MPS WIFE 'TORTURED' COURT TOLD OF TESTS WITH LSD

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000200970062-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 29, 2010
• Sequence Number: 62
• Publication Date: May 5, 1981
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

'STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/30: CIA-RDP90-00806R000200970062-5
MP's wife `tortured'
Court told
of tests
with LSD
By JENNIFER ROSINSON
of The Gazette
A Winnipeg psychiatrist said
yesterday the wife of federal New
Democratic Party MP David Orli-
kow was subjected to "psychologi-
cal torture" at Montreal's Allan
Memorial Institute, alleged to be
the site of secret brainwashing ex-
periments on unwitting patients
for the U.S. Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA).
Dr. Gordon Lamberd of Winni-
peg testified yesterday in Quebec
Superior Court that Velma Orli-
kow, 64, suffered irreparable dam-
age from the brainwashing experi-
ments conducted on her between
1956 and 1964.
Orlikow is suing the Royal Vic-
toria Hospital for about $80,000 for
damages allegedly resulting from
treatment received from Dr.
Douglas Ewen Cameron, former
director of the institute, the psychi-
atric wing of the hospital. Cameron
was killed in a mountaineering ac-
cident in 1967.
Cameron's experiments were al-
legedly known as Subproject 68 -
the largest behavior control proj-
ect in the brainwashing research
program, called MK Ultra, operat-
ed by the CIA.
Orlikow alleges she was used as
a guinea pig for unethical experi-
ments that left her with permanent
brain damage.
During four hours of emotional,
highly descriptive testimony yes-
terday, Orlikow said she was
forced regularly to take lysergic
acid diethylamide (LSD) and at
least a dozen other controversial
drugs.
"Once I thought I was a squirrel
running around in -a cage unable to
escape," she said.
"Sometimes I thought I would
die."
She told Judge Marcel Belleville
she was drugged daily and expect-
ed to write down all her thoughts
as she listened to tapes played over
and over for up to five hours a day.
The tapes were recordings of cony
Velma Orlikow leaves court with her MP husband David
versations she had with Cameron.
"I really tried hard," she said.
But after several months of listen-
ing to the same tapes she could
only write "lost, lost, lost" over
and over again.
She said Cameron did not want
her to go back to her husband and
daughter who lived in Winnipeg at
the time. She said he told her to
take an apartment in Montreal
when she was released from the
hospital.
The suit alleges that Cameron
received subsidies from a CIA
front group, the Society to Investi-
gate Human Ecology, to carry out
his experiments.
Orlikow said she was never told
what the medical staff was doing
to her. She said she was forced sev-
eral times to dress skimpily and be
filmed by Cameron's assistant,
who would call out instructions to
her like "sit down" or "stand up."
Orlikow's lawyer, Phil Cutler,
said that CIA documents used the
code name Miriam to refer to Orli-
kow in the brainwashing experi-
ments, which were part of a $25-
million mind control program to
find ways of breakin* down enemy
agents and manipulating behavior.
Orlikow and several other pa-
tients suspected to have been
treated by Cameron are also each
suing the CIA for $1 million in
damages. That case is before U.S.
courts. .
Hearings here continue today.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/30: CIA-RDP90-00806R000200970062-5