Conspiracy: History’s Greatest Plots, Collusions and Cover-Ups (30 page)

In conclusion, one might say that a conspiracy of sorts might have been hatched in order to make sure that Ward took all the blame, thus letting more important figures off the hook. However, in the end, the real importance of the Profumo Affair was that it was a watershed in British public life. To all intents and purposes the swinging sixties started here.

In 1932, Charles Lindbergh was one of the most famous men in America. Seven years previously he had been the first man to fly single-handed across the Atlantic. In recognition of his achievement he had been made Colonel and given the nickname "the Lone Eagle". A naturally shy man, he did not find fame easy and he had spent the last few years building a country estate for himself and his young family near Hopewell, New Jersey.

Because the new house was not quite finished, the Lindberghs were in the habit of just spending weekends there. During the week they lived at the family home of Charles's wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh. On this occasion, however, they decided to stay an extra day at the new house. It was a fateful decision. On the night of March 1, Betty Gow, nurse to the couple's twenty-month-old son Charles A. Lindbergh Jr, entered the child's bedroom at 10 p.m. and discovered that he was missing.

After twenty-five minutes of frantic searching the caretaker, Ollie Whately, called the police. Charles Lindbergh himself went out into the grounds armed with his rifle, but he was unable to see any possible kidnappers. When the police came they found footprints, a carpenter's chisel and, a hundred yards away, a home-made ladder divided into three parts. Soon afterwards, Lindbergh noticed that a ransom note had been left in the child's bedroom. It demanded a $50,000 ransom and it appeared to have been written by a German speaker with poor English.

T
HE GO-BETWEEN
From the start, Lindbergh took over the investigation himself, assisted by his lawyers. The extent of his celebrity was such that the police allowed him to conduct the investigation as he pleased. Quickly deciding that organized crime was behind the kidnapping, he called in a sometime gangster called Morris Rosner and paid him to scout around his underworld contacts for leads. Not surprisingly, this approach proved fruitless.

A week after the kidnapping, a retired teacher from the Bronx by the name of John F. Condon wrote a letter to a newspaper offering to add his own life savings of $1,000 to the ransom money if that would help persuade the kidnappers. Remarkably enough, Dr Condon soon received an approach from the kidnappers, who were using the same secret sign as that on the original ransom note. They asked him to become the go-between in the pay-off. Lindbergh agreed to this and before long Condon was contacted again and directed to a meeting with the presumed kidnapper in a cemetery. Condon nicknamed the man Cemetery John and said that the man had agreed to send him the child's sleep-suit as proof that he had the little boy. Once that was received, Condon was to hand over the full ransom.

The sleep-suit duly arrived in the post and on 2 April 1932 Lindbergh and Condon returned to the cemetery where Condon gave Cemetery John the $50,000 and received in return a letter which, the kidnapper said, would lead them to the boy. But the letter, mentioning a boat called the Nellie, laid a false trail. Cemetery John had escaped with the money and the Lindbergh baby was still missing.

A little over a month later, on May 2, the search finally came to an end. A truck driver discovered the decomposed body of an infant in woods two miles from the Lindbergh's house. After examining the infant's teeth Lindbergh announced that this was indeed his son. The child appeared to have died from a blow to the head, perhaps as the result of a fall. The kidnapping was now a murder investigation. However, the police still did not have any worthwhile leads and the trail grew cold. Two years later, however, a German-born carpenter called Bruno Richard Hauptmann was caught passing one of the bills from the ransom money. He had the same high cheekbones as Cemetery John but he was fair-haired and blue-eyed, unlike Condon's original description of the man. The police searched his house and found $18,000 of the ransom money hidden in his garage. Hauptmann was arrested and charged with the kidnapping and murder of the infant Charles.

S
ENSATIONAL TRIAL
The trial was a sensation. This was the beginning of the mass media age as radio carried news instantly across America. Apart from the fact that the money was found in his possession, most of the evidence against Hauptmann was either circumstantial or debatable. Lindbergh, for instance, claimed to identify his voice as that of Cemetery John, despite having only heard him utter six words two years previously. In the end though, the fact that he had the ransom money swayed the jury into finding him guilty of murder and he was sentenced to death by the electric chair. The sentence was finally carried out, after various appeals, on 3 April 1936.

No sooner had the guilty verdict been passed than rumours began to circulate that an innocent man had been convicted. According to the conspiracy theories that began to circulate, the real murderer could perhaps be found closer to home.

Two main alternative suspects have been suggested over the years. The first of these was Charles Lindbergh's sister-inlaw, Elizabeth Morrow. Lindbergh had met the two Morrow sisters at the same time and had courted Elizabeth first before marrying Anne. According to this theory, Elizabeth had become pathologically jealous of her sister and of baby Charles. According to household sources, strict instructions had been issued to the effect that Elizabeth should never be left alone with the child. The conspiracy theorists suggested that Elizabeth must have evaded these strictures and murdered the baby in a fit of rage. There is no direct evidence of this state of affairs, of course, but it is true that Elizabeth was committed to a mental institution not long afterwards. The problem with this theory is that it would have been necessary for Charles Lindbergh and his wife, together with the entire domestic staff, to have been party to the conspiracy. Not only that, they would also need to have given false testimony at the trial, thus sending Hauptmann to his death. The theory is expounded at length in the book by Noel Behn, but it must be seen as speculative at best.

A
CRUEL PRACTICAL JOKER
The second suspect is Charles Lindbergh himself, who was known for playing dangerous and cruel practical jokes. Once he planted a snake in a friend's bed. Another time, just weeks before the kidnapping, he hid the baby in a cupboard and told his wife that it had gone missing. He kept the pretence up for a full half hour as his wife panicked.

So, according to this theory, Lindbergh may have carried out a prank that went disastrously wrong. Perhaps he climbed up the ladder himself in order to abduct his own son but dropped him as he attempted to leave, thus accidentally killing him. According to this theory he would then have faked the ransom note and conducted the investigation in a deliberate fashion.

Even if you find this rather outlandish scenario credible you may well wonder how Hauptmann fits into the story. The conspiracy theorists suggest that the whole ransom business was in fact unconnected with the actual kidnapping. It was just a group of criminals exploiting an opportunity for extortion, they suggest. According to this theory, although Hauptmann may have been an extortionist he was not a murderer.

There were certainly plenty of strange twists in the circumstances surrounding the case and Lindbergh's behaviour was no exception. On the other hand, one should keep in mind the fact that Lindbergh was not only reeling under the impact of celebrity but his child had also been abducted. He might well have been inclined to act strangely under those circumstances. However, despite all the anomalies, the jury's decision might have been the right one. This conclusion is reached by retired FBI man Jim Fisher, in his book on the subject.

By 1969 The Beatles were, in the words of John Lennon, "bigger than Jesus". They were internationally famous in a way that no pop group had ever been before. More than that, they were also the figureheads of a new generation. The 1960s had seen a rising generation question the old social certainties and The Beatles were among those at the forefront of this cultural revolution.

One result of this situation was that a lot of people started to take the work of The Beatles a lot more seriously then they should have done. People started to find all sorts of hidden meanings in their lyrics. One such disciple was Charles Manson, who believed that the White Album told him to send his followers out to murder Sharon Tate and her friends at their home in California.

Thankfully, such fanatical misreadings of the lyrics were confined to a tiny band of devotees. However, in 1969, a particularly strange Beatles rumour began to enjoy a wider circulation.

On 12 October 1969, disc jockey Russ Gibb, from Detroit's WKNR-FM, broadcast the extraordinary theory that Paul McCartney was dead, that he had been dead since 1966 and that he had been replaced by an impostor. The evidence, according to Gibb, was right in front of everyone. It was clearly audible in the lyrics of the songs and it was visible on the record covers. Soon this rumour was sweeping the world, gaining new features with each retelling. However, most versions of the rumour shared these same essential features.

H
E BLEW HIS MIND OUT IN A CAR
What had happened, it was claimed, was that Paul McCartney was out driving when his attention was distracted by a traffic warden (Lovely Rita). He was involved in an appalling car crash in which he died, suffering terrible damage to his head. His body was so badly crushed that it was unidentifiable even from dental records. Because of the circumstances, the other Beatles were able to hush up Paul's death while they decided how to keep the worlds' most popular band on the road. Soon they came up with a plan. A Paul McCartney look-alike competition was announced. However, the winner's name was never announced because the lucky look-alike, William Campbell, had won a real prize – he was going to take over Paul's role in The Beatles. In order to further increase his resemblance to McCartney, Campbell underwent plastic surgery. However, the "new" Paul McCartney was not exactly identical to the old one, the conspiracy theorists argue. Campbell has a small scar over his upper lip and it is this that gives the game away.

What evidence is there for this outlandish theory? Well, almost all of it comes from the band's own work. After Paul's alleged death in November 1966, each album contained multiple clues as to his fate. Take Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, for instance. Here are just a few of the clues that have been spotted by the fans:

The cover photograph has the band standing by what appears to be a freshly dug grave.

The yellow flowers by the grave are in the shape of a bass guitar. Paul was the bass player for The Beatles.

There are three sticks on the yellow flowers to represent the three remaining Beatles.

Below the "T" in Beatles is a statue of the Hindu God Shiva, "The Destroyer". His hand points directly to Paul.

Paul is the only one holding a black instrument: another death association.

Turn to the lyrics and we hear "He blew his mind out in a car, he didn't notice that the lights had changed", from "A Day In The Life" and "Nothing to do to save his life", from "Good Morning Good Morning".

However, the real motherlode of clues can be found in the White Album. The words "number nine, number nine" on the track "Revolution 9" become "turn me on, dead man, turn me on, dead man" when played backwards. The track also includes other clues, such as the sound of a car crashing. A similar reversal at the end of "I'm So Tired" reveals "Paul is dead, man, miss him, miss him...". Another track, "Don't Pass Me By", has lyrics that read, "I'm sorry that I doubted you...I was so unfair. You were in a car crash, and you lost your hair...".