The Octopus, the Military-Industrial Complex, and Your Uncle

For the past year and change, I have been immersed in the history of Colonial Philadelphia, and one of the things that stood out most to me was just how prevalent conspiracy theories were at the time. Not so much conspiracies in how we view them these days, but cries of conspiracy at every little political disruption that popped up. With the Stamp Act being a major call for conspiracy. 

Many American newspaper columns, pamphlets, and broadsheets warned of the conspiracy of Prime Minister Grenville and his cohorts in Parliament in passing and trying to implement the vile Stamp Act in America. While being maybe politically shortsided and hamfisted, the Stamp Act was no conspiracy. It was just public policy. That same feeling struck me while watching the newish Netflix doc, American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders.

ACTOM covers the somewhat suspicious death of reporter, Danny Casolaro, in a Martinsburg, WV hotel. A case that has intrigued me for a number of years now primarily because I lived in Martinsburg and still live close to there. I had read Kenn Thomas and Jim Keith’s The Octopus: Secret Government and the Death of Danny Casolaro, and generally believe their book does a better job of telling a more coherent narrative around the conspiracy that Casolaro was investigating. But it should be said the main protagonist of the documentary, Christian Hansen, is completing his own book on the case, so the docu-series can be seen as being somewhat incomplete.  

The great conspiracy that Casolaro was tracking down revolved around the reported theft of some case management software back in the 1980s. While I actually find this the most intriguing parts of ACTOM and The Octopus, both pretty quickly veer away from the mundanity of government contracting dispute and towards international drug and arms deals, murder, and coverups that go all the way up to the White House. 

Casolaro was implementing George H.W. Bush, president at the time of his death, Reagan-era officials, and CIA leaders such as former director Richard Helms as part of this “secret government” within the government manufacturing events for their own personal gains through a series of schemes that turned into national scandals like Iran-Contra, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) collapse, and other tentacles of the so-called Octopus.

Though the WHY of this secret government really never gets discussed all that much. What Bush and the rest of the octopus gets out of these schemes is never concretely explored. In fact most of the people discussed as being part of the conspiracy end up getting caught and tried for the crimes that they committed. And the conspiracies that they were tied to were all brought to the public’s attention. Maybe not all of the crimes were prosecuted. And maybe not the full extent of the scandals are known. Enough is known to make clear this is not the work of a secret government, but just the boring-ass work of the American government, it’s infinite bureaucracy, and American capitalism.  

A tale of money and power in the name of public policy.

One of the most notorious manifestations of there being a “secret government” is the idea of an isolated military-industrial complex controlling all levers of government. 

In my day job as an archivist, I put together a small collection of records related to President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s farewell address to the nation where he famously warned of the threat of the military-industrial complex:

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence-economic, political, even spiritual-is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together. (National Archives)

Now make that the “military-intelligence establishment” and you have the heart of all of the conspiracies that make-up the Octopus conspiracies. 

The collection mostly entails letters and interviews with Ralph Williams, one of Eisenhower’s speech writers and the person who coined the term military-industrial complex. A phrase that has launched a million conspiracy theories.

What is interesting about Williams’s recollections about coming up with the phrase was just how broad the complex was:

I could not think of a better term then, and I cannot now, to describe this huge aggregation of industries, large and small; labor unions; politicians at all levels; military officers; Chambers of Commerce; booster clubs; think tanks; scientific laboratories; yes, even universities, that benefit from the enormous sums spent annually on defense and who have a vital interest in their continuance. (Source)

If this is the definition of the military-industrial complex, or the secret government, then it involves not only George H.W. Bush and whatever sinister shit he was up to, but also your fucking uncle and his Kiwanis Club buddies.

That’s a not-so-secret government. And the many tentacles of the Octopus, those conspiracies and illicit, illconcieved, and illbegotten schemes are not a product of a cabal but the by-product of a national security-economic alliance. Or in other words public policy.