Project MK-Ultra was an inhumane attempt of brainwashing unwilling people.                                  

The project was a highly classified CIA experiment that began in 1953 and continued until 1973. The agency completed hundreds of experiments with the use of LSD and many other   psychological drugs. The CIA’s main goal for the experiments was to alter and achieve mind control of the subjects. The experiments took place throughout North America, the majority of the tests were conducted in universities, prisons, and hospitals. Sometimes test subjects were aware of what they were participating in, but often times some people had no idea even when the psychedelics were taking effect.

Research of truth serums and potential mind control began in 1916 when scopolamine was explored by Robert E. House, as a speech restriction and possible truth serum. Years later, in 1942 the OSS or “Truth Drug Committee” began projects experimenting with scopolamine and Indica cannabis. Soon the OSS was charged for the acts of interrogating war prisoners with truth drugs. They were unsuccessful with the tests of both drugs and it was soon banned by Harry Truman in 1945. In the beginning of 1946 the “Nuremberg Code,” which states that there must be full consent from subjects, is created after Nazi experiments were acknowledged in concentration camps. During January of 1946, the Central Intelligence Group is created. A year later CIG became the CIA by the hand of the national security act. During the 1950’s the US Intelligence became interested in mind control once again after Cardinal Josef Mindszenty confessed to crimes he did not commit. Project Bluebird began where the CIA investigated forms of mind control which included brainwashing, interrogation techniques and electricity to the brain. Project Chatter began as well which was rewarded thirty grams of pure heroin and eleven pounds of cannabis. Student volunteers were administered the drugs but were never told what they were taking. In 1951, Sidney Gottlieb became director of the CIA Technical Services Staff.  A year later the CIA started receiving $40K annually for LSD research. Director of another experiment called Project Artichoke learns of psychoactive mushrooms and began searching for them. April 13, 1953, the CIA authorized Project MK-Ultra with Sidney Gottlieb as director. Gottlieb made a statement stating that the goal of the project was to investigate the possibility of modifying a person’s behavior. The project mainly focused on LSD and George White was hired to run a safe house in New York City and give the drug secretly to citizens and monitor them. Soon after, Dr. Harris Isbell conducted drug tests on his inmate population. Later in the year, Special Operations Division officers are dosed at a joint military retreat. Officer Frank Olsen reacts terrible to the LSD and experiences lasting depression and paranoia. Days later Olsen falls from a window and it is concluded as suicide. During 1955 more safe houses are created and prostitutes are paid by the CIA to dose unaware customers with LSD, which became named the Midnight Climax. Psilocybin mushrooms enter the field and is funded by project MK-Ultra. Soon the projects main focus was to reprogram personalities and during 1957, six hallucinogens left the experimental stage and began operational use. Thirty-five volunteers are given LSD, within the next two years the subjects are tested up to twenty times or more. Dr. Isbell injects nine inmates with psilocybin. In 1961, the CIA directors are forced to resign and new director John McCrone is in charge of fixing the mess. The CIA closes the safe houses and ends the Midnight Climax project as well as most interrogation experiments by the end of the year. During 1972 Gottlieb orders all MK-Ultra records to be destructed. The new CIA director orders for all illegal operations of employees to be exposed. In 1974 a journalist writes an article for the New York Times in detail of the CIA projects and the President demands an investigation while journalists are charged for releasing classified information. During 1975, families began to learn what had happened to the subjects and millions of dollars in lawsuits are awarded. February 18 of 1976, Executive Order 11905 is put into place that states Intelligence Agencies must not participate in drug use on human subjects without their consent. Project MK-Ultra was a despicable act on humanity, the project consisted of over 150 experiments and a large amount of the subjects were unaware and against being used in the project.

The book, Human Rights: Issues for a New Millennium explains the American Experiment in Democracy. The book states that “Freedom was considered a natural right of humankind,” (Altman, 28). They further explain that “the right to freedom was based upon the foundation of human equality… whose full implications no one could anticipate,” (Altman, 29). It is a human right to freedom, administering hallucinogenic drugs to unknowing subjects is against the right of freedom. Not only did the CIA cross the lines of a constitutional right, they took away their humanity by attempting to alter their minds and personality. The few documents that survived the destruction have been unclassified by the CIA. In one document released from February 12, 1983 relating to the Chevy Chase, Maryland which was an investigation of the project. Former inmates of Atlanta federal penitentiary tell their side of the situation of the CIA’s role in administering LSD without them knowing. A former inmate named Russel Kirk explains his mental damage after the experiments in 1957-1958. “I got very depressed because I knew something was wrong and I couldn’t figure out what it was. And it was just like a voice telling me, you know, I just soon be as dead as to be in this shape or predicament,” (MK/ULTRA, 1). 1983). the interviewer goes on to ask if he slit his wrists and Kirk responds saying “I did. And they took and sewed me up and brought me back and put me in the hole. And I begged them not to… They asked me why did I do it… I said I just felt like I didn’t want to live any longer,” (MK/ULTRA, 2). Kirk also explains how he attempted at least two more times while incarcerated. Another prisoner named James Knight was interviewed on the experience, he was affected by the drugs as well. He was asked if he blames the LSD experiments to becoming violent and aggressive. His response, “Certainly I do,” (MK/ULTRA, 2). These inmates went through inhumane acts of torture and it resorted to multiple attempts of suicide, they also experienced so many negative side effects such as major depression and violent hostility. Their lives are forever changed because of the illegal projects of the CIA and project MK-Ultra. Another document from the Chevy Chase created on December 23, 1984 from a Canadian experiment has been unclassified. The late Dr. Ewen Cameron, was head of Allen Memorial Institute at the McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Cameron never told his patients that he was using them as test subjects, a patient in 1957 named Zal Orlico visited the institute for help with her depression.  For treatment she was given large doses of lysergic acid diethylamide also known as LSD. “They took away the remaining years of my life… as long as I can fight, I’m going to fight,” (MK-ULTRA/MIND CONTROL EXPERIMENTS, 2). After the help of her husband, Orlico and eight other victims are suing the US government for a million dollars each. “Each of the plaintiffs came here…expecting therapy. Instead, what they got was a nightmare of experiments. There was electroshock treatments… They were subjected to sleep therapy, long periods, often up to 60 days, during which they were drugged so much that the better part of each day was spent sleeping,” (MK-ULTRA/MIND CONTROL EXPERIMENTS, 2). Orlico recalls of one of the first times she was dosed with LSD, “He injected the LSD into the vein, then he patted me on the shoulder and said, “Now there, Lassie, we’ll see you later. Well it wasn’t only a few minutes before… things began to become very distorted… and the fright became terror, and I sort of began throwing myself from one side of the room to the other… I just didn’t know who I was anymore,” (MK-ULTRA/MIND CONTROL EXPERIMENTS, 2). What Orlico went through is deeply disturbing and heart breaking. She alike many others were unaware of being dosed with psychedelics to treat things such as depression. What these patients went through was torture at the hands of the CIA.

The doctors and scientists involved as well as people in favor of the experiments believe that project MK-Ultra did no harm and was to further military and scientific knowledge. One of the psychologists at the Atlanta prison states that “I cannot see that there was any harm that they sustained. They certainly did not tell me about any of the harm, either during the project or any time later on,” (MK/ULTRA, 3). The majority of the experiments was in fact successful, the CIA achieved their goals in the projects. LSD along with the other drugs and interrogative techniques did have the capability to alter a person’s mind, thinking, and personality.

Project MK-Ultra may have been successful in the alteration of the human mind but not without major consequences. The acts they committed on people without their consent is detrimental to society and ruined the feeling of security in their own country. People were left suicidal, paranoid, depressed, and mentally destroyed. For twenty years the CIA got away with doing these acts to innocent people with not a single consequence. People going to seek help for mental illness were blindly received treatment of psychoactive drugs, sleep deprivation, and constant electroshock brain therapy. The victims will forever be changed since a large majority of their lives were ripped out of their hands.

Works Cited Page

Altman, Linda Jacobs. Human Rights: Issues for a New Millennium. Enslow Publishers, 2002.

Anderson , Jackson. “Declassified MK/Ultra Jackson Anderson Confidential .” CIA FOIA, 1983.

“MK/ULTRA.” Central Intelligence Agency Library , Central Intelligence Agency , Apr. 2016,

“MK-ULTRA/MIND CONTROL EXPERIMENTS.” Central Intelligence Agency Library , Central Intelligence Agency , Dec. 2010.