CIA MIND-CONTROL EXPERIMENTS
Part 6 of this chronology focused on Chemical & Biological Experiments on U.S. Soldiers (1942–1975). This part of the chronology focuses on Top Secret CIA-sponsored mind-control and/or behavior modification experiments — i.e., “psychological warfare” — conducted on tens of thousands of unwitting civilians, including young children. These experiments became an integral feature in CIA’s political and paramilitary lawless and immoral operations.
The covert convergence between CIA and cognitive scientists — psychiatrists and psychologists — who provided the patina of legitimate science to CIA’s outrageous — even depraved — psychological torture experiments. CIA’s “enhanced interrogation” experiments were at first interwoven with chemical and biological . . . Continue reading →
The phrase “psychological warfare” is reported to have first entered English in 1941 as a translated mutation of the Nazi term Weltanschauungskrieg, (meaning world view warfare). It was first embraced by William “Wild Bill” Donovan, a prominent Wall Street lawyer whom President . . . Continue reading →
Cameron was an internationally prominent psychiatrist who was invited as a consultant to the Nuremberg Tribunal. Allen Dulles asked him to evaluate Rudolph Hess, Hitler’s Deputy Führer, and assess his mental capacity to stand trial. Cameron and two other prominent psychiatrists — . . . Continue reading →
The secret US Naval Technical Mission Report described the “interrogation” techniques and mescaline experiments at Dachau; they were conducted by Dr. Kurt Ploetner, one of the most prominent Nazi researchers in this area. The report was based on a cache of secret . . . Continue reading →
The committee was headed by Winfred Overholser, MD, superintendent of St. Elizabeths Hospital for the mentally ill in Washington, D.C. Overholser, a Harvard graduate was Chairman of psychiatry at George Washington University, who presided over St. Elizabeths for 25 years. He was . . . Continue reading →
The OSS (later CIA) first tested extreme interrogation — torture — techniques in Camp King where the chief physician was General Dr. Walter Schreiber, former medical chief of the Wehrmacht, followed by Dr. Kurt Blome, the former Deputy Surgeon General of the . . . Continue reading →
The CIA was established by President Harry Truman in 1947 as an information gathering agency to apprise the President with accurate up-to-the-minute information in particular about trends and developments in all danger spots in the world. President Truman had not anticipated that . . . Continue reading →
The Naval report about the Dachau mescaline experiments was the catalyst for Project CHATTER which focused on identifying and testing drugs for interrogations and recruitment of intelligence agents. It was headed by Lieutenant Dr. Charles Savage, a graduate of Yale and the . . . Continue reading →
Charles Loucks, Chief of U.S. Chemical Warfare in Europe learned about the hallucinogen LSD from Hitler’s former chemist, Richard Kuhn, who described its astounding incapacitating effect. Paperclip RoguesLoucks recognized LSD as a chemical agent with enormous military potential. The US Army definition . . . Continue reading →
Dr. Rinkel, a research psychiatrist obtained LSD from its sole Swiss manufacturer, Sandoz Chemicals; his partner, Dr. Robert Hyde took the first acid trip in the West. They then organized an LSD Study at Boston Psychopathic Institute where they tested the drug . . . Continue reading →
In 1949, the Rand Corporation issued a report, “Are Communist Countries Using Hypnosis Techniques to Elicit Confession in Public Trials?” The report relied on old Soviet hypnosis experiments conducted in 1923 (which were translated into English in 1932). The Soviets had reported . . . Continue reading →
BLUEBIRD was the first structured comprehensive, integrated CIA mind control project involving both domestic and overseas covert activities designed to study enemy techniques and test them on selected individuals, including “potential intelligence agents, defectors, refugees, Prisoners of War and “others.” Under this . . . Continue reading →
Soviet doctors concluded that lobotomy was “contrary to the principles of humanity.” Furthermore, they concluded that “through lobotomy an insane person is changed into an idiot.” (Wikipedia). The CIA considered lobotomy as a solution for “disposal” of individuals.
A 1952 CIA memo titled: “LOBOTOMY and Related Operations” discussed the question: Is lobotomy a solution for “disposal” of an individual who might pose a security risk? Lee and Shlain (Acid Dreams) report that a group of CIA scientists entertained the possibility . . . Continue reading →
Dr. Paul H. Hoch, a psychiatrist who trained in Germany and came to the U.S. on a visitor’s visa, gained immigrant status with legal assistance by John Foster Dulles (future Secretary of State and brother of Allen Dulles). From 1948 to 1955, . . . Continue reading →
Dr. Milton Greenblatt, Dr. Harry Solomon, Dr. Julius Levine, and Dr. Norman Paul actively promoted bimedial lobotomy in the major journals. The lobotomy studies were funded by the U.S. Public Health Service. Levine, Greenblatt and Solomon reported the “superiority” of bimedial lobotomy . . . Continue reading →
MK-NAIMI was a joint project of the CIA and the Special Operations (SO) Division at Fort Detrick. Hank Albarelli quotes an early memorandum in which a bacteriologist articulates MK-NAOMI’s mission: “Our mission was pretty simple and to the point: to provide the . . . Continue reading →
Beginning in 1952, both the CIA and Fort Detrick’s Special Operations Division (SOD) had formalized a written 2-year $1,000,000 contract with the NYS Psychiatric Institute (1952–53). It was officially referred to as Project MK-NAOMI, an adjunct to the larger CIA behavior modification . . . Continue reading →
Artichoke was launched by Allen Dulles, then deputy director of the CIA to replace and expand Bluebird as the major, multi-faceted military-CIA project. Within weeks, the CIA had acquired secret prisons in the Canal Zone, West Germany, and Japan; Artichoke teams were . . . Continue reading →
The Dorr Professor of Anesthesiology at Harvard University, whose reputation as a paragon of ethical research rests on his article in the New England Journal of Medicine (1966) in which he listed 50 unethical U.S. clinical trials. The career of Dr. Henry . . . Continue reading →
The term “brainwashing” was the brainchild of Edward Hunter, a covert CIA propaganda agent who churned out a stream of books and articles warning about the threat of Communist “brainwashing.” In testimony before the House Un-American Committee, Hunter warned: the Reds have . . . Continue reading →
In 1951, the Canadian Defense Research Board (DRB) convened a secret meeting in Montreal attended by military officials from the United Kingdom, Canada and two CIA officials. The focus of the meeting was — “brainwashing techniques.” Dr. Donald O. Hebb, chief of . . . Continue reading →
More than two hundred articles related to the effects of isolation and sensory deprivation were published in major scientific publications. For example, in 1957, Dr. Donald Wexler and three psychiatrists from Harvard University reproduced a similar experiment covertly funded by the secret . . . Continue reading →
In the early 1950s and beyond, Fink was a CIA Project Artichoke consultant. In 1951, Paul Gaynor and Morse Allen of CIA’s Security Research Service (SRS) oversaw ARTICHOKE. They worked closely with Fink in New York City to thoroughly explore the merits . . . Continue reading →
Cameron was an internationally prominent psychiatrist who developed torture techniques on his involuntary hospitalized patients — mostly women. His brutal techniques involved a three-stage method for “brainwashing” in order to eliminate the will and establish control: first, “mental depatterning” achieved through drug-induced . . . Continue reading →
A Memorandum for the Record, dated Jan. 31, 1975, reviews “available file information” about ARTICHOKE, “the agency cryptonym for the study and/or use of ‘special’ interrogation methods that have been known to include the use of drugs and chemicals, hypnosis, and ‘total . . . Continue reading →
A memorandum from Paul Gaynor, CIA Security Research chief to ARTICHOKE director, Morse Allen states: “It is imperative that we move forward more aggressively on identifying and securing a more reliable ready group, or groups, of human research subjects for ongoing Artichoke . . . Continue reading →
Dr. Harris Isbell’s experiments can only be described as torture — on par with Nazi human experiments. Isbell tested 800 psychoactive chemicals, including LSD, using as his subjects African American male prisoners addicted to heroin. He gave them heroin in exchange for . . . Continue reading →
Artichoke Conference: “use of criminals and the criminally insane have been very successful.” CIA Security Research chief Paul Gaynor stated at an Artichoke Conference meeting at Fort Detrick, All individuals can be broken under mental and physical assaults and by such techniques . . . Continue reading →
Maitland Baldwin, a scientist at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIH), had no moral inhibitions about carrying out CIA’s most radical experimental proposals. He had conducted “a rather gruesome experiment” on an Army “volunteer” who was kept in a box for . . . Continue reading →
Dr. John Lilly was a scientist at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) who conducted experimental studies on monkeys in an effort to “map” the body’s functions controlled from various locations in the brain. He devised a method of pounding up to . . . Continue reading →
Allen Dulles, a master propagandist demonstrated his adroit duplicity when he delivered a fear mongering speech about “brain warfare” at a national Princeton alumni conference. He described the “abhorrent” but effective vast Soviet experiment in “brain perversion techniques” when, in fact he . . . Continue reading →
In a rare exchange of memos (1953) between the two men Dulles reaffirmed his support for utilizing psychiatry’s “applied medical science” for torture. And in his memo to Dulles (April 13, 1953) Helms (then chief, CIA Office of Special Operations) proposed a . . . Continue reading →
The CIA and DOD penetrated and compromised the research integrity of 88 non-government American institutions — universities, medical centers, hospitals; and covertly bankrolled substantially all of the post — World War II generation’s research into mass communication and techniques of persuasion, opinion . . . Continue reading →
Shielded by a wall of secrecy medical scientist overturned traditional medical ethics, as German academics had done during the Nazi reign. The danger of separating science from ethics and divorcing the medical profession from its humanitarian commitment to heal — not to . . . Continue reading →
Dr. Charles Geschickter was an extremely important asset for Gottlieb’s division, with his connections in high places and as a funding conduit. In 1955 he convinced Agency officials to contribute $375,000 in secret funds toward the construction of a new research building . . . Continue reading →
An Artichoke Conference was held at Fort Detrick at which Gaynor reminded officials that: All individuals can be broken under mental and physical assaults and by such techniques as denying sleep, exhaustion, persuasion, starvation, pain, humiliation, and sickness. The capacity to endure . . . Continue reading →
“Can an individual be made to perform assassination involuntarily under the influence of ARTICHOKE?” The question was contained in a CIA memo dated Jan 22, 1954. The question was not entirely hypothetical; the memo specified that “the assassination would be against a . . . Continue reading →
Allen Dulles turned to Dr. Harold Wolff, a renowned neurologist, whose expertise was migraine headaches and pain; and, Dr. Lawrence Hinkle, a cardiologist both at Cornell University Medical College to investigate and prepare a report about Communist brainwashing techniques. Their report (1956) . . . Continue reading →
The psycho-electronic experiments aimed at controlling individual behavior, ultimately to be used as a means for social control — thereby laying the groundwork for a totalitarian state. Physicians involved in these nefarious experiments include: Dr. Jose Delgado, Director of Neuropsychiatry at Yale . . . Continue reading →
Delgado was the Director of Neuropsychiatry at Yale University Medical School who was called a “technological wizard” for his numerous inventions. He invented a miniature electrode implanted in the brain — called a stimoceiver — which is capable of receiving and transmitting . . . Continue reading →
Dr. Robert Galbraith Heath was the chairman of the Dept. of Psychiatry and Neurology at Tulane University; his invasive surgical brain physiology experiments were at the outer limits of existing neurophysiological knowledge. He surgically implanted electrodes into is psychiatric patients’ brains to . . . Continue reading →
Alan A. Baumeister (2000), distinguished professor and the former director of Vanderbilt University Kennedy Center, analyzed Heath’s published reports and concluded that the Tulane EBS experiments refutes Heath’s claims that the experiments were motivated by a therapeutic justification. Prof. Baumeister concluded that . . . Continue reading →
In August, 1951, an outbreak of frenzied hallucinations, delirium and insanity shook the 500 inhabitants of the small French village of Pont-Saint-Esprit. The symptoms resembled descriptions of the malady known as St. Anthony’s Fire which afflicted communities during the Middle Ages. More . . . Continue reading →
Dr. Frank Olson was a high level civilian U.S. biological warfare scientist who worked with CIA’s Top Secret Special Operations Division (SO) which worked as a team with the Army Chemical Corps at Fort Detrick from 1943 until his death in 1953. . . . Continue reading →
Stanley Glickman’s case was less widely reported than Frank Olson. Glickman was an American artist living in Paris in 1952, when he joined a group of fellow Americans at a café, among them was Sidney Gottlieb. A heated political debate ensued and . . . Continue reading →
Operation Midnight Climax was an operation known only to Richard Helms and Gottlieb’s Technical Support Division; it was a free-wheeling illicit criminal operation headed by George Hunter White, an Army Captain, OSS officer, veteran agent of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) . . . Continue reading →
Precautions must be taken not only to protect operations from 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 . . . Continue reading →
Richard Condon’s tour de force fictional presentation shows the validity of Oscar Wilde’s observation, “Literature always anticipates life. It does not copy it, but molds it to its purpose.” At the time he wrote the book, Richard Condon had no inkling about . . . Continue reading →
Dr. Henry Murray, chairman of Harvard University’s Department of Social Relations had devised a screening test for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS, the precursor of the CIA) to assess the suitability of applicants for the secret service; it tested an applicant’s . . . Continue reading →
The book, edited by Albert Biderman and Herbert Zimmer, synthesizing the behavioral science contributions to interrogation techniques. The editors were funded by the U.S. Air Force. Isolation was deemed “the ideal way of ‘breaking down’ a prisoner, because, to the unsophisticated, it . . . Continue reading →
There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact . . . Continue reading →
Behavioral research was transferred from Sid Gottlieb and his Technical Support Division to the Office of Research and Development (ORD). Dr. Stephen Aldrich took over the leadership role, and ORD continued to probe for ways to control human behavior until 1979; and . . . Continue reading →
KUBARK is a cryptonym for CIA itself. The top secret KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogatiom Manual codified extensively tested psychological torture methods which are the foundation for the CIA’s sinister counter-insurrectional tactics. The authors of the KUBARK Manual are anonymous; but were keen to . . . Continue reading →
MK-ULTRA LSD experiments were discovered during an internal survey of the CIA’s technical services division headed by Sid Gottlieb. In his report, JS Earman, the IG stated: The concepts involved in manipulating human behavior are found by many people both within and . . . Continue reading →
George Estabrooks, a Harvard University graduate, Rhodes Scholar and chairman of psychology at Colgate University, Canada, is the only mind control doctor who has publicly acknowledged conducting extensive hypnosis work on behalf of the CIA, FBI and military intelligence. In the 1940s . . . Continue reading →
The subjects in MK-SEARCH were deemed “expendables” — people whose death or disappearance would arouse no suspicion. The experiments were designed to destabilize human personality by creating behavior disturbances, altered sex patterns, aberrant behavior using sensory deprivation and various powerful stress-producing chemicals, . . . Continue reading →
MK-OFTEN experiments were conducted at Holmesburg Prison and other state and federal prisons. These experiments sought to find “a compound that could simulate a heart attack or a stroke.” (Manchurian Candidate, Chapter 12) Alternately, they were designed to produce “irrational or irresponsible . . . Continue reading →
“We do not target American citizens . . . The nation must to a degree take it on faith that we who lead the CIA are honorable men, devoted to the nation’s service.” (Acid Dreams—The Complete Social History of LSD, 1992) His . . . Continue reading →
Sidney Gottlieb, CIA’s “Black Sorcerer” brought the infamous projects MK-ULTRA and MK-SEARCH to a halt, pronouncing the entire exercise had been a waste of time; he cited fatal scientific and operational flaws. Specifically, the biological and chemical techniques used to control human . . . Continue reading →
Many of these “throwaways” of society had been secretly subjected to CIA-mind control experiments. Dr. Gary Hackney, a psychologist who conducted behavior modification experiments into how much pain a subject could withstand at VA Hospital in Minnesota on the homeless veterans, soon . . . Continue reading →
In January 1973, as Helms was leaving the Agency and James Schlesinger was coming in, Project OFTEN was abruptly canceled. And he ordered all documents pertaining to the unconscionable behavior control experiments — ARTICHOKE, MONARCH, OFTEN, Operation Midnight Crisis (collectively referred to . . . Continue reading →
A front-page banner headline in The New York Times came just months after CIA’s involvement in the Watergate scandal was exposed. The article prompted President Ford to appoint a Commission headed by Vice President, Nelson Rockefeller (Feb. 1975) to investigate CIA’s unlawful . . . Continue reading →
The Commission’s task was to investigate CIA’s unlawful domestic activities. The Commission report attempted to downplay the scope of MK-ULTRA and its offshoots, barely including two pages about these experiments. The section about an employee of the Army who jumped from a . . . Continue reading →
In CIA et al v. Sims et al (no 83-1075, decided April 16, 1986), the majority opinion held that disclosure of the names of scientists and institutions involved in MKULTRA posed “an unacceptable risk of revealing intelligence sources.” The majority of the . . . Continue reading →
*1975–1976: Church Committee Report laid the foundation for NSA surveillance controversy The Church Committee investigation was the most far reaching and comprehensive; the Committee interviewed 800 individuals and conducted 250 executive (closed) hearings and 21 public hearings. The Church Committee Report (14 . . . Continue reading →
Following the disclosure that Frank Olson had been surreptitiously given LSD, the family met with President Ford who told them that he was “distressed that the family had not previously been told the truth.” They later met with then-CIA Director William Colby, . . . Continue reading →
Among other matters, it prohibited “experimentation with drugs on human subjects, except with the informed consent, in writing and witnessed by a disinterested third party, of each such human subject and in accordance with the guidelines issued by the National Commission for . . . Continue reading →
The joint Senate hearings were led by Sen. Edward Kennedy; the focus was Project MK-ULTRA. But the hearings, as John Marks concluded, added little information about CIA’s behavior-control programs. CIA officials (both past and present) who testified adopted the pattern of lying . . . Continue reading →
The book is out of print, but a “Researchers Edition“ (2nd ed. 1994) is online. Walter Bowart was the first author to argue that the U.S. government conducted covert psychological experiments on unwitting Americans; he did so armed with key documents he . . . Continue reading →
The first MK-ULTRA mind control lawsuit filed against the CIA was on December 11, 1980. Shortly afterwards another patient of Cameron became a co-plaintiff. Eventually, the number of Canadian plaintiffs was nine. William Casey, the newly appointed director of the CIA ordered . . . Continue reading →
This CIA interrogation manual, “Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual” (1983) is an updated version of KUBARK manual (1963) incorporating sections of KUBARK. The 1983 CIA training manual allocates considerable space to the subject of “coercive questioning” and psychological and physical techniques and . . . Continue reading →
Mind Control Archive Documents. Index to Entire FOIA Archive; 1,778 documents, 20,000 pages. Advisory Commission on Human Radiation Experiments (ACHRE) 1995. H.P. Albarelli and John Kelly. A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA’s Cold War Experiments, 2009 H.P. . . . Continue reading →