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This article appeared in the World Perspective column in the L.A. Times

DEALING WITH CONSPIRACY THEORIES IS NO WALK IN THE PARK

By Jim Mann/international outlook


Washington- If you want to know the sorry direction in which
American Foreign Policy is drifting these days, you have to look
not in Los Angeles or Washington, but in small towns and rural
areas�like Tenessee's Great Smokey Mountain National Park.

This summer, the to hikers and other visitors, contains a short but
extraordinary article.  "Park is not run by United nations," the headline
reads.  The article reassures readers that the National Park "remains the
property of the United States Government."

Why was such an article felt to be necessary?  It turns out that a few years
ago, the park was designated by the U.N. as an international "biosphere
reserve" in recognition of it's fine trees, plant, and wildlife.  A few
hundred areas around the world enjoy this honor.

But during the past year, park officials say, the rumor has begun to spread
on radio talk shows that Great Smokey has been taken over by the United
nations.  "We've been getting a rash of inquiries," said park spokeman Bob
Miller.  "There are even claims that we haven't been spraying our trees
because the U.N. won't let us."


It turns out that Great Smokey is not alone.  Rumors have been spreading
that other National parks have fallen under the control of the U.N. or even
that the national parks are being used as staging areas for the U.N.
troops.

Yellowstone National Park, the nation's best-known, is also the target of
conspiracy theorists.  Since 1978, Yellowstone has been listed s a World
heritage site, an award given to about 100 famous places in the world,
including Austrailia's Great Barrier and Tanzania's Seregeti Plains.


As a result, says Yellowstone official Cheryl Mathews, "we have been getting
calls over the past year.  The callers have heard from radio talk shows
that the U.S. government no longer controls or runs Yellowstone...We
reassure them that there is nothing at all to the talk."

In other words, our national parks are now being forced to defend themselves
against the current delusion of the far right: that the U.S., the world's
only superpower, whose defense budget dwarfs that any other nation, is
somehow losing it's sovereignty.

The imagined perpetrator of this conspiracy is not always clear.  Sometimes
it is said to be the U.N.  Sometimes it is a vague "New World Order."
 That phrase was used by President bush to describe the international
alliance America put together during the Persian Gulf war.  Now, turning
reality upside down, the conspiracy theorists have decided that the new
world order is some sort of plot against the U.S.

Does any of this really matter for American foreign policy?  Do the
fantasies of these extremists affect how the U.S. deals with the world?


Absolutely.  For concrete examples, ask the pentagon, or look at some of
the hassles it has recently had as it has tried to nurture working
relationships with other armies.

* At Ft. Polk, La., a year ago, the pentagon for the first time welcomed
soldiers from the East European nations and former Soviet republics� places
like the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Ukraine� to take part in mock
peacekeeping excercises under NATO's Partnership for Peace program.

A rational person might think the only country that night be threatened by
these exercises would be Russia. This was, after all, the U.S. forging new
military ties with members of the former Warsaw Pact.  Nevertheless, local
militias in Louisiana warned that the exercises were part of a new world
order plot, and U.S. military officials were obliged to issue a fact book
rebutting the rumors.

*At Hollman Air Force Base in New Mexico in May, U.S. military officials
launched a training program for German Air Force pilots..  The arrangement
seemed straightforward enough to the the Pentagon; after all, Germany is
not only an ally, but turned over large chunks of territory to U.S. bases
and hundreds and thousands of troops during the cold war.  But Air force
bases across the country were beseiged with calls after a Florida talk show
host claimed the German pilots were evidence of "a global plan by the U.N.
nitwits to control the world."

In June, Rep. Don Young (R�Alaska), Chairman of the House Resources
Committee, sent a letter to his Congressional colleagues.  "Is Boutros
Boutros�Ghali Zoning Land in your district?"  asked the letter in large,
bold type.  He warned that the biosphere reserve program is part of a
"one�world zoning enterprise" run by the United Nations.

At the Republican National Convention Walker (R�Pa), presenting the party's
plank on foreign policy and defense issues, thundered to the delegates that
American citizens "will never face taxes implemented by the United
nations."  The audience cheered and clapped.

Sen. Kay Baily Hutchinson (R�Texas) accused President Clinton of the crime
of "U.N. following."  And bob Dole, accepting the Republican presidential
nomination, pledged that, if he is elected president, American troops "will
know the president is commander�in�cheif, not Boutros-Boutros Ghali or any
other U.N. secretary general.


For his part, Clinton has done little to dispel the illusions or challenge
the nationalistic obsessions about the U.N.  Indeed, his administration
seemed to be trying to co�opt the attacks on the U.N. when it announced
this spring to what amounts to a public campaign to replace Buotros�Ghali
as secretary general.

The truth is that the U.N is a broke and mostly powerless ineffectual
organization that, however, American Presidents from Harry S. Truman to
Clinton have found moderately useful for both American diplomacy and
security interests��including the Korean War and the Gulf war.

The organization was created by the United States and houses itself  on
American soil.  It doesn't have the power to zone or tax American citizens
or anybody else.  The attacks on the U.N. over control over American troops
date back o the 1993 deaths of 18 American soldiers in a gun battle in
Somalia; but the troops were, in fact, under the direct command and control
of the U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Florida.

What do the spreading, groundless fears  over national Parks tell us?
First, that some Americans feel desperate to find some grand, new
conspiracy they can blame for undermining America, now that the idea of a
communist takeover has vanished with the end of the cold war.


But the roots of the U.N. conspiracy theories date back long before the
Cold War.  In his classic study, "The Paranoid Style in American Politics,"
political scientist Richard Hofstadter described how these conspiracy
theories have cropped up throughout American history.  In the 19th century,
the masons and the Catholics were accused of plotting against America.  Now
it's the united nations.

If politicians running for office are not willing to denounce these
conspiracy theories, then maybe other well�known Americans could, like Bush
or Nancy Reagan or Colin L. Powell or Mario M. Cuomo.  Any of them might
point out that America has profited from it's participation in the U.N., and
that the U.N. poses no threat to American sovereinity.

At Great Smokey Mountain National Park, authorities say even trips to the
park by international visitors, or exchange students from abroad, are
prompting worried phone calls about who the strange foreigners might be.
"There are enough things to worry about without this" park spokeman Miller
said.

This is not some abstract is where even the Great Smokey and Yellowstone
are the subject of far�fetched conspiracy theories, it's time for the rest
of America to stand up and take notice.


End of article.