Welcome to Litsy!

I'd heard of MK-ULTRA but I had *no idea* of the scale, the scope and the enormity of the program. Unwitting party guests, college students, addicts in recovery, the mentally ill seeking treatment, prisoners held in secret bases overseas--all were subjected to completely unethical testing with no regard for consequences. Some lost their minds, some died, but the CIA mastermind behind it all was never truly held to account. Horrifying and enraging.

This book revolves around Sidney Gottlieb, but the real subject is the CIA‘s search for mind control techniques. They never succeeded and the experiments conducted are amazing and frequently inhumane. This was a book club read. Everyone liked it, though most of us were having a hard time focus a month into CA‘s Stay At Home ordinance. And we all agreed that the audiobook version is not good. Check out Wormwood on Netflix for a bit of the story.

Monk and Cecil are as unhappy with this book‘s narrator as I am. I used to do a lot of voiceover work It‘s a different skill than narration. This guy is an announcer and it feels like he‘s shouting the book at me. Help! I‘d buy a hard copy, but it won‘t reach me in time for my book club. #catsoflitsy

Wow! This was a really good, important, if uncomfortable read.

Finished this one up today. Ooooofff. While not a comfortable read in places by any means, it was certainly a valuable read. It‘s not possible to condense my thoughts for the limited space here, so I will simply say that I think any American that cares about the integrity of our country should read this book. The more we sweep the folly of our past under the rug, the more damage we do to our future.

This book is wild! I keep forgetting that it‘s not fiction.

This interview was bonkers! The author of the tagged book about Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA‘s experiments into mind control was on today‘s Fresh Air. It was simultaneously fascinating and absolutely sickening.

Here‘s the link is you‘d like to listen: https://www.npr.org/2019/09/09/759054577/the-cias-secret-search-for-mind-control

This book is now a must-read for me. Ooooof.