Is your workplace overrun with unqualified managers, red tape and bureaucracy?
Are you asked to sit in on arduous meetings with no real consequence when you’ve got deadlines coming out of your ears?
Maybe that’s just office politics.
Or maybe, just maybe, it’s a deliberate ploy against you, decades-long in the making with deep roots in espionage and sabotage. Welcome, friends, to the world of citizen saboteurs.
It all dates back to 1883 to the father of American intelligence, William Joseph Donovan. “Wild Bill” they called him and oh was he wild. After studying military strategy and combat tactics, Donovan formed his own troop known as the Silk Stocking Boys (you had to be there).
He chased down Mexican bandits and rallied men to commit feats of bravery - sometimes under orders, sometimes off his own bat. With a bullet in his knee, Donovan lead his men through German fire, refusing to turn back when even the American tanks were retreating. A heavily decorated war hero, Wild Bill was a badass.
But, not everything he did was obvious to the untrained eye.
Working for a private secret organisation, Donovan started gathering intelligence on the developments throughout Europe leading up to World War 2. This attracted the attention of MI6, and that’s when Wild Bill started playing with the elites - Churchill, Roosevelt, movie stars and aristocrats - they all loved him. Heading up the Office of Strategic Services, which was the precursor to the CIA, Donovan was instrumental in a colossal number of acts of sabotage.
Eventually, he got his people to build a manual centred around the idea that sabotage is a game that anyone can play. You don’t need guns, bombs and aeroplanes. Sometimes all you need is to be annoying.
With instructions for managers and workers alike, Donovan’s book was filled with genius ideas to piss your enemy off - just enough to discombobulate them, but not get yourself caught.
I’ll be damned. We’re under attack.
SOURCES:
Vanity Fair - Spymaster General: The adventures of Wild Bill Donovan and the “Oh So Social” O.S.S.
Simple Sabotage - The Simple Sabotage Field Manual - Strategic Services Field Manual No.3 (1944)
Central Intelligence Agency - The Office of Strategic Services: America's First Intelligence Agency
Britannica - William J. Donovan - United States diplomat and general
Fandom - William J. Donovan
Support sources:
The Business Insider - The 16 best ways to sabotage your organization's productivity, from a CIA manual published in 1944
Corporate Rebels - Advice From The CIA: How To Sabotage Your Workplace
Wikipedia - William J. Donovan
National Park Service - William J. Donovan
Irish America Magazine - “Wild Bill” Donovan: Irish-American War Hero and Superspy
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Will 00:00
Do you ever feel like maybe your job society your family, your world your everything doesn't function as it really should?
Will 00:08
And maybe that it's not just an accident, but maybe a deliberate ploy. Well today Rod tells us the story of someone who came up with a bunch of genius ideas to gum up the works. Have a lesson and tell us how many of those are happening in your world today. Enjoy
Rod 00:34
Central Greece s 1942. Operation Harling
Will 00:41
Harling?
Rod 00:41
Yeah, aka the Battle of Gorgopotamos. Flawless Greek accent
Will 00:48
Gorgopotamos.
Rod 00:49
you'll be amazed here is a joint operation between Poms and Greek resistance.
Will 00:53
Cool.
Rod 00:53
Hence the two very different names
Will 00:55
Oh this is this is a movie scenario that we're talking about.
Rod 00:57
Oh, it really is. It really is. And so their mission was to they have to destroy
Will 01:01
now they have to get to the Oracle of Delphi and find an ancient Greek room that will defeat the Nazis somehow
Rod 01:08
Cure the war
Will 01:08
Yeah. Cool.
Rod 01:10
So their mission was actually to destroy a very heavily guarded Gorgopotamos viaduct
Will 01:17
viaduct
Rod 01:18
viaduct and was one of the first motor sabotage acts.
Will 01:21
Hang on this is, viaducks to my mind. were made 2000 years ago. Yeah, not then. So destroying a viaduct now
Rod 01:27
just wait.
Will 01:29
Just wait. But I can't quite imagine that the Nazi war machine was using viaducts all the time.
Rod 01:35
It was deemed significant enough that it needed to be destructive. Fine. Okay. So as one of the first major sabotage acts in the access occupied Europe 150 Men. 12 Pommies, who were the demolition party, though,
Will 01:48
Are they part of the men? Are they in addition to the 100?
Rod 01:51
They are also men. Okay. All right. They're all the men
Will 01:54
it felt a little bit sledging of the English folk.
Rod 01:57
Yeah, I agree.
Will 01:58
150 men plus 12 English, but we're allowed that's punching up, right?
Rod 02:02
It's punching something. So 12 poms and a whole bunch, so basically, another 130 odd Greek resistance Chappies from a couple of organisations whose names I won't even bother pronouncing, and they had a plan
Will 02:16
sororities or fraternities. They're all Alpha Kappa
Rod 02:20
omega epsilon, epsilon epsilon. Can you see through this? Two teams of eight guerrillas were to cut the railway and telephone lines in both directions and then also cover the approaches to the bridge. Okay, aqueduct, so viaduct I assume it was a bridge white traits. Main force of 100 Gorillas would neutralise the garrison. We were mostly Italian troops. It's rough.
Will 02:45
They're baddies in this point
Rod 02:46
they are on the wrong side. Demolition party would divide into three teams wait up river until the garrison had been subdued. Then lay the charges okay. It worked. Cool. Boom. That was very elaborate and grand scale operation
Will 02:59
by Gorgopotamos
Rod 03:00
Yes, it was a lot of planning, a lot of coordination, a lot of training or a couple of glitches and you know, improvisations, but it was okay, Gorgopotamos went boom boom. Canada 1982
Will 03:11
Oh, okay. All right. All right,
Rod 03:13
Rocketing forward 40 years, the Littleton industries bombing, three members of an anarchist group known as direct action, they were Urban gorillas. They really wanted to end the arms race.
Will 03:26
Okay, by bombing something? It's ironic isn't I don't think anyone has ended an arms race by bombing something.
Rod 03:31
Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, that's like an oil well, if there's too much fire you need big boom boom done,
Will 03:34
but okay, but they're concerned about like nukes and stuff like that. So they're anarchists. They don't want any more nukes. So back to small bombs. We'll show you what small bombs can do to it.
Rod 03:43
Yeah, small bomb 550 kilos dynamite x. So they stole a pickup truck packed it with this 550 kilos they parked the truck outside Middleton industries in I think was Toronto
Will 03:54
what what is Littleton industries?
Rod 03:56
they made American cruise missile components among other things.
Will 03:59
I thought a little Littleton Industries was benign. Like it was like make tea. No, it was model railway stuff like they made little tins
Rod 04:07
and gloves for children. Maybe they did more with like General Electric will make a microwave or make some cars and landmines. So the van apparently had a fluorescent warning box duct taped to the hood. And it said, oh connected to this box was a message a digital clock counting down and a single stick of dynamite eyes to kind of go big
Will 04:27
take this seriously
Rod 04:28
boom boom. And there was a quite detailed message inside the van are 550 pounds of commercial dynamite. This will explode anytime within 15 to 25 minutes after the van was parked here. The dynamite will be set off by two completely separate detonating systems do not enter or move the van it will explode.
Will 04:45
Just Just a tiny aside. Yeah, but the terrorists of the 70s and 80s were in general a lot more polite about their bombs
Rod 04:52
freedom fighters.
Will 04:52
Well, yeah, terrorists, one man's freedom fighters. Not necessarily but no, they were like the IRA were quite big on phoning in that there's a bomb. Yeah. And getting everyone to evacuate first. Yeah. Things changed later. But it was very gently.
Rod 05:07
These folks were trying to do the same thing. So like, they didn't want people in nearby hotels and factories to get hurt. So they would say, warn them or get them out. One of the bombers also called the security desk and said, Look, there's a dynamite bomb, it's in the van outside, it'll go off in 15 to 20 minutes, evacuate the plant, blah, blah, blah, went off a bit early. No one died. I injured three police, three passing motorists and five employees took out a 15 metre section of wall. Damage to adjacent buildings, and they reckon is estimated damages are anywhere from about four to $50 million, 4 million to 50 million
Rod 05:42
Canadian dollars. Yes. So like 8 bucks
Will 05:44
I have no idea.
Rod 05:45
No, Australian could have been more so little an industry said slowed us down for a week, whatever. The anarchist called it a massive success. But they were caught really easily because basically, there was shitloads of evidence and they're like, Yeah, we did it. You got us, it's us. And the sentences range from six years to up to life.
Will 05:45
Life.
Rod 05:45
Well, there was also a lot of there are sort of related crimes and stealing the truck getting the expenses, blah, blah, blah.
Will 06:04
So dynamite without a licence,
Rod 06:09
you didn't have your BoomBoom licence. But again, this was a huge coordinated effort. It took lots of planning, and it had a big result. Okay, so these are two examples of really spectacular acts of sabotage and I like you'd have to be highly motivated, well resourced, properly, pretty well trained, you know, prepared to die or at least spend a lot of time in prisons, big deal. But you don't always have to do it that way. Because in the spirit of democracy with a little hat tip to citizen science, okay. Sabotage is a game anyone can play.
Will 06:43
Okay?
Rod 06:44
And so it can be perpetrated in very mundane environments by just about anyway, so welcome to the world of citizen saboteurs.
Will 06:58
Welcome to the wholesome show. A podcast that looks suspiciously around the hole of science. I'm Will Grant.
Rod 07:10
I'm Roderick G. Lambert's
Will 07:12
sabotaging.
Rod 07:13
Yeah. So if you want to set the scene for citizen sabotage, you go back to January 1883. As you would have guessed, this was when William Joseph Wild Bill Donovan was born.
Will 07:26
And was he born Wild Bill Donovan?
Rod 07:27
He was born wild. he came out screaming with a knife between his teeth he was a kid there's a boy so he ended up at Columbia uni and apparently he there's a quote used his physical magnetism and innate charm to better himself. So he joined the big time fraternity alpha beta gamma delta mu mu fraternity. So he rowed on the varsity crew. So he rowed. he won arbitrary prizes a campus football hero, classmate of Franklin D Roosevelt. And also he was voted the two things the most modest and one of the handsome as members of the graduating class.
Will 08:04
How do you how do you vote on the most modest?
Rod 08:06
You vote for yourself obviously, you self nominate.
Will 08:08
why why is that an award?
Rod 08:11
Why not? After school he became a lawyer because you do and he married great quote him a blonde horse woman
Will 08:18
you could have said that slowly
Rod 08:22
name was Ruth Ramsey. She was the daughter of the richest man in Buffalo Buffalo New York and he somehow this is probably part of his physical magnetism etc. He became the first Roman Catholic to be offered membership in the elite satin club.
Will 08:37
Hey, I know right what happens in the Satin Club?
Rod 08:40
I don't know I'm not allowed to know I'm not a member. He also studied military strategy combat tactics stuff like this and so few years in he joins with some society chaps and he forms a cavalry troop known as the silk silk stocking boys. Sounds so rugged doesn't like come at me fellers.
Will 09:01
why aren't bikie gangs name things like that these days?
Rod 09:04
We're the fucking silk stocking gang
Will 09:06
I feel like I feel like lean into it was like I can handle whatever name
Rod 09:11
I agree like the woods to your name, the tough you got? Absolutely. They ended up chasing the Mexican bandit Pancho Villa along the Rio Grande so they revolve
Will 09:22
Pancho Villa. It sounds to me a little bit like if you were some sort of American adventurer out in charge of the silk stocking boys. And you went away for a weekend and drinking and you had to tell you your your significant horse woman. Yes. Where you had been that you'd been chasing the Mexican bandit.
Rod 09:39
but then he moves on he joins the First Cavalry Regiment brackets New York National Guard and was stationed in Texas
Will 09:51
so hang on just go back a second. So he formed a cavalry regiment regiment was this just he and a bunch of the guys got together seems like or did they did they write to the army and say, We want to join as a group your army or did the army say hey, we need a group of horsey people
Rod 10:07
and we need a good name.
Will 10:09
Like it doesn't sound really sanctioned. It doesn't sound official like general such and such said I need a silk stocking boy.
Rod 10:16
Yes, no, it's ambiguous. I couldn't tell. Not as weird back then. So 1917 The US said World War One looks cool.
Will 10:24
It's been going for a while and terrible. So mountain now is the time going to hero on in.
Rod 10:29
So he became a major with the fighting 69th which was just fighting, not just fighting. What I find amusing is weren't the others fighting too?
Will 10:37
They weren't just the only ones doing it.
Rod 10:40
That's true. They were poor, tough Irish dudes who call themselves MCs, which is where it came from. But Donovan weeded out the troublemakers, of course, and he apparently picked 2000 smart, athletic and agile men. And he was infamous for demanding wild and crazy levels of physical training for recruits but he also took part.
Will 10:58
Yeah, of course, all in silk stockings.
Rod 11:01
I gotta hope so. But this wasn't cover anymore, so maybe it'll just look weird. They were sent to France. So one battle 1918 middle of 1918. So Donovan leads his men across the Ourcq river in northern France.
Will 11:14
Your French pronunciation has gotten better over there.
Rod 11:20
So hemmed in by machine guns on three sides. The fighting 60 Nights though they took no prisoners.
Will 11:26
Yeah, well, if you're going to die, you're not taking prisoners. And I think I think that's on the option here.
Rod 11:31
No 60% of them died 600 of 1000 men, including three quarters of the officers and both Donovan's aides de camp. But they got through and Donovan got a distinguished services Cross for his distinguished service. Second highest honour
Will 11:47
getting getting two thirds of the man and three quarters of your officers to die
Rod 11:52
indebted. Great. And then there's another battle. So later in the same year there in the laundry. As I said, George, you know, the place is going to battle. Donovan ignored the standard customs of offices, which was to take off all your, your metals, your rank, etc. So you don't get sniped. Of course, for the offices.
Will 12:12
I get your rank, but they're wearing metals.
Rod 12:14
I think some got a bit fancy. And he said, Fuck this, and he wore everything for metals and everything. in the front. Yeah. Okay. Wild Bill, yeah.
Will 12:24
All right. It's not the most wild thing to wear all of your insignia.
Rod 12:29
Yeah, going into battle, not smart. And he apparently screamed out, they can't hit me and they won't hit you. That's what he said was meant. Anyway, he got shot in the knee by a bullet. They can hit him turns out just as neither. And he he refused to be evacuated and continued to lead his men until even American tanks returning back but he's like no chaps on when we go. He also was apparently nearly blinded by Cass is doing now. So he got more medals. He said he's had ends up having two Distinguished Service Cross medal things. And a bunch of other seasonal, highly decorated dude comes out of World War One highly decorated. So he goes home starts being a lawyer in Buffalo, which bored the shit out of it.
Will 13:10
I get it.
Rod 13:11
I'm amazed, right? Having done all that.
Will 13:12
War is terrible. But I get that it's exciting.
Rod 13:17
Of all the things and if you tend to survive and look cool, and people go your tops. Yeah, that's quite heady. And you got a whole carton of silk stockings? Yes, you do leftover them.
Will 13:25
What are you gonna do? You can't lawyer in silk stockings. They're just for war.
Rod 13:28
You can but they mock you. So he got bored with that. And he became a US Attorney, which is apparently less boring. And he was really and what is it an extremely vigorous crime fighter. And he's particularly famous for wildly and strongly enforcing prohibition laws. Even raided the satin club. Once Was his he was a member of Alma Mater. No, you have broken the drinking laws, and you're in trouble. So we're gonna get you. So there are a bunch of threats to assassinate him and blow up his house. But he didn't give a shit. And none of them happened.
Rod 14:00
So the obvious next step politics? Sure. I mean, of course, but it should it. So didn't do that. But he didn't really care because he started to get really infatuated with Europe and the brewing war. World War Two, we're leaning over all the W, the W is of the two
Will 14:15
wants some more of that? Yeah, he's gonna love the charging into machine gun places.
Rod 14:20
But I think he's also kind of intellectually curious. So apparently, in 39, he met Franco on the frontlines of the Spanish Civil War. And he looked at what Nazi Germany has weapons and planes were doing and he's like, okay. Then he visits Mussolini in Italy.
Will 14:35
How many? How many, like latest? Did he make? Like he went to school with the Bolt? Yeah, yeah, a number in the bath with Churchill at some point.
Rod 14:43
Oh, we'll get to Churchill. We'll get to Churchill. And Churchill would have been hilarious to hang out with. So he visit Mussolini, and he wanders around a bunch of countries that are on the edge of Hitler's Germany just sort of sniffing and seeing what's going on. And he was so this is all under the guise of travelling for business and pleasure, but he was actually intelligence gathering.
Will 15:04
Okay, formal, like he was vaguely employed by intelligence? doing it for himself.
Rod 15:10
No, he was doing it for a secretive private organisation.
Will 15:13
Oh my god
Rod 15:14
Known as the Room, the rooms. It's like a Mike Meyers movie, The pentameter. Okay. And this is a group of international businessmen and lawyers who tried to tips on the increasingly ominous developments in Europe.
Will 15:27
All right, okay. Okay. All right. other jobs. I know we've mentioned in the past that sound awesome and cool, but I gotta say, travelling and gathering interesting information for a secretive organiser as long as they're not terrible people
Rod 15:41
course they fucking are they must be rockin secret international cabal of businessmen and lawyers. All we care about is children
Will 15:49
were in it for the good. Yeah, okay. Okay. All right,
Rod 15:53
that I'm look to be fair, I'm just making assumptions. They might be delightful chaps. Yeah. And for shitshow they're all chaps. So as Hitler's starts coming into proper power Donovan's getting really into intelligence gathering, but at the US at the time, had no full spy agency. I know. Right? So in 1939, we see that Britain's facing the storm that's coming in Europe and they're going huh, and they started thinking we need help. How do we caress the Americans in the US and they some of them their higher ups in MI6 saw Wild Bill and thought, let's get this guy, okay.
Will 16:26
He's, he's not the decision maker, though.
Rod 16:28
Not the decision maker, but they're like we could use this guy. He seems excited. He might be a gateway drug for the for the English to get involved with this God that Americans get involved with this. So he had heaps of interactions with MI six people and up across the British elites. For example, Churchill, okay. And apparently in 1940, he met with Winnie and they saw in each other kindred spirits. Now apparently they were both you know, X cavalry chaps.
Will 16:52
Well, one talks about horses
Rod 16:53
Oh not only that they would recite heroic poetry together.
Will 16:59
What a bonding experience that would be
Rod 17:01
for example, and oh, the thundering press of knights. They declaimed together. When is their war cry swell, made tall from heaven, an angel bright, and rouse a fiend from Hill. So then this is a 1940 in early 1940. Once around New Year's, apparently, he was on a flight over to Gibraltar and he's cruising over France, and he sees a bunch of stuff of German fighters and things and what they're doing. So he's kind of intrigued. he then Tours The Mediterranean in the Balkans, and he saw British commandos doing desperate secret war stuff.
Will 17:32
How was he saying this? Isn't the point that special classes don't get seen if you're a commander?
Rod 17:37
Yeah, they're not that good at all. Right? Okay. Maybe they are but he had the inside information. Like, look down there. Don't look at the diversion. It's like that.
Will 17:43
I assume there is a system though, where occasionally the commandos have to take the Work Experience kid with them. Yeah, and nibs got and we got to bring nev on this journey, and really qualify Nevs in year 10. And you gotta you gotta carry him.
Rod 17:55
What do you want to do? Sabotage sir. Any experience? None really? Fucking with my sister's toys. It's not the same Nel.
Rod 18:05
So he's thinking this is pretty good. So he came back to America going look, we've really got to get into this war stuff and use cloak and dagger. So he gets into Roosevelt goes, come on, dude. I don't know if it was like might remember me from uni. I'm sorry. I stole your lunch. I don't have no background on that. But anyway, it talks to Roosevelt. Roosevelt signs an order calling him coordinator of information is the COI now,
Will 18:27
it's a cool role
Rod 18:28
seems like it. So then Pearl Harbour happens. Donovan meets with Roosevelt who says look, talking about this coordinator information thing. It's really good. You pushed me into getting this going. I'm glad I can click this. Here we go. Yep. And apparently Hitler when he declared war on the United States mentioned Donovan, who he calls utterly unworthy.
Will 18:49
But in particular I am declaring war because of that Wild Bill Donovan guy.
Rod 18:52
Yeah, and maybe some other buggers.
Will 18:54
I do like the idea of being personally mentored in Hitler's war like, you know, you're judged by the quality of your enemies. That's, that's not bad.
Rod 19:03
Hitler was very high quality enemy. That's true.
Will 19:05
But I didn't think many declarations of war came down to personal. Like, it's like, we don't want America anymore. You know, you're causing trouble, blah, blah, blah. But also these people, that guy, there's a few in particular who I want to wipe out
Rod 19:20
utterly unworthy. So this was like Pearl Harbour. So then 1942, while Bill becomes the inaugural boss of the Office of Strategic Services, the OSS,
Will 19:29
the precursor to the CIA,
Rod 19:31
exactly. So he organised the OSS to reflect his idea of what an Intelligence Centre should do. So he combines research and analysis, covert ops, counterintelligence, espionage, technical development stuff. That's which is all basically what the CIA does now.
Will 19:45
Technical Development stuff stuff you stopped reading at that point.
Rod 19:48
No it's what it said, technical developments does great.
Will 19:51
I liked the idea that in CIA's terms of operation, et cetera, misc, other, black ops, random, more of.
Rod 20:03
And so what happened was he made the cornerstone of the OSS, the research and analysis branch because he was really getting into this stuff. And they apparently provide a lot of assessment to the European allies in their bombing campaigns. They studied operations where allied forces were fighting, they developed preparation plans and stuff to counter German attacks. And critically, according to this one, quote, they validated Donovan's vision of a central all source analysis capability by demonstrating the greater part of vital intelligence should be obtained, not by jumping in behind enemy lines. But by pulling through papers, cables, reports, photographs, etc.
Will 20:37
And I find out some information. It's still baffling to me, that we're talking 1940 that we've gone through many ages of governments, then you go back to Machiavelli probably go back to ancient China. And there are spies. Yeah. And the fact that America survived until that long being spy free, it's I mean, that must have had spies
Rod 21:00
yeah but not organised by government.
Will 21:03
But that's so weird.
Rod 21:04
It's very weird. imagine coming back in 1940 going hey president, we should have these spies.
Will 21:11
Were they that happy to take the world in good faith?
Rod 21:14
Apparently, there's a quote, I didn't keep from a former version of some kind of military intelligence in the 20s. Who said, Oh, gentlemen don't spy on other people's mail or don't read other people's mail.
Will 21:25
No, I've seen that before. And it's like, yeah, of course, gentlemen Don't but then you employ other people to do it for you
Rod 21:31
get ladies to do it. Yes, because they can't be gentleman.
Will 21:35
But still, it's just so weird. Is it a thing of statecraft?
Rod 21:38
I agree with you split a bit of men, Wild Bill could, you know, find his place and seem even more remarkable. So the OSS, the OSS had on like, a bunch of operational groups that also ran enemies behind the lines, as you'd expect, they didn't just do Tinky, dorky stuff.
Rod 21:54
So yeah, they trained a bunch of specific military commandos. There are people who would fight in normal uniforms though. So if they were busted, there was no connection to the OSS. So they wouldn't get shot as spies as well. So they fought. They were trained to be tough dudes, etc. But they act as if they were normal soldiers. There's parachuting amphibious operations, skiing, mountain climbing, radios, espionage, tackles, all the cool stuff, all the cool stuff. And they had groups fighting in France, Italy, Greece, Yugoslavia, Burma, Malaya, China, usually alongside other partisan forces. So they did the whole gamut. They ran the whole lot. He set up espionage and sabotage schools. He had front companies, clandestine collaborations with international corporations, and the Vatican. The biggest spy group of all
Will 22:13
with the Vatican,
Rod 22:38
yeah, oversaw inventions of espionage, friendly guns, cameras and bombs, like so he was doing it all. He recruited agents were from a really wide range of backgrounds, and so there are a lot of intellectuals and artists as well as people with criminal backgrounds. He hired heaps of women, which most people weren't, that's outrageous, women unsuited. And also prominent and famous folk of the time, which is intriguing,
Will 23:21
Oh I like his access and inclusion policy here, you know, many variants of diversity, good on him.
Rod 23:27
So like film director, John Ford, the the curious daughter, Yves Marie and Pierre Curie. His daughter was working with him. Really? Yeah, there was a poet called Archibald MacLeish, a banker called Paul Mellon, a DuPont a son of one of the du Pont's Julia Child, the TV chef, she ended up being that you know the Woman Yes, I do. She's a big strong lady who was very popular in the TV cheffing world. Carl Jung was a spy. He helped them analyse the psyches of Hitler and Nazi leaders. He was even buddies with Ian Fleming but apparently the people used to joke there were so many aristocrats in the agency that the OSS stood for Oh So Social. Okay.
Rod 24:13
So let's fast forward to Normandy D Day. Donovan and his commander of the covert operations in Europe, they're in Donovan's there. Yep. So his his current is Commander is Colonel David Bruce, and a German fighter plane start shooting at them. So they fall to the ground and Bruce fell on top of Donovan and accidentally cut his throat with the edge of his helmet which apparently the quote was bled profusely, but nonetheless, Donovan salted inland to the American frontlines.
Rod 24:44
you're not making your helmet right if you can get cut by it. Yeah, apparently really sharp edge falls in the face. And then they were confronted by heavy German like terrestrial machine gunfire and so they hit the deck. Donovan turns to Bruce and says, David, we mustn't be captured, we know too much.
Will 25:01
Oh God?
Rod 25:02
So Bruce's Yes, sir. Donovan then says Do you have the pill?
Will 25:06
Are we talking the pill with which you kill yourself? Should you need?
Rod 25:10
Yeah. Which has been created by a scientific adviser of the OSS. And Donovan says, nevermind, I have two, because he didn't have
Will 25:17
I brought one for you. Thanks, buddy. Yeah, you know, I get that I don't want to be tortured for my secrets. And, you know, you'd like to imagine that you could heroically chomp on the pill. But bringing one for your friend. So I got a nice, a nice power move. It's like I brought a suicide pill for you. Because I've been looking and in your soul. You need a suicide pill just in case. Yeah.
Rod 25:40
He said, Yeah, don't worry. I've got to start rummaging through his pockets while still lying down under heavy machine fine. So apparently pulls out hotel keys, a passport, a whole bunch of different kinds of currency, photographs of his grandchildren
Will 25:52
condoms. photographs, his grandchildren?
Rod 25:54
Travel orders, but no pills. So he says nevermind, we can do without them. But if we get out of here, you must send a message to Gibbs, the hall porter at Claridges in London, telling him on no account to allow the servants in the hotel to touch some of the very dangerous medicines in my bathroom. I swapped it with aspirin.
Rod 26:18
Then he says to Bruce, I'm going to shoot first. And Bruce says Yeah, but what good are our pistols against machine guns? He says, oh, no, you'd understand. I mean, if we're about to be captured, I'll shoot you first. Because after all, I'm your commanding officer.
Will 26:30
So they've been in the field for 20 minutes. He's had it. He's had a cut and a saunter and a lie down. Yes, there's machine guns, but he's already like, we better discuss our suicide plan.
Rod 26:39
Yeah. And our backup plan. So anyway, this is a long story about Donovan. He was the shit, right? He was instrumental in a whole bunch of espionage training, the whole business in America, a colossal number of acts of really extreme sabotage. That's fabulous. His career kept going and going. He's remembered for being the shit. But not everything he oversaw was huge in your face. So one thing a lot of people may have heard or will not realise they have was that he supervised and write the intro to the 1944 strategic services field manual number three, aka the simple sabotage Field Manual.
Will 27:15
Yes, yes, yes.
Rod 27:17
So the simple sabotage field manual, it was not declassified until 2008. And it's 32 pages of pure gold. Now, you've probably seen some of the articles that popular magazines referred to
Will 27:29
I've gotten a little a hint of it. Yeah,
Rod 27:31
I read the whole thing. Donovan wrote the introduction. And there's a few things with, you know, setting the scene. The purpose of this paper is to characterise simple sabotage to outline its possible effects, and to present suggestions for inciting an executing it fair enough. Sabotage varies from highly technical to demand acts that require detailed planning and the use of specially trained operatives to innumerable simple acts which the ordinary individual citizen saboteur can perform
Will 28:05
coup de citizen. small, tiny, tiny,
Rod 28:09
simple sabotage doesn't need special tools or training, executed by ordinary citizen who may or may not act individually. And without the necessity for active connection with an organised group.
Will 28:19
I gotta say, I gotta say, we live in a world where most people probably want to want to see society work. Yeah, it would be a little bit liberating to live in a world where you don't want society to work and just go, I just want to sabotage stuff all over the place.
Rod 28:34
keep in the back your mind is I tell you these things.
Will 28:37
I'm writing them down in my brain right now.
Rod 28:39
I reckon it's already happened. And as we dig through these, you're gonna go yep. I think we are under attack. Okay, ordinary citizens. You don't you don't want to have organised groups and stuff because it involves me this way you have minimal danger of being injured detected or being Yeah, reprised against,
Will 28:57
don't know what the other people are doing, then you can't document
Rod 29:00
you just kind of do think so the weapons of the citizen saboteur are things like salt, nails, candles, pebbles, thread, or any other materials they might normally find just as a normal household or in the diet. So the Arsenal he goes on, it's always his because it was the time every everything in writing was male. The arson was the kitchen shelf, the trash pile, his own usual kit of tools and supplies. And of course, the targets of sabotager everyday, normal, accessible but inconspicuous or innocuous things in everyday life. Yeah. So there's heaps of sub sections in this book. So I'll just pick through a couple because they're fun. There's first advice about how you how do you encourage people to do it, what safety measures should they take after themselves. So under encouraging destructiveness, this bit amuses me it shouldn't be pointed out to the saboteur where the circumstances is suitable that he is acting in self defence against the enemy, or retaliating against the enemy for other acts of destruction. So tell them they're doing this to retaliate against normally.
Rod 29:58
And he goes on to say a reasonable amount of humour in the presentation of suggestions for simple sabotage, will relaxed tensions or fear. It's a funny way to encourage people. They're a bunch of safety suggestions. So what they do should be governed by whether or not only the number of opportunities but also how much danger they feel they may be. And as he puts it, bad news travels fast. Simple sabotage will be discouraged if too many simple saboteurs were arrested.
Will 30:30
Okay. Are we talking just enough to cause trouble for the enemy here not get busted, but not get busted?
Rod 30:34
And not to get busted so as to discourage other citizens saboteurs to Yeah, to the beat. Yeah. It goes on to say look, again, for safety, tried to commit acts for which a large number of people could be responsible. So that will mean is it obviously. once you've done an act of easy sabotage, resist the temptation to wait around and see what happens. Yeah. Loiters arouse suspicion.
Will 30:58
How were they giving this manual to people?
Rod 31:00
I don't know. I think they told the operatives or the operators read it, but then they went out and maybe you know, had a beer and a way to go. Yeah. Also, the saboteur should never attack targets beyond their capacity or the capacity of their tools. For example, an inexperienced person should not use explosives. Not to argue, yeah. But that's one type. There's a second type of simple sabotage that doesn't require tools, universal opportunities, as they put it, to make faulty decisions, to adopt a non cooperative attitude, and to induce others to do the same.
Rod 31:37
And a non cooperative attitude May the quote is, it may involve nothing more than creating an unpleasant situation among one's fellow workers, engaging in bickering, or displaying silliness and stupidity. I'm just gonna say, like, Yeah, I'm not stupid. I'm a saboteur.
Will 31:52
I love how much that we can see this in modern workplaces. And so it's like, are you sabotaging but I also love the high mindedness of someone who is just a baker or just causing problems and going on I'm I'm fighting them and I'm fighting I'm conducting sabotage and protecting you from maybe.
Rod 32:11
And so the sorts of stuff we soft handed milk toast like office workers can do. Yes, nice. There are a bunch of budgeting emails slowly. Yeah, not wrong. Slowing shit down features a lot good, but the details that they're delicious. So if you have any kind of control over switchboards, putting calls through etc, you cut people off accidentally
Will 32:32
ah, accidentally pulled the cord
Rod 32:34
or you forget to disconnect them so you leave the line open and it gets in the way this is old school
Will 32:38
you don't you know, I was realising the other day. I don't know if you've had a bunch of spam calls recently. Not calls I've been getting a bunch recently though, ended last year. And I said for a few times. Take me off this list. Don't call me again. Don't call me and you get to recognise that numbers and so don't call the other way round. Is you just answered but then let the phone sit there. And so then you're wasting their time? Yeah, so way better.
Rod 33:01
Yes, you're a citizen saboteur
Will 33:02
now I know. saboteur.
Rod 33:05
Post office employees can make sure that the enemy's mail is always delayed by a day or more put it in the wrong sacks. Ah, yeah. Fuck with the addresses that counts today. I mean, whoever the enemy is here let's let's expand that to whoever you consider to be the enemy. For mass transport. They talk about trains but this has worked well for planes. And I think I would argue, is working well for planes. Make it as inconvenient as possible. Make Mistakes issuing tickets leave parts of the journey ticket portions uncovered by the issue of the ticket, Issue two tickets for the same seat, so that an interesting argument will result. Make sure the food is especially bad take up tickets after midnight wake people up.
Will 33:45
Make sure the food is especially bad like what like how is that going to bring not bring down Nazi Germany if the food is bad on the train,
Rod 33:51
it will make people feel terrible and low morale equals end of the Empire.
Will 33:55
Look, I like the idea of booking two people on the same same seat because that is an awesome little like interesting argument. People are gonna have an annoying argument and it's gonna take an extra 45 minutes to resolve.
Will 34:06
I like the idea. You did. You've got a bag full of moths. Yeah. And and like the Gestapo. They're like, well, these are my moths. Why are you carrying a bag full of moths?
Rod 34:06
Absolutely, then they're gonna get to the other end when they're supposed to be, you know, keen witted and lethal in the shifts, and they've had a whole argument we've done to where we're in the shits comparatively. And of course, you know, switch the baggage mislabel the baggage etc. There's a great one about movies. So of course, propaganda films at the time are important, but if you just want to fuck with people again, I mean, sorry, sabotages the enemy. What instance can ruin enemy propaganda films by applauding really loudly to drown out the words extra clapping, cough loudly or keep talking? my favourite. Anyone can break up the showing of an enemy propaganda film by putting two or three dozen large moths in a paper bag. How hard could it be?
Rod 34:59
And so of course, they flooded into the beams of the film and they fuck it up. As he puts it, the film will be obscured by flooding. but you imagine that happening across theatres in towns that are under occupation or at least a surveillance? That's like, No, they've ruined and what are you gonna do? Yes, there are a bunch of moths. That was my fault.
Rod 35:22
So let's get to the office stuff. So there are some physical things and there there are many but this one I enjoy. Forget to provide toilet paper. That didn't bother me. Boy, you like seriously? Ah, yeah, I can't use the recycled printing paper. Put tightly rolled paper here and other obstructions in the WC and there's some detailed advice. Saturate a sponge with a thick starch or sugar solution, squeeze it tightly into a bowl, wrap it with string and let it dry. Remove the string when it's dry, then you flush it and it will somehow get like otherwise introduced into a sewer line. Ah, the sponge will gradually gradually expand to its normal size and plug the system
Will 36:11
I had a terrible version of this years ago this this seems like an awful thing to do because the victims seem to be everyday folks everyday folks. But one version where you would turn off the water to a toilet, flush the toilet so there's no water there. Then do your business and put the lid down and then it'll sit there and mature. Yeah, yeah, ripen and and becomes unflappable at some point. That's like, Ah, okay, maybe if you're fighting the Nazis this way but I feel like that is just too much, but I get that
Rod 36:51
bombing them is fine, but don't leave drawing shitting on flushable toilet.
Will 36:56
Well, that would have stopped Hitler. It really wouldn't.
Will 36:58
Well, he wasn't neat or clean freak. So it would have been like zero is disgusting. shizer
Rod 37:10
So get let's get into the the stuff that really first attracted me to this stuff, administration bureaucracy. this to me, it was giving me ideas that I should not pay too much attention to. There are many. So always as a manager or a supervisor demand written orders. Everything must be written down. You can't just take a word of it.
Will 37:28
You can't tell people to do something verbally. You got to give me the rundown. That takes an extra 10 minutes
Rod 37:32
always misunderstand orders, ask endless questions, or engage in endless correspondence about the orders and quibble over every detail.
Will 37:40
I like the idea of always misunderstanding like, Oh, you mean blah really?
Rod 37:46
Order high quality materials that are very hard to get and if you can't get them argue about and get the shits. Yeah, okay, I'm paraphrasing
Will 37:52
and argue that you're doing this for quality
Rod 37:56
exactly that. So what how can I do my job properly if we don't get these diamond encrusted photocopy papers. When you set up work assignments, always sign out the unimportant jobs first. And make sure the important jobs are given to the worst workers with the crappiest equipment. Insist on perfect work in relatively unimportant products and processes. Send it back to be refinished with if there's the slightest of flaws. Don't try new work as well or train them the wrong way. If you really want to low morale, give really inefficient and unpleasant workers undeserved promotions.
Will 38:31
God damn, God damn. I've never seen that anywhere.
Rod 38:37
See what I'm saying this has been operating for years we have been there's been a long war of sabotage against us and many countries.
Will 38:43
It is against us. And when you realise that you are the victim, you're the bad guys in someone's mind. And all of those actions ahh Jesus.
Rod 38:52
discriminate against good workers and complain unjustly about their work. hold meetings when there is more critical work to be done. insist on doing everything through channels and never permit shortcuts.
Will 39:05
You know there are workers who they're like shortcuts are bad. They're the enemy. Like I know a goes to be goes to see thank you for being that awesome saboteur. You are beautiful.
Rod 39:17
make speeches talk as frequently as possible to great lengths.
Will 39:21
I like that that's fun.
Rod 39:22
illustrate your points with long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences.
Will 39:25
Why make a podcast
Rod 39:27
exactly, but we're not at work. Wherever you can refer all matters matters to committees for further study in consideration, and make the committee's as large as possible. Never less than five will obviously bring up irrelevant issues as often as you can haggle over precise wording of communications minutes and resolutions. So like Would anyone like to endorse these minutes as you know, true and accurate? No luck? No, hang on a minute. I've just got to read them. All right now during the meeting.
Will 39:52
Yes. I noticed that you have a missing comma.
Rod 39:54
Yep. Advocate caution. Be reasonable and urge your fellow conferees to be reasoned.
Will 40:00
Whoo, I love oId haste. I love in all of these. Yeah, that, you know, plausible deniability and reasonableness, like, what, uh, you know,
Rod 40:07
I'm just trying to be safe. I'm just trying to be safe. I'm avoiding embarrassment for the organisation. It's beautiful. Everyone so horrifying. It's every shitty office comedy, like it's everything. be worried about the propriety of any decision raises a question of whether such action as contemplated lies within the jurisdiction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of a higher echelon or in other organisations as great apply every regulation to the last letter?
Will 40:34
Yes, of course.
Rod 40:35
So that's for managers and so forth. For workers. It says things like make mistakes in the quantities of material when you order or copy orders.
Will 40:44
I've had that get a zero wrong and it's wild. You want a 10 times as much toilet paper if you're gonna use that to block the sewers we know that now.
Rod 40:53
Use wrong addresses confused similar names misfiled central documents, this quote, spread disturbing rumours that quote sound like inside dope.
Will 41:01
Inside dope
Rod 41:04
inside dope, so why we I know I know people that you know, I've heard rumours from earlier distinct and serious senior inside so
Will 41:12
it's not like all organisations don't do it anymore. I've on rumours all the time.
Rod 41:16
See we've normalised the fact that we're being sabotaged. So in general work slowly contrive as many interruptions to your work as you can so like when you go to the toilet take a long time. Pretend instructions are hard to understand and asked to have them repeated repeatedly. snarl up administration every way possible fill out forms illegibly, make mistakes, remit request,
Will 41:37
fill out forms and illegibly. I'm loving this. My handwriting is a weapon against Yeah, that is so good as
Rod 41:47
So so my PDF thing doesn't work. So I'm gonna have to fill this out by hand and fax it to you. Join that says join organisations that represent employees for their problems to management, but then bring up heaps of problems that are largely imaginary and garbage. And closing summary pearls give lengthy and incomprehensible explanations when you ask questions. Be as irritable and quarrelsome as possible without getting yourself into trouble. Wo finals, maybe my favourites one, act stupid. And two, this will resonate with you because we've talked about this before as a way to get out of meetings, cry and sob hysterically at every occasion, especially when confronted by government clerks and other officials.
Rod 42:33
And Will and I do listen as well. And I've talked about this when we're trapped in a meeting that we hate and we're texting each other is like, Okay, here's the thing. Stand up, start crying, then start laughing then shit your pants then hug everyone and run out of the room. So in this, they've been under ambitious like, employing this tactic crying sobbing hysterically every okay. We're gonna need you to proofread this document.
Will 42:58
Oh, my God, I really I really want to know. And this This is the study that will never we can't do. But who are the people that embraced this manual the most in occupied France or Nazi Germany that went you know, I'll read through these. Okay, I'm gonna do the toilet paper. And I'm doing the sobbing. It's like, Ah, you're beautiful. Like,
Rod 43:19
you know, it's better. I would be delighted if this was my job come up with stuff like that a hobby.
Will 43:24
So the coming up is awesome. I just want to know, the heroes, the heroes that implemented this stuff.
Rod 43:30
unsung librarians.
Will 43:31
You know, there's like, we've got Saving Private Ryan, we've got the bridge over the reverse. Why we've got all of our movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger. You know, war predator, all of those amazing war movies. But you know, somewhere is that gap in the war movie. You've got Spalding Poindexter has just been sitting in a little room. This big national fact with them sobbing at his boss. Yeah.
Rod 43:55
So honestly, by now he had any doubts about Wild Bill being a frickin genius. I mean, all the evidence is there. Now. Sure, he did all the other stuff. But this for me, he commissioned that he wrote the intro. He's the guy. And it's also easy to forget that someone had to be first. So a lot of it might seem obvious now, but someone had to be first of all the shit. So what happened to Bill says a Vanity Fair piece one of the main sources but I'll tell you some more in a moment. 2011 And it says his exploits are utterly improbable. But by now well documented in declassified wartime records. They portray a brave, noble, headlong, gleeful, sometimes outrageous pursuit of action and skullduggery. So he's the man and I just love it as this guy who also commissioned the fuck with your work is in an office? Yep. As World War Two wound down he became he got really into prosecuting war criminals. So he did a lot of stuff at Nuremberg. Then the trials finishes I what am I going to do goes back to Wall Street gets a law firm does well. He remained always available to postwar presidents who requested his advice on intelligence matters
Rod 44:58
eventually at 53 Eisenhower makes him ambassador to Thailand. Fuck knows why. he resigned in those in 53 he resigns in 54 He started showing signs of dementia while he was there in hospital in 1957. And apparently one of the worst episodes he imagined he saw the Red Army coming over the 59th Street Bridge into Manhattan. And he kind of said, I've got a mission and he ran out of hospital down the street in his pyjamas to try and stop them. So he got it didn't go well at the end. And he died in 1959. So today is known as the father of American intelligence, the father of the CIA, there's a bust of him in the lobby of the main building of the CIA. There's all kinds of awards. The William J. Donovan award, the OSS created at the society created 1947 and was to he was going to someone who has exemplified the distinguishing features that characterise the general Donovan's lifetime of public service to the United States of America as a citizen and a soldier. Notable recipients Eisenhower, Margaret Thatcher. Okay, George HW Bush. So
Will 45:59
Why couldn't they give the award for someone who fucked up the works? Yeah, got it. saboteur.
Rod 46:08
You fucked the toilets in Berlin in 1943. You're the guy. So I mean, like I've been alluding to this the whole way. i His true legacy. We're surrounded by it. I'm convinced. Like wake up, sheeple. This is happening to us right now. Everywhere we turn, we have been treated this right. Or we're doing it to ourselves. So I don't know what we're going to do. Some of the main sources anyway. So there's one called spymaster general, The Adventures of Wild Bill Donovan in the Oh So social RSS is from Vanity Fair. That was good one, the manual itself, which you can find relatively easily simple sabotages field menu and a couple of excellent biographies of Wild Bill from the CIA from pretending care and military history fandom wiki page. There's a bunch of others as well. That will obviously put you in our show notes. There you go. Let's get sabotaging people.
Will 46:59
Do it for good though. Do it for good. Like sabotage bad workplaces. sabotage your annoying idiot colleagues. Yeah, but don't sabotage. sabotage the good people,
Rod 47:10
you know the problem. They're already sabotaging us.
