Iron Mountain: the conspiracy that duped America

Welcome to the History Extra podcast, fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History magazine. What makes certain conspiracy theories capture the popular imagination? And how do they evolve over time? Speaking to James Osborne for today's episode, the journalist and author Phil Tinline revisits The Report from Iron Mountain, a fake, satirical government document from the 1960s that was deemed to be so convincing by many that it spawned generations of conspiracy theories.

Before we get into the meat of this story, just to get us into the right mindset for this, can you outline the political and social climate of the 60s for listeners? Because it seems like it's genuinely No exaggeration to say that this might be one of the most tumultuous periods of American history. Absolutely. I mean there's a big difference depending on, of course, where you are in the 60s.

Obviously you've had the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963, which makes a fairly big contribution to conspiracy culture in America, as you all know. But the other huge thing that's happened is that the war in Vietnam, the American military intervention in Vietnam, which under Kennedy had been going on, they were called advisers, they weren't really just advisors. But that has begun to expand. There are now American boots on the ground as the cliche goes. And so by 1966, that is beginning to become somewhat, you know, controversial, not anything like as much as it was in years to come, but it's becoming an issue.

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