MIND EXPERIMENTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01070R000201380002-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 21, 2008
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: September 15, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2008/08/21 :CIA-RDP88-010708000201380002-4
RADIO N REPORTS, ~N~.
4701 WILLARD AVENUE, CHEVY CHASE, MARYLAND 20815 [phone]
PROGRAM NBC Nightly News STATION WRC-TV
NBC Network
DATE September 15, 1984 6:30 PM CITY Washington, DC
Mind Experiments
JOHN HART: NBC News has new information on mind
experiments done 20 years ago without the patients knowledge,
experiments funded by the CIA.
This information indicates the CIA was interested in
learning how to erase memory. The report by Paul Altmeyer.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: I would say it cost me my life.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: I was completely -- it was like
they had complete control over me.
VAL ORLIKOW: I've heard that it was the most brutal
program under that -- under MK-Ultra in the States and in
Canada.
ALTMEYER: They're former patients, part of the
CIA-funded experiments, MK-Ultra, performed at this Gothic
estate known as Ravens Crag in Montreal.
The work was done by the late Dr. Yuin Cameron and
involved extensive use of potentially dangerous drugs, excess-
ive electric shock treatment, and endless tape recorded
messages to sleeping patients. Some heard the same message a
quarter-of-a-million times.
Newly released documents show the CIA's former chief
psychologist, John Giddinger, monitored Cameron's project for
the Agency. In an exclusive interview with NBC News, Giddinger
describes Cameron's methods.
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 Approved For Release 2008/08/21 :CIA-RDP88-010708000201380002-4
JOHN GIDDINGER: His idea, then, was to put this bit
of the interview that was taped on a round band that played
--went around in a circle in a football helmet, I think, and it
would say over and over again the actual words that the
individual had said. And Dr. Cameron's idea, apparently, was
that if somebody listened to this long enough, it would
represent some kind of a breakdown -- a breakdown in a -- in a
psycho-therapeutic sense.
ALTMEYER: Cameron wrote this was the way to make
direct controlled changes in personality. Is that what you
were interested in?
GIDDINGER: No, no. I don't even know what he means
when he says that.
ALTMEYER: But, the CIA have a great interest in
Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, the man in the center, was the
CIA's chief chemist and in charge of Project MK-Ultra.
In a recent deposition, Gottlieb conceded the CIA was
interested in retrograde amnesia, blanking out a period of time
in the person's memory, and a follow-up study of some of
Cameron's patients show that they suffered amnesia for anywhere
from six months to 10 years.
Since his death, Cameron's severe form of treatment --
really experimentation -- has been discredited. And now, nine
of his former patients are suing the CIA for one million
dollars a piece. They charge they were seeking treatment from
Cameron, but were really used as unwilling guinea pigs in a CIA
experiment.
This internal CIA document obtained by NBC News seems
to give some weight to their argument.
The General Counsel's Office of the CIA wrote, "It is
doubtful that any meaningful form of consent is involved in
this case."
ORLIKOW: It was an awful feeling to realize, when I
found this out, that the man whom I had thought cared about
what happened to me didn't give a damn. I was a fly. Just a
fly.
JOSEPH RAUH [Former Patients' Lawyer]: These people
were treated as guinea pigs, thinking they were getting real
psychiatric care.
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 The United States, the CIA, was doing what the
Nuremberg laws say you can't do, take experiments on human
beings when in fact they're not told that these are experi-
ments. They thought they were getting treatment. They were
paying for treatment.
ALTMEYER: Do you see ethical problem on the part of
the Agency or yourself in doing the funding for this, because
Cameron was working on winning people, and they were foreign-
ers?
question.
GIDDINGER: That's a Monday morning quarterback type
Looking back on it, yes.
ALTMEYER: The CIA says it will have no comment.
Paul Altmeyer, NBC News.
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