In a letter to Allen Ginsberg sent in 1955, William Burroughs claims that his novel Naked Lunch sketches ‘the sick soul, sick unto death, of the atomic age’ (Burroughs, 1994b, 255). In response to the discontent of the ‘atomic age’ Burroughs forges his own aesthetic arsenal that he will later claim supersedes the power of nuclear weapons. By using literature as a means to ‘change fact’ (Burroughs, 2010, 55), alter consciousness and ‘make things happen’ (Burroughs, 1994a, 32), Burroughs will, in 1970, come to realise techniques for attacking political opponents, creating ‘fake news’ and altering the course of the Cold War (Burroughs, 2005, 17). William Burroughs moves from forging aesthetic techniques aimed at carving out a niche for authentic subjectivity in the modern age to suggesting guerrilla methods for mass media control.