February 15, 1951
MEMORANDUM OF CONVERSATION
Participants: Senator Hubert Humphrey \(Dem., Minn\) Dr. Harry B. Friedgood, Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of California at Los Angeles William Simms, Administrative Assistant to Senator Humphrey Howland H. Sergeant Dean Acheson
Senator Humphrey introduced Dr. Friedgood by saying that he had personally been so impressed with what he had to say that he felt I should have an opportunity to hear him. Dr. Friedgood then referred to the memorandum sent to me at the instance of Mrs. Roosevelt on "The Psycho-Military Nature of Soviet Aggression with Specific Proposals for a Pro-Democratic Psychological Offensive". He said that in the limited time we had, he was going to take only one facet of a total structure to illustrate his points.
Dr. Friedgood then made what he described as a simplified presentation of what facts are actually known about the human mind. He said that the human mind is divided into two areas - the first a conscious reasoning area, and the second an unconscious area which he described as being divided again into two parts: the first filled with anger, aggression, fear, pain, sorrow, etc., and the second containing the more noble and humanitarian impulses of mankind. His point was that the Soviets had consciously developed a psychological approach to arouse in peoples the instincts in the area of the unconscious which contain the most destructive elements. He argued that the United States in mounting a psychological offensive should direct its attention toward arousing the more decent and noble human impulses by a strategy designed to appeal to the more constructive area of the unconscious elements of the human mind.
Dr. Friedgood developed his thesis at some length, using illustrations, and made a particular point that we should never directly attack Stalin nor ever imitate or descend to the tactics used by the USSR in appealing to the more destructive elements in the human unconscious. He gave two examples of the kinds of programs he felt we should employ on the VOA:
1. The playing of archaic Russian church music to liberate those impulses and to bring back those recollections associated with many of the fine and noble elements of the Russian tradition; and \(2\) a kind of soap opera with a main plot of an American family living in a Russian city and attempting to get together with a Russian family living in the same block. The drama would depend on their efforts to outwit the block commissar, who would never be attacked directly but at whom they would occasionally poke fun and whom they would always succeed in outwitting and having gotten together they would find great enjoyment in their friendship.
- 2 - I asked whether the playing of the old Russian church music would not be limited in its appeal to people over 40 and Dr. Friedgood replied that it would. I also asked whether the type of program he was suggesting could in fact appeal to people who had not experienced other ways of life. I referred specifically to the soap opera suggestions. As an illustration I said that I doubted the usefulness of a program directed to the American settlers in colonial days designed on this same basis to bring about an understanding between the colonial settlers and the Indians when the colonial settlers knew that the Indians just last week had scalped Aunt Bessie.
Dr. Friedgood said that the instincts and impulses he was describing were universal in the human mind and could not be rooted out by indoctrination or thought control but he agreed that it required careful study and precise and consistent programming to create the effect that he sought. He did point out, however, that in his opinion under the present world conditions the revolution in the Soviet Union was now out of control and could proceed only to the creation of a state of war or alternatively to a second revolution which would overthrow the present masters. He himself believed that the use of the technique he was describing could in fact lead to an ultimate second revolution and the overthrowing of the present leadership in the USSR.
He also maintained that by the use of quite different techniques it would be possible to create such suspicion and dissension among the members of the governing clique in the Politburo that each one could be destroyed individually.
Mr. Sargeant described for my benefit and for the advice of Senator Humphrey the consideration that had been given by Mr. Barrett's people to Dr. Friedgood's thesis. In addition to his conferences with key officers in Mr. Barrett's area, Mr. Sargeant said that within the last three days Dr. Friedgood had met and discussed extensively with representatives of the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the CIA and others involved in the National Psychological Strategy Board operations, the full extent of his suggestions. Mr. Sargeant said that he was under the impression that operators for the Voice of America and other information media had in fact unconsciously been using some of the symbols and techniques advocated by Dr. Friedgood although clearly it was not on a consistent basis and much of it had not yet been touched. Mr. Sargeant said that plans were under consideration by which the Department hoped it might take advantage of Dr. Friedgood's study of these problems to obtain his advice on a consulting basis.
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I expressed my appreciation for the opportunity of learning at first-hand about Dr. Friedgood's proposals; assured him that the Department wished to work closely with him and obtain the benefit of his thinking in the psychological fields; and accepted a copy of the memorandum Dr. Friedgood prepared in 1950.
DA
P:HHS:LL