Rehabilitation,Thought Reform and the Destruction of Young Minds

Introduction

by Wesley M. Fager
(c) 2000

• to Professor Arnold Trebach of American University and of the Drug Policy Foundation who worked so hard to tell the story
• to my friend Richard Bradbury of Tampa, Florida who spent seven long years of his youthful life closing them down under the name Straight, Inc.
• and to Bill Fager who has given his all.

I have been researching and writing a book about Straight for some time now. I never knew when I started this project just how big it would turn out to be, and, for a variety of reasons, I have not yet finished. Encouraged by recent web pages and discussion groups on Straight and Straight follow-on programs, I have decided to develop my own page to share some of the insights I have learned about Straight during my extensive research. Rather than spending several more months composing a finished web-page document, I have decided to let this page just grow as I develop upon one topic or another while I build  this site over the next few months. 

After all these years I suspect that  tens of thousands of former Straight clients still suffer from the confessional sessions which they were forced to endure.  A purpose of this web page is help them  understand what happened to them and why it happened.  A few parents caught on sooner or later to what Straight is, but even they don't know the whole story.  Most parents have never caught on at all.   To this day they firmly believe their child had a life-threatening disease that only Straight could cure,  and many will continue to be eternally grateful to  Straight, Inc. for saving (or for gallantly "attempting" to save)  the life of their teenage son or daughter.  And so another purpose of this web page is to educate these parents, as well as law enforcement officials, health officials, judges and probationary officers, high school officials, the media and  politicians including the President of the United states as to  what actually happens when the doors are shut so that we can all work to provide safeguards  so that such excesses and abuses can never occur again behind Straight's closed doors.   Check out "What you can do" from time-to-time in the left  margin of my web page on the Straights to see how you can help.   A big message we want to spread is that no child can be denied access to the outside world when held captive in rehabilitation programs of any sort. 

Everyone I talk to seems to run into the same two problems when they try to tell the story of Straight.  One,  if you try to tell the story,  you just can't seem to do it.   You just can't get people to understand the sheer human misery that Straight kids are forced to endure.  Or if you're a victim trying to tell the story to your own  parents,  they refuse to believe what you.   Two,  like the Nazi Holocaust,  the scale of suffering is so enormous  that it's almost impossible to document and describe it all.  Years ago I read  Simon Wiesenthal's book on the Holocaust.  I was a bit  disappointed then because of 7 million stories of human misery,  Mr. Wiesenthal  just told the tragic tales of about 20 people.   I remember one tragic tale he tells of a little boy who lit a candle each time the Nazi's came by and took one of his family members.  Finally,  one day,   they came and took the little boy too.  As his armed captors were hauling him away in an ox cart he asked his guard to wait a minute. With that he jumped off the cart and ran into his house and lit a final candle--one for  himself!  In this web-based,  abridged version of my up-coming book,  I,  at first, thought that I faced a similar problem to Mr. Wiesenthal's.  How do you tell the story of  thousands of cases of abuse in just one volume.  Ultimately,  I think,  I have a different task than  Mr. Wiesenthal's.  For the Nazi Holocaust is well established;  Straight's is not.  Therefore,  to some extent,  I did have to,  I feel,   document many more of the cases of abuse so that you can see that Straight,  is in fact,  an American Holocaust.   Speaking of Holocausts,  I want to say one final thing.  My professional background is in mathematics and information sciences.  Years ago  when I studied about the Nazi Holocaust   I was so enraged with what I heard that I was seriously considering contacting Simon Wiesenthal to offer my services as a volunteer to help track down Colonel  Doctor Josef Mengleles--The Angel of Death.   But Doctor Mengeles drowned before I could take any action.  (BTW.  Anybody  know what kind of medical doctor he was?  Colonel Doctor Joseph Mengeles,  who performed all sorts of medical experiments on children and adults,  and especially on twins,   without their consent, was not a  medical doctor at all.  He was a medical anthropologist.)   One man who will tell you that he escaped the Nazi Holocaust as a teenager is Walter Loebenberg,  the visionary behind the Tampa Bay Holocaust Museum on whose board sits Straight's founder--Melvin Sembler.  And why not.  Walter Loebenberg is formerly the President of Straight.  Melvin Sembler is also the finance chairman of the National Republican Party,  and one of the reasons for Straight's  longevity and success is its endorsements by prominent Republicans including Nancy and Ronald Reagan and George Bush. (Don't ask me which one either.  The whole Bush family is tied to Melvin Sembler's pocketbook.) 

  is the condensed, electronic version of a hardback book which is still under development.  Though condensed,  it is nevertheless quite long for a web page.  The tragic heart  of the story can be learned by reading the first three chapters.  Chapter 1 on deprivations and child abuse enumerates many of the instances of child abuse at Straight.  Chapter 2 on body carvings and suicide attempts suggests that Straight caused many of its young students to attempt to kill themselves due to the deprivations the kids sustained;  but watchful eyes by Straight personnel, including fellow students, prevented any suicides from occurring on the premises.  But what was Straight's after care plan to prevent suicides once a student left Straight.  Chapter 3 looks at the deaths by suicide of many former Straight students and questions whether Straight and its officers should be liable for any of these deaths.  So if you can't read the whole work,  you should try to read the first three chapters in order.  

Most people think that Straight closed in the early 1990s,  but the chapter on "where are they" tells the story of  how some former Straight officials opened their own treatment programs as the Straights closed.  Many of these programs are still in operation.   Next I introduce you to some of the men behind the Straights.  In 2000 Reverend Doctor Virgil Miller Newton and his medical team settled with a client in his KIDS program in New Jersey for $4.5 million for abuses she claims she sustained at KIDS.  Miller Newton was Straight's former national clinical director and I devote an entire chapter to him.  Chuck Dederick is the man who actually popularized the Straight concept of addicts aiding in their own recovery.  Dederick's story is in the chapter on his church--Synanon Church.  This chapter shows that there was never any real medical basis for the Straights in the first place and that there were warnings from competent people that the process could be dangerous to human subjects--especially to children.  And then I discuss why Straight was so successful.  One of the major reasons for its great success was its founder Melvin Sembler and his connections to the national Republican Party.  Another chapter shows that Straight took in almost $100 million dollars in treating predominantly white children.   Next the Straight therapeutic process is discussed followed by an essay which shows that  Straight officials do not have the requisite credentials to run a drug rehabilitation program.  

Of course the best introduction as to what a Straight is  can be found at my web page on Straight at www.thestraights.net .  For those few of you who have actually seen the book, you  can attest that this web page is not the book.  After four and 1/2 years the research is virtually completed and 60% of the writing has been done.   So let's get on with the story.    What?  Oh.  You were wondering why the chief code breaker was trying to call Roger back?   OK. Let�s go back.