April 24th, 1184 BCE. Troy.

It’s a beautiful day outside as we can see a handful of men are standing on the beach, surveying the dead bodies strewn on the sand. When they look closely at one of the bodies, they can see black spots on the skin. A plague? A curse.

They conclude that must be why the soldiers left the beaches.

This is the will of the gods. They desecrated the temple of Apollo, so Apollo has desecrated their flesh.

Then, looking up, the men see a massive, wooden horse.

“What is this?” Peter O’Toole’s version of the king, Priam, asks.

One of the men with him says it must be an offering to Poseidon. The Greeks are praying for a safe return home. He suggests they take the gift to the temple of Poseidon. Another man nearby doesn’t agree with this, though, and suggests they burn the wooden horse.

Wait, no, they can’t burn it. It’s a gift to the gods! If we burn it, that’d only incur the gods’ wrath even more than we already have.

Thoughtfully, Priam considers both sides of the advice he’s being given.

In the next shot we can tell what decision he made as the city rejoices as throngs of people cheer and watch men pulling the massive wooden horse into the city with ropes. There are songs, dancing, and all sorts of merrymaking.

Later that night, it’s quiet as most of the partiers have apparently drunken themselves to sleep. Slowly and silently, movement from inside the horse is visible as a group of men use ropes of their own to climb from inside the horse. They quietly make their way to the city’s gates. The guards are all passed out, making it easy for the men from inside the horse to kill them as they sleep. One by one, they’re killed before anyone even notices.

The assassins reach for the giant bar keeping the gates locked. They lift it. Then, using a torch to signal the soldiers on the other side of the city walls, we can see them silently advancing. The massive gates open, allowing the soldiers to flood into the city. Once inside, the soldiers start killing anyone and everyone they come across.

No longer trying to maintain the element of surprise, a full-on attack alerts everyone in the city. At that point, though, it’s too late. With the enemy inside the city walls and a majority of the defenders already killed, it’s only a matter of time before the entire city falls.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie Troy

That’s a depiction from the 2004 movie called Troy and the event it’s showing happened this week in history: When the Greeks used the Trojan Horse to defeat the city of Troy.

At least, April 24^th is the generally accepted day that it probably happened. We’re also talking about the year 1184 BCE, so as with many things in ancient history, sometimes it’s difficult to nail down specifics. For example, some of the characters aren’t even mentioned while others are in different historical sources.

With that said, though, as much as we know of the real story still tells a slightly different one than we see in the movie.

The Greeks lay siege to the city of Troy for ten years. It was a stalemate, so the Greeks decided to try something different. One of the Greeks by the name of Odysseus—he’s played by Sean Bean in the movie—had the idea for the horse.

So, the Greeks built the horse and then deserted the beaches by sailing to a nearby island. Unlike what we see in the movie, there was one Greek left behind, a man named Sinon. It was he who was brought to King Priam. His story claimed he was “left behind” and that the horse was an offering to Athena, the goddess of war. It was supposed to make up for the fact that the Greeks destroyed the temple to Athena at Troy, and offer the Greeks a safe journey home.

He also told the Trojans the Greeks built the horse so large so that it couldn’t fit into their city because it’d make their city impregnable. Obviously, the Greeks didn’t want that, so that’s why it was built so large.

Despite some Trojans warning Priam, he decided to bring the horse into the city.

Just like we see in the movie, Odysseus was one of the soldiers inside. And just like we see in the movie, under the cover of night, the Greeks inside the horse snuck out and opened the city gates for the Greek army that had returned.

That’s the general gist of the story with the aforementioned caveat that different sources change some of the details. For example, according to Quintus there were 30 men inside the horse while Hyginus says there were only nine. Others suggest perhaps there was no horse at all, but the tale is one of a different kind of siege engine used during the war.

If you want to watch the event that happened this week in history, it starts at about two hours and 41 minutes into the 2004 movie Troy.

And we took a deeper dive into the true story back on episode #133 of Based on a True Story.

April 26th, 1986. Pripyat, Ukranian SSR.

It’s dark. We’re in an apartment. We can hear a woman coughing behind the door. A toilet flushes and she opens the door, spilling light from the room behind her into the dark room ahead. She leaves the door open as she walks across the frame and past an open door of another bedroom. For a moment, she pauses in the door frame as she looks in on a man snoring softly on the bed.

She continues, making her way into the kitchen where she gets a glass. The camera cuts to a shot out the window where we can see dim light in the distance. Then, the light expands, growing larger for a moment before shrinking down again. It looks like an explosion off in the distance.

Oblivious to what’s going on outside, she continues walking—just then, the blast from the explosion hits her building. It shakes. The noise woke up the man, and now he’s wandering sleepily into the room beside her. She doesn’t notice him, though. He walks by her side and now they’re both fixated on the glow in the distance out the window.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the TV series Chernobyl

This is just the start of the day’s events from the 2019 Chernobyl miniseries, and it depicts the disaster that happened this week in history: The explosion at the Chernobyl power plant reactor #4.

The two people we see in this scene were real people.

The woman, 23-year-old Lyudmilla Ignatenko, was the wife of a 25-year-old firefighter who worked at Chernobyl named Vasily Ignatenko. By the time of the explosion in April of 1986, they had been married for three years.

Although we don’t see this in the scene I just described, it’s also true that Lyudmilla was pregnant. So, it’s possible she was up in the middle of the night that night like we see in the series.

The location of the Ignatenko’s apartment in Pripyat is about 2 kilometers, or a little over 1.2 miles, away from the Chernobyl power plant. And the explosion we see took place at 1:23 AM. At the time it was the worst nuclear disaster in history, the only other one ranking the maximum of seven on the International Nuclear Event Scale was the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan.

Unfortunately, when it comes to Chernobyl, no one really agrees on the full extent of the damage.

Some say only two people were killed in the explosion. Others say it was more like 30 people who died from initial blast and subsequent radiation. Maybe up to 100 if you include people further in the exclusion zone. But then, because radiation can kill over a longer period of time, others have estimated numbers like 4,000 to 16,000 to 60,000.

So, yeah, anywhere between two and 60,000. It didn’t help that the Soviet Union tried to cover up the blast, so they were downplaying how many people were affected. The only reason they couldn’t was because the radiation started to reach other countries.

As for the cause of the explosion, that, too, is difficult to pin down. Oh, we know the sequence of events that led up to the explosion that night, but there are many who believe the disaster was the inevitable result of years of Soviet bureaucracy and pressure to generate more and more power by cutting corners with cheaper equipment and ignoring safety concerns.

So, it’s not likely we’ll ever know everything without a shadow of a doubt, but if you want to watch the event that happened this week in history that starts a little after six minutes into the first episode of the 2019 HBO miniseries Chernobyl.

And as you have probably guessed, there are a lot more details to the true story. So, if you want to take a deep dive into Chernobyl check out our own miniseries over at chernobylpodcast.com.

April 27th, 1986. Pripyat, Ukranian SSR.

For our next event this week, we’re staying in the Chernobyl miniseries.

A man is fixing his motorcycle on the side of the road while a young lady watches on. She looks up as she hears the sound of approaching vehicles.

One bus passes. Another. Then another. And more. A seemingly unending line of buses pass by, leaving her to wonder what’s happening.

Then the camera cuts to loudspeakers on top of a military vehicle. We’re in town now and it’s a beautiful day. The sky is a bright blue. A couple ladies are walking down the sidewalk as they turn to hear the announcement coming from the loudspeakers.

In the next shot we can see more speakers on a different military vehicle in a different part of town. This is a truck. The same announcement is being made. Men in military uniforms are helping people out of their cars—the cars aren’t even parked anywhere important. One car is simply parked on the side of the street as the man and woman inside are being escorted out by military personnel. They didn’t even take the time to parallel park the car; half of it is hanging out into the street.

Except no other cars are driving. People are getting out of their cars.

The camera cuts to more military personnel, this time they’re banging on the doors of residences.

The announcement continues in the background as now we can see scores of people leaving their homes. Children are leaving school. Even the patients in the hospital are being escorted out and onto the buses that line the city streets.

There is no panic, no disorder. Everyone is just calmly waiting their turn to get on the bus.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the TV series Chernobyl

That scene is also from the Chernobyl miniseries and it depicts an event that happened on April 27^th, 1986: The evacuation of Pripyat.

After the explosion that happened the day before, it quickly became clear to those in charge of figuring out what happened at the power plant that the nearby town of Pripyat wasn’t safe.

You see, Pripyat was a town built to house the workers of the Chernobyl power plant and their families. There were a little over 49,000 people in Pripyat in 1986, and the average age was only 26 years old.

And just like we see in the series, the evacuation itself went off rather smoothly. They knew of the accident, of course. As we just learned, Pripyat was filled with people who worked at the power plant. But, even though they knew an accident had taken place, they didn’t know the full extent of it.

In the early morning hours of April 27^th, the buses began rolling into town. Over a thousand of them. In the early afternoon, the announcement we hear in the series began to let the residents know about the evacuation. It spoke of unfavorable radiation conditions due to an accident at the power plant, so everyone needs to temporarily evacuate.

When was the evacuation starting? 2:00 PM. The announcement began after 1:00 PM. They had less than an hour to pack up things for their immediate needs, turn off electricity, gas, water, close the windows and get on the bus. They were told they’d be gone for three days and the police would be watching their residences so no one could break in.

In truth, they never returned to their homes.

If you want to watch the event that took place this week in history, the evacuation starts at about 42 minutes and 10 seconds into the second episode of the 2019 HBO miniseries.

And as I mentioned before, you can hear our own five-part miniseries digging into the historical accuracy of the HBO miniseries over at chernobylpodcast.com.

Dan LeFebvre  02:46

Let’s start today with a quick overview of how well The Aviator captured the essence of Howard Hughes life. If you were to give the movie a letter grade for its historical accuracy, what would it get?

James B. Steele  02:58

I will give it really a B, B+, perhaps, because I think The Aviator only took care of about about half of his life. But the half had dealt with, I think, projected very well, where he was going, who he was, what his good points were, what his weaknesses were. So I think it was I think he was very, very successful in capturing that. And also foreshadowing, really what he was going to become, I mean, we see in the end of it, those overtones of the mental illness that would eventually be so destructive in his life. You can see that advancing, you can see him being conscious of it in a way. So I think that was very accurate. The aviation sequences, similarly very good. And the same with the with the movies. So I thought as those those kinds of movies go, it was really very, really excellent. There were a couple of things that conflated in it. That didn’t bother me, there was one was like, when he was trying to buy the prop planes for TWA. It was talking about them trying to raise the money. Actually, that was the jet planes about 15 years after that. But big deal. I mean, it’s this thing unset he had trouble coming, making a decision. And that was one hours great weaknesses his whole life. He had trouble making a decision obsessed over details. Sometimes it worked out okay. But sometimes not.

Dan LeFebvre  03:36

You talked about how the movie doesn’t tell his whole life, and we don’t really see in the movie, how he gets his fortune. All it shows in the beginning is there’s a quick scene with him as a child, then it kind of fast forwards to Hollywood 1927 and he’s already rich. Now, there are some clues that the movie says through dialogue that suggests that he made his fortune through drill bits in Houston, Texas, but can you fill in some historical context around Howard Hughes early years and how he got his fortune before the timeline of the movie?

James B. Steele  04:58

It’s really a great question, because Hughes’ fortune, he owed entirely to his father. His father’s was the one who invented the drill bit, founded the company called us to a company. Prior to this drill bit, anytime you drill for oil, the drills would always broke shatter. When they hit a very solid rock formation, he developed a kind of rotary drill that he didn’t patented. And that became the foundation of the oil industry, both in the US internationally for like decades. And the US Tool Company, which his father founded, was the golden goose that really funded everything Howard wanted to do, whether it was movies, aviation, entertainment, buying politicians, I mean, whatever it was, the Tool Company was the basis of the Fortune. And the interesting thing about it is he was he was a middleware, and he tended to meddle in all his companies. Sometimes it was for good causes to make the retrieve the kind of perfection he wanted. Other times he was just a meddler. He always left the tool company alone. It was kind of his father’s monument to his father’s creativity, and genius, and so forth. And he just left it alone. Plus, urine in your out provided him the money for all his other whips.

Dan LeFebvre  06:22

Yeah, yeah, I guess the impression I got from the movie was almost that he was the one that founded that, so But it’s interesting. So he grew up in, in riches, basically, he

James B. Steele  06:33

grew up with riches and interesting thing about the Tool Company. His father died when he was 18. His mother died a year or two before that. So he’s basically an orphan at a very young age. He had an uncle, he had grandparents exiga, to locals. And the assumption was the family would kind of work with Howard who oversee things to make sure he came along, right away after his father’s death, insisted on buying up all his other relatives. There had never been any sign in Howard of this streak of independence, that suddenly exhibited itself upon the death of his father. It was a very bitter thing. The rest of the family was very upset by this, not because they were losing money or anything like that, but they thought it this is young man, we need to be here, watch over and make sure somebody doesn’t take advantage of Howard, who had not shown any streak of independence like that, or said, No, this is my company, I’m going to buy you out. I’m going to read things my way from now on. So right from the very beginning, Howard cuts off his family in a way, decides he’s going to go it alone. And he took to heart something his father had told him just sort of innocently, when they said, Howard, whatever you do, don’t ever have a part. You know, they’re a pain. Go you go it alone, do it yourself. But I think the family never for one minute, thought that they were going he was going to invoke that with them. I mean, his uncles and grandparents and so forth. So right from the beginning, Howard sort of set the pace the course that he would really follow his whole life. It was essentially a loner, and even from the very beginning,

Dan LeFebvre  08:12

I guess I didn’t even think about it until you mentioned that, but we don’t really see any of his other family or anything like that in the movie, and not even any siblings. So I’m assuming you’re talking about kind of extended family. I’m assuming he didn’t have any siblings and or anything like that. No,

James B. Steele  08:24

he was an only child. But his uncle, his father’s brother, was a pretty famous writer, and screenwriter in Hollywood. And he was the fellow who introduced both Howard senior and our junior to Hollywood. And what a glamorous life that was out there. So the family had a lot of talented, another uncle had been one of the founders of the Cleveland Orchestra. I mean, there’s all kinds of interesting things in the family. There. Of course, I’m not knocking the movie on this. There’s only so much you can put in a movie. But that’s what’s interesting about the whole beginning of Howard’s life who these people were, how he basically kind of tossed them aside and said, I’m going alone. This is my company. how science

Dan LeFebvre  09:13

is speaking of the movie, if we go back in the beginning of the movie chose Howard Hughes is he’s working on this massive film project of his own called Hells Angels. And according the movie consists of like 137 pilots 87 airplanes. Here’s there’s a line in there where he says it’s the largest private Air Force has like 35 cameramen, 2000 extras 24 cameras, or maybe 26. There is another scene where he’s trying to find two extra cameras from MGM for a big dog fight scene. How old is the aviator show? The scale of making of Hells Angels.

James B. Steele  09:49

I think the aviator did a great job of conveying the magnitude of this project. I mean, Hollywood had never seen anything like Hells Angels, even before A picture Eric was shown. I mean, just the whole production. He was it had his men scour Europe for World War One planes, had them shipped over to the US. He hired aces from World War One. Howard was just totally caught up in aviation web, what the opportunities that presented. And he thought this war was so different than any previous work, because of the emergence of planes and what role they had had in World War One. So he wanted to he wanted to really glorify their work, show what they’ve done to capture the drama of that particular thing. So he, like as a scoured Europe, what these planes hired the pilots. And some of the aerial sequences in Hells Angels are just absolutely astonishing. And they hold up to this day, I actually watched the movie again, but a couple of years ago with some friends. And then the dogfights or the fights between the German and the Allied planes are just astonishing. And there’s an interesting thing about those those fights I should mention. He was he was always a perfectionist. And when he was shooting these aerial scenes, he was in LA. Well, LA is beautiful for its cloudless sky. It’s wonderful climate. And he said, to really do this, right, we need to show this with clouds in the background. This is Western Europe, this isn’t la that we’re shooting this for. And when no clouds appeared, at certain point, he got so frustrated, let’s move the entire thing to Northern California, where they’re more clouds. So they then shot most of those sequences and those really dramatic moves that show up in the movie somewhere in the Bay Area. Because he finally got those white puffy clouds that gave some contrast to these planes that riprap. So here you have it this typical huge, he doesn’t spare a cent, to make a production to churn this thing out. If he has to start it over again, no problem. We’ll do that. Money is no object, again, because of this golden goose back in Houston, that just keeps churning out the profits.

Dan LeFebvre  12:06

I think we even see a little bit of that in the aviator where he sees Howard Hughes sees some of the footage of the planes in the sky, and there’s no clouds. So he’s like, you can’t see how fast they’re going. And so he hires a professor fits in Holmes character to find me some clouds.

James B. Steele  12:24

And I thought that was one of the wonderful realistic and very accurate things that they didn’t. And it’s it was a very powerful thing that in his life, and which made the thing much more realistic. So but that is a key to his personality. He was very obsessive about detail. And some of the detail it kind of went over the edge with sometimes just as detailed people do. I mean, I’ve got touch down on myself, so I’m interested. But the other side of that is you create this amazing product. And that’s really what he did with health insurance.

Dan LeFebvre  13:03

is speaking of the the details, no money is no object. And then earlier when he talked about him having trouble making a decision in the movie, not Hells Angels, but in the aviator, we see the premiere of Hells Angels, and it seems to be a huge success. But despite this, Howard says that they have to reshoot the entire thing for sound because that’s a new thing in movies. Now it adds another year and another 1.7 million to the project. Did he really reshoot Hells Angels for sound after it was already done like we see in the aid. He

James B. Steele  13:34

really did a reshot the scenes between the actors, the actresses, because here’s what happened. And he began the movie was still the silent era. So nobody’s talking on film. And the actress who played the female lead was a beautiful woman, a Norwegian actress. Well, by the time that it was done, sound had made its appearance in movies. And he realized he’s got to convert this thing to sound. Well, but he can’t do it with this Norwegian actress who has this really thick tremendous accent that American audiences will be laughing in their seats over this woman talking to American pliers. So he looks around and he finds this young, very attractive woman by the name of Jean Harlow. And they bring her into the production as that there’s the female bombshell basically, who’s friends with the pilots. And that’s the launch of her career. So all of those see all of those scenes were sounded or reshot from the very beginning. But it turned out again to be from a production standpoint, from an artistic standpoint, a great step. That’s what created the Hells Angels we know today is a silent film. Even though the aerial sequences are amazing, would not really not work. So yes, he did this and of course was a tremendous cost. i By the way, I have never seen figure for what Hells Angels costs. I mean, I’ve seen motors better route here and there. It was obviously astronomical, clearly never earned its money back. But that that wasn’t a port issues. What was important to us was this product itself getting it right. dramatizing this great bit of European and world history in American history of these fighter pilots, and what they did to help win the war. That’s what was important to glorifying aviation for a final, but they did. So as long as he could afford it. He spent the money. And that kind of was his philosophy, basically, his whole life.

Dan LeFebvre  15:41

Yeah, and that’s one of those things where as I was watching the abs, you mentioned, there, it mentions, you know, another 1.7 million or you mentioned this, this money, which these days, we think of, you know, couple million dollars for a movie is not that big of a deal or a year to make it or, you know, those sorts of things, we don’t really think about it. But to put it in the historical context of of that time, that’s just movies didn’t cost that much. They didn’t take that long.

James B. Steele  16:06

They didn’t cost that much. And I probably should have run out an inflation calculator on their 1.7 5 million and see what that is today. But obviously, it’s still significant money. But the fact is, he had no problems but spending. What what he wanted, as long as Houston delivered, he would spend, and the result was a product that helped put him into the history books, both with movies, aviation, and as one of these great unique characters in American life,

Dan LeFebvre  16:39

or something that we see in the movie. Well, Howard Hughes is working on Hells Angels are scenes of him working with his mechanic, Glenn Odenkirk. He’s working on planes that they’re using for the film. There’s also a scene where we see the guy running Howard’s business, Noah Dietrich, telling him that he was tools is incorporated in Texas, so they have to see the bills. And then they’re starting to question the mounting costs of the movie. So Howard response in the movie is to have Noah start up a new division in the company in California call it Hughes Aircraft. And then after the movie, the Hells Angels movie is over. We see Odin Kircher, OD as they call him in the movie, continuing to work with Noah and Howard as they’re now making airplanes. We do still see Howard Hughes making other films. But from these plot points in the movie I just mentioned, I kind of walked away from the aviator thinking that the movie Hells Angels was a big reason behind Howard Hughes interest in fixing and tinkering with airplanes. So it’d be a natural transition into while he’s already started this company called Hughes Aircraft for Hells Angels. And so once the film’s over, start working on airplanes. Did the aviator do a good job depicting Howard he was transitioned from making films to making airplanes. I

James B. Steele  17:52

think sometimes you have to have these transitions in the movie in particular, I think I think Howard was always interested in aviation, though. I mean, he his father, he took his first flight and when his father was alive, basically when he was I think 16 or 17. It’s something up in New England. One point I think the bug bit him then Troy had always been interested that he was a pilot himself in the making of Hells Angels. One of the little known episodes in it other three pilots were killed in the filming of those incredibly traumatic aerial sequences. He was himself was almost killed, which is one of the little known facts that movie he got so interested in the process about how to design these aerial things, he went up and went playing himself. And I think he banked too much in one direction, whatever it was, he crashed landed. It was reported at the time that he walked away. That was not true. They pulled him unconscious from the wreck, put in real hospital and he had a facial surgery. In fact, no, Dietrich later said he always had kind of a dent in one side of his face as a result of that crash. So he’d always been interested in aviation. I think what’s so interesting about Hells Angels and the aviation is, and this is a key also to Howard’s personal. These are the two of the most probably the two most dramatic emerging fields in the world and in America at the time, movies and aviation, both glamorous, both dramatic, both with tremendous futures ahead of them, that you’re moving from Silent to sound in the movies. Almost yearly, the technology of planes was developing and evolving. And Howard himself was very, very much interested, which is why he hired a lot of really very talented engineers and designers. For Hughes Aircraft, which originally was an aircraft manufacturing company, then it evolved over time into a defense contract for satellites, things of that sort had nothing to do with building plants. But again, these were this was his interest. He loved these two fields and Probably he loved aviation the most. Because this had the most science involved with it. His famous round the world flight in 1938, was a marvel of scientific achievement. He flew around the world record time, but the plane he flew in, had all the latest equipment, all the various gauges, everything you could think of, for that kind of a flight. So he’s very scientifically minded in that sense. He wanted to make a splash. But he also wanted to do it in such a way that would advance aviation and science. I

Dan LeFebvre  20:42

didn’t think about it until you mentioned that, that movies and airplanes at the time were kind of the cutting edge like there was a and it makes, I’m assuming then that Howard, maybe that was something that kind of drew him to those two elements was just that this, nobody’s really doing any of this at all. I mean, not at all. But you know, to that scale, at least, to that scale.

James B. Steele  21:04

And the funny thing, and the interesting thing about Howard, he was very, even when he was young, he was somewhat reclusive, and shy. But it’s interesting, he then sort of is fascinated and drawn to the two fields that are getting the most publicity. So it’s like, part of his part of his personality is very secretive in a way and very much to himself. But he’s drawn to that kind of attention. And his whole life, he’s doing things that call attention, even though he doesn’t personally want to be the center of that attention. He wants, what he does, what he achieves, what records he sets, he wants those to be the guide kind of the guiding force of his life. And so I think, you know, one of the things that’s so interesting about the aviation is he really was a pioneer back in the 30s. With folks at Hughes Aircraft, designing planes for speed, or long distance, ultimately designed when he was later with his with TWA. So it was a tremendous field that he saw great promise him. I think before a lot of people did.

Dan LeFebvre  22:20

I want to ask about an another scene kind of in the movie, solidifying his focus on airplanes, but it also showcases his attitude toward money. It happens while he’s talking with Jack Fry from TWA airlines about a new kind of airplane that can fly about 20,000 feet. Higher up means less turbulence and more people are likely to fly with a smooth flight, but then jack points out that TWA just isn’t doing well financially. So they can’t afford that kind of plane. And then Howard just kind of thinks about it for a few seconds. And then he’s like, Okay, well, I’ll buy TWA for $15 million, call up Noah and start Tom to start buying was the real Howard Hughes just as Cavalier with his money as the movie seems to suggest this spur of the moment decision to buy TWA up to a

James B. Steele  23:03

point that that’s a fairly accurate representation of the way he did function. I’m not too sure that example is exactly right. But But the notion that that’s the way he function is is very accurate. He did have spur of the moment ideas and if there was enough cash around you, as somebody to start buy it, and it does start buying TWA stock very slowly and eventually own 75% of the airline. TWA, I’m really glad you brought this up though, because TWA, which sadly does not exist anymore, was one of the real great loves of Hughes’s life. And this is just really part of his being he loved that airline. He loved everything about it. He was involved in the design of the planes, the character and the quality of the interior the planes. The stewardesses mean he was constantly inviting Hollywood personalities to ride free on the planes. TWA was this tremendous Global Messenger messenger originally just a domestic and he would jack fries, were instrumental in designing went up TWA is iconic your planes, the constellation with a three fins and its sleek body. Anyone who’s watching or listening to this, I urge them to just go on the web and look up the constellation if they’re not familiar with how what this plane looks like. I know it’s the most beautiful plane ever built. I mean, it’s just so sleek, so dramatic prop to prop plane, but even so it just kind of sums up his interests and what he saw for TWA. So the other thing that’s so sad about TWA is in addition to this kind of love of his life, which it really was, and also sadly later in life, which you don’t see in the movie becomes part of his tragedy, when he’s not able, because of growing mental illness, to deal with some of the demands of Trent of converting the airline, into a jet fleet as well. His procrastination instincts, his inability to make a decision, his attention to detail, etc, all of these things, erode him and ultimately lead to his second major breakdown, which was not seen in the movie. But part of it part of the later story, so, TWA was just pivotal to him. And you can’t tell you can’t tell his story without thinking about that early. Was

Dan LeFebvre  25:38

that unusual at that time for I mean, him owning TWA to also be involved in the design of the aircraft and that sort of thing. I wouldn’t imagine somebody owning an airline today is involved in the design of the aircraft.

James B. Steele  25:52

Right. Hey, Rob, very good question, then a good very good observation. I mean, that’s what was unique about you see Natalie only URL, basically, every bit of it was that his kind of beck and call, I’ll never forget, and doing the research on the book. There was one little story I ran across it, the guy who was working on the publicity office of TWA, which was then headquartered in Kansas City. And he was had one of his minions called guys get to La right away. Gotta get to LA. They send him to some restaurant to wait for details. Nothing ever happens. They call him a day later say, Okay, go back to Kansas City. He was changed his mind about something. And it was just this whim. Sometimes it was money. Sometimes it was the way he moved people around without thinking about maybe their lives as well. But you’re right, you just don’t have somebody running an enterprise of that size, that intimate involved in the details. And we’re down to, I think my memory has even got involved in what the uniforms of the flight attendants look like. And maybe that was typically us. When he got into something, he was obsessed with every conceivable detail of the operation.

Dan LeFebvre  27:09

Did he see it as a reflection of himself? Or was he just like his image out there? Or was it truly kind of like with Hells Angels was it you know, this? He wanted to and Hells Angels want to tell the story but you know, in with TWA wanted to be the best or whatever that may what what was that kind of driver there? Do? You know?

James B. Steele  27:27

I know it gets a little vague. I think in the case of Hells Angels. He wanted the best he wanted. He knew how dramatic the story was. And he didn’t think the public really understood at that time that the incredible rule that pilots in these planes had had in the whole war story, because it was the first time planes had ever gotten us into war. So yes, he wanted to do that. But at the same time, he was an obsessive compulsive. And he was enraptured with detail. And sometimes it had a good result in terms of a good product, but other times it didn’t. He was later on beyond the this beyond the movie, when he he was aircraft had become a defense contractor. He had been dealing with a couple of contracts with the Air Force and so forth. And they were threatening to cancel some contracts. And the whole management Hughes Aircraft couldn’t get us to focus on the issue. We’ve got to do something here. How are they breathing down our neck? We don’t want to lose these contracts. We got all of these talented people lined up to do this work. So what’s Howard do he Commission’s a study of what kinds of candy bars are being sold, and the company’s vending machines just totally obsessed with minutiae subtypes. So this is, you know, this is his story, both great things and yet really going down rabbit holes part of the time, but we

Dan LeFebvre  29:04

have talked a lot about Howard Hughes work so far, and the movie does show some of his personal life as well though. One of the major relationships that we see throughout the movie is with the actress Katharine Hepburn. Now if we’re to believe the movie, they truly seem to be in love, at least for a while. Then Catherine mentioned something about how they’re too similar. She falls in love with Spencer Tracy and leaves Howard. Although even after they separate, it still seems like they care for each other. We see Howard buying some racy photos of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn to keep them out of the press. And we see Katherine coming to visit Howard near the end of the movie. How well do you think the movie did showing the relationship between Howard Hughes and Katharine Hepburn?

James B. Steele  29:44

I think it probably might have made a little bit more of that relationship than was there. It’s still the reason I say that. I don’t know that any of us could definitively tell. Tell somebody exactly how deep that Relationships has been all the work we did suggested that they definitely were friends and that they were attracted to each other, the depth of that attraction was never been totally clear. And when the merit when the relationship did eventually fall apart, or the each went their separate ways, I remember we ran across one or two actresses who were really close friends of Kate, who said that she just kind of eventually became kind of bored with it, which is probably too strong a statement. But I think it suggests that it was never quite as deep maybe as the movie would have, have had it. But the fact of the matter is, I don’t think we really know. I mean, she was one of the most private people, actresses who ever lived. And some stuff may have come out even since we wrote our book, but my gut feeling is it was not his deepest is portrayed. The thing about Howard, he wanted to be seen when he was in his era when he was very public. He wanted to be seen with famous people, especially famous actresses and actors. So all in his in his 20s. He is frequently found at the Hearst Castle at San Simeon for these famous Hollywood parties that the whole Hollywood crowd engaged in and there’s plenty of photos of them and where he’s dressed is in a German Alpine suit, hat and so on there, all these kinds of things later, we would never associate with him. But he was part of that whole crowded, and he loved the drama, the the kind of the pizzazz, that Hollywood was starting to engineer, then that which is still of course has to this day, but movies have to this day. So he liked to be seen with a lot of these women, famous women. And there were a whole string of them over over tongue. But I remember talking to one producer, early in the research on our book, and asked him about these general questions, Howard, the women, and he was somebody who lived through that whole period. And he felt most of this was overdone. That this was Howard’s way of saying he’s a ladies man. But that really wasn’t that important to him. But what was important to him was that the world thought he was a ladies man. And that same thing is true of a lot of things with Howard. He wasn’t a very good businessman part of their time. But it was important to him that the rule thought he was a great businessman. So image was everything, Howard, more than what he actually lived up.

Dan LeFebvre  32:31

Do you think some of that was to help with his businesses to like, movie like Hells Angels? You know, keep going back to that when he made other movies, obviously, but like making movies, the popularity, you know, being out and see in the media and all that. That helps.

James B. Steele  32:47

Absolutely. I mean, it makes you a national figure. I mean, he became a national figure, in a way his father never was, even though his father’s company was bankrolling. So and he liked that he liked being out there. He liked publicity about himself. He didn’t necessarily want to hold a press conference or be in public. But he liked the fact that his name was there, his his presence in effect. So I think that was a tremendous part of his personality. He liked that he just, he himself didn’t want to actually be in the limelight, personally, but he wanted his, his being to be there. His companies what he did, he wanted publicity for all of them. Okay,

Dan LeFebvre  33:30

okay. Speaking of the movies, if we go back to the aviator, it doesn’t really focus on much other than Hells Angels. But there is a scene where we see some controversy about another one of Howard Hughes movies called the Outlaw, as, as the movie puts it, it’s a film about sex. The Motion Picture Association center surfboard, tries to stop it. There’s even a scene it was funny where Howard Hughes has Professor Fitz there was the in Holmes character, the meteorologist you’re gonna find clouds. He Howard tells him to pretend to be a mathematician and measure the prominence of the memories, as the movie puts it for Jane Russell, the leading lady in the outlaw compared to other films at the time. And while the movie doesn’t show the same controversy around Howard’s other films, does talk about how the outlaw was doing for westerns, what Scarface did for the gangster pictures by putting blood and guts on the screen. Now, of course, we talked about the sheer scale of Hells Angels, which caused a lot of media buzz around that. So kind of collectively, as I was watching this and watching the, you know, the outlaw being questioned by the MPAA censorship board. I got the sense that Howard Hughes liked the controversy around his films that the aviator do a good job showing those controversies.

James B. Steele  34:40

I think it did. I mean, he loved the controversy, and he intentionally sort of threw gas on the fire in a number of times. Nothing made him happier than for the Catholic Church to condemn one of his movies, because that immediately felt translated into box office receipts. So there’s no doubt he really, he really enjoyed being controversial. And being kind of a bomb thrower on those kinds of issues. I mean, I think everybody agrees that it was a very mediocre movie. But this certainly stirred up tremendous interest. And that was his modus in his in his later film career, most of his later movies. I mean, none of them ever attained, really, in my book anyway, I mean, I’m not a film critic, but at least the ones I’ve seen, none of them ever really attained. What he did, and Hells Angels, which is really his first film, not the person when he finance but the first film that he directed, and was hands on from beginning to end. All the later ones the Outlaw. There were a whole series of others. Some of the names I can’t remember right now, but there was one. What I remember, was called jet pilot, with John Wayne and Janet Leigh, Tony Curtis, his wife at the time, I believe. And he futzing around with this for years on once again, it was URL sequences with jets and other kinds of things. By the time the movie came out, like years later, it was terribly outdated. I mean, one film critic said that sorry, and silly and anyway, but that’s when his obsessiveness and gotten the best of me. So most of those later, movies really weren’t, weren’t that good. And it was kind of a sad commentary on how I think in some ways his obsessiveness undermined his ability to do those kinds of things later in life, but, but he did like the controversy.

Dan LeFebvre  36:40

I guess that goes back to his what liking to be in the public eye and having that his name in the, in the press there. Yeah,

James B. Steele  36:46

exactly. Exactly. And it just got ingrained in the American public. Well, there’s this rich man, he’s doing all these things now live. Now look, what he’s up to. You never saw him. For the most part, there were rare, public appearances. But all of that built the image built kind of the myth of the larger than life for you. He very much wanted to be,

Dan LeFebvre  37:09

since the theater doesn’t really focus on some of the other movies, it does show them but we don’t see Howard Hughes as involved in them as he is with Hells Angels was he actually involved in those movies at the same time, as you know, with TWA and all these other things that he’s he’s got so much on his plate

James B. Steele  37:25

he was involved in but there were other things on his plate. That’s a good way to put it. Sony wasn’t, you know, of his time, he couldn’t devote as much to them as he could, which was one of the problems, because he insisted on making a lot of these decisions, even though he didn’t have time to make the decision and sorry, became obsessed with the details and couldn’t reach a final decision. So yeah, there were a lot of other things in the TWA battle that was not even touched on in the movie went on for really 20 years, one way or another, and was sapped a lot of his energy, needless to say. So none of those late movies ever attained what the early, partly because he didn’t have time to devote to them, partly because he was distracted. And he, every time he hired somebody who was good half the time these people would walk off the job because of interference by him. So that’s one of the things that haunted him most of his life. He was constantly losing CEOs, managers, directors, because he was a meddler.

Dan LeFebvre  38:34

You mentioned the TWA What was that that the the movie doesn’t show after

James B. Steele  38:40

you gain control over he. Later on, and this is way up to the movie.

James B. Steele  38:50

He had to make the trend TWA had to make the transition to the jet age. And other airlines were ahead of it had already ordered Boeing seven Oh sevens. Boeing was really the first one to really build the Jets. And he didn’t want to just go up to Boeing as another customer. So he talked to another company and to building the Jets company called Convair, which had built prop planes for years. And the cost of them and some of the design problems with the original fleet couldn’t even fly from coast to coast. Under under undermine TWA tremendously. And then the minority stockholders sued him. And the litigation went on for years and years and years. And fact one of the things that may prevent a lot of richness in our book was that lawsuit these TWA stockholders filed because he was was forced to divulge all kinds of private things about his empire that he never wanted out. Talk to us. So he got himself into trouble losing some of his own privacy and secrecy because of his own missteps.

Dan LeFebvre  40:09

Okay, okay because we do in the movie we do see TWA kind of TWA vs pan-am is kind of the battle that we see between the two airlines there. So I guess it sounds like he had a lot of battles to fight with TWA.

James B. Steele  40:21

He did. Exactly.

Dan LeFebvre  40:24

If we go back to the movies storyline in July of 1946, Howard takes a prototype spy plane called the XF Lebanon test flight, the flight lasts for an hour, 45 minutes, just as he’s about to land, the starboard engine sputters and blows out smoke, the plane ends up crashing into a residential area, it slices through people’s homes, we can’t see any people killed on the ground, but to horrible crash nearly kills Howard Hughes, he manages to survive. But now without serious burns that landed in the hospital. Did that crash really happen with the XF 11, the way the movie shows?

James B. Steele  40:57

That is one of the most realistic incidents in the movie, really, of any movie of any crash I’ve ever seen. And I think it’s an absolute depiction of what happened. When the plane landed, sheared off the top of one house crashed into another couple of houses. One of the great miracles was that nobody was in these houses. And the only person hurt in the crash was shoes himself was almost killed. And that crash in that plane are really a key that you Howard for various reasons. One is the injuries were so severe, that he did become addicted to painkillers. And he was actually lucky to live lucky to live. He had all kinds of broken bones and other kinds of problems. And it was a miracle that he actually survived. The other part of it is, you know, this was one of the war contracts that he had to contribute to the war effort. And he’d failed to deliver this plane by the end of the war. I mean, it had not been able to do that. So in a way he had failed the contract even even though it was a beautiful kind of plane. The crash itself, it is really indicative. It almost sums up Howard, perfect. Here’s this, it’s a beautiful plane, the XF 11 has got two engines with rotating props on each in each engine. The Air Force’s commissioned an Air Force lays down very strict rules about how long the test flight should be. They say it should be 45 minutes. And the plane should be loaded with 800 gallons of fuel. What’s Howard do, he loads it with twice that price that much fuel. So right away, he’s thinking, I’m not going to be up there for 45 minutes, I’m going to see how this goes. And I’ll push it. I mean, the same thing had happened to him earlier. In the 30s, when he was test flying a racer, he went too long ran out of gas, I think plane crash didn’t hurt him, Ben. But he’s always pushing the envelope, his core always going a little further than he should in some cases. And if he had taken that flight up, they except for 11 and landed it as the Air Force had wanted. There would have been no crash. But the fact is, he went too long. And as my understanding of my limited knowledge of the planes that upon these test flights, they don’t want to push him real hard. They want the plane to come down. They want to see how everything has behaved and wanna see how the engines perform. Is there something that isn’t right here is there’s too much of the stress here. They’re somewhere else. That’s why they limit the amount of time they’re up there. But Howard went 30 minutes beyond. And as a result, at the end of that 30 minutes, the starboard engine conked out when other propellers began malfunctioning. The plane began to drag that side and then began quickly losing altitude and then crashed in Beverly Hills of all places rather than try couldn’t even get back to his home field. So here you have Howard, some beautiful plane they’ve designed. It has all kinds of possibilities. He Himself wants to be the test pilot because he’s built his thing and kind of designed it parts of the society. He does the test flight he goes too long because why? He has this history of recklessness of pushing the envelope. Sometimes I blow works. Sometimes he doesn’t. But he’s having so much fun up there pine he doesn’t want to quit. And it turns out to be a disaster and he was lucky to live. The Airforce put a total blame for the flight on pilot air. And he went to law they there was so but again that’s why I say it sums up power That’s what made him so interesting. And also so destructive Ubuntu himself. Well, it gets.

Dan LeFebvre  45:06

You mentioned crash earlier in the 30s. I think we move it, we do see a crash. And he’s trying to do it like a speed record in 1935. He ends up crashing and just beat failed was that the way through? Right?

James B. Steele  45:18

Almost the same thing happened there. He, he was having so much fun. The plane was behaving so well. He forgot to look at his gas gauge. And he ran out of gas. And fortunately wasn’t, it was able to land on the soft landing. He was unhurt in that particular flight. But over the years, he had a half a dozen plane crashes, of varying shorts. The XF 11 was the most dramatic, but there were a number of others. I think

Dan LeFebvre  45:49

there’s a line of dialogue in the movie where we see od mentioning that we have 20 test pilots on staff and he’s still up there flying the planes first, what would be fair to say he was an adrenaline junkie.

James B. Steele  46:00

I wouldn’t say so. Well, I mean, the first thing is he loved to fly. And he loved to be the first one to fly one of these planes. Every one of the planes we build it for for speed and the 30s. Gotta had some other test pilot, who was the pilot on his round the world flight that were I think six or seven other crew members, but he was the pilot. So Howard, that’s how we’re also knew that that would bring attention to himself, and then burnish his image even more. So that all goes back to his love of being the center of attention. In terms of the public mine, but not necessarily having to stand. Yeah,

Dan LeFebvre  46:45

yeah. And maybe with some of the crashes being in the public’s attention for the wrong reasons.

James B. Steele  46:51

Right. Exactly.

Dan LeFebvre  46:56

One of the key plot points from the movie we haven’t talked about yet is something that calls the community airline bill or CIB. And the bill ties together a lot of things that we have talked about, but I’m gonna see if I can kind of summarize the way movie sets this up. After Howard bought TWA. He wanted to build planes that could fly across the Atlantic and post World War Two era. So he rebrands trans continental and Western airlines, which is what TWA stood for to Transworld airlines be more global. And then in the process, it turns TWA into a big competitor with another major airlines who wants to fly across the Atlantic we talked about a little bit that being Pan Am on movie we see the president of Panem one trip being a constant thorn in Howard side throughout a lot of the movie, but the competition really heats up when Senator Brewster from Maine wants to pass the CIB. The basic concept of that bill is to make one airline handle all international travel for the United States. The airline just happens to be Panem. Basically, it will give Panama monopoly although Brewster very in the movie, at least he very clearly doesn’t like using that term. If we’re to believe the movies version of history, the CIB Bill was even written by Panem. We even see Senator brucer get the FBI start reading Howard Hughes home trying to find things on him. The senator says he’ll back off if on the investigation if Howard agrees to sell TWA to Panem. Howard refuses. So near the end of the movie, we see snippets of like a multi day Senate hearing from 1947 where Howard is called to answer questions like why he failed to deliver money, the airplanes the XF 11. We talked about what she movie says the Air Force paid 43 million for 100 of them but they never received any. At the hearing though Howard brings up a lot of points about how Brewster is in league with one trip and pan-am the CIB bill, and there are a lot of other airlines who wouldn’t be able to follow through with their orders either. And the end, Howard seems to turn the hearing around on Senator Brewster and the CIB bill fails to pass. How well do you think the movie did setting up and explaining this community airline bill?

James B. Steele  48:59

I think it did a pretty good job on this. I think the main thing which it really did was it showed you had these two powerful men who are competitors in this new emerging international air travel field. And Brewster, I’m sorry, trip through Brewster was using Howard’s poor performance, frankly, in World War Two about producing the aircraft he was commissioned to produce. They were going to use that as the lever to knock him down and get all these other things for themselves. It backfired tremendously. And I think the hearing that we see in the movie is I mean, I’ve actually watched the the videotape of the actual hearing. I mean, that’s one of the things that’s available, one of the few things where you can see he was functional, as he was capable of doing and he’s absolutely brilliant in this thing. I mean, here’s a guy who’s shy doesn’t really like to be in the public. He’s in front of these senators. And he’s excoriating them. He’s the, he’s talking about. I’m just a businessman out there trying to make a living trying to build good aircraft that produce good product and so forth. And you’re here in here haranguing me about this, that and the other. I mean, he was totally at fault. Howard was, he had not delivered on these planes. He spent millions and millions of dollars in government money, a lot of his own money, too. But the fact of the matter is he had not come through as the contracts had said he should. And yet rather than being held up as a failure, as a government contractor, or someone who would run off with public’s money, he turns his whole thing around and says, You guys are the flunkies you’re coming after me. It is honest businessman who’s trying to do all of these things. And for the favor of one trip, a Pan American Airlines, so I’m just not going to stand for that. So as an absolute brilliant performance, capable of the finest Hollywood actor, and it’s added to the amazing thing people forget, he is always slightly removed from his near fatal crash of like, I can’t remember the number of months before night but it wasn’t very long before that he’d almost been killed. So here he is showing up as a Galahad with his sword going to fight these guys on the Dyess who are all flunkies because you’re all lousy politicians are trying to interfere in my life. It’s an absolute bravura performance of the highest order. And if the movie conveyed that antagonism between trip and who’s very, very well, and also how well Howard hadn’t had shut down the investigation investigation. I mean, I thought I thought that was very accurate in just about every way. There were a couple of little details here and there that I’m not familiar with. But generally speaking, importable was very good. It

Dan LeFebvre  51:58

sounds like, as you were saying, it made me think of when we’re talking about the other movies and other things that he’s done that by the time they came out, they were outdated. It almost sounds like maybe it was another thing of like he’s just used to doing taking however long it takes to get this done the way he wants it done. It doesn’t really work with contracts, especially

James B. Steele  52:19

government contracts with taxpayers money, they you’re vulnerable in that area, if you don’t deliver, and you don’t have a good excuse as to why he didn’t deliver. And he didn’t have to do that. mean they dragged out all kinds of things that could be smirked his reputation, but his performance at the witness table is just over. And that’s what people saw on the news in all the news reels at the time. So it’s absolutely astonishing performance, given how vulnerable he really was.

Dan LeFebvre  52:54

Speaking of airplanes that take too long to build another plot point that we see throughout the movie, it finishes at the at the very end. It’s another prototype plane, the Hercules, and according to the movie, the need for this plane comes because Americans are losing ships to German U boats in the Atlantic. So the idea is to fly troops and supplies over the water and said the Hercules is going to be the largest plane ever built. It’s five storeys tall is wingspan longer than a football field capable of transporting a dozen Sherman tank 700 Soldiers across the Atlantic according to the movie, but it takes too long to build. And when the World War Two is over, the US government cancels their Hercules order. But then in the movie, Howard decides to finish building it on his own dime. And in 1947, we see him again, personally doing the first test flight. Well, I guess according to the movie, it was a taxi experiment and Howard and his team were doing in November of 1947. He said he wasn’t going to try to take it in the air until next spring. But then as he’s going in the movie, we see Howard having these flashbacks with the Senate hearing and he’s taxing on the water. And so it seems like okay, he makes the decision to going to try to make her fly. And she does that the plane flies. We don’t really see for how long actually timed I timed how long it was in the movie. It says there’s 58 seconds from when it goes airborne and airborne until the movie cuts to the next scene. So it doesn’t really show exactly how long it was. But how historically accurate was the movies plotline around the Hercules? I

James B. Steele  54:22

again, I think this was very, very accurate. I mean, in the Senate hearing. And I can’t remember if the movie got into this or not. But in the actual Senate hearing the senators kept berating him about these planes that either didn’t function or never flew or whatever. And that stuck in his craw. I mean, the minute he left the Senate hearing, he thought I want to see if we can get the Hercules to fly. How can we finish it? Can we do what we need to do? All his energy went into. So that was a goal he had almost from the very beginning of leaving the Senate here. I’ll show these us scummy politicians up there, you know whose boss that I, this plane will fly. So everything was directed in that in that direction. And I suspect, though it’s ever been nailed down for certain that he always intended to try to take it up in the air that it was, yeah, it was built as a taxing experiment. But when he got out far enough in Long Beach Harbor, and there wasn’t anything, any obstacle ahead of him, he gave it some more gas and lifted off. I think it I can’t remember exactly. I think it flew for about a mile, maybe two miles, something like there wasn’t long, and it was only a little bit off the water, but it did fly. And that was a big deal to Howard. And of all his, of all the things he’d built over the years, the Hercules, which had this pejorative, nameless Spruce Goose was one of those one of his projects, maybe closer to his heart than anything. The building of this plane was an absolute engineering marvel, I mean, there’s a shortage of metal, this entire plane is built out of wood. If you have a piece of metal that such as a part of the wing, you know exactly how much that metal weighs. And if you have another part just like it, it should weigh the same thing. That’s not true of wood. Wood has a different density. So the engineering building challenge of putting together this thing of the size, it was the largest plane ever built, I think it was something surpassed it. Two or three years ago, maybe a Russian plane, I’m not sure exactly. Largest plane ever built for eons. But just the engineering, the building lift was an incredible achievement. And so the fact that flew even for little Howard viewed as a triumph, and also the fact that showed we’re going to build bigger and bigger planes in America. So all of these things flew into it. One last thing about he, Hercules was so close to his heart, because of the energy he had put into all of the decisions to build it. I mean, think of this thing you described it perfectly five storeys, tall, all made out of wood. Just finding the wood and getting that all of this stuff is tremendous challenge. He, after it, he fluid in went back to Long Beach Harbor, where it sat anchored for really until his death. The highest compliment he could give you if you were a visitor before he slipped out of sight was to give you a tour of the of the Hercules and anybody who was accorded that it was like the highest honor to just see the inside of the control panel to the storage areas, all of those things. So Hercules was part of Howard’s whole persona. I mean, it was part of it represented his courage, his defiance of things, the triumph of engineering and design. he cherished that plane to the end of his life, spent a fortune maintaining it, all of his through those years. But nothing was really more important to him in the latter part of his life than what he had done with that play. You

Dan LeFebvre  58:26

mentioned the nickname for the Spruce Goose. And in the movie we see it’s Senator Brewster who came up with that nickname. So I was kind of confused in the movie if, if Howard Hughes Hey, he seems to hate the nickname I should say that. But I wasn’t sure if he hated the nickname but just because of the nickname or if it was because Senator Brewster came up with it. Did he actually hate that nickname?

James B. Steele  58:45

He hated the name. He hated the name because it did seem to minimize the creation. I mean, Hercules, Hercules, Hercules, strong, big, powerful Spruce Goose. I mean, Goose I’ve got nothing against goose’s but geese, but they’re not exactly. You don’t see the Goose on the on the American emblem of, of birds that we want to salute in this country. So I think so he hated the name. I’m not sure exactly who came up with it. But he hated despise that. And I don’t even think you use the term flying boat. I think he used just Hercules.

Dan LeFebvre  59:32

There’s one more major plot point that we see throughout the entire movie I want to ask you about its Howard Hughes germophobia. We see it shown in the movie with the opening scene with Howard is a young boy. And his mother suggests that he’s not safe from illness. And then throughout the whole movie, we see it kind of growing in little bits here and there. There’s a scene with Errol Flynn who eats something off of his plate. So how would you stop eating at all? Or when he seems to trust Katharine Hepburn enough to drink some milk out of a jar after her and then after she leaves him he He burns, all the clothing she’s ever touched even the clothes that he’s wearing after she leaves. And then it’s used with speaking of Senator Brewster, he uses it against him, purposely puts a thumbprint on his glass when he tries to blackmail him into selling TWA. And then, of course, there’s that sequence in the aviator, where Howard seclude himself into the theater for a long time refuses to let anybody in. We even see it grow into what I’m guessing is OCD of some sort, where Howard starts to go into fits of repeating a phrase uncontrollably. There’s some scenes where he covers his mouth with his hands to try to get himself to stop saying things. The very last scene in the movie, after the Hercules testflight is Leonardo DiCaprio keeps repeating the way of the future over and over and he can’t seem to stop. Do you think the movie did a good job portraying Howard Hughes germophobia and OCD throughout his life?

James B. Steele  1:00:50

I think it did in the John Logan, who wrote the screenplay, said some nice things about our work in terms and in part, I think about those parts of it because when we began our research, to tell you the truth, we were just a little bit skeptical of some of the stories we’d heard about the germs like maybe they’re exaggerated. Well, it turned out by the end of our research that they were not exaggerating. I mean, he really had this fear. And the foreshadowing in the beginning with his mistake from his mother, we, that’s a really major part of the early, early part of our book, because we found some letters that she’d written to a Scoutmaster than a camp Howard was at during the summertime, just letter after letter, let’s make sure my boy doesn’t have a cough. If he has a cough, let me know we’ll get him out of camp. And I understand that other boys sick there. I mean, just tremendous. germophobia the mother really, really worried about everything. So from an early age, he sort of became aware of this concept. And, and he also had a weak constitution in a number of ways. He had some allergies and succumb to some things. Anyway. So, but as time went on, this got worse. It was an obsessive compulsive disorder that just got worse and worse is life is is you went through life. And what happened was, you know, a lot of people have low CD issues. But when you’re as rich as Howard, you can surround yourself with flunkies who will cater to every one of these whips. And that’s what he did the last 15 to 20 years of his life. I mean, the fellow who ran Las Vegas for him, Robert Bayh, who never saw him in person, I communicated by a by memo phone call. I mean, he shut himself off from the world the last 15 to 20 years. It was a gradual thing throughout the 50s, or people he had once seen, can no longer see you have to communicate through one of the aides. So he only had half a dozen people around him who ever saw him, they ended the out, because he could control that. Make sure that they were sanitary. He had memos, 567 Page memos, about how to control what he called the backflow of germs. In other words, if somebody had a cold, it don’t get them anywhere near you, or anybody around here, your wife, your kids. What’s What’s the Huawei put up, make sure that doesn’t come back to me. Big thing with there’s one. Some of these things it say they were comical if they weren’t so sad. When they longtime head of Lockheed Aircraft, who we’d known for decades. He said to one of his aides, we need to send flowers to his funeral. But we don’t want that florist sending a bill to us. Somebody needs to have an intermediary to pay him. Under no circumstances, any part of that flowers in your part of that get back to us. That’s the way we’ll present backflow because he was obsessed with this longtime friend who died he thought he had some kind of infectious disease. He didn’t need that for cancer. But he was so obsessed with that whole concept. So I think it does a good job of foreshadowing. By the time you know, 15 or 20 years after where the movie ended. Howard’s on a lot worse shape is really completely isolating himself. Holloway, a handful of people say he’s controlling everything around him, even though he lives in a dozen places. So when those next few years, one place or another. And anybody who said they saw him during those 15 years is basically like, I mean, he sealed himself off completely. Other than this, these handful of guys who answered with every whim and that’s what becomes that’s what becomes so sad about his story, I think in the end when he was young, dashing, handsome, most of his marbles other than his obsessiveness He doesn’t need anybody they can buy when he needs. And somebody crosses me find somebody else who does the work for that person. But when you’re older, and you’re vulnerable, do you need somebody, and he didn’t have anybody. Because he’d cut off everybody. And the ones around him, really didn’t care that much about him. They’re just working for him. They’re gonna get checked, they’re getting paid. And so when he needed somebody to stand up and say, How are you we need to get you to hospital, we need to get you somewhere, he’ll put this that there was nobody, because he cut himself off. That’s part of this tragedy.

Dan LeFebvre  1:05:39

That was I mean, there’s, I was gonna ask him about that, since he has unlimited funds, basically, did he have medical personnel that were around him? I mean, even to help, as you’re saying, the backflow of germs, I would imagine. He’s hiring meteorologists in the movie to find the clouds like I would imagine, maybe he went, Oh, yeah.

James B. Steele  1:05:55

And he’d been unfortunately, you know, the medical staff around him. Were just doing what he wanted. They were writing the prescriptions for coding and other pills that he wanted him to the final result is this. He was was six, three. He weighed 94 pounds when he died. And he had broken off and one of his arms needles, that he had clearly used to inject himself accoding him reboil this stuff died and take it as if somehow admitted liquid.

James B. Steele  1:06:33

He didn’t take the pills. And we obtained an x ray. From the autopsy, the choden is, so it isn’t like hearsay.

James B. Steele  1:06:46

So you’re 94 pounds, you’re six, three was? What can I say? They’d like to have the highest order in one way or another just no doubt about it.

Dan LeFebvre  1:06:57

It says the movie doesn’t it ends after the Hercules testflight in 47. And we’ve kind of talked a little bit about the end of his life. But was there anything else that the movie missed out on at the after the timeline of the movie?

James B. Steele  1:07:08

And that’s, that’s a really good question. I mean, he was on this descent into complete seclusion, but he was still pretty active. The TWA battle for control a TWA consumed him for the next decade and a half. He made a few Floki movies, the 50s were really a wash out, I mean, was really in bad shape there with the drug use and the seclusion and all of these prompts. He kind of got revitalized when he bought Las Vegas. In the 60s. The opportunity to kind of be the Lord of the desert occurred him there let’s let’s have a respectable American businessmen who will know about coming here and buy these things that have been in law written with the mob and clean up Las Vegas and things of that sort. He

Dan LeFebvre  1:07:56

bought he bought the city he said he bought Las Vegas like he bought that. It was

James B. Steele  1:08:00

a number of casinos. Bought a TV station there. developed the close ties with all kinds of Nevada politicians gave them money. And they viewed him as a plus based on what had been a very tawdry image of Vegas because of Chicago and I think Kansas City money and Cleveland money up from the Mott, if I’m not mistaken. So all this was a plus for the city. And Howard wrote that like and he suddenly he’s revitalized. Now he’s not going out in public. He shut up on the top floor of the Desert Inn. casino where nobody can get to him. Nobody can see him. Nope, in Vegas every season. They get memos from him. They get a phone call every once awhile, but they never seen. But this kind of energizes. And this lasts for about, I guess six years, five or six years there. And then when the Vegas stuff starts falling apart for the guy who ran it for him for a while they in and out they parted ways and other things. Howard himself was increasingly losing touch with things. So many parts of the empire were sort of taking advantage of things running on their own. I’m sure some things were skimmed off here and there and so forth. And then in subsidy, I guess 7271 72 He then starts his peripatetic stays around the world. He’s in London is in Vancouver, is in Managua, Nicaragua, he’s in the Bahamas. Then he goes to Mexico, and every one of these places, they take the top floor of some resort hotel. And that’s used his new domain every one of these places. But during this whole time, he’s deteriorating very rapidly. Even even further, he sells who used to accompany during this when he’s living in Nicaragua. And that, of course, brings a lot of money into the Empire as well. But it’s a sad life really. On the 50s, on in many ways, with the one exception of that, that Vegas period, where he has become so interested later is how the rest of the Empire functions without it. And that’s what allowed the book deals with. Because, you know, he sends memos here and there about how to do this then the other thing, but a lot of it’s ignored. A lot of it’s just disrespectful. The one thing though, which is really interesting. He was obsessed by the nuclear testing in Nevada. And at the time, people kind of thought, well, it’s kind of a buddy thing to be worried about? Well, I think you can argue Howard was really onto something there. I mean, in a way, it’s kind of an expansion of the germ phobia, you have these things out there. But I certainly in retrospect, can’t argue with his concern on that, because we’ve never learned what to do with nuclear waste radioactive waste in this country. To this day, we have. So it’s, unfortunately a sad story as it goes on in that regard. But there’s an interesting part of the story I’d like to just tell you about because it fascinated us from the very beginning, as he deteriorated mentally, and he really did with his obsessive compulsive memos, and how to deliver food to him how not to open a door, I mean, all kinds of crazy stuff. When he had to, he could pretend like he was completely sane and rational. And there’s the famous incident of the Clifford Irving biography, auto were Clifford urban, supposedly was writing Howard Hughes, his autobiography, total fraud, said he’d met with us and all these kinds of things. Well, this, this flushed us out in the open in the sense that he had a press conference 1972 Or he had four or five people who had known him back when he was public. And they all ask him questions with this hookup. He was living in the Bahamas at the time. And they said that the story is Howard about having these long fingernails and long hair and all of these things. What used laughs on air, so well, how can I sign the documents I need to sign as running my business side. You know, that’s, that’s very funny. And I made light of the whole thing, when in fact, that is exactly what use was like. But he could rise up to the moment, as sick as he was, and pretend to be normal. It was worth it in the oddities about his obsessive compulsive disorder. Most people were that OCD, they can’t do that. They’re just kind of wacko. But he knew that would not be right with the public, to not be right with this particular thing. So that’s why, to me was a case study unto Himself in terms of that mental illness. And why he, to the end of his life became so. So interesting. Yeah,

Dan LeFebvre  1:12:55

yeah. You mentioned your book there, I really appreciate you coming on to chat about the aviator. So for anyone listening to this or watching this, who wants to learn more about the true story, I would recommend picking up Howard Hughes, his life and madness, which you co wrote with Donald Bartlett. I’ll make sure to add a link to that in the show notes for this episode. But my last question for you is kind of a two parter. The first part is for listeners who want to learn more about the true story we’ve been talking about today. And just ask if you have a favorite story from the book that’s not in the movie to give listeners a peek into that. And then the second part is that biography came out in 2004. So can you give us a peek into more recent work?

James B. Steele  1:13:29

Sure. On your first question, I’m really glad you asked that there are, obviously in a book, there’s a lot of things that a movie can’t cover. And I’m not criticizing the movie, as I look at the movie was very good. But one of the incidents, and it’s not a big part of the book. But I’ve never forgotten the story. Because I happen to have written this part of the book. The first transcontinental flight that Hughes did in 1936, we set a new speed record is to me one of the most dramatic little incidents in his big, amazing life. He’s built his plane, he’s engineered this plane in California, he’s gonna fly to New York, New Jersey, slash New York. The planes got the latest equipment on it. They’ve test run at they’ve done all kinds of things. He was pretty good about that. And he was going to be the pilot. And it was just him. It was a solo flight. So they’re already January 1936. They’re going to fly from LA. to Newark. He takes off and right away, somehow his antenna snaps off. So he doesn’t have radio contact with the ground. And la minute where else across the country. You’re talking 3000 miles you won’t contact. long wait, you’ve been playing nowadays. So it goes through a lot of cloud cover for a while and it’s rough. And then he hits a windstorm somewhere. The snacks the needle off his compass. So now he knows he has doesn’t have radio contact. He doesn’t know exactly where he’s going. Fortunately, he gets out of the clouds. And he spreads a map on his knees of the route that he was going to take. And he’s guessing at this point, and the city will show up here, the city will show up here, you’ll see the lights of the cities. Unfortunately, it was a clear night. But here he is at the control of this plane, just himself, and a map on his knees, watching for lights of cities as it grows across the country. Nine hours later, and plus hours later, he lands at Newark. And he’s set a new transcontinental record. single pilot fly. It’s not a big part of the book. But it’s just tip. I mean, the guy really was, in those early years, an incredibly heroic figure. He made nothing Elvis at the time the speaker. But when he dealt back to the details, he saw exactly what had happened there. And I just I’ve in my own mind, I mean, I’m not a pilot, but I can just imagine it sitting thing was cockpit of this little plane, the engine whirring in front of you. When think of the energy, it takes the whole something like that for nine hours. And at the same time, have a mat spread out on your lap. And still trying to figure out well, is that Columbus, Ohio? Or is that Cincinnati?

Dan LeFebvre  1:16:38

I need GPS in my car [laughs]

James B. Steele  1:16:42

I mean, we’re so used to not having to do anything anymore. So it’s there’s a lot of incidents in the book like that. But I’ve never forgotten that one because it just kind of sums up the guy in so many ways. After he was one of the things that we covered in the latter part of the book was a lot of the influence us had on the political system politicians. So that I always were very, very interested in this subsequently wrote books about political influence on Capitol Hill. Back in 1991, or 92, wrote a book on the economic pressures on the middle class America, fomented by policies in Washington largely, and what should be done about this. So we’ve done an awful lot of things about growing income inequality. So a range of things over the years of everything and one book about health care the American healthcare system. So I have had a very fortunate career in that sense to look at a lot of these different issues. But I have to tell you that to this day, the single largest project we ever did was to Hughes biography. I mean, just in terms of the length of the mammoth size of the research involved there. So it, it kind of stands alone on the kinds of stuff we’ve done over the years.

Dan LeFebvre  1:18:02

And tasking, we’ll make sure to add a link to that in the show notes. Thank you again, so much for your time. Dan,

James B. Steele  1:18:07

this has been great being with you and really wonderful questions about it. Fantastic guy. Thanks so much.

April 17th, 1865. Washington, D.C.

We’re in the middle of a movie montage.

Newspaper headlines are crossing the screen.

One headline is dated Saturday, April 15th and says, “President Lincoln Murdered” and the “Nation in shock.”

Another shows photographs of three men and says there’s a $100,000 reward for the murderer. That paper is dated April 20th, 1865. The next paper is hard to see the date on, but it mentions Stanton orders troops to close down Washington, D.C.

Then, we see soldiers arresting a man hiding in a building. In another shot, they’re arresting someone on a train. Another man is arrested while he’s sleeping. Then, we see them arresting some women and putting them in the back of a barred wagon. The newspaper that floats above this screen tells us the “Surratt Boarding House Raided.”

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie The Conspirator

If you remember from last week’s edition of Based on a True Story, John Wilkes Booth shot President Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre in the Washington, D.C. on the evening of April 14^th, 1865. This is a continuation of that storyline as it’s shown in the 2010 movie The Conspirator, and although it doesn’t focus too much on the dates between the April 15th and April 20th newspaper headlines that we see, it was this week in history on April 17th, 1865, that Mary Surratt was arrested as a conspirator in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.

Because we only see a montage of newspapers, we don’t see much of the actual event.

What happened was that Mary’s oldest son, John, was a known associate to many former Confederates during the Civil War who were now suspected in the assassination conspiracy: David Herold, Lewis Powell and John Wilkes Booth, to name a few.

So, on the evening of April 17th, investigators were at Surratt’s home in D.C. to interview her about the assassination. While they were there, Lewis Powell happened to show up, knocking on the door. He was carrying a pick-axe, which seemed rather suspicious.

When asked about it, Powell told the investigators he had been hired by Mary Surratt to dig a gutter. When they asked Mary to confirm this, she said she didn’t know who he was and she certainly didn’t hire him to dig a gutter.

That, coupled with some evidence that included a photo of John Wilkes Booth, was enough for the investigators to arrest Mary Surratt. Some other conspirators were arrested this week in history, too, with Samuel Arnold also being arrested on April 17th, although some others weren’t caught until next week, like John Wilkes Booth and David Herold were found in a barn on April 26th.

But if you want to watch the arrests and subsequent trial of Mary Surratt, the montage starts at about 14 minutes into the 2010 movie called The Conspirator.

And if you want to learn more about the true story, we covered that on episode #175 of Based on a True Story.

April 18th, 1942. Tokyo.

The camera pans up from the water to the aircraft carrier.

On the deck are a bunch of airplanes waiting to take off. But, these aren’t the kind of airplanes you’d expect to see on an aircraft carrier. They’re B-25s: Bombers. Inside the carrier, the radar operator calls out a warning. Japanese patrol boats are only 400 yards away and closing! The captain gives the order to go to general quarters. They have to sink the Japanese before they give away the Americans’ position.

A klaxon alarm goes off as sailors run this way and that on the ship.

One of the men inside the bridge says they were supposed to launch 400 miles away, how far are we now? 624 miles is the reply.

With the new numbers, one of the men starts doing a quick calculation. Then, he looks up at Alec Baldwin’s version of Colonel Jimmy Doolittle. “I don’t know,” he tells Doolittle. He says he just doesn’t know if the planes can carry enough fuel to make it to China.

A moment later, Doolittle makes his decision: Now. We launch now!

In the next shot, we see a flurry of men. Doolittle orders the planes to be stripped of anything unnecessary to make room for fuel. It’s a fine balance of having enough fuel to make up the extra miles, but not so much that the planes will be too heavy to get off the carrier.

More gas is added to each plane as guns are removed to lighten up the planes.

The two pilots the movie focuses on mostly are Ben Affleck’s character, Rafe McCawley and Josh Hartnett’s character, Danny Walker. Then, of course, there’s Colonel Doolittle, who is also flying one of the planes.

One by one, the B-25s start taking off. There were a few close calls, but everyone gets away okay. As the last two take off, we can see in a single shot there are 16 B-25s in the skies now.

The next shot follows the bombers are they fly over land.

Rafe calls back to the other men on the plane, identifying the land as Japan. It’s time to man your guns!

Over an industrial part of town, the bombers open their doors and start dropping bombs. Explosions rip through the buildings below as we can see people running away from the flames and glass flying everywhere.

From below, the sound of an air raid siren can be heard. Japanese defenders start shooting back with their anti-aircraft guns. The B-25s are trying to dodge the flack, but it’s everywhere. Some of the planes get hit, leaving holes in the side as air starts whipping around inside.

Back in the United States, a general delivers an update to President Roosevelt. He says that Doolittle had to advance the plan by 12 hours. They won’t have enough fuel to return to the mainland.

Back with the planes, Colonel Doolittle breaks radio silence. He tells the men he’s sorry. You’re all brave souls, he says, but we’re on our own.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie Pearl Harbor

This event comes from the 2001 movie called Pearl Harbor and it depicts something that happened this week in history: The bombing of Tokyo during what we now know as the Doolittle Raid.

The movie was correct to suggest the bombers weren’t trying to return to the carriers to land. They learned that in the training for the mission, which began in January of 1942. The reason was simply because landing a bomber on a carrier was much more difficult than taking off.

So, the plan was to drop their bombs and then head to China.

The movie was also correct to show them stripping the planes down by removing guns and adding an extra gas tank. They really did paint broomsticks in the hopes it’d deter Japanese fighters from attacking the bombers, but it’s not like they did it mere minutes before they were going to launch.

With that said, though, the plan was forced to happen ahead of time. That was because a little after 3:00 AM on April 18th, a Japanese boat was detected. The American task force tried to evade the Japanese ship, only to find yet another one on radar. At about 7:30 AM, another Japanese patrol boat was spotted about 11 miles or 18 kilometers away. The movie was also correct to show 16 B-25s.

The movie was wrong to suggest it was all Doolittle’s decision to launch, though.

Another huge thing the movie got wrong was to suggest that two pilots from Pearl Harbor were involved. I’m talking, of course, of the Danny and Rafe characters from the movie—they’re not real, and they weren’t involved in the Doolittle Raid.

In truth, it was Admiral Halsey, who was leading the task force that carried the B-25s. Once Japanese patrol boats started showing up, he didn’t want to risk the American carriers getting any closer so he issued the order for Doolittle to launch.

Doolittle’s B-25s managed to drop bombs on targets in Tokyo, Yokosuka, Yokohama, Kobe and Nagoya, Japan. They didn’t encounter much resistance due in large part to their attack being a complete surprise to the Japanese.

Of the 16 B-25s, 15 of them crashed into occupied China. One landed in the Soviet Union, where it was captured intact.

The targets bombed by the Americans that day didn’t have much of a strategic effect on the war. It did, however, have a massive morale boost for Americans as well as being the first time the war was brought to the Japanese homeland.

If you want to watch the event that happened this week in history, check out 2001’s Pearl Harbor and the Doolittle Raid starts at about two hours and 31 minutes into the movie.

We dug deeper into the true story with historian Marty Morgan on episode #212 of Based on a True Story.

April 21st, 1918. France.

A young man leaves a tent with a young woman. He’s wearing a gray hat striped with red along with a gray sweater. She’s wearing a red and white striped robe as she puts a white scarf around his neck.

“What a great day to fly,” he says to her.

She says he’s a brave man and with a smile, he walks away. Following him are some other soldiers. We can see the clearing where the tent is located is actually an airfield. There are some biplanes and triplanes scattered about the airfield.

A uniformed pilot starts to get into one of the green and white-colored triplanes.

The man from earlier in the gray sweater is standing by an all-red triplane. There’s sad music playing in the movie as he looks around to some of the other pilots, each one getting in their planes. He looks back at the woman, who is just standing there watching him.

Then, he climbs into the red plane.

“Contact!” someone yells as the engine kicks to life.

From the cockpit, he looks right at her. She smiles and the scene fades to black.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie The Red Baron

That scene comes from the 2018 movie called The Red Baron as it depicts the start of an event that happened this week in history: The day the Red Baron was shot down and killed.

Although the movie doesn’t show the actual event itself. It shows them getting in the plane, then it cuts to two weeks afterward, so let’s fill in some historical context about the true story.

Manfred Albrecht von Richthofen, who was known as The Red Fighter Pilot during his lifetime and is more commonly known today as The Red Baron. Since he was the only one in the plane that day, it’s worth pointing out that there has been a lot of debate among historians about exactly what happened.

But as best as we can tell, Richthofen was hit by a bullet during aerial combat just after 11:00 AM on April 21st, 1918 while flying over Northern France near the Somme River. Richthofen was flying with his cousin, Wolfram von Richthofen, so I’ll use their first names since they have the same last name.

The two Germans were battling two Canadian Sopwith Camels, one piloted by Wilfrid May and the other by Arthur Brown.

May attacked Wolfram’s plane, causing Manfred to come to his cousin’s defense. That’s when Brown attacked Manfred’s plane. He dodged Brown’s attack, something that was stopped short when Brown had to pull out of a dive to avoid hitting the ground. Somewhere around there is when we think Manfred was hit by a bullet in the chest. It’s believed he was dead less than a minute later, but his plane stalled, dove and hit the ground hard.

Witnesses on the ground who were nearby said Richthofen was already dead when they got to the crashed plane. At the time, Arthur Brown was credited with the kill. Although, as I mentioned, there’s been a lot of debate over exactly what happened and most people these days think it was actually an anti-aircraft round that struck and killed Richthofen.

There have been a number of investigations into the angles of the anti-aircraft from the Royal Australian Artillery units that were firing into the sky that day, and different investigations came away with some varying answers as to who might’ve been the one to deliver the fatal shot.

If you want to watch Richthofen’s story this week, check out the 2018 movie called The Red Baron and he takes off for the last time at about an hour and 34 minutes into the film.

April 9th, 1865. Appomattox County, Virginia.

We’re at a two-story brick building. The front porch has six columns with a wide staircase in the center. Although it’s a brick building, any wood on the porch, railings for the stairs and on the balcony above the porch all adds a white trim to the building.

On the porch, we can see a bunch of men in the Union’s dark blue uniforms. At the foot of the stairs is a single man wearing a gray Confederate uniform. He’s wearing a hat, sporting a white beard. Another Confederate soldier leads an elegant white horse and the officer gets on.

The camera cuts to the front of the building now where we can see Union General Ulysses S. Grant. He’s played by Jared Harris in the movie.

Grant stands at the top of the stairs, surrounded by six other soldiers in Union blue. He looks at the man on the horse: Christopher Boyer’s character, General Robert E. Lee.

The two foes look at each other in silence for a moment.

Then, Grant steps down from the front porch and walks over to General Lee’s horse. After a moment longer just looking at each other, General Grant takes off his hat. Back on the porch, the rest of the Union officers follow Grant’s lead. They remove their hats in a gesture that I can only assume is out of respect for General Lee.

Lee looks at the men for a moment. Then, tips his hat as his horse backs away. Turning around, two other Confederate soldiers on horseback follow Lee as they walk away from the building.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie Lincoln

That portrayal comes from the 2012 movie called Lincoln and it depicts an event that happened this week in history: The surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

But in the true story, there was a battle that took place before the event we saw in the movie.

The building we see in the movie is near the Appomattox Court House and before surrendering, General Lee’s army of about 28,000 soldiers fought with General Grant’s armies. While a large number, some estimate only about 10,000 of them even had rifles. So, they weren’t well-equipped.

At the Appomattox train station, Lee was expecting a train with supplies. But, on April 8th, there was a battle at the station that saw the Union cavalry burning the supply train.

On the other side, the Union army had over 60,000 soldiers with much better supplies. They were closing in on General Lee’s soldiers.

In the early morning hours of April 9th, Lee’s chances of escaping were slim. But, he held on hope. Near the Appomattox Court House, Lee’s men battled with Union troops in what Lee hoped would be a thin line that he could get through easily. He’d hoped that once his men broke through Union lines, they could escape to North Carolina where they could resupply and continue fighting.

But, that was a lot of hoping. And they didn’t escape.

General Lee sent a note to General Grant to discuss surrender.

The actual meeting itself took place in the home of a man named Wilmer McLean.

While it’s impossible to know for sure what was on General Lee’s mind, some sources suggest he let his staff know he was wearing his finest uniform that day on the chance he might be taken prisoner. If that’s going to happen, he wanted to look his best. On the other hand, General Grant rode for miles around his armies to arrive at the meeting. His uniform was muddy compared to General Lee’s uniform.

Lee arrived at McLean’s home at about 1:00 PM. Grant arrived at about 1:30.

And at first, General Grant wasn’t really sure how to approach the topic of surrender—so they talked about the Mexican-American War for about 25 to 30 minutes or so.

That topic was brought up because it was the last time Grant and Lee met face-to-face. It was before the American Civil War, but it was a time when Lee and Grant were both in the United States Army. It was before Lee turned down President Lincoln’s offer to command the U.S. Army and instead resigned to take a commission from the Confederate Army.

Finally, General Lee suggested they change topics to the matter at hand: Surrender.

The basic terms of the surrender amounted to the Confederate soldiers being allowed to go home without being pursued or prosecuted as long as they didn’t take up arms again. Officers were allowed to keep their horses and side arms, which usually amounted to their sword. That was a move that many think was to help the surrender go over smoothly by avoiding embarrassment for the Confederate officers.

So, when Grant’s terms basically meant they could go home if they laid down their arms and stopped fighting, that was acceptable. At about 3:00 PM, the meeting was over. Grant made his way to the Appomattox Station where he sent a telegram to President Lincoln letting him know about Lee’s surrender.

While it wasn’t officially the end of the war, General Lee was the overall commander of the Confederate Army so when he surrendered it triggered more surrenders. It was, in effect, the beginning of the end of the Civil War.

If you want to watch the event that happened this week in history, check out the 2012 movie simply called Lincoln and the scene with General Lee surrendering takes place at about two hours, 13 minutes and five seconds into the film.

And if you want to learn more about the true story behind that movie, we covered that with Lincoln scholar Dr. Brian Dirck over on episode #170 of Based on a True Story.

April 13th, 1970. Houston, Texas.

The room we’re in has a row of green computer systems. Of course, they’re not the kind of computers you’d expect to see today—it’s 1970, after all. Most of the computers have operators sitting behind them. The operators all have headsets on. One of the men in the room is standing up as he gives orders to someone not in the room.

He says we’d like you to roll right to 0-6-0 and null your rates.

On the other end of the radio communication, Kevin Bacon’s version of Jack Swigert confirms the order: Roger that, rolling right to 0-6-0.

Back on Earth, another command gets issued: Oh, and go ahead and give your oxygen tanks a stir. Swigert confirms this order, too, and he reaches to the control panel for switches that say “O2 Fans.”

The camera zooms along some lines and electricity crackles. There’s an explosion and alarms start buzzing. Metal banging can be heard as Swigert and the two other men inside Apollo 13 look around. Back at the command center, the computers are flashing indicators. Some of the operators sit back with their hands raised.

“Whoa! Hey. What happened?”

They look around trying to figure out what just happened. The camera cuts to Tom Hanks’ character, Jim Lovell, who says, “Houston, we have a problem.”

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie Apollo 13

That scene comes from the movie named after the spacecraft they were on: Apollo 13. The event it’s depicting is when the disaster started for the astronauts on board, which happened this week in history.

The movie’s portrayal of this event is pretty accurate, although I have to point out one thing that might spoil this scene for you: Jim Lovell’s now famous quote because of the movie wasn’t really: “Houston, we have a problem.”

The actual line was: “Houston, we’ve had a problem.”

Or, in context, here is the communication that took place between the ground and Apollo 13.

055:52:58 Capsule Communicator (CAP COMM)

13, we’ve got one more item for you, when you get a chance. We’d like you to stir up your cryo tanks. In addition, I have shaft and trunnion–

055:53:06 Command Module Pilot: John L. Swigert, Jr.

Okay.

055:53:07 Capsule Communicator (CAP COMM)

– for looking at the Comet Bennett, if you need it.

055:53:12 Command Module Pilot: John L. Swigert, Jr.

Okay. Stand by.

055:55:19 Lunar Module Pilot: Fred W. Haise, Jr.

Okay, Houston – –

055:55:20 Commander James A. Lovell, Jr.

I believe we’ve had a problem here.

055:55:28 Capsule Communicator (CAP COMM)

This is Houston. Say again, please.

055:55:35 Commander James A. Lovell, Jr.

Houston, we’ve had a problem. We’ve had a MAIN B BUS UNDERVOLT.

055:55:42 Capsule Communicator (CAP COMM)

Roger. MAIN B UNDERVOLT.

055:55:58 Capsule Communicator (CAP COMM)

Okay, stand by, 13. We’re looking at it.

055:56:10 Lunar Module Pilot: Fred W. Haise, Jr.

Okay. Right now, Houston, the voltage is – is looking good. And we had a pretty large bang associated with the CAUTION AND WARNING there. And as I recall, MAIN B was the one that had had an amp spike on it once before.

055:56:40 Capsule Communicator (CAP COMM)

Roger, Fred.

Part of the reason I wanted to include some of the transcript from NASA is to point out that even though the iconic “Houston, we have a problem” line wasn’t quite what was really said, the movie does a great job of depicting the event overall. We heard them ask to stir the tanks, then a problem happened soon after.

While they couldn’t have known it at the time, after they managed to make it safely home, a review board found fault with the testing of Teflon added to the oxygen tank. In a nutshell, the switches for the tank weren’t rated for enough volts and it seems the oxygen tank that blew up had undergone tests that could’ve detected the issue.

In tests, the Teflon insulation being used was damaged. So, when they stirred the tanks there was an electrical discharge through some cabling that set the tank on fire. One of the panels blew off the tank, damaging another of the oxygen tanks.

What came after that gripped the nation in a way that led to over 40 million Americans watching when Apollo 13 splashed down.

If you want to watch the event that happened this week in history, though, it starts at about 50 minutes and 30 seconds into the 1995 Apollo 13 movie. And we covered it in more depth on episode #15 of Based on a True Story.

April 14th, 1865. Washington, D.C.

It’s nighttime. Some men are looking at a nice house from behind some bushes. One of the men sneaks inside the home. There are a lot of people in there, but we can tell from how the man inside is sneaking around that he’s not supposed to be there.

Back outside, another of the men still with the horses looks around to make sure no one is noticing them. No one seems to.

One of the men knocks on a door. From inside, we can see a man lying on a bed. A woman sits next to the bed with a man in uniform standing nearby. The man on the bed clearly isn’t feeling well.

Downstairs, someone answers the man knocking at the door. He says he has a package for Secretary Seward.

Then the camera cuts to a playhouse. On stage, two actors are putting on a performance in front of a full audience. Another cut and we can see a young couple chatting, then kissing.

Back at the theater, a man sneaks into a doorway. He ties something to the door after entering it, then looking through a little round hole we can see a couple in the foreground and in the background are the actors on stage down below.

In another cut, we’re now with a man who is drinking. He nervously looks over his shoulder and notices a man in uniform there. He takes another shot, then rushes out of the building.

Meanwhile, back at the house, the man runs up a staircase. He takes aim at the guard sitting next to a door, but the pistol only clicks when he tries to shoot. He rushes the man, knocking him out before turning to a door the man was guarding.

Inside the door, we see the man in what looks like a neck brace sitting in bed with the woman next to him. The man bursts through, immediately being met by another guard who was inside the room. He stabs the guard before pushing the woman away and jumping on the man on the bed, stabbing him numerous times.

The woman runs to the window and starts yelling for help.

Next we’re back at the playhouse. The lines being said by the man and woman on stage doesn’t even really matter to us, the viewing audience at home, but the audience in the movie seems to like them as laughter ripples through the crowd.

The camera cuts to above the stage. A man sneaks into a private booth. While everyone is focusing on the play on stage, we can see a gun extending forward.

A gunshot.

People in the audience scream and a struggle ensues in the box above the stage.

All of a sudden, a man jumps down on stage as the audience tries to understand what’s happening.

The man on stage raises one hand and yells, “Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged!”

Then, he hobbles off the stage. In the alley, a horse is waiting. He hops on the horse and runs into the darkness of the night.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie The Conspirator

That depiction comes from the 2010 movie called The Conspirator and it’s showing an event that really did happen this week in history: The assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.

And just like the movie shows, President Lincoln wasn’t the only one attacked that night.

They believed President Lincoln was a greater tyrant than Julius Caesar and thought they’d be honored after killing Lincoln. But, killing Lincoln alone wasn’t enough to throw the government into turmoil.

The plan that night was to assassinate three people: President Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Henry Seward.

All three were supposed to be killed at 10:15 PM on April 14th.

The man we see in the movie who is in his bed is Secretary of State William Henry Seward. And it is true that he was bedridden in his home when the assassination attempt took place. The woman by the bed was Seward’s daughter, Fanny, who was staying with him so he wouldn’t be alone. At 11 PM, his son would take a turn by their dad’s bed.

There were a couple soldiers there, too.

Just like we see in the movie, the man arrived at the door saying he was carrying a package. The movie doesn’t get too specific with it, but we know from history it was medicine. He said he was told to deliver it to Seward himself since no one else knew how to administer the medicine. But, one of Seward’s sons stopped him and said his dad was asleep and he’d take the medicine so as to not disturb him.

That’s when the intruder stopped trying to get into the room peacefully. He drew a revolver and shot at the son. The gun misfired, a lot like we see happen in the movie, and so the attacker used it as a club instead. He burst inside the room, knocking down the soldier inside the room first.

Then, he attacked Seward in bed, stabbing him with his large knife multiple times.

While they couldn’t know it that night, but Secretary of State Seward would end up surviving the attack. His neck and face bore the scars of his attack for the rest of his life.

Meanwhile, another attack on Vice President Andrew Johnson was underway. In the movie, that’s the guy we see drinking at the bar. And in the movie, we see him end up getting scared off and abandoning the assassination plan.

That is true.

The man who was supposed to assassinate Johnson ended up getting drunk instead.

Of course, we know the third assassination did go according to plan.

John Wilkes Booth was an actor who was known by people at the theater. After all, Booth himself had performed there. So, he was able to gain entrance to the president’s box rather easily since his presence wasn’t anything abnormal.

John Wilkes Booth snuck into the box at about 10:12 PM, raised his pistol to the back of Lincoln’s head and fired.

Hearing the shot, the other man in the box, Henry Rathbone, grabbed at Booth. But Booth sliced at Rathbone with his knife and jumped to the stage. That was about 15 feet, or 4.5 meters below the box where Booth jumped from. As he did, though, one of the spurs on his boots got caught up in the flag draped over the front of the president’s box.

So, he hit the stage hard, breaking one of his legs. Still, he got up and yelled the line we see in the movie: Sic semper tyrannis!

That’s Latin for “Thus always to tyrants,” something Booth believed Lincoln to be. Although he wasn’t killed immediately, President Lincoln was taken across the street to a boarding house that was away from the theater. That’s where he died in the morning hours of April 15th.

If you want to see the event that happened this week in history, though, check out the 2010 movie called The Conspirator. The planned assassinations start at about five minutes into the movie.

And if you want to learn more about the true story, we covered that movie with Lincoln scholar Dr. Brian Dirck over on episode #175.

April 14th, 1912. North Atlantic Ocean.

We’ve already done our three events this week, but there’s another major one that I have to include.

The camera is focused on a man wearing a cap. He’s blowing on his hands and rubbing them together to keep warm. Down below, he notices a man and a woman. They’re holding each other’s hand as they run and laugh together.

Meanwhile, two sailors smile as they see the couple down below. They turn around, continuing to chuckle as they look at the ocean before them. One of the men starts to look more closely at something in the distance. The camera zooms in on his face as the smile disappears and a concerned look replaces it.

All of a sudden, he reaches for the bell and starts ringing it. Below, the sound of the bell alerts other sailors. One of the lookouts calls down below. When the man on the other end picks up, he asks what they see.

The lookout yells, “Iceberg, right ahead!”

Down below, the sailor runs to the bridge and relays the news. In a flurry of activity, they try to turn the big ship while reversing the engines in an attempt to avoid a collision. Men all over the ship are doing their part to try and get the ship to respond to their commands as fast as possible.

From above, the lookouts can see the iceberg. It’s still straight ahead, nothing seems to be changing their course. After a few more moments, the flurry of activity finally starts to take its toll on the ship’s direction. Slowly, it starts turning.

For a moment, it looks like it might work.

But, they’re not turning fast enough. The ship scrapes by the iceberg, causing a rumble and horrible-sounding metallic scraping. We can see the inside of the hull being ripped open, allowing water to start flowing inside. In the engine room, water starts pouring in, causing massive amounts of steam from the fires lit to power the engines. It’s a race against time as the rooms are being shut off to prevent water from spreading. The men try to make it out before the rooms close. Some do, some don’t.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie Titanic

I’m sure you already know what movie that comes from: 1997’s blockbuster named after the ship that sank 108 years ago this week in history: Titanic.

The movie did a pretty good job of showing the event, although the young couple—Jack and Rose—were fictional characters of course, so they weren’t there.

At 11:40 PM on April 14th, a lookout by the name of Frederick Fleet spotted the iceberg. And just like we see in the movie, after alerting the crew about the iceberg, they tried to turn hard to starboard—or, a lefthand turn.

But, there just wasn’t enough time. 37 seconds passed between the time the lookout saw the iceberg to the moment it scraped the right side of RMS Titanic.

Within ten minutes, there was about 14 feet of water and rising inside the front of the ship where it was hit. At 12:00 AM on April 15th, the captain of the ship, Captain Edward Smith, got an assessment of the damage. That’s when they realized Titanic can only stay afloat for another two hours and Captain Smith ordered the women and children into the lifeboats first.

At 12:45, the first lifeboat was lowered into the water. There has been a lot of controversy around the lifeboats on Titanic because, for one, there weren’t enough of them for all the passengers. Secondly, the lifeboats that were there were being lowered into the water before they were even full.

There are reports of lifeboats being lowered with only 28 people when it could fit 65 people.

A little after 2:00 AM, the last lifeboat was lowered into the water. There were over 1,500 people still on the boat.

At 2:18 AM, the last radio message from Titanic was sent out just before she snapped in half, sinking at 2:20 AM. The first boat to arrive on location was almost a couple hours later at 4:10 AM when Carpathia arrived to look for survivors. After they were all picked up, at about 8:50 AM they made their way to New York.

Two days later, another ship arrived at the location where Titanic sank and started searching for bodies in the water. Then, on April 18th, Carpathia arrived in New York with 705 survivors of the 2,240 passengers and crew on board Titanic when it sank.

If you want to watch the event that happened this week in history, check out the James Cameron classic film Titanic. The iceberg sequence starts at about an hour and 37 minutes into the movie, and even though it carried over into the early morning hours of the 15^th—so just barely into next week—but there were multiple things that happened this week in history: For example, Titanic left Ireland this week in history as well.

We see that at about 26 minutes into the movie, that’s when Jack got onto the ship. Of course, that didn’t happen the way we see it in the movie since Jack wasn’t a real person, but the event we see happening took place on April 10th. So, if there’s a good week to watch that whole movie, this is it!

And if you want to learn more about the true story, we covered that movie way back on episode #35 of Based on a True Story.

April 1st, 1934. Grapevine, Texas.

As our first movie of the week starts, on the screen we can see the entrance to a building. Its white stones are stained and discolored by years of farm use. Two cows stick their noses out of the open windows just as a man in overalls emerges from the open doorway. The windows don’t have any glass. Then again, the doorway doesn’t seem to have a door in it.

On the left side of the frame is a fenced-in pasture covered in mud and hoof prints. I’m guessing those were made by the cows watching the man who just left the building through its open doorway.

He’s wearing a well-used pair of blue overalls and sporting a beard with gray hair that’s sprinkled with white. He’s also carrying a white pail as he exits the building, going about what we can only assume are his morning chores.

As he walks further from the building, the camera pans around him and we can see there’s also a horse in the pasture behind the building. He walks past the building he just came out of, making his way to the pasture on the other side of it. There’s a lot more green grass on that side of the building.

The man stops in his tracks.

He seems to have noticed something that now we can see, too. On the dirt road in the distance, just beyond the pasture, he can see a car. It’s stopped. In front of the car, facing the opposite direction, are two motorcycles. No one is on the motorcycles, though, but there are two uniformed police officers walking from their parked motorcycles toward the stopped car.

The farmer watches from a distance as the door of the car opens.

We can hear one of the officers ask if the people in the car are all right.

Just then, gunfire erupts. Smoke can be seen in the distance as the farmer in the foreground of the camera angle instinctively ducks for cover. He drops the pail, spilling the milk inside, but he doesn’t run. He drops to his knees as he watches the event unfold in front of him.

The camera looks a little closer now and we can see two figures beside the parked car. One is a man dressed in a suit, the other a woman in a red dress.

On the ground between the car and the motorcycles are two bodies lying still—the police officers who were approaching the car. The woman in the red dress walks up to one of the policemen on the ground, points her shotgun at the man’s face and without hesitation, from the farmer’s perspective we can hear the sound and see the smoke from the gun blast.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie The Highwaymen

That’s a segment from the 2019’s The Highwaymen, and the event it’s depicting is a very real event that happened this week in history when the notorious outlaws Bonnie and Clyde murdered two Grapevine police officers on April 1st, 1934.

And even though the movie doesn’t show things from the perspective of Bonnie and Clyde, it does a pretty good job showing what happened that day. For example, it’s correctly showing the two officers were approaching a vehicle that was stopped on the road. It was also correct to show there was a witness, although the movie leaves out the farmer’s two daughters who were also there that Easter morning.

William Schieffer was doing his normal Sunday morning chores around the farm just like we see in the movie when he saw two people driving by in a car very slowly—they appeared to be looking at the grass as if they were searching for something. He recalled later it was a young man and a young woman, she had a white rabbit in her lap.

Schieffer’s daughters, Isabella Schieffer, and Elaine Adams, came outside to help their dad at about the same time as the sound of motorcycles were heard. There were two of them, and they stopped near the now parked car that the young couple had been driving.

They didn’t know it at the time, but looking at this from a historical lens most believe the two patrolmen thought the stopped Ford had broken down, so they were going to help out the young couple inside. After all, it was 1934, and it’s not like cell phones or even telephones, in general, were popular in rural Texas.

This all took place on Dove Road just off Highway 114 in what’s now Southlake, Texas.

While we only see one person watching in the movie, in truth it was three onlookers, the farmer and his daughters, who stood some 100 yards or so away as the two patrolmen walked up the car. Before they could get close, the sound of a gun rang and one of the patrolmen, Edward Wheeler, fell to the ground. He was killed instantly. The other, Holloway Murphy, wasn’t killed when the first shot hit him. He fell to his side on the ground.

And that’s when, just like we see in the movie, Bonnie walked up to the man and shot him at point-blank range.

Or maybe it was both Bonnie and Clyde who walked up, there are some conflicting reports of Schieffer and his daughters’ account, but most agree it was Bonnie who pulled the trigger killing the other patrolman.

We don’t see it in the movie, but there were other witnesses to the event as well. Although the Schieffers were the best witnesses since it was near their farm. But Jack Cook, another resident who lived nearby, happened to see the young couple just before the shootings. Then shortly after, another couple—Mr. and Mrs. Giggals—were on a Sunday morning drive on Highway 114 and had just passed Dove Road when they heard the shots. They turned around to see what happened and, according to them, the shooters saw them, got in their car and sped away.

In the aftermath of the event, Texas law enforcement reached out to Frank Hamer, a former Texas Ranger who, as it turned out, was already on the hunt for Bonnie and Clyde.

If you want to watch the event that happened this week in history, check out the 2019 movie The Highwaymen. The Grapevine killings are at about 45 minutes and 20 seconds into the film. And if you want to learn more about the true story behind the hunt for Bonnie and Clyde, check out episode #178 of Based on a True Story.

April 3rd, 1882. St. Joseph, Missouri.

On the screen in our next movie is a man operating a hand pump. There’s water splashing out into a bowl he has sitting beneath the pump. He looks up and sees another man who is just sitting there on the other side of tall grass.

“Mornin’,” the man at the pump calls out.

The other man looks up but doesn’t reply.

“Charley,” the man says again. Again, no reply, just a stern look.

The man at the hand pump is Casey Affleck’s character, Robert Ford, while the other man sitting behind the grass and not replying is Robert’s brother, Charley Ford, and he’s played by Sam Rockwell in the movie.

Robert splashes some water on his face.

The scene cuts to a father and son walking down a dirt road. As they get closer, Robert makes a comment to the father—asking him if it’s a good idea to go out like that so everyone can see his guns. In a defiant but wordless reply, the father tucks his jacket coat behind the gun so it’s even easier to see.

The two pass through a gate behind Robert and, after playing with his daughter who runs around the house to greet her father, the father and two children walk inside the house. Robert stays outside for a moment before going inside, too.

The father is Brad Pitt’s character in the movie, Jesse James.

Inside, Robert notices the headlines of a newspaper that Jesse threw on the sofa when he entered. Looking closer, we can see the words “The arrest and confession of Dick Liddil.”

Robert’s mouth opens slightly as he reads it. He glances to the other room where we can see Jesse going about getting ready for breakfast with his wife, Mary-Louise Parker’s character, Zee James.

She calls to Robert, saying everything is getting cold. We can see him putting on a gun belt in the other room. Then, in the next shot, we can see Robert sitting down at the kitchen table with Jesse, Charley, and Jesse’s son.

Jesse gets up for a moment to get the paper from the other room. Back at the table, Jesse stirs his coffee while reading the morning paper. He notices the headline about Dick Liddil.

Charley and Robert appear to be rather nervous as they chuckle, pretending not to know about it.

Robert gets up and goes into the other room. He seems to be sweating a little bit. His breath shakes, he’s obviously nervous. Charley enters the room and looks at his brother. Then, Jesse enters the room and asks if they’re both about ready. Charley says he will be by noon and looks out the front door.

Jesse is looking out at his daughter playing in the front yard. He seems to be lost in thought as he dryly says he’ll take his guns off so no one can see them, alluding to what Robert said earlier. Jesse lays his gun belt on the sofa. Then, he turns over and notices a photograph hanging on the wall. He comments something about how dusty the picture is, and gets on a chair to clean it.

Then, behind him, Robert stands up. Charley moves slightly, looking at his brother. Charley pulls out his pistol.

Even though Jesse is facing the wall, the camera makes it obvious that Jesse can see Robert’s reflection. He can see that Robert is holding his pistol now and pointing it at Jesse. He does nothing.

A single gunshot and Jesse’s head smashes against the picture frame before he falls to the ground.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

That portrayal comes from the 2007 movie called The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford…which, as you can probably guess, is exactly the event that happened this week in history: The assassination of Jesse James.

The way the movie portrays it happening is pretty accurate, although there’s one major thing to keep in mind: There were only three people in that room, and only two of them walked out. So, the story we know is based on the recollection of Charley and Robert Ford, the two people who killed Jesse James.

With that said, though, it’s not like the Ford brothers were trying to hide what they did. We know this because they told the authorities themselves what happened and then later, just like we see in the movie, Charley and Robert Ford would go on to re-enact the assassination for paying audiences who wanted to see how Jesse James was killed.

According to their version of the story, it was in the morning of April 3rd when Charley and Robert Ford sat down to breakfast with Jesse James—although he was going by the name Thomas Howard so no one would know his true identity.

But, of course, Charley and Robert Ford had helped the James gang with their safe houses for over a year—Robert Ford met Jesse James in 1880—so they knew his real identity.

The plan was for the brothers to help robbing the bank in Platte City, Missouri. That’s about 30 miles, or a little less than 50 kilometers, from Jesse James’ home in St. Joseph, Missouri. At least, that was the plan that Jesse James had in mind. The Ford brothers, however, had a different plan in mind.

To lay down a little historical context, the Ford brothers’ plan was to kill Jesse James and get the $10,000 reward being offered by the governor, Thomas Crittenden.

In the movie, Brad Pitt’s version of Jesse James reads the newspaper and notices a mention of Dick Liddil being arrested. He looks at Robert Ford and says that he must’ve been around when Liddil was arrested. Although Casey Affleck’s version of Robert Ford doesn’t admit to it in the movie, and for good reason, it is true that Robert Ford was there when Liddil was arrested. Actually, both Liddil and Ford surrendered to the sheriff because Liddil had killed Jesse James’ cousin, a man by the name of Wood Hite.

All these men were a part of the James gang, and the law knew it.

Robert Ford was allowed to go free on the condition that he kill Jesse James—something that Governor Crittenden said he’d pardon Ford for doing.

That’s why the Ford brothers had a different plan in mind than Jesse James did that April morning. After breakfast, they went into the living room to talk about the bank robbery plan. And just like we see in the movie, Jesse James went to go dust off a picture. That’s when Charley pulled out his gun, but it was Robert Ford who pulled the trigger first. James was hit in the back of the head, killing him immediately.

In the movie, we kind of get the idea that Jesse James might’ve known something was going on. Why would he take off his guns? Why would he dust a picture? We even see James looking at Robert Ford with his gun pulled in the picture’s reflection and he doesn’t do anything.

Did he know he was about to be killed?

That’s something historians have debated ever since that day. We’ll never really know for sure, but some have suggested that he knew his time was nearing an end. He also was wary of the Ford brothers, not quite trusting them fully, so he must’ve found it suspicious they didn’t mention the arrest of Dick Liddil.

How much Jesse James knew about the Fords’ plan died with him a few moments later.

If you want to watch the event that happened this week in history, check out the 2007 movie called The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. The text letting us know it’s April 3rd, 1882, starts at about two hours, two minutes and 54 seconds into the movie.

We learned more about the real history on episode #166 of Based on a True Story.

April 6th, 1862. Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee.

Rows of white tents line either side of a small, dirt road that runs through a clearing. From inside the woods nearby, we can see a bunch of soldiers with guns sneaking by. The camera focuses on one soldier inside the woods. He’s wearing a gray uniform and slowly, he lifts a rifle and raises it to his eye. We can see who he’s aiming at; it’s another soldier—this one is wearing a blue uniform as he watches the woods from the clearing.

He seems to be part of a line guarding the camp from the woods, although it’s obvious he hasn’t seen the soldiers hiding in the woods yet.

That changes when the soldier in the woods fires a shot. Another soldier falls from just behind the soldier in focus.

Then, all hell breaks loose. Confederate soldiers in the woods fire on the Union soldiers who are now running away from the edge of the trees.

At first, reports come back that it’s just a skirmish, but it quickly becomes clear there’s something more to this fight. Calls to hold the line are made as more and more Confederate troops charge the defending soldiers.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the TV series Grant

This is just the start of a longer sequence that comes from the 2020 miniseries simply called Grant, and it’s depict something that happened this week in history: The Battle of Shiloh. It actually took place over the course of two days, April 6th and 7th, in 1862.

One of the first questions you may be asking yourself is why it’s called the Battle of Shiloh when I mentioned Pittsburg Landing at the beginning of the event. Sometimes it’s referred to as the Battle of Pittsburg Landing. But the more common name is the Battle of Shiloh because even though the battle took place near the town of Pittsburg Landing, the closest landmark was actually a church called, well, Shiloh Church.

Ironically, the word Shiloh in Hebrew means “peace” … and the Battle of Shiloh would turn out to be one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War.

In a nutshell, the battle started in the early morning hours of April 6th as the Confederate soldiers opened fire on Union soldiers camped in a cotton field. From there, the battle only grew in size as both sides started to realize this was more than just a little skirmish.

Basically, Confederate General Johnston was leading over 44,000 soldiers in an attempt to wipe out Union General Grant’s 49,000-strong army before Grant could team up with General Buell—who commanded another 17,000 or so Union soldiers.

It didn’t go according to the Confederate’s plans.

Throughout the first day of the battle, the fighting was intense but because the Union troops were the ones attacked, they first had to stop the Confederate offensive. Then, on the second day, the Union started their offensive. It was helped by those 17,000 soldiers under the command of General Buell.

As a little side note, that wasn’t the entirety of Buell’s armies, but those were just the ones who made it to the battle before it ended. Oh, and while I’m adding in some details, it was actually 17,918 soldiers from Buell’s Army of Ohio while Grant’s Army of Tennessee had 48,894 soldiers and the Confederates had 44,699 soldiers.

By the end of the second day, the battle was a decisive victory for the Union Army.

It was also the bloodiest battle on American soil up until that point with an estimated 23,746 casualties—a little over 10,000 on the Confederate side and a little over 13,000 on the Union side. Up until that point in 1862, it was the deadliest battle in the Civil War.

If you want to see the battle portrayed on screen, check out the docudrama series called Grant and the Battle of Shiloh starts at about an hour, one minute and 18 seconds into the first episode.

March 29th, 1795. Vienna, Austria.

We’re in a very ornate room. The camera is angled so it’s shooting up, meaning we can see a huge, crystal chandelier hanging on the right side of the frame. It looks like it’s over the wooden piano that’s on the bottom right of the frame, although it’s obvious that’s just the way the camera angle makes it look. The chandelier is actually hanging in the room behind the piano.

On the left side of the frame is a young man, who is sitting up straight as he’s playing the piano.

With a closeup of his hands, we can see as they dance around the keyboard, making lovely music. He’s obviously a very accomplished musician.

The camera cuts to a woman running through a field with hedges and into woods nearby. In an unexpected move—at least, I didn’t expect it while I was watching for this episode—she takes off her dress as a man follows her into the woods and they embrace. The piano music continues as a backdrop as the scene cuts to a woman in a bath now as her voiceover explains that she was invited to a musical performance at Prince Lichnowsky’s palace, and Beethoven was going to be there.

Then, we’re back in the room with the man playing piano. That is the palace and Beethoven is the man playing the piano. He’s played by Gary Oldman in the movie.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie Immortal Beloved.

That’s how the movie called Immortal Beloved portrays an event that might have happened this week in history. This is one of those scenes where the movie’s re-enactment makes it very hard to tell if it’s actually trying to be the event we’re talking about in this segment. That event, of course, is when Ludwig van Beethoven had his first-ever public performance as a pianist when he was 24 years old. That was on March 29^th, 1795. And it was in Vienna, Austria, just like the scene we see in the movie.

There’s also truth to the mention of Prince Lichnowsky, although that is a clue for why the performance we see might not have specifically been the first public performance in 1795.

You see, Beethoven’s first public performance as an adult took place at a charity concert in the Burgtheater in Vienna. It was a series of performances that was scheduled for March 29^th and 30^th, but then a third performance was added as a charity event put on by Mozart’s widow—he died at the end of 1791.

So, looking back on the event with a historical lens, it was on March 29^th that was the first public performance for an adult Beethoven performing one of his own pieces, Piano Concerto No. 2 in B♭, Op. 19, as it would become known later when it was published. Although, some have suggested it may have been Op. 15 in C.

One of the reasons we’re not entirely sure is because Beethoven himself didn’t seem to be so sure of what he was going to play.

According to one of his friends who was there, Beethoven wasn’t feeling so well and he was running late on writing the pieces for the concert. So, he kind of had to wing it and do some improvisation on day two. That friend, a man by the name of Franz Wegeler, said, “Not until the afternoon of the second day before the concert did he write the rondo, and then while suffering from a pretty severe colic which frequently afflicted him. I relieved him with simple remedies so far as I could. In the anteroom sat four copyists to whom he handed sheet after sheet as soon as it was finished.”

Records then suggest that on the second day of the charity event, on March 30^th, Beethoven did some improvisation.

On the 31^st, Beethoven performed again but as we just learned that last day was technically a different charity event organized by Mozart’s wife. So, Beethoven didn’t perform one of his own pieces, but rather played one of Mozart’s concertos.

As a fun little side note, since Beethoven was a child prodigy his first-ever public performance also happened this week in history, too! It was on March 26^th, 1778 when Beethoven was seven years old. He performed with another of his father’s students.

Back to the movie, though, the mention of Prince Lichnowsky still has some historical accuracy to it because in the true story, Prince Karl Lichnowsky was one of Beethoven’s earliest financiers. In fact, Beethoven lived with Lichnowsky in a room at his palace and many of his compositions were dedicated to Lichnowsky.

So, the scene we see in the movie is rooted in some truth.

If you want to watch Beethoven’s early performance recreated on screen this week, check out the 1994 movie Immortal Beloved and it starts at about the 18-minute mark.

March 29th, 1827. Vienna, Austria.

For our next story this week, we’ll be staying in the same movie.

We’re not in Prince Lichnowsky’s palace anymore. There’s a group of people standing outside. The first thing that’s noticeable about the group is they’re all wearing black. Behind them are lush green plants and four torches burn in the background, something also noticeable since it’s daytime.

Between the four torches, the camera angle frames Jeroen Krabbé’s character, Anton Schindler, as he explains Beethoven to the people gathered.

He says things like, “He was an artist,” and “The thorns of life wounded him deeply, so he stuck to his art.”

While Schindler’s voice continues, the scene cuts to four pallbearers wearing black suits and top hats as they carry a casket through a street filled with throngs of people.

Then the camera cuts back to the scene at the grave and now we can see the casket lying there. Behind the casket is a mausoleum with the initials “LvB.” There are somber looks on everyone’s faces as they listen to Schindler continue to talk about Beethoven’s life. There are more scenes of the procession as the casket makes its way through the street. It’s lined with soldiers now, and the casket is on a carriage pulled by a pair of beautiful, black horses.

Reaching its destination, soldiers help the casket off of the carriage so it’s back under the power of the four pallbearers. They carry it to a doorway where a V-shape formation of priests in white robes contrast everyone else wearing black clothing.

The music swells as the pallbearers walk inside to the richly decorated church interior. On either side of the aisle the casket is being carried down are pews filled with people. There doesn’t look to be an empty seat.

Everyone is wearing black as the camera cuts around to a few solemn-looking faces in attendance.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie Immortal Beloved.

Just like our last event, this scene also comes from the 1994 movie called Immortal Beloved. Unlike the last event, however, this one is a little more obvious about its timing and it was this week in history that Ludwig van Beethoven was buried on March 29^th, 1827 in Vienna, Austria.

The movie’s portrayal of the event is very dramatized, but it does hit on some key truths. Probably the most accurate thing we see in the movie is the idea that Beethoven’s funeral procession was a big deal in Vienna.

According to accounts of the event, somewhere between 10,000 and 30,000 people attended. So, the scene we see in the movie of streets lined with people to watch the casket being carried was true.

What’s not true about the movie is the prominent portrayal of the man who we see giving the speech at the funeral in the film. That’s Jeroen Krabbé’s character, Anton Schindler.

Schindler was a real person and he was a friend of Beethoven’s for many years, even working as Beethoven’s secretary for a time. After Beethoven’s death, Schindler was the one who owned most of Beethoven’s conversation books where he’d communicate with his friends. So, it stands to reason that Schindler would be the best person to write Beethoven’s biography.

And, he did. That was first published in 1840, 13 years after Beethoven’s death.

However, most historians now don’t believe many of the things in that biography. You see, Schindler made a lot of it up. For example, Schindler said he was very close to Beethoven for 11 or 12 years but further research into it revealed that number was more likely half that at five or six.

Since Schindler had the conversation books, we can assume he’d pull a lot from that, but over the years it became evident that Schindler also fabricated many of those and burned many of the pages to cover it up.

The first scholarly biographer came along in the form of Alexander Wheelock Thayer, who sailed to Germany from the United States in 1849 after realizing there were some discrepancies in Schindler’s biography. Thayer spent the first two years learning German so he could do the research required to write a truthful biography of Beethoven.

That was first published in 1866, with subsequent volumes being added in 1872 and 1879. That told Beethoven’s life up until 1816. Then in 1907 and 1908 the fourth and fifth volumes were published, which covered the remainder of Beethoven’s life and completed the overall work.

So, just as a recap, this week is a great one to listen to some Beethoven. If we go by order of the day and not the year, it was on March 26^th, 1778 that a seven-year-old Beethoven had his first public performance. And while we didn’t talk about this yet, it was exactly 49 years later on March 26^th, 1827, that Beethoven died at the age of 56.

On March 29^th, 1795, a 24-year-old Beethoven had his debut performance as a pianist, launching his career. And then it was precisely 32 years later on March 29^th, 1827 that Beethoven’s funeral attracted between 10,000 to 30,000 attendees.

That scene in the 1994 biopic about his life called Immortal Beloved starts at about 2 minutes into the film, but if there’s ever a week to watch a movie about Ludwig van Beethoven, this is the perfect time…so, I’d suggest just watching the whole thing!

And maybe throw some of his music on your playlist this week, too! If you’re looking for a recommendation to start with, I’d have to go with my favorite piece of his that’s probably his most common composition: Bagatelle No. 25 in A minor for solo piano. Or, as it’s more commonly known, Für Elise.

Oh, and as a fun little side note, Beethoven never knew how successful that would become because it wasn’t even published in his lifetime. Although Beethoven composed the piece in 1810, a man named Ludwig Nohl discovered the manuscript that he composed it on in 1867, 40 years after Beethoven died. Ludwig Nohl said the manuscript he found had the dedication of the piece as being “For Elise on April 27 in Memory by L. V. Bthvn.”

That’s why it’s called Für Elise. There have been a few suggestions as to who Elise might be, but because this was all done after Beethoven’s death, no one really knows for sure.

March 31^st, 1931. Kansas City, Kansas.

Our next movie is black and white. An airplane is flying in the sky. While I’m no aircraft expert, by the looks of it, this seems to be a Fokker F-10, a civilian passenger plane powered by three propeller engines. After flying for a few seconds, the movie fades to inside a building. Text on the screen tells us this is Kansas City, and we can see two men standing at a desk. One of the men writes something down on a pad of paper that he’s handing to a third man behind the desk. The sign behind the desk reads “Western Union”, leading me to believe the pad of paper is a message to be transmitted via telegraph.

The man says he’ll send it right away, and it’ll get there within half an hour.

The two men on the other side of the desk are both wearing hats. Since this is a black and white movie, it’s hard to know the color, but the one writing on the notepad is in a light hat while the other is in a dark hat.

Dark hat man tells the other a storm might be coming. Why don’t you wait for the next plane?

Nah, he can’t wait, says the light hat man. He has to be back in Florida by Monday. Then he laughs, besides, this is my vacation.

From behind them, an announcement is made: “Passengers for Los Angeles. Plane on field, ready for loading!”

The two men grab their bags and head toward the plane. They walk out onto the runway where the plane is ready for them to get in. At the back of the plane, the man with the light hat gets in. Behind him, the dark hat man wishes a happy trip. “Soft landing, Rock,” he says. The light hat man, who we can identify now as Pat O’Brien’s character, Knute Rockne, turns around to his friend. “You mean happy landing, don’t you?” says Rockne. He shakes the man’s hand.

That man, by the way, is simply cast as “Doc – Knute’s Friend at Kansas City Airport.” He’s played by the actor Edgar Dearing.

Knute and Doc shake hands, then Knute gets on the plane as Doc backs away to let the attendant close the plane’s door. As the plane taxis away, we can see this is the plane we saw flying earlier. Crowds of people wave goodbye to the passengers as the plane takes off to begin its journey.

On the plane, Knute Rockne looks out of the window at the land below. The movie cuts to a scene of a woman and four children opening a message. She mentions it’s from daddy, so I’m assuming this is the message Knute Rockne sent from Western Union a moment ago. Reading it must be his wife, Bonnie Rockne, as well as their children. She reads the message which says he’s practically there and he’ll wire again from Los Angeles. Love to all.

One of the boys says, if he’s practically there, why did he write? Bonnie replies happily, saying, because he knew we’d be worried, darling! Then, she turns and looks off camera. She shivers slightly, saying it seems to have gotten cold all of a sudden.

Back on the airplane, we can see the propellers turning as the plane continues its flight.

That scene fades away quickly and changes to a man plowing an empty field being pulled by two horses. The plane flies on, and the farmer looks up as we hear its engines roar over the field. Just then, as he’s looking up…we can hear what sounds like an explosion. He pulls on the reigns of his horses, causing them to stop as he watches in disbelief. His eye line goes from in the air where the plane used to be flying overhead to ground level as we hear a loud crash.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie Knute Rockne: All American

That portrayal comes from the classic 1940 film called Knute Rockne: All American. The event it’s portraying is when Knute Rockne’s plane crashed, which happened this week in history on March 31^st, 1931.

While the movie’s depiction is heavily dramatized, as movies from the 1940s often are, it does get some key plot points correct.

For example, it is true that Knute Rockne was flying from Kansas City to Los Angeles on a Fokker F-10 aircraft owned by TWA. While we don’t see the crash itself in the movie, perhaps one of the reasons for that is because we don’t know for sure exactly what happened to it. By the time investigators got to the crash site, many people had taken pieces of the plane as souvenirs.

The movie’s mention of a storm is a possibility, and that really is one of the proposed causes of the crash. But, there’s no record of a storm in the area that day. The most likely scenario is that, over time, water got into the wing. Over an unknown period of time, that moisture had softened the glue that bonded the wing to the structure. The turbulence of the flight, then, just happened to be enough to cause a wing spar to fail and the wing separated from the aircraft while it was in the air.

All six passengers and two crew on board were killed.

The most popular of these was, as the movie shows, Knute Rockne. At the time of his death, Rockne was just 43 years old, but he had already secured a name for himself as one of the greatest coaches in the history of college football. He was the head coach at Notre Dame from 1918 until 1930 where he coached players such as George Gipp, Red Grange, and Jim Thorpe. In those years, Notre Dame racked up a record of 105 wins, 12 losses, five ties, and three national championships: 1924, 1929, and 1930, respectively. Both the 1929 and 1930 teams were undefeated in their successful quest for the championship, which only added to Rockne’s popularity when he died the following year.

That popularity was a big reason why there were a number of new additions to aircraft security to ensure it didn’t happen again. In fact, it was partly because of that crash that the Fokker Aircraft Corporation of America decided to discontinue the F-10—the American public simply didn’t trust the airplane anymore, and understandably so.

If you want to watch how the movie portrays this event, check out the 1940 film called Knute Rockne: All American. The crash event happens about an hour and 29 minutes into the movie.

March 20th, 1815. Paris, France.

We’re inside an elegant building.

There’s a massive staircase that stretches from the right side of the camera’s frame, and lining each side of the staircase are soldiers at attention, as well as other finely dressed men and women.

A single man walks down the stairs, and as he passes by the people on the side of the staircase, they bow to him.

This is King Louis XVIII, who’s played by Orson Welles in the movie.

He’s a large man with a big belly, and he’s wearing a green uniform with two rows of buttons on the front with a light blue sash across his chest.

The rest of the outfit is trimmed in white with a white belt, gloves, knee-high socks, and white hair.

Well, what’s left of it.

In his left arm, he’s holding a big hat, and he’s using a cane in his right hand to help him down the stairs.

From the center of the frame, he reaches the end of the stairs, and five men and a woman appear from either side of the frame to meet him.

Louis hands the cane to one of the men and says, “Perhaps the people will let me go as they let him come.”

He kisses the woman, who sobs on his chest for a moment.

Then he walks past everyone, and they watch him get into a carriage and ride off, followed by some soldiers on horseback.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie Waterloo

That’s a description of an event shown in the 1970 movie called Waterloo.

The event that I’ve described from the movie is showing the end of King Louis XVIII’s reign, and that happened this week in history on March 20, 1815.

That was the start of what’s known as the Hundred Days.

To give a little more historical context, in October of 1813, Napoleon was defeated by a coalition of forces from Prussia, Austria, and Russia at the Battle of Leipzig.

Then in April of 1814, Napoleon was exiled to the island of Elba.

That’s just off the coast of Italy.

But then in February of 1815, Napoleon escaped and landed in southern France.

He made his way north, and on March 20, 1815, he arrived in Paris.

Many of the French people, military included, welcomed Napoleon back.

So, the “he” that Louis mentioned in the movie when he said he hands his cane to one of the men and says, “Perhaps the people will let me go as they let him come.”

Letting him come, that’s Napoleon.

That’s the person he’s referring to there.

A lot of soldiers deserted and joined Napoleon’s army, enough so that King Louis XVIII himself fled France and ended up in Ghent, Belgium.

But of course, that’s just the start of the story, because even though they couldn’t have known it at the time, Napoleon’s days were numbered.

After all, we can look back on this with a historical lens, and we call it the “Hundred Days” for a reason.

Napoleon ended up being defeated for the final time at the Battle of Waterloo on June 18, 1815.

If you want to see the events that happened this week in history, check out the 1970 movie called Waterloo.

And the scene with King Louis XVIII leaving France is a little after the 26-minute mark.

And if you want to learn more about the true story, check out episode #174 of Based on a True Story, where we take a deep dive into the historical accuracy of that movie.

March 21^st, 1918. France.

We’ll stay in France for our next movie and fast forward about 100 years or so to March 21, 1918, and it’s dark in the early morning hours.

Standing on the steps, a little over a dozen German soldiers are staring off in the same direction.

A few of them are puffing on cigarettes.

One of these soldiers looks at his watch.

Then it starts.

Explosions can be heard in the distance as flashes illuminate their faces.

A couple of the soldiers smile at each other and raise their glasses as if to cheer the moment the explosions continuing in the distance.

The camera cuts to a man who opens the window and rests his head on the window frame.

This is the main character of the movie, George Pappard’s version of Lieutenant Brunel’s statue.

Off in the distance, we can see the flashes of light and the sound of explosions as the artillery continues.

In the next scene, the sun is up now, the artillery bombardment is still going on, and lines of British soldiers are hunkered down in the trenches as explosions hit all around.

Then the camera cuts to an airfield where German biplanes are taking to the skies.

Down below, lines of German soldiers are poised in their own trenches with bayonets fixed.

Formations of biplanes above the battlefield start to dive down, and just then the movie cuts back to the German soldiers in the trenches.

One of the men looks at his watch, then fires a flare.

All the soldiers start piling over the top of the trenches and rushing forward.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie The Blue Max

That’s a description of an event shown in the movie called The Blue Max, which is a film released in 1966.

The event it’s portraying is the start of Operation Michael, which happened this week in history on March 21, 1918.

And while the movie doesn’t really try to show the entire operation, it is correct to suggest that this was a major offensive near Saint-Quentin, France in World War I.

It started similar to how we see in the film, also with artillery in the early morning hours before the sun rose.

And although we see soldiers checking their watches in the movie, it doesn’t mention specific times, but it was at 4.35am when the German artillery bombardment started.

It went on for the next five hours, dropping over 3.5 million shells on the Allied positions, along with mustard gas, chlorine gas, tear gas, and smoke canisters.

We can’t see the time on the German soldiers watching the movie before he fires the flare to signal the men to attack, but we know from history that the infantry started their assault at 9.40am.

With such a massive bombardment, there was a heavy smoke that covered the battlefield the entire day, and coupled with the morning fog, made it tough to see.

Some sources indicate that reports of visibility were as low as 20-30 feet in some places.

The movie is also correct to show airplanes being used as support to ground troops, although that smoke and fog meant that they couldn’t really take off until later in the day.

By the end of the first day of the offensive, about 80,000 men were killed on each side, losing about half that number.

Despite the heavy losses, the artillery bombardment and poor visibility allowed the Germans to push through the Allied lines initially, and with the Germans advancing some 40 miles or so, it proved to be the biggest gains on the Western Front for either side since 1914.

But the German offensive started to stall near the end of March, due mostly to exhaustion of the troops.

On April 2nd, thousands of American soldiers joined the fight in what was the first major deployment of US troops during World War I.

It was such an influx of fresh soldiers into the mix, and that helped push back the weary Germans.

There’s a brief mention in the movie through a line of dialogue from James Mason’s character, General Count von Klugermann, where he announces the offensive to a room of German soldiers and says that if they’re able to destroy the British and French armies before the Americans intervene, effectively they can win the war.

While it’s not specifically mentioned in the movie, that little bit of dialogue probably alludes to the purpose of Operation Michael, which was to break through the Allied lines and separate the French and British forces on the Western Front.

I guess it’s technically true that if the Germans could completely destroy the British and French armies before the Americans intervened, maybe they could have won the war.

But many historians think that the Germans didn’t really expect to be able to win the war by the time March of 1918 rolled around.

If they did, Operation Michael was a failed offensive that cemented the beginning of the end for the Germans in World War I.

Operation Michael came to an end on April 5th, and in those 15 days between March 21st and April 5th, almost a half a million men died, 239,000 Germans and 254,000 Allies.

If you want to watch the start of the offensive that began this week in history, you can find it depicted in the 1966 movie called The Blue Max.

The explosions of the artillery began at about 55 minutes and 35 seconds into the movie.

March 23^rd, 1933. Berlin, Germany.

Every seat is filled at the Kroll Opera House.

On one side, all the men are wearing black suits.

On the other, they’re all wearing brown uniforms.

The color differences make for a distinct line down the middle as the camera faces the crowd from behind the man speaking on stage.

Text on the screen tells us this is the temporary Reichstag, and everyone listens quietly as he continues to address them.

Just then, the camera cuts to the other angle, and from his haircut, thin mustache, and brown uniform, it’s pretty clear who the man speaking is, even without seeing the huge red flag with a white circle and a black swastika behind him.

This is Adolf Hitler.

He tells the members of the Reichstag in the audience that in order for the government to carry out the necessary procedures against terrorism, they must support an enabling act, handing power to those who can wield it most effectively.

He goes on to explain what the act will do.

All legislation will be handled by the administration, giving them sole right to make constitutional changes.

Freedoms of speech, association, and the press are suspended.

Privacy rights in relation to telephone and postal communications are revoked.

Looking back at the crowd, we can see a growing murmur and chatter among the men wearing black suits.

All the men in the Nazi brown uniforms are just sitting still.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the TV series Hitler: The Rise of Evil

That’s how the TV series called Hitler, the Rise of Evil, portrays the passing of the enabling act, which happened this week in history.

There is one key difference between what we see in the series and the true story, though, and that’s something that I didn’t really touch on because it didn’t happen this week in history, the fire at the Reichstag.

We do see that in the series.

It is heavily implied the enabling act was a part of the Reichstag fire decree.

Those were actually two separate items, although collectively, they were effective in giving Hitler power over Germany.

For a brief timeline of what happened, on January 30, 1933, Hitler was appointed the Chancellor of Germany.

Hitler then tried to get President von Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag, or the German parliament, and call for new federal elections to take place on March 5, 1933.

Six days before the election was to take place, the Reichstag building caught fire.

We still don’t know who started the fire to this day.

The day after the fire, though, Hitler blamed the Communist Party of Germany for starting it and advised President von Hindenburg to pass the Reichstag fire decree under the disguise of preventing communist terrorism from taking over the country.

That decree was announced the day after the fire, on February 28.

It effectively gave the Nazis a legal basis for imprisoning anyone who opposed them.

Not coincidentally, it wasn’t long before those in opposition to the Nazi cause started disappearing across Germany.

Then on March 5, the federal elections took place, and again, not coincidentally, the Nazi Party won the most seats with 288 seats in the Reichstag.

After all, anyone who opposed them started disappearing, so who else are you going to vote for?

Then, on March 23, they used that power and the seats to help pass the Enabling Act, by a total of 444 for, 94 against, and 109 absent.

The series was correct to show Hitler’s speech taking place at the Kroll Opera House because of the Reichstag fire.

There’s a photo of him delivering it that you can find online if you want to see.

The Reichstag wasn’t officially dissolved, but it was effectively pointless because the Chancellor could make and enforce laws without them.

And just like that, within the span of a few months, the Nazi Party legally took control of Germany with Hitler as its Fuhrer, or leader.

If you want to see the event that happened this week in history, check out the miniseries called “Hitler, the Rise of Evil.”

Robert Carlyle’s version of Hitler delivering the speech at the Kroll Opera House takes place in the second part at about an hour and nine minutes into the episode.

March 13^th, 1943. Krakow, Poland.

There’s a man applying shaving cream to his face.

Then, the camera cuts to another man doing the exact same thing.

For a moment, the scene cuts back and forth between these two men who are obviously in different locations but they’re doing the same thing.

Then, we hear a voiceover. The man speaking says today is history.

We can see it’s one of the men who was shaving who is speaking. He’s dressed now. He’s in a military uniform—a Nazi uniform—and he is speaking to a bunch of other men in Nazi uniforms. They’re all standing around him in a rectangle in between a few buildings.

The man addressing the rest of the soldiers is Amon Göth, who is played by Ralph Fiennes in the film. He repeats himself, saying today is history and you are part of it.

Then he goes on to explain why today is history. He says that 600 years ago, Casimir the Great told the Jews they could come to Krakow. As he continues to talk about how the Jews flourished in Krakow for 600 years, we can see people in Krakow looking out their windows to see a row of tables being set up. A chair behind each table with ink and pen.

Göth ends his speech by saying that by this evening those six centuries are a rumor.

Then, we see a man and a woman riding a horse. This man is the other man who started his day off by shaving. This man is Oskar Schindler, who is played by Liam Neeson.

Trucks filled with Nazis pour into the streets. Göth gives the orders for where to start and how the soldiers will proceed.

From a nearby hilltop, Schindler watches as Nazi soldiers in Krakow rip people from their homes. Many are shot. The rest would be taken to a concentration camp.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie Schindler’s List

This depiction comes from 1993’s Schindler’s List. The event it’s depicting is unfortunately a true event that happened this week in history: The liquidation of Krakow by the Nazis that took place on March 13^th and 14^th in 1943.

In the movie, Ralph Fiennes’ version of Amon Göth mentions Casimir and a 600-year history of Jews in Krakow, and the basic gist of that is true. That would be in the 1300s and King Casimir the Great was the last Polish king from his dynasty as he reigned from 1335 to 1370.

But that’s a story for another day.

During the Nazis liquidation of the Krakow ghetto, the SS murdered 2,000 Jews in the ghetto. Another 2,000 were deemed capable of work and sent to nearby Plaszow concentration camp. That’s the one we see being run by Göth in the movie—and it is true that he was the commandant of that concentration camp. The remaining 3,000 or so Jews were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau where about 549 of them, 499 men and 50 women were forced into labor and the rest were murdered in gas chambers.

In the movie, we see Liam Neeson’s version of Oskar Schindler watching the liquidation of the Krakow ghetto and it plays a big part in his decision to go on to risk his own life and save over a 1,000 Jews.

At least, that’s how the movie portrays it.

It is true that Oskar Schindler had a factory in Krakow, but it’s not true the liquidation of the ghetto was a major turning point that sparked his movement to save Jews like the movie seems to imply. It was a slower process than that. He convinced Göth to let him set up a special camp of sorts just for the Jews who worked for him.

If you want to watch the event that happened this week in history, it is shown in the 1993 movie Schindler’s List and while the liquidation of the ghetto begins at about 55 minutes, I’d really recommend watching the entire movie to get much better context around it all.

And then, you can take a deep dive into the true story by listening to episode #58 of Based on a True Story.

March 13^th, 1943. Smolensk, Russia.

Our next movie takes place on the very same day as the last movie: March 13^th, 1943.

This time we’re not in Poland, though, but there’s text on the screen in the movie to tell us we’re at The German Eastern Front in Smolensk, Russia.

Two passenger planes are being escorted by two fighters. We can see from the swastika on their tails that they’re Nazi planes. The ground below is covered in a deep green forest. In the middle of the forest is a clearing with a runway.

The fighters pass by the runway as they allow the passenger planes to land first. As they taxi on the runway, a row of Nazi soldiers are standing at attention. A bunch of soldiers pile out of the plane first, followed by more important senior officials.

Then, David Bamber’s version of Adolf Hitler steps off the plane.

We see Hitler meeting with some of his officers. One of them is Kenneth Branagh’s version of General Henning von Tresckow.

In the next scene, Tresckow and another soldier are putting something into a bottle of liquor. Tresckow mentions something about a fuse—this must be a bomb. He places the fuse carefully, then looks up as the sound of the plane’s engines starting back up can be heard. Hitler is leaving.

Tresckow rushes a box to Tom Hollander’s version of Colonel Brandt just before he gets on the plane with Hitler. It’s a wooden box and Tresckow shows what’s inside, a bottle of liquor. Brandt takes it and hops on the plane.

That night, Tresckow is sitting anxiously by the phone when it rings. The plane has landed.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie Valkyrie

This depiction comes from 2008’s Valkyrie. The event depicted in the segment I described is the attempted assassination of Adolf Hitler that took place this week in history on March 13^th, 1943.

While the general idea of what we see in the movie is pretty accurate, there is more to the story.

This plot to kill Hitler was codenamed Operation Flash, or sometimes it’s translated as Operation Spark.

The name, which was given by the General Tresckow, was because he and other anti-Nazi German officers didn’t believe it’d be possible to overthrow the rest of the Nazis while Hitler was alive. So, they’d assassinate Hitler and take Germany back from the Nazis.

Hitler was visiting field headquarters in Ukraine for about a month in early 1943 and on the way back to Germany, he was going to stop in Smolensk where the Army Group Centre’s headquarters were located. General Tresckow was the Chief Operations Officer of the AGC, and a few others involved in the conspiracy were in the AGC as well, so it was a perfect opportunity for them to take action.

There were a few different options. They could just shoot Hitler while he was having dinner, but they didn’t like the idea of shooting an unarmed man. They could start a battle with Hitler’s SS guard, but they didn’t like the idea of Germans fighting each other.

So, they decided to go with the option to put a bomb on the plane that would go off after a period of time. The idea being the plane would take off and blow up in the air.

And just like we see in the movie, the bomb was put into a box that was supposed to have bottles of liquor that Tresckow gave to Colonel Brandt—he really was an officer on Hitler’s staff. Just like we see in the movie, Tresckow asked Brandt to deliver the liquor to General Stieff.

He wasn’t a part of the plot, but Tresckow knew Stieff was anti-Nazi as well.

While Tresckow couldn’t have known it at the time, it seems the detonator got too cold in the atmosphere as the box was in the cargo hold that wasn’t heated. So, the bomb never went off. What we don’t see in the movie is that after they realized the bomb didn’t go off, one of the men working with Tresckow took a plane to retrieve the box from Brandt before the bomb could be discovered.

If you want to watch the event that happened this week in history, the movie I’m talking about of course is the 2008 movie Valkyrie, and the Smolensk-Rastenburg assassination attempt takes place right near the beginning at about six minutes and 40 seconds into the movie.

After you watch that movie, you can learn more about the true story by listening to episode #62 of Based on a True Story.

March 15^th, 44 BC. Rome.

Ciarán Hinds’ character, Gaius Julius Caesar, walks into a massive building followed by a bunch of other men. James Purefoy’s character, Mark Antony, tries to follow but gets distracted by someone else.

Caesar enters a great room filled with lots of men. They’re all wearing white robes with red, almost as if it’s the uniform of the Roman Senate. Because that’s where they are, the Senate of Rome.

Caesar acknowledges other Senators as he enters, telling Barca that he hasn’t forgotten—he doesn’t really say what, but it’s not a focus for long because another senator named Cimber approaches Caesar and reminds him that he was going to consider revoking his brother’s exile.

Everyone wants something from Caesar. Basically, politics. Everyone wants something from someone else.

Caesar tells Cimber that he’s still considering it.

Then, Cimber grabs at Caesar’s hand. Caesar pulls his hand away, looking back at Cimber. Cimber grabs at Caesar’s cloak even harder now. Pushing him away, Caesar and Cimber are facing each other for a moment before Cimber says, “What are you waiting for? Now!”

After an awkward pause, senators from all around start mobbing Caesar and stabbing at him. He grabs the first knife, cutting his hand. But there are too many men surrounding him. Before long, Caesar’s white cloak is soaked in blood.

Lying there bleeding to death, the last man to approach Caesar is Tobias Menzies’ character, Marcus Brutus. Caesar looks up at him and sobs just before Brutus delivers the fatal blow to Caesar.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the TV series Rome.

That’s a description of an event shown in the HBO miniseries called Rome. That event is the assassination of Julius Caesar, which really did happen this week in history on March 15^th, 44 BC.

And it is true that Caesar was stabbed to death by Roman senators like we see in the series. Some sources suggest up to 60 were involved in the assassination that took place on the Ides of March, stabbing him 23 times.

While we associate the term the Ides of March with Caesar’s assassination, the Ides of March wasn’t something that was always linked to Caesar’s assassination. In a nutshell, the Roman calendar worked a lot differently than our calendar does today and Ides simply meant the 15^th day of a 31-day month like March. Later, in William Shakespeare’s play called Julius Caesar there’s the line that says “Beware the Ides of March.” Since then, the term the Ides of March has been tied to Julius Caesar’s assassination.

Speaking of Shakespeare, in the HBO miniseries you’ll also notice another difference: Ciarán Hinds’ version of Caesar does not say “Et Tu Brute?” right before Brutus delivers the fatal blow.

We don’t know for sure if Caesar actually said that, but that famous line is something that, again, comes from Shakespeare’s play.

Although, just like Shakespeare didn’t come up with the term Ides of March, he also didn’t come up with the idea that Caesar said something before he died. Ancient historian Suetonius wrote about the 12 Caesars in the year 119 AD, so long before Shakespeare, but also over 150 years after Julius Caesar’s assassination.

In his writing, Suetonius wrote that when Brutus stabbed him, Caesar said, “You too, my child?”

Of course, that’s the English translation. And because of translations and various writings and reinterpretations and tellings of the story—that’s how we get a variety of different things that Caesar may have said prior to his death.

Or, maybe, he didn’t say anything at all.

If you want to watch the event that happened this week in history, check out the HBO miniseries called Rome, Caesar’s assassination happened in the last episode of the first season. That’s season one, episode 12, at about 36 minutes and 37 seconds.

Dan LeFebvre  03:13

Let’s start by looking at the movie overall to get an idea for how well it does capturing the essence of the true story. If you were to give war dogs a letter grade for historical accuracy, what would it get?

David Packouz  03:25

A letter grade…I would give it a “C.”

Dan LeFebvre  03:28

A “C”, okay.

David Packouz  03:29

I see. Yeah, I would say it’s it the broad strokes of the story are true. Even a lot of the details are true, but there are some major changes that they made. Some character changes. Some some things they put in there that never happened. And they left out plenty of things that did happen. So I would say I would give it a “C” maybe maybe a C+, I’ll give it a C+, generous. Be generous. Nice. Yeah.

Dan LeFebvre  04:02

Well, near the beginning of the movie, it kind of sets everything up to show how your character in the movie then becomes a gunrunner. It starts with Miles Teller’s version of you working as a massage therapist Miami 2005 and trying to start up a business selling bedsheets to retirement homes. Then there’s a sequence of events that lead to working with a DUI as an arms dealer starts in a movie with a childhood friend Efraim Diveroli, he moves back to Miami runs into you at a funeral doesn’t seem to be coincidental according to the movie. After that, Iz gets pregnant. That’s your character’s girlfriend in the movie and since the movie the bedsheets business isn’t really taking off from offers a job at his company at why and we find out that’s a one-man operation. Meanwhile, he wants to bring you on according to the movie, you know, it’s basically he’s okay with getting living off the crumbs as he puts it in the movie. You know, there’s these big government contracts and he’s just this one-man thing but he brings you on and he mentioned that he makes like $200,000 in the past eight weeks. So with a child on the way that becomes very tempting offer How well did this movie Deuce kind of setting up this scenario to you working at AEY?

David Packouz  05:14

it’s overall true. But there are some significant differences in what actually happens. At the time that I, first of all, I didn’t meet Efraim at the funeral. You know, it’s a cool scene in the movie, but I actually bumped into him. So we had known each other since we were kids. That is true. We went to the same synagogue, and neither of us like to pray. So We’d sneak out during prayers and hang out on the basketball courts and with all the other kids who didn’t like to pray, which was most of them. So, so that’s how we knew each other. But when he was 16, he got sent over to work for his uncle in LA, his uncle owns a big pawn shop. And that’s how he got obsessed with guns and government contracts. And he learned the business from his uncle. When he was 18, he came back to Miami, he claims his uncle screwed him out of a whole bunch of money. His uncle claims that he screwed him at a bunch of money. They’re both well known scumbag. So, you know, I believe both of them. And, and he started his own business in in Miami. Well, he took over his dad’s business at AEY Inc, which does stand for something by the way, unlike Stanford, yeah, exactly. So AEY stands for the initials of his dad’s three sons of Rummy, F from Ania Shaya, so the E and a y is f firms initial. And so yeah, he named it after his three sons. And a Y was being his dad incorporated to use as some sort of like label printing business, but hadn’t been doing any business with the corporate structure. So he’d let it like, go dormant. And so when EFRAIM came back, he took over the company and registered with the federal government started bidding contracts, and started doing really well. This was like 2004, right after the invasion of Iraq. So there was lots of lots of government spending going on in Iraq. And a lot of it was going to small business because the whole scandal with like Halliburton with Dick Cheney was the Vice President of the United States. And he used to be the CEO of Halliburton, and they gave Halliburton a whole bunch of multibillion dollar contracts without any competition and so they increase so to to, to counteract that the increased the amount that was set aside for small business, which of course, EFRAIM qualified, so So you started doing really well about after about a year of him working on his own in Miami is what I bumped into him. And I bumped into him at a mutual friends of ours, a house, and we were both smoking weed with our mutual friend. And he asked me, Hey, you know, what you’re doing these days. And so I told him, I was at the time I was in college, I was studying chemistry. And I had a few businesses going, I was working part time as a massage therapist. That part is true. I did have occasionally have gay clients do inappropriate things, but nothing too crazy. That towel thing did actually happen to me. That did happen. A very, very rarely it was it was very rare. But by and large, all my clients were very respectful and, and professional and but but I had my my main businesses at the time was selling SD cards online. I was buying them in bulk from China and selling them on eBay. And through that, I got into selling bedsheets and linens and towels. Because one of my friends said hey, I know you’re doing SD cards you have experience in finding suppliers overseas and importing things and I’m selling. I have a distribution business selling bedsheets and towels to nursing homes. So if you can get me a better price than my distributors, I’m happy to buy from you. So I started researching it. I found a bunch of manufacturers got really good prices did arrange logistics and started selling it to him and in real life. I was actually selling successfully bed sheets and linens and I never took delivery of them. I never filled my house up with boxes of bed sheets that never happened. Pretty much I was just a broker I would make a deal with the buyer and make a deal with the supplier and just do the do the deal. I never even took possession. I didn’t even have to put up my own money. It was a transferable letter of credit they call it which so it’s just the bank held the money in escrow and released it to the seller as soon as the goods were were confirmed to be loaded aboard the ship. So I was doing pretty well actually, at the time, I had about $200,000 to my name, which is not bad, especially for someone who’s 23 years old. It was way more money than most of my friends had. And I thought I was hot that I thought I was like, you know, pretty good at this business thing. And then I bumped into from and he asked me, you know what you do? And and so I told him, and he’s like, oh, you know, that stuff that’s actually very similar to what I’m doing, you know, finding suppliers overseas, arranging logistics, licensing, you know, import export permits, figuring out the financing, setting it all up. You know, you’re doing pretty much everything I’m doing, except that I’m making way more money than you. And I’m like, oh, yeah, he’s like, Yeah, I’m making way more money than you. So you should like, you know, I’m actually looking for some good, somebody to work with me could use a guy like you, you know, like, you’re smart guy, I can trust you. We’ve known each other forever. You know, come work with me, and we’ll make way more money together. And I said, Well, I mean, that’s interesting, but how much money have you made. And so he opens up his laptop and shows shows me his Bank of America bank account. And he has $1.8 million of cash in the bank. And he was 18 years old at the time. He’s actually younger than me. He’s he’s about four years younger than I was 22. He was 18. We’re both about our birthdays are close to each other. So he was about to turn 18. I was about to turn 23. And so he, I couldn’t believe it, because I knew that he had made that money on his own. I knew his family. I know. They’re not like his parents aren’t rich. His grandfather’s a billionaire, but his grandfather is one of these insane people who gives nobody anything like even his own, like ex wife, he tried to screw her out of like giving her any alimony at all. After they’d been married for like 40 years. It’s a famous case. He’s a very, very screwed. He’s Iranian, his grandfather, and his grandfather was married to his grandmother, his little side story. His grandmother was married to the grandfathers married his grandmother for like, I think 40 years, they had like eight or nine kids together. And then she decided to divorce him, I think, because she claimed he was like physically abusing or something like that. And, and so she tried to divorce him. And it turned out that they had never been legally married. They had just been, she didn’t realize it. And but they had never been legally married. They were only religiously married. And even though they had like, like nine kids together, according to the state of California, they’re not legally married. So so he decided that he was going to give her zero, like 00 Money, zero help anything. And so she sued him, it was the biggest alimony lawsuit in history. I think she sued him for like $700 million. Yeah, so anyway, that’s that’s the family he comes from, but, but I know that his grandfather, if it won’t give anything to his ex wife doesn’t give anything to anyone else. So so I knew he had earned that money himself. And, and I couldn’t believe it. I mean, I thought like my 100 grand in the bank was amazing. And way better than everyone else my age. And that that is true. Most people who are 22 years old, don’t earn $100,000. But, but it was nothing compared to 1.8 million, and I wanted to know what he was doing. I wanted to know, I figured this guy knows how to make money. And I want to learn. So I told him, yeah, amen. Let’s do this. And so that’s how I got into it.

Dan LeFebvre  13:50

Yeah, I mean, that makes sense. And it’s very different than the idea that we get in the movie of like, all the bedsheets stacked up and everything like yeah,

David Packouz  13:58

And yeah, my daughter wasn’t even I didn’t even know my girlfriend was pregnant at that, by that. Okay, that happened later. Okay. Yeah, yeah, they shifted the timeline around so that would be more dramatic. Okay.

Dan LeFebvre  14:12

And in the movie since obviously, we know you are real. Speak speaking of a girlfriend in the movie, the character’s name is Iz and then there’s another one that is kind of a big part to the way this is set up. But Ralph Slutsky who is a drycleaner owner and kind of put some money back in to the deals in exchange for 25% of the company. Are they based on real people too?

David Packouz  14:32

They are. My ex girlfriend, Iz is based on my ex wife Sarah. That’s her real name is Sarah. And, yeah, and she didn’t look anything like Anna dharma. So I’m sorry to disappoint everybody. But she was very beautiful. She was but she looked a lot more like Haileybury than, than Ana de Armas. My ex wife Sarah she was half black. Oh, Um, so she she’s a mulata her dad was like a white Spaniard guy and her mom was from Equatorial Guinea area, which is near Nigeria. So, and she did grow up in in Madrid. So she does have the same accent as Ana dharmas. So at least they got that. But, but yeah, but it’s, uh, she looks very different. Just very different skin color, I should say, is the main thing. But Ralph is based on a real guy. In the movie, his name is Ralph Slutsky. And he’s a Jewish drycleaner owner. In real life, he is his name is Ralph in real life. Actually, they didn’t change his first name, but his last name in real life is Meryl. And he is a Mormon machine gun factory owner he doesn’t own any dry cleaners. He owns a machine gun factory out in Utah. And and so that’s how he got connected to EFRAIM through EFRAIM’s dad, actually, EFRAIM’s dad was doing some business and got in contact with this guy and introduced him. And so Ralph was a firm’s first investor. And when EFRAIM one is first federal contract Ralph, finance the contract. And so that’s how they got started.

Dan LeFebvre  16:16

That actually makes a lot more sense than dry cleaner owner. Yeah, being honest to that was like,

David Packouz  16:23

yeah, exactly.

Dan LeFebvre  16:27

Yeah. One of the big the first big contracts that we see happening after you join a why is the movie calls it the Beretta deal. It’s as the movie sets it up. It’s a $600,000 contract sell 5000 Beretta pistols to the US Army in Baghdad during the Iraq War. But then there’s a problem. Of course, there’s always problems that happen in movies. And this happens just before the deal is about to go through through Italy passes some legislation banning arm shipments to Iraq. Berettas are an Italian gun so they can’t be sent directly to Iraq. So instead, in the movie, Efraim has the idea to ship the guns to Iraq’s neighboring country to the West Jordan, and then from there, take them to Baghdad. And another problem pops up when the Jordanian customs sees the shipment because of a permit issue. So then we see Efraim and yourself in the movie fly to Jordan to try to fast track this new permit ends up with the two of you and a local driver named Marlboro actually driving a truckload of Berettas, from Jordan to Baghdad, nearly getting killed in Fallujah in the process. How well does the movie do showing this Beretta deal?

David Packouz  17:37

So the Beretta deal was real. We really did have a Beretta deal, and it really did get stopped by the Italian legislation. However, what Efraim tried to do was not ship it from Jordan to Iraq. He he tried to get the government to take a alternative gun. A I think it was like a Brazilian gun. I think he actually mentioned it in the movie.

Dan LeFebvre  18:04

There’s one line, I think he’s on the phone with the military guy.

David Packouz  18:09

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And they rejected it as they did in the movie. But then he didn’t, we did not we didn’t manage to deliver on that. In fact, we defaulted on that contract. So that contract failed. So yeah, we did not deliver that successfully. However, the story of going through the Triangle of Death is real. But it didn’t happen to us. It happened to the screenwriter of the of the word dog screenplay, Steven chin. So Steven chin, who is a, you know, Asian man from California. He, he originally got the he got the job. He got the contract to write the word dog screenplay, because he had written another screenplay prior to that called Iraq, Iraq. And that screenplay, which was never turned into a movie, it was, but it was a well regarded screenplay. It was about another set another two American guys who were government contractors working in Iraq at the time. And this was in 2003. And right after the invasion, and Steven wanted to write the screenplay about them, and he wants to go interview them and see, you know, how they were doing. So, of course, he couldn’t get a commercial flight to Iraq. So he flew to Jordan. And he hired a driver to drive him to Baghdad. And that driver decided to stop in Fallujah to get some free gas because no one was manning the gas stations. And they got shot at by insurgents and made a run for it. And they got saved by the US Army, just like in the movie, so that that story is actually true. It just happened to the screenwriter of a screenplay not to us, and when so when he was writing the screenplay, Todd Phillips, the director, you know, tell So, you know, these guys are just sitting behind desks too much. We need some action in there, you know, why don’t you put your story about getting shot at in Iraq and into the story and and so that’s how that got into the movie.

Dan LeFebvre  20:10

Well, I was gonna ask about in that, like in the movie, of course, maybe it wasn’t you driving through the Triangle of Death, but there was a scene where that happens where your character just kind of reflects on me and six months ago, I was a massage therapist and now I’m driving a truckload of guns through the Iraqi desert was can you kind of give us what your mindset was like in those early months? Like, did you kind of realize this whirlwind of events or things that were happening like the movie seems to imply?

David Packouz  20:39

Yeah, absolutely. I would say that my biggest kind of like, shock or, you know, realization that I was in a very different world was when we were was our first trade show that we went to. So we went to like, just in the movie, they call it in Vegas sex. But in there was a trade show in Vegas called the Shot Show, I believe it’s still going on. But it’s not actually a military focused trade show. It’s it’s more of a commercial hunting, shooting sports trade show. So people gun manufacturers do go to that trade show, but it’s more aimed at the civilian market. Henry, the guy played by by Bradley Cooper didn’t meet us there. We did, we did. But we had known him like well, before that we’d been doing business with him over the phone and by email for like, a good bunch of months before we met him. But we did meet him in person there. So he also attended that trade show. But the the trade show that they that they make it look like is not the Shot Show, they make it look like more of a military trade show and a defense industry trade show. And I believe that they’re basing it more on a trade show, such as Euro Satori, which is based in Paris, and that’s the one we went to first. That was our first military trade show. In Euro Satori in Paris, happens every year. There’s there’s a bunch of these trade shows that happen all over the world. But it really does look like what they portrayed in the movie with like, you know, tanks and, and aircraft and attack helicopters. And pretty much every major arms manufacturer has like a booth there and, and they have outside in the field, they have live demonstrations of like live fire drills with like attack helicopters and tanks, jumping sand dunes and stuff like that. And drones, you know, so they really do have that. And so when I was like walking through that show, and like, I was like, Holy crap, this is like a whole different world than what I’m used to and where I’m where I’m coming from. So that’s when it really hit me. Okay,

Dan LeFebvre  22:47

okay. Well, I’m curious about something. In the movie, the Beretta deal, you said that, that that failed. So maybe things were a little bit different. But in the movie, after that, we see a DUI is expanding nice new offices, more employer employees being hired. And that was kind of confused with how the movie was telling the story here. Because on one hand, we see from in the movies, telling new employees that they have to watch the website all the time for contracts. We also see the employees aren’t really doing any contracts themselves, the movie shows you being the one to find the next big contract the Afghan contract, as it’s called, on the government website. And we’ll talk a little bit more about that in a in a bit. But after the Beretta contract, it sounds like that that fell through was there a big contract that changed to see a why expanding or what were things like after that time?

David Packouz  23:40

So our first really big contract that we won? Well, I should say, after the Beretta deal, was the Afghan contract now, we didn’t actually hire anyone, and we’re even get at office until after we won that contract. So yeah, the timeline is a little off in the movie, but like, before we won the Afghan contract, we were working out of EFRAIM’s apartment. And it was only after we won the $300 million deal that he felt comfortable spending like $2,000 a month on an office. And yeah, I know. And, and so yeah, once we won that deal, he we rented an office and then he started hiring people. And at our peak, we probably had around like 15 people working in the office. And so yeah, I mean, and that by that point, I was just concentrating on working on the Afghan deal and he was getting all the other people in the office to try to get other deals and new deals and and he was also doing some commercial deals like importing ammo for the shooting sports commercial market and getting them to sell it to like gun shops and stuff like that.

Dan LeFebvre  24:54

I want to talk about the the Afghan contract and in the movie, the way that sets up out I’ll talk about how that sets it up. It shows that there’s this big deal for 306 360,000 sniper rifles over a million grenades, 45,000 rockets, 100 million rounds of AK 47 ammunition. And the reason it’s called the Afghan deal is nickname for it because this is all for the US military to rearm the Afghan army. According to the movie, it mentions all those guns and stuff at first, but then it really just kind of focuses on the 100 million rounds of ammo for the rest of the movie. Were you involved in the whole contract? Or was it just the ammo? Can you kind of clarify what your role was in that?

David Packouz  25:36

Yeah, so I was involved in the whole contract. And it was about 30 different it was all munitions, it wasn’t any weapons. It was all munitions. So all the stuff that goes in the weapons. And it was everything from like, as you mentioned, you know, like, it was everything from like Pistol ammo to machine gun ammo to grenades to anti aircraft, rockets, mortar rounds, tank rounds. So there was a pretty much every bit of munitions that an army or police force would need for like the next 30 years was the plan. That was that was what they were going for. And because the Bush administration thought that that, you know, they were very unpopular at the time, and they figured the next president would be a Democrat, which they were right, Obama was next, but they thought that, that the next Democratic president would pull out of Afghanistan immediately, and which they were wrong took until was 2020 Biden pulled out. And, and so their plan was to arm the Afghans for like the next 30 years, so they wouldn’t run out of ammo if they got abandoned by the United States. And so that’s why they had such a large variety and quantity of munitions for this contract. The I was working on the entire thing, and we had sources all over to get it. In fact, the AK 47 Ammo was one of the lowest margin items on on the list. So we were making the least amount of money on that ammo was the most it was the largest quantity and largest logistics challenge because it was high volume, low value. But the grenades were making us way more money. So we and the grenades were brand new manufacturing, I’ve, you know, one of my contacts in Bulgaria was manufacturing, brand new, and they had really, really good prices. And so we were making way more money on the grenades and on the AK 47 ammo and the grenades had no legal issues whatsoever. Because they were brand new, right out of Bulgaria. So So yeah, I mean, I was working on all of it. It was just got focused on the the AK 47 animals because it was the famous logistics issues that we dealt with the whole repackaging situation. Okay,

Dan LeFebvre  27:58

okay. Yeah. And because the impression that I got from the movie because it really only focuses on the ammo, but it also shows like The the Albanian warehouses full of stuff, I was just like, well, maybe they just got all the other stuff from here, too. It was just like a big, everything all in one from these warehouses.

David Packouz  28:15

No, most of the stuff we got that other than the AK 47. And some of the machine gun ammo, the 760 by 54 ammo. We mostly did that was mostly from other places. So it was just really the AK 47 and machine gun ammo, the AKM ammo that we that we got from Albania. And another difference in real life. They didn’t store all that stuff in a warehouse. They stored it underground in these huge, really long bunkers. And Albania. As they mentioned in the movie, it was run by this paranoid dictator for most of the Cold War, who he withdrew from the Soviet Union and the Soviet Union that tends not to like that. So he thought that he would get invaded by the Soviet Union. And because he was a starch, communist, staunch communist, he thought that that the that NATO would invade them too. So he thought he was going to get invaded by the world’s two superpowers, and he’s a tiny little country near Greece. And so he allied himself with the Chinese and got a massive amount of ammo from the Chinese, and weapons and stuff. And that’s how all that ammo ended up being Chinese. And what he did was he built this huge underground network of of bunkers, so that ends and put all the ammo and weapons in there and so that they would be safe from Buckmark bombardment from the air. And his plan was that if he got invaded, the entire population would become soldiers and everyone would fight to the death he called it his plant total war plan. Yeah, that was his plan. So of course the war never came. So after the Cold War ended, all the those weapons and ammo were still in those books. occurs. And by 2007, NATO really wanted to join up. I’m sorry, Albania really wanted to join NATO. And one of NATO’s requirements is that Albania get rid of all their old ammo and weapons. So they were going to have to pay to dismantle all of it, which is going to cost them a lot of money. And so they were thrilled to sell it instead. Because then they make money instead of lose money. And so that’s how we got such an amazing price.

Dan LeFebvre  30:26

We had talked about this a little bit before we you mentioned, Henry Gerard and Vegas accent in the movie, we see how the Afghan deal is going to be completed. It mentions Henry Gerard, Bradley Cooper’s character, and you’re meeting with Gerard at Vegas X. And he says that he’s going to supply all 100 million rounds of ammo for the Afghan deal from that military surplus in Albania. But Gerard can’t bid on the contract himself, because he has been added to the terrorist watchlist by the US government. So basically, he’s going to sell the ammo to AI, who then turns it around and sells it to the US government. And that’s how the movie sets up that. Basically, that was how you’re going to complete the Afghan deal. Was that a pretty good interpretation of how it really happened?

David Packouz  31:10

More or less? I don’t think he was if he was on a terrorist watch list he was on. Like, I don’t know what the official one would term was, but he was like, on a list of concern, so to speak, by by Amnesty International, right. So not by the US government. So Amnesty International, had published some things about him that they suspected him of being involved in the arms trade to Africa, and to some warlords, and obviously, that would be bad. But I don’t think anything was ever proven. And so he was not like, legally. I don’t know exactly why he he never, like registered with the federal government and did any of these things himself, but he was he was dealing with, with quite a few different contractors, it wasn’t just us, he was also selling to other American companies as well. And we just happened to be very competitive with the other items on the contract, not just those items. So we had really good prices on grenades and, and that helped us win. And as well as other things, we just had better an overall package than our competitors. And that’s how we want it wasn’t he wasn’t really the magic bullet that took care of everything. He really just took care of the AK ammo, and the and the machine gun ammo.

Dan LeFebvre  32:35

Okay, because that’s exactly what he seems like is the magic bullet like, Oh, he’s going to, he’s got everything. And he’ll give you everything for you know, for a deal. Yeah.

David Packouz  32:44

I mean, it was an important very important component of the of the contract. But But yeah, it was not as they portrayed in the movie, like a turn key thing where he took care of everything. And, and we didn’t have heat, we only had one supplier. And it was him that that wasn’t the case. He was just the supplier of those items. He gave us quotes for the other items, but he wasn’t competitive on some of those other items. So we got that from other people.

Dan LeFebvre  33:09

Okay, okay. Yeah, that paints a very different picture than the one that I got from watching the movie. Right? Yeah, one thing we do see in the movie is you actually go to Albania to inspect the bullets. And there’s a screen that and then after, after that, we see that you guys bid on the Afghan deal, there’s a screenshot I paused the movie to look at it in Excel. And here we can see the total bid a little over $300 million dollars. And the movie also mentions three separate audits and an in person interview before actually getting the contract. The movie doesn’t really focus on it much. But it does mention that that has to generate you know, years of paperwork or at out why should say has to generate years of paperwork for those audits. Because you I didn’t keep any records. So now that they have these government audits have to do all that. And then basically, while you’re there, you have to go to I think it was Rock Island, Illinois and the movie The once you to actually talk to people, you and EFRAIM go there, kind of get high in the car beforehand, because it’s it’s a very stressful situation. So that’s understandable. But then while you’re there, you find out that you got the contract, but you also undercut the bid by $53 million. So then everyone was all upset. That’s an overview of how the movie shows you why landing that huge Afghan contract. How close to the true story is that? So

David Packouz  34:33

As with everything else is partially true. The we really did have it was I think, like five different audits. One was financial, where they they want to see that we had the money capabilities. One was accounting, they want to see that we had like the record keeping thing and that’s what we had to and we really did. So at From hired an accountant who just had happened to have been in federal prison, right? He just liked to have these guys. And that guy created like years of records by hand. So to make it look like he had been doing the accounting properly for the past few years, and so yeah, that guy, I think it took him like a good like two weeks to do that. So he created the the other records going back. And they they actually sent a group of nice middle aged ladies to our office that they were from the government, they were actually super nice. And we were super nervous because the government is going to come to visit the office, they’re gonna see where a couple of kids and you know, just and so, you know, we both wore suits and, and, you know, we had our, you know, our secretaries looking really busy and stuff, so we would look professional. And of course, everyone’s a real, he’s a real charmer, you know, he can be he’s a very, very personable person. So, he starts joking with them. He’s like, he’s like, like, oh, ladies, you know, I knew that you were, you know, I knew that, you know, over the phone. I could tell you were smart. But I didn’t know you were so beautiful. I mean, you know, if it wasn’t so illegal, like, definitely be buying your diamonds right now. And so they’re all laughing, you know? So he charms them, and they get us actually pretty high marks in that audit. They wanted us to come to the Rock Island Arsenal, which is where the contract was being managed. And Efraim told me is like, hey, you know, we’re a couple of kids, we probably should, it probably would not, might not look too good. So I’m gonna go with Ralph, because Ralph’s an older guy, Ralph’s, like in his 60s. So so I didn’t end up going to that meeting, because everyone wanted Ralph to be there to give him additional legitimacy. I don’t know whether or not he smoked weed. Before going into that meeting. I didn’t ask him, but it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if he did, or even if he snorted a line of cocaine, because he was doing a lot of that back then. So in fact, I’d be surprised if he didn’t snort a line of cocaine before that meeting. But when we did that, we were told that that, that we were $53 million under the next or 52, I don’t remember, under the next bid, but it didn’t happen at that meeting. It actually happened is actually the guy told me, the contracting officer told me over the phone, so and the way it happened was he I’m trying to remember what we were discussing, but we’re discussing something like I was asking him, you know, whether we could do something or other. And he’s like, Yeah, you know, we’re really happy to help you guys out. You guys were just like, you know, so competitive. You know, you guys really kicked ass, you know, of all your competitors. And I was like, really? And he’s like, oh, yeah, you guys were so much lower than everyone else. And I’m like, really? How much lower? And he goes, he’s like, Listen, I’m actually not really allowed to legally tell you this. But since we’re just talking over the phone, I’m gonna deny it If you tell anyone okay, but we’re talking over the phone. I’ll tell you all right. He’s like, you guys were $53 million under the next people. And I was like, holy shit. And so like, I you know, I spend like, well, you know, we’re just trying to get a good, you know, a good deal for the government’s because, you know, we’re, you know, we’re responsible contractors like that. And so of course, I tell that for him, and he was pissed. He was like, throwing things at the wall. He was screaming, he’s like, these motherfuckers could have made $50 million more got that, you know, and he just, like, he was like, he was pissed for like, a whole day. Because of that. He was just like, fuming and fuming. And then, of course, I think that had to do some of it, you know, he started, you know, scheming of all different ways we could like increase the profit margins and, and, and that’s kind of what got us in trouble later, when he when he tried to cut Henry out of the deal. By the way, Henry’s real name was not Henry Gerard it was Henry tau May th o m e t. Tau May. He’s a Swiss guy, and looked very different than Bradley Cooper in the movie in real life. You look more like a clean cut. Swiss banker then. Then the way Bradley Cooper portrayed him.

Dan LeFebvre  39:33

Most of us look different than Bradley Cooper. So yeah, well, I

David Packouz  39:37

mean, Bradley on I think Bradley, I read some interview with him that he was kind of trying to look like more hard ass in that movie. So like, that’s why he’s like all unshaven and he’s got those super thick glasses and like bloodshot eyes. And, you know, so he was kind of trying to do more of like an underground, like criminal kind of vibe. But Henry actually was the opposite of that. He was is very, very clean cut professional never raised his voice about anything very quiet calm and ended every sentence with the word. Okay, for some reason you’d be like so the price for the AK set for the AKs are good. Okay, I can I can, I can supply them by the middle of March. Okay, you know, so it’s like that. Yeah, everything was okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah, exactly everything was like that. And he’s very, very calm, never never raised his voice never screamed or, or went nuts or anything like that, like Bradley does in the movie but but yeah, I mean, he’s, he’s been doing it. Henry has been in the arms business since he was like 18. And he was in his 40s at the time. So he’s one of the most connected people in that business of anyone, particularly in Eastern Europe. But yeah, but he tries to keep as low of a profile as possible for for good reasons. So he’s, there aren’t many pictures of him out there. I think there’s maybe one YouTube video of him giving some speech somewhere. So it’s not like he’s completely anonymous on the internet. But but there, I think that’s the only thing that’s out there as far as you

Dan LeFebvre  41:12

maybe you already answered my next question. But when Efraim gets all upset about losing that, that $50 million. That kind of goes to contrast earlier in the movie when he’s talking about being happy living off crumbs and things that the other big defense contractors didn’t want. And now with this afghan do the movie even pointed out says this is the whole pie. Was there something maybe that the movie doesn’t show? Or was it that 50 missing out on that $50 million that he found out that was kind of like this change in being happy? You know, from going, being happy with the crumbs? Do I want the whole pie?

David Packouz  41:49

Well, I mean, I would say that EFRAIM’s driving force, at all times was greed, I mean, greed and power. I mean, that’s kind of like what he lived off. And he was never happy with a deal. Regardless. I mean, he was not happy with the crumbs, he was always trying to get more crumbs he was always trying to, and the way he worked was that it wasn’t really so much about the money. I’ll give you a story that kind of illustrates his character. When I first started working with him within like, the first two, three weeks, I saw him you know, we worked in the in out of his apartment, right in his living room. And he would always talk on the phone with the with the phone speaker on side hear both sides of the conversation. He I guess he just didn’t like holding the phone up to see or whatever. And I remember seeing him once get on the phone with AT and T and start is, you know, screaming and shouting and stuff, because he felt like he was there was like a $5 charge on his bill that he felt should not have been there. And he kept on insisting you know, they said, Well, you know, they kind of pushed back well, you know, this is our policy, whatever. And he’s like, I want to speak to your manager, you know, and he kept him like, insisting on going up the chain of command. Eventually, I think he got the $5 removed from his bill, but it took him like 45 minutes. Right? And, you know, like, and it was like a whole drama, like he was yelling and screaming and the whole thing. And I told them afterwards, after you hung up, I’d said, you know, EFRAIM, why are you spending so much time and effort on $5 overcharge, you know, you could spend that time making God knows how much money doing pretty much anything else? And you know, why are you wasting your time here. And he goes to me he’s like, it’s the principle of the matter and nobody see nobody. So like to him, you’d like it was is much more of an ego thing than anything. And like I’d seen him like screw someone over through some various tricky means, where the he ruined the guy, the guy was crying on the phone that his business was going to go bankrupt and, and like, you know, his wife is going to leave them and the CEOs kid is sick and whatever. And Efraim eventually used that whole thing in his own schpeel when he tried to convince the government of things but but you know, but this guy seems to be legitimate. and EFRAIM just he just didn’t care and all the only difference to for EFRAIM he was after he hung up the phone with them. keys like well, I just made another 3% on my contract. And I’m like, Oh, you did all that you screw this guy over your ruins and for an extra 3% And it’s like, that’s not going to move the needle for him. You know, he’s not he’s already got millions of dollars in the bank. You know, what’s a few extra $1,000 It’s not going to do anything. But for him it was about winning. That was what it was all about. It wasn’t about the money. It was about winning. I mean, he was he hated spending money. He barely spent it at all, especially in the beginning. Later on. He started spending it when he knew he was going to go to prison. And then he started spending a lot of it. But but in the beginning, he, he like, was very cheap, like he would eat at cheap restaurants. He, you know, like didn’t want to spend like he barely had any clothes. He was driving like a, like a secondhand used car and living in an apartment that was you know, not not terrible, but not nothing compared to what he could afford. So, yeah, I mean, he just had this kind of like sickness that he just needed to, like, have just as much money in his bank account as possible. And it was he wanted to win. And that was that was really what it’s all about.

Dan LeFebvre  45:35

Okay, that’s, again, seems a little different than I think it was after the I think it was after the Beretta deal in the movie where it shows his character and your character in the movie getting like matching portion on elevens or something like that. And he was like, Oh, we got this huge deal. And then, you know, start spending some money. So it seems like he’s okay with spending money.

David Packouz  45:55

Yeah, well, we actually so we didn’t have matching Porsches. But we did. We did both of Audi’s he, it wasn’t they weren’t matching. He had an ace six and I had an a four sided i the less expensive version. But we did have matching Audi’s I guess you could say, and we also did move into the same building. It wasn’t as fancy as they show in the movie, but it was it was a pretty nice condo complex. Yeah.

Dan LeFebvre  46:19

Okay. Okay. So, you know, make it it’s going to be on filming the movie.

David Packouz  46:24

Oh, no, no, no, yeah. The building they show in the movie wasn’t even built at that time. I know what building they’re talking about, in fact, that that apartment, I saw it go on the market and what the marketing they use for it was this was the apartment that was in featured in the film War Dogs. Yeah, that’s how the agent was selling it. Yeah. But yeah, that that building was not it was not even constructed at the time that this story took place.

Dan LeFebvre  46:52

In the movie, it’s your character that goes this go back to Albania to help actually facilitate this deal. And with the logistics of it, I just see a character that notices that all the bullets are Chinese. And that means it can’t be sold to the US government because of an embargo against China. So then EFRAIM comes up, he shows up in Albania. And he has this idea of taking bullets I I worked on the exact number they mentioned in the movie 68,520 wooden crates, and he wants to put them into corrugated fiberboard boxes to help make it cheaper on shipping. And then we see a wise hiring a team of like 50 people to repack the ammo over the course of eight weeks costing $100,000. So there’s no more Chinese label on the outside also saves $3 million in shipping costs going from the wooden crates to the lighter boxes seems like a good deal. Except of course, repacking is not necessarily legal going around that embargo. So how well does the movie do showing the situation with the ammunition for the Afghan deal?

David Packouz  47:55

So it was pretty close? Yeah, I mean, I so I didn’t go to Albania. Yeah, the guy who we so we sent. So we realized that the way it happened was that in early 2007, there was a huge spike in oil prices. And Efraim had not bought any, he didn’t hedge his bets, he didn’t, he didn’t buy any insurance. So to speak a big company, if you have, if you’re really relying on a large transportation contract, you know, like, if you if you’re about to, like, you know, book 100 aircraft loads have to ship something, usually what they do is they buy insurance in order to to counteract the movements of the oil markets, because like the vast majority of the cost of air freight is in oil is in the fuel. And if the oil price significantly moves, then you could your your transportation costs could significantly change, which is what happened. So of course, effort didn’t buy the insurance, because that’s just not how he rolls. And, and so we were kind of stuck in a situation where we could not deliver this ammo at a profit. And so the AK 47, ama from Albania, the grenades, we were able to because there was low volume, high margins. And you know, one aircraft load of grenades was like $3 million worth. And but an aircraft load of ammo was under $300,000, where it says literally 1/10 the price so that the air freight costs change put us underwater on those on the on ammo deal. So I realized, you know, air freight is based on weight, primarily. And so if we could reduce the weight, we could save money and maybe get this section of the contract back into profitability. And I you know, we had gotten pictures from the Albanians of the Alamo and it was all packed in these very heavy looking wooden crates. And so I told Mmm, like, hey, you know, if we remove these crates, the ammo still in these sealed metal tins, they call them sardine cans. We can just ship the sardine cans and and get rid of all this wood and maybe that’ll be enough to make it profitable. And he’s like, Oh, that’s a great idea. But we’ll Yeah, but that’s like a pretty big operation to repackage this stuff. So we need somebody on the ground. He’s like, you know, you just like David, you know, you’re you, I need you here in Miami, because you’re dealing with the government, you’re dealing with all the other suppliers for the other aspects of the contract. I don’t want you to go in anywhere. But let’s get someone else to go there. And so we decided to hire my friend Alex, Alex Paretsky, who was my childhood friend, we’ve known each other since like third grade. And Alex had he’s dual citizen with in, in France, with French France. And he had spent some time in the French military. He speaks English, Spanish and French. So he’s his, you know, three languages. Very smart guy, very, very responsible and capable person. And so I said, Hey, you know, Alex is actually, he had just graduated, he has a master’s degree in international relations. So and he’s a smart guy, military experience, why don’t we hire him? And so EFRAIM hired him put him on salary sent him over to Albania. And we got picked email back from Alex saying, hey, you know, this is the situation with the ammo because he had majored in international relations, he knew that there was an issue with Chinese ammo. And that’s how we found out so so yeah, it wasn’t it wasn’t me. Who was there?

Dan LeFebvre  51:43

And it was seems like it was a lot more complex than the movie shows, which happens with movies.

David Packouz  51:47

Yeah, they have to I mean, they have to simplify. There’s only so much you could put in an hour and a half. I mean, this is this is like two years of of events compressed into an hour and a half. Right,

Dan LeFebvre  51:58

right. And characters to like with with with Alex and you know, just compressing it into okay, you’re the one going because you already been introduced. Exactly.

David Packouz  52:05

That’s what the screenwriter told me. He’s like, you know, we we don’t want to introduce another character here. It’s already you know, well into the movie and, and so just keep the story simple. And that’s why they sent me in the movie. Well,

Dan LeFebvre  52:18

things don’t go so well in the movie. Once EFRAIM finds out that any drive paid two and a half cents per bullet for the Afghan deal. Well, then he then he turned around in charge at y 10 cents per bullet. So the way the movie sets this up, it’s against your characters wishes in the movie Efraim tries to cut Gerard out of the deal. We don’t exactly see how he went about doing that because the movie follows your character in Albania. Well, FGM is in Miami. But we do see the result of it happening. You get kidnapped from the hotel stuffed in the trunk of a car driven to a deserted lot with Gerard threatens you with a gun in your face. That’s the scene the movie actually starts with. And then it comes back near the end of the movie to show that did that actually happen? No.

David Packouz  53:01

Yeah, that that never happened. And neither it didn’t happen to Alex either. I mean, he didn’t get kidnapped either. EFRAIM did try to cut Henry out of the deal if that is true. So and the real numbers were actually that he was buying it from the Albanian Ministry of Defense for two cents around. And he was selling it to us at four cents around. So he was doubling his money. But we were selling it to the US government for 10 and a half cents around. However, this airfreight was costing us I think, like five and a half cents around so we were still pulling in. Then that was after the repackaging. So before the repackaging it was going to cost us like 14 sets around or something like that. And so we were going to lose money. But after the repackaging it was. I mean, in total, before, in in after the repackaging, we were paying, I think about five, five and a half cents of round and shipping costs. So we’re clearing about a center round, which gives it about a 10% profit margin. That was after the repackaging. So yeah, the what happened was, after we got the repackaging going, Alex found this guy named Kosta, the box guy. And it started the repackaging things were going well Efraim decides that he wants to make more profit on this deal, like he does with everything. And so he decides he’s going to try to cut Henry out of the deal and deal directly with the, with the Albanians. And so he tells me, he’s like, he’s like, Okay, I’m going to flat Albania and I’m going to convince them to give us a better price. He’s like, what I want you to do is I want you to take he’s telling me, he’s like, I want you to take all the quotes that you got from from other people from other sources. And I want you to doctored the documents and change it. So it looks like we got much better prices from those other alternative sources. And so he saw I’d do that for a minute. It wasn’t particularly hard to just get a PDF editing program and change the numbers. You know, it wasn’t hard. And print out the documents for him. He goes to Albania. He talks to the lead Albanian guide, Nick I named Philippe Inari. And he’s like, he’s like, look, I have these these other quotes. Alex was telling me this later because Alex was there. He’s like, he’s like, look, I have all these other quotes. You guys gotta give me a credit, better price and and Pienaar, he looks at him. He’s like, those documents are all fake. Don’t show me your fake documents. He knew right away, he knew right away. He didn’t even like look at it. He was like, he’s like, I know, you’re foolish, you know? And so he refused to give him another a better price. And eventually, you know, everyone kept on bugging him. Eventually Pienaar, he’s like, Okay, fine. You know, I’ll tell you what, I’ll make a meeting with the guy who can make this decision. And so he sets up a meeting with a guy named Billy Yorkie, who we found out later turns out to be part of the Albanian mob. And this meeting took place in this, this construction zone, it was like a building that was under construction. And they go into the construction zone. And then like they opened the door and suddenly, it’s like a beautifully furnished office, like out of like Wall Street. And, and there’s the Albanian Gaya, dill Yorkie at this table. And, and Alex told me that the second Diveroli walks into this meeting, he immediately got quiet, because diversity is a very brash and loud person always talking and always kind of like, you know, joking around and kind of, and he also bullies people. He, you know, he’s a big talker. But Alex told me that, you know, the second he walked into this office and saw this guy, he knew that he couldn’t do that with this guy, you know this with this mobster. He got really quiet and very respectful, which is very out of character for him. And the Albanian says, Look, I know that you want better price, but we can’t give you better price. But we know that you are repackaging ammo, and you pay this men to repackage ammo, and why don’t you give this contract for repack to us, we make money and repack and then I give you a better price because we make more money from repack. And they were always like, yeah, that sounds like a great idea. Sure. That guy’s fired. You’re Hired, you know. And, and Costa Of course, got really upset about that, because he got taken off the contract. And he calls me up and he’s like, Hey, listen, you know, I get it. It’s business. You got to go with the person who gives you the better price. I understand. But can you at least by my extra boxes from me because I have I made a whole bunch of boxes for you guys for this contract. But now you’re kicking me off the contract. I am stuck with $20,000 worth of boxes. So you’re going to need these boxes anyway. Why don’t you buy it from me? And I said, okay, yeah, that’s very reasonable. I you know, appreciate you being you know, cool about this. And so I call it that from like a f from you know, why don’t we just buy these boxes from Costa and everyone’s like, yeah, yeah, okay, no problem. I’ll do it. I’ll do it. Okay, yeah. Tell them I’ll do it. So I tell Costa Yeah, he’s gonna do week goes by Costa Causton facts like Hey, I from hasn’t bought the bus. I call him like, Efrain by the system. You’re like, Yeah, I’m gonna doesn’t do it right. A third time that he calls me up. He’s like, I still like like, I really need you to guys to buy these boxes, and EFRAIM’s like, yeah, you know, I talked to dilla Yorkie and they don’t want to deal with them. So, you know, just let it he can keep the boxes we don’t need. And I’m like, Efraim just pay the guy. He knows everything. You know, he’s knows why we’re repackaging the ammo, you know, he can, he can destroy us. And he’s like, yeah, that guy’s not going to do. Don’t worry about him. You know, of course, that was the big mistake. And that guy did do something. He called up the the Feds and told them what we were doing. And he called up the New York Times and told them what we were doing. And his biggest mistake was that he called up the Albanian press and told them that that, that the Albanian politicians were getting kickbacks from this deal, which we didn’t know whether it was true or not. But we assume that’s probably how Henry got such a good price. And also probably why the Albanians refused to cut Henry out of the deal. Even though Efraim asked them because they were getting their kickbacks from Henry. Now, we didn’t have proof of this. Henry never admitted this to us because it is illegal to bribe foreign officials. Even if it’s not your own country, you can get arrested in the United States for bribing a foreign official. So it’s probably a good thing. We didn’t know about it. But and Henry didn’t. We didn’t ask and Henry didn’t tell. But we but we we assume that’s probably what was happening in retrospect. So yeah, eventually, so a few weeks after he He told the Albanian press that he ended up dead, the box guy. So it was the box guy that ended up getting killed, not the driver, there was no driver in, you know, in the movie, it’s the driver that gets killed for some try to scare us or something. That’s not what happened. There was no driver, there was just the box guy got killed. And that was because he ran his mouth to the Albanian press. And, you know, the powerful people in Albania didn’t want someone claiming that they’re corrupt. Because corruption is like the number one political issue in Albania. It’s a huge problem over there.

Dan LeFebvre  1:00:34

Well, for your storyline, as far as you know, the end of the movie, we see things very quickly dissolve you were in Albania with with the whole getting kidnapped scene. But then after that, you head back to a wise office demand your percentage of the Afghan deal about $4 million, according to the movie, you also want to leave the company. But the contract wasn’t completed yet. So EFRAIM’s like, I don’t have that money to pay you right now. And then your character in the movie says, Well, I’m willing to accept you kind of negotiate and when do you know 40 cents on the dollar, like 1.6 million. We also see, the movie makes a point of this written contract of a 7030 partnership between you and EFRAIM. And then it just mysteriously disappears from your desk drawer. The movie doesn’t show it but we saw it from looking at it while you were in Albania. So very heavily implies that he took that. And then later with there’s the box guy thing and then also we see Ralph Slutsky mediating a talk between your character and air from, from offense, like $200,000 Split up over the next four years, partly the amount owed. And so in a fit of rage, your character then tells Ralph about the repacking the Chinese Mo and Albania, something he didn’t know about. And then everything is just a whirlwind at the end. All of this really could be expanded a lot more in the movie, I’m sure but it happens so quickly. Because we find out that Ralph was wearing a wire, we find out that the box guy in Albania never got paid. And so he called the Pentagon, which oversimplification based on what you’re saying there, but basically, that’s how the movie shows you and from getting arrested, it seemed like a whirlwind ending to me, that was like just a few minutes of movie time. Seems to me that you’re wrapping everything up in the movie. Yeah,

David Packouz  1:02:16

they had to wrap it up. I mean, that was changed dramatically of how it happens. So yeah, I mean, I as I said, I didn’t go to Albania. So I was still in Miami. Uh, once we, I think it was about a few months after the whole repackaging situation happened and effort went to Albania to negotiate he made this new deal with the Albanian mob and, and started getting them to do the repackaging. And so things were starting to, like we’re starting to fly like three aircraft loads a week of this ammo into out into Afghanistan. And, and that was on top of all the other stuff. So this is like from Albania, we also had a grid like aircraft coming from Bulgaria, every one to two weeks with grenades and from various from Hungary and from various other places. And things were starting to really go smoothly and, and it was just really a matter of management, managing the contract, making sure all the documents were in the right place at the right time, etc. And so this was like the first time in many, many months that I was able to have like a breather, you know, it was like, I wasn’t working 18 hour days, like I was for the last like five months. And so I started coming into the office less, right? Because I didn’t need to. And so one day, the contract was going well, everything was going well. Efraim comes into my office, it was late in the day, because I was staying there late because I had to make some calls to overseas. And he comes everyone else in the office was gone for the day. And he walks into my office, and he’s like, hey, you know, a lot of the guys around the office are telling me that you’re not pulling your weight around here anymore. And I’m like, What are you talking about? Who’s saying that? Right? Because I was good. I was on great terms with everyone with all our employees, I was known as the nice boss. And he was known as the asshole. Right? So like, everyone would come to me and complain about him. Right? So I was like, there’s no way they’re talking behind my back to this guy. There’s this there’s not a single person in the office who would do that. And so I’m like, who’s saying that? You know, and he’s like, it doesn’t matter who’s saying it. Don’t worry about that. But you know, the thing is, you’re not really helped. You’re not You’re not pulling your weight. I’m like, What are you talking about with the cont the Afghan contract is going great. We’re delivering on consistent basis. The government is thrilled the money’s coming in. And he’s like, Yeah, I know, the Afghan contracts going great, but like, you know, was really struggling with the Iraq contract and you’re not helping with that. And I said, but I’m not part of that contract. I’m working on commission only here, right? I’m not I don’t have a salary, I’m not responsible for every contract the company does. And he says, Yeah, but you know, if if those contracts fail, the company could go under, and then that takes your afghan contract with it. And I said to him, Well, in that case, you want me to be you want me to like work on everything, you, you want to give me a piece of the company? And he’s like, Oh, well, you know, I wouldn’t usually offer this to anybody, but you’re my best friend. And you’re the only guy I would even consider doing this for, you know, so why don’t we do this, I’ll give you a very generous $100,000 a year salary as an executive v y. And you get 1% of the company. And I said, 1% of the company, I mean, 90% of the company’s profits, for the next two years minimum is going to be the Afghan contract. And you owe me actually 25%, not 30, you owe me 25% of that, of that contract. So I think I’ll stick with my 25% of the 90% of the money, then 1% Of all the of 100% of money. And he’s like, he’s like, Well, you know, that’s just not going to work. We can’t do that. And I said, Well, I mean, we have an agreement. And he’s and he says, Well, you could take it or leave it, how about zero. And I said, Okay, if that’s how it’s gonna be, I’ll see you in court, you piece of shit. And I walked out. And I was extremely tempted to punch him in the face. And, you know, it’s just like, the smug look on his face. And I was obvious I so he hadn’t paid me anything until this point, because all the money that we had made in previous contracts together, he rolled into the next contract, because the way he put it, what he was like, hey, you know, I’m using my own money to finance this deal. As you make money, it’s only fair that you use your money to finance the deal to, you know, to the best of your ability. And I was like, okay, you know, I mean, I guess that kind of makes sense. You know, I mean, it’s not that much money comparatively, but you know, so I agreed to do that. But because of that, I didn’t have a penny from all the work that we had done in the last two years. And I had been living off my savings that 100 grand was down to 30 grand at this point. So and dwindling fast. And at this point, my daughter was, like six months old. And so I had, I had a kid to support. And so it was, I went from thinking I was going to be very shortly going to be a multimillionaire, to about to go literally bankrupt. And, you know, going down to zero. So it was a huge, huge shock and a huge, like, blow. And I was like, depressed for weeks after that. It was one of the hardest times in my life, because I was just didn’t know what to do. I was like, I got to get a lawyer, but the lawyer needs to get paid, and I don’t have money to pay a lawyer and, and all this stuff. And I was like, is he just gonna, like, walk away and get away with this. And eventually, my, one of my dad’s good friends, was a very high powered lawyer and agreed to take on my case, and started negotiating with him. And we we negotiated. to, like, we did go, he owed me about $5 million, it was about 5 million that he owed me, and we negotiated, and he was willing to give me 300,000. And obviously, that’s ridiculous. But at this point, I was like, you know, what, 300 if, rather than going through a lawsuit, which could take years and who knows if I’ll ever end up collecting, because who knows, this guy could end up dead, he the way he does business, he could end up bankrupt the way he could end up in prison. I mean, that’s all those are all very good possibilities. So better to have $300,000 now than maybe nothing later. And so I agreed to it, just to be able to have something so I wouldn’t go bankrupt and be able to support my kid and move on with my life and start a new a new chapter in my life. And we’re about to sign the contract to get to do that agreement. And the day we were supposed to sign the contract, I get a phone call from one of the secretaries at the office. And she tells me, Hey, I just wanted you to know, I hadn’t been working at the office for two months at this point. This is two months later, and I want you to know that. But I was still on good terms with all the all the employees, you know, so she called me up. She didn’t have to, but she called me up and she’s like, I want you to know that the federal agents just raided the office. And they told everyone to step away from their computers and get out of the office and, and they’re collecting everyone’s computers and all the filing cabinets. They’re boxing everything up. So just want you to know, and I was like, Holy crap, you know, the shoe has dropped. We’re, we’re screwed. And so I call up Alex who’s Well in Albania, and you know, Alex is my best friend. And so I tell him Hey, Alex, you know, I just want you to let you know that, that, you know, the Feds raided the office. And he’s like, what? It’s like, he’s like, why? Because like in Alex’s mind, it wasn’t even necessarily illegal what we were doing, right, because we, I mean, yes, there was an embargo against Chinese ammo. But the ammo that we were buying from Albania had been given to the Albanians in the 70s, before 1989, which was when the embargo was put in place. So it was actually legal when they gave it to the Albanians. And so you can buy Chinese ammo legally in the United States or Chinese weapon legally, as long as it’s imported before it was made illegal before the embargo. So technically, as far as the embargo was concerned, this ammo was legal. However, our contract with the US our commercial contract with the US Army specifically stated, no Chinese ammunition can be delivered either directly or indirectly under this contract. So so that was the so that, because now it was they put that in there because of the embargo. But they didn’t actually mentioned the embargo anywhere in the contract. It just says no Chinese mo period. So we figured, oh, this is probably just a violation of our commercial contract terms, which is not necessarily criminal, right? It’s just a commercial, it’s a breach of contract really, is what it was. And so in Alex’s mind, you know, he was like, Well, you know, I mean, it’s a might be a breach of contract. But that’s a firm’s problem. He owns the business. I’m just an employee, he could deal with the lawsuit or whatever the army wants to, if they even care, right, which they really didn’t.

David Packouz  1:11:44

Until, until they had to that is, and so, so out, but then he realized, hey, the feds are raiding the office. So he calls up. So he’s like, Okay, let me see what’s going on. He calls up the office. He calls up Danny, Danny is the guy who Efraim replaced me with after I left. And so he calls up Danny, and he says, Hey, Danny, I need you know, these documents to Ford. There’s an aircraft landing in a couple hours, I really need these documents in order to take care of the export permit. Can you get me these documents? Because he knew that everyone had been forced out of the office by the feds. So he’s like, I need these documents, just to see what would happen. So Danny t here’s the Alex told me this later. Alex, here’s Danny cover the mouthpiece of his phone, and whisper to EFRAIM Hey, hey, Everett’s It’s Alex. He, he won’t he needs these documents, or what should I tell him? And he hears EFRAIM going? Oh, well, we can’t get this document. Now. The feds are there. So why don’t you tell them that? Yeah, there was a bomb threat? Yeah, tell him there was a bomb threat at the office. And so we all had to leave. And so we can’t get them the documents now. But we’ll get it to him in a few hours. Okay. Yeah, tell him there’s a bomb threat. And so Danny gets back on the phone. He’s like, Yeah, there was a bomb threat. So we’ll have to give that to you later. And Alex’s thinking, why is that from lying to me? Right? Why doesn’t he tell me the truth. Maybe he’s planning on blaming me for everything. I’m making me me be the fall guy. I mean, I’m the guy on the ground. I’m supervising the repackaging operation EFRAIM’s going to claim he didn’t know anything about this, and this is all my fault. I’m not going to take the fall for this mother. You know, so he’s on the next plane back to the United States. And then I get a call from the federal agents. And they say to me, they’re like, hey, you know, we interviewed some of the other employees at the, you know, at your company, and they said that you had left on bad terms, we would love to talk to you. So, of course, I call up, you know, I hire a defense attorney, a criminal defense attorney, and I say, What should I do? Should I talk to the Feds or not? And my defense attorney says, well, first thing you have to do is you have to go through your emails and your text messages and search for all the keywords of all the things that you think you did wrong. And, and see see what kind of evidence there is see what kind of things they’re working with here. So I I, you know, searched in my email I searched for Chinese ammunition repack, and it turns out, there was quite a lot of evidence there was there was direct emails from you know, F from to Alex with me copied on it saying, Make sure you remove all the Chinese documents from inside the thing. We can’t have any Chinese markings, you know, like it was very, very blatant. And so I realized, well, they’ve already got all the evidence, you know, so there’s no way we can deny that we were doing what we were doing. And I told my lawyer then my lawyers will look if the evidence is rock solid, then your best bet is to just cooperate you can’t you can’t fight them, you know, because they are they’re gonna you if you fight them, you’re gonna get destroyed. And And anyway, do you have a few $100,000 to A good defense attorney for your for your case. And like no, I don’t I have less than 30 grand to my name, he’s like, Well, in that case, it’s not even a choice. You don’t you can’t even even if you were innocent, you could defend yourself. So. So and and he’s like, and you know, you’re not innocent, so just, you know, come clean, and hopefully it won’t be too bad. And so I, you know, we set up a meeting with the feds. And they, they the way the way they work is they tell they tell you, they interviewed Alex and me separately, of course, but they tell they, you know, so they can verify our stories against each other. And they tell me, you know, it’s like, this is the way it works. If you’re going to cooperate, you’re in 100%, there’s no half cooperating, you tell us everything. And if we find out that it was like, you know, if you cooperate and you do everything, well, we’re gonna go eat, we’re gonna go as easy as we can on you will tell the judge to go easy, and you’re, in fact, we don’t even plan to charge you, you know, we’re not even gonna bring charges against you, you’re just gonna be a witness, you didn’t benefit financially from this. So, you know, we see no reason to make you a target of this investigation. But if you lie to us, or if you leave anything out, right, and if you omit any information that we know, you know, and we can we think that you’re hiding it from us, your deal isn’t valid, and then we go hard after you and we’ll try to do as hard as we can. Right? And so I was like, Okay, I’m sufficiently scared. You know, let’s, let’s do this interview. And I told them everything I knew. And at the end of them at the end of the interview there, they like both, just so you know, because I ended the whole interview with the whole issue with the Chinese ammo. And I was like, oh, that’s the main most serious thing I can think of that what we’re doing is so Chinese ammo thing. And they’re like, you know, just, uh, you know, we knew about the Chinese ammo, because when we raided the office, we found a to do list on efforts desk in his handwriting. And one of the items in the To Do Lists was repackaged Chinese ammo, Albania. It’s pretty obvious. Yeah. So it was, so he’s like, yeah, he’s like, we knew about that, you know? So. So anyway, after that. So they told us, okay, you know, you gave us all the info, that’s fine. We’re still not sure what we’re doing about this case, we’ll do our best not to charge we don’t think that you deserve to be charged or not a target. So I’m, like, great. So I, so you know, I start, I set up my own company, to do government contracting, I figured, you know, if I, if I know this business, I might as well do it. As soon as the Feds raided the office, my lawyer says you can’t take a penny from Efraim, you know, this deal is done, you know, until all the legal issues are resolved. Because the last thing you want is for it to look like he’s paying you off to keep quiet. So. So you know, so that destroyed that. And so I had to, I had to get a job, you know, but I also started, I worked I got a job at a food bank.

Dan LeFebvre  1:17:59

So this is before he got that 320,000 that you already agreed to then?

David Packouz  1:18:03

Yes, exactly. I didn’t get I still didn’t get a penny for him, okay. And then my lawyer says you can’t take anything from him until all legal issues are resolved. And so I had to get a job. Because, you know, I was quickly running out of money. And, and I started my own company on the side, and it was working on winning government contracts. And about six months later, we, you know, we hadn’t heard from the agents and months, you know, I figured out that maybe they’re not going to do anything about this investigation. Maybe they’re just going to let it slide. I mean, who knows, you know, they’re just not doing anything. So, about six months later, I get a phone call. And it’s a New York Times reporter. And he says this guy named CJ shivers. And he says, Hey, we are investigating the story about EY delivering Chinese ammunition to the US Army in Afghanistan. He’s like, Do you have any comments on that? And so I quickly hang up the phone. And I call up my lawyer, and I tell him, Hey, I just got a call from the New York Times. What should I do? And my lawyer says, absolutely don’t talk to any reporters ever. Don’t talk to any reporters, you know, we That’s the worst thing you can do. So I said, Okay, I want to talk to any reporters. About a week later. The New York Times publishes a front page article, and it has my mug shot and EFRAIM’s mug shot side by side on the front page that the New York Times next to a picture of rusty looking ammunition. And they are in the New York Times article said that we were delivering all the ammo we were delivering was rusty and low quality and, and we were and it was dangerous. And we were putting our Afghan allies in danger by delivering this low quality stuff. And it just proves how incompetent the Bush administration was because they give a couple of 20 year olds this enormous contract and look what happened etc, etc. You Now, in reality, that ammo that they had on the cover of The New York Times was not even the Chinese ammo. It was Bulgarian ammo. And there was only about 30,000 rounds of ammo. We’re talking about of like 150,030,000 rounds of ammo that this that that, that this stuff was. And the reason the reason it got there was because Efraim had found this, this ammo in Bulgaria at a super, super, super cheap price. And it wasn’t really it was such a small quantity of ammo, it wasn’t really worth flying there to inspect it. And we already had extra room on the plane coming out of Bulgaria because we had a grenade shipment. So his thinking was, you know, roll the dice or buy the stuff, stick it on the aircraft is that if the government inspects it and accepts it great, we just made it great profit margin. Because this stuff is so cheap, if they reject it, no big deal. It’s super cheap anyway. And so the government inspected it, and of course, it was junk. And so they rejected it. They didn’t pay us for it. But of course, Afghanistan has no ammunition recycling facilities, so they had nowhere to put it. And so they put it to the side of the airport. And when the New York Times came to investigate, and they started asking questions about us, someone pointed out that ammo, they’re like, oh, yeah, that’s some of the ammo a wide delivered. And so of course, that’s where the picture came from. And the implication by the New York Times was that all the ammo we were delivering was this low quality stuff, which was not the case. The government was very happy with the quality of the ammo, they issued it to the Afghan allies. And, and it was used. So after that New York Times article came out, suddenly, the the Army made a statement, you know, we had no idea any of this was happening. We’re going to we’re going to remove this car, we’re going to take this contract away from a why and put it out for open bid on the market again, and, and the Justice Department one week later, decided that they they were going to charge us with fraud for defrauding the United States by lying that it was Chinese that it was not Chinese ammunition while it was Chinese ammunition now during the legal Fallout, so actually, so Ralph was portrayed very wrongly in the movie because he was the only guy who didn’t plead guilty. So I pled guilty. To Alex pled guilty, Efraim eventually pled guilty as well, because he knew there was just no way to avoid it. And but Ralph decided that he was going to fight it in court. So actually pretty much the opposite of what they show in the movie in the movie. He’s, he’s wearing a wire and trying to entrap that from in me, you know, but like, that’s not actually it’s actually the opposite. Ralph fought them in court. And he ended up losing, he actually had to go to trial twice, because the first trial was a hung jury. And then they had to do it again. And he got convicted on the second trial. And he, you know, he claimed he had nothing to do with it, he had no idea but unfortunately for him, there was a whole bunch of email evidence stating otherwise. In fact, there was an email from him with detailed instructions of how to erase Chinese markings from wooden crates. And he even had like, like pictures of like, how it would be done with like a wood sander. You know, there was really solid evidence against tutorial on how to do this. For real. I mean, he literally, that was one of the evidence, emails they used in court. And I mean, I think it was a big mistake on his part to fight them. He ended up losing, he ended up serving four years in prison. And but what if he had pled guilty, you probably would have gotten just, you know, probation or house arrest, which is what I ended up getting. So yeah, I mean, the way the way it worked was so while during the trial during the trial, it came out in court, that that the army was informed immediately by the Justice Department right after that raid about what was happening. They were informed there was an email going from the Justice Department to the to the army, saying, hey, this ammo you’re taking delivery on this contract is originally Chinese, you should know that. You know, perhaps you should stop taking delivery of that ammo, and the army responded to them. This all came out in court, these emails, the army responded to them saying the the, the this ammo is critical to the mission in Afghanistan. And if you want us to stop taking delivery on it, we’re going to need a letter instructing us to do so from the Attorney General of the United States. And the Attorney General of the United States, who was the head of the Justice Department never sent that letter. So for what reason we don’t know but he never sent the letter. So the army kept on taking delivery of the Afghan of the of the Chinese ammo from Albania. Well, after they found out it was Chinese for For the next six months, they took deliver, they kept on taking delivery for six months after they found out. And then as soon as the New York Times article comes out one week later, they’re like, oh, we have no idea. We had no idea. Of course, they knew the whole time, and they didn’t really care. It was they were getting good quality ammo at the best possible price. And that’s what they wanted. It was only the New York Times forced them into it, because it became a huge political scandal. So when they decided to charge us the way, the way they worked was they said, they said to me, and Alex, Hey, guys, you know, we know that we told you that, that we weren’t going to charge you, right? Unfortunately, we think you guys were just too involved in the whole in the whole scheme. So we can’t charge effort without charging you too. We’re very sorry. But you know, keep on cooperating. And we’ll ask the judge to go as easy as possible on and, and, and these are your options, you know, the way they put it was you guys delivered 71 aircraft loads of this Chinese ammo. And each aircraft that you delivered, had a document that went along with the shipment called a Certificate of conformance. And the certificate of conformance had listed on it the type of ammunition that was in the plane, the quantity of ammunition, the year of manufacture, and the place of origin. And in place of origin, we put Albania and EFRAIM signed the document, and I submitted it to the government and the and they said in you guys knew that this was false, you knew that the original price place of origin was China. And not only did you know, but you had this whole elaborate Apple operation to disguise that fact. And therefore, we consider each document that you submit an act of fraud. And you did this 71 times so that 71 acts of fraud, and each act of fraud can give you up to five years in prison. So potentially, you’re looking at a 355 year sentence. And so I was like holy shit, I can spend the rest of my life in prison. And then they’re like, but if you plead guilty, we have the leeway as prosecutors to combine all these 71 acts of fraud into one act of fraud. So the max you you’ll be able to get is five years in prison. And because you’re cooperating and you pled guilty, will tell the judge to give you the low end of the guidelines. So maybe we’ll do a year in prison, maybe you’ll do nothing, you know, we’ll you know, maybe just probation. And so that was the choice, either the rest of your life in prison, or maybe nothing, but as long as you plead guilty. And so of course, I mean, with those kinds of choices, we pled guilty, all three, three of us pled guilty, and Efraim probably would have gotten so I ended up getting sentenced to seven months of house arrest, which was a huge relief. I thought he was gonna get like a decade or two in prison and, and ended up just getting seven months of house arrest and do any prison time. I’m extremely grateful for that

David Packouz  1:28:06

effort and probably would have gotten somewhere in the same neighborhood maybe a little more, but you know, nothing too crazy. But he while he was awaiting sentencing. So it was a three year period from when the New York Times article came out until we got sentenced. And the reason it was so long was because Ralph decided to take it to trial. And then they had to do the whole trial preparation, and then the trial and he had a hung jury is that to do another trial. And and so that’s why it’s stretched out to like three years. But during that that period, we were out on bond, right? So we had to go down to the courthouse, they arrested us for like a few hours. And then we had to post bail and so but part of the bond agreement is that you can’t leave the district you can’t leave South Florida. And they also told us you guys can’t do any business in this industry. You can’t do any business in the in the the defense industry, and which really sucked because I was about to win my first multimillion dollar contract. I was like literally again one day away from I was in the final stages of getting this contract awarded to me I was gonna make like a million dollar 1.5 million and a half a million and a half on it. And the day that I was about to like, get the contract awarded, The New York Times article came out. And so then the army put that contract on hold and eventually cancelled it because of the pending illegal issues. So yeah, so once again, I was so close to making a lot of money and it was just snatched away from under me. And so of course you know, I couldn’t we couldn’t be in that business. And but Efraim, of course being from decided that he’s going to stay in the business just do that do the business under someone else’s name. So he got a new guy I had already screwed over Danny and the guy he replaced Danny with, he just went through people, you know, one after another. And he had a new guy that he was going to work with. And he registered a company under that guy’s name and started doing deals under that company. And eventually, he tried to do a deal with someone in with a knight industries, I think it was, it was based in like Central Florida, and EFRAIM’s, like such a control freak that when it came down to negotiating the details of the business, he couldn’t let his friend who was the frontman do the talking, he insisted on getting on the phone himself, and doing the negotiations himself. So he, so the guy eventually finds out who he is, and Google’s him and realizes that this guy’s got, you know, he’s already pled guilty to this, and he’s probably, you know, it’s pending sentencing. And so the guy who’s talking to is prob, I assume, was thinking, well, he’s probably trying to entrap me into something in order to get his sentence reduced. So the gun dealer who he’s talking to, calls up the ATF, right? The alcohol, tobacco firearms administration, who’s in charge of regulating guns. And he tells them about what’s going on. And the ATF tells him, Oh, that’s really interesting. Why don’t you introduce one of our undercover agents as your business partner. And so he introduces the undercover agent, the undercover agent insists the EFRAIM come up to Orlando to do to shake hands to meet in person to do this deal, knowing that Efrain was not legally allowed to leave South Florida. So Efraim agrees to come up to Orlando. And the agent tells him, hey, you know, why don’t you bring some of your hand guns with you? You know, because he knew that effort, you know, as as a as a convicted felon, you’re not allowed to be in possession of a firearm, that’s a felony, you can get up to 10 years in prison for that. So the agent is like, why don’t you bring up some of your handguns, we’ll go shooting at the range. and EFRAIM tells him he’s like, look, you know, I can’t be in possession of a gun. I already pled guilty, you know, so don’t ask, I can’t I can’t bring anything. I’m not gonna bring anything. He’s like, Yeah, come on, come on. Let’s do it. Let’s do it. And he’s like, no, no, he’s like, stop doing this. You’re gonna ruin the deal. You know, don’t don’t keep insisting I bring guns to the meeting. And he’s like, okay, fine, fine. Just come to the meeting. Comes goes up there. The agent, the undercover agent, you know, shakes his hand, he’s like, hey, you know, it’s like, Hey, I didn’t know you didn’t bring any guns. But check this out. I just bought this latest HK handgun is the latest cool thing on the market. Check this out. and EFRAIM is like, oh, yeah, heard about that. That’s super, super cool. Oh, I’m so glad you brought that is like, he’s like, let me see that thing. And he picks up the gun. And he’s like, Oh, I gotta shoot this thing. Let’s go to the range and pop off a few rounds. It’s like goes, What can I say, you know, I mean, once a gun runner, always a gun runner, am I right? And the agent slaps cuffs on him, and he’s like, you’re a felon in possession of a firearm, you’re under arrest. And so he got arrested for that. And he could have gotten 10 years in prison for that one thing, plus an additional five years for the fraud charge, which he had pled guilty to. He hired the best attorneys in Miami spent like $2 million on attorneys. And got it negotiated down to four years. So he ended up serving four years in prison. And now he’s out and about screwing people left and right as he usually does, he I every once in a while someone contacts me. It’s like, oh, I just got I just got screwed over by effort. I tried to do this deal. And now I have to sue him like, yeah, you you’ve got yourself into that you didn’t know that you didn’t know that about him before you got into business with this guy, you know, so he’s still hips, old self is still doing deals. I heard that, that currently, he’s mostly involved in funding lawsuits, because he so many people have sued him and he sued so many people that he’s really well versed in the, in the legal system. So So now he’s in business of funding lawsuits, and I’m sure he takes 90% of the money and probably 100% When all is said and done, because that’s just how he rolls. But yeah, I mean, that’s that’s that’s how that ended. But for me, it’s it actually was a huge blessing. Because while I was under house arrest, it house arrest actually set me up for the business on it, which which is a really amazing turn of events. Because while I was under house arrest, I was obviously I had like the ankle tracking thing. And if I like once left my apartment to go throw the trash down the garbage chute and I get a very angry phone call from like my, my probation officer, you latitude and so that you’re not allowed to be out of you know. And so anyway, I was you know, at home bored, and I’m a musician I play guitar, I’m a singer as well and, and I was playing a lot of music to pass the time inviting my musician friends over, it is not like a COVID lockdown, you can have people visit you, you know. So it’s not so bad, definitely has a million times better than prison. And,

David Packouz  1:35:22

and so I invite my friends over. But of course, you know, none of my drummer friends were going to bring their drum set. So because that’s a huge pain in the butt to move and I was living in a small apartment, it would, my neighbors wouldn’t have been happy about it either. So I bought a, a drum machine, which is an electronic device, it goes on the table and has a bunch of buttons on it, you can make different drum sounds with it and make a beat out of those sounds and play it back in a loop so that you can play your guitar to it. And so I did that. But every time I wanted the beat to change, I had to stop playing my guitar, press a button on the machine to change the beat and go back to playing my guitar. And it just interrupted the flow of the music. And so I thought, Man, I really need this drum machine in like a pedal format. So I could use my foot to change the beat and not have to stop playing my guitar. If I was sure someone made something like this, so I went online to look for it, but couldn’t find anything like it. And so I asked my musician, friends if they’d seen anything like it. And they they said all of them said like, I haven’t seen anything like that. But let me know when you find it because that sounds super cool. I want one too. And so I figured, well, if everyone wants it, nobody’s making it. This is you know, this is a huge opportunity. So it took me eventually it took me three years. But I had it made it was it’s a product called Beat buddy like your buddy that plays the beat, you can Google it one word beat buddy. And it’s the world’s first guitar pedal drum machine that allows you to control a beat hands free while you play. And you can be a one man band. So it’s a lot and it has, you can do that for the musicians in the audience. You could do drum fills by tapping the pedal, you hold the pedal down, it does a transition fill, you let go it goes to the next beat. So you can you can control the Beat LIVE while you’re playing. You could also add your own beats on it with comes with software, you could add your own drum sets to make different sounds. So it’s a pretty complex device. I mean complex in I should say sophisticated, but simple to use. And we won. I of course, I had no money to do this, I was completely broke from paying all my lawyers to keep me out of prison. So I launched a crowdfunding campaign for it. And I’m extremely lucky the crowdfunding campaign did really well raise $350,000 In one month, it would became like a record breaking campaign in the music world. And that launched my company singular sound. And since then, come out with six other music related products. For the musicians in the audience, I’ve mentioned what they are, because no one else will know what I’m talking about. But it we have the world’s most advanced Looper pedal, it’s called the aero sleep studio, we have the world’s most versatile and easy to use MIDI controller called the MIDI Maestro cable management device called the Keightley. You can find it all in singular sound.com. It’s all if I do say so myself brilliant products that musicians will really enjoy the one issue. So about five years ago. My brother and I, who helped me my brother, I got into business with my brother when I started singular sound. And you know, I figured I you know, I’m done with these nasty partners, I need someone I could absolutely trust with my life. And so I started that business with my brother. But one thing we were always complaining about to each other anyway, is that the music business the I should say the musical instrument business, which is you know, the business aimed at musicians is relatively small, because it’s only like maybe 10% of the population would consider themselves musicians. And we make, you know, high end products. So only a portion of those musicians can afford our products and are interested in our products. So it’s a very niche market that we’ve done very well I’m not complaining, you know, we’ve won a whole bunch of awards, I’ve got to meet very famous rock stars who I admire who use my products and that’s super cool. And, and so yeah, and I’ve made literally millions of dollars from this company. I’m not really not complaining, but there is a limit to how much a company like that can grow. And so we were always thinking we need to come up with a product that is relevant to the to the general market, not to the musician market, we need something that anyone can use. And so one day we were hanging out at my house and we’re smoking weed as we do and got the munchies and started eating mangoes because their mangoes are juicy and delicious. and sweet, great, great food for when you have the munchies. The problem with mangoes is that they have a very fibrous, so you get these fibers stuck in between your teeth. And so my brother asked me, he’s like, Hey, and do you have any dental floss, I need to get rid of these fibers in between my teeth. So I’m like, Yeah, I need some to. So we go to my bathroom, we’re both flossing our teeth in the mirror. And I’m, and I’m complaining them. I’m like, Man, this is such a pain in the butt. Like, if we could invent a machine that can floss your teeth for you. We would make so much money, everyone would want that. And he looks at me he’s like, yeah, that is the ultimate general market product, we have to come up with something like that. And so we start brainstorming, and we come up with all these crazy ideas. That would have never worked. But event, but eventually, we come up with with a design, and I’ll show I’ll show it to you, I’ll hold it up to the screen. For people who are watching this on video. It’s called the Insta floss like You’re like Instagram, but flossing, and what it is it’s uses 12 water jets, it’s in an H shaped manifold, it shoots the water jets both from both sides from the outside of the teeth and the inside the teeth both top and bottom rows. So you just have to bite into it like this. And it turns so it swivels with your teeth. And you’re done. Right. So 10 seconds, you just slide it across your teeth. And, and the water jets, get rid of all this stuff in your teeth. So in 10 seconds, you can have a full floss. So it’s the floss, it’s the floss.com. Tell your friends. Check it out online. So we’ve been working on that for five years. And it was the hardest product I’ve ever created. Because it’s a lot of water pressure and vibrations. And we had a lot of issues with making it not leaking and making it function properly. And the water droplets had to be shaped in certain ways. The channels is actually way more complicated than we thought going in. But that’s everything. But we are just starting to deliver it we actually just delivered to the first 5000 customers. So we did a crowdfunding campaign to for that. And we raised a million dollars for that product. Yeah, so it was a very big success. And we just delivered to the first 5000 people who supported us in the campaign. And so now and now we’re getting ready to ramp up. So anyone who’s interested in its to floss, go to Insta floss.com. And recently, I just started my latest venture, which is more relevant to the word dog story. So one of one thing ever since the movie came out, I’ve had a lot of people contact me, like send me like messages on Instagram, and you know, various other places. And nine out of 10 times people are they’re like, please, he’s like, they’re they’re like I, you know, I want to learn the business, please teach me the business, you know, I’ll work for free, I’ll give you 90% of the profits. I don’t care. Just teach me you know, and I, you know, I’m running these other businesses singular sound, and it’s the philosophy, I don’t really have time to take on apprentices. And anyway, I’ve been banned from doing government contracting for 15 years. That was part of my sentencing is I was not allowed to do government contracting. I can now in 2022, is when it expired at the end of 2022. So I am legally allowed to do it now. But but you know, I’m busy with my other businesses. But then I get in about six months ago, I get a message from a guy named Logan. And he tells me and his message was different than the usual he tells me, it’s like, you know, hey, I just want to let you know, that, that my partner and I both watched war dogs around six years ago. And when we were both 21 years old, and we were so inspired by the movie, we figured if these guys can do it, and they’re our age, why can’t we do this? So we went in we we started got into it, and we bashed our brains against the wall for like six months, until we finally won our first contract. And ever since we’ve been winning contracts, and nowadays we have a multimillion dollar government contracting business. And it’s all thanks to the inspiration for more ducks. So just wanted to reach out and say thank you. And I was like, Holy crap, that’s amazing. You know, that’s, that’s really incredible that they managed to do it on their own without anyone’s help. And, and, you know, and so and so they were like, you know, maybe we can do something together. And I said, you know, I have so many people who want to learn how to do this business want to learn how to do government contracting, and you don’t I mean, there’s the vast majority of government contracting is legal, right? I mean, all of it should be legal. If it’s you only find out if it’s illegal if someone got in trouble, but you know, but most of the stuff that even that we did you know as in with a Why frm and I, all of it was legal until it wasn’t. And it’s there, it can be argued that even the Chinese ammo should have been legal, because it didn’t really violate the embargo. So the federal government has a budget of like $6.7 trillion.

David Packouz  1:45:17

And they are the single biggest purchaser of anything on the planet. So if you know how to sell to the federal government, you can make a lot of money. There’s enormous, enormous opportunities. And so people ask me, you know, why would the federal government buy from some random guy, right? Why don’t they just go directly to the company, you know, who’s making it. And there’s a few different reasons for that. First of all, sometimes there’s goods on the market, that have just been sitting there that aren’t owned by the company that manufactured it anymore, you know, like, so for example, ammunition, ammunition oftentimes gets bought by militaries, just in case something happens. But most of the time that nothing happens, and their ammo starts getting older, and they aren’t comfortable having ammo beyond a certain date, and so they are willing to sell it. And so there’s all this ammo that’s being sold at well below the manufacturing cost by these different militaries. And sometimes other you know, like, in our case, for example, like for example, with the Albanian case, they were looking to get rid of all their ammo, because they wanted to join NATO. And the US Army was happy to take that ammo because they were giving it to the Afghans. And they didn’t have as stringent quality controls requirements for the Afghan allies as for their own US troops. So they were perfectly okay with taking ammo that was a few decades old, which to be clear, was fully functional, and it was good quality. And I’m not saying that there was any issue with the ammo. But but most first world countries do have requirements and how old they’re, they’re willing to give the ammo to their troops. So there’s opportunities such as that, where the government won’t get the best price from the manufacturer, they will get the best price from the open market. And sometimes they want to buy a whole bunch of things that not one manufacturer makes. So they’ll want to buy like 10 different items and have it all shipped to this particular place by a particular time. And there isn’t one company that makes all that so that opens the opportunities for middlemen to put together to find all the sources put together the package, figure out the logistics, and offer that to the government. And the way it works is they posted on the website on sh m.gov, everyone can go check it out, if you like sa m.gov, they post what they want to buy. And then if once you are registered properly with the government, you are qualified to make that bid. And if you have the best possible the best price, it’s not always the best price. Sometimes it’s a combination of factors. Sometimes they take into account delivery times and your past performance, your history of like, you know how reliable they think you are, and, and etc. And there’s a depending on each contract has its own set of requirements. But if you provide the best overall value to the government, as they call it, and then they award you the contract, then you can deliver those goods. And then 30 days later, they pay you that’s how it works. So it’s a pretty complex system, it’s not easy to learn on your own, which is why I was so impressed that Logan and his partner James taught themselves this on their own. So we realized that there is a huge need for for people who want to get into this business. And so we are launching word dogs Academy, and which is an online course, to teach people how to get into government contracting and how to be successful at it. We’re dogs academy.com, you could check it out. And we are not only building a course, but we’re putting up a forum so that we can create a community around it so that people can find potential business partners. And the biggest stumbling block for people getting into this business is financing because you have to pay your supplier in advance, and you have to pay your logistics provider in advance, but the government only pays you 30 days later. And so that’s something unless you have a lot of money or some or you know someone with a lot of money. Even if you win the contract, you won’t be able to deliver it unless you get it financed. So that’s another service that we are providing through word X for our students in Word X Academy is access to financing to investors to make sure that they are set up and the thing that’s beautiful about this is that we expect to make a lot more money from the financing than from the course. So we will only succeed if our students succeed so we have a very large incentive to help our students succeed in setting up a successful government contracting business. And so I’m really excited about this. This is brand new where it’s actually hasn’t launched yet. We are well, I don’t know when this podcast is going to be published. But it’s going to be launched in the next few weeks. But you could already you got already sign up to the course we actually have a little discount for people who sign up in advance. And just go to war dogs academy.com In fact, I’ve got some awesome yeah, yeah. The mugs there. I’ve got we’ve got the bling, the swag. Yeah, the swag. War Dogs. academy.com. Yeah.

Dan LeFebvre  1:50:37

Yeah, I’ll make sure to include a link to that into floss, as well as singular sound. I really appreciate your time coming on to chat. Before I do let you go. I want to ask. Because you with with singular sound being a musician, you actually do make a cameo in the movie itself at the very beginning. So do you have any fun stories from being on set that you would like to share? Sure.

David Packouz  1:51:02

Yeah, that was really cool, actually. So they offered me they offered to me to do the CAMEO and they wanted me to play as in the movie, don’t fear the Reaper, to a roomful of 90 year old people. Because that that was the that was the joke. I personally, I thought at the time, I’m like, oh, man, I’m a musician. I’ve also recorded original music. If anyone’s curious, you could hear it on Spotify, Apple Music, just search for my name, David packhouse. And I record so I’ve recorded I’m a original music recording artist. And so I figured, well, this is my big chance. There’s a movie being made about me. So I I insisted on playing one of my own songs. And I was like, I should I want to play you know, one of my own songs here. So I get my music into the movie. And they told me You either play don’t fear the Reaper, or we’re gonna get someone else to do this. This is not an option. This is not a negotiation. This is this you don’t have a choice. So I said, Okay, fine. I’ll do I’ll do don’t fear the Reaper find. And so that was cool. Went out to LA for like, for like three days. The way it worked is first recorded the song in the in a recording studio. And then on the day of the shoot, it was it was actually really cool. They had said that that scene is recorded in this old church in LA. And it doesn’t doesn’t look like a church in the movie, but like it was recorded in this old church in LA. And there it was on the second floor that and there was like steps going up to the second floor. And the staircase was like really nice and ornate wood. And they covered the entire pathway. From the front door of the building all the way to the room where they were shooting the scene with paper, like like the floor, the walls, the banisters, everything was covered in paper, like they taped it down so that all the people walking back and forth would damage the floor and the walls, because there’s literally hundreds of people walking back and forth. And so yeah, I thought that was pretty cool. They that the way they prepare it. And the thing that was that was really cool was they had outside of the building. They had these enormous like construction cranes, like three of them, holding these enormous mirrors that they angled to catch the sun and shine it and beam the sunlight into the windows. And then they sprayed like some like spray inside the the the room so that the sun beams would be very visible. So it was just amazing. Like that tiny little detail of just having some beams sunbeams through the window, they only see for a few seconds on screen. They had like three construction cranes, you know, it’s just like, it was just amazing the amount of money and effort they put into even the smallest little details. So yeah, so like I the way they did it was, you know, got up there with my guitar and pretty much did more or less karaoke, guitar karaoke, where they would play the song on like speakers, and I would like play along with it. And, and then while they were filming, at the end, after we were done at the end, they wanted to do a few more shots of me like some close ups and stuff. So they didn’t need the crowd. So they let all the old people leave. And but the only the only way to leave the room was they all had to file pass the stage password I was sitting, so they all were filing past me. And it was so funny. Like most of them just went right by and didn’t say anything, but a few people stopped and like one guy was like, Oh, I heard the lyrics of that song. I don’t think it’s very funny. I don’t think it’s funny. And I was like, Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t it wasn’t my choice. And another guy another guy had the exact opposite. He was like, he was like, Oh, I just realized what you were saying. That’s pretty good. Because we’re a bunch of old folks don’t fear the Reaper.

1:55:06

That’s a

David Packouz  1:55:08

good one, you know? And then some, like, older lady was like, do you

1:55:12

perform I would love for you to come living facility and give us a performance. Yeah.

David Packouz  1:55:17

And so yeah, it was really cute. It was it was really nice. So yeah, so that was really neat. Met miles Taylor. He’s super tall, by the way. He’s like, six, three or something. He’s like, ridiculously tall. Bradley Cooper is even like taller. He’s like, six, four. And so yeah, Miles was nice. And when they were filming in Miami, they invited me to go on set a few times, just to like, hang out. And that was cool. I was there for the scene where Dan was Arian punches Jonah Hill in the face in the nightclub, okay. Okay. She’s like, hit hit. Hit it on his girls girl. Yeah. Yeah. So that was cool that that scene was is so interesting to see them film that scene, because in the scene, they’re in a nightclub, and they’re like, you know, they’re talking to each other, like yelling over the music. They wanted to get their recording them they want to get the vocals really clear. So they’re yelling, there’s actually in real life. There was no music playing. It was dead silent. And they’re yelling as if there’s, there’s there’s talking over the music. And everyone in the club is dancing as if there’s music, but it’s completely silent. And all you hear is them yelling at each other in this in this room. It was so bizarre. It was so bizarre. And of course you know when in the movie it’s like comes out great. And yeah, and it looks like they’re in a nightclub and all that but it with like loud music and everything. But it was just so bizarre to see them like filming that. Yeah, and I was also there for the for for two other scenes. I was there for the scene where where they get arrested and get put into the cop cars. That’s actually where I met Ana de Armas. And I got my I got my picture with her had to write you know, my wife, right? Exactly. She was she. And people always asked me that asked me this and I can confirm she is just as beautiful in real life. She really is. You know, it’s not camera tricks or anything. The girl is dropped dead gorgeous in real life just as just as gorgeous. In fact, I would say even more gorgeous in real life because she’s you know, it’s real. So yeah, I mean, she’s she’s really stunningly beautiful. And, and very, very sweet and very nice. I mean, everyone was nice to me. But like, of course they would be why wouldn’t they be nice to me? I’m the guy that movie was made about. So I make no judgments on anyone’s characters based on the way they treated me in particular, but, but I have no complaints. They were all very, very nice.

Dan LeFebvre  1:57:50

Fantastic. Thank you again, so much for your time. And before I just real quick, can you give links to your what you’re doing right now again?

David Packouz  1:57:58

Yes, so my music company is singular sound.com Am I the flossing company is in stiff loss like Instagram, but flossing and stuff. floss.com. And if you want to be a word dog, you can join me at word dogs academy.com and learn how to do government contracting.

Dan LeFebvre  1:58:18

Fantastic. Thanks again so much for your time.

David Packouz  1:58:22

My pleasure.

March 6^th, 1836. Texas.

It’s the early morning hours. So early that the sun hasn’t even started to peek over the horizon, leaving the screen nearly pitch black. We can hear some sounds of soldiers moving, although it’s hard to see them very well because it’s so dark.

We can see a soldier stab someone in the neck with a bayonet, making it so he can’t scream as he dies.

In the next shot we see Billy Bob Thornton’s version of Davy Crockett plucking at an instrument. Then, he seems to have heard something—maybe the noise of the man dying—but he doesn’t make any indication of what it was.

But, it was something.

Crockett stands up and looks over the wooden wall he was sitting right next to. On the other side he can see movement. Instantly, he ducks back down so he’s not seen. Then, without pausing, he stands back up and aims his rifle.

BANG!

All of a sudden, countless Mexican soldiers start yelling “Viva Santa Anna!” as they rush forward. Inside the walls, the noise has woken everyone up. Defenders take their places behind the walls and a huge battle ensues.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie The Alamo

This depiction comes from the 2004 movie called The Alamo. The event it’s showing in the segment that I described is something that happened this week in history: The final assault on the Alamo that ended the 13-day siege.

The true story is a little more difficult to give absolute facts about the smaller details like who fired the first shot, because the truth is that the final assault on the Alamo wasn’t very well documented. On top of that, everyone who was defending the Alamo died.

That’s not to say everyone died inside the Alamo, there were a few noncombatants—women and children, mostly—who survived. But, the death of the defenders makes it even more difficult to know exactly what happened in the hours and even days leading up to the final assault.

Was the famous Davy Crockett the first one to shoot early that morning like we see in the movie? We don’t know. But, realistically, it’s probably doubtful.

He did die there, though. But even his death is something we’re unsure of exactly how it happened. Some claimed to see his body among the other defenders while some say he was one of a few prisoners captured by General Santa Anna, and then he along with the other prisoners were executed after the battle ended.

What we do know is that there were 187 men who died at the Alamo and about 3,000 Mexicans involved in the final assault. When Santa Anna’s soldiers arrived there were about 5,000 men—1,544 of them died during the 13-day siege.

Davy Crockett was just one of 133 defenders from the United States who died at the Alamo. There were 41 from Europe and 13 native Texans.

When I say native Texans, that’s something important to keep in mind because this happened in 1836, and Texas wasn’t even a part of the United States at that time in history. In fact, it was in part because of what happened at the Alamo that helped Sam Houston end up winning the overall war because even though it was a defeat, it helped motivate Houston’s soldiers into forcing Santa Anna to concede Texas. Then, in 1845, the United States annexed Texas—which kicked off a new war between the United States and Mexico that started in April of 1846 and lasted until February of 1848.

If you want to watch the event that happened this week in history, though, check out the 2004 movie The Alamo. The final assault on the Alamo starts at an hour and 35 minutes into the movie.

And if you want to learn more about the true story, we covered that movie on episode #172 of Based on a True Story.

March 7^th, 1965. Selma, Alabama.

There’s a line of people walking down the street. We can see they’re all dressed nicely as the camera pans up from polished shoes to suits for the men and nice dresses for the women.

We can hear a reporter’s voiceover, John Lavelle’s version of Roy Reed, explaining the scene as we see it unfold on screen.

About 525 Black men and women left Brown’s chapel and walked six blocks to cross Pettus Bridge and the Alabama River.

After a brief pause, Wendell Pierce’s version of Reverend Hosea Williams looks to Stephan James’ version of John Lewis standing alongside him at the front of the line of people. Lewis looks back at Williams. Then, after a subtle nod, they continue walking.

Everyone follows.

Reed continues to explain the event from a phone booth where we can assume he’s calling the newsroom back at the paper. He says they were young and old, carrying an assortment of packs, bed rolls and lunch sacks.

Then, we can see exactly that. Men and women of all ages carrying packs, bed rolls and lunch sacks as they walk across a street corner.

We can see a big bridge spanning a river. This must be the Pettus Bridge and the Alabama River that Reed mentioned earlier.

As the Black men and women cross the bridge, Reed’s voiceover picks back up again as he talks about troopers. Just then, we can see a line of police officers—all of them white—standing in a line. Reed explains the troopers were waiting 300 yards beyond the end of the bridge. There were the troopers, dozens of posse men, 15 of them on horses and at least 100 white spectators, many of whom are holding Confederate flags.

The Black men and women cross the bridge and approach the troopers.

Then, the camera cuts to David Oyelowo’s version of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Someone calls and tells them to turn on the TV.

They turn on the TV just in time to see a special news bulletin.

The camera cuts back to the bridge where we can see the face-off between the troops and the people peacefully crossing the bridge. One of the troopers pulls out a megaphone and tells the crowd they have to disperse. The march will not continue.

Reverend Williams asks for a word with the Major in charge of the troopers. They refuse, there’s nothing to talk about. John Lewis asks again to speak with Major Cloud.

Michael Papajohn’s version of Major Cloud replies by giving a nod to the troopers, who all put on gas masks. Then, he orders them to advance and the troopers rush the crowd.

What follows is mayhem. Troopers beating innocent men and women in what ends up being a scene mixed with tear gas and blood.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie Selma

This comes from the 2014 movie called Selma. The event it’s depicting in the segment that I described is something we now know as Bloody Sunday, which took place this week in history on March 7^th, 1965.

While the movie’s portrayal is well done from a historical perspective, there is more to the story.

There were 300 protesters who started from Brown Chapel in Selma, Alabama at 3 PM on Sunday, March 7^th, 1965. The reason why so many of the protesters were carrying lunch packs, sleeping bags and things like that was because the original plan was to march the 54 miles from Selma to Montgomery. That’s the capital of Alabama, and once there the protesters planned to hold a rally on the steps of the state capitol.

But they never made it the 54 miles—instead, they made it a little over a mile to the Edmund Pettus Bridge that spans the Alabama River.

That’s where, just like we see in the movie, a bunch of Alabama State Troopers along with some vigilantes who were all under the command of Major John Cloud blocked the way. And just like we see in the movie, Major Cloud refused to speak to the protestors and, after ordering them to disperse, ordered gas thrown into the crowd. Then, they used force—clubs and other weapons to beat the protestors until they all fled back to Selma.

While the event wasn’t broadcast live like the movie makes it seem, it was filmed and broadcast later—the images from Bloody Sunday were etched into history and helped in the campaign for passing the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

If you want to watch the event that happened this week in history, check out the 2014 movie called Selma, the march across the bridge happens at about an hour and 10 minutes into the movie.

And if you want to learn more about the true story, we covered that movie on episode #167 of Based on a True Story.

March 9^th, 1566. Edinburgh, Scotland.

We’re inside a stone room, and there are four people seated at a round table. Each of the three women at the table are dressed in dark—maybe they’re black dresses, but the room is dimly lit by the fireplace just off the camera so it’s hard to tell for sure. What we can tell is their dark dresses are a contrast to the one man at the table, who is wearing what looks like a white tunic. All four of them are laughing and enjoying each other’s company as they’re playing a game of cards.

The camera cuts to a stone staircase. We can see men’s boots climbing the stairs. Then, another cut, and we can see a series of three or four men climbing inside a dark room. This, too, is dimly lit by the fire—not a fireplace this time, but there’s one torch at the top of the staircase and maybe another just off camera to cast a little more light on the stairs themselves.

The sound of the approaching footsteps alerts the presence of the advancing men to another man wearing armor. He watches as they approach, and now we can see what looks like at least six men who came up the staircase and are walking in a very determined manner.

With a camera cut, now we’re inside the room where the game of cards was being played around the table. We can see the fireplace burning off to the side as the six men burst through the door.

The laughter from the four around the table stop as they stand up. One of the women, who we can better see now is Saoirse Ronan’s version of Mary Stuart, confronts the men.

“You dare charge into my chamber unannounced?” She demands of them.

Now we can see there are certainly more than six men. One of them calls out the name of the man in the white tunic: “David Rizzio!”

The other two women stand in front of David, blocking him from being taken away. Mary herself is too far away, but she reminds the men who burst into the room that she is with child as they usher her away from David and into the arms of another man, Jack Lowden’s character, Henry Darnley. As he hands Mary over to Henry, the man tells her that this is all being done in Lord Darnley’s name.

From across the room, David Rizzio screams out as he tries to escape the men holding him back.

Mary starts hitting at Henry, demanding he tell her what he’s done.

Henry holds her hands, telling her simply that it is done. Do not interfere.

David Rizzio is tossed to the ground by one of the men who was trying to stop him from escaping. Mary squirms out from Henry’s grasp and rushes to David on the ground, helping him up. David accepts the help, then once he’s up, he holds onto Mary—using her as a human shield. She’s not fighting it, though, and it almost seems as if she’s allowing herself to be placed between David and the assailants in the room.

They stand at odds for a moment until, from behind, another man walks up and stabs David in the back as he yells out “Adulterer!”

David screams in pain as Mary just screams. Then, another man steps up behind David and stabs him again. With a knife to Mary’s belly, one of the men orders her to stand aside. The sound of crying can be heard in the room as the other women who were in the room sob uncontrollably. David begs Mary not to leave him, and she cries as she separates herself from him. Then, once she’s away from him, some of the men grab David forcefully and form a circle around him where they proceed to stab him over and over.

The true story behind this week’s event depicted in the movie Mary Queen of Scots

This comes from the 2018 movie called Mary Queen of Scots. The event that I described is the movie’s depiction of the murder of David Rizzio, which happened this week March 9^th, 1566, at the Palace of Holyroodhouse. It happened at about 8:00 PM, to be precise, in the Queen’s supper chamber—a room that still exists in the palace to this day.

This is one of those events that we simply don’t know exactly what happened because it’s not really one of those events that gets documented. It was, after all, a murder.

But, with that caveat in mind, the movie’s portrayal isn’t a bad one for what we do know of the true story.

David Rizzio was Mary, Queen of Scots’ private secretary. As such, he was a good friend of hers and so the scene we see in the movie with him being the only guy with Mary and other women might’ve been a common scenario. That friendship was something Mary’s husband didn’t like. That’d be Lord Henry Darnley, the guy who we see telling Mary not to interfere.

Something else we saw in the movie was the first person to stab David Rizzio calling him an adulterer. That’s also true, but again it’s something that we don’t know if it’s really true.

Haha! Okay that can be confusing.

What I mean is that it is true that some people thought David Rizzio was having an affair with the Queen. One of those people who thought that, as you can probably guess, was Lord Darnley. And there were plenty of other rumors. For example, in the movie we hear Mary talking about being pregnant—that is true!  And some of the rumors at the time suggested it was David Rizzio’s child.

But the part we don’t know for certain is whether or not David Rizzio actually was having an affair with Mary. It was debated then, and it’s been debated ever since.

Something else we see happening in the movie that some who were there claimed to have happened was when David Rizzio hid behind Mary. He did that after they burst into the room led by a man named Lord Patrick Ruthven. He’s not a character in the movie, but I’m pointing him out because he showcases how there are multiple sides to the story.

After they burst into the room and demanded David Rizzio be handed over, just like we see in the movie, Mary refused. That’s when David hid behind her for protection, probably knowing they’d be less likely to attack the Queen. In the movie, we see someone pointing a knife at Mary’s belly to force her to separate from David. And it is true that Mary claimed that’s what happened. But, Lord Ruthven’s version of the story differed. He said that didn’t happen.

What did happen, though, was that once David was separated from Mary, it was all over for him. He was stabbed 57 times—although, again, that number has been in question. But, it was a lot.

If you want to watch the event that happened this week in history as it’s portrayed in the movies, check out the 2018 movie Mary Queen of Scots. We started our segment today at about an hour and nine minutes into the movie.