PATIENTS STOOD IN FOR SPIES IN TESTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01315R000400460007-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 26, 2004
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: August 28, 1977
• Content Type: NSPR

;,. ,77CL.t
Approved
Patiens'.
Fr 'pies
Jfl tests
BY PAUL MAGNUSSON
Free Press Staff Writer
John Doe was a two-time
loser when he was sent in 1954
to Ionia State Hospital as a
criminal sexual psychopath.
Doe (a pseudonym) had been
con;ric.ed in Detroit Recorder's
Court of two rapes; one of his
victims was his 13-year-old.
niece. Doe's stay at loni a was to.
last until he was cured.
So when he was asked by-.
doctors at the hospital for the
criminally insane if he wanted
to take part in an experiment
that doctors said wouid be "be-
neficial" to him, Doe quickly
agreed..,..
"But they never did say what
that benefit would be," Doe.
.recalled in an interview-last
week. "I never did find out."
Doe was cautioned not to eat
breakfast and given a pill on
three separate occasions. Two.
hours later, doctors questioned
him about his crimes and
recorded his answers. ?
t What Doe never knew was.
that he was taking LSD. as a'
stand-in for a mythical, cap-
tured CIA agent. Doe was an..
unwitting soldier in the Cold.
War with the communists.
DOE WAS aninfantryman in
one part of a massive CIA.
project, code-named MK-';
ULTRA. It began in the early
1950s when the CIA suspected'
that, communists had discov--
eyed a way to control men's`
minds. - t
They had-developed tech-;
niques, the CIA feared, to elicit
false confessions and to plant;
stories that.might be parroted
on command by brainwashed
agents and political dissidents".
In court or before television'
cameras. . "
The CIA decided to seaicb
for the methods the commu..
nists might be using. The ex-,'j
periments on Doe were part of . .
only-one of some 140 separate
subprojects Involving drugs
and behavior modification on :
prisoners, students, volunteers 1-.. and the unaware. Approved
01M CCtA 88-01315 04A(4 000 dssdpi Pc
Interviews last week with.
doctors, hospital and clinic per-
sonnel and former patients like
Doe showed a well-intentioned
effort at uncovering th a sec rets
of mind control, but one slated
to failure.
The Ionia project began
sometime in' 1954 when the
CIA approached Alan Canty, a
criminologist atthe Detroit Re-
corder's Court psychiatric
clinic,.which conducted sanity
examinations forthe court.
CANTY, THE CIA believed,
could conduct experiments
with hypnosis and LSD, a drug
thought,to have the properties
of a truth serum. The subjects
of the experiments would be;
chi) d?molesters. who might be
questioned?under the influence
of drugs and hypnosis the same
way the communists might in-
terrogate'captured CIA ag-
gents.
Child molesters might be ex-
pected. to try to withhold the
details of their heinous crimes
as a captured agent might try to
conceal his contacts, CIA scien-
tists thought.
Although the experiments
.sere failures, It was reassuring
to experimenters that the mind
could not be so easily con-
trolled. And the project proved
another In a series of embar-
rassing public relations disas-
ters for the embattled intelll-
,.gence agency,, '
CIA Director Stanstield
_"Turner has called the projects
"-."abhorrent" and agreed under'
pressure front a Senate sub-'
committee to co-operate with
the Justice Department In lo-
caring the victimsand, if neces-
sary, punishing wrongdoers.:
Prosecutions. are unlikely.,
There _is. a general five-year.-
statute of limitations; most of.
i
the records of the projects have,
been destroyed-and many of
the participants are dead, in
eluding Canty'
%
MOREOVER, the exper'i
meats were conducted with the
'consent- of 'the subjects, .al-
_t oft years. later the courts
would decide mental patients;
by definition,.!'could not give
their fully Informed consent.
And the mind-control exper-
iments were the result of Cold
War fears that, communism
might somehow subvert our
minds as, well, as our political
and economic'systeuss..-.:
To? many, that excuses the
n r_~e~tTri~T ~
A- Ll "VIA
Thi Canty
C4 l ..{ Ct r. a !q~ ,
dare- ; J
000%
Cat
#!
to Ic Cry
pealec
to dec
s eat _
were e
guilty
doctors said he was cured.
the pills given to the patients-
contained sugar or LSD. t-.;
The routine for some 3D pa.
'tlents was the sam e.They were
asked how' they felt, if they
were dizzy or nauseous. Some
were, even those who received
chiatrists at Ionia State Hospi-..
tal who were picked to do the
actual experimentation.: '
John Doe was interviewed
by the three, Dr. Jahn Coak,Dr.
John Haaret' and. Dr:' Perry
Robertson, the`medical super-
intendeat.4_.:
. .Only Dr: Robertson know if
they sometimes were highly
intelligent, they frequently
would not admit even.to them-
selves that they had aoussd
children. This made them cnail-
lenging subjects for three psy
THEY WERE the most mi-
serable of criminals. Though
Washington where the CIA re-?
'THE INTERVIEWS were
tape-recorded and sent -to
Canty, who. mailed both the
,tapes and a typed transcript of
,them to a post office:, box In
,and they just denied. every--
thing." :.... 'r,') .. .y .;
and we just went down thelist.f.
'Haarer said. -."We were-sup-.
plied with the police records.
stories; not one Iota.'%Dr:.
doctors. He is now a psychic=
.trlst in Sarasota.. Fla.. -
the placebo.: .
Then the doctors' asked'the? i
patients about their crimes and
about.a mythical,' made-up
crime. In nearly all cases, the
patients denied the crimes, re-,
sponded with Dr. Lawrence
Hinkle Jr., at the. Society for
the -Investigation of Humad
Ecology at Cornell University,
which was established, in part,
to channel CIA research funds.
--As the project at Ionia cot:-
tinned, problems developed.
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