Newly compiled records are spilling details on one of the CIA’s most notorious programs: MKULTRA, a systematic attempt to develop mind control techniques through drugs, hypnosis, and psychological manipulation on unwitting human subjects.
The collection, published by the Digital National Security Archive of George Washington University in December 2024, details more than 1,200 documents on the CIA’s behavior control experiments from 1953 until the 1970s.
“In one experiment, subjects were given heavy dosages of sodium pentothal along with Desoxyn. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the integration was declared an outstanding success — the subjects had little to no memory of being grilled for over an hour.”
CIA safehouses in New York and San Francisco were used to covertly dose unsuspecting citizens with LSD. Most of the LSD came from the Eli Lilly Company, according to a 1953 memo. Federal narcotics agent George White managed these safehouses after being recruited by MKULTRA chief Sidney Gottlieb.
The vast majority of MKULTRA records were destroyed in 1973 on orders of CIA Director Richard Helms. The surviving documents reveal only a fraction of what was done — but even that fraction is horrifying.
