Product Description

A social history of LSD and the counterculture it helped to define in the Sixties. This account - part of it gleaned from secret government files - tells how the CIA became obsessed with LSD as an espionage weapon during the early 1950s and how the drug then spread into the popular culture.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #616920 in Books
• Published on: 2001-01-26
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Customer Reviews

This book is a revelation - read it!
I ordered this book from Amazon after reading a chapter from it posted on a website about the mysterious death of Frank Olson, a US army physician who was slipped a dose of LSD at a CIA research meeting and soon after supposedly "jumped" from an 8th floor window of a hotel while in the company of two CIA agents. This book is a revelation, particularly to those who still believe that the CIA are the "good guys" and the guardians of US security, and that LSD was not introduced into public use until the advent of Timothy Leary and Oswald Owsley in the 1960's. It outlines in detail the development of the CIA's interest in LSD as a potential weapon against spies in the Cold War in the 1950's, following it's invention in the Sandoz laboratories, its use in the MK-Ultra project, and the CIA's completely unregulated "surprise" testing of the drug on their own staff, unknowing patients in mental institutions and unsuspecting members of the public. It also gives a very thorough overview of social change, potitics, music and drugs in America in the 1960's, and the part played by LSD in this once it was taken up as a "mind-expanding" drug by Leary, Huxley, the Beatles, Haight-Ashbury and the New Left in America. This is an extremely well-researched and written book which is in turn shocking, funny, disgusting and interesting. For anyone who already has a vague mistrust of the CIA's covert operations, the information here will more confirm their doubts. I had no idea before reading this book of the CIA's role in introducing LSD into America, and I think it should be essential reading for anyone who is interested in recent American history and social change. A great read from beginning to end - never boring, always intelligent, and full of amazing information.

Best book on the subject!
The Complete Social History of LSD, the CIA, the '60s, and Beyond
by Martin A. Lee, Bruce Shlain This is colorfully accurate account of the events that occurred decades ago, all of which still echo into our current era. It covers the origin of LSD, as a drug the CIA funded research on for use as a tool for mind control applications using civilians and military personnel as test subjects. At the very outset, it was obvious that the CIA was well aware of the potential power of this substance in its ability to wreak havoc on the collective psyche, to shatter current assumptions and threaten cherished ego boundaries. Yet, eventually it became available to the masses who would come to extol its use religiously and otherwise.....giving rise to the groundswell of counterculture in the 60's. This book, more than any other source explores the underlying causes of the demise of the cultural/political/self re-evolution of that time and gives us pause to reflect on the politics of consciousness - to see who really won The War Of The Mind. Proof again that truth is stranger than fiction. Be informed.........read this book. Very detailed and well researched, with the whole lowdown on Albert Hoffman, Timothy Leary, The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, Ken Kesey and all the rest. The stories about CIA & US Army experiments using psychedelics are astonishing.

Mother Should I Trust the Government?
Well, Well, Well, so Uncle Sam has some blood on his hands after all. For any good conspiracy buff this is the book: mass testing of LSD on unwitting civilians, cover-up and lies,and atrocities enough to make your teeth chatter that break just about every law the boys in power ever made. Big no-nos on the parts of of our benign government and their secret henchmen the CIA.