by jfshade » Tue Jul 19, 2005 12:58 am
"The publication of the report caused a sensation. So many copies of it were sold that it made its way onto the New York Times bestseller list, and it was eventually translated into 15 languages.<br><br>"The report caused panic among many government officials. President Johnson supposedly "hit the roof" when he learned of it. Cables were sent to U.S. embassies throughout the world instructing them to play down public discussion of the report, and to emphasize that the report had nothing at all to do with official U.S. policy.<br><br>"The media, meanwhile, frantically searched for and speculated about who had written the report. On November 20 Eliot Fremont-Smith wrote a review for the New York Times in which he declared that the report was a hoax. He speculated that it had been written either by John Kenneth Galbraith, Kenneth Boulding, or Leonard C. Lewin. However, he had no evidence to prove his speculations.<br><br>"The suspicion that Galbraith was the author stemmed from the fact that he had written a review of the report under the pseudonym "Herschel McLandress". This review had appeared in the Washington Post and the Chicago Tribune. Lewin was suspected because besides having written the introduction to the report, he had also authored a book of political satire.<br><br>"The mystery of who had written the report was revealed in 1972 when Lewin declared in an article in the New York Times that he had penned the entire report. In other words, there was no Special Study Group and no government plot to maintain a state of war. The entire report had been a hoax. More details of the creation of the hoax were given in 1996 when Simon & Schuster reprinted the Report with a new introduction.<br><br>"Apparently, the genesis of the report occurred in 1966 when Victor Navasky, editor of the Monocle, a magazine of political satire, noticed a New York Times article reporting that the stock market had dipped because of a 'peace scare.' Navasky mentioned this to Lewin who then wrote the report. The two of them presented the report to E.L. Doctorow, editor of the Dial Press. Doctorow agreed to publish the work as nonfiction.<br><br>"Navasky claimed that the purpose of the hoax had been "to provoke thinking about the unthinkable—the conversion to a peacetime economy and the absurdity of the arms race."<br><br>"Even though Lewin and Navasky admitted that the report was a hoax, there still remain some who believe it to be an official government document that was leaked to the public. An ultra-rightwing group known as the Liberty Lobby is one such group. Believing that the report was evidence of a secret government plot, the group printed their own edition of the report. When Lewin found out about this, he sued them for copyright infringement. The case was settled out of court with the Liberty Lobby agreeing to pay Lewin an undisclosed sum."<br><br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/iron.html">www.museumofhoaxes.com/iron.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> <p></p><i></i>
