Gabriel Gatehouse

So then my question was, okay, well, it's a bit of a leap from there to go, well, the CIA then helped them do it.

So I thought, well, I've got to find some documentary evidence that proves that at least the CIA was cognizant of the power of football.

And that they were, you know, A, was the CIA worried about the popularity of the Brazilian dictatorship?

And B, were they sort of thinking about football as a way of potentially ameliorating it?

So obviously, David...

Wrote to the CIA.

I said dear CIA, please.

Would you provide me?

I didn't I didn't go dear CIA Did you poison Gordon banks in 1970 because I thought they might just go No They might laugh at me.

So I I wrote to them and I said, please provide me with any and all documents that you have relating to the 1970 World Cup and

and you will be pleased to hear, David, that they wrote back to me pretty promptly.

I was really surprised at how quickly they wrote back to me with a little envelope embossed with the CIA logo that plopped through my letterbox a mere month or so later saying, Dear Gabriel, we have received your request and we shall process it in due course.

That was the last I heard of them.

This was several years ago.

But they did helpfully point me to the CIA's electronic reading room where there's a whole bunch of... That's helpful.

Yes, I did know about it already.

But anyway, thank you for the reminder.

So I had a little dig through the already declassified files.

And what I did find in there was a declassified memo dated, I think, early 1971.

So less than a year after the World Cup.