Conspiracy: A History of B*llocks Theories, and How Not to Fall for Them by Tom Phillips and Jonn Elledge
A week before Christmas 1967 the prime minister of Australia, Harold Holt, popped out for a stroll on Cheviot Beach by his holiday home in Portsea, near Melbourne. He was never seen again. Two days later a temporary prime minister was sworn in and politics carried on as before.
Yet for many Australians, Holt’s fate was a confusing mystery. Suicide, some said. Others suggested an expert assassination by agents of Ho Chi Minh (Holt supported the war in Vietnam). At the most imaginative end were those who swore the PM had in fact been a spy in the employ of Chairman Mao and that, on the verge of being rumbled, he had slipped away on a Chinese submarine.
