Tripped: Nazi Germany, the CIA, and the Dawn of the Psychedelic Age [Hardcover]

A fleet-footed and propulsive account . . . Brilliantly sifting a massive history for its ideological through lines, this is a must-read. ?Publishers Weekly?(starred review)

The author of theNew York TimesbestsellerBlitzedreturns with a provocative secret history of drugs and postwar America, examining the untold story of how Nazi experiments into psychedelics covertly influenced CIA research and secretly shaped the War on Drugs.?

Berlin 1945. Following the fall of the Third Reich, drug uselong kept under control by the Nazis strict anti-drug lawsis rampant throughout the city. Split into four sectors, Berlin's drug policies are being enforced under the individual jurisdictions of each allied powerthe Soviet Union, Britain, France, and the US. In the American zone, Arthur J. Giuliani of the nascent Federal Bureau of Narcotics is tasked with learning about the Nazis anti-drug laws and bringing home anything that might prove useful to the United States for future covert operations.

Five years later, Harvard professor Dr. Henry Beecher began work with the US government to uncover the research behind the Nazis psychedelics program. Begun as an attempt to find a truth serum and experiment with mind control, the Nazi study initially involved mescaline, but quickly expanded to include LSD. Originally created for medical purposes by Swiss pharmaceutical Sandoz, the Nazis coopted the drug for their mind control military researchresearch that, following the war, the US was desperate to acquire. This research birthed MKUltra, the CIA's notorious brainwashing and psychological torture program during the 1950s and 1960s, and ultimately shaped US drug policy regarding psychedelics for over half a century.

Based on extensive archival research on both sides of the Atlantic,Trippedis a wild, unconventional postwar history, a spiritual sequel to Norman OhlersNew York TimesbestsellerBlitlc.