The US Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) mind control experiments,
dating back to the 1950s, are well-known. Their MK-ULTRA experiments in
sensory deprivation continue to be used on Guantánamo Bay captives. But
until Ian Cobain’s book Cruel Britannia, few people knew that British
psychologists had pioneered the use of sensory deprivation for mind
control.
During WWII, Lord Swinton “pressed the Home Office for
permission to open an MI5 interrogation centre,” codenamed Camp 020.
Brightly lit for 24 hours, a resident doctor reportedly said that the
Camp induced “mental atrophy and extreme loquacity” in its victims. A
resident medical officer named Harold Dearden “dreamed up the regimes of
starvation and of sleep and sensory deprivation.” The Camp was one of a
number, including the MI19-run Combined Services Detailed Interrogation
Centre, later renamed A19.
After the War, several individuals
convened to share intelligence on mind control. They represented the
Defence Research Policy Committee, the Joint Intelligence Bureau, the
Canadian Defence Research Board, the CIA’s Research and Development
Board, and the Psychology Unit at McGill University (Montreal). The
latter was led by Donald Hebb.
The scientists referred to their
psychological devastation techniques as “menticide.” Hebb subjected
terrier puppies to prolonged isolation before trying it on consenting
postgraduate students. The British and American governments and the CIA
funded Hebb’s successors, including his former student Dr Maitland
Baldwin. Baldwin found “that sensory deprivation would almost certainly
cause irreparable psychological damage” in humans...<<<Read More>>>...