Project MKULTRA

ARTICHOKE and BLUEBIRD were administratively rolled over into MKULTRA, which was created by the CIA on April 3, 1953. MKULTRA was in turn rolled over into MKSEARCH on June 7, 1964. MKSEARCH then ran until June 1972, at which time extensive shredding of MKULTRA and MKSEARCH files was ordered by the Director of the CIA, Richard Helms. The surviving MKULTRA documents can be obtained from the CIA under the Freedom of Information Act. There was a round of declassification of mind control documents in the 1970’s which were the foundation of books published in the 1970’s and 1980’s


Shooter relays strange thoughts in his mind-I suggest someone else was psychically "driving him"







MKULTRA was divided into 149 Subprojects. One group of Subprojects involved the development and testing of mind control drugs. The goal was to identify compounds which would assist in interrogation and in the creation of amnesia. The CIA sponsored LSD research through MKULTRA. It also financed LSD conferences and books. An undated document entitled “D-Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LDS-25),” states “Some of the more outstanding effects are the mental confusion, helplessness, and extreme anxiety which are produced by minute doses of this substance. Based upon these reactions, its potential use in offensive psychological warfare and in interrogation is considerable. It may become one of the most important psychochemical agents.” P. 47, 51, 54, 73

Unethical practice by physicians and the direct involvement of pharmaceutical companies are part of the history of hallucinogens. Under TOP SECRET clearance, Eli Lilly Company was given a $400,000 grant in 1953 to manufacture and supply LSD to the CIA. Army LSD research was ongoing in 1977 when LSD was a controlled substance. At least 1,500 soldiers were given LSD without informed consent as part of Army mind control experiments. These facts have never been subject to ethical review or any policy or position statement by any medical organization. P. 52, 53, 68, 73

Frank Olson was a Fort Detrick biological warfare expert who committed suicide in 1953 after being given LSD hidden in liqueur by Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, Director of MKULTRA. Olson’s family determined that he had committed suicide subsequent to a bad LSD trip only after reading Nelson Rockefeller’s 1975 report on the CIA, published 22 years after Olsen’s death. They were given $750,000 in compensation by Congress. P. 49

Biological warfare (BW) and chemical warfare (CW) research involved testing in many locations. CW research involved releasing bacteria and viruses into general population areas. The bacterium Serratia marascens was released in New York (June 1966), San Francisco (September 1950), and Pennsylvania (January 1955). A paper in the Archives of Internal Medicine describes eleven Serratia marascens infections seen in one San Francisco hospital between September 1950 and February 1951. The paper was published because Serratia marascens infections are very rare. P. 68, 69

MKULTRA Subproject 35 involved funding the construction of the Gorman Annex at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, DC. The total budget for the Annex of $1.25 million was to provide a hospital safe house for mind control research. One sixth of the space was set aside for the CIA, which placed three biochemists there under cover. P. 55

Another group of Subprojects consists of experiments and research on non-chemical mind control. This group of Subprojects is about one quarter of the total MKULTRA Subprojects. It involves most of the contractors with unwitting status. Unwitting contractors are ones who do not realize that the research money is from the CIA because it has been funneled through a cutout or front organization. By and large, the psychologists and sociologists were unwitting contractors, while the physicians, chemists, and the biologists had TOP SECRET clearance and were aware that they were working for the CIA. In CIA terminology, these people were witting. P. 54

Like the Tuskeegee Syphilis Study and the radiation research, MKULTRA involved direct experimentation on children without informed consent being given by their parents or guardians.

In the case of the Tuskeegee Study, children were harmed by preventable congenital syphilis. In the radiation experiments, they were harmed through direct expose after birth or in utero exposure during experiments on their mothers. [25]


Four of the MKULTRA Subprojects involved research on children. The deliberate creation of multiple personality in children is an explicitly stated plan in the MKULTRA Subproject Proposal submitted for funding on May 30, 1961. P. 56, 61