Without memory we are as useless lumps, waiting to be molded into obedient slaves. Yes, control the memory and you control the person.
I find it interesting that a starving graduate student, living in a modest apartment, could afford very expensive weaponry, a bulletproof vest, a modern gas mask, groin and neck protectors, complicated bombs and tear gas. This was a well-funded operation and there doesn’t seem to be any plausible explanation as to how this very expensive operation was funded and the goods ended up in the hands of such a person of meager means.