History As It Happens

• The JFK Files

  Why was director Oliver Stone testifying on Capitol Hill today? After his 1991 film "JFK" reignited conspiracy theories about President Kennedy's assassination, Congress authorized the release of millions of classified documents. But it wasn't until this January when President Trump released the supposedly final 80,000 pages related to Kennedy's murder on Nov. 22, 1963. They revealed nothing new about the assassination itself. Lee Harvey Oswald was the killer, and he acted alone. However, the documents are filling in important gaps in our knowledge of what the CIA was up to in the 1960s: assassinations of foreign leaders, coups, election meddling -- and even a break-in at the French embassy in Washington! In this episode, national security experts Peter Kornbluh and Arturo Jimenez-Bacardi delve into the fascinating record of CIA covert operations and their disastrous consequences. Further reading: Kennedy Assassination Records Lift Veil of Secrecy by Peter Kornbluh and Arturo Jimenez-Bacardi for National Security Archive JFK Papers Reveal CIA Spying Operations in United States by Peter Kornbluh and Michael Evans for National Security Archive

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• Alien Enemies

  Suspicious foreigners arrested without warrants. The suppression of free speech in the name of national security. Civil liberties shredded in a climate of hysteria. During and immediately after the First World War, the federal government under President Woodrow Wilson and ordinary patriotic Americans enforced conformity and loyalty while hunting for dangerous subversives and radical anarchists. Today, the Trump administration is abrogating the First Amendment for foreign students and deporting suspected Latin American gang members without due process. In this episode, historian Michael Kazin delves into parallels between past and present, the continuities in the American tradition of repression of civil liberties. Further reading: War Against War: The American Fight for Peace, 1914-1918 by Michael Kazin

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• Enemies Lists

  In late June 1973, former White House counsel John Dean delivered startling testimony before the congressional committee investigating Watergate: Richard Nixon had an enemies list. The point, as Dean had written in a 1971 memo, was to "use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies." The exposure of Nixon's dirty tricks led to his downfall. In 2024, Donald Trump openly campaigned to exact revenge on his enemies. Rather than alienating Republican voters, Trump's call for retribution rallied them. In this episode, historian Ken Hughes compares and contrasts the differences between then and now. Recommended reading: Nixon's official acts against his enemies list led to a bipartisan impeachment effort by Ken Hughes for The Conversation Chasing Shadows: The Nixon Tapes, the Chennault Affair, and the Origins of Watergate by Ken Hughes (book)

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• 5 Years After Covid

  In March 2020, the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus outbreak, months after it originated in China, a global pandemic. It soon infected millions of Americans in all 50 states, upending daily life and revealing deep fissures and paranoia in society. Historian John Barry is an authority on the 1918 influenza pandemic and a scholar at the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. In this episode, he reflects on the most important lessons learned from Covid-19 and how we can best prepare for the next pandemic. Recommended reading: The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History by John Barry

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• The Rise and Demise of U.S.A.I.D.

  Note: This podcast was published before a federal judge found that Elon Musk likely violated the Constitution in his effort to demolish U.S.A.I.D. President Trump's move to shutter the U.S. Agency for International Development pleased its critics on the left and right while leaving the agency's supporters -- and many people across the world who depend on its programs -- reeling. Over the decades since being created by the Kennedy administration in 1961, U.S.A.I.D. has assisted millions of poor people in developing countries while also leaving behind a record, at least in some places, of nefariously meddling in their affairs. In this episode, former Ambassador Larry André, who worked for 33 years at the U.S. State Department, discusses the highs and lows in the agency's past -- and the future need for aid programs if the U.S. hopes to retain its influence. 

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