JFK The Enduring Secret
An in depth tutorial and discussion around the assassination of John F. Kennedy, (JFK) the country's 35th president who was brutally murdered in Dallas Texas on November 22, 1963. The series comprehensively explores the major facts, themes, and events leading up to the assassination in Dealey Plaza and the equally gripping stories surrounding the subsequent investigation. We review key elements of the Warren Commission Report , and the role of the CIA and FBI. We explore the possible involvement of the Mafia in the murder and the review of that topic by the government's House Select Committee on Assassinations in the 1970's. We...
Episode 337 Jack Ruby Miniseries Part 13
Step into the heavy, suffocating silence that fell over Dallas on the evening of Friday, November 22, 1963. Inside the local police headquarters at City Hall, a chaotic media gauntlet was rapidly taking shape on the third floor, as over three hundred out-of-town journalists, photographers, and television crews shoved shoulder-to-shoulder in the smoke-filled corridors. In this episode, we follow the frantic, hour-by-hour movements of Jack Ruby during this critical three-hour window, examining how a local strip club owner managed to bypass strict security checkpoints, navigate police barricades, and position himself directly at the center of the crime scene of the century.<...
Episode 336 Jack Ruby Miniseries Part 12
Friday, November 22, 1963. While the nation was shattered by the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Jack Ruby's day began in a remarkably ordinary way. Sitting at a free desk in the second-floor retail advertising department of the Dallas Morning News, the 52-year-old nightclub owner spent his morning writing out longhand copy for his weekend advertisements, completely oblivious to the fateful motorcade scheduled to pass just blocks away. When employees from the newspaper burst into the room with the devastating news that shots had been fired, Ruby sat holding the morning paper in stunned disbelief. He was pale, ashen, and s...
Episode 335 Jack Ruby Miniseries Part 11
Step into the summer of 1963, when Jack Ruby took a fateful scouting trip to New Orleans and returned with his ultimate, red-carpet feature attraction: a fiery, red-haired headliner named Jada. Born Janet Adams Mole, Jada possessed the perfect storm of expensive clothes, a flashy Cadillac, and a commanding salary that instantly turned heads at the Carousel Club. But while her signature tiger-skin routine and provocative stage presence promised to bring "class" to Jack's walk-up club, she quickly transformed into his most expensive and uncontrollable nightmare. Their relationship rapidly devolved into legendary spotlight battles—with an increasingly paranoid, puritanical Jack si...
Episode 334 Jack Ruby Miniseries Part 10
On August 8, 1959, Jack Ruby boarded a plane to Havana, embarking on what he would spend the rest of his life claiming was a simple, eight-day vacation to visit his close friend, syndicate gambler Lewis McWillie. But official Cuban immigration cards, flight manifests, bank records, and the memories of eye-witnesses at the famous Tropicana casino paint a far more complex and troubling picture. Jack wasn't just on vacation; he was traveling back and forth to the island, even making a mysterious, unexplained one-day round trip to Miami. Decades later, congressional investigators would look at this erratic, secret itinerary and draw...
Episode 333 Jack Ruby Miniseries Part 9
Step inside the red spotlights of the 1300 block of Commerce Street, where the neon glow of the Carousel Club promised a world of "classy" burlesque, live jazz, and high society glamour. But behind the red velvet curtains and the cheap, overpriced champagne lay a business built on pure financial desperation, high-interest loans, and an intense, green-eyed envy of Jack's chief competitors. In this episode, we pull back the curtain on the daily operations of Dallas's most famous clip joint, exploring how a failed private club was rebranded into a lucrative runway stage, and how Jack deployed "champagne girls" and "...
Episode 332 Jack Ruby Miniseries Part 8
In Episode 332, we dive into the fascinating, complex double life of Jack Ruby during his golden years in Dallas—a decade defined by manic showbiz dreams that went nowhere and explosive, bone-breaking violence. To the public, Jack desperately wanted to be seen as a sophisticated entertainment mogul, a Dallas "somebody" who constantly dropped the names of the mayor, the police chief, and oil tycoons to anyone who would listen. From his passionate, short-lived stint managing a 12-year-old song-and-dance prodigy named Little Daddy Nelson to his bizarre prudishness—which saw him furiously throw a teenage Gabe Kaplan out of an audi...
Episode 330 Jack Ruby Miniseries Part 6
In February 1946, thirty-four-year-old World War II veteran Jacob Rubenstein stepped off the train onto the freezing platforms of Chicago, carrying a good conduct medal on his chest and hoping his honorable service had finally cleansed him of his chaotic childhood. Instead, his return plunged him straight into a toxic family business feud. Joining forces with his brothers Sam, Earl, and Hyman at Earl Products, Jacob took charge of sales for their lucrative gray-market punchboard operation. But his volatile temper, refusal to travel to secure regional accounts, and constant screaming matches with his brothers soon pushed the partnership to its...
Episode 331 Jack Ruby Miniseries Part 7
In the mid-1950s, Jack Ruby was the self-appointed king of the Dallas strip, strutting through his nightclubs in immaculate double-breasted suits and a cocked fedora. Shaking hands, dropping names, and paying rent for struggling waiters, he projected the image of a flashy, generous showman. Yet, beneath this polished exterior lurked a terrifying, volatile thug. With a hair-trigger temper that his lawyers would later describe as a fugue state, Ruby acted as his own brutal bouncer, savage enough to smash a full bottle of whiskey against a drunk's ribcage, kick a musician in the groin, or beat an unruly...
Episode 329 Jack Ruby Miniseries Part 5
We often think of Jack Ruby as a creature of the dark, of smoky, neon-lit walkups, back-alley brawls, and shady financial deals. But for nearly three years during the height of the Second World War, Jacob Rubenstein proudly wore the olive drab uniform of the United States Army Air Forces. Stationed at various air bases across the American South, Private First Class Rubenstein served with an unblemished record as a highly skilled aircraft mechanic. In the military, Jacob found something he had been chasing his entire life: structure, respect, and a patriotic cause far bigger than himself.
...
Episode 328 Jack Ruby Miniseries Part 4
In the pre-World War II era of the "Chicago Cowboy," Jacob Rubenstein was a striking figure of manic energy on the West Side. Working out with desperate intensity at local YMCA clubs, he obsessed over his physical conditioning and receding hairline, famously boasting to anyone who would listen that he could "hit harder than Joe Louis." Struggling to stay afloat after the tragic murder of his labor union mentor, Jack teamed up with business associates to launch the Spartan Novelty Company. Operating out of cheap, transient hotel rooms, they chased the cash-heavy flow of "punchboards"—unregulated, highly addictive, gray-market ga...
Episode 327 Jack Ruby Miniseries Part 3
In the late summer of 1933, with the Great Depression holding Chicago in a frozen grip, twenty-two-year-old Jacob Rubenstein and his sister Eva packed a single suitcase and looked west. Under the sun-drenched palm trees of California, a strange transformation occurred. The volatile, quick-tempered kid from the West Side tenements seemed to vanish, replaced by a well-mannered, meticulously dressed young gentleman who openly admired local beat cops and managed newspaper subscription crews. Yet, the street-hustler DNA remained active underneath his polished veneer as he ran lucrative racetrack tip sheets from Santa Anita to Bay Meadows.
But this fragile...
Episode 326 Jack Ruby Miniseries Part 2
If you visit Westlawn Cemetery just outside Chicago, you'll find a simple granite headstone for the man who silenced Lee Harvey Oswald on live television. But carved right in the center of that marker is a bracketed childhood nickname: Jack "Sparky" Ruby. In part two of our special miniseries, we rewind the tape to the cobblestones of 1920s Chicago to meet the teenage Jacob Rubenstein long before the strip clubs, the mobsters, and the history-shattering events in Dealey Plaza. This is the story of a boy running wild on Roosevelt Street—a kid who refused to sit at a sc...
Episode 325 Jack Ruby Miniseries Part 1
On November 24, 1963, Jack Ruby stepped out of the shadows of a crowded Dallas police basement and shot Lee Harvey Oswald live on national television, silencing the accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy forever. In a single moment, Ruby opened a canyon of doubt and conspiracy that has never closed, cementing himself as one of the most mysterious and controversial figures in modern history. To the public, he was a Dallas strip club owner and midnight hustler, a man of wild and irreconcilable contradictions who could beat a patron into the concrete one moment, and weep over a sad n...
Episode 324 Jack Ruby Miniseries Prelude Episode
Join us in this prelude episode of a miniseries series covering Jack Ruby. Our podcast coverage now moves to tell the story of this central character in the assassination. Jack Ruby was an enigmatic figure that some say was the "cleanest available test of the conspiracy hypothesis". While sixty years of intense debate over Lee Harvey Oswald’s guilt have left questions of ballistics, trajectories, and acoustics in a perpetual draw, what Jack Ruby did is not in dispute—his crime was captured live on national television before millions of stunned viewers. The opening chapter argues that while eve...
Noss Gold Treasure Episode 14
In Episode 14 of the Noss Gold Treasure, the investigation shifts to the early 1970s as President Richard Nixon positions himself to gain access to the vast fortune hidden inside Victorio Peak. The episode explores a pivotal July 6, 1970 meeting at Nixon's Western White House in San Clemente, California, where geologist Keith Alexander—representing a coalition of treasure hunters known as the "Filthy 50"—met with Nixon and Domestic Affairs Advisor John Ehrlichman. Alexander revealed secret knowledge of 742 gold bars weighing 40 to 50 pounds each (totaling over 3 million troy ounces) stockpiled at White Sands, seeking executive immunity and an official agreement to m...
Noss Gold Treasure Episode 13
In Episode 13 of the Noss Gold Treasure, we delve into one of the most audacious gold smuggling operations in modern history: the post-presidential pipeline orchestrated under Lyndon B. Johnson between 1969 and 1970. Drawing on direct video interviews with vintage WWII B-24 Liberator pilot Fern Hamill, this episode exposes how 130 tons of ancient gold bars stolen from Victorio Peak were covertly transported out of the United States. Weekly shuttle runs using official U.S. government vehicles—bearing White Sands Missile Range stickers on their windshields—hauled 500 to 800 pounds of gold per week directly across the Mexican border to G...
Noss Gold Treasure Episode 12
In 1958, Air Force Captain Leonard Fiege, Airman Tom Berlett, and civilian Bill Schriever entered a cave at Victoria Peak, discovering massive, pyramid-shaped stacks of gold bars stamped with Spanish double crosses alongside the remains of 29 human skeletons. Choosing to act honorably and follow proper legal procedures rather than stealing the gold, Fiege and Berlett left the cave untouched. They subsequently hired senior Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps colonels to form "The Seven Heirs" corporation to legally assert their rights as the discoverers of the treasure.
Seeking official permission to complete their recovery, the airmen presented their...
Noss Gold Treasure Episode 11
On June 5, 1963, President John F. Kennedy and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson made a highly orchestrated visit to White Sands Missile Range. While the official itinerary claimed the 139-minute stop was merely to witness a missile demonstration and inspect an unpaved desert runway known as the Northrup Strip, the reality was far more secretive. The trip—which required nine months of meticulous preparation—was actually an elaborate cover allowing the President and Vice President to personally inspect the Noss treasure at Victoria Peak, located just a five-minute helicopter ride away.
Following this secret insp...
Noss Gold Treasure Episode 10
In the summer of 1976, an Illinois oilman named Ed Atkins received a tape containing an explosive conversation: former President Lyndon B. Johnson admitting to moving stolen gold from White Sands Missile Range to his ranch in Mexico. Discussing the heist with Fred Drolte, LBJ explicitly detailed using a big plane—later identified as a B-24 Liberator bomber—to transport the gold, cementing the tape as a "smoking gun" of presidential theft. However, after Atkins handed the tape to his lawyer, Daryl Holmes, for safekeeping, Holmes died under mysterious circumstances in 1977. Following his death, the LBJ tape and...
Episode 323 The Cuba Project and Mongoose: The Aftermath of the Bay of Pigs
Even though I am technically in the middle of the Noss Gold Treasure epiodes, I felt the need to go on a "wander" and produce a new episode for our core journey here at JFK The Enduring Secret. In Episode 323, we begin to explore one of the most intense backdrops of the Kennedy administration: the Cuba Project. Following the disastrous and public failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961, President John F. Kennedy and his brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, did not choose to retreat. Instead, they doubled down, concluding that the next attempt to topple Fi...
Episode 322 Our Meeting with Congresswoman Luna in Washington DC
In this special update episode of JFK The Enduring Secret, Andrew Isler and Mark Adamczyk and myself recap our recent trip to Washington, D.C., for a highly anticipated meeting with Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna. After a chaotic day of travel, we secured nearly an hour with the Congresswoman and her staff to discuss the ongoing issues and lack of compliance surrounding the 1992 JFK Records Act.
The conversation highlights how we made the case for shifting the focus from requesting specific, isolated documents to addressing the broader, systemic issues regarding the National Archives (NARA) and their compliance wit...
Noss Gold Treasure Episode 9
Episode 9 plunges into the darkest chapter of the Victoria Peak saga, a chilling period between 1955 and 1963 when the United States military transformed from guardian to thief. Based entirely on the exhaustive, decades-long research of investigative author John Clarence (the pen name of Jack Staley), this episode details the heartbreaking aftermath of Ova Noss’s forcible eviction from the Hembrillo Basin. With the claim site now officially a restricted military zone, the Army's actions turned vicious—Ova's beloved horses were left to die in their corral, and her rock house camp was shot to pieces. The family was effectively exiled, but...
Noss Gold Treasure Episode 4
Episode 4 propels us into a chaotic twelve-year period from 1937 to 1949, where the Noss family's dream of extracting the Victoria Peak treasure begins to violently unravel. Based entirely on the exhaustive, decades-long research of investigative author John Clarence (the pen name of Jack Staley), this episode details how the formidable obstacles of World War II, a sprawling military expansion, and Milton "Doc" Noss's own personal demons collided to seal the mountain's riches tighter than a government vault.
Desperate for capital following the devastating 1939 shaft collapse, Doc formed the Cheyenne Mining Company, unknowingly appointing a venomous Secret Service informant...
Noss Gold Treasure Episode 5
Episode 5 takes us deeper into the post-WWII era, where personal betrayal and unprecedented military expansion collide to choke the Noss family's access to the gold. Based entirely on the exhaustive, decades-long research of investigative author John Clarence (the pen name of Jack Staley), this episode explores Milton "Doc" Noss's spiraling paranoia and his prolonged absences from Victoria Peak. In a shocking maneuver, Doc secretly annulled his marriage to Ova in an Arkansas court in October 1945 and later married another woman, a decision that plunged the Cheyenne Mining Company—and the legal rights to the treasure itself—into a chaotic batt...
Noss Gold Treasure Episode 6
In Episode 6, the simmering tensions between Milton "Doc" Noss and his double-crossing partner, Charlie Ryan, finally boil over into a deadly 48-hour window. Based on the exhaustive, decades-long research of investigative author John Clarence (the pen name of Jack Staley), this gripping episode breaks down the frantic, minute-by-minute events of March 4th and 5th, 1949. The chaos begins with a tragic airplane crash at Victoria Peak involving Doc's stepson, Marvin Beckwith, which provides Doc with the perfect cover to slip away from Ryan's watchful eyes without raising suspicion.
Knowing that Ryan was planning to steal 110 gold bars and...
Noss Gold Treasure Episode 7
Episode 7 picks up in the immediate, chaotic aftermath of Milton "Doc" Noss’s tragic murder on March 5, 1949. Based entirely on the exhaustive, decades-long research of investigative author John Clarence (the pen name of Jack Staley), this episode shifts the focus to his steadfast wife, Ova Noss, who is left to face a bitter, multi-front war for the Victoria Peak treasure. While Doc’s double-crossing killer managed to walk free despite the testimony of five eyewitnesses, Ova soon found herself staring down an even more formidable nemesis: the United States government.
Before she could even properly grieve, Ova was...
Noss Gold Treasure Episode 8
Episode 8 escalates the bitter war between Ova Noss and the United States military from bureaucratic red tape into outright hostility. Based entirely on the exhaustive, decades-long research of investigative author John Clarence (the pen name of Jack Staley), this episode details how the U.S. Army systematically dismantled Ova's physical access to Victoria Peak. Under the command of Brigadier General George Eddy—who openly displayed a map of the treasure site in his office and explicitly threatened that Ova and her daughter would be "shot on sight" if they returned—the military transformed from a neighboring installation into a host...
Noss Gold Treasure Prelude Episode
Welcome to the Prelude episode of our explosive investigation into the Victoria Peak treasure—the site of one of the most shocking and massive crimes in American history. Based entirely on the exhaustive, decades-long research of investigative author John Clarence (the pen name of Jack Staley), this series uncovers a conspiracy of unchecked greed and military overreach that stretches far beyond the deserts of New Mexico. It is a story where the very government sworn to protect its citizens became modern-day tomb raiders, ultimately implicating U.S. Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon in the theft of billions of...
Noss Gold Treasure Episode 2
Following our prelude, Episode 2 steps back into the dust bowl era to explore the origins of our protagonists, Milton "Doc" Noss and his steadfast wife, Ova "Babe" Noss. Based on the exhaustively documented, decades-long research of investigative author John Clarence (the pen name of Jack Staley), this episode delves into Doc’s complex past as a part-Cheyenne foot doctor whose lifelong obsession with treasure was sparked by a childhood encounter with the Apache chief Geronimo and a crude, ancient map received from a patient.
Before the monumental find at Victoria Peak, Doc and Ova successfully unearthed a si...
Noss Gold Treasure Episode 3
Following the monumental discovery detailed in our last episode, Episode 3 plunges deep into the treacherous caverns of Victoria Peak. Based entirely on the exhaustive, decades-long research of investigative author John Clarence (the pen name of Jack Staley), this episode chronicles the perilous efforts of Milton "Doc" and Ova Noss to extract their newfound fortune—and the intense paranoia that soon consumed them.
Navigating broken ancient ladders and toxic, blistering bat guano, Doc slowly retrieved the first pieces of the horde in the spring of 1938. What he found was staggering: crude gold "cactus" bars piled like cordwood, a go...
Noss Gold Episodes Begin Tonight!
Join me in the greatest wander yet on JFK The Enduring Secret. In one of the most unlikely of story tells, we explore an extraordinary event that crosses a path with President Kennedy and more importantly, with Lyndon Johnson too. To understand it's meaning, you must understand it's context. And so, I'm pleased to announce that our explosive new mini-series uncovering the greatest treasure discovery—and the greatest theft—in North American history will begin tonight. Be patient on this wander, and you will discover an equally extraordinary story that will both entertain and challenge your thinking related and especial...
Merkers Mine Part 4 (Final Miniseries Episode)
In the thrilling finale of our Merkers Mine series, we confront the uncomfortable arithmetic of the Third Reich's stolen wealth. While the Allies recovered an astonishing 250 tons of gold at Merkers, hundreds of millions of dollars in looted Nazi gold remain completely unaccounted for to this day. Could a portion of this missing fortune have ended up deep inside a desert mountain in southern New Mexico?. To answer this, we explore the highly secretive post-war world of Operation Paperclip, which brought former Nazi rocket scientists and hundreds of train cars filled with V2 rocket components from the exact same...
Merkers Mine Part 2
 In Part 2 of our Merkers Mine mini-series, the secret is out. On April 8, 1945, General George S. Patton learns that his advancing Third Army has stumbled upon the captured gold reserves of the Third Reich. But Patton being Patton, his first instinct isn't to hand it over to the bureaucrats. He orders a strict press blackout, surrounds the mine with tanks, and pitches audacious, off-the-books ideas to his superiors: minting the 250 tons of gold into medallions for his soldiers, or hiding it away to create a secret, self-sustaining financial endowment for his army to bypass congressional appropriations. It is a f...
Merkers Mine Part 3
In Part 3 of our Merkers Mine series, the clock is ticking. Under the Yalta agreements, the region containing the mine is slated to be handed over to Soviet control. Every gold bar, suitcase of SS loot, and priceless work of art must be moved to the American zone immediately. Enter Lieutenant George Stout, America’s premier art conservation expert, and the legendary "Monuments Men." Descending into the pitch-black tunnels, they face an impossible logistical nightmare: safely extracting hundreds of delicate, priceless masterpieces—including works by Rembrandt and Manet. In a detail that reads like pure fiction, the American soldiers fran...
Merkers Mine Part 1
In this highly anticipated first episode of our new series, we hit pause on the Noss/Victorio Peak legal battles (episodes you have NOT heard yet)Â to ask a chilling question: What if some portion of the gold hidden inside that New Mexico mountain has a completely different, far darker origin? What if the mysterious bars found at Victorio Peak weren't Spanish colonial gold or Apache plunder, but stolen wealth from the ruins of the Third Reich?
To understand this mind-bending possibility, we travel back to the dying days of World War II in Germany. Following the d...
The David Rush Incident And It's Coincidental Timing As Prelude To The Merkers Mine Episodes
Faithful listeners of the podcast know it has been several months since our last regular episode, but this hiatus was for a very good reason. Behind the scenes, I have been collaborating with John Clarence, the premier researcher on the Noss/Victorio Peak Gold Story, to develop an expansive new podcast series on that topic. You might be wondering why a JFK podcast is pivoting to a story about buried treasure. The truth is, the Victorio Peak gold story directly intersects with the lives of JFK and RFK, exposing hidden sides of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon that will g...
We Are Meeting Next Week With Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna
Next week, Andrew Iler, Mark Adamczyk, and I are heading up to Washington, D.C., to meet with Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna. Congresswoman Luna chairs the Congressional Task Force On The Declassification of Government Secrets. We have secured an opportunity to brief her personally on critical record keeping and oversight issues that have been festering for years.  These are issues that we believe are core to the committee’s mission when it comes to assessing the state of JFK Records disclosure and accounting for all JFK assassination records. Perhaps, more importantly, these are issues core to restoring the government's strict l...
Episode 321 Oswald Goes To Mexico Part 23 The Sylvia Duran Story Part 5
Episode 321 is the fifth and final episode  in a mini-series covering Sylvia Duran in Mexico. And what a tale it is. Today's episode covers the infamous twist party. You heard much about Sylvia Duran already in the early Mexico City episodes. We pick the story back up just as the JFK assassination takes place on November 22nd, 1963 and events almost simultaneously begin to unfold and overtake her. The harrowing story of Sylvia Duran, a 26-year-old Mexican consular secretary at the Cuban Consulate in Mexico City is one of the most confounding in the JFK's assassination story. Amidst the chaos followi...
Episode 320 Oswald Goes To Mexico Part 22 The Sylvia Duran Story Part 4
Episode 320 is the fourth in a mini-series covering Sylvia Duran in Mexico. And what a tale it is. You heard much about Sylvia Duran already in the early Mexico City episodes. We pick the story back up just as the JFK assassination takes place on November 22nd, 1963 and events almost simultaneously begin to unfold and overtake her. The harrowing story of Sylvia Duran, a 26-year-old Mexican consular secretary at the Cuban Consulate in Mexico City is one of the most confounding in the JFK's assassination story. Amidst the chaos following President Kennedy's assassination on November 22, 1963, Duran's name surfaces in Lee Harv...
Episode 319 Oswald Goes To Mexico Part 21 The Sylvia Duran Story Part 3
Episode 319 is the third in a mini-series covering Sylvia Duran in Mexico. And what a tale it is. You heard much about Sylvia Duran already in the early Mexico City episodes. We pick the story back up just as the JFK assassination takes place on November 22nd, 1963 and events almost simultaneously begin to unfold and overtake her. The harrowing story of Sylvia Duran, a 26-year-old Mexican consular secretary at the Cuban Consulate in Mexico City is one of the most confounding in the JFK's assassination story. Amidst the chaos following President Kennedy's assassination on November 22, 1963, Duran's name surfaces in Lee Harv...
