John D. Marks

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John D. Marks (born 1943)[1] is the founder and former president of Search for Common Ground (SFCG), a non-profit organization based in Washington, DC 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 the U.S. Department of State and co-authored the 1974 controversial non-fiction book The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence with Victor Marchetti.

Biography[]

Marks is a graduate of Phillips Academy and Cornell 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 the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. After leaving the State Department, he became Executive Assistant for foreign policy to US Senator Clifford Case (R-NJ), responsible within the Senator's office for passage of the Case–Church Amendment, which eventually cut off funding for the Vietnam War.[3][failed verification] He also worked with Marchetti on a book about the need to reform the Central Intelligence Agency.

The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence[]

The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence was completed in 1973. CIA officials read the manuscript and told Marchetti and Marks that they had to remove 339 passages, nearly a fifth of the book. After long negotiations the CIA yielded on 171 items. That left 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 Marchetti and Marks' censored book, which became a bestseller, raised concerns about the way the CIA was censoring information. It contributed to investigative reports by Seymour Hersh in The New York Times and the decision by Frank Church to establish the United 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.

The Search for the Manchurian Candidate[]

Marks' 1979 book, The Search for the Manchurian Candidate describes a wide range of CIA activities during the Cold War, including unethical drug experiments in the context of a mind-control and chemical interrogation research program.[4] The book is based on 16,000 pages of CIA documents obtained under the Freedom 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 the Personality Assessment System.

Marks later became a fellow of Harvard's Institute of Politics and a Visiting Scholar at Harvard Law School. In 1982, Marks founded the Nuclear Network in Washington, DC, which soon was renamed Search for Common Ground.[5]

From 1982 to 2014, Marks was President of Search for Common Ground, a non-profit conflict resolution organization.[6] He also founded and headed Common Ground Productions.[7][failed verification] He wrote and produced The Shape of the Future,[8][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 Team [9][failed verification] TV and radio series in 17 countries and numerous other TV and radio programs.[10]

Honors and accolades[]

John Marks is the recipient of numerous awards. These include:

  • Honorary Doctorate from the UN University of Peace (2010- with his wife, Susan Collin Marks)
  • The Marvin E. Johnson Diversity and Equity Award from the Association for Conflict Resolution (2010-with Susan Collin Marks) [11][12][failed verification]
  • Senior Ashoka Fellow (2009)
  • Social Entrepreneurship Award from the Skoll Foundation (2006-with Susan Collin Marks)
  • The Temple Awards for Creative Altruism from the Institute of Noetic Sciences (2005-with Susan Collin Marks) [13]
  • Cultures of Peace Award from Psychologists for Social Responsibility (2002)[14][failed verification]
  • Wild School Award from Upland Hills School (2001-with Susan Collin Marks)[15]

Works[]

  • The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, with Victor Marchetti. New York: Alfred A. Knopf (1974). Full text.
  • The CIA File, edited with Robert Borosage. New York: Grossman Publishers (1976). ISBN 067022247X.[16]
"Proceedings and papers presented at a conference The CIA and Covert Action held in Washington, Sept., 1974, sponsored by the Center for National Security Studies."

References[]

  1. ^ https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/11656092
  2. ^ International Conflict Transformation, Resolution, Peacebuilding | Search for Common Ground (SFCG)
  3. ^ "Mr. John D. Marks - Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress". Archived from the original on 2011-09-28. Retrieved 2011-06-06.
  4. ^ The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate": The CIA and Mind Control: The Secret History of the Behavioral Sciences: John D. Marks: 9780393307948: Amazon.com: Books
  5. ^ Letter from the President | About SFCG | Search for Common Ground
  6. ^ :"Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-03-25. Retrieved 2011-06-06.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  7. ^ Common Ground Productions | Programmes | Search for Common Ground
  8. ^ The Shape of the Future | Common Ground Productions | Programmes | Search for Common Ground
  9. ^ The Team | Common Ground Productions | Programmes | Search for Common Ground
  10. ^ Soccer plays a critical role in African society - ESPN Soccernet Archived 2010-02-03 at the Wayback Machine
  11. ^ ACR | Marvin E. Johnson Diversity and Equity Award
  12. ^ Association for Conflict Resolution
  13. ^ Temple Award Winners | About | Institute of Noetic Sciences Archived 2010-11-27 at the Wayback Machine
  14. ^ PsySR: Psychologists for Social Responsibility
  15. ^ Upland Hills School - A Michigan Independent School - Wild School Awards
  16. ^ Smith, Gaddis. "Recent Books on International Relations." Review of The CIA File. Edited by Robert L. Borosage and John D. Marks. Foreign Affairs, vol. 54, no. 4 (July 1976), pp. 834-835. doi:10.2307/20039618. JSTOR 20039618. Archived from the original.
    "Collected papers from a 1974 conference by some of the best-known writers on the subject of intelligence gathering and covert action: Marchetti, Wise, Ross, Halperin, Scoville, and others—with a response by William Colby. A useful compendium of what is known or suspected about the CIA."
  17. ^ Pierre, Andrew J. "Recent Books on International Relations." Review of Common Ground on Terrorism: Soviet-American Cooperation Against the Politics of Terror, edited by John D. Marks and Igor Beliaev. Foreign Affairs, vol. 70, no. 4 (1991), pp. 167-168. JSTOR 20044952. Archived from the original.
    "Much has been written about international terrorism, but this pioneer work suggests ways in which the United States and the Soviet Union can cooperate. The nongovernmental task force that guided this study included former senior officials from both sides, which doubtless contributed to the useful specificity of the analysis and proposals."

External links[]

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