Project Chatter was a
United States Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...
program beginning in the fall of 1947 focusing on the identification and testing of drugs in interrogations and the recruitment of agents. Their search included laboratory experiments on both animal and human subjects. The program operated under the direction of
Charles Savage of the
Naval Medical Research Institute,
Bethesda, Maryland
Bethesda () is an unincorporated, census-designated place in southern Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. Located just northwest of Washington, D.C., it is a major business and government center of the Washington metropolitan region ...
, from 1947 to 1953.
FOIA Documents from the Department of the Navy
/ref> The project was geared toward identifying agents both synthetic and natural that were effective during interrogation
Interrogation (also called questioning) is interviewing as commonly employed by law enforcement officers, military personnel, intelligence agencies, organized crime syndicates, and terrorist organizations with the goal of eliciting useful informa ...
, as well as testing possible treatments for depression. The project was centered on, but not restricted to, the use of anabasine
Anabasine is a pyridine and piperidine alkaloid found in the tree tobacco ('' Nicotiana glauca'') plant, as well as in tree tobacco's close relative the common tobacco plant ('' Nicotiana tabacum''). It is a structural isomer of, and chemically ...
(an alkaloid
Alkaloids are a broad class of natural product, naturally occurring organic compounds that contain at least one nitrogen atom. Some synthetic compounds of similar structure may also be termed alkaloids.
Alkaloids are produced by a large varie ...
), scopolamine
Scopolamine, also known as hyoscine, or Devil's Breath, is a medication used to treat motion sickness and postoperative nausea and vomiting. It is also sometimes used before surgery to decrease saliva. When used by injection, effects begin a ...
and mescaline
Mescaline, also known as mescalin or mezcalin, and in chemical terms 3,4,5-trimethoxyphenethylamine, is a natural product, naturally occurring psychedelic drug, psychedelic alkaloid, protoalkaloid of the substituted phenethylamine class, found ...
. It was the first U.S. government project in which lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD-25) was used on human subjects. The Navy ended the project in 1953 when its experiments were merged into Project MKULTRA
MKUltra was an illegal human experimentation program designed and undertaken by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to develop procedures and identify drugs that could be used during interrogations to weaken individuals and force confes ...
.
See also
*MKUltra
MKUltra was an illegal human experimentation program designed and undertaken by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to develop procedures and identify drugs that could be used during interrogations to weaken individuals and force confes ...
* Project Artichoke
*Unethical human experimentation in the United States
Numerous experiments which were performed on human test subjects in the United States in the past are now considered to have been unethical, because they were performed without the knowledge or informed consent of the test subjects. Such tests ...
References
Central Intelligence Agency operations
Psychedelic drug research
Mind control
1947 establishments in the United States
1953 disestablishments in the United States
Code names
Human subject research in the United States
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