This week I just finished watching an excellent six part series, Evidence of Revision, covering various conspiracy theories.  Profiled are assassinations of John F. Kennedy in 1963, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King in 1968, and the Jonestown Guyana suicides of 1978.  

A conspiracy, as defined in the dictionary, is "an evil, unlawful, treacherous, or surreptitious plan formulated in secret by two or more persons."   A conspiracy, by definition, needs at least two people.  A wrongdoer cannot conspire by himself.   A conspiracy theory, by extension, is a posited story about such an unlawful or treacherous plan.  

The official stories explaining John F. Kennedy's, Robert Kennedy's, and Martin Luther King's assassinations and the Jonestown residents' mass suicide are, therefore, not conspiracies at all, because each of these atrocities can be pinned to one man working solo.  Lee Harvey Oswald,, Sirhan Sirhan, and James Earl Ray, by official accounts, were the lone gunmen responsible for JFK's, RFK's, and King's deaths, respectively.   Jim Jones, as the hypnotic leader of the Peoples Temple, apparently convinced his flock to follow him over to the Other Side after he had a visiting congressman and several others killed.

9-11 is the most recent major conspiracy to command serious attention.  The official story for this one is, technically, a conspiracy theory because more than two people conspired to make it happen.  The official (conspiracy) theory states that 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four passenger jets.  Two were commandeered into the World Trade Center towers and one hit the side of the Pentagon. 

And yet few would view the official 9-11 story as a conspiracy theory.   They would just call the most commonly accepted view the official story.  The term 'conspiracy theory' has rather negative connotations.  A conspiracy theory is considered a way-out there story, a fringe theory bordering on the preposterous. 

When watching Evidence of Revision and other newer documentaries about the 9-11 attacks, when presented with the facts, one can't help but comment that it's the official stories that look preposterous.  I won't go into how the official stories in all these cases are full of holes.  Other websites, books, and documentaries cover that in full detail.  Recently, I tried to direct a friend to some of that material to outline why the 9-11 story, as told by the government, doesn't hold water.  He believes the official version of events for all the above incidents, as far as I know.   His logic is that the U.S. government is too incompetent to pull off covert assassinations and plane hijackings and that if conspiracies were truly behind the events, too many people would have to be involved, the extent of the cover up would have to be so great, that the truth would eventually emerge as those-in-the-know broke their silence.

Those two arguments collapse almost immediately.  Yes, the U.S. government is incompetent.  It's fiscally incompetent, it deregulates financial industries which later caused the savings & loan debacle in the 1980's and the subprime mortgage mess recently, and it overpays politicians for producing very little value.  I would call all these areas purposeful incompetence instead of sheer ineptitude.  The government and most of those higher ups working for it serve the interests of lobbyists and powerful backers, not the people who allegedly elect it.   Those in the government are actually quite competent at being purposely incompetent.  And the U.S. government, along with its investigative and intelligence agencies, is extremely competent at achieving their own objectives most of the time.  They failed to assassinate or oust Fidel Castro, but they got rid of Mosaddegh in Iran, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and Noriega in Panama when they wanted to. 

As for too many people knowing about such a massive secret to keep a lid on it, I'll just repeat an argument posed by theologian David Ray Griffin.  The Manhattan Project that led to the development of the first atomic bomb employed more than 100,000 people and cost more than $24bn in today's money, and yet Vice President Harry Truman didn't find out about it until after he became president.   Far less than 100,000 people would've been required to execute assassinations and plane hijackings. 

After viewing all these documentaries about conspiracies, whether you believe in conspiracy theories or not, you begin to see common threads in them all and realize it isn't as difficult as one might imagine to execute one.  Here's a short cut guide to planning your own conspiracy plot.   Insure you have a large budget and lots of connections across various industries.

FIRST STEP:  EXTENSIVE PRE-PLANNING THROUGH COVERT OPERATIONAL BRANCHES

For a secret operation to remain secret, it obviously cannot be planned out in the open.  Official channels can't know about it and must always have an option of plausible deniability.    If power brokers want to assassinate a foreign leader or even a domestic one like JFK, the idea can't be vetted through Congress for a vote.   Private subcontractors like the mob or ex-military must be recruited.

Diligently choose the proper venue.  Assassinating JFK in Texas made the cover up infinitely easier than if he'd been shot in Massachusetts or New York.  Some venues will provide more chaos, an easier escape route for the real culprits, and better support for the subsequent steps.  

SECOND STEP:   SET UP THE PATSY

Even before the first bullet has been shot or building bombed, significant time must be spent in setting up a back story that the press can easily reprint without question afterwards.  Lee Harvey Oswald (JFK's alleged assassin) defected to the Soviet Union in 1959, four years before JFK was killed, making it very easy to paint him as an anarchic Communist later.  Sirhan Sirhan (RFK's assassin) was a Jordanian citizen.  It's irrelevant that he's a Christian and that the Muslim-Jewish issue in Israel wouldn't have incited him like it might an Islamic Jordanian.  When the press got hold of the story afterwards, him originally being from the Middle East was enough to sketch out a motive.  James Earl Ray (King's supposed assassin) was an escaped convict, a societal outcast.   No would question that this felon didn't really do it.  The 9-11 perpetrators were portrayed officially as Islamic fundamentalists with a deep hatred of the West.   Why wouldn't they attack symbols of Western capitalism and government?

Detailed character development isn't necessary.   Think of this as a Hollywood action film.  Good and evil are clearly defined, and cruel intentions, however shallow, are obvious.  Keep the bad guy(s) one dimensional.

Insure there is plentiful written, photographic, fingerprint, or video surveillance 'evidence' linking the patsy to the crime.   Subtlety not required.   Sirhan Sirhan had written in his diary that Robert Kennedy must die by June 5, 1968.   James Earl Ray's fingerprints were all over possessions left near the boarding house from where King was supposedly shot. A 9-11 hijacker had his fully intact passport fall out of the World Trading Center's fire and land, unburnt, on the ground.  You can plant the evidence, brainwash the patsy, or enlist him in what he thinks is a completely different plan. It'll be all the same to him dead or on fifty consecutive life sentences.  This evidence should be easy to find and unambiguous to interpret, so that the crime can ideally be "solved" within 24-48 hours. 

THIRD STEP:  CONTROL THE INVESTIGATION  

The crime has been committed.   If major carnage has resulted or major personalities murdered, a thorough investigation is bound to take place.   Thorough investigations can prove a bullet was fired from a particular place that's at odds with the official story.  It can show bomb explosive residues in the (9-11) wreckage.  If all these leads get chased up, the official story buckles, and you'll get caught.

If you're a fine conspiracy planner, the investigations shouldn't go this far.   You'd use the FBI to control the subsequent investigation.  If you chose your assassination/bombing venue well, you'd have contacts in the local police force to steer the investigation off course or halt further inquiries.  The great news is that there's no need to control everyone.  If the higher ups are under your thumb, they can intimidate the lower tiered officers to fall into line. 

FOURTH STEP:  SUPPRESS CONTRADICTORY INFORMATION

No matter how well you've conspired on your plot, no matter how brilliant or convincing your patsy back story, because your story is a fabrication, it's impossible to plug every single hole.  There will be inconsistencies.  In the JFK assassination, you had eyewitnesses swear they heard gunshots come from the grassy knoll.  In the RFK assassination, witnesses say they saw an attractive woman in a polka dotted dress flee the scene shouting, "We shot Kennedy!" Police accounted for more than 8 bullets. That was a real doozy!  The gun Sirhan Sirhan was wielding could only fire eight, so where did those other bullets come from?   On 9-11, firefighters vouch they heard explosions, like detonations, going off in the base of the buildings. 

You can't get all these people to keep their mouths shut and stop disseminating genuine info.  Luckily, you don't have to.  You have an easier option.  Just ignore their testimony. 

You ignore it, first, by having those controlling the investigation not follow up on or officially print any statements which contradict the official story.   Then, you have your cronies in the media repeatedly present your version of events, so often that it becomes the gospel.   Initially, when the event is first reported, glimmers of the truth will be seen.  After the JFK assassination, the national news outlets reported that a German Mauser rifle was used for the slaying.   Not long after, the story was instantly revised, with no explanation, that the rifle was actually an Italian-made Carcano-type Model 91/38.  How could the press make such a glaring error?  Easy, if JFK was really shot with a Mauser but you had mail order and photographic 'evidence' of your patsy with a Carcano.

Right after the horrific event occurs, the press will be on the scene well before full suppression can take place.  In prior eras, this was no problem.  Contradictory information might be aired until it was later revised to fit the circumstances of the official story.  The official story would be repeated ad infinitum until the originally presented information was all but forgotten.   Today, with the internet and the ability to circulate information widely and quickly, contradictions can't be covered up so cleanly.  It's far more important to initiate the investigate control virtually at the moment the event occurs so that the contradictory (i.e. real) information barely has time to surface before it's suppressed.

Still, with any conspiracy, you can't suppress everything, and for that, there are old standby techniques to get the official story to stick.  Witnesses who refuse to recant their original stories can be intimidated, harassed, discredited, or eliminated if they continue to remain a thorn in the side of the official version. Usually, this isn't be necessary.   As the media continues to propagate in drips and drabs the official story over and over and over again, most of the public will believe it.  It's not necessary that everyone does. 

FIFTH STEP:  BE IN CHARGE OF THE COMMISSION OR ORGANIZATION WHICH INVESTIGATES THE EVENT

Forming a commission to get to the bottom of the matter, while a farce, is absolutely critical to make the official story officially official.   You would put friends and cronies in charge and try to staff as many of the commission members with your own lackeys.  Your stooges would guarantee that only certain questions got asked and answered.  President Lyndon B. Johnson, fingered as a culprit in JFK's assassination, formed and manipulated the Warren Commission.   Bush lover Philip Zelikow was chosen to be director of the 9/11 Commission.   As a result, Bush and Vice President Cheney were interviewed together by the commission and not under oath.  Without a puppet running your commission, the commission may actually pick up and investigate discrepancies, and your goose could get cooked.

The Commission would blatantly ignore any contradictory information in their findings which happened to get past the fourth step. 

The Commission report should be long, boring, and tedious to read.  The Warren Commission report was 888 pages.  The 9/11 Commission Report is over 600 pages.  Remember, you don't actually want anyone to read your report.  You only published it in the first place to create an illusion of transparency.   If it happens to sell a lot of copies and earn great royalties, all the better.  Make a fanfare about donating a portion of those to a charity for the victims.  If you control the charity, too, administrative costs can eat up most of that donation and go right back into your pocket. 

SIXTH STEP:  DEPENDING UPON HOW RESISTANT THE PUBLIC IS TO YOUR OFFICIAL STORY, REINFORCE IT FROM TIME TO TIME WITH FURTHER DOCUMENTARIES, MOVIES, BOOKS

Pulling off an assassination in the 1960's and getting the public to believe the official story was relatively easy.  Too easy.  There were few television stations and no alternative press.  Official stories stuck, and even if the public at large scratched their heads that certain things didn't add up, they couldn't really pursue it. 

The public today isn't so trusting.  They're still malleable and easily manipulated, but you have to go to more effort to get them to tow the line.   9-11 is a good example of this.  A low budget documentary Loose Change was released on the internet in 2005 and got many people to question the official version who otherwise would not have.  In response, the editors of Popular Mechanics, a respected American magazine, featuring sections on science, technology, and automotive topics, released a book debunking a lot of the theories put forward in Loose Change.  It is not relevant that this follow up book refutes every conspiracy point or contains credible answers to the skeptics' questions.   Few in the mass public are going to read it.  Just the fact by a respectable publisher produced a book supporting the official story is enough to convince the public at large that the official story is true.   

You need to pull the strings of your friends in high places to produce these 'impartial' books, documentaries, or movies.  United 93, a film, came out the same year as the Popular Mechanics book.  Both propped up the official story.   

Conspiracy theorists are welcome to show up at conferences where the new book or film is being promoted and call the writer or producer on his pile of manure.  That's no cause for concern. The speaker/conspirator/propagandist is in full control to choose whom to ask, ignore a question, move on for lack of time, address the question inadequately without giving the interlocutor a chance to follow up, etc.  Those in the government practice this avoidance technique in press conferences all the time. 

A word of warning, however:  do not ever have your propaganda tools go head-to-head with knowledgeable conspiracy theorists.  You have nothing to gain.   The director and researcher of Loose Change debated the editors of Popular Mechanics after Popular Mechanics'  book was published.  Regardless of which story you believe, from a debate standpoint the Loose Change guys won.  They were able to credibly and cogently argue and cite supporting evidence.  The Popular Mechanics guys could ignore or gloss over details in their book, but when confronted directly by the opposition, their omissions and run around answers looked pathetic.  

If you can't control the debate, don't show up.

SEVENTH STEP:  DON'T GET PARANOID ABOUT GETTING CAUGHT.  YOU WON'T.  ALWAYS KNOW THAT YOU HAVE THE UPPER HAND BECAUSE YOUR STORY IS OFFICIAL. 

This could well be the most important step of all. 

If you've perpetrated your nefarious plot and covered it up to this point, congratulate yourself.  Bask in the glory that information, regardless of source, propagated through official media channels like CNN or Fox News sounds more true than some guy on the fringe editing a low budget documentary on his computer and circulating it through the internet.

Realize that if you're working with your cohorts in the mainstream media, you have the upper hand because you get to define what "fringe" is, and fringe theorists, regardless of belief, are looked on as kooks.  So right off the bat, anyone contradicting your official story has to fight the stigma of being considered a whack job.   Money matters here, and if you're launching conspiracies, you have more of it than the conspiracy theorists.  Pat yourself on the back.     

And your most important weapon is one you don't even have to use.  Your victims are already using it against themselves:  IDGAS, which stands for "I don't give a shit."  The masses today don't give a toss whether the government orchestrated 9-11, the Oklahoma City bombings, or politically motivated killings.  They're too busy trying to make a living.  Powerful government conspirators are fully aware of this and can be more careless with steps one through six and still get away scot free.

 

So don't be scared, future conspirators.  With the right friends in the right places and following these seven steps, you can get away with almost anything, too.  Good luck!