The Disappearance of Harold Holt

In 1967, Australia’s Prime Minister went for a swim at the beach and just… never came back. Despite massive widespread searches, no sign of Harold Holt was ever found - no body, no clues, nothing. He was just gone. And of course, because he was our country’s leader, the conspiracy theories about what ‘really’ happened to him started forming straight away. Did he fake his own death to start a new life? Did the CIA have him killed? Or the Vietnamese army? Was he a spy for the Chinese government who needed to escape by swimming down to a submarine that took him back to China? Or did he just, you know, overestimate his swimming ability, swim out too far at a very rough beach with no lifeguards and get stuck in a rip and drown? (No! That’s far too boring a story according to people who DEFINITELY know.) Skip straight to the story: approx 18:01 We give you Just The Gist, but if you want more, there’s this:Read Harold's biography, ‘The Life and Death of Harold Holt’ by Tom Frame: https://www.booktopia.com.au/the-life-and-death-of-harold-holt-tom-frame/ebook/9781741156256.html The Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Harold_Holt Some articles that give a good overview: https://edition.cnn.com/2017/12/16/asia/australia-harold-holt-missing-anniversary-intl/index.html https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-01/disappearance-harold-holt-inside-search-operation-australia/12817236 Watch the footage that was broadcast live on the day Harold disappeared, and for the rest of that week: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MST9Oz2MDfs Some of the letters from concerned citizens who wanted to share their crazy theories with the government: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-17/harold-holt-50-years-since-prime-minister-disappeared/9259680 Browse through the National Film and Sound Archive (which includes the 2008 documentary ‘The Prime Minister is Missing’): https://www.nfsa.gov.au/search?query=prime+minister+is+missing&client=nfsa_govcms&proxystylesheet=nfsa_govcms&site=default_collection&filter=0&getfields=* Check out Old Mate Gary's website where he published his ‘confession’, stating he'd assassinated Harold: http://www.harold-holt.net/ Follow us on Insta: @JustTheGistPodcast @RosieWaterland @JacobWilliamStanley Send us your suGISTions!justthegistpodcast@gmail.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.