Conspiracies and the Liberal Imagination

in 1975 playboy magazine sent the novelist mordecai richler to interview Mae Brussell at her home in Carmel, California. Brussell was the host of a popular radio show called Dialogue: Conspiracy. She also published a newsletter, daringly called The Realist, which at some point was saved from bankruptcy thanks to John Lennon’s financial generosity. Skeptical of the official version of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, she had combed through the 26 volumes of the Warren Commission report looking for inconsistencies and clues. She did not come out empty-handed. The assassination, she concluded, was part of a vast fascist plot to take over America, and she was intent on exposing it. Over the years, she commented on the major and lesser events of the day—the kidnapping of Patricia Hearst, the Chappaquiddick incident—and suggested they were episodes of the same global conspiracy. Richler was not impressed: