0:01

Campsite

0:03

Media. The

0:08

bench.

0:15

General Noriega's reckless threats

0:17

and attacks upon Americans in Panama.

0:20

And that is why I directed our armed forces

0:22

to protect the lives of American citizens

0:25

in Panama and to bring General

0:27

Noriega to justice in the United States.

0:30

Everything Gary was writing about was in

0:32

Panama and it was really dirty. It

0:34

was about the government

0:37

agencies like the CIA looking

0:40

the other way

0:41

as they shipped cocaine from South America

0:43

and Central America into the United States. And

0:45

the money that Gary was writing about

0:47

was being put in Panamanian banks.

0:49

In 1988, the U.S.

0:51

Drug Enforcement Agency accused Noriega

0:54

of drugs trafficking. I

0:58

tell the North Americans, he says, to stop

1:00

threatening me because I do not fear

1:02

death.

1:09

That's the sound of the U.S. invasion

1:11

of Panama. A sort of baby

1:13

war that really only lasted two weeks. The

1:17

U.S. went in to grab the Panamanian dictator,

1:19

Manuel Noriega, and he hid out

1:21

in the Vatican Embassy, which the

1:24

U.S. military then surrounded, blasting

1:26

it with rock music in order to get the strongman

1:28

to surrender. It was the first

1:30

use of weaponized rock music in war.

1:33

Add in the CIA's alleged involvement in

1:35

money laundering, crooked banks, the role of

1:37

drug cartels, and, well,

1:39

the situation in Panama really was

1:42

fertile ground for a movie script.

1:48

Wendy

1:52

has a hard copy of the earliest draft of The

1:54

Big Steel,

1:55

the one that Gary wrote in the months before his disappearance.

1:58

At his office desk in the early 90s,

1:59

Montecito Beach House. Here's

2:02

a voice actor reading from Gary's script. It

2:05

begins like this. The

2:07

streets are jammed with raucous, passionate

2:09

demonstrators. A flatbed

2:12

truck carrying a live Panamanian

2:14

band rolls through the crowd. This

2:17

is where the tambourine music comes from. Banners

2:20

boldly proclaim Viva Panama

2:23

and Viva Nourieta. To

2:28

be clear, this is not the final version of Gary's

2:30

script that disappeared with his laptop, which

2:32

was with him in the SUV on the drive

2:34

back from New Mexico. But already

2:37

in this earlier draft, Panama and

2:39

the politics of the invasion are front and center.

2:42

Street conversation is heated. The

2:44

atmosphere is dangerous. A

2:46

mob of men march down the center

2:49

of the street, forcing traffic to the sides,

2:52

carrying pro-Nourieta banners

2:54

and placards with the Panamanian leader's

2:57

enlarged photo.

2:57

They are hollered by

3:00

supporters and detractors alike. It's

3:02

a volatile crime. This

3:06

was the environment Gary hoped to bring alive

3:08

when he took on the remake of The Big Steel. It

3:11

was the producers who came up with the idea of setting

3:13

the fictional story amid real events of the

3:16

US invasion. One

3:18

of the producers we spoke to, even today,

3:20

requested we not use his name or voice. He

3:23

said it was truly painful losing Gary and

3:25

he wants to keep those events in the past. But

3:28

he did expand upon their interest and investment

3:30

in exploring real events in Panama. So

3:33

this is what he told us, as voiced by

3:36

an actor. We were embellishing

3:38

on the fictionalized nature of what was going on with

3:40

Panama, because Panama was accessible

3:43

of all kinds of amphibious shit, on

3:45

a global scale. This is all against

3:47

the background of the canal being turned

3:49

back to the Panamanians. About America

3:51

dealing with Noriega, who was a narco-terrorist,

3:55

and the CIA having dirty

3:57

hands in all of South America and Central

3:59

America.

4:04

If Gary Dvor really was quote, embellishing

4:06

on the fictional story with true tales of

4:08

quote, insidious shit that America

4:11

and the CIA got involved with in Panama,

4:14

who were his sources? Who was

4:16

Gary's guide into this dark, dangerous underworld?

4:19

Gary wrote a script on Panama. He

4:22

should never have written it. It did

4:25

have classified information,

4:28

which she couldn't have gotten ahold of any

4:30

other way, except for having been able to get to

4:32

classified information. Okay? I

4:36

mean, I can put all the dots together because

4:38

I was there.

4:43

From Campsite Media and Sony Music

4:45

Entertainment, you're listening to Witnessed

4:47

Fade to Black, Episode 3,

4:50

Panama. I'm Josh

4:52

Dean.

5:07

As much as anyone who just shows up in Hollywood,

5:09

Gary was risking everything for his chance to

5:11

write and direct The Big Steel. For

5:14

Gary, basing the adaptation of The Big Steel

5:16

on real events dovetailed with his long-held

5:19

desire to write something meaningful.

5:21

He agreed to do it for scale as

5:23

long as he could direct it. He'd wanted to direct

5:26

for a long time. And he used to think about

5:28

it all the time. I mean, it was when

5:31

I'm directing this, when I'm directing that.

5:33

Like a lot of screenwriters who appear successful, Gary

5:36

wasn't necessarily happy.

5:38

By the time he met Wendy, he had a career that

5:40

others envied. But it wasn't

5:43

exactly the career that he wanted. When

5:49

producer Julia Phillips wrote about Gary Devore

5:51

and her tell-all, You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town

5:54

Again, she writes about the two of them

5:56

meeting with actress Kathleen Turner, then

5:58

a major star.

5:59

Gary and Julia were trying to recruit the star

6:02

for a script of Gary's that had a powerful message,

6:04

one he cared about deeply. But

6:07

first, they had to overcome the soul-crushing

6:09

ambiance of La Dome, then a hot

6:12

restaurant in Hollywood. Here's our

6:14

producer, Megan Donnis, reading from Julia's book.

6:17

We pick La Dome as a place to have

6:19

dinner because it's infinitely more

6:21

low profile than Spaga

6:24

or Mortensen. Lots

6:26

of Eurotrash and rock and roll here at night.

6:28

Besides,

6:28

the food is better. Gary

6:31

and I come early so I would get my regular

6:33

chair at my regular table, back

6:36

to the wall surveying all that

6:38

passes before me. It's the outfits

6:41

and the surgery I love to see. Bad

6:44

taste, round, pointy

6:46

breasts and tight faces.

6:51

As the first woman to win a producing Oscar, Julia

6:54

Phillips was a powerhouse. Foul-mouthed,

6:57

acerbic, brilliant. And

6:59

Gary had come along as her wingman to woo-turn

7:02

her into the deal.

7:03

Julia continues. Kathleen

7:06

is a big star

7:07

right now and she's out here to talk

7:09

to all of the studios. She

7:11

goes to meetings and they say, what

7:13

would you like to do next? And she says,

7:15

wish

7:15

you were here. That was the script

7:18

Gary wrote, an anti-war film with

7:20

a strong female lead, which is why Kathleen

7:22

wanted the role.

7:23

She is committed to this incredible

7:26

script of Gary's called Wish You Were Here,

7:28

a Vietnam horror story

7:30

featuring a photojournalist and

7:32

a 13-year-old kid searching for his

7:35

M.I.A. father. The woman

7:37

in the story, the photojournalist, has lost

7:39

all control of her life in the horror

7:42

that is Vietnam.

7:43

But Phillips rails that the studios are gutless.

7:46

They're afraid of a film that's too difficult, a

7:48

war movie with a female lead that also serves

7:51

up a harsh critique of U.S. policies.

7:56

about

8:00

the war. It's not a popular concept

8:02

in Hollywood

8:03

that has no more art, only

8:05

commerce.

8:11

It didn't work out with Wish You Were Here, but

8:13

that's precisely what Gary was trying to do with

8:15

The Big Steel. Make a movie

8:18

that people would talk about, because it had something

8:20

to say about the U.S. government and its policies.

8:23

Up through his work on The Big Steel,

8:25

Gary had felt trapped in his career doing

8:27

rewrites, in part because he was

8:29

so good at it. But he didn't

8:31

fight his way into Hollywood just to fix

8:34

other people's movies. Here's

8:36

Wendy and Gary's friend, TV writer Phil

8:38

Combest.

8:39

You know, he was thought of in

8:42

town as a

8:45

really good rewrite guy on an

8:48

action film. That really bothered

8:50

him. And he got paid a lot of money, and he

8:53

was happy about that. But

8:55

he was a little bit

8:57

of a frustrated

9:00

writer in the sense that he

9:02

had been put into that niche in Hollywood

9:05

of being able to write

9:07

action movies with humor really

9:10

well.

9:10

Action movies with humor paid well, but

9:13

they didn't satisfy Gary on any soulful

9:15

level. Now he

9:18

finally had his dream job, adapting The

9:20

Big Steel and directing it too.

9:23

The original was billed as a tough, terrific adventure

9:25

that unfolds in the wilds of Mexico. The

9:28

plot revolves around military vets pulling

9:30

off a payroll heist. Gary's

9:33

marching orders from producers were to set the remake

9:35

in Panama during the, quote,

9:37

small war America had recently fought

9:40

to Al Snorega. General

9:47

Snorega had long been a CIA asset

9:50

who'd actually received training in the United States. What

9:53

made this war a wee bit awkward was that

9:55

before he was president of the United States, George

9:58

Herbert Walker Bush, was director

10:00

of the CIA. And in that

10:03

capacity, he'd been friendly with Noriega.

10:06

In fact, he protected Noriega

10:08

from a corruption investigation by the United States

10:10

government. In return

10:12

for US support, Noriega let the CIA

10:15

use his banks in Panama to launder money

10:17

for secret operations in Latin America,

10:19

countries where the US and the Soviet Union were

10:22

jockeying for control during the Cold War.

10:25

The problem was that General Noriega provided the

10:27

same money laundering services to less

10:29

savory characters too. For

10:31

instance, to international drug dealers like

10:34

Pablo Escobar. Noriega

10:36

just pushed his luck. And

10:38

just before Christmas, 1989, his former protector and

10:42

friend, President Bush, accused

10:45

him of betraying America's trust. And

10:48

then he went a step further. Bush

10:51

moved to Als Noriega. But

10:54

Gary's script puts a different spin on

10:56

America's motive. And it wasn't about

10:58

justice nor to protect the

11:00

lives of American citizens. At

11:02

least this is what we understand to have been in

11:05

later versions of the script. When

11:07

Gary left for Santa Fe to make final revisions

11:09

to his screenplay, he owned two computers, the

11:12

desktop in his office at home, and the

11:14

laptop that he brought with him. The

11:17

laptop contained Gary's latest revisions

11:19

of the Big Steel. But Wendy

11:21

did find two printouts of earlier

11:24

versions in Gary's office. One

11:26

was a 51-page version. It

11:28

ends in the middle of Act II. This early

11:31

version faithfully takes the original story

11:33

of the army payroll heist and moves it to Panama.

11:36

In this draft, Gary does include some

11:38

choice lines mocking the politics behind

11:41

America's invasion. As when the

11:43

female lead, Keely, asks, You

11:45

really

11:45

think we'd invade Panama just to grab

11:47

Noriega? To protect this fragile

11:50

democracy, we'd smoke the whole country.

11:53

Gary's affection for writing strong women comes

11:55

through in Keely. Who at every turn has a

11:57

comeback. When told she cannot do

11:59

so.

11:59

something, Keely snaps. Can not

12:02

is a morally degenerate word. In

12:05

this first draft, the details of the heist are vague

12:07

and generic, and there's absolutely no mention

12:09

of the CIA anywhere.

12:12

Wendy and Gary's friend Phil Combest, who wrote

12:14

numerous crime scripts for shows like Magnum

12:16

PI, points out that

12:18

a lack of detail is often by design in

12:20

scripts for film and TV.

12:22

Before the internet, back when I would

12:24

research the script, 90% of

12:28

the time I would go to the children's section

12:30

of the library and check a book out on

12:32

trains or explosions. And

12:36

that's what she could include in a movie. That's

12:40

simple. Otherwise, you lose the people.

12:43

Before Gary disappeared, when he started

12:45

telling people his script would include real

12:48

details of embarrassing, illegal CIA

12:50

actions in Panama, Phil was dubious

12:53

for another reason.

12:54

Seriously, the CIA involvement at Panama

12:56

is pretty much his spokes. I don't

12:59

know what he could have discovered.

13:01

Despite his skepticism, it wasn't like Phil

13:03

could dismiss Gary's enthusiasm either.

13:06

Gary was good. Gary was

13:08

a very good writer and he's a very smart

13:10

guy. Maybe he would bounce

13:12

an angle that nobody had seen before

13:15

and that was what was going to work. That

13:18

he had a totally fresh angle. I don't know.

13:21

Phil's on speakerphone here with Wendy when he remembers

13:23

another detail. A trip Gary made

13:26

about three months before he disappeared.

13:28

Remember when Gary went to

13:30

Miami, we didn't really

13:32

know about it and he supposedly met with

13:34

somebody there. That's right. He

13:37

was very evasive about why he was...

13:39

Yes, and I think when he... In fact, didn't even

13:41

know about it at first. And I never thought

13:43

about it the entire time that

13:46

I knew Gary. That

13:48

he would like... What

13:50

are you working on now, man? Oh, I'm doing something

13:53

about Panama. And

13:55

that was it. He changed the set.

13:57

He's clearly in one.

14:01

Eventually, Phil did get Gary to speak.

14:03

I said, Hey, how was Miami? And he was,

14:06

uh, he didn't deny

14:08

it or anything. He just said, Oh man, it was hot

14:10

down there.

14:14

Wendy later used a private detective to

14:17

retrace Gary's trip, but could never

14:19

determine who he met with in Miami. But

14:22

shortly before that trip, Gary had sent

14:24

a fax to producers. This

14:26

is the second important document that Wendy

14:28

found when she searched Gary's office. She

14:31

showed it to us. Gary

14:33

sent the fax a little after 10 a.m. on

14:35

February 14th, Valentine's Day.

14:38

It's 19 pages long, typed in 11 point

14:41

font, single spaced with 49 individually numbered

14:44

paragraphs that re-break the first

14:46

two acts of the script. The note attached

14:49

to it reads, Here's the revised

14:51

first act in the first pass of the second

14:53

act. There are a couple of things that don't work

14:55

in the remake that we liked in the original. The

14:58

money stolen in this version is not U.S. Army

15:00

payroll. It's a Panamanian bank. And

15:03

now the American protagonists in Gary's

15:05

version are using the U.S. invasion as cover

15:07

to rob from the Panamanians, not the

15:10

army. Gary's revised treatment

15:12

is also filled with details that seem to have come

15:14

from sources who were there on the ground. For

15:17

instance, Gary's characters now have knowledge

15:19

of U.S. intelligence operations during the war.

15:22

In his new outline, the characters have lines

15:25

like, After the invasion, there need

15:27

to be men in position to

15:29

report any persistent pockets of pro-Noryega

15:31

political or military resistance.

15:35

The U.S. has a number of intelligence

15:37

operatives scattered around the country to keep information

15:40

flowing back to South Kong. That's

15:43

a reference to the U.S. command that actually

15:45

did control the war. And now,

15:48

in the revised treatment,

15:49

the bank that's being robbed has more specificity,

15:52

too. It's the Panamanian

15:54

Bank of Nations. And

15:56

the sum of money that the Americans are after now is

15:58

also highly specific. 53 million.

16:09

In this treatment, Halliday the male lead

16:12

tells Keely, I'm

16:14

on a four man army intelligence

16:16

team, and I'm going to rob the bank

16:18

and count the state money belonging to Noriega and

16:20

the cartels.

16:22

It's the first time Gary ties the money in the Panamanian

16:25

bank to drug cartels and Noriega.

16:28

Then on page 12 of Gary's treatment, he writes,

16:31

Graham wants to know who they are, guys

16:34

who used to work for the government.

16:36

In intelligence circles, guys who used to

16:38

work for the government is often euphemism

16:41

for CIA officers. On

16:43

the next page, Gary writes that the men robbing

16:45

the bank in his script are, quote, CIA

16:48

agents. The treatment

16:50

stops at Act 2, and by the end it's clear

16:52

that Gary's big change to the story is that

16:55

he was switching it from soldiers who were stealing an army

16:57

payroll to rogue CIA

16:59

officers robbing cartel drug money from the

17:01

bank. What

17:06

made this new information so explosive to Gary

17:09

is that he seemed to believe it was true, that

17:12

his script would reveal a real story

17:14

of an actual heist done by CIA

17:17

officers. This

17:19

is what it seems Gary meant when he told people

17:21

his script would blow the lid off the CIA.

17:25

The question is,

17:26

who was Gary's source for this inside information

17:29

on a squad of rogue CIA bank robbers?

17:35

One of the things Wendy found and handed over to

17:37

the authorities was Gary's handwritten daybook

17:39

planner. In a 1998 LA Times

17:42

article called Without a Trace, the

17:45

reporter describes that in Gary's day planner,

17:47

Dvorak written down Chase Brandon's name and

17:49

phone number frequently in the final weeks

17:51

before he disappeared. And

17:53

on May 6, 1997, the

17:56

month before he vanished, Gary

17:58

wrote a more detailed entry. seemingly

18:00

based on information that someone inside the CIA

18:02

could have been providing him.

18:04

Undersecretary for International

18:06

Narcotics Makers.

18:09

Chase. Crime

18:11

and Narcotics Center.

18:13

CNC. Largest

18:15

center in CIA. Espionage

18:19

agents work with local police, government,

18:21

etc. Do cover work on

18:23

problems locals won't handle. Airfields.

18:27

Burn labs. Fuel storage.

18:30

The LA Times article reports one more strange

18:32

thing. An entry where Gary had

18:34

written Chase Brandon's full name then

18:37

scratched out his last name. As if

18:39

he were hiding traces of the man's existence

18:41

in his own private day planner. To

18:44

Wendy, this all begged the question.

18:47

Who the hell was Chase Brandon? And

18:49

why was he in her husband's love? What

18:56

is the story of the crime?

19:03

There's a mystery on the Caribbean

19:05

island of Grenada. So I just want to ask

19:08

to be clear. Did you

19:10

ever see the body of Maurice Bishop?

19:12

No. You're sure? Absolutely. 40 years

19:15

ago the remains of the Prime Minister

19:17

went missing. And we've

19:19

been trying to figure out what happened. I

19:22

can tell you in my words this thing

19:24

stinks. I'm Martine

19:26

Powers with The Washington Post. The empty

19:28

grave of Comrade Bishop is out now.

19:31

Follow and listen wherever you get your podcasts. Why

19:34

hello there. Welcome to Radio Rental.

19:37

If you're new around here and haven't heard, I'm

19:39

your host, Terry Carnation.

19:42

On Radio Rental, we play tapes

19:44

of the scariest true stories you've

19:47

ever heard. That's right, we've got

19:49

real scary stories told

19:51

by the people that actually experienced

19:54

them. We've got stories of paranormal

19:56

Paris, near-death experiences, stickers

19:59

and mistakes.

19:59

FaceTime continuum and more.

20:02

Stories like these. This

20:05

person was looking for me. They start

20:08

to take these long strides towards me.

20:10

I was freaking out. We started

20:13

seeing it everywhere we went. It

20:15

would be sitting there watching us. I've

20:17

never ran so fast in my life.

20:20

And it's all set right here at Radio

20:23

Rental, the video rental shop of

20:25

your voice in my mouth. Radio

20:28

Rental is available now. Listen one

20:29

week early and add free on Tenderfoot

20:32

Plus.

20:36

You are a loser. Losing

20:38

is your business. It's what

20:41

you do best. I've

20:43

won a lot of fights. Really? You've

20:45

been on your back more than I have.

20:49

That's Sally Field and Tommy Lee Jones

20:51

in a classic Gary divorce scene from Backroads,

20:54

a 1981 film that few have probably

20:56

seen, and few probably will. Because

20:59

it's not a great movie. It

21:04

shouldn't have been that way. Backroads

21:07

began with an acclaimed original screenplay by

21:09

Gary Davor. It's one that he wrote in

21:11

his 30s after he'd quit Hollywood and was living

21:13

with his wife, Maria Cole, in a farmhouse

21:15

in Massachusetts. Gary

21:18

developed it from an original idea. And when he

21:20

returned to Hollywood in the late 70s after his

21:22

marriage to Maria had ended, the script

21:24

became a sensation in the film industry. Gary

21:29

sold it to Martin Ritt, one of the great directors

21:31

of the 20th century, and Sally Field,

21:34

who'd just won an Oscar, signed on to star.

21:37

But Backroads became one of those films with all

21:39

the right ingredients that just never gelled.

21:42

And failure of this film would help set Gary

21:45

on the path to becoming the rewrite king

21:47

for action films. But Backroads

21:50

also serves as a compelling example of

21:52

how the CIA can crop up anywhere

21:54

in a person's life. It was

21:56

on this film that Gary first met CIA

21:59

officer. Chase Brandon. Gary's

22:02

best friend, David Deben, tells the story

22:05

of visiting the set in Alabama in 1980. They

22:08

were shooting in Mobile. And

22:10

I came down just

22:12

to see how it was going. Calfs were staying

22:15

at the hotel, and there's a pool there.

22:18

It was common for Gary to bro out with his

22:20

male leads, like Arnold Schwarzenegger

22:22

and Jean-Claude Van Damme. And he was heading

22:24

that way with Tommy Lee Jones on back roads

22:27

until, at some point, Gary

22:30

and Tommy Lee got into some kind of an argument

22:33

about something. I mean, just out of the

22:35

blue, you know, one of those arguments

22:37

that just snaps, and some people are

22:40

more ready to have them than others. And

22:43

the two of them left the pool area

22:45

and proceeded to have a fist fight. In

22:53

old cowboy movies, when two macho guys meet,

22:55

they always have this big swinging fist fight

22:58

and then become best friends. According

23:00

to Deben, that's exactly what happened to Tommy

23:02

and Gary.

23:11

And when Tommy Lee Jones had an onset romance

23:13

that ended with a wedding after final wrap, cast

23:16

and crew were invited. Tommy asked

23:18

two men to stand up for him at his wedding, Gary

23:21

DeVore,

23:22

and Tommy's cousin,

23:24

a CIA officer named Chase Brandon.

23:27

And that's how Gary met Chase.

23:29

The same guy who later showed up at Wendy's

23:32

house in the days after Gary vanished.

23:35

In the CIA's

23:36

clandestine service, he lived undercover

23:38

for 25 years, retired from

23:41

covert assignments back in 2006. He

23:44

continued to consult with several intelligence

23:46

community agencies, the Department of

23:48

Defense, and numerous state and federal law enforcement

23:51

organizations. In his final assignment,

23:54

Brandon was a senior staff officer

23:56

for the director of the CIA, serving

23:58

as agency spokesperson. and the CIA's

24:01

official liaison to the entertainment

24:03

industry, where he is back on Coast to

24:05

Coast. Chase, how are you? Hey, good morning,

24:07

George. How are you?

24:09

That's Chase Brandon appearing on Coast to Coast,

24:11

a syndicated radio show that airs in the

24:13

wee hours. It's basically this

24:16

conspiracy theory love fest.

24:18

In 2012, sandwiched between

24:20

alien abductions and paranormal

24:23

paranoia content, Chase opened

24:25

up to host George Norrie about his work

24:27

in the agency.

24:28

After my 25 years in the

24:30

plan, that's the purpose of this, given an opportunity

24:33

to be the first ever overt spokesman

24:35

for the overt trial of the agency.

24:37

Chase Brandon is referring to the job he took

24:40

in 1996 as the CIA's first, quote,

24:43

Hollywood liaison officer. This

24:46

interview is the first time he'd spoken in depth about this

24:48

particular job, which he held as a CIA from 1996 to 2006

24:50

when he retired.

24:56

So 1996, the same year that Gary

24:58

began work on the Big Steel, was the same

25:00

year Chase opened the liaison office

25:02

for the CIA in Hollywood. As

25:05

Chase explains it in this interview, the

25:07

agency felt mistreated by Hollywood.

25:15

We always find

25:18

the category that

25:20

was once described

25:21

as, yeah, CIA

25:23

is an

25:24

organization that's known

25:26

by its flaws.

25:29

Specifically, Chase and the CIA

25:31

were ticked off at the media.

25:33

Newspapers or news

25:35

programs excoriate,

25:38

vilify the mission of the organization,

25:40

accusing them of doing all kinds of conspiratorial

25:43

Machiavellian things that

25:45

are directed against somehow Americans

25:48

and American interests and feature

25:51

films and TV programs and

25:53

other entertainment industry

25:56

products that were invariable

25:58

as they'll always been.

25:59

CIA in one of

26:02

two forms, either a bunch of

26:04

bungling Cluso cops

26:07

or an outright ugly,

26:11

you know, corrupt traders

26:13

and rogue operatives, as they're always

26:15

called. And his job as liaison

26:17

was to try and reverse that image and instead

26:20

show... The heroism, the dedication,

26:22

the loyalty, the patriotism risks

26:25

that many of our officers are supposed

26:27

to be in the clandestine service, like all

26:30

the tragedy and the

26:32

pain of losing even

26:35

one. This

26:43

would be Chase's official job in the agency

26:45

for the remainder of his career, where

26:47

he would have an enormous impact on American

26:49

film and TV through a series of agreements made

26:52

with producers and writers, a steamy

26:54

creative relationship that we'll thoroughly unpack

26:57

later in the series. What's

26:59

significant about Gary's work on The Big Steel

27:01

is that it was set in Panama, a geopolitical

27:04

hotspot where Chase had also likely

27:06

worked, at least according to a profile

27:09

by British researcher Tom Seker, who

27:11

has written about the CIA's influence in Hollywood.

27:14

What we can put together from his website and

27:16

other sources is that he worked

27:18

in black operations for many years. He definitely

27:21

served in Latin America, as he would have been

27:23

around during Operation Condor, the

27:26

overthrow of Salvador Allende and his replacement

27:28

with General Pinochet,

27:30

and the CIA instigated civil wars

27:33

in El Salvador and Nicaragua,

27:35

and possibly Honduras and Panama.

27:37

In his interview with George Norrie, Chase speaks enthusiastically

27:40

about the work of the agency.

27:42

The mission of the agency itself

27:44

is comprehensive and

27:47

of extraordinary importance. The

27:49

middle name of the organization

27:52

for Pete's sake is intelligence.

27:55

I knew the heroism, the dedication,

27:58

the loyalty, the patriotism. the risks

28:01

that many of our officers, especially in the clandestine

28:04

service, hate.

28:06

But Chase is far less forthcoming about

28:08

what he actually did while serving in the clandestine

28:10

branch. This

28:15

is the most secret side of the agency, where

28:18

its officers serve on the ground and

28:20

at times really do carry out the kind

28:22

of violent missions that are the stuff of Hollywood

28:24

film fantasies. Chase

28:26

not only served on the action side of the agency,

28:29

in the early 80s he was assigned to Latin America,

28:32

then the hotspot of American diplomacy, where

28:35

President Reagan had made his covert anti-communist

28:38

wars a signature of his foreign policy.

28:41

When Gary met Chase at Tommy Lee Jones' wedding, it

28:44

must have seemed like an incredible stroke of good luck.

28:47

Gary had recently been hired to work on John Irvin's

28:49

espionage thriller, Dogs of War, and

28:52

here was Chase, a living, breathing,

28:54

covert CIA officer. What

28:57

a resource for a guy like Gary. And

29:00

to Chase, Gary was probably an even bigger

29:02

find than having his famous movie star cousin

29:05

Tommy Lee Jones. As we'll explain

29:07

further down, the whole point of the CIA's

29:09

Hollywood liaison office was to cultivate

29:12

relationships with writers, for

29:14

the agency to get into their minds in the story process

29:17

and influence their portrayals of the CIA

29:19

from the inception of their screen plays. And

29:22

in Gary, Chase appears to have met and befriended

29:25

his very first Hollywood screenwriter. Gary

29:28

and Chase had already been friends for more than 15

29:30

years when Gary vanished. Yet

29:32

it was only then that Wendy began to piece together

29:35

the barest details of who this man was

29:37

to Gary.

29:38

And what he'd been doing in his life.

29:48

It's 2011 and

29:50

the air of spring is raging.

29:52

A lesbian activist in Syria

29:55

starts a blog. She names

29:57

it Gay Girl in Damascus.

30:00

Am I crazy?

30:01

Maybe. As her profile

30:03

grows, so does the danger. The

30:06

object of the email was, please

30:08

read this while sitting down.

30:10

It's like a genie came out of the bottle and

30:12

you can't put it back. Gay

30:14

Girl Gone. Available

30:16

now.

30:18

What are the objects that

30:20

define espionage? Right

30:22

now in my hand is a pen with a hidden

30:25

microphone. So you've got a compass

30:27

that is concealed inside one of the

30:29

buttons on your jacket. Maybe the

30:32

Germans won't

30:33

find it. We're opening the

30:36

archive and diving deep into

30:38

their iconic designs.

30:39

Enigma is one of the most famous

30:42

code machines of all time.

30:45

I'm Alice Lockston, and this

30:47

is A History of the World

30:50

in Spy Objects. A new

30:52

series from Spyscape Studios.

30:55

Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

30:59

I mean, my memory

31:01

of Chase Brandon is Gary

31:03

said to

31:03

me, when I was doing Backroads,

31:07

Tommy Lee Jones' first cousin, his

31:09

name is Chase Brandon, came to

31:11

the set, and we hung around

31:13

a lot together, etc., etc.

31:16

After that first visit with Wendy, where

31:18

Wendy thought Chase feigned emotion,

31:21

she came to feel bitter.

31:22

He didn't come to say, oh, Wendy,

31:24

I'm so sorry. Okay?

31:26

He came in to go through Gary's

31:29

computer. That's why he came.

31:31

But at the same time, Wendy felt some optimism that

31:34

the CIA, the US government,

31:36

was in her house, helping.

31:38

I also had this tiny

31:41

little bit of hope

31:43

that they would actually tell me if they found

31:45

something.

31:47

I wasn't sure, but I was hoping.

31:50

Then, that evening at dinner, when she and

31:52

Gary's friends realized that Chase Brandon might

31:54

have hacked into Gary's desktop computer,

31:57

maybe in order to snatch his last draft of the Big

31:59

Steel. It brought them quickly to the

32:01

primal question. What did

32:04

they, Gary's closest friends, actually

32:06

know about this guy? Gary's

32:09

friend Phil Combest recalled that it was very

32:11

little. It

32:12

was around the house two or three times.

32:15

Oh yeah, he was there, I met him a couple

32:17

times, at least maybe three times. And

32:20

it was, you know, you don't pay

32:22

any attention to stuff going through

32:24

the house.

32:25

It was Phil who first remembered Gary telling

32:27

him that Chase was somehow related to Tommy Lee

32:29

Jones. I guess it was his cousin

32:32

or something. That had

32:34

been an opportunity. For Gary's oldest

32:36

friend, David Debon, he didn't need a lot

32:38

of facts. It was simple.

32:40

Well, I thought that there was something fishy

32:43

about Chase Brandon.

32:44

But David Debon did have a memory of Gary

32:46

and Chase Brandon going back nearly a decade

32:49

to the 1980s when he and Gary were working

32:52

on a TV movie together. In

32:58

those days, Debon admits,

33:00

Gary had issues with road rage. Gary

33:03

always drove with a baseball bat under

33:05

his seat. Under

33:08

the seat of his yellow Corvette. Gary

33:11

had a traffic

33:13

fight on the Hollywood freeway with

33:16

some guy driving a Porsche

33:19

and he got into a pissing contest

33:21

with this guy back and forth on

33:24

the freeway. And

33:26

the guy finally just, you know,

33:29

followed me. So, you know,

33:32

macho stuff. And

33:35

Gary got out and strode

33:37

to the guy's car because the

33:39

guy was in front of him, and

33:41

with the baseball bat and

33:44

brandished it in a very

33:46

threatening way. And now this guy

33:49

was filing charges against Gary. He's

33:51

being charged with threatening with a deadly weapon.

33:53

And Gary was really uptight

33:56

about what's going to happen as a result

33:58

of this confrontation.

33:59

It was a major problem. On

34:02

films, movie stars, the director,

34:04

producers, and the writer are

34:07

subject to morals clauses and other

34:09

good behavior provisions that are required

34:11

by the production insurance. Gary

34:14

was terrified that a felony assault charge would potentially

34:16

make him uninsurable for work on films.

34:20

So,

34:21

now I'm going to have to cut to several months later.

34:23

David is visiting Gary's house one day, and

34:26

the phone rings. He remembers,

34:28

Gary

34:30

going into the

34:32

bedroom

34:34

and coming out with a big

34:37

smile with a look of freedom on his

34:39

face and telling me, no

34:44

more trouble with that guy with the Porsche.

34:47

No more trouble. And

34:49

he said, it's all taken

34:51

care of. I had no

34:53

way of knowing what had happened when

34:56

he went into the bedroom and had a phone

34:58

call. David had some thoughts. He

35:00

knew somebody in the police department that

35:03

would get him off of that or some

35:05

politician.

35:06

But David had never known Gary to be friendly

35:08

with high-ranking LAPD officials or

35:11

politicians, whom Gary tended

35:13

to view as slimeballs.

35:15

Even back then, Gary had begun to tell David

35:18

about another friend of his. Like

35:20

any good clandestine

35:21

character, Chase Brandon seemed

35:24

to have quietly, randomly,

35:40

and

35:45

covertly infiltrated Gary's life. This

35:48

was a phase all of Gary's friends could remember.

35:51

But no one knew what he actually had been doing with

35:53

Gary all those years.

35:55

I thought it was bizarre.

35:58

And I actually, at one point, Tried

36:00

to convince myself for in a moment

36:02

that

36:04

The way they must have known

36:05

each other's because Gary must have been writing something

36:07

and needed some expert advice I mean writers

36:10

reach out like that

36:11

I mean, I didn't think it was

36:13

anything more

36:15

than that

36:16

and yet unpacking everything they knew The

36:18

nature of their friendship remained a puzzle

36:22

Here's Phil combust again. There

36:23

were little Matterings with

36:25

CIA stuff around Gary all the time.

36:28

I mean he gave me a CIA coin

36:30

for God's sakes, you know and for

36:34

this to happen, it's so much the

36:36

trappings of What

36:40

else could it be I guess is the best way to

36:42

pull

36:43

by CIA coin Phil is referring

36:45

to a commemorative or Challenge coin

36:48

like a poker chip the CIA bases

36:50

produced for those who serve on them To

36:52

be given his little tokens to their trusted friends

36:55

and Gary had one that he showed to Phil sometime

36:58

in the early 90s Chase

37:00

Brandon never did speak to Wendy about the specifics

37:03

of his relationship with Gary Nor

37:05

would he cooperate with the investigators she hired?

37:07

He supposedly later gave

37:09

one interview to the FBI, but

37:12

if a record of that exists, it's never been

37:14

released Therefore

37:16

Wendy was surprised months later to open

37:18

the LA Times and see Chase Brandon's

37:20

name in a major feature on Gary's disappearance

37:24

The article without a trace ran on June 29

37:26

1998 a year after Gary's disappearance

37:30

In The

37:42

first part of the interview Chase Brandon confirms

37:44

that he's the cousin of Tommy Lee Jones and

37:46

then he met Gary after the production of back roads

37:50

As for his career in the agency Chase acknowledges

37:52

having worked generally in Latin America

37:55

and having recently become Hollywood liaison

37:57

for the CIA Which is interview

38:00

describes as being a kind of public

38:02

affairs officer. As

38:04

for advising Gary on his screenplay, Chase

38:06

recalled this to the LA Times. I

38:09

remember talking to Gary about

38:11

a lot of elements of Panama and

38:13

Noriega's regime and the drug

38:16

money that Noriega was alleged to have

38:18

had stashed in safes in his

38:20

offices. As Chase says, he knew

38:23

the plot of the big steel involved. Money

38:25

that, in divorce script, soldiers

38:28

stumble across in steel. Where

38:31

Gary had left behind the outline, which described

38:33

a bank heist by rogue CIA officers,

38:36

Chase told the LA Times that he and Gary had discussed

38:38

the CIA's efforts to help with law

38:40

enforcement in Panama, not break

38:42

the laws, saying, quote,

38:45

I may have mentioned a couple things about

38:47

the agency's role in providing

38:50

increased US intelligence efforts to

38:52

provide support to US law enforcement.

38:55

And then an unexpected personal reflection,

38:58

where Chase describes Gary's emotional state

39:01

before his disappearance. Gary was

39:03

very happy. He had reached a point

39:05

where he was about to direct a movie. He was

39:08

excited about that. The guy had

39:10

the whirl by the coattails. His

39:12

disappearance and probable death is

39:15

just a horrible, horrible thing to

39:17

come to terms with. It's

39:19

near the end where Chase's interview really

39:21

goes off the rails. He just volunteers

39:24

something truly unexpected. But

39:26

I think, in my own sense of what

39:28

logically happened to Gary, is

39:31

that he was driving this new, high-profile,

39:34

flashy Ford Explorer with all

39:36

the package options on it. And

39:38

that is a vehicle that law enforcement people

39:40

will tell you is a highly sought-after

39:43

car for carjackers. My

39:45

sense was Gary was one of those

39:47

people who met a horrible, tragic

39:50

quark of fate. There

39:57

was a by

40:00

this. Why was Chase Brandon,

40:03

an official CIA representative, telling

40:05

the LA Times that Gary was dead

40:08

and suggesting to authorities that it was time to move

40:11

on from their search and investigations?

40:13

When things started to fall into

40:15

place that

40:16

I had no idea about, it started

40:19

to make more sense that Chase had been around.

40:21

And

40:23

how can I put this?

40:25

He was around without being helpful.

40:28

And a person with his background,

40:30

you would think,

40:32

would have been very helpful.

40:35

Unless they were not supposed to be.

40:38

As Wendy and Gary's friends pooled what information

40:40

they had, it became clear to them that

40:42

Chase seemed to be Gary's main source in

40:45

the CIA. Now those

40:47

friends began to wonder if Gary had maybe

40:49

been playing with fire all

40:51

along.

40:53

So it's a little weird because this

40:55

thing with the CIA, you

40:59

don't want to get involved with those people.

41:01

You don't want to get involved in a negative

41:04

way where they're not happy with

41:06

something you've done. And that

41:09

was with Gary. He

41:11

didn't care. He

41:13

challenged anybody. When Gary got

41:15

into something, he just put

41:18

his arms around it and he did it

41:21

and he worked it until

41:23

nobody could breathe anymore.

41:30

Next time on Shade the Black. A

41:33

fucking camera in the back of the damn

41:35

restaurant that he snuck in at

41:37

that Denny's in the parking lot was broken.

41:40

Had we been able to look and

41:42

see if he was taken and in another

41:44

car?

41:50

Have you ever thought about

41:52

whose job it is to pursue fugitives,

41:54

hunt child abductors, or recover human

41:56

remains?

41:56

I'm investigative journalist

41:59

Gilead D'Ambra.

42:00

And on my show Dark Arenas, you'll hear

42:02

first-hand accounts from those who have chosen

42:04

careers that enter some of the most dangerous

42:07

spaces, the impacts of

42:08

these jobs, and most importantly,

42:10

why people stick with them day

42:13

after day. Listen to Dark Arenas

42:15

now, wherever you listen to podcasts.

42:19

This

42:26

is Fade to Black is a production of Campside

42:28

Media

42:28

and Sony Music Entertainment, in

42:31

association with Stowaway Entertainment. The

42:34

series was co-created, written, and reported

42:36

by Evan Wright and Megan Donnis. Megan

42:38

Donnis is the senior producer and Sheba

42:40

Joseph is the associate producer. The

42:43

executive producers are Evan Wright, Jess

42:45

Singer, and me, Josh Dean. Niall

42:47

Cassin is the consulting producer. Studio

42:50

recording by Ewan Lytrumewin, Blake

42:52

Rook, and Sheba Joseph. Sound

42:55

design mixing and original music by Mark

42:57

McAdam and Erica Huang. Additional

43:00

engineering by Blake Rook. Additional

43:03

music by APM and Blue Dot Sessions. Additional

43:06

field recording by Devin Schwartz. Fact

43:08

checking by Amanda Seinman. Special

43:11

thanks to the voice actors in this episode. Megan

43:13

Donnis, David Eichler, Mark McAdam,

43:16

Sarah McAdam, Anthony Pachillo, Blake

43:18

Rook, and Devin Schwartz. And

43:21

our operations team, Doug Slalewin, Destiny

43:23

Dingle, Ashley Warren, and Savina

43:26

Mara. The executive producers of

43:28

Campside Media are Vanessa Grigoriadis,

43:30

Adam Hoff, Matt Cher, and

43:33

me, Josh Dean. If you

43:35

like the show, please take a minute to rate and review

43:37

it, which really does help other people find it.

43:39

Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.

43:42

See you next time.