MK-Ultra
Part one of: "Nah...that's a conspiracy because the Federal government would never do that!"
Photo by Kristina Flour on Unsplash1953 - The CIA initiates Project MKULTRA.
MKUltra was a top-secret CIA research program that was launched in the 1950s. The program was designed to study the use of drugs and other methods for mind control and behavioral modification to develop techniques that could be used against the Soviet Union and other perceived enemies of the United States.
MKUltra involved various activities, including administering drugs to unknowing subjects, conducting experiments on prisoners, and using methods to alter people's behavior and memories. Some of the medications used in the program included LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin, and some of the methods used were unethical and violated the subjects' rights.
Some of the most well-known experiments conducted as part of the MKUltra program include the CIA's use of LSD on unknowing subjects, including government employees, military personnel, and members of the general public. In one infamous instance, CIA agents spiked the drinks of unsuspecting patrons at a bar in Washington, D.C., to study the drug's effects. Many of the subjects of these experiments reported experiencing severe psychological distress due to their participation.
In addition to the use of drugs, the MKUltra program also involved other behavioral modification methods, such as hypnosis and sensory deprivation. Some of the experiments conducted as part of the program were conducted without the knowledge or consent of the subjects, and many of the subjects suffered long-term effects as a result of their participation.
In What We Know About the CIA’s Midcentury Mind-Control Project, we discover:
The project, which continued for more than a decade, was originally intended to make sure the United States government kept up with presumed Soviet advances in mind-control technology. It ballooned in scope and its ultimate result, among other things, was illegal drug testing on thousands of Americans. It wasn’t the first time that the American government “without permission or notice, secretly gathered information on its people,” writes Melissa Blevins for Today I Found Out. But MKUltra has gone down in history as a significant example of government abuse of human rights, and for good reason.
“The research and development program, and particularly the covert testing programs, resulted in massive abridgements of the rights of American citizens, sometimes with tragic consequences,” concluded a Senate hearing in 1975-76. “The deaths of two Americans can be attributed to these programs; other participants in the testing programs may still suffer from the residual effects.” While controlled testing of substances like LSD “might be defended,” the committee went on, “the nature of the tests, their scale and the fact that they were continued for years after the danger of surreptitious administration of LSD to unwitting individuals was known, demonstrate a fundamental disregard for the value of human life.”
MKUltra wasn’t one project, as the US Supreme Court wrote in a 1985 decision on a related case. It was 162 different secret projects that were indirectly financed by the CIA, but were “contracted out to various universities, research foundations and similar institutions.” In all, at least 80 institutions and 185 researchers participated, but many didn’t know they were dealing with the CIA.
Many of MKUltra’s records were destroyed in a 1973 purge, and many had been destroyed throughout the program as a matter of course. But 8,000 pages of records–mostly financial documents that were mistakenly not destroyed in 1973–were found in 1977, launching a second round of inquiries into MKUltra.
The program was eventually shut down, and many of the details of the experiments were not made public until years later. It has since been widely condemned as a violation of medical ethics and the rights of the subjects involved.
For more:
What We Know About the CIA’s Midcentury Mind-Control Project
The CIA's Secret Quest For Mind Control: Torture, LSD And A 'Poisoner In Chief'
MKUltra US Senate Committee Report 1977
Clayton is the founder and publisher of the social and political commentary newsletter Think Things Through and the host of the Think Things Through Podcast.
Twitter: @claytoncraddock
Just for context's sake, I wonder if anyone reading this article has ever questioned why they require the device they probably encountered it on, why they can never tolerate being more than a few feet away from it, why they allow its constant interruptions to become in an instant the paramount priority occupying their attention, why they are willing to invest an acceptance of the alteration of the very meanings of words such as 'friend', 'share', community' or 'support' into keeping up with the continual barrage of behavioral requirements this device delivers to them.
Sure, the CIA monkeying around with LSD on study groups half a century ago is some curious but not particularly useful trivia from a former epoch. But if you want to do some direct empirical research on the nature and scope of mind control, look no further than the end of your arm.
And who was it that put that device there? Somehow I don't think the blame for this particular mass effort of controlling humanity's very thoughts in real-time can be laid on 'the government.' If you want to know whose fault this is, just have a look in the mirror, if you dare. Did somebody trick you into buying that smart-phone? Was your own personal decision to sign up for whichever multi-dimensional array of 'social media' sites you use something you were tricked into unknowingly while high on drugs you didn't know you'd been given? Was it 'the government's' doing that your entire way of life is now administered by manufacturers and distributors of digital gimmicks?
There is plenty to blame 'the government' for, for all the good it will do anyone. But it was never any government's fault that you sold your soul to a line of addictive toys: not even the CIA was ever that cynical, not were any of its silly experiments in the cold war anywhere near that successful.
Scary that this happened without any knowledge of the "victims" it was perpetrated on. I have no doubt that it could happen again, or may even be happening now. Thank you for all your research and for keeping us informed!