Heroes Behind Headlines

Writer Ian Trottier has penned a biography of John Brennan, government intelligence figure with a stellar biography--under former president Obama, Brennan served as head of the CIA, oounterterrorism advisor; and Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counter-terrorism; and Deputy National Security Advisor under President George W. Bush.

While pointed at the hot issues surrounding America's security, he declared himself a Communist and a devotee of Wahabism--an ultra-conservative offfshoot of Sunni Islam. Author Trottier also presents his findings regarding Brennan's profiting from terrorist activity, including the Boston Marathon Bombing, prompting the question, 'Has terrorism become a...

Charismatic mastermind and one-time meth cook Scott Scurlock befriended Steve Meyer and pulled him into a surreal world of treehouses and crime in Washington in the early to mid-90s. Scott earned notoriety as the most prolific bank robber ever in Washington state, and the nickname, “Hollywood,” for the extensive facial prosthetics he wore during the robberies.

Shawn Johnson led the FBI team that apprehended Scott’s associates, including Steve, in a bloody shootout, and resulted in Scott taking his own life. Steve and Shawn are here together, sharing their different perspectives on this remarkable true crime saga.<...

Colonel Robert Howard was a very distinguished member of the top-secret MACV-SOG units that fought during the Vietnam War in America’s secret war in Laos and Cambodia. Comprised of only one to a few U.S. special force team members plus a cadre of native Vietnamese, Montagnard, Cambodian (Khmer Krom), and Nung fighters, these recon units operated deep behind enemy lines recovering downed pilots and attempting POW rescues, destroying enemy fuel dumps and caches, conducting wiretaps, gathering intelligence and spreading propaganda which forced Hanoi to divert 40,000 troops—about four divisions—to rear security missions along the Ho Chi Minh T...

Right after the U.S. dropped the bomb on Nagasaki, Victoria Kelly’s grandfather was sent there as part of the U.S. forces sent to occupy the city after its destruction. Victoria grew up curious about her grandfather’s experience there, as he’d died before she was born. Victoria has partnered with Karen Tanabe, whose family survived the bombing, to make “Atomic Echoes”: A documentary that details what it was like for the locals and the U.S. soldiers on the ground, and how they came together to help the afflicted, as they all struggled with the fallout of...

Patrick Naughton’s father served in Vietnam when he was a child, and shared accounts of his experiences and adventures – from infantry to serving in Special Forces as part of the MACV-SOG teams doing recon and battling across the fence” in America’s secret war with Northern Vietnam forces in Laos and Cambodia.

Patrick felt the only path to truly earn his larger-than-life’s father’s respect was to enlist in the military himself, and he likewise joined the infantry and served in Iraq. His book “Born From War,” is a fascinating account of the parallel experiences father and son h...

The second half of this two-part interview from 2023 with one of our favorite Americans, in celebration of Memorial Day:

A living legend of MACV-SOG and the Green Berets, John "Tilt" Stryker Meyer shares some of the most daring first-person stories of combat ever told! Inserted by Kingbee helicopter into the dense jungle along the Ho Chi Minh trail in  Laos and Cambodia during the height of the Vietnam War, Tilt and the US and indigenous members of Strike Force Idaho  deployed on  one impossible  top-secret  mission after another, spying on, harassing  and taking it to the North Vietna...

We're re-airing this two-part interview from 2023 with one of our favorite Americans, in celebration of Memorial Day:

A living legend of MACV-SOG and the Green Berets, John "Tilt" Stryker Meyer shares some of the most daring first-person stories of combat ever told! Inserted by Kingbee helicopter into the dense jungle along the Ho Chi Minh trail in  Laos and Cambodia during the height of the Vietnam War, Tilt and the US and indigenous members of Strike Force Idaho  deployed on  one impossible  top-secret  mission after another, spying on, harassing  and taking it to the North Vietnamese and Vietco...

Karen Holt didn’t realize her childhood was anything other than normal--whether it was her father’s absence every Monday to Friday; their odd moves from town to town without any warning;  the FBI arresting her father; seeing Detroit mafioso Peter Licavoli on his ranch; or even visiting her father in his ‘country club’ prison.

One of the most unusual figures in recent memory, Chauncey served as accountant and money manager for mobster Meyer Lansky, he was also an off-the-books CIA operative and specialist in forged documents and credentials, a ballistics expert, a circus performer and fine artist.<...

Born on a U.S. airbase in London of American parents, Geoffrey Gilson began his career writing  speeches for Margaret Thatcher, leveraging his dual British-US citizenship to navigate elite political circles. With decades of front-row access to senior UK and U.S. officials, Gilson served as a key operative for the British Conservative Party, gaining unparalleled insight into global power structures. In 1988, when his friend and business partner Hugh Simmonds turned up dead in the woods near where they lived with seven million dollars were missing from his law firm’s account, Geoff launched his own investigation into this fri...

Former U.S. Army Ranger, Barry Todd, was out celebrating a professional milestone with his wife and several friends at a local watering hole in Yuma, Arizona, when he was attacked by a drunken patron along with some buddies. Barry was slammed headfirst into a cement wall, incurring a concussion and other bodily injuries until his gun went off and shot the man who’d insisted on attacking him.

The police were called and incomprehensibly arrested Barry, who explains how self-defense and stand your ground laws don’t always protect you as they should. Police in his case...

California State Assemblyman Mike Gatto was a rising star in the California Democratic Party when on November 12th, 2013, his retired father Joseph Gatto was found murdered in their family home in the neighborhood of Los Angeles. Emotionally devastated, Mike put his career on hold to pursue his father's murderer. With very few clues nad more questions than evidence, the murder has never been solved, and the rate of unsolved murders is higher than ever.

Mike recounts the facts of this still unsolved crime, and his own experience grappling with his grief. He asks anyone with information about...

Proud Canadian and innovative thinker and author, Jeff Brown was flattered beyond  when Sophie Trudeau, (his country’s “first lady” at the time.) reached out to compliment his writing and aphorisms, and engage him to think about ideas that expressed the spirit of what Justin Trudeau and his wife sought to communicate as part of their platform.

At their first meeting, Sophie quickly disclosed her own dissatisfaction in her marriage, and proceeded to behave in a flirty and what felt inappropriate manner through their subsequent conversations and collaborations, both live and virtual. Uncomfortable as an unpaid, uncredited speech...

Growing up in the New Hampshire mountains, country boy Brennan Morton couldn’t wait to join the military, and when 9/11 occurred, it provided the final push for enlistment. Brennan loved every minute of the training as a Marine recon sniper, and was surprised as physically superior candidates washed out. But then he was deployed to Iraq with his unit, and the reality of what he’d sought hit home. Sent into a brutal fighting environment he saw his comrades brutally harmed by IEDs without any visible enemy to directly fight.

His acclaimed memoir "Valhalla Boys: Marine Reco...

Mark Shaw shares his recent discoveries linking the JFK and RFK assassinations, and also the mysterious and dreadful death of famed journalist Dorothy Kilgallen who was hot on the trail to solve the mystery behind President Kennedy's death. Ripped from the pages of his new book, "Abuse of Power," there's plenty of thought-provoking revelation that further strengthens the inescapable conclusion that the President's death was not caused by a lone gunman, and that the American people--in spite of the recent release of documents relating to the assassination--still haven't heard the full truth about the most notorious American crime ever.<...

Whether you call it brainwashing, programming, indoctrination, or something else, cult members have been taught to think, feel, and act in certain ways. The goal of the cult deprogrammer is to empower the individual to think critically, to evaluate, to reality-test; and to exercise their own free will. 

Over his long career, Mark Blockson has participated in more than 100 interventions or kidnappings at the behest of families who are trying to rescue loved ones from religious cults. He talks about his own experiences with addiction and how that led to his involvement in rehabilitation and deprogramming and h...

Retired FBI Agent Stewart Fillmore was trained to break down evidence to solve crimes and build cases. Here, he focuses on the forensics of the JFK assassination and the likelihood that the hole in the front of the late President’s throat was an entry wound, not an exit wound as the FBI and Warren Report had concluded.

Stewart walks us through the evidence he’s gathered, and what it tells him about the nature of the crime. Importantly, his account aligns with the prior testimony of HBH guest Tosh Plumlee: Namely, that there was a shooter to t...

Early in the morning of October 23, 1983 two truck bombs were detonated at buildings in Beirut Lebanon housing members of the US and French Multinational Force in Lebanon – a military peace mission in the eight-year-old Lebanese civil war. The attack by a terrorist group called Islamic Jihad, which had backing from the governments of Iran and Syria, killed 307 people: 241 U.S. and 58 French military personnel, six civilians and two of the attackers. 

Two hundred of the 241 US casualties were US Marines, making it the deadliest single-day death toll for the United States Marine Corps since the Battle of Iwo...

Writer and editor Sarah McCarthy set out to write a book about her friend of 15 years and Jeffrey Epstein survivor Juliette Bryant. She reveals details about how Epstein and his powerful friends lured girls and young women into his network and the techniques he used to manipulate them. But the part that is most shocking, is what Julie experience at Epstein’s ranch in New Mexico – the little-talked-about Zorro Ranch – and the bizarre activities that took place there. 

Her account helps explain his purpose and how he was able to fund his extravagant lifestyle; and why important men and...

In 1942, on the heels of the Pearl Harbor attack as the US entered the war, Canada and the U.S. agreed to form a special top-secret military commando unit – nicknamed by the Nazis as “The Black Devils” for their stealth, bravery and skill. Designed to work as a nimble, highly conditioned unit of ‘super-fighters’ with special skills, selected servicemen from the two nation’s forces became one and trained for eight-and-a-half months in Helena, Montana before being shipped overseas to Europe.

Bill Woon’s dad, Dave Woon, was a Canadian national who was recruited to the unit. Dave ultimatel...

This three part-interview takes us through the amazing career and true-crime adventures of Texas native Zeke Flatten, who grew up knowing he wanted a career in law enforcement, got himself hired as a bail bondsman at 18, and became an undercover cop at 20. Initially placed undercover in a high school to investigate gun sales and other crimes, he ended up buying a bomb from a student  who was later convicted of murder.

In 2000, while working undercover, he discovered an ecstasy ring that led to the arrest of Mafia leader Sammy (the Bull) Gravano in Phoenix. In 2017, Zeke, then r...

This three part-interview takes us through the amazing career and true-crime adventures of Texas native Zeke Flatten, who grew up knowing he wanted a career in law enforcement, got himself hired as a bail bondsman at 18, and became an undercover cop at 20. Initially placed undercover in a high school to investigate gun sales and other crimes, he ended up buying a bomb from a student  who was later convicted of murder.

In 2000, while working undercover, he discovered an ecstasy ring that led to the arrest of Mafia leader Sammy (the Bull) Gravano in Phoenix. In 2017, Zeke, then r...

This three part-interview takes us through the amazing career and true-crime adventures of Texas native Zeke Flatten, who grew up knowing he wanted a career in law enforcement, got himself hired as a bail bondsman at 18, and became an undercover cop at 20. Initially placed undercover in a high school to investigate gun sales and other crimes, he ended up buying a bomb from a student  who was later convicted of murder.

In 2000, while working undercover, he discovered an ecstasy ring that led to the arrest of Mafia leader Sammy (the Bull) Gravano in Phoenix. I...

U.S. Government whistleblower Martin Rodil breaks down the Venezuelan efforts to steal elections in the U.S. and also explains how that country's Cartel de los Soles–the largest criminal organization in the world–aims their drug trafficking and other activities at the United States.

Martin, along with his partner Gary Berntsen, were tracking down cartel bank accounts and other assets for the U.S. government to rightfully seize, when they tripped over an enormous election theft program created and maintained by Venezuela, (aided by Cuba, China, Iran, and Russia) aimed at America and dozens of demo...

Former CIA agent and Boston native Ralph Mariani shares the real-life thriller account of the 1975 murder of his boss, Richard Welch, the then-CIA station chief in Athens, and the twenty-seven-year investigation that was only solved when two grandmas came forward when a new description of the culprits was circulated.

On the night of December 23, 1975, CIA Station Chief Dick Welch and his family attended a Christmas party at the American Ambassador’s residence. Upon returning home, Dick exited the car to open the main gate. A man appeared amid the darkness and shot him dead. Five days after th...

Over his career as a journalist, reporting from mainly Afghanistan and Pakistan, Jere Van Dyk has worked for the New York Times and CBS News and has appeared widely as a commentator on international affairs. His also the author of several books. 

In 2008 Jere was captured and held by the Taliban, an experience that he wrote about in his fascinating book Captive, which received a Foreign Press Award in 2022. 

He is with us today to talk about his long experience in Afghanistan that began with  a trip he made as a young man. He recounts the...

With the country of Venezuela and the criminal behavior of the Maduro regime currently headline news, today’s guest is particularly timely – petroleum executive, kidnapping victim and author Jose Angel Pereira. 

At first glance, Jose Angel Pereira’s career looks like that of someone who reached the pinnacle of corporate success – that of a seasoned executive with over three decades in the oil and gas industry. Jose Angel once led CITGO Petroleum as CEO, navigating billion-dollar deals and international joint ventures across five continents. But in 2017, he was summoned from Citgo's Texas headquarters by the Maduro regime to make a...

On the evening of  January 7, 2025 several destructive wildfires swept through the Los Angeles area, including the fast-moving Eaton Fire near the neighborhoods of Altadena and Pasadena. Firefighters and three night-flying helicopters with the Los Angeles County Fire Department were ordered to respond. They intended to drop water on the Eaton fire but, buffeted by ferocious updrafts and downdrafts, aborted the operation at 6:45 p.m. By midnight, the fire expanded to over 1,000 acres fueled by strong Santa Ana wind blowing northeast to southwest with gusts of up to 100 mph.

As flames threatened neighborhoods, Pasadena Transit operators from Transdev w...

HBH is so proud of this episode--we think this breakdown of an important and ongoing issue bears repeating:

Award-winning journalist Sam Quinones lays out the facts behind the meth and fentanyl drug crisis in the U.S.:

He expertly describes how mass manufacturing has made these drug ubiquitous, cheap, and infinitely more potent, and thus unlike any other drugs--legal or illegal--ever consumed by human beings. Sam explains how today’s meth has triggered an abrupt rise in homelessness, and why these drugs and so destructive to users, their families, and ultimately all of us.

...

In 1944, Sgt. Donald D. Fida was tortured and gutted by Japanese solders and left to die in the Philippine jungle, when his childhood friend miraculously came upon him and saved his life.  Because of this experience, Donald survived and continued to fight til the war's end, living to finally tell his tale at age 99.

Twice a Purple Heart recipient, Donald shares his first-person account of his numerous adventures as an Army Scout in the wartime Pacific Theater, describing his combat in the Aleutian Islands, the Marshall Islands (Sitka, Attu), the Philippines (Leyte), and the brutal Battle of O...

Part two of Dash's awesome interview: 

Former Navy SEAL Dash Dong Wong’s journey from growing up as a street urchin in Hawaii to becoming a Navy special operations operator is a powerful testament to resilience and inner strength. Says Dash, “I grew up in paradise, but was raised in hell.” Through all the trauma he faced as a kid, including battling in a child fight club at ten years old, he learned to find hope and beauty in even the worst situations. Though he never knew his real father, he was adopted by a friend of his mot...

Former Navy SEAL Dash Dong Wong’s journey from growing up as a street urchin in Hawaii to becoming a Navy special operations operator is a powerful testament to resilience and inner strength. Says Dash, “I grew up in paradise, but was raised in hell.” Through all the trauma he faced as a kid, including battling in a child fight club at ten years old, he learned to find hope and beauty in even the worst situations. Though he never knew his real father, he was adopted by a friend of his mother, a delivery man named Andrew Wong. Dash h...

Art theft expert, security expert and author of “The Rembrandt Heist: The Story of a Criminal Genius, a Stolen Masterpiece, and an Enigmatic Friendship,” Anthony Amore introduces us to Boston native, Miles Connor Jr., a combination rock star, samurai sword collector, and brilliant art thief. Connor's fascinating motives for stealing art were tied up with his policeman father’s passion for collecting, and also for avenging what he felt was a grave insult to his father by a local museum, the Forbes House. His first theft was to break into that museum as a teenager and steal dozens of artifa...

At the height of World War II, Oak Ridge, Tennessee was home to 75,000 residents, who consumed more energy than New York City. Most of the world didn’t know that the town even existed. And most of the people who lived there, who were largely young women from small towns across the America, didn’t know the true nature of the work they were doing day after day in the hulking factories that had been hastily built in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains. That is until the end of the war when Oak Ridge’s important secret was reveal...

Retired FBI agent Pete Lapp helped capture Ana Montez, a Puerto Rican-born American and UVA alumna who was a senior analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency overseeing the Cuban account. For 17 years, she was also a spy for Cuba and was an avowed communist. Ironically, as many of four of Anna’s close family members worked for the FBI and despite Anna’s more extreme political views, assumed she was a loyal American. 

From his book “Queen of Cuba,” Pete relates how Ana was identified as a potential national security risk, secretly investigated, and ultimately apprehended after years of...

Part Two of this fascinating interview: 

Douglas Horne is the preeminent JFK assassination expert and a former investigator with the official government JFK Assassination Records Review Board. He’s also the author of the five-volume book set titled: Inside the Assassination Records Review Board: The U.S. Government’s Final Attempt to Reconcile the Conflicting Medical Evidence in the Assassination of JFK, JFK’s War with the National Security Establishment: Why Kennedy Was Assassinated.

Recently he was one of the JFK Assassination experts who was called to testify before  the House Oversight Task force on Declassi...

Douglas Horne is the preeminent JFK assassination expert and a former investigator with the official government JFK Assassination Records Review Board. He’s also the author of the five-volume book set titled: Inside the Assassination Records Review Board: The U.S. Government’s Final Attempt to Reconcile the Conflicting Medical Evidence in the Assassination of JFK, JFK’s War with the National Security Establishment: Why Kennedy Was Assassinated.

Recently he was one of the JFK Assassination experts who was called to testify before  the House Oversight Task force on Declassification of Federal Secrets chaired by Congressman Anna Paulina...

World War II hero Phil Larimore remains the youngest candidate to ever graduate from Army Officer Training School, which he did at the age of seventeen, on the eve of America’s involvement in World War II. Landing on the Anzio beachhead in February 1944, Phil – the youngest commissioned US officer in World War II – was put in charge of an Ammunition Pioneer Platoon of the 3rd Infantry Division. Their job: to deliver ammunition to the frontline foxholes—a dangerous assignment involving regular forays into No Man’s Land. As Phil fought his way up the Italian boot, into Southern France and...

Phoenix Police Department cold case homicide detective and and former CPA Troy Hillman tells the extraordinary, detailed inside story of how an elite team of detectives—hounded by the press, a frustrated and frightened public, and their own doubts and exhaustion—solved a double murder that had haunted the Phoenix area for more than twenty years. 

The initial details were already chilling—the brutal murder of two women, found headless, who were assaulted while riding their bikes along a well-known canal bike path—but Hillman reveals how the initial headlines only scratched the surface and how his team’s us...

After the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the death of Saddam Hussein, scientists who worked for the regime were killed or left the country. When one of them –microbiologist Thamer Abdul Rahman Imran – learned the new regime wanted to arrest him and the insurgents wanted to kill him, he went into hiding. Racing against time, ex–Secret Service agent Steve Monteiro and his team from the Department of Homeland Security set out to find the missing scientist and learn what he knew about the anthrax crisis that was baffling investigators in the United States. The journey took them from t...

We are re-airing Doug Laux's second appearance on HBH, as we fondly remember him upon his passing:

Being accepted to work at the CIA is highly difficult. The interview process is long and secretive - and applicants and their references are often vetted without ever knowing it. Once accepted, very few go on to practice espionage. That distinction is reserved for those invited to the CIA’s top secret and legendary training program known as ‘The Farm’. Fewer still actually graduate the program and become Case Officers or as they are most commonly referred: Spies. HBH is excite...