(00:00:00) In recent years, we've witnessed numerous acts of terrorism around the world from hijackings to bombings to hostage takings in a situation that involves hostages and negotiators are busy working behind the scenes to try and prevent the loss of life and to try and maintain National Security. One of these people is our guest today on midday Steve beshear Nick was one of the federal government's principal crisis managers during the Ford and Carter administration's he was involved in negotiations that led up to the release of more than five hundred hostages including those who were held after the Takeover of the American Embassy in Tehran Iran. He assisted in the reorganization of the state Department's office to combat terrorism and help plan the Camp David Summit conference. He's currently working as a consultant to the Rand Corporation and recently completed a study on Soviet political behavior and decision-making. He's written a book. It's just out that's called The Mind Palace and novel about Soviet psychiatric practices, but a novel that is based on fact, he's Practicing psychiatrist, he speaks four languages and he's only 42 years old, (00:01:05) right? Yes, not yet. Yeah. Oh, okay Harvard Yale before (00:01:09) okay you the book that you've written and talked about psychiatric abuse of Soviet dissidents. How did how did you get into that (00:01:20) system? Well or didn't you or do you still get into Italy the Mind Palace? First of all, let me see. I thank you for the introduction of Mind Palace is a fictional account of what's based on reality and I wrote it in fiction so that I could allow the reader to feel what it felt like to be a Russian within a system that is considered paranoid and weary and secretive and I wrote it because I was one of the principal negotiators of the psychiatric Health agreements between the US government and the Soviet Union. So I had first-hand account of meeting one of the principal characters that I created in. The book is based on dr. Seuss nevsky in the Soviet Union who was the father of a diagnosis that we do not have here in the Yes, and that's course luggage schizophrenia and I still have a hard time saying it's SL U GG is H and I talked about in the mind Palace and it's a diagnosis which allows the Soviet officials to incarcerate almost anyone that shows anti-soviet disposition Behavior attitudes and includes anyone who believes in Lutheranism baptism. There are a lot of Baptists right now on the hospital's a lot of Pentecostals a lot of Seventh-Day Adventists contrary to what most people think is not just only Jews who are there incarcerating the really beginning to focus on the Christians and it's anybody who is opposed to the Soviet government and I decided I would write about it having met the principal's who divides the system having talked to the dissidents themselves and site Soviet psychiatrist in a way that would allow the reader to really understand and feel what it's like from their perspective why it makes sense from their perspective. So it took several years for me to integrate the material to do the research and then finally put it down on (00:02:54) paper one of the most popular and well-known. I would say popular with Soviet dissidents. This point anyway, in news is Elena Bonner who is apparently being given permission to leave the Soviet Union for treatment of an eye ailment. She is one that and also Andrei sakharov that it seems have not been subjected to these psychiatric abuse has (00:03:17) no not that we know of but Andrei sakharov has documented the abuses himself speaks of the numbers of prisoners of political conscience are in about 10,000 and he estimates that of that about 20% are in psychiatric hospitals. They would not subject him to psychiatric. He's just has two high-profile. It would be too dangerous. However, they have subjected all types of others who they eventually have released so that the use of what they consider psychotherapies the hydrotherapy is the wet packs the insulin coma the self Vezina injections all things that we do not have here in the West Wood for which they've been reprimanded from the world Psychiatric association, and eventually expelled in 1983. Those things still exist and by the way exist even to a greater degree with the presence of this very unctuous smooth leader of the Soviet Union Gorbachev. He has not really changed it at all. The practice continues. (00:04:13) You've dealt a lot with terrorists correct in the past. Do you consider the this psychiatric system of form of (00:04:21) terrorism? It's an excellent question. Yes, it's a form of what we call institutional or nation state terrorism. The whole Soviet system is based on the concept that one you have one employer the Soviet government to that. They can monitor your behavior. And in order to monitor your behavior. They have to impose a state of Terror. That is the KGB the internal security system. Now, it's not as as simplistic as someone assumes it. Basically as I point out in the mind Palace is that there's a whole suspiciousness that exists within the Soviet system and there's a concept over on you which means that the government lies to the citizen the citizen lies to the government the doctor lies. Patient the patient lies to the doctor everyone knows that they're lying to one another but in order to save face, that's how you maintain the system and you rationalize the excesses are the abuse is but there's no question its state terrorism the Soviets clearly deny it there there counter-charges that we tend to politicize their psychiatric system and that we're trying to maintain the Cold War which is nonsense because the world Psychiatric association again has reprimand him as has Amnesty International by the way, but there's no question. This is State terrorism of the form that we have never seen anywhere else. It does not exist in any other part of the world. (00:05:36) Do you come at this from a political perspective or a medical advice? I got from (00:05:40) both. I'm trained both as a psychiatrist and a PhD in an - relations. And what I've tried to do in the mind Palace is to integrate it from both perspectives that is to get into the mind the Consciousness and the psyche and the spiritual parts of being a Russian citizen who is also a psychiatrist and then I go into detail in the mind Palace and how the politburo Looks the machinations the counter strategies and I might say a modestly I wrote this about a year and a half ago. And I predicted the rise of Gorbachev the profile having studied their decision-making process and accurately and I don't want to give away the story line predicted that they would demand a 50% cut in their nuclear force structure. That's part of the plan in the book and that's exactly what Gorbachev has demanded. And the reason for that it's not very hard. If you follow the Soviet Union the you know that they're in a major state of transition at this particular point and they have some very serious internal problems, which they have to accommodate two and Gorbachev was a logical candidate for them. (00:06:38) Okay. I think we've got a caller on the line with the question for Steve Fisher Sonic. Go ahead please with your question. (00:06:45) Yes. I'm interested in what the psychiatrist themselves in Russia use or state as the criteria for a diagnosis of what you call sluggish schizophrenia. (00:06:55) That's excellent. What they do is they are criteria is basically a form. Of what we would consider Layton schizophrenia that has anybody who met Samantha sighs certain complaints were peers unusually neurotic or has certain aggressive tendencies, but has an overlay where they complain about the Soviet system or anything that relates to the political system and that automatically puts them into the sluggish schizophrenia category within the category can be things like vagrancy true hooliganism, which they call hooliganism or parasitism. So it's a category that's all all-encompassing and we in the and United States have had an impossible time trying to convince him that there's no counterpart to this and we really can't even corroborate it they on the other hand have gone into extensive research to try to prove its existence through blood test. (00:07:46) Is this is this diagnosis being made anywhere other than the Soviet Union (00:07:51) nowhere else. It does not exist in any other country other than perhaps Romania and Czechoslovakia, which is also been accused by Amnesty International of psyche at political views of the psychiatric system. (00:08:02) Okay, we have another caller waiting with the question. Go ahead please (00:08:06) yes, I number of years ago. I wrote a fascinating book called psychiatric care Earth. Yes. I imagine you're familiar with that (00:08:13) heat a red ways book and Sydney block. Yeah, that's (00:08:16) correct. I was amazed that the conclusion of the book they were talking about trying to put some pressure on the associate psychiatric community and the indicated that two of the government's that were strongly opposed to putting pressure on them where the United States input (00:08:34) and who England. Yes. That's that's correct at the time. That book was written with 74 Peter right away has written an excellent book and that's why I decided to write it in fiction, by the way, just to Counterpoint the Mind Palace. A lot of the premises and realities that Peter describes a nonfiction but very few people have read it. It is true at that time the APA the American Psychiatric association and the British associations are very much opposed because they felt and the rationale at the time was that if we alienate the Russians, there's no way for us to have a window of opportunity either to observe them or to enter into a dialogue. However, I must say to their credit in 1977 in Hawaii, the Americans the Brits and the Danish Representatives made a motion to protest the use of sluggish schizophrenia and denounced. She's now skis well as a Soviet practice and they asked that the Soviet Union place in effect a monitoring group the Soviet Union did place a monitoring group in subsequent to that and as I talked about in the mind Palace, they incarcerated everybody on the monitoring group as well. As one of the psychiatrist Anatolia cohaagen who is very well known and is now is in Civ imprisoned severely beaten up as a result of their action the world You can so see a Chanel with the leadership of the American Psychiatric association. And again, the British and the Danish made a motion to expel the Soviet Union instead of being expelled. They walked out and they and their satellites. So all of this I try to discuss in a very interesting kind of medical Thriller way, which the critics have compared to The Hunt for Red October in Gorky Park in the book The Mind Palace, but you certainly know your facts quite well. (00:10:13) Have you had any reaction from the Soviets? (00:10:16) No, not yet. But interestingly enough. I've had a very unusual reaction, which I would not have predicted having been a product of the New England and Northeast establishment liberal establishment Harvard MIT and all of that the Northeast establishment has been very reluctant to put me on the air either radio or TV or major press coverage on an issue, which is very timely and I don't take it totally personally. It's not a paranoid porn on my part and they've said it to me. I'll write a point-blank idli and I was incredulous and that was that they don't want to alienate the Soviets at this point in time because of their access they want to have immediate access to the summit conference and they feel that they would be unduly harming their chances. Now if you understand the point of view, it's very logical. I mean if I don't know if your audiences are aware of it, I mean this sounds like some right-wing rhetoric which it's not but the most media people on the national level are very much concerned about the career and the fact that here's a Who's opportunity and they want to get that opportunity so they don't want to go out of their way at a time where there are some very crucial issues and Bonners been released has been another individual Irina who's been released just today who's been in the prison systems because of a protest of psychiatric abuse and they know it's a very clear issue. However, the press and the media have been intimidated. I'd like to say co-opted quite frankly by the Soviet PR so that's been an incredible (00:11:37) reaction with your background in crisis management. I mean that you could see these things coming I would think is that a possibility (00:11:44) in terms of what the co-optation or the pr. (00:11:48) Well if your book or criticisms of the Soviet Union got too heated at this point in time that the American Media would be prevented prevented from covering the summit. I in an objective, that's (00:11:59) interesting. I wouldn't have predicted that quite frankly. I would have thought more of our press in terms of wanting to say fine. I mean that's just another point of view here is the niche in the armor that Gorbachev is presented. It's a reality and The international talks about it, but I really did not believe that they would say it so boldly and be so intimidated and that was something that it would surprise me quite frankly. (00:12:24) You've got another caller waiting on the line for the question for Steve fish in it. Go ahead, (00:12:27) please. Yeah, I've got to consent my understanding religion and a officially a theistic country like Russia the whole people still go to church and then there's all the people in the middle but the younger people seem to be starting to participate in so many things and does that tie into the struggle with the Jews who want to emigrate the second part is that long historic connection with France. And is that any help in getting any contact with Russian Psychiatry? (00:13:10) It's actually questions the first one in the mind Palace. Try to describe in my protagonist who the psychiatrist dr. Boris of is his atheistic approach to life and the fact that he's not a card-carrying communist, but he does have what we call considered spiritual emptiness and then the Russia and the Soviet Union now, there's very much of this lacunae in terms of certainly status that I talked about in the mind Palace because religion is not sanctioned. There are not many other Alternatives and nobody really believes in the Marxist ideology. So what happens in effect and I'm sorry the point here was that the official sanction of religion that is the older people who do go is not sufficient. What you have is a rise in class of adolescence and younger people who don't believe in anything and what they're looking for is really a form of materialism. My character goes into working on icons as a substitute for religion and it's his connection with the Soviet Union Mother Russia, but most of the younger kids now who want to practice Religion will do it sub Rosa, but what they've done interesting enough is they've gone into very heavily into American materialism. And the KGB in the Soviet Union is very concerned about that particularly American rock-and-roll where they've had to literally Co-op the entire Western rock and roll system by creating these quasi-official discotheques where they can dance in terms of the Russians continuing to crack down on religion. They've had a major problem. It's not only the Jewish dissidents who want to go to the Soviet Union. That's at to the Israel. That's that's somewhat different from this issue. Although it's relevant. They really want to immigrate as a result of their religion or it's an opportunity to emigrate in contrast what the Russians are doing right now is to incarcerate for example on a shit Global who's been in the Tashkent special psychiatric hospital for the past 11 years because she's a Baptist. She wants to proselytize others in baptism. She doesn't want to give up her religion and as a result the injected with a drug that we don't even have here in America. Can we were totally abhor and it's called self has 'in, which is when you inject it intramuscularly, you create an abscess fever of over a hundred and four severe debilitation almost death and simply because she doesn't want to give up that because I'm now this has been documented. She's a ward of Amnesty International. She's been documented by Amnesty International. So that's the first part of the question in terms of the second part the French they've had a special relationship but Gorbachev tried to use that in order to manipulate their relationship with us so that they would try to divide France from the US government and that was not very successful. No, I don't need French psychiatrist to really get into the Soviet system one can get in through the Soviet system through Soviet psychiatrist. (00:15:56) Are there are there any psychiatrist within that system who are working against (00:16:02) it very much. So it's not a monolithic system you have on the one hand the doctor shows an excuse. We developed this luggage schizophrenia on the other hand. You have interestingly enough the Leningrad school, for example, that's trying to oppose it. There are some Russian psychiatrist who've written in Lancet journal and our medical journals that they oppose the overuse of sluggish get something in the abuses. Then you have someone like dr. Anatolia Cody again on the extreme who did protest that he examined 15 dissidents who everyone knew was slated to go into a psychiatric hospital found them totally normal. He made a public testimony to that effect and in 1981, he was incarcerated stripped of his MD degree. He was put into a psychiatric special Psychiatric Hospital in internal Exile, which he's now in a prison camp severely beaten and I may be dead. We don't know that Amnesty International has adopted him. So there are doctors like, dr. Anna told you karate and of whom I've modeled. A key character. Dr. Boris off in the mind Palace. (00:16:59) We will go on to our next caller. Go ahead, please. (00:17:02) Yes under what conditions in a hostage situation. Would you recommend an armed assault? I'll hang up now. (00:17:10) That's an excellent question. You can't it's hard to say. Tactically. We always have try to have a military capability whenever we negotiate simply because we need that option. By the way, I have are rarely ever used it in one case. I would have liked to views that there was an episode in Washington where the hanafi Muslims took over three buildings and it killed already several people, but we couldn't use it interestingly enough contrary to the public image of the FBI. The FBI was unable to literally get off those helicopters without being dizzy. So we had a real problem. We found that at the last minute and that by the way is one of the problems of having a surgical strike capability the Army assures you that they know what they're doing and with all deference to their aspirations. Not often the case and what happens is that you have to be willing to lose about 30% of your hostages. If you want to use Force the Israelis always count on that and they quote that far more effective than we are in the cases where I see that there's no point in negotiating any further and that's rarely ever happened. I've gone a negotiations for years with some hostages have been held in Colombia and the jungles of Colombia, but we've rarely had to use Force now, there are situations that don't present themselves to force. For example in Beirut TWA hijacking in July, we would have loved to have used force and we did in a kind of awkward Way the show of force to really just makes us look more rampant, but we couldn't locate the hostages and the terrorists knew that so there is a problem with the use of force. However, we have to be able to use it effectively. (00:18:43) What do you think about the interception of the plane carrying the hijackers of the achille? Lauro, (00:18:48) I think quite frankly much has been done much has been said about what really is a very low order type of counterterrorism. I mean it is not all that impressive to have for Tomcats waiting for a commercial airliner somewhere up in the sky. You know, I think it did a lot for President Reagan's morale and maybe boost it up somebody elses morale but it just shows me that we have a long way to go. We're nowhere near as where our capability should be in terms of intelligence government policy or military. (00:19:20) So any counter terrorist actions are going to have to wait until we develop. Those are you (00:19:24) saying? Well, we have to have to be a lot more effective in what we do and lower our rhetoric our heat is too high. Our expectations are too high and there's nothing so far on the horizon that's going to deter a terrorist waiting for commercial airline is not a very effective Terror counter-terrorist proposition to some terrorist and they route who's waiting to blow up your installation. (00:19:44) Okay, see if we can get into a little bit more of that but we'll go to our next caller. Go ahead, please. (00:19:49) Hello. This is a very brief and very personal question. Have you had any contact with the perch of medics? Said there's that one of them is a young man who wrote the thing on punitive medicine. (00:20:02) I'm sorry. I don't the Parker Bennett's I didn't hear that quite. Well, that's my (00:20:06) fault. Can you repeat the name, please ma'am (00:20:09) Tio ERI PE n i k and I wrote the initial book on the use of punitive (00:20:16) medicine. I think I know what you mean. No, I have not personally. No. (00:20:21) Okay. We'll go to our next caller. Go ahead, please. Hello, you're on the air. (00:20:26) Yeah, I'd like to ask a question about the internal policy in Russia. Why do they think it's worth it for them to put all of these people through all of these tortures really in what amounts to the full view of the (00:20:45) world? That's an excellent question again. Try to show this in the mind Palace from their point of view. This is first of all, not a torture. That's why I call it the Mind Palace. They have a very elegant system of rationalizing what they call organic diseases which have certain predispositions which are conditioned by pavlovian constructs or stimuli and it has a strong Marxist basis. So from their point of view, you've got to remember that they don't feel they've tortured anybody. These are accepted practices and certain people may or may not get better. However from their point of view also on the political level what it does is it allows them to facilitate bringing in a dissident? Discrediting the dissident movement without exposing it to the legal justice system that they have they have a constitution that Constitution is very clear. You can't violate personal freedoms and you can't you have to go through due process as little as they do of that this obviates all of that and it allows them to put them in a way that's indefinite period of time with very few people seeing it in the only reason the Western European countries have a have been allowed to see his because they've been the psalmist at the underground papers as well as dissidents who have been released or who have released information out. So from their point of view, they are running a high cost. I think the implication of your question is very clear. I think there are men aboard the pressure at this particular point in time as you seen a Bonner Ellie bond has been released and I think is a direct result of what happened with Gorbachev and the journalists in Paris when the accused him of maintaining internal repression and as I shown the Mind Palace again from their point of view, this is very psychotherapeutic that far more Humane my protagonist in the book. Rationalizes a lot of the treatments like insulin coma is something he doesn't totally understand because the objective science hasn't found but again in the mind Palace he rationalized by saying we don't understand ECT either and we use it in the United States electric shock therapy and we know it's beneficial and it's far more Humane than putting them in the gulag systems. So there are a lot of rationalizations here from their point of view. And if you read the Mind Palace, which I hope you will you will understand much more clearly from their point of view. So you can't really attack them directly vis-à-vis as a torture other than what I've been saying (00:23:01) we're talking today with Steve pecheneg who has been a hostage negotiator and has recently written a book called The Mind Palace that details the psychiatric abuses of dissidents in the Soviet Union. It is a novel we have several callers waiting on the line and we will go to our next caller. Go ahead. (00:23:19) Hi. Young woman is an interest guide and after we got to know her during the period of two weeks. I talked to her about the relation of alcoholism and drug abuse to Family and Child Abuse and she denied that there wasn't I don't know if you have any (00:23:41) yes, I laugh because that is the official line again. If you read I have a chapter in the my pals. I wanted to get into the feet the problems from a personal point of view. So I have a chapter they were have a group of women in Psychotherapy, which I had observed the group process and in the mind Palace what happens is they discussed the very real problems and here they are for women in the Soviet Union. There's a major problem of alcoholism the men much more so than the women and what happens is the men be are very impotent. There's a problem of sexual relationships with the women. Secondly, there's a problem of prophylactics. They don't the women do not trust the Russian prophylactics. They feel the quality of rubbers very poor. So, unfortunately, what they do is they would rather have abortion so my lead character Mind Palace has had four five abortions, which is not abnormal for Russian woman to have had rather than use prevented other preventive medicines. They do not use the pill because they don't trust it. It's manufactured in the Soviet Union or in East Germany. And also they have a severe problem with intimacy and maintaining relationships there because it's very crowded and everyone has to live with someone else or parent or part of a family structure which doesn't afford itself to intimacy and trust and long-term relationship. They have a very high divorce rate and this all again, it rides around causes and it's caused by alcoholism at 8:30 in the morning. When I walked in the street. I saw a good deal of the people already bombed out of their minds Gorbachev knows this is a serious problem and drop of knew. This was a serious problem in the mind Palace my lead character again tries to undertake a Reformation of these problems, but it's not going to be very effective. There is a serious drug problem in the Soviet Union unlike our drug problem by the way, and they deny it. Really they use veterinarian drugs. They don't use the drugs that escaped out of the doctor's office. So we're talking about big cow pills. I'm sure the farmers out there in the veterinarian's know exactly what I'm talking about there in feta mean pills are significantly greater than ours and it's also a brought in by the sailors a lot of drugs come in through Afghanistan and the Orient so they have a major major problem. (00:25:49) Okay, we have another caller waiting on the line for with a question for Steve passionate. Go ahead (00:25:55) speaking about the use of Psychiatry for the oppression of religion in the Soviet Union. I was the current edition of the diagnostic manual for the American Psychiatric association has a usually called a typical dissociative disorder and it says it's a residual category Hughes individuals who have a dissociative disorder but not have a criteria for a specific one and goes on to say that may occur in persons who've been suggested subjected to periods of prolonged and intense coercive persuasion, but while captives of terrorists occultus and some groups like the unification church and how I Krishna have accused us as being a form of Oppression of unpopular religious movements here in the United States the use of this particular diagnosis and diagnostic ya doing supporting so-called deprogramming when you had any comment on that (00:26:38) that's an excellent point. Are you remember the called? Is that the No No, I you hit on an excellent point. I know that diagnosis. The diagnosis was put in because You were so many adolescents who were at who were taken in by the college and they was actually programmed techniques brainwashing now. I don't want to get into the issue of the cult problem as much as I want to get into the point of fact that where we differ in the mm United States in terms of psychiatric Psychiatry and why we do not have a political abuse of Psychiatry is one we don't have a single employer. We're not employed by the US government most psychiatrists of which there are about 25,000 or more are really highly Diversified if you know anything about Psychiatry is a very individualistic many of them are in Solo practice. Now, they're getting more into Health maintenance organizations or then University settings or in VA hospitals, but very few work directly qua the government so you don't have that centralized type of bureaucracy and need to acquiesce to government policy. Secondly psychiatrist for the most part do not get into political issues or anything to do with the government other than the anti-war movement. We can talk about that a little bit. There's an interesting twist to it. So if we talk about The most psychiatrist have so many viewpoints. I mean if you look in the and California alone, you've got you talking about 250 different therapies, not all of which a practice by psychiatrist but the range of psychotherapy in the United States is absolutely formidable and you don't have that in the Soviet Union. So democracy does not breed for political abuse of Psychiatry here and thank god (00:28:12) well as long as you mentioned it, maybe we can get into then. (00:28:15) Well, there's an interesting thing that just happened in the mind Palace my the bad guy so to speak, dr. Zubik is modeled after I said this the chief of all psychiatrist has nevsky but there's a counterpart to this in the mind Palace and that's dr. Chas off who just won the Nobel Peace Prize for his wonderful wonderful efforts in making sure that we had nuclear disarmament. However, most people forgot to mention several factors one that dr. Cha, so who is a well-known cardiologist and chief of all Cardiology and it was the personal physician to all the secretary General's has never Sighs the Soviet Union for what? He's criticized in the US the deployment of icbms the SS 20s but more importantly than that is that dr. Chas of is one of 300 members Elite members of the Central Committee of the Communist party. Now if you understand what that means that means in effect, the Nobel Prize was awarded to the equivalent of our deputy director of covert operations for his peaceful efforts in El Salvador Nicaragua. I mean, it is absolutely absurd that whole concept and dr. Chas off knows very well how the psychiatric hospitals have been used. And I'm sorry that the Nobel Prize was awarded to him. I think it discredits the whole value of the this movement and I think the people who worked with soccer of realized that his well, I think there's more protests coming today, but I find that an absolute travesty. (00:29:36) Well, the Nobel Prize was awarded to a group of (00:29:38) Physicians. Well as what water to two physicians in particular, dr. Lo and here who I'm sure is a highly respectable individual. I do not know him personally, but it was also awarded specifically to dr. Chas off. To me it discredits the validity of that Nobel Prize, but it shows again the the sophistication of the Russian PR right now that's coming across it's very impressive. (00:30:00) We'll go to the next caller. Go ahead. (00:30:02) Hi. I'd like to congratulate you for writing the book and I wondered if you might explore with the radio audience today any connections that you can see in the countries like Argentina and Chile Guatemala El Salvador with the tremendously repressive regimes that have been in power and the disappearances of many of its citizens mainly its dissidents whether they be doctors lawyers teachers and that kind of thing because in this hemisphere, there are a number of us that are very concerned about what's going on right under our noses and it is not being (00:30:41) reported. I absolutely agree with you. Thank you very much for the congratulation. I was personally bought interesting enough I can talk. Only one episode where that was involved in that nation state terrorism. Here's another example in your listeners quite correct in Argentina during the rule of the military dictatorship. I had been involved in the Aldo Moro kidnapping and trying to resolve that even though the resolution didn't look successful from one and it was quite successful in stabilizing and democracy interestingly enough shortly. After that. I was visited the state department by officials of that government the Argentinian government to ask me to help them with their problems and terrorism and I asked him when I said wait a minute tell me about the 6,000 people that you've incarcerated in your stadium and they went on and matter-of-factly told me. Well, we have Jews we have psychiatrist, you know, we have radicals and trotskyites. I said forget it. There's no way I'm going to help you or anybody. I know who's going to help you and what was interesting about that. They didn't let up on that they continue they came back and they say actually in a way intimidated that if I didn't do it they would have me ordered that is by the Secretary of State and I assured them that under no Whatsoever. Would I help them at all? No matter who ordered mean. I was certain that. Nobody would ever order me to do that. So yes, it does exist. There's no question that the argentineans did use that the problem now, of course is Alphonse and the president unfortunately had to invoke a state of Siege in order to try the military leadership and one of the problems in dealing with violence or Terror and even bring it to justice is that we often end up using Terror and violence and circumscribe the law in order to do this. We always have to be very very careful in terms of chili. There's no question. There's violence at this Terror that goes on and state level in Guatemala. I think in El Salvador, we have to give some credit to the administration in terms of their ability to crack down on the right wing terrorist. I think that's a not enough credit by the way is given to Vice President Bush on his efforts to literally have gone down there and read them the riot act and it stopped a lot of it is stop than you you're having a middle-of-the-road. Much as you can (00:32:51) is there you know talking again about your role in crisis management enough attention in your opinion being paid to that (00:32:59) area. No, not at all. It's an excellent question what's being a pain? Unfortunately this Administration the rhetoric has gotten so high that where they're spending their money is in hardware and and it's the issue and crisis management is rarely Hardware. We usually use telephones and believe it or not most crises. I've had to use commercial lines going in through a telephone booth in one case where we have we are highly deficient is in the human element in the training part. We do not have professional managers people like myself when we called in. It's somewhat too late, even though I enjoy what I do it's often after the fact and it's a very damaged limiting exercise. I would rather see a spend a lot more money in developing the proper training for it so that we one can predict the crisis to that we know how to deal with it. And then three this continuity within all the Duration, so it becomes a political unfortunately, it's become too political. So yes, I think there's much more to (00:33:55) do you think the people in the embassies then should be better trained to deal with these (00:33:58) situations much much better. So and they're not Unfortunately they have two to three rotations and they pull out by the time they're at all cognizant of the issue. They are pulled down to another (00:34:07) station. Okay. We'll go to another caller with a question for Steve Fisher Senate. Go ahead, please. (00:34:13) Yes, you're on the air. Yes, ma'am. Do you know anything about the possibility of governments experimenting with the altering and controlling of eof for brain waves? Is this a pseudo fear threat for General populations, or is it an actuality? (00:34:29) I don't know anything about it man. You're referring to our government. Or any government's I don't know anything about (00:34:35) that. Okay. Okay. We'll go to the next caller then. Go ahead. Hello, you're on the air. (00:34:42) You mentioned your experience. What the American Press earlier on and I'd like you to comment on (00:34:51) American Media. It's not the (00:34:52) Press that's quite good. I heard the dean of students at one of the Orthodox seminaries and the Soviet Union talking he travels a lot in the west and speaks English quite well, and he said he's always instructed to answer questions in the west truthfully accurately and briefly and he laments the fact that nobody ever asked the right questions. The questions are always so broad or whatever that he doesn't really have the opportunity to say what he really would like to say. (00:35:29) It's an interesting point. I doubt whether if he were ask the right questions if I Example where they asked him. Do you know of any psychiatric abuse within the system and he could honestly answer. Yes. Most Soviet Representatives who come here are very extremely controlled and what they can and cannot say but let me say this. I think your point is an excellent point many of the representatives. For example, someone like Georgia are bought off who's head of the institute for u.s. And Canadian studies. There are highly highly sophisticated individuals who know our country better than most of our citizens do and they know exactly how to deal with us in many areas and they know very much of the understand our character if we can talk about American character without being too monolithic our sense of being fair are somewhat naivete and our desire to have things work out as best as they can and people like to Brennan ambassador to Britain has been a long time with us and they know how to negotiate with us gromyko's negotiated with us for over 35 to 40 years. And if you look at the equivalence in terms of the United States, we have absolutely no one no one who knows really how to negotiate with the So the union who's had that kind of experience over 30 to 40 years and what we do is really reinvent the wheel and if you've noticed a little news episode a news article in your paper, it talks about Reagan having to call up Nixon and and several other officials to get some advice and that's that's normal. That's fine. But the point here is that we don't have that kind of continuity. (00:36:55) We have another caller on the line with the question. Go ahead please (00:36:58) hi. I'm glad you're a pointing out stuff about the Soviet Union, but I'm wondering what is being done about like some of the some of the psychiatric problems in the United States mainly like at the u.s. Medical center for federal prisoners in Springfield, Missouri. And where they use this prolixin a lot on prisoners there (00:37:17) prolixin is I write a prediction. I don't know very much. I can't answer your specific concerns, but prolixin is an accepted drug. It's been approved. It's been in practice for over 15 20 years here in the United States. It's for those of you who do not know. What is it's a Depot form that is at you injected and it maintains over a period of a week or two and proper Doses and it's used primarily on psychiatric patients people who need it and people who do need it are very grateful that they have it simply because they don't have to worry about taking the medication when they're agitated a very disturbed many of them. Don't remember to take it away want to take it orally so Given to them I am flu phenazine is the depot form that I'm talking about. But in terms of American Psychiatric practices, I clearly can't speak. I'm not speaking on behalf of the American Psychiatric association or anyone else. I'm talking to my own behalf. I'm a board examiner and I can say to you that we have very rigid criteria for whom we do and do not accept in Psychiatry even once they do practice and there are all kinds of peer review groups that monitor what individual and group psychiatrist do in the mind Palace. There are peer groups to but there's what would again I talked about the concept of Iran you where everybody's kind of making sure everyone else is lying to each other say face, but there's one primary goal there in that goal isn't necessarily the same goal is ours. So if there are any abuses I would like to know about (00:38:41) them. Has the there has been some criticism though General criticism, I guess about the use of drugs in psychiatric patients. Is that sure being modified at all. Now is it being used less? (00:38:54) I would hope so there was a period of time where they were overused and there was a period of time we were my my personal orientation. I can only speak of my own is I think I'm afraid psychiatry's moving too much into the biological phase and is becoming very defensive in the sense that we're becoming quote to objective and to Scientific. I personally have a practice where I enjoy sitting down with the clients and talking to them and trying to figure out Life Strategies and use as little drug as possible. But I don't you know my counterparts in that use a lot of drugs. I really can't speak on their (00:39:29) behalf. Okay. We'll go to our next caller. Go ahead, (00:39:32) please. Yes. My question is along the lines of the earlier caller who asked about raft how and why this form of psychiatric incarceration occur? Earth and it can occur in the Soviet Union and that is what type of dissident specifically could you draw a picture of the type of dissident is a candidate for this sort of sure control because the Soviet system has many means of dealing with distance running the Gannett Gap Gauntlet from having your car taken away to Exile or disappearance. Why do they utilize this (00:40:08) method because it's very effective in its scientific and it's very hard to disprove. You don't have to bring it in through their legal system. But let me give you the gamut in the mind Palace. I talked of one particular disc and it was an actress is free spirit. We can talk about the Russian character little bit later how they fear spontaneity and the kite chaos and Natalya who's a beautiful woman and it has certain Secrets. She's one type of dissident and that she's very outspoken against the Soviet Union, but in reality the types of dissidents are this follows those who practice a certain religion including harikrishna Lutheran Summer baptism Judaism that's one type and who opposed the restrictions on the religion those who try to immigrate out of the Soviet Union without a Visa are placed in those who have protested in front of the Kremlin with placards have become dissonance those who have protested the use of Psychiatry as a political tool have been incarcerated. These are all by the way documented by Amnesty International. So if you want to go into further detail we can through Amnesty International you've had people who have been a very outspoken like dr. Corey again Addison and I just met a dissident in the area where I come from 29 year old law student who disseminated souls in need since books and through samizdat the on the ground and he was incarcerated for what was called an ordinary Psychiatric Hospital down the Mind Palace. I talked about an ordinary Psychiatric Hospital true one called tkachenko Psychiatric Hospital in Moscow where you have these kinds of psychotherapy, but from their point of view, they're considered normal what I haven't talked about where I've really held back my punches, by the way. Is in the special psychiatric hospitals, which is a host different series of hospitals that are run by the interior Ministry of interior. The MVD the ones I talked about are run by the Ministry of Health and they have the pretense and facade of being very Humane and the ministry of interior and under the MVD. There's no pretense. I mean they run it because they need to make certain that the dissidents don't create a certain Focus or nidus of dissent within the Soviet Union. They know the distance are extremely smart. And now this 29 year old individual David off was documented by Amnesty International was incarcerated subsequently after an ordinary Psychiatric Hospital into a special psychiatric hospital because he then documented again through samizdat the stalinist errors, which is official and it's public and they again once again some incarcerate him twice into the psychiatric Especial Psychiatric Hospital gave him an inordinate amount of phenothiazines and diagnose them sluggish schizophrenia. I have met him several times. He's quite He was normal before and they released him and they release them by the way by his own account because the Western pressure and the fact that I'm Amnesty International I put on pressure and American citizens had put on pressure. (00:42:55) What about this Soviet semen now who's jumped ship a couple of times in Louisiana. Now, he says he wants to go back. Is he going to be one of the candidates for the psychiatric hospital? (00:43:04) He might be there's no question about it. I think they're going to do an examination and probably find him somewhat Disturbed they were upset at the interests. I don't know what happened but one could write out a very interesting scenario that it given points. He was frightened scared and then they possibly threaten him, but they certainly will do an evaluation. (00:43:21) Okay, we'll go poor fellow. Yeah. Don't envy him. No another caller with the question for Steve Fisher (00:43:27) Shinnok. Yes couple of questions. First of all earlier. You alluded to these railings approach dealing with terrorism or at least military. Could you comment perhaps in Greater detail and their whole approach? Sure terrorism and (00:43:44) hostage-taking. Yes. They on the first part the Israelis more than what's very important to understand from our point of view is Israel has officially declared a state of war against terrorism. So they're able to utilize all kinds of military and intelligence capabilities that we are not that means that they're willing to go and they can go and have practiced and they are able to do what they did in Tunisia to fly 5,000 miles on a round-trip basis. Also, they have an incredibly effective intelligence capability which the president did allude to and it's one that relies very heavily on the and I'm not revealing any state Secrets. This has been written about penetration of the terrorist groups to the extent that we are not allowed to do that by Edict of Congress and we are restricted to do that. So the Israelis do have a very practical Hardline approach, but they're not always hardliners, they will negotiate when they have to negotiate and as you've seen they've released a lot of Hardcore terrorists in the past year not only in reserve. To the TWA Beirut episode, but once they've had them and they have a pretty good idea of what they are. They release them. So that's one of the ways I would talk about Israel. I can't go any further into that your other question, sir. (00:44:53) Interesting what you said before about the eastern media thinks the way you phrased (00:44:59) it North. Well, I would say the liberal by oh, I don't want to get into an ideological point of view. But yes, whatever. (00:45:05) Well you raise them, (00:45:07) right? I did. Yes, correct. (00:45:08) Okay, so it's fair game the liberal media 2502. Yeah, but not willing to discuss these type things or have you on the show for fear of making this up the Russians angry and some self right? Is there also component of that of not willing to label something as bad or evil or that maybe that when its premise that yes, we can get along and we can We can't trust them and things like that that this might argue perhaps not and kind of related. If you maybe saw the movie (00:45:46) Let me clarify that I think your point is next time. What if I understand it that is that there there's a reluctance on their part to call Soviet Union or what they practice evil or bad. Is that correct? What to put a normative? Yes, you're right. I think that's a very strong element of it. As a matter of fact. I was told look we know what's going on but quite frankly and mind you. I mean, I have a great respect for the Press. I want the press to have all the rights and I would defend it right down the bottom line. I think it's far more important than anything else. But what I was surprised that was the fact that it was their own sense of careerism, that was far more important than their professional integrity and look I'm not above such things and I'm not throwing snow them simply. I was astonished to see that and I was not able to predict that quite frankly. Yes. There is a bias on their part not to call it evil or bad at this particular Point. What is interesting? Is that there are there other media? I mean like your radio station here. Is more than happy to welcome me and state of Minnesota has been wonderfully receptive across the board and I tribute that to a lot of individualists in this state and it's a very free thinking State (00:46:50) we have about 10 minutes are a little bit more than 10 minutes remaining in the program and still a lot of listeners waiting. So we'll get to as many calls as we can. Go ahead, (00:46:58) please. Hi. I'm calling from Rochester Minnesota. And and I have a question concerning the Russian psychiatric situation. I'm familiar with Amnesty International and member and I was thinking that it would be very valuable to comment on how many people are in psychiatric hospitals. And (00:47:19) I'm glad yes the are not really (00:47:23) psychotic in the second question I have is could you explain a little bit more about the basis for what you describe as sluggish schizophrenia and other words, how do they rationalize it on a on a psychiatric (00:47:37) basis? Well on the psychiatric basis, they have three different types. They have what was called shift like continuous periodic and then the within those basic categories, they have a malignant moderate and then that's the key one sluggish schizophrenia, which means that every type of their three major types of schizophrenia can have an underlying one which anybody who looks abnormal can be diagnosed as having and that's the one that we have the hardest trouble with and it's so loose a category that they themselves feel very uncomfortable. As I said before in the Leningrad school. Let me talk about the numbers. I'm glad you brought that out and I seen a national she's done a formidable job of recording all of this has documented 200 cases, but they know they're significantly more but they don't want to say that officially Sahara off speaks of about 10,000 prisoners of conscience of which about 10% or 2,000 to 3,000. He estimates a 20% I'm sorry would be prisoners within the psychiatric hospitals. Now, I've talked to dissidents who were the in psychiatric hospitals who said that for every one of them who was well known. In the public in the Press, they were 10 to 15 who were normal and not known at all. So you'd have to multiply those numbers. It's a variance and it's quite large. It's far more than the 200. (00:48:49) You can talk 20,000 (00:48:51) possibly. Well, no, I would say probably within the range of two to ten thousand were totally normal and I have no psychiatric problems whatsoever. (00:48:59) Okay, we'll go to our next caller with the question. Go ahead, (00:49:02) please. Yeah, what a comes to psychotherapy in this country as well as especially this community. The lines get blurred between psychology and MDS who practice Psychiatry. I'm wondering where you are coming from as far as your (00:49:24) orientation. Sure. I'll be happy. I'm trained. I'm an MD Cornell University Medical College. I was trained at Harvard in Psychiatry. I again that's a three-year residency training. I was trained both analytically and behaviourally but I'm quite eclectic and I also received at the same time. I went on for PhD international relations at MIT so that I would have a far greater perspective both on my psychiatric practice and understand the concepts of power bureaucracy and symptoms systems as they impact on individuals and that's why I do a lot of Crisis management. I deal with power and personality. So that's my orientation. I'm neither Freudian behavioral. I'm really quite eclectic and I'm aboard examiner and I'm a humanist. Basically, I feel that if in order to understand and deal with human behavior, you better understand it quite well and have a lot of empathy They not necessarily only sympathy but empathy and understand how to deal with it in the various schools of thought so I do not propose or not a proponent of anyone school. (00:50:20) Does that empathy then translate into your negotiations with terrorists (00:50:24) during hostile? Yes, as a matter of fact, that's a good point. I have to have a certain. I have a lot of respect for my my adversaries as much as I deplore what they've done you have to know to understand what it is that they want or their own grievances or concerns in the case of one particular individual that I dealt with over a period of time. He had he had just witnessed a horrendous episode in his own family of children being killed in front of his own eyes, and he wanted to write the FI the Grievances and in a public way, which I couldn't agree with but I certainly could understand and empathize. He isn't with his pain and that's what I had to deal with in the strategy and tactic revolved around that. (00:50:59) Okay. We'll go to another caller. Go ahead and please with your question (00:51:03) Russian mentality. Yes, you know given the Orthodoxy there, you know the correct way mission to convert the Correct Christianity and their dealings with for example the old believers. How does this attitude now that they've got a new state religion? Yes Marxism. How does this come across over the attitude of how to deal with? Well Moriarty's. (00:51:31) Well you hit on a lot of things but let me just try to crystallize some points one rushes at the Soviet Union's coming to the very serious internal crisis as I mentioned before not only economically politically but as you're pointing out psychologically the great Slavs that is the Russians who really rule the country in the politburo for the first time are a minority out of a hundred and twenty other minorities you have tired as you have azerbaijani of Georgians and they don't like that as much as the Russians do not admit the discrimination and racism. They have an incredible amount of it internally as evidenced by the fact the politburo was populated primarily by great slobs ukrainians and not any of the minorities. Although Gorbachev is now bringing someone as he Bijan. Secondly the Russian mentality is fascinating if you read the Mind palace and this is really what I try to communicate why call it the Mind Palace. Is the Russian is a human being I mean, you can't look at him as a 10-foot evil giant. It's another human being whose as much interested in his family and his career and and children but they haven't created an interesting dialectics that I point out in the Russian personality in the mind Palace is one the Russian has a fear of spontaneity and a sense and and the fear of loss of control. This is historical this leads into their own sense of secretiveness and weariness of the outside and the stranger and xenophobia. You had what we call a paranoia which is also geographical and geopolitical they have been invaded over centuries. They do not trust the foreigners. They do not like the orientals of the Chinese. I mean, they like that on they can agree on almost universally but on the other hand if you deal with the Russians over a longer period of times kwasind individuals and I point this out in the mind Palace in a chapter where they go out drinking or they play a game called go Rocky with a stick. They're very warm. They're very spontaneous incredibly hospitable. But in order for Misha to dance he has the Drink and that's what I point out of my prologue of the book. They have to loosen up their own in the Visions, but once they do so they're very friendly and very warm on the other hand the terribly frightened of our system of the dissidents in the Soviet psychiatrist have told me repeatedly I don't know what to do in the United States. I mean, where would I get a job? How could I hustle for job the concept of the individual or initiative a risk-taking is very alien to the Russian character and also very frightening and along that line, by the way in dealing with the Soviet with the United States. They have this mixed relationship a love-hate on the one hand that it's not that they detest capitalism as much as they fear that they're not able to implement it but on the other hand, they would like us to like them. They have a very strong complex about that of inferiority. So they always want us to treat them with a sense of equality. And so it's an interesting (00:54:03) relationship. It's interesting that you use the word paranoia because it's the same word that President Reagan used yesterday in an interview with the BBC. I had this in a story earlier and are our that he said at best. He's meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev would remove some of the parathyroid Neue from u.s. Soviet relations. (00:54:20) Well, it's an (00:54:21) interesting possible that a summit summit meeting could overcome what you see is (00:54:25) no work. No, but I think what would happen is that Gorbachev would realize is a very likable president and but he means what he means in that Gore band and the contrast Reagan will also see that this is also very charming and individual but who's a Hardline communist and he shouldn't be fooled by the Gucci shoes. (00:54:41) Okay. We're going to risk one more caller here. We've got about three minutes remaining in the program. So we will go to our last caller. Go ahead, please (00:54:49) what in the last six months. I was in a real small public gathering for to Christian Russian women stated. They had attended a conference in California and had been asked to talk for Express what their concept of an enemy has and they denied ever having thought about this or this was a totally foreign concept to them. They said you have any insight into that (00:55:13) response in terms of any of the yes, it's what I'm talking about. They fear very much talking. When two strangers are individuals about their own impulses and feelings and often you have to really establish a much longer-term relationship again in the mind Palace. I delve into this in detail. They only really feel comfortable with their own hostile impulses and their own aggressiveness after it within a family structure and within a structure that's allowing them to be hostile and aggressive as long as there's limit setting on it. Now. It's a technical way of saying that they're not going to tell you the things that they really feel or those negative impulses. They do feel course. They have enemies they grew up with them. Not necessarily the United States. They fear the Chinese every Russian I've ever talked to who is had an innate fear of the Chinese more than they've had of anyone else quite frankly and they fear their own minorities. There's a lot of discrimination that exists within the great slave population (00:56:03) just last week we had a group of Soviet Educators visit some schools here in the Twin Cities office women. Peace link, right, right, you know, what's your opinion of that (00:56:13) again? I think it's part of the public relations effort that they made I think they've Co-opted several of our Congressional wives who are very well-intentioned, but I think it would have been interesting to have them talk and we would have had a very interesting dialogue about their own personal lives and what their real feelings aren't but little I've heard of it. I don't think you heard very much of anything. That's true. Other than their propaganda. (00:56:34) Just to we've only got about one minute remaining in the program. However, like to have you update people on what it is you're working on now you (00:56:41) have well just ground. I just finished my second novel which has to deal with in a Nash crisis, but I'm really working now on a crisis level with the Maryland S&L crisis. We've had a major Bank crisis in Maryland and I've been trying to stabilize the banks and hopefully you will not have one in Minnesota, but I am fearful that that bank crisis May spread around the country (00:56:59) particularly to agriculturally (00:57:00) based. Yes, because you have a very heavy debt service that the farmers have had to carry unfairly in many cases and the banks are now calling in the loans and they are defaulting on the loan. So you've got a lot of problems the federal system is not as well as established as it should be (00:57:16) are you involved anymore at all in (00:57:18) the international crisis? Yes. Yeah, that's not only terrorism but other issues International, that's correct, but I hopefully people read the Mind Palace in my next book. (00:57:26) Okay. Well, then we'll give the book another plug. It is called the Mind Palace and one of our listeners asked to have you. Spell your (00:57:34) name is URI The Nest it's Pi e CZ eni K. But you want to believe it or not. I have a harder time convincing people that my first name is Steve and not Steven. So I have much more trouble with that. No, (00:57:46) that's all just even a couple. That's fine too, but I don't see on the book. Yes. It is Steve fish enik and the name of the book again the Mind Palace. I'm sure it's in (00:57:54) bookstores. Yes. It is. Okay. Dalton should have it everywhere now if they haven't had it by yesterday, (00:57:59) okay. Thank you very much for coming in today. (00:58:01) Thank you very much.