MKultra was a secret CIA project. Under MKultra, the CIA gave itself the authority to research how drugs could: “promote the intoxicating effects of alcohol;” “render the induction of hypnosis easier;” “enhance the ability of individuals to withstand privation, torture and coercion;” produce amnesia, shock and confusion; and much more. Many of these questions were investigated using unwitting test subjects, like drug-addicted prisoners, marginalized sex workers and terminal cancer patients–”people who could not fight back,” in the words of Sidney Gottlieb, the chemist who introduced LSD to the
CIA.MKUltra wasn’t one project, as the US Supreme Court wrote in a 1985 decision on a related case. It was 162 different secret projects that were indirectly financed by the CIA, but were “contracted out to various universities, research foundations and similar institutions.” In all, at least 80 institutions and 185 researchers participated, but many didn’t know they were dealing with the
CIA.Many of MKUltra’s records were destroyed in a 1973 purge, and many had been destroyed throughout the program as a matter of course. But 8,000 pages of records–mostly financial documents that were mistakenly not destroyed in 1973–were found in 1977.