MKUltra

Document describing roughly the use of LSD-25 in Project MKUltra

Project MKUltra was a human experimentation program carried out by the US Central Intelligence Agency with wide-ranging objectives, including study of the use of torture and the possibility of brainwashing. The program was carried out over several decades across multiple continents and involved the use of psychedelics, electronic shocks, sensory deprivation methods, and other methods of torture. The program was uncovered by the 1975 Church Committee and was ostensibly halted. However, most of the documents in CIA storage relating to MKUltra were destroyed. MKUltra was headed by Sidney Gottlieb; psychologists Ewen Cameron and John Gittinger are among the many key figures in the massive program. MKUltra deliberately chose vulnerable targets such as mental patients, prisoners, drug addicts, prostitutes, and orphans — as one CIA officer put it, "people who could not fight back".

Origins of the project

During the early 1940s, Nazi scientists working in the death camps of Auschwitz and Dachau conducted interrogation experiments on human subjects. Substances such as barbiturates, morphine derivatives, and hallucinogens such as mescaline were employed in experiments conducted on Jews and Russian prisoners of war which aimed to develop a truth serum which would, in the words of one laboratory assistant to Dachau scientist Kurt Plötner, "eliminate the will of the person examined". According to american historian Stephen Kinzer, the CIA project was a "continuation" of these earlier Nazi experiments, citing the numerous German scientists who were hired to work for the U.S. as part of Operation Paperclip

Drugs

Project MKUltra mainly used LSD-25 and Mescaline for purposes of manipulating the subjects.

Victims involved

Frank Olson: A CIA scientist covertly subjected to LSD, Olson expressed moral reservations about the project, leading to his fatal fall from a New York City hotel window nine days after the dosing.

Charles Epstein: A scientist at the University of California, San Francisco, Epstein, lost several fingers when he opened a package containing a bomb mailed by Ted Kaczynski, who was allegedly linked to the MKUltra project.

David Gelernter: A computer science professor at Yale University, Gelernter lost sight in one eye, hearing in one ear, and a portion of his right hand after opening a bomb mailed by Ted Kaczynski.

Thomas J. Mosser: An executive at Burson-Marsteller, Mosser was killed by a mail bomb sent by Ted Kaczynski to his New Jersey home.

Gilbert Brent Murray: The president of the California Forestry Association, Murray was murdered by a mail bomb sent by Ted Kaczynski.

Phillip Sharp: A geneticist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sharp received a threatening letter following the murder of Gilbert Brent Murray, who was also targeted by Ted Kaczynski.