Today we regard much of what was done as highly unethical, mainly because the ethical standards of the day were far more lax than they are today. At McGill University, community members who came in for routine psychotherapy were instead given radical treatment such as electroshock therapy at much higher voltages than normal, LSD, and other experimental or illegal drugs. Some suffered lifelong disabilities as a result.
The Addiction Research Center at the Public Health Service Hospital in Lexington, Kentucky, gave similar treatments. Massive doses of LSD, heroin, methamphetamine, and psychedelic mushrooms were given and the effects were studied, all under the protection of the CIA’s license. In the most extreme example, seven volunteers seeking treatment for addiction were given high doses of LSD for seventy-seven days in a row.
There are two particularly disturbing specific claims made by MKULTRA conspiracy theorists. One was that the CIA tested aerial spraying of LSD over a village in France in 1951. Many residents experienced severe symptoms that included convulsions, insomnia, pain, hallucinations, and delirium. Several people died, and a number were committed to insane asylums. The second claim concerns a microbiologist named Dr. Frank Olson. He was working in an MKULTRA-funded research program, but expressed misgivings about working in germ warfare and asked to be transferred out of the program. Just a couple of days later, he fell to his death from a thirteenth-story window. Many have claimed that he was murdered for threatening to reveal details about the program.
Skeptoid ® Says . . .
Government websites can sometimes be hard to navigate, so it’s often easier to find released government reports at privately run sites like TheBlackVault.com. Such sites often contain “unusual” information as well—such as purported proof of Bigfoot—but you can get the congressional report on MKULTRA at http://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/mindcontrol/hearing.pdf.
The CIA terminated MKULTRA in 1973 following the Watergate scandal. Nothing useful to the CIA had been learned, and CIA director Richard Helms saw no reason to risk getting busted over the program’s clear human rights violations. Helms ordered all MKULTRA records destroyed, which was a common practice for classified programs.
When the Senate’s Church Committee investigated abuses by the nation’s intelligence agencies in 1975 (an investigation prompted largely by The Washington Post’s revelations about COINTELPRO, which is discussed in the following entry), a cache of about 20,000 MKULTRA documents that had escaped destruction were revealed and investigated in congressional hearings in 1977. Some of them have since been declassified and are now even available online, and it’s from these documents that we know most of what we know about MKULTRA.
The Explanation
What we’ve learned in the decades since MKULTRA is that its entire premise was scientifically flawed. We now know that concepts such as brainwashing and deprogramming were fictional concepts that are not a part of actual psychology. But what about all of the stories that conspiracy theorists tie back to MKULTRA?
Well, Cardinal Mindszenty was finally able to tell his story when he was freed in the Hungarian Revolution after spending eight years in prison. He said that his confession had not been the result of mind control, but of torture. He had been beaten with rubber truncheons until he agreed to make the confession. The same story emerged from the American fighter pilots who made confessions from their North Korean prison cells. They had simply been tortured and coerced into making the statements. Not one of them reported being “broken” or having their mind changed.
And as for that village in France that theorists say had been sprayed with LSD? What happened there was in 1951, two years before MKULTRA was funded, so it couldn’t have been connected anyway. Also, that same year the British Medical Journal published an article explaining the strange effects on the village’s population. It had been a case of ergot fungus contamination of the food supply. Ergot contains the same chemical precursor as LSD (ergotamine), so it’s likely that some conspiracy theorists tried to make this the connection.
The death of Dr. Frank Olson was, however, most likely tied to MKULTRA. He and a number of MKULTRA colleagues were at an employee retreat in Maryland when they were all given LSD without their knowledge. Again, this was unethical, but it was at a period in the program when it was common for participants to experiment on one another, with or without their consent. Olson’s reaction to the LSD was paranoia, depression, and self-doubt. And a week later he did indeed ask to leave the program. It was in this condition that he fell from the hotel window and died. His death was officially termed a suicide. Unofficially, it was very likely prompted by the LSD.
Skeptoid ® Says . . .
After the revelations about MKULTRA were made public, Dr. Olson’s family sued the government and reached a settlement. Later, when his body was moved to a different grave, the family took the opportunity to ask for a new autopsy. Some on the forensic team felt that the body bore injuries suffered in the hotel room before the fall. The family tried twice more over the years to have the case reopened, but the terms of the previous settlement caused the new cases to be dismissed.
Whether MKULTRA can be considered a conspiracy theory that was proven true is problematic. There is no evidence that MKULTRA was suspected by anyone with any reasonable specificity until it was revealed by the congressional investigation . . . which, of course, means that it never existed as a conspiracy theory, therefore it cannot be considered one that was later proven true.
COINTELPRO
* * *
Date: 1956–1971
Location: United States
The Conspirators: Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Victims: Progressive political factions
* * *
The Theory
During the civil rights era, the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover aggressively and systematically conducted covert operations that were intended to subvert and/or sabotage various domestic groups with Communist ties through a program called COINTELPRO (Counterintelligence Program). These operations included illegal surveillance without warrants; planting of false rumors and news stories to create suspicion of these groups; and work with local police stations to conduct raids against targets, some of which resulted in violence and death.
What really makes COINTELPRO controversial is that its operations gradually expanded to include targeting progressive movements that Hoover considered “subversive,” including antiwar protesters, civil rights groups, feminist organizations, the Black Panthers, gay rights groups, and even Martin Luther King Jr. The most conspiratorial claims charge that beatings and even direct assassinations were performed against American citizens to intimidate and silence America’s progressive voices.
The Truth
The FBI did systematically harass and threaten certain factions in the United States, and got away with it until they were exposed by investigators.
The Backstory
The COINTELPRO program was started in 1956 by J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI specifically to disrupt the Communist Party USA, a legitimate political party that still exists today, little different from other minor political parties (Libertarian Party, Green Party, etc.). The FBI got quite creative. They had the IRS conduct unwarranted audits against them. They made up stories about some members and sent the stories to other members. Rifts within the party were sought and fed.
But over the next fifteen years COINTELPRO drifted away from its original goal. It’s no secret that J. Edgar Hoover regarded pretty much everyone he didn’t like (immigrants, liberals, members of the African-American and LGBTQ communities, etc.) to be Communists, so COINTELPRO’s mission expanded to harass those groups as well—anyone who could have the label of “Communist” slapped on them.
COINTELPRO’s cover was blown almost by accident. A group of eight Vietnam War protesters, calling themselves the “Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI,” were responsible for unveiling the program to the world. They spoke of the United States’ “war against Indochina” a
nd criticized the United States for war profiteering. Some of them had formerly been members of the Camden 28, a group which in 1971 raided and destroyed a New Jersey draft board office, where Vietnam War draftees were processed. The Citizens’ Commission planned a similar raid on an FBI office in Pennsylvania, hoping to reveal evidence of crimes they believed the FBI was committing against American citizens. What they stumbled into revealed COINTELPRO to the world.
The Citizens’ Commission selected an FBI field office in Media, Pennsylvania, and kept it under surveillance to figure out when it was most likely to be vacant. Finally they broke into the office in the middle of the night and seized more than 1,000 pages of documents. From the office, they went directly to a public pay telephone, called the Reuters news agency, and read a statement. It said in part:
As long as the United States government wages war against Indochina in defiance of the vast majority who want all troops and weapons withdrawn this year, and extends that war and suffering under the guise of reducing it. As long as great economic and political power remains concentrated in the hands of a small clique not subject to democratic scrutiny and control. Then repression, intimidation, and entrapment are to be expected.
The burglars made copies of the stolen documents and sent them to major newspapers nationwide, but initially nobody published them. Not only were the newspapers uncertain of whether the documents were real, but they risked publishing information about ongoing FBI operations and potentially jeopardizing agents. Finally, after two weeks, The Washington Post broke the story.
Skeptoid ® Says . . .
The Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI chose March 8, 1971, as they day they would break into the FBI office. Why? This was the date of Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier’s “Fight of the Century” in New York City, and they hoped that the building security would be paying more attention to the fight than to their job.
Meanwhile the FBI was trying to figure out who broke into their office. Two hundred agents spent five years trying to catch the thieves, but they never made any progress. The statute of limitations expired, and the investigation was ultimately dropped, unsolved. It wasn’t until 2014 that a journalist, Betty Medsger, interviewed all eight of the burglars—five men and three women. Her book, The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover’s Secret F.B.I., told the complete story, and identified all the burglars, now safe from prosecution due to the expiration of the statute of limitation. Two used pseudonyms.
The Explanation
COINTELPRO was a real operation. It formally began in 1956, but the FBI had been following similar policies to a lesser extent for some time. Who the real targets of COINTELPRO were depends somewhat upon who you ask. The program was created to disrupt the activities of Communist infiltrators in the United States, but according to the FBI, it was eventually expanded to other subversive groups, namely the Ku Klux Klan, the Socialist Workers Party, and the Black Panthers, groups that arguably do have some subversive elements. But if you ask most other people they will name mainly peaceful civil rights groups. It seems that almost everyone’s version of who COINTELPRO targeted is an effort to color history by emphasizing the FBI’s actions against whatever groups they personally support. But the shocking reality is that the FBI did take actions of one kind or another against nearly all of these groups, so in effect, just about anything you want to criticize about COINTELPRO is true.
Skeptoid ® Says . . .
COINTELPRO’s name is short for Counterintelligence Program. Counterintelligence refers to actions taken domestically against foreign spies. During the years of COINTELPRO, the Soviet Union and other hostile nations absolutely did have spies inside the United States, and so this part of the program was indeed well justified.
So does this count as a conspiracy that’s been proven true? It’s still a difficult argument to make. The eight burglars were mainly interested in protesting the Vietnam War and didn’t have any idea of the scope of the documents they ended up finding (though it’s doubtful that they were surprised). On the other hand, J. Edgar Hoover’s attitudes toward what he saw as the “subversive left” were well known, and it was something of an open secret that the FBI did the kinds of things described in the COINTELPRO documents. Their discovery of the documents simply put a name on it, and confirmed its activities and existence.
Although the specifics of the program may have been lacking until the discovery of the documents, the fact that the FBI, CIA, and other government agencies were doing this kind of thing had been general knowledge for a long time. In 1975, the US Senate formed the Church Committee to investigate the specific revelations from the stolen COINTELPRO documents.
Perhaps one of the most shocking actions undertaken as part of COINTELPRO was a letter written by the FBI and sent anonymously to Martin Luther King Jr. It threatened him, insulted him, and advised him to commit suicide. The Church Committee found a copy in J. Edgar Hoover’s personal documents. The letter concluded:
King, there is only one thing left for you to do. You know what it is. You have just 34 days left in which to do (this exact number has been selected for a specific reason, it has definite practical significant [sic]). You are done. There is but one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy, abnormal fraudulent self is bared to the nation.
When all was said and done, the most important result of the Church Committee was the establishment of the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, made up of rotating members from a broad spectrum of the Senate, charged with overseeing the activities of the intelligence agencies.
The Gulf of Tonkin
* * *
Date: August 1964
Location: The Gulf of Tonkin
The Conspirators: US Navy, President Lyndon B. Johnson, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara
The Victims: The North Vietnamese
* * *
The Theory
The United States’ entry into the Vietnam War was triggered by the second of four alleged attacks by North Vietnamese fast torpedo boats against US naval forces in the waters off North Vietnam, called the Gulf of Tonkin. The conspiracy theory is that this second attack was either fictional or was perpetrated by clandestine US forces as an excuse to draw the United States into the war. These theorists say that this attack was either fabricated or faked entirely for the purpose of giving Congress a reason to order entry into the conflict.
The Truth
The second attack did not, in fact, happen, but this wasn’t clear at the time. US naval forces did open fire on targets that appeared sporadically on their radar screens, but nobody ever actually saw anything and no inbound fire was ever received.
The Backstory
In August of 1964 the American Navy and North Vietnam found themselves in an uneasy standoff. American ships were off the Vietnamese coast and tens of thousands of American troops were with the South Vietnamese as advisers. This was a proxy war between Communism and capitalism, between East and West. As the Soviets and Chinese were arming and funding North Vietnam to spread Communism throughout Southeast Asia, the Americans’ Truman Doctrine compelled them to contain its spread, and they were determined not to let South Vietnam fall to the North.
On August 2, 1964, the American destroyer USS Maddox was provocatively engaged in electronic surveillance just outside the boundary of international waters as recognized by the rest of the world, but inside the boundaries claimed by North Vietnam. The Maddox was approached by three North Vietnamese fast torpedo boats that had been stalking it for more than a day. The Maddox fired three warning shots across the bows of the torpedo boats, which prompted these boats to attack. The Maddox opened fire with its guns while the Vietnamese boats began launching torpedoes and firing their machine guns. Some distance away, the aircraft carrier USS Ticonderoga launched four planes, which joined in the attack. By the time it was all over, one of the torpedo boats had been sunk, two had been damaged, and four North Vietnamese sailors were dead and six wounded. The Maddox and one of t
he aircraft each suffered a single bullet strike with no casualties.
In the early hours of August 4 the seas were high and the weather rough. Radar, sonar, and radio signals received by the Maddox were interpreted as signaling another attack, and the gunners opened fire in the direction of radar targets that had been spotted. This continued for some four hours, even into the daylight, when it finally became clear that nobody had actually seen any enemy boats. The sonar signals that had been received, which sounded like the propellers of launched torpedoes, were actually the Maddox’s own engines. Having assessed the situation, Captain John J. Herrick of the Maddox cabled Washington:
Review of action makes many reported contacts and torpedoes fired appear doubtful. Freak weather effects on radar and overeager sonarmen may have accounted for many reports. No actual visual sightings by Maddox. Suggest complete evaluation before any further action taken.
But despite Herrick’s review of the situation, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who favored escalation against North Korea, continued to persuade President Johnson that this second attack had been a real one. As more cables from Herrick came in walking back the initial reports of an attack, Senator Wayne Morse (an opponent of the war) reported Herrick’s cables to the press and lobbied other congressmen to block any attempted escalation by Johnson.
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