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

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...

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For those interested in this book, which I recommend, I would also like to recommend "Pyschiatry and the CIA" by Harvey M. Weinstein, M.D. Weinstein describes a specific account of CIA funded behavioral modification research that was unwittingly foisted upon his father via his father's psychological treatment by Dr. Ewen Cameron. I think this book would be a nice compliment to Marks' book.

Another book I might mention, although I'm sure many academics as well as other alumni would disagree with me, is "Michel Foucault: Ethics" Vol. 1 edited by Paul Rabinow. Pages 66-85 are especially relevant, which deal with the State's power over its population ("Bio-power").

Other books dealing with behavior modification, albeit with less emphasis on State complicity, are: "Age of Propaganda" by Anthony Pratkanis & Elliot Aronson, and "Battle for the Mind" by William Sargant.

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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 victims as patients only underscores the brutality and amorality of what was going on, and probably still is in a more subtle and sophisticated fashion.

But most crucially, in this context, we have to thank the author for revealing that the frequent screams echoing though the Allan Memorial hospital "did not deter Cameron or MOST of his associates in their attempts to 'depattern' their subjects COMPLETELY." Emphasis mine. So far had Cameron sunk to the level of personal depravity that "he welcomed this kind of impairment as a sign the treatment was taking effect and plowed ahead through his routine."

This then is the value of the book itself: that doctors and other men of professional standing would dare use the excuse that it was largely due to the temper of the times (fear of the Russians, etc.)and the do-anything mentality to acquire research funds which the CIA somewhat brilliantly orchestrated through various front companies.

In the final analysis, accountability counts, especially if you are one of the victims of the CIA's mind control programs. And thanks to author for putting it into its proper perspective.

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