Psychiatry and the CIA: Victims of Mind Control

by Harvey M. Weinstein

Dr Weinstein chronicles how he spent eight years fighting to help obtain justice for his father, who, along with eight other Canadians, was suing the CIA for negligence in its sponsorship of Dr Ewen Cameron's mind control experiments. That programme included lengthy periods of multiple electroshocks, hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD, prolonged sensory deprivation, forced sleep, induced insulin comas, and psychic driving - an attempt to alter behaviour by forcing patients to listen to taped messages over and over again. In his book, Dr Weinstein describes his feelings of horror and helplessness while watching his father's health and personality be destroyed as he underwent Cameron's experimental protocol. "Psychiatry and the Victims of Mind Control" is Harvey Weinstein's personal account of the events at the Allan Memorial Institute. A chronicle of a medical scandal of horrific proportions, this book is also a story of government misconduct, deceit, and cover-ups. Dr Weinstein further raises questions about the vulnerability of contemporary medicine to the abuse of patients in the context of repeated episodes of ethical transgressions during this century.

Genres: Nonfiction, Psychology, History, Conspiracy Theories

312 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1990

Reviews

[Jon]

There are several books about the disastrous effects of Dr. Ewen Cameron's CIA-sponsored mind-control experiments in Montreal in the 50s and 60s, but this one is unique, as far as I know, inasmuch as it's written from the point of view of a family member of one of the victims. Weinstein, himself a practicing psychiatrist in San Francisco, has written a book that holds the reader's attention from start to finish, whether he's discussing his family history, attempting to understand how Cameron became such a monster, delving into the origins of the brainwashing techniques Cameron used on Weinstein's dad and others, or chronicling the story of the legal case some of the surviving victims made against the US government (eventually winning a settlement of a small sum of money for each plaintiff--disappointing, but as Weinstein notes, it was the best they could do). No self-pity here, just a great, tragic story, well told.