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Filler Episode - Ioan Petru Culianu
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Regular recording didn't work out this week, so Josh has recorded a short episode that acts as a companion piece to our last episode on the killings of political dissidents, followed by a brief Public Service Announcement on a matter close to his heart.
Also, for some reason this time his microphone picked up every single rustle of fabric every time he moved, so watch out for that.
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Transcript
Introduction and Episode Context
00:00:04
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The podcast's guide to the conspiracy featuring Josh Edison and Im Dintas.
00:00:19
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Hello and welcome to the Podcaster's Guide to the Conspiracy. I am Josh Addison in Auckland, New Zealand, all while I learn some entirely of my own doing. As it happens, I was unable to record on our usual recording night and said to him, hey, can we record a different night? And he said, no, I am an international person of mystery. i have i I have conferences to go to and appointments and things like that. So we weren't able to make an ordinary episode recording this week. So I figured until next week when we are able to get together and do an episode proper, I'll just put together a quick little filler episode to keep you going.
Topic Introduction: The Murder of Ioann Petrucullianu
00:00:58
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and It's when I was going to do this as the bonus episode for our next episode, but I'll do this now and and and find something different for for next week's bonus because it does relate to the topic of our last episode.
00:01:12
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This is the story of another another murder of another defector, I suppose you'd say. But it's it's similar to um the murders of of Markov and Litvinenko and Skripal, who we talked about last time, but also a little bit different. So let's just get into it. Do I want to play a chime? Do I normally play a chime for filler episodes? Let's stick one in anyway.
00:01:42
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Ah, that's
Background on Romanian Politics
00:01:43
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much better. So this time I'm going to talk to you about the death of Ioann Petrucullianu. He was a Romanian academic and writer who was murdered in 1991.
00:01:59
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Now, one reason I maybe shouldn't have done this one right now is that I don't have him to talk about it, and he knows a lot more about Romanian history than I do. My basic understanding is that it was a dictatorship under Nikolai Ceausescu until 1989, I think it was.
00:02:15
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when he he was deposed and eventually executed. If you're interested, there's ah there's a wonderful video. you you can You can see it on YouTube of his final speech. Apparently Chachisku was quite the orator and would would would sort of fire up his his people with these these grand speeches that he gave from the balcony of his palace, which I understand is the third largest building in the world by volume. That's that's that's dictators for you.
00:02:44
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uh but his his final speech he sort of went when sort of the revolution was was in the works thing he he was aware that things were going bad and so he went out to give a speech to try and get the people back on side uh and it was videoed and you can see it and you can watch this man visibly realize oh shit i've lost the people my my usual speechifying is not working in this case i might be in trouble and he was but before that happened Mr.
Details of Couliano's Murder
00:03:11
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Couliano, indeed Professor Couliano, was not in Romania anymore. He went to Italy on a scholarship in the 1970s and at that point defected to the West. He lived in Europe from the mid-70s to the mid-80s, in a bunch of different countries. France, and I think it was the Netherlands. um He moved to the United States in 1986 and became a permanent resident in 1991.
00:03:39
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He had been a visiting professor at the University of Chicago um and was due to become a permanent staff in July of that year, but unfortunately that was not to happen because on the 21st of May, 1991, he had been in conversation with one of his doctoral students, left the conversation to go to the bathroom. and were while While in the bathroom, the University of Chicago, he was shot once in the head.
00:04:05
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and died instantly. And the reason why this perhaps makes a better topic for a bonus episode or a short filler episode like this one compared to the other assassinations that we talked about recently is that that's basically all we know. He was murdered, his killer has never been found, a motive has never been established, but there are a bunch of contenders.
00:04:28
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So we do know his nothing on his body, his valuables were not taken so it doesn't appear to have been some sort of a weird robbery and who robs people, who fatally robs people in the bathroom of a university. he had no He had no sort of personal problems that anyone was aware of in terms of he wasn't cheating on his partner or or hadn't hadn't stiffed anyone out of a large amount of money or something, he did have one particular personal issue that we'll get to shortly.
00:05:00
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But it doesn't seem like, it doesn't seem to be a motive of sort of jealousy or anything like that. So there are a few candidates for why this man could have been killed, apart from, you know, again, we don't know. Maybe maybe it was some weird random thing. Maybe, maybe, yeah, we we don't know for certain, but there are a few leading contenders.
Theories on Romanian Agent Involvement
00:05:18
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The number one, of course, is that he was killed by agents or former agents of the Romanian government. Now, Ceausescu was deposed in 89 and a new communist government came in after that. Cudiano apparently had been quite critical of this post-revolution regime in Romania. He had also been very critical of the Securitate, the secret police under Ceausescu. so i but so he It seems like he had been critical of both the the the pre and post. Obviously, he was critical of pre-revolution Romania. I can't imagine he'd have defected if he was a big fan of it. but had also been critical of the government that formed afterwards. So he had he he did have some enemies back in Romania. Apparently, according to people close to him, he had he had said that he had received threatening phone calls and letters and that his office had been broken into, although he had not reported any of this to the police. so So one of the leading theories is that he had been killed off by elements within either the old or the new government of Romania. There had been suggestions that had been carried out by agents of the Securitaté or of whatever the equivalent secret police was of the new government, while the Securitaté had been dissolved rather at the end of 1989. There were plenty of ex-agents around who could have been recruited to do that, and I don't know. Again, this is something Em might be able to tell us more about, but I don't know how much of the the new sort of secret police type organizations in Romania
00:06:56
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was composed of ex-Securetate agents. I don't know if they all got given the boot and kicked out or whether they just got renamed. but but So supposedly, you know, there were people around who would have had enough of a beef against him and and the know-how to carry out that sort of an assassination. So that's that's one theory. And as far as I can tell, it's the leading theory.
00:07:15
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This was some sort of a reprisal from the people people in power who he had annoyed. There are other theories though.
Connection to the Iron Guard
00:07:22
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One one um involves the fact that Kuleanu was sort of a proteche a protege of another a Romanian expat professor called Messia Eliade. He was also a professor at the University of Chicago, so Kuleanu had gone to the University of Chicago, I think, because of him. So he was sort of ah sort of a mentor, and and from the sounds of things, a bit of an idol of his originally, but they'd have a bit of a falling out and in later years. So it turned out that Eliade had been involved with a fascist movement in Romania called the Iron Guard earlier in his life. um And this is something that he had kept very quiet about later on, once once he became you know a respected academic.
00:08:06
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um i don't I don't know the full details. From what I read, some people suggested it was it was sort of a thing, it was kind kind of a matter of survival for himself. He he aligned himself with these these fascists and sort of turned their back on them later, or maybe not. Maybe he was always a fan of them and had just kept his his sympathies quiet later. But whatever the case was, Kalyanu had apparently found out that he had been um involved with these fascists in his past.
00:08:34
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And Culeano's opinion was that he he needed to come clean about this. he he didn't He didn't need to say, you know, hey, hey, I'm a fascist. I think fascism is great, because he certainly sounds things did not. But Culeano thought that the best thing would be to him to come out and say, yes, I was involved with this movement in the past. Make it make a full sort of disclosure about, you know, this is who I was. It's not who I am now, but you need to, it's important for you to know my background, to know where I'm coming from and things like that. he thought it was just better all around if he were honest about his his past sympathies. Eliard was reluctant to do this, and so Culianu actually outed him, essentially. He went public with the information that Professor Eliard had been involved with the Iron Garden his past, which you may think is a bit of a crappy thing to do to someone. um It sounds like Culianu thought, you know, this was the right thing to do, but he did it without his mentor's consent.
00:09:31
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and their relationship, probably friendship, deteriorated as a result. So one theory is that Eliard's fascist former colleagues had taken offense at Kudianu outing there their former comrade and that he had been killed by sort of remnants of the iron guard who were still around in America.
FBI's Cult Theory
00:09:55
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And another theory, apparently, because the the FBI looked into this. Now I apparently, as you you you would well understand, his death was a big deal in Romania and was well reported. I had a quick look around and I could not find any English language news about it.
00:10:11
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at least online. I imagine if you look through the archives of whatever newspapers are around in Chicago, it can't not have made the news in Chicago or poor or even in wider America. The university professor getting randomly murdered on campus, can't have escaped notice, but it doesn't seem to have been a big enough deal that there's a lot of talk about it these days. But but it was a big enough deal for the FBI to investigate, apparently. One theory that they had is that um he was apparently interested in quote, eroticism and magic.
00:10:46
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i I have not seen more detail than that, but apparently he had some occult interests, and the FBI had a theory that he had been involved with some sort of weird esoteric cult who had killed him off, which is an interesting theory. But um...
00:11:02
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i don't I don't know any more information about it than that.
Comparison to Other Assassinations
00:11:06
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So that I think gets mentioned because it's interesting, wacky cults and what have you, but it certainly seems like the two main theories regarding his death were that either he was killed by elements within former or or or then current Romanian authorities who he had got on the bad side of, or with former fascist organizations who he had got on the bad side of. But we really don't know. And so when it comes to comparing this
00:11:37
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to the murders that we talked about in our previous episode. It is it is is is interesting for its similarities and for its differences because, of course, the what we talked about last time, yeah your poison umbrella killings, it let Venenko getting murdered with getting poisoned with polonium and in the scree piles with their exotic neurotoxins.
00:11:57
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Those sorts of cases were very clearly about sending a message. They were, um but they they they had the level of sort of elaborateness and and showiness that they were obviously designed for, following for one thing, poisonings are not instantly fatal, which means the victim has time to say, yes, I believe I have been murdered by these people. And so you get, you get the case where it's sort of everybody knows who did it, but it's There's no actual proof of it, so they can maintain maintain deniability. um In the case of Coolianu's murder, i mean i mean it does, I guess, still send a message that critics of various organizations put themselves in danger by being so. but given that no one ever claimed responsibility and that responsibility was never clear it does seem it it feels i guess more like a case of we just want this guy dead for for our own ends it feels more like you know simple revenge rather than
00:13:02
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so suffer all of our enemies, you know. It has ah a different kind of a feel to it, and and by its nature, of course. um As I say, we're still really not at all sure um who is involved, whereas with the other cases, we we we in some cases, we have sort of um testimony from other people saying, yeah yeah, these guys were behind it. And even in that case, if we don't, we still have a pretty damn good idea who was behind it. And in this case, we just don't.
00:13:30
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So possibly a little more, a little more tragic? No, I think any any murder of a political dissident is probably equally bad, but it's an interesting one to talk about as an example of just just a straight killing. No, no, no flare, no elaborate Cold War spy craft nonsense going on, just a bullet to the back of the head. So that on the somewhat depressing note of a bullet to the back of the head, I think that's maybe all we have to say for this topic.
00:14:01
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Another interesting case of a political dissident being killed, but not as flashy enough to attract the world's attention. So hopefully that's enough to tide you over until Em and I can get ourselves back together again um to record a proper episode for you. Now I need to go and find a new topic for the bonus episode for next time. But that's my problem, not yours.
Personal Cancer Experience and Awareness
00:14:25
Speaker
So I'll leave you with that, except except for one thing, just just on a personal note. This has nothing to do with the rest of this episode, or indeed this podcast in general, but um I'm recording this on Friday, and Monday of this week I attended the funeral for a cousin of mine, ah making this the third time, the third funeral I have gone to for a person who was younger than me, and in each case Their death was due to cancer, which started, I believe in every case, as bowel cancer. And I just wanted to say, as a 48 year old myself, to anyone who's over 40, hell to anyone who's over 30, if, if, and I understand this is a big if, but if you have the wherewithal to get yourself tested for this sort of thing,
00:15:14
Speaker
um if If you have and medical insurance that will cover a colonoscopy and the sort of job where you can take a couple of days off to deal with that, which I understand is not the case for everyone, please go and do it. Have a colonoscopy. I've had one. It's it's not fun, but it's it's not actually that bad. the The prepping for it is much more of an inconvenience than the actual procedure itself. It's fine. And apparently there there was a awareness campaign about it back here in New Zealand a while ago and there they talked to a doctor who argued if he could get everyone over 30 to take a colonoscopy he would eliminate like 80% of bowel cancer in the population. So frankly I'm sick of losing people close to me to this sort of thing and it hasn't even been that many so I'd really appreciate it if you guys could get yourselves checked out so that would not be a concern of mine. That's my that's my public service announcement.
00:16:07
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to go on the end of this episode. So, it's not been a particularly cheery one all round, but um my best to the rest of you for for the rest of this week, and hopefully hopefully we'll um have something slightly less depressing to talk to you about next episode. But I make no promises. Goodbye.
Closing Remarks and Support Call
00:16:29
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The podcast's Guide to the Conspiracy stars Josh Addison and myself, Associate Professor M.R.X. Denton.
00:16:36
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Our show's cons... sorry. Producers are Tom and Philip, plus another mysterious anonymous donor. You can contact Josh and myself at podcastconspiracyatgmail.com and please do consider joining our Patreon.
00:16:54
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you
00:17:02
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a
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And remember, remember, oh December, what a night.