In closing, may I make one very significant point. The Russian literature is hard to get and carefully avoids any mention of the topic in question. Those Russian articles which I have been able to get leave no doubt about the fact that the Russian is just as conversive about the field of hypnotism as we are.
Respectfully submitted,
[Whited out]
15 July 1954
TO: Chief, Security Research Staff
FROM: Chief, Technical Branch
SUBJECT: [Whited out]
1. I have examined [whited out] proposals and I feel that I should make the following comments:
a) The idea of a courier that has been hypnotized is not new and I am absolutely certain [whited out] did not invent this idea. We ourselves have carried out much more complex problems than this and in a general sense I will agree that it is feasible. However, there is no proof whatsoever that the hypnosis cannot be broken by another competent hypnotist [whited out] feels this is possible) and the entire test has not yet been subjected to actual field conditions (long travel, time, etc.).
b) As far as third-degree tactics are concerned, we do not know as yet what happens to an hypnotized individual under the third-degree or plied with chemicals of various types. Whether or not he will disclose hypnotic materials or indicate he possesses same has not been determined. Again this is a test that we hope to carry out in the future, as you know.
c) [whited out] proposal that a subject “will have no knowledge of ever having been hypnotized” is debatable. In regard to this, we are not yet certain but possibly through the use of subtle chemicals and/or a very careful cover, it might be done. It is conceivable it could be accomplished if the subject were not unduly suspicious, extremely naïve or very stupid but again this point is questionable.
d) [whited out] proposal about using hypnotized individuals as counteragents is also not new and we, of course, have discussed this many times. Whether or not it can in fact be demonstrated we are not sure and it is hoped that the field tests we are working on may help us along these lines.
e) [whited out] proposals are, of course, lacking in details and I am quite certain he has never carried any of these things out except in laboratory type experiments. We, of course, have been able to produce these results but again only in laboratory experiments and I assure you we would not be as emphatic about the success of these things as [whited out]
f) I think it very important that if [whited out] does come to Washington you and I should have the opportunity to discuss at length and in detail his ideas.
g) If you will recall, [whited out] among others long ago proposed the courier idea and in some ways [whited out] believes that given sufficient time and the opportunity for “correct training”, he could condition individuals for these purposes if certain conditions were met. [whited out] you also recall is not greatly impressed by [whited out]
[whited out]
In a 1971 article in Science Digest, Dr. Estabrooks87 claimed to have created hypnotic couriers and counterintelligence agents for operational use during World War II:
One of the most fascinating but dangerous applications of hypnosis is its use in military intelligence. This is a field with which I am familiar through formulating guide lines for the techniques used by the United States in two world wars.
Communication in war is always a headache. Codes can be broken. A professional spy may or may not stay bought. Your own man may have unquestionable loyalty but his judgment is always open to question.
The “hypnotic courier,” on the other hand, provides a unique solution. I was involved in preparing many subjects for this work during World War II. One successful case involved an Army Service Corps Captain whom we’ll call George Smith. Captain Smith had undergone months of training. He was an excellent subject but did not realize it. I had removed from him, by post hypnotic suggestion, all recollection of ever having been hypnotized.
First I had the Service Corps call the captain to Washington and tell him they needed a report on the mechanical equipment of Division X headquartered in Tokyo. Smith was ordered to leave by jet next morning, pick up the report and return at once. These orders were given him in the waking state. Consciously, that was all he knew, and it was the story he gave his wife and friends.
Then I put him under deep hypnosis, and gave him - orally -a vital message to be delivered directly on his arrival in Japan to a certain colonel - let’s say his name was Brown - of military intelligence. Outside of myself, Colonel Brown was the only person who could hypnotize Captain Smith. This is “locking.” I performed it by saying to the hypnotized Captain: “Until further orders from me, only Colonel Brown and I can hypnotize you. We will use the signal phrase ‘the moon is clear.’ Whenever you hear this phrase from Brown or myself you will pass instantly into deep hypnosis.” When Captain Smith re-awakened, he had no conscious memory of what happened in trance. All that he was aware of was that he must head for Tokyo to pick up the division report.
On arrival there, Smith reported to Brown, who hypnotized him with the signal phrase. Under hypnosis, Smith delivered my message and received one to bring back. Awakened, he was given the division report and returned home by jet. There I hypnotized him once more with the signal phrase, and he spieled off Brown’s answer that had been dutifully tucked away in his unconscious mind.
The system is virtually foolproof. As exemplified by the case, the information literally was “locked” in Smith’s unconscious for retrieval by the only two people who knew the combination. The subject had no conscious memory of what happened, so couldn’t spill the beans. No one else could hypnotize him even if they might know the signal phrase.
Not all applications of hypnotism to military intelligence are as tidy as that. Perhaps you have read The Three Faces of Eve. The book was based on a case reported in 1905 by Dr. Morton Prince of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard. He started everyone in the field by announcing that he had cured a woman named Beauchamp of a split personality problem. Using post-hypnotic suggestion to submerge an incompatible, childlike facet of the patient, he’d been able to make two other sides of Mrs. Beauchamp compatible, and lump them together in a single cohesive personality. Clinical hypnotists throughout the world jumped on the multiple personality bandwagon as a fascinating frontier. By the 1920’s not only had they learned to apply posthypnotic suggestion to deal with this weird problem, but also had learned how to split certain complex individuals into multiple personalities like Jeckyl-Hydes.
The potential for military intelligence has been nightmarish. During World War II, I worked this technique with a vulnerable Marine lieutenant I’ll call Jones. Under the watchful eye of Marine intelligence I split his personality into Jones A and Jones B. Jones A, once a “normal” working Marine, became entirely different. He talked communist doctrine and meant it. He was welcomed enthusiastically by communist cells, and was deliberately given a dishonorable discharge by the Corps (which was in on the plot) and became a card-carrying party member.
The joker was Jones B, the second personality, formerly apparent in the conscious Marine. Under hypnosis, this Jones had been carefully coached by suggestion. Jones B was the deeper personality, knew all the thoughts of Jones A, was a loyal American and was “imprinted” to say nothing during conscious phases.
All I had to do was hypnotize the whole man, get in touch with Jones B, the loyal American, and I had a pipeline straight into the Communist camp. It worked beautifully for months with this subject, but the technique backfired. While there was no way for an enemy to expose Jones’ dual personality, they suspected it and played the same trick on us later.
The use of “waking hypnosis” in counter intelligence during World War II occasionally became so involved that it taxed even my credibility. Among the most complicated ploys used was the practice of sending a perfectly normal, wide awake agent into enemy camp, after he’d been carefully coached in waking hypnosis to act the part of a potential hypnotism subject. Trained in
auto-suggestion, or self-hypnosis, such a subject can pass every test used to spot a hypnotized person. Using it, he can control the rate of his heartbeat, anesthetize himself to a degree against pain of electric shock or other torture.
In the case of an officer we’ll call Cox, this carefully prepared counter spy was given a title to indicate he had access to top priority information. He was planted in an international café in a border country where it was certain there would be enemy agents. He talked too much, drank a lot, made friends with local girls, and pretended a childish interest in hypnotism. The hope was that he would blunder into a situation in which enemy agents would kidnap and try to hypnotize him, in order to extract information from him.
Cox worked so well that they fell for the trick. He never allowed himself to be hypnotized during seances. While pretending to be a hypnotized subject of the foe, he was gathering and feeding back information.
Eventually Cox did get caught, when he was followed to an information “drop.” And this international group plays rough. The enemy offered him a “ride” at gunpoint. There were four men in the vehicle. Cox watched for a chance and found it when the car skirted a ravine. He leaped for the wheel, twisted it, and over the ledge they went. Two of his guards were killed in the crash. In the ensuing scramble, he got hold of another man’s gun, liquidated the remaining two, then hobbled across the border with nothing worse than a broken leg. So much for the darker side.
Dr. Estabrooks made one scholarly error in his article. The Three Faces of Eve was written by Thigpen and Cleckley300; Dr. Morton Prince’s book about Miss Beauchamp was entitled The Dissociation of a Personality247. One might conclude from the Science Digest article, Dr. Estabrooks’ proposal to the CIA, and the reaction to it by the Chief, Technical Branch, CIA, that Dr. Estabrooks’ claims are exaggerated. It is clear that there was skepticism inside the CIA and in the minds of CIA consultants about the operational utility of the Manchurian Candidate.
If Dr. Estabrooks did in fact create and handle Manchurian Candidates during World War II, it is evident that the Chief, Technical Branch, CIA did not have access to this information as of July 15, 1954. Given the highly compartmented nature of intelligence agencies, it could be that Dr. Estabrooks actually did the work he describes in Science Digest. On the other hand, one must consider the possibility that he was exaggerating, not concerning the experimental creation of Manchurian Candidates, but about the degree to which they were used in actual operations.
There is nothing in Dr. Estabrooks’ claims or procedures that is inconsistent with the BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE documents on Manchurian Candidates. Unfortunately, in this instance it is impossible to prove a negative, namely that Manchurian Candidates have never been used in field operations, because of the secrecy intrinsic to covert operations. All one can do is prove through documentation that events of interest did occur; lack of documentation proves nothing. In this regard, the denial of the operational reality of the Manchurian Candidate by Dr. John Gittinger, lead psychologist for MKULTRA, means nothing. Dr. Gittinger testified in Project MKULTRA, the CIA’s Program of Research in Behavioral Modification (p. 62) that:
Senator SCHWEIKER. Mr. Gittinger, a moment ago you mentioned brainwashing techniques, as one area that you had, I guess, done some work in. How would you characterize the state of the art of brainwashing today? Who has the most expertise in this field, and who is or is not doing it in terms of other governments?
During the Korean War there was a lot of serious discussion about brainwashing techniques being used by the North Koreans, and I am interested in finding out what the state of the art is today, as you see it.
Mr. GITTINGER. Well, of course, there has been a great deal of work on this, and there is still a great deal of controversy. I can tell you that as far as I knew, by 1961, 1962, it was at least proven to my satisfaction that brainwashing, so called, is some kind of an esoteric device where drugs or mind-altering kinds of conditions and so forth were used, did not exist even though “The Manchurian Candidate” as a movie really set us back a long time, because it made something impossible look plausible. Do you follow what I mean? But by 1962 and 1963, the general idea that we were able to come up with is that brainwashing was largely a process of isolating a human being, keeping him out of contact, putting him under long stress in relationship to interviewing and interrogation, and that they could produce any change that way without having to resort to any kind of esoteric means.
Dr. Estabrooks’ claims become more plausible if we consider other documented facts about his career and connections with intelligence agencies, within the field of hypnosis, and within the network of mind control doctors. Relevant documents are included in Appendix A.
Dr. Estabrooks was accepted as a contractor by the War Department on February 20, 1942. On July 13, 1939 he received correspondence from W.S. Anderson, Director of Naval Intelligence. On December 4, 1953 he addressed the Counter Intelligence Corps School at Fort Holabird; T.F. Hoffman of the Corps told Dr. Estabrooks in a letter dated November 18, 1953 that the Corps was studying Hypnotism84, in which Estabrooks describes the hypnotic courier.
Dr. Estabrooks wrote countless letters to countless people. These are stored at Colgate College in Hamilton, New York. One, dated January 1, 1942 was to Colonel William Donovan, Coordinator of Information (COI); the COI was transformed into the OSS under Colonel Donovan’s leadership. A statue of Colonel Donovan, who is regarded as the father of the CIA, stands in the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
Other correspondence with intelligence agencies includes letters of: May 8, 1935 to the Chief Signal Officer, United States Army; November 13, 1935 from Headquarters U.S. Marine Corps; July 19, 1938 from R.S. Holmes, Director of Naval Intelligence; September 21, 1939 to Colonel R.V. Read at the British Embassy in Washington; October 7, 1940 to Superintendent E.W. Bavin of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police; January 26, 1942 from John V. Hinkel at Military Intelligence Division G-2; and August 29, 1942 from Paul Rath at Edgeware Arsenal.
Ernest Bavin, who received a letter from Dr. Estabrooks on October 7, 1940, was born in Cheltenham, England in 1988. He immigrated to Canada in 1908 and served in the 1st Battalion, Canadian Field Artillery, Canadian Expeditionary Force during World War I. He worked for various Canadian police forces before and after the War. From 1939 till his retirement in 1941, Mr. Bavin was in charge of the intelligence branch of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
From 1942 to 1944, Bavin worked in the Office of British Security Co-Ordination in New York as a liaison between the Canadian Directorate of Military Intelligence and the U.S. Army’s Military Intelligence Division G-2 (with whom Estabrooks corresponded).
A May 8, 1945 letter to Mr. Bavin on British Security Co-Ordination stationery is signed by Bavin’s boss, William S. Stephenson, Director. Stephenson is the intelligence officer known as The Man Called Intrepid138, 297, 302. William Stephenson worked closely with William Donovan, and was first introduced to J. Edgar Hoover by the boxer, Gene Tunney302. Tunney played a role in the recruitment of Candy Jones for Manchurian Candidate training in The Control of Candy Jones23 (see Chapter 20). A June 4, 1945 letter from J. Edgar Hoover to Mr. Bavin thanks him for his close work with the FBI.
The Estabrooks archives contain voluminous correspondence back and forth between Dr. Estabrooks and J. Edgar Hoover beginning May 13, 1936 and continuing up to March 7, 1962. Hoover sent FBI personnel to Colgate College to meet with Estabrooks, sent him copies of his speeches, and acknowledged upcoming visits by Estabrooks to FBI headquarters. On June 25, 1937, Hoover acknowledged receipt of a, “current news clipping depicting experimental use of hypnotism by Dr. A. Herbert Kanter in the Ohio State Penitentiary at Columbus.” Drug, interrogation and hypnosis experiments were conducted on Ohio prison inmates under MKULTRA Subproject 39. The archives also contain letters from Estabrooks to other FBI personnel.
In a letter of July 23, 1937, J. Edgar Hoover acknowledges a recommendation by Dr. Estabrooks that the FBI visit
Dr. Hudson Hoaglund, Department of Biology, Clarke University, Worcester, Massachusetts. The Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology was the site of MKULTRA Subproject 8, and Dr. Hoaglund129 wrote an obituary for Dr. Ewen Cameron, contractor on MKULTRA Subproject 68. Dr. Hoaglund, who himself worked at the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology, was also a coauthor of a paper on LSD with Dr. Robert Hyde252;
Dr. Hyde received TOP SECRET clearance for his work on MKULTRA Subprojects 8, 10, and 63. J. Edgar Hoover was aware of MKULTRA because he received correspondence from the Director of the CIA about it.
The CIA Doctors Page 18