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What's Shakin with Shaner
Where we celebrate the passion and the madness of the Geek, the Nerd, and often the Absurd. Each episode will be a different topic such as Saturday morning cartoons or Superheroes, favorite books, debates on absurd issues, movies and lesser known historical people and events.
What's Shakin with Shaner
The CIA’s Secret Quest for Mind Control
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Shakin Shaner
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Episode 51
This episode is based mostly on the book, “Poisoner In Chief” by Stephen Kinzer, published in 2019. During the early period of the Cold War, the CIA became convinced that communists had discovered a drug or technique that would allow them to control human minds. In response, the CIA began its own secret program, called MK-ULTRA, to search for a mind control drug that could be weaponized against enemies.
MK-ULTRA, which operated from the 1950s until the early '60s, was created and run by a chemist named Sidney Gottlieb. Journalist Stephen Kinzer, who spent several years investigating the program, calls the operation the "most sustained search in history for techniques of mind control."