                               Chapter 13
                 The 1976 Election and Conspiracy Fever

To  dramatize  what might happen and probably did happen in  1976,  this
chapter  has been prepared by assuming the attitude typical  of  today's
innocent  Americans.  A new disease is sweeping America.  No,  it's  not
the flu;  it's conspiracy fever.[1]

People  afflicted by the disease imagine conspiracies everywhere.   They
believe,  for example, that the CIA arranged for the takeover  in  Chile
and  the  assassination  of Salvador Allende.   They  even  think  Henry
Kissinger had something to do with it.  These poor feverish devils  have
the  strange idea that J. Edgar Hoover was a fiend rather than a  public
hero.   They  imagine  that he ordered a vicious  campaign  against  Dr.
Martin Luther King and a conspiracy against most of young America called
Cointelpro.   Some  even think Hoover had King killed.  There  are  some
Californians with the west coast strain of this bug who imagine that the
FBI and the California authorities created a conspiracy in San Diego and
Los  Angeles  against black citizens.  The California group  also  think
there  was  something strange about Donald DeFreeze and  the  Symbionese
Liberation  Army.   They suspect an FBI or  California  state  authority
conspiracy,  complete  with police provocateurs,  double  agents,  faked
prison breaks, and a Patty Hearst, alias Tania, all thrown in by our own
government  to  create a climate that would make the public  accept  the
prevalence of terrorism and demand a police state.

The  disease  spread  to Congressmen as well.  It does not  seem  to  be
limited,  as  it was before Watergate, to people under the  age  of  30.
There  are even Congressmen with a more virulent form of the malady  who
are convinced their telephones are still being tapped.  They, along with
thousands  of others who suffer, no doubt reached this  conclusion  just
because  they  were  told by a CIA-controlled  media  that  hundreds  of
telephones were tapped a few years ago.

Early  forms  of  conspiracy  fever  are  no  longer  considered  to  be
dangerous.    For  example,  all  those  sick  citizens   who   imagined
conspiracies in the incidents at Tonkin Gulf, Songmy, Mylai, the  Pueblo
and  the  Black Panther murders are now considered to be  more  or  less
recovered,  since  it turns out it was not  their  imaginations  working
overtime after all.  Even the special variety of the fever which  caused
the impression that the CIA murdered a series of foreign  heads-of-state
is no longer on the danger list.

There  is  still one form of the illness, however,  that  is  officially
considered to be very dangerous, virulent, and to be stamped out at  all
costs.   It is the version producing the illusion that all of  America's
domestic  assassinations were conspiracies.  Those infected believe  the
conspiracies  are  interlinked in a giant conspiracy to  take  over  the
electoral  process  in the United States and to conceal  this  from  the
American people.  Some citizens are known to have this worst form of the
fever.  They include a Congressman or two.  Others have come down with a
milder  form  in  which  they  imagine  separate  conspiracies  in  four
assassination  cases  (John  and  Robert  Kennedy,  Dr.  King,  and  the
attempted assassination of George Wallace).

Members of the Ford Administration, particularly David Belin, Mr. Ford's
staff member on the Rockefeller Commission, went along with an  analysis
made by Dr. Jacob Cohen, a professional fever analyst, that the  disease
has  been  spreading  rapidly because of a  small  group  of  "carriers"
traveling  around the country who are infecting everyone else.  Some  of
these  carriers,  called  assassination "buffs", were  thought  to  have
contracted the fever as many as twelve years ago.

In  the disease's worst form, the patient imagines that there  exists  a
powerful,   high  level  group  of  individuals,  some  of   whom   have
intelligence  experience.  The highest level of fever in these  patients
produces  the idea that this high level group, usually called  the  PCG,
will eliminate presidential candidates not in their favor or under their
control.  Others imagine that Jimmy Carter has been brought into the PCG
by threats against his children and careful briefings by George Bush.

It  is worth analyzing the sick people with this domestic  assassination
conspiracy  fever  to see how far their imaginations  take  them.   They
calculate  that the PCG, fearing exposure if any president is not  under
their control and influence, will go to whatever lengths are required to
insure the election of the man they do control.  The idea is that Gerald
Ford was nicely in the PCG's pocket because he has been covering up  for
them  ever since 1964.  He has continued to help them through  1975  and
1976  by maintaining a steady cover-up effort on all four cases.   Jimmy
Carter  was perhaps brought under control.  The feverish "buffs"  figure
that  the PCG would have been sure to eliminate Jimmy Carter  unless  he
could be controlled.

The  scenario continues into the future.  The more control exercised  by
the  PCG, the stronger they become and the more people in the  executive
branch become beholden to them to continue covering up the cover-ups.

So,  wake up America. Wipe out this disease. It's just as  dangerous  as
Communism,  if  not more so.  Like the general in  "Z",  Americans  must
realize  that such a disease has to be eliminated whenever and  wherever
it appears.
____________________
[1] "Conspiracy  Fever"  is derived from an article with that  title  by
    Jacob  Cohen,  a psychologist, in  "Commentary"  magazine,  October,
    1975.

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