In the Cold War years the CIA, created by the National Security Act of 1947, attained a near-absolute power over a wide range of intelligence activity abroad and within the USA. The American preponderance of economic and strategic power and its projection in a global network of alliances brought the CIA resources and opportunities rivalled only by those in the Soviet KGB. As John Marks makes clear in this important and fascinating book, many CIA men were motivated by a genuine patriotism and a desire to defend what they termed 'the free world' against the hated enemy of 'world communism'. But, in his latest expose of the CIA's experiments in mind control, John Marks provides ample evidence that Cold War fanaticism and the cause of 'national security' were used as justification for a whole series of secret CIA projects which infringed basic human rights in total violation of the American Constitution, the UN Universal Declaration on Human Rights and the Nuremberg Code on the conduct of scientific research.

John Marks conveys the shocking facts about all these projects – BLUEBIRD, ARTICHOKE, MK ULTRA and the rest – with a cool understatement and attention to detail matching that of the best contemporary historians. He is not in the least concerned to try to deny America's need for an effective