Mm.

You know, the program was discovered in 1974, and, um, they started having invest- congressional investigations into it and more and more information leaked out in 1975, '76, '77.

And in a nutshell, what they learned was that Allen Dulles, the head of the CIA in 1953, had authorized MKUltra originally as a defensive effort against what US intelligence believed the Chinese and Russians had learned to do to captured airmen.

So we were at war with North Korea and China, and our pilots were getting shot down, and then they would be put on, uh, television in Korea where they would say that, um, you know, they would announce that they were dropping biological weapons, which is against the la- uh, world law, on the populations over there, which the United States maintained we didn't.

And the Americans learned that they had this brainwashing program using drugs and sensory deprivation, hypnotism, and other methods to, uh, erase people's minds, implant memories and whatnot.

So they decided to do a counter, um, operation, MKUltra, mostly to figure out how to like not allow that to happen to captured airmen, but then when they found out that it was actually possible to brainwash people, it became... went from defensive to offensive.

So they started hiring, um, scientists, researchers, doctors from outside the CIA, uh, making them take loyalty oaths or secrecy oaths, and then funding them with millions of dollars to experiment on people in prisons-

[chuckles]

Okay.

My reporting, hopefully, um...

So when I finished the book in 2019, I literally turned the final manuscript in after they had done all their edit- editorial stuff, and then we, Dan and I, input all their notes and then we signed off, and it was literally the day before the 20th anniversary of the assignment.

So it was my 60th birthday, and I had started on the day after my 40th birthday.

And I honestly naively thought, "Now I can go to bed and not dream about Manson and Jolly West and, you know, Abigail Folger, who's 28 stab wounds and saying, 'Stop, stop, I'm already dead.'" I thought, "All that's gone, and my next book will be about unicorns and fairies and children's... something nice." But, you know, it never leaves you, and especially a book like mine, there's so many loose ends, which I get criticized for a lot.

Um, but, you know, all the open-ended stuff that I couldn't resolve, and I was honest about it, I thought I deserve, you know, some kind of credit for saying, "Look, I'm not gonna make up an ending." Um, but I...

You know, I, I didn't stop reporting, but I did think I wasn't gonna do anything.

Yeah.

Or he had

protection because I do think if he was any other hippie on parole, and, you know, he hated being called a hippie.

He called himself a slippy based on his, you know, and his... practice of flipping in and out of places and homes to steal things, rearrange furniture, what they call creepy crawling.

But I think if it was anyone else with his record, whether they were black or white, I think they wouldn't have gotten out after the massive amount of effort that went into that raid.

I think it was 100 and some officers, all-terrain vehicles, helicopters.

It was in the planning works for about four or five weeks.

They gathered pre-dawn.

two

What did you come up with? Yeah.

Well, I mean, the most frustrating thing I came up with was I was interviewing his first personal attorney, and I was interviewing him in 2008 on the telephone, called him up in Texas where he was still practicing, and asked him if I could talk to him about his early representation of Tex before Tex was even identified as a suspect in Tate LaBianca.

Right.

As Vince writes in his book, Bob had... first week of October, shifted around to Hawaii, Los Angeles, and then went to Texas.

And in November, once Susan Atkins started talking and the police started putting stuff together, and they all became suspects, the LAPD called Watson's family and said that they wanted to come down to interview him.

And Watson's mother called Bill Boyd, who had represented Texana on a case when he was in college, and it was a prank.

He stole some typewriters, but he was charged with a crime.

What was that?

So maybe if you can just tell us a little bit more behind the history of creating ITP metrics and the platform.

I'm glad you asked about the history of ITP metrics because I don't often have a chance to talk about that.

Normally, we're just talking about the specific functional features for a given course needs, but it's a It's a fascinating story, at least in my career.

I was a second year prof.

I was pre-tenure, a lot of pressure to publish or perish.

If you don't publish enough, you're out.

I had been working with engineering design student teams for probably six or seven years up to that point at University of Western Ontario, where I did my graduate work.

So that's a time saver for sure.

But what are your thoughts on that?

Yeah, yeah.

So my book took another, like, left turn about two years in when I, I found out that Bugliosi had changed the official version, and he was...

I was trying to figure out what was he protecting, what was he hiding? Why did he have to lie? W- I mean, why did he lie when I don't think he had to? And then I, I, I l- learned that he, I, I mean, I read the book.

He, he completely stayed away for the, from the year in San Francisco.

Right after Manson was released from prison in 1967 in March, he violated his parole immediately in Los Angeles and moved to San Francisco without permission.

And, uh, instead of being sent right back to prison, which would've normally happened, they accepted him and gave him to a parole officer who was doing drug research at a place called the Haight Ashbury Free Medical Clinic, which opened in June of '67, which was at the birth of the, um, Summer of Love in Hay- the Haight Ashbury.

Fuck

Wait, what about Charlie Kirk? If it's not true, if all that stuff was staged, who in fact did kill Charlie Kirk? What's the alternate scenario?

I've left that to Gibbs.

I can't claim that right now.

of a normal life, so I don't know.

I know that Candace Owens has gone from the Jews to his own people, and I think the latest is Trump or Laura Lomer, she's accusing.

I don't know.

But wait, who does AI say killed Kennedy?

I read the headline.

Tell him about the hype.

It's almost got us killed.

He took us off trail and there were bear tracks and all kinds of monsters lurking in the shadows.

Do not trust your children with him.

I've never been so bright in my life.

Nice to

Yeah, there's a book called Codependency No More that

you should read.

Like, did he have a microphone hidden in the car? No,

and Capote famously never took notes when he did interviews, and everyone who was ever profiled by him claimed that he made up everything they said.

And he said he didn't want to distract people with a reporter or an interviewer and that he had a photographic memory.

So he'd go back to his room after he did an interview and write everything down.

But then the people, I think Brando and or Sinatra sued him after he did profiles of him.

And he couldn't produce any notes or anything because he didn't take any.

And he, you know, he did his Well, that's my memory of it or something.

Except, you

That's my prediction.

I honestly don't know, but I don't trust Tom.

the cia uh you know when they do the one commission investigation they without information when they lie to them they do the same thing when they have the second house select committee investigation why we can give them the benefits of the doubt and i don't think they'll release anything incriminating you know i just don't i'm hope i'm hopeful but i don't know i don't know What's going to happen? And I'm not even sure that Trump hasn't just done this as a publicity stunt.

He's only put the process in motion.

He didn't.

And if you believe Tucker Carlson, that's a big if.

He said that Mike Pompeo told Trump he should never release this stuff because it incriminates the government and the assassination.

So is it your belief that the CIA was involved in the Kennedy assassination?