Can you give us a, a summary of, of what those were?

Amanda, I mean, the first thing, uh, uh, in, in the submission was to highlight, we run a, a, a very big, uh, organized crime index process, which is, uh, conducted every two years.

It makes the news in South Africa, of course.

And on, uh, South Africa looks pretty bad on that in terms of levels of crime and criminal activity from an organized crime perspective.

So I, I wanted to make the point that it's was in the top five percent of, uh, countries that, that have, uh, serious challenges, and outside of Latin America, it's the one democracy with the, with the, the highest level of organized crime.

And for me, that was to underscore the point that, uh, organized crime is a, is a threat to the democratic order.

It's a kind of existential threat in South Africa.

When you look at South Africa, is the police, law enforcement, the criminal justice system fixable?

Can you give us a, a summary of, of what those were?

Amanda, I, I mean, the first thing, uh, uh, in, in the submission was to highlight, we run a, a, a very big, uh, organized crime index process, which is, uh, conducted every two years.

It makes the news in South Africa, of course.

And on, uh, South Africa looks pretty bad on that in terms of levels of crime and criminal activity from an organized crime perspective.

So I, I wanted to make the point that it's, was in the top 5% of, uh, countries that, that have, uh, serious challenges.

And outside of Latin America, it's the one democracy with the, with the, the highest level of organized crime.

And for me, that was to underscore the point that, uh, organized crime is a, is a threat to the democratic order.

When you look at South Africa, is the police, law enforcement, the criminal justice system fixable?

So what is it about the story of Dorothy Kilgallen that led you to write a book about her life and death?

Well, as an author yourself, you know, you just can't tell sometimes about books.

When we're in the creative area and we splice something on the pages there when we started with no words and then we end up with all these words and you don't really know what you have exactly and whether anybody will give a darn.

But That's kind of the case with this one, because I never really intended to write this book, Eric.

Like most people, I remember Dorothy Kilgallen as a star panelist on a game show called What's My Line? It was on CBS for 15 years, every Sunday night.

20 million people watched that show, and for those who...

We'll recall that show or many young people who have found out about Dorothy and then gone to the reruns on the internet and all of that.

yeah i'd like to ask you about the the current investigation by the new york district attorney's office and the catalyst for the reopening of this case was your book right

So what might be useful, uh, Mark and, uh, Will, who wants to lead off? But, uh, give us a little background in- quickly into yourselves and, and then, uh, perhaps PGG Wrightson as well.

Thanks, Leighton.

Uh, well, Mark Shaw.

I'm the turf business manager, uh, for Oceania for PGG Wrightson Seeds.

Uh, I guess a bit of background on who PGG Wrightson Seeds are.

Um, we're a business unit of DLF, which is one of the largest, um, seed producing companies on the planet.

Uh, you know, we're based here in Christchurch in, in New Zealand, which is the, the home of our plant breeding station, um, here at Kimihia Research Facility.

Yeah.

No way.

Well, the most interesting thing here, I think, and, and we can relate it to what's going to happen on November 8, is that I had an advantage when I started looking into the JFK assassination because I found out about Dorothy Kilgallen.

I knew nothing about her until I was, uh, completing a, a, a biography of Melvin Belli, and I started learning about all his mob, uh, connections and everything else like that.

And I'll never forget the one thing where...

You, you guys are just like me.

When you hear something that you, you just... uh, it just hits you in the head and you've gotta do something about it.

Uh, that happened when a, a, an associate of Belli said, "Well, you know, when Melvin died, uh, he told me, 'They killed Dorothy.

[laughs]

What could be in that tape that's worth $900 million? Any idea? I

don't know.

I don't know, John.

I've looked at the tape, you know, the photographs and things.

But, frankly, it doesn't surprise me that the government is trying to cover up this videotape because, as you and I know, they've been covering up the truth about the JFK assassination since the Warren Commission.

And most recently, with this task force and government secrets, they're hiding a confession by the mafioso Carlos Marcello, where he said, yeah, I had the SOB killed, meaning JFK.

I'm glad I did.

Mark Shaw, tell us what else you're doing before we let you go this Sunday.

And can you describe the circumstances of her death?

Yeah, people may remember from the first book, you have to kind of go back a little bit.

Dorothy was at, actually is different than anybody who's ever written about the JFK assassination, including me, because she was there.

She was there in 1963 and 1964.

She was at the Jack Ruby trial, sat in the front row, and we'll talk about what she heard and what she saw that's in the new book.

But She's the only reporter to have ever interviewed Jack Ruby.

She did it twice.

How does that work out?

And you know what has just hit me the last couple d- da- days ago, Mark? We're coming up on 62 years.

Yeah, we are.

And, and I thought I'd do the same thing I did the last time a little bit when I was on your program with giving us a little bit of a history lesson of where we've come from that assassination because I got ...

I always get a lot of emails from around the world for people that listen to your program.

And I think they enjoyed our doing that.

So if we can remember, uh, JFK, you know, has passed away, and then, uh, uh, J. Edgar Hoover takes center, center stage.

And right away, he goes to Oswald alone, that th- they've captured the man who did it.

It's an amazing story.