MKULTRA
MKULTRA: CIA Mind Control
by Jon Elliston
Dossier Editor
pscpdocs@aol.com
For many Americans, the 1950s were a docile decade. In U.S. history
books, the period is mostly portrayed as a mellow, orderly one,
especially in light of the social upheavals that followed in the
1960s. But for the CIA, the I Like Ike years were packed with
adventure and action, much of it conducted outside of the public's
view. Few programs were sheltered with more secrecy than the Agency's
mind control experiments, identified together with the code-name
MKULTRA.
Concerned about rumors of communist brainwashing of POWs during
the Korean war, in April 1953 CIA Director Allen Dulles authorized
the MKULTRA program, which would later become notorious for the
unusual and sometimes inhumane tests that the CIA financed. Reviewing
the experiments five years later, one secrecy-conscious CIA auditor
wrote: "Precautions must be taken not only to protect operations
from exposure to enemy forces but also to conceal these activities
from the American public in general. The knowledge that the agency
is engaging in unethical and illicit activities would have serious
repercussions in political and diplomatic circles."
Though many of the documents related to MKULTRA were destroyed
by the CIA in 1972, some records relating to the program have
made it into the public domain, and the work of historians, investigative
reporters, and various congressional committees has resulted in
the release of enough information to make MKULTRA one of the most
disturbing instances of intelligence community abuse on record.
As writer Mark Zepezauer puts it, "the surviving history is nasty
enough."
The most notorious MKULTRA experiments were the CIA's pioneering
studies of the drug that would years later feed the heads of millions:
lysergic acid diethylamide, or LSD. The CIA was intrigued by the
drug, and harbored hopes that acid or a similar drug could be
used to clandestinely disorient and manipulate target foreign
leaders. (The Agency would consider several such schemes in its
pursuit of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who they wanted to send
into a drug-induced stupor or tirade during a public or live radio
speech.) LSD was also viewed as a way to loosen tongues in CIA
interrogations.
In his thorough book on MKULTRA and similar projects, The Search
for the "Manchurian Candidate," John Marks reports that most of
the CIA researchers tried LSD themselves. In fact, an early phase
of the experiments was probably the setting for the first acid
trip in the United States -- experienced by a courageous CIA man
no less!
The fact that these experiments took place is remarkable in and
of itself, but the story of the CIA's LSD trips approaches the
unbelievably bizarre when the cast of characters is considered.
In his recent history of the early exploits of the CIA, The Very
Best Men, Evan Thomas describes Sidney Gottlieb, the Stranglovian
scientist who ran the MKULTRA project: "Born with a clubfoot and
a stutter, he compensated by becoming an expert folk dancer and
obtaining a Ph.D. from Cal Tech. A pleasant man who lived on a
farm with his wife, Gottlieb drank only goat's milk and grew Christmas
trees, which he sold at a roadside stand." When he wasn't busy
on the farm, Dr. Gottlieb was dosing subjects with LSD-laced drinks,
scrutinizing their reactions, and searching for qualities of the
drug that would benefit CIA covert actions.
The CIA's LSD experiments were conducted on many unwitting subjects,
most often prisoners or patrons of brothels set up and run by
the Agency, which had installed two-way mirrors in the establishments
to allow for observation of the drug's effects (these studies
were referred to as "Operation Midnight Climax"). Some of the
MKULTRA subjects who were informed faced even more inhumane treatment:
during one experiment in Kentucky, seven volunteers were given
LSD for 77 days straight.
One of the experiments probably proved fatal. On November 19,
1953, an Army scientist and germ warfare specialist named Frank
Olson, who was working on an MKULTRA project, was slipped a solid
dose of LSD in his drink. Then, after spending eight days stumbling
about in what many observers described as a paranoid, depressed
state, Olson jumped through his hotel window in New York and fell
ten stories to his death.
The Agency covered up its role in Olson's demise, and twenty-two
years would pass before his family would learn of the events leading
up to his death. When the CIA's acid exploits were made public
in the mid-1970s, the Agency found itself facing heavy criticism.
One Senate committee put it this way in 1975:
"From its beginning in the early 1950s until its termination in
1963, the program of surreptitious administration of LSD to unwitting
non-volunteer human subjects demonstrates a failure of the CIA's
leadership to pay adequate attention to the rights of individuals
and to provide effective guidance to CIA employees. Though it
was known that the testing was dangerous, the lives of subjects
were placed in jeopardy and were ignored.... Although it was clear
that the laws of the United States were being violated, the testing
continued."
Though the most prominently discussed aspect of MKULTRA is the
CIA's LSD work, the program included many other unusual investigations
relating to the science of mind control. CIA researchers probed
the potential of numerous parapsychological phenomena, including
hypnosis, telepathy, precognition, photokinesis and "remote viewing."
These studies weren't conducted merely to satisfy the CIA's scientific
curiosity -- the Agency was looking for weapons that would give
the United States the upper hand in the mind wars. Toward that
objective, the Agency poured millions of dollars into studies
probing literally dozens of methods of influencing and controlling
the mind. One 1955 MKULTRA document gives an indication of the
size and range of the effort; the memo refers to the study of
an assortment of mind-altering substances which would:
- "promote illogical thinking and impulsiveness to the point where
the recipient would be discredited in public"
- "increase the efficiency of mentation and perception"
- "prevent or counteract the intoxicating effect of alcohol"
- "promote the intoxicating effect of alcohol"
- "produce the signs and symptoms of recognized diseases in a reversible
way so that they may be used for malingering, etc."
- "render the indication of hypnosis easier or otherwise enhance
its usefulness"
- "enhance the ability of individuals to withstand privation, torture
and coercion during interrogation and so-called 'brainwashing'"
- "produce amnesia for events preceding and during their use"
- "produc[e] shock and confusion over extended periods of time and
capable of surreptitious use"
- "produce physical disablement such as paralysis of the legs, acute
anemia, etc."
- "produce 'pure' euphoria with no subsequent let-down"
- "alter personality structure in such a way that the tendency of
the recipient to become dependent upon another person is enhanced"
- "cause mental confusion of such a type that the individual under
its influence will find it difficult to maintain a fabrication
under questioning"
- "lower the ambition and general working efficiency of men when
administered in undetectable amounts"
- "promote weakness or distortion of the eyesight or hearing faculties, preferably without permanent effects"
Few of MKULTRA's objectives were realized, but the very conduct
of these experiments caused many critics of the CIA to argue that
successful or not, CIA scientists shouldn't pry at the doors of
perception.
Sources:
Gross, Peter, Gentleman Spy: The Life of Allen Dulles (Houghton Mifflin, 1994).
Thomas, Evan, The Very Best Men (Simon & Schuster, 1995).
Marks, John, The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate": The CIA
and Mind Control (Times Books, 1979).
Mark Zepezauer, The CIA's Greatest Hits (Odionan, 1994).
(c) Copyright 1996 ParaScope, Inc.
