American History: lainnya

Aristotle Onassis

Aristotle Onassis

Aristotle Onassis As the alleged head of the international Mafia in the 1960s and 1970s, the Greek oil and shipping magnate Aristotle O...

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href=" " imageanchor="1" rel="nofollow" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="blank"><img alt="Oil" an="" and="" border="0" commodity="" economic="" essential="" industry="" is="" oil="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ0gRhJzMaFGB3BoqQ26Wr9KZRjFy2P4oEpvizijO9ezsvsyOEHxuE4cAaLrvOfz-HZfDnsML2Xaor3bqzJhyphenhyphenHzzH_5SJW-zigmnh85zAaWRuLFhVd6ELn8tkXIG8lMXxDBuYesmWUn28/s1600/Oil-Industry.jpg" strategic="" title="Oil" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oil Industry</td></tr> </tbody></table> Oil is an essential economic and strategic commodity. Oil power enabled the internal combustion engine to revolutionize industry, society, and the conduct of warfare in the twentieth century. Necessarily, the oil industry is one of the world’s largest industries, and plays a major political and economic role in many nations. Conspiracy theories, however, hold that the oil industry secretly controls U.S. politics and foreign policy from behind the scenes. These theories reject conventional explanations for wars, terrorist attacks, and assassinations, and assert instead that these events were “really about oil.” Actual Conspiracies The oil industry has often behaved in a conspiratorial fashion. In the early 1870s, <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="1400077303" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="c7da8428227cc1566e38d39b8698e8ae" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="John D. Rockefeller" href="http://www.amazon.com/Titan-Life-John-Rockefeller-Sr/dp/1400077303/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=epichistory-20&linkId=c7da8428227cc1566e38d39b8698e8ae&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_1293844" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">John D. Rockefeller</a><img alt="Oil" an="" and="" border="0" commodity="" economic="" essential="" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_1293844" industry="" is="" oil="" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=epichistory-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=c7da8428227cc1566e38d39b8698e8ae&_cb=1483199784382" strategic="" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /> resolved to monopolize the oil industry, and his <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="1507570104" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="5a533fb4c179c37c688ff0025f56b800" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Standard Oil Company" href="http://www.amazon.com/History-Standard-Oil-Company/dp/1507570104/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=epichistory-20&linkId=5a533fb4c179c37c688ff0025f56b800&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_6329140" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Standard Oil Company</a><img alt="Oil" an="" and="" border="0" commodity="" economic="" essential="" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_6329140" industry="" is="" oil="" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=epichistory-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=5a533fb4c179c37c688ff0025f56b800&_cb=1483199773465" strategic="" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /> soon controlled 90–95 percent of U.S. production and refining. <table align="center" border="0"><tbody> <tr> <td align="center"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1439110123/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&linkCode=li3&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=408e3bc7539d761e35f3ce7ff9f9bd97" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1439110123&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img alt="Oil" an="" and="" border="0" commodity="" economic="" essential="" height="1" industry="" is="" oil="" src="//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=li3&o=1&a=1439110123" strategic="" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0982039204/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&linkCode=li3&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=2c65daec12ed160bfa3590bca5c7c924" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0982039204&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img alt="Oil" an="" and="" border="0" commodity="" economic="" essential="" height="1" industry="" is="" oil="" src="//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=li3&o=1&a=0982039204" strategic="" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /></td> </tr> </tbody></table> Standard derived considerable advantage from large size and superior <a href=" " target="_blank">organization</a>, but also ruthlessly used espionage, price-cutting, intimidation, and bribery to destroy or absorb rivals. Standard negotiated secret agreements with the railroads to charge Standard lower transportation rates than rival companies, and to pay Standard a percentage of every dollar the railroads charged Standard’s rivals. Antitrust legislation, and the emergence of new sources of supply, ultimately prevented Standard from eliminating all competitors. However, the <a href=" " target="_blank">Rockefeller family</a> amassed a vast fortune and political influence that persists even today. In 1928, British, Dutch, and U.S. oil companies divided the Middle Eastern market and agreed to prevent overproduction, allocate quotas, fix prices, and deal jointly with outside producers. After <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">World War II</a>, the United States abrogated these agreements and secured an increased presence for U.S. companies in <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Saudi Arabia</a>, Kuwait, and Iran. The U.S. Congress, Justice Department, and Federal Trade Commission investigated these agreements. Consequently, in 1952 the Justice Department convened a grand jury to pursue civil and criminal antitrust charges against the oil companies. Ironically, even as the antitrust case progressed, the State Department was negotiating with Britain to create the cartel that controlled Iranian production and refining. <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="0671747584" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="dff6da19ef69ecacf6fe186e6c6fc520" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="President Eisenhower" href="http://www.amazon.com/Eisenhower-Soldier-President-Renowned-One-/dp/0671747584/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=epichistory-20&linkId=dff6da19ef69ecacf6fe186e6c6fc520&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_4928902" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">President Eisenhower</a><img alt="Oil" an="" and="" border="0" commodity="" economic="" essential="" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_4928902" industry="" is="" oil="" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=epichistory-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=dff6da19ef69ecacf6fe186e6c6fc520&_cb=1483199810449" strategic="" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /> wanted to use the oil industry to exclude Soviet influence from Iran, and this national security consideration trumped antitrust concerns. At length, the antitrust case petered out without significant result. The <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="1591846609" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="5c1039993ee14c8404b971f08f50ddaf" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Enron case" href="http://www.amazon.com/Smartest-Guys-Room-Amazing-Scandalous/dp/1591846609/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=epichistory-20&linkId=5c1039993ee14c8404b971f08f50ddaf&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_9587150" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Enron case</a><img alt="Oil" an="" and="" border="0" commodity="" economic="" essential="" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_9587150" industry="" is="" oil="" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=epichistory-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=5c1039993ee14c8404b971f08f50ddaf&_cb=1483199834152" strategic="" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /> is a recent example of a criminal conspiracy in the oil industry. After Enron went bankrupt in 2001, company officials were indicted on charges of fraud and money laundering. Other allegations included improper accounting, falsification of financial statements, and conspiracy to manipulate energy prices in California. The full extent of Enron’s political influence remains unknown, although several senior Bush administration officials have Enron connections. Oil and U.S. Foreign Policy Most historians agree that the U.S. government uses the oil companies as instruments of foreign policy. Conspiracy theorists, however, cite the above examples from the sordid history of the oil industry to support the argument that the U.S. government is an instrument of the oil companies. Such theorists insist that government policy (especially foreign policy) usually benefits the oil industry. The theory that the oil industry exerts undue influence on U.S. politics and foreign policy emerges partly from the large number of government officials drawn from the so-called Eastern Establishment. The Eastern Establishment includes northeastern (especially New York) law firms, financial institutions, foundations, media corporations, Ivy League schools, and think tanks such as the <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="0896081036" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="77b88218dc992c080e3f130891735dbe" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Trilateral Commission" href="http://www.amazon.com/Trilateralism-Trilateral-Commission-Planning-Management/dp/0896081036/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=epichistory-20&linkId=77b88218dc992c080e3f130891735dbe&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_9870462" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Trilateral Commission</a><img alt="Oil" an="" and="" border="0" commodity="" economic="" essential="" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_9870462" industry="" is="" oil="" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=epichistory-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=77b88218dc992c080e3f130891735dbe&_cb=1483199900881" strategic="" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" width="0" /> and Council on Foreign Relations. Conspiracy theorists contend that “the Rockefellers” (a term synonymous with the oil industry) control the Eastern Establishment, and thereby control the government. The secretary of state, in particular, has always been a member of the Rockefeller faction since <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">World War II</a>, as have many CIA directors. Conspiracy theories maintain that Middle Eastern coups and wars are manufactured in Washington to increase U.S. hegemony over the region’s oil. Daniel Pipes shows that such theories are strongly held in Middle Eastern countries themselves. Even responsible national leaders fear that the CIA will overthrow them at the behest of the oil industry, or that Israel and western countries will conspire to attack them for reasons related to oil. (Of course, such a coup actually occurred in Iran in 1953, and Britain, France, and Israel indeed conspired to attack Egypt in 1956.) Conspiracy theorists contend that the Yom Kippur War, the <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Iran-Iraq War</a>, the Gulf War, and the current “War on Terrorism” all resulted from U.S. manipulation and were intended to benefit the U.S. oil industry. In 1967, Israel inflicted a crushing defeat on Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. The Arabs rearmed, and attempted to recapture their lost territories on Yom Kippur in 1973. Arab armies made initial progress until Israel counterattacked. <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">OPEC</a> oil producers embargoed the United States, Portugal, the Netherlands, and South Africa for their support of Israel, and oil prices skyrocketed. Conspiracy theorists argue that then-Secretary of State <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Henry Kissinger</a> (the Rockefellers’ principal pawn) engineered this war in order to raise oil prices as part of his strategy of détente. The price increase rewarded the Soviet Union (an oil producer) and punished America’s principal economic competitors (Europe and Japan), who were more dependent on Middle Eastern oil than the United States. Supposedly, Kissinger told the Arabs that the United States could not induce Israel to begin the “peace process” until the Arabs scored a victory on the battlefield. Moreover, Kissinger restrained Israel from launching a preemptive strike before the Arabs attacked. In 1979, growing unrest in Iran led to the overthrow of the shah and the rise of an Islamic fundamentalist regime, which seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran. The humiliating hostage crisis, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, triggered a spike in oil prices, and contributed to <a href=" " target="_blank">Ronald Reagan</a>’s electoral victory in 1980. Just before the election, <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Saddam Hussein</a>’s Iraq tried to seize Iran’s oilfields, leading to eight years of bloody, indecisive warfare. These events provoked many conspiracy theories. The shah himself believed that foreign conspirators overthrew him, at times naming the oil companies as his nemesis. Many Iranians still believe the CIA ousted the shah. Some contend that the Reagan campaign conspired with <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Khomeini</a> to ensure that the embassy hostages were not released before the 1980 election (known as “the <a href=" " target="_blank">October Surprise</a>”). Other theories insist that Washington wanted high oil prices in 1979 in order to slow European and Japanese economic growth vis-à-vis the United States. Part of this reprise of the 1973 strategy was President Carter’s “green light” for Saddam to attack Iran. Carter and the oil industry hoped that Saddam’s attack would bring Iranian oil under the control of a de facto ally, and would force Iran to cooperate with Washington, since the Iranian military depended on U.S. equipment. Carter also hoped this pressure would lead to the overthrow of Khomeini and the release of U.S. hostages before the 1980 elections. Proponents of this alternative “October Surprise” theory observe that the United States “tilted” toward Iraq from early 1980 until early 1990. Some authors argue that Washington manipulated oil prices downward in the 1980s in order to bankrupt the Soviet Union. To reward cooperative Soviet policies after 1989, however, Washington decided to use Iraq to raise the price of oil. In July 1990, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq told Saddam Hussein that the United States had “no opinion” on Iraq’s border dispute with Kuwait. Conspiracy theorists consider this a U.S. “green light” for Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. The “green light” was a deliberate trap—the U.S. never intended to permit Saddam to keep Kuwait. Instead, the U.S. intended to use the resulting crisis and war to increase the price of oil and to introduce major military forces into <a href=" " target="_blank">Saudi Arabia</a> and neighboring oil-rich states, where they remain to this day. The oil industry further profited from the rebuilding of Kuwait after the war. Conspiracy theorists cite the connections between President Bush, administration officials such as then Defense Secretary Cheney, and the oil industry to support the claim that the 1991 <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Gulf War</a> was “really” about oil. Such theorists again cite the connections between President George W. Bush, Vice-President Cheney, other administration officials, and the oil industry to support their views of the September 11 terrorist attacks and their aftermath. The conspiracy view of September 11 is that the Bush administration knew the attacks were coming, but deliberately let them happen to provide a pretext for military aggression. The “War on Terrorism” is thus a fig leaf to cover the “real” U.S. agenda—to control Central Asian oil resources and the potential pipeline routes through Afghanistan and Pakistan. Allegedly, the United States initially backed the vicious Taliban regime in Afghanistan because the <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Taliban</a> were receptive to pipeline construction. However, pipeline negotiations failed in 1998, and the United States then began to subvert the Taliban. After <a href=" " target="_blank">September 11</a>, the United States simply executed a long-prepared plan for an invasion of Afghanistan. The increased U.S. military presence in Central Asia and the Saudi peninsula allowed the U.S. to tighten its grip on the region’s oil, and to prepare for an invasion of Iraq. Conspiracy theorists believed that if the U.S. invaded Iraq, the “real” objective would have been to allow U.S. oil companies to exploit idle Iraqi oilfields.

Oil Industry

Oil Industry Oil is an essential economic and strategic commodity. Oil power enabled the internal combustion engine to revolutionize in...

Nullification

Nullification

Nullification Nullification is the assertion of power or constitutional authority by a state or subnational government that negates or ...

Nuclear Freeze Movement

Nuclear Freeze Movement

Nuclear Freeze Movement After Watergate , Vietnam , and the economic/cultural malaise of the 1970s, the election of Ronald Reagan to t...

Richard Nixon

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href=" " imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><img alt="The" border="0" career="" milhous="" nixon="" of="" political="" richard="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIMBsmIgHQ5-upHPdSKfZi87dypy_zZv2BAJJ-z5Lt2zQpIBldX6-Ky5Q_rJkeFgN-dRKQEp3l-l_5Px1SYlhPazGKwCm2TZ-HMrC-2BtqvCk26xLDCUIcbtuEah9jMwAjgJvrg9OQONI/s1600/Richard-Nixon.jpg" title="Richard" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Richard Nixon</td></tr> </tbody></table> The political career of Richard Milhous Nixon (1913–1994), thirty-seventh president of the United States, was framed by suggestions of conspiracy, from his rapid rise to prominence as a result of his involvement with the Hiss case to <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Watergate</a>, which ended his career. Furthermore, the frequent diagnosis of Nixon as “paranoid” placed him as both subject and object of numerous conspiracy theories. Nixon’s connection to the conspiratorial even predates the Hiss case, beginning with his response to the advertisement by the “Committee of 100” for a candidate to oppose Congressman Jerry Voorhis. The Committee was a group of local businessmen, sometimes considered to have sinister motives, who met at an elitist rural retreat, Bohemian Grove in <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">California</a>, itself connected to a set of conspiracy theories through groups such as the Bilderbergers. Mae Brussell insists that “That ad was typical, a covert method of pretending this was an open contest for office”. Brussell’s argument invokes an article of faith that frequently exceeds the “conspiracy research community”: that Nixon’s entire career constituted a form of conspiracy. <table align="center" style="width: 450px;"><tbody> <tr> <td align="center" width="225"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1627790837/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&linkCode=li3&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=9f37b749896c17c8244cfdb90ef1069b" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1627790837&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img alt="The" border="0" career="" height="1" milhous="" nixon="" of="" political="" richard="" src="//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=li3&o=1&a=1627790837" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /></td> <td align="center" width="225"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812995368/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&linkCode=li3&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=8d12332829fe1c4806d51ba40fabeb7a" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0812995368&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img alt="The" border="0" career="" height="1" milhous="" nixon="" of="" political="" richard="" src="//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=li3&o=1&a=0812995368" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /></td> </tr> </tbody></table> Nixon’s early political success was largely dependent on public recognition of his preeminent position on the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), most notably in his investigation of espionage charges against Alger Hiss. Nixon coauthored the first piece of legislation produced by the HUAC, the Mundt-Nixon Bill, which was anticonspiracy legislation in that it would have forced “Communist front” organizations to reveal themselves by declaring Communist Party affiliation. While Nixon’s ensuing prominence can only be credited in a period in which the “international Communist conspiracy” or “red scare” was a widespread belief, his status as perceived conspirator and object of conspiracy exceeded the zeitgeist. Nixon not only responded to, but also contributed to, conspiratorial beliefs, intending, for example, to investigate “communistic art” in federal buildings and insisting that filmmakers make films that warn the American people about the dangers of communism. Throughout his career, Nixon was linked to financial corruption and to organized crime. As the journalist Jeff Gerth argued during Nixon’s presidency, Nixon was located at the center of a tangled web of conspiracy: “Somewhere within the classic alliance of money, power, and politics lies this particular sharp-edged triangle: the Teamsters Union ... ; the shadowy empire of organized crime and its power; and the political fiefdom of Richard Nixon”. This interconnection of a “shadow government” and organized crime, termed “deep politics” by Peter Dale Scott, is frequently aligned with Nixon in conspiracy theories. In the document “A Skeleton Key to the Gemstone Files,” for example, Nixon first appears in 1956, having been “bought” by Howard Hughes in his conspiratorial attempt to control the U.S. electoral process. Nixon’s significant financial dealings with Hughes inspired a number of conspiracy theories, including a purported Hughes involvement with Watergate. This contributed to a model for the perceived power structure of the Nixon <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">administration</a>, which “replaced public politics with the politics of secrecy”. Watergate and Beyond While many of Nixon’s political actions have been considered to be conspiratorial, such as the secret bombing of Cambodia or his obstruction of the Paris peace talks to end the <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Vietnam War</a> before the 1968 presidential election (detailed by Anthony Summers), the latter part of Nixon’s political career coincided with shifting models of power, which tended to identify his power as overt and, therefore, largely symbolic. Some conspiracy theories correspondingly place Nixon as the victim of the covert “invisible government.” Some critics have argued that Watergate was a constitutional coup d’état against Nixon; Robert Altman’s Secret Honor (1984) presents it as an operation designed to finally remove him from the control of the “deep politics”—of the “Committee of 100.” But it was after the investigations into Watergate revealed the power operations of the Nixon administration that Nixon became linked, through conspiracy theory, to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. On the White House audiotape of 23 June 1972, known as the “Smoking Gun” tape, Nixon instructs Chief of Staff Bob Haldeman to have the CIA pressure the FBI into dropping its Watergate investigation, because it would “open up the whole Bay of Pigs thing again.” Haldeman would later write, “It seems that in all those references to the Bay of Pigs, he was actually referring to the Kennedy assassination”. Some conspiracy researchers would specifically link the assassination to Watergate, arguing that White House burglar Frank Sturgis and fellow “Plumbers” unit member E. Howard Hunt were the assassins, a claim investigated by the U.S. President’s Commission on CIA Activities within the United States, also known as the <a href=" " target="_blank">Rockefeller</a> Commission. While there is no substantial evidence to verify these theories, the perception of the conspiring Nixon revealed by Watergate was transposed onto many of his actions. For example, Nixon, who was revealed to have been in Dallas on the day of Kennedy’s assassination, told the Warren Commission that he had only been in Dallas on 20 and 21 November. Nixon gave varying explanations for this mistake, giving rise to jokes that Nixon was the only member of his generation who did not remember where he was when Kennedy was shot. Of the many reasons proffered for why Watergate occurred, one of the most enduring is that it was an extension of Nixon’s personal <a href=" " target="_blank">paranoia</a>. Both opponents and some administration members referred to this, either indirectly, by alluding to Nixon’s “isolation” or “bunker mentality,” or directly, by claiming he suffered from a form of persecutory paranoia. But whether or not Watergate was initiated as an attempt to preempt Nixon’s “enemies,” Nixon could never escape Watergate. The verified criminality and conspiracy of Watergate would forever conjoin Nixon, the “unindicted coconspirator” (in the legal jargon), to the realm of conspiracy theory, with the revelation of his actions and motivation projected onto his entire life and career. After Watergate forced the end of his official political career, Nixon spent the remainder of his life writing books on foreign policy and attempting to rehabilitate his public image. For many critics, the laudatory eulogies at his funeral—Senator Bob Dole said that the latter twentieth century would be known as the “age of Nixon”—testified to the <a href=" " target="_blank">success</a> of this, Nixon’s greatest conspiracy.

Richard Nixon

Richard Nixon The political career of Richard Milhous Nixon (1913–1994), thirty-seventh president of the United States, was framed by su...

Newburgh Conspiracy

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPdQd8Ytwor17TiZxvUqmnzzG4rKdgl5lXj4X0Oq-8wH_vdxumGGvgFIoymGq31a1Dw4TRxAZrsvjzGjZ3PeidPBFEJsiWN4wwNDpVEb6JqlDQrns5Xaa2Gzp7munHO36Uo3OG9FiLAG0/s1600/Newburgh-Conspiracy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="allegations" an="" attempted="" border="0" conspiracy="" coup="" d="" erupted="" newburgh="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPdQd8Ytwor17TiZxvUqmnzzG4rKdgl5lXj4X0Oq-8wH_vdxumGGvgFIoymGq31a1Dw4TRxAZrsvjzGjZ3PeidPBFEJsiWN4wwNDpVEb6JqlDQrns5Xaa2Gzp7munHO36Uo3OG9FiLAG0/s1600/Newburgh-Conspiracy.jpg" surrounding="" title="Newburgh" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Newburgh Conspiracy</td></tr> </tbody></table> In March 1783 allegations erupted surrounding an attempted coup d’état by Continental Army officers encamped at Newburgh, New York. The relationship between Congress and the Continental Army had been strained throughout the Revolutionary War. As Congress was notoriously short on cash, payments to soldiers and officers were insufficient and erratic; many went without remuneration for several consecutive years. Officers hoped for a recognition of their services in the form of pensions, and Congress had in 1780 voted to award them half pay for life. However, the impost tax of 1781, designed to finance pensions, failed to achieve ratification by the states. Furthermore, as the financial situation of many officers worsened, they started to call for a lump sum instead of a lifetime of small payments, a demand known as commutation. <table align="center" style="width: 450px;"><tbody> <tr> <td align="center" width="225"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0985387580/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&linkCode=li3&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=2523689c2784e2f2853aa834470b494b" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0985387580&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img alt="allegations" an="" attempted="" border="0" conspiracy="" coup="" d="" erupted="" height="1" newburgh="" src="//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=li3&o=1&a=0985387580" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" surrounding="" width="1" /></td> <td align="center" width="225"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Rebellion-Ranks-Mutinies-American-Revolution/dp/1594160554/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&dpID=51j5rxA5ctL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR105%2C160_&refRID=0AATWJCH0ZW9HBAGDWS9&&linkCode=li3&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=b454e6522601b42cacbea796a07fe7ac" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1594160554&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img alt="allegations" an="" attempted="" border="0" conspiracy="" coup="" d="" erupted="" height="1" newburgh="" src="//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=li3&o=1&a=1594160554" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" surrounding="" width="1" /></td> </tr> </tbody></table> In late 1782, the army sent a delegation under the leadership of General Alexander McDougall to Congress in order to demand a redress of their grievances. Despite the general’s vigorous and outspoken lobbying effort, Congress voted against commutation in January 1783. With commutation rejected, no feasible prospect of financing pensions, and a peace treaty with Britain imminent—which meant the subsequent disbanding of the Continental Army—discontent grew among officers who had sacrificed much for the <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Revolution</a> and now feared being left out in the cold. A group of young officers connected to Major General Horatio Gates, an old rival of George Washington’s, started spreading a series of anonymous pamphlets around the Newburgh encampment in early March 1783. These Newburgh Addresses, written by Major John Armstrong, accused Congress of betraying the army, lambasted the ineffectiveness of McDougall’s petition, criticized Washington for undue moderation, and called for a meeting of officers on 11 March in order to decide on further measures. It was quite possible to see in the Newburgh Addresses a call for rebellion against civil authority, or even a full-scale coup d’état, but more moderate readings were also possible. At the very least the pamphlets proposed an ultimatum to Congress and advocated a refusal to disband the army until their demands were met. In any case, Washington stepped in to defuse the situation. Forbidding the meeting on 11 March, he called for another a few days later to discuss the results of McDougall’s petition. At this meeting, Washington condemned the Addresses and made an emotional appeal to remain loyal to Congress and the American Republic. Washington’s speech won over the officers, who passed a resolution asking Congress for redress, but also affirming their loyalty and condemning the Newburgh Addresses. The most controversial aspect of this crisis in military loyalty, which became known as the Newburgh conspiracy, did not involve the officers responsible for the Newburgh Addresses as much as a group of nationalist politicians, especially Robert Morris, the congressional superintendent of finance, as well as Gouverneur Morris and Alexander Hamilton. They hoped that lobbying efforts by the military would induce Congress to pass a second impost law, thus fulfilling their hope of securing the power of taxation for Congress. Robert Morris had been in touch with McDougall’s delegation and had urged the officers to impress upon Congress in no uncertain terms the level of discontent in the army. After Congress had rejected commutation, McDougall wrote to Major General Henry Knox under the pseudonym Brutus, suggesting that the army refuse to disband until its demands were met. Knox, however, refused to spearhead so blatant a defiance of civil authority. At this point, theories diverge considerably. One interpretation holds that, spurned by Knox and thoroughly discouraged with Congress, the Morrises and Hamilton turned to Gates and his followers to start a coup and finally consolidate national government in this way. Another theory argues that the nationalists did encourage Gates’s group to make their move, but that Hamilton warned Washington of the danger in a letter, thus making sure the coup was quelled before it really started. Some evidence exists to support the second claim, but much remains unclear and inconclusive. It seems doubtful that Washington actually needed a warning from his former aide Hamilton to be aware of trouble brewing in Newburgh, and there is some controversy over whether Gates was actually involved. Nevertheless, the impression of a narrowly averted rebellion shocked Congress into voting in favor of commutation as well as a new impost law designed to secure an independent income for Congress, endorsing central demands of both officers and nationalists. Eventually, however, this new impost failed to achieve ratification by the states, and thus the pension question remained unanswered. Distrust of the officer corps, nationalist politicians, and special privilege remained contentious throughout the early Republic; they figured prominently in the controversy surrounding the Society of the Cincinnati and the ratification of the Constitution.

Newburgh Conspiracy

Newburgh Conspiracy In March 1783 allegations erupted surrounding an attempted coup d’état by Continental Army officers encamped at New...

Neo-Nazis

Neo-Nazis

Neo-Nazis Along with other right-wing hate groups, neo-Nazis have drawn on the rhetoric of conspiracy to frame their analysis of global...

Nativism

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href=" " imageanchor="1" rel="nofollow" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><img alt="At" border="0" century="" height="" in="" its="" nativism="" nineteenth="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv1gEAqSOqi80sQRi75JSWMHGtKzqshusHkE_ILHyZFvrQOQIbSzVlfipiL2cGAXTY0go5c2bU1oKQhq-bYMSbE1hAetzDq9syWAd2XIJ9-BymZNMxCzPG2FtDX6BpcmFhq39XSzXkmbiO/s1600/nativists.jpg" the="" title="Nativism" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nativism</td></tr> </tbody></table> At its height in the nineteenth century, nativism was the often conspiratorial hostility of white, native-born, Protestant Americans to European immigrants that, at times, was embodied in political movements and evolved into genuinely exclusionist policies. In the 1850s, a burgeoning coalition of self-proclaimed nativists swept into office and called for radical change. During the nineteenth century, the perception of immigrants shifted from welcome to demonization, usually depending on whether the United States was going through economic expansion or stagnation. From the start, immigration and the resulting competition, whether religious, class, or racial, between ethnic groups became a key issue in the development of the United States, and one that was frequently expressed in the rhetoric of conspiracy theory. <table align="center" border="0"><tbody> <tr> <td align="center"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0520269918/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&linkCode=li3&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=25ab0d8d652d100899992e03fdc382ed" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0520269918&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img alt="At" border="0" century="" height="1" in="" its="" nativism="" nineteenth="" src="//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=li3&o=1&a=0520269918" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" the="" width="1" /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0813531233/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&linkCode=li3&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=e236541af4d0a0a58d08f874e82cd0ff" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0813531233&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img alt="At" border="0" century="" height="1" in="" its="" nativism="" nineteenth="" src="//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=li3&o=1&a=0813531233" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" the="" width="1" /></td> </tr> </tbody></table> Historically, immigration falls into three periods: colonial and eighteenth century; “Old” in the first half of the nineteenth century; and “New” starting in the 1880s. The decade from 1845 to 1854 saw the greatest proportionate influx of immigrants in U.S. history. By 1860 more than one out of every eight Americans was foreign-born, with the most numerous being Irish, German, and English immigrants. Each period generated its own kind of nativist reaction, from Know-Nothingism (the openly nativist political party of the 1840s and 1850s), to anti-immigration laws (the first being the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, culminating in the closing of the gates through the National Origins Acts of 1921 and 1924). It is important to note, however, that openness to immigration has remained the majority opinion, for in Tom Paine’s words, the United States was to be “an asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty” from all parts of the world. In the colonial period, although ethnic mixture was the reality, with a majority white population living alongside an Indian and a black group of <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title=Nativism>African</a> origin, the white group was very heterogeneous in its composition. The majority were of English origin but many were Dutch, French Huguenots, German, and Scots-Irish, which created frictions. For instance, in the Massachusetts colony, the Puritans did all they could not to admit non-English settlers. In spite of the reality of ethnic plurality, the global perception was that of Englishness. Hence, after the Revolution, the 60 percent of English origin in the white community took political power and set the tune culturally. Early nativism was marked by a belief in total assimilation, the giving up of one’s former culture, language, and behavior to be blended into a new identity, that of an American, as celebrated by Hector Saint John de Crèvecoeur, who glorified the land of limitless opportunities to all newcomers (the “melting-pot” theory). The asylum tradition was promoted through the 1790 Naturalization Act, which made it possible for virtually anybody to be admitted and naturalized into a citizen. However, this “generous” act contained limitations; only “free white persons” who had resided in the United States for at least two years were eligible for naturalization. Hence, from the start, the reality of social and political exclusion—of blacks and Indians—paved the way for <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">future</a> exclusions. The self-image of hospitality was seriously tested at the time of the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts, which gave the president arbitrary countersubversive powers to exclude or deport any foreigner deemed to be dangerous, and to prosecute anybody publishing or writing in “a false, scandalous and malicious nature” about the president or Congress. The government was reacting against European radicals whose political activities were considered subversive. The Naturalization Act was amended to provide for a fourteen-year residency requirement for prospective citizens; in 1802, Congress reduced the waiting period to five years, a provision that remains in effect today. Anti-Catholicism In the following decades, most immigrants entering the United States were Roman Catholics (one-third of all immigrants between 1830 and 1840 were from Catholic Ireland), and so ethnic prejudice against immigrants was also usually accompanied by conspiracy-mongering against Catholicism. Since the colonial period, Americans had come to identify themselves as a Protestant nation, and many leading Protestant clergymen had cautioned the country against a papal plot to destroy U.S. liberty and society. In the nineteenth century this conspiratorial tradition fed into nativism in a variety of forms: exclusive nativist clubs and fraternities such as the Order of United Americans or the United Sons of America; and political parties, especially when the social and economic situation was bleak, as in the late 1830s, the early 1840s, and the mid-1850s. These groups attracted middle-class Protestants, members of the two “traditional” parties (Democratic and Whig), and working-class voters who resented what they considered to be the job competition from immigrants, the increase in crime, public drunkenness, and pauperism, and the manipulation of immigrant voters. More significant was the proliferation of nativist propaganda. Prompted by the news of an Austrian Catholic missionary society sending money and men to the United States, Samuel F. B. Morse, a distinguished professor of sculpture and painting at New York University, wrote A Foreign Conspiracy against the Liberties of the United States (1834) and he went on to publish The Imminent Dangers to the Free Institutions of the United States (1835), both of which involved denunciations of the Catholic conspiracy against the United States. Lyman Beecher, a seventh-generation clergyman and president of Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati, published A Plea for the West in 1835, in which he exposed the alleged plot by the pope to build a “Vatican” in the West by sending hordes of Catholic settlers there. However, perhaps the most effective was the “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” of nativism, the Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk, which sold 300,000 in 1836. Monk told of her alleged experiences with Catholicism, which involved forced sexual intercourse with priests and the murdering of nuns and children. Although her mother denied the legitimacy of her work, stating that Maria never belonged to the nunnery and that a brain injury her daughter received as a child could be the cause of her stories, the book was widely accepted as truth. In 1841, the Vindicator was published by Rev. W. C. Brownlee, the leader of the New York Protestant Association. In the same year, there was growing concern in New York State that Catholics were gaining influence in schools because of the action of Archbishop John Hughes of New York. He was seeking to obtain state aid for Catholic schools, which was interpreted as both a subversive plot against the First Amendment, and a refusal by Catholics to attend public schools and be assimilated. In 1842, the American Protestant Association was founded by 100 Clergymen in Philadelphia to oppose Catholics. This propaganda led to agitation, rioting, and mobbing. Although Catholics occasionally reacted to the nativist movement with violence, nativists instigated the greater part of those violent acts. In Boston, there were numerous riots in 1823, 1826, and 1829. In May 1832, these potentially explosive conditions produced a riot at a New York Protestant Association meeting. Further, while addressing a Baltimore Baptist audience in 1834, a group of Catholics attacked a Baptist speaker. On 10 August 1834 a mob of forty to fifty people gathered outside of the Ursuline Convent School at Charlestown, near Boston, and burned it to the ground. Although eight people were arrested and tried, only one was sentenced to life imprisonment. This rather lenient sentence, together with the lack of condemnation in moderate Protestant circles, shows how widespread hostility to Catholics had become. The violence continued into the following decade when, for example, thirty people were killed and hundreds injured during nativist riots in Philadelphia in 1844. Political Nativism Anti-Catholicism gradually evolved into a political crusade. In 1844, James Harper founded the American Republican Party in order to break the deadlock between the Whig and Democratic Parties in New York State, and offer another approach to politics. It allied with the Whigs, which resulted in the defeat of the Democratic Party. The American Republican Party demonstrated the political relevance of the nativist movement and paved the way for the entrance of the Know-Nothings into the national political scene as the only coherent organization to rest its political action on hostility to immigration and to Catholics. The American Party had its origins in 1849 in New York. At first a secret society called the Order of the Star-Spangled Banner, it became a formal party in 1853, and its members were dubbed the Know-Nothings (after their refusal to answer questions about their involvement) by Horace Greeley, a famous newspaper editor. By the middle of the 1850s the party ranked over a million members across the country. At the local level, in the 1854 election, the Know-Nothings won six governorships and controlled legislatures in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title=Nativism>California</a>, where they passed discriminatory laws against immigrants, including the first literacy tests for voting, in order to disenfranchise the Irish. The party’s platform focused on voting rights, stretching the residency period before naturalization from five to twenty-one years, and requiring the exclusion of foreigners and Catholics from public office. After the defeat of their candidate in the presidential election of 1856, the Know-Nothings were split by their inability to overcome the slavery issue. They lost influence and were absorbed into the expanding Republican Party, formed in 1854. However, another important factor in their decline was that not all Americans opposed the arrival of new immigrants because they were much needed by industrialists, railroad builders, and other businessmen as unskilled labor willing to accept lower wages. Exclusion or Americanization? After the Civil War, “new immigrants” from southern and central Europe, even more numerous and alien, increased the demonological anxiety of the native-born, which led to numerous conflicts and a radical reexamination of the country’s immigration policy. From 1880 to 1930 a total of 25 million newcomers entered the United States. The more numerous were Italians, Jews, and Slavs—totaling more than 9 million—who brought in new customs, manners, languages, and religions. To this flow of immigration one should add the massive black migration to the North. All these groups were scattered throughout the country but they tended to flock together in big cities, especially in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New England. In this kurun of laissez-faire capitalism, nativism evolved into the fear that class conflict would destroy the social fabric of the United States. Mounting labor organization, and the importation of socialist and anarchist ideologies by immigrants, rekindled the conspiracy theories. The violent strikes of the 1870s and 1880s were therefore seen as signs of forthcoming disaster. In this climate, the American Protective Association was organized as a secret society dedicated to eradicating “foreign despotism,” which included Catholics. One of its aims was to ban German-language instruction. Nativism took on a special coloring in the West, where the fear was of Chinese immigrants, considered a threat to white workers because they accepted lower wages. The Workingmen’s Party led a movement for a new state constitution in California in 1878 and 1879 that included stringent discriminatory measures. At the national level, riots and mobbing, especially in Wyoming and New York, led to mounting pressure by California and other western states on Congress to pass the nation’s first immigration restriction, which some commentators have viewed as the institutionalization of racial paranoia. In 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act excluded the Chinese from naturalization and immigration. More restrictions were introduced in 1892, and Chinese immigration was banned permanently in 1902. In 1906 the first English language requirements for naturalization were enacted. The U.S. government legislated gradually to close the doors by limiting Japanese immigration through the Gentlemen’s Agreement of 1907–1908. In the 1917 Immigration Law, Congress enacted a literacy requirement for all new immigrants and designated Asia as a “barred zone” (excepting Japan and the Philippines). The 1921 National Origins Act inaugurated the quota system, by which admissions from each European country was limited to 3 percent of each foreign-born nationality in the 1910 census. It effectively favored northern Europeans at the expense of southern and eastern Europeans and Asians. The 1924 Johnson-Reed Act can be considered as a perfect application of nativist concerns for racial homogeneity since it confirmed that immigration quotas were based on the ethnic makeup of the U.S. population as a whole in 1920. It was not until 1965 that racial criteria were removed from U.S. immigration legislation. An annual quota of 20,000 was awarded to each country, regardless of ethnicity, under a ceiling of 170,000. Up to 120,000 were allowed to immigrate from Western Hemisphere nations, not subject to quotas (until 1976). Meanwhile, at the end of the nineteenth century in the wake of the Progressive movement, the muckrakers, social workers, and social reformers drew the public’s attention to the poverty, disease, and crime rates of immigrant ghettos. Moreover, they sought to bridge the gap between newcomers and native-born Americans. The “new immigrants” were less skilled, less educated, more clannish, and slower to learn English. However, in order to cope with their new life, immigrants tended to organize into minority societies, trying to preserve as much of the group’s culture as possible. But growing concern for national homogeneity urged many to think that a campaign to “Americanize”—meaning assimilation—was necessary. Thus the Bureau of Americanization was created to encourage employers to make English classes compulsory for their foreign-born workers. For example, in the Ford Motor Company School, the first thing an immigrant was asked to learn to say was, “I am an American.” Most states banned schooling in other tongues; some even prohibited the study of foreign languages in the elementary grades, in the belief that public schools were the major tool for Americanization. English Only? The global demam isu since Word War II has been to diminish discrimination, at least by statute, and to reduce prejudice against immigrants and members of ethnic minorities. Hostility certainly lost much of its conspiracy-minded intensity, with the combined effects of the civil rights movement and the struggle by Hispanics and Native Americans for equal rights. However, the end of racial quotas in 1965 led many Third World people to enter the United States, especially those coming from Central and South America, which alarmed many Americans and gave new targets to nativism, especially in the states where those immigrants tended to flock together. The question of bilingualism then became the central issue of nativists. In the 1980s the “English only” movement was launched to restrict the language of government to English and encourage immigrants to learn English. Illegal immigration was another element that encouraged nativist anxieties, as encapsulated in President Ronald Reagan’s declaration in 1984 that “we have lost control of our own borders.” Illegal immigrants were seen as a threat to native-born workers and an obstacle to unions, as they were enjoying all the advantages of living in America (schools, hospitals, welfare benefits) while escaping all the drawbacks, like taxes. However, no legislation managed to curb the number of “undocumented” aliens on U.S. territory. In California, another upsurge of activism took place in the 1990s due to economic stagnation, rising racial tensions, and the widening gap between the rich and the poor. Voters approved Proposition 187, which was meant to force public agencies (schools, police, and social and health services) to find out the immigration status of supposedly undocumented aliens, and report them to the immigration authorities. The initiative was judged unconstitutional. However, a direct consequence was the enactment by Congress of legislation toughening immigration enforcement laws.

Nativism

Nativism At its height in the nineteenth century, nativism was the often conspiratorial hostility of white, native-born, Protestant Ame...

American History