25 YEARS OF NIGHTMARES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000605430005-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 8, 2012
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: July 28, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605430005-2
IRTICLI APPL" WASHINGTON POST
ON PAGE____,__ 28 July 19 8 5
25 Years
Of Nightmares
Victims of CIA-Funded Mind Experiments
Seek Damages From the Agency
By David Remnick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Harvey Weinstein, a quiet, bearded man who practices psychiatry
at Stanford University, says there are days when he is "ashamed" of
his profession, nights when he cannot stop thinking about the Cana-
dian psychiatrist who "ruined my father's life ... Left him with noth-
ing. It's a nightmare that never ends."
With funding from the CIA, the late Dr. D. Ewen Cameron did a
series of mind-control experiments on 53 people, including Harvey
Weinstein's father, Louis, a prosperous Montreal businessman. All
had come to the Allan Memorial Institute of McGill University in
Montreal between 1957 and 1961 for treatment of various psycho-
logical ailments.
The experiments, Weinstein says, left his father "a human guinea
pig, a poor pathetic man with no memory, no life. He lost his busi-
ness, he lost everything." Weinstein is one of nine plaintiffs in a law-
suit, seeking damages from the CIA.
To erase or "de-pattern" personality traits, Cameron gave his sub-
jects megadoses of LSD, subjected them to drug-induced "sleep ther-
apy" for up to 65 consecutive days and applied electroshock therapy
at 75 times the usual intensity. To shape new behavior, Cameron
forced them to listen to repeated recorded messages 'for 16-hour
intervals, a technique known as "psychic driving." Cameron and the
CIA were interested in brainwashing and the ability to redirect
thought and action. The patients did not consent to the treatment
and were never told they were being used for research.
"When you're 13 years old and you see your father-an indepen-
dent, kind, smart person-become a different man before your eyes,
it's impossible to accommodate that," Weinstein says."I remember
one of his first visits home from the hospital. He didn't talk much,
and when he did talk it made no sense. When he wasn't sleeping he
was drowsy. He asked us things about his parents, even though
they'd been dead for years. His memory was gone. At night once,
when I was in bed, I saw him come into my room and urinate on the
floor. He didn't know where he was.
"My father has ended up feeling guilty that he had done something
to deserve this punishment. He is convinced the CIA listens to his
telephone. He's ashamed, embarrassed. My mother died without
seeing the end of this. It will be a tragedy if my father dies without
restoring some sense of dignity to his life.-
Today Louis Weinstein fives alone in Mon-
treal, cared for by his two grown daughters.
No one knows the whereabouts of all the
subjects, some of whom may be dead. But
Louis Weinstein and eight others, including
Velma Orlikow, the wife of a New Demo-
cratic Party member of the Canadian par-
liament, claim they have been injured irrep-
arably by the experiments. "I'd say Velma
operates at about 20 percent of capacity,"
David Orlikow says. "It's horrific."
The CIA's involvement in mind control
experiments has been coming to light for
years. The suit filed by the group against
the U.S. government has been pending here
in U.S. District Court since December 1980
before Judge John Garrett Penn. The plain
tiffs originally asked for $1 million each in
damages but have cut that to $175,000.
The government - has offered to pay
$25,000. The group's attorney, Joseph
Rauh Jr., calls the settlement offer "de-
meaning" and contends that the CIA has
managed to delay the proceedings by
"stonewalling."
The CIA's counsel, Lee Strickland, de-
clined to comment on the case. Agency
spokeswoman Kathy Pherson said, "We
don't comment on cases under litigation.
It's inappropriate to try cases in the press."'
In Cameron's defense, Brian Robertson,
the present director of the Allan Institute,
and James Farquhar, a psychiatrist there,
wrote in the Montreal Gazette that "we
have not been able to uncover a single
shred of evidence that Dr. Cameron knew
of the CIA connection with his research
funding." They said Cameron's work "must
be'placed in its historical context" and that
"in Cameron's day [researchers] were not
expected to inform their patients of the na-
ture of their research in the way that they
are today."
The CIA has asked Judge Penn to block.
Rauh from taking depositions from two key
agency figures-Stacey Hulse and John
Knaus, who have been publicly identified as
former CIA station chiefs in Ottawa. They
are both retired.
Cameron, who died of a heart attack
while mountain climbing in 1967, had been
one of the most prominent psychiatrists in
North America. A former president of both
the Canadian and American psychiatric as-
sociations, he was selected to diagnose Nazi
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figures, including Rudolf Hess, during the
Nuremberg trials. (He declared Hess sane.)
But for his work on brainwashing and mind
control, critics have called him a "mad sci-
entist.'
"We hanged Naas for doing the sort of
things Cameron did,' says Rauh.
"Cameron wanted to be up there with
Freud.' says David Orlikow. "He wanted
that stature, so he would do anything. Any-
thing! It was horrific."
Since World War II, U.S. intelligence
agencies have been interested in the tech-
niques of controlling behavior and thought.
The military was especially intrigued by
interrogation techniques used on American
POWs during the Korean War. Brainwash.
ing entered the American vocabulary.
The CIA's first major project in the area,
called ARTICHOKE, was rudimentary com-
pared to MKULTRA, which succeeded it in
1953. Through front organizations, the CIA
channeled about $10 million to dozens of
universities and independent researchers.
In one highly publicized experiment an
Army employe, Dr. Frank Olson, was given
LSD without his knowledge. He was hos-
- pitalixed and days later jumped out a win-
dow to his death.
Few people knew much about MK-
ULTRA and cases like those of Frank Olson
until 1977, when requests for documents
under the Freedom of Information Act ex-
posed the nature and breadth of the CIA's
activities. Such intelligence experiments
have since been outlawed.
Former CIA director Richard Helms had
ordered papers concerning the experiments
in Montreal destroyed in 1973, but in 1977,
acting on a Freedom of Information Act re-
quest by writer John Marks, then-CIA di-
rector Adm. Stanfield Turner announced
that some files had not been destroyed.
Those documents form the basis of what is
generally known about the work of D. Ewen
A CIA chemist, Sidney Gottlieb, super-
vised the MKULTRA project from within
the agency, documents show. A CIA doctor,
Lt. Col. James L. Monroe, worked under-
cover and ran the Society for the Investi-
gation of Human Ecology, the organization
that channeled money to Cameron and the
Allan Institute.
Rauh contends that Cameron knew the
CIA was interested in his work and actively
solicited the grant. With the CIA's approval
(and with checks drawn against U.S. Treas-
ury funds), documents show that Monroe
got at least $60,000 to Cameron.
Velma Orlikow:
I suffer from chronic depression which
sometimes becomes acute. I call those periods
my 'flack holes' I don't sat anybody and I
won I have the house. 1 can 7 read and I used
to love to rand I can't write a letter. I have
unexplained feare. I wake up at night afraid
and I don't know iiaky. I'm trying to limp
through my life like someone who's been in a
terrible accident that leaves them crippled
Dr. Camenm could be crud if you didn7
do exactly what he wanted He was a god fig-
ure to the patients He'd say to me, 'What's
the matter with you, lassie? I still hear his
voice s metimes
Ewen Cameron was born in Scotland and
educated at the University of Glasgow, the.
Glasgow Royal Mental Hospital and at
Johns Hopkins. He first won a measure of
fame for setting up mobile psychiatric clin-
ics in the '30s in Canada.
During the war, Cameron was part of an
international committee of psychiatrists and
social scientists who studied the origins and
nature of Nazi culture. He published numer-
ous articles on mass psychology during war-
time.
Cameron began the Allan Memorial In-
stitute in 1943 with the help of a grant from
the Rockefeller Foundation. He gave nu-
merous speeches on "the problem of Ger-
many" and believed that the psychology and
forces that gave to rise to Nazism may have
been longstanding in German culture.
Although he was based in Montreal, Cam-
eron became an American citizen and an-
gered many in the bilingual community of
Montreal for being an insistent English
speaker.
More and more, Cameron came to be-
lieve in the possibility of changing the hu-
man mind, of altering thought and behavior
patterns. But rather than experiment in
psychotherapy, what Freudians have called,
"the talking cure," Cameron believed in
quicker, organic means, including drugs and
electroshock. He began experimenting on
organic ways of controlling schizophrenia.
The experiments of 1957-1961 were
done on patients, mostly women, who en-
tered the Allan Institute voluntarily, usually
at the recommendation of a private physi-
cian.
Louis Weinstein went to the institute suf-
fering from respiratory and digestive dif-
ficulties caused by anxiety. After undergo-
ing the complete treatment of LSD and oth-
CWftued
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er drugs,. electroshock and psychic driving,
Weinstein is, in his son's words, a lost sout
... My father has no social sense, how to
keep clean, how to carry on a conversation,'
"They took his self away from him.'
Velma Orlikow suffered from depression;
after the birth of her daughter. After sev
eral years of treatment with a private pay'.
chiatrist in Winnipeg, she entered the Allan:
Institute to speed her progress. Without;,
being told the nature of the injections, she,
was given shots of LSD on 14 occasions an4'
went through psychic-driving sessions. She
found the treatments frightening but, ac-
cording to her testimony, Cameron per.
suaded her to continue until 1963. Now Or,,.
likow says she cannot concentrate well, can,
no longer read books or magazine articles.,
Dr. Mary Morrow approached Cameron,
for a fellowship in psychiatry, but Cameron
thought, after a physical exam, that Mor=
row appeared "nervous" and admitted her
as a patient instead. For 11 days. Morrow
says she underwent de-patterning exper-
iments that included electroshock treat-
ment, and barbiturates. The treatment re;
suited in a brain anoxia-not enough Oxy=gen reaching the brain-and she was hose
pitalized. Today Morrow suffers from pm"
sopagnosia-she cannot recognize peoples.
faces.
The list goes on. Robert Logie, a native
of Vancouver, says he cannot hold a steady'*
job or sleep without the help of drugs. He
suffers from severe depression and stilt
dreams about the experiments. Lyvia Stad-
ler of Montreal has been institutionalized.
In his court claim, Rauh claims that n W,
only did the experiments have "no likely
therapeutic value," they also violated the
accepted standards of medical experiments=
tion as formulated at the Nuremberg War
Crimes Trials and ratified in the Charter o
the United Nations.
"The frustration is incredible," Harvey`.
Weinstein says. It's impossible to know, to:~
e yr know, what kind of life my father might
have led, what kind of lives all these people,
might have led, if this had never happe
So much has been stolen from my fa e
and everyone like him." 11 L , ;
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000605430005-2