CIA Created "Conspiracy Theorists" to Attack Anyone Who Challenges the "Official" Narrative

ZeroHedge ^ | 2/23/2015

[Non-Compliant_Deplorable]

Specifically, in April 1967, the CIA wrote a dispatch which coined the term “conspiracy theories” … and recommended methods for discrediting such theories. The dispatch was marked “psych” – short for “psychological operations” or disinformation – and “CS” for the CIA’s “Clandestine Services” unit.The dispatch was produced in responses to a Freedom of Information Act request by the New York Times in 1976.

[RummyChick]

We would be called crazy if we had been talking about things like spirit cooking and podesta prior to wiki

[Red Badger]

THERE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN ‘CONSPIRACY THEORISTS’...............THE CIA DID NOT INVENT THEM................

[SERKIT]

VRWC was a CIA plot! I KNEW it. Boy, that Hillary is one smart cookie. (...and do I REALLY need to post a “/s” sarcasm disclaimer, people?

[Enlightened1]

BTTT

[Bogie]

http://www.unz.com/ishamir/i-envy-you/

I came across this essay and found it rather interesting since it seems to be saying much the same thing as Nobel Prize winner Alexander Solzhenitsyn was saying.

[Buckeye McFrog]

The KGB was definitely engaged in this activity at the time.
Seems like a rational countermeasure.

[cgbg]

The KGB was definitely engaged in this activity at the time. Seems like a rational countermeasure.

The problem was the timing. The KGB had been an issue since WWII. The "conspiracy theory" meme was developed just after the JFK assassination.

Many of us JFK assassination buffs do not believe that was a coincidence. :-)

"There are no coincidences, only bad theories."

[GOP Poet]

bookmark

[WXRGina]

THERE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN ‘CONSPIRACY THEORISTS’...............THE CIA DID NOT INVENT THEM................

That's not what the column is saying. The CIA coined the term and recommended "psy-ops" methods to DISCREDIT those who question The State. It's in the column, if you read it.

[JGT]

The distinct term "conspiracy theory" as a means to demean or denigrate persons holding a particular view or views did not enter the common nonlegal vernacular until the 1960s. It is a psy/op term that has been used effectively by both conservatives and liberals. It's quite effective, even here on FR; just post anything by Inforwars or Zero-Hedge..it's immediately lambasted as ridiculous conspiracy that “makes us all look foolish.” Are there genuine conspiracy theories designed to discredit institutions and narratives? Sure, and that is why this technique is so effective. It is literally impossible to know with certainty what is real and what is BS. It's designed to propagate so much varied information that discerning truth from fiction is now almost impossible.

[fella]

The CIA dispatch was written in 1967 in response to a 1976 FOIA request?

Who writes and edits this tripe?

[notdownwidems]

The federal government lies so much that it is really getting hard to tell what is a ‘conspiracy theory’ and what is just the truth hiding in plain sight.

[Non-Compliant_Deplorable]

The kids call it the “red pill” — that moment you wake up and see reality. (I think it’s from the Matrix movies.) Right now, I’m wondering what the symptoms of “red pill overdose” are. Because I think I’m overdosing.

[zeugma]

Cointelpro

[Terry L Smith]

Ever since the day that i stood next to, touched, read the markings of the APQ-109 radar set, of the officially-declared non-existent ChiCom reconfigured aircraft, in a hangar at Grumman Bethpage, I taken every published federal position, with a grain of salt, with the microscope at the ready.

[philman_36]

BTTT

[philman_36]

Full text of Rape of the Mind - the Psychology of Thought Control - A.M. Meerloo MD Published in 1956

Because I think I’m overdosing.

Barricade your mind.

[philman_36]

You would be surprised how well this works... Finally we evolved this simple psychological trick: when you can no longer outwit the enemy or resist talking, the best thing to do is to talk too much. This was the idea: keep yourself sullen and act the fool; play the coward and confess more than there is to confess. Later we were able to verify that this method was successful in several cases. Scatterbrained simpletons confused the enemy much more than silent heroes whose stamina was finally undermined in spite of everything.

[ViLaLuz]

The Word Salad approach?