Operation Midnight Climax

Dean and Patti relocate to Italy, where Dean emerges as a spaghetti western film star. But after his daughter Ramona is born, he inserts himself back into the political fray in Chile and Argentina, landing him in jail and his marriage in crisis.

Red Elvis is a co-production of iHeart Podcasts and School of Humans and is part of the Curiosity Audio Network. It's based on the Curiosity Stream documentary Red Elvis: The Cold War Cowboy. Check out the doc at https://curiositystream.com

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Dean Reed's Hollywood career was brief, but he became an international superstar during the height of the Cold War, living in Latin America and communist Europe. After going public about wanting to return home to the United States, Dean's life came to a mysterious end. Decades later, his daughter Ramona is determined to find out what really happened to him. Listen to Red Elvis on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-red-elvis-105219647/

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Nicolas Cage weds Lisa Marie Presley, but Memphis beckons for another reason. Another rare Cage comic turns up in the soulful city, leading police to think they’ve finally cracked the case.

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Nicolas Cage’s copy of Action Comics #1 wasn’t the only one stolen. Another was taken just weeks prior to the Cage theft — from the safe of a billionaire. Was it a coincidence, or a rehearsal?

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One of Nicolas Cage’s rare comics turns up in Connecticut, which seems like a slam dunk for investigators. And we meet a renowned (but reformed!) art thief, who explains the true motive behind its appearance.

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Welcome to Stealing Superman, a new iHeart Original podcast hosted by Dana Schwartz.

After a holiday party, Nicolas Cage realizes his cache of rare comics has been ransacked, and Action Comics #1—the Mona Lisa of comics—is missing. With suspects ranging from employees to guests, Cage turns to his trusted comic book dealer for help solving what will shape up to be the most unlikely art heist of all time.

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Sidney Gottlieb thought he’d erased all traces of Operation Midnight Climax and MK-ULTRA from the government’s collective memory. While the world will never know the full extent of the CIA’s experimentation with LSD, an unlikely source revealed many of the victims. These breakthroughs came courtesy of George White, who testified from beyond the grave.

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As the walls closed in on Operation Midnight Climax, George White took lessons he’d learned from a world-class magician to explore the last uncharted frontier of the psychonaut — the general public. It’s how White would make San Francisco’s sanity disappear.

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After Frank Olson’s death in New York, George White had to move his whole operation to San Francisco. And the CIA added a twist: while they’d been occupied with using LSD as a mind-control drug, now they wanted him to weaponize sex.

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For 70 years, people have debated what happened to Frank Olson at the Hotel Statler. Did the CIA’s grand experiment with LSD lead to the sanctioned execution of a government employee? For George White, Frank Olson’s death would change everything.

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