Soon after launching the program that would become infamous as MK-Ultra, Gottlieb came into contact with Harris Isbell, director of research at the Addiction Research Center in Lexington, Kentucky. [22] In 1977, a Freedom of Information Act request uncovered a cache of 20,000 documents relating to MKUltra, which led to Senate hearings. In the early seventies, Gottlieb had retired from the CIA. Stanley. [29] In some cases, academic researchers were funded through grants from CIA front organizations but were unaware that the CIA was using their work for these purposes. Materials which will render the induction of hypnosis easier or otherwise enhance its usefulness. Other experiments involved heroin, morphine, temazepam (used under code name MKSEARCH), mescaline, psilocybin, scopolamine, alcohol and sodium pentothal.[66]. "CIA Experiments With Mind Control on Children". Plan", "The CIA's Appalling Human Experiments With Mind Control", "Buying a Piece of Anthropology: Human Ecology and unwitting anthropological research for the CIA", "Senate MKUltra Hearing: Appendix C Documents Referring to Subprojects, (p. 167, in PDF document page numbering)", "Data shows 50s projects: Germ Testing by the CIA", "The Search for the Manchurian Candidate Chapter 4", "Sidney Gottlieb, 80, Dies; Took LSD to C.I.A. One series of experiments involved giving LSD to student volunteers. Articles with the HISTORY.com Editors byline have been written or edited by the HISTORY.com editors, including Amanda Onion, Missy Sullivan and Matt Mullen. The only possible explanation, US intelligence concluded, was that Communists had perfected brainwashing techniques. Already on our list? [13][23] Some surviving information about MKUltra was declassified in July 2001. Project MKULTRA. Here's How the CIA Used Me for Drug Experiments", "MKUltra: Inside the CIA's Cold War mind control experiments", "Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber", "Harvard's Experiment on the Unabomber, Class of '62", "Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA and the Secret History of the Sixties by Tom O'Neill with Dan Piepenbring", "7 Key Questions to Help You Understand Wormwood", Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control, "U.S. Congress: The Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Foreign and Military Intelligence (Church Committee report), report no. REMARKS: Executive Registry 84- ISM FYI: Since DDCI expressed interest in M.KULTRA statement several months CIA-RDP86M00886R000800010039-4 1 March 1984 STATEMENT ON MKULTRA Because of events in the 1.940's and early 1950's, subprojects were funded. [30], The project attempted to produce a perfect truth drug for interrogating suspected Soviet spies during the Cold War, and to explore other possibilities of mind control. In the 1950s and 1960sthe height of the Cold Warthe United States government feared that Soviet, Chinese and North Korean agents were using mind control to brainwash U.S. prisoners of war in Korea. [21] The CIA operated using front organizations, although some top officials at these institutions were aware of the CIA's involvement.[13]. It is no coincidence that with the decline of these movements in the late seventies, any kind of accountability was once again curtailed. Alex de Jong is editor of the socialist journal Grenzeloos and an activist in the Netherlands. Working with the CIA, the Department of Defense gave hallucinogenic drugs to thousands of "volunteer" soldiers in the 1950s and 1960s. [10][11] It was organized through the CIA's Office of Scientific Intelligence and coordinated with the United States Army Biological Warfare Laboratories. Among Olson's concerns were the development of assassination materials used by the CIA, the CIA's use of biological warfare materials in covert operations, experimentation with biological weapons in populated areas, collaboration with former Nazi scientists under Operation Paperclip, LSD mind-control research, and the use of psychoactive drugs during "terminal" interrogations under a program code-named Project ARTICHOKE. A forensics team found injuries on the body that had likely occurred before the fall. Three days after his speech decrying Soviet tactics, Dulles approved the beginning of MK-Ultra, a top-secret CIA program for "covert use of biological and chemical materials." "American values". It proved to their satisfaction that effective dosages can be produced over relatively large areas.. These parties influenced the early development of hippie culture and kick-started the 1960s psychedelic drug scene. [50] Heroin addicts were bribed into taking LSD with offers of more heroin. According to the hearing report, the project was intended to "develop a capability in the covert use of biological and chemical materials.". [12] The program engaged in illegal activities,[13][14][15] including the use of U.S. and Canadian citizens as unwitting test subjects. In the following years, one drug became central to Gottliebs work: LSD. U.S. psychologist Zarnoff Mednick teamed up with Danish professor Fini Schulsinger to study schizophrenia progression in Danish orphans. [61], Some subjects' participation was consensual, and in these cases they appeared to be singled out for even more extreme experiments. He believed the agency could harness the drugs mind-altering properties for brainwashing or psychological torture. Funding for MKSEARCH commenced in 1965, and ended in 1971. "[50] Military personnel who received the mind-altering drugs were also threatened with court-martials if they told anyone about the experiments. During the Cold War, the CIA secretly funded mind-control experiments on unwitting Canadians in a program codenamed MK-ULTRA. During the war in Korea, US establishment circles were shocked by instances of US soldiers going over to the North Korean side and denouncing US war crimes. In secret prisons across Europe and Asia, prisoners were subjected to attempts at brainwashing. Kinzer cites one study: In 1951 a team of CIA scientists led by Dr. Gottlieb flew to Tokyo four Japanese suspected of working for the Russians were secretly brought to a location where the CIA doctors injected them with a variety of depressants and stimulants under relentless questioning, they confessed to working for the Russians. In Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control, Stephen Kinzer tells the incredible story of a man who saw himself as a noble patriot and an explorer, while destroying people in the United States and abroad. These records our recent discovery of seven boxes of documents related to Project MKULTRA, a closely held CIA project conducted from 1953-1964. The agency launches one of its most dubious covert programs ever, turning unsuspecting humans into guinea . But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! The recently discovered files of Project MKULTRA do contain evidence that research involving human testing indicate such testing on unwitting subjects ceased in 1964. [27] The CIA wanted to use similar methods on their own captives, and was interested in manipulating foreign leaders with such techniques,[28] devising several schemes to drug Fidel Castro. [70], In the 1980s, several of Cameron's former patients sued the CIA for damages, which the Canadian news program The Fifth Estate documented. They told subjects they would extend their "trips" if they refused to reveal their secrets. Nine days before his death, Olson who talked about leaving his job and told his wife he had made [], A journal of theory and strategy published by Jacobin, The True Story of MK-Ultra and the CIA Mad Scientist, Taking Back Left Parties From the Brahmins. [68]:140150 His treatments resulted in victims' urinary incontinence, amnesia, forgetting how to talk, forgetting their parents and thinking their interrogators were their parents. 4 44. MK- Ultra is a CIA program started nearly 25 Department official, John Marx, has obtained a number of other documents on MK-Ultra. Gottliebs apparent untouchable status looks even stranger when considering his supposed successes. There was a widespread distrust of institutions like the CIA and popular pressure for accountability. Por la naturaleza de los abusos cometidos, los afectados slo empezaron a entender qu haba sucedido dcadas despus, y el oscuro legado del ultrasecreto programa conocido como MK-Ultra sigue. These parties influenced the early development of hippie culture and kick-started the 1960s psychedelic drug scene. Sometimes the test subjects knew they were participating in a studybut at other times, they had no idea, even when the hallucinogens started taking effect. If this principle is violated, the very least that society can do is to see that the victims are compensated, as best they can be, by the perpetrators. Gottlieb was not alone in thinking this. As you may recall, MKULTRA was an "umbrella MKULTRA prepared by the Inspector General's office in 1963. Substances which will lower the ambition and general working efficiency of men when administered in undetectable amounts. Review of Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control by Stephen Kinzer (Henry Holt & Co, 2019). Materials which will prevent or counteract the intoxicating effect of alcohol. To explain his influence in the CIA, Kinzer describes Gottliebs involvement in projects that brought him prestige. Under the auspices of Project MK-Ultra, the CIA began to fund studies at Columbia University, Stanford University and other colleges on the effects of the drug. Sometimes the test subjects knew they were participating in a studybut at other times, they had no idea, even when the hallucinogens started taking effect. 'Americas Book of Secrets' asks the highly intriguing question: What if there is a book that serves as a repository for Americas most closely guarded secrets? National Public Radio (NPR), 9 Sept. 2019. This was only the beginning. Toward the end of his life in 1975, White wrote a letter to Gottlieb thanking him for the opportunities the CIA had granted him: I was a very minor missionary, actually a heretic, but I toiled wholeheartedly in the vineyards because it was fun, fun, fun. During the Cold War, the CIA explored the unchartered world of 'brain warfare,' using LSD. Gottlieb was born in 1918 as the son of Hungarian-Jewish immigrants. 94-755, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. Cameron was also a member of the Nuremberg medical tribunal in 19461947. [59], The Office of Security used LSD in interrogations, but Sidney Gottlieb, the chemist who directed MKUltra, had other ideas: he thought it could be used in covert operations. According to Stephen Kinzer, the CIA project "was a continuation of the work begun in WWII-era Japanese facilities and Nazi concentration camps on subduing and controlling human minds." The Church Committeehelmed by Idaho Democratic Senator Frank Churchwas a larger investigation into the abuses of the CIA, FBI and other U.S. intelligence agencies during and after the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon. His "driving" experiments consisted of putting subjects into drug-induced comas for weeks at a time (up to three months in one case) while playing tape loops of noise or simple repetitive statements. The CIA exported experiments to Canada when they recruited British psychiatrist Donald Ewen Cameron, creator of the "psychic driving" concept, which the CIA found interesting. These research funds were sent to Cameron by a CIA front organization, the Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology, and as shown in internal CIA documents, Cameron did not know the money came from the CIA. Substances which will enhance the ability of individuals to withstand privation, torture, and coercion during interrogation and so-called "brain-washing". 1953: Central Intelligence Agency director Allen Dulles authorizes the MK-ULTRA project. Though Project MK-Ultra lasted from 1953 until about 1973, details of the illicit program didnt become public until 1975, during a congressional investigation into widespread illegal CIA activities within the United States and around the world. [34], One 1955 MKUltra document gives an indication of the size and range of the effort. The seal of the Central Intelligence Agency at its headquarters in Langley, Virginia. His report started the lengthy process of bringing long-suppressed details about MK-Ultra to light. Gottliebs own interest was different, however. [68]:141142, In addition to LSD, Cameron also experimented with various paralytic drugs as well as electroconvulsive therapy at thirty to forty times the normal power. HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. Adverse reactions often occurred, such as an operative who received the drug in his morning coffee, became psychotic and ran across Washington, seeing a monster in every car passing him. As a result of that report's of the "CDROM MKULTRA collection." HISTORY.com works with a wide range of writers and editors to create accurate and informative content. Substances which alter personality structure in such a way the tendency of the recipient to become dependent upon another person is enhanced. [72], Naomi Klein argues in her book The Shock Doctrine that Cameron's research and his contribution to the MKUltra project was not about mind control and brainwashing, but about designing "a scientifically based system for extracting information from 'resistant sources'. [87] The medical examiner termed Olson's death a "homicide". [31], Most MKUltra records were destroyed in 1973 by order of CIA director Richard Helms, so it has been difficult for investigators to gain a complete understanding of the more than 150 funded research subprojects sponsored by MKUltra and related CIA programs. When he was outed as the man behind MK-Ultra a few years later and summoned before a Senate Commission, he brokered a deal that saved him from juridical prosecution. Ken Kesey, author of the 1962 novel One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, volunteered for MK-Ultra experiments with LSD while he was a college student at Stanford University. Recording devices were installed in the prostitutes rooms, disguised as electrical outlets. Most of these took place between 1953 and 1964, but its not clear how many people were involved in the teststhe agency kept notoriously poor records and destroyed most MK-Ultra documents when the program was officially halted in 1973. [41], MKCHICKWIT was concerned with acquiring information on new drug developments in Europe and Asia, and with acquiring samples. Originally synthesized in 1938, its hallucinogenic properties first became apparent to scientists in the forties. ", "The Legacy of the CIA's Secret LSD Experiments on America", "Cloak and Dropper The Twisted History of the CIA and LSD", " " "", "Cruel science: CIA torture and U.S. foreign policy", "CIA Funded Experiments On Danish Orphans For Decades", "Huge C.i.a. The CIA dosed the men with LSD and thenwhile at times drinking cocktails behind a two-way mirrorwatched the drugs effects on the mens behavior. A few days later, on November 28, 1953, Olson tumbled to his death from the window of a New York City hotel room in an alleged suicide. They maintain that Frank Olson was murdered because, especially in the aftermath of his LSD experience, he had become a security risk who might divulge state secrets associated with highly classified CIA programs, about many of which he had direct personal knowledge. [52], In Operation Midnight Climax, the CIA set up several brothels within agency safehouses in San Francisco to obtain a selection of men who would be too embarrassed to talk about the events. ", Stunning tale of brainwashing, the CIA and an unsuspecting Scots researcher, "Is Military Research Hazardous to Veterans Health? 25-Year, $25 Million Program. Citing Exemption 3 of the FOIA-which provides that an agency need not disclose CIA-RDP87B00858R000400610009-6 CIA u SIMS M Syllabus MKULTRA, could. Please use this number when corresponding so that We can identify it easily. [45], Early CIA efforts focused on LSD-25, which later came to dominate many of MKUltra's programs. To this end, the insti- tutions where Project MKULTRA testing took place have been notified FROM Michael J. Malanick Acting Deputy Director for Administration SUBJECT Report on MKULTRA Inquiries 1. Operation Midnight Climax was an MK-Ultra project in which government-employed prostitutes lured unsuspecting men to CIA safe houses where drug experiments took place. As you may recall, MKULTRA was an "umbrella MKULTRA prepared by the Inspector General's office in 1963. For Release 2002/01/08: CIA-RDP86-00114R000100080003-9 Chief, MKULTRA Task Force MKULTRA, the so-called CIA of the United States Senate. 2023, A&E Television Networks, LLC. The story of programs like MK-Ultra is a chilling look at how the US government turned its own citizens into guinea pigs and destroyed lives in the process. In accordance with the procedures recently worked out for handling correspondence regarding MKULTRA Addressee w/atts ~,1~- DDA Subject w/o atts 1- AI Subject (MKULTRA) w/atts 1- HGB Chrona w/o atts A~tts: YRS in which you are requesting that we resend to you the 86-page MKULTRA list that we sent to you on 9 September 2011 in connection with your 17 August 2011 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for MKULTRA-related documents. Gottlieb proved resourceful in finding new victims. Though Project MK-Ultra lasted from 1953 until about 1973, details of the illicit program didnt become public until 1975, during a congressional investigation into widespread illegal CIA activities within the United States and around the world. This report is forwarded herewith. Regarding the MKULTRA 86-page listing, January 2013, in which you are requesting that we resend to you the 86-page MKULTRA list that we sent for MKULTRA-related documents. Project MKUltra (or MK-Ultra)[a] was an illegal human experimentation program designed and undertaken by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), intended to develop procedures and identify drugs that could be used in interrogations to weaken individuals and force confessions through brainwashing and psychological torture. MK-Ultra was a top-secret CIA project in which the agency conducted hundreds of clandestine experimentssometimes on unwitting U.S. citizensto assess the potential use of LSD and other drugs for mind control, information gathering and psychological torture. #douglas73 #douglas73conhecimentooculto #douglas73exposingthetruth #exposed21 - NASA EXPOSED 2 A PROVA DEFINITIVA PARTE 2 #terraplana #domo #firmamento (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1976), 394", "U.S. Senate: Joint Hearing before The Select Committee on Intelligence and The Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research of the Committee on Human Resources, 95th Cong., 1st Sess. Gottlieb quietly lived out the rest of his years, raising goats in his rural house in Virginia. A material which will cause mental confusion of such a type the individual under its influence will find it difficult to maintain a fabrication under questioning. He died in 1999. Olsons work had brought him into contact with the man who would secretly drug him: Sidney Gottlieb, head of one of the most infamous projects in CIA history, MK-Ultra. On November 28, 1953, Frank Olson, a scientist researching biological warfare for the US army, fell to his death from the tenth floor of the Manhattan Statler hotel. Some experiments were non-coercive, even attractive. Come NASA ed ESA hanno involontariamente alimentato una leggenda metropolitana . He made them public were testing a drug called Bobolocapnine [? The family of Frank Olson decided to have a second autopsy performed in 1994. Research was conducted at respected hospitals and universities such as MIT, Stanford, and John Hopkins. That made them perfect test subjects. At Gottliebs direction, writes Kinzer, Federal Bureau of Narcotics agent George Hunter White assembled a group of prostitutes whose job it would be to bring their clients to the pad and dose them with LSD while he watched and recorded their reactions. White profited from the covered nature of the operation to satisfy his own urges. US officials fixated on the notion that the Soviets were ahead of the United States in developing new forms of warfare. HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. With the war on terror, the CIA and other intelligence agencies won unprecedented freedom to operate.