Psychological WarfareLinebarger, Paul Myron Anthony
History
Psychological Warfare
Linebarger, Paul Myron Anthony
Psychological warfare
In the manipulation of satellites and in particularization of
propaganda, the North Korean Communist army, the Viet Minh army in
Indochina, and the Malayan Races Liberation Army on the Malay peninsula,
appear to have near-optimum localism and particularism without suffering
serious deviation from the main Communist world-wide pattern. In North
Korea, of course, Chinese intervention and Soviet support have sharply
modified the position of the North Korean People's Army, but the
Annamite and Malay Communist forces appear to be fighting with high
morale and considerable success, despite the duality of control from
Peking and Moscow, and despite the difficulties of reconciling Asian
nationalism with Marxian-world doctrine.
Another Communist technique is now known through Edward Hunter's
provocative pioneer book[62] by its correct name of "brain-washing."
This involves the transformation of a human personality. The author has
himself interrogated victims of brain-washing and can attest to the
terrifying depth to which this process is carried. The victim of
brain-washing is subject to very slight persuasion at the rational
level. He is not even given much propaganda as U.S. propagandists of
recent years might recognize the product. Instead, the process of
brain-washing consists of a frontal attack on all levels of the
personality, from the most conscious to the most hidden. The Communists
seek through fatigue and sustained interrogation to create a condition
similar to what is called "nervous breakdown" in popular parlance. Then
they rebuild the personality, healing their victim into Communist
normality.
One victim to whom the author talked had been so subject to Communist
brain-changing that he thought himself a real Communist even though he
had been reared a Catholic. He was completely convinced of the Communist
cause and of his own life and place in that cause after the
brain-washing had been completed. Unfortunately for Communism, the man
got into serious sexual difficulties, difficulties of a kind which any
American psychiatrist would recognize as potentially devastating.
As a result of his sexual frustrations he suffered a mild equivalent of
the medically recognized phenomenon of the schizophrenic break--that
terrible moment of false enlightenment in which the psychotic
personality cuts loose with a truth of his own and shuts off most or all
communication with normal people--with the consequence that he was
walking along Nanking Road in Shanghai, a normal Communist in one
instant of time and (as he put it to the author) in a millionth of a
second he suddenly realized he was a Catholic, an anti-Communist, the
enemy of every man, woman and child in sight--and at war with his entire
environment. As this writer understood it, the poor man, though adjusted
to the Communist environment after brain-washing, happened to go
crazy--crazy enough to come back to our side.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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