American History

KAL 007

<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 air="" alt="a" down="" fighter="" flight="" kal="" korean="" lines="" shot="" soviet="" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">KAL 007</td></tr> </tbody></table> On 1 September 1983, a Soviet fighter shot down Korean Air Lines flight 007 (KAL 007) near Sakhalin Island, killing 269 people. The <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title=KAL 007>Reagan</a> administration insisted that the Soviets deliberately destroyed an innocent civilian airliner while the Soviets asserted that the 747 was on a spy mission. Since then, the debate over whether there was some form of conspiracy or cover-up has blossomed, with some attempting to explain how KAL 007 could have accidentally wandered astray, while others argue that U.S. intelligence agencies used KAL 007 to probe <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title=KAL 007>Soviet</a> air defenses. KAL 007 initially flew from New York to Anchorage without incident. The pilot and copilot were élite former military aviators with a combined 10,000+ hours flying 747s, and the pilot had been nominated to fly South Korea’s presidential aircraft. However, an hour after departing Anchorage, the flight was already twelve miles north of its first checkpoint on the route to Seoul. <table align="center" border="0"><tbody> <tr> <td align="center"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1512126764/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1512126764&linkCode=as2&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=WM222IYUENXOU6H2"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1512126764&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img air="" alt="a" down="" fighter="" flight="" kal="" korean="" lines="" shot="" soviet="" /><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0932966594/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&linkCode=li3&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=ddc1666e5f5ee824a1ae752a26b86e09" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0932966594&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img air="" alt="a" down="" fighter="" flight="" kal="" korean="" lines="" shot="" soviet="" /></td> </tr> </tbody></table> KAL 007 gave false position reports at the first four checkpoints, reporting that it was on course when it was actually many miles off course. The 747 flew over the Kamchatka Peninsula—site of many strategic installations—for 38 minutes, but somehow eluded fighter interception and entered the Sea of Okhotsk. Just before Sakhalin Island, 007 turned northwest—directly toward the Soviet mainland. Over Sakhalin, Soviet fighters tried to force the plane to land, but 007 took evasive action, altering course and altitude, and finally entering the Sea of Japan heading southwest. A fighter fired two air-to-air missiles, and at least one struck 007, which descended 32,000 feet in 12 minutes and disappeared from Japanese radar screens. The shootdown had remarkable political effects. Before the shootdown, the Reagan administration planned to deploy Cruise and Pershing II missiles to Europe, but congressional Democrats and European allies strongly opposed this decision. Congress also opposed the administration’s favorite military programs. Cold war tensions were easing before the incident, due to surprising new Soviet initiatives on arms control, grain purchases, and human rights. On 26 August, Yuri Andropov made an unprecedented offer to eliminate Soviet SS-20 missiles if the United States renounced its missile deployments. After the shootdown, the incipient U.S.-Soviet rapprochement was aborted, Reagan’s defense programs sailed through Congress, and U.S. missiles were deployed on schedule and with minimal opposition. Many observers noted that the shootdown benefited the hawks in Washington and Moscow. Seymour Hersh claims that due to a series of highly improbable errors, 007 got lost and the crew failed to notice. The U.S military saw Soviet defenses react to 007, but did not understand why the Soviets were alerted, and the Soviets simply “screwed up” when they shot down the plane. In short, no conspiracy. Gollin and Allardyce rebut in detail the only two plausible explanations for 007 accidentally getting lost—that the inertial navigation system or the autopilot was incorrectly programmed. They show that 007’s behavior was inconsistent with accident, but unlike other authors, do not attribute this to a conspiracy involving U.S. intelligence. KAL 007 and U.S. Intelligence KAL conspiracy theorists note that during the cold war, U.S. intelligence focused intently on the Soviet Far East. Intelligence sought to find vulnerabilities in Soviet defenses and constantly watched for Soviet submarine and bomber activity that might presage a nuclear attack. Listening posts in Alaska and Japan, reconnaissance aircraft like the RC-135, and “ferret” satellites intercepted Soviet radar, communications, and electronic transmissions. U.S. aircraft regularly intruded on Soviet airspace in order to activate, locate, and analyze enemy defenses. Many aircraft were shot down on such missions, and therefore U.S. intelligence closely monitored Soviet fighters, many of which were launched when KAL 007 intruded. U.S. intelligence should have been especially alert that night, because the Soviets allegedly planned to launch a new ballistic missile toward the Kamchatka testing ground. An RC-135 aircraft and the radar ship USS Observation Island patrolled near Kamchatka to track the missile and monitor missile telemetry and other communications. David Pearson contends that U.S. radars would have tracked 007, and U.S. intelligence would have noticed Soviet radars tracking 007. Military procedure required notifying air traffic control in such cases—yet this did not occur. Pearson cannot believe those who claim that U.S. intelligence did not gather data on 007, or misunderstood the data, or analyzed the data too late. R. W. Johnson and others argue that 007 deliberately intruded on Soviet airspace, and that the U.S. military did not notify air traffic control about 007 because they wanted to observe the Soviet response. Johnson links the intrusion to U.S. discovery, in June 1983, of a large new Soviet radar in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia. This radar might violate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty and signify Soviet intent to build an ABM system, but the only way to discover this was to “light up” the whole air defense system with an intruder. Johnson theorizes that U.S. aircraft used electronic warfare to blind Soviet radars and enable 007 to penetrate the defenses. Electronic warfare confused the Soviets about whether 007 was military or civilian, and the Soviets alerted their entire system. Meanwhile, U.S. reconnaissance assets—including a “ferret” satellite and the Space Shuttle—were perfectly positioned to harvest much intelligence from the alert. Johnson considers that U.S. planners never expected the Soviets to shoot down the plane. The shootdown forced the Reagan administration to conceal their responsibility while blasting the Soviets in the court of public opinion. Michel Brun rearranges the evidence to reach a bizarre conclusion. He argues that 007 stumbled across a U.S.-Soviet air battle over Sakhalin, in which over ten U.S. military aircraft were downed. KAL 007 escaped this dogfight, only to be shot down near Honshu by “friendly fire” from Japanese or Americans who mistook 007 for a Soviet bomber. A subgenre of KAL conspiracy theory is the argument that 007 landed on Sakhalin or ditched safely at sea and the Soviets imprisoned or executed the survivors. These theories claim that 007 was not blown apart in midair, but descended slowly for twelve minutes, which indicates the plane was air-worthy and under control. The vast quantities of debris, bodies, and luggage recovered from other 747 midair explosions were not found near Sakhalin, and nothing from the cargo compartment ever surfaced. Thus, 007 must have landed or ditched intact. Some ultraconservatives contend that the Soviets lured 007 off course in order to kill a single passenger, the staunchly anticommunist John Birch Society chairman, Larry McDonald, and that he—and other survivors—languish in Russian prisons even today. KAL conspiracy theories generally reflect their authors’ political predispositions. Right-wing theories echo the U.S. government position in 1983: the flight was innocently astray, U.S. intelligence was uninvolved, and the Soviets wantonly murdered civilians. Left-wing theories echo the Soviet position in 1983: the flight was an intelligence probe, and the U.S. government behaved just as dishonestly as the Soviet government. Each side accuses the other of imbecilic credulity. “Rightists” contend that the belief that the Reagan administration would risk innocent lives on an intelligence mission is a product of Soviet disinformation and that furthermore, so many people would have known about any such mission that something would have leaked. “Leftists” insist that “accident theories” demand accepting too many highly improbable events at once and they consider proponents of such theories to be tools of the Reagan administration’s cover-up.

KAL 007

KAL 007 On 1 September 1983, a Soviet fighter shot down Korean Air Lines flight 007 (KAL 007) near Sakhalin Island, killing 269 people....

Know-Nothings

<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="developed" border="0" civil="" context="" in="" increasing="" know-nothings="" led="" of="" sectional="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaH6bciCn2p4hl6lX8Ltudtvz8ak7wyZiaFShU8ife9bZ1TSsviNOgp5GNO7F7cnBpQtNzAxa-YugaXUn_0bKr3fLyef-KHTrBMnUX9fUDnxTiVsaRFycv5KDvF2wphbLqvuNcXuAHNTpb/s1600/know-nothings.jpg" tensions="" that="" the="" title="Know-Nothings" to="" war="" width="470" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Know-Nothings</td></tr> </tbody></table> The American Party, or Know-Nothing Party, developed in the context of the increasing sectional tensions that led to the Civil War. An exclusive, native Protestant, anti-immigrant, and anti-Catholic <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title=Know-Nothings>organization</a>, it stemmed from the nativist movement and from the anxiety caused by the massive influx of immigrants, reaching its peak in the 1850s. The Papal Plot Foreign immigration led many conservatives to believe that the nation’s social and even political ills could be solved by the elimination of foreign influence. The country had experienced an unprecedented flow of immigrants in the mid-nineteenth century, reaching dazzling numbers. From 1841 to 1860, more than 4 million immigrants arrived, with two notable peaks: 369,980 in 1850 and 379,000 in 1851, the majority of whom were Irish (1.2 million) and German (more than a million). In cities such as Chicago, Milwaukee, New York, and St. Louis, immigrants outnumbered native-born citizens. <table align="center" border="0"><tbody> <tr> <td align="center"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1481835416/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1481835416&linkCode=as2&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=OCJZT34SFEF4JXRY"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1481835416&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img alt="developed" border="0" civil="" context="" height="1" in="" increasing="" know-nothings="" led="" of="" sectional="" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1481835416" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" tensions="" that="" the="" to="" war="" width="1" /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195089227/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0195089227&linkCode=as2&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=35RYECVLFR6HHLF3"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0195089227&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img alt="developed" border="0" civil="" context="" height="1" in="" increasing="" know-nothings="" led="" of="" sectional="" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0195089227" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" tensions="" that="" the="" to="" war="" width="1" /></td> </tr> </tbody></table> Many feared the impact on the very fabric of the United States of such large groups, impoverished, ignorant, disease ridden, and alien in their religion and languages. From a political point of view, many traditional parties were distressed by the growing political influence of those groups in big cities, especially Catholics, since many of these immigrants tended to be manipulated by urban democratic political machines. Consequently, there developed a strong belief in a papal plot to subvert U.S. values and even destroy U.S. institutions and cultural homogeneity. In addition, Catholics were deemed unfit to live in a republic and unpatriotic because they owed allegiance to the pope. The Irish were especially blamed as tools used by the pope to control U.S. religious and political life. Moreover, the great number of Catholics moving to the Midwest caused the Know-Nothings and other nativists to think that the power of the pope might be transferred there. By the end of the 1840s, several nativist secret societies were formed to protect and save the country, supposedly threatened by an alien menace. In 1849, Charles Allen, a New Yorker, formed a secret fraternal society made up of native-born Protestant working men, artisans, and small businessmen, who feared economic competition from cheaper immigrant labor. It was called the Order of the Star-Spangled Banner, and evolved into a secret political movement (with a formal pledge of secrecy) known as the American Party, formed in 1854 by delegates from thirteen states. If questioned, members were required to say, “I know nothing,” hence the popular appellation. They pledged never to vote for any foreign-born or Catholic candidate. Know-Nothings made wide use of newspapers and periodicals for their propaganda, together with a network of activists from Boston to the <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mississippi</a> Valley. Some predicted that the pope and his army would land on U.S. shores to set up a new Vatican in Cincinnati, Ohio. One famous Know-Nothing was Samuel Morse, the inventor of the telegraph, who wrote a series of articles denouncing a “foreign conspiracy.” Another was Lyman Beecher, a seventh-generation Puritan preacher. Intent on stopping the West from becoming Catholic country, he wrote that he came to Cincinnati “to battle the Pope for the garden spot of the world.” Mob attacks on Catholic churches in New England soon became frequent. Popularity without Long-lasting Results In practice, the Know-Nothings’ political aims were not so much to suppress immigration, nor even restrict it—although some sponsored resolutions to kafe paupers and criminals—but to control the influence of foreigners and “purify” U.S. politics. Their legislative agenda called for the exclusion of foreigners and Catholics from public office, for more stringent naturalization laws (extension of the residency period before naturalization from five to twenty-one years), for literacy tests as a prerequisite for voting, and for restrictions on liquor sales. The Know-Nothings capitalized on the Compromise of 1850 and the furor over “Bleeding Kansas,” which led to a fundamental political realignment in the mid-1850s, winning national prominence chiefly because the two major parties—Whigs and Democrats—were at that time breaking apart over the slavery issue. By 1855 they had captured control of the legislatures in parts of New England and were the dominant opposition party to the Democrats in New York, Pennsylvania, <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title=Know-Nothings>Maryland</a>, Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. In the presidential election of 1856, the party, by then mainly composed of southerners as a result of the internal debates over slavery, supported former Whig president Millard Fillmore with a simplistic platform—reputedly the shortest in U.S. history: “America must rule America.” When the vote was counted, Fillmore gathered nearly one million popular votes (21 percent of the popular vote) and eight electoral votes. In Congress, the party had five senators and forty-three representatives. Afterwards, Know-Nothingism declined for internal reasons: lack of efficient organization, the sudden decline in immigration, the failure to push any legislation against immigration and Catholics, disagreement over secrecy, and the mounting violence of its supporters (rioting and bloodshed took place during the elections). The slavery issue broke down the party, as was the case for the Whigs and the Democrats. In 1855, at the party’s first convention in Philadelphia, when southern delegates pushed a resolution to support the Kansas-Nebraska Act, northern delegates left the room. While northern workers felt more threatened by the southern Slave Power than by the pope and Catholic immigrants, at the same time, fewer southerners were willing to support a party that ignored the question of the expansion of slavery. By 1860, many members and sympathizers joined the ranks of the growing Republican Party with a political platform based on free soil. In fact, both parties overlapped ideologically; their supporters both believed in conspiracy, one being the pope’s, the other the slaveholders’. However, historians have debated whether the inevitability of the Know-Nothings’ decline in favor of Republicanism was because the papal plot was less plausible than the slaveholders’ conspiracy. The anti-immigration stance of the party was condemned by many Americans, like Abraham Lincoln, who frowned on their discriminatory and exclusionist philosophy as betraying such sacred U.S. values as equality and hospitality to immigrants; or William H. Seward, who attacked their failure to see that U.S. economic development required immigrants. In 1855, <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Abraham Lincoln</a> wrote in a private letter: “I am not a KnowNothing.... As a nation we began by declaring that ‘all men are created equal.’ We now practically read it ‘all men are created equal, except negroes.’ When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read ‘all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics.’” The Know-Nothings left an indelible mark on U.S. politics. The movement eroded loyalty to the national political parties, was instrumental in the breakdown of the Whig Party, and made the political system more fragile before the divisive issue of slavery.

Know-Nothings

Know-Nothings The American Party, or Know-Nothing Party, developed in the context of the increasing sectional tensions that led to the ...

Koch Brothers

Koch Brothers

Koch Brothers Charles G. Koch, CEO of Koch Industries Inc. (KII), and younger brother William I. Koch, president of the Oxbow Corporati...

Lyndon LaRouche

<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 a="" alt="has" and="" border="0" career="" controversial="" fringes="" had="" larouche="" long="" lyndon="" of="" on="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFzi7y5j1oNi_ozQGuZWvvbVu90EBy6I4nJVZF0Le-c_my8xctxMt4jQUvTBXEdctm5nVGbmk1e_KTEbh_BTCdKo3doeaBGWM6A4aJtmyRmdwQPy-Q5RBXIoCCns3P2_BBjDxOX73ZjgQA/s1600/Lyndon-LaRouche.jpg" the="" title="Lyndon" u="" width="470" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lyndon LaRouche</td></tr> </tbody></table> Lyndon Hermyle LaRouche, Jr., has had a long and controversial career on the fringes of U.S. politics—running several times for president in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s—and as the founder and leader of a cultlike political organization that subscribes to a host of conspiracy theories that defy categorization as left or right wing. Born in New Hampshire to French Canadian immigrant parents in 1922, LaRouche was raised as a Quaker, the liberal faith to which both his mother (a former evangelical Protestant) and his father (born a Roman Catholic) had converted. LaRouche’s father never got along with the pacifist Quakers and had a falling out with the church’s political wing—the American Friends Service Committee—over some embezzled funds. Both the father’s combativeness and his alleged financial misdeeds would be repeated in the son’s later political career. <table align="center" border="0"><tbody> <tr> <td align="center"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01DMQJMUM/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&linkCode=li3&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=2734fb54389baf57c2f70539c04b5894" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B01DMQJMUM&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img a="" alt="has" and="" border="0" career="" controversial="" fringes="" had="" height="1" larouche="" long="" lyndon="" of="" on="" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=li3&o=1&a=B01DMQJMUM" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" the="" u="" width="1" /><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0932323219/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&linkCode=li3&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=e8322966fabcdaf89ed1dc12f728647b" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0932323219&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img a="" alt="has" and="" border="0" career="" controversial="" fringes="" had="" height="1" larouche="" long="" lyndon="" of="" on="" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=li3&o=1&a=0932323219" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" the="" u="" width="1" /></td> </tr> </tbody></table> While LaRouche the younger attended, but did not graduate from, Northeastern University, he was largely an autodidact, delving deeply into the works of the great philosophers. He was, he later claimed, particularly taken with the sopan santun reasoning of Immanuel Kant. True to his Quaker roots, LaRouche was assigned to a Civilian Public Service camp for conscientious objectors during <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">World War II</a>. Following the conflict, he drifted toward the Trotskyist left, joining the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in 1948. While a dedicated organizer for the party for more than fifteen years, LaRouche eventually had a falling-out with his fellow Trotskyists in 1966, going on to organize a chapter of the Progressive Labor Party (PLP), a Maoist-leaning group. The PLP chapter, which included many former members of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), a radical, anti–Vietnam War movement, became involved in the radical takeover of Columbia University in 1968. In the wake of the sit-in, LaRouche organized the National Caucus of Labor Committees (NCLC), ostensibly to create a political alliance between student activists and labor organizers, out of the collapsing SDS. During the early 1970s, LaRouche and the NCLC fought bitter sectarian fights with the SWP and the Communist Party of the U.S.A. (CPUSA) that occasionally became violent. The goal was control of the far left movement in New York and, in this struggle, LaRouche began to develop the two tactics that would mark his future political career. The first was smear tactics, the careful planting of outlandish rumors and stories about political enemies. LaRouche would later go on to attack the personal reputations of widely disparate public figures from former secretary of state Henry Kissinger to liberal Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner. The second was mind control. Beginning in 1973, LaRouche established mandatory “ego-stripping” sessions for all NCLC chapters, where psychological humiliation was employed to bind members to the <a href=" " target="_blank" title=Lyndon LaRouche>organization</a>. Along with the psychological manipulation came indoctrination in the LaRouche worldview, which combined various conspiracy theories with a cult-like belief in the leadership and genius of LaRouche himself. LaRouche’s conspiracy theory was global in scope. In it, humanity was essentially divided into three camps: the “oligarchs,” the “sub-humans,” and the “humanists.” The oligarchs were those who secretly manipulated world events; the sub-humans were the vast majority of humanity who had no idea what was going on; and the humanists—the followers of LaRouche—were those nobly fighting to expose the oligarchs. As LaRouche drifted from left to right and back again, the composition of the oligarchs was wide ranging and included, among other institutions, <a href=" " target="_blank" title=Lyndon LaRouche>the United Nations</a>, the National Council of Churches, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, and the British royal family, the latter largely responsible, argued LaRouche, for the world drug trade. In addition, LaRouche pointed an accusing finger at more traditional targets of U.S. conspiratorial thinking— the Trilateralists, the Federal Reserve Board, and the Zionist movement. If the objects of LaRouche’s conspiratorial thinking ranged widely, their aim was simple: genocide. As LaRouche had it, the aim of the oligarchs is to reduce world population to under one billion so they can thereby more easily continue their domain over the planet. Even as LaRouche was formulating his conspiratorial worldview, his organization—the NCLC had spun off the U.S. Labor Party (USLP) in 1971—was delving into electoral politics. In 1976, its peak year, the USLP ran 140 candidates in 21 states—including LaRouche for president—but only received a paltry 154,000 votes. Disbanding the party in 1978, LaRouche and his followers—now numbering several hundred—began conducting a “stealth” campaign within the Democratic Party. In 1986, LaRouche followers took the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor and secretary of state in Illinois. Denounced by the head of their ticket—Democratic gubernatorial candidate Adlai Stevenson III—both candidates lost, however. The large sums of money LaRouche spent on politicking—including expensive nationally run commercials for his presidential candidacies in the 1980s—came from several sources. One was intelligence gathering. LaRouche’s publication, Executive Intelligence Review, with its mix of officially leaked news and insider scuttlebutt, was widely subscribed to in Reagan-era Washington. A second source of money came from LaRouche’s followers themselves. As with many, more religiously oriented cults, LaRouche acolytes—many of whom were college graduates and young professionals—were required to turn over their worldly assets and live lives of penury for the good of the organization. Last, the LaRouche organization operated a right-wing boiler room fund-raising operation that would often play on the fears of elderly Americans who were told that only LaRouche and his organization stood between the United States and a triumphant oligarchy. It was this last tactic that ultimately brought about the downfall of LaRouche and his organization. In order to support their leader’s political career and increasingly lavish lifestyle, operatives began to engage in credit card fraud, running up huge bills on the cards of elderly citizens who had donated money. In 1986, federal agents raided LaRouche’s estate and headquarters in Virginia. Despite being on trial for mail fraud and other crimes in 1988, LaRouche also managed to run for president once again, as he would do from prison in 1992. Ailing, LaRouche was released from the Federal Medical Center in 1993. While his <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">organization</a> remains a shadow of its former self, LaRouche has continued his political career, running for the presidency in 1996 and 2000.

Lyndon LaRouche

Lyndon LaRouche Lyndon Hermyle LaRouche, Jr., has had a long and controversial career on the fringes of U.S. politics—running several t...

Leisler’s Rebellion

Leisler’s Rebellion

Signing Leisler declaration In November 1688, Protestant monarchs William and Mary of Orange led a small army across the English Channel...

Meriwether Lewis

<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 a="" alt="The" american="" became="" border="0" earliest="" example="" explorer="" furnishes="" great="" lewis="" meriwether="" of="" perhaps="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglfsXuuEhyphenhyphenAyIKdSXJ3VbiwC2AgCzS7N6yYR_mOktj5VvvXm4G70-tyNkme3wUdgSb5rALsK22sNGCxre-k187ZVq0Pm09uJt8nR0hDWS68xX7G48bV9Kolmob-PcW4buRBhMFyR2IcUgE/s1600/Meriwether-Lewis.jpg" the="" title="Meriwether" what="" width="470" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Meriwether Lewis</td></tr> </tbody></table> The great explorer furnishes perhaps the earliest example of what became a great American tradition: the beloved celebrity whose ignominious, untimely death spawned conspiracy theories intended to restore some of the hero’s dignity. Lewis’s apparent suicide at a remote inn off the Natchez Trace in October 1809, when he was only thirty-five years old, ignited a slowly simmering cauldron of alternative explanations. By the conspiracy-happy 1990s, these included assassination by agents of General James Wilkinson, with a cover-up orchestrated by Thomas Jefferson himself. Background A soldier by occupation, the Virginia-born Lewis was Jefferson’s private secretary for a time before achieving international fame by successfully leading an expedition to the Pacific and back between 1803 and 1806. <table align="center" border="0"><tbody> <tr> <td align="center"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1616145056/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1616145056&linkCode=as2&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=N4I2ABCWMVRIUAO4"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1616145056&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img a="" alt="The" american="" became="" border="0" earliest="" example="" explorer="" furnishes="" great="" height="1" lewis="" meriwether="" of="" perhaps="" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1616145056" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" the="" what="" width="1" /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684826976/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0684826976&linkCode=as2&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=Y4NR4PYG6YZDK5QR"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0684826976&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img a="" alt="The" american="" became="" border="0" earliest="" example="" explorer="" furnishes="" great="" height="1" lewis="" meriwether="" of="" perhaps="" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0684826976" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" the="" what="" width="1" /></td> </tr> </tbody></table> Firming up the U.S. claim to the just-completed Louisiana Purchase and laying the groundwork for later expansion into the Pacific Northwest while also bringing back a wealth of scientific <a href=" " target="_blank" title=Meriwether Lewis>information</a>, Lewis and his colleague William Clark became the new nation’s first real celebrities, probably surpassing many of the founders themselves. President Jefferson rewarded his protégé with an appointment as governor of the Louisiana Territory he had just explored, a post that Jefferson regarded as the second-highest in the land. Despite his experience as Jefferson’s presidential “staff,” Lewis was no politician, and found his post-expedition life deeply disappointing. Delaying his move to the territorial capital for almost a year, Lewis searched for a wife and planned to publish the journals of the expedition, but never managed to get either project off the ground. Once ensconced at St. Louis, Lewis performed terribly as territorial governor, clashing with more experienced politicians like Territorial Secretary Frederick Bates, who called his superior “a big baby,” and getting the affairs of his office muddled enough to have some expenditures rejected by the War Department. In September 1809, Lewis set out on a trip to Washington to clear his name and see his publishers. Southern Death Trip The trip did not go very well. Although conspiracy theorists point out that little was said of it while Lewis was alive, Jefferson, William Clark, and others admitted after his death that the new governor had developed serious psychological problems, including intense, habitual hypochondria, for which Lewis often medicated himself; a terrible drinking problem; and what we would call today depression. Alcoholism was a common affliction in the frontier military and seems to have worsened in Lewis’s case under the <a href=" " target="_blank" title=Meriwether Lewis>stress</a> of his political and personal failures. Only two hundred miles into the journey, downriver from St. Louis at New Madrid, Lewis had to be taken ashore from his boat and treated for some real, imagined, or self-induced illness. He made out his last will and testament and only reembarked on the voyage when earthquakes broke out in the area, leading his fearful valet to have his master put back on the boat. At his next port of call, Fort Pickering near present-day Memphis, Lewis arrived in a state of “mental derangement,” inebriated and suicidal. The fort commander, Major Gilbert Russell, had Lewis removed from his boat and detained him for two weeks, restricting his alcohol intake to “claret and a little white wine” and posting guards to prevent the explorer from doing violence to himself. Lewis recovered his senses and promised never to touch intoxicants again. He borrowed <a href=" " target="_blank" title=Meriwether Lewis>money</a> and horses from Russell, and set out for Washington overland, via the Natchez Trace, on 29 September 1809. Apparently Lewis fell off the wagon rather quickly during his last journey. His traveling companion after Fort Pickering, Indian agent James Neelly, found him “deranged” again as they crossed the Chickasaw Nation, where they had to stop and let Lewis rest for two days. Shortly after, Neelly brought the suspicion of generations of conspiracy theorists on himself by going after some lost horses and sending Lewis on alone, planning to meet 50 miles farther up the Trace, at the home of a white family that accommodated travelers in a place called Grinder’s Stand in present-day Lewis County, Tennessee. Lewis appeared at the Grinder (also spelled Griner) house on the evening of 10 October 1809, and though the accounts of what happened there differ in some particulars, all agree that the governor was in a highly agitated state of mind. Priscilla Griner, the lady of the house and the only witness to give testimony, remembered Lewis pacing back and forth in the room where he was lodged talking loudly to himself “like a lawyer.” In the wee hours of 11 October, Griner heard two pistol shots but was too frightened to investigate. Through the cracks in the log building, however, she saw that Lewis had blasted away part of his own skull, shot himself in the side, and also tried to cut his own throat with a razor, but none of it was enough to bring immediate death. Cowering with her children, Griner heard the explorer asking for water but ignored his pleas out of fright and saw him crawl off moaning. There are several variations of Lewis’s last words, but one appropriate remark recurs: “How hard it is to die.” Conspiracy Theories Few questions were raised about Lewis’s death at the time, but beginning in the 1840s, stories began to circulate that he was murdered, especially in Tennessee. Even then, according to historian Dawson A. Phelps, the story did not receive much public comment for another half century, by which time the murder interpretation had become an established tradition among the locals and the Lewis family. From the 1890s on, it began to receive occasional endorsements from Lewis and Clark scholars. Even this tradition was not necessarily a conspiracy theory. Those distraught by the pathfinder’s pathetic end may have taken comfort in the idea of murder-not-suicide, but the few concrete ideas they circulated about who might have killed him or why were vague and rather mundane in nature. The leading explanation was Lewis had been killed by robbers, perhaps his own servant Pernier. The evidence for a conspiracy or even murder is thin to nonexistent, resting largely on legend, rumors generations removed from the source, and the willing disbelief of later admirers that the great man could have been capable of such degrading and desperate behavior. Some have fingered lone eyewitness Priscilla Griner as an accomplice who lied to cover up for her supposedly absent husband Robert and unknown others. The legends tell of Robert being tried for murder but acquitted for lack of evidence. It is certainly true that Mrs. Griner’s credibility as a witness is less than total, but that actually undermines the conspiracy theory further. Priscilla embroidered her original story for an interviewer twenty-nine years after Lewis’s death, adding material that made the events look more suspicious. Her later account included the claim that two men came to the house looking for lodging and quarreled with Lewis, along with other conspiratorial details: three shots instead of two, meaning that Lewis’s two pistols (the kind that had to be loaded after each shot) could not have done the job; and an apparent exchange of clothing between Lewis and his servant sometime in the night. The most thoroughgoing Lewis conspiracy theory was propounded by muckraking popular historian (and Pulitzer Prize winner) David Leon Chandler in his 1994 book, The Jefferson Conspiracies. Departing from the usual practice, Chandler endorsed Mrs. Griner’s revised 1838 account in full, and surmised that Lewis was murdered while trying to escape in his servant’s clothes, possibly by or with the help of his erstwhile companion Neelly. As the title of the book made obvious, Chandler was eager to be the Woodward and Bernstein of the early American republic and trace the murder all the way back to the White House, or at least Monticello. Recounting the history of the Aaron Burr conspiracy and the treasonous activities of General Wilkinson (a Spanish spy and Burr crony as well as the ranking official in the frontier army), Chandler theorized that Lewis carried some sort of evidence against Wilkinson and was hunted down by the general’s henchmen, who then fabricated the tales of drunkenness and suicide that became the official interpretation. Chandler was able to give Jefferson himself only a small role in the titular conspiracies. His major accusation was that the just-retired president helped forestall further investigation by accepting the suicide explanation too quickly and lending credence to the idea that Lewis was an alcoholic. Jefferson’s alleged motive was to avoid exposing Wilkinson, whose integrity Jefferson had publicly certified by maintaining him in an important military post and by using him as the star government witness in Aaron Burr’s recent treason trial. Although Jefferson’s confidence in Wilkinson was politically calculated and extremely misplaced, Chandler’s theories hold very little water. Resting the crux of his argument on the half-hearted nature of the investigation, he echoed the modern assassination conspiracy literature, but begged the question of what sort of investigation could possibly have been conducted at so remote a location at such an early date. If one accepts the far-fetched premise of hired political assassins stalking the American woods in 1809, to kill a national hero, then Lewis’s best friend and fellow explorer, William Clark, also has to be included in the conspiracy. No man knew Lewis, got along with him better, or respected him more, but Clark accepted the official account just as readily as Jefferson. The “Jefferson conspiracy” against Meriwether Lewis is best considered as anachronistic speculation that tells us more about late-twentieth-century popular culture than it does about Lewis or Jefferson.

Meriwether Lewis

Meriwether Lewis The great explorer furnishes perhaps the earliest example of what became a great American tradition: the beloved celeb...

Libertarianism

<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" rel="nofollow" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="blank"><img a="" almost="" alt="Libertarianism" border="0" conspirat="" government="" holds="" is="" libertarianism="" political="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4u9JIzy4KWPUzZyJY4mZiVy_GNU4FGnj0JvIQvUq6qRz37uVh0Ptd7RuY_pi2_P05Otmelf2Gc2CVnweQz6TXNgDJQm6m_Qs8hSDft27P3A7cijVv5y_A203jHVICEf-1Ku1RLT-CLxn6/s1600/Libertarianism.jpg" that="" the="" theory="" title="Libertarianism" width="250" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Libertarianism</td></tr> </tbody></table> Libertarianism is a political theory that holds that the government is almost a conspiratorial force, trying to enslave the people through its coercive power. Libertarians believe in individual freedom and individual choice. They reject the use of force or fraud to compel others, except in response to force or fraud. Libertarians want to take the government out of private decisions by reducing the size of the government to the most essential function of providing for a peaceful environment in which all persons can prosper. As a utopian ideal, libertarianism is based on the notion that society exists at its most free when people work together voluntarily without government intervention. The basic principles of modern libertarianism are attributed to the writings of Ayn Rand, especially her novel Atlas Shrugged (1957). In this work, Rand describes a U.S. society weakened by many years of welfare. Contemporay U.S. society has made individualism and the work ethic into an evil. Instead of working for a living, the characters in the novel believe that the government owes them their livelihoods. In the novel Rand instead offers the maxim of libertarianism: individualism or selfishness is good. <table align="center" border="0"><tbody> <tr> <td align="center"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1476752842/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1476752842&linkCode=as2&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=K5KLPGBH37CX73AO"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1476752842&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img a="" almost="" alt="Libertarianism" border="0" conspirat="" government="" height="1" holds="" is="" libertarianism="" political="" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1476752842" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" that="" the="" theory="" width="1" /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/019993391X/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=019993391X&linkCode=as2&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=AMZ77AA52T2KDPVL"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=019993391X&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img a="" almost="" alt="Libertarianism" border="0" conspirat="" government="" height="1" holds="" is="" libertarianism="" political="" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=as2&o=1&a=019993391X" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" that="" the="" theory="" width="1" /></td> </tr> </tbody></table> The economist Murray Rothbard has built upon Rand to develop a more theoretical outline. He argues that government is inherently aggressive and exploitative. Instead of government, society should rely on the free market as the most efficient method of distributing resources. Libertarianism became the basis for a political party that emerged in the United States in the early 1970s. The Libertarian Party ran philosophy professor John Hospers as its presidential candidate in 1972. While the party reached the ballot in only two states, Hospers did receive one electoral vote. Roger MacBride, the Virginia elector who cast his vote for Hospers in 1972, was the party’s nominee in 1976, receiving over 200,000 votes in the November election. The party, and the libertarian movement in the United States, grew dramatically in the late 1970s, due primarily to the financial contributions of the Koch brothers, Charles and David, owners of Koch Industries. With their assistance, libertarians were able to establish a number of publications and an active think tank, the Cato Institute. In the election of 1980, David Koch was the Libertarian Party’s vice-presidential nominee, primarily to take advantage of a loophole in federal campaign finance law allowing a candidate to spend unlimited campaign funds. Because of the financial assistance provided by the Kochs, the party’s nominees appeared on the ballot in all fifty states. The result of their influence in the movement was a battle over strategy, however. The party was split between a group of opportunists represented by the Kochs and the “missionaries,” following Murray Rothbard. Rothbard referred to the Koch brothers’ influence as the “Kochtopus.” The Libertarian Party ticket received 900,000 votes in 1980, a disappointment considering the millions of dollars spent by David Koch. In 1983, the Koch supporters, also known as the “Cato group,” left the party after their candidate was not nominated by the party convention. Without the Kochs’ financial support, the party did not receive as much attention for the rest of the century. Libertarianism, and the Libertarian Party, have had a difficult time finding acceptance in the United States, in part because the philosophy does not fit neatly on the liberal-conservative continuum with which most Americans are familiar. Libertarians emphasize free markets, making them similar to many conservatives. It is the libertarians’ belief that people should be free to choose their social activities, including, for example, the use of drugs, that puts the philosophy at odds with more cultural conservatives. In short, libertarians believe that national defense and law enforcement are the only areas in which governments should be involved. They oppose the <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)</a> because it establishes an entangling alliance that might work to bring the United States into unnecessary conflict. The United Nations is also opposed because it undermines national sovereignty by placing power in the hands of international bureaucrats. Libertarians oppose restrictions on trade and immigration, believing that the free market more efficiently regulates these areas. Libertarianism has enjoyed some limited <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">success</a>. Many of its basic principles were voiced by the administration of President <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Ronald Reagan</a> in the 1980s. Government services were privatized in the United States and in Europe, where a number of national airlines and railroads were sold by the government. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, there were hundreds of thousands of libertarians around the world. Many participate as pro-freedom activists in traditional parties while others create their own political parties. All believe that government is the problem, not the solution.

Libertarianism

Libertarianism Libertarianism is a political theory that holds that the government is almost a conspiratorial force, trying to enslave t...