During the Cold War, the United States was doing anything it could in an effort to gain the upper hand over the Soviets. As a result, some very strange scientific research, studies and experiments were conducted. Such experiments include the likes of Project Acoustic Kitty, MKULTRA, and the Star Gate Program.

These programs are only a small sampling of the studies conducted with the mindset to overpower the Soviets. However, it seems that one doctor took Art of War’s “know your enemies” to heart when dealing with Communists. In 1947, a proposal was made to the US Navy to conduct a psychiatric study on what makes a communist tick.









Psychological Makeup of Communists

As the result of an FOIA request, it has been discovered that a proposal was submitted to the United States Navy to conduct research into why the human mind would be open to communism. The proposal states that the study wanted to “elucidate the psychological reasons and conditions which produce the acceptance by certain individuals of the Communist Doctrine”.

Not only did the study want to know the psychological reasons behind accepting communism, but it also set out to determine why people remain communists. However, there are some other very interesting purposes listed out in the proposal that provide some hints as to why the government would conduct such research.

Aside from trying to figure out the psychological makeup of a communist, it seems that the author of the proposal, Dr. Possony of Georgetown University, viewed communism as a psychological vulnerability that could be exploited.

The other purposes of the study seemed to focus on how America could use this vulnerability to their advantage by studying why many communists seemed to be immune to the United State’s counter-propaganda.

Similarly, the study also proposed to research the psychology behind the defection of a communist. The addition of these purposes to the study makes it fairly clear that the U.S. government was looking for way to beef up their PSYOP program against the Soviets.