 The Manchurian Candidate
by Richard Condon
From The Publisher:
THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE
is the fictional account of a far-from-ordinary G.I. who is brainwashed
while held as a Korean POW. He returns to the United States as a programmed,
remote-controlled killer. THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE is a remarkable
penetration of the human mind, its foibles and its ultimate malleability.
Amazon.com
Richard Condon's 1959 Cold War thriller
remains just as chilling today. It's the story of Sgt. Raymond Shaw, an
ex-prisoner of war (and winner of the Congressional Medal of Honor) who,
brainwashed with the rest of his unit by a Chinese psychological expert
during his captivity in North Korea, has come home programmed to kill.
His primary target is a U.S. presidential nominee. Made into a controversial
1962 movie with Laurence Harvey, Frank Sinatra, and Angela Lansbury.
Customer Comments
Rik Schraag@symantec.com
from the Netherlands, December 10, 1998
Great read after Umberto Eco's Foucault's
Pendulum
Richard Condon is a master of suspense,
psychosexuality and paranoia. I read this book after Umberto Eco's Foucault's
Pendulum which also deals with plots and paranoia. If you have
just read Eco's book, read Condon's - you will be amazed at, and scared
by, the similarities...
mike grollman (mgrollman@solutions.att.com)
from New Jersey, March 19, 1998
The ultimate synthesis of political satire
and thriller
The late Richard Condon achieved the impossible
with this masterpiece: He actually managed to create a satire of a period
in American history that was actually a satire itself. The America of the
1950s was at best a parody of democracy, with both politicians and the
press striving to trivialize the major issues of the day for their own
cynical gains. With an unfailing eye and a wicked ear Mr. Condon has succeeded
in capturing the almost Lewis Carroll-like absurdity of the time and managed
to combine it with the compelling plot of a thriller. It is a feat no one
else have ever equaled. This novel is one of the best satires ever written
and a classic by any measure.
* * *
Government mind control experiments, controlled
assassins and spies are real. For a detailed history see The
Search for the Manchurian Candidate: The CIA and Mind Control
by John Marks and Journey
into Madness: The True Story of Secret CIA Mind Control and Medical Abuse
by Gordon Thomas. Also see the bookstore link below for a wide selection
of books on the government's relation to psychiatry and it's varied inhumane
experimentation on knowing and unknowing victims.
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