Share:   |
*Notes and references for this article.
Programmed to Kill
During the Korean War, as many as 70% of allied prisoners signed confessions and anti-war statements while under Korean control. This complicity with the "enemy" was not done at the point of a gun but after systematic and prolonged torture and psychological manipulation which altered the personality of the prisoners. The ability to control minds became a curious and serious focus of the military, especially the CIA, and was introduced to the American public through a novel which was later made into a film, starring Frank Sinatra.
In the 1962 film, "The Manchurian Candidate", an American soldier and his buddies are captured by North Koreans and later released. His fellow soldiers all describe this young man as a hero and he is later given a medal for his deeds. The soldier is unaware that he and his buddies have been brainwashed. The "hero" has been programmed to change personalities when a "trigger" event happens. In the movie it is the phrase, "Why don't you pass the time by playing some solitaire," followed by the image of the red Queen of Diamonds. The new alter obeys any order given to it without hesitation -- even assassination -- then leaves the host with no memory or guilt.
In writing the script, Richard Condon interviewed top military psychiatrists on the reality of brain washing techniques and the inherent dangers it poses to a democratic society. The movie is real -- that's why it was repressed shortly after its initial release in 1962 (about the same time as the Kennedy assassination).
Early on in the film, the chief "programmer" quotes two very real scientific studies to the group of psychologist who are watching his demonstration: W.R. Wells, "Experiments in the hypnotic production of crime," Journal of Psychology, 1941, 11:63-102, and M. Brenman, "Experiments in the hypnotic production of anti-social and self-injurious behavior," Psychiatry, 1942, 5:49-61. These and subsequent papers demonstrate that subjects in a personality "trance" can be made to do such things as putting their hands into a box full of venomous snakes, throw what they believed to be real acid in the face of a friend or stranger and any number of harmful and self-injurious acts.
The Queen of Diamonds Wears A Polka Dot Dress
Robert Kennedy (RFK) was the younger brother of president John Kennedy (JFK) who had been assassinated in 1963. After serving as the Attorney General for both his brother and Lyndon Johnson, Robert decided to run for the presidency.
A critical point in Kennedy's election campaign was his victory in the California primary election. As the results came in on June 5, 1968, his campaign workers staged a celebration at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Robert gave a brief speech acknowledging his victory, then proceeded to exit the hotel by taking a route through the kitchen to a back exit.
Minutes after leaving the stage, shots were heard and RFK was struck three times, once in the head. There was little doubt about who did the shooting. A young man was still tightly gripping a 22 revolver as he was wrestled to the kitchen floor. The man was Sirhan Sirhan, a 24 year old Palestinian-born Christian, who worked in the hotel's kitchen.
Almost as soon as he was secured, those around Sirhan were surprised at the peaceful and contented look on his face. He became unusually calm for a man who had just shot someone, and he seemed puzzled by his situation.
In six intense psychiatric interviews prior to his trial, Sirhan was given truth drugs and put under deep hypnosis. Sirhan demonstrated that he could not recall anything that happened from the time he was having some coffee with a beautiful woman who wore a white polka dot dress, to feeling choked as he was being restrained on the hotel's kitchen floor, next to the dying RFK.
No psychosis was ever found in Sirhan, which is the usual cause of blackouts, and his amnesia was never explained. Sirham himself has always asked for help in understanding what happened to him. He even admitted at the time of his psychiatric interviews that his acts were against his family, upbringing and religion... "It's just not me."
Despite his admission of guilt, Sirhan offers no motive. He now believes that he was brainwashed and is seeking parole from his long sentence. Those who have studied and interviewed Sirhan about the events in June 1968 have some definite ideas about this also:
"After fifteen years of analyzing the evidence and interviewing experts and witnesses, the only logical conclusion in this case, for my mind, is that Sirhan Sirhan was a programmed assassin -- programmed to show up shooting at Robert Kennedy -- and programmed not to remember." -- Dr. Philip Molanson [12]
Audio tapes have recently been found where the Los Angeles police are interviewing a woman from the Ambassador Hotel who saw an attractive woman in a white polka dot dress exiting the hotel in an excited state, screaming, "We shot him. We killed Kennedy. We shot him." [*] What is interesting about the taped interview is the effort exerted by the police interrogator -- including even threats -- to make the witness recant her statement.
This woman in the polka dot dress seems critical to the events as she was the last person to engage Sirhan before his amnesia and shooting spree. Was she the trigger?
|
Little known facts...
Sirhan was not involved with any political groups or political organizations sympathetic to the Arab or Palestinian cause, as many assume. This motive was repeatedly suggested to Sirhan while he was under hypnosis but psychiatrists could sense no passion or anger in his political view of things. Few know that Sirhan was a Christian and so his faith had little to motivate him to kill anyone. Sirhan did have an interest in what might be called the "occult" or mysticism. He read works by Theosophists and even mailed in $4 to join the Rosicrucians, a supposedly "secret" organization that believes in the mystical teachings of Jesus. He was described as being highly intelligent and often frequented the "locked" book cases where rare philosophical and esoteric books are kept. Sirhan Sirhan was remarkable in that he was among the top 5% of the population who are deemed "hypnotic virtuosos", meaning that they are easily hypnotized and capable of auto-hypnosis.
 Expert trial testimony established that notebook passages, containing repetitions of the phrase "RFK Must Die" and the obvious implanted motivational driver, "My determination to eliminate RFK is becoming more and more of an unstoppable obsession" [above], were written in a hypnotic trance, and Sirhan spontaneously reproduced this phrase under hypnosis when asked in his cell for a description of the Senator. Sirhan's amnesia about the crime was unshaken by hypnosis and has consistently remained intact. Dr. Herbert Spiegel, a New York psychiatrist who teaches at Columbia University and who is widely regarded as among this country's leading experts on hypnosis, has concluded that Sirhan was probably acting out hypnotic commands when he fired a gun at Senator Kennedy. Sirhan himself was so disoriented following his arrest that he did not even know he had yet to be arraigned.
"The total and complete amnesia that is demonstrated [in Sirhan Sirhan] from the very beginning to this very day suggests strongly that he was 'A': highly hypnotizable, and 'B' programmed to perform that act." During pre-trial psychiatric examinations in his cell, Sirhan proved to be the ideal hypnotic subject, climbing the bars without knowing that he was carrying out post-hypnotic commands.
 Sirhan's interest in the occult is evident in his scribblings about "Illuminati" [above] and his references to "master approached" and the plural, "Let us do it," repeated in another note [below].
 When asked if it is possible to somehow condition a person to do illegal or immoral acts, Dr. Spiegel does not hesitate, "Yes it is possible to instruct a highly hypnotizable person to perform many acts -- including assassination." Another expert on the legal aspects of hypnosis is professor Alan Scheflin from Santa Clara University Law School: "There is generally a folklore that it [hypnosis, trance] can't be so used. And I think the reason for the folklore for one is to discourage anyone from trying it and ... because it took a while for hypnosis to establish itself as a valid therapeutic technique. Now that we know that it is a valuable therapeutic technique we can also see that just as it can be used for good or it can be used for evil ." When asked where Sirhan's alter personality has gone, psychologists answer that personalities can integrate when their reason for being is ablated. But in some cases the narcissism invested outlives the reason (Bliss 1980). For Sirhan's alter it's obviously a fait accomplis. So the question is, "who was Sirhan Sirhan's programmer?"
|
Sirhan's diary and CIA/MK-ULTRA links
Dr. William Bryan was the self-proclaimed world expert on hypnosis and brainwashing and had to his credit the opportunity to hypnotize Albert De Salvo, the infamous Boston Strangler, in the highly publicized case involving celebrity attorney F. Lee Baily. Bryan had a successful practice in California, specializing in treating the sexual problems of young, attractive women. This was the ideal set-up for a man addicted to sex but it eventually got him defrocked and eliminated.
The fact that Bryan was not particularly handsome, plus his weight of 380 pounds, made him resort to bragging to impress the gals during his various tryst. His favorite stories were about how he worked for a secret CIA program (confirmed) and how, in addition to De Salvo, he had hypnotized Sirhan Sirhan.
Although most of the hard evidence has allegedly been destroyed by the Los Angeles Police Department, some additional pages in Sirhan's notebook, apparently written during a "trance", have the curious entry:
"God help me. Please help me. Salvo Di Di Salvo Die S Salvo..." [*p225]
It has been suggested that Sirhan's alter heard this name mentioned in conversation by Dr. Bryan while under hypnosis, and retained it in the alter's memory.
This all starts sounding pretty far fetched, until you connect the dots with the CIA's mind-control project, called MK-ULTRA, which was quite active in the mid-60s. (We'll be getting around to them soon.) By then, the ideas and theories of personality change had been perfected enough to influence the minds of individuals, groups and even entire nations.
Mind control functions by changing your personality -- your identity. In the past half-century, every aspect of our personality and private lives has been forever changed by the work of one man. Some claim he robbed us of our free will and corrupted democracy. Those claims are very real, as you will soon see... yet, I will bet, you have never heard of him... ready? His initials are E.B. And he's next on viewzone.
© Gary Vey for viewzone