LOS ANGELES - Marylandian -- By CCHR International

Media outlets are increasingly reporting on the CIA's behavioral research programs of the 1950s and 1960s, which experimented with drugs and psychological techniques to influence human behavior. This renewed attention follows the 2024 release of CIA and the Behavioral Sciences: Mind Control, Drug Experiments and MKULTRA by the National Security Archive and ProQuest. The collection of more than 1,200 documents reveals how U.S. intelligence agencies and psychiatrists collaborated in programs exploring whether drugs and psychological techniques could manipulate behavior. The records describe experiments involving LSD, hypnosis, electroshock, and sensory deprivation—often conducted on unwitting individuals.[1] The Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) began exposing these psychiatric mind control programs in the 1970s through Freedom of Information Act disclosures and by monitoring the 1975–1977 congressional hearings that investigated CIA-psychiatric experiments. The records underscore enduring ethical concerns, as critics argue the psychiatric industry continues to subject the public to large-scale behavioral experimentation without fully informed consent.

In 1954, under "Operation Artichoke," the CIA formally examined whether a person could be secretly induced to commit an assassination against his will. A January 15, 1954 CIA document discussed whether a subject could be "surreptitiously drugged through the medium of an alcoholic cocktail at a social party."[2] The objective was explicit: chemical manipulation of behavior without consent.

Declassified memoranda show this research was systematic and coordinated:

• December 3, 1951: document stated a person could be reduced "to the vegetable level" through electroshock.
• February 12, 1952: memo called for securing and training "super-experts" combining psychiatry, psychology, and medicine to apply electroshock, LSD, and hypnosis.
• December 27, 1963: memo stated testing on "unwitting" subjects was the only "realistic method" for maintaining behavioral-control capabilities.
• 1956: MKULTRA chief Sidney Gottlieb approved high-dose LSD testing on federal prisoners.
• November 3, 1960: memo sought techniques to create durable amnesia and "indefinitely durable control for future behavior."

Psychiatrists and behavioral scientists were not peripheral advisers; they were essential architects.

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CIA-funded experimentation extended to Canada at Montreal's Allan Memorial Institute, where psychiatrist Donald Ewen Cameron directed MKUltra Subproject 68. Cameron, who served as president of the World, American, and Canadian Psychiatric Associations, used massive electroshock, prolonged drug-induced sleep, high-dose LSD, and "psychic driving" techniques that left patients cognitively damaged.[3]

In the 1950s, LSD was actively explored as a weapon. Pharmaceutical companies supplied the CIA and U.S. Army with the drug for clandestine research.[4] Hallucinogens were evaluated as tools capable of inducing panic, confusion, and psychological destabilization.[5]

Between 1949 and 1968, the U.S. Army conducted 239 open-air germ warfare tests in American cities. In June 1966, bacteria dispersal tests were conducted in the New York City subway system to evaluate how an airborne agent might spread among commuters, who were never informed.[6]

Internal CIA reviews acknowledged that MKUltra testing placed "the rights and interests of U.S. citizens in jeopardy."[7]

In 1967, a conference titled Psychotropic Drugs in the Year 2000 openly discussed the psychiatric-pharmaceutical industry's search for "chemical substances which would have mind-altering properties" and develop the potential for "nearly a total control of human emotional status, mental functioning, and will to act."[8]

In 2008, the Mitre Corporation conducted a Human Performance Study for the U.S. Department of Defense Research and Engineering Enterprise, which examined how psychoactive drugs might be weaponized by adversaries. The report warned that foreign adversaries may monitor newly approved drugs in the U.S., which would have extensive off-label use, and may exploit these compounds in training or field operations.[9]

Today, millions are prescribed psychotropic drugs, many of which carry regulatory warnings for agitation, hostility, aggression, suicidal ideation, and, in some cases, homicidal thoughts. A 2020 University of Connecticut School of Pharmacy review identified aggression and violent behavior as recognized adverse drug reactions and during withdrawal.[10]

Jan Eastgate, President of CCHR International, says: "The contradiction is stark: psychiatrists collaborated with intelligence agencies to study how drugs could adversely manipulate behavior. Today, similar classes of drugs are prescribed on a massive civilian scale. Regulators themselves acknowledge that these drugs can induce aggressive, suicidal, and even violent behavior."

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She added: "The released CIA records should not merely prompt historical reflection but compel federal authorities to confront and correct the ongoing failure to adequately monitor severe behavioral adverse drug reactions in mental health systems."

CCHR, which was established in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and professor of psychiatry, Thomas Szasz, calls for a mandate to conduct comprehensive toxicology tests for psychotropic drugs in acts of senseless violence and the establishment of a national database recording the findings, as a matter of public transparency.

Sources:

[1] National Security Archive, "CIA Mind Control Experiments Focus on New Scholarly Collection," nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/dnsa-intelligence/2024-12-23/cia-behavior-control-experiments-focus-new-scholarly

[2] Nicholas M. Horrock, "C.I.A. Documents Tell of 1954 Project to Create Involuntary Assassins," The New York Times, 9 Feb. 1978; "Declassified CIA memo reveals plan to turn citizens into unwitting assassins," Daily Mail, 27 Feb. 2026

[3] National Security Archive, "CIA Mind Control Experiments Focus on New Scholarly Collection," nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/dnsa-intelligence/2024-12-23/cia-behavior-control-experiments-focus-new-scholarly; "Declassified: Mind Control at McGill," section "The CIA seeks key to mind control," The McGill Tribune, www.thetribune.ca/mind-control-mcgill-mk-ultra/; "25 Years of Nightmares," The Washington Post, 28 July 1985

[4] Gordon Thomas, Journey into Madness: The True Story of Secret Mind Control and Medical Abuse, (Bantam Books, June 1989), p. 99

[5] Stephen Kinzer, Prisoner in Chief: Sydney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control, (Henry, Holt & Company, 2019), p. 36

[6] Philip Messing, "Did the CIA test LSD in the New York City subway system?" New York Post, 14 Mar. 2010; U.S. Army, A Study of the Vulnerability of Subway Passengers in New York City to Covert Attack with Biological Agents, Miscellaneous Publication No. 25, Fort Detrick, MD: U.S. Army Biological Laboratories, Jan. 1968

[7] Tom O'Neill, Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties, (Little, Brown & Co. June 2019), pp.355-356

[8] Psychotropic Drugs In The Year 2000 Use by Normal Humans, (Springfield, Illinois, Charles C. Thomas Publisher, 1971), pp. xii, xx, xix

[9] "Human Performance", Mitre Corporation, JASON Program Office, sponsored by Office of Defense Research and Engineering, Mar. 2008

[10] "Patient Safety: Aggression, Irritability, and Violence: Drug-induced Behaviors," University of Connecticut School of Pharmacy, Feb. 2020