LSD

<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 acid="" alt="The" border="0" diethylamide="" drug="" hallucinogenic="" lsd="" lysergic="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvJHlldec-JuPW9s47uJZKDvocO73mFuKQvhrp7xSkVKc9LGxT35DcdXFpQnC_ui2MfTMXYsOyYhyphenhyphenkAdsoQD2uDxAHV3yGbhCxhT9sSECEFTgM9VdpXsjQIUCq3d-10pDYpIAfRrpmkoM/s1600/lsd.jpg" title="LSD" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">LSD</td></tr> </tbody></table> <br /> The hallucinogenic drug lysergic acid diethylamide, or LSD, was discovered by the Sandoz drug and chemical corporation in 1943, and within a few short years both the U.S. military and the newly formed CIA would be investigating the possible strategic <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title=LSD>value</a> of this extraordinarily powerful new substance.<br /> <br /> Since a single dose was merely 100 micrograms or so, 10 kilograms—about the amount that could fit into an agent’s carry-on luggage, for instance—was equivalent to 100 million doses, or enough to incapacitate the entire population of either the United States or the <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title=LSD>Soviet Union</a>.<br /> <br /> Its strategic importance as a weapon was thus all too evident, but the CIA was more interested in its potential as an interrogation aid or even as a possible “mind-control” tool. Leaving the research into large-scale deployment to the military’s chemical and biological warfare (CBW) division, the CIA began an extensive jadwal of testing the drug on individuals.<br /> <br /> <table align="center" border="0"><tbody> <tr> <td align="center"><span style="padding-left: 7px; padding-right: 7px;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0979862221/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&linkCode=li3&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=877b05e7e9a27854808d085fa4e1cc4b" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0979862221&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img acid="" alt="The" border="0" diethylamide="" drug="" hallucinogenic="" height="1" lsd="" lysergic="" src="//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=li3&o=1&a=0979862221" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /></span><span style="padding-left: 7px; padding-right: 7px;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0147516374/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&linkCode=li3&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=473fbb1c1feb779ee4cb11be532c6ecc" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0147516374&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img acid="" alt="The" border="0" diethylamide="" drug="" hallucinogenic="" height="1" lsd="" lysergic="" src="//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=li3&o=1&a=0147516374" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /></span></td> </tr> </tbody></table> <br /> U.S. intelligence organizations had long been interested in the possibility of <a href=" " target="_blank" title=LSD>mind control</a>. The CIA’s World War II predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), had experimented with marijuana as a possible mind-control agent. And Stanley Lovell, head of OSS research and development, looked into the possibility of hypnotizing German prisoners and sending them back to Germany with orders to assassinate Hitler.<br /> <br /> Though nothing much came of these efforts, the Communist trials of the late 1940s, which saw political and military officials confessing to treasonous acts they clearly did not commit, convinced the CIA that techniques for radical behavior modification existed and, worse, that the Soviets had developed them first.<br /> <br /> With the perceived threat of Soviet mind control looming on the horizon, in 1953 the CIA set up <a href=" " target="_blank" title=LSD>MK-ULTRA</a>, a new project headed by Sidney Gottlieb that was devoted to studying the operational potential of biological and chemical materials (including LSD).<br /> <br /> The CIA’s testing of LSD proceeded on two fronts. On the one hand, they decided to make use of as many official medical research organizations as they could, and began funding (often covertly) research on LSD in universities, hospitals, and drug treatment centers. On the other hand, they also decided that they needed unwitting subjects whom they could drug and then observe and even interrogate.<br /> <br /> The CIA’s need for unwitting subjects was so intense that agents within project MK-ULTRA agreed that they could slip each other the drug at any time. This policy of unwitting testing produced what has become one of the most publicized events in the project’s history: the LSD-related suicide of Dr. Frank Olson of the Army Chemical Corps’ Special Operations Division (SOD).<br /> <br /> Olson had a profoundly negative reaction to the drug, which had been given to him without his knowledge, and Gottlieb, rather than offering Olson proper psychiatric help, sent the disturbed SOD man to one of MK-ULTRA’s own scientists, an immunologist and allergist who had no psychiatric experience.<br /> <br /> The MK-ULTRA scientist was unable to salvage the situation, and Gottlieb was forced to cover up the entire incident after Olson jumped through the window of his tenth-floor hotel room. Rather than slowing down the CIA’s experiments with LSD, however, the Olson case merely made them realize that they needed to start using different subjects.<br /> <br /> Gottlieb arranged to have “safehouses” set up in New York and San Francisco where LSD was administered to unwitting prostitutes, drug addicts, and small-time criminals (i.e., those who would be least likely to report the CIA agents to the police).<br /> <br /> As the agents developed close relationships with the prostitutes, they realized that it was just as easy to pay the women to lure unsuspecting clients back to the safehouse for testing as it was to test the prostitutes themselves.<br /> <br /> Furthermore, while they were at it, the CIA operatives decided to use the prostitutes for a variety of explorations into deviant sexual practices that might have future operational value. The prostitutes who participated in what the CIA code-named “Operation Midnight Climax” were paid $100 a night for their work.<br /> <br /> In the mid-1970s tales of these covert domestic operations emerged as a result of both investigative reporting and government inquiries such as the <a href=" " target="_blank">Rockefeller</a> Commission in 1975 and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in 1977.<br /> <br /> The CIA agents’ cavalier approach to drug-testing horrified the public, but the institutional programs they covertly funded were often just as shocking. In Lexington, Kentucky, the director of the Addiction Research Center offered addicts heroin if they “volunteered” for the LSD testing project.<br /> <br /> Some patients were kept on LSD for seventy-seven consecutive days. At McGill University in Montreal patients were subjected to extensive “depatterning”—a technique the CIA saw as a possible prelude to mind control—that involved extensive use of LSD, electroshock therapy, and sensory deprivation.<br /> <br /> Patients’ LSD-induced ramblings would be recorded on tape, then, later the patients would be injected with more LSD combined with either depressants or stimulants and left alone in a room to listen to their earlier tape.<br /> <br /> In the end, the CIA became convinced that LSD would not turn out to be the effective mind-control agent they had hoped it would be. And while they still dreamed of administering it to foreign leaders in order to produce erratic and discrediting behavior (one of Fidel Castro’s cigars was to be coated with the drug), they discontinued the research begun in the 1950s by the time the inquiries of the 1970s had begun (or so they claimed).<br /> <br /> In the meantime, LSD had become an important part of the 1960s counterculture, and no doubt this new social significance is the reason why tales of the CIA’s connection to the drug were so endlessly fascinating for the public. (No one seemed to talk quite as much about the CIA’s experiments with Seconal and Dexedrine, for example.)

LSD

LSD The hallucinogenic drug lysergic acid diethylamide, or LSD, was discovered by the Sandoz drug and chemical corporation in 1943, and...

Read more »

Pentagon Papers

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <a href=" " imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHcO-vuT4x0t1yiHP7ROT6i5L0epvmUCSMTuLgz0MBGT4QYsDpD4b3vuGyngMvnFSLsf_sWjDqrQvJruAC-xQkH5uTc0buMTpWHhWfS61REXtfSTgeLs8ZWLRMi6JabpboDgQLRe9R6g9k/s1600/pentagon-papers.jpg" width="250" /></a></div> The Pentagon Papers was a forty-seven-volume Pentagon study into U.S. involvement in Vietnam. It was commissioned by the then secretary of defense, <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="0679767495" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="abf954e1292cac3d09843814bca2dd37" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Robert McNamara" href="http://www.amazon.com/Retrospect-Tragedy-Lessons-Vietnam/dp/0679767495/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=epichistory-20&linkId=abf954e1292cac3d09843814bca2dd37&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_1186955" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Robert McNamara</a><img alt="It" border="0" by="" commissioned="" defense="" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_1186955" of="" papers="" pentagon="" secretary="" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=epichistory-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=abf954e1292cac3d09843814bca2dd37&_cb=1483242555820" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" the="" then="" was="" width="0" />, in 1967 and it provided an in-depth analysis of events from 1945 to 1968. In effect, it amounted to a genuine “secret history” of the war, exactly the kind of document that conspiracy theorists have always dreamed of finding.<br /> <br /> In June 1971, the report became an important political issue once Daniel Ellsberg, a former hawk who had worked for the CIA in <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank" title=Pentagon Papers>Vietnam</a>, leaked it to the press. President Nixon and, especially, his national security advisor, Henry Kissinger, were incensed by the leak and their increased paranoia and determination to “get” Ellsberg started the descent into Watergate.<br /> <br /> Nixon was initially relaxed about the leak as the first installment, printed in the New York Times on 13 June 1971, seemed to be an opportunity to embarrass his Democratic opponents. It focused upon <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="">Lyndon Johnson</a>’s 1964 presidential election campaign against <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="1568584121" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="dfe265fa5d4fe57718a91f3e6f59c648" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Barry Goldwater" href="http://www.amazon.com/Before-Storm-Goldwater-Unmaking-Consensus/dp/1568584121/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=epichistory-20&linkId=dfe265fa5d4fe57718a91f3e6f59c648&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_220115" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Barry Goldwater</a><img alt="It" border="0" by="" commissioned="" defense="" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_220115" of="" papers="" pentagon="" secretary="" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=epichistory-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=dfe265fa5d4fe57718a91f3e6f59c648&_cb=1483242589417" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" the="" then="" was="" width="0" /> and clearly documented Johnson’s deception over his Vietnam policy.<br /> <br /> However, within a few days the leak had turned into a flood as the <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B000GFK7L6" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="1029eeb1aa78569f93b82151453bb09d" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="New York Times" href="http://www.amazon.com/New-York-Times-Daily-Kindle/dp/B000GFK7L6/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=epichistory-20&linkId=1029eeb1aa78569f93b82151453bb09d&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_6591917" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">New York Times</a><img alt="It" border="0" by="" commissioned="" defense="" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_6591917" of="" papers="" pentagon="" secretary="" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=epichistory-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=1029eeb1aa78569f93b82151453bb09d&_cb=1483242615083" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" the="" then="" was="" width="0" /> started printing pages of top secret cables from the U.S. Embassy in Saigon.<br /> <br /> <table align="center" border="0"><tbody> <tr> <td align="center"><span style="padding-left: 7px; padding-right: 7px;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0520213823/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&linkCode=li3&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=be6041cd1b6b105e8d08be34dcea5dde" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0520213823&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img alt="It" border="0" by="" commissioned="" defense="" height="1" of="" papers="" pentagon="" secretary="" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=li3&o=1&a=0520213823" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" the="" then="" was="" width="1" /></span><span style="padding-left: 7px; padding-right: 7px;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1596439521/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&linkCode=li3&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=98a16cdef82dd21341509a7e92096957" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1596439521&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img alt="It" border="0" by="" commissioned="" defense="" height="1" of="" papers="" pentagon="" secretary="" src="//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=li3&o=1&a=1596439521" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" the="" then="" was="" width="1" /></span></td> </tr> </tbody></table> <br /> The massive national security violation was clearly damaging the Nixon administration and it could have undermined Kissinger’s secret negotiations with China and North Vietnam. A number of foreign countries were also pressing for action to stop the flow of embarrassing reports about their roles in the war.<br /> <br /> The White House responded by starting an <a href=" " target="_blank">FBI</a> investigation and seeking a court injunction against the Times preventing further publication. A federal appeals court agreed to the government’s request but the Washington Post started printing extracts instead.<br /> <br /> A different federal appeals court refused to grant an injunction against the Post, and other papers, including the Boston Globe and the Chicago Sun-Times, started printing parts of the report as well. Eventually, a dozen newspapers took part while a Democratic senator, Mike Gravel, started reading the Papers into the Congressional Record.<br /> <br /> The Nixon administration pursued the case to the Supreme Court, but on 30 June the justices voted six to three against it. The Court found that the government had failed to justify prior restraints against publication and had hence breached the First Amendment guarantees of press freedom.<br /> <br /> Despite the Court’s decision, the government was still able to prosecute Daniel Ellsberg, who had been quickly identified as the source of the leaks. Ellsberg was then an MIT research assistant but he had worked on CIA pacification programs in Vietnam in the 1960s.<br /> <br /> He had also worked under <a href=" " target="_blank">Henry Kissinger</a> at both Harvard and in the White House—which further inflamed the national security advisor—before joining the Rand Corporation, where he had photocopied the papers over a number of months.<br /> <br /> Kissinger and Nixon became determined to discredit Ellsberg, whose denunciations of them and the war in Vietnam were making him into a peace movement hero. A cheering crowd greeted him when he turned himself in to federal authorities in Boston on 28 June.<br /> <br /> A grand jury had already been impaneled to investigate the leaking but the White House prevented full cooperation in order to cover up its previous misdeeds. Ellsberg’s lawyers were told that the government had no wiretap records involving their client but he had been taped fifteen times on one of the secret “Kissinger taps.” These taps were not run through the usual FBI channels and revealing the records of Ellsberg would have divulged the whole secret (and illegal) operation.<br /> <br /> Nixon also wanted to connect Ellsberg to a Communist country as this would not only discredit him but would also increase his maximum possible jail sentence. No such link could be found, however, and Nixon was convinced that this was because the FBI wasn’t performing a thorough investigation. (Ellberg’s father-in-law was an old friend of <a href=" " target="_blank">J. Edgar Hoover</a>.)<br /> <br /> He therefore ordered a White House investigation that was started by E. Howard Hunt, an ex-CIA man. Nixon also wanted action to prevent further leaks, so a new White House unit, which became known as the Plumbers, was formed involving David Young, Egil Krogh, G. Gordon Liddy, and Hunt.<br /> <br /> The unit soon decided that a CIA psychological profile of Ellsberg would greatly help to discredit him. Ellsberg’s psychiatrist had already refused to give his files to the FBI and when the CIA drew up a profile using the Plumbers’ material it was very short and superficial.<br /> <br /> The Plumbers, with the approval of the president’s chief domestic advisor, John Ehrlichman, therefore decided to perform a covert operation to retrieve the files. Liddy and Hunt organized it but, despite their men wrecking the psychiatrist’s office, nothing was found.<br /> <br /> No further such operations were carried out, but the Plumbers continued to dream up schemes to discredit Ellsberg, including drugging him with <a href=" " target="_blank">LSD</a>. They also persisted in pursuing the CIA profile and were eventually rewarded with an eight-page analysis blaming Ellsberg’s actions upon aggression against his father, the president, and Ellsberg’s psychiatrist.<br /> <br /> The CIA profile probably wasn’t used for anything, but the White House did use other material on Ellsberg. An article drawing together the left-wing causes his lawyer had supported was leaked to the press by Nixon’s “hatchet man,” Charles Colson, who later served seven months in jail after pleading guilty to infringing on Ellsberg’s right to a fair trial.<br /> <br /> Ellsberg, however, avoided a prison sentence as his trial collapsed in May 1972 in the midst of <a href=" " target="_blank">Watergate</a>. During the trial, Judge Matthew Byrne had been made aware of the “Kissinger taps” and the Plumbers’ break-in, as well as being publicly offered the post of director of the FBI.<br /> <br /> The cumulative effect of this government misconduct, he said, offended a sense of justice and, instead of ordering a retrial, he dismissed all of the charges against Ellsberg and his codefendant, Anthony Russo of the Times. Coming just after the resignation of Nixon’s chief aides, H. R. Haldeman and Ehrlichman, the trial’s collapse added to the air of crisis and corruption engulfing the <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">White</a> House.

Pentagon Papers

The Pentagon Papers was a forty-seven-volume Pentagon study into U.S. involvement in Vietnam. It was commissioned by the then secretary of...

Read more »

Pearl Harbor

<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="Imperial" attack="" border="0" fleet="" harbor="" in="" launched="" located="" navy="" on="" pacific="" pe="" pearl="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIQ8yW-bKqRbdsZUFEfgLXLtDE7pDqMXsgLcWVqr9cLD3N6LV7YXC8spWxCpjugqUYLtmQjW9DSbkaLiRgnb_e3UJ_Eg4NzhPdSQ0WK7LA69Jr8qb_HeA8mIilJf_HmABYR1dSH__LX3Y/s1600/pearl-harbor.jpg" states="" surprise="" the="" title="Pearl" united="" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pearl Harbor</td></tr> </tbody></table> <br /> On Sunday, 7 December 1941, at 7:55 A.M. the <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Japanese</a> Imperial Navy launched a surprise attack on the United States Pacific Fleet located in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The theories and explanations of the events surrounding the Japanese attack on U.S. forces have become a cottage industry for historians of World War II.<br /> <br /> Questions about U.S. military involvement, and theories of how it happened and who knew what and when, reappear with each tenth anniversary. As early as 1942 opponents of President Roosevelt accused him of working to bring the United States into <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">World War II</a> and using the Japanese attack on the United States as an excuse to do just that.<br /> <br /> The events surrounding the attack have been subject to multiple interpretations. John Toland, Robert B. Stinnett, James Rusbridger, and Eric Nave have been among those who argued that a conspiracy existed to use an attack on Pearl Harbor to bring the United States into the war and was the real reason for the Japanese <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">success</a>.<br /> <br /> <table align="center" border="0"><tbody> <tr> <td align="center"><span style="padding-left: 7px; padding-right: 7px;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00003CXTG/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&linkCode=li3&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=ceca7fee8079358bf8892272fad642fb" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B00003CXTG&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img a="" alt="Imperial" attack="" border="0" fleet="" harbor="" height="1" in="" launched="" located="" navy="" on="" pacific="" pe="" pearl="" src="//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=li3&o=1&a=B00003CXTG" states="" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" surprise="" the="" united="" width="1" /></span><span style="padding-left: 7px; padding-right: 7px;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0805068031/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&linkCode=li3&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=94feb4b68e8c5758540e3ef5773fc8aa" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=0805068031&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img a="" alt="Imperial" attack="" border="0" fleet="" harbor="" height="1" in="" launched="" located="" navy="" on="" pacific="" pe="" pearl="" src="//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=li3&o=1&a=0805068031" states="" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" surprise="" the="" united="" width="1" /></span></td> </tr> </tbody></table> <br /> Others led by Gordon Prange, Roberta Wohlstetter, and Henry Clausen have argued that it was a series of errors on the part of the United States that gave Japan its <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">opportunity</a>. Since the end of the war, large amounts of information about who knew what have emerged, often providing more smoke than light.<br /> <br /> The attack caught a large number of U.S. warships in the harbor. The Japanese sank or damaged eight battleships, two beyond repair. They also damaged three light cruisers, three destroyers, and four other ships beyond repair.<br /> <br /> In the U.S. Navy and Marines, 2,086 were killed and 749 wounded, and in the army 194 were killed and 360 wounded. In addition, the United States lost 188 aircraft. Japanese losses were fewer than 100 personnel and 29 aircraft. The event shocked the United States, which had been used to the idea of security within the territories.<br /> <br /> The United States and Japan had become significant competitors in Asia prior to the war. U.S. policy in the <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Pacific</a> during the 1930s and early 1940s was perceived by the Japanese as hostile to their interests in the region. At the same time, Japanese expansion in the region was seen in Washington as hostile to U.S. interests in Asia.<br /> <br /> U.S.–Japanese relations were deteriorating throughout 1940–1941 and as the situation became more likely to move to a military solution, U.S. planners foresaw a potential Japanese attack on U.S. interests in the Pacific, especially in the <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Philippines</a> where the United States had a significant military presence, led by General Douglas MacArthur. The movement of the U.S. Pacific Fleet from San Diego to Hawaii in 1940 was done with a purpose as well. Its placement there was a statement of U.S. interest and intent in the region.<br /> <br /> Hawaii was a less secure location than California. There had already been a number of studies showing the possibility of an air attack against Pearl Harbor. The possibility was considered significant enough that on 7 February 1941, General George Marshall (U.S. Army chief of staff) sent Lieutenant General Walter Short (commanding general of the Hawaiian Department) a message informing him that “the risk of sabotage and the risk involved in a surprise raid by air and by submarine constitute the real perils of the situation”.<br /> <br /> Then on 5 March 1941 another message from Marshall informed General Short: “I would appreciate your early review of the situation in Hawaiian Department with regard to defense from air attack. The establishment of a satisfactory system of coordinating all means available to this is a matter of first priority”. On 27 November 1941 the commanders in the Pacific were sent what has become known as the “war warning” message.<br /> <br /> Marshall’s message cautioned of potential Japanese action “at any moment” and also informed General Short, “Prior to hostile Japanese action, you are directed to undertake such reconnaissance and other measures as you deem necessary”. In the navy message it noted the movement of an “amphibious expedition against either the Philippines, or the Kra Peninsula or possibly Borneo”.<br /> <br /> The use of intelligence has been a significant dilema in clearing up the questions around the attack. The United States had broken a number of Japanese codes including the “Purple Code” (the highest Japanese diplomatic code) and realized that relations with <a href=" " target="_blank">Japan</a> were deteriorating toward war.<br /> <br /> The most famous message intercepted in the last twenty-four hours before the attack was the “Fourteen Part Message,” which was itself of little intelligence value except that it showed the state of U.S.–Japanese relations.<br /> <br /> More important was the order setting the time of delivery of the Fourteen Part Message as 1 P.M. in Washington, 7:30 A.M. in Hawaii. General Marshall ordered that the information be communicated to the Pacific commanders by the fastest possible method.<br /> <br /> There is a discrepancy in the number of times Marshall was alleged to have sent officers to check on the delivery time, but he is known to have done so at least once. Due to atmospheric conditions the message was sent to Pearl Harbor by telegraph and did not arrive until after the attack on the base.<br /> <br /> There were other significant messages, including one from Hawaii to Japan laying out the positions of U.S. ships in the harbor. In December before the attack, the United States had access to information that the Japanese diplomats had been ordered to prepare to destroy their codes.<br /> <br /> On 6 December 1941 Colonel Bicknell, the assistant chief of staff, announced to General Short’s staff that “he had received information to the effect that the Japanese counsels were burning their papers .... It would at least show that something was about to happen, somewhere”.<br /> <br /> In spite of these successes, it needs to be remembered that the number of codes broken by the United States was limited, as was the completeness of the information about Japanese intentions. Thus, preparations for war were conducted with only partial knowledge.<br /> <br /> Another source of concern is the location of aircraft carriers. The U.S. Navy’s Pacific aircraft carriers were not present on the day of the attack. The Saratoga was in San Diego, while the other two U.S. carriers were off to reenforce forward bases with aircraft.<br /> <br /> The USS Enterprise had gone to Wake Island and was scheduled back to Pearl Harbor around 7 A.M. on 7 December, but was held up by bad weather, and the USS Lexington was on its way to Midway Island.<br /> <br /> The Enterprise was close enough at the time of the attack that its aircraft were able to make contact with Japanese aircraft. Their missions saved them for use in the important sea battles to come, Coral Sea and Midway.<br /> <br /> <b>The Theories</b><br /> <br /> One theory argues that President Roosevelt knew about the coming attack, but was willing to sacrifice the aging battleships in order to give cause to the American people to fight the war. In order to do this, Roosevelt and the military command structure in Washington not only placed the U.S. battleships in harm’s way, they also sent U.S. aircraft carriers away from the site of the attack to protect them.<br /> <br /> Then Washington conspired to deny U.S. commanders in the Pacific important intelligence data that would have led them to assign a higher state of alert on 7 December. There is significant circumstantial evidence for this theory, based on the idea that Roosevelt needed a military disaster to enter the war. This theory does not account for the possible impact of an attack on other U.S. forces, or a successful defense against a strong attack on Pearl Harbor.<br /> <br /> It also does not account for Roosevelt’s love of the navy, which makes his willingness to sink ships less likely. This theory assumes that Roosevelt and the naval leadership understood that aircraft carriers would dominate the next naval war; the evidence for this idea is limited.<br /> <br /> It also assumes that the intelligence clearly pointed to an attack on Pearl Harbor. The challenge when investigating the subject is in separating the information that is meaningful and important from a flood of extraneous information.<br /> <br /> As one historian notes: “we failed to anticipate Pearl Harbor not for a want of relevant material, but because of a plethora of irrelevant one”. Without a message specifically stating an attack on a site, an analyst must interpret the message and weigh its value based on what they know about an adversary’s potential and preferences.<br /> <br /> It is often easier to see a clear meaning in a message with hindsight. Another variant of this conspiracy argues that the British government knew about the attacks and did not inform the United States in order to force it into the war.<br /> <br /> It is based on the existence of both British intercept operations, based on U.S. efforts, and British agents in the regions. The strength of this theory is that the British did have the <a href=" " target="_blank">technology</a> to break the “Purple Code,” which they gained from the United States and from the timely sale of British interests in Asia.<br /> <br /> This theory assumes superior British knowledge of Japanese intentions, for which the evidence is weak. And like Roosevelt, Churchill loved the navy. It was unlikely he would risk lives, or potentially the war, by allowing the U.S. Pacific Fleet to be destroyed.<br /> <br /> <b>The Conspiracy’s Place in History</b><br /> <br /> There were numerous official investigations of the events around Pearl Harbor from the very beginning. The army and navy each conducted board and individual inquiries, such as the Roberts Commission, the Hart Inquiry, the Army Pearl Harbor Board, the Navy Court of Inquiry, the Clarke Inquiry, the Clausen Investigation, and the Hewitt Inquiry.<br /> <br /> In 1946 Congress conducted its own investigation and pulled together all of the previous efforts. There has been renewed interest in events around Pearl Harbor since its fiftieth anniversary in 1991. This has spawned a renewal in many conspiracy theories, but also created a growing interest in understanding the actual events and causes of the events of 7 December 1941.

Pearl Harbor

Pearl Harbor On Sunday, 7 December 1941, at 7:55 A.M. the Japanese Imperial Navy launched a surprise attack on the United States Pacif...

Read more »

Alan J. Pakula

<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 alan="" alt="is" been="" best="" border="0" collectively="" direction="" films="" for="" have="" his="" j.="" known="" of="" pakula="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj14iQ5DhsyakbJN96NBKbpGwPclgPlTp4dbxnEuSaoVjp-8STw2IHYUjcufkZN9jKCR5uDKlWbOesIvMqEcJ4xA_EcMsTJ0fP_Q983wIf7ChYb9658HPVtNEcS4fi7YqncrMfbsex_0TYQ/s1600/Alan-Pakula.jpg" termed="" that="" the="" title="Alan" width="470" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Alan J. Pakula</td></tr> </tbody></table> <br /> Filmmaker Alan J. Pakula (1928–1998) is best known for his direction of films that have been collectively termed the “paranoia trilogy,” consisting of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000MD65XQ/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=inamerican-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B000MD65XQ&linkId=cab683cc38b1ef7f059aa4ffa04d32d5" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Klute</a> (1971), <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000I3SVT6/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=inamerican-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B000I3SVT6&linkId=aff09d2a15836b966f087ae6a4b72cb1" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Parallax View</a> (1974), and <a href="http://amzn.to/2noI0Dh" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">All the President’s Men</a> (1976).<br /> <br /> While these films chart a general trajectory from private to public paranoia and belief in conspiracy, Fredric Jameson states that the trademark of Pakula’s most successful films is that they cut across “the traditional opposition between public and private” (Jameson, 52).<br /> <br /> Pakula produced and wrote films and began directing with <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B008NNSCYM" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="f820083b943fa025a1a82db83cc754c4" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="The Sterile Cuckoo" href="http://www.amazon.com/Sterile-Cuckoo-Liza-Minnelli/dp/B008NNSCYM/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=inamerican-20&linkId=f820083b943fa025a1a82db83cc754c4&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_3201486" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Sterile Cuckoo</a><img alan="" alt="is" been="" best="" border="0" collectively="" direction="" films="" for="" have="" height="0" his="" id="amznPsBmPixel_3201486" j.="" known="" of="" pakula="" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=inamerican-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=f820083b943fa025a1a82db83cc754c4&_cb=1483203477487" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" termed="" that="" the="" width="0" /> (1969). He later made films such as <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B000K3M1VI" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="eb48c096c22fed095b1ba782992df426" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Sophie’s Choice" href="http://www.amazon.com/Sophies-Choice-Meryl-Streep/dp/B000K3M1VI/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=inamerican-20&linkId=eb48c096c22fed095b1ba782992df426&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_4395047" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Sophie’s Choice</a><img alan="" alt="is" been="" best="" border="0" collectively="" direction="" films="" for="" have="" height="0" his="" id="amznPsBmPixel_4395047" j.="" known="" of="" pakula="" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=inamerican-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=eb48c096c22fed095b1ba782992df426&_cb=1483203492219" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" termed="" that="" the="" width="0" /> (1982), the political conspiracy thriller The <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B002NZK5UU" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="4284230d50f4b33e8d4e0f1efcecb025" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Pelican Brief" href="http://www.amazon.com/Pelican-Brief-Double-Sided-DIsc/dp/B002NZK5UU/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=inamerican-20&linkId=4284230d50f4b33e8d4e0f1efcecb025&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_368364" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Pelican Brief</a><img alan="" alt="is" been="" best="" border="0" collectively="" direction="" films="" for="" have="" height="0" his="" id="amznPsBmPixel_368364" j.="" known="" of="" pakula="" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=inamerican-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=4284230d50f4b33e8d4e0f1efcecb025&_cb=1483203504032" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" termed="" that="" the="" width="0" /> (1993), and his simpulan work, <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="0767802578" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="a301e206a05b5f5f61cfddf6228771f5" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="The Devil’s Own" href="http://www.amazon.com/Devils-Own-Ruben-Blades/dp/0767802578/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=inamerican-20&linkId=a301e206a05b5f5f61cfddf6228771f5&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_7049054" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Devil’s Own</a><img alan="" alt="is" been="" best="" border="0" collectively="" direction="" films="" for="" have="" height="0" his="" id="amznPsBmPixel_7049054" j.="" known="" of="" pakula="" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=inamerican-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=a301e206a05b5f5f61cfddf6228771f5&_cb=1483203519983" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" termed="" that="" the="" width="0" /> (1997).<br /> <br /> The paranoia trilogy is unified by the cinematography of Gordon Willis, who produced a stark visual representation of paranoia, as well as by a thematic concern with surveillance and the connection between conspiracy and the process of investigation.<br /> <br /> <table align="center" border="0"><tbody> <tr> <td align="center"><span style="padding-left: 7px; padding-right: 7px;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01G9CFTZI/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&linkCode=li3&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=2843269721dec27ecbb1d78e1fcd9be3" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B01G9CFTZI&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img alan="" alt="is" been="" best="" border="0" collectively="" direction="" films="" for="" have="" height="1" his="" j.="" known="" of="" pakula="" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=li3&o=1&a=B01G9CFTZI" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" termed="" that="" the="" width="1" /></span><span style="padding-left: 7px; padding-right: 7px;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00C4QQB2E/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&linkCode=li3&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=4dc8a8a73d280f327b6fb8000edc92a0" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B00C4QQB2E&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img alan="" alt="is" been="" best="" border="0" collectively="" direction="" films="" for="" have="" height="1" his="" j.="" known="" of="" pakula="" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=li3&o=1&a=B00C4QQB2E" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" termed="" that="" the="" width="1" /></span></td> </tr> </tbody></table> <br /> Klute details a missing persons investigation in which Bree Daniels (Jane Fonda) is scrutinized by murderer Peter Cable (Charles Cioffi) and private investigator John Klute (Donald Sutherland), and plagued by her own increasing <a href=" " target="_blank">paranoia</a>.<br /> <br /> Daniels’s unease can be linked to contemporary social forces, such as the changes initiated by the burgeoning feminist movement. With its recurring use of audiotapes as a visual and aural theme, Klute presciently evokes the social paranoia of the <a href=" " target="_blank">Watergate</a> era, the direct subject matter of All the President’s Men.<br /> <br /> Based on the book by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, All the President’s Men follows the investigation of the Watergate burglary as it becomes increasingly linked to the White House. The Nixon administration deceit, manipulation, and paranoia that led to the break-in are replicated by the investigation of journalists Woodward (Robert Redford) and Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman).<br /> <br /> But The Parallax View epitomizes the U.S. conspiracy film canon. It invokes the social unease that followed the <a href=" " target="_blank">assassination of John F. Kennedy</a>, the findings of the Warren Commission, and subsequent assassinations.<br /> <br /> After the assassination of Senator Charles Carroll (Bill Joyce), reporter Joe Frady (Warren Beatty) uncovers “The Parallax Corporation,” a conspiratorial security company that recruits assassins and “patsies.” The film’s most famous sequence, “The Parallax Test,” is a dazzling montage of images and words that suggests the pervasive interrelation and reach of paranoia and conspiratorial belief that had become prevalent in U.S. society.

Alan J. Pakula

Alan J. Pakula Filmmaker Alan J. Pakula (1928–1998) is best known for his direction of films that have been collectively termed the “pa...

Read more »

Lee Harvey Oswald

<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="ever" border="0" conviction="" court="" for="" harvey="" his="" in="" lee="" of="" opinion="" oswald="" popular="" posthumous="" since="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOLkXU-fiz_M2e2ZJbFptnclfdm72pJhx6j7A8blq3bqAB_UCyYiKsCUYDdPGNCwOWePGYyxIr4sla1NUKY5mfb3DHl57atqoA6yES2kK3R7Qv-tEtxXIZiPWuUYrfJDLoVsGN7FEVuHEM/s1600/Lee-Oswald.jpg" the="" title="Lee" width="470" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lee Harvey Oswald</td></tr> </tbody></table> <br /> Lee Harvey Oswald (1939–1963) has been U.S. “Public Enemy #1” ever since his posthumous conviction in the court of popular opinion for the <a href=" " target="_blank">assassination of President John F. Kennedy</a> in 1963. For most people, his supposed acts in Dallas on 22 November 1963 remain the single most memorable event of Oswald’s short life.<br /> <br /> Nevertheless, the facts and enigmas of his twenty-four years have inspired as much scholarly debate and public controversy as any number of longer-lived, more colorful and influential U.S. antiheroes such as J. Edgar Hoover, <a href=" " target="_blank">Jimmy Hoffa</a>, or <a href=" " target="_blank">Richard Nixon</a>.<br /> <br /> To this day, there is no firm consensus regarding his actions in those fateful hours or the circumstances leading to them, although in recent years the balance of popular and scholarly opinion has begun to favor the theory that he was involved—perhaps unwittingly—in some kind of conspiracy to assassinate the president.<br /> <br /> <b>From Communist Novice to U.S. Marine</b><br /> <br /> <table align="center" border="0"><tbody> <tr> <td align="center"><span style="padding-left: 7px; padding-right: 7px;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1454912510/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&linkCode=li3&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=c84177d19b5d646db2354e73480f9f0c" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1454912510&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img alt="ever" border="0" conviction="" court="" for="" harvey="" height="1" his="" in="" lee="" of="" opinion="" oswald="" popular="" posthumous="" since="" src="//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=li3&o=1&a=1454912510" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" the="" width="1" /></span><span style="padding-left: 7px; padding-right: 7px;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Me-Lee-Came-Harvey-Oswald/dp/1936296373/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&refRID=0TQH83V8CREMH1ARW4GH&linkCode=li3&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=e705ee6536a68341fb77ca96dfdbfaa1" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1936296373&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img alt="ever" border="0" conviction="" court="" for="" harvey="" height="1" his="" in="" lee="" of="" opinion="" oswald="" popular="" posthumous="" since="" src="//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=li3&o=1&a=1936296373" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" the="" width="1" /></span></td> </tr> </tbody></table> <br /> Born on 18 November 1939 in a downtrodden neighborhood of New Orleans, Louisiana, Oswald had a family life that was, by any standards, unsettled. Although his father’s early death meant that Lee’s childhood was, like that of many youngsters born during the war, dominated by his mother, it is fair to say that <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B00M3A4U88" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="d3195a76d22b15832a1d96db4405e20f" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Marguerite Oswald" href="http://www.amazon.com/Gunman-His-Mother-Marguerite-Assassin/dp/B00M3A4U88/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=epichistory-20&linkId=d3195a76d22b15832a1d96db4405e20f&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_5730427" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Marguerite Oswald</a><img alt="ever" border="0" conviction="" court="" for="" harvey="" height="0" his="" id="amznPsBmPixel_5730427" in="" lee="" of="" opinion="" oswald="" popular="" posthumous="" since="" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=epichistory-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=d3195a76d22b15832a1d96db4405e20f&_cb=1483201586254" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" the="" width="0" /> was a remarkable character.<br /> <br /> A succession of relationships and family connections with figures on the fringes of organized crime have proven fertile ground for conspiracy researchers like <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="0062405519" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="50d2db6c7b6e067f835d25a78874b3e0" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Anthony Summers" href="http://www.amazon.com/Matter-Honor-Betrayal-Familys-Justice/dp/0062405519/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=epichistory-20&linkId=50d2db6c7b6e067f835d25a78874b3e0&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_3797604" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Anthony Summers</a><img alt="ever" border="0" conviction="" court="" for="" harvey="" height="0" his="" id="amznPsBmPixel_3797604" in="" lee="" of="" opinion="" oswald="" popular="" posthumous="" since="" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=epichistory-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=50d2db6c7b6e067f835d25a78874b3e0&_cb=1483201615613" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" the="" width="0" /> and Peter Dale Scott, who have often depicted these connections as the source of Lee’s own involvement with the Mafia and other groups during his later years. Certainly, the family’s poverty and rootless wanderings across the Deep South and the Bronx seem to have acted as a catalyst in the young man’s political education.<br /> <br /> By the age of sixteen, already a frequent truant and briefly an inmate of the Bronx’s Youth House correctional institute, Oswald had begun to describe himself as a Communist. He claimed to have been won over to the beleaguered U.S. Left by the plight of the Rosenbergs, whose ongoing court case brought about a short-lived revival of the Communist Party’s fortunes in the early 1950s.<br /> <br /> From his own fascinating but still unpublished writings, and the hundreds of pages of testimony given during the official inquiry into Kennedy’s death, the picture emerges of a hostile, potentially violent and impressionable youngster who was inflamed by the lurid rhetoric of the Left and turned to the uncompromising radicalism of the Communist movement at the height of <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">McCarthyism</a>.<br /> <br /> Borne out by contemporary school reports, and lent credence by the careers of other leftists and political assassins like <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="1492250066" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="238b591880740183fa0a580da18b1817" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Leon Czolgosz" href="http://www.amazon.com/Presidential-Assassins-Charles-Guiteau-Czolgosz/dp/1492250066/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=epichistory-20&linkId=238b591880740183fa0a580da18b1817&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_3618617" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Leon Czolgosz</a><img alt="ever" border="0" conviction="" court="" for="" harvey="" height="0" his="" id="amznPsBmPixel_3618617" in="" lee="" of="" opinion="" oswald="" popular="" posthumous="" since="" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=epichistory-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=238b591880740183fa0a580da18b1817&_cb=1483201663138" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" the="" width="0" />, killer of President McKinley in 1901, this became the standard narrative of Oswald’s early years.<br /> <br /> However, the interpretation of Oswald as a loner has not convinced everyone. In some accounts he emerges as a typical teenager, prone to scrapping with his peers and voicing extreme opinions maybe, but hardly a callous agent of U.S. communism steeling himself for a simpulan conflict with the U.S. establishment.<br /> <br /> For one thing, Oswald never actually joined either the Communist Party (CPUSA) or any of the other leftist groups like the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) with whom he frequently corresponded. Even more significant, in 1956, having left school the previous year, he enlisted with that bastion of U.S. neoimperialism, the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC).<br /> <br /> Early scores from aptitude tests and other assessments of his conduct and proficiency taken during his military service all reveal a slightly below-average performer. For obvious reasons, his ability with a rifle has long been the subject of fierce controversy on which the most that can be said with any certainty is that, while not an exceptional marksman, he was far from the worst in his unit.<br /> <br /> That he could have accomplished the fatal, once-in-a-lifetime result in Dealey Plaza was asserted first by the Warren Commission following lengthy ballistics tests, and is a conclusion recently bolstered by computer assessments performed for Gerald Posner’s 1993 book, Case Closed.<br /> <br /> For many other authors, however, the extraordinary, almost superhuman performance Oswald would have needed to achieve on the day, together with analysis of the wounds on the president’s body, is enough in itself to imply the presence of a much larger team of gunmen installed in various positions around the Plaza, and therefore, by definition, a conspiratorial interpretation of the event.<br /> <br /> Certainly, Oswald’s military career was unorthodox, and this period has been subjected to increasing scrutiny by conspiracy theorists. He seems to have made no secret of his Marxist leanings and indeed continued to learn Russian and subscribe to Pravda, facts that undoubtedly marked him out as highly suspect among fellow marines in the midst of the cold war.<br /> <br /> No less anomalous were his bizarre assignations with members of the local leftist and criminal underworld while on maneuvers in the South China Sea. For Edward Epstein, one of the pioneers of Kennedy assassination conspiracy theory, these mysterious connections, coupled with his training in sensitive radar-control techniques as part of the U-2 spy plane program, point toward the presence of intelligence communities on one side or other of the Iron Curtain influencing his actions.<br /> <br /> Recently, following Epstein, other writers, including Anthony Summers and former army intelligence officer John Newman, have explored the possibility that Oswald may have been recruited by U.S. military intelligence to work as a “deep cover” agent in the Soviet Union.<br /> <br /> This is one of the theories dramatized in <a href=" " target="_blank">Oliver Stone</a>’s controversial movie JFK (1992), itself based on the writings of Jim Garrison and Jim Marrs, and it certainly provides a plausible explanation for the wealth of unanswered questions in the standard narrative of Oswald’s military service established by the Warren Commission.<br /> <br /> <b>Oswald’s Russian Years</b><br /> <br /> In spite of their suspicions of his left-wing interests and tendencies, few of Oswald’s fellow marines could have predicted his dramatic next move. In the summer of 1959, after his discharge from the USMC, Oswald began to set in train a complicated plan that would result in his defection to and residence in the then <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Soviet Union</a>. This act—impressive in itself given his youth—has, like every other aspect of his life, been scrutinized for evidence of the hidden hand of possible agents of conspiracy.<br /> <br /> And for good reason: on 31 October 1959, he presented himself to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, saying that not only did he wish to renounce his American citizenship, but that he also planned to furnish Soviet intelligence with the military secrets he had learned during his training in the U-2 program.<br /> <br /> After several months of unhappy isolation in the Metropole Hotel in Moscow, during which he met future biographer and suspected CIA agent—Priscilla McMillan, and even attempted suicide, Oswald was finally sent on a “Stateless Persons Identity Document” to the industrial city of Minsk, in the province of Belorussia.<br /> <br /> That Minsk was located near an espionage training school, and that he was supported by a Soviet government allowance that amounted to a small fortune in the Soviet Union, has led some commentators to speculate that he may indeed have passed intelligence to his hosts, in return for which he was given the “red carpet” treatment.<br /> <br /> In any event, Oswald would remain in the Soviet Union for around three years, working in the Belorussian radio and television factory and socializing with some decidedly suspicious members of Minsk society.<br /> <br /> When, in April 1961, he married a young student named <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="1586422162" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="d7182ec601084f1349d5f7a7609aff36" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Marina Prusakova" href="http://www.amazon.com/Marina-Lee-Tormented-Obsession-Assassination/dp/1586422162/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=epichistory-20&linkId=d7182ec601084f1349d5f7a7609aff36&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_5234499" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Marina Prusakova</a><img alt="ever" border="0" conviction="" court="" for="" harvey="" height="0" his="" id="amznPsBmPixel_5234499" in="" lee="" of="" opinion="" oswald="" popular="" posthumous="" since="" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=epichistory-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=d7182ec601084f1349d5f7a7609aff36&_cb=1483201980361" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" the="" width="0" />—whose own family background is thought to have been tainted by her stepfather’s involvement in Stalin’s purges of the 1930s and 1940s—it seems that the weight of Soviet intelligence and surveillance was brought to bear on the American defector.<br /> <br /> Certainly, the couple’s every conversation in their relatively luxurious apartment overlooking the Svisloch River was now recorded and monitored by local KGB agents. Whether or not this was because Oswald represented a valuable intelligence source and potential agent or was merely an asset in the cold war diplomatic chess game remains unclear.<br /> <br /> However, the balance of evidence from sources such as the frequently unreliable Soviet defector <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B0000YEERQ" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="757543fc75ad96984492cf9ecb9fa164" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Yuri Nosenko" href="http://www.amazon.com/Yuri-Nosenko-Tommy-Lee-Jones/dp/B0000YEERQ/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=epichistory-20&linkId=757543fc75ad96984492cf9ecb9fa164&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_7562678" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Yuri Nosenko</a><img alt="ever" border="0" conviction="" court="" for="" harvey="" height="0" his="" id="amznPsBmPixel_7562678" in="" lee="" of="" opinion="" oswald="" popular="" posthumous="" since="" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=epichistory-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=757543fc75ad96984492cf9ecb9fa164&_cb=1483202026099" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" the="" width="0" /> and Norman Mailer’s extensive research for his book Oswald’s Tale (1995) now suggests that, after their initial interest in Oswald, the KGB quickly lost faith in his value as a potential operative.<br /> <br /> In spite of the circumstances of his defection, Oswald soon grew disillusioned with life in the Soviet Union. To judge from the large and compelling body of essays, diaries, and letters he produced during his time in Minsk, it is clear that, like many other ideological defectors, he was most distressed by the gap between Communist rhetoric and Soviet realities, and by the regimented, repressive conditions inside Khrushchev’s empire.<br /> <br /> In fact, at around the same time as he met Marina, Oswald had reopened negotiations with the U.S. Embassy. There followed well over a year of diplomatic wrangling, including several dangerous, illegal visits to Moscow and hostile KGB interrogations of his wife.<br /> <br /> <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="ever" border="0" conviction="" court="" for="" harvey="" his="" in="" lee="" of="" opinion="" oswald="" popular="" posthumous="" since="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC7hAr8Ua70VqtxlNIg3yAteHH7O_DHCQm-8vSH4d7sArfeDmjAyn4HPKGQPIXX9f4VKTvmOGM2HfJt16VUh377NRpSs1iCJmf10zPN1-UxexS9h8r1jQ199Sl5TsWvozfGU8ElXEFxP9L/s1600/marina.jpg" the="" title="Lee" width="470" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="irc_su" dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;">Lee Harvey Oswald with his wife, Marina, and their son, June</span></td></tr> </tbody></table> <br /> Finally, early in 1962, Lee secured exit visas for himself and his family. For some conspiracy critics like Anthony Summers and Jim Marrs, the progress of the Oswalds’ return to the United States appears to have been far too smooth, especially given Lee’s record of anti-American statements and actions.<br /> <br /> Likewise, the departure of Marina and their baby daughter June seems to have been achieved with a striking lack of the usual Soviet bureaucratic obstruction. Having said all that, according to some of Posner’s and Mailer’s intelligence sources, the Soviets may simply have been glad to see the back of this troublesome family.<br /> <br /> On balance, it seems that, just like in the United States during his teenage years, Oswald had proved unable to keep his criticism of the Soviet regime to himself and had made many powerful enemies in the Soviet Union.<br /> <br /> <b>Oswald the New Leftist?</b><br /> <br /> Oswald spent his last eighteen months in the southern cities of New Orleans and Dallas. During this period, according to the story established by the Warren Commission, he gave every sign of seeking to create for himself a reputation as a dynamic and forceful radical.<br /> <br /> In these months, he was in regular contact with several of the remaining parties of the U.S. Left, including the CPUSA and the SWP, as well as parties of the “New Left” such as the Fair Play for Cuba Committee (FPCC), which, due to the rise of Fidel Castro’s socialist regime, could claim scores of powerful supporters in the early 1960s.<br /> <br /> In addition to the various series of correspondence between Oswald and the leaders of these parties, many of which are contained among the Hearings and Exhibits of the Warren Commission and make fascinating reading, there are also several texts— apparently written for his wife in the event of his imprisonment—in which Oswald apparently seeks to justify an assassination attempt on Major General Edwin Walker.<br /> <br /> As one of the South’s most aggressive segregationists and John Birch Society leaders—and, ironically, an enemy of Attorney General Robert Kennedy—Walker was certainly a natural target for a leftist, especially one like Oswald, who is remembered at this time as being an outspoken advocate of desegregation.<br /> <br /> That Oswald confessed to his wife and others to having taken a shot at the general in April 1963 was, for obvious reasons, seized upon by the Warren Commission as evidence of an existing propensity to act out his leftist beliefs in a violent and potentially murderous way.<br /> <br /> And yet, as with every other event in his life, the circumstances of Oswald’s attempt on Walker’s life become more mysterious the more scrutiny is paid them. Indeed, in these confusing last months, Oswald’s actions seem to have become even less comprehensible and more subject to debate.<br /> <br /> As the House Select Committee on Assassinations found during their reinvestigation of the case in the late 1970s, there is evidence to suggest that Oswald was not alone outside Walker’s house on the night of the shooting, and that he may well have attended several of the right-wing extremist’s rallies and meetings in the months thereafter.<br /> <br /> Such suspicions, fleshed out by later conspiracy critics like Anthony Summers, raise the contentious but central question of the nature of Oswald’s political affiliations, and how they may have run contrary to his stated opinions at this time.<br /> <br /> If relations with his wife abruptly deteriorated after their arrival in the United States, then Oswald was certainly consorting with a bizarre cast of radicals and activists of both Left and Right. One of these obscure figures was George de Mohrenshildt, a shadowy Russian exile and flamboyant businessman with provocative connections in the worlds of U.S. intelligence and organized crime in the United States and Latin America.<br /> <br /> According to Norman Mailer’s account of the strange friendship that developed between the two men, de Mohrenshildt was most likely a CIA contract agent charged with the task of debriefing Oswald about his experiences behind the Iron Curtain. However, this may well have been only half the story.<br /> <br /> For <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="1442214244" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="888dbfbd2261ae7bc40088ffbeb7c78d" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Peter Dale Scott" href="http://www.amazon.com/American-Deep-State-Democracy-Library/dp/1442214244/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=epichistory-20&linkId=888dbfbd2261ae7bc40088ffbeb7c78d&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_6075155" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Peter Dale Scott</a><img alt="ever" border="0" conviction="" court="" for="" harvey="" height="0" his="" id="amznPsBmPixel_6075155" in="" lee="" of="" opinion="" oswald="" popular="" posthumous="" since="" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=epichistory-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=888dbfbd2261ae7bc40088ffbeb7c78d&_cb=1483201729271" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" the="" width="0" />, the same person was instrumental in embroiling Oswald in what the author describes as the “deep politics” of “gray alliance” between active elements of the intelligence, Mafia, corporate, and extremist political communities in the southern states.<br /> <br /> Certainly, there was more to Oswald’s relationship with de Mohrenshildt than the Warren Commission were prepared to concede in their report, in spite of the unsettling evidence to the contrary that they suppressed when it was published in 1964.<br /> <br /> Much of this evidence, and indeed the most continually perplexing aspect of Oswald’s life as a whole, concerns his involvement in the complicated politics of Cuban-American relations throughout his last eighteen months.<br /> <br /> On the face of it, the stories of Oswald single-handedly establishing a cell of the FPCC in the hostile environs of New Orleans would seem in keeping with the Warren Commission’s narrative of a radical activist growing increasingly dissatisfied with the parties of the Old Left, and searching for an alternative model in the politics of Third World revolution.<br /> <br /> Certainly someone, if not Oswald himself, seems to have been careful to create a convincing paper trail indicating the presence of such a figure, including extensive correspondence with Vincent Lee, then general secretary of the FPCC, appearances in the New Orleans news media, and even a trip to Mexico City, ostensibly to present himself as a potential defector to the Cuban Embassy.<br /> <br /> And yet now, after many years of research into just this aspect of the case, there exists a substantial body of evidence to suggest that Oswald’s connections and activities at this time were far less straight-forward. For one thing, according to many accounts, he appears to have been in contact with both proand anti-Castro forces massing in New Orleans and other cities in 1962–1963.<br /> <br /> While he undoubtedly was in touch with members of the FPCC and other groups, it also appears that Oswald was working—perhaps as a double agent—with a much larger group of anti-Castro Cuban exiles then being coordinated by the CIA and financed by their allies in the national organized-crime network.<br /> <br /> It is for this reason that his name has been plausibly linked with a range of key players in the underground world of deep politics, including Mafia generals and footmen such as Santos Trafficante, Sam Giancana, John Roselli, and his own future killer Jack Ruby; rogue CIA contract agents like George de Mohrenshildt, David Ferrie, and Guy Bannister; and renowned local Cuban exile leaders like Carlos Bringuier and Antonio Veciana, who had links with both.<br /> <br /> Although they characteristically use these various suspicious connections as a way of exploring the much larger question of the possible nature of a JFK assassination conspiracy rather than clarifying Oswald’s precise role in such a conspiracy, the work of authors such as Anthony Summers, Peter Dale Scott, and Jim Marrs has served to debunk the Warren Commission’s central conclusion that Oswald acted throughout his life as a “lone agent.”<br /> <br /> <b>Oswald’s Death</b><br /> <br /> Oswald’s own death, no less than that of President Kennedy, remains shrouded in mystery. According to the official record of marathon interrogation sessions conducted by the combined forces of the Dallas Police Department, FBI, and the Secret Service between 22 and 24 November 1963, Oswald was initially arrested for the shooting of Patrolman J. D. Tippit during his supposed getaway dash from Dealey Plaza.<br /> <br /> Within twelve hours, he had also been charged with President Kennedy’s murder. In all that time, he remained unrepresented by legal counsel, in spite of repeated calls to renowned left-wing lawyer John Abt.<br /> <br /> If the legal profession apparently distanced itself from Oswald, the international press corps were an almost constant presence; according to one contemporary estimate, over 300 representatives of the news media descended on the Dallas Police Department, creating a media circus.<br /> <br /> In a remarkably short time, a detailed account of Oswald’s defection and leftist career had emerged, presumably from the FBI, who had long maintained a file on him, and had been fed to the waiting press.<br /> <br /> Oswald’s “fifteen minutes of fame” came to an abrupt end, however, on the morning of Sunday, 24 November, when, en route to Captain J. Will Fritz’s office for a further round of questioning, he was shot dead by local club-owner and small-time mafioso Jack Ruby.<br /> <br /> <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="ever" border="0" conviction="" court="" for="" harvey="" his="" in="" lee="" of="" opinion="" oswald="" popular="" posthumous="" since="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK6gOUYudA7w_3fDb4LbEGdDhLDQkRgKRRPhDHGpY-E0onuOUkrw7Jda50MA3wI6I8O2yv9CON-HcNxrYW8dczhfA0kabk35YSS5vGG9bx8kb8OwLYTvPEFNvkCBU2y77XgbVKga6rojfP/s1600/Lee-Ruby.jpg" the="" title="Lee" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="irc_su" dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;">Ruby about to shoot Oswald who is being escorted by Dallas police.</span></td></tr> </tbody></table> <br /> Ever since his death, there have been many who have maintained that the official record of that dark and chaotic weekend was woefully inadequate. For some, Ruby’s sudden appearance among the police officials and newsmen at precisely the moment Oswald emerged from his temporary jail cell leaves the strong suspicion that the killer was forewarned by someone on the inside.<br /> <br /> This has led some authors to explore Ruby’s links with corrupt elements within the Dallas law-enforcement community. No less significant is the possibility that Oswald may have known both Tippit, whose involvement in several right-wing enclaves has long been suspected, and Jack Ruby.<br /> <br /> For the 1979 Assassinations Committee, such suspicions aligned with their conclusion that, if there was a conspiracy to kill the president, it was undoubtedly instigated by the Mafia in collaboration with extreme right-wing elements, both of which would have had a vested interest in silencing Oswald soon after his arraignment for the murder.<br /> <br /> <b>Oswald’s Disputed Legacy</b><br /> <br /> In the forty years since his death, Oswald’s reputation and the meaning of his actions and possible affiliations have played a central role in our comprehension of the Kennedy assassination.<br /> <br /> Over the years, he has been seen as an archetypal psychopath or “lone gunman” with delusions of political agency, and as a scapegoat or “patsy” for the larger machinations of secret, unaccountable branches of the socalled shadow government like the FBI, the CIA, and the Mafia.<br /> <br /> Between those two extremes, Oswald was briefly reclaimed in the late 1960s by the Weathermen, a terrorist offshoot of the Black Panther Party, some of whose members cited him as a role model of direct action and carried his iconic image on their posters.<br /> <br /> More recently, reflecting increasing interest in some of the CIA’s more esoteric operations, several writers have sought to explain Oswald’s paradoxical behavior and radical shifts of allegiance as evincing the influence of covert mind-control and “parapsychological” experiments carried out by the CIA as part of the <a href=" " target="_blank">MK-ULTRA</a> program.<br /> <br /> Complementing the research of political and social historians, Oswald’s singular odyssey has also inspired some of the best work by major novelists such as <a href=" " target="_blank">Norman Mailer</a> and <a href=" " target="_blank">Don DeLillo</a>. In DeLillo’s Libra (1988), for instance, the specific nature of Oswald’s involvement in the assassination is left deliberately unresolved, his story told in dramatic counterpoint to the convoluted plans of rogue secret agents and political extremists.<br /> <br /> On the other hand, in Mailer’s recent account, Oswald emerges as the culmination of that pantheon of lone agents like D.J. from <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="0312265069" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="bbfb4b2b67d3976db946c6ed5c8941bb" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Why Are We in Vietnam" href="http://www.amazon.com/Why-Are-We-Vietnam-Novel/dp/0312265069/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=epichistory-20&linkId=bbfb4b2b67d3976db946c6ed5c8941bb&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_255965" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Why Are We in Vietnam</a><img alt="ever" border="0" conviction="" court="" for="" harvey="" height="0" his="" id="amznPsBmPixel_255965" in="" lee="" of="" opinion="" oswald="" popular="" posthumous="" since="" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=epichistory-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=bbfb4b2b67d3976db946c6ed5c8941bb&_cb=1483202452379" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" the="" width="0" />? (1967) and Gary Gilmore in The Executioner’s Song (1979), whose violence and psychoses have long populated the author’s fiction.<br /> <br /> Regardless of his culpability or otherwise in the murder of President Kennedy, the figure of the lone gunman, as much the product of the Warren Commission’s influential interpretation of them as of Oswald’s own actions, has become a recurrent character-type in popular media and literary fiction alike, from Robert DeNiro’s Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver (1976) to the villains of recent movies such as In the Line of Fire (1993), Speed (1994), and Seven (1996).

Lee Harvey Oswald

Lee Harvey Oswald Lee Harvey Oswald (1939–1963) has been U.S. “Public Enemy #1” ever since his posthumous conviction in the court of po...

Read more »

One-World Government

<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="often" associated="" border="0" extreme="" government="" one-world="" right="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_0Mf3C5aQC1w0l4Ig4NdgFCEKxJixK2RB54kitpF6YtCGp5G7Nx_sBB5ZMrucz5ED6n2CsEuCeEr4W4PhBIDsxLggoqJsf4RukxPMKTTaYffY_MBy6X9G1GQzuMYSRrcbPHoJyIxiwiI/s1600/one-world-government.jpg" those="" title="One-World" with="" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One-World Government</td></tr> </tbody></table> <br /> Many Americans, often those associated with extreme right-wing groups and fundamentalist Christian churches, believe that the animo of economic globalization is part of a secret plot by a small group of international bankers and powerful politicians to erode national sovereignty and institute a one-world government (sometimes also called the New World Order).<br /> <br /> While there have been attempts by ambitious rulers throughout history to gain worldwide domination—from the ancient empires of <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Greece</a> and Rome to the imperialistic ambitions of Napoleon and Hitler—the forces of the one-world government are said to use more deceptive means. The theory is that they have amassed power not through the use of military force, but by controlling international financial markets.<br /> <br /> Although there are many versions of the theory, all agree that the one-world government operates through powerful international institutions, such as the <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">United Nations</a> (UN), the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the Trilateral Commission (TC), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the secretive Bilderberger group.<br /> <br /> <table align="center" border="0"><tbody> <tr> <td align="center"><span style="padding-left: 7px; padding-right: 7px;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1934956406/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&linkCode=li3&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=b799c50a03526d9ed4036162e89d9fac" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1934956406&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img alt="often" associated="" border="0" extreme="" government="" height="1" one-world="" right="" src="//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=li3&o=1&a=1934956406" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" those="" width="1" with="" /></span><span style="padding-left: 7px; padding-right: 7px;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1463363427/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&linkCode=li3&tag=inamerican-20&linkId=599a8b4f682e0d9d782c50d6572eed8e" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1463363427&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=inamerican-20" /></a><img alt="often" associated="" border="0" extreme="" government="" height="1" one-world="" right="" src="//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=inamerican-20&l=li3&o=1&a=1463363427" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" those="" width="1" with="" /></span></td> </tr> </tbody></table> <br /> In the 1960s, the one-world government theory was promoted by the ultra-conservative <a href=" " target="_blank">John Birch Society</a>. According to the Birchers, the CFR and the TC were organs of <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="0719055466" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="60abee80d2c47baf5d498d295d5f59a6" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="international communism" href="http://www.amazon.com/International-Communism-Communist-1919-1943/dp/0719055466/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=epichistory-20&linkId=60abee80d2c47baf5d498d295d5f59a6&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_7458686" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">international communism</a><img alt="often" associated="" border="0" extreme="" government="" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_7458686" one-world="" right="" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=epichistory-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=60abee80d2c47baf5d498d295d5f59a6&_cb=1483201130016" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" those="" width="0" with="" />, whose goal was to overturn democracy and replace it with a repressive global socialist regime.<br /> <br /> In post–cold war America, many right-wing extremist groups like the modern militias believe the push for one-world government is the work of “international Jews” with origins in secret societies of the eighteenth century, like Adam Weishaupt’s <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="0977795381" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="fe38005091a6838d3b24e82fc9b48491" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Bavarian Illuminati" href="http://www.amazon.com/Perfectibilists-Century-Bavarian-Order-Illuminati/dp/0977795381/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=epichistory-20&linkId=fe38005091a6838d3b24e82fc9b48491&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_1176317" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bavarian Illuminati</a><img alt="often" associated="" border="0" extreme="" government="" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_1176317" one-world="" right="" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=epichistory-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=fe38005091a6838d3b24e82fc9b48491&_cb=1483201172130" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" those="" width="0" with="" /> and the Freemasons.<br /> <br /> Proof of the plot is found in <a href=" " target="_blank">Protocols of the Elders of Zion</a>, a forgery written in the early twentieth century and first popularized in the United States by Henry Ford’s “The International Jew,” which appeared in his Dearborn Independent in the 1920s.<br /> <br /> The Protocols purport to detail the plans of a super-secret cabal of Communist-Jews to seize world power by manipulating international finance and installing their own government pawns in positions of high political office. Although they were exposed as a forgery in 1920, the Protocols continue to be cited as evidence of a one-world government conspiracy.<br /> <br /> Militias and other survivalist groups further claim that foreign troops, under the orders of the UN, are gathering in several locations around the United States, preparing to disarm U.S. citizens and impose martial law. They report sightings of unmarked black helicopters and the creation of concentration camps where resistors will be detained once the siege begins.<br /> <br /> In more recent manifestations, the theory is promoted by Christian millennialists, who link the oneworld government theory to biblical prophecies of the Last Days. According to the visions reported in the Book of Daniel and in the <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="0310421403" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="b48636b424a3a1195282a35289e1f752" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="Book of Revelation" href="http://www.amazon.com/Book-Revelation-Paperback-Matt-Dorff/dp/0310421403/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=epichistory-20&linkId=b48636b424a3a1195282a35289e1f752&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_9321896" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Book of Revelation</a><img alt="often" associated="" border="0" extreme="" government="" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_9321896" one-world="" right="" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=epichistory-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=b48636b424a3a1195282a35289e1f752&_cb=1483201205510" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" those="" width="0" with="" />, sometime after the Rapture, when Christ returns to earth to remove the elect to heaven, a beast with ten horns, the Antichrist, will rise from the sea to unite “all kindreds and tongues and nations” and rule over the earth for a period of “forty and two months”.<br /> <br /> During this time of widespread peace, in which the Antichrist deceives mankind into worshiping him, everyone will receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead bearing the Antichrist’s name or number, 666.<br /> <br /> Those who follow him by accepting this mark will be granted unlimited prosperity, since “no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark”. Eventually, Christ will once again return to earth and defeat the Antichrist in the <a amzn-ps-bm-asin="B01M2XTNTO" class="amzn_ps_bm_tl" data-amzn-link-id="dd5130b92ed67e8603a5bae27311d130" data-amzn-ps-bm-keyword="final battle of Armageddon" href="http://www.amazon.com/Armageddon-Final-Battle-Between-Good-ebook/dp/B01M2XTNTO/ref=as_li_bk_tl/?tag=epichistory-20&linkId=dd5130b92ed67e8603a5bae27311d130&linkCode=ktl" id="amznPsBmLink_1819357" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">final battle of Armageddon</a><img alt="often" associated="" border="0" extreme="" government="" height="0" id="amznPsBmPixel_1819357" one-world="" right="" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?source=bk&t=epichistory-20&bm-id=default&l=ktl&linkId=dd5130b92ed67e8603a5bae27311d130&_cb=1483201234158" style="border: none !important; height: 0px !important; margin: 0px !important; padding: 0px !important; width: 0px !important;" those="" width="0" with="" />.<br /> <br /> Interpreted according to these prophecies, the facts of economic globalization offer proof of this satanic plot, instituted by Jews and foretold in the Bible, to turn people away from Christianity, erode national sovereignty, and institute global governance. Rather than a single individual, the Antichrist is often believed to be a composite, such as the small group of elites who control the UN, the IMF, and other organizations.<br /> <br /> These organizations and the opening of worldwide financial markets in treaties like the <a href=" " rel="nofollow" target="_blank">North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)</a> offer clear signs of the Antichrist’s attempt to unite all nations into a single federation.<br /> <br /> The ten horns of the beast, symbolizing a ten-nation alliance, refer to the European Union or to the members of the UN Security Council, working to establish global tyranny. And the mark of the beast is found in the increasing prevalence of credit cards rather than cash or the push to develop a national identification card.

One-World Government

One-World Government Many Americans, often those associated with extreme right-wing groups and fundamentalist Christian churches, belie...

Read more »