Laughing, Salsbury said, “Don’t worry, Ernst. I wouldn’t slip the drug into my own Jack Daniels. Besides, you’re not a potential subject. You’re my partner.”
Klinger nodded. Nevertheless, he put his glass down without tasting the whiskey. “Where would you run a field test like this?”
“Black River, Maine. It’s a small town near the Canadian border.”
“Why there?”
Salsbury went to the nearest programming console and typed out an order to the computer. As he typed he said, “Two months ago I drew a list of the basic requirements for the ideal test site.”
All of the screens began to present the same information:
KEY/LOCK FIELD TEST DATA, AS FOLLOWS:
1A. SITE SHOULD BE SMALL TOWN, YET PROVIDE SUFFICIENT NUMBER OF SUBJECTS FOR STATISTICAL ACCURACY
1B. BLACK RIVER, MAINE–POPULATION 402 LUMBER CAMP–POPULATION 188
ADDITIONAL POPULATION WITHIN 5 MILES–NONE
“Lumber camp?” Klinger asked.
“It’s a company town for Big Union Supply. Nearly everyone in Black River works for Big Union or services the people who do. The company maintains a full-scale camp-barracks, mess hail, recreation facilities, the whole works-near their planned forests for unmarried loggers who don’t want to go to the expense of renting a room or an apartment in the village.”
2A. SITE SHOULD BE GEOGRAPHICALLY ISOLATED BY CURRENT SOCIAL STANDARDS
2B. FIRST NEAREST TOWN TO BLACK RIVER–30 MILES
SECOND NEAREST TOWN TO BLACK RIVER–62 MILES
LAND ROUTES TO BLACK RIVER–1 STATE HIGHWAY, 2-LANE
–1 RAILROAD LINE, ONLY INDUSTRIAL TRAFFIC
RIVER ROUTES TO BLACK RIVER–RIVER NAVIGABLE, NO REGULAR TRAFFIC
AIRFIELD FACILITIES AT BLACK RIVER–NONE
3A. SITE SHOULD BE WITHIN RECEPTION RANGE OF ONE OR MORE TELEVISION STATIONS
3B. STATIONS RECEIVED IN BLACK RIVER–1 AMERICAN
1 CANADIAN
“There’s an interesting bit of additional data that goes with that one,” Salsbury said. “The American station is owned by a subsidiary of Futurex. It plays a lot of old movies at night and on weekends. We’ll be able to get copies of the station’s program schedules well in advance. We can prepare subliminally augmented prints of the movies they’re going to show and switch those for the original prints in the station’s film library.”
“That’s a bit of luck.”
“Saves us some time. Otherwise, Futurex would have had to acquire one of the stations, and that could take years.”
“But how can you be certain the people in Black River will watch these movies you’ve doctored?”
“They’re going to be inundated with subliminals in a variety of media that will command them to watch. For instance, the Dawson Foundation for Christian Ethics will run dozens of public service commercials on both the Canadian and American stations, two days in advance of the movies. Each of these commercials will harbor very strong subliminal commands directing the people in town and in the lumber camp to tune in at the right time on the right channel. We’ll also do direct mail advertising for several of Leonard’s companies-as a means of getting even more subceptive messages to them. Everyone in town will receive ads in the mail and some free gifts like soap samples, shampoo samples, and free rolls of photographic film.
The advertisements and the samples will be packaged in wrappers rich in subliminal commands to watch .a certain television station at a certain hour on a certain day. Even if the subject throws the piece of mail away without opening it, he’ll be affected, because the envelopes will also be printed over with subliminal messages. The major magazines and newspapers entering Black River during the period of programming will carry ads full of subceptive commands that direct the people to watch the movies.” He was getting a bit breathless in his recital. “A motion picture theater could not ordinarily prosper in a town the size of Black River. But Big Union runs one as a service to the town. During the summer, every day but Sunday, there’s a matinee show for children. The prints of the films shown at those matinees will be our prints, with subliminals urging the children to watch the television movies that will contain the key-lock program. All radio stations reaching the area will carry’ special thirty-second spot ads, hundreds of them, with subaudial subliminal directives. These account for only half our methods. By the time all of this washes through the community, everyone will be in front of a television set at the right time.”