Kind: captions
Language: en
most people most of the time are
polite cooperative and
kind until they're
not the following is a conversation with
Rick Spence a historian specializing in
the history of intelligence agencies
Espionage secret societies conspiracies
the occult and military
history this is Alex Redman podcast to
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in the description and now dear friends
here's Rick
Spence you have written and lectured
about serial killers secret societies
Cults and intelligence agencies so we
can basically begin at uh any of these
fascinating topics but let's begin with
intelligence agencies which has been the
most powerful intelligence agency in
history the most powerful intelligence
agency in history
I mean it's an interesting question I'd
say probably in terms of
historical longevity and consistency of
performance that the Russian
intelligence Services notice I didn't
say the KGB specifically but the Russian
intelligence Services going back to the
zaris
period are consistently pretty good not
infallible none of them
are of course there's a common Western
way of looking at anything Russian uh
very often I think it's still the case
Russians are viewed in one of two ways
either they are bumbling idiots or they
are diabolically clever no sort of
middle ground and you can find both of
those examples in
this so what I mean by that is that if
you're looking at the Modern svr or FSB
which are just two different
organizations that used to be part of
the one big KGB the AGB or its
predecessors the
Czech you're really going back to the
late 19th century and the Imperial
Russian intelligence Security
Service generally known as the Okana or
oranka it's really the department of
police and the special core of
garms their primary job was protecting
the Imperial regime and protecting it
against Imperial or rather interior
enemies
revolutionaries for the most part and I
got very very good at
that by co-opting people within those
movements infiltrating and recruiting
informers aent provocators in fact they
excelled at the aent
provocator person you place inside an
organization to cost trouble usually
maneuver them into a position of
leadership and they provoke actions that
can then allow you to crack down on them
that is many to sort of lure or bring
the target organization into any legal
legal or open status that it can be more
effectively
suppressed they were very good at
that so good that by the early 20th
century in the Years preceding the
Russian Revolution in 1917 they had
effectively infiltrated every radical
party Bolshevik menik
SRS great and small and placed people in
positions of influence and Leadership
to the point that
arguably that is you can debate this but
I think in the whole they could largely
dictate what those parties did nothing
was discussed at any Central committee
meeting of any revolutionary group that
the Arana wasn't immediately aware of
and they often had people in positions
to influence what those decisions
were of course that raises an
interesting question is that if they
were that good and they had infiltrated
and effectively controlled most of the
opposition then how did the regime get
overthrown by a revolutionaries the
answer to that is that it wasn't
overthrown by
revolutionaries it was overthrown by
politicians that would then take us
into a detour into Russian history but I
I'll just leave it with this if you look
at 1917 and you look closely this is one
of the things i' would always tell my
students is that there are two Russian
revolutions in 1917 there's the first
one in March or February depending on
your calendar that overthrows Nicholas
II revolutionaries are really not
involved with that Bolsheviks are
nowhere to be seen trosky and Lenin are
nowhere to be seen they have nothing to
do with that that has to do effectively
with a political conspiracy within the
Russian Parliament the Duma to unseat an
emperor they thought was you know
bungling the war and was essentially a
loser to begin with and it was a coup
d'a a parliamentary
couet the temporary or provisional
government that that Revolution put in
power was the one overthrown by Lenin 8
months
later and that government was
essentially one dominated by moderate
socialists it was a government that very
quickly sort of turned to the left you
know the guy we associate with that is
Alexander kensky Alexander kensky was a
Russian socialist a politician he was
the Quasi dictator of that regime he's
the person not the Zar who's overthrown
by
Lenin uh
so the the revolutionaries the end did
not prove to be the Fatal threat to the
zarus regime it was the zaris political
system itself that did
that what then transpired was that the
Okana and its method and many of its
agents then immediately segued over into
the new Soviet security service so one
of the first things that lenon did in
December of 1917 within a month of
seizing
power since the hold on power was
tenuous at best was that well you were
going to need some kind of organization
to infiltrate and suppress those pesky
counterrevolutionaries and foreign
imperialists and all of the other
enemies that we have and so the
extraordinary commission to combat
counterrevolution and sabotage that
Chaka was formed
you put a veteran bolik Felix
zinski at the head of that someone you
could politically rely upon but dzinski
built his organization essentially out
of the okon I mean there you know there
were all of these informers sitting
around with nothing nothing to do and
they were
employed um in the early 20s the kind of
ranking file of the chcka might have
been 80 to
90% former Imperial officials those were
gradually decreased over
time so why would they do that well they
were professionals they also needed to
eat and and things were somewhat
precarious so if your job is to be an
aent provocator if your job is to
infiltrate targeted organizations and
lead them astray you do that for whoever
pays you that's part of the
professionalism which goes
in and under the Soviets the Soviet
intelligence services are also very good
at that they are very good at
infiltrating people into to opposing
organizations and I guess the one
example I would give to demonstrate that
or the Cambridge five
the British
Traders Soviet standpoint Heroes who
were recruited no most notably Kim
filby guy Burgess Donald mlan Anthony
blunt and there may have been well more
than five but you know that wasn't bad
out of just
Cambridge uh and placing those people in
high positions the the ultimate goal of
course is to get your people into
positions of leadership and influence in
the opposing intelligence
service and so they did of course it all
fell apart and they ended up in you know
philby ended up living the last part of
his life in Exile in Moscow but they got
their money's worth out of him and you
can also find this in KGB infiltration
the CIA the FBI the AL Rich Ames uh
Hansen
cases of course we we were infiltrating
by we I mean the Americans in the west
managed to infiltrate our moles as well
but if it came down you know someone
could dispute this but I would think if
you were going to come down to a kind of
like a a who had the most mol Super
Bowl
probably the Soviets would come somewhat
ahead of that so the scale of the
infiltration the number
people and uh the skill of it is there a
case to be made that the Arana and the
Chaka orchestrated both the components
of the Russian Revolution as you
described them well there's an
interesting question for me I mean there
are all kinds of questions about this I
mean one of the questions is whether or
not lenen was an Okana agent okay I've
just said
heresy uh some people I'll do that quite
often because I am a heretic
and proud of it great um why why would
you possibly say that Lenin could have
been an Okana agent well let's look what
he managed to
do so you had coming into the 20th
century
a a single nominally a single Marxist
movement the Russian Social Democratic
labor
party and bolik and menik majority ites
and minority ites are merely factions of
that party and they always agreed that
they were all marxists
and we we all believe in dialectical
materialism and the the rise of so we're
all we're all socialist comrade uh the
difference was the the Tactical means by
which one would attain
this and uh what lenon wanted was a a
militant small-scale Vanguard party
wanted a revolution it wanted to seize
power seize control of the state and
once you have the state then
you induce socialism from
above whereas the majority of the people
the so-called menix the minority ites
who are oddly enough the vast majority
of the party that's one of the first
things how do you lose that argument
okay how do how do the how does the
minority get to grab the name majority I
but lenon did
that so what L wanted was a a
conspiratorial party of committed
revolutionaries that would plot and
scheme and undermine and eventually
seize control of the state and induced
socialism from
above there were other Russian marxists
who thought that that sounded vaguely
totalitarian and not really Democratic
and not even terribly
socialist and they oppose that
ineffectively from the beginning
outmaneuvered every step of the way the
menix are a case study in failure of a
political organization that too will be
heresy to some people but look they
lost now so what linen managed to do
starting around 1903 continuing on this
is he managed to
divide to take what had been a single
Marxist party and split it into angry
contending
factions because he and his bulvik on
one side advocating a much more militant
conspiratorial
policy the discombobulated menix were
over and the other and in between were a
lot of people who really didn't know
where they stood on this I mean
sometimes they kind of agreed and he
seems to be making sense today no no I
don't think he's making sense in that
day but but he managed to completely dis
unify this organization now who could
possibly have seen benefit in that they
now whether or not they put him up to it
whether or not in some way they helped
move him into a position of leadership
or encouraged it or encouraged it
through people around him whether he was
a witting or unwitting agent of the Zara
secret police he certainly accomplished
exactly what it was that they have
wanted and I find that
suspicious it's one of those things that
it's it's so convenient in a way is that
I'm not necessarily sure that was an
accident there's also this whole
question to me as to what was going on
within the Okana
itself now this this is one of these
questions we might come to later
about how intelligence agencies interact
or
serve the governments to which they are
theoretically
subordinate they do tend to acquire a
great deal of influence and power after
all their main job is to collect
information and that information could
be about all kinds of things including
people within the government structure
itself and they also know how to
leverage that information in a way to
get people to do what you want them to
do so an argument can be made again an
argument not a fact merely an opinion
which is mostly what history is made out
of of
opinions is that at some point between
about 1900 and 1917 people with in the
Okana were playing their own
game and that game took them in a
direction which meant that continued
loyalty to the emperor specifically to
Nicholas
II was no longer part of
that to me in a way it seems almost
during the events of
1917 that one you had an organization
that was very effective when it did that
suddenly just becomes
ineffective doesn't really disappear
these things don't go away because it
will reappear as the oaka basically
fairly
quickly but it raises the question to me
as to what degree there were people
within the organization who allowed
events to take the course they
wished I always wonder how much
deliberate
planning there is within an organization
like aana or if there's kind of a
distributed intelligence that happens
well one of the key elements in any kind
of intelligence organization or
operation is
compartmentalization need to
know so rarely do you have an occasion
where everybody everybody in an
executive position are all brought into
a big corporate meeting and and we
discuss all of the secret operations
that are going on no no you never do
that um only a very limited number of
people should know about that if you
have a person who is a a case officer is
controlling agents he's the only one who
should know who those people are
possibly his immediate superiors but no
way do you want that to be common
knowledge so information within the
organization itself is
compartmentalized so you don't need
everybody to be in on it you don't even
need necessarily the people who are
nominal at the top for instance the
Okana the real boss of the Okana was the
Imperial Ministry of the Interior the
minister of the interior in fact but
minister of the Interior had no real
effective control over this at all I
mean to the point was that at one point
early on they actually organize the
assassination of Their Own
Boss they uh have their agents among the
revolutionaries kill the minister of the
Interior because he'll just be replaced
by another one he is an imperial
bureaucrat he's is not really part of
their organization you know it's like a
director of an intelligence agency
appointed by the
president maybe he's part of the
organization maybe he isn't maybe he is
not one of
us so you've
got different levels different
compartments within it and and who's
actually running the show if anyone is I
don't know that's never supposed to be
apparent well that's a fascinating
question I me you could see this with
nkvd it's obviously an extremely
powerful
organization that starts to eat itself
where everybody's pointing fingers
internally also as a as a way to gain
more power so the question is in
organizations like that that are so
compartmentalized where's the power
where's the center of
power because you would think think
given that much power some individual or
a group of individuals will start
accumulating that power but it seems
like that's not always a trivial thing
because if you get too powerful the
snake eats that person well if we go
back again to the uh the founder of
Soviet Secret Police Felix zinski
dzinski dies in
1926 Keels over after giving a heated
speech to a party meeting
now the common view what you usually
read which is was ke for the time is
that you know clearly Stalin had him
whacked because anytime someone died it
was almost always it and I think a lot
of times he
did but in some cases Stalin's probably
getting blamed for things that he didn't
actually do the jinsky wasn't even
opposed to Stalin so it's not clear why
he but this was the you know Stalin died
you know obviously he was poison
something happened it was an unnatural
death somebody goes in for an operation
you know gets a little too much
anesthesia Stalin killed them uh
somebody tips over in a canoe in Upstate
New York Stalin killed them there's
actually a case about that
so that itself can be kind of useful
where every time someone dies they think
you killed them that's that's kind of an
interesting uh method of intimidation in
that
regard but suspicion is nonetheless
there dzinski had
been he was the Grand Inquisitor he was
seemingly firmly in control of the
organization of course maybe he wasn't
maybe he was my guess would be is that
if doin's death
was not natural causes that he was
probably eliminated by someone within
his own
organization and then you look at the
people who take
over um his immediate success is uh
veslav meniny who's really kind not
really a secret policeman more a kind of
intellectual
diletant but if you look behind him you
notice the fellow is Henrik
Yoda and Yoda will really sort of manage
things from behind the scenes until
meniny dies in
1934 and then you go to will hold on
until he's a victim of the purges I
think in in 37 or or 38
uh Yoda is um
ambitious
murderous and if I was going to point
the finger to anybody who possibly had
zinski whacked it would be him and for
the purposes simply of
advancement that's the uh you know the
person to look out at any kind of
corporate organization is your immediate
subordinate the person who could move
into your job because more than likely
that's exactly what they're planning to
do yeah just one step away from the very
top yeah somebody there will probably
accumulate the most
power you mentioned that the various
Russian intelligence agencies were good
at creating agent provocateurs
infiltrating uh the halls of power uh
what does it take to do
that well there's a interesting little
acronym called
mice m i
and it's you generally used and it's
just the way in which you would acquire
how do you get people to work for you
well m stands for money you pay them
people are greedy they want money you
know if you look at Aldrich Ames he had
a very very expensive wife with
expensive tastes so he wanted money I is
for
ideology so during particularly in the
1920s and the 1930s the Soviets were
very effective in exploiting Communists
you know people who wanted to serve the
great
cause even though that that's initially
not really what they wanted to do
because the idea was that if you recruit
Agents from among let's say American
Communists you compromise the party
because exactly what your enemies are
going to say is that all Communists are
Soviet spies they're all traitors in
some way so you would really want to
keep those two things separate but
ideology was just so convenient and
those people would just work for you so
well they were you could get them to do
anything betray their grandmother they
would go ahead and do that for the
greater good so ideology can be a
motivation uh and that can be you know
someone who is a u who is a devoted
Marxist leninist it can also be someone
who's a disgruntled communist because
you know there's there's no
anti-communist like an
ex-communist okay you know those who
lose the faith
um can be become very very
useful uh for instance if if you look in
in the case of American intelligence the
the people who
essentially temporarily destroyed much
of the KGB organization in the US Post
World War II were people like Whitaker
Chambers uh Lewis buen Elizabeth Bentley
all of those people had been Communist
party
members they had all been part of the
red faithful they all for one reason or
another became
disillusioned and um Turned rat or
Patriot whichever case you may want to
uh put in that regard what does the sea
in the E stand for the C is for
coercion that's where you have to
persuade someone to work for you you
have to pressure them so usually you
blackmail
them you know that could be they have a
gambling habit uh you know and they old
days it's very often because they were
gay okay gets them in a position where
they can be compromised and you can get
them to do your bidding that those
people usually have a certain amount of
control here's an interesting example of
how the Okana tended to handle this and
I think it's still largely used um you'd
round up a bunch of
revolutionaries on some charge or
another Distributing revolutionary
literature running any illegal printing
press you bring a guy into the room and
you say okay okay you're going to work
for us he of course have refused to do
so they go well if you
refuse we'll we'll keep the rest of your
comrades in jail for a while you know
maybe beat them with a rubber trenching
or so and then we're just going to let
you
go we're just going to put you back out
on the
street and if you don't work for us we
will spread the
rumor through our agents already in your
organization that you are and then what
will your comrades do how long are you
going to live so you see you have no
choice you're ours and you're going to
cooperate with
us and the way that that uh
Effectiveness would be ensured is that
you you have multiple agents within the
same organization who don't know who
each other are that's very important and
they'll all be filing
reports so let's say you have three
agents inside the Central Committee
of the SR party and there's a committee
meeting and you're going to look at the
reports they file they all better agree
with each other
right if one person doesn't report what
the other two do then perhaps they're
not entirely doing their job and and
they can be liquidated at any time all
you do is drop the dime on them and this
was done periodically in fact in some
cases you would betray your own agents
just to completely discombobulate to the
the
organization this happened in one
particular particular case um around
1908 the fellow who was the head of the
of the chief revolutionary terrorist
organization which wasn't bolik but the
so-called socialist
revolutionaries they actually the
biggest revolutionary party the SRS who
AR even actually marxists more
anarchists but they they went all in for
the propaganda of the deed they really
like blowing people up and carry out a
and carried out quite a campaign of
terrorism the fellow who was the head of
that terrorist organization was a was a
fell of the name of yevo azf and yevo
azf was guess what an Okana
agent everything he did every
assassination that he planned he did in
consultation with his control so he'd
kind of run out his string there was
increasing suspicion of him he was also
asking for a lot more
money uh so the Arana itself arranged to
have him write it out and what did that
do well what do you do in your party
when you find out the chief of your
terrorist Brigade was a secret police
agent it SED consternation and
mistrust nobody in the party would ever
trust in you couldn't tell who you were
sitting
around uh I know that a fellow I wrote a
biography on Bor sov who was a Russian
revolutionary and and the second in
command within the terrorist
organization ation by the way the guy
that wanted Oz's job so bad he could
taste
it well on the one level he expressed
absolute horror that his boss was a
police agent and will he should because
sanov was a police agent too see they
already had the number two waiting in
the wings to take over but he was
legitimately shocked he didn't really
suspect
that uh so it's it's a way of
manipulating this and then finally we
come to the E that I think is the most
important
ego sometimes people spy or betray
because of the egotistical satisfaction
that they
receive the sheer kind of mavelli and
joy in
deceit an example of that would be Kim
filby one of the Cambridge 5 now now
philby was a communist and he would
argue that he always saw himself as
serving the Communist cause
but he also made this statement uh I
think it's in the the preface to his
autobiography and he says one never
looks twice at the offer of service in
Elite
Force he's talking about his recruitment
by the nkvd in the 1930s and he was
absolutely chuffed by that the M fact
that they would want him what he
considered to be a First Rate
organization would want him
satisfied his
ego and if I was to take a guess as to
whether it was ideological motivation
whether it was the romance of Communism
or whether it was the appeal of ego that
was the most important in his career of
treason I'd go with ego and I think that
figures into a lot you know people don't
someone doesn't get the
promotions that they wanted again if you
look at something
like Aldridge am's career particular
you've got these kind of his his career
in the CIA
was hit or
miss um he didn't get the postings or
promotions that he wanted his evaluation
he never felt that he got credit for
doing that and that's the type of thing
that tends to stick in someone's craw
and can lead for egotistical reasons an
added
incentive to betray yeah that there's a
boost of the ego when you can deceive
sort of not play by the rules of the
world and
just play with powerful people like
they're your pawns you're the only one
that knows this mhm you're the only one
that knows that the person who is
setting across from you to which you
have sworn your loyalty you were
simultaneously betraying what a rush
that must be for some people I wonder
how many people are susceptible to this
I would like to believe that people have
a lot of people Haven the Integrity to
at least withstand the
Mi the the money and the ideology the
pull of that and the ego it can also be
a combination of the two I mean you you
can create a uh a recipe of these things
certain amount of
money ego and the little push of
coercion that if you
don't we will'll rat you up you'll be
exposed what are some difference to you
as uh we look at the history of the 20th
century between the Russian intelligence
and the American intelligence in the CIA
if you look at both the oana and the KGB
one of the things that you find
consistent is that they a single
organization handled foreign
intelligence that is spying upon enemy
or hostile governments and also internal
security so that's all part of
it whereas if you look at the US models
that evolves you you eventually have the
FBI who under Hoover qu insists that
he's going to be The Counter
Intelligence Force okay if they're you
know they're commi spies earning around
America it's the FBI who's supposed to
far at them out the CIA is not supposed
to be involved in that
and the uh the charter the basic
agreement in 1947 did not give the CIA
any you it's often said they they were
borred from spying on Americans which
isn't quite quite true you can always
find a way to do that what they don't
have is they don't have any police or
judicial
powers they they can't run around in the
country carrying guns to use on people
they can't arrest you they can't
interrogate you they can't jail you they
have no police or judicial powers now
that means they have to get that from
someone else that doesn't mean that
other agencies can't be brought in or
local police officials corn or whatever
you need you can eventually acquire but
they can't they can't can't do that
directly so you've got this
division between foreign intelligence
and
domestic Counter Intelligence often
split
between hostile organizations the
relationship between the FBI and the CIA
I think it's fair to say is not
chummy never has
been there's always been a certain
amount of of rivalry and and contention
between the two
and it's not to say that something like
that didn't exist between
the domestic Counter Intelligence and
foreign intelligence components of of
the KGB but there would be less of that
to a degree because there was a single
organization they're all
answerable to the same
people so that gives
you a certain greater amount I think of
of leeway and power because you're
controlling both of those ends
I remember somebody telling me once that
and he was a retired KGB officer there
you go
retired one of the things that he found
amusing was that in in his role one of
the things that he could be is that he
could be
anywhere at any
time in any
dress which meant that he could be in or
out of uniform and any place at any time
he was authorized to do that so more
freedom more power I think one of the
things that you would often inter view
is that well the Russians are simply you
know naturally
meaner yeah there's there's less respect
for human
rights there's a greater tendency
to
abuse power that one might have I mean
frankly they're all pretty good at that
they're probably it is fair to say that
there is probably some degree of of
cultural differen is that it not
necessarily for institutional reasons
but cultural
reasons there could well be things that
Americans might bulk at doing more than
you would find on the Russian or Soviet
side of the equations the other aspect
of that is that Russian history is long
and contentious and
bloody uh one of the things it certainly
teaches you never trust
foreigners every foreign government
anywhere any country on your border is a
real or potential enemy they will all at
some point have given the chance invade
you therefore they must always be
treated with great
suspicion that goes back to something
that I think the the British observed is
that countries don't have friends they
have
interests and those interests can change
over time well the CIA is probably
equally suspicious of all other nations
that's your job you're supposed to be
suspicious your job is not to be
trusting yeah the basic job of an
intelligence agency is to safeguard your
secrets and steal the other guys and
then hide those away are there laws
either intelligence
agencies that uh they're not willing to
break this a
basically Lawless operation to where you
can break any law as long as it
accomplishes the task well I think uh JN
k give his pen name he talking about his
early recruitment into British
intelligence and one of the things he
remember being told UPF front was if you
do this you have to be willing to lie
and you have to be willing to
kill now those are things that in
ordinary human interactions are bad
things
generally we don't like it when people
lie to us we we we expect that people
will act honestly towards us you know
whether that's being businessman you're
involved with your employers we're often
disappointed in that because people do
lie all the time for a variety of
reasons but but honesty is generally
considered to be it but but in uh in in
a realm where deception is a
rule dishonesty is a virtue to be good
at that to be able to lie
convincingly is
good is one of the things you need to
do and killing also is generally frowned
upon you know put people in prison for
that they're otherwise executed but in
certain circumstances killing is one of
those things that you need to be able to
do so what he felt he was being told in
that case is that you know once you
enter this realm the same sort of moral
rules that apply in general British
Society do not
apply and and if you're squeamish about
it
you won't fit
in you have to be able to do those
things I wonder how often those
intelligence agencies in the 20th
century and of course the natural
question extending it to the 21st
century how often they go to the
assassination how how often they go to
the kill part of that versus just the
Espionage let's take an example from
from American intelligence from the CIA
1950s 1960s into the 1970s MK
Ultra that is a secret program which was
involved with what is generally
categorized as mind control which really
means messing with people's
heads and what was the goal of that well
there seem to have been lots of goals
but there was an FBI memo that was I
recently acquired quite legally by the
way it's Declassified but it's from
1949 so this is only two years after the
CIA came into existence and it's an FBI
memo because the FBI of course very
curious to what the CIA is up to and the
FBI are not part of this meeting but
they have someone in they're sort of
spying on what's going on so there was a
meeting which was held in a private
apartment in New
York so it's not held in any kind of
it's It's essentially never really
happened because it's in somebody's
house but and there are a couple of guys
there from the CIA one of them is cleave
Baxter cleave bter is the um the great
Godfather of the lie
detector uh pretty much everything that
we know or think we know about Li
detectors today that youo to Cle Baxter
uh he's also the same guy that thought
that plants could feel but which somehow
was a derivative of his work on lie
detectors so these guys are there and
and they're giving a t talk to some
military and other personnel and uh
there are certain parts of the document
which are of course redacted but you
could figure out what it is that they're
talking about and they're talking about
hypnotic suggestion and all the
wonderful things that you can
potentially do with hypnotic
suggestion and two of the things they
note is that one of the things we could
potentially do is erase memories from
people's minds and implant false
memories that would be really Keen to do
that just imagine how that would be
done so here to me is the interesting
point they're talking about this in 1949
MK Ultra does not come along until
really 1953 although there all sorts of
you know art of Choke and others
everything is sort of leading up to that
it's simply an an elaboration of
programs that are already
there I don't think that It ultimately
matters whether you
can implant memories or erase memories
to me the important part is they thought
they could and they were going to try to
do it and that eventually is what you
find out in the efforts made during the
1950s and 60s through MK Ultra MK search
MK Naomi and all the others that came
out that's one of the things they're
working for um and among the few MK
Ultra era documents that survive there's
that whole question is that can you get
someone to uh put put a gun to someone's
head and pull the trigger and then
remember it later
yeah you could interestingly enough so
nondirect violence controlling people's
minds controlling people's minds at
scale and experimenting with different
kinds of ways of doing that one person
put it that the basic argument there or
the basic thing you're after was to
understand the architecture of the human
mind how it worked how it put together
and then how you could take those pieces
apart and assemble them different
ways so this comes this is where
hypnosis comes in which is
a was then still is fairly spooky thing
nobody's ever explained to me exactly
what it is the idea was that could you
you think of the whole possibilities in
this case could you create an alternate
personality and use that alternate
personality in an agent role
but then be able to turn it on and off
so subsequently the the
person which that personality inhabited
was captured and interrogated tortured
you know had their fingernails torn
out they would have no memory of it they
couldn't give any kind of secret away
because it was embedded in some part of
their brain where there was a completely
different person I mean you can just
imagine the the possibilities that you
can dream up and again it's not I think
the question is to whether you that is
possible or whether it was done although
I suspect that both of those are true
but that you would try to do it then
imagine the Mischief that comes out of
that and one of the big complaints from
a legal standpoint about MK Ultra and
the rest is that you were having medical
experiments essentially being carried
out on people without their knowledge
and against their will which is you know
a no no yeah the fact that you're
willing to do m medical experiments says
something about what you're willing to
do and I'm sure that same Spirit
Innovative
Spirit uh persist to this
day and uh maybe less so I hope less so
in the United States but probably in
other intelligence agencies in the world
well one thing that was learned and the
reason why most MK Ultra and similar
records were destroyed
on order in the early 70s around the
time the CIA became under a certain
amount of scrutiny now the mid-70s were
not a good time for the agency because
you had the church committee breathing
down their neck you had all these
assassin you know people were asking
lots of questions and so you need to you
need to dump this stuff because there's
all kinds of because you were committing
crimes against American citizens so
let's let's eradicate it and the
important lesson to be learned is that
never do these type of thing again where
at least in any way in which the
agency's direct fingerprints are placed
on
it you can pay people you can subsidize
research you can set up Venture Capital
firms you got plenty of money and you
can funnel that money into the hands of
people who will carry out this
research privately so if something goes
wrong you have perfect
deniability and the the topic of mice on
the topic of money ideology coercion and
ego let me ask you about a conspiracy
theory so there is a conspiracy theory
that the CIA is behind Jeffrey
Epstein at a high level if you could
just talk about that is that something
that's at all even possible that you
have uh basically this would be for
coercion you get a bunch of powerful
people to be sexually mischievous and
then you collect evidence on them so
that you can then have leverage on them
well let's look at what Epstein was
doing uh he was
a well he was a businessman who then
also developed a very lucrative sideline
and being a a high level
procur basically in supplying young
girls
and he
also filmed much of that activity
um I think his partner in this galain
and I'm hope I'm pronouncing her name
correct I think it's galain gain well
I've heard it both ways gilain or galain
whichever it may be I think her argument
at one point was that well we did this
to protect
ourselves but this type of thing has
been done before there's nothing new
about this getting influential people in
compromising situations and filming
them uh I could give you another
historical example of that in late 1920
actually early 1930s just pre-nazi
Berlin there was a very prominent uh
sort of wouldbe psychic and occultist by
the name of Eric Yan
hanison uh he had a private yacht I
think it was called the seven sins uh
and he hosted parties he also had a
whole club called the Palace of the
occult which hosted parties where things
went on and and there were cameras
everywhere he filmed important people
you know guys like the brownshirt chief
of
Berlin in various states of undress and
sexual
Congress and he did that for the
purposes of
blackmail so in Epstein's case he is a
procurer of young
girls to
wealthy men
largely
and many of those events were were
recorded now even if it wasn't his
intention to use them for blackmail
think of what someone else could do
because people know about
this so you could raise a question is
this not you know Epstein is just kind
of a greedy
pervert but through his greedy
perversion he's now collecting
information that could be useful who
could that be useful to who would like
dirt on Prince
Andrew on the CL think of all the people
who were there and the these you know
there were important people
who you know went to Lolita Island so if
it isn't Epstein directly it he might
have been being I'm not trying to let
him off the hook because I have anything
for him he was either running his own
blackmail business or someone was using
him as a front for that I mean I I think
we're kidding ourselves we trying to
pretend that's not what was going on so
you think you an American intelligence
agency
uh would be willing to swoop in and take
advantage of a situation like that well
you know American politicians could
ultimately end up in a position to
oversee things like intelligence
budgets one of them might even become
director you never know you can never
tell what some crazy president might do
it could be very one of the guys who
understood the was was J Grover Jed
Grover spent a long time collecting do
dossier and politicians how do you think
he'd remain director of the FBI as long
as he did because he systematically
collected dirt on
people so there is a
history of this type of thing and again
he could argue that's partly for his
protection to keep his job to protect
the the sanctity and security of of the
bureau you can find a million different
ways to to justify that it's really
dark
well there is that side to human nature
let's put it that way whether it's the
CIA or the Arana maybe that's what the
president of the United States sees when
they show up to office is all the stuff
they have on him or her and say you that
that there's a internal mechanism of
power that you don't want to mess with
and so you will listen well whether that
internal mechanism of power is the
military-industrial complex or whatever
the the bureaucracy of government
contuct of the deep State the Deep the
entrenched bureaucratic well it's been
said and I think it's generally true
that uh bureaucratic creatures are like
any other creatures it basically exists
to perpetuate itself yeah and and to
grow I mean nobody wants to go out of
business and and of course then you get
all of these you know things like
pizzagate
and accusations of one form another but
here's an interesting thing to consider
okay and I want to argue that I'm not
saying that pizz gate in any way was
real or q and onand is but but where do
they get these ideas
from so let's ask ourselves do
pedophiles
exist
yeah do organized pedophile
organizations
exist yeah they they share information
pictures they're out there on the dark
web they cooperate
so does child trafficking
exist yeah it
does so in other words whether or not
specific conspiracy theories about this
or that group of organized pedophil
cultists is real all the ingredients for
that to be real are there pedophiles
exist organized pedophilia exists
child and human trafficking
exists at some point at some time
someone will put all of those together
in fact certainly they already
have we'll jump around a little bit but
your work is so fascinating uh and it
covers so many topics so let's if we
jump into the present uh with the
Bohemian Grove and the Bilderberg gr
bilderbergers uh so the elites as I
think you've referred to them so this
Gathering of the
elites uh can you can you just talk
about them what is what is this well
first thing I have to point out is that
Bohemian Grove is a place not an
organization it's where the Bohemian
Club meets it's that
2700 acre old growth redwoods near you
know North of San Francisco the Bohemian
Club began
I think way back to the 1870s it's its
initial members were mostly
journalists okay in fact supposedly the
name itself comes from it was a term for
an itinerate journalist who move paper
to paper was called the
Bohemian and although I think there may
be
other reasons why that particular term
was was chosen as well but I I think the
original five members there were you
know there were like three journalists
there was a a merchant and there was a
vent guy owned a Vineyards California
House
surprising none of them terribly wealthy
but they formed an exclusive men's club
was and still is nothing terribly
unusual about that at the time but it
became fashionable and as it became
fashionable more wealthy people wanted
to become part of it and the thing about
getting rich guys to join your Club is
what do rich guys have money and of
course it's one of those Rich guys that
bought Bohemian Grove where now you
build your your old boy summer camp
which is what it is they got cabins with
Goofy names they go there they perform
skits they dress up in costumes yeah
true some of those skits look like Pagan
human sacrifices but you know it's just
a skit what's really going on there so
on the one hand you can argue look it's
it's it's just it's a rich guys Club
they you know they like to get out there
that the whole motto of the place is
weaving spiders come not here so we're
we're going to talk about business bus
we just want to get out into the woods
put on some robes you know burn a couple
of effigies in front of the owl have a
good time probably get drunk a lot
what's with the robes why do they do
weird creepy why do they put on a
mask and the robe and the and do the
plays and the the owl with the and then
sacrificing I don't know whatever why do
you have a giant owl I mean what why do
you do that what is but what is that in
human nature cuz I don't think the rich
people are different than and uh not
rich people what what is it about wealth
and power that brings that out of people
well part of it is the ritual aspect of
it and that clearly is a ritual and
rituals are it's pretty simple rituals
are just a series of actions performed
in a precise sequence to produce an
effect that describes a lot of things it
describes plays Symphonies every movie
you've ever seen a movie is a ritual it
is a series of actions carried out in a
precise sequence to produce an effect
with an added soundtrack to cue you to
what emotions you're supposed to be
feeling it's a great idea so the rich
people should just go to a movie or
maybe just go to a Taylor Swift concert
like why why do you have to well why the
all part of it is to create this kind of
sense I suppose of of group solidarity
you know you're you're all going to
appear and also a way of sort of
transcending
yourself in a way you know when you put
on the
robe it's like putting on a uniform you
are in some way a different or more
important person it's a ritual okay the
the key ritual that beomi and Grove is a
thing called The Cremation of care and
cremation and that's what it's supposed
to be it's it's a we're going to put all
of our you know we're rich important
people we have to make all of these
critical decisions life is so hard so
we're going to go out here in the woods
and we're going to kick back and we're
all going to get gather on the lake and
and then we're going to carry you know
it it it's it's wicker it's not a real
person
and how would you know and then we're
going to and we're going to and this is
The Cremation of our Char but it's a
ritual which is meant to produce a sense
of solidarity and relief among those
people who were
there the question comes down with the
rituals is how seriously do you take
them how how important is this to to the
people who carry them out
and the interesting answer to that is
that for some people it's you know for
some people it's just boring I mean
there probably people standing around
the owl who think this is ridiculous and
can't wait for it to get over with there
are other people who are kind of excited
about it you get caught up into it but
other people can take it very
seriously it's all the matter of the
intention that you have about what the
ritual
means and I don't mean to suggest by
that that there's anything necessary
Sinister about what's going on but it it
is it is a it is clearly a ritual
carried out for some kind of group
reinforcing purpose and you're
absolutely right you don't have to do it
that way that's not I mean I've gone to
summer camps and we never carried out
mock sacrifices in front of an owl all
right you know we did all those other
things um we didn't even have any robes
either so it goes beyond merely a a rich
guy summer camp although that's an
aspect of it but it also I think often
obscures that focusing on Bohemian Grove
at the getaway of the club ignores that
the club is around all the time that's
what's at the center of this it is the
club and its
members so despite all the talk about no
no weaving spiders coming around here
what are the other features of the
summer meeting are things called
Lakeside talks uh this often people are
invited to go there and and one of the
people who was
invited I think around 1968 was Richard
Nixon who was making his political
comeback and he was invited to give a
talk where very important people are
listening and Nixon in his Memoirs
realized what was going on he was being
auditioned as to whether or not he was
going to be read he recognized that that
was really the beginning of his second
presidential campaign he was being
vetted
so one of the main theories call it a
conspiracy theory or not about the
Bohemian Club in the Gatherings is that
people of wealth and influence gather
together and whether or not it's part of
the agenda or not inevitably you're
going to talk about things of interest
but to me the M of fact that you invite
people in political leaders and to give
Lakeside talks means that there there
are weaving spiders which are going on
and it is a
perfect private venue to vet
people for political office I mean yeah
where else are you going to do it if
you're interested in vetting if you're
interesting in powerful people selecting
well see here's the question are these
guys actually picking who's going to be
president is that the decision which is
being made or are they just deciding
what horses they're going to back right
I think the latter is the simpler
version of it but it doesn't mean it's
the other way around but these are the
kinds of you know I mean Nixon was you
know there was the whole 1960
thing so he's he's the new Nixon
remember this and this this is where the
new Nixon uh apparently made a good
impression on the right people because
he did
indeed get the Republican
nomination and he did indeed become
president well there could also be a
much more innocent explanation of really
it's powerful people getting together
and having conversations and through
that conversation influencing each
other's view of the world and and having
a legitimate discussion of
policies why wouldn't they I mean why
would you assume that people are not
going to do that it's the owl thing with
the with the robes like what why the owl
and why the robes um which is why it
becomes really compelling when guys like
Alex
Jones uh forgive me but I have not
watched his documentary I probably
should at some point about the Bohemian
Grove where he claims that there is uh
uh
Satanist human sacrifice
of I think
children um and I think that's quite a
popular conspiracy theory or is lost
popularity it kind of like transformed
itself into the konon set of conspiracy
theories but I mean can you speak to
that conspiracy let's put it this way
the general public rich people are
inherently suspicious yeah okay let
let's put it that
way uh first of all they've got all that
money and and and exactly how did one
obtain it and uh I do not of necessity
adhere to the view that behind every
great Fortune there is a great crime but
there often are you know there there are
ways in which it's acquire but I think
it's one of the things I think that can
happen is particularly when when people
require a huge amount of
money and I won't name any names but
let's say there are people who perhaps
in The texere Who coming from no
particular background of wealth suddenly
find themselves with $600
billion well what this is the question
you would have to ask yourself why
me because you're one of the rare tiny
group of human beings who will ever had
that kind of wealth in your
hands