LOL Number 10 is absolutely true, but it’s a whole lot simpler than either the conspiracy theorists or their detractors will allow with their cognitive dissonance.
People in power factionalize, period, they form cabals, coteries, cliques. Just like everyone else.
I still say that the Dreyfus Affair is, so far, the best example, in that it:
(a) was clearly a conspiracy rather than merely a military secret;
(b) the conspiracy was actually carried out;
© It was successful for a time;
(d) It was eventually uncovered; and
(e) it was “big” in that the political consequences were huge.
I don’t agree that the Holocaust qualifies as a “conspiracy”, since its existence wasn’t a secret to most of the people in Europe; only the exact details of what happened was ‘secret’. Part of the point of the Holocaust was to serve as an awful warning of the penalty of incurring Nazi displeasure, which sort of requires that folks know in broad outlines that it was happening. To the extent that the people being killed were ‘fooled’, it was more in the form of a mind game than actual disception - the use of “resettlement” and “showers” and the like was intended to keep them guessing and thus docile.
The Donation of Constantine
Aren’t the actions of the Emperor a matter of state regardless of what they are?
That’s a good one. Though it wasn’t “exposed” until it was essentially irrelevant. That’s probably a good example of a successful conspiracy.
What about Enron? I don’t recall if any of the corporate officers were ever charged with conspiracy, but the company’s ultimate goal seemed to be artificial manipulation of the energy market for huge profit.
With the Fed audit bill making its way out of committee, perhaps the next big conspiracy exposed will be between the Federal Reserve and the banking industry.
The full history of the Catholic Church’s involvement in protecting pedophiles is yet to be written. What do know indicates at least a long-term conspiracy covering a huge geographic area, or perhaps a number of independent conspiracies that developed and operated separately.
Further, it is doubtful the conspiracy was exclusively in the Church, as it seems to have involved clergy of other faiths as well as secular people. Again, while we can be certain that at least a large cabal in the Church coordinated this coverup, it is possible that it stretches further than we now know.
Actually, Oswold’s body was exhumed, and the hole in his head was deemed more consistent with a blow from a rifle butt than a fall out of the window.
I don’t think it is the largest as far as effect on History as whole, but when you get into shear massive scale only the Holocaust would seem to beat Potemkin’s Villages .
I do think the Holocaust applies though; specifically the sub-plot of the Hitler government deciding to eliminate the handicapped and non-“aryan” citizens of Germany and it’s captured territories.
An interesting cross-pollination in the Potempkin Wiki:
Not Mossad - Military Intelligence.
I came in to mention Enron, but have been beaten to it. They actually were manipulating fake energy crises to keep demand high.
Is anybody going to have a go at ripping this to shreds?
My take on reading about it, and hearing about it on TV, and hearing my dad and his buddies discussing it was it was not a conspiracy per se but horribly bad orders gone wild. The unit was told that the non VC members of the community would be gone, and every body there were to be killed, and everything destroyed. The unit given the orders went way overboard to the atrocity level. There was an attempt at a cover up, which was blown by a member of the unit in a letter to then President Nixon.
Not to get into a discussion about it, but the problem with the whole Vietnam war was there really was not a defined enemy as such. We had an indigenous population that were having their own internal issues, and there was no good way to mark them apart.
I’ve always felt the Chinese handling of the Tienanmen Square events could count as a fairly successful conspiracy. Most young Chinese people either have no idea that anything happened, or they have a vague idea that something happened but it was probably the work of foreign agitators. Those who know and understand what happened are usually unwilling to speak about it. While information is available to people willing to make any effort, few people even know that they are missing information, and those that do find it often reject it as false.
It’s kind of amazing. A huge number of people who are in the dark about what most foreigners consider one of the key events in their modern history.
Fairly recent ,the Pat Tillman cover up.
Speaking of the Saint Barthelemy massacre, King Philippe le Bel’s mass arrest of Templars was a good one too. In one single day, the Templars went from a prestigious, influtential and extra wealthy politico-religious organisation to a handful of guys running for the hills. While it may not be as massive or important as some that have been mentionned in the thread, it’s still notable because the King managed a country-wide conspiracy involving simultaneous operations all over France, with 14th century means of communication, which nevertheless had very few leaks. Getting a letter from Paris to, say, Marseilles could take weeks back then.
It’s something of a testament to his authority that hundreds of people across feudal France (not exactly known for its unity and lack of corruption) got sealed orders from him, and not only didn’t open them before he said to, but when they did open them and the order inside was utterly shocking, all obeyed.
If military secrets count, I’d go with Ultra/Magic. German and Japanese encrypted radio communications at the highest levels were broken and being read by the UK and US during WW2. The secrecy around it kept it almost entirely unknown until almost 30 years later in 1974.
How about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln?
How topsy-turvy! A conspiracy where the Knights Templars were the victims!
I think you’re asking for an important event which was kept secret for many years, but finally uncovered, or an important hoax which was debunked many years later. (I think Shakespeare might be a pseudonym, the Tempars might have gone to Ethiopia, and the Lindbergh kidnapping might involve a hoax, but those wouldn’t qualify, until after such a “conspiracy theory” is proven.)
The Holocaust should qualify, with millions of Germans and the rest of the world unaware of this collosal atrocity.
An interesting hoax, which was exposed only after several decades, was the Piltdown Man hoax. S.J. Gould argues that the role of co-conspirator Teilhard de Chardin is still unacknowledged.
I suppose things like the Biblical creation story might qualify.
I think there may be a variety of other possible answers. The San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 was partly covered up in that government minimized casualty figures to avoid discouraging Westward migration.
James