Wikileaks, “Top Secret America” And Conspiracies: Rubicon Panel Previews New Show

“Not every conspiracy is a theory.”

The line was repeated several times during a preview screening and panel for the new AMC show Rubicon (which premieres tonight at 8pmET) earlier this week at the Standard Hotel in New York. The lively, and at times heated, panel talked Wikileaks, WaPo‘s “Top Secret America” project and the idea of conspiracy.

The panel included Henry Bromell, the show’s Executive Producer and creator, former Sen. Bob Kerrey, former Deputy Commissioner for Counter Terrorism and National Security Council Michael Sheehan and former CIA Chief of Worldwide Operations Jack Devine. Kerry said the Top Secret America project exposed a conspiracy – but only in the way it was ignored. “What happened to the story after the third piece was written?” he asked. “I posit that the answer is there’s a conspiracy, to use the word of the evening, between Republican and Democratic members of congress who authorized and appropriated this big build-up.”

As for Wikileaks, Devine sees this as symptomatic of the new world we live in. “The internet, the capacity to communicate, has so revolutionized information,” he said. While Devine was “very unhappy with the leaks,” he doesn’t believe there is “gotcha intelligence in there.”

Rubicon focuses on conspiracies in our government as well as abroad. Kerrey sees the conspiracies against us as the far greater concern:

We are a target. In fact, we’re target number one. And there’s enormous vulnerabilities that come as a consequence to our values and openness, at the border and in all other kinds of ways, and it has gotten very, very, easy to create denial and deception strategies.

Bromell’s father served in the CIA, and he said hearing about what his father did “was an influence on me wanting to do the show, absolutely.” From the site:

AMC taps into our collective paranoia with its compelling new conspiracy series, Rubicon. Will Travers is an intelligence analyst who cracks codes for a living. When Will’s world is shattered by an untimely death he begins asking questions, diving into a web of mystery and danger. Not every conspiracy is a theory.

The show has employed an interesting marketing strategy, making the entire first episode available both on TV and online. But with the twists and turns expected as the conspiracies unravel this season, the episode ends up being more preview than spoiler. So – watch the full first episode here:

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