Nexus - 0222 - New Times Magazine-pages

Page Content (OCR)

cults; (9) political cults; and (10) certain communal and self-help First, the SLA murdered a popular school headmaster in or self-improvement groups that, over time, become transformed Oakland and warned of a coming racial war between blacks and into cults.’ whites. Then, the previously respectable Patty Hearst became a In other words, any individual who communicates to any group _ participant in their ‘urban guerrilla warfare’, which included such a religious, spiritual or political view that is undesirable in the acts as armed bank-robbery. Meanwhile, the public were fed eyes of establishment power-brokers can be labelled not only asa _— speculative articles by the media suggesting that the "Marxist" ‘cult’ member, but may also be classified as having a psychiatric SLA must have been brainwashing Hearst into participating in disorder. such antisocial acts. With the memory of the gruesome Manson In this same paper, West and Singer promote the use of the murders—also replete with brainwashing and race-war claims— deprogramming techniques practised by CAN and individuals like still strong in the public mind, the effect of the message being its founder Ted Patrick, who has been described as “the prime broadcast was loud and clear. If you got mixed up with a cult who force in organising the group".” They describe a deprogrammer _ practised brainwashing, it might be you who could be enticed into as a person "who presents to a cultist information that may cause _ participating in antisocial acts. him to reconsider his commitment to the cult and to leave it" after On 17th May 1974, LAPD surrounded the SLA's headquarters the members are pulled away “legally or even bodily"." located in a small bungalow on the south side of the city. Ted Patrick's own anti-cult book, entitled Let Our ChildrenGo!, Although there were known to be only six individuals inside, describes the deprogramming technique in somewhat more reveal- | LAPD brought in 150 police officers, 100 FBI agents, 100-shierif- ing terms: f's officers, around 15 highway patrolmen, and 25 motorcycle offi- "Deprogramming is the term, and it may be said to involve kid- cers to control traffic. ° napping at the very least, quite often assault and battery, almost Television news crews and their cameras arrived, set up their invariably conspiracy to commit a crime, and illegal restraint." live network feeds, and then bang in the middle of the prime-time Patrick's vigilante ‘counselling’ techniques have eamed him a__ dinner-hour on a Friday night, around five thousand rounds of long list of criminal charges and convictions dating back to June ammunition from automatic rifles, pistols and machine-guns, as 1974, which include kidnapping, conspiracy, false imprisonment, _ well as tear-gas grenades and a barrage of noise from the police abduction and assault, possession of cocaine, and violation of pro- | megaphones put an end to this ‘black/Marxist/terrorist/left-wing bation. A case brought against Patrick brainwashing threat to democracy’. in 1976 by one of his victims revealed The operation was labelled by the that he had held her prisoner for 86 Although there were known to be §f establishment media as "the greatest days in 12 different locations. The Pager par) oy single shoot-out in Los Angeles his- aa found he had "seized, restrained only Six individuals inside, LAPD _" and the public te led to and subjected" his victim to "frightful brought in 150 police officers, believe that they had just been saved experiences" with "no legal justifica- see from one of the most threatening tion".” Nevertheless, he was still 100 FBI agents, 100 sheriff Ss subversive political ‘cults’ America hailed as a model deprogrammer by officers, around 15 highway had ever seen. In reality, the SLA CAN whose twenty to twenty-five full- f consisted of just nine people with time American-based deprogrammers patrolmen, and 25 motorcycle very little power, but as had been still employ such techniques today. In demonstrated throughout the previ- 1992 they conducted more than 1,800 officers to control traffic. ous decades, a healthy dose of psy- ‘deprogramming' operations, for which chological warfare could readily payment varied between US$5,000 and ensure that ordinary folk remained in US$20,000 each. Today, they also provide a framework for the a perpetual state of fear over the threat of lone gunmen, rioting establishment and operations of other such groups throughout the __ blacks, terrorists, political activists and manic cult-figureheads, world, and make them demand tough new laws and government initia- The argument that the establishment of CAN may have been __ tives to bring such antisocial elements under control. politically motivated is supported by the fact that Ted Patrick, the This dangerous psychological warfare practice continues today founder of the contemporary anti-cult movement and perhaps the __ with the aid of disturbing and endless media coverage of cases like first professional deprogrammer, was an aide to Ronald Reagan that of Jeffrey Dahmer (beware of serial killers!), David Koresh whilst he was Governor of California and at the time he (beware of religious fanatics!), O. J. Simpson (beware of blacks, announced his plan to establish behaviour-modification facilities even if they appear to be well-educated and popular!), and so on. as proposed by Louis Jolyon West. Dainfavcina Tha Dia bin Reinforcing The Big Lie At the media circus that was thinly disguised as the trial of Patty Hearst, it was none other than Dr Louis Jolyon West who was called to give expert testimony on whether or not she had been ‘brainwashed’ by the SLA's leader, Donald DeFreeze. In her auto- biography, entitled Every Secret Thing, Hearst gave an interesting account of her examination sessions with West. She wrote: Inciting Public Demand for Control As public and political outrage over West's proposed violence research centre peaked in 1974, events began occurring that alarmed California's white middle-class and which, not co-inci- dentally, might well have kindled public demand for such facili- ties. Some of the most widely publicised of these events were crimes conducted by the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) who Tose to notoriety when they kidnapped Patricia Hearst, daughter of wealthy establishment media mogul, Randolph Hearst. The revo- lutionary activities of the SLA held many Californians in a con- stant state of fear throughout the period from 4th February 1974, the date of Patty Hearst's kidnap, to 18th September 1975, the date of her arrest. “When the first of the psychiatrists came to see me on September 30, just eleven days after my arrest, I simply crumbled under his scrutiny. | cried, murmuring and mumbling out replies that were not answers to his questions. He thought I was refusing to coop- erate with him. This was Dr Louis Jolyon West, Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at UCLA, Director of the Neuropsychiatric Institute, Psychiatrist-in-Chief of UCLA 20 * NEXUS OCTOBER - NOVEMBER 1994