Thu Dec 26 01:00:00 UTC 2024: ## CIA’s MKULTRA Mind Control Program: Newly Released Documents Reveal Gruesome Details
**Washington, D.C., December 23, 2024** – The National Security Archive has released a trove of over 1,200 documents detailing the CIA’s infamous MKULTRA mind control program, shedding new light on the agency’s decades-long, ethically-questionable experiments on unwitting human subjects. The collection, titled “CIA and the Behavioral Sciences: Mind Control, Drug Experiments and MKULTRA,” comes fifty years after a *New York Times* investigation first exposed the program’s abuses.
The documents reveal the CIA’s use of LSD, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, and other extreme techniques under code names like MKULTRA, BLUEBIRD, and ARTICHOKE. These experiments, often conducted without the subjects’ knowledge or consent, targeted U.S. citizens in various settings, including hospitals, prisons, and clandestine CIA safehouses. Prominent figures in the behavioral sciences were involved, often with little to no oversight.
Key figures highlighted in the newly released documents include:
* **Sidney Gottlieb:** The CIA’s chief chemist, who oversaw the programs and ordered the destruction of most original records in 1973. Newly released deposition testimony offers a glimpse into his involvement.
* **Richard Helms:** CIA director who, despite expressing keen interest in biological and chemical weapons for intelligence operations, ordered the destruction of MKULTRA files in 1973.
* **George Hunter White:** A federal narcotics agent who ran CIA safehouses, secretly dosing unsuspecting individuals with LSD and other drugs.
* **D. Ewen Cameron:** A McGill University psychiatrist who conducted horrifying experiments on psychiatric patients as part of MKULTRA.
The program’s far-reaching impact is also highlighted, with connections drawn to interrogation techniques used in Vietnam, Latin America, and Guantanamo Bay. The documents expose the CIA’s collaboration with leading universities and research institutions, often using false foundations to conceal their involvement. The release further details the mysterious 1953 death of Army chemist Frank Olson, whose death has been linked to an LSD experiment.
Despite the CIA’s efforts to erase the program’s history, surviving records paint a disturbing picture of the agency’s pursuit of mind control, raising serious ethical concerns and highlighting the lasting impact on countless victims. The collection is now available online through the National Security Archive and ProQuest.
First Piper 