Brainwashing

Four armed guards stood between the two defendants and the throngs of Dominicans--the rich, the powerful and the merely curious--who have packed the courtroom every day for more than a week now. Each word, move and tear has been broadcast live to the nation as the horrors of the Dominican Republic's murder of the century have unfolded in a case that has riveted this Caribbean island nation.

In those now-familiar sun-washed video farewells, the members of Heaven's Gate said they had made up their own minds. Even the parents of one young man found among the purple-shrouded dead tried to reassure us about what happened in Rancho Santa Fe, issuing a statement saying "he was happy, healthy and acting under his own volition."

Republican presidential hopeful Bob Dole bulled his way back into the debate over smoking Tuesday, insisting once again that tobacco may not be addictive and that criticism of his position by C. Everett Koop came about because the former Reagan administration surgeon general was "probably a little bit" brainwashed by "the liberal media."

How easy is it for young men in Gaza to blow themselves up for a cause? That was one of the things the Simon Wiesenthal Center of Los Angeles wanted me to explore during a recent investigation into the motivations of radical Islamic groups who have vowed to smash the Middle East peace process through acts of suicidal terrorism.

The authors of best-selling books on achieving inner peace and harmonious relationships are now squared off in an acrimonious lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court. John-Roger and Peter McWilliams co-authored two self-help series "Life 101," "Wealth 101," and other books, including "You Can't Afford the Luxury of a Negative Thought."

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday let stand a $2.5-million award won by a man who said the Church of Scientology of California brainwashed him and caused permanent psychological injury. The court, without comment Monday, turned down the church's argument that the lawsuit should have failed because religious practices are protected by the Constitution. Lawrence Dominic Wollersheim, who lives in Golden, Colo., was a member of the Church of Scientology of California from 1969 through 1980.

Telling jurors that psychologist L. Jerome Oziel had "implanted" memories in her of "things that didn't exist," Oziel's ex-lover testified Tuesday that she can no longer vouch for the truth of what she said previously about Lyle and Erik Menendez. Judalon Smyth swore to authorities three years ago that she had overheard the Menendez brothers say they had shot their mother's eye out of its socket. But she testified Tuesday that she had not really heard them say that.

A 16-year legal battle between a Cypress mother and daughter and the Laguna Beach Hare Krishna temple--which went from Orange County Superior Court to the U.S. Supreme Court and back--has ended with a confidential cash settlement. In the litigation, Robin George Westkamp, now 33, charged that she had been brainwashed as a 14-year-old into joining the Krishnas in the mid-1970s and then spirited from temple to temple in San Diego, New Orleans and Canada to keep her from her family.