Menticide, most in the Pentagon agreed, was a clunky word. But the CIA had been discreetly testing3 a more compelling tagline in New York Times op-eds: “brainwashing.” This one stuck. Brainwashing neatly encapsulated one of the deepest fears of the Cold War era—the idea that your very individuality, your own free will, could be hijacked by a totalitarian state.
