Nexus - 0804 - New Times Magazine-pages

Page Content (OCR)

times that parapsychology was being researched in the Soviet Foreign Ministry. Toth and his family quickly arranged for a Union. flight to the United States. A year before, Leningrad writer Vladimir Lvov had published The Toth incident was reported worldwide, and the Washington an article in the leading French daily Le Monde, in which he Post and the New York Times ran accounts of it. The incident asserted categorically: "The truth is simple: parapsychology is then passed into oblivion, and most were none the wiser. But not accepted as a legitimate and official branch within Soviet sci- intelligence analysts understood that Toth had got into his hand, if ence. No institute or centre or research in the Soviet Union is only for a few moments, one of the tips of the enormous iceberg devoted to telepathy, psychokinesis, etc." of top-secret Soviet research into psychic powers of the human Yet the Mikhailov testimony in the Toth incident directly con- mind. tradicted the Lvov statement. Professor Mikhailov's testimony on the Petukhov paper and FEAR AND IDEOLOGY ON BOTH SIDES Toth's police interrogation at the Pushkin Street Station lasted By 1968, some years before the Toth incident, American intelli- about two-and-a-half hours. At last, a representative of the US gence analysts had begun noticing a Soviet Secret Police (KGB) Embassy, Vice Consul Lawrence C. Napper, was permitted to trend indicating serious interest in the West in what is called come to the station. The reporter's account of his meeting with "parapsychology". This trend began when the KGB's far-flung Petukhov was read aloud and translated into operations came under the direction of Yuri Russian. But Toth refused to sign a hand- Andropov (named General Secretary of the written Russian version of it. The KGB man Soviet Communist Party in late 1982). Sparkin then told him he was "free to go". But even the KGB, for all of its experi- Toth's Moscow difficulties were not at an ence, large staff, skills and high-priority sta- end. The following Tuesday, Toth had a tus, had not developed a clear-cut policy telephone call from another US Embassy i i towards psychic experiments; conflicting official, Theodore McNamara, who asked But intelligence analysts attitudes within its leadership appear to have him to come to the Embassy immediately. understood that Toth caused erratic actions. This was well illus- He added that the matter was "serious". i H trated when agents arrested Toth and thereb “At MeNamara's office, Napper and two had got into his hand, revealed that secret research was in fact take other officials were waiting. They handed if only for a few ing place at government institutes. Toth a Soviet note that had been delivered US Government officials were jittery that half an hour earlier. It contained the follow- moments, one of the research in parapsychology might cause ing passages: tips of the enormous them to be accused of spending public "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is authorised to state the following to the American Embassy: ‘On 11th June of this year, Robert Charles Toth was apprehended at the moment of meeting a Soviet citizen— Petukhov, Valery Georgiyevich— which took place under suspicious cir- cumstances. When apprehended, the American journalist was found to have materials given to him by Petukhov, containing secret data.' funds on science fiction projects. When columnist Jack Anderson report- ed early in 1981 that a laboratory in the basement of the Pentagon was devoted to parapsychological experiments, his comments were heavy with ridicule and sarcasm. Anderson's assistant, Ron McRae, alleged in an article, "Psychic Warfare" (The Investigator, October 1981), that "the Pentagon is spending millions on parapsychology in a crash program to "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs end Russia's psycho-superiority". informs the American Embassy that, in McRae, who was doing research for a conformity with established procedure, Toth will be summoned book on US Government projects in psychic studies, said the US for interrogation by the investigatory organs, in connection with Secret Service had "commissioned studies on ways to protect the which his departure from Moscow until the end of the investiga- President from the Kremlin's mind control". He wrote that its tion is not desired." agents as well as CIA staffers had been "required to take courses Within the hour, a polite KGB agent, wearing a flowered shirt in mind control" at universities in the Washington area, to "pre- and grey suit, arrived, asked Toth to identify himself and told him vent them", as he put it, "from falling under the spell of Soviet iceberg of top-secret Soviet research into psychic powers of the human mind. to come to the State Security's Lefortovo Centre for interrogation. psychics". Although such claims at the time bore earmarks of Toth was advised of Articles 108 and 109 of the Criminal Code exaggeration, they were nonetheless indicative of intense and that he did not have diplomatic immunity. American interest in psi warfare possibilities. After two days of confusing interrogation, Toth was told: But American media accounts of psi warfare spread alarm and "Parapsychology as a whole may not be secret information. But amusement, and an ideological battlefield erupted not only in the there could be fields of science within parapsychology which are United States but in the Soviet Union also. On the ideological secret. It is not for me, as it's a matter for experts to say what is battlefield of international Marxism, the controversy about para- secret, and the scientist has stated that the materials you received psychology, by whatever name, had gone on for two decades; it are a secret. And you received them under circumstances where showed no signs of abating. your behaviour and the information seem to be a breach of our Typical of those who regarded psychic studies as ideological law." heresy was Soviet mathematician-physicist Dr Alexander After the second interrogation, Toth was told he was no longer Kitaygorodsky, who had categorised clairvoyance, precognition needed. The US Embassy received confirmation from the Soviet and psychokinesis as "supernatural" and thus outside "the domain Foreign Ministry. Toth and his family quickly arranged for a flight to the United States. The Toth incident was reported worldwide, and the Washington Post and the New York Times ran accounts of it. The incident then passed into oblivion, and most were none the wiser. But intelligence analysts understood that Toth had got into his hand, if only for a few moments, one of the tips of the enormous iceberg of top-secret Soviet research into psychic powers of the human mind. had got into his hand, if only for a few moments, one of the tips of the enormous iceberg of top-secret Soviet research into psychic powers of the human mind. 42 = NEXUS JUNE — JULY 2001 www.nexusmagazi ne.com