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HCOPL: Pretended PTS

HUBBARD COMMUNICATIONS OFFICE
Saint Hill Manor, East Grinstead, Sussex

HCO POLICY LETTER OF 28 FEBRUARY 19841

(Also issued as an HCOB, same date and title)

Remimeo
Execs
MAA/EO Hat
HCO
Tech/Qual
C/Ses
Sec Checkers
De-PTSers
PTS Packs
SSOs
Missionaires

C/S Series 118

PRETENDED PTS

Cover-up and Justification of Black PR and Evil Purposes

(This data is being issued as an HCO PL so that executives know what to look for when somebody that they have requested be handled in Ethics hasn’t been handled.)

Refs:

HCOB 19 June 70 II C/S Series 8 CHART OF HUMAN EVALUATION

HCOB 3 May 80 PC INDICATORS

HCOB 13 Oct. 82 C/S Series 116 ETHICS AND THE C/S

HCO PL 11 May 65 ETHICS OFFICER HAT

HCOB 9 May 77 II ExDn Series 24  PSYCHOSIS, MORE ABOUT

HCOB 28 Nov. 70 C/S Series 22 PSYCHOSIS

HCO Info Letter 2 Apr. 64 TWO TYPES OF PEOPLE

Hubbard Chart of Human Evaluation

It is evident that asking directly for evil purposes as part of Sec Checking has been knocked out of use over the years by SPs.

It recently occurred that, in using Sec Checking to clean up several persons who had gotten into ethics trouble on their posts, a peculiar phenomenon and pattern came to light. The persons being handled had been asked for “overts” before and had “gotten them off” but would continue committing the overts. In each case they had blamed their difficulty on having been the effect of false data and black PR fed them by bad hats long since detected and removed from the area. However, these particular cases did not straighten out with de-PTSing actions.

These persons were then asked directly for evil purposes and this action finally got to the root of the matter.

APPARENT SEQUENCE

Apparently, the sequence with such persons is:

a. They “get off overts” but then continue committing them.

b. When overt products and flaps in their areas get investigated, they palm it off as having “gone effect of others’ black PR or false data.” In other words, the person appears to be PTS.

c. They manage to convince those doing the investigating that that’s the end of the investigation.

d. If something flaps, they get off some overts and start the cycle again at (a).

In other words, they were actively committing suppressive actions while pretending to be PTS. And were busy making people around them feel PTS. While apparently the effect of suppression or black PR, they were actually generating it themselves: originating black PR to cover their own overt acts.

What had been omitted in the handlings these persons had gotten previously was the full follow-through, because routine PTS tech would of course not handle someone who was on the other side of the coin—and by pursuing it all the way through, it would have exposed the pretense.

We have in the (a) through (d) sequence above, the exact mechanism by which such people skid through the lines undetected. This may explain a great deal to many executives who have ordered staff handled and then have had to conclude that the tech didn’t work because the staff wasn’t handled. What had actually occurred is that evil purposes had been omitted from Sec Checking tech with malice aforethought and that PTS checks did not include checks for evil purposes.

This sequence shows the exact “failure” to handle people in RPFs, etc.

HANDLING

In handling a PTS, the C/S must monitor the person’s progress closely. This means inspection of all interviews and session worksheets, observing the results of each PTS handling action, his change of position (or lack of) on the Chart of Human Evaluation as evident from the pc folder and so forth.

Also, it is important that the Ethics Officer advise the D of P when a staff or public person is undergoing an ethics or justice action so that this can be noted in the person’s pc folder. In this way, the C/S can also find out if the pc has landed in ethics trouble. (Ref: HCOB 13 Oct. 82, C/S Series 116, ETHICS AND THE C/S) If the person is not making change, or repeatedly slipping into further out-ethics behavior, the C/S must recognize this. It is, possibly, the (a) to (d) sequence above in action. If the C/S suspects this to be the case, his action is to begin to handle the case with sec checking by a competent sec checker. And such sec checking must include questions about the person’s purposes and intentions.

Instead of only sec checking on, for example, “Have you committed an overt on the org?” one would also ask, “Have you had an evil purpose  regarding the org?”

Handled standardly in this way, the person can be expected to experience tremendous relief and case change.

CAUTION

If a person is progressing well on a de-PTSing program (such as PTS interview, PTS RD, Suppressed Person RD), is making change, keeping his personal ethics in and moving up the Chart of Human Evaluation, then it would be a C/S error to suddenly interject a sec check into his program.

ETHICS

None of this sets aside standard ethics and justice procedures. Such a person as would be found with a pretended PTS situation is quite likely already under some justice action, and in fact doesn’t deserve immediate handling other than what HCO deals out.

SUMMARY

Some executives have gotten in the frame of mind that it is a waste of time trying to handle a bad hat. It is true the bad hat probably doesn’t deserve to be handled but it is nevertheless true that we do have the tools to handle one.

We’re not out to handle the insane, but whether we like it or not we live in a pretty insane civilization. Any data which handles that or amplifies it technically or solves it is of course extremely vital.

L. Ron Hubbard
Founder

Notes

  1. Document studied on the How to Confront and Shatter Suppression PTS/SP Course. (2001 ed.) ↩

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HCOPL: How To Handle Black Propaganda Rumors and Whispering Campaigns

HUBBARD COMMUNICATIONS OFFICE
Saint Hill Manor, East Grinstead, Sussex

HCO POLICY LETTER OF 21 NOVEMBER 19721; 2; 3

Remimeo
All PR Packs

PR Series 18

HOW TO HANDLE BLACK PROPAGANDA

RUMORS AND WHISPERING CAMPAIGNS

“Black propaganda” (black = bad or derogatory, propaganda = pushing out statements or ideas) is the term used to destroy reputation or public belief in persons, companies or nations.

It is a common tool of agencies who are seeking to destroy real or fancied enemies or seek dominance in some field.

The technique seeks to bring a reputation so low that the person, company or nation is denied any rights whatever by “general agreement.” It is then possible to destroy the person, company or nation with a minor attack if the black propaganda itself has not already accomplished this.

Vicious and lying gossip by old women was the earlier form of this tactic and was so bad that some areas put them in public stocks (neck yokes) or drove them out of town.

In modern times there is no such check on black propaganda. Difficulties and costs of libel and slander suits, abuse of press privilege, lay anyone open to such a campaign.

All one needs is an enemy. And there are few men in history who have been without enemies.

There are random individuals in the society who do not understand very much.

This is expressed as a sort of malicious glee about things. Such pass on slanderous rumors very easily. In an illiterate society such people abound. Since they cannot read, the bulk of knowledge is denied to them. Since they do not know very many words, much of what is said to them is not understood.

This is not isolated to the illiterate only.

What they do not understand they substitute for with imaginary things.

Thus such persons not only listen to slander but also corrupt and twist even it.

Thus a rumor can go through a society that has no basis in truth.

When numbers of such rumors exist and are persistent, one suspects a “whispering campaign.” This is not because people whisper these things but because like an evil wind it seems to have no source.

Black propaganda makes use of such a willingness to pass on and amplify falsehoods.

Much black propaganda is of course more bold and appears blatantly in irresponsible (or covertly controlled) newspapers and radio and television.

But even after a bad press story has appeared or a bad radio or TV broadcast has been given, the “whispering campaign” is counted upon by black propagandists to carry the slander through the society.

Thus any person, any being, is at risk.

No person, company or nation has totally clean hands. That is left to the saints. In childhood one stole a few apples, broke a window or two, dented a fender, went joy riding in a “borrowed” vehicle or took pennies or candy bars that weren’t his own.

Childhood is quite lawless and the teenage period is often a revolt against the closer and closer fitting straitjacket of “proper social conduct.” One marries the wrong spouse or goes astray with another in some incautious moment, or commits various large and small sins of which society disapproves.

Any of these things tend to make one vulnerable to attack, upon his past or repute.

A person comes to fear bad things being said about him. In the face of a whispering campaign, real or imagined, one tends to withdraw, tends to become less active and reach less.

This is equally true of companies and even nations.

Thus, unless one knows how to handle such an attack, one can in fact be made quite miserable and ill.

THE ATTACKER

The world is full of madmen.

The basic characteristic of extreme madness is perpetual attack, attacks on anything, attacks on persons or things which contain no menace.

Extreme, not petty, crime is at the root of such an impulse.

The attacker has an evil purpose in life. He is a thing of death, not life. And his harvest is a death harvest.

Such a person feels he cannot be safe unless everything else is dead.

His evil purpose takes many forms and expressions. The end product is the same—death.

Where an attacker has gone too far he is himself then attacked. Long, bitter quarrels and national wars are alike the to and fro exchange of violence.

Where an attacker lacks the physical means of destroying others and where his own purpose would fail if disclosed, the attacks become covert.

He uses word of mouth, press media, any communication channel to spit his venom. He hides himself as the source; he makes the verbal attack seem logical or real or proven.

He counts on the utterances being picked up or distorted and passed on by the more base people in the society.

This is black propaganda. It is intended to reduce a real or imagined enemy, hurt his income and deny him friends and support.

Companies or associations do this to competitors. The American Medical Association maintains its multibillion dollar monopoly over sickness by continuing a long, well-financed black propaganda campaign against anyone it thinks might threaten their income. The head of their “Department of Investigation” (as they call their black propaganda department) once said they just kept it up and kept it up against any rival and one day WHAM! They use press releases, their own members, paid ads, displays, government connections and speakers, any channel, to release endless streams of imaginary tales against any imaginary rival. While this does bring them government support it has brought them deep hatred not only from rivals but the public at large.

They get back what they put out. They were once wealthy. They are no longer. Their members dislike them and increasingly doctors belong only to state medical societies, not the AMA. The individual doctor most often has good public

relations. His main society benefits from this and betrays it. One day, no AMA. WHAM!

So black propaganda is not something one lightly instigates. For it recoils on the person who uses it.

Let us see how it recoils.

Too much venom put out stains one with venom.

Too much black propaganda gets attacks in return.

Black propaganda is essentially a fabric of lies. The AMA simply imagines stories to put out or have put out.

Sooner or later such stories are found not to be true. ONE false story can destroy the credit of the teller. Now who listens?

Thus a black propaganda campaign is vulnerable. The attacker sooner or later is attacked- often by many.

But those who have to counter such a campaign need the technology of how it is handled.

ANY NEWS

There is a natural law at work that unfortunately favors black propaganda.

WHERE THERE IS NO DATA AVAILABLE PEOPLE WILL INVENT IT.

This is the Law of the Omitted Data.

A vacuum tends to fill itself. Old philosophers said that “nature abhors a vacuum.” Actually the surrounding pressure flows into an area of no pressure.

It is this way with a person, company or nation.

Hit by lies the person tends to withdraw. This already tends to pull things in.

The person does not then wish to put out data. He becomes to some degree a mystery.

To fill that mystery people will invent data.

This is true of persons, companies or nations.

This is where public relations is a necessity.

Essentially public relations is the art of making good works well known.

It is a fatal error to think good works speak for themselves. They do not.

They must be publicized.

Essentially this is what public relations is. And this is why it is—to fill that vacuum of omitted data.

In the midst of a black propaganda campaign one is denied normal communication channels. The press media along which the campaign is being conducted will not run favorable  comment. One is mad if he thinks it will as it is serving other masters that mean to destroy the repute of the target.

“Authoritative” utterances push plain truth out of sight.

Thus public relations people have to be very expert in their technology when they confront black propaganda.

THE TECH

When one is not fighting a battle against black propaganda, public relations is easy.

One hires a reporter who gets to work thinking up ideas and turning out releases. That’s why reporters are often thought of as public relations people which they are not.

In the face of a black propaganda campaign, such releases are twisted, refused and that is the end of it.

There is far more to the art than this.

These are some of the rules that apply:

1. Fill the vacuum of omitted data with factual data.

2. Prove all false utterances heard are lies.

3. Discredit every rumor encountered.

4. Handle the interest level with any utterance.

5. Carefully study out the scene until the exact source is located.

6. Use the knowledge of source to impede or destroy the source of black propaganda by noncriminal means.

7. Continue to fill the vacuum of no data with good data using any channels available.

Each one of these points could well take a book. But understanding them and using one’s initiative one can fill in a lot of the tech himself.

The variations of each one are endless.

APPLICATION

1. Fill the Vacuum

First of all, cease to withdraw. It is proven conclusively that in public relations handling of black propaganda, only outflow pays off. Saying nothing may be noble in a character but it is fatal in public relations. Yet even “experts” advise it (when they are doing their clients in).

Blunt denial is crude and can be used against one as a sort of confirmation.

You don’t have to announce or spread a flap and never should. PR men often make the flap.

But don’t interpret this as “silence is necessary.” Get in a safe place and speak up.

Use any channel to speak up. But don’t seek channels that will corrupt what you say in repeating it.

Don’t stay on the same subject that you are being attacked on.

An example of speaking up without denying and thus confirming might be:

STATEMENT: “I read your company went broke last month.”

REBUTTAL: “My God. You’re telling me! If we hadn’t got out of that contract we really would have gone broke. There was a hell of a row in the boardroom. But McLinty won. Scotch to the core. He said, ‘I won’t sign it!’ Like to have tore the president’s head off. Hell of a row. Seems like we got 80 million buried somewhere and McLinty is in charge of it and he won’t move an inch on it.”

The interrogator’s conclusion is you’re not broke. He’s got data. The vacuum is filled with a story of board rows and 80 million mysterious reserves.

2. Disprove False Data

The technique of proving utterances false is called “DEAD AGENTING.”

It’s in the first book of Chinese espionage. When the enemy agent gives false data, those who believed him but now find it false kill him—or at least cease to believe him.

So the PR slang for it is “dead agenting.”

This consists of disproving utterly the false statement with documents or demonstration or display. One has to have a kit (a collection of documents) or the ability to demonstrate or something to display.

STATEMENT: “I’ve been told you are in trouble with income tax people.”

REBUTTAL: “Here’s a document of fully paid taxes and a letter of commendation from the tax authorities.” Displays same.

Result? Whoever told him that is now dead with him as an accurate informer.

The best way to dead agent is when the person makes some disprovable statement, find WHO to fix his mind on it and then produce the rebuttal.

STATEMENT: “I hear you aren’t married to the man you’re living with.”

REBUTTAL: “WHO told you that?”

STATER: “I forget.”

REBUTTER: “Well you remember and I’ll show you some proof.”

STATER: “Well, it was a man.

REBUTTER: “WHO?”

STATER: “Joe Schmo.”

REBUTTER: “Okay. Here’s my marriage certificate. Who’s the Joe Schmo nut anyway?”

Now it’s Joe Schmo who’s the mystery. How come he lies? What’s in it for him?

When one hasn’t got the document but can get it, one can say, “You tell me the name of whoever said that and next time I see you I’ll show you something very interesting about it.”

And be sure to get the document and see him again.

Dead agenting has a billion variations. “It won’t fly.” Fly it. “Place is empty.”

Show him it’s full.

The subject matter of dead agenting is PROOF in whatever form.

You only challenge statements you can prove are false and in any conversation let the rest slide.

EVERY FRIEND, EVERY OPINION LEADER, EVERY STAFF MEMBER YOU HAVE, SHOULD BE SUPPLIED WITH A DEAD AGENT PACK CONTAINING PROOFS AGAINST COMMON RUMORS (AND BROCHURES AND COACHING TO FILL THE VACUUM).

3. Disprove Every Rumor

Proving negatives is almost impossible. “How do I know you aren’t a CIA man?” Well, how can one prove that? One can’t whip out a KGB badge as that would be just as bad. No one ever wrote a document, “Bill Till is not a member of the CIA.” Useless. It is a denial. Who’d believe it?

Sometimes “You don’t” works.

But the right answer to a negative (no proof) is a “fill the vacuum.”

STATEMENT: “How do I know you’re not a CIA man?”

REBUTTAL: “Christ, please don’t insult me! The CIA tried to hire me once. Said they’d shoot me if I didn’t join up. Cuba it was. I was a sugar salesman.

And Batista was trying to … etc., etc. See this scar on my leg? (Pulls up pants.) Batista cop shot me because he thought I was CIA. So don’t bring up painful subjects. (Rubs scar.) (Laugh.)”

But once in a while you can prove a negative. Accused of drug smuggling one can show he’s a member of the antidrug league. The counter in a negative proof must be creditable.

A million million variations exist in dead agenting.

The basis of it is NOT to be the thing rumored and to be able to prove it fast.

4. Handle the Level

Handling interest level is basically an exercise in the Tone Scale. (See Tone Scale Charts of Human Emotion.)

Agreement occurs at the same emotional tone level as the person making the statement. He buys his facts at that level.

To go half a tone up from his level is to command him within his zone of reality.

STATEMENT: “It’s hopeless trying to believe in anyone. I thought you people were all right but now I hear you are all hippies. (In a dull apathy.)”

REBUTTAL: “Oh, oh, oh, who could have told you such a sad lie. (Sob)”

STATER: “Wouldn’t be any use to say.”

REBUTTER: “(Sob) But you’ve got to say. Oh, I feel so awful.”

STATER: “Well, he wouldn’t care if I told. It’s the local minister.”

REBUTTER: “(Sob) (Kleenex) What an awful thing to say. Just because we found him dead drunk and took him home to sleep it off, and he said if we ever told he’d say we’re hippies.”

STATER: “What a sad story. Oh, it’s a bad world. How ungrateful.”

You go half a tone up. Give him a story, on the subject or not. Like “(Sob)  That’s because we lost our instruments. We once were a band and this nightclub owner wouldn’t pay us and we had to sleep in the barn (sob). ”

Another one.

STATEMENT: “I hear some bad things about you people. (Covert hostility.)”

REBUTTAL: “(Anger) Who would DARE say such things?” Etc.

And story type can be matched in tone.

STATEMENT: “I hear those people stole some rowboats.”

REBUTTAL: “Who said so?”

STATER: “The dockmaster’s son.”

REBUTTAL: “Oh, him. Gets things wrong. Our rowboat was stolen! With all the gear in it. We were out fishing and . . . say, you don’t suppose HE stole it do you? Did you ever hear of him stealing anything? Has he got a record?”

Well, this dockmaster’s son will now “have a record” in the stater’s tales. As theft is of interest to him, crime will also be.

5. Carefully Study Out the Scene

The technology of finding who is shooting is very vast. But the core of it is FILING.

All PR is expensive in time or money or both. And nowhere is it more time -consuming than in locating the source of a black propaganda campaign.

But, to live at all, one has to engage in this search at some time or other.

One just keeps running down these tales until one locates the source.

There can be more than one apparent source and these can be handled. But they will at last lead to the real instigator.

One just keeps locating names and filing them, with dates.

At length one name file is very thick. That’s your boy-or association or company or nation.

6. Impede or Destroy

As you have been dead agenting as you looked, the attacks get handled. The campaign ebbs and flows but actually lessens.

There are thousands of variations on finding the real WHO.

But essentially it is just looking, dead agenting, filing, looking on and on.

You are, in this whole period, handling.

Once in a while it happens fast.

Now and then the black propagandist packs up and fades away before he is fully spotted. He becomes aware of the counteraction.

The usual action is a counterpropaganda campaign based on truth.

It is a long-to-find and hard-learned fact that people who engage in black propaganda have big bursting crimes to hide.

They do not have little crimes. They have BIG ones.

One’s own ability to confront evil may be too low to really grasp the black propagandist’s crimes or believe they exist.

Such people are often SANCTIMONIOUS hypocrites. They are usually arrogant and will not parley (have conferences with a foe). They appear so terribly sure they are RIGHT that it fairly shakes one’s confidence that they could ever do anything wrong.

Thus the black propagandist is not detectable as such in many cases. The lordly institution, the lofty society, the glittering country are far, far above such a nasty psychotic trick as a studied, financed, expertly run campaign of vicious lies.

Thus they are believed. Or their servants are believed. And their campaigns can be very effective.

But this makes them hard to suspect or detect. And it makes it hard to get anything bad about them believed.

But under all this are real crimes. Not stealing apples or  pinching pennies as a child. Real crimes like extortion, blackmail, embezzlement and mass murder are sitting in their closets. Believe that. For in the course of your counterattack you may despair of ever finding anything.

But you will find it.

A lofty railroad-but secretly murdering anyone who opposed their land grabs. A minister of high renown-but a secret member of and taking orders from a murder mob. The biggest and “most respected” union leader in the country- but a numbered agent of a foreign intelligence service dedicated to destroying the country’s fuel capacity and defeating its president!

And each of these engaged in and never were suspected of black propaganda campaigns that ruined many lives.

Bad guys tend to get rid of good guys. Sometimes for what they consider good reasons, sometimes for imagined reasons, sometimes because the bad guy just can’t stand a decent, bright person.

But there is no real truth in the bad guys always cause their own downfall. It may come, but it may be far too late to save the reputation or even life of the person being attacked by hidden campaigns.

Therefore it is vital to handle the matter. One can’t just hope it will all go away. It won’t. It will get disastrous to the degree that it is not handled.

The less handling, the more disastrous.

There is another hard-won truth.

ONLY COUNTERATTACK HANDLES.

The fact is that just going on PRing oneself does not remove the effects of the campaign, and all too soon one no longer has communication lines left in order to handle anything since reputation is so destroyed no one will listen and no lines remain.

One has to fill the vacuum of the counterpropagandist’s evil deeds. As these are never exposed to view, there is a vacuum there.

Another strange thing is that press will print attacks. Maybe this will no longer be true in some enlightened age. But in this era, good attacks or fights between things will get print space.

But press is very far from the only channel of communication. Governments do believe the press and think it is public opinion. A newspaper can be a fortress of some black propagandist. But a people often believes little it reads.

There are opinion leaders, there are letters, there is word of mouth. These are also channels of communication and really far more powerful than the press.

There is also friendly press. But a friendly-talking reporter is often the most suspect. He was so nice in the interview, so vicious in his article.

Statements one makes can be curved. “She had a birthday party” becomes “The delinquents in her circle gathered yesterday for a sex orgy and pretended to the police it was a birthday party. No one was jailed.”

The brand of black propaganda is very easy to see in writing twists.

So it takes time and work to reverse an attack because normal channels have to be reopened and reversed.

It is done by attacks.

But attacks which are not true earn suits. So one must attack only on proven ground.

This requires a lot of hard search.

However, a black propagandist often has many other enemies. These have sometimes gathered data.

The principles are that when the subterminals are located, they are investigated and counterattacked. Then further investigation reveals closer terminals to the propagandist and these are attacked. In short, one investigates and attacks.

Always be ready to parley—that is, have a conference and settle it. The arrogance of the black propagandist often forbids this. And when it does, it means longer and harder work and, if well done, his downfall.

In any event, the attack is a long cycle, a complex cycle and often an expensive cycle. It consists of investigate and attack.

But remember, one must attack once he has any idea of the identity of the black propagandist or even his subterminals.

There is no other way out.

Any other course is death.

7. Continue to Fill the Vacuum

Continuous good works and effective release of material about one’s good works is vital especially in a black propaganda war.

One cannot just fight.

You are in effect advertising the other fellow when you expose him repeatedly.

This gives you a new sort of vacuum. One becomes known as the fellow or company or nation that attacks _____. But who really is this fellow or company or nation?

Pamphlets, brochures, press releases, one’s own newspaper and magazine, one’s own contacts with opinion leaders, these and many more, must be supplied with A COMPREHENSIBLE IDENTITY OF SELF.

Distributing or using these, one publicizes one’s own good works.

And one must also do good works. One can’t just dedicate his life  to eradicating the enemy, even when that is tempting.

On the other hand, within the dictates of safety, one cannot hide continuously.

One must, through his good works and actions at least, be visible.

So a continual, truthful and artful torrent of public relations pieces must occur.

Then one day there is no enemy.

And one’s repute is high.

There may be other attacks but now one can handle them as small fires and not as a whole burning forest.

WHAT IS BLACK PROPAGANDA?

You can see that black propaganda is a covert attack on the reputation of a person, company or nation, using slander and lies in order to weaken or destroy.

Defense presupposes that the target is not that bad.

One does not have to be perfect to withstand such an attack, but it helps.

But even if one were perfect it would be no defense. Almost all the saints in history have been subjected to such attacks. And most of them died of it.

The answer is PR TECHNOLOGY SKILLFULLY APPLIED.

To be skillful in anything, one has to know it and be experienced in it and DO it.

As weary a task as it may seem to some, as heartbreaking as it can be, one still has to fight. And fight with tools and technology and dedication superior to that of the enemy.

But progressing and getting small gains, small penetrations, small little skirmishes and battles, one at length comes up to victory after victory and at last wins the whole war.

One is saved.

L. RON HUBBARD
Founder

Notes

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GO/OSA NW Order: Black Propaganda

OFFICE OF SPECIAL AFFAIRS NETWORK ORDER

OSA NW ORDER 15

18 February 19881; 2

OSA NW

Confidential

BLACK PROPAGANDA

(Originally written by LRH on 12 January 1972. Issued as an OSA NW Order on 18 February 1988.)

Black propaganda is a covert communication of false data intended to injure, impede or destroy the activity or life of another person, group or nation, usually issued from a false or removed source from the actual instigator.

It is used heavily in “psychological warfare.”

It is a specialized technology of its own.

It relies chiefly on the technique of “classification” of another or a group or a nation as undesirable or evil.

It has many counter weapons and is itself essentially fragile because it is false.

Dianetics, Scientology and myself for a very long time have been subjected to a very standard black propaganda campaign instigated by trained persons — the AMA in the US, the British Psychological Association in Australia, the National Association of Mental Health in England and internationally.

What is being attempted by black propagandists is to classify us firmly in the public mind by constant repetition of certain words like “cult.” The more we let such propagandists do this, the more chance we give them, the more opportunity they have.

A black artist has to be carefully trained to do this and I am suddenly quite interested in such fellows. It isn’t just “tho way things are written.” Such are well trained intelligence pros in the field of psychological warfare.

Psychiatry today advises advertising and propaganda and designed of course this campaign we have  experienced.

The subject is even touched on by Dr. Thomas Szasz as a psychiatric technique in his book Ideology and Insanity, page 49, chapter 4, page 53 section IV, page 67 section IX and his whole article “Psychiatric Classification as Personal Restraint”, page 190 of the same book. Of these, page 53 section IV is the most interesting in application to this subject of classification.

“Classification is a social act. The classification of individuals or groups entails the ‘participation of at least three different types of

OSA NWO 15

– 2 –

persons: Classifier, Classified, and a public called upon to accept or reject a particular classification.”

While Szasz is not using it as it applies to psychological warfare (black propaganda) or advertising, it is nevertheless a key point in psychiatric planning of any campaign.

The AMA counts on this utterly.

So this is their one trick.

To cancel an enemy’s chief weapon is in itself a part of victory.

To cease to be the effect of classification and become in our turn the cause of it, the classifier, is to win the propaganda game.

Our propaganda is dirty but it is not black because it is true. Black propaganda is essentially false.

We can do this trick by survey and attack. As what is attacked is already popularly evil, we become re-classified as attackers and the enemy as bad hats as they’re for the evil if they attack us.

We won’t be running a black campaign as we deal in truth.

Black campaigns ARC break people since they depend on false reports and are thus out-R. Hence your dead agent actions work.

We just run propaganda campaigns.

The objective is to be identified as attackers of popularly considered evils. This de-classifies us from former labels. It re-classifies our attackers as evil people. Which they are.

In the book Black Boomerang by Sefton Delmer (1962) published by Secker and Warburg, London, Delmar gives various formulas of black propaganda used in WW II. They used intelligence to get enough facts to run a convincing but fake “German radio station” from England.

Since WW II psychiatry has moved its techniques into advertising and propaganda and the think of these is in the Szasz references above.

So we

(1) Seek to avoid opportunities for the enemy to classify us.

(2) Contest or expose any previous classification as false (dead agentry, etc.)

(3) Engage in a series of campaigns which confuse past classification.

(4) Achieve for ourselves a dominance in classifying ourselves and others.

OSA NWO 15

– 3 –

Out of this strategic planning can come operating policies and campaigns.

L. RON HUBBARD
Founder

Adopted as official
Church policy by
CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY
INTERNATIONAL
LRH:CSI:jk:ta:

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HCOPL: Black PR

HUBBARD COMMUNICATIONS OFFICE
Saint Hill Manor, East Grinstead, Sussex

HCO POLICY LETTER OF 11 MAY 19711; 2; 3
Issue II

Remimeo

PR Series 7

BLACK PR

About the most involved employment of PR is its covert use in destroying the repute of individuals and groups.

More correctly this is technically called BLACK PROPAGANDA.

Basically it is an intelligence technique.

It can be a serious error to cross intelligence and PR.

These are two different fields. They have two distinctly different technologies.

A PR man must also know something of intelligence technology. Otherwise one day he will be left gaping.

Intelligence is intelligence. PR is PR.

When you gather information by intelligence procedures and at once employ it for PR, the result is likely to be poor.

It is not that it isn’t done. It’s that it isn’t very effective. Also it is an act of desperation.

PR IS OVERT.

INTELLIGENCE IS COVERT.

PR is at its best when it begins and ends overtly.

Intelligence is best when it begins and ends covertly.

PR with an open demand by known authors, a demonstration, a conference is normal PR.

Intelligence trembles on the edge of PR when filched data explodes a storm in the public. It recoils when the authors are then known.

Black propaganda is, in its technical accuracy, a covert operation where unknown authors publicly effect a derogatory reaction and then remain unknown.

The effect of black propaganda is largely wiped out by “Oh, it was the Germans who set them up.”

So PR enters intelligence in this way: One finds who set up the black propaganda and explodes that into public view.

This use of PR is almost that of an auditor to the group. One is disclosing hidden sources of aberration.

To use intelligence to find where they hid the body and then flip over into wide publicity is not very powerful in actual practice. There better be a body there and one better tell the police not the public.

If there are no effective police, then one has the problem of police action. Exploding it to the public ideally is an effort to make the public a vigilante committee. Modern publics seldom rise this high. Educated publics seldom explode to the explosion.

A PR man who thinks of taking Blitz & Company’s crimes to the public is really just dreaming hopefully—without foundation. It may or may not hurt Blitz. It might recoil. The ability of the public to stand around and look stupidly at a dripping-handed murderer without doing a thing about it is a symptom of our civilization. They ought to act. They don’t. You can form an opinion amongst them but governing bodies won’t consult it.

Exposure is not an effective road to action. It can be to opinion. It is slow.

Then what is effective?

INTELLIGENCE

By definition intelligence is covert. Undercover. If it is kept so all the way it is effective.

When intelligence surfaces it becomes very ineffective.

Threat and mystery are a lot of the power of intelligence. Publicity blows it.

Take the Red Orchestra, World War II, Stalingrad Campaign. In Berlin, Schultz-Boysen and other highly placed Russian agents got the whole German plan of the battle that was to be Stalingrad. Brilliant and covert intelligence. They passed it to the Russians. Brilliant and covert comm. The boss at Center in Moscow put the ring’s names and addresses in a code radio message. The Germans of course broke the code. The Germans rounded them up and messily executed them on meat hooks. The Germans had no other battle plans but contemplated not attacking Stalingrad that way. This put the whole coup at risk. Then the Germans did use the plans the Russians knew and that was the beginning of the end of WW II.

So TWO exposures threatened the success of this intelligence coup. One was the stupid radio message. The other was the realization the Russians had the battle plans.

Exposure is the basic threat of intelligence.

PR is the willful broadcast of information.

The two don’t mix well.

BLACK PROPAGANDA

Possibly used since the morning pale of history, black propaganda was developed by the British and German services in World War I into a fine art.

The word “propaganda” means putting out slanted information to populations.

One propagandizes the enemy population or one’s own or neutrals.

In popular interpretation it is a parade of lies or half-truths or exaggerations.

PR and advertising technology and mass news media are employed as well as word of mouth and posters.

The trouble with it is that it can often be disproven, discrediting the utterers of it.

It may serve the moment but after a war it leaves a very bad taste.

If one is engaging on a campaign of this nature, its success depends on sticking to the truth and being able to document it.

The entire black propaganda campaign conducted for twenty-one years against Scientology began to fold up in its sixteenth year because never at any time did its instigators (a) have any factual adverse data or (b) tell the truth.

The Scientology movement continued if only by heroic means and much sacrifice.

But at last nobody of any note believed the propaganda.

The attackers pulled in on themselves a counterattack based on penetrating, horrible, documented truth.

It required intelligence-like tactics to discover who it was exactly.

The “dead agent caper” was used to disprove the lies. This consisted of counterdocumenting any area where the lies were circulated. The lie “they were ____” is countered by a document showing “they were not.” This causes the source of the lie and any other statements from that source to be discarded.

That real trouble and damage was caused Scientology is not to be discounted. The brilliance of the defense was fantastic. The depth and inroads the propagandists reached was alarming. BUT THEY DIDN’T MAKE IT.

Some black propaganda campaigns have won in other areas, not Scientology.

The British got the US into World War I with black propaganda, despite a president elected on a peace platform.

Many individuals have been destroyed by black propaganda. Wilhelm Reich was by the lies and violence of the FDA.

So black propaganda is not a certain-result technology. It is costly. It makes fantastic trouble.

Essentially it is NOT a PR campaign. It is a cross between PR and intelligence.

The technique is:

A hidden source injects lies and derogatory data into public view.

Since it is a hidden source, it requires an intelligence approach to successfully end it.

In the meanwhile the “dead agent caper” is the best tool to counter it.

Legal action can restrain such a campaign but is chancy unless one knows the source or at least has counterdocuments. It is risky solely because “law” is unpredictable. However legal action has a definite role in restraining, not in ending, such a campaign.

A good policy when faced with a black propaganda campaign is to defend as best you can (dead agent and legal restraints) while you find out (intelligence) WHO is doing it. Then, confrontation can occur. Finding and suing false whos can make things much more involved.

Black propaganda countercampaigns are inevitable. One engages upon them whether he would or no. These are engaged on while one narrows down the area to an exact WHO. For instance, one knows the Whatsits are attacking one. Thus he can counterattack the Whatsits. But what are the Whatsits exactly? and to whom are they connected? and exactly WHO, an individual always, is keeping it going? These last three have to be answered eventually. And that requires an intelligence-type search.

THE CROSS

So there is where intelligence and PR cross.

When PR goes into black propaganda (hidden source using lies and defamation to destroy) it has crossed intelligence with publicity. They don’t mix well.

The action is risky to engage upon as it may run into an ex-intelligence officer or trained intelligence personnel. It may also run into a dead agent caper or legal restraint.

Anyone engaging in black propaganda is either using a wrong way to right a wrong or confessing he can’t make it in open competition.

PROTEST PR

Outright protest PR based on facts is a legitimate method of attempting to right wrongs.

It has to be kept overt. It has to be true.

Protest PR can include demonstrations, hard news stories and any PR mechanism.

Minorities have learned that only protest PR can get attention from politicians or lofty institutions or negligent or arrogant bosses.

Where protest PR is felt to be a necessity, neglect has already occurred on the issues.

The riots of Panama some years ago were very violent, verging on open war. This followed the negligence of the US in negotiating new treaties, a matter arranged for long ago and arrogantly skipped for several years by the US.

The slaves were freed in 1864 but were either misused or neglected for the next century and finally became a key racial problem full of demonstrations and riots and social unrest. Imperfect redress of wrongs following these then continued the riots. This is probably the biggest PR mess of the last century and a half, wobbling this way and that. It is still in the stage of protest PR, possibly because it went so very, very long unhandled.

The only real recourse these people had was protest PR. Recently, black congressmen were refused audience by the president and had to stage a demonstration before it was granted. But protest PR did obtain an audience.

The silliest idea of modern times is conscription. Draftee soldiers might possibly be excused as a levée en masse but not as the habit of government in peace and war just to overcome their lack of ability to make the country worth fighting for and the armed services a stable, attractive career. This is all the more foolish since hardly anyone in history ever had any trouble recruiting an army that could pay for one. Even Gibbon remarks on it as an amazingly easy thing to do in any civilization. And that is true today.

So conscription is continued. Facing every young man with an arbitrary military future was a bad thing. Napoleon invented it and he lost.

Protest PR was the answer used to contest it. Met by force and violence, it has not halted.

Somebody will have to give the country a nobler cause more decently prosecuted, will have to better the services and conditions and will have to admit men without demanding their right names or perfect physique and make them immune to recall for civil offenses. Probably that army would fight well. Conscript services are too expensive, too inefficient and too ready to revolt for any sane government to use them. But here this unhandled wrong has to resort to protest PR.

So protest PR has its place. It is a fine art. It is the subject of fantastic skill and tech.

It is not good. But it does work and it is used as a last resort when normal hearings and good sense fail.

When money and force lead and opinion leaders are unheeded, when special privilege enters management or government, protest PR, the strike, the demonstration, is the tool employed.

If that doesn’t work, or if it is crushed, subversive actions, general intelligence actions, black propaganda and other evils occur.

PR used soon enough can avert much of these consequences.

But there are always two in any fight and the other side may not want to live and so set themselves up.

Intelligent early PR is the best remedy. But it is not always possible.

L. Ron Hubbard
Founder

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HCOB: The Continuing Overt Act

HUBBARD COMMUNICATIONS OFFICE
Saint Hill Manor, East Grinstead, Sussex

HCO BULLETIN OF 29 SEPTEMBER 19651; 2
Issue II

Remimeo
Missions
Students
BPI

All Levels

THE CONTINUING OVERT ACT

Pity the poor fellow who commits daily harmful acts.

He’ll never make it.

A criminal pilfering the cash box once a week has himself stopped cold as far as case gains are concerned.

In 1954 I counted some noses. I checked up on twenty-one cases who had never had any gains since 1950. Seventeen turned out to be criminals! The other four were beyond the reach of investigation.

That gave me my first clue.

For some years then, I watched for no-gain cases and carefully followed up those that I could.

They had major or minor criminal backgrounds.

This gave the 1959 breakthrough on the meter checks (Sec Checking).

Following it further since 1959 I have finally amassed enough histories to state:

THE PERSON WHO IS NOT GETTING CASE GAINS IS COMMITTING CONTINUING OVERTS.

While this sounds like a very good “out” for us, we assume that the auditor at least tried something sensible.

Today—the running of a pc by grades is a saving grace for merely “tough cases”. Directors of Processing are doing well with the modern graded process approach, level by level, and the D of P Washington has just told me they were cracking cases with the lowest grade processes DC had never been able to handle well before.

So, given processing by Grades (the best case approach we’ve ever had), we crack the rough ones.

But will that be all cases?

There’s still one. The case who continually commits overts before, during and after processing.

He won’t make it.

One thing helps this, however.

You have seen the Ethics Codes appear.

By putting a bit of control in the Scientology environment we have enough threat to restrain dramatization.

The phenomena is this: The reactive bank can exert stress on the pc if it is not obeyed.

Discipline must exert just a shade more stress against dramatization than the bank does. This checks the performance of the continual overt long enough to let processing bite.

Not everyone is a continuous overt committer by a thousand to one. But this phenomenon is not confined to the no-gain case.

The slow gain case is also committing overts the auditor doesn’t see.

Therefore a little discipline in the environment speeds the slow gain case, the one we’re more interested in.

The no-gain case, frankly, is one I am not panting to solve. If a fellow wants to sell his next hundred trillion for the sake of the broken toy he stole, I’m afraid I can’t be bothered. I have no contract with any Big Thetan to save the world complete.

It is enough for me to know:

1. Where bottom is, and

2. How to help speed slow gain cases.

Bottom is the chap who eats your lunch apple and says the children did it. Bottom is the fellow who sows the environment with secret suppressive acts and vicious generalities.

The slow gain case responds to a bit of “keep your nose clean, please, while I apply the thetanbooster.”

The fast gain case does his job and doesn’t give a hoot about threatened discipline if it’s fair.

And the fast gain case helps out and the fast gain case can be helped by a more orderly environment.

The good worker works more happily when bad workers see the pitfalls and desist from distracting him.

So we all win.

The no-gain case? Well, he sure doesn’t deserve any gain. One pc in a thousand. And he yaps and groans and says “Prove it works” and blames us and raises hell. He makes us think we fail.

Look down in our Saint Hill files. There are actually thousands upon thousands of Scientologists there who each one comment on how wonderful it is and how good they feel. There are a few dozen or so who howl they haven’t been helped! What a ratio! Yet I believe some on staff think we have a lot of dissatisfied people. These no-gain characters strew so much entheta around that we think we fail. Look in the Saint Hill files sometime! Those many thousands of reports continue to pour in from around the world with hurrah! Only the few dozen groan.

But long ago I closed my book on the no-gain case. Each of those few dozen no-gains tell frightening lies to little children, pour ink on shoes, say how abused they are while tearing the guts out of those unlucky enough to be around them. They are suppressive persons, every one. I know. I’ve seen them all the way down to the little clinker they call their soul. And I don’t like what I saw.

The people who come to you with wild discreditable rumors, who seek to tear people’s attention off Scientology, who chew up orgs, are suppressive persons.

Well, give them a good rock and let them suppress it!

I can’t end this HCO B without a confession. I know how to cure them rather easily.

Maybe I’ll never let it be done.

For had they had their way we would have lost our chance. It’s too near to think about.

After all, we have to earn our freedom. I don’t care much for those who didn’t help. The rest of us had to sweat a lot harder than was necessary to make it come true.

L. Ron Hubbard
Founder

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HCOB: Signs of Success

HUBBARD COMMUNICATIONS OFFICE
WASHINGTON, DC

HCO BULLETIN OF 1 MAY 19581; 2

Remimeo

SIGNS OF SUCCESS

Whenever we’re really winning the squirrels start to scream. You can tell if somebody is a squirrel. They howl or make trouble only when we’re winning.

Spectacular success can quadruple the number of complaints. Tell the complainees: “Come in, get clear.” Otherwise skip it.

To understand a squirrel, consider the reaction of somebody who could not run the fifth leg of help “How could another person help another person”. The thought of this drives some people spinny. That’s a squirrel. They can’t view other people helping others without going berserk.

There’s nothing personal in having squirrels. Even heroes can have lice.

L. Ron Hubbard
Founder

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