ESALEN'S HOT-TUB DIPLOMACY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000100380026-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 9, 2010
• Sequence Number: 26
• Publication Date: January 10, 1963
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/09: CIA-RDP90-00806R000100380026-1
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NEWSWEEK
10 January 19b3
Hickman (right) leads a human-resources seminar in Moscow: Detente California style
SOVIET UNION
Esalen's Hot-Tub Diplomacy
tense California style.
It has been called "hot-tub di-
plomacy." As most unofficial U.S.-
Soviet contacts have waned in re-
cent years, one back channel has
survived: an unorthodox, informal
exchange program developed un-
der the auspices of the Esalen Insti-
tute, the Big Sur-based mecca of
the human-potential movement. In
the past decade a dozen Esalen en-
thusiasts have journeyed to the So-
viet Union to compare notes on
such topics as parapsychology and
herbal medicine. Esalen leaders
have also invited Soviet scientists
and bureaucrats to California. So
far the exchanges haven't done
much to ease East-West tensions,
but they have generated some good
vibrations. "The word 'Esalen' is
hind the scenes to :facilitate more visits.
The exchange network blossomed quick-
ly. Crosby ventured into the Soviet outback '
in search of traditional healers. Former.
astronaut Rusty Schweickart, another Esa=
len convert, met with Dzhuna Davitash'
vili-the faith healer who reportedly
treated Leonid Brezhnev-and held an
earthbound rendezvous with Soviet cos-
monauts. Eventually, Esalen began spon-
soring trips to California for Soviet offi-
cials. During his visit, Skorov stayed
with Murphy in Mill Valley. Now he
praises Murphy as the "incarnation of
a man of intelligence, strength and phys-
ical beauty."
Rode 'n' Rc b One particularly strange
encounter took place last summer. Hick-
man asked the Soviets if he could broadcast
a portion of California's US rock concert
inside Russia-and in exchange beam a So-
viet rock 'n' roll show back to America. The
Soviets agreed. Three days later Hickman
and his Soviet crew arrived at a Moscow
broadcast station to find Soviet guards with
machine guns posted at every gate. The
Soviet musicians who showed up had re-
ceived notice that cars would pick them up
at midnight: some assumed they were about
to be arrested. For an audience, Soviet au-
thorities invited a select group of university
students, most of whom had to be issued
blue jeans for the event.
Not surprisingly, Esalen's activities have
attracted suspicion. Some U.S. officials be-
lieve the Kremlin might have special uses
for the human-potential movement. One
theory is that Moscow is searching for
methods to improve the productivity of So-
viet workers; another is that the Kremlin
would like to discover new techniques of
behavior modification-or mind control.
At the very least, Esalen gives the Soviets a
we come contact with the m ;
Hickman and urp Y Y es t
they are tm a Z or ront.
In act, ens r'laationsp with the
Russians seems more on the order of a
as part of a unique exercise in de- The faith healer and Schweickart: Herbs and `magic'
F or two weeks, the residents of Mill magic to me," says Skorov. "It is a symbol
Valley, Calif., had a new neighbor: a of people who, like myself, understand
middle-aged economist who jogged daily the value of things other than ma-
along the tree-lined streets and took a lo- terial wealth."
cal energy-awareness course. -The visitor The Esalen connection began in the
seemed right at home in laid-back Marin early '70s when two of the institute's direc-
County, except that he was a Soviet doctri- tors, Michael Murphy and Jim Hickman,
naire-Georgi Skorov, the deputy director began traveling to the Soviet Union. Then
of Moscow's Institute of U.S.A. and Can- Hickman met Arthur Hartman, the diplo-
ada Studies. In Big Sur, another Russian mat who was soon to become U.S. ambas-
stranger came to soak in the area's famous sador to Moscow. Hartman's wife, Donna,
sulfur baths. He, too, was an apparat- was a close friend of Harriet Crosby, a
chik-Yuri Zamoshkin, director of ideolo- onetime Esalen counselor. Hartman be-
gy at Skorov's institute. Zamoshkin also came interested in Esalen's activities, and
took time to meet with Hollywood film- after arriving in Moscow he worked be-
makers and with Gov. Jerry Brown
friendly encounter group. "We've
had very civilized dinners and
shouted at one another about Af-
ghanistan," says Esalen's George
Leonard. "I've told them they are
order freaks, and they admit it."
Hickman says that he has received
assurances that the exchanges will
continue under the new Kremlin
leadership. And for the moment,
even some of the cynics see no harm
in Esalen's sulfur-bath diplomacy.
"If all 270 million Soviets and all
230 million Americans could sit to-
gether in a hot tub," says one U.S.'
official in Moscow, "the world
would be in better shape." Or if
Ronald Reagan and Yuri Andro-
pov ever shared a hot soak, could a
superpower thaw be far behind?
MARK WHITAKER with
GERALD C. LUBENOW in San Francisco and
JOYCE BARNATHAN in Moscow
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/09: CIA-RDP90-00806R000100380026-1