The CIA Doctors

by Colin A. Ross, M. D.

  Perhaps Dr. McHugh is speaking from his experience, or the experience of his friends, colleagues, and Department of Psychiatry, in Cold War mind control experimentation. If clinical multiple personality is buried and forgotten, then the Manchurian Candidate Programs will be safe from public scrutiny. I would like to know whether Dr. McHugh himself, or other members of his Department of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, are CIA or military mind control contractors.

  14

  OTHER DOCTORS IN THE NETWORK

  Other doctors in the mind control network include Neil Burch, M.D. Dr. Burch was born on April 3, 1924. He died on December 17, 1987. He was the Director of the Research Division of the Texas Research Institute of Mental Sciences (TRIMS) in Houston. His coauthor on a number of publications was Bernard Saltzberg, Ph.D.264, 268, 269, 270. Dr. Saltzberg was in turn a coathor of Tulane brain electrode specialist and CIA contractor, Dr. Robert Heath265-267.

  A paper by Saltzberg, Burton, Burch et al.269 was published in Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine; four of the authors are said to be from the Naval Biodynamics Laboratory, and funding is said to be through Office of Naval Research Contract #N00014-76-C-0911. TRIMS documents describe grant applications being prepared for this project in 1976 for $61,050.00.

  According to an article in the October 1, 1994 Houston Chronicle198, Dr. Burch and Dr. William T. Lhamon received $300,000.00 in Air Force contracts for hallucinogen research between April, 1956 and April, 1961. Dr. Burch became a full-time Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine in 1959. Prior to that he spent five years in the Air Force as a psychiatrist, according to a letter he wrote to the Chairman of the Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation (TDMHMR) on March 13, 1978. TDMHMR ran and was responsible for TRIMS.

  Research appropriations for TRIMS were $1,100,000.00 in 1972 and $2,261,635.00 in 1983. Dr. Burch worked for TRIMS up till his death. The total research grants and contracts received by TRIMS from 1968 to 1983 was $16,358,810.00. This included grants to Dr. Burch from the Office of Naval Research (1967, $34,000.00), NASA (1968, $5,619.00; 1970, $152,079.00), and the CIA (1968, $7,886.00; 1968, $5,619.00; 1969, $68,315.00; and 1971, $39,757.00).

  The CIA money was for development of an improved Galvanic Skin Response System (1968); On-Line Psychophysiological Analysis (1969); and Psychophysiological Correlates of Human Information (1971). These CIA grants are designated by the grant numbers XG-3061-68R, XG-3102 and XG-3245. These contracts came after the termination of MKULTRA and do not correspond to any of the seven MKSEARCH contracts. There must therefore be another still-classified CIA mind control program that ran at least into the early 1970’s. The relevance of Dr. Burch’s research on the galvanic skin response (GSR) is that the GSR is a component of the lie detector test.

  Other military contractors at TRIMS included Dr. Saltzberg, who received a grant for $6,480.00 from the Department of the Navy in 1976 (Contract N06014-76-C-0911) for “Analysis of New Tapes and Develop Analytical Procedures Toward the Objective of Finalizing a Practical and Effective Protocol for Collection of Field Data.”

  The Office of Naval Research gave Dr. Saltzberg $213,252.00 from May 1, 1980 to June 30, 1984 to study “Analysis of Electrophysiological Signals Recorded From Rhesus Monkeys Subjected to Biodynamic Stress.” This project is closely related to similar research conducted at other universities under MKULTRA Subprojects 45, 61, 74, 86, 106, 129, and 138. Another overlapping grant to Dr. Saltzberg from the Department of the Navy for $42,250.00 ran from December 1, 1983 to November 30, 1984.

  Dr. Robert Smith at TRIMS received funding from the Scottish Rite Foundation to give PCP (phencyclidine or “angel dust”) to research subjects under a 1977 grant for $39,108.00 to study “Acute vs. Chronic Effects of Phencyclidine: A Schizophreniform Pychotomimetic.” The Scottish Rite Foundation also provided Dr. C. Smith $20,076.00 in 1979 to study “Sensory Integration in Schizophrenia;” this is presumably the same Dr. Smith, however it may be a separate individual from Dr. Robert Smith.

  In 1979, NASA provided Dr. Fenimore at TRIMS $10,000.00 to develop a “Scopolamine Radioimmunoassay.” Scopolamine is an anti-nauseant that was also used as a mind control drug by the U.S. Army (see Appendix I).

  One of the ongoing research projects at TRIMS was the study of brain electrical activity in violent criminals, hence the contact between Dr. Burch and Dr. Louis Jolyon West173. Although TRIMS did not perform brain electrode implant experiments on prisoners or other subjects, a letter to Joseph Schoolar, Ph.D., M.D., Director of TRIMS, from W.J. Estelle, Jr., Director, Texas Department of Corrections dated April 9, 1979 states that, “You may be assured of TDC’s support of this research.”

  CIA mind control research at prisons was funded through MKULTRA. One of the most heavily funded MKULTRA contractors was Dr. Carl Pfeiffer, who acknowledges funding from CIA cutout, the Geschickter Fund for Medical Research in numerous papers77, 101, 108, 109, 207, 236, 240, 239, 237, 241.

  Research conducted at prisons by Dr. Pfeiffer includes a paper entitled “Quantitative electroencephalographic analysis of naturally occurring (schizophrenic) and drug-induced psychotic states in human males”109. Work for this paper was funded through MKULTRA Subproject 47. Subjects included: 21 inmates from the New Jersey Reformatory at Bordentown38 ranging in age from 21 to 30 years; 9 volunteers from the laboratory staff ranging in age from 19 to 48 years; and 25 schizophrenic patients from the Clinical Investigative Unit of the Bureau of Research, New Jersey Neuropsychiatric Institute. Fifteen inmates and ten schizophrenic subjects received LSD but the laboratory staff received only placebo.

  Subjects in Pfeiffer et al.240 included 13 inmates from the New Jersey Reformatory at Bordentown who received amphetamines. Subjects in Murphree et al.207 included inmates from the New Jersey Reformatory at Bordentown ranging in age from 21 to 29 years, with an average age of 23.6 years. Subjects in this study were given intravenous barbiturates.

  Subjects in Demarretal.77 included 16 inmates at the U.S. Federal Penitentiary in Atlanta who received LSD. The ethics of this and other MKULTRA drug studies conducted in prisons are unacceptable because of the high percentage of drug addicts in prison populations, because meaningful informed consent is difficult to obtain in such circumstances, and because subjects were not informed that the research was funded by the CIA, despite the TOP SECRET clearance status of the principal investigators.

  While he was Chairman of the Department of Pharmacology at Emory University, Dr. Pfeiffer gave LSD to inmates of the U.S. Federal Penitentiary in Atlanta under MKULTRA Subproject 47. He himself took a dose of LSD and had his reactions filmed by WSB-TV in Atlanta in 195567. A portion of this film was broadcast on WSB’s Newsroom program.

  Born in Peoria, Illinois on May 19, 1908, Pfeiffer was named to the Board of Directors of the Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies in 1956, a site of radiation experiments reviewed in Chapter 3. He and John R. Smythies of the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology (MKULTRA Subproject 8) co-edited an issue of the International Review of Neurobiology238 which included chapters by: H.J. Eysenck (contractor on MKULTRA Subproject 111); Abram Hoffer132, who did LSD research with Humphry Osmond226, 227 in Weyburn, Saskatchewan before Osmond relocated to the New Jersey Neuropsychiatric Institute; and Dr. Robert Heath, CIA contractor at Tulane.

  In one study funded by the Geschickter Fund, entitled “Hallucinatory effects in man of acetylcholine inhibitors”241 prisoners at the U.S. Federal Penitentiary in Atlanta were given 150 micrograms of the experimental drug MER-16. The authors noted that:

  Abood finds that oral administration of 10 to 20 mg. of JB-318, the tertiary amine analogue of Piptal, or JB-336, the n-methyl derivative of JB-318, produces a model psychosis characterized by visual and auditory hallucinations. We have not been able to give doses larger than 9 mg. because of the extreme mental effects.

  A similar possible acetylcholine antagonist, MER-16, produces extreme LSD-like effects when 150 mg. is given
orally. Hallucinations last for three days and are characterized by repeated waves of depersonalization, visual hallucinations, and feelings of unreality.

  The authors also noted that MER-16 is a more effective hallucinogen than scopolamine, the drug studied by Dr. Fenimore at TRIMS.

  Because Dr. Pfeiffer died on November 20, 1988, it is possible to obtain a version of the MKULTRA Subproject file in which Dr. Pfeiffer’s name and signature, Emory University, the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, the New Jersey Neuropsychiatric Institute and the New Jersey Reformatory at Bordentown have not been redacted. A memo from the file dated 24 March 1955 states:

  Purpose: Pharmacological and clinical testing in animals and volunteers of chemicals and biochemicals which alter behavior. Provide consultation on special problems of TSD interest.

  Status: Study completed on threshold doses of LSD-25, a method of exploring antagonism of this drug by other agents. Work has been initiated to evaluate compound producing amnesia and having alcohol like effect on behavior will be started. Evaluation of effects of combinations of drugs of interest to TSD is ¼ complete.

  Although one sentence in the memo is ungrammatical, its meaning is clear. The goal of MKULTRA Subproject 47 was to produce not a model psychosis, but a model dissociative state characterized by depersonalization and amnesia.

  In a memo from the CIA to Senator Pete Wilson dated 11 December 1985, the unidentifiable CIA correspondent states:

  It should also be noted that this matter has been considered at the highest levels of Justice and the Central Intelligence Agency and it is the considered judgment of the responsible officials that the United States has no legal responsibility for any of the alleged harms or injuries that may have been suffered by Mr. Weinstein [victim of mind control experiments by Dr. Ewen Cameron, see the book by his son313] or the other plaintiffs, and that neither Mr. Weinstein nor the other plaintiffs can demonstrate any causal relationship between the minimal CIA funding and their alleged injuries. This position is further supported by the fact that one similar case, arising from LSD testing financed by the CIA and conducted by the U.S. Public Health Service at Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, was fully litigated; in that case, judgment and costs were entered in favor of the United States.

  Another site of LSD experiments on prisoners was the Oak Ridge Division, Penetang Psychiatric Hospital, Penetanguishene, Ontario, Canada. The principal investigator was Dr. Elliott T. Barker27-30. In a paper entitled “Defence Disrupting Therapy,” Barker, Mason and Wilson30 describe their patients as a group of inmates found unfit to stand trial or not guilty by reason of insanity. The crimes they had committed included murder, arson, and assault.

  Dr. Barker is currently the President of the Canadian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. On the Society’s web page (www.bconnex.net/~cspcc/crimeprevention/snug.html) there is a statement about child abuse by Michael Mason, Founding Member of the Society, dated April, 1975. This is presumably the same individual as M.H. Mason, Dr. Barker’s coauthor30. In a footnote to that paper, Mason is identified as “Patient, Oak Ridge Division, Penetang Psychiatric Hospital.”

  Another of Dr. Barker’s papers27 is entitled “LSD In A Coercive Milieu Therapy Program.” The LSD was given in a dosage of 500 micrograms as an intramuscular injection, a heavy hallucinatory dosage. Other drugs given to the inmates by Dr. Barker include scopolamine, barbiturates, and amphetamines, often in combination with each other. A third paper of Dr. Barker’s was entitled “The Total Encounter Capsule”29.

  The authors of that paper describe keeping groups of prisoners naked in a small sensory isolation chamber called The Capsule for days at a time. While in The Capsule together for these prolonged periods, the prisoners were given LSD. Some were as young as fifteen years old.

  Dr. Barker’s proposition that arsonists, rapists and murderers as young as fifteen years of age, some with only third grade educations, can be treated effectively by combinations of addictive drugs and sensory deprivation which render them delirious and psychotic, is remarkable. An alternative explanation for the observation that, “The treatment method has now gained such high status among patients that requests for it exceed our capacity to give the drugs,” is the hypothesis that the patients enjoyed getting stoned.

  There is no evidence that Dr. Barker’s LSD, amphetamine, scopolamine, barbiturate and sensory deprivation experiments were funded by the CIA or the military. Like the results of the Tuskeegee Syphilis Study, they were described in the peer-reviewed professional literature without stimulating letters to the editors of the journals. Two reciprocally interacting facts are evident: 1) it was not difficult for the CIA and military to identify willing mind control contractors because the medical profession was highly permissive of such experimentation, and 2) ethical and experimental norms established in secretly funded mind control research spilled over into conventional medicine and psychiatry.

  Another line of mind control research began with Dr. John Lilly, whose work with dolphins was depicted in the movie The Day of the Dolphin. Dr. Lilly169 described experiments in which he gave LSD to dolphins in a CIA-sponsored LSD symposium. Dr. Lilly was also the inventor of the flotation tank depicted in the movie Altered States. Lilly168 described research he had done with flotation tanks at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Research Conference on March 9, 1956. One of the discussants of the paper was Dr. Winfred Overholser, who did work on mind control drugs for the OSS during World War II184. Other discussants of the paper were from Walter Reed Army Medical Center and MKULTRA institutions including Georgetown University, Harvard University, and the University of Minnesota. One was from Tulane, where Dr. Robert Heath did contract work for the CIA.

  Dr. Lilly described sensory isolation research done at McGill by Dr. Donald Hebb (funded by Canada’s Defense Research Board) and said of Hebb’s subjects, “The development of hallucinations in the visual sphere followed the stages seen with mescaline intoxication.” Commenting on sensory deprivation experiments done at the Allan Memorial Institute by Dr. Hassan Azima, discussant Dr. Herbert Zimmer says, “Of the 15 cases, eight showed a depersonalized state with varying degrees of visual, auditory and gustatory hallucinosis.”

  In Dr. Lilly’s flotation tank, which contained a 10% magnesium sulphate solution at 84.5 degrees F., subjects were naked except for a mask which covered the entire head but allowed for breathing. Subjects floated suspended in the solution with their heads just out of the water, with no light or sound other than their own breathing and sound from the pipes circulating water through the tank. Dr. Lilly’s flotation tank was a solitary, aqueous precursor of Dr. Barker’s Capsule.

  Discussant Dr. Ogden R. Lindsley, who did operant conditioning experiments on children age seven to twelve22, told the following story in response to Dr. Lilly’s (1956) presentation:

  During the war I had the good fortune to fly in a heavy bomber for the U.S. Army Air Force and the misfortune of being shot out of it and put in isolation by the German Gestapo for about fourteen and a half days. Their method was to put you in a little room, not long enough to lie down in, with no furnishings, no window, and no light. They came once every twelve hours or so and brought water and black bread. I don’t want to go into any emotional experiences in the room, because they were all very similar to those which Dr. Lilly has reported. Sometimes while there it would seem as though four days had gone by without any water, and then again it would seem that they came fifteen minutes after they had last appeared.

  An article in The Dallas Morning News, January 29, 1997, p 9A describes how the Baltimore Sun obtained a 1983 CIA manual through the Freedom of Information Act. The manual was used to teach non coercive interrogation techniques to foreign agents, including ones from Central America. The manual taught techniques studied in BLUEBIRD, ARTICHOKE and MKULTRA; the same brainwashing techniques were used on Dr. Ogden Lindsley by the Gestapo, on Patty Hearst by the Symbionese Liberation Army (see Chapter 19), and on patients at Penetang Psychiatric Hospital by Dr. Elliott Barker
. The CIA manual taught techniques for the induction of “intense fear, deep exhaustion, solitary confinement, unbearable anxiety and other forms of psychological duress,” and was used until at least 1983. These are some of the building blocks for making Manchurian Candidates.

  As part of his work in sensory isolation, Dr. Lilly170 wrote a book entitled Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer in which he discusses LSD, interspecies communication, and the flotation tank. The book is also an early work in artificial intelligence, much of it written in engineering language. In it, Dr. Lilly provides a model of the mind as an interconnected system of parallel processing units.