Psychedelics, Sex Work, & Sabotage: Inside The CIA’s Operation Midnight Climax

Peer into the inner workings of the CIA's secret brothels as they attempted to use seduction for sabotage (along with a healthy dose of LSD, of course).

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Jul 09, 2024

This article is part of a series on psychedelic conspiracies: Project Stargate, MK-ULTRA, & Project Bluebird. Subscribe for More).

Between the 50s–70s, the newly-formed CIA became obsessed with finding “truth drugs” and other innovative ways to coerce confessions. There was a palpable paranoia in the air following the development and use of the atomic bomb and the rise of communism.

Many believed there were already drugs or techniques in existence, believing some high-profile confessions were the result of “brainwashing.”

While there wasn’t any actual evidence for this, the CIA spiraled out of control after getting high on its own propaganda.

This ultimately became MK-ULTRA — a virtually unlimited cash infusion into the study of drugs, chemicals, and germ warfare. MK-ULTRA developed hundreds of “Subprojects” and relationships with educational, government, and regulatory institutions.

Early attempts usually involved pumping people with alternating sedatives and stimulants to put them in a “twilight state” where they’d be more susceptible to control. With Subprojects 3, 16, and 42 — codenamed “Midnight Climax” — the agency took a new approach to obtaining the information they desired.

The new projects would take a euphoric approach — get someone covertly high, laid, and relaxed so they’ll talk freely about things they normally keep guarded.

Using sex for espionage, manipulation, and coercion is not a new idea, but there hadn’t been any study on the full potential it held — especially combined with the mind-altering effects of LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) or other psychedelic drugs.

In his book Poisoner in Chief, Stephen Kinzer states that the CIA’s goal was to “systemize the study” of sex and understand how to employ it more effectively.

Luckily, the CIA knew the perfect man for the job — George Hunter White.

The Many Faces of George Hunter White

George Hunter White’s professional career wound through several industries before landing in covert operations. According to a 1952 memo summarizing his records, he began his career in the Red Cross after dropping out of college.

After working as one of the Directors for a year, he left to become a police reporter from 1928 to 1933, working his way up to being the managing editor for a newspaper in Los Angeles. This helped him pivot into private investigations before accepting an official role patrolling the border.

He applied for several positions that he was not accepted into and wanted desperately to end up in covert operations.

The problem, it seems, was White’s personality. As the summary puts it:

“The interviewer stated that White appeared to be casting about in various government investigative agencies seeking a position. It was further stated that his personality, approach, and appearance were not up to Bureau standards.”

White also went through a divorce while working as a border patrol agent and was charged with mental cruelty and desertion. Luckily, after confirming he would remarry as soon as possible and that he didn't drink too much, he landed a job at the Federal Bureau of Narcotics.

He was with them "since 1935 excepting the years 1942 through 1945 when he was in the Army, and 1950 and 1952 when he had short tenures with the Kefauver Committee and with Newbold Morris."

As a narcotics officer, White would help bring down several drug rings through both heroic and questionable undercover methods. He became famous for bringing down an opium ring by “supposedly being initiated into the gang and agreeing to ‘death by fire’ if he ever betrayed its secrets” — according to Kinzer.

He was vocally opposed to using drugs and spoke frequently about the harms of marijuana and other substances. As you may have already guessed, he also loved taking drugs, drinking in excess, and paying for sex.

The 1978 book The Search For The ‘Manchurian Candidate’ by John Marks notes that White was "a remarkably heavy drinker, who would sometimes finish off a bottle of gin in one sitting; White often mocked the CIA crowd over cocktails."

He likely developed these habits after he confirmed his low affinity for alcohol in order to earn a narcotics role. Either that or he lied on his resumè.

The Birth Of Midnight Climax

There are plenty of reports documenting White’s history submitted by the many people who disliked him. His enemies included the first director of the Federal Bureau of Intelligence (FBI), J. Edgar Hoover, and the then-Mayor of New York.

But Marks notes a journal entry from White dated June 9, 1952, showing he had at least one friend left:

“Gottlieb proposed I be a CIA consultant — I agree.”

Sidney Gottlieb was Kinzer's titular "poisoner in chief." He was the man that ushered in and led the bulk of the CIA's MK-ULTRA program. He was an odd man by all accounts, and his own lawyer referred to him as the "doctor of death" after their first conversation.

The vast majority of the intelligence community saw George Hunter White as a liability with a penchant for causing trouble. Gottlieb believed this could be an asset. White would begin trying to work his way into the program through Gottleib and MK-ULTRA.

This included inviting James Jesus Angleton — the CIA counterintelligence chief at the time — to Thanksgiving dinner and taking acid with him the next day. The two indulged in a recreational day with LSD and reportedly had a very fun time.

In his journal, White mentions they went to a Chinese restaurant and spent so much time “laughing about something I can’t remember now” that they never ate any of the food.

Between his initial visit and this Thanksgiving dinner, Gottlieb was facing trouble pushing through the approval of White's application. He would return to White personally a little over a year later, though, to give him the good news of his approval, along with a check for upfront costs to kick off the project.

White put $3,400 down on two apartments at 81 Bedford Street in Manhattan, New York, and immediately began looking for victims. He was also to maintain his job in narcotics as a front and keep his association with the CIA confidential.

81 Bedford Street Operations: Subprojects 3 & 16

Subproject 3 was the first operation to secure a safehouse with White, and it was approved on May 21, 1953, with a projected budget of $8,875 (equivalent to nearly $102K today). Within two months, the FBI would be looking into his actions and fueling distrust between the secretive branches of government.

The CIA and the FBI had animosity towards each other at the time — each seemingly offended by the other's unwillingness to share information. To generalize, CIA agents thought the FBI was full of brutes who didn't understand finesse, and the FBI thought the CIA was — more simply — full of themselves.

To be fair, they were both probably correct.

At any rate, an FBI informant knew of the location and even furnished the alias White was going by — Morgan Hall — almost instantaneously. He warned that the CIA would probably interfere with any actual investigation they might accomplish if they were made aware of it.

With strict instructions never to report their investigations to the CIA, “Morgan Hall” plowed ahead.

On October 5, 1953, Subproject 16 was approved exclusively because “it turns out that the costs of alterations, equipment, and initial supplies were under-estimated in Subproject 3.”

So, less than 5 months after the initial 1-year supply of $8,875, Subproject 16 threw another anticipated $7,740 (nearly $90K today) into the mix.

During their time in Manhattan, White and his team mostly dosed unsuspecting friends and acquaintances at house parties.

As Marks puts it:

“White tested LSD, several kinds of knockout drops, and… marijuana. He served up the drugs in food, drink, and cigarettes and then tried to worm information — usually on narcotics matters — from his ‘guests.’”

Under his alias, he would try gaining access to key players working with drugs, sex work, and more. In doing so, he could excel in his narcotics career while also gathering information for the CIA.

This would all change when White received a new post from his position at the Bureau of Narcotics in San Francisco.

Enter Midnight Climax & Subproject 42

Gottlieb seized the opportunity and decided to have White continue the same operations he’d been performing in New York in the new setting. Subproject 42’s purpose was to move the operation from New York to San Francisco and establish themselves there.

However, this time, they would add in the use of sexual favors, better surveillance, and Ira “Ike” Feldman.

Feldman was another narcotics agent with extensive undercover experience and unique access to the circles of criminal actors. When Gottlieb met with him in San Francisco, he reportedly pulled out a small vial and informed Feldman it was LSD.

He wanted him to use his extensive undercover experience and contacts with “all the broads” and “all the hookers” of San Francisco to “start getting them to put this in people’s drinks.”

Feldman would also tell an interviewer in 2016 that “White was a son of a bitch. But he was a great cop … [who made] Hoover look like Nancy Drew.”

For their time and work, each of the women who agreed to bring home clientele and discretely dose them would receive $50–100 and a card with White’s phone number they could use as a “get-out-of-jail-free card.”

At first, this was pretty straightforward. Hire a bunch of sex workers on retainer, train them how to discretely dose their clients — and see what happens.

Sex workers don’t typically stick around after the exchange is over, so they’d collect their money and card and leave each victim in the room to deal with the 10-hour LSD trip by themselves.

Since the CIA didn't want people to find out what they had done to them, there were no attempts to follow up with people afterward and see how they were adjusting.

One of the first, most crucial observations, was how beneficial it was for the meetup to continue after sex was over. Kinzer includes a quote from one officer who put it this way:

“To find a prostitute who is willing to stay is a hell of a shock to anyone used to prostitutes… it has a tremendous effect on the guy [and is] a boost to his ego.”

They realized that men would feel more confident in themselves if the women stayed after and engaged in conversation with them. The officer continued:

“Most of the time, he gets pretty vulnerable. What the hell’s he going to talk about? Not the sex, so he starts talking about his business. It’s at this time she can lead him gently.”

In this sense, there's an argument for LSD, along with a willing sexual companion who will stay and chat with you after being the closest we ever got to a "truth serum."

The FBI investigation teetered out once White left his operations in the bureau's home state, and they no longer felt it was important.

Inside The Safe House On 225 Chestnut St.

In January of 1955, White's new project received approval, and later that year, he would rent his "pad," as he'd call them, in San Francisco.

He wired the entire home with microphones and tape recorders to the point that one CIA officer would joke that you might shock yourself “if you spilled a glass of water.” The home was decorated with erotic art and “tools of the trade, including sex toys and photos of manacled women in black stockings and studded leather halters.”

There was also a half-finished painting to contribute to White’s undercover life as a professional painter. White maintained a fully stocked bar for liberal use among himself and others. Allegedly, White would frequently watch the sex acts and interrogations from a portable toilet with a pitcher of martinis.

There is a receipt on record for said portable toilet.

One of the tragedies of this event is that we don’t have a single account of the people they dosed or the women who worked inside these houses. However, dissecting some of the stories from a step back can reveal that this new, more gentle way of extorting information was likely a classically tortuous environment for them as well.

In a legal deposition, Feldman would later accuse Gottlieb and White both of frequently requesting the services of their sex workers on staff. Feldman would add (“with a measure of pride” per Kinzer’s understanding) that they would never get paid for having sex with Gottlieb.

Tops & Bottom Left: The Safe House On 225 Chestnut Street. Bottom Right: Sidney Gottlieb (Left) with his attorney Terry Lepsing.

In his 2016 interview, Feldman also discusses at length the apparent discovery of an erectile dysfunction medication. After being unable to get a couple of Russian soldiers they’d coerced back to the pad to talk, they slipped them a new drug Feldman said “gets your dick up like a rat.”

His boisterous accounting of the men repeatedly having sex with the workers concludes with, "The girls were complaining they couldn't take any more screwing. But White found out what he wanted to know."

These women are the biggest victims of this operation and are often swept aside to maintain a lighter narrative.

Expanding Midnight Climax

After Gottlieb was sufficiently happy with the initial results, he authorized two more safe houses in the surrounding area to open. White could operate almost with impunity and frequently scrawled notes back whenever he needed another top-up.

Since the government was paying sex workers for an illegal act, he couldn't exactly ask for a receipt. As such, there were several inquiries into his spending habits, and on more than one occasion, he was called in to account for expenses.

White wasn’t shy about drug use either. He tested every substance before they gave it to anyone else and seems to have been an avid enjoyer of the narcotics he was so adamant in tightening the grip over.

An inspector with the CIA strongly encouraged MK-ULTRA to stop operations in 1963 since the work was so blatantly unethical and would tarnish the reputation of the government. The operation would scale back for two years before finally dropping off ten years after it first came into existence.

Lessons From Midnight Climax

When people tell this story, it’s usually done so jovially. It’s hard not to laugh a little at the idea of the CIA paying to keep sex workers on retainer and often giving their unsuspecting clients the best night of their lives.

In his book Chaos, Tom O’Neill includes a quote from White that points out how sinister the whole operation truly was. In a letter to a “CIA handler,” White says:

“I was a very minor missionary, actually a heretic, but I toiled wholeheartedly in the vineyards because it was fun, fun, fun. Where else could a red-blooded American boy lie, kill and cheat, steal, deceive, rape, and pillage with the sanction and blessing of the All-Highest? Pretty Good Stuff Brudder!”

Behind the initial veneer this project typically receives, there are marginalized women, unsuspecting citizens, unknown drugs, and real-life consequences.

White never cared about that; he just wanted to "deceive, rape, and pillage."

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