This short book (about 28,000 words) from long ago has managed to remain controversial right into the 21st Century. First published in 1967 during the peak years of the Vietnam War the Report From Iron Mountain presents itself as an alleged “leak” from some unnamed secret branch of the US government. To this day, the book still has its vigorous debunkers and supporters alike.

Conspiracy theorists say the book is a word-for-word copy of a classified report known as “Publication 7277”. End of discussion for them. Perhaps.

Debunkers claim it’s either an out-and-out hoax, or it is (at best) a carefully planted bit of government “disinformation”. Again, perhaps.

CIA whistleblower, the late Col. L. Fletcher Prouty, claimed he interviewed the book’s author, Leonard C. Lewin (1916-1999), on several occasions. Prouty said Lewin always maintained the book was a work of fiction. Yet Prouty, a veteran of CIA skullduggery, wasn’t so sure that was the case. So, we have another: perhaps.

The mainstream media have even weighed in. Both Wikipedia and The New York Times, for instance, would like to assure everyone that the book is simply an amusing little exercise in political satire. Indeed. Perhaps.

But in the end, none of that matters. The significance of the book is in what it has to say: that the economic consequences of world peace are so dramatic, drastic and dire that the United States would have an economic collapse and crumble if world peace were ever to happen.

Food for thought: here we are more than a half century after the book’s initial publication and the US government still makes it a priority to somehow remain in a perpetual state of war with somebody somewhere someplace.

Ever wonder why?