Creature From Jekyll Island by G. Edward

complexity of the society. Today, of course, that power must be one of unprecedented magnitude and frightfulness.2

The first consideration in finding a suitable threat to serve as a global enemy was that it did not have to be real. A real one would be better, of course, but an invented one would work just as well, provided the masses could be convinced it was real. The public will more readily believe some fictions than others. Credibility would be more important than truth.

Poverty was examined as a potential global enemy but rejected as not fearful enough. Most of the world was already in poverty.

Only those who had never experienced poverty would see it as a global threat. For the rest, it was simply a fact of everyday life.

1- 'British Soccer's Day of Shame,' U.S. News & World Report, June 10,1985, p. 11

2. Lewin, Report, p. 44.

522

THE CREATURE FROM JEKYLL ISLAND

An invasion by aliens from outer space was given serious

consideration. The report said that experiments along those lines already may have been tried. Public reaction, however, was not sufficiently predictable, because the threat was not 'credible.' Here is what the report had to say:

Credibility, in fact, lies at the heart of the problem of developing a political substitute for war. This is where the space-race proposals, in many ways so well suited as economic substitutes for war, fall short The most ambitious and unrealistic space project cannot of itself generate a believable external menace. It has been hotly argued that such a menace would offer the 'last best hope of peace,' etc., by uniting mankind against the danger of destruction by 'creatures'

from other planets or from outer space. Experiments have been proposed to test the credibility of an out-of-our-world invasion threat; it is possible that a few of the more difficult-to-explain 'flying saucer'

incidents of recent years were in fact early experiments of this kind. If so, they could hardly have been judged encouraging.1

This report was released in 1966 when the idea of an alien presence seemed far fetched to the average person. In the ensuing years, however, that perception has changed. A growing segment of the population now believes that intelligent life forms may exist beyond our planet and could be monitoring our own civilization.

Whether that belief is right or wrong is not the issue here. The point is that a dramatic encounter with aliens shown on network television—even if it were to be entirely fabricated by high-tech computer graphics or laser shows in the sky—could be used to stampede all nations into world government supposedly to defend the Earth from invasion. On the other hand, if the aliens were perceived to have peaceful intent, an alternative scenario would be to form world government to represent a unified human species speaking with a single voice in some kind of galactic federation.

Either scenario would be far more credible today than in 1966.

THE ENVIRONMENTAL-POLLUTION MODEL

The final candidate for a useful global threat was pollution of the environment. This was viewed as the most likely to s u c c e e d because it could be related to observable conditions such as smog and water pollution—in other words, it would be based partly on fact and, therefore, be credible. Predictions could be made showing 1. Ibid., p. 66.

DOOMSDAY MECHANISMS

523

end-of-earth scenarios just as horrible as atomic warfare. Accuracy in these predictions would not be important. Their purpose would be to frighten, not to inform. It might even be necessary to deliberately poison the environment to make the predictions more convincing and to focus the public mind on fighting a new enemy, more fearful than any invader from another nation—or even from outer space. The masses would more willingly accept a falling standard of living, tax increases, and bureaucratic intervention in their lives as simply 'the price we must pay to save Mother Earth.'

If a vision of death and destruction from pollution could be implanted into the public subconscious mind, then the global battle against it could, indeed, replace war as the mechanism for control.

Did the Report from Iron Mountain really say that? It certainly did—and much more. Here are just a few of the pertinent passages: When it comes to postulating a credible substitute for war ... the

'alternate enemy' must imply a more immediate, tangible, and directly felt threat of destruction. It must justify the need for taking and paying a 'blood price' in wide areas of human concern. In this respect, the possible substitute enemies noted earlier would be insufficient. One exception might be the environmental-pollution model, if the danger to society it posed was genuinely imminent. The fictive models would have to carry the weight of extraordinary conviction, underscored with a not inconsiderable actual sacrifice of life.... It may be, for instance, that gross pollution of the environment can eventually replace the possibility of mass destruction by nuclear weapons as the principal apparent threat to the survival of the species.

Poisoning of the air, and of the principal sources of food and water supply, is already well advanced, and at first glance would seem promising in this respect; it constitutes a threat that can be dealt with