Poisoner in Chief
Page 44
In 1977 Gottlieb was called back to Washington for a second round of testimony about MK-ULTRA. “I feel victimized and appalled,” he told senators. “My name is selectively left on released documents where all or most others are deleted.”
A Canadian artist, Sarah Anne Johnson, is the granddaughter of Velma Orlikow, whose life was devastated by extreme experiments that Gottlieb sponsored. Among her works is this statue, Black Out, which depicts her grandmother in sensory-deprivation restraints. Although Canadian victims of MK-ULTRA experiments received compensation years later, no Americans did. In his last act before leaving the CIA, Gottlieb ordered all MK-ULTRA records destroyed.
Acknowledgments
Everything in this book is true, but not everything that’s true is in this book. The stories recounted on these pages tell only part—probably a small part—of what Sidney Gottlieb did during his twenty-two years at the CIA. Most of the rest is likely to remain unknown. Gottlieb did not manage to wipe his legacy off the face of history, as he hoped when he ordered the destruction of MK-ULTRA files. He did, however, succeed in preventing the world from learning the full story of his life and career.
Soon after Gottlieb died, the Washington Post looked back on his legacy and concluded, “The name Sidney Gottlieb is but an obscure footnote in the nation’s history.” Years later, I met a former director of the CIA and told him that I was writing Gottlieb’s biography. He shook his head and said, “Never heard of him.” Others who served at the CIA in the decades after Gottlieb retired told me the same thing. I believe them. Piecing together Gottlieb’s story required deep dives into obscure history. I am grateful to the many who helped guide me.
Several authors have researched aspects of Gottlieb’s life and career. The first was John Marks, who filed the Freedom of Information Act request that led to discovery of MK-ULTRA documents that Gottlieb had failed to destroy. Those documents shaped Marks’s groundbreaking book The Search for the “Manchurian Candidate,” which won the 1979 Investigative Reporters and Editors prize for exemplifying “the best in investigative reporting.” Other books followed, each peeling away layers of Gottlieb’s mystery. A Terrible Mistake, by H. P. Albarelli, is a rich source. So are the works of Linda Hunt, Alfred McCoy, Egmont R. Koch and Michael Wech, Ed Regis, and Colin Ross.
I am also grateful to the people who agreed to sit for interviews to recall their connections with Gottlieb or his work. Manfred Kopp, the local historian in the German town of Oberursel, where Camp King was located, generously shared his insights and archive. The owner of nearby Villa Schuster, where CIA officers conducted harsh experiments during the 1950s, opened the house to me and allowed me to visit basement rooms that were once used as cells. Lanessa Hill, the public affairs supervisor at Fort Detrick in Maryland, arranged a tour of the base and conversations with scientists who work there. The retired Fort Detrick historian Norman Covert provided valuable background about the base’s past activities. Sidney Bender, the New York lawyer who took Gottlieb’s depositions in two long-running court cases, shared boxes of files that had lain untouched for years. Archivists at the Presbyterian Historical Society in Philadelphia helped me locate letters and essays written by Gottlieb’s wife, Margaret. Eric Olson, son of the CIA chemist Frank Olson, spent hours responding to questions about his lifelong search for the truth behind his father’s death. Lawyers and investigators who worked for congressional committees that questioned Gottlieb in the 1970s provided valuable insights. Several CIA officers who crossed paths with Gottlieb, all of whom asked to remain anonymous, shared their memories. The CIA public affairs office confirmed important details about Gottlieb’s career. Although the office declined to provide some information I sought, it did release three photographs showing Gottlieb as he looked while at the Agency—the first such images that have ever been published.
Several other well-informed Americans shared their insights but do not want to be publicly acknowledged. They know who they are. I thank them.
As I was conceiving this book, several of my highly motivated students at Brown University wrote research memos that helped shape my work. Sarah Tucker discovered records that document Gottlieb’s early life. June Gersh traced Operation Paperclip, under which Nazi scientists were brought to work for American government agencies. Hansol Hong dug into the history of Fort Detrick. Weng Lin Isaac Leong researched the origins of MK-ULTRA and investigated Gottlieb’s role in making the suicide pin given to U-2 pilots. Drashti Brahmbatt traced MK-ULTRA subprojects and Gottlieb’s work overseeing them. Oliver Hermann produced a survey of “black sites” where CIA officers conducted harsh interrogations during the 1950s. Fiona Bradley surveyed the literature of mind control. Benjamin Guggenheim compiled valuable information from primary sources. Daniel Steinfeld traced Gottlieb’s involvement in assassination plots and his work as head of the CIA’s Technical Services Staff. Isabel Paolini reviewed and analyzed published material, including Gottlieb’s testimony before congressional committees. Sean Hyland assessed Gottlieb’s role in bringing LSD to the American counterculture. Brandon Wen Long Chia examined cases of prominent Americans who came to LSD through Gottlieb’s experiments and discovered material about Gottlieb’s work after he left the CIA. Vladimir Borodin researched aspects of Gottlieb’s life in retirement. Michelle Schein traced the path from Gottlieb’s work to techniques of interrogation that the CIA brought to Latin America, Vietnam, Abu Ghraib, and Guantanamo. A student at Emory University, Ethan Jampel, helped assemble images for the photo section.
I greatly appreciate my colleagues at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University. The director, Edward Steinfeld, and associate director Steven Bloomfield encouraged me to pursue unorthodox research. At Brown’s international relations program, the director, Nina Tannenwald, associate director Claudia Elliott, and academic programs manager Anita Nester unfailingly supported my academic ambitions.
Astute readers reviewed this book’s final manuscript and measurably improved it. James Stone identified a section that was too long and detailed. Michael Rezendes suggested a better way of organizing the book. Jonathan Sperber pointed out a flaw in one key section. My editor, Paul Golob, added clarity and elegance.
The name of the project Gottlieb directed is variously spelled with and without a hyphen. I have standardized it as MK-ULTRA to avoid confusion.
Discovering Sidney Gottlieb as I wrote this book was a fascinating but troubling experience. All who helped me have my gratitude. The conclusions and assessments on these pages, along with any errors of fact or judgment, are my own.
Also by Stephen Kinzer
The True Flag: Theodore Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of American Empire
The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War
Reset: Iran, Turkey, and America’s Future
A Thousand Hills: Rwanda’s Rebirth and the Man Who Dreamed It
Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq
All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror
Crescent and Star: Turkey Between Two Worlds
Blood of Brothers: Life and War in Nicaragua
Bitter Fruit: The Untold Story of the American Coup in Guatemala (coauthor, with Stephen Schlesinger)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
STEPHEN KINZER is the author of nine books, including The True Flag, The Brothers, Overthrow, and All the Shah’s Men. An award-winning foreign correspondent, he served as the New York Times bureau chief in Nicaragua, Germany, and Turkey. He is a senior fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University and writes a world affairs column for the Boston Globe. He lives in Boston. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Epigraph
1. I Needed More of a Challenge
2. Dirty Business
3. Willing and Unwilling Subjects
4. The Secret That Was Going to Unlock the Universe
5. Abolishing Consciousness
6. Any Effort to Tamper with This Project, MK-ULTRA, Is Not Permitted
7. Fell or Jumped
8. Operation Midnight Climax
9. The Divine Mushroom
10. Health Alteration Committee
11. We Must Always Remember to Thank the CIA
12. Let This Die with Us
13. Some of Our People Were Out of Control in Those Days
14. I Feel Victimized
15. If Gottlieb Is Found Guilty, It Would Be a Real First
16. You Never Can Know What He Was
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Photos
Acknowledgments
Also by Stephen Kinzer
About the Author
Copyright
POISONER IN CHIEF. Copyright © 2019 by Stephen Kinzer. All rights reserved. For information, address Henry Holt and Co., 120 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10271.
www.henryholt.com
Cover design by Nicolette Seeback
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Names: Kinzer, Stephen, author.
Title: Poisoner in chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA search for mind
control / Stephen Kinzer.
Description: First edition. | New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019007076 | ISBN 9781250140432 (hardcover)
Subjects: LCSH: Gottlieb, Sidney, 1918–1999. | Project MKULTRA. | Brainwashing—United States—History—20th century. | Hallucinogenic drugs—United States—History—20th century. | LSD (Drug)—United States—History—20th century. | United States. Central Intelligence Agency—History—20th century.
Classification: LCC JK486.I6 K56 2019 | DDC 327.12730092 [B]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019007076
e-ISBN 9781250140449
First Edition: October 2019
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