A brief, weird history of brainwashing

On an early spring day in 1959, Edward Hunter testified before a US Senate subcommittee investigating “the effect of Red China Communes on the United States.” It was the kind of opportunity he relished. A war correspondent who had spent considerable time in Asia, Hunter had achieved brief media stardom in 1951 after his book Brain-Washing in Red China introduced a new concept to the American public: a supposedly scientific system for changing people’s minds, even making them love things they once hated.

But Hunter wasn’t just a reporter, objectively chronicling conditions in China. As he told the assembled senators, he was also an anticommunist activist who served as a propagandist for the OSS, or Office of Strategic Services — something that was considered normal and patriotic at the time. His reporting blurred the line between fact and political mythology.

A brief, weird history of brainwashing

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Wagner Chief Denies Claims That He Offered Ukraine Russian Troop Positions + What are we to Make of Prigozhin and the Wagner Group?

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Russian mercenary group Wagner, dismissed claims made by The Washington Post that he offered Ukraine Russian troop positions in exchange for a Ukrainian withdrawal from Bakhmut, calling the report “laughable.”

Wagner Chief Denies Claims That He Offered Ukraine Russian Troop Positions

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What are we to Make of Prigozhin and the Wagner Group?

70 Years Ago: The Death of Joseph Stalin

Soviet leader Joseph #Stalin died on March 5, 1953 — 70 years ago this week.

Stalin’s body was put on display at the Hall of Columns in the House of the Unions, remaining there for three days, while more than five million mourners came to pay their respects. (By contrast, about 250,000 Americans passed by the coffin of President John F. Kennedy after his assassination a decade later.)

70 Years Ago: The Death of Joseph Stalin

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Joseph Stalin & the USSR