A TIMES HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR How did America end up trapped in a nightmare of conspiracy
theories in which millions see the government as an evil 'deep state'? In 1967 at the
height of the Vietnam War a group of New York writers concocted what appeared to be a
top-secret government report into what would happen to the USA if permanent global peace broke
out. Report from Iron Mountain claimed that winding down America's vast war-making machinery
would wreck the economy and tear society apart necessitating draconian controls over the
population. It was published as non-fiction - and was frighteningly convincing. Journalists
tried to find out who had written it. Worried memos reached right up to the president. It
became a bestselling cause celebre. Even when the hoax was revealed many refused to believe
it wasn't real. The Report was seized on by eager figures on the far right and in the militia
movement who insisted that it revealed terrifying government conspiracies to pollute the
environment enslave Americans and even instigate eugenics. And its legacy lives on today.
Ghosts of Iron Mountain traces this story through a gallery of vivid characters from the
radical academic C. Wright Mills and the writers E.L. Doctorow Victor Navasky and Leonard
Lewin in 1960s New York to the far-right impresario Willis Carto Oklahoma City bomber Timothy
McVeigh conspiracy theorist Milton William Cooper L. Fletcher Prouty (the inspiration for 'Mr
X' in the film JFK ) and ranting broadcaster Alex Jones. This is one of the great stories of
our time and reveals how nightmares about its own government drove America crazy.
