What follows is a chapter from Martin Lee and Bruce Shlain's book, Acid
Dreams_. The book is a terrific read. The following selection is
chapter 1, which examines the development of the CIA's interest in the
mysterious new drug, LSD. It is alternately funny, disgusting, and
horrific.
Lemme give you a preview of what follows.
At first, the CIA thought LSD would make them virtual masters of the
universe. Later, after sober second thought, they realized they might
have to set their sights little lower, but they continued their
enthusiasm for the drug (which Richard Helms called "dynamite").
The CIA realized that an adversary intelligence service could
employ LSD "to produce anxiety or terror in medically
unsophisticated subjects unable to distinguish drug-induced
psychosis from actual insanity". The only way to be sure that an
operative would not freak out under such circumstances would be
to give him a taste of LSD (a mind control vaccine?) before he
was sent on a sensitive overseas mission. Such a person would
know that the effects of the drug were transitory and would
therefore be in a better position to handle the experience. CIA
documents actually refer to agents who were familiar with LSD as
"enlightened operatives".
At one point, CIA employees were running around, dosing themselves and
their buddies in acid to either "immunize" themselves to its effects, or
just test its limits. This part makes amusing reading -- to borrow the
hackneyed phrase: truth is stranger than fiction.
Finally, someone had to clamp down on the CIA's LSD consumption. One of
my favorite passages quotes a security memo (dated Dec. 15, 1954)
dealing with a rumored proposal to "spike" the annual CIA Christmas
party punch with acid.
The writer of this memo concluded indignantly and unequivocally
that he did "not recommend [LSD] testing in the Christmas punch
bowls usually present at the Christmas office parties".
CIA was consumed with interest in developing the perfect drug for every
emotion/intellectual brain reaction. Dial-a-brain drugs.
What's more, according to a document dated May 5, 1955, the CIA
placed a high priority on the development of a drug "which will
produce 'pure euphoria' with no subsequent letdown".
(I think I might place a "high priority" on such a thing myself...)
All this interest led to extravagant CIA funding of LSD research everywhere
-- including a soon-to-be famous fellow named Timothy Leary.
The rest, as they say, is history.
*
_ACID DREAMS_
The CIA, LSD and the Sixties Rebellion
Martin A Lee and Bruce Shlain
Grove Press, New York: 1985
ISBN 0-394-55013-7
chapter 1
IN THE BEGINNING THERE WAS MADNESS...
The Truth Seekers
In the spring of 1942, General William "Wild Bill" Donovan, chief of the
OSS, the CIA's wartime predecessor, assembled a half-dozen prestigious
American scientists and asked them to undertake a top-secret research
program. Their mission, Donovan explained, was to develop a
speech-inducing drug for use in intelligence interrogations. He
insisted that the need for such a weapon was so acute as to warrant any
and every attempt to find it.
The use of drugs by secret agents had long been a part of
cloak-and-dagger folklore, but this would be the first concerted attempt
on the part of an American espionage organization to modify human
behavior through chemical means. "We were not afraid to try things that
had never been done before," asserted Donovan, who was known for his
freewheeling and unconventional approach to the spy trade. The OSS
chief pressed his associates to come up with a substance that could
break down the psychological defenses of enemy spies and POWs, thereby
causing an uninhibited disclosure of classified information. Such a
drug would also be useful for screening OSS personnel in order to
identify German sympathizers, double-agents, and potential misfits.
Dr Windfred Overhulser, superintendent of Saint Elizabeth's Hospital in
Washington, DC, was appointed chairman of the research committee. Other
members included Dr Edward Strecker (then president of the American
Psychiatric Association) and Harry J Anslinger (head of the Federal
Bureau of Narcotics). The committee surveyed and rejected numerous
drugs -- including alcohol, barbituates, and caffeine. Peyote and
scopolamine were also tested, but the visions produced by these
substances interfered with the interrogation process. Eventually,
marijuana was chosen as the most likely candidate for a speech-inducing
agent.
OSS scientists created a highly-potent extract of cannabis and, through
a process known as esterification, a clear and viscous liquid was
obtained. The final product had no color, odor, or taste. It would be
nearly impossible to detect when administered surreptitiously -- which
is exactly what the spies intended to do. "There is no reason to
believe that any other nation or group is familiar with the preparation
of this particular drug," stated one classified OSS document.
Henceforth, the OSS referred to the marijuana extract as "TD" -- a
rather transparent cover for "Truth Drug".
Various ways of administering TD were tried upon witting and unwitting
subjects. OSS operatives found that the medicated goo could "be
injected into any type of food, such as mashed potatoes, butter, salad
dressing, or in such things as candy." Another scheme relied on using
facial tissues impregnated with the drug. But these methods had
drawbacks. What if someone had a particularly ravenous appetite? Too
much TD could knock a subject out and render him useless for
interrogation. The OSS eventually determined that the best approach
involved the use of a hypodermic syringe to inject a diluted TD solution
into a cigarette or cigar. After smoking such an item, the subject
would get suitably stoned, at which point a skillful interrogator would
move in and try to get him to spill the beans.
The effects of TD were described in an OSS report:
"TD appears to relax all inhibitions and to deaden the areas of the
brain which govern an individual's discretion and caution. It
accentuates the senses and makes manifest any strong
characteristics of the individual. Sexual inhibitions are lowered,
and the sense of humor is accentuated to the point where any
statement or situation can become extremely funny to the subject.
On the other hand, a person's unpleasant characteristics may also
be heightened. It may be stated that, generally speaking, the
reaction will be one of great loquacity and hilarity."
(This was a rather mild and playful assessment of the effects of
marijuana compared to the public rantings of Harry Anslinger, the
narcotics chief, who orchestrated an unrelenting media campaign against
"the killer weed".)
After testing TD on themselves, their associates, and US military
personnel, OSS agents utilized the drug operationally, although on a
limited basis. The results were mixed. In certain circumstances, TD
subjects felt a driving necessity "to discuss psychologically-charged
topics. Whatever the individual is trying to withhold will be forced to
the top of his subconscious mind." But there were also those who
experienced "toxic reactions" -- better known in latter-day lingo as
"bummers". One unwitting doper became irritable and threatening and
complained of feeling like he was "two different people". The peculiar
nature of his symptoms precluded any attempt to question him.
That was how it went, from one extreme to the other. At times, TD
seemed to stimulate "a rush of talk"; on other occasions, people got
paranoid and didn't say a word. The lack of consistency proved to be a
major stumbling block and "Donovan's dreamers" -- as his enthusiastic
OSS staffers have been called -- reluctantly weaned themselves from
their reefer madness. A handwritten comment in the margins of an OSS
document summed up their stoned escapades:
"The drug defies all but the most expert and searching analysis
and, for all practical purposes, can be considered beyond
analysis."
After the war, the CIA and the military picked-up where they OSS had
left off in the secret search for a truth serum. The navy took the lead
when it initiated Project CHATTER in 1947 -- the same year the CIA was
formed. Described as an "offensive" program, CHATTER was supposed to
devise means of obtaining information from people independent of their
volition but without physical duress. Toward this end, Dr Charles
Savage conducted experiments with mescaline (a semi-synthetic extract of
the peyote cactus that produces hallucinations similar to those caused
by LSD) at the Naval Medical Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland.
But these studies, which involved animal as well as human subjects, did
not yield as effective truth serum, and CHATTER was terminated in 1953.
The navy became interested in mescaline as an interrogation agent when
American investigators learned of mind control experiments carried out
by Nazi doctors at the Dachau concentration camp during World War II.
After administering the hallucinogen to 30 prisoners, the Nazis
concluded that it was "impossible to impose one's will on another person
as in hypnosis even when the strongest dose of mescaline had been
given." But the drug still afforded certain advantages to SS
interrogators, who were consistently able to draw "even the most
intimate secrets from the [subject] when questions where cleverly put."
Not surprisingly, "sentiments of hatred and revenge were exposed in
every case."
The mescaline experiments at Dachau were described in a lengthy report
by the US Naval Technical Mission, which swept across Europe in search
of every scrap of industrial material and scientific data that could be
garnered from the fallen Reich. This mission set the stage for the
wholesale importation of more than 600 top Nazi scientists under the
auspices of Project paperclip -- which the CIA supervised during the
early years of the Cold War. Among those who emigrated to the US in
such a fashion was Dr Hubertus Strughold, the German scientist whose
chief subordinates (Dr Sigmund Ruff and Dr Sigmund Rascher) were
directly involved in "aviation medicine" experiments at Dachau, which
included the mescaline studies. Despite recurring allegations that he
sanctioned medical atrocities during the war, Strughold settled in Texas
and became an important figure in America's space program. After Werner
von Braun, he was the top Nazi scientist employed by the American
government, and he was subsequently hailed by NASA as the "father of
space medicine".
The CIA, meanwhile, had launched an intensive research effort geared
toward developing "special" interrogation techniques. Two methods
showed promise in the late 1940s. The first involved narcohypnosis --
in which a CIA psychiatrist attempted to induce a trance state after
administering a mild sedative. A second technique involved a
combination of two different drugs with contradictory effects. A heavy
dose of barbituates was given to knock the subject out, and then he
received an injection of a stimulant, usually some type of amphetamine.
As he started to come out of a somnambulant state, he would reach a
certain ineffable point prior to becoming fully conscious. Described in
CIA documents as "the twilight zone", this groggy condition was
considered optimal for interrogation.
CIA doctors attempted to extend the stuporous limbo as long as possible.
In order to maintain the delicate balance between consciousness and
unconsciousness, an intravenous hookup was inserted in both the
subject's arms. One set of works contained a downer, the other an upper
(the classic "goofball" effect), with a mere flick of the finger an
interrogator could regulate the flow of chemicals. The idea was to
produce a "push" -- a sudden outpouring of thoughts, emotions,
confidences, and whatnot. Along this line, various combinations were
tested. Seconal and Dexedrine; Pentothal and Desoxyn; and depending on
the whim of the spy in charge,some marijuana (the old OSS stand-by,
which the CIA referred to as "sugar") might be thrown in for good
measure.
The goofball approach was not a precision science. There were no
strictly prescribed rules or operating procedures regarding what drugs
should be employed in a given situation. The CIA interrogators were
left to their own devices, and a certain degree of recklessness was
perhaps inevitable. In one case, a group of CIA experts hastily drafted
a memo after reviewing a report prepared by one of the Agency's special
interrogation teams. The medical consultants pointed out that "the
amounts of scopolamine administered were extremely heavy." They also
noted that the best results were obtained when two or at most three
different chemicals were used in a session. In this case, however,
heavy doses of scopolamine were administered along with thiamine, sodium
luminal, atropine sulfate, sodium pentothal and caffeine sulfate. One
of the CIA's professional consultants in "H" techniques also questioned
why hypnosis was attempted "after a long and continuous use of
chemicals, after the subject had vomited, and after apparently a maximum
tolerance point had been reached with the chemicals." Everyone who read
the interrogation report agreed that hypnosis was useless, if not
impossible, under such conditions. Nevertheless, the memo concluded by
reaffirming that "no criticism is intended whatsoever" and that "the
choice of operating weapons" must be left to the agents in the field.
Despite the potential hazards and tenuousness of the procedure as a
whole, special interrogations were strongly endorsed by Agency
officials. A CIA document dated November 26, 1951, announced:
"We're now convinced that we can maintain a subject in a controlled
state for a much longer period of time that we heretofore had
believed possible. Furthermore, we feel that by use of certain
chemicals or combinations, we can, in a very high percentage of
cases, produce relevant information."
Although these techniques were still considered experimental, the
prevailing opinion among members of the special interrogation teams was
that there had been enough experiments "to justify giving the green
light to operational use of the techniques." "There will be many a
failure," a CIA scientist acknowledged, but he was quick to stress that
"very success with this method will be pure gravy."
In an effort to expand its research program, the CIA contacted academics
and other outside experts who specialized in areas of mutual interest.
Liaison was established with the research sections of police departments
and criminology laboratories; medical practitioners, professional
hypnotists, and psychiatrists were brought on as paid consultants, and
various branches of the military provided assistance. Oftentimes, these
arrangements involved a cover to conceal the CIA's interest in behavior
modification. With the bureaucratic apparatus already in place, the
CIA's mind control efforts were integrated into a single project under
the codename BLUEBIRD. Due to the extreme sensitivity of the project,
the usual channels for authorization were bypassed -- instead of going
through the Projects Review Committee, the proposal for BLUEBIRD was
submitted directly to CIA director Roscoe Hillenkoetter, who authorized
the use of unvouchered funds to finance the hush-hush undertaking. With
this seal of approval, the CIA's first major drug-testing program was
officially launched. BLUEBIRD was to remained a carefully guarded
secret, for if word of the program leaked out, it would have been a
great embarrassment and a detriment to American intelligence. As one
CIA document put it, BLUEBIRD material was "not fit for public
consumption."
From the outset, the CIA's mind control program had an explicit domestic
angle. A memo dated July 13, 1951, described the Agency's mind-bending
efforts as "broad and comprehensive, involving both domestic and
overseas activities, and taking into consideration the programs and
objectives of other departments, principally the military services."
BLUEBIRD activities were designed to create as "exploitable alteration
of personality" in selected individuals; specific targets included
"potential agents, defectors, refugees, POWs," and a vague category of
"others." A number of units within the CIA participated in this
endeavor, including the Inspection and Security Staff (the forerunner of
the Office of Security), which assumed overall responsibility for
running the program and dispatching the special interrogation teams.
Colonel Sheffield Edwards, the chairman of the BLUEBIRD steering
committee, consistently pushed for a more reliable speech-inducing
substance. By the time BLUEBIRD evolved into Operation ARTICHOKE (the
formal change in codenames occurred August 1951), Security officials
were still searching for the magic technique -- the deus ex machina --
that would guarantee surefire results.
The whole concept of a truth drug was a bit farfetched to begin with.
It presupposed that there was a way to chemically bypass the mind's
censor and turn the psyche inside out, unleashing a profusion of buried
secrets, and that surely some approximation of "truth" would emerge
amidst all the personal debris. In this respect the CIA's quest
resembled a skewed version of a familiar mythological theme from which
such images as the Philosopher's Stone and the Fountain of Youth derive
-- that through touching or ingesting something one can acquire wisdom,
immortality, or eternal peace. It is more than a bit ironic that the
biblical inscription on the marble wall of the main lobby at CIA
headquarters in Langley, Virginia, reads, "And ye shall know the Truth
and the Truth shall set you free".
The freewheeling atmosphere that prevailed during the CIA's early years
encouraged an "anything goes" attitude among researchers associated with
the mind control program. This was before the Agency's bureaucratic
arteries began to harden, and those who participated on Operation
ARTICHOKE were intent on leaving no stone unturned in an effort to
deliver the ultimate truth drug. A number of agents were sent on
fact-finding missions to all corners of the globe to procure samples of
rare herbs and botanicals. The results of one such trip were recorded
in a heavily deleted document entitled "Exploration of Potential Plant
Resources in the Caribbean Region". Among the numerous items mentioned
in this report, a few were particularly intriguing. A plant called a
"stupid bush", characterized by the CIA as a psychogenic agent and a
pernicious weed, was said to proliferate in Puerto Rico and Saint
Thomas. Its effects were shrouded in mystery. An "information bush"
was also discovered. This shrub stumped CIA experts, who were at a loss
to pin down its properties. The "information bush" was listed as a
psychogenic agent followed by a lingering question mark. What type of
information -- prophetic or mundane -- might be evoked by this unusual
herb was unclear. Nor was it known whether the "information bush" could
be used as an antidote to the "stupid bush" or vice versa. [grin grin
grin]
The CIA studied a veritable pharmacopoeia of drugs with the hope of
achieving a breakthrough. At one point during the early 1950s Uncle
Sam's secret agents viewed cocaine as a potential truth serum.
"Cocaine's general effects have been somewhat neglected", noted an
astute researcher. Whereupon tests were conducted that enabled the CIA
to determine that the precious powder "will produce elation,
talkativeness, etc." when administer by injection. "Larger doses,"
according to a previously classified document, "may cause fearfulness
and alarming hallucinations." The document goes on to report that
cocaine "counteracts... the catatonia of catatonic schizophrenics" and
concludes with the recommendation that the drug be studied further.
A number of cocaine derivatives were also investigated from an
interrogation standpoint. Procaine, a synthetic analogue, was tested on
mental patients and the results were intriguing. When injected into the
frontal lobe of the brain through trephine holes in the skull, the drug
"produced free and spontaneous speech within two days in mute
schizophrenics". This procedure was rejected as "too surgical for our
use". Nevertheless, according to a CIA pharmacologist, "it is possible
that such a drug could be gotten into the general circulation of subject
without surgery, hypodermic or feeding." He suggested a method known as
iontophoresis, which involves using an electric current to transfer the
ions of a chosen medicament into the tissues of the body.
The CIA's infatuation with cocaine was short-lived. It may have
titilated the nostrils of more than a few spies and produced some heady
speculation, but after the initial inspiration it was back to square
one. Perhaps their expectations were too high for any drug to
accommodate. Or maybe a new approach to the problem was required.
The search for an effective interrogation technique eventually led to
heroin. Not the heroin that ex-Nazi pilots under CIA contract smuggled
out of the Golden Triangle in Southeast Asia on CIA proprietary airlines
during the late 1940s and 1950s; nor the heroin that was pumped into
America's black and brown ghettos after passing through contraband
networks controlled by mobsters who moonlighted as CIA hitmen. The
Agency's involvement in worldwide heroin traffic, which has been well
documented in _The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia_ by Alfred
McCoy, went far beyond the scope of Operation ARTICHOKE, which was
primarily concerned with eliciting information from recalcitrant
subjects. However, ARTICHOKE scientists did see possible advantages in
heroin as a mind control drug. According to a CIA document dated April
26, 1952, heroin was "frequently used by police and intelligence
officers _on a routine basis_ [emphasis added]". The cold turkey theory
of interrogation: CIA operatives determined that heroin and other
habit-forming substances "can be useful in reverse because of the
stresses produced when they are withdrawn from those who are addicted to
their use".
Enter LSD
It was with the hope of finding the long-sought miracle drug that CIA
investigators first began to dabble with LSD-25 in the early 1950s. At
the time very little was known about the hallucinogen, even in
scientific circles. Dr Werner Stoll, the son of Sandoz president Arthur
Stoll and a colleague of Albert Hoffmann's, was the first person to
investigate the psychological properties of LSD. The results of his
study were presented in the _Swiss Archives of Neurology_ in 1947.
Stoll reported that LSD produced disturbances in perception,
hallucinations, and acceleration in thinking; moreover, the drug was
found to blunt the usual suspiciousness of schizophrenic patients. No
favorable aftereffects were described. Two years later in the same
journal Stoll contributed a second report entitled "A New Hallucinatory
Agent, Active in Very Small Amounts".
The fact that LSD caused hallucinations should not have been a total
surprise to the scientific community. Sandoz first became interested in
ergot, the natural source of all lysergic acid. The rye fungus had a
mysterious and contradictory reputation. In China and parts of the
Mideast it was thought to possess medicinal qualities, and certain
scholars believe that it may have been used in sacred rites in ancient
Greece. In other parts of Europe, however, the same fungus was
associated with the horrible malady known as St Anthony's Fire, which
struck periodically like the plague. Medieval chronicles tell of
villages and towns where nearly everyone went mad for a few days after
ergot-diseased rye was unknowingly milled into flour and baked as bread.
Men were afflicted with gangrenous limbs that looked like blackened
stumps, and pregnant women miscarried. Even in modern times, there have
been reports of ergot-related epidemics.
FOOTNOTE: In 1951 hundreds of respectable citizens in Pont-Saint-Esprit,
a small French village, went completely berserk one evening. Some of
the town's leading citizens jumped from windows into the Rhone. Others
ran through the streets screaming abut being chased by lions, tigers,
and "bandits with donkey ears". Many died, and whose who survived
suffered strange aftereffects for weeks. In his book _The Day of St
Anthony's Fire_, John C Fuller attributes this bizarre outbreak to rye
flour contaminated with ergot.
The CIA inherited this ambiguous legacy when it embraced LSD as a mind
control drug. An ARTICHOKE document dated October 21, 1951, indicates
that acid was tested initially as part of a pilot study of the effects
of various chemicals "on the conscious suppression of experimental or
non-threat secrets". In addition to lysergic acid this particular
survey covered a wide range of substances, including morphine, ether,
Benzedrine, ethyl alcohol, and mescaline. "There is no question," noted
the author of this report, "that drugs are already on hand (and new ones
are being produced) that can destroy integrity and make indiscreet the
most dependable individual." The report concluded by recommending that
LSD be critically tested "under threat conditions beyond the scope of
civilian experimentation". POWs, federal prisoners, and Security
officers were mentioned as possible candidates for these field
experiments.
In another study designed to ascertain optimal dosage levels for
interrogation sessions, a CIA psychiatrist administered LSD to "at least
12 human subjects _of not too high mentality_". At the outset the
subjects were "told only that a new drug was being tested and promised
that nothing serious or dangerous would happen to them.... During the
intoxication they realized something was happening, but were never told
exactly what." A dosage range of 100 to 150 micrograms was finally
selected, and the Agency proceeded to test the drug in mock
interrogation trials.
Initial reports seemed promising. In one instance LSD was given to an
officer who had been instructed not to reveal "a significant military
secret". When questioned, however, "he gave all the details of the
secret... and after the effects of the LSD had worn off, the officer
had no knowledge of revealing the information (complete amnesia)."
Favorable reports kept coming in, and when this phase of experimentation
was completed, the CIA's Office of Scientific Intelligence (OSI)
prepared a lengthy memorandum entitled "Potential New Agent for
Unconventional Warfare". LSD was said to be useful "for eliciting true
nd accurate statements from subjects under its influence during
interrogation". Moreover, the data on hand suggested that LSD might
help in reviving memories of past experiences.
It almost seemed to good to be true -- a drug that unearthed secrets
buried deep in the unconscious mind but also caused amnesia during the
effective period. The implications were downright astounding. Soon the
entire CIA hierarchy was head over heels as news of what appeared to be
a major breakthrough sent shock waves rippling through headquarters.
(C.P.Snow once said, "The euphoria of secrecy goes to the head.") For
years they had searched, and now they were on the verge of finding the
Holy Grail of the cloak-and-dagger trade. As one CIA officer recalled,
"We had thought at first this was the secret that was going to unlock
the universe."
But the sense of elation did not last long. As the secret research
progressed, the CIA ran into problems. Eventually they came to
recognize that LSD was not really a truth serum in the classical sense.
Accurate information could not always be obtained from people under the
influence of LSD because it induced a "marked anxiety and loss of
reality contact". Those who received unwitting doses experienced an
intense distortion of time, place, and body image, frequently
culminating in full-blown paranoid reactions. The bizarre
hallucinations caused by the drug often proved more of a hindrance than
an aid to the interrogation process. There was always the risk, for
example, that an enemy spy who started to trip out would realize he'd
been drugged. This could make him overly suspicious and taciturn to the
point of clammy up entirely.
There were other pitfalls that made the situation even more precarious
from an interrogation standpoint. While anxiety was the predominant
characteristic displayed during LSD sessions, some people experienced
delusions of grandeur and omnipotence. An entire operation might
backfire if someone had an ecstatic or transcendental experience and
became convinced that he could defy his interrogators indefinitely. And
then there was the question of amnesia, which was not as cut-and-dried
as first supposed. Everyone agreed that a person would probably have a
difficult time recalling exactly what happened while he was high on LSD,
but that didn't mean his mind would be completely blank. While the drug
might distort memory to some degree, it did not destroy it.
When CIA scientists tested a drug for speech-inducing purposes and found
that it didn't work, they usually put it aside and tried something else.
But such was not the case with LSD. Although early reports proved
overoptimistic, the Agency was not about the discard such a powerful and
unusual substance simply because it did not live up to its original
expectations. They had to shift gears. A reassessment of the strategic
implications of LSD was necessary. If, strictly speaking, LSD was not a
reliable truth drug, then how else could it be used?
CIA researchers were intrigued by this new chemical, but they didn't
quite know what to make of it. LSD was significantly different from
anything else they knew about. "The most fascinating thing about it," a
CIA psychologist recalled, "was that such minute quantities had such a
terrible effect." Mere micrograms could create "serious mental
confusion... and render the mind temporarily susceptible to
suggestion". Moreover, the drug was colorless, odorless, and tasteless,
and therefore easily concealed in food and beverage. But it was hard to
predict the response to LSD. On certain occasions acid seemed to cause
an uninhibited disclosure of information, but oftentimes the
overwhelming anxiety experienced by the subject obstructed the
interrogation process. And there were unexplainable mood swings -- from
total panic to boundless blissout. How could one drug produce such
extreme behavior and contradictory reactions? It didn't make sense.
As research continued, the situation became even more perplexing. At
one point a group of Security officers did an about-face and suggested
that acid might best be employed as an anti-interrogation substance:
"Since information obtained from a person in a psychotic state
would be unrealistic, bizarre, and extremely difficult to assess,
the _self-administration_ of LSD-25, which is effective in minute
doses, might in special circumstances offer an operative temporary
protection against interrogation [emphasis added]."
This proposal was somewhat akin to a suicide pill scenario. Secret
agents would be equipped with micro-pellets of LSD to take on dangerous
assignments. If they fell into enemy hands and were about to be
interrogated, they could pop a tab of acid as a preventive measure and
babble gibberish. Obviously this idea was impractical, but it showed
just how confused the CIA's top scientists were about LSD. First they
thought it was a true serum, then a lie serum, and for a while they
didn't know what to think.
To make matters worse, there was a great deal of concern within the
Agency that the Soviets and the Red Chinese might also have designs on
LSD as an espionage weapon. A survey conducted by the Officer of
Scientific Intelligence noted that ergot was a commercial product in
numerous Eastern Bloc countries. The enigmatic fungus also flourished
in the Soviet Union, but Russian ergot had not yet appeared in foreign
markets. Could this mean the Soviets were hoarding their supplies?
Since information on the chemical structure of LSD was available in
scientific journals as early as 1947, the Russians might have been
stockpiling raw ergot in order to convert it into a mind control weapon.
"Although no Soviet data are available on LSD-25," the OSI study
concluded, "it must be assumed that the scientists of the USSR are
thoroughly cognizant of the strategic importance of this powerful
new drug and are capable of producing it at any time."
Were the Russian really into acid? "I'm sure they were," asserted John
Gittlinger, one of the CIA's leading psychologists during the Cold War,
"but if you ask me to prove it, I've never seen any direct proof of it."
While hard evidence of a Soviet LSD connection was lacking, the CIA
wasn't about to take any chances. What would happen, for example, if an
American spy was caught and dosed by the Commies? The CIA realized that
an adversary intelligence service could employ LSD "to produce anxiety
or terror in medically unsophisticated subjects unable to distinguish
drug-induced psychosis from actual insanity". The only way to be sure
that an operative would not freak out under such circumstances would be
to give him a taste of LSD (a mind control vaccine?) before he was sent
on a sensitive overseas mission. Such a person would know that the
effects of the drug were transitory and would therefore be in a better
position to handle the experience. CIA documents actually refer to
agents who were familiar with LSD as "enlightened operatives".
Along this line, Security officials proposed that LSD be administered to
CIA trainee volunteers. Such a procedure would clearly demonstrate to
select individuals the effects of hallucinogenic substances upon
themselves and their associates. Furthermore, it would provide an
opportunity to screen Agency personnel for "anxiety proneness"; those
who couldn't pass the acid test would be excluded from certain critical
assignments. This suggestion was well received by the ARTICHOKE
steering committee, although the representative from the CIA's Medical
Office felt that the test should not be "confined merely to male
volunteer trainee personnel, but that it should be broadened to include
all components of the Agency". According to a CIA document dated
November 19, 1953, the Project Committee "verbally concurred in this
recommendation".
During the next few years numerous CIA agents tried LSD. Some used the
drug on repeated occasions. How did their firsthand experience with
acid affect their personalities? How did it affect their attitude to
their work -- particularly those who were directly involved in mind
control research? What impact did it have on the program as a whole?
At the outset of the CIA's behavior control endeavors the main emphasis
was on speech-inducing drugs. But when acid entered the scene, the
entire program assumed a more aggressive posture. The CIA's turned-on
strategic came to believe that mind control techniques could be applied
to a wide range of operations above and beyond the strict category of
"special interrogation". It was almost as if LSD blew the Agency's
collective mind-set -- or was it mind-rut? With acid acting as a
catalyst, the whole idea of what could be done with a drug , or drugs in
general, was suddenly transformed. Soon a perfect compound was
envisioned for every conceivable circumstance: there would be smart
shots, memory erasers, "antivitamins", knock-out drops, "aphrodisiacs
for operational use", drugs that caused "headache clusters" or
uncontrollable twitching, drugs that could induce cancer, a stroke or a
heart attack without leaving a trace as to the source of the ailment.
There were chemicals to make a drunk man sober and a sober man as drunk
as a fish. Even a "recruitment" pill was contemplated. What's more,
according to a document dated May 5, 1955, the CIA placed a high
priority on the development of a drug "which will produce 'pure
euphoria' with no subsequent letdown".
This is not to suggest that the CIA had given up on LSD. On the
contrary, after grappling with the drug for a number of years, the
Agency devised new methods of interrogation based on the "far-out"
possibilities of this mind-altering substance. When employed as a
third-degree tactic, acid enabled the CIA to approach a hostile subject
with a great deal of leverage. CIA operatives realized that intense
mental confusion could be produced by deliberately attacking a person
along psychological lines. Of all the chemicals that caused mental
derangement, none was as powerful as LSD. Acid not only made people
extremely anxious, it also broke down the character defenses for
handling anxiety. A skillful interrogator could exploit this
vulnerability by threatening to keep an unwitting subject in a
tripped-out state indefinitely unless he spilled the beans. This tactic
often proved successful where others had failed. CIA documents indicate
that LSD was employed as an aid to interrogation on an operational basis
from the mid-1950s through the early 1960s.
Laboratories of the State
When the CIA first became interested in LSD, only a handful of
scientists in the United States were engaged in hallucinogenic drug
research. At the time there was little private or public support for
this relatively new field of experimental psychiatry, and no one had
undertaken a systematic investigation of LSD. The CIA's mind control
specialists sensed a golden opportunity in the making. With a sizable
treasure chest at their disposal they were in a position to boost the
careers of scientists whose skill and expertise would be of maximum
benefit to the CIA. Almost overnight a whole new market for grants in
LSD research sprang into existence as money started pouring through
CIA-linked conduits or "cutouts" such as the Geschickter Fund for
Medical Research, the Society for the Study of Human Ecology, and the
Josiah Macy, Jr Foundation.
Among those who benefited from t he CIA's largesse was Dr Max Rinkel,
the first person to bring LSD to the United States. In 1949 Rinkel, a
research psychiatrist, obtained a supply of LSD from Sandoz
Pharmaceuticals in Switzerland and gave the drug to his partner, Dr
Robert Hyde, who took the first acid trip in the Western Hemisphere.
Rinkel and Hyde went on to organize an LSD study at the Boston
Psychopathic Institute, a pioneering mental health clinic affiliated
with Harvard University. They tested the drug on 100 volunteers and
reported the initial findings in May 1950 (nearly three years before the
CIA began funding their work) at the annual meeting of the American
Psychiatric Association. Rinkel announced that LSD had produced "a
transitory psychotic disturbance" in normal subjects. This was highly
significant, for it raised the possibility that mental disorders could
be studied objectively in a controlled experimental setting.
Rinkel's hypothesis was supported and expanded upon during the same
forum by Dr Paul Hoch, a prominent psychiatrist who would also proffer
his services to the CIA in the years ahead. Hoch reported that the
symptoms produced by LSD, mescaline, and related drugs were similar to
those of schizophrenia: intensity of color perception, hallucinations,
depersonalization, intense anxiety, paranoia, and in some cases
catatonic manifestations. As Hock put it, "LSD and Mescaline
disorganize the psychic integration of the individual." he believed that
the medical profession was fortunate to have access to these substances,
for now it would be possible to reconstruct temporary or "model"
psychoses in the laboratory. LSD was considered an exceptional research
tool in that the subject could provide a detailed description of his
experience while he was under the influence of the drug. It was hoped
that careful analysis of these data would shed new light on
schizophrenia and other enigmatic mental diseases.
Hock's landmark thesis -- that LSD was a "psychotomimetic" or
"madness-mimicking" agent -- caused a sensation in scientific circles
and led to several important and stimulating theories regarding the
biochemical basis of schizophrenia. This in turn sparked an upsurge of
interest in brain chemistry and opened new vistas in the field of
experimental psychiatry. In light of the extremely high potency of LSD,
it seemed completely plausible that infinitesimal traces of a
psychoactive substance produced through metabolic dysfunction by the
human organism might cause psychotic disturbances. Conversely, attempts
to alleviate a "lysergic psychosis" might point the way toward cutting
schizophrenia and other forms of mental illness.
FOOTNOTE: While the miracle cure never panned out, it is worth nothing
that Thorazine was found to mollify an LSD reaction and subsequently
became a standard drug for controlling patients in mental asylums and
prisons.
As it turned out, the model psychosis concept dovetailed particularly
well with the secret schemes of the CIA, which also viewed LSD in terms
of its ability to blow minds and make people crazy. Thus it is not
surprising that the CIA chose to invest in men like Rinkel and Hoch.
Most scientists were flattered by the government's interest in their
research, and they were eager to assist the CIA in its attempts to
unravel the riddle of LSD. This was, after all, the Cold War, and one
did not have to be a blue-ribboned hawk or a hard-liner to work in
tandem with American intelligence.
In the early 1950s the CIA approached Dr Nick Bercel, a psychiatrist who
maintained a private practice in Los Angeles. Bercel was one of the
first people in the United States to work with LSD, and the CIA asked
him to consider a haunting proposition. What would happen if the
Russians put LSD in the water supply of a large American city? A
skillful saboteur could carry enough acid in his coat pocket to turn an
entire metropolis into a loony bin, assuming he found a way to
distribute it equally. In light of this frightening prospect, would
Bercel render a patriotic service by calculating exactly how much LSD
would be required to contaminate the water supply of Los Angeles? Bercel
consented, and that evening he dissolved a tiny amount of acid in a
glass of tap water, only to discover that the chlorine neutralized the
drug. "Don't worry," he told his CIA contact, "it won't work."
The Agency took this as a mandate, and another version of LSD was
eventually concocted to overcome the drawback. A CIA document state
accordingly,
"If the concept of contaminating a city's water supply seems, or in
actual fact, is found to be far-fetched (this is by no means
certain), there is still the possibility of contaminating, say, the
water supply of a bomber base or, more easily still, that of a
battleship.... Our current work contains the strong suggestion
that LSD-25 will produce hysteria (unaccountable laughing, anxiety,
terror).... It requires little imagination to realize what the
consequences might be if a battleship's crew were so affected."
The CIA never got in touch with Bercel again, but they monitored his
research reports in various medical journals. When Bercel gave LSD to
spiders, they spun perfectly symmetrical webs. Animal studies also
showed that cats cringed before untreated mice, and fish that normally
swam close to the bottom of a water tank hovered near the top. In
another experiment Dr Louis Joylon ("Jolly") West, chairman of the
Department of Psychiatry at the University of Oklahoma, injected an
elephant with a massive dose of 300,000 micrograms. Dr West, a CIA
contract employee and an avid believer in the notion that hallucinogens
were psychotomimetic agents, was trying to duplicate the periodic "rut"
madness that overtakes male elephants for about one week each year. But
the animal did not experience a model elephant psychosis; it just keeled
over and remained in a motionless stupor. In attempting to revive the
elephant, West administered a combination of drugs that ended up killing
the poor beast.
Research on human subjects showed that LSD lodged primarily in the
liver, spleen, and kidneys. Only a tiny amount (.01%) of the original
dose entered the brain, and it only remained there for 20 minutes. This
was a most curious finding, as the effect of LSD was not evident until
the drug had disappeared entirely from the central nervous system. Some
scientists thought LSD might act as a trigger mechanism, releasing or
inhibiting a naturally occurring substance in the brain, but no one
could figure out exactly why the drug had such a dramatic effect on the
mind.
Many other questions were in need of clarification. Could the drug be
fatal? What was the maximum dose? Were the effects constant, or were
there variations according to different personality types? Could the
reaction be accentuated by combining LSD with other chemicals? Was there
an antidote? Some of these questions overlapped with legitimate medical
concerns, and researchers on CIA stipends published unclassified
versions of their work in prestigious scientific periodicals. But these
accounts omitted secret data given to the CIA on how LSD affected
"operationally pertinent categories" such as disturbance of memory,
alteration of sex patterns, eliciting information, increasing
suggestibility, and creating emotional dependence.
The CIA was particularly interested in psychiatric reports suggesting
that LSD could break down familiar behavior patterns, for this raised
the possibility of reprogramming or brainwashing. If LSD temporarily
altered a person's view of the world and suspended his belief system,
CIA doctors surmised, then perhaps Russian spies could be cajoled into
switching loyalties while they were tripping. The brainwashing strategy
was relatively simple: find the subject's weakest point (his "squeaky
board") and bear down on it. Use any combination or synthesis which
might "open the mind to the power of suggestion to a degree never
hitherto dreamed possible". LSD would be employed to provoke a reality
shift, to break someone down and tame him, to find a locus of anonymity
and leave a mark there forever.
To explore the feasibility of this approach, the Agency turned to Dr
Ewen Cameron, a respected psychiatrist who served as president of the
Canadian, the American, and the World Psychiatric Association before his
death in 1967. Cameron also directed the Allain Memorial Institute at
Montreal's McGill University, where he developed a bizarre and
unorthodox method for treating schizophrenia. With financial backing
from the CIA he tested his method on 53 patients at Allain. The
so-called treatment started with "sleep therapy", in which subjects were
knocked out for months at a time. The next phase, "depatterning",
entailed massive electroshock and frequent doses of LSD designed to wipe
out past behavior patterns. Then Cameron tried to recondition the mind
through a technique known as "psychic driving". The patients, once
again heavily sedated, were confined to "sleep rooms" where
tape-recorded messages played over and over from speakers under their
pillows. Some heard the message a quarter of a million times.
Cameron's methods were later discredited, and the CIA grudgingly gave up
on the notion of LSD as a brainwashing technique. But that was little
consolation to those who served as guinea pigs for the CIA's secret mind
control projects. Nine of Cameron's former patients have sued the
American government for $1,000,000 each, claiming that they are still
suffering from the trauma they went through at Allain. These people
never agreed to participate in a scientific experiment -- a fact which
reflects little credit on the CIA, even if the Agency officials feared
that the Soviets were spurting ahead in the mind control race. The CIA
violated the Nuremberg Code for medical ethics by sponsoring experiments
on unwitting subjects. Ironically, Dr Cameron was a member of the
Nuremberg tribunal that heard the case against Nazi war criminals who
committed atrocities during World War II.
Like the Nazi doctors at Dachau, the CIA victimized certain groups of
people, who were unable to resist: prisoners, mental patients,
foreigners, the terminally ill, sexual deviants, ethnic minorities. One
project took place at the Addiction Research Centre of the US Public
Health Service Hospital in Lexington, Kentucky. Lexington was
ostensibly a place where heroin addicts could go to shake a habit, and
although it was officially a penitentiary, all the inmates were referred
to as "patients". The patients had their own way of referring to the
doctors -- "hacks" or "croakers" -- who patrolled the premises in
military uniforms.
The patients at Lexington had no way of knowing that it was one of 15
penal and mental institutions utilized by the CIA in its super-secret
drug development program. To conceal its role the Agency enlisted the
aid of the navy and the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH),
which served as conduits for channeling money to Dr Harris Isbell, a
gung-ho research scientist who remained on the CIA payroll for over a
decade. According to CIA documents the directors of NIMH and the
National Institutes of Health were fully cognizant of the Agency's
"interest" in Isbell's work and offered "full support and protection".
When the CIA came across a new drug (usually supplied by American
pharmaceutical firms) that needed testing, the frequently sent it over
to their chief doctor at Lexington, where an ample supply of captive
guinea pigs was readily available. Over 800 compounds were farmed out
to Isbell, including LSD and a variety of hallucinogens. It became an
open secret among street junkies that if the supply got tight, you could
always commit yourself to Lexington, where heroin and morphine were
doled out as payment if you volunteered for Isbell's wacky drug
experiments. (Small wonder that Lexington had a return rate of 90%.) Dr
Isbell, a longtime member of the Food and Drug Administration's Advisory
Committee on the Abuse of Depressant and Stimulant Drugs, defended the
volunteer program on the grounds that there was no precedent at the time
for offering inmates cash for their services.
CIA documents describe experiments conducted by Isbell in which certain
patients -- nearly all black inmates -- were given LSD for more than 75
consecutive days. In order to overcome tolerance to the hallucinogen,
Isbell administered "double, triple and quadruple doses". A report
dated May 5, 1959, comments on an experiment involving psilocybin (a
semi-synthetic version of the magic mushroom). Subjects who ingested
the drug became extremely anxious, although sometimes there were periods
of intense elation marked by "continuous gales of laughter". A few
patients felt that they
"had become very large, or had shrunk to the size of children.
Their hands of feet did not seem to be their own and sometimes took
on the appearance of animal paws.... They reported many fantasies
or dreamlike states in which they seemed to be elsewhere.
Fantastic experiences, such as trips to the moon or living in
gorgeous castles, were occassionally reported."
Isbell concluded,
"Despite these striking subjective experiences, the patients
remained oriented in time, place, and person. In most instances,
the patients did not lose their insight but realized that the
effects were due to the drug. Two of the nine patients, however,
did lose insight and felt that their experiences were cased by the
experimenters controlling their minds."
In addition to his role as a research scientists, Dr Isbell served as a
go-between for the CIA in its attempt to obtain drug samples from
European pharmaceutical concerns which assumed they were providing
"medicine" to a US Public Health official. The CIA in turn acted as a
research coordinator, passing information, tips, and leads to Isbell and
its other contract employees so that they could keep abreast of each
other's progress; when a new discovery was made, the CIA would often ask
another researcher to conduct a follow-up study for confirmation. One
scientist whose work was coordinated with Isbell's in such a manner was
Dr Carl Pfeiffer, a noted pharmacologist from Princeton who tested LSD
on inmates at the federal prison in Atlanta and the Bordentown
Reformatory in New Jersey.
Isbell, Pfeiffer, Cameron, West, and Hoch -- all were part of a network
of doctors and scientists who gathered intelligence for the CIA.
Through these scholar-informants the Agency stayed on top of the latest
developments within the "aboveground" LSD scene, which expanded rapidly
during the Cold War. By the mid-1950s numerous independent
investigators had undertaken hallucinogenic drug studies, and the CIA
was determined not to let the slightest detail escape its grasp. In a
communique dated May 26, 1954, the Agency ordered all domestic field
offices in the United States to monitor scientists engaged in LSD
research. People of interest, the memo explained,
"will most probably be found in biochemistry departments of
universities, mental hospitals, private psychiatric practice....
We do ask that you remember their importance and report their work
when it comes to your attention."
The CIA also expended considerable effort to monitor the latest
development in LSD research on a world-wide scale. Drug specialists
funded by the Agency made periodic trips to Europe to confer with
scientists and representatives of various pharmaceutical concerns,
including, of course, Sandoz Laboratories. Initially the Swiss firm
provided LSD to investigators all over the world free of charge, in
exchange for full access to their research data. (CIA researchers did
not comply with this stipulation.) By 1953, Sandoz had decided to deal
directly with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which assumed a
supervisory role in distributing LSD to American investigators from then
on. It was a superb arrangement as far as the CIA was concerned, for
the FDA went out of its way to assist the secret drug program. With the
FDA as its junior partner, the CIA not only had ready access to supplies
of LSD (which Sandoz marketed for a while under the brand name Delysid)
but also was able to keep a close eye on independent researchers in the
United States.
The CIA would have been content to let the FDA act as an intermediary in
its dealings with Sandoz, but business as usual was suspended when the
Agency learned of an offer that could not be refused. Prompted by
reports that large quantities of the drug were suddenly available,
top-level CIA officials authorized the purchase of 10 _kilos_ of LSD
from Sandoz at an estimated price of 4240,000 -- enough for a staggering
100 million doses. A document dated November 16, 1953, characterized
the pending transaction as a "risky operation", but CIA officials felt
it was necessary, if only to preclude any attempt the Communists might
make to get their hands on the drug. What the CIA intended to do with
such an incredible stash of acid was never made clear.
The CIA later found out that Sandoz had never produced LSD in quantities
even remotely resembling ten kilograms. Apparently only 10 milligrams
were for sale, but a CIA contact in Switzerland mistook a kilogram,
1,000 grams, for a milligram (.001 grams), which would explain the huge
discrepancy. Nevertheless, Sandoz officials were pleased by the CIA's
interest in their product, and the two organizations struck up a
cooperative relationship. Arthur Stoll, president of Sandoz, agreed to
keep the CIA posted whenever new LSD was produced or a shipment was
delivered to a customer. Likewise, any information concerning LSD
research behind the Iron Curtain would be passed along confidentially.
But the CIA did not want to depend on a foreign company for supplies of
a substance considered vital to American security interests. The Agency
asked the Eli Lilly Company in Indianapolis to try to synthesize a batch
of all-American acid. By mid-1954 Lilly had succeeded in breaking the
secret formula held by Sandoz. "This is a closely guarded secret," a
CIA document declared, "and should not be mentioned generally."
Scientists as Lilly assured the CIA that "in a matter of months LSD
would be available in tonnage quantities".
Midnight Climax
In a speech before the National Alumni Conference at Princeton
University on April 10, 1953, newly appointed CIA director Allen Dulles
lectured his audience on "how sinister the battle for men's minds had
become in Soviet hands". The human mind, Dulles warned, was a
"malleable tool", and the Red Menace had secretly developed "brain
perversion techniques". Some of these methods were "so subtle and so
abhorrent to our way of life that we have recoiled from facing up to
them". Dulles continued,
"The minds of selected individuals who are subjected to such
treatment... are deprived of the ability to state their own
thoughts. Parrot-like, the individuals so conditioned can
merely repeat the thoughts which have been implanted in their
minds by suggestion from outside. In effect the brain... becomes
a phonograph playing a disc put on the spindle by an outside
genius over which is has no control."
Three days after delivering this address Dulles authorized Operation
MK-ULTRA, the CIA's major drug and mind control program during the Cold
War. MK-ULTRA was the brainchild of Richard Helms, a high-ranking
member of the Clandestine Services (otherwise known as the "dirty tricks
department") who championed such methods throughout his career as an
intelligence officer. As helms explained to Dulles when he first
proposed the MK-ULTRA project,
"Aside from the offensive potential, the development of a
comprehensive capability in this field... gives us a thorough
knowledge of the enemy's theoretical potential, thus enabling us
to defend ourselves against a foe who might not be as restrained
in the use of these techniques as we are."
The supersecret MK-ULTRA program was run by a relatively small unit
within the CIA known as the Technical Services Staff (TSS). Originally
established as a supplementary funding mechanism to the ARTICHOKE
project, MK-ULTRA quickly grew into a mammoth undertaking that
outflanked earlier mind control initiatives. For a while both the TSS
and the Office of Security (which directed the ARTICHOKE project) were
engaged in parallel LSD tests, and a heated rivalry developed between
the two groups. Security officials were miffed because they had gotten
into acid first and then this new clique started cutting in on what the
ARTICHOKE crowd considered their rightful turf.
The internecine conflict grew to the point where the Office of security
decided to have one of its people spy on the TSS. This set off a flurry
of memos between the Security informant and his superiors, who were
dismayed when they learned that Dr Sidney Gottlieb, the chemist who
directed the MK-ULTRA program, had approved a plan to give acid to
unwitting American citizens. The Office of Security had never attempted
such a reckless gesture -- although it had its own idiosyncracies;
ARTICHOKE operatives, for example, were attempting to have a hypnotized
subject skill someone while in a trance.
Whereas the Office of Security utilized LSD as an interrogation weapon,
Dr Gottlieb had other ideas about what to do with the drug. Because the
effects of LSD were temporary (in contrast to the fatal nerve agents),
Gottlieb saw important strategic advantages for its use in covert
operations. For instance, a surreptitious dose of LSD might disrupt a
person's thought process and cause him to act strangely or foolishly in
public. A CIA document notes that administering LSD "to high officials
would be a relatively simple matter and could have a significant effect
at key meetings, speeches, etc." But Gottlieb realized there was a
considerable difference between testing LSD in a laboratory and using
the drug in clandestine operations. In an effort to bridge the gap, he
and his TSS colleagues initiated a series of in-house experiments
designed to find out what would happen if LSD was given to someone in a
"normal" life setting without advance warning.
They approached the problem systematically, taking one step at a time,
until they reached a point where outsiders were zapped with no
explanation whatsoever. First everyone in Technical Services tried LSD.
They tripped alone and in groups. A typical experiment involved two
people pairing off in a closed room where they observed each other for
hours at a time, took noted, and analyzed their experiences. As
Gottlieb later explained,
"There was an extensive amount of self-experimentation for the
reason that we felt that a first hand knowledge of the subjective
effects of these drugs [was] important to those of us who were
involved in the program."
When they finally learned the hallucinogenic ropes, so to speak, they
agreed among themselves to slip LSD into each other's drinks. The
target never knew when his turn would come, but as soon as the drug was
ingested a TSS colleague would tell him so he could make the necessary
preparations -- which usually meant taking the rest of the day off.
Initially the leaders of MK-ULTRA restricted the surprise acid tests to
TSS members, but when this phase had run its course they started dosing
other Agency personnel who had never tripped before. Nearly everyone
was fair game, and surprise acid trips became something of an
occupational hazard among CIA operatives. Such tests were considered
necessary because foreknowledge would prejudice the results of the
experiment.
Indeed, things were getting a bit raucous down at headquarters. When
Security officials discovered what was going on, they began to have
serious doubts about the wisdom of the TSS game plan. MOral
reservations were not paramount; it was more a sense that the MK-ULTRA
staff had become unhinged by the hallucinogen. The Office of Security
felt that the TSS should have exercised better judgment in dealing with
such a powerful and dangerous chemical. The straw that broke the
camel's back came when a Security informant got wind of a plan by a few
TSS jokers to put LSD in the punch served at the annual CIA Christmas
office party. A security memo dated December 15, 1954, noted that acid
could "produce serious insanity for periods of 8 to 18 hours and
possibly for longer". The writer of this memo concluded indignantly and
unequivocally that he did "not recommend testing in the Christmas punch
bowls usually present at the Christmas office parties".
The purpose of these early acid tests wa not to explore mystical realms
or higher states of consciousness. On the contrary, the TSS was trying
to figure out how to employ LSD in espionage operations. Nevertheless,
there were times when CIA agents found themselves propelled into a
visionary world and they were deeply moved by the experience. One
MK-ULTRA veteran wept in front of his colleagues at the end of his first
trip. "I didn't want it to leave," he explained. "I felt I would be
going back to a place where I wouldn't be able to hold on to this kind
of beauty." His colleagues assumed he was having a bad trip and wrote a
report stating that the drug had made him psychotic.
Adverse reactions often occurred when people were given LSD on an
impromptu basis. One one occassion a CIA operative discovered he'd been
dosed during his morning coffee break.
"He sort of knew he had it," a fellow-agent recalled, "but he
couldn't pull himself together. Somehow, when you known you've
taken it, you start the process of maintaining your composure. But
this grabbed him before he was aware, and it got away from him."
Then he got away from them and fled across Washington stoned out of his
mind while they searched frantically for their missing comrade.
"He reported afterwards," the TSS man continued, "that every
automobile that came by was a terrible monster with fantastic eyes,
out to get him personally. Each time a car passed he would huddle
down against a parapet, terribly frightened. It was a real horror
for him. I mean, it was hours of agony... like being in a dream
that never stops -- with someone chasing you."
Incidents such as these reaffirmed to the MK-ULTRA crew just how
devastating a weapon LSD could be. But this only made them more
enthusiastic about the drug. They kept springing it on people in a
manner reminiscent of the ritual hazing of fraternity pledges.
"It was just too damned informal," a TSS officer later said. "We
didn't know much. We were playing around in ignorance.... We were
just naive about what we were doing."
Such pranks claimed their first victim in November 1953, when a group of
CIA and army technicians fathered for a three-day work retreat at a
remote hunting lodge in the backwoods of Maryland. On the second day of
the meeting Dr Gottlieb spiked the after-dinner cocktails with LSD. As
the drug began to take effect, Gottlieb told everyone that they had
ingested a mind-altering chemical. By that time the group had become
boisterous with laughter and unable to carry on a coherent conversation.
One man was not amused by the unexpected turn of events. Dr Frank
Olson, an army scientist who specialized in biological warfare research,
had never taken LSD before, and he slid into a deep depression. His
mood did not lighten when the conference adjourned. Normally a
gregarious family man, Olson returned home quiet and withdrawn. When he
went to work after the weekend, he asked his boss to fire him because he
had "messed up the experiment" during the retreat. Alarmed by his
erratic behavior, Olson's superiors contacted the CIA, which sent him to
New York to see Dr harold Abramson. A respected physician, Abramson
taught at Columbia University and was chief of the allergy clinic at
Mount Sinai Hospital. He was also one of the CIA's principal LSD
researchers and a part-time consultant to the Army Chemical Corps.
While these were impressive credentials, Abramson was not a trained
psychiatrist, and it was this kind of counseling his patients
desperately needed.
For the next weeks Olson confided his deepest fears to Abramson. He
claimed the CIA was putting something in his coffee to make him stay
awake at night. He said people were plotting against him and he heard
voices at odd hours commanding him to throw away his wallet -- which he
did, even though it contained several uncashed checks. Dr Abramson
concluded that Olson was mired in "a psychotic state... with delusions
of persecution" that had been "crystallized by the LSD experience".
Arrangements were made to move him to Chestnut Lodge, a sanitorium in
Rockville, Maryland, staffed by CIA-cleared psychiatrists. (Apparently
other CIA personnel who suffered from psychiatric disorders were
enrolled in this institution.) On his last evening in New York, Olson
checked into a room at the Statler Hilton along with a CIA agent
assigned to watch him. And then, in the wee hours of the morning, the
troubled scientist plunged headlong through a closed window to his death
10 floors below.
The Olson suicide had immediate repercussions within the CIA. An
elaborate cover-up erased clues to the actual circumstances leading up
to his death. Olson's widow was eventually given a government pension,
and the full truth of what happened would not be revealed for another 20
years. Meanwhile CIA director Allen Dulles suspended the in-house
testing program for a brief period while an internal investigation was
conducted. In the end, Gottlieb and his team received only a mildly
worded reprimand for exercising "bad judgment", but no records of the
incident were kept in their personnel files which would harm their
future careers. The importance of LSD eclipsed all other
considerations, and the secret acid tests resumed.
Gottlieb was now ready to undertake the final and most daring phase of
the MK-ULTRA program: LSD would be given to unwitting targets in
real-life situations. But who would actually do the dirty work? While
looking through some old OSS files, Gottlieb discovered that marijuana
had been tested on unsuspecting subjects in an effort to develop a truth
serum. These experiments had been organized by George Hunter White, a
tough, old-fashioned narcotics officer who ran a training school for
American spies during World War II. Perhaps White would be interested
in testing drugs for the CIA. As a matter of protocol Gottlieb first
approached Harry Anslinger, chief of the Federal Narcotics Bureau.
Anslinger was favorably disposed and agreed to "lend" one of his top men
to the CIA on a part-time basis.
Right from the start White had plenty of leeway in running his
operations. He rented an apartment in New York's Greenwich Village, and
with funds supplied by the CIA he transformed it into a safehouse
complete with two-way mirrors, surveillance equipment, and the like.
Posing as an artist and a seaman, White lured people back to his pad and
slipped them drugs. A clue as to how his subjects fared can be found in
White's personal diary, which contains passing references to surprise
LSD experiments: "Gloria gets horrors.... Janet sky high." The
frequency of bad reactions prompted White to coin his own code word for
the drug: "Stormy", which was how he referred to LSD throughout his
14-year stint as a CIA operative.
In 1955 White transferred to San Francisco, where two more safehouses
were established. During this period he initiated Operation Midnight
Climax, in which drug-addicted prostitutes were hired to pick up men
from local bars and bring them back to a CIA-financed bordello.
Unknowing customers were treated to drinks laced with LSD while White
sat on a portable toilet behind two-way mirrors, sipping martinis and
watching every stoned and kinky moment. As payment for their services
the hookers received $100 a night, plus a guarantee from White that he'd
intercede on their behalf should they be arrested while plying their
trade. In addition to providing data about LSD, Midnight Climax enabled
the CIA to learn about the sexual proclivities of those who passed
through the safehouses. White's harem of prostitutes became the focal
point of an extensive CIA study of how to exploit the art of lovemaking
for espionage purposes.
When he wasn't operating a national security whorehouse, White would
cruise the streets of San Francisco tracking down drug pushers for the
Narcotics Bureau. Sometimes after a tough day on the beat he invited
his narc buddies up to one of the safehouses for a little "R&R".
Occassionally they unzipped their inhibitions and partied on the
premises -- much to the chagrin of the neighbors, who began to complain
about men with guns in shoulder straps chasing after women in various
states of undress. Needless to say, there was always plenty of dope
around, and the feds sampled everything from hashish to LSD.
"So far as I'm concerned," White later told an associate, "'clear
thinking' was non-existent while under the influence of any of
these drugs. I did feel at times like I was having a
'mind-expanding experience', but this vanished like a dream
immediately after the session."
White had quite a scene going for a while. By day he fought to keep
drugs out of circulation, and by night he dispensed them to strangers.
Not everyone was cut out for this kind of schizophrenic lifestyle, and
White often relied on the bottle to reconcile the two extremes. But
there were still moments when his Jekyll-and-Hyde routine got the best
of him. One night a friend who had helped install bugging equipment for
the CIA stopped by the Safehouse only to find the roly-poly narcotics
officer slumped in front of a full-length mirror. White had just
finished polishing off a half gallon of Gibson's. The he sat, with gun
in hand, shooting wax slugs at his own reflection.
The safehouse experiments continued without interruption until 1963,
when CIA inspector general John Earman accidentally stumbled across the
clandestine testing program during a routine inspection of TSS
operations. Only a handful of CIA agents outside Technical Services
knew about the testing of LSD on unwitting subjects, and Earman took
Richard Helms, the prime instigator of MK-ULTRA, to task for not fully
briefing the new CIA director, John J McCone. Although McCone had been
replaced by President Kennedy to replace Allen Dulles as the dean of
American intelligence, Helms apparently had his own ideas about who was
running the CIA.
Earman had grave misgivings about MK-ULTRA and he prepared to 24-page
report that included a comprehensive overview of the drug and mind
control projects. In a cover letter to McCone he noted that the
"concepts involved in manipulating human behavior are found by many
people within and outside the Agency to be disasterous and unethical".
But the harshest criticism was reserved for the safehouse experiments,
which, in his words, placed "the rights and interests of US citizens in
jeopardy". Earman stated that LSD had been tested on "individuals at
all social levels, high and low, native American and foreign". Numerous
subjects had become ill,and some required hospitalization for days and
weeks at a time. Moreover, the sophomoric procedures employed during
the safehouse sessions raised serious questions about the validity of
the data provided by White, who was hardly a qualified scientist. As
Earman pointed out, the CIA had no way of knowing whether White was
fudging the results to suit his own ends.
Earman recommended a freeze on unwitting drug tests until the matter was
fully considered at the higher level of the CIA. But helms, then deputy
director for covert operations (the number two position within the
Agency), defended the program. In a memo dated November 9, 1964, he
warned that the CIA's "positive operational capacity to use drugs is
diminishing owing to a lack of realistic testing", and he called for a
resumption of the safehouse experiments. While admitting that he had
"no answer to the moral issue", Helms argued that such tests were
necessary "to keep up with Soviet advances in this field".
This Cold War refrain had a familiar ring. Yet only a few months
earlier Helms had sung a different tune when J Lee Rankin, chief counsel
of the Warren Commission investigating the Kennedy assassination, asked
him to report on Soviet mind control initiatives. Helms stated his
views in a document dated June 16, 1964:
"Soviet research in the pharmacological agents producing behavioral
effects had consistently lagged five years _behind_ Western
research [emphasis added]." Furthermore, he confidently asserted
that the Russians did not have "any singular, new potent drugs...
to force a course of action on an individual."
The bureaucratic wrangling at CIA headquarters didn't seem to bother
George Hunter White, who kept on sending vouchers for "unorthodox
expenses" to Dr Sidney Gottlieb. No definitive record exists as to when
the unwitting acid tests were terminated, but it appears that White and
the CIA parted ways when he retired from the Narcotics Bureau in 1966.
Afterwards White reflected upon his service for the Agency in a letter
to Gottlieb:
"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, cheat,
steal, rape, and pillage with the sanction and blessing of the
All-Highest?"
By this time the CIA had developed a "stable of drugs", including LSD,
that were used in covert operations. The decision to employ LSD on an
operational basis was handled through a special committee that reported
directly to Richard Helms, who characterized the drug as "dynamite" and
asked to be "advised at all times when it was intended for use". A
favorite plan involved slipping "P-1" (the code name for LSD when used
operationally) to socialist or left-leaning politicians in foreign
countries so that they would babble incoherently and discredit
themselves in public.
Fidel Castro was among the Third World leaders targeted for surprise
acid attacks. When this method proved unworkable, CIA strategists
thought of other ways to embarrass the Cuban president. One scheme
involved dusting Castro's shoes with thalium salts to make his beard
fall out. Apparently they thought that Castro would lose his charisma
along with his hair. Eventually the Agency shifted its focus from bad
trips nd close shaves to eliminating Castro altogether. Gottlieb and
his TSS cohorts were asked to prepare an array of bizarre gadgets and
biochemical poisons for a series of murder conspiracies allying the CIA
with anti-Castro mercenaries and the Mob.
Egyptian president Gamal Abdal Nasser also figured high on the CIA's
hallucinogenic hit list. While he managed to avoid such a fate, others
presumably were less fortunate. CIA documents cited in a documentary by
ABC News confirm that Gottlieb carried a stash of acid overseas on a
number of occasions during the Cold War with the intention of dosing
foreign diplomats and statesmen. But the effects of LSD were difficult
to predict when employed in such a haphazard manner, and the CIA used
LSD only sparingly in operations of this sort.
