... there is a waiver to that effect in the document.” The waiver referred to is Reich’s state-
ment that “I therefore submit, in the name of truth and justice, that I shall not appear in
Court as the defendant... .”
Judge Clifford, who later proved to be a kindly man in his dealings with Reich, may
well have considered informing Reich that his Response had no legal standing prior to the
scheduled hearing on the injunction. However, just as Reich was operating in a very ambigu-
ous situation with regard to his own fate, so the judge must have been at a loss to compre-
hend Reich’s Response. Very likely, the FDA representatives painted a picture of Reich as a
dangerous manipulator or fanatic who was defying the court. Obviously, their task would be
much easier without opposition in the courtroom.
And so it was. When Reich failed to appear, the FDA had a feast of a victory. The
resulting injunction itself went further than the complaint in that it specifically included the
literature as well as the accumulator^28. All accumulators leased to patients were to be
recalled and destroyed. The FDA seemed to regard the accumulator as simultaneously
worthless (accumulating nothing) and dangerous (to be destroyed). The injunction ordered
that all in-stock copies of Reich’s soft-cover publications, including the International Journal
for Sex-Economy and Orgone-Research, the Orgone Energy Bulletin, and The Oranur Experiment
should be destroyed. All of Reich’s hard-cover books, many of which included only periph-
eral references to orgone energy, were ordered withheld from further distribution. They
could be sold only if Reich deleted “statements and representations pertaining to the exis-
tence of orgone energy ... and allied material.” This of course was impossible. As Reich once
asked, how would one define “allied material”? Were references to “libido,” “bio-electricity,”
or “streamings” allied material, since in Reich’s system all three terms referred to orgone
energy?
It is clear that the destruction and withholding of Reich’s publications were actions
independent of the accumulator. Even after the accumulators were demolished, some liter-
ature still had to be destroyed and the rest censored. The rationale for this legalized destruc-
tive rage was that the accumulator, though harmless itself, was dangerous because its advo-
cacy could prevent sick people from obtaining effective help. Similarly, Reich’s soft-cover
publications were treated entirely as instructions for building worthless accumulators, or as
promotional material for a fraud. In order to avoid the accusation of book burning, the
FDA was glaringly inconsistent. It ordered, for example, the destruction of journals that did
not contain as much information about the accumulator as did The Cancer Biopathy,a hard-
cover book. The latter could still be distributed if Reich deleted references to orgone ener-
gy and allied material, albeit an impossible task.
The injunction decree also went slightly further than even the outrageous second
part of the complaint’s prayer. I shall italicize the significant addition:
It is ordered...
That the defendants refrain from, either directly or indirectly, in violation
of said Act, disseminating information pertaining to the assembly, construction, or28 : The FDA Injunction and Reich’s Responses: 1951-1955 393