Mind Control: Past and Future

During the Cold-War-era, intelligence agencies in both the Eastern and Western blocs set up secret experiments to devise methods of mind control and brainwashing in order to gain an advantage over the enemy. The most notorious of these endeavors was the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) illegal MKUltra program, which ran from 1953 to 1973. In its quest for a truth serum that could be employed to force confessions from subjects who are not cooperating and the desire to be able to manipulate people’s behavior, the CIA experimented on thousands of subjects – partly without their knowledge or consent, and often with disastrous consequences. 

In this paper, I will first scrutinize the MKUltra program, investigating some of the experiments that it comprised. I shall then map the program’s aims onto the latest technology available for interfering with the brain – so-called “brain-computer interfaces” – to determine whether one could, in principle, use these novel devices for the purpose of mind control. Finally, I will be looking for indications that stakeholders may actually plan to employ the technology to achieve what had been beyond technological reach during the Cold War. I conclude that brain-computer interfaces could indeed be used to realize some of the original goals and that an interest in mind control still prevails.