Project MKUltra (or MK-Ultra) was an illegal
human experimentation program designed and undertaken by the U.S.
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
(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
Psychological torture or mental torture is a type of torture that relies primarily on psychological effects, and only secondarily on any physical harm inflicted. Although not all psychological torture involves the use of physical violence, there ...
.
It began in 1953 and was halted in 1973. MKUltra used numerous methods to manipulate its subjects' mental states and brain functions, such as the covert administration of high doses of
psychoactive drug
A psychoactive drug, psychopharmaceutical, psychoactive agent or psychotropic drug is a chemical substance, that changes functions of the nervous system, and results in alterations in perception, mood, consciousness, cognition or behavior. ...
s (especially
LSD
Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), also known colloquially as acid, is a potent psychedelic drug. Effects typically include intensified thoughts, emotions, and sensory perception. At sufficiently high dosages LSD manifests primarily mental, vi ...
) and other chemicals,
electroshocks,
[National Public Radio (NPR), 9 Sept. 2019]
"The CIA's Secret Quest For Mind Control: Torture, LSD And A 'Poisoner In Chief'"
(On-air interview with journalist Stephen Kinzer
Stephen Kinzer (born August 4, 1951) is an American author, journalist, and academic. A former ''New York Times'' correspondent, he has published several books, and writes for several newspapers and news agencies.
Reporting career
During the 198 ...
) hypnosis
Hypnosis is a human condition involving focused attention (the selective attention/selective inattention hypothesis, SASI), reduced peripheral awareness, and an enhanced capacity to respond to suggestion.In 2015, the American Psychologica ...
,
sensory deprivation
Sensory deprivation or perceptual isolation is the deliberate reduction or removal of stimuli from one or more of the senses. Simple devices such as blindfolds or hoods and earmuffs can cut off sight and hearing, while more complex devices can al ...
, isolation, and
verbal and
sexual abuse
Sexual abuse or sex abuse, also referred to as molestation, is abusive sexual behavior by one person upon another. It is often perpetrated using force or by taking advantage of another. Molestation often refers to an instance of sexual assa ...
, in addition to other forms of
torture
Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts c ...
.
MKUltra was preceded by two drug-related experiments,
Project Bluebird and
Project Artichoke
Project ARTICHOKE (also referred to as Operation ARTICHOKE) was a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) project that researched interrogation methods.
Preceded by Project BLUEBIRD, ARTICHOKE officially arose on August 20, 1951 and was operated by the ...
. It was organized through the CIA's
Office of Scientific Intelligence
Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI) also known as Scientific Intelligence Division was a department of the Central Intelligence Agency. In 1963, it was incorporated into the Directorate of Science & Technology.http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAE ...
and coordinated with the
United States Army Biological Warfare Laboratories
The U.S. Army Biological Warfare Laboratories (USBWL) were a suite of research laboratories and pilot plant centers operating at Camp (later Fort) Detrick, Maryland, United States beginning in 1943 under the control of the U.S. Army Chemical Co ...
. The program engaged in illegal activities,
including the use of U.S. and Canadian citizens as unwitting test subjects.
Over 7,000 American veterans took part in these experiments non-consensually during the 1950s through 1970s, many of them suing later on. MKUltra's scope was broad, with activities carried out under the guise of research at more than 80 institutions aside from the military, including colleges and universities, hospitals, prisons, and pharmaceutical companies.
The CIA operated using
front organizations, although some top officials at these institutions were aware of the CIA's involvement.
MKUltra was first brought to public attention in 1975 by the
Church Committee of the
United States Congress
The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...
and
Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. ( ; born Leslie Lynch King Jr.; July 14, 1913December 26, 2006) was an American politician who served as the 38th president of the United States from 1974 to 1977. He was the only president never to have been elected ...
's
United States President's Commission on CIA activities within the United States (also known as the Rockefeller Commission). Investigative efforts were hampered by CIA Director
Richard Helms
Richard McGarrah Helms (March 30, 1913 – October 23, 2002) was an American government official and diplomat who served as Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) from 1966 to 1973. Helms began intelligence work with the Office of Strategic Ser ...
's order that all MKUltra files be destroyed in 1973; the Church Committee and Rockefeller Commission investigations relied on the sworn testimony of direct participants and on the small number of documents that survived Helms's order.
In 1977, a
Freedom of Information Act Freedom of Information Act may refer to the following legislations in different jurisdictions which mandate the national government to disclose certain data to the general public upon request:
* Freedom of Information Act 1982, the Australian act
* ...
request uncovered a cache of 20,000 documents relating to MKUltra, which led to Senate hearings.
Some surviving information about MKUltra was declassified in July 2001.
Background
Origin of project
According to
Stephen Kinzer
Stephen Kinzer (born August 4, 1951) is an American author, journalist, and academic. A former ''New York Times'' correspondent, he has published several books, and writes for several newspapers and news agencies.
Reporting career
During the 198 ...
, the CIA project "was a continuation of the work begun in WWII-era
Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
facilities and
Nazi concentration camps
From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps, (officially) or (more commonly). The Nazi concentration camps are distinguished from other types of Nazi camps such as forced-labor camps, as well as concen ...
on subduing and controlling human minds". Kinzer writes that MKUltra's use of
mescaline
Mescaline or mescalin (3,4,5-trimethoxyphenethylamine) is a naturally occurring psychedelic protoalkaloid of the substituted phenethylamine class, known for its hallucinogenic effects comparable to those of LSD and psilocybin.
Biological sou ...
on unwitting subjects was a practice that Nazi doctors had begun in the camps at
Auschwitz and
Dachau. Kinzer gives evidence of the continuation of a Nazi agenda, citing the CIA's secret recruitment of Nazi torturers and
vivisection
Vivisection () is surgery conducted for experimental purposes on a living organism, typically animals with a central nervous system, to view living internal structure. The word is, more broadly, used as a pejorative catch-all term for Animal testi ...
ists to continue experimenting on thousands of subjects, and Nazis were brought to
Fort Detrick
Fort Detrick () is a United States Army Futures Command installation located in Frederick, Maryland. Historically, Fort Detrick was the center of the U.S. biological weapons program from 1943 to 1969. Since the discontinuation of that program, it ...
,
Maryland
Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...
, to instruct CIA officers on the lethal uses of
sarin gas.
The Soviet Union also contributed greatly to the motivation for this project; according to CIA director
Allen Dulles
Allen Welsh Dulles (, ; April 7, 1893 – January 29, 1969) was the first civilian Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), and its longest-serving director to date. As head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the early Cold War, he ov ...
, fear of "Soviet brain perversion techniques" was palpable. The CIA wanted to verse itself in this type of "mind control" to be able to recognize and use it in case of a conflict with the USSR. Fear of the enemy ran rampant among Americans, especially upon the sharp increase in PTSD in Korean POWs. The damage incurred on these survivors was so severe that mind control was thought to be the culprit.
Origin of cryptonym
The project's
CIA cryptonym
CIA cryptonyms are code names or code words used by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to refer to projects, operations, persons, agencies, etc.
Format of cryptonyms
CIA cryptonyms sometimes contain a two character prefix called a digrap ...
is a combination of the
digraph ''MK'', indicating the sponsorship of the
Technical Services Staff
__NOTOC__
The Office of Technical Service (OTS; formerly known as the ''Technical Services Division'' and ''Technical Services Staff'') is a component of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency,Central Intelligence Agency press releaseCIA's Office of ...
(TSS), and the word
Ultra
adopted by British military intelligence in June 1941 for wartime signals intelligence obtained by breaking high-level encrypted enemy radio and teleprinter communications at the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park. '' ...
which formerly designated the most secret classification of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
intelligence. Other related cryptonyms include
Project MKNAOMI and Project MKDELTA. MKDELTA was established to oversee the use of MKUltra materials abroad. According to the Church Committee, "such materials were used on a number of occasions".
Aims and leadership
The project was headed by
Sidney Gottlieb
Sidney Gottlieb (August 3, 1918 – March 7, 1999) was an American chemist and spymaster who headed the Central Intelligence Agency's 1950s and 1960s assassination attempts and mind-control program, known as Project MKUltra.
Early years and ...
but began on the order of CIA director
Allen Dulles
Allen Welsh Dulles (, ; April 7, 1893 – January 29, 1969) was the first civilian Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), and its longest-serving director to date. As head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the early Cold War, he ov ...
on April 13, 1953. Its aim was to develop mind-controlling drugs for use against the
Soviet bloc in response to alleged
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...
,
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
, and
North Korea
North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu River, Y ...
n use of mind control techniques on U.S. prisoners of war during the
Korean War
, date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...
. The CIA wanted to use similar methods on their own captives, and was interested in manipulating foreign leaders with such techniques,
[Church Committee]
p. 391
"A special procedure, designated MKDELTA, was established to govern the use of MKUltra materials abroad. Such materials were used on a number of occasions." devising several schemes to drug
Fidel Castro
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (; ; 13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban revolutionary and politician who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and president from 1976 to 200 ...
. It often conducted experiments without the subjects' knowledge or consent. 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.
The project attempted to produce a perfect
truth drug
Truth is the property of being in accord with fact or reality.Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionarytruth 2005 In everyday language, truth is typically ascribed to things that aim to represent reality or otherwise correspond to it, such as beliefs, ...
for interrogating suspected Soviet spies during the
Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
, and to explore other possibilities of mind control. Subproject 54 was the Navy's top-secret "Perfect Concussion" program, which was supposed to use sub-aural frequency blasts to erase memory; the program was never carried out.
Most MKUltra records were destroyed in 1973 by order of CIA director
Richard Helms
Richard McGarrah Helms (March 30, 1913 – October 23, 2002) was an American government official and diplomat who served as Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) from 1966 to 1973. Helms began intelligence work with the Office of Strategic Ser ...
, 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.
[ (identical sentence) "Because most of the MK-ULTRA records were deliberately destroyed in 1973 ... MK-ULTRA and the related CIA programs."]
The project began during a period of what English journalist
Rupert Cornwell
Rupert Howard Cornwell (22 February 1946 – 31 March 2017) was a British journalist connected with ''The Independent'' newspaper for thirty years.
Early life and education
Born to Ronnie Cornwell and Jeanie Gronow (née Neal) in 1946 Marylebon ...
described as "paranoia" at the CIA, when the U.S. had lost its nuclear monopoly and
fear of communism was at its height.
CIA counter-intelligence chief
James Jesus Angleton
James Jesus Angleton (December 9, 1917 – May 11, 1987) was chief of counterintelligence for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 1954 to 1974. His official position within the organization was Associate Deputy Director of Operations for ...
believed that a
mole
Mole (or Molé) may refer to:
Animals
* Mole (animal) or "true mole", mammals in the family Talpidae, found in Eurasia and North America
* Golden moles, southern African mammals in the family Chrysochloridae, similar to but unrelated to Talpida ...
had penetrated the organization at the highest levels.
[ The agency poured millions of dollars into studies examining ways to influence and control the mind and to enhance its ability to extract information from resistant subjects during interrogation.] Some historians assert that one goal of MKUltra and related CIA projects was to create a ''Manchurian Candidate''-style subject. American historian Alfred W. McCoy
Alfred "Al" William McCoy (born June 8, 1945) is an American historian and educator. He is the Fred Harvey Harrington Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.[
]
Scale of project
One 1955 MKUltra document gives an indication of the size and range of the effort. It refers to the study of an assortment of mind-altering substances described as follows:
# Substances which will promote illogical thinking and impulsiveness to the point where the recipient would be discredited in public.
# Substances which increase the efficiency of mentation and perception.
# Materials which will prevent or counteract the intoxicating effect of alcohol.
# Materials which will promote the intoxicating effect of alcohol.
# Materials which will produce the signs and symptoms of recognized diseases in a reversible way so they may be used for malingering, etc.
# Materials which will render the induction of hypnosis easier or otherwise enhance its usefulness.
# Substances which will enhance the ability of individuals to withstand privation, torture, and coercion during interrogation and so-called "brain-washing".
# Materials and physical methods which will produce amnesia for events preceding and during their use.
# Physical methods of producing shock and confusion over extended periods of time and capable of surreptitious use.
# Substances which produce physical disablement such as paralysis of the legs, acute anemia, etc.
# Substances which will produce "pure" euphoria with no subsequent let-down.
# Substances which alter personality structure in such a way the tendency of the recipient to become dependent upon another person is enhanced.
# 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.
# Substances which will lower the ambition and general working efficiency of men when administered in undetectable amounts.
# Substances which promote weakness or distortion of the eyesight or hearing faculties, preferably without permanent effects.
# A knockout pill which can be surreptitiously administered in drinks, food, cigarettes, as an aerosol, etc., which will be safe to use, provide a maximum of amnesia, and be suitable for use by agent types on an ad hoc basis.
# A material which can be surreptitiously administered by the above routes and which in very small amounts will make it impossible for a person to perform physical activity.
Applications
The 1976 Church Committee report found that, in the MKDELTA program, "Drugs were used primarily as an aid to interrogations, but MKULTRA/MKDELTA materials were also used for harassment, discrediting or disabling purposes."
Other related projects
In 1964, MKSEARCH was the name given to the continuation of the MKULTRA program. The MKSEARCH program was divided into two projects dubbed MKOFTEN
Project MKOFTEN was a covert U.S. Department of Defense program developed in conjunction with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) sometime in the late 1960s. A partner or descendant program of MKSEARCH, the goal of MKOFTEN was to "test the beha ...
and MKCHICKWIT
Project MKCHICKWIT, or CHICKWIT was a covert program of the US Department of Defense operated in conjunction with the CIA. A partner program to MKSEARCH, the goal of MKCHICKWIT was to "identify new drug developments in Europe and Asia and to obtain ...
. Funding for MKSEARCH commenced in 1965, and ended in 1971. The project was a joint project between the U.S. Army Chemical Corps and the CIA's Office of Research and Development
An office is a space where an organization's employees perform administrative work in order to support and realize objects and goals of the organization. The word "office" may also denote a position within an organization with specific dut ...
to find new offensive-use agents, with a focus on incapacitating agent
The term incapacitating agent is defined by the United States Department of Defense as:
:"An agent that produces temporary physiological or mental effects, or both, which will render individuals incapable of concerted effort in the performance o ...
s. Its purpose was to develop, test, and evaluate capabilities in the covert use of biological, chemical, and radioactive material systems and techniques of producing predictable human behavioral and/or physiological changes in support of highly sensitive operational requirements.
By March 1971 over 26,000 potential agents had been acquired for future screening. The CIA was interested in bird migration
Bird migration is the regular seasonal movement, often north and south along a flyway, between breeding and wintering grounds. Many species of bird migrate. Migration carries high costs in predation and mortality, including from hunting by ...
patterns for chemical
A chemical substance is a form of matter having constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Some references add that chemical substance cannot be separated into its constituent elements by physical separation methods, i.e., wi ...
and biological warfare
Biological warfare, also known as germ warfare, is the use of biological toxins or infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses, insects, and fungi with the intent to kill, harm or incapacitate humans, animals or plants as an act of war. ...
(CBW) research; subproject 139 designated "Bird Disease Studies" at Penn State #Redirect Pennsylvania State University
The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campu ...
.
MKOFTEN was to deal with testing and toxicological transmissivity and behavioral effects of drugs in animals and, ultimately, humans.[1977 Senate MKULTRA Hearing: Appendix C – Documents Referring to subprojects]
MKCHICKWIT was concerned with acquiring information on new drug developments in Europe and Asia, and with acquiring samples.[
]
Experiments on Americans
CIA documents suggest that they investigated "chemical, biological, and radiological" methods of mind control as part of MKUltra. They spent an estimated $10 million or more, roughly $87.5 million adjusted for inflation.
LSD
Early CIA efforts focused on LSD-25
Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), also known colloquially as acid, is a potent psychedelic drug. Effects typically include intensified thoughts, emotions, and sensory perception. At sufficiently high dosages LSD manifests primarily mental, v ...
, which later came to dominate many of MKUltra's programs.[
] The CIA wanted to know if they could make Soviet spies defect against their will and whether the Soviets could do the same to the CIA's own operatives.
Documents obtained from the CIA by John D. Marks under Freedom of Information
Freedom of information is freedom of a person or people to publish and consume information. Access to information is the ability for an individual to seek, receive and impart information effectively. This sometimes includes "scientific, indigeno ...
in 1976 showed that, in 1953, the CIA considered purchasing 10 kilograms of LSD, enough for 100 million doses. The proposed purchase aimed to stop other countries from controlling the supply. The documents showed that the CIA purchased some quantities of LSD from Sandoz Laboratories
Novartis AG is a Swiss-American multinational pharmaceutical corporation based in Basel, Switzerland and
Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States (global research).name="novartis.com">https://www.novartis.com/research-development/research-loca ...
in Switzerland.
Once Project MKUltra got underway in April 1953, experiments included administering LSD to mental patients, prisoners, drug addicts, and prostitutes – "people who could not fight back," as one agency officer put it. In one case, they administered LSD to a mental patient in Kentucky for 174 days.[ They also administered LSD to CIA employees, military personnel, doctors, other government agents, and members of the general public to study their reactions. The aim was to find drugs that would bring out deep confessions or wipe a subject's mind clean and program them as "a robot agent."][Rappoport, J. (1995). "CIA Experiments With Mind Control on Children". ''Perceptions Magazine'', p. 56.] Military personnel who received the mind-altering drugs were also threatened with court-martials if they told anyone about the experiments. LSD and other drugs were often administered without the subject's knowledge or informed consent
Informed consent is a principle in medical ethics and medical law, that a patient must have sufficient information and understanding before making decisions about their medical care. Pertinent information may include risks and benefits of treatme ...
, a violation of the Nuremberg Code
The Nuremberg Code (german: Nürnberger Kodex) is a set of ethical research principles for human experimentation created by the court in '' U.S. v Brandt'', one of the Subsequent Nuremberg trials that were held after the Second World War.
Tho ...
the U.S. had agreed to follow after World War II. Many veterans who were subjected to experimentation are now seeking legal and monetary reparations.
In Operation Midnight Climax
Operation Midnight Climax was an operation carried out by the CIA as a sub-project of Project MKUltra, the mind-control research program that began in the 1950s. It was initially established in 1954 by Sidney Gottlieb and placed under the direction ...
, the CIA set up several brothel
A brothel, bordello, ranch, or whorehouse is a place where people engage in sexual activity with prostitutes. However, for legal or cultural reasons, establishments often describe themselves as massage parlors, bars, strip clubs, body rub par ...
s within agency safehouses in San Francisco to obtain a selection of men who would be too embarrassed to talk about the events. The men were dosed with LSD, the brothels were equipped with one-way mirror
A one-way mirror, also called two-way mirror (or one-way glass, half-silvered mirror, and semi-transparent mirror), is a reciprocal mirror that appears reflective on one side and transparent at the other. The perception of one-way transmission i ...
s, and the sessions were filmed for later viewing and study. In other experiments where people were given LSD without their knowledge, they were interrogated under bright lights with doctors in the background taking notes. They told subjects they would extend their "trips" if they refused to reveal their secrets. The people under this interrogation were CIA employees, U.S. military personnel, and agents suspected of working for the other side in the Cold War. Long-term debilitation and several deaths resulted from this. Heroin
Heroin, also known as diacetylmorphine and diamorphine among other names, is a potent opioid mainly used as a recreational drug for its euphoric effects. Medical grade diamorphine is used as a pure hydrochloride salt. Various white and brow ...
addicts were bribed into taking LSD with offers of more heroin.
At the invitation of Stanford psychology graduate student Vik Lovell, an acquaintance of Richard Alpert
Ram Dass (born Richard Alpert; April 6, 1931 – December 22, 2019), also known as Baba Ram Dass, was an American spiritual teacher, guru of modern yoga, psychologist, and author. His best-selling 1971 book '' Be Here Now'', which has been d ...
and Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...
, Ken Kesey
Ken Elton Kesey (September 17, 1935 – November 10, 2001) was an American novelist, essayist and countercultural figure. He considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s.
Kesey was born in ...
volunteered to take part in what turned out to be a CIA
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
-financed study under the aegis of MKUltra, at the Menlo Park Veterans' Hospital where he worked as a night aide. The project studied the effects of psychoactive drugs
A psychoactive drug, psychopharmaceutical, psychoactive agent or psychotropic drug is a chemical substance, that changes functions of the nervous system, and results in alterations in perception, mood, consciousness, cognition or behavior.
T ...
, particularly LSD
Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), also known colloquially as acid, is a potent psychedelic drug. Effects typically include intensified thoughts, emotions, and sensory perception. At sufficiently high dosages LSD manifests primarily mental, vi ...
, psilocybin
Psilocybin ( , ) is a naturally occurring psychedelic prodrug compound produced by more than 200 species of fungi. The most potent are members of the genus ''Psilocybe'', such as '' P. azurescens'', '' P. semilanceata'', and '' P.&nbs ...
, mescaline
Mescaline or mescalin (3,4,5-trimethoxyphenethylamine) is a naturally occurring psychedelic protoalkaloid of the substituted phenethylamine class, known for its hallucinogenic effects comparable to those of LSD and psilocybin.
Biological sou ...
, cocaine
Cocaine (from , from , ultimately from Quechuan languages, Quechua: ''kúka'') is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant mainly recreational drug use, used recreationally for its euphoria, euphoric effects. It is primarily obtained from t ...
, AMT
Amt is a type of administrative division governing a group of municipalities, today only in Germany, but formerly also common in other countries of Northern Europe. Its size and functions differ by country and the term is roughly equivalent to ...
and DMT on people.
The Office of Security used LSD in interrogations, but Sidney Gottlieb
Sidney Gottlieb (August 3, 1918 – March 7, 1999) was an American chemist and spymaster who headed the Central Intelligence Agency's 1950s and 1960s assassination attempts and mind-control program, known as Project MKUltra.
Early years and ...
, the chemist who directed MKUltra, had other ideas: he thought it could be used in covert operations. Since its effects were temporary, he believed it could be given to high-ranking officials and in this way affect the course of important meetings, speeches, etc. Since he realized there was a difference in testing the drug in a laboratory and using it in clandestine operations, he initiated a series of experiments where LSD was given to people in "normal" settings without warning. At first, everyone in Technical Services tried it; a typical experiment involved two people in a room where they observed each other for hours and took notes. As the experimentation progressed, a point arrived where outsiders were drugged with no explanation whatsoever and surprise acid trips became something of an occupational hazard among CIA operatives. 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. The experiments continued even after Frank Olson
Frank Rudolph Emmanuel Olson (July 17, 1910 – November 28, 1953) was an American bacteriologist, biological warfare scientist, and an employee of the United States Army Biological Warfare Laboratories (USBWL) who worked at Camp Detrick (now ...
, an army chemist who had never taken LSD, was covertly dosed by his CIA supervisor and nine days later plunged to his death from the window of a 13th-story New York City hotel room, supposedly as a result of deep depression induced by the drug.[Lee, M. A., Shlain, B. (1985). ''Acid Dreams, the Complete Social History of LSD: the CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond''. Grove Press.] According to Stephen Kinzer
Stephen Kinzer (born August 4, 1951) is an American author, journalist, and academic. A former ''New York Times'' correspondent, he has published several books, and writes for several newspapers and news agencies.
Reporting career
During the 198 ...
, Olson had approached his superiors some time earlier, doubting the morality of the project, and asked to resign from the CIA.
Some subjects' participation was consensual, and in these cases they appeared to be singled out for even more extreme experiments. In one case, seven volunteers in Kentucky
Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...
were given LSD for seventy-seven consecutive days.
MKUltra's researchers later dismissed LSD as too unpredictable in its results. They gave up on the notion that LSD was "the secret that was going to unlock the universe," but it still had a place in the cloak-and-dagger arsenal. However, by 1962 the CIA and the army developed a series of super-hallucinogens such as the highly touted BZ, which was thought to hold greater promise as a mind control weapon. This resulted in the withdrawal of support by many academics and private researchers, and LSD research became less of a priority altogether.
Other drugs
Another technique investigated was the intravenous
Intravenous therapy (abbreviated as IV therapy) is a medical technique that administers fluids, medications and nutrients directly into a person's vein. The intravenous route of administration is commonly used for rehydration or to provide nutrie ...
administration of a barbiturate into one arm and an amphetamine
Amphetamine (contracted from alpha- methylphenethylamine) is a strong central nervous system (CNS) stimulant that is used in the treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), narcolepsy, and obesity. It is also commonly used ...
into the other. The barbiturates were released into the person first, and as soon as the person began to fall asleep, the amphetamines were released.
Other experiments involved heroin
Heroin, also known as diacetylmorphine and diamorphine among other names, is a potent opioid mainly used as a recreational drug for its euphoric effects. Medical grade diamorphine is used as a pure hydrochloride salt. Various white and brow ...
, morphine
Morphine is a strong opiate that is found naturally in opium, a dark brown resin in poppies (''Papaver somniferum''). It is mainly used as a analgesic, pain medication, and is also commonly used recreational drug, recreationally, or to make ...
, temazepam
Temazepam (sold under the brand names Restoril among others) is a medication of the benzodiazepine class which is generally used to treat severe or debilitating insomnia. It is taken by mouth. Temazepam is rapidly absorbed, and significant hyp ...
(used under code name MKSEARCH), mescaline
Mescaline or mescalin (3,4,5-trimethoxyphenethylamine) is a naturally occurring psychedelic protoalkaloid of the substituted phenethylamine class, known for its hallucinogenic effects comparable to those of LSD and psilocybin.
Biological sou ...
, psilocybin
Psilocybin ( , ) is a naturally occurring psychedelic prodrug compound produced by more than 200 species of fungi. The most potent are members of the genus ''Psilocybe'', such as '' P. azurescens'', '' P. semilanceata'', and '' P.&nbs ...
, scopolamine, alcohol and sodium pentothal
Sodium thiopental, also known as Sodium Pentothal (a trademark of Abbott Laboratories), thiopental, thiopentone, or Trapanal (also a trademark), is a rapid-onset short-acting barbiturate general anesthetic. It is the thiobarbiturate analog of ...
.
Hypnosis
Declassified MKUltra documents indicate they studied hypnosis
Hypnosis is a human condition involving focused attention (the selective attention/selective inattention hypothesis, SASI), reduced peripheral awareness, and an enhanced capacity to respond to suggestion.In 2015, the American Psychologica ...
in the early 1950s. Experimental goals included creating "hypnotically induced anxieties", "hypnotically increasing ability to learn and recall complex written matter", studying hypnosis and polygraph
A polygraph, often incorrectly referred to as a lie detector test, is a device or procedure that measures and records several physiological indicators such as blood pressure, pulse, respiration, and skin conductivity while a person is asked ...
examinations, "hypnotically increasing ability to observe and recall complex arrangements of physical objects", and studying "relationship of personality to susceptibility to hypnosis". They conducted experiments with drug-induced hypnosis and with anterograde and retrograde amnesia
In neurology, retrograde amnesia (RA) is a loss of memory-access to events that occurred or information that was learned in the past. It is caused by an injury or the onset of a disease. It tends to negatively affect episodic, autobiographical, ...
while under the influence of such drugs.
Experiments on Canadians
The CIA exported experiments to Canada when they recruited British psychiatrist Donald Ewen Cameron
Donald Ewen Cameron ( – ) was a Scottish-born psychiatrist. He is largely known today for his central role in unethical medical experiments, and development of psychological and medical torture techniques for the . He served as president o ...
, creator of the "psychic driving Psychic driving was a psychiatric procedure of the 1950s and 1960s in which patients were subjected to a continuously repeated audio message on a looped tape to alter their behaviour. In psychic driving, patients were often exposed to hundreds of th ...
" concept, which the CIA found interesting. Cameron had been hoping to correct schizophrenia by erasing existing memories and reprogramming the psyche. He commuted from Albany, New York
Albany ( ) is the capital of the U.S. state of New York, also the seat and largest city of Albany County. Albany is on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River, and about north of New York City ...
to Montreal
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...
every week to work at the Allan Memorial Institute
The Allan Memorial Institute (AMI; french: Institut Allan Memorial), also known colloquially as "The Allan", is a former psychiatric hospital and research institute located at 1025 Pine Avenue West in Montreal, Quebec.
It is situated on the sl ...
of McGill University
McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter granted by King George IV,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill Universit ...
, and was paid $69,000 from 1957 to 1964 (US$579,480 in 2021, adjusted for inflation) to carry out MKUltra experiments there, the Montreal experiments The Montreal experiments were a series of experiments, initially aimed to treat schizophrenia by changing memories and erasing the patients' thoughts using Donald Ewen Cameron's method of “psychic driving”, as well as drug-induced sleep, intens ...
. 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.
In addition to LSD, Cameron also experimented with various paralytic drugs as well as electroconvulsive therapy
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a psychiatric treatment where a generalized seizure (without muscular convulsions) is electrically induced to manage refractory mental disorders.Rudorfer, MV, Henry, ME, Sackeim, HA (2003)"Electroconvulsive th ...
at thirty to forty times the normal power. 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 loop
In music, tape loops are loops of magnetic tape used to create repetitive, rhythmic musical patterns or dense layers of sound when played on a tape recorder. Originating in the 1940s with the work of Pierre Schaeffer, they were used among cont ...
s of noise or simple repetitive statements. His experiments were often carried out on patients who entered the institute for common problems such as anxiety disorders and postpartum depression
Postpartum depression (PPD), also called postnatal depression, is a type of mood disorder associated with childbirth, which can affect both sexes. Symptoms may include extreme sadness, low energy, anxiety, crying episodes, irritability, and cha ...
, many of whom suffered permanent effects from his actions.[ His treatments resulted in victims' ]urinary incontinence
Urinary incontinence (UI), also known as involuntary urination, is any uncontrolled leakage of urine. It is a common and distressing problem, which may have a large impact on quality of life. It has been identified as an important issue in geria ...
, amnesia
Amnesia is a deficit in memory caused by brain damage or disease,Gazzaniga, M., Ivry, R., & Mangun, G. (2009) Cognitive Neuroscience: The biology of the mind. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. but it can also be caused temporarily by the use ...
, forgetting how to talk, forgetting their parents and thinking their interrogators were their parents.
During this era, Cameron became known worldwide as the first chairman of the World Psychiatric Association
The World Psychiatric Association is an international umbrella organisation of psychiatric societies.
Objectives and goals
Originally created to produce world psychiatric congresses, it has evolved to hold regional meetings, to promote profess ...
as well as president of both the American Psychiatric Association
The American Psychiatric Association (APA) is the main professional organization of psychiatrists and trainee psychiatrists in the United States, and the largest psychiatric organization in the world. It has more than 37,000 members are involv ...
and the Canadian Psychiatric Association
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
. Cameron was also a member of the Nuremberg medical tribunal
The Doctors' Trial (officially ''United States of America v. Karl Brandt, et al.'') was the first of 12 trials for war crimes of high-ranking German officials and industrialists that the United States authorities held in their occupation zone ...
in 1946–1947.[
]
Motivation and assessments
His work was inspired and paralleled by the British psychiatrist William Sargant
William Walters Sargant (24 April 1907 – 27 August 1988) was a British psychiatrist who is remembered for the evangelical zeal with which he promoted treatments such as psychosurgery, deep sleep treatment, electroconvulsive therapy and insu ...
at St Thomas' Hospital, London, and Belmont Hospital, Sutton, who was also involved in the Secret Intelligence Service
The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...
and who experimented on his patients without their consent, causing similar long-term damage.
In the 1980s, several of Cameron's former patients sued the CIA for damages, which the Canadian news program '' The Fifth Estate'' documented. Their experiences and lawsuit were adapted in the 1998 television miniseries ''The Sleep Room''.
Naomi Klein
Naomi A. Klein (born May 8, 1970) is a Canadian author, social activist, and filmmaker known for her political analyses, support of ecofeminism, organized labour, left-wing politics and criticism of corporate globalization, fascism, ecofascism ...
argues in her book ''The Shock Doctrine
''The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism'' is a 2007 book by the Canadian author and social activist Naomi Klein. In the book, Klein argues that neoliberal free market policies (as advocated by the economist Milton Friedman) have ri ...
'' 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'. In other words, torture."
Alfred W. McCoy
Alfred "Al" William McCoy (born June 8, 1945) is an American historian and educator. He is the Fred Harvey Harrington Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.[Donald O. Hebb
Donald Olding Hebb (July 22, 1904 – August 20, 1985) was a Canadian psychologist who was influential in the area of neuropsychology, where he sought to understand how the function of neurons contributed to psychological processes such as l ...]
's earlier breakthrough, laid the scientific foundation for the CIA's two-stage psychological torture method",[ referring to first creating a state of disorientation in the subject, and then creating a situation of "self-inflicted" discomfort in which the disoriented subject can alleviate pain by capitulating.]
Experiments on Danes
Unlike the US and Canada, Denmark had a centralized population register, allowing participants to be tracked over the course of several years. U.S. psychologist Zarnoff Mednick teamed up with Danish professor Fini Schulsinger to study schizophrenia progression in Danish orphans. The project grew out of QKHilltop and was later absorbed into MKUltra. In 1977, Schulsinger completed his doctoral dissertation on the project, but as MKUltra had been officially declared in the U.S. to have been discontinued with records destroyed, Schulsinger's thesis became a state secret. The children were required to undergo frequent and harsh mental health assessments for which there was no informed consent. In December 2021, radio documentarian Per Wennick discovered 36 boxes of MKUltra records stored at a psychiatric center in a Copenhagen suburb, but when he asked for access, the center shredded the records, in violation of Danish law.
Secret detention camps
In areas under American control in the early 1950s in Europe and East Asia, mostly Japan, Germany and the Philippines, the CIA created secret detention centers so that the U.S. could avoid criminal prosecution. The CIA captured people suspected of being enemy agents and other people it deemed "expendable" to undertake various types of torture and human experimentation on them. The prisoners were interrogated while being administered psychoactive drugs, electroshocked and subjected to extremes of temperature, sensory isolation and the like to develop a better understanding of how to destroy and to control human minds.
Revelation
In 1973, amid a government-wide panic caused by Watergate, CIA Director Richard Helms
Richard McGarrah Helms (March 30, 1913 – October 23, 2002) was an American government official and diplomat who served as Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) from 1966 to 1973. Helms began intelligence work with the Office of Strategic Ser ...
ordered all MKUltra files destroyed. Pursuant to this order, most CIA documents regarding the project were destroyed, making a full investigation of MKUltra impossible. A cache of some 20,000 documents survived Helms's purge, as they had been incorrectly stored in a financial records building and were discovered following a FOIA request in 1977. These documents were fully investigated during the Senate Hearings of 1977.
In December 1974, ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' alleged that the CIA had conducted illegal domestic activities, including experiments on U.S. citizens, during the 1960s. That report prompted investigations by the United States Congress
The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...
, in the form of the Church Committee, and by a commission known as the Rockefeller Commission #REDIRECT United States President's Commission on CIA Activities within the United States #REDIRECT United States President's Commission on CIA Activities within the United States
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that looked into the illegal domestic activities of the CIA, the FBI
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...
and intelligence-related agencies of the military.
In the summer of 1975, congressional Church Committee reports and the presidential Rockefeller Commission #REDIRECT United States President's Commission on CIA Activities within the United States #REDIRECT United States President's Commission on CIA Activities within the United States
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had conducted experiments on both unwitting and cognizant human subjects as part of an extensive program to find out how to influence and control human behavior through the use of
and other chemical, biological, and psychological means. They also revealed that at least one subject,
, had died after administration of LSD. Much of what the Church Committee and the Rockefeller Commission learned about MKUltra was contained in a report, prepared by the Inspector General's office in 1963, that had survived the destruction of records ordered in 1973.
However, it contained little detail. Sidney Gottlieb, who had retired from the CIA two years previously and had headed MKUltra, was interviewed by the committee but claimed to have very little recollection of the activities of MKUltra.