Given the CIA's purposeful destruction of most records, its failure to follow informed consent protocols with thousands of participants, the uncontrolled nature of the experiments, and the lack of follow-up data, the full impact of MKUltra expe…
Given the CIA's purposeful destruction of most records, its failure to follow informed consent protocols with thousands of participants, the uncontrolled nature of the experiments, and the lack of follow-up data, the full impact of MKUltra experiments, including deaths, may never be known.
The project was headed by Sidney Gottlieb but began on the order of CIA director Allen Dulles on April 13, 1953.[26][27] Its aim was to develop mind-controlling drugs for use against the Soviet bloc in response to alleged Soviet, Chinese, and North Korean use of mind control techniques on U.S. prisoners of war during the Korean War.[28] The CIA wanted to use similar methods on their own captives, and was interested in manipulating foreign leaders with such techniques,[25] devising several schemes to drug Fidel Castro. It often conducted experiments without the subjects' knowledge or consent.[29] In some cases, academic researchers were funded through grants from CIA front organizations but were unaware that the CIA was using their work for these purposes.[30]
https://youtu.be/oENTwk9B-Ag
The project attempted to produce a perfect truth drug for interrogating suspected Soviet spies during the Cold War, and to explore other possibilities of mind control. Subproject 54 was the Navy's top-secret "Perfect Concussion" program, which was supposed to use sub-aural frequency blasts to erase memory; the program was never carried out.[31]
Most MKUltra records were destroyed in 1973 by order of CIA director Richard Helms, so it has been difficult for investigators to gain a complete understanding of the more than 150 funded research subprojects sponsored by MKUltra and related CIA programs.[32]
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The project began during a period of what English journalist Rupert Cornwell described as "paranoia" at the CIA, when the U.S. had lost its nuclear monopoly and fear of communism was at its height.[33] CIA counter-intelligence chief James Jesus Angleton believed that a mole had penetrated the organization at the highest levels.[33] The agency poured millions of dollars into studies examining ways to influence and control the mind and to enhance its ability to extract information from resistant subjects during interrogation.[34][35] Some historians assert that one goal of MKUltra and related CIA projects was to create a Manchurian Candidate-style subject.[36] American historian Alfred W. McCoy has claimed that the CIA attempted to focus media attention on these sorts of "ridiculous" programs so that the public would not look at the research's primary goal, which was effective methods of interrogation.[34]
John Gittinger, the developer of the PAS, worked as a psychologist for the Central Intelligence Agency during the time he developed the PAS. Early publications describing the PAS appeared in academic publications and did not mention Gittinger's employer.
