Andrew Roberts
THE GREEN-INK BRIGADE
Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History
By David Aaronovitch (Jonathan Cape 368pp £17.99)
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Have you ever been at a social occasion where out of the blue an otherwise normal-sounding bloke - it's almost always a bloke - drops into the conversation a completely absurd conspiracy theory in a voice as if it were obviously true? JFK and Martin Luther King were murdered by the FBI, LBJ and the Mafia; Roosevelt and Churchill knew all about the attack on Pearl Harbor before it happened; Lady Di was assassinated by MI5; Mossad was behind 9/11, that kind of thing. Then, when you gently mock the theory, politely pointing out its obvious flaws, he implies that either you are thick, or suffering from false consciousness, or perhaps you're even part of the cover-up yourself.
If so, this is definitely the book for you. David Aaronovitch is one of those few Britons who can be referred to as an intellectual without it being pejorative. He is also a master of the art of ridicule, as this reviewer once discovered to his cost at a public debate. This superbly researched, wittily written and eminently sane book explodes conspiracy theories by the dozen, and highlights the psychological disorders from which their promoters often suffer. Best of all, however, it points out how dangerous conspiracy theories can be to society.
Of course, it's perfectly true that sometimes in history there have indeed been genuine conspiracies. The Catiline conspiracy in Ancient Rome, the Gunpowder Plot, the Cato Street Conspiracy to blow up the British Cabinet in 1820, the Bolshevik conspiracy to overthrow the Kerensky government in Russia in October 1917, and the Iran-Contra conspiracy in Reagan's White House in 1985-6 are all cases in point. Generally, however, it is the cock-up explanation rather than the conspiracy that provides the best guide to what really happened. To believe that dark forces control our lives, and have done so for centuries, is a sure sign of weak-mindedness, akin to a belief in UFOs or that one's destiny is affected by the zodiac.
Yet the sheer number of people who do genuinely believe that when it comes to the Holy Blood and the Holy Grail or The Da Vinci Code 'there has to be something to it' and 'there's no smoke without fire' is astounding. Of course, ever since Watergate, Hollywood has done all in its power to foster the notion that huge conspiracies are the driving force behind everything. Movies in which the US government in its various forms is the hidden enemy, and moral corruption goes to the very top of politics and crime-fighting, have polluted the American polity for thirty-five years now. Films like Three Days of the Condor, The Manchurian Candidate, Rambo, The Forgotten, The Day After Tomorrow, E.T., The X-Files, Assault on Precinct 13, The Pacifier, Danger Island, Mission Impossible, Quantum of Solace, and so interminably on, all rely upon the underlying assumption that the CIA or other shadowy government agencies have unlimited power and sinister motives. Politicians and policemen, who were once portrayed as role models, are now routinely depicted as treacherous and corrupt. The result of over three decades of such unrelenting celluloid fare is that more Americans than ever before are willing to believe that the world is really run by the Illuminati, the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderburg Conference, Bohemian Grove, Le Cercle and other such perfectly innocent bodies.
The reason that this matters is that, as Aaronovitch points out, 'the belief in conspiracy theories is harmful in itself. It distorts our view of history and therefore of the present and - if widespread enough - leads to disastrous decisions.' The Nazis were helped to power by the conspiracy theory known as the Dolchstosslegende (the stab-in-the-back myth) by which Germany's defeat in the Great War was explained in terms not of the military debacle on the Western Front battlefields in 1918 but rather the treachery of Jews, bankers, socialists, trade unionists, pacifists, intellectuals and defeatists at home. Hitler and Goebbels trumpeted this absurd conspiracy theory until it was believed by a majority of Germans, who voted accordingly. Other conspiracy theories, such as one about responsibility for the Reichstag Fire, were also ruthlessly promoted.
Similarly ridiculous theories are widely believed about how President Bush - aided by Tony Blair - rigged the 2000 presidential election, planned 9/11, knew there were no WMDs in Iraq before invading, killed Dr David Kelly, tried to corner the world's oil market, and so on and so on.
From the Protocols of the Elders of Zion to the 'faking' of the 1969 moon landing, there have always been people willing to believe crackpot theories. Everyone in the public eye gets letters from 'the green-ink brigade' which are often also full of multiple explanation marks and underlinings. The writers of such letters find it is easier to blame a conspiracy for what has gone wrong with their lives than to face up to the unpalatable reality that people are not interested in them. Aaronovitch argues persuasively that conspiracy theories are often a psychological defence against the indifference of others. This book will not change the theorists' views, of course, but it will be invaluable in our refuting them logically.
David Aaronovitch also posits the fascinating possibility that conspiracy theories might be a form of hysteria for men, the male equivalent of the health and food scares that preoccupy so many women. I fear they might also come as a result of our growing ignorance of genuine history, partly due to the weird choices made by the educational establishment over what the national curriculum should cover. Wheresover they derive they are a severe irritation at best, and at worst can be a genuine danger to the democratic process.
Of course it's possible that I'm only arguing this because I'm in the secret pay of the Vatican, which for centuries has tried to cover up the true identities of the descendants of Jesus ...
Andrew Roberts's most recent book, 'Masters and Commanders', is published by Allen Lane.