American History

Crédit Mobilier Scandal

Crédit Mobilier Scandal

Crédit Mobilier Scandal As with many other conspiracy theories, the Crédit Mobilier scandal involved large sums of money being controll...

Covert Action Quarterly

Covert Action Quarterly

Covert Action Quarterly The Washington, D.C.–based magazine Covert Action Quarterly (CAQ) began publishing in 1978 under the title of C...

<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" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><img alt="a" and="" border="0" catholic="" charles="" coughlin="" extraordinarily="" father="" personality="" popular="" priest="" radio="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7-oecJ6TQoDj80VRZkYWq4QZoPvXKnl-IR7QP3k0Iz5e1IY49L_xMI2pAQhNNyNHxXVZRMprl88M3KS57O5dK6nqcwDeMEfX84zbSbrLrpm19R0M3n3TGy4lUrs-lL-aL9_kHquRNej8/s1600/Charles-Coughlin.jpg" title="Father" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Father Charles Coughlin</td></tr> </tbody></table> Charles E. Coughlin (1891–1979), a Catholic priest and extraordinarily popular radio personality, contributed significantly to nationalist antisemitism in the United States before World War II. Coughlin asserted that covert Jewish economic interests had led directly to the Great Depression, <a href=" " target="_blank">Franklin D. Roosevelt</a>’s presidency, and World War II. Coughlin believed the same forces were responsible for later silencing him. Coughlin’s use of the radio in these accusations has won him notoriety as the inventor of “hate radio” (Warren). Coughlin’s use of radio broadcast his antisemitism to an audience far broader than enjoyed by earlier demagogues. Long after his popularity passed, Coughlin’s theories about the “international Jewish banking conspiracy” continued to thrive among U.S. right-wing movements. Charles Edward was born in Hamilton, Ontario, on 22 October 1891, an only child to devoutly Catholic parents. The church and his mother dominated young Charles’s life. Ordained in 1916, Coughlin joined the Basilian religious order and performed standard clerical duties in Catholic parishes in southern Ontario. In 1923 Coughlin left the Basilians and moved to suburban Detroit. <table align="center" border="0"><tbody> <tr> <td align="center"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1530067677/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&linkCode=li3&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=df836984a13f03ac4c7ae05ade4a494b" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1530067677&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img alt="a" and="" border="0" catholic="" charles="" coughlin="" extraordinarily="" father="" height="1" personality="" popular="" priest="" radio="" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=li3&o=1&a=1530067677" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1479410276/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&linkCode=li3&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=0f5014626e383a52f8810cec19890912" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1479410276&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img alt="a" and="" border="0" catholic="" charles="" coughlin="" extraordinarily="" father="" height="1" personality="" popular="" priest="" radio="" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=li3&o=1&a=1479410276" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /></td> </tr> </tbody></table> Radio Career and Politics In 1926 Coughlin received an appointment to a lackluster parish in Royal Oak, Michigan, a small suburb north of Detroit. The parish suffered from low membership, inadequate facilities, and <a href=" " target="_blank">Ku Klux Klan </a>harassment. Through the help of a parishioner, Coughlin began The Little Flower radio kegiatan (named after the parish’s patron saint, St. Therese of Liesieux) to raise funds. Coughlin’s histrionic speaking abilities quickly generated interest, and the show expanded in radio markets around the Midwest. Within a year Coughlin broadcast his shows nationwide. Coughlin’s early broadcasts featured an ironic spirit. As his popularity grew, Coughlin began exploring the roots of social ills such as anti-Catholic bigotry. Mail streamed into the Royal Oak parish, causing Coughlin to hire additional secretaries to manage it. During the Great Depression economic issues appeared in each weekly broadcast. Coughlin excoriated business interests for bleeding the working class of its of savings and his popularity consequently soared. The United States was a Christian nation, Coughlin claimed, and Americans had certain rights granted by God and the Constitution, such as personal autonomy, private property, and the right to work. Anything threatening these rights was not only unpatriotic but also quite demonic. In the early 1930s Coughlin created Social Justice, a publication containing his broadcasts and other articles sympathetic to Catholic social reform, to further spread his message (Brinkley; Warren). During the 1932 election Coughlin proclaimed Franklin D. Roosevelt was the only candidate possessing the skills needed to resuscitate the nation. Coughlin fancied himself as one of FDR’s field representatives. The more Coughlin pushed for a federal administrative role, though, the more the Roosevelt administration rebuffed him. During 1934, Coughlin’s broadcasts shifted quickly from praising to critizing Roosevelt and the New Deal. Coughlin claimed that Roosevelt’s big business connections threatened the very roots of representative democracy. By encouraging his radio audience to write congressional members, Coughlin secured the defeat of Roosevelt’s 1935 attempt to join the World Court as well as the 1938 federal reorganization bill. <a href=" " target="_blank">Gerald L. K. Smith</a>, an evangelical minister and one of Huey Long’s organizers in Lousiana, convinced Coughlin to unite his immense radio following and populist kegiatan with Francis Townsend’s nationwide pension project for elderly Americans. Coughlin and Smith created the National Union Party (NUP) to organize their supporters into a third political party. Speculation suggested that the NUP possessed ample ability to challenge the Roosevelt juggernaut in 1936. As a priest, Coughlin could not run for office, so he and Smith chose North Dakota congressman William Lemke instead. However, support quickly eroded, Roosevelt swept to victory, and Coughlin and Smith parted ways acrimoniously (Jeansonne; Warren). The National Union for Social Justice, which Coughlin had founded in 1934, continued to pursue a Catholic approach to the nation’s social and economic reform. Coughlin maintained singular control over the National Union’s kegiatan so that it expressed thoroughly Catholic interpretations of populist solutions. Antisemitism and Catholicism U.S. Catholicism’s unreconciled message of U.S. materialism and suffering Christianity hastened Coughlin’s descent to join Smith in antisemitic demagoguery. Coughlin praised Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime for its <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">success</a> in limiting Jewish influence on German national interests. Although his popularity shrank during the late 1930s, even after Germany’s Kristallnacht Coughlin still enjoyed millions of supporters. Much of Coughlin’s popular support came from Catholics who felt the priest was their only advocate within the church. He was the one priest willing to criticize the bishops for their extragavant lifestyles. Coughlin’s Irish heritage provided the intellectual framework for his antisemitism. The writings of Dennis Fahey, a priest who taught Catholic philosophy and social thought in Dublin, blamed social and economic upheavals on Jewish conspiracy. Besides killing Jesus Christ, Fahey argued, Jews were responsible for the Protestant Reformation, the French Revolution, industrialization’s social problems, and the League of Nations (Athans). Coughlin quickly incorporated Fahey’s antisemitism into his radio broadcasts and Social Justice articles, as the National Union Party suffered its embarrassing election defeat. In 1938 the magazine reprinted <a href=" " target="_blank">Protocols of the Elders of Zion</a>.When cautioned about its authenticity, Coughlin merely claimed that the document, forgery or not, accurately predicted global events. His radio broadcasts continued to draw connections between the Depression in the United States, armed conflict in Europe, and international Jewish finance. Coughlin was rumored to have several economic and political contacts with Nazi figures in the United States and Germany. As the United States entered <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">World War II</a>, Coughlin insisted that Jews had started the conflict to advance their own agenda. As federal authorities and Coughlin’s own clerical superiors moved to silence him, the priest alternated between expressions of militant defiance and meek acquiescence. Coughlin believed that he was the victim of covert forces committed to his destruction. Christ had thrown moneylenders out of the Temple, and consequently had been crucified; Coughlin portrayed his silencing along similar lines. Coughlin’s remaining audience, composed mostly of German and Irish Catholics in the urban Northeast, only strengthened its resolve to support the priest. Silencing and End of Career Coughlin’s popularity and unrelenting antisemitism caused consternation among the church’s authorities. Catholics had faced significant anti-Catholic animosity as recently as the 1920s, which Coughlin’s early broadcasts noticeably diminished. As Coughlin focused more on politics and antisemitism, church leaders sought to distinguish official teachings from Coughlin’s personal position. However, Detroit’s Catholic bishop, Michael Gallagher, deflected much of the criticism. After Gallagher’s death in 1937, Detroit’s new bishop, Edward Mooney, sought repeatedly to silence Coughlin, forcing his radio kegiatan off the air in 1940. Members of Christian Front, a nationwide <a href=" " target="_blank">organization</a> Coughlin founded for young Catholic men, were arrested for antigovernment conspiracies and gang violence in Jewish neighborhoods. In 1942 Social Justice ceased publication, and Mooney prohibited Coughlin from speaking or writing on any political matter. Coughlin returned to suburban Detroit’s anonymity. While he deflected allegations of racism during the 1960s, Coughlin has since been noted as an early precursor to white separatist movements and <a href=" " target="_blank">Holocaust</a> revisionism (Kaplan, 67–71; Warren, 5–6). His violence-tinged antisemitic rhetoric concerning the international Jewish conspiracy helps explain the connection. Coughlin died in Royal Oak, Michigan, on 27 October 1979.

Father Charles Coughlin

Father Charles Coughlin Charles E. Coughlin (1891–1979), a Catholic priest and extraordinarily popular radio personality, contributed s...

Japanese Americans

<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" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><img a="" alt="The" american="" americans="" became="" border="0" campaign="" in="" japanese="" of="" paranoid="" population="" s="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj88Vg3umQeJMmEVT0xYZPSwh-_G-XZ_9JJ-PXCfDgL-vcFnZCm9KuBq11lVpACN5USpHJpwwdJ6flJGeojiZMTQoaRcQ3bMSwZLwk0rOTJjvHTjWhLyySVMp6VUNLc00trXThV405ATFg/s1600/Japanese-Americans.jpg" target="" the="" title="Japanese" united="" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Japanese Americans</td></tr> </tbody></table> The Japanese American population became the target of a paranoid campaign in the United States after the surprise Japanese attack on <a href=" " target="_blank" title=Japanese Americans>Pearl Harbor</a> on 7 December 1941. Thousands of West-Coast Japanese Americans were incarcerated in concentration camps in 1942. While white America believed these Japanese Americans were potential saboteurs and a “fifth column” within the United States, the belief in a Japanese “conspiracy” was not a new phenomenon—it built on a lengthy history of suspicion and <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title=Japanese Americans>racism</a> toward Japanese Americans since their arrival in the United States in the late nineteenth century. Japanese began arriving in the United States, principally on the West Coast, from the 1880s and were quickly confronted by racist opposition. Labor and <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title=Japanese Americans>trade</a> unions in particular led the way, seeking to prevent Japanese settling and working in the United States. <table align="center" border="0"><tbody> <tr> <td align="center"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0062351931/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0062351931&linkCode=as2&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=QZZYKPLTJ6RPR3NL"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0062351931&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img a="" alt="The" american="" americans="" became="" border="0" campaign="" height="1" in="" japanese="" of="" paranoid="" population="" s="" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0062351931" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" target="" the="" united="" width="1" /><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0991541863/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&linkCode=li3&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=3f51113e39f79eb6276b85841d422a94" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0991541863&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img a="" alt="The" american="" americans="" became="" border="0" campaign="" height="1" in="" japanese="" of="" paranoid="" population="" s="" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=li3&o=1&a=0991541863" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" target="" the="" united="" width="1" /></td> </tr> </tbody></table> Such attitudes emerged from a history of anti-Chinese sentiment; the Japanese were also disadvantaged due to laws that prevented them from becoming citizens (only “white” immigrants could become citizens, dating back to a 1770 law). Only the <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title=Japanese Americans>second</a> generation (known as Nisei), those born in the United States, could be citizens. In the early twentieth century the newspapers of William Randolph Hearst, along with a number of anti-Japanese organizations, joined in the anti-Japanese crusade, trumpeting the “Yellow Peril.” They predicted that the Japanese would “crowd out the white race” on the West Coast. The Japanese victory over <a href=" " target="_blank" title=Japanese Americans>Russia</a> in the Russo-Japanese War made Japan seem a threatening Pacific power. Further, various Japanese American community organizations were viewed as sinister, and were even sometimes perceived as part of an eventual plot to take over the United States. Such paranoia had real results in pressuring politicians to take stronger measures against the Japanese. An alien land law enacted in <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title=Japanese Americans>California</a> in 1913 was a response to agitation that Japanese were taking over farmland and crowding out white farmers. It was in practice largely ineffective, and thus led to increased, rather than diminished, tensions and fears of Japanese conspiracies. The Immigration Act of 1924 hit the Japanese particularly strongly, reducing the number of immigrants to a negligible number. Thus, when Pearl Harbor was attacked, revealing the vulnerability of the United States and pitching it into a fierce <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title=Japanese Americans>Pacific</a> war, there was already an atmosphere of mistrust and paranoia toward Japanese Americans that was ready to be heightened to hysteria. There was also a history of racist government policies that, when added to the “exigencies of war” by which so much has often been justified, made the violation of fundamental civil liberties acceptable. In the days following Pearl Harbor, “enemy aliens” became the <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title=Japanese Americans>target</a> of federal and state government security measures. The 8 December 1941 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle recorded the first roundup of “suspicious characters” and noted that the San Francisco police were mobilized to meet the threat of “sabotage.” Despite protestations of loyalty from the Japanese <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title=Japanese Americans>American</a> community, belief that they were all potential saboteurs, spies, and fifth columnists ready to aid a Japanese attack on mainland America was pervasive. By February 1942, many areas were barred to enemy aliens, which, the San Francisco Chronicle argued, would guard against “sabotage and other fifth column activities”; on 3 February the paper also quoted California Attorney General Earl Warren, who declared “every alien Japanese should be considered in the light of a potential fifth columnist.” Newspapers fomented this anti-Japanese hysteria, and along with a military keen to exercise strong internal security measures and politicians acutely aware of the need to respond to the demands of their constituents, it was perhaps inevitable that some action would be taken. Military leaders spoke of the threat of the “fifth column”; they were also keen to apportion at least part of the blame for the disaster of Pearl Harbor on a Hawaiian–Japanese American fifth column. At the same time, people like Walter Lippmann, one of America’s most respected journalists and <a href=" " target="_blank" title=Japanese Americans>social</a> commentators, talked of the imminent danger of attack from both without and within the West Coast. Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt, head of the Western Defense Command, sanctioned mass searches of Japanese homes, and a <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title=Japanese Americans>system</a> by which Japanese Americans were forced to register and were prevented from traveling. Slowly rights were stripped from Japanese Americans. On 13 February, a Pacific Coast congressional delegation sent President Franklin D. Roosevelt a unanimous recommendation urging “immediate evacuation of all persons of Japanese lineage,” and six days later <a href=" " target="_blank" title=Japanese Americans>Roosevelt</a> signed Exceutive Order 9066 by which over 120,000 people, a majority of whom were U.S. citizens, were put into concentration camps. There were legal appeals arguing the unconstitutionality of these actions but little was done. Over the remaining years of World War II, some groups were released and resettled in the East and Midwest; others were pressured to renounce their citizenship and some of these, along with some noncitizens, were repatriated to Japan. The war years saw the culmination of a deepseated racist mistrust of Japanese Americans; the years following the war saw <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title=Japanese Americans>movements</a> to end legal discrimination against Asian Americans, including the Japanese. But recognition of what was done in <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">World War II</a> was slow. Ultimately, in February 1976, Gerald Ford signed Proclamation 4417, formally recognizing the events of the war years as a “national mistake.” In the 1980s, a Commission on the Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians reported on the events and opened the way for redress, <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title=Japanese Americans>financial</a> and otherwise, for the survivors. The treatment of Japanese Americans from their arrival in the United States until the end of World War II reveals how racial paranoia and fear toward an ethnic group can be exaggerated into a belief in conspiracies to undermine democracy and threaten safety, and given the right circumstances can become a basis for unjust actions and a threat to the very democracy in whose name these actions are invoked.

Japanese Americans

Japanese Americans The Japanese American population became the target of a paranoid campaign in the United States after the surprise Jap...

Council on Foreign Relations

<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" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><img alt="is" an="" border="0" council="" devoted="" foreign="" influential="" of="" on="" organization="" policy="" relations="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ5U_0peoNzOpuTuddcvxvcH6u-lTfqlvROSztwULMDjAv92dhdMMMunyNuZO8FNm1p8PkWbSUCDjXSbgiVF-utpWMexiIHi64XH7udCZTUmKbSWt6TL-ISl7RdKjC7QKvI7zsdlOxsBg/s1600/Council-Relations.jpg" study="" the="" title="Council" to="" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Council on Foreign Relations</td></tr> </tbody></table> Founded at the close of <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">World War I</a>, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is an influential organization devoted to the study of foreign policy. Ever since 1952, when Emmanuel Josephson’s <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="1438263244" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="ae4ca8717c4dc482f4196dada7928278" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Rockefeller Internationalist: The Man Who Misrules the World" href=" " target="_blank">John Birch Society</a> (JBS) in particular—have viewed the CFR as a conspiratorial cabal with designs on global power. Although the fall of the <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="140009593X" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="28234ce2c80264e45e585dd48d1bb455" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Iron Curtain" href="http://www.amazon.com/Iron-Curtain-Crushing-Eastern-1944-1956/dp/140009593X/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=epichistory-20&linkId=28234ce2c80264e45e585dd48d1bb455&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_4489073" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Iron Curtain</a><img alt="is" an="" border="0" council="" devoted="" foreign="" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_4489073" influential="" of="" on="" organization="" policy="" relations="" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=epichistory-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=28234ce2c80264e45e585dd48d1bb455&_cb=1482074327853" study="" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" the="" to="" width="0" /> necessitated modification to the theory of a CFR-Communist conspiracy, the JBS still argues that the Council is really a group of “establishment Insiders” intent on creating a socialist “One World Government.” CFR members are well positioned for this coup, as they can be found in the highest positions of the government (<a href=" " target="_blank">Henry Kissinger</a>, George Bush, and Bill Clinton); finance (the Rockefellers and innumerable New York bankers); the legal world (Supreme Court Justices O’Connor, Ginsburg, and Breyer); and the media (editors of the New York Times and network news anchors); not to mention in other secret cabals such as the <a href=" " target="_blank">Trilateral Commission</a> and the <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="1413459498" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="147a6d1f3b9c0769bbbaf212b1842432" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Bohemian Grove group" href="http://www.amazon.com/Boys-at-Bohemian-Grove/dp/1413459498/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=epichistory-20&linkId=147a6d1f3b9c0769bbbaf212b1842432&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_7009431" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bohemian Grove group</a><img alt="is" an="" border="0" council="" devoted="" foreign="" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_7009431" influential="" of="" on="" organization="" policy="" relations="" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=epichistory-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=147a6d1f3b9c0769bbbaf212b1842432&_cb=1482074382753" study="" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" the="" to="" width="0" />. <table align="center" border="0"><tbody> <tr> <td align="center"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1583675515/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1583675515&linkCode=as2&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=BULCTBIVFS3GHG4A"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1583675515&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img alt="is" an="" border="0" council="" devoted="" foreign="" height="1" influential="" of="" on="" organization="" policy="" relations="" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1583675515" study="" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" the="" to="" width="1" /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0932367240/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0932367240&linkCode=as2&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=FYBHMVV5H52IBTVR"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0932367240&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img alt="is" an="" border="0" council="" devoted="" foreign="" height="1" influential="" of="" on="" organization="" policy="" relations="" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0932367240" study="" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" the="" to="" width="1" /></td> </tr> </tbody></table> According to the conspiracy theorists, contemporary political developments such as the liberalization of global trade (e.g., NAFTA, GATT) and the rise of <a href=" " target="_blank">the United Nations</a> are the first steps toward the CFR’s ultimate goals: the end of national sovereignty and the enslavement of the entire world under the banner of their centralized, all-powerful “world government.” In this “New World Order,” U.S. military forces will be employed as oppressive agents of the global supergovernment—UN “peace-keeping” missions are merely the tip of this iceberg. To be fair, there are a great many “charges” that members of the CFR would not care to dispute, but the Council’s outlook on the <a href=" " target="_blank">New World Order</a> is radically different from that of the JBS because of the historical context out of which the whole idea developed. When the CFR was founded in 1919, <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Woodrow Wilson</a>’s quest for a utopian international community constituted the starting point for many CFR members’ views on U.S. foreign policy. If World War I was to be the “war to end all wars,” it was essential to produce a new international community that could ease the tensions between nationstates before serious conflicts erupted. What was needed, argued the Wilsonians, was less jingoistic nationalism and more international cooperation; a movement toward creating “One World” from the divided, fractured world of 1919 (and, indeed, since this was prior to the rabid anticommunism of the cold war, some members thought in terms of a “socialist” world order, which was to become immensely unpopular three decades on). Of course, for a variety of reasons, lack of full U.S. participation being one, the <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">League of Nations</a> never fulfilled this role, and within a decade Europe was quickly descending into another masa of bloodshed. The Council’s investigations into the causes of <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">World War II</a> only reinforced the Wilsonian ideals of many members. The division of the world’s great powers combined with rampant nationalism had produced the preconditions for fascism, genocide, and the near total destruction of Europe. <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" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><img alt="is" an="" border="0" council="" devoted="" foreign="" influential="" of="" on="" organization="" policy="" relations="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvnRJVpuqdFFM4gyMJAa8M6DcmeyVOImPSr5jSq5NS12VdphuVHAylGMN9ww9Qd0O1hj8XF4rLE6V2cPjNcV0EDQzistFBsD7gijM1JD7QBt9hyphenhyphenxeblN6uFbqBllyxkShm9bGpAmMlY84/s1600/Council-building.jpg" study="" the="" title="Council" to="" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Council on Foreign Relations</td></tr> </tbody></table> Supporters of the CFR today would argue that the Council’s advocacy for a New World Order must be understood in this context, and that the movement toward international cooperation under the aegis of the United Nations heralds an masa of increasing peace and prosperity rather than an Orwellian nightmare. “Mainstream” critics and historians of the CFR like Robert Schulzinger (who actually suggests that much of the Council’s work is cliché-ridden and ineffectual) argue that the Council’s ideas merely mirror the transformations brought on by globalization, and that to read the similarity between the CFR’s ideas and global developments as involving a causal link is simply a mistake. Thus, as far as the New World Order goes, it seems as though one man’s secular utopia is another man’s apocalypse; the division between the two perspectives is completely unbridgeable, and the apocalyptic side of the divide is inevitably dismissed by mainstream culture as “extreme.” The charge of elitism, however—the claim that the CFR is a network of “insiders” that form an allpowerful East Coast “establishment”—is less easily dispelled, since the CFR is quite self-consciously elitist. The CFR argues that international relations should be studied by serious, dispassionate minds free from the taint of impurities such as nationalism. At the outset of the cold war, for instance, George Kennan published his now infamous “X” article in the CFR’s journal, Foreign Affairs, and raised so much public hysteria surrounding the Soviet menace that the Council began to fear that the issue of U.S-Soviet relations would be hijacked by demagogues (and, in view of what loomed on the horizon in <a href=" " target="_blank">McCarthyism</a>, perhaps this fear was not misplaced). If the CFR is “secretive,” argue its proponents, it is because sometimes heightened public consciousness actually works against the proper ends of international politics. Even mainstream academics, however—people who would themselves no doubt be designated “insiders” by the JBS—might well argue that while the CFR’s cultivation of its status as an elite organization may not accurately be termed conspiratorial, it is not at all clear that it represents a positive development in U.S. political culture.

Council on Foreign Relations

Council on Foreign Relations Founded at the close of World War I , the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is an influential organizatio...

Jonestown

<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="Jonestown" border="0" founded="" guyana="" in="" is="" jonestown="" name="" of="" settlement="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDPdy0dwlAwxD0Q1f0WW1gg-9h2up93aJxtrJz12dkgfi40BjYUpoVF8RydE2aMOwskfczrb5vt4_OD_v6c3CyfiGO0S2-T0Ri2xzAJr-ofFuI6W-QgtY8LTuV9zSnZMVj3TGE5zZABgYh/s1600/jonestown.jpg" the="" title="Jonestown" width="470" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jonestown</td></tr> </tbody></table> Jonestown is the name of the settlement in Guyana founded in the 1970s by the Reverand Jim Jones and populated by members of his religious commune, the People’s Temple. The name “Jonestown” has come to refer to the 1978 event where over 900 people died, including Jones himself. While official accounts maintain that the deaths were caused by a Jones-led mass suicide, conspiracy accounts argue that most of the dead were murdered. In conspiracy-theory circles, Jonestown is an example of a mind-control cult experiment (with links to the CIA) that went awry. The official explanation of Jonestown is well known, having dominated news accounts, mass-market paperbacks, documentaries, and made-for-television movies. It states that on 18 November 1978 Jim Jones, the charismatic and fanatical guru who founded the People’s Temple and established the religious commune Jonestown, persuaded his followers to drink cyanide-laced Kool-Aid. <table align="center" border="0"><tbody> <tr> <td align="center"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1416596402/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1416596402&linkCode=as2&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=PITIQYJDG4SW5ZHI"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1416596402&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img alt="Jonestown" border="0" founded="" guyana="" height="1" in="" is="" jonestown="" name="" of="" settlement="" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1416596402" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" the="" width="1" /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1585426784/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1585426784&linkCode=as2&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=JXO35DRA23SC6C34"><img border="0" src="http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1585426784&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img alt="Jonestown" border="0" founded="" guyana="" height="1" in="" is="" jonestown="" name="" of="" settlement="" src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1585426784" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" the="" width="1" /></td> </tr> </tbody></table> Over 900 members did so, and Jones himself died via a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Around the same moment, U.S. Congress member Leo Ryan (on an official investigation mission) and three reporters were gunned down on the Port Kaituma airstrip as they tried to leave Jonestown. The assassins did not die in the “White Night” of mass suicide, but fled and went into hiding. One of the gunners, Larry Layton, was later tried and convicted of the murders. The entire event of Jonestown was attributed to the psychotic leadership of Jones, and engendered general suspicion of idealistic, alternative, and experimental religious groups. Mass Suicide or Mass Murder? Conspiracy accounts challenge this official explanation on two major counts: that most of the members died by murder rather than suicide, and that Jim Jones, far from being a lone nut leader, was enmeshed in the shadowy network of intelligence and mind control. Evidence for the former begins with the initial news accounts, which listed the suicide toll at 400, and claimed that 700 had fled into the jungle. A week later the accounts were revised to say that 913 people had consumed the poisoned concoction. Not only did this leave almost 200 people unaccounted for, it indicated a shift in the number of suicides. U.S. military and embassy officials on the scene first explained the inconsistency by claiming that the Guyanese people could not count, that they had missed a pile of bodies (even after days of searching and counting), and that the discrepancy was due to bodies being stacked on one another. However, the first photographs from the scene (150 of them, both aerial and close-up) showed no stacking. In addition, skeptics find it difficult to believe that 408 bodies (82 of them children) could conceal over 500 others. Instead of this revised story and number counting, skeptics like John Judge believe the initial reports that stated that the majority of Jonestown members fled into the jungle. But what happened to them then? C. Leslie Mootoo, the top Guyanese pathologist, was the first to examine the bodies. He noted that the vast majority of the dead did not exhibit symptoms of cyanide poisoning (which include muscular contortions, especially in the face). At the Guyanese grand jury hearing, Mootoo testified that 80–90 percent of the victims had fresh needle marks in their shoulder blades, that a number of others had been shot or strangled, and that at least 700 had been murdered. The grand jury, after hearing Mootoo’s testimony and considering other evidence, concluded that only two people had committed suicide. In addition, some photos showed gunshot wounds, while others displayed drag marks leading to the bodies, indicating that the bodies were moved after death. Initially, the U.S. Army spokesperson declared that no autopsies were needed, as the cause of death was not an issue. While the United States dispatched large military aircraft for the retrieval of bodies to the United States, they performed the task slowly. The bodies were left to decompose in the heat for almost a week, making autopsies impossible. Relatives and the National Association of Medical Examiners complained that the remains were ineptly handled, often illegally embalmed or cremated, and nearly impossible to identify. These badly botched procedures signaled a cover-up for skeptics (since forensic reconstruction of the White Night could not be done), further indicating a mass slaughter. But who performed the killing? A number of theories emerge here. One version is that Jones’s elite armed guards (about twenty men) hunted the fleeing members. These guards were an all-white group who had special privileges during the Jonestown stay (90 percent of the dead were women and 80 percent were black). Some of these armed guards were responsible for gunning down Congressperson Leo Ryan and the reporters on the airstrip. Witnesses and survivors describe the killers as glassy-eyed “zombies” and their killing as mechanical and methodical. Most of these armed guards escaped and are still unaccounted for. Other theories implicate U.S. Green Berets who were in Guyana at the time, as well as British Black Watch troops also training in the region. Guyanese troops and police (some of whom were on the scene of the Ryan killings but did very little to defend them) have also been implicated. Jim Jones’s fate has also come under suspicion. While the official story maintains that he committed suicide, conspiracy theories point to the fact that the gun allegedly used was found some 200 feet away from the body. Photos of Jones’s body do not show his identifying tattoos. The FBI examined Jones’s fingerprints twice (highly unusual for what is supposed to be an exact science), while his dental records were never checked. Putting all of these pieces together, the conspiracy theory argues that what happened on 18 November 1978 was a mass murder, put into action because of Congress member Ryan’s investigative findings that uncovered the true nature of the People’s Temple. Messianic Cult, Government Mind-Control Experiment, or Both? Beyond the events of that day, however, conspiracy theorists also place Jonestown in a larger context, implicating the very nature of the religious commune into the shadowy world of intelligence. In a tape recording made during the White Night, Jim Jones is heard yelling, “Get Dwyer out of here!” He was referring to Richard Dwyer, who was working as deputy chief of mission for the U.S. Embassy in Guyana. Dwyer was listed in the publication Who’s Who in the CIA, and was allegedly an agent since 1959. He was found at the airstrip where Ryan and the others were killed, stripping the dead of their belongings. Other embassy members, some of them close to Jones, were also involved in intelligence work. Jones’s childhood friend Dan Mitrione joined the CIA-financed International Police Academy. Mitrione was a police advisor in Brazil during Jones’s ministering there in the early 1960s, where neighbors found Jones’s wealthy lifestyle to be suspicious (he claimed he was getting paid by the U.S. government). Jones’s early work in founding the People’s Temple in 1965 in Ukiah, California, his moving of the church to San Francisco (where supporters Mayor Miscone and Harvey Milk were later mysteriously killed), and his eventual relocation to Guyana were all implicated in mysterious deaths, large financial dealings, and illegal activities. Most of Jones’s wealth (estimated at between $26 million and $2 billion) disappeared after the mass death. According to survivors and ex-members, Jonestown was anything but the socialist utopia or religious commune its self-promotional literature claimed. These survivors described the organization as a cult, complete with routine harassment, forced labor, and torture (including repeated “White Night” drills). After the collective death, investigators discovered a massive cache of drugs, with large quantities of thorazine, sodium pentathol, and numerous other tranquilizers and psychotropic drugs used in the CIA’s <a href=" " target="_blank" title=Jonestown>MK-ULTRA</a> behavioral modification experiments. A number of survivors ended up with mysterious fates even after they avoided the gruesome “White Night.” Former Jones aide Michael Prokes held a press conference where he accused the U.S. authorities of hiding an audiotape of the massacre. After meeting the press, Prokes went to the bathroom and allegedly killed himself. Jeannie and Al Mills, who planned on writing an exposé of Jones, were found murdered in their home. Yet another former member was involved in the 1984 mass murder of Los Angeles school children. In 1980 the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence found no evidence of CIA activity in Jonestown. A year before, based on many of the discrepancies, sinister links, and evidence around Jonestown, former Ryan aide Joseph Holsinger came to the conclusion that sums up the Jonestown conspiracy theory. He argued that Jonestown was a mass mind-control experiment with CIA involvement, in which MK-ULTRA techniques (officially halted in 1973) were transferred from institutions to religious groups. Holsinger also argued that Ryan’s congressional investigation found incriminating evidence of this experiment, and that Ryan and the 900 members of the People’s Temple were murdered to prevent exposure.

Jonestown

Jonestown Jonestown is the name of the settlement in Guyana founded in the 1970s by the Reverand Jim Jones and populated by members of h...

National Security Agency

<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" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" target="_blank"><img agency="" alt="The" and="" border="0" intelligence="" largest="" most="" national="" of="" secret="" security="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIAKSDfqPbRaKaQ8afx4S8xgX6YSn-WHAglYigPHeC-kC8oJZd8Hw7O08jeDkRBPgCSBdjT9PJL6K1RTm9sVpL8sG8WxqAKSDTblFbmMKlEwQ9tpOGXa17JVm1LoVO9IPR08zq5NYSOl2j/s1600/National-Agency.gif" states="" the="" title="National" tool="" united="" width="470" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">National Security Agency</td></tr> </tbody></table> The largest and most secret intelligence tool of the United States—the National Security Agency (NSA)—was born 24 October 1952 with President <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Harry S. Truman</a>’s signing of National Security Directive 6. The centerpiece of the U.S. intelligence community, NSA is a technological powerhouse equipped with surveillance tools—both human and computer—to intercept electronic transmissions around the globe. The agency is engaged in collecting raw intercepts, cracking ciphered material, and producing ciphers to protect U.S. coded communications. The NSA is home to an astonishing collection of hyperpowerful computers, advanced mathematicians, and language experts. The NSA’s very existence was the stuff of conspiracy theories for many years; moreover, many of its historic activities stand alone as conspiracies in their own right. <table align="center" border="0"><tbody> <tr> <td align="center"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1250062586/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&linkCode=li3&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=e350a3494a70156bd2089f707f6338d5" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1250062586&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img agency="" alt="The" and="" border="0" height="1" intelligence="" largest="" most="" national="" of="" secret="" security="" src="//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=li3&o=1&a=1250062586" states="" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" the="" tool="" united="" width="1" /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385499086/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&linkCode=li3&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=d25e195e6e7ce0e5433dd07257ae4285" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0385499086&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img agency="" alt="The" and="" border="0" height="1" intelligence="" largest="" most="" national="" of="" secret="" security="" src="//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=li3&o=1&a=0385499086" states="" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" the="" tool="" united="" width="1" /></td> </tr> </tbody></table> Size and budget set the NSA apart as the most influential among intelligence agencies. Its annual budget is disguised, though it measures in billions of dollars; most NSA appropriations are hidden in the budgets of other agencies. The NSA’s 38,000 employees occupy a compound of over sixty buildings—offices, warehouses, factories, laboratories, and living quarters—located off a forbidden highway exit ramp in <a href=" " target="_blank" title=National Security Agency>Maryland</a>. The location itself is a secret, and earthen embankments, thick trees, and mazes of barbed wire guard the NSA and its activities from intrusion, either physical or visual. Motion detectors, hydraulic antitruck devices, and telephoto surveillance cameras work together to alert the NSA’s paramilitary response team to any potential security compromise. The NSA was established external to the legislative process—no law created it, and no laws govern the scope of its responsibilities. No law prohibits the NSA from engaging in any activity; there are only laws to prohibit the release of any <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title=National Security Agency>information</a> about the agency. The NSA’s mission and responsibilities are unknown to anyone external to the agency, including members of Congress. The name itself— National Security Agency—remained a secret until the late 1950s. “Until then its name, the identity of its director, and even its existence were considered more sensitive than top secret and were known only to a handful in government”. In addition to the conspiracy surrounding the NSA’s existence, several of its specific operations are worthy of note. The Cold War During the cold war, NSA intelligence-gathering efforts focused on detecting the capacity and location of Soviet weapons. Listening posts along the <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title=National Security Agency>Soviet</a> border failed to yield intelligence about operations deep inside the country, so the NSA responded by developing the U-2, a high-altitude surveillance jet designed to fly well above the reach of the enemy’s retaliatory capabilities. This plane flew missions deep into the Soviet interior (at altitudes exceeding 70,000 feet) from 4 July 1956 until 1 May 1960, when Francis Gary Powers was shot out of the Soviet sky. Eisenhower thought it impossible for a U-2 pilot to survive a crash; he also doubted the survivability of the plane and its equipment. When data ceased to be transmitted from Powers’s U-2 flight, listening station operators assumed the plane to be destroyed and Powers to be dead. The administration issued a cover story to veil the true nature of the mission. To Eisenhower’s surprise, the Soviets recovered Powers, the plane, and its intelligence payload—information intended for the NSA. When the Soviets announced the recovery, Eisenhower and his administration responded with a multitude of lies and contradictory stories to protect U.S. intelligence operations. More likely, the cover-up was to disguise Eisenhower’s hands-on role in the project. The Vietnam War Operation Desoto placed NSA technicians aboard U.S. Navy destroyers to intercept radio transmissions and radar signals at trouble spots around the globe. In 1964 the USS Maddox was dispatched to monitor a North Vietnamese radar installation. To ensure success, the NSA preferred that the radar station be switched to full power at the time of the destroyer’s passing by and a raid was staged against the island to create the need for the radar station’s use. Assuming the destroyer to have played some role in the incident, the North Vietnamese launched two counter attacks in the following four days. “As far as the American people and Congress knew, the North Vietnamese had carried out purely unprovoked attacks in ... international waters against an American ship on peaceful patrol”. An overwhelming majority in Congress immediately approved the <a href=" " target="_blank">Tonkin Gulf</a> Resolution; thus the NSA’s secret war led to direct U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Telecommunications Surveillance “[T]here is no comprehensive ‘right to know’ included, either explicitly or implicitly, within the First Amendment”. These words of Lieutenant General William Odom, former director of the NSA, indicate the agency’s attitude toward individual liberty. The most egregious of NSA activities, Operation Shamrock, was inherited at the agency’s creation in 1952. In 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued a directive permitting the use of electronic surveillance for national defense. This enabled the military to work with international communications companies to obtain access to the cable traffic of private citizens, companies, and governments. <a href=" " target="_blank" title=National Security Agency>Technology </a>quickly enabled computers to scan this information, and the NSA incorporated the watch lists of the CIA, FBI, Secret Service, and other agencies into their surveillance activities. Operation Shamrock was taken to new extremes when Attorney General Robert Kennedy used it against domestic targets in his crusade against organized crime. Kennedy also tracked citizens and businesses transacting with Cuba. In 1967, President <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Lyndon Johnson</a> monitored domestic dissidents opposed to his Vietnam policies with Project Minaret, a division of Shamrock. Under President <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Jimmy Carter</a>, the NSA listened to telephone conversations on the island of Cuba using a very large surveillance balloon floating over the <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title=National Security Agency>Florida</a> Keys. These unconstitutional activities violated the Fourth Amendment stipulation that citizens have a right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures. The NSA’s listening capabilities have reached new highs. NSA engineers presently “work in secret to develop computers capable of performing more than one septillion (1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) operations every second”. Such processors are necessary to handle the immense communications traffic produced around the world today. Considering General Odom’s words, one may assume the NSA uses its technological capacity to monitor conditions around the globe, including private conversations.

National Security Agency

National Security Agency The largest and most secret intelligence tool of the United States—the National Security Agency (NSA)—was born...