The Manchurian Candidate

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The Manchurian Candidate is a 1959 thriller novel written by Richard Condon, later adapted into films in 1962 and 2004.

The central concept of the book and the subsequent 1962 film is that the son of a prominent political family has been brainwashed into becoming an unwilling assassin for the Communist Party; in the 2004 version, the villain was instead a giant corporation called "Manchurian Global".

1 Plot summary
- 1.1 Trotsky parallels
2 Film adaptations
3 See also

[edit] Plot summary

Laurence Harvey & Frank Sinatra doing a scene in Central Park

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Major Bennett Marco, Sergeant Raymond Shaw and the rest of their platoon are captured during the Korean War in 1952. They are all brainwashed into believing Shaw saved their lives in combat, for which he receives the Medal of Honor when they return to the US. After the war is over, Marco begins to have a recurring nightmare in which Raymond kills two of his comrades. When he learns that another platoon member has been having the same dream, he sets out to uncover the mystery.

The Communists intend to use Raymond as a sleeper agent and, using the queen of diamonds in a deck of playing cards as a subconscious trigger, compel him to follow their orders, which he doesn't remember afterwards. Raymond is controlled by none other than his own domineering mother, who is working with the Communists in a plot to overthrow the government.

[edit] Trotsky parallels

Russian communist leader Leon Trotsky was assassinated in Mexico in 1940, by Ramón Mercader. Mercader, who had been raised by his mother to be a Soviet agent and assassin, was visiting in Trotsky's home as a sleeper agent when he killed him with an ice axe in the skull.