The United States of Paranoia: A Conspiracy Theory

by Jesse Walker

The letter, coauthored by the liberal attorney Joseph Rauh, called for Kennedy to deploy the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service, and the Federal Communications Commission against the enemy. By “the radical right,” the Reuthers and Rauh meant not just the Birchers and the fundamentalist Christian Crusade but Senator Barry Goldwater and the libertarian William Volker Fund.

The House Committee on Un-American Activities had investigated several far-right groups the year before, concluding that they were subversives, racketeers, and “peewee Hitlers.”30

then it grew steadily less reliable, concluding with a scene of Lyndon Baines sticking his Johnson in the president’s throat wound. It is a testament to Krassner’s literary skill—or the average reader’s gullibility, or LBJ’s unpopularity—that many people were fooled. When Krassner met Daniel Ellsberg, the famous leaker confessed that he had believed the Johnson story. “Maybe it was just because I wanted to believe it so badly,” he said.21

In his 2008 book The Cult of the Presidency, Gene Healy noted that although trust in our presidents has declined since Watergate, “the inflated expectations people have for the office—what they want from a president—remain as high as ever. . . .