The CIA Doctors
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OTHER CIA
MIND CONTROL PROGRAMS
There is very little declassified information about other CIA mind control programs besides BLUEBIRD, ARTICHOKE, MKULTRA and MKSEARCH. Freedom of Information Act requests on them have not yielded any material beyond the documents on BLUEBIRD, ARTICHOKE, MKULTRA and MKSEARCH released by the CIA in the 1970’s. These other programs also involved experiments by doctors on interrogation of subjects, creation of amnesia, detecting double agents, and mind control. The following summaries are mostly from Project MKULTRA, the CIA’s Program of Research in Behavioral Modification.
PROJECT CHATTER
CHATTER was a Navy project begun in 1947 to test drugs that would make a subject talk during interrogation. The Air Force, Army, CIA, and FBI were also involved. One CHATTER contractor was Professor George Wendt of the University of Rochester. At one point, according to an undated memo from the Secretary of Defense, the funding for CHATTER was $100,000.00 a year, however in 1950 the Navy awarded Wendt a single grant of $300,000.00. The actual total amount of funding Dr. Wendt received is unknown.
QKHILLTOP
This project was begun in 1954 to study Communist Chinese brainwashing techniques. Most of the early studies were probably carried out by the Cornell Medical Human Ecology Program. QKHILLTOP was absorbed into MKULTRA, and ceased to exist as a separate program.
MKDELTA
MKDELTA was a special procedure designed by the CIA to oversee MKULTRA research conducted abroad in the 1950’s. It involved the use of drugs in interrogation, therefore physicians, most likely psychiatrists, were direct participants. MKDELTA also funded research on the use of biological materials for “harassment, discrediting, or disabling purposes.”
THIRD CHANCE
THIRD CHANCE is described in Project MKULTRA, the CIA’s Program of Research in Behavioral Modification (p. 412). EA 1729 is LSD (see Appendix I for a listing of all mind control drugs tested by the Army up to 1973):
At the conclusion of the laboratory test phase of Material Testing Program EA 1729 in 1960, the Army Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence (ASCI) authorized operational field testing of LSD. The first field tests were conducted in Europe by an Army Special Purpose Team (SPT) during the period from May to August of 1961. These tests were known as Project THIRD CHANCE and involved eleven separate interrogations of ten subjects. None of the subjects were volunteers and none were aware that they were to receive LSD. All but one subject, a U.S. soldier implicated in the theft of classified documents, were alleged to be foreign intelligence sources or agents. While interrogations of these individuals were only moderately successful, at least one subject (the U.S. soldier) exhibited symptoms of severe paranoia while under the influence of the drug.
In a report dated September 6, 12961, the following conclusions about the interrogation of the U.S. soldier were presented (p. 415):
(1) This case demonstrated the ability to interrogate a subject profitably throughout a highly sustained and almost incapacitating reaction to EA 1729.
(2) The apparent value of bringing the subject into the EA 1729 situation in a highly stressed state was indicated.
(3) The usefulness of employing as a stress factor the device of inviting the subject’s attention to his EA 1729-influenced state and threatening to extend this state indefinitely even to a permanent condition of insanity, or to bring it to an end at the discretion of the interrogators was shown to be effective.
(4) The need for preplanned precautions against extreme paranoiac reaction to EA 1729 was indicated.
(5) It was brought to attention by this case that where subject has undergone extended intensive interrogation prior to the EA 1729 episode and has persisted in a version repeatedly during conventional interrogation, adherence to the same version while under EA 1729 influence, however extreme the reaction, may not necessarily be evidence of truth but merely the ability to adhere to a well rehearsed story.
The trip report also stated that, “The interrogation results were deemed by the local operational authority satisfactory evidence of Subject’s claim of innocence in regard to espionage intent.”
DERBY HAT
DERBY HAT was the Far eastern equivalent of THIRD CHANCE. In one experiment a suspected Asian agent was given 6 micrograms of LSD per kilogram of body weight and interrogated for seventeen and one-half hours. At one point he was semicomatose and was described as “shocky.”
OFTEN/CHICKWIT
A CIA program divided into two subcomponents was begun at Edgeware Arsenal in 1967. Testing on human subjects continued until at least 1973. Project OFTEN was designed to test the behavioral effects of drugs on animals and humans, while CHICKWIT was created to gather intelligence on new drug development in Europe and the Orient. One of the drugs tested in Project OFTEN was a hallucinogen called EA6167. It caused psychosis with subsequent amnesia lasting three to four days. According to the document in Appendix K, “Patients would see and hear persons not there and speak to them. Frequent complaints were bright lights or objects on the wall and roaches or flying insects in the room.”
Attempts were made under Project OFTEN to develop a “compound that could simulate a heart attack or stroke in the targeted individual, or perhaps a new hallucinogen to cause the targeted individual to act bizarrely.” Subjects in OFTEN testing were soldiers and prisoners, two groups that can be compelled to participate without true informed consent being given.
STARGATE
In cooperation with the military, the CIA ran a project called STARGATE that stopped in 1984. At least $20 million was spent on remote viewing and other paranormal methods of spying. Much of the work was done at the Stanford Research Institute. Major contractors included Edwin May, Hal Puthoff and Russell Targ280. Early work on STARGATE subject matter was done as far back as BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE; scattered discussion of paranormal phenomena can be found in those documents. MKULTRA Subproject 136 involved an $8,579.00 grant to an unwitting investigator in 1961 for an experimental analysis of extrasensory perception.
The CIA funded work on extrasensory perception and paranormal phenomena through a variety of different programs from the early 1950’s until at least 1984. In STARGATE, remote viewers would leave their bodies and travel to remote locations to do surveillance. STARGATE documents have not yet been released through the Freedom of Information Act. STARGATE remote viewing is described by David Morehouse197, who was himself a remote viewer, in his book Psychic Warrior.
Technically, STARGATE was not a mind control program in the usual sense, although it involved controlling certain properties of the human mind. It perhaps could be better described as a program that tapped certain powers of the mind. There is no evidence that any STARGATE activities violated medical ethics. The remote viewing was conducted under a series of cryptonyms including STARGATE and GRILL FLAME. Remote viewing work was being done in the private sector into the 1990s, with medical oversight by MKULTRA contractor, Dr. Louis Jolyon West280.
MKNAOMI
MKNAOMI was a joint project of the CIA and the Army’s Special Operations Division in Fort Detrick, Maryland. It ran from 1953 to 1970. MKNAOMI involved “developing, testing, and maintaining biological agents and delivery systems for use against humans as well as against animals and crops.” The number of human subjects who participated in MKNAOMI, and the complete list of chemical agents used, is unknown. MKNAOMI received CIA money through MKULTRA Subprojects 13, 30 and 50 (see Appendix C for Subproject 50 document).
Additional information on MKNAOMI is available in Biological Testing Involving Human Subjects By the Department of Defense, 1977. This is a transcript of Senate Committee hearings chaired by Edward Kennedy on March 8 and May 23, 1977. MKNAOMI dealt mainly with biological and chemical warfare. It also solidified a relationship between the CIA and the Special Operations Division at Camp Detrick that included hallucinogen and mind control research.
OTHER PROGRAMS
William Sinclair Augerson, M.D., testified to
a Senate Committee about Army LSD research that was ongoing in 1977, when LSD was a controlled substance. Dr. Augerson obtained his M.D. at Cornell in 1955 and worked as a physician at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and in NASA’s Project Mercury. In August, 1976 he became Commander of the U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command. Dr. Augerson testified that (Biological Testing Involving Human Subjects By the Department of Defense, 1977, p. 238):
The LSD follow-up study has moved slower than we wished, due to the problems of organizing a control group, as well as the persistent problem of constrained clinical resources. We will complete the matched study of 50 controls, 50 LSD subjects in midsummer. When that study is complete, we should be able to move faster on the remaining subjects.
Dr. Augerson stated that the LSD research was being done at Edgeware Arsenal, located at Camp Detrick. His testimony proves that Army LSD experiments continued at least into the late 1970’s, well after the termination of MKSEARCH in 1972.
Biological warfare (BW) and chemical warfare (CW) research was run out of Edgeware Arsenal but also involved testing in many other locations including Dugway Proving Ground, Utah. As in the radiation experiments described in an earlier chapter, BW/CW research involved releasing bacteria, fungi and viruses into general population areas. The bacterium Serratia marascens was released in many locations including New York (June 7-10, 1966), San Francisco (September, 1950), and Pennsylvania State Highway #16 westward for one mile from Benchmark #193 (January 7, 1955). Other infectious agents released into civilian populations included Aspergillus fumigatus and Bacillus globigii.
Dr. Wheat and coathors332 published a paper in the Archives of Internal Medicine describing eleven Serratia marascens infections observed in one San Francisco Hospital between September 1950 and February 1951. The paper was published because Serratia marascens infections are very rare. In its submission to Senator Kennedy’s committee hearing entitled U.S. Army Activity in the U.S. Biological Warfare Programs, Volume 11, 24 February 1977 Unclassified, the Army denied a causal relationship between its secret experiments and the civilian infections reported by Dr. Wheat.
The Chief, Chemical Division, TSS wrote a memo to the Deputy Director of Security of the CIA on 18 May 1953 in which he stated his concern that a chemical weapon might have been tested on unwitting civilians in Gallup, New Mexico:
Reference is made to our conversation concerning the attached newspaper article which appeared in the 14 May issue of the Washington Star. Please note the report from Gallup, New Mexico reported by doctors that residents of that city have been bothered by a wave of nausea and lightheadedness. Although the possibility is remote, it may be that “seranim” could be involved and it is suggested that a routine inquiry, through Public Health, be made as to the facts of the case.
The chemical identity of the compound “seranim” is unknown, although the spelling of the name and the effects of the compound suggest that it could be sarin or a related nerve gas.
A number of committees oversaw the CW/BW research including the Interagency Survey Committee Chaired in 1959 by David E. Price, Chief, Bureau of State Services, U.S. Public Health Services. The committee included representation from the Johns Hopkins Hospital. A similar committee, the Ad Hoc Committee for Dugway Proving Ground, was chaired by Leonard A. Scheele, M.D., Surgeon General in 1953; membership on that committee included the Operations Research Office and the Johns Hopkins University. In 1961 Johns Hopkins was represented on the Board of the CIA mind control cutout, The Human Ecology Foundation, by Dr. John Whitehorn, Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry, Johns Hopkins. A Johns Hopkins researcher received money through MKULTRA Subproject 87 in 1958.
MKULTRA and MKSEARCH Institutions listed by the U.S. Army as having received BW/CW contracts from Fort Detrick include Columbia University, Cornell University, Emory University, Florida State University, University of Illinois, University of Indiana, Johns Hopkins University, University of Maryland, University of Minnesota, Montana State University, University of Pennsylvania, Stanford, University of Texas, Yale University, and the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology (see chapter on G.H. Estabrooks).
The CIA maintained its relationship with this network of BW/CW and mind control contractors through MKULTRA, MKSEARCH and MKNAOMI, which provided funding of the Special Operations Division at Fort Detrick. In 1963 the CIA’s Inspector General estimated that the annual transfer of funds from the Technical Services Division of the CIA (which ran MKULTRA and MKNAOMI) to Fort Detrick at $90,000.00.
A memo from Thomas H. Karamessines, Deputy Director for Plans, CIA, to Richard Helms, Director of the CIA declassified on September 15, 1975 describes ten chemical warfare agents and six toxins stored at Fort Detrick for the CIA:
Agents:
1. Bacillus anthracis (anthrax) - 100 grams
2. Pasturella tularensis (tularemia) - 20 grams
3. Venezuelan Equine Encephalomyelitis virus (encephalitis) - 20 grams
4. Cocccidiodes imnitis (valley fever) - 20 grams
5. Brucella suis (brucellosis) - 2 to 3 grams
6. Brucella melitensis (brucellosis) - 2 to 3 grams
7. Mycobacterium tuberculosis (tuberculosis) - 5 grams
8. Salmonella typhimurium (food poisoning) - 10 grams
9. Salmonella typhimurium (chlorine resistant) (food poisoning)-3 grams
10. Variola virus (small pox) - 50 grams
Toxins:
1. Staphylococcal Enterotoxin (food poisoning) - 10 grams
2. Clostridium botulinum Type A (lethal food poisoning) - 5 grams
3. Paralytic Shellfish Poison - 5.193 grams
4. Bungarus Candidis Venom (Krait) (lethal snake venom) - 2 grams
5. Microcystis aeruginosa toxin (intestinal flu) - 25 mg.
6. Toxiferine (paralyic effect) - 100 mg
Several of these materials were also the subject of MKULTRA contracts. The only field use of these materials described by the CIA was hand-launched darts taken on a mission to bug a North Vietnamese embassy in a southeast Asian country. The darts were to deliver an incapacitant to the guard dogs. They were unnecessary because the dogs accepted meat laced with the incapacitant.
The CIA also described a successful biological warfare mission carried out by the OSS against Hjalmar Schacht, a German economist. He was unable to speak at an economic conference because he was given staphylococcus enterotoxin food poisoning by the OSS.
The MKULTRA Subprojects by magician John Mulholland involved teaching the CIA methods of clandestine delivery of materials in the field. They are linked to the MKNAOMI BW/CW materials. Offensive use of BW/CW weapons by the United States was banned by President Nixon on November 26, 1969.
A research program called PROJECT WHITECOAT began in 1959. It involved an agreement between the U.S. Army and the Seventh Day Adventist Church by which 2200 conscientious objectors were recruited at Fort Sam Houston to serve as research subjects. Another 800 Seventh Day Adventist personnel served as technicians and ward attendants. All these individuals received non-combatant, or I-A-O, draft status. WHITECOAT continued until 1973. Subjects were studied at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and were immunized against and infected with dozens of different viruses and bacteria, all listed by the Army in detail.
After termination of PROJECT WHITECOAT, volunteers for medical experiments were recruited at Fort Sam Houston through Provision AR 601-210, under the enlistment status of Medical Research Volunteer Subject. The Army reported that 76 MRVS subjects were enlisted at Fort Sam Houston in 1976, and two further individuals in January and February, 1977.
AR 601-210 was necessary because conscientious objectors could not enlist as medical experiment volunteers when there was no active draft program, according to prior Army regulations. This meant that the supply of WHITECOAT volunteers was cut off at the end of the Vietnam War.
Mind control research took place in a broad network of BW/CW research, chemical development, and radiation experiments. Physicians includ
ing psychiatrists were involved in an extensive, systematic way in this network of contractors, and they also participated in reviewing and allocating grant money to investigators with TOP SECRET clearance. Subjects in the experiments were sometimes unwitting civilians. At other times they were soldiers, prisoners, mental patients, sex offenders, cancer patients and other individuals who were unwitting, or who could not give meaningful informed consent.