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John D. Marks (born 1943)[1] is the founder and former president ofSearch for Common Ground (SFCG), a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., that focuses on international conflict management programming.[2][failed verification] Marks now acts as a senior adviser to SFCG. He is also a former foreign service officer of theU.S. Department of State, and he co-authored the 1974 bookThe CIA and the Cult of Intelligence withVictor Marchetti.
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Marks is a graduate ofPhillips Academy andCornell University. He worked for five years with the State Department, first in Vietnam and then as an analyst and staff assistant to the director of theBureau of Intelligence and Research. After leaving the State Department, he became an executive assistant for foreign policy to US SenatorClifford Case (R-NJ), responsible within the senator's office for passage of theCase–Church Amendment, which eventually cut off funding for the Vietnam War.[3][failed verification]
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 John D. Marks delivers remarks at the1977 Libertarian Party National Convention (July 12–17, 1977), at theSheraton-Palace Hotel in San Francisco |
In 1973, Marks andVictor Marchetti completed writingThe CIA and the Cult of Intelligence. CIA officials read the manuscript and told the authors that they had to remove 339 passages, nearly a fifth of the book. After long negotiations, the CIA yielded on 171 items, leaving 168 censored passages. The publisher,Alfred A. Knopf, decided to go ahead and publish the book with blanks for those passages, and with the sections that the CIA had originally cut then restored printed in boldface.
The publication of the book, which became a bestseller, raised concerns about the way theCIA was censoring information. It contributed to investigative reports bySeymour Hersh inThe New York Times and the decision byFrank Church to establish theUnited States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, in 1975. The report,Foreign and Military Intelligence, was published in 1976.
Documents obtained from the CIA by Marks underFreedom of Information in 1976 showed that, in 1953, the agency considered purchasing ten kilograms ofLSD, enough for 100 million doses. The proposed purchase aimed to stop other countries from controlling the supply. The documents showed that the CIA did obtain some quantity of the substance fromSandoz Laboratories, in Switzerland.[4]
Marks delivered a speech on the book atTurning Point 1977, the1977 Libertarian Party National Convention held July 12–17, at theSheraton-Palace Hotel, in San Francisco.[5]
Marks' 1979 book,The Search for the Manchurian Candidate, describes a wide range of CIA activities during theCold War, including unethical drug experiments as part of a mind-control and chemical interrogation research program known asProject MKUltra.[6] The book is based on 16,000 pages of CIA documents obtained under theFreedom of Information Act and many interviews, including those with retired members of the psychological division of the CIA, and the book describes some of the work of psychologists in this effort, with a whole chapter on thePersonality Assessment System.
Marks later became a fellow ofHarvard's Institute of Politics and a visiting scholar atHarvard Law School. In 1982, he founded the nonprofit conflict resolution organization Nuclear Network in Washington, D.C., which was soon renamedSearch for Common Ground.[7] He served as its president until 2014.[8] He also founded and headed Common Ground Productions.[9][failed verification] He wrote and producedThe Shape of the Future,[10][failed verification] a four-part TV documentary series that was simulcast on Israeli, Palestinian, and Arab satellite TV, and he is executive producer of the television and radio showThe Team,[11][failed verification] among others.[12]
John Marks is the recipient of numerous awards. These include:
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