of noncooperation and his refusal to surrender. This kind of misreading of events furthered
the tragic and irrational aspect of Reich’s handling of the case. He wantedhis policy to stop
the investigation. He came to believe, quite erroneously, that it hadstopped it. As we know,
Reich was prone to dramatize events, especially under stress. He took the real hatred of
orgonomy on the part of many groups, political and scientific, but then gave that hatred a
conspiratorial twist it did not possess. Similarly, he overestimated the effects of his own
actions in stopping the FDA. He could never fully accept the “banality of evil”—that the
bureaucratic action against him, however much inspired by the special venom of a Brady or
a Wharton, also proceeded on its own momentum, quite impervious to Reich’s blasts or
proud refusals to cooperate.
Reich’s undue optimism about the course of events was to lead to some major
errors. However, it helped him rechannel his energies back to his work. The investigation
was finished, he had won, he did not have to worry about the FDA. At the same time, a more
realistic side of him did continue to worry even if in a less direct form than previously. One
way he expressed this concern was to search urgently for still more dramatic, socially need-
ed applications of orgone energy.
25 : The American Campaign Against Orgonomy The Beginnings: 1947-1948 343