| | The most thoroughgoing mention of brainwashing in popular culture was ''[[The Manchurian Candidate]]''.<ref name=manchuria>''The Manchurian Candidate'', dir. John Frankenheimer, with Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Angela Lansbury, and Khigh Dhiegh, United Artists, 1962.</ref><ref name=marks2>"The story was about a joint Soviet-Chinese plot to take an American soldier captured in Korea, condition him at a special brainwashing center located in [[Manchuria]], and create a remote-controlled assassin who was supposed to kill the President of the United States." [http://www.djmsp.com/feedingtrough/reading/The_Search_for_the_Manchurian_Candidate.pdf The Search for the Manchurian Candidate: The CIA and Mind Control], by John Marks</ref> This was also the most controversial such mention, because the theme involved inducing a person not only to confess to a crime he had not committed, but to commit murder on command and then forget that he had done so. | | The most thoroughgoing mention of brainwashing in popular culture was ''[[The Manchurian Candidate]]''.<ref name=manchuria>''The Manchurian Candidate'', dir. John Frankenheimer, with Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Angela Lansbury, and Khigh Dhiegh, United Artists, 1962.</ref><ref name=marks2>"The story was about a joint Soviet-Chinese plot to take an American soldier captured in Korea, condition him at a special brainwashing center located in [[Manchuria]], and create a remote-controlled assassin who was supposed to kill the President of the United States." [http://www.djmsp.com/feedingtrough/reading/The_Search_for_the_Manchurian_Candidate.pdf The Search for the Manchurian Candidate: The CIA and Mind Control], by John Marks</ref> This was also the most controversial such mention, because the theme involved inducing a person not only to confess to a crime he had not committed, but to commit murder on command and then forget that he had done so. |
| − | The fictional technique, which no one has been able to replicate, was described only as "part light-induced, part drug-induced." The character of the psychiatrist in charge of the brainwashing program cites the Brenman and Wells papers also cited by the CIA in its study of hypnosis in interrogation.<ref name=Brenman/><ref name=Wells/> This indicates the extraordinary depth of research conducted either by Richard Condon, the original novelist, or by the authors of the treatment and script. | + | The fictional technique, which no one has been able to replicate, was described only as "part light-induced, part drug-induced." The character of the psychiatrist in charge of the brainwashing program cites the Brenman and Wells papers also cited by the CIA in its study of hypnosis in interrogation.<ref name=Brenman/><ref name=Wells/> This indicates the extraordinary depth of research conducted either by Richard Condon, the original novelist, or by George Axelrod, author of the treatment and script. |
| | Remarkably, the premise of the film was that not only did the Communist psychiatrists hypnotize one man among several prisoners to be a conscienceless killer, but they ''also'' induced his fellow prisoners to plant a false story portraying him as a hero, and to repeat monotonously that they found him {{cquote|the kindest, warmest, bravest, most wonderful human being I have ever met in my life}} | | Remarkably, the premise of the film was that not only did the Communist psychiatrists hypnotize one man among several prisoners to be a conscienceless killer, but they ''also'' induced his fellow prisoners to plant a false story portraying him as a hero, and to repeat monotonously that they found him {{cquote|the kindest, warmest, bravest, most wonderful human being I have ever met in my life}} |