"Five Minutes of Fire": Communist Bloc, Roy Cohn, Juan Peron

<v Speaker 1>I'm Jason Colvin, I'm d Graves.
<v Speaker 2>Give us five minutes and we will give you the fire.
<v Speaker 1>Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Surely You Can't
<v Speaker 1>Be Serious Podcast Special Edition five Minutes of Fire. We
<v Speaker 1>are here talking about the lyrics of we Didn't Start
<v Speaker 1>the Fire by Billy Joel. We're covering only five minutes
<v Speaker 1>at a time, which is about to link with the song,
<v Speaker 1>so it works out kind of nicely. So please join
<v Speaker 1>us as we dive into some new lyrics today.
<v Speaker 2>All right, guys, So here are the topics that we're
<v Speaker 2>going to be covering today.
<v Speaker 1>Today, we're talking about Communist Block. Roy Cohne and Juan
<v Speaker 1>Puran Communist Block. All right, Dee, what can you tell
<v Speaker 1>me about Communist Block? So, the Communist Block, also known
<v Speaker 1>as the Eastern Bloc, is a coalition of communist states
<v Speaker 1>that arose after World War Two. During World War two,
<v Speaker 1>technically the Soviets were our allies, but afterwards there was
<v Speaker 1>a lot of dividing up of things, and what was
<v Speaker 1>included in that was countries. And what we said to
<v Speaker 1>Stalin was, we just want to make sure that they
<v Speaker 1>have elections, that they're free and fair, and so Stalin said,
<v Speaker 1>communist communists, communists communists, that's not free and fair, and
<v Speaker 1>I don't know what is. So here's the interesting. They
<v Speaker 1>called this the Eastern Bloc, and they also often called
<v Speaker 1>it the Second World. The Western Bloc was frequently called
<v Speaker 1>the First World, and then the third World was what
<v Speaker 1>they referred the non aligned countries to. And that's where
<v Speaker 1>we get this term third world countries. Interesting. In Western Europe,
<v Speaker 1>the term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc generally referred to
<v Speaker 1>the Soviet and Central and Eastern European countries in the
<v Speaker 1>comiccone which was East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria
<v Speaker 1>and Albania. And in Asia, the Eastern Bloc was comprised
<v Speaker 1>of Mongolia, Vietnam, laos Kempuchia, North Korea, South Yemen, Syria
<v Speaker 1>and China. In the Americas, the countries aligned with the
<v Speaker 1>Soviet Union included Cuba, and for limited periods also included
<v Speaker 1>Nicaragua and Granada. Well, can you tell me about Roy Cohne?
<v Speaker 2>All Right? Roy Kohane was a famous American lawyer.
<v Speaker 1>I feel like you should know.
<v Speaker 2>This guy is known for his role in the McCarthy hearings.
<v Speaker 2>He assisted in the investigations of the suspected communists in
<v Speaker 2>the entertainment and public realm. He rose to prominence as
<v Speaker 2>the US Department of Justice prosecutor at the espionage trial
<v Speaker 2>of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
<v Speaker 1>We talked about past episode. Yeah, that's right.
<v Speaker 2>During his career, his other clients included George Steinbrenner, who
<v Speaker 2>is the owner of the New York Yankees, mafia bosses
<v Speaker 2>including John Gotti, and the one and only Donald Trump.
<v Speaker 2>Donald Trump's quote about him said, if you need somebody
<v Speaker 2>to get vicious, you hire Roy Cohne. Also, he was
<v Speaker 2>cited by President Trump as advising Trump to never apologize.
<v Speaker 2>They will see it as a sign of weakness. So
<v Speaker 2>I guess we can blame him this back at Roy
<v Speaker 2>cut a little bit. In nineteen eighty six, he was
<v Speaker 2>disbarred for unethical conduct for attempting to defraud a dying
<v Speaker 2>client by forcing the client to sign over his fortune.
<v Speaker 2>So he ended up dying of aids at age fifty
<v Speaker 2>nine in nineteen eighty six.
<v Speaker 1>He's one of those ninety nine percent of lawyers that
<v Speaker 1>give us one percent a bad name.
<v Speaker 2>All right, Dee, Well, can you tell me about Juan Perone,
<v Speaker 2>don't cry for me.
<v Speaker 1>Argentina. Juan Peron was a leader of Argentina. He had
<v Speaker 1>married a young lady early in his career, but she
<v Speaker 1>ended up passing away from cervical cancer just at the
<v Speaker 1>age of thirty eight. But she had been a big
<v Speaker 1>help to him during the time that they were married
<v Speaker 1>by translating leadership books from English into Spanish for him
<v Speaker 1>to be able to study how to be a good leader.
<v Speaker 1>One of his influences also Benito Mussolini. Now, he himself
<v Speaker 1>was more on the socialist side of things, but he
<v Speaker 1>believed that being a dictator type leader was the best
<v Speaker 1>way to maintain control of a country. Now, his fame
<v Speaker 1>rose when he was leader of the labor Cabinet in
<v Speaker 1>Argentina and there was a gigantic earthquake. He had to
<v Speaker 1>mobilize people to try to get the money to rebuild
<v Speaker 1>this town, and one thing he did was to enlist
<v Speaker 1>the help of celebrities, and one of those celebrities was
<v Speaker 1>Eva or Evida Peron, who was a big radio star
<v Speaker 1>at the time. Vita and she came into his office
<v Speaker 1>and basically said, I would love to do whatever I
<v Speaker 1>can to help charity and do more. And he said,
<v Speaker 1>I felt like her words were reaching out and grabbing me,
<v Speaker 1>and I fell in love with her at that point. Now,
<v Speaker 1>obviously there's a big musical about their relationship, and there's,
<v Speaker 1>you know, a lot of questions. He was forty nine
<v Speaker 1>when they met, she was twenty five. She's also beautiful. Yes,
<v Speaker 1>that's true. Even though a lot of the political power
<v Speaker 1>believed Ivida was a gold digger and manipulative, she was
<v Speaker 1>also very well known for helping the poor. She was
<v Speaker 1>a big mover in women's suffrage. But then she too,
<v Speaker 1>oddly enough, died of cervical cancer. They believe that that
<v Speaker 1>could be because he carried a virus that he gave
<v Speaker 1>to them, causing that cervical cancer. Later after she died,
<v Speaker 1>he preserved her body. He loved her so much. But
<v Speaker 1>of course he was ultimately ejected from power and they
<v Speaker 1>got rid of her body as well. Couldn't find it
<v Speaker 1>for thirteen years. He ultimately got remarried during that time,
<v Speaker 1>but continued to look for her body. Found out from
<v Speaker 1>a good source that it was buried in this mismarked grave.
<v Speaker 1>Got it dug up. He brought her body to his
<v Speaker 1>living room and would have his wife comb her hair
<v Speaker 1>every day to make sure that it didn't get tangled up.
<v Speaker 1>My gosh, it's a little bit weird. Yeah, so there
<v Speaker 1>you go. That is one problem. Okay, guys, that does
<v Speaker 1>it for today's episode. Join us next time for five
<v Speaker 1>minutes of fire.