Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey everyone, it's been this week. We're excited to
Speaker 1: share a new show with you from our friends at
Speaker 1: Dakota Ring, Slate's podcast about cracking cultural mysteries, hosted by
Speaker 1: Willa Paskin. This year, they're back, and I say this
Speaker 1: as a member of a team making a different narrative,
Speaker 1: historical podcast. They are back on an impressively regular schedule.
Speaker 1: They're now going to be putting out new episodes over
Speaker 1: at Slate every two weeks all year long. And today
Speaker 1: we're bringing you an episode of THEIRS that we love.
Speaker 1: It's called The Curious Case of Columbo's Message to Romania,
Speaker 1: Part one, and in it you can follow Willa as
Speaker 1: she investigates an old clip that resurfaced and went viral
Speaker 1: last year of Peter falk On David Letterman, in which
Speaker 1: he told an intriguing tale about recording a special Cold
Speaker 1: War message for Romanian state television. In this episode, you'll
Speaker 1: find out if the tale was actually try true and
Speaker 1: if a fictional American detective really did help quell a
Speaker 1: communist revolt. It's an honest to goodness Cold War caper
Speaker 1: about American soft power behind the Iron Curtain. They go
Speaker 1: so deep that in the process of listening to this episode,
Speaker 1: I heard Paskin tell a story that exactly intersects with
Speaker 1: the story my grandma always tells about the time she
Speaker 1: was living in Romania and the band Blood, Sweat and
Speaker 1: Tears came to town. It's involved so involved that it
Speaker 1: takes two episodes to solve. So if you enjoyed this episode,
Speaker 1: you're gonna want to head over to the Dakota Ring
Speaker 1: Feed to download part two of this show and subscribe.
Speaker 1: Now here's the episode and host Willa Paskin.
Speaker 2: A couple of months ago, I found myself watching an
Speaker 2: old interview from The Late Show with David Letterman.
Speaker 3: Ladies and gentlemen, this is his first time with us.
Speaker 4: Please welcome Peter falk Peter.
Speaker 2: As the actor Peter Faulk loped onto the stage, his
Speaker 2: gray hair standing out against his black leather jacket. The
Speaker 2: audience greeted him with a roar.
Speaker 3: They love you. How must make you feel very, very
Speaker 3: nice nice.
Speaker 2: By this point in his career, Fok had played almost
Speaker 2: one hundred different roles, but he was beloved for one
Speaker 2: in particular.
Speaker 5: Oh I'm just another cop.
Speaker 6: My name is Colombo.
Speaker 2: I'm a lieutenant Lieutenant Colombo, who has no first name,
Speaker 2: was the star of the smashed detective series Colombo, which
Speaker 2: aired on and off for thirty years beginning in the
Speaker 2: nineteen seventies. In every episode, the brilliant yet unassuming Colombo
Speaker 2: doggedly pursued high class murderers while wearing a scruffy brown raincoat,
Speaker 2: chomping on a cigar, and absent mindedly mentioning his wife.
Speaker 7: I'm the worst cook in the world, but there's one
Speaker 7: thing I do terrific, and that's an omlet.
Speaker 2: Even my wife admits it. And just when his investigations
Speaker 2: seem to have hit a dead end, he'd circle back
Speaker 2: to ask.
Speaker 7: Oh, listen, just one more thing, one more thing, sir.
Speaker 4: I'll listen one more thing.
Speaker 3: It just take a second.
Speaker 2: The show also had a very particular structure.
Speaker 7: Well, in a matter of speaking, this isn't really a
Speaker 7: who've done it?
Speaker 4: It's more of a how we did it.
Speaker 2: Each episode begins with the murder. The audience sees the crime,
Speaker 2: sees who the killer is and how they kill before
Speaker 2: Colombo even appears on screen. Then the audience gets to
Speaker 2: watch Colombo engage in a battle of wits with the
Speaker 2: murderer who underestimates the schlumpy lieutenant until it's too late.
Speaker 2: You're very lucky, lieutenant. No congratulations, you're very smart. The
Speaker 2: pleasure of the show isn't nerve racking suspense. It's the
Speaker 2: satisfaction of watching Colombo unraveled the mystery, a satisfaction that
Speaker 2: has helped make the show a hit all over the world.
Speaker 7: It's very, very popular in Romania.
Speaker 2: In Romania, this is fulk on Letterman again. He's sitting
Speaker 2: in one of those big late night armchairs and he
Speaker 2: takes a sip from a coffee mug and launches into
Speaker 2: a story.
Speaker 7: As a matter of fact, about ten years ago, I
Speaker 7: got a call from the State Deplotment and a guy
Speaker 7: called me up and he says, we've got a problem
Speaker 7: in Romania. Maybe you can help us.
Speaker 2: Falk was chatting with Letterman in March of nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 2: Ten years prior was during the Cold War, when Romania
Speaker 2: was under the control of a particularly cruel and autocratic
Speaker 2: communist dictator. Falk tells Letterman he was asked to meet
Speaker 2: two men from the State Department and one from the
Speaker 2: Romanian embassy, maybe even the ambassador himself, at a hotel
Speaker 2: room in Los Angeles. There they explained that the Romanian
Speaker 2: government had aired every episode of Colombo available.
Speaker 7: Okay, so what's the problem, he said, the problem is
Speaker 7: that the people don't believe the government.
Speaker 2: They told Falk that the Romanian people were clamoring for
Speaker 2: more Colombo and they believed the communist government had it,
Speaker 2: that they were sitting on a pile of fresh episodes,
Speaker 2: keeping those episodes from them, the way it withheld so
Speaker 2: many other things. And they were mad. And Romanian officials
Speaker 2: were worried.
Speaker 7: So what do you want me to do? He said,
Speaker 7: We got a camera here, would you talk to the people?
Speaker 7: We got phonetic Romanian here, And I gotta tell the people.
Speaker 7: I gotta tell the people put down your guns.
Speaker 3: They were arming themselves over this.
Speaker 6: God was that severe?
Speaker 8: Yes, I guess, So why would they Romania?
Speaker 2: Fucking letterman bantered a bit more, and the letterman seemed
Speaker 2: ready to move on.
Speaker 7: That's good.
Speaker 9: We want to get a story.
Speaker 8: It's an excellent story.
Speaker 2: And it is an excellent story, But listening to it,
Speaker 2: I couldn't help wondering, is it true? This is decodering.
Speaker 2: I'm Willie Paskin. When I first saw Peter Fox interview
Speaker 2: with David Letterman after it went viral not so long ago.
Speaker 2: I had to know more. Did Colombo and Romania really
Speaker 2: have a special relationship? Could a fictional American detective really
Speaker 2: have helped calm a communist revolt? Had fuck actually recorded
Speaker 2: this message? And if so, why and how? Was this
Speaker 2: whole story too good to be true? I couldn't find
Speaker 2: the recording in any of the usual easy places, so
Speaker 2: I donned the proverbial raincoat and started sleuthing, at which
Speaker 2: point Fox Late Night anecdote cracked open into an intricate
Speaker 2: geopolitical saga that stretches from DC to Bucharest, from a
Speaker 2: Los Angeles hotel room to the palatial estate of a despot.
Speaker 2: It's a story that involves dueling ideologies, dozens of diplomats,
Speaker 2: and millions of viewers. It's an honest to goodness cold
Speaker 2: war caper about American soft power behind the Iron Curtain,
Speaker 2: and it's so involved it's going to take us two
Speaker 2: episodes to solve. So today on Decoder Ring, the first
Speaker 2: half of a very cold case. Did Peter fox appearance
Speaker 2: on Romanian television actually happen? So let's go with this
Speaker 2: whole I'm a detective thing for a minute. I wanted
Speaker 2: to start with the basics. What was the deal with Colombo? Anyway?
Speaker 2: You know Colombo, You're almost likable in a shabby sort
Speaker 2: of way.
Speaker 3: Maybe it's the way it.
Speaker 10: Comes, slouching in here with your shop onorn bag of tricks.
Speaker 9: Me tricks.
Speaker 2: Peter Falk was born in nineteen twenty seven to Jewish
Speaker 2: parents who were themselves the children of Eastern European immigrants.
Speaker 2: At just three, he had his cancerous right eye removed,
Speaker 2: and he wore a prosthetic from then on, one that
Speaker 2: gave him a perpetual squint.
Speaker 7: The key to it is when you realize you can
Speaker 7: get a laugh with it.
Speaker 2: This is fulk leader in life talking to the hosts
Speaker 2: of the view.
Speaker 7: By the time I was in high school, that's a
Speaker 7: true story. I was playing baseball.
Speaker 4: The umpire called me out. Was a bad call.
Speaker 7: Everybody saw it, and I whipped out the eye and
Speaker 7: I handed it to the upput I said, try this one.
Speaker 2: Falk broke out in nineteen sixty in an Academy Award
Speaker 2: nominated dramatic role as a bloodthirsty gangster. But he could
Speaker 2: always do comedy. He has that unique lackadaisical comic timing,
Speaker 2: the way he can't be rushed, the way he moses
Speaker 2: through his sentences and comes back around when you least
Speaker 2: expect it. You know, exactly the comic timing of Colombo.
Speaker 10: He has many of the same idiosyncratic characteristics of the cop.
Speaker 10: He's rather sloppy, he's forgetful.
Speaker 2: William Link was the co creator of Colombo, and he's
Speaker 2: heard here giving an oral history to the Television Academy.
Speaker 10: But in his acting he's obsessed. I mean, he's really
Speaker 10: dead onto it in a very humble, self effacing kind
Speaker 10: of way. Falk, so he had that to draw on,
Speaker 10: that whole well of personality quirks to bring.
Speaker 1: To that cop.
Speaker 2: When Falk was cast as Colombo, the character had actually
Speaker 2: been kicking around for a while, appearing in a stage
Speaker 2: play and a TV movie, but as soon as Falk
Speaker 2: got the role, he made it his own. Colombo's signature
Speaker 2: brown raincoat even came from Falk's own closet. Falk and
Speaker 2: the Raincoat debuted as Colombo in the nineteen sixty eight
Speaker 2: NBC TV movie Prescription Murder, about a psychiatrist trying to
Speaker 2: get away with killing his wife columbu.
Speaker 5: You are a magnificent you really are. Well, what makes
Speaker 5: you say that, don You're the most persistent creature I've
Speaker 5: ever met.
Speaker 2: An eleven year old named Mark Dewiziak was watching.
Speaker 4: I was just getting into mysteries, and my idea of
Speaker 4: mystery was that, well, you follow the detective, you follow
Speaker 4: Sheerla Holmes, you follow the clues, and eventually you reach
Speaker 4: the point where the detective says and the murderer is
Speaker 4: starts with you knowing who the murderer is.
Speaker 2: Mark is talking about Columbo's structure. Again. Unlike most mysteries,
Speaker 2: Columbo unfolds in chronological order. The details of the murder
Speaker 2: are right there at the beginning of the story instead
Speaker 2: of being saved for the climactic end.
Speaker 4: So to an eleven year old, that just took the
Speaker 4: top of my head off.
Speaker 2: Mark liked what he saw so much that when he
Speaker 2: grew up he became a TV critic and the author
Speaker 2: of the Columbo File Spelled Phil e a book about
Speaker 2: the series. But as a kid, he'd have to wait
Speaker 2: to see more of it. Prescription Murder was just a
Speaker 2: one off a TV movie. It wasn't until three years
Speaker 2: later that NBC decided to turn Colombo into a regular event,
Speaker 2: and even then they couldn't make it weekly. Fall had
Speaker 2: a movie career to think about, So what do we do.
Speaker 4: That's where they had come up with the whole idea
Speaker 4: of the mystery movie. It's not gonna wear every week.
Speaker 4: It's gonna air every four weeks. It'll rotate with three
Speaker 4: other detective characters. We don't have to do twenty two episodes.
Speaker 4: We can do seven or eight episodes a year.
Speaker 2: Columbo premiered in September of nineteen seventy one on a
Speaker 2: Wednesday night.
Speaker 7: I kind of know it right from the start. There's
Speaker 7: nothing definite. There's a lot of little things, little things.
Speaker 2: The episode was directed by a very young Steven Spielberg.
Speaker 2: Immediately it was a smash, a water cooler show that
Speaker 2: people were talking about. Audiences watched in droves.
Speaker 7: Well it it's terrific to waymen.
Speaker 2: It won Emmys.
Speaker 7: I'm trying to figure out some way to work here.
Speaker 2: Mumblem Falk became the highest paid TV actor in Hollywood.
Speaker 2: Celebrities lined up to play murderers. Bade Dunaway, Dick Van Dyke,
Speaker 2: and Johnny Cash all played killers on the show. William
Speaker 2: Shatner did it twice simultaneously. Universal, the entertainment company that
Speaker 2: owned and distributed Colombo, began to license the show around
Speaker 2: the world. As Johnny Carson noted to Peter Falk in
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy three.
Speaker 4: And your show is in Japan and a lot of
Speaker 4: the foreign countries. Have you ever seen it in the
Speaker 4: Japanese or anything?
Speaker 2: I've never seen it?
Speaker 7: In another song.
Speaker 2: The series would ultimately air in over forty countries, and
Speaker 2: Falk would come to revel in stories of its global success.
Speaker 2: There was one about the Italian director Federico Felini leaving
Speaker 2: dinner parties early to watch Colombo. One about the Emperor
Speaker 2: of Japan asking if Colombo could meet him at the
Speaker 2: White House. One about Falk being recognized while filming movies
Speaker 2: high up in the Andes Mountains and on the bombed
Speaker 2: out streets of West Berlin. Mark Dewoodziak heard all of
Speaker 2: these anecdotes from Falk firsthand when he was writing his book.
Speaker 4: Peter loved telling stories, and Peter loved telling his favorite stories.
Speaker 4: He got so tickled. His favorite story was Romania.
Speaker 2: Romania sits on the eastern edge of Europe, bordered by
Speaker 2: five different countries and the Black Sea. It is a
Speaker 2: population of around nineteen million, most of whom speak Romanian,
Speaker 2: a Romance language similar to Italian. The most famous Romanians
Speaker 2: outside of Romania are the absurdist playwright Eugenie and Esco,
Speaker 2: the gold medal winning gymnast Nadia Comanici, and Dracula. Transylvania
Speaker 2: is now a part of Romania. Mark dewidziax has Falk
Speaker 2: told him his Romania story during their very first sit
Speaker 2: down around nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 4: I did the interview in his art studio, which is
Speaker 4: actually his garage at his Beverly Hills house he had
Speaker 4: converted into a sort of an art studio man cave.
Speaker 4: This is what was said to me that night. He said,
Speaker 4: the Romanian government called the American ambassador and they had.
Speaker 2: It's similar to the vision Falk told on Letterman.
Speaker 4: So I end up in a hotel room at one in.
Speaker 2: The morning, though not identical.
Speaker 4: They've got a camera set up and I'm speaking Romanian phonetically,
Speaker 4: and I say put down your guns, be patient. Your
Speaker 4: government is not responsible if your stories were truthful, But
Speaker 4: were they embellished? Was it one in the morning?
Speaker 3: Is I don't know.
Speaker 2: What stands out as embellished to me. Isn't the time
Speaker 2: of night it happened, though it changes. Where it happened though,
Speaker 2: the hotel changes, or who was there when it happened, though,
Speaker 2: that changes too. That's how dramatic the whole thing was.
Speaker 2: It's hard to believe Romanians were really up in arms
Speaker 2: about Colombo. But let's imagine for a minute they were.
Speaker 2: Why would Peter Falk be telling them to stand down?
Speaker 2: Wasn't this the Cold War? In his two thousand and
Speaker 2: six memoir Just One More Thing, Falk tells an even
Speaker 2: more detailed version of the story. In it, he says
Speaker 2: the Romanian ambassador himself asked Falk to say on film
Speaker 2: about the Romanian communist regime, I'm here to tell you
Speaker 2: that you should trust your government. It tells you the truth.
Speaker 2: Believe me when I say that. And then, though writes
Speaker 2: that after some initial hesitation, but with US State Department
Speaker 2: officials in the room, he did. It's all so preposterous
Speaker 2: and far fetched, it's hard to believe. If not for
Speaker 2: the next clue, We'll be right back. I mentioned earlier
Speaker 2: that Peter Fox interview with David Letterman went viral. It
Speaker 2: did that back in June of twenty twenty one thanks
Speaker 2: to Radu Tikinash.
Speaker 11: Like many other Romanians, I did grow up watching a
Speaker 11: lot of Colombo when why was a big Colombo fan?
Speaker 2: Radu grew up watching the show in Romania during the
Speaker 2: nineteen nineties, but during the pandemic at home in Bucharest,
Speaker 2: Romania's capital, he found himself watching the show again. He
Speaker 2: wasn't alone in this lockdown turned the cozy, well crafted
Speaker 2: Colombo into a sleeper hit. He wanted to learn more
Speaker 2: about the show, and so we started poking around online.
Speaker 11: There's basically three or four videos about Colombo on YouTube
Speaker 11: as far as I could see.
Speaker 2: Radu is a freelance writer and video editor, so we
Speaker 2: decided to make a Colombo video of his own. He
Speaker 2: wanted to explore an unsourced anecdote he'd read years earlier
Speaker 2: about how Peter Falk had once taped a PSA to
Speaker 2: quell riots in Romania.
Speaker 11: Let's do a quick five minute video on this weird
Speaker 11: story about Peter Falk apparently stopping the revolution fifteen years
Speaker 11: before it actually happened, or some weird stuff like that.
Speaker 2: So Radu started to look into the story. In earnest
Speaker 2: he came across a mention of Peter Falk's David Letterman interview,
Speaker 2: which Radu to that point had never heard about litt
Speaker 2: alone scene, but it was nowhere online until Radu emailed
Speaker 2: a Letterman fan, an unofficial archivist, who sent it to him.
Speaker 3: For over twenty years, our first guest has starred as
Speaker 3: the beloved Lieutenant Columbo. He now has.
Speaker 2: Rado found something else too, an article about Fox story
Speaker 2: with a WikiLeaks link in it. WikiLeaks is the giant
Speaker 2: cash of various government documents that went online in two
Speaker 2: thousand and seven, and this particular link was to an
Speaker 2: American cable itself unclassified.
Speaker 11: And then I had the idea of like, hey, maybe
Speaker 11: there's more. Let's give a quick search. And then I
Speaker 11: searched for piece Falk, I searched for Colombo. I searched
Speaker 11: forty threns individually.
Speaker 2: And low and behold.
Speaker 3: American Embassy Bucharest to Usia Washington.
Speaker 6: D C.
Speaker 2: Between April and June of nineteen seventy four, eight official
Speaker 2: diplomatic cables were sent between the American Embassy in Bucharest
Speaker 2: and Washington, d C.
Speaker 3: About Peter Falk Romanian TV requests a short two to
Speaker 3: three minute optical sixteen millimeters sound film clip of star
Speaker 3: Peter Falk.
Speaker 2: The back and forth corroborates a number of things about
Speaker 2: Falk's story. For one, the US government really did reach
Speaker 2: out to him.
Speaker 3: FUK willing to make Colombo closing.
Speaker 2: For another, Romania really had run out of Colombo episodes.
Speaker 3: Romanian TV says it aware that Colombo's still in production,
Speaker 3: but notes that it has run all episodes received thus
Speaker 3: far and must fill space on weekly basis.
Speaker 2: But the cables do not substantiate many of Fox's details.
Speaker 2: There's no mention of armed or incensed Romanians, no midnight meetings,
Speaker 2: no Romanian ambassadors present, and no communists insisting Falk tell
Speaker 2: people to trust them.
Speaker 3: Text falk interview is as followers, Oh, excuse me, do
Speaker 3: you have a minute? I'm Lieutenant Colombo. Sometimes I'm known
Speaker 3: as Peter Fawk.
Speaker 2: In fact, the transcript included in the cables relaying what
Speaker 2: Falk apparently said is tame.
Speaker 3: We would like to thank Romanian Television for having put
Speaker 3: us on the air on Saturdays and Sundays, but most
Speaker 3: of all, all of us, myself and the crew and
Speaker 3: the other actors we want to thank the Romanian people
Speaker 3: for their great response to our show.
Speaker 2: But according to the cables, even this generic greeting was
Speaker 2: a big deal.
Speaker 3: Judging from comments of embassy, Foreign service locals and other Romanians.
Speaker 3: Fox greetings and his use of Romanian language tagline created
Speaker 3: minor sensation here.
Speaker 2: The last cable sent back after the message aired says
Speaker 2: that Romanian television reported ten million people watched it. That
Speaker 2: was about half the population at the time. Why would
Speaker 2: Romania have wanted an American star like Peter Falk reaching
Speaker 2: half of its population?
Speaker 11: Seems weird for one Romania than the Communist Party to
Speaker 11: do such a thing without any ulterior motive, And it
Speaker 11: would also seem weird for Peter Falk or the American
Speaker 11: State Department to give in to such a request without
Speaker 11: getting something in return.
Speaker 2: Weird, is right. What was the nature of Romania and
Speaker 2: America's relationship that they would be working together on something
Speaker 2: like this. I had to know more about Romania, so
Speaker 2: as a detective, sometimes you need to learn some history.
Speaker 2: At the end of World War Two, Europe was carved
Speaker 2: up by the victorious Allied Powers into spheres of influence.
Speaker 2: The Soviet Union's authority extended to eight nations that would
Speaker 2: become satellite states known as the Eastern Bloc.
Speaker 5: It is necessary to remember that these are all separate countries,
Speaker 5: but the fact that each is Communist and the fact
Speaker 5: of their physical proximity to each other enable us to
Speaker 5: consider them as a unit.
Speaker 2: Romania was a part of this unit. In nineteen forty four,
Speaker 2: the Soviets directly occupied the country and would remain for
Speaker 2: more than a decade.
Speaker 12: I am old enough Fiucia I was born in forty
Speaker 12: seven to have gone through some of these phases of
Speaker 12: the communist takeover.
Speaker 2: Yoanna Ieronim Latham is a Romanian poet, playwright, and author.
Speaker 2: At the time she was born, Romania was in the
Speaker 2: midst of massive social and political upheaval as Communism was
Speaker 2: enforced on the country. The mostly agrarian nation was collectivized.
Speaker 2: A secret police called the Securitate was established, and purges
Speaker 2: and mass arrests were common.
Speaker 12: It was horrible in the fifties. Political prisons were full,
Speaker 12: people disappeared from home.
Speaker 2: In nineteen fifty eight, Soviet troops began to pull out
Speaker 2: of the country. It remained communist, but by the early
Speaker 2: nineteen sixties things felt different.
Speaker 12: I was still a school girl, and I remember you
Speaker 12: could almost feel it in the air that it was
Speaker 12: a change. It was exactly twenty years after our having
Speaker 12: been taken over, and it became more relaxed.
Speaker 2: This period is known as a saw and as part
Speaker 2: of the warming news dance carried Western papers, Romanian rock
Speaker 2: and roll bands started to appear, and foreign films and
Speaker 2: series aired on television.
Speaker 5: It's very simple. I don't like being a cog in
Speaker 5: the machine.
Speaker 7: Being one of the millions of ants that deva the
Speaker 7: Dragon is all very noble.
Speaker 2: The spy show of the Saint, starring the future James
Speaker 2: Bond Roger Moore, became Appointment TV on Saturday nights, airing
Speaker 2: thanks to an agreement between Romanian state Television TVR and
Speaker 2: the BBC to license shows cheaply. Also during the nineteen sixties,
Speaker 2: programming increased to about eight and a half hours a day,
Speaker 2: the number of people with televisions rose tenfold, A second
Speaker 2: channel was added and Romania got a new leader, Chipitri de.
Speaker 7: Base Alim Bunetesei.
Speaker 2: Nikolai Chauchescu was a longtime member of the Communist Party
Speaker 2: who became General secretary in nineteen sixty five, and then
Speaker 2: president in sixty seven. Around this time, a British student
Speaker 2: named Dennis Deletante began studying at a Bucharest university where
Speaker 2: he is housed with three Americans.
Speaker 9: Every week, the security Tante, the secret police would come
Speaker 9: to our rooms and rummaged through our belongings and leave
Speaker 9: very clear evidence that they had been in our rooms.
Speaker 2: Dennis went on to become a scholar of Romania at
Speaker 2: University College London and the author of dozens of books
Speaker 2: about the country, and he's now a fellow at the
Speaker 2: Woodrow Wilson Institute. He says that this was a time
Speaker 2: of great change.
Speaker 9: Romanians were not seeking to break away from Soviet influence,
Speaker 9: but they were seeking a certain amount of autonomy.
Speaker 2: This was telegraphed to the world in nineteen sixty eight.
Speaker 2: That year, the Soviet Union sent tanks into a liberalizing
Speaker 2: chechioslov Vaka to clamp down on mass protests known as
Speaker 2: the Prague Spring, but Romania refused to support the Soviet action.
Speaker 2: Choichescu even denounced the invasion in a famous speech.
Speaker 9: This was an act of defiance. The West did not forget.
Speaker 2: Richard Nixon in particular, took notice as president, he pursued
Speaker 2: a policy called differentiation, picking out the communist countries that
Speaker 2: seemed most susceptible to Western influence.
Speaker 9: President Nixon and his advisors were aware of Chocescu's desire
Speaker 9: to have closer contacts within the United States.
Speaker 2: In nineteen sixty nine, Nixon visited Romania.
Speaker 13: This is an historic occasion.
Speaker 2: It was his second visit in as many years. Both times,
Speaker 2: Cheuchescu was savvy enough to welcome Nixon with much respect.
Speaker 13: Wow, this is not my first visit to your country.
Speaker 13: It is the first visit of a president of the
Speaker 13: United States to Romania, the first state visit by an
Speaker 13: American president to a socialist country or of this region
Speaker 13: of the continent of Europe.
Speaker 2: Chochesca would in turn visit America three times. He'd be
Speaker 2: knighted by the Queen of England and appear on the
Speaker 2: cover of Time magazine as the face of a relaxed communism.
Speaker 2: Romania would join the IMF, open a Pepsi Cola factory,
Speaker 2: and be granted Most Favored Nation trading status by the
Speaker 2: United States. All of this solidified Chouchescu's reputation as a
Speaker 2: maverick communist leader that word Maverick was used a lot
Speaker 2: in the press, and one that the US wanted to
Speaker 2: pull closer with trade and with culture. The State Department
Speaker 2: arranged visits by the Astronauts and a concert tour by
Speaker 2: the rock band Blood, Sweat and Tears, all while turning
Speaker 2: something of a blind eye to chaw Chesscu's domestic policies.
Speaker 9: I think there is this great paradox with Josh so
Speaker 9: the paradox of his we might say, very inventive, ambitious
Speaker 9: foreign policy and the repression, the internal repression.
Speaker 2: This paradox was already on display by the early nineteen seventies.
Speaker 2: Birth control and abortion had already been banned to boost
Speaker 2: the population. The Securitate acted with impunity, and Chaouchescu announced
Speaker 2: that all cultural output needed to be ideological and nationalistic,
Speaker 2: ultimately putting an end to the thaw. But at the
Speaker 2: same time, Chauchescu's foreign policy, with its focus on international trade,
Speaker 2: was boosting material living conditions for regular Romanians and still
Speaker 2: allowing for some cultural exchange, including of television shows.
Speaker 1: You Just Want to.
Speaker 3: Tell Me Your Name?
Speaker 2: Alexandri Nakica Alexandrina was in high school in the nineteen
Speaker 2: seventies living in the same apartment in Bucharest from which
Speaker 2: she spoke with me a few months ago with the
Speaker 2: help of a translator.
Speaker 4: So she said that.
Speaker 14: In the seventies they were having streaming from seven point
Speaker 14: thirty in the evening until around midnight.
Speaker 2: In this.
Speaker 14: Good Life. In this seventies, comparison with the previous years.
Speaker 2: Most of what was on TV was dull, ideological and
Speaker 2: political long speeches and footage of Chaouchescu and his wife
Speaker 2: Elena visiting farms and opening factories. But this only made
Speaker 2: the foreign shows, which included Bewitched, The Untouchables and Lost
Speaker 2: in Space stand out more. Alexandrina particularly remembers Tom and Jerry, Popeye,
Speaker 2: Charlie Chaplin movies, and especially the oil gushing soap opera Dallas.
Speaker 2: But of course I'd called her to talk about one
Speaker 2: show in particular, and do you remember Columbo. Alexandrina remembers
Speaker 2: Columbo's slouchy posture, which she imitated as we spoke. She
Speaker 2: remembers his cigar and his clothes, which she wondered why
Speaker 2: he never changed. She remembers his French roadster and his
Speaker 2: love of dogs, and that all the murderers were wealthy.
Speaker 14: She remembers also like that the mystery and the best
Speaker 14: part of the action was actually happening in the first minutes,
Speaker 14: because after that you are knowing what happened.
Speaker 2: She also remembers when the show aired Saturday nights, she
Speaker 2: recalled that it was an event, the thing to do,
Speaker 2: and she wasn't the only one who told me so.
Speaker 12: It was a national phenomenon. She t were empty.
Speaker 2: You want to hear a Nym Latham again.
Speaker 12: Everybody made the plan to be there and to see
Speaker 12: installment after installment. It was enormously successful.
Speaker 2: Enormously Colombo was so popular it would air again on Sundays,
Speaker 2: and it wasn't the only show that cleared the streets
Speaker 2: in Bucharest.
Speaker 8: Loves Your Baby, You're Beautiful.
Speaker 2: Kojak, the cop drama starring Tali Savala, the premiered in
Speaker 2: America in nineteen seventy three, was also a hit with
Speaker 2: Romanians in the mid nineteen seventies. The bald headed Kojak
Speaker 2: with as debonair as Colombo was disheveled and he sucked
Speaker 2: on a lollipop instead of a cigar.
Speaker 8: Wait, what's with the lollipops? I'm looking to close the
Speaker 8: generation gap get.
Speaker 12: Out of here or Jack because he was having this lollipop.
Speaker 12: They created lollipops in Romania that they were selling in
Speaker 12: the seas vendors with Kojak. They call them Kojack by
Speaker 12: the Kojack.
Speaker 2: Kojak also kicked off a craze for American style coffee
Speaker 2: mugs and thin cigarettes. It was a sensation, such a
Speaker 2: sensation that there are American diplomatic cables about it too.
Speaker 3: March nineteen seventy five, US Berlin to AM Embassy Bucharest
Speaker 3: subject Telly Sabalis film clip for Romanian TV.
Speaker 2: A little less than a year after the Peter Falk incident,
Speaker 2: the US Diplomatic Corps had apparently asked Telly Savalas to
Speaker 2: do the exact same thing. The Savalas filmed in West Berlin,
Speaker 2: not Los Angeles. Someone at the embassy in Bucharest at
Speaker 2: the time must have looked at the popularity of both
Speaker 2: of these shows and seen an opportunity to do their
Speaker 2: job to bring the countries closer together. But who exactly?
Speaker 2: I thought I had an idea, So at this point
Speaker 2: I was pretty confident the incident I was investigating had
Speaker 2: taken place. I also had a solid handle on motive
Speaker 2: on why the message had been made and what the
Speaker 2: US and Romania both stood to gain. But I still
Speaker 2: didn't know the method. The cables didn't get into the
Speaker 2: nitty gritty of how the message was filmed, and FALKS
Speaker 2: version seemed a little over the top. I wanted to
Speaker 2: find someone who could tell me what had gone down,
Speaker 2: not give me the dramatic late night TV version, but
Speaker 2: the real thing. The cables offered up an obvious place
Speaker 2: to begin. At the bottom of the ones coming out
Speaker 2: of Bucharest, there was the same name over and over again.
Speaker 3: Please advise if film possible and if developed, film can
Speaker 3: be here in time for May fifteen program. Post strongly
Speaker 3: concurs TV request.
Speaker 2: Barnes Barnes was the sign off of Harry Barnes, the
Speaker 2: American ambassador to Romania from nineteen seventy three to seventy seven.
Speaker 2: He'd done a previous three year stint in the country
Speaker 2: and spoke Romanian so fluently he acted as Nixon's translator,
Speaker 2: rare for an ambassador. In an interview, he recalled of
Speaker 2: this time, I got the sense in Washington that we
Speaker 2: ought to keep looking for opportunities to suggest collaborative activities
Speaker 2: with the Romanians. Maybe he looked at Colombo and Kojak
Speaker 2: and thought they could be one of those activities. Harry
Speaker 2: Barnes died in twenty twelve, though, so I got in
Speaker 2: touch with his son, Doug. I asked him about an
Speaker 2: infamous incident in which Romania Securitate bugged the soul of
Speaker 2: his father's shoe.
Speaker 8: My sister just went did a trip to DC and
Speaker 8: went to the Spy Museum and sent us all pictures
Speaker 8: of the shoe, which is on display there.
Speaker 2: Doug had never heard anything about the Peter Fox segment
Speaker 2: or the Teleisavalis one either, but he'd become a Foreign
Speaker 2: Service officer himself, and in this capacity he told me
Speaker 2: something important. An ambassador's name is on every single cable
Speaker 2: that leaves an embassy, as a matter of course, every.
Speaker 1: Single telegram as long as he's in the country.
Speaker 2: So though Barnes could have written these cables, they also
Speaker 2: could have been authored by nearly anyone at the embassy.
Speaker 2: I asked Doug if you could think of anyone else
Speaker 2: who might remember anything about this, and a couple of
Speaker 2: calls later I reached a man named Richard Gilbert.
Speaker 8: I was posted the US Embassy in Bucharest as the
Speaker 8: cultural Adashe Richard.
Speaker 2: Was there from nineteen seventy two to seventy six. When
Speaker 2: I first spoke with him on the phone, he told
Speaker 2: me he remembered Colombo's popularity, and we arranged a zoom
Speaker 2: call where it turned out he remembered more.
Speaker 8: I do remember him giving his little spiel I would
Speaker 8: call it.
Speaker 2: Like other members of the foreign service. Richard lived in
Speaker 2: an apartment in Bucharest furnished by the State Department but
Speaker 2: provided by the Romanians, and one Sunday night in nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy four he and his family turned on the TV
Speaker 2: to watch Colombo.
Speaker 8: Quite a coup for the Romanians because they got Peter
Speaker 8: Falk to say all these positive things about what essentially
Speaker 8: it was rather despotic communist government in Eastern Europe.
Speaker 2: Richard doesn't remember much more about it besides part of
Speaker 2: it being delivered and stilted Romanian.
Speaker 8: We didn't usually tune in, but we watched this one,
Speaker 8: certainly because it was so unusual. Do you think you.
Speaker 2: Knew it was coming and that's why you had tuned in?
Speaker 8: I suspect I must have. That's why I happened to
Speaker 8: be watching it. I'm not sure how we knew what
Speaker 8: we did.
Speaker 2: Know in your experience or just acknowledge this is this
Speaker 2: like kind of thing common.
Speaker 8: I mean, my guest would be definitely not common. I
Speaker 8: can't imagine such a thing. I just find a little
Speaker 8: head scratching how they made contact with Peter fall in
Speaker 8: the first place.
Speaker 2: I got off this call feeling optimistic. I still didn't
Speaker 2: know the method, but I was making progress. Sure it
Speaker 2: had taken some legwork to find Richard, but I could
Speaker 2: do more legwork. I was a detective. I honed in
Speaker 2: on the embassy in Bucharest in nineteen seventy four, tracking
Speaker 2: down any name mentioned in the cables and scouring old
Speaker 2: Foreign Service telephone directories. I got the American Foreign Service
Speaker 2: Association to ask it's sixteen thousand members if anyone recalled
Speaker 2: anything about it. On a lark, I emailed the press
Speaker 2: officer of Henry Kissinger, who was Secretary of State at
Speaker 2: the time, to see if Kissinger remembered anything himself. He
Speaker 2: did not, but I was confident someone would know something
Speaker 2: if I just kept making phone calls.
Speaker 6: My name is Willa Paskin.
Speaker 2: I'm I make a podcast for the website slate. This
Speaker 2: is going to be very convoluted, and I'm just gonna
Speaker 2: babble it a couple messages, So I'm sorry to keep
Speaker 2: calling just about everyone I reached suggested someone else. I'm
Speaker 2: in the middle of sort of obsessively reporting out this story.
Speaker 2: And as I said, it's a little bit sanyou who
Speaker 2: suggested someone else to basically film Oh oh hi, sorry,
Speaker 2: this is Willa again. I'll keep it much shorter. All told,
Speaker 2: I communicated directly with over twenty people who'd been at
Speaker 2: the embassy in Bucharest around nineteen seventy four, but my
Speaker 2: optimism had been premature.
Speaker 6: Listen, I don't want you to waste your time with
Speaker 6: me because because I have no memory whatsoever of either
Speaker 6: of those things.
Speaker 3: I don't remember anything about that incident.
Speaker 10: I'd love to read more about it, but you're just
Speaker 10: heaving a blank with me.
Speaker 6: I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: No luck, No one recalled it like no one. It
Speaker 2: didn't even ring a bell.
Speaker 12: No one thinks it's real. Not one person who was
Speaker 12: at the embassy at the time remembers it.
Speaker 6: It just seems so unlikely.
Speaker 2: I'd begun all of this thinking that Peter Fox story
Speaker 2: sounded a little exaggerated and wanting to figure out what
Speaker 2: had really happened and why and how and what Peter
Speaker 2: Fox had really said. I'd read diplomatic cables and gotten
Speaker 2: a crash course in Romanian history, I learned Romanian slang
Speaker 2: for a lollipop, and yamred into more voicemail boxes than
Speaker 2: I could count. And from all of this I had
Speaker 2: gotten the sense that these messages would have been a
Speaker 2: big deal. Peter Falkshore said so, but so did the cables.
Speaker 2: They described Falk's message as a minor sensation seen by
Speaker 2: ten million Romanians. Twelve million had watched the message with
Speaker 2: Telly Savalis. Moreover, all, the people I'd spoken with to
Speaker 2: this point had told me this would have been an
Speaker 2: unusual and creative undertaking for any diplomat involved. So why
Speaker 2: couldn't I find anyone who remembered it? I mean, besides
Speaker 2: Richard Gilbert.
Speaker 8: I do remember when Peter Falk gave this introduction, But as.
Speaker 2: It would turn out months later, when I finally figured
Speaker 2: out what really happened with Peter Falk's message, Richard Gilbert
Speaker 2: would still be the one and only person whoever recalled
Speaker 2: seeing it. If a message gets made for television and
Speaker 2: no no one remembers seeing it. Did it actually happen?
Speaker 2: I was back where I started. Next week Ondacodering. We
Speaker 2: get some answers, but not before a whole lot more questions.
Speaker 2: There's a couple of loose ends I'd like to tie up.
Speaker 7: Nothing important, you understand, but I would.
Speaker 8: Like to get him tied up.
Speaker 2: This is decoder Ring. I'm willib Haskin. You can find
Speaker 2: me on Twitter at willib Haskin. And you have any
Speaker 2: cultural mysteries you want us to decode, you can email
Speaker 2: us at decoder Ring at slate dot com. This podcast
Speaker 2: was written by me Willip Haskin. I produced a coder
Speaker 2: Ring with Katie Shepherd. This episode was edited by Joel Meyer.
Speaker 2: Derek John is Slate's executive producer of Narrative Podcasts. Merrick
Speaker 2: Jacob is Senior technical director. I want to give in
Speaker 2: a special thank you to Andrada loud Tauru, who translated
Speaker 2: in worked with me from Romania. I'd also like to
Speaker 2: thank Carol and Joel Levy, Jonathan Ricker, Alan and Rii Fernandez,
Speaker 2: Katie Koob, Felix Renschler, Richard Viatz, Jock Shirley Gabriel Roth,
Speaker 2: Cameron Gorman, Tory Bosch, Delia Marinescu, David Koenig, Don Giller,
Speaker 2: Boris Backnerkrina Popa, David Langbart, William Burr, Asger Sigwitzen, John Frankensteiner,
Speaker 2: Tom Hobin, and everyone else who helped with this episode.
Speaker 2: For my research into Romanian television, I relied heavily on
Speaker 2: the scholarly work of Dana Mustada, Alexandre Mattai and Maurice
Speaker 2: Aresco Marinkovich, and the Screening Socialism Project from the University
Speaker 2: of Lofbrow. I also relied on the work of Dennis
Speaker 2: Deletante and Timothy w Ryeback's Rock Around the Block, a
Speaker 2: history of rock music in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.
Speaker 2: You also heard a song in this episode from the
Speaker 2: Romanian rock band Phoenix. If you haven't yet, please subscribe
Speaker 2: and rate our feet on Spot, to fid, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 2: or wherever you get your podcasts. Even better, tell your friends.
Speaker 2: If you're a fan of the show, I'd love for
Speaker 2: you to sign up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members
Speaker 2: get to listen to Decodering without any ads. Their support
Speaker 2: is also crucial to our work, so please Go to
Speaker 2: slate dot com slash Decoder Plus to join Slate Plus today.
Speaker 2: We'll see you next week.