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QuickBooks, backing you. Good morning. Jane Pauley is off today. I'm Lee Cowan, and this is Sunday Morning.

We hope you all enjoyed a happy Thanksgiving with friends and family, which by unhappy coincidence, was also the anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Despite more than a half a century of evidence to the contrary, there are plenty who still think his death was a conspiracy, a suspicion some harbor about a number of other historic events, including 9-11. It's a phenomenon Susan Spencer will explore in our Sunday Morning cover story. Why?

Why did it happen? Who would have done such a thing as he questioned? 55 years after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, more than half of all Americans still believe there was a cover-up. How hard is it to persuade someone that their particular conspiracy theory just makes no sense?

Very difficult. So what about you? Conspiracy theories ahead on Sunday Morning. Our Sunday profile this morning is a one-time presidential hopeful, Gary Hart, whose campaign collapsed three decades ago in the full glare of the media spotlight. Now that whole sorry episode is replaying at the movies, providing Hart much to talk about with our Rita Brink. Former Senator Gary Hart has spent the past 30 years living in Colorado and rebuilding his life. Now a new film looks back at the moment in 1987 when his presidential bid imploded. What's it been like to have all this focus on that time? Imagine somebody came to you and said, we want to make a movie about you, but we want to make it about the worst week of your life. Later on Sunday Morning, Gary Hart on the personal and the political. Luke Burbank rides out the wet and wild world of waterbeds. Steve Hartman takes us to South Carolina and watches Love Thy Neighbor in action.

And more, all coming up when our Sunday Morning podcast continues. Conspiracy. Many Americans still use that word when talking about the assassination of President Kennedy 55 years ago this past Thursday. And while we're talking conspiracy, what about the moon? Did we really land there? There are plenty who think not. So why, after all these years, do all these conspiracy theories persist?

Our cover story is reported by Susan Spencer. Spy novelist Gail Linds has made an entire career out of conspiracies. How many conspiracies do you think you've dreamed up in your lifetime?

Oh, a couple hundred. Look at all the conspiracies we have just right here. Her office at home near Portland, Maine, is a breeding ground for conspiracies. The CIA is overflowing, as you can see. Its shelves filled to bursting with evil secrets and nefarious plots.

Military technology, special ops, war tactics, strategy. Wow. Do you have any trouble coming up with these things? No, I don't.

Some people might say, what's wrong with you? Her espionage novels have sold millions of copies, and they all start with one unbreakable rule. The conspiracy has to be believable. That's not hard. In fact, there are and have been genuine conspiracies.

I shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow. There's Watergate. There's Iran-Contra. They're wonderful to write about.

And read and talk about. We look for conspiracies everywhere. According to a recent CBS News poll, more than half of Americans still believe there was an official cover-up connected to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Roughly one in three say the government is hiding the truth about 9-11. And one in 10 thinks the moon landings were faked. So, if you want to know how important conspiracy theories are to people, just bring up a few next time you have Thanksgiving dinner with your family. Do it after a few bottles of wine.

And after the arguing is over, you probably won't be invited back the next year. Twenty-five percent continue to think that 9-11 was a hoax. Joseph Fuzinski is a professor of political science at the University of Miami. Conspiracy theories are ultimately about power. There's never a conspiracy theory about, you know, the homeless guy with no arms and no legs.

No arms and no legs conspiring against us. So, how does a conspiracy theory start? A lot of times what happens is people will just come up with some of these ideas on their own. For example, one of my favorites is that the CIA created lesbianism.

Fuzinski gathered roughly 100,000 New York Times letters to the editor, 120 years worth, dealing with various conspiracy theories. And what we find is that beliefs aren't really going up. But what we can say is that they're playing a much bigger role in our political discourse. Sometimes with potentially tragic results. After he became the subject of conspiracy theories, billionaire George Soros was targeted by a pipe bomber.

And critics of the president worry that his views often include the conspiratorial. I wouldn't be surprised. Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised.

No, I wouldn't. I don't know who, but I wouldn't be surprised. A lot of people say yes. What does your basic conspiracy theorist look like? If I ask people to close their eyes and imagine who that person is, most of them are going to think of a white male, middle-aged, look a lot like me. Tin foil hat?

Perhaps. Living in the mother's basement with a ham radio, but conspiracy thinking cuts across race, gender, political party. This vast right-wing conspiracy that has been conspiring against my husband since the day he announced for president. Almost everybody believes some kind of conspiracy theory at some point. Psychologist Rob Brotherton says human beings are skeptical of coincidence and think in terms of cause and effect.

One of the main jobs that our brain has is to spot patterns in the world, to spot things where A seems to be connected to B. And when something big happens, like a terrorist attack or a mass shooting, we assume there must be an equally big explanation for it. Like the JFK assassination, a lone gunman assassinating the president, changing the course of history. That's a very small explanation for such a big event. We want a much more complicated explanation than there is. Like a vast conspiracy involving hundreds or thousands of people ongoing throughout time.

We have suffered a loss. Especially since some experts believe a JFK conspiracy is not out of the question. There's kind of good reason to be suspicious of the Warren Commission report. It was kind of rushed and it didn't cover everything.

It did leave some things out. More than half of all Americans think there was a cover-up of the Kennedy assassination. I'm inclined to think that there might have been. The mafia killed JFK. I'm not sure it was the mafia. Maybe it was the Cubans.

Maybe it was the Soviet Union. Such theories persist, no matter how improbable. A lot of these depend on huge numbers of people keeping a secret.

So workplace romances fall apart fairly quickly, and that's two people with low stakes. We're talking hundreds or even thousands of people with very high stakes information. I mean, it's been decades and decades and decades, but no one's come forward to say, I was the other shooter. And if you don't buy the JFK theories, what about this guy? Is he alive?

In this one. You've seen those little crawly things, haven't you? Oh, we're big crawly things.

Poor Paul McCartney has been rumored to be dead since people played Beatles records backwards in the late sixties. What is your all-time favorite conspiracy theory? So the interdimensional lizards, I think that's a good one.

Pardon? The what? Interdimensional lizards?

I'm not familiar with this one. Yeah, so all the rich families, the monarchy, all the presidents, they're all related to these trans-dimensional shape-shifting lizards. I'm looking at your eyes just to see, you might be one of them. By now, you too may be looking nervously over your shoulder. So how's the average person supposed to distinguish any of this?

The best thing to do is to listen to independent experts. You know that's not going to, nobody's going to do that. You know, we could start some sort of rumor that you were actually a spy.

I was never a spy. Well, you would say that. Conspiracy thinking is a spectrum. Some of it is ludicrous, and some is quite reasonable. Governments do keep things from us. And perhaps for that very reason, Professor Yuzinski thinks a little dose of conspiracy thinking actually may be good for democracy. Conspiracy theorists have for decades pushed for the release of more documents relating to the JFK assassination. That's a good thing. Conspiracy theorists pushed for the 9-11 Commission. That was a good thing.

A world without conspiracy theories might be a very dangerous one, because at that point, no one's able to question power structures. And now, a page from our Sunday morning almanac, November 25th, 1835. 183 years ago today. The day Andrew Carnegie was born in Scotland. At age 13, Carnegie moved to the US, settling outside Pittsburgh, where he was immediately put to work in a factory. Through diligence and hard work, Carnegie lifted himself up to become the biggest steel manufacturer in the land, which also made him one of the richest men in the land, worth twice as much as Bill Gates, in today's dollars. After selling his business to financier JP Morgan in 1901, Carnegie devoted himself to charity, as outlined in his book, The Gospel of Wealth, which he read out loud in this early, scratchy recording. Andrew Carnegie put his words into deeds, endowing more than 2,500 public libraries worldwide, more than 1,600 in the US alone. And although he died in 1919 at the age of 83, his name lives on, at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, at his famous music hall in New York, and at charitable institutions such as the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

As for the differing pronunciations of his last name, well, we'll let the people of his hometown in Scotland have the final word. Wet and wild, that's just one way of describing a watery invention marking its 50th birthday. Luke Burbank has floated out to find its creator. Charlie Hall loves the water. He lives right on it in a beautiful home on Bainbridge Island, Washington. And as an inventor over the years, he's come up with all kinds of ways to utilize water, from camping showers to inflatable kayaks. But it was his very first water-related invention that changed America forever. Is this the first time you've done an interview like this?

Yes. How weird would it be if it wasn't? What am I supposed to be feeling right now as I am lying on this waterbed? Oh, well, feel the small of your back, first of all. This mattress cradles you.

Plus, you probably feel some very comfortable amount of warmth, and that helps your muscles expand and relax. That's right, Charlie Hall invented the waterbed 50 years ago this year. How old were you when you were working on this?

22 or three, I guess. Do you ever invite anyone back to the studio to test this thing out? Yes, yes, actually, we got married later, so. In San Francisco, way back in 1968, Hall was studying industrial design, and his groovy idea for his senior thesis was something he called the pleasure pit. You could have friends over and lounge in it like a sofa and read the paper, and that was a lot of water.

It was eight feet square. Hall refined the idea, eventually patenting the waterbed, which he started selling up and down the West Coast. Did you know that it was an inherently sexy product?

Yes, I think so. Because just watching people's reactions, they kind of got the sexy part of it. Actually, undeniable, because we delivered one to a nudist county, and they called us up a couple weeks later, so we got to have another one.

People love it. To hear Hall tell it, it was the first substantial reimagining of a mattress in at least a hundred years. Beds long ago were like indentations in the floor of the cave.

You put straw in there, you put leaves in there, and if you're a good hunter, you put in a skin or a pelt. And then in the Middle Ages, they moved up into something off the floor, wood rack frame around and ropes underneath, tying it together. But that's the way the bedding business was. Until, like, 1800s, coil springs came around, and that was a big innovation.

Coil springs were big until water beds came along. Despite this, it actually took a while to convince the wider public to sleep on a bag of water, and it took even longer to convince the mattress industry. The mattress companies that we competed with, the Seeley and Simmons, those folks pretty much disregarded us to start with. Keith Koenig started selling the beds in the 1970s with his brother at their store called Waterbed City in South Florida. And he says when people eventually fell for the beds, they fell hard. At one time, we were the largest seller of beds in South Florida, and we just sold water beds. When you sleep better, it's written all over your face.

In fact, by the 1980s, more than one in five of all beds sold were water beds. Just get on it. Whoa, oh, gosh. This is really... I feel like I'm at an amusement park. And the biggest fan of the water bed?

Well, that might be Katherine Johnson of Mesa, Arizona. What's the longest you've been away from your water bed in the last 30 years? Two weeks. And that's when I go back east to Pittsburgh. And I lay in bed with my granddaughters, and we talk about the water bed. And how we wish we were on the water bed.

That would be awesome. Would you say that it's one of the more notable things about your mom, is just how much she loves that water bed? It is.

It is. Everybody knows it about her. Everybody in the family also loves the water bed. She slept on the water bed with three other teenage girls. We were all like... And two cats.

And two cats. Despite the Johnson family's enthusiasm, water bed sales have tanked since their high point in the 80s. If you've ever dreamed of owning a water bed, now's the time.

Our prices are low enough as it is. And that's something Charlie Hall and his business partner, Keith Koenig, are hoping to change with their noticeably less jiggly version of the water bed, called a float. Oh, and it actually looks like a normal bed too. Charlie Hall let me try one out in one of his bedrooms. I've been fighting the urge this entire interview not to doze off, which I guess is a kind of a rave review for this water bed. Hall's new and improved mattress had its grand debut this year at Koenig's store, which is now called City Furniture in Florida.

I used to have one years ago. And while it's still unclear if Americans are ready to fall back in love with the water bed, for those considering it, water bed enthusiast Katherine Johnson has a message. What would you say they're missing out on?

Someone who's never been on a water bed. Besides a good night's sleep, just fun. It's almost like being a little kid again. It's just such a good feeling.

I think there would be a lot happier couples, whole lot less aches and pains. It's a religious experience. On this Thanksgiving weekend, Steve Hartman has an update from what you might call the Love Thy Neighbor Motel. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone in America more thankful this week than the residents of the Midtown Motel in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Each and every guest says they owe a heaping helping of gratitude to this man, motel owner, Jared Hux. As we first reported a couple months ago, during the Florence flooding, Jared stayed open for business.

Jared Hux, nice to meet you. Or more like open for charity. We'll take care of you. We'll take care of you. Jared actually gave away more than a thousand free nights to this community's poorest and most vulnerable evacuees. I don't know what we would have done to be honest with you. I don't know where we would be right now. There's so many other ways you want to say thank you.

There's no words to describe what it means to our family. Love thy neighbor, right? That's what you're supposed to do. I've read that somewhere. Yeah, I've read it somewhere too.

My mama taught me that a long time ago. All right, you're in. You need a room key, don't you? So far, Jared has given away about $50,000 worth of goods and services. But even more important is the generosity he has inspired in others. People started running to me right away. How can I help?

What can I do? They brought diapers, ice, and plenty of food. Anyone staying at the Midtown now gets three square meals a day. In fact, from the new shoes on their feet to the hairs on their head, we did not see a single need go unmet here. You're being such a good boy.

Especially for the children who now play wonderfully oblivious to the suffering that surrounds them. Since we first told this story in September, Jared has been flooded too with mail. Most offer kudos, but many come with cash, which Jared uses to help the Midway families get back on their feet. Whether it's a car repair or a down payment on a new apartment, Jared is now a full-service Good Samaritan, further guaranteeing that he has made his mama proud. It's Sunday morning on CBS, and here again is Lee Cowan.

Back in 1988, presidential candidate Gary Hart seemed to have the White House inside. What happened next, however, is a cautionary tale. And the subject of a brand new movie starring Hugh Jackman.

Rita Brave has our Sunday profile. You have had quite an eventful life. Oh boy.

Yes, I think that may be the understatement of the day. Much, much more eventful than I ever anticipated. And when we met up with former Senator Gary Hart in Evergreen, Colorado, just a few miles from his home.

Five miles back that way, in a town called Kittredge. We talked about some of the most tumultuous events, as depicted in a new film that looks back to May 1987. I came here to talk to you about America's future. When Gary Hart's presidential campaign was infamously derailed.

If we lose this, we can kiss the White House goodbye. What's it been like for you to have all this focus on that time? Very strange. Imagine, out of the blue, somebody came to you and said, there's good news and bad news. We want to make a movie about you, but we want to make it about the worst week of your life.

Did I do anything immoral? I absolutely did not. It was the week that reporters from the Miami Herald, acting on a tip, staked out Hart's DC home, and saw him meeting with a young woman named Donna Rice.

I want to ask you some questions about the woman in your townhouse. While his wife was out of town. The only thing I deny is the idea that... That Hart, played in the movie by Hugh Jackman, spotted the reporters and confronted them. I know full well what my responsibilities are.

Do you know yours? That Sunday, the Herald would publish a story that also reported that Hart and Rice had previously been together in Bimini on a boat called Monkey Business. These pictures, shot by a vacationing businessman, show a relaxed senator on the now famous yacht Monkey Business. Both Hart and Rice have always denied any sexual relationship, but the frenzy of media coverage forced Gary Hart to withdraw from the race. I refuse to submit my family and my friends and innocent people and myself to further rumors and gossip. I also said if we go down the path we've started this week, we will get the kind of leaders we deserve.

Have we? Yes, you can't have the rules that were applied to me applied to American politics and get people of quality. Gary Hart grew up in Ottawa, Kansas, graduated Yale Law School, and settled in Colorado with his wife, Lee. But drawn to public service by President Kennedy, he ended up managing George McGovern's losing 1972 presidential race.

Hart went back to Colorado, won a U.S. Senate seat, and built a distinguished career. Well, I don't think caution is what this country needs. By 1983, You gotta run for president. We need new leadership. And that's the phrase I heard over and over again. You would aggressively seek an attempt at dialogue with Castro.

I would challenge him to join us. But in 1984, Hart lost the Democratic nomination to former Vice President Walter Mondale. When I hear your new ideas, I'm reminded of that ad.

Where's the beef? Yeah. Hart became the Democratic frontrunner for 1988, in large part because of his visionary ideas. I saw, as early as anyone else, the shift of the economic base of America from manufacturing to information and technology, symbolically from Detroit to Silicon Valley. You actually worried that we were heading toward a war in the Persian Gulf and that nobody was trying to diffuse the situation, especially vis-a-vis terrorism. Or reduce our dependence on oil. So it meant conservation.

It meant alternative renewables and programs such as that. Hart was considered brilliant, but also a bit aloof. One of my problems is I can't smile and think at the same time. I was not a traditional politician. You didn't like having to be charming.

Because I found it very difficult. I wasn't born with charm the way Bill Clinton was. You essentially thought that your private life was your private life. And that nobody had a right to look into it. Hadn't that been the case in America for 200 years? Hadn't that been the case? Who changed the rules? There were long-running Washington rumors that Hart, who went through two separations from his wife, engaged in extramarital affairs. There was a famous question. A reporter asked you if you'd ever been unfaithful in your marriage.

He was so far out of line, I couldn't believe it. And I refused to answer the question. And you still do. And I still do, of course. It's nobody's business. Look, character, which got to be the key word, is demonstrated over a lifetime.

And I'll put my life up against anybody's in terms of a sound character. That's all I can say. And now there's new debate over the events of May 1987. A story in The Atlantic this month claims that the late Republican strategist Lee Atwater, who had a reputation as a political dirty trickster, made a deathbed confession, admitting that he had set up a trap to lure Hart onto the monkey business, a setup Hart had long suspected. Nothing that happened that weekend made any sense to me thereafter. But I had no proof of anything. Still, he acknowledges he made a big mistake. I should have gotten on an airplane and gone back to Washington. You said it was a very painful time in your marriage.

That's pretty obvious. And you and your wife have now been together 60 years. Congratulations. What kept you together?

Love. Do you find that lots of people recognize you still? Well, depends on where you are. Hart and his wife returned to Colorado. Their two adult children live here, too. But he was not in hiding. Over the past 30 years, Gary Hart has built an impressive resume. Legal work, consulting, teaching, writing, and diplomacy with expertise in terrorism. He even got a PhD in political thought from Oxford.

I've tried to be active in public service, which is the reason I get into politics in the first place. The story of Gary Hart's fall is considered a turning point. The moment when the press started examining the private lives, as well as the political ideas of candidates. We're all going to have to seriously question the system for selecting our national leaders. That reduces the press of this nation to hunters and presidential candidates to being hunted. Still, it is not lost on Hart that both Bill Clinton and Donald Trump were elected after allegations of affairs. I think all the rules have changed. If Donald Trump can have a fan base of 30 to 40 percent, despite everything he's done in life, all the bets are off. Anybody can be president, regardless. Gary Hart is about to turn 82, and he admits that he still wonders if he could have changed the course of history. Does that haunt you a little bit, that you didn't get the chance? Of course. It's haunted me for 30 years. Lost opportunities for what turned out to be not very much satisfaction of one newspaper with the sensational story. And was it worth it?

I'm Lee Cowan. Thank you for listening, and please join us again next Sunday morning. Georgia's right up there, but New Hampshire is a surprise. In New Hampshire, people really just kind of don't like Maggie Hassan. For more from this week's conversation, follow the Takeout with Major Garrett on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.