Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control, by Stephen Kinzer

9781250140432
Henry Holt, 2019
354 pp

hardcover

As the reviewer of this book for The San Francisco Review of Books wrote, Poisoner in Chief is an "awful story, told fast and well." I couldn't have said it better myself. 

According to author Stephen Kinzer, the early years of the 1950s were a "fearful time for Americans," citing among other things the "ugly stalemate" of the Korean War and Senator McCarthy's warnings that "Communists had infiltrated the State Department." The success of the Soviets' first nuclear weapons test led to the fear of being "attacked at any moment," and we also that the Communists "had found ways of controlling people's minds."  The term  "brain-washing" was introduced in 1950 to Americans by a militant anti-Communist propagandist  by the name of Edward Hunter, who was likely working for the CIA at the time, and who would go on to write a book called Brain-Washing in Red China, stoking fear and exacerbating Cold War anxieties. Hunter  "urged Americans to prepare for 'psychological warfare,' " since Red "specialists" were

"preparing psychic attacks aimed at subjugating 'the people and the soil and the resources of the United States' and turning Americans into 'subjects of a New World Order' for the benefit of a mad little knot of despots in the Kremlin." 

There was no real evidence that any of what Hunter said was true; nevertheless Allen Dulles along with "other senior officers" of the CIA feared that "they were losing a decisive race."   As Richard Helms would put it many years afterward, they believed that they couldn't afford to "lag behind the Russians or the Chinese" in this area. The CIA became convinced that

"there is a way to control the human mind, and if it can be found, the prize will be nothing less than global mastery." 

In a memo written in 1951, CIA officers posed a list of several questions along the lines of "Can we 'alter' a person's personality?" or "How can [drugs] be best concealed in a normal or commonplace item..." , the answers to which, they decided, would be "of incredible value to this agency."  Realizing that their current  Project Bluebird needed "an infusion of expertise and vision" from outside of the agency, Dulles and his officers decided to bring in a chemist

"with the drive to pursue forbidden knowledge, a character steely enough to direct experiments that might challenge the conscience of other scientists, and a willingness to ignore legal niceties in the service of of national security."

Enter Sidney Gottlieb.

Sidney Gottlieb; photo from NPR

Born in New York in 1918;  Gottlieb's college and postgraduate years were spent at University of Wisconsin and Cal Tech, where he majored in chemistry and received his PhD in 1943. Halfway through his doctorate program came the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but Gottlieb remained to finish his degree.  In 1943 he tried to enlist in the army but was turned down due to a limp left  from childhood operations on his deformed feet.  Gottlieb was "crushed," but still had a desire to serve his country; after a few jobs working for various departments of  the government in DC, by 1948 he was looking for "more of a challenge" in his work. Ultimately he found it;  as the author states

"Everything suggested that he was headed for a career as a government scientist. So he was -- but he could not have imagined what a phantasmagorical kind of science he would be called to practice."

While this "phantasmagorical kind of science"  involved, as Kinzer puts it, "years of heinous assaults on the lives of others,"  reading about Gottlieb's home life makes for a serious case of cognitive dissonance on the part of the reader.  This man, the "poisoner in chief" and "mind control czar,"   architect of  MK-ULTRA, the  "most systematic and  widest-ranging mind control project ever undertaken" spent his time at home with his family, taught folk dancing, wrote poetry, grew vegetables, tended to his goats, and devoted time to focusing on his own spirituality.  On a segment of NPR's Fresh Air that aired this past September , Kinzer describes it as a "Jekyll-and-Hyde life," which is the vibe I got as well -- we're talking about a man who sought   "inner peace while just as relentlessly laying waste to other people's minds and bodies." 

Poisoner in Chief is not at all easy to read on a human level -- it's shocking, it's graphic, and it's frightening to think that all of what the author details over the course of this book was sanctioned and done in the name of national security and the defense of freedom. It also makes you wonder if anyone involved ever had the least qualms of conscience.  "Awful" this story may be, but at the same time, it's compelling enough that you absolutely cannot stop turning pages.

Recommended. Highly.

The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover's Secret FBI, by Betty Medsger

9780307962959
Knopf, 2014
596 pp

hardcover

 "There are certain points in history where a society goes so wrong, and there are certain people who will say, 'I won't stand for that...I will risk career, life, limb, family, freedom...And I will take this risk, and I will go and do it.' "
                                                                   -- David Kairys (538)


A couple of weeks ago in between airplane changes I caught a brief glimpse of a TV  interview of some sort and heard the words "FBI office," "70s" and "burglary," and I mentally promised myself I'd check on whatever that might have been when I had some free time.  When I finally got the chance, I put those exact words into google and came up with The Burglary, by Betty Medsger.  Looking at the synopsis, I knew I absolutely had to read this book.  Now that I've finished it, I'm recommending it to everyone.  It's that good.

It's not that  J. Edgar Hoover's abuses of power have been a secret up until the publication of this book; au contraire: there have been several  very good books published by credible authors on just how far reaching those abuses have been, as well as a number of documentaries about the same.  However, if you're thinking that this is just another book out to trash J.Edgar Hoover, so why bother, think again.  Ms. Medsger  starts her work from an entirely different place.  Her focus is on how the burglary of the files from a small FBI station in Media, Pennsylvania committed by a small group of nonviolent, antiwar activists led to the "opening of the door"  of J. Edgar Hoover's "Secret FBI."   It was through the theft and then publication of most of these files (the ones containing ongoing "real" criminal investigations were not publicized)  that the public got its first glimpse of how Hoover and his agents were actively violating the constitutional rights of American citizens through surveillance, "dirty tricks," and other less than above-board measures.  These files revealed that

"...there were two FBIs -- the public FBI Americans revered as their protector from crime, arbiter of values, and defender of citizens' liberties, and the Secret FBI.  This FBI...usurped citizens' liberties, treated black citizens as if they were a danger to society, and used deception, disinformation and violence as tools to harass, damage, and -- most important -- silence people whose political opinions the director opposed,"

and revealed an FBI that was "obsessed with monitoring what seemed to be, in many cases, lawful dissent." The publication of the information discovered in these files, aside from revealing a "government agency, once the object of universal respect and awe," that had for years been "reaching out with tentacles to get a grasp on, or lead into, virtually every part of American society," also became the catalyst for the first-ever real investigation into the activities of the Bureau and more pointedly, those of its Director; the revelation of just what the FBI with its squeaky-clean image was really up to also started the first national dialogue regarding the fine line between domestic intelligence vs. civil liberties  in the context of a free and democratic society.

America in 1970 was an "extraordinary time in the life of the country."  Nixon had let loose the news about the US invasion of Cambodia after the secret bombings there, setting off another wave of antiwar protests, more "than ever before, including in towns and on campuses where antiwar protests had never taken place." Kent State was put under martial law, and four peacefully-demonstrating students were shot  by National Guards who had been ordered onto the campus, "the first time Americans were killed while protesting the war."  Unarmed African-American students in Jackson, Mississipi also met their their deaths at the hands of law enforcement; then shortly afterwards, a number of students were beaten with crowbars and other tools by "hundreds of construction workers" during a noontime vigil for peace.  Onlookers who tried to help were also beaten; the construction workers were "honored" by Nixon at the White House later for their "patriotism." When the future organizer of the Media break in, William Davidon, learned that the American government was "suppressing Americans' right to express dissent," he realized that there was a major problem here: 

"how could a government that claimed to be fighting a war for people's freedom in another country at the same time suppress its own people's right to dissent?"

Davidon felt that he had to have some sort of evidence of active suppression of dissent, and after Hoover made some powerful but unsubstantiated accusations about antiwar dissenters Philip and Daniel Berrigan, and Congress quickly supported the Director when his actions were challenged, Davidon realized that he'd probably find the evidence he needed in an FBI office. Gathering other individuals, he organized a nonviolent break in of the small FBI station in Media, PA, timed to coincide with the upcoming Ali/Frazier fight, "the most anticipated heavyweight title fight" since 1938's Louis v. Schmeling bout.

The book takes the reader through the burglary and through what each of the burglars interviewed went through in the aftermath as the FBI pulled out all the stops to find out who'd committed this act;  the author also examines the history of J.Edgar Hoover and the building of his empire within the FBI and his own unchecked growth of power; she examines what kinds of information the burglars found and publicized, including a word not seen before by the public: COINTELPRO and then the journalist who waged a years-long battle with the FBI to get to the root of exactly what COINTELPRO was; the post-publication call for investigation into the Bureau and into Hoover, especially after his death;  she also questions and tries to understand  the long period where there was virtually no oversight by Congress or anyone else for that matter.  Later, Ms. Medsger delves into the problems of a modern FBI whose bureaucratic structure is largely dominated by people of the same minds as Hoover -- and how our current politicians are using this agency and others to swing the pendulum back to a focus on domestic spying once again, especially against ordinary citizens whose opinions may not match with those who run our government.


Above all, much as in Tim Weiner's Enemies: A History of the FBI, the point is driven home that while there clearly is a need for national security, there comes a point when people have to understand that there's a fine line between protection of natural interests and the abuse or potential loss of civil liberties guaranteed by our Constitution.  And before anyone says "yeah, well, I've got nothing to hide so I don't care if these agencies know everything about me," think about another point raised in this book:  perhaps there may come a time in the future when, as Ms. Medsger notes, some form of tyrannical government forms -- and then the seemingly benign information that our intelligence-gathering agencies have gathered can be used against citizens with unlike minds.  I'm seriously NOT a conspiracy nut by any stretch of the imagination, but it is really good food for thought.

Obviously, there's much more to this book than I can possibly set down here so it's one that people must read for themselves to experience the full wham! this book delivers.  I hope it's not simply a matter of preaching to the choir, because The Burglary deserves the widest audience possible.  Ms. Medsger has done a most thorough job here, and is fair in her assessments of how and why Hoover could get away with what he did for so long.  Reader response so far has been very favorable, and like most people who've come away very impressed, I highly, highly recommend this book.

 as an addendum, I somehow bought two copies of this book, so if you live in the US and you'd like my extra copy, be the first to leave a comment here on this post saying you want it. I will pay postage; all you have to do is to email me with an address.