Ira Einhorn and the Origins of Earth Day

Maybe you’ve read some of the disinfo stories about how the counterculture was supposedly a government plot to divide and destroy the country? How government agents secretly encouraged rampant drug use in the 1960s to poison the minds of a new generation, allowing them to be brought under the influence of “new age” ideas?

I don’t believe most of these stories, especially the ones that paint Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters as being involved in such activities. Yes, Kesey did get his first taste of acid through a CIA-program, like a lot of people at the time, but anyone who studies his life immediately realizes Kesey was not on anyone’s leash. The same can be said for Abbie Hoffman, Stephen Gaskin and many other important leaders of the counterculture movement. Which is not to say intel wasn’t trying to exploit the counterculture, turn it violent and lead it off a cliff. Obviously, any social movement of any size will be quickly penetrated by intel. That’s what they do. And there are a number of suspicious characters, like Ron Stark, who obviously had secret agendas. Another such character is Ira Einhorn, who sometimes gets credited as one of the founders of the environmental movement.

Einhorn’s early claim to fame was his role as “master of ceremonies” at the first Earth Day celebration, but you won’t find that mentioned on the wikipedia page covering that event today, probably because he recently died on April 3, 2020 while serving a life sentence for murdering his ex-girlfriend, Holly Maddux, who was found stuffed in a trunk on his porch in 1979. Although portrayed as a “hippie guru,” Einhorn’s associations and connections seem much more related to CIA activities than anything to do with the hippie counterculture.

He was mentored in paranormal research by Andrija Puharich, a former army officer who has interesting connections not only to the intelligence agencies but also to the oligarchy that really rules North America. Puharich is best known today for bringing Uri Geller to fame, but he was also involved with MK/Ultra research at Fort Dietrick, as well as organizing black magic seances in upstate New York with members of the Bronfman and DuPont families, among others. You can find background material on Puharich in both Peter Levenda’s Sinister Forces (now out-of-print and very expensive), and Hank Albarelli’s A Terrible Mistake (both published by Trine Day).

There’s probably enough in those two books to convince you that anyone mentored by Puharich should be looked at with suspicion.

After Einhorn’s arrest, Arlen Specter, the Warren Commission lawyer who invented the “single bullet” theory, came to his rescue along with Barbara Bronfman, heiress to the Seagram fortune. At the time, Einhorn claimed he was being framed by the CIA because of his left-wing political activities.

Specter managed to get him a very low bail, which Bronfman posted, and Einhorn fled the country, probably with funds provided by Bronfman. In 1997, long after he was convicted in absentia, Einhorn was located living in France under a new name with a Swedish girlfriend. After a long and protracted extradition struggle, Einhorn was finally brought back to Pennsylvania on July 20, 2001, and put in jail to serve his life sentence.

The lesson to be taken from all of this is the potential realization that all popular mass movements eventually become penetrated by intelligence operations. The environmental movement of today, spearheaded by Al Gore, is undoubtedly also a carefully-constructed operation. The rightwing has their apocalypse, centered on the Middle East and ideas about “rapture,” while the leftwing has their apocalypse, centered on the imminent collapse of our environment. Apocalyptic thinking is crucial to maintaining mass mind control because fear is the foundation. The most apocalyptic of all the sixties cults was the Process Church of Final Judgment.