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

''The CIA exposé to end all CIA exposés.'' —New York A 'Manchurian Candidate' is an unwitting assassin brainwashed and programmed to kill. In this book, former State Department officer John Marks tells the explosive story of the CIA's highly secret program of experiments in mind control. His curiosity first aroused by information on a puzzling suicide. Marks worked from thousands of pages of newly released documents as well as interviews and behavioral science studies, producing a book that 'accomplished what two Senate committees could not' (Senator Edward Kennedy).(5-stars-review of J. M. Hushour, DEC5, 2016 @goodreads):This is a hilarious and surprisingly thoughtful account of the CIA's attempts to control people's mind using LSD, various other psychedelics, and crazy shit like hypnotism. Marks was able to complete the book after unwavering determination (and a team of lawyers) that helped him get a bunch of stuff (the stuff that those involved hadn't destroyed) declassified and scads of interviews with those willing, to fill in the blanks. What emerges is a zany story of CIA agents trick-tripping their colleagues with acid, volunteering themselves as guinea pigs, and how grant-greedy academia served the Agency for years. The last is the saddest part: psychiatric/psychological academics agreeing to go along with this insane shit to get funding. It will definitely change your view of the academic world, which is little changed, just replace "terror" with "mind control" and you get basically the same thing. - Anyway, this book is a delightful read, with accounts and anecdotes of all the Agency's drug shenanigans and their subsequent exposure. Here is the extraordinary story of how the Central Intelligence Agency waged a careful and systematic assault on the human psyche. John Marks reveals what was perhaps the most sinister activity ever engaged in by an organ of the United States government. He describes how the government conducted a series of secret programs to find ways to control human behavior. Responding to the assumption that the Soviets (and before them the Nazis) were trying to do the same, Marks asserts that high officials of the CIA and military intelligence believed they could enhance American security if they make a recalcitrant subject talk or otherwise act against his will. - Jacket flap. Front Cover......Page 1 Author's Note......Page 2 Part 1 - Origins of Mind-Control Research......Page 5 World War II......Page 6 Cold War on the Mind......Page 22 The Professor and the "A" Treatment......Page 33 Part 2 - Intelligence or "Witches Potions"......Page 47 LSD......Page 48 The Unwitting: The Safehouses......Page 78 Mushrooms to Counterculture......Page 95 Part 3 - Spells-Electrodes and Hypnosis......Page 110 Brainwashing......Page 111 Human Ecology......Page 130 The Gittinger Assessment System......Page 145 Hypnosis......Page 161 Part 4 - Conclusions......Page 171 The Search for the Truth......Page 172 **''The CIA expos? to end all CIA expos?s.'' —__New York__** "The CIA expose to end all CIA exposes." -New York