MK-ULTRA
Fear of brainwashing and a new breed of “brain warfare” terrified and fascinated the American
public throughout the 1950s, spurred both by the words of the CIA and the stories of “brainwashed”
G.I.’s returning from China, Korea, and the Soviet Union. Newspaper headlines like “New Evils Seen in
Brainwashing” and “Brainwashing vs. Western Psychiatry” offered sensational accounts of new mind-control
techniques and technologies that no man could fully resist. The paranoia began to drift into American culture,
with books like The Manchurian Candidate and The Naked Lunch playing on themes of unhinged scientists and vast
political conspiracies.
The idea of brainwashing also provided many Americans with a compelling, almost comforting,
explanation for communism’s swift rise–that Soviets used the tools of brainwashing not just on enemy combatants,
but on their own people. Why else would so many countries be embracing such an obviously backward ideology?
American freedom of the mind versus Soviet “mind control” became a dividing line as stark as the Iron Curtain.
Three days after his speech decrying Soviet tactics, Dulles approved the beginning of
MK-Ultra, a top-secret CIA program for “covert use of biological and chemical materials.”
“American values” made for good rhetoric, but Dulles had far grander plans for the agency’s Cold War agenda.
MK-Ultra’s “mind control” experiments generally centered around behavior modification via
electro-shock therapy, hypnosis, polygraphs, radiation, and a variety of drugs, toxins, and chemicals. These
experiments relied on a range of test subjects: some who freely volunteered, some who volunteered under coercion,
and some who had absolutely no idea they were involved in a sweeping defense research program. From
mentally-impaired boys at a state school, to American soldiers, to “sexual psychopaths” at a state hospital, MK-Ultra’s programs often preyed on the most
vulnerable members of society. The CIA considered prisoners especially good subjects, as they were willing to
give consent in exchange for extra recreation time or commuted sentences.
Whitey Bulger, a former organized crime boss, wrote of his experience as an inmate test subject in MK-Ultra. “Eight convicts in a panic
and paranoid state,” Bulger said of the 1957 tests at the Atlanta penitentiary where he was serving time. “Total
loss of appetite. Hallucinating. The room would change shape. Hours of paranoia and feeling violent. We
experienced horrible periods of living nightmares and even blood coming out of the walls. Guys turning to
skeletons in front of me. I saw a camera change into the head of a dog. I felt like I was going
insane.”
Bulger claimed he had been injected with LSD. Lysergic acid diethylamide, or acid, had become one of the CIA’s key interests for
its “brain warfare” program, as the agency theorized it could be useful in interrogations. In the late
1940s, the CIA received reports that the Soviet Union had engaged in “intensive efforts to produce LSD,” and
that the Soviets had attempted to purchase the world’s supply of the chemical. One CIA officer described the
agency as “literally terrified” of the Soviets’ LSD program, largely because of the lack of knowledge about
the drug in the United States. “[This] was the one material that we had ever been able to locate that really
had potential fantastic possibilities if used wrongly,” the officer testified.
With the advent of MK-Ultra, the government’s interest in LSD shifted from a defensive to an offensive
orientation. Agency officials noted that LSD could be potentially useful in “[gaining] control of bodies
whether they were willing or not.” The CIA envisioned applications that ranged from removing people from Europe
in the case of a Soviet attack to enabling assassinations of enemy leaders. On November 18, 1953, a group of
ten scientists met at a cabin located deep in the forests of Maryland. After extended discussions, the
participants agreed that to truly understand the value of the drug, “an unwitting experiment would be
desirable.”
The CIA remained keenly aware of how the public would react to any discovery of MK-Ultra; even if they
believed these programs to be essential to national security, they must remain a tightly guarded secret. How
would the CIA possibly explain dosing unassuming Americans with LSD? “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,” wrote the CIA’s Inspector General in 1957. “The knowledge that the Agency is engaging in unethical
and illicit activities would have serious repercussions in political and diplomatic circles and would be
detrimental to the accomplishment of its mission.”
Operation Midnight Climax
The CIA’s initial experiments with LSD were fairly simple, if shockingly unethical. The agency generally
dosed single targets, finding volunteers when they could, sometimes slipping the drug into the drinks of fellow
CIA employees. Over time these LSD experiments grew increasingly elaborate. Perhaps the most notorious of these
projects was Operation Midnight Climax.
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