Editing MKUltra (section)

==Experiments on Americans==
CIA documents suggest that they investigated "chemical, biological, and radiological" methods of mind control as part of MKUltra.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.michael-robinett.com/declass/c010.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020131080119/http://www.michael-robinett.com/declass/c010.htm |archive-date=2002-01-31 |title=Declassified |publisher=Michael-robinett.com |access-date=2010-03-26 }}</ref> They spent an estimated $10 million or more, roughly $87.5 million adjusted for inflation.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.namebase.org/news12.html |title=Mind Control and the Secret State |first=Daniel |last=Brandt |date=1996-01-03 |work=[[NameBase]] NewsLine |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120804222524/http://www.namebase.org/news12.html |archive-date=2012-08-04 |access-date=2010-03-26 }}</ref>

During a hearing by the [[United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions|Senate Health Subcommittee]], a testimony by the Deputy Director of the CIA stated that over 30 institutions and universities were involved in the experimentation program of testing drugs on unknowing citizens "at all social levels, high and low, native Americans and foreign." Several of these tests involved the issuing of LSD to unaware subjects in social situations.<ref name="USCongress1977" />

The Army was subject to the testing of LSD which occurred in three phases. The first phase included over 1,000 American soldiers who willingly volunteered for testing of chemical warfare experiments. Phase two had 96 volunteers who were induced with LSD in evaluation of the possibility of intelligence uses of the drug. The third phase included Projects THIRD CHANCE and DERBY HAT which conducted experiments on 16 unwitting nonvolunteer subjects that after receiving LSD were interrogated as a part of operation field tests.<ref name="USCongress1977" />

After retiring in 1972, Gottlieb dismissed his entire effort for the CIA's MKUltra program as useless.<ref name=autogenerated2/><ref>{{cite news |title=Sidney Gottlieb |newspaper=The Times (London)|date=March 12, 1999 }}</ref> Files discovered in 1977 containing 700 pages of new information showed that experiments had continued until Gottlieb ordered the program halted on July 10, 1972.<ref>"CIA Mind Control Tests Lasted Into '72", ''The Los Angeles Times'', September 2, 1977, p. I-2</ref>

===LSD===
In 1938, [[LSD]] was created by [[Albert Hofmann]] at the Sandoz Laboratories in Basel, Switzerland. The early directors of MKUltra became aware of the existence of LSD and sought to use it for "mind-control". In the early 1950s, MKUltra director Sidney Gottlieb arranged for the CIA to buy the entire supply of LSD for $240,000, which in 2024, would be $4,227,079.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The CIA's Secret Quest For Mind Control: Torture, LSD And A 'Poisoner In Chief' |website=[[NPR]] |url=https://www.npr.org/2020/11/20/937009453/the-cias-secret-quest-for-mind-control-torture-lsd-and-a-poisoner-in-chief}}</ref> This LSD supply gave Gottlieb the ability to fulfill his experiment by spreading LSD to prisons, hospitals, institutions, clinics, and foundations in order to see how citizens would react to the drug without knowing exactly what was happening to them.

Early CIA efforts focused on [[LSD-25]], which later came to dominate many of MKUltra's programs.<ref name="auto4">
{{Cite web |url=http://www.hss.doe.gov/healthsafety/ohre/roadmap/achre/chap3_4.html |title=Hss.doe.gov |access-date=2012-11-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130331150116/http://www.hss.doe.gov/healthsafety/ohre/roadmap/achre/chap3_4.html |archive-date=2013-03-31 }}
</ref> The CIA wanted to know if they could make Soviet spies defect against their will and whether the Soviets could do the same to the CIA's own operatives.<ref name="autogenerated5">{{cite web|url=http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/lsd/marks4.htm|title=The Search for the Manchurian Candidate – Chapter 4|first=John|last=Marks|website=www.druglibrary.org}}</ref>

Documents obtained from the CIA by [[John D. Marks]] under [[Freedom of information in the United States|Freedom of Information]] in 1976 showed that, in 1953, the CIA considered purchasing 10 kilograms of LSD, enough for 100 million doses. The proposed purchase aimed to stop other countries from controlling the supply. The documents showed that the CIA purchased some quantities of LSD from [[Sandoz Laboratories]] in Switzerland.<ref>{{cite web |title=C.I.A. Considered Big LSD Purchase |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1976/08/05/archives/cia-considered-big-lsd-purchase-agency-data-disclose-1953-idea-to.html |website=The New York Times |access-date=25 May 2022 |date=5 August 1976}}</ref>

Once Project MKUltra started, in April 1953, experiments included administering LSD to mental patients, prisoners, drug addicts, and prostitutes – "people who could not fight back", as one agency officer put it.<ref name=autogenerated7>{{cite news |title=Sidney Gottlieb, 80, Dies; Took LSD to C.I.A. |author=Tim Weiner |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1999/03/10/us/sidney-gottlieb-80-dies-took-lsd-to-cia.html |newspaper=New York Times |date=10 Mar 1999 |access-date=25 June 2012}}</ref> In one case, they administered LSD to a mental patient in Kentucky for 174 days.<ref name=autogenerated7/> They also administered LSD to CIA employees, military personnel, doctors, other government agents, and members of the general public to study their reactions. The aim was to find drugs that would bring out deep confessions or wipe a subject's mind clean and program them as "a robot agent".<ref name="rappoport">Rappoport, J. (1995). "CIA Experiments With Mind Control on Children". ''Perceptions Magazine'', p. 56.</ref> Military personnel who received the mind-altering drugs were also threatened with [[courts-martial]] if they told anyone about the experiments.<ref name="ABC7 2022">ABC7. "U.S. vets say there were human guinea pigs | ABC7 San Francisco | abc7news.com". ''ABC7 San Francisco''. Retrieved October 27, 2022.</ref> LSD and other drugs were often administered ''without'' the subject's knowledge or [[informed consent]], a violation of the [[Nuremberg Code]] the U.S. had agreed to follow after World War II. Many veterans who were subjected to experimentation are now seeking legal and monetary reparations.<ref name="ABC7 2022"/>

In [[Operation Midnight Climax]], the CIA set up several [[brothel]]s within agency safehouses in San Francisco to obtain a selection of men who would be too embarrassed to talk about the events. The men were dosed with LSD, the brothels were equipped with [[one-way mirror]]s, and the sessions were filmed for later viewing and study.<ref>{{cite book | last = Marks | first = John | title = The Search for the Manchurian Candidate | publisher = Times Books | year = 1979 | location = New York | isbn = 0-8129-0773-6 | pages = [https://archive.org/details/searchformanchur00john/page/106 106–107] | url = https://archive.org/details/searchformanchur00john/page/106 }}</ref> In other experiments where people were given LSD without their knowledge, they were interrogated under bright lights with doctors in the background taking notes. They told subjects they would extend their "trips" if they refused to reveal their secrets. The people under this interrogation were CIA employees, U.S. military personnel, and agents suspected of working for the other side in the Cold War. Long-term debilitation and several deaths resulted from this.<ref name="rappoport"/> [[Heroin]] addicts were bribed into taking LSD with offers of more heroin.<ref name="nytimes.com" /><ref>{{cite book
 |last= Marks
 |first= John
 |date= 1991
 |title= The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate": The CIA and Mind Control
 |publisher= W. W. Norton & Company
 |page= 67
 |isbn= 978-0-393-30794-8
}}</ref>

At the invitation of Stanford psychology graduate student Vik Lovell, an acquaintance of [[Allen Ginsberg]], [[Ken Kesey]] volunteered to take part in what turned out to be a [[CIA]]-financed study under the aegis of MKUltra,<ref name="Szalavitz">{{cite magazine|url=https://healthland.time.com/2012/03/23/the-legacy-of-the-cias-secret-lsd-experiments-on-america/|title=The Legacy of the CIA's Secret LSD Experiments on America|magazine=Time|first=Maia|last=Szalavitz|date=23 March 2012|via=healthland.time.com}}</ref> at the [[Menlo Park, California|Menlo Park]] Veterans' Hospital<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.paloalto.va.gov/locations/menlopark.asp|title=Menlo Park Division |author=VA Palo Alto Health Care System|work=va.gov|access-date=2014-12-14}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.thefix.com/cloak-and-dropper-twisted-history-cia-and-lsd?page=all|title=Cloak and Dropper&nbsp;– The Twisted History of the CIA and LSD |publisher=The Fix|date=2015-09-18}}</ref> where he worked as a night aide.<ref>Reilly, Edward C. "Ken Kesey." Critical Survey of Long Fiction, Second Revised Edition (2000): EBSCO. Web. Nov 10. 2010.</ref> The project studied the effects of [[Psychedelics, dissociatives, and deliriants|psychoactive drugs]], particularly [[LSD]], [[psilocybin]], [[mescaline]], [[cocaine]], [[alpha-methyltryptamine|AMT]] and [[DMT]] on people.<ref name="oregonianobit">{{cite news |last=Baker |first=Jeff |date=2001-11-11 |title=All times a great artist, Ken Kesey is dead at age 66 |work=[[The Oregonian]] |pages=A1}}</ref>

The Office of Security used LSD in interrogations, but [[Sidney Gottlieb]], the chemist who directed MKUltra, had other ideas: he thought it could be used in covert operations. Since its effects were temporary, he believed it could be given to high-ranking officials and in this way affect the course of important meetings, speeches, etc. Since he realized there was a difference in testing the drug in a laboratory and using it in clandestine operations, he initiated a series of experiments where LSD was given to people in "normal" settings without warning. At first, everyone in Technical Services tried it; a typical experiment involved two people in a room where they observed each other for hours and took notes. As the experimentation progressed, a point arrived where outsiders were drugged with no explanation whatsoever and surprise acid trips became something of an occupational hazard among CIA operatives. Adverse reactions often occurred, such as an operative who received the drug in his morning coffee, became psychotic and ran across Washington, D.C., seeing a monster in every car passing him. The experiments continued even after [[Frank Olson]], an army chemist who had never taken LSD, was covertly dosed by his CIA supervisor and nine days later plunged to his death from the window of a 13th-story New York City hotel room, supposedly as a result of deep depression induced by the drug.<ref name="lee">Lee, M. A., Shlain, B. (1985). ''Acid Dreams, the Complete Social History of LSD: the CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond''. Grove Press.</ref> According to [[Stephen Kinzer]], Olson had approached his superiors some time earlier, doubting the morality of the project, and asked to resign from the CIA.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.haaretz.co.il/gallery/literature/.premium-1.8251405 |title=המדען היהודי שהיה "הדבר הכי קרוב למנגלה בהיסטוריה של ארה"ב" |last=יוקד |first=צח |date=2019-12-09 |work=הארץ |access-date=2019-12-11 |language=he}}</ref>

Some subjects' participation was consensual, and in these cases they appeared to be singled out for even more extreme experiments. In one case, seven drug-addicted African-American participants at the National Institute of Mental Health Addiction Research Center in [[Kentucky]] were given LSD for 77 consecutive days.<ref>NPR Fresh Air. June 28, 2007 and Tim Weiner, ''The Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA''.</ref><ref>University of Oregon. Mark Unno, ''The Story of the Drug BZ''.</ref>

MKUltra's researchers later dismissed LSD as too unpredictable in its results.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.michael-robinett.com/declass/c011.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020131081305/http://www.michael-robinett.com/declass/c011.htm |archive-date=2002-01-31 |title=Declassified |publisher=Michael-robinett.com |access-date=2010-03-26 }}</ref> They gave up on the notion that LSD was "the secret that was going to unlock the universe", but it still had a place in the cloak-and-dagger arsenal. However, by 1962, the CIA and the army developed a series of super-hallucinogens such as the highly touted [[3-Quinuclidinyl benzilate|BZ]], which was thought to hold greater promise as a mind control weapon. This resulted in the withdrawal of support by many academics and private researchers, and LSD research became less of a priority altogether.<ref name="lee"/>

===Other drugs===
Another technique investigated was the [[intravenous]] administration of a [[barbiturate]] into one arm and an [[amphetamine]] into the other.<ref>{{cite book | last = Marks | first = John | title = The Search for the Manchurian Candidate | publisher = Times Books | year = 1979 | location = New York | isbn = 0-8129-0773-6 | pages = [https://archive.org/details/searchformanchur00john/page/40 40–42] | url = https://archive.org/details/searchformanchur00john/page/40 }}</ref> The barbiturates were released into the person first, and as soon as the person began to fall asleep, the amphetamines were released.
Other experiments involved [[heroin]], [[morphine]], [[temazepam]] (used under code name MKSEARCH), [[mescaline]], [[psilocybin]], [[scopolamine]], [[ethanol|alcohol]] and [[sodium pentothal]].<ref>{{cite book | last = Marks | first = John | title = The Search for the Manchurian Candidate | publisher = Times Books. chapters 3 and 7 | year = 1979 | location = New York | isbn = 0-8129-0773-6 | url = https://archive.org/details/searchformanchur00john }}</ref>

===Hypnosis===
Declassified MKUltra documents indicate they studied [[hypnosis]] in the early 1950s. Experimental goals included creating "hypnotically induced anxieties", "hypnotically increasing ability to learn and recall complex written matter", studying hypnosis and [[polygraph]] examinations, "hypnotically increasing ability to observe and recall complex arrangements of physical objects", and studying "relationship of personality to susceptibility to hypnosis".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.michael-robinett.com/declass/c078.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20020428104652/http://www.michael-robinett.com/declass/c078.htm |archive-date=2002-04-28 |title=Declassified |publisher=Michael-robinett.com |access-date=2010-03-26 }}</ref> They conducted experiments with drug-induced hypnosis and with [[anterograde amnesia|anterograde]] and [[retrograde amnesia]] while under the influence of such drugs.