Ike's War On Squirrels (1955)
This Day in Esoteric Political History
Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia
4.6 • 982 Ratings
🗓️ 14 March 2023
⏱️ 16 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It’s March 13th. This day in 1955, news breaks that the White House is engaged in a full-on battle against the squirrels that have invaded the grounds.
Jody, NIki, and Kellie discuss why President Eisenhower is so determined to get rid of the squirrels, and how he tried everything from relocating them to shooting them to — really — deploying psychological torture to solve the problem.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to this day an esoteric political history from radiotopia. |
| 0:06.6 | My name is Jody Avergan. |
| 0:08.6 | This day, March 15, 1955, an article appears on the front page of the Washington Post |
| 0:17.3 | underneath the headline, White House Squirrels being deported for taking divots from putting green. |
| 0:25.4 | Every single two-word claws in that sentence is quite remarkable. |
| 0:29.6 | So this is a story by United Press reporter, Merriman Smith, who broke this important story. |
| 0:34.6 | It was Operation Squirrel. |
| 0:36.9 | And, you know, mind you, March 15th, 1955, it wasn't the busiest news day, but there were still other important stories. |
| 0:44.2 | I went and looked at the front page of the papers for that day and like, you know, there was some |
| 0:49.0 | Cold War stuff going on and McCarthy was out there doing his thing and you know but the battle that |
| 0:54.6 | President Eisenhower had his sights on the when he was engaged in was against the |
| 0:58.6 | squirrels that had invaded the White House so here to discuss why the president has finally decided to take care of the squirrel problem and a little bit more in the history of rodents at the White House are as always |
| 1:09.4 | Nicole Hammer of Mikkelheimer Vanderbilt Vanderbilt, and Kelly Carter, Jackson of Wesley. |
| 1:14.7 | Hello there. |
| 1:15.9 | Are squirrels Rodens? |
| 1:17.8 | I just as I was reading that. |
| 1:19.1 | Sure. |
| 1:19.6 | As you were saying that, I had some questions. of all hello Jody second of all I |
| 1:25.1 | feel like we've covered rats and possums now we have some bushy-tailed |
| 1:29.9 | creatures and Kelly how are you about that First of all hey there and also I'm super |
| 1:35.9 | happy that we are not talking about rats like squirrels I can deal with |
| 1:39.9 | squirrels squirrels are cute I wanted to get that word rodent in there just to start it. |
... |
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