? I mean, you can't, you cannot be the best rocket designer in the world and not want those talents, you know, demonstrate it. That's one of our brown story. That's the story of all of them. And that was was so shocking writing that book because it's a, It's like, wow, huge amounts of talent, but how far will the competitor go to see their baby come to fruition? What are they willing to put aside?

I mean, the way the Nazis were able to flee is, I can't read enough of that. I mean, that's what Jamie and I were talking about. It's like, oh my God, and it's endless. I mean, they're so, you know, the ones that we, there was a famous guy that we got. He was the surgeon general of the third Reich. I mean, think about that, okay? Dr. Walter Schreiber. I mean, he was such a bad dude. He was in charge of the vaccine program. I mean, you just put those words together and your mind goes really dark, right? But we wanted him because he was an expert in vaccines and we brought him to the United States. He was the only Nazi I found of the ones that paperclip scientists who came here. that was actually out it, right? He was outed as an Nazi, and that's because one of the investigators at the Nuremberg trials recognized him. Oh, Jesus. And he's the only one we got out of here. And guess where he went. And lived out the rest of his life there.

if you can imagine me on book tour of like the kind of questions I get because we're talking right and we're having written books about area 51 Nazis right assassins I mean just last night I was at a book giving a signing and people are like is it really dead you know I mean that it was alive you get the oldest man alive right imagine he was probably like how old was he during World War II

He'd be hundreds, you know, I mean, you know, I bet, right? Or the, he cloned himself.

It was a very intrepid journalist named Linda Hunt.

Yeah, I mean, she, but, you know, she broke the story. That's what's amazing. I mean, as a journalist, you're always writing on the shoulders of those before you, right? And she had it really hard because she did a freedom of information act request. Got all these documents that no one had ever seen. And then the government sent her a bill for $125,000. And she had to spend a lot of time. This is what I understand. I never interviewed her, but for, um, zero-oxing fees. What? Yeah. I just love that detail because it's like, it's such a covert way of gaining someone to stop. It's like, okay, here's the information we had to give it to you, but now here's your bill. Imagine if the government's coming down on you for 125 grand.

No, I mean, she wrote the first book and it was just stunning and you know what it was it? Late 80s early 90s. Okay, and you know Then more gets revealed because they gave her a certain amount. I mean, I filed a bunch of foias. There was releases. I went to Germany. For you, I mean, freedom of information act. Yes. Then I went to Germany and looked in their archives with like a fellow German PhD who had, you know, real access to stuff and was able to translate for me while we were there looking at this stuff. I interviewed a lot of grandchildren of Nazis. and children of Nazis. And, you know, I mean, this one extraordinary, oh my God, there's a guy I told you about Shriver, right? I'm on the narrative level, humans acting. I'm so interested in rivalry and competition, right? as a concept because this is what America does to be the best and also as humans, right? Because people are like that, they're built like that. So the Nazis had rivals among themselves and Shriver's rival was Dr. Blum who was in charge of the biological weapons program for Hitler, okay? And Blum had a son. And Blum was prosecuted at Nuremberg. You can see a picture of him with a big dueling scar. You know, he was a bad dude. He was a dueling scar. Dueling scar. Dueling like a sword sword fighting. It was like among the Nazis they would They would duel with one another when they were younger students. And then they would pack the wound with horse hair to make it even more pronounced because it looked ferocious. Really? What's his name? Well, you can pull up Dr. Blom, B-O-L-M-E, but also, yeah. And also, you can pull up Kurt Davis, who was the director of our JFK Center. He was born Brown's number two. He had a huge dueling scar, and yet when you look at there he is right there. Knowing what we know now, it's like, come on, you're trying to tell me that guy's not a hardcore Nazi.

Well, when they were called into the death? No, no, no, no, no. It was like, oh, God, you know, and then they would then sing. Fencing, fencing.

Oh, I guess that was the gentleman's rule.

I haven't seen any photographs of missing eyeballs, but there's a lot right on the cheek. So maybe that was the whole point. It was actually just a bit for show.

I'm weird. But it was a badge of honor. It was a badge of honor. Yeah. There's more.

Oh, there you go. That's how they didn't take up.

So when you consider like people, people did not know about that and then you've got these Germans walking around America as part of our space program and our science programs and oh, these are the good Germans. I mean, now you really have to say to yourself, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come on, come

So I go to interview. Sometimes you as a journalist, you can get amazing information from these guys.

to piece together the story, right? I can't tell you others can, right? Sometimes in the to find out more about the Nazis, I went to Germany and sought out some children of these top top Nazis to see if maybe they didn't have journals or anything they might share with me. And one of them was Dr. Blom. His son, I tracked down, I found him. And he said, yes, you may come visit me. It was such a remarkable journey. It was like he lived in the black forest. I'd take like a taxi through the mountains up over the hill, down through the valley, you know, into a courtyard behind a church to Dr. Bloem's house. So he was the junior to his father who was this horrific Nazi. I mean, a top Nazi had favor of the fear of war. What was called the Golden Party badge, right? Hitler gave out these little buttons. Blums was, I believe, number six. So that's how favorty was. Wow. And his son, Dr. Kurt Blum, wears the father, was in charge of the biological weapons program. So his plan was to murder people with biological weapons from nature. Right? The son had been a medical doctor, but had left the profession to cure people with flowers. It's called Bach Flower Therapy. So he was this very interesting individual who had never given an interview before. And he agreed to let me come to him. So I go on that journey. I go to his house. And he was remarkable. I mean, he was so interesting talk about the sins of the Father. You know, I mean, my God, what he, what he had, what he had as a burden, right? And he, and I asked him to tell me everything he could about his father and he did. And then he asked me to tell me what I knew about his father. I had information from the German archives about his father that he did not have. Like that his father had given something I'd just come from this archive and found these documents. Dr. Blom ordered that 6,000 tubercular Jews be given, solder be handling. That's the German word. What does that mean? Special treatment. There's a euphemism for you. That was kill those 6,000 tuberculers.

Yes, they were suffering from tuberculosis. And he, Dr. Blumworked closely with him, and they just decided to kill them. You know, sitting there talking to this man, telling him about his father at his request, was remarkable. And then he's telling me what he knows. And then, as I'm getting ready to leave, he says to me, I'd like you to have these. And he takes down from his incredible bookshelf. He himself had written eight books, right? And he takes down these books and he hands them to me. And they're in these rappers. And I can see that they have Nuremberg nominclature on them. And what they are is there is fathers, documents from his Nuremberg trial. And I'm like, I can't take these. I thought you meant take them back to my hotel room, look at them, and then bring them back the next morning when we're doing the next interview. And he said, no, no, I want you to have them. And I was like, I can't have them. And he said, I don't want them. And you should have them. And he gave them to me. So I had this stack. So I was like, on my trip home, it was so perplexing because I threw out all of my clothes. I was like, screw the clothes. I mean, I just traveled with a carry on bag, right? So in my carry on bag, all I have is this Nazi paraphernalia. in the man in Germany that is Dr. Blums. The Deputy Surgeon General of the Third Reich's documents from Nürmburg covered with swastikas. I mean, he was acquitted at Nürmburg based on all these documents, okay? And by the way, based on human experiments. And I'm at the airport and I realize suddenly, oh my god, swastikas, like this is illegal. If they go through my bag, I'm going to be arrested. I'm carrying, I mean, I'm carrying these incendiary.

So you didn't have any journalists, but all the books. No, no, no. I was just like holding my breath at least one. Joe, I was sweating almost as hard as I was sweating at the beginning of this interview.

I was. I went, because you know, I was like, wow, I went through no problem. Got him all my half of my office. I didn't check anything.

Well, you know what? It's not, the swastika is not outlawed there, but it is in Germany. You may not have any Nazi paraphernalia whatsoever. In fact, my paperclip book, which has a swastika on it, had to be redesigned, the cover for the German publication, and it just has like broken up images of the Nazis, because you cannot reproduce that image in Germany.

I know they have it at a different angle, right? But I mean, talk about branding, right? I mean, my god, that was, and the Nazis were, you know, kings of that.

But he didn't kill the dueling scar. Right? That could come back.

No. Not after your show.

No. No, that's what I find remarkable. Right? They really don't.

The Nazis did. And then you look, there's an amazing photograph of JFK, Lyndon Johnson, Kurt Davis. sitting at, you know, for a launch, a moon launch. And there's Davis with his huge dueling scar. And I'm like, and their position was, oh, he's one of the good Germans.

Yes. Good job, Jamie. Look at that. Can you believe that?

They still give out an award, by the way, that's called the Kurt Davis Award. And I rang them up and said, like, why are you guys giving out this award? He was a hardcore Nazi. They were like, they've hemmed and haught, and I finally said, well, at least tell me what you say to people who ask that question. You know what they said? Well, no one's ever asked us that question before Annie.

I mean Einstein said it the best when he said you, you know, you could have left like people who could have left should have left, right.

I mean, you know, then when you think about he was no longer useful to them because they figured out he really was a Jew. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, Nazi Germany is like the pole position taken way too far, right? And that's what's remarkable that the Pentagon was like, OK, but we can learn from this. And there are elements that are dark in that.

I mean, that's why I think it's a rabbit hole because it's so hard to comprehend that like a culture of educated individuals. In that moment in time that you talked about between World War II, World War I and World War II could completely become malevolent.

Do you think those scientists when they came here? Because I could not figure this out even after writing that whole book. Do you think they came here and actually thought about what they had done or they were able to convince themselves that they were the good Germans, that they were part of it. Because I never saw a single bit of remorse ever, like no one ever acknowledged what they had done. So it made me wonder.

It's one of them, you know, you write a book about that or you think about it and you kind of have, you go down the rabbit hole and then you have to, you have to ask yourself, what does this mean or you kind of, it's too dark, right? And so I asked that question to a Auschwitz survivor. Okay, who I wrote about in the book, his name was Gerhard Mashowski. And the reason he was, he survived Auschwitz was because he was taken over to the labor camp, which was called Buna. So it was a rubber factory. And it was led by this truly evil man named Otto Ambrose, who became part of Operation Paperclip. Okay. after being tried at Nuremberg and being convicted of mass murder in genocide, right? We got him out and he worked for us. Really? You got to read this story. I mean, it's just astonishing. Auto Ambrose. It was a chemist. Oh, Mark. Right. But he was so so Gerhard was at Boona, this factory, this rubber factory. And he lived. And I did an interview with him because I was asking him, you know, the flip side of all of that. And his whole family was killed at Auschwitz. And I said to him, what is any of, you know, we went through all these questions to try to get some closure to this or some meaning. And I said, and then I let me land and I said, well, you know, we couldn't answer, what does this mean? Right? What does it mean for today? Couldn't answer. So when I asked him, What matters about all this? He went like this. He lifted up his sleeve, and he showed me his tattoo. And he said that matters. And I have that image, seared in my mind. I had never seen a tattoo from Auschwitz before, and I have not since. And it also made me think, because I thought he's going to die soon, and he has died since. And then that tattoo is gone. So all you have is the exchange of information and people talking about it. Yeah. The eyewitnesses die.

Well, okay, so he was convicted in Erberg then he went to prison. He went to the prison where we had all the. They didn't execute them. No, no, obviously. They executed like the top Nazis and then a lot of these guys went to prison. So there was a bunch of trials. And so I went to the prison. I saw his cell. I mean, in Germany was intense Lanceburg prison and then we because we were sort of policing Nazi Germany after it was not you know after the war was over we were policing Germany and then Kate and a guy named McCoy was in charge he was kind of like the governor general of Germany and the Germans wanted Germany back And they were like, we're tired of you guys policing us. The threat from the Russians was very real. And so deals were made. I mean, I write about all this in paperclip, you know, based on the documents. And one of the provisions was, we want our guys out of prison. We want them back in society. And that was arranged. And again, you don't even know these things, you know, they're like, but that was, and then Otto Ambrose and they even gave him his money back. That was astonishing. And the family still has this villa in Switzerland, I believe, or maybe it's the Bavarian Alps that had been in the family, which is money from, you know, from, from Nazi Germany. And I called up the son to interview him. He was not as forthright as Dr. Blumson, and, you know, he hung up on me and said if you, If you ever contact me again all, you know, they have very serious privacy laws in Germany. I thought about going and knocking on his front door. My lawyer was like, Annie, do not do that. They have very different laws in Germany. For privacy? Yes.

No, but he has the villa. That was the point.

Reparations are big.

I mean, which is sometimes a reason why I realize and looking at these and reporting these books, which is why certain things are kept secret. I mean, they open up a whole can of worms about reparations. Sure, you know.

I mean, that was so dark. My husband is amazing. He's Norwegian, right? And the Norway was occupied by the Nazis for five years. Like, people kind of forget that. But he grew up there in his mom, you know, was a grade schooler and was really impacted. Like, didn't go to school for five years while the Nazis were there. They were going to breed with the Norwegians because they were such lovely Aryan people, right? so my husband having a Norwegian mom was like when I was writing paperclip I would be so dark sometimes I would be like down in my office like I can't you know how do I can't you know I need to be down there with a sandwich or coffee and say but are you throwing another Nazi under the bus And I would say, yes, and he'd say, keep typing, right? And then I realized, well, wait a minute, the neutral journalist has to really make sure that she's not just throwing Nazis under the bus without really good reason. And so when I was in Germany at the archives, I went to Doco. The concentration camp, and I asked the lead archivist if I could come. and see the worst possible photographs that no one wants to see. And he said absolutely. And I didn't write about them in the book because I didn't want to subject people to that kind of horror. But I looked at them and I watched. I saw with my own eyes people moments before they were killed. And then the bodies afterwards. And these are in human experiments to see whether or not pilots could survive height or they simulated different things in chambers, high altitude or speed. And I saw photographs of, you know, freezing people to death, right? Because they were trying to develop programs where they would, they wanted to see at what temperature humans actually died, right? And so they experimented on Jews. These are some of the doctors that came on our programs. And I looked at those, that evidence, and I would, that blew me away. And then I knew when I left there, okay, I can, I can throw these Nazis under the bus.

I mean, the perception really played into it.

Yes, and so I think what it when it all comes around full circles all these government programs I write about is that idea of an evil enemy, right? I mean, we talked about that earlier when you brought up Khashoggi, right? I mean, you know, people often say to me and these are sources that are like Annie Saudi Arabia is the root of all evil. I mean, I hear that constantly and why are they our allies? Why are we protecting them, you know? Oil. Right. Yes. Pretty simple. Right.

And that's, it's why I think the benefit of, you know, people often say to me, why do you write these 500 page books? Well, because, I mean, hopefully they're interesting. And I do know they're interesting because I got this great email drill the other day from a reader. And he said, Annie, I'm a truck driver. And my whole life, people have tried to tell me I'm stupid. But I drive around to my truck and I listen to your books. I read the audio on my books. And he said, now I know I'm really smart. Okay, he's stupid.

Well, come on, give him some space, right?

I think he was making a point that he has the ability to listen, right? Maybe he's not the world's greatest reader. That's how I took it, right?

Yeah, I read all my books.

No, it's amazing to read them. I mean, because you really also feel like later on down the road, you connect with people. Sure. Yeah.

And because I write things that are so at the edge of conspiratorial thinking, right? There's a certain sense of, oh, there's a real human there, right? This is not government propaganda. And I can relate to this, and I can hopefully, I want to say trust, but I can recognize an authenticity, right? Yes. Of working with sources.

I mean, each book has a huge impact for different reasons, but when I think of paperclip, I think of this one saying that was over the gates of book and wall. And it was, it said, Yadam Das Zina. And what that means is everyone gets what they deserve and that was horrible and I still think about that because it's such a piece of Nazi propaganda it was like saying to the Jews you guys deserve this and so I know much of my reporting and my general just way of being as a human is There's no such thing as what you deserve, right? There's what happens, and there's what you do, there's what you're responsible for, and there's what you can change. But that idea is reprehensible. For some reason, that really stuck with me as just the worst possible thing that I could think of. Because it's the psychology behind why they did what they did.

I, the, the trail, the paper trail at the National Archives or individual university libraries and people's papers where I go, they all refer back to that because it was so remarkable that the Nazis led in weapons technology and they almost took over the world because of it. Right? And that is the premise of all of this. I mean, in surprise, Kilvanish, it's like, these are the guys on the ground. In the Pentagon's brain, this is the technology in the sky. But we must, we, the government's position, whether it's Pentagon, CIA, is always, we have to stay ahead because the next Nazi Germany is right around the corner. And that's a, that's really something to think about. Is that alarmist?

With a, what was that? With a missile coming out of a helicopter, I think. Put him in a field.

I mean, that straight up messaging. Right? Which is another thing I think is interesting about the CIA's paramilitary program. It's all meant to remain plausibly deniable. It's supposed to be secret. Like we're not supposed to be giving out the message that we have these teams that go after high value targets. They're just supposed to disappear. That's the vanish part of the. So that, and that as someone who is really interested in transparency and people being educated and having information. That always puts me in conflict with, you know, the government in essence. Because I'm like, we should know. But then you think about it. Well, the whole thing is you were not supposed to know because it's supposed to be just the hidden hand. The president's hidden hand they call it.

And the stories we hear are often the failures because those are the ones that get reported in the press. There is a sense undergirding this narrative, which I really like and am interested in and intrigued by is that the successful operations you don't hear about, because they are plausibly denied.

I mean, also when you think about Russia, because all of this, cold war, science, technology, operations, all of that was to beat back the Russians, okay? Then the Russians go away and now they're back, you know? The Russians are the master assassins and they do it through poisoning. I mean, look at Scurple, right? I write in the book about a defector who came over in the 50s and said, I was in assassin for the KGB. and gave us all kinds of information. It's fascinating to look at those documents and realize like, this is how it worked. This is how it worked, you know, 60 years ago. And then you kind of see echoes of that of how it's working today and you can only imagine the defectors or those who come over from the other side who we learn from and they just disappear. They disappear as sort of the CIA's version of witness protection.

I think the opposite. I really believe that information gives you a certain understanding of like the long view, right? It does not make me paranoid at all. In fact, the opposite people often say, like, my God, the world's about to end. And I say, well, wow, you should really read about what it was like in 19 59 or 1962 when we were really almost at war with the Russians. Thermo nuclear war, right? That is essentially at bay for now, right? So I don't know maybe it's my personality, but I actually take comfort in the fact that what is happening now is sort of As you just said, it's a bit of a re-branding in the modern era of what has always been there, which is rivals seeking supremacy over one another. People trying to outfox the bad guys. What I think has changed is that the desire to prevent war has shifted, and that makes me That makes me upset because we used to sue for peace. We used to want a peaceful world. I mean, war was outlawed in 1928, right? And now we just, the military industrial complex is such that it's really a lot better for the defense department to be in a state of constant war because then you're in a state of constant weapons production and you can always be creating those vast weapons systems of the future for the next war that comes along. And that's troubling because those 18-year-old kids are the ones who get sent into the line of fire.

huge amount for the book that I wrote called the Pentagon's brain. Really impactful moment was going to Los Alamos when I went there to meet a DARPA scientist who was working on an artificial brain for DARPA. I mean, this stuff is way artificial brain. trying to create a system, you know, a free thinking system. And what his name is Garrett Kenyan, what he told me was just utterly fascinating, because again, that human thing I'm always after is like, what are you doing? I mean, leave the science, you've had lots of guys on here, I'll talk to you about the high technology elements, but I'm interested in who's doing that, who's creating that science and why. And he said to me, This is like where artificial intelligence is right now with scientists who are really looking into this. It's like Magellan, you know, like who will discover the new world? But on the idea of frightening artificial intelligence, He told me an interesting story about his daughter, and he said, people seem to think like, you know, facial recognition software is like telling us that we're one step away from AI, true AI. And he said, if he showed me on his iPhone, this was a couple years ago, and how much trouble the iPhone had recognizing him like if he put a hat on or if he made a funny face. And he said, my daughter can recognize me from across a baseball field. You know, if I have a hat on, just by the way, I walk, right? And he said, if she, if she couldn't, there would be something really wrong with her. In other words, her human recognition abilities are truly intelligent. And that is a system of systems, a biological system of systems that no scientist has, you know, the algorithm for which no one has ever been able to figure out yet. And he believes that we're far away from that. But the defense department, on the other hand, is moving us in that direction. And absolutely wants autonomous weapons to be fighting wars. Look, there was a program that said, I quote this in the book. It says, the battle place is no place for humans. so drones are the way of the future right but they're used to kill people which and which also means that the enemy is creating drone systems and pretty soon that's going to be a big a big issue yeah that's the big the big fear the big fears that they're going to be the first ones to implement I mean what scares you about AI

Well, they created something called the robo rat. That was the first bio hybrid, right? So a bio hybrid is when you mix an animal on a machine. And DARPA was doing that right before 9.11. And people freaked out. They were like, you cannot put brain chips and rats and make the move through a maze by a remote control, which is what they were doing. And I interviewed the guys who were all working on this program before 9-11. And so the morality of the citizenry was like, no, then 9-11 happened. And suddenly all this money got pumped into DARPA to do anything they wanted. The morality issue went out the window and they started creating all kinds of biohybrates as I write in the Pentagon's brain. So they put, they now have pigeons that are mixed, you know, animal and machine. They created something called there's a moth. So there's a mandica sex to moth. That's what it's called. It's a large moth and scientists put brain chips into the larva, okay? So that when it cocooned and became a flying moth, it had the the chip built into its system making it easier to integrate and they could fly the moth around the lap and that was a huge step and this is now four years ago that I was interviewing these scientists did you see any of this stuff I didn't see them off, but I told you I saw the the limb regeneration lap was a trip and this is all. Well, they were just cutting limbs off of salamanders and watching the limbs grow back, right? And examining that and saying, well, if a salamander can do this, so can we one day? And I said to them, But wait, that's impossible. You know, and they said, well, it's not actually because humans have, they broke, I love scientists who break it down into terms, I can understand. It's like what Elon Musk did, you know? And they said to me, you were once a single cell in your mother's womb. And then you were two. And then you were in it, right? So you can regenerate. And that's their premise. I mean, these are the top, the world's top scientist in regeneration.

I mean, they do all kinds of planning for the future. The search and rescue thing is a great way in which to present DARPA and doing all this great stuff. I interviewed DARPA scientists who said, look, Annie, we've got we're able to send robots into Fukushima to twist the course. And yes, that is great, but that's far from the only thing that's been trying to show people. Well, but here's a trip you want to hear I mean it gets there are rabbit holes there because I sourced all these documents and also interviewed generals at the Pentagon who are like, we don't like AI. We want this. We want our guys on the ground. They believe in the human, the warrior, that concept. And so the generals were very opposed with the DARPA of vote. And it was like, no AI, we want humans in the mix. And so what did DARPA start doing? And the, well, the generals, they said, why don't you? Why can't we go more autonomous? And the answer was, we don't trust the machines, okay? So right around that same time, what did DARPA start doing? It started looking into and hiring scientists who were working with how trust works in the brain, specifically with what is called the moral molecule. And it's this molecule in the brain that mothers emit when they're breastfeeding. Okay. Oh, like oxytocin? Yes. So think about that. And I mean, that's like the ultimate going way back biology. Like you have to have a mother, a trusting mother, to breastfeed in prehistory or otherwise you'd be eaten by, you'd be like, this is a bad idea. I'm stopping to do this. I'm gonna die, right? So they examined that molecule, the brain's moral molecule, and they began a program to work with that, to be able to give that to soldiers so that they trusted AI machines. And that's where I think you're getting into really spooky, dark, multi-levels of manipulation about what humans want versus what the Pentagon wants.

So I, as the journalist said to myself, well, wait a minute, if the general's at the Pentagon, and I'm, you know, that's a, that's a, that's a euphemism. But the meaning, the, the actual opera, you know, the guys that are in charge here don't want that who does want this? And where my research took me to was the group that wants that is what's called the defense science board. And those are the individuals who are Counseling the Pentagon in the manner in which they should proceed and now those individuals are all sitting on the boards of the defense contractors. So you can really see how money drives the rubric. The generals don't want it. The humans don't want it, but guess who does. The people who stand to make the money creating the autonomous systems. And that's exactly what Eisenhower warned us of. In his farewell speech, you know, the military industrial complex. And the other part of that speech, which people don't don't know as well, is that what he said, his antidote, Eisenhower said this, the antidote to the military industrial complex, is an alert and knowledgeable citizenry. It's why I write my books, because an alert and knowledgeable citizenry has the ability to kind of push back and go, but we don't want that.

And what they need for that is that world's fastest supercomputer, right? And what's interesting is that we America just overtook the Chinese in having again having the world's fastest supercomputer, but they had it for a couple years. And think about this, okay, because you were saying, hard to believe the Nazis were only, you know, not even just in our grandfather's age, right? So go back in time to then, listen to this about this really freaked me out in terms of progress. Right after the war, a guy called John Von Neumann got a grant from the atomic energy commission to essentially build the world's first computer. I mean, they existed, but he built the first computer that could actually do calculations. Okay. Before that, calculations were done with like, by calculators. Computers were humans. But there's this amazing story of Von Neumann in the basement of the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study where he built this computer with government funds. And he, because he was a brilliant polymath, he could add faster than anyone around him. He's also the guy who calculated at what level the atomic bomb should explode over Hiroshima for the most blast. Because it didn't hit the ground, it wouldn't kill as many people. So this is how his mind worked. So he's faster than the computer. He has a pen and paper in front of him, and he can outperform the world's fastest computer with his own brain. Two and a half years into it, in like 1949, the computer beats him. And he made a statement then that said, one day, artificially intelligent machines will be the ruin of man. I mean, I'm paraphrasing. That was his prediction. But that was in 1949.

Well, I'm going to have to really think about that.

That is very deep.

We're the progenitors.

We're going to make that baby. And then we're going to die.

But I have a question for you that on that morality issue, right? Which is, if man has always been a worrying animal, right? Why do we look so down upon the throat, you know, the knife to the throat? And why do we as a society accept drone strikes? because that's the whole question I ask in surprise kill vanish and I'm not sure I answered it to my own satisfaction because it's such a complicated question.

Interesting. You think it's a proximity issue.

which would which would be an argument for the blade for the blade. Yeah, the blade is you know who you're stabbing and that that warrior is going in there aware that he too might die.

Just to throw this out there because there is that big debate. I mean CIA paramilitary army, tiny. Defense Department, huge CIA using either ground operators or drones. Defense Department, I read the statistics the other day. 7,200 and change. Bombs dropped on Afghanistan last year. I mean, people don't even realize we're still 7,000. That's what they just practicing.

I don't know that. You have to, well, you got to really look hard to get that statistic. There's an inspector general who covers Afghanistan, right, for the government. He looks at all the statistics. And by the way, this administration just canceled his job. So we will no longer have that information. But he's the one that is in charge of reporting that, because it's called the reconstruction effort, right? But that number of bombs really makes you think long and harder, at least me, about You know, the big footprint versus the small operation. And I again, I think this is why most people don't want to talk about this because it's a dark rabbit hole to go down, you know? People prefer to believe that we're just safe and sound here and not at risk. And I mean, that's, that's the endless question. Are these, are these threats real and must they be dealt with?

And who are you most afraid of? China.

Well, they keep out performing us and that's super computer.

And they don't have an informed public.

On an interesting note of that. And the mirror, all my books are published in China. The DARPA book, they were right on that. They had that translated into Chinese. I have a copy of it. It's spooky. It's like you see the Pentagon, all this Chinese writing. I don't understand a word of it except for my own name. But it's like, wow, they're reading. They're reading us. Anything.

There was an interesting story about the Freedom of Information Act and Iran, which came to mind with this new activity in Iran, which is that they filed a FOIA to get all the information that we had on Iran. And the government went to, went very high up in the judicial system. to say we're not going to release this information to them, even though they had the right to have it because it would benefit them.

and people aren't focused or interested in drone strikes anymore. They're more interested in the wall. In watching the battle and the conflict and the name calling and the shouting, it's like throwing rocks without warfare, you know.

Absolutely, right?

That all came to be, by the way, right after 9-11. I mean, whenever we get attacked, it's like Pearl Harbor, you know, suddenly there is a massive swing of what civilians, what the citizenry will tolerate. And for a surprise, Kilvanish, I interviewed, I told you, lawyer John Rizzo, who wrote what was called the September 17th Memorandum of Notification. and it gave presidential powers to the degree which had not been seen since, you know. the worst part of the Cold War. And Congress wrote off on that, in fact, what Rizzo told me is the gang of eight that are in charge of the intelligence committees in Congress said, is this enough? And that's where the drones became such a big issue because the idea of preemptive neutralization, the idea we're going to take out bad guys. We should have taken out bin Laden and we didn't. Yeah. We're going to now do that preemptively. And it's set off. It's set us on this entirely different course, which continues to this day, although it's fallen out of the news, which is, let's strike someone before they strike us. And it's such an interesting chicken or the egg, because, you know, yes, you have civilians dying. And yes, you have more terrorists being created. On the other hand, do you really want the Pentagon dropping 7,000? 400, 300, 200 bombs on Afghanistan in any given year.

And what are the unintended consequences of that? And we never even know, you know, I'll tell you an interesting story that's not in the book, which is that Billy Waw showed me a number of plans that he had presented, because sometimes the operators are asked, like, what do you think we should do? And it doesn't mean we do it. It's just that those plans get sent up the chain of command, and then it comes back. So he said, he showed me these drawings they were going to go kill Chavez, right? This is when Bush was in power. you know, he was like teeming up with um, um, a dina jod and he was really bad guy, you know, a threat to us. And so the plan was to halo in, um, take the team down, go kill Chavez and vanish. And the plans got rejected. They were like, no way. We are not doing this according to Billy Waw. Well, Billy Waw said to me recently, I mean, thank God we didn't do that. Can you imagine if we had? We would be blamed right now for everything that is going on in Venezuela. It's a really interesting point. I mean, who has to make that decision? I'm glad it's not me. Can you imagine? No. Yes, kill this guy, but don't kill that guy. That's a good idea.

But I think it's super interesting because it also comes back to your own human. What are you making judgments about? What are you for against? And why? Are you really, do you want that opinion? I mean, I think that's so interesting and important and discuss it with your children. And let people have, my favorite expression is just as long as you don't make me do it, you know? I'm pretty tolerant of other people's opinions about this. Don't force me into it. But this stuff impacts all of us. It really does. Really does. Are the robots going to be taking over your show, Joe?

There's nothing funny about a drone.

You want to hear the scariest AI story I know? It's old, right?

But it's from like the early day. It gather around children. This is like early days of DARPA, okay? And this is when we were really seriously afraid that the Russians were going to send you know a hundred thermonuclear warheads at Washington and take out the whole country okay so Darpa sets up this station at the top of the world to monitor the Soviet launch so that you know because it only takes 24 minutes for a ICBM to get from the launch pad in Russia to hit New Yorker Washington okay so we set up this station up there And to monitor this, so we would have some kind of a jump on this. Okay, like we'd learned it about eight minutes. My God, you know, it was a radar station. That station called the Beemoo site, or J site. It's connected to the no-rad station in Cheyenne Mountain, you know, the one from movies, right? Okay. And it's like the first week of business. and the guys that are sitting there in the station looking for the alert are sitting there and they've been trained like the alerts never go off and all of a sudden the alerts go from one two three four number five is endgame okay so the information that the technicians are getting is now one thousand Soviet thermonuclear missiles are on their way to Washington DC with 99.9% certainty actual story, okay? The guy panics, but he trusts, he says wait a minute, you know, because he's supposed to now give the launch code. Let's try and get the generals on the phone. I can't get the Pentagon general in charge of no rat. They get a Canadian guy named General Slyman. And Slyman, you know, my God, we should be launch. Should be launch. Slyman's like wait a minute. human thought, he remembered that the night before he thought he saw Khrushchev on TV at the UN, you know, that he's famously banging a show and he says, where's Khrushchev right now? They check, he's in New York City. Why would the Soviets send a thousand nuclear weapons our way while their own leaders in New York? They said, I don't know, sir, but the radar returns are reporting this. And there, so someone had the idea that be movesite to go outside and low and behold what was there, a big full moon. The system was reading the moon moving and misinterpreted it as a thousand nuclear thermonuclear ICB. BMS coming.

I mean, it's an astonishing story. The documents are now declassified. But it is an actual indication of why that element of human intervention, why trust, why other information, like, oh, I think I saw a crucial on the TV last night is so important. Because the machine said, with 99.9% certainty, this is happening. We must launch in retaliation. True story.