The Report from Iron Mountain
The Report From Iron Mountain states that it was produced by a Special Study Group of fifteen men whose identities were to remain secret and that it was not intended to be made public, and published in 1967 during the Johnson Administration, and published by the Dial Press. The best selling book reported on a government panel that concluded war is necessary for the proper functioning of an economy.
Publishing history
The idea for the Report came from Victor Navasky. In 1966, Navasky, then editor of the satiric Monocle magazine, read an article in the New York Times on a stock market downturn due to a "peace scare". This gave him an idea for a report that would get people thinking about a peacetime economy and the futility of the arms race. With these aims in mind, Lewin wrote the hoax.
The book was first published in 1967 by Dial Press, and went out of print in 1980. E. L. Doctorow, then an editor at Dial, and Dial president Richard Baron agreed with Lewin and Navasky to list the book as nonfiction and to turn aside questions about its authenticity by citing the footnotes. (Kifner, 1999)
Simon & Schuster later brought out another edition under their Free Press imprint. Liberty Lobby also put out an edition, claiming that it was a U.S. government document, and therefore inherently in the public domain; Lewin sued them for copyright infringement, which resulted in a settlement. According to the New York Times, "Neither side would reveal the full terms of the settlement, but Lewin received more than a thousand copies of the bootlegged version." (Kifner, 1999)
Contents of the report
According to the report, a 15-member panel, called the Special Study Group, was set up in 1963 to examine what problems would occur if the U.S. entered a state of lasting peace. They met at an underground nuclear bunker called Iron Mountain (as well as other, worldwide locations) and worked over the next two years. A member of the panel, one "John Doe", a professor at a college in the Midwest, decided to release the report to the public.
The heavily footnoted report concluded that peace was not in the interest of a stable society, that even if lasting peace "could be achieved, it would almost certainly not be in the best interests of society to achieve it." War was a part of the economy. Therefore, it was necessary to conceive a state of war for a stable economy. The government, the group theorized, would not exist without war, and nation states existed in order to wage war. War also served a vital function of diverting collective aggression. They recommended that bodies be created to emulate the economic functions of war. They also recommended "blood games" and that the government create alternative foes that would scare the people with reports of alien lifeforms and out of control pollution. Another facet of the supposed report was the reinstitution of slavery.
Reactions
After the report's release, Report From Iron Mountain was on the New York Times bestseller list and was translated into 15 different languages. From the first there was controversy over whether it was real or a hoax. Lyndon Johnson was not happy with it. U.S. embassies disclaimed the report, asserting it was not official government policy.
U.S. News and World Report claimed in its November 20 1967 issue to have confirmation of the reality of the report from an unnamed government official. Trans-Action devoted an issue to the debate over the book. Esquire magazine published a 28,000-word excerpt. (Kifner, 1999)
Six men were to accused to have written it: Herman Kahn, John Kenneth Galbraith, Dean Rusk, Clare Booth Luce, Leonard Lewin and William F. Buckley.'[1]
Revelation
However, it was not until five years later that the work was confirmed to be a hoax. In 1972, fretting how the Pentagon Papers and other documents about the Vietnam War "read like parodies of Iron Mountain rather than the reverse"[1], Lewin confessed in the March 19 New York Times Book Review that he had written the entire report. It was even listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the "Most Successful Literary Hoax."
Even after his admission, however, there are those who believe the so-called hoax is indeed a real government work and was called a hoax to discredit the report. In 1991, Oliver Stone used a quote from the hoax in the movie, JFK; one of Stone's story consultants, former Intelligence officer L. Fletcher Prouty, believed the hoax was real. Many believers cite the Hegelian Thesis model as a theory behind its disclosure.
On November 26, 1976, the report was reviewed in the book section of the Washington Post by Herschel McLandress, which was the pen name for Harvard professor John Kenneth Galbraith. Galbraith, who also had been a member of the CFR (Council on Foreign Relations), said that he knew firsthand of the report's authenticity because he had been invited to participate in it. Although he was unable to be part of the official group, he was consulted from time to time and had been asked to keep the project a secret. Furthermore, while he doubted the wisdom of letting the public know about the report, he agreed totally with its conclusions.
He wrote: 'As I would put my personal repute behind the authenticity of this document, so would I testify to the validity of its conclusions. My reservation relate only to the wisdom of releasing it to an obviously unconditioned public.'[2]
Six weeks later, in an Associated Press dispatch from London, Galbraith went even further and jokingly admitted that he was a member of the conspiracy. [3] That, however, did not settle the issue. The following day, Galbraith backed off. When asked about his 'conspiracy' statement, he replied: 'For the first time since Charles II The Times has been guilty of a misquotation... Nothing shakes my conviction that it was written by either Dean Rusk or Mrs. Clare Booth Luce. '[4]
The original reporter reported the following six days later: 'Misquoting seems to be a hazard to which Professor Galbraith is prone. The latest edition of the Cambridge newspaper Varsity quotes the following (tape recorded) interchange: 'Interviewer: 'Are you aware of the identity of the author of Report from Iron Mountain?' Galbraith: 'I was in general a member of the conspiracy, but I was not the author. I have always assumed that it was the man who wrote the foreword - Mr. Lewin[5]
So, on at least three occasions, Galbraith publicly endorsed the authenticity of the report, but denied that he wrote it.
References
- ^ The creature from Jekyll island', by G. Edward Griffin
- ^ News of War and Peace You're No Ready For., by Herschel McLandress (radio. Book World, in The Washington Post, November 26, 1967, p. 5.
- ^ The Times Diary', The Times, February 5, 1968, p. 8.
- ^ Gailbraith Says He Was Misquoted,' The Times, February 6, 1968, p. 3.
- ^ Touche, Professor,' The Times, February 12, 1968, p. 8.
- John Kifner, "L. C. Lewin, Writer of Satire Of Government Plot, Dies at 82" (obituary), New York Times Late Edition (East Coast), Jan 30, 1999. pg. A.11.