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ENGLISH DOCS FOR THIS DATE- Handling Press (OB-8) - OB551213

CONTENTS HANDLING PRESS BRAINWASHING MANUAL
HUBBARD COMMUNICATIONS OFFICE
1 Brunswick House,
83 Palace Gardens Terrace, London, W. 8.
BAY 5780
OPERATIONAL BULLETIN NO. 8
13 December 1955

HANDLING PRESS

If it is absolutely necessary to admit press or talk to press, the only thing which really convinces them is result, and I would refuse to go on with a long line of speculation concerning press, or about it. If it begins to crowd such an operation as the Washington operation too hard for material on Scientology, I would follow this procedure. I would take them up to the big grey file case at 2315 15th Street, and say that it will do all the talking, and that they can if they wish bring any expert in to look over these records. I would then not go along any further along the line whatsoever, but would simply tell them to look over these case histories which are the case histories of Scientology. In other words I would make the file case do the press talking. We are getting along fairly well right now on our policy of no communication with the press but this sooner or later may trip us up, and I think such means of communication as simply insisting that the only thing that talks around there is this grey file case, might possibly become a press gimmick which would be appreciated and taken up. Permit them to bring in any experts to examine these files.

In other places than Washington, D.C. , it would be a very good idea to simply accumulate records of this kind and throw them into a file case and, instead of talking about Scientology and what it does on various fronts, to give people who have to have material about Scientology the run of that file case. One which has fifty or sixty cases in it will do more talking in the long run than anything else.

We are entering a new era with Scientology and we should be prepared to hand out data to authorized persons who want it, but I do not think the data handed out should be speculative. I have this afternoon granted an interview on myself as a personality to the Daily Mail feature editor. He may go away and write a great deal about Scientology instead of about me and I decided to make this little test just to find out how it came out. Now we will see what he does write. Certainly he was corrected in an impression he had of me which he had gained from the rumour line. He had me all mocked up as a wild-eyed crusader, and he was quite astonished and friendly during the interview. We talked mainly about Hubbard as the writer, but he did have an awful lot of questions about Scientology

BRAINWASHING MANUAL

The brainwashing manual which came into our possession so mysteriously is being released, not with any intent to unmock psychiatry, but as a necessary piece of information for auditors who are confronted with the problems of brainwashing. Some of these cases are now turning up, and unless the basic philosophy of the brainwasher is understood, they are more difficult to handle. SLP Issue 6 or 7 will very undoubtedly handle brainwashing—7 by the way is not yet released, but 6 will do until it comes along. Therefore there is no point in writing an additional manual to handle this as a specific problem.

Some of the mystery concerning the manuscript on brainwashing which came into our hands in Phoenix was resolved when it was discovered that a book called Psychopolitics (spelled with a K) is in the Library of Congress. It is in German. It was written by a man named Paul Fadkeller, and was published in Berlin in 1947. Although I may be misinformed, and I definitely do not read German, this book is probably the Russian translation.

It is simply our intention to make the book available for 50 cents a copy to people in Dianetics and Scientology so that they can be informed as to the actual character of brainwashing and the mechanics of it. To that degree it is a technical book. There is no intention of handing it around into official quarters since I am sure official quarters must know about it since the book is apparently on file at the Library of Congress, and naturally if it is on file at the Library of Congress, officialdom must know about it. Thus there is no point in beating the drum concerning it.

If I am asked by press or persons in authority concerning our release of this, which I may well be, I will have to reassure them that there is no political significance attached to it. We couldn’t be less interested, but brainwashing happens to be a facet of the human mind and it has been necessary to make available to our own people any and all texts which exist on the subject. We probably should get hold of the book at the Library of Congress and translate it in full, but we do not have the money or the time to do this just now. Thus Don has been asked to mail a copy of the manual as printed to our various professional members, and to make other copies of it available through Box 242, Silver Spring, Maryland, for 50 cents a copy. This is certainly reasonable enough. I don’t think there is any point of any kind in placing it in official hands, as I have said, since even the

U.S. Army and Air Force must be fully cognizant of brainwashing, since, as I have noted, a copy of it is on file at the Library of Congress. It could also be noted at the same time that there is a general movement among psychiatry to correct their own profession and to do something to those psychiatrists in it who are hurting and killing people with electric shock and surgery, and thus this is no concern of ours.

I repeat, our interest in this is professional not political. Brainwashing has become so much of a subject that it is very well for anybody having to do with the field of the human mind to be able to understand the intentions behind it and how it is done. This is the only work we have on the subject. If there are any political repercussions to be expected by us, I would consider that we are being very self-conscious, since obviously if there were any political repercussions to be expected, they would have come before this since, as I say, this book has evidently been in very wide circulation already and is on file at the Library of Congress so far as we know. I think the general reaction of the public is that they couldn’t care less.

______________

Out of a letter from Frank Sullivan:…

“Randomity. Found an interesting gimmick. Tell someone ‘We have formed a new club. We call it the Society for the Prevention of People — we have found that people cause us all of our troubles — they cause us characters more doggone trouble. Would you like to join?’ If he says ‘yes’ tell him he is in. (Also if you should ask him to be three feet back of his head — he will be.) If he asks just one question, he is out. Doggondest test for a Step One I ever saw. This has been well tested.”

L. RON HUBBARD LRH:ts