23 - 29 June 2025 - Broad Chalke, Salisbury

Forum

Included

14:00 - 14:45
Sun, 29 June
152. Ghosts Of Iron Mountain: The Hoax That Duped America And Its Sinister Legacy
Forum

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. Despite being revealed as a hoax, 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. Phil Tinline tells one of the great stories of our time and reveals how America ended up trapped in a nightmare of conspiracy theories, in which millions still see the government as an evil ‘deep state’.