Before QAnon and the Deep State, There Was Iron Mountain

Co-founder and Executive Director Jeff Shesol reviews a new book by Phil Tinline that recounts the history of a 1967 hoax and its ongoing influence as source code for antigovernment conspiracy theories.

The December 1967 issue of Esquire was, on the whole, standard fare for the age: a photo spread of the actress Sharon Tate; a write-up of a party thrown by Andy Warhol; a review by Norman Mailer of a film by Norman Mailer (“the picture, taken even at its worst, was a phenomenon”). Less characteristically, the magazine also included a 28,000-word feature with a sober title: “On the Possibility and Desirability of Peace.” The article, the editors warned, was “so depressing that you may not be able to take it.”

All the same, it was a gripping read. The piece — an excerpt from an upcoming book, “Report From Iron Mountain” — provided a cold-eyed assessment of the costs of disarmament. The report was said to be the work of a “Special Study Group,” its members unknown, that had been meeting secretly in Iron Mountain, a warren of corporate bunkers north of Manhattan.