Should both persuasion and force fail, the Communists then resort to a method which represents an all time low in evil—the use of poisonous drugs to draw out false confessions from their victims. This is called the “biodynamic” treatment. The drugs, “actedon” and “mescaline” are used to paralyze the brain, then to cause its disintegration. The doses are administered in coffee, and the victim, with nothing else to eat or drink, consumes large quantities, which are generously supplied, unaware of the effect being produced on his mind and body. When the personality has been sufficiently disintegrated or “split” by these drugs—when the sufferer has been driven crazy—a skilled psychiatrist can put the pieces together at his will and gradually evolve a completely new personality. In other words, when the physical breakdown of the individual has been accomplished, his mental collapse is brought about by the use of these fiendish drugs.
The Communists say, “The average person can be made to give in through brutality and fear, but in complicated cases the combination of neurology, or brain study, chemistry and psychiatry must be used.” Preparing the victim valuable enough for this process often takes as long as three or four months, during which time he is jailed and kept in solitary confinement. Frequently dozens of doctors, scientists, and assistants are worn out in the process of treatment. It is so diabolical that the Communists say they use it only in exceptional cases where they feel that the results warrant a demonstration to the public at large of their complete mastery over man.
The world now knows that this was the treatment administered in 1949 to Joseph Cardinal Mindszenty, Primate of the Catholic church, Budapest; to Michael Shipkov, Bulgarian Translator for the U. S. Legation in Sofia; and again in 1950 to Robert A. Vogeler, American business executive in Hungary. This same heinous method has been repeated in Rumania, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Eastern Germany and undoubtedly elsewhere throughout the world, though actual reports of every case have not, as yet, come into print.
The use of hypnotism as a propaganda weapon and as a device for manipulating victims also has not been overlooked by the Communists. Dr. G. H. Estabrooks, Chairman of the Department of Psychology at Colgate University, who has pioneered in developing hypnotism’s wartime uses, says:
“With the Twentieth Century’s revived interest in psychology, hypnotism has been brought to the status of a full-fledged science.”
“A person,” continues Estabrooks, “can be hypnotized against his will or without his knowledge.”
“A foreign agent working in a hospital or a doctor in his own office could,” he avers, “over a period of time, place thousands of people under his power by means of fake physical examinations.”
For instance, he explains how in wartime this masked manoeuver could enable a junior medical officer to take over the reins of the U. S. Army and lead it into total defeat.
Hypnotism, we now know, was used in addition to drugs by the Nazis to obtain a “confession” from Van der Lubbe at the Reichstag Trial and also by the Soviet Union to demoralize Cardinal Mindszenty, Robert Vogeler and others.
Mao Tse-tung, like all Moscow-trained speakers and others of their ilk, is fully aware of the power of hypnosis over large audiences. In the early days of victory, he spellbound his listeners not alone by words but also by the strength of his mesmeric will.