What Is MKULTRA? CIA Secret ‘Mind Control’ Program Records Unsealed
What’s New
Newly declassified records on the CIA‘s infamous MKULTRA program have been published by the National Security Archive and ProQuest.
The collection, which was released on Monday, includes over 1,200 documents detailing the CIA’s experiments with drugs, hypnosis and other mind control techniques during the Cold War.
Newsweek has contacted the National Security Archive and the CIA via email for comment.
Why It Matters
MKULTRA remains one of the most controversial chapters in U.S. intelligence history. Its experiments often targeted unwitting individuals and left lasting psychological damage on participants.
The declassified documents shed light on a program shrouded in secrecy since then-CIA Director Richard Helms ordered most of its records destroyed in 1973. The documents will prompt further discussions on MKULTRA’s implications on ethical boundaries in scientific research and governmental oversight.
What To Know
The CIA explored mind control techniques during the Cold War under code names MKULTRA, BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE. Experiments included administering LSD, employing sensory deprivation and inducing amnesia on unwitting U.S. and Canadian citizens.
The newly published records include a 1950 plan for “interrogation teams” to use drugs and hypnosis and a 1956 memo approving high-dose LSD experiments on federal prisoners.
Another document describes the 1963 CIA inspector general report that questioned using unknowing Americans as test subjects.
The records also delve into the mysterious 1953 death of Frank Olson, a scientist covertly dosed with LSD who died 10 days later in a fall from a New York hotel. Officially ruled a suicide, Olson’s death remains a focal point for conspiracy theories alleging CIA foul play.
Due to most MKULTRA documents having been destroyed in the 1973 cover-up, most surviving files come from Freedom of Information Act requests and contributions from whistleblowers and historians.
What People Are Saying
National Security Archive in a statement: “Despite the Agency’s efforts to erase this hidden history, the documents that survived this purge and that have been gathered together here present a compelling and unsettling narrative of the CIA’s decades-long effort to discover and test ways to erase and re-program the human mind.”
“The collection is also of great value to those interested in learning more about the early years of the CIA and some of its major personalities, such as Allen Dulles, Richard Helms, Richard Bissell, Franks Wisner, and others, who envisioned and created an intelligence agency that favored bold, often covert, action and where controversial projects like MKULTRA could secretly take root and flourish.”
The 1975 congressional committee into MKULTRA, headed by Senator Frank Church, in its report: “The United States must not adopt the tactics of the enemy. Means are as important as ends. Crises make it tempting to ignore the wise restraints that make men free. But each time we do so, each time the means we use are wrong, our inner strength, the strength which makes us free, is lessened.”
What Happens Next
Historians and researchers are expected to analyze the documents to better understand MKULTRA’s scope and implications. Further public discussions may arise about governmental accountability and boundaries in intelligence operations.
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