MKULTRA SHOWED THE CIA RESTRICTIONS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000404720001-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 29, 2010
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: October 11, 1981
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/29: CIA-RDP90-00552R000404720001-5
STAT
ARTICLE A?PEarED
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OT; FAG_
PHILADELPHI A INQUIRER
11 October 1981
By Edwin Guthman
Editor oJTA. lnqu*rsr
Shortly after the end of World War R, the
U. S. Navy, responding to reports that Soviet
military agencies had achieved amazing
results in using drugs to alter human behav-
ior, began a program of identifying and test-
ing drugs that might be useful in interroga-
tions and in recruitment of agents.
It began as a defensive effort to detect and
counteract drugs and biological, agents
which might be used by the Soviets or other
hostile countries against the United States
and its allies.
But, as congressional investigating com
mittees reported a quarter of a century lat-
er, the defensive orientation of the program
soon became secondary as U.S. intelligence
agencies experimented to find how the
drugs could be used to get information
from, or gain control over, enemy spies.
By 1953, the Central Intelligence Agency
began a project with the code name of
MKULTRA to determine how chemical and
biological materials could be used effective-
ly in clandestine operations. The results,
backers of the project said, would "enable
us to defend ourselves against a foe who
might not be as restrained in the use of
those techniques as we are."
NIKULTRA began by experimenting with
possible uses 'of LSD and over the next 10
years expanded into a full-blown clandes-
tine operation with "safe houses" in the San
Francisco Bay and New York areas, plenty
of cash and a range of experiments in which
LSD and other drugs were tested on unsus-
pecting individuals from all levels of soci-
ety.
MKULTRA was a secret tightly held with-
in the CIA. Few people within the agency
knew about it. Even the CIA's inspector:
general was unaware of it alter an inspec-
tion in 1957 of the Technical Services Divi-11
sion which operated the project,-The con-
gressional investigating committees said
there is no evidence that anyone in the
White House or in the Congress were told
about it.
How many unsuspecting, nonvolunteer,
? persons were given LSD or other drugs is
not known as MKULTRA records were de
stroyed in'1973 on 'the orders of Richard
Helms, then director of the CIA.
It is known, however, that at least one.
person, Dr. Frank Olson, a civilian employ-'
ee of the Armv. died fit November 1953 after.
t
AJns
ne
of an MKULTRA experiment. . All this'happened despite the fact that the
"It might be argued that LSD was thought+ National Security Act of 1947 which estab-
to be benign," the Senate investigating lished the CIA stipulated that the agency
committee reported in 1976. "After the was to have no.police or domestic intelli-
death of Dr. Olson the dangers of the surrep-+ gence function. That was to be left to the
titious administration of LSD were clear, yet I Federal Bureau of Investigation. . -
the CIA continued or initiated a project What happened.is that the CIA officials
'
involving the surreptitious administration
of LSD to nonvolunteer human subjects.
"This program exposed numerous indi-
construed the language of the legislation in
a way to give them the guise of. authority to
order MKULTRA and. the variety 'of other
viduals in the United States to the risk of! domestic operations -which infringed upon
death or serious injury without their in-I citizens' constitutional rights.
formed consent, without- medical supervi- ~ Now, the Reagan administration is work-
sion and without necessary follow-up tol ine on an executive order that would put
determine any long-term effects."
It was, in brief, an illegal, immoral, secret
project carried out by a handful of patriotic,
professional intelligence agents who short-
cut the democratic process in what they
perceived to be the interests of national
security...
:The congressional. committees' disclo-
sures in the mid-1970s about MKULTRA and
-other secret CIA domestic. operations - in-
-filtration of organizations, mail surveil-
the CIA back in the domestic spying busi-1
ness again. The draft as it stands now, ac-
cording to reports last week, would allow
the CIA to infiltrate domestic organizations
and conduct "special activities" in the Unit-
ed States as long as they were not intended
to influence official policies or politics. ? '
The executive. order would replace one
issued in January 1978 in which President
Carter sought to prevent recurrence of free-
wheeling CIA and FBI intelligence opera-
? treau in wnicu a ..Ls-uiu-c. uau ?w did severe damage to the L La s repuraLiun
of t cn ac nary prohibiting some, but not all, illegal covert
app Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/29: CIA-RDP90-00552R000404720001-5 :"