0:00

M hm. Hitler

0:04

is a guy we're gonna be talking about

0:06

a lot today because we're talking about The

0:08

Dullest Brothers Part two, and

0:11

we'll be covering their time in the war, which

0:13

involves a lot of Nazis. I'm Robert

0:16

Evans. This is you know, Behind

0:18

the Bastards. You should know that this

0:21

is the second episode we're doing on this series. And

0:23

my guest is again Jason Targeant.

0:25

Jason, how are you doing? Do

0:27

some people start with part two of a series

0:30

like this? Do we have to catch them? Catch them

0:32

up with if they are Jason,

0:34

their maniacs, and I feel no need to pay

0:36

ander to them. There's a question

0:38

I did want to ask though, because when you left

0:40

off the two Dullest Brothers, and

0:43

again just because it's been a week or whatever,

0:46

You've got the elder brother, Foster

0:48

Dulles, who is not yet going

0:51

he's going to be Secretary of State later. You've

0:53

got the younger alan Um

0:55

who was later going to take over the CIA. Right

0:58

now, they're not doing that. Right now, they

1:00

are helping to basically negotiate

1:03

the post war post World

1:05

War one piece with Germany correct

1:08

and the terms of that that will wind

1:11

up the terms of the piece of World

1:13

War One set the stage for everything

1:15

that comes after, right up until today.

1:18

Yes, So how old are

1:20

these brothers when that is occurring, Because

1:23

they're not They're not very old. No,

1:25

I mean like twenty, like

1:29

like Allen. Well, yeah, in there, in there

1:31

there. So Foster is older. Foster starts

1:35

um college. Well, no, he starts

1:37

high school in nineteen o four, so

1:40

he's graduated by nineteen

1:42

o eight. World War One starts when

1:44

he's in his early twenties. He's

1:46

in his late twenties, and Alan is

1:48

in his early twenties. I think. Okay,

1:51

so when you think about your early twenties,

1:54

would you have felt confident in your

1:56

ability to redraw the map of

1:59

post war Europe? Done

2:02

a pretty good job? I think I could

2:04

have, you know, because the the only people who have their

2:06

ship together, uh, in all of

2:08

Europe um in my opinion, my

2:10

opinion Jason um

2:13

is probably gonna be I don't know, uh,

2:16

fucking Bosnia and I thing's ever gotten

2:18

wrong there. Let's give it all to Bosnia. Let

2:21

them figure it out. I think that's how I

2:23

do it. You've got Greater Bosnia

2:25

and then you got Russia. There could

2:27

be an entire There have been entire,

2:30

unsure, horrifying books written

2:32

about the way

2:34

that the map

2:36

when after the breakup of the Ottoman Empire

2:38

and everything else, like everything that's happening

2:40

all the way through al Qaeda

2:43

and ISIS, and everything comes

2:45

down to in many ways, how those borders were drawn

2:48

by people who in many cases had never

2:50

even visited the places they were.

2:54

And one of the most telling things

2:56

in the world if you want to know understand

3:00

a lot of why people in a lot of

3:02

parts of the Middle East field the way they do and why things

3:04

have gone the way they do, is the

3:07

vast majority of people in the United States

3:09

and England and France have never

3:11

heard of the Psykes Pico Treaty.

3:13

Every fucking kid in Iraq, in

3:16

Syria knows what Psykes Pico was.

3:18

Um, because it created their fucking

3:21

world. Um, And

3:23

it was a treaty that you know, Sykes

3:26

and Picco. I think we're British and French guys,

3:28

but um, it's um

3:32

yeah, this is this is the period that period. Well

3:34

that's happening. And I will say, you know, in fairness,

3:36

redrawing the boundaries of Europe as a result

3:39

of this conflict. What they're doing

3:41

is not the same as what's being done

3:43

to the Ottoman Empire, because that's much

3:45

more violent and horrible. What

3:48

like they had, they understand Europe a lot

3:50

better. Um, they're often negotiating

3:53

with the people who are running these countries because

3:55

like they you know, they for one thing,

3:57

think that Europeans get to have

3:59

more input into what happens

4:02

with their nations than than the people of the Ottoman

4:04

former Ottoman territories. Yeah, it's

4:07

just it's a very consequential

4:09

period of world history. The same after

4:11

World War One, the whole

4:14

world order kind of gets reshuffled,

4:16

and I think one of which of the Dullest

4:18

brothers was dealing with Germany's repayment of

4:21

their foster foster. Like

4:24

how that comes down, that's gonna

4:26

sow the seeds of everything,

4:29

everything that happens up until today.

4:32

Like it's it's hard to overstate how

4:36

the mistakes are made at the time, and maybe

4:38

things couldn't have been anticipated. I

4:40

don't know, that's a whole separate deal.

4:43

It's hard to overstate how important what

4:46

their work was here up

4:48

through until the time. Both of these men

4:50

die. Because it is a personal

4:52

beef of mind that when we talk about politics

4:55

in America today, when we look for a

4:57

historical example, we have like

4:59

two, everyone is either

5:01

Hitler or

5:04

uh now, I don't

5:06

know if it's everything is

5:08

either four or Hitler, it's

5:10

yeah. And I wish

5:13

I wish you could insult the president by

5:15

saying he's like Woodrow Wilson. And

5:17

I wish you could insult an

5:20

administration's foreign policy by saying

5:22

it's like it's like the Dulles are in charge.

5:25

To the average person today, like arguing

5:27

on the internet those names, I guarantee

5:29

you don't mean anything. They don't. And

5:31

it's one of the things that's fascinating

5:34

about this that you're kind of touching on is that

5:37

when the most consequenceial decisions

5:40

in modern history are being made, a number

5:42

of people at the table are just some dudes,

5:44

grandkids, you know, like

5:47

the dullest brothers are not the only people who

5:49

get in this position, including like the crowned

5:51

heads of Europe. You could argue, but like,

5:53

how much a factor

5:56

this is that the people making these

5:58

calls are all

6:00

buddies and relatives of each other in

6:02

a lot of ways. It's different because

6:04

in America we're not supposed to have

6:07

royalty

6:10

and and so. But when you but when you look

6:12

and he said, well, gosh, how are these two guys fresh

6:14

out of college or fresh out of the first jobs?

6:16

Like sitting at the table help redraw

6:19

what the future looks like. And it's like, oh,

6:21

well, they were having dinner

6:23

with foreign leaders

6:26

when they were in kindergarten. Uh.

6:28

It's there are classes of people who

6:31

when you're growing up, you have the option of saying,

6:34

well, do you want to go into your father's business

6:36

to be a minister? Do you want to be secretaries?

6:39

Stay like your grandfather, And

6:41

that's one of the options. Uh. And you're

6:43

just traveling in a circle of people and you have

6:46

as you mentioned the previous episode,

6:48

like their jobs they were getting at the time didn't

6:50

pay much at all, totally irrelevant

6:52

to this class of people. That's

6:55

not what it's about. Like they

6:57

are destined to be names

6:59

and history books and so they have

7:02

the money if they want to spend a year in

7:04

India or do whatever they did to see

7:06

these parts of the world and all these things would

7:08

influence how they see the world. They

7:10

have the ability to do that. You you didn't,

7:13

you could not have have taken off

7:15

and just you know, traveled around

7:17

and all of this and failed your way

7:19

upward the way Allen did. Yeah. Um,

7:22

Now, Jason, as we get into this because we into

7:24

the last episode, noting that this is the period

7:26

the world, the end of World War One in which communism

7:29

really gets fixed on the dullest boys

7:32

radar right. And of course it would

7:34

like it wasn't really a massive

7:36

topic of discussion until the Russian Revolution

7:39

that really made it something that a lot

7:41

of American conservatives were obsessed

7:43

about. Um because they see, you know, you see,

7:45

like the business leaders in the crowned heads

7:47

of of Russia get murdered

7:49

and have their stuff taken, and it it scares

7:52

a lot of people. But it is worth noting

7:54

as we start this episode that the hardline

7:56

anti communist attitudes that were adopted

7:58

by Foster and alan a List immediately

8:01

after the Russian Revolution were not

8:03

necessarily the default even among

8:05

conservatives. Herbert Fucking

8:08

Hoover is one of the most conservative

8:10

presidents in US history, and

8:13

during this period of time he urged

8:15

Woodrow Wilson to reevaluate

8:17

the Bolshevik movement and acknowledge

8:19

that it had quote true social ends

8:22

and roots in quote grievous injustices

8:24

to the lowest classes in all the countries

8:26

that have been affected. Hoover warned

8:28

that in the United States, the advancement

8:31

of communist causes was directly the

8:33

fault of American reactionaries,

8:35

who had stimulated Bolshevism by viciously

8:38

attacking social welfare programs. Now,

8:40

if you know what anythan about Hoover, it's wild that

8:42

he's the one saying this, but he is. History

8:46

has gotten rewritten. Yeah,

8:48

in terms of looking backward about

8:51

and and and then in the same way where it's like, well,

8:53

we always hated the Nazis, so like, well,

8:55

yeah, yeah, we're about to talk about that a lot, Jason,

8:59

No, uh

9:02

yeah. So the idea that the communism is like always

9:04

antithnical to everything America. It's godless

9:06

and it's there's no freedom, and it's like, well,

9:09

like Herbert Hoover was saying, these

9:11

guys have a point because

9:14

what it replaced was not American

9:16

style. We

9:18

have this thing where it's like the whole world is either America

9:21

or it's communist. It's like, but

9:23

I mean, to his credit, he is very

9:25

astute. Lee noting that one of

9:28

the thing reasons these causes are being advanced

9:30

in the United States is because reactionaries

9:32

are refusing any kind of meaningful social

9:34

welfare. Um, so he's

9:36

not entirely like that is a That is a pretty

9:39

astute observation. I would say it

9:41

is a level of nuance on the subject

9:43

that America would have would be in no mood

9:46

for a few decades later. And again

9:48

from one of one of the worst

9:51

presidents in American history. The guy

9:53

who who just kind of steers

9:55

us right into the Great Depression is staying

9:57

this amazing.

10:00

Herbert so Woodrow Wilson

10:02

and the Dullest Brothers did not listen to

10:04

Herbert Hoover. Between nineteen nineteen and nineteen

10:07

twenty, President Wilson deployed the U. S. Army

10:09

to suppress labor or racial

10:11

unrest twenty five times. That's

10:14

the Army, not the National Guard. We don't talk

10:16

about that a lot either. The Dullest

10:18

Brothers enthusiastically supported this.

10:20

After the war, Allen continued his diplomatic

10:23

career for a while, but eventually left

10:25

to join his brother at Sullivan and Cromwell.

10:28

Now by that point, Foster Dullas had been made

10:30

a full partner in the firm, which was more

10:32

powerful than ever. As the United States

10:34

grew through the nineteen twenties to become the West's

10:37

pre minute power, Sullivan and Cromwell

10:39

continued to do the work of weaving their corporate

10:41

clients into the very fabric of American

10:43

governance. In the US, Foster

10:45

Dullas presided over the merger of a group

10:48

of oil drillers and refiners into

10:50

a Moco. He worked with mining

10:52

corporations in Chile and Peru, sugar

10:54

plantations in Cuba, banks in France.

10:57

He specialized in helping US utility

10:59

companies take control of utilities and foreign

11:01

nations, generally by bribing their

11:03

governments. Alan's first post

11:06

World War One posting was to the U. S Embassy

11:08

in Turkey. Now again, he is

11:10

technically a diplomat at this point, but his

11:12

real job in all these postings is to gather intelligence.

11:16

He's a spy, but at this point, again not

11:18

a very good one, because as soon as Alan sets

11:20

up shop in Turkey, he falls for the most

11:22

obvious forgery of all time, the

11:25

Protocols of the Elders.

11:29

Yes, grats that one off your Bengo

11:32

card, and then really

11:34

evaluate reevaluate your life. If you

11:36

have a bingo card with the Protocols of the Elders

11:38

of Zion on it, that's maybe

11:41

think about. If you're a podcast listener,

11:43

I'm sorry, you can't go very many podcast

11:45

episodes without running into it, either

11:47

in a good way or a very bad

11:49

way. So

11:54

I'm gonna quote from The Devil's Chessboard

11:56

by David Talbot here. One

11:58

day, the young American diplomat was given a copy

12:00

of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion by a British

12:03

reporter who had fished the scillious document

12:05

out of a second hand bookstore in Istanbul's

12:08

Old European Quarter. The Protocols

12:10

purported to offer a secret plan for Jewish

12:12

world domination and included tales about Christian

12:14

children being sacrificed for Passover feast

12:16

rituals and other lurid fantasies. By

12:19

the time Dullus got his hands on the book, which was

12:21

the creation of the Russian Czars anti Semitic

12:23

secret police, the document had been widely

12:25

denounced and discredited, but Dullus took

12:27

it seriously enough to send a coded report about

12:29

the secret Jewish plot back to his superiors

12:31

in Washington, so he

12:34

he sends this back to the State Department, like

12:36

you guys got to hear about this? Uh

12:40

incredible spy. The authors

12:42

of who named that? How upset

12:44

were they when they later heard the

12:46

much more badass title The Devil's

12:49

Chessboard, So much better

12:51

of a should

12:53

have called our thing the Devil's

12:55

Chessboard the Devil's Chessboard. It

12:58

is a pretty good book. It's actually the guy who founded

13:00

Salon, which is not a website. I like

13:03

a lot, But Alan Dullas

13:05

got married in nineteen twenty to a woman named

13:07

Clover, who he almost immediately cheated

13:09

on. It was a miserable relationship,

13:12

but they would stay together the rest of their lives.

13:14

Clover was prone to depression, while Alan

13:16

barely paid attention to her and slept around

13:18

constantly. His sister Eleanor estimated

13:21

that he had more than a hundred mistresses, to

13:23

the extent that Ellen Dulas was capable

13:25

of feeling bad about anything. He seems

13:28

to have felt kind of bad about this.

13:30

At one point he wrote to his wife and advised

13:32

her to ask her friends for advice on how to

13:35

quote live with a queer duck like

13:37

me. He later confessed in a letter,

13:39

I don't feel I deserve as good a wife as

13:42

I have, as I am rather too fond of the company

13:44

of other ladies. So there's

13:46

a there's a degree of self awareness

13:48

that he has because he's he's she

13:50

is miserable, like on the verge sometimes

13:53

of suicide, because he's he's

13:55

just constantly sleeping with her, and like he'll

13:57

tell her about it, like he's not even trying

13:59

to hide it. Like he'll like brag about his

14:01

new mistresses to like their kids.

14:04

Like it's he's a weird

14:06

dude, A weird dude who,

14:09

like most narcissists, I assume, could

14:11

turn on the charm when

14:13

he wanted to and probably worked

14:15

like a magic spell. Like that is

14:18

the worst type of person to be in a relationship

14:20

with when they can turn that on and then just turn

14:23

it off instantly. Now,

14:26

one of the chief problems in their union, as

14:29

you were kind of getting at Jason, was Alan's

14:31

temper. He was prone to angry

14:33

rants that would provoke his wife to curl

14:35

up into a fetal position. When he

14:37

finally stopped, she'd leave the house and wander

14:39

for hours. They were miserable

14:42

together, so perhaps it's for the best that Alan

14:44

spent most of his time traveling around the

14:46

world ignoring her. Clover

14:48

tried to make the best of a bad situation

14:50

by focusing on her son and two daughters.

14:53

While her husband was an arch conservative, she

14:55

became obsessed with penal reform and spent

14:57

a great deal of time visiting prisoners.

14:59

She was known to regularly stop for long

15:01

conversations with homeless people and impoverished

15:04

men and women. In breadlines and letters

15:06

to her family, she wrote that she felt guilty

15:08

for her wealth. Alan felt no such

15:10

guilt. He was known to not even pick

15:13

up napkins he dropped at dinner, leaving

15:15

that for his servants. So they're very different

15:17

people. In nineteen thirty

15:19

one, Alan started an affair with a blonde Russian

15:21

immigrant whose husband was chronically ill.

15:24

He did not try to hide his relationship from

15:26

his wife, and in fact bragged to her

15:28

and to his children about the relationship.

15:31

One of his biographers later wrote, sex,

15:33

it appears was to Alan dillis a form of physical

15:36

therapy, something one did to keep himself

15:38

fit for more important things. Clover's

15:41

insistence on staying home with the

15:43

children and her increasing preoccupation with prisoners

15:45

rights were treated by him as a betrayal

15:47

of her obligation to be his good and faithful

15:49

companion. If Clover would not

15:52

travel when Alan asked, then he could not really

15:54

be blamed if he diverted himself with other women,

15:56

always of his own class and station. So

16:00

pretty cool, dude, I guess that's what I'm getting at, Jason.

16:02

Yeah, And if he was a narcissist,

16:04

as I throughout a wild

16:07

guest in the previous episode, if you disagree,

16:09

that is fine. If he was literally

16:11

everything that happens here is totally unsurprising

16:14

to you. Right. He does not conceive of

16:16

anyone else. He is the main

16:18

character in the story that is his life.

16:21

Everyone else or extras and he

16:23

it's not that he can't have feelings

16:25

or emotions, but

16:28

the fits of rage, the fact

16:30

that when you make a narcissist

16:32

angry, your humanity disappears.

16:36

You are just an object. You're a

16:38

receptacle for their rage. And

16:40

so whatever love

16:43

he felt for someone like that, it is

16:46

different because he said,

16:48

like, you know, I don't you know, I don't

16:50

deserve a wife is as good as her or

16:53

whatever. Again, he's still not thinking of

16:55

her as an in you know,

16:57

like a separate person with agency

17:00

and the same thing with the servants and everyone

17:02

else. I personally believe

17:05

this is just my opinion that

17:07

his whole worldview was kind of shaped

17:09

by that. And the fact that we have a system

17:12

where narcissists consistently bubbled to the

17:14

top explains a lot

17:16

about the way name

17:20

name a popular figure. I'm not saying

17:22

that Donald Trump was a narcissist. I again, I've

17:24

not spoke to the man. I I certainly

17:26

couldnt make that determination.

17:29

He kind of has some uh

17:32

elements of one in my opinion. Again,

17:34

if you disagree, those

17:37

of you who know it all Trump personally, I know

17:39

some of your friends, you know this

17:41

has a this our our number one

17:43

hot spot for listeners is Mara Lada action.

17:46

Um so. But I

17:48

think guys like this they can't fully

17:50

conceive of consequences to

17:53

themselves or to other people, like they

17:55

just everything

17:57

about the way and like

18:00

the idea that the citizens of these other countries

18:02

where they're going to do the things spoiler

18:04

alert that they're going to be doing over the next few

18:06

decades, the idea that the people suffering

18:09

because of that, that those are actual human

18:11

beings. I don't think would

18:13

enter the mind of someone like al adult.

18:15

I don't think he can really conceptualize that. No,

18:18

I don't, And that's what I was saying earlier.

18:20

I think makes him different from his brother because Foster

18:23

is not the same um I think Foster

18:25

has and it evolves through time an

18:28

ideology. Well, actually he goes through a couple of

18:30

different ones. But he he acts

18:32

based on things that he believes about

18:34

the world, and I think with Alan

18:37

it's more he acts based on things he believes

18:39

about himself or wants to

18:41

have for himself. It's almost

18:43

like you have the representation

18:45

of what we now think of as like the modern conservative

18:48

movement, where you have the Bible true believers,

18:51

and then like the Donald Trump wing

18:54

who's just in it for a really

18:56

interesting way to look at this. And so that's

18:58

how you can wind up with like a womanizer,

19:01

a crazy party boy

19:04

who has the loyal devotion of

19:06

the studious Bible thumpers in the South.

19:09

It's like, how do they have anything in common?

19:12

Well, look at the dullest brothers raised

19:14

by the same family at the same time

19:16

in the same era, two

19:19

very different people that would wind up on the

19:21

same mission for in my view,

19:24

totally different reasons. Yeah,

19:27

I think I think you're right on the money with

19:29

that. That is not I think a way

19:31

I would have thought to bring it up.

19:33

But let's get moving.

19:36

Um okay. So Foster,

19:38

by comparison to his brother, was utterly

19:40

devoted and as far as we know, loyal to his wife

19:43

Janet. But the brothers were similar in

19:45

the fact that neither of them did seem to give

19:47

a good goddamn about their children. David

19:49

Talbot writes that Alan treated his kids

19:51

as if they were quote visitors in his

19:53

house, and they were both just

19:56

they were both like complete workaholics.

19:58

You know, I think with Alan it more he

20:00

really didn't care all that much. Foster

20:03

is just working all the time. They're both

20:05

people who their children are number

20:07

one. Then this is them being a product

20:10

of their time. Right, that's

20:12

the wife's job, right. Um, you know,

20:15

when they're older, all helped them start their careers

20:17

off and stuff, and like they'll but like it's

20:19

it's her job to raise them. I have to go change

20:22

the world. But neither of them are very

20:24

warm fathers, you would say.

20:26

Um, Now, as the Roaring

20:29

twenties gave way to the Great Depression of the early

20:31

nineteen thirties. The Dullest brothers grew increasingly

20:33

concerned about the spread of Communist sympathy

20:36

at home and abroad, and Foster

20:38

this ignited a deep and enthusiastic

20:40

sympathy for the Nazis, who

20:42

he regarded as the best bet for stopping

20:45

communisms westward advance in Europe. While

20:47

he does not seem to have fallen for the protocols

20:50

of the Elders of Zion like his younger brother, Foster's

20:52

Nazi sympathies led him to some pretty

20:54

vile behavior from the

20:57

Devil's Chessboard quote. In

20:59

ninety two, is Hitler began his takeover

21:01

of the German government, Foster visited three

21:03

Jewish friends, all prominent bankers,

21:05

in their Berlin office. The men were

21:07

in a state of extreme anxiety during the meeting.

21:09

At one point, the bankers, too afraid to speak,

21:12

made motions to indicate a truck parked outside

21:14

and suggested that it was monitoring their conversation.

21:17

They indicated to him that they felt absolutely

21:19

no freedom. Eleanor recalled Foster's

21:22

reaction to his friends terrible dilemma. Unnerved

21:24

his sister There's nothing that a person

21:26

like me can do in dealing with these men except

21:29

to probably keep away from them, he later

21:31

told Eleanor They're safer if

21:33

I keep away from them. Actually,

21:35

there was much that a Wall Street powerbroker like John

21:38

Foster Dolas could have done for his endangered

21:40

friends, starting with pulleage, pulling strings

21:42

to get their families and at least some of their assets

21:44

out of Germany before it was too late. And

21:46

I think David Talbot is right on the money here.

21:48

This is not a situation where he could have done

21:50

nothing. The Nazis were extremely

21:53

happy to let very wealthy Jewish

21:56

people leave Europe, often with some of their

21:58

assets, in order to please For indignitary

22:01

stuff like that happened. A man with

22:03

Foster's poll would have had no trouble getting

22:05

his friends out of Nazi Germany. Many

22:07

other influential foreigners did the same, and in

22:10

fact Hitler himself intervened to

22:12

allow a Jewish doctor who had treated

22:14

his mother's cancer to immigrate from Germany

22:16

with his assets. This was not an impossible thing.

22:19

Um he just didn't do it. Uh

22:21

it was I think he just got spooked. Um

22:24

Or he didn't really care all that much, one

22:26

way or the other. Now, the fact

22:28

that Foster Dulas absolutely could have

22:30

saved his friends is underscored by the fact that

22:32

he was seen by the Nazis as one

22:34

of their most valuable American friends.

22:37

In fact, without Foster Dullus, it is

22:39

possible that the Nazi military build

22:41

up and the Blitzgraig would not have happened,

22:43

or certainly wouldn't have happened in the form that it did.

22:46

See and this is interesting. Foster Dulas

22:48

made his fortune building and advising

22:51

cartel's. This is what he specialized

22:53

in for that big law firm. Cartels

22:55

are groups of competing businesses who agreed

22:57

to fix prices and closed their supply

23:00

and distribution networks to outsiders

23:02

in order to maximize profits. Now,

23:05

this was not then or now a popular

23:07

idea to anyone but people who invest

23:09

in cartels because it increases prices and

23:11

generally reduces the quality of products for everybody

23:13

else. Foster defended cartels

23:16

as forces for stability, and he

23:18

made it like his argument that it's it

23:20

protects economies from wild swings.

23:23

Now, one of Foster's big clients

23:26

was the International Nickel Company,

23:28

which was based in the United States, Foster

23:31

was both their legal counsel and a director

23:33

and member of the executive board. In

23:35

the early nineteen thirties, as the Nazis

23:37

solidified their hold on power, Foster

23:40

Doles helped merge the International

23:42

Nickel Company and a Canadian affiliate

23:44

into a cartel with France's two

23:47

major nickel producers. In nineteen

23:49

thirty four, he brought a German company

23:51

in I. G. Farban, the

23:54

largest German nickel producer, into

23:56

the cartel. Stephen Kinzer writes

23:59

quote this gave Nazi Germany

24:01

access to the cartel's resources. Without

24:03

Dullus, According to a study of Sullivan

24:05

and Cromwell, Germany would have lacked any

24:08

negotiating strength with International Nickel,

24:10

which controlled the world supply of nickel, a

24:12

crucial ingredient in stainless steel

24:14

and armor plate. So

24:18

without this cartel

24:20

and without Foster's roll in it, it's possible

24:22

the Nazis don't have access to the

24:24

metal they need to make the armor for their tanks.

24:27

Which is cool. And he was not unique,

24:31

No, no, no, in the American business

24:34

world. Again, it's it's hard to he's

24:36

not unique at this stage. Certainly

24:39

in nineteen this is two

24:43

thirty four is when he brings an Ig Farban

24:46

and a lot of Americans are working with the Nazis.

24:48

Absolutely, Yeah, this is a stage

24:50

where in the American business, especially

24:53

if you think that

24:55

you're picking between the Nazis and the

24:57

Communists, there's a lot that kind

25:00

of came down on the side of There's

25:03

a lot to be discussed there about what they knew

25:05

or should have known at the time, because again,

25:08

the issues that the Jews were having in

25:10

Germany, like you talked to any of them, you could

25:12

have found out what was coming, and Foster

25:14

had you know, and Foster had and so

25:17

the argument that they should have known,

25:19

like, I get that we're looking back

25:21

at this knowing how things turned

25:23

out, and that that is not completely

25:26

fair. Like there, maybe we may be getting judged

25:29

just as harshly Hun did years from now from things that

25:31

we expressed support for or whatever, but for

25:33

Will Wheaton mainly, But of

25:36

all the people on earth who probably

25:38

could have should have known

25:40

better, I

25:43

I think it's fair to say that Foster

25:46

Dellis was was one of those. Yeah,

25:48

and his his complicity will get

25:50

deeper um at this stage

25:52

thirty four. I mean, he didn't necessarily know the

25:54

Germans. He couldn't have known they're going to use all

25:56

of this nickel to make tanks and take over

25:59

a large jump of the planet. Um,

26:01

although I guess you could, you could safely

26:03

argue wasn't a huge guess

26:06

if you were reading the things that Hitler was putting

26:08

out right, because like,

26:10

it's what year didn't mind come come

26:12

out? Geez, twenty four I think

26:14

is when it was written at least, Yeah, this is

26:16

complicated territory that the exact year

26:19

you're talking about matters a lot, because

26:21

a lot of people don't immediately know, like well, Win was

26:23

Poland invaded? Or when did it? When

26:26

did they find out about the Holocaust? There

26:29

is plenty of support in the thirties

26:31

for Hitler in the United States at

26:34

the stage we're talking about. But again,

26:37

it mind comp was not dug

26:40

up and discovered later. Hitler's feelings about

26:42

the Jews was not something that came out

26:44

later and and where he had to be canceled

26:47

later on it was known.

26:49

Uh, it was never okay, It's

26:52

just you have to orient yourself

26:54

in time to understand what's

26:56

like, how he could be so callous or how he could

26:58

you know, like leave those friends behind because did

27:02

he know the degree of danger that

27:04

those friends were in. Probably

27:06

not, but uh

27:11

I don't know, yep, yep, yeah,

27:13

and well yeah, I'm going to continue actually

27:15

with a quote from the Brothers um

27:17

that talks about so he one of the guys he works

27:19

with is this this guy Shocked, who is

27:22

like kind of running the economy

27:24

for the Nazis in this period quote.

27:26

Working with Shocked Foster helped the not

27:28

national socialist state find rich sources

27:30

of financing in the United States for its public

27:32

agencies, banks and industries. The two

27:35

men shaped complex restructuring of German

27:37

loan obligations at several debt conferences

27:39

in Berlin, conferences that were officially

27:41

among bankers but were in fact closely

27:43

guided by the American and German governments,

27:46

and came up with new formulas that made it easier

27:48

for the Germans to borrow money from American banks.

27:51

Sullivan and Cromwell floated the first American

27:53

bonds issued by the giant German steelmaker

27:56

and arms manufacturer Krupp. A G

27:58

extended i G farban global reach, and

28:00

fought successfully to block Canada's effort

28:02

to re strictly the export of steel

28:05

to German arms makers. According to

28:07

one history, the firm quote represented several

28:09

provincial governments, some large industrial

28:11

combines, a number of big American

28:13

companies with interest in the Reich, and some rich

28:16

individuals. By another account, it

28:18

quote thrived on its cartels

28:20

and collusion with the new Nazi regime. So

28:23

the longer he does this, the more the deeper

28:25

he gets into, specifically

28:27

helping the German state arm itself.

28:29

Right, Canada is trying to stop export

28:31

of steel because they see Germany arming Sullivan

28:34

and Cromwell under Foster

28:36

says, we gotta get around that. We

28:38

gotta make sure these Nazis seven enough steel.

28:41

Um. So his complicity deepens

28:44

over time. Now, Alan actually spent

28:46

a decent amount of time with like

28:48

real ass Nazis, including the Nazis

28:50

Nazi of them all. Oh sorry, then we're talking about

28:53

Allen now, not Foster. Um.

28:55

And the difference between them in this is interesting because

28:58

Alan actually meets hit and

29:00

I don't think Foster does. Alan sits

29:02

down with a fear in nineteen thirty three.

29:05

Um that said, he was not like

29:07

his brother in this. Alan actually met with

29:09

Hitler in his role as a diplomat and a spy.

29:12

He was asked to do this by f DR

29:14

and a number it's like he was like, f

29:16

DR sends Alan Dules to Europe to

29:18

meet with Hitler and a couple of other European leaders,

29:21

and Alan and his partner in this project

29:23

they're going on. A diplomat named Davis asked

29:25

Hitler about reports of violence against political

29:28

dissidents and Jews. Hitler claims

29:30

that he was just taking action to quote protect

29:32

the millions in foreign capital that are invested

29:35

in Germany. So that is interesting to

29:37

me that, like FDR, while Foster

29:39

is actively working with the Nazis to help their

29:41

economy and to help their rearming, Alan

29:43

gets sent over to spy on them with FDR,

29:46

and Alan asks them directly about all of

29:48

the horrible Nazis ship they're doing, and

29:50

Hitler says, all we're arresting these

29:52

people, were putting them in camps to protect foreign

29:55

capital that's invested in Germany.

29:57

And it's obviously that's not entirely why

29:59

he was doing it, but I think it's interesting that that's

30:01

the line of argument he picks with the Americans.

30:04

And you can see why you think it would work, because

30:06

there's guys like Foster now

30:08

Alan Dulis at this stage didn't see

30:10

anything unsettling about the Nazis. However,

30:13

he returned to Berlin two years later

30:15

in nineteen thirty five, and could not ignore

30:18

the brutality of the regime. He reported

30:20

back that Nazi Germany had left him with a

30:22

quote sinister impression. Stephen

30:25

Kinser calls Nazism quote the

30:27

first and only important subject on which

30:29

the Dulles brothers seriously disagreed.

30:32

That said, Alan's main issue with the Nazis

30:35

was not their oppression of minorities or their

30:37

murder of political rivals. It was

30:39

that he was smart enough to guess where the whole fashionson

30:41

thing was heading, and he knew that he was

30:44

pretty sure that the US is gonna wind up at war with

30:46

Nazi Germany. He wanted to spare Sullivan and

30:48

Cromwell the shame of being associated

30:50

with the regime once war broke out. That's

30:52

really interesting to me that, like of the two

30:55

guys, Foster, who

30:57

is driven by a moral code, gets

30:59

really deep in with the Nazis, and

31:02

Allan pretty quickly it's like, oh, these fuckers

31:04

are bad news, and it may just be self

31:06

preservation. You know, and Alan

31:08

helped some German Jews out

31:11

of Nazi Germany? Did he not?

31:13

There's a yeah, I think there's we'll

31:16

talk about what he did because

31:18

it's complicated, Jason, This

31:20

is all complicated at the stage because obviously

31:22

neither one of the brothers were like, oh, yeah, we'll

31:24

be fine with if several years from now Hitler

31:27

is trying to you know, bomb the

31:29

you know, England off the map. Like no

31:31

one wants a world war

31:34

in Europe. It's just that if

31:37

it sounds like I'm not going far

31:39

enough and criticizing the people friendly

31:41

to the Nazis, it's because

31:44

I feel like it would be very easy

31:46

decades from now to look back and say, well,

31:49

why was the United States so buddy

31:51

buddy with China? And

31:53

you can see that with every modern genocide,

31:56

and there's always financial interests

31:58

who often are willing to

32:00

keep profiting from the regime that's

32:02

doing the genocide. You know, Um,

32:05

it's not it's more normal

32:07

than not for for people

32:10

to go along with terrible things if

32:12

they're not that closely tied to them,

32:15

because the alternative is rocking the boat.

32:17

Um. But I think what we're talking

32:19

about, Foster here is very different um

32:22

because he really like his

32:24

brother Alan. After thirty five is like,

32:26

these guys are bad news. You know,

32:28

you can argue Alan actually did have some sort

32:30

of a moral compass and he was just like, this is a step

32:33

too far, or you can say it was just self preservation.

32:35

But he's pretty consistent after thirty five,

32:37

these guys are a problem, and we need to be

32:40

cut ties with them, we need to not

32:42

be in business with them. What is fosterest

32:44

position, then, is he's just so scared

32:47

of the Communists by

32:49

something else. I think he likes

32:51

them to some extent. I don't think he's

32:53

a Nazi, because I don't get any hint that he's like super

32:56

an anti Semitism or whatever. I don't

32:58

think that he wants the United States, but

33:00

he's he refuses

33:02

to turn his back on them, and in fact he

33:05

became their most enthusiastic cheerleader

33:07

in the halls of American power. He repeatedly

33:10

pushed back against arguments by other members

33:12

of his law firms, some of whom were Jewish,

33:15

that they should reduce or end their dealings

33:17

with the Third Reich. From nineteen thirty

33:19

three, on all letters written from the German

33:22

offices of Sullivan and Cromwell ended

33:24

with Heil Hitler. Now this was

33:26

required by law, but it was not something Foster

33:29

had any problem with. While

33:31

Alan politely uh disagreed

33:33

with his brother, their sister Eleanor

33:35

was much more outspoken on the matter.

33:38

She too traveled to Nazi Germany and

33:40

the horrors of the regime were not lost

33:42

on her. She repeatedly begged Foster

33:44

to stop doing business with Hitler. He ignored

33:47

her, complaining that she was working

33:49

herself up over nothing. When

33:51

f DR denounced the repressive measures

33:53

of the Nazi government, Foster Dullus

33:55

denounced f DR as a demagogue

33:58

trying to drum up mass emotionalism.

34:01

One contemporary claimed that most of Foster's

34:04

political energy in the nineteen thirties went

34:06

towards quote rationalizing

34:08

this Hitler movement. So he

34:10

is not just kind of not wanting

34:12

to rock the boat at a time in which it

34:14

starts to be politically acceptable

34:16

in common to to to

34:19

go against the Nazis. He's really

34:21

still on their side. And

34:24

even his brother is

34:26

like, dude, this ain't it, you

34:28

know? Um. In the

34:30

summer of nineteen thirty five,

34:33

partners of Sullivan and Cromwell hold a vote

34:35

to determine whether or not they should cease representing

34:37

German clients. The crimes of the

34:39

Nazi Nazi regime had become too blatant

34:42

and numerous for Foster's colleagues again, at least one

34:44

of whom was Jewish to ignore. Foster

34:46

complained that pulling out would harm the firm's

34:48

prestige. His brother Alan argued

34:51

that staying was unconscionable. In the

34:53

end, everyone but Foster voted

34:55

to suspend the firm's operations in Nazi

34:58

Germany. There are some account that

35:00

Foster wept after the vote, Like

35:02

as soon as his partners like say we're pulling out,

35:04

he just like breaks down. You

35:06

know, who won't partner with

35:08

the Nazi regime the

35:13

products and services? Let's support

35:15

this podcast. Oh

35:22

we're back. We're back, and we're

35:24

still talking about Nazis um and

35:27

namely how Foster Dolus deals

35:29

with him. So in in kind of late Ish

35:31

nineteen thirty five, his firm

35:33

votes to stop doing business with

35:35

the Nazis, he cries and I'm gonna

35:38

quote from the brothers about what happens next.

35:40

Later he backdated the announcement the announcement

35:43

that they cut their ties with the Nazis by a year to

35:45

make it appear that the firm had closed its German

35:47

offices in nineteen thirty four rather than thirty

35:49

five. He and Janet, however, continued

35:52

to visit Germany as the Nazi regime tightened

35:54

its grip on power, making trips in nineteen

35:56

thirty six, nineteen seven, and nineteen

35:59

thirty nine. Apparently nothing he

36:01

saw disturbed him. He supported

36:03

the Neutralist America First Committee,

36:06

Sullivan and Cromwell drew up its articles

36:08

of incorporation without charge and

36:10

roused its members with speeches denouncing Churchill,

36:12

Roosevelt, and other warmongers. Hitler

36:15

impressed him as quote one who, from

36:17

humble beginnings and despite the handcap

36:20

handicap of an alien nationality, had

36:22

attained the unquestioned leadership of a great

36:24

nation. Only hysteria

36:27

entertains the idea that Germany, Italy or

36:29

Japan contemplates war among upon

36:31

us, he assured businessmen at the Economic

36:33

Club of New York on March twenty ninety

36:36

nine. So he's pretty

36:38

pretty pot committed Jason. Yeah.

36:41

Yeah, And this is a point where there

36:44

was plenty of evidence. There was a long

36:46

that you if you have lived in America

36:50

for five minutes, people

36:53

have a way of getting dug into their positions

36:57

and to how you can

36:59

go from well, I don't support war all the

37:01

way to well, you know, Hitler is actually

37:04

a great leader. It's the

37:07

way we are. It's uh,

37:11

you know, I don't know. I feel

37:13

like you can get dragged down a path of

37:15

someone who thinks that like they're standing up

37:17

for righteousness or they just don't want war.

37:20

But there's a difference between look,

37:23

you know, someone like Hitler needs to be contained,

37:25

but that a world war will kill tens of millions

37:28

versus you know, Hitler

37:31

is actually the hero and all this, which is where

37:33

it felt like he landed somehow.

37:36

Yeah, that's that's definitely kind

37:38

of the side of this that he's on. When

37:40

the Nazis invaded Poland a few months

37:43

later, Foster remained committed to

37:45

the defending the regime.

37:47

He gave a public speech where he attacked Britain

37:50

for declaring war against Germany and reiterated

37:52

his belief that there was no reason for the United

37:54

States to get involved. Foster

37:57

published an open letter where he begged for a

37:59

change in the quote international status

38:01

quo to prevent powerful forces emotionally

38:03

committed to exaggerated and drastic

38:05

change. This was interpreted by

38:07

his brother Alan to be a plea for the West

38:10

to embrace Nazism in order to fight

38:12

communism. We've already

38:15

established that Alan was something very

38:17

close to it. You know, narcissis associate had.

38:19

There's some stuff going on there. You could argue

38:21

if you were as irresponsible as Jason and I

38:24

am. Um, and we are, and

38:26

this is our podcast. What are you gonna do about it? You

38:28

gonna come in here and tell us we're wrong. You're

38:30

not, But Um Alan

38:33

was actually despite whatever moral failings

38:35

he has, Alan was outraged with his

38:37

brother's behavior at this point, and he

38:39

tried to appeal to his brother's religion,

38:41

asking how can you call yourself a

38:44

Christian and ignore what is happening in Germany?

38:46

It is terrible? So this

38:49

is and this is really interesting to me because Foster

38:51

is up to this point much more sympathetic

38:53

than Alan. But Alan

38:56

does a monster is

38:58

being like what is wrong with you? Like? Why

39:00

are you still defending the Nazis

39:03

so much? Um, It's a very

39:05

strange thing. It doesn't go the way you would

39:07

expect it to go. Yeah. But

39:09

and also there is some kind of a happy ending of this

39:11

because again John Foster Doulas standing

39:14

up for the Nazis even after they invaded

39:16

Poland, he was not canceled

39:18

too hard for his pro hitler, so

39:20

he he was able to come back from that, uh,

39:23

that embarrassing period

39:25

of his life. That gaff. Now, if Twitter

39:27

had existed, he would have gotten canceled, Jason.

39:30

That's that's what protects us now from similar

39:32

disasters. So

39:36

Foster DoLS visited Nazi Germany

39:38

for the last time, and I think night

39:41

um. He seems to have grudgingly accepted

39:43

by this point that the Nazis were not a group

39:45

he wanted to be super

39:48

publicly associated with, although again

39:50

he would continue to defend them for a couple of years.

39:53

Later in the year he decided to run for Congress.

39:55

His main platform was attacking the New Deal,

39:58

complaining that instead of launched in new

40:00

social programs, Roosevelt should

40:02

fight the depression by cutting government spending.

40:05

He accused FDR of quote attempting

40:07

to stir up class feeling by trying

40:09

to regulate the securities market. Foster's

40:12

campaign went nowhere. He was a terrible,

40:14

terrible politic, while terrible at getting elected

40:16

Um, but it helped establish him as a political

40:19

voice within the Republican Party. By

40:21

the late nineteen thirties, both Dullis brothers

40:23

were working for Sullivan and Cromwell, which, despite

40:26

dropping Germany had you know, continue

40:28

to be the largest law firm in the United States.

40:31

Historian Peter Gross argues that even

40:33

calling it a law firm is reductive

40:35

to the point of inaccuracy. He saw

40:37

it as quote a strategic nexus of

40:39

international finance, the operating

40:41

core of a web of relationships that constituted

40:44

power. The firm did offer legal

40:46

associates to draft contracts, preserve estates,

40:48

and arguing courtrooms, but this was not

40:50

the profession of law as practiced by Foster

40:52

and Alan Dulls. Their Sullivan and

40:54

Cromwell sought nothing less than to shape the

40:57

affairs of all the world for the benefit and

40:59

well being of the elect their clients.

41:03

It's a fascinating organization, Sullivan

41:05

and Cromwell. UM, and I wonder how

41:07

many listeners of yours have ever

41:09

heard the name of that firm. Before today,

41:13

I had only heard them mentioned and mentioned

41:15

them in this show during like the Panama episodes.

41:17

But even then I didn't know this. I just knew

41:19

that that was like the lawyer who kind of I just

41:22

you know, had an angle in Panama. Yeah,

41:24

it's a

41:27

kid maybe something that ought to be in a

41:29

textbook somewhere for kids. Maybe.

41:32

But I think even now we

41:34

still think of the world as

41:36

a series of competing countries,

41:39

and that's so reductive, like

41:42

that hasn't been true in a long time. Corporations

41:46

span borders, and their interest

41:48

span borders, and it's

41:51

it's hard to understand that

41:54

you can have two countries

41:56

at war with each other but the same corporation doing

41:58

business and both trying to arrange

42:01

for things to follow a certain way. You

42:03

don't fully understand history

42:06

until you understand that

42:09

element of it and the stuff we're gonna get

42:11

into about going to war on behalf of fruit companies.

42:14

Again, that it's you talk about like the phrase

42:16

banana republic, and that's where that

42:19

comes from. Right. Um,

42:23

even now, I think the average person has a

42:25

completely incorrect mental picture because

42:28

how a law firm could have that

42:30

big of a role in shaping the

42:32

world seems

42:35

again like the stuff of conspiracy theories.

42:38

But it's really understanding that the

42:40

movement of capital and what why

42:42

that matters, and that how that influences

42:45

the decisions that politicians

42:48

make. That's not conspiracy

42:51

stuff. That's the way the world functions

42:54

now in a global economy, and

42:56

you have to almost think of it in terms

42:58

of like the these alliances are less

43:00

important in many cases than the corporations

43:03

that span the borders and what they're what they're

43:05

trying to accomplish, and especially you

43:07

come down to things like workers advocating

43:10

for certain rights in certain countries and things

43:12

like that. That's going to play into

43:14

everything that's about to happen. Yep,

43:19

yeah, it sure is, it sure is, Jason.

43:22

Not in a good way. No, not,

43:24

Nothing that happens on this show is in a good

43:26

way. As a general rule. That's

43:29

that's behind the Bastard's

43:31

Guarantee. When one of your main sources is

43:33

called the Devil's chessboard, you're

43:39

you're in for an upbeat episode.

43:41

Good times for everybody.

43:44

Oh lord, oh Jason.

43:46

So yeah,

43:49

And in this idea, the fact that Sullivan

43:51

and Cromwell should shape the affairs of the world for the

43:53

benefit of their clients. This was something the Dullis

43:55

brothers agreed with right. They may have had a little

43:57

bit of a debate over whether or not Zism

44:00

was okay, but they were on board for

44:02

this um. Now. During

44:04

World War One, both brothers had kind of

44:07

fully fallen under this way of will.

44:09

The Wilson i um concept that's

44:11

known as liberal internationalism,

44:14

and the basic idea behind liberal internationalism

44:17

is that international conflict arises

44:19

only from misunderstandings between

44:22

ruling elites, social injustices,

44:24

political oppression, religious and ethnic strife.

44:27

This all is a distraction from the real issue,

44:29

which is people in charge of different countries

44:31

not getting along. Since international

44:34

conflict is just conflict between elites,

44:36

then commerce is the ultimate way

44:38

to guarantee peace. Right. That's how it feeds

44:40

back into their ideas of capitalism, because

44:42

you guarantee peace by ensuring

44:45

the international movement of corporations

44:47

like basically and and of financial

44:49

interests. It's and this is a pretty

44:51

common idea, right that if you have a two

44:54

nations with McDonald's and them have never gone to

44:56

war, you know, stuff like that. I think we

44:58

we've all heard like versions of this

45:00

idea. Um.

45:03

Now, internationalists like the Dullus

45:05

brothers felt that the United States had a duty

45:07

to embrace its destiny as the world's great

45:09

power. American value should

45:11

be spread through the world, across

45:13

the world through the engine of American business.

45:16

The state's main role then is to use

45:18

its power, and particularly it's armed

45:20

might, in order to promote and defend

45:23

American business interests abroad.

45:26

Foster Dullus had spent most of his life

45:28

even prior to World War One, doing

45:30

this job. Alan Dullas came

45:32

to embrace his role as defender of the wealthy

45:34

and powerful in the post war years. One

45:36

historian wrote that he quote never

45:38

bothered to understand the technical aspects

45:41

of financial maneuverings, but under the influence

45:43

of Foster in the firm, he grew sensitive

45:45

to the elites goal of transnational power

45:48

to generate prosperity for the world and of

45:50

course themselves. Now,

45:52

Foster and Alan were some of the founding

45:55

members of the Council on Foreign

45:57

Relations. This is something they helped to create.

45:59

The CFR was established in the early nineteen

46:02

twenties. And this is something you see in conspiracy

46:04

theories all the time. The CFR

46:06

is in a billion different conspiracy

46:08

theories. Um for good reason,

46:11

I mean sometimes for good reason, often for nonsense.

46:13

Reasons uh now. The CFR

46:16

was established in the early twenties with the goal of

46:18

bringing powerful people together to further the ends

46:20

of American corporate and political power. The

46:22

club was invitation only, and membership

46:24

became highly desired, both for prestige

46:26

and because it de facto put you in a room

46:28

with the wealthiest and most influential people on earth.

46:31

The club's motto was a single Latin

46:33

word, ubiquay, which means

46:36

everywhere. So again, not

46:38

hard to see why there's so many conspiracies about

46:40

this group. And I think their logo was like

46:42

an octopus strangling the globe.

46:45

Possibly, yes, it is an octopus murdering

46:47

children, um is the logo, and drinking

46:50

their blood which is rich in a dren of chrome

46:52

um. Jesus,

46:55

Like did these people

46:57

don't even? Did you? Do you not listen to yourselves? Is

47:00

the question I would like to ask them, Like, look at what

47:02

you how how

47:04

could how would you expect people not to start

47:07

turning out conspiracy theories about this ship? When

47:09

you when you say ship like that? Anyway?

47:12

As World War Two drew nearer, Foster devoted

47:15

himself increasingly to writing articles for

47:17

foreign affairs. The New Republic and

47:19

the Atlantic, establishing a reputation

47:21

as a sagacious foreign policy expert.

47:24

Allen meanwhile found himself drifting

47:26

away from legal pursuits and towards another

47:28

special club called the Room.

47:31

The Room was made up of thirties year

47:33

old bankers are thirty Ish bankers,

47:35

businessmen, and corporate lawyers with deep contacts

47:38

and foreign capitals. Most of them

47:40

were like Alan, men with intelligence

47:42

and espionage backgrounds from the last

47:44

war. Now the head of this little

47:47

club, the Room, was a guy named

47:49

William Donovan. Now, Donovan

47:51

was a war hero slash corporate lawyer

47:54

with an interest in the burgeoning field of intelligence.

47:57

Donovan and Alan Dulles advised FDR

47:59

on overt operations abroad in

48:01

the pre World War two years, and they

48:03

used their connections to arrange corporate cover

48:06

for American agents headed into Nazi

48:08

Europe or the Soviet Union. When

48:10

the war broke out for the United States, the

48:12

Room morphed rather naturally into

48:15

the OSS, the Office of Strategic

48:17

Services. This was the chief

48:20

US spy agency of World War Two

48:22

and the direct predecessor of the CIA.

48:25

But I'm getting ahead of myself here. As

48:27

the war drew nearer, Bill Donovan and a few

48:29

other far sighted men saw that the United States

48:31

was going to need an intelligence agency. In

48:33

nineteen forty the U s had basically no

48:36

intelligence set up. What had existed

48:38

during World War One had basically been

48:40

tossed into the trash been In the intervening

48:42

years, eight different government agencies,

48:44

including the FCC, gathered foreign

48:47

intel in one form or another, but none of them

48:49

had any idea what the others were doing. There

48:51

was no Internet agency communication. Most

48:54

of what the White House knew about the foreign

48:56

about foreign countries internal affairs came

48:58

from guys like Donovan, who the President

49:00

personally and traveled around doing his you

49:02

know, spy work on their own. So in the

49:05

US entered the war in nineteen forty

49:07

one, the OSS was established

49:09

to formalize these very ad hoc intelligence

49:11

networks. Alan Dullas joined

49:13

the OSS, and once again he was sent

49:16

to Burn for the duration of the war to get

49:18

what intel he could on Nazi occupied Europe,

49:20

and again he wasn't great at his job.

49:22

Donovan's aids regularly complained about

49:25

the low quality of the intelligence coming out

49:27

of Burn. In nineteen forty

49:29

four, Alan was responsible for two hilariously

49:32

inaccurate predictions, both based on bad

49:34

intel. Prior to the Normandy landings,

49:36

he told his superiors that the Nazi regime was

49:38

quote near collapse and that the Allies

49:41

would just haven't thus have an easy time

49:43

in France on D Day, which I

49:45

don't know if you've watched the documentary

49:47

Saving Private Ryan, but we did not. There

49:51

were some bad days after

49:53

the invasion. Now, Alan

49:55

Dullas was a very prominent figure by

49:57

the time the os S sent him to Burn, and every German

49:59

a in the country knew why he

50:01

was there as soon it was like publicized that he'd

50:04

arrived and that he was a spy. His

50:06

guys as a spy then did not fool anybody.

50:08

Nobody got tricked into thinking he was really a diplomat.

50:11

By some accounts, the main reason he was put

50:13

in that position in Burn at all was because

50:15

his presence would draw out Nazis,

50:18

and while Allen was in Burn, he didn't

50:20

just spy on Nazis, he worked

50:22

alongside them. See. One

50:24

of Alan's buddies during this period was a guy named

50:26

Thomas McKittrick, president of the Bank of

50:28

International Sediments Settlements. The

50:31

b i S was one of the shadiest banks

50:33

in history. Although nominally Swiss,

50:35

by nineteen forty the b I S was controlled

50:38

by the Nazi regime. Five of its

50:40

directors would later be charged with war crimes

50:43

incurred, including Hermann Schmitz, who was

50:45

also the CEO of I G. Farban, the

50:47

chemical conglomerate that manufactured

50:49

zekelon b. Schmitz, by the

50:51

way, was also a client of Sullivan

50:53

and Cromwell fun

50:56

now tied together. All this is so

50:59

the b I S became a critical partner

51:01

to the Nazi regime, laundering hundreds

51:04

of millions of dollars in Nazi gold that had

51:06

been looted from occupied countries. Some

51:08

of this gold had literally been ripped out

51:10

of the bodies of concentration camp inmates.

51:13

When Dulas and McKittrick started talking,

51:15

one of Allen's goals was to get information

51:17

about the Nazi regime from McKittrick, which

51:19

is reasonable, But when he and McKittrick got

51:21

to talking, they discovered a point of common

51:23

interest. They both had friends and

51:25

clients with assets in Nazi Germany,

51:28

and they wanted to protect those assets. Now

51:31

FDR and his people were aware of

51:33

what Allan Doulas was getting up to, and they tried

51:35

to stop McKittrick. Treasury

51:37

Secretary Henry morganthal Jr.

51:39

Hated the man and pushed the administration

51:41

to block b i S funds from

51:43

being used in the United States. McKittrick

51:46

hired Foster Doulas to be his lawyer,

51:49

and Foster was able to reverse Morgan

51:51

Thou's order. In nineteen forty three,

51:53

McKittrick even traveled to the United States

51:56

for a banquet in his honor, hosted by

51:58

executives from General Motors, Standard

52:00

Oil, and other companies that had profited

52:02

from aiding the Nazi war effort and were grateful

52:04

that McKittrick had gotten their money out of the country.

52:08

Now, as World War Two drew to a close,

52:10

McKittrick and Allan Dulas would collaborate

52:12

on their shadiest venture yet from

52:14

the Devil's Chessboard quote. In

52:16

the final months of the conflict, the men collaborated

52:19

against a Roosevelt operation called

52:21

Project safe Haven that sought to track

52:23

down and confiscate Nazi assets that

52:25

were stashed in neutral countries. Administration

52:28

officials feared that by hiding their ill gotten

52:30

wealth, members of the German elite planned

52:32

to bide their time after the war and would

52:34

then try to regain power. Morgan

52:36

Thaous Treasury Department team, which

52:38

spearheaded Projects safe Haven, reached

52:40

out to the OSS and b I s for assistance,

52:43

but Dullas and McKittrick were more inclined

52:45

to protect their client's interests. Moreover,

52:48

like many in the upper echelons of US finance

52:50

and National security, Dullas believed

52:52

that a good number of these powerful German figures

52:54

should be returned to post war power to

52:57

ensure that Germany would be a strong bulwark

52:59

against the Soviet Union, and

53:02

working with McKittrick, Alan Dulas was hugely

53:04

successful installing Projects safe

53:06

Haven and ensuring that many surviving

53:08

Nazi collaborators escaped the war

53:10

with their fortunes intact. But

53:13

you know who didn't escape the war their

53:16

fortunes intact? The products and

53:18

services here's here's some

53:20

fucking ads. You know what we're doing here. So

53:28

we're back and we're talking about

53:30

how Alan Dulas helped get

53:33

Nazi money out of Europe and helped

53:35

Nazi collaborators escaped the war with their

53:37

all their money. So Foster was

53:40

also involved in the protecting Nazi fortunes

53:42

game, working from New York.

53:44

He used the kind of corporate bullshit math people

53:46

like him are great at to hide the US assets

53:48

of I. G. Farban Merk and other German

53:51

cartels that legally should have been confiscated

53:53

by the federal government. David Talbot

53:56

writes, quote, some of Foster's

53:58

legal origami allowed the Nazi regime to

54:00

create bottlenecks in the production of essential war

54:02

materials such as dies diesel fuel

54:04

injection motors that the US military needed

54:06

for trucks, submarines, and airplanes.

54:09

By the end of the war, many of Foster's clients

54:11

were under investigation by the Justice Department's

54:13

Anti Trust Division, and Foster himself

54:16

was under scrutiny for collaboration with the enemy.

54:18

But Foster's brother was guarding his back from

54:20

his frontline position in Europe. Allen was

54:22

well placed to destroy incriminating evidence

54:25

and to block any investigations that threatened

54:27

the two brothers and their law firm. Shredding

54:29

of captured Nazi records was the favorite

54:31

tactic of Dullus and his associates, who

54:33

stayed behind to help run the occupation

54:35

of post war Germany. Observed Nazi

54:37

hunter John Loftus, who poured through

54:39

numerous war documents related to the Dullus

54:42

brothers when he served as US Prosecutor

54:44

in the Justice Department under President Jimmy

54:46

Carter. So pretty cool

54:48

brothers all all together. It's

54:51

hard to overstate that

54:54

the fact that even before, for

54:56

people that are not World War two history

54:58

bus, the fear

55:01

of the Soviet Union and the beginning

55:03

of the Cold War started

55:06

before World War Two

55:09

was over. We're not going to get off into the

55:11

use of the atomic bomb, and how part

55:13

of that had to do with positioning

55:16

with jockey for position with the Soviets,

55:18

and everyone knew what

55:20

was coming next, or at least the people who

55:22

pulled the strings of Howard knew what was coming next,

55:25

that you were going to transition neatly from

55:27

this war right into possibly

55:32

Okay, when we set up the Manhattan

55:34

Project, we didn't set up a project

55:36

to build two bombs. We set

55:39

up to build a whole bunch of them,

55:41

because even though we knew it wasn't gonna take

55:43

a whole bunch to defeat Nazi Germany,

55:46

those were being built for

55:49

whatever was coming with the Soviets. So

55:52

the fact that they so quickly pivoted

55:55

from okay, we've beaten the Nazis. Now

55:57

we need to protect what

56:00

of her business interests against

56:02

the whatever is coming from the threat of

56:04

communism, which is going to inform these

56:06

guys entire worldview right of

56:09

the next couple of decades that they're alive. That

56:12

happened immediately, like

56:14

as the World War Two was winding down, the

56:17

people who would be the Cold warriors

56:19

were already kind of getting into

56:22

position. Yeah, and that's a big

56:24

part of what's happening here now. The

56:26

death of Franklin delan Or Roosevelt immediately

56:29

prior to the end of World War Two was hugely

56:31

fortunate for the Dullest brothers. David

56:33

Talbot argues that had FDR survived

56:35

the war, they probably would have faced criminal

56:38

charges. Supreme Court Justice

56:40

Arthur Goldberg, who served with Allan in the

56:42

OSS, later claimed that both

56:44

brothers were guilty of treason during World

56:47

War Two, and again, Supreme Court

56:49

Justice, you know, like not not, this

56:51

is not a fringe attitude that these guys

56:53

committed treason during the war. Um,

56:56

but of course they were not punished. When the war

56:58

ended. Alan stayed on with the OSS.

57:01

His first two jobs were to gather evidence

57:03

that could be used in the Nuremberg War crimes

57:05

trials, and his

57:08

other job was to bring Nazi spy

57:10

master Reinhard Galen into the OSS

57:13

to help them spy on the Soviets. So

57:16

his jobs are both find evidence about these Nazi

57:18

war criminals who we can prosecute them, and you

57:20

know this guy who ran the Nazi secret police,

57:23

hire him,

57:25

not again, not the only Nazi who's going

57:27

to be getting by.

57:31

It was a whole it was a whole thing,

57:33

whole Well, if you know American history,

57:36

the line between behavior that will

57:38

get you executed for treason

57:40

and that will get you put in charge of the country

57:43

is surprisingly blurry. Yeah,

57:45

it's it really is on which

57:47

side of that line you can land on any

57:49

given moment. Uh yeah,

57:52

And it's some speaking of other Nazis,

57:54

there's a TV show out now called for

57:56

All Mankind that's like an un alternate

57:58

history of like what if the so it has gotten to the moon

58:01

first? And it kind of reimagines the space race,

58:03

you know, and how it would have changed as a result

58:05

of that. Um. One of the guys,

58:07

a real guy who was probably the single

58:09

man most responsible for the U S rocket

58:12

program was Werner von Brown, who

58:14

built the Nazi V two rockets. UM.

58:16

And there's a couple of really good scenes with Von

58:18

Brown in the show, UM that I actually

58:20

think, do a do do?

58:22

Do him do justice to what he did? But

58:25

yeah, you're right, Jason, this is a

58:27

ton of guys that they do this with. UM.

58:30

But it's interesting to me that Alan's job is

58:32

both to find evidence about Nazi war crimes

58:34

and to hire a Nazi spy master. UM.

58:37

And we'll talk about Reinhard Galen a little

58:39

more in the next episode. UM.

58:41

So Allen worked on these tasks until

58:43

September, when

58:45

President Harry Truman signed in order

58:47

abolishing the OSS. During

58:50

the war, the agency had accumulated a

58:52

number of secret powers that were seen as

58:54

necessary for the survival of the nation.

58:57

Truman was worried that these powers in peacetime

59:00

might be a threat to American democracy.

59:02

He transferred the OSS research

59:05

Unit to the State Department and its espionage

59:07

units to the War Department. Alan, Dulis

59:09

and most of his fellow spooks, though, found

59:12

themselves out of a job. The years

59:14

immediately following World War Two were rough

59:16

ones for Alan and Foster. Allen

59:18

was particularly unhappy with peace and spent

59:20

his free time writing letters to old Oss

59:23

comrades and saying things like, most

59:25

of my time is spent reliving those exciting

59:27

days. So he's actually kind of depressed

59:30

after World War Two because he doesn't get to be a fun spy

59:32

anymore. Foster does better

59:34

in the post war years. He expands

59:36

his reputation as a public intellectual. During

59:39

the war, he had been overcome by a new flowering

59:41

of his Christian faith, which led him to

59:43

preach tolerance and forgiveness and urge

59:45

peace between the warring powers. But

59:48

starting in late nineteen five, he changed

59:50

rapidly in the direction of a hawk. The

59:52

cause was, of course, the U. S. S R.

59:54

From the Brothers quote. In a

59:56

series of articles for Life, he painted a steadily

59:59

more frightening pa sure of the Soviet threat. His

1:00:01

first major volley was a two part series published

1:00:04

in June ninety six entitled

1:00:06

Thoughts on Soviet Conduct and What to Do

1:00:08

About It. In it, he set the urgent

1:00:10

tone that defined how he um,

1:00:12

the Republican and Democratic parties, and most

1:00:14

Americans would view the world for a generation.

1:00:17

Soviet leaders, Foster wrote, had launched

1:00:20

a worldwide campaign that aimed to

1:00:22

subjugate the West, to quote,

1:00:24

eliminate what are to us the essentials

1:00:26

of a free society, and to impose

1:00:28

on conquered people's a system repugnant

1:00:31

to our ideals of humanity and fair

1:00:33

play. Already, he asserted, the

1:00:35

Soviets had built a shadowy network of allies

1:00:37

and non communist countries who pretended

1:00:39

to be patriots but in reality take

1:00:41

much guidance from Moscow. This

1:00:44

made Soviet Communism the unseen

1:00:46

force directing nationalist movements in

1:00:48

Asia, Africa and Latin America. Never

1:00:51

in history have a few men in a single country

1:00:53

achieved such worldwide influence,

1:00:56

he concluded, And

1:00:58

here we go. This is a huge part

1:01:00

of what the John Birch society becomes. Right,

1:01:02

And he's not a fringe figure. The Birches are.

1:01:05

He's not everything about

1:01:07

that we kind of take for granted about

1:01:09

the way to this day we talk

1:01:11

about the world will eventually

1:01:13

be either all communist or

1:01:15

it will be all America.

1:01:18

It will all be America. There will there will either

1:01:21

be Chick fil A

1:01:23

restaurants in every country in the world, or else

1:01:25

we will all fall to China. But the

1:01:27

the the idea that the world

1:01:29

will eventually be all one thing or

1:01:31

all the other. This is

1:01:34

where it starts, and once

1:01:36

that idea takes hold, to

1:01:39

this day we still live under that. When

1:01:41

you know, when nine eleven happened, there

1:01:44

was no thought of attacking that as

1:01:46

this is a single terrorist group and these

1:01:48

people need to be arrested and rooted out. It's

1:01:50

no this is worldwide

1:01:53

Islam, that we must fight a

1:01:55

war everywhere because the whole

1:01:57

world will either be under the

1:02:00

umbrella of al Qaeda, or else the whole

1:02:02

world will be under the umbrella of American

1:02:04

Christianity and capitalism.

1:02:07

And there is like this idea that it's

1:02:10

everywhere, the enemy is everywhere,

1:02:12

and the we must therefore also be

1:02:15

everywhere. We must have spies everywhere,

1:02:18

we must have bases everywhere. This,

1:02:20

in my view, is where it starts. It's so important

1:02:23

to note that, Jason, because

1:02:26

that didn't used to be how conflict

1:02:29

work, right, They didn't. It didn't.

1:02:31

It's you like, it didn't always

1:02:33

have to be like, Okay, well, this group of people

1:02:35

has attacked us, which means we're now in an existential

1:02:38

struggle for the future of the entire human

1:02:40

race. Um. But that's

1:02:42

the only place the rhetoric

1:02:44

goes now, Like instantly now down to

1:02:46

the point where like people are there are people who will

1:02:49

talk that way about like fucking cancel culture right

1:02:51

that it's like the start of this slide

1:02:53

into a totalitarian healthscape, because

1:02:55

that's that's just where once

1:02:58

you raise the rhetoric to that level, it's it's

1:03:00

I mean, for one thing, it's unprofitable to have it be

1:03:02

anywhere lower, right, You're just not going to get people

1:03:04

interested, and then you don't make that sweet sub stack

1:03:06

money. Are

1:03:09

you gonna get on substack? Jason, I

1:03:13

don't. I don't know. It's

1:03:16

I've heard it will come down to how it's

1:03:19

CMS is set up. Is it easy to use? I

1:03:21

don't know, but yeah,

1:03:23

I'm thinking about it. I think I think,

1:03:25

I think I could. I could just take a Glenn

1:03:27

Greenwald turn um do pretty

1:03:30

well on that. You have to get canceled

1:03:32

first, and then you have to make getting

1:03:34

canceled your entire personality.

1:03:38

There are people who have tried to cancel me because

1:03:41

there's certain I'm a CIA asset

1:03:43

um, which is why I'm doing this episode to provide

1:03:45

good pr for my employers. Good

1:03:52

stuff. So Foster's writing

1:03:54

was influential and formed a major part of the glow

1:03:56

growing belief among US leaders that the Soviet

1:03:58

Union was hell bent on world domination. Despite

1:04:01

his antipathy to the Dulles brothers, Truman

1:04:03

embraced this idea. In seven

1:04:05

he spoke before a joint session of Congress and

1:04:08

declared totalitarian regimes

1:04:10

imposed on free people's by direct or indirect

1:04:12

aggression undermine the foundations of international

1:04:15

peace and hence the security of the United States.

1:04:18

He asked Congress for four hundred million dollars

1:04:20

in military aid to give to nations with

1:04:22

growing communist movements in

1:04:24

order to suppress them. Obviously, this marked

1:04:26

the start of the Truman doctrine and what

1:04:29

many historians will name as the opening

1:04:31

salvo of the Cold War. Now,

1:04:33

while Foster was beating the drums of conflict

1:04:35

with the U S. S R. Alan and his old

1:04:37

OSS buddies were tramping around Washington

1:04:40

talking to any elected leader who would listen about

1:04:42

the pressing need for a peacetime intelligence

1:04:45

agency. The United States

1:04:47

had never had anything like that, but

1:04:49

Dullis and his friends went further, insisting

1:04:51

that this new agency should have secret

1:04:53

powers greater than even the OSS

1:04:56

had enjoyed. This new agency would

1:04:58

be different from anything that had insisted before

1:05:00

then. Now, at the time, the standard

1:05:02

among national intelligence agencies was that you

1:05:05

kept intelligence gathering separate

1:05:07

from analysis and action. So one group

1:05:09

of people gets the information, another

1:05:11

group of people decides what to do about it and

1:05:14

actually acts based on it. Right, a

1:05:16

kind of a separation of powers, so you don't have

1:05:18

an all powerful organization gathering

1:05:21

information and overthrowing governments of its own

1:05:23

accord um, you know. Not

1:05:25

a bad idea, Uh again,

1:05:28

Yeah, it was one

1:05:30

of the reasons people didn't want these things to

1:05:32

be tied, as they thought it would lead to a situation where

1:05:34

operatives gathering information would bias

1:05:37

the information they gathered towards whatever actions

1:05:39

they already wanted to take. During

1:05:42

World War Two, the OSS had ignored

1:05:44

this traditional dividing line and justified

1:05:47

it because they were you know, it was World War Two. The situation

1:05:49

was extreme. We gotta do what we gotta do. Dullis

1:05:52

and their fellows, though, wanted this new

1:05:54

agency Truman was establishing to

1:05:56

retain this power in peace time. Now,

1:05:59

after disbanding the OSS, President

1:06:01

Truman had formed an organization called the

1:06:03

Central Intelligence Group to advise

1:06:06

him to advise him on intelligence matters. It

1:06:08

had no authority to carry out operations.

1:06:11

It was just about keeping the president informed.

1:06:13

Alan Basically, Alan Dolis

1:06:16

decides, Okay, we've got this thing, the c i G. Maybe

1:06:18

the way to get what I want to establish

1:06:21

a new OSS is to expand

1:06:23

what the c i G can do. Because Truman's

1:06:25

already willing to make the c i G B a

1:06:27

thing, I could just gradually push it to have

1:06:29

more and more power. In nineteen

1:06:31

forty six, Republicans won big and congressional

1:06:34

elections. This gave the old OSS

1:06:36

men like Alan the leverage they needed. In

1:06:39

nine seven, they succeeded in pushing

1:06:41

a bill through Congress that established a National

1:06:43

Security Council to advise the president

1:06:45

on foreign policy and a Central

1:06:48

Intelligence Agency to gather

1:06:50

intel and act on it. That's what the c i

1:06:52

G became. According to one write

1:06:54

up of the deliberations behind this bill, collected

1:06:56

by Stephen Kinzer, quote, there

1:06:59

were strong objections to having a single

1:07:01

agency with the authority to both collect secret

1:07:03

intelligence and to process and evaluate

1:07:06

it for the president. The objections were

1:07:08

overruled, and the CIA became a unique

1:07:10

organization among Western intelligence services,

1:07:13

which uniformly keep their secret operations

1:07:15

separate from their overall intelligence activities.

1:07:18

Now, the National Security Act also

1:07:20

contained a key clause which was worded

1:07:23

vaguely enough to give the new agency a frightening

1:07:25

amount of leeway. The CIA

1:07:27

was authorized to carry out not

1:07:30

only duties explicitly spelled out

1:07:32

by the law, but also quote

1:07:34

such other functions and duties related

1:07:37

to intelligence affecting the national security

1:07:39

as the National Security Council made from

1:07:41

time to time direct This

1:07:44

technically meant that the agency could

1:07:46

take any action anywhere on

1:07:48

Earth with the President's approval.

1:07:51

And they did, and

1:07:53

they share did Uh.

1:07:58

And we're gonna talk about that Jason in

1:08:00

part three, But for now, we're going to talk

1:08:03

about you. Yes,

1:08:06

my most recent book is called Zoe

1:08:08

Punches the Future and the Dick. Uh.

1:08:11

If you're dissuaded by that title

1:08:13

or by my personality, read

1:08:15

the read or reviews. Okay, all very

1:08:18

good, They're all good, or just pretend it's called

1:08:20

Weathering Heights. Yeah,

1:08:24

that's actually my fifth novel. I've got a bunch

1:08:26

out there. Uh. The online

1:08:28

booksellers make it very easy to find them

1:08:30

because they'll all be gathered together.

1:08:33

Otherwise, I'm on all of the social media

1:08:36

platforms Just google my name. It's

1:08:38

they'll come up. Yeah, google

1:08:40

Jason's name, find him,

1:08:43

find his books, find him.

1:08:45

You know, be your own. See

1:08:47

I be the CIA you want to see in

1:08:49

the world. Eight