Conspiracy theories

[Michael W Richards]

Conspiracy theories are basically the result of a lack of trust, and in the history of the world there have been ample examples of governments and companies and individuals who withheld information by agreement, or mislead by agreement, or mis-informed by agreement. The people who believe suggestions of conspiracies are far fetched are perhaps less cynical, and perhaps more naïve, than the aforementioned. In these cases (Ripper murders) we have very clear evidence of dis-information been offered. By investigators. By politicians, and by the press. To then suppose that some of the misinformation was the result of a concerted effort to conceal brings into light the possibility that more than one individual was involved in the erroneous claim. Tada. Conspiracy.

People casually dismiss the idea that these people would manipulate the masses with untruths that would be beneficial to them, protective of the greater public good, to hide inefficiencies and illegalities that they were engaged in themselves. I put it to you this way....since we know that by agreement many people of that particular time were aware of truths that were withheld, manipulated or suppressed...like ALL the clandestine departments involving Intelligence, Counter Intelligence and National Security, and since these same men ran the Ripper investigations, to wonder whether they gave the straight goods or gave concocted and contrived answers is a very valid position.

While this Ripper fellow was killing a public hearing about some of those high level concerns was airing out in that same area of the world. Double agents were being presented and paid for their secrets. Some of which were known by their "handlers" in the agencies. But were kept from higher officials in the Government. Hell, Monro knew a threat existed to kill the royal family by dynamite the year before, and he chose not to tell them. If you can choose whether or not to warn the Royal family of a legitimate and imminent threat to their safety, what is withholding or misrepresenting some investigative data about the murders of some murdered street women.

The publics access to the truth is wholly dependent on the impetus of the information holder to disclose the facts openly and honestly. And it usually takes 2 to make something a secret.

[Fantomas]

There is a fascniating documentary from Adam Curtis I watched recently (which is also available on YouTube) which goes to the heart of why conspiracy theories take shape, and why people respond to them psychologically. Each episode is over an hour long each, but if like me you are inetrested in psychology and sociology, then you may find it interesting too. As I said before, cover-ups are something entirely different.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Can%27...ead_(TV_series)

I think that, as most human institutions are an artifice - centuries old in some cases but no more naturally occurring than the clothes we wear, thinking about the designers and continued guardians of that artifice and why it is there for our own protection or destruction, is cogent. I don't subscribe to the view that conspiracy theory and superstition are sub-intelligent subscriptions. Rather, I think that taking institutions at face value and not interrogating their rationale or decision making is as delusional as the most privately held, outlandish view of reality. The thinking brain has to straddle accepted truths and suspicions of those truths.
And the recent trend, to consign any autodidactic deduction of what may lie behind historical events or current events and government to the bin of being a particular extremist political mindset is supremely facile and wrongheaded - more so than some conspiracy theories are labelled to be.

[erobitha]

There is a fascniating documentary from Adam Curtis I watched recently (which is also available on YouTube) which goes to the heart of why conspiracy theories take shape, and why people respond to them psychologically. Each episode is over an hour long each, but if like me you are inetrested in psychology and sociology, then you may find it interesting too. As I said before, cover-ups are something entirely different.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Can%27...ead_(TV_series)

[DJA]

While coverups are real, conspiracy theories are based on the idea that most large organizations are run by competent people with clear and unified goals. Anyone who has dealt with bureaucracy knows better.

Luna Park fire: What happens when the baddies have the key to Sydney

[DJA]

Well the police did refuse to release the ledgers a few years ago, spending millions of tax payer money to stop Trevor Marriott and everyone on here being able to see what was in them. These are the same ledgers which supposedly mention Winston Churchills father and were the origins of the royal conspiracy.

They even got a very senior officer to anonymously testify on a supposed reason why the ledgers shouldn't be released in the following high court trial. Then a year later the ledgers get incinerated and the fraction Trevor Marriott was given access to during the trial was heavily redacted.

In my opinion the whole operation to keep the ledgers from seeing the light of day then subsequently destroying them for no reason is a police cover up.

One line of thought which could explain the reason behind this is that one of the victims was actually a police informant. There was discussion about this being the case for Catherine Eddowes and if she was a police informant it might stop people even today from being recruited out of fear (at the high court trial the police said hindering the recruitment of informants was the reason the ledgers couldn't be released).

Alternatively the ledgers were kept secret and destroyed in order to protect someone, maybe someone with links to the royal family, maybe someone with links the police force.

In the end we'll never know because millions of pounds were spent keeping the ledgers secret and then they were destroyed. What could've been the missing key to the entire case gone up in smoke, literally.

Aside from the ledgers, IMO if there was a police cover up at the time it would most likely be due to two potential suspects. Thomas Cutbush or James Kelly. Thomas Hayne Cutbush was the nephew of a high ranking police superintendent and the famous Macnaghten Memoranda was written in response to a newspaper expose on THC. AP Wolf wrote a brilliant book on THC, called Jack the Myth which was available to read online on casebook. The book has a few chapters dedicated to a supposed police cover-up. The link now takes you to an error but I used wayback machine to find an archived version and have put the link which takes you to the chapter focusing most on possible police cover ups. Likewise James Kelly could've been covered up to avoid police embarrassment due to the fact he successfully escaped Broadmoor and evaded police capture many times.

This link takes you to the chapter which discusses a potential police cover up linked to Thomas Hayne Cutbush regardless of whether he was Jack the Ripper:

https://web.archive.org/web/20100620052005/http://casebook.org/ripper_media/book_reviews/non-fiction/jackmyth.fulltext9.html

As for James Kelly, James Tully's book The Secret of Prisoner 1167 discuss a potential police cover up in regards to him.

Perhaps Jack was the research partner of one of the Queen's doctors.

If he was a known homosexual and/or paedophile .....

[Fiver]

Hi,
we now know about Police cover ups concerning Hillsborough, the Minors strike and now this week the Shrewsbury 24, which seems now also to involve the Government of that day right up to the PM Edward Heath.
surely its unwise to suggest Conspiracy at a high level is not likely or even possible....that includes the JTR case.

Regards.

While coverups are real, conspiracy theories are based on the idea that most large organizations are run by competent people with clear and unified goals. Anyone who has dealt with bureaucracy knows better.

[erobitha]

A mass uprising is something the government of the day were massively concerned with, Bloody Sunday made the government nervous.

1888 was the same year that special branch dropped ‘Irish’ from it’s the name and just became ‘Special Branch’. At the very least it suggests the department was looking at more than Irish issues. Or it was to help save money on office sign-painting? I’m sure there is a perfectly feasible admin issue for this.

Littlechild had a network of informants from the Irish problem, but he may have acquired one or two more along the way that could have been interesting. We may not know what was said exactly but if there is a payment made to say, I don’t know, wild speculation, George Hutchinson around the time of Kelly’s murder would that have any use to know?

Still, informants 130 years later need their identities protected in case of people holding really, really long grudges. Another case of we will never know.

[spyglass]

Littlechild I assume you mean? Im sure his involvement was merely one as someone with a passing interest in the case. I’m sure with his experience handling fenian terrorism and Irish insurgency, his skills would not be relevant to JtR of the time. We are told special branch at the time was not how it is today. In no possible way could he have been the early prototype of an MI5 spymaster. Impossible.

Littlechild...yep that's the fella !

[erobitha]

Regarding the SB Ledgers, am I missing something here?
But didnt they only come to the attention of Ripper Historians after someone else doing research on something else had already been allowed to go through them with no problems?
And wasnt it due to him that we found out about certain references to the JTR case were contained within.

I remember reading somewhere twenty years or more back that it was believed SB had files regarding the case, and also not forgetting Littlejohn seemed to be involved somewhere at the time.

Littlechild I assume you mean? Im sure his involvement was merely one as someone with a passing interest in the case. I’m sure with his experience handling fenian terrorism and Irish insurgency, his skills would not be relevant to JtR of the time. We are told special branch at the time was not how it is today. In no possible way could he have been the early prototype of an MI5 spymaster. Impossible.

[spyglass]

Regarding the SB Ledgers, am I missing something here?
But didnt they only come to the attention of Ripper Historians after someone else doing research on something else had already been allowed to go through them with no problems?
And wasnt it due to him that we found out about certain references to the JTR case were contained within.

I remember reading somewhere twenty years or more back that it was believed SB had files regarding the case, and also not forgetting Littlejohn seemed to be involved somewhere at the time.

[erobitha]

I agree the timing of events appears a little suspicious, erobitha, but kattrup also suggests a very plausible process which provides an innocent explanation.

Absolutely, but my point is that without any form of public oversight or involvement it is very easy to leave the opportunity for suspicion wide open. The fact we are told it was done because it compromises the protection of future informants, feels somewhat at at odds with simply destroying non-relevant archives.

[etenguy]

....therefore can raise a case for suspicion in my view.

I agree the timing of events appears a little suspicious, erobitha, but kattrup also suggests a very plausible process which provides an innocent explanation.

[etenguy]

As I understand it, the lddgers were never archived, in the sense transferred from the administration to a specialised separate archive operating under archival guidelines, they were simply forgotten about in some special branch filing room.

A request was filed to access them
, probably under some freedom of information-type legislation.
Special branch reviewed the case and declined the request in accordance to their internal policy, which is to never grant access to materials revealing informants. Under that policy, the fact that the ledgers were already 120 years old is irrelevant.

After that request had run its course, (process 1) special branch decided to organize their filing room. They therefore offered the ledgers to the NA who appraised them (process 2).

the NA decided that the ledgers were mostly unintelligible notations of low-level cash transfers and not worthy of preservation. Therefore, they were destroyed.

The case happened some 5-8-10 years ago, so I'm sure there are particulars that I've misunderstood.

But overall I see nothing out if the ordinary in the case.

Obviously, one can and should question Special Branch's policy, which btw is also the policy of SIS and probably other British intelligence services.

The idea that revealing the identity of some Whitechapel street informant 120 years after the event would seriously impede or hamper modern day intelligence work is ridiculous. One notes that other countries intelligence services do not have such a policy.
Still, if one is trying to convince a senior Russian general to become a spy, it's probably best not to broadcast to the world that his greatgrandfather was one.
and as security concerns always trump historical research, I've no doubt MI6 will maintain their never-ever policy.

Hi Kattrup

That all sounds entirely plausible to me - maybe I'm over thinking it and seeing intentions that don't exist.

[Kattrup]

Hi Kattrup

That makes complete sense to me - however, these files were kept confidential long past being archived and then destroyed way past their review date and not long after the defense of their confidentiality. It may all have been a coincidence of timing and the review process simply following its normal course, as you suggest, but in the context of files being kept for over 120 years and then after a request to see them (that was refused) being destroyed - the conclusion that people might draw is clear.

As I understand it, the lddgers were never archived, in the sense transferred from the administration to a specialised separate archive operating under archival guidelines, they were simply forgotten about in some special branch filing room.

A request was filed to access them
, probably under some freedom of information-type legislation.
Special branch reviewed the case and declined the request in accordance to their internal policy, which is to never grant access to materials revealing informants. Under that policy, the fact that the ledgers were already 120 years old is irrelevant.

After that request had run its course, (process 1) special branch decided to organize their filing room. They therefore offered the ledgers to the NA who appraised them (process 2).

the NA decided that the ledgers were mostly unintelligible notations of low-level cash transfers and not worthy of preservation. Therefore, they were destroyed.

The case happened some 5-8-10 years ago, so I'm sure there are particulars that I've misunderstood.

But overall I see nothing out if the ordinary in the case.

Obviously, one can and should question Special Branch's policy, which btw is also the policy of SIS and probably other British intelligence services.

The idea that revealing the identity of some Whitechapel street informant 120 years after the event would seriously impede or hamper modern day intelligence work is ridiculous. One notes that other countries intelligence services do not have such a policy.
Still, if one is trying to convince a senior Russian general to become a spy, it's probably best not to broadcast to the world that his greatgrandfather was one.
and as security concerns always trump historical research, I've no doubt MI6 will maintain their never-ever policy.

[erobitha]

Hi Kattrup

That makes complete sense to me - however, these files were kept confidential long past being archived and then destroyed way past their review date and not long after the defense of their confidentiality. It may all have been a coincidence of timing and the review process simply following its normal course, as you suggest, but in the context of files being kept for over 120 years and then after a request to see them (that was refused) being destroyed - the conclusion that people might draw is clear.

....therefore can raise a case for suspicion in my view.