In September of 2002, I caught on that the Third Wave story could not have happened as Ron Jones described it. I was not sure whether it was a complete lie - i.e. the Wave never happened at all - or, more likely, something happened, but not what was described in Jones's story. The only way to find out was to get some reports from former students who were there. I put my address at the bottom of my Third Wave page (link given below), and said I would like to hear from anyone who could shed light on it. A year passed.
On November 7, 2003, I finally got a response. This message arrived from a reader in Australia, Brendan Sullivan:
I did a little research and can do something to confirm that it did happen. I did a few web searches for Cubberly High school and found someone who began teaching there the year of 'the Wave'. He (Clarence Bakken) confirms that Ron Jones taught there, coached basketball with him, and left under a cloud after the first year. The Wave was common staff room gossip but he didn't know much about it. He says that other staff had told him that some parents were at the wave rally described in the book. He doesn't contradict any of the specifics of the story, including the timeframe which he would more or less know about as he was there - but he wasn't intimately involved in the experiment so he wasn't at the rally and doesn't know details. He also put me on to an ex-student who I haven't yet contacted, who might be able to furnish more detail. I'll keep you posted.
Brendan is one in a million -- someone who actually checks things out! Finally, here is some evidence from someone who was at Cubberley. However, this is indirect evidence. Clarence Bakken never got in touch with me. Brendan Sullivan says that Clarence Bakken says that "it" happened. Some of it? All of it?
The best was yet to come. Just a couple of weeks later, I heard from Bill Parrish, who was a student at Cubberley in 1967, and was a photographer for the school paper. This was the breakthrough I had been waiting for. He sent me scans from the paper, and photos he had taken. He also put me in touch with another former student, Hal Sampson, who was actually at the rally. Through Bill and Hal, other former students will hear about this web site, and hopefully I will hear from some of Mr. Jones's students.
Bill sent several scans from the Catamount (the Cubberley school paper) and some photos:
1. breakerposter #1 -- Bill says there was an anti-Wave group known as the Breakers. They got a custodian to let them into Mr. Jones's room, and they put up anti-Wave posters. Then Bill and Hal got a custodian to let them in, and they took pictures of the posters.
3. Catamount #1 -- In the issue of April 7, 1967, there was a brief mention of something going on in Mr. Jones's classes. No details.
4. Catamount #2 -- This is the big one. After the Wave was over, there was an article about it, including the rally, in the issue of April 21. (This is what I quoted on the main Third Wave page.)
5. Catamount #3 -- In the next school year, Mr. Jones said he was an organizer for SDS (Students for a Democratic Society). Unlike the Third Wave, it was never clear whether this was a prank.
Hal Sampson's statement is as follows:
I was also a photographer for the Cubberley school newspaper and was sent to cover a story on a tip from the journalism teacher about "Ron Jones planning something during the lunch hour at a classroom (at the NE end of the G wing)". The room holds about 100-150 students. (Cubberley High is now Foothill College Middlefield Campus.)
I entered the back door after most of the others (presumably from Jones' classes) were already seated. The classroom was about two-thirds full. The room was dark and no "guards" questioned me or my camera. There were no banners hung in the room. After a few others came in and sat down, Ron Jones turned on a TV set showing only static "snow" and left the room.
The room was initially quiet except for a few whispers among the students and a hiss from the TV. After a few minutes, there were impatient rumblings and increasing waves of students got up and left. I then left as well, as there didn't appear to be anything to photograph. Only 40-50 students could have been left in the room after I left.
I can also confirm Bill Parrish's account of the "Breakers", a counter-movement started by a female student. One evening, they removed the Third Wave banners and put Breakers banners in their place in Jones' classroom. The counter-movement was, of course, left out of Ron's telling for best effect.
One reason that Ron's story doesn't ring true is that rebellious, anti-authoritarian, skeptical teenagers are actually one of nature's antidotes to mind viruses such as the "Third Wave" that Ron Jones experimented with. Meme infection actually takes years of indoctrination starting with younger, much more gullible targets. A week of slogans, even from a teacher with the power to flunk you if you don't appear to conform, won't leave any lasting tracks in a teenager's blossoming brain.
Then in a followup message he wrote:
There were (at least) three World History teachers at Cubberley, so 1/3 or less of the class of 1970 would have been in the Third Wave experiment. Very few students outside his classes knew anything about the Third Wave in the year it happened, except perhaps from reading school newspaper coverage. It wasn't a big deal that year, except among some parents who objected to Jones' teaching style...
My mom, who attended a lecture there [in the room where the rally took place] much more recently than I have, estimates the capacity at about 100 seats in 6 or so tiers. The room is about 30 feet by 50 feet, with the front 1/4 to 1/3 a lecture area with no seats where the about 21 inch TV was located.
Anyone who knows something about the Third Wave is welcome to comment. I will post your statement here. If it's long I will put it on a page of its own, with a link from here.
There is a page you should read before preparing your statement. This page has some questions to jog your memory.
If I start getting a lot of replies, the best thing to do will be to put up a message board.
As of September, 2004, I still haven't heard from anybody except Bill and Hal.
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On January 29, 2006, I heard from David Amkraut. He wrote as follows:
Ron Jones has made a career of the Third Wave. I would not care if his version were given as fiction, or as fiction based on a bit of fact, but he is representing fiction as fact, and causing people all over the world to draw false, broad conclusions about human behavior. This is extremely irresponsible behavior with consequences that are impossible to calculate.
My understanding from people who were in his silly class is that everyone treated the Third Wave as a joke, and an excellent opportunity to avoid serious academic work. I suggest you methodically track down Cubberley High School students who actually participated and get the truth. Incidentally, some of the other stuff he has written about his experiences at Cubberley H.S. is also rubbish--- fiction portrayed as fact. For example, he has written about his coaching of a school basketball team there, and his descriptions are an unmitigated crock (my younger brother played on the team and I watched many of its games).
If you are interested, I can put you in touch with my brothers, one of whom participated in the Third Wave, and the other of whom was on the basketball team that Jones wrote about.
At the time I attended high school at Cubberley, Ron Jones was generally considered very cool. However, after attending high school, and becoming grown-ups, some of us came to different, or very mixed, conclusions.
I wrote back and said yes, of course I would be interested in comments from Joel. You may recall that he was mentioned in the Catamount article. On February 1, I heard from him. When his email arrived, I thought I had finally hit the mother lode of Third Wave information. Alas, it turned out to be a little less than that:
Joel Amkraut here, David Amkraut's brother.
Yes, I was in the '3rd Wave' class. I believe there were actually a number of classes involved.
I remember years ago I was at a talk about 'brainwashing' and the speaker lady commented in detail about what the 3rd Wave matter (she got her info from the movie and Jones' writings) "proved" about human nature and gullibility.
I have a fairly low tolerance of b.s., stood up, told her the movie was b.s., and she, an adult, shouldn't be so gullible as to believe whatever she read or viewed on a movie screen. She and the audience were annoyed and challenged me as being so all-knowing, but shut up fast when I said back that I knew it was b.s. BECAUSE I WAS IN JONES' CLASS (AND MY BROTHER WAS ON HIS BASKETBALL TEAM).
I replied
Well, "it's b.s." is fine as far as it goes, but please, please, please tell me what happened!
This is your chance to tell the world it's b.s. My site gets thousands of visitors. There are links to my Third Wave page from most of the major Third Wave sites, and from Wikipedia. Anybody who searches for information about the Third Wave ends up on my site sooner or later. So this is your chance to debunk Mr. Jones once and for all. But first things first. The first order of business is to nail down the sequence of events - who did what, who said what, all the factual details.
To which he replied,
Lyle,
I saw the movie, and it was unmitigated b.s.
Most of the wave's details are lost to my memory. After I have some time to think about it, I'll remember more.
Perhaps the best way, when I get a chance, will be to take Jones' account and intersperse it with my own remarks, e.g., "Don't recall this ever happening" or "This is a falsehood" or "This is a fabricated quote."
And speaking of fabricated quotes, I was astounded to read the following. I sure as h..l don't recall saying this, it doesn't ring true, and I was never 'interviewed' re this. The only thing I'll acknowledge now is that he spelled my name right, a rare treat with my unusual last name.
Most were disillusioned. As one second period Third Waver, Joel Amkraut, put it, "Everyone feels stupid about it. He sure made fools of us. I guess I expected a national leader."
That last paragraph was in the Catamount article. I am not sure what to make of his statement that the quote was fabricated, and he was astounded to read it. I have to admit that the quotation sounds made up. It doesn't sound like something somebody would actually say. But surely he must have been aware of it at the time. Getting your name in the paper is no small thing for a high school sophomore, and being quoted falsely is a shock for anybody, anytime. If that happened to me, there would be some kind of confrontation, and I would remember it well, even after forty years. Anyway I eagerly await further comments from Joel.
However, two months have passed, and something tells me I am not going to be hearing from him anytime soon. Maybe I offended him, or maybe he just wants to ponder this for a while and choose his words carefully before saying anything else. Maybe he is just a very busy man. In any case, this is very frustrating. I finally found somebody who was in the Third Wave, but he doesn't want to talk about it. I guess "it was unmitigated b.s." is better than nothing, but I was hoping for more.
Meanwhile, I have an idea. At this point I am addressing readers who seriously want to know WHAT HAPPENED. Let's try a "six degrees of separation" experiment.
If you know someone who attended Cubberley High School, please tell them about this page. If you can't go directly to a Cubberley graduate, can you at least get closer? Do you know anybody who might know somebody who went to Cubberley? Or somebody who might know somebody who might know somebody? Do you know anybody who grew up in Palo Alto? Or somebody who lives in Silicon Valley, and therefore might know somebody who grew up there? Or somebody who knows somebody who lives in Silicon Valley?
It is, as they say, a small world. We are all connected by at most six degrees of separation.
Almost 7,000 people read this page in 2005, and traffic on the site is continually increasing. This page should get more than 7,000 readers in 2006. If we work together, we should be able to find somebody who was there and can tell us what really happened in the Third Wave.
My name is Lyle Burkhead, and I can be reached here:
diogenes --- at --- geniebusters --- dot --- org
May 21, 2006. A reader has called my attention to a page which has comments from former Cubberley students: Remembering the 3rd Wave. The author, Leslie Weinfield, accepts the story just as Jones tells it:
"Cubberley students began skipping their regular classes, asking to be part of the Third Wave. In three days Jones' class had expanded to 60 students... By the fifth day, the sheer volume of student migration to Jones' class was disrupting normal school routines and raised his concern that matters had gotten out of control... [later, at the rally] By noon, students were crammed into the lecture hall, backs ramrod straight, eyes riveted to a television set in the front of the room. With the car club toughs guarding the door, Jones led the group in chants and salutes for the benefit of several friends he had posing as reporters and photographers."
Hal Sampson says no such thing happened.
Even before I heard from Hal, I had already concluded that the rally could not have happened as Ron Jones described it. This is discussed at great length on my main Third Wave page.
Leslie Weinfield quotes several former students: Philip Neel, Mark Hancock, Steve Coniglio, Steve Benson, Barbara Miller Moore, and Alyssa Hess Reit. If you read their statements carefully, it turns out most of them do not speak to the exact points I have raised. They - with the possible exception of Steve Coniglio - do not necessarily contradict Hal Sampson. Weinfield does not draw a clear line between what she is getting from Jones and what she is getting from the Third Wave participants. I would like to get comments from them directly, not filtered through Leslie Weinfield.
She quotes Philip Neel:
"When he started rewarding people, I could see how that goes a long way toward influencing them," Neel says. "I could see how people would be susceptible to that kind of behavior and would go along with it. You want to please your teachers, your peers and you don't want to fail."
I can't help wondering if some of them are still trying to please their teacher. When someone has been in a cult - which is what this appears to have been - I don't think they ever really get out of it. In other words, I wonder if the "false memory" syndrome may be a factor here. They remember what they are supposed to remember. Former students such as Bill Parrish and Hal Sampson remember it differently. I really need more statements from people who were there at the time but not under Ron Jones's spell.
Nevertheless the statements in the Weinfield article are certainly valuable. This one from Philip Neel is particularly telling:
"A big reason I went along with it was my trust for Jones," Neel says. Moveover, he "was just beginning to feel bitter about Vietnam, and part of the experiment seemed like we could change the government responsible for hurting us. There was a feeling something really remarkable was going to happen, going on throughout the country - that the movement was going to change politics, change the structure of school. The combination of everything made it happen, and boy, did it happen."
Ok, I accept that. Apparently "it" happened, in that sense. If you combine Philip's statement with Hal Sampson's, plus the scans contributed by Bill Parrish, you can get pretty close to the factual truth of the Third Wave. The thematic truth is more difficult. That is the subject of my main Third Wave page. As I said on that page, the Third Wave story is part of an extremely subtle, multi-layered philosophical ju-jitsu. My Third Wave page is pretty long, but I have not said what really needs to be said.
There used to be a link to this page from the Wikipedia Third Wave article. It has been removed - again - on 6/23/06, as explained on the discussion page. You can click on the "history" tab at the top of the Third Wave article to see earlier versions of the article.
Please note that "Joffeloff," who took it upon himself to remove the link, is a self-described Zionist. He thinks he has the right - or the power - to decide what is suitable for Wikipedia and what isn't.
Supposedly anyone can edit Wikipedia articles. If you think this page contains important information and should be linked from the Wikipedia article, you might try to add a link yourself, or, better yet, edit the text of the article. You will get a quick lesson in Thought Control.
On July 4, 2006, another response came in from a former Cubberley student:
In June of 1966 I moved from Seattle to Palo Alto and this was to be my senior year. I was a "new guy" in school, but I quickly made friends, played sports, and found a school unlike anything I had ever encountered as a military brat living all over the US and abroad. The openness of the grounds, the idea that we could wear facial hair (beards and mustaches), and sandals were, to me amazing. When IF Day (Idea Forum) and Bill Jones's The Wave showed up, I chocked it down as just another one of those things that they did at this school.
My only experience with The Wave was when I passed by an enrollment table sitting in the hallway one day. As I walked by it I was approached by a couple of the Wave members that wanted to know if I would join. They couldn't explain to me what it was they were trying to accomplish, all they could do was to repeat those lines about unity and strength. Since I never have been a joiner of groups, I passed. This was met with aggressiveness on their part, attempting to block my path and wanting to know my name. One of the guys actually pulled out a small note pad. We almost came to blows at that moment and I don't recall what stopped the escalation, but I knew I was willing to go the distance with these two. I let it the entire subject of The Wave pass until I saw the TV movie about it. I called my Mom who'd watched it also. I asked about what she remembered about it. She said a few of the parents that she had met knew about the organization, but no one was concerned as it was seen as a just another one of those new teaching experiments that seemed to be popping up from time to time back then. I don't feel I was negatively impacted by the movement, but it did reinforce in me the need to do in depth research in group or organization before I join.
Rick Schloss
I think Rick's testimony is extremely valuable. I like his vivid description of the school and the aggressiveness of the Wave members. That makes the whole thing come to life. I can certainly imagine that scene. It reminds me of a time when a born again Christian (a teenager who had just been converted) got in my face, demanding to know if I had Accepted Jesus Christ As My Personal Saviour. We almost came to blows in exactly the same way.
As the various testimonials add up, we can get a better and better idea of what actually happened at Cubberley High School in 1967. Every time another piece of the jigsaw puzzle falls into place, the whole picture becomes clearer. There are still some details to be filled in, but at this point I understand what kind of thing the Wave was. I remember the cults of the late 1960's and early 1970's very well.
Back to my main Third Wave page