File 018 · 1953–1965 · Mind control

Operation Midnight Climax

As part of MKUltra the CIA ran safe houses where people were secretly given LSD and watched through two-way mirrors by agents posing as ordinary hosts.

Background

Operation Midnight Climax was a subproject of the CIA's MKUltra program. It was run for the agency by George Hunter White, a veteran federal narcotics agent. White rented apartments in New York and San Francisco and equipped them with hidden microphones and one-way mirrors.

The CIA paid women to bring men to the apartments, where drinks laced with LSD were served. Agents watched and recorded what happened. The purpose was to see how drugs, sex and secrecy could be used to extract information or influence behavior. The participants never knew they were part of an experiment.

What the record shows

• The Church Committee and a 1977 Senate hearing described the use of safe houses to test drugs on unsuspecting people.
• Surviving documents show that White reported on the sessions to the CIA's Sidney Gottlieb, who ran MKUltra's research.
• The CIA acknowledged that it had tested LSD on people who did not know about it and admitted that it was a serious ethical violation.
• Because the main records were destroyed in 1973, the number of people dosed is unknown.

Timeline

• 1953 MKUltra begins under CIA director Allen Dulles.
• c. 1955 White's safe house in San Francisco begins operating; a New York apartment is used earlier.
• 1963 A CIA Inspector General review criticizes the testing of drugs on unwitting people.
• 1965 The San Francisco operation ends.
• 1973 CIA director Richard Helms orders most MKUltra files destroyed.
• 1975–77 Congressional hearings reveal the existence of the safe houses.

Checking the claims

The claim: the CIA tested drugs on Americans without consent. This is documented in the program's surviving papers and in sworn testimony. White's own letters, which survived, describe the work in frank terms, including the line that he felt he was doing something unusual with official backing.

What the documents do not show is that the program worked. The Inspector General and later investigators concluded that the tests did not produce reliable ways to control people. Claims that the operation produced mind-controlled assassins, or targeted specific famous people, are not supported by the record.

Claimed, but not shown

There is no evidence that Midnight Climax created controllable agents. The identities and number of the people tested are unknown because the files were destroyed.

Verdict

Sources

• Church Committee, Final Report, Book I (1976)
• Senate Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research, Project MKUltra, the CIA's Program of Research in Behavioral Modification (1977)
• CIA Inspector General, Report on Inspection of MKULTRA (1963)

Connected files (red threads)

• MKUltra — A subproject of the main MKUltra program
• The death of Frank Olson — Another case of secret LSD dosing by the CIA

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