Essay: Of Rumor, Myth and a Beatle

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In satisfying the human need for reassurance, rumor plays a role that truth not always can. It goes through three distinct stages. In the first, the fact content is reduced, partly because of the porosity of human memory, partly because of man's inclination to simplify. The Great Blackout of 1965 was a cause of countless rumors; some people immediately assumed that it was the result of a Communist sabotage plot; others believed that it was an unannounced air-raid test by the U.S. Government. In the next stage, the rumormonger accents certain parts of the story that appeal to him. Last year in Washington, D.C., a rumor swept the black ghetto that Soul Singer James Brown had been killed shortly after finishing a concert in the city. As it happened, Brown had simply flown off for another appearance; because of the ugly connotations of the story, Brown was traced to Los Angeles and persuaded to record a statement declaring that he was still alive. In this case, the rumor suited the sentiment of a bitter, riot-prone community better than the truth.

In the third and final stage of a rumor's life, the information is tailored to suit the vendor's interests and emotional needs. Those who believe that McCartney is dead, for instance, are in part sublimating their fear of the grave. For whenever death visits another person, it must delay its appointment in Samarra with you. Frequently, the death of a public figure breeds a host of rumors about the supposed deaths of other public figures. Within hours after Franklin Roosevelt died in 1945, rumors falsely consigned General George Marshall, Bing Crosby and New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia to the same end. John Kennedy's assassination touched off false stories that Lyndon Johnson had immediately succumbed to a heart attack. Conversely, ambiguous evidence of a public figure's death will almost certainly provoke rumors that he is alive. Some people believe that Hitler is still at large in Argentina or Paraguay; others contend that J.F.K. carries on a vegetable-like existence in a well-guarded private hospital. Long after his death, many of his fans believed that he was alive, but hopelessly disfigured, in a hospital somewhere.

It is almost impossible for people in the public eye to escape from rumors. That paragon of puritanical virtue, Queen Victoria, was thought by some of her contemporaries to be the secret wife of Disraeli or the secret mistress of her Scottish gillie, John Brown. Since rumor sometimes represents vicarious wish fulfillment, certain movie stars have been popularly credited with sexual exploits that defy physical ability.

Politics and government are simply inconceivable without the ubiquitous presence of rumor; it is a fixture of every state polity. In the form of trial balloons, rumors are deliberately lofted to survey popular sentiment. Before Gutenberg, word of mouth constituted man's principal means for exchanging knowledge, and it would be difficult to prove that modern instruments of communication have improved things much. If legend and myth are solidified rumor, so may be the printed picture and word—secondhand hearsay that is susceptible to the same kind of distortion that rumor undergoes in its journey from one willing ear to the next.