WASHINGTON REPORT "OPERATION BRAINWASH"

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP74-00297R000900090063-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 28, 2013
• Sequence Number: 63
• Publication Date: October 29, 1957
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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D'enc.ra"-ssiliTC1 E'n-c -18jpar?oved For Release @ 50-Yr 2013/10/29: CIA-RDP74-00297R000900090063-8
WASHINGTON REPORT
,,OPERATION BRAINWASH"
411 by FultonLewis, Jr.
This is about Operation Brainwash: Sunday School children.
I have been laboring under the illusion that Sunday School is for the religious
education and instruction of our youth. It was, when I was a youngster. It was, when
my children were growing up.
?
?
I have at hand, however, a copy of "Classmate," a weekly publication which claims to
be "prepared by the General Board of Education of the Methodist Church, through the
Editorial Division" and another, entitled "adult Student" from the same source. Both
are current issues.
VITROLICS TWISTED
The former, directed to children, features an? article by one D. F. Fleming, which is
a twisted and vitriolic attack on the late Senator Joe McCarthy of Wisconsin, accompanied
by a newspaper cartoon reprint portraying a dead dragon, labelled "Extreme Reaction."
The World in the cartoon is asking Uncle Sam "could we put it down again, should it
rear its ugly head?"
The? text says that while Senator McCarthy is dead, his name will live long in American
and world history, but only because the cold mar has created a national hysteria which
"He masterfully exploited."
It says our victory in World War II was possible "only because of the massive,
sustained comeback of the Russian armies from Stalingrad." It says, also, that the
Russians have continued to occupy the Eastern European countries "to forestall any future
invasions from the West."
VIOLENT ENEMIES
Mr. Fleming quotes, authoritatively, from Drew Pearson and Eric Sevareid, probably
two most violent enemies McCarthy had in the fidld of propaganda dissemination, and
states categorically "never, at any time, did McCarthy uncover a Communist in the State
Department, but this fact was lost in the national hysteria."
The "hysteria" cliche, a standard line of the anti-anti-Communists, is drummed
throughout the article.
It quotes the columnist Doris Fleeson as making "the most penetrating comment at the
time of McCarthy's death":
"Men and women will be judged for a long time by the courage and character they dis-
played or failed to display while McCarthyism seemed triumphant."
ARTICLE FOR ADULTS
This, you understand, is in a Sunday School magazine, distributed to children. For
those of more adult age, the same author has an article in the other publication, entitled
Wily Peacemaking is Imperative." You may be interested in the following:
Declassified and Approved For Release @ 50-Yr 2013/10/29: CIA-RDP74-00297R000900090063-8
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Declassified and Approved For Release @ 50-Yr 2013/10/29: CIA-RDP74-00297R000900090063-8
noland has gained a large degree of real independence. Hungary, tragically enough
has not. This was due in part to the fals hopes, planted in Hungarian teenagers during
years of broadcasting by the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, particulgrly the
latter."
The fact is that Radio Free Europe is playing the propaganda line that the way to
freedom is to adopt Tito-Communism. Of Red China, he says:
"It will pay us well to speak to the Chinese before they decide not to recognize us
--even making friends with the Soviet and Chinese peoples is not enough. We are obliged
to go on to organize a functioning world couummity with them."
'ABOUT;THE AUTHOR
What this has to do with Sunday School, I fail to Understand, but I have made some
inquiries about the author.
The magazines describe him as a "leading political scientist" who "analyzes recent
trends in foreign relations and comes up with an anwer: Wage peace before it is too
late.
The fact is, he is a research professor of political science at Vanderbilt University
in Nashville, Tenn., who has been a liberal there for some? 20 years. He fancies himself
a great intellect, and his biography in Who's Who is replete with listings of the High
Schools of which he was principal, before he latched onto Vanderbilt.
Declassified and Approved For Release @ 50-Yr 2013/10/29: CIA-RDP74-00297R000900090063-8