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CIABWASH.TXT
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SEE NOTES AT END FOR INFO ON SOURCES OF THESE DOCUMENTS
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
WASHINGTON 25, D. C.
OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR 25 APR 1956
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MEMORANDUM FOR: The Honorable J. Edgar Hoover
Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation
SUBJECT : Brainwashing
The attached study on brainwashing was prepared by my
staff in response to the increasing acute interest in the
subject throughout the intelligence and security components
of the Government. I feel you will find it well worth your
personal attention. It represents the thinking of leading psy-
chologists, psychiatrists and intelligence specialists, based
in turn on interviews with many individuals who have had
personal experience with Communist brainwashing, and on
extensive research and testing. While individuals specialists
hold divergent views on various aspects of this most complex
subject, I believe the study reflects a synthesis of majority
expert opinion. I will, of course, appreciate any comments
on it that you or your staff may have.
(signed)
Allen W. Dulles
Director
ENCLOSURE
OA 53-37
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A REPORT ON COMMUNIST BRAINWASHING
The report that follows is a condensation of a study by train-
ing experts of the important classified and unclassified information
available on this subject.
BACKGROUND
Brainwashing, as a technique, has been used for centuries and
is no mystery to psychologists. In this sense, brainwashing means
involuntary re-education of basic beliefs and values. All people
are being re-educated continually. New information changes one's
beliefs. Everyone has experienced to some degree the conflict that
ensues when new information is not consistent with prior belief.
The experience of the brainwashed individual differs in that the in-
consistent information is forced upon the individual under controlled
conditions after the possibility of critical judgment has been re-
moved by a variety of methods.
There is no question that an individual can be broken psycholog-
ically by captors with knowledge and willingness to persist in tech-
niques aimed at deliberately destroying the integration of a personal-
ity. Although it is probable that everyone reduced to such a confused,
disoriented state will respond to the introduction of new beliefs, this
cannot be stated dogmatically.
PRINCIPLES OF HUMAN CONTROL AND REACTION TO CONTROL
There are progressive steps in exercising control over an individ-
ual and changing his behaviour and personality integration. The fol-
lowing five steps are typical of behaviour changes in any controlled
individual:
1. Making the individual aware of control is the first stage in
changing his behaviour. A small child is made aware of the physical
and psychological control of his parents and quickly recognizes that
an overwhelming force must be reckoned with. So, a controlled adult
comes to recognize the overwhelming powers of the state and the im-
personal, "incarcerative" machinery in which he is enmeshed. The in
-dividual recognizes that definite limits have been put upon the ways
he can respond.
(Approved for Release) (62-80750-2712X)
(Date: 8 FEB 1984)
OA 53-37
2. Realization of his complete dependence upon the controll-
ing system is a major factor in the controlling of his behavior.The con-
trolled adult is forced to accept the fact that food, tobacco,praise,
and the only social contact that he will get come from the very in-
terrogator who exercises control over him.
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3. The awareness of control and recognition of dependence re-
sult in causing internal conflict and breakdown of previous patterns
of behaviour. Although this transition can be relatively mild in
the case of a child, it is almost invariably severe for the adult
undergoing brainwashing. Only an individual who holds his values
lightly can change them easily. Since the brainwasher-interrogators
aim to have the individuals undergo profound emotional change, they
force their victims to seek out painfully what is desired by the
controlling individual. During this period the victim is likely to
have a mental breakdown characterized by delusions and hallucinat-
ions.
4. Discovery that there is an acceptable solution to his prob-
lem is the first stage of reducing the individual's conflict. It
is characteristically reported by victims of brainwashing that this
discovery led to an overwhelming feeling of relief that the horror
of internal conflict would cease and that perhaps they would not,
after all, be driven insane. It is at this point that they are pre-
pared to make major changes in their value-system. This is an
automatic rather than voluntary choice. They have lost their a-
bility to be critical.
5. Reintergration of values and identification with the cont-
rolling system is the final stage in changing the behaviour of the
controlled individual. A child who has learned a new, socially de-
sirable behaviour demonstrates its importance by attempting to as-
apt the new behaviour to a variety of other situations. Similar
states in the brainwashed adult are
(SECTION DELETED BY CIA)
2
OA 53-37
pitiful. His new value-system, his manner of perceiving,organizing,and
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giving meaning to events, is virtually independent of his former value-
system.He is no longer capable of thinking or speaking in concepts other
than those he has adopted. He tends to identify by expressing thanks to
his captors for helping him see the light.Brainwashing can be achieved
without using illegal means.Anyone willing to use known principles of
control and reactions to control and capable of demonstrating the patience
needed in raising a child can probably achieve successful brainwashing.
COMMUNIST CONTROL TECHNIQUES AND THEIR EFFECTS
A description of usual communist control techniques follows.
1. Interrogation. There are at least two ways in which "interro-
gation" is used:
a. Elicitation, which is designed to get the individual to
surrender protected information, is a form of interrogation. One major
difference between elicitation and interrogation used to achieve
brainwashing is that the mind of the individual must be kept clear to
permit coherent, undistorted disclosure of protected information.
b. Elicitation for the purpose of brainwashing consists of
questioning,argument,indoctrination,threats,cajolery,praise,hos-
tility, and a variety of other pressures. The aim of this interrogation
is to hasten the breakdown of the individual's value system and to encourage
the substitution of a different value-system. The procurement of protected
information is secondary and is used as a device to increase pressure upon
the individual. The term "interrogation" in this paper will refer, in
general, to this type. The "interrogator" is the individual who conducts
this type of interrogation and who controls the administration of the other
pressures. He is the protagonist against whom the victim develops his con-
flict, and upon whom the victim develops a state of dependency as he seeks
some solution to his conflict.
2. Physical Torture and Threats of