By Nicholas Merl
(Illustration by Nicholas Merl/Radio 1190)
I spent a lot of time in January going through the Epstein files. Like, probably an unhealthy amount of time. I spent hours on the Department of Justice’s official database searching through keywords from the more grounded to the admittedly more paranoid and sordid. I can’t claim to have gained much insight from this; some surprising connections uncomfortably close to where I live and one or two celebrities I previously hadn’t seen mentioned in reporting on the growing web of scandals surrounding his name.
The vast, depressing majority of the documents constitute a gallery of human cruelty and degradation, inflicted by some of society’s most powerful and privileged people onto the most vulnerable and helpless. Nevertheless, I spent a good amount of my waking hours obsessively reading through endless court documents, chatlogs and emails.
I really can’t say what I was trying to prove in those restless hours. It’s not like I learned anything new. The answers are all there, floating between the redacted names and blacked-out faces that stare up at you from your screen almost mockingly. Some people tell themselves stories about further secrets to be uncovered, even more shocking than what we already know. Occultism. Ritualistic child sacrifice. Hell, aliens. The kind of thing people derisively refer to as “conspiracy theories.”
But as much as nothing is beyond the pale when Epstein is concerned, I don’t buy into those narratives. Of course, they have their own function. There is some comfort in always having something more “far out,” more nebulously evil than what we already know. It allows us to postpone confrontation with the bleak, horrifying reality for as long as we need.
The simple truth, the kind of truth that is increasingly elusive nowadays, is that Epstein ran a vice ring for the rich and powerful. Through favor and blackmail, he was able to amass immense power and build a highly influential network in the shadows. Everyone had their reasons for protecting Epstein, and his tendrils stretched into the highest institutions in society. For spy agencies, particularly Israel’s Mossad and several others, he was an ideal money man, influence peddler and quintessential “guy who does the dirty work.” For prominent politicians, his extensive contacts gave unprecedented access to the halls of power. And for the moneyed elite, he could provide twisted “leisure,” simultaneously affirming immunity from all rules of law, social convention and simple morality.
Lurid rumors of satanism or occultism allow people to look away from the real people, the young women and children whose lives were sacrificed in a real way to the monstrous appetites of a depraved network of pedophilic elites. The facts of the story are already satanic enough, in a way. But I suspect that there is another reason as well; aside from the blood-curdling details of the crimes themselves, whimsical narratives of dark magic and idol-worship allow people to sidestep the sheer crushing familiarity of the Epstein scandal.
The revelations form part of a repetitive pattern in American – or maybe more appropriately “western” – history. Every once in a while the mask of power slips, and the public at large gets a glimpse into the shady landscape of covert intrigue, cover-ups, state and corporate criminality and the ominous forces that move politics behind the scenes. This, in the verbiage of the Canadian poet and diplomat Peter Dale Scott, is the world of “parapolitics.”
The intermittent, generational glimpses into the world of the parapolitical are almost always accompanied by a period of scandal, outcry and then usually nothing. A few people go to prison, are quietly pardoned, make bail or simply vanish. The general public is left with little besides a shrinking trust in the institutions that govern them and an agonizing lack of real answers. The lack of closure afforded by almost any investigation into the secret world makes it unattractive to mainstream journalists, most of whom prefer to ignore it.
This has arguably been the case since the Kennedy assassination, an event often marked as the moment that “America lost its innocence.” The enduring mystery of who really killed the president in 1963 has been one of the longest-lasting areas of parapolitical research, none of which has come up with much in the way of real answers. From the Kennedy assassination onwards, such mysteries have usually been left to die in silence.
That hasn’t stopped people from trying to find some clarity. Lobster Magazine, a British publication founded in 1983, isn’t exactly a parlor name when it comes to journalism. Nevertheless, it has attracted some of the most prominent names in parapolitical research, including such contributors as journalists Kevin J. Coogan and William Blum, the aforementioned Peter Dale Scott and the convicted spy Michael John Smith.
Its subject matter often delves wholeheartedly into the fringe, examining alternate theories on anything from 9/11 to discussions of possible links between far-right groups and intelligence services. But for the magazine’s founders, Stephen Dorril and Robin Ramsay, the journal originated from a shared passion for the strangeness of the Kennedy assassination.
Over the last two weeks, I conducted an eMail interview with Mr. Ramsay. The following consists of the main body of our correspondence, with minor corrections to include important information and sources at his request. While it does not seek to present a conclusive view on the topics it covers, it may help readers develop a more productive view of one of America’s most enduring murder mysteries.
Briefly, how and why did you end up becoming a political writer? How did Lobster start from that?
ANSWER: I was always interested in politics and knew from an early age that I might end up writing. But it never occurred to me that I would make a living doing it. My first published essay was in a late edition of the ‘underground’ magazine International Times in London in 1978. I was always inclined to follow dissidents rather than the mainstream.
When you first started Lobster magazine, what did “parapolitics” mean to you? Did you have any particular role models at the outset?
ANSWER: Lobster began in 1983 by which time I had spent nearly 5 years in the University of Hull library reading post-WW2 history and American politics. It was obvious that JFK’s death in ’63 was a critical point, so that became part of what I was trying to understand. I came across Peter Dale Scott’s writing. He invented the term. When he came to the UK I did a long interview with him.[1] I think it’s in Lobster 6.
Nowadays the term “conspiracy theory” is often used in a derogatory fashion, lumping in those who believe in covert state criminality with those who, for instance, deny the holocaust. Throughout your career, have you seen the term shift in meaning/usage?
ANSWER: Conspiracy theory is just a put down, used most successfully by the CIA. Check their 1967 memo to agents and assets on using the term to attack JFK researchers (it’s on-line). Anthony Summers made the crucial distinction: he said he was interested in theories about conspiracies not conspiracy theories.
You’ve been researching and writing about the various mysteries surrounding the Kennedy assassination for most of your writing career. When and why did you begin to pursue this topic?
ANSWER: See above. Clearly the assassination was a huge deal. Shooting the president of the US in public was clearly a big deal.
You’ve written and spoken about your belief in the “piggyback theory” of the Kennedy assassination. Can you explain this perspective in brief? Why did you end up subscribing to it? Do you still find it convincing?
ANSWER: I first thought of this – without any evidence – in 1983.[2] It was a hunch. I rediscovered it when I read Chauncey Holt’s account about 15 years ago.[3][4] I had literally forgotten what I had written. Holt’s account is the key.[3][4]
If the original plan was to simply spook Kennedy, why were the original conspirators unable or unwilling to prevent the “piggybacked” plot? It seems that they would have had at least some time to detect and prevent the real killers from executing their plan. Was the first group simply unaware of the second? Did it believe the second group was on-side?
ANSWER: I think the original plan was to fake an assassination attempt on JFK and frame Oswald for it. Oswald was being portrayed as pro-Castro. With his finger on the trigger the conspiracy within the CIA thought they could force JFK to reinvade Cuba. The shallow back wound was that fake attempt using the rifle described by Holt in his memoir.[4] In this scenario, Oswald should have been killed ‘trying to escape’. Something went wrong. Ruby was called in to tidy things up.
You have written about your belief that there were two separate plans for Dallas: one meant to be a fake murder attempt planned by the CIA and the other a more hastily planned actual assassination. Who, in your opinion, are the most likely planners of the actual killing and why?
ANSWER: The fake attempt was probably but not proveably the CIA’s anti-Castro people. I think the killing was done by a loose conspiracy of CIA renegades and LBJ’s people, notably Malcolm ‘Mac’ Wallace.[5]
Could Kennedy himself have been aware – to whatever extent we might consider reasonable – of the original plan? If so, what might his involvement have been?
ANSWER: I don’t believe this. Kennedy and Khrushchev were trying to end the Cold War.
It has also been alleged that the actual fatal shot was fired by a second gunman from the front of the car, rather than by Oswald who would have been positioned behind the presidential entourage at the infamous “sniper’s nest.” Does the evidence, in your opinion, support the existence of multiple gunmen? Or was Oswald co-opted into the actual murder plan?
ANSWER: This a quagmire in which I have never been interested.
Much has been made of Oswald’s odd role in the assassination. While his prior activities seem to suggest that he was being cultivated as a “fall guy” to lay blame at Castro’s feet, you have suggested that the obviousness of his CIA ties make it unlikely that he was ever supposed to be the subject of much scrutiny. How likely is it that Oswald was actually meant to kill Kennedy?
ANSWER: Entirely unlikely. Oswald was the patsy – and he knew it, too.
Oswald seems to have been aware of his role as a “patsy,” as he famously claimed during his arrest. Overall, how aware do you think he was of his role in the original plot? Do you think he knew of the “piggybacked” plan to actually kill Kennedy?
ANSWER: This is another quagmire which I have stayed away from. I think
he guessed what had happened, or something of what had happened.
Did Oswald ever believe he could get out alive?
ANSWER: No idea.
How does Jack Ruby fit into the narrative? Was he part of the original plan, an accomplice to the assassins, a last-minute addition or a lone actor?
ANSWER: Last minute addition. Probably one of LBJ’s people in Dallas.
What motivated the different parties involved in the cover-up to maintain the charade for so long?
ANSWER: In the context of the global competition with The Soviets (and China) the political system could not afford to investigate the shooting honestly. And the CIA was involved and they were powerful in those days. Only a tiny minority of brave (or stupid) left/liberals pursued the
truth.
Do you see any parallels with the other major assassinations of the 1960s? Rev. Martin Luther King’s, Malcolm X’s and Robert F. Kennedy’s deaths are often grouped into a general chronicle of killings ascribed to the American intelligence community. Some authors even claim that these killings all formed part of a common, more or less interlinked agenda. How credible are such narratives in your opinion? Was the “1960s assassination wave” an actual parapolitical phenomenon or just media sensationalism?
ANSWER: MLK was murdered by the Mob in Memphis, far as we know. RFK’s death remains largely unexamined. Many of the buffs assume that he was killed because there was a danger he could become president and might, as he said, re-examine his brother’s death.
Much of your early work with Lobster in 1983 and 1984 focused on the civil war-like conditions in Northern Ireland. The Troubles themselves might be the single biggest and longest-lasting political crisis which confronted the British government during the Cold War era. Could you explain, broadly, how the Irish nationalist struggle and the counterinsurgency tactics used by the British government informed your understanding of parapolitics?
ANSWER: At the time there was very little information available about the counterinsurgency tactics of the UK gov. Most of the Irish nationalist press was unavailable to us and we didn’t know enough to distinguish the shit from the shinola, to use a pre-WW2 Americanism. I haven’t read any of that material for many years and I suspect what we published before we met Capt. Fred Holroyd and Colin Wallace, circa issue 10, would be inadequate if not embarrassing.
One of the more sordid episodes you covered quite extensively early on was the Kincora Boys home child sex ring scandal. Can you describe the scandal and your own investigations into it?
ANSWER: Kincora was a children’s home in Belfast which housed orphaned/difficult/delinquent teenage boys. The staff were gay men who abused the children and, eventually, began pimping some of them out. At least one of the staff there was being run by MI5 to gain information on the Protestant side of the conflict. This was all a dirty secret and when one of the UK government’s psy-ops people in Belfast, Colin Wallace, threatened to expose it he was framed for murder and imprisoned. He contacted us while he was in prison and sent us lots of documents he had written. These documents informed us enough to write issue 11 of Lobster.
What role did the collusion/blackmail relationship between British forces and the unionist movement play in Britain’s overall counterinsurgency strategy in N. Ireland?
ANSWER: Good question which I could not begin to answer.
The entire Kincora affair brings the growing number of scandals surrounding Jeffrey Epstein to mind, particularly concerning his numerous links with intelligence operatives. How would you compare the two cases? Could Kincora be seen as somehow “prototypical” to Epstein’s own operation?
ANSWER: It is still unclear to me who Epstein was working for – if anybody. Most likely it was a Mossad operation but there is no evidence yet.
What role does systematic child sexual abuse play in parapolitics and why? Do sections of the elite simply have a culture of pedophilia? Is it a deliberately constructed method of control? What is its relationship with wider issues of state criminality?
ANSWER: Child abuse is a minor part of all this, I think. Parapolitics, if it can be defined at all, is the role of secret state organisations in society and conventional politics. Kincora, for example, was a big scandal – or would have been had it been revealed in the 1970s. But with or without it UK government policy towards ‘the Troubles’ would not have changed. Perhaps the revelation of a pedophile ring among the Protestant forces would have speeded-up the resolution of the conflict a little.
How did the Troubles inform the (para)political culture of the Thatcher era? Obviously the conflict and systematic abuses by British forces pre-dated Thatcher’s premiership, but did the onset of Thatcher’s neoliberal politics shift the way that the British state managed the situation?
ANSWER: Thatcher’s neo-liberal economic and social politics had no effect on the situation in Ireland that I can see. She was an orthodox Conservative who believed insurgents should be put down by the armed wing of the state.
What were the conflict’s effects on domestic British politics?
ANSWER: Relatively little. Yes, there were some bombings in the UK and the Republicans did kill Mrs Thatcher’s Northern Ireland expert, Airey Neave MP. But most people on the UK mainland were not affected by ‘the Troubles’.
What role did the N. Irish conflict play in the wider mosaic of western domestic counterinsurgency in the 1970s – the Italian years of lead, the German autumn, the various South American anticommunist campaigns etc.. How comparable/coordinated were programmes like Gladio or COINTELPRO with British covert operations in N. Ireland in your opinion?
ANSWER: This is an enormous question, too big for a glib summary.
Broadly, do you think the onset of the “neoliberal era” – especially with Thatcher’s government in Britain and Reagan’s government in America – has changed the nature of covert state activity?
ANSWER: The neoliberal era saw the shackles – such as they were – on covert ops by US forces reduced and the era of political interest in the CIA’s overseas operations triggered by the assassinations of the 60s and Watergate ended. The UK was a very minor partner in all this by then.
Have the motives and principal actors in such activities shifted?
ANSWER: Yes and no. Clearly with the Soviet bloc the focus shifted for a while. But Russia reconstituted and China unchanged remain as threats to US interests. I haven’t checked recently but I don’t think the 130 (in one estimate) to 800 (in another ) or so US overseas bases has been significantly reduced.
Looking at the world right now, what developments/topics are you keeping an eye on?
ANSWER: For quite a while now my interest has centred on UK domestic politics with US
politics and parapolitics on the margins.
Do you think parapolitical journalism is or will become important in ongoing global developments?
ANSWER: No and no.
Do you think that the mysteries surrounding the Kennedy assassination will ever be conclusively resolved?
ANSWER: Will the JFK thing be solved? Officially, never. The political system is incapable of dealing with it, even after half a century. Unofficially, probably not. Large chunks of it are solved but the big unknown is the precise combination of the conspiracy which piggy-backed on the fake shooting. Howard Hunt, ex CIA, wrote a list out of the conspirators just before he died but the JFK researchers ignored it. It didn’t fit with their view of what had happened and they couldn’t or wouldn’t take it on board. Peoples’ inability to change their minds is a big factor in all this. Which is why Chauncey Holt has never been taken on board by most. You’re young, but post 30 you will discover your brain’s ability to deal rationally with new info diminishes with age.
When you look forward in time, what would you like your legacy to be?
ANSWER: My legacy? The world is drifting/galloping into a colossal environmental crisis. Lobster is of little consequence now, read by a few hundred people, and will be of no consequence at all when the climate shit really hits the fan.
Further information:
[1] https://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/article/issue/7/a-conversation-with-peter-dale-scott/
[2] https://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/article/issue/2/assassination-of-jfk/
[3] https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKholt.htm
[4] “Self-Portrait of a Scoundrel” by Chauncey Holt, 2013