Conspiracy Theories Which Were True

When people talk about conspiracies some think they are what is commonly known as nut cases. It is true some people do see conspiracies under every rock, but it is also true some of the conspiracies which have been laughed about in the past have turned out to be true. One way to try and bury a conspiracy theory is to ridicule the idea and to encourage those who don’t believe any conspiracy theory to join in. This is known as a disinformation campaign and may also include false evidence, false statements supposedly made by others and other devices. Conspiracy is nothing new, it has been happening for thousands of years and by its very nature it was covered up many times successfully but sometimes we found out about it.

In the Spanish American War we were told the Spanish blew up the battleship Maine. It had exploded in Havana harbor. It was never proved the Spanish sunk the ship. Americans immediately blamed the Spanish and we went to war. The citizenry were inflamed by articles which were purposely aimed at making the Spanish look guilty. The charge was led by William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, they headed the New York Journal and the New York World newspapers. Members of the government supported them including the Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt who attacked President McKinley who was trying to calm the situation. Ships of that era had problems and it is believed the Maine’s magazine exploded from within. A board of inquiry could not prove the Spanish sunk the ship and it was known ships which used bituminous coal were in danger, because this type of coal is known for releasing firedamp, a gas which causes spontaneous explosions. The government went along with the papers anyway and war was declared.

How many times were we told we do not torture anyone? It is a shame to admit, but we have found out that not only were we torturing people, but we had torture prisons in many different countries not just at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Some people had suspected what was going on, but it was denied vehemently every time. One would have thought the idea of Americans doing this so ridiculous it couldn’t be true, because it is against everything this country was said to stand for. Enter Edward Snowden who had worked for the National Security Agency and defected. To the shame of us all his information was verifiable and it proved we indeed were torturers. Prior to this the charges had been denied as people who claimed they were true were called nothing but conspiracy theorists of the worst type. One of the problems we have is with so called skeptics who are really on a payroll and their job is to make anything which looks like it could be true sound like nonsense if the government feels it is against its interest.

For about twenty years the CIA ran a program known as MK-Ultra. It was top secret and since there was no Internet yet it was very easy to keep secret. The program ran from the 1950s to about the 1970s. The purpose of the program was to see what the effects of drugs like LSD would be on the human body and if they could be used in some way on communist spies and others. Everyone in the program was sworn to secrecy. One of the problems with the program was the CIA would slip LSD into its employees drinks to see what would happen. One man, biochemist Frank Olson died as a direct result of the experiments. The CIA listed his death as a suicide, but others called it murder. Olson was at a retreat where the drug was used on him. After ingesting the LSD Olson threw himself out of a high window. The cover story was he had a nervous breakdown. Anyone who spoke about the death and claimed it was murder was called a conspiracy nut. Finally the Rockefeller Commission looked into the death and exposed the entire conspiracy.

One conspiracy had to do with the pitiful treatment of people during the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. The study, to our never ending shame, was carried out by the United States Public Health Service. It lasted from 1932 to 1972 an incredibly long time. African American men who had syphilis were told they were being treated. About 400 of them were in the study. Many were not treated at all and were only observed to see how the syphilis progressed. The study was supposed to last 6 months. About half of the men died during the study. Anyone who complained about this study was called a conspiracy theorist, but the study was not widely known about and it was in later years when most of us found out about it.

What do you do when you are President Johnson and you want to get us in a war with North Vietnam? You lie. President Johnson went on television and told the world U.S. ships were attacked by the North Vietnamese in the Gulf of Tonkin. We then sent troops to that country and eventually cost 128,650 American casualties and deaths and a total of 1,313,000 deaths overall. All of our death were in support of a corrupt South Vietnamese government. The NSA claimed a second Gulf of Tonkin incident took place, but this was proven false also. In 1995 former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara met with former Vietnam People’s Army General VΓµ NguyΓªn GiΓ¡p and asked him about what happened in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964 and GiΓ¡p replied the attack was imaginary. A report in 2005 by the National Security Agency historical study was declassified and it concluded the Maddox which claimed to have engaged the North Vietnamese Navy on August 2 fired a couple of warning shots, but there was no naval battle and that no North Vietnamese naval vessels were present when the naval battle of August 4 was supposed to have taken place. The initial firing of warning shots on August 2 were never reported to the Johnston administration.

There are a lot of conspiracy theories today and one of the most famous ones involves 9/11 and exactly what happened and who was responsible. Ron Paul is said to be pushing to release 28 secret documents about the event and many claim it was a false flag operation. Quite a few scientists and engineers have claimed the towers were part of a demolition event and there are quite a few reasons to suspect the story we have been told is either not the entire truth or completely false. This also applies to the attack on the Pentagon. Is this going to be another conspiracy theory which turns out to be true?