Bowart includes some funny quotations from US officials during this time at once accusing the Soviets of barbaric "brainwashing" techniques that involve drugging and torture while also privately claiming that the US is practising the same techniques but with greater success.

He also says that the Americans limited the definition of "brainwashing" to rudimentary torture. They boxed up the concept of mind-control and brainwashing to be this brutish communist torture that the capitalist had no need of because the success of America without manipulation is self-evident.

And of course the creation of the us-versus-them mentality was essential for mass mind-control.

One thing I didn't appreciate before reading this book was the scale of the operations, particularly with narco-hypnotism. Just a 1949 RAND report states that 6,940 servicemen and around 2,500 prisoners were given experimental mind-control drugs without their knowledge or consent. And this was even before the MKULTRA was in full swing. This is also limited to releases from the US Army and the Department of Health Education and Welfare.

Bare in mind that the way MKULTRA operated was not a department exclusive enterprise. In order to escape culpability grants were handed out to many government entities, private individuals and corporations to carry out research. The true scale is unknown. On top of that you have the Russians, British, Chinese and likely every developed nation trying to perfect mind-control.

I would say generally this book was sensible. Other interesting sections included a little anecdote from Marco Polo describing a visit to the Ashishin, a a cult of assassins in Persia. He said that they would kidnap and drug poor men and take them into an enclosed castle where they would have every type of food and woman they would want. They would be drugged again and dragged back outside and once awake would be told that they visited paradise and the only route back in would be to kill someone. Bowart claims a similar method is used today— convincing people they are crazy or in service of some higher power.

Various sections described the conditions of Sirhan Sirhan, James Earl Ray and Lee Harey Oswald and speculated all three were patsy assassins. I've read plenty of books on this topic but none on those three individuals. What Bowart says does seem fishy but I don't trust him to give an honest account so as far as that I don't really know. I will say that given the scale of the hypno-assassin research it is not beyond possibility.

Bowart does seem to overstate the success of the operation. The book was written in 1978 and he makes some predictions about future mind-controlled cyborgs which (as far as I know) don't exist. I feel like a discerning reader can spot when he's being a bit fanciful though.

One final little bit, Bowart stresses that when the CIA were caught with blood up to their elbows they claimed that all mind-control experiments were shutdown. Now in typical wish washy political fashion this does not discount mind-control operations in the field and also private contracted mind-control experiments.

Side note but I thought this was funny:

After writing his best seller In Cold Blood, Capote was regarded as something of an expert on murder.

Overall fun read. I need to find a more modern book on this topic. Bowart makes a point to say that if the US government ceased research into mind-control is was not for any ethical reasons. Having read Surveillance Valley (a great read) the internet is a perfect means of mass manipulation. If anyone has any recs like that please let me know.

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