Most Helpful Customer Reviews
22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent, with harrowing true stories and inside CIA info, June 23, 1997
By A Customer
If I were a conspiracy theorist, I would imagine dire reasons why this exceellent book is out-of-print.
The research that went into is is remarkable. Thomas' informant on many of the apalling lengths the CIA has gone to in order to find the perfect "Manchurian Candidate" holy grail of total mind control was no less than William Casey, the former CIA director who was at the same time giving information to Bob Woodward for another book.
Thomas gives both fascinating background to how the CIA has been researching mind control (particularly on innocent mental patients at a Montreal hospital, who eventually sued the CIA with limited success) since the 1950's, and tells harrowing stories of modern victims of torture and psychological conditioning. In particular, one of Thomas' own sources for the book, William Buckley of the CIA in Beirut, was kidnapped, broken, and killed by the Hizbollah shortly after being interviewed by Thomas. Buckley was broken by over 200 days of abuse under the direction of a medical doctor.
Thomas decries the widespread use of physicians skills in interrogation, but notes that the practice goes back centuries in almost all cultures, that it was brought to perhaps its most complete institutionalization in the Soviet Union, and of course that Western governments have been among the offenders.
This book is a must-read for those who want an inside look at the real practices of intelligence agencies, the fate of mid-East hostages, and the regrettable history of experimentation on human beings.
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24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Secret Medical Tortures, April 14, 2005
This 1989 book was written to tell the world about the use of physicians in medical torture of political prisoners. It didn't start in Nazi Germany, and didn't end in Abu Ghraib (drugs, electroshock, gags, garrotes, blindfolds, branding irons, sexual abuse, mock executions). Physicians provide fake medical certificates for persons tortured to death ('Perspectives'). The author had access to written testimony, and off-the-record interviews (which were confirmed from other independent sources).
'Book One' deals with Beirut, the Near East, and the kidnapping of William Buckley, American Political Officer, in 1984. It mentions the survival technique of looking at every approaching face to determine if it is an enemy by the tension displayed on the face (p.59). The Hizballah justified terror as needed to create a new and ideal society (p.61). Brain-washing rarely involved physical cruelty bet depended on the use of repetition, harassment, and humiliation (p.69). [Just like your schooling?] Changing opinions was older that recorded history. America developed the most powerful advertising industry in the world and adapted it to psychological warfare and opinion making. They studied the techniques used by modern American evangelists in conversion, and the Catholic rite of confession (p.73). Pharmaceutical laboratories discovered how drugs can be used in mind control (p.74). How amoral and ignorant was Gov. Reagan (p.81)?
'Book Two' gives the history of the abuse of medical knowledge since WW II. Chapter 5 tells of Allen Dulles and his ruthless and unscrupulous character hidden beneath his cheerful and witty personality. The Korean War provided a new shock from former POWs (pp.94-95). The "twilight zone" is described (p.97). They could not understand the changed views of POWs! Chapter 7 notes how conscientious objectors were put into mental hospitals and used as test animals (pp.140-141)! Chapter 8 tells about electroshock treatments at the Allan Memorial Institute which went beyond the norm (p.149). Were there studies reminiscent of Dr. Josef Mengele at Auschwitz (p.150)? Allen Dulles continued with his drug experiments and poisonous mushrooms (pp.156-157). It tells of the poisoning death of Dr. Frank Olson (pp.160-162). [To shut him up?] Chapter 10 has a 'Top Secret' recording of Korean War POWs (pp.184-186); did you understand it? Was it caused by learning a new view of society? Chapter 11 tellis of the use of sensory deprivation experiments to cause irreversible damage to a patient's mind. Chapter 12 gives an example of post-event predictions (p.216). Chapter 13 tells how Dr. Mary Morrow was able to escape from the tortures of Dr. Ewen Cameron (pp.230-231). Chapter 14 gives the results of hypnotism to create a sleeper killer (p.253). Chapter 15 explains why the Vietcong succeeded (p.257). Truthful reports had bad consequences (p.258).Who controlled Oswald (p.260)? Could the CIA handle the truth (p.261)? NO (p.263)! Could psychics read minds from a distance (p.273)? Or devil worship (p.275)?
'Book Three' covers the events after Watergate. Chapter 17 tells about briefing President-elect Reagan. Claire Sterling's "The Terror Network" is evaluated (p.321). Could Agca have been brainwashed to make him an assassin (p.326)? Chapter 19 tells how the CIA created the cruelest police in the Arab world (p.328). All the bugs planted in Sadat's presidential palace did not warn of the assassination. Examples of medical torture are on pages 334-335. Torture by physicians goes back to the Roman Empire (p.346), to the English in Kenya (p.348); it wasn't just the Nazis. Science is always at the service of the rulers. "Hooding prisoners" was used in 1865 for the Lincoln assassination conspirators (p.356). The 'Notes' provides background information on this book.
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18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Has far-reaching implications that are just as important now, February 3, 1999
By A Customer
The second review merely seeks to lessen the impact of the book "Journey into Madness" by Gordon Thomas by pointing out that other governments do similar things. No. Not on the scale and with the hypocrisy that the CIA does. For those interested, who would like to know more about such practices and how the CIA and the medical community continue their terror and human rights abuses here and in other countries, there is some mention of this in "The Serpent and the Rainbow" by Wade Davis. He writes of the work of the American psychiatrist Nathan Kline (sp?) with the CIA in Haiti. This details their search for a drug they (doctors & the CIA) could use to control people - turn them into zombies. It mentions, coincidentially, the secret and not-so-secret primate and human experiments occurring at the New York State Psychiatric Institute by a Dr. Leo Rozen (sp). These practices still occur. The NIMH, in fact, are admittedly are giving people with mental illness Angel Dust (aka ketamine) to induce psychosis. This causes more irreversible damage than LSD. Recently there were series of articles in the Harford Courant (1998) and the Boston Globe on drug abuses and torture used in private and publicly funded psychiatric hospitals.
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