'I was not then and am not now aware of any evidence that Jeffrey Epstein was a 'pedophile' in the technical sense; his sexual preference appears to have been for young women aged 16-22, which would at most reflect partial ephebophilia," Hubbard told Chron in an emailed statement. "Although most of the women who were involved with him at that age retrospectively regret it, I am unaware of any evidence that the contacts were non-consensual at the time.

'Some were self-conscious sex workers who recruited others into his orbit and are now making cynical claims of victimization to cash in on his estate and business partners, as reported by Michael Tracey and other credible journalists," Hubbard added. "Like over 1,000,000 Americans, he did have a conviction for a sex-related offense, but from what I could see in 2015, it was for something that would not even have been illegal in most European countries and resulted in a very short sentence.

[H/T: Ex-UT professor requested Epstein-tied funds for consent conference]

The X-Files: The Shape of the Conspiracy - Part Five: Faith and Faceless Rebels

The point of Season 5 was to shake things up, mix things up, and make them more... interesting complicated!

On one level this actually worked very well. The "Rebel Colonists" subplot had been bubbling away in the series' collective unconscious for a long time - at the very least since Colony back in Season 2 In Season 5 it would finally be announced officially. Suddenly the baddies stopped being mere baddies and became what Alan Rickman would have called "interesting people". The arc words "Resist or Serve" gave the series a moral dimension it had never really had before - apart from the simple honest pursuit of truth in the face of government cover-ups, of course. Finally, good and evil would get to dook it out in an exciting, ethically complex, er, Grey area.

In another sense though, it was the beginning of the end. The joy of The X-Files had always been that the nerdiness was baked into the format. "World-building" was part and parcel of what the show did. Mulder was our chief geek, painstakingly putting together the pieces. Scully was there to make it all feel scientifically credible (and sexy!). So, to have an actual man in black walk straight off the set of JFK and start spilling the beans - as one does in 'Redux', and as the Well-Manicured Man does in the film - was dramatically problematic. More importantly, it opened the door to resets, retcons, and "soft" reboots that would ultimately allow Carter and his friends to tear up the show's entire back-story into little bits and leave long-term viewers of the show (never mind the unfortunate "fans") feeling desperately frustrated and disappointed.

And unfortunately that undermining of the show's format started straightaway. And it undermined Mulder as well. Having Mulder become a sceptic should have worked in the same way as making the Well-Manicured Man complicated and interesting could have. In practice though, it was a step in the wrong direction in much the same way as giving the Smoking Man a speaking part had been. Mulder had always been clever enough to ask the right questions. He didn't need to start "doubting". Scaling back the mythology didn't make the show more grounded and gritty. It just made it more boring.

Another thing that didn't work on any level - in terms of character or "thematically" - was contrasting Mulder's growing scepticism with Scully's awakening "faith". Carter's thesis that miracles are part of "the unexplained" was twee when Arthur C Clarke had first pushed it back in the 1970s. By the '90s it was positively icky, and hardly worthy of The X-Files.* Which is not to say that stories about psychic abilities and magic could not make for good MOTW episodes. But the supernatural needs intellectual back-up (whether it be esoteric, or theological - or both!) just as much as the extra-terrestrial, and a lot of the time the writers just weren't prepared to put in the research. For the devout as much as for the scoffer, having "God" be the solution to the week's mystery was all too often deeply cringe. And perhaps even more importantly (and without being judgemental), Scully frankly never became Catholic enough to make her religious reversion arc work on a character level.

Nevertheless, for the most part the stories and the arcs both tick along entertainingly and engagingly enough. The revelations about Mulder's family feel forced and hollow. ("Fox and/or Agent Spender, I am your father!" is too Star Warsy not to be cringe.) But the snobbery at the heart of the Smoking Man's rivalry with the Well-Manicured Man and the creepy homo-eroticism at the heart of Mulder's with Krycek both feel right (i.e. wrong) and true. And whatever you might think of the increasingly convoluted backstory of all the things that have been done to Scully by this point, Gillian Anderson somehow manages to make it feel real - and frightening!

*In one of the spin-off comics, Mulder and Scully even get to investigate the Third Secret of Fatima. Heaven help us!

William Harvey King and Edward Lansdale

Lansdale with CIA Director Allen Dulles and United States Air Force Chief of Staff General Nathan F. Twining and CIA Deputy Director Lieutenant General Charles P. Cabell at the Pentagon in 1955.

Is it interesting that William Harvey King, who had been in charge of Operation Mongoose, and who was effectively sacked by John McCone after he had the mother of all bust-ups with RFK, was then sent to Rome to build up the Italian component of Operation Gladio?

Edward Lansdale is not altogether uninteresting either. In early 1961 he became the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Special Operations, and he briefed Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on the nature of the war in Vietnam. He showed McNamara examples of primitive homemade Viet Cong weaponry, and explained that the war was more a political war than military. He said “It doesn’t take weapons and uniforms and lots of food to win. It takes ideas and ideals.” After 10 minutes McNamara abruptly ended the briefing with the words "Is that all?"

Also in 1961, Lansdale helped to publicize the story of Father Nguyễn Lạc Hoá, the "fighting priest" who had organized a crack militia, the Sea Swallows, from his village of anticommunist Chinese Catholic exiles. Lansdale recruited John M. Deutch to his first job in government, working as one of Robert McNamara's "Whiz Kids". Deutch would go on to become the Director of Central Intelligence for the CIA.

In October 1961 President Kennedy sent Lansdale on a fact-finding mission to Vietnam headed by General Maxwell Taylor and Walt Rostow.

In an early 1962 conversation between Lansdale and McNamara, he reportedly told McNamara, who was trying to develop a list of metrics to allow him to scientifically follow the progress of the war, that he needed to add an 'x-factor'; McNamara wrote that down on his list in pencil and asked what it was. Lansdale told him it was the feelings of the common rural Vietnamese people. McNamara then erased it and sarcastically told Lansdale that he could not measure it.

Rufus Phillips had a confrontation with former Ambassador to South Vietnam Frederick Nolting in late September or early October 1963, following the Krulak–Mendenhall mission:

He [Nolting] had been surprised by what I had said at the first meeting at the White House and thought my opinions that we were losing the war unwarranted. I didn’t think I had gone that far. He said, “You just ruined it.” I replied, “No, you ruined it by not getting Lansdale out there when it would have done some good.” We glared at each other for a moment. He had clearly not understood that I wanted to save Diem but also to tell the truth about Vietnamese reality. Afterward I felt a sense of regret. He had tried mightily to do the right thing, yet he had not understood his personal limitations or those imposed by the formality of his position [i.e., the fact that the South Vietnamese for cultural reasons would not tell the truth about their difficulties unless it was done in private informal settings with Americans whom they had developed a personal level of trust]. 

 

[Rufus Phillips, Why Vietnam Matters: An Eyewitness Account of Lessons Not Learned]

According to Daniel Ellsberg, Lansdale was ordered in late September or early October 1963 to McNamara's office. The two went to McNamara's limo and drove to the White House and met with President Kennedy. Kennedy wanted to send him to Vietnam due to his ability to reason with Diệm, but he wanted to know if Lansdale would support removing Diệm from office if it became necessary. Lansdale said no, that Diệm was his friend (Lansdale also believed that replacing Diệm would lead to disaster). Kennedy seemed to understand and didn't show any disappointment, but in the limo McNamara was furious: “You don’t talk to the president of the United States that way. When he asks you to do something, you don’t tell him you won’t do it.” Lansdale was ordered to retire from the Air Force by the end of October. During Lansdale's 31 October 1963 retirement reception Defense Secretary McNamara walked through the room and never looked at Lansdale.

Diệm would be assassinated the next day.

Watchmen (1986)