Podbit · Empire: World History
Teddy Roosevelt famously invited Booker T. Washington to the White House — then caved to political pressure and never invited another Black person again. He reflected the eugenics of his era. His fifth cousin Franklin was the more important president. We're lucky there was no war on TR's watch.
Where this was said
At 30:45 · chapter starts 27:25
Burns is working on a new documentary — LBJ and the Great Society — and his assessment of Johnson is unambiguous: Shakespearean tragedy, and a raw deal from history. [1] — Ken Burns "LBJ alone passed the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act — things his predecessor, for all his charisma, likely lacked the political…" 27:23 As a Southerner, LBJ could pass the Civil Rights Act in a way his charismatic predecessor could not. The Voting Rights Act too. He understood exactly what the political calculus would be. Then he walked into Kennedy's foreign policy apparatus — McNamara, Rusk, and others — and told them he needed them more than Kennedy did. That is where the tragedy begins. Kennedy had inherited 700 military advisors in Vietnam from Eisenhower; by his assassination, there were 17,000. Johnson made it official and legitimate in March 1965. A taping system in the Oval Office and Lady Bird's nightly reel-to-reel diary together produce, Burns argues, 'perhaps the biggest evidence of her extraordinary power': in 1965, when Johnson put boots on the ground, she recorded the prediction that 'Lyndon's not going to run again.' Three years and one New Hampshire primary later, she was right.
Kennedy inherited 700 military advisors in Vietnam from Eisenhower; by the time of his assassination that number had grown to 17,000.
LBJ had a White House taping system. Lady Bird had a reel-to-reel recorder she used every night as a personal diary. In 1965, when Johnson put boots on the ground in Vietnam, she recorded: 'Lyndon's not going to run again.' Three years later, she was right.
LBJ won 60% of the New Hampshire primary vote in 1968 but Eugene McCarthy's unexpected 40% was seen as a moral defeat that prompted Johnson not to seek re-election.
Factories that replaced coal engines with electric ones in the early 1900s got only 6% efficiency gains. Those that redesigned their entire factory around electricity got a 3x productivity improvement. Swapping AI tools into your existing structure will give you 6%. Rebuilding around AI will give you 10x.
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.
When the scandal broke, Oliver North and his secretary Fawn Hall conducted what became known as a 'shredding party,' destroying a day's worth of documents. The full truth of Iran-Contra may never be known because of what was fed through that shredder.
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