Greenfield believes the Lewisburg Board of Examiners was more concerned with
protecting the FDA than it was with protecting Reich’s feelings. Greenfield is probably right.
If one believed, as the Board of Examiners did,
that there was nothing valid in Reich’s scientific discoveries—orgone energy and
the orgone accumulator—then their diagnosis was easy. Reich had a major psychosis, with
delusions such as protective air planes only the peaks on a mountain chain of gross emo-
tional disturbance. It speaks for the depth of the hatred not only of the FDA but of the
Board of Examiners that they could come up with any other assessment.
The same vindictive spirit was evident in the Classification Study made of Reich
upon his arrival in Lewisburg Prison. The social worker’s report stressed that Reich, a “60-
year-old divorced white offender, does not embrace any religion nor is he a member of any
church.” The case worker also emphasized that “family ties are almost nonexistent,” a state-
ment that required a peculiar definition of “family ties” since the report also stated that two
of the three most important people to Reich were his daughter Eva and his son Peter (the
third person being Aurora). The case worker must have based this judgment on Reich’s state-
ment that “he does not believe in the marriage laws of the U.S.A. and that they should not
apply to him. He should be free to live with whomever he pleases.”^4
The chiefprobation officer for Maine had conducted an inquiry on Reich prior to
his imprisonment. In his report, the officer warned: “It is noted that while operating in other
countries the defendant always had contacts which would allow him to move to new terri-
tory. It is understood that he has developed contacts in Canada and South America, possi-
bly in anticipation of exhausting all means of carrying on further in this country.”^5
This misreading of Reich’s motivations by the probation officer continued the
Maguire tradition of viewing Reich as a kind of Mafia chief looking for “new turf.”
The probation officer concluded his report:He [Reich] is a man ofgreat ego and vanity. He cannot submit to seeing
his little kingdom destroyed. The only means he seems to find of perpetuating him-
selfat this point is to present himselfto his followers as a martyr to the theory of
orgone energy. The defendant has openly defied the court. In the course of this
investigation it was learned that there are many accumulators in different places
which the defendant has made no attempt to destroy, dismantle, or recall.
There are no attenuating circumstances and the defendant states openly
that he will continue to violate the order of the court^6.The FDA continued to hound and defame Reich even after he was imprisoned. The
warden ofthe Lewisburg prison, J. C. Taylor, requested a report on Reich from the FDA to
assist in determining how Reich should be treated in prison. The FDA report, which would
be used when Reich came up for parole, consisted of an eight-page letter written by G. S.
Goldhammer,an assistant director.
436 Myron SharafFury On Earth