BETTER TO REIGN IN HELL: SERIAL KILLERS, MEDIA PANICS & THE FBI (2007)

STEPHEN MILLIGAN

HEADPRESS

ISBN 1-900486-53-9

USA $18.95

Throughout the 80’s the image of the serial killer struck terror in the hearts and minds of America. One seemingly could not open a newspaper or flip on the television without being bombarded with news about yet another killer on the loose in your home town. Names such as The Night Stalker, Son of Sam, Jeffrey Dahmer, Henry Lee Lucas, The Atlanta Child Murderer, The Green River Killer and many others dominated the zeitgeist of the nation. These killers had reached a demonic status as uber deities that could swoop into your home in the night and steal your children much like the witches of yester-year.

But were these killers really some sort of criminal masterminds graced with super intelligence and inhuman abilities to hunt their prey? Or was something much larger at play in the media and political spectrum? Author Stephen Milligen makes a very strong case that these killers and much of the crime throughout the turbulent eighties was really a smoke screen of right wing agendas being fed to the public through a collusive media. The purpose to continue to create capital funds for government projects that keep backroom deals happening and right wing pocket books fat.

Yet this book is not a simplistic attack on the right wing in America. There is a superb amount of information on display here starting with the early chapters dealing with the creation of the FBI and CIA and the Myths surrounding them. There is detailed analysis of J. Edger Hoover’s obsessions and how they fueled his decision making at the FBI. How the newspapers of the time (the forties at this point) were used to propagandize and sell the FBI to the public at large. This history of this fringe policing agencies of the government is followed in great detail right up until the nineties when things seem to be falling apart for them.

The chapter I found most interesting is “Walt Disney’s Last Wish” which details Ronald Reagan’s rise to political power from his acting roots, detailing how he was so conservative even the right wing considered him to be too extreme. But it was during this time that he started his “war on crime” campaigns that were actually thinly veiled attacks on the poor and minorities. But it was this zero tolerance attitude that put him in favor with the voting public who were increasingly terrified of inner city violence. So anytime Reagan needed votes he trotted out the violent crime boogey man.

The irony is that many of the nastier criminals in the US can be traced back to Reagan’s Governor days when he cut all funding for mental hospitals thus sending many a violent criminal into the streets without supervision or medial care. Numerous mental cases undoubtedly turned to their previous murderous ways thus giving Mr. Reagan lots of bloody statistics to work with on his Presidential campaign trail.

Another interesting topic in the book is the political machinations surrounding the Atlanta child murders. Wayne Williams is still in prison for a murder related to these crimes (not the murders themselves as popularly believed) though it is pretty clear he is innocent of the murder he is charged with as well as the Atlanta Child murders. In this book there is a lot of coverage of how the local, state and federal government used various cover ups to distort what was happening with the crimes to avoid dealing with what seemed so painfully true about the crimes. That they were clearly KKK related hate crimes.

BETTER TO REIGN IN HELL does a terrific job of showing how the most terrifying of topics can be used to bend our will as a people for political gain. According to this book we were hookwinked throughout the eighties into believing that these monsters were behind every corner and therefore we gave up money and civil liberties to be protected.

As we go into the new century replace “Serial killer” with “Terrorist” and see the political machinations at work all over again.

This is an excellent book and is obviously, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. (AC)