CANADIAN SUIT TIES CIA TO LSD, BRAINWASHING STUDIES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000301920019-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 25, 2012
• Sequence Number: 19
• Publication Date: October 25, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/25: CIA-RDP90-00965R000301920019-0
ART iCLE
ON PAGE
-A)
LOS ANGELES TIMES
25 October L985
rCanadian Suit Ties CIA to LSD, Brainwas
By KENNETH FREED, Times Staff Writer
TORONTO?Between 1953 and
116.3, nine people entered a Mon-
treal psychiatric clinic seeking
treatment for a variety of illnesses
ranging from depression to alco-
holism to arthritis. However, in-
stead of being helped, the six men
and three women charge, they
became test subjects for American
intelligence agents exploring ways
to control the human mind.
Their claim is that without their
knowledge or consent, they were
fed doses of drugs, including
mind-altering LSD. and subjected
to radical brainwashing experi-
ments, involving o,-g periods of
forced sleep and other unorthodox
procedures, proposed 1-?,(1 financed
by the Central Intelligence Agen-
cy.
In a long-running lawsuit, the
nine Canadians allege that their
stay at the Allan Memorial Clinic
and their treatment by its director,
the late Dr. Ewen Cameron, left
them with permanent mental dam-
age and has affected their ability to
lead normal lives.
Each is asking for $175,000 (in
U.S. dollars) in damages and an
apology from the U.S. government.
Although the suit was filed in a
federal district court in Washing-
ton, D.C., five years ago, the case
still has not come to trial and
lawyers for the nine people say
they are frustrated by the govern-
ment's tactics.
Joseph Rauh, a well-known civil
liberties attorney who represents
the nine, said in a telephone inter-
view from his Washington office
that the government has prevented
key witnesses, particularly former
CIA agents, from giving deposi-
tions and has forced him to file
time pretrial motions
sometimes taking two years to
resolve.
"The CIA strategy," he said, ''k
to stonewall until. I'm not able to
continue with the case. At my ripe.
old.age of almost 75 there *only a
'alined time I can practine, ahd
they are stalling for all
The CIA says it does not de
cases in litigation and
Department and the U.S. Emtiggy
in 'Ottawa add only that SearOuri
of State George P. Shuitnir few
adviser is studying the Mettle. s ?
Rauh and some Canadian gov-
ernment officials who do not want
to be identified are nearly as criti-
cal of the Canadian government's
attitude as they are of the CIA,
charghw thet External Aff
ster itok Clark has not a
firmly- in the Matter for fear
upsetting Shultz end other
Administration officials.'
Canadian Asks Shake
A spokesman for Clark said
ministee has-brought up the
with Shulteentwo occasione
mid-May but has -received no
other than that **titter hi
reviewed by the State
ment's attorney.
Calling thipio pi Overly
approach,ltauhniiknhe
an government hiweaker than
watered-for four shifts of
rant 'flabbergasted at' the
response. , . . Clark can't even
a 'no' from Shultz.
Rauh and some Canadians wanifs
Clark to threaten to take the case to
the World Court at The Hague.
They sly that the CIA and the U.S.
government breached Canadian
sovereignty.'
"This could - be settled in five
minutes if Clark said he was going
to The Hague," the American law-
yer %Vernon, but "Shultz treats him
like a gnat on his forehead; he just
brushes him away."
A Canadian external affairs offi-
cial addelt "It is clear that Clark
doesn't want to upset the Ameri-
cans. right now and it is govern-
ment policy to downplay any dif-
ferences that crop up" between the
two countries..
Althongit the-American govet
ment has' refused to settle
apologise and is fighting the case in
the court, the CIA?both in 1977,,
and in cows papers filet in 1990--
acknowledged its involvement
With Cameron's work after chimer:
were made
AmerieinV author John Marti,
first clkinld the CIA role after-
RtitinCliV11,--Jr/rOnPort of
-.910cketelle%oimon a Wei.
mintills ;dike sogers intermit in
saplorhigliiad =VW through
UPI of.41911Eand Aar
He asked for all pertinent docu-
ments under the Freedom of Infor--.
=don Act received 16,000 pages
of material and found references to
Cameron's work at the Allan clinic
and the fact that he had received
hinds from a CIA front orgiunza-
tion. ?
Marks presented his findings in a
1977 book called "In Search of the
Manchurian Candidate." In it, he
referrett to several articles that
'Cameron- had written for various
American_ And Canadian medical
a. deposition, former CIA Di-
rector Stanefleld Turner told Rauh'
that .the eiheriments had taken
place and that "the (CLA.)'. unit
conducting. the itnieriment simply'
had such autonomy that not many
outsfaers could look in and ask
what was going on." -
_ Also, sources close to the case.
halt. said - that two ? former CIA
oPirations officers based in Canada
in *elate 1970s acknowledged the
agency% involvement and even
secretly apologized to the Canadian
government.
The ainS-90UrCIS said the two.
men Stacy Hulse and John Ken-
neth Knew, agreed to give a
Vosition. to Rauh confirming the
'CIA role and their apology but that
they were prevented from doing so
by the CIA's invoking. of .regula-
tions limiting public testimony by
even retired employees.
Rauh has filed a motion to com-
pel the CIA to permit their testimo-
ny, but the judge has delayed a
ruling.
In addition, there are more than
2,000 pages of documentation in the
public archives in Ottawa concern*
ing Cameron's experiments,, in,.4
eluding several documents that
deal with letters between highi
Canadian health officials and Cabf,4
net members concerning the woe"
at the Allan Memorial Clinic, w
is associated with Montreal's
tigious McGill University.
These papers point to ra
uses of drugs, including?LSD?
the injection of large doses .
insulin to induce comas, sometimes
for 16. hours. Cameron, whose worill
viall highly regarded by his profes-
sional Peon, according to contains
porair news accounts, also used
Continusd
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STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/25: CIA-RDP90-00965R000301920019-0
cumulative electrotherapy, the ap-
Station of massive electric shocks
over long periods of time.
Although the origin- and exact
date of Cameron's association with
the CIA remains in dispute, Marks
and' Rauh , both contend that the
agency approached the doctor, who
had a long. and public history of
Interest ? and exprimentation in
radical mind?control programs.
"I have no doubt that Cameron
would have ..done the same thing,
even it Use 'CIA. had not been
involve." Marks said in a tele-i.
phone interview.
was in his 60a
motmtain-climb-
-1*3967, also pioneered
caged "psychic driving?
plaintiffs were his
be used the technique,
them. It consisted of
labusive tape-re-
for varying peri-
hut Aften for hours on
ttilCameron's writ-
was a form of
.therapy. to lower the
resistance, weaken their
memories and dits make them
more seae.nah/e . to suggestions by
the ? psychiatrist However, one of
the women , Involved in the suit,
Jeannine Huard of MontreaL told
the Toronto Star that the technique
was "torture, plain and simple."
She said Cameron's staff gave
her electroshock therapy several
times and repetitiously played a
tape accusing her of being a bad
mother. This would go on for seven
hours a day, she said.
Huard was admitted to the clinic
in 1958 for treatment of postpartum
depression (a depressive state fol-
lowing childbirth). She contends
that she suffers from confusion,
depression and anxiety, all as a
result of the Cameron treatments.
Slept for U Days
Another plaintiff, Robert Logic,
was referred to the clinic by his
doctor as an 18-year-old in 1954 for
treatmut of an arthritic leg, ac-
cording to the suit. He soya that he
was given LSD without being told
what it was and that his hospital
file shows that he was induced to
sleep for 23 straight days.
Another victim of LSD and "psy-
chic driving" was Velma ?Mimi,
who was sent to Cameron in the MI
of 1956 kw treatment of postpartum
depression. She charges that LSD
was given to her It different times
and that she was forced to listen to
abusive tapes for six hours at a
tint& ?
Orlikow's husband,- David; a
member of the Canadian Parlia-
ment, said she has been pliglisd
with a sporadic but deadening
depression since she left the clinic
in 1963. "There are times," he said
in a telephone interview, "when
she can't leave the house for days."
Another patient, Louis Wein-
stein of Montreal, asserts in the suit
that he was chemically induced to
sleep for 66 consecutive days, that
he has permanent memory loss and
has had to be hospitalized. Rauh
says Weinstein is now totally inca-
pacitated and near death.
Interest in Brainwashing
According to the suit, the nine
Canadians say the CIA funded and
supported Cameron's projects be-
cause of its interest in brainwash-
ing and mind control, subjects of
intense scrutiny in the post-Kore-
an War era with its reports of
successful brainwashing of Ameri-
can soldiers held in POW camps.
Cameron kept up his work,
which was financed as well by the
U.S. Army and the Canadian gov-
ernment, according to the doctor's
papers and footnotes in his scholar-
ly articles, even though his patients
were not notified of the real pur-
pose behind his treatments, until at
? least 1964.
Even if the Reagan Administra-
tion has refused to settle the case,
Rauh has some supporters in
Washington. Sen. Howard M. Met-
zenbaum (D-Ohio) brought up the
issue in a Senate speech earlier this
month.
"I am aghast at the refusal of the
United States government to re-
solve this matter with the Canadian
victims of the CIA actions, " he
said. "The suit of those nine victims
, has been pending for over five
years and, instead , of seeking a
settlement on some reasonable be-
efs, our government and the CI:A-
have placed every conceivable
roadblock in the path of the v4c-
tims."
If the CIA and the government
really intend to outlast the aging
Rauh, he says, they are undereeti-
mating him. "Um not going to quit
until I get Tefinething for these
people," he said.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/09/25: CIA-RDP90-00965R000301920019-0