CIA DRUGS, BRAINWASHING PROGRAMME: INSIDE STORY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00498R000100120130-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 20, 2007
• Sequence Number: 130
• Publication Date: September 9, 1977
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2007/08/20: CIA-RDP99-00498R000100120130-7
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TO THE POI lT
9 sEP'TEM?MEE 1977
.CIA drugs, brainwashing
programme: inside story
Is there a pill which can make a man give away tutes and once a prestidigitator was brought in
them? A potion to make a drunken man sober, Looking back on it, Artichoke was born of
or one to prevent a sober one from becoming cold war paranoia. The "high treason" trial of
-A way of treating normal-tasting food so that Budapest. The prelate's robot behaviour. his
fused neurotic full of fears and anxieties? impressed anyone who had read Arthur
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Koestlers Darkness at'soon, the story behind
does not know, but it spent almost a quarter of the Stalin purge trials in the Soviet Union in -~-r13
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49, Turner: brainwashing - and worse
money trying to find the answers to those and Artichoke may well have been essentially a -
many similar questions. In 1975, an inquiry defensive programme, intended to learn how - gence agency set up its own front organisation
committee threw some light on a number of to insulate American agents against what CIA to cover its projects, calling it The Society for
CIA programmes involving the use of hallu- chiefs feared were potent brainwashing and the Investigation of Human Ecology.
cinogenic drugs. Among other things that mind-control techniques developed by the Among the tests financed by that society
were then brought out was the truth about the Soviets and the Chinese. were some investigations of brainwashing car-
death of Frank Olson, a biochemist working But offensive concepts were quickly Tied out at Montreal's McGill University.
for the Department of the Army who threw brought in. A memorandum on January 25, Some 30 nurses spent half an hour, at regular
himself out of a hotel window in New York on 1952, spoke of the need to perfect- a way to get intervals, in a blacked-out sound-proofed
November 28, 1953: it turned out that he had information from an individual against his will room and their reactions were recorded. One
served unknowingly as a guinea pig in a CIA and without his knowing that he had given it. of the nurses had to be hospitalised some
experiment with LSD. That memo went on to speculate on whether months later as a schizophrenic. Over the
It was believed at that time that most of the there was a way to gain such control over an years. Artichoke moved into neuro-
documents relating to those CIA programmes individual's mind that he would obey orders psychiatry: the effects of hypnosis, of lack of
had been destroyed. That has since been not only against his will but "against such sleep and food, of electroshocks or ultra-
proved false. Only a few weeks ago, seven fundamental laws of nature as self-preserva- sounds beyond the range of human hearing,or
boxes containing 8 000 pages of records were tion." - hard drugs. Sexual pathology was touched on,
found in the midst of stored CIA accounting The CIA, both in the political context of the as was telepathy.
papers. The records give a good idea of the ex- times and in line with the needs of any secret The guinea pigs were as varied as the range
tent of the CIA's "studies of human be- service, hoped to use behaviour control to of experiments. Drug addicts were given shots
haviour", a euphemism which covered an ? crack enemy mental defences or to pro- of morphine as a recompense for their test
? extraordinary variety of offensive as well as gramme its own agents for any mission. What roles. Students were given cheques, soldiers
defensive experiments in brainwashing and was wanted was a way to turn amnesia on and extra furloughs. Cancer patients were promis-
worse. The facts that emerged were con- off. It might be to question-an enemy spy with- ed pain-killers. But sexual psychopaths and
firmed on August 3 at a joint hearing of the Se- out his remembering that he had given away the mentally ill simply were not told about the
nate Intelligence Committee and the Health his superiors. It might be to erase the tests, so they did not have to be paid. In 1953,
sub-committee by Admiral Stanslield Turner, memories of CIA agents after particularly sen- the CIA signed up a magician and gave him
the new clAdirector. Turnerwas able to tell the? sitivemissions -orperhaps when they were on 82600 to draft a manual on applied leger-
hearing: "I can assure you that the CIA is in no the point of retiring and might be tempted by demain - useful, perhaps, on cloak-and-
way engaged in either witting or unwitting test- the thought of writing their memoirs about dagger missions for slipping one of those
ing of drugs today." But no one could erase what went on "inside the company." magic potions in an enemy agent's glass. Inthe
what had gone before. The army and the CIA shared the same con- 1950s the CIA sent some operational teams to
Under cover of a programme code-named terns in those days, and the Pentagon worked Europe and Asia. There would be a psychia-
Bluebird, later rechristened Artichoke, with with the intelligence services on some pro- trist, a hypnotist, an interrogation specialist.
offshoots like MK-Ultra and MK-Delta, be- jects. Hallucinogenic tests were carried out on Locked in' a "safe house", the team would
fore being "put down the memory hole" in thousands of soldiers between 1956 and 1974. question day after day an agent whose loyalty -
1973. the CIA carried out 149 experiments con- A high army officer rhapsodised at the 1975 had become suspect. For good measure, the
nected with brainwashing in the United States Senate inquiry on the possibilities of drugging suspect would be given "truth serum" injec-
and Canada. Eighty different institutions, enemy regiments for a few hours, making for lions of pentobarbital. One of the spies who
including universities, prisons, pharma- victories without bloodshed. Under Arti- got the full treatment was a Viennese Count
ceutical laboratories and hospitals, took part choke, the CIA also worked at times with the who had promised to turn overa Soviet cipher.
in the tests - often without realising the Office of Naval Research. More often, how- When Admiral Turner was asked by the Se-
purpose or knowing who was behind the pro- ever, the "covers" for tests were private re- nate investigators whether he had been ableto
C - ' gramming. The tests included the use of hallu- search foundations. CIA money was un- draw any useful conclusions froth the "Mid-
cinogens (LSD among them), hypnosis, and suspectinglyaccepted by-thelikes oftheJosiah night Orgasm" reports,-the CIA director
physical and mental exhaustion of subjects. Macy Jr. Foundation, ore of the world's most answered with a laconic "No". It vms on that
The subjects were not always told what was in respected in the field of rnedicat research, and occasion that he-assured the inquiry that the
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(OLtb . the I Approved For Release 2007/08/20: CIA-RDP99-00498R000100120130-7