The Manchurian Candidate
A 1959 novel by Richard Condon, later adapted into films, about an American soldier brainwashed by foreign agents to become an unwitting assassin.
The title has become shorthand for anyone suspected of being secretly programmed or controlled by hostile powers: Critics called the senator a Manchurian candidate, suggesting foreign influence over his votes.
- brainwashingCoercive psychological manipulation
- assassinationMurder of a prominent figure
- sleeperOne at rest
- sleeper agentEmbedded spy awaiting activation
- deep coverProlonged covert infiltration
conspiracy · Cold War · hypnosis · trigger · queen of diamonds · playing card · Korean War · thriller · Frank Sinatra · Angela Lansbury · mind control · politics · puppet · mother · programmed · Soviet · communism · paranoia
- 60s CinemaDr. Strangelove, The Graduate, Easy Rider, Bonnie and Clyde, Lawrence of Arabia
- Political ThrillersNo Way Out, The Pelican Brief, Argo, JFK, Nixon
- 1962 filmsLawrence of Arabia, To Kill a Mockingbird, Dr. No, Lolita, Cape Fear
- political fictiondystopia, utopia, Nineteen Eighty-Four, 1984, dystopian fiction
- satirelampoon, parody, parody account, political satire, spoof
- Cold WarBerlin Wall, Iron Curtain, arms race, Warsaw Pact, Cuban Missile Crisis
The Manchurian CandidateDave
Informal masculine name
Yankee Doodle Dandy · Captain America · Air Force One · The West Wing · Independence Day
The Manchurian CandidateJason Bourne
James Bond · Jack Ryan · Ethan Hunt · John McClane · The Fugitive
The Manchurian CandidateSergeant York
Decorated Great War soldier
Patton · American Sniper · Saving Private Ryan · The Green Berets · Top Gun
Manchuria, Manchurian, candidate, candidates, candidacy, candidacies, candid, candidly, candidness