The 1960’s were over – a time of great social upheaval, civil rights and radical movements that threatened the status quo of conservative society. These cultural swings were now being chipped away at by the power structure of the 1970’s, and Brad Schreiber’s book “Revolution’s End” tells how they went about dismantling those movements using psychological warfare techniques from the cold war and Vietnam.
The subtitle of “Revolutions End” is “The Patty Hearst Kidnapping, Mind Control, And The Secret History Of Donald DeFreeze And The SLA”. The Symbionese Liberation Army, controlled by “Cinque'” (Donald DeFreeze), was wholly a creation of a mind control operation run by authorities at Vacaville Prison in California. Embedded within the “Black Cultural Association” (BCA) at Vacaville was a plan to destroy emerging radical and revolutionary movements. The program was run by Colston Westbrook, a black Vietnam vet that worked for the CIA. Westbrook’s mark was Donald Defreeze, a failed crook who became an informer for authorities to obtain soft-time and privileges within Vacaville.
In the course of the interaction between Westbrook, DeFreeze and the “BCA”, numbers of white radicals became involved in support groups with black prisoners, and one of those radicals was Patty Hearst. Like others, Hearst became attracted to the radical multiculturalism of working with black prisoners. Using false identification, Hearst was among a number of women that were allowed to meet prisoners for sex on the prison grounds. This must have been as exhilarating to Hearst as it was a reward for DeFreeze, who was in the grips of Westbrook’s controlled isolation and drugging. As the concept of the SLA evolved within the walls of Vacaville, Westbrook had hatched a plan to have DeFreeze kill Dr. Marcus Foster, the first black superintendent of Oakland schools.
DeFreeze, who had been seriously mind-fucked by Westbrooks techniques, was allowed to “escape” Vacaville and create the armed SLA outside the prison. You see, if he had refused, Westbrook would have labeled him a “snitch” in prison, and DeFreeze would have been killed. So off he went with his merry band of white radicals to kidnap Patty Hearst, kill Foster, demand a “feed the people” program, rob the Hibernia Bank, and eventually die in the first televised SWAT raid, a technique police use when they want no survivors.
“Revolution’s End” is not so much about Patty Hearst, it’s about Donald DeFreeze and the cunning, devious mind control by Colston Westbrook. It’s about destabilizing revolutionary movements, as recognized by the killings of Black Panthers as well as Hispanic and American Indian resistance organizations. Schreiber masterfully weaves the tale, with lots of twists and turns that provide thoughtful caution for just what authorities must be up to in our current era. Seriously, technology has advanced so far now that comprehensive mind control may be deployed on our entire population, and by reading how it was done in “Revolution’s End” may give us a road-map to prepare for future disruptions.
One last interesting note: Patty Hearst was scheduled to serve a 35-year sentence. That was reduced to 22 months by the intervention of Congressman Leo Ryan, who had discovered the plot by the CIA’s Colston Westbrook and mind control at Vacaville.
Ryan was killed November 18, 1978 in Guyana while investigating another CIA mind control program – Jim Jones and Jonestown.
“Revolution’s End” is a very powerful study of how the government goes after radical movements, is well written and stands as a warning for us all.
Why don’t we just face the facts. You know, the facts of the matters, so to speak:
LSD was studied and developed, further with testing, on many hapless persons, from prisoners to American military personnel, and even on some government people, right there in the Intelligence agencies.
There were men, such as in San Francisco, in the 60’s where the CIA had hookers bring ‘customers’ to ‘safe houses,’ secretly put LSD in the ‘johns’ drink and the CIA agents, drinking booze, would observe the behavior and sex from a wall which had a one way mirror-
Classy!
The reason I bring this up is to show that yeah, that’s right there was the use of drugs and other ‘mind affecting, mind techniques’ going on.
If I may, i’d like to recommend David McGowan’s book ‘Weird Scenes Inside The Canyon.’
You don’t have to agree with all that David exposes, but he really lays out some startling facts and it’s is quite mind opening to see those. He has other good books.
There were indeed programs to attack and destroy the late 60’s anti-war movement and to discredit groups and individuals reputation and such: like the environmental ones.
All you gotta do is look at the MKUltra program, a part which was our friends running the whorehouses in S.F. and other cities I mentioned above with LSD. There other chemicals experimented with, too.
One more thing, there is, as you all know, a lot more intrusion in people’s privacy these days.
I though that things would, or were supposed to, get better since the mid-late 70’s when some of these programs were exposed.
Quite obviously, our author Brad Schreiber knows much more about such matters
and there you go.
By the way, back in those late 60’s onto the mid 70’s day, I had some good laughs when I heard of some of these ridiculous Nom de Guerre, nicknames, as it were, of some so called radicals and revolutionaries
I’m laughing now- Cinque- really…?… ha ha, give me a break…ha ha