Podcast Summary:

Podcast: New Books Network
Episode: Andreas Killen, "Nervous Systems: Brain Science in the Early Cold War" (Harper, 2023)
Date: February 1, 2026
Host: Paul Lerner
Guest: Andreas Killen

Episode Overview

This episode features historian Andreas Killen discussing his book "Nervous Systems: Brain Science in the Early Cold War." The conversation dives into how brain science transformed during the 1950s, shifted the cultural and political landscape of the Cold War, and intersected with issues of memory, mind control, and mass culture. The episode explores scientific breakthroughs, ethical complexities, and the deep entanglement of neuroscience with fiction, public anxieties, and governmental policies.

1. Andreas Killen’s Intellectual Journey

[03:11–06:35]

• Killen outlines his background as a historian with roots in German history, psychiatry, and the history of science.
• The book emerged from an intersection of previous work—histories of psychiatry in Germany and interests in American postwar culture.
• His editorial experience on a journal issue about "brainwashing" inspired him to explore the broader scientific context that enabled such ideas.
• Inspiration for "Nervous Systems" struck upon finding Gray Walter’s The Living Brain (1953) in a bookstore. This book became a point of entry into Cold War brain science.

Memorable Quote:
“I really wanted to learn more about and write about the scientific... landscape within which it became possible to imagine something like brainwashing, which, you know... is a kind of mythic notion, but one that doesn’t just come out of nowhere.”
—Andreas Killen [04:40]

2. Structuring the Book: Scientists and “Clinical Tales”

[07:07–11:34]

• The book intersperses traditional chapters with "clinical tales"—standalone stories of key patients.
• One focus is patient H.M. (Henry Molaison), whose surgical procedure destroyed his ability to form new long-term memories and became foundational for modern memory science.
• This structure is intentionally unconventional, aiming to humanize the science and foreground the lived experiences and ethical dilemmas of patients.

Host Reflection:
“I think it counteracts it really nicely and balances it and reminds the reader that actually these are... human beings ultimately, right? Not just kind of disembodied brains...”
—Paul Lerner [11:01]

3. The 1950s: Transformative Developments in Brain Science

[13:25–19:23]

• Before the 1950s, brain science mostly relied on post-mortem studies.
• Key breakthroughs enabled studying the “living brain”:
  • Electroencephalography (EEG): Allowed scientists to track brainwaves in real time (explained as a “revolutionary development” thanks to Gray Walter).
  • Epilepsy Research: Walter Penfield’s techniques operating on awake patients led to discoveries linking epilepsy and memory, particularly through cortical stimulation.
  • Sensory Deprivation: Donald Hebb’s studies, originally motivated by neurophysiology and Cold War concerns (brainwashing, mind control), broke the dominance of behaviorism by prying open the “black box” of the brain.

Memorable Quote:
“The EEG is probably the key technology of this moment. And I devote a lot of attention to that.”
—Andreas Killen [14:50]

4. Psychoanalysis, Pavlov, and Changing Paradigms

[19:23–27:43]

• Freud & Psychoanalysis: The 1950s were a “golden age” for psychoanalysis in American psychiatry; however, most analysts avoided direct engagement with neurophysiology, keeping the brain “a black box.”
• Displacement by Psychopharmacology: By the 1980s, drug therapies (like Thorazine) replaced psychoanalytic theory as dominant in psychiatry.
• Pavlov: Pavlovian experimental physiology became central, both for its laboratory techniques (creating neuroses, studying epilepsy) and its political baggage—fueling Cold War anxieties about Soviet brainwashing techniques. Paranoia about “Pavlovian science” pervaded western discourse, sometimes distorting and politicizing actual scientific findings.

Memorable Quote:
“This is a decade in which new forms of psychopharmacology, drugs like Thorazine and other drugs, began to appear... by the time we get to only a few decades later... that approach... has completely vanquished psychoanalytic categories, language theories.”
—Andreas Killen [21:59]

5. Science Meets Politics: Brainwashing, the Cold War, and Myth-Making

[30:41–38:21]

• Killen’s book is structured in three parts: science, politics, and culture.
• Key figure: Edward Hunter (OSS/CIA journalist), who coined “brainwashing” and blended Cold War anxieties with neuroscientific developments. Notably, Hunter drew on both Gray Walter’s scientific work and dystopian fictions (Orwell, Huxley, Koestler).
• The notion of “brainwashing” was empirically shaky but politically potent, fueling classified research (e.g., CIA’s MKUltra—dubbed by Alfred McCoy “the Manhattan Project of the mind”).
• Fiction and mass culture—like 1984, Brave New World, Manchurian Candidate—catalyzed and echoed scientific and political discourses.

Notable Moment:
“Even somebody like... George Kennan, openly admitted that when he tried to imagine totalitarianism as a reality, he relied upon the fictions of Orwell and Kessler and Huxley.”
—Andreas Killen [34:57]

6. The Interplay of Science, Fiction, and Metaphor

[38:41–45:51]

• Brain science used metaphors from film and technology to explain findings—for example, Penfield’s analogy of memory as a “film archive” available for replay, or the brain as a computer.
• Though scientifically outmoded now, these metaphors structured understanding and deeply influenced both scientific and popular discourses.
• Killen discusses the “leakage” between classified operations (e.g., CIA’s Kubark manual) and public culture, as seen in overlaps between intelligence manuals and films like The Manchurian Candidate.

Memorable Quote:
“These metaphors... did and continue to play a very important kind of structuring role in... scientific discourse.”
—Andreas Killen [45:35]

7. Memory, Amnesia, and Political Consequences

[45:51–50:59]

• The history of Cold War brain science reverberated into the War on Terror. CIA’s Kubark interrogation manual, born from 1950s research, was still used in the 21st century.
• Killen addresses how America’s collective memory is “fragile and imperiled,” leading to repeated amnesia about its own history of coercive experimentation and torture, even as memory science advanced.
• The Manchurian Candidate becomes a metaphor for cultural amnesia, with the protagonist’s personal memory loss standing for America’s willful forgetting.

Notable Quote:
“Even while memory science became established... memory as such, public memory... has become an extraordinarily fragile and imperiled entity.”
—Andreas Killen [47:20]

8. Looking Forward: New Projects

[51:20–53:04]

• Killen is examining the papers of Norbert Wiener, founder of cybernetics—a discipline that profoundly shaped postwar brain science.
• He is also working on a documentary about The Manchurian Candidate and its historical significance.

Key Themes Recap

• Science-Politics-Culture Interplay: The transformation of brain science in the 1950s was not just technical but deeply enmeshed with Cold War politics, ethics, and mass culture.
• Myth and Reality: Ideas like “brainwashing” were empirically dubious but had real, lasting impact on policy and public imagination.
• Human Stories: Killen’s focus on patients alongside scientists draws attention to the human costs and ethical stakes often obscured in historical triumphalism.
• Metaphors as Tools: Dominant metaphors—film, computing—both clarified and limited contemporary understandings of mind and memory.

Notable Quotes (with Timestamps)

• “I really wanted to learn more about and write about the scientific... landscape within which it became possible to imagine something like brainwashing...”
  —Andreas Killen [04:40]

• “The EEG is probably the key technology of this moment.”
  —Andreas Killen [14:50]

• “This is a decade in which new forms of psychopharmacology... began to appear... that approach... has completely vanquished psychoanalytic categories...”
  —Andreas Killen [21:59]

• “Even somebody like... George Kennan... tried to imagine totalitarianism as a reality... relied upon the fictions of Orwell and Kessler and Huxley.”
  —Andreas Killen [34:57]

• “These metaphors... did and continue to play a very important kind of structuring role in... scientific discourse.”
  —Andreas Killen [45:35]

• “Even while memory science became established... memory as such, public memory... has become an extraordinarily fragile and imperiled entity.”
  —Andreas Killen [47:20]

Useful Timestamps

• Andreas Killen’s Introduction: [03:11–06:35]
• Book Structure/Clinical Tales: [07:07–11:34]
• Scientific Breakthroughs of the 1950s: [13:25–19:23]
• Freud, Pavlov, and Paradigm Shifts: [19:23–27:43]
• Science, Politics, and Brainwashing: [30:41–38:21]
• Science & Fiction, Metaphors: [38:41–45:51]
• Memory, Amnesia, and Politics: [45:51–50:59]
• New Projects and Future Directions: [51:20–53:04]

This summary provides an in-depth guide to the episode’s content, structure, and themes, preserving the intellectual energy and nuance of the original conversation.