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.

If you love The Search for the Manchurian Candidate...

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These Blue Mountains by Sarah Loudin Thomas,

A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.

German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…

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