Description
Book SynopsisEver since the Warren Commission concluded that a lone gunman assassinated President John F. Kennedy, people who doubt that finding have been widely dismissed as conspiracy theorists, despite credible evidence that right-wing elements in the CIA, FBI, and Secret Service—and possibly even senior government officials—were also involved. Why has suspicion of criminal wrongdoing at the highest levels of government been rejected out-of-hand as paranoid thinking akin to superstition?
Conspiracy Theory in America investigates how the Founders’ hard-nosed realism about the likelihood of elite political misconduct—articulated in the Declaration of Independence—has been replaced by today’s blanket condemnation of conspiracy beliefs as ludicrous by definition. Lance deHaven-Smith reveals that the term “conspiracy theory” entered the American lexicon of political speech to deflect criticism of the Warren Commission and traces it back
Trade Review
An intriguing take on the origins and implications of conspiracy theories and the paranoid mindset itself. . . . Confronted with these compelling arguments, even the most incredulous readers will find themselves questioning their own preconceived notions of paranoia, governmental transparency, and conspiracy theorists. * Publishers Weekly *
Table of Contents
- List of Illustrations and Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: High-Crime Blind
- A Curious History
- A Flawed and Un-American Label
- Naming the Taboo Topic
- Perceptual Silos
- Causes and Consequences
- The CIA’s Conspiracy-Theory Conspiracy
- The Rest of the Book
- Chapter 1: The Conspiracy-Theory Label
- Perspectives on Conspiracy Beliefs
- The Assassination of President Kennedy
- The Single-Bullet (or “Magic-Bullet”) Theory
- The Assumption Someone Would Talk
- Flawed Definitions
- The Term’s Meaning in Practice
- A SCAD Hypothesis
- Reforms after President Kennedy’s Assassination
- Chapter 2: The American Tradition of Conspiracy Belief
- The Political Science of the Founders
- Conspiracy Theories of the Founders
- The Sedition Act of 1798 and the “Burr Conspiracy”
- The Dialectic of Corruption and Reform
- Conspiracy Charges at Nuremberg
- How Conspiracy Deniers Misread History
- Chapter 3: Conspiracy Denial in the Social Sciences
- The Transformation of U.S. Social Science
- Philosophical Perspectives on Conspiracy Theory
- The Conspiracy Theories of Charles Beard
- Popper’s Critique of the "Conspiracy Theory of Society”
- Strauss on “Noble Lies” and “Salutary Myths”
- American Neoconservatism
- Chapter 4: The Conspiracy-Theory Conspiracy
- Subtle Speech
- Decoding the Dispatch
- CIA “Collaborator” John P. Roche
- Popularization, Association, Connotation
- Chapter 5: State Crimes against Democracy
- Scientific Conceptualization
- The Victim’s Perspective
- SCAD Conceptualization
- Searching for Novel Facts in 9/11
- Chapter 6: Restoring American Democracy
- America’s Family Secrets
- Reform Where Law and Politics Meet
- Selective Totalitarianism
- The Struggle Ahead
- A Simple Proposal for Reform
- Appendix: CIA Dispatch 1035-960
- Tables
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
