Podbit · The Rest Is History
In a Whitehall room where Henry VIII staged cockfights, Franklin was publicly savaged before the Privy Council after leaking the Hutchinson letters. He stood motionless in his blue Manchester velvet coat while the court — furious about the Boston Tea Party — tore him apart. It was the moment he decided Britain had lurched into tyranny.
Where this was said
At 45:10 · chapter starts 43:20
In December 1772, Franklin was given access to private letters written by Massachusetts governor Thomas Hutchinson advising the British government to restrict colonial liberties. Franklin's intention in leaking them to Boston radicals was conciliatory — he wanted to prove the trouble was caused by one man's bad advice, not by deep British hostility to colonists. But the radicals ignored his explicit request to keep the letters private, published them immediately, and created a sensation. The blowback in London was severe: Franklin was summoned to appear before the Privy Council in the Cockpit — a room in Whitehall where Henry VIII had once staged cockfights — just as outrage over the Boston Tea Party was reaching its peak [1] — Tom Holland "In a Whitehall room where Henry VIII staged cockfights, Franklin was publicly savaged before the Privy Council after leaking the Hutchinson…" 45:10 . Dressed in his blue Manchester velvet coat, Franklin stood motionless as the court — assembled, he noted, as if for entertainment — tore into him as a treasonous colonial and convenient scapegoat. It was a defining moment: having gone there hoping to demonstrate British reasonableness, he left concluding that Britain had lurched into tyranny.
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Lebanese terrorists backed by Iran were holding American hostages throughout the Reagan presidency. Reagan had loudly campaigned against negotiating with terrorists — putting him in an impossible position that his team quietly decided to ignore.
During the Iran-Iraq War, the US openly supplied Iraq with weapons, training, and intelligence. At the same time, Oliver North was secretly funneling missiles to Iran. The US was playing both sides of a shooting war.
Oliver North traveled to Iran under the alias 'William P. Goode' with a fake passport. CIA Director William Casey allegedly gave him cyanide pills so he could kill himself rather than be tortured if captured. He returned safely and the deal moved forward.
The Pentagon sold missiles to the CIA for $3,700 each. The CIA sold them to Richard Secord at cost. Secord sold them to Iranian middleman Ghorbanifar for $10,000 each. Ghorbanifar charged Iran even more. The profit — including $3 million in interest in one Swiss account — was diverted directly to fund the Nicaraguan Contras.
America secretly transferred 2,000 missiles and missile parts to Iran in 8 shipments over more than a year. Only 3 of 7 hostages were released. Three more were taken. The net result was zero freed hostages and a full-blown constitutional scandal.
On October 5, 1986, a CIA Contra supply plane flew a weapons drop at 2,500 feet in broad daylight. A Sandinista soldier shot it down. The only survivor, Eugene Hasenfuss, had borrowed a parachute from his skydiving brother. He was captured, paraded in front of cameras, and told the Sandinistas everything he knew.
The CIA supply operation used a front company called Southern Air Transport, widely known to be a CIA cover. Crew members of the downed plane carried their Southern Air Transport employee IDs in their wallets. One also had a business card directly linking him to Oliver North's office in Washington.
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