Article 30-mar-22
1 .The Shadow of MK Ultra
With the introduction of a new book, Stewart Kenneth Moore's Project MK Ultra, the whole issue of ‘MK Ultra’ has resurfaced in the public consciousness. Horrors that have been committed on unsuspecting victims from all walks of life brought to the fore again however painful it might be to recall to mind. Is it not through such experience we might gain catharsis and be able to move forward with our lives?
War seems to be the impetus for most clandestine operations and with the closure of WW2 the US wanted to learn more about biological and chemical warfare. It was also felt that many of the future wars would be won through mind control. Such thinking had been influenced by the end of the Korean war when returning American POWs seemed to show signs of being brainwashed espousing communist propaganda. It was suspected the soldiers were under mind control and communist MK techniques.
What better way then was to invest in a project to understand which drug might best facilitate this strategy. Otherwise all they needed was a group of subjects who could become human guinea pigs. Who better than ‘invisible’ prisoners, psychiatric patients and patriotic volunteers. Such a drug could then be easily weaponized against the enemy at home and abroad.
2. War a Catalyst for Mind Control
After WW2 it is widely know fact that CIA recruited ex-Nazi scientists in order to help develop such an arsenal by conducting these experiments. This was ‘Project Paperclip’ so called to mark the 700 scienets sent over to work in different psychological, biological and chemical research teams. ONe such man was A Nazi doctor Kurt Plotner involved in experimentation in the death camps who was on CIA payroll. It was to be known as the "Most sustained search in history for techniques of mind control."
One of the key exponents was, Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, born 1918 of Hungarian Jewish descent with a clubfoot, could not contribute to the war effort. He felt indebted to his country that provided safe haven for his parents, whilst enabling his academic progress and was willing to provide service to his state. The “Poisoner in Chief” was a huge proponent of chemistry which led him to work for CalTech and CIA. It seemed he was behind the CIA purchase of megadoses of LSD.
A precursor to this was a story that surfaced in 1951 of a team of CIA scientists led by Dr. Gottlieb who flew to Tokyo. Four Japanese men suspected of working for the Russians were secretly brought to a location where the CIA doctors injected them with a variety of depressants and stimulants. Under relentless questioning, they confessed to working for the Russians. They were taken out into Tokyo Bay, shot and dumped overboard.
From this date onwards upto 1970s the CIA tried to develop a mind control drug that would work for all ages. To do so they bought the entire stock of LSD from Sandoz labs in Switzerland. A two stage proposal was supposed first to use LSD in huge doses to wipe out people's minds, and then to supplant them with new thoughts in accordance with specific objectives.
"First, you had to blast away the existing mind. Second, you had to find a way to insert a new mind into that resulting void. We didn't get too far on number two, but he did a lot of work on number one."
CIA director Allen Dulles supported Gottlieb and his team yet required no official reporting, He never filed a report or justified his actions to anybody he operated above the law.
This guy [Sidney Gottlieb] had a licence to kill. He was allowed to requisition human subjects across the United States and around the world and subject them to any kind of abuse that he wanted, even up to the level of it being fatal — yet nobody looked over his shoulder. - S Kinzer
3. Experiments on unsuspecting victims
Experiments were covertly funded by universities and research centres. More extreme experiments were done in clandestine centres , American prisons, detention centres in Japan, Germany and the Philippines. All sorts of drug potions to break the mind would be utilised and there were simply no legal responsibilities here. CIA officers in Europe would capture enemy agents and other subversives as they were expendable for experimentation.
In the USA unsuspecting victims reported being given ‘kool aid’ that was spiked with LSD. The CIA allocated 25m USD for experiments on human beings, and other tests included sensory deprivation, psychedelics, and electroshock treatment. The project would become known in CIA parlance as ‘MK Ultra’. Patients in psychiatric hospitals, prisoners in federal institutions, even the general pu
blic were given drugs without consent and experimented upon In the most secretive programme by the CIA in the US.
One of the biggest centres for this research was the ‘Allan Memorial Institute in Montreal Canada’. Headed up by Dr Ewan Cameron, vulnerable patients with common complaints such as postpartum depression had extreme techniques carried out on them. According to testimonies from his mother, a 27 year old healthy young man who was canoer, skier, athletic but had asthma told him would be cured. Another man named Charles had a condition known as trigeminal neuralgia resulting in pain in his temple radiating out into his jaw. The pain was excruciating but despite it being a known condition today he was told it was psychosomatic and Cameron put him into his program. A girl of 16 years who had problems with her parents who put in an institute and put on a similar program. She has now been on meds since she was 16 years old, and wants everyone to know about that horrible hospital. Even now the extent and wider impact is unknown as many people are either too far controlled or unwilling to face such tragedies.
It was thought by depatterning the brain they could reduce the individual to an infantile state, and then simply rebuild the mind under doctor's control, in what was known as psychiatric driving.
All these patients would be brought to hospital and put in an insulin coma. Then they would play repetitive clips from an interview with a doctor in a device running on a loop hidden under a pillow. For 36 days the patient was in an insulin coma with a recording beside him saying things like ‘your mother hates you’, at least 250-500,000 times over and over again. They would employ extreme Page Russel shock treatments 40-75 times in an effort to wipe out memories, leading to grand mal seizures. IN one case they did this for 27 days of this but were discouraged that the patient still had ties to his former life when he wanted to see his wife, so more shock treatments were administered and further sleep induction for more than an extra 30 days. But remarkably it seems whatever the result they could never truly kill the mind.
Individual lives would never be the same again, patients were zombified, and would emerge with a blank look in their eyes. One patient who loved his daughter dearly and told the medics they were the apple of his eye, on release started beating them for the first time.
Another Operation, ‘Mild Climax’ established safe houses for prostitutes to lure men to specific apartments. Once in situ they would be dosed with LSD and studied by CIA scientists behind a 2 way mirror. They were tested for suggestibility to perfect methods of info gathering for future assignments. Details were revealed in a ‘human behavioural modification report’ to the senate in 1977.
The CIA would host LSD parties called acid Tests, the key to the exponents of the counter hippie and psychedelic movement later. Infact Ken Kesey, author of ‘The One Who Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest’ started the counter cultural revolution in 1960s California based on CIA connections. Remarkably he eventually was an exponent of a movement that would rebel against the machine of mind control.
The Highest profile victim was scientist Frank Olsen who was accused of committing suicide and jumping form a NYC hotel room. He was in the process of revealing CIA dirty secrets and had been secretly drugged himself. A TV series on Netflix called Wormwood was created surrounding his life story.
Even a crime boss was brought in and offered so-called help for his schizophrenia and given LSD everyday for a year, "I was in prison for committing a crime, but they committed a greater crime on me." He eventually told his friends to find this doctor from Atlanta and go and kill him for what he did to me and other people.
What has become increasingly clear is these experiments were actually a continuance of the experiments in concentration camps of Nazi Germany and Japan in what was secretly know as unit 731. These same Nazi vivisectionists and organ removal experts who operated without anaesthia were the same torturers recruited by the CIA. For instance, Nazi doctors had carried out extensive research into mescaline at the Dachu concentration camp. They provided advice on Sarin poison gas, even travelling to Fort Detrick in Maryland to lecture on how long it took to die from Sarin.
Other sub-projects were to create a truth serum or the perfect assassin. The Manchurian Candidate who would be able to carry out such a task but have no recollection of his previous action. Sigils were also used around this time and can still be seen today with the birdcage and monarch butterfly to symbolise the ensnaring of the flourishing femine principle.
In 1950, scientists carried out a large test in which supposedly harmless but traceable germs would be released into a US city. They chose San Francisco, reasoning that its chronic fog would disguise germ clouds. During Operation Sea Spray, a Navy ship sprayed bacteria into the air for six days along the coast of San Francisco. In the days that followed, eleven people checked into hospitals, and one person died. “effective dosages can be produced over relatively large areas.”
In 1973 Gottlieb's career ended when Richard Helms, who was patron and director of the CIA, was removed by Nixon. Gottleib immediately drove to the CIA records centre and tried to destroy all the archives, but some slipped through the net and the rest is history. MK Ultra was terminated due to John Marks, the whistleblower who began to release information in congressional hearings and write a book about MK Ultra. Finally the CIA made an admission but until now many victims have suffered in silence with no apology or compensation and yet permanent mental scars still persist. A class action lawsuit is still in progress today some 50 years later, against a government and agency that has broken all ethical laws, not out of love, but for military and political reasons.
As Mark Phillips former FBI agent would say Wars are no longer won on the battlefield but in the minds of the people
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