MK Ultra. Yeah, That Happened.

MKULTRA/PROJECT ARTICHOKE/SPELLBINDER

 

• MKULTRA- What is it

• Code name given for the illegal experimentation done on humans
• Done by the C.I.A.
• Aim was to develop procedures and drugs to weaken individuals during interrogations and produce confessions
• Brainwashing and psychological warfare
• Use of LSD
• Numerous methods to manipulate subjects’ mental states and brain functions through high doses of psychoactive drugs and other chemicals, electroshock, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, isoloation, and verbal and sexual abuse, as well as other forms of torture.
• Preceded by Project Bluebird and Project Artichoke. We’ll discuss these later on.

1. MKULTRA background

• According to author Stephen Kinzer, who is a former New York Times correspondent, who also wrote several books and writes for multiple newspapers and news agencies.( Kind of hard to get an unbiased opinion when one guy writes for most of the news.) Kinzer wrote that the CIA project “was a continuation of the work begun in WWII-era Japanese Facilities and Nazi concentraion camps on subduing and controlling human minds”.
• Kinzer also wrote that MKUltra’s use of mescaline on people had begun in the Dachau concentration camp.
• Kinzer proposed evidence of the continuation of the Nazi agenda
• Kinzer Cited the CIA’s secret recruitment of Nazi torturers and vivisectionists( surgery conducted for experiemnts on living organisms with a central nervous system to view internal structure.) to continue the expriemtns on thousands of people
• Nazis brought abck to Fort Detrick, Maryland to teach CIA officers on the lethal use of sarin gas
• Project headed by Sidney Gottlieb but began with the order from Allen Dulles in 1953.
• They wanted to develop mind controlling drugs to be used against the soviets in response to alleged Soviet, Chinese, and North Korean use of mind control techniques on US POWs during the Korean War.
• CIA was interested in using techniques on their own captives and wanted to manipulate forewwign leaders as well
• Even creating schemes to drug Fidel Castro
• Obviously most experiments were done without the consent of its subjects’
• Academic researchers were funded through grants from CIA fronts and completely unaware that the CIA was using their work.

1. Sheer scale of project- excerpt from 1977 Senate Hearing on MKULTRA summarized by Wikipedia

• Substances which will promote illogical thinking and impulsiveness to the point where the recipient would be discredited in public.
• Substances which increase the efficiency of mentation and perception.
• Materials which will prevent or counteract the intoxicating effect of alcohol.
• Materials which will promote the intoxicating effect of alcohol.
• Materials which will produce the signs and symptoms of recognized diseases in a reversible way so they may be used for malingering, etc.
• Materials which will render the induction of hypnosis easier or otherwise enhance its usefulness.
• Substances which will enhance the ability of individuals to withstand privation, torture, and coercion during interrogation and so-called "brain-washing".
• Materials and physical methods which will produce amnesia for events preceding and during their use.
• Physical methods of producing shock and confusion over extended periods of time and capable of surreptitious use.
• Substances which produce physical disablement such as paralysis of the legs, acute anemia, etc.
• Substances which will produce "pure" euphoria with no subsequent let-down.
• Substances which alter personality structure in such a way the tendency of the recipient to become dependent upon another person is enhanced.
• A material which will cause mental confusion of such a type the individual under its influence will find it difficult to maintain a fabrication under questioning.
• Substances which will lower the ambition and general working efficiency of men when administered in undetectable amounts.
• Substances which promote weakness or distortion of the eyesight or hearing faculties, preferably without permanent effects.
• A knockout pill which can be surreptitiously administered in drinks, food, cigarettes, as an aerosol, etc., which will be safe to use, provide a maximum of amnesia, and be suitable for use by agent types on an ad hoc basis.
• A material which can be surreptitiously administered by the above routes and which in very small amounts will make it impossible for a person to perform physical activity.

• Project BLUEBIRD-1952

• Focused on hypnosis and behavioral modification as a means of preventing any Agency members from disclosing information to allies. (Sleeper Agents?)
• Dr. Colin A. Ross wrote a 10 page summary on the Deliberate Creation of Multiple Personality by Psychiatrists
• This summary was made to “blow the whistle on extensive political abuse of psychiatry in North America in the second half of the 20th century.”
• Bluebird was approved in 1950 and then renamed Artichoke in 1951
• Bluebird and Artichoke aimed to establish the Manchurian Candidate
• Bluebird/Artichoke was rolled over into MKUltra in 1953 and then into MKSearch in 1964 and ran until 1972. We’ll discuss the turn of events that transpired here later on in the broadcast.
• Through electroshock and hypnosis treatment and experimnetation, subjects would be basically given a split personality that had no recollection of the other frame of mind.
• This personality was given access codes, protocols/procedures, identities, and several missions to be carried out within the experiment.
• Think sleeper agents. Like The Winter Soldier. You say a couple words or show some pictures and it would trigger the other personality to come forth and then the subject would act entirely differently. Much like someone you may know. A.k.a. Lee Harvey Oswald. Its speculation and entirely conspiratorial but is likely that he was under said experiments.

• Project ARTICHOKE

• Bluebird was basically designed to alter the personality of subjects through drugs, electroshock, hypnosis, and other forms of torture. Which would allow a person to withhold certain pieces of information, influence certain parties without their knowing, or even carry out specific actions. All while never being aware of their doing so.
• Artichoke was similar but this time the project was to be used in subjects to force them to do the government's bidding against their will and even against the laws of nature such as self preservation.
• They carried out testing within the states and even overseas
• Using LSD, hypnosis and total isolation as forms of physiological harassment for interrogations of subjects.
• Started off at first using cocaine, marijuana, heroin, peyote and mescaline. They saw that LSD was the most promising though.
• Subjects who were able to leave the program had amnesia, and their memories were fogged resulting in faulty and vague recounts of their time.
• LSD was even given to unsuspecting CIA agents to see how the drug affects those who aren't entirely of the program
  • One Record shows that a single subject was kept on LSD for 77 days
• Artichoke even did research on the potential use of dengue fever and other diseases.
  • One declassified  ARTICHOKE memo read: “Not all viruses have to be lethal… the objective includes those that act as short-term and long-term incapacitating agents.”
    • COVID Anyone?
• It was found in the declassified documents that the CIA had a goal of using hypnosis to  to create an assassin to assassinate a prominent politician or American official.
• Overseas operations included bases in Europe, Japan, southeast asia and the philippines. 
  • They wanted to use aliens( foreign peoples of the area) as test subjects  at these foreign installments.

• MKSEARCH

• So to fuck with you guys even more lets talk about MKSEARCH.
• MKSEARCH was the name given to the continuation of MKULTRA.
• It was divided in to two projects named MKOFTEN and MKCHIKWIT
• The whole premise of MKSEARCH was incapacitating agents
• They wanted to test biological, chemical and radioactive materials and systems to make predictable human behaviors and psychological changes.
• The CIA was interested in bird migration patterns for use with chemical and biological warfare.
• Subproject 139 designated “Bird Disease Studies” at Penn State.
  • Again using a front to give research studies’ grants and using the findings for their own use with in MKULTRA/SEARCH.
  • Conspiracies of the bird disease program was the transfer of diseases from avian species to the carrying of said diseases around the world.
• MKOFTEN dealt with testing and toxicological transmissivity( tests to show exposure of transmissive diseases and chemical agents) and their behaviors in animals and then humans
  • Covid… anyone?
• MKCHICKWIT wanted to understand drug development in europe and asia and also acquiring samples.
• There are a couple hundred different projects under the umbrella of MKULTRA. It would take hours to talk about all of them, so we are just talking about the popular ones and some of the unknown projects. So now let's talk about the experiments themselves.
  • (Project Monarch was another covert front used to determine monarch butterflies' migratory patterns and the usefulness of radiological transmissions and diseases within the group.)
  • (Project Spellbinder was creating the Manchurian Candidate with the sole purpose of assassinating Fidel Castro)

• Experiments

• LSD
  • LSD-25 or acid as the kids call it, was the main drug used in MKULTRA 
  • Effects of acid are typically intensified thoughts, emotions, and sensory perception.
  • High doses create visual hallucinations but can also create auditory ones as well
  • Can take about 30 minutes to kick in but can last for up to 20 hours.
  • Considered non-addictive and low abuse potential.
  • Frequent use creates exceptionally quick tolerance which leads to higher doses
  • Known to create intermittent or chronic visual hallucinations even without further use.
  • LSD overdose is unknown(HA!) but death or injury has been noted from accidents stemmed from psychological impairment
  • Adopted by the counterculture movement in the 60’s because it allegedly expanded consciousness. Or it was just more CIA Propaganda to monitor subjects without the use of interrogation tactics.
  • LSD was given to mental patients, prisoners, drug addicts, and even prostitutes at the beginning of the MKULTRA trials
    • “People who could not fight back”
    • Given to one mental health patient in Kentucky for over 174 days
    • Even given to other agents, doctors, other government personnel, and even the general public. All without their knowledge.
      • Clear violation of the Nuremberg Code we agreed to follow after WWII
  • Idea was to create a truth serum in a sense. A substance to bring out deep confessions or to wipe a subject's mind clean and reprogram them.
  • In one attempt, Operation MIdnight Climax, the CIA setup brothels at agency safehouses in San Francisco to gather men too embarrassed to talk about the events at said brothels.
    • Men were given LSD and the brothels had one-way mirrors put in to monitor and film sessions. These sessions were to be used to observe at later times.
  • Some people in events were given LSD and then interrogated under bright lights and told they would make their tip even longer if they didn't give up secrets. At one point, heroin abusers were even told they would receive more heroin as a reward for their answers during these events.
  • The Chemist who directed MKULTRA, Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, had other ideas for using the drug.
    • He felt it could be used in covert operations since it’s effects were temporary. 
    • Given to high ranking officials to alter the course of important meetings, speeches or other important events. (President Regan perhaps?)
  • Gottlieb realized there was a difference between subjects that were given the substance in laboratory experiments and those that were given it in “normal” situations.
  • He created more experiments where he gave it to people without warning. Going so far as to say that the surprise trips were considered an occupational hazard of CIA employees at the time.
  • Like nobody could have seen this coming but adverse reactions to the drug often occurred.
    • One reaction coming from an operative who was dosed in his morning coffee and became psychotic and ran across Washington seeing a monster in every car that passed.
    • Another event where Frank Olson, an American scientist who studied bacteriology and biological warfare and was even employed to the United States Army Biological Warfare Laboratories and worked at Fort Detrick. 
      • He had never taken LSD
      • Was given some covertly from his CIA Supervisor
      • Nine days later jumped out of his 13th story New York hotel room
      • Supposedly from depression as a result of being on LSD
  • LSD deemed too unpredictable
    • Gave up on the notion that LSD was “the secret that was going to unlock the universe”
  • Still used however in cloak and dagger operations
  • That is until 1962 where a super-hallucinogen was created known as BZ.
  • After BZ, LSD was pretty much given up on.
    • BZ is just the codename of an even stronger version of LSD like drug
  • Now lets go one step further in experiments. We head to Canada!
• Canadian Experiments
  • The CIA recruited British psychiatrist Donald Ewen Cameron who created the psychic driving concept.
    • Psychic driving was a treatment where you were given a muscular paralytic drug and were forced to listen to an audio tape on repeat. Some patients were exposed to HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF REPETITIONS!
    • Idea was to depatternize subjects or basically destroy their personality and give them a new one. Kind of like the Multiple personality procedure we talked about earlier.
    • Original intent was to cure schizophrenia by erasing previous memories and reprogramming patients’ psyche.
    • He was unknowingly paid by the CIA to further his experiments.
    • One such experiment was giving his patients LSD or paralytic drug and shocking said patient at thirty to forty times the normal power
    • Known to put patients in a drug induced coma for weeks at a time or even up to 3 months and all while playing a tape on loop to the patient during the coma
• Other experiments were done elsewhere around the world. These were called detention centers though.
  • The CIA would capture “Enemies of the State” or other “Expendable” people and bring them to these detention centers to avoid criminal prosecution.
  • These prisoners were interrogated all while being administered psychoactive drugs, electroshocked, and even exposed to extreme temperatures and sensory isolation, just to develop a better understanding of how to destroy and to control human minds.

• End to MKULTRA?

• In 1973 during a government-wide panic caused by the Watergate scandal, CIA Director Richard Helms ordered all MKULTRA files to be destroyed.
• This caused a deep investigation into the matter nearly impossible until a large cache of up to 20,000 documents were found because they had been incorrectly filed and stored.
• These files aided in the investigation led by Frank Church in the CHurch Committee as well as the Rockefeller Commission.
  • These groups wanted to investigate the practices of the US intelligence agencies.
  • Because of these investigations, President Gerald Ford in 1976 issued the first Executive Order on Intelligence Activities, which prohibited “experimentation with drugs on human subjects, except with the informed consent, in writing and witnessed by a disinterested party, of each such human subject.”
  • This order led to President Carter and Regan expanding to any human experimentation.
• The issue took longer to surface in Canada though.
  • 1984 the issue came to light on a CBC news show, The Fifth Estate. 
  • People learned that not only did the CIA fund Dr. Cameron but the Canadian Government had full knowledge and funded him as well.
  • The Canadian Government settled out of court and gave $100,000 dollars to each of the 127 patients in the tests.
  • Unfortunately Dr Cameron died of a heart attack in 1967 while he was mountain climbing with his son. After his death no personal documentation was found showing his involvement in MKULTRA since his family decided to destroy all of his records after his death.
• With a large portion of the documents being destroyed, the number of deaths still remains uncertain from these experiments.
• As well as how many other types of projects the governments had designed during this time.

 

MOVIES

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