Project MKUltra
Project MKUltra was the code name of a series of “mind control” experiments conducted on unsuspecting American and Canadian citizens by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) between 1950-1973. The Scientific Intelligence Division of the CIA worked in coordination with the Special Operations Division of the U.S. Army Chemical Corps on the project.
One of the main reasons behind this series of experiments was to identify which methods would be most effective in eliciting confessions and/or intelligence from detainees during interrogations. The experiments involved the use of drugs (especially LSD), electronics, hypnosis, verbal and sexual abuse, as well as isolation and psychological torture.
Over one hundred of these experiments were carried out at eighty different institutions, including prisons, hospitals, military bases, pharmaceutical companies and forty-four different colleges and universities. In 1985, during the U.S. Supreme Court case of the CIA vs. Sims, it was revealed that Project MKUltra was concerned with “the research and development of chemical, biological, and radiological materials capable of employment in clandestine operations to control human behavior.”
Project MKUltra was first brought to light in 1975 following an investigation by the Church Committee and a President Gerald Ford commission which looked into the activities of the CIA within the United States. Investigations into Project MKUltra were seriously hampered as a result of CIA director Richard Helms order to destroy most of the documentary evidence and reports from these experiments at the end of the program in 1973. The Church Committee and Rockefeller Commission investigations compiled evidence for the existence of Project MKUltra from sworn witness testimony and the surviving documents.
In 1977, under the Freedom of Information Act, 20,000 additional documents which had been incorrectly stored in a financial building were discovered and released. These documents were investigated during the Senate Hearings of 1977. Further information relating to Project MKUltra was declassified and became public in July 2001. One of the documents from 1955 revealed the nature and aims of the project. For example, the CIA sought to identify:
• “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.
• 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.
• 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.”
Today conspiracy theorists believe that Project MKUltra did not come to an end in 1973. Victor Marchetti, who spent fourteen years in the CIA, said in an interview in 1977, that the reports Project MKUltra had ended were a “cover story.”
