American government agencies were created to protect citizens nationwide from threats, external and internal.
But what happens when said government agencies turn the people it protects into guinea pigs for unethical, illegal experimentation? Enter MKUltra.
Project MKUltra (also known as MKNaomi, MKSearch, and MKDelta) was started by the Central Intelligence Agency in April of 1953. Born out of precursor experiments such as Operation Paperclip (which recruited former Nazi scientists knowledgeable in torture and brainwashing), and Project Artichoke, which studied mind control, MKUltra’s purpose was to create mind controlling drugs to use against the Soviet bloc. Feeling pressured by rumors of mind control drugs being used by the USSR, China, and North Korea, the CIA worked to develop their own drugs to use on captives, and possibly foreign leaders. In a 1955 MKUltra document, agents compiled a list of drugs they wanted to create and utilize, including:
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 cause the victim to age faster/slower in maturity.
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 cause temporary/permanent brain damage and loss of memory.
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 a chemical that can cause blisters.
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 person to perform physical activity.
Many subjects were tested upon without their knowledge or consent throughout the project, which lasted from 1953 until its official termination in 1973. Documents suggest that “chemical, biological and radiological” means were investigated for the purpose of mind control as part of MKUltra, including LSD, a barbiturate/amphetamine cocktail, heroin, morphine, MDMA (ecstasy), mescaline, marijuana, alcohol, and sodium pentothol, Non-drug methods employed included hypnosis, and a study in bio-electrical signals.
The CIA focused on LSD as a possible mind control serum. Near the beginning of the project, LSD was administered to mental patients, prisoners, prostitutes, and drug addicts. As one operative put it, those experimented on were “people who could not fight back.” Subjects were unknowingly given LSD, and then coerced into giving out information. After a while, agents began drugging military personnel, other CIA employees, medical doctors, other government agents, and the general public in order to study their reactions. This experimentation was in direct violation of the Nuremberg Codes set up after WWII, which the US agreed to follow. Adverse reactions often occurred, for example an operative who had received the drug in his morning coffee, became psychotic and ran across Washington, seeing a monster in every car that passed him. Incidents like that reaffirmed that LSD is a dangerous weapon but that only made them more enthusiastic. The experiments continued even after Dr. Frank Olson, an army scientist who had not taken LSD before, went into deep depression after a surprise trip and later fell from a thirteenth story window (it is unclear whether he committed suicide or was murdered before being thrown out of the window).
Regardless of these less than desirable results and circumstances, Project MKUltra expanded in 1963 with the recruitment of Canadian psychologist Donald Ewen Cameron. Dr. Cameron commuted from Albany New York into Montreal every week in order to conduct MKUltra experiments.
After the events of Watergate in 1973, CIA Director Richard Helms ordered the destruction of all MKUltra documents. Some 20,000 documents survived Helms’ purge due to incorrect filing. These files were released after a Freedom of Information Act request was filed. This subsequently led to a Congressional Hearing in 1977 on the sensitive on questionably ethical project.
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.