Excerpts from: 

Operation Mind Control

Walter Bowart, New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1978

            Please keep fearfully in mind that the astonishing information published in this seminal work of investigative reporting, concerning avenues taken to decision and execution by our secret police to fracture or dissolve human minds, then to operate those minds as a small boy, might operate a Yo-Yo, for purposes of counter-intelligence military “efficiency,” and the destruction of democratic institutions, was drawn directly from federal records and from official laboratory archives of the highest educational purpose—as well as from the reviving memories of those who had already undergone the dehumanizing process. ... [p. 14]

            Zombie is a quaint, old-fashioned folklore word but its meaning becomes obscene when our children’s minds are being controlled ... [p. 17][Note:1]

            It may have been the biggest story since the atom bomb. The headline, however, was small and ignored the larger issue. “Drug Tests by CIA Held More Extensive Than Reported in ’75,” said the New York Times on July 16, 1977. ...

            The testing of drugs by the CIA was just a part of the United States government’s top-secret mind-control project, a project which had spanned thirty-five years and had involved tens of thousands of individuals. It involved techniques of hypnosis, narco-hypnosis, electronic brain stimulation, behavioral effects of ultrasonic, microwave, and low-frequency sound, aversive and other behavior modification therapies. In fact, there was virtually no aspect of human behavioral control that was not explored in their search for the means to control the memory and will of both individuals and whole masses of people.

            The CIA succeeded in developing a whole range of psycho-weapons to expand its already ominous psychological warfare arsenal. With these capabilities, it was now possible to wage a new kind of war—a war which would take place invisibly, upon the battlefield of the human mind. ... [p. 19]

            The psychological techniques described in The Manchurian Candidate were to become a reality less than a decade after Condon saw his story set in type. As if Condon’s fiction had been used as the blueprint, a group of hypno-programmed “zombies” were created. Some were assassins prepared to kill on cue. Others were informers, made to remember minute details under hypnosis. Couriers carried illegal messages outside the chain of command, their secrets secured behind posthypnotic blocks. Knowledge of secret information was removed from the minds of those who no longer had the “need to know”—they were given posthypnotic amnesia. ... [p. 21]

            The objective of Operation Mind Control during this period has been to take human beings, both citizens of the United States and citizens of friendly and unfriendly nations, and transform them into unthinking, subconsciously programmed “zombies,” motivated without their knowledge and against their wills to perform in a variety of ways in which they would not otherwise willingly perform. This is accomplished through the use of various techniques called by various names, including brainwashing, thought reform, behavior modification, hypnosis, and conditioned reflex therapy. For the purpose of this book the term “mind control” will be used to describe these techniques generically.*

            Mind control is the most terrible imaginable crime because it is committed not against the body, but against the mind and the soul. Dr. Joost A. M. Meerloo expresses the attitude of the majority of psychologists in calling it “mind rape,” and warns that it poses a great “danger of destruction of the spirit” which can be “compared to the threat of total physical destruction . . .” ... [p. 23]

            “I can hypnotize a man—without his knowledge or consent—into committing treason against the United States,” boasted Dr. George Estabrooks in the early 1940s.

            Estabrooks, chairman of the Department of Psychology at Colgate University, ... [p. 58]

            From one such think tank, the Rand Corporation, came a report [1949] ... [p. 67]

            “ ... a hypnotized subject will often accept and confess to an implanted memory as a real event in his own past life.” ...

            A number of experienced hypnotists had been able to train their subjects to perform “in such a way that observers could not tell that the subject was in a trance or that he was acting under hypnotic suggestions.” ... [p. 69]

            To induce hypnosis in an unwilling subject, the report suggested any of three possibilities which were then well supported by research findings:

            1. As part of a medical examination, talk relaxation to the subject, thus disguising the hypnotic induction. For example, the person could be given a blood pressure test, told that he must relax completely in order to give an adequate test record, and then be given suggestions to go to sleep which would result in a hypnotic trance.

            2. Induce hypnosis while the person is actually asleep from normal fatigue. This could be done by simply talking softly into the sleeper’s ear.

            3. Use injections of drugs to induce hypnosis. The hypnotic drugs would relax the subject and put him in a “twilight state” where the subconscious mind is very susceptible to suggestion.

            Subjects who refuse or resist the simple “talking” methods of hypnotic induction could be given a few grams of paraldehyde or an intravenous injection of sodium pentothal or sodium amytal. ... Subsequently the subject could be allowed to practice carrying out posthypnotic suggestions. He could then be rehypnotized, still without his conscious cooperation, but this time without the use of drugs. ...

            Another important use of hypnosis ... the report said, would be the induction of amnesia: “Once a deep hypnotic trance is achieved, it is possible to introduce posthypnotic amnesia so that [a subject] . . . would not know . . . that he had been subjected to hypnosis, to drugs, or to any other treatment.” ...

            The report then said, “Conceivably, electroshock convulsions might be used as an adjunctive device to achieve somnambulism in a very high percentage of the cases. ... It is conceivable, therefore, that electroshock treatments might be used to weaken difficult cases in order to produce a hypnotic trance of great depth.”

            In 1958 the Bureau of Social Science Research (BSSR), a subcontractor to the Rand Corporation, issued a “technical report” on hypnosis to the air force ...

            “it is conceivable . . . that these techniques could have been used and covered up so successfully that they might be impossible to recognize . . .” ...

            All of these techniques, involving drug-induced hypnosis and electroshock convulsions, were eventually developed and used to reduce some of our own citizens to a zombie state in which they would blindly serve the government. Regardless of the Constitution and the laws which supposedly protect the individual against government coercion, “zombies” were covertly created to do the government’s more unsavory bidding. Such “zombies” asked no questions about the legality of their assignments. Often their assignments were never consciously known. And if they were ever questioned about their own actions, amnesia protected them from self-incrimination. ... [p. 70-73]

            In 1951, a former naval officer described “a secret” of certain military and intelligence organizations. He called it “Pain-Drug-Hypnosis” and said it “is a vicious war weapon ... The extensiveness of the use of this form of hypnotism in espionage work is now so widespread that it is long past the time when people should have become alarmed about it . . .” ... [p. 75]

            Mind control arranges that “slaves” of the intelligence community—witnesses, couriers, and assassins—are “protected” from their own memories and guilt by amnesia. These “slaves” may be left alive, but the knowledge they possess is buried deep within the tombs of their own minds by techniques which can keep the truth hidden even from those who have witnessed it. It is the ultimate debriefing, the final security measure short of assassination. ... [p. 148]

            José Delgado was a neurophysiologist at the Yale University School of Medicine. By 1964, ... he had already been experimenting with electronic stimulation of the brain (ESB) for nearly two decades. His work, supported by the Office of Naval Research, ... [p. 250]

            A number of government agencies were actually at work on projects similar to Delgado’s, and through these projects the cryptocracy had gained the technology for direct access to the control of the brain and through it, the mind. ... [p. 251]

            ESB, however, used in conjunction with psycho-surgery and behavior modification, offered unlimited possibilities. After experiments on laboratory animals met with success, human experimentation was enthusiastically undertaken in quest of the most reliable and absolute method of remote control of the mind. ... [p. 253]

            ESB has, meanwhile, been strikingly successful in other areas. It has been used to modify mental mechanisms, to produce changes in mood and feelings, to reinforce behavior both positively and negatively. It has been used to activate sensory and motor regions of the brain in order to produce elementary or complex experiences or movements, to summon memories, and to induce hallucinations. It also has been used to suppress or inhibit behavior and experience and memory—outside of the conscious control of the owner of the brain. ... [p. 256]

            And, in 1974, the first victim of Parkinson’s disease treated by ESB walked gracefully out of a San Francisco hospital under his own power, thanks to portable ESB. He had a “stimoceiver” implanted in his brain ... The “stimoceiver” which weighed only a few grams and was small enough to implant under his scalp, permitted both remote stimulation of his brain and the instantaneous telemetric recording of his brain waves. ... [p. 256-257]

            And by the late 1960s, the “remote control” of the human brain—accomplished without the implantation of electrodes—was well on its way to being realized.

            A research and development team at the Space and Biology Laboratory of the University of California at the Los Angeles Brain Research Institute found a way to stimulate the brain by creating an electrical field completely outside the head. Dr. W. Ross Adey stimulated the brain with electric pulse levels which were far below those thought to be effectual in the old implanting technique. ... [p. 257]

            In 1975 a primitive “mind reading machine” was tested at the Stanford Research Institute. The machine is a computer which can recognize a limited amount of words by monitoring a person’s silent thoughts. This technique relies upon the discovery that brain wave tracings taken with an electroencephalograph (EEG) show distinctive patterns that correlate with individual words—whether the words are spoken aloud or merely subvocalized (thought of).

            The computer initially used audio equipment to listen to the words the subject spoke. (At first the vocabulary was limited to “up,” “down,” “left,” and “right.”) At the same time the computer heard the words, it monitored the EEG impulses coming from electrodes pasted to the subject’s head and responded by turning a camera in the direction indicated. After a few repetitions of the procedure, the computer’s hearing was turned off and it responded solely to the EEG “thoughts.” It moved a television camera in the directions ordered by the subject’s thoughts alone! ... [p. 258]

            While Dr. Reed conceded that it was “conceivable that thoughts could be injected” into a person’s mind by the government, he indicated that he did not believe it had already been done. ... [p. 259]

            Typically, the scientists have not been vigilant enough, for the cryptocracy already has developed remote-controlled men who can be used for political assassination and other dangerous work, ... [p. 260]

            In 1967 a writer named Lincoln Lawrence published a book ... [Were We Controlled? presented] a sophisticated technique known as RHIC—EDOM ... Radio Hypnotic Intra-Cerebral Control—Electronic Dissolution of Memory. ...

            “Under RHIC, a ‘sleeper’ can be used years later with no realization that the ‘sleeper’ is even being controlled! He can be made to perform acts that he will have no memory of ever having carried out. In a manipulated kind of kamikaze operation where the life of the ‘sleeper’ is dispensable, RHIC processing makes him particularly valuable because if he is detected and caught before he performs the act specified . . . nothing he says will implicate the group or government which processed and controlled him.” ...

            ... according to Lawrence, ... during the operation a small electrode was implanted inside ... [the person’s] mastoid sinus. The electrode responded to a radio signal which would make audible, inside ... [the person’s] head, certain electronic commands to which he had already been posthypnotically conditioned to respond. ...

            In 1975 the RHIC-EDOM story surfaced again. ... The journalist, James L. Moore, said that the papers in his possession described the details of “a military technique of mind-control called Radio-Hypnotic Intra-Cerebral Control—Electronic Dissolution of Memory.” ...

            According to Moore, in the initial (RHIC) stage of programming the ... [person] is put into a deep hypnotic trance, and conditioned to go intro trance at the sound of a specific tone. “A person may be placed under this control with or without his knowledge, programmed to perform certain actions and maintain certain attitudes” whenever he hears the tone. ...

            The second part of the process, electronic dissolution of memory (EDOM), Moore said, “... By electronically jamming the brain, acetylcholine creates static which blocks out sights and sounds. You would then have no memory of what you saw or heard; your mind would be a blank.” ...

            The claims of James L. Moore would sound fantastic were it not for the abundance of information to support the possibility of their validity. ... [p. 261-264]

            The cryptocracy has gone to absurd lengths to develop remote-controlled beings. Victor Marchetti revealed that the CIA had once tried to create a cyborg cat. He said that the Agency wired a live feline for sound in an attempt to use the pet for eavesdropping purposes. The cat was first altered electronically so that it would function as a listening device in areas where potential enemy agents would be discussing covert plots.[Note:2] ...

            After the electronic feline was at last ready for its assignment, it was turned loose on the street and was followed by a CIA support van loaded with electronic monitoring gear. ... [p. 273]

            The cryptocracy has used mind control for the past thirty years. It has used it on its own agents and employees, on enemies and friends alike. It has used it on thousands of Americans without their knowledge or consent. The CIA has programmed assassins and couriers by it. The CIA has even openly confessed to its conspiracy of mind control.

            Many people will believe that since the CIA has publicly disclosed its interest in mind control, it has now ceased its activities. The earlier CIA records, however, contain a number of termination dates for aspects of Operation Mind Control, yet evidence clearly suggests that it continued past those dates.

            In 1975, following the release of the Rockefeller Commission Report and the subsequent investigations by Senator Church’s and Congressman Pike’s committees, a public accounting was given and apologies were made. The intelligence community was reprimanded and small changes made. ... [p. 275]

            Recent history documents the fact that the CIA, as the whipping boy of the cryptocracy, covers up and routinely lies about its activities, heaping one lie on another, in a labyrinthine network of falsehood. It stretches credibility to believe, therefore, that the CIA and especially lower-profile members of the cryptocracy have terminated the mind-control research and development that has been going on for thirty years. ... If it has ceased, it has ceased only because it is obsolete and the new technology of radiation and electronic brain stimulation has given the cryptocracy a more powerful form of control. ... [p. 276]

            With advancements in electronic technology—increasingly sophisticated microphones, transmitters, and surveillance devices—the erosion of privacy becomes a mudslide. ... [p. 280]

            Mind control remains above United States law, making it a most attractive tool for clandestine operators. [p. 281]


[Note:1] Richard Condon, author of The Manchurian Candidate (1958), the forward to Operation Mind Control (1978).

* ... The mind control examined is this book is the control of one individual’s mind by another.

[Note:2] José Delgado, M.D., conducted experiments (circa 1961) that attached an electrode to the eardrum (middle ear) of a cat. The device picked-up people's whispered conversations and transmitted them to a receiver for monitoring. The CIA attached their tiny radio implant to the cat's cochlea (inner ear).