that's such a silly conclusion though, and really a perfect AP piece. It discredits people while saying nothing.
It doesn't matter if the phrase existed before hand, it very obviously blew-up during the JFK event.[0]
It could entirely well be that the DoD didn't invent the phrase, but it's pretty obvious that it very quickly became a part of the public verbage during heavy interest in the JFK event -- that trend could have easily been the indicator of work towards the discrediting of both the term and those that had too much curiosity towards things they shouldn't question.
It doesn't matter if the phrase existed before hand, it very obviously blew-up during the JFK event.[0]
It could entirely well be that the DoD didn't invent the phrase, but it's pretty obvious that it very quickly became a part of the public verbage during heavy interest in the JFK event -- that trend could have easily been the indicator of work towards the discrediting of both the term and those that had too much curiosity towards things they shouldn't question.
[0]: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=conspiracy+the...