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BRAI! WARFARE

In the past few years ve have becors accustoned to hearing much aoout the bastle for men's minds -- the war of ideologies -- and iniued our goverzzent has been driven by the internaticnal tonsion we call the "ccld war" to take positive steps to reccgnize psychclogical warfare end to play en aotive role in it. I wender, hovever, whether ve clearly perccive the full magaitude cf the problen, whother wè realize how sinister the battle for ren's minds has beccze in Soviet lands. We might call it, in its nev fora, "brain warfare".

The target cf this warfare is the mirds of men both en a collective and on an individual basis. Its ain is to condition the mind so that it no longer reacts on e free will or rationel basis but responãs to impulses implauted from outside. If ve are to counter this kind of warfare we must understand the' techniques the Seviet is edopting to controi man's minás. . There is an old adage that "everyone is crazy but me and thee and semotines I suspeet thee". There is sore truth than we realize in this saying. The huzan mind is the rost dclicate of all instruents. It is so finely-\_ adjusted, so susccptible tc tho inpact of outsids influences that it is proving a malleable tocl in the hands of sinister men. The Soviets are now using brain perversien techniques as one of their main weepons in preszcuting the cold war. Sone ef those tochniques are so suotle and so ebhorrent to-our vay of life that wo have rocoiled fron facing up to them.

SUPARY OP RHGES BY MR. ALLEN W. TELLES AT TIS BATICEAL AOPRT CCWPERE CS CF TIS GRAEUATE CCURICTL IF FRIICEICH HOP SFRIOS, VA., AFRIL 10, 1953

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We take for Cranted a. socicty where huaan tuings are free to think as they ploase, We rcad and ses and hear sueh a variety of thiugs that the =iti adopts no single pattern. Our socicty prcduces all kinds of poople thinking and believing all manner of thoughts. Fortunately, in our drive for staniariization in other fields we have,not consciously tried to standardize the ind. In the Soviet world, however, this is being done.

In the frecion that we enjoy -- and freedoz of thought is possibly the most precious freedom that we do cnjoy -- it is hard for us to realizu thst in the groat eroa behind the Iron Curtain a vast experiment is uniervay to change mon's minds, working cn then continucusly frcn youth to eld age.

. Such en experizent has never before been undertaken en so vast and so well organized a scale. In Hitler's Germany and in Fascist Itcly sone effort vas rade to zake nen into a single pattern. In Geruany it vas callad Eleichgestaltuns - the/levelins prccess. This effort covered only a few years and nay have hed littlo peruanent effect on the Gerzan nizd, though it did have its effect on history in ccnditicnins the Gerans in vest nurbers to follow Hitler's med experizants. Jepan had its thought control which, while highly efficicnt in cosbatting sedition and welding the Japazese pecple into apparent unity behind an intense nationaliss, seers also to have had little pormanent.effect.

-The Soviet experimont is very different. It tekes tvo ferns: Firety the attempt at rass indcctrination of hundreds cf millions of pesple so that they respond docilely to the orders of their raster. This perzits the creatisz of a monolithic solidarity in the Soviet state which cutwardly gives it the oppearance of great wnity.

Second, the porversion of the pinds of selected individuals vho are subjected to such treatnent that they are dcprived of the ability to state

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their own thouchts. Parrot-like ths individuals co conditioned can merely repect thouchts whieh, have'been icplented in their minds by suggestien from outside. In cffeet the brain under these cireumstences bocones a phonograph playing a disc put on its spinlle by an ontside cenius over which it 1
has.no control.

The Chinese, who are seldcs st a loss for a word, have Given us the tem which has core generally to bo epplied to this treatsent ef individual ninds: "brain washing". Actually, the Chinuse subjected to Ccrmunist "thought reford" techniques experienced two troatments: a "brain vashing" which "clcansed the nind of the old ana evil thjughts spawmed by imperialists of the West," and a "brein changing" which itplanted the "nuw and glorious thoughts of the Ccmnurnist Revolution". In our conceptien of the perversion of individual ninds the term "brain washing" seess eptly to deseribe this phase of train warfare.

This cazpaign for tho control of nen's rinás, with its two particular manifestations, has such far reaching implications that it is high tize for us to realize vhat it means and the problens it presents in thvarting our owm progre for spreading the gespel of frecdon.

To create conditions which perit the nass indoctrinatipn of nillions of people certain prerequisites are nccossary. In perticular it is necossary to close off with an izponetrcble barrier the area within which the operaticn is to take place. This is what Winston Churchill described so graphicaily in 1946 as "the Iron Curtain". It is the physical snd spiritual barrier by which the Soviet Union has isolated itself and its satellites frcn the outside world.

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Today this seruen, whotlrer of iron or Lamboo, streteles son: 21,coo

niles around the Soviet douinatel Euresien land mass end effectively euts off

noraal intereourse botween East md West. The land.frontiers in Europe are

nomally divided irto three zones: A forward zone which is the sctual border

area about a milo deepi an intlriediato zonc of etout 10 miles; and a rear

erca which Lay bo as ruch as l50 niies deep. This rear crea is cleared of

politicelly unrelieblc elements of the populstion and thcse who core into it

must have spocial passes issued by tho Frontier Troep Administration. The

intermediate belt of 10 miles is being corpletely dopopulated. The forward

arça is a no man's land cleared of uzderbrush and cthor cover and cquipped

vith physical obstacles such es barted wire end nines. Many sectors are

plowed mud kept raked to reveal telltale footprints. These physical barriers

are supplemonted by patrels of frontier troops equirped with tho latest

veapons and technical aids ineluding aireraft aná redio, and such time honored

auxilinries as specially trained dcgs. Interostingly enough those border

. trcops cre subordiaated not to tho ared forces but to the internal police.

The intensity of borecr cortrols neturally varies with the nature of the

frontier, the character of the populetion, and the terrain.

Along the ses frontiers in thc Baltic and the Far East. fishing crews

are solected frcs anong the rost reliable elouents o the populaticn, and as

a double insurance egainst cefecsion, meubers of the various bcat erews are

rotated so thet no one group serves together for any length of tire. As a

result of some defecticns to Swedon from tho Baltic erens, the fishing fleets

in nost instances are not allowed cut farther than cbout 60 miles. Thoy are

often accompenied by a guard vessel, and are also closely watched by sircraft.

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The modern vay to get iceas neross national frontiers is through reiio broadenstine. Even here the Cemunists ere trying to drav the curtain. Foverful jasning equipment has been installed at stratogis points in order to produce electrcnic interference and clininate the reception of foreign radis messeges. These neasures, so'far, are only particlly successful. To reinsorie then the sale of radins capable of picking up foreign brcalcasts is being curbed. In thoir place, public loud-speekers controlled frcm Mosesv are beins installed in the public squares of towns and villages in the Sovie: Unicn. In this way rass. indcctrination cen take the place of individual choice in radio reception.

Except fcr official use, foreign publications have been alrcst wholly.

eliminated fron the Soviet Union. For a long pericd, the officiel publica-

tion "Amerika" was tclerated on the theory that its circulaticn was so li-itei

that it did no hara. That has now been stopped. Of course nothins is

published in the Soviet Union that is not Government approved.

If, by chance, Soviet artists, scientists, dostors, or techzicians

deviate from the official line they are quickly fcrced to recant cr are

purged. To be different-is a crine. These dsys it seezs a bit dagerous eves

to be a dootor in the Soviet Union.

Racial minority groups within the Eoviet which oncs enjcyed their owm individual cultures have been lergely elisinated by mass purges or ferced nigrations to "safe" ereas. The persecution of the Jews and thsir prospective elimination was one of the latest evidences of this phase of the Soviet campaign.

Religion has been made a State effair. Belief in Ged has been the

hardest deviation which the Soviet leveling machine has had to face and this

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has not yet been wholly solved. It is mest certaiuly on their becks as the final cbstecle to the complte realization of thcir ilcal of the Bolskevist Stato, but ncither Lenin ror Stalin has yet been eccepted as a substisute fer God by tbe Russian pecple.

The program of isolatien which has been follcwed in the Sovict Unicn with ever increasing intcnsity sinee the Revolution of 1217 has epprczched its clinex during the last few years. Within the heartland of Russia, this projraa has been carried to ncar ecmpletion.

In the Europcan satellites, thc progress has been slover, differing from State to State depending upon tho length and completeness of Soviet dorination, and on the tire and attention that the raster minds in Koscow have been eble to give to this particular task. In theso States, with centuries of Christian tradition behind then, the levelins task will take sone tine -- but is being ruthlessly pressed forward.

All of these faots are wall kaom to us - it is only when we put thez together and see their cizalative effeet that we can appreciate their full moaning. Wo have, none of us, ever been subjected to conditions where yeer -by yoar we have been told one thing, read one thing and allowed to think one thing. It is otherwise in the Scviet Unicn. There theught is preseribed. No alternative is offered.

In our own daily lives, by contrast, we are given choices. We cen make uo eur pinds.as betveen poscible alternatives. It is hard fer us to conceive how our owm minds would operate if, say fur the last twenty years, we hed been given only one choice and heard only one message. I can cnly assure you of py fir belief that few of us would have withstood such trcatmnt and kept an open mind.

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During the past few years, in particuler, the people of the Soviet Union and of the Satellites have been given one theme song abeut the Western democracies and especinlly the United States, namely, thet we are the enen of the Soviet people, that we are plotting their dowafall and altepting 1 their epeirelecent. We are portreyed as tho protagenists of ate:ie end bacteriolcsical varfare, and our governnent is said to be doninatei by the magnates of Wall Street -- the oppressors of the working man. It is the most vicious ccmpaign of hatred that any country has ever attompted against another. It is a campaign intenied to conditien the minds o. the Russian people so that their leaders cculd erbark ca any type of eggressiva action egainst the free world. Unsortunately, it is a cempaign that is zaling stcady progress under conditions vhore no dissenting voice is allowed to interrupt the hate tirede, even though the croscordo moy be toned cov durins "peace offensives". i

The second phase ef the brain-ecnditioning progran of the Soviet is directed against the individual, case by case. Here they take selected humar beings whom they wish to destroy and tur thsn into hurble confessors ef crimes they never ccmmitted or Lake then the routhpiece for Soviet propazanda. Here now techniques vash the brain clsan cf the thoughts and mentel processes of the past and, possibly through the use of scme "lie serue", eroate new brain processes and new thoughts which the victin, parrot like, repests.

The developnont of these new techniques has been under way in the Soviet Union for a long time. We first had soms inkling of what they were. doing during the notorious purge trials of the late 1930's. Then ve saw hardened old Bolsheviks, veterans ef rony revolutions, who becaue like dociie

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children in the hands of Ue Sovlet prosceutor, Vishinsky. With aleerity and seening entlmusiaen they confessed to all namer of extraordinary erines against the Sovlet State and hastened to invite the, death sentsnce. How fer these confessions vure truth and how far they were fiction remains tedey a rystery; but certainly the mon' who made these corfessions had gene through a mental retarorphosis whan they appeared burcre tho State prosceutor.

Meybe the techniques of those days vere crude, but they served well the bosses of the Kromlin and dononstrated boyend any doubt thet anyone whon the Kromlin rulcrs decidcd to destroy end had put through the necessary perici of indcctrination would state just ebout what thase Krenlin rulers wanted him to say. And a tougher, more case-hardoned group of ren probably nover . appearod bofore the bar of "justice".

After the war, Soviet science and ingenuity nade repid strides in the study of mental reacticns and in the nefarious art of hruaking dowm the hursn rind. Possibly the caso that nost startled the West was that involving the confession of Cardinel Mindszenty, in Hungary. Hore a man of proven courage and outstanding intellect vas brought to a point of publicly confesping ections which those whe knew this cutstanding character cculd not pussibly have attributed to hin. More recently, in Czechoslovakia, we have had the trial of Slansky, Clementis and their associates who hed fallen into disfavor with Moscow. Here, again, we had herdoned prcducts of the Ccamunist systen. The only trouble with Slaneky & Co. was that Moscow wented scmeone elsc to have their jcbs so they up and confessed to thcse crines and misdencanors egainst the Cezwist State which would assure their rezoval froz the scene..

There is onc intaresting feature about this type of trial; it is tho lensth of tine between arrest and confession, It is rarely less than six

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months. This is not beccuse "Ccmmiist Justice" cauot move vith rapiaity when it wunta to. In fact, few things can be rore rapid. But in cases whero dctailed confcssions in cpen ccurt are desired, there nust be a ccnsiderable period -- probably a minimu: of around three conths -- to properly inicetrineze the intended victins. Mere written corfessions could be much mors quiokly extracted by torture.

What does this indcctrination consist of?

We, in the Wust, are scmewhat handicapped in getting all the dotails. There are few survivors, and wo have no hunan guinea pigs, cursolves, en which to try out those extraordinary techniqucs. The Soviets have their political priscners, their slcye cap iiates and finally, and most trazic ef all, our own countrynen whom they heli as.prisoners.

We now have, hsvever, soze evidonce on which to base a judgzent. A few have eseapod from the crdenl ef brain-vashing to toll their story. One of the first wes lchael Shipkov, a youns Bulgarian efficer educated at Robert Collego in Istanbul. Ho served for a time with tho American Mission in Bulgaria following the end ef ths war. In l949, ho was arrestcd by the. Bulgarian Communists, subjected to the brain-washing technique, mireeulously managed to escape, reported on his experiences to tho Anerican authcritios and then, in attonpting to escape frcn Bulgaria, was tragically caught and liquidated.

The techniques caployed in the case cf Shipkov vere somewhat cruso but give the pattern of the later, more refined mothols. One clesert stands out in all the kncwm cases. It is endless interrogation by teans of brutel interrogators while tho victin is being deprived of sleep. In the earlier days, as in the Shipkov cuse, scne minor tertures were ecployed. Shipkev

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vas foreed to stand in an awkvard pocitien without being allowed to nove during the interrogation. Only a short time ves required to "brea:" him cs all that was required of hin by the Carmunists was à signed confession. As ho luoked back upon his experience, here is what Shipkov wrote:

"Out of the juzbled momories, soze izpressions stand out vivid. One: they are not over interested in wiat you tell them. . It vould appear that the ultimate purpose of this treatmont is to break you down completely, and deprive you of any vill power or private thought or self-esteen, which they achieve remarkably quickly. Ane they seem to pursue a classic confession, vell rcurdeà cf in the phraseology, explaining vhy you were induced by environzent and education to enter the service of the enendes of Ccmaunisz, how you placed your capacities in their service, what ultirate goal did. you pursue -- the overthrcw o the pecple's governzent through foreign intervention. And they eppcar to place iportance on the rarallel appearance cf repentance and self-conlemnation that coze up with the breaking dowm of their prisoner."

During and after the late war the Scviets maãe extensive eforts to reindoctrinate German and Japanese prisoners of war. Many of thase have sot oven yet been repetriated. Thcse that have boen roleased heve beor sent teck to their homeland as nissicnaries for the Comsunist faith. Recent\_y, there has been a new develcpmant in Soviet prccedures which takes on, for us, an even nore alarming sigificance. The Ccanunists are now applying the braiswashing techniques to Anerican priscners in Korca and it is not beyond the range of possibility thet ccnsiderable numbers of our ovn boys there night be so indoctrinated as to be induced, temporarily at least, to rensunce\_ccntr and fanily.

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The Cemmunists have recently' been shoving a filn portreying young.

Anerican evintors who publicly make spurious "confessions" of participation

in the use of cern warfore against North Korea. We have a copy of this filn

and I saw a shoving the other day. Here Asoriccn boys -- their identity is

beyond doubt -- stend up before the members o2 an international investigatory

group of Ccmmunists fren Western Europe and the Satellites and make open

confessions, fake froa beginming to ene, giving the details of tho alleged

dropping of bezbs with bacteriolcgical ingredients on North Korean targots.

They desoribe thoir indoctrinaticn in bacteriologicel warfare, give all the

details of their rissions, their flight schedules, where they clain to have

dropped the ger borbs,and other details. As far as one can julge frou the

film, these pseudo cenfessiors are voluntery. Thore is little prompting fre

the Cormunist interrogators.

More recently, the Chinase Ccnmnist racio broadcast vhat they claimed

vas the recorded voice cf a Colcnel and Kajor of the United States Marine

Corps, ceptured last July, givins, in tho greatest dotail, fictiticus inforxa-

tion regarding preparations for bacteriolcgical varfare in Korea. Since then

these alleged confessicns have been introauced by tho Ccmmunists into the

prcceedings at the United Nations.

These statenents bear the usual hallmerks of Sovict imposed fabrica-

tions - for example, the humiliation and repentance of the individual at

haying engeged in such activities. Again, as in the cese of the Soviet trials,

there is a poricd of scre six ronths betweon the date of capture and the alleged

confession: edoquate tire to allow for the eloborate planning by the Comunists

of what the confessicn shoula contoin, the drafting cf the "seenario", as it

vere, and the - ronghly -- two to three months needed for the inicetrinaticn

of the patient.

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The only factor that prevents the Cemmunists fren cspleying theso

proceduures on a mass senle is the problem of mapover for the task: and the

shortage of trained interrogators. Pres'mcbly there-are seheols in vhich

interrogators are trained in the techniques ef brain-vashing. liovever, to

deal with a hundred vietins at'a tine would require the services of four

or five tines as many traincd intorrogators over a prctracted pericd. Each

man has a tean assigned to hin and each ease is individunlly prepared.

I have talked with ene pan vho has gone thrcugh the brain-washing

process, an erinent Azerican missionary in China, He had the unique ex-

porience of going through the treatnent and then of being roleased and given

his frecdon. This is very unusual under Soviet practice.

This man doseribed how he had been subjected for seventy-fivo Eays

to the ronctcny of interrogaticn, nostly durins the right hours, by relays

of brutal questioners, depriveà of slecp ane subjected to the cffect cr

bright lighting during the pericd of his questioning. As far as ho know,

no drugs were used, but of course they might have been used without his

knowing it. In this case, no direet physical terture was applied.

' After many days cf this irterrogation his mind was broken dow, ani

he went into court and gave whet he now recognizes to be cospletely false

testimony ageinst cne cf his fellow missioneries, essorting vith confidence

that this other missionary had a conccaled radio with which he was communicet-

ing with "the enemy". Hs gave this testimony with viger and with whst, at

the tire, was epparent couplete confidencc in its truth.

\*

The information on vhich I have bascd these remarks is ncne uf it.

secret; it is all available to tny student tho wishes to study this for of ,

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varfare whlch io now being prneticed agalast uo. It seemed to ne useful to gather scme of the fccts together so that ve can be alerted to tho langer and are not nisled or troubled by these fictitious corfessiens - whether from Communists victinized by other Comaunists or by our own peeple who fall into Communist hands. 1

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