Cette interview, qui fut filmée, eu lieu le 4 Mars 1977, et constitua un élément important du programme diffusé le 20 Juin. Voici comment Simon Butler, dans un commentaire audio, l'introduisit aux téléspectateurs :
Les théories de Gerstein, lorsqu'il les mis en avant il y a plus 20 ans, furent pratiquement universellement démontées. Il fut qualifié d'alarmiste et de pessimiste. Les événements lui prouvèrent, au contraire, qu'il était plutôt optimiste.
A la fin des années 1960s la terre était déjà tellement emprisonnée dans l'enveloppe de sa propre pollution que la chaleur avait une difficulté croissante à s'évacuer.
10 ans avant la prédiction de Gerstein, "l'effet de serre" bien connu - due to the eight-fold increase in the carbon dioxide levels last summer - était devenu une réality, menaçant de double la température moyenne globale.
Gerstein's chest was still not clear at the time of that interview. He was still wheezing. And he was still smoking his pipe. "This mysterious Harry of yours..." dit-il. "I don't think I can place him."
"he was very specific about you," dit Butler. Il nous a dit de vous interroger sur quelque chose nommé Alternative
3.
Gerstein stared down at his desk, pulled thoughtfully on his pipe. "Did he now..." dit-il lentement. "That was a rather curious thing for him to do."
Cette Alternative 3 - vous savez ce que ça veut dire ?
Laissez-moi vous montrer quelque chose
, dit Gerstein. He rummaged through the bottom drawer of the desk,
pulled out a buff folder, turned over une demi-douzaines de pages dactylographiées. Les américains, lorsqu'il
s'agit de déclarations publiques, ont un talent remarquable pour soft-pedaling la vérité,
dit-il. Lisez ça...
c'est un rapport de la CIA.
Butler pris le dossier, lut le passage qui avait été entouré en rouge :
Dans les régions pauvres et dôtées de peu d'énergie, la population would have to drop to levels that could be supported. Food subsidies and external aid, however generous the donors might be, would be inadequate. Unless or until the climate improved and agricultural techniques changed sufficiently, population levels now projected for the Less Developed Countries could not be reached. The population "problem" would have solved itself in the most unpleasant fashion.
Qu'est-ce que cela signifie ?
demanda Butler. A moins ou jusqu'à ce que le climat s'améliore...
C'est ça !
dit Gerstein. C'est la phrase-clé ! Et ce rapport, laissez-moi vous dire, a près de 4 ans. What
it means is that at that time the Americans were prepared to reveal just a smidgeon of the truth. Pas toute la vérité,
bien sûr, car elle serait trop effrayante. But you can take it from me that they knew the whole truth. Je leur ai dit.
C'était en 1957 - à la conférence de Huntsville, Alabama - Je leur ai tout expliqué. C'est la raison pour laquelle ils
ont commencé à gibing serious thought aux 3 alternatives.
Et que leur avez-vous dit exactement ?
demanda Butler.
Je leur ai dit qu'ils tuaient cette planète.
Gerstein fut interrompu par un quinte de toux qui secoua tout son
corps, faisant pleurer ses yeux. Il s'excusa. Through all the centuries man thought of the atmosphere surrounding
us as being so vast that it could never possibly be damaged,
dit-il. So we've gone on abusing it and
polluting it... et aujourd'hui il est trop tard.
He shook his head sadly. "We've created a greenhouse around this world of ours...a greenhouse made of carbon dioxide. Short-wave radiation from the sun passes straight through it, just as in any garden greenhouse, but it absorbs and holds the heat emitted from the surface of the earth.
"You know how much carbon dioxide we've thrown up there in the last hundred years? More than 360 billion tons! And once it's up there it stays there - and it's being added to every year.
"Human lemmings! That's what we are! Do you realize that we're even helping to destroy our world by trying to smell nice? No...I assure you...I'm perfectly serious. Those aerosol sprays that people use - they alone are still squirting nearly half a million metric tons of fluorocarbons into the atmosphere every year."
He delved in the desk again, produced another folder. "A British Royal Commission on environmental pollution was shocked by the sheer volume of this filth. Listen to what they said in their report." He opened the folder, thumbed over a few pages and began reading:
"If the worst fears about the extent of damage by fluorocarbons to the ozone layer were realized, and if no means of combating this threat could be devised, the consequences to mankind and, indeed, to most of life on Earth could be calamitous."
He snapped the folder shut, dropped it contemptuously on the desk. "There!" he said. "That's their word -calamitous! And that report, I should point out, was written by people who probably weren't aware of the full seriousness of the situation. They almost certainly still don't know of the need for one of the three alternatives.
"Yet people go on using these things...to clean their ovens and spray their hair...to kill flies and smells and pains
in the back. Good God, we've even got spray-on instant snack food! We're conveniencing ourselves to death, Mr. Butler,
that's what we're doing - and now it's all become irretrievably lethal.
"Some belated attempts have been made, of course, to scratch at the problem. Last year, for example, the United States Food and Drug Administration banned fluorocarbons from American aerosol sprays - and that, I can tell you,, was a devil of a jolt for an industry with a 9000 million $ turnover in America alone.
"But other countries, including Britain - which, by the way, is Europe's principal producer of aerosols - decided not to follow the American initiative. Close your eyes to the dangers and pretend they don't exist - that seems to be the line. You see... there are jobs at stake...about 10000 in Britain alone... and there's also big money. still, not that it makes any difference any longer. It's so late now that it's all become completely academic."
Gerstein was seized by another bout of coughing. He looked accusingly at his pipe which had gone out. And he re-edit it. "You hear people talking glibly about the concrete jungle, Mr. Butler. What they should be talking about is the concrete storage heater. That's what we're turning this world into - a gigantic storage heater. Concrete...asphalt roads...brick buildings...they're all retaining the heat and they're helping .o ferment the disaster.
"Then there's all that waste heat from industry, power stations, cars and central-heating systems. Do you realize that New York city generates seven amps more heat than it gets from the rays of the sun? That, Mr. Butler, is a fact. And you just imagine that sort of heat - from all over the world - being trapped in our great atmospheric greenhouse!"
Oui
, dit Butler. Mais cette Alternative 3...
Gerstein ignored the interruption, got up from the desk, walked to the study window. He stood there, hands clasped behind his back, contemplating the wide expanse of neat lawn. "I'll tell you what's going to happen," he said. "This world's going to get no hotter and hotter until it gets like Venus. I can't tell you when this will finally happen...not to the nearest hundred years...but I can assure you that it will happen.
"When that time comes the North Pole and the South Pole will be as hot as the tropics are today. And as for the rest of the world...well, it won't be able to support any life apart from insects and cold-blooded creatures like lizards."
He turned to fact Butler, gestured over his shoulder. "All that out there, all that greenery and beauty, will be a
burnt wilderness.
"There won't be any people at all then, not in countries like this. There'll probably still be survivors at the Poles but then it won't be long before they're also killed by the heat - and that will be that."
He sat down, looked somberly at Butler. "So, as you can see, that CIA report you're holding - with that stuff about the climate possibly improving - is just so much public - relations twaddle."
He sighed resignedly, took the file from Butler, replaced it in the drawer. "That, I suppose, is the technique. They make a big display of showing part of the truth - which is precisely what they did in that report - to make people believe they're being shown the whole truth."
"But you mentioned three alternatives," said Butler. "You said they considered them at the Huntsville conference..."
"That was a long time ago," said Gerstein evasively. "Twenty years ago. And it was all very theoretical..."
"I realize that some of the discussions at Huntsville were held in secret and so, naturally, I can understand your reluctance," said Butler. "But this is clearly a matter of immense public concern and, as you say, Huntsville was a long time ago. So wouldn't it be possible for you to say..."
Gerstein held up a hand to stop him. "Alternative 1 and Alternative 2 were quite crazy," he said. "They're not worth even talking about..."
"I'd still like to know about them," said Butler. "Couldn't you give me just a brief outline?"
Gerstein was silent, thinking, for a while. Eventually he shrugged. "Well...they were abandoned so I suppose it can do no harm," he said. "The basic idea of Alternative 1 was rather like throwing a few stones at a conventional greenhouse - making holes in the glass to let the heat escape. The suggestion was that a series of strategically - positioned nuclear devices should be detonated high in the atmosphere - to punch holes in that envelope of carbon dioxide. Then we'd have chimneys in the sky, if you like. That would have eased the immediate problem and then, as a follow-up program, there would have had to be a dramatic reappraisal of the way life is lived on this earth.
"Men would have had to start living more primitively to prevent another build-up. For example, there's have had to be
international agreements, stringently enforced, to make all motor vehicles illegal - except for the most essential
purposed.
"You could almost draw up your own list of things which would have to be sacrificed to stop carbon
dioxide being pumped into the air in such quantities.
"Then there would have to be a great co-ordinated effort to give the world back its lungs - by getting rid of every unnecessary bit of concrete and by seeding vast tracts with plants and trees which could absorb the gas.
"That, in essence, was Alternative 1..."
"Well, I can see it would be an incredibly complex project..."said Butler. "But it would seem to make sense...if the situation is as desperate as you say..."
"It was crazy," said Gerstein curtly. "Knocking holes in a garden greenhouse is one thing. Doing the same with Earth's atmosphere is a very different proposition. Oh, they could do it all right...they've got the technology to do it, all right...they've got the technology to do it, but what they haven't got is the technology to patch up the holes after they've made them..."
Désolé... je ne suis pas bien...
La couche d'ozone !
dit Gerstein avec impatience. Vous ne voyez pas ? It would mean punching great gaps in
the ozone layer and it's that layer, as you must know, which screens us from the full effects of the ultra-violet rays
from the sun.
Sans la protection de cette couche d'ozone, M. Butler, nous serions bombardés de bien plus de radiations et cela
produirait immédiatement toutes sortes d'horreurs - telles qu'un accroissement des déclarations de cancers de la
peau.
Non, il y avait trop de dangers involved. L'alternative 1 fut rightly rejetée.
Et l'alternative 2 ?
Gerstein was having more trouble with his pipe. Relighting it was a major job which required all his attention. It made him cough and splutter but, after using three matches, he won. And, once again, he was contentedly wreathed in smoke. "Can you imagine yourself living like a troglodyte, Mr. Butler?"
It was obviously a rhetorical question. Butler waited, knowing he was not expected to reply.
"Alternative 2, in my view, was even crazier than Alternative 1," continued Gerstein. "I recognize, of course, that
there is enough atmosphere locked in the soil to support life but...no, this was the most unrealistic of all the
alternatives."
"Troglodyte," prompted Butler. "Why troglodyte?"
"There is good reason to believe that this world was once more civilized and far more scientifically advanced than it is today," said Gerstein. "Our really distant ancestors, living millennia before what we call Pre-historic Man, had progressed far beyond our present stage of knowledge. "Then, it is argued, there was some cataclysmic disaster - maybe one comparable with that facing us now - and these highly-sophisticated people built completely new civilizations deep beneath the surface of the earth..."
"But," said Butler, "I don't see how..."
"Please!" Gerstein was in no mood to be interrupted."There is evidence, quite considerable evidence, to suggest that
there were once whole cities - linked by an elaborate complex of tunnels - far below the surface. Remains of them have
been found under many parts of the world. Under South America...China...Russia...oh, all over the place. And in this
subterranean world, so it is said, there is a green luminescence which replaces the sun as a source of energy -
and which makes it possible for crops to be grown.
"So they evacuated down there and very likely thrived for some time..."
"Then what?" asked Butler.
Gerstein shrugged. "After all this time...who can tell? Maybe there's historical truth in the Biblical story of the great Flood. Maybe the disaster which drove them there in the first place was followed by the Flood - and they were all trapped and drowned down there. Maybe that's how their civilization ended..."
He paused, sucked reflectively on his pipe. "And it could follow that the people we think of as Prehistoric Men were merely the descendants of a handful of survivors - the real children of Noah, if you accept the Bible version - who had to start from scratch in a world which had been utterly devastated. Is that why they took so naturally - instinctively, if you like - to living in caves? Then the agonizingly slow process of rebuilding the world started all over again until now we find ourselves in a similar position..."
"So Alternative 2, then, would involve transporting everybody down into the bowels of the earth?"
"Not everybody," said Gerstein. "That would be hopelessly impracticable. There's be selected people, people chosen for their special skills or talents, people who'd be regarded as vital to the future of the human race.
"There were, I have to tell you, many people at Huntsville in favor of Alternative 2. They pointed out that there would never be another flood, not with the entire planer drying up, so it would not all end as it apparently did once before."
He took the pipe from his mouth and pointed its stem at Butler. "You know...there was one very prominent man - died a couple of years ago now - who even put forward a plan for using ordinary people...superfluous people, he called them...as slave labor.
"It was quite startling, the way he had it all worked out. These gangs of slaves, who'd do all the heavy work down there, would be treated - either surgically or chemically - so that they would just complacently accept their new roles. They'd be rounded up, as he put it, in Batch Consignments. Yes, that was the expression he used - Batch Consignments..."
Butler shook his head in disbelief . "But that's unthinkable...quite inhuman. And, anyway, as operation on what scale...it could be mounted only with the closest co-operation between the super-powers. America and Russia would have to pool their resources and scientific know-how and that in itself, surely, would be out of the question..."
"Allies are united by the need to fight a common enemy or to combat a universal danger," said Gerstein. "Think of the Second World War. Britain, America, Russia - they were all partners in the mutual struggle for survival. It didn't seem so strange then, did it, that they should co-operate. And this present threat, Mr. Butler, is far greater than the world was facing then..."
"Is the technology available to do all this?" asked Butler.
"Technology, yes. Cash would obviously be the problem. Countless billions of pounds would be needed but, in extremity, it could be raised."
"In that case, why did you consider Alternative 2 to be the most unrealistic of them all?"
"Because, at best, it would be no more than a stop-gap solution. As I told you...the carbon dioxide, once it's up there, stays there. We're trapped inside the great greenhouse and it will be only a matter of time before the effects permeate down into the earth. Things down there, really deep down, will eventually wither and start to smoulder."
He paused, gave a brief humorless laugh. "Maybe our legends and superstitions about Hades - with the demonic stoker down there in the bowels of blackness - are merely unconscious visions of the future. How about that for a thought?"
He stared hard at Butler and, getting no reply, he continued: "The situation, you see, isn't just irretrievable - it has now reached the stage where it can do nothing but deteriorate. That was why Alternative 2, in my opinion, was ridiculous."
Outside the study window there were the bird noises of early Spring. Butler looked over Gerstein's shoulder and saw an old woman sedately walking her dog around the perimeter of the lawn.
Out there it was so peaceful, so normal. And that made their conversation all the more bizarre. Here, in this book- lined and sunlit room, they were talking about Armageddon.
They were talking about it in measured and cultivated tones as if it were no more than a matter of academic interest. It was hard, very hard, to grasp that the subject really was the approaching end of the world.
This was the strangest interview Butler had ever conducted. But, as a professional, he pushed ahead with his questions.
"And Alternative 3?"
Gerstein shook his head. "I don't know..."he said.
"Maybe I've been too indiscreet already. I've been out of touch with things for rather a long time now and it's hardly my place to talk about Alternative 3. They may have abandoned it for all I know...decided that it simply couldn't be done. You'd have to talk to someone connected with the Space Program because the truth is that I just don't know..."
"Well, give me a pointer..."persisted Butler.
"I'll give you a sherry," said Gerstein. And that was where the interview ended.
During the following months public fear continued to mount over the weather - and over the effect it was likely to have on the future of the world. On August 28, 1977, the Sunday Telegraph carried a major article headlined: WEATHER MEN AT A LOSS. It was written by a member of the newspaper's "Close-Up" investigative team and it said;
What is happening to the British weather? That seemingly innocuous question has suddenly become a major subject for research.
Even the meteorologists are cautiously echoing the man in the street's opinion that something distinctly odd has been affecting our climate to give us the extremes of the past two years...Many countries have experienced strange weather phenomena over the same period. Mr. Edwin P. Weigel of the United States Weather Bureau in Washington told me:
"We don't know what's hit us. California and other western states have had two years of drought which have smashed all-time records. Water is being rationed in some parts..."
There are several shades of opinion on how ominous it all is and there is only a very shaky consensus on how unusual such extremities really are...
The official attitude, however, was still guarded.Experts who knew the real truth were anxious not to provoke mass panic. Kevin Miles of the Meteorological Office's 40-strong climatic research team at Bracknell, Berkshire, was quoted in this Sunday Telegraph article as saying: "We must agree that what we have been experiencing is unusual. Reports from all over the world have confirmed our own picture of increased variability. But we have learned not to over-react to what might be seen as odd in several small parts of the globe."
Mr. Miles went on to admit that he and his team would dearly love to understand what has been going on recently.
So, on orders from the highest level, the charade was maintained - with weathermen on both sides of the Atlantic
insisting that they still did not know the truth, that they were still investigating the disturbing mystery.
The Sunday Telegraph article continued:
The Bracknell meteorologists are enlarging their research program to investigate every hypotheses that might give a correlation with the fluctuating weather. Oceans, clouds, land forms and the Earth's surface are all being scanned with the help of one of the world's fastest computers.
While such sophistication is being perfected, the American experts are flying as many scientific kites as their
British counterparts. The Washington bureau is currently looking at possible effects of volcanic eruptions and changes
in the movements of the sun. "Some of it comes excitingly close, some is clutching at straws," said Mr. Weigel.
Amateur weather-watchers, who blame everything from Concorde to the atom bomb for the climatic unrest, will not be
appeased by the promise of more and better research.
Those "amateurs" certainly would not have been appeased if they had been told the full story. They would have been terrified.
"Talk to someone connected with the Space Program." That's what Gerstein had suggested. But it wasn't easy to follow his advice. Not when real information was needed.
Of course, there were people at NASA who were prepared to talk to Sceptre Television. But they were the public- relations specialists, the glib front-men, who could be charming and convincing. And who could say a great deal without saying anything.
Clements knew that he had to get more. Far more. The project, by this time, had become almost an obsession with him. He was determined, somehow, to find someone who really knew about this Alternative 3 - and who would be prepared to explain it.
"We'll obviously bet nothing out of anybody still with NASA." he said to Terry Dickson. "They'd be too scared of losing their jobs and I can't say I blame them. So see if you can track down someone who's already quit. One of the moon-walkers, perhaps. They may know something or they may have seen something.
"One or two of them, from what I gather, are rather bitter about the way they've been treated. I was reading - in the Daily Express, I believe it was - about Buzz Aldrin complaining that he'd been used as a traveling salesman. Try to get hold of him or one of the others. At the very least, they might point us in the right direction..."
Dickson rubbed his chin, pulled a rueful face. "And how do I start doing that?" he demanded. "I don't know where any of them are these days..."
"I don't ask you how to point the cameras, love...you're the researcher..."
"Yes, but..."
"And make it a priority job, Terry."
"It'll cost," persisted Dickson. "I'll have to hire someone in America and that could cost real money. Harman's not going to like it. Remember what he said about Australia..."
"Never mind about Harman." Clements was being crisply executive. "You do your job and leave Harman to me." He grinned suddenly and added: "Anyway, he's a busy man and I don't think we ought to trouble him with such small details." A freelance journalist in America was commissioned by Dickson. Three former astronauts refused to co-operate. A fourth said he would need time to consider his position. That fourth man was Bob Grodin.
The American freelance also supplied Dickson with a tape containing a conversation which had taken place between Grodin - during his first moon walk - and Mission Control. Here is the transcript of the relevant section:
GRODIN: Hey, Houston...d'you hear; this constant bleep we have here now?
MISSION CONTROL: Affirmative. We have it.
GRODIN: What is it? D'you have some explanation for that?
MISSION CONTROL: We have none. can you see anything? Can you tell us what you see?
GRODIN: Oh boy, it's really...really something super fantastic here.You couldn't ever imagine this...
MISSION CONTROL: O.K....could you take a look out over that flat area there? Do you see anything beyond?
GRODIN: There's a kind of a ridge with a pretty spectacular...oh my God! What is that there? That's all I want to know! What the hell is that?
MISSION CONTROL: Roger. Interesting. Go Tango...immediately...go Tango...
GRODIN: There's a kind of a light now...
MISSION CONTROL: (hurriedly): Roger. We got it, we've marked it.Lose a little communication, huh? Bravo Tango...Bravo Tango...select Jezebel, Jezebel...
No more speech could be heard. Grodin, at that point, had switched to another frequency. On the tape there was only static...
Simon Butler, you may recall, underlined that point when the television documentary was transmitted. He said: "Bravo Jezebel? A form of code? Almost certainly. But what did it mean? Absolutely nothing to the estimated six hundred million people listening in on earth..."
Remember the allegations, which we outlined in section one of this book, made by former NASA man Otto Binder?
"Certain sources with their own VHF receiving facilities that by-passed NASA broadcast outlets claim there was a portion of Earth-Moon dialogue that was quickly cut off by the NASA monitoring staff."
That censored portion, according to Binder, included these words from Apollo 11: "These babies were huge, sir...enormous...Oh, God you wouldn't believe it!...I'm telling you there are other space-craft out there...lined up on the far side of the crater edge..."
Could that have a direct link with the exchange heard on the Grodin tape? Had Grodin, like the men of the Apollo 11 mission, seen something too startling to be revealed to ordinary people?
Or were these moon-explorers all mistaken? Was there something in outer space which induced hallucinations?
The
idea of unknown and unidentified space-craft being "lined up" on the moon - to the astonishment of human astronauts -
has surely too ridiculous. And YET...
Grodin agreed to be interviewed by Sceptre Television, via Satellite, from a studio in Boston, Massachusetts. The plan was to tape the entire interview and edit it later. In fact, as viewers will probably remember, the interview ended abruptly and in the oddest possible way. And it place an even bigger question mark on the whole subject of Alternative 3.
There was, right from the start, something slightly manic in Grodin's expression and he showed a tendency to laugh nervously for no apparent reason. But he talked fluently and he displayed no reluctance about discussing the breakdown he had suffered after his final return from space. Nothing remarkable happened, or seemed likely to happen, until Simon Butler asked a question which we present verbatim from the program which was transmitted:
Now it has been suggested, among others, by some very responsible people that you - that all of you on the Apollo program - saw far more out there than you have been allowed to admit publicly. What comment do you have to make on that suggestion?
The immediate effect on Grodin was electrifying. His face suffused with anger and he shouted: "What are you trying to do, man? Just tell me that! What are you trying to do."
Butler apologized. "I was only..."
"You trying to screw me? demanded Grodin. He leaned forward in his chair, glowering into the Boston camera. "That what you want? You want to screw me real good?"
"Of course not," said Butler quickly. "And I'm sorry if..."
"Like that dumb bastard Ballantine? Is that what you want to..."
He got no further. His voice was chopped in
midsentence, his picture on the monitor screen vanished in a haze of white static.
"What is going on? asked Butler. "Hell's teeth...what's the matter with this..."
He was interrupted by Clement's voice. "We don't know where he's gone."
Like that dumb bastard Ballantine! That's the line which grabbed their attention. It had to fit in, somehow, with the mystery of the meaningless tape received by Hendry - and with the strange circumstances leading up to Ballantine's death. It just had to be connected with what the man Harry had said: "There was no way for that to be an accident...it was what they called and Expediency and I know why it happened."
"We've got to find him and talk to him face-to-face. Terry, love...see what your lad in America can come up with." He turned to Colin Benson. "I'll probably be sending you over there," he said.
Benson beamed. "Great!" he said. "But isn't Harman going to raise stink?"
"Probably," said Clements. "But leave that to me."
Harman did "raise stink". He raised it more vehemently than Clements anticipated. We have the memoranda which reveal the strength of Harman's feelings. In our view they show a strength bordering on fanaticism...
Wednesday, July 13, 1977. Another submarine meeting of Policy Committee. Chairman: A EIGHT. Transcript section supplied by Trojan starts:
R TWO: This Princeton man... Dr. Gerard O'Neill... appears to have a disturbing lack of discretion...
(Author's note: This meeting, being held a littler later in the month than was customary, was exactly two days after
the Los Angeles Times published the controversial interview -- detailed in Section One of this book - in which Dr.
O'Neill outlined the solution he called "Island 3". He said in that interview - "There's really no debate about the
technology involved in doing it. That's been confirmed by NASA's top people.") The Trojan transcript continued:
A FOUR: Sure...he shouldn't have shot his mouth off in that way...but I don't see there's any real harm done...people will assume he's just talking theory...
A EIGHT: It is just theory, for Christ sakes, as far as he is concerned. He knows the technology but beyond that he knows nothing...
R FIVE: He is a respected man...a man whose words mold public opinion...and he should be discouraged from making such stupid statements...
A EIGHT: That's already been done...for him and for others like him...
R TWO: What is this you are saying? An unauthorized Expediency?
A EIGHT: Hell, no! That's not necessary. Like I said...Gerard O'Neill doesn't know enough, not about the politics...he doesn't even have any idea that we meet this way...
R SIX: Then what has been done?
A EIGHT: Let's keep this in perspective, shall we...Washington doesn't want publicly to pinpoint the O'Neill thing because that would make it seem too important...best to ignore it..that's the official attitude and I'm damned sure that attitude is right...
R SEVEN: But when O'Neill talked about Island 3...
A EIGHT: Hold on...let me finish. Something is being done but it's being done as a blanket operation...Right now there's a secrecy Bill being scrambled on to the Stature Book and I promise you that'll close every worrying mouth...
Fourteen days after this meeting of the Policy Committee, as we mentioned earlier, columnist Jeremy Campbell broke the news of the "suppression" Bill in the London Evening Standard. Campbell is a highly experienced journalist with a deserved reputation for knowing the background to the published news. Here, we are confident, is one of the rare instances where he did not know the real background.
The rest of the transcript supplied by Trojan was brief:
R SEVEN: That may well be but I have to tell you that our people in Moscow are becoming increasingly worried about the level of security in America...there was that bad business of Carmell...
A EIGHT: Oh no!...not Carmell again! Carmell's settled...that's all over, okay?
R SEVEN: And Carl Gerstein?
There was no reply to that question. The meeting had obviously continued but that was the end of the transcript.
The end of August and the beginning of September, 1977 only days before the "Suppression" Bill reached the Statute Book - brought more curious evidence of the treatment which had been given to Batch Consignment victims. It gave a deeper insight into the work which had been continuing in America and Russia. And in Britain.
This evidence is now public knowledge for, as library files show, it has appeared in reputable newspapers. But, because of its special significance, we consider it worth repeating here.
On August 27, William Lowther, the distinguished Washington correspondent of the Daily Mail, wrote and article which was headlined THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE BATHROOM.
It said:
Morgan Hall was a spy. He always kept a jug of martinis in the refrigerator. He had a two-way mirror in the bathroom.
But Morgan's life was full of woe. His masters were slow in sending money. His assignment was awful sleazy. The code name for his project was "Operation Midnight Climax". It was meant to be a perpetual secret And no wonder.
For two full years Morgan spent his working hours sitting on a portable toilet watching through his mirror drinking his martinis while a prostitute entertained men in the adjoining bedroom.
Her job was to persuade clients to drink cocktails. What they didn't know was that the drinks had been mixed by the mysterious Morgan. They were more chemical than alcohol.
Morgan had to record the results. We still don't know just what they were or how they worked. But some of the drinks gave instant headaches, others made you silly or drunk or forgetful or just plain frantic. The effects were only temporary and nobody was harmed, much.
Morgan was employed by the Central Intelligence Agency and it was America's top spy bosses who sent him out from
headquarters near Washington to set up the "laboratory" in a luxury apartment overlooking San Francisco Bay.
Now,
1,647 pages of financial records dealing with the operation have been made public as part of aCongressional
investigation.
(Author's note: That was the Congressional investigation provoked by the information supplied to us by Trojan.) Lowther's article continued:
It was all part of the agency's MK-ultra mind control experimental program...it was reasoned that a prostitute's clients wouldn't complain.
The financial records released yesterday show that Morgan was always writing to headquarters. Says a typical letter - "Money urgently needed to pay September rent."
His bills for the flat include Toulouse -Lautrec posters, a picture of a French can - can dancer and one marked: "Portable toilet for observation post."
Says the CIA: "Morgan Hall died two years ago. We have no idea where he is buried."
Here we must ignore suspicions and accept the official word of the CIA. Our own inquiries in America have yielded nothing further about Morgan Hall and we must state, quite categorically, that we have found no evidence to support any suggestion of his having been an expediency victim.
Lowther's story was quickly followed by two more reports which confirmed something we had already been told by Trojan - a series of secret experiments in behavior control had also been conducted in Russia and in Britain.
On September 2 The Times gave front-page prominence to a report supplied from Honolulu by Reuter and UPI. It was headlined "PSYCHIATRISTS CONDEMN SOVIET UNION" and it said:
The general assembly of the World Psychiatric Association, meeting behind closed doors, has adopted a resolution condemning the Soviet Union for abusing psychiatry for "political purposes" in the Soviet Union..."
The international code of ethics, called the"Declaration of Hawaii", adopted by the congress follows years of criticism against the WPA for not taking action on ethical standards.
Other newspapers claimed that "scores of mentally healthy Soviet citizens are forcibly interned in mental hospitals'. This is unquestionably true but the facts need to be seen in their proper perspective. The vast majority are detained because of their stand on human rights. They are sane people who are considered enemies of the State. Only a small percentage are there purely because they are needed as guinea-pigs. These are the ones who have been detained because of Alternative 3 in Britain - appeared on August 28 in the Sunday Telegraph:
Hospitals for the mentally ill and mentally handicapped have been instructed by the Health Department to collect statistics on operations being carried out to change personality.
For the first time, ministers have acknowledged that there is growing concern. The operations, known as psychosurgery, are carried out to remove or destroy portions of brain tissue to change the behavior of severely depressed or exceptionally aggressive patients who do not respond to drugs or electric shock treatment.
The Sunday Telegraph said that "the change was rreversible" and quoted a prominent consultant psychiatrist as saying: "My hospital is littered with the wrecks of humanity who have undergone psychosurgery.
However, the newspaper did not point out that these operations can also be performed to control the behavior pattern of men and women who are completely sane. Or that, in fact, they have been performed on such people.
Dr. Randolph Crepson-White spoke to us about these operations when we net him in the Somerset village to which he retired in 1975. He talked frankly on the strict understanding that we would not divulge his name. However, as he died of natural causes on October 19, 1977, we do not consider ourselves to be now bound by our undertaking.
Dr. Crepson-White told us: "I performed five of these operations on people - four young men and one young woman - who appeared to be completely sane. There were two objects. The patients had to be completely de-sexed, to have their natural biological urges taken away, and they also had to have their individuality removed. They would, after being discharged, obey any order without question. In fact, they would virtually be thinking robots.
"I recognized that what I was doing was most unethical, and I did protest that very strongly, but I was told that the operations were vital to the security of the country.
"Nobody actually told me that those patients had been involved in espionage but that was the impression I was given. I was ordered to sign the Official Secrets form and that is why you must not mention my name - apart from the fact that I'm frightened, there's be repercussions of a violent nature if certain people realized I'd been talking to you."
We should point out that, in order to protect Dr. Crepson-White's anonymity, we had agreed hot to be so specific about the number of operations he had performed. That agreement, of course, is now unnecessary.
He continued: "I still had distinct reservations about this aspect of my work. Soon it became apparent that I would
be required to do more operations involving sane people...possibly many more...and that was when I decided to get
right out."
"I had not intended to retire for another three years but, under the circumstances, I considered it
impossible to go on."
Dr. Crepson-White, we are certain, knew nothing about people being collected into Batch Consignments. He knew nothing about Alternative 3. But a complete insight into the use being made of his work was eventually supplied to us by Trojan. It was supplied in an astounding document which we will be presenting later.