On March 10, 2010, I had the opportunity to interview Jesse “The Body” Ventura. His latest book American Conspiracies was released a few days earlier and he is also in between seasons of his television show Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura which can be seen on TruTV.

In this interview, Jesse and I discussed many controversial topics. One of the things that Jesse said had me so dumbfounded that I kept repeating Wow for the next few moments.

It wasn't all shocking stuff and doom and gloom though. I got Jesse laughing quite a few times during the interview. My giving wrestlers the giggles during their interviews with me is starting to become a trend as I had Maria cracking up several times during our interview earlier this week. I hope you the reader, have as much fun reading these interviews as I do giving the interviews and the interview subjects have answering my questions.

Eric: Between the new book and your TV show, you have been doing a lot of research on conspiracy theories. What made you decide to get involved with this?

Jesse Ventura: It actually started in pro wrestling, a little before actually. When I got out of the Navy, I went to Junior College for one year. This was back in the early '70s, about '73 or '74, and Mark Lane spoke. That was the first time that I heard someone speak out against the Warren Commission and the assassination of John Kennedy. I found it interesting but of course then I started my wrestling career.

So who had time when the House Select Committee on Assassinations met in '78? I was busy wrestling so I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to it.

When it happened was when I jumped to the WWF and Vince McMahon went national. Because of a sudden it wasn't territories and it wasn't driving anymore. It was flying, and sitting in airports all day and on planes. So I started then buying books on the Kennedy assassination because I would read during all this downtime. So that is really when it started, when I piqued my interest in the John F. Kennedy conspiracy. And then of course, I went on to do what I am doing today.

Eric: During your research of conspiracy theories, what was the most shocking thing you discovered?

Jesse Ventura: The most shocking in the book was that there was a good possibility that Watergate set up Richard Nixon. That the burglars bungled it on purpose so that they would get caught and lead to the downfall of Nixon.

Eric: Were there any theories that you found to be significantly tougher to get people to talk about?

Jesse Ventura: Well first of all, you can't get the government to talk about anything. You can't approach our government and ask them anything and expect to get an answer. They won't even meet with you. They won't talk to you. They won't do anything.

I don't know which one was really the toughest during the research of this. It's really hard to pinpoint which one is tougher than any other because there is a lot of data out there. They were probably all equally hard.

Eric: What have you found the reaction since you've been doing this from the government and the media?

Jesse Ventura: Well, nothing from the government at all. The media is of course very skeptical,especially the main stream media. You know, I did The View today and Barbara Walters was having none of it. So they give you the argument of the lousy TV reports. You're not going to learn anything from television because they don't do anything, they just give you a line or two of this or that. None of these people really have done any research on documents and things like that. The only thing they go off of is the things that mainstream media has told them.

Eric: Throughout the book, you keep complaining about all the problems with mainstream media. I was just curious, what do you do to keep up on the news?

Jesse Ventura: We're all struck with the mainstream media and the news but I feel like most Americans today that the most honest person out there is John Stewart. And it's sad because he is a comedy show, he's entertainment. Yet John Stewart, he's very good and very honest at what he does. He's sarcastic and all that. And you know, the poll they took after Walter Krokite died, they asked who is the most trusted news person in the nation and John Stewart won it running away. Now imagine what that says to our media when you have a comedy show that the majority of the American people feel that he is the replacement for Walter Kronkite.

Eric: [At this point, Jessie and I start laughing] That definitely says a lot. Since I work for a major media outlet, I'm not going to continue this line of questioning.

Jesse Ventura: Why?

Eric: I like my job.

Jesse Ventura: I know the term I was looking to use. Sound byte. All you get is sound byte news. Everything is a sound byte. There is no investigative reporting that goes on anymore. It's strictly sound bytes.

Eric: There are some conspiracies that most people dismiss as being ludicrous. At what point in your research do you consider a theory to be a hoax and which ones have they been?

Jesse Ventura: So far none. A hoax, I don't consider any of them that I've done a hoax because there is too much documentation. If you read my book, you'll see that it is not my imagination on this, we've got everything documented. At the end of a paragraph, there will be one of those little numbers [end notes] and you can go to the back of the book and see exactly where the information came from.

So I tell people, this isn't my imagination. I'm not Vince Flynn. I'm not Tom Clancy. I'm not creating a great story for you. I'm simply reacting and putting together.

It's very much like when you are doing this like taking a jigsaw puzzle and taking all the pieces and throwing it into a mess on the floor. And you start by picking up one piece which is information. Then you eventually start piecing together all these little bits of information. Now can you complete the whole jigsaw puzzle? No, you can not do that. But you can put together enough information, and get enough clues and pieces to the puzzle to where you can then look at it. It may have a big whole in it but you can look at it and clearly understand what the big picture is.