The Search for the Manchurian Candidate

By John D. Marks,

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

Book description

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…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Search for the Manchurian Candidate as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

In the wake of Senate hearings into CIA scandals in the mid-1970s, former State Department official turned investigative reporter Marks used an FOIA request to gain access to a trove of agency files that he used to uncover the full story of the American intelligence community’s decade-long dive into research on LSD, hypnosis, and sensory deprivation during the first decade of the Cold war.

A marvelous example of how to uncover “secret history.” I also love the connections he draws between Fifties’ era mind control research and Sixties' era consciousness expansion.

From Andreas' list on the history of torture.

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Book cover of The Lion and the Fox: Two Rival Spies and the Secret Plot to Build a Confederate Navy

The Lion and the Fox by Alexander Rose,

From the author of Washington’s Spies, the thrilling story of two rival secret agents — one Confederate, the other Union — sent to Britain during the Civil War.

The South’s James Bulloch, charming and devious, was ordered to acquire a clandestine fleet intended to break Lincoln’s blockade, sink Northern…

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