| Notes on MKULTRA |
[Mar. 9th, 2009|12:37 am] |
So I'm now looking at making my film about Project MKULTRA, the secret CIA überproject that dealt with all things to do with the mind: mind-control, truth serums, chemical warfare, Manchurian candidates and so on. What follows are some notes to do with it and related things that I've been reading about:
- Mind control was looked into using "chemical, biological and radiological means".
- In many cases the subjects were unconsenting.
- Operation Midnight Climax: the CIA sets up fronts of brothels, hires prostitutes to lure unsuspecting citizens in and drug them, then studies their reactions. Pictures of women being whipped or tortured were on the walls.
- These, along with mental patients and prisoners, were chosen to be subjects due to their relative lack of credibility if they chose to talk.
- Those who DID volunteer tended to get the most extreme experiments, including one person who was subjected to 77 straight days of constant LSD intake.
- US Army biochemist Frank Olson threw himself out of a tenth-story window after having a major psychotic episode. He had been slipped a drugged drink (presumably by a colleague, as this kind of thing seemed to happen reasonably frequently for testing purposes before they decided to test on random civilians).
- LSD was being weaponised for use on the battlefield (to make the enemy more docile). Program director Sidney Gottlieb was ordering it in "tonnage quantities" for practical application.
- One interrogation experiment involved IV drips of barbiturates and amphetamines; the barbiturates would be fed in until the subject started to fall asleep, at which point the amphetamines would start, prompting incoherent babbling.
- "Perfect Concussion" used ultra-low frequency soundwaves to attempt to erase memory.
- Project Artichoke: explored hypnosis, and also forced addiction to and withdrawal from morphine, to produce amnesia and other vulnerable mental states...to be used as an offensive program to get people to do their bidding.
- Operation Paperclip: a program to recruit former Nazi scientists and spies (particularly experts on torture and brainwashing) for employment in this project (among others), including some who had been marked as war criminals.
- The whole thing started soon after the Nuremberg medical trials impressed upon the world the illegality of experimentation upon unknowing human subjects.
- Jonestown has been considered a possible testing site for MKULTRA.
- Sidney Gottlieb, head of the project, also hatched many schemes to assassinate Castro, including a poisoned wetsuit and an exploding conch shell.
- Gottlieb was also known to have funded research into paranormal phenomena such as remote viewing and ESP.
- He also had a club foot, but that didn't prevent him from indulging in his lifetime hobby of folk dancing.
- Dr Ewen Cameron, notorious for unconsenting ECT/drugs/lobotomy experiments, was funded and sponsored by the project, including for his "psychic driving" experiments, involving drugged and shocked patients being played tapes sixteen hours a day in an effort to dictate their "new personalities".
- Major General William Creasy, chief officer of the Army Chemical Corps, strongly advocated use of acid and other chemicals being put in water supplies as a "humane" alternative to bombs in terms of essentially nullifying a population's threat to the US.
- He was also reportedly very disappointed that the US government prohibited large-scale testing of such concepts on the American public. "It was denied on reasons that always seemed a little absurd to me."
- Ken Kesey was a subject of MKULTRA, which allegedly led directly to his promotion of LSD and his role in the birth of the hippie culture.
There are quite a few cool character/story ideas here. I don't really know where to start. I'm quite keen to centre a film around Gottlieb and/or Creasy, since they seem to be quite interesting characters potentially...and the Midnight Climax concept seems appropriately bizarre and inhumane. I don't know. Brainstorm, rarrr. |
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| Comments: |
This is an utterly fascinating area of research.
Have fun. | |
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