AI Summary
5 min readOn New Year's Eve 1972, Candy Jones married radio host Long John Nebel. They had known each other for decades, since she was the highest-paid magazine cover girl of her era and he was a fashion photographer. A few months into the marriage, Nebel began to suspect his new wife was hiding something. He started hypnotizing her at bedtime to help with insomnia, and what emerged from those sessions was a story that sounded like something from a spy novel: Candy claimed she had been brainwashed into working as an unwilling agent for the CIA’s MKUltra mind-control program.
From Cover Girl to Courier
Candy Jones was born Jessica Wilcox in 1925. Her childhood was strict and lonely; her mother kept her isolated, and Candy invented imaginary friends she talked to in the mirror. At 16, she defied her mother’s plan for secretarial school by entering a beauty pageant, winning Miss Atlantic City in 1941. That launched a meteoric modeling career. She signed with Harry Conover, who gave her the name Candy Jones and marketed her as the girl-next-door. At her peak, she appeared on 11 magazine covers simultaneously, earning $35 an hour (roughly $700 today), and was named Model of the Year in 1943. She married Conover, but he drained their joint bank account and disappeared, leaving her with three sons and crushing debt.
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:00) **A Strange Wedding Night** - Candy Jones marries radio host Long John Nebel on New Year's Eve 1972, but a disturbing moment on their wedding night hints at a hidden side of her personality.
- 2 (03:21) **From Cover Girl to CIA Courier** - Candy's early life and career as a top model, and how a chance encounter in 1959 led to her first contact with a man claiming to be from the FBI.
- 3 (05:37) **The Offer from Dr. Jensen** - In 1960, Candy is asked to deliver a mysterious envelope to a man she knows from her USO tour, Dr. Gilbert Jensen, who now claims to work for the CIA.
- 4 (10:56) **The Fuzzy Years and a Strange Hypnosis** - Candy's memory of her visits to Jensen's office is almost blank. Years later, after marrying Long John Nebel, her insomnia leads them to try hypnosis, which unlocks disturbing memories.
- 5 (15:31) **The Emergence of "Arlene"** - John's hypnosis sessions reveal a dark alter ego named Arlene, who claims to have been the one carrying out secret missions for Jensen.
- 6 (20:59) **The Tapes and the Author** - John amasses over 200 hours of hypnotic recordings, which he gives to author Donald Bain, who pieces together the story.
- 7 (24:02) **Skepticism and the MKUltra Context** - The episode introduces skepticism about the story and brings in historian John Lyle to explain the real CIA mind control program, MKUltra.
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Show Notes
Candy Jones had an impressive résumé: Miss Atlantic City, Model of the Year, highest-paid cover model of the 1940s, entrepreneur, radio personality, author…and an unwitting undercover CIA agent, brainwashed by the government. Or, so she claimed. To find out more, we’re digging into Candy’s story and speaking with author and historian John Lisle. Check out his new book, Project Mind Control: Sidney Gottlieb, the CIA, and the Tragedy of MKULTRA, available now!
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