Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control Hardcover – Illustrated, September 10, 2019

I was surprised by the way this book kept me riveted to the last page. The author is brilliant in the way he weaves together the information into a flowing narrative. While I rarely read for fun, this book, while I purchased it for information, turned into an enjoyable experience despite the macabre subject matter. Anyone that wonders why the world is in such turmoil would greatly benefit from this story. Having read "Bitter Fruit" in the distant past I was not surprised when I saw that work among the authors past achievements. I will recommend this work to anyone seeking truth.

Another scholarly work by Stephen Kinzer fleshing out some of the hidden and horrific U.S. history during the post World War II transformation from a moralistic democracy into a national security state. Mr. Kinzer exposes the hidden inhumane activities that resembled the war crimes of our Axis enemies during the war.The OSS and its' CIA successor secretly rescued many of the Nazi and Japanese torturers and bioweapons experts from justice in order to serve our new twisted attempt at expanding their work. The unknown number of innocent victims that were deliberately misled and destroyed under Sidney Gottlieb's MK-ULTRA mind control and assassinations program, remains a secret. At least this book pulls open the curtain part of the way. The author explores the recklessly caused death of Fort Dietrick chemist, Frank Olson, who was deliberatively dosed with LSD without his knowledge, leading to an alleged suicide or possibly murder.There is a gap in the author's thin transition from the 1950s Eisenhower administration to the 1960s Kennedy administration. While JFK initially went along with the ill fated Bay of Pigs debacle and the early actions of Operation Mongoose, he changed. I doubt that he knew or would have approved of MK-ULTRA and he clearly was heading in a different direction on Cuba and USSR, than the actions of the 1950s cold warriors that he inherited in the CIA. So one might try to justify such tactics in the 1950s when President Eisenhower enthusiastically supported them, but by 1963, JFK'S Test Ban treaty and efforts at peace before his death, cannot be reconciled with a CIAs rogue torture and assassination program.Forgive my skepticism but I am not convinced that the program was abandoned simply because it was a total failure. What has been revealed about MK-ULTRA may have been abandoned because the abuses were leaking out and the leaks became threatening to the CIA. What we don't know about MK-ULTRA may have involved successes so sinister, they will never be willingly disclosedA challenge to the author. Use your world class research to tell the true history of the CIA's Operation Mockingbird, which was initiated during the same 1950s time period, but unlike MK-ULTRA, is alive and still in force today. Many of the CIA abuses the author has documented in this and other books, would not have been possible but for Mockingbird. That would be a book worth reading but perhaps difficult to publish.

Like many people I was vaguely aware of MK-Ultra, but not in any significant way.That all changed when I read Stephen Kinzer's magnificent new book. The amount of research Kinzer undertook is truly daunting, and yet he has written a fast-paced account of the founding in 1943 of the army's Biological Warfare Facilities at Fort Detrick, Maryland and the man put in charge of the program, Dr. Sidney Gottlieb.When World War II ended, the United States actively recruited former Nazi and Japanese scientists to help them develop biological and chemical weapons, to test on prisoners and unsuspecting members of the public. One of the prisoners given massive doses of the newly created drug, LSD, was Whitey Bulger, who would later go onto become one of the country's most notorious criminals. The department even ran a brothel in San Francisco on Chestnut Street (not far from where I once lived), that fed its clients LSD, then sought to determine if this made them susceptible to spilling secrets. Big surprise! Men are more open to sharing after they've had sex! The drugs they were fed gave inconsistent results. Oh, and the CIA enlisted vice cops from San Francisco to help run the brothel. All in the name of national security.It also seems clear that the department had little trouble killing its own in extra-judicial fashion if they turned out to be agents of a foreign power, or even in the case of one scientist who started to have moral qualms about their work, Frank Olson, throwing him out the window of thirteenth floor hotel room in New York City.All of this took place in an atmosphere of Cold War hysteria and those who took part in these activities seek to use this justification for their work. Yes, how easy it is to commit terrible crimes under the guise of an imminent threat.And yet, even though Gottlieb presided over this carnival of horrors, and eagerly participated in using the services of his San Francisco bordello, and sleeping with the wives of his colleagues, Kinzer goes to great lengths to present a balanced portrait of the man. After leaving government service and realizing that no effective drug or technique could reliably break a person, or make them into a "Manchurian candidate," an assassin, ready to kill at a moment's notice, but would have no memory of why he did it, Gottlieb truly devoted himself to charitable work.However, in the 1970s the truth came calling and he was forced to give Congressional testimony as to at least some of what he had done. The wages of sin must have hung heavy on Gottlieb in the final years of his life. His wife fiercely defended him, but his children refused to speak to him. This story bears witness to what darkness lurks in the souls of men when they are given a pressing task at the very edges of science, and no oversight.The greatest monsters we may face might well be those which hide in every human heart.

Great writer. The complete disregard for ethics and the rule of law the CIA and the Adminstrations that approved their 'projects' prove yet again that things done with little oversight can go horribly wrong. The idea that torture is ok for "national security" begs to ask the question, if you cross the line when it's imparative to maintain moral high ground (in a war), will you cross the line at any other time? MK Ultra and Operation Paperclip (among other nefarious projects) put the Americans in a state of cognitive dissonance. What other projects is the Adminstrative State involved in now??

A must read for anyone interested in understanding the capacity for evil of seemingly decent, professional civilised human beings, be they doctors, scientists or CIA employees.

I read this after hearing about the Unabomber's student experiences. It really is jaw dropping in places. Expertly written.

read this and find some of the answers you may have

An excellent tale

What we have here is another arcane and ugly side of the CIA we know so little about. unfortunately, many of the records were destroyed.But the author manages to put us in the historical context of the cold war to explain why the Poisoner in chief and his acolytes were able to carry on as they did. it is a horror story to some degree and what SK weaves here from fragmented cables is how expendable human life was for these men.To think that there is a strong possibility that similar human experiments are being conducted right now. I think it very likely. What an horrific reality to even consider!