Jim DiEugenio offers a blistering critique of the cover essay for the current issue of The Atlantic Monthly, which proposes––yet again––that the widespread belief in conspiracies, with its supposed origin in the Sixties, accounts for how US cultural and political life has become unhinged.

Extralegal assassinations, unwarranted domestic surveillance, interventionist wars at the behest of corporate interests, torture or other activities of that stripe – these all have their roots in the Dulles era in which covert, corporate power developed into a well-oiled and unaccountable machine running roughshod. These dark forces have continued to operate regardless of who is elected president; and the refusal to face them has caused the Democratic Party to lose its way, writes Alex Sill.

An update by Jim DiEugenio on John McAdams' suspension and his lawsuit against Marquette University.

Author James DiEugenio looks back at Warren Hinckle's career and discusses the uniqueness and importance of Ramparts.

An excerpt from Greg Poulgrain's book on United States policy toward Indonesia, reprinted here with the kind permission of the author.

There was a conspiracy in the Kennedy assassination, but I am no conspiracy theorist: so concludes this essay by Joseph Green.

Right about the time that Lee Harvey Oswald joined the Marines, the CIA ... reached the conclusion that they needed a new plane that would far exceed [the U2]. ... it makes sense that the CIA would want to ... take the knowledge that the U2 is most likely going to get hit at some point and build a counter-intelligence mission around it. Oswald may have been a part of such a mission, reasons Mark Prior.

"America is steeped in conspiracy, and even more steeped in propaganda that discredits those who try to expose the conspiracies", writes New England portraitist Robert Shetterly.

In a letter to the authors of the article "Conspiracy Theories", Cyril Wecht takes up their claim that "conspiracy theorists" typically suffer from a "crippled epistemology".

On the serious issues of the day, the scandals, the murders, and wars that make up modern American history, papers like the New York Times, Washington Post and LA Times have not just been wrong, but they have been misleading, writes Jim DiEugenio.