Project MKULTRA

MKULTRA was the principal CIA program involving the research and development of chemical and biological agents.

The CIA had received reports that the Soviet Union was engaged in intensive efforts to produce LSD

The knowledge that the Agency is engaging in unethical and illicit activities would have serious repercussions in political and diplomatic circles and would be detrimental to the accomplishment of its mission.

but also to conceal these activities from the American public in general

The final phase of LSD testing involved surreptitious administration to unwitting nonvolunteer subjects in normal life settings by undercover officers of the Bureau of Narcotics acting for the CIA.

While I share your uneasiness and distaste for any program which tends to intrude upon an individual's private and legal prerogatives, I believe it is necessary that the Agency maintain a central role in this activity

As a result of that report's recommendations, unwitting testing of drugs on U.S. citizens was subsequently discontinued.

Well, the subjects were unwitting. You can infer that much, right? Admiral TURNER. Right.

The belief that hostile powers had used chemical and biological agents in interrogations, brainwashing, and in attacks designed to harass, disable, or kill Allied personnel

On January 8, 1953. Mr. Harold Blauer died of circulatory collapse and heart failure following an intravenous injection of a synthetic mescaline derivative while a subject of tests conducted by New York State Psychiatric Institute under a contract let by the U.S. Army Chemical Corps.

Helms asked for either resumption of the testing project or its definitive cancellation.

we have no answer to the moral issue

again no formal action was taken in response to the Helms' request

The testing had been halted

We are trying to be very precise with you, sir, and not draw an inference here. There are 6 cases of these 149 where we have enough evidence in this new documentation to substantiate that there was unwitting testing

Do you know from this information how many people were recruited during this period? Admiral TURNER. No idea.

can be attributed to these programs

In the third phase, Projects THIRD CHANCE and DERBY HAT, 16 unwitting nonvolunteer subjects were interrogated after receiving LSD as part of operational field tests.

In the first, LSD was administered to more than 1,000 American soldiers who volunteered to be subjects in chemical warfare experiments.

MKULTRA was approved by the DCI on April 13, 1953 along the lines proposed by ADDP Helms.

The late 1940s and early 1950s were marked by concern over the threat posed by the activities of the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China, and other Communist bloc countries.

concerned with the research and development of chemical, biological, and radiological materials capable of employment in clandestine operations to control human behavior

Public disclosure of some aspects of MKULTRA activity could induce serious adverse reaction in U.S. public opinion, as well as stimulate offensive and defensive action in this field on the part of foreign intelligence services.

a project which took place from 1953 to 1964

MKULTRA began with a proposal from the Assistant Deputy Director for Plans, Richard Helms, to the DCI, outlining a special

funding mechanism for highly sensitive CIA research and development projects that studied the use of biological and chemical materials in altering human behavior

raise questions of legality implicit in the original charter

places the rights and interests of U.S.

massive abridgments of the rights of American citizens

demonstrate a fundamental disregard for the value of human life

until its complete termination in the late 1960s

his name appears on just about every one of these documents

We now have collaborating information that some of the unwitting drug testing was carried on in safehouses in San Francisco and New York City

This was clearly illegal.

All drug testing programs were ended in 1967.