File 002 · 1953–1973 · Mind control

MKUltra

A CIA program that tested LSD and other methods on people who had not agreed to it, hoping to find ways to influence behavior.

What the record shows

• Launched in 1953 under CIA Director Allen Dulles.
• In 1973 CIA Director Richard Helms ordered most MKUltra files destroyed.
• The program became public through the Rockefeller Commission and the Church Committee (1975).
• In 1977 about 20,000 surviving documents, mostly financial records, were found and prompted Senate hearings.

Claimed, but not shown

Popular claims about programmed assassins or remote mind control are not supported by the surviving records.

Verdict

Sources

• Church Committee Final Report (1975–76)
• Senate hearings on MKUltra (1977)

Connected files (red threads)

• COINTELPRO — Both exposed by the Church Committee (1975–76)
• The Tuskegee Study — Human-experimentation scandals of the 1970s
• Operation Paperclip — Secret Cold War research programs
• The Church Committee and the 'Family Jewels' — MKUltra's surviving records and testimony surfaced in these investigations
• Operation Midnight Climax — A subproject of the main MKUltra program
• The Guatemala syphilis experiments — More experiments on people who had not agreed to them
• Operation Sea-Spray — Another Cold War program that tested on people who did not know
• Project Stargate: the CIA's psychic spies — Another Cold War program exploring the limits of the mind
• The death of Frank Olson — The dosing was part of the CIA's drug-testing research

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