It was there, as well as at two secret prisons located in Germany and Japan, the defeated Axis powers (and not, in those days, in Thailand or Rumania), that the CIA brought questionable double agents for “secret experiments” in harsh interrogation, “using techniques on the edge of torture, drug-induced mind control, and brainwashing.” This was but a small part of “Project Artichoke,” a 15-year, multi-billion dollar “search by the CIA for ways to control the human mind.” According to New York Times reporter Tim Weiner’s new history of the Central Intelligence Agency, Legacy of Ashes - a remarkable treasure trove of grim and startling information you hadn’t known before - this actually happened first in the Panama Canal Zone in the early 1950s. That description might indeed sound like Guantanamo 2002, but think again.

It was there that the CIA clandestinely brought its “suspects” to be interrogated, abused, and tortured.

and so beyond the slightest recourse to legal oversight.

The secret prison was set up on a secure U.S.

Legacy of ashes the history of the cia