This book has grown out of the 16,000 pages of documents that
the CIA released to me under the Freedom of Information Act. Without
these documents, the best investigative reporting in the world
could not have produced a book, and the secrets of CIA mind-control
work would have remained buried forever, as the men who knew them
had always intended. From the documentary base, I was able to
expand my knowledge through interviews and readings in the behavioral
sciences. Nevertheless, the final result is not the whole story
of the CIA's attack on the mind. Only a few insiders could have
written that, and they choose to remain silent. I have done the
best I can to make the book as accurate as possible, but I have
been hampered by the refusal of most of the principal characters
to be interviewed and by the CIA's destruction in 1973 of many
of the key documents.
I want to extend special thanks to the congressional sponsors
of the Freedom of Information Act. I would like to think that
they had my kind of research in mind when they passed into law
the idea that information about the government belongs to the
people, not to the bureaucrats. I am also grateful to the CIA
officials who made what must have been a rather unpleasant decision
to release the documents and to those in the Agency who worked
on the actual mechanics of release. From my point of view, the
system has worked extremely well.
I must acknowledge that the system worked almost not at all during
the first six months of my three-year Freedom of Information struggle.
Then in late 1975, Joseph Petrillo and Timothy Sullivan, two skilled
and energetic lawyers with the firm of Fried, Frank, Shriver,
Harris and Kampelman, entered the case. I had the distinct impression
that the government attorneys took me much more seriously when
my requests for documents started arriving on stationery with
all those prominent partners at the top. An author should not
need lawyers to write a book, but I would have had great difficulty
without mine. I greatly appreciate their assistance.
What an author does need is editors, a publisher, researchers,
consultants, and friends, and I have been particularly blessed
with good ones. My very dear friend Taylor Branch edited the book,
and I continue to be impressed with his great skill in making
my ideas and language coherent. Taylor has also served as my agent,
and in this capacity, too, he has done me great service.
I had a wonderful research team, without which I never could
have sifted through the masses of material and run down leads
in so many places. I thank them all, and I want to acknowledge
their contributions. Diane St. Clair was the mainstay of the group.
She put together a system for filing and cross-indexing that worked
beyond all expectations. (Special thanks to Newsday's Bob
Greene, whose suggestions for organizing a large investigation
came to us through the auspices of Investigative Reporters and
Editors, Inc.) Not until a week before the book was finally finished
did I fail to find a document which I needed; naturally, it was
something I had misfiled myself. Diane also contributed greatly
to the Cold War chapter. Richard Sokolow made similar contributions
to the Mushroom and Safehouse chapters. His work was solid, and
his energy boundless. Jay Peterzell delved deeply into Dr. Cameron's
"depatterning" work in Montreal and stayed with it when
others might have quit. Jay also did first-rate studies of brainwashing
and sensory deprivation. Jim Mintz and Ken Cummins provided excellent
assistance in the early research stage.
The Center for National Security Studies, under my good friend
Robert Borosage, provided physical support and research aid, and
I would like to express my appreciation. My thanks also to Morton
Halperin who continued the support when he became director of
the Center. I also appreciated the help of Penny Bevis, Hannah
Delaney, Florence Oliver, Aldora Whitman, Nick Fiore, and Monica
Andres.
My sister, Dr. Patricia Greenfield, did excellent work on the
CIA's interface with academia and on the Personality Assessment
System. I want to acknowledge her contribution to the book and
express my thanks and love.
There has been a whole galaxy of people who have provided specialized
help, and I would like to thank them all: Jeff Kohan, Eddie Becker,
Sam Zuckerman, Matthew Messelson, Julian Robinson, Milton Kline,
Marty Lee, M. J. Conklin, Alan Scheflin, Bonnie Goldstein, Paul
Avery, Bill Mills, John Lilly, Humphrey Osmond, Julie Haggerty,
Patrick Oster, Norman Kempster, Bill Richards, Paul Magnusson,
Andy Sommer, Mark Cheshire, Sidney Cohen, Paul Altmeyer, Fred
and Elsa Kleiner, Dr. John Cavanagh, and Senator James Abourezk
and his staff.
I sent drafts of the first ten chapters to many of the people
I interviewed (and several who refused to be interviewed). My
aim was to have them correct any inaccuracies or point out material
taken out of context. The comments of those who responded aided
me considerably in preparing the final book. My thanks for their
assistance to Albert Hofmann, Telford Taylor, Leo Alexander, Walter
Langer, John Stockwell, William Hood, Samuel Thompson, Sidney
Cohen, Milton Greenblatt, Gordon Wasson, James Moore, Laurence
Hinkle, Charles Osgood, John Gittinger (for Chapter 10 only),
and all the others who asked not to be identified.
Finally, I would like to express my appreciation to my publisher,
Times Books, and especially to my editor John J. Simon. John,
Tom Lipscomb, Roger Jellinek, Gyorgyi Voros, and John Gallagher
all believed in this book from the beginning and provided outstanding
support. Thanks also go to Judith H. McQuown, who copyedited the
manuscript, and Rosalyn T. Badalamenti, Times Books' Production
Editor, who oversaw the whole production process.
