The broad outlines of MK-ULTRA are fairly well established even if many of the details are lost to the C.I.A.’s document destruction. Beginning in 1950, the agency, fearful of reported Communist brainwashing, began a top-secret project initially known as Bluebird, to explore ways to influence the human psyche. The program expanded dramatically with the entry of Gottlieb, a chemist with a deep-seated interest in mysticism. Kinzer describes him as “the first person the United States government ever hired to find ways to control human minds.”

Gottlieb has previously been treated as a historical footnote, but Kinzer elevates him to his proper place as one of the C.I.A.’s most influential and despicable characters. Along with mind control, he was involved in a series of schemes to poison Fidel Castro. Kinzer also goes far beyond the story of Frank Olson, which is well-worn territory, covered most recently in Errol Morris’s docudrama “Wormwood.” Whether murdered or driven to suicide, Olson was a reluctant soldier in Gottlieb’s mind-control army. Yet his death has overshadowed the “expendables.” We just don’t know most of their names since Gottlieb destroyed the records.

Some of the details in the book, like the coercion of African-American prisoners to participate in C.I.A. experiments, are astounding. But it wasn’t that long ago that agency personnel were performing “rectal hydration” on a suspected terrorist. Rather than LSD, Gottlieb’s successors turned to techniques like waterboarding. And like Gottlieb, those involved sought to shred the evidence and move on with their lives, while the people in charge allowed them to do so because they believed these loyal spies were protecting the country from a greater evil.

Today, MK-ULTRA has a permanent place in American culture, though it’s often synonymous with conspiracy theory or a punch line for jokes about tinfoil hats. But the program should be remembered for what it was: a vehicle for abominable experiments that often targeted the most vulnerable — drug users, prisoners and psychiatric patients, who were deprived of meaningful informed consent, if there was any consent at all.

Kinzer’s book is also a good reminder that there is rarely legal accountability for the C.I.A.’s misdeeds. In Gottlieb’s case, the only repercussions came during his retirement, when he was hounded by lawsuits and congressional investigations, and compelled to give testimony in which he provided precious few details.

The C.I.A., for its part, never condemned Gottlieb, even if it didn’t enthusiastically support him. “Ah, poor Sid Gottlieb,” Richard Helms, a former director, later lamented, suggesting that the problem was not MK-ULTRA but how Americans responded to news of it. “The nation just saw something they didn’t like and blasted it, and he took the blame for it,” Helms said.

Did Gottlieb, a devoted father and generous colleague, struggle with the human damage he left behind? Was he a villain, a mad scientist or just an unsung patriot doing what he believed necessary to protect the country? It’s hard to know, since Gottlieb, forever the loyal company man, avoided committing his thoughts to paper, let alone providing truthful testimony. But one thing seems certain: Even if his colleagues thought he was brilliant, he was a lousy scientist. His work with experimental drugs never seemed to involve anything as banal as protocols or controls.

Given that this is a biography, it’s worth noting there is one Gottlieb endeavor omitted from an otherwise comprehensive book, the poisoner in chief’s role in another equally questionable, though less harmful, endeavor: parapsychology. Near the end of his C.I.A. career, Gottlieb awarded a contract to the Stanford Research Institute to see whether “psychics” could be used to help spy on American enemies.

They couldn’t, but that didn’t stop American spies from pouring millions into psychic research for more than a decade, long after Gottlieb left the C.I.A. Perhaps the kindest thing that can be said about what may have been Gottlieb’s final contribution to secret science is that at least, in the end, no one died.