downside in everything is up for debate. nothing is a great mm ah ah ah. 2 2 let's say you're one of the most highly respected scientist

in your field. let's say you're a patriot. let's say that you're committed to providing the best technical analysis in leadership possible all while trying to maintain the highest level of ethics. many of the hundreds of thousands of people who work in the american military industrial complex would describe themselves in exactly this way. so why are there so few whistleblowers? we'll discuss that with our next guest. i'm john curiosity. welcome to the whistleblowers, ah, based anti missile system. that detractors called star wars. let me share with you a vision of the future which offers hope. it is that we embark on a program to counter the awesome soviet missile threat with measures that are defensive. what if free people could live secure the knowledge that their security did not rest upon the threat of instant us retaliation to deter a soviet attack that we could intercept and destroy strategic ballistic missiles

before they reached our own soil or that of our allies. i know there's a formidable technical task one that may not be accomplished before the end of the century. yet current technology has attained a level of sophistication where it's reasonable for us to begin this effort in the early 19 eighties he was working in research laboratory, developing high powered lasers for missile defense. after some time, it became clear to the research engineers performance requirements greatly exceeded the capabilities of even the pentagon's most sophisticated technology. it just didn't work. but work on these lasers continued as if no problems existed. congress approved more and more money, and the pentagon gladly sent that money onto the defense contractors. eventually it became clear to sabrina that the program would fail, but it continued for several more years until the weight of the lie of its operability became too much and the project fell apart. so brought attempted to

bring these problems to the attention of his superiors, but he failed. he also approached program managers with his concerns, but again he had no success. the question then was what to do next? with highly technical skills, not easily transferable, sir brought. i had to decide whether to blow the whistle or to just go along to get along. we're happy to be joined by so broad. gosh roy, thank you so much for being with us, brother. thank you, john. it's my pleasure. take us back to the early 19 eighties. president reagan in a nationally televised address told the american people that he was taking the arms race to space and he announced the creation of the strategic defense initiative or star wars. i assume that you had already been working on the project for some time . how long was it before you realize that this project just simply wasn't going to work? and how are your colleagues reacting? they were seeing the same results that you were seeing after all. so the project

got started in full swing about 8485 because he announced it in 1983 in a major speech which later later came to where he called the soviet union, the evil and now and then talked about the field that he was going to build to stop, so with miss on the so that was 1983. so i think our contract really got rolling 8485. we've been working on on laser, on a smaller contract before that. but now the money really i came in in tens of millions. so we through in a big way. and that went on until, let's say for 1989. so 5 or 6 years. and, and after reagan left, the office and president bush came in george bush, 41, and is at that time bushel is intelligent enough to realize that all this technology that we have been claiming we have all over the place on the,

in the united states. where did you just mostly science fiction and he really was quickly pulling it back. so and then bill clinton came in in 92 and he put a, a big boss on the star wars. so this transition happens sometime between 89 and 92. when lot of our colleagues also has, as you correctly asked the question, what were the thinking? many of them knew this is not good, but this was a common refrain. i was told by our senior vp, you made one specific complaint at the beginning that was about a lasers weight. can you tell us what that was all about? yes. well, the laser was for space basing. that's where the controversy happened before that we were mostly developing lasers in the laboratory and we didn't pay attention to the wait, wait, wait. so what we were paying attention to is

a will the laser lays properly? will the laser put out varying prototype and then actually a full board fillable laser after we have proven the physics of the laser, that is the key that it has to work in the laboratory, the physics to be done, right? and then we can build a prototype that under the normal procedure. but here the, the process of doing this in the physics phase is the way discovered in the laboratory far from actually addressing the weight question. but we discovered in the laboratory, one particular piece of information that to make the laser small, we have to pump the laser very, very hard and, and if we couldn't pump the laser very hard, then the system will grow. and for the same amount of energy outputs,

so we only get the weight. and so we just said, yes, we have demonstrated a b, c, which was completely not right. so this was the fundamental physics limit that riveted us from claiming the kind of weight that we would get because we couldn't pump it that hard. the lays that wouldn't work if we pump in that you didn't get any satisfaction from your superiors. so you went to the program managers. what happened there? yes, so i, i did. it was not an official complaint like written complaint. so i talked to a top program manager on, on this, on the laser programs for the army which was leading the lasers at that time for the star wars program. and it was very nice man, and we had very poor gentle relations because we always go to briefings, we bring them in after we have a beer placed on volleyball,

whatever. and so these are scientists, scientists contact my when i actually went to them with my specific complaints about the claims we were making that are not verifiable. demonstrate bill and there are physics limits. he really did not respond. i later found out that when i had filed the few, tam is that and d j eventually refused to join the same program manager. high level scientist a duty came back to d o j saying while these are all experiments. so we have different things we experimentally, some fails and don't fail. well, it wasn't because we were building actually equipment that will fly in space if it could. so, but so he basically deflated

d o. j senior pentagon scientist telling d j that hey, this is our in the i'd like to ask our guest to hold on and remain with us. we're going to take a short break and come back for more of our conversation with us defense department whistleblower sir brought a gosh roy stay to. 2 2 2 2 2 what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have. it's crazy confrontation, let it be an arms race is on offense. very dramatic development. only nationally, i'm going to resist. i don't see how that strategy will be successful, very critical time. time to sit down and talk november 22nd 2022 outraged orthodox christians confronted ukrainian

security service offices, looking entrances and exits to keep the oldest monastery. they were looking for alleged russian spies among the monks. we mean deal of seeming or formal reason for the brutal grunt down one church. his parishioners had song, a song about a long been reason enough to condemn any orthodox christian attack in prison and even kill them. russia, what are you russia? finance? because when you loud store and you, when your store grow, our slider venue in your store, thought us, you used to stop and we will send you a bomb. i use from his dog with

ah, ah, well, oh oh, oh, oh, i i oh, well come back to the whistle blowers, i'm john carrie alco were speaking with you as defense, department whistleblowers who brought i gosh roy. so brought a welcome back. you lived with this for more than a decade,

and then you decided to accept congressional fellowship for less than half of your previous salary. with that said, your fellowship was with one of the most important members of congress at that time . then ranking member of the house foreign affairs committee representative, lee hamilton. at the end of that fellowship, he went to work for one of my own personal heroes representative random's who was then the ranking member of the armed services committee. you developed a new expertise on the military appropriations process, and it was with this new expertise that you were able to blow the whistle yet again, this time on a missile defense program called the airborne laser. it took another decade, but that program was eventually canceled. tell us about that experience on john 1st on a little correction that with the whistle blowing up at jail, happened not on the airborne laser. i can, i can talk for long time or emberly's or, but it was on

a different part of the missile defense system. it was hard that at that time, national missile defense. and now it's called the g m d, which is the ground based mid course defense. it is about defense of united states against strategic meaning, intercontinental ballistic missiles coming from the so called rogue states like dpr, k, iran, libby at that time, iraq and, and not to me, didn't mention china, russia, but these are the threats that they were home during in building what's called a hit appeal system into countries. and that was the basic building block of reagan scholars. i said at the start of the show that you elected in the 1980 is to go through your chain of command to report your concerns. that got you nowhere, but it made you

a whistleblower. you continued that whistle blowing on capital hill while working with 2 of the most important members of congress. but a major revelation that you made came even later when you were working as a senior analyst with the government accountability office or ga. oh, for those of our viewers who don't know what the j. o is. it's supposed to be the all tra, ethical, governmental entity that ensures the highest ethical standards in government. but that wasn't your experience at ga or was it? yes, that was the most. i mean, i still have deep respect. i would say for most people at my level or are somewhat lower level than me at jail, they are very sincere public servants. they do extremely good research and tried to write the best report they can at that level. and i was trying to be basically one of them. i was a fairly senior person there because i come from congress and, and i had a broad technical experience which nobody did. and i was actually in the beginning,

my boss, who hired me out of the congressional committee. lou rodrigues' is fantastic man. he was a head of the national security and international affairs division. and he had interactive meet with me while i was on the committee staff. and so he hired me once to found that balance had quit. and so, and i my, my, i would be gone because somebody liked i skelton had taken over at i'm services which is ultra conservative from missouri. and anyway, so lou was, it's excellent. and under lieu, i was doing really well at jail. i got most of the assignments were basically somewhat technical in nature because they had only me and a couple of other people who are technical. and so it was great. and then came this project, this project to review the allegations of fraud in the national missile defense

program. so my boss, bob 11. and he said you brought out this looks like just up your alley, all the missile defense stuff. so they gave me the job as the technical lead technical evaluator for the project. and i was assisted by another senior person, dave and who was doing most of the jail work for the, for the project. and i was doing all that review and things and everything went, was going very well. bob 11 was fantastic and supportive of everything i wanted to do to interview so many people. pentagon request absolutely original documents, tapes from the past and all that stuff. bob was totally behind me and but when it came to us later, when it came to writing the report that, i mean we were already facing some,

some resistance from the legal department in jail. and they had one of their people, a senior legal person who just had come from pentagon. and so she had pretty close connection with the pentagon people. and i think it was through her that most of the influence initially came that look guys, i mean, you really have to turn this thing down and so forth. i mean, i don't know the exact words. i was not part of the conversation, but the net product was i was writing results of my analysis and, and review of documents in secret. and it is secured compartmentalized, you know, information john knows all about that and we're sitting there, you know, can pick out anything can just working day after day after day looking at the secret documents and taking mental notes and, and trying to get some things declassified. so i,

we could go publish that in for properly. so i was succeeding there are many, many stories that go along this time. but the bottom line was they basically put it combust on the report of what i could say. so i write a paragraph that the test was a total failure and in fact, the boeing chip signed is a bob caswell, who kind of became my friend. and he just looks umbrella. i mean, this is politics. so this is boeing, chip, scientist. you became the 1st whistleblower in jose 98 year history. now 100 year history, your whistle blowing this time. so on your discovery of fraud by contractors in the missile defense program. you alleged that jail covered up the wrong doing 1st. why would they do that when their job is to do exactly the opposite? and what was the fall out? the jail is, you know,

it takes pride on being non partisan and that it is the watch dog off congress. it's bipartisan, of course, so. but in reality, jail has to worry about its budget every year is, is its budget is approved by the ledger affairs committee in the senate. and so there is some hearings and stuff where the jo chief has to make a budget presentation and so forth. and while when i was joining jail in 1998, just before that after the republican take over in 1994 with newt gingrich bay really went big time against jail jail. and last, huge number of people in this inter graham between 1994 and in 1998. when i joined,

that was the height of the republican revolution. gibberish revolution. and they went after the jail day. they eliminated the only scientific, somewhat independent organisation within congress, which was called the office of technology assessment o t o t. i had a staff of 200 people, mostly ph. d 's. and as budget was 20000000, can you imagine? i mean that kind of money is nothing for pentagon and the coverage that they just got it. agency is gone, so no independent scientific voice for congress. similarly for g l that went after geo, so the jail management realize that because they're probably going to accuse them of just doing the job. mostly democrats, not that the gem democrats were that terrific on national security, but on other social issues there were very many times. very good. so j, all right,

some scathing reports on, on the health and human services department, the education at the commerce and all this stuff. but they didn't do that from the pentagon because the pentagon committees that supervise jail how some services which i was on it. and the senator services they were primarily demo and the public and of course, gung ho if articles like duncan hunter from california will who, who just want defense budget to grow. like matt and no criticism of the defense department, and democrats were just trying to get money from the pentagon budget and just ship it to that constituency. so either way, there was no kind of supervision of jail didn't have any backing when it came to the pentagon, but other stuff they had a little bit, but they did, did they, they got their lesson said g i, we and republicans were very powerful at one time that taken over congress, i mean the senate and house boat with trans log there and gender is that so it was

impossible for them to do really independent work. so it's a political pressure was number one, they were very afraid. so everything is just go down the middle, go down the middle, you know, he said, the said whatever. and on the one hand, on the other hand, don't say nothing. and that's, that's the political atmosphere where this report was coming out and missile defense you have to know. it is ronald reagan spec program, correct. but he was representing this community of people at los alamos, at livermore, people who have been advocating, getting out of the abm treaty and go against russia 1st strike and all the stuff they didn't want any kind of cut to the missile defense. so that was the, that was the situation being a whistleblower, especially in national security,

can be a very lonely life. but you had some significant support. tell us about that and tell us how the rest of your career has gone. you certainly seem to have landed on your feet. it looks can be deceiving, but i know that i was very careful. you know, 1st of all, i had to be careful for many reasons because i'm, is, i'm one of the 1st scientists engineer whistleblower who's talking about technical issues. not financial. i mean, there's plenty of financial fraud that happens in the pentagon. but people like snowden, of course, reveal fantastic information, but they are not per se, technical. so in and bent, yvonne has this are indeed budget, which is now over 100100100 1000000000 and 20000000000. and under that, the missile defense program fits and this are in the budget, is

a very lucrative gravy train for the contractors. so there are guarding it, you know, tremendously. so i have to be very careful that i was a foreign born and i had very high level security clearance because i was in congress at the committee at the highest level as a professional staff member who is responsible for the r d t. any budget for the democrats at that time because we're only 7 people for the on the minority staff. so i had a huge portfolio that was amounting $54000000000.00 at that time. just kind of take a look at, look at the budget and also make sure that the interest of the democrat members were properly taken care of. so and ron didn't chat about this kind of stuff, but the many other members did. so i had it sensitivity that i was a foreign born person with high security clearance. and i was dealing with very,

very sensitive information because of the, just the politics of these programs against russia, china, whatever. so those are both foreign policy mutations and technical. so i have to be extremely careful that i couldn't just go out there and face things just to get publicity. that's why it was so quiet and i didn't get the kind of appreciation of being a foreign born minority person of color. it wasn't easy to function in a very, very white national security establishment. so it definitely did temper what i could say, what i could do. but i also had a very good relationship, bob bloomfield, congressman berman, chief of staff, bobby's a friend and an he and congressman berman were very careful continuously telling jail that you'd,

you don't take an adversarial or negative steps against mr. grocery. so i think jail didn't dare do that, but they had their ways of making my life quite miserable. i would like to thank our guests who brought a gosh roy and thank you, are viewers for joining us again. the great author, william faulkner once said, never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. if people all over the world would do this, it would change the entire planet, will leave you those words. thanks again for joining us. 2 2 2 2 2 i am rec center and i'm here to plead with you whatever you do not watch,

minute show why watch something that so different opinions that you won't get anywhere else. welcome, please do have the state department of weapons makers, multi 1000000000 dollar corporations, to your fax for you, go ahead, change and whatever you do. don't watch my show stay mainstream because i'm probably going to make you uncomfortable. my show is called direct impact. but again, we don't want to watch it because it might just change. and the way you think the i feel that focused on you are still working through the journey or developing an identity and national identity. various, you know, we talked earlier about the vibrancy, the dynamics of the media were all sorts of use and merit chance have a chance to come to before. but that also has a downside in reaping, is up for debate. nothing is agreed on

with what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have. it's crazy even foundation, let it be an arms race is on often very dramatic, a development only personally, i'm going to resist. i don't see how that strategy will be successful, very particular time time to sit down and talk to her. now i've been been a member. oh no. those are those did you do much really shows him you lose through things to lose

your clue to just the use the way you you if good, let's go to a senior ah and for down the rapids support for the power military group that it's counted 90 percent of the country's military fight, lots of places between the r s s and the sudanese army leave at least 25 people killed. more than 180 wounded. were so terrified right now, and just recently we heard bombing was all, and the sound of screaming some disturbing images. so the deadly off the mouth of fighting in the don as neighboring. tad's unilaterally started down in florida with the country called russia as well as egypt and other arab states called for and

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