Webster Griffin Tarpley (born September 1946) is an American author, political activist, and conspiracy theorist. A one-time follower of

Lyndon LaRouche Lyndon Hermyle LaRouche Jr. (September 8, 1922 – February 12, 2019) was an American political activist who founded the LaRouche movement and its main organization the National Caucus of Labor Committees (NCLC). He was a prominent conspiracy ...

, Tarpley is known for his role in the 9/11 truth movement, believing 9/11 was a

false flag A false flag operation is an act committed with the intent of disguising the actual source of responsibility and pinning blame on another party. The term "false flag" originated in the 16th century as an expression meaning an intentional misr ...

operation.

Education

Tarpley was born in

Pittsfield Pittsfield is the largest city and the county seat of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is the principal city of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses all of Berkshire County. Pittsfield� ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

, in 1946. After receiving a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

in Languages from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

in 1966, ''

summa cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sou ...

'' and

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal a ...

, he became a

Fulbright The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

Scholar at the

University of Turin The University of Turin (Italian: ''Università degli Studi di Torino'', UNITO) is a public research university in the city of Turin, in the Piedmont region of Italy. It is one of the oldest universities in Europe and continues to play an impo ...

, Italy. Later, he earned a

Master of Arts A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...

humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at the t ...

from

Skidmore College Skidmore College is a private liberal arts college in Saratoga Springs, New York. Approximately 2,650 students are enrolled at Skidmore pursuing a Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science degree in one of more than 60 areas of study. History Sk ...

and a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

in early modern history from the

Catholic University of America The Catholic University of America (CUA) is a private Roman Catholic research university in Washington, D.C. It is a pontifical university of the Catholic Church in the United States and the only institution of higher education founded by U.S. ...

Career

In 1971, Tarpley was on the editorial board of ''The Campaigner'', a

National Caucus of Labor Committees The National Caucus of Labor Committees (NCLC) is a political organization in the United States founded and controlled by political activist Lyndon LaRouche until his 2019 death. LaRouche sometimes described the NCLC as a "philosophical association. ...

' journal, according to its masthead. In 1986, Tarpley attempted to run on

U.S. Labor Party The U.S. Labor Party (USLP) was a political party formed in 1973 by the National Caucus of Labor Committees (NCLC).

platform in the New York State Democratic Party primary for the U.S. Senate, but was ruled off the ballot in August that year because of a defect in his nominating petitions. At one time, Tarpley was a contributing editor to the ''

Executive Intelligence Review ''Executive Intelligence Review'' (''EIR'') is a weekly newsmagazine founded in 1974 by the American political activist Lyndon LaRouche. Based in Leesburg, Virginia, it maintains offices in a number of countries, according to its masthead, incl ...

'' (EIR), a LaRouche movement publication. In a January 1987 press conference attended only by a reporter from ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'', he claimed the LaRouche movement's credit card indictments were part of a plot against LaRouche who he described as "the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination" in the following year's election. Soviet leader

Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...

, Tarpley claimed, had used a surreptitious message in a speech to demand the silencing of LaRouche because of supposed information in LaRouche's possession on Soviet involvement in the assassination of

Olof Palme Sven Olof Joachim Palme (; ; 30 January 1927 – 28 February 1986) was a Swedish politician and statesman who served as Prime Minister of Sweden from 1969 to 1976 and 1982 to 1986. Palme led the Swedish Social Democratic Party from 1969 until h ...

, the former Swedish prime minister. In 1992, Tarpley co-authored with

Anton Chaitkin Anton "Tony" Chaitkin (born 1943) is an author, historian, and a former political activist with the LaRouche movement. He served as History Editor for '' Executive Intelligence Review''. Chaitkin's father was Jacob Chaitkin, who was the legal cou ...

George Bush George Bush most commonly refers to: * George H. W. Bush (1924–2018), 41st president of the United States and father of the 43rd president * George W. Bush (born 1946), 43rd president of the United States and son of the 41st president Georg ...

: The Unauthorized Biography'', published by LaRouche's EIR magazine. Since March 2006, Tarpley has hosted a weekly online talk show called ''World Crisis Radio'', broadcast by GCNLive.com.

Conspiracy theories

Tarpley maintains that the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...

were engineered by a rogue network of the military-industrial complex and intelligence agencies as a

false-flag A false flag operation is an act committed with the intent of disguising the actual source of responsibility and pinning blame on another party. The term "false flag" originated in the 16th century as an expression meaning an intentional misr ...

operation. The common account about the events of 9/11 are in Tarpley's opinion in 2006 an "outrageous myth" and an "absurd fairy tale." The organisations involved in 9/11 apparently included Britain's

MI6 The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...

as well as "government officials loyal to the invisible government." On November 21, 2011, while traveling to Syria, Tarpley told Syria's

Addounia TV Addounia TV ( ar, قناة الدنيا الفضائية, lit=The World) was a private television station based in Damascus, Syria since March 23, 2007. The station is described by some western media as "semi-official" and a "mouthpiece of the gov ...

that the Syrian Civil War was a

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...

–

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...

ploy to destabilize Syria using mercenaries and death squads against the population and the Syrian government. On April 2, 2012,

C-SPAN Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN ) is an American cable and satellite television network that was created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a nonprofit public service. It televises many proceedings of the United States ...

aired ''9/11, False Flags, and Black Ops: An Evening of Debate'', in which Tarpley debated his critic

Jonathan Kay Jonathan Hillel Kay (born 1968) is a Canadian journalist. He was the editor-in-chief of ''The Walrus'' (2014–2017), and is a senior editor of ''Quillette''. He was previously comment pages editor, columnist, and blogger for the Toronto-based Ca ...

on conspiracy theories, specifically the truth behind the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

David Frum David Jeffrey Frum (; born June 30, 1960) is a Canadian-American political commentator and a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, who is currently a senior editor at ''The Atlantic'' as well as an MSNBC contributor. In 2003, Frum au ...

, who served as moderator between the two men, described Tarpley's "presentation as as involuted as it was long-winded." During the event, Tarpley said that the

Attack on Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, j ...

was also a government conspiracy. On June 7, 2012, interviewed for the

NRK NRK, an abbreviation of the Norwegian ''Norsk Rikskringkasting Aksjeselskap, AS'', generally expressed in English as the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, is the Norwegian government-owned radio and television public broadcasting company, and ...

(Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation) regarding the

2011 Norway attacks The 2011 Norway attacks, referred to in Norway as 22 July ( no, 22. juli) or as 22/7, were two domestic terrorist attacks by neo-Nazi Anders Behring Breivik against the government, the civilian population, and a Workers' Youth League (AUF) ...

, Tarpley said, "I believe that the evidence points to a private network, or even a NATO network, within the police that contributed the long time delay until they stormed the Island." Tarpley has said

Edward Snowden Edward Joseph Snowden (born June 21, 1983) is an American and naturalized Russian former computer intelligence consultant who leaked highly classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2013, when he was an employee and su ...

is probably a triple agent ultimately being an agent for the

with the aim of weakening President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...

and pushing him into intervening in Syria. On January 21, 2015, Tarpley was interviewed by Guns and Butter's Bonnie Faulkner about "geopolitical terrorism and the destabilization of governments and how others like Russia and Belarus are responding". Tarpley is a member of the "world anti-imperialist conference" Axis for Peace, of Scholars for 9/11 Truth and of a research ''Netzwerk'' of German 9/11 authors founded in September 2006. Tarpley has also given lectures what he terms the "Versailles thesis", which claims that the

British government ga, Rialtas a Shoilse gd, Riaghaltas a Mhòrachd , image = HM Government logo.svg , image_size = 220px , image2 = Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom (HM Government).svg , image_size2 = 180px , caption = Royal Arms , date_es ...

attempted to create a new "

world order In international relations, international order refers to patterned or structured relationships between actors on the international level. Definition David Lake, Lisa Martin and Thomas Risse define "order" as "patterned or structured relatio ...

" at the

Treaty of Versailles The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June ...

Melania Trump libel suit

In February 2017, he agreed to settle a libel suit brought by U.S. First Lady

Melania Trump Melania Trump ( ; born Melanija Knavs , Germanized as Melania Knauss ; born April 26, 1970) is a Slovene-American former model and businesswoman who served as First Lady of the United States from 2017 to 2021 as the wife of 45th president Do ...

for publishing a "false and defamatory" report In August 2016 alleging that the First Lady had been a "high-end escort" prior to meeting President

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...

. Terms of the settlement included providing a public apology in writing and paying a "substantial sum".

Selected publications

Articles
"Palmerston's London During the 1850s: A Tour of the Human, Multicultural Zoo."
''

'', vol. 21, no. 16 (Apr. 15, 1994)
Full issue.
Books *''Chi ha ucciso Aldo Moro?'' 'Who Killed Aldo Moro?''Study commissioned by the Italian Parliamentary

Giuseppe Zamberletti Giuseppe Zamberletti (17 December 1933 – 26 January 2019) was an Italian politician and one of the founders of Italy's Protezione Civile (Civil Protection), of which he was the first minister in Italy from 1981. Biography Zamberletti was born i ...

(DC) and published in Rome, 1978. It sheds light on the affiliation between the

Red Brigades The Red Brigades ( it, Brigate Rosse , often abbreviated BR) was a far-left Marxist–Leninist armed organization operating as a terrorist and guerrilla group based in Italy responsible for numerous violent incidents, including the abduction ...

and the

neofascist Neo-fascism is a post-World War II far-right ideology that includes significant elements of fascism. Neo-fascism usually includes ultranationalism, racial supremacy, populism, authoritarianism, nativism, xenophobia, and anti-immigration se ...

P2 lodge and the role of the Italian intelligence services in the

Operation Gladio Operation Gladio is the codename for clandestine "stay-behind" operations of armed resistance that were organized by the Western Union (alliance), Western Union (WU), and subsequently by NATO and the CIA, in collaboration with several European Int ...

/Anglo-American secret services.
''George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography''
with

(1992); Reprinted (2004). .
''Against Oligarchy: Essays and Speeches, 1970-1996''
(1996). * ''Surviving the Cataclysm: Your Guide through the Worst Financial Crisis in Human History'' (1999); updated (2009). . * ''9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA – Myth of the 21st Century''. Foreword by

Thierry Meyssan Thierry Meyssan () is a French journalist, conspiracy theorist and political activist. He is the author of investigations into the extreme right-wing, particularly France's National Front militias, as well as into the Catholic church. Meyssa ...

(2005). ; 5th ed.: (Nov. 2011). . **Française: ''La Terreur Fabriquée, Made in USA: 11 Septembre, le mythe du XXIe siècle'' (Sep. 2006). . **Italiano: ''La Fabbrica del Terrore'' (Sep. 2007). . **Español: ''11-S, El Falso Terrorismo'' (Jan. 2008). .
''Obama & The Postmodern Coup: Making of a Manchurian Candidate''
(Apr. 2008). . **German: ''Barack Obama: Wie ein US-Präsident gemacht wird'' (Aug. 2008). . **Japanese: ''Obama: Dangerous Geometry'' (Nov. 2008). . * ''Barack H. Obama: The Unauthorized Biography'' (Aug. 2008). . **Japanese: (Mar. 2009). *''Just Too Weird: Bishop Romney and the Mormon Takeover of America: Polygamy, Theocracy, and Subversion'' (Oct. 2012). .

References

External links

*
”Biographies of Some People Who Have Appeared on The LaRouche Connection: Webster Tarpley“
2002. larouchepub.com.
Genesis Communications Network: World Crisis Radio
(Tarpley's radio show)
Webster Tarpley Radio
on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

Works by Webster Tarpley
at

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Tarpley, Webster 1946 births Living people Anti-corporate activists Catholic University of America alumni Flushing High School alumni LaRouche movement Maryland Democrats Princeton University alumni Skidmore College alumni Writers from Pittsfield, Massachusetts American conspiracy theorists 9/11 conspiracy theorists