Episódios
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On January 24, 1975, six young businessmen were enjoying lunch in lower Manhattan’s historic Fraunces Tavern when a bomb placed inside the restaurant exploded, tearing through the building. It had been planted by a group claiming support for Puerto Rican independence known as the “FALN,” the most active domestic terrorist organization in American history. Four of the young businessmen died and 50 others were injured, many horrifically.
Among the four victims was Frank Connor, a son of immigrants and the father to two young sons – the youngest of whom was Joe Connor, who was 9 years old at the time. Joe Connor’s book, Shattered Lives, co-authored by Jeff Ingber, chronicles the origins of the Puerto Rican independence movement, its transformation into a Cuban-led Marxist cause, the FALN’s decade-long reign of murder and destruction that was a precursor to future domestic terrorism, the hunt for the perpetrators by a group of dedicated FBI agents, the inexplicable escape from prison by the FALN’s chief bombmaker who eventually received asylum in Cuba, and the political maneuvering that led to Presidents Clinton and Obama granting clemency to FALN members.
Our guest, Joe Connor, talks about the devastating impact of the Fraunces Tavern bombing on the families of its many other victims, uniting them in their struggle to move forward while seeking justice for their loved ones.
Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com -
Award-winning journalist Bill Conroy is back dishing the inside dirt on how America's war on drugs has really turned into a complex business of law enforcement and political policy conflicts. Bill describes how the federal agencies charged with protecting the U.S. from the drug trade compete with each other and the differing priorities of our intelligence agencies. Bill hits the highlights from his latest book, "The Great Pretense."
Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com -
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Writer Ian Trottier has penned a biography of John Brennan, government intelligence figure with a stellar biography--under former president Obama, Brennan served as head of the CIA, oounterterrorism advisor; and Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counter-terrorism; and Deputy National Security Advisor under President George W. Bush.
While pointed at the hot issues surrounding America's security, he declared himself a Communist and a devotee of Wahabism--an ultra-conservative offfshoot of Sunni Islam. Author Trottier also presents his findings regarding Brennan's profiting from terrorist activity, including the Boston Marathon Bombing, prompting the question, 'Has terrorism become a business?'
Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com -
Charismatic mastermind and one-time meth cook Scott Scurlock befriended Steve Meyer and pulled him into a surreal world of treehouses and crime in Washington in the early to mid-90s. Scott earned notoriety as the most prolific bank robber ever in Washington state, and the nickname, “Hollywood,” for the extensive facial prosthetics he wore during the robberies.
Shawn Johnson led the FBI team that apprehended Scott’s associates, including Steve, in a bloody shootout, and resulted in Scott taking his own life. Steve and Shawn are here together, sharing their different perspectives on this remarkable true crime saga.
Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com -
Colonel Robert Howard was a very distinguished member of the top-secret MACV-SOG units that fought during the Vietnam War in America’s secret war in Laos and Cambodia. Comprised of only one to a few U.S. special force team members plus a cadre of native Vietnamese, Montagnard, Cambodian (Khmer Krom), and Nung fighters, these recon units operated deep behind enemy lines recovering downed pilots and attempting POW rescues, destroying enemy fuel dumps and caches, conducting wiretaps, gathering intelligence and spreading propaganda which forced Hanoi to divert 40,000 troops—about four divisions—to rear security missions along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Surrounded by heroes, Bob distinguished himself among his peers, becoming the most decorated Green Beret ever. His medal include the Medal of Honor–for sheer valor and heroism even as he suffered multiple wounds himself defending his men. Today’s guest, historian Stephen L. Moore shares Bob Howard’s story in his book “Beyond the Call of Duty: The Life of Colonel Robert Howard, the Most Decorated Green Beret.”
Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com -
Right after the U.S. dropped the bomb on Nagasaki, Victoria Kelly’s grandfather was sent there as part of the U.S. forces sent to occupy the city after its destruction. Victoria grew up curious about her grandfather’s experience there, as he’d died before she was born. Victoria has partnered with Karen Tanabe, whose family survived the bombing, to make “Atomic Echoes”: A documentary that details what it was like for the locals and the U.S. soldiers on the ground, and how they came together to help the afflicted, as they all struggled with the fallout of radiation.
Victoria joins HBH today, to share some of the amazing stories and people she and Karen discovered in their journey to make a filmed record of what it was like after an atomic bomb goes off.
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Patrick Naughton’s father served in Vietnam when he was a child, and shared accounts of his experiences and adventures – from infantry to serving in Special Forces as part of the MACV-SOG teams doing recon and battling across the fence” in America’s secret war with Northern Vietnam forces in Laos and Cambodia.
Patrick felt the only path to truly earn his larger-than-life’s father’s respect was to enlist in the military himself, and he likewise joined the infantry and served in Iraq. His book “Born From War,” is a fascinating account of the parallel experiences father and son had, and the lessons about generational impact of military service learned by both.
Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com -
The second half of this two-part interview from 2023 with one of our favorite Americans, in celebration of Memorial Day:
A living legend of MACV-SOG and the Green Berets, John "Tilt" Stryker Meyer shares some of the most daring first-person stories of combat ever told! Inserted by Kingbee helicopter into the dense jungle along the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos and Cambodia during the height of the Vietnam War, Tilt and the US and indigenous members of Strike Force Idaho deployed on one impossible top-secret mission after another, spying on, harassing and taking it to the North Vietnamese and Vietcong despite a casualty rate of over 100%.
Top-secret, all-volunteer SOG teams soon became the bane of the NVA's and Vietcong's existence, and despite overwhelming odds and sometimes having to face battalion-size enemy detachments, Tilt describes how these small US-indigenous units bravely soldiered on achieving a combined kill ratio of 158 to 1 – the highest in US military history.
Bravery like that described by Tilt is not only inspiring, it changes the way we perceive the Vietnam War. -
We're re-airing this two-part interview from 2023 with one of our favorite Americans, in celebration of Memorial Day:
A living legend of MACV-SOG and the Green Berets, John "Tilt" Stryker Meyer shares some of the most daring first-person stories of combat ever told! Inserted by Kingbee helicopter into the dense jungle along the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos and Cambodia during the height of the Vietnam War, Tilt and the US and indigenous members of Strike Force Idaho deployed on one impossible top-secret mission after another, spying on, harassing and taking it to the North Vietnamese and Vietcong despite a casualty rate of over 100%.
Top-secret, all-volunteer SOG teams soon became the bane of the NVA's and Vietcong's existence, and despite overwhelming odds and sometimes having to face battalion-size enemy detachments, Tilt describes how these small US-indigenous units bravely soldiered on achieving a combined kill ratio of 158 to 1 – the highest in US military history.
Bravery like that described by Tilt is not only inspiring, it changes the way we perceive the Vietnam War.
Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com -
Karen Holt didn’t realize her childhood was anything other than normal--whether it was her father’s absence every Monday to Friday; their odd moves from town to town without any warning; the FBI arresting her father; seeing Detroit mafioso Peter Licavoli on his ranch; or even visiting her father in his ‘country club’ prison.
One of the most unusual figures in recent memory, Chauncey served as accountant and money manager for mobster Meyer Lansky, he was also an off-the-books CIA operative and specialist in forged documents and credentials, a ballistics expert, a circus performer and fine artist.
He was also present at Dealey Plaza the day JFK was assassinated, November 22, 1963. In fact, Holt was pictured in Life Magazine as one of the three hobos detained as witnesses.
Chauncey's outrageous life, which also included bootlegging, gunrunning, and maintaining multiple aliases, is captured in his autobiography “Self-Portrait of a Scoundrel,” which reads like a CIA thriller.
Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com -
Born on a U.S. airbase in London of American parents, Geoffrey Gilson began his career writing speeches for Margaret Thatcher, leveraging his dual British-US citizenship to navigate elite political circles. With decades of front-row access to senior UK and U.S. officials, Gilson served as a key operative for the British Conservative Party, gaining unparalleled insight into global power structures. In 1988, when his friend and business partner Hugh Simmonds turned up dead in the woods near where they lived with seven million dollars were missing from his law firm’s account, Geoff launched his own investigation into this friend’s death, which eventually revealed a complex web of money laundering, arms deals and political collusion and connections between high-level political leaders, intelligence organizations, and money launderers and arms dealers.
The result is detailed in his riveting book, "Maggie’s Hammer," a meticulously researched and gripping exposé.
Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com -
Former U.S. Army Ranger, Barry Todd, was out celebrating a professional milestone with his wife and several friends at a local watering hole in Yuma, Arizona, when he was attacked by a drunken patron along with some buddies. Barry was slammed headfirst into a cement wall, incurring a concussion and other bodily injuries until his gun went off and shot the man who’d insisted on attacking him.
The police were called and incomprehensibly arrested Barry, who explains how self-defense and stand your ground laws don’t always protect you as they should. Police in his case didn’t actually know the law in Arizona, and elected DAs often pursue charges & convictions rather than the truth, as is their legal obligation. Barry also discovered that one friend of his attackers was linked to the local police.
Barry walks us through his battle of five years to get his case dismissed, and his record cleared, and how he feels a calling to help anyone unfairly charged with a crime. All proceeds from his book, “Stand Your Ground: One Man’s Self Defense Nightmare,” go to his foundation that helps the charged person and their attorney successfully get their case dismissed.
The original culprit was never charged.
Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com -
California State Assemblyman Mike Gatto was a rising star in the California Democratic Party when on November 12th, 2013, his retired father Joseph Gatto was found murdered in their family home in the neighborhood of Los Angeles. Emotionally devastated, Mike put his career on hold to pursue his father's murderer. With very few clues nad more questions than evidence, the murder has never been solved, and the rate of unsolved murders is higher than ever.
Mike recounts the facts of this still unsolved crime, and his own experience grappling with his grief. He asks anyone with information about the murder to step forward.
Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com -
Proud Canadian and innovative thinker and author, Jeff Brown was flattered beyond when Sophie Trudeau, (his country’s “first lady” at the time.) reached out to compliment his writing and aphorisms, and engage him to think about ideas that expressed the spirit of what Justin Trudeau and his wife sought to communicate as part of their platform.
At their first meeting, Sophie quickly disclosed her own dissatisfaction in her marriage, and proceeded to behave in a flirty and what felt inappropriate manner through their subsequent conversations and collaborations, both live and virtual. Uncomfortable as an unpaid, uncredited speech writer, and deeply distressed by his growing insight into the Trudeaus’ life, marriage, and hypocrisy, Jeff sought to separate in a civil manner, putting polite space between them and retreating from future requests.
And then the nightmare began… Sophie sought to pressure Jeff to stay tethered to the ‘first couple,’ and when he resisted, Jeff and his wife were subjected to a four-year whirlwind of digital surveillance, political pressure, and personal transformation which reshaped his understanding of trust, truth and freedom.social ostracism, government monitoring, and even harassment, including the suppression of his book about the experience, In Trudeau’s Kitchen. Jeff describes how an ordinary citizen can become the target of not only the political world— but of a hidden network of covert systems, governmental agencies, and corporations. His book stands as a warning to all of us.
Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com -
Growing up in the New Hampshire mountains, country boy Brennan Morton couldn’t wait to join the military, and when 9/11 occurred, it provided the final push for enlistment. Brennan loved every minute of the training as a Marine recon sniper, and was surprised as physically superior candidates washed out. But then he was deployed to Iraq with his unit, and the reality of what he’d sought hit home. Sent into a brutal fighting environment he saw his comrades brutally harmed by IEDs without any visible enemy to directly fight.His acclaimed memoir "Valhalla Boys: Marine Recon Sniper in Iraq" has Brennan Morton hailed as one of the most powerful and literary war memoirs of the post-9/11 generation. "Valhalla Boys" has been called a raw, reflective, and often poetic meditation on combat, brotherhood, and the darkness that war leaves behind. Drawing comparisons to Tim O’Brien, Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut, Morton invites readers not just into the battlefield at the height of the Iraqi insurgency, but into the mind of a Marine Recon sniper struggling to make sense of a war with no clear front lines—and no clear purpose.
Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com -
Mark Shaw shares his recent discoveries linking the JFK and RFK assassinations, and also the mysterious and dreadful death of famed journalist Dorothy Kilgallen who was hot on the trail to solve the mystery behind President Kennedy's death. Ripped from the pages of his new book, "Abuse of Power," there's plenty of thought-provoking revelation that further strengthens the inescapable conclusion that the President's death was not caused by a lone gunman, and that the American people--in spite of the recent release of documents relating to the assassination--still haven't heard the full truth about the most notorious American crime ever.
Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com -
Whether you call it brainwashing, programming, indoctrination, or something else, cult members have been taught to think, feel, and act in certain ways. The goal of the cult deprogrammer is to empower the individual to think critically, to evaluate, to reality-test; and to exercise their own free will.
Over his long career, Mark Blockson has participated in more than 100 interventions or kidnappings at the behest of families who are trying to rescue loved ones from religious cults. He talks about his own experiences with addiction and how that led to his involvement in rehabilitation and deprogramming and how the techniques involved have evolved over the years. He’s also very candid about the rewards and pressures of the work and how it has impacted own life and eventually led to divorce, addiction and, even, time in prison
Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com -
Retired FBI Agent Stewart Fillmore was trained to break down evidence to solve crimes and build cases. Here, he focuses on the forensics of the JFK assassination and the likelihood that the hole in the front of the late President’s throat was an entry wound, not an exit wound as the FBI and Warren Report had concluded.
Stewart walks us through the evidence he’s gathered, and what it tells him about the nature of the crime. Importantly, his account aligns with the prior testimony of HBH guest Tosh Plumlee: Namely, that there was a shooter to the left front of the President’s limousine, from the top of the South Knoll and that gunman was captured in photo taken by UPI reporter Frank Cancellare.
Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com -
Early in the morning of October 23, 1983 two truck bombs were detonated at buildings in Beirut Lebanon housing members of the US and French Multinational Force in Lebanon – a military peace mission in the eight-year-old Lebanese civil war. The attack by a terrorist group called Islamic Jihad, which had backing from the governments of Iran and Syria, killed 307 people: 241 U.S. and 58 French military personnel, six civilians and two of the attackers.
Two hundred of the 241 US casualties were US Marines, making it the deadliest single-day death toll for the United States Marine Corps since the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II. Based on interviews with survivors, military records and personal records, Targeted Beirut by today's guest, Pulitzer Prize nominated historian and NYT bestselling author author James M. Scott, and past HBH guest Jack Carr is the authoritative account of the deadly attack.
Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com -
Writer and editor Sarah McCarthy set out to write a book about her friend of 15 years and Jeffrey Epstein survivor Juliette Bryant. She reveals details about how Epstein and his powerful friends lured girls and young women into his network and the techniques he used to manipulate them. But the part that is most shocking, is what Julie experience at Epstein’s ranch in New Mexico – the little-talked-about Zorro Ranch – and the bizarre activities that took place there.
Her account helps explain his purpose and how he was able to fund his extravagant lifestyle; and why important men and women were interested in him in the first place. The answer has to do with his interest in eugenics, human cloning and mind control. Sarah’s book about her friend Julie Bryant and her experience with Jeffrey Epstein entitled Blue Butterfly: Inside the Diary of an Epstein Survivor was recently canceled for reasons of, in Sarah’s words, “sustained physical and electronic harassment.”
Heroes Behind Headlines
Executive Producer Ralph Pezzullo
Produced & Engineered by Mike Dawson
Music provided by ExtremeMusic.com - Mostrar mais
