Corporate brainwashing

By Andrew Salmon

At the conclusion of the Korean War, 21 Americans and one Briton, all prisoners of war, or POWs, defected to communist China. The free world was shocked. Had Beijing "brainwashed" these young men?

Alarm bells rang across America. The CIA instituted a research program blending Nazi and communist psychological torture, hallucinogenic drugs, hypnotism and even, allegedly, such sinister practices as demonology. A popular novel and film, "The Manchurian Candidate," portrayed a former Korean War POW who is programmed to assassinate the U.S. president.

However, after the early panic subsided, it became clear that communist efforts had been primitive.

Chinese prison camp authorities did, indeed, make efforts to convert POWs. Prisoners were subject to "re-education," supplied with Marxist-Leninist literature and harangued on the pros of communism and the cons of capitalism. These techniques, in the opinion of most POWs, were mind-numbing rather than brainwashing: dull, repetitive and unconvincing. Many POWs played along with their captors simply to get better rations and treatment, or to avoid brutality.

In fact, of 4,543 American and British POWs, only 22 defected, and most returned home quietly in the late 1950s and early 1960s. (Compared with 75,823 communist POWs who returned home; around 22,000 refused repatriation.) The CIA's brainwashing program was wound down; all associated files were destroyed in 1973.

Yet the Korean peninsula's unfortunate association with brain-washing did not end with the war.

In the decades following the conflict, the Pyongyang regime crafted the most powerful, ubiquitous and notorious leadership personality cult on earth, elevating its ruling Kim family to the status of god-kings. Even expert Pyongyangologists differ over how deeply conditioned the North Korean public is by state mind control.

We may, however, assume that it is efficacious. Only a tiny, tiny percentage of North Koreans have defected South. And among those who do, many find it impossible to denigrate the Kims, preferring to assume that it is not the leaders who are at fault, but their underlings.

How about South Korea? Does brain-washing exist here?

This nation birthed one of the most infamous religious cults on earth, the Reunification Church. However, with the passing of charismatic leader Moon Sun-myung, the more outlandish aspects of the organization seem to have evaporated. The church now looks fated to fade into obscurity as a minority Christian sect.

South Korea continues to birth a range of religious cults whose members seem brainwashed into following the bizarre dictates of their leaders. However, I have seen no data proving that South Koreans are more susceptible to such cults than other nationalities.

Still, there may be one area of society where brains are successfully being washed: The corporate sector.

A striking aspect of Korea's commercial landscape is the extraordinary influence wielded by the founder families of the chaebol. I had always put the control that the "royal families" wield over multiple companies, the political sector, the bureaucracy, the judiciary and the media down to the power of money, rather than to the power of mind control.

A recent online discussion made me question this preconception.

The conversation concerned the formerly disgraced head of one business group, who had exited jail after being found guilty of embezzling company money. (The second time this gentleman had been jailed on similar charges, and the second time he had been freed before completing his sentence.)

Following his pardon, group PR staff placed press releases in local newspapers, detailing what an inspirational leader their chairman was, and what wondrous news it was for the group that he was out of pokey (while avoiding mention of why he had been jailed.)

A local journalist, an old friend, joined the discussion. He told of how moved he had been by the group's PR staffers: When discussing the plight of their jailed chairman, they had burst into tears!

I was astounded. Surely, I suggested, these tears had been an act ― rather like the chairmen ("wheel-chairmen") who arrive in courts in wheelchairs or on gurneys to win the sympathy of the judiciary?

No. Even though the journalist knew that the company's performance improved when the boss was behind bars, he was convinced that the staffers' tears for their illustrious leader were sincere.

Who has been brainwashed here? Company staffers ― who, being representatives of major global brands, should surely take a more sophisticated view of management? Or journalists ― who should surely possess the critical faculties to detect poppycock? Or both?

If these beliefs are truly entrenched, it is disturbing.

It calls into question the independent thinking of professionals in Korea's corporate and media sectors. It suggests that certain chaebol have mastered techniques that eluded both communist China and the CIA. And it indicates that in both Koreas, something deep within the culture enables the elevation of dubious leaders to exalted status.

Andrew Salmon is a Seoul-based reporter and author. Reach him at andrewcsalmon@yahoo.co.uk.