S3E3: Battle Lines
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You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.
I'm Soledad O'Brien, and on my new true crime podcast, Murder on the Towpath, I'm taking you back to 1964, to the cold case of artist Mary Pinchot Meyer.
She had been shot twice in the head and in the back.
It turns out Mary was connected to a very powerful man.
I pledge you that we shall neither commit nor provoke aggression. John F. Kennedy.
Listen to Murder on the Towpath with Soledad O'Brien on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
This week on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler. Ed Helms is here. I, of course, was drawn to the LSD story.
This was all under official government activity. They built a apartment that had a glass mirror where he could sit there and watch. And then they would drug these customers. And he was just sort of taking notes and God knows what else behind this double mirror. And this was all in the name of science.
This just sounds like a guy off behind a wall. It does. Listen to Dear Chelsea on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey there, it's your host, Ed Helms here. Real quick, before we dive into this episode, I wanted to remind you that my brand new book is coming out on April 29th. It's called Snafu, The Definitive Guide to History's Greatest Screw-Ups. And you can pre-order it right now at snafu-book.com. Trust me, if you like this show, you're gonna love this book. It's got all the wild disasters, spectacular face plants we just couldn't squeeze into this podcast. And here's the kicker. I am also going on tour to celebrate. That's right. I'm coming to New York, D.C., Boston, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, and my hometown, Los Angeles. So if you've ever wanted to see me stumble through a live Q&A or dramatically read about a kitty cat getting turned into a CIA operative, now's your chance. Again, head to snafu-book.com to preorder the book and check out all the tour details and dates. Or just click the link in the show notes. That'll work too. Okay, that's it. On with the chaos. This is Snafu Season 3, Formula 6.
Last time on Snafu, the temperance movement swept America.
Every abolitionist was a teetotaler.
Mabel Walker Willebrand was hired to lead Prohibition Enforcement.
There's one way it can be done. Get at the source of supply.
And much of prohibition enforcement falls, strangely, to the U.S. Treasury Department.
Which is another way of saying we're going to use it for political payoffs.
It's 1918 in France, the Western Front.
Yep, we're a long way from the speakeasies of New York, but we're here in the rolling French countryside to meet a new character in our story. He's sitting inside a combat tank clattering across the bloody battlefield. His name? George Cassidy. And he's under attack. The tank rolls down a slope as shells explode around it, and then it sinks into a crater of mud. Its steel armor shields George and his crew from the bright yellow bursts of artillery flame. But it can't protect them from the mist that's engulfed the field. World War I's most insidious weapon, mustard gas. On the battlefield, poison gas was turning war into a new kind of nightmare. Both Germany and the U.S. were experimenting with lethal gases that were quickly becoming the deadliest instruments in the history of warfare. The Great War had a nickname, the Chemist's War. And now, mustard gas seeps into George Cassidy's tank and into the eyes, noses, and lungs of the tankers. George and his two crewmates choke at the controls as the machine grinds to a halt.
The deadly mist causes the tankers to go blind, vomit, and start losing consciousness. The other two men pass out. George holds on. But poisoned by the gas, George is too weak to move. Blinking and struggling to breathe while the battle rages around him, his crewmates have fallen silent. Finally, footsteps approach the tank. George hears hands banging on the outside, shouts, shadows over the viewport as men peer inside. George's heart stops. Is it the enemy? The door swings open, and thank God, it's the Yanks. George is rescued. Carried up out of the crater in the pool of gas, George makes it off the battlefield alive. But he's devastated to find out he's the only survivor from his crew.
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