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The hoax claimed that a panel, called the Special Study Group, was set up in 1963 to examine what problems would occur if the US entered a state of lasting peace. They met at an underground nuclear bunker called Iron Mountain and worked over the next two years. A member of the panel, one " John Doe", a professor at a college in the Midwest, decided to release the report to the public.
The report concluded that peace was not in the interest of a stable society. War was a part of the economy. Therefore, it was necessary to conceive a state of war for a stable economy. The government, the group theorized, would not exist without war. They recommended that bodies be created to emulate the economic functions of war. They also recommended that the government create alternative foes that would scare the people with reports of alien lifeforms and out of control pollution. They also suggested that "blood games" be done in the style of the Spanish Inquisition.
After the report's release, it was on the New York Times bestseller list and the hoax was translated into 15 different languages. Lyndon Johnson was not happy with the hoax. US embassies disclaimed the report, noting it was not official government policy. Three men were accused of writing the hoax. Among the accused were Leonard C. Lewin, because he had written the report's introduction, John Kenneth Galbraith, because he had written reviews of the hoax in the Washington Post and Chicago Tribune under an alias, and Kenneth Bounding. In 1972, Lewin confessed in the March 19 New York Times Book Review that he had written the entire report, fretting how the Pentagon PapersThe Pentagon Papers are a seven-thousand-page top-secret United States Department of Defense history of the United States involvement in the Vietnam War from 1945 to 1971. The Pentagon Papers were leaked in 1971 by Department of Defense worker Daniel Ells and other documents about the Vietnam War "read like parodies of Iron Mountain rather than the reverse."[1]
Even though Lewin has admitted that he wrote the report, there are those who believe the hoax is real. One example is the far-right Liberty LobbyLiberty Lobby was a right-wing political advocacy organization which existed in the United States between 1955 and 2001. It was founded in 1955 by Willis Carto. Liberty Lobby was the subject of much criticism from all quarters of the political spectrum.. This group, believing the report was a government publication, printed their own copies of the hoax. They were later sued by Lewin for copyright infringementCopyright infringement is the unauthorized use of copyrighted material in a manner that violates one of the copyright owner's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works that build upon it.. Lewin won the suit. In 1991, Oliver StoneOliver Stone (born September 15, 1946 in New York City) is an Academy Award-winning American film director. Stone attended Yale and the New York University. He has won two Academy Awards for Directing for Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July''. A distin used a quote from the hoax in his movie, JFKJFK is a 1991 film which purports to tell the history of the President of the United States John F. Kennedy's assassination. The film follows the 1967 to 1969 investigation led by New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison (played by Kevin Costner) and in. One of Stone's consultants for the movie, former Air ForceThe United States Air Force USAF is the aviation branch of the United States armed forces. The mission of the USAF is "to defend the United States through the control and exploitation of air and space. Organization There are three components of the USAF: officer L. Fletcher ProutyFletcher Prouty ( January 24, 1917 June 5, 2001) was a commissioned officer in the United States Air Force, author, and critic of US foreign policy, especially as regarded the activities of the CIA. His books include The Secret Team: The CIA and Its Allie, believed the hoax was real.