WhoWhatWhy's Podcasts

In 1967, Robert Kennedy knelt in a crumbling shack in Mississippi, watching a toddler pick rice and beans off a dirt floor. It had been three years since President Lyndon B. Johnson launched his war on poverty. What Kennedy saw on that trip would, in part, drive his run for the presidency one year later. In this special WhoWhatWhy podcast, Jeff Schechtman talks to longtime journalist and Universit...

Many people doubt the official story of what happened when Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in the kitchen of the Los Angeles's Ambassador Hotel exactly 50 years ago. Their doubts are fuelled by painstaking research, solid reporting, and even cutting-edge science. But nothing compares to talking with people who were there when Kennedy was struck down. Paul Schrade, a long-time friend and politic...

In this special WhoWhatWhy podcast, Jeff Schechtman speaks with author and host of MSNBC's Hardball, Chris Matthews. During a long career in Washington he rubbed shoulders with the Kennedys — whom he has been talking and writing about for years — and now he turns his full attention to Bobby. Matthews argues that Bobby's politics were rooted in bringing people together. Of course, there's no way of...

Just how bad are things today? Let's compare. Exactly 50 years ago, the Vietnam War was raging — the Tet offensive had begun and 30,000 more troops went to Vietnam while the war dead were returning home in body bags. Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated, race riots broke out in almost every large city in America, and one political party's convention became a domestic war zone. In...

"What would you want if you could have any wish?" asked the photojournalist of the haggard, bloodied Marine before him. The Marine gaped at his interviewer. The photographer snapped his picture, which became the iconic Korean War image. Finally, the soldier revealed his wish: "Give me tomorrow," he said at last. In this week's WhoWhatWhy podcast, Jeff Schechtman talks with military historian Patri...

The recent Chinese investment in Donald Trump's hotel project in Indonesia is just one in a long string of Chinese ventures across the globe. This deal, between a Chinese state-owned company and an Indonesian developer, falls under the umbrella of China's One Belt One Road initiative. One Belt One Road is an ambitious effort to spread the country's money and influence around the world. The Chinese...

In spite of a Senate hearing in which Gina Haspel repeatedly evaded tough questions about her views on torture, it appears that she will be confirmed as the new CIA director. Enough senators were apparently mollified by her qualified assurances that there will be no more "enhanced interrogation" at the spy agency on her watch. But John Kiriakou, who as a CIA insider exposed the original torture pr...

In 1952, in the early stages of the Korean War, North Korea accused the United States of using biological weapons — a claim the US has always denied. Journalist and retired psychologist Jeffrey Kaye found a copy of a report by the International Scientific Commission on the issue, originally released in 1952. Its investigation concluded that the US used a number of biological weapons, including ant...

Globalization has created a true global middle class, brought millions out of poverty, reduced the price of goods, and created remarkable economic benefits. As an economic system, it has worked exactly as promised. On the other hand, globalism, as a political idea, has been a dismal failure. This is according to Eurasian Group CEO and global analyst Ian Bremmer. In his conversation with WhoWhatWhy...

The Middle East has been a seething cauldron of conflict since 1918. Twice in the 20th century, in 1967 and 1973, it almost became a flashpoint for nuclear war. The region has always been a chessboard where great powers play out their strategies. In today's Syria, it's the US vs. Russia vs. Jihadists plus Saudi Arabia vs. Israel plus Turkey vs. the Kurds, not to mention Iran and Syria vs. the rebe...

Some people may know where bodies are buried; Rex Bradford knows where all the papers are buried. The leading archivist and historian of the records of the JFK assassination has a lot to say in his talk with WhoWhatWhy 's Jeff Schechtman. According to Bradford, the recently released 19,000+ pages are interesting, but in no way dispositive. What they reveal, more than anything else, is further evid...

During the Cold War, our elite universities were a breeding ground for future spies. Schools like Yale and Harvard provided some of the "best and the brightest" to America's intelligence agencies. Today, the CIA and FBI are using college campuses once again to gain new recruits in the global war for clandestine information and technology. These government agencies, in many instances, are working w...

It may very well be that Donald Trump is president because, in the last few years, four million jobs were automated out of existence in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. In Michigan alone, 40 percent of workers who lost manufacturing jobs ended up on disability. According to tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang, labor force participation remains low and the glowing unemployment statistics we hear ar...

Charles Swift is director of the Dallas-based Constitutional Law Center for Muslims in America. He led the defense team in the month-long Orlando trial of Noor Salman, the widow of Pulse nightclub shooter Omar Mateen. Swift has an enviable record of success in securing justice for unpopular clients. As a Navy judge advocate general, Swift was a member of the defense bar at Guantánamo Bay , where h...

We have seen endless stories about Facebook and Cambridge Analytica. We have endured two days of Mark Zuckerberg explaining the Facebook business model. Social media and its role in politics is on everyone's mind. However, none of the current clamor speaks to the broader impact of the internet, or of big tech in general. In this week's WhoWhatWhy podcast, Jamie Bartlett, director of the Center for...

We are facing planet-wide extinction, a climate emergency — and our current course is suicidal. That is the underlying belief of author and scientist Richard Smith, who is Jeff Schechtman's guest on this week's WhoWhatWhy podcast. Smith believes that our current model of capitalism, with virtually unlimited growth and consumption, cannot sustain a planetary population of nine billion people. He te...

The evidence that James Earl Ray did not kill Martin Luther King is overwhelming. As the Washington Post recently pointed out , famed attorney William Pepper stands astride all of the information and work that has uncovered the truth. Pepper was a friend of King in the last years of his life. Some years after King's death, Pepper went on to represent James Earl Ray in his guilty plea and subsequen...

Longtime Memphis journalist Marc Perrusquia spent years investigating the story of how a famous African American photographer, with remarkable access, played a key role in the civil rights movement, all while being an informant for the FBI. Ernest Withers's photography captured some of the most stunning moments of the civil rights era: including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. riding one of the first...

Be it privatizing the Veterans Administration, railing against "socialized medicine," gutting the Environmental Protection Agency, or trying to starve public education, the proponents of these ideas all seem to be beholden to the work of Ayn Rand. Rand's novel, The Fountainhead , was published 75 years ago this month, after being turned down by 12 publishers. Yet for people like Paul Ryan, Stephen...

Author and intelligence expert James Bamford says the reports of Russian interference in the 2016 US election, which is being treated as one of the biggest stories out there right now, are overblown. So far, Bamford argues, no evidence has been presented that this is anything other than the type of intelligence gathering or operation that countries are engaged in all the time. Bamford is critical...

The Dow Jones plummeted Thursday over concerns that President Donald Trump is plunging the US in a trade war with China. Such a conflict is widely expected to harm US consumers. But what about the Asian superpower? What if the Chinese Emperor has no clothes? Remember back in the 1970s when Americans were afraid of the Japanese economy taking over? When they bought great American assets and real es...

The recent revisionist history about Gina Haspel, Trump's nominee for CIA director, should make very little difference in examining the totality of her record on torture and its cover up. According to John Kiriakou, a 15-year CIA veteran, and the whistleblower on the CIA covert torture operation, Gina Haspel is the "godmother of the torture program." Regarding ProPublica's correction of the record...

"Israel as a country should be appreciated and celebrated," Avraham Burg says, but it should no longer be looked upon as the land of "oranges and equality." You might think those comments come from an anti-Israel professor at an elite US university. Instead, Avraham Burg is part of Israel's history. His father was a member of the founding generation. Burg served as Speaker of the Israeli Knesset a...

Reporter A.C. Thompson details his investigation of Atomwaffen, a growing neo-Nazi and murderous white supremacist group with heavily armed members in about 20 American cities. Founded and run by young, white males, the group has expanded in the wake of the protests last year in Charlottesville, VA. One member, Samuel Woodward, is charged in Orange County, CA, with the January 2018 murder of 19-ye...

The media and the public focus on the school shootings that resulted in fatalities and casualties. However, many potential massacres are headed off by savvy interventions. What can we learn from those?