Bonus Episode - The Great Man and the Briefcase

What do the Kennedy assassination, the Martin Luther King assassination, and the Iraq War all have in common? Maybe nothing. Or maybe they were all orchestrated by a shadow government that has quietly taken over the United States.
In this bonus episode, Dan delves into the realm of conspiracy theory and asks whether everything we thought we knew about US history since 1960 was wrong.
CONTENT WARNING: This episode gets political, and Dan also talks about conspiracy theories. If you prefer a straight history podcast, best to skip this one.

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Episode transcript (90% accurate): https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRYkYM7zJi5IUkCOVui3KkAghBEBA21oJml6prwvBfA3TA05yJy0oQiWZJLw-ZJgXPWYLrxR1Q1LWy3/pub
Music credit: Sergey Cheremisinov - Black Swan

HELPFUL LINKS:
1947 National Security Act: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Act_of_1947#Provisions
1960 U2 Incident: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_U-2_incident
JFK assassination: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ltg2RgHlsQ
MLK assassination: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TA2AIuAuW8
RFK assassination: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVScM_9Tn-s
Article on RFK assassination audio forensics: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2018/06/06/the-bobby-kennedy-assassination-tape-were-13-shots-fired-or-only-8/
NATO expansion timeline: https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-business-world-war-ii-sweden-finland-240d97572cc783b2c7ff6e7122dd72d2
Some background on NATO-Russia relations, including as regards Ukraine: https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/why-nato-has-become-flash-point-russia-ukraine
Iraq War documents leak: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War_documents_leak
Collateral Murder video: https://collateralmurder.wikileaks.org/
DISHFIRE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dishfire
PRISM: https://www.theverge.com/2013/7/17/4517480/nsa-spying-prism-surveillance-cheat-sheet
US worker productivity vs. inflation-adjusted pay: https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/
Former US intelligence agents at social media companies: https://www.mintpressnews.com/meet-ex-cia-agents-deciding-facebook-content-policy/281307/

Robert F Kennedy audio footage courtesy of: https://www.jfklibrary.org/
Audio of Ron Wyden and James Clapper courtesy of C-SPAN (obtained under audio-only license)