CIA's Experiments with Mind Control

ON APRIL 10, 1953, ALLEN DULLES, THE NEWLY APPOINTED DIRECTOR OF THE CIA, delivered a speech to a gathering of Princeton alumni. Though the event was mundane, global tensions were running high. The Korean War was coming to an end, and earlier that week, The New York Times had published a startling story asserting that American POWs returning from the country may have been “converted” by “Communist brain-washers.”


Some GI’s were confessing to war crimes, like carrying out germ warfare against the Communists–a charge the U.S. categorically denied. Others were reportedly so brainwashed that they had refused to return to the United States at all. As if that weren’t enough, the U.S. was weeks away from secretly sponsoring the overthrow of a democratically elected leader in Iran.

WATCH: FULL EPISODES OF AMERICA'S BOOK OF SECRETS ONLINE NOW.

Dulles had just become the first civilian director of an agency growing more powerful by the day, and the speech provided an early glimpse into his priorities for the CIA. “In the past few years we have become accustomed to hearing much about the battle for men’s minds–the war of ideologies,” he told the attendees. “I wonder, however, whether we clearly perceive the magnitude of the problem, whether we realize how sinister the battle for men’s minds has become in Soviet hands,” he continued. “We might call it, in its new form, ‘brain warfare.’”

Dulles proceeded to describe the “Soviet brain perversion techniques” as effective, but “abhorrent” and “nefarious.” He gestured to the American POWs returning from Korea, shells of the men they once were, parroting the Communist propaganda they had heard cycled for weeks on end. He expressed fears and uncertainty–were they using chemical agents? Hypnosis? Something else entirely? “We in the West,” the CIA Director conceded, “are somewhat handicapped in brain warfare.” This sort of non-consensual experiment, even on one’s enemies, was antithetical to American values, Dulles insisted, as well as antithetical to what should be human values.  READ MORE...

History of Popcorn

Wednesday was National Popcorn Day, and what better way to celebrate than by learning about the history of the delicious snack?

According to The Popcorn Board, the oldest-known ears of corn that were popped are from about 4,000 years ago and were discovered in current-day New Mexico in 1948 and 1950.

Meanwhile, History.com reported in 2018 that there were traces of popcorn in 1,000-year-old Peruvian tombs.

Popcorn was also significant to the Aztec people for eating, ceremonies and decorations, according to The Popcorn Board.

Wednesday is National Popcorn Day. (iStock)

The snack became a common food in American households by the mid-1800s, according to History.com. Popcorn was popular for late-night snacks by the fire and at picnics, the website reported.

In the 1890s, Charles Cretors created the first popcorn-popping machine, and by 1900, he created a horse-drawn popcorn wagon, which led to mass consumption of the snack, History.com reported.

Popcorn didn’t hit movie theaters until the Great Depression, according to Smithsonian Magazine. In fact, the movie theaters that started selling popcorn were able to survive the Great Depression, while other movie theaters had to close because of poor sales.  READ MORE...

10 Things About Martin Luther King Jr.

Baptist minister and social activist Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) dedicated his life to the nonviolent struggle for justice in the United States. King's leadership played a pivotal role in ending entrenched segregation for African Americans and to the creation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Read on to discover more facts about the life and legacy of the civil rights icon.

1. King's Birth Name Was Michael, Not Martin
King was born Michael King Jr. on January 15, 1929. In 1934, however, his father, a pastor at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, traveled to Germany and became inspired by the Protestant Reformation leader Martin Luther. As a result, King Sr. changed his own name as well as that of his five-year-old son.

2. King Entered College At the Age of 15
King was such a gifted student that he skipped grades nine and 12 before enrolling in 1944 at Morehouse College, the alma mater of his father and maternal grandfather. Although he was the son, grandson and great-grandson of Baptist ministers, King did not intend to follow the family vocation until Morehouse president Benjamin E. Mays, a noted theologian, convinced him otherwise. King was ordained before graduating college with a degree in sociology.

3. King Received His Doctorate in Systematic Theology
After earning a divinity degree from Pennsylvania’s Crozer Theological Seminary, King attended graduate school at Boston University, where he received his Ph.D. degree in 1955. The title of his dissertation was “A Comparison of the Conceptions of God in the Thinking of Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman.”

4. King’s 'I Have a Dream' Speech Was Not His First At the Lincoln Memorial
Six years before his iconic oration at the March on Washington, King was among the civil rights leaders who spoke in the shadow of the Great Emancipator during the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom on May 17, 1957. Before a crowd estimated at between 15,000 and 30,000, King delivered his first national address on the topic of voting rights. His speech, in which he urged America to “give us the ballot,” drew strong reviews and positioned him at the forefront of the civil rights leadership.

5. King Was Imprisoned Nearly 30 Times
According to the King Center, the civil rights leader went to jail 29 times. He was arrested for acts of civil disobedience and on trumped-up charges, such as when he was jailed in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1956 for driving 30 miles per hour in a 25-mile-per-hour zone.  TO READ ABOUT THE OTHER FIVE THINGS, CLICK HERE...