It's July 4th.

You're listening to a special edition of the President's Daily Brief.

I'm your host and former CIA officer Brian Dean Wright.

Your morning intel starts now.

The brief you're about to hear is in the same spirit of the actual President's Daily Brief,

which is the top secret summary of the most critical events in the past 24 hours.

All delivered to the President each day by the Nation Spy Masters.

And so ladies and gentlemen, I am your spy, and this is your special Independence Day brief.

On July 4th of 1967, a man named Hugh Redmond sat in a Chinese prison.

His captors had allowed him to write his family on rare occasion, and on that particular

day he penned what would be his final note.

He wrote to them, quote, it just dawned on me that today is the 4th of July.

Did you have a big celebration with fireworks and all?

He went on to ask how his mother was doing, the latest in the world of sports, and as always,

how his nephews were holding up.

Don't forget, he reminded his mother, to buy ice cream for the children.

And he closed out that final letter as he always had.

Very best regards to you all loved Hugh.

His family never heard from him again.

Three years later, the Communist Chinese government in Beijing said that he had died of suicide.

They cremated his remains and sent them home.

But Hugh's family didn't believe that story.

...