This book contains disturbing descriptions and even sketches. If you haven't concluded this already, let me be explicit. I'll leave the reader to decide which of the three possibilities they believe is most likely. If there is any activity that would have rightfully taken the situation from one of Company employees being sent to country club federal prisons to them being strung up on the Capitol steps, it's what's depicted in this book. The person working the shredder might have gone after the documentation of activities involving pedophilia first. While a lot of information did come out about Projects ARTICHOKE, BLUEBIRD, and MKULTRA, a lot was also shredded. Of course, another possibility is that its all true. One possibility is that the father abused these girls and they created an elaborate backstory in their minds to cope with the fact that the one man who should have loved them, that they should have been able to trust, neither loved them nor was worthy of their trust. What if the two sisters believe that the story is absolutely true, when-in fact-it wasn't? How could this be? Their father is presented as an unsavory character.

However, it's a third possibility that makes this book so thought-provoking. One might be prone to think that there are two possibilities: either it's a true story or it's a hoax. (In large part this is because we know the programs that operated were not nearly so successful as the one in Secret Weapons.) However, while I'm well aware of the 'mind control' programs sponsored by the American government, this story doesn't ring true to me. About a quarter of the book is supporting documents to lend the book credibility. The writers are eager to convince the reader that this is not a hoax.

It is written as non-fiction, and not creative non-fiction that admits to blending elements of fiction into the fact. Like Whitley Strieber's Communion, this book leaves one engrossed but wondering what exactly one is reading. I hadn't ever heard of it before or seen it in my local bookstore, but I came across a copy at the Strand Book Store in New York on a trip several years ago. Secret Weapons is about two girls who are trained in an MKULTRA-style behavior modification program to become femme fatales.

Secret Weapons by Cheryl Hersha