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- [00:01]
Cindy Ettler
Why get all your holiday decorations delivered through Instacart? Because maybe you only bought two wreaths, but you have 12 windows. Or maybe your toddler got very eager with the Advent calendar. Or maybe the inflatable snowman didn't make it through the snowstorm. Or maybe the twinkle lights aren't twinkling. Whatever the reason, this season Instacart's here for hosts and their whole holiday haul. Get decorations from the Home Depot, CVS and more through Instacart and enjoy free delivery on your first three orders. Service fees and terms apply. This episode is brought to you by Amazon. The holidays are here and you know what that means. It's time to get your friends and family the gifts they deserve. Take the stress out of shopping with Amazon's great deals and low prices on.
- [00:44]
Marcus Chatfield
A huge range of items from toys to tech and much more. Whoever you're gifting for, Amazon has great.
- [00:49]
Cindy Ettler
Prices on everything you need this holiday season. Shop Black Friday week starting November 21st.
- [00:57]
Marcus Chatfield
This episode contains descriptions of physical and emotional abuse. Please take care while listening the word brainwashing was originated by an American reporter in Hong Kong in 1950. It refers to the internal Chinese communist policy of ideological remolding or thought reform. This is Walter cronkite from a 1957 episode of his television show the The Twentieth Century. The topic of this installment is brainwashing. The term brainwashing entered the American collective consciousness in the 50s when soldiers returning home from the Korean War recounted their experiences in POW camps. It is well known that almost all American soldiers captured in Korea were exposed to attempts to convert them to communism. 21 men actually refused to be repatriated and remained in China after the war. Was this brainwashing? It's hard to overstate just how frightening the concept of brainwashing was in the context of Cold War anxieties. It was portrayed as a powerful new form of ideological warfare, an insidious and unseen force capable of manipulating the mind. The idea of brainwashing took on even more terrifying connotations as it seeped into pop culture through science fiction novels, TV shows and movies. Do you realize, comrade, the implications of the weapon that has been placed at your disposal? A normally conditioned American who's been trained to kill and then to have no memory of having killed, his brain has not only been washed, as they say, it has been dry cleaned. In 1974, when a congressional report on behavior modification programs mentioned the seed and compared its form of therapy to the communist brainwashing techniques used in the Korean War, it dealt a Devastating blow to the seed's reputation. Alarmed parents began pulling their children from the program, and the seed began to shrink almost as fast as it had grown. If its successor, street incorporated, was going to avoid the same fate, it would need to untangle itself from the disturbing implications of that loaded term brainwashing. My name is Cindy Ettler, and this is the sunshine place. At the end of the last episode, we learned that Straight incorporated was founded in 1976 in St. Petersburg, Florida, about a year after the sea left town. Parents there had lost faith in its founder, Art Barker, but not in the promise of his program. An influential group of former SEED parents rallied around a wealthy real estate developer named Mel Sembler to form straight. They took steps to dissociate Straight from the seed. They moved the program into a new building. They hired a program director with a master's degree in clinical psychology who could speak the language of the medical establishment. But everything else about the program was the same, including the allegations of harmful treatment methods, which started almost immediately. Within a year of opening, the St. Petersburg Times was reporting on claims of kidnapping, false imprisonment, abuse, and brainwashing.
- [04:31]
Dr. Robert Dupont
There were people asking whether or not STRAIGHT was brainwashing kids, but they didn't have a depth of understanding of how the program worked, and the closest word they could come up with was brainwashing.
- [04:47]
Marcus Chatfield
This is Marcus Chatfield. He's the former STRAIGHT client turned historian who we heard from in the last episode about the congressional report that compared the SEEDS techniques to brainwashing. But Marcus says that brainwashing doesn't quite do justice to the actual experience of being in Straight.
- [05:04]
Dr. Robert Dupont
It's a struggle for people to put a name on what they experienced when every waking moment, there are multiple dynamics going on. How do you sum it all up? Well, brainwashing was a really convenient term. The social scientists in the 1950s who were interviewing civilians who had escaped or been released from communist Chinese thought reform prisons, they used the term brainwashing. But they also had their own scientific theories.
- [05:37]
Marcus Chatfield
Marcus has studied those theories in order to try to understand the psychological transformation that he experienced during his time at Strait. He finds that the most useful explanation comes from the work of an organizational psychologist named Edgar Sheen. Sheen explained the process of brainwashing using a model that was originally developed to study group dynamics in the workplace. The theory says that change happens in three phases. Unfreezing, changing, and refreezing through the history.
- [06:08]
Dr. Robert Dupont
Of SEED and Straight. Most of the harm is happening in the unfreezing phase, where a kid is cut off from the world. Their food, their clothes, their communication is totally restricted. Every action they take is directed. That's all meant to loosen their ties with their past self, loosen their ties with the outside world, and make them interested, motivated in complying. Manipulating those basic needs really motivates people to do what they have to do to survive.
- [06:50]
Marcus Chatfield
In other words, what kids experienced as arbitrary rules and punishments were actually part of a systematic effort to motivate compliance. The next phase is changing.
- [07:03]
Dr. Robert Dupont
The change process is what you have to do to access resources in your environment, to get a little more sleep, to get a little more freedom, a little more personal autonomy. The change process is modeled by the people around you.
- [07:22]
Marcus Chatfield
At straight, you watch the other kids get rewarded for certain behaviors, like standing up in rap sessions, confessing to their druggie pasts, and embracing a new, better version of themselves based on the ideals of the program. So you decided to model that same behavior. Next comes refreezing.
- [07:43]
Dr. Robert Dupont
Refreezing is modeling that to others. In the process of modeling it to others, a person will start believing it.
- [07:53]
Marcus Chatfield
This is the part that is hardest to understand if you've never experienced it. It's a well documented phenomenon in social psychology that consistently acting in a certain way can lead you to believe it yourself. If you call yourself a druggie every single day, multiple times a day, it becomes frozen in your subconscious.
- [08:13]
Dr. Robert Dupont
That basic model of change became the troubled teen industry.
- [08:19]
Marcus Chatfield
So the same psychological process that caused captured American soldiers to become indoctrinated into communism is what caused kids and Straight to buy in so completely to the program. Edgar Sheen called this process coercive persuasion. And his theory was just one of many. But brainwashing was the word that worked its way into the collective consciousness. And it's the word that opponents of the SEED latched onto.
- [08:46]
Dr. Robert Dupont
Critics kept bringing it up. So straight was getting a lot of bad press. Former parents and staff members, former board members were complaining about straight. And they made it clear that all the kids were psychologically verbally abused. A lot of the kids were physically abused. And a couple of different state agencies were concerned.
- [09:18]
Marcus Chatfield
In 1977, the Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services launched an investigation. The HRS filed a report which revealed that the stories in the media were only the tip of the iceberg. They forwarded it to the state attorney, who just so happened to have been on the board of advisors for the Seed in St. Petersburg. He determined that there wasn't enough evidence to do anything about it. He even said he'd have no problem recommending straight to juvenile judges. And the report was never made public. So despite the growing criticism and controversy, Straight Incorporated was quickly becoming a force to be reckoned with in St. Petersburg, and under the leadership of Mel Sembler, the program had the backing of influential parents and community leaders. But if Strait was going to grow to levels that Art Barker wasn't able to reach with the seed, Mel Sembler would need to expand his network of powerful allies. And he was about to meet someone who would help him do just that.
- [10:26]
Cindy Ettler
When you think about businesses that are selling through the roof, like Aloe, Allbirds or Skims, sure you think about a great product, a cool brand and brilliant marketing. But an often overlooked secret is actually the businesses behind the business making, selling and for shoppers, buying.
- [10:42]
Ginger
Simple.
- [10:43]
Cindy Ettler
For millions of businesses, that business is Shopify. Nobody does selling better than Shopify, home of the number one checkout on the planet and the not so secret secret with shop pay that boosts conversions up to 50%, meaning way less carts going abandoned and way more sales going. So if you're into growing your business, your commerce platform better be ready to sell whenever your customers are scrolling or strolling on the web, in your store, in their feed, and everywhere in between. Upgrade your business and get the same checkout experience as business powerhouses like Aloe, Allbirds and Skims. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period@shopify.com Odysseypodcast all lowercase go to shopify.com Odyssey podcast to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.com Odysseypodcast I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey. We are best friends and together we have the podcast Office Ladies where we rewatched every single episode of the Office with insane behind the scenes stories, hilarious guests and lots of laughs.
- [11:48]
Marcus Chatfield
Guess who's sitting next to me?
- [11:50]
Cindy Ettler
Steve.
- [11:53]
Marcus Chatfield
Carell in the studio.
- [11:56]
Cindy Ettler
Every Wednesday we'll be sharing even more exclusive stories from the Office and our friendship with brand new guests and we'll be digging into our mailbag to answer your questions and comments. So join us for brand new Office Ladies 6.0 episodes every Wednesday. Plus on Mondays we are taking a second drink. You can revisit all the Office Ladies rewatch episodes every Monday with new bonus tidbits before every episode. Well, we can't wait to see you there. Follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts.
- [12:34]
Marcus Chatfield
This episode is brought to you by Peacock and the new original Docuseries making Manson in 1969, Charles Manson and his followers committed seven brutal murders in Los Angeles that would make him infamous now, with access to over 100 hours of phone recordings between an incarcerated Manson and his closest confidant, a new story will unfold with shocking revelations from the man himself. Making Manson streams November 19th only on Peacock.
- [13:06]
Dr. Robert Dupont
There had been an episode of heroin addiction focused in California and New York.
- [13:12]
Marcus Chatfield
And in both of those states they had developed a substantial civil commitment program for heroin addicts. Nelson Rockefeller. This is Dr. Robert Dupont speaking on a panel about government drug policy during the Nixon era. Dupont was White House drug czar under Richard Nixon and the founding director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Separate from that, growing out of the.
- [13:37]
Dr. Robert Dupont
Program of Synanon in California was an alternative treatment program.
- [13:41]
Marcus Chatfield
Here he's talking about Synanon's influence on the therapeutic community model of treating heroin addiction. The heroin problem had been Robert dupont's focus throughout his career. He dedicated many years to working with addicts in Washington, D.C. when it came to marijuana, on the other hand, he was rather nonchalant. He was even in favor of decriminalization. At a press conference in 1976, he advised parents of pot smoking teens to not get so terribly uptight. But his stance was about to change. In response, dupont received a letter from a mother in suburban Atlanta who had formed a grassroots coalition of concerned parents in the area to address the trend of teenage drug use amongst their kids. She wrote to dupont that his messaging on marijuana was having a negative effect on families across America. DuPont was moved by the letter and went to visit her in person. Shortly thereafter, he commissioned her to write a book called Parents, Peers and Pot. It sold over a million copies and inspired the formation of parent groups all over the country, just like the one she had formed in her community. These groups were reminiscent of the SEED parents who had facilitated the rapid expansion of the program in the early 1970s. They had strength in numbers and a collective ideology that aligned with the escalation war on drugs in America.
- [15:08]
Dr. Robert Dupont
The political rhetoric around fighting the drug problem really put those parents in a powerful position. And the SEED built its own new form of political power through the treatment methods it was using, which hinged on parent involvement. That conviction, that loyalty, and that belief in the program. It was the real power.
- [15:38]
Marcus Chatfield
The power of the SEED parents transferred over to Straight Incorporated. And the parent groups that were forming around the country all had the potential to harness that same power. In the late 1970s, Dr. Robert Dupont aligned himself with this emerging parent movement. He entered the private sector as a consultant and became an outspoken advocate against marijuana. He was a fixture in the media with regular appearances on good Morning America. And it was around that time that dupont received an invitation to visit a teen rehab in St. Petersburg, Florida, called Straight Incorporated.
- [16:15]
Dr. Robert Dupont
I would assume Strait reached out to him because he was the guy for parents concerned about drug abuse. He would have been the most ideal personality to get on board. So dupont went down and visited Straight in St. Petersburg, and he was really impressed.
- [16:37]
Marcus Chatfield
When Robert dupont visited Straight, he was given the same curated experience as anyone else witnessing the program for the first time. He saw what looked like reformed teenagers standing up in front of their parents and peers, telling emotional stories of transformation through tears of gratitude.
- [16:55]
Dr. Robert Dupont
Those testimonies were really powerful. So for outsiders like dupont, if you were willing to suspend your critical thinking and just be carried away emotionally, it was easy to believe that there was a miracle happening in there.
- [17:16]
Marcus Chatfield
Dupont was sold on Straight, and he offered his services as a paid consultant.
- [17:22]
Dr. Robert Dupont
I don't think he was doing it for the money. I think he was doing it because he honestly believed it would help American families. I suspect he was a true believer, and he really thought this was the best, most promising model that he had ever seen. He wanted to see the program become the basic model of teenage drug treatment in the United States. To do that, dupont would have been the best person for the job. He was incredibly powerful. He had a lot of clout, and he had connections with the White House.
- [18:03]
Marcus Chatfield
I, Ronald Reagan, do solemnly swear that.
- [18:06]
Dr. Robert Dupont
I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States.
- [18:10]
Marcus Chatfield
That I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and.
- [18:14]
Dr. Robert Dupont
Will to the best.
- [18:15]
Marcus Chatfield
In January of 1981, Ronald Reagan was sworn in as the 40th President of the United States after campaigning on a pledge to make America great again. Part of that vision meant assuming the role of commander in chief in the war on drugs. And the first lady, Nancy Reagan, was going to lead the fight against teenage substance abuse. Within the first few weeks of her husband's term, she invited Robert dupont to the White House.
- [18:42]
Dr. Robert Dupont
Robert dupont met with her and told her about Straight and recommended the program as the solution to America's drug problem and encouraged her to go visit Straight Incorporated.
- [18:57]
Marcus Chatfield
Dupont understood that an endorsement from the Reagans would open the door for nationwide expansion. He also recognized that the Reagans had something to gain by supporting the program. In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.
- [19:17]
Dr. Robert Dupont
Reagan was all about shrinking the government, and he wanted to push all these public services into the private sector. So the idea of STRAIT becoming a national franchise would have been really appealing to the Reagan administration. Because it was. Was private pay, because it wasn't the government doing it. Because to the Reagan administration, that was the only way to scale up. That was the only way to respond to the epidemic of teenage drug abuse. But also, the industrial scale of Straight was really promising because having a program that treated 20 kids at a time wasn't efficient. That wasn't going to really do it. So having a program like Straight, where there was hundreds of kids, if they could spread that nationally, then it really was plausible, you know, mathematically to have every single American kid who was smoking pot in treatment.
- [20:24]
Marcus Chatfield
That was exactly the kind of potential that Robert Dupont saw in straight. And in the fall of 1980, he held a press conference to announce his intentions. He told reporters, people here have what I call a technology for reversing drug habits. I've taken it upon myself to do what I can to expand it nationally. But if Robert dupont had seen what was happening at Strait on any other day when nobody from the outside was scheduled for a visit, he would have seen that what he called technology would have been better described as torture. When Robert dupont was hired as a consultant by Strait, Inc. The program acquired major credibility by association with one of America's most well known, well respected, and well connected experts in the field of drug addiction. Dupont's endorsement put Straight in the national spotlight. But his legitimacy was also a smokescreen for a program that was fast becoming even darker and more extreme than its predecessor, the Seed.
- [21:39]
Ginger
They had something called the TR room, the timeout room. There was actually two rooms up the stairs just under the skylights, and Those were like 100 degrees or hotter all the time.
- [21:54]
Marcus Chatfield
This is Ginger. She was one of the first teenagers at Straight's second location in Sarasota, Florida, when it opened in 1980.
- [22:04]
Ginger
If you got subject to the timeout room, it could be isolation, could be like solitary confinement for anywhere from hours to days or weeks. Weeks. Or it could be a tag team of other kids coming in to shove you against the wall and yell in your face and get you to confess and, you know, whatever else. The only time I ever went to timeout, I came out of it with a broken nose and a cracked rib.
- [22:37]
Marcus Chatfield
Ginger thought she would know what to expect when she got to Straight. She grew up in Pompano beach, just north of Fort Lauderdale, and five of her six older siblings were Seedlings.
- [22:48]
Ginger
The Seed pretty much became like our family religion.
- [22:55]
Marcus Chatfield
Ginger grew up in the Seed culture, and it seemed like a foregone conclusion that she would end up there, too. But by the time she was a teenager. The Seed was on the downslide, and Straight was trending up. In 1980, Ginger's parents put her in Straight.
- [23:11]
Ginger
Everything was the Seed under a new name. The signs on the walls were the same, the furniture was the same, the songs were the same, the rules were the same. So I thought that since I already knew the program and how to act and everything, I could just whiz through and have like a six month program. But after a couple of weeks, I was looking around going, okay, this is way, way more intense than the Seed. It was more repressive and more controlled and violent.
- [23:50]
Marcus Chatfield
There were incidents of violence at the Seed, but at Strait, physical confrontation became standard practice. The kids on the program were directed to restrain one another using a technique called a five point restraint, where they would work in teams to wrestle an offender to the ground and hold them down by their arms, legs, head and torso, often sitting on their chest, making it hard to breathe. It was total subjugation. Strake claimed that restraint was only used as a preventive measure when someone was out of control. But in reality, kids were restrained for any infraction, no matter how minor, like fidgeting in their chairs. It was punitive and weaponized for compliance.
- [24:34]
Valerie
They began asking me to restrain other children because I was bigger and I didn't feel like I could say no. So I just did it.
- [24:46]
Marcus Chatfield
This is Valerie from episode one. She was at Straight in Sarasota, too.
- [24:52]
Valerie
They would do this thing where they would restrain the girls up against the wall and they would take the back of their hair and they would slam their face into a wall. And I know for sure that sometimes it was my hand in their hair. You pull their hair back and you look in their face and their whole part of their nose was like bleeding and raw from rubbing up against the side of the wall. And I knew what it was like to be on the other side of that.
- [25:20]
Marcus Chatfield
Valerie had been in Straight for almost a year, but she hadn't made any progress at all. And she wasn't any closer to getting out than on the day she arrived because she didn't drink or do drugs. Before Straight, she never had anything to confess in wraps, and she struggled to make things up. So she would always get confronted and restrained. She says that the first time she felt like she did anything right and Straight was the first time she was called on to help restrain somebody else. After that, she was called on again and again, and for that she was rewarded and she progressed.
- [25:56]
Valerie
I began to figure out that when they tapped my shoulder and I restrained the girl. If I restrained her harder or stronger or used violence, the way that they showed me how to use that, it was somehow in my favor. There's one time where I was restraining a child and their arm, some kind of way, was dislocated. And I don't even know how to say that. Like, I just remember feeling a thump that wasn't right and them screaming really hard. And it was that kind of stuff that stays with me, like that thing where the bones move. And I felt like when I was looking at her face, there was a darkness that was over her, and I was part of that darkness. I felt like I was leaving my body to actually do that. Like, that's something I did not want to do. I did not want to be there. I didn't understand it, and yet I was a part of that.
- [27:03]
Marcus Chatfield
What Valerie described is one of the more difficult and shameful aspects of Straight that we survivors carry with us. Because it's one thing to have to recall the violence that was done to you. It's another to remember that you, too, were made to carry out violence on others. It was inherent to the program as much as the verbal and emotional violence that had been a hallmark of the SEED at strait. The incentive to comply wasn't just to get out of there. It was to get out of there alive.
- [27:35]
Ginger
I thought that I was going to wind up dead.
- [27:39]
Marcus Chatfield
Ginger remembers the moment when she became aware of the stakes and found herself participating in things she never thought she was capable of before. Straight.
- [27:48]
Ginger
Looking back, I realized how damn lucky we all were that we didn't murder Bobby.
- [27:56]
Marcus Chatfield
Bobby was a kid who managed to run away, but he was found and brought back to Straight. As a punishment, he was sentenced to the timeout room.
- [28:06]
Ginger
He got just hour upon hour for days of screaming and yelling and getting shoved around. He was not permitted to sleep for that three days, okay? And at some point during each of those days, they would trot him out in front of group to yell at him and lecture him. And, well, I got called on and I gave him, like, bobby, you know, we all love you. And, you know, I was trying to tell him, just please stop resisting. Just please comply so that they'll quit beating on you. But you couldn't say that in so many words. But I saw him wobbling back and forth and making the guys with him hold him by the shoulders and stand him up. And he wouldn't look at anybody in the face who was talking to him. He was just gazing off at the back of the room. I Thought he was being defiant. And I lectured him about being defiant. And at the end of every interaction like that, love you, Bobby. And then they called on his sister, and his face got animated for the first time when he heard her voice. But they were standing maybe 15ft from each other, and he could not locate her face with his eyes. And I just realized, oh, my God, Bobby's checked out. He's not being defiant. He's not capable of complying or defying or doing anything else. There we are. We are beating him to death right now. This kid needs to go to a hospital. And I looked around the room and realized that for just like a moment, everybody was kind of snapped out of it. And we're all doing the same math. Anybody who stood up would be in Bobby's shoes in a day or two. So nobody did. That was a time when I just for a moment realized how freaking brainwashed I was.
- [30:14]
Marcus Chatfield
It isn't hyperbole to say that survivors of Strait like Ginger and Valerie can tell stories that are disturbingly similar in nature to the ones told by soldiers who spent time in thought reform prisons during the Korean War. The psychological process they were exposed to was functionally the same. Most people would call it brainwashing. That's exactly what critics of STRAIT were calling it in the media and with greater frequency as STRAIGHT made plans to open locations outside of Florida. Every new article about the program mentioned brainwashing, and that word threatened to derail Robert dupont's plan for national expansion. But he had an idea for how to get it back on track. He reached out to some colleagues, a pair of psychiatrists named Andrew and Barbara Malcolm. They were a husband and wife duo who specialized in group psychology and cults. In the early 1970s, Andrew Malcolm had been critical of Synanon in his book called the Tyranny of the Group. He called Synanon's version of therapy a savage affair that could systematically reduce a person into a gurgling nonentity.
- [31:20]
Dr. Robert Dupont
Malcolm was very concerned about the harms that come along with being unduly persuaded. And that's one of the reasons he was so concerned about marijuana as well. He was concerned about how it made people susceptible to influence. And he was convinced that the downfall of civilization was in progress and it would be caused by people's drug use.
- [31:50]
Marcus Chatfield
In August of 1981, Robert Dupont invited the Malcolms to St. Petersburg. The Malcolm spent a few days observing the program. Afterwards, they wrote a report about their findings.
- [32:03]
Dr. Robert Dupont
The main question is whether or not straight is brainwashing kids to Answer that.
- [32:09]
Marcus Chatfield
Question in the report. The Malcolm's layout five criteria that they're looking for in Straight in order to determine if the program should be considered brainwashing.
- [32:18]
Dr. Robert Dupont
And they go through point by point these five criteria of brainwashing. But they don't cite any literature, and I don't recognize these from the literature. So I suspect they made these criteria up.
- [32:32]
Marcus Chatfield
The first criteria reads as follows. The subject must be isolated from his accustomed environment and constant surveillance must be maintained over him. He must be made completely dependent on the resocializing institution for the satisfaction of all his needs.
- [32:48]
Dr. Robert Dupont
And then they say, in the case of Straight, this first requirement is satisfied, but this is for as brief a time as possible. Then they say the second condition is that all past statuses must be given up. Next sentence, Straight does this insofar as it accords no value whatsoever to the drugged state or to the values of the drug culture. So they're saying it's okay to do this in Straight because they're just rejecting the druggie culture. Ultimately, it's for the kid's own good.
- [33:27]
Marcus Chatfield
The report goes on this. The Malcolms define their criteria for brainwashing and then acknowledge that they observe those techniques as inherent to the effectiveness of the program. But in each case, they say the intention behind it all negates the need for concern.
- [33:43]
Dr. Robert Dupont
All five of their criteria, they say, yes, Strait does it, but they're doing it for a good reason, so it's okay. But they also make several statements throughout the report that are just wrong. They come out and say outright, no one is abused physically. No one is denied food or rest. No one is publicly humiliated. So they're making statements that are either lies or absolute misunderstandings. And it's not clear which it is, but it seems suspicious. What it seems like is DuPont hired a quote unquote objective third party observer to go down to Straight in a moment of crisis and give it a seal of approval for people who are in Strait who experience these things. It's really infuriating to read because this report had real consequences.
- [34:47]
Marcus Chatfield
The Malcolms conclude their report by saying that Straight simply does not engage in brainwashing. And to use the term would be absurd. Robert Dupont couldn't have written it any better himself. And the Malcolm report gave him exactly what he wanted. Now he could tell his client, Mel Sembler, that all of the controversy surrounding the program was illegitimate. And he could confirm to Nancy Reagan that what he had told her was true. Straight Incorporated was the future of teen rehabilitation in the United States.
- [35:21]
Dr. Robert Dupont
And that report ended up in the White House as proof that STRAIGHT wasn't brainwashing kids. And it really helped convince the White House that it was safe to endure straight. And that is exactly what Nancy Reagan did.
- [35:42]
Marcus Chatfield
In February of 1982, Nancy Reagan made a highly publicized visit to Strait Headquarters in St. Petersburg, Florida. She attended a two and a half hour open meeting with nearly a thousand people in attendance. The testimonies of the kids and their parents brought her to tears. She asked the crowd what she could do to help. One of the kids responded, build a whole bunch of straits all over the country. Nancy Reagan's visit was the ultimate seal of approval. It meant that STRAIT wasn't just another experimental rehab. It had been identified by the White House as a beacon of promise in the anti drug movement. It was covered by the media nationwide. And cautionary articles about brainwashing became outnumbered by heartfelt accounts of Nancy Reagan's emotional endorsement. If you were a parent already considering straight, it was suddenly an easy decision. And if you were a parent who lived too far away to put your kid in the program, Nancy Reagan's visit was a powerful invitation to bring Straight Incorporated to a neighborhood near you. Next time on the Sunshine Place. What I want to share today is a technique that we've developed that has.
- [37:01]
Dr. Robert Dupont
Helped parents face the problem that their.
- [37:03]
Marcus Chatfield
Kid has a problem and to do something about it. There's a man rising the ranks at straight named Dr. Miller Newton. He was extremely charismatic. He had a very melodious voice and the parents seemed to eat up every word he said. Newton's professional expertise is in persuasion.
- [37:25]
Ginger
I looked at my dad and he just shook his head and went, oh, God, like, worse than I thought. I could not believe that he was fallen for this con man, but he's.
- [37:37]
Marcus Chatfield
Got a natural talent for violence. I wanted to find the neighborhood pusher and I wanted to kill the sob. I wanted to choke him to death.
- [37:46]
Ginger
And watch his eyeballs pop out.
- [37:47]
Marcus Chatfield
So you asked me if there were other Cruel staff members.
- [37:50]
Ginger
Oh, yeah, there were. But none like Miller Newton. Anybody that was in that place when.
- [37:55]
Marcus Chatfield
I was in there knows what I'm talking about. That was a three ring circus of cruelty. The Sunshine Place is an Odyssey original podcast. It's written, directed and produced by Perry Crowell. Our writer producer is Margot Gray. Our story editors are Maddie Sprung Keyser and Lloyd Lockridge. Executive produced by Robert Downey Jr. Susan Downey and Emily Barclay Ford from Team Downey, Jenna Weiss Berman and Maddie Sprung Kaiser from Odyssey and Josh McLaughlin. Edited by Perry Crowell. Mixing and Mastering by Bill Schultz, production support from Sean Cherry and Paul Andrejak, and narrated by me, Cindy Ettler. Special thanks to J.D. crowley, Leah Rees, Dennis, Maura Curran, Josephina Francis, Kurt Courtney and Hilary Schuff. If you want to hear more of the Sunshine Place, please take a moment to rate and review the show. It really helps. Hey, I'm Kelly Corrigan. You probably haven't heard of me, although maybe I did write a few New York Times bestsellers. I gave a TED Talk. But the reason I'm in your ear today is to invite you to listen to my podcast, Kelly Corrigan Wonders. We talk about purpose and creativity and well being and really what makes life worth living. With people like Bono and Amy Schumer, Spike Lee and Rainn Wilson, Krista Tippett and Bryan Stevenson, Kelly Corrigan Wonders will leave you optimistic, informed, and maybe a little bit more ready for the next big day in your life. So follow and listen to Kelly Corrigan Wonders, an original podcast available now for free on the Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts.