Conspiracy theories: public arguments as coded social critiques: a rhetorical analysis of the TWA flight 800 conspiracy theories.

• Author: Miller, Shane

In my view, the 'Alice in Wonderland' public positions the FBI has taken in this incident have now crossed over from being merely illogical or incompetent to the appearance of obstruction of justice.

Cdr. William S. Donalsdon

So begins yet another web site designed to offer insights into the now infamous crash of TWA flight 800. TWA flight 800 exploded over the Atlantic Ocean shortly after takeoff on July 17, 1996. Within weeks of the explosion, an anonymous memo posted on the World Wide Web asserted that an accidental misfire of a navy missile had produced the explosion, and that the navy was actively working to hide this alleged incident of friendly fire. Internet reaction to this memo grew exponentially in the next few weeks, generating a plethora of web pages either repeating the allegations or spreading them in a slightly modified form. It was several months after the initial explosion when the conspiracy charges moved from the World Wide Web to the more established media. On November 8, 1996 all three network evening newscasts and CNN reported that former Kennedy press secretary Pierre Salinger was actively endorsing the navy missile theory. Although most major news sources dismissed the conspiracy charges within several we eks, Salinger continued to advocate a public positions the FBI has taken in this being merely illogical or incompetent to the government cover-up, web sites continued to elaborate the details surrounding the supposed conspiracy to hide the truth about the explosion, and most of the general public continued to remain skeptical about the government's official explanation that the accident was caused by the ignition of fuel vapors in the center fuel tank. Indeed, even two years after the crash, numerous web sites were still devoted to promulgating different theories, journalists and panelists still debated what actually happened, and less than half of the American public accepted the government's claim that a mechanical failure caused the crash ("Cause" 1998).

The various conspiracy theories surrounding the crash of TWA 800 are only a small portion of the conspiracy theories circulating in the United States today. Conspiracy theories themselves are nothing new to American society. Numerous scholars have documented an extensive history of conspiracy theories in American politics, (1) and even the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates contained elaborate accusations of conspiracies by both Lincoln and Douglas (Zarefsky 1984, 1990). What is perhaps novel today is the sheer number of theories being proposed, and the increasing attention and analysis they are receiving from a variety of sources. The traditional academic treatment of conspiracy theories has been to dismiss them as seriously flawed arguments. Beginning with Hofstadter's classic The Paranoid Style in American Politics (1965) conspiracy theories have been characterized as distorted arguments producing distorted judgments. Since then numerous academic studies have demonstrated the argumentative weaknesses inherent to conspiracy theories. Poor evidence or lack of evidence, circular reasoning, repetition of unproven premises, and false dilemmas are all standard characteristics of conspiratorial arguments (Baskerville 1961, Griffin 1988, Young et al., 1990, Zarefsky 1984). Yet despite these weaknesses, conspiracy theories are not solely relegated to the fantasies of fanatics. A substantial portion of the general public either believes or is willing to entertain the premises behind various conspiracy charges, and scholars such as Goodnight and Poulakos now argue that conspiracy theories have "moved away from ideological extremes to the mainstream of political life" (1981, p. 299). Indeed, Pfau has observed that conspiracy theories are an important and integral part of mainstream political argument-a form that was "deeply implicated" in mainstream political rhetoric at least as far back as the mid-nineteenth century (2000, p. 299). Yet despite the recognition that mainstream conspiracy arguments exist, academic treatment o f conspiracy theories continues to relegate them to the realm of the lunatic fringe (Pfau 2000, p. 2). This is problematic not only because as Pfau observes such scholarship is unable to account for the diversity of conspiracy texts (Pfau 2000, p. 2), but also because it overlooks the larger rhetorical role that conspiracy theories fulfill.

I am not attempting to deny that conspiracies theories exemplify flawed arguments. Yet what are we left with if conspiracy theories are simply recognized as shrewd, but fallacious arguments that exploit audience weaknesses? The answer, I suggest, is precious little. If we wish to more fully account for how conspiracy theories function in twenty-first century America, then we must be able move beyond treating conspiracy theories solely as flawed arguments. Specifically, I wish to argue that conspiracies fulfill two roles-the argumentative role traditionally studied that asserts that some powerful entity is engaged in a grand scheme to control or deceive the masses, and what I shall call the coded social critique role-an underlying message that critiques various social, political, or economic institutions and actors. In other words, the point of dispute in the competing theories and government accounts is equally over the different institutions' ethos and legitimacy as it is over the facts of the crash itself.

FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO THE CONSPIRACY THEORIES' ACCEPTANCE

Several factors surrounding the dispute over what brought down TWA Flight 800 created a climate that was conducive to conspiracy accounts of the crash. Not only did establishment accounts for the crash contain multiple argumentative errors, but public attitudes, the utilization of the World Wide Web to spread the conspiracy charges, and the support of varied sources perceived as credible contributed to an environment where conspiracy charges could flourish.

Weak Establishment Explanations

Conspiracy arguments obviously neither emerge nor circulate in a vacuum. In the case of the TWA 800 conspiracy arguments, the lack of coherent, solid establishment explanations of the TWA 800 crash was the necessary first step for conspiracy arguments to thrive.

The first limitation in establishment accounts of the TWA flight 800 crash was the lack of historical precedent for similar types of explosions. The FBI and NTSB were only able to point to two other accidents of a similar nature. At least one of these accidents resulted not in an explosion, but in a fire while the plane was still on the tarmac. As many conspiracy supporters pointed out, if the source of the explosion was a mechanical problem with the jet itself, the sheer frequency of 747 flights over the last 30 years should have produced more accidents.

A second, and related problem with establishment accounts of the explosion, was the fact that to date no governmental agency has been able to do more than speculate about the original ignition source for the explosion. Official accounts of the explosion originally identified static electricity, faulty wiring, and sparks from a faulty fuel pump as possible ignition sources. By the time the FBI concluded its investigation, it was forced to admit that it could not identify the ignition source with any degree of confidence, and most likely never would (Rohde 1997). Although the inability to identify the original cause of the explosion with 100 percent certainty is obviously not proof of a conspiracy, it does substantially limit the strength of establishment claims. Conspiracy supporters were able to demonstrate that there was no conclusive agreement over the source of the ignition of the explosion, thereby making it a legitimate point of disagreement. By making the very source of the explosion a point of stasis, conspiracy supporters were able to provide a rational reason for the public to at least consider other accounts of the explosion.

A final difficulty with the official explanations of the explosion was inconsistencies between various government agencies explanations of what actually happened to the plane in the final seconds after the explosion. In attempting to persuade the public that a missile did not bring down the flight, the NTSB and the FBI took on a significant burden of proof--accounting for the trail of light leading from the ocean to the sky that numerous eye witnesses saw immediately prior to the explosion. The history of the explanations offered for this light trail demonstrates inconsistencies and inconclusiveness in what is perhaps the key piece of evidence in mainstream accounts of the crash.

The original explanation for the trail of light was that it was burning jet fuel that had leaked from the plane and then ignited. It was suggested that the eye witnesses had seen the flames shooting back up toward the plane. A second explanation that was later offered by the NTSB was that the plane had exploded, the cabin had broken off, and the body of the jet had continued to climb another 3000 feet. This time it was suggested that what eye witnesses mistook for a missile trail was actually the flaming body of the plane continuing its assent. However, the CIA's animated re-enactment of the crash did not depict such an assent after the explosion, instead showing the plane crashing into the ocean after the initial explosion. Although the CIA's video was not intended as an explanation for the light trail, it did contradict the NTSB's account of the final seconds of the flight.

The overall effect of the government's attempts to account for the light trail and the last seconds of the flight was to put two contradictory explanations into the public sphere. The fact that the explanations were irreconcilable and introduced within a fairly short time span not only failed to adequately account for what the eye witnesses saw, but made the government's account of events contradictory and incomplete. When coupled with...