Thomas, Gordon. Journey Into Madness: The True Story of Secret CIA Mind Control and Medical Abuse. New York: Bantam Books, 1990. 386 pages.

In January 1973, a mind-control and assassination-poison chemist by the name of Dr. Sidney Gottlieb resigned from the CIA, but before he did he went to director Richard Helms and suggested that his files on CIA drug-testing in the 1950s and early 1960s be destroyed. Helms thought this was a good idea and also destroyed some of his own files. But Gottlieb missed some 150 boxes buried in the CIA archives, which has provided material for writers, dramatists, and assassination researchers ever since.

British writer Gordon Thomas weaves MK-ULTRA (the CIA's name for its drug research program) in and out of this somewhat disjointed account. Canadian psychiatrist Donald Ewen Cameron (who destroyed patients with electroshock and drugs and justified it by accepting CIA money), is featured along with such diverse characters as Allen Dulles and his wife Clover, William Casey, and Beirut station chief William Buckley (kidnapped in 1984 and subjected to medical torture by Dr. Aziz al-Abub).

Thomas weaves all this together the way a good screenwriter would. While he doesn't appear to have shirked on his investigative efforts, we would be more enthusiastic over this book if he had provided more footnotes and taken fewer dramatic liberties.
ISBN 0-553-28413-4

Extract the names from this source

Back to search page