If you’ve ever served on an LSA or other Baha’i institution, these guidelines may be familiar to you:
(1) Insist on doing everything through “channels.” Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.
(2) Make “speeches.” Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your “points” by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences. Never hesitate to make a few appropriate “patriotic” comments.
(3) When possible, refer all matters to committees, for “further study and consideration.” Attempt to make the committees as large as possible — never less than five.
(4) Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.
(5) Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions.
(6) Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision.
(7) Advocate “caution.” Be “reasonable” and urge your fellow-conferees to be “reasonable” and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.
(8) Be worried about the propriety of any decision — raise the question of whether such action as is contemplated lies within the jurisdiction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon.
Even though you may not have seen them spelled out exactly as above, you probably have seen most of these guidelines implemented if you’ve ever served on an assembly, council or other institution. Heck, you may have even done exactly one or two or more of them yourself.
Guess what?
They come from a 1944 CIA manual on how to sabotage an organization from within.
You can view and download the whole declassified document: Simple Sabotage Field Manual (see page 28 for the excerpt above).
