It is a not too infrequent part of the job of a PRO (Public Relations Officer) to encounter hostile contacts. To handle such, one has to be fast and effective at dead agenting.
Every successful PRO knows how to dead agent and wins.
As the tech on dead agenting and handling hostile contacts is scattered in various P/Ls and write-ups, it is issued collectively now as policy for use. Learn these techniques well. Use them with success!
Passages taken directly from L. Ron Hubbard’s writings or from transcripts of his verbal briefings are in italics. Other passages are from D/G PRO WW write-ups reproduced by courtesy of the Guardian’s Office.
These materials relate directly to
It is my specific intention that by the use of professional PR tactics any opposition be not only dulled but permanently eradicated. This takes data and planning before positive action can occur. (LRH)
Never let entheta pass unhandled. Prevention is better than cure. Handle fast, handle with live communication, handle with documentation, use PR technology including tone scale evaluation. Liaise with your senior and the other divisions/bureaux. Maintain ethics presence and see the matter through to a completion including the discrediting of the attacker.
Experience has shown that defence is only effective when one sorties or attacks.
The errors we have made have been:
The technique of proving utterances false is called „Dead Agenting“.
It’s in the first book of Chinese espionage. When the enemy agent gives false data, those who believed him but now find it false kill him — or at least cease to believe him.
So the PR slang for it is „Dead Agenting.“
This consists of disproving utterly the false statement with documents or demonstration or display.
One has to have a kit (a collection of documents) or the ability to demonstrate or something to display.
STATEMENT: „I’ve been told you are in trouble with Income Tax people.“
REBUTTAL: „Here’s a document of fully paid taxes and a letter of commendation from the tax authorities.“ Displays same.
Result? Whoever told him that is now dead with him as an accurate informer.
The best way to dead agent is when the person makes some disprovable statement, find who to fix his mind on it and then produce the rebuttal.
STATEMENT: „I hear you aren’t married to the man you’re living with.“
REBUTTAL: „WHO told you that?“
STATER: „I forget.“
REBUTTER: „Well, you remember and I’ll show you some proof.“
STATER: „Well, it was a man…“
REBUTTER: „WHO?“
STATER: „Joe Schmo.“
REBUTTER: „Okay. Here’s my marriage certificate. Who’s the Joe Schmo nut anyway?“
Now it’s Joe Schmo who’s the mystery. How come he lies? What’s in it for him?
When one hasn’t got the document but can get it one can say „You tell me the name of whoever said that and next time I see you I’ll show you something very interesting about it.“
And be sure to get the document and see him again.
Dead agenting has a billion variations. „It won’t fly.“ Fly it. „Place is empty.“ Show him it’s full.
The subject matter of Dead Agenting is PROOF in whatever form.
You only challenge statements you can prove are false and in any conversation let the rest slide.
Every friend, every opinion leader, every staff member you have should be supplied with a dead agent pack containing proofs against common rumors (and brochures and coaching to fill the vacuum). (LRH)
In defending against hostile PR, once more it is in the R that counts. Sun Tzu in his book about warfare gives several types of agent. One of these is the „dead agent“ because he tells lies to the enemy and when they find out they will kill him.
Hostile (or counter-PR) is usually the usual fabric of lies.
If one finds out the lies being told and documents just one as being false, he has made counter-PR recoil. His hearer will never believe him again. He’s ‘dead’.
In the war between psychiatric hostile PR and the truth of Scientology, the „dead agent“ caper has a field day. Psychiatric PR has been lying for 20 years. Documented, the fact of these lies are lies is killing off psychiatry.
You understand, it’s not one PR’s word against another’s. It’s one PR’s documents against the other PR’s lies! That is correct defensive PR. (LRH)
The quality of the documentation is a major factor. The PRO should have the right to chit and demand better quality documentation if it’s not up to standard. One should be very inventive and very creative in the presentation of his pack. As the false reports on us are generally repeated over and over and over again in different ways one can have in stock, so to speak, false report correction packs and booklets. One of these could be the Background and Ceremonies of the Church, a WW publication. There are various bona fide publications for different countries. There is Scientology 20th Century Religion, there is the publication Viewpoint from the US and we now have Omar Garrison’s Hidden Story of Scientology. Then there are things like the quote from the Encyclopedia Britannica Year Book, etc.
This is correct procedure:
Also press releases should always contain some factor of endurance. This gives the public the idea that we endure. Examples:
Always attack in a press release. Never Defend or Deny. (LRH)
Reporters are a kiss of death unless one really is an expert PR man himself. Reporters have to be handled and well. If truly friendly, they have to be wooed. If not they have to be handled.
The routine is:
It consists of photostats of good stories and authentic documents that state the truth and thus wreck any lies and the liar. „Dead agent“ means when they find out the guy lied (proven by documents) he’s dead. The kit of the PRO MUST contain a full set of such documents, adequate to cancel out any lies told.
And it must be fast. It must come to an immediate confrontation. (LRH)
The actual handling is very swift. You can make the offending person the butt of your wit, handle seriously, take him over the hills and far away conversationally, but it has to be swift and smooth with one person in control.
As soon as you get some entheta about us, you immediately jump on the person and ask who else has he been saying that to, getting all the names. Ask for the person’s credentials, where he comes from, who sent him — give him a hard time of it. (LRH)
We endeavor to hit from as many directions as possible. For example, a reporter was conducting a one-man crusade against Scientology in his newspaper. PR handled by having formal complaints made on the conduct of the reporter to his newspaper, the Press Council and the police with full documentation as to the lies he told and actions which he had taken, including threats and attempted blackmail by him. A full submission was presented giving six or seven pounds weight of PR data from the Church of Scientology on itself, its social reforms, its view on psychiatry, etc.
This data was indexed and bound so that it looked something of value. The pack was left with a high official and other officials were informed that full submissions had been left there and if they needed information he would be able to supply it. The Press Council ended up investigating the reporter and the stomach has gone out of his crusade.
False reports are corrected by true facts. You do whatever you have to do to get the true facts communicated and published. Documentation is the biggest aid in doing this. Communicating corrections obtained from other media helps build ethics presence and makes for a careful press and media.
When an entheta story with false reports has been published it must be handled fast by telephone call, by personal visit, and always by letter confirming. The PR needs documentation which refutes and he needs it available to show or to give to the media. It is an obliteration tactic.
For example, a newspaper publishes its third entheta article. Legal plays a hard line and PR plays the part of the peacemaker until a retraction and legal settlement is made. Documentation is then sent to all press, the Press Council and journalists and individual reporters. The documentation has a plea for reform and clean up of ethical standards. The result: the reporter in question will no longer be on staff.
Every correction you obtain comes as something you can use. It is „beans“; there is an exchange now because you can use that in your prevention.
A common error in the actual tech of false report correction is contained in repeating the original entheta in our published correction of it. By that we give the enemy two cracks. This is very easily avoided by simply doing an item fact correction sheet and making it clear that it is not for publication, accompanying it with the thing which is for publication or promising the thing for publication to follow.
Time is always of the essence. The longer an entheta piece is permitted to persist the more difficult the correction becomes, the more damage is done by it and the more likely it is to be quoted by another.
Research and experience has shown that there are various factors which contribute to successfully obtaining equal space in the media. The major factors are:
Yes, one says, but how about the violent opposition? How about that fellow?
Well, he’s a problem. But he is an opinion leader.
One has to decide how much of an opinion leader he is.
If you don’t handle a would-be opinion leader who is anti but who is NOT an opinion leader, people get cross.
The decision here stems from
In either case one has certain courses of action. If the abuses are actual, work to remedy them. If he is just lying, lay out the truth.
If he really isn’t an opinion leader, ignore him.
But one can only interfere with him or remove him if many, many are getting cross because you don’t. But that’s a risky business.
As a rule, only that dissident person should be removed who is speaking in your name and on your lines and using your power to do you down. And then he can only be removed off your lines as you are under no obligation to finance or empower your own opposition. That’s suicide.
He is not an opinion leader but a traitor for he owes his power to you.
Usually anti-opinion leaders are made by neglect.
PR-wise one has to catch them early and handle. (LRH)
One propagandizes the enemy population or one’s own or neutrals.
In popular interpretation it is a parade of lies or half-truths or exaggerations.
PR and advertising technology and mass news media are employed as well as word-of-mouth and posters.
The trouble with it is that it can often be disproven, discrediting the utterers of it.
It may serve the moment but after a war it leaves a very bad taste.
If one is engaging on a campaign of this nature, its success depends on sticking to the truth and being able to document it.
The entire black propaganda campaign conducted for 21 years against Scientology began to fold up in its 18th year because never at any time did its instigators (a) have any factual adverse data or (b) tell the truth.
The Scientology movement continued if only by heroic means and much sacrifice.
But at last nobody of any note believed the propaganda.
The attackers pulled in on themselves a counterattack based on penetrating horrible documented truth.
It required intelligence-like tactics to discover who it was exactly.
The „dead agent caper“ was used to disprove the lies. This consisted of counter-documenting any area where the lies were circulated. The lie „they were ___“ is countered by a document showing „they were not“. This causes the source of the lie and any other statements from that source to be discarded. (LRH)
The technique is:
In the meanwhile the „dead agent caper“ is the best tool to counter it. (LRH)
A good policy when faced with a Black Propaganda campaign is to defend as best you can (dead agent and legal restraints) while you find out (intelligence) who is doing it. Then, confrontation can occur. Finding and suing false whos can make things much more involved. (LRH)
When one is not fighting a battle against Black Propaganda, public relations is easy.
One hires a reporter who gets to work thinking up ideas and turning out releases. That’s why reporters are often thought of as Public Relations people which they are not.
In the face of a Black Propaganda Campaign, such releases are twisted, refused and that is the end of it.
There is far more to the art than this.
These are some of the rules that apply:
Each one of these points could well take a book. But understanding them and using one’s initiative one can fill in a lot of the tech himself.
The variations of each one are endless. (LRH)
If there will be a long-term threat, you are to immediately evaluate and originate a black PR campaign to destroy the person’s repute and to discredit them so thoroughly that they will be ostracized. (LRH)
In other words, handle the hell out of it. (LRH)
PR isn’t „being nice.“ It is a dynamic subject. (LRH)