“Report from Iron Mountain” – Truth or Satire?

An audience member posed this question after seeing Except in the Unlikely Event of War. Is the book that serves as the inspiration for this play a piece of satire, or is it a true document as created by the so-called Special Study Group?

This question is a point of fascination for playwright Sean Devine, and it’s also a theme that we’ve interwoven throughout our production of Except in the Unlikely Event of War: the mutability of truth.

When “Report from Iron Mountain: On the Possibility and Desirability of Peace” was first published in 1967, it caused a scare across the U.S., and all the way to the upper echelons of power. It was released as the published findings of the top-secret Special Study Group, an eclectic gathering of academics, scientists, economists and historians, who’d been commissioned by the U.S. government to study the nature and value of peace. The book was leaked by an anonymous member of the Group, referred to only as “John Doe” (played at Robert Moloney in our production). In the book, “John Doe” leaks the Report to a writer named Leonard C. Lewin, who helps to get the Report published.

The reactions to the publication of “Report from Iron Mountain” were instantaneous and devastating. U.S News & World Report claimed in its November 20, 1967 issue that when U.S. President Lyndon Johnson read the report, he ‘hit the roof’ and ordered it to be suppressed for all time. Additionally, sources were said to have revealed that orders were sent to U.S. embassies, instructing them to emphasize that the book had no relation to U.S. Government policy.

That all changed in 1972 when Leonard C. Lewin stepped forward and claimed to have been the sole author of the book, referring to it as a fictional piece of satire, intended to indict the modes of thinking of the powerful think-tanks of the day. “Report from Iron Mountain” was listed in the Guiness Book of World Records as the “Most Successful Literary Hoax.”

But the story didn’t stop there. Just as some people believe that there’s no way Shakespeare could’ve written his plays on his own, some people claim that the book is genuine and has only been called a hoax as a means of damage control. In other words, some people believe that Leonard Lewin was set up to claim authorship as a means of discrediting the prevailing theory that the U.S. government was indeed responsible for enacting some of the terrifying conclusions of the book.

In fact, there’s an entire subculture that believes very strongly that “Report from Iron Mountain” is the absolute truth, and they go to great pains to demonstrate their fervent belief. Check out these videos from YouTube, which are just one example of “fans” reading the book verbatim to the world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlTqm4uRhBQ