Conspiracy: A HistoryExtra<\/em> podcast series<\/h4>\n
Member exclusive<\/strong> | Was the moon landing faked? Did Shakespeare actually write his plays? Were the pyramids built by aliens? Expert historians offer their perspectives on history\u2019s biggest conspiracy theories.<\/p>\n
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Notorious knoll<\/h2>\n
As Posner admitted to me, his initial hunch had been that there was some kind of mafia involvement, but over the course of two years of research and hundreds of interviews, he found himself increasingly convinced that there was a single shooter and no conspiracy.<\/p>\n
Case Closed<\/em> lays out Posner\u2019s argument in significant detail. But one aspect I was particularly keen to discuss with him was the so-called \u2018magic bullet\u2019 that is beloved of many conspiracy theorists. For Oswald to have been the sole shooter, then one of the three bullets he is known to have fired must have been responsible for two wounds on President Kennedy and one on Texas governor John Connally, who was travelling in the same car (and survived). If not, then there must have been a second shooter, perhaps on the notorious grassy knoll.<\/p>\n
\u201cOliver Stone, in his film JFK<\/em>, mocked this \u2018magic bullet\u2019 better than anyone,\u201d said Posner. \u201cYou know, it goes through Kennedy and then hesitates for half a second, then does a couple of somersaults and then makes a left turn and a right turn and goes on to Connally and emerges in very good condition. \u201cSo the question I had when I went to ballistics people in 1992 was: \u2018Can you do anything that the FBI couldn\u2019t do?\u2019 And it turns out they could do a lot. If they could disprove the single bullet, if they could prove at that point that it was impossible, then, fantastic, as a journalist, you\u2019ve got the evidence that there was a conspiracy. You don\u2019t know how it happened. You don\u2019t know who shot him. You don\u2019t know anything else, but if the single bullet didn\u2019t happen, there had to be another shooter involved because there are four shots and Oswald didn\u2019t have the time for that. So my starting point in essence was that bullet.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the ballistics people said to me: \u2018We\u2019ll tell you why the Warren Commission couldn\u2019t figure it out. They had to guess at it and didn\u2019t understand how the bullet slowed over a period of time.\u2019 They now know the speed at which it was hitting Kennedy and how it tumbled into Connally. And it\u2019s not just a theory because they take cadavers the size and weight of Kennedy and Connally and fire bullets at those speeds through them, creating the same wounds. And all day long, they produce equivalent results to the so-called magic bullet. So there is ballistic evidence that that bullet wasn\u2019t so magical. It did in fact happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Posner was at pains to explain to me, the ballistics evidence does not discount the possibility of a conspiracy. It only means that there didn\u2019t need to be a conspiracy to explain the wounds on the president. And ultimately, he accepts that despite the title of his book, this is one debate that\u2019s unlikely to ever be settled.<\/p>\n
Real-world consequences<\/h2>\n
But while some conspiracy theories might never be disproven, others remain stubbornly persistent, despite being repeatedly shown to be false. A case in point is the Protocols of the Elders of Zion<\/em>. First serialised in a St Petersburg newspaper in 1903, it purported to be the minutes of a meeting of Jewish leaders, revealing their plans to rule the world by duplicitous means.<\/p>\n
In fact, the text was partially an adaptation of an 1864 French satirical novel, that originally had nothing to do with Jews. The Protocols<\/em> were debunked by The Times<\/em> in the 1920s, and in 1935 a Swiss judge ruled that they were a fake after the distributors in Switzerland had been sued by the Jewish community in the country. And yet the conspiracy theories have persisted.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven when they have proven to be an outright forgery, a fiction, the Protocols<\/em> continue to circulate widely today,\u201d says Professor Pamela S Nadell of the American University in Washington, DC. \u201cThere is no evidence that the Jews do the things that they say in the Protocols but somehow that doesn\u2019t gain any traction.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is a conspiracy theory that has had serious real-world consequences. \u201cHitler<\/a>\u2019s writings were definitely drawn from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion<\/em>,\u201d says Nadell. \u201cHe\u2019s blaming the Jews. He\u2019s talking about international Jewish world finance. This is a conspiracy theory that helped to fuel the Holocaust<\/a>.\u201d And in more recent times the Protocols<\/em> have retained their invidious power, as Nadell explained to me.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have proliferated around the world so much,\u201d she says. \u201cThey were published in Japan in 2004. They certainly made their way across the Arab world and in 2002 Egyptian satellite television developed a 41-part miniseries that was based on the Protocols<\/em>. Then, in March 2021 an officer of the Capitol Police at the United States Capitol in Washington, DC was found with a copy of the Protocols<\/em> near his security post. So the text remains. It\u2019s potent today, widely available and still used.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even conspiracy theories that seem much less serious can have negative consequences today. One example is the bizarre case of the Bisley boy. According to this theory, in around 1542 the future Queen Elizabeth I<\/a> was staying in the Cotswolds village of Bisley where she fell ill and died. Rather than reveal this tragedy, her panicked attendants searched for a local lookalike who could be substituted for the deceased princess. As it transpired the closest match was a young boy who then spent the rest of his life masquerading as Elizabeth, providing a handy explanation as to why the queen never married or had children.<\/p>\n
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It\u2019s a deeply strange story that quickly fades under scrutiny \u2013 Henry VIII<\/a> would surely have noticed if his daughter had returned from the Cotswolds as a small boy \u2013 but has had many adherents, notably Dracula<\/em><\/a>\u00a0author Bram Stoker who included it in his 1910 book Famous Impostors<\/em>. And as Tudor<\/a> historian Tracy Borman explained to me, it points to sexist attitudes that dogged Elizabeth\u2019s age and more recent times.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it takes to extremes the misogyny that Elizabeth herself had had to deal with. This idea that she was \u2018just a woman\u2019 and yet was mistress of a kingdom and of an empire. The theory provides a perfect explanation as to how there was a highly competent woman outfoxing her male contemporaries.<\/p>\n
\u201cBram Stoker was writing at the crossover between the reigns of Edward VII<\/a> and George V<\/a>, so we\u2019re talking about the early 20th century \u2013 and it\u2019s still being spouted and repeated now. I still get asked about it. People are talking about it to this day.\u201d<\/p>\n
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