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was fragile. He began to tremble again. “Academic?”
    “Subliminal advertising has been outlawed. There was quite a to-do at the time.”
    “Oh, yes,” Salsbury said, relieved. “There were hundreds of newspaper and magazine editorials. Newsday called it the most alarming invention since the atomic bomb. The Saturday Review said that the subconscious mind was the most delicate apparatus in the universe and that it must never be sullied or twisted to boost the sales of popcorn or anything else.
    “In the late 1950s, when the experiments with the tachistoscope were publicized, nearly everyone agreed that subliminal advertising was an invasion of privacy. Congressman James Wright of Texas sponsored a bill to outlaw any device, film, photograph, or recording ‘designed to advertise a product or indoctrinate the public by means of making an impression on the subconscious mind.’ Other congressmen and senators drafted legislation to deal with the menace, but none of the bills got out of committee. No law was passed restricting or forbidding subliminal advertising.”
    Dawson raised his eyebrows. “Do politicians use it?”
    “Most of them don’t understand the potential. And the advertising agencies would just as soon keep them ignorant. Every major agency in the U.S. has a staff of media and behavioral scientists to develop subliminals for magazine and television ads. Virtually every consumer item produced by Futurex and its subsidiaries is sold with subliminal advertising.”
    “I don’t believe it,” Dawson said. “I would know about it. ”
    “Not unless you wanted to know and made an effort to learn. Thirty years ago, when you were starting out, this sort of thing didn’t exist. By the time it came into use, you were no longer closely tied to the sales end of your business. You were more concerned with stock issues, mergers—wheeling and dealing. In a conglomerate of this size, the president can’t possibly pass approval on every ad for every product of every subsidiary.”
    Leaning forward in his chair, a look of distaste on his handsome face, Dawson said, “But I find it rather—repulsive.”
    “If you accept the fact that a man’s mind can be programmed without his knowledge, you’re rejecting the notion that every man is at all times captain of his fate. It scares hell out of people.
    “For two decades Americans have refused to face the unpleasant truth about subliminal advertising. Opinion polls indicate that, of those who have heard of subliminal advertising, ninety percent are certain it has been outlawed. They have no facts to support this opinion, but they don’t want to believe anything else. Furthermore, between fifty and seventy percent of those polled say they don’t believe subliminals work. They are so revolted by the thought of being controlled and manipulated that they reject the possibility out of hand. Rather than educate themselves about the actuality of subliminal advertising, rather than rise up and rage against it, they dismiss it as a fantasy, as science fiction. ”
    Dawson shifted uneasily in his chair. Finally, he got up, went to the huge windows and stared out at Manhattan.
    Snow had begun to fall. There was very little light in the sky. Wind, like the voice of the city, moaned on the far side of the glass.
    Turning back to Salsbury, Dawson said, “One of our subsidiaries is an ad agency. Woolring and Messner. You mean every time they make a television commercial, they build into it a series of subliminally flashed messages with a tachistoscope?”
    “The advertiser has to request subliminals,” Salsbury said. “The service costs extra. But to answer your question—no, the tachistoscope is out of date.
    “The science of subliminal behavior modification developed so rapidly that the tachistoscope was obsolete soon after it was patented. By the mid-1960s, most subliminals in television commercials were implanted with rheostatic photography. Everyone has seen a