A
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April 2, 1974
Dear Clint:
I don't know whether you will be interested in this or not but I
thought I would communicate it anyway. You have absolutely no way
of verifying what I am going to relate, but I assure you that it
is as related.
A few days ago I had an occasion to attend a meeting held in a con-
ference room adjacent to the central communication system for the
Cincinnati Police force. This room was what I imagined to be the
local analogue to a "War Room" to be used as a command center in case
of widespread emergency. I thought that it represented the sort of
room you might be interested in having your people remember. As a
11pilot study" I thought I would try to see how applicable the mnemonic
system might be to this sort of task. Between my participations in
the conference I tried to store mnemonically as many details of the
room as I thought might be important. I was, myself, rather surprised
at the results.
The associated diagram shows the room with position numbers correspond-
ing to the "one is a dollar bill" system.
The room was large, about 30' by perhaps 18'. The large rectangle on
the drawing represents the conference table. I was seated at the po-
sition marked by the 0 in the northeast corner. There were 15 men
at the meeting. I met only one new person that I did not previously
know so I had only one new name to learn. His name was Lt. Bear
(spelling a guess) seated at the triangle. Five of the participants
were uniformed police. They were seated at the positions marked with
X's. On the table were fourteen telephones; 2 re4, 2 light brown,
and ten black. There was also a tape recorder (small rectangle)
operated by a man named Palmer, seated near the recorder.
Along the east wall at 11 and 12 were large windows looking into a
very large room containing police communications systems - there were
six or seven men in the room operating various pieces of communication
equipment. I saw no more of the communications room for I was seated
with my back toward this window. At about 12 there was a clock betwee n
the window and the ceiling. Slightly to the north of the clock was a
small grey box with two protruding control knobs - either potentiometers
or switches. The function of the box was not obvious. At I there was
a door leading into the communications room.
The entire south wall -(2.,- 3'-"4) was blank. The entrance door by which
I entered the room was located at 5. The wall at 6 was blank but there
was a teletype machine at 7. At 8 there was a pair of tabular charts,
one indicating "Status" of personnel and the other labeled "Deployment".
I could not see the details of these charts because of the bad viewing
angle.
At 9 there were two charts showing what appeared to be a key for map
symbols. One was headed "Police" and the other headed IIFi Is Pere
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were fifteen symbols under each heading. In between my interactions
in the ongoing conference I was able to memorize the "Police" symbols
but did not have time to "store" the "Fire" symbolss except to notice
that most of these symbols were red. I'm fairly sure that I could
have memorized them given more time. I have listed all the police
symbols on the second attached sheet. I'm almost certain they are
correct - I might have missed one or not gotten the label exactly right
on one or two but it's pretty accurate. Above the map symbols charts
there was a wall thermostat.
At 9 was a large map of the city of Cincinnati. At 10 (or, really, a
bit east of 10) there was a door which led to a corridor and to another
door leading into the communications room.
I think that about does it. I wish I could have "stored" the fire
symbols and maybe I could with more practice. I was in this room for
about two hours but my actual learning time was about thirty or forty
minutes, most of it being devoted to learning the symbols. Itwas then
about five hours before I had a chance to write down my memories - three
of these hours were spent in conducting my classes. I was rather
pleased with this as a first attempt to apply mnemonics to one of the
type of problems in which you are interested. I think it's going to
work OK. I think we will be able to teach others to do this too.
I would appreciate your treating this communication as being confidential.
Thanks.
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1. Police Cruiser
2. Ambulance
,AIW
3. Mobile Supervisor
4. Mobile Command Unit
5. C - C. Car
6. Van
7. Fixed Command Unit
8. Foot Patrol
9. Traf f ic Post
10. Staging Area
11. District Station
12. Barricade ED'
13. Wrecker
14. Aircraft
15. National Guard
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