How did America end up trapped in a nightmare of conspiracy theories, in which millions are obsessed with an evil 'deep state' within the US government?
This is one of the great stories of our time.
In 1967, at the height of the Vietnam War, a group of New York writers concocted what appeared to be a top-secret government report. The report described what would happen to the USA if permanent global peace broke out. Report from Iron Mountain claimed that winding down America's vast war-making machinery would wreck the economy and tear society apart, necessitating draconian controls over the population. It was published as non-fiction - and was frighteningly convincing. Journalists tried to find out who had written it. Worried memos reached right up to the president. It became a bestselling cause celebre.
Even when the hoax was revealed, many refused to believe it wasn't real. The Report was seized on by eager figures on the far right and in the militia movement, who insisted that it revealed terrifying government conspiracies to pollute the environment, enslave Americans and even instigate eugenics. And its legacy lives on today.
Ghosts of Iron Mountain traces this story through a gallery of vivid characters, from the radical academic C. Wright Mills and the writers E.L. Doctorow, Victor Navasky and Leonard Lewin to the far-right impresario Willis Carto, Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, conspiracy theorist Milton William Cooper, and ranting broadcaster Alex Jones. It is a story that gains ever-more relevance as Trump's second presidency unfolds.

Portrait

Phil Tinline is a freelance writer and documentary-maker. He is the author of the The Death of Consensus: 100 Years of British Political Nightmares, which was chosen as The Times Politics Book of the Year 2022. Over the course of twenty years working for the BBC, he made and presented many acclaimed documentaries about how political history shapes our lives. He has written for publications including The Times, the Daily Telegraph, Prospect, BBC History Magazine and the New Statesman. He lives in London.