◉ PSYCHOHISTORY

DIA, 'Controlled Offensive Behavior — USSR' (July 1972)

publicationIntelligence & Surveillance · Occult & Esoteric · Media & Managed Opposition
Eight years before MindWar, US military intelligence had already written the manual — and its own worked example was British.
Who they are

'Controlled Offensive Behavior — USSR', July 1972, by Captain John D. LaMothe of US Army Medical Intelligence, for the Defense Intelligence Agency — the military's own spy service, separate from the CIA. Reference ST-CS-01-169-72. Declassified in 2003.

What they do

A ten-part study of every route into a human being: drugs, flickering light, smell, sound above and below hearing, sensory deprivation, electromagnetic effects, propaganda and mass media, hypnosis, sleep-teaching, and messages pitched below awareness.

How it works

Its opening example is not Soviet, and it says so. It walks through how Catholic men interned without trial in Northern Ireland in 1971 and 1972 were handled — stood against a wall with hands raised for hours on end, hooded, noise generators running to drown out meaning, fed bread and water, kept from sleep — and calls it 'an excellent example of the type of efforts that this report is expressing'. It notes the methods had been outlawed for use on humans by the American Psychological Association.

Why it matters

Every mechanism the famous 1980 papers point at in their footnotes — low-frequency radio, infrasound, sensory deprivation — is already a numbered chapter here in 1972. The 1980 documents are not the start of this. They are two officers arguing about a file that was already eight years old.

The engine's record — word for word
July 1972 US Defense Intelligence Agency study: 'Controlled Offensive Behavior — USSR (U)', ST-CS-01-169-72, by Capt. John D. LaMothe (Army Medical Intelligence; stated in the document: 'The author of this study is Captain John D. LaMothe, Medical Intelligence'). Declassified for release 2003/09/09; CIA reading-room copy CIA-RDP96-00788R001300010001-7. Structure: ten parts, one per route into a person — psychopharmacology; light + colour incl. photic-flicker; odour; sound split infrasonic / sonic / ultrasonic; sensory deprivation; electromagnetic effects; propaganda + mass media; hypnosis incl. hypnopedia, subliminal perception + telepathic hypnosis; Soviet parapsychology; appendix naming personnel + institutes. Its own opening worked example is not Soviet and the report says so: the 1971-72 detention regime applied to Catholic internees in Northern Ireland (northern_ireland_1971_detainee_regime) 'are not Soviet originated but provide an excellent example of the type of efforts that this report is expressing.' Records those methods as 'outlawed for use on humans by the American Psychological Association', and that stress-isolation can elicit false confessions 'where both prisoner and interrogator are convinced the statements rendered are true.' Engine read: the keystone under the 1980 paperwork, eight years upstream. Every mechanism the 1980 documents reach for in footnotes — ELF, infrasound, sensory deprivation, electromagnetic effect (moscow_signal, tandy_19hz_infrasound) — is already a numbered chapter here. Cited as footnote 3 of alexander_new_mental_battlefield_1980, which is the article mindwar was written to answer. Precedes sri_changing_images_of_man_1974 by two years with the same subject matter inside military intelligence.
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