The 1962 film The Manchurian Candidate –based on Richard Condon’s 1959 novel– portrays an American soldier who is hypnotized by Communists and trained to assassinate American officials on command. This 22 January 1954 CIA memo shows that the Agency also pondered using hypnotized assassination. The report’s central question was, “Can an individual of [redacted] descent be made to perform an act of attempted assassination involuntarily under the influence of ARTICHOKE?” According to a subsequent CIA report, “ARTICHOKE is the Agency cryptonym for the study and/or use of ‘special’ interrogation methods that have been known to include the use of drugs and chemicals, hypnosis, and ‘total isolation,’ a form of psychological harassment.”
Later, the document stipulated that this assassination attempt would be “against a prominent [redacted] politician or if necessary, against an American official.” After “American official” there was a hand written asterisk. At the end of the document, next to another handwritten asterisk, the words “simulated only” were handwritten. (more…)
