MK-ULTRA/MIND CONTROL EXPERIMENTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000301530003-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 8, 2010
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: December 23, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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RADIO N REPORTS, INC.
4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND 20815 [phone]
FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS STAFF
PROGRAM 60 Minutes STATION W D V M- T V
CBS Network
DATE December 23, 1984 7:00 P.M. CITY Washington, D.C.
SUBJECT MK-ULTRA/Min.d Control Experiments
ED BRADLEY: MK-ULTRA is not the name of a new James
Bond movie. It is, or was the code word for a secret CIA project
which took place between 1953 and 1964 in which unsuspecting
people were used in mind-control experiments that left them
emotionally crippled for life. MK-ULTRA consisted of more than
130 research programs which took place in prisons, hospitals and
universities all over the United States. Tonight we'll look at
subproject number 68, an experiment conducted in Canada.
The CIA does not deny that the experiments took place.
In fact, we'll show you an internal agency memo which admits
their involvement.
The rationale for all of this? Well, the memo doesn't
say. But it's apparent that learning how to make people do
things they normally wouldn't do by controlling their minds is
valuable if you're in the espionage business.
Dr. Ewen Cameron, an American, now dead, headed the
Allen Memorial Institute at the McGill University in Montreal,
Canada, where the experiments took place. Dr. Cameron never told
his patients they were being used as guinea pigs.
ZAL ORLICO: I can't get over the rage that I feel that
he would have done this to me and to other people [unintel-
ligible].
BRADLEY: In 1957 Zal Orlico (?) was suffering from
depression. It was recommended that she see Dr. Cameron, who was
one of the leading psychiatrists in Canada. Her treatment from
Dr. Cameron? Massive doses of lysergic acid diethalamide, a new
experimental mind-altering drug called LSD. It destroyed her
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ORLICO: They took away the remaining years of my life.
They really wrang them out and left me with a piece of rag to
live. And that's not good enough. That's just not good enough.
And it's not good enough for me and it's not good enough for
anybody else. And as long as I can open my mouth, as long as I
can fight, I'm going to fight.
BRADLEY: Mrs. Orlico decided to fight when she read a
newspaper report about the CIA funding of the mind-control
experiments and suspected that she was one of the victims.
Her husband, David Orlico, a Member of Canada's Parlia-
ment, was able to help her find eight other people who had been
used as guinea pigs by Dr. Cameron when he was receiving funds
through a front organization from the CIA. After obtaining their
medical records, which confirmed their involvement, they joined
in a suit against the U.S. Government, each asking for a million
dollars.
Each of the plaintiffs came here to the Allen Memorial
Institute in Montreal expecting therapy. Instead, what they got
was a nightmare of experiments. There were electroshock treat-
ments, many times greater than the norm. They were subjected to
sleep therapy, long periods, often up to 60 days, during which
they were drugged so much that the better part of each day was
spent sleeping. During these periods, they were subjected to
what's called psychic driving, the constant repetition of
tape-recorded messages, often up to a half-million times.
They were also injected with drugs: curare, which
brought on temporary paralysis; and LSD, which led to terrifying
hallucinations.
ORLICO: He injected the lysergic acid into the vein,
then he patted me on the shoulder and said, "Now, there, Lassie,
we'll see you later." And he went out and closed the door.
Well, it was only a very few minutes before I began to
feel very peculiar and things began to become very distorted.
And I didn't seem to have any control over anything, and I
started to feel very frightened, and the fright became a terror,
and I sort of began throwing myself from one side of the room to
the other. I didn't know what to do to stop this feeling. It
felt like my bones were melting. I just didn't know who I was
anymore.
BRADLEY: Robert Logey (?) was 18 years old when he came
to the Allen Memorial Institute with severe leg pains that had
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been diagnosed as psychosomatic, or caused by emotional problems.
He got the full battery of treatment: sleep therapy, electro-
shock, many times the norm, psychic driving, and LSD. All of
that has left permanent mental scars. And what haunts Logey the
most is the psychic driving, those messages drilled into his
brain when he was virtually paralyzed with drugs.
ROBERT LOGEY: I have a lot of questions about it now,
and why can't I know what was on the tapes? And it just haunts
me and haunts me. You know, what were they trying to make me
believe, or whatever?
BRADLEY: Dr. Mary Morrow (?) was a physician who came
to Dr. Cameron to ask for a fellowship in psychiatry. She had
gone through a period of depression. And Dr. Cameron told her
she looked tired and nervous, and he would not consider her for a
fellowship unless she underwent sleep therapy. She thought that
meant a period of rest with sedatives administered periodically.
So she consented. What she got was electroshock depatterning.
DR. MARY MORROW: He used 67 times the average dose of
electric current by pushing the button of the electroshock
machine six times in succession rather than one. And besides
that, instead of getting it two or three times a week once, one
press of a button, like most physicians do, he gave it in daily
successions.
BRADLEY: The result? Dr. Morrow lost her identity.
DR. MORROW: I was suspended in space in a deep black
hole. I had no idea that I was a human being. I was without
knowledge of my appendages. I had no sense of solidity. I was
.floating. I had no -- I was completely disoriented. I thought I
was an organism.
BRADLEY: Dr. Morrow's mother saw what was happening to
her daughter and demanded that she be released from the Allen
Institute. When she regained what she calls her human identity,
Dr. Morrow realized that her treatment had nothing to do with
healing. In fact, she had suffered permanent brain damage.
DR. MORROW: [Unintelligible], absolutely gone.
[Confusion of voices]
DR. MORROW: In a nutshell, my life today is in a
[unintelligible] shadow. I'm left with a permanent difficulty
which is called [unintelligible] -- that is, [unintelligible]. I
could talk to you and -- you know, somewhere [unintelligible].
If I meet you tomorrow in a changed environment, I don't know
you're Mr. Bradley. If I meet you in [unintelligible], in a
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local supermarket or on the water, I won't know you from Adam.
BRADLEY: Dr. Elliot Emanuel (?) was a junior associate
under Dr. Cameron. Although he was not part of the brainwashing
experiments, he defends Dr. Cameron and raises questions about
his patients.
DR. ELLIOT EMANUEL: There you have to bear in mind that
these were mentally ill patients. I insist on that. They
weren't there because they -- for any other reason, to my
knowledge. They were mentally ill patients, and their perception
or their recall 30 years later of the events may not be perfect.
BRADLEY: Memories may not be perfect after 30 years,
but there is no doubt about the experiments conducted by Dr.
Cameron and funded by the CIA. This internal agency memo from
the CIA's General Counsel refers to the substantial funds flowing
from this agency to McGill in support of the project, and it goes
on to say that the use of drugs, and particularly intensive
electroshock, suggests that long-term aftereffects may have been
involved.
Are you not at all disturbed about what he did in using
human beings?
DR. EMANUEL: In the context of the time, medical
treatments, innovative medical treatments inevitably have the
aspect of being experiments. There's nothing so terrible about
that.
BRADLEY: But there's a question of misuse. And there
are people who are claiming that they were misused.
DR. EMANUEL: I think it's going to be very hard for
those patients to prove that their present condition was due to
experimentation beyond what would be acceptable treatment at the
time.
BRADLEY: Dr. Harvey Weinstein, a psychiatrist and
professor at Stanford University, spent years researching what
happened to Cameron's patients at the hospital during the time of
the CIA-funded experiments. Why? His father had entered Dr.
Cameron's care with a mild neurotic condition, and came out
several years later with physical brain damage and a complete
change of personality.
DR. HARVEY WEINSTEIN: What Dr. Cameron seemed to do was
to take these and to use them not only on people who were
severely ill -- and he did do that -- but to use it on people who
were mildly ill, people with neurotic conditions, people for whom
these kinds of treatments simply were not indicated at all.
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And when someone says to me that what was being done
there was the standard of the time, I balk, because it was not
the standard of the time. No one anywhere was putting them
together in this kind of package.
BRADLEY: But they were sick, many of these people.
DR. WEINSTEIN: The fact that some people were neurotic
-- that is, did not have conditions that were a major disturbance
-- does not mean that they weren't people who were rational and
capable of thinking and remembering, until this work was done.
BRADLEY: From 1957 to 1960, Richard Helms and his
associate Sidney Gottlieb were responsible for the CIA's MK-
ULTRA. In 1973, just before he left as head of the agency, Helms
and Gottlieb, in clear violation of government regulations, set
out to destroy all of the records of MK-ULTRA. But they over-
looked a few financial documents which showed that the CIA,
through a front organization, had spent at least $60,000 on the
brainwashing experiments. And because of the destroyed records,
no one can say how much more was spent.
Both men declined our request for an interview.
A Senate subcommittee investigation into the CIA
brainwashing experiments led to a recommendation that the CIA
find and compensate the victims, a recommendation that was
accepted by then-CIA Director Stansfield Turner. But to this
date, none of the victims in this case have received compen-
sation, or even an explanation of what happened.
Joseph Rauh is the lawyer for the Canadian plaintiffs.
JOSEPH RAUH: You know, it's wonderful thing that th.e
CIA says. They say, "Well, we only put up part of the money."
But can you imagine saying, "I only gave half the money for
shooting somebody"? Well, you know how long it would take to
make that defense ridiculous. That is exactly the defense that
the CIA has.
BRADLEY: Rauh says his evidence tying the CIA to the
brainwashing experiments will help his clients only in a court of
law. And he says the agency has effectively stalled their day in
court.
RAUH: They'd never put up anything or give you any
material voluntarily. You've got to go to the judge, and then
they've always got rights to appeal. They're masters at stone-
walling.
BRADLEY: Canadian officials have stated publicly that
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the United States Government has expressed its regret over the
CIA's actions in this matter. However, none of those Canadian
officials would talk with us on camera about this case. And
what's more, they have turned down all requests, even from
Members of Parliament, to make public the records of that
apology, records that would help the nine Canadians plaintiffs in
their suit against the CIA. These officials say that inter-
national practice and customs precludes the disclosure of
information that was given in confidence.
The plaintiffs in this suit against the CIA were
permanently damanged by the brainwashing experiments. Most of
them were even unable to talk with us. You have meat the most
fortunate among the nine.
After decades of trying, Dr. Morrow, at the age of 60,
was finally able to gain her psychiatric credentials. She works
at a small hospital in Ontario.
BRADLEY: How has what happened to you under Dr. Cameron
affected your'life?
BRADLEY: Why?
DR. MORROW: Absolutely. [Unintelligible]. I'm 61 (?)
and I've been 24 years on this case. My life is misery [unintel-
ligible].
BRADLEY: When Robert Logey finally had an opportunity
to examine his medical records, he learned that after the
electroshocks, LSD and psychic driving, doctors decided his leg
pain was not psychosomatic at all. A few shots of cortisone
ended the pain in his leg.
LOGEY: Physically, there's places you can go and have
counseling and support groups, and whatnot. But when you're
mentally raped, there's nothing. And I don't trust any psychia-
trist who might be able to help me. I couldn't trust one enough
to get the help that I need in dealing with this.
BRADLEY: Mrs. Orlico suffers from flashbacks, from
depression, fear of crowds and fear of heights. Finally knowing
what really ruined her health is her only consolation.
Until you found out about the experiments, until you
found out that you were brainwashed, what did you think of all of
that that happened?
ORLICO: I thought I had failed. I thought I had failed
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and I am guilty of being like this because I filed at something I
shouldn't have failed at, and David and Leslie have to put up
with me, and I am guilty.
Well, when I read about it in the paper, the one thing
that lessened considerably was the guilt. I didn't feel so
guilty anymore. I felt it wasn't all my fault. Thank God, it's
not all my fault. Because, you know, it's a terrible thing for
people to have to put up with someone who has sometimes a quarter
of a life, sometimes a.half life. Maybe once in a while you get
almost to the peak of a full life, but you don't stay there very
long.
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