CIA Mind-Control Experiments

Soviet doctors concluded that lobotomy was “contrary to the principles of humanity.” Furthermore, they concluded that “through lobotomy an insane person is changed into an idiot.” (Wikipedia). The CIA considered lobotomy as a solution for “disposal” of individuals.

A 1952 CIA memo titled: “LOBOTOMY and Related Operations” discussed the question: Is lobotomy a solution for “disposal” of an individual who might pose a security risk? Lee and Shlain (Acid Dreams) report that a group of CIA scientists entertained the possibility of using an “icepick” lobotomy to render an individual harmless “from a security…

Dr. Paul H. Hoch, a psychiatrist who trained in Germany and came to the U.S. on a visitor’s visa, gained immigrant status with legal assistance by John Foster Dulles (future Secretary of State and brother of Allen Dulles). From 1948 to 1955, Hoch served as Director of experimental research at NYSPI. Prior to his appointment…

Dr. Milton Greenblatt, Dr. Harry Solomon, Dr. Julius Levine, and Dr. Norman Paul actively promoted bimedial lobotomy in the major journals. The lobotomy studies were funded by the U.S. Public Health Service. Levine, Greenblatt and Solomon reported the “superiority” of bimedial lobotomy over the conventional approach in The New England Journal of Medicine (1951); Greenblatt…

MK-NAIMI was a joint project of the CIA and the Special Operations (SO) Division at Fort Detrick. Hank Albarelli quotes an early memorandum in which a bacteriologist articulates MK-NAOMI’s mission: “Our mission was pretty simple and to the point: to provide the CIA with every means possible to maim or kill targeted groups or individuals…

Beginning in 1952, both the CIA and Fort Detrick’s Special Operations Division (SOD) had formalized a written 2-year $1,000,000 contract with the NYS Psychiatric Institute (1952–53). It was officially referred to as Project MK-NAOMI, an adjunct to the larger CIA behavior modification projects (ARTICHOKE) and MK-ULTRA. As stated in a Top Secret CIA memorandum dated…

Artichoke was launched by Allen Dulles, then deputy director of the CIA to replace and expand Bluebird as the major, multi-faceted military-CIA project. Within weeks, the CIA had acquired secret prisons in the Canal Zone, West Germany, and Japan; Artichoke teams were sent overseas for brutal interrogations with drugs, hypnosis and “psychological harassment” and “special…

The Dorr Professor of Anesthesiology at Harvard University, whose reputation as a paragon of ethical research rests on his article in the New England Journal of Medicine (1966) in which he listed 50 unethical U.S. clinical trials. The career of Dr. Henry K. Beecher is a cautionary tale. What follows will most likely shock most…

The term “brainwashing” was the brainchild of Edward Hunter, a covert CIA propaganda agent who churned out a stream of books and articles warning about the threat of Communist “brainwashing.” In testimony before the House Un-American Committee, Hunter warned: the Reds have specialists available on their brainwashing panels, [they use] drugs and hypnotism. . .…

In 1951, the Canadian Defense Research Board (DRB) convened a secret meeting in Montreal attended by military officials from the United Kingdom, Canada and two CIA officials. The focus of the meeting was — “brainwashing techniques.” Dr. Donald O. Hebb, chief of DRB Behavioral Research and chair of Psychology at McGill, whose experiments using extreme…

More than two hundred articles related to the effects of isolation and sensory deprivation were published in major scientific publications. For example, in 1957, Dr. Donald Wexler and three psychiatrists from Harvard University reproduced a similar experiment covertly funded by the secret Office of Naval Research. Seventeen volunteers were put in “a tank-type respirator” with…

In the early 1950s and beyond, Fink was a CIA Project Artichoke consultant. In 1951, Paul Gaynor and Morse Allen of CIA’s Security Research Service (SRS) oversaw ARTICHOKE. They worked closely with Fink in New York City to thoroughly explore the merits of electroshock techniques for interrogations. The CIA was especially interested in the use…