Pope John XII (c. 937 – 14 May 964), born Octavianus, was Pope from 16 December 955 to 14 May 964. The son of Alberic II, Patrician of Rome, and his stepsister Alda of Vienne, he was a seventh generation descendant of Charlemagne on his mother's side.

Before his death in 954, Alberic administered an oath to the Roman nobles in St. Peter's providing that the next vacancy for the papal chair would be filled by his son Octavianus. He succeeded his father as Patrician of Rome in 954 at only seventeen years of age. After the death of Agapetus II in November 955, Octavianus was actually chosen his successor on 16 December 955 at the age of eighteen. His adoption of the apostolic name of John XII was the third example of taking a regnal name upon elevation to the papal chair, the first being John II (533–535) and the second John III (561–574). Pope John XII was depicted as a coarse, immoral man in the writings which remain about his papacy, whose life was such that the Lateran was spoken of as a brothel, and the moral corruption in Rome became the subject of general disgrace.

The Venerable Pope Pius XII (Latin: Pius PP. XII; Italian: Pio XII), born Eugenio Marìa Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli (2 March 1876 – 9 October 1958), reigned as Pope, head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City State, from 2 March 1939 until his death in 1958.

Before election to the papacy, Pacelli served as secretary of the Department of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, papal nuncio and Cardinal Secretary of State, in which capacity he worked to conclude treaties with European and Latin American nations, most notably the Reichskonkordat with Nazi Germany. The concordat of 1933 which saw the self-destruction of the Centre (Catholic) Party, on the orders of the Holy See, and Pius' leadership of the Catholic Church during World War II, including his "decision to stay silent in public about the fate of the Jews", remain the subject of controversy.

After the war Pius XII advocated peace and reconciliation, including lenient policies towards Axis and Axis-satellite nations. The Church experienced severe persecution and mass deportations of Catholic clergy in the Eastern Bloc. In light of his overt involvement in Italian politics – anyone who voted for a Communist candidate in the 1948 elections was threatened with automatic excommunication – Pius XII became known as a staunch opponent of the Italian Communist Party. Pius XII explicitly invoked ex cathedra papal infallibility with the dogma of the Assumption of Mary in his 1950 Apostolic constitution Munificentissimus Deus. His magisterium includes almost 1,000 addresses and radio broadcasts. His forty-one encyclicals include Mystici Corporis, the Church as the Body of Christ; Mediator Dei on liturgy reform; and Humani generis on the Church's positions on theology and evolution. He eliminated the Italian majority in the College of Cardinals in 1946.

Blessed Pope John XXIII (Latin: Ioannes PP. XXIII; Italian: Giovanni XXIII), born Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli (25 November 1881 – 3 June 1963), headed the Catholic Church and ruled Vatican City from 1958 until his death.

Pope John was elected on 28 October 1958. He called the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) but did not live to see it to completion. He died in 1963, only four-and-a-half years after his election, and two months after the completion of his final encyclical, Pacem in Terris. He was beatified, along with Pope Pius IX, on 3 September 2000.

Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli was born in Sotto il Monte, a small country village in the Bergamo province of the Lombardy region of Italy. He was the first-born son of Giovanni Battista Roncalli (1854–1935) and his wife Marianna Giulia Mazzolla (1854–1939), and fourth in a family of 13, including: Angelo Giuseppe, Alfredo (1889–??), Maria Caterina (1877–1883), Teresa (1879–1954), Ancilla (1880–1953), Domenico Giuseppe (22 February 1888 – 14 March 1888), Francesco Zaverio (1883–1976), Maria Elisa (1884–1955), Assunta Casilda (1886–??), Giovanni Francesco (1891–1956), Enrica (1893–1918), Giuseppe Luigi (1894–??) and Luigi (1896–1898). His family worked as sharecroppers as did most of the people of Sotto il Monte – a striking contrast to that of his predecessor, Eugenio Pacelli (Pope Pius XII), who came from an ancient aristocratic family, long connected to the Papacy. However, he was still a descendant of an Italian noble family, from a secondary and impoverished branch.

John Joseph Loftus (February 12, 1950, Boston, Massachusetts) is an American author, former US government prosecutor and former Army intelligence officer. He is a president of The Intelligence Summit and, although he is not Jewish, a president of the Florida Holocaust Museum. Loftus also serves on the Board of Advisers to Public Information Research. He currently resides in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Son of a Boston firefighter, Loftus is a graduate of Boston College (BA, 1971) and Suffolk University (JD, 1977). He served in the U.S. Army from 1971 to 1974, attaining the rank of First Lieutenant. He began working for the US Department of Justice in 1977 and in 1979 joined their Office of Special Investigations, which was charged with prosecuting and deporting Nazi war criminals in the US. Loftus' now-expired Web site claimed, "As a young U.S. Army officer, John Loftus helped train Israelis on a covert operation that turned the tide of battle in the 1973 Yom Kippur War."

Loftus is the author and co-author of several controversial books on Nazis, espionage, and similar topics including The Belarus Secret (1982), Unholy Trinity: How the Vatican's Nazi Networks Betrayed Western Intelligence to the Soviets (1992), The Secret War Against the Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed the Jewish People (1994), Unholy Trinity: The Vatican, the Nazis, and the Swiss Banks (1998). Although Loftus' first book, The Belarus Secret, is nonfiction, it was adapted into a TV-film, Kojak: The Belarus File (1985), with Telly Savalas.

David "Dave" Emory (born New York City, 1949) is an American talk radio host based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

A self-described "anti-fascist," Emory has since the 1980s produced, written and hosted several radio programs: The Guns of November, Miscellaneous Archive Shows, One Step Beyond and Anti-Fascist Archives (formerly Radio Free America). During the 2000s, Emory's For the Record series has aired every Monday on KKUP in San Jose, Tuesday on WFMU in Jersey City, the early a.m. hours Thursday on KPFK in Los Angeles, Thursdays and Fridays on KFJC in Los Altos Hills, California, and Fridays on WCBN in Ann Arbor. Descriptions and summaries of For The Record programs are archived and maintained by SpitfireList.com. Audio archives are maintained by WFMU.

Programs consist of two 30-minute monologues or telephone interviews on one or more topics, including Fascism, Corporatism, genocide, the Cold War, Fifth column movements, and international banking scandals. Recurring topics also include the Kennedy assassination and its alleged relations to the FBI, George H. W. Bush, Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal, German-controlled industry and banking, the Muslim Brotherhood, 9/11, the Bush family and its business connections to the Osama Bin Laden family and the Third Reich (through Senator Prescott Bush), the P-2 Lodge, disinformation, mind control and cults. Interview guests include writer Kevin Coogan, Nazi-hunter and author John Loftus, author Sterling Seagrave, freelance journalist and 2004 presidential candidate John Buchanan, and investigative journalists Lucy Komisar and Robert Parry.