Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control
The bestselling author of All the Shah's Men and The Brothers tells the astonishing story of the man who oversaw the CIA's secret drug and mind-control experiments of the 1950s and '60s.
The visionary chemist Sidney Gottlieb was the CIA's master magician and gentlehearted torturer--the agency's "poisoner in chief." As head of the MK-ULTRA mind control project, he directed brutal experiments at secret prisons on three continents. He made pills, powders, and potions that could kill or maim without a trace--including some intended for Fidel Castro and other foreign leaders. He paid prostitutes to lure clients to CIA-run bordellos, where they were secretly dosed with mind-altering drugs. His experiments spread LSD across the United States, making him a hidden godfather of the 1960s counterculture. For years he was the chief supplier of spy tools used by CIA officers around the world.
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Chapter 1: I Needed More of a Challenge
Chapter 2: Dirty Business
Chapter 3: Willing and Unwilling Subjects
Chapter 4: The Secret That Was Going to Unlock the Universe
Chapter 5: Abolishing Consciousness
Chapter 6: Any Effort to Tamper with This Project, MK-ULTRA, Is Not
Chapter 7: Permitted
Chapter 8: Fell or Jumped
Chapter 9: Operation Midnight Climax
Chapter 10: The Divine Mushroom
Chapter 11: Health Alteration Committee
Chapter 12: We Must Always Remember to Thank the CIA
Chapter 13: Let This Die with Us
Chapter 14: Some of Our People Were Out of Control in Those Days
Chapter 15: I Feel Victimized
Chapter 16: If Gottlieb Is Found Guilty, It Would Be a Real First
Chapter 17: You Never Can Know What He Was
...
Book review
The writing is pretty amazing here and the research is top notch. As an audiobook it's a blast even if you don't like the topic. It was just a very easy listen and the focus was cleverly put on single people in the CIA Project MK-Ultra and then singular missions and events often written as mysteries. Especially the murder or suicide of an agent, right before he was about to reveal this secret CIA project, stands out. He got depressed as all they did was hurt innocent people without any results. Then CIA gave him LSD without telling him and as he freaked out they brought him to NY for therapy where he supposedly jumped out a window. The case was not looked into initially as the CIA made sure NY police would leave it alone and misconstrue statements about the event. Later Congress discovered MK-Ultra. While most other stuff was hidden away this suicide was not easy to hide in some small note. They only gave it a few lines in the official report on MK-Ultra, but that was enough to make journalists see that this was a huge story. With most other stuff they can just be vague enough to make it boring as no one wanted to hurt CIA. As you see the whole case slowly grows and expands as time passes.
The book cleverly focuses on these major events and then brings them up to tie together storylines. So when we explore a new story or new character we will return to a main character to explore that storyline further in relation to this passed time and new people. It all is expertly written as a mystery thriller.
There are some issues like lack of focus on the more obscure MK-Ultra programs like the one in Canada and then lack of focus on famous people who supposedly were in the program and went on to kills tens of people. It overall shies away from any rumors, personal drama, or conspiracies. So while documentaries, movies, and Youtube videos may focus on retelling the MK-Ultra story from a perspective of an interesting rumor the book may not even mention it. As the project was created to explore brainwashing and creating unwilling spies and killers it has become very popular in fiction and conspiracy circles. So it is quite different here than what you assume it was. And this focus on single events and single people may feel a bit small. The project was just one of many secret CIA projects this one largely focused on making poison to kill leaders and then giving random people take LSD without telling them to see if it could be used to manipulate them. As most of these murders could not take place without a willing killer putting his life on the line and the manipulation clearly didn't work they actually didn't archive much. After they were forced to shut down they had to admit that all this drug manipulation stuff is impossible and that rumors about China brainwashing US prisoners in the Korean war to go against USA was quite wrong. Many war prisoners did become communist, but not because China or USSR had some secret poison or technique they could easily apply. CIA just wanted to make sure USA would not lack all behind if the rumors turned out to be true. Instead it evolved into a Nazi-like experiment group with unwilling participants. Hence making USA more like a socialist state instead of protecting the country from this fascism. Overall the project was doomed from the start as it goes against basic psychology research. And hence they would just keep torturing people for nothing. Just like the time when during George W. Bush CIA hired 2 psychologists to recreate torture techniques yet again to make prisoners do stuff they didn't want to do like reveal all info about their terrorist groups. Of course this also didn't work and this also got a man killed as they went way too far in the torture. CIA constantly tries this illegal stuff and it never once worked.
Any book about this would always feel a bit smaller than what the project could have been if any of this stuff was remotely possible. Yet the misguided and evil research is extremely fascinating in itself and this is an audiobook I would want to return to in a year. It's just a ton of fun! The history lesson is small and basically insignificant, but it's filled with inexplicable craziness and people who sound more like evil mastermind caricatures than real CIA agents. Of course nearly all refused to explain the project later on after they burned the documents to hide their failed torture. In interviews and Congress hearings they would just loosely mention stuff and say they forgot most of it. So we actually don't know what they did or how many people they killed or tortured. We just assume it was not a lot, but no one will ever know for sure as CIA obviously is not eager to reveal more about this and Congress and other politicians said they didn't want to push too hard as it could hurt CIA. I guess this is extremely embarrassing for USA and CIA and one understands why they try to bury it. One one hand it creates a mystery and on the other hand it gives us so little info that we wonder if it's even a significant history lesson.
Chapter 2: Dirty Business
Chapter 3: Willing and Unwilling Subjects
Chapter 4: The Secret That Was Going to Unlock the Universe
Chapter 5: Abolishing Consciousness
Chapter 6: Any Effort to Tamper with This Project, MK-ULTRA, Is Not
Chapter 7: Permitted
Chapter 8: Fell or Jumped
Chapter 9: Operation Midnight Climax
Chapter 10: The Divine Mushroom
Chapter 11: Health Alteration Committee
Chapter 12: We Must Always Remember to Thank the CIA
Chapter 13: Let This Die with Us
Chapter 14: Some of Our People Were Out of Control in Those Days
Chapter 15: I Feel Victimized
Chapter 16: If Gottlieb Is Found Guilty, It Would Be a Real First
Chapter 17: You Never Can Know What He Was
...
Book review
The writing is pretty amazing here and the research is top notch. As an audiobook it's a blast even if you don't like the topic. It was just a very easy listen and the focus was cleverly put on single people in the CIA Project MK-Ultra and then singular missions and events often written as mysteries. Especially the murder or suicide of an agent, right before he was about to reveal this secret CIA project, stands out. He got depressed as all they did was hurt innocent people without any results. Then CIA gave him LSD without telling him and as he freaked out they brought him to NY for therapy where he supposedly jumped out a window. The case was not looked into initially as the CIA made sure NY police would leave it alone and misconstrue statements about the event. Later Congress discovered MK-Ultra. While most other stuff was hidden away this suicide was not easy to hide in some small note. They only gave it a few lines in the official report on MK-Ultra, but that was enough to make journalists see that this was a huge story. With most other stuff they can just be vague enough to make it boring as no one wanted to hurt CIA. As you see the whole case slowly grows and expands as time passes.
The book cleverly focuses on these major events and then brings them up to tie together storylines. So when we explore a new story or new character we will return to a main character to explore that storyline further in relation to this passed time and new people. It all is expertly written as a mystery thriller.
There are some issues like lack of focus on the more obscure MK-Ultra programs like the one in Canada and then lack of focus on famous people who supposedly were in the program and went on to kills tens of people. It overall shies away from any rumors, personal drama, or conspiracies. So while documentaries, movies, and Youtube videos may focus on retelling the MK-Ultra story from a perspective of an interesting rumor the book may not even mention it. As the project was created to explore brainwashing and creating unwilling spies and killers it has become very popular in fiction and conspiracy circles. So it is quite different here than what you assume it was. And this focus on single events and single people may feel a bit small. The project was just one of many secret CIA projects this one largely focused on making poison to kill leaders and then giving random people take LSD without telling them to see if it could be used to manipulate them. As most of these murders could not take place without a willing killer putting his life on the line and the manipulation clearly didn't work they actually didn't archive much. After they were forced to shut down they had to admit that all this drug manipulation stuff is impossible and that rumors about China brainwashing US prisoners in the Korean war to go against USA was quite wrong. Many war prisoners did become communist, but not because China or USSR had some secret poison or technique they could easily apply. CIA just wanted to make sure USA would not lack all behind if the rumors turned out to be true. Instead it evolved into a Nazi-like experiment group with unwilling participants. Hence making USA more like a socialist state instead of protecting the country from this fascism. Overall the project was doomed from the start as it goes against basic psychology research. And hence they would just keep torturing people for nothing. Just like the time when during George W. Bush CIA hired 2 psychologists to recreate torture techniques yet again to make prisoners do stuff they didn't want to do like reveal all info about their terrorist groups. Of course this also didn't work and this also got a man killed as they went way too far in the torture. CIA constantly tries this illegal stuff and it never once worked.
Any book about this would always feel a bit smaller than what the project could have been if any of this stuff was remotely possible. Yet the misguided and evil research is extremely fascinating in itself and this is an audiobook I would want to return to in a year. It's just a ton of fun! The history lesson is small and basically insignificant, but it's filled with inexplicable craziness and people who sound more like evil mastermind caricatures than real CIA agents. Of course nearly all refused to explain the project later on after they burned the documents to hide their failed torture. In interviews and Congress hearings they would just loosely mention stuff and say they forgot most of it. So we actually don't know what they did or how many people they killed or tortured. We just assume it was not a lot, but no one will ever know for sure as CIA obviously is not eager to reveal more about this and Congress and other politicians said they didn't want to push too hard as it could hurt CIA. I guess this is extremely embarrassing for USA and CIA and one understands why they try to bury it. One one hand it creates a mystery and on the other hand it gives us so little info that we wonder if it's even a significant history lesson.