A CIA project that was authorized in 1953 to determine the effectiveness of certain psychoactives in mind control and interrogation. The director of the project was Dr. Sidney Gottlieb.

Gottlieb was most interested in the drug LSD. He believed that it didn't have as much worth as an interrogation aid as it did in the strategic humiliation of an undesirable. In the first round of tests of the drug, CIA agents would secretly dose each other, then record the effects.

Unsatisfied with an unscientific in-house test, MK-ULTRA took their drug to the street in Operation Midnight Climax. Working in co-operation with narcotics officers, they set up a wired bordello filled with drug-addicted prostitutes, and monitored the actions of unwitting Johns who were secretly dosed with Acid.

It sounds hard to believe, but all of this is a matter of public record. In 1973, Gottlieb ordered all of the documents related to MK-ULTRA to be shredded. However, he missed a few, and there was still enough left over to cause a small scandal in 1977, when the Senate held a hearing on the project. You can check them out today at Parascope: http://www.parascope.com

Top secret operation of the United States government to research and develop effective methods of mind control. Started by the CIA after the Korean War, MK-ULTRA sought to discover the best techniques for altering the mind in any way desired. Everything from hypnosis, drugs, surgery, "truth serums," LSD, ketamine, psilocybin, brain electrodes, lobotomy, and electroconvulsive shock were investigated.

While one aim of the program was to find the perfect way to extract information from captured enemy agents, another equally important goal was to create agents with so many levels of mental control that there was no way to torture important info out of them. Some researchers hoped to create mind control techniques that would allow the government to acquire secret agents who weren't even aware that they were secret agents.

The Church Committee of the U.S. Senate exposed MK-ULTRA, and the CIA promised to discontinue the program. You believe them, don't you?

CIA Director Allen Dulles authorized the MKULTRA program in April 1953, out of concern for rumors that POWs were being brainwashed by communists during the Korean War. The program was supposed to be an experiment in mind-control that would publicly humiliate foreign world leaders who were in opposition to the US. The most widely-known of the MKULTRA experiments was the usage of LSD. The CIA hoped they would eventually be able to use the drug to manipulate foreign world leaders such as Fidel Castro, and to make people talk during interrogations. A memorandum dated January 1952 outlined the project's objective: "Can we get control of an individual to the point where he will do our bidding against his will and even against fundamental laws of nature such as self-preservation?"

Most of the CIA researchers tried LSD themselves, and one man who was working on the project was slipped LSD into his drink. Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, Head of the CIA's Technical Services Staff had acquired an amount of LSD and secretly tested it on Dr. Frank Olson during a meeting. Other CIA researchers observed his behavior, one labelling it as "psychotic". Nine days later, Olson jumped from his hotel window and fell ten floors to his death. Gottlieb and Dulles covered up the events leading to Olson's death for over twenty years.

The LSD experiments were performed on prisoners and, during an experiment in Kentucky, 7 volunteers were given LSD for 77 consecutive days. In some cases, the prisoners were rewarded for their cooperation with injections of high-quality morphine. The CIA put forth millions of dollars into researching methods of mind control that would gain the US the upperhand in psychological warfare, most of their experiments being performed on non-volunteer subjects. Members of the CIA travelled all over the world, testing interrogation techniques while subjects were under the influence of marijuana, LSD, heroin, mescaline, sodium pentathol (the 'truth drug') and many others. One goal of the project was to brainwash people into becoming spies without their knowledge.

Most of the documents on MKULTRA were destroyed by the CIA in 1972, but many have been the subject of historical research, having gotten to the hands of investigative reporters.

One CIA auditor wrote later on:

"Precautions must be taken not only to protect operations from exposure to 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 and diplomatic circles."


An excerpt from CIA Director Stansfield Turner's Testimony during the 1977 Senate Hearing on MKULTRA:

Senator INOUYE. A sad aspect of the MKULTRA project was that it naturally involved the people who unwittingly or wittingly got involved in experimentation. I would appreciate it if you would report back to this committee in 3 months on what the Agency has done to notify these individuals and these institutions, and furthermore, to notify us as to what steps have been taken to identify victims, and if identified, what you have done to assist them, monetarily or otherwise.

Admiral TURNER. All right, sir. I will be happy to.

Senator GOLDWATER. Will the Senator yield?

Senator INOUYE. Yes, sir.

Senator GOLDWATER. I wonder if he could include in that report for our information only a complete listing of the individuals and the experiments done on them, and whether they were witting or unwitting, volunteer or nonvolunteer, and what has been the result in each case. I think that would be interesting.

Admiral TURNER. Fine. Yes, sir.

full text: http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/history/e1950/mkultra/Hearing05.htm


In 1977 Victor Marchetti, a CIA veteran of 14 years, said that the CIA's claims of ceasing the project were false. Another CIA veteran, Miles Copeland, stated that after 1963 the project was focusing more on mind-control with the use of electronics. Others believe the focus was placed on other such experiments involving religious cults, such as the events of the Jonestown Massacre.

One conclusion that I think the CIA reached, is that the drugs of choice for on the ground soldiers are opioids and methamphetamines.

I cared for a Haliburton driver over a decade ago. He quit after a year. By then he is a mass of PTSD. He also checks the listings daily, because his fellow drivers are getting killed regularly.

"The military does not report the CIVILIANS killed. The DRIVERS. We don't COUNT." He was enraged and grieving.

"An AED blew under a friend's truck and he bled out through his groin." He witnessed that one. That would be the femoral artery that supplies most of the leg. You can bleed out fast through it.

"We all tried to put armor in our own trucks, because they were not armored." Makeshift hunks of metal, under the truck and along the sides.

"I got an AED blast in a safe zone and that's when I quit." PTSD and blew his driver's side window in. Hearing loss and concussed, traumatic brain injury. He is sorta ok.

"We would wait with the convoy with the soldiers. It could be 24 hours of waiting. Then we'd have to GO at the drop of a hat. It was terrifying. Everyone used meth to stay awake to drive. The soldiers too. Meth and heroin."

Great. He influenced me when I went to work at Madigan Army Hospital for three months in 2010. I assumed that soldiers coming back may have used meth or heroin or opioids or whatever they could get their hands on. Then I realized that the policy re addictive drugs was Don't ask, don't tell. Oh, right, great. Let's addict them to fight wars and then get mad at them for being addicts. Fuck the military.

Interestingly, Madigan Army hospital takes care of Air Force as well. The Air Force DOES drug test. Probably meth and heroin do not improve flight skills. I would argue that I don't want someone on meth or heroin driving a tank or operating a machine gun.

Perhaps it has changed. I don't know.

andirons

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