Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control is a 2019 book by The New York Times journalist and historian[1] Stephen Kinzer.

The book contains untold stories of a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) chemist called Sidney Gottlieb, who tried to "find a way to control the human brain".

[4] In Poisoner in Chief, Kinzer explains the MKUltra program, which was developed by Gottlieb, and described how drugs such as LSD help the CIA to control the minds of enemies.

[6] During the early period of the Cold War, the CIA imagined communists discovered "some kind of a drug or a potion or a technique that would allow them to control human minds".

According to Michael Pollan's book How to Change Your Mind and some others, Wasson's trip played an important role in "promoting mind-bending drugs and the accompanying cultural revolution".

[2] Kinzer describes Gottlieb as "a chemist with a deep-seated interest in mysticism" and "the first person the United States government ever hired to find ways to control human minds".