The CIA wanted to use LSD to soften the mind in order to make it more receptive to suggestion and control. But if the use of hallucinogens was a lock pick to sneak in the mind's back door, hypnotism was a blistering bulldozer capable of causing serious damage.

Dr. Colin Ross, a psychiatrist and noted CIA mind-control expert, provides this definition of the Manchurian Candidates that the government longed to create: "Basically an artificially created multiple personality, where there's another identity inside, which is given the mission parameters, carries out the mission, and the idea is if they're caught and interrogated, the upfront person has no memory of the mission, so it keeps the information secure." Project Bluebird, MK ULTRA's predecessor, was specifically experimenting with hypnotism in order to create the perfect disposable assassin. Its agenda reads like a horrific wish list:

1. Can we "condition" by post-H [hypnotic] suggestion agency employees (or persons of interest to this agency) to prevent them from giving information to any unauthorized source or for committing any act on behalf of a foreign or domestic enemy?
2. Can we in a matter of an hour, two hours, one day, etc., induce an H condition in an unwilling subject to such an extent that he will perform an act for our benefit? (Long range)
3. Can we create by post-H control an action contrary to an individual's basic moral principles?
4. Could we seize a subject and in the space of an hour or two by post-H control have him crash an airplane, wreck a train, etc.?
5. Can we by SI [sleep induction] and H techniques force a subject (unwilling or otherwise) to travel long distances, commit specified acts and return to us or bring documents or materials? Can a person acting under post-H control successfully travel long distances?
6. Can we use SI and H to combat fatigue, produce extreme mental effort?
7. Can we guarantee total amnesia under any and all conditions?
8. Can we "alter" a person's personality? How long will it hold?
9. Can we design tests to determine whether or not an enemy agent has been conditioned by SI and H or any other method?
10. Can we detect SI and H by use of SI and H (regression)?
11. Can we make a "conditioned" subject reveal by SI and H specifically how they were conditioned (drugs, torture, fatigue, hostage pressure, techniques)?
12. Can we devise a system for making unwilling subjects into willing agents and then transfer that control to untrained agency agents in the field by use of codes or identifying signs or credentials?
13. How long can we sustain a post-H suggestion—unaided—with reinforcement?

This chilling Christmas list of terror—which came from a declassified CIA document that somehow survived the great purge—should send shivers of fright up the spine of anyone who reads it. This document is the smoking gun that proves the U.S. wanted to be in the "Manchurian Candidate" business; that it wanted to fight as dirty as the Nazis and the Soviets, regardless of how many innocent citizens became entangled in its filthy, unconscionable crimes against humanity.

It's clear from the Bluebird list that the CIA certainly aspired to have a brainwashed killer on its rolls, and there is evidence that the agency moved from the theoretical to the physical. Once again, a memorandum from MK ULTRA—with redactions—reveals just how malevolent the CIA's plans were:

Miss [deleted] was then instructed (having expressed a fear of firearms) that she would use every method at her disposal to awaken Miss [deleted] (now in a deep hypnotic sleep) and failing this, she would pick up a pistol and fire it at Miss [deleted]. She was instructed that she would not hesitate to "kill." Miss [deleted] carried out these suggestions including firing the (unloaded) gun at [deleted]. After proper suggestions were made, both were awakened. Miss [deleted] expressed absolute denial that the foregoing sequence had happened.

The CIA had the desire. It had the technology. It had the opportunity and, as we see here, it had every reason to think it could successfully introduce sleeper agents into the general population, their mangled minds a miasma of burbling post-hypnotic orders to kill without question. Given all this, why should we not think that the CIA implemented their own Manchurian Candidates? If the CIA can, the CIA typically does.