Project MK-ULTRA : A Search to Control the Human Mind

            We have all seen movies such as “The Manchurian Candidate” or television shows like “My own worst Enemy” where a person has been subjected to psychological experimentation such as mind control or have had their personality split into two usually the U.S. government is behind the experiments and tries to cover it up. That is what these types of shows or movies are about. We the general public assumes that this type of story line is only fiction and that the U.S. government would never even try to do something so horrific to a person just to gain a tactical advantage over its enemies. But what if I told you that mind control and alternate personalities were not fiction? What if I told you that the United States government carried out psychological experiments to develop techniques for mind control and creating alternate personalities on soldiers and innocent citizens? 

            During the Cold War the United States government conducted illegal mind control experiments on U.S. and Canadian citizens. Project MK-ULTRA was a covert and illegal human experimentation program controlled by the CIA’s office of scientific intelligence. The program main goal was to develop methods of mind control and methods of influencing an individual’s mind to enhance the CIA’s ability to extract information from suspected or confirmed Soviet spies and turn innocent citizens or soldiers into Manchurian Candidates by creating alternate personalities. Project MK-ULTRA was designed to develop tools or methods that could unravel  or unlock the human mind, so the U.S. could not only be one step ahead of the Soviets but be able to infiltrate the Soviet government without the Soviets knowing. The Manchurian Candidates are people who are programmed to become assassins without their knowledge and under the control of someone else. A post hypnotic trigger is used to switch the individual into “assassin mode”. The project was led by a scientist named Dr. Sidney Gottlieb of the Technical Services Division of the CIA. Over 25 million dollars of federal money were used to fund project MK-ULTRA, which was active for at least 23 years (1950-1973). Then in 1977 under the Freedom of Information Act the Senate ordered all of the documents regarding Project MK-ULTRA to be declassified (governmentconspiracy). 

             

Based on the evidence published Project MK-ULTRA used a combination of psychoactive drugs LSD, hypnosis, shock therapy, sensory deprivation, isolation and even verbal and sexual abuse were used to alter the psyche and brain functioning of the” participants “.  Even one of these methods is enough to crush someone mentally the researchers in MK-ULTRA used them in combination (MKULTRA).  These methods were used to destroy, control and alter individual’s state of mind. The methods that were used in this project over a period of time would force the” participants “to become more suggestible, easily influenced, and more willing to obey commands to put it simply the “participants” would be more susceptible to brainwashing. But the researchers involved in Project MK-ULTRA involved “participants” from all walks of life like doctors, CIA agents, prostitutes, military personnel, people suffering from mental disease, and innocent citizens. These experiments were done on these people without their consent and against their will.  Illegal methods were often used to recruit subjects. Theses experiments were unethical, inhumane and in direct violation of the Nuremberg Code.  Also the researchers violated the most secrete oath that all medical professionals make the Hippocratic Oath.

The creation of a Manchurian Candidates is one of the most controversial topics to come out of the declassified documents from Project MK-ULTRA. It is a controversial topic because on one hand you have actual participants that were subjected to these inhumane experiments and some of the people who were in charge of Project MK-ULTRA saying that they the project was successful in creating Manchurian Candidates and on the other hand you have the CIA saying that creating Manchurian Candidates was one of the goals of the project but they were not successful in creating them.  The biggest piece of evidence that the CIA was successful in creating a Manchurian Candidate is the story of Candy Jones. Candy Jones was a model in the late 40’s to early 50’s. Tapes made by her and her husband, while Candy was under hypnosis revealed systematic programming to create and manipulate different personalities. During these hypnotic sessions Candy also say that she was trained in a CIA mind control program, which started in 1960 in Oakland, CA. On the tape recordings Candy says that she was trained to be a courier for the CIA, trained to be resistant to torture and trained in self defense. What gives Candy’s story merit is that these tapes were made in 1972 and Project MK-ULTRA was not made public until 1977 (Jones). The one thing the CIA knows how to do is to keep a secret, so how did a semi will known model know so much about a mind control program ran by the CIA before it became public? Candy also described in great detail the experiments and treatments that she was put through and the person who administered them. Also other survivors of Project MK-ULTRA have come forward with similar stories.

Project MK-ULTRA was not just a crime against psychology, science, and medicine but a crime against humanity itself. Over a thousand people have come forward to tell their story about their experience through this program and over 20,000 documents have been declassified about the project. But in order to learn more about something or how it works one must break it and then build it up from scratch, that it what the researchers did in Project MK-ULTRA. Most of the psychologist and psychiatrist that were a part of the project went into other areas of research and one may speculate that they took what they learned from Project MK-ULTRA with them.