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1The A-Z of Conspiracy
2As everyone knows, we are never allowed to know who is really
3controlling our lives/the country/the world.  But is this knowledge a
4dangerous thing? To clear up this question beyond reasonable doubt
5Life provides a comprehensive guide to the theoretical corridors and
6sinister back offices in which true power (and general paranoia) may
7(or may not) lie
802/12/95
9THE GUARDIAN  
10  
11   Conspiracy theories are the will-o'-the-wisps of the modern
12world. They provide an alternative history to the authorised
13version of events, a coherent demonology in a godless, devil-less
14age.
15   Conspiracy theories fill a human need. They make some sense of
16the cruel narrative that is the 20th century. They turn the random
17violence of a lone madman into an act of orchestrated malice. In
18this way the loss of a figure like Kennedy becomes somehow more
19comprehensible. To be angry is more bearable than to be uncertain.
20   This soothing function can be at odds with truth, however.
21Alternative conspiracist history is as flawed as the `authorised'
22version. Worse, a conspiracist view can suppress awkward pieces of
23information by toying with the notion that events have been covered
24up by the authorities to suit their own ends: encounters with alien
25space ships, the real makers of the Lockerbie bomb and the truth
26about Rudolf Hess have all been hidden from the public but the
27higher officers of the state are in the know.
28   Some of the conspiracy theories which date from earlier this
29century have more ignoble, murkier origins. Anti-semites were
30behind the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the Jewish Conspiracy
31and countless others. Their modern equivalents are put about by
32neo-Nazi cliques. Again, these conspiracy theories have a human
33function. Failure in life is more bearable if `the truth' is that
34the Jews/the blacks/the Illuminati have conspired against you, it
35allows you to ignore the fact that you are a spotty social
36inadequate with bad breath and too-tight lederhosen.
37   The conspiracy theorist is the bane of the working journalist.
38The need for some sliver of evidence to support assertions is
39secondary to the spell of the theory: that, for the conspiracy
40theorist, is its charm. This difficulty is compounded by the fact
41that not all conspiracy theories are untrue. Those in power across
42the world do prefer to keep embarrassing truths secret; they do
43cover up; they do, from time to time, kill people who get in the
44way.
45   True or not, a rattling good conspiracy theory requires the
46following qualities:
47
48   1 it must be difficult, better still, impossible, to understand
49at first glance.
50   2 it must contain a spaghetti-heap of leads, all of which cannot
51be followed up. There must always be one more lead left to chase.
52   3 The story should speak to a `wider' truth about our society,
53through a series of disconnected or unconnected or unfalsifiable
54propositions.
55   4 There should be no easy way of verifying it.
56
57   The theories below demonstrate all of these qualities to a
58greater or lesser degree. To savour our A-Z properly, we suggest
59readers mull over it with deadpan credulousness in the small hours
60of the morning listening to the theme music from The X-Files and
61drinking black coffee.
62   A IS FOR ALIEN ENCOUNTERS that are being covered up by the
63authorities. Perhaps the best-documented close encounter of the
64third kind took place on 27 December 1980, when airmen at two RAF
65stations in East Anglia witnessed something extraordinary. First
66radar operators at RAF Watton in Norfolk picked up an oddity on
67their screens. Then RAF Phantom pilots reported seeing intense
68bright lights in the sky. Former radar operator Mal Scurrah said:
69`As the Phantoms got close the hovering object shot upwards at
70phenomenal speed " monitored at more than 1,000 mph.' Later, airmen
71stationed at RAF Woodbridge in Suffolk investigated a mystery fire
72in Rendlesham Forest. Sergeant Jim Penniston witnessed the
73encounter with airman John Burroughs. Penniston said: `The air was
74filled with electricity and we saw an object about the size of a
75tank. It was triangular, moulded of black glass and had symbols on
76it. Suddenly it shot off faster than any aircraft I have ever
77observed.' The next day the object returned. Base commander Lt Col
78Charles Halt saw the flying saucer himself: `I couldn't believe
79what I was seeing. It looked like the rising sun with a black
80pulsating centre. It appeared to be dripping molten metal.' Hall
81acted coolly, taping and photographing the object engineered by `an
82intelligence which didn't originate on Earth'. His tape and film
83were confiscated by visiting US defence officials. Former British
84Chief of Defence Staff Lord Hill-Norton has claimed: `Someone is
85sitting on information that should be in the public domain.'
86Believability: 9/10 (Possible explanation: what the airmen saw may
87not have been a UFO, but a prototype of the Stealth bomber, which
88has a black triangular shape, a strange radar print and was, in
891980, ultra-secret. Project Aurora, a new ultra-ultra-secret
90Pentagon Black Budget reconnaissance aircraft, is probably
91responsible for all subsequent UFO sightings.)
92
93   B IS FOR THE BILDERBERG GROUP, which organises semi-secret
94annual three-day meetings of the European-Atlantic great and good
95from the worlds of business, diplomacy and politics. The first
96meetings were organised in 1954 by eminence grise Joseph Retinger,
97the then secretary general of the newly fledged, CIA-funded
98European Movement. Karl Otto Pohl, then president of Deutsche
99Bundesbank, David Rockefeller, Lord Carrington and Governor Bill
100Clinton of Arkansaswere among recent delegates. Denis Healey was at
101that first meeting and, having retired, discusses Bilderberg in his
102autobiography, The Time Of My Life. Bilderberg is one of the
103transnational groups suspected by the European-American far Right
104of being part of the secret elite power structure. Even the
105Financial Times column `Lombard' has noted: `If the Bilderberg
106group is not a conspiracy of some sort, it is conducted in such a
107way as to give a remarkably good imitation of one.' Believability:
1088/10
109  
110   C IS FOR CEAUSESCU, who was tried and executed on Christmas Day
111to hush up the complicity of Romania's new leaders in his crimes.
112The videotape of the Christmas Day show trial of Nicolae and Elena
113Ceausescu is an absorbing spectacle. Time and again, Ceausescu and
114his wife turn on their interrogators and accuse them of knowing the
115answers to the questions they have posed. Prosecutor: `What do you
116know about the Securitate?' Elena: `They are sitting across from us
117here.' The old witch was right, of course, because sitting in the
118courtroom were secret police chiefs like Colonel Magureanu, who had
119been party to the attack on civilians in Timisoara which had
120triggered the revolution. He was later promoted by the leader of
121the conspirators, Ion Iliescu " a former Ceausescu crony " to head
122the renamed secret police, the `Romanian Information Service'.
123Iliescu became and remains president, the tainted hero of a tainted
124revolution.
125   Believability: 10/10
126
127   D IS FOR `DEEP THROAT', the mole in the Nixon administration
128guiding the Washington Post journalists, Woodward and Bernstein, to
129the Watergate story. `Throat' remains unidentified. In his book
130Hidden Agenda (1984) Jim Hougan nominated both Nixon's chief of
131staff, Alexander Haig, and National Security Agency boss, Admiral
132Bobby Ray Inman, as candidates; Colodny and Gettlin also fingered
133Haig in their book Silent Coup (1991). Barbara Newman, for Channel
1344's Dispatches, came up with the head of the FBI field office in
135Washington, the late Bob Kunkle. He was allegedly leaking for the
136FBI, which was disgruntled by the Nixon cover-up.
137   Believability: 10/10 (Cynics suspect `Deep Throat' was merely a
138dramatic device or a ploy to keep newspaper lawyers quiet.)
139
140   E IS FOR ELECTRICITY PYLONS, which fry our brains. A number of
141protesters have complained that electro-magnetic waves in overhead
142electricity pylons have led to depression, headaches, mental and
143physical ill-health. No government ministry has placed much
144credence on these complaints. The epidemiology of environmental
145effect is notoriously hard to prove, but all good conspiracists
146believe there is no smoke without a secret ray.
147   Believability: 7/10
148
149   F IS FOR FREEMASONS, who club together to better themselves in
150the world. The majority of active freemasons have sworn not to
151divulge the secrets of the craft, on pain of having their tongues
152`cut out by the root and buried in the sand below low-water mark'.
153Other masons who have tried to break ranks have come to sticky
154ends, like `God's Banker' Roberto Calvi, found hanging from
155Blackfriars Bridge in 1982. So it is hard to determine just how
156much influence is wielded by the grown men who like to dress in
157black suits, wear aprons, bare their breasts and roll up their
158trouser legs. Not very much, say some sceptics, who suspect that
159the masons have more control over, say, haberdashery in
160Herefordshire than the British state. But freemasons still hold
161some sway in the corridors of power. The Rt Hon the Lord Templeman
162and Rt Hon Lord Justice Balcombe, both freemasons, are two of the
163most senior judges in the land; junior Foreign Office minister Tony
164Baldry, former Tory MP David Trippier and back bench MPs Sir Peter
165Emery and Sir Gerard Vaughan are all on the square.
166   Many police officers, too, remain true to their masonic oaths of
167secrecy. In 1993 at a Police Federation conference a motion urging
168police officers to reveal membership of the masonic brotherhood was
169debated. An officer from Merseyside said it did not matter if
170officers `wore a goatskin or rolled up their trouser leg'. Another
171said that freemasonry was `not all mumbo-jumbo'.
172   A third police officer, mocking the calls for more openness
173about freemasonry in the ranks, put a paper bag over his head.
174Finally a member of the Metropolitan branch came to the rostrum to
175announce the vote. `I'm not telling,' he said to laughter. `It's a
176secret.' The opponents of freemasonry lost the vote.
177   Believability: 8/10
178
179   G IS FOR THE GEMSTONE FILE, the conspiracy theory which first
180surfaced in 1975. Originally a precis by American journalist
181Stephania Caruana of allegations made in letters by American
182chemist Bruce Roberts, now deceased, Gemstone attributes much of
183post-war America's ills to the power of Aristotle Onassis, who had
184the Kennedys and Dr King assassinated, seized the Howard Hughes
185empire, did a deal with the Mafia, etc. The subject of a couple of
186book-length studies to date, Gemstone has appeared in five or six
187different versions, each one containing new material. Most striking
188is the `Kiwi Gemstone' in which specifically New Zealand incidents
189have been embedded in the original American narrative. Authorless,
190floating round the world in samizdat form, Gemstone is a perfect,
191small-scale disinformation vehicle for anyone who cares to use it.
192   Believability: 0/10
193
194   H IS FOR HESS, locked up in Spandau prison because he knew all
195about the secret 1941 negotiations between Britain and Nazi
196Germany. Rudolf Hess's flight in May 1941 remains one of the most
197bizarre episodes of the Second World War. Lord James
198Douglas-Hamilton, son of the Duke of Hamilton, the Scottish
199landowner to whom Hess presented his plans, said: `Hess's proposals
200consisted of a limited peace deal under which Germany would have
201allowed Britain a free hand in her empire in return for Britain
202allowing Germany a free hand in Europe and Russia. His so-called
203peace plans would have meant the enslavement of Europe.' Hess was
204arrested, tried to commit suicide, went mad, was sentenced to life
205imprisonment and, at the age of 93, hanged himself in Spandau
206prison. Or not, as the case may be.  
207   One theory has it that the Churchill government, in a hideously
208clever propaganda campaign against the Nazis, ran a double, `Hess
209Two'. Evidence supporting the double theory emerged when a Dutch TV
210journalist, Karel Hille, disclosed that he had got the Most Secret
211file on Hess via an unnamed British historian who had been given it
212by the late MI6 spymaster Sir Maurice Oldfield. Oldfield had,
213allegedly, stolen the file from the MI6 archive. That the man,
214`Hess Two', who killed himself in prison was not the real Hess is
215backed by Hugh Thomas, a Welsh surgeon, who, in the early 1970s,
216was consultant to the British Military Hospital in West Berlin.
217Thomas examined `Hess Two' and found him to lack the scars the real
218Hess should have had after a wound he received in 1917. MI6 had
219`Hess Two' hanged because they didn't want the truth to come out.
220Then the killers burnt the evidence, including an electrical flex,
221with which he was murdered.
222   Believability: 5/10 (Hess was mad. His 1917 wound was
223pea-sized.)
224
225   I IS FOR THE ILLUMINATI, the secret society controlling all the
226other secret societies. An 18th-century masonic splinter group
227begun by Adam Weishaupt, the Illimunati were said to be the hidden
228force behind the French Revolution. After the First World War they
229were re-launched into the English-speaking world by one Nesta
230Webster who credited them with organising the Russian October
231Revolution too. In 1921 the Spectator described Weishaupt as a
232`Prussian with criminal instincts and lunatic perversions . . .
233{who} shunted continental freemasonry on to Antinomian and
234revolutionary lines.' In the demonology of the Anglo-American far
235Right, the Illuminati largely replaced the Jews as the spider at
236the centre of the web. These theories were brilliantly parodied in
237the Illuminatus! trilogy (1976) by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert
238Shea.
239   Believability: 0/10
240
241   J IS FOR JAMES JESUS ANGLETON, the orchid-growing,
242poetry-writing, paranoid head of CIA counter intelligence
243throughout much of the Cold War. Angleton believed the CIA and all
244other spy networks to be so much gorgonzola, riddled with KGB
245moles. In his search for these moles Angleton paralysed large
246chunks of the CIA for years at a stretch and blighted the careers
247of many senior officers.
248   It was Angleton who insisted in the 1960s that MI5 investigate
249Harold Wilson, a task taken up enthusiastically by Peter Wright and
250his circle in MI5. Angleton's overarching idiocy was to believe the
251KGB defector Golitsyn, who claimed that the friction between the
252Soviet Union and Mao's China in the late 1960s was a fake to
253deceive the West. Despite the collapse of the Soviet Union,
254Golitsyn remains convinced that it is all a black propaganda ploy.
255However, the confession of top CIA man Aldrich Ames that he was a
256KGB mole have proved some of Angleton's fears correct.
257   Believability: 6/10
258
259   K IS FOR KENNEDY, killed by almost anyone you care to mention.
260According to Captain James T Kirk of the Starship Enterprise, the
261`first rule of assassination is kill the assassins'. The killing of
262Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby set a hare running that has never
263stopped. Instead of Oswald's courtroom confession or denial of
264guilt providing some explanation of the killing of the president,
265the assassination of the assassin let conjecture reign.
266   So many had a hand in his murder it is too tedious to name them
267all. Oliver Stone argued in his film JFK that Lyndon Baines Johnson
268was the man behind the conspiracy. The KGB, the Mafia, the Cubans,
269the FBI and the masons are all contenders. Perhaps the best JFK
270conspiracy theory is that he is, after all, still alive, but kept a
271permanent prisoner by the National Security Council.
272   Believability: 1/10
273
274   L IS FOR LOCKERBIE. On 21 December 1988, 270 people were
275murdered when Pan Am 103 exploded over Scotland.
276   Six years later no one has been convicted of the crime, although
277investigators on both sides of the Atlantic have consistently
278pointed the finger at two Libyan intelligence officers who they
279believe planted the bomb on a plane from Malta before it was
280transferred at Frankfurt on to the fatal flight. UN sanctions are
281enforced against Tripoli until Colonel Gadaffi agrees to hand over
282the two for trial.
283   Others are not convinced by the official line. Tales of
284suitcases of heroin recovered at the crash site by mysterious
285American intelligence officers point to a joint CIA/Drug
286Enforcement Administration operation that was fatally compromised
287by Syrian and Iranian-backed Palestinian terrorists. American
288spooks were running `controlled' deliveries of Lebanese heroin
289through Frankfurt airport in return for information about the
290whereabouts of the hostages in Beirut. The terrorists were aware of
291this and switched the dope-filled Samsonite case with one
292containing the bomb. Among those killed were Matthew Gannon, the
293CIA's deputy head of station in Beirut, and Major Charles McKee, a
294Defence Intelligence Agency officer allegedly in charge of a
295hostage rescue team. Some students of the tragedy have gone so far
296as to suggest that McKee was flying home to blow the whistle,
297disgusted that deals were being struck with dope dealers in order
298to gain intelligence on the kidnap victims.
299   Believability: 8/10
300
301   M IS FOR DAVID MELLOR, got at by Mossad after his
302pro-Palestinian outburst in 1988 on the West Bank. The Israelis
303were out to topple Mellor after he became the most prominent critic
304in the British Government of their conduct in the Occupied
305Territories.
306   First, they managed to secure his removal as junior Foreign
307Office minister, threatening to stop passing on intelligence
308information about the hostages in Beirut unless Mellor was moved.
309   Second, they arranged for the clandestine phone-tapping
310operation which led to the highly embarrassing `toe-sucking'
311allegations.
312   The result: Mellor was forced to quit the Cabinet.
313   Believability: 5/10
314  
315   N IS FOR NOSTRADAMUS, the 16th- century psychic seer who
316predicted Napoleon, Hitler and the killing of John Kennedy. The
317seer's muddily-written quatrains have spawned more than 200 books,
318a propaganda war between the Nazis and the Allies during the Second
319World War, a movie, an American TV spin-off show, Monopoly-style
320board games, a virtual reality game and even a watch, which ticks
321down the seconds from 1 January 1995 to the millennium.
322   Whitstable housewife Valerie Hewitt, author of Nostradamus: His
323Key To The Centuries (Heinemann, 1994), predicts that Prince
324Charles will be crowned this year. `It will be something sudden
325that will affect the Queen, an illness " whether it is political or
326genuine it doesn't matter. And Diana will be offered the chance to
327become Queen. But Charles's reign will be short and William could
328be king before he's 18.' In 1993 she predicted that George Bush
329would stay as president.
330   Rival Nostradamus buff John Hogue is more apocalyptic. He plumps
331for nuclear disaster or terrorism in 1996, World War III before the
332millennium and Aids " `a very great plague . . . with a great scab'
333" and the ozone hole killing off two-thirds of the world population.
334   He quotes the prophet's vision of the future: `So many {die}
335that no one will know the true owners of fields and houses. The
336weeds in the city streets will rise higher than the knees, and
337there shall be a total desolation of the clergy.' Believability:
3380/10 (The verses of Nostradamus clearly refer to events and places
339in the 16th century. For example, nowhere does he mention `Hitler',
340only `Hister', the contemporary name for the Lower Danube.)
341
342   P IS FOR PROMIS SOFTWARE, stolen from a Washington law firm. In
3431982 a Washington DC computer firm, Inslaw, developed a programme
344called Promis (Prosecutors' Management Information System) which it
345supplied to the US Justice Department for $10 million. A year
346later, Justice stopped all payments and Inslaw went bankrupt. A
347ruling in 1987 at a bankruptcy court concluded that the Justice
348Department `took, converted and stole Promis software through
349trickery, fraud and deceit', which is a little embarrassing for the
350department charged with upholding the rule of law.
351   So far, so what? It is only when people started to probe into
352why Justice had acted in such a way that it gets interesting,
353prompting one investigator to claim that the case `was a lot
354dirtier for the department than Watergate had been, both in its
355breadth and depth'.
356   It turns out that (allegedly) the men behind the theft of the
357software were all Reagan appointees who helped engineer the 1980
358`October Surprise', whereby the Republicans struck a deal with the
359Iranians not to release American Embassy hostages from Tehran until
360after Reagan was safely in the White House. The software was then
361sold on to foreign intelligence agencies across the globe, (a) to
362generate revenue for covert operations not authorised by Congress;
363and (b) to make it easier for US operatives to hack into the
364software.
365   The story was chased by US freelance Danny Casolaro. A year
366after making himself known to the Inslaw people he was found dead
367in a motel room in West Virginia. The official verdict was suicide,
368but Elliott Richardson, the Attorney General under Nixon, hired by
369Inslaw to investigate the case, concluded: `It's hard to come up
370with any reason for Casolaro's death other than he was deliberately
371murdered because he was so close to uncovering sinister elements in
372what he called `the Octopus'.' Believability: 7/10
373
374   Q IS FOR CARROLL QUIGLEY, the granddaddy of all modern American
375conspiracists. Quigley's 1,340-page volume Tragedy And Hope "
376History Of The World In Our Time (1966) included a dozen pages on
377the existence of a hitherto unknown secret society, run by Alfred,
378Lord Milner, Lloyd George's Chef de Cabinet, funded by Cecil
379Rhodes's estate. The group, said Quigley, who claimed to have
380access to its papers, organised the Round Table groups in the
381Commonwealth, the Royal Institute For International Affairs in
382London and its counterpart in the US betwen the wars.
383   For far-Right groups such as the John Birch Society these pages
384were proof, from an `insider', of the great conspiracy they had
385always suspected. Not the communists, not the Jews, not even the
386Illuminati, but the Perpetual Hidden Government " the PHG!
387Quigley's revelations are behind much of the recent talk of One
388Worlders and New World Orders and are part of Republican
389presidential hopeful Pat Robertson's world view. Among Quigley's
390students at Georgetown University was Bill Clinton, and the
391conspiracists got quite excited when President Clinton referred to
392the impact Quigley made on him in his inauguration speech.
393   Believability: 4/10
394
395   R IS FOR JAMES RUSBRIDGER, killed and framed as a sex pervert by
396MI5. Rusbridger was a tremendous irritant to the security services.
397His letters to newspapers poured scorn on the Official Secrets Act;
398his books, such as The Intelligence Game, cast doubt on the
399official version of events. But where Rusbridger, aged 65 at the
400time of his death, really annoyed the spooks was when he unearthed
401Britain's code-cracking secrets, in particular the story that the
402British had cracked Japanese naval codes in advance of the attack
403on Pearl Harbour.  
404   He was bright, hale and hearty for his age when he was
405discovered in February 1994 at his home, dressed in a green
406protective suit for use in nuclear, biological or chemical warfare,
407green overalls, a black plastic mackintosh and thick rubber gloves.
408His face was covered by a gas mask and he was also wearing a
409sou'wester. His body was suspended from two ropes, attached to
410shackles fastened to a piece of wood across the open loft hatch,
411and was surrounded by pictures of men and mainly black women in
412bondage. Consultant pathologist Dr Yasai Sivathondan said he died
413from asphyxia due to hanging `in keeping with a form of sexual
414strangulation'.
415   His death occasioned a piece by Sunday Times reporter James
416Adams, whose own books boast of contacts with British intelligence.
417Adams quoted senior intelligence officials as saying Rusbridger
418never had any connection with any branch of British intelligence:
419"His death was as much a fantasy as his life,' said one source . .
420. Rusbridger's interest in intelligence seems to have coincided
421with his conviction for theft in 1977.' Such an extensive
422posthumous demolition job by intelligence officials would perhaps
423only be merited by someone who had been a serious thorn in their
424side.
425   Believability: 7/10
426
427   S IS FOR THE SUICIDES OF THE SCIENTISTS WHO WORKED FOR MARCONI.
428In 1988 a host of brilliant researchers working for the defence
429giant killed themselves in a variety of ways: one drove his
430petrol-laden car into a disused Little Chef, another jumped off the
431Clifton suspension bridge, a third electrocuted himself.
432   The deaths appeared to be a case of life imitating art " in this
433case, an episode of the 1960s Avengers series which features a
434number of brilliant scientists killing themselves. The first
435problem is that there was no linkage between the deaths. Second,
436suicide is 10 times more common than murder in Britain. Third, men
437kill themselves more violently than women. Fourth, scientists are
438more ingenious than the rest of the population, so one would expect
439them to kill themselves violently and bizarrely. Fifth, the defence
440business employs huge numbers of scientists, and Marconi is a big
441employer.
442   When the numbers are crunched, there is no statistical
443aberration in the number of suicides by Marconi scientists. It is
444too good a story for a newspaper to kill, however.
445   Believability: 0/10
446
447   U IS FOR THE UNIFIED CONSPIRACY THEORY, or the Grand Unified
448Conspiracy Theory, which knits all the other conspiracy theories
449into a coherent tapestry.
450   Believability: 1/10
451
452   V IS FOR VATICAN, which knocks off the popes it doesn't like.
453The markedly short reign of John Paul I has given rise to this
454particular crock of conjecture.
455   Old men can die quite quickly, even if they are popes. However,
456rumours persist in the Vatican than John Paul I was going to clean
457out the Augean stables of the pontiff's finances and expose the
458scandalous links between the Mafia, the freemasons and senior
459cardinals in the Roman Catholic Church.
460   Believability: 2/10
461
462   W IS FOR COLIN WALLACE, who was forced to resign from the
463Ministry of Defence in 1975 when he leaked information about a
464covert MI5 operation, `Clockwork Orange'. Wallace, an Ulsterman,
465claimed he had been involved in the operation, which had been
466designed to destabilise paramilitary organisations in the Province
467through disinformation. Wallace alleged that the scope of the
468operation had been extended to include mainland politicians viewed
469as `politically soft or leftist', a list which included Harold
470Wilson, Edward Heath and Jeremy Thorpe. Wallace claims it was in
471his remit to discredit these `targets' using unfounded smear
472stories about sexual impropriety.
473   He also alleged, in a memo to army chiefs, that a Belfast boys'
474home named Kincora was being used as a homosexual trap for
475intelligence gathering against prominent Unionist politicians. In
4761990 an inquiry conducted by James Calcutt QC found Wallace's
477dismissal to be unsafe and ordered the Ministry to award him
478pounds 30,000 in compensation. The inquiry was not, however,
479empowered to make any judgment on Wallace's allegations.
480   Believability: 7/10
481
482   X IS FOR MR X, the third man who allegedly went to bed with two
483senior Conservative politicians, now in the Cabinet, all at the
484same time. This is a conspiracy theory never to be told.
485   Believability: 10/10
486
487   Y IS FOR YAKUZA, the Japanese mafia who run the world. The
488Yakuza are the world's richest and most powerful gangsters. They
489control many of the big-name Japanese corporations that now have
490huge leverage in the major western economies. Nothing can be done
491to loosen the grip of the Yakuza on the world economy.
492   Believability: 8/10
493
494   Z IS FOR THE ZAGREB OPERATION, when the NKVD inducted Robert
495Maxwell as a Soviet double agent. Maxwell was never clear about how
496he escaped from Nazi-occupied Germany. In fact, he was given secret
497passage through Nazi-allied Croatia by Communist partisans, then
498loyal to the Soviet Union, in return for a lifetime as a spy.
499   While passing through Zagreb Maxwell was recruited by an officer
500of the NKVD " the forerunner to the KGB " and was told to travel to
501Britain and ingratiate himself with the British Establishment.
502Maxwell did brilliantly, becoming first a war hero then a respected
503publisher. The NKVD and KGB helped Maxwell out from time to time,
504smoothing his path in arranging deals with Eastern Bloc scientific
505publishers and the like. Maxwell prospered.
506   It was only in 1991 that the Israeli secret service, Mossad,
507came across the truth when they bought up a senior KGB archivist
508who sold them the Operation Zagreb file. Maxwell " who Mossad
509thought had been working for them " was terminated by a crack unit
510of Israeli frogmen.
511   Believability: 6/10