Antisocial

If you go here, you will see a brief clip comes from Adam Curtis' must-see three-part documentary The Power of Nightmares, which parallels the history of neoconservatism in the United States with the rise of Salafism in the Islamic world. The full work is here.

The bit that I want to bring to your attention is the faux "diagnosis" of Bill Clinton as a sociopath. Remember that meme? Cons repeated it a lot back then, and they'll probably recite the same mantra twenty years from now. Apparently, Clinton's great sin was to be "charming." And the source cited for this diagnosis is -- get this -- the Merck manual.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that manual was all about drugs. It's the DSM-IV -- or, at the time, the DSM-III -- which offers criteria for what is properly called Antisocial Personality Disorder. Of course, diagnoses of psychopathology are to be made by clinicians, not political hit men.

Very well, then. Two can play at that game. This page notes these APD traits:

Sense of entitlement; Unremorseful; Apathetic to others; Unconscionable behavior; Blameful of others; Manipulative and conning; Affectively cold; Disparate understanding; Socially irresponsible; Disregardful of obligations; Nonconforming to norms; Irresponsible.

And here is the DSM-IV list:

1. failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest
2. deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure
3. impulsivity or failure to plan ahead
4. irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated fights or assaults (both physically or mentally)
5. reckless disregard for safety of self or others
6. consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain steady work or honor financial obligations
7. lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another

Seems to me that we've just painted an excellent verbal picture of our current prez.

Sense of entitlement? That's Dubya, not Bill. No remorse? Ain't seen a sign of it yet. Manipulative and deceitful? W lied us into war. Failure to plan ahead? On the grandest possible scale! Irritable and aggressive? This is the President known for flipping the bird while others die. Disregard for others? I don't think he cares how many kids are sacrificed on behalf of his folly. Inability to sustain steady work? If this creep weren't named Bush, he'd be homeless.

Charm has no place on this list, incidentally. At any rate, I'm leery of anyone who says charm equals dysfunction. Were Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn sociopaths? Is it possible or desirable for a non-charming person to achieve high office?

Paging dr. elsewhere...! Are you there? I'd love to hear your perfessional opinion...

Jesus in '07

I dislike parties and will probably spend this New Years' Eve watching the pooch scamper on a beach. And as she scampers, I will ponder this statistic: 25% of the American population expects to see the return of Jesus in 2007.

That percentage seems quite high. Is there something special about 2007? In other words, is there a rumor about an '07 premiere date for JC2 spreading through hillbilly-land?

Injustice

As the year closes, let us look back upon the depth and vigor of the screwing we just underwent. The American Injustice Index is here is here; a few selections follow:

Wages that an average CEO earns before lunchtime: more than a full-time minimum wage worker makes in a year

Ratio of the average U.S. CEO’s annual pay to a minimum wage worker’s: 821:1

Average amount that companies spend to recruit a new CEO from outside the company: $2,000,000

Probability that the newly hired CEO will either quit or be fired within the first eighteen months: 1 in 2

Estimated number of people lined up outside the new M&M store set to open in Times Square responding to ads for “on-the-spot” hiring for 200 jobs, 65 of which were fulltime: between 5,000 and 6,000

Starting salary that drew them there: $10.75 per hour

Percentage increase in out-of-pocket medical expenses for the average American in the past 5 years: 93

Estimated amount the U.S. would save each year on paperwork if it adopted single-payer health care: $161,000,000,000

To which I would add...

Number of people hypnotized by the Left Behind books who know nothing about these facts and who get their politics from Rush Limbaugh and Fox: I don't know. But I suspect that the number is Brobdinagian.

How times have changed

In the mid 1960s, Richard Nixon famously (infamously, in some circles) declared "We are all Keynesians now." Since our schools seem to have transformed John Maynard Keynes into a non-person, younger readers may want to skim the first paragraph of his Wikipedia entry.

Is anyone a Keynesian now? Would even Dennis freaking Kucinich feel comfortable so identifying himself? Who is more liberal: Dick or Dennis? How did the 50 yard line move so far to the right side of the field?

The question has some relevance, since many predict harsh economic times ahead. Keynes argued that the government should function as the employer of last resort during recessions, even if doing so means running up large debts. Since none of us are Keynesians now, we run up massive debts during normal times, a strategy everyone considers more sensible.

Puppet on a string

A quarter century ago, before blogs gave me a safer means of annoying people, I would occasionally visit pubs and partake in discussions of the issues. On one occasion, a lout among other louts insisted that the U.S. should join sides with Iraq and "nuke the hell" out of Iran. The Iran-Iraq war then raged, and "Kohmeini is a Shi'ite-Head" t-shirts were still considered haute couture.

"Iraq is run by a guy named Saddam Hussein," I said to the louts, who pretended that they already knew. "And he's worse than the Ayatollah Khomeini. In fact..."

Said louts did not allow me to proceed much further. After many harsh words, they reached the consensus that I was a communist who should go back to Russia. Nobody could possibly be worse than the Assahola.

Years later, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. In response, Poppy Bush held up Saddam's picture and ordered all Americans: "HATE THIS MAN! NOW!" On cue, as if entranced, my countrymen -- those pub louts surely among them -- started chanting "Hate! Hate! Hate!"

Bloody commies. The lot of 'em.

What I did not know 25 years ago, and what most Americans refuse to acknowledge today, is that Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath party came to power in Iraq with CIA connivance in order to repress the bloody commies.

In 1958, a reformist-minded officer named Abdul Karim Qasim took over Iraq in a coup. He attempted to build popular support by refusing to crap on the poor, a strategy which the Agency considered communist-friendly. The CIA recruited young Saddam, a thug from Tikrit, to assassinate Qasim.

The plan failed, and a wounded Saddam -- aided by American and Egyptian spooks -- fled to Cairo, where he hung out in bars with his Agency contacts, plotting a new strike. (Why do I picture him as resembling those afore-cited pub louts?) (And before you say it: Yes, they do have bars in Cairo -- in hotels.) In 1963, the CIA poured a ton of money into the quasi-fascistic Ba'ath party, which staged a coup and murdered Qasim. The Agency installed Saddam as the head of intelligence.

This corrupt and unloved government soon fell, so the CIA had to foment another Ba'ath coup in 1968, which placed Saddam in the number two spot. He functioned as Chief Bastard, the usual job of number twos throughout the world.

(To read the rest, click "Permalink" below)

The new government annoyed Washington by seeking amicable relations with the USSR, which led to Kissinger's covert attempt (using the Shah of Iran as a cut-out) to foment a Kurdish rebellion in the North of Iraq. When Saddam decided to reach an accord with D.C., the Kurds were suddenly hung out to dry, the first of several betrayals.

In 1979, Syria and Iraq -- both ruled by Ba'ath parties -- made plans to unite, which horrified the United States and Israel. At this point, Saddam seized total control, scuttling all unity plans.

Throughout much of the next decade, Saddam received "advice" and aid from Americans and others inhabiting that bizarre land where espionage, entrepreneurship and crime intersect. Robert Fisk:

Who encouraged Saddam to invade Iran in 1980, which was the greatest war crime he has committed for it led to the deaths of a million and a half souls? And who sold him the components for the chemical weapons with which he drenched Iran and the Kurds? We did. No wonder the Americans, who controlled Saddam's weird trial, forbad any mention of this, his most obscene atrocity, in the charges against him.

Babara Honegger's October Surprise, now a hard book to find, offers up a fascinating interview along these same lines.

Journalist Joseph Trento has offered some unique insights into this era. If you will forgive a bit of self-quotation:

As I've said many times, you can't understand modern history unless you know about these "spooky" informal networks, in which the players receive both start-up capital and connections from covert sources.

One of these Agency-linked arms merchandisers was Sarkis Soghanalian (who had befriended Trento, which is how Trento came to know about this stuff). Business proceeded smoothly; Saddam received cluster bombs, battle choppers, guns, and and even lovelier bits of merchandise.

Somewhere along the way, a mafia-like group of Republican operatives -- which included Richard Nixon and his old "pals" -- muscled onto the scene. In short and in sum, they demanded a hefty cut of Operation Arm Saddam.

This second wave of Legitimate Businessmen made a deal with Saddam to supply the Iraqi military with uniforms. I've seen varying estimates as to how much money this scheme was worth; the high figure is $450 million. The group promised high-quality uniforms manufactured by "their" plant in Tennessee. Actually, the job was off-shored to a Romanian firm known for producing clothing on the ultra-cheap. This decision insured that, instead of making big profits, the Republican mobsters could make big, big, BIG profits.

Saddam's people were not happy when they opened up the boxes and discovered wool uniforms. In a desert country, in the summer, wool is rarely the soldier's first choice.

You would think that Saddam Hussein would refuse ever again to deal with this group. In fact, they became more powerful than ever: They drove out Soghnalian and pretty much took over the weapons trade in Iraq. They did not actually produce the needed goods and services; job orders were farmed out to the low-ball bidders.

These men practiced the most perverse form of capitalism. The greatest rewards went to thugs who did not actually make anything -- who had, in fact, wedged themselves between the consumer and the producers, neither of whom wanted or needed the services of middlemen. Saddam had no choice but to go along with an operation that had acquired the blessings of Republican bigwigs.

I like the story of the wool uniforms because makes me smile and because it illustrates a principle. In truth, though, the real story involves the sale to Saddam Hussein of -- you guessed it -- weapons of mass destruction.

The best book on this history is Alan Friedman's neglected The Spider's Web. From Amy Goodman's interview with Friedman (with added paragraph breaks and minor punctuation fixes):

Now, I discovered this at the end of the 1980's when I was reporting for The Financial Times of London and we uncovered the scandal of more than $5 billion of American taxpayer backed credits that had been funneled by the Atlanta, Georgia branch of an Italian bank to Saddam Hussein with the full knowledge of the C.I.A. and later on of the White House, under the Bush administration.

That’s because that bank, it later transpired, an Italian bank called B & L, its Atlanta, Georgia branch was being used to surreptitiously finance Saddam Hussein's purchase of both agricultural goods and weaponry.

And the very frightening part of it is that this group of intelligence agents outside the government, but working with the blessing of the government as it later turned out with the blessing of people like James Baker and George Herbert Walker Bush, this organization of arms dealers and transshipment specialists continued to sell a whole variety of equipment to Saddam Hussein, including U.S. military rocket cluster bombs that were transshipped from Pennsylvania through Chile to Iraq, nuclear and chemical weapons technology, and missile technology. And the United States didn't really do anything to stop this shipment because at the time the argument used by the C.I.A. and the White House was that if you allowed a limited amount of military weapons and technology to flow to Iraq, even though it was completely illegal -- against U.S. law, against international treaties -- if you allowed this to happen, as an intelligence operation, the rationalization in the Bush administration went, then you could keep better track of what kind of weaponry Saddam was developing.

What really happened, of course, is that there were people along the way who were greedy, who were making money off of it, and there were people in governments in Italy and Britain and in the Thatcher government and in the Andriotti government in Italy who were working with their American counterparts and they continued the flow of equipment.

Some of this is very sophisticated stuff and one of the scandals -- the way the scandal was developed was I first uncovered financial documents for a British company called Matrix Churchill based in Coventry in England that was sending what seemed to be innocent machine tool equipment to Saddam Hussein. But it wasn't. It was dual use technology that the C.I.A. and the British intelligence knew was going into Saddam's missile program and his nuclear program, but they allowed it to happen.

So, the real problem is that we had a Frankenstein monster that got out of control...

The rest you know.

Alas, I doubt if the current louts inhabiting this nation's various pubs and bars will ever sit still for the truth: For nearly 50 years, Iraqis have had few problems not caused by Americans. Saddam was an American puppet. He offended the gods not through his ruthlessness, not through his prisons and rape rooms, and not through his chemical attacks on the Kurds. No, his great sin was his Pinocchio-like determination to walk away from the puppeteers.

Today, he ended as he began -- a puppet on a string.

Maniac time

In an earlier post, I posited that the anti-Bush movement threatens to spawn the kind of mass irrationality that we associate with the anti-Clintonites of the 1990s. My revulsion toward Dubya has not lessened -- indeed, it grows by the minute. Even so, I fear that an ill-educated public's newfound distrust of Dubya could lead to widespread public acceptance of the mad weltanschauung expressed in (for example) this video.

If you laugh at the things I laugh at, you'll get guffaws aplenty from this gaudy production, especially if you watch late at night with beer in hand. The film's epigram is a grabber:

"After I am dead, people will say that I gave birth to the 20th century" -- Aleister Crowley

Once more, the dark insinuation of a Bush/Crowley connection. The meme spreads. It cannot be killed.

Neither can the right-wing's fondness for False Quotation Syndrome. AC never said those words or any similar words. If memory serves, a version of that quote appears in Alan Moore's From Hell, a fictional treatment of the Jack the Ripper story. Or was it the film adaptation? (I haven't the book to hand.)

Either way, we see here -- as in our earlier discussions of Aaron Russo's work, or of the Larry Silverstein "pull it" quote -- that right-wing conspiracy buffs possess a psychological deformity which prevents them from accurately quoting anyone on any subject. An older book called The Hoaxers documents this peculiarity, and it is a very thick book indeed.

That fake quote indicates the grim hilarity of the afore-linked film, which posits that Abu Ghraib was a Satanic/Freemasonic ritual. After all, one of those infamous photographs shows bodies piled in a pyramid. A pyramid. Get it? And there's a pyramid on the back of the dollar bill! Yes, yes, it's all coming together...

Some of you may wish to spring to the defense of that thesis. Any attempt to do so would buttress my own belief that a lost war can drive a nation round the bend. (Not to mention my other belief that some of my readers aren't worth talking to.)

Added note: This, from a comment appended to a previous post:

"It's unclear what your standards are to distinguish the supposed irrational wild ravings of the hoi polloi compared to the sage ruminations of the skilled conspiracy researcher/scientist."

The request for standards is fair. I would say that False Quotation Syndrome is one marker -- though hardly the only one -- separating the wild raver from the sage.

What he said!

The soon-to-come loss of the Iraq war and the sooner-to-come execution of Saddam Hussein have inspired Josh Marshall's best writing.

The Iraq War has been many things, but for its prime promoters and cheerleaders and now-dwindling body of defenders, the war and all its ideological and literary trappings have always been an exercise in moral-historical dress-up for a crew of folks whose times aren't grand enough to live up to their own self-regard and whose imaginations are great enough to make up the difference. This is just more play-acting.

The war had many motives, all of them bad. Among them was the determination of a churchmouse to play Churchill.

A season of danger

In a post below, I opined that the lonelygirl series, silly as it may be, has interesting ramifications. Many took these videos seriously, despite the obvious indications of fraudulence -- for example, the episodes which venture out of Bree's room feature quite a few shots which leave you wondering: "Who's supposed to be holding the camera"?

This experiment in "vlogging" proves that a large-ish number of your fellow citizens will accept allegations of occult rites involving the Bush family and a 16 year old girl. Mull that over. Consider what that belief says about the nation as a whole.

And once that idea has sunk in, think about the Russo-Japanese war.

No, really. Hear me out.

(To read the rest, click "Permalink" below)

In 1905, Russia lost to an enemy considered weaker. After the Czar suffered an unexpected, hard-to-fathom humiliation, many Russians went "a little funny in the head," and some bizarre pages entered the Russian history books. Look and see: The abortive revolution of 1905. The Beilis affair, during which Nicholas II affirmed his belief in Jewish ritual sacrifice. An upsurge in pogroms. The demonization of Witte. The spread of Marxism. The spread of the Protocols. The Revolution.

The average German went "a little funny in the head" after the loss of World War I -- a loss which shocked many in the Fatherland, since a controlled press had reported only positive news. Look and see: The rise of occult thought. The "Red" revolutions in Munich and elsewhere. The Thule society. The World Ice Theorists. The Friekorps. The assassinations. The far-right movements, of which the Nazis were but one.

France went slightly mad for a generation after the humiliating Prussian invasion of 1870. Look and see: The Communards. The Monarchists. The anti-clerical fanatics. French occultism. Leo Taxil and the great Freemasonry scare. The Panama scandal. Drumont. Dreyfus.

In all three cases, unexpected loss sent once-proud societies into the socio/political equivalents of nervous breakdowns. Interestingly, these outbreaks of mass political neurosis coincided with periods of vigor and experimentation in art.

America did better than one might have predicted after Vietnam, the first loss in our history. Conservatives took some consolation in the thought that we could have physically exterminated the foe, had extermination been the goal. Still, I would argue that the United States also went a little "funny in the head" after the debacle. Look and see: The rise of religious cults. Hedonism. Drugs. Needlessly combative left-wing identity politics. Reaganism. Fundamentalism. Neo-conservatism. Creationism. Hal Lindsey, top-selling author of his generation.

We may be witnessing another national breakdown.

When I began this blog, the "Bush bulge" meme was derided as an outlandish conspiracy theory. Now, most people presume the accusation to be true -- and nobody cares. These days, a mere two years later, a theory like that just ain't outlandish enough.

What has occurred during those two years? We have, for only the second time in our history, lost a war.

Bush lost it. He is still in the process of losing. This sad, sick finale will take a while, and we have no choice but to sit back and watch the disaster.

In truth, Bush lost the war the moment he began it. But for many of us, on the right and on the left, the fact of loss, the implications of loss, did not penetrate our craniums until after 2004. Like many Germans in World War I, the citizens of this country were mushroom people, kept in the dark and fed fertilizer. They have awakened to a nightmare.

Don't be surprised to see your fellow citizens go "a little funny in the head," as did their predecessors in other nations.

I see signs of this breakdown throughout the "internets." Xymphora was always an off-beat writer (to put the matter diplomatically), but whatever he or she printed back in 2004 cannot compare to his or her latest anti-Chomsky riff. "I think the best way to view Chomsky is as a one-man Zionist ‘sleeper cell.’" What utter madness!

And what common madness!

Even on "normal" lefty blogs -- gatekeeper blogs, as my hate brigade would phrase it -- one now routinely encounters commentators who postulate that Zionist fiends control all of the American media. Crude allegations of banking conspiracies have become daily fare. The Jews, we now learn, killed JFK, much to the surprise of those of us who blamed the MONGOOSE team.

On many anti-Bush political sites, it's all-CD-all-the-time, and agent-baiting rules the day. "Goody Proctor is a witch" has been translated into 21st century idiom. Some "progressives" now embrace the mad accusations made by the anti-Clinton crusaders of the 1990s: Satanism. Bilderbergers. The Bohemian Grove. Skull and Bones. Flying saucers have yet to stage a comeback, but give 'em time.

Creationism is now the majority belief. The Left Behind series commands a frightening popularity. Millions of your fellow citizens consider Hillary Clinton a Communist. Millions still believe that Democrats love Osama.

Step back. Survey the social/political scene the way Capablanca would survey the chess board. Don't consider just the current positions of the pieces; think ten moves ahead.

A generation raised on Rush, Rupert and Robertson must comprehend a lost war, a needless war initiated by a conservative God-That-Failed. The psychological price will exceed even the butcher's bill. How will the citizenry process this unthinkable thought? What will happen to this country?

If you think history has any predictive powers, you won't be surprised to see America's artists produce astonishing works during the next ten, twenty, thirty years. Everyone else may go stark raving bonkers.

I hate this war. I fear the post-war.

More lonelygirl sex rituals

Well, few seem interested in 9/11 or Russian politics or spy mysteries...so how about more lonelygirl15? I feel a certain responsibility toward this notorious "vlog," since I (inadvertantly) helped contribute to the mythos.

In this episode, Bree is studying up for her upcoming ceremony in honor of Dad (a.k.a. GWB, son of BB, daughter of AC). In case you're wondering, the flash cards spell C-R-S-A in Enochian, which is not listed as a word in that language. I'd feel like an ancient letch if I said that most girls conversant in Enochian are not as pretty as Ms. Rose. So I won't say that.

I can tell you, though, that the Enochian incantation ZAZAS ZAZAS NASSATANADA ZAZAS is reputed to open the gates of Hell, should you ever want to do such a thing. But only if you pronounce the words properly. Which you probably can't.

On a semi-serious note: I hate to say it, but the anti-Bush movement seems to be generating even more nutty fantasies than did the anti-Clinton movement of ten years ago. The lonelygirl thing is just a bit of silliness, of course, but it gives us a glimpse of a growing -- and potentially significant -- sociological phenomenon. Can Dems still call themselves the reality-based party if their ranks start to include those who believe in Jewish banking conspiracies and Satanic sacrifices at the Bohemian Grove?

The Family, continued

I probably bit off much more than any one blogger could hope to masticate when I said (in a post below) that I hope to draw a connection between the Litvinenko murder and 9/11. At first glance, such a claim will strike most people as quite outrageous. Alas, a single blog post, even a long one, cannot convey the reasons why my suspicions run in that direction. For now, I can only hope to offer glimpses of that story.

Our first two glimpses must be of two interviews conducted by Daniel Hopsicker in which we encounter cryptic references to "The Family." We have discussed these mysterious comments before. The term appears in this interview with Amanda Keller (Mohammed Atta's girlfriend) and in another videotaped interview with a restaurant owner who overheard the hijackers shortly before the attack on the World Trade Center.

Both interview subjects offered the phrase independently and without prompting. In both cases, the hijackers seemed to make reference to a larger "control" group.

That same nomenclature -- "The Family" -- describes a group of Russian oligarchs who came to prominence during the Boris Yeltsin years. These insiders robbed the nation blind after the transition to what was laughingly called capitalism.

This Russian "Family" achieved a large measure of covert control over the former superpower as Boris Yeltsin declined in both health and mental capacity. They ruled ruthlessly and conspiratorially, smearing opponents and staging provocations as they bled dry their Motherland.

The godfather of the Family was and is magnate Boris Berezovsky, former employer of Alexander Litvinenko. The group's godmother, so to speak, was Yeltsin's daughter Tatanya. (Interestingly, Yeltsin himself was on poor terms with Berezovsky toward the end.)

Vladimir Putin was also a member of the Family. After a fierce and convoluted succession struggle, he followed Yeltsin, achieving power in no small measure through the good graces of Berezovsky. Putin seems to have followed a course similar to Martin Boorman's, operating behind the scenes with quiet efficiency while the national leader slowly lost his faculties. After he gained control of Russia, Putin turned against many of the oligarchs -- specifically, against Berezovsky. From his place of exile in Britain, Boris Berezovsky has plotted vengeance.

The reader should understand that "The Family" is not just a fanciful name applied by one or two writers. Russian journalists often use this label to describe the powerful network which congealed around Boris Yeltsin. Moreover, members of this group refer to themselves as "The Family."

The sources cited in my previous post indicate that Russia's "Family" became embroiled in the Afghan drug trade and with the Islamic extremists in Chechnya. Osama Bin Laden was the "behind the scenes" ruler of Afghanistan, where much of the world's heroin is grown. He was also a source of inspiration to Basaev, who trained in Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan.

For these reasons and others, I believe that Atta's "Family" and the Russian "Family" are one and the same.

(To read the rest, click "Permalink" below)

There also appears to be a connection between the Family and the American right -- although at this writing, I cannot claim a full understanding of this linkage. Haliburton is partner in a company called Far West, which, according to some sources, functions as a business front for the Family.

At least one important representative of the Family, Alexander Voloshin, attended a meeting at Adnan Khashoggi's villa in the south of France in July of 1999. Although Berezovsky's creature, Alexander Litvinenko, has denied in print that such a meeting took place, we know from reliable sources that it did occur (Khashoggi having admitted as much) and may have lasted as long as three weeks.

At this meeting, Voloshin (Putin's Chief of Staff, who quit when Putin turned against the Family) met with Chechen warlord Shamil Basaev, the chieftain of the most extreme Islamic faction within Chechnya. Such an encounter would strike many Russians as unthinkable, since most Russians despise Basaev. Imagine how most Americans would react if you told them that Andy Card secretly conferred with Osama Bin Laden after 9/11.

Yet this "impossible" meeting was both recorded and photographed.

Moreover, according to John Dunlop (see below), the fanatical jihadist Basaev received covert funding from none other than Boris Berezovsky.

Some aver that the 1999 Khashoggi meeting cemented a plan called "Storm in Moscow," designed to place Putin (then a Family member in good standing) in power by engineering a series of terrorist bombings, which would be blamed on the Chechens. These attacks led to a second Chechen war. Nothing frightened the Family more than the prospect of reformists gaining control in the Kremlin.

Even as The Family fueled Russian fury against Chechnya, Berezovsky funded Basaev and the Chechen extremists, while undermining Chechen moderates.

The meetings in Khashoggi's villa were recorded by Israeli and French intelligence. Although published sources do not reveal which agency planted the eavesdropping devices, I believe that this task fell to the Israelis, who have a special expertise in this area, and who have every reason to keep tabs on Khashoggi. To operate freely on French soil, Mossad would, of necessity, have had to share the intelligence haul with the French.

Obviously, the hidden microphones must have picked up more than one meeting.

If the Israeli/French spooks listening in on Adnan Khashoggi and his houseguests overheard plans for what has been called "Russia's 9/11," did they also get advance word of our 9/11?

The issue of 9/11 foreknowledge is quite complex. Many foreign services seem to have had some idea that a strike was in the works, and many nations conveyed appropriate warnings to the United States. However, the French do appear to have given the CIA specific information about an attack on U.S. soil. Also, the invaluable Cooperative Research timeline offers this intriguing paragraph:

Late August 2001: French Warning to US Echoes Earlier Israeli Warning

French intelligence gives a general terrorist warning to the US; apparently, its contents echo an Israeli warning from earlier in the month (see August 8-15, 2001). [Fox News, 5/17/2002]

The wording here implies that the Israelis and the French offered the same details, presumably from the same source. I tentatively posit, but cannot prove, that the Khashoggi eavesdropping operation may have been that source.

I would also like to draw one further parallel between the war against the Chechens in 1999 and the later war on Al Qaeda in Afghanistan in 2002. From John Dunlop's important essay "Storm in Moscow":

The commander of a Russian special operations team in Dagestan told a correspondent for Time magazine that on one scorching August day in 1999, “he had Chechen warlord Shamil’ Basaev in his sights…. With a simple squeeze of his finger, [he] could take out Basaev… But [he] says that he received the following order over his walkie-talkie: ‘Hold your fire.’” “‘We just watched Basaev’s long column of trucks and jeeps withdraw from Dagestan back to Chechnya under cover provided by our own helicopters,’” the Russian officer recalled. “‘We could have wiped him out then and there, but the bosses in Moscow wanted him alive.’”

Exactly similar stories surround Osama Bin Laden's escape from Afghanistan, down to the "in our sights" claim.

Did Litvinenko know of Berezovksy's connection with Chechen warlord Basaev? Did Litvenenko know the true details of "Storm in Moscow"?

Obviously, Litvinenko must have had some reason to lie about that meeting at Khashoggi's villa. We know that Litvinenko planned to blackmail the exiled oligarchs. (He and his one-time patron, Berezovsky, had a falling out.) If Litvinenko planned to reveal that either the Russian or American terror attacks were "Family" affairs, then an obvious motive for his murder suggests itself. Khashoggi's motive for funding disinformation also becomes clear.

Anatomy of Deceit

One of our favorite bloggers, Marcy Wheeler ("emptywheel" over at the Next Hurrah) has a book coming out on the Wilson/Plame affair, and on the larger issue of press compliance with Bush's war plans. It's called Anatomy of Deceit and I look forward to reading it.

Litvinenko and "The Family"

I am preparing what I hope will be a major piece which will attempt to connect the Litvinenko affair with, god help us, 9/11. If that seems outrageous -- well, I beg you to withhold judgment until you see the details.

In the meantime, this teaser:

The late Alexander Litvinenko was a former FSB spook who became a paid liar in the employ of Boris Berezovsky, the shadowy exiled Russian oligarch (and business partner of Neil Bush). Berezovsky hopes to destabilize Putin and take control of what was once the second superpower.

Before the assassination, few in Russia respected Litvinenko. Few outside of Russia heard of him. Now, a film will be made of his life. The project, starring Daniel Craig (the new James Bond), will derive, in large part, from Litvinenko's book Blowing up Russia.

In that work, Litvinenko attempts to demonstrate that Vladimir Putin was responsible for the apartment bombings of 1999. However, in “Storm in Moscow”: A Plan of the Yeltsin “Family” to Destabilize Russia, an extremely important paper written by the Hoover Institution's John B. Dunlop, a starkly different picture emerges. (Oddly, the Hoover Institute has wiped all trace of this paper from its site.) As Peter Dale Scott summarizes:

Dunlop's thesis is in itself an alarming one. It is that men of influence in the Kremlin, building on the connections established by the wealthy oligarch Boris Berezovskii, were able to arrange for staged violence, in order to reinforce support for an unpopular Russian government. This staged violence took the form of lethal bombings in the capital and an agreed-upon incursion by Chechens into Russian Dagestan.

Dunlop argues that Litvinenko's one-time employer, Boris Berezovsky -- the man who would rule Russia -- arranged these provocations in the final months of the Yeltsin era to prevent reformists from taking control.

Yeltsin, a heavy drinker in poor health, was not the true leader of Russia. Decisions were made by a conspiratorial group calling itself "The Family," which still wields enormous power. Despite the title of Dunlop's monograph, the leader of the Family was not Yeltsin; Yeltsin's daughter Tatyana, Boris Berezovsky (who was vying to become the Rupert Murdoch of Russia) and a handful of others held the real power.

Putin was once a member of this Family. Upon achieving power, he turned against the oligarchs. Ever since, Berezovsky has plotted vengeance.

Long-time readers of this blog will recall that we have encountered the term "The Family" before, in relation to 9/11. I will argue in my upcoming piece that the Berezovskii Family and the Family mentioned by Mohammed Atta were, in fact, one and the same.

You will see subtle evidence to that effect for yourself if you carefully read the Dunlop and Scott pieces cited above. You should also study an important piece by Yuri Yasenev (obviously derived from Russian intelligence files), "An Orange Revolution is in store for Russia."

A mysterious company called Far West Ltd. may have functioned as a business front fro the Family. One of the partners in Far West is Dick Cheney's Haliburton.

An officer of Far West described the firm's business as "connected with the secured transport of commercial shipments from Afghanistan." Decide for yourself how best to interpret those words.

The Family established a wide array of international contacts. Key decisions were taken at a 1999 meeting in Adnan Khashoggi's villa in the south of France. That such a meeting took place is beyond question; Khashoggi himself has admitted as much, although the actual topic of the discussion remains disputed. It is known that French intelligence and the Israelis had a good idea of what went on.

And yet the very existence of this meeting was denied by none other than Alexander Litvinenko. (See footnote 24 of Scott's piece.)

Why would Litvinenko lie about such a thing?

We have many indications that, after the publication of this book, Litvinenko and his patron had a falling out. We know that Litvinenko had planned to blackmail certain exiled oligarchs. Although he did not mention Berezovsky by name, we may fairly presume that he was a potential target.

Virtually all of the suspects in the Litvinenko murder have some tie to Berezovsky.

What was said at Khashoggi's villa? What did Alexander Litvinenko threaten to reveal to the world?

Nota bene: If you are going to do follow-up research, I suggest beginning with Dunlop's thesis, which will reward a leisurely study. Professor Scott covers a wider scope and spotlights some of Dunlop's shortcomings; however, Scott writes in an academic style which some will find impenetrable. (Like many scholars, he assumes that his readers have already familiarized themselves with the material listed in the footnotes.) Dunlop provides a clear, linear narrative which manages to be both gripping yet scrupulously annotated.

I know that I have offered a simplistic and crude introduction to a very complex tale. This is, as I said, but a teaser.

Two cheers for Tony Blair

Blair's obsequious attitude toward Bush puzzles many people. Was blackmail involved? Not a shred of evidence backs that suggestion, which hasn't stopped many from wondering.

The blog Welcome to Pottersville reminds us that, on questions of economic fairness, Blair has practiced a relatively enlightened form of governance -- very enlightened, when compared to what Bush has done to the U.S. Every time I've seen Blair taking domestic policy questions from Members of Parliament, I've thought: "This guy's okay." And then the topic would turn to Iraq, and my thoughts took a very different turn.

Blair will be remembered as Britain's answer to LBJ, the president who gave us the Civil Rights Act, the war on poverty -- and Vietnam.

Correction

In a post below, I ascribed a famous Christmas card couplet ("May all my enemies go to Hell/Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel") to G.K. Chesterton. It was actually written by Chesterton's friend Hillaire Belloc.

President Ford

AP has just announced that President Gerald Ford has died.

A member of the Warren Commission, Ford was not exactly my favorite political figure. His administration was, in some ways, the origin point for our current disaster, since Ford brought Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and Poppy Bush to prominence. The Ford administration was the era of "Team B," which rewrote and politicized all of the objective data about the Soviet military threat. As Adam Curtis' "The Power of Nightmares" documents, the neocons first gained their muscles during this period.

On the other hand, President Ford's wife Betty once did a touching favor for a member of my family. (The family member was a nurse, and Betty Ford happened to be one of her patients.) I will always respect and admire that gracious lady -- and for her sake, I must offer my sincere condolences to the Ford family.

Knock knock

Oddly enough, I've never had a Mormon come to my door. JWs, yes, but never Mormons. Mormonism is one of the two religions whose adherents really bamboozle me. Granted, all religion is a bit nutty, but -- for whatever reason -- the Mormons and the Scientologists fill me with a special form of despair that I do not associate with the adherents of other faiths.

How did L. Ron Hubbard and Joe Smith acquire such fervent followers even after they pretty much announced to the world that they were con artists? I would not be surprised to learn that those two guys wore t-shirts with the word GRIFTER printed on the front in huge letters.

At any rate, this video is pretty funny. All praise be unto the mighty Zontar.

(Now, if you are one of the Three Nephites, feel free to show up at my place, even before noon on a Saturday.)

The "used blog" thing, reposted

Due to technical problems (and my own bloody incompetence) the "used blog" post was accidentally deleted. It's back, after the jump. In the meantime, here's a copy of something I just now sent to Sander Hicks, a 911 researcher who sent me an email out of the blue:

* * *

I thank you for thinking of me. I heard your interview with Emory, which mightily impressed me.

Unfortunately, I also heard other interviews, which sickened me.

What I am about to say is harsh. It is harsh of necessity. Rudeness is against my nature, so please don't assume that this comes easily to me.

When I was a boy, only a small number of people questioned evolution. Then the Creationists went on their decades-long-offensive -- their Weltanschauungkrieg, as it were.

Few scientists devoted much energy to opposing the creationists, for fear (I imagine) of offending religious sensibilities. Result: A pseudoscientific belief once relegated to a few snake-handlers in Tennesee is now the majority opinion, or is very nearly so.

During that same time, the Holocaust deniers tried to make inroads. The scientific community and the larger society treated them with undisguised contempt. Decent people did not allow the pseudoscientists to sit down to table for a debate because such a position was considered unworthy of that dignity, and the people who championed such notions were considered beyond civilization.

Everyone understood that the moment we treat the Holocaust denier's casuistry as a legitimate position, the moment we treated the people offering such arguments with anything other than disdain, the deniers would win.

That's why decent people took this attitude: "No, I will not sit down to debate with you. You aren't worthy of that. Don't get within spitting distance."

Result: Even in an age which embraces unreason, Holocaust denial remains a minority belief, while Creationism prospers.

The lesson is obvious.

Now we face another great pseudoscientific danger: Controlled demolition theories of 911. I know from your interviews that you espouse this nonsense.

DO NOT THINK FOR ONE SECOND THAT YOU HAVE ANY PRO-CD ARGUMENT THAT I HAVE NOT HEARD BEFORE.

Don't try it. Not one syllable.

(And if you disregard that warning, as I suspect you will, then you will only expose yourself as a zealot.)

The CD-ers have chased me off my blog. I will quit as soon as I find a replacement. I am shutting down because I was shocked to discover so many of me readers held to those notions.

They have "agent-baited" me mercilessly, and accused me of being a Zionist Bush-lover and god-knows-what-else. You should see some of the disgusting comments they have left!

You CD bastards have insulted me. Slandered me. Sent me death threats. Robbed me of something I was proud of.

I have lost at least two long-time friends over this.

Don't expect me to pretend that I can take this vile treatment easily, because I can't. I'm angry and furious and I will NEVER forgive the CD fanatics.

I will always feel strongly that civilized people cannot take an "agree to disagree" attitude toward CDers. Instead, we must treat them with the same disdain we reserve for Holocaust deniers and that we SHOULD have shown toward the Creationists.

You simply are not worthy of debate. You must be opposed relentlessly, but never treated as equals.

I think Hopsicker and Emory will both agree with me on this, and Hopsicker will verify what the CD bastards have done on my blog.

In other words, we ain't exactly going to be pen pals, Sander. And don't get within spitting distance. I literally have more tolerance for the stuff I wipe off my shoe than I have for CD-ers.

(To read the rest, click "Permalink" below)

As you know, I will soon quit this blog because -- well, because the readers turn my stomach. This decision, though unimportant to the world at large, depresses me more than you can guess. I have wasted a large section of my life yet again, and I'm too old for such errors.

Life is what happens when you are making other plans. My original plan, silly as it may now sound, was to attract a more-or-less sensible readership -- the kind of people who follow the work of Josh Marshall and the other "left wing gatekeepers" you people seem to hate so much. Of course, this blog could never attain anything like those numbers, but I did, at least, want the average Cannonfire reader to have a certain level of sanity.

Instead, I find that my readers have become obsessed with the inane "controlled demolition" theory of 9/11. Which means that I address on a daily basis people I consider enemies and fools.

Do you know what it's like to sell a painting you love to a patron you hate? I do. It's a bad feeling. And that is what I feel like every day.

Right now, the site still attracts (Lord knows why) a decent-sized readership. Many high-traffic pages link to it. The Google pagerank is a respectable 6. The blog makes no real money now, but with BlogAds and an uptick in readership (perhaps a 7 pagerank?), it could generate a pleasant little income stream. So perhaps someone may want to take it over, gratis, even though doing so means inheriting my name in the title. Starting a political blog from absolute zero is not easy these days; building a readership base takes years.

Until someone new shows up, I'll keep the thing alive with some material in preparation.

In the meantime, the extremely masochistic among you can read (after the jump) a re-written compendium of some of the CD debunking material previously relegated to the comments section. This should give you some idea why I've reached the end of such wits as I possess.

(To read the rest, click "Permalink" below)

A message to those who preach the Gospel of Controlled Demolition:

THERE WAS NO REASON TO BLOW UP THE DAMN TWIN TOWERS.

The sight of jets hitting the building was all that any neocon plotter needed, if plot there was. That image alone birthed all the fear and anger that the Republicans needed to do what they subsequently did.

Yes, I've heard your stupid "Oomph" arguments. (That is my pet name for any argument which holds that the towers were brought down to maximize psychological impact.) There really is no need to recite that argument to me yet again, folks; I heard you the first thousand times, and I really wish you would stop acting as though you have anything to say to me that I have not heard before.

The "Oomph" argument is PURE HORSESHIT.

Even if we concede (hypothetically) that the whole thing was a conspiracy, with Bush and Rove and Cheney and the head of Mossad all cackling like demons as they engineered the disaster, I would STILL say that the extra psychological "oomph," which supposedly could be achieved only by the fall of the towers, did not justify the loss of life and the massive drain on the economy.

Not to mention the added risk.

The chance of discovery. The chance of someone talking. The chance of a deathbed confession.

And: The likelihood, nay, the certainty that a real controlled demolition would immediately be identified as such by every expert in that field.

I've read more books and articles on espionage and parapolitics than have the puerile kids who think they can lecture me. I've been around the block a few times. I've met plenty of shady types, and I generally assume the worst of my fellow human beings. More than that, I've been on the receiving end of the "conspiracy theorist" accusation a few times. Yet even I cannot believe that a sizable group of American conspirators would engineer such explosions, such a massive loss of American life, such a crippling blow directed at the heart of the American economy, with nary a peep of protest from any perp.

These Americans-conspiring-against-Americans would have to include a legion of experts, including those who wrote the NIST report, as well as all the other scientific papers which argue against the idea of a CD conspiracy.

The "oomph" argument is the worst sort of ex post facto reasoning. You people have decided that CD occurred. CD is the central fact of your universe; all else is mutable. Therefore, you are looking for an after-the-fact way to rationalize the use of CD when none was needed.

I've said it before. Let's say it again:

Let us suppose that some "Mr. Evil" type was pressing buttons and setting off bombs remotely that day. Why would he detonate the south tower first -- a move which seems counter-intuitive, since it was hit first?

Why not wait until the south tower was evacuated?

If the idea was to maximize the loss of life in order to scare people and provide that oh-so-necessary maximum psychological OOOMPH, then why did Mr. Evil allow the north tower to be evacuated before the alleged "detonation"?

Why not bring 'em both down at the same time? THAT would have been the oomphiest move of all.

Perhaps (you might argue) he needed a certain degree of Oomph, but not too much Oomph. Perhaps the button-pressing fiend was Mr. Somewhat Evil, not Mr. Extremely Evil.

But even if I were to accept that inane logic, another problem arises. In real life, controlled demolitions begin at the bottom. These collapses began at the impact point.

How would the plotters know which floor the jets would hit?

The CD-ers say that there were earwitnesses to explosions in the tower in the period between impact and collapse. I say: "So what? Gas lines, transformers and falling material could account for those sounds."

Okay, let's say that those explanations do not suffice. Let us concede, for argument's sake, that bombs and only bombs could have caused those noises. That means we must posit that someone pre-planted something that goes BOOM, like C4.

But then the question arises as to why the jet strike did not ignite either the explosive or its trigger.

The CD-ers, stumped by that poser, have proposed the use of thermite, which burns at 2000 degrees, hotter than a kerosene fire.

Proof of thermite? Dr. Jones says that sulfur and barium were found. Alas, we would expect that material to be found, due to the substances within the building.

Do you have any idea how much thermite would be needed to melt all those steel columns? TONS. See here.

How the hell could anyone secrete tons of the stuff -- on every floor (because there was no way to know which floor would be hit)?

Why wouldn't the jet fuel ignite the triggering device? Fourth of July sparklers can be used to set off thermite, and they can be lit by a match. Even matches have been used to ignite thermite (sez Wikipedia).

And how could thermite react vertically?

But never mind all that. Consider this: Thermite does not explode.

So what about those explosions that were heard? Gee, I thought they constituted positive proof of a CD! Suddenly, the "best" evidence of CD comes to...nothing.

OK, the theorists say, maybe it was a combo of thermite AND conventional explosions. As if that idea makes any sense.

Finally we have Jim Fetzer (whom I learned to dislike long before September 11, 2001) saying, no, it was an outer space Star Wars howitzer. Not probably, not perhaps, not maybe -- DEFINITELY.

Good God. Good God.

DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW FUCKING LUDICROUS THIS SOUNDS?

Do you have any idea how ridiculous you sound when you come up with ornate formulae to explain (or to render mysterious) the pulverization of concrete, when anyone with eyes could see that floors and walls and drywall were collapsing under enormous weight?

Do you have any idea how annoying it is to be told repeatedly that the building collapsed at "free fall speed" when it clearly did not? The Loose Change video claims to demonstrate just that point, but the clip ends when the first bits of rubble (which are exceeding the rate of collapse!) hit the ground. Which proves only that free-falling rubble will fall at free-fall speeds. Like, duh.

The scenarios keep twisting into surreal new shapes. "CD must remain. All other considerations may come and go."

Right now, I am sure that someone out there wants to tell me: "The twin towers are a straw man. What about Building 7?"

When I wrote about Building 7 some months back, snarky readers said "WTC7 is a straw man. What about the Twin Towers?"

The whole "straw man" argument is itself a straw man. Every time someone debunks one sector of the CD argument, the buffs counter: "Oh, you are attacking a straw man. What about this other thing over here...?"

Those who oppose pseudoscience are accused of acting in bad faith if they restrict the argument of a single essay to a single topic. Do you have any idea how irritating it is to have to write the equivalent of an entire book -- over and over, every time the subject comes up? Why must I operate under that requirement, when the CDers do not?

The fact is, you do not have a single expert in controlled demolition in the world who accepts the controlled demolition theory of the fall of the World Trade Center. No structural engineers. No architects. Not one.

You have but one expert in physics, who has been successfully refuted more than once. The fucking sulfur was in the fucking drywall, dammit!

Professor Jones' other publication, in a world of publish-or-perish, tries to provide "scientific" proof that Jesus was in America 2000 years ago. Since that piece purports to be a scientific paper, not a religious treatise, and since Jones has not backed away from it, we are perfectly justified in using it to assess Jones' capacity for self-deception.

How many pro-CD peer-reviewed articles have appeared in respected scientific publications -- that is to say, publications which started business before September 11, 2001? Zero.

The CD-ers began their own publication, the Journal of 9/11 Studies. CD-ers then have the nerve to say that the articles appearing within that journal were "peer reviewed," even though no experts in controlled demolition are among the peers.

Of course, there are "peer reviewed" publications devoted to Creationism, Holocaust Revisionism and flying saucers. The fact remains that in all genuine journals in relevant disciplines, published articles have proven embarrassing to the CD gospel.

I'm sick of the bullying tactics employed by the CD-ers, and I refuse to apologize for bullying 'em right back. They deserve worse words than they ever have received from me.

Anyone who doesn't go along with their fantasies gets damned as a Bush-lover. Even well-known progressive writers stand among the damned: Amy Goodman, Kos, Marshall. Bush's buds, all of 'em.

This, despite the fact that the CD-ers have received plenty of exposure -- not always respectful exposure, but exposure -- on Hannity and Colmes and other right-wing shows. This, despite the fact that the CD movement includes many holdovers from the 90's era Clinton-haters, and is led by a conservative Mormon who voted for the sunvabitch in the Oval Office.

Finally, let us confront the famous words I've heard more than once: "I'll bet you think Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone!"

If you feel tempted to repeat those dreaded words, let me clue you in: I've met and corresponded with and spoken on the telephone with many of the most famous authors in the assassination research field. I've spoken with eyewitnesses. (Well, I didn't exactly speak with Ed Hoffman.) In the 1990s, I helped, in a modest way, to found an organization devoted to researching the case.

The earliest critical authors on the JFK case -- Sylvan Fox, Mark Lane, Sylvia Meagher, Thomas Buchanan, Harold Weisberg and company -- all wrote to a much higher standard than we see in the CD literature.

As far as I can see, the CD community has attracted only two sympathists from the JFK assassination research community: Jim Fetzer and Jim Marrs. I wouldn't want either man on my side. If they said "Cannon is a nice name," I would consider changing it. Marrs is the guy who wrote Alien Agenda, which expresses uncritical belief in every foolish rumor then current in the saucer-land. He also wrote Rule by Secrecy, which promotes every bizarre conspiracy hoax (including Holocaust revisionism) ever to seep out of the John Birch Society port-a-potty.

Fetzer annoyed every sensible JFK researcher with his inane insistence that the Zapruder film was heavily altered using technology not available at the time, even though the "bad guys" could not have had access to all copies of the film. Fetzer has refused to learn any of the relevant technical history. I doubt that he could replicate the feat using 8mm equipment, even if given a month's worth of time. I doubt that he could find any "old hand" at Hollywood special effects who could provide such results. (Even 2001: A Space Odyssey had obvious matte work. That show was filmed on 65mm stock. Imagine trying to do it in 8mm!) Hell, I doubt that Fetzer even has sufficient technical savvy to replicate the feat using Photoshop. With the Zapruder film, as with his 9/11 space howitzer, he follows the simple formula of technology=magic.

Those are the two fellows on your side, CD-ers. None of the other "old guard" members of the JFK research community can stomach your company. DiEgenio, Summers, Lane, Scott, Brown, Pease...? I suppose they must all be well-paid Bush-loving disinformationists.

No joke, that. CD-ers really do think that way. Look at this page from a true 911 conspiracist:

Lisa writes about the assassinations of the Kennedys and other people. Not surprisingly, Pease did not have much to say about 9-11 at our meetings, even though the meetings were about 9-11. However, she told me and Bollyn that there is no Zionist connection to the Kennedy assassination; that Apollo astronauts really did land on the moon; and that we are incorrect about a Zionist connection to 9-11.
In that writer's opinion, belief in the reality of Project Apollo is a bad thing.

The writer goes on to presume evil intent on Lisa's part because she does not believe that journalist Gary Webb was murdered, a conclusion she came to after discussion with Webb's family.The family must be part of the conspiracy.

Man, this thing is bigger than I thought.

I've had it with people whose minds work in this fashion. I've had it with people who think we never went to the moon. I've had it with people who believe that Jews killed JFK. I've had it with people who believe that Devil-worshipers run the world. I've had it with CD-ers.

I know I cannot stop my fellow citizens from shouting bizarre views. But why do they come here? When I delete their comments, I am accused of censorship; when I allow anyone to say anything, insanity and insult rule the day. For God's sake, what writings of mine prompted this infestation? Did my pieces on Wilkes and election fraud and Litvinenko and "bulge-gate" open the door to Arkham Asylum? Did I really write such freak-friendly material?

Japan and the bomb

(Note: I'll keep posting until the turnover, although I am not sure that these posts will appear, due to Blogger's odd behavior of late. I have some important pieces in the works, and I might as well get them out there before toddling off.)

By what right are we moving against Iran?

Let us presume the worst; let us stipulate that the Iranians are working toward the development of a nuclear weapon. Of course, I hope that they do not. I would sacrifice my life if doing so could somehow convince the Iranians not to pursue that goal.

Still: By what right do we deny them such a weapon?

I ask this simple question in light of the news stories indicating that Japan is working on nuclear weaponry -- indeed, that nation may be a mere three years away from possession of the bomb.

Few in the United States would countenance a new war with Japan over this issue. Yet Japan has a history of aggression, as Iran does not. What page of Persian history compares to the rape of Nanking, to the experiments at Harbin, to the Bataan death March, to the attack on Pearl Harbor? As for the alleged danger to Israel: The Japanese have their own (growing) tradition of anti-Semitism and once allied themselves with the greatest enemy ever to assail the Jewish people.

"Japan is democratic," some would argue. But few objective observers could call that nation a true democracy. It is a one-party state, the model for what Republicans hope America to become. Although we can fairly apply the word "theocracy" -- and perhaps even "despotism" -- to Iran, that nation is, in fact, a partial democracy.

By what right would we deny the bomb to Iran and allow it to Japan?

A test, sort of

Blogger is not working for me. I tried to post something amusing for Xmas, only to have the whole system go down on me.

I deleted that post, and actually accidentally deleted the "Anyone want to used blog?" post in the process. (Long story.) I haven't rescinded that, but I cannot reconstitute the post. I apologize to those whose comments went missing. It was an accident.

I wonder if THIS post will appear...?

UPDATE: I wrote a post that came after this. It simply refuses to appear on the actual site. For some reason, this is the only post of the last three that will show up. I wonder if anyone will see the words of this update? I guess my leaving is a moot point: Blogger itself will have none of me.

Oh well. As a holiday or post-holiday message, I give you "Lines for a Christmas Card" by G.K. Chesterton:

May all my enemies go to hell.
Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel.

Moon

If you've been following the Reverend Moon and his interactions with the Bush family, you may want to check out this new BBC documentary. I'll presume that it is up on Google video legally, although I do not know if it will be there for long.

More trouble for Dick Cheney?

Larisa Alexandrovna is following some high-level machinations in the oil business. Along the way, she has discovered that Haliburton and French company Technip bribed officials pursuant to a Nigerian enterprise. From a Truthout piece published three years ago:

It's within this new judicial framework that the Judge Renaud Van Ruymbeke is conducting his investigations and the Paris court contemplates an eventual indictment of the present United States Vice President, Richard Cheney, in his capacity as former CEO of Halliburton. The investigations concern 180 million dollars of commissions paid on the occasion of a gas complex bid in Nigeria.

Three years later, we still have no indictment. Larisa asks:

What keeps coming back to mind when I read this is just what Joe Wilson may have uncovered in Niger that would make Cheney so eager to silence him? Could these things be related?

Yes, Niger and Nigeria are two different countries, but a relationship between the two tales may nonetheless exist. Larisa has more, and she does not pretend to have tied the loose threads into a cohesive narrative.

Alternative Three

Most of you will want to click on to the next blog, but a few of you might be interested in this. Yes, it's piffle. Yes, piffle might seem an indulgence at a time when so many serious problems face the world. But it's Christmas, and I'm in the mood for something light-hearted.

About eight years ago, I embarked on a book -- never finished -- on the dangers of conspiracy theories. My intent was to investigate certain widely-distributed documents considered gospel truths by believers. A large segment of the populace went conspiracy-mad during the Clinton years; this project was my small attempt to help restore some sanity.

Perhaps the time has come to continue that book. The controlled demolition beliefs of today bear no small resemblance to the nonsense in circulation a decade ago.

That's why I've decided to pull this items from the files. I doubt if it will have a restorative effect on the nation's mental health, but it may bring a smile to those who can recall the madness of yesteryear.

Our subject today is the great "Alternative Three" conspiracy -- a hoax which still lives on in some quarters. Believe it or not, many people were once just as passionate about A3 as are today's preachers of the gospel of controlled demolition.

This yarn certainly seems quite silly after 9/11 and the Iraq debacle. But in the 1990s, the real world gave us fewer reasons for paranoia, so those who got a junkie's rush from fear scrambled for an armload of this stuff.

Near the end, I will present a previously-unpublished item which still somewhat mystifies me. But I'm saving that for the grand finale. The beginning comes after the jump. (Do forgive the lack of footnotes, but I'm pressed for time and formatting these things can be a bother.)

(To read the rest, click "Permalink" below)

* * *

Alternative Three: Apocalypse Then (and a Sequel)

Lies live many times before their deaths. Sometimes they seem indestructible: Like some malign Tex Avery character, the Protocols myth keeps popping back up no matter how many anvils drop on it. Fortunately, fear-marketeers can peddle a bogus apocalypse only so many times. Life goes on, the planet refuses to cease spinning, and the naive finally realize their naivete.

Case in point: Alternative Three, a British hoax famed through print and cathode ray tube.

In recent times, the work has lost a good deal of its former popularity — though less than a decade ago, conspiracy lecturers routinely proffered it as evidence that global warming had doomed the earth, prompting the secret government to engineer a covert escape plan. As end-of-the-world yarns go, A3 had a good run — and although the glory days have passed, the thing still finds new gulls via the net, where the text has a new home, copyright be damned. A follow-up volume by conspiracy writer Jim Keith helps keep the legend alive.

Die-hards continue to cite this “suppressed” book and video as proof that the U.S. government hides its real space fleet, designed to ferry the elite from a denuded and doomed Earth. Also under wraps, according to the legend: Collusion with the Soviets, electronic telepathy, mass kidnappings to Mars, and death-from-above satellite zappings (known as hot jobs) aimed at those pesky bean-spillers.

The hoax began life as a 1977 pseudo-documentary on the U.K.’s Anglia TV, broadcast as the final offering in a series called Science Report, hosted by newscaster Tim Brinton. (Previous episodes of Science Report were serious efforts.) Audiences in Canada, Australia and elsewhere saw the show at the same time the British public did.

Tellingly, the episode’s writer and producer — David Ambrose and Christopher Miles — have not spent their post-A3 careers warning the world about approaching doom; rather, they’ve established impressive resumes in the entertainment industry. Ambrose’s screenwriting credits include the 1980 time travel epic Final Countdown, the 1985 science fiction fable D.A.R.R.Y.L., and a well-regarded miniseries called The French Revolution (which deserved, but never received, an American airing). Christopher Miles, brother of actress Sarah Miles, has had a respectable career as a director, writer and producer in television and films.

Apocalypse Then

The televised Alternative Three remains officially unreleased on home video, although tapes circulate underground. A synopsis:

The ersatz documentary begins with a news team’s investigation into the mysterious disappearances of several British scientists. Among the vanished: William Ballantine, a specialist in climate patterns. Our narrator and host, veteran newscaster Tim Brinton (the one real individual in a sea of fictional characters), presents evidence that worsening drought conditions have caused emergencies throughout the world; Ballantine had warned that this situation would soon ripen into a cataclysm.

Following a tip, our tireless reporters interview one of Ballantine’s colleagues, Cambridge professor Carl Gerstein, who, we learn, admonished world leaders back in the 1950s that industrial pollution would soon cause the phenomenon now known as global warming. When the investigators uncover evidence of a grand secret behind project Apollo — a secret somehow related to the foregoing — Brinton tries to interview, via satellite, an astronaut named Robert Grodin, one of the men who walked on the moon. Mysterious forces cut the interview short the moment Grodin lets the name “Ballantine” slip out.

Intrigued and undaunted, the reporters track Grodin to his New England home, where he spends his days in an alcoholic haze. The sloshed spaceman admits that NASA set up the entire Apollo program as a public relations exercise: “You think they need all that hardware down in Florida just to get two guys to ride a bicycle on the moon?” Back in the U.K., a political analyst named Broadbent reveals that the Americans and Soviets have cooperated on unrevealed space projects. Brinton announces that “our researches” (marvelous phrase, that!) indicate that the Russian/U.S. alliance has made many unannounced landings on the dark side of the moon.

The investigators return to Cambridge, where Professor Gerstein confesses the full truth. Back in the 1950s, Soviet and American policy makers faced up to the fact of environmental annihilation. They weighed two solutions: A drastic decrease in population, and a drastic decrease in consumption. Both proposals were deemed unworkable. Hence, Alternative Three — transporting earth’s best and brightest to colonies on Mars, where the missing scientists now reside. The rest of us must fend for ourselves on a dying planet.

The show concludes with the unveiling of footage smuggled out by Ballantine — video allegedly depicting the clandestine first alighting on Mars by an un-manned space probe, on May 22, 1962. As Russian and American mission controllers fill the soundtrack with technical chatter, we see an aerial view of a barren, red desert landscape. The illusion is persuasive, until the producers of Alternative Three go one step too far: Immediately after touchdown, the probe’s camera zooms in on movement just beneath the Martian surface. “When they take the wraps off this thing, it’ll be the biggest day in history,” an American scientist announces. “We’re on Mars, and we have life!”

The World Reacts

Although Alternative Three premiered on June 20, 1977, it was originally scheduled for broadcast (or transmission, as Brits say) on April 1, 1977 — at least, so reads a title card at the final fade-out. One would think that even the dimmer audience members would have needed no further clues. Nonetheless, nearly 10,000 panicked viewers tied up the network’s phone lines, demanding to know the planet’s fate. The hoaxers had conjured up the U.K. equivalent of Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds broadcast. (Christopher Miles had, in fact, once discussed radio’s infamous “Martian invasion” with Welles himself.) When the next day’s newspapers assured the public that the show was just an elaborate sham, most felt relieved.

Most, but not all. The attempts to placate the public only made the “green inkers” (as British editors refer to the crackpot legions) see red.

A Canadian UFO newsletter, Cosmology Newslink International expressed its outrage thus:

Since this documentary was aired in Canada, there has been such a DESPERATE PROGRAMME on the part of the ignorant media to debunk the whole thing that they have actually raised the suspicions and the ire of the most hard-nosed skeptics.” [One wonders how many hard-nosed skeptics this writer polled.] “If the makers claim that it was all fiction, then THAT’S what the public will, like a lot of cabbages, SWALLOW... Poor public, how easy we are to be brainwashed! I.e., with either lies or the truth. It’s only when investigators start probing the hidden meanings behind such ‘science fiction’ that eyebrows are raised.”

The wording here offers rare insight into the conspiracy buff’s mentality: The writer plainly states that the truth can brainwash us; therefore, we should study science fiction. Alternative Three marks the intersection of paranoia and “postmodern” literary analysis.

Proving the fictional nature of the broadcast never required much Sherlock Holmes-ing. Many journalists have pointed out that the individuals interviewed in the pseudo-documentary were actually actors, recognizable from other performances. Astronaut “Robert Grodin” was actor and novelist Shane Rimmer, best known to Americans as the voice of “Scott Tracy” in the Thunderbirds TV series. (If you don’t recognize Thunderbirds, ask virtually any male who grew up in an English-speaking household during the late 1960s or early 1970s. Mention the episode where they move the Empire State Building. Watch for the wistful grin.) Scientist “Carl Gerstein” came to us via character actor Richard Marner, Britain’s answer to Werner Klemperer; Marner is best-known for his role as Colonel Von Strohm in a rather annoying 'Britcom' called Allo, Allo. A North African desert, I understand, played Mars.

Even for those unable to recognize the performers, the fake documentary contains many tells. In the finale, the “Soviet mission controllers” speak actual Russian — but their lines, I am told, sound like the work of a first-year student of the language. The film never explains what makes the arid Martian desert, with its unbreathable atmosphere, more livable than any place on a globally-warmed earth — wouldn’t it be easier to set up a habitat in a de-iced Antarctica? Anyone with access to an encyclopedia can quickly determine that no man named Robert Grodin has ever walked on the moon. (The character was obviously inspired by Buzz Aldrin -- who, incidentally, was one of my Mom's old drinking buddies.) My favorite moment in the show occurs during the visit to alcoholic astronaut’s sprawling home: The film-makers can’t resist giving us a glimpse of his ditsy blonde girlfriend, jiggling and oooh-ing like Jayne Mansfield. This, I presume, must be how jealous Brits envision the swankpot lifestyle enjoyed by the undeserving Boobus Americanus.

One subtle give-away appeared in several newspapers on the morning before the program’s first airing. A brief article hyping the broadcast did not disclose the premise, but promised a “scientific puzzle” with an “amazing” finale. Asked about that ending, newscaster Tim Brinton would only say: “I have spent the last six or seven years teaching businessmen the way to appear confident and at ease during television interviews. And applying those same techniques to this programme was fascinating.”

A rather odd statement, coming from a TV journalist supposedly sitting on the scoop of the century. One can only presume that by “techniques,” he meant the ability to spew hooey with a straight face. Brinton later became a Member of Parliament.

Novel ideas

The 1978 book version of Alternative Three kept the myth alive — especially in the United States of America, where few knew about the original television program or the furor it engendered.

The book was packaged by British literary agent Murray Pollinger, who recruited Leslie Watkins, a Fleet Street journalist with an occasional interest in the paranormal, and best-known for an unfortunate encounter with Ugandan dictator Ida Amin. Watkins, who wasn’t in on the original hoax and hadn’t even watched the broadcast, initially turned down the job. His agent eventually talked him into writing the manuscript, which was published by Sphere books (the paperback division of Thomson publishing). Sphere’s editorial director, Nick Austin, had motives beyond the financial: He drew inspiration from Terry Southern’s satirical novel The Magic Christian, about a billionaire with a fondness for elaborate pranks. Austin put the label “speculation” — as opposed to “fiction” — on the cover, a puckish gesture which buttressed the myth and nearly cost him his job.

These men midwived a literary leg-pull that would bamboozle readers in more than a dozen languages throughout the next two decades — even though the book, unlike the pseudo-documentary which begat it, doesn’t even try to pass as real. In a reasonable world, no-one would ever have viewed it as anything but a work of imagination.

Watkins nowadays classifies the piece as a “novel.” While some would disagree with his definition of that word, no-one can deny that novelistic dialogue fills many pages. Unfortunately, many non-fiction writers in the 1970s had a bad habit of juicing up accounts of historical events with “reconstructed” conversations, a technique which obscured the division between reportage and fiction. Readers intent on taking A3 as factual could therefore rationalize the book’s more obviously literary sections as examples of “new journalism” or something similar.

More difficult to explain away is the inappropriate use of British slang — as when Grodin exclaims: “How they’ve got the bloody neck!” Putting a phrase like that into the mouth of an Apollo astronaut takes bloody neck indeed.

The book modifies the A3 mythos with replacement versions of Alternatives One and Two. The real Alternative One, we now learn, involved the use of nuclear devices to blow holes in the ozone layer, allowing carbon dioxide to escape through “chimneys” in the sky — a suggestion which might surprise those of us who thought industrial emissions cause holes in the ozone layer. Alternative Two was the standard “underground civilization” scenario, familiar from the finale of Dr. Strangelove. Watkins never explains why the televised version gives a differing account of the first two alternatives. Neither does he explain a couple of other changes (presumably imposed for legal reasons): Anglia TV — the real-life network behind the documentary — becomes “Sceptre TV,” and narrator Tim Brinton turns into “Simon Butler.”

Watkins introduces a major new character, a whistleblower known only as “Trojan,” who provides transcripts of secret meetings between U.S. and Soviet leaders. These conferences, we learn, occur in submarines beneath Arctic ice. Conveniently, the conspirators never use names: The Americans participants are listed as A1, A2, A3 and so forth, while their Russian counterparts are labeled R1, R2, R3, etc. Unfortunately, Watkins gives his submariners the same sort of veddy English dialogue favored by his astronauts. At one point, A8 says: “Right now, there’s a Secrecy Bill being scrambled on to the Statute Book, and I promise you that’ll close every worrying mouth.” All the American and Russian insiders come off as Machiavellian schemers, and only Brits like Ballantine and “Trojan” ever feel troubled by conscience.

The book expands the basic A3 scenario in imaginative ways. We discover that the U.S. government keeps its real gravity-defying hardware a well-guarded secret; if any civilians spot Uncle Sam’s space patrol, the mythology of alien-piloted UFOs keeps the truth hidden in plain sight. When the Russo-American overlords order an “expediency” — i.e., the murder of a whistleblower — they call for either a “hot job” or a “sleep job.” The former phrase refers to satellite-based laser incineration, thus explaining the phenomenon of Spontaneous Human Combustion. The latter involves telepathic commands to commit suicide.

Worst of all: Trojan discloses that a slave race serves the elites within their Martian stronghold. “Batch consignments,” consisting of abducted earthlings, are taken off-planet and given “scientific adjustments” (presumably a form of lobotomy) which render them servile. Until recently, the plotters often fetched their batches from — you guessed it! — the Bermuda Triangle. Thus unfolds the answer to still another mystery.

The mass-market paperback of Alternative Three became an underground legend, especially when rumors reached the American market that “they” had tried to suppress distribution. Why did so many take this fanciful tale as gospel? Probably because the A3 mythos tapped into a number of hidden anxieties, and provided a unified field theory to explain many disparate mysteries. Despite his difficulty with American idiom, Watkins displayed a true talent for the jargon of techno-tyranny (“expediencies,” “batch consignments,” “scientific adjustments”) and an instinctive ability to give fear-junkies their fix. For the many readers who wanted the book to be true, rationalization eclipsed rationality.

Take, for instance, the A3 view of the UFO mystery. Within the subculture of ufology, a sub-subculture has long maintained that flying saucers are actually covert terrestrial devices, a theory which has the advantage of explaining why so many sightings occur near military bases. “If that’s so,” skeptics traditionally respond, “why keep such an advanced technology hidden?” Alternative Three provides an answer.

Or consider the concept of hot jobs, which riveted the attention of American conspiracy queen Mae Brussell. She had carefully studied Clarence Lazby’s earlier book Project Paperclip, which concerns the (very real) post-W.W.II importation of Nazi scientists into the U.S. scientific establishment. Lazby mentions, en passant, a proposal by German scientists to install orbiting “death ray” devices, similar to those described in Alternative Three. To Brussell’s mind, Watkins’ text had to be the capital-T Truth, because it described the fulfillment of a longstanding fascist scheme. She told her radio audience that the book gave her “the shakes” for a week, an announcement which surely aided the paperback’s sales.

The very phrases “sleep jobs” and “scientific adjustments” speak directly to those conspiracy consumers who view aluminum hats as an important fashion accessory. America hosts a horde of unhappy souls who consider themselves guinea pigs targeted by CIA mind controllers. (In previous centuries, such folk would have considered themselves assailed by demons, not spies.) Watkins, perhaps without realizing what he was doing, gave these people the verification they craved. His descriptions of electronic telepathy proved invaluable to schizophrenics desperate to blame an outside force for the voices within their heads.

Political extremists of both the right and the left found choice material in this book. Far Rightists fixated on the book’s tableau of Soviets and Americans — ostensible enemies — colluding on the highest level of conspiracy. Ambrose, Miles and Watkins had unknowingly stumbled onto the John Birch Society’s foundation myth. Warnings of planetary doom appealed both to fundamentalist Armageddon aficionados weaned on the works of Hal Lindsey, and to the environmentally-fixated folk on the left side of the ideological aisle. Anyone awake during the 1970s will recall how certain ecologists of that time boomed their predictions of planetary collapse by the year 2000 -- an apocalypse that humankind could avert only if it abjured the internal combustion engine. Alternative Three confirmed these well-loved fears. [Note from 2006: I wrote the preceding words some years ago. Planetary collapse is, of course, now beginning to look like a very real possibility.]

Finally, the concept of batch consignments hyperbolizes our anxieties about that great unmentionable, the class system. Alternative Three shouts what other conspiracy books only hint at: The Ruling Elite wants to take us from the world we love, rob us of our identities, and force us into lives of dead labor. Doubt it? Just ask anyone who works in a factory or an office.

The evolution of a legend

As the Alternative Three mythos spread, politicians castigated Sphere Books for not clearly labeling the work as fiction; some even discussed banning it. Of course, such a ban would only have increased the public’s eagerness to believe the rumors swirling around the slim volume. Perhaps the most disturbing rumor held that two of the three listed creators — Watkins, Ambrose and Miles — died mysteriously, soon after publication. Fortunately, all three gentlemen are alive as of this writing.

Watkins became a target for both hatred and adulation. “As a result of that novel,” he once told a lecture audience, “I’ve...been called a con-man and a liar. I’ve also been praised around the world — quite unjustifiably — for my courage in trying to tell the truth.”

One reader’s reaction was especially noteworthy. Watkins told his lecture hall listeners that “I had a phone call from a man who introduced himself as ‘Clancarty.’ He was actually the Earl of Clancarty, who, under the name Brinsley La Poer Trench, had written extensively about UFOs.” More specifically: William Francis, Earl of Clancarty, founder of the UFO research group Contact International, had written such books as The Flying Saucer Story (1966) and Secret of the Ages (1974), and had established a House of Lords All-Party UFO Study Group.

According to Watkins:

He congratulated me on my fearless expose of the ‘disgraceful truth’ and said: ‘We’ve known a little about this for some time, but it wasn’t until I read your book that I realized how deeply Her Majesty’s government is in this disgraceful conspiracy. I intend to raise this matter in the House of Lords.’

Now, my initial feeling was that this was marvelous. What fantastic publicity for my book! But then I had second thoughts. The Earl of Clancarty seemed a decent sort of fellow and he’d look an absolute idiot if he raised this in the House of Lords. So I tried to assure him that it was merely a work of fiction, and I begged him not to bring it up publicly in any attack on the British or American governments.

He refused to believe me, but did promise, at my insistence, not to raise this ‘conspiracy’ in the Lords. For years afterward, however, he kept pestering me to tell him how I’d discovered my facts. ‘My dear fellow, we know each other well enough now, surely. So you can tell me...’

Other readers, hundreds of them from around the world, took a similar line. I was denounced as a coward and a liar when I explained...

Watkins received another call from an amateur researcher who reported that he had tracked down the father of Brian Pendlebury, named in the book as one of the missing scientists now laboring on Mars. This claim intrigued Watkins: Had one of his characters stepped outside the boundaries of fiction, a la The Purple Rose of Cairo? As it turned out, the wanna-be detective had previously made many unwelcome phone calls to a Manchester milkman whose last name happened to be Pendlebury. “That man is so frightened,” the self-appointed sleuth told Watkins, “he won’t even admit he’s got a son named Brian!”

What of the reports that the book experienced mysterious difficulties in distribution? According to former Sphere editor Nick Austin:

I was also delighted when, within weeks of publication, those rumours that have since become an integral part of the A3 mythology began to feed back into the Sphere offices. The lock-up garage “somewhere in North London” stuffed with printers’ packs of the first edition… the pulping on government orders of that same first printing… the clandestine buying up from wholesalers and retailers by secret agents of all available unsold stock (new vistas of lucrative no-risk publishing began to reveal themselves to me)… wondrous stuff, all of it. Crazed, delusional — but pure magic, all the same — and, it cannot be too strongly stressed, genuinely spontaneous. Sphere had neither the time nor the resources to generate this kind of widespread whispering-campaign marketing effort. Anyway, there was obviously no need to.

The suppression legend reached North America in a June, 1979 column in UFO Review by the late Gray Barker, a UFO tale-teller who enjoyed testing the limits of truth’s elasticity. Barker reported that one of his correspondents had attempted to purchase 100 copies of the book from the Canadian firm of Thomas Nelson & Sons, only to receive this reply: “The above title has been banned for sale in the United States.” Similar admonitions turned up elsewhere. For example, one UFO buff found dozens of copies on display in Toronto’s largest department store, where the clerks, sounding rehearsed, told him “This book is banned in the United States.”

These ominous statements had a conventional explanation: Thomas Nelson & Sons could not legally ship copies to the United States, because Avon books owned the U.S. publication rights. Avon — braving spooks, death beams and telepathic assassination — distributed its mass-market paperback version unhindered throughout the land of the free. They must have sold quite a few copies, since their edition of Alternative Three frequently turns up in used book stores throughout the country.

In Britain, the book has had seven printings so far. Most authors would love to undergo similar “suppression.”

Belief in the legend has persisted despite the fact that all three credited creators — Miles, Ambrose and Watkins — have made no secret of the work’s true origin. Christopher Miles, producer of the original film, made no attempt to keep up the façade after the initial broadcast. In correspondence dated October 13, 1980, he disclosed the following to a worried inquirer:

The idea for the film and subsequently the book, was something that David [Ambrose] and I dreamed up over a lunch together in London, as I was getting rather tired of the docu-drama on television and wanted to prove how easy it is to lead the general public up the proverbial garden path! I am sorry that you were one of them and if you look at the film or read the book, you will realise that there are hints of its unauthenticity all the way down the line.

Of course it has a sprinkling of fact in it, but the basic show is a complete hoax and if you think a bit more yourself, you would realise this was the case.

In an interview published the day after the broadcast, David Ambrose put the matter very bluntly: “I am constantly amazed by the gullibility of people. Those upset by this programme are the type who never read the small print on contracts they sign.”

Leslie Watkins also tried to set the record straight. In the early 1980s, he appeared on a now-defunct radio program called “Open Mind,” heard throughout southern California. Although Watkins had intended to discuss another of his works, Mae Brussell called in and diverted the topic to Alternative Three. “It’s a work of fiction,” Watkins said adamantly. Oh no it’s not, Mae responded (though not in those exact words), firing off the links she perceived between Alternative Three and Lazby’s Project Paperclip. Watkins, perhaps growing testy at his inability to get a word in edgewise, could only repeat that the book was a product of imagination and speculation.

But was it only that? At some point, Watkins himself began to sense something uncanny behind the project. In a widely-republished 1989 letter to a correspondent, Watkins wrote:

The TV programme did cause a tremendous uproar because viewers refused to believe it was fiction. I initially took the view that the basic premise was so way-out, particularly the way I aimed to present it in the book, that no one would regard it as non-fiction. Immediately after publication, I realized that I was totally wrong. In fact, the mountains of letters from virtually all parts of the world — including vast numbers from highly intelligent people in positions of responsibility — convinced me that I had ACCIDENTALLY trespassed into a range of top-secret truths.

Documentary evidence provided by many of these correspondents decided me to write a serious and COMPLETELY NON-FICTION sequel. Unfortunately, a chest containing the bulk of the letters was among the items which were mysteriously LOST IN TRANSIT some four years [ago?] when I moved from London, England, to Sydney, Australia, before I moved on to settle in New Zealand. For some time after Alternative 3 was originally published, I have reason to suppose that my home telephone was being tapped and my contacts who were experienced in such matters were convinced that certain intelligence agencies considered that I probably knew too much.

Some regard this statement skeptically. In Fortean Times #66, commentator Bill Ellis quoted this same letter, and accused of Watkins playing coy about exactly which parts of the book had some basis in truth: “It is, of course, hard to say whether this coyness is based on Watkins’s actual beliefs or his desire to sell more copies of his book to conspiracy buffs.”

I consider this reaction too cynical. Still, the reader should keep in mind that a fresh interest in Alternative Three swept America’s underground during the late 1980s and early 1990s. At that time, the Roswell and MJ12 controversies opened the way for the outrageous rabble-rousings of Milton William Cooper, whose well-attended UFO/conspiracy lectures included many a riff cribbed from his predecessors in paranoia. Cooper assured his listeners that the “Grudge/Bluebook 13” report, which he purportedly read while in the service, verified Alternative Three. Despite the utter lack of evidence that any such “Grudge/Bluebook 13” report ever existed, and despite copious evidence that “Bill” Cooper was the biggest blowhard since the twister that nabbed Dorothy, his recommendation encouraged many Americans to order the book from its British publisher. I doubt that the re-invigorated sales saddened Watkins, or that he donated his royalty checks to charity.

Even so, I don’t question the sincerity of Watkins’ belief that he stumbled onto a significant covert truth or two. He offered further explanations in the previously-quoted lecture:

Thanks largely to material I received after the book was published, I have become convinced that the superpowers have been — and still are — co-operating in a conspiracy of silence. But it is not the evil, baleful one people believe I presented in my novel Alternative 3. I had planned to write a follow-up book, Backlash to Alternative 3, using much of the material supplied by readers to examine the real truth of this conspiracy....

Many people may find it impossible to believe that there could have been secret cooperation between America and Russia. The fallacy of that belief was exposed, as many of you will know, by Major George Racey Jordan, who, for two years — May 1942 to June 1944 — was America’s top liaison man with the Russians over Lend-Lease. His diaries, “Major Jordan’s Diaries,” as they’re known, show that top-secret information and materiel to make nuclear weapons was then being furtively supplied the Russians, and this, according to Major Jordan, was not just a wartime practice. It was known to have continued after it became public knowledge, thanks largely to his courageous expose...

Unfortunately, Watkins has bumped into a now-obscure Cold War artifact without understanding the political environment which produced it. Air Force Major George Jordan’s alleged “diaries” grew out of his testimony to the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee, which had, by 1949, devolved into a highly partisan exercise against New Deal holdovers. After the Soviet Union tested their first atomic bomb, anyone involved in the W.W.II-era Lend-Lease program with the U.S.S.R. became a potential target of the anti-Communist witch-hunters. Major Jordan deflected attack by telling HUAC what he thought it wanted to hear, making scandalous claims about his former superiors in the Roosevelt administration. The Major undermined his own credibility over the course of three hearings; the more he spoke, the more he “recalled” things contrary to his previous testimony and to the documentation he produced during the 1942-44 period. A congressional inquiry debunked his allegations concerning wartime activities, while his views on post-war U.S.-Soviet contacts never amounted to anything more than opinion. Moreover, those claims — even if accepted at face value — offer no proof whatsoever that the U.S. and the Soviet Union secretly communicated about UFOs, or about anything else pertinent to Alternative Three.

Once we cast away these McCarthy-era leftovers, what remains on our plate? We have Leslie Watkins’ view of the top-secret truth lurking behind his fiction, which comes down to a few unsurprising ideas. Essentially, he seems to believe that UFOs exist. He accepts some variant of the extra-terrestrial hypothesis, and he suspects that the world’s governments have colluded to withhold the truth about alien visitation. His is a familiar position. But it is a position far removed from what we read in Alternative Three.

Of course, a tenacious buff would simply argue that “they” (that is, the conspirators) must have leaned on Watkins, Miles, Ambrose et al, forcing them to change their story.

Just such a claim crops up in a UFO conspiracy lecture given by a man who calls himself "Captain" Bill Robertson. In a 1990 videotape, Robertson alleges that the "station" which broadcast the original show was

told to admit to the public that these programs were all a hoax or they'd lose their license. And they must fire the reporters who were working on it... The book was then written by the two reporters or three reporters that were fired. OK? Now that's how the Alternative Three book came about."

How can one respond to such inane assertions? Never mind the fact that only one program existed, never mind the fact that neither Miles nor Ambrose functioned as "reporters" in the conventional sense, never mind the fact that neither man was fired or threatened with firing, and never mind the fact that the sole writer of the book was Watkins, who had nothing to do with the original broadcast. Never mind all that. Let us concentrate, for the moment, on the allegation that the U.K. government threatened the "station" (presumably, this means Anglia TV) with the loss of its "license." Wouldn’t any attempt to carry out such a threat have increased the publicity given Alternative Three? Rather poor cover-up tactics!

In his video presentation, Robertson goes on to "reveal" that the televised Alternative Three was yanked off the air just before the Mars footage appeared on screen. (Not true: The ersatz video unspoiled before the eyes of millions of viewers in 1977.) Robertson then shows the landing footage -- which, needless to say, he culled from a tape of the original broadcast. (As noted earlier, many such tapes circulate underground.) He then offers this classic analysis:

Look, let's first of all examine the possibility that this was made in Hollywood. If they did make it in Hollywood what would be the point of making it so secret that they had to kill people to keep it from being known?

Of course, Robertson never names these alleged homicide victims. Why let mere matters of fact spoil the pleasant tingle of fear?

Paranoid Styles

Which brings us to a fear-marketeer of singular irresponsibility: Jim Keith, the author of a work called Casebook on Alternative 3, which has carried the A3 mythos into the 21st century. Keith, who passed away in 1999, exemplified a phenomenon sometimes called “fusion paranoia.”

The term “fusion paranoia” first appeared in a June 19, 1995 New Yorker article by Michael Kelly, which discussed “views that have long been shared by both the far right and the far left, and that in recent years have come together, in a weird meeting of the minds, to become one, and to permeate the mainstream of American politics and popular culture.” This description is somewhat misleading. Until very recent times, American extremists on the left and right shared hardly any fundamental views, beyond a basic anxiety about outside forces subverting our political systems. Those furthest to the left have traditionally seen the subverting force as either resurgent fascism or multinational corporatism, while those furthest to the right usually target communism and “international Jewry.” The extreme rightists long ago learned to disguise their anti-Semitism with euphemistic assaults on “international bankers” and “the New World Order.” This deceptive terminology opened the way for popular fusionists like Jim Keith — who, in his lust for unconventional wisdom, tried to reconcile the intrinsically irreconcilable, conflating anti-fascist fears with neo-fascist propaganda.

Keith’s motives, insofar as I could gauge them, always seemed akin to addiction. Shock was his smack. He grasped at any idea, assertion or factoid that might assail bourgeois beliefs, rarely worrying whether the “forbidden” substance reflected truth, deception, liberalism, conservatism, socialism, National Socialism, or anything resembling common sense. Verifiability and ideological consistency were for the straights and the rubes: Like any dope fiend, Keith cared for nothing except the rush.

His Casebook on Alternative 3 epitomizes this approach, resulting in one of the oddest concoctions in the history of parapolitical literature. Keith launches his investigation with these words:

While perfectly secure in my knowledge that the TV show and the book are basically yellow journalism using scare tactics to make a pound, I am a little shocked to realize that, at most levels anyways, the revelations of Alternative 3 are also true.

He then fills the next 150-or-so pages with a data-dump culled from any number of previously published sources, some valid and some silly. (The lack of proper citations doesn’t help the reader discriminate). Most of the topics under discussion bear only a tenuous relationship to Watkins’ “novel.” Keith assails his readers with goose-pimpling tales about secret societies, Armageddon, the Council on Foreign Relations, Nazi scientists, Vatican skullduggery, crop circles, MK-Ultra, CIA drug smuggling, Jonestown as a mind control experiment, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Biosphere II, clandestine Kubrick-style bases on the moon, cattle mutilations, sex education in our schools (an idea which seems to horrify the prudish Keith ), alleged UFO sightings during project Apollo, and much more. A few of his disconnected claims may have some basis in fact — unfortunately, in a stew of this sort, even the healthy ingredients look unappealing after simmering in such a greasy broth.

Despite his anti-fascist pose, Keith cites, and even praises, such writers as Michael Hoffman and Nesta Webster. Readers never learn that Hoffman is a notorious Holocaust revisionist, and a proponent of various ultra-reactionary canards. Nor do they learn that Webster was a fanatical anti-Semite, the doyenne of the British Fascists and a supporter of Hitler. (She was also the sort of loony who routinely answered the door with a gun in her hand.) The book’s claims about freemasonry — particularly in the passages castigating Winston Churchill — echo the obscene falsehoods featured in Third Reich propaganda. It is more than a little unnerving to watch Keith ape George Seldes on one page and Father Coughlin on the next. “Fusion paranoia” seems too weak a phrase to describe the literary equivalent of Multiple Personality Disorder.

But Keith’s irresponsibility goes beyond such fusionist foibles when he argues that Leslie Watkins wrote Alternative Three at the CIA’s behest, as an “expression of Nazi occult doctrine”:

The possibility exists that Alternative 3 was created as ‘grey’ disinformation, calculated to confuse and defuse the issues of elitist control, mind control, genocide, and secret space programs, by revealing yet concealing these truths. The purpose would be to discredit these subjects and shunt debate into conclaves of UFO True Believers, who could be counted on to hallucinate, embroider and heavily merchandise the information, thus continuing the work of the disinformers.

One could, with as much justification (or as little), level similar charges against Jim Keith himself, given his demonstrated talents for both embroidery and merchandising.

Naturally, Keith’s spook-baiting outraged Leslie Watkins, who has denied being either a CIA operative or a Nazi. I can understand Watkins’ anger, but there’s really no point in mounting a response to such allegations. By the time he wrote his book, Jim Keith had fallen prey to a troubling affliction some call “sick think.” This is paranoia in its most advanced and crippling form: Angst raised to DefCon 3.

A person suffering from garden-variety paranoia can function in life more-or-less normally, although on the field of intellectual battle he will often infer a nefarious hidden agenda on the part of anyone who opposes his viewpoint. Most of us fall into this mind-set at one time or another. When a newspaper columnist defends a large corporation accused of gross environmental pollution, who doesn’t suspect the writer of taking a secret pay-off? Low-level paranoia can prove a useful survival trait in today’s world, provided it comes in measured doses; reckless application usually brings more discredit to the accuser than to the accused.

Sick think goes further. A sick-thinker automatically suspects the worst of not just his opponents, but of anyone on his side. A good illustration occurs in the film Conspiracy Theory. At one point in the movie, Mel Gibson’s character asserts that director Oliver Stone must be a secret functionary of the very same conspiracy that killed President Kennedy — for how else could Stone tell so much truth and live?

Sick think is an occupational hazard of the counter-espionage professional, as any biography of CIA counter-intelligence chief James Jesus Angleton will demonstrate. Angleton’s epic mistrust of his fellow CIA personnel crippled the very Agency he served. Ironically, sick think also tends to waylay those civilians who study and/or oppose the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, and similar organizations. The identical question haunts both spook and anti-spook: “Is my friend really my friend?” Many politically-oriented researchers, activists and organizers have ruined their lives, and the lives of others, once the earwig of suspicion has burrowed into their brains.

Anyone writing on certain outside-the-mainstream topics will inevitably face “spook” allegations, regardless of the writer’s background or stance. Such is the nature of advanced paranoia: Vietnam-era protestors frequently went to war against their fellow marchers, JFK assassination researchers loathe each other with a passion they would never feel toward the grassy knoll triggerman, and even Bigfoot investigators have been known to suspect their compatriots of being CIA infiltrators out to suppress the straight dope on Sasquatch.

Leslie Watkins told conspiracy buffs something they wanted to hear; for precisely that reason, he became one more victim of sick think.

One last mystery

Radical paranoia breeds best in those places where deception and double-dealing have actually occurred. It is fitting, then, to close our investigation of Alternative Three by noting a follow-up fraud (at least I presume it is a fraud) that has intrigued me for the past dozen years. This document has, until now, remained known to only a handful of individuals, although a brief snippet somehow made its way into Keith’s book.

Nota bene: I do not believe the story you are about to read; the scientific claims are obvious tosh. And yet the writer seems motivated by neither prankishness nor psychosis. What, then, was his motive?

The document takes the form of a handwritten letter — dated December 5, 1988 — addressed to radio broadcaster Mae Brussell, who probably would have given it widespread publicity, had she not died roughly a month previously. One might label this piece an “almost-was” hoax; Brussell was both an intended victim, and a potential conduit to others. The writer used the name “Michael Johnson,” although he makes clear that this is a pseudonym.

Even though my files bulge with oddities, this item has always seemed particularly intriguing, despite the text’s many absurdities — or, perhaps, because of them. In the original, the handwriting remains strong and careful throughout, while the style and grammar speak of a rational man. Moreover, the writer encourages follow-up research, providing contact information for two private individuals — a technician at Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a former FBI agent — one of whom (the FBI agent) provably existed. (I do not give their full names here.) If this document isn’t the work of a joker or a madman, we can fairly conclude that someone made a deliberate, serious attempt to foist a deception on the public, using the broadcaster as his conduit.

But to what end? Judge for yourself:

Dear Mrs. Brussell,

Recently, while reading through an old copy of Critique, and then again in the Journal of Borderland Sciences, I came across your name in a reference to an “Update” you offer on the Alternative Three mystery. As such, I would certainly like to obtain this for my files, since I have been collecting related materials since the early 60s when my father worked as a designer for NASA. He was part of a team that designed the LEM module, and he told me some pretty hair-raising stories of the astronauts’ “close encounters” on the Moon.

Then, in the Feb/Mar 1983 issue of Mother Jones (pg. 10) I came across a very strange article entitled “Refugees on Mars: FDR’s Secret Plan,” outlining something called the “M Project.” This got me to recalling an event that had occurred to me several years earlier, something I think you might be interested in.

Back during 1978 or thereabouts I happened on a copy of a paperback book, Alternative 3, which detailed some of the things my father had told me years earlier in New York, specifically that the government had cracked the secret of anti-gravity and that the military had disc-shaped aircraft.

He had also told me that NASA had evidence of lights having been seen on the Moon for centuries and that they had been recovering coded signals from Mars and other planets, as well, at Aricibo.

Anyway, a month or so later I happened to be talking with an old Pan Am Captain friend of mine when he mentioned seeing a fantastic program on British TV. He had a home there in London at the time and he said that both he and his son had watched this NASA exposé called the Alternative 3 Project. He said many Britishers believed the subject matter since it was so authoritatively presented.

A short time after that, I found myself up in Twin Falls, Idaho, on a business trip and I was introduced to a gal — about 40 — who worked as a sometime DJ at a nearby radio station. After several drinks, and discussion about this and that, I thought I would impress her by mentioning that I had worked once as a Congressional liaison to the Pentagon for Nixon’s Congressman during the early years of the Watergate fiasco, and that my then-wife had worked as secretary to Donald Segretti, head of CREEP, in the Naval Annex. She was completely nonplussed at this.

Then, after another drink or two, she told me — somewhat hesitantly — that she too had worked at the Pentagon — behind the “Green Door” — as a cryptoanalyst for Military Intelligence, and as personal secretary to an Admiral. This, she said, was during the late ‘50s. And she said that after having helped uncover a Soviet “mole” within her Top Secret Department, she was promoted and later offered a very interesting assignment — in California.

By this time I was so intrigued that I found and set up my tape recorder and flipped it on — covertly, of course. By now she was really getting interesting, and we had become a little more cozy. And since I had once also worked as an Investigative Reporter for four years (in Boston), covering political subversion in high places, assassinations, espionage, etc, I felt that I had here the genesis of a hell of a story. And subsequently I was able to get her story on tape.

To get back to her story, she told me that she moved out to Southern California to accept her new assignment, sometime during 1962 I believe, and started working for the Jet Propulsion Labs there in Pasadena. She was assigned to a highly classified section of the plant as a photo interpreter and eventually became head of that department, where she met her future husband. She said that while her function was to scan and interpret all incoming photographs taken of the Moon and Mars, with “high-resolution” photography techniques and equipment aboard satellites (orbiting the Moon and Mars) — her husband worked in another department as a designer. His function was to design domed, modular living facilities for “Colonies” of earth scientists to be stationed on the Moon, and then Mars! She said that the secret name of this amazing project was: “Project Adam & Eve.” Needless to say, I about fell off the couch.

She told me that her husband, who had many degrees — and was an “egghead” type — was designing these domed structures (and all the life-support systems inside and out) because no other type of housing would suffice. It seems that one of their rocket probes had found that due to the gale force velocity of the winds of Mars, no other structures would hold up, and underground structures were ruled out. In her photo-interpretation work she said she had enhanced the pix to such a fine degree that evidence of ancient civilizations of some kind was readily discernible on both the Moon and Mars, that there was a green vegetation belt on Mars (with “life forms”), that both pyramids and a human face carved into a huge mountain chain were observed!! She said that there was evidence of water, an atmosphere, and almost normal gravity on both the Moon and Mars, from the Pix and other data she was privy to, amazing as all that sounds.

She told me that throughout the plant where she worked there were numerous high-ranking officers, Generals and Admirals, and that each department was color-coded — so that a specific colored badge had to be worn at all times. I believe the badges were magnetic, too, and had a current photo of each worker — with his or her code number.

Sometime later on, she said, her husband and several other key assistants were chosen for an even more secret project (within this Top Secret Project) — and off he went to parts unknown. And she never saw him again. When she kept asking where he was she was consistently told that his whereabouts were on a need to know basis. For the next year or so she received letters from him of a general nature but no hint of where he was. One day, she was informed that he had been killed and that they were very sorry. But they refused to give her any more information than that, or even to [let her] see the body or have normal funeral arrangements.

Finally, due to her constant questioning, they yanked her Q clearance and she was fired. She had had to sign an oath that she would not reveal what her job had been. Sometime later, after making a lot of phone calls trying to track down some answers, there were several attempts on her life — including a near-fatal car accident. As she told me then, she ended up leaving Pasadena in the middle of the night — with her children in tow — and headed for Idaho, where her parents lived. When I asked, jokingly, if she thought maybe her husband and the others had been drafter to go to Vietnam, she stared at me for a blank moment and replied: “No, I think he was drafted to Mars!” And she was deadly serious.

Sometime shortly after this midnight “interview,” after returning to Salt Lake City, I simply had to share this incredible tale with someone — so I loaned the tape to an old friend of mine, an ex-FBI Special Agent who lived in California. And I asked him to check out the story through his connections. It was a very stupid thing to do, for (you guessed it) he then promptly “lost” the tape! There went my story.

Mae, should you wish to follow up on this, I would be happy to give you both their names. For reasons I can’t disclose, I am in no position to follow up on anything at the moment. The gal’s name was Jolly S. [full name withheld], and the last I heard, she was still working in Twin Falls selling advertising. The other’s name was Neil M. [full name withheld], and the last I heard, he was at [address withheld], West Covina, California. Neil, upon retirement, had gone to work in Las Vegas as a bodyguard for Howard Hughes.

Please, do not publish or mention their names for obvious reasons. That is, unless you get their permission. My real name is not really important. As a reporter, I had some 50 exposés published over a 4 year period, and I thought I had heard it all. Since then, I have run somewhat afoul of the powers that be and I am now writing a book, entitled The Dark Side of the Force, re my experiences over the years. Keep up the good work, and carry on the fight for a non-Soviet America. Sorry to say, I have been completely knocked out of the box after one too many exposés.

Sincerely,

“Michael Johnson”

El Paso, Texas

Again, let me emphasize: The above claims are obviously false. (If you suspect otherwise, ask any high school science teacher to explain why the Moon can’t have Earth-like gravity.) Just as obvious is the fact that the writer of this letter knew little about Mae Brussell, who probably would have rolled her eyes at the “non-Soviet America” remark.

Can we therefore dismiss this correspondence as a joke?

In my view, a mere leg-puller probably wouldn’t have advised an outside investigator to seek out two real-life individuals for confirmation. Former FBI agent “Neil M.” did indeed reside at the address given; the woman who lived in that house when I knocked on the door in the year 2000 told me that he had moved away in 1990. (She does not know where he went.) I tried to locate him via the Society for Former Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but they provided no help. Attempts to track down “Jolly S.” also came up goose eggs; no-one at JPL’s employment office recognized the name, and various internet searches proved useless. Nevertheless, I suspect that a woman by that name did once exist.

When investigation ends, speculation takes over. I sometimes picture “Michael Johnson” as a social scientist engaged in a field experiment, an inquiry into the very nature of rumor. Perhaps the intention was to cull data about rapidity of dissemination and depth of belief. Whatever his motive, “Johnson” has given the Alternative Three mythos one last, lingering mystery.