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Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control Audiobook
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The bestselling author of All the Shah’s Men and The Brothers tells the astonishing story of the man who oversaw the CIA’s secret drug and mind-control experiments of the 1950s and ’60s.
The visionary chemist Sidney Gottlieb was the CIA’s master magician and gentlehearted torturer—the agency’s “poisoner in chief.” As head of the MK-ULTRA mind control project, he directed brutal experiments at secret prisons on three continents. He made pills, powders, and potions that could kill or maim without a trace—including some intended for Fidel Castro and other foreign leaders. He paid prostitutes to lure clients to CIA-run bordellos, where they were secretly dosed with mind-altering drugs. His experiments spread LSD across the United States, making him a hidden godfather of the 1960s counterculture. For years he was the chief supplier of spy tools used by CIA officers around the world.
Stephen Kinzer, author of groundbreaking books about U.S. clandestine operations, draws on new documentary research and original interviews to bring to life one of the most powerful unknown Americans of the twentieth century. Gottlieb’s reckless experiments on “expendable” human subjects destroyed many lives, yet he considered himself deeply spiritual. He lived in a remote cabin without running water, meditated, and rose before dawn to milk his goats.
During his twenty-two years at the CIA, Gottlieb worked in the deepest secrecy. Only since his death has it become possible to piece together his astonishing career at the intersection of extreme science and covert action. Poisoner in Chief reveals him as a clandestine conjurer on an epic scale.
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“Describes some of the most sordid episodes of the Cold War years…Gottlieb has previously been treated as a historical footnote, but Kinzer elevates him to his proper place as one of the CIA’s most influential and despicable characters.”
— New York Times
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“[An] absorbing and informative portrait…It’s all in the bone-crunching detail, and Kinzer, a master of American perfidy, has done it again.”
— Seymour M. Hersh, New York Times bestselling author -
“Illustrates how the law of unintended consequences in covert action can work with an almost delirious vengeance.”
— New Yorker -
“Pulling together a trove of existing research, newly unearthed documents, and fresh interviews, Kinzer puts the fetid corpus of American Empire back under a microscope. It isn’t pretty—but it is instructive.”
— American Conservative -
“It’s an awful story, told fast and well…Kinzer has put together a revolting look at the champions of freedom in the USA.”
— San Francisco Review of Books -
“A stranger-than-fiction account…vividly and horrifically recreated in this fascinating history.”
— Publishers Weekly -
“Absolutely riveting. Stephen Kinzer’s Poisoner in Chief reads like a spy thriller…[and] underscores once again the narrative power of biography to unearth our collective history.”
— Kai Bird, Pulitzer Prize–winning author
Awards
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A New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice of the Week
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An Amazon Best Book of the Month selection
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A New York Times Top Pick of the Week
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Among longlisted titles for Amazon.com Best Books of the Year, 2019
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Among longlisted titles for Amazon.com Best Books of the Year, 2019
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About Stephen Kinzer
Stephen Kinzer is the author of over ten books, including Poisoner in Chief, The True Flag, The Brothers, Overthrow, and All the Shah’s Men. An award-winning foreign correspondent, he served as the New York Times bureau chief in Nicaragua, Germany, and Turkey. He is a senior fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University and writes a world affairs column for the Boston Globe.