Mind control is not only possible, but has been done before and is still continuing on unsuspecting people all over the United States of America. Through various behavior modifying techniques, including hypnosis and powerful drugs, the ancient desire to control people with magical potions had come alive again in the 1940's. The US government, by ignoring fundamental ethical codes throughout their programs aimed at controlling human behavior, rival the Nazis in cruel and unusual research.
Since World War II, the United States government, mainly the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), has secretly and, at times, inhumanely, sought a way to control human behavior. The CIA mind control programs were not only a continuation of the Office of Strategic Services' (OSS, America's W.W.II intelligence agency) quest for a truth drug, but also the beginnings of a drug culture in America.
As far as we can tell by documented evidence, modern day mind control started in Nazi Germany, was continued by the US military, then the CIA sunk into it. The CIA expanded mind control projects more than ever before, testing on thousands of subjects all over the country, thus violating a basic principle of the CIA.
During W.W.II in Nazi Germany, doctors under the S.S. and the Gestapo were testing mescaline on prisoners at Dachau to try and bring unwilling people under their control and eliminate their will. Mescaline caused some people to tell their innermost secrets, but even when combined with hypnosis, the drug never gained the Nazi's confidence as a mind control drug.
After the war, the Nuremberg trials tried and convicted a small number of those responsible for the Nazi "medical" horrors. Among the Nuremberg tribunal was a Dr. Ewen Cameron, who will be discussed later. Even before the verdicts were in at Nuremberg, US investigating teams were going through the records of the experiments conducted at Dachau for information that could be used by the military. Military authorities sent the records back home, which included documents on Nazi mescaline and hypnosis mind control experiments. None of the Nazi mind control research has been made available to the public.
At the same time Nazi "doctors" at Dachau were experimenting on Jews and other people deemed inferior, OSS Director Donovan created a truth drug committee. The committee's goal was to find or create a drug capable of altering and controlling human behavior and perception, mainly a substance that would make the subject spill his secrets when questioned- a "truth drug".
The committee, which included federal narcotics agent George White, tried many different drugs, including scopolamine, peyote, barbiturates, mescaline and THC, or marijuana. Marijuana was chosen as the most likely candidate for a truth drug and the committee, in cooperation with the Manhattan Project tested various forms of the drug. They tried liquid and vapor forms before finding out that the best way to deliver the drug was via the cigarette, a secret that had been known for years by jazz musicians and other users. The OSS scientists made a potent extract of marijuana which was clear, odorless and tasteless. It was named TD, or Truth Drug, and injected into normal cigarettes with a needle.
On May 27, 1943, the first field test of marijuana-laced cigarettes was done on August Del Gracio, a New York gangster. OSS documents state that after smoking the mix of tobacco and marijuana, Gracio was in a "state of irresponsibility, causing the subject [Gracio] to be loquacious and free in his impartation of information" (marks1.htm). The gangster gave George White, the Federal agent, more information than he had before, and the operation was considered a success. Marijuana was subsequently tested on 15-18 suspected Communists in the US Army. All the men who smoked the drug gave the feds more information than they had before. Marijuana did loosen the tongue, but it didn't control the mind, so the search continued.
The Army justified it's use of drugs, including LSD, for counterintelligence and defense uses. In 1958 in Edgewood Arsenal, 95 "volunteers" were given LSD. Some were unaware that they had been drugged and thought they were going insane, others were polygraphed to see if they could lie better on acid, and others were given LSD and placed in isolation chambers. STP (Serenity, Tranquillity and Peace) was another drug tested at Edgewood and it put the user on an intense three day trip. The Army tested it for use as an incapacitating agent. PCP was tested as well as hundreds of other different drugs, many of which had never been tested on humans before.
American volunteers for the tests signed a consent form which basically said that they (the subjects) could end the experiment whenever they wanted to, but only if the supervising physician agreed. The volunteers were not told exactly what they were signing up for, nor the risks of LSD. The consent form only informed that "transitory discomfort may occur" (covert 9). So this program was "volunteer" in name only. The subjects also had to agree that they would not tell anyone (even a doctor) what really happened, making it impossible for medical assistance that could be needed after the testing. The Army tested LSD on approximately 1500 military personnel in the mid-60's, including many men who took their first trip when acid was given to unwitting GI's at mess parties.
Quinuclidinyl benzilate, or BZ, is a powerful hallucinogen whose effects generally last about three days-but have been known to last as long as six weeks. It's symptoms are similar to LSD, but much stronger. Edgewood Arsenal conducted BZ studies from 1959-1975. Many of the estimated 2800 soldiers exposed to BZ said they were never the same afterwards. BZ did not seem to be the perfect mind control drug, but it did become the Army's standard incapacitating agent.
BZ weapons, such as BZ in bullets, grenades, bombs, and missile warheads were then created by the Army. Allegedly, BZ was tested at least 5 times in Vietnam between 1968 and 1970. One of the occasions was Operation White Wing, where grenades containing BZ were dropped on 500 Viet Congs, only 100 were said to have escaped alive.
The Army stored, and maybe still has, at least 50 tons of BZ, enough to trip out everyone in the world. Army documents even suggest that there is a contingency plan to use BZ as a domestic civilian riot control method.
The Military then had two more projects, THIRD CHANCE and DERBY HAT, which involved giving drugs to unwitting subjects. These two projects involved giving EA-1729 (the Army's name for LSD) to unwitting subjects in the Far East and Europe.
Project THIRD CHANCE was conducted in 1961 in Europe. Ten unwitting subjects were given LSD and interrogated. These interrogations were only somewhat successful.
DERBY HAT was a project conducted in 1962 in the Far East, seven Asians were given LSD and interrogated. According to the Select Committee on Intelligence report, the US Army wanted to "evaluate any different effects the drug might have on Orientals" (covert 3).
In these projects, the interrogators would sometimes threaten to extend the state of the tripping subjects indefinitely, or to the point of insanity if the subjects would not talk. This method probably worked wonderfully, since if someone is tripping and they do not know what is causing their temporary insanity, they would do almost anything to stop it, since they have no idea how long it lasts or even if it ever stops. According to released documents, the Army ended unwitting drug testing projects in September of 1963
The Navy also attempted to find a truth drug in project CHATTER. This Navy program lasted from 1947 to 1953. It tested mescaline as a truth drug, but mescaline failed and the project was canceled.
The Navy also meddled in the behavioral modification (BeMod) area creating hardened assassins. Lt. Commander Thomas Narut of the US Naval Hospital said that recruits in Naples, Florida underwent Clockwork Orange style BeMod sessions. Martin Cannon, an independent researcher, reports that "Trainees would be strapped into chairs with their eyelids clamped open while watching films of industrial accidents and African circumcision ceremonies" (Cannon 20). Unlike the main character in A Clockwork Orange, who learned repulsion at the sight of violence, the Navy soldiers eventually accepted and enjoyed bloodshed. The graduates of this program were assassins to be placed throughout the world.
The Navy has not made any more of it's BeMod or mind control research public and this has led some to believe the Navy still maybe conducting experiments. This is partly due to the Navy's seeming interest and involvement in UFOs, which have been connected with mind control in many ways.
The CIA barged into the mind control research field shortly after its creation and has ever since been involved in one way or another in mind control. The Agency began its research with experiments in hypnosis.
Hypnosis, generally speaking, can not make someone do something that they normally would not do. However, if you can change their beliefs in a situation while they are hypnotized, you can get the subject to murder or do almost anything else. Hypnosis does not work on everyone-only about 20% of people make good enough subjects to be placed in a deep trance, where the hypnotist has the most control of their mind.
The first CIA hypnosis experiments was under project BLUEBIRD. It began in April of 1950 and tried to discover if hypnosis could allow a subject to beat a lie detector. They also mixed depressants and stimulants with polygraphs and had varying degrees of successful results.
Between Sept. 1, 1953, and June 1, 1954, the CIA conducted experiments with the goal of "recall of hypnotically acquired information by very specific signals" (MKULTRA hypnosis). This was to help in the creation of an agent who could be told sensitive information under hypnosis and then deliver the information to another party when cued to do so. In this case, the agent could be tortured or even killed and the enemy would never get the information out of the agent because he truly does not know that he knows. This kind of agent had definite uses in covert operations.
Other projects tried to have hypnotized subjects kill someone. Morse Allen, a CIA agent, proved in a series of experiments using CIA secretaries that hypnotized people could be forced into doing acts that could later be used to blackmail them.
There has been much discussion over the question of whether or not a programmed assassin could be created. A programmed assassin would be programmed to kill someone by means of a very specific cue. This person would not remember killing the victim and if he did, he would have no idea why he did it. The facts are that programmed assassins can be created and have been created in experiments.
In another one of Allen's experiments, he hypnotized one secretary and basically told her to shoot another hypnotized secretary, which the first girl subsequently did. the gun was unloaded, but only Allen knew it. After the trance was removed, the "killer' had no memory of the event and denied she would ever shoot anyone.
Murder is not the only anti-social act that people can be forced to do with the use of hypnosis and post hypnotic suggestions. (Post hypnotic suggestion, or PHS, is a hypnotically implanted suggestion that is cued by a specific word, sound, etc., that would trigger the programmed act.) When drugs are added, PHS is much easier and the right subject could be programmed to do anything.
The Palle Hardrup affair of 1951 is one example. In Denmark, Palle Hardrup robbed a bank and killed a guard in the process. In court, Hardrup claimed that his hypnotist, Bjorn Nielsen instructed him to do so. Nielsen admitted to have engineered Hardrup to commit the anti-social crime as a test of his hypnotic abilities.
Subjects who have been hypnotized to do something out of the ordinary usually will rationalize their actions as demonstrated by Sirhan Sirhan (RFK's assassin). While in prison, Sirhan was hypnotized and told to climb the bars of his cage like a monkey. Sirhan did and after the trance was removed, he was shown video of his actions. Sirhan insisted that he wanted the exercise and that he acted like a monkey of his own free will. The question must be asked if an assassin would insist he wanted to kill someone if he was questioned about it, even if he was only carrying out programmed actions.
In 1960, an MKULTRA program (the main CIA mind control program that will later be discussed in detail) was created that had 3 goals: 1) to quickly hypnotize an unwitting subject; 2) to create a lasting amnesia; and 3) to implant a lasting PHS. No information has been released on this project that could, in theory, turn an unwitting person into an assassin, except one heavily censored paper on rapid induction of hypnosis.
John Gittinger, an MKULTRA veteran, said that rapid induction of hypnosis on unwitting subjects worked "fantastically" on some people, and not at all on others. People can even be hypnotized with a common television or radio.
In case the subject ever remembered being hypnotized and programmed, the "doctors" would install false memories to cover up what really happened. This way, even if the subject began to remember things related to his programming, he would remember it incorrectly. The method of retrieving covered or forgotten, painful, traumatizing memories is called regression therapy. Regression therapy has brought forth many forgotten abuses, mind control experiments and other troubling experiences.
In 1992, the False Memory Syndrome Foundation began. Its members believe that regression therapy is unreliable and that the repressed memories brought forth out by it are lies implanted by the discovering psychologist. It would not be so suspicious if two of the board of advisors were not Louis West and Martin Orne, both MKULTRA veterans. This is a good example of CIA misinformation. Some of the founding members were responsible for what the FMS was so strongly fighting against.
In mid 1953, the CIA began the most notorious mind control project yet- MKULTRA. The "MK" allegedly stood for "Mind Kontrol". It was in this project that LSD was first tested on a wide scale.
The Soviets and the Chinese has massive re-education and brainwashing programs, but they used no drugs or any sort of electrical ray or machine. The Communist interrogations usually consisted of isolation, humiliation, and discomfort until the subject was ready to be re-educated or confess to an alleged crime. As the CIA learned of such techniques, they thought the US should be far ahead of the Communists in the mind control arena-and so began project MKULTRA. The CIA claimed that these programs were necessary to catch up with the Communists in their brain-washing techniques. Ten years later however, CIA deputy director Richard Helms admitted that the Soviet mind control research was years behind the American efforts. So the brainwashing scare was just a propaganda effort by the CIA so they could start their mind control research.
MKULTRA was a huge umbrella which covered about 150 subprojects. Some of the earlier goals of the project were to develop: substances that would make foreign leaders and politicians trip out during their public appearances thus discrediting and embarrassing themselves, chemicals and physical methods to produce amnesia, and substances that would lower the ambition and working efficiency in men (high and mighty 1).
MKULTRA was conducted all over the world in hundreds of places in secrecy. A declassified CIA document explains why the programs were done secretly: "The knowledge that the Agency is engaging in unethical and illicit activities would have serious repercussions in political and diplomatic circles..." (xviii Acid Dreams).
Many of the experiments under MKULTRA involved administration of LSD to subjects. Before they tested LSD on other subjects, MKULTRA men took acid themselves. They tripped in the office while observing, questioning and analyzing each other. They agreed to give it to each other unwittingly, such as in someone's coffee, and then observe the man as he tripped out. Dr. Harris Isbell conducted LSD research on inmates at the Lexington Federal drug hospital. Some of his subjects were kept on LSD for 77 days straight. In exchange for volunteering for Isbell's experiments, inmates received heroin. They could withdraw drugs from their "bank accounts" at any time, and the more you volunteered, the more credits went into your account.
Divine mushrooms and psilocybin (the active compound in psychedelic mushrooms) were tested under Dr. Isbell and in MKULTRA, subproject 58.
Dr. Ewen Cameron conducted some of the most horrific experiments funded by the CIA. Cameron tested 53 patients at Allan Memorial Institute in Canada. Treatment started with "sleep therapy", where subjects were knocked out for months, then he would "depattern" them, which included massive electroshock and LSD dosage. Depatterning was supposed to wipe out past behavior patterns so new patterns could be installed. Finally, Cameron put the subjects through "psychic driving", where the patients would be heavily drugged and confined to "sleep rooms". In the sleep rooms, speakers would be placed under the subject's pillow, and a tape recorded message would play over and over again for 16 to 24 hours a day. Some subjects heard the same message 250,000 times. This treatment did not work, it only succeeded in messing up several of the patients for the rest of their lives, and his theory was discredited.
Not only was LSD tested on volunteers who knew that drugs would be involved in the experiment, but it was also given to people who had no idea they had been drugged and people who had volunteered for experiments, but did not know the ordeal would involve LSD. Some scientists believed that if the subject knew that he would receive LSD, it would ruin the experiment, so unwitting subjects were more favorable to use, since their reactions would be more genuine. However, there was a problem over how to find subjects to perform unwitting testing on. After much thought, Dr. Sidney Gottlieb and the MKULTRA crew came to the conclusion that the best test subjects would be "the borderline underworld". These people- prostitutes, drug addicts and other small time criminals- would be powerless to extract revenge or cry to the government if they ever found out what the CIA did to them.
CIA officials gave $375,000 in secret funds to Georgetown University Hospital to help construct a new research building. In return, the Agency would receive one-sixth of the beds and total space for a hospital safehouse. According to a CIA document, this situation would give the CIA a good source of "human patients and volunteers for experimental use" (marks12.htm).
George White, an agent for the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, was chosen to head MKULTRA subproject #3, which was one of the first programs to test LSD on unwitting subjects. The subproject was carried out in two adjacent apartments in Greenwich Village, New York. This pair of apartments was called a "safehouse", and experimentation began here in 1953.
In the first few months of the safehouse, White tested LSD knockout drugs and THC (the essence of marijuana). He lured the victims to the safehouse, slipped the drugs in foods, drinks and cigarettes, then tried to get his subjects to reveal certain information.
White left the Greenwich safehouse, which continued unwitting drug testing, and moved to San Francisco in early 1955. He then opened a new safehouse in Telegraph Hill in San Francisco. This safehouse specialized in prostitutes. TSS officials were trying to discover how they could apply sex to spying. As one TSS official said of the study; "How do you take a woman who is willing to use her body to get money out of a guy to get things which are much more important, like state secrets" (marks6.htm).
The prostitutes who cooperated in these experiments were rewarded with "chits", or favors. When the girls got arrested, they could use their chits to get out of jail.
TSS officials found that the best time to seek sensitive information from the subjects was the postsexual period, not at the time of near orgasm as was originally thought. The girl would boost his ego by staying with him for a few hours and gently lead him into talking about business matters or whatever it was that she was assigned to find out.
In 1963, during a routine inspection, the Agency's Inspector General discovered the safehouses and wanted them shut down. Richard Helms, who headed the Clandestine Services, lied to the General to keep unwitting testing alive. Helms said that the Soviets had ways of mind control and the US had to keep up. Helms told the Warren Commission, about the same time, the truth however, that there was no evidence to suggest that the Soviets were anywhere near where the CIA was. Helms lies kept the safehouses operating, but not for much longer. Two years after they were discovered, the safehouses began closing down- the San Francisco safehouse closed in 1965 and one year later the one in New York was shut down.
Unwitting testing was not only done on adults, but also on children. Dr. Martin Orne, a founding member of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, conducted CIA funded mind control experiments on children in the 1950's. Two former patients of CIA-connected studies testified before the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments. The two women say the experiment sessions occurred when they were about eight years old and involved electroshock, hypnosis, shots (drugs), sexual abuse and intelligence tradecraft training.
Dr. Sidney Gottleib, under the alias of "Mr. Sheiber", trained children, in 1959 at Deer Creek camp in Maryland, to be child prostitutes for sexual blackmail operations. Claudia Mullens testified at the Advisory Committee hearing about the Deer Creek experiments. Mullens said she was seven years old and was "taught different ways to please men and at the same time ask questions to get them to talk about themselves. Then we had to recall everything we learned about them..." (Virtual 150, 151).
Richard Helms implied that the CIA had tinkered with child mind control, but no one pushed into the matter. He said that "cybernetics can be used in molding of a child's character...the amassing of experience, [and] the establishment of social behavior patterns..." (Virtual 168).
More evidence of child mind control came to light in 1995 during the President's Advisory Committee on Radiation Experiments. Valerie Wolf, a New Orleans psychologist, testified that "most of these patients [children apparently influenced by certain kinds of electronic stimulation of varying frequencies] responded to certain sounds. clickers, metronomes, or just clicking the tongue or hand clapping. Patients would vacillate from calm to robotically asking, 'Who do you want me to kill?'''. (Virtual 150, 151). The children were triggered to try to commit suicide, attack the therapist, or leave the office with the intent to kill somebody. The Advisory Committee requested the records of human radiation experiments from the CIA, but in October 1995, its final report showed dissatisfaction with the CIA's cooperation and recommended that the CIA provide more information than it did.
To rob a child of his or her innocence by making them perform sexual acts, altering their behavior by electronic means or any of the other BeMod tactics used by the CIA is inexcusable and disheartening.
Another major concern for TSS officials was a disposal problem with the victims of mind control research projects. At first the disposal problem was solved by committing subjects to insane asylums- even some that were mentally sound before the experiment. Some were killed in the experiment and others received icepick lobotomies, which removed or permanently destroyed brain tissue creating confusion and amnesia. Instead of institutionalizing them, etc., they began to erase the memory via hypnosis, drugs and implants. Then in order to solve the problem of memory leaks and repressed memories, false stories, or screen memories were poured in.
A couple of subjects disposed of themselves. Dr. Frank Olson was a Department of the Army employee who was unwittingly given LSD. He went into deep depression and the night before he was to enter a sanitarium, he killed himself by jumping out of the tenth floor window of a hotel. Another subject was killed in an experiment. Harold Blauer, a tennis professional, received an injection of MDA (methyl di-amphetamine) and died a few hours later. The two listed above are surely not the only subjects that died in or from drug experiments. The CIA used people who would not be missed, like the homeless, for the more dangerous research, that way if they died-no big deal. The only reason we know of these two deaths are because they were either famous or their death was a public event, like Olson's suicide
When MKULTRA officially ended in 1963, CIA researchers had, according to their public statements, found no sure way to brainwash people. They could create "vegetables", but these people could have no operational use. The CIA research spanned across at least 80 institutions, including 44 universities and colleges, 15 private research facilities and companies, 12 hospitals or clinics and 3 penal institutions. The estimated cost of these projects was $10 million of taxpayer's dollars.
MKULTRA really did not end, it just became MKSEARCH. Only seven of the 149 subprojects were carried over into MKSEARCH, all the other subprojects were either canceled or moved back to the regular CIA projects. The first subproject was two more years of sex and unwitting drug testing in the safehouses by George White. The second was the production of biological weapons on a large scale. The third was custom-made chemical weapons for attacks by the CIA. The fourth subproject was, as a CIA document says, "clinical testing of behavioral control methods" (marks12.htm) on inmates at the Cal. Medical Facility at Vacaville. Another was collecting data on the creation, use and effects of drugs. The sixth subproject was Dr. Maitland Baldwin's strange lobotomy experiments involving sensory deprivation, radio energy waves, etc. In one experiment, Baldwin cut off the head of one monkey and tried to transplant it on the neck of another decapitated monkey. The last was Dr. Charles Geschickter's experiments, which included knocking out monkeys with radar waves. The downfall of knocking subjects out with radar waves was that it can fry important parts of the brain. MKSEARCH went on until June of 1972 when Gottlieb ended the program.
The CIA's mind control programs went unnoticed by the public and most of the federal government until Nelson Rockefeller headed a commission to investigate CIA abuses. Among the long list of abuses mentioned was Frank Olson's death. It interested many people how an unnamed Army employee had jumped out a hotel window to his death after CIA men had given him LSD without his knowledge. This interest led to hearings on the CIA's unethical research.
In 1977, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and Senator Edward Kennedy's Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research held one joint hearing on behavior control and drug experimentation. The Select Committee later dropped out of the proceedings, but the Subcommittee went ahead. The Kennedy hearings did not add much to what was already known, it did not deal with inconsistent testimonies and did not try to find out what the CIA learned from "turning on" thousands of people, destroying the lives of others and other damage they did to the American people. Most doctors could not perform mind control experiments on their own, but by doing the same experiments under the CIA, he had protection from the law, secrecy and pride in himself for serving his country.
One hindrance to finding the whole truth was that there were very few documents that proved these experiments actually happened. Sid Gottlieb ordered that virtually no records of the testing be kept. In 1973, when Gottlieb retired from the CIA, he and Richard Helms destroyed what they thought were the last existing documents on the program. In his testimony, Gottlieb said the purpose of MKULTRA and related programs was to see if and how a person's behavior could be altered by covert means. He did not comment on the success of the programs however.
Testimonies were not in depth and some of those who testified agreed among themselves only to say just enough to satisfy the committee and no more. Dr. Gottlieb agreed to testify at the hearing only after receiving a grant of immunity from criminal prosecution. When unwitting LSD testing was brought up, neither Gottlieb nor any other MKULTRA veterans confessed to ever giving LSD to an unwitting subject, or even observing experiments like that- except in the case of Frank Olson. They rested all the blame for the unwitting testing on George White, who conveniently enough, is dead and can not defend himself. Throughout the hearings on MKULTRA, Agency personnel told stories of the mistakes in experiments, many of them humorous. This kind of clumsiness was an effective public relations for the CIA, deflecting serious investigation from drug-related misdeeds. We will probably never hear the entire truth on the government's attempts at mind control, and maybe we would not want to. As one MKULTRA veteran said to John Marks, declining to be interviewed: "Lots of things are not fit for the public. This has nothing to do with democracy. It has to do with common sense" (marks12.htm).
An accidental product of MKULTRA and related programs was the "crazies" that were roaming all over the country. Dr. Hackney, a psychiatrist who did BeMod experiments for the CIA around 1970-1975, describes when he began to figure out that these people perhaps really were not insane. Most of the patients' flashbacks involved the military in some way, they were in various rooms, and being tortured or taught things- like how to kill or something like that. After becoming more involved in the flashback issue, going to conventions with people from all over the world, it was apparent that the patients' "stories were all very consistent" (Hackney). Studies showed that these people were very conditioned and brainwashed when they were between 18 and 21, and it worked great, except that it tended to unravel when the victim was about forty. Repressed memory syndrome was offered as the answer, but the mainstream said these people were not brainwashed by the government and that their shrinks had convinced them they were brainwashed.
Hackney conducted experiments involving how much pain a subject could withstand and how they would condition under various pain. These experiments were done at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Minnesota on veterans that were homeless, or had no trace to anyone else. So they only used the throwaways of society. They were already considered crazy by society- so no one would listen to them if they complained about these BeMod experiments.
CIA mind control research damaged hundreds of people-some damage was evident at the time of experimentation while other damage took years to manifest. A number of subjects became sick for a few hours or days and some even required hospitalization. That is one reason why MKULTRA veterans have tried to hide their roles in experiments; fear from victims' lawsuits claiming damaged health. Even so, some victims have sued the government and received large sums of money for their damages.
James Thornwell, an unwitting subject of LSD testing in project THIRD CHANCE, sued the US government for $10 million in the late 1970's. In 1980, the US House of Representatives gave him a settlement of $650,000.
Nine of Dr. Cameron's former patients have also sued the US government for $1 million each. They said they were still suffering from the trauma they endured at Allan. These nine were all unwitting and willing subjects. The government appointed one lawyer to look into these nine claims. The commission concluded that the government bears no "legal or moral responsibilities" for the experiments. The commission suggested a $100,000 payment to each survivor, not because the government was guilty of doing wrong, but, according to its statement, a way of showing "a collective sense of accountability for events that took place in good faith with ill effect" (Virtual 28). It seems hard to believe that the government had good faith in these experiments not causing permanent brain damage, when in fact, some of the experiments were aimed at doing so.
Besides suing the government for damages, people have also sued the government through the Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA). In 1984, two men filed suit under the FOIA requesting the names of private researchers who did work for the CIA in connection with MKULTRA and the institutions where it took place. The district court ordered about half of the researchers' and institutions' names to be released, while the other half were still held because they had either been promised confidentiality by the CIA, or they were working in other CIA activities apart from MKULTRA (Petitioners 1). These other activities could have been MKSEARCH or any other BeMod program, including Army projects.
Some people have called the JFK assassination an extension of mind control experimentation and they back up their conspiracy with some interesting facts. Dr. Louis West, well known for his work in MKULTRA with LSD experiments, psychiatrically treated Jack Ruby, Oswald's assassin. West did not live or practice in Dallas, but he was assigned to the Ruby case. West, in 1964, concluded that Ruby was crazy, since Ruby would not admit to being insane. Ruby was then treated for mental disorders, until a different doctor put him on "happy pills". The pills did not cheer him up and two years later Ruby died in prison of cancer. Those who believe this was part of the government cover-up point to the fact that one of MKULTRA's goals was to create a substance that would cause cancer, an ideal way to kill someone who is in the public eye, since more direct approaches are too noticeable.
The CIA's widespread LSD testing led to a drug culture in America. Once a subject had tried acid, he usually would want to trip again sometime later. In huge universities and hospitals, the CIA and the Army carried out large scale testing programs. The CIA placed posters on the campuses advertising that you would be paid for participating in a drug study and they usually had not only enough students who wanted to try LSD (or trip again), but a long waiting list as well. Once a student tried acid, he would usually trip at least a couple more times, and of course he could not buy it from the doctors using it for testing, so he would turn to the up and coming acid dealer. Only years later did the truth come out that some of the acid dealers were actually CIA-connected men.
Hundreds of scientists, health professionals and students would turn on after hearing lectures on LSD. Harold Abranson, a CIA contractor, would speak favorably of acid at conferences and seminars, after which many of the audience would wind up trying LSD. If these people liked the experience, they would tell their friends, who would tell their friends and so on.
Some of the first trips for fun were started when Army soldiers stole LSD from the laboratories at Edgewood and used it for recreational purposes.
Ronald Stark was a CIA agent from 1960 on who was jailed for selling marijuana, morphine and cocaine. Stark made 50 million hits of LSD and sold them on the black-market in the late 60's and early 70's. He was later released from prison after a judge learned of Strak's true identity. Apparently, CIA agents can break the law and spread drugs around without any serious repercussions. Just Stark's story alone proves the CIA helped boost the drug culture of the 60's significantly and intentionally-but that is not all they did. The CIA helped underground chemists set up acid laboratories in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1967 to "monitor" events in the Haight-Ashbury district. Who would monitor these events? None other then Dr. Louis West, who rented a house in Ashbury, for observation purposes.
Many of the acid spokesmen were turned on CIA connected programs. Three of these men first tripped in programs at Stanford University: Ken Kesy (leader of the Pranksters), Allen Ginsberg (the beat poet), and Robert Hunter (lyricist for the Grateful Dead). Hunter later recommended LSD to the rest of the band. Various writers, actors, musicians and film makers, including Jack Nicholson, also first tried acid in government programs. Professor Timothy Leary began a psilcybin research project at Harvard after he returned from his first psychedelic experience in Mexico. Leary's research was under the approval of Dr. Harry Murray, who was in charge of the Personality Assessment part of the OSS during W.W.II. There are also indications that Leary received CIA-channeled money through various government agencies.
John Marks gives the CIA some leniency when he says "No one at the Agency apparently foresaw that young Americans would voluntarily take the drug [LSD]-whether for consciousness expansion or recreational purposes. It would become supreme irony that the CIA's enormous search for weapons among drugs -fueled by the hope that spies could...control life with genius and machines -would wind up helping to create the wandering, uncontrollable minds of the counterculture". (marks7.htm) But Marks neglects Stark's 50 million hits of LSD he sold, and the fact that the CIA has been involved in selling drugs to the American people numerous other times. CIA personnel in southeast Asia brought and sold heroin to the US. For eight years, heroin was smuggled inside the returning corpses of American military men who died in Vietnam- then sold to major city urban ghettos. Another example of CIA drug dealing was the Iran-contra scandal, where drugs were sold directly and indirectly by the CIA to inner cities.
Over the course of the government's testing, thousands of people were given drugs, many of whom tried drugs again, which were available from different non-governmental sources. In 1967, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences reported that "techniques for controlling behavior and modifying personality will grow more efficient by the year 2000. Thousands of experts at conditioning are now trying out their behavior-changing techniques on tens of thousands of people [my emphasis]- in classrooms, prisons, mental hospitals, day-care centers [my emphasis], factories, [and] nursing homes...". (Virtual 109) We will probably never know exactly how many people the government's BeMod programs damaged or turned on to LSD and other drugs, but without a doubt the number is at least in the thousands. If these thousands each turned on one or two friends to drugs, then we have in the tens of thousand range of acid heads, and thus a counterculture movement is born.
One can not lay all the blame for the drug culture at the CIA's feet. Doing so would ignore the times of the rebellion, mistrust and confusion. While the CIA may not have been solely responsible for the counterculture, they certainly gave it a much needed boost and support.
Almost all of the subjects on mind control research focus on things done 20-40 years ago- as if the CIA abandoned mind control because a few secrets came out in various Congressional testimonies. The CIA and other government branches are still very interested in electromagnetic brain manipulation. There is a thirty year gap between declassified research and the most advanced technology known and available to the American government.
There are currently numerous associations and groups of people who claim that the government is not only continuing electronic mind control, but conducting it on them and the government is ignoring their pleas to stop. Within these groups of "victims" it is hard to distinguish between who is lying and who is genuinely telling the truth. The reason for this is that the purpose of some mind control research was to induce insanity. Anyone who claims to be a victim is saying that their brain and memory has been tampered with, and therefore may not be reliable in the first place. A fine example of a catch-22.
Besides people's claims, there is solid proof on continuing mind control research. In 1996, Congress earmarked $37.2 million to investigate (which would include experiments on human subjects) "nonlethal technologies". (MK and secret state 3) Nonlethal technology is a term for mind control by means of drugs, micro and radio waves and other electronic means of altering the brain from a distance.
President Clinton, in a memorandum dated March 27, 1997, said the government is allowing classified radiation experiments and research involving humans as long as the government agency follows a set of guidelines that includes certain exemptions. This kind of public statement clearly indicates that classified mind control research is still going on.
There is a law in effect that allows open air testing of biological and chemical agents on civilians as long as public officials are notified at least 30 days prior to the testing. Biological agents would include diseases and infections, while chemical agents would include BZ, LSD and other behavior changing chemicals.
Also there are shadows of suspicion that government mind control played a role in the Oklahoma City bombing. Timothy McVeigh, the alleged mad bomber, was once assigned to a Pentagon contractor that conducts classified research in electronic warfare. McVeigh complained that he had been implanted with a microchip by federal agents. Also, during the week of the Oklahoma City bombing, a low-frequency hum was heard by many across the country. Another interesting fact connecting the Oklahoma City bombing to mind control is the involvement of Dr. Louis West. He led the psychological trauma team to treat victims' families and survivors of the explosion.
The government's mind control research created far more problems than it solved. Not only is the government having to use millions of tax dollars to pay survivors of their unethical research, but the federal government is spending billions of dollars fighting a drug problem that it helped create. Anyone with an unbiased mind can see that America will never win the war on drugs as long as our government continues to supply our country with drugs and lies about doing so.
Mind control is swiftly becoming one of the big conspiracies of the day, and hopefully because of this, more information will be released and discovered on this topic. The general public does not believe that mind control is possible, but the frightening truth is that mind control is possible, has been done before, and is still continuing on unwitting subjects. Nowadays, a person could be experimented on without their permission or knowledge and they may not even realize they are being controlled.
Mind control is no longer confined only to hypnosis and drugs, but in propaganda and electronic means. The best way to avoid and recognize mind control is to be informed about past, present and future research. Unfortunately, our government is not eager to release this sort of information, and until they do, we will never know the entire truth of the Army's, the Navy's and the CIA's history of unethical mind control. In my opinion, I think Dr. Sidney Gottlieb spoke the best summary of government mind control when he said, "The bottom line on this whole business has not yet been written."
Works Cited
Bowart, Walter. Operation Mind Control. New York: Dell. 1978.
Canon, Martin. The Controllers. 9 Sept. 1998.
Cong. Report. Feb. 3 1997: 97-178F
Constantine, Alex. Virtual Government. Venice: Feral House. 1997.
Covert Testing on Human Subjects by Military Intelligence Groups. 10 Sept. 1998.
Delgado, Jose. Physical Control of the Mind: Towards a Pyschocivilized Society. New York: Harper Torchbooks. 1969.
Hackney, Gary.Personal Interview 15 Sept. 1998
Krupey, G.J. Excerpt from The High and the Mighty: JFK, MPM, LSD and the CIA. 10 Sept. 1998.
Lee, Martin A. Acid Dreams. New York: Grove Press. 1985
LSD and the Army. 10 Sept. 1998.
Marks, John. The Search for the Manchurian Candidate. 1-21 Sept. 1998.
Mind Control and the Secret State.
MKULTRA Hypnosis Experiments. 10 Sept. 1998.
Petitioners V. Central Intelligence Agency. 25 August 1998.