Catcher In The Rye as a Manchurian Trigger

In the 1950s and 1960s, the CIA conducted a series of experiments in extreme psychological techniques, under the banner "MK Ultra". These experiments explored mind control through drugs, hypnosis and other conditioning techniques, tested on human subjects.

The project was officially shut down in 1973, when the then director of the CIA Richard Helms destroyed almost all records pertaining to the controversial and often illegal activities carried out in its name.

In its 20 year history, MK Ultra had seen the surreptitious administration of drugs and other chemicals, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, isolation, verbal and sexual abuse, as well as various forms of torture used on US and Canadian citizens. It is widely believed that the project lives on to this day through Psi-Ops schemes with deceptively banal codenames such as 'Bluebird', 'Artichoke' and 'Paperclip'.

One of the stated aims of 'MK Ultra' was the creation of unwitting assassins - 'Manchurian Candidates' - who would be conditioned to kill targets without knowing why, using trigger words, sights or situations.

Many believe that J. D. Salinger's seminal novel 'The Catcher in the Rye' was used as such a trigger in order to arrange the assassination of John Lennon by Mark David Chapman, the attempted shooting of Ronald Reagan by John Hinckley Jr. and a host of other, lower profile events - including a high-school shooting and the murder of minor film star Rebecca Schaefer.

'The Catcher in the Rye' was found in the possession of both Hinkley and Chapman after their respective rampages. In fact, when the New York City police apprehended Chapman in the aftermath of Lennon's assassination, he was sitting glassy-eyed and zombified, calmly reading Salinger's book. It was later revealed that Chapman had attempted to legally change his name to Holden Caulfield in the days before the event.

Was the book used to trigger post-hypnotic control, as the Queen of Hearts did in Richard Condon's novel 'The Manchurian Candidate'? Its popularity would make it easily available at short notice in almost any location. Its tale of a disaffected teenage boy may tap into the male psyche, creating a feeling of familiarity that leaves subjects open to manipulation.

Although there is little evidence to prove this theory, there are strong suggestions that mind-controlled killers could be a reality. Robert Kennedy's assassin Sirhan Sirhan has long maintained his innocence, claiming to be an involuntary participant in the crime as he had been subjected to "sophisticated hypno-programing and memory implantation techniques which rendered him unable to consciously control his thoughts and actions at the time the crimes were being committed".