Who coined the term "Conspiracy Theory", and to what end ? An interview with Prof. Mark C. Miller

Who coined the term Conspiracy Theory, and to what end ? In this "debriefing", Dr. Mark Crispin Miller explains that it was close-reading of his “first love”, namely William Shakespeare, which has enabled him to see through the propaganda now engulfing the Western World - and help others see through it.

Dr. Miller explains that the 19th Century term “conspiracy theorist” had until 1967 only rarely been used, and then, in a quite other context. The turning point was the cover-up of the Kennedy assassination by the Warren Commission. In 1967, the CIA issued to all station chiefs Document 1035-960, entitled “Countering Criticism of the Warren Commission Report”. That document proposes that newspaper editors thenceforth brand all challenge to the latter Report as “conspiracy theory”.

He points out that things have now gone so far, that on 13th August 2021, the Department of Homeland Security's National Terrorism Advisory System (NTAS) Bulletin explicitly refers to those who question Covid restrictions or the 2020 US presidential race, in a context of terrorist threats.

Backing up to the 1950s and McCarthyism, Dr. Miller points to how dissidence has over the past century, come to be described as a “virus”, as a “communicable disease”, facilitating the switchover to the current “anti-vax” urban legend.

Dr. Mark Crispin Miller is Professor of Media, Culture and Communication at New York University, author inter alia of Cruel and Unusual: Bush/Cheney’s New World Order (2004). He has contributed to documentaries such as Orwell Rolls in His Grave (2003) and The True Cost (2015), on the textile industry and edits Forbidden Bookshelf, an e-book series that revives works such as Dallas '63: The First Deep State Revolt Against the White House by Peter Dale Scott.

In 2004, Miller wrote the play "Patriot Act" for New York Theater Workshop and is now co-producing "Four Died Trying", on the assassinations of JFK, Malcolm X, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King.

He is on the board of the Organization for Propaganda Studies, an international consortium of scholars, and the Alliance for Human Research Protection, to deal with violations of informed consent in medical research.

See also:

https://markcrispinmiller.com/
https://www.amazon.com/Forbidden-Bookshelf-27-Book-Series/dp/B07D5HPPWZ
https://ia801007.us.archive.org/3/items/CIADOC1035960/CIA%20DOC%201035-960.pdf
https://www.dhs.gov/ntas/advisory/national-terrorism-advisory-system-bulletin-august-13-2021
https://www.senate.gov/senators/FeaturedBios/Featured_Bio_McCarthy.htm