Jolly and K make a big move to San Antonio, Texas where Jolly, now a full-fledged doctor, serves as Lieutenant to Major in the U.S. Air Force where he is Chief of Psychiatric Service. Jolly’s time at Lackland is his debut in the field of brainwashing and will also start him on a path with the US government that will link him to conspiracy theorists for the rest of his life and beyond. 

In the 1950s, West was appointed to a panel to discover why 36 of 59 airmen captured in the Korean War had confessed or co-operated in Korean allegations of war crimes committed by the United States. These POWs had “falsely” confessed to germ warfare. His experiences with these men sparked a lifelong interest in helping victims of imprisonment, torture, and coercive persuasion otherwise known as "brainwashing".

It’s super important to understand at this point in the story how pivotal to our history. If the communists could control minds, then they could control interrogations, memories, the actions of leaders, and more. And guess what? The US had not even started to think scientifically about how this might be achieved yet. It meant we were behind, it meant we were vulnerable, it meant we were losing a war we didn’t even know had started.

P.S. I apologize in advance for how much I talk about bugs in this episode. It's super detailed. I promise it's important for this episode and our next episode that includes the story of CIA Scientist Frank Olson and his infamous death.

SHOW NOTES

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SOURCES

https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c84j0hcd/entire_text/

https://theintercept.com/2019/11/24/cia-mkultra-louis-jolyon-west/

https://military.wikia.org/wiki/Louis_Jolyon_West

https://koreanwarlegacy.org/chapters/the-pow-experience/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPMacCIf11k

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/e/endicott-biological.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_biological_warfare_in_the_Korean_War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Schwable

https://www.history.com/topics/korea/korean-war

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/99/06/27/reviews/990627.27reg.html

https://www.amazon.com/BIOLOGY-DOOM-Americas-Warfare-Project/dp/080505765X

https://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/09/us/louis-j-west-74-psychiatrist-who-studied-extremes-dies.html