From: aq817@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Steve Crocker)
Subject: Re: Conspiracy to confuse conspiracy theories (JFK)
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, (USA)
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 92 17:02:54 GMT


In an article dated  Mon Jul 20 00:21:57 1992
dabbott@augean.eleceng.adelaide.edu.AU (Derek Abbott) writes:


>In article <1992Jul19.095807.18762@u.washington.edu> cortez@milton.u.washington.edu (Tom Warner) writes:
>>In article <1992Jul09.203039.2347@zds.com> gerry@zds.com (gerry) writes:
>>>In article <1992Jun15.071644.15964@usenet.ins.cwru.edu> aq817@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Steve Crocker) writes:
>>>
>>>>Derek Abbot asks whether it is plausible to assume that conspirators
>>>>such as the JFK assassins deliberately invent false conspiracy
>>>>theories to muddy the water, cloud the landscape, and discredit
>>>>conspiracy research and theory generally. My opinion is emphatically
>>>>yes. It would make sense for them to do this and there is a vast body
>>>>of conspiracy literature that is too incompetent to admit of any
>>>>straightforward explanation. (The Barvarian Illuminati are my personal
>>>>favorite example of this genre). Derek asks if this practice has a
>>>>name. In one sense it has several. I am not sure if the idioms
>>>>"red herring" or "lay a false scent" are current in Australian English,
>>>>but they would certainly be descriptive. In technical intelligence
>>>>terminology, the term "disinformation" is used to describe this and
>>>>related practices.
>>>
>>>My favorite example of this type of disinformation is from a more recent
>>>conspiracy, "October Surprise".  Did George Bush go to Paris?  I doubt it, 
>>>but I don't doubt that there was a meeting to cover up.  The media
>>>automatically will go after whether Bush was there or not, and happily
>>>ignore any other leads.
>>>
>>>Gerry Gleason
>>
>>My own personal suspicions in this case fall on what may be an over-obvious
>>example, William Cooper. Cooper is the one who says that the Zapruder film
>>shows the driver of the presidential limo turning around and shooting Kennedy
>>right there in the car and has some theory about how UFOs are involved. I
>>would just pass the whole thing off as mental imbalance except for ...
>>       I was at a speech on campus here by NY Times columnist Anthony Lewis,
>>who came to speak basically about how the press did change after Watergate
>>but still is too servile to government, as evidenced by their coverage of the
>>Gulf War. But Lewis is distinctly pro-Warren Commission and had denounced
>>Stone's JFK, so some people in the audience wanted to argue with him about it.
>>The first just brought out the subject, and Lewis gave a stirring attack on
>>Stone and his movie. Then the same person in the audience asked, "well, what
>>about the books, like Lifton and Marrs?" Lewis basically didn't want to discuss
>>it, but then this other guy from the audience broke in, yelling out that "The
>>CIA killed Kennedy ... you can see it in the Zapruder film, William Greer (the driver) turns around ... Read William Cooper's book ... The CIA killed Kennedy."
>>       After he was done yelling and Lewis uncomfortably brushed him off and
>>got on to other audience members' questions, the loud guy left, mission
>>apparently accomplished. Not only had he made the first guy look silly and the
>>whole idea of a conspiracy looked silly, he'd named Cooper as the author to
>>go to. It was, to anyone at that event, a powerful discrediting of people that
>>there was a government conspiracy behind Kennedy's assassination.

>Fascinating. I'm interested to know if there is a name for this type of tactic?

>It's a little different from straight "disinformation" or "red herring"
>because the person isn't inventing a different track of information, he's
>actually "overdoing" an already known trail. (A sort of parody).

>Any ideas?

A term that may be relevant here is "countergang". I first heard the term
in the mid-seventies being used by the Lyndon LaRouche organization (then
nominally a leftist group) th refer to their enemies on the left. It refers
to an organization set up obstnsibly to work for certain goals, but in
fact covertly operated by those opposed to such goals, for the purpose of
making the program appear ridiculous, spreading disinformation, causing
disruption, etc. The term supposedly comes from a counterinsurgency
campaign against the Mau-Mau revpolutionaries (sorry, I don't know the
country. I think the historical period was early 20th century). The
countersurgency forces would on occasion create fake Mau-Mau groups to
contact the real ones in the bush and lead them into ambushes, etc.
There is a book called Gangs and Countergangs written by British 
Brigadier General Frank(?) Kitson (Kittson?) which might have more
information.

-Steve