Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST):
CIA-RDP84-00161R000100150010-3
Body:
Approved For Release 2002/06/18 CIA-RDP84-00161 R006100150010-3
rs a TEMPORA
for the u
The r`e
release
,under the HI
RICAL
BRAIN WARFARE Date ? 3 6 -
PRO b q - z--
In the past few years we have become accustomed to hearing much
about the battle for men's minds -- the war of ideologies -- and indeed our
government has been driven by the international tension we call the "cold
war" to take positive steps to recognize psychological warfare and to play
an active role in it. I wonder, however, whether we clearly perceive the
full magnitude of the problem, whether we realize how sinister the battle...
for men's minds ha,c become in Soviet hands. We might call it, in its new
form, "brain warfare".
The target cf this warfare is the minds of men both on a collective
and on an individual basis. Its aim is to condition the mind s:; that it no
longer reacts on a, free will or rational basis but responds to impulses
implanted from outside. If we are to counter this kind of warfare we must
understand the techniques the Soviet is adopting to control :den's minds.
There is '.an. old adage that "everyone is crazy but' me and thee and
sometimes I suspect thee". There is more truth than we..realize.in this.saying.
using brain perversion techniques as one of their main weapons in prcaecuting
the cold war. Some of these techniques are so subtle and so abhorrent to our
way of life that we have recoiled from facing up to them.
proving a malleable tool in.the hands of sinister men. The Soviets are now
The human mind is the most delicate. of all instruments., It is so finely
adjusted, so susceptible to the impact of outside influences that it is
FS/HC - 1(3
This is a TEMPORARY DOCUMENT
only, for the use of DCI/HS.
Approved For Release 2002/06/18: CIA-RDP84-001d6WtvP)dmften
released tQ National Archives
under the HISTORICAL REVIEW PROGRAM.
S1=Y OF i1EJ iAFuKS BY MR. ALLEIT W. D LLES
CUM NI a NATIONAL ALUMNI CONFERENCE OF THE
of DCI/HS1IUATE. COUNCIL OF PRINCETON UNIVL'R ITYThis document has been
py has been HOT SPRINGS, VA., APRIL 10, 1953 approved for release through
al Archives tf* HISTORICAL REVIEW PROGRAM of
PROGRAM. the Central Intelligence Agency.
Approved For Release 2002/06/18: CIA-RDP84-00161 R000100150010-3
We take for granted a society -there human beings ar free to thinly mp
they pleasei We read and see and hear such a variety of things that the mind
adopts no single pattern. Our society produces all kinds of people thinking
and believing all manner of thoughts. Fortunately, in our drive fur standardi-
zation in other fields we have not consciously tried to standardize the mind.
in the Soviet world, however, this is being done.
In the freedom that we enjoy -- and freedom of thought is possibly the
most precioas freedom that we do enjoy -- it is hard for us to realize that
in the great area behind the Iron,gurtain a vast experi,:ient is underway to
change men's minds, working cn them continuously from youth to old age.
Such an experiment has never before been undertaken on so vast and
so well organized, a scale. In Hitler's Germany and in Fascist Italy some
effort was made to make men into a single pattern. In Germany it was called
gleichschaltung
ict -- the leveling process. This effort covered only a few
years and may have had little permanent effect on the @@erman mind, though
it did have its effect on history in conditioning the Germans in vast numbers
to follow Hitler's mad experiments. Japan had its thought control which,
while highly efficient in combatting sedition and wolda.ng the Japanese people
into apparent unity behind an intense nationalism, seems also to have had
little permanent effect.
The Soviet experiment is very different. It takes two forms: First,
the attempt at mass indoctrination of hundreds of milli n, of people so that
they respond docilely to the orders of their master. This perm4.ts the creation
of a monolithic solidarity in the Soviet state which outwardly gives it the
appearance of great unity.
Second, the perversa,on of the minds of selected individuals who are
subjected to such treatment that they are deprived of the ability to state
jHS/HC- f63 Approved For Release 2002/06/182 CIA-RDP84-00161 R000100150010-3
Approved For Release 2002/06/18 : CIA-RDP84-00161 ROU0100150010-3 .
their own thoughts. Parrot-11ie the individuals so conditioned can rner