PATIENTS STOOD IN FOR SPIES IN TESTS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000100500069-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 25, 2010
• Sequence Number: 69
• Publication Date: August 28, 1977
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/25: CIA-RDP90-00806R000100500069-0
DETROIT FREE PRESS
28 AUGUST 1977
Paiins'
Stod In
. - or S- Pies
I tests
Interviews last week with
doctors, hospital and clinic per-
sonnel and former patients like
Doe showed a well-intentioned
effort at uncovering the secrets
of mind control, but one slated
to failure.
The Ionia project began
sometime in 1954 when the
CIA approached Alan Canty, a
criminologist at the Detroit Re-
corder's Court psychiatric
cL'n!c,.which conducted sanity
examinations forthe court.
CANTY, THE CIA believed,
could conduct experiments
with hypnosis and LSD, a drug
thought,to have the properties
of a truth serum. The subjects
of the experiments would be
chiid-molesters,who might be
questionediunder the influence
of drugs and hypnosis the same
way the communists might in-
terrogate captured CIA ag-
gent;11
Child molesters might be ex-
pected to try to withhold the
details of their heinous crimes
as a captured agent mighttryto
conceal his contacts, CIA scien.
tists thought.
Although the experiments
were failures, it was reassuring
to experimenters that the mind
could not be so easily con=
trolled. And the project proved
another in a series of embar-
rassing public relations disas-
ters for the embattled inteW-
.gence agency .. ?
CIA Director Stansfield
,Turner has called the projects
."abhorrent" and Agreed under'
'pressure front a Senate sub-
committee to co-operate with
the Justice Department in lo-
cating the victims and, if neces-
sary. punishing wrongdoers.: .
? - Prosecutions are unlikely.,
There .is. a general five-year.-
statute of limitations; most of.
the records of the projects have
been destroyed,-and many of
the participants are dead, In-
cluding Canty.
MOREOVER, the expert
meats were conducted with the
'consent.-of the subjects,.al-
thhAears_later the courts
would decide mental patients,-
by deffnition..:.could not give
their fully Informed consent.
And the mind-control exper-
Iments were the. result of Cold
War fears that communism
might somehow subvert our
minds as?welt as our political.
and economic'systems..-
To? many, that excuses the
experimenters' zeal and the vi-
olations of the CIA's congres-
slonal charterproblbitins fntd~
Th
Cant
ders,
000%
pert
to lo
the
peal
to de
sexu
were
guilt!
mist
doctors said he was cured.
THEY WERE the most mi-
serable of criminals. Though
they sometimes were highly
intelligent, they frequently
would not admit even to them=
selves that they had abused
children. This made diem chal-
lenging subjects for three psy-
chiatrists at Ionia State Hospt-.
tal who were picked to do the
actual experimentation. '
John Doe was interviewed
by the three, Dr. John Cook,Dr.
John Haarec' and. Dr. Perry
Robertson, the. medical super-
intendent.
'Only Dr. Robertson knew it
the pills given to the patients-
contained sugar or LSD. t.
The routine for some 30 pa-
?tlents was the same. They were
asked bow they felt, It they
were dizzy or nauseous. Some
were, even those who received
the placebo.- -
Then the doctors asked 'the'
patients about their crimes and
about. a mythical.' made-up _
crime. In nearly all cases, the
patients denied the crimes, re-
calls Dr. Haarer, the only sur-
;viving member of the team of
doctors. He is now a psychia-
trist in Sarasota, Fla..
"They didn't change their.,
;stories; not one iota,"Dr..
? Haarer said. "We were sup-
piled with the police records
and we just went down the list
and, they just denied. every-
thing."
THE INTERVIEWS were
tape-recorded and sent to
Canty, who mailed both the-
tapes and a typed transcript of
,them to a post office box In
Washington where the CIA re-?
-
trieved them.
Sometimes= Canty corre
BY PAUL MAGNUSSON
Free Press Staff Writer
John Doe was a two-time
lo3er when he was sent in 1954
to Ionia State Hospital as a
cri, final sexual psychopath.
D 'e (a pseudonym) had been
con*' ed in Detroit Recorder's
Court of two rapes; one of his
victims was his 13-year-old,
niece. Doe's stay at Ionia was to.
last until he was cured. -
So when he was asked by.
doctors at the hospital for the
criminally insane if he wanted
to take part in an experiment
that doctors said wouid be "be-
neficial" to him, Doe quickly
f' agreed.
"But they never didsaywhat
that benefit would be," Doe,
recalled in an interview- last
week. "I never did find out."
Doe was cautioned not to eat
breakfast and given a pill on
three separate occasions. Two-
hours later, doctors questioned
him about his crimes and
recorded his answers. -
t What Doe never knew was.
that he was taking LSD.as a'
stand-in for a mythical. cap-
tured CIA agent. Doe was an,
unwitting soldier in the Cold?
War with the communists.
DOE WAS aninfantryman in
one part of a massive CIA.
project, code-named MK
ULTRA. It began in the early
'I950s when the CIA suspected'
that communists had discov-=
ered a way to control men's'
minds.
They had developed tech
niques, the CIA feared, to elicit ?
.false confessions and to plant:
stories that.might be parroted
on comtnind by brainwashed
agents and political dissidents
is court or before television'
cameras. . ?.
The CIA decided to search ?
for the methods the commu-.*
nists might be using. The ex
perlxnents on Doe were part of `
only-one of some 140 separate,,
subprojects Involving drugs.
and behavior modification on'
prisoners, students, volupteers
- ; and the unaware.
.
7t----- --.t-d.l__. ,- .%I.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/25
sponded with Dr. Lawrence
Hinkle Jr., at the Society for
the Investigation of Human
Ecology at Cornell University,
which was established, in part,
to channel CIA research funds.
-As the project 'at Ionia cop-
tinned, problems developed.
Two Detroit doctors, one an
expert In bralnwashins,: de.
dined requests to: make the
CIA-RDP90-00806R000100500069-0