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==Conspiracy theories==
==Conspiracy theories==
MK-ULTRA plays a part in many [[conspiracy theories]] given its nature and the destruction of most records. The lawyer for [[Sirhan Sirhan]], the assassin of [[Robert F. Kennedy]], has claimed that the MK-ULTRA project was responsible for controlling Sirhan's actions at the time of the murder.<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.kpfa.org/archives/index.php?arch=8965&page=2&type= | title = Interview with Sirhan's attorney Lawrence Teeter | publisher = KPFA 94.1/Guns & Butter show}}</ref> This assertion is not backed up by any supporting evidence.
MK-ULTRA plays a part in many [[conspiracy theories]] given its nature and the destruction of most records. It has been claimed that the MK-ULTRA project was linked with the assassination of [[Robert F. Kennedy]] and that there is evidence the assassin, [[Sirhan Sirhan]], had been subjected to mind control, though such ideas are generally dismissed due to a lack of supporting evidence. During recent years, claims made by Sirhan's most recent lawyer, [[Lawrence Teeter]], have reignited the controversy. <ref> See the [[June 11]], [[2003]]
[http://www.kpfa.org/archives/index.php?arch=8965&page=2&type= Interview with Sirhan's attorney Lawrence Teeter on KPFA 94.1 / Guns & Butter show] </ref>


After [[Leo Ryan]] was murdered at [[Jonestown]], his children filed a lawsuit claiming that the CIA had been operating Jonestown as part of their MK-ULTRA program, and that [[Richard Dwyer]], the Deputy Chief of Mission from the US Embassy who had organized the trip on Ryan's behalf, was a CIA agent. The lawsuit was dismissed.{{fact|date=September 2008}}
The majority of U.S. government records concerning Jonestown will remain sealed until the expiration of the 75 year ban on record release, the policy of the National Archives, expires.<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.archives.gov/research/electronic-records/faqs.html | title = Electronic Records: Frequently Asked Questions | accessdate = 2008-10-15 | publisher = [[National Archives and Records Administration]] }}</ref>

The majority of U.S. government records concerning Jonestown remain sealed to this day, per the National Archives policy of sealing records for 75 years.[http://www.archives.gov/research/electronic-records/faqs.html]

Some research, like that of [[Cathy O'Brien]] claim that MK-ULTRA involved the abduction and/or brainwashing of children as an aspect of [[satanic ritual abuse]] or other crimes against children. <ref>[http://extreme-abuse-survey.net/survey.php?en=b Extreme Abuse Survey results] "Secret government-sponsored mind control experiments were performed on me as a child." Out of a total of 1000 respondents, 257 or 26% answered "yes"</ref> <ref>{{cite news | last = Lusetich | first =Robert | title='Family Jewels' reveal CIA altered mind of four-year-old girl | publisher =The Australian | date =06-28-2007 | url =http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21978876-2,00.html |quote=The nature of the experiments, gathered from government documents and testimony in numerous lawsuits brought against the CIA, is shocking, from testing LSD on children to implanting electrodes in victims' brains to deliberately poisoning people with uranium. "The CIA bought my services from my grandfather in 1952 starting at the tender age of four," wrote Carol Rutz of her experiences. "Over the next 12 years, I was tested, trained, and used in various ways. "Electroshock, drugs, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, and other types of trauma were used to make me complain and split my personality (to create multiple personalities for specific tasks)."}}</ref> <ref>{{cite book |chapter = The extreme abuse surveys: Preliminary findings regarding dissociative identity disorder |last = Becker | first = T | coauthors = Karriker W; Overkamp B; Rutz, C |year = 2008 |pages= 32-49 | title= Forensic aspects of dissociative identity disorder |editors = Sachs, A; Galton, G.(Eds) | publisher = Karnac Books | location = London | isbn =1-855-75596-3}}</ref>


==Popular culture==
==Popular culture==
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== External links ==
== External links ==
* [http://www.nemasys.com/rahome/library/programming/mkultra.shtml Inventory list of materials in the National Security Archive's collection] from [[John Marks]]' FOIA request results (which he utilized while researching his book, ''The Search For The Manchurian Candidate: The CIA and Mind Control, The Secret History of the Behavioral Sciences,'' [[W. W. Norton]], 1979; published as Norton paperback in 1991, ISBN 0-393-30794-8).
* [http://www.frankolsonproject.org/index.html The Frank Olson Project] - a website created by Frank Olson's family to explore the issues surrounding his death.
* [http://www.unknown.it/controinformazione/mkultra-files/ Declassified MKULTRA Project Documents (PDF)]
* [http://www.unknown.it/controinformazione/mkultra-files/ Declassified MKULTRA Project Documents (PDF)]
* [http://www.michael-robinett.com/declass/c000.htm Declassified MKULTRA Project Documents -Mirror Site-]
* [http://www.theblackvault.com/modules.php?name=core&showPage=true&pageID=23 Declassified MKULTRA Project Documents -Mirror Site-] - the full 4-CD collection of MKULTRA (and related) FOIA documents, online.
* [http://www.archive.org/movies/details-db.php?collection=independent_news&collectionid=tmdg The Most Dangerous Game] Downloadable 8 minute documentary by independent filmmakers [[Guerrilla News Network|GNN]]
* [http://pw1.netcom.com/~ncoic/cia_info.htm#Project%20NKNAOMI Results of the 1973 Church Committee Hearings, on CIA misdeeds, and the 1984 Iran/Contra Hearings]
* [http://www.mindcontrolforums.com/church-committee-drugtesting-report.htm XXVII. Testing and Use of Chemical and Biological Agents by the Intelligence Community]
* [http://www.hypnotism.org/Research.htm U.S. Research on Hypnosis and Mind Control Begins]
* [[Amy Goodman]] Interviews Professor [[Alfred McCoy]] of the [[University of Wisconsin-Madison]]. [http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/17/1522228]
* [http://www.mindkiller.org/mkultra.html mindkiller.org's archive of MK-ULTRA declassified files] 19900+ from the Freedom of Information act requested in early 2003.
* [http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/video.php?id=1280 Interview with a Canadian victim of CIA and Canadian Government Brainwashing], [[The Hour]], [[Canadian Broadcasting Corporation]], [[January 9]], [[2007]].
* [http://www.erowid.org/psychoactives/war/mkultra/mkultra.shtml Erowid MKULTRA Vault].
* [http://www.demontechnology.org/tag/mk+ultra Demon Technology Videos].
* [http://www.michael-robinett.com/private/orli-01.htm Orlikow v. U.S. Cite as 682 F.S. 77 .(D.D.C. 1988)]
* http://web.archive.org/web/20031221193346/http://www.tourolaw.edu/2ndCircuit/July98/97-6116.html Kronisch, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. USA, Gottlieb, Helms and unknown agents of the CIA, Defendants-Appellees.


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Revision as of 19:14, 15 October 2008

Declassified MKULTRA documents

Project MK-ULTRA, or MKULTRA, was the code name for a covert CIA mind-control and chemical interrogation research program, run by the Office of Scientific Intelligence. The program began in the early 1950s, continuing at least through the late 1960s, and it used United States citizens as its test subjects.[1][2][3] There is much published evidence that the project involved the surreptitious use of many types of drugs, as well as other methodology, to manipulate individual mental states and to alter brain function.[4]

Project MK-ULTRA was first brought to wide public attention in 1975 by the U.S. Congress, through investigations by the Church Committee, and by a presidential commission known as the Rockefeller Commission. Investigative efforts were hampered by the fact that CIA Director Richard Helms ordered all MK-ULTRA files destroyed in 1973; the Church Committee and Rockefeller Commission investigations relied on the sworn testimony of direct participants and on the relatively small number of documents that survived Helms' destruction order. [5]

Although the CIA insists that MK-ULTRA-type experiments have been abandoned, 14-year CIA veteran Victor Marchetti has stated in various interviews that the CIA routinely conducts disinformation campaigns and that CIA mind control research continued. In a 1977 interview, Marchetti specifically called the CIA claim that MK-ULTRA was abandoned a 'cover story.'.[6][7]

On the Senate floor in 1977, Senator Ted Kennedy said:

The Deputy Director of the CIA revealed that over thirty universities and institutions were involved in an 'extensive testing and experimentation' program which included covert drug tests on unwitting citizens 'at all social levels, high and low, native Americans and foreign.' Several of these tests involved the administration of LSD to 'unwitting subjects in social situations.' At least one death, that of Dr. [Frank] Olson, resulted from these activities. The Agency itself acknowledged that these tests made little scientific sense. The agents doing the monitoring were not qualified scientific observers.[8]

Title and origins

Dr. Sidney Gottlieb approved of an MKULTRA subproject on LSD in this June 9, 1953 letter.

The project's intentionally oblique CIA cryptonym is made up of the digraph MK, meaning that the project was sponsored by the agency's Technical Services Division, followed by the arbitrary dictionary word ULTRA. Other related cryptonyms include MK-NAOMI and MK-DELTA.

A precursor of the MK-ULTRA program began in 1945 when the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency was established and given direct responsibility for Operation Paperclip. Operation Paperclip was a program to recruit former Nazi spies, scientists and experts in torture and brainwashing, some of whom had just been identified and prosecuted as war criminals during the Nuremberg Trials.

Several secret U.S. government projects grew out of Operation Paperclip. These projects included Project CHATTER (established 1947), and Project BLUEBIRD (established 1950), which was later renamed to Project ARTICHOKE in 1951. Their purpose was to study mind-control, interrogation, behavior modification and related topics.

Headed by Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, the MK-ULTRA project was started on the order of CIA director Allen Dulles on April 13, 1953,[9] largely in response to Soviet, Chinese, and North Korean use of mind-control techniques on U.S. prisoners of war in Korea.[10] The CIA wanted to use similar methods on their own captives. The CIA was also interested in being able to manipulate foreign leaders with such techniques,[11] and would later invent several schemes to drug Fidel Castro.

Experiments were often conducted without the subjects' knowledge or consent.[12] In some cases, academic researchers being funded through grants from CIA front organizations were unaware that their work was being used for these purposes.[13]

In 1964, the project was renamed MK-SEARCH. The project attempted to produce a perfect truth drug for use in interrogating suspected Soviet spies during the Cold War, and generally to explore any other possibilities of mind control.

An MK-ULTRA program tagged "Operation Teapot" involved the testing of pregnant women with radiation, among other things. Also under this program, U.S. Army soldiers were dosed with LSD to study the effects of panic. [citation needed]

Another MK-ULTRA effort, Subproject 54, was the Navy's top secret "Perfect Concussion" program, which used sub aural frequency blasts to erase memory. During this program LSD's corollary effect on controlled and channeled mass panic was discovered. [14]

MK-ULTRA head Sidney Gottlieb was involved with both Operation Teapot and Subproject 54. The U.S. government officially denied involvement until 1995 when an official apology was issued to the pregnant women and to the affected U.S. Army soldiers. However no apologies were offered to the affected U.S. Navy sailors or to a group of Oregon prison inmates, whose testicles were irradiated without their knowledge.[citation needed] Compensation for medical treatment resulting from these experiments has been disputed and remains tied up in arbitration more than 40 years after the fact. Since 1995, most of the associated files have been reclassified as Top Secret.

Because most MK-ULTRA records were deliberately destroyed in 1973 by order of then CIA Director Richard Helms, it has been difficult, if not impossible, for investigators to gain a complete understanding of the more than 150 individually funded research sub-projects sponsored by MK Ultra and related CIA programs.[15]

Aims and goals

The Agency poured millions of dollars into studies probing dozens of methods of influencing and controlling the mind. One 1955 MK-ULTRA document gives an indication of the size and range of the effort; this document refers to the study of an assortment of mind-altering substances described as follows:[16]

  1. Substances which will promote illogical thinking and impulsiveness to the point where the recipient would be discredited in public.
  2. Substances which increase the efficiency of mentation and perception.
  3. Materials which will prevent or counteract the intoxicating effect of alcohol.
  4. Materials which will promote the intoxicating effect of alcohol.
  5. Materials which will produce the signs and symptoms of recognized diseases in a reversible way so that they may be used for malingering, etc.
  6. Materials which will render the induction of hypnosis easier or otherwise enhance its usefulness.
  7. Substances which will enhance the ability of individuals to withstand privation, torture and coercion during interrogation and so-called "brain-washing".
  8. Materials and physical methods which will produce amnesia for events preceding and during their use.
  9. Physical methods of producing shock and confusion over extended periods of time and capable of surreptitious use.
  10. Substances which produce physical disablement such as paralysis of the legs, acute anemia, etc.
  11. Substances which will produce "pure" euphoria with no subsequent let-down.
  12. Substances which alter personality structure in such a way that the tendency of the recipient to become dependent upon another person is enhanced.
  13. A material which will cause mental confusion of such a type that the individual under its influence will find it difficult to maintain a fabrication under questioning.
  14. Substances which will lower the ambition and general working efficiency of men when administered in undetectable amounts.
  15. Substances which promote weakness or distortion of the eyesight or hearing faculties, preferably without permanent effects.
  16. A knockout pill which can surreptitiously be 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.
  17. A material which can be surreptitiously administered by the above routes and which in very small amounts will make it impossible for a man to perform any physical activity whatsoever.

Historians have learned that creating a "Manchurian Candidate" subject through "mind control" techniques was undoubtedly a goal of MK-ULTRA and related CIA projects.[17] However, there is no conclusive evidence the CIA actually succeeded in controlling a person's actions through mind control.

Budget

A secretive arrangement granted a percentage of the CIA budget. The MK-ULTRA director was granted six percent of the CIA operating budget in 1953, without oversight or accounting.[18]

An estimated US$10m or more were spent[19].

Experiments

CIA documents suggest that "chemical, biological and radiological" means were investigated for the purpose of mind control as part of MK-ULTRA.[20]

Drugs

LSD

Early efforts focused on LSD, which later came to dominate many of MK-ULTRA's programs.

Experiments included administering LSD to CIA employees, military personnel, doctors, other government agents, prostitutes, mentally ill patients, and members of the general public in order to study their reactions. LSD and other drugs were usually administered without the subject's knowledge and informed consent, a violation of the Nuremberg Code that the U.S. agreed to follow after World War II.

Efforts to "recruit" subjects were often illegal, even discounting the fact that drugs were being administered (though actual use of LSD, for example, was legal in the United States until October 6 1966). In Operation Midnight Climax, the CIA set up several brothels to obtain a selection of men who would be too embarrassed to talk about the events. The men were dosed with LSD, and the brothels were equipped with two-way mirrors and the "sessions" were filmed for later viewing and study.[21]

Some subjects' participation was consensual, and in many of these cases, the subjects appeared to be singled out for even more extreme experiments. In one case, volunteers were given LSD for 77 consecutive days.[22]

LSD was eventually dismissed by MK-ULTRA's researchers as too unpredictable in its results.[1] Although useful information was sometimes obtained through questioning subjects on LSD, not uncommonly the most marked effect would be the subject's absolute and utter certainty that they were able to withstand any form of interrogation attempt, even physical torture.

Other drugs

Another technique investigated was connecting a barbiturate IV into one arm and an amphetamine IV into the other.[23] The barbiturates were released into the subject first, and as soon as the subject began to fall asleep, the amphetamines were released. The subject would begin babbling incoherently at this point, and it was sometimes possible to ask questions and get useful answers.

Other experiments involved heroin, morphine, temazepam (used under code name MK-SEARCH), mescaline, psilocybin, scopolamine, marijuana, alcohol, and sodium pentothal.[24]

Hypnosis

Declassified MK-ULTRA documents indicate hypnosis was studied in the early 1950s. Experimental goals included: the creation of "hypnotically induced anxieties," "hypnotically increasing ability to learn and recall complex written matter," studying hypnosis and polygraph examinations, "hypnotically increasing ability to observe and recall complex arrangements of physical objects," and studying "relationship of personality to susceptibility to hypnosis."[25]

Canadian experiments

The experiments were exported to Canada when the CIA recruited Scottish physician Donald Ewen Cameron, creator of the "psychic driving" concept, which the CIA found particularly interesting. Cameron had been hoping to correct schizophrenia by erasing existing memories and completely rebuilding, or programming the psyche. He commuted from Albany, New York to Montreal every week to work at the Allan Memorial Institute of McGill University and was paid $69,000 from 1957 to 1964 to carry out MKULTRA experiments there. In addition to LSD, Cameron also experimented with various paralytic drugs as well as electroconvulsive therapy at thirty to forty times the normal power. His "driving" experiments consisted of putting subjects into drug-induced coma for weeks at a time (up to three months in one case) while playing tape loops of noise or simple repetitive statements. His experiments were typically carried out on patients who had entered the institute for minor problems such as anxiety disorders and postpartum depression, many of whom suffered permanently from his actions.[26] His treatments resulted in victims' incontinence, amnesia, forgetting how to talk, forgetting their parents, and thinking their interrogators were their parents.[27] His work was inspired and paralleled by the British psychiatrist Dr William Sargant at St Thomas' Hospital, London, and Belmont Hospital, Surrey, who also experimented extensively and very damagingly on his patients without their consent and was similarly involved with the Intelligence Services.[28] Dr. Cameron and Dr. Sargant are the only two identified Canadian experimenters, but the MKULTRA file makes reference to many other unnamed physicians who were recruited by the CIA and CSIS.[dubiousdiscuss]

It was during this era that Cameron became known worldwide as the first chairman of the World Psychiatric Association as well as president of the American and Canadian psychiatric associations. Cameron had also been a member of the Nuremberg medical tribunal in 1946-47.[29]

Revelation

In 1973, CIA Director Richard Helms ordered all MK-ULTRA files destroyed. Pursuant to this order, most CIA documents regarding the project were destroyed, making a full investigation of MK-ULTRA all but impossible.

In December 1974, The New York Times reported that the CIA had conducted illegal domestic activities, including experiments on U.S. citizens, during the 1960s. That report prompted investigations by the U.S. Congress, in the form of the Church Committee, and by a presidential commission known as the Rockefeller Commission that looked into domestic activities of the CIA, the FBI, and intelligence-related agencies of the military.

In the summer of 1975, congressional Church Committee reports and the presidential Rockefeller Commission report revealed to the public for the first time that the CIA and the Department of Defense had conducted experiments on both unwitting and cognizant human subjects as part of an extensive program to influence and control human behavior through the use of psychoactive drugs such as LSD and mescaline and other chemical, biological, and psychological means. They also revealed that at least one subject had died after administration of LSD.

The congressional committee investigating the CIA research, chaired by Senator Frank Church, concluded that "[p]rior consent was obviously not obtained from any of the subjects". The committee noted that the "experiments sponsored by these researchers ... call into question the decision by the agencies not to fix guidelines for experiments."

Following the recommendations of the Church Committee, President Gerald Ford in 1976 issued the first Executive Order on Intelligence Activities which, among other things, prohibited "experimentation with drugs on human subjects, except with the informed consent, in writing and witnessed by a disinterested party, of each such human subject" and in accordance with the guidelines issued by the National Commission. Subsequent orders by Presidents Carter and Reagan expanded the directive to apply to any human experimentation.

On the heels of the revelations about CIA experiments, similar stories surfaced regarding U.S. Army experiments. In 1975 the Secretary of the Army instructed the Army Inspector General to conduct an investigation. Among the findings of the Inspector General was the existence of a 1953 memorandum penned by then Secretary of Defense Charles Erwin Wilson. Documents show that the CIA participated in at least two of Department of Defense committees during 1952. These committee findings led to the issuance of the "Wilson Memo," which mandated--in accord with Nuremberg Code protocols--that only volunteers be used for experimental operations conducted in the U.S. armed forces. In response to the Inspector General's investigation, the Wilson Memo was declassified in August 1975.

With regard to drug testing within the Army, the Inspector General found that "the evidence clearly reflected that every possible medical consideration was observed by the professional investigators at the Medical Research Laboratories." However the Inspector General also found that the mandated requirements of Wilson's 1953 memorandum had been only partially adhered to; he concluded that the "volunteers were not fully informed, as required, prior to their participation; and the methods of procuring their services, in many cases, appeared not to have been in accord with the intent of Department of the Army policies governing use of volunteers in research."

Other branches of the U.S. armed forces, the Air Force for example, were found not to have adhered to Wilson Memo stipulations regarding voluntary drug testing.

In Canada, the issue took much longer to surface, becoming widely known in 1984 on a CBC news show, The Fifth Estate. It was learned that not only had the CIA funded Dr. Cameron's efforts, but perhaps even more shockingly, the Canadian government was fully aware of this, and had later provided another $500,000 in funding to continue the experiments. This revelation largely derailed efforts by the victims to sue the CIA as their U.S. counterparts had, and the Canadian government eventually settled out of court for $100,000 to each of the 127 victims.

U.S. General Accounting Office Report

The U.S. General Accounting Office issued a report on September 28, 1994, which stated that between 1940 and 1974, DOD and other national security agencies studied thousands of human subjects in tests and experiments involving hazardous substances.

The quote from the study:

... Working with the CIA, the Department of Defense gave hallucinogenic drugs to thousands of "volunteer" soldiers in the 1950's and 1960's. In addition to LSD, the Army also tested quinuclidinyl benzilate, a hallucinogen code-named BZ. (Note 37) Many of these tests were conducted under the so-called MKULTRA program, established to counter perceived Soviet and Chinese advances in brainwashing techniques. Between 1953 and 1964, the program consisted of 149 projects involving drug testing and other studies on unwitting human subjects...[30]

Deaths

Harold Blauer, a professional tennis player in New York City, died as a result of a secret Army experiment involving MDA.[31]

Frank Olson, a United States Army biochemist and biological weapons researcher, was given LSD without his knowledge or consent in 1953 as part of a CIA experiment, and died under suspicous circumstances (initially labeled suicide) a week later following a severe psychotic episode. A CIA doctor assigned to monitor Olson's recovery claimed to be asleep in another bed in a New York City hotel room when Olson jumped through the window to fall ten stories to his death.[32]

Olson's son disputes this version of events, and maintains that his father was murdered due to his knowledge of the often-lethal interrogation techniques employed by the CIA in Europe, used on Cold War prisoners. Frank Olson's body was exhumed in 1994, and cranial injuries indicated Olson had been knocked unconscious before exiting the window.[33]

The CIA's own internal investigation, by contrast, claimed Gottlieb had conducted the experiment with Olson's prior knowledge, although neither Olson nor the other men taking part in the experiment were informed as to the exact nature of the drug until some 20 minutes after its ingestion. The report further suggested that Gottlieb was nonetheless due a reprimand, as he had failed to take into account Olsen's already-diagnosed suicidal tendencies, which might well have been exacerbated by the LSD.[32]

The revelations about the CIA and the Army prompted a number of subjects or their survivors to file lawsuits against the federal government for conducting illegal experiments. Although the government aggressively, and sometimes successfully, sought to avoid legal liability, several plaintiffs did receive compensation through court order, out-of-court settlement, or acts of Congress. Frank Olson's family received $750,000 by a special act of Congress, and both President Ford and CIA director William Colby met with Olson's family to publicly apologize.

Previously, the CIA and the Army had actively and successfully sought to withhold incriminating information, even as they secretly provided compensation to the families. One subject of Army drug experimentation, James Stanley, an Army sergeant, brought an important, albeit unsuccessful, suit. The government argued that Stanley was barred from suing under a legal doctrine—known as the Feres doctrine, after a 1950 Supreme Court case, Feres v. United States—that prohibits members of the Armed Forces from suing the government for any harms that were inflicted "incident to service."

In 1987, the Supreme Court affirmed this defense in a 5–4 decision that dismissed Stanley's case (483 U.S. 669). The majority argued that "a test for liability that depends on the extent to which particular suits would call into question military discipline and decision making would itself require judicial inquiry into, and hence intrusion upon, military matters." In dissent, Justice William Brennan argued that the need to preserve military discipline should not protect the government from liability and punishment for serious violations of constitutional rights:

The medical trials at Nuremberg in 1947 deeply impressed upon the world that experimentation with unknowing human subjects is morally and legally unacceptable. The United States Military Tribunal established the Nuremberg Code as a standard against which to judge German scientists who experimented with human subjects... . [I]n defiance of this principle, military intelligence officials ... began surreptitiously testing chemical and biological materials, including LSD.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, writing a separate dissent, stated:

No judicially crafted rule should insulate from liability the involuntary and unknowing human experimentation alleged to have occurred in this case. Indeed, as Justice Brennan observes, the United States played an instrumental role in the criminal prosecution of Nazi officials who experimented with human subjects during the Second World War, and the standards that the Nuremberg Military Tribunals developed to judge the behavior of the defendants stated that the 'voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential ... to satisfy moral, ethical, and legal concepts.' 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.

This is the only Supreme Court case to address the application of the Nuremberg Code to experimentation sponsored by the U.S. government. And while the suit was unsuccessful, dissenting opinions put the Army—and by association the entire government—on notice that use of individuals without their consent is unacceptable. The limited application of the Nuremberg Code in U.S. courts does not detract from the power of the principles it espouses, especially in light of stories of failure to follow these principles that appeared in the media and professional literature during the 1960s and 1970s and the policies eventually adopted in the mid-1970s.

In another law suit, Wayne Ritchie, a former United States Marshall, alleged the CIA laced his food or drink with LSD at a 1957 Christmas party. While the government admitted it was, at that time, drugging people without their consent, U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel found Ritchie could not prove he was one of the victims of MKULTRA. She dismissed the case in 2007. See this PDF file for details.

Extent of participation

44 American colleges or universities, 15 research foundations or chemical or pharmaceutical companies and the like, 12 hospitals or clinics (in addition to those associated with universities), and 3 prisons are known to have participated in MKULTRA.[34][35]

Famous subjects

Considerable evidence supports the contention that Theodore Kaczynski participated in CIA-sponsored MK-ULTRA experiments conducted at Harvard University by Henry Murray, a professor in Social Relations, from the fall of 1959 through the spring of 1962. [36] Kaczynski was subjected to "a disturbing and what would now be seen as an ethically indefensible experiment on twenty-two undergraduates."[37] Kaczynski was the youngest subject of Murray's series of experiments, sixteen years old when he began his participation; his assigned code name was "Lawful." He emerged, decades later, as the Unabomber and has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. [38] [39]

Merry Prankster Ken Kesey, author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, volunteered for MK-ULTRA experiments while he was a student at Stanford University. Kesey's ingestion of LSD during these experiments led directly to his widespread promotion of the drug and the subsequent development of hippie culture.

Candy Jones, American fashion model and radio host, claimed to have been a victim of mind control in the '60s, but her account has not been verified.

Infamous Irish mob boss, James "Whitey" Bulger volunteered for testing while in prison.[2]

Conspiracy theories

MK-ULTRA plays a part in many conspiracy theories given its nature and the destruction of most records. It has been claimed that the MK-ULTRA project was linked with the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy and that there is evidence the assassin, Sirhan Sirhan, had been subjected to mind control, though such ideas are generally dismissed due to a lack of supporting evidence. During recent years, claims made by Sirhan's most recent lawyer, Lawrence Teeter, have reignited the controversy. [40]

After Leo Ryan was murdered at Jonestown, his children filed a lawsuit claiming that the CIA had been operating Jonestown as part of their MK-ULTRA program, and that Richard Dwyer, the Deputy Chief of Mission from the US Embassy who had organized the trip on Ryan's behalf, was a CIA agent. The lawsuit was dismissed.[citation needed]

The majority of U.S. government records concerning Jonestown remain sealed to this day, per the National Archives policy of sealing records for 75 years.[3]

Some research, like that of Cathy O'Brien claim that MK-ULTRA involved the abduction and/or brainwashing of children as an aspect of satanic ritual abuse or other crimes against children. [41] [42] [43]

See also

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Sources

References

  1. ^ Science, Technology and the CIA
  2. ^ "Chapter 3, part 4: Supreme Court Dissents Invoke the Nuremberg Code: CIA and DOD Human Subjects Research Scandals". Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments Final Report. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help) "The CIA program, known principally by the codename MKULTRA, began in 1950"
  3. ^ U.S. Congress: The Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Foreign and Military Intelligence (Church Committee report), report no. 94-755, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1976); p. 392 "According to the CIA, the project [MKULTRA] was decreased significantly each budget year until its complete termination in the late 1960s."
  4. ^ The referenced sentence was originally sourced from here; it is not obvious what the context of this reference was.
  5. ^ "An Interview with Richard Helms". CIA. Retrieved 2008-03-16. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  6. ^ http://www.skepticfiles.org/socialis/marcheti.htm, retrieved 22 August 2007
  7. ^ John Marks interview with Victor Marchetti, quoted in Martin Cannon, "Mind Control and the American Government", Lobster Magazine 23, 1992
  8. ^ This quote is from the Opening Remarks by Senator Ted Kennedy during the August 3, 1977 meeting of the U.S. Senate Select Committee On Intelligence, and Subcommittee On Health And Scientific Research of the Committee On Human Resources; online version from the Schaffer Library of Drug Policy, a unofficial website.
  9. ^ Church Committee; p. 390 "MKULTRA was approved by the DCI[Director of Central Intelligence] on April 13, 1953"
  10. ^ "Chapter 3, part 4: Supreme Court Dissents Invoke the Nuremberg Code: CIA and DOD Human Subjects Research Scandals". Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments Final Report. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help) "MKULTRA, began in 1950 and was motivated largely in response to alleged Soviet, Chinese, and North Korean uses of mind-control techniques on U.S. prisoners of war in Korea."
  11. ^ 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."
  12. ^ Church Committee; "The congressional committee investigating the CIA research, chaired by Senator Frank Church, concluded that '[p]rior consent was obviously not obtained from any of the subjects.'"
  13. ^ Price, David (June, 2007). "Buying a Piece of Anthropology: Human Ecology and unwitting anthropological research for the CIA" (PDF). Anthropology Today. 23 (3): 3–13. Retrieved 2008-04-13. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  14. ^ http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/e1950/mkultra/Hearing05.htm, retrieved 25 April 2008
  15. ^ "Chapter 3, part 4: Supreme Court Dissents Invoke the Nuremberg Code: CIA and DOD Human Subjects Research Scandals". Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments Final Report. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help) (identical sentence) "Because most of the MKULTRA records were deliberately destroyed in 1973 ... MK Ultra and the related CIA programs."
  16. ^ "Senate MKULTRA Hearing: Appendix C--Documents Referring to Subprojects, [page 167, in PDF document page numbering]" (PDF). Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and Committee on Human Resources. August 3, 1977. Retrieved 2007-08-22.
  17. ^ Ranelagh, John O'Beirne, The agency: the rise and decline of the CIA, Simon and Schuster, 1986
  18. ^ Declassified
  19. ^ Mind Control and the Secret State
  20. ^ Declassified
  21. ^ Marks 1979: 106-107.
  22. ^ NPR Fresh Air. June 28, 2007 and Tim Weiner, The Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA.
  23. ^ Marks 1979: pp 40-42.
  24. ^ Marks 1979: chapters 3 and 7.
  25. ^ Declassified
  26. ^ Marks 1979: pp 140-150.
  27. ^ Turbide, Diane (1997-04-21). "Dr. Cameron's Casualties". Retrieved 2007-09-09.
  28. ^ Anne Collins, In the Sleep Room (Toronto: Lester and Orpen Dennys, 1988, ISBN 0-88619-198-X), p. 39, pp. 42-3, p. 133.
  29. ^ Marks 1979: p 141.
  30. ^ Quote from "Is Military Research Hazardous to Veterans Health? Lessons Spanning Half A Century", part F. HALLUCINOGENS 103rd Congress, 2nd Session-S. Prt. 103-97; Staff Report prepared for the committee on veterans' affairs December 8, 1994 John D. Rockefeller IV, West Virginia, Chairman. Online copy provided by gulfweb.org, which describes itself as "Serving the Gulf War Veteran Community Worldwide Since 1994". (The same document is available from many other (unofficial) sites, which may or may not be independent.)
  31. ^ Marks 1979: p 72n.
  32. ^ a b Marks 1979: chapter 5.
  33. ^ Ronson, Jon 2004
  34. ^ Book Review: Search for the Manchurian Candidate by John Marks
  35. ^ CIA Off Campus: Building the Movement Against Agency Recruitment and Research
  36. ^ Chase2000 "Although direct evidence of support from a federal defense grant is so far lacking, circumstantial evidence exists: the strong similarity between the OSS stress tests and the later experiments, Murray's association with the OSS, his grant proposal to do research for the Navy Department, and the lack of any clearly explained purpose for the study. Obviously, the dyadic studies would have had considerable utility for the defense establishment, either as a framework for testing recruits or as continuing work on how to improve interrogation techniques."
  37. ^ Chase 2000
  38. ^ Chase 2000.
  39. ^ CIA Shrinks and LSD
  40. ^ See the June 11, 2003 Interview with Sirhan's attorney Lawrence Teeter on KPFA 94.1 / Guns & Butter show
  41. ^ Extreme Abuse Survey results "Secret government-sponsored mind control experiments were performed on me as a child." Out of a total of 1000 respondents, 257 or 26% answered "yes"
  42. ^ Lusetich, Robert (06-28-2007). "'Family Jewels' reveal CIA altered mind of four-year-old girl". The Australian. The nature of the experiments, gathered from government documents and testimony in numerous lawsuits brought against the CIA, is shocking, from testing LSD on children to implanting electrodes in victims' brains to deliberately poisoning people with uranium. "The CIA bought my services from my grandfather in 1952 starting at the tender age of four," wrote Carol Rutz of her experiences. "Over the next 12 years, I was tested, trained, and used in various ways. "Electroshock, drugs, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, and other types of trauma were used to make me complain and split my personality (to create multiple personalities for specific tasks)." {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  43. ^ Becker, T (2008). "The extreme abuse surveys: Preliminary findings regarding dissociative identity disorder". Forensic aspects of dissociative identity disorder. London: Karnac Books. pp. 32–49. ISBN 1-855-75596-3. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |editors= ignored (|editor= suggested) (help)

Government Documents

  • [4] U.S. Congress: The Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Foreign and Military Intelligence (Church Committee report), report no. 94-755, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1976), 394.
  • [5] 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. August 3 1977
  • [6] U.S. Department of Energy: Supreme Court Dissents Invoke the Nuremberg Code: CIA and DOD Human Subjects Research Scandals
  • [7] U.S. Department of Energy: The Records of Our Past
  • [8] Office of the Director of Central Intelligence (ODCI): Studies in Intelligence - Fifteen DCIs' First 100 Day
  • Entire MKULTRA Document Archive
  • Entire MKULTRA Document Archive in PDF format

Articles

  • Barnes, Bart. (1999, March 11). CIA Official Sidney Gottlieb, 80, Dies. The Washington Post, p. B5.
  • CBC News. (2004, June 10). Woman awarded $100,000 for CIA-funded electroshock. CBC news. Retrieved September 27, 2008, from http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2004/06/10/shock_award040610.html
  • Chase, Alston. (June 2000). Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber. The Atlantic Monthly, 41-65 Retrieved September 27, 2008 from http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/06/chase.htm
  • Goodwin, Karin. (2004, October 17). Brainwash victims win cash claims. The Sunday Times. Retrieved September 27, 2008, from http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article495413.ece
  • Gup, Ted. (2001, December 16). The Coldest. The Washington Post, p. W9.
  • Jenkins, Marl. (1998, September 25). SUNNY DAY REAL ESTATE "How It Feels To Be Something On" Sub Pop; GLORITONE "Cup Runneth Over" Kneeling Elephant; MK ULTRA "MK Ultra" MK Ultra. The Washington Post, p. N15.
  • Kiernan, L. (1980, December 12). Canadians Sue U.S. Over CIA Tests Of Behavior Modification Methods. The Washington Post, p. A44.
  • Mooar, Brian. (1994, July 12). Tests Contradict U.S. Story of Man's Suicide; Family Suspects CIA Killed Researcher. The Washington Post, p. B1.
  • Mooar, Brian. (1994, November 29). New Study Yields Little on Death of Biochemist Drugged by CIA. The Washington Post, p. B3.
  • Richards, Bill. (1979, January 29). Book Disputes CIA Chief on Mind-Control Efforts. The Washington Post, p. A2.
  • Richards, Bill. (1979, February 15). The CIA's Attempt At Mind Control: Bad Trips? The Washington Post, p. C4.

Books

  • Black, David (1998). Acid: The Secret History of LSD. London: Vision. ISBN 1-901250-11-3. Later edition exists.
  • Bloch, Jonathan (1987). KGB/CIA. Greenwich CT USA: Brompton. ISBN-0-86124-368-4.
  • Bowart, W. H. (1978). Operation Mind Control: Our Secret Governments's War Against Its Own People. New York: Dell. ISBN 0-440-16755-8.
  • Camper, Frank (1997). The Mk/Ultra Secret. Savannah, GA: Christopher Scott Publishing. ISBN 1-889149-02-0.
  • Collins, Anne ([1988] 1998). In the Sleep Room: The Story of CIA Brainwashing Experiments in Canada. Toronto: Key Porter Books. ISBN 1-55013-932-0. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help) (Reprint edition.)
  • Douglass, Joseph (2002). Betrayed. 1st Books Library. p. 492. ISBN 140330131X. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |coauthors= and |month= (help)
  • Douglass, Joseph (1999). Red Cocaine: The Drugging of America and the West. Edward Harle. p. 178. ISBN 1899798048. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |coauthors= and |month= (help)
  • Fahey, Todd (1996). Wisdom's Maw. Far Gone Books. p. 224. ISBN 0-965-18390-4. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  • Lee, Martin (1985). Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond. New York: Grove Press. ISBN 0-8021-3062-3. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  • Marks, John (1979). The Search for the Manchurian Candidate. New York: Times Books. ISBN 0-8129-0773-6.
  • McCoy, Alfred (2006). A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror. Metropolitan Books. pp. 21 sqq. ISBN 0-8050-8041-4. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  • Ranelagh, John (1988). The Agency: The Rise and Decline of the CIA. Sceptre. pp. 208–210. ISBN 0-340-41230-5. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  • Ronson, Jon (2004). The Men Who Stare at Goats. Picador. ISBN 0-330-37548-2.
  • Stevens, Jay (1987). Storming Heaven: LSD and The American Dream. New York: Grove Press. ISBN 0-8021-3587-0.
  • Thomas, Gordon (1989). Journey into Madness: The True Story of Secret CIA Mind Control and Medical Abuse. New York: Bantam. ISBN 0-553-28413-4.
  • Vankin, Jonathan (2004). 80 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time. Citadel Press. ISBN 0-8065-2531-2. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help) Chapter 1, "CIAcid Drop".