Muzafer Sherif
Today I’m going to pick up where John Marks left off in The Search for the Manchurian Candidate: The CIA and Mind Control. I’m going to talk about a subproject that John Marks didn’t explore thoroughly and spread misleading information about. This subproject looks at “Human Ecology” which is the CIA’s name for studying inter-group conflict or race relations.
In the late 1950s the CIA began to profile groups of 14-17 year old inner city and non-English speaking youths who were roaming the streets. They wanted to find out what these boys’ political push buttons were and they engaged the help of a well-connected social psychologist to ‘map’ the boys’ attitudes.
This profiling work was done under the auspices of MK ULTRA; it was given the financial designation of “Subproject 102″. The declassified MK ULTRA files give these documents reference number (MORI ID#) 17358, I’ve provided photographs of all subproject documentation on this page. (So you don’t have to take my word for their existence!)
“Inner city youths of the age 14-17″ will strike anyone who’s lived in a ‘depressed’ American urban neighborhood as a very interesting demographic to target, because this is the ‘riot demographic’. If you’re looking for a group of people who are easy to ignite, this is it. 14-17 year olds are the indiscriminate crime demographic: misguided kids who are bored, have bad attitudes and often embrace a culture of criminality. These are the kids who will go around trashing cars, breaking windows or attacking weak-looking people just because they can. They’re the kids who’ll suddenly decide to rush old folks, as we saw in Milwaukee last year– but this pattern is repeated all over the USA, all the time.
There is crime amongst other age groups too, but 20-somethings and older are less likely to engage in indiscriminate crime– they shoot other criminals over drug disputes and the like. (In fact, neighborhoods where drugs are sold are often safer because the dealers keep the hooligans in check in order to avoid police attention.)
For more examples of the “riot demographic” at work, consider the youths rioting in London; or the youths rioting in Paris; and the 1994 Los Angeles riots. The same pattern olds true for urban rioting during the 1960s.
The American race riots of the 1960s have a lot in common with riots that are happening across the Western world today– the sequence of events is strikingly similar: a cop shoots a youth under strained circumstances; rioting ‘spontaneously’ starts and destroys the local economy; the neighborhood ends up being on lock-down for the next 40, 50, 60 years. It’s a great way of spreading the police state and inciting distrust between races. This distrust is politically useful for demagogues and FBI informants like Rev. Al Sharpton.
Of course, I’m not saying all riots are caused by 14-17 year old ‘inner city’ males, nor am I saying that once a riot starts only 14-17 year olds maintain the riot– plenty of older people get in on the action. I’m saying that it’s relatively easy to start these young lads rioting and the CIA was all over them in the early 1960s. (The CIA were also all over militarizing the police, which came out in Colby’s Family Jewels leak.)
So what does John Marks have to say about Subproject 102? A lot of misinformation. I’ll let Bill Colby’s pet writer speak in his own words:
In other instances, the Society [Human Ecology Society, CIA front] put money into projects whose covert application was so unlikely that only an expert could see the possibilities. Nonetheless, in 1958 the Society gave $5,570 to social psychologists Muzafer and Carolyn Wood Sherif of the University of Oklahoma for work on the behavior of teen-age boys in gangs. The Sherifs, both ignorant of the CIA connection,* studied the group structures and attitudes in the gangs and tried to devise ways to channel antisocial behavior into more constructive paths. Their results were filtered through clandestine minds at the Agency. “With gang warfare,” says an MKULTRA source, “you tried to get some defectors-in-place who would like to modify some of the group behavior and cool it. Now, getting a juvenile delinquent defector was motivationally not all that much different from getting a Soviet one.”
*[Footnote] According to Dr. Carolyn Sherif, who says she and her husband did not share the Cold War consensus and would never have knowingly taken CIA funds, Human Ecology executive director James Monroe lied directly about the source of the Society’s money, claiming it came from rich New York doctors and Texas millionaires who gave it for tax purposes. Monroe used this standard cover story with other grantees.
– From The Search for the ‘Manchurian Candidate: The CIA and Mind Control, Chpt 9 ‘Human Ecology’ page 159.
Marks’ explanation of Subproject 102 is almost entirely bunk, and I’ll explain why.
To begin with, the part that isn’t bunk: The MK ULTRA documents which were released to Marks did not include the names of Muzafer and Carolyn Wood Sherif. All names associated with subproject 102 were blacked out. However, this sentence was included in a letter from the agency scout/consultant who brought the Sherifs to the attention of MK ULTRA directors at the CIA:
In my opinion Dr [BLACK OUT]‘s project is highly significant because of its concentration on group behavior in a natural setting with a very minimum of interference or artificiality. It may not be apparent from your correspondence with Dr [BLACK OUT] that his wife will be a very active participant also. Mrs [BLACKOUT] [BLACKOUT] in the near future. The two of them represent a most able team of field investigators.
MK ULTRA MORI ID #17358 file 21.
Either Marks worked out who this couple were from his knowledge of social psychology (!? Marks’ previous career was in the US State Department) or his ‘MKULTRA source’ told him the names of the pair.
Very little in the MK ULTRA documentation supports Marks’ source’s assertion that the goal of Sherif’s work was to help inner city youths “cool” it by identifying boys who might moderate group behavior (see emboldened text in the quote from Manchurian Candidate). At most, the Sherifs suggest that ‘channeling antisocial behavior’ is one way the data they’re collecting might be used. Psst, Marks! Your insincerity is showing! Marks describes MK ULTRA on page 20 of Manchurian Candidate as an “assault on the human mind”– is it likely that such an assault would include honest inner-city charity work, John?! Naturally, Marks’ “MKULTRA source” didn’t want to disclose their name.
The CIA recruited Sherif because of his research into group psychology; work which he conducted with WWII-era propagandist Carl Hovland. (The results of their collaborative work were finally published in 1961.) Prior to Hovland’s collaboration with Sherif, Hovland’s research involved analyzing how wartime audiences would respond to messages in propaganda movies such as Why We Fight. This is how one author on social-judgment-theory.wikispaces.com describes Hovland’s contribution to the war effort: “Like many other early communications theorists, he worked with the U.S. War Department during World War II to study the effectiveness of persuasive films and audience resistance to those films.”
Sherif’s 1950s/60s work focused on group attitudes and how to change group attitudes. He and Hovland are considered fathers of social judgement theory, which offers a framework for tailoring messages to groups so that the messages will have maximum impact. In 1959 Sherif and his wife were mapping inner-city boys’ prejudices and political attitudes so that CIA messages could achieve “maximum influence”.
This is how the same CIA talent scout describes Muzafer Sherif’s cunning:
Dr. [BLACK OUT] made an unusually good impression on community workers in [BLACK OUT][BLACKOUT], where he worked last year. More than any other investigator that I have seen in recent years, he was able to obtain the confidence of [BLACK OUT] minority groups in getting their full support of his research activities. He uses relatively naive but highly motivated observers who are given special training for this purpose. As a result his data are quite fresh and most revealing of things that are often hidden from the individual in more professional observer roles.
MK ULTRA MORI ID #17358 file 21.
I’ll now provide a series of quotes from the Sherifs’ research summary as it appears in the actual MK ULTRA documentation, you can judge for yourself what’s going on:
Operation Report to the [BLACK OUT][BLACK OUT][BLACK OUT]
Description of Research Work on Natural Groups 1958-1959 [BLACK OUT][BLACK OUT]
This report describes social-psychological research on natural groups in different socio-cultural settings in different [BLACK OUT] cities during the period of October 1958- August 15th 1959 while the writer was [BLACK OUT].
…
…three kinds of data were collected:
(1) Data related to specific settings. (e.g. living conditions, family size and stability, income, education, mobility.)
(2) Data related to group structure (organization) and to group products. (e.g. shared practices, values or norms, reactions to deviation), based on the actual behaviors of individual members during the course of their interaction.
(3) Data related to self-attitudes, aspirations and goals of age-mates of group members living in areas representing the same and different settings.
The later aspect of the study was strategic in linking ecological data mentioned under (1) and group behavior mentioned under (2).
…
Natural groups formed in socio-cultural settings undergoing differing degrees of transition are most suitable for this purpose. This consideration determined that cities be chosen that were in the process of salient and accelerated transition and that areas within them be selected whose populations are themselves in varying stages of acculturation to dominant features of American life (e.g. [BLACK OUT] rapidly growing city.)
…
While the present project is mainly concerned with theoretical and methodological issues, namely integrating conceptual tools and methods of field and laboratory studies, it is assumed that substantial advances in these respects are bound to have implications for more realistic and effective handling of (a) problems of intergroup relations in actual settings and for (b) devising measures for channeling socially undesirable modes of behavior… into more constructive modes…
…
In all cases, data were collected by persons who were perceived by group members or respondents, as the case might be, as “one of us”.
…
1. The area of study was specified to the observer. His initial task was to identify a group in that area composed of no less than 7 and no more than 12 male members within the age range of 14-17 years.
(a) Procedure for identification of groups: Observers did not identify groups by questioning of members or local adults. Groups were identified by direct observation “at a distance” through repeated inspection of possible gathering points in the area (e.g. playground, recreation center, vacant lot, drugstore). The initial criterion for selecting a group for observation was simply observed frequency and recurrence of association at specified locations in the area. At no time during this stage did the observer directly converse or question group members.
(B) Establishing contact and rapport with the group: Once a group was identified on the basis of observed frequency of association, the observer set about to establish contact and a plausible pretext for his presence in the area… For example, one observer observed a group of boys associating frequently to play basketball. After thus identifying a group for study, he appeared on the scene with a new basketball, which soon attracted their attention. His pretext for being on the scene was that he needed the exercise to lose some weight.
2. The first focus of observation being status structure of the group… Status Rankings: On the basis of repeated observations of the group the observer was able to specify at least the top three and bottom positions in the group… independent rankings of school authorities provided such a check.
3. The second focus of observation was group products such as common practices, values or norms and sanctions. The criteria for such products were observed recurrences over a period of time of common terms, common modes of apparel, common procedures in activities, and specific reactions to deviations, sanctions, from such customary behaviors on the part of a member.
One finding concerning reaction to deviation, to be expanded in the reporting of the study, is of particular interest. In the lower socio-economic area in [BLACK OUT] the group observed had considerably greater importance in the lives of its members than other aspects of the social organization in the area… Consequently, the group member suspected (as one was) of “squealing” on the group was in trouble. On the other hand, the norms of the group in the somewhat higher socio-economic area [BLACK OUT] were less comprehensive in the activities covered and observed reactions to deviation were of a milder nature.
…
III. Questionnaire Data Self-Radius-Goals Schedule… A schedule was prepared for administration in high schools, designed to be easily read and completed. The items pertained to self-conceptions, aspirations and goals of adolescents. Topically the contents can be grouped according to the content of the socio-cultural data. Thus, there were items pertaining to residence and housing conditions, language use and cultural preferences, attitudes toward educational and occupational achievement, toward parents and authority figures, conceptions of financial achievement and deprivation, and finally friendship preferences as related to intergroup affinities and rejections…
For example, the median estimate of weekly income needed to be “really well off” varies from $82.60 in the low socio-economic level [BLACK OUT]-speaking area, to $332.14 in the upper level English-speaking area. Such data, representing relatively “free” estimates of respondents, are clearly significant psychologically…
I encourage readers to read the full report for themselves, which is available here: Subproject 102 . Am I saying that every riot since 1959 has been a CIA plot? No, I’m not. I’m saying that in 1959 an agency which likes to implement regime change through civic revolt was very interested in a group of boys who happen to fit the typical riot demographic. A few years after this 1959 study, the USA experienced a rash riots which followed similar patterns; we continue to experience these riots to this day. Globally since 1959 a number of regimes which the CIA didn’t like have been toppled after sudden civilian rioting, mostly in urban centers. I’m saying that in 1959 the CIA had prepared itself– done its social psychological mapping– to be involved in some of these riots.
How did Muzafer Sherif get into bed with the CIA? Muzafer was born in 1906 to a wealthy family in Odemis, Izmir, Turkey. His given name was Muzafer Serif Basoglu, but he changed it later to ‘Muzafer Sherif’ for reasons that are unclear to this writer. Muzafer studied at Harvard and Columbia University in the 1930s and was an outspoken critic of the Nazis, which lead to him being imprisoned for a short time in Turkey. The US State Department sprung him from jail in Turkey and then gave him a fellowship at Princeton University. In 1946 Muzafer became resident fellow in psychology at Yale University, home of Rockefeller-funded professor Carl Hovland.
Carl Hovland
Carl Hovland had been a psychology professor at Yale before taking a three-year leave of absence to work for the War Department during WWII. After the fighting was done, he returned to Yale where it’s likely that Muzafer came under his patronage. Carl Hovland was often retained as a consultant to various government and corporate institutions who wanted to devise policies that involved group psychology and manipulation, according to the National Academy of Sciences:
Hovland also served as an insightful and trusted consultant to numerous governmental and educational agencies, industrial organizations, and philanthropic foundations.
So, Mufazer was plugged into government work from the earliest days of his relationship with the State Department. This strongly suggests that his wife, Carolyn, is lying about their ignorance of the Human Ecology Society’s CIA funding. She had doubts enough to ask James Monroe about the source of the Society’s funding; but she and her husband didn’t seek the advice of her husband’s seasoned patron? If I was worried about who I might be working for, Carl Hovland would be the first person I’d bounce my concerns off of…
Perhaps this is just a coincidence, but when Colby et alia wanted to leak the Sherif’s work to the public in 1977, they went to another State Department boy– John Marks– to do the dirty job of ‘spinning’ Agency race-profiling. Is John Marks now living a life on the lam, having outed some of the CIA’s most precious secrets? Is he running scared that some day a MONARCH baby will shoot him with a poisoned dart gun, or drive a stake through his heart? No, he’s not. Marks spent his career running a comfortable think-tank out of Washington D.C. called ‘Search for Common Ground’. (No longer searching for ‘Manchurian candidates’!) Perhaps you’d like to donate some money to Mark’s non-profit, or take advantage of one of their limited time offers?
John Marks handing out awards at his think-tank circa 2007.
I’m writing this as the latest reincarnation of the typical American inner-city riot hits critical point: Ferguson, Missouri rioters’ cause célèbre was the death of Micheal Brown, an 18-year old with a criminal past who was shot during an altercation with a police officer. His parents are appearing before the United Nations– Earth’s Alien Ambassadors– this week suggesting that their son’s death should be on the UN Committee on Torture’s agenda.
I don’t think that the UN is going to do anything to slow the militarization of police in the United States, nor anywhere else. However, I promise this will happen: black neighborhoods in Ferguson, Missouri will be destroyed; the police force will become more ‘diverse’ and much better armed; nutballs like the FBI’s ‘New Black Panther Party‘ will infect local politics with their hate and prevent rational civic discourse, ensuring the need for even more draconian policing… citizens everywhere will lose.
I hope I’ve given readers of anolen.com a better perspective on how the USA, and the rest of Europe, lost our way. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with one thought: gasoline needs a match to start it burning. Here’s a picture of aggressive protestors outside an up-scale shopping mall near Ferguson, Missouri called ‘Frontenac’. This photo was taken on Oct 13th 2014. What do you think is going on? ‘Cause I think some of those protesters were probably protesting in the 1960s too. ;)
