Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie
Episode: How a Government Mind Control Experiment Backfired
Description: Today's guest is University of Texas historian John Lisle, author of the chilling and brilliantly researched Project Mind Control: Sidney Gottlieb, the CIA, and the Tragedy of MKULTRA.
Despite official attempts to destroy records of the CIA's LSD-fueled search for mind control in the 1950s and '60s, the truth has been dribbling out, especially in recent books and documentaries such as Steven Kinzer's Poisoner in Chief and Errol Morris' Wormwood.
Lisle's work draws on previously unknown depositions and documents to deliver the most definitive—and disturbing—account yet. He discusses the twisted logic of Cold War...