to happen again.
On July 9, the first non-Reichian organization attempted to stop the destruction of
the literature. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) protested this particular part of
the injunction in a letter to the FDA. Later, in December 1956, the ACLU issued a press
release criticizing the burning of Reich’s books. The release was never published by any
major U.S. newspaper. (The same “death by silence” occurred in England, where a letter of
protest signed by A. S. Neill, Sir Herbert Read, and others was not published in any news-
paper.)
Reich himself stopped further intervention by the ACLU. That organization had
approached Reich and Hay don to be of help during the period of the Supreme Court
appeal, but Reich told Haydon to have nothing to do with it^5. He refused help for several
reasons. In his mind, the ACLU was connected with suspect leftist causes. Furthermore,
Reich was irritated by persons who became upset by the destruction of literature but who
accepted the destruction of accumulators. Finally, Reich never fully agreed with—or he had
serious reservations about—a basic tenet of the ACLU, free speech for allideas, right or
wrong, rational or irrational. As ever, Reich stressed the protection of the rational in human
discourse.
About fifty accumulators, those that Silvert had in New York and had shipped to
Rangeley, were destroyed by the S. A. Collins and Sons on July 23. The next destruction of
orgonomic materials occurred on August 23 in New York City, when six tons of literature,
valued at around $15,000, were burned. The materials included many of Reich’s hard-cover
books (e.g.,The Sexual Revolution,The Mass Psychology of Fascism), which the injunction had
only ordered withheld until references to orgone energy were “deleted.” Now, on the
grounds that the books had been “shipped in interstate commerce” when Silvert originally
moved them from Rangeley to New York, the FDA also ordered these books consigned to
the flames. Greenfield has commented: “In making this decision, apparently at his own dis-
cretion, Maguire illegally abrogated to himself the function of interpretation that properly
belonged to the court that had issued the injunction.”^6
Silvert and some others actually did the book burning since again the FDA agents
were only supposed to supervise the operation. Victor Sobey, a medical orgonomist who
participated, described the scene in a letter on September 24, partly as follows: “I arrived at
the stockroom at 7:30 A.M. on August 23. ... All the expenses and labor had to be provided
by the [Orgone Institute] Press. A huge truck with three to help was hired. I felt like people
who, when they are to be executed, are made to dig their own graves first and are then shot
and thrown in. We carried box after box of the literature.”^7
Like Freud, Reich always perceived the depth of the hatred toward his work as a
sign that it touched vital nerves. In the summer of 1956 that hatred raged in very visible,
concrete acts ofdestruction.
Reich was in direct regular contact with only a few people after his sentencing on
May 26.He kept up his correspondence with Baker, Raknes, Hoppe, and Neill, but his let-
31 : The Destruction of Orgone Energy Accumulators and the Burning of Reich’s Publications 427