Mind games
About monstrous experiments of the CIA and the covert use of humans as test subjects
Terrifying documents have been declassified in the United States. Under the codenames MKULTRA, BLUEBIRD and ARTICHOKE, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) conducted horrifying experiments during the 1950s and 1960s, employing drugs, hypnosis, isolation, sensory deprivation, and other extreme methods.
Multifaceted monster
The CIA’s history is comprised of numerous provocations and scandals, while no international conflict — with open or clandestine participation of the United States — takes place without mentioning this agency as the executor of Washington’s will. This was reminded by Sergei Naryshkin, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Director, in his article for the National Defence journal: ‘The CIA was established at the dawn of the Cold War era to carry out global intelligence activities, serving as a tool to counteract the existence and growing influence of the USSR in the world, the emergence of the Socialist bloc, and the rise of national liberation movements in Africa, Asia, and South America’.
By the early 1950s, as the head of the SVR detailed, the CIA began to transform into a multifaceted special service-monster assigned with the dual task of conducting global intelligence operations while tracking and suppressing any political, economic, and military processes worldwide that could threaten US hegemony and that of its allies. This shift in emphasis became particularly pronounced with the appointment of Allen Dulles as CIA Director. He was the same individual who, during his tenure as head of the OSS (Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor of the CIA) in Bern, Switzerland, from 1942 to 1945, was noted for conducting separate negotiations with the Nazis without the involvement of USSR representatives. Overthrowing governments, direct military interventions, all forms of provocations, elimination of unwelcome politicians, terror, sabotage, and bribery became the methods of operation for the ‘knights of the cloak and dagger’.
In April 1953, CIA Director Dulles approved a project codenamed MKULTRA, aimed at controlling the human mind through psychotropic substances and electrical influences.
American style of covert operations
On August 16th, 1951, an event occurred in France that would later be described as ‘mass hysteria’. In a sudden moment, hundreds of people began experiencing hallucinations. Some imagined snakes attacking them, others felt as though they were ‘burning in flames’, while some lunged at their neighbours with knives. In a desperate bid to escape from unseen pursuers, a few jumped from windows…
At that time, it was suggested that there had been a mass poisoning… by bread. Only recently has the theory emerged that the ‘mass hysteria’ was the result of the CIA’s secret mind control experiment using LSD. It is possible that this incident is one piece of the puzzle within the MKULTRA mosaic.
Within the framework of MKULTRA, over a hundred interconnected subprogrammes were created. “For example, experiments were conducted aimed at partially or completely erasing a person’s memory, while also allowing for the adjustment of personality or the creation of an entirely new one. For these purposes, people were drugged with LSD or subjected to hypnotic encoding,” described the head of the SVR.
Erasing memory
In 1953, under mysterious circumstances, Army chemist Frank Olson, the CIA’s military partner in behaviour control research, met an untimely demise. The official narrative claims suicide, suggesting he jumped from a window.
Olson was involved in the development of biological weapons and stood at the origins of MKULTRA. He knew who was responsible for the ‘cursed bread’ incident in a small French town since he had been there in 1951. He was also aware of other covert operations and expressed dissatisfaction to his superiors about the way human subjects were treated.
With minimal oversight, boundless resources, and the backing of CIA’s undercover operations chief Richard Helms, a series of bizarre experiments was devised. The initial programme, dubbed BLUEBIRD, involved groups comprising polygraph specialists and psychiatrists conducting experiments on detained individuals and alleged informants in secret American detention facilities in Japan and Germany. By 1951, the programme expanded and was renamed ARTICHOKE.
The new project included, inter alia, the development of gas guns and toxins, as well as experiments to determine whether hypnotic control over individuals could be achieved through monotonous sounds, induced convulsions, electric shocks, and enforced sleep.
Among the declassified documents is a plan (approved in 1950) for the establishment of units to conduct special interrogations, which would ‘employ polygraphs, drugs, and hypnosis to achieve optimal results in interrogation techniques’.
Another declassified document reveals that ‘CIA interrogators employed ARTICHOKE methods, including hypnosis and massive use of chemicals under the guise of flu treatment’.
Grants for MKULTRA research were distributed to at least 44 colleges and universities, 15 laboratories and pharmaceutical companies, 12 hospitals and clinics, and 3 prison facilities.
Fake foundations and dirty lab coats
Still from film One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Following 1953, the new MKULTRA project was sanctioned by the CIA, broadening research on behaviour control and refocusing efforts towards developing ‘capabilities for the covert use of biological and chemical materials’ in ‘current and future covert operations’. Recently declassified documents confirm this. In particular, a memorandum in which MKULTRA Director Sidney Gottlieb approves a request for the continuation of experiments involving the development of an ‘anti-interrogation drug’ and ‘tests in human volunteers’.
Many of the 149 subprojects under MKULTRA were implemented at notable universities such as Cornell, Georgetown, Rutgers, Illinois, and Oklahoma.
A significant part of the CIA’s projects was funded through fake foundations. One of these was run by Dr. Charles Geschickter, who funneled millions of dollars into inhumane research programmes.
Another fund, the Human Ecology Society, was managed by neurologist Harold Wolff of the Cornell Medical Centre. He previously developed for the CIA a ‘combination of drugs and sensory deprivation that could be used to erase the human mind’. Among the most extreme MKULTRA projects financed through Wolff’s group were the infamous experiments focused on ‘pattern alteration’. Those methods combined induced sleep, electric shocks, and psychological manipulation, subjecting drugged individuals to psychological torment for weeks or months in attempts to reprogramme their minds.
Also disclosed is a 1963 report by CIA Inspector General John Earman, recommending the cessation of drug testing on American citizens unaware of their participation in the experiments, citing risks of compromising the agency and potential harm to its reputation.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, legal proceedings took place where citizens who had unwittingly become guinea pigs for the CIA were the plaintiffs. In court, victims, including patients from psychiatric facilities, were often represented by attorneys. The number of casualties, both dead and injured, is anyone’s guess, with the public awaiting further declassified materials.
Notably, in the summer of 2024, Donald Trump announced his intention — should he win the presidential election — to disclose additional documents, particularly concerning the September 11 attacks.
He mentioned a willingness to reveal information related to the assassination of the 35th President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, and Jeffrey Epstein. This raises questions about whether these statements from now-President Trump are linked to assassination attempts against him and what other secrets might be hidden in the archives of the United States intelligence agencies.
Few knew in 1961, when the book One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey was published, that it was based on the patient’s memoirs, and the horrors described therein were part of the MKULTRA programme.
By Lyudmila Gladkaya
