CIA Medical Experiments: Treating Psychosis - MKULTRA Mind Control Documentary Film (1955)
Project MKUltra is the code name of a
U.S. government human research operation experimenting in the behavioral engineering of humans through the
CIA's Scientific
Intelligence Division.
The CIA project was coordinated with the
Special Operations Division of the
Army's
Chemical Corps.
The program began in the early
1950s, was officially sanctioned in
1953, was reduced in scope in 1964, further curtailed in 1967 and officially halted in
1973. The program engaged in many illegal activities; in particular it used unwitting
U.S. and
Canadian citizens as its test subjects, which led to controversy regarding its legitimacy.
MKUltra used numerous methodologies to manipulate people's mental states and alter brain functions, including the surreptitious administration of drugs (especially
LSD) and other chemicals, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, isolation, verbal and sexual abuse, as well as various forms of torture.
The scope of Project MKUltra was broad, with research undertaken at 80 institutions, including 44 colleges and universities, as well as hospitals, prisons and pharmaceutical companies. The CIA operated through these institutions using front organizations, although sometimes top officials at these institutions were aware of the CIA's involvement. As the
Supreme Court later noted,
MKULTRA was:
concerned with "the research and development of chemical, biological, and radiological materials capable of employment in clandestine operations to control human behavior." The program consisted of some 149 subprojects which the
Agency contracted out to various universities, research foundations, and similar institutions. At least 80 institutions and 185 private researchers participated. Because the Agency funded MKULTRA indirectly, many of the participating individuals were unaware that they were dealing with the Agency.
Project MKUltra was first brought to public attention in
1975 by the
Church Committee of the
U.S. Congress, and a
Gerald Ford commission to investigate CIA activities within the
United States. Investigative efforts were hampered by the fact that
CIA Director Richard Helms ordered all MKUltra 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.
In
1977, a
Freedom of Information Act request uncovered a cache of 20,
000 documents relating to project MKUltra, which led to
Senate hearings later that same year. In July
2001 some surviving information regarding MKUltra was officially declassified.
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 Staff, 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
Project MKNAOMI and
Project MKDELTA.
Headed by
Sidney Gottlieb, the MKUltra project was started on the order of
CIA director Allen Welsh Dulles on April 13, 1953. Its remit was to develop mind-controlling drugs for use against the
Soviet bloc, largely in response to alleged
Soviet, Chinese, and
North Korean use of mind control techniques on U.S. prisoners of war in
Korea. 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, and would later invent several schemes to drug
Fidel Castro. Experiments were often conducted without the subjects' knowledge or consent. In some cases, academic researchers being funded through grants from CIA front organizations were unaware that their work was being used for these purposes.
In 1964, the project was renamed
MKSEARCH. 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 MKUltra effort, Subproject 54, was the
Navy's top secret "
Perfect Concussion" program, which was supposed to use sub-aural frequency blasts to erase memory. However, the program was never carried out.
Because most MKUltra 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 MKUltra and related CIA programs.
The project began during a period of what
Rupert Cornwell described as "paranoia" at the CIA, when
America had lost its nuclear monopoly, and fear of
Communism was at its height.
James Jesus Angleton, head of CIA counter-intelligence, believed that the organization had been penetrated by a mole at the highest levels.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Mkultra
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