MK-ULTRA & The CIA's Bizarre Psychedelic Escort Service
Exploring the CIA’s botched attempt at mind control & the resulting carnage it caused [MKUltra]
In 1949, Hungarian cardinal Jozsef Mindszzenty confessed to attempting an overthrow of the Soviet-led Hungarian Government.
Despite later claims of a note he wrote beforehand saying he would never do so, unless under duress, he pled guilty to treason, conspiracy, and other serious crimes.
While watching, some U.S. officials found this new change of heart unconvincing and felt he would never flip so boldly from torture alone.
Obviously, Mindszzenty was the victim of mind control at the hands of a Soviet nation.
While there wasn't any evidence for this — there was plenty for torture — they feverishly wanted to catch up with the enemy’s new technology.
After dissolving the ego through psychedelics, the CIA believed they could introduce messages and ideas to alter the personalities of their subjects.
Perhaps, they could even force them to do their bidding…
Enter: Sydney Gottleib — or "The Poisoner in Chief."
He became the face of the research after working on its predecessors "Bluebird" and "Artichoke" — both of which focused on using psychedelics for torture (er, sorry, "enhanced interrogation.")
In these programs, prisoners (often in foreign countries) would receive any number of psychedelics, deliriants, barbiturates, dissociative, and other drugs to see what might get them to talk.
While MK Ultra also researched methods of torture in combination with psychedelics, it added a desire for a "truth serum," induced mania, and more.
At one point, there was even talk of using BZ (a deliriant drug with a half-life of 3-4 weeks) as a way to incapacitate cities during war times.
Let's break down some of the research we know MK Ultra funded, starting with the weirdest one:
Operation Midnight Climax:
In this experiment, George Hunter White opened a brothel in San Francisco, hiring sex workers to dose unsuspecting clients.
The brothel, the sex workers, and the drugs were all paid for by the U.S. government.
White, meanwhile, would often help himself to the bar, drinking a martini — often while sitting on a portable toilet and watching through a one-way mirror.
This was apparently a frequent thing for him (ask BaileySarian if you don't believe me).
→ MK Ultra: Mind Control, Druts, & Robocats | Darkhistory Podcast (Video)
“Psychedelic Driving”
In Canada, Donald Ewen Cameron was receiving funding for his "driving experiments."
He would place subjects in an involuntary coma for weeks and/or dose them with huge quantities of LSD and other drugs without prior consent.
At the same time, he would play different messages using a tape recorder on repeat — over and over and over again.
The people who suffered in these experiments were mostly looking for treatment for their depression and schizophrenia and overwhelmingly became worse after “treatment.”
Other "truth experiments"
These included hooking people up to barbituates and amphetamines at the same time, suspending them in a waking state of stupor.
Researchers theorized this would make it far harder for subjects to lie.
What it really did was make it hard for them to live.
After most of the participants died, the plug was finally pulled on this one.
The End of MK Ultra
Eventually, word began to spread of the experiments to government officials — as a top-secret study, very few people knew about it. After Watergate removed Nixon from power, Gottlieb's superiors ordered all documents destroyed before they'd have a chance to be declassified.
Roughly 20,000 documents remain, seemingly missed during the destruction order.
This currently comprises all we know about this dark period.
Still, conspiracies abound — some only getting called such because there’s no longer any potential for new evidence to come forward.
President Ford began requiring transparency from the CIA about their testing in the future shortly after taking office, so it’s clear Gottlieb’s superiors were correct about the beginning of the end.
Compelling Conspiracies From MK Ultra
Frank Olson is the most compelling of these theories.
As a CIA employee, he was unsuspectingly dosed with LSD during a retreat (apparently considered an “occupational hazard” in those days).
Frank’s role was with one of the predecessor projects to MK-Ultra and primarily focused on torture. After experiencing the effects of LSD for himself and having a profoundly bad trip, he felt overwhelmed with guilt.
Feeling distraught after discovering what he was putting people through, he told his friends and family he'd be going to a psychiatric ward to sort things out. Some have even reported he was excited to do so and have a chance to sort his mind out.
Before getting there, he'd "jump from his hotel room," reportedly leaping through a glass window and killing himself.
Years later, the family of Olson had his body exhumed and an autopsy revealed he was unconscious before leaping through the window.
Oh, and then there are those famous murderers…
The Unabomber, Charles Manson, and Jack Ruby (who murdered John F. Kennedy’s assassin before he could stand trial) have ties to experiments in the program as well.
In a 3-month assignment that took him 20 years to complete, Tom O'Neill even notes times Manson breaks the law and was left to walk around, tying the decision to MK-Ultra affiliates.
In one instance, Manson gets out of jail on strict parole limitations to not leave the county under any circumstances, immediately moves away, and stops at the police station to tell them he lives there now.
In most cases, this alone should have led to an arrest which could have prevented the entirety of the gruesome Manson family murders. O’Neill notes a correlation between Manson’s parole officer and the MK-Ultra program at the time.
Another journalist in the 70s linked the psychiatrist in charge of examining Jack Ruby with the program. The psychiatrist would claim Ruby was insane and experiencing total psychosis when he acted alone killing Oswald on an impulse.
In prison, Ruby begged for an opportunity to move to a more safe environment and provide more testimony, and was often denied.
Finally, his wishes were granted for a new trial but, before it would come, he would be admitted to the hospital for pneumonia, where they would discover horrifically advanced cancers in multiple organs — he died before his re-trial.
MK Ultra was a dark time for psychedelics and a reminder that they aren't all sunshine and rainbows — LSD was a perfectly good form of torture, too.
No tool is incapable of bending toward evil when placed in the wrong hand.
→ Read the Full Article On Tripsitter
Further Reading
→ Former CIA Agent Gives Background Info on MK Ultra, Midnight Climax, and Charles Manson (Joe Rogan Experience)
→ Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties (Book)
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Credits & Shoutouts:
Article By Dan Simms
BaileySarian (Dark History)