Ep 44 Krebs Mining Diaster & Cold War OK

The cousins discuss their plans for the 4th of July holiday, including a small gathering with friends and a trip to Branson. They also talk about the history of coal mining in Oklahoma and the dangers that miners faced in the early years. There were many accidents and deaths in the mines, with Oklahoma having the highest death rate per million tons produced. Hi, I'm Jess. And I'm Tiff. And we're your curious cousins. Where we talk about everything kooky and spooky in the state of Oklahoma. Welcome to episode 44. Welcome. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. Ready for a fun-filled holiday weekend. Yeah, happy 4th of July everyone. Yes, happy Independence Day. Or as the British call it, happy treason day. I saw a meme the other day that said, I just heard a British person called Oreos chocolate sandwich biscuits. And I understand why the Revolutionary War had to happen. That's funny. So yes, we are getting ready to celebrate America's birthday. Any fun plans? No, I think we'll have some friends over on the 3rd. Krista's going to smoke a brisket. Oh, jealous. I know. I should say it's huge. It's in my refrigerator right now. Save me some. Okay, definitely. We usually have a big, it's usually my dad's side of the family reunion, family reunion. But we kind of did that over Memorial Day this year instead. And my cousin Rachel, she is bursting, about to have a baby. Baby Madeline. And so she is unable to make it. And her dad and stepmom, they're not going to be able to make it because they're going to spend some weeks with Rachel after she has the baby. So it's just going to be something small. I need to call my dad and invite him. I don't know if my sister is in town. My sister has been working in New Mexico. And she was back for a week. So I don't know at what point she was having to return or not. Well, maybe your dad could bring Dakota or something. Yeah. Like a mom has plans with her. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I probably shouldn't have said her name. It's okay. We'll cut that out. Yeah, that's okay. Yeah, cut that out. So I don't know. But I know my friend Bobby and his family are coming. I know my friend Gwen. She's bringing her fur babies with her. And I think Chris may have some friends coming over. Just something small this year. Yeah, that will be fun. So I always love Chris's cooking. He did. He had friends from his hometown. My husband is from Moreland, Oklahoma. And so he had his good friend, J.M., and his wife, Jennifer, came and visited us, which Jennifer is one of my good friends, too. And Chris cooked out. He cooks for an army every time he cooks. And so he made like four thick cut pork chops, six chicken breasts, and his chicken bacon bites, and jalapeno poppers. And, of course, the only spicy one, moi, they can do. But, yeah, it was a good time. It was good catching up with them. We don't get to see them very often because they live crazily in my hometown now. Oh, yeah. So I'm from Mustang, so they live in Mustang. And he's from Moreland. And so it was good to catch up with them. Yeah, that's always good. Yeah. That's fun. So, yeah, that's about it. What about you? We are, my parents and I, are taking my niece, Ava, who has been on the show, and her brother, Tater, we're going to Branson. We have season passes to Silver Dollar City, so we're going to take the kids and we're staying in like a cabin thing. And we're going to go to Dolly Parton's Stampede on Wednesday. Oh, I want to go there with you. Possibly the Titanic Museum, maybe. Ava is dying to go to that. And has seen the real museum in Belfast. Yes. Not that the one in Branson isn't our real museum, but you know what I mean. The one in Belfast. And so she's wanting to do that. And then Tuesday, the 4th of July, we're going to be at Silver Dollar City. And then probably see Aunt Kelly and everybody and then head home Wednesday. Nice. Very nice. I think it'll be fun. I'm sure it will. Hopefully it won't be too hot. We're just baking it all morning. That's asking a lot for July. Right, right. But it is supposed to cool off by the end of the week, so by the time this comes out, maybe everybody will be enjoying some cooler weather. Yeah. Anyway, it'll be fun, I think. We'll see how it goes. Right, exactly. Hope everyone has a safe 4th of July. Have a safe and fun 4th of July. I did want to say my children are playing in the pool behind us, so if you hear screaming or splashing, it's okay. We don't have background music just yet. Of course, some people can hear the trickling of the turtle tank. Yes, but then also my husband on top of that is about to start mowing, so. It'll just be a background music kind of episode. Right, we'll just kind of have episodes of real life taking place. Yes. So, this is a dark history episode. Yeah, I don't care who goes first. Doesn't matter to me. I can go if you want. Sure. All right. Pick your best shot. Okay. Okay, so I am doing the Krebs, I think that's how you say it, the Krebs mining disaster. Never heard of it. I hadn't either until I Googled tragic disasters in Oklahoma. My sources are development of coal mining in Oklahoma by Stephen L. Sewell from the Mining History Association. Krebs to honor 100 slain miners by Bob Dosett from the Oklahoman. United States Mine Rescue Association, the horrifying mine explosion that haunts Oklahomans to this day from Only in Your State. Mine explodes in Oklahoma from the History Channel and coal mining disasters, Oklahoma Historical Society. So, before we get into the actual disaster, I want to say a little bit, but it's kind of a lot about mining in Oklahoma. Just to kind of preface the, what do I want to say? Just give us a little fly in the ointment. A background knowledge. And honestly, I could have spent a lot more time on this. There was so much information and honestly, I found it fascinating. And I'll be honest, I'm from northeastern Oklahoma, so I don't know a whole lot about southeastern Oklahoma. And I didn't realize how big the coal mining community was down there. Because when I think of Oklahoma, I think of the agriculture part of it and the oil. Coal mining never even crossed my mind, even though we have a town called Colgate. But there's also a toothpaste called Colgate, so you know. Well, I don't think it's named after the toothpaste. But anyway, so I just felt kind of dumb, maybe. Maybe not dumb is the right word, but I just felt very uneducated in the history of coal mining in the state of Oklahoma. Yeah, because I didn't realize how prevalent it really was. I didn't either, so you're about to enlighten me as well. I will. Hopefully you guys find it interesting. But anyway, so J.J. McAllister, she gave me this look. Yes, that's your thinking right along those lines. J.J. McAllister is the man that is recognized for the development of Oklahoma's coal mining industry. And when looking into literature about coal mining in Oklahoma, McAllister and his role in the origins of Oklahoma's coal industry, it's like surrounded in kind of like a mythical essence, so to speak. It's very wrapped in folklore, almost. And in many early histories of the state, they make McAllister out to be almost like some mythical creature, almost. You know what I mean? Yeah. And one source said that after the Civil War, McAllister came to be in possession of a map that revealed the location of valuable coal deposits in the Choctaw Nation. He married into the tribe so that he could gain legal access to these deposits. Go figure. He used his good luck and his business savvy in the mercantile trade and he pretty much made a fortune. And even though the presence of coal in the region had kind of been known for decades, McAllister's contribution was that he was the first to find commercial markets for the product. Ah. So commercial exploitation started with the arrival of the railroads in Indian Territory. Okay. When McAllister learned that the MK&T Railroad, which is the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas Railroad, was considering building a track through a quote, quote, they called crossroads, which was where the California Trail crossed the Texas Road, he immediately displayed a wagon load of the area's coal to officials at the railroad at Parsons, Kansas, kind of like presenting it, like look at this high-end coal we have. And so crossroads, which would later become McAllister, Oklahoma, was where the rising businessman had several investments. So of course he wanted them to come and build a track right through his region of wealth, I guess, is how we can call it. McAllister's plan was to persuade the railroad's management of the high-quality nature of the region's coal in the hope that it would tip the scale in his favor, kind of like I just said. And it was an easy decision for the company's officials to make, especially with congressional subsidies and McAllister's tantalizing offer of this high-quality steam coal, which this is right around the time where steam coal is used for steamboats, the railroad, and in the homes. So it was used for a lot of things. It was valuable, we'll say. The MK&T Railroad was the first to infiltrate the region and quickly dominated the Indian Territory coal industry, as well as controlling two of the largest mining companies in the Indian Territory. The railroad was part of a very complex web of railroads controlled by Jay Gould, so I think he kind of had somewhat of a monopoly on these railroads is what it sounded like. In the early 1870s, McAllister sold his Oklahoma mining company to a larger business, get this, that he and many of his partners founded. So he sold it to partially himself and others. And this larger company was called the Osage Coal and Mining Company. And we want to remember this because this is going to be important. So the Osage Coal and Mining Company developed mines at Krebs and McAllister. So the company sold its product to the Katy Railroad and had a virtual monopoly on commercial coal mining in the Indian Territory until 1881. So the second major coal producer during the 1880s was the Toca Coal and Mining Company, also known as the ACNMC, which was also owned by Gould's Katy Railroad. Here's a cookie fact. Indian Territory coal production developed very rapidly in the 1880s. In 1881, when ACNMC was established, an estimated 150,000 tons of coal were produced. By 1887, mines in the Choctaw Nation were producing over 600,000 tons of coal yearly. Production totaled over three-quarters of a million tons annually by the end of the decade. So it was a five-fold increase, which is just crazy. The development of the Indian Territory coal industry continued on into the 1890s at just like a lightning pace. Many coal towns in Indian Territory were named after the owner or operators of the coal of the local mine. For instance, Haleyville, Dow, Wilberton, Adamson, Alderson, Phillips, and McAllister. These towns were beyond the reach of the government in a lot of respects. It made the lands exempt from the federal government's laws and regulations. In Indian Territory coal towns, it was the coal barons who were the law. That probably had made them exempt from, like, obviously from federal taxes and things as well. Oh, I'm sure. They didn't really mention the taxes, but you can guarantee that that's... I don't know if Indian Territory was ever taxed. I mean, I think it was because it would have been a legal territory of the United States. Yeah. So this also caused mine owners... they were more concerned with profits than safety. Absolutely. So Oklahoma's coal belt stretches in an arc across the southeastern part of the state. The center of mining activity ran from, I believe... if I'm saying it wrong, someone please correct me, Lehigh? Lehigh? Lehigh? To McAllister, then turned northeast to McCurtain. Now, there were a few exceptions, and one of the most significant was the Henrietta District, which produced quite a bit of coal in that region. It is kind of weird. Yeah. So Oklahoma miners, they worked three main types of mines. They worked in the strip mines, when the coal seam lay just below the surface, and plows and scrapers first removed the overburden exposing the coal. The miners would then break up the coal with picks and shovels and load the coal into railroad cars, or if it was for industrial use, if they loaded it into wagons, if it was for local use. The second is if the coal was too far beneath the surface for a strip mine, mine engineers would sink a shaft to reach the coal seam, so it was a shaft mine. Sometimes a shaft mine would reach about 600 feet underground. Gosh. The third mine was a slope mine, which was used if the coal outcropped on a hillside. Miners would follow the coal seam as it went down and into the hill, and the slope mine is what was used the most in the Oklahoma Coal Belt. That's mainly due to the hilly nature of the region and also because slope mines required less monetary investment than a shaft mine, because the haulage expense for shaft mines was just super expensive. Right. Miners would use what was called the Rumen Pillar System. Now, I know you guys are probably like, gosh, get on with it, but all of this relates to what we're going to be talking about in a minute. The science future in me is coming out. Because in fifth grade science, we do briefly cover fossil fuels, and there are three types of fossil fuels, coal, oil, and natural gas. I often link that back to matter, to solid liquids and gases, and that all three forms are found in fossil fuels. It makes sense now that you're talking about this. Oklahoma has lots of oil. We have lots of natural gas. Of course, we would have lots of coal. I mean, honestly, they're all roughly carbon-based. Right. Because Oklahoma was once covered by vast oceans, yeah, it makes sense that we would have a lot of coal. Yeah. I was like you. I knew nothing. I did not ever consider Oklahoma being a coal producer at one point in time. Well, when I think of coal producing, I think of like the Midwest, the upper Midwest. Right, the upper Midwest, yeah. Definitely because I spent some time in Ohio and West Virginia, and they're big coal miners there. It makes perfect sense, I should say, it makes perfect sense that we would have coal here in this state. Well, just bear with me. I know it's probably – I don't want the listeners out there to be like, this is so boring, what is going on. No, it is all relevant. It's all relevant, I promise. We have to get to the background before we can get to the good stuff. Okay, so miners would use what was called the room and pillar system, and they would open side tunnels that – this is if it was a shaft mine, I believe. So they would have the main entry, and they would open up side tunnels that veered off of right angles from the main entry. The rooms would then be cut into the coal seam, and then they would leave these huge pillars standing between rooms to provide roof support, which seems crazy to me. I don't like this, because I don't like to be put inside caves. Right? So usually there would be two miners to a room, and they would then begin the process of blasting down and loading the coal – I don't like that. – into cars for transport to the surface. So because of Oklahoma's thin coal seams, miners would undercut the coal using a pick, and this practice forced miners to work while basically lying on their side. Nope, don't like that either. And a lot of times it would be in standing water. Oh my gosh, like, I'm not scared of a lot of things, but – Well, and I'm going over this stuff just to know, like, how dangerous it was. Laying down in water. Back then – and you've got to remember, they didn't have electricity, so their headlamps were open flames. Keep that in mind. Probably burning coal of some sort. So there were so many factors of how dangerous this was. Or oil. Oh, yeah, and we're going to get into all of that here in a minute. So undercutting was a time-consuming process, and a lot of times it took anywhere between two or three hours. After doing all of that, they had to hand-drill a powder hole. And then this next part is important, okay? Miners would prepare a shot cartridge by wrapping a stick with – oh, sorry, I misread that. Let me re-read that. Miners would prepare a shot cartridge by wrapping a stick with pieces of newspaper, then removing the stick and filling the paper tube with black powder. The shot cartridge would then be placed on the end of a five-foot miner's needle – and I'm doing quotation marks here on miner's needle. I don't know what that is, but a tool. And the miner would then insert the shot cartridge into the mouth of the charge hole. This was a very dangerous step. I mean, they're essentially playing with dynamite is what it sounds like. Because sometimes gas would collect in the charge hole, and the act of inserting the cartridge drove gas out of the hole and into contact with the miner's open flame lamp, igniting it. If everything went the way it was supposed to, the miner would then tamp in the cartridge with clay. Oh, my gosh. So then the miner would remove the needle and insert the squib, which was a portion of wax paper with a small amount of powder at its end that served as a fuse. That's what they look like. I had to Google a picture for you. Holy cow, yeah. No. I had to Google a picture for her. No way. We'll have to post that. Oh, man. So the miner would then light the squib and then get the heck out of Dodge as fast and safely as possible. Oh, my gosh. And as a result, the blast would bring down a ton of coal. So the miner would then clear away the rock and then lay down rails from the room up to the face of the coal seam, and then he would then load the lumps of coal into the coal cars. Now, here's what's interesting. They had to place a tag on the car to inform the wayman above ground who was to, like, the tag had their name on it, and it was so that the wayman would know who to credit the load to. Oh, okay, okay, okay. That makes sense. Because you were paid by the load. Okay. So coal companies paid only for lump coal. Sifting through screens before weighing, the practice of paying only for lump coal became a main offense of the miners' strike that happened in, like, 1899 to 1903. Like, it was a huge issue. Wow. And it was. Until 1900, Oklahoma's miners worked an average of 9 1⁄2 hours a day. Ooh. And they would work 250 to 300 days a year. Their wages were around $2.50 per day, so in today's value, that would be $9.51 today. Woo! You can't even buy anything to eat at McDonald's for that. Many miners worked on a tonnage rate basis, and this was one of the main problems that led to many accidents, because you're so concerned with getting that load of coal and getting your name on that load of coal to get paid more that you're not really concerned with safety. Absolutely. So, you know, miners often ignored safety precautions because the tonnage rate was the basis of the wage system. Right. So that was a big problem throughout the whole, this whole time. Mm-hmm. Oklahoma's coal mines, during the early years of development, had the highest death rate in the nation per million tons produced. We're number one! We're number one! Yay, I'm number one! There have been 10 major disasters prior to 1914 that claimed a total of 300 lives. Wow. However, this number is deceiving because there have actually been over 700 miners that have died prior to 1914, and I'm sure that the number is actually much higher than that. Oh, I'm sure. The reason for this is because the term, I'm going to say, quote, quote, disaster, is misleading, because at least five miners had to have died in an accident for it to be called a disaster. Oh, okay. Makes sense. So most miners died either alone or in, like, groups of two or three. Pairs, yeah. And so that wasn't considered a disaster. Okay. There were numerous ways for a miner to die or be injured in the mine. Well, I said underground or shaft mines, whatever. You know what I mean? I don't want to imagine it. Part of those was having carefree attitudes in the mine, rock falls, windy shots, coal dust explosions, and noxious gases were just a few of the dangers that miners faced. Now, a windy shot happened when a miner used too much black powder or improperly tamped the charge down before setting off the explosion. Windy shots would, like, spew sparks into the mine, frequently igniting methane gas, coal dust, or both. And this led to a far larger and uncontrolled explosion. Oh, my gosh. And these explosions could travel through miles of tunnels and kill and maim miners that were working, you know, at long distances from the initial explosion site. Right. Kind of like if you light, like, gasoline on fire and it just goes and lights the whole mine a bit on fire. And they have no clue what's coming. Right. Blown-out shots caused many accidents and were especially bad when they touched off a secondary explosion off the surrounding coal dust. Many accidents occurred during shot firing, and this was an extremely dangerous job. In fact, it was the most dangerous job to have in the mines. Okay. So that was a brief mining history in Oklahoma. Now, let's talk about one of these mining disasters that happened. One of the worst mining disasters in Oklahoma history occurred on January 7, 1892, at the Trebbs at the Osage Coal and Mining Company's Mine Number 11. The explosion occurred shortly after 5 p.m. on Thursday evening, and the Osage Coal and Mining Company's Number 11 mine was nearly a nonstop operation. So they had day workers, they had night workers. So the day workers were so insane to think that they're working in the middle of the night. Right. But I guess if you're underground, you probably just don't even… Oh, maybe. It's probably cooler. The day workers were just beginning their ascent out of the mines to go home, with about 400 men still in the mine waiting for the 470-foot ride to the top of the mine shaft. A steel cage pulled up to the surface by a powered winch lifted the men up six at a time, and it had already brought up about, I think, 30 men at this point. The end of the shift would clear the mine and allow for blasting. So whether he was inexperienced or just eager to start his duties, a miner began work while men from the previous shift were still in the mine, which was a violation of this guideline. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Some reports say someone placed a small explosive charge near a bed of coal and hurriedly set it off, and the charge was set up too soon and had been improperly set. The charge didn't just light the explosives. It also set off a chemical chain reaction igniting trapped methane gas and coal dust. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. This is horrible. The six men who had just gotten into the cage and was being hoisted up to the surface when the explosion occurred, this explosion hurled the 3,000-pound cage and threw it up the shaft, which, again, was 470 feet. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. And above ground. I don't like this. And shot it up above ground at least 100 more feet. Oh, my gosh. The roar of the explosion. Oh, what? No, sorry. I skipped a line. A flash fire filled the mine's passages while flames shot up the shaft and above the ground at least 100 feet. The roar of the explosion could be heard for miles around and shook the neighboring country violently as flames just, like, expelled out of the mine's openings. Moments later, burned and mangled miners began crawling out of the mine's smoking air shafts. One source said that one miner climbed the 470-foot mine shaft despite having a broken leg and severe burns. Oh, my gosh. No, no, no, no. The news of the disaster spread very quickly, and, like, thousands of frightened women and children gathered at mine number 11 probably to check on their loved ones. Right. A few more survivors were found. However, 100 men and boys lost their lives. Some were just nothing more than body parts. Others were so badly burned or were too badly burned to be recognized, and this just drowned the community of Krebs in mourning. Oh, my gosh. No hospitals were in the area. There were only two or three doctors. One source said that more than 200 men had been injured, and some of these injured men held on for as long as 18 days before succumbing to their injuries. Eighteen days? Mm-hmm. Like, they were trapped? Well, I don't know if they were trapped or if they had been rescued and were on convalescence somewhere and just, you know, died from their injuries. Oh, my gosh. One of the first to view the gory results of the explosion was Peter Hanrady, one of the first miners in Oklahoma, and he later became a union leader and the state's first mine inspector. One source described the scene left by the blast as hellish. One report stated that, quote, the foot of the shaft is one mass of dead bodies. And another reporter – I know, it's just crazy – another reported that, quote, limbs, arms, and headless bodies were stacked in a pile, and only five out of 24, which had been the number of bodies found up to that point, could be identified. So only five out of 24 up to that point could be identified. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. Oh, it's going to get worse. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. Six small boys who attended the fans were mutilated so badly… Oh, no. …that their own parents could not even recognize them, and they would be buried side by side. Some of the dead were buried individually. Many others whose bodies were never identified were put in a mass grave. Oh, my gosh. Miners came from as far as Lahaye – or, I'm sorry, Lahai, maybe – 50 miles away to act as emergency workers, and they would help carry the injured miners to company houses and private residences that kind of served as a makeshift hospital. The disaster was the third worst in American history at the time. Oh, my gosh. So there was two more worse than that. Mm-hmm. Holy cow. And so now a little bit of the aftermath. So following the Krebs disaster, the residents of Indian Territory demanded that a federal mine inspector be appointed. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Congress had passed an act in 1891 – which, remember, this happened in 1892. So Congress had passed an act in 1891 creating the post, but the Harrison administration never filled the position. This development didn't really reduce the accidents as the inspector – or – okay, I'm going to re-read that. Sorry. The development – oh, no. I was doing so well. This development didn't really reduce accidents as the inspector mainly just chronicled disasters, not like really rather on how to prevent them. Correct. So on December 1st, 1904, operators met with a federal mine inspector and adopted guidelines regulating shot firing. However, for the most part, these rules that were put into place were ignored due to a lack of an enforcement procedure. So basically, they put rules into place but never had anyone to make sure that they were being followed. Nice. Or I should say they didn't have anyone in place that cared enough to make sure that the rules were being followed. Because, again, it's still about the profit, not the safety. Tale as old as time, I think. They probably thought that if they said that they had all these kind of rules and guidelines in place that it would kind of pacify the miners and the union. Yeah, it would appease them and their demands. Right. Okay, yeah, yeah. So strict regulation would only come when Oklahoma gained statehood. So that's three more years to this. So anyway, Oklahoma's coal mines were notorious for their high concentration of explosive methane, so high that many mines often had to be closed due to the presence of gas. Basically, the mines were gassy. Man. I knew you were going to laugh at that. That's what she said. Basically, the mines were gassy and ventilation wasn't what it needed to be, if there was any at all. I was going to say, in my mind, it's hard to regulate ventilation. I mean, it's not like you could just drill a bunch of holes into the earth. Yeah, many of the mine inspectors' reports were comments like, quote, ventilation bad in this place, and, quote, bad condition, not sufficient ventilation. Eventually, government regulations and union pressure forced mine operators to install exhaust fans, which did help. Mine inspectors had the authority to collect fines, but penalties for violating federal ventilation regulations certainly provided little incentive for mine operators to comply with the law. One source said that the violation was, quote, not to exceed $500. With fines so light, operators had little motivation to even comply. They didn't care. What's $500 to them? Exactly. Eventually, strict enforcement of mining laws lessened the dangers of the occupation, but at the same time, the United Mine Workers continued to press for improved safety in the mines. Basically, it was the mine workers who really were going for more safety, and they just kept pushing and pushing, which I think is great. It's horrible that it took so long for them to get the safety that they needed. Sorry, I lost my spot. Slowly, mine operators improved ventilation, they installed water sprinklers, and implemented the practice of spreading inert rock dust throughout the mine, all of which reduced the likelihood of disastrous explosions. Mining officials found that shale dust was an especially effective fire retardant. The shale dust would be piled on elevated planks in the mine, and an explosion shockwave would knock the dust into the air, stopping the advance of flames that would follow. Now, I'm going to talk about a memorial. Donnelly Boatwright, a third generation former coal miner, and some of his friends decided that they wanted to make sure that the people who lost their lives in this Krebs mining disaster in 1872, they wanted to make sure that they would never be forgotten. Because they said that a lot of people there don't even know that there was a mine that had been there. Now, this was in 2002 as well. The Osage Coal and Mining Company number 11 mine was closed in 1905. There is no sign that the mine was even there. In fact, as of 2002, it was an overgrown thicket. Boatwright and his friends raised about $12,000 and had received donations of labor and materials to build a memorial. The memorial is a tall, gray, granite marker displaying all the names of those that were killed on that day. It was built at the site of the mine. The memorial is located two and a half blocks north of the Krebs School. It's been 131 years since that tragic mining disaster in Krebs. I believe that's it. Wow, interesting. What is mining in Oklahoma? Coal mining, specifically, in Oklahoma. I could have gone into so much more detail. If you guys liked coal mining, I can talk about it again in a different episode. That was a brief, interesting coal mining history. I feel like I kind of flew through that. I can't even imagine having such a dangerous job. Any chance of day, you could... That might be your day. It's terrifying. I know. Kudos to all you coal miners out there. Yeah, for sure. Okay, well, mine is nowhere near. I would say it's less dramatic, but it's dramatic in a different way. Tensions in Russia, we know, have been heating up. There was an attempted coup. I don't know what has happened since then, but I know last week or the week before, something that was like an attempted coup, and they were storming Moscow. I think they're called the Wagoneers or something like that, or Wagoners. Vladimir Putin had to be evacuated to Siberia or something. Plus, with everything going on with them thinking that they need to take over Ukraine, I just thought it would be interesting for us to kind of look into the Cold War and how the Cold War was perceived in the state of Oklahoma. All right. Let's do it. You and I were both alive during the ending of the Cold War, but I can assure, like, I don't ever remember, quote, being in the Cold War. I mean, I never knew that we were in a said Cold War. I mean, I remember watching the news when the Berlin Wall was coming down. That's exactly about the only thing I remember, too, is seeing news clips of the wall coming down. Then, because I grew up in Mustang, so when we went on field trips, we would go to what is called the Omniplex. It is now called the Oklahoma Science Museum, but I will forever call it the Omniplex. I love the Omniplex. They have a large portion of the Berlin Wall there. Many Oklahomans have seen that big portion of it. That was about my extent of knowledge about the Cold War in Oklahoma. I know that you can drive by places and you can see fallout shelters. I remember there was one in Wheatland, Oklahoma, because we used to always drive through it to go to Oklahoma City. I remember asking my parents, like, what is that? Then my parents had told me that those buildings were fallout shelters, because our parents were definitely alive during some of the very, very heated parts. My sources were, there is an entire book dedicated to Cold War in Oklahoma called Cold War Oklahoma by Landry Brewer. I also read an article called The Real Reason the U.S. Put Cold War Missiles in Oklahoma by Kelso from Z94.com. The first thing I want to do is I wanted to read a few paragraphs from the introduction of the actual book Cold War Oklahoma for you guys. Bear with me on this. The Cold War was frightening. For decades, Americans feared that civilization would be gone with the wind of a nuclear cataclysm if the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union got hot. Immediately acquainted with the destructive capabilities of wind, Oklahoma felt the fear. Lulled by a sense of complacency that follows victory, post-war Americans wanted to return to normalcy after World War II ended. But the United States, long a country that valued the safety and security of two friendly neighbors to the north and south and two oceans to the east and west, providing a buffer between it and any would-be adversaries, found itself in a new role, leader of the free world. On the other side of this bipolar struggle was the Soviet Union, the original Red Menace that had enslaved first its own people under communism rule and then millions more in Eastern Europe as it spread its influence and forced communism on those people the Nazis had conquered just a few years earlier. Believing that Joseph Stalin had replaced Adolf Hitler as the mustachioned madman bent on the dominance of Europe and the world, and with the British and other Western Europeans lacking the means and opportunity to stop the Soviet leader, the United States stepped in. As the only nation in the world economically and militarily capable of stopping the Soviet Union from expanding its territory and influence, American foreign policy in the late 1940s became increasingly interventionist. So that kind of just like sets the tone for everything. So in 1961 the Cold War hadn't reached its midpoint. In a speech to the United Nations that year, President Kennedy said, every man, woman, and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, I hope I said that right, hanging by the slenderest of threads capable of being cut at any moment by accident or miscalculation or by madness. That danger was as real for Oklahoma as it is for the rest of the nation, in some ways more so. From Enid to McAllister, from Tulsa to Atlas, from Elk City to Oklahoma City, Oklahomans did their part to keep themselves, their families, and their fellow citizens safe. From building missile sites to digging fallout shelters and from serving in the military to serving in the government, Oklahomans fought that long twilight struggle when the fate of the world hung in the air. Wow. So let's just go over the origins of the Cold War. The U.S. and the Soviet Union were allies during World War II, yet became enemies as early as 1945. During the Yalta Conference in February of 1945, this is three months before the end of World War II, the U.S., the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union, so think of these leaders, Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin, agreed to the post-war arrangement of Europe. We knew we were winning. The Soviet Union would join the fight against Japan to gain control of Eastern Europe only if it allowed free elections. This is a stipulation by the United Kingdom and the United States. Okay. Stalin agreed to this, but, quote, never accepted the Western interpretation of the Yalta Agreement. Oh, man, that is so like, oh, man. If that just doesn't just say USSR, I don't know what does. So, okay, the U.S. then dropped two atomic bombs on Japan in August of 1945. Shortly after this, Japan surrenders, and that is what effectively ended World War II. At this point, the relationship between the United States, United Kingdom team, and the USSR had already begun to worsen. Winston Churchill, he gives his famous Iron Curtain speech in March of 1946 in Fulton, Missouri, right after this all happened. By 1947, the USSR was attempting to collect Greece with sites on Turkey. British aid was to be removed, because they were kind of helping combat the communism, and replaced with American aid to prevent this from happening. This is what is believed to be the beginning of America's attempt to stop communism from spreading. This whole thing was now deemed a conflict, nicknamed the Cold War by columnist Walter Lippmann. Europe was on the brink of economic collapse, especially Western Europe, which was run by the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. But you have to think, the United Kingdom and France were completely war-torn nations. Right, I mean, they were... They were front-liners, essentially. Right, yeah. So, they introduced the Marshall Plan, or European Recovery Program, and this was essentially to prevent the collapse of Eastern Europe, which would have in turn really collapsed probably the rest of the world economically. After World War II, it's not... I mean, everyone knows that Europeans, they were starving, they were unhoused, they were unemployed, and they were simply exhausted. Oh, yeah. So, in 1947, Congress passed the National Security Act, which brought all military branches under one Department of Defense, under one Secretary of Defense. This created the National Security Council, the CIA, and the United States Air Force. Okay. In 1948, Stalin established a blockade to prevent the Western powers from entering the city of Berlin. He did not want their aid anymore. Hmm. But he was called off in 1949 because the US, not ever backing down, simply decided that instead of delivering their aid packages via train, truck, or boat, they would just drop them from airplanes. Hmm. In addition, NATO was born to help reestablish European countries and prevent aggressions against them. During this time period, September of 1949, radioactivity is discovered in the North Pacific Ocean. Hmm. Scientists from the United States confirmed that the USSR had detonated an atomic bomb there. Oh. This was shocking because we... Sorry, I see this, like, orange thing going. Oh, okay. I was like, what the heck? We were, foolishly, I would say, under the presumptions that we were the only country capable of having atomic power. Aye, aye, aye. So, of course, knowing now that the Soviet Union has the power, this amplifies those tensions and fears because now we're not the only ones. Mm-hmm. In October of 1949, the Chinese Civil War ends with the Chinese choosing communism. Hmm. And this was a real hit to democratic societies since China boasted the second largest population of people on Earth. Hmm. In January of 1950, there were plans to begin developing a hydrogen or thermonuclear bomb, aka the Manhattan Project. Oh, wow. And this shot out, there's a movie getting ready to come out, focused on the scientist Oppenheimer. Oh. It's called Oppenheimer, about the development of the Manhattan Project. Interesting. During this period of time, the National Security Council paper number 68, or NSC 68, told President Truman that the USSR would be our equals bomb-wise by 1954. Oh, wow. The government needed U.S. citizens to view the Cold War now as a real war. Mm-hmm. This became more apparent when North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950. The U.S. fought with South Korea to keep communism out. Of course, this leads to the 1960s where another war to stop the spread of communism began, which was Vietnam. The U.S. and the USSR reached the brink of nuclear war many times through this 40-year period. We struggled to outpace each other in all areas of life, not just military or nuclear-wise through the 70s and 80s, but most all of us can probably recall Olympics. It doesn't seem like much has changed. No, and still, I mean, as a blue-blooded American, when we're in the Olympics and you see those Russians, we're like, oh, I don't care who we lose against. We have to beat them. I mean, and that's probably because we are both children of the 80s, and that great hockey match went down where it was these professional Russian hockey players and these college American athletes, and we stumped them. I mean, there's a whole movie about it, right? All right, so let's talk about some missiles in the Oklahoma. Oklahoma is mostly known for its missile capability during the Cold War. So when the government set to begin developing intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs, in the 1950s, the first were housed here in the great state of Oklahoma. Southwest Oklahoma was chosen as an Atlas Missile Silo Congregation because the loss of life in the event of a nuclear strike would be far less than in our country's biggest cities. We were literally nuclear attack fodder as much as we were a deterrent. It's very sad. It is because it's like, oh, it's like one of those things like, well, if you could save like one group of people that had like ten people, or you could save a group of people that had two, which would you save? Absolutely. And you would do the one with the most because, yeah. It's like a double-edged sword. Exactly. So Atlas missiles would be housed at Altus. It's very hard to say Atlas and Altus at the same time. Altus Air Force Base in Altus, Oklahoma. There were 12 missile sites which were located near Altus. Lone Wolf, Snyder, Cache, Fredericks, Fargo, Texas, Crata, Hollis, Russell, Willow, Hobart, Manitou, and Granite. At all times, B-52 bombers were monitoring the sky, readying themselves to bomb the Soviet Union if called to. These missions lasted 24 hours. So literally you'd go up, you would monitor for your 20 hours, and then you would go and land. And once one group was finished and landed, the next would take off. Gosh, that sounds awful to be honest. Right. In May of 1960, there was a mock attack of the U.S., and Oklahoma did participate in it. They did or didn't? Did. Okay, sorry. On September 26th, oh, take this part out, that part. It was interesting, as my mother was born in June of 1960 in Oklahoma, and so to think of our grandmother, like, huge and pregnant, and having to participate in this mock attack. Oh, gosh. Did you call her and ask her? No, I should have, but it was probably just so annoying. Oh, I can't even imagine. Right. September 26th of 1960, John F. Kennedy visited Oklahoma to talk about electronic and missile building during his campaign for presidency. Okay. Unfortunately, on the day of his visit, the first death during construction of the missile sites was reported. Oh, no. And it was the electrocution of Otis S. Hopson. Sorry, I'm clicking on this. Oh, that's fine. Maybe not. I'm going to take a drink. Like, I'm just kidding. Apparently I'm not. And then, again, on December 28th of 1960, Warren Neal Willis fell from a missile silo he was helping to build. Oh, what an awful death. Oh, for sure. By 1961, most Americans started building fallout shelters. In October of 1962, the year my father was born, the year my mom. Question, question. Do you know, what would be the difference, maybe you don't know, between a fallout shelter and, like, say, a tornado shelter? We'll get into that. Okay. Yeah, we'll get into it. All right, in October of 1962, the year and month my father was born, the U.S. discovers placement of Soviet Union nuclear missiles 90 miles from Florida. This was known as the Cuban Missile Crisis. Oh, yeah. Oh, man. Two months prior, the first Atlas missile was put on alert at Altus Air Force Base. By October, the remaining 11 were put on standby. So here we are in Oklahoma with 12 nuclear missiles on standby. Oh, my gosh. All pointed towards Cuba and Russia. Oh, my goodness. At this time, we developed an emergency siren system to tell residents what to do. There were two different blasts that you had to listen for. The first blast would be a pair of siren blasts, each lasting three minutes tells residents to monitor your TV or radio for news. If you didn't hear that one and you heard a continual blast, it meant danger was coming to seek shelter immediately. Oh, my goodness. How awful. Like, you have to worry about that, you have to worry about tornadoes, you have to worry about, oh, good grief. The Cuban Missile Crisis was peacefully resolved. However, it was then discovered right after it was solved that there was a liquid nitrogen tank near the cache missile that was leaking. Oh, God. Of course, residents see this happening, and now they're like, oh, my gosh, the missiles are on fire. Right. On May 14th of 1964, a missile housed at the Frederick site exploded with no injuries, but the nuclear warhead was not detonated, and so it was unaffected, so there was no nuclear fallout. Good grief. That just gives me anxiety thinking about it. And then on March 25th of 1965, the Strategic Missile Squadron was deactivated. All sites were sold, and currently all sites in Oklahoma are owned by private citizens. And I have, you can get on Zillow, and you can find a ton of, like, Oklahoma wasn't the only state that had missile sites, but you can find a ton of them for sale. I've seen people who have made homes out of them. Yeah, they've converted homes into them. And I've even seen where they're like, this is the mission, here's the button that you would push, you know. So in the book, if you wanted to read the Cold War Oklahoma book, there's a whole chapter dedicated to a missile technician's experience. It's fascinating what these people had to go through. The stress would just be unknown. I can't even imagine what their blood pressure was like. Exactly, because at any moment, they themselves were a target and could be killed, or they were going to be responsible for killing loads of people. Oh, man. I don't know how you'd be able to have that, like, burden on your shoulders. The author actually interviewed Jerry Burns. He was a ballistic missile analyst technician at Altus Air Force Base and kind of got his experience from it. Oh, interesting. Like I mentioned, the Frederick Site explosion, there's actually audio available from the actual explosion that you can access and find on the Atlas Missile Silo site website, and you can listen to it. The book also goes into the author's mission to preserve these missile sites as legacies and history in Oklahoma. But this also created civil defense, and I didn't know what civil defense was prior to going into this. Yeah, I think I've heard that before. But I'll definitely—let me tell you what it is. Every community had to create a plan to protect the public from nuclear war. So the Federal Civil Defense Act of 1950 created a three-staged shelter program. So the civil defense was just put in place to defend civilians. So in 1950, the government wanted to locate existing shelters because there were many bomb shelters built during the 1940s because of World War II. And so they needed to locate those, upgrade them, and then construct new shelters in areas where there weren't any. This makes me think of the blast from the past, the Brendan Fraser movie, when I believe it's on that mock day that they go underground, believing, and then 25 or 30 years later, they emerge. Have you seen that movie? I don't know if I have or not. It's good. You should see it. Alicia Silverstone is in it, too. But they emerge after—I don't remember how long. Maybe it was 30 years. I don't know. They emerge and come to find out it was just a mock explosion day, and they thought it was real. And they spent their 30 years in their fallout shelter, and when they came out, they expected to see a wasteland. Oh, man. And that's not what they saw. Oh, wow. So they saw 1990s America. So I talk a lot about fallout shelters. The fallout spread is actually a very serious condition, and it's actually probably— when you think about the atomic bombs in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, the fallout is really what was probably the worst. Fallout is the nuclear or radioactive dust that results when a nuclear bomb explodes. It's literally dust, so it can spread miles and miles away from the actual bomb site and affect people. And so that's what people were mostly afraid of. It was difficult to get President Eisenhower on board to fork over the money needed to create a nationwide fallout shelter plan. So to see how Americans respond, they had that mock attack in May of 1960, and it really acted as a way to get the public and the president behind creating more shelters. When they did the mock attack, it was discovered that only 10% of Altus's residents would survive, and it was even smaller for surrounding areas, survival rates. So it's kind of a wake-up call. In 1961, President Kennedy supported civil defense requests and created an Office of Civil Defense to begin the three-stage shelter plan, which we have talked about before. That was created in 1950, but didn't go anywhere. So it's really interesting—we're going to go kind of backwards now, so that you know that in 1950, the Civil Defense Act was created. It wasn't really put into place until 1961, but in 1951, Oklahoma A&M, which is now Oklahoma State, was the first school in the United States to teach civil defense courses. It was two weeks long. It cost $18. And it taught health, welfare, rescue, police, firefighting, and other services that civilians may need to know in case of a nuclear fallout. The Federal Civil Defense Administration actually closed the program in 1952. However, Oklahoma's state civil defense reopened it right back up. So by 1957, classes were then offered to women, allowing them to take the courses and really to focus on rescue work. Oh, interesting. So let's say you have a fallout shelter. Okay. You've got to stock it. To stock fallout shelters, supplies were needed, and people could find the shelters and necessary supplies by looking for those three yellow triangles in the black circle. I went to Oklahoma State, and there are still—to this day, or there was when I was there— there were still buildings that had that placard on it with the three yellow triangles in the black circle, knowing that's a fallout shelter. Now, you mentioned before, what about tornado shelters? I believe 90% of all fallout shelters also were used as tornado shelters as well. Most of them are now. Most of them are now for sure. Most of them were built with the capabilities of being able to also withstand tornadoes. So in Oklahoma, it was a twofer. Yeah, I mean, yeah. You know, I'm hearing you talk about it. They were like the first doomsday preppers. Right, right. OSUS. Stillwater actually gave supplies to the volunteers who created the shelters at their homes. Stillwater had a large—I mean, their public was, you know, educated in how to do it, so they had a large population of people who would have these. They were given water barrels, carbohydrate supplements, survival crackers, sanitation kits. Wow. In order to be deemed a public fallout shelter, you had to be able to hold at least 50 people and include one cubic foot of storage space per person, plus have a radiation protection factor of at least 100. I tried to find out exactly what that meant. I looked all up radiation protection factors. It was a lot of jargon that I don't understand. So I'm not even going to pretend to try to explain that to you what it means. Yes. I'm assuming it has to be able to protect like 100 parts per billion, per million, something of radiation. I don't know. I don't know. Someone can educate me on that because it was really hard for me to understand. In January of 1962, the government published a book guiding citizens on the different acceptable fallout shelter construction plans. The government did? Yes. Okay. So at this point, you know, Kennedy is in office. He supports this, and so they're offering guides on how the regular American can just create their own. The smallest would accommodate three people, and it costs Americans $75 to build. The largest would accommodate 10 people, costing $110. Most homeowners were responsible for constructing their own shelters. Okay. Again, we'll go back to October of 1962. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, citizens were told instantly they had to be vigilant, they had to be on guard, they had to be ready. Unfortunately, Elk City residents received the scare of a lifetime during this period when their emergency alert siren malfunctioned and produced a false alarm. Oh, no. So, blast from the past, maybe it took place. Close the door. What do you need? Are you done swimming? Was it cold? It was. What? I didn't show you the mattress in the back of the truck. Okay. You got free. So this is definitely giving that blast from the past movie vibe. Maybe it took place in Elk City. I don't think it did, but it definitely could have. But this scare resulted in near panic conditions. Oh, I can't even imagine. So it was probably another good practice in hindsight. I don't know, but that would be terrifying. Oh, yeah. Heck, yeah, it would. In fact, today, most of you have probably visited several fallout shelters or former fallout shelters. The Oklahoma Capitol Building is one of them. Oh. It has several of them inside. The basement is considered one, the cafeteria, and there are other areas that are located in there because they had a lot of people that they wanted to be able to protect. It was said at one point that there was roughly between 800 to 1,000 public shelters in the state of Oklahoma. Oh, that's interesting. Which we needed a lot. We had 12 missile sites. Right. In the 1960s, classes now were starting to be offered at many other state universities. They continued at Oklahoma State. Southwestern OSU got into there. Chinoot High School even started having classes. They had a family survival course for their students to take. Okay. Food guidelines were established in the event of fallout and sheltering. Initially, they said that people needed to consume 1,500 calories per day, but then it was lowered significantly to 700 because they encouraged people to be sedient. 700 calories. We would starve. Americans would starve. Oklahomans would starve. Just hearing that makes me hungry. Okay. Oh, just wait. Your water allotment per day was one quart. What? I know. You get one quart of water a day. Food and water barrels had to have a shelf life of five to ten years, and the water barrels, they stored massive amounts of water. Medical kits were provided inside your shelters. They included all sorts of medications, dressings, and other things that you might need. So by 1964, Oklahoma had 600,000 marked fallout shelters, public and private. Wow. That's a lot. Well, but you have to also think that I'm sure a lot of people were like, well, this is my tornado shelter, too. So 600,000? Okay. After President Kennedy was assassinated, funding for civil defense started to decline. Many believed that the lack of funding would actually move the U.S. into war since we were, quote, suddenly unprepared. So people were really upset about this lack of funding, but other presidents did not feel the need to fund it like Kennedy did. So, of course, in the book you can read about the author's memories growing up in Cold War America. I mean, you and I could definitely ask our parents. They grew up in the midst of it. Right. And, like, you know, we both – our only memories are, like, the wall coming down. Right. So – but it's just – it's interesting because it's not that far removed. Right. It really isn't. Right. It's like a million years at the same time. Yeah. It feels like a million years ago. Right. It does. Due to World War II, there was a rise in the creation of military bases all over the United States, and this, of course, included Oklahoma. So towards the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War, we even got even more military bases. And I don't even list all of the ones on Oklahoma, but some that really were prevalent during that ending of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War were Tinker Air Force Base in Midwest City, Vance Air Force Base in Enid, Clinton-Sherman Air Force Base in Bern Slats, the U.S. Army Ammunition Plant in McAllister, Fort Sill in Lawton, which Fort Sill had been there for hundreds – you know, hundred years prior, if not more. And then, of course, Altus Air Force Base in Altus. It goes into a chapter of two key Cold War Oklahomans, and I wanted to briefly kind of talk about them. You and I are probably familiar – I think most Oklahomans are familiar with both of them. Carl Albert, the first one, he ran for Congress in 1946 while the Cold War was heating up. He was actually elected the same class as John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. He was really instrumental in helping Congress address the Cold War needs. He held conferences with all sorts of presidents to talk to them about, you know, Cold War and what are the citizens feeling, what do we need to do for them. And then the other one was Thomas P. Stafford. He – and if you're not familiar with him, you also are from eastern Oklahoma. Western Oklahoma people are cheering his name, I promise. I don't recognize the name. He was a pilot for the United States Air Force who was then picked up by NASA. And he was an astronaut for the Apollo and Gemini missions. He played a pivotal role in the space race during the Cold War. In fact, he came within 100 miles of landing on the moon. He was on the Apollo 10 mission. They were unable to land. It was actually the Apollo 11 mission that landed on the moon. So he was also a member of the Apollo Soyuz – it's Russian. I'm not quite sure if that's how you pronounce it – Soyuz test where he and other astronauts met a Soviet cosmonaut in space. This is said to be the event that ended the space race between the U.S. and the USSR. Interesting. So – oh, I wanted to read another page from the book, page 100. Let me find it. Had a really good quote about these two men. Carl Albert and Thomas P. Stafford each strove for excellence in his chosen field at a critical time for the country and the world. Albert helped guide the government in its military and foreign policy decisions, and during domestic and international crises when peace could easily have become war with the Soviet Union, a frightening prospect in the nuclear age. Stafford reached for the moon and stars and hit his mark at a time when we raced against the Soviets to be the first to conquer the final frontier of space. So it's just two great Oklahomans who really left their mark because of Cold War Oklahoma. Now let's talk about a not-so-great Oklahoman. I had not heard of this person. I'm interested to know if you have. Maurice Halpern. This person was completely unknown to me. Albert and Stafford are well-known Oklahomans for their roles that they played in World War II. During the Cold War, they're just Oklahoma heroes for sure. Not Halpern. Here's a brief history about him. Oh, girl. Here's a brief history about him before we dive in. He graduated from Harvard, then went to OU and got his master's degree. He also was an OU professor during the 1930s and 40s. He fell under suspicion by the state of Oklahoma government because he appeared to be sympathetic to communist ideas. And this is the 1930s and 40s. Once he fell under this suspicion, he left OU and got a job with the federal government wartime intelligence agency during World War II. Still, he's under suspicion, he eventually flees the United States, never to return. Good gravy. There's a lot that happens between him fleeing the United States and this suspicion. So the end of the Cold War, evidence emerged showing that Halpern was a covert Oklahoma communist in the 1930s. He even made a trip to Cuba, which was later discovered to be funded by the Communist Party. It was discovered that in the 1940s, he committed espionage for the USSR. He was a traitor. He was a traitor. He was a spy. Accused in 1939 of being a spy because he sold Soviet bonds after the Nazi Soviet pact, after it kind of, I guess, crumbled or something. But all of a sudden, his bank account received lots of money. The bank notified the FBI instantly and the University of Oklahoma, which I think is weird that it notified his workplace. Yeah. Well, maybe to like, hey, professors don't make this much. Right. Oh, sorry. So during this time, he was teaching at OU. He was accused of teaching communist ideology. This is in 1939. He was subpoenaed and asked what communist ties he had. He denied all of them or any. Of course he did. Even when they brought up this trip to Cuba where communist papers, he was given those. There were members that were present. He denied he's not a he was not a communist. In 1941, he was recommended for firing from OU, but he left before that happened. Gaining employee gaining employment with the Office of Strategic Service, the predecessor to the CIA. If he was under suspicion, how in the world did he gain that kind of position? Probably because the state government wasn't talking to the federal government is what I'm going to assume. The left hand wasn't talking to the right. In 1946, he was singled out as a possible communist in that that Office of Strategic Service. When he suddenly left to represent the American Jewish Conference to the United Nations, he was representative. During this time, Halpin read in a newspaper that he was facing espionage charges from the Office of Strategic Services. Now, when we look back on it, we need to place blame probably on their laxity. There were many other true spies that were kept in government jobs at this time. And this laxity is what later resulted in the Red Scare witch hunt led by none other than J. Edgar Hoover. So it was almost like if you were accused of being a communist in the 1930s and 1940s, it was no big deal. You still kept your job. You got another job. You got a better job, you know, as we can just see with Halpin here. However, in the 1950s, that was not the case. So 1953, he's left this office. He's no longer a representative for the American Jewish Conference. He starts to work at Boston University. Halpin was subpoenaed again. These hearings were actually for several professors where every single one of them asserted their Fifth Amendment, which is their right. But at the same time, doesn't make you look super innocent. So he was working at the time for the Senate Internal Security Subcommission, or he wasn't working there. That's who he was subpoenaed by. This is what McCarthyism were kind of started here. In March of 1953, he testified before the Senate International Security Subcommission. He was asked if he had been a member of the Communist Party and if he had engaged in any kind of espionage activity that former Soviet spy turned informant Elizabeth Bentley had accused him of to the FBI and the HAUC, as well as being asked about his political activities at the University of Oklahoma, his Cuba trip, the Soviet bond purchase and other matters. Halpin generally invoked the Fifth Amendment, though he did assert that he did not commit espionage. Liar. Right. So. Other admitted spies that the US had gotten a hold of during this time period confessed that Halpin was indeed a communist. In fact, he was accredited as being the Texas, Oklahoma, communist representative of the Communist Party of the US. Was it one for every state? I don't know. Oklahoma and Texas shared one, so probably not one for every state. But I don't know. In November of 1953, President Eisenhower's Attorney General Herbert Brownell testified to that Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, a reading on November of 1945 letter from J. Edgar Hoover to President Truman. This is what the letter said. I'm reading it from page 109. Quote, identifying a spy ring that has been functioning in Washington during the war. End quote. The substance of the letter came from a deposition provided to the FBI by, again, Elizabeth Bentley, and Halpin was one of the spies named. The director of the FBI, through the Attorney General of the United States, using correspondence that included the President of the United States, claimed that Maurice Halpin was guilty of espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union. Wow. So the next day, Halpin is suspended from Boston University. One week later, he and his wife flee to Mexico. He denied being a spy in 1941, again in 1942, again in 1947, and in 1953, yet in the end fled the US to live in Mexico, moved to USSR, moved to Cuba, all communist countries, before eventually, finally settling in Canada. And it was never told what, I could never find what time period he settled in Canada. That's interesting. So here's a cookie fact. Elizabeth Bentley, she is an infamous Soviet spy, turned informant for the United States. She did admit that Halpin may not have known the info he was passing along was going to the actual Soviet Union. She said that he may have just thought it was going to the Communist Party of the US. In 1995, so we're going to speed up several years, it was discovered, they discovered, or I don't know if they discovered it, more as they admitted it. Something called the Venona. This is, or was, an extremely top secret American program from 1943. It was used to decipher encrypted messages sent to Soviet diplomats in the US to Moscow. Since 1942, it identified 349 resident US spies. Halpin's name was on it. These messages that were, that they made public in 1995, so I mean, what, 50 years, 50 plus years old, corroborated Elizabeth Bentley's earlier testimony of all the spies that she let loose. Halpin denied espionage, I think, till his deathbed. He had a biography written about him. He denied it in the biography, even though in 1995, it was proven that he was one. His Soviet code name was Hare. It was seen in a November 25, 1945 message. Let's see. Now, you might be asking, why, during all of these court proceedings, did none of this stuff come up? It was because the US government was unwilling to reveal the existence of the Venona to prosecutors. They didn't want anyone in the 1940s and 50s to know about this at all. So, prosecutors pursued cases against the spies in the 1940s and 50s without this program's information. So, they still had a ton of information, but they didn't have this, like, rock solid information. Without corroborating evidence, though, the government was often unable to bring those named to trial, much less get a guilty verdict. Four of those Bentley named did testify, denied her charges, but then put themselves beyond prosecution for perjury by leaving the United States. Halpin was one of them. Yeah, you're not guilty. No. Here's a kooky fact. This is a really, really kooky fact. There are only four known pictures of Halpin in existence. Oh. He was present in zero yearbook photos from his years at OU as a student or as a faculty member. There are zero pictures of the National Archives from the Office of Strategic Services, no pictures from Boston University, and even his own biography has no pictures in it. Weird. If that doesn't say spy, I don't know what else does. Yeah, right? There's even a chapter in the book Cold War Oklahoma devoted to no pictures of Maurice Halpin. So, let's talk about the legacy that the Cold War left, not only on the United States, but on Oklahoma. In 1991, the USSR officially dissolved, which essentially ended the Cold War. It lasted for 40 plus years. The deaths from Cold War activities, these are specific Oklahoma deaths, three from the construction of missile silos near Altus, 625 in the Korean War, 987 in the Vietnam War. It cost the United States roughly $5 trillion as of 1995. If we were to convert that into 2023, roughly $10 trillion the Cold War cost us over a 40 plus period. So, that's the Cold War in Oklahoma. I didn't realize that they included the Korean War in that. I guess I didn't either, but it makes sense now when you think about it. North Korea is a communist country, along with China. Russia is no longer, or Russia is not a communist country, but Cuba is still communist too, as well. I think those are the only three countries that I can think of that are, there's probably more, but those are the only three that I can think of. Everyone else is pretty much a democratic society. There may be a few, well even monarchies, a lot of them still are democratic at the same time. It was interesting, there's a lot of information in that book that I didn't even get to cover. To know that really Oklahoma played a great role in the Cold War, we literally were on the front line, our first line of defense for several years, how scary it could have been. My father was in the Marine Corps, especially during the height of the 80s. He did participate in Cold War type events where he fought and that kind of stuff. It's fascinating, it's scary, I think. But I do think it's scary in the fact that it's almost like we're going back to that, or we could be going back, or what, I mean, I don't know, what's going on, what's going on with Russia right now, without getting super political and stuff. I thought it was an interesting history for our state. The dark part of it was that we had our own spy. You're right, it is scary because my cousin Matt, on my dad's side, his wife is from Russia. I think it was this past year, she became a citizen of the United States, and she just found out that her father, who's still in Russia, has stomach cancer. I believe it's stomach cancer, and it's like stage four terminal. She was trying to fly out to go back home so that she could be with him. I know my cousin was just like, I'm so worried because what if she gets over there and then I can't get to her? She can't get back for some reason. I know that that's kind of a concern for them. It's crazy when you don't have to think about some of those things, and then when you know someone who does, it's kind of like, oh my gosh. One of the women in my Sunday school class is Russian, or she was born and raised in Russia. Her husband was in the Air Force and they met on mission trips together. She, of course, transitioned here. She's a US citizen, but she does have family in Russia. In fact, they're having a very difficult time because they look down upon, they aren't, how can I say this? They essentially, they don't like Protestant. They don't like religious choice right now, and she has family. I believe her brother is a minister, I believe a Baptist minister there in Russia and was facing a lot of scary events happening, particularly to him and his congregation. Persecution. Oh, there we go. But then I believe her sister, Stanley, they ended up being able to flee and were trying to come into the United States, but somehow they got diverted to Mexico and were unable to get to the United States. Her husband, they're both in my Sunday school class, but he went down to Mexico to try to help them and was arrested. Oh, wow. Oh, I think I remember you telling me that. It was kind of a very scary 24, 48 hour time period for them all, but I believe they're all safely now here in the United States. But it's just scary to think this could be heating up again, something like this could be happening again, because I don't know. Right. I mean, especially when you know people who are like- For sure, yeah. I mean, Nadia, she was like the sweetest person and I hate that that's happening. Oh, Irena's the same way. And like, I can't imagine what she's going through and how, you know, I know Matt's just worried. I mean, you're worried, obviously. That's his life. It's hard for them to communicate and tell us how they're really feeling or their real fears, because they could get in trouble for talking bad or talking in a negative light, which is not great. No. But I thought it was fascinating. At least we have a little bit of history. Maybe we can try to prevent things from happening again. I don't know. I didn't know a lot of that. That was very hard. I didn't either. I mean, Reina, we grew up probably oblivious to all of it. And of course, you know, most of our life there has been no Cold War. I mean, you hear about it, but you don't really think about it again, if that makes sense. I know. I mean, in history class, it wasn't really covered over a lot. Yeah, I mean, like a brief, like- Maybe a chapter over it. I was going to say flyby, but I was like, that's not the right word. So, yeah. If you have any questions, comments, or show suggestions, we encourage you to reach out at us. We have several different ways. You can email us at CuriousCousinsOK at gmail.com. You can DM us on Instagram at CuriousCousinsOK or on Facebook at CuriousCousinsOKPodcast or even on Twitter at CuriousCousinsOK. But remember, cousins is spelled C-U-Z-N. You can also rate, review, and follow us on your favorite listening platform or podcast listening platform. We are on Google. We are on Stitcher. Nope, Stitcher is about to be done for us. If you're a Stitcher listener, find us somewhere else by August 29th, I think. Apple, Spotify, iHeartRadio, all those big ones. We would just love for you to become a listener and follow and just take the time to review us. We really appreciate it. And if you really want to hear more about us, you can support us on Patreon. Just look for CuriousCousinsOK and you'll find us there. $5 tier. Get you extra episodes each month. This month was mine and it's a part one-er because I definitely bit off more than I could chew. Should we tell them what I've covered? If you want to. We gave you a couple of hints. We said it was not in Oklahoma and that it was a prison and the prison that I am covering, which is going to end up being the history of the prison. And then another episode is going to be the ghost of the said prison. And then there's probably going to be an entire episode dedicated to the prisoners. It's surrounded by water. It is also referred to as the rock. It is Alcatraz. I can't wait. I'm excited. It's a lot. It's a lot. I'll tell you that. It's going to be good. Yes. So if you are interested in that, if you would like to hear that first, which I mean, it will eventually be released on regular podcast. But we don't know when we'll release it on regular podcast. But if you'd like to hear it first, it is available on Patreon. So, yeah, just tell them what to keep it. Keep it kooky and spooky. Bye.