Has there ever been a Conspiracy Theory that was in fact true?

[GregHouseMD]

In the recent past, has there ever been a Conspiracy Theory that when it was all said and done, it turned out to have been true, there was a conspiracy and it was exposed.

Of course there was Watergate but that only lasted a few weeks before the house of cards came down.

There was Monica-gate, but that was blown pretty quickly too... (sorry couldn't resist).

What else? When in the past 100 years has a deep dark secret been kept from the public to cover the activities of a select few in power?

I'm sure there are older examples but what about more recently, say in the last 40 years?

It has to be major, the US Government covering up a alien spaceship would qualify (if the truth has truly come out) but covering up a Cabinet Official's speeding tickets or extra marital affairs isn't really big enough.

My purpose in asking the question will be answered in a few days after there is some response (if there is any). I don't want to influence input.

 

[Robrob]

I suspect you should define terms. Obviously "ordinary" conspiracies exist by legal definition.

"In the criminal law, a conspiracy is an agreement between two or more persons to break the law at some time in the future, and, in some cases, with at least one overt act in furtherance of that agreement."

OTOH, what most conspiracy theorists posit are on a much grander scale in numbers, motivation and results. I submit any CT would have to include:

1) Government participation (federal, state or local). A gang plotting a bank robbery isn't reaching the degree of complexity in most CT.

2) A post-facto cover up. Everyone knows the bank has been robbed by someone. CT require a scapegoat and/or no one knowing (except for CT proponents) that a conspiracy occurred.

3) A logical and cost effective reason to engage in a complex and long term conspiracy. Robbing a bank doesn't necessitate technical equipment and expertise of the CIA/NSA. Nor does it require hundreds/thousands of people sworn to secrecy.

 

[geni]

In the recent past, has there ever been a Conspiracy Theory that when it was all said and done, it turned out to have been true, there was a conspiracy and it was exposed.

Technicaly some of the stuff the state was up to in northern Ireland might qualify.

 

[MG1962]

The destruction of the USS Maine

 

[Scott Sommers]

None of these are conspiracy theories, at least any more than the surprise party that my wife threw for me last year. People conspired to break laws, but that's not a conspiracy theory. There's nothing at all that's secret about Watergate or Monicagate or Iran Contra. In fact, that they were not secret is why we all know all about them. At least at first, only people who had authority over aspects of the events knew, but once the not-secret conspiracies became news, everyone knew about them. They were obvious because facts are always obvious. That's what makes them facts .

Conspiracy Theories are ideas about events that rely on the idea the events happened in secrecy and no one knows about them, even experts who are otherwise seen as knowing everything about such events. This is not the same as academic debate where there is disagreement among these experts over the conclusions that can be reached from known information.

This is why, for example among 9/11 conspiracy theorists, they have had to manufacture the idea that there is expert disagreement about the events of the WTC Buildings and their collapse. If you read posts about Holocaust denial, you'll see the same thing, as you will with recent discussion of Pearl Harbour Conspiracy Theories.

So how can have both the idea that an event is secret, even from experts, and also understood by the experts who are aware of what 'really' happened? This contradiction is part of what makes it a 'conspiracy theory' and not just a 'conspiracy'.

So do you know anything that was really so secret that no one knew about it except a handful of people who don't normally have access to knowledge about that thing? And later, that thing was found out to be true? I don't. In fact, it might even be conceptually impossible.

 

[Gazpacho]

COINTELPRO. Here's how the news was broken in '74:

Radical groups have complained for years that they were illegally harrassed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and it now turns out that they were right. A summary of a Justice Department report on the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover says the bureau committed more than 2,300 disruptive actions between 1956 and 1971, often breaking the law to do so, against groups it considered "subversive"—some of which were clearly not subversive.

and CIA Operation CHAOS, involved in the same activities.

The Reagan administration's facilitation of cocaine traffic:

[discussing Gary Webb's obituary] Nowhere was it written that the CIA’s internal investigation by Inspector General Frederick Hitz vindicated much of Gary’s reporting. Nowhere was it printed that the CIA’s second report, which depicted an agency so obsessed with promoting the government’s ideological agenda that harm done to citizens of the United States of America, was overlooked in an Orwellian ends-justify-the-means operation. Nowhere did it say that the government eventually admitted to more than Gary had initially reported.

 

[Scott Sommers]

COINTELPRO. Here's how the news was broken in '74:

Originally Posted by NYT
Radical groups have complained for years that they were illegally harrassed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and it now turns out that they were right. A summary of a Justice Department report on the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover says the bureau committed more than 2,300 disruptive actions between 1956 and 1971, often breaking the law to do so, against groups it considered "subversive"—some of which were clearly not subversive.
and CIA Operation CHAOS, involved in the same activities.

The Reagan administration's facilitation of cocaine traffic:

Originally Posted by George B. Sanchez
[discussing Gary Webb's obituary] Nowhere was it written that the CIA’s internal investigation by Inspector General Frederick Hitz vindicated much of Gary’s reporting. Nowhere was it printed that the CIA’s second report, which depicted an agency so obsessed with promoting the government’s ideological agenda that harm done to citizens of the United States of America, was overlooked in an Orwellian ends-justify-the-means operation. Nowhere did it say that the government eventually admitted to more than Gary had initially reported.

How is this a conspiracy theory? It looks like government security organizations trying to keep it secret about which citizens they had been watching. Was it ever a secret that the FBI watched people? The most I can imagine from this is there was dispute over which people they were watching. This is quite different from anything we talk about here or on the 9/11 conspiracy forum.

 

[Robrob]

COINTELPRO. Here's how the news was broken in '74:

Radical groups have complained for years that they were illegally harrassed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and it now turns out that they were right. A summary of a Justice Department report on the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover says the bureau committed more than 2,300 disruptive actions between 1956 and 1971, often breaking the law to do so, against groups it considered "subversive"—some of which were clearly not subversive.

and CIA Operation CHAOS, involved in the same activities.

Doesn't sound like it was a "secret" just not prosecuted.

The Reagan administration's facilitation of cocaine traffic:

[discussing Gary Webb's obituary] Nowhere was it written that the CIA’s internal investigation by Inspector General Frederick Hitz vindicated much of Gary’s reporting. Nowhere was it printed that the CIA’s second report, which depicted an agency so obsessed with promoting the government’s ideological agenda that harm done to citizens of the United States of America, was overlooked in an Orwellian ends-justify-the-means operation. Nowhere did it say that the government eventually admitted to more than Gary had initially reported.

Um, yeah...

"Reason magazine’s Glenn Garvin was critical of Webb’s sources and of the evidence he presented. Garvin wrote that Webb’s evidence that the Contra leadership was selling cocaine is almost entirely drawn from the claims of a few Nicaraguan traffickers facing long jail terms, and argued that they were using the CIA as a convenient scapegoat. Garvin also wrote that every guerrilla group, including the Mujahideen, FARC and Shining Path, has used the narcotics trade as a way of bolstering its funding efforts, and that far from the Contra-related drug trade being widespread it came down to a small handful of Contra pilots and their associates who were involved in narcotics. He also argued that while these covert narcotic relationships were alleged to be most rampant, the Contras had the least need for funds, as the United States was supplying them with millions of dollars a year in support."

So a few Contras might have been involved in drug smuggling? That hardly requires an enormous government conspiracy. Heck, Webb's story doesn't even claim actual CIA involvement, just them turning a blind eye at worst.

 

[rjh01]

There is also this thread on the same subject from two years ago Conspiracy Theories Come True

 

[Gazpacho]

How is this a conspiracy theory? It looks like government security organizations trying to keep it secret about which citizens they had been watching. Was it ever a secret that the FBI watched people?

If you know anything about CIP, you know that it was more than "watching." Furthermore, the activities were illegal and were denounced as violations of civil rights by the FBI official revealing them in the report that I quoted.

The most I can imagine from this is there was dispute over which people they were watching.

Imagination is not a substitute for research.

Doesn't sound like it was a "secret" just not prosecuted.

It sure as heck wasn't public!

"Reason magazine’s Glenn Garvin was critical of Webb’s sources and of the evidence he presented.

Oh, Reason magazine shilling for the Reagan administration. You don't say?

So a few Contras might have been involved in drug smuggling? That hardly requires an enormous government conspiracy. Heck, Webb's story doesn't even claim actual CIA involvement, just them turning a blind eye at worst.

Putting aside the evidence that goes beyond that scenario, such as the use of aircraft that were under CIA contract: What was the response to Gary Webb's claims that the CIA turned a blind eye? He was accused of lying by several major newspapers, fired in disgrace, and his career was ruined.

 

[psionl0]

If it is true then it is not a theory.

 

[Dave Rogers]

The destruction of the USS Maine

Definitely doesn't qualify. The cause of the Maine explosion is still uncertain, with different analyses suggesting different causes; the most recent analysis suggests that the explosion originated outside the hull, suggesting a mine rather than an internal explosion; even an internal explosion wouldn't be proof of a conspiracy, because accidental internal explosions did destroy battleships in the coal era from time to time (look up HMS Vanguard, which blew up in Scapa Flow in 1917, for which there is no conceivable conspiracist motive); and nobody has ever produced any evidence of there being any conspiracy involving any specific individuals to fake it.

Dave

 

[Scott Sommers]

If you know anything about CIP, you know that it was more than "watching." Furthermore, the activities were illegal and were denounced as violations of civil rights by the FBI official revealing them in the report that I quoted.


Imagination is not a substitute for research.


It sure as heck wasn't public!


Oh, Reason magazine shilling for the Reagan administration. You don't say?


Putting aside the evidence that goes beyond that scenario, such as the use of aircraft that were under CIA contract: What was the response to Gary Webb's claims that the CIA turned a blind eye? He was accused of lying by several major newspapers, fired in disgrace, and his career was ruined.

The only way I can make sense of this is by assuming you think this matters to the OP. The existence of such programs may anger you, but that doesn't address whether or not they were 'conspiracy theories' that turned out to be true. Being illegal and being more than just 'watching' does not change whether they were 'conspiracy theories' that turned out to be true.

Things the government does don't become 'conspiracy theories' because they don't tell you about them or even because they lie about them when asked. The point is that a 'conspiracy theory' is something that even the people who should know about deny it. Even the people who could know it deny it. The only people who recognize that it exists are people who should not and could not be part of this community of knowledgeable people. It may be a conspiracy, but that's we don't call it a conspiracy and instead call it a 'conspiracy theory'.

 

[Gazpacho]

It's not the secrecy, Scott, it's the coverup. The accusations of paranoia and hysteria, even today, after everything has come out. The knee-jerk assumptions that the government could never do things that it in fact did. The refusal to look at the evidence. Everything that conspiracy theorists claim for their theories, but in these cases finally documented from the source after years of waiting.

 

[MaGZ]

I would submit the FDR conspiracy to bring the United States into World War II.

 

[MaGZ]

How is this a conspiracy theory? It looks like government security organizations trying to keep it secret about which citizens they had been watching. Was it ever a secret that the FBI watched people? The most I can imagine from this is there was dispute over which people they were watching. This is quite different from anything we talk about here or on the 9/11 conspiracy forum.

COINTELPRO wasn’t just a federal program to watch people. The plan was to illegally disrupt the dissident organizations and lives of the individuals involved.

 

[Darat]

It's not the secrecy, Scott, it's the coverup. The accusations of paranoia and hysteria, even today, after everything has come out. The knee-jerk assumptions that the government could never do things that it in fact did. The refusal to look at the evidence. Everything that conspiracy theorists claim for their theories, but in these cases finally documented from the source after years of waiting.

The international and systematic cover-up of child abuse by the Roman Catholic Church over many, many decades. There is also the related conspiracy between the Irish state and the Roman Catholic Church in the cover-up of child abuse over many, many decades in Ireland.

 

[MaGZ]

If it is true then it is not a theory.

So it’s the truth of plate tectonics not the theory of plate tectonics?

 

[Darat]

So it’s the truth of plate tectonics not the theory of plate tectonics?

Many words in the English language have more than one use, such a word is theory, also words often mean different things depending on the context. You are trying to equate two different uses of the word "theory".

 

[Scott Sommers]

It's not the secrecy, Scott, it's the coverup. The accusations of paranoia and hysteria, even today, after everything has come out. The knee-jerk assumptions that the government could never do things that it in fact did. The refusal to look at the evidence. Everything that conspiracy theorists claim for their theories, but in these cases finally documented from the source after years of waiting.

We're still talking about the OP? Right? The one where GregHouseMD asks,

In the recent past, has there ever been a Conspiracy Theory that when it was all said and done, it turned out to have been true, there was a conspiracy and it was exposed.

and then goes on to give examples like Watergate and Monica-gate? This is what we're talking about?

Because if it is, then the fact that there's a cover up just doesn't enter into the equation of whether or not something is a conspiracy theory.

Let's make up a story. I have to use you as an example, since the idea of this story is absolutely impossible for my situation. Your wife runs up a huge credit card debt and doesn't tell you. She hides this from you and goes to great lengths to deceive you about this. You even called the credit card company, but they were conspiring with your wife to keep you from knowing the truth about her credit situation. In fact, they insist to you that this is privileged information, but you know that other money lending firms have access to this information. In fact, we could say that your wife's debt problem is common knowledge in that community.

Is the existence of her debt a conspiracy theory? Is it evidence of the collusion of a credit card company and the legal system with your wife to keep all of this a secret?

Is this a cover up? Of course it is. And the legal system is part of it.

But what are they covering up? A conspiracy theory to run families in to debt? To encourage divorce? To rob men of control over their wives? And why are they conspiring to do this? How could your wife have such power over the money lending system she could craft it into protecting her? You tell me?

On the other hand, maybe you have some sort of mental problem and your wife's debt situation is perfectly manageable. Then it would be a conspiracy theory to believe the fact that she charged up a new dress is evidence of her debt problem. It would be a conspiracy theory to believe the new shoes she's wearing are also evidence of this. It would be a conspiracy theory to believe the new Platinum MasterCard was evidence of her out of control money borrowing.

And regardless of whether she does or does not really have a debt problem, you still won't be able to get information about her credit card situation, but every bank in the country can. So even if she doesn't have a credit card problem, is this also evidence that the financial system is covering up for her?

So you tell me, the 9/11 Truth/conspiracy group We Are Change tells me that a bunch of kids with no knowledge of anything knows what really happened on 9/11. They tell me there's a cover up, and that actual knowledge of this is widespread among construction professionals, firefighters and military officials. They tell me the fact that no more than a couple of these folks will talk in public about it is more proof of the cover up. They tell me that whenever I hear a construction professional, a firefighter or a military official say this is nonsense, it's also part of the cover up.

I just can't see what the idea of a 'cover up' has to do with whether or not something is a 'conspiracy theory'. The claim that there is a cover up is often used to detect conspiracy theory, but your wife really was trying to cover up the fact that she ran herself into financial ruin. Was that a conspiracy theory? You tell me.