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JFK/RFK/MLK & The Cold War Era
Charles Brandt - I Heard You Paint Houses: Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran & Closing the Case on Jimmy Hoffa
"I heard you paint houses" are the first words Jimmy Hoffa ever spoke to Frank "the Irishman" Sheeran. To paint a house is to kill a man. The paint is the blood that splatters on the walls and floors. In the course of nearly five years of recorded interviews, Frank Sheeran confessed to Charles Brandt that he handled more than twenty-five hits for the mob, and for his friend Hoffa. He also provided intriguing information about the Mafia's role in the murder of JFK.
Sheeran learned to kill in the US Army, where he saw an astonishing 411 days of active combat duty in Italy during World War II. After returning home he became a hustler and hit man, working for legendary crime boss Russell Bufalino. Eventually Sheeran would rise to a position of such prominence that in a RICO suit the US government would name him as one of only two non-Italians in conspiracy with the Commission of La Cosa Nostra, alongside the likes of Anthony "Tony Pro" Provenzano and Anthony "Fat Tony" Salerno.
When Bufalino ordered Sheeran to kill Hoffa, the Irishman did the deed, knowing that if he had refused he would have been killed himself. Charles Brandt's page-turner has become a true crime classic.
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Fred Litwin - Oliver Stone's Flim-Flam
50:22|In his timely and powerful new book, Oliver Stone’s Film-Flam: The Demagogue of Dealey Plaza, author Fred Litwin debunks the major allegations in JFK: Destiny Betrayed -- Oliver Stone’s 2021 documentary series on the JFK assassination.Litwin’s book examines:The formation of the Warren Commission.The relationship between JFK and the CIA.Why Jack Ruby killed Oswald.How the medical evidence supports a lone gunman.The role of imperfect memory in witness testimony.A refutation of a possible alibi for Lee Harvey Oswald.The chain of custody of CE 399 - the bullet found at Parkland Hospital.The insidious claim that JFK’s physician, Dr. George Burkley, participated in a cover-up.Spurious allegations about General Curtis LeMay.Supposed plots against JFK in Chicago and Tampa.The homophobic persecution of Clay Shaw by Jim Garrison.Oliver Stone’s Film-Flam is extensively sourced and contains over 600 links to the internet (in the Kindle version), as well as excerpts from many JFK assassination documents.Litwin’s book will interest historians and film critics, fans of President Kennedy, and anyone interested in the debunking of conspiracy theories. It will certainly become a necessary addition to any JFK library.Brad Meltzer - The Nazi Conspiracy
33:12|From the New York Times bestselling authors of The First Conspiracy and The Lincoln Conspiracy comes the little-known true story of a Nazi plot to kill FDR, Joseph Stalin, and Winston Churchill at the height of World War II.In 1943, as the war against Nazi Germany raged abroad, President Franklin Roosevelt had a critical goal: a face-to-face sit-down with his allies Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill. This first-ever meeting of the Big Three in Tehran, Iran, would decide some of the most crucial strategic details of the war. Yet when the Nazis found out about the meeting, their own secret plan took shape—an assassination plot that would’ve changed history.A true story filled with daring rescues, body doubles, and political intrigue, The Nazi Conspiracy details FDR’s pivotal meeting in Tehran and the deadly Nazi plot against the heads of state of the three major Allied powers who attended it.With all the hallmarks of a Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch page-turner, The Nazi Conspiracy explores the great political minds of the twentieth century, investigating the pivotal years of the war in gripping detail. This meeting of the Big Three changed the course of World War II. Here’s the inside story of how it almost led to a world-shattering disaster.Pearl Habor - Thomas Kimmel
47:45|A noted Pearl Harbor scholar, former FBI agent, and eldest grandson of Admiral Husband E. Kimmel, Commander of the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor during the attack on December 7,1941, Tom Kimmel comes from a family of distinguished scholars and government servants dedicated to protecting America. Notwithstanding the preceding, his grandfather was accused from the well of the House of Representatives of failing to prevent World War II, and the Cold War. His fourth great grandfather was accused of starting the Revolutionary War, and the Whiskey Rebellion. Tom welcomes the opportunity to respond to the allegations. A graduate of the US Naval Academy, Tom served on three warships during the Vietnam War and attended John Marshall Law School prior to joining the FBI in 1973, where he continued to serve his Country as an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for more than 25 years.Fernando Faura - The Polka Dot File on the Robert F. Kennedy Killing: The Paris Peace Talks Connection
01:19:55|The Polka Dot File on the Robert F. Kennedy Killing describes the day-to-day chase for the mystery woman in the polka-dot dress. The book comments on but does not dwell on the police investigation, and reads like a detective thriller instead of an academic analysis of the investigation. It incorporates actual tapes made by an important witness, and introduces the testimony of witnesses not covered in other books and it is a new take on the assassination and the motives for it introduces a new theory for the reasons behind the assassination. Original and highly personal, it reaches a startling and different conclusion not exposed by other books.Mark Shaw - Reporter Who Knew Too Much
49:06|Was What’s My Line TV Star, media icon, and crack investigative reporter and journalist Dorothy Kilgallen murdered for writing a tell-all book about the JFK assassination? If so, is the main suspect in her death still at large?These questions and more are answered in former CNN, ESPN, and USA Today legal analyst Mark Shaw’s 25th book, The Reporter Who Knew Too Much. Through discovery of never-before-seen videotaped eyewitness interviews with those closest to Kilgallen and secret government documents, Shaw unfolds a “whodunit” murder mystery featuring suspects including Frank Sinatra, J. Edgar Hoover, Mafia Don Carlos Marcello and a "Mystery Man" who may have silenced Kilgallen. All while by presenting through Kilgallen's eyes the most compelling evidence about the JFK assassinations since the House Select Committee on Assassination’s investigation in the 1970s.Called by the New York Post, “the most powerful female voice in America,” and by acclaimed author Mark Lane the “the only serious journalist in America who was concerned with who killed John Kennedy and getting all of the facts about the assassination,” Kilgallen’s official cause of death reported as an overdose of barbiturates combined with alcohol, has always been suspect since no investigation occurred despite the death scene having been staged. Shaw proves Kilgallen, a remarkable woman who broke the "glass ceiling" before the term became fashionable, was denied the justice she deserved, that is until now.Paul Vidich - Coldest Warrior
50:12|In 1953, Dr. Charles Wilson, a government scientist, died when he “jumped or fell” from the ninth floor of a Washington hotel. As his wife and children grieve, the details of the incident remain buried for twenty-two years.With the release of the Rockefeller Commission report on illegal CIA activities in 1975, the Wilson case suddenly becomes news again. Wilson’s family and the public are demanding answers, especially as some come to suspect the CIA of foul play, and agents in the CIA, FBI, and White House will do anything to make sure the truth doesn’t get out.Enter agent Jack Gabriel, an old friend of the Wilson family who is instructed by the CIA director to find out what really happened to Wilson. It’s Gabriel’s last mission before he retires from the agency, and his most perilous. Key witnesses connected to the case die from suspicious causes, and Gabriel realizes that the closer he gets to the truth, the more his entire family is at risk.Following in the footsteps of spy fiction greats like Graham Green, John Le Carré, and Alan Furst, Paul Vidich presents a tale—based on the unbelievable true story told in Netflix’s Wormwood—that doesn’t shy away from the true darkness in the shadows of espionage.Paul Vidich - The Matchmaker: A Spy in Berlin
53:36|Berlin, 1989. Protests across East Germany threaten the Iron Curtain and Communism is the ill man of Europe.Anne Simpson, an American who works as a translator at the Joint Operations Refugee Committee, thinks she is in a normal marriage with a charming East German. But then her husband disappears and the CIA and Western German intelligence arrive at her door.Nothing about her marriage is as it seems. She had been targeted by the Matchmaker—a high level East German counterintelligence officer—who runs a network of Stasi agents. These agents are his "Romeos" who marry vulnerable women in West Berlin to provide them with cover as they report back to the Matchmaker. Anne has been married to a spy, and now he has disappeared, and is presumably dead.The CIA are desperate to find the Matchmaker because of his close ties to the KGB. They believe he can establish the truth about a high-ranking Soviet defector. They need Anne because she's the only person who has seen his face - from a photograph that her husband mistakenly left out in his office - and she is the CIA’s best chance to identify him before the Matchmaker escapes to Moscow. Time is running out as the Berlin Wall falls and chaos engulfs East Germany.But what if Anne's husband is not dead? And what if Anne has her own motives for finding the Matchmaker to deliver a different type of justice?Mark Shaw - Denial of Justice: Dorothy Kilgallen, Abuse of Power, and the Most Compelling JFK Assassination Investigation in History
54:05|Why is What’s My Line? TV star and Pulitzer-Prize-nominated investigative reporter Dorothy Kilgallen one of the most feared journalists in history? Why has her threatened exposure of the truth about the JFK assassination triggered a cover-up by at least four government agencies and resulted in abuse of power at the highest levels?Denial of Justice—written in the spirit of bestselling author Mark Shaw’s gripping true crime murder mystery, The Reporter Who Knew Too Much—tells the inside story of why Kilgallen was such a threat leading up to her unsolved murder in 1965. Shaw includes facts that have never before been published, including eyewitness accounts of the underbelly of Kilgallen’s private life, revealing statements by family members convinced she was murdered, and shocking new information about Jack Ruby’s part in the JFK assassination that only Kilgallen knew about, causing her to be marked for danger.Peppered with additional evidence signaling the potential motives of Kilgallen’s arch enemies J. Edgar Hoover, mobster Carlos Marcello, Frank Sinatra, her husband Richard, and her last lover, Denial of Justice adds the final chapter to the story behind why the famous journalist was killed, with no investigation to follow despite a staged death scene. More information can be found at www.thedorothykilgallenstory.com.