The CIA Doctors

by Colin A. Ross, M. D.

  The lack of a secure U.S. supplier of LSD was corrected by the CIA through MKULTRA Subproject 18. Under TOP SECRET clearance, Eli Lilly Company was given a $400,000.00 grant in 1953 to manufacture and supply LSD to the CIA. It is possible that the LSD which lead to Frank Olson’s suicide was manufactured by Eli Lilly. At any rate, the first large-scale manufacturer of LSD in North America was Eli Lilly. The first suicide attributable to LSD was the death of Frank Olson, the LSD having been administered without consent by Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, the Director of MKULTRA. Dr. Abramson was the physician directly involved in the Olson case, and he participated in hiding the truth from his patient’s family.

  Unethical practice by physicians and the direct involvement of pharmaceutical companies are part of the early post-War history of hallucinogens. These facts have never been subject to ethical review or any policy or position statement by any medical organization.

  Dr. Gottlieb (personal communication, October 8, 1994) stated n a telephone conversation with me that the overall scheme of MKULTRA had several components. One goal was to establish relationships with individual contractors so that they could be consulted or used in other ways in the future. In such cases, the content of the Subproject was not necessarily of direct interest to the CIA. According to Subproject 96 documents, Dr. George Kelly147 provided a great deal of such service to the CIA prior to receiving funding through MKULTRA. In contrast, Martin Orne, M.D., provided consultation services to the CIA subsequent to receiving funding through MKULTRA Subproject 84, and did not receive TOP SECRET clearance from the CIA until after Subproject 84 was approved.

  Another purpose of MKULTRA, according to Dr. Gottlieb, was to fund a broad range of exploratory research. Findings of interest could then be followed up on in subsequent research. It is evident from review of the Subproject files that another major purpose of MKULTRA was to obtain supplies of chemical and biological weapons from manufacturers. The Subprojects can be grouped into four categories.

  A large number of Subprojects were for the procurement of drugs, chemicals and biological weapons, or for research directly related to field applications. The investigators for most of these projects are unknown. The Subprojects in this category are: 11, 13, 20, 30, 31, 37, 41, 50, 51, 52, 64, 78, 91, 93, 100, 101, 104, 105, 110, 113, 116, 118, 133, 139, 143, and 146. Much of the MKULTRA money went to research that was practical and designed for immediate operational use by the CIA.

  Another group of Subprojects involved the development and testing of mind control drugs. The goal of these Subprojects was to identify compounds, used singly or in combination, which would assist in interrogation and in the creation of amnesia. This group of Subprojects overlaps with those on chemical warfare, therefore some Subprojects could be assigned to either category. Together the two categories account for about half of the MKULTRA Subprojects and apparently all of the MKSEARCH Subprojects. The mind control drug development was carried out under Subprojects 2, 3, 6-10, 14, 16-18, 22, 23, 26-28, 33, 35, 38-40, 42, 44-47, 53, 55, 56, 58, 59, 63, 66, 71, 72, 75, 80, 99, 109, 124, 125, 135, 140 and 147.

  A third group of Subprojects consists of experiments and research on non-chemical mind control or psychological warfare techniques. These include studies of social psychology, group psychology, psychotherapy, hypnosis, sudden religious conversion, and sleep and sensory deprivation. This group of Subprojects is about one quarter of the total MKULTRA Subprojects. It involves most of the contractors with unwitting status. Unwitting contractors are ones who do not realize that the research money is from the CIA because it has been funneled through a cutout or front organization. These Subprojects are 5, 25, 29, 43, 48, 49, 57, 65, 68, 69, 73, 74, 76, 77, 81, 82, 84, 88-90, 95-98, 102, 103, 108, 111, 112, 114, 115, 117, 121, 123, 126-128, 130 and 134.

  The remaining quarter of the MKULTRA Subprojects were miscellaneous in nature. By and large, the psychologists and sociologists were unwitting contractors, while the physicians, including the psychiatrists, the chemists and the biologists had TOP SECRET clearance and were aware that they were working for the CIA. In CIA terminology, these people were witting.

  MKULTRA Subproject 35 involved funding the construction of the Gorman Annex at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C. The money was funneled through the Geschickter Foundation. Dr. Charles Geschickter, head of the Geschickter Foundation, conducted research on amnesia-producing drugs at Georgetown University Hospital under MKSEARCH through July, 1967. CIA Director Stansfield Turner could not determine whether this MKSEARCH work was done at the Gorman Annex, according to his 1977 Senate Testimony. Since Dr. Geschickter also testified at the same Senate Hearings transcribed in Human Drug Testing by the CIA, 1977, the only investigation required for Stansfield Turner to make this determination would have been to ask Dr. Geschickter directly.

  The CIA funneled $375,000.00 of MKULTRA money through the Geschickter Foundation for construction of the Annex, which was then matched by federal funds. Federal matching funds were triggered because use of the Geschickter Foundation cutout made the money appear to be a grant from a private foundation. The total budget for the Annex of $1.25 million was to provide a hospital safe house for mind control research. Some subjects were terminal cancer patients. One sixth of the space was set aside for the CIA, which placed three biochemists there under cover.

  In his testimony in Human Drug Testing by the CIA, 1977, Dr. Geschickter states that over thirteen years his foundation funded $1,030,000.00 of research at Georgetown and $2,088,600.00 at other universities.

  CIA money included the $375,000.00 for MKULTRA Subproject 35 and $535,000.00 for MKULTRA Subproject 45, meaning that most of the money awarded for research at Georgetown, if not all, was CIA money. Dr. Geschickter’s testimony to the Senate Committee is a study in evasion, forgetfulness, doublespeak, and implausible denial. He claimed not to be able to remember many details he obviously would not have forgotten.

  The medical profession and the leading academic institutions where mind control research was done have not yet provided a meaningful public accounting, financial or ethical, of this experimentation. This is one of the reasons that the entire medical profession and the entire academic community are implicated in the story.

  Like the Tuskeegee Syphilis Study and the radiation research, MKULTRA involved direct experimentation on children without informed consent being given by their parents or guardians. In the case of the Tuskeegee Study, children were harmed by preventable congenital syphilis. In the radiation experiments they were harmed through direct exposure after birth or in utero exposure during experiments on their mothers.

  Four of the MKULTRA Subprojects involved research on children; 102, 103, 112 and 117. Only one of these, Subproject 117, involved an investigator with TOP SECRET clearance. The fact that the CIA funded research on children has not been documented previously. Given that the mind control research declassified to date is certainly an incomplete account of everything done, it is unknown whether other mind control experimentation on children was unethical or harmful. An unanswered question is whether children were ever subjects in Manchurian Candidate experiments.

  The four MKULTRA Subprojects on children were benign and did not involve unethical experiments. Subproject 102 was conducted by Muzafer Sherif of the University of Oklahoma. It involved studies of the social processes in teenage gangs in two cities. Subjects were 14 to 17 years of age and were studied by having social science students “hang out” with them. One student showed up at a basketball court with a new basketball and explained that he wanted to exercise to lose some weight. Observations were made about how group cohesiveness was maintained, how members were selected, status ranking of members, behavioral sanctions within the group, and similar matters. The CIA’s interest in this Subproject is not stated in the documents, but one can assume it was relevant to understanding and manipulating social groups during psychological warfare and propaganda operations.

  Subproject 103 was conducted by Robert Cormack and A.B. Kristofferson at t
he Children’s International Summer Villages, Inc. in Maine. The subjects were 16 to 21 years of age and were there for a reunion; all had attended the camp in previous years as 11-year olds. The academic purpose of the project was to study how children communicate when they do not share a common language. The CIA was interested in the project as cover for establishing relationships with children from a variety of countries. Obviously, the intent was to recruit them as agents or assets. A MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD from the Subproject 103 documents dated 10 December 1959 states that:

  It is felt that this project will support the [whited out] need for cover. In addition it will assist in the identification of promising young foreign nationals and U.S. nationals (many of whom are now in their late teens) who may at any time be of direct interest to the Agency … No cleared or witting persons are concerned with the conduct of this project.

  The principal investigator for MKULTRA Subproject 112 was Melvin DeFleur of the University of Indiana. He studied perceptions of occupational roles in children from first to eighth grades. According to a MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD dated 24 March 1960, the CIA’s “interest is connected with the current problems of vocational guidance with possible application to the selection of technical and scientific careers.”

  The materials for Subproject 117 have gone through many generations of photocopying and are very hard to read. The aim of the research was to study patterns of child discipline in families from a different culture. The CIA’s interest in this Subproject is not clear but a MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD dated 10 May 1960 states that, “This Subproject was initiated at our request after consultation with chief, [whited out].”

  Another example of an MKULTRA contract in which the CIA probably was not interested in the content of the research is Subproject 121. Dr. Raymond Prince248 was unwitting of the fact that the grant he received from the Human Ecology Foundation was actually CIA money. In the only article on CIA and military mind control in the peer-reviewed medical literature, Prince248 speculates that the CIA was not really interested in his research on Yoruba witchcraft, but used the Subproject as cover to make contact with Nigerians for other purposes. A similar purpose might have been behind Subproject 117.

  MKULTRA Manchurian Candidate work on hypnotic couriers and hypnotic mind control was carried out by Alden Sears at the University of Denver and the University of Minnesota under Subprojects 5, 25, 29 and 49. Sears had TOP SECRET clearance and on September 8, 1954 he signed a CIA Secrecy Agreement. This document states that the legislation controlling the Agreement was the Espionage Act passed on June 15, 1917.

  A MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD dated 28 May 1953 states that both Sears and the Head of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Minnesota are “cleared through TOP SECRET and are aware of the real purposes of the project.” The word “Minnesota” is redacted from the documents but Sidney Gottlieb’s name is not. The fact that the Subproject was conducted at the University of Minnesota is proven by the listing in the INSTITUTIONAL NOTIFICATIONS provided by the CIA through the Freedom of Information Act.

  Dr. Gottlieb describes a visit to Sears’ office and laboratory on July 13, 1955 in a document dated July 15, 1955. In a MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD dated 20 April 1954 there is a description of direct observation by Dr. Gottlieb and a CIA officer with the rank of Major, of hypnosis experiments conducted by Sears in a hotel suite. On March 26, 1954 a demonstration of hypnosis was given by Sears for selected representatives of Senior Staffs and Area Divisions, according to the 20 April 1954 MEMORANDUM.

  It appears that Alden Sears never created a full Manchurian Candidate under MKULTRA. However, in a proposal for work to be conducted from June 1, 1956 to May 31, 1957 under Subproject 49 Sears writes:

  Since this research was started in September of 1952, work has been done on various projects which were outlined by the fund representative and myself. Some of these have been [white out] (These two have been published), [whited out] and various pilot studies concerning subconscious retention of material and ability to deliver same without the subject’s knowing consciously that he had even had this material; i.e., an unwitting message carrier …

  In order to investigate the possibilities of hypnotic induction of non-willing subjects who have only a knowledge of some other language than that of the hypnotist….

  An investigation should be made into non-verbal induction techniques, such as long duration of monotonous audio or visual stimulation. A variation of this in which I am interested and in which I have done some work, a few pilot studies, is to use soft restful music in which my voice was also recorded at a subliminal level. With some subjects in the past this has been very effective.

  Can auto-hypnosis be taught so as to be as effective as hetero-hypnosis in the canceling out of pain or other stress conditions; i.e., if this can be done a person could create his own world and be happy in it even though he were actually confined in a very small place which was extremely filthy …

  There are a great many areas which need investigation in the field of hypnosis. However, some of these (especially those connected with the use of drugs) could not be handled in the University situation.

  Sears did some of his experiments at a CIA safe house that had to be “reasonably unobtrusive from public surveillance, and yet be capable of accommodating an increased number of people without causing suspicion or comment” (MEMORANDUM FOR Safehouse Procurement Officer, 3 June 1954).

  Another MEMORANDUM dated 30 October 1956 is a request for a safe house under Subproject 49 for use from November 13 to December 12, 1956. The safe house was “so situated that both sides of the building are not easily subjected to eavesdropping. This safe site is to be used in connection with a conference pertaining to various aspects of MKULTRA.” Sidney Gottlieb’s name is at the bottom of the MEMORANDUM.

  A list of equipment purchased under MKULTRA Subproject 49 includes “I shock stimulator.” Whether the shock stimulator was used as a conditioning tool, to check for hypnotic resistance to pain, or to determine whether a hypnotic subject can perform under stress, is unknown. The MKULTRA work conducted by Alden Sears demonstrates that hypnotic courier and Manchurian Candidate experiments and training were done by the CIA under a number of different Programs, and were contracted out to a number of different institutions and investigators.

  In his MEMORANDUM of 11 May 1953 Sidney Gottlieb lists seven separate experiments conducted by Alden Sears, and gives the number of subjects for five of them, totaling 196 subjects. Experiments were concerned with:

  Experiment 1 - N - 18 Hypnotically induced anxieties to be completed by September 1.

  Experiment 2 - N - 24 Hypnotically increasing ability to learn and recall complex written matter, to be completed by September 1.

  Experiment 3 - N - 30 Polygraph response under Hypnosis, to be completed by June 15.

  Experiment 4 - N - 24 Hypnotically increasing ability to observe and recall a complex arrangement of physical objects.

  Experiment 5 - N-100 Relationship of personality to susceptibility to hypnosis.

  Experiment 6 - The Morse code problem, with emphasis on relatively lower IQ subjects than found on University volunteers.

  Experiment 7 - Recall of hypnotically acquired information by very specific signals.

  Manchurian Candidate work was done under MKULTRA Subproject 136, which was approved for funding on August 23, 1961. The deliberate creation of multiple personality in children is an explicitly stated plan in the MKULTRA Subproject Proposal submitted for funding on May 30, 1961. TOP SECRET clearance status for the Principal Investigator on Subproject 136 had been initiated by the Technical Services Division of the CIA at the time the Subproject was approved. Quotations from the Subproject 136 documents appear immediately before the Introduction to The CIA Doctors: Human Rights Violations By American Psychiatrists.

  Although MKULTRA has received the most public attention of any of the CIA and military mind control programs, most of its Subprojects were relatively benign compared
to experiments carried out in PROJECT OFTEN and MKNAOMI. The declassified MKULTRA and MKSEARCH documents prove that systematic mind control experimentation involving physicians was ongoing at least until 1972. Like BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE, MKULTRA involved the creation of Manchurian Candidates. Most of the MKULTRA Subprojects involved study of subcomponents of the Manchurian Candidate construction process – without the BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE documents, it would be unclear if the mind control doctors ever created a full Manchurian Candidate. The BLUEBIRD/ARTICHOKE materials establish conclusively that full Manchurian Candidates were created and tested successfully by physicians with TOP SECRET clearance from the CIA.