Joe Rogan Experience #1759 - Oliver Stone

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast,…

   1. OSOliver Stone0:00

      (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience. (rock music plays)

   2. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music plays) Uh, so thank you, Oliver, thanks for being here, man. I r- I really appreciate it, and I really enjoyed your documentary. I, like you, well not as much as you, but I am a, a conspiracy freak when it comes to the JFK assassination. And, uh, I, I've been fascinated by it for decades and, uh, but no one is, I don't think anybody is as fascinated by it as you. And-

   3. OSOliver Stone0:35

      (clears throat) Well, I get the impression that you have the impre- I'm a full-timer, but no-

   4. JRJoe Rogan0:39

      No, not a full-timer.

   5. OSOliver Stone0:40

      ... I have a career. (laughs)

   6. JRJoe Rogan0:41

      Well, I know you do.

   7. OSOliver Stone0:42

      Yeah.

   8. JRJoe Rogan0:42

      Listen, I'm a huge fan of yours. But it's kind of fascinating that your d- your film, the JFK film, was approximately 30 years after the assassination.

   9. OSOliver Stone0:53

      Yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan0:53

       And then this is approximately 30 years after that.

   11. OSOliver Stone0:57

       Yeah.

   12. JRJoe Rogan0:57

       We're still going through this.

   13. OSOliver Stone0:58

       Yes.

   14. JRJoe Rogan0:59

       And they're still withholding documents.

   15. OSOliver Stone1:02

       Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:02

       It's really kind of amazing, isn't it?

   17. OSOliver Stone1:04

       No, it's not. It's, you know, everybody's dead from this, from that era, but it's all the more important that we understand our history 'cause it's, it's fading, but the reason we're in this kind of disbalanced situation in the United States, where we have no, less and less trust is because of the past. And if we go to this particular incident in '63, it's a, it's a demarcation point, it's a turning point for the country. And I think, that's what's fascinating to me 'cause I have a historical interest. I've written and made The Untold History of United States and-

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:38

       Yes.

   19. OSOliver Stone1:38

       ... I'm very interested in history and I just think we have to pay attention because the roots of our problem are here. A- and do you want me to talk about that or do you want me to go up?

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:46

       Sure, yeah, please.

   21. OSOliver Stone1:48

       I, you know, I don't want... Uh, I, I'm, I'm gonna, I have to generalize because from the time he was killed, in '63, that November, we... Think about it, w- not one American president, not one, and you can name them all, have ever challenged the military or the national security state or the intelligence agencies. Not one. They haven't been successful. They, they've cut the budgets occasionally, but not by much, but essentially they keep going up and the Defense Department has a record year this year of 700 and some $60 billion. Who says, who says you can't to the military or to the intelligence agencies? They seem to have a inordinate amount of power. Kennedy was the last one who was trying to curb it and he made a serious effort towards peace. He was, you know, last of the presidents to talk about peace very nobly. And people have said, "Oh, he just talks," but no, he was doing things and we can talk about that too.

   22. JRJoe Rogan2:41

       Yeah.

   23. OSOliver Stone2:43

       That's why it's important. It's crucially important. This country has gone the wrong way since the national security state has gotten bigger, stronger, more money, more paranoid, less trust in every which way.

   24. JRJoe Rogan2:56

       The cynical amongst us would say that that's inevitable.

   25. OSOliver Stone2:59

       (sighs)

   26. JRJoe Rogan2:59

       That whenever you have these situations of power, especially when you have, you know, what people like to call the deep state, but what's essentially this group of people that never leave office and they have an, incredible amounts of power. The, the people that are in the intelligence agencies and the people that are in the Pentagon and the people that are in all these positions of immense power, but they don't get elected in and out. They don't have four-year terms.

   27. OSOliver Stone3:24

       Yeah.

   28. JRJoe Rogan3:24

       And th- these are the people that the president, when a new-

   29. OSOliver Stone3:27

       Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan3:27

       ... newly elected president has to check in with and...
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   So they wanted to…

   1. OSOliver Stone15:00

      the Pentagon wanted the war then. They wanted to wipe out the Soviet Union. This is very much in the back of their minds.

   2. JRJoe Rogan15:07

      So they wanted to do it the same way we had done to Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

   3. OSOliver Stone15:11

      Yes. Behin- it was beyond that, too. I mean, way beyond that. I'm, I'm saying this. It's important to realize their thinking was that... Their thinking was that, "Now we're in... We- we have a tremendous, uh, advantage. In a few years, we won't. Th- the Soviets are gonna build up," and they did in the 1970s. They got p- practically to parity. That's what Reagan was talking about, you know. Uh, he said, "We have to take on the Soviet Union," the same thing. But in the 1962 period, it was possible in their minds to win. First strike, blow them up. We take a limited amount of casualties.

   4. JRJoe Rogan15:44

      Wow.

   5. OSOliver Stone15:44

      20, 30 million people. Do you remember Dr. Strangelove?

   6. JRJoe Rogan15:47

      Yes. I was just gonna talk about that.

   7. OSOliver Stone15:48

      It's the same kind of thinking.

   8. JRJoe Rogan15:49

      Yeah.

   9. OSOliver Stone15:49

      And Kubrick got it right. That was their thinking. "We can win now, wipe them out, get rid of this threat."

   10. JRJoe Rogan15:55

       And just lose a couple cities.

   11. OSOliver Stone15:56

       Communism will be dead. (laughs)

   12. JRJoe Rogan15:58

       Yeah.

   13. OSOliver Stone15:58

       Although there was China, of course, in the background. But they were willing to take out China too. They had plans for that on that... When it got to its worst point in that crisis, in those 13 days, they had plans for China o- off of Okinawa.

   14. JRJoe Rogan16:10

       Wow.

   15. OSOliver Stone16:11

       It was gonna be a, a real conflagration. And they would have won that war, so to speak. I mean, hopefully a male and a female would survive it. (laughs)

   16. JRJoe Rogan16:19

       Hopefully-

   17. OSOliver Stone16:19

       But that's the thinking.

   18. JRJoe Rogan16:20

       ... a male and a female.

   19. OSOliver Stone16:21

       And, and that's what Kennedy was up against.

   20. JRJoe Rogan16:23

       Yeah.

   21. OSOliver Stone16:23

       Him and his brother Robert. It's a tremendous story, and it, it's been told to some degree, but I don't think people understand the passion of what was happening in that moment. And I think he saved... Him and Khrushchev, 'cause Khrushchev was very much on his side in that regard. Khrushchev was also... had seen a lot of war, of course, in Staling- at, uh, Stalingrad. So those two and, and, uh, and Robert and various people around them saved, saved the situation, pulled it out at the last second, basically. It was very close to going over. And that was the, uh, that was the end. The m- the military never trusted him again. They said, "This guy is weak. He's a s- weak sister." Uh, and they said, "This is gonna end. Uh, this is... He's gonna... He's emasculated us." This was the whole idea. And what led in an-, in the following months to this, all this planning around him, was to basically, uh, end his reign, 'cause he was definitely on the road of changing the American way of peace. He wanted peace more than war. A- and he talked about it. And of course there's a huge complex out there, what Eisenhower talked about, that would have been out of business. I mean, he really wanted to cut back on the concept of going to war. So I think you have to understand that. He pulled out of... So if he doesn't go to war twice in Cuba, think about this, why would he go to war in Vietnam? And he said this. 6000... It's 3000, 6000 miles away. Why, if you're not gonna defend Cu- defend the United States against Cuba, would you go to war in Vietnam to defend what? To defend the United States from Vietnam? This was the thinking. They couldn't... They didn't understand that. I have to say also, he didn't go to war in Laos, which Eisenhower advised him to before that. So he avoided war.

   22. JRJoe Rogan18:05

       It's, it's amazing that Eisenhower was the one that was doing this when Eisenhower's the one who had that speech.

   23. OSOliver Stone18:10

       You know, at the end of his... Yes.

   24. JRJoe Rogan18:12

       Yeah.

   25. OSOliver Stone18:12

       It's a great speech. I love it, but-

   26. JRJoe Rogan18:13

       Do you want some coffee?

   27. OSOliver Stone18:14

       No, no, just water. Uh.

   28. JRJoe Rogan18:16

       I'll pour you some just in case.

   29. OSOliver Stone18:17

       Okay.

   30. JRJoe Rogan18:18

       But that speech is what everyone points to as being the moment in time where the-
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Right. …

   1. OSOliver Stone30:00

      all the details because it goes in so many directions. There was a t- a plot in Tampa where he wa-... same, same setup. A motorcade go past a tall building where you have to make a, uh, a sharp turn, and in that building, uh, they, they went crazy. They, they searched the whole building, but there'd been a tip-off, couldn't find anything, and, uh, Kennedy, uh, went ahead with the Tampa trip. He canceled the Chicago trip. He went ahead with the Tampa trip, but the same kind of profile. The guy was a Cuban.... who was gonna take the fall and, uh, they were, uh, he was a member of the, of the, uh, the, uh, DRE, the student, Students Against, Uh, Uh, Against Castro. There was a lot of anti-Castro, um, anti-Castro protests in Cuba, New Orleans, everywhere, Texas, all the South, wherever the Cubans were. And they were, a lot of it was anti-Kennedy because he had been, twice he had not gone in on Cuba, so they felt like he'd betrayed them.

   2. JRJoe Rogan30:59

      Right.

   3. OSOliver Stone30:59

      There was a seething hatred for him. (laughs)

   4. JRJoe Rogan31:01

      How mu- how much of, uh, a shock was it for him when, uh, he got ahold of the Operation Northwoods papers, when he found out that the Joint Chiefs-

   5. OSOliver Stone31:10

      Uh, that's a, yeah, that's another, he laughed. I mean, he thought that was a horrible idea. (laughs)

   6. JRJoe Rogan31:13

      Well, it's-

   7. OSOliver Stone31:14

      What-

   8. JRJoe Rogan31:14

      It's so crazy to read.

   9. OSOliver Stone31:15

      Well, it's not so crazy when you think about it, it's, that's the realistic, that's the way they operate.

   10. JRJoe Rogan31:20

       Right.

   11. OSOliver Stone31:20

       Once they put something in writing like that, it becomes more and more feasible.

   12. JRJoe Rogan31:23

       Well, uh, also, you know, when I talk to people about conspiracies, um, and I bring up Operation Northwoods, I say, "You know, no one went to jail for that." Do you understand that those people, the Joint Chiefs of Staff that signed that, like, they, they stayed in office, and if you understand how anything works, things evolve. If this is-

   13. OSOliver Stone31:41

       Yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan31:41

       ... how government was run in the 1960s, you can bet your ass that there's some sort of similar but more complex version of it in play in 2022.

   15. OSOliver Stone31:51

       Well, if, obviously, people who are talking about 2001 would point to Northwoods as a, as a, as a father, the grandfather of this operation, because-

   16. JRJoe Rogan31:59

       Hmm.

   17. OSOliver Stone31:59

       ... it required, among other things, plan to invade Cuba. That was the whole idea.

   18. JRJoe Rogan32:04

       Right.

   19. OSOliver Stone32:04

       We need another justification to go to Cuba.

   20. JRJoe Rogan32:05

       Could you please lay out Operation Northwoods for people who don't know what it was?

   21. OSOliver Stone32:08

       Yeah. It was a series of papers that came out because of the Assassination Records Review Board, the result of my film, uh, they found so much. I mean, but basically, that that operation called for an invasion of Cuba through pro- provocation, like things like having Cubans killed, uh, in the air, domestic airliner blow up, and going down over, over Guantanamo Bay yelling, "We're under fire, we're under fire." And, and people would die, you know, and then they'd be blamed on Cuba. Everything would be blamed on Cuba. There'd be blo- uh, opera- sabotage operations in the United States that would be blamed on Cuba. Um, that kind of thing.

   22. JRJoe Rogan32:48

       And it was all done to get people enthusiastic-

   23. OSOliver Stone32:51

       Of course.

   24. JRJoe Rogan32:52

       ... about going to war with Cuba.

   25. OSOliver Stone32:52

       This was a whole, this is very important, this is crucial to understand. That's, uh, th- this is very crucial, because I do believe that was the motivation for the assassination, the Cuba thing was really the thing that set them off. Forget about Berlin, forget about the detente with Russia, forget about the nuclear pea- peace treaty, uh, uh, nuclear, uh, war, uh, atmospheric treaty that Kennedy signed with Khrushchev. That was a big treaty. Forget all these things. Forget Vietnam. Twice he'd failed in Cuba. This created a tremendous wave of expectation from Cubans who hated him. So it's be- this is where the CIA and Cuba kind of intersect. They use the Cubans very well, 'cause there's a handler in Florida called George Joannides gets involved with them, very interesting character, and we'll come back to him if you want. Uh, the Cubans are used, uh, used everywhere on the map, in Texas, Florida, New Orleans. Oswald is soaked in them. He's, as he, he comes back in the United States, this crazy story, he's soaked with, like, you know, soaked in them. I mean, becomes a member of, uh, the Fair Play for Com- Cuba Committee, which is, by the way, started by the CIA. (laughs) It's not really a legitimate organization. He becomes a member of that, and he, the CIA started both sides. They started the Cu- the, the student movement against, uh, for, for, against Castro, and they started the, uh, Fair Play for Cuba, both sides of the equation. That's typical of what they do. (clears throat) And can I go back one second? 'Cause it's-

   26. JRJoe Rogan34:29

       Sure.

   27. OSOliver Stone34:29

       ... it's a complex situation, and people have a field day with going after JFK here, because JFK had nothing to do with the assassination planning on Castro. How do we know this? There's an o- an Inspector General report. Inspector general of the CIA did a report back in six- '66, '67 for, uh, Helms was asked, he was, uh, Richard Helms was the head of the CIA, LBJ, there'd been this whole scandal thing. Jack Anderson was a very famous columnist, he raised these issues and said that, uh, had said that the, uh, CIA was involved with, uh, with, uh, Cuban groups to assassinate Castro using mob figures, okay?

   28. JRJoe Rogan35:13

       Mm-hmm.

   29. OSOliver Stone35:13

       And this whole thing started to stir up in the, in the '60s. After, after Kennedy had been killed, we started to hear about it. Of course, the Warren Commission wouldn't allow anything like that to come out because Allen Dulles was on the commission. They never heard a word about any of this stuff. It started to come out. Johnson, who was president at that point, wanted to have a full report, and he asked, he made Helms, Richard Helms give it to him. Helms is a character that is slimy that goes way back, but, well, that's another story. (laughs) That's another story. You need to be Sherlock Holmes here. LBJ writes, he says, "Write me the fucking report." The guy writes, uh, the IG guy, who's supposed to be honest, inspector general, writes the report, and it's the whole story, the whole bananas, everything. And he says in the report, "There is no evidence of any president..." That means Eisenhower or Kennedy, knowing, approving of any as- assassination attempt against Castro. Crucial to understand that.

   30. JRJoe Rogan36:09

       Hmm.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   That's more important, yeah.…

   1. JRJoe Rogan45:00

      way-

   2. OSOliver Stone45:00

      That's more important, yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan45:00

      ... way more important and way more obvious.

   4. OSOliver Stone45:03

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan45:03

      That, first of all, the establishment of the magic bullet was one of the most preposterous things that the United States public has ever accepted.

   6. OSOliver Stone45:11

      And I think we did a great service by driving a stake through that heart of that vampire because it's been around forever.

   7. JRJoe Rogan45:17

      Well, you detailed in so many different ways, too.

   8. OSOliver Stone45:20

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan45:20

      You detailed all the various ways that they had tried to establish it. Once they found the wound in the back, they tried to establish-

   10. OSOliver Stone45:26

       Well, don't confuse it. First of all, the magic bullet, there's no chain of custody on it.

   11. JRJoe Rogan45:30

       Right.

   12. OSOliver Stone45:30

       The FBI lied-

   13. JRJoe Rogan45:31

       Yes.

   14. OSOliver Stone45:31

       ... and we proved it in the film.

   15. JRJoe Rogan45:32

       Yes, you did.

   16. OSOliver Stone45:33

       Because t- uh, the times don't match-

   17. JRJoe Rogan45:35

       Yeah. Right.

   18. OSOliver Stone45:35

       ... on when it was given. So the FBI, down and out, lied.

   19. JRJoe Rogan45:38

       Mm-hmm.

   20. OSOliver Stone45:38

       Now, Hoover, of course, uh, never belie- you know, beli- well, and had to believe, wanted to believe that Oswald did it alone. He had to because they put themselves in a straitjacket. They said three shots.

   21. JRJoe Rogan45:50

       Mm-hmm.

   22. OSOliver Stone45:50

       There were not three shots. It was probably four or five shots. Three shots, one assassin who... Why? What's his motive? He was a perfectly reasonable young man. He st- he was in the corridor, uh, being yelled at and he said, "I need a lawyer." (laughs)

   23. JRJoe Rogan46:02

       Right.

   24. OSOliver Stone46:02

       "I'm a patsy."

   25. JRJoe Rogan46:03

       Yes, yes.

   26. OSOliver Stone46:04

       You know, the guy didn't behave like he was proud of what he'd done...

   27. JRJoe Rogan46:07

       No.

   28. OSOliver Stone46:07

       ... which is what he... They said he was a communist, a- an assassin who... They had this f- background of visiting Russia. Of course, we found out, they... We found out, the- the community found out that it wasn't... Everything w- didn't meet the eye. It was a whole other story going on, that Osw-

   29. JRJoe Rogan46:22

       What about the...

   30. OSOliver Stone46:23

       ... that Oswald had been an associated with the CIA.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:15:00

   ... it's just, it's,…

   1. OSOliver Stone1:00:00

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:00

      ... it's just, it's, it's pretty stunning. And so-

   3. OSOliver Stone1:00:03

      Absolutely.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:00:03

      ... he makes this decision. How deep in that he ... I mean, he was looking to do something to weaken the grip of the CIA, not just get rid of those three guys, but he also wanted to diminish the CIA's influence and power.

   5. OSOliver Stone1:00:15

      Yeah, but that wasn't his only thought. He had a hundred-

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:00:17

      Right.

   7. OSOliver Stone1:00:17

      ... things to deal with-

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:00:18

      Right, that's the problem, right?

   9. OSOliver Stone1:00:19

      ... around, around the world. It wasn't-

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:00:20

       And newly in office.

   11. OSOliver Stone1:00:22

       Well, yeah, by 60 ... (sighs) He, he said statements about the generals. He said, you know, they're not worth a bucket of piss or whatever it was, you know?

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:00:31

       Mm-hmm.

   13. OSOliver Stone1:00:31

       They're, they're not, uh ... Generals think they know everything. They always wanna go to war. They wanna ... They want the parades, but they don't want the c- th- they don't want the casualties. They don't want-

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:00:40

       Right.

   15. OSOliver Stone1:00:40

       ... the result. They ... And that's true for the United States. We go to war with a lot of, a lot of hoopla, and we come out and we leave our people, we leave our people who go over there in, in mostly in very difficult states. You know, either suicide or in veterans' hospitals with limbs blown off. It's not fun, war. A- and we treat it like ... I think the United States has never experienced a war. That's, I think that's a problem.

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:01:04

       On our shores.

   17. OSOliver Stone1:01:04

       Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:01:05

       Yeah.

   19. OSOliver Stone1:01:05

       And I th- and when we do, we're shocked, like the-

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:01:07

       So we have a distorted perception-

   21. OSOliver Stone1:01:08

       Yes.

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:01:08

       ... of what war is.

   23. OSOliver Stone1:01:09

       I think the Russians are much more realistic because every Russian is rela- related to somebody who was killed in World War II.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:01:15

       Right.

   25. OSOliver Stone1:01:15

       They ... Well, it's in their hearts. It's seared in.And, uh, you know, I don't, I can't speak for the Chinese but they lost, like, a couple of million men in Korea, you know? So they, there must have been some, a lot of family pain there.

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:01:28

       Have you ever tried to calculate how many people were involved in the cover-up of the assassination? Because we know when you break down all the, the various people that you document, um, everyone from Arlen Specter to the, everyone that's on the Warren Commission's report, this, it's very clear that those folks had to know that what they were doing was bullshit. From what you said about the FBI, uh, chain of custody for the magic bullet to the, the, uh, alteration of the autopsy photos and the difference between the-

   27. OSOliver Stone1:02:00

       And the autopsy itself.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:02:01

       Yes, the autopsy itself, the difference between the Dallas autopsy and the way they looked at it at Bethesda, Maryland.

   29. OSOliver Stone1:02:07

       There was no autopsy in Dallas, it was just a-

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:02:09

       Well, the examination-
6. 1:15:00 – 1:15:28

   Absolutely, 'cause there's only…

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:15:00

      of the Depository.

   2. OSOliver Stone1:15:00

      Absolutely, 'cause there's only one exit, the stairs.

   3. JRJoe Rogan1:15:03

      What about the officer-

   4. OSOliver Stone1:15:04

      This is in '63, by the way. We're talking about-

   5. JRJoe Rogan1:15:05

      Right. What about the officer that, uh-

   6. OSOliver Stone1:15:08

      '64, excuse me.

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:15:09

      ... that Lee Harvey Oswald was accused of shooting?

   8. OSOliver Stone1:15:12

      Oh, Tippit, I-

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:15:13

      Yes.

   10. OSOliver Stone1:15:14

       That's a strange story too, because physically, it doesn't work, the geography. The distance traveled, the shots. No one saw it, I mean, the bullets, it's, again, it's a, it's a-

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:15:22

       Why do you think they attributed that to...

   12. OSOliver Stone1:15:24

       Oh, that's, that's a, that's a red herring. You know, you go down that path, you end up speculating.

Episode duration: 1:44:34