Our GIs Who Confessed
HUNTER, EDWARD
OUR GIs WHO CONFESSED If soldiers who succumbed to Red brainwashing are to be tried, what about those who failed to prepare them for this ordeal? By Edward Hunter THE MILITARY COURT now holding...
...Treason is treason: "ratting" is "ratting...
...We can be sure they will not repeat the foolish mistake they made when they showed a group of our POWs some "germ-infested" bugs that were supposedly dropped by our fliers...
...If we follow that principle here, no man will be able to use ignorance as an excuse for his actions...
...If such a feeling were allowed to spread, it would have a corrosive effect on the morale of our services...
...The confessors and informers can, and do, claim that they should not be punished for buckling under pressure for which they were totally unprepared by their superiors...
...By Edward Hunter THE MILITARY COURT now holding hearings in the case of Marine Colonel Frank H. Schwable is faced with a difficult task...
...Since then, several revealing books on the subject have been published...
...Charles W. Mayo, to reply to Communist germ-warfare charges made against us in the UN...
...In doing so, of course, they have only helped the Communists conceal their technique...
...Each case must be handled individually...
...The very first step in any plan designed to combat this Communist strategy must be widespread dissemination of the truth about brainwashing...
...At the same time, we should treat the cases of those who did succumb in the same way we treat illness...
...As early as 1951, authoritative reports began to appear in this country on Communist brain-washing techniques...
...Last autumn, soon after the armistice was concluded, a special "learning meeting" was held in Peking...
...In this way, we show our appreciation to those who did not succumb to some of the most sinister tortures ever devised by evil minds...
...Our entire political system is based on the theory that we can take the truth, and that the truth makes us strong...
...What is more, as returned American POWs point out, many lives could have been saved and many of our men spared horrible wounds...
...Included in the group were men like Kuo Mojo (Red China's version of Ilya Ehrenburg) and several Russian experts on psychological warfare...
...But this case, and similar ones involving soldiers like Claude Batchelor and Edward Dickenson, pose two more basic questions: (1) Are not those who failed to prepare our men for the ordeal of brain-washing just as guilty as those who confessed...
...It suggests that the Communists were deliberately perverting to their ends essentially the same technique which the famous Soviet biologist Pavlov used in his experiments on dogs and rats...
...Because of this, I think the example set by the Marines has been wise...
...Mayo's report, in which he points out: "It is a method obviously calculated by the Communists to bring a man to a point where a dry crust of bread or a few hours of uninterrupted sleep is a great event in his life...
...It is safe to assume that whenever free men fall into the hands of the Reds they will be subjected to this type of extortion...
...But this reasoning is far from a solution to the current dilemma...
...Joost A. M. Meerloo (who coined the laboratory word, "menticide," for this sort of mind pressure) points out in his book Conversation and Communication, man cannot fight a force until he identifies it with a name...
...It must decide whether he should be court-martialed for signing a false germ-warfare confession after a long period of physical and mental torture in a Communist POW camp...
...We will have the perfect right to enforce the honorable discipline that should be required of every man fighting for his country...
...In formulating our future program, we must keep in mind our tragic experience in Korea...
...There has never been a completely satisfactory method, from the military viewpoint, of dealing with this problem...
...and these constitute the majority...
...To some degree, the Government has already recognized the similarity...
...in fact, it was he who coined the term, while translating its equivalent from official Chinese documents...
...men in rags, exposed to the elements...
...2) What can we do to avoid a repetition of these damaging confessions...
...The fact that he did not suffer even the slightest discomfort was a devastating blow to the entire Communist project...
...malingerers can be separated from those who really suffered the tortures of brain-washing...
...Considering the revolting methods used in brain-washing, it is not surprising that our top officials have shied away from the word...
...their sickness regulated to a point just short of death: unshaven, without haircuts or baths for as much as a year...
...True, armies have always been plagued by malingerers who are in perfect physical condition but claim they are too sick to fight...
...it chose an eminent surgeon, Dr...
...The principles applied in such cases of sickness should also be applied to those who claim to be victims of brain-washing...
...Knowledge is a kind of vaccination when you are dealing with so vicious a disease...
...Next time, however, we can be sure that the bugs will be so full of germs that anyone who touches them will die in agony right before the eyes of his buddies...
...isolated, faced with squads of trained interrogators, bullied incessantly, deprived of sleep and browbeaten into mental anguish...
...Then, too, we can decide each case on its own merits...
...fed with carefully measured minimum quantities and the lowest quality of food and unsanitary water, served often in rusty cans...
...Moreover, in the future we can expect the "treatment" to be much more efficient...
...When the conference finally broke up, it established a continuing series of study groups...
...It is equally true, though, that no democracy can survive if its leaders are too squeamish or too gentle to ferret out and publicize the facts of any new situation...
...Insofar as it is possible, the malingerers must be separated from those who are telling the truth...
...The total picture presented is one of human beings reduced to a status lower than that of animals: filthy, full of lice, festered wounds full of maggots...
...The timidity of our leaders in this respect partly explains why the Schwables and Dickensons acted as they did...
...All this testimony on Communist methods of extorting 'confessions' in Korea suggests a frightening pattern...
...They have given special awards to several former POWs who exerted themselves beyond the call of duty or expectation of human endurance...
...Instead, they prefer to use comfortable and familiar words like "interrogation" and "examination...
...Even more important, we can decide whether we want a man to die rather than aid the foe in his psychological warfare against the U.S., or whether we want him to sign false confessions while we tell the world the truth...
...In connection with the issues raised by this article, readers may wish to consult Mr...
...Hunter, who has spent the better part of two decades as a reporter in East Asia, first described brain-washing in the pages of The New Leader in October 1950...
...But, on the other hand, we could never say that we will not recognize sickness among the troops...
...Before a positive preventive program can be formulated, however, our leaders must study brain-washing techniques and fully appreciate their effectiveness...
...His book, Brain-Washing in Red China, published in 1951 by the Vanguard Press, is still the authoritative work in the field...
...should be told the real, sordid facts...
...As Dr...
...Mind manipulation is still the most important weapon of the Communist apparatus...
...They should carefully study Dr...
...One of our men casually picked up a bug and swallowed it...
...Certainly we will be able to demand that no man give aid or comfort to the enemy...
...Civilians and military alike ??”and even the people behind the Iron and Bamboo Curtains...
...Edward Hunter is the world's greatest authority on the Chinese Communist practice of brain-washing...
...Just last week, the Pentagon announced that six soldiers who "openly and steadfastly resisted" Communist indoctrination would be decorated by General Ridgway...
...What could be more convincing to naive young Americans who have not been told the facts about Soviet procedures...
...If the facts had been told in time to our fighting men in Korea, the enemy would have been almost completely frustrated in his efforts...
...Officially called a forum on the Pavlovian theories, it was attended by more than a hundred of Red China's leading psychiatrists, neurologists, surgeons and physiologists...
...No country can exist very long if it condones such practices or makes them attractive...
...This attitude on the part of top-level officials, who certainly will not now be penalized, provides an excellent excuse for those who cracked under Red brain-washing...
...The Communists are making an intense study of their practices in prisoner-of-war camps, to find out where they were ineffective and how they can improve their tactics...
...The men who did withstand brain-washing...
...should not be given the impression that their loyalty and high character have been ignored...
...Hunter's previous article, "Our POWs Are NOT Traitors," which appeared in The New Leader of August 24, 1953...
...The facts supplied by these sources could have been used to good advantage, but instead they were treated with polite disregard...
Vol. 37 • March 1954 • No. 9
