Wilhelm Reich
Elsworth F. Baker, M.D.
Reprinted from The Journal of Orgonomy Volume 1, 1968
The American College of Orgonomy

sources in spite of many requests to do so. This was hardly a scientific attitude. Especially in view of the fact that all of Reich's findings were published and had been sent to agencies and individuals who should have been interested, such as the United States Public Health Service. One can only conclude that the FDA investigation was not a bona fide, scientific endeavor to arrive at facts, but, rather, a biased design to discredit and destroy Reich's work on orgone energy. Significantly, the injunction forbade the use of the accumulator on animals as well as humans. If the accumulator were completely useless, as the FDA claimed, why the prohibition on the experimental use on animals? Might someone have discovered that it did work?

Now arise the problems as to how to meet such an attack and what was really behind it. This brings us to the question of whether Reich should have fought the complaint in court. Reich, himself, vacillated over this question. Arguments in favor of appearing in court were:

1. The burden of proof rested on the FDA.

2. Reich could insist on demonstrating his experiments to the jury.

3. There were a large number of qualified witnesses to testify to the validity of the orgone energy accumulator.

Arguments against appearing in court were:

1. It would mean the yielding of authority to a court of law in deciding matters of basic research.

2. There were good reasons for Reich's natural reluctance to become involved in legal technicalities.

3. There was uncertainty as to the extent of the conspiracy against him.

Every attorney consulted, except one, Mr. Charles Haydon, considered it a grave mistake not to appear. Mr. Haydon indicated that he could understand Reich's hesitancy in appearing and felt it rational not to appear. Reich attached himself to this attorney.

When Reich first received notice of the FDA complaint, he was completely unprepared and could not act for three days, so unexpected was this action. However, back in 1952, we had heard many reports (of which Reich was advised) that officers of the APA, including President Cameron, had stated that Reich was being investigated and would be exposed as a "quack." It was also at this time that FDA activity resumed with the questioning of patients. The FDA investigators even made an unannounced visit to Orgonon but were sent away when they admitted that they knew nothing about the accumulator. Reich refused to allow unqualified persons to judge the accumulator. At this time, I discussed the situation with an attorney, suggesting that Reich would be attacked again with regard to the accumulator. I acquainted the attorney with the fact that the accumulators were released by The Wilhelm Reich Foundation only on a physician's prescription, and that I had the responsibility to see to it that this was done in every case. The attorney advised notifying the FDA of this procedure and believed that this would be satisfactory to them. I had not yet discussed this with Reich, but the attorney wrote immediately to the FDA to arrange negotiations. He sent a copy of this letter to Reich, who was not particularly pleased over what he considered meddling into what he felt was strictly his affair. He felt that his conduct during the 1947 investigation had put a successful and permanent end to difficulties with the FDA. Therefore I canceled all further negotiations, and nothing more was done.

Nevertheless, I continued to be concerned, since the accumulator was the only technical point on which Reich could be attacked. He, himself, had always warned that anyone doing basic research must protect himself from attack on the grounds of legal technicalities, and it seemed that he was not making that mistake himself. He had also stated that frequently in fighting an enemy, one had to use the same method as the enemy, although it contaminated one to do so. Here the enemy was using secrecy and the law. Secrecy Reich could not tolerate; the law had no business deciding scientific matters, only science could do that.

After receiving the complaint, Reich notified me that he was not going to contest the action; that if the world did not want his work, it could do as it pleased. He felt that his responsibility was that of a scientist, making discoveries but not having to defend them in court. However, if the physicians wished to take any action, he said, they could. We, therefore, obtained an attorney and prepared to enter the case as "friends of the court." During preparations for this action, I received another call from Reich stating that he had decided to assume charge of the defense himself, and that the accumulators were, after all, his responsibility. He required that we drop our action, which we did.

It was shortly after this that Reich sent his Response to Judge Clifford and decided to rest his case on it, seriously expecting the judge to dismiss the case. The judge did have the authority to do this, but, undoubtedly upon pressure from the FDA, the Response was ignored, and Reich received a further notice of continued action by the court. At this point, Dr. Chester Raphael and I, accompanied by an attorney, went to Orgonon to renew our discussions with Reich concerning the physicians entering the case. Reich was adamant in his attitude that the accumulators were his responsibility and that we should not interfere. He did become interested, however, in the possibility of his appearing in court himself and discussed procedure with the attorney. The discussion was going smoothly until Dr. Silvert, who was present and opposed to Reich's appearance in court, asked defiantly, "And what happens to the truth in all this?" The attorney replied, "It comes out of all the embarrassment each side inflicts on the other." Ignoring the attorney's answer, Reich became very angry, stopped the discussion, paced the floor, and accused us of trying to entangle him in court action. His appearance in court was no longer considered, and we waited for the inevitable injunction. Reich still remained confident that the case would be dismissed and could not understand it when the injunction was issued. He had somehow trusted that his Response would be understood and accepted, and that laws would be passed protecting science and truth from pests who always tried to destroy them. On the other hand, in contradiction to his stated faith in American justice, a federal judge, and the understanding of the common man (his jurors), he had also expressed the opinion that he could never win in court in what he considered a "stacked" case. By this, he meant the impressive, though unqualified witnesses that the FDA would marshal to testify against the accumulator and influence the jury.

After the injunction was issued, Reich changed his mind again, deciding that the accumulators were in fact the physicians responsibility since they used them, not he. We petitioned to enter the case as affected parties, but it was too late. Our plea was denied on the grounds that the injunction was in personam, affecting only Reich, not the physicians. Of course, whether or not the injunction actually applied to the physicians, there was an obvious stigma implied which did affect us. However, while our case was being heard in the District Court and in Appeals, all action to carry out the injunction was halted. During this period, Reich notified the court he interpreted as consent and, with the passage of time, acquired a false sense of security; even believing that the case had been won. When reminded that he was only temporarily protected by our action, he could not believe it. Yet there must have been some awareness of the truth of our admonition, since, when some of us suggested not proceeding to the Supreme Court, which was believed to be a useless gesture, and saving the money for research instead, he accused us of wanting to expose him to attack.

Reich was insistent that our attorney expose the conspiracy behind the case. Here borders became hazy. Was there really a conspiracy and, if so, who was behind it? We did know that the American Psychiatric Association was actively supporting the FDA. The FDA later acknowledged this support. The New Jersey Neuro-Psychiatric Association had for several years been agitating to have Reich stopped, and it was largely through efforts of some of its members that the APA became active. The AMA also lent at least tacit support. Our first attorney had uncovered some evidence that the drug industry was involved, fearing that the accumulator might replace many drugs. (Subsequently there were scandals involving high officials of the FDA who were closely connected with the drug industry.) History is replete with examples of the persecution of pioneers and great discoverers by vested interests.

Were Moscow and Communism the real agitators behind all of this, using the FDA and the medical societies as tools; or was it simply the unconscious conspiracy of the emotional plague of man in general? Reich was never wholly certain, but he believed the former. He believed that Communists wished to steal his discoveries, while at the same time, discrediting and destroying him in this country. Communists never work openly, and the case contained many features typical of Communist procedure. Reich also leaned towards this view because of his faith in Americans and their sense of fair play, and he believed that Americans would not proceed in such a fashion except unknowingly, through influence from Moscow, i.e., the chain reaction resulting from triggering by Communists who are known to be adept at such practices.

The attack in 1947 was initiated by Mildred Brady, whom Reich had found to be sympathetic to the Soviet Union. Significantly, during the period of the trial, the FDA itself came under investigation and a number of its employees were discharged as Communists. Orgonomy and Communism are inimical. For a long time, Reich had been quite vocal in effectively exposing and denouncing the mechanisms of Red Fascism. The Soviet Embassy had ordered all of Reich's books, and Dr. Walter Hoppe of Tel Aviv reported treating a Russian who stated they had accumulators in some Russian hospitals. Furthermore, if we read The Communist Manual of Instructions for Psychopolitical Warfare, used for training Red agents abroad, we find a remarkable parallel to their techniques in Reich's case as follows:

It is a firm principal of Psychopolitics that the person to be destroyed must be involved at first or second hand in the stigma of insanity. . . .

Use the courts, use the judges, use the constitution of the country, sue the medical societies and its laws to further your ends.

One of the first and foremost missions of the psychopolitician is to make an attack upon communism synonymous with insanity. It should become the definition of insanity, of the paranoid variety, that, "A paranoid believes he is being attacked by communists."

The psychopolitician may well find himself under attack as an individual or a member of a group, the best defense is calling into question the sanity of the attacker.

Psychopoliticians should avoid murder and violence unless it is done within the safety of the institution. [Did Reich really die of his heart condition only a week before he was to have been released?]

Should any whisper or pamphlet against psychopolitical activities be published it should be laughed into scorn, branded as a hoax immediately and its perpetrator or publisher should be, at the first opportunity, branded insane.

Every chair of psychology in the United States is occupied by persons in our connection, or who can be influenced by persons in our connection. . . .

Now, let us appraise what was going on outside of court during these years of 1954-1957. Garbage was repeatedly strewn on Reich's lawn; air was let out of his tires; he received repeated telephone calls from anonymous people making remarks about the accumulator and then hanging up; he found microphones secreted in his radio set, and his garage mechanic discovered a small sending set under the dashboard of his car; the doors of his car were pried open, the locks broken; cars repeatedly ran back and forth in front of his place, and he was constantly followed. Reich remarked that if he revealed all that had happened to him, people would think he was insane. Was that the purpose, to harass him and wear him down? All of the related incidents were verified by persons other than Reich. In 1947, when Reich had said that Communists were behind the attack on him, nobody believed him until he discovered Brady's connections. Was the 1954 FDA prosecution, therefore, merely a routine procedure against an unaccepted medical device, or was it a conspiracy in Communist hands?

We come now to the questions of whether there were actually persons in the U.S. Government or the Air Force secretly supporting Reich. Again, I do not know. Reich was certain there were and contacted prominent representatives of both, and he always indicated he had knowledge which he was not at liberty to divulge. He showed me several letters he had received. I remember, specifically, the letters from four state governors whom he had contacted about weather control. He was very enthusiastic about them and convinced that the governors were seriously interested in his work. He took the letters at face value, as was his wont in accepting what people told him, particularly if it pleased him. In this respect, he seemed very naive, in spite of his frequently asking, "Do you mean it?" The letters were typical of those from politicians. I had written hundreds of similar letters when I was in the state service. One always expressed interests in, or appreciation of, everything, whether it was suggestions, criticisms, or anything else, being careful not to commit oneself to any definite statement. The letters had no significance to me. Several years earlier, Reich had made a point of insisting the New York Academy of Medicine was familiar with his work and held him in high regard. He challenged me and other physicians to go to the academy and check. We did, and found that they considered him a crackpot. It hurt him very much when we found it necessary to tell him, so we avoided hurting him any more than absolutely necessary thereafter. This was, I believe, a mistake, since it contributed to his false sense of being accepted. In spite of all he said about not caring whether or not he was accepted, he did have a natural longing for acceptance. It is known that certain units in the Air Force were familiar with Reich and his work, and there is considerable evidence that they followed his activities quite closely. However, how far up this interest extended is not known. I, personally, have grave doubts that anyone really important in our government, or even in the Air Force, was seriously interested in Reich's work. I also feel sure that the President's "Atoms for Peace" program had no relationship to Reich"s "Atoms for Peace," as Reich believed, although it is true that there were important similarities. Reich had acquainted the President with his plans and believed the President's subsequent plan was the outcome.

Reich's belief in support from the government directly affected his behavior toward the injunction. To the very end, he expected some word or act of support, and only in his Supreme Court brief did he finally despair of receiving it. This belief was founded on his opinion concerning the national emergency: that only he had found a possible way of successfully combating a national emergency caused by two sources of danger, the Communist conspiracy and the rapidly increasing desert conditions in the world. He considered the heated controversy over radioactive fallout, the marked decrease in negative ions in the atmosphere resulting in drought conditions, the increase in smog, the general increase in the prevalence of fatigue and virus infections, and the rapid increase in leukemia as evidence of the emergency of desert conditions.

Reich felt that, even more than from atomic testing, these conditions were being produced by spacemen who were bringing DOR into our atmosphere, and he gave the world about a quarter of a century to survive unless cloudbusting came into general use. Now, ten years after Reich's death, the world is still alive, and mainly unaware of an emergency; but I believe that the atmospheric condition is growing serious. However, it did not quite seem the emergency that Reich felt, one which required his exposing and sacrificing himself. The world is, nonetheless, much worse off for his death and the lack of his further help and genius. It is possible that Reich anticipated a greater emergency than occurred because of the position he was in at the time, and that it lent him more reason and support for his struggle. Some of his co-workers encouraged him in this attitude; others, who expressed doubt, were looked upon with suspicion.

All the aforementioned factors contributed to Reich's entanglement in a situation from which he could not extricate himself. He had no desire to become a martyr; in fact, he eagerly and confidently looked forward to a long life and often boasted that he would live to be ninety. He also maintained that he would not succumb to martyrdom, as had most of the great men of the past, because he understood the emotional plague and how to handle it. It is true that he compared his life to Jesus's, since both were trying to bring love instead of hate into the world, but there was no actual identification. Those who insist that Reich identified with Christ because of his book The Murder of Christ is labeled autobiographical, simply do not understand his meaning.

Actually, it seemed as though Reich was, at this period, pushed to destruction as much by his supporters as by his enemies. However, it is possible that he might have followed the same path even if he had not been encouraged in the action he took. His concept of the case was entirely different from that held by the court, which was only interested in the distribution of the accumulator, simply another unacceptable device. Reich saw the much deeper significance of a conspiracy to kill the discovery of orgone energy and destroy his whole life's work. He was fighting the emotional plague and believed that the survival of this country and all mankind might well depend on the outcome of his case. The larger issue he expected the court would see, and he was supported in this by his many followers. His attitude was correct. What was disputed by others was the possibility of the court's ever understanding his insight or paying credence to it. Reich could not be convinced of the futility of expecting the court to accept his view of the case. Besides, no one involved felt that he had the right to believe that his judgment was any better than Reich's as to what course to take. One can see the rationality of deferring to his judgment when one reads his Brief to the Court of Appeals. Here he shows exceptionally clear thinking and gives superb arguments. However, the court, in its restricted interest, was not impressed; thus Reich's arguments, though rational, proved futile. Toward the end, Reich did alter one attitude in acknowledging how Silvert had entangled him. His feelings of loyalty toward what he considered were Silvert's helpful intentions prevented him from presenting the full situation in court, which, of course, might not have made any difference. I am certain that the judge would not have believed that Silvert could have been working without Reich's direction. Thus Reich accepted his sentence and refused to obtain a suspension on grounds of his heart condition. In this manner, in prison, did the end of his life come to one of the greatest men of all time.

Reich's attitude, in fact his entire life, was unconventional and as difficult for the world to understand as were discoveries. Many legends, probably even religions, will develop about him. Already some people look upon him as a superman who could not err, or a spaceman come to earth; others have rationalized and written articles attempting to prove him insane, a charlatan, or a fraud. Significantly, those who try to discredit him are persons who had seen him once or not at all and know nothing of his work from factual knowledge, or who project their own irrationalisms onto him. These are such people as the Mildred Edie Bradys and the Henry H. Works, some of whom claim even to be "disciples" or "followers." History will remember them only for their attacks on Reich, as Mocenigo is remembered for the murder of Giordano Bruno.

Perhaps most to be feared are those zealots who, structurally unable to understand Reich, will make of him a savior and make orgonomy a dogma, with themselves as inquisitors. They will allow neither natural questioning nor rational arguments. They will mysticize sex, reaching for power and defense against their terror of living, thus attempting to destroy Reich's work in the name of supporting it. These are the ubiquitous emotional plague characters, ever ready to offer their services and assume positions of authority in order to kill. They are rarely recognized before it is too late.

Reich was not a mysterious superman nor a spaceman, nor was he insane or a fraud. He was very human, natural, and open, and foremost, a great and genuine scientist. All of his findings and intentions were honestly reported to appropriate government agencies, and he was at all times prepared to cooperate with these agencies if they were serious and honest. He had no patience with snoopers and curiosity seekers, whom he rather forcefully dispatched, but was infinitely patient with those whom he felt were sincerely interested in his work.

I first met Wilhelm Reich on January 6, 1946, and saw him for the last time on January 27, 1957. During these years, I came to know him very well. He was a true child of nature, never quite caught up in our patriarchal civilization. He could be as soft and warm as a summer breeze or as violent and angry as a thunderstorm; he was as trusting as a child, and yet he could see through the smoothest intrigue. His Character Analysis is a classic on the understanding of human structure, yet he would be easily fooled by people. At times, it seemed, he was unable to grasp the simplest explanation, but he could make clear the most difficult problems to anyone. He changed his mind frequently, but never swerved from his scientific integrity. His humor at times was most delightful, yet at other times he seemed humorless. Although he was impatient, he would wait two years after the writing before publishing a book. He was radical, in the true sense, but voted with the conservatives, believing them most interested, ultimately, in human freedom. He loved social activity, but spent much of his life alone. He was a man who loved babies and children, and he left his estate to be used for their welfare. I never saw him without learning something. He had a quality of reviving people and stimulating their interest in broader horizons and vistas beyond their own narrower lives. To quote from Shakespeare's "Hamlet":

He was a man, take for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again.

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