The Search for the Manchurian Candidate: The CIA and Mind Control: The Secret History of the Behavioral Sciences

If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable - what then? - George Orwell from _1984_. _The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate": The CIA and Mind Control_ by John Marks published in 1979 is a somewhat dated account of the CIA's experiments in mind control. Marks obtained much of his material from documents released through the Freedom of Information Act; however, he had to actively pursue these documents and was involved in a lawsuit against the CIA in order to obtain much of his material. He notes that without the release of this material his research would not have been possible. The author begins by noting the influence of World War II and Nazi science on subsequent investigations by the CIA, formerly the OSS. In particular, the discovery of the hallucinogenic (psychedelic) drug LSD by Albert Hofman of the Sandoz drug company in Basle, Switzerland was to play a central role in the coming experimental "science" of mind manipulation. The author outlines various sadistic experiments performed by the Nazi scientists and doctors on unwitting prisoners and explains how the Nuremburg Code developed. The author also explains the role of the intelligence operatives in the Second World War, including experiments with marijuana as a supposed truth drug, a whole arsenal of dirty tricks and assassination projects, and the attempt to psychoanalyse Adolf Hitler. Indeed, after the war, the intelligence community captured the surviving research by the Nazi scientists and attempted to sort through it for any scientific value it might have had. Next, the author turns his attention to the development of the Cold War, the subsequent paranoia that ensued over such alleged brainwashing as the case of Cardinal Mindszenty and the Moscow Show Trials, and the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency. The author shows how various projects including Projects BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE came to include mind manipulation technology, emphasizing the polygraph machine and hypnosis. The author next turns his attention to the experiments of G. Richard Wendt, who attempted to devise a truth serum as part of his "A" (for ARTICHOKE) treatment. The author also discusses the role of LSD, often given to unwitting experimental subjects as part of Project MK-ULTRA by the CIA and its role in the death of the scientist Dr. Frank Olson. As part of the CIA's experiments with LSD, Dr. Sid Gottlieb tested the drug on unknowing subjects including Olson. Later Olson was to develop signs of paranoia and depression, eventually leading him to jump to his death from a New York building. Olson's death was covered up by the CIA; however, it was later revealed that an allergist (who also experimented with LSD) had been treating him for depression (ironically!). The author next turns his attention to the development of various "safe houses" in San Francisco, run by the narcotics officer George White. White tried to develop t

John Marks has done a wonderful job of piecing together the available information on the clandestine operations done by the CIA in their attempt to accomplish mind control.He begins in the early stages of their program in the 1940's and carries it through until the last of the mind control programs allegedly was shut down in 1973.In this book the author covers topics such as brain washing, hypnosis, LSD experiments, and the very tragic death of Dr. Frank Olson (as a result of an experiment gone bad). I highly recommend this book if you are interested in what occurred during the CIA's secret attempt at creating "Manchurian Candidate's"

What makes this book so interesting is that it is based on the government's own documents. In other words, the stuff John Marks describes here is what the U.S. government admits to -- which naturally leaves us wondering how much else they've done and what specifically they don't admit to. Marks writing on this subject matter is professional, well documented and highly readable. The only negative criticism I would have is that he seems to take the government at face value when he concludes that a "Manchurian Candidate" is not really possible. It isn't possible with hypnosis, or the experiments documented in his book, but then, it would be very naive to assume that the U.S. government is really going to release all of its national security secrets through the Freedom of Information Act. The really hot stuff isn't in there. But there's enough in it to credibly verify the fact that the U.S. government has spent decades researching and trying to perfect the clandestine craft of secretly manipulating an unaware, innocent, carefully selected patsy to hallucinate that a preselected politically inconvenient target must be, as Sirhan Sirhan once wrote into his notebook, "assassinated assassinated assassinated assassinated"! Makes you wonder why we've had so many assassinations since then.

John Marks is an excellent researcher. MK Ultra is an extremely dark chapter in the history of the intelligence, military, and R & D community. There are some troubling insights that I feel compelled to repeat here. First, this covert community destroyed an enormous amount of their records and documentation on secret activities in the late 60's and early 70's. They obviously destroyed the most damning portion of the paper trail. Yet out of the relatively benign information still available, we get proof of unethical conduct and allusions of possible illegal acts. There is even a hint that research was conducted on microwaves, ultrasonic, and electrical stimulation of the brain. There's little or no information on what was discovered in *these* subjects, or even whether the activities were truly halted. We now have indication that the military just so happens to have data on the use of sub & ultra sonics in nonleathal weapons. It's possible that the information, and possibly even current MK Ultra influenced research, is still around. I've heard military personnel say most of the very sensitive research does not occur on the CIA operative level, but in subcontractors and middle management who keep their own research records and staff. Didn't Sirhan Sirhan say he'd been in a hypnotic trance? Did he say this before MK Ultra was revealed, or after? I wonder...

A fascinating look at the CIA's mind control programs and some of the loose cannons involved in them, particulary Dr. Ewen Cameron of Montreal's Allan Memorial Institute and his questionable experimental practices in the late 1950s and early 1960s.From a Canadian perspective, if ever there was a need for oversight over such clandestine activities, Cameron's so called "depatterning," "psychic driving" techniques (not to mention the infamous "sleep rooms") certainly called for it. If we are to believe the author -- and there is no reason why we shouldn't -- even the CIA, who traveled periodically to Montreal to observe his work, found his proposals "chillingly explicit." Why? Well, even some of the CIA agents must have felt that Cameron's methods were -- to use THAT word, again -- chillingly close to or mirrored those adopted by the Nazis, many of whom would have enjoyed the hangman's noose were it not for Project Paperclip.In Cameron the CIA found the perfect candidate to perform experiments on unwitting subjects without accountability and that could only be considered as crimes against humanity."In Cameron," states the author, "they [the CIA] had a doctor, conveniently outside the United States [for obvious reasons], willing to to terminal experiments [not unlike the Nazis, meaning even to the extent of losing the subject's life, a process devoid of either ethical or moral considerations] in electroshock, sensory deprivation, drug testing, and all of the above. By literally wiping the minds of his subjects clean by depatterning and then trying to program in new behavior, Cameron carried the process known as 'brainwashing' to it its logical extreme." Out of the entire book, this one statement by the author on page 141 is the most important.And "Dr." Ewen Cameron, who was considered too powerful to be touched due to his political connections (something to consider when weighing the nonsense going on in Clinton's Senate Impeachment Trial and its foregone conclusion, itself a chilling prospect), there is an interesting statement about the mentalities involved in MKULTRA made by one of Cameron's study-team members, and I quote: "I probably shouldn't talk about this, but Cameron -- for him to do what he did -- he was a very schizophrenic guy [What pure, naked irony...the very thing by Hippocratic oath he was sworn to cure!], who totally detached himself from the human implications of his work...God, we talk about concentration camps. I don't want to make this comparison, but God, you talk about 'we didn't know it was happening,' and it was -- right in our own back yard." Indeed, and we sanctimonious Canadians have always thought it could never happen here.In spite of the countless, battered victims left in his wake, one former associate had the nerve to say that Cameron "truly cared about the welfare of his patients," that he "wanted to make them well." That this same associate would refer to Cameron's vi