Ep. 0053: DHP Villains: William Stephenson

William Stephenson, codenamed “Intrepid” (at least according to some sources), was an Anglo-Canadian businessman and intelligence agent who operated illegally and unconstitutionally in the US with the active assistance of FDR in order to facilitate American entry into World War II on the side of the British.

Join CJ as he discusses:

• William Stephenson’s early life, including his World War I military service and his success in business after the war
• How in the early days of World War II, at the behest of the British government, William Stephenson set up a covert operations network in the US, which was still supposedly a neutral country at the time, with the knowledge & assistance of the FDR Administration
• Stephenson’s operations in the US prior to Pearl Harbor, which included (among many other things) intervention in US media and politics, discrediting ‘isolationists,’ meddling in labor unions, and the possible assassination of an isolationist American businessman, William Rhodes Davis
• Stephenson’s role in helping FDR discredit anti-interventionist Senator Burton Wheeler
• How both opponents and proponents of FDR admit that he broke the law and Constitution in collaborating with Stephenson and acting as a tool of the British government
• Stephenson’s awards after the war, and his death in 1989 at the age of 93
• Some thoughts from George Washington & CJ on the phenomenon of foreign agents intervening in the politics and media of the US

External Links

•  A blurb about William Stephenson on the CIA’s website
• NY Times obituary of Stephenson upon his death in 1989