MKUltra: Difference between revisions
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[[Harold Blauer]], a professional tennis player in [[New York City]], died as a result of a secret Army experiment involving [[3,4-Methylenedioxyamphetamine|MDA]].<ref name=autogenerated1>Marks 1979: p 72n.</ref> |
[[Harold Blauer]], a professional tennis player in [[New York City]], died as a result of a secret Army experiment involving [[3,4-Methylenedioxyamphetamine|MDA]].<ref name=autogenerated1>Marks 1979: p 72n.</ref> |
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[[Frank Olson]], a [[United States Army]] biochemist and [[biological weapon]]s researcher, was given LSD without his knowledge or consent in 1953 as part of a CIA experiment, and died under suspicious 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 |
[[Frank Olson]], a [[United States Army]] biochemist and [[biological weapon]]s researcher, was given LSD without his knowledge or consent in 1953 as part of a CIA experiment, and died under suspicious 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 thirteen stories to his death.<ref name="olson">Marks 1979: chapter 5.</ref> |
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Olson's son disputes this version of events, and maintains that his father was murdered due to the belief that he was going to divulge his knowledge of the top-secret interrogation program code-named [[Project ARTICHOKE]].<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.frankolsonproject.org/Statements/FamilyStatement2002.html | last = Olson | first = E | title = Family Statement on the Murder of Frank Olson | accessdate = 2008-10-16 | date = 2002-08-22 }}</ref> Frank Olson's body was exhumed in 1994, and cranial injuries indicated Olson had been knocked unconscious before exiting the window.<ref>{{cite book | last = Ronson | first = Jon | title = The Men Who Stare at Goats | publisher = Picador | year = 2004 | location = | isbn = 0-330-37548-2 }}</ref> |
Olson's son disputes this version of events, and maintains that his father was murdered due to the belief that he was going to divulge his knowledge of the top-secret interrogation program code-named [[Project ARTICHOKE]].<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.frankolsonproject.org/Statements/FamilyStatement2002.html | last = Olson | first = E | title = Family Statement on the Murder of Frank Olson | accessdate = 2008-10-16 | date = 2002-08-22 }}</ref> Frank Olson's body was exhumed in 1994, and cranial injuries indicated Olson had been knocked unconscious before exiting the window.<ref>{{cite book | last = Ronson | first = Jon | title = The Men Who Stare at Goats | publisher = Picador | year = 2004 | location = | isbn = 0-330-37548-2 }}</ref> |
Revision as of 12:27, 21 December 2009
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4f/DeclassifiedMKULTRA.jpg/200px-DeclassifiedMKULTRA.jpg)
Project MK-ULTRA, or MKULTRA, was the code name for a covert CIA interrogation research program, run by the Office of Scientific Intelligence. This official U.S. government 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] The published evidence indicates that Project MK-ULTRA involved the surreptitious use of many types of drugs, as well as other methods, to manipulate individual mental states and to alter brain function.
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.[4]
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."[5][6]
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. 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.[7]
To this day most specific information regarding Project MKULTRA remains highly classified.[8]
Title and origins
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f4/Mkultra-lsd-doc.jpg/220px-Mkultra-lsd-doc.jpg)
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 word ULTRA (which had previously been used to designate the most secret classification of World War II intelligence). 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 scientists. Some of these scientists studied torture and brainwashing, and several had just been identified and prosecuted as war criminals during the Nuremberg Trials.[9][10]
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,[11] largely in response to Soviet, Chinese, and North Korean use of mind-control techniques on U.S. prisoners of war in Korea.[12] 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,[13] and would later invent several schemes to drug Fidel Castro.
Experiments were often conducted without the subjects' knowledge or consent.[14] In some cases, academic researchers being funded through grants from CIA front organizations were unaware that their work was being used for these purposes.[15]
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.
Another MK-ULTRA effort, Subproject 54, was the Navy's top secret "Perfect Concussion" program, which used sub-aural frequency blasts to erase memory.[16]
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.[17]
Goals
The Agency poured millions of dollars into studies examining methods of influencing and controlling the mind, and of enhancing their ability to extract information from resistant subjects during interrogation.[18][19]
Some historians have asserted that creating a "Manchurian Candidate" subject through "mind control" techniques was a goal of MK-ULTRA and related CIA projects.[20] Alfred McCoy has claimed that the CIA attempted to focus media attention on these sorts of "ridiculous" programs, so that the public wouldn't look at the primary goal of the research, which was developing effective methods of torture and interrogation. Such authors cite as one example, the fact that the CIA's KUBARK interrogation manual refers to "studies at McGill University", and that most of the techniques recommended in KUBARK are exactly those that Cameron used on his test subjects (sensory deprivation, drugs, isolation, etc).[19]
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:[21]
- 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 that 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 that the tendency of the recipient to become dependent upon another person is enhanced.
- 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.
- 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 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.
- 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.
Budget
A secretive arrangement granted the MK-ULTRA program 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.[22] An estimated $10 million USD or more was spent.[23]
Experiments
CIA documents suggest that "chemical, biological and radiological" means were investigated for the purpose of mind control as part of MK-ULTRA.[24]
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 or 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, the brothels were equipped with one-way mirrors, and the sessions were filmed for later viewing and study.[25]
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.[26]
LSD was eventually dismissed by MK-ULTRA's researchers as too unpredictable in its results.[27] 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.[28] 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, sodium pentothal,[29] and ergine (in Subproject 22).
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."[30]
Canadian experiments
The experiments were exported to Canada when the CIA recruited Scottish psychiatrist 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 reprogramming 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.[31] His treatments resulted in victims' incontinence, amnesia, forgetting how to talk, forgetting their parents, and thinking their interrogators were their parents.[32] His work was inspired and paralleled by the British psychiatrist Dr William Sargant at St Thomas' Hospital, London, and Belmont Hospital, Surrey, who was also involved in the Intelligence Services and who experimented extensively on his patients without their consent, causing similar long-term damage.[33] 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.[citation needed]
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.[34]
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 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. 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.[35] However, it contained little detail.
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 1977, during a hearing held by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, to look further into MKULTRA, Admiral Stansfield Turner, then Director of Central Intelligence, revealed that the CIA had found a set of records, consisting of about 20,000 pages,[36] that had survived the 1973 destruction orders, due to having been stored at a records center not usually used for such documents.[35] These files dealt with the financing of MKULTRA projects, and as such contained few details of those projects, but much more was learned from them than from the Inspector General's 1963 report.
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. None of Dr. Cameron's personal records of his involvement with MKULTRA survive, since his family destroyed them after his death from a heart attack while mountain climbing in 1967.[37]
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 1950s and 1960s. 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...[38]
Deaths
Harold Blauer, a professional tennis player in New York City, died as a result of a secret Army experiment involving MDA.[39]
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 suspicious 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 thirteen stories to his death.[40]
Olson's son disputes this version of events, and maintains that his father was murdered due to the belief that he was going to divulge his knowledge of the top-secret interrogation program code-named Project ARTICHOKE.[41] Frank Olson's body was exhumed in 1994, and cranial injuries indicated Olson had been knocked unconscious before exiting the window.[42]
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.[40]
Legal issues involving informed consent
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.[43] 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 and dismissed the case in 2007.[44]
Extent of participation
Forty-four American colleges or universities, 15 research foundations or chemical or pharmaceutical companies and the like including Sandoz (currently Novartis) and Eli Lilly & Co., 12 hospitals or clinics (in addition to those associated with universities), and 3 prisons are known to have participated in MKULTRA.[45][46]
Notable subjects
A considerable amount of credible circumstantial evidence suggests that Theodore Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber, participated in CIA-sponsored MK-ULTRA experiments conducted at Harvard University from the fall of 1959 through the spring of 1962. .[47] During World War II, Henry Murray, the lead researcher in the Harvard experiments, served with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which was a forerunner of the CIA. Murray applied for a grant funded by the United States Navy, and his Harvard stress experiments strongly resembled those run by the OSS.[47] Beginning at the age of sixteen, Kaczynski participated along with twenty-one other undergraduate students in the Harvard experiments, which have been described as "disturbing" and "ethically indefensible."[47][48]
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.[49]
Candy Jones, American fashion model and radio host, claimed to have been a victim of mind control in the '60s.[50]
Infamous Irish mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger volunteered for testing while in prison.[51]
Robert Hunter is an American lyricist, singer-songwriter, translator, and poet, best known for his association with Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead. Hunter was an early volunteer test subject for the MKULTRA program. He was paid to take LSD, psilocybin, and mescaline and report on his experiences, which were creatively formative for him:
Sit back picture yourself swooping up a shell of purple with foam crests of crystal drops soft nigh they fall unto the sea of morning creep-very-softly mist...and then sort of cascade tinkley-bell like (must I take you by the hand, every so slowly type) and then conglomerate suddenly into a peal of silver vibrant uncomprehendingly, blood singingly, joyously resoundingbells....By my faith if this be insanity, then for the love of God permit me to remain insane. [McNally 42-43][52]
Conspiracy theories
MK-ULTRA plays a part in many conspiracy theories given its nature and the destruction of most records.[53]
Lawrence Teeter, attorney for convicted assassin Sirhan Sirhan, believed Sirhan was under the influence of hypnosis when he fired his weapon at Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. Teeter linked the CIA's MKULTRA program to mind control techniques that he claimed were used to control Sirhan.[54]
Jonestown, the Guyana location of the Jim Jones cult and Peoples Temple mass suicide, was thought to be a test site for MKULTRA medical and mind control experiments after the official end of the program. Congressman Leo Ryan, a known critic of the CIA, was assassinated after he personally visited Jonestown to investigate various reported irregularities.[55]
Popular culture
- MKULTRA is referenced in the plots of The Ambler Warning by Robert Ludlum, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe, Firestarter by Stephen King, Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, Just a Couple of Days by Tony Vigorito, The Manchurian Candidate by Richard Condon, The Telling of Lies by Timothy Findley; and The Watchmen by John Altman; the films The Bourne Ultimatum, Conspiracy Theory, The Good Shepherd, Jacob's Ladder, The Killing Room, and The Men Who Stare at Goats; the television series Angel, Bones, Fringe, The Lone Gunmen, Numb3rs, Quincy M.E., The West Wing, and The X-Files; the games Conspiracy X and The Suffering: Prison is Hell; the character Deathstroke the Terminator in the Teen Titans by DC Comics.
- The bands mk Ultra, MK-ULTRA, and a side project of Frank Tovey took their names from these projects. MKULTRA is also referenced by such musical artists as Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Canibus, Exit Clov, Fatboy Slim, Green Magnet School, Immortal Technique, Manic Street Preachers, Muse, The Orb, Sirius Isness, Lustmord side project Terror Against Terror, Tokyo Police Club, and Unwound.
- MKULTRA also provides a name for a move by professional wrestler Sterling James Keenan.
- MKULTRA is the name given to an award winning type of cannabis. 1st place in the Indica Cup, 2003 High Times Cannabis Cup, and the 2004 High Times Cannabis Cup, 2nd place for the Indica Cup. It is a cross between G-13 and OG'er Kush.
See also
- Brainwashing
- CIA operations
- COINTELPRO
- Human radiation experiments
- KUBARK
- Louis Jolyon West
- Project MKDELTA
- Project MKNAOMI
- Operation Paperclip
- Sensory deprivation
- Sidney Gottlieb
- United States v. Stanley
- William Sargant
Footnotes
- ^ Richelson, JT (ed.) (2001-09-10). "Science, Technology and the CIA: A National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book". George Washington University. Retrieved 2009-06-12.
{{cite web}}
:|first=
has generic name (help) - ^ "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. Retrieved 2005-08-24.
- ^ "The Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, Foreign and Military Intelligence". Church Committee report, no. 94-755, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. Washington, D.C..: United States Congress. 1976. p. 392.
- ^ "An Interview with Richard Helms". Central Intelligence Agency. 2007-05-08. Retrieved 2008-03-16.
{{cite news}}
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(help) - ^ "Interview with Victor Marchetti". Retrieved 2009-08-22.
- ^ Cannon, M (1992). "Mind Control and the American Government". Lobster Magazine. 23.
- ^ "Opening Remarks by Senator Ted Kennedy". U.S. Senate Select Committee On Intelligence, and Subcommittee On Health And Scientific Research of the Committee On Human Resources. 1977-08-03.
- ^ http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/national/13inmate_ProjectMKULTRA.pdf
- ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4443934.stm
- ^ http://www.jlaw.com/Articles/NaziMedEx.html
- ^ Church Committee; p. 390 "MKULTRA was approved by the DCI [Director of Central Intelligence] on April 13, 1953"
- ^ "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. Retrieved August 24 2005.
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ignored (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." - ^ 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."
- ^ 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.'"
- ^
Price, David (2007). "Buying a Piece of Anthropology: Human Ecology and unwitting anthropological research for the CIA" (PDF). Anthropology Today. 23 (3): 3–13. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8322.2007.00510.x. Retrieved 2008-04-13.
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ignored (help) - ^ http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/History/e1950/mkultra/Hearing05.htm, retrieved 25 April 2008
- ^ "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. Retrieved August 24 2005.
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ignored (help) (identical sentence) "Because most of the MK-ULTRA records were deliberately destroyed in 1973 ... MK-ULTRA and the related CIA programs." - ^ Klein, N (2007). "2". The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. New York: Picador. pp. 47-49. ISBN 0-312-42799-9.
- ^ a b McCoy, Alfred (2006). A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation from the Cold War to the War on Terror. New York: Metropolitan Books. pp. 8, 22, 30. ISBN 0805080414.
- ^ Ranelagh, John (1988). The Agency: The Rise and Decline of the CIA. Sceptre. pp. 208–210. ISBN 0-340-41230-5.
{{cite book}}
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ignored (help) - ^ "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.
- ^ Declassified
- ^ Mind Control and the Secret State
- ^ Declassified
- ^ Marks, John (1979). The Search for the Manchurian Candidate. New York: Times Books. pp. 106–7. ISBN 0-8129-0773-6.
- ^ NPR Fresh Air. June 28, 2007 and Tim Weiner, The Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA.
- ^ [1]
- ^ Marks 1979: pp 40–42.
- ^ Marks 1979: chapters 3 and 7.
- ^ Declassified
- ^ Marks 1979: pp 140–150.
- ^ Turbide, Diane (1997-04-21). "Dr. Cameron's Casualties". Retrieved 2007-09-09.
- ^ Collins, Anne ([1988] 1998). In the Sleep Room: The Story of CIA Brainwashing Experiments in Canada. Toronto: Key Porter Books. pp. 39, 42–3, 133. ISBN 1550139320.
{{cite book}}
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(help) - ^ Marks 1979: p 141.
- ^ a b Prepared Statement of Admiral Stansfield Turner, Director of Central Intelligence
- ^ Government Mind Control Records of MKULTRA & Bluebird/Artichoke
- ^ HistoryOnAir Podcast 98 - MKULTRA
- ^ 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.)
- ^ Marks 1979: p 72n.
- ^ a b Marks 1979: chapter 5.
- ^ Olson, E (2002-08-22). "Family Statement on the Murder of Frank Olson". Retrieved 2008-10-16.
- ^ Ronson, Jon (2004). The Men Who Stare at Goats. Picador. ISBN 0-330-37548-2.
- ^ United States v. Stanley, 483 U.S. 669 (1987)
- ^ "Ritchie v. United States of America: United States District Court, Northern District of California No. C 00-3940 MHP. Findings of Fact and Conclusion of Law Re: Motion for Judgment on Partial Findings" (pdf). Retrieved 2008-10-16.
- ^ Book Review: Search for the Manchurian Candidate by John Marks
- ^ CIA Off Campus: Building the Movement Against Agency Recruitment and Research
- ^ a b c Chase, A (2000-06-01). "Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber". The Atlantic Monthly. pp. 41–65. Retrieved 2008-10-16.
- ^ Cockburn, A (1999-10-18). "CIA Shrinks and LSD". CounterPunch. Retrieved 2008-10-16.
{{cite web}}
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ignored (|author=
suggested) (help) - ^ Baker, Jeff (November 11, 2001). "All times a great artist, Ken Kesey is dead at age 66". The Oregonian. pp. A1.
- ^ Bennett, C (2001-07-01). "Candy Jones: How a leading American fashion model came to be experimented upon by the CIA mind control team". Fortean Times. Retrieved 2008-10-16.
- ^ Bruno, A. "James "Whitey" Bulger". truetv.com. Retrieved 2008-10-16.
- ^ McNally, Dennis. A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead. Broadway Books, 2002. ISBN 0-7679-1186-5.
- ^ Knight, P (2003). Conspiracy theories in American history: an encyclopedia, Volume 2. ABC-CLIO. pp. 490. ISBN 1576078124.
- ^ Teeter, Lawrence. "Interview with Sirhan's attorney Lawrence Teeter". KPFA 94.1/Guns & Butter show.
- ^ Meier, M (1989). Was Jonestown a CIA Medical Experiment?: A Review of the Evidence. New York: Edwin Mellen. ISBN 0-8894-6013-2.
Further reading
- "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".
- "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".
External links
- Short documentary about MKULTRA and the Frank Olson incident
- The Most Dangerous Game Downloadable 8 minute documentary by independent filmmakers GNN
- GIF scans of declassified MKULTRA Project Documents
- Interview of Alfred McCoy on CIA mind control research
- U.S. Supreme Court CIA v. SIMS, 471 U.S. 159 (1985) 471 U.S. 159
- U.S. Supreme Court UNITED STATES v. STANLEY, 483 U.S. 669 (1987) 483 U.S. 669
- Devices to alter consciousness
- History of the United States government
- Central Intelligence Agency operations
- Psychedelic research
- LSD
- Medical research
- Military history of the United States
- Military psychiatry
- Mind control
- 1953 establishments
- Secret government programs
- Human experimentation in the United States
- Investigations and hearings of the United States Congress
- Code names