EX-CIA DOC LEADS FIGHT TO LIMIT HYPNOSIS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000303090037-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 26, 2010
• Sequence Number: 37
• Publication Date: January 1, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/26: CIA-RDP90-00552R000303090037-8
Ex-CIA Doe Leads Fight to Limit oasis
by Jeff Goldberg
Hypnotherapist Dr. Milton V. Kline,
former consultant to the CIA's
supersecret behavior-modification
project Bluebird, is currently cam-
paigning for strict legal constraints
on hypnosis, limiting its use to
trained members of the health profes-
sions. During the early '60s, when the
.CIA was covertly funneling millions
of tax dollars into a variety of brain-
washing experiments involving LSD.
other hallucinogens and electroshock,
Kline provided expertise on hypnosis.
He was outspoken in his belief that
one of the central goals of these ex-
periments-to create a hypnotized,
remote-control assassin-was entire-
ly possible, though he denies knowl-
edge of any "terminal experiments"
that would have tested his theories.
The fictional Manchurian can-
didate, presented in Richard Con-
don's thriller and later in a movie
starring Frank Sinatra, is, in Kline's
mind, still a frighteningly real
specter. "It cannot be done by
everyone," he argues. "It cannot be
done consistently, but it can be
done." Kline claims that given the
proper subject and circumstances, by using
hypnosis he could produce such a killer in
three to six weeks.
His strong beliefs about the use of hypno-
sis as a technique of coercive persuasion to
produce antisocial or criminal behavior are
one reason he advocates legal restrictions on
the practice.
Kline spoke to High Times in his posh office
suite overlooking Central Park in Manhattan,
where today he conducts private hypnothera-
py sessions. The antiseptic, subdued at-
mosphere of the office resembles that of any
successful doctor or psychiatrist, though Dr.
Kline is neither (he has a Ph.D. in education).
Commenting on his fears of unwitting
Manchurian candidates roaming the streets
of the world's political troublespots, he cites
the example of Paul Ritter, a young Danish
man accused several years ago of committing
a particularly brutal and senseless triple
homicide:
"The authorities were baffled," Kline ex-
plains. "He had no motive, didn't even know
the people and couldn't remember commit-
ting the crime. The room was ransacked, as
though robbery might have been the object,
but nothing was taken. He was slightly
retarded but didn't seem deranged. He was a
petty criminal, with a jail record, but didn't
seem like a mass murderer.
"Then it was discovered that during a two-
year term in prison, be had shared a cell with
an ex-Nazi who was a hypnotist and wanted
these three people killed. During that time he
was able to program Ritter to commit the
C murders and disguise it as robbery." -.
In American cloak-and-dagger circles, a
plan to create a hypnotic zombie to
assassinate Hitler was ro sed b
Stance
?
to cure. You can't tell what traumas
you may uncover."
To support his argument that laws
should be instituted to guard
against the future use and abuse of
hypnosis, Kline cites the 1975 law
passed in Oregon making stage hyp-
nosis illegal and the 1954 National
Association of Broadcasters deci-
sion to ban hypnosis from television
as a form of entertainment. Ironical-
ly, many psychologists, scientists
and social critics (includng Kline)
have argued convincingly than
television is a hypnotic medium.
Even more ironic is the fact that
had such laws been in effect 30 years
ago, Milton Kline might have been
out of a job in the '60s. Morse Allen,
creator of the Bluebird program and a
hypnosis freak, was the student of a
stage hypnotist whose boasts of sex-
ual conquest using hypnosis turned
on the CIA's chief Svengal. Allen
went on to pioneer the first
Manchurian-candidate experiment in
which he hypnotized one of his
secretaries to kill-with an unloaded
gun of course-a second secretary.
The success of this experiment pro-
vided the impetus for later CIA efforts in hyp-
nosis and Dr. Kline's subsequent involvement.
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Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/26 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000303090037-8
HIGH TIMES
January 1980
War. In 1954, Bluebird director Morse Allen
discussed a terminal experiment on a
35-year-old double agent who talked too
much and was to be hypnotized to assassi-
nate a foreign official. The attempt was
calculated to fail Capture and interrogation
were written into the scenario because Allen
was equally interested in how well hypnosis
would hold up under torture. It is not clear
from files released through the Freedom of
Information Act whether this plan was car-
ried out.
It appears that eventually CIA interest in
the subject waned when it became clear that
a zomboid assassin was inefficient compared
with the perfectly adequate supply of candi-
dates available from the Mafia (for a price)
who would do the job and keep their mouths
shut.
Dr. Kline's concern, however, is not based
only on his reaction to his CIA experiences.
"We must eliminate untrained hypnotists,"
he urges, "especially in the field of entertain-
ment. Hypnosis as a means of entertainment
is in every aspect undesirable. It can severely
alter a subject's emotional balance and pro-
duce traumatic reactions.
"For-example, there was the case a few
years back of a man who was suffering from
psychosomatic paralysis of his right arm.
There was nothing physically wrong. Well, a
friend of his, an amateur hypnotist, was able
to relieve the symptom in one session. The
man went home and strangled his wife with
his right hand. Clearly the paralysis was a
hysterical reaction to the deep. unexpressed
hatred he felt for his wife.
"Another time, a 16-year-old girl in Israel
was hypnotized by a stage hypnotist. She
became catatonic
sed into a deep trance
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