LETTER TO THE HONORABLE EDWARD M. KENNEDY FROM STANSFIELD TURNER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP83-00156R000300050028-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 6
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 20, 2006
• Sequence Number: 28
• Publication Date: January 18, 1979
• Content Type: LETTER

Approved For~Release 2007/01/ ~eD'C ,-RDP83-0015
? Central ~ntefi`ence Agency
? a
? c JAN 1979
The Honorable Edward M. Kennedy
Chairman, Subcommittee on Health and
Scientific Research
Committee on Human Resources
United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510
Dear Mr. Chairman:
The Washington Post issue of Friday, 5 January 1979, carried a
report under the y- lne of Bill Richards that recently released. CIA
documents contradict my testimony and the testimony of another CIA of-
ficer before the Senate Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research
in September 1977. I have reviewed that testimony in. relation to the
documents cited in the Richards' article and I want to assure you that
I find no such contradiction. Taken out of the context of the total
record on Project OFTEN it is possible to attribute to the documents
cited by Mr. Richards the interpretation he has given them. Other doc-
uments that are a part of the total record, however, support the testi-
mony as given.
I am reminded by this incident of the commitment I made to you in
September of 1977 to make every effort to seek out and. notify individ-
uals who may have suffered some harm as a result of having been used as
unwitting subjects of drug experimentation sponsored by CIA. While I
am not in a position to report to you finally on the outcome of this ef-
fort, I feel, nevertheless, that it is appropriate to bring you up to
date on actions that have been taken and where we stand generally with
our progress in the notification program.
In my letter of 14 September 1978 I advised you that I had directed
a thorough review of the information available to the Agency to deter-
mine the most efficient and appropriate means of implementing the opin-
ion of the Attorney General, a copy of which I furnished to you at the
time. That opinion reached the conclusion that the Agency may be under
an obligation to identify, locate and notify any unwitting subjects of
MKULTRA drug testing activities where it can reasonably be determined
that their health may continue to be adversely affected by their in-
volvement in that program. Since early September 1978 a senior officer
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of the Agency has devoted his full time to that effort and I am pleased
to report his very preliminary findings encourage us to believe that
there were very few, if any, individuals who may have been used by CIA
as subjects of drug research without their knowledge or consent. More-
over, there appear to be very few, if any, substances used that might
have had a potential for causing harmful long term aftereffects.
Despite the encouragement we derive from our progress thus far
there remains a nagging uncertainty growing out of the fact that all of
the returns are not yet in. I regret that I am not able to state un-
equivocally that we have all the facts. Of course, we recognize the
reality that documents can and will continue to be selected out of the
voluminous materials released to members of the public under the Freedom,
of Information Act which could reflect adversely on the Agency. We re-
alize this can occur if individuals do not have the benefit of all rele-
vant information; it can occur out of careless research; and it can oc-
cur out of deliberate, malicious intent to cause damage to the national
intelligence effort. Nevertheless, you continue to have my assurances
that I will report all relevant facts as objectively as possible.. I
look forward to the time when I can submit to you my final report on
this phase of the CIA history. Meanwhile, an interim report is enclosed..
Yours sincerely, .
? /S/ S anSfje1 d Tua2?:f
STANSFIELD TURNER
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A/DDA:dhb(1l Jan 79)
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Approved For Release 2007/01/16: CIA-RDP83-00156R000300050028-0
 Approved For, Release 2007/01/16: CIA-RDP83-0015 0300050028-0
THE A 'ULTRA DRUG NOTIFICATION PROGRAM
A Status Report
15 January 1979
We have found that substances used in the BLUEBIRD/ARTICHOKE projects
were of a kind commonly used by physicians as anesthetics and were not
likely to have caused harmful aftereffects. They were used, in moderate
quantities to determine whether they had utility as supplements to inter-
rogations in search of intelligence information from, prisoners of war
and defectors. Because the substances used were not likely to have
caused harmful aftereffects we have determined that no further action is
required with respect to the BLUEBIRD/ARTICHOKE project. Records per-
taining to these projects were not among those destroyed in 1973; they are
reasonably complete and we are quite confident that our conclusion is jus-
tifiable.
The OFThN/CHICKWIT projects were undertaken jointly with the Depart-
ment of the Army at Edgewood Arsenal. CHICKIVIT was concerned with the
collection of intelligence information about foreign pharmaceuticals.
No human testing was involved, hence no further action. is required.. Pro-
ject OFTEN involved CIA funding of research conducted at'the Edgewood
Arsenal Research Laboratories. Volunteer human subjects were involved..
While there has been. some difference of opinion between the Agency and
the Department of Defense about whether human subjects were involved
while the research was being funded by CIA,that issue bears no relation-
ship to the question of whether notification of the subjects is appro-
priate. Because the subjects were witting volunteers, it may be that no
further action is required. But, because any tests conducted using hu-
man subjects were conducted by Army personnel under Army procedures and
protocols at an Army installation using a substance developed in an. Army
Research and Development. program, I have addressed a letter to the Sec-
retary of the Army requesting that the subjects be included in the Army
notification program if they have not already been included, and if noti-
fication is deemed to be appropriate. As in the case of BLUEBIRD/ARTI-
CHOKE, records pertaining to OFTEN/CHICK4VIT were not among those destroyed
in 1973. They are reasonably complete, and we are quite confident that
our conclusion is justifiable. .
We are left, then with MKtJLTRA, MKSEARCH and some follow-on grants.
The -magnitude and scope of these programs has been somewhat misunderstood
and misrepresented. While there were a large number of subprojects, we
find that, rather than continue a subproject from one year to the. next,
many times new subprojects were created. For example, subproject 149 was
a continuation of 132; 132 was a continuation of 42, and so on. In some
cases as many as six or eight subprojects may have been created when one
subproject could simply have been extended from year to year.. We have
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not kseen able to 1o why this was done, but it A. tend to distort
the actual total number of activities undertaken.
In any case, we have found that 85 of the MKULTRA,MKSE.RRCli and follow-
on research grants did not involve human experimentation, and no further
action is required. Forty of the MCULTRA/MCSEARCH/Grants where humans
were involved require no further action: 18 of these require no action be-
cause no drugs were involved; 22 require no further action because the
drugs used would not have caused harmful aftereffects. Subjects were wit-
ting volunteers, usually paid; research was conducted under the management:
and substantive control of the institution conducting the research such
that there is no CIA liability; or some combination of these factors.
The remainder of the MKULTRA/MKSEARCH and research Grants where
human involvement is known or suspected is divided, for the sake of con-
venience, between those involved with institutions and those involved
with the safehouses in New York City and San Francisco.
As nearly as we can determine so far, the safehouses were. jointly
operated in some sort of cooperative effort between the former Bureau of
Narcotics and CIA. During testimony taken by the Senate Subcommittee on
Health and Scientific Research in September 1977 former employees of the
Bureau of Narcotics and CIA were questioned rather extensively about *.he
uses to which the safehouses were put by CIA. The answers were less than
satisfactory, but the question of what uses were made of the facilities
by the Bureau of Narcotics was never asked. Yet, testimony given, by a
former Bureau of Narcotics employee seems to carry a clear implication
that the Bureau was the primary user and CIA's use of the safehouses was
secondary.
I have addressed a letter to the Attorney General soliciting his
assistance in seeking to interview, or obtain written information from,
former employees of the Bureau of Narcotics. We also are attempting to
locate former CIA employees who were associated with MKULTRA in one way
or another and may have some recollections that would be helpful. Let-
ters addressed to several of these individuals are ready for dispatch
as soon as we are able, within the constraints of the Privacy Act, to
verify current mailing addresses. We are seeking, first of all, to deter-
mine whether experimentation using unwitting subjects was done at these
facilities. Our surviving records show clearly that such experimenta-
tion was proposed; whether it was actually carried, out is much less cer-
tain. If we find that such experiments were, in fact, conducted, :N*e
will pursue with the same people the question of identifying subjects.
Finally, we have addressed letters to private physicians who acted as med-
ical advisers to the operators of the safehouses requesting any informa-
tion they may be able to furnish.
Other than the subprojects relating to the safehouses, only fifteen
subprojects involving only four researchers and possibly one institu-
tion require action. Action is required in these cases to seek further
information, not because there is any suggestion that anyone might have
been harmed. The files simply are too incomplete to permit confident
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conclusive judgments to be made. Further, three of the four investi-
gators were at one time employed by the Agency and were involved in four-
teen of the fifteen subprojects requiring action. They may have some
knowledge beyond the scope of the particular projects with which they
were directly involved that might be helpful. Letters have been sent to
three of these individuals and a letter to the fourth will be sent as
soon as we have a current address.
Finally, I have addressed a letter to Secretary Califano requesting
his assistance in obtaining an authoritative pharmacological evaluation
of substances used to determine which, if any, may have had a potential
for causing harmful long term aftereffects.
Early responses to preliminary inquiries have been most heartening.
One private researcher writes, with reference to prospective experiments
with drugs, "I was told that I would have absolute discretion of refusal.
and that I would have final authority on experimental design and informed
consent ... All of this research was. open and. above board ... Never,
never was?I asked to do anything which violated medical. ethics or the
principles of informed consent ... With reference to the matters of un-
witting administration of drugs, psychotropic or other, I can state cat-
egorically that no CIA person ever asked me to administer such drugs, -
wittingly or unwittingly. No such drugs were ever administered by me or
under my direction ... From the press, I have the impression that there
has been an effort to caricature certain CIA individuals as pranksters.
I would like to note that everything I have seen of professional CIA
personnel has represented the top level of serious, dedicated,. informed
business ... The people who undertook this investigation were able sci-
entists, and they selected advisors and researchers who seemed to be
the individuals most able to contribute .. From a long experience with
this project, I can say that I never saw a single case of experimental
drug administration without informed consent."
The president of one prominent university wrote: "If I had been at
the time individually aware of such a research project and had been called,
upon to pass judgment on it, I would have judged it by the merit. of the
particular project and not by which governmental agency was directly or
indirectly, sponsoring the research. As fir as I am. concerned the CIA
is just as respectable as any other governmental agency or private foun-
dation ... I wonder whether most of this concern about these research
projects arises not out of any ethical considerations but out of hostility
in certain circles toward anything done by CIA whether openly or covertly.."
In sunl,.if there was- any unwitting drug testing sponsored directly
by CIA, it seems to have been limited almost exclusively to the safehouse
operations, Whether CIA or the Bureau of Narcotics was most directly
involved remains to be determined'. Apart from the activities in the safe-
houses we have found for the most part that CIA was interested in the re-
sults of research initiated and sponsored by other organizations and con-
ducted in accordance with professional and ethical standards applicable
to the particular circumstances at the time. We have found no evidence
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that CIA exerted undue influence or attempted in any way to coerce in-
dividuals or institutions to undertake research they might not otherwise
have undertaken nor did the Agency attei.rpt to cause any compromise of pro-
fessional and ethical standards under which the research was conducted.
Insofar as we are able to tell from our records, none of the research con-
ducted by private institutions was clandestine in any way; studies were
carried out openly and the results in many cases were published. As a.
matter of fact, it can even be reported that some significant contribu-
tions were made to the advancement of psychiatry, pharmacology, and medi-
cine.
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A/DDA: dhb (11 Jan 79)
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