Kind: captions
Language: en
nuclear war is the only event other than
an asteroid strike that could end
civilization if you believe your enemy
is vicious and wants to kill you you're
going to create programs that mirror
theirs this is so dangerous waa these
are the mysteries of some of the dark
and dirty
[Music]
secrets whether it's censoring social
media whether it's spying on our own
population we are effectively trying to
in we the government are trying to
influence what ideas people focus on
that's that to me that is a a
self-evident based assumption that my
worldview is predicated on so for
instance if you're like that doesn't
make any sense that would be a very good
place to start disabusing me of my
delusion this idea that nuclear arsenals
exist un ready for launch status this
and no one thinks about it has always
been intriguing during the previous
administration when former president
Trump was threatening nuclear war in
essence with the leader of North Korea I
was shocked because that was so
unpresidential meaning every president s
you know before him was like there was a
tcid understanding I mean look at listen
to Kennedy's speeches talking about the
horrors of nuclear war War um so to hear
president Trump talking about this as if
it with a sort of cavalier attitude was
shocking to me as it was to a lot of
people and then I began to think about
this idea that many of my sources had
said to me in the course of reporting
the previous six books whether it was
Billy wall or Dr Bud weon Annie I
dedicated my life to preventing nuclear
World War
III um and then I began thinking what if
that prevention fails what if deterrence
fails what does that look like and then
it just became a thought experiment of
asking people in the National Security
apparatus people that I've spent years
developing as sources as people who
would talk to me their friends their
colleagues National Security advisers
military people who would be in the
position of nuclear command and control
were nuclear were to happen and during
Co when there was a lot more
time people agreed to do zooms with me
so you can see now that my my makeup
perhaps the ride the horse and the
direction going is probably a little
more active than mental it's like oh
there's a horse let's hop on it and go
for a ride I am a very good horse rider
right so that's what it is like wait a
minute this is super
interesting in a terrifying way and I
began to put this question about what
would happen if deterrence failed and
then suddenly I realized this becomes a
ticking clock scenario this is not
policy and leading up this is like oh my
God you know starting with the basic
fact again sharing with you that I
learned things with all my knowledge of
nuclear weapons and having interviewed
nuclear weapons designers in my previous
books I didn't know literally or hadn't
really
digested that a nuclear war essentially
begins in the first fraction of a second
that our satellite system the defense
Department's powerful satellite system
called cbers space-based
infrared system of satellites
everything's an
acronym that system detects nuclear
launch because we have those systems
parked over all of our nuclear
adversaries ready to see it because
that's where it begins fact number one
stunning I'm riding this horse forward
fact number two that's stunning an ICBM
once launched cannot be recalled and
cannot be directed how many people know
that how many people know that and so
while maybe printing money and infl all
that is interesting to you what's
interesting to me is when I suddenly
learn that wait a
minute this and wait how many icbms do
we have oh the United States has 400 on
ready for launch status and how many
does Russia have an equal number and
what are the total numbers of the
arsenals us
1,770 Russia
1,660 those are just on ready for launch
status ready to go in seconds or minutes
now you really have my attention now I
want to tell that story now we're at
second 10 of the scenario that I
describe in nuclear war that lasts only
72 minutes because another shocking fact
when I did an interview with former
stratcom Commander who's heard of
stratcom most people not former stratcom
commander in charge of the
nukes General Keeler said to me in US
discussing what could happen if Russia
and America had a nuclear exchange yes
the world could end in the next couple
of hours that's a horse I can't get off
I have to ride that to the end and How
It Ends nuclear winter
what makes you think that we are more at
risk for nuclear Annihilation now than
any other time in history well I would I
mean having written the book I am now at
the conclusion that we are at risk
because I'm echoing the concerns of
people like President Biden like un
Secretary General Antonio
gutterz like the Nobel
laurates I just met in Brussels two
weeks ago at a nuclear at the nuke Expo
the Nobel Laurette Peace Prize winners
who have been studying this issue for
decades interviewing people having
written the book and realizing where we
are and seeing people's reactions to it
people saying to me I read your book in
one night I canel everything I couldn't
stop even though I know nuclear war ends
in nuclear winter because we are at this
precipice so I've learned that since the
book has become public before when the
book began when I was reporting back
years you know during covid it was like
many of the cold war warriors because
many of the people I interview for the
book you know are in their 80s and90s
including the man who drew the plans for
that thermonuclear weapon on the cover
of that book Richard Garwin 93 years old
now um just emailed with him yesterday
he told me that's what he's afraid of a
nuclear madman a mad king with a nuclear
Arsenal but when I began reporting the
book people the cold war warriors were
like Annie you must write this book no
one REM you know people have
forgotten this is so dangerous as a
threat to all of our existence and here
we are just a couple years later where
nuclear war War the threats of nuclear
war is headline
news that I can't
answer now I had heard you say in
another podcast that you thought this
was the most we'd never been closer to
the brink than we are right now
um compared to Bay of Pigs or something
like that do you think that we really
are that much closer or is it just that
the bombs are that much bigger what
makes you write the this book right now
is it just that horse came at this
particular moment
absolutely because it's a scenario but
in terms of the danger of it again those
things have been said to me President
Biden is the one who said we're closer
to nuclear Armageddon than we have been
since the Cuban Missile Crisis when we
we're really close and so you know but
the interesting thing is that the degree
of danger doesn't really matter that's
what is so shocking and I really hope
people read the book in one night or two
nights because they you the takeaway is
oh my God it doesn't matter how it
happens she just showed one way it could
happen but what she also showed is the
system in place once it begins it
doesn't stop it is a systematic it is a
system of systems nuclear command and
control it begins with the detection of
a launch and it ends in nuclear winter
and that is how the system is has been
set up so what is the most shocking to
me about all of this is
that most people have no idea and in the
same way that's not a self-righteous
statement I certainly had no idea before
I reported the
book okay you said it in French a minute
ago but the quote I believe is from
Napoleon after me the flood uh so this
idea of a nihilistic madman I think in
the book you expressly obviously it's a
fictional account but based entirely on
things that we know um what's the
concept that uh North Korea basically
decides we're just going to burn it all
down walk us through how it could pop
off and one tiny distinction I would
make is I don't refer to this as a
fictional scenario I call it a
hypothetical
scenario because every detail in here is
is linked to a concept a military
concept of how nuclear war would unfold
I very specifically stay away from a big
buildup of
how how the war might happen which many
people have written about you know if
China does this or Russia does this or
then this could happen that is not what
I do I the book happens in three acts
thank you Shakespeare it's like 24 the
first 24 minutes the next 24 minutes and
the last 24 minutes and then it's over
there's
a really it's five parts because there's
a buildup how we got here tells readers
how we went from Hiroshima and Nagasaki
to having this massive Arsenal that
could then launch and then the end is
nuclear winter which I report based on
extensive interviews with one of the
original authors of the nuclear winter
theory in 1983 and
others and so the question you asked is
why the a de which means after me the
flood which is this idea I don't really
care what happens after the world ends
and that idea to use that in the
scenario came from Richard Garwin
93-year-old Richard Garwin nuclear
weapons engineer people think of Ed
Edward Teller as the man who is the
father of the thermonuclear bomb
Oppenheimer is the father of the atomic
bomb teller was the the the father of
the thermonuclear bomb a thermonuclear
bomb is so much more powerful than
atomic bomb it uses an atomic bomb as
its triggering
device that is a
10.4 Megaton explosion in the Marshall
Islands when we were testing nuclear
weapons in the atmosphere
and what Garwin said to me when I asked
him what he was most afraid of he said a
mad king with a nuclear Arsenal and I
took that to mean North Korea as I write
in the book there are no rules to
nuclear war meaning anything goes but
there are a few rules to deterrence to
preventing nuclear war and one of those
rules is very specifically which I think
listeners can relate to is that and
again I did not know this per se and
most people have do not know this um
that be we test our icbms obviously
there's not a nuclear warhead in it but
there's a dummy Warhead and we test them
so it is Russia so do many nuclear armed
Nations and we always announce a test
before it happens because you have other
countries looking at them and you don't
want to start a nuclear war by accident
North Korea does not announce its tests
and when I learned that I was shocked
because they in this one period when I
was reporting the book over 18 months
they launched over 100 missiles
including ballistic missiles that could
hit the United States and so when you
think about go back to that idea that I
just shared with you about the satellite
system in
space
watching for a nuclear launch
when the nuclear command and control in
the United States sees North Korea
launch a ballistic missile a it has no
idea if there's a nuclear weapon in the
nose cone and B it has no idea where
it's going for the first 150
seconds and so when I describe to you
the first 150 seconds in the book you
get and you realize how
crazy everybody
feels how much
anxiety you realize that that happens to
everybody in nuclear command and control
that's watching every time North Korea
launches a test that's Madness that's
why we're one
misunderstanding away from nuclear
Armageddon because North Korea's nuclear
Arsenal is relatively
new why do you have the premise in the
book that if basically one nuke is
launched that this it is not a winnable
War it just goes all the way to
effectively destruction of all life on
Earth
mhm nuclear war games
are arguably the most jealously guarded
secrets in the National Security
apparatus you could also say what's in
the president's football is is is is up
there because that has to do with
nuclear war plans so last reference to
the UFOs when I hear people this is
incredibly classified
H don't buy it for a second nuclear war
plans are incredibly
classified so much so that we have no
idea what is in them I write about two
nuclear war plans in the book One
released by two men in their 80s one of
which was Daniel ellsburg the other
which was John rubel that's the original
nuclear war plan for General nuclear
warfare and the other was a a War Plan
called proud profit that was
Declassified by President Reagan in
1983 and from those two nuclear war
plans we can learn a
lot and the proud profit in particular
is super interesting I reprint a page in
the book and readers will see that and
they'll just see like blacked out pages
and maybe a number you know a word
aftermath well and you might say to
yourself what good is this it's just a
bunch of blacked out redacted
information we can't learn anything from
it well what we can learn is from a
civilian who was invited to participate
in that war game who is a Yale Professor
named Paul Bracken and because the proud
Prophet war game nuclear war game was
Declassified Bracken could speak about
it in a general Manner and here I'm
getting to answer your question finally
which is that what Bracken tells
us is that no matter how nuclear war
begins this is from a twoe nuclear war
game with the secretary of defense and
all the highest nuclear command and
control people going through multiple
scenarios no matter how it begins if
NATO is involved if NATO isn't involved
China's involved no matter how it begins
it ends in total
Armageddon and that's why the scenario
that I write follows that that
architecture because that is the closest
we can get to the truth about what's in
those war games okay without knowing
that the thing that I took away in the
book is basically confusion it's just
it's moving so fast everything is
unknown so for readers or for people
that haven't read the book it goes
something like this North Korea launches
the initial strike um the US is tracking
it so they see right away that it's
launched they don't know exactly where
it's going but it ends up detonating in
Washington DC I think it hits the
Pentagon if I remember right uh the
president is too close to it ends up
crashing getting injured so nobody can
get a hold of him so Russia is like hey
we we see nukes are are being launched
here uh has the president called no he
hasn't called okay who from the White
House has called and goes down a list of
a ton of people but he's like none of
them are the acting president so uh we
just have to assume that these are
coming towards us so launch back and so
it's like confusion begets cuz everybody
has these like Dead Hand launches or
launch at first warning and so because
everybody's policy is so aggressive that
like you said one misunderstanding and
boom it's just all over and the book
paints as you said a hypothetical that
is distressingly convincing and
extremely detailed in terms of at what
distance your flesh melts off and the
winds are 200 miles an hour yeah it's
pretty uh it's pretty intense
can you imagine a scenario where we can
actually back off of this
Brink you mean a scenario where nuclear
war doesn't happen yeah this seems yeah
this seems inevitable to me that we
would invent them if I'm well one is
this inevitable that we invent
them so I I most definitely wrote the
book to demonstrate in appalling detail
how horrific nuclear war would
be my takeaway because I am an optimist
is not therefore it's inevitable and
it's going to happen although I'm
perfectly comfortable with other people
that are maybe more pessimistic having
having that view and then wondering to
themselves therefore what could we do
about it right but my takeaway is the
total opposite of that my takeaway
is that
information is King
and that situations change when people
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there is absolutely no guarantee of any
kind nuclear war is the only event other
than an asteroid strike that could end
civilization technically there's nothing
we can do about an asteroid
strike we there's so much that can be
done about nuclear war and the example I
will give you is called the Reagan
reversal and what's interesting is I did
an interview yesterday with new Ging
okay new was friends with Reagan and we
had a really interesting discussion
about this and digressing here for a
second is what I love about the book
that having written this book is that
it's being read by so many different
kinds of people who are embracing it and
that's where there is I mean Josh
klinghoffer the former drummer of The
Red Hot Chili Peppers now Pearl gem is
giving the book to all of his bandmates
so balance out that and I mean you have
you're talking about a wide group of
very different kinds of people um of all
different political parties of all
different ages reading this book and
pretty much coming to the same
conclusion which is this is madness we
must reverse course new Gingrich told me
he wished that my next book would be
called nuclear war a
solution and that's coming from a
fundamental lifelong haw
so it is change as possible so back to
the Reagan
reversal President Reagan was an
absolute nuclear supremacist he believed
in nuclear weapons he thought we should
have more carry a big stick use it type
thing he believed that nuclear weapons
the concept of deterrence would keep us
safe he was The Man Behind the idea of
putting nuclear weapons in space in the
Star Wars program okay so this is like
this was his position and then there was
a fictional television series on ABC
called the day after a movie on ABC and
Reagan's advisers which Gingrich
confirmed told him not to watch the
movie but he
did 100 million Americans watched that
movie and they were all horrified and
freaked out Reagan watched that movie
and became so Disturbed that he wrote In
His White House Journal that he was
greatly depressed his words and because
he's the president of the United States
he could and did take action he reached
out to gorbachov and the result was the
rovic
summit and as a result the big result
was that the world went from
70,000 nuclear
warheads to the approximate 12,500 that
we have today so that sure is progress
so why isn't the Congress doing anything
about it people aren't paying attention
why isn't the president doing anything
people aren't paying attention if people
pay attention and say this is madness we
must reverse course we can go in that
direction toward reduction you know just
a general there are people Legions of
people in the disarmament movement
who've been working on this issue I'm
not one of them they know so
yes that is the right direction now here
where I'm going to lose Loop it back to
your original question because this is a
conversation we're having is the
government whoever that may
be trying to distract us you could
argue
H maybe someone or some group of people
doesn't want the reduction of nuclear
weapons maybe some group of people
prefers this idea which is on the table
right now in 2024 we need to
upgrade our nuclear
Arsenal which is what's happening right
now to the tune of a trillion dollars we
might even need new weapon
systems so that I meet you at a
disturbing possibly yes when I would ask
you could a group of people have a a
powerful group of people have a vested
interest in us not reducing nuclear
weapons and I think almost certainly the
answer is yes where it gets difficult is
you really have to drill down on that
thinking do you want to just blame air
quotes the military industrial complex
the nuclear weapons industrial complex
do you want to just blame them them
whoever well that's a Fool's errand I
think because where does it get you or
do you want to try to look at the
specifics I believe the specifics are
better and that's where I would put my
hat in the ring with the disarmament
folks knowing what I know now about
nuclear war and knowing how dangerous we
are and having had you know
everyone since the book in very high
places reach out to me and say you know
you're absolutely right something must
be done I would put my hat in the
disarmament folks ring not in the
nuclear weapons industry
military-industrial complex industry
that says you know deterrence is a
really good thing and for people
who might want to just know the simple
definition of deterrence the idea of
deterrence is the more nuclear weapons
you have the safer you
are to me that sounds a little
orwellian okay
um Russia
Ukraine I have a feeling you don't love
talking specifically about that but do
you given um Putin's saber
rattling what what do you think about
this moment as the moment for a solution
where we're actually de-escalating is is
it even plausible that he would
entertain anything along those lines
given the current
situation I mean what I have to say
about that situation is absolutely on
the point of nuclear weapons is that
President Putin has said on the record
that he is not bluffing his words about
using weapons of mass destruction that
is Terri that now REM you
know former American president also was
using nuclear R rhetoric so we can't
just say how dare he use that rhetoric
and I think that's a tragedy I think
people I think pus the president of the
United States has a responsibility to
act presidentially and I would hope that
there would be a movement back toward
that and I would hope that there would
be a movement among the people to have a
young fit
cognitive you know open-minded
civic-minded
president as far as Ukraine and Russia
is concerned the the situation is what
it is which is profoundly dangerous and
for as long as these nuclear threats
remain on the table the world is at the
razor's Edge and so the solution to that
I'm not a I'm not a diplomat but is
exactly like you're saying you want to
reduce tension not escalate it it's too
dangerous yeah unfortunately I wasn't
saying that I'm I am very much a the
genie is out of the bottle there is no
going back um you mentioned in an
interview that I heard that uh synthetic
biology is also this terrifying thing
that we have on the
horizon I while I don't live in
Perpetual fear of nuclear war like I
used to when I was a kid cuz I actually
grew grew up in the 80s and was
literally terrified
um I don't see how anything other than
mutually assured destruction stops this
from happening which is why I think the
most plausible scenario for what you
pointed out in the book is you need a
nihilistic madman who just doesn't care
in fact you say something in the book
that uh we posted that photo of South
Korea North Korea at night and that if
that were just something that pissed him
off enough that he wanted to launch a
nuke to show us just how dark the world
could get uh yeah that's the kind of
thing I this may be naive today I can't
fathom even a sort of crazy dictator
would do that because they if they have
nuclear weapons they have to understand
that they they're going to get
obliterated so um it doesn't make sense
so while I wish they could be uninvented
I think if you can't uninvent them then
you have to figure out what is the
reality of
humans and Build Your Arsenal
accordingly um do you know John
mimer name's ringing a bell so he comes
from the quote unquote realist political
philosophy which is that the world is
simply governed by power and it's not
that people only exercise power but that
if there is a vacuum and there is a weak
country and there is no one there to
defend them then somebody who's more
powerful will come and take over if they
have anything of value for them to take
and so ultimately the sort of stability
that we get in the world is not
stability gain through weakness it is
stability gain through mutual strength
and if you fail to understand that
people will make a move on you if you
are weak then you will get surprised by
if you're Poland by hey this guy with
the lightning strikes uh they've
suddenly rolled into town or uh I mean
Russia invading Ukraine so many people
have said if Ukraine had never given up
their nuclear weapons and Russia never
would have invaded now whether or not
that's true I'm not deep enough in that
issue to say but it certainly speaks to
this idea that there's I can't fathom a
world where humans with our current
biology would ever back off to nuclear
zero because they know it only takes one
madman and then if that guy really is
the only one with nukes and he's like yo
everybody else got rid of theirs hahaha
now I'm going to launch mine because
people can't ret now you have a problem
the Ukraine thing I have to speak to
that just because I interviewed a number
of people who were involved in the
dismantling of the nuclear program in
Ukraine when the wall went down and
what's interesting to note is that
Ukraine never really I mean they had
nuclear weapons physically but they
could never have used them they never
were in control of the launch mechanisms
of the triggering mechanisms Russia
always had that so they would have just
had an Arsenal that they could wouldn't
have used except for to make dirty bombs
so I think that's a little bit and I'm
also fascinated with your idea that
you even with all the thinking that you
do that you and correct me if I'm wrong
here you're saying you kind of come back
to this idea that deterrence is the
best answer because man is inherently
aggressive is is that fair that maybe
you're saying that um I probably
wouldn't have used the word aggressive
but let us split hairs yes okay okay so
two two things come to mind have you
seen chimp Empire the next the Netflix I
haven't but I've heard you talk about
chimps on a treadmill okay so chimp
Empire is your homework assignment okay
tell me about it I know a lot about
chimps I just haven't seen that oh my
God I mean it's just so brilliant it's
like one of those documentaries that I
watched and then when it was finished I
watched it again I don't want to spoiler
alert any spoil alert for anybody list
it's just it it's you know it says it
says so much about human nature I'm not
going to I just you have to watch it no
please I'm about to hit you with chimp
fact so if you don't give me your
counters no well it just it's human
nature you know you I'm not going to
spoil it because it's too good it's
hours chimp acting well and
disarming no yes it is no noing each
other limb somebody said to me somebody
once said to me we're jumping around
here but the you know the Billy wall the
surprise kill vanish book I write about
an or organization called Ground Branch
inside of the CIA inside of its special
activities division that are um you know
it's an incredibly powerful incredibly
frightening direct
action group that does not adhere to
milit rule of law or military rule they
have their own title 50 so they're
really wild it's just a great like
that's the best way I they're just
wild and
someone asked me what I thought of chimp
Empire and I said this is the best way I
can describe it to you without giving
ways it's the origin story of ground
Branch so is this you agreeing that we
wouldn't be able to uh get to nuk zero
because humans are
aggressive no because that was millions
of years ago
mhm that we were those are our ancestors
from millions of years ago we have
evolved like I mean in the end of the
book nuclear war I I write about nuclear
winter and then I take us to
this ancient archaeological site called
gockley and it's the oldest known
archaeological site made by man that
exists and when it was discovered in the
1990s by a German archaeologist named
CLA Schmidt and his young student
Michael morch whom I interview in the
books I love to get things from like the
firsthand
POV the discovery of
gockley
upended the general thinking among all
archaeologist among all
anthropologists about man how man became
civilized the idea before that was man
was hunter gatherers so you know after
gimps we move then we become hunter
gatherers and then then we become
civilized and then we invent writing and
then the rest is history literally
because once writing happened we have
history
so the idea
was man needed to be able to domesticate
animals and have AR have uh
agriculture in order to then keep
progressing and develop language so it's
that it's a Continuum that that thought
and the development of
tools and the development of the brain
and the development of community is
progress we can all kind of agree on
that but gocke disrupted that
because
the the the sort of iconography on the
in the carved Stones suggests that the
people that built GOC Le and it's this
you can see a picture of it in the book
it's like a it's like an Amphitheater
Made of Stone and it's there's multiple
amphitheaters and they have these 20ft
tall carved pillars that represent man
or Gods who knows but this group 12,000
years ago were still hunter
gatherers the carvings on the stones are
like ebis and crane and fox wild
animals Jaguars not cows and goats and
pigs domesticated animals
chickens and so archaeologists and
anthropologists have to accept this was
a hunter gatherer group that built a
civilization in essence you you can't
have I mean it required
plans and so it it just like
suddenly you have to Reiger your
thinking about man and his
nature and I've gone off on a tangent
but the point to this is I believe that
man does evolve even though they're how
we get there
there there are big gaps in our thinking
and understanding because we simply
can't know before if it's not written
down but progress is always being made
and after I take the reader through this
idea of gockley after a nuclear winter
and I try to have like a thought
experiment where I ask readers to think
about how
we in this Century Came Upon
archaeologists Came Upon gockley and
were like my God what was going on on
here we don't know but we wonder and it
it's so inspiring on the one hand to
think about and it fills in Mysteries
and I then was imagining imagine
thousands of years in the future after
nuclear war after nuclear winter after
the ruin of civilization after man
returns to a hunter gatherer state which
would almost certainly happen will the
future men become
archaeologists will they find remnants
of our society and will they
Wonder well were they up to and the
reason I posit that is because I believe
that people can take away what Einstein
took what Einstein said of nuclear
weapons when he was
asked what weapons will World War III be
fought with and he said I don't
know but World War I will be fought with
sticks and
stones Einstein's idea that all these
thousands of years of man's
progress all the movement we've made in
our
civilizations could
be in the blink of an eye in a nuclear
war what a great
tragedy so then you must say how do we
change that if you're me you would say
Having learned what I learned
disarmament sounds like what you're
saying is
deterrence
so may maybe those are just two sides of
the same
coin well so after having read your book
I took away a thesis which may be part
of my fundamental misunderstanding of
you which is that while I would be lying
if I said I believed that you don't have
a
thesis um that maybe this is just
something that's fascinating to you and
you don't care one way or the other but
the book very much read to me like a
warning this red like especially because
you end with is it Go Beckley tle which
is what I've always thought or is it can
you look the sub It's gobec tap because
tap means hill hill yeah the reason that
I thought you ended with that was trying
to give us like a a Earthbound pale blue
dot moment of imagine that we do this we
destroy everything and one day people
find evidence of our civilization and
begin asking questions what the hell
happened which is a really interesting
way to poke us into being way more
thoughtful yes this goes back to your
book felt like
a story based version of what Eric
Weinstein has hypothesized he hasn't
said we should do this but he said maybe
we should start doing above ground
nuclear testing so people don't forget
how
unbelievably dangerous nuclear weapons
are that's what I got reading the book
was between the just minute-by-minute
breakdown of how devastating this would
be from radiation poisoning your skin
being ripped off people getting sucked
up into the cone of the um mushroom
cloud I mean just really really
fascinating levels of detail how far
like five miles of fire nothing cellular
exists in that 5 mile radius just really
really detailed and then the pale blue
dot moment of imagine being a failed
civilization that people are looking
back on it was like okay hey everybody
back off what I'm saying is we can't so
we might reduce say we can't back off
humans as a species it will not work is
is your my position yeah now the
question becomes okay Tom how did you
come to that position and I will posit
it to you as a question I would look
back at history I think history is the
greatest predictor of our future up
until AI if we begin doing genetic
engineering then all bets are off the
table and there really is a singularity
and I can't see beyond it but up until
that moment history is the greatest
predictor of where we're going as far as
I'm concerned and if I Look Backwards I
see only
people pushing the advantage getting
what they can brief Peri periods of
stability followed by instability and
you get that cycle that everybody is so
fond of repeating that good men uh make
good times good times make weak men weak
men make Hard Times Hard Times make good
men so on and so forth uh so that it
exists in this Loop so hey we've just
had this period of stability that lasted
roughly 70 years it may just be that
that's drawing to a close and just like
when we look back at history it is a
never never ending loop of death and
Destruction for anybody that has not
looked at history it's really pretty I
mean terrifying in its predictive
ability uh of what humans are going to
be like
today so when you look one do you think
looking backwards is wise to understand
where we are going and if so what do you
see when you look backwards that gives
you hope about disarmament maybe there
are two different Lanes of thought so I
again sometimes I think it's a
predisposition that I have toward
optimism um so I have read many of you
know of that those ideas and I've had
conversations with people that believe
like what you're saying that it's this
cycle of um sort of man the
aggressor um the best example I can
think about that is a guy called John
Von noyman Who was the original
pentagon's brain I write about him that
he was just so incredibly smart but he
he and you know he believed in his
nature that man was violent and prone
to Violent acts that's he was a game
theorist and interestingly it's where
we got a lot of the theory the game
theory about nuclear war in the 50s
prisoners dilemma Etc
um and
he attracted people who were
likeminded who peop the defense
department who built up our nuclear
weapon systems
so I think that a fundamental shift is
definitely in order if you want
to
um have change have things be different
but I I do also so there's that Lane
right sort of man's nature but then
there's another Lane of the radical
speed of
Technology the Mor's law of it that is
happening right in our own lives that
you
cannot argue is makes this ERA stand out
I believe when you look at the slow you
know the slow crawl of
evolution I mean of of in Industry with
happening and you look at where we are
now with science and technology it's
just astonishing and so I believe that
the that that looking to that's kind of
looping into your AI theory
that that it is possible for history to
go in a new and different
direction but you have to have thought
leaders who are not all of the Von
noyman ilk you have to have both kinds
of people you you know for the sake of
argument we can call them like the
negativist and the positivists right or
those who see man as naturally
aggressive and those who say well we can
get on along we're no longer I mean
chimps chimp Empire you got to watch it
it's just 50 chimps right they can't be
5,000 chimps it doesn't
work so we can work as F you know so but
it has to have a fundamental shift in
thinking now
to my eye that would be an argument for
why it's really important to be able to
have friends on both sides of the
aisle to be able to have you know people
with fundamentally opposing ideas
hashing out what the future of nuclear
command and control could or should look
like but as our society becomes
increasingly adversarial and I'm just
talking about America I'm not talking
about the whole world um as our society
becomes you know even more polarized and
adversarial then I think that becomes
more and more of a problem and then I
would see things pessimistically I would
be inclined but that would be my man's
own
demise so if there's any takeaway not
necessarily inside my book but in
reading my books and having
conversations with others about them
would be that you can have the takeaway
and have precise you know have exactly
opposite ideas which you you have a
different takeaway from my book than I
do which is exactly the point because
we're not sitting here shouting at each
other we don't disagree we just see
things differently there's a
difference yeah I'm not even sure um if
we do have a different
takeaway uh let me ask do you
consider this do you consider nuclear
zero Poss possible or simply desirable
the colleagues that I have met recently
that are that are of the
disarmament
ilk um believe I have read their
statements and what they say is that
what is possible is
reducing nuclear weapons to
zero so what I see in that is I focus on
the part of reducing
I since I'm not I don't have to have a
goal in that race I can just be part of
a movement or support a because the
other alternative which is let's which
is what's happening let's spend a
trillion dollars you know upgrading our
weapon systems which which which by the
way antagonizes everybody around the
world and that only moves things in this
direction so the takeaway from my book
no doubt is We Are One misunder
understanding or miscalculation away
from nuclear Annihilation that is really
clear to me after having written the
book more so than any book I have ever
written it has a conclusion and that is
it and so moving in that direction is
just
perpetuating the risk moving in that
direction is reducing
it if you were
Emperor what would you if you were
emperor of America let's say and you
don't have to convince Congress the
Senate the voters nothing you're just
going to do a thing uh what would you do
to
our nuclear Armament we'll start there I
could never be emper I'm not suited to
be Emperor you want people to be good at
the job that they have and that's not
my that's not my makeup it's like asking
me if I could be an astronaut I would
become completely claustrophobic would
you be good at advising the emperor I
could maybe offer a little advice but I
would be one of many people offering
advice sure Fair wise what would you
advise as one of the voices to the
emperor what would you advise that they
do go zero reduce slowly do a Tit for
Tat reduction so that hey Russia North
Korea Israel France China all of the
people that have nuclear weapons like we
reduce in kind and if I see you reducing
and you let me send people in to verify
then we'll
reduce I would probably not get that
specific I would probably quote Dr
Carlos umana who I met recently in
Brussels who won the Nobel was one of
the recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize
in 2017 he's a physician part of the
group of the Physicians against nuclear
weapons um and what he said to me was
start with an
idea which is interesting because we are
talking about ideas start with an idea
so as Emperor as adviser to Emperor I
would repeat him and say before you go
there start with the idea of making
something
taboo because that is a powerful concept
that people can wrap their head around
and then it it has an example so in
other
words you're we're talking about Weapons
of Mass destruction biological weapons
and chemical weapons used to be viable
arsenals that the United States
government had they have since become
taboo no one
says let's have a really great arsenal
of weaponized
smallpox on reserve so in case somebody
else wants to launch a bunch of weapons
at us with small pox weaponized small
pox we can do ours in return and that'll
keep us all from ever using these we all
know how crazy that is that's just
absolutely taboo I mean you'd have to be
really living outside of the general
Norm to think that was a good
idea and yet people
still work from the idea we're talking
about it right now that having a weapon
a a a giant vast arsenal of nuclear
weapons 5,000 of them by the way we have
Russia has approximately
5,000 is a perfectly good
idea if you can make what Dr umman
suggested is if you can present the idea
of taboo into the
discussion then you have a place that
people can work
from and they can go oh that makes
sense and when I think about the small
poox concept I think about there are
still a few samples of small poox in
bsl4 labs around the world very
dangerous but they exist actually they
didn't for a while and now they do you
know let's use a different example or
you get the idea yeah yeah
um and
so having a few samples and a few vials
is very different than having biological
weapons loaded onto Warheads ready to go
which we used to have and Russia used to
have as well and North Korea has by the
way right now and so taboo would be what
I would tell the emperor think about
taboo and then that reduction makes
sense in a graduated way and once we're
down to one decide whether or five
decide whether it's really zero and in
the
graduated process
you would see the other nuclear armed
Nations
responding and then ultimately what
would really be going on is you'd all be
working together instead of you would be
you could be adversaries you could be
opponents you could fundamentally
disagree with Communism as I do but we
all share this blue dot as you say and
so let's work together to reduce a
threat as opposed to you're my enemy and
I might have to kill
you I love that I think that the idea of
taboo is extraordinarily good advice uh
if done in a way where you were what
I'll round to tit fortat we do it you
let people come in and look at Your
Arsenal and see if you know it's
actually reducing
um I do want to know that do you feel
you have earned your optimism or is this
just a default stance that you were
blessed with probably the latter it's
just how I think and also I personally
think it's actually a better way to
think so when I begin to think
pessimistically it's time for a
hike so I'll put forth that pessimism is
not the only other option because I am
very much not a pessimist uh I would
have called myself an optimist up until
this interview uh and now I'm realizing
izing maybe I'm not an optimist I am a
realist but I don't mean that in a self-
congratulatory way I mean it in that I
can't necessarily see what is real but I
am I'm simply groping for what is real
and so I'm doing things like okay what
what am I going to use to inform my
stance on this looking backwards is
certainly one of the things uh so I look
back at history do I see periods of
Peace yes do I see a period of peace
that ever BL and wasn't violated no not
ever not once nope never not once so I
would now be asking for the first time
ever in human history for people to be
able to sort of put a genie back in the
bottle yes that's what you're asking
okay doesn't mean that you don't try it
but it does mean that you go into this
saying okay this is violating everything
that I know about human behavior up to
this point but is there a plan that we
can put together because if you don't
believe it can be done you won't even
take the steps which is why I think your
idea of making it taboo is really quite
brilliant um and I get you're quoting
somebody else fair enough but still
nonetheless I think the idea is really
really fantastic your book however
posits a madman and that is exactly the
thing that I think people are ultimately
going to bump up against so there are
nine countries with nuclear weapons one
of them will not let people come in and
audit that would be North Korea I think
there's a reason that your book says hey
this probably starts with North Korea
the one person that's just sort of
leaving things unhinged also I think we
did make using nuclear weapons taboo I
know there was a huge debate during
Vietnam whether we Halo dropped a
nuclear weapon in there to just end that
war real quick we decided not to
probably very wise and that it just the
more conflicts we've had where nobody
used them the more we go okay wow it
really is there'd be so much
International pressure um
however we're now living in a moment
where people really are rattling their
Sabers again talking about using them
whether our own president or anybody
else um it's certainly now less taboo to
talk about it and I certainly have deep
fears that Putin gets backed into a
corner feels it's an existential threat
maybe doesn't use uh an ICBM but you
know a little dirty bomb or something
just to make a point to let people know
to back off and now all of a sudden it
isn't taboo and and potentially
escalates from there that would be a
very deep and profound concern but
thinking about all of that I with my
realist haton I worry that not only will
we never get to zero nukes but that as
synthetic biology becomes more powerful
that China really will go uh here's a an
angl targeted version of Ebola that's
Airborne or whatever and we're like yo
we our spies told us that they developed
that so we need one aimed at Chinese
people and so now everybody does keep
that in a secret lab and I don't know
where you fall in conspiracy theories
around covid but like you know were we
doing gain of function research does
that make sense so we're we already have
reason to at least be a little bit
cautious about assuming that people
aren't already keeping things maybe not
small poox but things like small pox on
hand just in case under the guise of oh
we're just trying to learn about it and
so I have a
very what I'll call Matt Ridley's
version of the rational Optimist in me
where I look back and I see despite all
the horrible things and the brutal
terrible things that we've done to each
other humans are also beautiful and
wonderful and full of love and capable
of the incredible and so I don't want to
look back at you know 12,000 years of
moving in the right direction with
there's no doubt brutal blips that for
any one person's life it doesn't help
that the long Arc bends towards justice
for all
but I think looking back and just seeing
this progress progress progress that I
continue to believe that that's going to
continue but I have a feeling it will
only continue if people look at the
world not as they wish it were but as it
actually is and so taking a very
practical maybe just a nice neutral term
for it a practical approach to how do we
deescalate how do we increase the sense
of taboo ends up being how we at least
continue this 70-year run of good luck
and to your point about taboo another
reason why it would be very valuable is
that you could first of all it would
keep more nations from getting nuclear
weapons period because it would be you
would be the group of nine or rather
eight because North Korea doesn't
participate would be having a stance a
unified stance and if once you have to
be unified about something ideally you
would be unified about other things
because that's how progress happens so
one of the problems right now as you say
of Putin being backed in the corner is
that making you know friends with other
enemies becomes even more dangerous the
missile that I write about the the ICBM
that hits the Pentagon is in haong 17
North Korea's now second most powerful
long range nuclear weapon just the other
day in the news I read
that uh haong 11 a shorter range Missile
hit
Ukraine now this happened several months
ago but the forensics were being done on
it to make sure this was accurate and it
was reported earlier this week that it
was and so what that says is you now
have pu you know Russia and North
Korea friending up in the weapons world
to attack H Ukraine I assume it was a
conventional Warhead yes yes yes it was
a conventional Warhead but still that's
the those are the Delivery Systems of
nuclear weapons and so and the bigger
point is their friends not if you could
make the person who isn't adhering to
the deterrence rules to the disarmament
rules excuse me taboo it would put more
pressure on them to join the
group watch chimp
Empire um versus people cutting deals
with when everybody's enemies of
everybody else the potential for
explosion the potential
for serious conflict
escalating gets greater when people
communicate and when people have
agreements about things it lessens the
pressure why don't we build an iron Dome
style defense system I know we have
something that's sort of the beginnings
of it um but why isn't that the answer
here so America has well first of all
for for listeners there's a difference
between an ICBM an intercontinental
ballistic missile which can get from one
continent to another in roughly 30
minutes it's mind-boggling that
technology has not changed since 19 57
by the way um people talk about we have
hypersonics a ballistic missile is
Hypersonic and it's faster than a
Hypersonic the new missiles those are
mock I don't know five six something
like that I B istic missile is going
about 15,000 mph Mach
23 short range and intermediate range
missiles are easier to shoot down that
is what you saw two weeks ago in in
Iran firing missiles at Israel you saw
them being shot down by Navy systems out
on the ocean called the Eis system which
can shoot down those missiles had an I
write about them in the book because
they have an 85% success rate but
they're not protecting the continental
United States they're protecting our
partners
overseas and so the egis systems which
had the 85% success rate actually worked
in a live combat
situation which so if you're if you're
me thinking about disarmament you go wow
now a lot of people are
going we should just have
those but those the EEG system cannot go
up against an intercontinental ballistic
missile an InterContinental B an
intercontinental ballistic
missile gets intercepted by what's
called an interceptor missile and I
write about in the book how that goes
down we have
44 total many people have said maybe
Annie there's a secret program you don't
know about doesn't exist unless I'm
wrong it doesn't exist even if it did
tell me where those
1,500 some OD or 2,000 missiles are
hiding they have to be
somewhere so we know Russia has 5,000
missiles how is
44 Interceptor missiles going to go up
against them never mind the fact that
nose cone that the the Warhead in a nose
cone of a missile can be mved meaning
there are multiple Warheads in there
there are decoys in there the the
interceptor missile system by the
defense department Department's own
records has a success rate of between 40
and
55% those are on curated tests that's
when it's like hey guys there's going to
be a missile coming at 8:00 try to shoot
it down literally a curated
test 50% failure rate
approximately but you don't think the
play is to put resources into getting
better I I'm operating on the base
assumption that if we had the Manhattan
Project of stopping or the Manhattan
Project of creating an Iron Dome
essentially for these that we could get
better now whether there's a lot better
that we could get I won't speak to but
my base assumption is that yes with
enough time and energy we could but I
know it's on strategic pause so they're
not even trying well they are they're
creating a whole new system but the
thing is is that how many of them are
you going to have mostly they're all for
show really and truly and most people by
the way do not even realize this I've I
have even said in an interview before I
was at a dinner party with a very
knowledgeable person when I told him I
was writing this book was like Annie we
have an Interceptor system for that W
did not say
anything that person used to be a
staffer for a member of Congress just
simply was completely wrong it's okay
people have different sets of wrong
information but we have 44 Interceptor
missiles and they cannot shoot down a
thousand incoming missiles and so to
your
point if we okay so that becomes a great
idea let's have twice as many missiles
well then you're that is exactly what a
certain group of military industrialists
would love to perhaps have happen more
weapons more weapons more weapons but I
know nothing
about the economics you spoke of of
printing money it sounded interesting
but what I can tell you is you could
just replace printing money with making
weapons anyone can tell you you just
need a a narrative brain to be like wait
a minute if we make more weapons they're
going to make more
weapons and so that is madness when
you're talking about nuclear weapons
that is
madness
the goal must be I would think based on
what sources tell me disarmament
yeah well we'll see if we can pull that
off it's uh it is a great goal to aim
for speaking of goals talk to me about
the next era of Weaponry you've talked
about DARPA their sole mission in life
is to build I forget the exact phrase
but like the next generation of the most
amazing Weaponry um do we have hints of
what comes next
drones autonomous systems AI Warfare
anything like that vast weapon systems
of the future that's the quote vast
weapon systems of the future um DARPA is
of course for listeners the most
powerful most productive military
research agency in the world and they
handle chicken and egg problems that's
those are their words and or they do
blue sky research because the
fundamental theory is if one of your
call it an adversary call it an enemy if
one of your enemies or
adversaries appears on the scene with a
weapon that you don't have it's too late
that's DARPA thinking and so they are
creating weapon systems to outperform
anyone at all times and they work
directly with the intelligence Community
to have an eye on what we systems are
being created over there in China Russia
North
Korea so when I wrote the DARPA book and
was reporting it 10 years ago I found
these very interesting to me documents
in the defense department making
explicitly clear that the Weapons
Systems of the future were going to be
autonomous systems that involved not
just machines that become
intelligent but human humans that
interface with machines like brain
computer interface brain computer
interface and and you can read the DARPA
book called The pentagon's Brain which
is now 10 years old but again I take you
through the origin stories of DARPA and
show you the diff different weapon
systems in the different Wars that came
to be and I think most readers can then
figure out for themselves where we're
going you know it's the Shakespeare past
as prologue like you said as well and so
the idea that DARPA is moving toward is
to have H humans and machines work
together and that includes ultimately
biohybrids where men are men and women I
use the word man to mean humans are
augmented with
machines and this doesn't just mean in
the brain this also means in the body
and this also means that Warf Fighters
will
carry technology kits to be able to do
all kinds of things from
identify their enemies instantly through
Iris scans I mean all of this works
together with biometric databases I
wrote about this in the book I wrote
previously right before nuclear war I
wrote a book called first platoon about
a group of young soldiers that go to
Afghanistan thinking they're fighting
the Taliban only to discover that
they're actually collecting biometric
information
on locals as part of a program that the
defense department was running to
collect biometric information that's
your fingerprints Iris scans DNA on 85%
of the population of Afghanistan it was
just a big litmus test in essence and so
this idea if there's anything people
would might want to sort of look at I
believe to wonder where all of this is
going it's biometric systems working in
concert with brain computer interface
systems at the
Pentagon and that becomes a very a a
world not just I mean the fill in the
blank with the SC I read I saw your
science fiction books on the Shelf
before we
spoke that is
precisely the direction in which DARPA
would have us heading but let's not
forget a quote from the former director
of DARPA herself
which said DARPA where science fiction
becomes science
fact how taboo do you think
transhumanism brain computer interfaces
to move weapons is going to become how
taboo yeah well again it's what people
decide is taboo taboo is a human we is
taboo is a completely human construct
and so I'll cite a kind of spooky
example that I also found in when I
wondered that question and there is a
survey I write about in the pentagon's
brain where the generals and Admirals at
the Pentagon so the high ranking
officers were asked how they felt about
this movement toward you know brain
computer interface AI weapon systems of
the future being drones being drone
swarms humans being augmented with
computers themselves super soldiers is
kind of the short form term for it and
the generals and the Admirals gave push
back in this in this discussion said we
don't want that we want to always have a
human in the
mix and what I found that was the end of
that study and then what I found was
right around the same
time DARPA became very interested in a
in a scientist that was working on he
had discovered in his own words
something called the moral
molecule I got to give an attend them
there to the other concept the generals
basically said we want a human in the
mix because we don't
trust
machines then at the same time I find
this new program that gets initiated at
DARPA with the professor
Zach who found to his alleged he alleged
to find the moral molecule in the brain
it's something called
oxytocin and he was thrilled to have
found this it's like the it's the same
molecule the way that Zach explained it
to me because I interviewed him in his
office it's the same molecule that
mother breastfeeding mothers emit so
it's just trust and it had to exist if
we go back to our hunter gatherer
discussion because imagine a
breastfeeding mother who has to worry
about like the wilderbeast or the lion
or the Jaguar but has to take the time
to breastfeed the child so that
Evolution can
continue well there's the moral molecule
trust it's okay everything will be fine
the will to Beast will not get you I
mean that's how I think of it when I try
to wrap my brain around what that
molecule might be and so DARPA gives
Zach a grant to investigate the moral
molecule so that and to his eye he told
me he was convinced it was so that they
could understand how to make people more
trusting I posit a different idea which
is that it was going to be used to try
and make people
trust the Pentagon and trust
that brain computer interface was a good
idea and and I have lots of reasons why
I I have lots of reasons that I report
that indicate that that was the
direction that it was going but again
readers can draw their own conclusion so
interesting that you have that but are
still very hesitant to say that the
government might be up to something
certainly in this case that the Pentagon
might be up to something it's
interesting yeah so getting people
to understand how these things work that
the government is running these
experiments that you have this gigantic
part of the military apparatus that has
a uh instruction or reason for existing
to create these vast weapon systems of
the future uh and that they're playing
around with oxytocin which by the way is
also present in postorgasm brain
chemistry so to the point about bonding
it's there to bond the mother and the
infant it's there to bond the two people
making love uh so yeah and you can use
it as a nasal spray which is crazy so in
fact I brought this up to my wife once
so I had a doctor that was like Hey if
you want to experiment with it I'll
prescribe um oxytocin for you as a nasal
spray and I went to my wife and I was
like oh my God this would be so amazing
like imagine we want to have a really
hard conversation or we want to
negotiate we're you know uh Putin and
Biden and we want to negotiate backing
off of uh nuclear Armament we're each
going to take a nasal spray of oxytocin
and or let's be clandestine we're just
going to pump it into the room wow and
now everyone's just like a little more
trusting and open to it I mean it's
interesting I am very curious to know if
any of this stuff ever plays out
realistically like I know for instance
you wrote a book phenomena on the
government studying ESP so whether it's
ESP or oxytocin like does the stuff get
researched because there's so many
dollars floating around or do they
actually do something with this stuff I
mean I think again it's you know case
specific specific I write about
different programs that become the
result of other programs but there is
the idea that a lot what the most
volatile shall we say programs get
classified and again now you can take
away from that what you will um what I
do know about DARPA is it's fundamental
that it's working on weapon systems of
the future and what I you know about
DARPA is that it is it comes from the
position that if we don't invent it
someone else will and so that like I'll
I'll Loop it back to nuclear war because
it's so on my mind is this thermonuclear
bomb here on the cover of the
book The Weapon drawn by Richard Garwin
when he was 23 or 24 years old the first
thermonuclear explosion
the explosion that changed the world you
could say um I asked Garwin if he wish
he hadn't invented it and he said to me
after a very long
pause he wished it couldn't be
invented why do you think he said
that I wonder about that and I
specifically didn't want to ask him a
followup because I I enjoy thinking that
there's two answers and right which is
that one which other nuclear weapons
designers have told me is Annie they the
Russians were months away from or invent
you know from discovering or being able
to explode a thermonuclear weapon which
is
true so there's that and then there's
the idea of the pure scientist mind
which is not my
mind which
is that's my call
so it's and I guess the closest analogy
I can think is like I am a Storyteller I
was born that way I've always known
about myself that that is
me and nothing gives me greater
inspiration and excitement and and
purpose really and
so I can't imagine if somebody
said if I you know oh you can't write
that story you're not allowed
and in an interesting way I faced a
little bit of
that with nuclear war a scenario in as
much that there was some
concern that I was fear-mongering
there's two concerns that were presented
to me by you know very levelheaded
people like one is it fear-mongering and
two are you giving anyone any idea and
my answer to the first part was well
let's let me ask my sources am I
fearmongering which I did which was
super helpful and no one said to me yes
don't write that book none of them these
are people in nuclear command and
control and to the second part am I
giving anyone an idea it's
like I mean people with bad intention
know all of
this and so but circling back to the
idea of you know do I wish it could not
be invented I think
that's the the where my mind goes on
that question is is about our the part
of our discussion
about um
man's man
evolving man moving
toward a world led by science and
technology that is the reality of where
we are you know you think back to the
word Lite right that the because when
sometimes people get afraid by that and
they're like this is terrible it used to
be better before and then you think of I
looked up the other day what an actual L
it's like when the I think it was the
weaving loom was invented people went
crazy like oh my God this is just going
to ruin it for the pre
Weavers uh same with the printing press
I've heard one of my favorite thinkers
James Burke talk about the printing
press and he he was talking to Dan
Carlin on Hardcore History and he was
saying
that and he's an optimist by the way um
he was saying that when people say to
him like oh my God you know the iPhone
is ruining America and he said when the
printing press was
invented
everybody said this is going to
ruin youth suddenly they're going to be
able to
read and we laugh at that now but you
know what Burke said on the Counterpoint
with to that was that what the printing
press did was Liberate the world because
Liberate the world and give the world
access to knowledge not just
because average Jane and Joe could read
but because before that the priesthood
controlled the
information and what a great way of
thinking so Science and Technology where
we are now is no different than the
printing press and Burke's idea about
how that made society
better and
so I think that kind of looping around
to your transhumanism question is that
again you can you can frame your
thinking in any
manner I can think oh my God it's the
worst thing in the world to suddenly
augment humans or I can think that's
part of progress but the most important
thing is my favorite expression of all
time and probably sums me up better than
anything and even my own father said
this is my favorite new expression
just don't make me do
it just don't make me do it tell me more
that sums you up better than anything
because I can hold both ideas maybe
transhumanism is great maybe it's
terrible but ultimately it's my decision
so you can't just don't make me do it so
whenever I hear any bad like what I
think are bad ideas I can like okay
interesting that's interesting I can
listen to him interesting okay ask
questions so then if that da da and then
my conclusion is not that is right or
wrong I mean with within reason some
things are okay I'm talking about like
acceptable Concepts but then I say just
don't make me do it right just don't
make me don't make me do it that's very
interesting okay a couple of things that
you said really sum up uh where I'm at
and I think uh it's interesting how it
also highlights the different
interpretations that we have so you said
if we don't invent it someone else will
that's what's driving the creation of a
lot of these Technologies uh that's very
much an idea that underpins my thinking
as well that take the atomic bomb if we
didn't the Germans were racing to do it
and then when they fell out of the game
the Russians were racing to do it in
fact they had a spy at Los Almos which
is probably how they got it they were
also trying to gobble up as many of the
um former Nazi scientists as they could
and so it's a race to get all the
Germans which is a fascinating question
about why do the Germans have all the
best scientists but that's a whole
different thing uh and then the other
was a quote that you said which uh I
wish it couldn't have been invented I
forget the gentleman's name but Garwin
Richard Garn you put Garwin quote
together with the driving ethos of if we
don't do it somebody else is going to
and you get everything that can be
invented will be invented um I know
somebody I hope this doesn't become
self-evident I know somebody who uh is
very well-versed in physics that worries
that certain insights in physics will
give birth to the unknown so just as
Einstein's insights end up leading to
the splitting of the atom uh and then
that leads not only to energy it also
leads to weapons of mass destruction and
the age that we're
in you know as we find new things like
what's the new Manhattan Project like
are they working on something if they
are is it going to have positive
negative implications it's very hard to
know uh but I firmly believe that the
way the human mind works if it can be
invented it's going to be invented but
where we put resources will determine
how quickly something is invented so
certainly there are ways to Forstall
but if you have the idea that if we
don't do it somebody else will now all
of a sudden you take the biggest most
dangerous thing the thing that could be
the vast weapon system of the future and
you go crazy so take AI
um partly because I guess I've grown up
in the age where it seemed like in the '
80s for real for real we were all going
to die from a nuclear explosion then it
didn't happen I have a false sense of
security that we're going to just keep
figuring this out uh and not do it
because mutually assured destruction
makes so much sense to me that even a
Madman unless I mean I guess unless they
absolutely care about nothing um but I
have a hard time believing that they
would get in power anyway uh I I don't
have maybe wrongly so this is one I do
not want people to adopt my thinking I
think that your book is a very wise
thing that if people listen to and we
reduce we're in a way better position
but anyway that isn't where I spend a
lot of my time being afraid but I do
spend time being very concerned about
the psychological impact of AI now I am
a huge proponent of AI
ironically I think that ultimately it
ends up being a tremendous Force for
good you couldn't stop it from happening
even if you wanted to anyway uh so I
think people ought to think about how to
do it well but I think there will be a
transition period that's going to be
ruthless and so when you were talking
about the printing press yes we look
back and laugh now but they were right
and so the generation where the clergy
lost control of the church was explosive
it changed the very fabric of society
and whenever you change the fabric of
society even though it leads to
something that I think universally we
would all say is better uh it would have
been devastating for social structure at
that time and given how little the
average human likes change you can
understand why those would be very
turbulent times in addition to that the
rate of change now is accelerating so
much that even if we Embrace that oh
change is great this is all going to be
wonderful AI is going to bring in if not
a Utopia something just so much better
than what we have today and it's a
Liberation in the same way that people
were liberated by the loom first and the
printing or the printing press first but
anyway you get the idea uh if that all
happens at the rate that AI is going to
happen and then AI will
self-improve oo I think this just the
rate of change alone will be very hard
to metabolize for human
civilization I don't disagree with you
and I think that would be
another vote
for people beginning to realize how
important it is to see people as
adversaries and opponents as opposed to
enemies because if everything you know
if every it's the old cliche if you're a
hammer everything's a nail and
so I what I take away from what you were
saying was AI could be weaponized or AI
could be generalized right it could be a
tool for people to use or it could be a
weapon and that's just the
fundamental reality of dual use any all
weapons almost all weapons have a dual
use so
the
thrust should be on
a on a sort of human level of being able
to
communicate and agree to disagree as
opposed to having
conflict and the problem
with the military industrial complex and
when I say that I don't mean that in a
conspiratorial way I mean that in a
literal way weapons production right a
colleague I know works for rathon and
they just got rid of all their
advertising essentially their whole
advertising Department because they
don't need to advertise
anymore they just have are back order on
weapons so if
weapons require
conflict so on balance if people are
moving
toward a degree of I don't want to say
Harmony because that sounds very
polanish but rather communication or
agreeing on their
differences then I think the framework
of inventions come of of Technologies
become different and again you would
make it taboo like what you're trying to
use that as a
weapon that's right so there's no Taboo
in
Weaponry
whatsoever and I and I'm even shocked by
that just in
my progression of as a reporter over the
past 20 years I'll give it the the most
obvious example being drones when drones
first came out and I reported on the
earliest days of the drones and the
initial drone that was during the
Clinton Administration that a group of
people I interviewed I write about this
in Surprise kill vanish wanted to kill
Osama Bin Laden with a
drone and we're told no that you can't
do
that and look at
now drones are just completely accepted
as part of the vast weapon systems of
the present
day what was the rationale behind not
using it to kill Bin Laden because it
would just be absolutely unacceptable
this was in the late
90s because there's no human attached
it's almost impossible to think about
this now absolutely so disorienting
right because are you ready for this it
was an extrajudicial
killing huh and the president President
Clinton at the time wanted the team to
Take Along an FBI agent to so they
wanted to grab been L they could get him
human this is before 911 mhm interesting
I didn't realize he was that kind of
threat before 911 Billy W was operating
against Bin Laden 10 years before 911 in
Sudan the CIA knew he was a threat
immediately after the Gulf
War um and they were watching him and
Billy La Billy wall is a great part in
Surprise kill vanish of Billy wall his
his cover was an old man on a jogging
craze that's how he described red it
wasn't that old then um but he would
just run around cartoon in jogging
shorts and he had to have a lead pipe in
his hand while he was running because
Bin Laden's dogs would always run after
him I mean it's just such a great image
and such a great scene Billy W wanted to
kill Bin Laden and asked according
there's two versions of that story talk
about there's two versions of everything
Billy W's version of the story was that
he told his boss kofer black kofer black
became a very famous person during the
war on terror because for a lot of
reasons but um kofer black was chief of
station in cartoom in the 90s and Billy
was the Singleton operator going up
against Bin Laden and Billy said we
should kill this guy according to Billy
and he had a whole plan how he was going
to do it throw a bunch of grenades over
go you know go over the fence and he
told Co according to Billy told cover
Black cover black took it directly to
the president and the president said
don't ever suggest anything like that
again this is
Clinton ever like like Billy got sort of
admonished for suggesting that that's
Billy's version Ker's
version is I never took it to
Clinton but either way what we do know
is that some years later that same team
tried to kill Bin Laden with a drone and
it was rejected because drones were
taboo drones were taboo it was just
considered out of the realm of human
behavior it's uh so taboo let's talk
about it Billy would Billy was an
assassin for people that don't know
Billy would uh I think it was Billy that
said when you saw that he had a knife oh
God this might have been somebody else
but you were like why do you have a
knife instead of guns because some
operations have to be done quietly uh
so why do you think as a now I'm asking
you as a writer as a writer is somebody
who understands other people gets inside
their head explain to me an assassin and
how they can wrap their head around
killing somebody and feeling like this
was or is
Justified okay so a couple thoughts on
that I mean assassin is such a like you
know narrative word
um I never Billy never called himself an
assassin I never called Billy an
assassin how did he refer to himself um
well but hang on so however and we used
to have this discussion and I would say
I would try to get some details from him
and he would he would usually say you
know I can't talk about
that and and you are right someone once
said you know this guy killed more
people than cancer right so there was
definitely a
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plus two free gifts I was interested in
reporting Billy's story and I was more
interested in the long form of the story
and asking that kind of point blank
question question is a really quick way
to get somebody like Billy W to say
we're done here and that's
it so and I I knew it was more valuable
for me to get the real big long Arc of
Billy W and let people decide if he was
a air quote assassins with that said I
was at Billy's house in Florida one day
and he was showing me you know all
various weapons and he had all kinds of
artifacts
framed a on the walls award I mean he
had so many awards and I Came Upon an
award of beautifully
framed silver gilded Persian sword
framed with a big Medallion from the
CIA and an inscription that said to
Billy W the
Assassin and I describe exactly in the
book surprise kill vanish what it said
but I pointed it to it and said Billy
what about this and he told me a little
bit about it you can read it in the book
um but he never used that word
himself that's a word that was given to
him interestingly by the agency so
setting the word aside for a second how
how did he think about killing was he
obviously operated on some kind of code
I'll do whatever I need to do to protect
my country or this is a bad person have
it coming or or or um do you have a
sense of how he
conceptualized the
job I mean Billy first of all he began
operating when Eisenhower was
president assassination truly was still
legal
meaning the
CIA the CIA has a code called title 50
that they adhere to the military Works
under title 10 and title 50 is part of
the
president's what is called you know um
the third option so there's diplomacy
then there's that's the first option
then there's war it's the second option
when war is a really bad idea you do the
third option which is covert action so
all you know elimination of leaders
shall we say falls under the rubric of
covert action and it is legal under
title 50
and it used each president before the
church hearings in the 70s had a program
under and I write about all of this in
the book documented from Declassified
documents like Eisenhower was called I
believe the health alteration committee
literally dark that was the
assassination program so they all have
had them and they've changed the way
they're framed over the years I mean
Obama's program using drones to kill
people was called targeted
killing certainly self-descriptive so
again this is like
our attitude towards what is taboo and
what isn't taboo and that other part you
mentioned where I that's in the prologue
of the book I talk about someone coming
and staying with me an operator that I
knew and him my kids being little and
having GI Jo's I have two boys and they
were like obsessed with the GI Jo's and
he showed them like how the G Jo's would
really hold their weapons and everything
and he asked if it was okay if he showed
them some real guns and I said yes and
he set them up and I describe it in the
book and then afterwards there was a
case that he didn't open and I asked him
what it was and there was a knife inside
of it and I said what is that for
immediately realizing my naav or foot in
mouth and he said sometimes a job
requires
quiet and um by the way I can't tell you
how many people have you know in the
agency have said to me by the way I
don't even know if I believe that
opening story and I shared with at least
one of
them not the name of who that person was
but by location a few details about who
that person was and they went like oh
that was that right
so it's interesting people's perception
of what is true what is taboo what
you're allowed to say how you describe
something which is kind of my long-
winded way of saying that I don't know
that I would want to put words in
Billy's mouth about what it was
he thought about bad guys and about
killing because it's so much better
coming from Billy himself and he's my
main source in Surprise kilv vanage and
I quote him extensively and I also have
hours of footage with Billy
talking um and I think one day it will
it will get made into a documentary and
it's going to be great because you
really just want to see him explain how
his world works I think that's the
greatest gift of Journalism when you're
willing to do long form as I am go spend
time with someone travel with someone I
traveled with Billy back to Hanoi back
to Havana to various Battlegrounds of
the Cold War where he operated I flew
with him in airplanes I sat with him in
hotel rooms I rode with him in taxi caps
almost like reconning old places and
that's where I got the best of Billy W
meaning what he thought how he thought
he could share it with me and that then
I hopefully conveyed that in the book
about him and you got the sense of who
he was which I think might be a better
answer than putting words in his mouth
because it's such a taboo subject I
could never do that I could never do
that job and yet that Billy W and I
related on so many human issues I told
you this in the before before we got on
air and I'll and I'll share it here
because it's just one of my favorite
stories about B you couldn't have two
more opposite people our upbringings our
professions we couldn't have been more
different and yet there was something
that Drew us to one another like magnets
you know and one time we figured out
this common trait that we both had and
it made us smile which is that Billy
said to me that when he was a little kid
he just wanted to be good at school and
he used to sit in the front row and
every time the teacher asked a question
he raised his hand like that and I
laughed because I said Billy that's me
that's the same as me I was that kid
only difference is I had little braids
hanging down and I didn't go on to
become the longest serving operator
euphemism for the CIA I became a
journalist who writes about people
as a journalist who writes about people
what did you feel when you were shown
that knife and
explained that that's used obviously for
up close killing well that's exactly to
our point that we've been discussing I
thought about
taboo and there was delayed reaction
because at the mo in the moment I went
like I could and I write this in the
book I could Envision that
individual killing people with a sniper
rifle that was perfectly
fine and acceptable shall we say to me
that's how bad guys were taken out in
the war on terror and I'm being fa
somewhat factious here
because why okay so they're still being
killed but the thought of that person
sneaking up behind someone and slitting
their throat or jabbing it into their
ribs was shocking to me and then I
stayed up at night thinking
why is
that and I had of course been writing
about Area 51 and this concept of you
know
bombardment like looking back at at
because everyone in a lot of the people
in Area 51 the sources were World War II
Heroes people like Colonel Slater um
people like General leadford all of whom
are in the book that I got you know this
opportunity to interview not leadford
but all the others and I was thinking
about air power this idea that you could
just carpet bomb Japan as we did or
carpet bomb Berlin as we did
indiscriminately killing people and I
was thinking about the idea that we use
these two nuclear weapons
indiscriminately killing
civilians and what the difference was
and how technology was changing and
shaping and all of that and I had been
thinking about that and you know bombing
people from the air at one time was
taboo and by the time World War II came
it certainly was no longer and so I had
been so I was thinking about that and
then I had that for me a very
Illuminating experience with my own self
My Own
preconceptions by asking exactly those
questions why did I think of them as
different animals if you will and that
inspired me to write surprise kill
vanish okay so realizing that you have a
gap between thinking of sort of the up
close and the far away as two different
animals what was there any
reconciliation for you in doing all that
research and writing the book in a way I
want to know also how things work but my
particular brain is suited for the
specifics of it and I learn the
specifics and then maybe I say hm now I
think I understand and more
generally and it takes a lot of
information to fill in the gaps of that
and then when I began researching and
Reporting surprise skill vanish and I
went back to the origin of the
CIA and I learned okay this all began
when the CIA began in 1947 oh except for
it didn't because of course every origin
story has an origin story and the origin
of the CIA is from the
osss which was the organization it
doesn't exist anymore but that was the
first kind of you know unit that America
created to kill enemies close kill Nazis
and the one of the units of the OSS were
called the jedberg they were the ones
that jumped out of airplane into Nazi
occupied France and killed Nazis with
their bare
hands their motto was surpris kill
vanish that was the motto of the
Jedburg again taboo like and the and the
OSS and the Jedburg are seen as these
heroic Nazi Killers like who cares how
you kill a Nazi as long as he's dead
that's the idea but wait killing people
in the modern day with a knife is not
right I mean do you see and so then oh
interesting interesting and then I just
began to report the story and for me
it's just a journey and then one thing
leads to the next and before you know it
you're in cartoon learn I mean not
physically but mentally and you're just
learning and you're trying to if you're
me you're trying to report the
story in a narrative manner that keeps
it interesting and keeps it charging
forward and that isn't bringing in my
own
preconceptions one of the great things
about writing about things that you know
almost nothing about before you start
you know the general lay of the land but
you don't know the
specifics I didn't know I did not know
that the CIA had
a group called The President's Guerilla
Warfare Corp that is what they were
called in 1947 when they were created
they were specifically C you know to do
the president's bidding plausibly
deniable covert action direct action
which means killing in whatever manner
it needs to happen and it was set up
specifically and I quote the documents
from the national archives in the book
it was set up specifically to counter
the vicious actions of Soviet
Russia again bringing us back to our big
concept here which is that if you
believe your enemy is vicious and wants
to kill you you're going to create
programs that mirror
theirs monkey see monkey
do if you can move toward as I would
hope Society is move toward this idea of
okay some men are really aggressive and
then when I say men I mean men and women
right um but we don't all have to be and
we can actually evolve we can train our
own
thinking you can train your brain to see
optimistically as
opposed to being
suspicious you can I know that for a
personal fact go take a hike and Watch
What
Happens it's interesting I was just
going to say that in listening to all
that I think I understand the way you
like to be approached which is uh as a
deep journalist somebody who's just
reporting the facts that I think only
about synthesizing things putting them
together what do they mean what does
this mean how is it useful um you want
to present the facts devoid of your read
of the situation devoid of any moral
compass or judgment this simply is what
is uh but then when you were saying that
you can train yourself um how to think
that tells me that there's more to it
but in an interview I have a feeling
that if I pursued that leg okay give me
other things that you can train yourself
to do or whatever that uh you'll end up
pulling back um all right so let's talk
conspiracies through the lens of a
journalist because I think of UFOs
CIA uh they are part of a larger sense
of control of focus control of
information via disinformation quite
frankly um that that seems like the most
likely thing now I I don't go very deep
into these things so people may know it
better and think that that's a totally
off reading fair enough but um what are
the conspiracies my word you may not
even like that word but things that you
know the general public will think of as
a conspiracy whether it's Area 51
whether it's JFK whatever what are the
ones that you have spent the most time
with that you're like I understand the
facts of this situation conspiracies
come up in all of my work I mean when I
began writing Area
51 conspiracies were sort of pushed over
to like a very small group of
individuals I think that was back in
2009 certainly the number of people
interested in these kinds of things that
I write about has grown exponentially
why I don't know but that just is what
it is but I drill down on all these
different conspiracies trying to
demonstrate that no wonder there's
conspiracies I guess that would be the
takeaway maybe the best so well I can't
tell you which one I've spent the most
time on because they just appear and
reappear I can certainly tell you two
interesting things to be true is one you
know all almost all military programs
have a thread back to the Nazi
scientists why well why were the
Germans the smartest people in the world
like okay just as a sort of if you look
at the amount of Nobel prizes they won
in
science why were they so darn smart and
then why did they become Nazis as a
society I can't answer that I cannot
answer that I've I've read million books
on the theories but still every there is
no answer yet it doesn't make any sense
to
me I can understand why lack of
Education why religious zealotry leads
toward insanity and cruelty I can
understand that part but I can't
understand how the educated mind goes
there that's the conundrum of the Nazis
to me
but so most of the weapons technology
Loops back
there because we were so we the United
States suddenly in Pole Position after
World War II wanting to stay in Pole
Position wanting to stay at the
front um knowing that the Soviet Union's
that Co the Soviet communist ideals were
absolutely counter to democracy and we
could not be allies with them anymore
like immediately not even when the war
ended but as the war was
ending and it just such was that the
weapon systems became incredibly
important developing them to be able to
beat the Russians so many things loop
back the Nazis which is problematic
because the Nazis are like the biggest
Locust of
conspiracies that's just a fact and then
but on the specifics of what why do I
spend time on them and what do I spend
time on I think it's because it's
interesting that there's always a threat
of Truth so I say to myself well no
wonder people think this is a conspir or
think and I'll give you an an alternate
I'll give you one one specific example
about the moon landing right so and I
try to interview people from both sides
of the aisle so when I I I interviewed
Buzz Aldren second man on the moon right
who went to the moon if you're if if
you're on that side of things right okay
that did he punch you for even bringing
it out oh no and um but then look at
these
photographs that I have in one of my
books a couple of my books of astronauts
training to moon what it would be like
to walk in the moon to stumble around on
the moon and they're
inside Atomic craters so craters Left
Behind of atomic weapons we exploded in
the
1950s and you see these astronauts with
mockups of what of their backpacks you
know you know walking around in them and
you see them close up and it look if you
look at it close up it looks like
they're on the moon and then you pull
back and you realize you know it's
they're in a crater on Earth and so no
wonder there are these different
conspiracy
theories now what really gets
interesting and more interesting to me
in terms of like Hollywood and science
fiction is why that
is why is it that those ideas are
fostered is that human nature is it just
in the Zeitgeist people talking about it
and then more people talking about it
and more people questioning or is is it
in someone's interest
to generate more ideas along those lines
and if so who is that who is that
someone for me I that's why I enjoy
watching Hollywood movies just for the
speculation but having seen so many of
these things up close
you don't um have a sense of like oh
I've seen this kind of Playbook before
while I don't know the specifics it's
going to be something like this I
certainly feel that way with UFOs and M
you know keep in mind that I am friendly
with many of the country's leading
ethologists and when I say friendly
meaning I can sit next to them at a
dinner party and have I can call them up
and have a conversation some of of them
send me their
papers oh Annie this is a really
interesting paper we now think that
actually there are you know uaps under
the ocean read this and tell me what you
think they I can read that but my and
they all know that I am on the other
side of the aisle with I don't believe
there are aliens Among Us which doesn't
mean I'm not going to be pleasantly
surprised if I'm
wrong what an interesting thing but
right now that's not the position that I
take because when you look at the
evidence you see what I see Paul
benoits the guy who the CIA broke
mentally I see strategic deception
campaigns and I also see way too much
inside baseball if you were to
whiteboard out the
players of the ethologist that whole
thrust it's the same
people over and over again and the new
players seem to be to me the Paul
benowitz is the people being used to
further that idea I mean I've had I've
had so many people that are in the
center of all this contact me that I
have ongoing conversations with by the
way just out of intellectual curiosity
out of um interest in human
nature some I mean a lot of them we were
having conversation where I'm like I'm
not going to I'm not writing about this
just so that you know because I have
other things I want to report on but I
love having this conversation because
it's super interesting people who tell
me all different kinds of things about
this world and I know I'm sounding
cryptic here so forgive me but the
bottom line takeaway for me
is it's so much more interesting and in
many ways
lighter than talking or thinking about
war and weapons
so far as far as I know no aliens these
supposed aliens haven't killed
anyone war and weapons do a lot of
damage it's hard to think about it's
easier to think about something that is
incredibly fful and probably in my mind
lives much more along the axis of Jung's
thinking Carl Jung's
thinking I think of uaps and
UFOs as
man's desire to make sense of his world
where do you think things get back to
the truth so if when you look at UFOs
you see strategic deception what do you
think when you look at something like
JFK you've got RFK who's saying I'm
telling you right now the CIA killed my
I think he says both his uncle and his
father um but certainly his uncle do you
go strategic deception they're dragging
this out to keep people guessing but
really this is going to end up being
innocuous or do you go yeah that
actually makes sense that might fall
into the just don't make me do it
category like you know I I think
it's RFK Jr's opinions about that are
very interesting that's his father and
his
uncle that's very interesting to me I
don't put a judgment on that I it's
really more not a judgment I'm more
trying to get at the the facts so yeah
so I have no reason to think that's true
again that's kind of like the the UA why
do you think they don't reveal like so
many years of course that's crazy of
course it is totally crazy but my
feeling is and I'm going to tell you an
interesting story about JFK in a minute
um my feeling is that and this is pure
speculation is that whatever the answer
is and my eye goes toward
Cuba I mean killing a United States
President whoever did it there's going
to be some payback invol let's just say
the facts came
out and it was a asan state there would
be payback involved how could there not
be How could a president reveal that and
not be asked to and now you have let's
point right there at that book nuclear
war that would be my speculation but
here you want an interesting anecdote
about the JFK always okay so Dr Bud weam
was incredibly interesting for me to
interview the mayor of Area 51 that was
his terminology for himself the first
director of the directorate of Science
and Technology at
CIA incredibly brilliant person didn't
give interviews to a lot of people had
given some but definitely had not spoken
about Area 51
before he agreed to talk to me because I
was interviewing a number of the a12
oxcart pilots who said you got to talk
to Annie so he let me come up to his
Ranch in Santa Barbara and interview him
for a number of hours the minder in
between us cuz there's always kind of a
liaison between you and someone in the
agency not always but often and
certainly at his level said to me by the
way you may not ask any questions about
JFK interesting so of course I'm
like what do you mean like I mean but I
you know I was reporting Area 51 I
really wanted him to talk to me on the
record about area 51 my answer was of
course I didn't ask but it was in the
back of my mind it was in the back of my
mind never asked Wan said a really
interesting thing to me at the
conclusion of our
interviews he and he was so patient with
me I mean even had the drawing papers
out he was explaining to me how missile
technology worked he was just like so
many of those people was so incredibly
gifted such a such a consumate
professional remember he's he built the
first satellite program called Corona
for the United States like he was a
bunch of first I thank him in the end of
the book here and list some of the
things he did and he said to me when the
interview is closing okay so by the way
until your book publishes whatever you
need factchecking you want to double
check a quote you want photographs
whatever you want I'll happy to oblig
but the day your book publishes we will
never speak
again which is such a
CIA interesting sort of like wow that's
like must be some kind of code and it
just was it sticks with me because it
was so shock it was such a shocking
thing to say and it was so interesting
and sure
enough you know no contact from Dr Bud
won Flash Forward maybe one or two or
three years later I'm in my house and I
say to my
husband honey have you seen my cell
phone like where is it it's usually you
know in my back pocket or something and
he said oh yeah it rang it's right over
there and I pick it up and it says
missed call Dr Bud
Wan he called me I said Kevin oh my God
what he he's going to tell me about JFK
that's all I could think of right and I
said what do I do and Kevin said call
him
back and I was like I was like I'm
nervous I got to he said no just pick up
just call him back he called just a few
minutes ago so I stepped out onto the
balcony and I'll just never forget that
moment because I'm like looking out over
downtown Los Angeles from my balcony
going I'm about to learn the secret of
JFK of JFK's
assassination he's having like a near
deathbed you know moment he's decided to
tell someone and it's
me I hit
Redi a woman answers the phone
young I mumble my
name this
is she
goes yes Annie and I said um Dr Wan just
called me and I'm returning his
call and she said no he didn't and hung
up whoa that was it whoa and he died
just a few weeks really
I give me the chill and my husband said
to me you were not supposed to know who
kill
JFK I'm so crus fond you didn't answer
that call when it came in but I must
have been okay so here's another one
really and my husband is right because
there there is a story about D about Wan
that I did ask
him which because of course when I learn
back back up when I learned like don't
ask ask him you cannot ask me about JFK
of course I had to like Google you know
or rather read in books like what is
what does he know and what I learned was
that when JFK was
assassinated Dulles Alan Dulles took the
five top directors of the different
directorates at CIA down into the
basement for several
hours several hours immediately after
JFK was assassinated and The Story Goes
that they all came up
white-faced so that whatever really
happened those five people were told
that's the that's one story and another
story I learned from asking around
different agency people you know I can't
ask him about JFK but why do you think
that is and another one told me a story
they said you know won in the 70s I
think it was had a private plane that he
used to fly around in a lot and one day
he lent his plane to his neighbor and
the plane blew up
whoa and I asked him that during our
interviews said why do you think that
plane blew
up and he
said you shouldn't lend your plane to
your
neighbor and that's it no follow-up
question there because the follow-up
question would have
been was it linked to
JFK so you know I mean
we're we're talk we're talking about all
of this this with levity but it's a very
serious issue that's the only reason why
I can think
that those records are still
classified is
because it's too
dangerous and I would think that has to
do with a nation
state I mean I have interviewed
literally hundreds of people that have
worked for the CIA and none of them ever
have given me an
indication that it was an inside that
the CIA assassinated JFK that's
certainly what Robert F Kennedy makes
public that he thinks but you know what
do I know and the real question is is
what does he know yeah very good
question what if you were going to point
yourself or the public at asking the
right series of questions to get to that
answer how would you approach that
problem like when you encounter a
conspiracy and let's use JFK as the
example but when you encounter a
conspiracy how do you work your way
through so that you don't fall for
disinformation or something fake I don't
know that I would ever dare to try to
solve a
mystery that's so powerful and impactful
because I think it would be it would be
like waiting for
gdau what does that mean well like you
would just be writing for a really long
time without getting an answer um I mean
the best answer I can say to that is is
my friend and colleague Tom O'Neal who
wrote a book called chaos do you know
about chaos the secret history of the
60s the CIA and the secret history of
the 60 I've seen it on all never listen
to God you it's one of my favorite books
Tom's one of my favorite people and Tom
is the example but of why of of why that
wouldn't work for me and Tom and I
always joke because he took he took 25
years to write his book and I write a
book every two years so Tom got an
assignment in the N late '90s to report
on the whatever it was 30th anniversary
of the Manson Murders and he finished it
he immediately started reporting I was
like oh my God this is going to be a
book and he finished the book you know a
a couple years ago and it published and
it's been an incredible bestseller ever
since it's one of the most incredible
books I've ever read does Tom come to a
finite conclusion about who killed the
Mansons I mean of course we know who
killed the Mansons but I don't want to
give the spoiler alert actually should I
i' I'd love to hear you know because
you'll when you if you haveo alert if
you have Tom on the show which you
should and I'm sure many of the readers
know because the book's been out for a
bunch of years now but Tom posits that
Charles
Manson was a CIA asset
whoa and when there's a point in the
book where he asked one of his sources
oh my god do you mean
Charles Manson was a CIA
experiment gone wrong they said no he
was in a CIA experiment gone
right and remember this was in the time
when the CIA was actively trying to
create people who they could manipulate
into killing other people we know that
that is a fact why would they kill
Hollywood a Hollywood you got to read
Tom's book you got to read Tom's book
but the point of all that is Tom isn't
able to actually produce a document he's
very careful about saying that he is
suggesting but you he
demonstrates in Exquisite detail over a
25e reporting
period with Incredible
sources why he believes this to be true
that's the kind of JFK book I would
really be interested in reading so but
what is that process what are those
questions like what I want to understand
cuz the the I've written this question
down on my pth like three times now what
I'm trying to figure out is where
you like you're giving so many examples
of things where it's like yeah the
government probably really did that yeah
the government probably really did that
and so I'm just like the I now just go I
am always going to look at sideways
question it I'm not just going to take
it at face value but somewhere you
re-engage with truth and just assume
that oh this is real until proven
otherwise how do you find that line so
how when you're asking questions how do
you vet the answers how do you know what
the next question is to ask like what is
that mental process well I'm not trying
to solve the JFK murder so like with
Billy wall I'm just simply trying to
find out you know you get the idea to
write a book about the cia's
paramilitary when you see your colleague
someone you know with
a gun and a knife and you go wait a
minute what and then he and you suddenly
realize there's a huge gap there and I
need to fill it and then you just learn
everything you can and work with as many
sources and tell the story and the story
unfolds in that manner and you go
through history that's how my books are
so you are effectively uh I'm trying to
lay out a narrative y I'm asking a bunch
of questions that are trying to fill out
that narrative I find where the gaps are
and I'm going to because you've talked
about I was reading a pentagon budget
report and they made a reference to this
thing and I've read enough of these
documents to know that thing connects to
this thing and now I have more dots on
the narrative that I'm trying to lay out
yeah uh so I assume then if you were
approaching whether it's UFOs JFK
whatever you're going to say okay let's
get a timeline or let's tell a narrative
that makes sense from motive through to
completion and I'm going to connect all
these dots and probably find things in
obscure places what do you do when you
run into an unreliable able narrator
where you're like huh you just told me a
thing I'm not so sure that thing is true
so for instance take the you call it the
last 12 Pages it was an audio book for
me so I don't know but the last 12 pages
of Area 51 is the whole thing that this
was stallen the the little aliens that
people saw really were alive they really
were humans who had been surgically
altered to look like they had big heads
gigantic eyes um and
the reason that you believe that is you
believe the person that told you that he
was a part of it so walk us through how
you go about assessing whether this guy
is for real or not I did a podcast with
Lex fredman a month ago a long podcast
like this one where I told Lex the name
of the source for the first time in 12
years and the source's name is Al
odonnell and the reason I told Lex that
was because it made sense within the
context of what Lex and I were talking
about and it certainly makes sense in
the context of what you're asking me
here which is how do you trust someone
so that Source Alo Donnell is also
someone I think in nuclear war scenario
Alo Donnell was also known as the
trigger man so I actually write about
Alo Donnell in Area 51 if you go into
the back of the book in the index and
you look up Alo donnal you can see where
he's written about he just also happens
to be the source for the story of Area
51 and the so-called
aliens that part of the story we keep
him anonymous but he's the same person
and so how do you trust someone like
that well he wired armed and fired 186
nuclear weapons for the government he
has if you don't trust someone like that
you have to really ask yourself wow so
the government Trust usted this guy to
arm wire and fire all these nuclear
weapons as a member of the arming
party they sent him to the Marshall
Islands
repeatedly and he had a q clearance and
a top secret clearance he's got Awards
all over his wall he's got a wing in the
nevad in the museum the Atomic Testing
Museum named after him this guy's
credible in the technical canonical
sense of the word ible he's not living
in a trailer drinking beer and shooting
squirrels and taking
drugs so then you have to say what is
this
information and how does it fit into the
context of the story I'm telling and am
I going to include it because people
tell me all kinds of
things and it may not I may that's the
that's the privilege of the journalist
where you make the distinction of
whether or not you want to include
something so does that answer your
question about how you trust someone I
have followup so the obvious question to
ask is given everything you yourself
have encountered where the somebody is
being used for
disinformation while I'm not close
enough to this problem to know how you
would or wouldn't be useful but it is
certainly possible that he realized you
could help disseminate a lie that you
could throw people off the scent here's
a very credible journalist uh and I'm
going to give her a piece of information
from a very credible Source uh and
especially I don't know if he asked you
to keep him anonymous at first but
certainly that is a plausible thing that
could have happened so do you go off gut
instinct that just doesn't feel right or
do you have something that you use as a
barometer to way whether you think
you're being part of the manipulation
it's a long process because if you put
someone on the spot
of course that might be the you know
we're done
here Al O'Donnell I interviewed for a
hundred or more
hours what's important to keep in mind
if you reread the 12 pages in the end is
that in addition to telling the story
of what he believed happened at Roswell
because he was not there he also tells
the story of the government creating a
program that simulated what was believed
to to be the Russian program of creating
child-size aviators to look like aliens
was he involved in that he was involved
in that according to him so then you
have to ask yourself I'm following your
logic here wait a minute you were
involved in this so now he's implicating
himself in a program in which people
were
murdered that's a big leap for a person
with a long
history a credible history a reputation
a
legacy
to in essence rip
apart and he absolutely agreed that I
could tell his name when I felt it was
appropriate so there's that piece of the
puzzle then there's also the fact
that after the book
published
his it be it was obvious to his family
it was him of course they knew it was
him
and I was asked to come out to his home
and I arrived at his home and his entire
family was sitting in the living room
and we had like a come to Jesus
discussion that's a
metaphor because they were
devastated they were devastated and his
wife of 60
years in essence like begged him like
tell us this is not true
to your
point to which he said it is
true and
so that is
remarkable in my
mind because what he said to me and as I
write in the book The reason that he
revealed that information was he wanted
to make the point that he was a
dedicated Patriot he dedicated his life
to the American way of life to working
in the military industrial complex to
wiring arming and firing nuclear
bombs he believed in democracy he
believed in defense he fought in World
War II he fought at the Battle of
okanawa what he did in that little Pro
in that little instance of a program he
was ashamed of and he wish he had never
done it it had been authorized by the
government whoever the government may
have been
and the reason he shared it according to
him was as a cautionary tale to let
people know that be careful what you're
willing to do in the name of government
even if you're told it's for the Safety
and Security of the nation that is what
he wanted known and his family knew that
and his family had to accept that what
was your role in the family conversation
who was it that wanted you there
specifically
that's a good question as I remember I
have to go back and look at my
notes I think it
was him and also his wife you know I I
had spent hours with Ruth his wife um
you know a very interesting thing
happened I stayed in contact with him
for a long time we would always go have
Chinese food and talk about things and
then one day I got a call from his
minder that said you need to stop
talking to him who
and I knew enough from people I work
with in the agency that if you ever get
a call like
that I mean I have
children and I I just accepted that and
I never called him again and then I got
a call when he died the morning he died
and it was the same minder and they said
he died and he wanted you to know and I
said wow thank you so much for calling
me and telling me that's like so kind of
you and they said don't thank us thank
him it was on his
list he had 10 people he wanted notified
and you were number two and I wanted to
say I did say I think I did say who was
number one maybe I didn't say
that I was shocked you know and then I
said may I come to the funeral and they
said absolutely not why not these are
the mysteries of the intelligence
Community the these are the mysteries of
the atomic energy Commission Now called
the department of energy these are the
mysteries of some of the dark and dirty
secrets so there is no doubt that Al
O'Donnell was the keeper of a dark and
dirty government secret what it is we
don't know toward the end of his life
you know he and I talked about this
which is why I imagine they put the
kabash on it who was listening how was
listening I have no idea doesn't matter
but I want want to know what he thought
because of course there were two
theories even though his identity was
not known although it was known to some
a very few select group of people you
know one idea was that he was fed
misinformation so even though he
believed what he was told it may have
been
misinformation but he still did what he
did and he always stood by that to the
end this reverse engineering program
that's so dark that you have to read if
you want the details of um but you know
we talked about whether or not he had
been
misled and we had long thoughtful
conversations about it kind of like you
and I are having but without lights
camera action just two people talking
we'd go have Chinese food and wonder
about these things and then the
conversation would shift to other things
and uh and I knew a lot about him I knew
I know his whole life and so we were
friends why he chose to
tell me that story is a great
mystery what exactly the truth is about
all of that is a great mystery and I
certainly hope that someone is able to
report further on that what do you think
the handlers would have done if you had
not backed
off don't know don't need to know cuz I
backed
off you said though I have kids again
this is where you can really go
conspiratorial thinking but one of his
children wound up in a
wheelchair say more that's all I'm going
to say man I jumped to conclusions on
that one that's all I'm going to
say okay
uh very intriguing to be sure let's go
back to what started the these 12 pages
so if all of that is true and
Stalin had so um in fact before we get
into
Stalin what what is the punchline of
Area 51 why is it called Area 51 what
does it have to do with aliens
exactly Area 51 is a secret base in
Nevada where you
know the CIA the Air Force and other
government agencies have been working on
Military and intelligence programs
across the Cold War many of them have to
do with aerial reconnaissance this idea
that was developed out of in the early
days of the Cold War that we would spy
on Soviet Russia that we wanted to know
what was going on inside that enigmatic
Nation you know remember the Churchill
quote Russia is an enigma wrapped inside
a puzzle right we didn't know we didn't
know what was going on in there we
didn't know how it worked in many ways
we're back to that same position today
what is Russia thinking what are the
Russians thinking why are they acting
the way they do we don't know but we
built the U2 spy plane to try and take
photographs of the military
installations in Soviet Russia so that
we could see specifically if they were
lining up for
War I had the great privilege of
interviewing hervy Stockman the first
man to fly over the Soviet Union in a U2
he took those photographs you know click
click click came home with film the CIA
developed that film and learned more
about the Soviet Union than we had known
and learned they were not lining up for
war everything at area F1 in the
beginning was designed for
reconnaissance ISR intelligence
surveillance and reconnaissance this
idea that we didn't want to have nuclear
war with the Soviets but we had to know
what they were doing and then things
things have progressed Through The Years
there's no doubt Area 51 continues to be
a great mystery most of my reporting in
that book is from the ' 50s 60s and70s
because that was
Declassified uh what's going on there
now you know I can't wait to find out it
always keeps coming up in my surprise
kill vanish book I learned from CIA
operators that a bunch of Iraqi Special
Forces you know were flown to Area 51
and a really
dark unit I'm going to call them they
were called the Scorpions I mean they
did some dark and dirty stuff back in
Iraq where were they trained out at Area
51 so it's a massive base inside of a
massive base inside of the Nevada test
and training range one of the things you
said in the book was that um
Stalin was upset that they didn't have
nuclear capabilities so the US had
beaten them on that and that if the
whatever crashed in Roswell actually was
an advanced uh form of propulsion that
he wanted to show I've got this thing
that you guys don't have and that there
was a tie to his thinking that given
what he had seen with War of the Worlds
that a radio program caused people to
freak out because they thought there was
actually an alien invasion he was trying
to drop something in to say look I have
this better technology and uh I'm going
to cause your populist to go bananas
what do you think he was after was it
really just that an Fu and uh I'm going
to try to cause a scare or I mean that
just seems so extreme there's two
concepts you're bringing up one is
strategic deception one is this idea of
Hysteria of making people you know
overwhelming people with the obsession
about something UFOs we could say in
certainly if the seeds were laid then
the seeds have grown people are obsessed
with UFOs to a manner that boggles my
mind because I would say mostly there's
nothing there I mean you keep hearing
this repetition of the Tic Tac and this
and this guy and I mean it's just the
same names ad nauseum Congress is doing
an investigation it's not a whole lot as
far as I'm concerned so Stalin's idea is
clearly
a wise idea keep the people hysterical
keep them interested but another
situation that was in play is this idea
of doesn't doesn't exist in the same
manner but in 19 in the late 1940s and
1950s we didn't have
icbms if nuclear war would have happened
it would have happened with
aircraft and so this idea very
specifically was to overwhelm the US
Airwaves you have everybody in the world
making phone calls like they did during
the war of the world's radio broadcast
when Orson Wells delivered it the the
the radio the telephone lines go down
and it allows the bombers to do a sneak
attack sneak attack has changed over the
decades with science and technology but
it's always there a sneak attack I begin
the nuclear war scenario with a bolt out
of the blue attack
which is what I was told everyone in
Russia fears most that's a sneak attack
the difference is America the military
industrial complex has spent trillions
of dollars putting a system into space
so that the sneak attack is
detected in the first second it's still
a sneak
attack there's nothing anyone can do
about it that's what makes nuclear
weapons different from all weapon
systems the reason why you wanted to do
a sneak attack is because if someone
knows it's coming they can do something
nuclear weapons defy all of that because
you can't do anything you can't shoot a
nuclear weapon down almost
assuredly and you can't redirect it and
so all of these things all of my
reporting does
entwine in an
interesting narrative way certainly
interesting to me and definitely
supports the ride the horse in the
direction it's going because remember
each one of these ideas has come to me
me after the other book finishes I go
another little seed is left you know
planted and I say that would that's
really interesting I want to follow that
thread and the
thread takes us both forward and also
always ties back to World War II in my
reporting is there a fundamental reason
that
you want to tie things back to World War
II or do you see this just it it is
still this big Echo out of World War II
the latter because I write about war and
weapons and National Security and
secrets and it all began in World War II
with America's Science and Technology
Program suddenly being
funded by the US Military and that is
the key there is so much money there
taxpayer monies and so this is a very
interesting idea that we've been talking
about all day which is that Congress
does what the people are interested in
so the people really do have the power
as much as that sounds like a cliche the
people have the power to put pressure
on X Y or Z of
Interest the only real point I suppose
is the takeaway of our conversation that
I think I have made which is important
is if you divide the people and they
can't agree on
anything there's certainly not not going
to be pushing in the right direction of
a certain kind of change which is away
from the military industrial complex
setting the agenda for
everyone and I believe that some push
back on that is a great
thing yeah that to me is what I felt
reading your work that is the thing that
I the more I go down the rabbit hole of
how does the world really work
I keep running into um it's not a
perfect manipulation machine it's super
messy I don't want people to think uh I
don't even think there's like some evil
cabal behind the scenes but I think that
there are enough little pockets of hyper
self-interested uh groups that have
managed to find ways to confuse the
public uh in a way that allows them to
have their little foms and you get
enough of these little foms and things
derange and so uh yeah this has become
such a cliche but late stage Empire
Vibes and uh I just have a feeling that
you get enough of these little things
and they're like little cancer cells and
they just spread and the each one of
them is just looking out for itself and
not in some horrendous way but uh the
military starts with the good intentions
of wanting to protect the nation but
then it becomes the military-industrial
complex then it becomes a lot of people
with a lot of bonuses that benefit from
war and then it becomes well we can
actually steer people's thinking a
little bit and now all of a sudden you
have social media and it's like oh wow
well if we can make these um if we can
control what gets published then we can
really influence what people care about
and since I as the government only have
to care about what the people care about
if I can control what they care about
now wait a second like I can really make
things better for myself and I'll even
grant them let's just say that they
really want good things for people but
it's like well they're all sheep and
they need to be guided and you know we
can't just let them hear any truth like
that's crazy and so I think part of the
reason that Co changed things for so
many people myself included is I
remember when the mask mandate came out
and I said to my wife I'm like that
doesn't make sense either masks work or
they don't and because the first thing
they said was no no no they don't work
so save them for medical professionals
and I was like what like that doesn't
make any sense either they work or they
don't work that doesn't like this is
just a non-comp compute and so seeing
though how people would do what they
were told because they were afraid and I
was like oo this is very unnerving if
you can PE keep people afraid if you can
keep them
confused you can really get them to
agree to things that may not be in their
best interest and it's it is very
interesting because I see that thread
through your work um which is there and
maybe I'm making it um more sort of like
this all-encompassing thing that just
eats the universe and you keep it in a
much more confined way but when I look
at it I just see uh in each book there's
this element of we're going to control
things so take surprise kill vanish uh
it's all clandestine we don't talk about
that we create title 50 to make sure
that we can do it and that it's legal
and all is well um we code name things
in a way that doesn't sound bad and so
uh we just begin siphoning things off
Area 51 it's like uh if it really was a
because if I remember correctly from
your book it becomes called Area 51
because the crash in Roswell in 47 gets
moved there in 51 uh and so it's like
well but that was Stalin trying to mess
with us we stopped him horrible
experiments being done but we kind of
take a lesson and go whoa like maybe we
could do something similar we start our
own horrendous experiment but it's like
oh people think it's it is aliens maybe
that's not such a bad thing and let's
let them run with that and you know
maybe we leak a little bit here and
there to get people focused on that
thing because the reality is that if
this was a hey guys know that this the
nuclear thing is going to play out with
uh airships and we have better
technology than you and this is a way
for us to go back and forth and we don't
want people to know that you just start
to go okay wait a second this isn't
about transparency this is about control
of focus control control of information
clandestine Wars obviously as we go into
the Cold War really trying to do it all
underground behind the scenes and now
since I'm trying to go okay I'm living
in a moment how do I navigate this
moment well uh I know that um we don't
have a pure competitor in Russia
Russia's not where we're at China though
is a pure competitor and so now are we
running the same Playbook can I believe
the information that I hear about what's
going on in their economy maybe I can
maybe I can't uh
what's going to play out between them
and Taiwan how do I position myself to
be in a good position is the US
government collecting all this data on
us they're telling me I need to be
worried about China but is this owning
Tik Tok is it really a problem that
China owns Tik Tok is this a play to
weaken Elon musk's hold on the one
social media that sits outside of this
and
so as I go through all of these things
I'm not saying I know any of these to be
true I'm just saying
what I am learning through all of this
is that not only do I need to encounter
the facts which you do a phenomenal job
of putting on the table but to your
point earlier to Dwight Eisenhower's
point you have to make up your own mind
you have to synthesize this information
and you have to come up with a coherent
constrained narrative because I when
people spin out of control and
everything's a conspiracy and there is
no truth and it's all this Grand lie um
I think they will end up missing what is
probably more true which
is oh there's clumsiness there's
messiness and all of this there's some
stupidity there's some moments of
Brilliance there's manipulation that
works there's manipulation that fails I
mean the what SR71 was kept a secret for
20 years and 10,000 people knew about it
I think is a stat I heard directly from
you so I mean it's it's a little bit of
yeah sometimes you really are being
tricked and duped and Bamboozled and
other times it's just clumsy awkwardness
and you have to be an informed alert
citizenry I think you said that really
well and then the takeaway is with the
exception of Co just don't make me do it
right because then you can really say
this is what I want to focus on I want
to be alert and knowledgeable and now
I'm also going to clear my head and go
on a hike because I think living your
life with a with a certain op ISM and a
and a and a positive attitude toward the
future mindful of wow there's a lot to
digest here is is is a balance because
you would completely become overwhelmed
so what has researching nuclear war CIA
assassinations aliens Hitler unexplained
phenomena what has all of that taught
you about how the world really works I
appreciate pulling back the veil and
exploring what might really be there I
also think what's very important in the
common denominator takeaway is that
people are a lot smarter and a lot more
Curious
than
maybe they generally give themselves
credit for and my books tend to make
people feel like oh I understand
something I didn't understand before
what is that
government and government
secrecy is such a powerful player in all
of our lives in
2024 and if you go back in time when I
began reporting on these issues sort of
in the early days of the war on
terror um I think people's perception
was very different It's a combination of
maybe
technology and general sort of Mayhem
and chaos in the world that has
people that has left people more curious
and I know that's a very big
generalization but um I'll give you an
should I give you an example right
because I you know I write about very
complex Science and
Technology uh programs within the
government and the CIA and I strive to
make
them understandable to regular people I
come from Old School journalism whereby
the people that you write for simply
need a high school
education um there isn't sort of a high
futin sense of like you know we
understand more than you do it's just
more like here's the facts ma'am um I
had someone you know I read I get quite
a bit of fan mail and I had one
individual write to me a couple years
back but I still
like to share this story because it sums
up I think the kind of work I do maybe
the underlying so the person who wrote
to me was a truck driver a Long Haul
truck driver and he said all and I'm
paraphrasing him but he said all my life
people tried to tell me I'm stupid I've
listened to all your
books on on audio obviously driving his
truck and he said now I know I'm
actually quite smart
and I think that probably sums
up the fundamental underpinnings of all
of my work whoa okay I hope people hear
that uh that is one of the things that I
wanted to ask you is what is the point
of Miss and disinformation why does the
government go so hard to confuse us what
advantage is it to keep the populace
confused I might disagree that it's a
big giant government strategy to do that
I would take more personal
responsibility so in other words yes
Case by case I can by all means take you
through multiple programs that involve
what what is called strategic deception
by the CIA but that is only a tiny
portion of the National Security
apparatus at work I mean and the defense
department is doing War fighting and the
CIA is doing intelligence gathering and
things have gotten very confused and
complicated in the war on terror and
I've written about this in multiple
books but to your question about why is
the government trying to confuse us I
would
say I would go back at you with a
different question which
is why are
people that are fundamentally
curious um so quick to think someone's
doing something to them when perhaps
they might
actually have a part in that and might
be doing it to themselves and usually
that has to do with now here's where I
get very biased not
reading because I believe if you read
and I'm talking about reading a bunch of
different things reading you know if
you're reading short form if you're
reading newspapers you should read
everybody's and I'm not I don't mean to
say opinion you should read news reports
from opposing
organizations and then make your own
decisions about what you think is
significant to you have you seen the
meme of uh it's the curve so low IQ
people the government's manipulating Us
Mid curve people come on bro like you
know it's not this vast conspiracy
they'd never be able to keep this stuff
secret and then highq people the
government's manipulating us I have not
seen that Meme and I don't agree with it
I don't agree with it because I think I
think well first of all I think we're
all a lot smarter than I I don't I don't
really believe in like channels of
intelligence I think that there's people
who enjoy using their brains and
therefore they become more informed like
if you like learning about things you're
going to
naturally become in what air quotes is
smarter right
you're naturally going to become more
informed but I believe also that you
want to have that open mind open channel
to be able to think about um alternate
ideas about what you're thinking about
otherwise you're just gathering
information to prove something that you
want to believe is true so if you want
to believe the government is a big giant
conspiracy Factory by all means there's
information out there I mean I'm
fascinated of course I read what people
believe about my books particularly the
CIA and there's always um you know
people who take things away from my
books that are diametrically opposed so
it's up meaning some people are like the
government really is a conspiracy
Factory and other people are like thank
you so much for exposing this is really
more mundane and just sort of day-to-day
business I'll give you an example at
almost all of my book signings including
the one for nuclear war some someone
there tells me that they have a chip in
their brain that has been implanted
there by
DARPA okay so I have written about
darpa's brain implant
programs does that
mean and then you can do the dot dot dot
right
so one group of people might take away
from that
idea and say wow this is really
dangerous that darpa's um working on
these kind of programs that could really
get out of control because that's
certainly the lane of thinking that I
pursue in the DARPA book based on
interviews with people like the Jason
scientists and then another group of
people could say oh that believe they
have a chip in their brain that has been
implanted by DARPA that would say Annie
Annie's book demonstrates that in fact I
have a chip in my brain now those are
wildly Divergent examples but I think
that's what it kind of speaks to the
generalization that can happen about my
work okay I that seems
fair however uh as a student of your
work you site many many times where the
government is clearly manipulating
people I have it in my notes I'm not
able to find it super fast but there was
a guy uh that the CIA knew had seen some
classified um airplanes flying and so
they literally sent him to an insane
asylum because they just gasl him so
hard that it ended up breaking him
psychically uh we've got um the whole
thing that you wrote at the end of Area
51 where the hypothesis that you put
forward is that the aliens that crashed
in Roswell were actually humans that
were surgically Modified by Joseph
Stalin uh and that the US was doing a
similar program um I can assure you that
the government is manipulating the money
supply that is for sure and that has a
tremendous impact on us uh you've also
talked about that you think that it's
possible that they're downplaying some
of the impact of the difference between
the atomic bomb and thermonuclear
weapons because they just really don't
want you thinking about it so it's one
of those where it really does seem like
there is a ton of evidence for that and
so what I want to understand is you're a
very careful journalist
who is certainly right now being very
thoughtful about look if you're looking
for conspiracy you're going to find it
but it's maybe not the right conclusion
to draw so help me understand in the
face of all the stuff that is
real why would you still want people to
break to the other side of just get
informed and you're going to be
fine well I think it has to do with I
mean I'm looking at the word impact
Theory right what impacts you directly
so so break it down specifically the
first situation you're talking about is
a guy called Paul benowitz and I use him
as an example when people ask me do you
believe there are aliens Among Us and I
use because it's not a discussion that I
want to really spend a lot of time
having for a number of reasons I think
there are a lot more significantly
powerful things to be discussing right
now than aliens Among Us and by the way
there are so many people that will have
that conversation for hours so I'm you
know I use benowitz as an example
because he exists on the public record
as someone who in the late
1970s um believed he saw
UFOs was targeted by the Air Force
intelligence to become an influence
operation for purposes we really don't
know why but there's no doubt that he
was targeted and it they didn't put him
in a mental institution he went Bonkers
which happens to a lot of people who
cannot get out of a of a a thinking Loop
and when there are outside forces
encouraging them to think about things
that are you know simply put bananas and
so you know I think he's interesting in
that regard I think that aliens in
general are really not that interesting
to
me be when I think
about going back to the word impact what
is really impacting your
life okay uh that is certainly
followable logic however I will ask uh
I'm not a conspiracy guy I spend almost
no time thinking about conspiracy
theories but I think a lot about what
Dwight Eisenhower said as he left office
so at first it was hey Beware of the
um the military-industrial complex but
he was also like you need to be an
informed and alert citizenry and that's
what keeps the government in check as
we've moved into the age of the internet
and social media I see a problem that
has arisen that I think is being wielded
against us by companies to make more
money and by governments to keep us
confused and I think that the confusion
is strategic so with velocity and volume
of information you can keep people
confused enough enough that you can
direct their attention and so taking
that the aliens think so I've talked to
privately so I'll uh hedge how much I
talk about it but Eric Weinstein who's a
friend of mine who's like look I don't
know that there's really anything to the
aliens thing but I'm more interested in
why is it being pushed so hard and is it
being pushed to distract us now I
haven't gone far enough down the rabbit
hole to know if I'm right but this feels
like especially given that story you
just told um that if you're trying to
hide something you'd much rather people
be talking about aliens now I don't know
that that means that we know what
they're trying to hide I think it would
be a foolish conclusion to assume that
we do but it is yet another tick in that
column of there really is something
going on and if we are going to be an
informed and alert
citizenry I think it is wise to ask
sober questions which as a podcaster my
ill is not necessarily known for but
asking sober questions of what is going
on that seems pretty important to me
agree or
disagree I mean I personally think it's
more interesting to talk about nuclear
war than aliens right now in 2024 but
I'm not pushing for aliens what I'm
saying is I think we have to answer the
question of and let's make it about
nuclear war we have to ask the question
of why isn't this front and center why
are you having to write a book about
this to remind people
horr is that did the government just
take their eye off the and talking this
or do they want to be stockpiling stuff
in the background even if just because
of the uh war machine um is there a
reason for the way they're handling the
situation the situation meaning nuclear
war and the threat of it correct I
mean I asked that same question of one
of my sources like what when I began to
report this book and learn
just how much of a precipice we are all
Liv living on to quote un Secretary
General Antonio gutterz that we're one
misunderstanding one miscalculation away
from nuclear armag Armageddon nuclear
Annihilation were his words I began to
wonder you know why is this not front
and center and I asked a source exactly
that question like why isn't the
Congress doing something at we now have
nine nuclear armed Nations and people
are worried about UFOs when they should
be thinking about nuclear war and he
said to me Annie the Congress only pays
attention to what the people are paying
attention to which would be to my point
that if the people are sitting around
thinking the government's after me the
government is creating conspiracies the
go
then the people aren't thinking about
perhaps perhaps things that are more
legitimately of concern so then you have
to ask yourself which came first the
chicken or the egg is is the government
push it sounds like that is what you are
asking right if we're that I'm waiting
for you to finish that is my followup
question for sure so is the government
push like don't look over here just that
would be one way of looking at it I
think one of the
important situations for me as a
journalist is to maintain this idea that
I try to write books that people can
take away their own conclusion and the
best example I give sometimes has to do
with a book I wrote called Operation
Paperclip can I give you the example
goes like this okay so this was back in
Operation Paperclip about the Nazi
scientists that came to America after
World War II um published in
2014 and back then a journalist I.E me
could go on Fox News and CNN
in the same week now you can't do that
which is too bad the polarization of
everything but you could then so I went
on let's just call them a conservative
organization and a very liberal
organization and I went on the very
conservative organization and they said
oh my goodness Annie Jacobson thank you
so much for writing Operation Paperclip
you showed us in absolute explicit terms
that you know these were
Nazis um but we had to hire them because
if we didn't we would all be speaking
Russian now thank you so much for
writing this book good job then I leave
then I go on to the liberal news outfit
and they say Annie Jacobson thank you so
much for writing this book you showed us
in no uncertain terms these Nazis should
have all been hung at nurburg this is
the worst most despicable disgraceful
thing that the United States government
ever did it's a shame and you showed us
that in no uncertain terms thank you so
much for writing this
book they read the same book and they
took away radically different
conclusions I do think that is also an
important part of a
democracy so I do not fault one side or
the other I am more interested in
holding both of those ideas at the same
time and that's something I have learned
by the way from having a great editor
edit my books you know and you want to
that's what you really want to be I
think you want to you want to strive to
surround yourself with people who have
all kinds of different ideas about
things that you might not necessarily
agree with and then you
can ask yourself whether you're out
walking or driving your car or doing a
podcast you can keep your mind open and
flexible to ideas that you hold to be
true and ideas that you
might be willing to shift a little
bit Mak sense very much does the
government have an interest in directing
what we focus on well I mean again I
think that kind of broad question is a
little bit dangerous for me and I'll
tell you why like here's here's example
people often say like the CIA I have
written about the CIA in all seven of my
books the C CIA has many
components you you cannot I would never
say the CIA I would say you know the the
there's like science and technology
elements of the CIA that I write about
in Area 51 there's paramilitary teams
and Trigger pullers in the CIA that I
write about in Surprise kill vanish
there's the former MK Ultra manipulation
programs that I wrote about in many of
my books those are not the same Lane of
the CIA and so the government would be
another example there to me the
government isn't the big bad government
it's like what do you talk are you
talking about Navy intelligence are you
talking about the Air Force I'm not
saying you specifically I just mean in
general so I would have to I think it I
think it's better I think you can be
more critical about your thinking or
more more focused about your thinking
and and help with the conclusions you
draw by being a little bit spefic
specific so to answer your question your
question was is the government trying to
get us to focus on X not y sort of what
I'm trying to I'm trying to map how you
think about this so what I want to know
is would they have an interest in
controlling our directing our Focus it's
a way less loaded word would they have
an interest in directing our focus and
then if the government has an interest
in directing their focus does the
government apply energy and resources to
things that they have an interest in
doing and so what I'm trying to map out
is and what I'm getting from what you're
saying and tell me if I'm headed in the
wrong direction what I'm taking away
from what you're saying is look all of
these things are true however if you
then apply that as a blanket statement
you're going to step back and go
everything is a grand conspiracy and
you're going to be as blind as somebody
who's not paying attention at all I
think that's well said but while you
were talking I think I
realized there may be a distinction here
maybe what you're talking about is when
you say the government I would say you
could perhaps substitute that for
political
parties
and and the reason I say that
is I completely stay out of
politics very specifically and very
ardently so I don't write about I mean
I've written about all the presidents in
all of my books but I'm writing about
podus President of the United States and
sometimes it requires commenting on the
individual because of their policies but
I find the most disheartening element of
my own country and my own democracy and
my own critical thinking right now
having to do with the polarization of
America with the this this crazy idea
and this this directly links to nuclear
war this crazy idea that you have to be
on one side or the other and that the
other side isn't just your adversary or
your opponent kind of I see opponent as
a Sportsman's term but rather that the
other side is the enemy and then if you
are talking about an enemy then you get
into some really you know what I find to
be odious language about destroying
people and you know I mean that becomes
to
me not only unhelpful in in living your
life but dangerous and
so if you substitute the questions that
you asked me about the government
with the two political
parties I might now see a little bit
more
about what it is you're getting at and I
might I might I might tend to agree with
you because if you if you if I read
something in the News
That's political politically based
politically
driven I mean my instinct is really like
I'm not going to even read this because
I can just see the the bias and the
intention to make me think that way
coming at me so so strong it becomes
uninteresting to me because it's just
opinion
based so I stay away from that kind of
thinking okay so now I'm back to where
we started uh where you said that
governmental secrecy is governmental
secrecy is a powerful force in people's
lives did you mean when you said that
political parties or did you mean the
government well I meant the government
when we were talking about that because
remember that's my area of expertise and
when I say the government let me re let
me be
specific because I'm not talking about
the political part of the government I'm
not really even talking about the
executive branch per se I'm talking
about the military and the intelligence
Community because that is what I write
about I write about war and weapons and
National Security and government
secrets within the context of the
military and the intelligence so I don't
write about the Democratic parties you
know and then point over there I'm
writing about about military and
intelligence programs and because so
much of this is Science and Technology
based and again I'm let me clarify that
I'm writing about the military and the
intelligence Community from World War II
forward and because
technology and I found this all out
almost inadvertently in my reporting
that so much of our world is shaped by
military technology that is
developed to fight Wars that is probably
what I meant more specifically when I
said how impactful it is to all of our
Lives why do people need to understand
that well they maybe don't it's not a
requirement but if they want to they can
certainly
read my books to learn the origin
stories but I'm guessing so you spend
roughly two years per book so I have to
imagine that you pick a topic that you
think matters or do you just pick
something that you find interesting so
it's just I find this
fascinating so when you wrote
um surprise kill vanish about CIA
assassinations there was no sense of
like hey it's important that you know
that your government does this it's just
whoa this is interesting it's the latter
whoa this is interesting oh yeah no I'm
not I am not I mean I am a Storyteller
at heart I I love a good
story um I want to be I want to lean
into a story and so when I hear when I
learned about Billy
wall I just wanted to know more about
him and I just spent a couple years
trying to get him to agree to talk to me
and then once he did you know game on
that was that book and then you then I
build the book around it but all of my
books kind of grow out of a sense of we
talked about this in the Green Room fate
and Circumstance which you may or may
not agree with but I
fundamentally believe that to be true
and then my
reporting you know I hear a thread of a
really interesting want me to give you a
specific example I'll give you the most
famous first one which is Area 51 the
book that you know I'm pretty much owe
my career as a national security
reporter to because it was read by so
many people and continues to be read by
so many people and sure there's the last
12 pages with the you know what you
spoke of and everybody Goes Bananas
about that and wants well there's 400
Pages before that that are really pretty
damn interesting and that is about the
cia's aerial Espionage programs that it
worked on in the 50s and 60s in utter
secrecy out at Area 51 and I learned
about that program completely by
accident I was at a at a at a Christmas
Eve dinner party with a group of people
that are sort of family members by
marriage that I had been I had attended
that similar dinner party for I don't
know five six years when the guy sitting
next to me leans over an 87-year-old man
says got a really interesting story I
was reporting on terrorism at the time
he said I like your reporting I got an
interesting story and you know you think
okay everybody has an interesting story
well he said the CIA just
Declassified 50 years of my life work
and I was like what I knew he was a
engineer at lock heat and I had this
like preconception that he designed
windows or airplane Parts I didn't know
well it turned out he was the lead
physicist for Lockheed Skunk Works
on the U2 and then the a12 ox cart the
precursor playing to the
SR71 and when he said that to me that
was exactly that I said wait a minute
where did you do that it was just kind
of a naive person's question and he said
out in the desert in this place we
called you know Watertown this place we
called the ranch really where is that
well you know and there was kind of a
Myster Mystique to what he was saying
and then during the course of that
conversation right then and there I
realized that is Area 51 and I said my
God you mean Area 51 he said we're not
supposed to say that the word was still
classified at the
time so that's a perfect example of I
didn't sit around and think like I've
got to break the story of Area 51 I I
pity the person who did that because
they probably would never get at it you
need to have the inside I believe lay
from someone who has access to things
and so that's that concept we were
talking about before the podcast ride
the horse and the direction it's going
and in that case you know when Ed lovic
essentially just like rode up on a horse
and like here's the story and I got on
my horse and followed him he introduced
me to all of his friends Pilots that
flew the you two Engineers that build it
then they introduced me to Dr Bud Le won
the first director of Science and
Technology at the
CIA Bud weon invented the Corona
satellite so I've been going on and on
but let me bring this back full circle
what can people learn from my books they
can learn the origin stories of things
they can learn how it began because I
come into a topic not knowing about it I
didn't know about the You2 spy plane I
didn't even know what it was but it
seemed like such an interesting story
and so I began the Journey of learning
it and that's why I believe I have have
regular people reading my books like the
truck driver because I ex I explain to
them in the simplest terms the same way
my brain had to learn about it it's
interesting I I am so curious to know if
we take the same thing away from the
truck drive story truck driver so what
do you take away from it that the reason
he said everybody's always told me that
I'm dumb and then after reading your
books I realized that I'm really smart
is that uh people were telling me that
the way that I thought the world worked
wasn't accurate and now reading your
books I realize the way that I believe
the world works is actually accurate
which as somebody who is enthralled by
your work that is exactly what it feels
like to me so it's very possible that
I'm just projecting but I I have become
obsessed with understanding how the
world Works understanding the points of
manipulation um I don't want I don't
want to Blind myself going to my earlier
comment by becoming conspirator minded
but at the same time so the one that I'm
obsessed with is um inflation so when
you think about money printing money
printing is quite literally an invisible
tax to use the least offensive language
I think you could call it theft in that
as they print money they are socializing
the losses and this is why people get so
mad at like why are you bailing out the
rich because the way that the um federal
government sorry the Federal Bank gets
the quote quote money into the economy
is by buying assets so call it bonds
treasuries and so who's holding those
investors the quote unquote Rich so now
you have the Federal Bank in
coordination with the federal government
putting money into the system by
literally taking from everybody but
you're taking from the poor you're
taking from low middle class middle
class the wealthy everybody equally but
you're only giving it to the people at
the top of the food chain that own
assets to get that money into the system
so you feel like but wait a second I
just got money why would this ever be
bad it's bad because your money loses
buying power now they know this and the
government or certainly the Federal Bank
they fully understand that this will
come do there is no Universe in which
you can just print money and it doesn't
become a problem otherwise just give
everybody a trillion dollars like you
you need to only ask that question why
not give everybody
a million dollar and the reason is
because you will take what the value of
a million dollars is and drive it very
close to zero and so you can't do it but
then why is it cool to give people
$5,000 and the answer is you can't do
that either it's just a small enough
amount that people don't realize that
you've just spread this loss across
everybody including and this is part of
the reason why they love it China who
owns debt in our country and we just
made that death debt work worth less and
so when I started going down that rabbit
hole I was like whoa I'm being
manipulated my buying power is being
stolen from me as I begin to put
together a worldview because people look
at me and they think because I got
wealthy that oh like he must already
understand all this stuff not at all I
got good at one thing making money I
understand how to run businesses that
that is the thing that I knew how to do
as I started actually like your truck
driver peeling the layers back and going
whoa whoa whoa hold on a second um we
actually so Billy W who you mentioned
earlier I heard you quote somebody
saying about him he's killed more people
than cancer so I'm like what like we
have that many people running around uh
doing government sanctioned murder no no
no no no Billy wall was unique what's
interesting about our discussion here
about the truck driver I think the
conclusion is is that two people can
take away very different points of view
about a story and that is incredibly
important and gets to be perfectly great
in my book because we all have different
points of view that we're pursuing I see
that truck driver totally different I
just see him as having read my books and
go wow I can actually read a whole book
and totally understand it and then want
to read the next one because by the way
a lot of people don't read anymore I
mean they really don't you might most
people don't and so it's also
interesting other Paradox there because
he was actually listening to my books
I read all my books and now I really
believe listening to somebody else read
a book is reading a book it's the same
thing you're you know so they we take
away different ideas from that same
story which is part of it but the Billy
wall of it is if you read surprise kill
vanish I think one of the fascinating
things about Billy W is he was so unique
he was what was called a Singleton and
he operated in a way that I'm not so
sure many people operate
anymore
um I don't know if I'm wrong about that
but I that idea has certainly been
corroborated by many people in the upper
echelons of the agency who I interviewed
when I asked them you
know is Billy special they were like
hell
yeah now you know your theory could be
right that that's just government
disinformation and there are lots of
Assassins running around doing the Dirty
Work of the government like Billy did we
we we won't know until another
journalist comes along and peels back
the onion which is a a really important
part of all of this I think what we're
doing is just having conversations about
what we think might be true I'm really
not so sure um
that you can't hold two ideas at once I
think you can give me the example what
two ideas are you talking about well you
can hold the
idea um Billy W is special or maybe
there are many people just like him and
and they don't have to be mutually excl
exclusive it's not a a I don't know that
I would could ever find out that answer
there's a lot going on right now boys
and girls heads up taking the
information think carefully
react cautiously be thoughtful Annie I
have thoroughly enjoyed encountering
your work this I think was the first
time that I um chance to read your stuff
and I'm really really impacted like it a
lot where can people engage with you
bookstores everywhere bookstores
everywhere and Annie jacobs.com I love
it guys the most recent one is nuclear
waro it it will curl your hair take
uh give it a read it's amazing speaking
of things that are amazing boys and
girls if you haven't already be sure to
subscribe and until next time my friends
be legendary take care peace if you like
this conversation check out this episode
to learn more World War III is being
fought through these proxy wars Third
Country battles of oftentimes poor or
impoverished battles that are being
bankrolled by large world leaders