Witnesses gave controversial testimony before the US Congress, stating that the CIA has continued to conduct secret experiments on humans since the Cold War to control the mind and develop biological weapons.
Experts claimed during the hearing that the CIA's secret programs, famous in the 1950s and 1960s for their experiments in mind control and biological weapons, may not have stopped, but are continuing in secret to this day.
On Tuesday, the House Oversight Committee heard testimony from Stephen Kinzer, a Brown University researcher and historian specializing in intelligence files, and investigative journalist Tom O’Neill, both experts who spent years investigating the infamous MKUltra program, which was revealed to the public fifty years ago.
It was a secret project led by the US Central Intelligence Agency between the 1950s and 1970s, and overseen by chemist Sidney Gottlieb.
The project included 149 sub-operations and targeted experiments on humans without their knowledge, especially in the field of using drugs and psychological and physical violence to develop interrogation methods that could be used against America’s enemies in the Cold War, by weakening the personality and forcing the subject to confessions using brainwashing techniques.
Journalist O'Neill replied, "I don't know if it's still in use today, but I can't imagine it has stopped. The agency has spent more on these technologies than on any other operation in its history, and they have developed tools that have been very successful. I imagine they are still in use, but I have no physical evidence of that."
For his part, historian Kinzer warned that the tremendous development in artificial intelligence, neuroscience and internet technologies has provided secret agencies with mind control tools that exceed even Gottlieb’s wildest dreams, noting that the success of these methods has prompted the agency to develop them secretly for decades.
Historian Kinzer explained how the CIA justified its atrocities by saying that the threats surrounding the United States justified sacrificing some innocent people to protect the nation, describing this mentality as perhaps still alive in some government corridors today, where a noble national purpose is used to justify unethical research.
The testimonies revealed horrific practices that included giving American citizens hallucinogenic drugs such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), subjecting them to electric shocks, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, and psychological torture, all without their consent.
One of the most horrific episodes was Operation Midnight Climax, in which the agency set up secret brothels to lure unsuspecting men, then drugged them with hallucinogens and monitored them from behind transparent glass, in what Kinzer described as less a scientific experiment and more an indulgence in the whims of those in charge
Journalist O’Neill revealed documents from psychiatrist Lewis West, a close associate of Gottlieb, which included a plan to use hypnosis and drugs to induce temporary amnesia, confusion, and mental illness.
In a 1956 report, West claimed to have found a way to replace real memories with fake ones, and O'Neill described this as the program's "ultimate goal"—the ability to possess a person's mind and completely control their behavior
The two experts discussed the case of Frank Olson, who worked on the CIA's biological weapons programs and died in 1953 after falling from a New York hotel window. His death was ruled a suicide. However, Kinzer and O'Neill asserted that he was murdered because he was about to reveal the secrets of biological weapons use in the Korean War and details of deadly experiments at MK Ultra, arguing that the incident was a premeditated murder, not a suicide
In 1973, CIA Director Richard Helms ordered the destruction of all program documents, and thousands of files were shredded or burned. Witnesses confirmed that American victims died during experiments in Germany, and the true number of victims may remain unknown forever
Kinzer urged Congress to release the remaining files, because "the victims and their families deserve recognition, justice, and accountability."
In concluding his testimony, Kinzer warned that the tremendous technological advances in artificial intelligence and neuroscience have made it impossible to assert that mind control is still impossible, noting that secret agencies may now possess tools that Gottlieb could not have imagined, and that the story may not be over yet
