Do not believe all you read on the Internet – Benjamin Franklin

Bertrand Russell is undoubtedly one of the most important philosophers and mathematicians of the 20th century. Being a prolific writer, there are a plethora of quotations attributed to him. One is the following:

When the conspirators get ready to take over the United States they will use fluoridated water and vaccines to change people’s attitudes and loyalties and make them docile, apathetic, unconcerned and groggy. According to their own writings and the means they have already confessedly employed, the conspirators have deliberately planned and developed methods to mentally deteriorate, morally debase, and completely enslave the masses. They will prepare vaccines containing drugs that will completely change people. Secret Communist plans for conquering America were adopted in 1914 and published in 1953. These plans called for compulsory vaccination with vaccines containing change agent drugs. They also plan on using disease germs, fluoridation and vaccinations to weaken the people and reduce the population.

The source is said to be page 103 in ”The Impact of Science on Society” – A number of lectures that were published in 1952.

When I saw this quote the first time my gut reaction was that it could not be right. Russell was pessimistic at times, but he was no luddite. The text simply does not make sense!

Take the sentence ”adopted in 1914 and published in 1953” – In a book published 1952? Further, the source is said to be the UK edition (London 1952), but the page numbers (103-104) are from the US edition which has a different paper-size and hence pagination

The full text of the US edition is available here as text and here as PDF.

I found a longer Swedish translation that anchored the fake quotation after the text beginning: ”I do not pretend..”, below in the UK edition

Those looking for the text ”When the conspirators get ready to take over the United States” will look in vain. It does not exist. It never has. It is a forgery.

Tracing back the text in the internet revealed that it made its first appearance on the 1st of February 2000 on three anti-semitic hate sites, among them the infamous ”Radio Islam”. After that I had to fast forward over 10 years, until the text started appearing as part of an inflammatory anti-semitic document called ”1000 Quotes By and About Jews”. The purpose is to perpetuate that age-old story about the Jewish world-conspiracy so cherished by nazis and US anti-vaxers.