Code-named MKULTRA (and pronounced m-k-ultra), was the brainchild of CIA Director Allen Dulles, who was intrigued by reports of mind-control techniques allegedly conducted by Soviet, Chinese and North Korean agents on U.S. prisoners of war during the Korean War. The CIA wanted to use similar techniques on its own POWs and perhaps use LSD or other mind-bending substances on foreign leaders, including
Heading MKULTRA was a CIA chemist named Sidney Gottlieb. In congressional testimony, Gottlieb, who died in 1999, acknowledged that the agency had administered LSD to as many as 40 unwitting subjects, including prison inmates and patrons of brothels set up and run by the agency. At least one participant died when he jumped out of a 10th-floor window in a hotel; others claimed to have suffered serious psychological damage.
Mr. Vance learned about MKULTRA in the spring of 1963 during a wide-ranging inspector general survey of the agency's technical services division. The inspector general's report said: "The concepts involved in manipulating human behavior are found by many people both within and outside the agency to be distasteful and unethical."
As a result of Mr. Vance's discovery and the inspector general's report, the CIA halted the testing and began scaling back the project. It was terminated in the late 1960s.
MKULTRA came to public light in 1977 as a result of hearings conducted by a Senate committee on intelligence chaired by Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho). Mr. Vance gave several long phone interviews to committee staff members but never had to testify.
The CIA has been involved in developing sophisticated mind control programs since the early 1950s. MKULTRA is the most infamous of these, yet thanks to a virtual media blackout on the subject, very few people are aware of any of these disturbing programs. In a rare recent article in the
Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), government documents dealing with MKULTRA and other secret mind control programs are now available to the public. In 1973, tipped off about forthcoming congressional investigations, CIA Director Richard Helms ordered the destruction of all MKULTRA records. Fortunately, 20,000 pages worth of MKULTRA documents contained in the CIA's financial records were overlooked. Though only a small fraction of the original documentation, these surviving documents reveal highly disturbing operations in which unknowing citizens were subjected not only to LSD, but also to radiation, lethal biological agents, and even torture for reasons of "national security."
"The concepts involved in manipulating behavior are found by many people both within and outside the Agency [CIA] to be distasteful and unethical. Nevertheless, there have been major accomplishments both in research and operational employment. Many additional avenues to the control of human behavior have been designated under the MKULTRA charter, including radiation, electro-shock, and harassment substances. Some activities raise questions of legality implicit in the original charter. A final phase of the testing places the rights and interests of US citizens in jeopardy. [The MKULTRA program] has pursued a philosophy of minimum documentation in keeping with the high sensitivity of the projects. Some files contained little or no data at all. There are just two individuals who have full knowledge of the MKULTRA program, and most of that knowledge is unrecorded."
Though the MK ULTRA program was terminated in the late 1960's, other even more sophisticated top secret mind control programs continue to this day