THE CIA AFFAIR: A BAD TRIP REVISITED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01350R000200420007-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 20, 2004
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: February 12, 1979
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

Approved For Re m"Q04MW1Z33INCIg40RU
12 February 1979
By Julianne Labreche
he scene was long ago and far away,
Li in Zurich back in 1957, when Dr. D.
Ewen Cameron, described by one col-
league as ".the godfather of Canadian
psychiatry," rose to present his star- -American Central Intelligence Agency
tling and severe new treatment for to learn how to control the human mind.
schizophrenia. Some members of his
distinguished audience at the Second
International Congress for Psychiatry,
which included the grand old man of the
profession, Dr. Carl Jung, seemed sur-
prised by Cameron's harsh "de-pattern-
ing" techniques, but he was not rattled.
Cameron frankly described his method
as "a sharp tool."
The real razor's edge of Cameron's
research only became public last week
with the release of a chilling new book,
by American author John Marks, The
Search for the "Manchurian Candi-
date." It links Cameron, who was direc-
tor of McGill University's Allan Memo-
rial Institute from its founding in 1943
until his abrupt departure in 1964, with
a 20-year, $25-million effort by:_: the
Between 1953 and 1973 the agency
undertook a full-scale attempt to dis-
cover and develop techniques of mind
control and brainwashing, fearing that
the Soviets and Chinese had already
perfected the methodology.
The project was hidden behind a suc-
cession. of code names-first BLUEBIRD,
then ARTICHOKE and later MK-DELTA-
and then a "study group" called the So-
ciety for the Investigation of Human
Ecology was established as a scientific
front through which the CIA could sub-
sidize research by recognized authori-
ties who had no idea of the ulterior pur-
poses of their new sponsor. The society
was involved with 50 or 60 different uni-
versities in 21 countries. The little-
known but fearsome drug LSD was em-
ployed in mind-influencing experiments
involving, in some cases, unsuspecting
prisoners, prostitutes and other "unde-
sirables" on the fringes of U.S. society.
At McGill, the only Canadian univer-
sity to become involved, the aggressive
and. pioneering Dr. Cameron conducted
his experiments. The human ecology so-
ciety, as Marks reveals in his book,
sponsored the program at Allan Memo-
rial from 1957 to 1964, advancing rela-
tively modest amounts of $4,000 and up-
ward a year-never more than $20,000.
The centre's growing fame- drew de-
pressed and schizophrenic patients
from all over the world, but of the 53
known to have undergone the treatment
many were Canadians. Maclean's has
talked to two of these. Val Orlikow, wife
of federal NDP MP David Orlikow, de-
scribes her experiences as "the coldest,
most impersonal treatment that any-
body could give to anybody." (See box.) t STAT
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 I- in a stable b"hir.d his laboratory where !
The orpy,Br Fa~pp Rd #iJ@r2Q~0 /10/13: C[b~taR@A88`+Qsl' OIr 02i0~b45dA0O7-h
political y prominent family but who deprived completely of all sensory stim-
insists on remaining anonymous, tells uli, with nothinc; to see or hear or smell
of a desperate attempt to flee from fur- or feel. One unfortunate woman te-
ther strenuous treatments. rnained in the box for 35 days, allowed
Whether Cameron's patients were out only fur nic?als and toilet breaks.
guinea pigs for the CIA or were simply One Canadian woman is identified in
subjected to their own doctor's deter- Marks's book only as "Lauren
mined and adventuresome experiments which is not her real name-"a refined,
aimed at producing a quick cure for giamorous horse woman" who looks like
mental illness can never be known for h;iizabeth Taylor and was, in fact,
sure, because Dr.Cameron was killed in screen-tested for the Taylor role in the
a mountaineering accident in 1967. But 1934 movie X,atitmaf VCIvet. After con-
Cameron's sometimes bizarre and unor- firming the screen test, she told Mac-
thodox methods would understandably lean ;s about Dr. Cameron's treatments.
appeal to the CIA as offering a possible. She still remembers having been put. to
technique for brainwashing and then sleep for six weeks, then waking and
re-programming enemy agents. The wanting to escape. Making a desperate
"de-patterning of undesirable behav- clash outdoors in her dressing gown, she ,
for in Cameron's usually severely dis- slid not get far before she was dragged
turbed patients routinely started with i,ack and heavily sedated again. "1 sure
"sleep therapy," in which they were gut the chi] Is when I think about it," she
heavily drugged and knocked out for as recalls. "My own personal recollections
long as 65 days, though being disturbed are so c runs, so horrible.." Dr. Came-
two or three times daily by heavy elec- ron's theory was that if a state of "com-
troshock treatments. Cameron hoped plete amnesia" were produced in a pa-
they would wipe out the patient's mem- tient-the mental slate wiped clean-
ory of unpleasant experiences and un-
ed fantasies. He would then try the subject would eventually vioh}l only
controlled
h tor.. But
tier ren n it took her
re-pattern the troubled brain by us- Lau
ing what he called "psychic driving"-a 19 yneaars G G to says recall that ail of whill her e e life after her
procedure about as upsetting as it 19 r
sounds. The patients, once again heavily illness, she could remember the had
sedated, were tucked away in a "sleep things too. She says she reverted to her
room" where taped messages were re- old self only after ending first mar
riag
prated again Later she remarried, this time
and again into their ears to the son of a former Tory cabinet
from speakers under their pillows. minister.
Cameron also became a great believer The fact that Dr. Cameron was the
in subjecting patients to repeated LSD
"trips," as they are now familiarly lirst professor of psychiatry ever ap
known-but the impact of such night- pointed at g edit, already one of the
marish experiences can scarcely be outstanding medical schools on the con-
imagined at a time when the drug was tinent, puts in perspective the state the
barely known to the public. He also gave science had achieved by the mid-war
his patients curare, famed as the South 'from . Swamped by demands for help
American arrow poison but now also from a society under greater and
known as an anesthetic. He built a box greater pressures, the few early the chiatrists were forced to realize that the +
long and painstaking methods of treat-
ment through psy; choanalysis, as devel-
oped by Sigmund Freud and Jung in Eu-
rope, had become inadequate. Every-
where the search was on for new and
swifter methods of restoring mental
balance. Ewen Cameron was one of the
pioneers in his field.
Just v by be left '.1cCill in 1' h?l, no
c.ne now will sax but ru leagues seem
agree(] I;is ~ii'loti Turn '. as "ahru,,t...
And, in a move rare in the tie!rd of medi-
cine, Cameron's su cessor, on Robert
Cleghorn, ratted for a critical i nvestiga-
tion of Cameron's treatments and found
them to be no more effective than other,
less tortuous methods. Whether the CIA
felt it gut its money's worth from the
studies it financed in brainwashing at
McGill is another unknown. But cer-
tainly the agency has been trying hard
to wipe its own slate clean in recent
,ears.
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`This stuff is
killing me'
UV of since Margaret Trudeau's candid
confessions about her psychiatric
treatment in 1974 has one woman's mental
suffering attracted such widespread atten-
tion. The stress of the publicity shows on
the face of Val Orlikow, wife of federal NDP
NIP David Orlikow, as she struggles through
tears to talk. Even though purposely decid-
ing about a ;year ago to co-operate with
American author John Marks in exposing
an empty room, heavily drugged and lis-
tening only to repeated tape-recorded con-
versations between herself and Cameron.
Finally, over the doctor's protests, she had
the treatment stopped after she had fallen
into such black depression that she told
Cameron: "This stuff is killing me. I can't go
on.',
In retrospect, Val Orlikow is outraged
and frustrated for having never been told
LSD was a controversial drug. "I never ben-
efited from any of the treatment I got at the
Allan Memorial Institute," she maintains.
Throughout many years of recovery, her
husband has supported and even encour-
McGill University's CIA-backed research, Val Orlikow: like a caged squirrel
she never anticipated the media blitz last
week detailing her controversial psychiatric aged her to speak out publicly: "T "s ill
frayed as a' freak by every radio station illness," David Orlikow insists. Even today,''
across the country;",-she says, For them, however, Val Orlikow still suffers from what
it's a quick storybut for me it's my life. she. believes to be the. aftereffects of the
Even ttiough VatOrlikow all but went treatment at McGill-=an inability to concen.
I peared, she agreed: to talk with Maclean's of crowds that began at the hospital.- ,
because she hopes she and other patients In coming months, 'she" intends to
the late `Or:`.`.Ewen'Cameron. will be justly also suffered his.severe.treatments and to= 1,
compensated. i Her frightening memories encourage them to exert pressure on the
go back 1180'j?6`616 Twhen the Winnipeg CIA'for financial compensation;' as the?Orli'
woman, suffering from neurosis and post- kows have already' done. One 'CIA a':
partum depression, checked into McGill's spokesman in Washington explains: "We
Allan Memorial Institute. Within two weeks are in touch with the attorneys for Mrs. Orli
she unknowingly began to receive heavy kow and her case is under consideration.
doses of the then still novel drug LSD, which We understand there may be a number of
continued for two months-14 treatments Canadians who feel that they were sub-
in all. She recalls terrifying nightmares of jected to experiments which were financed
feeling like a caged squirrel running around by this agency." Not that a cheque-would,
in endless circles and feeling herself shrink solve all Val Orlikow's.losses. As she lam
like Alice in Wonderland while agonizing ents, "No one can give you back years of
how she would get down off her bed. She your life and the time you lost with your
also was given Cameron's "psychic daughter and husband."
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