Transcription
April 13, 1953. CIA director Alan Dole gave a speech about the dangers of Communism and the war of the mind. The federal government was haunted by the fear of Communism and believed it spread rapidly at this time because the Soviets mastered the art of mind control. Sandwiched between the aftermath of World War II and the beginnings of the Cold War, intelligence agencies believed foreign brainwashing could indoctrinate the American people.
As a result, a classified project was created to emulate the Communist mind control programs, effectively fighting fire with fire. There are several speculations as to why MK Ultra began, but one fact remains: people in power justified pushing the boundaries of known science and warfare by committing human rights violations under the guise of intelligence.
MK Ultra's clandestine tests took place in universities, hospitals, prisons, and pharmaceutical centers all across the United States and Canada. One of the most famous testing sites was the Allen Memorial Institute, or the "Ravenscrack," at McGill University in Montreal. These top-secret experiments and procedures were led by Sydney Gottlieb, the United States spymaster and "mad chemist," who financed and developed "techniques that would crush the human psyche to the point that it would admit anything."
MK Ultra was preceded by Project Bluebird and Project Artichoke, two projects originating in the 1940s. The goal of Project Bluebird was to train subjects through hypnosis and behavior modification so that it would be impossible for enemies of the United States to extract vital information. The goal of Project Artichoke was to examine if a human is capable of attempting an assassination without hesitation. Methods used include hypnosis for substance addiction and forced substance withdrawal.
MK Ultra, the final evolution of its 1940s predecessors, employed a variety of techniques to influence the minds and brains of its subjects, including the covert administration of high doses of psychoactive substances. In most cases, LSD, also known as lysergic acid diethylamide, a powerful hallucinogen. This CIA project used a cocktail of chemicals and drugs such as barbiturates, amphetamines, and hallucinogens to put their subjects in a comatose state while also violently snapping them back to reality. This was carried out by injecting a barbiturate in a subject's arm and then an amphetamine in the other, often resulting in death.
One of the main scientists responsible for the horrific practices of MK Ultra was Dr. Donald Ewan Cameron. Cameron invented two medical torture techniques that were repeated until the unwilling subject's mind was effectively broken. Though not all subjects received the same treatment or torture. First, Cameron utilized a technique known as "psychic driving." Patients were frequently exposed to hundreds of thousands of repeats of a single remark, which would theoretically change their behavior. Then, the subject met the wrath of Cameron's second technique. "Patterning" was the chronological successor to psychic driving, which is when the test subject undergoes massive doses of electroconvulsive therapy combined with equally large doses of psychedelic drugs. One can only imagine what truly happened to some of these people, where they are now, and if they remember anything. If they survived. "Tell me about the acid fair trip. That was a bad trip. The pain was so excruciating, felt like somebody was picking me with a million pins, you know, just everywhere. Oh my God."
With any classified project, intelligence agencies across the globe go through every effort to stay hidden. One method of cryptic language used by the CIA is known as kryptonyms. A kryptonym is a code name or code word used by the CIA to reference operations, people, projects, or other agencies. All CIA kryptonyms that are now used online were used between the 50s and 80s, which means it is more than likely the entire system has been replaced. All that exists online are partial lists and probable definitions. There is no way to know for certain the exact meanings and extent of these declassified projects.
Each CIA kryptonym has a two-character prefix known as a digraph, which identifies a region or function. But over time, certain digraphs underwent changes. The Soviet Union digraph, for instance, underwent at least two changes. For example, in the 1950s, the Soviet Union was known known as "AE," but in the 80s, it was "PD." The remaining words are either random dictionary words, cryptonyms that occasionally combine to produce dictionary words like "airplane," or can be read out as short phrases like "ybather," which is pronounced "why bother." MK Ultra is a kryptonym that denotes the following: MK equals TSS, or the Technical Services Staff, and Ultra being the highest classification of intelligence during World War II. There are plenty of unidentified cryptonyms, which lends itself to the fact that there is so much information kept from us, and we may never know it.
Elizabeth Nixon is a Canadian writer and journalist who, in 1994, published the novel "The Monkey Puzzle," an account of CIA brainwashing trials in Montreal during the 1950s and 60s, the height of MK Ultra. She explains that her mother was under the care of none other than Ewan Cameron. By this time, Cameron was head of the American Psychiatric Association. He had been a friend of Alan Dole, who, if you remember, is the man responsible for the genesis of MK Ultra. In fact, they shared a long history together, dating back to the Nuremberg trials.
In 1977, after President Ford's executive order under the release of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, Cameron was discovered to have conducted the most extreme mind control trials, employing massive amounts of shock treatments and drugs such as PCP and LSD. You may be wondering, did Cameron's extreme methods lead to the cure of cancer or Alzheimer's or anything? Well, according to journalist Sid Taylor in an article from 1992, Cameron used a toxin known as curare in order to debilitate his patients while conducting research. This toxin was used by South American natives to poison their hunting arrows. When applied to the body, it shuts down the neuromuscular system. The article continues by saying, although the patient was prepared by both prolonged sensory isolation, repeated de-patterning, and recorded receiving 101 days of psychic driving, no favorable results were obtained. So, as you can guess, this was around the time Dr. Cameron fashioned his own invasive forms of therapy, explained before as deep patterning and psychic driving.
Much of this information has only been disclosed relatively recently, since the CIA has admitted to funding human behavior control research at 150 institutions, including 44 universities and a variety of hospitals, prisons, and drug rehab clinics. Remember, these are just the ones declassified.
In 1953, while attending a CIA retreat, a scientist working for the agency drank a cocktail that had been spiked with LSD. His name was Frank Olson. A few days later, on November 28, 1953, Olson allegedly committed suicide by falling from the window of a New York City hotel room. Forty-one years after his death, in 1994, Frank Olson's family decided to have a second autopsy performed. A forensics team discovered injuries on the body that were most likely caused before the fall. Following lengthy legal proceedings, Olson's family was awarded a $750,000 settlement and a personal apology from President Gerald Ford and the then CIA director William Colby. And the person named for administering the LSD to Frank Olson was none other than Sydney Gottlieb, by this time known as the "black sorcerer" and "dirty trickster." Ask yourself, if there was zero truth to the accuracy surrounding Olson's death, why would the sitting president and CIA director give a personal apology? Why would the United States Court rule to award Olson's family with what would almost be 9 million dollars in today's money?
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Why, like college student at Stanford University, Ken Kesey, author of the 1962 novel "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," volunteered for MK Ultra LSD experiments. Kesey later went on to promote the drug by hosting "acid tests," which were LSD-fueled parties. These parties incorporated drug use with musical performances by bands such as the Grateful Dead, as well as psychedelic effects. These parties influenced the early development of hippie culture and sparked the psychedelic drug scene in the 1960s.
The dichotomy of Frank Olson and Ken Kesey is: on one hand, you have a guy who could have been murdered by the CIA because of his involvement with their psychoactive drug testing, while another guy involved in similar testing went on to spark hippie culture. It wasn't just a good time for the hippies, though. Operation Midnight Climax was an MK Ultra project in which government-hired prostitutes enticed unsuspecting men to CIA's safe houses across San Francisco, California, and New York City. The CIA would administer LSD through drinks or aerosols to the men and then observe their behavior while crushing a couple of cold ones behind a two-way mirror. It is noted that the program had little oversight and leadership. The agents involved admitted to a loose, party-like atmosphere where they themselves engaged with the prostitutes and used drugs. George White, a CIA agent working under Operation Midnight Climax, wrote to Sydney Gottlieb in 1971, stating, "Of course, I was a very minor missionary, actually a heretic, but I toiled wholeheartedly in the vineyards because it was fun, fun. Where else could a red-blooded American boy lie, kill, and cheat, steal to see weapon, pillage with a sanction and blessing of the all highest?"
It would be sooner than later that the truth would be revealed, and the intelligence communities would be made to answer for their illegal and inhumane enterprise. You see, in 1972, the Watergate scandal triggered paranoia amongst Washington and the already weary American people. This led to newly appointed CIA director Richard Helms ordering all MK Ultra files destroyed. Coupled with anecdotal stories such as U.S. Army servicemen spying on civilians spread, eventually culminating in a New York Times article by Seymour Hersh in 1974.
Seymour Hersh was already a well-known investigator, as he gained worldwide recognition for covering the Watergate scandal by exposing the My Lai Massacre, for which he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting. Many elected officials, journalists, whistleblowers, and investigators like Seymour Hersh were following a rat's trail that eventually led them to an entire den. Persia's New York Times article claimed the CIA had violated its charter by spying on anti-war activists. His story is credited as a major factor in the establishment of the Church Committee, which was created to investigate illegal federal intelligence operations. However, it ended up taking the combined might of the Church Committee, Pike Committee, and Rockefeller Commission to find the truth of MK Ultra. After discovering documents that failed to be destroyed in Helms's purge, these three forces would pressure not only the CIA but the NSA, FBI, and IRS to answer for any wrongdoing or illegal activity.
Thus, in 1976, three years after MK Ultra was halted, Executive Order 11905 was drafted and signed by President Gerald Ford. After the Church Committee and Pike Committee revealed classified information concerning the United States, this executive order would be an effort to outlaw, restructure, and form much of the intelligence community, creating greater checks and balances to ensure that any and all activities are in conformity with the Constitution and United States laws. Even people to this day are still concerned that this was not enough justice and that intelligence agencies still work above the law.
"I haven't worried about it. Uh, you had your question again? What would I have thought had I known that any of these substances would have been given to unwitting persons? You mean, a, a hostile agent and of another government? No. I think that was probably, I mean, I mean testing it out on an American citizen. Hi, I guess I must seem very, very cold-blooded about this, but I don't recall ever having been very much preoccupied with that, with that issue."
"The National Security Agency's capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left. Such as the capability to monitor everything, telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn't matter. There would be no place to hide. If a dictator ever took over, the NSA could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back." - Frank Church, founder of the Church Committee.
Today, MK Ultra methods and stories have been glorified in pop culture. For example, the show "Stranger Things" is based off of the Montauk Project, which may not be true but shares great similarities with MK Ultra themes of mind control, manipulation, and tall men in suits coming to take you away. Another reference is "The Truman Show," where, spoiler alert, Jim Carrey as Truman Burbank lives in a fake world, constantly being manipulated, recorded, and probably drugged. On social media, conspiracy theorists believe dominant celebrities and figures such as Lady Gaga and Bill Clinton are speculated to have been affected by MK Ultra hypnosis, though this is from TikTok, so before your eyes melt through your sockets, we'll move on to an astronaut named Heidi Marie Stefan-Chinn Piper, who fainted during a press conference, supposedly being hypnotized before she could reveal secrets on UFOs. Though these references to MK Ultra are enjoyable, they are loosely based in reality.
A more modern and popular rumor that surrounds MK Ultra is whether or not cult leader Charles Manson was a byproduct of CIA psychoactive substance testing. I mean, you take one look at the guy, and you know he's mentally boiled. There was also Ted Kaczynski, known as the Unabomber, who allegedly took part in a Harvard LSD study overseen by the CIA and professor at Harvard University Henry A. Murray. Ted took part in intense mock interrogations designed to assess limits of psychology, breaking points. From 1978 to 1995, the Unabomber would later go on to create increasingly sophisticated bombs and mailed them out to people, resulting in three people being killed and 23 others injured. It begs the question: was this violence a result of the manipulation and arguable torture Ted endured?
There is no way of knowing if the CIA has stopped all illegal domestic activity against civilians. MK Ultra may have evolved or rebranded itself, hidden deep within the CIA web where no one would dare enter. One can speculate that CIA counter-intelligence strategies have become more desperate and covert, adding to the fear that there may be some project out there worse than MK Ultra. After all, science and technology have only advanced since the 1950s. If contemporary projects similar to MK Ultra were to get green-lit, they would, without a doubt, be more effective and efficient.