Historical Conspiracies II: We Even Have a Successful One

Last post we took a look at two different historical conspiracies in order to show that they have happened and how they failed. We will continue this today by looking at a couple more and one plan that was proposed but never put into action. We will also move our examples up to the 20th century so as to shrink the chronological distance of the events down to decades rather than centuries.

Watergate 17 June 1972

The break in at the Watergate hotel is a very complex situation that entire rows of books at libraries cover. It was the subject of an excellent movie "All The President's Men" (except for the end where it just kind of gave up) and has such an impact that literally all scandals and accusations of a scandal are given the suffix --gate. 

The Watergate break in was an attempt to bug the Democratic National Committee's headquarters in 1972. On the night of 17 June, taped latches on some doors were noticed by a security guard. He removed the tape during his rounds and moved on with his life. Upon returning to the same area later he noticed that someone had reapplied the tape and then phoned the police. They arrested five men: Virgilio González, Bernard Barker, James McCord, Eugenio Martinez, and Frank Sturgis for burglary and later charged them with attempted telephone intercept. Investigations by the FBI and the press, eventually followed a chain of payments all of the way up to President Nixon who later resigned. 

The conspiracy here was competently executed. We have to admit that from the start. If it was not for a particularly astute security guard, Frank Willis, the whole thing might have never come to light. However, an important question arises that historians and political experts can spend their careers arguing about: if successful, what would it have accomplished? The ultimate goal, information gathering, would have been important in an election year, but how important is a question to which speculation is the only answer. 

What went wrong? Other than the security guard's role, there were way too many people involved. The number of people involved in the break-in directly: is seven (including G. Gordon Liddy and Howard Hunt members of Nixon's Special Investigation Unit also known as "The Plumbers"), but the amount of people involved indirectly was too great to keep a lid on the operation. As Machiavelli recommended you have to keep the amount of people down in order to make sure the plan is kept confidential. In this case we have even a Associate Director of the FBI, Mark Felt, who was giving two Washington Post reporters information on the plan. Remember tell only as many people as necessary.  

Operation Snow White 1970s

Operation Snow White, is unique among our list in that it was largely successful. It was the largest infiltration of the US government by a single group. More than the Nazis in the 1930s, the Soviets throughout the Cold War, the US government was compromised  in the IRS, Coast Guard, Department of Justice, FDA, DEA, and Interpol by the Church of Scientology (CoS hereafter). 

In 1963 the FDA raids the CoS with allegations of medical fraud related to their reliance on something called an "E-Meter." This is the device they use when they offer "free stress tests" in the mall. Their claim was that the E-Meter could help diagnose certain conditions and help with treatment, claims that have no medical justification whatsoever. At one point earlier versions of the E-Meter were claimed to have some kind of value, even by such figures as Carl Jung but all recommendations were later discarded. 

The claims made by the CoS brought investigations by the FDA and the government into the CoS and founder, sci-fi writer, mystic L. Ron Hubbard; began to grow worried. In 1966 he created the "Guardian Office" with the intent of protecting the interests of the CoS. The guardian office planned Operation Snow White with the goal of erasing all documents that were critical of the CoS. This was an international plan which targeted any country where Hubbard's flagship "Apollo" was denied port. The plan was to use stolen documentation to pursue litigation against various nations and departments until they relented. Effectively lawyering them into submission. The plan is enacted in 1973, the primary target being the United States. 

Orders 732 and 1361 lay out the plan for infiltration, obtainment, and cover up for the operation. In 1974 members of the church Wolfe and Meisner gain jobs at the IRS. They proceed to bug a meeting in which the tax status of the CoS is discussed with an FM transmitter. December 1974 they steal documents 20 inches thick and send it to the LA headquarters. In 1975 Sharon Thomas gains employment with Coast Guard Intelligence. This might seem odd, but part of Hubbard's organization includes a fleet of yachts. Nancy Douglass joins the DEA. The direction from Mary Hubbard, wife of L. Ron Hubbard, directs members to use any action possible to gain tax-exempt status for the church. Project Horn is enacted which is the formulation of the cover up story for how the documents were obtained. 

In 1976 Meisner and Wolfe are questioned in the US Courthouse in Washington DC. They present forged documents giving them permission from the Courthouse librarian explaining their presence. Again, an astute guard, unravels the whole thing. They are both questioned and then released but under suspicion, when they returned to the courthouse two days later the FBI was notified. Two FBI agents questioned the men, and eventually released them. After reporting the incident to the CoS Meisner flees to the LA center and on 8 July 1977 the FBI raids the centers in LA, Hollywood, and DC. It was the largest raid by the FBI in history. After a lengthy pre-trial period eleven high ranking Scientology members were indicted, and convicted. Most served 5 years in prison and a fine. L. Ron Hubbard had to flee the US and go into hiding. By 1990 all of the convicted members were free and in 1993 the CoS was granted tax-exempt status. 

In all, this was a successful conspiracy. They kept the number of individuals involved to only the necessary amount. Dealt only with motivated insider people. The only recommendation they broke, was that they, on the surface, appeared to be operating from a relatively weak position. This was overcome by compartmentalizing their targets: they didn't go after the US government but a few government agencies within it. 

Operation Northwoods

This was not a conspiracy but a plan that was proposed for a conspiracy. A plan, which was never put into place and was designed to give the US government popular support in a military invasion of Castro's Cuba. During the Cuban civil war, the US had interests in Fulgencio Batista's government, having supported him during the 1950s and 60s for his anti-Communist stance. However, the US government also supported the revolutionaries and imposed sanctions on the Batista regime. However, after Castro's reforms which included maintaining the nationalization of several American interests on the island the embargo on the nation remained as well as the frozen Cuban assets held in the US. The Soviet Union had also played both sides, attempting to placate the Batista regime after its relationship with the US soured, but lending support to Castro's revolution as an instantiation of its ideology. The USSR quickly became an ally of Castro after he took power. The US realized that the Soviet Union had an ally just off the coast of Florida. This alliance was further strengthened when the invasion of exiled Cuban nationalists supported by the US was routed at the Bay of Pigs. 

The government wanted Castro out, and reliance on mercenaries or foreign forces was not going to work. The US population however was not in favor of a Cuban invasion, but the military thought they could use a little push in the right direction. They developed the plan "Operation Northwoods: A Justification for US Military Intervention in Cuba." The Annex to the Appendix to Enclosure A was the proposal that Cuban terrorist attacks would get the public to demand an attack on Cuba. 

They would first harass the Cuban government into a state of paranoia. This wasn't out of left field as the Castro government would soon clamp down on its own dissidents, Castro was already paranoid. The hope was the Cuban army would retaliate against the US base at Guantanamo Bay. If that didn't work, the US could commit the attacks and frame the Cubans. This included a plan that if the Mercury flight of John Glenn failed, they could blame them. They could also stage an attack on British held Jamaica and Trinidad, have them bring a counter attack and join them in the operation. However the real horrifying part of the plan was to shoot down an American civilian aircraft and frame the Cubans:

"It is possible to create an incident which will demonstrate that a Cuban aircraft has attacked and shot down a chartered civilian airliner enroute from the United States to Jamaica, Guatemala, Panama, or Venezuela...the passengers could be a group of college students off on a holiday or any groupings of persons with a common interest to support chartering a non-scheduled flight." 

The plan is presented on 16 March 1962 to President Kennedy who immediately rejects it and removes General Lemnitzer from the join chiefs of staff. It remained classified until 18 November 1997, and was made popular during the CNN Documentary series on the Cold War. This plan was obviously different in that it was kept secret for thirty years, but also because it was never put into place. It was an idea, that was summarily rejected. However it formed the template for what is known as a false flag attack: a real attack using friendly forces designed to look like it came from a hostile enemy. Conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones have used this phrase, and consistent reference to Northwoods, while claiming that massacres like those of Sandy Hook, Charlie Hebdo, the Boston Marathon, Columbine, etc. were performed not by individuals but by the government or some secret group in order to further some kind of goal. 

We must keep in mind the importance of distinguishing between real conspiracies we have already presented, and the theories we will get into in the future. In the four cases presented above each fell to human failure, in order to actually pull of these conspiracies you would need a near perfect execution and silence which is near impossible.