[Pages 276-278]

The possibilities, said Dr. Gottlieb, were far beyond the neurological masturbation of the pleasure centers.  Not only could a rampaging bull be stopped in full charge, but humans could finally be programmed to attack and kill on command.  Another step forward was about to be taken in the Agency's search for the "Manchurian Candidate."

Helms agreed that research into ESB should come under the direct control of Dr. Stephen Aldrich.  A former medical director of the Agency's Office of Scientific Intelligence, Dr. Aldrich was widely regarded among his ORD colleagues as a pathfinder.  From dawn to dusk he spent his time speculating, theorizing and experimenting with the possibilities of harnessing ESB for intelligence work.  Using the latest computer technology, he developed Rubenstein's earlier work on radio telemetry, and the unfulfilled dream the English technician had shared with Dr. Cameron of a world of electrically monitored people became that much more of a reality.

In the safe house where Yuri Nosenko had been brutalized, Dr. Aldrich supervised infinitely more sophisticated research.  Included in the equipment he used was a piece not even Orwell had dared invent for his 1984.  Called the Schwitzgebel Machine, the boxlike construction had been developed by Ralph K. Schwitzgebel in the Laboratory of Community Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.  His brother, Robert, had subsequently modified the prototype so that the final product was something Rubenstein would have taken pride in; indeed, in many ways it resembled a smaller version of the cumbersome transducer the technician had built in the Montreal basement.

The Schwitzgebel Machine consisted of a Behavior Transmitter-Reinforcer (BT-R) fitted to a body belt that received from and transmitted signals to a radio module.  In the official description of the machine the module was "linked to a modified missle-tracking device which graphs the wearer's location and displays it on a screen."

The Schwitzgebel Machine -- its very name suggested something designed to make people enjoy their servitude -- was able to record all physiological and neurological signs in a subject from up to a quarter of a mile -- an improvement over the distance between the Grid Room and the cubbyhole where Dr. Cameron had monitored Madeline Smith and other patients.

By August 1972 other proponents of the Schwitzgebel Machine were voicing their enthusiasm.  They were led by Professor Barton L. Ingraham, a criminologist at the University of Maryland, and Gerald W. Smith, professor of criminal studies at the University of Utah.  In a joint paper, Ingraham and Smith painted a vivid scenario of how the machine could be used to keep track of known criminals.  He or she would be fitted with a brain implant and would be tracked, with the psychological data being transmitted from the implant to the machine.  The machine, using probabilities, would come to a decision and alert the police if necessary.

Adapting that frightening vision of tomorrow's world formed part of ORD's concept of the New Jerusalem of intelligence