[@ChrisWillx] Investigating The True History Of MKUltra & CIA Mind Control - John Lisle

Link: https://youtu.be/ZL06AdVb92Y

Short Summary

Number One Action Item/Takeaway:

Be skeptical of conspiracy theories surrounding MK Ultra, as many lack evidence and misrepresent the program's actual limited success and capabilities.

Executive Summary:

The transcript discusses the MK Ultra program, focusing on its origins, key figures, experiments, and failures. It reveals the unethical nature of the program, including unwitting drug experiments, psychological manipulation, and potential assassination plots. The conversation emphasizes the program's limited success in achieving true mind control and urges skepticism towards popular conspiracy theories surrounding it.

Key Quotes

Here are five quotes extracted from the YouTube video transcript that I believe are particularly insightful:

1. "This book was really exciting because I found a lot of new documents about MK Ultra. specifically some depositions about uh maybe over a dozen depositions that were taken in the 1980s as part of a lawsuit against the perpetrators of MK Ultra against the CIA. And as part of these depositions, um, I have the perpetrators, Sydney Gotautle, the head of MK Ultra, his right-hand man, Robert Lashbrook, the head of the CIA, Richard Helms. They are questioned by these attorneys, and I have the verbatim transcript of them talking about what they were doing in the CIA as part of MK Ultra, why why they wanted to do to do this, how they got away with it." This quote sets the stage for the book's unique value, highlighting the discovery of primary source material (depositions) and offering insights directly from the people involved.

2. "Sydney Gonap's career within the CIA very neatly parallels Stanley Levelvel's career within the OSS. Both were involved in these drug experiments. Both were involved in creating weapons, weapons, gadgets design in disguises for their intelligence organization. Both were involved in assassination attempts. You know, the list goes on. But uh they're kind of stories eerily parallel one another." This quote draws an interesting and potentially important parallel between figures in different eras of US intelligence, suggesting a continuity of methods and ethical boundaries.

3. "And so this was done by a psychologist Martin Orin and he said if you really want to interrogate someone and you want them to tell the truth, you can instead of giving them a truth drug, which doesn't actually work, maybe it'll lower their inhibitions, but you can't guarantee what they say will be the truth. What you should do is make them think that they've taken a truth drug, especially if they don't know if truth drugs are real or not." This reveals a key psychological manipulation technique researched by MK Ultra: the power of perceived reality and belief over actual chemical effects, the hypnosis placebo effect.

4. "For MK Ultra, the idea was that we we wanted to move beyond that. We wanted to find methods of manipulation that could be used to guarantee the truth without having to resort to a method that would make someone say anything. The irony is that when MK Ultra failed, it's not that the CIA learned its lesson and then moved on to some something else. It reverted back to torture. It reverted back to torture. This is the thing that we were trying to move away from. And now you [__] medieval solution. Well, we tried the LSD. It didn't work. Where's the rack? Have we still got the rack around? Can we grab bring roll the rack out?" This highlights that the failure of the mind control effort instead resulted in a regression to historically ineffective and unethical methods.

5. "The irony is that it was basically unsuccessful at developing methods of mind control. And yet within conspiracy circles, it has become the very definition of mind control. Anytime someone talks about brainwashing or whatever, it's always this must be an MK Ultra plant or Britney Spears is being controlled by the CIA through MK Ultra methods. It's like you you haven't you haven't read much about MK Ultra if you think it was that successful. It really wasn't." This quote captures the core historical irony of MK Ultra: its actual failure versus its enduring power as a symbol in conspiracy theories.

Detailed Summary

Okay, here's a detailed summary of the YouTube video transcript provided, focusing on key points and excluding promotional content:

• Introduction:

  • The video discusses the author's new book, which delves into the history of MK Ultra.
  • The author is praised for surpassing the "insanity" of his previous work.

• Research and Sources:

  • The book's foundation lies in newly discovered documents, specifically depositions from the 1980s lawsuit against the CIA and MK Ultra perpetrators.
  • Verbatim transcripts of testimonies by key figures like Sydney Gotlieb, Robert Lashbrook, and Richard Helms provide direct insights.
  • These transcripts offer unique dialogue rarely available to historians.

• Motivations Behind MK Ultra:

  • Several events triggered the CIA's interest in mind control:
  • Ivan Pavlov's experiments: The CIA considered that Pavlov's conditioning experiments on dogs would have been extended to humans by the Russians.
  • Moscow Show Trials: The confessions of Stalin's political enemies led to speculation about mind control.
  • Korean War POWs: American pilots admitting to germ warfare raised concerns about drugging or hypnosis.
  • The goal was to understand and potentially replicate these techniques for defense and offense.

• Sydney Gotlieb's Role:

  • Gotlieb was a bioorganic chemist with a PhD from Caltech.
  • He sought to serve his country after being rejected by the army due to physical limitations (a limp and a stutter).
  • The CIA sought brilliant scientists after World War II for national security purposes.
  • Allan Dulles, the CIA director, also had a club foot and favored Gotlieb.
  • Godleib had a new-age sense of spirituality where he would meditate and dance to folk music and go on retreats and took LSD.
  • It's ironic maybe that he becomes the head of MK Ultra because he is an outsider.

• The Genesis of MK Ultra:

  • Alan Dulles's 1953 "Brain Warfare" speech highlighted the potential Soviet threat in mind control.
  • Three days later, the MK Ultra program was initiated.
  • Gotlieb initially looked to the OSS archives and the work of Stanley Level, who experimented with drugs during World War II.
  • Level and Gotleib had eerily parallel paths within their organizations.

• Predecessor Programs:

  • Bluebird: Focused on creating a truth drug to make prisoners "sing."
  • Artichoke: A consolidated program emphasizing drugs and hypnotism.
  • Morse Allen, a head of Bluebird, hired a stage magician to learn hypnotism and experimented on his secretaries, though questions arose about the secretaries legitimately exhibiting these kind of mind control patterns or is it the case that they're just humoring him.

• Transition to MK Ultra:

  • The Korean War POW incidents necessitated a broader, encompassing program.
  • MK Ultra extended beyond drugs to include electric shocks, sensory deprivation, and "psychic driving."
  • A sub-project involved implanting electrodes in animal brains to control their movement for "direct executive action" (assassination) using biological or chemical weapons. They were going to attach the payloads of interest to the animals, yaks, bears, the B22 flying fortress of the animal world, then put a remote control on them and got gang green or bubonic plague and attached that to them as well.

• The Name "MK Ultra":

  • "MK" denoted the Technical Services Staff department within the CIA.
  • "Ultra" was an homage to the World War II cryptographic intelligence project that decrypted the German Enigma machine.

• LSD's Emergence:

  • LSD was a new and potent drug. The search for a truth drug is not new.
  • Albert Hoffman's accidental discovery of its effects in 1943 intrigued the CIA.
  • Its potency made it suitable for covert operations.
  • Sandos Corporation brought LSD to the US in the late 1940s to trial as a drug.
  • A "drugging through bread" incident in France, caused by ergot fungus, heightened CIA concerns about hallucinogens.

• LSD Testing:

  • CIA personnel, including Gotlieb, experimented on themselves to understand LSD's effects.
  • They also conducted office pranks, such as spiking the coffee pot, which led to a warning against such actions.
  • At a Deep Creek retreat, LSD was secretly added to liquor, leading to Frank Olsen's psychotic break and subsequent death (jumping out a hotel window).

• Operation Midnight Climax:

  • After the incident with Frank Olsen, MK Ultra expanded into a new sub project known as Operation Midnight Climax.
  • Gotlieb enlisted narcotics officer George White to dose people unwittingly with LSD and eventual he hires prostitutes to dose their unwitting clients with LSD while White is sitting behind a one-way mirror, sitting on a portable toilet drinking liquor that he bought with CIA funds to see how people react when they unwittingly take this, in case someone does that to us.
  • White also used the drugs on his own friends, one whom suffered a psychotic break and was committed to an asylum.

• Sources of LSD:

  • The CIA acquired LSD through a deal with Sandos Corporation and also contracted Eli Lilly Company to synthesize it domestically.

• Nazi Involvement:

  • The author denies a direct connection between Operation Paperclip (bringing Nazi scientists to the US) and MK Ultra, dismissing it as a confusion of correlation and causation.

• Contrasting Philosophies:

  • The author notes that George White seemed to live out the same double life both privately and publicly with his drug addiction and sexual addiction.
  • Gotibly seemed very remorseful and unethical, while White was just having fun, the ins justify the means

• Experiments Described:

  • A US marshal Wayne Richie went to a Christmas party at a federal building with George White and George White dosed him with LSD, in which led to Ritchie attempting to rob a bank. He didn't know he had been drugged but had been, but eventually sued the CIA in which it was later dismissed.
  • Universities, prisons, and hospitals were often used for these experiments. Many scientists in the CIA were funding the things that were already going on for the most part.
  • Harris Isbel and Carl Feifer dosed prisoners with drugs (including LSD) in Lexington and Atlanta prisons.
  • At the Lexington prison (a rehabilitation facility), prisoners received parole recommendations or heroin injections as payment for participating.
  • Harris Isbel took people joining in the experiments so they would be able to get of drugs, in which he would give them heroin injected straight into their arm to take part.
  • People would sign consent forms in a way.
  • They were testing hallucinogenic drugs.

• Famous People and MK Ultra:

  • The author downplays the connection between MK Ultra and famous figures:
  • Unabomber (Ted Kaczynski): Involved in psychological experiments but no direct link to MK Ultra.
  • Charles Manson: Jolly West, a psychiatrist involved in MK Ultra, was in LA, but there's no concrete connection. In this case, there's an argument to be had that they should've gotten Charles Manson in instead because they could have learned from him.
  • A possible Charles Manson theory involves a man named Danny Treyo who was in jail with Charles Manson.
  • Charles Manson was apparently able to put guys under hypnotism and induce heroin with the drug.

• Hypnosis and Placebo Effects:

  • A successful MK Ultra subproject was making people think they had taken a truth drug.
  • The placebo effect could be utilized to make them believe they had been hypnotized.
  • Inducing the hypnotic situation itself instead of hypnosis.

• Psychic Driving:

  • Euan Cameron's experiments at the Allen Memorial Institute in Montreal:
  • Believed mental illness was learned behavior and sought to erase it.
  • Methods included electric shocks, sensory deprivation, and "psychic driving" (repeating messages repeatedly).
  • He had patients make negative messages and repeated it over and over to try to erase them.

• Consequences and Effectiveness:

  • Patients became vegetables and couldn't function independently.
  • Twins study resulted in a psychological damage that depressed one twin that was subjected to this stuff
  • Depatterning meant that electric shocks would happen multiple times and led to a lot of people getting severe damage.

• Most Unethical Experiments:

  • George White's unwitting drug dosing.
  • Euan Cameron's destructive experiments.
  • The lack of genuine consent in many experiments.

• Additional MK Ultra Sub-Project:

  • Was to confine someone to a wooden box like in sensory deprivation to see how long they could last, but that was rejected.
  • Ended up doing experiments on Monkeys by decapitating them and trying to switch the heads.

• Operational Use of MK Ultra:

  • Some interrogations utilized the methods.
  • An operation to dose the president of the Philippines with LSD before a political rally.
  • Sydney Gonley was involved in multiple assassination attempts and provided anthrax to a station chief to covertly assassinate Patrice Leumba

• Programmed Killers:

  • No actual "programmed killer" was created.
  • The closest was animal experimentation for steering them.

• Influence on Torture Techniques:

  • It has long been known that torture doesn't really work to get the truth.
  • Enhanced interrogation is only just used to get someone to talk.
  • Rather than relying on torture, MK Ultra aimed for manipulation guaranteeing the truth.

• Success or Failure:

  • MK Ultra was largely unsuccessful in developing mind control methods. It has become the very definition of mind control within conspiracy circles.

• Internal Decline:

  • MK Ultra ended in 1963 and the projects limped forward in other forms.

• Secrecy of MK Ultra:

  • Internal oversight was limited.
  • Destroying the files opened the door to theorists where it must have contained all sorts of messed up things.
  • Highly compartmentalized which led to less accountability and to secrecy.

• Legal Ramifications:

  • In the 1970s, congressional committees investigated abuses of the intelligence community.
  • It prompted subpoenaed hearings, with Gotleib granted immunity in exchange for testimony.
  • Victims sued the CIA (e.g., the Orlic lawsuit representing victims of Yuan Cameron).
  • The Orlic lawsuit settled out of court for $750,000.
  • $750,000 was also given to the Frank Olsen family.

• Self-Sustaining Secrecy:

  • Compartmentalization within the CIA was significant.
  • Destroyed records hindered accountability.
  • Limited congressional oversight during the Cold War created a "vicious cycle of secrecy."

• Aftermath and Legacy:

  • No similar programs are known after the late 1960s.
  • Project Monarch is the name of the conspiracy theory that continued after the fact.
  • One theorist named she publishes a journal called Phoenix and the journal itself claims to have been written by a 9- foot tall alien from the Pletes star system.