WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.040 Welcome to today's deep dive. We are exploring 00:00:03.040 --> 00:00:06.540 a historical figure whose legacy is honestly 00:00:06.540 --> 00:00:09.599 just wild. We're talking about a politician who 00:00:09.599 --> 00:00:12.460 goes from being hailed as a hero by Soviet dissidents. 00:00:12.699 --> 00:00:14.820 Right. Literally whispered about in the gulags. 00:00:14.960 --> 00:00:19.140 Exactly. To somehow triggering this secret CIA 00:00:19.140 --> 00:00:22.820 raid on a university library like 22 years after 00:00:22.820 --> 00:00:25.899 he died. It is definitely a massive and very 00:00:25.899 --> 00:00:28.339 complicated trajectory to cover. It really is. 00:00:28.589 --> 00:00:31.030 So for our source material today, we are doing 00:00:31.030 --> 00:00:33.990 a comprehensive Wikipedia dive into the life 00:00:33.990 --> 00:00:36.829 and career of Henry Scoop Jackson. Tons of ground 00:00:36.829 --> 00:00:39.090 to cover there. Oh, absolutely. But before we 00:00:39.090 --> 00:00:40.729 get into the weeds, I do want to establish a 00:00:40.729 --> 00:00:42.829 crucial ground rule for you listening because 00:00:42.829 --> 00:00:45.509 Jackson's life involves some incredibly charged 00:00:45.509 --> 00:00:47.509 political content. Always a good idea to lay 00:00:47.509 --> 00:00:49.770 that out first. Definitely. I mean, we're spanning 00:00:49.770 --> 00:00:52.950 far left civil rights and social welfare and 00:00:52.950 --> 00:00:55.850 then swinging right into extreme right wing military 00:00:55.850 --> 00:00:58.750 hawkishness and neoconservatism. It covers the 00:00:58.750 --> 00:01:01.090 entire political spectrum, really. Right. So 00:01:01.090 --> 00:01:04.349 we are taking absolutely zero sides here. We're 00:01:04.349 --> 00:01:06.670 just impartially reporting the facts from the 00:01:06.670 --> 00:01:09.420 source material. We aren't endorsing any specific 00:01:09.420 --> 00:01:11.519 political viewpoint. We just want to help you 00:01:11.519 --> 00:01:13.760 understand these fascinating historical ideas. 00:01:13.959 --> 00:01:15.980 Just looking at the history and how it shaped 00:01:15.980 --> 00:01:18.799 the world. Exactly. So with that disclaimer out 00:01:18.799 --> 00:01:21.400 of the way, OK, let's unpack this. Let's do it. 00:01:21.579 --> 00:01:24.340 To start, we are looking at Henry Martin Jackson, 00:01:24.620 --> 00:01:27.579 who was born in 1912. Up in Everett, Washington. 00:01:28.159 --> 00:01:30.159 Son of Norwegian immigrants, actually. Yeah. 00:01:30.739 --> 00:01:33.900 And his sister. gave him the nickname Scoop when 00:01:33.900 --> 00:01:35.760 he was a kid because he apparently looked like 00:01:35.760 --> 00:01:38.719 this busybody character from a newspaper comic 00:01:38.719 --> 00:01:40.579 strip. Which is funny because that nickname just 00:01:40.579 --> 00:01:43.019 stuck with him forever. It really did. But when 00:01:43.019 --> 00:01:45.859 you look at his actual political record, the 00:01:45.859 --> 00:01:47.879 framework that makes the most sense to me is 00:01:47.879 --> 00:01:51.019 to look at him as a political platypus. A political 00:01:51.019 --> 00:01:53.760 platypus? That is a highly specific biological 00:01:53.760 --> 00:01:55.920 comparison. I know, I know, but hear me out. 00:01:56.420 --> 00:01:58.920 Think about how a platypus actually functions. 00:01:59.519 --> 00:02:02.140 It's a creature made of these seemingly mismatched 00:02:02.140 --> 00:02:04.640 parts. Right, the duck bill and the beaver tail. 00:02:05.000 --> 00:02:07.959 Yeah, it lays eggs, but it's a mammal. If you 00:02:07.959 --> 00:02:09.840 just look at a list of its features on paper, 00:02:10.060 --> 00:02:12.280 it absolutely should not make sense. It sounds 00:02:12.280 --> 00:02:14.939 like a mistake. Exactly. But you put it in the 00:02:14.939 --> 00:02:17.759 wild, and it's a perfectly adapted apex survivor. 00:02:18.400 --> 00:02:20.539 And honestly, that is Scoop Jackson's political 00:02:20.539 --> 00:02:23.539 ideology. Well, the historical term for his particular 00:02:23.539 --> 00:02:26.020 species of politician is a Cold War liberal. 00:02:26.719 --> 00:02:29.979 But I mean, to modernize, the two halves of that 00:02:29.979 --> 00:02:32.379 label seem fundamentally opposed. They really 00:02:32.379 --> 00:02:35.139 do. So let's look at the duck bill first, his 00:02:35.139 --> 00:02:38.159 domestic policy. On the home front, he was an 00:02:38.159 --> 00:02:40.319 absolute champion of the left. He was a staunch 00:02:40.319 --> 00:02:43.060 supporter of labor unions. Very pro labor. And 00:02:43.060 --> 00:02:45.419 he maintained an incredibly strong record on 00:02:45.419 --> 00:02:47.830 civil rights. He provided this crucial backing 00:02:47.830 --> 00:02:51.590 for both the 1957 and 1964 Civil Rights Acts. 00:02:51.949 --> 00:02:54.250 And his environmental record is just monumental. 00:02:54.770 --> 00:02:56.669 Jackson actually authored the National Environmental 00:02:56.669 --> 00:02:59.469 Policy Act, which is universally known as NEPA. 00:02:59.689 --> 00:03:02.189 Right, which is huge. It is. Because this wasn't 00:03:02.189 --> 00:03:04.250 just some symbolic resolution saying, you know, 00:03:04.250 --> 00:03:07.530 we should care about trees. NEPA established 00:03:07.530 --> 00:03:10.349 the global standard for environmental regulation 00:03:10.349 --> 00:03:12.889 by creating the environmental impact statement. 00:03:13.099 --> 00:03:15.219 What's fascinating here is that that mechanism 00:03:15.219 --> 00:03:18.520 is vital to understand. Because before NEPA, 00:03:18.659 --> 00:03:20.599 the federal government could just decide to, 00:03:20.599 --> 00:03:23.520 well, build a highway through a wetland. Just 00:03:23.520 --> 00:03:26.639 pave right over it. Exactly. Or put a dam across 00:03:26.639 --> 00:03:30.039 a valley and just start pouring concrete. Jackson's 00:03:30.039 --> 00:03:32.800 legislation forced federal agencies to publicly 00:03:32.800 --> 00:03:35.620 document the environmental costs of their actions 00:03:35.620 --> 00:03:38.300 before they broke ground. It essentially forced 00:03:38.300 --> 00:03:40.659 the government to show its math to the public. 00:03:41.360 --> 00:03:44.360 And by requiring that public documentation, it 00:03:44.360 --> 00:03:47.099 gave citizens and environmental groups the legal 00:03:47.099 --> 00:03:49.719 leverage to sue the government if that math didn't 00:03:49.719 --> 00:03:51.939 add up. It was a total game changer. Oh, absolutely. 00:03:52.060 --> 00:03:54.500 I mean, if you care about public lands or you've 00:03:54.500 --> 00:03:56.599 ever read an environmental impact study, you 00:03:56.599 --> 00:03:59.000 are living in a framework designed by Scoop Jackson. 00:03:59.099 --> 00:04:01.500 But then we have to pivot to the beaver tail 00:04:01.500 --> 00:04:04.039 of our platypus, right? His stance on national 00:04:04.039 --> 00:04:05.780 defense. The other half of the contradiction. 00:04:06.120 --> 00:04:07.740 Because while championing all these progressive 00:04:07.740 --> 00:04:12.479 domestic policies, Jackson was intensely just 00:04:12.479 --> 00:04:14.659 unapologetically hawkish. Which is kind of jarring. 00:04:14.840 --> 00:04:17.980 It is. And to measure just how hawkish he was, 00:04:18.319 --> 00:04:20.420 you really have to look at his relationship with 00:04:20.420 --> 00:04:22.519 President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Who was a former 00:04:22.519 --> 00:04:25.100 five -star general. I mean, the supreme commander 00:04:25.100 --> 00:04:27.980 of the Allied Expeditionary Force who orchestrated 00:04:27.980 --> 00:04:30.600 the invasion of Normandy. Exactly. And Jackson 00:04:30.600 --> 00:04:33.399 openly criticized him for being too soft on defense. 00:04:33.920 --> 00:04:37.800 Wait, he called Eisenhower soft? He did. Jackson 00:04:37.800 --> 00:04:40.199 believed the Eisenhower administration was fundamentally 00:04:40.199 --> 00:04:42.620 failing to recognize the scale of the Soviet 00:04:42.620 --> 00:04:45.339 threat. He just relentlessly demanded massive 00:04:45.339 --> 00:04:47.519 increases in the national arsenal. Like what 00:04:47.519 --> 00:04:50.360 specifically? Specifically calling for the rapid 00:04:50.360 --> 00:04:53.000 development and deployment of more intercontinental 00:04:53.000 --> 00:04:55.360 ballistic missiles. I am just trying to square 00:04:55.360 --> 00:04:57.720 that circle because if you are writing the global 00:04:57.720 --> 00:05:00.459 standard for environmental protection, you are 00:05:00.459 --> 00:05:03.259 inherently regulating and restraining industry, 00:05:03.339 --> 00:05:06.000 right? Right. So how does he justify demanding 00:05:06.000 --> 00:05:09.720 this massive, unrestrained industrial output 00:05:09.720 --> 00:05:12.079 for the military industrial complex at the exact 00:05:12.079 --> 00:05:14.860 same time? He justified it through a hierarchy 00:05:14.860 --> 00:05:17.920 of survival. Jackson was a politician who believed 00:05:17.920 --> 00:05:20.540 deeply in the American system of rights, welfare, 00:05:20.720 --> 00:05:23.480 and domestic progress, but he felt those domestic 00:05:23.480 --> 00:05:26.740 achievements were fragile. In his view, you could 00:05:26.740 --> 00:05:29.180 have the cleanest rivers and the strongest labor 00:05:29.180 --> 00:05:31.240 unions in the world, but it meant absolutely 00:05:31.240 --> 00:05:34.160 nothing if the nation was vulnerable to a totalitarian 00:05:34.160 --> 00:05:37.449 takeover. Oh, I see. Yeah. He believed overwhelming 00:05:37.449 --> 00:05:40.350 military force was the prerequisite to guarantee 00:05:40.350 --> 00:05:42.810 the safety of liberal domestic values. Which 00:05:42.810 --> 00:05:44.889 pushes us to look at the root cause, I think, 00:05:45.589 --> 00:05:48.470 because Why was he so obsessed with combating 00:05:48.470 --> 00:05:51.970 totalitarianism? What drives a pro -environment 00:05:51.970 --> 00:05:54.769 progressive to demand more nukes? It's a very 00:05:54.769 --> 00:05:57.709 specific ideological combination. It really is. 00:05:57.870 --> 00:06:00.629 And an ideology that's specific is usually forged 00:06:00.629 --> 00:06:02.970 by a very specific trauma. And in Jackson's case, 00:06:02.970 --> 00:06:05.089 it was forged at the end of World War II. In 00:06:05.089 --> 00:06:07.410 1945, as a young congressman, he was part of 00:06:07.410 --> 00:06:09.709 an American delegation that visited the Buchenwald 00:06:09.709 --> 00:06:12.589 concentration camp mere days after it was liberated 00:06:12.589 --> 00:06:15.709 by Allied forces. Wow. I mean, walking into a 00:06:15.709 --> 00:06:18.240 mech - death camp while the ashes are still warm. 00:06:18.480 --> 00:06:21.620 The psychological impact of witnessing the unfiltered 00:06:21.620 --> 00:06:24.680 reality of totalitarian evil up close, it just 00:06:24.680 --> 00:06:28.100 has to be incalculable. It completely, permanently 00:06:28.100 --> 00:06:30.600 altered his understanding of human nature. And 00:06:30.600 --> 00:06:33.319 the timing of his next trip just compounded that 00:06:33.319 --> 00:06:36.120 realization. Where did he go next? Shortly after 00:06:36.120 --> 00:06:38.180 leaving Germany, he traveled to his parents' 00:06:38.399 --> 00:06:41.220 native country of Norway. And while he was there, 00:06:41.259 --> 00:06:44.079 he witnessed the forced repatriation of captured 00:06:44.079 --> 00:06:46.699 Red Army soldiers. Oh, right. Because these were 00:06:46.699 --> 00:06:48.279 Russians who had been captured by the Nazis. 00:06:48.720 --> 00:06:50.639 Exactly. And under agreements made by the Allied 00:06:50.639 --> 00:06:52.720 powers, they were being forcibly returned to 00:06:52.720 --> 00:06:55.459 the Soviet Union to face Joseph Stalin's regime. 00:06:55.639 --> 00:06:58.540 And looking at our sources, Jackson's own biographical 00:06:58.540 --> 00:07:00.639 accounts contain this very stark observation 00:07:00.639 --> 00:07:04.360 about that moment. He said, and I quote, I remember 00:07:04.360 --> 00:07:07.100 how reluctant most Russians were to return to 00:07:07.100 --> 00:07:09.560 the Soviet Union. They knew they would have even 00:07:09.560 --> 00:07:12.370 less freedom there. Those two events just fused 00:07:12.370 --> 00:07:14.810 together in his mind. Buchenwald showed him the 00:07:14.810 --> 00:07:16.970 end point of fascism and the repatriations in 00:07:16.970 --> 00:07:19.730 Norway showed him the brutality of Soviet communism. 00:07:20.149 --> 00:07:21.889 So he just saw them as two sides of the same 00:07:21.889 --> 00:07:25.509 coin. Exactly. He concluded that totalitarianism, 00:07:25.949 --> 00:07:27.610 regardless of whether it was on the far right 00:07:27.610 --> 00:07:31.170 or the far left, was a singular existential threat 00:07:31.170 --> 00:07:34.170 to human freedom. And he decided the United States 00:07:34.170 --> 00:07:36.689 was the only power capable of holding it back. 00:07:36.790 --> 00:07:39.569 But he didn't just... write op -eds about it, 00:07:39.850 --> 00:07:43.790 he actually weaponized that belief. into policy, 00:07:43.990 --> 00:07:45.970 specifically the Jackson -Vanik Amendment of 00:07:45.970 --> 00:07:49.910 1974. Which is honestly a master class in how 00:07:49.910 --> 00:07:53.089 a single legislator can leverage global economics. 00:07:53.810 --> 00:07:57.269 In the 1970s, the Soviet economy was stagnating. 00:07:57.329 --> 00:07:59.709 They were struggling. Big time. They desperately 00:07:59.709 --> 00:08:01.910 needed American grain to feed their population, 00:08:01.910 --> 00:08:04.490 and they needed American technology to modernize 00:08:04.490 --> 00:08:06.110 their industry. But to get that, they needed 00:08:06.110 --> 00:08:08.649 something specific, right? Yes. They needed most 00:08:08.649 --> 00:08:11.069 favored nation trade status from the U .S., which 00:08:11.069 --> 00:08:13.350 lowers tariffs. tariffs and makes trade economically 00:08:13.350 --> 00:08:15.550 viable. And Jackson looked at that vulnerability 00:08:15.550 --> 00:08:18.110 and essentially engineered a diplomatic hostage 00:08:18.110 --> 00:08:20.629 situation. He co -sponsored legislation that 00:08:20.629 --> 00:08:23.490 explicitly denied normal trade relations to any 00:08:23.490 --> 00:08:25.709 non -market economy that restricted the freedom 00:08:25.709 --> 00:08:28.009 of emigration. Meaning people leaving the country. 00:08:28.230 --> 00:08:30.930 Right. He was directly targeting the Soviet Union's 00:08:30.930 --> 00:08:33.669 policy of trapping religious and ethnic minorities 00:08:33.669 --> 00:08:36.570 inside their borders. He basically told the Soviets, 00:08:37.110 --> 00:08:39.610 you don't get American wheat and you don't get 00:08:39.610 --> 00:08:42.899 American technology. you start issuing exit visas 00:08:42.899 --> 00:08:46.940 to Soviet Jews and other persecuted groups. That 00:08:46.940 --> 00:08:50.840 is just incredible. For you listening, just imagine 00:08:50.840 --> 00:08:54.039 being a political prisoner in a Soviet gulag 00:08:54.039 --> 00:08:56.940 during the deep freeze of the Cold War. You are 00:08:56.940 --> 00:09:00.820 in a remote, brutal labor camp. completely cut 00:09:00.820 --> 00:09:03.159 off from the entire world. Feeling entirely forgotten. 00:09:03.500 --> 00:09:06.059 Exactly. And yet the source brings up this quote 00:09:06.059 --> 00:09:08.740 from Natan Sharansky, the famous Soviet dissident. 00:09:09.139 --> 00:09:11.320 He wrote in his memoirs about the psychological 00:09:11.320 --> 00:09:14.039 lifeline Jackson provided. What did he say? Sharansky 00:09:14.039 --> 00:09:16.919 noted that deep inside the KGB prisons, Jackson's 00:09:16.919 --> 00:09:19.159 name was whispered hundreds of times by inmates. 00:09:19.799 --> 00:09:21.879 He wasn't just a politician to them. He was the 00:09:21.879 --> 00:09:23.940 literal proof that the free world was watching 00:09:23.940 --> 00:09:26.139 and that American economic might was being used 00:09:26.139 --> 00:09:29.360 to pry open the iron curtain. That is a profound 00:09:29.360 --> 00:09:32.600 human rights legacy. But projecting that kind 00:09:32.600 --> 00:09:35.980 of hardline moral stance globally requires a 00:09:35.980 --> 00:09:38.240 massive infrastructure domestically. Right, there's 00:09:38.240 --> 00:09:40.720 a cost to that. A huge cost. You cannot threaten 00:09:40.720 --> 00:09:43.419 a superpower with economic and military supremacy 00:09:43.419 --> 00:09:45.860 without constantly feeding your own military 00:09:45.860 --> 00:09:47.899 industrial complex. And this is where we have 00:09:47.899 --> 00:09:50.080 to examine the cost of that zero -sum worldview. 00:09:50.700 --> 00:09:53.059 Because in his home state of Washington, Jackson 00:09:53.059 --> 00:09:55.700 wasn't universally viewed as a human rights hero. 00:09:56.029 --> 00:09:59.629 His political opponents derided him as the Senator 00:09:59.629 --> 00:10:02.809 from Boeing. Some even called him a whore for 00:10:02.809 --> 00:10:05.610 Boeing. Because it was a symbiotic economic loop, 00:10:06.049 --> 00:10:09.570 by 1965, roughly 80 % of Boeing's contracts were 00:10:09.570 --> 00:10:13.370 military. Wow, 80%. Yeah. So Jackson's relentless 00:10:13.370 --> 00:10:15.870 push for advanced weapons systems, new bombers, 00:10:16.169 --> 00:10:18.669 and expanded missile programs directly funneled 00:10:18.669 --> 00:10:20.850 billions of federal dollars into his home state's 00:10:20.850 --> 00:10:23.759 largest employer. But that military focus caused 00:10:23.759 --> 00:10:26.580 massive local friction. I mean, he was a steadfast 00:10:26.580 --> 00:10:29.019 supporter of the Vietnam War long after it became 00:10:29.019 --> 00:10:31.480 deeply unpopular. He really alienated the anti 00:10:31.480 --> 00:10:33.879 -war crowd. Definitely. He also pushed heavily 00:10:33.879 --> 00:10:36.340 to install an anti -ballistic missile system 00:10:36.340 --> 00:10:39.759 at Fort Lawton in Seattle. And the local pushback 00:10:39.759 --> 00:10:42.299 against putting a nuclear defense site in a major 00:10:42.299 --> 00:10:45.139 metropolitan area was fierce. I can imagine. 00:10:45.279 --> 00:10:47.620 It eventually led to a sit -in by American Indian 00:10:47.620 --> 00:10:50.120 rights activists who wanted the surplus land 00:10:50.120 --> 00:10:52.620 used for a cultural center instead of, you know, 00:10:52.779 --> 00:10:55.480 a missile base. But the friction goes even deeper 00:10:55.480 --> 00:10:58.120 when you look at how his prioritization of national 00:10:58.120 --> 00:11:00.919 security overrode fundamental civil liberties 00:11:00.919 --> 00:11:03.519 during wartime. Right. This is the darkest contradiction 00:11:03.519 --> 00:11:06.139 in his record. We established that Jackson had 00:11:06.139 --> 00:11:08.279 a glowing civil rights record in the Senate later 00:11:08.279 --> 00:11:12.340 on. But during World War II, he was an enthusiastic 00:11:12.340 --> 00:11:15.139 defender of Japanese -American internment camps. 00:11:15.399 --> 00:11:17.639 Which is just, it's so unsettling to reconcile. 00:11:18.019 --> 00:11:20.019 The historical archives show that he didn't just 00:11:20.019 --> 00:11:23.080 defend the initial evacuation orders. He actively 00:11:23.080 --> 00:11:26.000 campaigned to keep Japanese -Americans from returning 00:11:26.000 --> 00:11:28.539 to the Pacific Coast, even after the war was 00:11:28.539 --> 00:11:31.039 winding down. That is a very intense stance. 00:11:31.240 --> 00:11:34.440 It is. It's a stance so stark that it triggered 00:11:34.440 --> 00:11:37.340 massive student protests against a commemorative 00:11:37.340 --> 00:11:40.399 bust of him at the of Washington decades later. 00:11:40.659 --> 00:11:43.080 If we analyze the mechanics of his ideology. 00:11:43.370 --> 00:11:45.909 This is the inevitable blind spot of treating 00:11:45.909 --> 00:11:48.929 national security as an absolute zero -sum game. 00:11:49.190 --> 00:11:51.629 Because everything else becomes secondary. Exactly. 00:11:52.269 --> 00:11:54.809 If you genuinely believe that the survival of 00:11:54.809 --> 00:11:57.889 the nation is hanging by a thread, every other 00:11:57.889 --> 00:12:00.370 consideration, including the constitutional rights 00:12:00.370 --> 00:12:03.889 of your own citizens, gets pushed aside. He supported 00:12:03.889 --> 00:12:06.629 deeply oppressive domestic policies because he 00:12:06.629 --> 00:12:09.389 convinced himself they served a defensive national 00:12:09.389 --> 00:12:13.450 purpose. So what does this all mean? rights champion 00:12:13.450 --> 00:12:16.289 who supported internment, an environmental pioneer 00:12:16.289 --> 00:12:18.629 whose policies enriched defense contractors, 00:12:19.190 --> 00:12:21.970 and a Democrat demanding a larger nuclear arsenal. 00:12:23.029 --> 00:12:25.289 How does a man with a record that polarizing 00:12:25.289 --> 00:12:27.789 ever hope to unite the country? Well, the historical 00:12:27.789 --> 00:12:30.370 reality is that he couldn't. His internal contradictions 00:12:30.370 --> 00:12:32.610 perfectly mapped onto the fracturing of the Democratic 00:12:32.610 --> 00:12:35.210 Party in the 1970s. Right, because he ran for 00:12:35.210 --> 00:12:39.059 president, didn't he? He ran twice. in 1972 and 00:12:39.059 --> 00:12:42.299 1976, and neither campaign managed to capture 00:12:42.299 --> 00:12:46.320 the national mood. He struggled with national 00:12:46.320 --> 00:12:49.679 retail politics. His style was highly effective 00:12:49.679 --> 00:12:51.820 in the local grange halls of Washington state, 00:12:52.120 --> 00:12:54.799 but he lacked the television charisma required 00:12:54.799 --> 00:12:56.899 for a modern presidential run. He didn't have 00:12:56.899 --> 00:12:59.779 that national spotlight energy. No, he didn't. 00:12:59.799 --> 00:13:02.200 But more importantly, he clashed violently with 00:13:02.200 --> 00:13:05.139 the liberal wing of his own party. The new left 00:13:05.139 --> 00:13:07.919 was rising. The Democratic base was becoming 00:13:07.919 --> 00:13:11.279 staunchly anti -war, focusing heavily on social 00:13:11.279 --> 00:13:14.549 reform and reducing military interventions. during 00:13:14.549 --> 00:13:17.590 the 1972 primary was particularly bitter, according 00:13:17.590 --> 00:13:20.330 to the sources. George McGovern, who ultimately 00:13:20.330 --> 00:13:22.750 won the Democratic nomination, actually accused 00:13:22.750 --> 00:13:25.049 Jackson of racism for opposing federal school 00:13:25.049 --> 00:13:27.970 busing mandates. It was incredibly tense. Jackson 00:13:27.970 --> 00:13:29.870 was attempting to build a coalition around law 00:13:29.870 --> 00:13:32.450 and order and strong national defense, but his 00:13:32.450 --> 00:13:34.610 unwavering support for Vietnam just made him 00:13:34.610 --> 00:13:37.340 entirely toxic to the progressive wing. He essentially 00:13:37.340 --> 00:13:39.779 became a man without a political home. The party 00:13:39.779 --> 00:13:42.379 apparatus was moving left, while Jackson remained 00:13:42.379 --> 00:13:44.980 firmly entrenched in fighting the Cold War. So 00:13:44.980 --> 00:13:48.279 his presidential ambitions died. They did, but 00:13:48.279 --> 00:13:51.019 the ideology he built did not. It's kind of like 00:13:51.019 --> 00:13:53.960 think of Jackson as a gardener. He planted all 00:13:53.960 --> 00:13:56.039 these ideological seeds, but those seeds ended 00:13:56.039 --> 00:13:58.220 up blowing over the fence and blooming in a completely 00:13:58.220 --> 00:14:00.320 different political yard. That is a great way 00:14:00.320 --> 00:14:02.340 to put it, because if we connect this to the 00:14:02.340 --> 00:14:05.379 bigger picture, this ideological migration is 00:14:05.379 --> 00:14:08.500 Jackson's most enduring and perhaps most controversial 00:14:08.500 --> 00:14:11.759 legacy. How so? Well, Jackson had a talent for 00:14:11.759 --> 00:14:14.039 identifying and hiring fiercely intelligent, 00:14:14.419 --> 00:14:16.919 deeply loyal staff members. Men like Richard 00:14:16.919 --> 00:14:19.980 Pearl, Paul Wolfowitz, and Elliott Abrams. Wait, 00:14:20.340 --> 00:14:22.139 those names, those are the architects of modern 00:14:22.139 --> 00:14:25.120 neocon... conservatism. Precisely. These aides, 00:14:25.240 --> 00:14:27.720 who were often called Scoop Jackson Democrats, 00:14:28.440 --> 00:14:31.500 they internalized his core belief. The belief 00:14:31.500 --> 00:14:33.820 that the United States has a moral obligation 00:14:33.820 --> 00:14:36.840 to be a force for good, but that totalitarian 00:14:36.840 --> 00:14:40.100 evil must be confronted with overwhelming preemptive 00:14:40.100 --> 00:14:42.340 military power. So he took his ideas and ran 00:14:42.340 --> 00:14:46.259 with him. Yeah. Disillusioned by the Carter administration 00:14:46.259 --> 00:14:48.799 and the anti -war shift of the Democrats, they 00:14:48.799 --> 00:14:51.919 took those beliefs and eventually joined Ronald 00:14:51.919 --> 00:14:54.460 Reagan's administration in the 1980s. But they 00:14:54.460 --> 00:14:56.759 didn't stop there, obviously. No. They continued 00:14:56.759 --> 00:14:59.200 to rise through the defense and intelligence 00:14:59.200 --> 00:15:02.159 establishments. They eventually became the dominant 00:15:02.159 --> 00:15:05.259 foreign policymakers in the George W. Bush administration. 00:15:05.480 --> 00:15:07.740 And that is how we arrive at the Bush Doctrine 00:15:07.740 --> 00:15:10.519 and the Iraq War. Exactly. For anyone listening 00:15:10.519 --> 00:15:12.659 who might be unfamiliar, the Bush Doctrine was 00:15:12.659 --> 00:15:15.240 this controversial framework asserting that the 00:15:15.240 --> 00:15:17.100 United States had the right to secure itself 00:15:17.100 --> 00:15:19.759 against terrorism and weapons of mass destruction 00:15:19.759 --> 00:15:23.379 by preemptively invading other nations. And forcefully 00:15:23.379 --> 00:15:25.700 planting democratic governments in their place. 00:15:25.860 --> 00:15:28.200 Right. And the through line from Jackson to that 00:15:28.200 --> 00:15:31.860 policy is just undeniable. Jackson believed in 00:15:31.860 --> 00:15:34.480 democratization and human rights, but he believed 00:15:34.480 --> 00:15:37.159 the mechanism to achieve them was American military 00:15:37.159 --> 00:15:39.820 supremacy and confronting dictators head on. 00:15:40.120 --> 00:15:43.100 His aides basically took that 1970s Cold War 00:15:43.100 --> 00:15:45.580 framework, applied it to the post 9 -11 Middle 00:15:45.580 --> 00:15:48.039 East, and orchestrated the invasion of Iraq. 00:15:48.279 --> 00:15:50.980 Which is wild to think about. Tracing the intellectual 00:15:50.980 --> 00:15:54.179 DNA of the Iraq war back to the exact same Democratic 00:15:54.179 --> 00:15:56.679 senator who gave us the environmental impact 00:15:56.679 --> 00:15:59.120 statement. It's just a perfect illustration of 00:15:59.120 --> 00:16:01.919 how unpredictable policy evolution actually is. 00:16:01.919 --> 00:16:04.960 He really is. But the strangest chapter of Scoop 00:16:04.960 --> 00:16:07.529 Jackson's story. doesn't actually involve his 00:16:07.529 --> 00:16:10.629 aides. It involves what he left behind in his 00:16:10.629 --> 00:16:13.769 filing cabinets. Because even in death, his deep 00:16:13.769 --> 00:16:16.789 ties to national security continued to reverberate 00:16:16.789 --> 00:16:19.330 in bizarre ways. Right, because his death was 00:16:19.330 --> 00:16:22.659 very sudden. In September 1983, at the age of 00:16:22.659 --> 00:16:25.500 71, Jackson suffered a fatal heart attack. But 00:16:25.500 --> 00:16:27.600 the timing of it is incredible. It really is. 00:16:28.000 --> 00:16:30.440 He died literally hours after stepping off a 00:16:30.440 --> 00:16:32.620 podium where he had just delivered a fiery press 00:16:32.620 --> 00:16:35.379 conference condemning the Soviet Union for shooting 00:16:35.379 --> 00:16:38.000 down Korean Airlines flight DeRoso 7. He was 00:16:38.000 --> 00:16:40.980 fighting the Cold War to his literal last breath. 00:16:41.000 --> 00:16:43.419 He absolutely was. And because his entire career 00:16:43.419 --> 00:16:45.600 was enmeshed in the darkest mechanisms of the 00:16:45.600 --> 00:16:48.240 national security state, the physical documents 00:16:48.240 --> 00:16:50.970 he left behind carried an immense amount of risk. 00:16:51.090 --> 00:16:54.169 Which leads to the archive issue. Right. So following 00:16:54.169 --> 00:16:57.110 standard procedure, his personal and professional 00:16:57.110 --> 00:16:59.470 papers were donated to the University of Washington 00:16:59.470 --> 00:17:02.549 to be archived for historical research. Ostensibly 00:17:02.549 --> 00:17:04.710 scrubbed of classified info. Right. Exactly. 00:17:05.130 --> 00:17:07.849 At the time of the donation in 1983, university 00:17:07.849 --> 00:17:10.210 archivists systematically scrubbed the collection. 00:17:10.609 --> 00:17:12.789 They made sure the files were clean and legally 00:17:12.789 --> 00:17:15.430 accessible to the public. But then time passes. 00:17:15.769 --> 00:17:18.490 Fast forward two decades. The Berlin Wall has 00:17:18.490 --> 00:17:21.759 fallen. The Soviet Union has collapsed. The geopolitical 00:17:21.759 --> 00:17:24.319 landscape is entirely rewritten. Here's where 00:17:24.319 --> 00:17:26.440 it gets really interesting. It's the summer of 00:17:26.440 --> 00:17:29.940 2004. A man contacts the University of Washington 00:17:29.940 --> 00:17:32.640 Library. He identifies himself as an employee 00:17:32.640 --> 00:17:34.799 of the Central Intelligence Agency. Just out 00:17:34.799 --> 00:17:37.880 of nowhere. Out of nowhere. And he requests access 00:17:37.880 --> 00:17:40.220 to inspect Senator Jackson's archives collection. 00:17:40.559 --> 00:17:42.599 While browsing these supposedly clean files, 00:17:42.980 --> 00:17:45.039 he locates a document that he claims is highly 00:17:45.039 --> 00:17:47.339 classified and he shows it to the librarian on 00:17:47.339 --> 00:17:50.940 duty. Which is I mean, a lone CIA agent pulling 00:17:50.940 --> 00:17:52.720 classified material from a public university 00:17:52.720 --> 00:17:55.240 library is anomalous enough. Oh, but it gets 00:17:55.240 --> 00:17:57.839 better or worse, depending on how you look at 00:17:57.839 --> 00:18:00.640 it, because the federal response was unprecedented. 00:18:01.640 --> 00:18:04.799 In February of 2005, which is 22 years after 00:18:04.799 --> 00:18:07.880 Jackson's death, a five person government strike 00:18:07.880 --> 00:18:10.819 team arrives at the library. A five person team. 00:18:11.039 --> 00:18:13.980 Yes. And this isn't just one agency. We're looking 00:18:13.980 --> 00:18:16.529 at personnel. from the CIA, the Department of 00:18:16.529 --> 00:18:18.970 Defense, the Department of Energy, and the Information 00:18:18.970 --> 00:18:21.990 Security Oversight Office. That is a heavy -hitting 00:18:21.990 --> 00:18:24.349 group. They set up shop and methodically combed 00:18:24.349 --> 00:18:26.849 through his entire collection to identify anything 00:18:26.849 --> 00:18:29.410 that was still considered classified, or more 00:18:29.410 --> 00:18:31.970 troublingly, anything that had been retroactively 00:18:31.970 --> 00:18:34.730 classified since 1983. And what did they find? 00:18:35.089 --> 00:18:37.150 The Department of Energy representatives apparently 00:18:37.150 --> 00:18:39.250 didn't find anything in their purview that caused 00:18:39.250 --> 00:18:42.440 alarm. But the CIA and the Defense Department 00:18:42.440 --> 00:18:45.339 certainly did. They took black markers and redacted 00:18:45.339 --> 00:18:47.920 lines across 20 different documents. But they 00:18:47.920 --> 00:18:50.619 didn't stop at redactions. They completely removed 00:18:50.619 --> 00:18:53.460 eight entire documents from the archive, just 00:18:53.460 --> 00:18:54.799 vanished them into federal custody. Why, they 00:18:54.799 --> 00:18:59.460 just took them? Yep. Gone. Even today, if a researcher 00:18:59.460 --> 00:19:01.319 wants to look at certain remaining files in that 00:19:01.319 --> 00:19:03.700 collection, the university requires them to sign 00:19:03.700 --> 00:19:06.240 a binding non -disclosure agreement. Which leaves 00:19:06.240 --> 00:19:09.579 you with a staggering question to ponder. What 00:19:09.579 --> 00:19:12.180 exactly was a United States senator studying 00:19:12.180 --> 00:19:15.500 in the 1970s that a quarter of a century later, 00:19:15.740 --> 00:19:18.480 long after his primary geopolitical enemy had 00:19:18.480 --> 00:19:21.279 ceased to exist, the Central Intelligence Agency 00:19:21.279 --> 00:19:24.140 still considered a vital, actionable threat to 00:19:24.140 --> 00:19:27.420 American security? It's crazy. But it perfectly 00:19:27.420 --> 00:19:30.539 encapsulates his life. I mean, he was a public 00:19:30.539 --> 00:19:33.299 servant who championed public parks, clean air, 00:19:33.480 --> 00:19:36.440 and civil rights in the daylight, while simultaneously 00:19:36.440 --> 00:19:38.700 operating so deep within the American security 00:19:38.700 --> 00:19:41.200 apparatus that his paperwork required a federal 00:19:41.200 --> 00:19:44.099 raid two decades after his funeral. Jackson is 00:19:44.099 --> 00:19:46.339 a perfect example of why history defies simple 00:19:46.339 --> 00:19:48.880 categorization. I mean, if you isolate his domestic 00:19:48.880 --> 00:19:51.160 policy, you see a progressive pioneer. If you 00:19:51.160 --> 00:19:53.359 isolate his foreign policy, you see the godfather 00:19:53.359 --> 00:19:55.400 of neoconservatism. You can't just look at the 00:19:55.400 --> 00:19:57.859 duck bill and ignore the beaver tail. Exactly. 00:19:58.480 --> 00:20:00.980 Multiple perspectives are essential. The entire 00:20:00.980 --> 00:20:03.099 organism has to be understood if you want to 00:20:03.099 --> 00:20:05.720 know how our current political ecosystem evolved. 00:20:06.059 --> 00:20:08.579 Well said. And before we close the book on Henry 00:20:08.579 --> 00:20:11.940 Scoop Jackson, there is one final unmentioned 00:20:11.940 --> 00:20:14.259 nugget from the source material that you should 00:20:14.259 --> 00:20:17.160 mull over on your own. A measurement of his actual 00:20:17.160 --> 00:20:21.079 influence, right? Yes. In 1984, the year after 00:20:21.079 --> 00:20:23.759 Jackson died, the United States Navy commissioned 00:20:23.759 --> 00:20:27.359 a new submarine. It was christened the USS Henry 00:20:27.359 --> 00:20:29.599 M. Jackson. Okay, but we need to explain what 00:20:29.599 --> 00:20:31.839 kind of sub this is. Right. This isn't a small 00:20:31.839 --> 00:20:35.339 attack sub. It is an Ohio -class ballistic missile 00:20:35.339 --> 00:20:38.160 submarine. It is a nuclear -powered Leviathan 00:20:38.160 --> 00:20:40.740 capable of carrying enough thermonuclear warheads 00:20:40.740 --> 00:20:43.740 to wipe out entire continents. And naval naming 00:20:43.740 --> 00:20:45.700 conventions for that specific class of weapon 00:20:45.700 --> 00:20:49.000 are incredibly rigid. Exactly. Ohio -class submarines 00:20:49.000 --> 00:20:51.220 are traditionally named exclusively after U .S. 00:20:51.240 --> 00:20:54.680 states. The USS Ohio, the USS Michigan, the USS 00:20:54.680 --> 00:20:57.140 Florida. Henry M. Jackson is the only person 00:20:57.140 --> 00:20:59.200 to ever have an Ohio -class submarine named after 00:20:59.200 --> 00:21:02.319 him. The only person. The only one. So as you 00:21:02.319 --> 00:21:05.519 go about your day, Consider this. What does it 00:21:05.519 --> 00:21:08.880 say about the true unseen extent of a single 00:21:08.880 --> 00:21:11.559 politician's power and influence when the United 00:21:11.559 --> 00:21:13.960 States military breaks its own tradition to honor 00:21:13.960 --> 00:21:16.740 an individual man with the exact same weight 00:21:16.740 --> 00:21:19.839 and the exact same structural reverence normally 00:21:19.839 --> 00:21:23.180 reserved for an entire geographic state? It certainly 00:21:23.180 --> 00:21:25.119 makes you wonder what was written on those eight 00:21:25.119 --> 00:21:27.700 missing pages. It really does. Thank you for 00:21:27.700 --> 00:21:29.380 joining us on this deep dive. We hope you walk 00:21:29.380 --> 00:21:31.220 away seeing the mechanisms of history with a 00:21:31.220 --> 00:21:32.660 little more clarity. Catch you next time.