In 1967, Dr. Herbert Spiegel (Columbia University) participated in an NBC News special about Jim Garrison's case against Clay Shaw. Reporter Frank McGee asked Dr. Spiegel if he could debunk the then-prevalent belief that everything said in a hypnotic trance has to be true. Spiegel not only told him that it was easy, but set up a demonstration for NBC's cameras to record.

With film rolling, Spiegel hypnotized the anonymous subject, self-described as liberal, into believing that the good doctor had massive dossiers on an international communist plot. Without giving any further information, Spiegel asked the subject to provide details, and to forget about the plot once he touched him on the shoulder. As described by Time magazine, in its May 24, 1968 edition, McGee asked about the involvement of a completely fictitious person:

Almost as soon as he was awake, the subject began talking about the plot. NBC's Frank McGee, who had been present throughout, tried to shake his story. But the more McGee questioned, the more elaborate the story became. Where had he heard about the plot? In a loft over a playhouse in Greenwich Village. What did he remember about the loft? There had been an old movie poster of Rin Tin Tin on the wall, and he and his friends had been drinking Miller High Life beer. McGee asked if a Jack Harris had been involved. The name was completely imaginary, yet soon the subject slipped it into the conversation, confessing that Harris had really been the ringleader, and was a big man who 'looks like he could kill an ox.'

After more prodding, this liberal had transformed into a red-bashing ultraconservative within a matter of several minutes. His hatred of the imaginary Harris figure was genuine and palpable. McGee tried to ask questions that would elucidate the obvious fact that none of this had a basis in reality, but the more the newsman probed, the more convinced and the more rabid the subject became, finally shouting, "That's the action of Harris and his group! That man is a demon!"

When taken out of the trance state, the subject, per Dr. Spiegel's instruction, remembered nothing about his tirade. Moreover, he didn't believe McGee and Spiegel when they told him what he had said, simply because it contradicted his beliefs, his values, his morality. In fact, he assumed they were joking until they showed him the actual footage some five months later.

When the cameras went off, McGee, somewhat lightly, asked Dr. Spiegel what would have happened if he pointed out a random individual as Jack Harris, and given the subject a gun. Spiegel replied, "I'm afraid he would have shot him."

The above story is an example of what author Donald Bain so succinctly described as "changing the visual." If you asked someone under hypnosis to shoot a random stranger, the subject would probably refuse. But if you convince someone that the random stranger is in fact Jack Harris, or Osama bin Laden or any other boogeyman--real or imaginary--that's a different story.

The concept wasn't new, even in 1967. Dr. George Estabrooks (Colgate University), who claimed in all seriousness, "I can hypnotize a man--without his knowledge or consent--into committing treason against the United States" firmly believed in the viability of Manchurian Candidates ever since the 1930s, when his research into hypnosis began. Moreover, he claimed to have programmed them, stating, "The key to creating an effective spy or assassin rests in splitting a man’s personality, or creating multipersonality, with the aid of hypnotism.... This is not science fiction. ...I have done it." As an advisor to the US War Department, and later the CIA, Estabrooks was no crank. However, he never really gave details on his creation of such a Frankenstein.

One study, in which the details were well documented by the researcher, came not from a highly esteemed professor of psychology or psychiatry teaching at a prestigious university, but rather from a career spy. Morse Allen, a Naval Intelligence and CIA veteran, conducted his own private experiments to test the viability of getting someone to murder another person. In February 1954, after learning the basics of the craft from a stage hypnotist, he programmed one of his secretaries to believe that another secretary was in fact a deadly communist agent. He also left a gun lying in plain sight of the subject. Sure enough, fearful for her life, and protective of her country, the young woman snatched the firearm, aimed it at the unsuspecting lady typing away at her desk, and repeatedly pulled the trigger.

Fortunately, Allen had the sense to empty the gun of bullets first.

Research into using hypnosis to make someone violate their own moral code continued well after the 1950s. Dr. Martin Orne (University of Pennsylvania), who publicly argued against the possibility of creating a Manchurian Candidate, nevertheless conducted research indicating that a hypnotized subject can act in ways that would shock them in an unhypnotized state. In the video below, for example, Dr. Orne convinces a woman to disfigure a man by throwing (what she thinks is) nitric acid into his face, for no other reason than he pissed her off.

Figure 1. Dr. Martin Orne Experiment, with commentary at the end by Lt. Col. Dr. Michael Aquino, USA

By now, I'm hoping you get the picture. The belief that you can't hypnotize someone to do something they're not already willing to do it is simply a comforting fiction. Yeah, there is some truth to the supposition. But there are ways by which the hypnotist can distort a subject's perception, so that he or she will do something that, in their waking state, would violate their moral code.

At the same time, just because such research bolsters the possibility of creating a viable Manchurian Candidate--hence the reason why the CIA pursued hypnosis so ardently in Projects ARTICHOKE and MK-ULTRA--it doesn't prove to any legal standard that creating a Manchurian Candidate is possible. After all, the MC would have to have more going for him or her than simply programming. Such a person would need training, hardware, logistical support and so forth. Furthermore, you really wouldn't want to use a person who had never killed before. You wouldn't know if they would do what you wanted them to do, or if they would freeze up, despite the change in visual.

Of course, that brings up another question: assuming you couldn't train a subject to be an effective Manchurian Candidate, might you program a subject to be something else?