NEWSWEEK - A SUBLIMINAL DR. STRANGELOVE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: STARGATE
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP96-00792R000500560003-9
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 4, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 27, 2000
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: August 22, 1994
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For Release 2000/, q~j I .C~A,t P9
A Subliminal Dr. Strangelove
Mind: Using the power of hidden suggestions, this
Russian scientist tries to rewire the brain
has electrodes attached to his
chest and shaved head. He has
just watched subliminal mes-
sages on a screen and listened
through earphones to other im-
pulses disguised as noise. Smir-
nov says he's trying to stimulate
the child-rearing cluster of Sla-
va's brain to encourage him to
care more for his soon-to-be-
born baby and less about his next
hit of heroin.
Smirn ov says that in Soviet
times the_,government funded
his lab caner Is . t~1~1
Russia s economy has collapsed,
andwithitfundingfort he securi-
~y_forces and military Smirnov
gets one 20 00 a year, he says.
lady come to see him looking for exampl,
for help in getting business partners to sign
contracts that are against their interest. He
won't do it, he says: hat would-be unethi-
ca . In an case, there is no doubt that some-
body is watt ng him c ose v. S ort v after
NEWSWEEK'S reporter visited his lab, two
burly toughs in suits and diamond rings
showed u at NEWSWEEK'S MOSCOW Office
asking questions about Smirnov. T Fey
claimed to be in business with him, but he
says he doesn't know them. KGB? Mafia?
Smirnov shrugs them off, but, whoever they
are, the doctor of subliminal subversion
might be wise to watch his back.
DORIN DA ELLIOTT in Moscow with
JOHN BARRY in Washington
Approved For Release 2000/08/11: CIA-RDP96-00792R000500560003-9
HEN BRANCH DAVIDIAN SECT MEM-
berjhunkered down in their Waco
compound last year and threatened to
commit suicide the FBI turned to an unlikely
source. Experts from the FBI Counter-Ter-
rorism Center secretly met in Arlington, Va.,
with a long-haired Russian Dr. Strangelove
called Igor Smirnov. His Ian: i in sublim-
inal messages from sect mem ers' ami ies
It.rough the .hone lines during negotiations.
For David Koresh, the self-appointed proph-.
et, the FBI had a special voice in mind: God,
as played by Charlton Heston.
your throat." In the- wron -hands he ex-
plains his techniques could push people
into violent acts.
Using electroencephalographs, he meas-
ures brain waves, then uses computers to
create a map of the subconscious and various
human imulses, such as anger or the sex
drive. Then, throu h to ed subliminal mes-
sages he claims to physica v a ter t at an
scape with the power of suggestlon. At the
University of Michigan, Howard Sheyrin has
also studied the relationship between brain
res onses and the unconscious, but he has
dou is a out t erapeutic app
cations. "I'm not sure this should
be tampered with. The effects
could be harmful."
In Smirnov's cluttered lab,
Slava, a tattooed heroin addict,
He hopes to attract Western in-
vestment. -Meanwhile, Smirnov
says that Russian gan stern re u-
Virtual reality it's not: Smirnov in his lab
Th., FBI backed out of Smirnov's Waco
trate-- andthecrisisendedinblazingdisas-
ter.pchological warfare experts on all
sides still dream that they will one day control
the enemy's mind. And in a tiny, dun eonhke
lab in the basement of Moscow's ominous y
named Institute of Psycho-orrection, Smir-
no and other Russian psychiatrists are aT-
r_eady working on schizophrenics, drug ad-
dicts and cancer patients.
You've heard of subliminal advertising,
right? The psychiatric community generally
agrees that subliminal erce tion exists; a
smalrer fringe grooup believes it can a use
to change the psyche, And that could be bad
as well as good. "A knife can be used to cut
sausage," Smirnov warns cryptically, "or cut