LSD stands for lysergic acid diethylamide
(LSD) and is a derivative of the fungus ergot,
which grows on rye and other cereal grasses.
A Swiss scientist named Albert Hofmann created
LSD in 1938 and actually tested it on himself
in 1943.
He recalled in his book, LSD: My Problem Child,
the hallucinogenic properties that the drug
became famous for.
He described how “kaleidoscopic, fantastic
images surged in me, alternating, variegated,
opening and then closing themselves in circles
and spirals, exploding in colored fountains,
rearranging and hybridizing themselves in
constant flux.”
He also noted how “every sound generated
a vividly changing image, with its own consistent
form and color.”
It was not until the 1950s that the U.S. government
became interested in LSD as a mind control
drug.
The potential use of LSD in this manner led
it to take some unethical and downright sleazy
measures that we will examine in this episode
of The Infographics Show, “The U.S. Government’s
LSD Mind Experiments.”
The 1950s was a time of the Korean War and
the Cold War.
Stopping the spread of communism was a top
priority for the United States, so the U.S.
government became concerned that many soldiers
returning home from the Korean War “were
found mindlessly parroting the communist propaganda
they had been sent to Korea to fight” according
to one source.
Investigations led to two discoveries.
First, the communist countries of China, Russia,
and North Korea were using “mental torture
and brainwashing” techniques.
Second, the “Russians in particular were
interested in using LSD to manipulate minds.”
Fueled by Cold War paranoia, U.S. government
officials were compelled to take countermeasures
to prevent what one article calls a “larger
scale drug attack.”
They began two testing programs to find out
if LSD and other drugs could be used to subdue
and control the enemy mentally.
One of these programs was run by the U.S.
Army, and the other one was run by the CIA.
Edgewood Arsenal Human Experiments
About 7,000 soldiers participated in the U.S.
Army’s secret testing program.
Although the official name of this program
is the Medical Research Volunteer Program
(MRVP), this testing is often referred to
as the Edgewood Arsenal Human Experiments
because many of the tests were conducted at
a military facility called Edgewood Arsenal
located in Maryland.
Some soldiers were exposed to various chemical
agents, including nerve agents such as sarin,
nerve agent antidotes such as atropine, and
riot control agents such as tear gas.
Other soldiers were used to test things like
protective clothing, vaccines, and drugs such
as LSD.
LSD was one of several drugs studied at Edgewood
Arsenal for possible use in psychochemical
warfare.
While the MRVP began in 1948, a New Yorker
article states that psychochemical research
at Edgewood Arsenal did not begin until 1956.
According to footage included in a New Yorker
article, the purpose of this testing was to
“identify a chemical with the right balance
of properties: one that causes no physical
harm but also triggers mental disruptions
so profound that they can incapacitate enemy
soldiers.”
Test subjects were usually filmed so that
the effects of LSD on the soldiers would be
documented.
Soldiers had widely varying responses to the
drug.
In one 1958 film called "Effects of Lysergic
Acid Diethylamide (LSD) on Troops Marching,"
you can see how a group of well-trained soldiers
dosed with LSD were reduced to a bunch of
giggling, disoriented men unable to follow
simple commands.
In another film called “Manufacturing Madness,”
soldiers who took LSD were unable to make
simple subtraction calculations.
One soldier seemed to be in too much pain
to concentrate and even says he is “incapacitated,”
while another one complained, “Everything’s
moving.”
The New Yorker reports that “LSD experiments
continued at Edgewood until 1967,” but the
Army eventually lost interest in it as a psychochemical
agent before that time.
Raffi Khatchadourian, a journalist who published
an article about these tests in the New Yorker,
explains why these experiments were abandoned
in a Fresh Air interview:
“ . . . LSD's effect was just really unpredictable.
You could give LSD to one person, and it would
have one effect.
And you could give it to another person and
it might have a completely different effect.
. . . So as a weapon, anything that would
be that unpredictable is something that you
would want to shy away from, just because
it would be tactically ineffective.”
However, the story of LSD experimentation
at Edgewood Arsenal did not end after the
experiments did.
Like others who participated in the Edgewood
Arsenal Human Experiments, some soldiers dosed
with LSD felt misled by Army researchers and
suffered long-term health problems from these
experiments, such as this soldier interviewed
by the Baltimore Sun:
“They told me it would be like taking aspirin,”
said Gary, who went by only his first name
in a 1979 story that ran in The Sun.
But he reported being depressed and even suicidal
in the years since undergoing testing at Edgewood.
The issues of long-term health problems and
questionable informed consent practices associated
with the Edgewood Arsenal Human Experiments
led to a Congressional investigation of the
MRVP in the mid-1970s, and a Medium.com article
reports that “Edgewood shut down the MVRP
in 1975.”
The same article states that the Army conducted
its own series of studies of the MVRP and,
perhaps unsurprisingly, “concluded none
of the individuals who participated in the
LSD and other tests were suffering any significant
lasting health impacts.”
However, some problems with consent practices
were discovered, including what one source
calls using “possible coercion” to persuade
soldiers to volunteer.
Project MKUltra
During the Cold War, the Army was not the
only government organization interested in
the use of LSD as a psychochemical agent.
According to History.com, the director of
the CIA during the 1950s, Allen Dulles, spoke
of “brain warfare” and “how sinister
the battle for men’s minds has become in
Soviet hands.”
In 1953, he began the top-secret Project MKUltra
in order “to assess the potential use of
LSD and other drugs for mind control, information
gathering and psychological torture.”
Between 1953 and 1964, the CIA conducted most
of its over 150 MKUltra experiments in the
U.S. and Canada.
Poor recordkeeping and a cover-up that led
to the destruction of many MKUltra documents
at the official end of the program in 1973
make it difficult to know about all of the
LSD experiments that took place.
What we do know about these tests is mainly
from the firsthand accounts of the people
who participated in them.
Some of these people testified at Congressional
hearings that took place in 1977, while others
told their stories to the press.
Unlike the Edgewood Arsenal Human Experiments,
Project MKUltra experiments were not limited
to military personnel.
People from all walks of life were involved
in the following experiments:
1.
Volunteer Experiments
The CIA found willing test subjects in various
institutions.
For instance, History.com states that the
CIA reached out to universities and colleges,
offering them funding to study the effects
of LSD.
This meant college students ended up “tripping
on acid” for MKUltra research.
One well-known college student turned MKUltra
test subject is Ken Kesey, author of One Flew
Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
According to one source, Kesey was a graduate
student at Stanford University when he learned
about a “study” from a neighbor who was
a psychologist.
Like some of the Edgewood Arsenal test subjects,
he was kept in the dark about the true purpose
of the experiments he participated in.
He recalls, “[The testing] wasn’t being
done to try to cure insane people, which is
what we thought.
It was being done to try to make people insane—to
weaken people, and to be able to put them
under the control of interrogators.”
Kesey was not rendered insane by his participation
in these tests, but he could not stop taking
drugs.
While he was a testing volunteer for the CIA,
he tried to work at the place where the tests
took place so that he could get his hands
on other experimental drugs.
Even after the tests ended, he and his friends
along with others were making and taking “homemade”
LSD that Kesey said “never was anywhere
as good as that government stuff.”
History.com reports that “Kesey later went
on to promote the drug, hosting LSD-fueled
parties that he called ‘Acid Tests.’”
These parties helped to launch the hippie
movement and the psychedelic drug scene of
the 1960s.
Another good source of volunteer test subjects
were prisons.
According to History.com, prisoners were eager
to consent to these tests “in exchange for
extra recreation time or commuted sentences.”
One well-known prison volunteer was a gangster
named Whitey Bulger.
One source states that Bulger underwent 18
months of LSD testing while in prison in order
to receive a lighter sentence.
In contrast to Kesey, Bulger loathed his testing
experience.
He went on one bad acid trip after another,
which “were followed by thoughts of suicide
and deep depression.”
He wrote of nightmarish hallucinations such
as “blood coming out of the walls” and
“guys turning to skeletons in front of me.”
2.
CIA Agents Experimenting on Each Other
Some of these experiments were voluntary,
but some were not.
According to one news site, LSD testing for
Project MKUltra first began with CIA agents
giving themselves LSD and tracking its effects.
Soon these agents were dosing each other with
LSD without warning, and even CIA agents who
never took LSD were eventually targeted by
these sneaky agents.
These “anytime and anywhere” acid trips
became so common that a security memo went
out in December 1954 telling agents that office
party punch bowls were off limits and not
to be “spiked.”
It’s strange to think CIA agents lived in
fear of stealth drugging from their own colleagues,
but that’s what happened in the 1950s.
One tragedy arising from these experiments
was the death of CIA scientist Frank Olson
in 1953.
According to History.com, Olson “drank a
cocktail that had been secretly spiked with
LSD” and ended up falling out of a hotel
room window in New York City a short time
later.
Olson’s death was initially thought to be
a suicide, but a second autopsy done in 1994
revealed “injuries on the body that had
likely occurred before the fall.”
These injuries raised suspicion that “Olson
might have been assassinated by the CIA.”
His family eventually received a settlement
of $750,000 and a “personal apology from
President Gerald Ford and then-CIA Director
William Colby.”
3.
Experiments on Involuntary Test Subjects
After mastering stealth LSD drugging on people
within their own agency, CIA agents moved
on to the unethical practice of drugging unsuspecting
members of the public with LSD and following
them around to observe its effects.
They knew what they were doing was wrong,
but they did it anyway.
“Precautions must be taken not only to protect
operations from exposure to enemy forces but
also to conceal these activities from the
American public in general,” wrote the CIA’s
Inspector General in 1957.
“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.”
It is hard to know exactly how many Americans
and Canadians were dosed with LSD without
their knowledge and consent.
One case that came out during the Congressional
hearings on MKUltra in 1977 was that of a
singer and waitress named Ruth Kelley.
An MKUltra project leader named George White
wanted to recruit her for another LSD testing
program that we will discuss in a moment.
However, when she did not show interest in
participating in this program, White or someone
working for him chose to drug her with LSD
right before her performance one night.
Kelley managed to get through her act but
ended up going to the hospital right away
afterward.
4.
Operation Midnight Climax
Just when you thought the CIA could not get
any lower in terms of morally reprehensible
behavior, it thought up another shady LSD
testing program with the sexually suggestive
name of Operation Midnight Climax.
This operation was implemented in both the
US and Canada.
A History.com article describes this operation.
At safe houses turned into whorehouses in
San Francisco, the CIA actually paid prostitutes
to drug their customers with LSD while the
previously mentioned George White and other
CIA agents looked on through two-way mirrors
to observe LSD’s effects and so much more.
White reveled in his duties as a professional
voyeur.
He said, “I toiled wholeheartedly in the
vineyards because it was fun, fun, fun.”
According to one article, these sexual encounters
were also filmed for “potential blackmail
material.”
In Canada, some Canadian women claimed they
were underage at the time they were filmed
having sex with government officials, so you
could say the CIA was engaged in filming child
pornography too.
What happened to Project MKUltra?
After decades of research that obviously went
astray from its original purpose, Project
MKUltra researchers reached the same conclusion
that emerged from the Edgewood Arsenal Human
Experiments – LSD was not an effective mind
control agent because its effects were too
unpredictable.
And, like the Edgewood Arsenal Human Experiments,
Project MKUltra ended amidst growing scandal
in the 1970s.
After the publication of a shocking New York
Times article about the CIA’s activities
in 1974, the CIA was soon investigated by
the Rockefeller Commission and the Church
Committee.
However, the testing may not be over.
According to a Thought Catalog article, “many
experts in the workings of the CIA and government
intelligence agencies insist that the government
continues performing exactly the same sort
of mind-control experiments—and possibly
worse—using different code names.”
Would you volunteer for experiments like these
if given the opportunity?
Why or why not?
Let us know in the comments!
Also, be sure to check out our other video
called Can You overdose On Weed?!
Thanks for watching, and, as always, don’t
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See you next time!
