Editing MKUltra (section)

==Revelation==
In 1973, amid a government-wide panic caused by the [[Watergate scandal]], CIA Director [[Richard Helms]] ordered all MKUltra files destroyed.<ref name=autogenerated4>{{cite news |title=Mind Control: My Mother, the CIA and LSD |author=Elizabeth Nickson |newspaper=The Observer |date=October 16, 1994 }}</ref> Pursuant to this order, most CIA documents regarding the project were destroyed, making a full investigation of MKUltra impossible. A cache of some 20,000 documents survived Helms's purge, as they had been incorrectly stored in a financial records building and were discovered following a [[Freedom of Information Act (United States)|FOIA]] request in 1977. These documents were fully investigated during the Senate Hearings of 1977.<ref name="nytimes.com"/>

[[File:FrankChurch.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Frank Church]] headed the Church Committee, an investigation into the practices of the U.S. intelligence agencies.]]

In December 1974, ''[[The New York Times]]'' alleged that the CIA had conducted illegal domestic activities, including experiments on U.S. citizens, during the 1960s.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1974/12/22/archives/huge-cia-operation-reported-in-u-s-against-antiwar-forces-other.html|title=Huge C.I.A. Operation Reported in U.S. Against Antiwar Forces, Other Dissidents in Nixon Years|last=Hersh|first=Seymour M.|date=1974-12-22|work=The New York Times|access-date=2018-12-12|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> That report prompted investigations by the [[United States Congress]], in the form of the [[Church Committee]], and by a commission known as the [[Rockefeller Commission]] that looked into the illegal domestic activities of the CIA, the [[FBI]] and intelligence-related agencies of the military.

In the summer of 1975, congressional Church Committee reports and the presidential [[Rockefeller Commission]] report revealed to the public for the first time that the CIA and the [[Department of Defense]] had conducted experiments on both unwitting and cognizant human subjects as part of an extensive program to find out how to influence and control human behavior through the use of [[psychoactive drug]]s such as LSD and [[mescaline]] and other chemical, biological, and psychological means. They also revealed that at least one subject, [[Frank Olson]], had died after administration of LSD. Much of what the Church Committee and the Rockefeller Commission learned about MKUltra was contained in a report, prepared by the Inspector General's office in 1963, that had survived the destruction of records ordered in 1973.<ref name="parascope.com">
[http://www.parascope.com/ds/documentslibrary/documents/mkultrahearing/mkultraHearing02.htm Prepared Statement of Admiral Stansfield Turner, Director of Central Intelligence] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060526151923/http://www.parascope.com/ds/documentslibrary/documents/mkultrahearing/mkultraHearing02.htm |date=2006-05-26 }}. ParaScope.
</ref> However, it contained little detail. [[Sidney Gottlieb]], who had retired from the CIA two years previously and had headed MKUltra, was interviewed by the committee but claimed to have very little recollection of the activities of MKUltra.<ref name=autogenerated6/>

The congressional committee investigating the CIA research, chaired by Senator [[Frank Church]], concluded that "prior consent was obviously not obtained from any of the subjects." The committee noted that the "experiments sponsored by these researchers{{nbsp}}[...] call into question the decision by the agencies not to fix guidelines for experiments."

Following the recommendations of the Church Committee, President [[Gerald Ford]] in 1976 issued the first Executive Order on Intelligence Activities which, among other things, prohibited "experimentation with drugs on human subjects, except with the informed consent, in writing and witnessed by a disinterested party, of each such human subject" and in accordance with the guidelines issued by the National Commission. Subsequent orders by Presidents [[Jimmy Carter|Carter]] and [[Reagan]] expanded the directive to apply to any human experimentation.

[[File:ProjectMKULTRA Senate Report.pdf|thumb|1977 United States Senate report on MKUltra]]
In 1977, during a hearing held by the [[Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]], to look further into MKUltra, Admiral [[Stansfield Turner]], then Director of Central Intelligence, revealed that the CIA had found a set of records, consisting of about 20,000 pages,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://todayinclh.com/?event=cia-director-admits-documents-on-drug-experiments-destroyed|title=CIA Director Admits Documents on Secret Drug Experiments Destroyed|last=Tourek|first=Mary|date=2013-08-02|website=Today in Civil Liberties History|language=en-US|access-date=2019-12-13}}</ref> that had survived the 1973 destruction orders because they had been incorrectly stored at a records center not usually used for such documents.<ref name="parascope.com"/> These files dealt with the financing of MKUltra projects and contained few project details, but much more was learned from them than from the Inspector General's 1963 report.

On the Senate floor in 1977, Senator [[Ted Kennedy]] said:

{{blockquote|The Deputy Director of the CIA revealed that over thirty universities and institutions were involved in an "extensive testing and experimentation" program which included covert drug tests on unwitting citizens "at all social levels, high and low, native Americans and foreign." Several of these tests involved the administration of [[LSD]] to "unwitting subjects in social situations."<ref>{{cite report|url=https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/hearings/95mkultra.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/hearings/95mkultra.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live|title=PROJECT MKULTRA, THE CIA's PROGRAM OF RESEARCH IN BEHAVIORAL MODIFICATION|date=1977-08-03|work=Joint Hearing Before The Select Committee On Intelligence And The Subcommittee On Health And Scientific Research of The Committee On Human Resources, United States Senate|publisher=U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence}}</ref>}}

At least one death, the result of the alleged [[defenestration]] of [[Frank Olson]], was attributed to Olson's being subjected, without his knowledge, to such experimentation nine days before his death.{{Citation needed|date=July 2021}} The CIA itself subsequently acknowledged that these tests had little scientific rationale. The officers conducting the monitoring were not qualified scientific observers.<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/history/e1950/mkultra/Hearing01.htm | title = Opening Remarks by Senator Ted Kennedy | date = 1977-08-03 | work = U.S. Senate Select Committee On Intelligence, and Subcommittee On Health And Scientific Research of the Committee On Human Resources}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title=What did the C.I.A. do to Eric Olson's father?|date=April 1, 2001|author=Ignatieff, Michael|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/01/magazine/01OLSON.html|work=The New York Times Magazine|access-date=13 January 2017|author-link=Michael Ignatieff}}</ref>

In Canada, the issue took much longer to surface, becoming widely known in 1984 on a [[Canadian Broadcasting Corporation|CBC]] news show, ''[[The Fifth Estate (TV)|The Fifth Estate]]''. It was learned that not only had the CIA funded Cameron's efforts, but also that the Canadian government was fully aware of this, and had later provided another $500,000 in funding to continue the experiments. This revelation largely derailed efforts by the victims to sue the CIA as their U.S. counterparts had, and the Canadian government eventually settled out of court for $100,000 to each of the 127 victims. Cameron died on September 8, 1967, after suffering a heart attack while he and his son were mountain climbing. None of Cameron's personal records of his involvement with MKUltra survived because his family destroyed them after his death.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://historyonair.com/?s=mkultra |title=Podcast 98 – MKUltra |publisher=HistoryOnAir.com |date=2005-06-16 |access-date=2013-03-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150610221320/http://historyonair.com/?s=mkultra |archive-date=2015-06-10 }}</ref><ref>[http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/stunning-tale-of-brainwashing-the-cia-and-an-unsuspecting-scots-researcher-1-466144 Stunning tale of brainwashing, the CIA and an unsuspecting Scots researcher], ''[[The Scotsman]]'', January 5, 2006. Retrieved 13 January 2017.</ref>

===1994 U.S. General Accounting Office report===
The U.S. [[General Accounting Office]] issued a report on September 28, 1994, which stated that between 1940 and 1974, the Department of Defense and other national security agencies studied thousands of human subjects in tests and experiments involving hazardous substances.

The quote from the study:<ref name="many other unofficial sites">Quote from [http://www.gulfweb.org/bigdoc/rockrep.cfm#hallucinogens "Is Military Research Hazardous to Veterans Health? Lessons Spanning Half A Century", part F. Hallucinogens]. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060813164326/http://gulfweb.org/bigdoc/rockrep.cfm#hallucinogens|date=2006-08-13}}. 103rd Congress, second Session-S. Prt. 103-97; Staff Report prepared for the committee on veterans' affairs December 8, 1994 John D. Rockefeller IV, West Virginia, Chairman. Online copy provided by gulfweb.org, which describes itself as "Serving the Gulf War Veteran Community Worldwide Since 1994". (The same document is available from [[google:"installing+several+telephone+hotlines.+As+of+September+1994,+86"|many other (unofficial) sites]], which may or may not be independent.)</ref>

{{blockquote|Working with the CIA, the Department of Defense gave hallucinogenic drugs to thousands of "volunteer" soldiers in the 1950s and 1960s. In addition to LSD, the Army also tested [[quinuclidinyl benzilate]], a hallucinogen code-named [[3-quinuclidinyl benzilate|BZ]]. (Note 37) Many of these tests were conducted under the so-called MKULTRA program, established to counter perceived Soviet and Chinese advances in brainwashing techniques. Between 1953 and 1964, the program consisted of 149 projects involving drug testing and other studies on unwitting human subjects}}