The CIA Doctors

by Colin A. Ross, M. D.

  A paper by Ditman, Moss, Forgy, Zunin, Lynch and Funk78 was entitled, “Dimensions of the LSD, Methylphenidate and Chlordiazepoxide Experiences.” First author Keith Ditman, Research Psychiatrist, Neuropsychiatric Institute, UCLA, first took LSD himself when it was supplied to him by his colleague, Dr. Cholden1 (see Chapter 7). Fourth author, Leonard M. Zunin, is described in a footnote as Assistant Chief, Neuropsychiatry, Naval Hospital, Camp Pendelton, California.

  In the paper, Ditman et al.78 reference MKULTRA Subcontractor Harold Abramson’s2 edited book on the second CIA-sponsored LSD symposium, and LSD papers by Drs. Savage275 and Malitz177, who attended the first CIA-sponsored LSD symposium.

  Dr. Moss consulted to NASA, the Rand Corporation (contractor on MKULTRA Subproject 79), ARPA (The Defense Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency) and the CIA on radiation photography, also known as Kirlian photography, according to her curriculum vitae. One of her papers200, published in the Journal of Parapsychology was entitled “ESP Effects in “Artists” Contrasted with “Non-Artists.”” Other papers included “Quantitative Investigation of a “Haunted House”204; “ESP Over Long Distance”199; “Telepathy in the Waking State”201; “Hypnosis and ESP: A Controlled Experiment”206; “The Effect of Belief on ESP Success”202; “Skin Vision and Telepathy in a Blind Subject”205; and “Is There An Energy Body?”203.

  Dr. Moss’ curriculum vitae lists numerous presentations on ESP including to the UCLA medical students and psychiatry residents. She was also interviewed by newspapers many times and appeared on many television programs including 60 Minutes. There would appear to be a contradiction between Dr. Moss’ career at UCLA’s Neuropsychiatric Institute, which began in 1966, Dr. West being Director of the Neuropsychiatric Institute from 1969 to 1989, and Dr. West and Singer’s 1980 statement that research such as hers “would have seemed outrageously mystical 20 years ago.”

  Files for MKULTRA Subproject 43, for which Dr. West was the contractor with TOP SECRET clearance, contain a letter to an unidentified Major dated 18 April 1955. The letter states that:

  Due to circumstances beyond our control, our channel of communication has been changed. Beginning upon receipt of this letter, all mail will be addressed to the following location: [whited out]

  The instructions listed below must be followed implicitly:

  1. All communications MUST BE double enveloped.

  2. The outer envelope MUST BE addressed as indicated above.

  3. All mail MUST BE transmitted as first class mail, registered, return receipt requested.

  4. True or full names MUST NOT appear in any of the correspondence. Reference to our personnel may be made by first name and last initial or to the individual’s assigned nom de plume.

  5. Be sure that ALL persons responsible for preparing or transmitting correspondence to us are properly advised of this change of address and ALL instructions are understood. Should any questions arise incident to this change, please let us know immediately.

  The fact that Dr. West was the contractor on MKULTRA Subproject 43 is proven by a letter dated 29 February 1956 from “[whited out], M.D., Professor of Psychiatry, Head of Department.” The INSTITUTIONAL NOTIFICATIONS provided by the CIA under the Freedom of Information Act indicate that the University of Oklahoma was the site of MKULTRA Subproject 43, and Dr. West’s curriculum vitae indicates that he was “Professor and Head” of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Oklahoma from 1954 to 1969.

  A letter from Dr. West to Sidney Gottlieb dated 29 February 1956 states:

  Up to today I have been working very hard on my assigned investigation of POW problems for the Air Force. Some interesting things have turned up in the process of this study, bearing upon potential research issues of material interest to all concerned.

  It is possible that I may be in Washington again in the very near future. [Whited out] will know about it before I will; if you want to see me, get in touch with him and find out whether the Surgeon General is going to be calling me up there next week.

  Dr. West was co-editor of a book entitled Hallucinations. Behavior, Experience, and Theory285. One of the contributors to this book, Theodore Sarbin, Ph.D., is a member of the Scientific and Professional Advisory Board of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation (FMSF). Other members of the FMSF Board include Dr. Martin Orne, Dr. Margaret Singer, Dr. Richard Ofshe, Dr. Paul McHugh, Dr. David Dinges, Dr. Harold Lief, Emily Carota Orne, and Dr. Michael Persinger. The connections of these individuals to the mind control network are analyzed in this and the next two chapters.

  Dr. Sarbin272 (see Ross, 1997) believes that multiple personality disorder is almost always a therapist-created artifact and does not exist as a naturally-occurring disorder, a view adhered to by Dr. McHugh188, 189, Dr. Ofshe213 and other members of the FMSF Board191, 243. Dr. Ofshe is a colleague and co-author of Dr. Singer214, who is in turn a colleague and co-author of Dr. West329. Denial of the reality of multiple personality by these doctors in the mind control network, who are also on the FMSF Scientific and Professional Advisory Board, could be disinformation. The disinformation could be amplified by attacks on specialists in multiple personality as CIA conspiracy lunatics3, 79, 191, 213.

  The FMSF is the only organization in the world that has attacked the reality of multiple personality in an organized, systematic fashion. FMSF Scientific and Professional Advisory Board Members publish most of the articles and letters to editors of psychiatry journals hostile to multiple personality disorder. They claim that most if not all cases have been created unwittingly by therapists, using the same techniques of mind control employed by destructive cults. Is this honest academic opinion, or disinformation? If any of the FMSF Scientific and Professional Advisory Board Members are attacking multiple personality disorder for disinformation purposes, this is itself a violation of professional and medical ethics.

  Another of Dr. West’s318 publications is a chapter entitled “Hypnosis in Medical Practice” in a book edited by Dr. Harold Lief. Dr. Lief is a Member of the FMSF Board and a coauthor of Tulane brain electrode specialist and CIA contractor, Dr. Robert Heath121, 161. Dr. Lief has also functioned as the personal treating psychiatrist for Dr. Peter Freyd, husband of Dr. Pamela Freyd, Executive Director of the FMSF.

  Dr. Michael Persinger235, another FSMF Board Member, is the author of a paper entitled “Elicitation of ‘Childhood Memories’ in Hypnosis-Like Settings Is Associated With Complex Partial Epileptic-Like Signs For Women But Not for Men: Implications for the False Memory Syndrome.” In the paper, Dr. Persinger writes:

  On the day of the experiment each subject (not more than two were tested per day) was asked to sit quietly in an acoustic chamber and was told that the procedure was an experiment in relaxation. The subject wore goggles and a modified motorcycle helmet through which 10-milligauss (I microTesla) magnetic fields were applied through the temporal plane. Except for a weak red (photographic developing) light, the room was dark.

  Dr. Persinger’s research on the ability of magnetic fields to facilitate the creation of false memories and altered states of consciousness is apparently funded by the Defense Intelligence Agency through the project cryptonym SLEEPING BEAUTY. Freedom of Information Act requests concerning SLEEPING BEAUTY with a number of different intelligence agencies including the CIA and DIA has yielded denial that such a program exists. Certainly, such work would be of direct interest to BLUEBIRD, ARTICHOKE, MKULTRA and other non-lethal weapons programs.

  Schnabel280 lists Dr. Persinger as an Interview Source in his book on remote viewing operations conducted under Stargate, Grill Flame and other cryptonyms at Fort Meade and on contract to the Stanford Research Institute. Schnabel states (p. 220) that, “As one of the Pentagon’s top scientists, Vorona was privy to some of the strangest, most secret research projects ever conceived. Grill Flame was just one. Another was code-named Sleeping Beauty; it was a Defense Department study of remote microwave mind-influencing techniques …”

  It appears from Schnabel’s w
ell-documented investigations that Sleeping Beauty is a real, but still classified mind control program. Schnabel280 lists Dr. West as an Interview Source and says that West was a, “Member of medical oversight board for Science Applications International Corp. remote-viewing research in early 1990s.”

  Brain research related to the work by Dr. Persinger was conducted at UCLA by Dr. William Ross Adey, who was born in Australia on January 31, 1922. Dr. Adey had already published in Australia before moving to California in 1954. His research at UCLA has been funded by the Office of Naval Research [ONR Contract 233 (91)], the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (Contract AF 49 (638)-1387) and NASA (Contract 9-1970).

  Dr. Adey’s work involved putting brain electrodes in cats and monkeys and giving the cats LSD and psilocybin7; these experiments were funded by “grant AF49 (638)-686 from the Office of Scientific Research of the U.S. Air Force and grant B-1883 from the U.S. Public Health Service.” The drugs were supplied by Sandoz Pharmaceuticals.

  A 1969 research project, also funded by the Air Force and the Public Health Service110 describes using EEG telemetry equipment on a 10-year old girl. The girl slept at home with external EEG leads on her head (not electrodes implanted in her brain), and the EEG signals were transmitted from the electrodes to a radio receiver, then fed into the phone line and transmitted to Dr. Adey’s lab two miles away. The EEG printout was read easily by laboratory personnel.

  In September, 1965, Dr. Adey attended a conference in Hakone, Japan. Dr. Adey and Dr. T. Tokizane6 edited the proceedings. In this volume, brain research funding is acknowledged as coming from the U.S. Army Research and Development Group (Far East), the Office of Naval Research, NASA, the U.S. Air Force and the Army Chemical Corp. Presenters included Dr. Jose Delgado74, the brain electrode specialist from Yale whose paper includes photographs of monkeys running frantically in their cages because their brain electrodes are being stimulated by a remote transmitter.

  Like Dr. Persinger, Dr. Adey4 also did experiments in which subjects’ heads were placed in electromagnetic fields. This work was funded by U.S. Air Force Contract F44620-70-C-0017. Other papers of his were entitled “Prolonged Effects of LSD on EEG Records During Discriminative Performance in Cat: Evaluation by Computer Analysis”8 and “Autonomic Responses During A Replicable Interrogation”33; the latter research was funded by the Office of Naval Research.

  Dr. Adey was a member of the MIT Neurosciences Research Program and edited a volume for them entitled Brain Interaction with Weak Electric and Magnetic Fields5. Another 1977 volume in the same series was edited by Dr. Robert D. Hall of the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology (site of MKULTRA Subproject 8).

  Dr. Adey worked as a consultant for NASA, the Department of Energy and the Veterans Administration. He was the project leader for the Medical Hazards of Microwaves Exposure, US/USSR Exchange Program beginning in 1976. In the same year he became a member of the National Academy of Sciences panel on biosphere effects of extremely low frequency radiation. Both of these subjects are of direct relevance to non-lethal weapons programs.

  Other related brain work was to have been done at the UCLA Violence Project, which was to have been headed by Dr. Louis Jolyon West. Dr. West173 describes the demise of the Project prior to startup in a chapter entitled “Research on Violence: The Ethical Equation.” The book was edited by CIA contractor, Dr. Neil Burch (see Chapter 14). Other contributors to the volume include Dr. Frank Ervin from the Harvard brain electrode team, and doctors from Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, the Navy Medical Neuropsychiatric Research Unit, San Diego and the Veterans Administration Hospital, Salt Lake City. Dr. West writes:

  Actually Ervin was never involved with the CSRV [UCLA Center for the Study and Reduction of Violence] and had no part in its planning or development. Nevertheless, a radical students organization called Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) pounced on the “UCLA psychosurgery project” in wildly accusatory articles in the Daily Bruin and the underground press. Politically activist students suddenly began to picket with signs denouncing “A Clockwork Orange at UCLA”, “Stop Psychosurgery at UCLA”, “Fire Frank Ervin”, “Drive West into the Sea” and the like.

  At first the staff assumed that the sudden hostile attack on the yet unfunded center was essentially political. The theme seemed to be, “If Governor Reagan is for it, we are against it.” However, a small group of much more sophisticated political radicals, including two or three psychiatrists, took over the fight against the establishment of the CSRV. They went to many community groups and organizations, ranging from the American Civil Liberties Union to the Black Panther Party, and persuaded them that the proposed center was in fact racist, sexist, and dangerous to human rights; in fact, nothing less than a government-sponsored program for mind control.

  Funding for the UCLA Violence Project had been approved by Ronald Reagan but was withdrawn in response to public protest. The Project was to have been housed at a used Nike missile site outside Los Angeles. Dr. West states in a footnote to his chapter on the Project, that Dr. Frank Ervin had recently been recruited to the Department of Psychiatry at UCLA.

  Another California project cancelled due to public protest was a proposal to implant brain electrodes in prisoners at Vacaville State Prison, site of CIA mind control experiments on the drug pemoline under MKSEARCH103, 278. The prisoners were to be monitored by remote tracking technology post-discharge. If they entered a restricted area or exhibited sexual arousal patterns on remote EEG telemetry, a signal would be sent to their brain electrodes immobilizing them, and law enforcement personnel would be dispatched to apprehend them.

  Dr. Lois Jolyon West was cleared at TOP SECRET for his work on MKULTRA. His numerous connections to the mind control network illustrate how the network was maintained; not through any central conspiracy, but by an interlocking network of academic relationships, grants, conferences, and military appointments. Some doctors in the network were not funded directly by the CIA or military, but their work was of direct relevance to mind control, non-lethal weapons development, and the creation of controlled dissociation and Manchurian Candidates.

  11

  DR. MARTIN ORNE

  Martin Orne was born in Vienna on October 16, 1927. He died on February 11, 2000. Dr. Orne immigrated to the United States with his family in 1938, studied psychology at Harvard and then went to medical school, receiving his M.D. from Tufts University Medical School in 1955. He received his Ph.D. in psychology from Harvard in 1958 while in his first year of training in psychiatry. He received CIA money through MKULTRA Subproject 84 in 1958; Subproject documents indicate that he received TOP SECRET clearance from the CIA in 1960.

  In 1962, Dr. Orne founded the Institute for Experimental Psychiatry and married Emily Farrell Carota. Both he and his wife are on the Advisory Board of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation (FMSF). In 1964, Orne was recruited to the Institute of the Pennsylvania Hospital, where he remained until its closing over thirty years later. For about thirty years, he was the editor of The International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis.

  Martin Orne is one of the leading experts on hypnosis of the twentieth century. He is referenced throughout the hypnosis literature and received the Distinguished Scientific Award from the American Psychological Association in 1986. His curriculum vitae lists numerous awards, grants, publications and appointments including research grants from many military intelligence agencies (see Appendix F). His curriculum vitae does not list his MKULTRA contract nor his work for the National Security Agency. A reliable physician described to me Dr. Orne’s stopping off at a National Security Agency building while they were on a trip together to another location.

  Dr. Orne’s publications include a 1980 report223 with his wife, D.F. Dinges (a FMSF Board Member) and F.J. Evans entitled “Voluntary self-control of sleep to facilitate quasi-continuous performance. Fort Detrick, MD: U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command. (NTIS No AD-A102264).” A book chapter215 is entitled “The Pot
ential Uses of Hypnosis in Interrogation.” Dr. Orne216, 217 also published chapters in books edited by G.H. Estabrooks and Louis Jolyon West.

  Dr. Orne received research money from the CIA, Army, Navy and Air Force. He published many papers relevant to the creation of amnesia and Manchurian Candidates including one entitled “Can a hypnotized subject be compelled to carry out otherwise unacceptable behavior?”218. Another example is a paper entitled “Attempting to breach posthypnotic amnesia”224. Coauthor on that paper, Dr. John Kihlstrom is on the Advisory Board of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation.