Poisoner in Chief

Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control

By: Stephen Kinzer

Narrated by: James Linkin

Length: 12 hrs and 17 mins

Publisher's summary

2019 Amazon.com Best Books of the Year

The best-selling author of All the Shah’s Men and The Brothers tells the astonishing story of the man who oversaw the CIA’s secret drug and mind-control experiments of the 1950s and ’60s.

The visionary chemist Sidney Gottlieb was the CIA’s master magician and gentlehearted torturer - the agency’s “poisoner in chief.” As head of the MK-ULTRA mind control project, he directed brutal experiments at secret prisons on three continents. He made pills, powders, and potions that could kill or maim without a trace - including some intended for Fidel Castro and other foreign leaders. He paid prostitutes to lure clients to CIA-run bordellos, where they were secretly dosed with mind-altering drugs. His experiments spread LSD across the United States, making him a hidden godfather of the 1960s counterculture. For years he was the chief supplier of spy tools used by CIA officers around the world.

Stephen Kinzer, author of groundbreaking books about US clandestine operations, draws on new documentary research and original interviews to bring to life one of the most powerful unknown Americans of the 20th century. Gottlieb’s reckless experiments on “expendable” human subjects destroyed many lives, yet he considered himself deeply spiritual. He lived in a remote cabin without running water, meditated, and rose before dawn to milk his goats.

During his 22 years at the CIA, Gottlieb worked in the deepest secrecy. Only since his death has it become possible to piece together his astonishing career at the intersection of extreme science and covert action. Poisoner in Chief reveals him as a clandestine conjurer on an epic scale.

©2019 Stephen Kinzer (P)2019 Macmillan Audio

Narration not great

I had to stop listening to this and just read the book, which is excellent. The narrator’s stilted, halting portray of Gottlieb’s stutter was completely unnecessary and, for me, rather annoying.

Important Topic, But Not Well Executed

Impressed with Kinzer's interview on NPR, I expected to enjoy this book. After ten minutes, I almost shut it off and returned it. The narration is nearly a satire of the over-the-top delivery of a low-quality cableTV documentary. I persevered because the broad story is interesting. Kinzer writes well, but transitions are marked by narrative hooks that underscore the docu-hype style. Sourcing seems thin, and little new information is presented. Attention to detail is uneven (notorious Dr. Cameron is incorrectly identified as having been president of the "American Psychological Association" rather than the American Psychiatric Association......and yes, they're VERY different). The story has already been told by others. BUT Kinzer is a solid story teller, and this is an okay introduction to an important, complicated history.

worst narrator I have ever heard

this is a fascinating book, but the man reading it shouts the entire thing.

The style of narration really took away from the book

The halting cadence of the narration combined with the decision to depict Gottlieb’s stutter were a distraction. I had to listen on double speed. Had somehow expected a little more info on the LSD counterculture based on hearing an interview of the author. Very little of that was covered here. But the main focus was still very interesting.

Fascinating book, atrocious narration.

This guy sounds like Dan Aykroyd aping Walter Winchell. Makes it difficult to listen to this very important book.

Fascinating, difficult listen

A wildly interesting and disturbing tale. I have never left a negative narrator review before - I can listen to almost anyone tell a story as interesting as this. But the faux stutter was distracting, super cringey, and frankly rather offensive. Really wish they hadn’t made that choice, it makes it kinda hard to listen to.

Disturbing chronicle of amoral CIA behavior

The history of MK-Ultra and the CIA is deeply disturbing and this recounting of what has finally come to be known about the sordid and outrageous behavior of certain CIA leaders is a shocking warning about what is possible when secrecy is taken beyond the pale. It is also a weird perspective on the mindset of the USA during the late cold war period.

Although the text is a bit on the dry side, the narration is somewhat shocking in its own right. For some reason, the entire text, however encyclopaedic in tone, is delivered much like an Elliot Ness crime expose, in a strident, WWII newsreel voice. I kept wanting to ask Mr. Linkin to relax, take it easy, just read the text. This isn't a novel, and the stentorian tone of the narration is completely out of place, and grew tiring after only a few pages. Not every sentence requires sensationalist emphasis. For some reason, in spite of his hyper-official sounding presentation, Mr. Linkin affected a lurching speech impediment to evoke Sidney Gottlieb's reputed stutter, even when reading Gottlieb's written materials. The book is not even slightly like a dramatization, and character voicings were not only out of place, but oddly conceived. The words of Whitey Bolger are delivered in a "noo yawk" accent, and other personae are strangely pitched or voiced, as if there were some need to present a cast of characters with a full set of (barely differentiatable) speaking styles.

The thing is, this book is factual and procedural, and doesn't benefit from the hype of an overly dramatic reading. It would have been more interesting, more enjoyable, and more believable had it been read in a sober, insightful style.

Absolutely Essential History

It is almost beyond belief, and it is beyond belief for most people who only learned what they teach in middle school history class. It is such a savage portrait of institutional "evil," and I don't know any better example for this word than what the CIA has done in its covert and fantastically meglomeniachal quests to conquer and puppet the human mind. The book goes through our history developing and testing biological weapons, even testing (supposedly) benign bacteria mass delivery systems as aerosol spray clouds which were launched on San Franciso. The whole culture of the CIA is at times comically "fear and loathing", where they are surprise dosing eachother regularly and coming up with hair brain ideas of how to discredit Castro with serious plans to make his beard fall out by putting thaleum salts in in his shoes, or regularly conducting "experiments" involving lots of sex with hookers and LSD. and at other times their "work" or obsession is absolutely disturbing and defined by procuring people for prolonged torture and experimentation with electroshock and every other method of pharmacological and "interrogation technique" to try to utterly break and replace their very personality and mind and sense of reality as a tool of war. The book shows how in their mad search for this knowledge of ultimate power, to replace, implant and control another's mind, they kill thousands of "easily expendable" people both overseas, (in the korean war for example), as well as at home in the black prisons of Kentucky. This book does a great and thorough job putting this story together in a way that will make you excited, fascinated and morally disgusted all at once. It makes me reflective on just how deceitfully truncated the prescribed narrative of American history is to leave out this deeply revealing chapter of the American portrait.

Intolerable narrator

Distracting narrator. His tone of voice was flat and aggressive and the "stutter" was aggravating

Book?

I'm not sure how I feel about the book itself. The reading sounded like I was being yelled at by a monotone guy with a bite of sandwich in his mouth. If you listen to a sample clip, I assure you, that voice isn't for emphasis; that's how the whole thing sounds.

Fascinating interesting and informative

I really enjoyed it. The information is disturbing and heavy but If u like lots of detail and information on the world's worst humans you will easily overlook the poor narration and enjoy this audio book. It's an excellent look into the inception of mk ultra & characters behind it as well as lots of their other historic evil deeds.

A great contribution

A good piece telling this important history, which must have been a struggle to research to this degree. I imagine what is presented here is likely the extent of all we'll ever find out for sure about this significant programme, and those in charge of it. I had the feeling the author had impressive self-discipline not to write anything not backed by the facts from his research. Since he's obviously been emersed in this topic for years, I would've been interested in some of his thoughts and speculations but it's probably best he omitted them for the credibility of his work – you won't find information here that directly supports anything in CIA Rogues by Patrick Nolan or Chaos by Tom O'Neill etc., both books which I also enjoyed. Now, the narration is a little balling and yelling at times but it's not as bad as many of the other reviews make out, it seems to me at least. Bare with it. You might have to listen at a slightly lower volume than normal, but I still found myself quickly absorbed in the book.

Hard to tell

Hard to tell if it’s well written as the schlock doc narration make it almost impossible to listen to this fascinating story.