SUMMARY OF REMARKS BY MR. ALLEN W. DULLES AT THE NATIONAL ALUMNI CONFERENCE OF THE GRADUATE COUNCIL OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY HOT SPRINGS, VA., APRIL 10, 1953

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP70-00058R000200050069-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 13
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 23, 1999
• Sequence Number: 69
• Publication Date: April 10, 1953
• Content Type: SPEECH

SUMMARY OF `" BY MR. ALLEN W. DULLES
.AT THE NATIONAL ALUMNI CONFERENCE OF THE
GRAdUATE COUNCIL OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
HOT SPRINGS, VA., APRIL 10, 1953
In tho 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 "gold f
war" to take positive steps to recognize psychological warfare and to play
an active role in it. I wonder, however, whether we clear:_~ perceive the
full magnitude of the problem, whether we realize: how sinister the battle
for men's minds has become in Soviet hands. We might call it, in its new
form, "brain warfare?.
Tile target of this darfere is the minds of men both on a collective
and on an individual basis. Its aim is to condition the mind so that it no
longer reacts on a free will or rational basis but responds to impulses
implanted from outsi.d, . If we are to counter this kind of warfare we must
understand the t chnice s the Soviet is adopting to control men'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.
The human mind is the most delicate of all instruments. It is so finely
adjusted, sw susceptible to the impact of outside influences that it is
proving a malleable too in the hands of sinister men. The Soviets are now
using brain perversion techniques as one of their main weapons in prosecuting
the cold war. Some of these techniques are so subtle and co abhorrent to our
way of life that we have recoiled from facing up to them.
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We take for granted a society where human beings tki~d to thi
they please. We read and see and hear such a variety of things that themind
adopts no single pattern. Our society produces all kinds of people thin_ing
and believing all manner of thoughts. Fortunately, in our drive for stakdardi-
zation in other fields we have not consciously tried to standardize the wind.
In the Soviet world, however, this is being done.
In the freedom that we enjoy -- and freedom of thought is possibly the
most precious freedom that we do enjoy -- it is hard for us to realize that
in the great area behind the Iron Curtain a vast experia.zent is underway to
charge men's minds, working on them continuously from youth to old age.
Such an experiment has never before been undertahcn an so vast an
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 eakled
gleichschaltung
-- the leveling process. This effort covere . only a fear
years and may have had little permanent effect on the c~erman mind, thouggi
it did have its effect on history in conditioning the Germans in vast n nbers
to follow Hitler's mad experiments. Japan had its thought control which,
while highly efficient in combatting sedition and wclding the Japanese pi Lople
into apparent unity behind an intense nationalism, s:e:ms also to have ha.
little permanent effect.
The Soviet experiment is very different. It takes two forms : First,
the attempt at mess indoctrinati :n cf hundreds cf milli .ns of peop e so that
they respond docilely to the orders of their master. This permits the creation
of a monolithic solidarity in the Soviet state which outwardly gives it the
appearance of great unity.
Second, the perver-alon of the minds of selected individuals who are
subjected to such treatment that they are deprived of the ability to state
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their own thoughts. Parrot-liko the individuals so conditioned can merely
repeat thoughts which have been implanted in their minds by suggestion
from outside. In effect the brain under these circumstances becomes a hono-
graph playing a disc put on its spindle by an outside genius over whichlit
The Chinese, who are seldom at a loss for a word, have given us he;:
term which has come generally to be applied to this treatment of indiviual
thought
minds: "brain washing". Actually, the Chinese subjected to Communist l',
reform" techniques experienced two treatments: a "brain washing" which!
"cleansed the mind of the old and evil the?ju.ghts spawned by imperialists of
the West," and a "brain changing" which implanted the "n~.w and, glorious
thoughts of the Communist Revolution". In our conceptieen of the perversion
of individual minds the term "brain washing" seems aptly to describe this
phase of brain warfare.
This campaign for the control of men's minds, with its two particular
manifestations, has such far reaching implications that it is high time:for
us to realize what it means and the problems it presents in thwarting, ur
own program for spreading the gospel of freedom.
To create conditions which permit the mass indoctrination of millions
of people certain prerequisites are necessary. In particular it is ne
sary to close off with an
impenetrable barrier the area within which t1e
operation is to take place. This is what Winston Churchill described o
graphically in 19+6 as "the Iron Curtain". It is the physical and spi4itual
barrier by which the Soviet Union has isolated. itself and its satellites from
the outside world.
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Today this screen, whether of iron or bamboo, stretches some 21,
miles around the Soviet dominated Eurasian land mass and effectively cut's off
normal Intercourse between East and West. The land frontiers in Europe are
normally divided into three zones: A forward zone which is the actual b'ord r
L
area about a mile deep; an intermediate zone of about 10 miles; and a rear
area which may, be as much as 150 miles deep. This rear area is cleared of
politically unreliable elements of the population and those who come into it
must have special passes issued by the Frontier Trocp Pa.,;.inistration. The
intermediate belt of 10 r.13_lc s is being completely de popuu.lated. The forward
area is a no man's land cleared of underbrush and other cover and equip ed
with physical obstacle:ec such as barbed wire and mines. Many sectors arc
plowed and kept raked to reveal telltale footprints. These physical barriers
are supplemented by patrols of frontier troops equipped with the latest
weapons and technical aids including aircraft and radio, and such time hlonored
auxiliaries as specially trained dogs. Interestingly enough these border
troops arc subordinated not to the armed forces but to the internal pol$.ce.
The intensity of border controls naturally varies with the nature of tho
frontier, the character of the population, and the terrain.
Along the sea frontiers in the Baltic and the Far East fishing crews
are selected from among the most reliable elements of the population, at.d as
a double insurance against defection, members of the various boat crews, are
rotated so that no one group serves together for any length of time:. AN a
result of some defections to Sweden from the Baltic areas, the; fishing Meets
in most instances are not allowed out farther than about 60 miles. ThcV are
often accompanied by a guard vessel, and are also closely watched by aircraft.
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The modern way to get ideas across national frontiers is throughra:`lio
broadcasting. Even here the Communists are trying to draw the curtain.
Powerftzl jatrming equipment has been installed at strategic points in or~er to
produce electronic interference and eliminate the reception of foreign radio
messages. These measures, so far, are only partially successful. To rinforce
them the sale of radios capable of picking up foreign broadcasts is bei~g
curbed. In their place, public loud--speakers controlled from Moscow ar~ being
installed in the public squares of towns and villages in the Soviet Unin.
In this way mass indoctrination can take the place of individual choice in
radio reception.
Except for official use, foreign publications have been almost w oily
eliminated from the Soviet Union. For a long period, the official publ .ca,-
Lion "Amerika" was tolerated on the theory that its circulation was so imited
that it did no harm. That has now been stopped. Of course nothing is
published in the Soviet Uni:,)n that is not Government approved.
If, by chance, Soviet artists, scientists, doctors, or technicians
deviate from the official line they are quickly forced to recant or are
purged. To be different is a crime. These days it seems a bit dangerous even
to be a doctor in the Soviet Union.
Racial minority groups within the Soviet which once enjoyed thei~
own individual cultures have been largely eliminated by mass purges or ~Corced
migrations to "safe" areas. The persecution of the Jews avid their prospective
elimination was one of the latest evidences of this phase of the Soviet'
campaign.
Religion has been made a State affair. Belief in God, has been tie
hardest deviation which the Soviet leveling machine has had to face and this
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has not yet been wholly solved. It is most certainly on their books asthe
final. obstacle to the complete realization of their ideal of the Bolshe-yist
State, but neither Lenin nor Stalin has yet been accepted as a si-~bstitu e for
God by the Russian people.
The program of isolation which has been followed in the Soviet Union
with ever increasing intensity since the Revolution of 1917 has approac ed
its climax during the last few years. Within the heartland of Russia, this
program has been carried to near completion.
In the European satellites, the progress has been slower, diffcr.ng
from State to State depending upon the length and completeness of Soviet
domination., and on the time and attention that the master minds in Moscpw
have been able to give to this particular task. In these States, with
centuries of Christian tradition behind them, the leveling task will tae
some time -- but is being ruthlessly pressed forward.
All of these facts are well known to us -- it is only when we puit them
together and see their cumulative effect that we can appreciate their fnz11
meaning. We have, none of us, ever been subjected to conditions where gear
by year we have been told one thing, read one thing and allowed to thinik one
thing. It is otherwise in the Soviet Union. There thought is prescribed.
No alternative is offcred<
In our cwn daily lives, by contrast, we are given choices. We can
make up our minds as between possible alternatives. It is hard for us to
conceive how our own minds would operate if, say for the last twenty years,
we had been given only one choice and heard only one message. I can only assure
you of my firm belief that few of us would have withstood such treatme4Xt and
kept an open mind.
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During the past few yearg in particular, the people of the Soviet
Union and of the Satellites have been given one theme song about the Western
democracies and especially the United States, namely, that we are the eiemy
of the Soviet people, that we are plotting their downfall and attempten
their encirclement. We are portrayed as the protagonists of atomic ands
bacteriological warfare, and our government is said to be dominated by the
magnates of Wall Street -- the oppressors of the working man. It is thQ
most vicious campaign of hatred that any country has over attempted against
another. It is a campaign intended to condition the iii.; ds of the Russian
people so that their leaclars could embark on any tyke:: of aggressive action
against the free world. Unfortunately, it is a campai- n that is making
steady progress under conditions whore no dissenting vvoice is allowed
interrupt the hate tirade, even though the crescendo may be toned down wring
"peace offensives".
The second phase of the brain-conditioning; program of the Soviet
directed against the individual, case by case. Here they take selectee human
beings whoa they wish to destroy and turn them into humble ccnfesaor?s
crimes they never cemrritted or make them the mouthpiece: for Soviet propaganda.
Here new techniques wash the brain clean of the thoughts and mental processes
of the past and, possibly through the use of some "lie serum", create new
brain processes and new thoughts which the victim, parrot like, repeal; I.
The development of these new techniques has been under way in t1,~e
Soviet Union for a long time. We first had some inkling of what they were
doing during the notorious purge trials of the late 1930's. Then we saw
hardened old Bolsheviks, veterans of many revolutions, who became like ldocile
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children in the hands of the boviett prosecutor, Vishinsky. With alacrity
and scorning enthusiasm they confessed to all manner of extraordinary crises
against the Soviet State and hastened to invite the death sentence. Ho-'4 i far
these confessions were truth and how far they were fiction remains teda,~! a
mystery; but certainly the men who made these confessions had gone throigh
a mental metamorphosis when they appeared before the State prosecutor.
Maybe the techniques of those days were crude, but they served well
the bosses of the Kremlin and demonstrated beyond any doubt that anyone whom
the Kremlin rulers decided to destroy and had put through the necessary perioa
of indoctrination would state just about what these treml.in rulers wanted
him to say. And a tougher, more case-hardened group of men probably never
appeared before the bar of "justice".
After the war, Soviet science and ingenuity made rapid strides irp the
study of menta:L reactions and in the nefarious art of breaking down the
human mind. Possibly the case that most startled the West was that involving
the confession of Cardinal. Mindszenty, in Hungary. Here.; a man of prover
courage and outstanding intellect was brought to a point ^f publicly con-
fessing actions which those who knew this outstanding character could not
possibly have attributed to him. More recently, in Czechoslovakia, we have
had the trial of Slansky, Clementis and their associates who had fallen into
disfavor with Moscow. H: re, again, we had hardened products of the Communist
system. The only trouble with Slansky & Co. was that Moscow wanted someone:
else to have their Jobs so they up and confessed to those crimes and mis-
demeanors against the Communist State which would assure their removal from
the scene.
There is one interesting feature about this type of trial; it is the
length of time between arrest and confession. It is rarely less than six
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months. Th1b is not because "Comni{thist justice" cannot move with rapidity
when it wants to. In fact, few things can be more rapid. But in cases 'where
detailed confessions in open court are desired, there must be a considerable
period --- probably a minimum of around three months -- to properly indoc rinate
the intend:cd victims. Mere written confessions could be much more quicluly
extracted by torture.
What does this indoctrination consist of?
We, in the West, are somewhat handicapped in. getting all the detakls.
There are few survivo rs, and we have no human guinea x,:! . -.;, ourselves, of
which to try ouu these extraordinary techniques. Ttic F.:'icts have their:
political prisoners, their slave camp inmates and finally, and most tragic
of all, our own co.entrymon whom they hold as prisoners.
We now nave:, however, some evidence on which to base a judgment.
A few have esc, 3ed from the ordeal of brain-washing to tell their story.' One
of the first was Michael Shipkcv, a young Bulgarian.- )fficer educated at
Robert College in Istanbul. He served for a time with the American Miss on
in Bulgaria following the end of the war. In 1949, he was arrested by the
Bulgarian Cenmunists, subjected to the brain-washing technique, miraculo~sly
managed to escape, reported ;n his experiences to the American authorities
and then, in atterpting to escape from Bulgaria, was tragically caught and
liquidated.
The techniques employed in the case of Shipkov were somewhe:.t crud6l
but give the pattern of the later, more refined methods. One element stands
out in all the known cases. It is endless interrogation by teams of brutal
interrogators while the victim is being deprived of sleep. In the earlielr
days, as in the Shipkov case, some minor tortures were employed. Shipkc
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was forced to stand in an a%&gard position without being allowed to movd
during the interrogation. Only a short time was required to "break" hixr as
vivid.. One: they are not over interested in what you tell themb
It would appear that the ultimate purpose of this treatment is tp
break you down completely, and deprive you of any will power or private
thought or self,-esteem, which they achieve remarkably quickly. And
they seem to pursue a classic confession, well rounded off in the
phraseology, explaining why you were induced by environment and
education to enter the service of the enemies of Communism, how'
you placed your capacities in their service, what ultimate goal 'did
you pursue the overthrow of the people's government through ~joreign
intervention. And they appear to place importance on the parallel
appearance of repentance and self-condemnation that come up with the
breaking down of their prisoner."
During and after the late war the Soviets made extensive efforts to
reindoctrinate German and Japanese prisoners of war. Many of these- hafre not
even yet been repatriated. Those that have been released have been suit back
to their homeland as missionaries for the Communist faith. Recently, there
has been a new development in Soviet procedures which takes on, for us, an
even more alarming significance. The Communists are now applying the ,brain-
washing techniques to American prisoners in Korea and it is not beyond; the
range of possibility that considerable numbers of our own boys there might
he looked back upon his experience, here is what Shipkov wrote:
"Out of the jumbled memories, some impressions stand out
all that was required of him by the Communists was a signed confession.
I%rr
be so indoctrinated as to be induced, temporarily at least, to renoun4e country
and f it
App.
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The Communists have rccehtly been showing a film portraying young
i%w
Angie ricall aviators who publicly make spurious "confessions" of participat.on
In the use of germ warfare against North Korea. We have a copy of this : ilrri
and I saw a showing the other day. Mere American boys -?? their identity; is
beyond doubt --r stand up before the members of an international investi4atory
group of Communists from Western Europe and the Satellites and make operj
confessions, fake from beginning to end, giving the details of the alleged
dropping of bombs with bacteriological ingredients on North Korean targq~ts.
They describe their indoctrination in bacteriological v,-fare, give all the
details of their missions, their flight schedules, where they claim to have
dropped the germ bombs, and other details. As far as one can judge fr4#n the
film, these pseudo confessions are voluntary. There is little promptin~ from
the Communist interrogators.
More recently, the Chinese Communist radio broadcast what they clairiled
was the recorded voice of a Colonel and Major of the United States Marano
Corps, captured last July, giving, in the greatest detail, fictitious .nforr,3a-
tion regarding preparations for bacteriological warfare in Korea. Sine: then
these alleged confessions have been introduced by the Communists into the
proceedings at the United Nations.
i
These statements bear the usual hallmarks of Soviet imposed fab'ica-
tions -- for example, the humiliation and repentance of the individual; at
having engaged in such activities. Again, as in the case of the Soviet trials,
there is a period of some six months between the date of capture and he alleged
confession: adequate time to allow for the elaborate planning by the.Communists
of what the confession should contain, the drafting of the "scenario" as it
were, and the -- roughly --- two to three months needed for the indoctrination
i
of the patient.
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The only factor that preVontg the Communists from employing those;
procedures on a mass scale is the problem of manpower for the task and t~ze
shortage of trained interrogators. Presumably there are schools in Vhic
interrogators are trained in the techniques of brain-washing. However, to
deal with a hundred victims at a time would require the services of four
or five times as many trained interrogators over a pmtracted period. teach
man has a teary assigned to him and each case is individually prcpared.
I have talked with one man who has gone through the brain-washing
process, an eminent American missionary in China. H,' had the unique ext
perience of going through the treatment and then of being released and ~iven
his freedom. This is very unusual under Soviet practice.
This man described how is had been subjected for seventy-five da,s
to the monotony of interrogation, mostly during the night hours, by rol ys
of brutal questioners, deprived of sleep and subjected to the effect of
kw
bright lighting during the period of his questioning. As far as he knc,
no drugs were used, but of course they might have been used without hi
knowing it. In this case, no direct physical torture was applied.
After many days of this interrogation his mind was broken down
he went into court and gave what he now recognizes to be completely false
testimony against one of his fellow missionaries, asserting with confidence
that this other missionary had a concealed radio with which he was communicat-
ing with "the enemy". He gave this testimony with vigor and with whatk at
the time, was apparent complete confidence in its truth.
The information on which I have based these remarks is none of t
secret; it is all available to any student who wishes to study this foam of
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wa fare which is not being practiced against us. It seemed to me useful to
gather some of the facts together so that we can be alerted to the dc,ngc and
are not misled or troubled by these fictitious confessions - wheUier from
Communists victimized by other Communists or by our own people who fall ~nto
Communist hands .
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