The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

by Naomi Klein

In 1992, Gail and Jacob happened to pass by a newsstand with a large, sensational headline: “Brainwashing Experiments: Victims to Be Compensated.” Kastner started skimming the article, and several phrases immediately leaped out: “baby talk,” “memory loss,” “incontinence.” “I said, ‘Jacob, buy this paper.’” Sitting in a nearby coffee shop, the couple read an incredible story about how, in the 1950s, the United States Central Intelligence Agency had funded a Montreal doctor to perform bizarre experiments on his psychiatric patients, keeping them asleep and in isolation for weeks, then administering huge doses of electroshock as well as experimental drug cocktails including the psychedelic LSD and the hallucinogen PCP, commonly known as angel dust. The experiments—which reduced patients to preverbal, infantile states—had been performed at McGill University’s Allan Memorial Institute under the supervision of its director, Dr. Ewen Cameron. The CIA’s funding of Cameron had been revealed in the late seventies through a Freedom of Information Act request, sparking hearings in the U.S. Senate.