On this day 57 years ago, the CIA sent its employees classified memo #1035-960 outlining strategies for neutralizing criticism of the Warren Commission to quell doubts about the conclusions of the Presidential Commission to investigate the assassination of President Kennedy. This document called for the use of the “conspiracy theory” charge with negative connotations in the media and books.
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), taking advantage of previous academic work equating those rejecting official accounts for significant political and social events with pathology (Popper, 1949; Hofstadter, 1964), intentionally set in motion a process leading to the creation of the terms conspiracy theory and conspiracy theorist as pejoratives (deHaven-Smith & Witt, 2013). These pejoratives were subsequently adopted as such by academics, the news media, and other authorities (Green, 2015). This conspiracy theory meme has been used to shut down critical thinking and analysis to control public debate about actions of those in power. Stated simply, the terms have taken on such negative connotations that some people will repress their own conspiracy suspicions and accept the official account for fear of being stuck with the label (Chomsky, 2004, 2009).
Ed Rankin, PhD, in his academic work “The Conspiracy Theory Meme as a Tool of Cultural Hegemony – A Critical Discourse Analysis.pdf” noted:
People who do not accept the official accounts for events like the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy (JFK) or the attacks upon the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001 (9/11) are often called conspiracy theorists, and their theories conspiracy theories (Green, 2015). Being labeled a conspiracy theorist implies one is delusional or otherwise unable to accurately perceive reality, among other things (Bale, 2007; Basham, 2001; Chomsky, 2004). Indeed, often conspiracy suspicions are not dismissed at the level of evidence, but simply by applying the label “conspiracy theory” (Bratich, 2008).
Those holding power have obvious motives to silence those who challenge their authority by questioning their official interpretations of policy and actions, such as justifications for going to war or rationalizations for new laws (Herman & Chomsky, 2002). Those who reject the official accounts for events like assassinations and terrorist attacks often compete with epistemic authorities (e.g., academics, government agencies, government-sponsored special commissions, etc.) who may support official government positions (Harambam & Aupers, 2015). As Harambam and Aupers (2015) stated, “conspiracy theorists compete with (social) scientists in complex battles for epistemic authority in a broader field of knowledge contestation” (p. 466).
Those buying into a conspiracy were characterized as either cognitively-impaired or suffering from paranoia (Hofstadter, 1958, 1963, 1964). Yet research suggests many people overtly reject conspiracy theories while privately accepting them as true (Douglas & Sutton, 2010). Do Chomsky’s (2009) and Monbiot’s (2001) rejections of the speculation that these events were the result of conspiracies represent their true beliefs, or do they fear being discredited by the conspiracy theorist label? As Bratich (2008) stated, “Among the competing accounts for any event, the official version is not merely the winner in the game of truth—it determines who the players can be” (p. 7). Clearly, labeling someone a conspiracy theorist is a tactic employed as a strategy of subjugation (p.7) or a strategy “by which…disbelief is validated and…counterknowledge [sic] is discredited” (Fiske, 1994, p.192).
The term “conspiracy theory” was not invented by the CIA, but it was the CIA that started to be used in the 1960s after the assassination of John F. Kennedy to suppress meaningful national debate on the subject. As independent journalist Brandon Smith has observed, the term is now actively used not only by CIA agents and government media, but also by so-called “useful idiots.” In political jargon, a “useful idiot” is a pejorative term for someone who is seen as a propagandist for a cause without a full understanding of its goals, and who is cynically used by the leaders of that cause. The term was originally used during the Cold War to describe non-communists who were considered susceptible to communist propaganda and manipulation.
It is worth noting that the “conspiracy theory” meme has infiltrated other cultures due to the spread of US popular culture. Quite possibly purposefully, given that according to documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the CIA and the Pentagon have tirelessly “worked behind the scenes on over 800 major movies and more than 1,000 TV titles.”
The spread of this meme in other cultures through the penetration of US mass culture is clearly illustrated by the frequency of mention of the phrase “conspiracy theory” in the Russian language, where a noticeable growth began back in the USSR, during the late perestroika period, precisely at the time when US mass culture began to spread in the USSR. Since then, Russian-speaking people have increasingly used the term in connotations originally caused by the CIA.
