The Normality of Conspiracy II

  

The Normality of Conspiracy II

Peter Schultz

 

                  The following is from John Prados biography of William Colby, regarding his appointment as the DCI of the CIA and the ratification process of his nomination.

 

                  “First of the quiet contacts would be the chairman of the Senate’s CIA subcommittee within Armed Services, John Stennis… who had been in the Senate for twenty-six years…. Stennis … felt the CIA’s domestic entanglements ought to be kept out of public view…. [H]is vice chairman, Missouri’s Stuart Symington … had concerns about the CIA in Watergate … but he sided with Stennis on the Family Jewels. On the House side the Armed Services Committee chairman, F. Edward Hebert … agreed the Family Jewels should be kept quiet. None of these three even examined the allegations in detail; all were satisfied with Colby’s assurances that the CIA would be kept out of these activities in the future.

 

                  “Langley’s only difficulty arose with Lucien N. Nedzi [who] represented a liberal district of Detroit…. Like Colby, a lawyer and a Catholic, CIA domestic entanglements beyond Watergate troubled him…. Nedzi wanted to be the new broom, willing to sweep away established practices. The CIA subcommittee chairman not only heard Colby out, he also asked to see the Family Jewels; he then sent questions demanding answers and finally wanted more specific assurances. Nedzi also confronted Colby with the question the director-designate found hardest of all: why not make public the report? Colby argued that such as action might cripple the CIA, and Nedzi accepted that argument.” [263]

 

                  It has been argued, and cited here several times that “conspiracy is the normal continuation of normal politics by normal means.” The way the ratification process of William Colby’s nomination to be director of the CIA illustrates just how normal conspiratorial behavior is politically. Leading members of the US Senate and the House of Representatives engaged in such behavior while ratifying Colby’s nomination to lead the CIA, which had recently been linked to the Watergate scandal by way of personnel and practices. Moreover, the Phoenix program in Vietnam, which had been accused of being as assassination program, had also been controversial and Colby was intimately tied to that program. Conspiratorially, all of this was swept under the rug, so to speak, by leading members of both political parties, as well as both the US Senate and the House of Representatives. And if someone were to argue with these politicians that they were behaving conspiratorially, surely they, the politicians, would be surprised, even shocked at such an outrageous accusation. Their conspiratorial behavior had become so normal that its conspiratorial character had disappeared to the extent that the conspirators were unaware of it. In their minds, they were merely being political. And, of course, they were. But what they didn’t know is that the political is essentially, inherently conspiratorial.