The CIA Doctors

by Colin A. Ross, M. D.

  Later, when her boyfriend took her to Mackinaw for a romantic weekend, there was a lot of what Linda called “swooshy water” around. For unknown reasons, water triggered several pseudoseizures during the period Linda was recovering from her depatterning. Whether these seizures had anything to do with something that happened to her at the Moral Rearmament camp, is unknown.

  There is no documentation that Dr. Cameron knew anything sinister or secret about the Oxford Group. However, there is a connection to politics, power, and weapons in Linda MacDonald’s life. Her husband worked for the Canadian Armament Research Development Establishment (CARDE). His immediate boss at CARDE was a man who sold arms to Saddam Hussein. His boss was also tied into the Iran-Contra affair and was murdered in Europe a few years ago. It is unlikely that Linda MacDonald’s memory was wiped out for political, intelligence, or military reasons based on her husband’s employment at CARDE, unless he told her classified secrets and she was considered a bad security risk. However, the question arises whether any of Dr. Cameron’s depatterning subjects were selected for intelligence reasons, in which case the function of other subjects would in part be to provide cover.

  In her childhood and adolescence, Linda was a singer. She and her sister made a record at the Chateau Laurier, a famous old Ottawa hotel. Commenting on the tape, Linda said to me, “It’s funny to listen to the other Linda - no way you would guess the voice on the tape is the same person.”

  Describing the other Linda’s admission to the Allan Memorial Institute, Linda said, “She walked in with her guitar under her arm.”

  The Linda who was erased by Dr. Cameron was a very lively person. In 1955, her boyfriend moved to another city to go to university. She was left behind with her parents in Ottawa. Her parents liked Tom (a pseudonym) but didn’t want the couple to get married yet. Linda’s solution?

  She borrowed $5.00 from her sister and caught a bus to Toronto, on the pretense of going to a football game. She and Tom were married in Toronto that night at 6:00 P.M. She caught the midnight bus back to Ottawa and sang in church as a soloist the next day. That Christmas her parents changed their minds and decided it would be all right for Tom and Linda to get married the next summer.

  In response, Linda told her parents she was already married, which did not go over well. Her mother kicked her out of the house. Linda went to live in the attic of Tom’s parents’ house initially, because they were away in Florida. During her life before and after the Allan Memorial Institute, she has done many resourceful things.

  Linda has a good relationship with her parents now, and has had for many years. During the period from March 28 to September 12, 1963 while she was at the Allan Memorial Institute, her parents were not allowed to visit her, except for one visit by her father in August. The only time Linda has ever seen her father cry was during a 1984 television interview, in which he described Linda’s vegetable state during that August visit. Linda and Tom divorced in 1972, and she has never remarried.

  Since 1972, Linda was always worked and supported herself. She has had a variety of interesting, responsible jobs including singing at a Hyatt Hotel, managing property, and working as a rehabilitation officer for the Canadian government.

  Life changed for Linda when the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation program, The Fifth Estate, aired a segment on Val Orlikow and Dr. Cameron on January 17, 1984. On January 20, the Canadian government delivered its first formal protest about MKULTRA to the U.S. State Department. A Vancouver newspaper ran a full page story on Robert Loggie, a Vancouver man who had been experimented on by Dr. Cameron; Loggie was a plaintiff in the class action suit against the CIA for Dr. Cameron’s MKULTRA experiments, which was settled out of court for $750,000.00, divided among the nine plaintiffs, in 1988.

  Linda’s mother phoned her about The Fifth Estate program. Linda’s response was, “Mother, that has nothing to do with who I am now.”

  Despite her response to her mother, Linda shook a lot in reaction to the news, was scared, and didn’t know what to do. Through a reporter she got in touch with Jim Turner, a Washington lawyer representing the nine Canadian plaintiffs in the suit against the CIA. He advised Linda that she could not be a party to the class action suit against the CIA because she was “treated” by Dr. Cameron after his CIA funding had stopped. The Canadian government had picked up the funding by 1963 (see Canadian government grants to Dr. Cameron in Appendix H). Eventually, with much effort, she was referred to Canadian lawyer, Tom Berger, who got her $100,000.00 plus legal fees from the Canadian government. As part of her settlement, Linda agreed never to sue the Allan Memorial Institute.

  The purpose of Dr. Cameron’s depatterning was to create amnesia. Whether Linda MacDonald’s amnesia should be classified as dissociative amnesia by the diagnostic rules of the American Psychiatric Association12, or a form of organic amnesia depends on whether her memory is permanently erased, or intact but inaccessible. It is possible that intensive psychotherapy could result in the recovery of accurate memories. It would be difficult to demonstrate whether the recovered memories were indeed accurate, and if they were, whether she remembered them herself or reconstructed them from information provided by relatives since 1963.

  When I interviewed her in 1993, the possibility of recovering the “erased” memories was a moot point because Linda had decided against any such attempt on the grounds that it would be too painful and stressful, with uncertain benefits. Today, she is considering trying to recover her stolen past through therapy. Whether that is possible, and whether it would be helpful, is unknown.

  17

  MARY RAY

  Mary Ray was employed as a research assistant at the University of Minnesota from 1964 to 1966. She became an experimental subject when her boss, Dr. Amedeo Marrazzi, gave her an injection of 65 micrograms of LSD on January 15, 1966, as part of an experiment funded by the Air Force. She had a bad reaction to the LSD and was kept in the hospital overnight under the care of Dr. James Janecek, who sent a copy of his discharge summary to Dr. W.L. Pew. Dr. Janecek described Mary Ray as “acutely psychotic, hallucinating freely, complaining of tremendous fear of not coming out of this state, experiencing rapid passage of time and completely disoriented as to time, place and person.”

  Dr. Janecek’s diagnosis was, “Acute brain syndrome associated with LSD” and he stated that, “This patient should not receive LSD again or any other hallucinogenic drug.” In view of her symptoms and reaction, it is doubtful that the actual dosage of LSD was 65 micrograms. It is much more likely that the dosage was in the range of 400 micrograms referred to by Dr. Louis Jolyon West 2 (see Chapter 7).

  There is no evidence from Dr. Janecek’s C.V. or publications that he was ever involved in mind control research. His military service in Vietnam as Commanding Officer of the 175th Medical Detachment, with the rank of Major, was from June, 1967 to October, 1969, which is subsequent to his treating Mary Ray.

  Mrs. Ray’s description of her bad LSD trip in Senate testimony matches the medical record of Dr. Janecek closely (Biomedical and Behavioral Research, 1975, pp. 122):

  Mrs. RAY. I went through a state of absolute terror, panic, I have a very hard time verbalizing because unless a person has been through this, it is very hard to explain. I started out after the injection with nausea and shaking and feeling cold and wanting to run away, but not knowing from what. As I got worse and worse, I realized something was very wrong. I felt they may have given me too much or maybe they accidentally went into a vein, and I told the student that I wanted to go to the emergency room.

  I was absolutely desperate, and he said he was sorry, but he could not take me there without some sort of authority. This was on a Saturday, and there just was nobody in the building. There was no one but the two of us who I knew of. He got on the telephone and tried dialing Marazzi who never seemed to be around. He was never around when I was around. He dialed all kinds of people and could not get through, so I tried to go out through the window. He was holding on to me. He hollered,
and another student walked through, and the two of them took me to the emergency room. At this time it was about the worst. I was in a state of becoming the universe. I became objects. I was no longer a person. I was in a state of absolute terror.

  The closest thing I can remember being like that was as a child, when I was given ether, the feeling before losing consciousness, and this time I could bring myself back enough to realize that I was a person out of this billowing black seething weirdness, this horror.

  I looked down and I saw my arms which were two white rivers with black threads and they were my veins. I realized even though I was not really a person that I could end all this nightmare, this hell, by cutting my veins.

  Then I concentrated on this problem for what seemed like centuries, because time did not exist. It was a strange time disorder. I tried desperately to kill myself, and at this point there was no question in my mind that if I had some sort of sharp instrument, and if I were alone, I would have killed myself.

  And no one seemed to know how to handle the situation. No one seemed to know what to do. It seemed like kids playing scientists.

  Senator KENNEDY. There was no adequate medical supervision during this period of time?

  Mrs. RAY. When I saw patients going in I never saw Dr. Marazzi around. There were just students.

  Senator KENNEDY. Were you permitted to go to the emergency room when you wanted to?

  Mrs. RAY. No, the student told me he just could not take me there; he had to get some authorization first.

  Senator KENNEDY. And you contemplated suicide?

  Mrs. RAY. It was not just contemplating; I was desperately trying to find out how I could commit suicide.

  Senator MATHIAS. Is that why you tried to get out the window, that you were just trying to escape?

  Mrs. RAY. At that point I did not consider it suicide. I was just trying to get away. I wanted to run away.

  Senator MATHIAS. It was just getting out of there that was important.

  Mrs. RAY. Yes. I did not care that I was on the third floor. I just had to be away. I was like an animal in a cage. I did not want to be trapped. I was held against my will, even though I guess I should not have been.

  Asked by Senator Kennedy about the long term side effects of the bad LSD trip, Mrs. Ray testified:

  Mrs. RAY. Before this I was quite a relaxed person despite a rather traumatic life, and right after that, starting the date I got the LSD, I have been overwhelmed, flooded with anxiety almost 24 hours a day. It has never changed, and this is over 9 years ago. That is the most important problem I have had, flashbacks to more or less a degree, a feeling of going back to that terrible world. I have had nightmares, I have developed an intolerance to any sort of stimulants. One cup of coffee after noon will keep me awake all night, and things like that.

  But at the time it influenced me quite a bit because I had to quit school. I was hospitalized when I had the LSD experience, but that was not the end of it. I had to go through 6 ½ months of psychiatric therapy. I was referred to a psychiatrist the next week, and that was very expensive for a student. To add insult to injury, I received a hospital bill after I was admitted for the treatment for me under the LSD, which I sent to Dr. Marazzi. After that point I never seen or heard from him again.

  Senator KENNEDY. Do you want to try to get some kind of additional follow-up help or assistance?

  Mrs. RAY. Not from them.

  Senator KENNEDY. You did not care if you ever saw them again?

  Mrs. RAY. I did not want to ever see him again.

  Dr. Amedeo Marrazzi was born in New York City on February 6, 1905. He died in Grosse Pointe, Michigan on January 11, 1980. His LSD research was funded by Air Force grant AF-AFOSR-764-65. Dr. Marrazzi published papers with both William L. Pew, M.D. and Richard Meisch, M.D.186.

  In a paper entitled “Quantified LSD Effect on Ego Strength”186, an 18-year old girl identified as J.M. is described as “having entered a period of mutism lasting three days.” The paper contains J.M.’s Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) profiles for Pre LSD (8/30/65), Post LSD (9/14/65) and Recovery (9/22/65). The Pre-LSD MMPI is normal. The Post-LSD profile is highly abnormal with a huge elevation on the schizophrenia scale, but has returned to normal by 9/22/65. This is likely the same patient described by Mary Ray in her Senate testimony:

  Senator KENNEDY. How old were these test subjects?

  Mrs. RAY. I remember one girl of 17, although I saw her written up as 18, and I remember another girl of 19, and the 18-year old definitely did not want to be part of the experiment.

  Senator KENNEDY. How did you know she did not?

  Mrs. RAY. I saw her as they were taking her in, and she said she won’t go, she won’t go, and they said, “Yes, you will,” and she said, “Don’t take me back to that hell.”: which makes me think she had had a previous experiment.

  Senator KENNEDY. What was she doing in there? You were all not forced or required to do this, were you?

  Mrs. RAY. She was a patient, and she was forced. They told her she had no choice. I remember this little episode very well. There was an aide on her arm restraining her, and an orderly on another, and she kept saying she did not want to go in, and they said - I do not know which it was who said that, but they said, “You have to go; you have no choice.”

  Senator KENNEDY. What did the doctor tell her?

  Mrs. RAY. There was no doctor there. But I went back then about 1 or 2 hours later, and at this point she was totally disintegrated. She was absolutely psychotic. Before this she was a very normal appearing person; she would gossip and joke. I even remember a joke she told me. She was attractive and talkative. But afterwards she was just a mess. She was taken back to the ward, and she was for like 4 days mute, and you could not get through to her in any way. I tried to test her, and I went into her room and she was just staring straight ahead. I went like this [waving hands], and it was nothing; she did not seem to see me. I took her to the testing room where there were four others, and she walked right through a chair as though it was not there. Any position I put her body in, she would stay in.

  Dr. Marrazzi worked as the Director of the Veterans Administration Research Laboratories in Neuropsychiatry in Pittsburgh from 1954 to 1964 before moving to the University of Minnesota. Prior to that he was Chief of the Toxicology Branch at the Chemical Corps Medical Laboratories, Army Chemical Center, Maryland (Edgeware Arsenal) from 1948 to 1951. From 1951 to 1956 he was Assistant Scientific Director of the Medical Directorate at the Chemical Warfare Laboratories. This puts him in the thick of the action for MKULTRA and MKNAOMI.

  A letter from CIA Director Allen Dulles to the Secretary of Defense dated December 3, 1955 confirms that the CIA funded research by the Army, Navy and various universities. The letter specifically identifies the Army Chemical Corps and the Office of Naval Research. Six individuals are identified in the letter: Dr. Wilson Greene, Technical Director, Chemical Corps, Chemical and Radiological Laboratories, Army Chemical Center; Dr. Amedeo Marrazzi (his first name is spelled incorrectly in the letter), Medical Center, Army Chemical Center; Captain Clifford P. Phoebus, Chief, Biological Services Division, Office of Naval Research; Brigadier General Don D. Elickinger, ARDC, U.S. Air Force; and Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Bahlin, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Research and Development).

  In his Presidential Address to the Society for Biological Psychiatry, entitled “An Experimentalist Looks at Psychiatry,” Dr. Marrazzi185 discusses the substance, taraxein extracted from the blood of schizophrenics by CIA contractor Dr. Robert Heath. He describes his own LSD research and includes a photograph of a “Skinner booth for humans” (see Appendix L). Dr. Marrazzi’s LSD experiments were carried out in an Ames leaf room.

  The Ames leaf room was created by Dr. A. Ames13 on contract to the Office of Naval Research. It is a room in which the walls, floor and ceiling slope at strange angles. The subject sits just inside the room, which has one open end, such that his peripheral vision cannot dete
ct anything outside the room. The surfaces of the room are entirely covered with leaves. The subject then puts on special goggles with anisokonic lenses that further distort all the angles of the walls, floor and ceiling. Added to this extreme perceptual distortion are the effects of the LSD given to the subject.

  As depicted in the photograph in Marrazzi’s185 paper (see Appendix L), the subject is instructed to adjust a white bar at the far end of the Ames leaf room until it appears horizontal. This is done using two controls the subject can grasp with his hands. The purpose of the experiments, according to Dr. Marrazzi was to provide a measure of the subject’s resistance or susceptibility to “cerebral disintegrative stress,” which, translated, means resistance to brainwashing and intensive interrogation. Subjects were a group of healthy nurses containing “a sub-group that a psychiatrist had assessed as normal but labile and potentially more apt to succumb to stress.”

  The references for Dr. Marrazzi’s185 Presidential Address to the Society of Biological Psychiatry include papers by Dr. Robert Heath, CIA contractor and brain electrode specialist; Dr. Wilder Penfield, co-author of MKULTRA and MKSEARCH contractor, Dr. Maitland Baldwin; Office of Naval Research contractor, Dr. A. Ames; and Dr. Paul Hoch, who killed Harold Blauer with an injection of U. S. Army mescaline in 1953.