HOW THE CIA PLANNED THE DRUGGING OF AMERICA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01350R000200160001-6
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 20, 2004
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: September 1, 1979
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

Approved For Release 2004/10/13 : CIA-RDP88-01350R000200160001-6M,-,,Sr,,- C=~. Isz~)
GALLERY
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' ;,;-.1' l;r L STAT
Article appearea .,-r,
on page 51, 99 Did Timothy Leary and the CIA work hand in hand to urn-ran, una-in
culture of the Sixties? Or was Leary a pawn in the CIAs ruthless
t" dru
g
By Walter H. Bogart
P
alter Bowart first became inter-
., ? ested in the government's clan-
tine mind-contras program
d
es
?fto. a rirtCdhnod friend having
returned from his Air Force tour of duty
suffering from amnesia was able to de-
termine after intensive hypno-therapy
that he had been a mind-control victim.
"David" had been used in intelligence op-
erations, performing tasks without his
own knowledge. Then his awareness of
the events had been erased. David's story
touched off Bowart's lengthy research
into nearly thirty-five years of CIA ex-
periments and operations known as
MKULTRA Long before the CIA made a
partial confession of its ruthless pursuit Of
the means to control the human mind,
Bowart was piecing together bits of the
story. In his book, Operation Mind Con-
trol, he chronicled the activities of what
was perhaps the best kept secret since the
atom bomb. Many civilian scientists and -
military and government workers violated
all known codes of medical ethics, and the
law, in the MKULTRA experiments that,
declassified CIA documents eventually
proved, were conducted on unwitting
human guinea pigs.
The CIA MKULTRA documents vividly
expose:
v the use ofdoctors, psychiatrists, and mil-
itary chaplains to hypnotize un-
suspecting individuals by a disguised
technique;
? the -administering of 149 separate
mind-warping drugs to tens of thousands
of people, both military and civihar? many
of whom thought they'd voiuwY,ored for
harmless experiments; many ,>l whom
were totally unsuspecting;
s- the rewarding of prison with.
heroin for participating in exp,-iments
with mind-affecting drugs;
the programming of individuals, through
drugs, hypnosis, and various behavior
modification techniques, to carry messages
locked .within their minds behind post-
hypnotic blocks; program
. the programming of individuals to kill inmates of the Concord State prison. While with the CIA But alter he was out of
upon hearing a specifiecue like a " clan- the pa er talked of drug-induced satori (a prison, his story changed
pd-jReley (k4/i e13lu YAe M@b0Ja50R0 (1'6049` 1# Bowart and later
churian Candidate," Jt? *p
erasing their memories by the use of Zen Buddhism) and other aspects of showed upathisdoor, hesaid hewanted ta
ultrasonics drugs. . hypnosis, or other Leary's high-minded philosophy, and explain himself more fully about the letters.
a,.,,ic P.,,o,.4,,,p,tC they d exchanged Now, Leary said, he'
soon after Leary began giving lectures on
what were the first glimmerings of the
"psychedelic Sixties." He visited at the
2,000-acre Millbrook estate from which
Leary and his followers operated urideror'-
ganizations known as International
Federation for Internal Freedom (IFIF),
Castalia Foundation, and the League for
Spiritual Discovery (LSD). These organi-
zations did little to further scientific re-
search. Their major accomplishment was to
make LSD a household word and to en-
courage people to try the drug.
Among Bowart's research papers was a
CIA memo that directed agents to contact
Leary and his partner, Richard Alpert (now
Ram Das), who were then operating as
IFIE The CIA wanted to find out if its own
personnel were taking acid with Leary's
group and apparently to determine what
IFIF and Leary really knew about the
mind-bending properties of LSD, a drug
the CIA was then covertly experimenting
with. Other documents indicated that
Leary had received money channeled by
the CIA through various government
agencies. In all, he received eight govern-
ment grants from 1953 to 1958, most of
them through the National Institute of
now known to have been
lth
l H
,
ea
Menta
one of the conduits for research under the - some of the CIA MKUI. RA research was
conducted on inmates. In 1970 he escaped
MKULTRA program.
In Leary's book, High Priest, he de- and fled to Algeria. where he joined revolu-
scribed getting a note at Harvard from the tionary black author Eldridge Cleaver, also
Department of Legal Medicine asking his a fugitive. After Leary found he could no
help in an experiment to test the ability of longer get along with Cleaver, he went to
psychedelics to "rehabilitate" prisoners. Switzerland, and then from country to
"The problzms are hopeless. Criminals country in Europe,. dodging extradition
never change: The atmosphere is dreary Finally in early 1973, U.S. agents captured
and the academic rewards are slims." Leary him in Afghanistan and he was returned to
wrote. "But when I found this little piece of . prson.
paper in my box requesting an appoint- , When Bowart found Leary's name
ment from two officials from the Depart- among CL9 documents in.the MKULTRA
ment of Legal Medicine, I chuckled all the file, he began writing letters to him in
way to my office because this was just the prison. He questioned Leary about his in-
chancel was looking far." volvernent with the CIA. Bowart asked
In 1962 Leary published a paper, "How Leary if he had, wittingly or unwittingly, to Change Behavior," which described his dealt with the CIA during his creation of
cilnruhin "rehabilitation the "psychedelic Sixties," From prison.
a
p
definite parallels between his experiments
and the MKULTRA exrerrments
Leary had made many great contri-
butions to his profession, but those con-
tributions were, by 1965, already being
eclipsed by his colorful and brazen-faced
public stand on the benefits of uncontrolled
use of LSD. The turning point in Leary's
professional life came in 1962 when he was
asked to resign from Harvard University
for allegedly giving LSD to undergraduate
students He claimed to be the "high priest"
of the LSD cult, and wrotethe book of that
name, attesting to the drug's universal
benefits Leary drew such public notice
that the attention of the authorities soon
followed. Eventually he was arrested in
Laredo, Texas for possession of a halfrounce
of marijuana. He was convicted of failing to
pay the federal tax on marijuana, among
other things, and sentenced to thirty years
plus a $40,000 fine, That conviction was
later overturned by the Supreme Court
After a number of raids on the
Millbrook estate, other arrests followed.
Years of dogged pursuit by the authorities
eventuated in Leary's trial. and conviction
in California an another marijuana charge
and his incarceration at Vacaville Califor-
nia State Medical Facility, a prison where