CIA Mind Control Project MKUltra

“Project MKUltra” was the name given to an illegal program of human experimentation conducted by the US Central Intelligence Agency, which investigated mind control. The 1975 Church Committee hearings exposed the operation – and on July 20, 1977 a Freedom of Information Act request uncovered a cache of 20,000 documents relating to it.

The origins of MKUltra lie in 1945, and Operation Paperclip — the secret transfer of top Nazi scientists to the US. Armed with extensive documentation on unethical Nazi human experimentation, including research into mind control, a clutch of military programs related to mental manipulation and behavioral modification were launched — including Projects CHATTER, BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE.

Headed by former chemist Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, MKUltra began in April 1953 on the orders of then-CIA Director Allen Welsh Dulles.

Officially — albeit behind closed doors — the CIA claimed the program was pursued in response to perceived instances of mind control techniques employed by Chinese, North Korean and Soviet forces on Allied prisoners of war in the Korean War.

In truth, the agency wished to produce an optimal truth drug for use in interrogations, and explore possible uses for mind controlled subjects — including the control of foreign leaders, and assassination.

For the next 20 years, the CIA — in conjunction with the Special Operations Division of the US Army Chemical Corps — engaged in a panoply of illegal activities.

Most controversially, unwitting test subjects were subject to a number of techniques to manipulate their mental state and brain functions, including the administration of drugs such as LSD, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, isolation, verbal and sexual abuse, as well as a variety of torture techniques.

A 1955 document describing the substances used in the experiments gives some indication of the sheer scope of the project. This includes drugs that will; “promote illogical thinking and impulsiveness to the point where the recipient would be discredited in public”; cause victims to age faster; recreate the effects of alcohol; emulate the symptoms of recognized diseases; induce temporary/permanent brain damage and loss of memory; produce amnesia of particular events; provoke shock and confusion over extended periods of time; create physical disablement (such as paralysis); alter personality structure; cause mental confusion; promote weakness or distortion of eyesight and hearing.

The operation continued on until 1973, when CIA Director Richard Helms abruptly ordered all experiments halted, and all relevant files destroyed.

He was motivated by the Watergate scandal — fearing subsequent scrutiny of the US secret state’s activities, he wished to ensure any subsequent investigation of such clandestine CIA operations would be impossible.

Helms subsequently admitted to the existence of the program during the 1975 Church Committee investigation — although due to the bonfire of relevant documentation, the Committee could only base their investigation on the sworn testimony of participants.

Nonetheless, a 1977 a Freedom of Information Act request unearthed a cache of 20,000 documents relating to the project, which had been mistakenly filed in a financial records building. These documents were fully investigated in Senate Hearings later that year.

While the remaining documents largely recorded the program’s catastrophic failure, Miles Copeland — former CIA agent and father of Police drummer Stewart Copeland — subsequently suggested the tranche was but a “smokescreen” that offered “the barest glimpse” of the scope of the project.

Moreover, he suspected the project wasn’t genuinely terminated in 1973. It may well persist, in even more covert forms, to this very day.

Reprinted from Sputnik News.

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