John Marks

The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate"

"The CIA exposé to end all CIA exposés." —New York

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 of pages of newly released documents as well as interviews and behavioral science studies, producing a book that "accomplished what two Senate committees could not" (Senator Edward Kennedy).

"A comprehensive, detailed and thoroughly readable account of the CIA safehouses, the brainwashing experiments, the involvement of the universities." —Washington Monthly

"Perhaps the most compelling, well-researched, organized and well-written account of CIA operations ever." —Progressive

"A serious effort to recontruct carefully the details of intelligence agency experiments with 'mind control.'" —American Political Science Review

"One of the most important books of the year. . . . We see the CIA on the cutting edge of inquiry into hypnosis, drugs, brainwashing, personality assessment, psychosurgery, electric and radio stimulations of the brain, the creation of involuntary amnesia, terminal shock therapy." —Playboy

"Fascinating reading." —Washington Post

"A wonderful piece of investigative reporting. The best account we'll ever get of one of the seamiest episodes of American intelligence." —Seymour Hersh