The Search for the Manchurian Candidate
The CIA and Mind Control
John Marks
The Search for the Manchurian
Candidate
©1979 by John Marks
Published by Times Books
ISBN
0-8129-0773-6 |
Contents
PART I
ORIGINS OF MIND-CONTROL RESEARCH
PART II
INTELLIGENCE OR "WITCHES POTIONS"
PART III
SPELLS—ELECTRODES AND HYPNOSIS
PART IV
CONCLUSIONS
Author's Note
This book has grown out of the
16,000 pages of documents that the CIA released to me under the Freedom of
Information Act. Without these documents, the best investigative reporting in
the world could not have produced a book, and the secrets of CIA mind-control
work would have remained buried forever, as the men who knew them had always
intended. From the documentary base, I was able to expand my knowledge through
interviews and readings in the behavioral sciences. Nevertheless, the final
result is not the whole story of the CIA's attack on the mind. Only a few
insiders could have written that, and they choose to remain silent. I have done
the best I can to make the book as accurate as possible, but I have been
hampered by the refusal of most of the principal characters to be interviewed
and by the CIA's destruction in 1973 of many of the key documents.
I want to extend special thanks to the congressional sponsors of the
Freedom of Information Act. I would like to think that they had my kind of
research in mind when they passed into law the idea that information about the
government belongs to the people, not to the bureaucrats. I am also grateful to
the CIA officials who made what must have been a rather unpleasant decision to
release the documents and to those in the Agency who worked on the actual
mechanics of release. From my point of view, the system has worked extremely
well.
I must acknowledge that the system worked almost not at
all during the first six months of my three-year Freedom of Information
struggle. Then in late 1975, Joseph Petrillo and Timothy Sullivan, two skilled
and energetic lawyers with the firm of Fried, Frank, Shriver, Harris and
Kampelman, entered the case. I had the distinct impression that the government
attorneys took me much more seriously when my requests for documents started
arriving on stationery with all those prominent partners at the top. An author
should not need lawyers to write a book, but I would have had great difficulty
without mine. I greatly appreciate their assistance.
What an
author does need is editors, a publisher, researchers, consultants, and
friends, and I have been particularly blessed with good ones. My very dear
friend Taylor Branch edited the book, and I continue to be impressed with his
great skill in making my ideas and language coherent. Taylor has also served as
my agent, and in this capacity, too, he has done me great service.
I had a wonderful research team, without which I never could have sifted
through the masses of material and run down leads in so many places. I thank
them all, and I want to acknowledge their contributions. Diane St. Clair was the
mainstay of the group. She put together a system for filing and cross-indexing
that worked beyond all expectations. (Special thanks to Newsday's Bob
Greene, whose suggestions for organizing a large investigation came to us
through the auspices of Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc.) Not until a
week before the book was finally finished did I fail to find a document which I
needed; naturally, it was something I had misfiled myself. Diane also
contributed greatly to the Cold War chapter. Richard Sokolow made similar
contributions to the Mushroom and Safehouse chapters. His work was solid, and
his energy boundless. Jay Peterzell delved deeply into Dr. Cameron's
"depatterning" work in Montreal and stayed with it when others might have quit.
Jay also did first-rate studies of brainwashing and sensory deprivation. Jim
Mintz and Ken Cummins provided excellent assistance in the early research stage.
The Center for National Security Studies, under my good friend
Robert Borosage, provided physical support and research aid, and I would like to
express my appreciation. My thanks also to Morton Halperin who continued the
support when he became director of the Center. I also appreciated the help of
Penny Bevis, Hannah Delaney, Florence Oliver, Aldora Whitman, Nick Fiore, and
Monica Andres.
My sister, Dr. Patricia Greenfield, did
excellent work on the CIA's interface with academia and on the Personality
Assessment System. I want to acknowledge her contribution to the book and
express my thanks and love.
There has been a whole galaxy of
people who have provided specialized help, and I would like to thank them all:
Jeff Kohan, Eddie Becker, Sam Zuckerman, Matthew Messelson, Julian Robinson,
Milton Kline, Marty Lee, M. J. Conklin, Alan Scheflin, Bonnie Goldstein, Paul
Avery, Bill Mills, John Lilly, Humphrey Osmond, Julie Haggerty, Patrick Oster,
Norman Kempster, Bill Richards, Paul Magnusson, Andy Sommer, Mark Cheshire,
Sidney Cohen, Paul Altmeyer, Fred and Elsa Kleiner, Dr. John Cavanagh, and
Senator James Abourezk and his staff.
I sent drafts of the
first ten chapters to many of the people I interviewed (and several who refused
to be interviewed). My aim was to have them correct any inaccuracies or point
out material taken out of context. The comments of those who responded aided me
considerably in preparing the final book. My thanks for their assistance to
Albert Hofmann, Telford Taylor, Leo Alexander, Walter Langer, John Stockwell,
William Hood, Samuel Thompson, Sidney Cohen, Milton Greenblatt, Gordon Wasson,
James Moore, Laurence Hinkle, Charles Osgood, John Gittinger (for Chapter 10
only), and all the others who asked not to be identified.
Finally, I would like to express my appreciation to my publisher, Times Books,
and especially to my editor John J. Simon. John, Tom Lipscomb, Roger Jellinek,
Gyorgyi Voros, and John Gallagher all believed in this book from the beginning
and provided outstanding support. Thanks also go to Judith H. McQuown, who
copyedited the manuscript, and Rosalyn T. Badalamenti, Times Books' Production
Editor, who oversaw the whole production process.
John Marks
Washington, D.C. October 26, 1978